Chapter Text
Kouki opened his locker to take out his yellow raincoat, while trying to quickly stop the overabundance of items in his locker from falling unto the floor. He felt exhausted, and getting into his raincoat had proven to be a painful adventure of itself. He breathed through his nose heavily, and tried to not let the day’s headache take over. Taking out his bag carefully, he closed the locker in a satisfying sound signifying the end of a crazy school day- or what looked like 6’oclock in the evening. Still struggling to get into his coat, the locker room door opened with his name being called out.
“Furihata-sensei, are you done for the day?” Without looking at his kouhia, he made a hasty example of putting on his coat.
“Yoko-san, please don’t tell me someone’s calling for me, I need to go home soon” Kouki tiredly looked at Yoko, pleading for an escape. His kouhia let out a small tired laugh, shaking her hands quickly.
“No you’re free to go Sensei” Kouki let out a relieved breath slumping his shoulder in happiness. Yoko didn’t seem to leave from the door, her hands playing with her long braided hair nervously.
“Sensei, I just- I’m sorry about making you stay late on my blunder today, and I wanted to thank you for teaching me the ropes today. My husband is picking me up in a few minutes, and I wondered if you like a ride home? You didn’t bring your car today and I’ve kept you here long enough” Yoko looked at him pleadingly guilty, her dark eyes staring at him fervently, and the feeling of brushing her off didn’t sit right with him anymore, so he agreed hesitantly. The thought of going home early put him at ease, he was already late in picking up Ryu.
“I will take the offer, thank you… but would you be able to drop me off somewhere else? It’s close to my apartment, so it’s not anywhere far, if that’s okay with you and your husband?”
“That should be fine, where to?”
“The daycare, please”
Yoko furrowed her brows, quickly glancing at his neck, and as if her thought process was jolted from its stupor from Kouki’s stare, she opened her mouth and a flurry of words came out.
“Sensei I’m so sorry! I didn’t know” Yoko cried out, eliciting an awkward laugh from him. The look of her embarrassed red face made him feel a bit lighter about her eyes on his neck, choosing to let go of the misunderstanding. He took a tighter hold of his bag and made his way to the door, purposefully ignoring the curiosity that she exuded from behind him.
“I was way worse when I first started working here, it’s just about practice. You’ll get better” Kouki said with reassurance, and walked down the school hallway with his kouhia stumbling behind him.
“You really think so?” Yoko said wistfully, nervously clutching her purse strap at the change of topic.
“One day.” Kouki said back to her, with a reassuring kind smile.
“I know I said yes to the ride, but are you sure it’s okay, I don’t want to inconvenience your husband” Kouki said looking at Yoko.
“Don’t worry about it, this is the least I can do Sensei- for everything. My Kouya is a gentlemen, he won’t mind.” Yoko smiled at Kouki with a happy look on her face, making Kouki chuckle beside her. The two made their way out of the school doors to the parking area in the rain.
“So Sensei, about your so-“
“One day Yoko-san, one day”
_______
“Senpai are you sure? It’s raining, we can wait for you while you get him.” Kouki shook his head, and reassuringly smiled at Yoko’s concerned face.
“Its fine, my building is only three blocks away from the daycare. It shouldn’t take long for us to get home” Kouki quickly pointed in the direction of his building, affirming his point. “It’s not that far, it’s beside the local shrine up the street. Also Yoko-san, you’re about to pass out by the look of it. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow, and I need my teaching assistant to be at her best.” Kouki felt a quick rebuttal coming out of her mouth, and started to move out of his seat.
“Thank you for the ride Kouya-san, Yoko-san, goodnight to you both!” Kouki called out, opening his passenger door and made his way outside the vehicle. Kouki closed the door, standing behind the big gates of Ryu’s daycare. Kouki pulled up his hood from the gentle rain, forgoing the umbrella for now. Yoko rolled down her window, and Kouya a man that looked near his 30’s leaned down to wave at him.
