Archive of Our Own ^beta

It’s two in the afternoon on a Thursday, and Goro Akechi is in the drive through line at Starbucks. He really shouldn’t be, he knows, but one phone call had given him an unbearable headache. A barely-caffeinated, overpriced milkshake of a “coffee” was both his reward for not screaming (it was close) and his procrastination before more stress (god fucking damn it).

“Sir? Sir, you can pull up,” a teenager says through the window ahead. Goro lets his foot off the break and slowly inches forward. He takes a deep breath and throws on his ever perfect smile. “That’ll be $8.54.”

For a fucking Frappuccino. He keeps his smile front and center as he forks over his card and completes the exchange, now down ten dollars (impromptu cake pops are a vice, sue him) and up one future stomach ache. But for now it tastes good and cold and refreshing against the Maytime heat, so he pushes up his sunglasses, rolls down the rest of the windows, and sips his drink on the way to one haughty, insufferable private school.

“Hello? Yes? Is this Akechi-san?” the man had asked over the phone. 

“It is,” Akechi had replied automatically.

“Ah, good,” the man said. “We tried to reach Akira Kurusu, but we weren’t able to get ahold of him. I’m calling about your son.”

About his son. The principal called him in the middle of a Thursday about his son. At first Goro had felt dread, but that quickly became rage when…

“Yes, we need you to come pick him up. He’s here in my office— settle down, boy!”

“Did something happen?” he asked with startling calmness. 

“Well, you see, he bit another student…”

His son bit a kid. He fucking bit a kid! Some rich asshole’s kid, probably, and now Goro was on his way to handle the politics of this school ( it’s a good school, Goro the Akira in his head said. They’ll do well there, and we can afford it. With those stupid big gray eyes and stupid little crease in his brows) and the patrons of it. 

He pulls into a parking spot close to the entrance and lets his head fall back. One breath in, one breath out, one long sip in and yes that was cold and oh no it was cold, ow. He sighs and lifts the sunglasses to the top of his head. He didn’t need this today. 

He bit a kid, Goro repeats to himself. I used to do that shit too. Don’t all kids bite? Maybe, but he’d never had a parent to come pick him up afterward. He had an annoyed teacher staying late for his detention. 

Reluctantly, he rolls the windows back up and turns the car off. He does take his drink inside, though, because it was basically ten dollars and it would melt if he was gone too long. He does a quick once over — slacks, white button up, clean shoes, because he was at work, damn it. Was. Now he is not. Now he is out of excuses for not going through those stupid school doors. 

So he does. He rolls his shoulders back and decides he does not give one single, itty bitty shit, and strides right on in. There’s an administrative desk facing the entryway, and a bored, well-manicured woman waves him over. 

“How may I help you, sir?” she drones.

“Hello,” he replies. “My name is Goro Akechi—“

“Oh,” she says. “I’ll let them know you’re here.”

Shit. That probably wasn’t great. Another woman — one who looked much more stern and exhausted rather than bored, one who probably begged God to allow her boredom — came in and greeted him. 

“I’m Yui Kishimoto, your son’s homeroom teacher. I’m sorry we’re meeting again under these circumstances.”

“Ah, that’s how it ends up, isn’t it?” Goro replies, thinking that he hasn’t met this woman once in his life. Obviously he had, because he’d done the whole meet-and-greet shit Akira adored and shook the hands and gave the smiles. But also he hadn’t. 

She leads him back through some freshly carpeted hallways. They’ve got an unfortunate green tone that gives Goro a sense of satisfaction. Even stupid stuck-up schools had ugly carpets, it seems. It’s only two turns until they reach their destination and, with a sharp one-two knock, he’s led inside. 

“Goro Akechi has arrived, Principal Kimura,” Kishimoto says politely. She walks into the room and stands next to the Principal’s desk, assuming her physical position of power. Goro barely pulls back his eye roll. 

“Ah, Akechi-san,” Kimura says from behind his oversized desk. “Thank you for coming.”

As if I had a choice, Goro does not say. Kimura glances at his drink, up at his sunglasses, back at his drink. He clears his throat and gestures at the last adult in the room.

