Chapter Text
It’s a day.
A normal day.
The most normal day ever in fact, everyone is actually working for once, Shin is at the register helping an old lady find what she needs cause apparently it’s not in the right place (it may or may not be Lu’s doing but he’s not too worried about that at the moment). Then there’s Lu and Heisuke. Heisuke is currently out running deliveries with the help of Piisuke while Lu herself is helping Aoi in the back make more pork buns for the customers.
Amane isn’t working today due to classes at the JCC, after promising Aoi that he wouldn’t do the whole ‘killing thing’ anymore she reluctantly allowed him to continue his education at the JCC, although it did take some convincing from him that the classes at the JCC actually had proper education.
“Daddy!” Taro looks down at Hana and smiles, picking her up so that she could sit on his lap. “Yay!” She shouts, grabbing onto him and shaking his arm.
“We’re closing early today, right?” Shin asks, turning over to him. Taro nods, they would be closing early today, mostly to help Aoi prepare dinner as they were all gonna eat together after this. They’ve been eating together more often now, it’s been nice.
“YES!” Lu shouts, from the back.
“GET BACK TO WORK!”
“YOU CAN’T SAY THAT! THAT’S MISOGYNISTIC!”
“HUH?! HOW!?”
Lu crosses her arms with a teasing smile on her face. “Well you’re telling a woman to get back to the kitchen so–”
Shin’s face turns red. “What!? That– That’s not what I mean! Sakamoto–” he points to Lu, and then over to where Aoi was working. “Help!-”
He sighs, hearing Hana giggle at the commotion Shin and Lu were causing. The two of them were always so loud. “Lu, please get back to work,” he concedes.
Shin pumps his fist in the air and Lu slumps in defeat. Taro feels his fingers twitch the for the pen in his apron, jamming into Shin’s neck–
Shin’s hands fly to his neck. “HEY!”
“Get back to work,”
Shin frowns at him, turning around and muttering something that Taro doesn’t bother straining to hear. Sometimes he wonders how he got here, he’s never had trouble taking care of Hana while she was growing up. Shin and Lu are both adults. How the hell did he get stuck babysitting two adults?
They end up closing two hours later, Heisuke and Piisuke come back from their deliveries in order to help cook (for the first 15 minutes until Shin decides it’s safer if they watch the bread rise instead).
“Shin, can you help me knead this?” Aoi asks and within moments Shin moves over to her side, helping her knead with bread. Taro keeps chopping the vegetables, there are a lot today. “Oh! Honey, can you help me chop the meat as well please?”
Taro nods and moves over to grab the meat and chops it after chopping the vegetables.
“I’m done with the soup!” Lu calls, she walks over to them with a wide grin. “Can I go get some drinks now?”
“Are you even of legal age?” Shin groans.
“Legal enough!”
“Not how it works!”
Taro’s thoughts drift towards the knife and Shin–
“Stop it!” Shin flinches, turning to glare at him, whoops. Old habits die hard.
“You’re too loud,”
“Blame Lu!”
“WHAT?!”
“See! She’s shouting, I’m quiet,” Shin replies in a semi-quiet voice.
Taro looks over to Aoi who’s clearly amused by their antics, personally he’s gonna find wrinkles the next time he looks in the mirror, she seems to be having fun though so he lets it slide this time. Heisuke’s talking to Piisuke and Taro’s only a little worried that he’s gonna be finding feathers in the food, it’ll probably still be good though.
Instead he listens into Aoi and Shin’s conversation, every now and then Lu chimes in with her thoughts and opinions and Shin listens, then adding in his own.
“I just love doing stuff like this for you guys, it’s not very often we get to have big dinners like this together, even though we all work at the same place,” Aoi remarks, placing some pork steamed buns in the oven.
“Yeah, I know what you mean, Lu always dips at the last hour,” Shin accuses, Taro hears Lu smack the side of Shin’s head and the latter hiss at her.
“What? I usually want to go home after work, not all of us live at our work place,”
“What about it if we do?”
“Nothing,”
“No no no there was something there,” Shin replies, Lu glares at him sticking her tongue out.
“Behave,” Taro warns, Shin looks at him and sighs, turning away.
“Nevermind, there’s no point in arguing with you anyways,”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” Shin shrugs.
There’s probably something meant by it, but Taro just wishes that the two of them would behave for once.