“Thank you for looking after my wife today Furihata-sensei, this was the least I could do for you” Kouya-san said putting his arm around his wife’s shoulder lovingly, and gave Kouki a reassuring nod.
Kouki gave a tender smile at the couple, raising his palms out reassuringly “Ah, It’s no problem at all. It’s always hard to get into the groove of teaching, especially with the older kid’s”. Yoko gave a quick nod to him with an exaggerated roll. Her husbands tired laugh resonated deep, eliciting a wink from his wife.
“Goodnight Furihata-sensei! I’ll see you tomorrow morning!” Both couple waved him goodbye, him waving his goodbyes. The window rolled back up, as the car made its way back to the main road with the couple’s smiles.
Kouki dropped his hands to his side and watched the car leave out of his sight. He let out a big sigh and wished to be snuggled into his bed sleeping the evening away. He knew that he had a bunch of errands that needed to be done before any sleeping could take place, the most important was picking up Ryu. Kouki headed into the daycare with haste, he knew he was a little late on the set time he was supposed to pick up Ryu, but he made sure to call Kuroko that he would be there at 5:30. Kouki looked at his wristwatch, who he was kidding, he was an hour late. Adjusting the strap to his bag, Kouki opened the door with more strength and made his way to Ryu’s class. Upon his arrival he saw one of the older members of the daycare staff stapling a notice on the bulletin board in the hallway.
“Ah- Furihata-san! You’re here! We were getting worried there for a bit, but Taiga-san notified us to put Ryu in the after hour pick-up group today” Mayu’s eyes crinkled as she smiled warmly at Kouki, her grey hair pushed back with a clip showing her prominent cheeks.
“Mayu-san, I’m sorry for the trouble, you’re an absolute lifesaver! We just got a new Teacher assistant transferred into our department-” Mayu let out a warm hearty laugh, waving her hand to stop him.
“It’s no problem Sensei. Ryu is not the only child who’s in the late group today, so do not feel guilty, being late is not the end of the world. So it’s really no problem!” Mayu assured him gently. The two made their way from the school entrance into the second classroom, with Mayu leading Kouki to her desk. Kouki scanned the room noticing children scattered around the play carpet with a few teacher watching over them. In the corner of the carpet, he saw Ryu hunched over the carpet with a book laid out for him while holding his bag tight in his lap. Before he could call out his name, Mayu called for his attention.
“Furihata sensei, there is nothing to be alarmed, but we had a little problem with Ryu on our class walk today” Mayu gentle made Kouki still, scenarios running through his mind.
“Problem? Is he getting bullied again?” He whispered quietly, clutching the strap of his bag quickly. A feeling of dread took hold of his heart, oh god not again.
“No, nothing of that sort sensei. We took the kids out on a walk towards the shrine, and during a buddy system activity, Ryu lost his plushy. It took us quite a while to calm him down when he realized, and he’s been sitting in the same spot for a while for your arrival” A shaky sigh of relief flooded Kouki, and he took a second to calm his nerves and his poor heart. The news that Ryu wasn’t being bullied made him feel better, but he still felt the dread there, Otoro was missing now.
“Mayu-san, if it’s no trouble, can you write down the route you went on today?” She looked at him warmly, nodding knowingly.
“Sure thing” Mayu went to grab paper from her drawer, and Kouki gave out a quick ‘excuse me’ to make his way to his boy.
“Ryu” He called out gently. The small boy looked up, recognizing his voice quickly, his gold eyes instantly welling up with tears.
“Baba’s here” Kouki said quietly, and instantly crouched down towards him. Ryu discarded his things to the side, opening his arms towards Kouki with quiet cries of ‘baba’. Kouki took Ryu into his arms and carded his fingers into Ryu dark brown hair gently. Little sniffles could be heard in his arms, Kouki squeezed the boy in his arms and rocked him back and forth on the carpet.
