His legs and bottom ache from sitting on the windowsill for so long, and the smell of pecan pie warming in the oven is beginning to drift all the way up to his bedroom. He resolves to deal with his messy feelings later. For now, there's pie and homemade ice cream to be eaten.

It’s Christmas Eve — and that, according to Darius, means the house is usually teeming with relatives young and old. But this year, it's just him, the Bowmans, Simone’s sister Carol, and her wife Michaela. “I didn't want to overwhelm you on your first Bowman Christmas,” Simone had said, oblivious to the guilt that stabbed through Kenji’s heart at that moment. He’s stopping the Bowmans from celebrating with their family like they usually would; that’s on him. He should feel terrible.

But if they’re sacrificing so much to have him, he should at least give them his company. He owes them that much.

His feet softly thud on the carpeted stairs, aiming for the spots he’s learned make the least noise. Old habits die hard.

Downstairs, Carol says something ending in “—is this really happening?”

Simone says, “Maybe. We’ll ask him if the day goes well.”

Kenji’s heart stops, and his stomach clenches horribly. What are they talking about?

“But are you sure he’s ready for this?”

A new voice — Darius — chimes in. “I think he is.”

“What if he doesn’t want it though?”

“Well, we won’t know if we don’t ask,” says Brand.

Kenji’s foot creaks on one of the bottom steps. The conversation falls silent, and Kenji gets the immediate, horrible impression they were talking about him. What were they talking about that he can’t know about? What if they don’t want him in the family anymore?

Oh god, what if they’re sending him back to his dad’s place? That decadent, dazzling, dreaded mansion, where Kenji had everything except love.

“Kenji?” Darius calls.

“Honey, is that you?”

He wordlessly emerges into the living room. The Bowmans are sitting across the two sofas: Darius sits cross-legged on one arm, and Brand leans against the arm opposite. Simone, Carol and Michaela are sitting on the other.

“Hey,” Carol says, and her wife Michaela gives him a small wave.

“Hey.” Kenji returns the gesture, afraid to meet their eyes for more than a moment, and takes the spot between Brand and Darius, hugging his knees to his chest.

“I think the pecan pie is ready,” Simone says. “Carol, Michaela, help me serve up?”

“Oh, I can—” Darius raises his hand, but Brand shoots him a brief look, and he quiets down.

Kenji knows what they’re doing; he’s not totally oblivious. But he appreciates the moment of quiet, when Darius clambers off the armchair, and squishes between Kenji and Brand, leaning on Kenji’s shoulder. Kenji’s insides feel all warm and fuzzy and a bit weird, and he thinks, maybe this is how Christmas is supposed to feel.

Simone and the others return with plates of pecan pie: a generous slice for each one, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side. Kenji takes a bite: it’s warm, and sweet, and the saucy part sticks to his tongue. He scrapes it off with his teeth, as Simone, Carol and Micaela converse between them.

He’s halfway through his plate, when a word snags his attention.

“What’s—” he blurts, not realising Michaela was in the middle of a sentence, and his cheeks flush with shame as he mumbles, “Sorry, for— for interrupting.”

“It’s okay, honey,” Simone says. “What were you saying?”

“Oh— I’ve... I forgot, sorry.”

“Don’t worry. As I was saying, we’ll do the giving tree before—”

“Oh yeah! What’s the, uh, giving tree?” Kenji says, barely registering that he interrupted their conversation again (no wonder they probably don’t want him in the family anymore).

“Every year, our church does a giving tree,” explains Simone, “where low income families get to write a gift they want on a little tag, and people with enough money take a tag and buy the item that person wants, and deliver it on Christmas morning. I got four tags, one for each of us to do, and we’ll go to the store later today to buy them.”

“We also write the recipient a nice Christmas card to go with it,” adds Darius.

“Oh... okay.” Kenji stretches a smile across his face. It must’ve failed his facade, as Darius says something about going to tidy his room, and gives Kenji a look that clearly means he’s meant to follow.