“This is Imai-san,” he says with faux respect in his tone. “The mother of our little Hana here.”

Imai-san gives Goro an empty greeting. She’s obviously just as annoyed as him to be here, judging by her crossed arms and tight frown. She, too, is dressed in office clothing, although her designer purse and tastefully bedazzled shoes have Goro wondering just what kind of “work” she does. He suspects it involves mimosas and yoga. 

It’s only after he greets her that Goro decides to look down. Admittedly, it’s a power move. He isn’t above that sort of thing. It’s not as though he hadn’t seen the two grumpy children sitting on opposite sides of the room, one with a pristine uniform and bratty expression and the other a rumpled jacket and angry floor-directed glare. Goro looks at the girl first, little Hana here. How put together she is for a kid that was supposedly bit, one that would undoubtedly exaggerate or outright lie to every person in the room. 

Or maybe he was a little biased. His son probably did bite her.

His only question was: did she deserve it?

Finally he lets himself look at the most important person in the place. Hair frazzled, jacket wrinkled, shoes scuffed and this boy wasn’t his and Akira’s biologically, but damn if he didn’t inherit the perfect look of rage and defiance. That look is still pointed straight to the ground instead of at the high-and-mighty staff looking down their noses at him. Goro takes a long, loud sip until his son brings his eyes up from the floor. The sip goes on, and on, and on, until it becomes an irritating stuttering mess of whipped cream and air. He can feel the four others glaring at him, but he keeps his eyes locked right on his kid. One of them would give in eventually, and it had never been Goro before. Finally, when the obnoxious straw sound becomes utterly absurd, his boy looks up sheepishly.

“Hi, Dad,” he mutters. 

“Hello, Wonder,” Goro replies in his most Dad-Being-A-Dad voice. Akira is better at it, but Goro thinks the way he raises an eyebrow and flattens his tone has an equal impact. “Did you bite Hana?”

Wonder turns his eyes back down and something in Goro snaps. His son should never, ever be lowering himself like this. If he did something wrong, he should learn to face the repercussions with dignity. If he didn’t do something wrong, he should push his chin up higher and tell the would to fuck off. 

“Head up, Wonder,” Goro says, and maybe it’s a bit harsh. But it works. Wonder finally locks eyes with him and keeps it that way. “I asked if you bit her.”

“…Yes.” 

And he keeps that chin of his up. Atta boy. 

“And he hit me!” Hana adds unprompted from across the room. Goro turns just in time to see the mother digest the words, then hears:

“No, I didn’t! She’s lying!” Wonder yells back. 

“You bit me and hit me and Mom he pulled my hair! ” little Hana cries. Small tears build up in the corner of her eyes and Goro squints in annoyance.

It wasn’t that he disliked kids, it was that kids were too young to be good liars. Little Hana, with her dramatic outburst and instant wet eyes, was a shitty fucking liar. So Goro looks back to his son and raises and eyebrow.

“Dad, I swear I didn’t hit her!” he says. His eyes are pleading.

Goro is suddenly seven years old in his own school, in his own chair, facing his own little Hana who lied and cried while Goro himself denied her accusations. Goro is back in that dusty office watching the brat take a second to stick her tongue out when the adults weren’t looking, begging the teacher to believe him. They didn’t believe him then. They never believed him. Not that that school, or the next, or the next…. 

So he looks at Wonder and the flames of Akira in his eyes and finally gives him a smile. “Alright,” he says. “Why don’t you tell me what happened then?” The relief in on son’s face makes Goro want to scream. 

“I already said!” Hana interjects. “He hit me!”

Goro pointedly ignores her. 

“She was picking on Closer…” Wonder starts. “She was pulling her hair and kicking rocks at her. And Closer said to stop and Hana wouldn’t so I went to go get Closer—“

“He’s lying! ” Hana hisses. “Liar liar liar! Closer isn’t a person, that’s not even a name! He’s lying!” Because Hana has never heard the concept of a nickname, apparently. 

“—and then Hana grabbed me and wouldn’t let go,” Wonder finishes.

“So you bit her?” Goro asks. Wonder nods and looks away again, and Goro sighs. “She’s that strong, is she?”

