Title: A Collection of Strays
Fandom: Persona 4
Characters: Dojima & family
Rating: G
Warnings: none
A Collection of Strays
Dojima disliked surprises. In his field, and especially in his life, surprises rarely meant anything good. Surprises meant things like being rung out of bed at four in the morning, or being asked to sign up for parent-child day at school, or coming home late only to find his daughter asleep at the table with the food slowly cooling in its bowls, because he'd hadn't remembered to call.
He wasn't sure how to feel about the box.
Initially, he'd assumed its contents to be store-bought, as it always was, unless both of them forgot to prepare lunch altogether, Nanako forced to resort to the school canteen and he to a coffee and a trip to the udon stand. Sometimes just coffee. Today, though, what had greeted him upon flipping back the box lid wasn't a foil-wrapped package with day-old curry, but something that could have jumped straight out of a commercial.
A helping of teriyaki, a perfectly round mound of rice, an assortment of tiny sauces, and an array of mochi mice and rabbits, blinking cutely up at him. All of it was so perfectly arranged it was almost uncanny, bright, fresh colors and scents taunting him even after he closed the lid.
In fact, that was all he had been doing for the past fifteen minutes. Just opening and closing the lid, sometimes out of suspicion, sometimes driven by temptation. It didn't quite seem real, something that had fallen through a hole in time, a compact reminder of a past life. A life of proper breakfasts and the scent of honeysuckle and Nanako's endless giggles, a life of ties and the hands that grabbed him before he could vanish out the door, adjusting his knot and shoving the forgotten lunchbox into his arms.
Open.
The glazed onions were shimmering up at him imploringly.
Close.
Souji didn't mean anything by it. Couldn't mean anything by it. Probably had thought it a nice gesture, something to gain acceptance with. And technically, who could blame him? Dojima hadn't exactly given him the warmest of welcomes, still too overwhelmed by the idea of having another person in the house, another family member.
Open.
The mice were staring at him with their beady eyes, unhappy to be refused.
Close.
Souji was a virtual stranger, but he would be filling the third spot at the table, and the front seat in the car, he meant a third set of sheets hung out to dry in the yard and a third voice, where for so long there had been only silence. On some days, it had been easy to pretend that it was just Nanako and him, had always been just Nanako and him, going about their daily routines without saying anything, and scraping silence from the dinner bowls with their chopsticks.
Open.
He'd shut the box too hard the last time, so a bit of rice had come loose from the top of the mound, sticking to the inside of the lid.
Close.
Maybe this would be a one-off thing. It was odd for a boy to be making cutesy family lunches, anyway. Maybe, if it wasn't, he ought to let Souji know, tell him he appreciated the gesture, but he'd rather go with a cup of noodles? Maybe he was being foolish.
Open.
"Something wrong with the food, boss?"
Adachi was blinking at him from the other desk in his sleepy-looking manner, grinning. He'd probably been observing—
"You've been doing that for a good ten minutes now."
Dojima glared, barked something along the lines of, "None of your damn business," and grabbed the chopsticks.
.
.
Against his hopes, it didn't stay a one-off thing.
Dojima readily admitted that it had been his own fault, bringing back a lunchbox that had practically been picked clean, down to the last grain of rice. The memory of shoveling the food, of going so far as to clean up the teriyaki sauce with his fingers, glancing around like a thief to see if anyone would notice, made him flush with embarrassment at his own lack of willpower. Souji had beamed at him as if the squeaky-clean box was the greatest possible compliment, and Dojima had been ashamed enough that his eyes had swerved to the other box on the counter, Nanako's with the Hello Kitty painted at the front, and notice that it was shining with emptiness, too. She hadn't even picked out the carrots, and she hated carrots.
Convincing Souji of his preference for cup noodles was definitely out.
Over the next two weeks, his nephew set out to prove his rather uncanny culinary skills on omelets, Chinese bao zé, stir fry, salmon croquettes and a couple of things Dojima wasn't even sure how to identify, something that looked vaguely Indian and something that was a tangle of foreign noodles and tiny shrimp. And always, invariably, some part of it came arranged in the shape of animals, once a fish, once a dog, once even a detective's magnifying glass. It made Dojima grit his teeth, but the coil of memories in his insides only served to make him hungrier, wolfing down the food as if he hadn't eaten for days, every time.
"Big bro makes the best lunchboxes," Nanako told him, and Dojima couldn't recall the last time he'd seen her like this, so happy she looked ready to burst. "He made me octopus sausages and kitty rice balls and an aquarium and a flower!"
"The best?" Dojima asked tolerantly, wondering just when Souji had been promoted to 'big brother.' That was another surprise, and he wasn't sure he liked this one, either.
"The best in the whole world!" Nanako said, throwing her arms apart and spreading her happy glow throughout the hallway.
The next day, Dojima resolved to ignore the lunchbox on the kitchen counter. It had only been the second time Nanako had pronounced someone's lunch the best in the whole world.
"Shame on you, Dojima-san."