“Lu, can you help me set up the table?” Aoi asks, Taro breathes out a breath of relief, he’s glad his wife knows how to descale a situation as almost instantly Lu bounces over, helping Aoi set up the table. Heisuke decides to help them as well and soon enough the table is set and all of the food is laid out.
After eating Shin helps Aoi rid up the table while Hana decides to play with Heisuke and Lu. Shin’s washing dishes and Aoi’s drying them, Taro is cleaning up the leftovers, putting them in boxes for later.
“Oh! Shin, I almost forgot to ask you,” Aoi exclaims, looking over to him with a smile. “Why don’t you ask your boyfriend to come over sometime? For dinner of course! I would love to meet him, I don’t think I ever had before now that I think about it,” Aoi ponders for a moment.
Taro on the other hand stops what he’s doing.
Shin has a boyfriend? Since when?
“Oh– uh… yeah I can ask him,” Shin smiles at her and notices Taro’s sudden silence. “Uh, Sakamoto? Is something wrong?”
Taro looks at Shin for a brief moment, clearly confused. “You have a boyfriend?” he would be the first to know if he did right? He’s been told that he’s rather dense at times (mostly by Rion) but there’s no way he’s that dense– Aoi knows, why hasn’t she told him?
Shin’s face turns a little red as he nods– “Uh yeah… sorry did I forget to tell you? We’ve been together for… six months now,” he almost whispers the last part but Taro catches it nonetheless.
Six months, he’s been dating someone for six months, how has he not noticed? He looks at Aoi and then to Shin, is he missing something? How long has Aoi known–
“Have you not noticed dear? Shin mentioned it once with us I’m sure, and even then… he’s not been really subtle about it,” Aoi gently asks. “I’ve known about it for four months now,”
Nothing.
“Oh, dear,”
“What are we talking about?” Lu asks, Hana on her back.
Aoi looks between Shin and Sakamoto, wow. This was awkward. “We’re just telling Taro about how Shin has a boyfriend,”
“Huh? Did boss man not know?” Lu asks, looking over to him. “I’ve known about it for like– 5 months now,”
“I’ve known about it for four!” Hana giggles. “How did daddy not know?”
“I think Heisuke’s known about it for as long as me as well,” Lu comments.
“That’s enough about my love life!” Shin shouts. “Or I’ll flick water at you!”
“You’re not allowed to do that!”
“Why are we fighting, yoooo,” Heisuke cries walking over to them. Piisuke’s on his shoulder, probably chirping the same question as well.
“Shin’s getting embarrassed over the fact that he has a boyfriend,” Lu complains. “Which is stupid by the way,”
“Oh,” Heisuke sniffles. “Why are we fighting over that?”
“You also knew about this Heisuke?” Taro asks. Heisuke nods, looking at him a little confused. Okay, so he was in fact the last one to know, and apparently it’s been obvious for the past 6 months. That’s fine, he’s the last one to know and he’s known Shin the longest. Shin is dating someone, he’s dating a guy. That fact doesn’t freak him out one bit, nope, there’s no reason to freak out about it.
He keeps thinking about that fact even when Lu and Heisuke leave, Lu laughing her ass off at Shin’s embarrassment.
It keeps him awake at night. Shin's been dating someone for six months, that’s half a year– surely he would’ve noticed something, right? Everyone’s got to be lying, at least exaggerating, right? He’s known Shin since the brat tried killing him all those years ago, so he would definitely notice, right? Surely he would. Now that he thinks about it, has Shin ever been in a romantic relationship before? Does that mean he’s new to the whole dating thing? Actually, who is he even dating? Does he know them? How did he meet them?
“Taro,”
Taro turns over to look at Aoi, a soft smile is on her face, her eyes are filled with slight amusement. “What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing,”
“What happened to no lying?” Aoi teases, pinching his cheek gently.
He grabs his hand in his feeling a smile form on his face. Then he thinks about Shin again and–
“Am I dense?” he asks after a beat.
Aoi snorts a little and shakes her head. “I’d say no but– well, maybe a little bit, you’ve seriously never noticed?”
He shakes his head.
“Is that what’s keeping you awake? Or is the fact that Shin’s dating now?”
His face must’ve wrinkled a little as Aoi picks up on it instantly, laughing softly. “Oh, baby, Shin’ll be okay, he’s an adult you know, he can tell if someone’s good or not,”
“I don’t think he’s ever been in an actual relationship before,” Taro replies. “Just worried about the guy he’s dating–... I don’t think I’ve seen him,” he admits.
