Part 2 here
CW: Assault, described after the fact.
“Dad,” Keiko said, her tone cautious. “I was thinking about going out on Friday, would that be okay?”
Kunigami looked up from his laptop, peered at his daughter over his glasses. “I guess? Where’re you going? And with who?”
“A guy from my class asked if I wanted to see a movie.”
“Is this a date?”
“...Maybe.”
“Keiko, you’re 16, you don’t need to be shy about going on dates.” Kunigami closed his laptop and pretended to clean his glasses so he didn’t have to look her in the eye. “Who’s the guy?”
Keiko muttered something. Kunigami sighed.
“One more time, and audible, please.”
“Isagi Haru.”
“As in Isagi Yoichi’s son?”
“...yes.”
“Did you ask Daddy?”
“Dad, c’mon, he’s even weirder about Isagi Yoichi than you are.”
“He can’t be trusted!!”
“You were in high school! It was literally decades ago!”
Kunigami pinched the bridge of his nose. “What about Baro Shoei’s kid? Isn’t he also in your class?”
“Dad, he makes everyone use hand sanitizer before he’ll accept any papers the teacher passes out.”
“Your popcorn would be sanitary!”
“Dad.”
Kunigami sighed. “You really like this Isagi kid?”
Keiko sat next to him on the couch. “He’s really sweet, Dad. I’ve been trying to get him to ask me out all year and he finally noticed. Please?”
Kunigami looked at his daughter, the one person in the whole world he would do literally anything for. She used to call him Papa, when she was little. When did she stop calling him Papa?
Maybe he could blame it on the Isagi kid if this lasted for very long.
“Okay. But you have to tell Daddy.”
She beamed at him, practically bounced off the couch. “Thank you!!”
She ran off to her room, leaving Kunigami to stew in how not-little his little girl had become.
—---------------------------------------------------
Friday evening found Kunigami and Chigiri making dinner for themselves as Keiko ran around the house to get ready for her date. Kunigami could see his husband’s ears perk up every time their daughter went between rooms, his jaw set.
“You know Isagi’s son isn’t necessarily like Isagi, right?” Kunigami asked, bumping Chigiri with his hip. “There’s no reason to be so upset.”
“I’m not upset! I just…we haven’t met the kid, makes me nervous.”
“We have met him. Many times, at games and team events. He’s in Keiko’s class, he’s not a stranger.”
“We haven’t met him as a romantic interest for our daughter. Asking him about his third-grade teacher is pretty different from trusting him to be decent alone with Keiko.”
“Hyoma, they’re going to a movie, they aren’t going to be alone.”
“They SAID they’re going to a movie…”
“What, you don’t trust Keiko now?”
“I do! But he’s a teenage boy, and she likes him, so who knows.”
“I think we must’ve had very different high school experiences.”
“I didn’t do anything weird! I just spent a lot of time in locker rooms with guys who did!”
Kunigami shook his head as if to dispel the memories of gross teenage boy conversations he’d overheard in his youth.
“Hey, when did Keiko stop calling me Papa?”
“What?”
“She calls me Dad now. When did she start doing that?”
“I dunno, it’s been a while I guess. She’s older, it sounds more grown up I guess.”
“She still calls you Daddy!”
Before Chigiri could answer, Keiko practically bounced into the kitchen, ready for her date.
“Look at you!” Chigiri cooed at her. “You look beautiful, Lovebug.”
“Thanks Daddy.” She kissed Chigiri on the cheek. “He’s here, I’ll be home around midnight!”
“I didn’t hear the doorbell,” Kunigami said, eyebrow raised.
“He texted me. Like five minutes ago, I really need to leave. Love you!”
Kunigami watched her leave, only a little hurt he didn’t get a kiss, too.
“Who’s upset now?” Chigiri teased, turning back to the stove.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“That vein on your forehead does.”
“What kind of degenerate doesn’t come to the door to pick up their date?!”
“I dunno, Ren. They must’ve stopped training boys in chivalry sometime in the last twenty years.”
“I mean it, Hyoma, what, is he avoiding us?”
