Part one
Kunigami shook out one of Keiko’s school uniform skirts and tossed it in the washer. Keiko had mostly slept through the night and was now in the kitchen with Chigiri, baking something. Kunigami and Chigiri had been texting most of the night and agreed it was probably best to keep Keiko busy until she felt like talking about her date again; there wasn’t much else they could do until she decided what she wanted, and they didn’t want her to spiral about it too much.
He was setting the wash cycle when his phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Kunigami?” Isagi Yoichi’s voice came through the speaker. He sounded exhausted.
“Wondered how long it would be before I heard from you, Isagi.”
Isagi sighed. “So it was your Keiko Haru was out with.”
“Yes it was.”
“Shit.”
“That all you have to say? Shit?”
Another sigh. “I’m not even sure what happened, Kunigami, all I know is Haru called me from an emergency clinic when he was supposed to be at a movie with a girl named Keiko. He won’t tell me anything else. Your Keiko is the only one I know, so I started with you. I’m just trying to find out what happened.”
Kunigami leaned against the washer, looked up at the ceiling. “Let me tell you what my night looked like, Isagi. My daughter was excited about a date with your son. Your son didn’t even bother to ring the doorbell when he picked her up. A couple hours later, I get a call from my daughter, who is scared and crying, asking me to come get her. Chigiri and I get to the theater, and she’s crying and shaking and bleeding. Won’t talk to us at all. We finally get her home and calmed down and she tells us that not only did your son tell her the date was basically a joke but that he kissed and touched her when she explicitly said she didn’t want him to, so she punched him. Now I’m waiting for Keiko to be up for talking about it so we can decide if she wants to do anything else.”
Isagi was silent for a long moment. Kunigami did his best to breathe, slow his heart rate. I will not threaten Isagi or his punk son. I will not threaten Isagi or his punk son –
“Do you think she’s going to report it?”
Kunigami blinked. “What? That’s your concern?”
“I just want him to be prepared for what’s going to happen to him.”
“Happen to him?”
“What happened to Keiko is awful, and I’m very sorry about it. But I just can’t imagine Haru doing something like that maliciously.”
“Is there a non-malicious way to assault someone?”
“I’m just saying maybe there was some miscommunication. He’s a very popular boy, captain of the football team, top of the class –”
“His resume has nothing to do with whether he groped my daughter in a movie theater.”
“You said yourself Keiko was excited about the date. Lots of girls want to date Haru. Maybe she was uncomfortable, and that’s terrible, but it’s not unreasonable for him to think that –”
“Isagi. I’m not sure you want to finish that sentence.”
Isagi sighed again. “I’m sorry, Kunigami, I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m just…it just doesn’t sound like something Haru would do.”
It took every ounce of Kunigami’s willpower to keep his voice level. “But it does sound like something a boy raised by the world’s chief egoist would do.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Out of everyone I met at Blue Lock, you were the one who absorbed Ego’s bullshit most completely. Anything you had to do, anyone you had to step on, morality be damned, if it fed your ego and pushed you forward, you did it. Why wouldn’t you raise your son the same way?”
The line was silent for nearly a minute before Kunigami realized Isagi had hung up.
—---------------------------------------------------------------
The rest of the weekend passed quietly. Keiko seemed to feel a bit better and insisted she just wanted to move on, that she would just avoid Haru at school and let that be the end of it. Chigiri and Kunigami did their best to make peace with that. As much as they wanted to destroy the little bastard, Keiko’s argument that it would just make school worse for her was hard to refute.
Keiko was studying in her room Sunday evening when Chigiri looked at Kunigami over his book, brow furrowed.
“You don’t think Isagi would do anything to try and get ahead of this, do you? Like to try to make Keiko look bad?”
Kunigami chewed his lip. “I guess he could. But I doubt it. It’d involve putting ‘Haru’ and ‘assault’ in the same sentence, and I don’t think he’d risk that.”
Chigiri didn’t respond, but he fidgeted with his bookmark in a way that told Kunigami he was still nervous.
“Hyoma, Isagi was a dick on the phone but that doesn’t mean he’s actively out to betray us. You know that, right?”
“I know. I just keep thinking about how excited he was to take everyone down at Blue Lock.”
“We’ve all grown up since then.”
“He has no loyalty. He’s opportunistic and he’ll do anything and hurt anyone to get what he wants.” Chigiri’s breath was ragged; Kunigami could see the panic attack coming and tried to speak as calmly as he could.
“We knew him best when we were all in a situation that rewarded that. The real world doesn’t, and again, he’s 25 years older than he was in Blue Lock.”
Chigiri’s breathing was still fast, but he let Kunigami pull him into a hug.
“It’s been a hard few days, but that doesn’t mean things are going to get worse. Keiko is safe, we’re safe, we’re taking care of her as best we can.”
