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The air is sticky with humidity, and Miri sighs. Her hair clings to her neck in sweat-damp curls, and for the first time, she regrets her haircut. It’d be fantastic to pull it up with a clip right now. But it’s too short, and besides, she’d already given all her clips to Papa Rei back at the beginning of summer.
She’d convinced him that they were easier to use than hairties, since the lack of dexterity in his fingers made it hard for him to loop the elastic. And it worked out anyway; she didn’t need them anymore, but she couldn’t quite bear to part with them.
She and Papa Kazuki agreed that there was something about her pink claw clip with the bunnies on it peeking out from Papa’s tangled mass of black hair that just didn’t stop being funny.
Cicadas bellow in the trees, and the concrete of the stoop bites into the backs of her legs where her skirt doesn’t quite cover her thighs. Dying and mottled orange sunlight sinks into the alleyway behind the restaurant, honey-slow and tacky with the summer heat. She watches the shadows grow long, chin on her knees and one finger drawing aimless circles into the step.
She doesn’t hear the door open in her fugue, but Miri knows what her Papa’s footsteps sound like; when she was small, Papa would move around the house silent as the grave. She remembers more than one startled crying fit when he’d appeared behind her out of nowhere, and remembers his guilt-stricken face.
Papa Kazuki had soothed her by telling her that Papa Rei had cat paws for feet, and that was why he was so quiet. And even though Miri had giggled, he’d made it a point to exaggerate his footfalls ever since. Habit had sunk in, and his gait had changed. She’s very certain he’d have to put effort into sneaking up on her now.
“Miri?”
She glances up in time to see him very poorly conceal his lit cigarette behind his back, and snorts. Papa Kazuki has always told him to either quit, or keep it out of his damned kitchen. And she knows that Papa Rei still obeys the rule about not smoking around her that was imposed when she was a toddler.
Still, it’s not like she doesn’t know.
So she gives him her best conspiratorial grin. “I won’t tell, Papa,” she says. “I’m the one invading your super secret smoking stoop.”
His face makes a funny little twitch, and Miri knows he’s biting on the inside of his cheek, amused. Getting Papa Rei to smile is always a win in her book, and this absolutely counts.
“Troublemaker,” he says, and leans down to lower himself onto the step next to her, flicking ash off the end of his cigarette as he gets settled. Miri debates leaning into him; he’s sat with his good shoulder to her, so she could. But it’s hot, and being close to another body sounds miserable.
Bunnies on a pink background peer out at her from his hair, black locks twisted and tangled from a day’s work. Papa Kazuki will brush the knots out for him later.
He exhales a cloud of grey smoke, making sure to breathe it away from her face as he does. Quiet settles between them as he inhales again, but Miri doesn’t mind it; Papa Rei has always been the quieter one, and she’s used to it.
Papa Kazuki says he and Miri talk enough between them to make up for Rei’s part of the conversation. And Papa Rei always agrees.
He blows two smoke rings in quick succession, apparently just because he can, and Miri laughs.
“Troublemaker,” she repeats, mockingly. “Clearly, delinquency is genetic.”
“You’re adopted.”
Miri gasps dramatically, covering her mouth in shock. “Papa,” she scolds, trying desperately not to crack as he gives her a look from the corner of his eye, irritation steeped in fondness pouring from him in waves. She lets her grin peek out from under her fingers, and he rolls his eyes.
“And yet, somehow, you’re just like Kazuki,” he grumbles around the filter.
“Funny,” she says. “He says I’m just like you. One of you is lying.”
“I don’t lie to you.”
It’s true; he doesn’t. If Miri asks a straightforward question about something, Papa Rei will answer her truthfully, even when it makes Papa Kazuki thwap him with a dishrag.
There’s plenty of things that Miri knows better than to ask about, though.
Like the starburst scars on her Papas’ shoulders.
They have matching ones, she’d noted once when she was younger, too young to know what a bullet wound looked like.
But Papa Rei has another, on his arm. And though she’s never asked, Miri knows it’s the reason he can’t use it much.
They may tell her someday. And contrary to what Papa Kazuki likes to say, Miri does know how to be patient.
It doesn’t stop her from worrying, though.
It seems like worrying is all she does these days.
About the past. About the future.
The present isn't so bad, though, she has to concede. Sitting in the fading summer sunlight with her father settles something in her ribs; he’s always had that effect on her. There's many pictures of her fast asleep in his hold for a reason, and it's not just because Papa Kazuki was a shutterbug when she was growing up.
