Archive of Our Own ^beta

They spend their first night in Tokyo on a cold floor, jacket in place of sheets. The night sky bleeds through the windows to illuminate their bumps and ridges.

The fading bruises.

Ryuji sleeps quietly under her chin, drooling onto the tatami. He didn't complain about the long ride. About the long, circuitous route, chaining trains and cabs, heads locked forward and the urge to look back and around smothered by gritted teeth and shaking fists. He didn't complain about the heavy bags they had to haul up from the lobby, the boxes knocking against his stomach and straining his band-aid ringed fingers.

He didn't even complain about the meals comprised of water and rice crackers. Not a whine about the gum used to help bridge the long distance between harrowing stops.

Hotaru wishes he did. She wishes he'd act a little spoiled, but it is on a long list of things that they will have to relearn.

At least he's sleeping. That's the important bit.

She can live with imperfect; everything else can come after rest.

—·—

When Ryuji comes home from school scowling, she nearly stops in her tracks. For a split second—just a hair—she sees someone she doesn't like, but then he's looking up at her with brown eyes—her brown eyes—and the moment passes without much issue.

Thankfully.

"Shiho said I was small for a boy," he grumbles, kicking his shoes off without undoing the laces. Then he glares at the twisted, dirty ties and fusses over them, tucking his shoes up against the wall where they belong in a neat row.

"You are small," Hotaru says, bending down to pinch his cheeks. At his squawking, she grins and picks him up like the bag of grapes he is. "My baby Ryuchi."

"Put me down!"

"Never. I'll hold you even when I'm old and saggy."

Ryuji wrinkles his nose. "Gross."

She spins them around. Eventually, the darkness melts. He giggles, head thrown back in a rare mirth that brightens his cheeks and brings dancing back into his eyes. She spins some more. One final twirl.

In her hubris, she bumps into the chair they're using to hold up their coats and stumbles into the wall. Her head knocks against the plaster. A startled neighbour yelps, and she staggers, shock nearly making her drop her precious cargo loose onto the floor.

"Ma!" Ryuji screams. His harsh breaths fill the space of her disorientation, his hands small and clammy on her cheeks. "Ma, you alright? Did you get hurt anywhere? Put me down! I'll grab the kit and—"

Hotaru slides down the wall, crushing him close. "I'm okay," she swallows. Her hand is shaking as she cards her hand through his hair. A better mother would know how to coo and placate. All Hotaru can do is be dishonest. "I'm okay," she says, and for a long moment, it looks like Ryuji won't believe her.

Then he opens his mouth. "I think I'm going to challenge her to a race."

Hotaru takes a moment to respond. "A race?" she says, fishing out her old strategies for small talk. "Why jump straight to that? Did you kiddos move past rock, paper, scissors already?"

"'cause you have to concede if you lose a race," Ryuji says. "Like the Olympics. 'sides," he grins, leaning in some to be conspiratorial, "—she's tall as hell so it'll prove I ain't that tiny in comparison if I beat her with my littler legs."

It's halting, but that actually helps more than Ryuji thinks it does. No more easy fantasies passed around between them in a hush, imagining a life outside of terror. It's a rusty skill, now. No longer conducive to their survival.

She presses a kiss to his forehead and suppresses a sob.

Eventually, she gets up to finish making dinner.

Ryuji doesn't let go of her apron ties, sticking a finger into the bed of rice to act as a guide for the water.

—·—

Finding a job means leaving Ryuji in the house alone.

For a time, she tries to stick to the normal circadian rhythm that dominates the natural world, but the prospects are slimmer and the pay is not as nice.

She's always been a night owl. A lifetime trained on being sensitive to the things that go bump in the dark, always vigilant and extra wary. That Ryuji is an early riser is one of the only things she's thankful for that bastard's genetics.

"I don't mind," Ryuji says. He clicks the eraser on his pencil, watching the lead inch out of the barrel. "If you're working nights again, that means you'll be here when I come home from school."

"I'd be sleeping, 'Yuji," she reminds him. She taps at his workbook, and he frowns, but pushes the lead back in to scrawl in an answer. "And then I'd be gone as soon as I say good night."

