“Hey Barou, how’s your girlfriend?”
Kyoji sighed but didn’t turn away from their locker. Haru clapped a hand on their shoulder.
“Your team captain asked you a question, Barou.”
“I don’t have a girlfriend, Isagi.”
“That’s funny, I’ve seen you taking my leftovers home every day for a few weeks now.”
Kyoji tsked, still not looking at Haru. “Have you always been this disgusting?”
“Big talk from the one who can’t even seal the deal with the easiest girl in school.”
“If she shot you down and you’re still so obsessed with her, doesn’t that make you the pathetic one? ”
Haru shoulder checked Kyoji as he turned to his own locker. “Watch your mouth, Barou.”
Kyoji decided to consider this a win.
—--------------------------------------
No matter how carefully Kyoji avoided the subject, Haru had been correct. Walking Keiko home had become a habit. It really wasn’t intentional – Kyoji just wanted to help her avoid Haru for those first few days. But Keiko turned out to be much more interesting than Kyoji suspected. It turned out they were both bookworms, and although she didn’t play football she was as obsessed with it as he was. They were surprised to learn that she loved art and theater, that she helped with costume design for school plays and community productions. Keiko frankly made them feel boring, but she never treated him like he was. She seemed interested in what Kyoji was reading, how their football season was going. Their conversations after school quickly became the best part of his day.
“So Barou,” Keiko said one afternoon as they stood in front of her house. “My dads got some really great comp tickets for the U-20 match against Turkey, but they’re both going to a Blue Lock reunion thing. They said I could use the tickets – do you wanna come with me?”
Kyoji’s brain short circuited, his mouth forming an answer almost automatically. “I would love that.”
Keiko smiled, and Kyoji felt lightheaded. “Great! I’ll text you the details tonight – here, put your contact in my phone.”
She handed them her phone and pretended not to notice when they almost dropped it.
—--------------------------
Match day was bright and calm; the mood in the Kunigami-Chigiri household was not.
“Keiko! We’re leaving in ten minutes, you good?” Kunigami called from the foot of the stairs. He got a frustrated groan in response. He sighed and trudged up to his daughter’s room.
“What’s the issue now?” Kunigami asked. He leaned against the doorframe and dug his fingernails into his palm to distract himself from the piles of clothes strewn around the room.
“I have nothing to weaaaaar,” Keiko moaned. She sat on the foot of her bed and stared at the clothes on the floor.
“What’s wrong with what you’re wearing now? It’s a football match, it doesn’t matter.”
“Dad! Barou’s never seen me in anything but my school uniform! I don’t want them to think I’m a total slob when I’m left to my own devices!”
“Daddy!” Keiko yelled, which brought Chigiri running from the living room.
“What?! What happened?” the other man asked when he arrived. “Oh. Your closet exploded.”
Kunigami laughed, which only made Keiko sulk. “I don’t have any decent clothes and Barou’s going to think I’m a slob and Dad is no help at all.”
“What’s wrong with what you’re wearing now?” Chigiri asked. Kunigami let his forehead fall against the doorframe as Keiko once again groaned in frustration.
“Okay, okay, c’mon, you just need some perking up, that’s all,” Chigiri said in his most soothing voice. “The flannel and jeans you have on are perfect. Let’s just do something different with your hair…”
Twenty minutes later, they dropped a placated Keiko off at the train station and watched her immediately find Kyoji waiting for her.
“So how did you become the Teen Girl Whisperer?” Kunigami asked as they drove away. “I’ve lived with her for exactly the same amount of time and I definitely do not have that power.”
Chigiri laughed. “She reminds me of my sister. I drove her crazy, so I learned how to calm her down before she could tell Mom.”
“I also have sisters,” Kunigami pointed out.
“True, but they had each other. And I can’t imagine you being an asshole little brother, Hero.”
Kunigami blushed and let his husband have the win.