“Hey, hey, it will be alright, we’ll find Otoro-kun, okay?”
“But Baba! I lost him! He’s all alone! What if someone takes him? Oto is mine!” Ryu said quickly looking up at him in his arms, tears staining his big red cheeks.
Kouki let out a reassuring laugh, wiping away Ryu’s tears with the end of his work sleeves. Kouki could tell Ryu was pouting at him, and Kouki let out another laugh when snot came out of Ryu’s nose from trying to pout more at him to show his grievance.
“Don’t worry, let’s not give up okay?” With Ryu in his arms, he went into his coat pocket to grab a bunch of tissues. Taking one into his hand, he placed it onto Ryu’s nose.
“Blow please”
Ryu looked up to him in dismay, and Kouki gave him a reassuring smile. Ryu blew into the tissue weakly at first, and gave out another stronger blow again. Kouki took the tissue from Ryu’s nose, balling it up to clean Ryu face a bit more, who of course kept scrunching up his nose.
“It tickles Baba” Ryu let out a quietly, making Kouki give a quick kiss to Ryu’s head, and then to his nose.
“How about now? Does that tickle?” Ryu looked at him from under his long fringes and shook his head quickly into Kouki’s chest.
“No Baba” The lightness of Ryu’s voice gave Kouki peace within himself. Hugging his boy into another squeeze, eliciting Ryu to laugh about his baba squishing him to death. Peppering Ryu with smooches on his dried tear streaked cheeks, he looked at Ryu’s baby face.
“Ryu, you can open your eyes now, no more kisses” Ryu was squeezing his eyes, but opened one warily, and later opened the other.
“No more kisses?” Ryu said warily.
“I promise! No more kisses…” Ryu looked up at him suspiciously, and Kouki let out a teasing smile whispering “Until your 18” Ryu faced morphed into horror.
“Baba, not funny” Ryu jutted out his lips unappreciatively at Kouki’s humor.
“Whaaaat, I thought you don’t like my kisses anymore, it didn’t look like it”
“Babaaaaaaaa” Ryu stretched out his name in dismay, flopping his head back exasperated at his dad’s antics.
“Who will I give my kisses to now?” Ryu looked at him shyly, and let out a quiet murmur “Me, I like Baba’s kisses the best” instantly making Kouki give one final big kiss to his forehead. Making Ryu scrunch up his face again, Kouki laughed again at this, which made Ryu smile widely at him.
“So I’ve asked sensei to draw a map for us, so we can retrace our steps. So Ryu, do you remember where you last saw Otoro-kun?” He said gently looking down at the little trapped boy in his arm. Ryu looked up at him, his thin brows scrunched up in thought.
“Um…I think so Baba. I was playing with Tashiro-kun on the bridge…I think I left Oto on a rock. Baba, can we go now? It’s raining, and what if Oto gets sick? We have to go now! To save him” His son looked worriedly at him, his small hand clutching his rain coat and Kouki nodded his head yes. Kouki gently pushed his son to stand up, and him following after. There was no way he could ask Ryu to wait until tomorrow to pick up the plushy, there was a good chance the toy would be taken by then, and he didn’t want to have to break the news. In no way did he want a crying inconsolable three year old on his hand, it was better to comply.
“Ryu, go put on your coat and your rain boots okay? I’ll get your bag and talk to sensei okay?” Ryu nodded his head vigorously and ran quickly towards his cubby outside of the classroom. Kouki watched him for a bit, and went to pick up Ryu’s discarded book.
“Baba, come on, we gotta hurry!” said Ryu from the hallway floor, attempting to slip his foot into one of his purple rain boots quickly.
“Coming, coming” Kouki let out tired sigh at his son antics, by the rate Ryu was moving, his hearing aid should have flown out of his ears. Kouki took Ryu’s bag from the floor and made his way to his son, taking the boy’s jacket from the hook.