“What’s wrong?”
Miri huffs, and goes back to tracing her little circles in the space between them. “Nothing’s wrong,” she says, and she’s too old to pout. But it’s tempting.
Leave it to her Papa to find her on the back stoop and know immediately that she was sulking.
“I don’t lie to you,” he repeats, stubbing his cigarette out on the cement. “So don’t lie to me, either.”
Miri huffs. Again. “I'm not lying,” she insists, and Papa Rei raises an eyebrow at her. She squirms. “I’m not. I’m just…” she sighs, and gives in to her earlier consideration of slumping against him. She’s right about it being too hot to do so, but can’t bring herself to regret it as his arm rests automatically over her shoulders. “The future got here really fast, is all,” she murmurs.
Papa Rei snorts. “You’re telling me.” But he undercuts the response by rubbing his thumb in gentle circles against her shoulder, and Miri tips further into him. She doesn’t snuggle with her fathers all that much anymore; it makes her feel like a baby, and she’s practically an adult now.
No matter how often Papa Kazuki cries that she’s still his little girl, teary-eyed and lip quivering at her when she asks to stay out later with her friends.
It’s only partially for show, but Miri lets him get away with his dramatics.
She’d had a good childhood; they can cling to it if it makes them feel better about paying her high school tuition much sooner than they felt should have happened.
She’s starting to think that she knows the feeling.
“It’s scary,” she admits, and this is exactly why she doesn’t like to cuddle much anymore; she reverts right back to being a child, crawling into her fathers’ spaces and demanding comfort. It’d always been freely given, but Miri wants to feel grown up.
Even if it frightens her sometimes.
Rei hums, and taps his thumb against her shoulder thoughtfully. “Scary, huh?” he says, and Miri can hear something in his voice.
Something amused. And nostalgic.
Oh no.
“Got a spell for that,” he says, and tugs on a strand of her hair playfully. He leans away from her so he has the space to gesture over her head, making a little circle with his palm flat. “Scary stuff, scary stuff, fly away.”
Miri groans. “Papaaaaa-”
He pokes at her cheek. “Now you smile.”
She bats at his hand. “You first,” she grouses, fighting against the grin tugging at her mouth. “You’re so embarrassing,” she complains, hiding her face in her palms so he can’t see that he’s won. She has a feeling he knows anyway. “That’s such a baby thing.”
“Maybe,” he concedes, and she peeks out at him from between her fingers. She lets out a startled squeak when he pulls her back into his side. It’s something Papa Kazuki would have done to her, and she doesn’t expect it from Papa Rei. “But my daughter taught it to me.”
“Ugggggh,” she squirms against his hold, summoning every bit of annoyed teenager grimace she can manage while trying not to smile.
“Miri.”
She looks up abruptly, recognizing the change in Papa Rei’s tone. It’s a shift that means he wants her to listen, and he doesn’t use it often.
“It’s okay to fall on your face.”
Miri chokes on a laugh.
“No, listen,” Rei squeezes her shoulders. “The future’s terrifying. Always has been, believe me,” Miri furrows her brow; she’s pretty sure her papa’s never been scared of anything in his life. To hear otherwise sounds wrong. “But if you fall, if you screw up, you can always come home.”
And that was true wasn’t it?
No matter how badly her worst days had gone, at the end of them, she’d never been afraid to walk through her own front door.
Because through the front door was Papa Kazuki in the kitchen, apron tied tight and a hug waiting if she wanted one. His pride in her probably should have been added pressure now that high school had dropped so many responsibilities on her shoulders. But she knows that even if she told him she wanted to drop out tomorrow and work in the diner instead of furthering her education, Papa Kazuki would still love her just the same.
It’d never been a question.
And Papa Rei?
Papa Rei does silly little spells from her childhood for her, his stoic demeanor never cracking as he coaxes smiles out of her when all she wants is to cry. He makes her french toast in the mornings, much to Papa Kazuki’s chagrin, and helps her with her anatomy homework, and ruffles her hair when he walks by on his way to clear tables.
She can always come home.
“What if I steal something? Or kill someone? What about then?” she asks, and tries to keep the tremble out of her joking tone. Tries to stay light in the face of a heavy weight dropping from her throat.
“Kazuki and I have done worse,” Papa Rei says seriously, and Miri giggles, stifling it with a hand over her mouth as he levels her with a stern gaze. She does her best to look contrite, but knows that she fails.