“Dude. You okay?” Darius asks once they’re on the stairs.

“Uh— no, D.” The words burst out of him like knives on his tongue. “I have, like, no idea what’s going on.”

Darius nods understandingly, his eyes doing millions of calculations Kenji can’t hope to decipher. Eventually, he says, slowly, gently, “Do you wanna know what’s going to happen?”

Kenji buries his face in his hands, and mumbles “Yes.”

Darius smiles. “C’mon. I’ll explain. And you can help me tidy my room.”

“Hey, no fair!”

“You do live here. Everyone in the family helps out around the house.”

And Kenji follows Darius up the stairs, stumbling as that word, dropped so casually, echoes around his chest.

.o0o.

Dear receiver of this gift,

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and feel loved this time of year. Even if your family sucks, there’s loads of awesome people out there. I’ve learned that lesson this year, and now I have 5 people I’m lucky to call my best friends. One of them is helping me write this, and he’s basically my little brother. He’s one of the best people I’ve met this year (technically last year, but we became closer friends this year, and I even get to live with him now!)

Don’t give up. If things are bad for you, they’ll get better. Merry Christmas if you celebrate it, and God bless you if you’re religious.

Kind regards,

Kenji :)

.o0o.

“Father God, bless this wonderful meal and all those who helped make it. Bless all your children, especially those less fortunate than us.”

(Kenji briefly wonders if, before camp, he would’ve counted as less fortunate than them. He was way richer than them, but the Bowmans always had love. And that can’t be bought.)

“Give them warmth, love, and stability at this blessed time of year. Amen.”

“Amen,” the boys chorus, and Kenji mumbles ‘amen’ after them, aware he sounds horribly out of place.

“What does Amen mean?” Kenji asks.

“Literally, it means ‘it is true’ in Biblical Hebrew. But Christians, Muslims, and Jewish people use it after praying to affirm their belief in the prayer they just said,” Simone explains. Clearly, but respectfully. Like Kenji is an adult deserving of respect.

“Good question,” Michaela remarks. Kenji beams at her.

“Speaking of religion, Kenji,” Simone says.

Kenji’s spine immediately straightens. “Yes?”

“Oh, don’t worry, honey,” she says smiling, and Kenji has the immediate sense he’s done something wrong. What exactly, he doesn’t know, but he knows he’s screwed up and that is enough to set him on edge. “I was just going to say we’re going to Midnight Mass later this evening, but you don’t have to come if you don’t want to!

“No— no, it’s— it’s okay.” Kenji slaps on his best smile. “I do want to, m— Mrs Bowm— Simone, sorry.” He’s rambling, and his cheeks flush bright red. Everyone is looking at him, and he lets out an embarrassed cough.

“That’s wonderful, honey, we’d be happy to have you.”

“Are— are all of you going?”

“Yeah,” Brand says. “I should warn you, though... It’s a pretty busy occasion.”

Kenji underestimated just how busy it would be.

The church buzzes with activity, from young children running up and down the aisle, to elderly people trying to avoid being run over by the aforementioned kids. Kenji looks around, trying to drink in every detail, because church — the churches he’s been to do not look like this.

It’s more or less a normal building, decorated with pictures of who he assumes is Jesus, and some other guys, on the walls. Instead of pews, there are individual chairs, the cushioned seating a velvety blue. At the front is a stage, with microphones, an electric keyboard, and— is that a drumkit?

“Darius? Darius!” Kenji tugs his sleeve.

“Yeah?”

“You didn’t say there was going to be live music!”

“Oh— yeah. Sorry, man, I guess it just didn’t occur to me. I’ve been going here since as long as I can remember.”

Which makes Kenji an outsider. This is Darius’s turf — just like the rest of today. Just like the Bowmans’ whole life.

Darius once told the camp fam on Nublar that the dinosaurs were just invasive species to the world’s ecosystem. That the world has evolved around dinosaurs, and bringing them back had unbalanced the world in disastrous ways.