“Ryu come on now, if you keep moving like that, you’re going to lose your hearing aid” Kouki admonish, checking if the hearing aid was still on his left ear.
“Okay Baba” Which didn’t deter Ryu from his wild movements. Kouki held out the blue raincoat and slipped it into Ryu’s outstretched arms.
“Furihata-sensei, this is the route we took.” Kouki turned his head toward Mayu and took hold of the paper that was given to him. It was a small piece of paper that showed the route from the daycare to the shrine, the path to Otoro hopefully.
“Thank you Mayu-san, this is perfect. Also, Ryu told me that he might’ve left the plushy near the bridge, but I have not seen any type of bridge when I visited, where is it on the trail?” Mayu tilted her head towards the paper and pointed at location near the word ‘shrine’ that was outlined in a shape of a box.
“The bridge is a bit far behind the shrine, a five minute walk from there. But with 20 young ones, I can never tell, you know how kids are...” Mayu trailed off laughing at her own joke. Kouki looked out the window, and watched the rain drizzles down the glass, ‘With this rain, I think it might take more than five minutes from the shrine. I haven’t even thought the walk we’ll have to do to get there”.
“And here I thought that I would get to do some grocery shopping” Kouki sighed to himself, eliciting Mayu to give out a hearty laugh at his dismay, making Ryu tugging at his raincoat impatiently.
“Baba, now- Please Baba?”
“Sorry, almost Ryu. I need you to button up your rain coat, it’s raining. Baba doesn’t want his little kitty cat sick in bed, okay?” Ryu nodded and concentrated on buttoning his rain coat. The sound of soft footsteps padding on the carpet garnered his and Mayu’s attention.
“Sorry to intrude on your conversation, but Mayu-sensei, Nori-chan mom is here to pick him up and would like to talk to you.” A short brunette said quietly.
“Oh! I’ll be right there Takanori-san. Sorry Sensei, I do hope you find the plushy before it get's too dark"
“Thank you Mayu-san, I really hope so too.”
“Have a goodnight! Bye Ryu, see you tomorrow”
“Bye Bye Sensei!” Ryu waved back from under his blue poncho. Mayu bowed her head slightly and made her way out back into the classroom. A chant of ‘Baba’ was made near the daycare’s door, Kouki glanced at the map for the final time before tucking it back into his pocket.
"Coming, coming!” As he made his way towards his son, who was twirling in his poncho.
"Ryu! Watch your rabbit ears please!" Kouki saw his son touch his hearing aid quickly, and continued to twirl.
“How do you have so much energy is beyond me” Kouki chuckled under his breath, feeling the exhaustion and old age creep into his bone. ‘Time is going by too fast…’ He thinks as he continues to watches Ryu dancing in the rain.
“Now Ryu, Baba needs to drop off our stuff at home okay?”
“But Baba-”
“No buts Ryu-”
“But what about Otoro-”
“Now Ryu” Kouki leaned down towards Ryu and held his hands in his “How about we get home, create a plan, like detectives!” Kouki watched Ryu’s amber eyes go wide, and felt the boy jump with brimming enthusiasm.
“Yeah! I wanna be a detective!” Kouki stood up and walked out the Daycare gates with his son hand in his.
“Sounds good to me! So let’s go home, get some food in our tummy’s and take the car? Like detectives!”
“Okay baba” Ryu said excitedly, hoping and jumping over peddles.
“Baba can I use the mirror?”
“Mirror?” Kouki looked down at his son confused.
“Yeah the mirror” Kouki watched Ryu form his fingers forming a circle formation in one hand “The mirror”. It took Kouki a bit to realize what Ryu was trying to convey.
“A magnifying glass?”
“Yeah that!”
“Say it with me, magnifying glass”
“Babaaaaaaaa”
“Come on Ryu” He watched Ryu test the word out a few times before getting it after five tries. Kouki lifted Ryu snugly into his arm, smooching his face while laughing airily with him.
“Good job, we still have some detective work ahead of us ”