Dojima looked up from between the stacks of forms and plastic coffee cups. The receptionist had propped her hip against his desk, and although she was smiling, the reproach in her voice was clear. She was holding a parcel, wrapped in a checkered kitchen towel, and his heart sank at the sight.
"Making that nice boy walk all the way out here for nothing." She shook the parcel demonstratively. "And don't even give me something like 'I forgot,' because I've seen what you do to the contents."
"I don't see how—"
"This is my concern?" she finished. "Damn right it is. You let the kid trek all the way out here and then toss his food away, and you think he doesn't notice?"
"I," Dojima said, the hot sting of shame holding back the defense poised on the tip of his tongue. He'd just wanted to get rid of it and go back to his udon, hadn't wanted the reminder of a past life sitting on top of his files every day. He hadn't really thought about Souji.
"For heaven's sake, he's out here so often he's started bringing me lunch. Best fried bananas I ever had, by the way, so you can't even tell me he doesn't know how to cook."
He blinked, wondering why on Earth his nephew would feel compelled to bring lunch to the police receptionist, of all people, and eventually muttered, "I never asked him to."
"And I never asked him, either," she said. "My guess is he's just one of those people who like taking care of others. You can try to tell him to stop with the lunchboxes, but he'll just find another way to fuss over you."
He didn't like the spark of pity in her eyes, the kind of look that meant it was all too obvious to an outsider what he was trying to do here, but couldn't find a proper retort.
"If you really don't want the lunch, you could always give it away," the receptionist suggested. "I for one really wouldn't mind a helping of that delicious pork. Sweet and sour. With fried jasmine rice. And ginger. And—"
"Give me that," Dojima snapped, yanking the box out of her hands, uncaring of her laughter as she swaggered away. The towel was off before he knew it, and the blend of spicy sweetness helped to ease the knot of guilt in his belly in the most wonderful way.
.
.
He wasn't sure when the dinners started.
Maybe it was because he'd barely ever been home during the first couple of weeks, too preoccupied with the murders and deliberately seeking excuses to be away from the house when he wasn't, unable to stand listening to Nanako's happy chatter — had she ever talked this much before? — unable to watch her and Souji chopstick-fencing or dressed in tandem-look, standing side by side at the sink and washing the dishes. He couldn't decide whose place Souji was trying to take, whether it was Chisato's or his or both of theirs, but the less he could find excuses to stay away, the more he was actually staying home and trying to make himself invisible on the couch, the more he got to wondering whether he hadn't wanted it like this, grateful in some twisted way that Souji was giving him an excuse for failing, because Souji could deal Nanako and her inexplicable Nanako-ness.
Maybe it also was because the first few times, he was overcome by the same ravenous hunger that was always triggered by the lunchboxes, practically gorging himself on whatever was put in front of him without really noticing what it was. He couldn't even say that it was because it tasted better than the store-bought dinners, since he hardly tasted anything at all, just concerned with getting it in his mouth.
With time, though, the absolute ravenousness had begun to fade, leaving him just the way he used to be at the end of a long day, with sore feet and sore eyes and a growling stomach. That was when he actually came to notice the food itself in its — more often than not — exotic strangeness, Nanako snickering unabashedly when he was trying to fumble his way through the pronunciation of 'coq au vin' and 'bruschetta' because "Big bro taught me how to say it right!"
Dojima never mentioned the lunchbox disaster, and Souji never brought it up, either, but when Dojima actually tried out, "Thanks for the food," in the most awkward, most terribly robotic voice ever, he just smiled and said, "Any time," like he meant it.
Around the same time, Dojima began to realize the trio of lunchboxes on the counter was multiplying. At first he thought Souji might have found a girlfriend — and wasn't that supposed to go the other way around? — but then he noticed that the quartet could just as easily become a sextet, and that Souji was very carefully avoiding putting any tofu in one box while piling copious amounts in the other, and an extra helping of beef in the third, and began to wonder.
It wasn't normal, this obsession with food. He could understand having a hobby, but it quickly became apparent that Souji was determined to feed half of Inaba when Mrs. Takeuchi from down the street stopped wailing about her mother-in-law's criticism to anyone who would listen and instead started gushing about how that nice Seta boy had given her all these wonderful samples to try.
"I don't know," Souji said, shrugging, when Dojima had finally devised an elaborate plan to pry for past food trauma. "I guess I just got tired of microwaveables, and figured all the cooking shows had to be good for something. Mother had a big stove that never saw any use. And now, well... food just tastes better in company."
Dojima peered at him from over the rim of his paper, following as Souji returned to cutting potatoes into paper-thin slices — Tatsumi's favorite, or so he'd been told — and thought he might understand why his nephew preferred the clatter of pots and pans.
Souji opened the window, and put a plate of tuna and leftover stroganoff on the sill.
"There's a cat around here," he explained at Dojima's quizzical stare. "I don't think anyone feeds it."
A short while later, a cat indeed leapt up on the windowsill and greedily pounced on the offering, barely pausing in its devouring when Souji reached out to scritch behind its ears. Dojima squinted, and decided the scene was just too strange to ask further questions.
.
.
"Gangway! Coming through, sorry!"