“See!” Hana yells again because she was an annoying little brat. “A girl isn’t stronger than a boy, I didn’t grab him.”

“I’d have to say I agree, Akechi-kun,” her mother finally adds. “It seems like your boy here doesn’t know how to control himself. Honestly, just look at him.”

Goro does. He’s certain Wonder looked perfect when he left for school, and now he is, undeniably, a mess. It’s a little hard to believe Hana did all that. Wonder mumbles something at his shoes and Goro can’t help but put his hand on his hip and click his tongue. 

“Will you look at me?” he asks. When Wonder does he says, “You really do look terrible. How’d that happen?” 

“….” Wonder stares.

“….” Goro stares back.

“….”

“…..”

“……….Closer,” Wonder finally mumbles. 

Goro likes to think he’s a man that can keep himself composed, one that can mold himself to new situations and keep the upper hand. He likes to think that. But when his son is in the Principal’s office and admitting he bit a small girl, and that he looks like shit because his younger sister beat the crap out of him in turn, he can’t help the laugh that bursts out of him. It’s not even his polite laugh, it’s his mean, grating cackle that has him double over and barely try to catch his sunglasses as they fall.

“Dad!”

“Your sister did that?” Goro gasps. “Why isn’t she in here too then?” 

“Dad, come on!”

“Sorry,” he says as he settles himself, because he’d vowed to be a parent that treated his kid like a human and that involved apologies sometimes. “Really though, she did that?”

“After I bit Hana,” Wonder says. “She didn’t want me to.”

“Can we get back to that now?” the mother asks impatiently. “Your son just admitted to assaulting my daughter. She’s saying he hit her and pulled her hair, and you’re just laughing?”

“Well, he’s admitted to biting her. He denies the rest,” Goro replies, voice deadpan. “What exactly are you expecting to happen here, Imai-san?”

“An apology, for starters! He hurt Hana and now we’ve all had to stop our days to deal with his actions.” 

Bitch. 

“I’ll apologize once Hana says sorry to Closer,” Wonder says defiantly. “But not until then.”

Atta boy. 

“I didn’t do anything! He’s lying!” little lying Hana-chan repeats. It’s obvious now with how nervous she looks, the way she glances between her mother and the teacher, the way she blinks to get the crocodile tears back. Goro knows it all very well. Hana will be good at it one day. Today is not that day. 

The Principal sighs and rubs at his forehead. “I suppose we ought to get your daughter in here, then, Akechi-san.” 

The teacher leaves to fetch her, and with the way Wonder smiles Goro starts to question if his own kid is playing him for a fool. The room is silent and tense for those minutes as they wait, and Goro uses the time to text Akira.

I’m at the school , he writes. Apparently our sweet son bit a girl.

He doesn’t expect an answer for a while, but his phone buzzes back almost immediately.

Did she deserve it? Akira replies. Goro snorts.

Determining that now. I’ll let you know. 

The next text comes back two minutes later. Should I come down?

Well, they tried calling him first and he didn’t answer, so Akira must be busy. Plus Goro is already here. He sends back a quick It’s fine. and puts his phone away just as the door opens.

In walks his daughter. His sweet, strong, capable, too-smart daughter. 

With a fucking cut on her face. 

He should’ve told Akira to come. 

“Hi Dad,” she says nervously. “Sorry.”

“For what?” Goro asks immediately. Closer shrugs and Goro tuts. What the hell was this school doing to his kids? “Don’t apologize unless you do something wrong. Go sit with your brother.” 

She does, and the tense atmosphere doubles down. Goro isn’t going to be the first to talk. Instead he looks pointedly at the teacher, waiting for her to be the authority figure she is meant to be. She picks up on this and swallows. 

“Yes, so, we just have a few questions for you young lady,” Kishimoto says. “Can you tell us about what happened today?”

Closer looks between her and Goro for a moment. Goro just looks right back, because she doesn’t need his permission to speak. She can talk all on her own, thank you very much. Eventually she does. 

“Um… so… Wonder and I had a fight,” she says. 

