#day four!

With a strong push and a swift kick, Saeko physically ejected her younger brother and his partner from their own house. Once they were fully and completely out, she barricaded the door.

“Now get out and stay out!”

Alisa popped her head out from behind Saeko and leaned down to rest her chin on her shoulder. A hand appeared out of nowhere and snaked around Saeko’s waist. Alisa graced them with her brightest smile, catching the morning sun with her silver eyelashes, long against her cheek and glittering in the light. “Everything will be great, guys,” she reassured them.

Daichi grabbed Tanaka’s arm and pulled him off the ground and Tanaka rubbed his backside, looking over his shoulder to see if there was a tiny combat boot print on the seat of his pants.

While Tanaka pulled at his pants to get a better look, Daichi shifted his travel bag over his shoulder. “You sure? You have the list of emergency contact numbers?”

Saeko put a finger to her lips and hummed, pretending to think about it, which made Alisa pout. “Don’t tease them, Saeyenka.”

“Ugh, onee-san,” Tanaka whined. “C’mon, we literally just went over it. Please tell me you haven’t lost it? Already? Please?”

“Quit whining, Ryuu,” Daichi chided. “I got this.” He rummaged around in the front pocket of his bag and brandished a piece of computer paper. “It’s really no problem, here’s an extra one. And I emailed it to both of you. And Suga and Asahi,” he added. “Just in case.”

“Oh my gooooddd,” Saeko cried into her hands. “I’m kidding! Of course we have the list. Dai-kun, put that away right now.”

Daichi gripped the paper in his hand, not entirely convinced that Saeko wasn’t just placating them and not ready to put it back in his bag.

Alisa bobbed her head in support of Saeko’s statement. “We do, I promise. I’ve even programmed them into my phone already.” She held up her phone as evidence.

He looked between the girls in his doorway, and then at the paper, before doing as he was told and slipping it carefully into the front pocket of his bag. Tanaka noticed his hesitation and elbowed Daichi in the side. “Babe, we can put the extra copy in the glove compartment. I’m sure the one in there is old anyway.”

“Okay, babe,” Daichi said, emphasizing the pet name in a sarcastic drawl.

“Seriously,” Tanaka replied. “It was good you printed out an extra copy. What if something happened to us, huh? We wouldn’t want the kids to be stranded with my sister forever.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Daichi blushed. He didn’t need them, not really, but moments like these reminded he why he chose Tanaka, why he was grateful for every damn day that Tanaka chose him, too.

“You know I’d fight for custody,” Saeko pointed out, interrupting Daichi’s internal gushing.

Alisa nodded solemnly, at least as solemnly as her sunny disposition allowed. “You know we would.”

There was a pause in the conversation, so they all heard the scratching and bumping from inside the house, and Daichi went over their travel prep in his head, for the millionth time, to distract himself from the tugging on his heart. The car was packed and Tanaka filled the gas tank the night before. Saeko and Alisa were firmly planted in their house. They went over the updated contact information and confirmed that the information was readily available. They said their goodbyes just five minutes ago. They were ready.

“Are you sure we can’t say goodbye one last time?” Tanaka asked, quietly enough that only Daichi heard. His shoulders slumped uncharacteristically and he leaned into Daichi’s side.

Daichi bit back a groan. He desperately wanted to, but it was the first weekend they both had off in months. They had decided, together, that they needed the time alone, and the thought of shirtless Tanaka simmering in an onsen buoyed the last bit of decisive energy and courage he needed to thank the girls for helping them out that weekend and drag his pouting boyfriend to the car.

Once they were on the road, in the dreadful quiet of the car, Daichi kept one hand on the steering wheel and reached over to hit Tanaka on the arm with the other. “I never realized you’d be so hard pressed to see me naked in a hot spring, you big baby.”

Tanaka pursed his lips into a smile that never boded well. “I’m not hard yet,” he replied with a wink, earning another, harder, punch. Tanaka pulled his arm out of Daichi’s reach and laughed until it dissolved into a quiet hum, and then silence.

Daichi glanced over at Tanaka, who stared out the window. “Radio?” He asked.

“Yeah, definitely,” Tanaka replied airily.

Daichi turned it on and settled into the driver’s seat. Pretty soon, Tanaka succumbed to the deep and unwavering love of his own voice and Daichi listened to Tanaka belt American pop songs in his grade-school level English. He had always thought it was endearing, but would never want to give Tanaka that sort of ammo, so he pretended to hate it, which, in turn, egged Tanaka on further. Daichi considered it a win-win situation.