That’s what Kenji is to them. A dinosaur. A disaster to the balanced ecosystem of the Bowmans’ lives. He should leave now, before he wreaks too much havoc to fix.

So he sits silently, and listens as attentively as he can to the service, trying to quiet the volcano of doubt inside him. Just don’t cause trouble. Sit still, do as told, behave behave behave, and—

He runs out of breath. The volcano erupts, and he lets it. He can’t do this anymore, and he mumbles, “Excuse me,” pushing past people as he gets to the end of the row, and sprints out of there for his life.

He sits on the curb, flinching when the occasional car rushes past. He left his coat inside, and even in California, he’s cold. He’s so fucking cold. He’s alone and cold, and in his heart, he wants to go back inside. To the Bowmans. To the kind, vibrant community that he doesn’t dare claim.

But it’s okay. He needs to suck it up and wait. Stop being such a baby. Stop acting like the child his father thought he was—

“Kenji?”

“Wha— Darius?” Kenji bolts up, startled. “You— you really...?”

“Course I did.” Darius gives him an easy smile. “I’m sorry, I should’ve checked you were okay.”

“Nah, it’s okay.”

“No, really. Sometimes I get overstimulated in church too — that’s why I wear my headphones and sit on the end of a row—”

“No, it...” Kenji sighs. “It’s not that. Although that does help. Thanks.”

A second passes, before Darius wordlessly sits beside him. “So. Spill. What’s up?”

“I... I don’t know.” Kenji groans, burying his head in his hands. “I don’t think I fit in there.”

“How come?”

“Gah, I dunno. Guess I’m just a newbie.”

“We were all newbies once,” Darius says. “I just don’t remember the first time I went. According to mom, it was so loud, I cried, and dad—” his voice hitches at his mention, and Kenji suddenly feels even colder “—had to take me outside and soothe me until I calmed down.”

You have a good family, Kenji almost says, but doesn’t. Making this all about him and his problems, now that’s just selfish.

Still, Darius must’ve been able to tell something is wrong, because he asks, “Is there anything else you want to talk about?”

Kenji nods, his chin resting between his knees. “I’m weirdly sad and I don’t know why. I’m waiting for every good time to end, and my chest feels so...”

“Heavy?” Darius nods, a glimmer of understanding in his eyes. “Yeah. I’ve felt that on and off all day today.”

“You have? But you act so—”

“Normal?”

“Dude, I know we’re brothers but you don’t have to finish all of my sentences.”

Darius laughs, pulling his knees to his chest. “I guess I act normal because I want you to feel more normal. This is a pretty big deal for you, Kenj.” Darius lightly bumps Kenji’s shoulder with his.

“Yeah.” Kenji chuckles; it comes out more like a sigh. “Guess so.”

“So. How are you feeling about... tomorrow?”

Kenji exhales deeply, his breath condensing like a smoke cloud in the darkness. “Nervous. Overwhelmed, I guess.”

Darius falls silent for a while, thinking hard. Then, he says, “How about we don’t put any pressure on it? How about we just wake up tomorrow and say: ‘today is a day. It might be good, and it might be bad, but either way, that’s okay.’ And see where we go from there.”

“Dude. You are, like, way too smart for a kid.”

“I’m nearly fourteen!”

“Aww, you’re growing up so fast,” Kenji teases, trapping Darius in a headlock and giving him a noogie.

“Shuddup, Kenj.” Darius pushes him off, laughing as quietly as he can, mindful of the church service still going on inside.

Ding-dong!

A far-off bell bulldozes through their conversation, and Kenji and Darius fall silent. One, two, three, four— and Kenji knows what time it is, but it’s fun to count down the rings until the twelfth one, and Darius exclaims, “Happy Christmas!”

“Happy Christmas, D.” Kenji brings Darius in for a hug. “You know I love you, right?”