"So what?" he says bluntly. "By the time I wake up again, you'll be there again. Wouldn't even get a chance t'miss ya."

Neither of them talk about his nightmares. Or the way that she used to risk herself at night to check up on him while he slept, holding his pinkie with hers until he calmed down enough to pass out.

He hasn't startled her awake with his fits in a while. He's been sleeping more consistently too. Less naps during the day and longer stretches of unconsciousness punctuated by nothing but commas rather than full stops. These afternoons of running around with the school track team have done a lot for him.

"When did you grow up?" she asks softly, brushing back his bangs. It's all shadows, little light. Not that they have much by way of illumination anyway. Half the bulbs in this shitty place are on the verge of collapse. "I gave you a cursed name. Look at you—already wise beyond your years."

"Told ya I ain't small," he says half-heartedly. His tiny hand comes to pat her on the back, and she feels so wretched at how useless a mother she is.

Then, "I don't like comin' home to an empty house," he whispers, tucked in small to her ear. For just that moment, he's finally eleven years old and scared about it. "I keep thinkin' he took you or that you left me."

"Never," she whispers viciously. It feels like a vow, heavy on the mouth. "He will never hurt us again."

He can't, Hotaru thinks, but does not say. There's a look in Ryuji's eye like he suspects something, but the love overwhelms it.

"And the other bit?" he asks, gently so as to cover his fear.

"You're stuck with me," Hotaru says. "Come hell or high water, I'm gonna be your mother in this life."

"Good!"

She laughs, feeling a little ridiculous. "Good!"

They bump fists and slap their hands together, palms then the back and stack their fists up into a tower before pulling away in an explosive burst that ends with grins that match right down to the tooth.

—·—

She met Kuroda Mitsuki when she was young. Barely nineteen to his eighteen. They were both terrified of the world beyond the gates of secondary education.

Him, more so.

By that time, Hotaru was working part-time as a custodian for a local clinic, among other places. Tasked with cleaning and cleaning and cleaning until her hair smelled so strongly of chemicals it was a wonder she even caught his eye.

She never followed her peers to college. Her parents were working folk. Bred from the factories that defined much of her early asthma, and only just switched gears to entry-level office jobs when her grades landed her prestigious scholarship after prestigious scholarship. Gekkoukan was supposed to be a place of opportunity.

Nothing ever came of it. Hotaru squandered much with her own brand of cynicism, losing much faith in higher education the more she learned on her own and watched the world change. She was so sure in her caution and rightness.

The guilt always ate her alive.

Mitsuki, in contrast, was charming. He was the apple to many kids' eyes who thought something flattering of a greenhorn who looked like he had everything handed to him in life.

And it was, to an extent. He worked hard enough to make something of his genius, but any gaps could be paved over with cash. Mitsuki moved upwards in life while Hotaru got passed around by word-of-mouth and sincere connections forged by being a decently kind and inoffensive person.

It was a quiet life. Not the kind that her parents ever wanted for her, but they died in an accident before they could really make their displeasure known.

She found him sobbing into a Wilduck burger at 3 am while she was contemplating the same idea. They commiserated, they overshared, they fell deeply and quickly in love.

He really was a decent person in the beginning. He knew dangerous things like how to light matches, but jumped at the sound of fireworks. He wanted to go into mechanics because his mother bought him an expensive collection of toy cars as a child. He was overjoyed and, in his love, proved a little reckless. He felt enough guilt to want to fix them up with his own two hands. A career in the making, just not the one his parents ever approved of.

"I never told anyone that before," he said, eyes the colour of an oil spill. "Sorry. That was a lot. I just…"

Hotaru leaned forward, interested to hear what he had to say. "You kept that bottled up for a long time, huh?"

"It feels like you're the only one who understands me." Mitsuki smiled, burger sauce on his chin. It was the first time Hotaru really considered the word they called love.

"I'm the only person you gave a chance to."

He was quite demure and pretty, then. "Maybe I just need the one."

She didn't know better. A single child through much of her life, and only the most superficial of friends. She was always loved wherever she went, but no one loved her enough to cling to her, not even her parents.

In his eyes, she saw possession and took it for what she wanted to have so desperately.