Quiet falls between them, and the deepening darkness brings a blessed break from the heat of the day. Rei shifts the way he sits, rubbing at the small of his back. He stretches with his one good arm above his head, spine popping in a way that makes Miri wrinkle her nose.
He looks tired, Miri notes. But then, he almost always does.
“We’ve done worse,” he repeats softly, sounding far away. “I didn’t have a good father, Miri,” he says, and Miri nearly swallows her tongue in surprise. “And I was always scared to have to go home. I don’t want you to feel the way I did.”
She swallows around the lump in her throat. It isn’t anything she hadn’t already known; some family secrets aren’t secret anymore, after all. She knows about her mama, and about Papa Kazuki’s wife. And the baby he’d never met.
It’s one of the reasons she lets him fawn over her as much as she does.
Papa Kazuki’s love doesn’t divide; it multiplies, and with two missing pieces in his puzzle, that love starts to overflow if he has nowhere to put it. She and Rei are the lucky ones who get handed their own share and more from him.
And Papa Rei doesn’t ever talk about his family, but Papa Kazuki has told her that his father isn’t a good person.
It’s the first time she’s heard him say it, though.
She opens her mouth to respond, but she’s unsure if she even has the correct words to respond to that.
What can she say to make any of that better? Words don’t seem like enough.
“Geez, I think you just used up all your words for the year, Rei,”
Papa Kazuki to her rescue. Again.
His footsteps are even heavier than Papa Rei’s, and she tips her head up to look at him, upside down. He grins down at her, placing his hands on either side of her head and leaning over to press an obnoxious kiss to her forehead as she splutters. “Your beard itches,” she grumbles, rubbing irritably at the spot.
He doesn’t join them on the step; there’s not enough room, even if he wasn’t burlier than Papa Rei. Instead he stands behind his partner, and reaches out to carefully pull the pink clip from Rei’s hair. “What are we doin’?” he asks, combing through the tangles with his fingers as Rei leans back.
“Bonding without you,” Papa Rei says, and Papa Kazuki tugs sharply on a lock of hair to make him reel back.
“What else is new,” Kazuki sighs. “Thick as thieves, the pair of you.”
“The future came along and scared Miri.”
“How dare it.”
Miri rolls her eyes as Papa Kazuki continues gently undoing the snarls of Papa Rei’s hair, even as they snark at each other. “Papa Rei says I can come home and you’ll help me hide a body.”
“We aren’t cleanup crew,” Papa Kazuki replies without missing a beat. “Hide your own bodies, Miri.”
She thinks about matching starburst scars, and wonders for a moment exactly how much of this conversation comes from a place of experience.
“He’s right though,” Papa Kazuki says, his eyes soft as he slips the clip back into Rei’s hair, the twist neat and smooth now. “I don’t want you to ever feel like you can’t tell us if you screw up. We’re the original screwups in this family, after all. Be hypocritical as hell of us.”
She’s touched, of course she is, but it’s harder to be sincere with Papa Kazuki; she learned her drama from somewhere, Papa Rei isn’t wrong about that.
So she pouts instead. “You can't assume I'll muck things up as bad as you two have before, just because you gave me the screwup genes.”
Papa Kazuki slaps a hand over his heart. “My own flesh and blood, sassing me like this.”
“...I swear I've explained what adoption is to both of you by now-”
There’s hands pressed over her ears, ones that she fully expected as soon as Papa Rei had said the forbidden word. “Rei,” Papa Kazuki hisses, and Miri giggles at his muffled theatrics. “She’d never know if you’d stop saying it.”
Miri grips both hands around his wrists and tugs, but Kazuki’s hands don’t budge. “Right. Because I look like either of you.”
“Spitting image of me,” Papa Rei says solemnly.
“She gets her sass from you, that’s for sure-”
And in the last rays of dying sunlight, something wound too tightly in Miri's chest uncoils.
Home is syrup-sweet and sticky fingers in the morning when Papa Kazuki tosses napkins at her over the diner counter, and home is the plastic of the controller biting into her palms as Papa Rei quietly talks her through the levels of his favorite old video game. Home is arguing about schoolwork and an empty diner filled with her laughter at the end of the day as she pushes the broom across the floor.
Home is her mama’s picture on her desk.
Papa Kazuki’s fingers card through her hair, and Miri sighs, content.
Yes, she's still terrified of exactly what lays ahead. She'd be stupid not to be, she thinks.
But she can come home.
She can always come home.