—-----------------------------
Kyoji waved when they saw Keiko get out of her dads’ car. She did her best to look casual as she walked over to him.
“Hey, thanks for coming,” she said. He wore one of his dad’s old jerseys; she wondered idly how willingly the older Barou had relinquished it.
“Wouldn’t have missed it.” They jammed their hands in their pockets as if they didn’t know what to do with them. “I would’ve offered to drive you but Dad is taking my sisters with him and they’re…a lot.”
“How many siblings do you have?”
“Just the two sisters. They’re twins, and they’re ten, and they think they know everything.”
“Doesn’t sound familiar at all.”
“Shut up.” Kyoji laughed and bumped her shoulder, tried to ignore the electric feeling that shot through his arm and settled into his chest. I’m too young to be having a heart attack, right?, they thought.
Keiko smiled at them and nudged their shoulder, too. “Hm, don’t think I will.”
Fuck, he thought. She’s gonna kill me.
—---------------------------
By the time they reached the stadium, Keiko and Kyoji were holding hands. Keiko wasn’t sure how it started, really. One moment they’d been talking about Turkey’s midfielders, her hand resting on the space between their seats. The next, Kyoji’s fingers were laced with hers, their thumb running back and forth over the back of her hand.
She had no idea what happened in the game; she only knew that Kyoji was next to her, that he talked to her and smiled at her and kept holding her hand.
I’ll have to watch a highlight reel before Dad and Daddy get home, she thought. If they try to talk to me about it I’ll look crazy.
It was already late when the game ended, but the Blue Lock reunion was far from over.
“Did you want to make an appearance?” Kyoji asked after showing Keiko a text from the elder Barou: ‘probably home at 12ish, try not to burn the house down.’
“Wanna head toward home and figure it out from there?”
They were barely off the train when it began to rain heavily. Kyoji frowned, then turned to Keiko.
“Let’s go to my house for a bit, it’s closer than yours. Just ‘til it stops raining?”
—--------------------------
They were soaked by the time they arrived at Kyoji’s house. They lent Keiko a dry sweatshirt and shorts, which were so oversized on her that she practically disappeared in their bulk. She laughed; he blushed and busied himself by searching in his dresser for socks.
When they turned around, Keiko was sitting on his bed.
Get it together Kyoji, he thought, feeling as if his brain had been through a factory reset. Be cool, act like you have beautiful people sitting on your bed all the time…
“Cute pig plushie,” Keiko said, nodding to a mortifyingly worn stuffed animal on a chair in the corner of the room. Kyoji flushed.
Cockblocked by Mr. Truffles, oh my god.
“Gift from the twins,” they lied. Please don’t let her notice how old Mr. Truffles is, for the love of god, please. “Want to watch a movie while your clothes dry?”
They grabbed their laptop and sat next to, but still out of arm’s reach of, Keiko. She bantered with him about what to watch before relenting to something innocuous. Before the opening credits were over, she scooched closer to them.
“So I can see the screen better,” she said by way of explanation. Kyoji raised their eyebrows, picked up their arm. An offer. She grinned and cuddled into his side, happily resting her head on his chest as he embraced her.
Warm, dry, and comfortable, they fell asleep within a half hour.
—---------------------------
Just past midnight, Chigiri and Kunigami opened their front door and stepped into a dark hallway.
“That’s weird,” Kunigami noted. “Keiko usually leaves that light on when she’s home alone.”
“She probably just got distracted.”
Kunigami nodded, but an uneasy feeling had already taken root in his stomach. He kicked off his shoes and made his way to the living room, which was also dark; so was the kitchen when Chigiri went to make himself tea. The house was silent.
“You think she went straight to bed?” he asked Chigiri, who was rooting around in a cabinet.
“Could’ve, it was a pretty late game.”
“I’m gonna go check on her.”