By the time they were twenty-one and twenty, they were building a life together. Sketching out a future that they allowed to include each other. He landed a summer internship with the Kirijo Group, and she picked up a gig as a night guard for Iwatodai Industrial. It meant that they were ships passing in the night, treating their rare mornings in the same place with a sanctity reserved for truly lonely people.

And then she got pregnant.

Mitsuki was surprised. Hotaru was already looking for a way to be rid of it.

To this day, she still doesn't know why she didn't. It wasn't some grand, tortured decision. He agreed it had to go and, well, she had always been a little contrarian. In truth, she just delayed it and kept delaying it until it was impossible to ignore as a collection of cells that just happened to have come from her. And then that thing started kicking her late at night when her brain sang like the cicadas outside, and Mitsuki slept on the couch. A noisy boy, even back then.

'Ryuji' came to her in a dream. She silently prayed that he would grow up to be anything but what his namesake implied. She wanted him to be the opposite of her—bold and reckless and wrong.

A lot of things happened between then and now.

Not all of it painful. None worth repeating, however.

—·—

At some point, Shiho turned into Shiho and Ann.

"They want to stay over next weekend," Ryuji tells her, kicking his legs underneath the table. Her mother's spectre nearly comes out of her to tell him to stop. They're in the safety of their own home. No eyes but their own.

It's alright. It's alright.

"And their parents are okay with them staying over at a boy's house?" she asks, lacing her shoes. They got a little stool to make this process easier on the knees. Her minute investment in her future health.

"Shiho's parents think Ann's are stuck up, and Ann's caretaker thinks Shiho's parents are a bad influence," Ryuji says. He jabs at his beef, eating the pickled ginger like a good little boy. "They all like you."

Even if they don't like me, Hotaru reads in his silence.

She double-knots her boots and looks at him. "They know I work nights, right?"

He grins. "Nah."

Hotaru ruffles her boy's hair, smiling at the badly patched blonde he had streaked on after that Ann girl had confessed about feeling alienated in a sea of darks and browns. In the right light, they almost look alike, now. Her hair has always run on the fairer side. "That's my boy," she says, proud as a mother ought to be. "What they don't know—"

"—won't hurt 'em."

They cinch their fingers in a promise. No lies. Not between them. They've progressed past the need to downplay their pain to spare each other.

"Stay up as late as you want," she says, smiling at his surprise. "I'll leave you some money if you want to grab some snacks from the kobini."

There's a protest there. An instinctual refusal and dismissal. Money had always been tight; it's just never relied solely on her before. But they're not so destitute she can't afford to let her boy splurge and be a kid for once.

"You have to impress them," she says. "Your mother lets you have the run of the house, and you can go outside without adult supervision. I'm sure they're going to be lousy with envy."

"You're givin' me a lotta responsibility. You know both of 'em are taller than me."

"You've faced worse."

It's close. It's so very close.

Ryuji unclenches his fingers and beams at her. "I love you a lot."

"Love you too, big man." She slings her bag on, tugging on her guard garb to smooth out the wrinkles. Hotaru pauses to wink, hand on her hip and a blown kiss to seal the deal. "Don't you forget it!"

—·—

The kids are a pile of noodles on the living room floor. The pause screen of some game calling itself Power Intuition blinks on their scavenged TV. Snacks scatter around them in crinkled foil packets and empty Pocky boxes. Ryuji has tucked into himself, back against the wall and dozing face towards the door. The girls are sprawled on top of each other, Shiho's foot lodged into Ann's stomach.

It's old routine by now to pick up their scraps and save what can be eaten and toss what cannot. She moves, silent as a ghost. Her old years as a custodian serving her handily—a part of her misses it. The long hallways, mop in hand. Sisyphean, but a paycheque eternal.

Ryuji wakes up first, blinking at her presence on the couch. Hotaru tosses him a lazy salute with two fingers and lifts her arm to accommodate his small body when he crawls in beside her. He falls back asleep as soon as his head hits thigh, a smile finally peeling itself from the fruit of his exhaustion.

She doesn't blink when Ann rolls over to rest at her feet. Nor when Shiho starts fighting Ryuji for the spot on her lap, dragging them into a wrestling match that only manages to break the one lamp.