“Probably. He’s met us, remember?”
“We’re not scary!”
“I’m not. You, my dear, are a giant and he’s taking your daughter on a date.”
“Shut up.”
“Make me.”
“Later.”
Chigiri giggled and kissed him.
—------------------------------
Just after 10:30, Kunigami dozed on the couch with Chigiri’s head in his lap. He lazily carded his fingers through Chigiri’s long pink hair, enjoying the quiet.
Until his phone rang. Almost on instinct, he answered without looking at the caller i.d.
“Hello?”
“Papa?” Keiko’s voice came through the speaker, scared and shaking. He sat up, suddenly fully awake.
“Keiko? What’s wrong?”
Chigiri was now upright too, very still despite the clear panic in his eyes as he waited for information.
“Papa, can you come get me? Please?”
“Of course, are you still at the movie theater?”
“Yeah.”
“Be there in five minutes. Stay where people can see you, okay?”
“Okay.”
Kunigami was off the couch and halfway to the front door before he heard Chigiri running behind him.
“Ren! What’s going on? Is she okay?”
“I dunno, she was crying and she wants me to come get her.”
“I’m coming with you.”
They were out the door and down the road before they realized they were still in their slippers.
—---------------------------------------------------------
Keiko was standing under a streetlight in front of the movie theater, arms wrapped tightly around herself. When she saw the car she practically threw herself into the back seat.
“I’m cold,” she sniffed, curling up around herself as Kunigami steered the car back onto the road. Chigiri turned up the heat.
“What happened, Lovebug?” Chigiri asked when the girl stopped shivering. Keiko just shook her head. “I’m gonna need at least an idea, sweetheart. Are we taking you home, do you need a doctor…?”
“I wanna go home.” Keiko moved to wipe her face with the heel of her hand, revealing bloody knuckles.
“Your hand is bleeding! Are you hurt anywhere else?”
Kunigami nearly swerved onto the sidewalk. “What did he do to you?” he asked calmly, his voice several tones lower than usual.
Keiko burst into tears again. “I’m sorry, Papa.”
Kunigami and Chigiri shared a pained glance before Chigiri turned back to their daughter. “Shh, Lovebug. Whatever it is, it’s going to be alright. Let’s just get you home, okay?”
Keiko nodded, still crying and curled in on herself. Kunigami forced himself to watch the road, a horrible mixture of heartbreak and cold fury in his chest.
—------------------------------------------------------------------
Keiko let Kunigami carry her into the house, kept her face buried in his chest. He felt like crying, looking at her with her makeup smudged and her injured hand.
I’m going to murder that Isagi kid, he thought as he sat Keiko on the edge of the bathtub. Chigiri came in with the first aid kit and handed it to Kunigami before settling next to Keiko on the tub. She put her head on his shoulder and watched Kunigami settle himself on the floor in front of her and gently take her bloodied hand.
“Well, you didn’t break anything,” he said after a moment of carefully bending and flexing her fingers. “Doesn’t seem like your cuts are very deep, either.”
“Good deal,” Chigiri said. He ran a hand over Keiko’s hair, kissed her temple.
“I’m gonna clean the cuts now, okay? It’ll probably sting a little.”
Keiko nodded and turned to hide her face in the crook of Chigiri’s neck. She whimpered when Kunigami swiped an alcohol pad over her knuckles, again when he dabbed them with antibiotic cream. Chigiri held her tight, the look in his eyes echoing Kunigami’s fear back to him.
“Okay, all set.” Kunigami sat back and packed up the kit. Chigiri got her to stand up and go to her room to change into pajamas and wipe off her makeup. When she was dressed, she joined them in the living room and curled up on the couch. Chigiri sat on the floor next to her head and reached out to smooth her hair.
“You ready to talk about it, Keiko?” Chigiri asked, his tone far more gentle than Kunigami could’ve managed. Keiko sniffed, wouldn’t look at them.