Kunigami fought the wave of frustration at his husband’s nonchalance. He’s right, there’s no reason to think something is wrong. Just because her last date was awful doesn’t mean this one was…
He arrived at the top of the stairs and found Keiko’s bedroom door still open. He forced himself to take a deep breath.
Just because she normally shuts the door when she goes to bed doesn’t mean she can’t fall asleep accidentally, he scolded himself. Maybe she meant to wait up for us and just conked out –
He told himself he was only closing the door for her. He wasn’t checking up on her, he was just closing the door…
He stuck his head into the room and found an empty bed.
Barou Shouei had just dumped two sleeping ten-year-olds into their beds when his phone rang.
The fuck is Chigiri calling me for? He thought. He hadn’t seen Kyoji yet, surely they weren’t still out with Keiko…?
“Barou,” Chigiri said. He sounded like he’d been holding his breath. “Barou, Keiko never came home.”
Barou’s stomach skipped dropping and simply disappeared. Fuck, fuck fuck –
“Are you sure?” he asked dumbly, as if Chigiri was looking for a lost glove. Fuck –
“She’s not in her bed, everything is exactly how we left it this afternoon, her bag isn’t here –” Chigiri’s voice broke in a way Barou instantly recognized.
“Okay, I’m sure she’s fine, we’ll find her –”
“Can you ask Kyoji where they last saw her? I don’t even know where to start looking.”
“Yeah, yeah of course. I’ll call you back.”
He half-ran to Kyoji’s room, screwed his eyes shut as he knocked. C’mon, Kyoji, be in there, please…
His panic overwhelmed his sense of propriety. I can live with maybe seeing him jacking off as long as he’s not fucking missing, he thought. He threw open the door and charged inside.
There, on the bed, was Kyoji, asleep and cuddled up with Keiko. Who was wearing Kyoji’s clothes.
The noise must’ve woken Kyoji, because they startled and sat bolt upright.
“Your friend’s dad is looking for her,” Barou said, voice low and calm in a way that sent a shiver of fear down Kyoji’s spine. Keiko sat up and looked at her phone, the color draining from her face when she saw the time and six missed calls from each of her dads.
Barou stepped back into the hall and called Chigiri, who answered on the first ring. “Found your kid,” Barou said.
—-------------------------
Keiko was already on the porch when Chigiri and Kunigami pulled up to Barou’s house. Barou and Kyoji were next to her, Barou looking tired and irritated, Kyoji pale and seemingly unable to decide how close they could be to Keiko.
She shuffled down the path toward the car, not looking at the front windows. Chigiri rolled his window down and waved to the people on the porch. “Thanks, Barou.”
Keiko turned and weakly waved to Kyoji. When she finally turned back to the car and caught Chigiri’s eye, he turned back to the road. “Get in the car, Keiko.”
—------------------------------------
“So what happened to your clothes?” Kunigami asked after they pulled away. “‘Cause that’s definitely not what you were wearing when you left.”
“We got caught in the rain and Kyoji’s house was closest. They let me borrow some dry clothes. We just fell asleep.”
“Really? Because it didn’t sound like their dad saw you two when he got home.”
“We were in Kyoji’s room.”
“If you were just waiting for your clothes to dry, why did you need to be in their bedroom?”
“We took turns changing in their bathroom, we were just already there.”
Kunigami hummed but didn’t argue. Chigiri remained silent, staring at the road ahead.
“Daddy?” Keiko asked, her voice trembling.
“We’ll talk later, Keiko,” Chigiri said, his voice low. After a beat, Kunigami glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Keiko wipe her eyes with the sleeve of Kyoji’s sweatshirt.
—--------------------------
“You look exhausted, Princess,” Kunigami said the next morning as he sat a cup of coffee in front of his husband and kissed his temple.
“Didn’t sleep much.” Kunigami hummed, didn’t respond. “Every time I started to drift off I just heard you calling for me and telling me Keiko wasn’t in her room.”
“You should’ve woken me up.”
“Why? So we’d both be tired?”