—·—

The first PTO that lines up with a free weekend, she hauls their asses over to Central Street and finds the cheapest place that serves beef bowls.

She'd been scouting. Trekking the high streets and wriggling side paths on her way to work, making note of each place that aligned itself with Ryuji's palette and their budgets. The venn diagram wasn't sizeable, but neither were the overlaps of their schedules.

Ryuji practically vibrates in his seat. He watches the worker with an awed look, appreciating the sight of someone firmly in their element. The worker—she looks at their tag—Sakaguchi-san meets her eye over the buzz of orders, and they see in each other a familiar history in the pits of the service industry.

If Ryuji's bowl comes with just an extra slice, no one's paying attention enough to count.

He makes a mess of himself. Brown sauce all over his mouth, and a bright tongue lapping it all up to not let it go to waste. She glares at any mouth that dares to open itself in reprimand. Ryuji eats, oblivious, or at least, allowing her this.

"Happy birthday, Ryuji," she whispers at the height of rush. A parcel meant only for his ears alone, wrapped up in the sound of people, people, people. Ryuji blushes, simply pleased at being loved.

They tuck their chairs in and flit out to make room for another hungry customer to sit down. Ryuji tugs on her hand to lead her out.

"There's the arcade," she suggests, swinging their hands between them. "I think they got a new claw machine."

They stop by the arcade in question, reading through the posters out front. Ryuji stares hard at the numbers, blotting out sums in his mind.

"'kay," he says eventually, letting go to bounce inside. "I bet you I can do it with only five coins!"

Hotaru has never once used a claw machine. However, has his mother, she cannot take this lying down. Her sleeve gets rolled up, long hair is yanked into a regulation bun. "Not if I do it in two!"

They end up taking an octopus home. It's ugly at sin, and she cannot stop laughing at it. "The eyes," she wheezes on the walk back. "Look at his eyes."

"It's gonna pop off," Ryuji comments, flicking the plastic button holding on for dear life.

"Nothing that can't be fixed," Hotaru assures. Ryuji smiles and holds it a little closer to himself, no longer so delicate. "We can give it more eyes if you want…"

"…how many we talkin'?"

"I dunno, big man," she smiles. "How high can you count?"

It's a truly atrocious sight. Shiho loves it, Ann does not. They fill their small house with arguing, and for a long time, Hotaru doesn't realise she's forgotten to tense up at the sound.

—·—

Three schools send Ryuji home with a recruiter's business card.

He tosses them onto the table, nudging at them with his head when she wanders out of bed to start getting ready for work.

"They were all creeps," he grumbles, mashing the buttons on his controller with a practised force. "Kept saying shit like 'once-in-a-lifetime opportunity'. Then another guy would pop up and give me the same spiel."

Fourteen. He's fourteen. A year off from high school and the rest of his life. It's so odd being in her parents' position—just two decades earlier. Two decades they'll never have again.

"What do you think about it, kiddo?"

Ryuji leans forward to go faster and punch better. "They said I'd be on a scholarship."

"How big we talkin'?"

"Like, a pretty hefty chunk."

Hotaru glances at the business cards again. Similar flavours of minimalist with a good feel—some kind of silk-touch coating. Matte. Very professional and of a decent grade.

"You'd have to study hard," she says carefully, watching her boy.

"I can do that."

"You'd have to dye your hair back," at his displeasure, she continues, "—and do exactly as you're told. It's a commitment. I just need you to be aware of what this means, Ryuji."

All of it screams so similar to the life they used to have. The life that they only, through miraculous intervention, left because Mitsuki went on his way ahead of them and never looked back. There are cages that people grow used to. Ruts long carved into the floor. The tatami has softened over the years of children bickering and wrestling and sleeping the long nights while Sakamoto Hotaru walked the same beat around an empty hall. 

Something happens here. Something that's never really happened before.

"I wanna run, Ma," Ryuji says softly.

Her answer is immediate. "I'll talk to my coworkers about it," Hotaru says, springing into action. Her head is loud. Memorising every detail—down to the sparkle that peeks out shyly from eyes not used to hoping. "Yuuichi-san knows everyone worth knowing. If their names," she waves the cards, "—spark some distant memory, then we'll consider the school they're representing."