“About Hana, ” Goro sighs. Somehow that locks Closer’s jaw shut and pushes her head down. Goro has to blink a few times to accept the sight, because those tears are undoubtedly real and that desperate attempt at hiding them is too familiar. Goro chucks his empty drink into the trash with a thunk-swish and walks over to his kids. Neither are looking at him. One of them is hurt and crying despite her best attempt not to. The other has his fists balled tight on his lap. 

He should’ve told Akira to come. 

But Akira isn’t here, and Goro still doesn’t know exactly how to parent but he does know how it feels to sit in that seat with the world towering over you. So he crouches down and gently takes Closer’s hands in his own.

“Sweetie, can you look at me?” he asks. She shakes her head and he pretends he doesn’t see two tears fall onto the back of his hand. “Do you want to step out for a minute?” She nods. She stands up on her own ( atta girl ) and holds Goro’s hand tight as she moves to the door ( taking the lead ) and as soon as it’s closed behind them she grabs onto him and cries into his pressed business-casual shirt. 

“I’m sorry!” she says between sobs. “I’m sorry!”

He really should’ve told Akira to come. This was Akira territory. Goro had never had the chance to hold an adult and cry and he doesn’t know what is supposed to happen next, but his little girl is sobbing openly in the middle of the ugly-carpeted hallway, so he holds her tight and just lets it happen. Her crying turns to high pitched little gasps as she struggles so catch her breath and Goro is pretty sure that’s what a heart shattering sounds like, because that’s certainly what it feels like. 

“Suwa,” he says quietly, “It’s okay, I’m not mad at you. You aren’t in trouble.” She makes a small little sound at that and Goro isn’t sure what it means. After a moment she manages to pull in a full, shaking breath. Then another. Then another. She wipes her face on his shirt ( brat, he thinks lovingly), and finally looks up at him.

“I was trying to take care of it on my own,” she says. “But Wonder saw and I couldn’t stop him.”

A cut on her cheek. A cut on her cheek. 

Kicking rocks at her , Wonder had said. Goro can’t help but run his hand under it. 

“How long has this girl been bullying you?” he asks. 

“…since three Wednesdays ago,” his daughter admits. “I was gonna take care of it though. So you didn’t worry.” 

Oh. 

“Oh, sweetie, no,” he finds himself saying, and it really sounds like he opened his mouth and Akira came out. He crouches down again and holds her tight, kisses the top of her head and squeezes her. “If someone is hurting you, that’s for us to handle, okay? You don’t ever have to face that alone. Never.”

“Sorry, Dad.” 

She won’t look at him. This time, he’ll let her have the small privacy. She does hug back though, and she does nod, and she does cry a little more before wiping her face off again. 

“Can we go back in?” Goro asks. She nods again, and when they go back in every person looks ten times more pissed off than when they left. 

“I don’t know what she said,” Hana starts immediately, “but I never touched her!” Her mother looks smug about that, like she’d taught Hana the first step to any interaction is cover your own ass or it's always someone else’s fault.  

Goro just gives her a tired look and leads Closer back to her seat. 

“So, Suwa-chan,” the teacher says much more softly. “Is there anything you want to tell us?”

“…Hana’s been bullying me,” Closer says quietly. “Since three Wednesdays ago.”

“Nuh-UH!” Hana says, but even her own mother shushes her and looks at Closer with concern. 

“It’s ’cuz I said I didn’t want to play house with her and she said I had to but I had to be the dad, and I said I wanted to be the mom if we were going to play house, and she said…”

Oh no the fuck she didn’t, Goro thinks. Closer swallows and ducks her head so far down she’s practically talking to her stomach. 

“…she said I had to be the dad because I don’t know how to be a mom ‘cuz I don’t have one, and I said that wasn’t true and that I was gonna be a mom when I grew up, and she hit me and said…” 

Oh, no the absolute fuck she did NOT.

“…that I wouldn’t know how anyway, ‘cus my family are freaks and I’ll only grow up being a boy, and then I told her to stop and she pushed me and I left but then she started foll— following me and— and she—”

Whatever happened after that ‘three Wednesdays ago’ doesn’t make it out of Closer’s mouth, because she bites her hand instead and tries to hold back tears again. Wonder scoots closer to her and wraps her in a one-armed hug, glaring daggers across the room at Hana as he rubs his hand up and down his sister’s shoulder. 