Chigiri buried his face in Kunigami’s chest, crying quietly. Kunigami held him, tried to breathe in a steady rhythm. Eventually Chigiri’s tears stopped and he fell asleep, still in his husband’s arms.
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Keiko entered her classroom Monday morning to find that most of her classmates wouldn’t look at her.
She made her way to her desk, stomach sinking as one by one her classmates turned away and whispered to each other.
Isagi said, she heard. Can you imagine? I know!
Keiko got to her desk and did her best to act as if everything was normal. Until Isagi Haru crossed the room to stand next to one of his buddies in the desk next to hers.
“Dude, what happened to your face?”
“Had a date, got a little carried away.”
“She must be some kind of a freak, shit.”
“Yeah, but that’s okay with me,” Haru turned to Keiko. “What’cha say, Keiko? Do it again next weekend?”
Keiko opened her mouth but couldn’t get any words to come out. Her ears were ringing and her face was hot; she felt every eye in the room staring at her.
“Shut the fuck up, dirtbag.”
The voice came from the back of the room. Keiko turned to see Barou Kyoji on their feet, leaning over their desk with a look of pure disgust on their face.
“You have a problem, Barou?”
“I sure as fuck do, Isagi. You’ve been running your mouth all morning, saying disgusting shit about someone who wasn’t even here to defend herself. I don’t care what happened, you shouldn’t be talking about it to everyone you can find.”
“Shut up, what’s a virgin like you even know about this?”
“I know you’re a garbage footballer that can’t even score a goal on his own, let alone a girl.”
“You fucking –”
“That’s enough!”
The teacher came through the classroom door and slammed her bag on her desk. “Everyone in their seat! If I hear one more swear word you’re all getting detention for a week.”
—-----------------------------------------
Keiko practically ran from the room at the lunch break and found a quiet corner of the schoolyard to unpack her lunch. Her dad had given her the last of the leftovers, even though it was both their favorite and they usually bickered over who would get them.
She burst into tears.
She was just pulling herself together when a box of tissues appeared over her shoulder.
“You okay?” asked Barou Kyoji. They towered over Keiko as she sat on the ground; as if sensing her unease they crouched closer to her level. Keiko took the tissues and wiped her face.
“Thanks.”
“He’s an asshole, like, constantly. Isagi, I mean.”
“So I’ve learned.”
“Whatever actually happened with his face, he probably deserved worse.”
Keiko huffed. “Yeah, he did.”
“Uh, well. I’ll leave you alone then. Hope you’re okay.”
“You can stay if you want,” Keiko said. She surprised herself with the offer, seemed to surprise Kyoji even more, but after a beat –
“Okay.”
—-------------------------------------------
Haru was hanging around the front of the school when Keiko left. He started toward her, but before he could reach her, Kyoji appeared next to her.
“Mind if I walk with you?”
Keiko raised her eyebrows. “Aren’t you supposed to be at football practice?”
“In an hour or so, I’ve got time.”
She smiled. “Thanks, Barou.”
—---------------------------------------
Kunigami and Chigiri pulled into the driveway to find their daughter on the porch with a kid that looked a lot like a scaled-down Barou Shoei.
“Do you want to come in?” they heard Keiko ask.
“Nah, not if your parents aren’t home. And I should get to practice.”
“Thanks for walking with me, I really appreciate it.”
“It’s no big deal, I hope you don’t feel like I don’t think you can take care of yourself or something, I just thought you didn’t really need to deal with –”
“Who’s your friend, Keiko?” Chigiri called out from the footpath. Kyoji straightened up and walked out to meet the older men.
“I’m sorry, sir. I’m Barou Kyoji. Your daughter is my classmate.”
“You’re Shoei’s kid, right?” Kunigami asked.
“Yes, sir. I think we might’ve met when I was younger.”
“Isagi was hanging around after school, Barou was helping me get away,” Keiko added from the porch.
“Please, it was nothing. But I do need to get to football practice. It was nice to meet you both again,” Kyoji said, and turned back to the porch. “I’ll see you at school tomorrow, Chigiri Keiko.”
“I told you it was still normal to introduce yourself to people’s parents,” Kunigami whispered at Chigiri as they watched Kyoji leave.
“You’re insufferable,” Chigiri whispered back.
Keiko attempted to sneak into the house but Chigiri caught up with her. He threw his arm around her shoulder as he steered her toward the kitchen. “So, what was that about?”
“Daddy.”
“What, a cute kid plays the hero, walks you home even though they have practice, introduces themselves to your dads –”
“Barou Kyoji is a nice person, that’s all.”
“Mhm. If you say so.”
Behind them, Kunigami smiled and stepped through the front door. He let Chigiri tease Keiko in the kitchen, but pulled out his phone to fire off a text to his husband.
“Do you think it’d be too much to invite the Barous over for dinner?”
Bzzt. “Yes. Let’s do it anyway.”