Ryuji pauses his run and turns around to frown at her. "Ain't that the lady who only takes bribes?"

"In the form of gossip, yes." Objectively, an unpleasant woman whose best skill in life was driving away every living relative from her side. She lived vicariously through stories, a staple at the water cooler and a dispenser of her own tall tales.

The kind of salt of the earth that has been there to see the first buildings go up.

Hotaru kind of loves her entire deal, to be honest.

"What kinda gossip d'ya got that she doesn't already know about?" Ryuji needles. He's standing up now, hands on the back of the couch to support his soapbox interrogation. "You said her prices are pretty steep."

"Don't you remember?" she demurs, tucking the cards into her sleeve. "People love talking to me. I've never had a friend who didn't tell me everything that was going on in their life."

"Ain't that kinda bad? Don't they, like, trust you?"

"I never keep secrets." She flashes her empty hands, and Ryuji gasps, vaulting over to check her pocket and jacket to find the cards. "They know this from the jump, kiddo."

"But why? Ain't that shit supposed to be personal?"

His hands take hers. They trace the line of callouses gathered on her palms. A steady layer built off many hours hanging off the monkey bars and clutching a broom while her music blasted out from her headphones.

They're starting to match. His gym membership isn't cheap, but he's never been so excited to get out of bed in the morning before.

"That's the thing, 'Yuji," she says, ruffling his hair and pulling him into her arms. "No one actually wants to be mysterious. We're all waiting to be found without ever having to ask."

—·—

It started in the summer. She was coming home from a long shift when the door bumped against a body. The body didn't make a sound at being thumped. Eventually, Ryuji emerged from the gap between the door and the wall.

"Something's wrong with dad," he whispers, unblinking.

They both turn in unison towards the monster a the end of the hall. Mitsuki had his back to them. There was the lip of a bottle cradled loosely between two fingers, the glass dangling precariously above their hardwood floors. He wasn't doing anything. Eyes cast towards the window—towards the sea. Tatsumi Port Island gleamed like a polished jewel.

Waves came and went.

He never left the windowsill.

Hotaru took Ryuji by the hand, and they spent the night at a hotel. Later, all Ryuji will remember about this are the pancakes they ate there. The time they spent together, curled around the phone, holding the menu between them and running their finger down the line. They giggled about the prices and ate until they were sticky with syrup.

Ryuji splashed in the bath. He never did that anymore. Hasn't done that since.

He fell asleep like a king after a feast. The bed was lovely. It cradled them like a mother swan swaddles her duckling among body, flesh and down. She stayed up long past midnight, eyes cast towards the sky that was no longer blue, but—

—·—

Yuuichi doesn't even glance at the names. "Shujin Academy," she says, pulling her glasses down her nose to look at the emblem. "Yes, I heard something interesting about that place. Do you know the name Kamoshida?"

"It's familiar."

It really is. Though where she heard it, Hotaru has no hope of remembering. Long days spent idling in her own mindless rhythms have destroyed her ability to keep things sorted in her memory. She'd always been clever, just never particularly studious. Lost that skill the moment people started calling her mature for her age, and never got used to the knack of actually needing to study.

"He's a former Olympic athlete," Yuuichi continues, disregarding the other cards entirely. "He brought home gold."

"For track?"

"Volleyball."

Shiho's sport. Hotaru's picked her up from practice a few times, waiting for her and Ryuji both with Ann tucked under her arm.

That morning, she's excited to give Ryuji the good news. A future all but paved in stone. The future that he alone asked for.

He's already smiling at the table when she kicks off her boots.

"Ryu—"

"Shiho's going to Shujin," he spits out before her. It's like an arrow through a dove's heart.

The mother she's grown used to practising transitions into a leading smile, walking up to lean her hip against the table. "And you're going to follow your rival to the ends of the earth?" Hotaru teases, remembering the lines of dialogue that would filter from the TV after dinner. "And if Shiho's going…"

"Then Ann's definitely going."

"Both of you are going to have to work hard to save her," Hotaru says. "Shiho has the grades, and you'll have a scholarship, but what does Ann have?"

"Money," he says.