“That’s why I didn’t want to tell you!” Closer pushes out toward Goro. 

“I see,” Goro says. There’s a venom on his tongue he hasn’t heard in a long while. It’s just as metallic and sour as it always was. He turns his whole body to Hana’s mother and really takes a look at her.

And looks. And looks. In a flash recognition blooms in him, and that venom inside his mouth splits his lips into an absolutely pristine, vile smile that would surely make the PTA divorcees swoon. 

“Where might Hana have picked that up, I wonder?” he says in that deadly sweet voice. “Surely not from your husband, Imai-san, right?”

Her husband who absolutely loves Twitter and the neighborhood watch and spitting drunken, homophobic slurs at every opportunity. Even his like-minded cronies get uncomfortable when the man starts up. Most of their neighborhood is tolerant, or at least polite enough to Goro and Akira’s faces, but not Imai. Not Imai. Imai can rot in hell right alongside Goro and it’ll be a punishment for them both.

Mrs. Imai crosses her arms and huffs. “What are you implying? Your problem child still needs to apologize, you know.”

“I do believe apologies are in order, yes,” Goro says nicely. He looks over his shoulder at his kids. “Closer, do you want an apology from Hana-chan?”

“I just want her to leave me alone! ” Closer answers immediately. Goro turns back to Imai.

“That sounds easy enough, doesn’t it?”

“Well, Akechi-san…” the Principal starts, and Akechi points that brilliant sword of a smile right at him. It’s satisfying the way the man tries to hide his flinch. “Your boy, er, Wonder did bite Hana-chan. He even admitted to it. We can’t let that go unpunished.” 

Goro stares at him. He’d learned long ago that leaving a silence open pressures others to keep talking, and if they keep talking he has more to use against them. All the old, nasty skills are coming back full force in this cramped room and it feels so

so

so good. 

The Principal does fill the silence with an awkward, “So we’re going to have to suspend him.”

And Goro just stares. He watches the man squirm under his gaze, clearly unsure how to proceed when the parent called in doesn’t respect his authority. No, Goro doesn’t respect it at all. In fact, it’s his now. This man can kneel and beg forgiveness for whatever bullshit his school has been teaching, whatever nonsense it is that makes Goro’s kids keep their heads down. He stares all of that into Kimura’s soul. 

“Er… perhaps detention would be enough, actually. Two weeks.”

…Good enough. Goro turns to Wonder and is puzzled at the little shit eating grin pulling at his lips. Wonder nods theatrically. 

“Thank you for being so lenient, Principal Kimura,” he says. “I won’t do it again.”

That grin of his is bitten down quickly when Wonder catches Goro’s eye, but it’s all Goro needs to piece it together. That little brat never planned to get suspended, Goro realizes. 

The school has both his and Akira’s contact information on file. They usually call Akira first — not that they get calls from school often, or ever for behavioral issues — because Akira is the one that goes to the PTA meetings and remembers the names and is, overall, more approachable. 

However. It’s early afternoon on a Thursday, the first Thursday of this May, which means Akira is having his monthly “meeting” with Ann and Sumire and Haru, and that group has two rules.

One, photograph every stupid piece of sweet pastry they end up with. (1a: harass instagram with the best angles of each). 

Two, no phone calls. Ringers off. Hush. Just for a couple hours. 

Goro turns completely to Wonder and glares. This little shithead knew that. He knew! He knew the school would have to call Goro down and that Goro would have to handle it and oh, boy this kid was in trouble. Not for biting Hana. For using him.

It seems the whole room notices Goro’s sharp change in demeanor, because there are multiple pairs of surprised eyes pointed at him. Closer, finally calmed down, snickers. 

“You are in soooooo much trouble.”

“Yes,” Goro says, “you are. Get in the car.” 

Whatever the others saw in Goro’s face was enough to keep them frightfully silent as he led his kids away. 

It’s nearly an hour later in a bougie McDonalds, and Goro is stealing the french fries from his kids’ meals one by one just to annoy them. They both seem in much better spirits and are bickering over their respective toys, occasionally shoving a handful of fries or a bite of trashy burger into their mouths. Akira will be pissed when Goro tells him later. It’s fine.

