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The kids are planning a fashion show with Koji when Ren gets back from his errands.
“I want that shirt, Papa Ko. The comfy orange one with the sleeves,” Takumi tells him from where he’s sprawled on the floor of the living room, a piece of the space station he’s building clutched in his hand.
Beside him, his sister is colouring in a drawing of what looks like a hamburger bigger than even their entire house. The colours aren’t in the lines, but Rin has time to grow into her finer motor skills.
“This one?” Koji asks, pulling the shirt off of a rack of clothes that he keeps aside for when they happen to do this and Takumi breaks into a big smile, nodding and reaching for it before he pulls to his chest.
“Yeah, it’s comfy,” Takumi says before he spots Ren. “Papa!”
And suddenly there are two little cannonballs rushing towards him and Ren barely has time to brace himself before the impacts hit, and he’s toppling backwards and onto his butt on the warm wood floor, arms full of their children.
“Whoa, steady there!” He says, trying to hold the bag of groceries above them and out of the way.
“Papa Meme, Papa Meme! You’re back!” Takumi and Rin both chorus, their arms around his torso.
“C’mon, guys, I think we should let Papa Meme breathe a little, don’t you?” Koji asks fondly, arms full of clothes as he walks barefoot across the living room, Ren’s too-loose, too-worn PJ pants hanging off his skinny hips. He’s got the ends rolled up over his ankles, and Ren feels his heart swell with the same sweet thing that has always risen up at the sight of Koji in his clothes.
Koji holds out a hand to help Ren to his feet, and the kids just cling to Ren’s clothes, looking adoringly up at him. Takumi’s already going a mile a minute filling him in on everything that’s ensued in the two hours he’s been to the bank and the grocery store – it appears they’ve been really busy in the way only Koji can be with the kids, drawing and colouring and building and preparing for a fashion show.
Meanwhile, Rin is waving her burger drawing up at Ren, telling him of this giant burger she’s going to make, definitely later, definitely for dinner, that’s bigger than their entire street.
“Clearly I’m not the only one who’s missed you,” Koji comments, his tone wry as he slips an arm around Ren’s waist and leans up for a kiss of his own.
Ren laughs.
“The feeling’s entirely mutual,” he tells Koji, voice low and affectionate, mouthing Thank you, gratefully when Koji takes the shopping bag from him so Ren can hoist Rin up into his arms to compliment her on her drawing before bending to look at the space station Takumi’s built.
**
For dinner, Ren makes their family’s favourite: a make-it-yourself makizushi buffet. Vinegared rice, nori sheets, and a humble yet extravagant spread of raw fish, Rin’s favourite dashi–flavoured tamagoyaki, little wonky julienned pieces of cucumber and carrot and pickles around the sides.
The kids love eating with their hands, and Ren remembers the first time he made this meal when they were harried dads with a toddler who wouldn’t use his cutlery for anything. Takumi had gleefully stuffed his face full of rice and seaweed, and Ren had seen his own relief mirrored in the way Koji’s shoulders had dropped from his ears for the first time in months, sheer relief about not having to fight to get food into Takumi’s mouth that night.
From the window of the kitchen that looks out into the living room, Ren cuts the rice scoop through the rice, working the sweet vinegar mixture into it as he watches Koji help the kids choose their outfits, helping them hold it up against themselves to compare.
At times, they turn to him for his opinion; Takumi with his loose satin orange shirt with puffy chiffon sleeves and long trousers that flare out at the base and makes him look like a ‘70s disco star from one of Ren’s father’s record sleeves, and Rin with a giant floppy hat and a too-long vintage dress that pools around her ankles.
Ren looks up from carefully slicing the tuna to her giggling loudly as she spins to make the skirt flare up.
“Papa Meme, Papa Meme! What do you think?” she calls out in between delighted screeches before she collapses into a laughing heap onto the ground, the hat flopping off her head and bouncing onto the floor. The braids that Ren helped her tie this morning are in complete disarray, and her cheeks are flushed with happiness.