She laughs and scruffs his hair until it sticks up like lightning had struck him twice. "Money," she says, on the edge of a glitter. "That's right, Ryuchi. You have to go and become famous and make a lot of money."

"Don't worry, Ma," Ryuji says, blessed boy that he is. He stands up to hug her and, oh. When had he grown so tall? "I'm gonna take care of ya even when you're all saggy and old."

—·—

Ikutsuki wasn't surprised to hear her call in on behalf of her husband for the fourth time that week.

"Is everything alright at home?" he asked innocently, but not quite enough. The phone did something to him. Gave him depths where there should have been hills—the kind that the sun could crest over.

She surprised herself with her answer. "No," she admitted, hand cupped around the receiver. "Mitsuki has been acting strange. All he does is look outside and mumble things to himself for hours on end. I don't know if he sleeps—if he does, it doesn't look different to his waking hours."

The sound of paper. A pen clicking; sharply metallic, like the spit flooding her gums. "What kind of things does he say?"

"'The End is coming'." She looked down at Ryuji's notes to confirm. "Something about demise. And a tower."

"A tower," Ikutsuki repeated, with practised surprise. Of all the things, that was what caught his attention? "How long has this been going on?"

Ryuji's notes again. Dates lining the page, one by one, a history of his after-school hours spent in the company of their monster. Both of them were glad for the reprieve; neither of them were exactly happy with the change.

It was like a volcano that had been belching sulfur and lava decided to stop. Could you trust that dormancy when the land was covered in its ashes, scars burned deep into the earth? Ryuji still jumped at loud noises. Anger simmered in his eyes like a seed planted there without his permission.

"This would be the second week."

"I see." She presses her ear hard against the speaker and catches something about the full moon. "Would you be opposed to coming to Tatsumi Memorial Hospital, Kuroda-san? I think this warrants a deeper investigation."

"I—"

"Don't worry," Ikutsuki said. Her heart started to race. Lilies stood up above the water, bright red and curling. Like cut ribbons pinned by a needle. "All of this will be covered and handled by the Kirijo Group. We do take care of our own, after all, and Mitsuki-kun was a valued employee."

Her mouth was dry. She refused the instinct to wet her lips and lap at the roof of her mouth, but she accepted the glass of water Ryuji pushed her way. "Can I think about it? I…I have a son. He's still very young, and I don't feel comfortable leaving him alone at home."

Ryuji raised a brow and wrote something in his notebook.

WHAT A WEIRDO.

"Ryuji-kun, yes?" Ikutsuki laughs. "Coincidentally, I've found myself caring for a boy with similar circumstances this summer. His name is Amada Ken. He Gekko-goes to Gekkoukan Elementary School as well."

HE'S A YEAR OLDER.

Nice? she mouthed.

SAD, Ryuji answered. I THINK HIS MOTHER DIED A FEW YEARS AGO.

"Then you can understand my hesitation, Ikutsuki-san," Hotaru said, brokering no argument. "I'll come back with an answer after I figure some stuff out. Thank you for hearing us out."

She hung up. For as long as she could, she rebuffed any attempt to persuade her, taking time off work to care for her catatonic husband and walk Ryuji to and from school. She would jump at the sight of a car following them from the station. Maybe it was her imagination. Overactive in an unfamiliar situation and a child to think about and protect, but she swore there was something malicious hiding in Ikutsuki's interest.

Ryuji stayed up with her. She nearly cried at how brave he was being, watching the unmoving shadow of their monster, thumbing an old bruise as if to remind him that this could end at any time.

There was nothing she could do, in the end.

Kuroda Mitsuki was admitted into Tatsumi Memorial Hospital in September, where he stayed until the end of his days.

Ryuji would remember none of this later. She barely remembered it herself, memories scattered across a sky that ran dark. Feathers and a boy's smile. Coffins laid out in rows that melted back into people.

"He left," she settled on, picking Ryuji up and rocking him in her arms to calm herself down. Kirijo Mitsuru was barely older than a child herself, but she still called to make sure that Hotaru knew what had happened and what that meant. "But that's good for us, isn't it?"

"Yeah! He even left his wallet behind—that's like, free stuff."