“Tell me,” Goro starts around a few fries. He dips the remaining halves in ketchup and chews them too. “Do you two even like that school?”

They look at each other and do that thing they do, the one where they speak without words. Goro and Akira do it too, but Goro had never realized how irritating it was from the outside until his own gremlins started. 

“Well,” Closer starts, “Daddy likes it a lot!”

A near-perfect verbal sidestep. She definitely learned that from Goro. 

“Yeah, it’s a nice school,” Wonder adds. 

Also not an answer. Goro sighs.

“Now what’s the real answer?” he asks.

The two look at each other again and mutually agree to put their full attention on eating. Goro reaches across the table and swipes more fries, and snickers at Closer’s burger-muffled protest. 

“There’s no point in having you there if you don’t like it,” Goro says before either of them swallow. “Daddy and I aren’t the ones going every day.” 

Instead of acknowledging that (again), Wonder swallows harshly and says, “Sorry I bit her, Dad.”

Goro nods. “Good. Next time someone is bullying you — either of you — come tell us.”

Closer whispers something about retirement and changing hearts into Wonder’s ear, and Goro pretends he isn’t aware of their hushed giggling. 

“Did you ever bite someone when you were a kid?” Wonder asks. 

All the damn time, Goro wants to say. I’ve done way worse than bite, too. Instead he grabs a tater tot from Wonder’s bag, pops it in his mouth, and says, “Yep.”

That gets them both excited. Suddenly he has a machine gun of questions fired at him, one over the other, and neither gives him a second to answer. He can’t even make out half of their energetic words. 

“I didn’t have parents to come to the school, though,” he tosses into their noise. They do that look again, and Goro wants to beam inside their skulls and see what the hell is going on in there. They turn back to their food quietly. Goro thinks maybe he fucked something up.

“Thanks, Dad,” Closer says to her burger. “Are you mad at us?”

Goro hums and rests his cheek in his hand. How could he be mad at these two? One tried her hardest to handle an adversary, the other did what he could to protect his beloved sister. No, he wasn’t mad. He was sad. He wonders what he and Akira failed at that made both their kids keep this a secret from them until it went this far. After a beat he realizes his silence is probably heavier on his children than that principal, so he hums again. 

“No, I’m not mad at you,” he says. And he’s really trying to be a good parent, he’s really trying, and that means treating these tiny humans as just that — humans. Smart, troublesome humans. Words are hard, but he’s using them anyway. “Why didn’t you want to talk to us about it?”

The french fries are going to get cold soon. Closer eats some anyway. When she swallows and speaks, she has her head up and eyes forward. 

“You and Daddy are so cool and strong. You two can fight anything. I just… didn’t want you to be disappointed if I couldn’t…”

Oh, fuck that. That is not allowed at all! Goro stands up and gestures for his kids to scoot out of the booth. As soon as they do he bends down and squishes them as tight as he can. He can’t help it, he can’t help the need to hug them and hold them and comfort them because how could he ever be disappointed in these two? So he says as much as kisses their heads until they squirm and wiggle away. 

“Euck! Who are you, and what did you do with our dad?!” Wonder says dramatically. He makes a show of wiping a kiss off his face. 

“ You,” Goro replies, “are still in trouble.”

“I said sorry! I have detention!” 

“Mhm,” Goro says, “and you knew Akira is with your aunt right now.” The way Wonder’s face pales is all the admittance Goro needs. “Hence: still in trouble.”

Behind him, Closer leans to the table and steals the last tater tot with a smile.

It’s been a long day. It’s been a long life, really, but it’s been an especially long day. Goro is finally getting ready for bed (finally getting some quiet) and the closer he gets to that sweet, sweet pillow the more exhausted he feels. He’d told Akira everything, and Akira had talked with the kids, and he and Goro talked together, and Goro has talked so much today he wants to sew his mouth shut. Akira is across the room, halfway dressed in pajamas and setting an alarm on his phone. Goro is one step from faceplanting on the bed when he hears a quiet, private mutter of:

“ Why McDonalds?”