“So I could help you feel better.”
“I don’t understand how you’re over it so quickly. You were panicked last night and then we got home and you just fell asleep.”
Kunigami blinked at him. “Yeah, I was panicked when our daughter was missing. And I was upset that she caused all that because she didn’t have her phone where it would wake her up. But we found her, she was safe the whole time, and it was just a dumb mistake that she probably won’t make again. We’re good.”
“You just want to let it go?!”
“I mean, I think we should talk to her about it. But I don’t think we need to make it into a bigger deal than it is.”
“Barou found her in his kid’s bed, wearing his kid’s clothes, when she was supposed to be home.”
Kunigami sighed and massaged his brow. “Hyoma, she’s a teenager. She’s going to fuck up sometimes. And she’s going to have relationships, and she’s probably going to do stuff with those partners we don’t wanna know about. That all just comes with the territory.”
“We need to at least know where she is! What if she really was missing and we just assumed she was with Kyoji?”
“I agree, and that’s why we’re gonna talk to her and set some rules about answering her phone.”
Chigiri pushed his coffee away and pulled his knees to his chest. Kunigami realized with a pang that Chigiri was crying.
Kunigami rubbed his husband’s back, felt Chigiri’s sobs as they shook his whole body. Over the smaller man’s head, Keiko appeared in the doorway before disappearing back into the hall.
—----------------------------------
Keiko was sprawled on her bed when Chigiri knocked, only nodded when he asked if he could come in. She sat up when he settled on the edge of the mattress but didn’t look at him.
“Can we talk about last night?”
She sighed. “I’m sorry, Daddy. I messed up. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Chigiri winced at her monotone. How did she manage to make ‘Daddy’ sound like an accusation?
“I know you didn’t, Lovebug. I trust you more than that.”
“Then why does everything I do freak you out so much?”
Ouch. Chigiri shifted to be more in Keiko’s line of sight.
“Keiko, the Haru issue and you not being home last night scared me because I love you. If anything happened to you I…I can’t even think about it. You and your Dad are the most important thing in my life.”
Keiko pulled her knees to her chest and propped her chin up so she could look at him.
“But I probably overreacted.” Chigiri sighed and fought to hold Keiko’s gaze. “You know how your Dad and I went through the Blue Lock program?”
“I was your age when that happened. It was…a lot. I’d just gotten over tearing my ACL, I went from living with your grandma and aunt to being locked away with hundreds of other boys who were trying to wreck me, I met your Dad and fell in love with him then had him taken away, and then he came back and was…not the same. For a long time.”
“Yeah, it was. But I thought I was dealing with it. And then you started having more grown-up problems than you used to. And I started feeling like you were going to have the same experiences I did, except this time it was happening to the most important person in my life.”
Keiko didn’t respond but scooched over to lean against her dad. Chigiri felt like he could breathe for the first time in hours.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been as helpful as I should’ve been, Lovebug.”
“I’m sorry I’ve been scaring you.”
Chigiri pulled her into a hug and kissed the crown of her head. When she pulled away, she fixed him with a mischievous look.
“So can I know why you hate Isagi Yoichi so much?”
Chigiri sighed dramatically and flopped back onto the bed, earning a laugh from his daughter.
“First of all, he’s the one who got between me and your Dad at Blue Lock, even though he knew how much we meant to each other, because he was more focused on what would make him look the best than, y’know, the human beings around him. And then he spent the whole time I was on his team reminding me that if I wanted your Dad back, I would have to be better at football. And then was an absolute dick about it when your Dad got eliminated.”
“And he’s just never been willing to admit he did anything wrong.”
“Isagi Haru is a lot like that.”
Chigiri stood up and pulled Keiko into another hug. “Are we okay?”
She snuggled into his embrace. “Yeah, we’re okay.”
He let her go and went toward the door. “But if you pull something like last night again, you’re grounded until you’re 30.”