"No, Ryuchi," she says, tucking his face into her neck to keep it away from looking outside the window. "It was ours to begin with. He just stole it for a little bit, but we stole it back."

"So we're thieves?"

"Yes," Hotaru said solemnly. Ryuji cackled at her face, and she smiled. "We're going to be on the run from the law now. We have to pack up our stuff tonight!"

Ryuji gasped. "All of it?"

"Just the important things. I have three suitcases and two hands—"

"—and me!"

"And you, my little warrior. Now c'mon, it's time to pick which shoes are coming with us."

—·—

When they get the acceptance letter, Hotaru takes them out to celebrate. She takes them to Ogikubo, and they eat two bowls each.

Mitsuki had taken her here once. They were young and drunk and trying to find their way back to the station after visiting one of Mitsuki's many friends. Eventually, they made their way into a small shop that had just opened up and sat down with exhausted, hungry bodies.

She burst into tears, unbelievably thankful to eat after an insufferable day.

Mitsuki hissed at her to stop embarrassing him.

The chef, very kindly, told Mitsuki that tears were good for the broth and that she was giving him the highest of compliments.

He says the same thing to Ryuji when Ryuji starts blinking, hands taping at his cheeks in disbelief when they come away wet. He scrubs the back of his hand across his eyes and sniffles when the tears just start coming down even harder.

"I don't get it," he says, looking at his half-finished bowl. "I-I'm sorry, Ma, this is—"

"You're okay," she says, reaching over to grab his wrist before he can rub himself raw. "You can cry, Ryuji."

"But I'm not…" He shakes his head, black hair catching the light. Blond lingered at the roots—it feels so odd to see it reversed. "I'm not sad. I'm gonna go to school! I'm gonna run track! You don't even gotta worry 'bout money anymore. So why am I—"

"Do you need to have a reason?" Hotaru pulls him away from trying to divine the answer among soggy noodles and thanks their luck it's only them at the counter. She thumbs at his cheeks, dragging a wrinkling thumb against his under-eye.

She could say things. She could say so much, but there really wasn't anything she had to add that wasn't going to go the way of water down a mountain's back.

Fifteen-year-olds shouldn't be so conscious of themselves.

Especially a boy who spent too much of his life being considerate of the adults who should have taken care of him.

When they come home to his new school uniform, she puts it on him.

It feels good to smooth his lapels down and tug his turtleneck into the perfect line. He is dubious about the suspenders, but when she leaves them to hang down from his pants, Ryuji can't stop looking at them. At how they loop around his hips in imitation of the cool chains and accessories of the punks that like to gather by the nearby vending machines at night.

They stare in the mirror at his full outfit.

"We have to cuff the pants," they say in exact unison. Hotaru bends down before he can make a move, and Ryuji makes a strangled noise when she touches his ankles.

Small lines wrap around his leg. Silvery after all these years given just to heal.

She lifts them to expose his ankles to the air, folding up the cuff to a thick line of the plaid. After that, it's pinning the badge on his lapel and making sure that his red buttons on the sleeve are all in a neat row. She had to resew one of them—it had come in crooked.

Just a touch of imperfection that slipped out of their quality control.

Hotaru steps back.

She covers her mouth with a hand. "Oh," she warbles when she has to look up.

"I'm standin' up straight for your benefit, Ma," he says, wry. Ryuji rests his chin on her head and hugs her very deeply. "Thank you for getting me this far."

"You did most of the work, kiddo," Hotaru sniffles. "I just watched."

"Then you gotta keep watcin' me, alright?" Ryuji says. Maybe she did curse him—maybe it wasn't such a bad thing, after all. "Every race. Even the ones I lose."

She shakes her head. "I can't possibly watch all of it. What about my work?"

It is her greatest pride to see Ryuji pull away to smile. "'Eff your work! Ain't I more important?" he laughs when she wrenches his head down to grind her knuckles on his head. "Language!" she grins. "You know you can only say the 'f-bomb' once in your life. Don't waste it on something as stupid as this."

"I'll do what I want," he says. "Even if you hate it."

Sakamoto Hotaru releases a breath she didn't know she was holding. "Good," she says. Then again, with some tears. "Good."

And for a short time, it was.