The yell only gave Dojima a split-second advance warning to flatten himself against the side of his car before Hanamura staggered past, struggling to navigate under the weight of what appeared to be a tripod grill and a bag of coal. Satonaka and the Amagi girl were trailing after him, both not nearly as burdened, and not the least bit inclined to help.
It took Dojima a moment to realize they were marching towards his house.
"Could someone at least ring the bell? My hands are kind of fu— whoa!"
The door was flung open by none other than Tatsumi, who grabbed the grill and the bag, unmindful that Hanamura was still more or less attached to it, and dragged everything inside. Drawing his brows together, Dojima followed, wondering when exactly he should have started calling ahead to announce his own return, and also slightly concerned with the combination of teenagers and flammable substances.
"Hey, hey, careful with that, that's on loan from Junes." Hanamura was still working on disentangling himself from the tripod and the appliances he was carrying.
"We brought the sausages," Satonaka announced. "And steak! Delicious steak!"
"I still say we got too much," Amagi chimed in, depositing their shopping bags on the kitchen counter, where they were promptly snatched up by Souji. "You need any help?"
"No," Souji said a little too quickly, and moved the bags a bit further away. "No, that's fine. Thanks, Yukiko."
"Are you sure? We could..."
"Set the table," Tatsumi supplied, just as quickly. "We've got all stations manned."
"Stations?"
"Yeah, sure. Here's the salad station, and there's sempai's station, and over there's the dessert station—" The Kujikawa girl looked up from where Souji was instructing her on the making of whipped cream toppings, and saluted with the cornet. "And that..." Tatsumi blinked, noticing the empty spot on the sideboard, where bowls and packets of spice stood abandoned. "That should be the sauce station, but..."
"It's manned, it's manned!" the little detective brat shouted, withdrawing from the pantry so quickly that she bumped her head. "Has anyone seen the vinegar?"
"Dad!"
Overwhelmed as he was by the unexpected congregation of highschoolers in his house, Dojima took a moment too long to realize that "dad" could only apply to him, and was thus wholly unprepared for Nanako's flour-covered embrace.
"Um. Hello, Nanako," he murmured, patting her on the head and trying to figure out how to make her loosen her grip on his waistband. "What's going on here?"
"We're having a party, dad!"
"...I can see that. But why—
"A not-birthday party. Like in that one show."
Finally, the rest of the group seemed to notice his presence, because they all froze for a moment.
"Well, I guess it's a good thing I bought plenty, then," Satonaka said, clearly satisfied with herself.
"Welcome home. We were so busy the last few days that we couldn't really celebrate Nanako's birthday," Souji explained, while the rest of them shared a grin that reeked of conspiracy. "So this is kind of a make-up party."
"Hey, don't forget your own. I'm still mad you didn't tell us," Hanamura said.
"That was back in March. We hadn't even met."
"It's still a birthday and you never told us."
"So basically, we're making sempai cook his own birthday food," Kujikawa said cheerfully, and went back to haphazardly applying the cream.
"Not many alternatives if we wanna prevent food poisoning," Hanamura retorted, and the boys snickered. "You're welcome to join us, sir."
"...you can't invite somebody in their own home, you dolt," Satonaka said, before going back to stacking bowls and plates as if she owned the place.
"Um," Dojima said, unable to process anything else.
Nanako eventually let go and returned to her place at Souji's side, perched atop a kitchen stool. Dojima kept standing in the hallway even as they all resumed their self-appointed tasks, bickering and laughing and spilling things every which way. Hanamura and Tatsumi carried the grill out to the porch, Amagi began applying her expertise to folding flower napkins, and the Shirogane kid recruited Nanako as her Assistant Number Two in order to investigate the mysteriously disappearing vinegar.
He'd never thought to make a big deal out of birthdays. That had been Chisato's specialty, who used to bake cakes and wrap presents and fuss over decorations for days. By himself, he was barely able to pick out a gift for Nanako, much less cope with a proper celebration. For the longest time, he hadn't even wanted to.
It felt strange to be standing in this house full of voices, barely able to hear himself past all the noise, when his own slippers scraping across the floor had once seemed so painfully loud.
"I'm... going to make the coffee," he found himself saying, shuffling barefoot into the only corner of the kitchen that wasn't besieged by ingredients and over-eager teenagers. By themselves, none of them seemed like they should have been here, an odd mish-mash of people that had all been lured in by Souji's food.
Souji himself appeared to be in his element, wielding a spatula like a scepter in an effort to keep his more untrustworthy helpers from putting things where they didn't belong, and occasionally stooping to be test-fed, much to the delight of the Kujikawa girl.
On the windowsill, the cat finished its plate, stretched, and curled up in sleepy satisfaction. Dojima shook his head, and decided he didn't really mind being added to Souji's bizarre collection of strays.
.
.
.
.
- FIN -
A/N: Who else is hungry now? I was futzing around with the timeline a bit, because there was that melon scene, and I wanted Naoto to be there. Oh well. C&C is much appreciated.
- Nanako is referring to Fushigi no Kuni no Alice, the anime adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. XD