Darius nods into his shoulder. “I love you too, Kenji. We’re brothers. That won’t ever change.”

And Kenji could cave to the million and one doubts pounding at his head, the voices that say you don’t deserve this, they hate you, you’ll never be family to them, you should leave before they kick you out— but for once, he really doesn’t want to listen.

So he hugs Darius tighter, their ankles and shins pressing against the stone edge of the curb as they hold each other, while the moon watches over them like a mother would her children.

.o0o.

Kenji knows how it works. Darius told him last night: they go downstairs at 7am — no earlier — and do their gifts. Carol and Michaela, who live nearby, arrive a few hours later to help cook Christmas dinner. Kenji knows what’s going to happen.

So it’s ridiculous to be this terrified to get out of bed.

He supposes, it is still half past six. He’s up way too early, he should just lie back down. Before he disturbs Darius. They didn’t get home until one in the morning, and Darius was practically falling asleep by then. He deserves his rest. Kenji shouldn’t wake him.

Still, he silently rolls out of bed, and crawls to the door, creaking open the handle before getting onto the landing, practically suffocating in the stillness of the house.

“Kenji?”

“Ah!” He whole-body flinches, whipping around. “Mo— Simone?”

“Sorry for scaring you, honey,” she says, her brows gently creased in concern.

“Oh, it— it’s okay, you didn’t mean to.” Kenji waves a dismissive hand. “Uh... Merry Christmas. And God bless you... if I can say that.”

“Oh, honey,” Simone chuckles softly. “You can say that, and that’s very sweet of you. Merry Christmas, Kenji. God has blessed me with you and the others in my life.” She opens her arms for a hug, careful to pull him in slowly, giving him plenty of time to refuse, yet also making it clear how loved and wanted he is. It’s the perfect hug, and Kenji sinks right into it. Her words are so gentle, so sincere and loving, Kenji almost cries.

“Sorry if I woke you.”

“Not at all. It’s nearly seven anyway. How about we go downstairs and start getting breakfast ready?”

“Cinnamon rolls — Darius told me.” He laughed at the time, asked, “Is that why you’re, like, seventy percent cinnamon roll?” but now, he’s too nervous to eat. This is a big day.

His hands shake as he rips open the packet, and helps Simone set the cinnamon rolls onto a tray, and puts them in the oven ready to cook in an hour or so. After they do Santa presents.

Five minutes later, Darius pads downstairs, sleepy eyed and clad in his usual stegosaurus pyjamas — a sight Kenij has grown accustomed to. He sleepily gives the sign for ‘good morning.’

Kenji goes in for a warm, firm hug. “Morning, Darius.”

“Can we do gifts yet?” Darius asks, still half asleep, and Simone laughs fondly.

“Course we can, sweetheart. Just let me wake up Brand.”

She disappears, giving the boys a moment to themselves. A still-sleepy Darius clings onto Kenji, giving him possibly one of the best hugs of his life, and Kenji melts into the moment, only letting go to hold on tighter.

Brand and Simone’s footsteps — Kenji knows them by heart — descend the stairs. “Happy Christmas guys,” Brand says.

Kenji heartwrenchingly breaks away from the warmth of Darius’s arms and makes himself smile. “Happy Christmas Brand.” He looks him up and down. “I can’t believe you wore your clothes to bed.”

“I can’t believe you had the energy to get changed after Midnight Mass.”

“Hey, when you spend seven months wearing your gross day clothes to bed, you tend to not want to do that anymore,” Kenji teases.

“Oh! That reminds me,” Simone says. “The first gift— matching pajamas!”

“Matching what?” Kenji frowned.

“It’s a family tradition,” Darius explains. “Every few years, we get matching Christmas pajamas as a family.”

Kenji’s heart sinks. “Oh— okay. I’ll, uh... leave you guys to—”

Something soft hits his arm, and he whips around with a reflexive “hey!” before he realises it’s just a present Darius tossed at him. The exact same shape as the pajamas Darius, Brand and Simone are currently unwrapping.