Aoi tilts her head. “You have, you definitely have, that’s what Shin tells me at least, apparently you’ve sorta worked with each other before,”
So they’re probably in the whole assassin business then, or something like that. That doesn’t help his mind, there aren’t many people in the assassin business that make for good romantic partners, most of them cheat, are abusive, or stupid obsessive over stupid things. They can also have a horrible case of tunnel vision as well, they don’t make very good partners, very few do. Shin’s a good kid and Taro can’t see him doing any of that though, and he himself doesn’t do anything like that either, but still 99% do and 99% isn’t a very good percentage in his opinion.
“You’re thinking too much,” Aoi responds, sleepily. “What’s wrong?”
“What if he gets himself hurt somehow?” Taro asks, or if someone hurts him, but that thought sounds like torture to him.
Aoi giggles, kissing his cheek. “He won’t do that, he’s a good kid, remember? I know that you’re a little parental to him but he’ll be fine,”
“Parental?” Taro asks after a soft beat of silence.
A cheeky smile spreads across her face. “Come on, you haven’t noticed? Akira has told me how you cried during the JCC entrance exams when Shin decided to go his separate way from you,”
“Th– That was different,” he stutters.
“Mmm, not really,” the smile stays plastered on her face, teasing him. She’s really beautiful. “Maybe you don’t feel it the same way you do with Hana but you still see Shin as the same as when you found him, right?”
“Well he hasn’t changed much,” that’s a lie. He’s changed so much, he’s still got the same personality underneath, a brat on the outside whilst being a softy who tried to help a cat get unstuck from a tree only to get stuck himself later on. He’s changed though, changed in the same way Taro did, he opened up and managed to express the softer side of him. He doesn’t blow up as much, and when he does it’s a lot less serious than when he was a kid.
“I think that’s a lie,”
Ah, of course she found out.
“I don’t want him to get hurt,” Taro repeats.
“And he won’t, and besides if he does all that matters is that we’re there for him, ‘kay?”
He nods and lets Aoi kiss him properly this time. When they part he briefly remembers something that she said earlier.
“Shin said I worked with him before?”
“Mhm,”
“What’s his name?”
She thinks about it for a moment before her eyes light up with recognition. “Ah! I remember now! Natsuki Seba I think it was– the invisible guy was kinda how Shin described him,”
It takes him a few moments to think about who it was, invisible guy… that sounds familiar–
Wait.
Isn’t that the guy who kidnapped Lu?
What the fu–
“I DIDN’T FUCKING TELL HIM!” Shin whisper-shouts in the phone, face buried in his pillow so who knows how much of that Natsuki heard?
“Dude, calm down, what’s the big deal, he knows now, right?”
“But it’s like– everyone knew except him, what if he thought I was hiding it from him or something?” Shin hisses, taking his face out of the fluff and looking into the camera, Natsuki’s on the other side, he looks confused– does he not sense the urgency of the situation?
“So? What’s the big deal if you were?”
“I wasn’t,”
“Tell him that,”
“What if he doesn’t believe me?”
Natsuki groans. “You called me at fucking 1am for this bullshit Shin,”
“I’m not the one who answered,”
Natsuki scoffs, rubbing his forehead. “Like I was gonna ignore a call from you, dude– you’re thinking too much about this, sure he’s kinda like your dad or whatever–”
“Wait– no– not my dad, it’s like… different,” Shin explains. “I’ve known him since I was a kid and he took care of me– and he’s kinda doing that now, but that doesn’t mean that he’s my dad,”
“Okay, so then who is your dad?”
“I don’t have one,”
“Damn, edgy much?”
Shin wrinkles his face, it earns him a laugh from Natsuki. “I fucking hate you, you aren’t helping,”
“No it’s just–” Natsuki’s face falls out of frame but he can still hear his laughter. “There’s a situationship for that?”
Shin turns red glaring at the camera, despite Natsuki not being in frame. “Don’t call it that!”
“Why? That’s what it is!”
“No it’s not!”
“Uh huh, well I’ve got a test in the morning so I’ve gotta hang up now but– if you need more help just text me, ‘kay?”
Shin groans, nodding into his pillow before replying. “Okay… fine… night, love you,”
“Night, love you too,”
The call hangs up and Shin runs his hand through his hair, this was gonna be one awkward family dinner.