Ft. 35-year-old Nanami Kento, baby!Yuji+Megumi, and adopted dad!Gojo Satoru. Gojo's married to the reader, who's not home in this. WC: 773.
Nanami knew Gojo had sent him the wrong address when a child answered the door wearing a cardboard sash that said HELPER TEAM in glitter glue.
The child had pink hair, round cheeks, and a whistle around his neck.
He stared at Nanami’s face.
Then he turned around and screamed, “Gumi! There is an Ojiichan at the door!”
Nanami stood in Gojo Satoru’s entryway with a bottle of wine in one hand, his suitcase in the other, and the kind of facial lines that came from five years abroad, fourteen-hour flights, and quarterly budget meetings with men who used the phrase "we are a family here" without shame.
A second child appeared behind the first, black hair pointing in several directions, a dragon clipboard hugged to his chest. He looked Nanami up and down with the cold suspicion of a miniature building inspector.
“Thirty-five is big. I'm Megumi, and this is Yuji. We help,” the sea urchin said.
“It is adult, not grandpa.”
Yuji stepped carefully down into the entryway and held out both hands. “Can you sit down by yourself?”
Yuji nodded, relieved. “Good.”
Megumi made a mark on his clipboard.
Nanami narrowed his eyes. “What are you writing?”
Megumi made another mark.
From somewhere downstairs, Gojo yelled, “Nanamiiiin, shoes off! I’m frying chicken!”
Yuji gasped. “You know Papa?”
“Papa said his old friend is coming.”
Megumi leaned closer to inspect Nanami’s forehead. “Why your face has lines?”
Nanami’s grip tightened around the wine. “Work.”
Yuji’s mouth fell open. “Work did that?”
Both children looked at each other, horrified.
Megumi whispered, “I don’t want work.”
Yuji grabbed Nanami’s sleeve with sticky fingers. “Do you need water? Papa says old people dry up.”
“I am going to drink wine.”
Megumi looked at the bottle. “That is grown-up grape medicine.”
Nanami took one controlled breath. “Something like that.”
He bent to take off his shoes.
Yuji’s hand flew to his whistle.
Yuji blew it directly into his own panic.
The sound ripped through the entryway.
Megumi shouted toward the stairs, “Dada! His leg made a SNACK sound!”
“My leg did not make a snack sound.”
Yuji was already patting Nanami’s knee through his trousers. “Pain go away. Go to sky. Bye-bye.”
Nanami looked down at him. “Thank you.”
Nanami, a grown man with an economics degree and mild caffeine poisoning, said, “It went.”
Yuji beamed. “I fixed grandpa.”
Megumi added a sticker to Nanami’s coat.
It was a cartoon raccoon giving a thumbs-up.
“Brave patient,” Megumi said.
Yuji tugged his hand. “I help you cross street later.”
“I crossed many streets alone to get here.”
Yuji’s eyes went wide. “Alone-alone? You don’t have grandkids?”
Megumi snapped his crayon in half.
Nanami looked toward the stairs. “Satoru.”
No answer came, just the sound of oil popping, a cupboard slamming, and Gojo singing in the wrong key like he had personally invented single fatherhood.
Yuji held Nanami’s hand with both of his. “When green light comes, you look right-left-right.”
Megumi frowned. “Then why your face old?”
Yuji gasped again, wounded on Nanami’s behalf. “Mean email?”
Megumi looked down at his clipboard and wrote very slowly.
Gojo finally appeared at the stairs wearing an apron that said WORLD’S BEST DAD, holding tongs, hair clipped back with two pink barrettes.
He took in Nanami’s coat sticker, Yuji holding his hand like a crossing guard, Megumi’s medical report, the whistle, the wine, and Nanami’s dead, corporate uncle stare.
Then Gojo slid down three stairs, laughing so hard he had to grab the railing.
Nanami pointed at the children. “Explain.”
Gojo wiped his eyes. “They had safety-helper day at preschool. I called them scouts because they looked heroic.”
“You adopted children and forgot to mention it.”
“I didn’t forget, surprise.”
Yuji looked up at Nanami. “Grandpa angry?”
Nanami’s jaw flexed. “I am younger than your father.”
Both children turned to Gojo.
Megumi wrote one final line on his clipboard.
Grandpa has lying sickness too.
Nanami set the wine down very carefully. “I came for drinks.”
Gojo grinned. “Come let’s eat.”
Yuji squeezed Nanami’s hand. “After chicken, I show you stairs.”
Megumi added, “Hold railing.”
Gojo, the worst man alive, blew him a kiss. “Welcome home, Nanamin.”
Dividers by @uzmacchiato.
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