“Isagi Haru was acting kind of weird when he picked me up,” she said finally, still looking away. “And when we got to the theater and were waiting in line, I told him I was happy that he’d asked me out. And he got this weird look on his face and said it was a dare from one of his friends.”
“Oh, Keiko,” Chigiri murmured. Kunigami stood and made himself look out the window in an attempt to hide his anger.
“So I told him I would just go home, he could still say he won, whatever. But he said he still wanted to spend time with me, so we bought tickets and went inside. Everything was fine – well, sort of, I mean c’mon – but then he put his arm around me. I didn’t really want him to after everything, so I tried to shrug him off.”
Kunigami felt his heart rate spike, tried to breathe slowly.
“And he said ‘don’t be like that, Keiko, I know you wanted to go out with me,’ and then he kissed me,” Keiko’s breath had become shaky again. Chigiri squeezed her shoulder, looked at Kunigami with a furrowed brow. “And he shoved his tongue in my mouth. I pulled away and said I didn’t want to kiss him, he’d basically admitted he didn’t even want to be there, and he said I was being ridiculous. And he grabbed me by the back of the neck and kissed me again, and he got his hand in my shirt and grabbed my boob. And then I managed to kind of get away and I punched him in the nose. Then I ran away and called Dad.”
“You hit him hard enough to break the skin on your knuckles?” Kunigami asked, voice tinged with pride.
“Yeah. Well, I think I caught his glasses a bit, maybe that’s why.”
“Attagirl.”
Chigiri guided her to sit up and handed her a box of tissues. “I’m so sorry that happened, Keiko. How are you feeling now?”
“Pretty bad. Not excited to see him at school.”
“It’s a scary thing. You know it’s not your fault, right?”
Keiko nodded, but her lip was trembling again.
“Do you want to keep talking about it? Or can we get you anything?”
“I think I want to go to bed.”
“Okay, Lovebug. We’re here if you need anything, okay?”
Keiko stood and started toward her room, but turned around after a few steps. “Papa, can you come sit with me for a little while? Just til I fall asleep?”
“Of course I can.”
—-------------------------------------------------------------------
Keiko had been asleep for over an hour, but Kunigami was still sitting next to her, back against the wall and feet under the edge of her duvet. He was pretty sure he wasn’t going to be able to sleep, anyway.
Judging by the texts still coming to his phone, Chigiri was equally awake.
“Do you think Isagi would know it was us if we kidnapped the little fucker and threw him into the sea?” read the most recent message. Kunigami stifled a laugh.
“We’d probably be pretty high on the list of suspects,” he typed back.
Bzzt. “Should we call Isagi? I mean I’d wanna know if my kid was a sex pest. So I could throw him into the sea.”
“You’re really stuck on the sea thing.”
Bzzt. “It’s a satisfying thought. And cleaner than my first instinct, which was to stomp him into the sidewalk with my cleats.”
“You’re a menace.”
Bzzt. “So is this Haru kid! So are we calling his dad or not.”
“It’s up to Keiko, don’t you think? I don’t want to take her agency away from her. Again.”
Bzzt. “I hate it when you’re right.”
Bzzt. “But what are we gonna say when we see Isagi and he wants to know why his demon came home from a movie date with a broken nose?”
“I don’t think we have to lie. I just don’t want to make decisions about how to handle her assault without her.”
Kunigami swallowed the bile that rose in his throat as he typed the words ‘her assault’ about his daughter. He looked at her sleeping form, her face mercifully a bit more relaxed now. In the car, he’d have set the city on fire if it would mean Keiko felt safe. Now it was all he could do to keep from crying about how helpless he felt. He really couldn’t protect her forever. Not even from some punk teenager he could crush with one hand.
Bzzt. “She still sleeping?”
“Yeah. She seems okay for now.”
Bzzt. “You coming to bed?”
Kunigami watched Keiko’s shoulder rise and fall with her breath. He couldn’t fix what happened, but she was safe now. He thought about her waking up and being alone when she remembered why her knuckles were bandaged.
“Nah, I think I’m gonna camp out here.”
Bzzt. “Figured. Let me know if you wanna swap at some point. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
