Chapter Text
Despite everything that had occurred after his arrival in town, Dojima couldn’t bring himself to regret taking his teenage nephew in. He was generally a good kid, despite his choice of friends on occasion, dependable and low-maintenance as far as teenagers went, not to mention great with Nanako. He’d never admit this to his sister, but after everything they had already been through together, having Yu here was the best thing that had ever happened to their little family.
Regardless of that, or perhaps because of the paternal affection he was beginning to feel for him, it didn’t stop Dojima from being concerned with who his nephew was spending his time with while he was working. What was he doing with his time after school, with the string of disappearances only growing — especially when those young people always seemed to end up among his group of friends? Once the questions started, they didn’t stop. Did he have a girlfriend? And if he did, what did they get up to when he wasn’t around? The questions continued to swirl in his head with no answers, until he finally got a chance to ask them.
It was yet another rainy evening when the opportunity presented itself, as he took the three mugs out of the cabinet and set to make coffee. Once the coffee was finished, he set Nanako’s mug down beside her as she watched her favorite quiz show, leaving her be before coming back to the kitchen and sitting down across from Yu.
“So,” Dojima coughed a bit, pushing past the awkwardness of starting a conversation with Yu that wouldn’t, no couldn’t, end in a lecture. “We haven’t had much time to talk like this lately.”
Yu hummed as he took a sip of his coffee, putting the mug back down on the table. He didn’t look nearly as tense as he usually did in conversations like this, even it was only the tightness in his shoulders that betrayed the anxiety. For right now, at least, he looked completely at ease. “We haven’t, but I have time if you do. Thank you, by the way, for the coffee.”
“You’re welcome,” he replied, taking a drink of his own coffee. “So, how’s school?”
“It’s good. I really like it. Inaba is…so different than home. Everyone is so different.”
“You sure have made a lot of friends,” Dojima said with a short laugh, shaking his head. He tried very hard to keep the conversation light and the worries about that ever-growing group of kids from showing on his face. He knew, by the sheepish look that momentarily crossed Yu’s before fading that he hadn’t quite forgotten his trip to the police station yet either, but it didn’t quite erase the relief. Being a kid was hard enough without having to be shuffled from place to place by your parents, so when Dojima said he was relieved that Yu had found a group of friends that seemed to like him as much as he liked them, he truly meant it. Even if it put them often in the middle of trouble.
That statement, usually brought a frown or at least the stiffness in Yu’s shoulders he was used to in a conversation like this, but today it was only a smile. “Yeah, I have. They’re great, all of them. I’m really lucky.”
They drank their coffee again in silence, Dojima trying to find the words to ask the question he had been searching for since deciding to have this conversation. Nanako had yet to come over to ask if they were fighting, which was an improvement on every other time they talked like this. Perhaps it was, despite the awkwardness, going well. “So… Any of them someone special then?”
“Are you asking me if I have a boyfriend?”
Boyfriend.
“Are you saying you..,” Dojima coughed once, twice before continuing, “…you have a boyfriend? No girlfriend?”
Yu shook his head and finished his coffee like they were having just another casual conversation and hadn’t just shifted it all to an entire new reality. “No girlfriend. Girls aren’t really my thing.”
“So,” he repeated, clearing his throat again, “Boyfriend.”
Yu nodded, getting up to put his mug in the sink to wash before sitting down again. “Yes. His name is Kanji. Kanji Tatsumi. You’ve met.”
And all at once, the easy conversation turned sour. Tatsumi, the blond thug that seemed only capable of causing trouble and would inevitably pull Yu right back where he didn’t need to be. He could feel the frown form on his face as anger began to take over the curiosity that had begun the conversation, which was only made worse by the equally tense look and form his nephew took while he waited for the temper to come.
“Now, you listen here…”
“Dojima-san, if you could let me have a moment to explain…”
Both were interrupted by a huff as Nanako walked over and stood between them at the end of the table, hands on her hips. “Are you two fighting again?”
Before Dojima could react, Yu was already shaking his head immediately to comfort her. “No, we’re not fighting. We’re just talking.”
“About Kanji-san?”
Great, Dojima thought to himself, wanting more than ever to have something stronger than his coffee. Of course Nanako knows.
Yu nodded. “That’s right.”
“Should I go get my bunny to show Dad,” she asked, bouncing up and down on her heels as she waited for the response. Once she got it, Nanako was gone, running up the stairs toward her room, leaving the room silent again.
“A bunny?”
“Kanji made it for her,” Yu said, waiving a hand before growing serious again. “Dojima-san, before you say anything, I hope you’ll let me speak. Anything you have to say after, I swear I’ll listen to and hear you.”
Taking a deep breath once Dojima nodded and stayed silent, Yu fidgeted in his chair.“We, meaning Kanji and I, know that he has a…less than positive reputation in the town and,” he said, nodding toward Dojima, “with the police. I won’t insult your intelligence by saying that he’s not at all like that, but I hope that you’ll trust me when I say it’s not all he is. I wouldn’t be with him if he wasn’t a good person and I wouldn’t bring him around Nanako if he wasn’t either. All I’m asking is that…you’ll trust me and who I trust to make me happy. Also, I hope that maybe, in the future, you’ll get to see the same person I see.” Yu paused for a moment, leaning back in his chair after he was finished speaking, the return of his usual stoicism and the tapping of his foot under the table showed his nerves as he waited for whatever Dojima had to say to him, whether it was a lecture or not.