But, after about thirty minutes, the singing died down, and Tanaka leaned listlessly against the window and tapped rhythmically on his thigh. His phone buzzed, and Tanaka sprung up in his seat to wiggle his phone out of his back pocket. Almost as soon as he checked the screen, however, he deflated. “Just Yuu,” he sighed.

Tanaka typed out a reply and, when he was finished, he held the phone in his hands, stared at the dark screen, and worried his bottom lip. “You think if I text Alisa to send us pictures of the gang and tell her not to tell Saeko, that she would?”

That voice, the unsure one, killed Daichi. Tanaka was a lot of things, inappropriate pomp and ridiculous sense of humor and gigantic softie and full of deep love, and Daichi loved all of it. Similarly, he hated every second of his lost enthusiasm. He understood, but he hated it. “I think she’d send you pictures, but I don’t think she’d keep it from Saeko,” Daichi admitted.

Tanaka continued to stare at his phone. The look on his face was too much for Daichi to handle and he broke. “I miss them, too.”

This seemed to bring Tanaka out of his slump, and his cocky grin returned in full force, much to Daichi’s relief. “Yeah?”

“God, yes,” Daichi said with a heavy breath. “When I was working all that overtime last month, you have no idea how jealous I was that you were only on call and could be with them.”

“Uh, I know exactly how jealous you were, because you told me at least once an hour,” Tanaka teased. “We did have an awesome time.”

“You spammed me with videos,” Daichi chuckled, as gently as he could manage. “It got me through the days.”

Tanaka prodded him in the side. “We might’ve had the best time ever, but they missed their dad.”

The words pierced through his heart like an arrow. “We’re going to get through this weekend, Ryuu. We’re going to have some fun, soak in the onsen, and then go home.”

“Yeah,” Tanaka agreed with a shout. “Speaking of fun, remember when Hana ate some other kid’s ice cream at the park, right off the stick, and the kid was too embarrassed to stop her?”

Daichi snickered. “Or the time Momo-chan found that gross toy on the sidewalk and wouldn’t put it down? To the point where she growled at us every time we came near them?”

Tanaka threw his head back with a loud laugh. “I thought she would actually kill us when she realized we threw it away.”

“What about when Hiro snuggled into bed with us during the night our heater broke and almost smothered you?” Daichi added.

“So cute,” Tanaka laughed. “I have that picture of us framed on my desk, the one you took while I was being smothered in my sleep.”

Daichi shot him a quick look of disbelief. “I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll be happy to go home,” Daichi added. “After, the weekend, I mean.”

Tanaka agreed with a full-body nod. “Yeah, me too. After the weekend. Definitely.”

They shared a look, one that happened often, one that only meant one thing. Daichi put his turn signal on, got off at the next exit, and turned the car around.

When they pulled up in front of the house, Saeko peered out the front window and threw her hands up in defeat. But, as soon as they got out of the car, the front door opened and Hiro, Hana, and Momo bounded out of the house, tails wagging, fur flying, tongues out. Tanaka dropped to his knees on the front lawn and they swarmed him, licking his face, knocking him over, whining and barking in delight. Daichi took Hiro’s long nose in his hand and knelt next to Tanaka, one arm around the dog, the other around his boyfriend.

Saeko leaned in the doorway, just like she did when they were leaving. “This is just sad.”

“You made it further than last time, though!” Alisa added from the living room window, now open, and gave them two thumbs up.

“Ya well,” Tanaka shrugged. “You’ll know what it’s like when you guys have kids.”

Alisa’s eyes lit up. “You hear that, Saeyenka, kids!”

“Dogs are not kids,” Saeko said defiantly.

“Okay,” Alisa hummed, still at the window. “So human kids then?”

Saeko choked, her usual curtain of cool pooling around her feet. “You can’t say those things to me when we’re not even looking at each other!”

“Then get over here,” Alisa giggled.

In an instant, Saeko disappeared from the doorway, but neither Daichi nor Tanaka paid much attention. Daichi buried his face in Momo’s long, white hair, and took a breath. Tanaka scratched behind her ear and leaned close to whisper in Daichi’s ear. “I hope that promise of you wet, dripping, and very naked still stands.”