“You look wonderful, princess. Uncle Raul had better watch his back because you’re going to be stealing his job,” Ren tells her, grinning and meaning it, and she just giggles when Takumi picks up the hat only to drop it back on her head.
It’s only a few minutes later when there’s a tug on the hem of Ren’s shirt.
“Papa Meme,” and he looks down to see Takumi still in his disco star outfit, sunglasses balanced precariously around his neck.
“What is it?” He asks, bending slightly to hear him better, but Takumi’s face just lights up with an ominous (for his fathers) kind of glee before his hand, quick as a hare, darts out to grab the biggest slice of tamagoyaki from the plate, and he’s dashing out of the kitchen cackling.
“Oi, Meguro-Mukai Takumi!” Ren calls out, trying to sound stern. He knows he’s failed when Takumi turns back to look at him through the kitchen window, looking very triumphant. His cheeks are already stuffed full of rolled egg like he’s expecting his father to come rushing after him to snatch his prize back.
Koji doesn’t help though, because he just thinks it’s the funniest thing in the world when the kids do stuff like this. He calls it Ren “getting a taste of his own medicine,” which…
Ren can neither confirm nor deny the truth of that statement.
And there Koji is, a hand clamped over his mouth to keep his laughter from boiling over, his eyes little crescents over the truly incredible amount of taffeta he’s trying to hide behind.
He bends down, pretending to fix something on Rin’s outfit, but Ren knows the truth.
He goes back to his fish, making jokey grumbly sounds and shooting Koji playful Looks that he waves off.
But there’s another tug on his shirt. When Ren looks, it’s Takumi again.
“Sorry, Papa…” He says, eyes big and round, and god, it wasn’t even anything serious and Ren wasn’t even annoyed, but Takumi has a glass heart, just like Koji does. “I shouldn’t have done that…”
Ren crouches down immediately, pressing a long kiss into Takumi’s sweaty play-mussed hair.
“I’m not angry, Takkun,” he says, stroking Takumi’s hair gently, then his rosy pink cheeks. “I was just kidding; sorry I yelled.”
“Really?” Takumi asks, looking up at him through his bangs, his hands clasped behind his back. There’s a little bit of egg left on the corner of his mouth, yellow and bright, and Ren swipes it off gently before he pops it straight into his mouth.
Takumi looks horrified. “Ew, that’s gross!” He sticks his tongue out in disgust, holding his hands out to fend Ren off when he starts making kissy noises at him.
“Oh, yeah? That’s gross?” Ren scoops him up in his arms, making Takumi positively shriek with delight and throw his arms around Ren’s neck gleefully. “I saw you eating ants off the pavement last week, Takkun, and you’re calling me gross?”
“I didn’t!” He cries, laughing as Ren brings him out to the couch so the tickle fest may commence.
“I saw you! With my own eyes!” Ren places his son gently on the couch despite the boisterousness. He doesn’t even need to touch Takumi for him to giggle and screech. Rin, to her credit, doesn’t even wait for her brother and father to settle on the couch before she’s flinging herself onto Ren’s back, screeching me too! Me too!
“I’m going to tickle you both!” Ren threatens, peeling their daughter off his back and placing her onto the couch next to her brother so that she doesn’t slip and fall and accidentally hurt herself. “I’m going to tickle you until you admit it!”
And Koji, ever the lonely bug, joins in a second after, his hands outstretched in pretend menace. He puts up a truly outstanding show of trying to fend Ren off their children, wrapping his arms around Ren’s torso and pretending he’s trying to wrestle him off.
“No, monster, no!” Koji yells, and Ren catches on immediately, growling into the kids’ tummies, making them squeal so loud Ren’s glad they don’t live in an apartment. The kids are going to be way too excited to sleep tonight.
“I’m going to stop you,” Koji threatens heroically, but all he’s doing, really, is clinging to Ren, clinging tight until they all collapse in a giggling, wheezing heap on the rug, the fashion show all but forgotten in the chaos.