He clutches the present in his hands until the papery fabric tears slightly beneath his fingers. Soft fabric, almost velvety, in snow-white, jolly-red, and pine-green teases his fingertips.

“Darius had outgrown the old set, it was time to get a new one in anyway,” Simone says, but the twinkle in her eye suggests there’s another reason entirely.

Kenji’s face must’ve been the picture of shock, because Darius looks at him with a soft smile, and says, “Did you seriously think you wouldn’t be included in this?”

Well... yeah, Kenji almost says. I’m not included in your family.

It’s as though Darius can see the doubt on his face, because he says, “Dude. You’ve lived with us for six months, you go on all our outings with us, you even do Thanksgiving and all the holidays with us.”

“And you have household chores,” Brand chimes in. “Trust me. Mom would not have given you household chores if you weren’t family, because she won’t let guests do a damn thing around here.”

“I hope they fit okay,” Simone says, looking kindly at him. “Why don’t you boys go and try them on?”

Kenji sheepishly stands up, taking the hint that the Bowmans must have something they want to talk about, just them three, and heads up the stairs. But not before he catches Darius saying, in a soft voice, “I think he’s ready, mom.”

.o0o.

“So, what did you all get for Christmas?” Carol asks them once they’re all seated at the dinner table.

“Wireless noise-cancelling headphones from Brand, several new books from mom, and Kenji got us another set of walkie talkies,” Darius says.

“Another?” Brand frowns, raising an eyebrow.

Darius shoots Kenji a look. “Island thing.”

“What about you, Kenji?” Michaela asks.

“Well, Brand got me this cool new shirt, Simone got me some clothes and a bunch of nice stuff, and Darius,” he says, glaring back at him, “got me a book on how the atmosphere works.”

Darius giggles into his glass. “Another island thing. And I got you loads of other stuff!”

“You mean the captain’s hat?”

“Hey, it needed replacing.”

“But why a captain’s hat?” Carol asks.

“Well, I wasn’t just Kenji on those islands,” he begins, a theatrical flourish rising in his voice.

“Oh, no,” Darius murmurs.

“I was captain Kenji!” He exclaims with a flourish. “Captain of the yacht that almost took us to safety!”

“Key word being almost.”

“Can it, dino-nerd, I was a great captain. Sammy and I even found the boat we stole.”

“You were indeed, Kenj,” Darius concedes.

“Wait, hold on a moment... you stole a yacht?” Michaela says, her and Carol laughing in shock.

Darius and Kenji burst into laughter, sharing a knowing look. “Oh, that was one wild story...”

.o0o.

It’s perfect: Kenji and the Bowmans are snuggled on the sofa under the softest blanket Kenji’s ever touched, all wearing their matching pajamas and matching smiles as the plot of Miracle on 34th Street unfolds before their eyes. His belly is full of food, and his heart is full of happiness.

Yet, Kenji still can’t help but wait for the other shoe to drop. That— that thing Darius, Brand and Simone have been talking about in snatched conversations when they thought he wasn’t listening... People are at their most honest about someone when they don’t know the person can hear them, and Kenji still knows the feeling of the cold, slippery marble against his cheek as he lay at the top of the stairs, listening to his father downstairs complaining about his “lazy son who never listened” to his work acquaintances. That dread of thinking about what people think of him will always cling to his bones.

And that dread becomes a dangerous, burning reality when Simone pauses the movie and says, “Kenji, honey, could you come to the kitchen and help me dish out some apple pie?”

Kenji gets up from the sofa in a panic, dark spots briefly pricking his vision, and he leans against the wall until it passes. That usually happens when he stands up, but the pounding of his heart makes it way worse. He follows Simone to the kitchen, finally feeling like he understands the expression leading a lamb to the slaughter.