Before he could say anything beyond telling Yu to retrieve his mug from the sink for another cup of coffee, Nanako bounded down the stairs, a pink stuffed bunny in her arms. Dojima had to admit upon closer inspection that the rabbit was very well made, carefully constructed with high quality fabric. It had obviously been made with more care than a teenager, especially one like Kanji Tatsumi, would normally have the patience for. He didn’t need anything other than a pair of eyes to see that.
“It’s a really nice rabbit, Nanako,” Dojima said, giving the stuffed animal back to his daughter. “You thanked him for it, didn’t you?”
“Uh huh,” she replied, taking her seat at the table beside Yu and drinking her coffee. It seemed having Nanako there made the tension in the room lessen just a little and Dojima wanted less and less as the seconds passed to lecture, instead he decided on questions. The lecturing could come later, depending on the answers.
“Have you talked to your parents about…all this yet?”
Yu sipped at his coffee again as he considered the answer, only replying as the mug hit the table again. “About my preference or the specifics,” he asked, keeping the words just vague enough for the young audience at the table with them, but not really waiting for an answer before sighing and shaking his head slightly. “Though…I guess it doesn’t matter, the answer is the same either way. No, not in so many words. It’s not like my parents are around enough to ask about my personal life anyway.”
It sounded so casual, far too casual to be anything other than a painful truth. When Dojima really thought about it for more than a moment, he had to admit to made sense. He knew that his sister and brother-in-law were always working, always traveling by the looks of the pictures she’d send with the occasional postcard or letter or a phone call during the holidays. The routine had even continued once Yu came to stay with them. In fact…
“When was the last time your Mom called?”
“A couple weeks ago, after you gave me the scooter,” he said, quickly adding when he saw the flash of concern with a bit of anger, though entirely on his behalf. “It’s fine, really. We talked for a long time that night and she’ll call again soon, I’m sure. That’s how they are when they travel for work. They call often enough, make sure I’m eating well, keeping my grades up. I’m here now though, I don’t need them to keep checking on me all the time. You’ve never not answered the phone when we really needed help. Right Nanako?”
Nanako nodded. “Right.”
Dojima nodded, but frowned all the same. Is this what his nephew’s life was like at home before now, hearing from his parents every few weeks but otherwise on his own? He knew that he was a less than stellar parent for Nanako, but at least he was trying harder now to be there for her, for both of them. The next time his sister called to check in, he would have plenty to say to her.
“Besides,” Yu continued, trying to change the subject away from his less than warm home life. “Even when they are home, we don’t talk much about my…romantic life. Sure, we talk about my friends and what I do after school, but never about anyone special. They’ve never really asked and if they know, they haven’t said anything about it either.”
“And yet,” Dojima replied, finally seeing the heart of it all, or so he hoped, “…you told me.”
Yu shrugged before taking another drink of coffee. “You asked. Not because you thought I was doing something wrong or you were trying to protect me, but because you cared enough to. So, yeah…I trust you to know.”
They sat in a far more comfortable silence for a few moments as they finished their coffee, only broken when Nanako yawned and laid her head against Yu’s arm. After coaxing her to bed with promises that they weren’t going to fight and tucking her in with her stuffed bunny, Dojima walked back into the kitchen and sat down at the table again.
“I only have one thing to say and we can leave this be for tonight,” Dojima finally said once their coffee was done and their mugs put in the sink once again. “Well, a rule that I’m going to trust you to follow. When you and your friends are here, I want you to stay downstairs when I’m not home. If you need to go upstairs for any reason, the door stays open. Think you can do that?”
Yu nodded without a moment of hesitation, almost as if he was expecting far worse than the simple request. “I can do that. We normally stay downstairs anyway, to include Nanako, so that won’t be a problem.”
“Then that’s all I ask. You’re a good kid, Yu, despite yours and your friends sometimes questionable choices. I trust you to be responsible.” Dojima paused, suddenly coming to a realization that he both needed to address and very much did not want to. “Do you and I need to talk about anything? About being safe and responsible?”
The question, surprisingly, made Yu chuckle quietly as he shook his head. “No,” he said, unable to keep his amusement in check. “That’s probably the only real talk my Dad and I had before I came here to Inaba. I guess he thought if I was going to be here for a year that I’d need to know, in case I met someone. Little did he know who I’d choose, right?”
Deciding that he would take the conversation as it was before he made it any worse, Dojima sent Yu off to bed too with a quiet goodnight. As he sat in the quiet kitchen, thinking on everything he had learned, he still couldn’t bring himself to regret taking Yu in. Now, he had yet another second chance to be what his nephew needed, someone to look out for him. The first step was over, step two would start tomorrow.