Kenji checks behind him, and sees Brand and Darius still in the lounge — cementing the feeling that this is something pre-planned between the three of them, something Kenji was excluded from. His heart twists itself into knots, and already he can feel something horrible and icy forming around it before the Bowmans can take aim and shatter the vulnerable walls of his heart.

“Kenji...” Simone sighs softly. “As you know, you’ve been living with us for a very long time...”

Oh God. They’re kicking me out.

“We all love having you here, and we all consider you part of the family already...”

There’s a but coming. Kenji knows it for sure. He knows the downward slope of someone’s voice, he knows it always leads to something bad, something gut-wrenching, something disappointing, something—

“But, we wanted to make it official.”

“I underst—” Kenji stops abruptly, as he realises those words were not at all what he expected to hear. “Sorry, what?”

“Kenji, honey... How would you like to officially join our family?”

“She means adoption, if that wasn’t clear,” Brand adds.

“Oh— oh my... oh. I— I don’t know what to say...” He chokes out, tears rising up his throat into his eyeballs before he can harness them back under control.

“Happy Christmas, Kenji!” Darius says, rushing in and throwing his arms around him. “Surprise!”

“You— you all— you really want— are you sure?” Kenji babbles, unable to even string a sentence together.

“Yes, honey, we’re sure.” Simone gently pats his shoulder, her hand hesitantly sliding up to cup his cheek. “We want you in our family.” Her thumb strokes away the tears rolling out of Kenji’s eyes — and then, Kenji realises it’s real. It’s happening. He’s becoming Darius’s brother. He’s becoming Brand’s brother. He’s becoming Simone’s freaking son! He, Kenji, is becoming a Bowman. This is everything he never let himself fantasize about happening.

So why can’t he stop crying?

“Uh, Kenji?” Darius says, loosening his grip when he realises Kenji isn’t smiling like the rest of them.

“Why?” Is all he can choke out. “Why do you want to—”

“Because we love you,” Simone says.

“Because you’re my brother.”

“And because you’re part of this family.”

And those words make sense, in the context of every single kind thing they’ve said and done since Simone accepted him into her arms that day on the pier, but part of Kenji — the Kon part; the part ensnared in his father’s hand permanently stuck on his shoulder — can’t make himself believe them.

He sounds like a five year old, offering his best friend his pinkie finger, when he says, “You... promise?”

Darius hugs him tight. “We promise.”

“So... you really want me? Lazy, entitled, bratty, rich boy—”

“Hey, none of that,” Simone gently chides him. “Bowmans don’t speak about themselves or each other that way.”

Kenji sniffs. “So you really want me to be—”

“Yes. If you’re comfortable with that, yes,” Simone says. “If you genuinely don’t want to be adopted, that’s your choice and we’ll respect it. But we really want you in our family.”

Kenji is almost afraid of the words that come out of his mouth. But they fill him with a rush of adrenaline, new and bright and daring, when he says, “Simone... mom... I wanna be a Bowman.”

Darius cheers, squeezing Kenji tighter, and Brand offers Kenji a fistbump, which he wiggles an arm free from Darius’s grip to return. Simone — his mom — has nothing but love and pride in her eyes, as she gazes at all three — three?! — of her sons. The kitchen is nothing but loving, and it fills Kenji with something weird and wild and wonderful that he doesn’t think he’ll ever understand. But he likes its place in his heart, and selfish as it sounds, he never wants to let it go.

So he doesn’t. He loops his arm around Darius’s shoulders as they finish the movie, letting himself curl his feet on the sofa, and accepts the blanket Brand slips over his shoulders as Simone quietly turns off the TV once the credits roll. He sits and listens as Simone and Brand talk about whether Miracle on 34th Street or Home Alone is the better Christmas movie as they quietly munch on gingerbread. He gently shakes Darius awake when the clock ticks into eleven pm, and indulges in a long, firm, gentle hug, the kind that lasts for a full minute and leaves the imprint of Darius’s chin on Kenji’s shoulder long after Darius disappears upstairs to bed.