A/N: So this is a little tidbit about Tai as a parent. More so, Tai as a parent to a teenage son. And more, more so, Tai as a parent trying to bring up the subject of girls with his teenage son.

Obviously, this is an AU, and if you are familiar with my other stories, you will recognize a few characters—namely, Tai's wife and a guy by the name of Ryo Hiraki.

Now, with that said, I know this story will not be plenty of people's cup of tea, but I'm not writing to please anybody. Read on if you're curious or interested.

And for those concerned, this features a Tai/OC pairing. Yah. Dangerous.

Comments, questions, and constructive criticism welcome!

Happy reading!

xXx

- Girls -

xXx

Tai stared blankly at his son. The game on TV dwindled to a choppy echo, the light from the screen felt on the side of his face like an off-shoulder glance—noticed, but dismissible. Limp fingers re-awakened around the remote as he blinked his eyes, searching for something solid to hold onto.

"Say that again?" he asked, leaning forward.

His son issued a soft grunt at the request, frowning not at him, but at the living room ceiling. Brown eyes glared up through a flap of chestnut fringe, tan arms crossing simultaneously over the chest, which thereafter expelled another short huff.

"I said, 'Let's go,'" his son repeated. "I'm going to be late for practice."

Despite the press for time, Tai remained stuck to the couch, tempted to trade his suspicion for apathy. Leaning back, he spread his arms over the top of the sofa, responding to the plea for haste with its precise opposite.

"Tarou," he began, lazily, "your teacher isn't going to kick you in the stomach for being five minutes late to ballet practice."

His son snorted.

"You don't know that. My teacher's Russian."

Tai's chin sank, nearly touching his collarbone. His neck was tired of both looking up at his son and tolerating his backtalk. With a sigh, his stare returned to the TV, irises following the footwork of the players zipping across the pitch.

"You've never been this anxious to go to ballet practice, Tarou," Tai continued.

"That's 'cause Mom usually takes me. Mom's never late."

The introduction of his wife into their conversation cast a grimace over Tai's features, though the mention was inevitable. It was because of her that Tarou started and continued ballet lessons. True, he still had some hand in cultivating his son's athletic extracurriculars (Tarou also played soccer for a neighborhood league and would be playing for high school when he started), but he would have preferred it if Tarou had never stepped foot inside a studio. His wife, however, would have never allowed it.

"If he expresses an interest in ballet, Taichi, he will do it," she had said. "No questions asked. And if he likes it, fine. If he doesn't, fine. What matters is that he is exposed."

"Yeah," Tai had scoffed. "Exposed in tight-ass spandex."

At present, said wife was on a short holiday to visit her father. She had taken their daughter with her, and she had precisely instructed him in her absence to take Tarou to his ballet lessons. They were, in actuality, the first thing at the top of the list of chores and duties she had left him: Tarou - Ballet lessons, Saturday, 10 am. Below that was, "Grocery shopping." Ballet, apparently, was more important than making sure they had food for dinner.

"All right, Tarou," Tai ceded. He made a show of pushing himself off the couch, groaning and wincing and rubbing fake pains in his knees. "Let me call your mom real quick and we'll be out of here. Five minutes."

He stretched and yawned before fishing his mobile phone from his shorts' pocket, shuffling socked feet over wood floors into the kitchen. On his way out he heard his son mutter, "Finally."

After two rings, his wife picked up with a giggle. Tai smirked.

"Couldn't survive a few days without hearing my voice?" she sang.

"What can I say?" Tai replied. "I'm a wreck without you."

She laughed.

"I believe that. How's everything?"

There was a pause. Tai glanced at the kitchen clock and envisioned his wife checking her wrist for the time. He bit gently into his tongue to keep from speaking, knowing what she'd say next.

"Tarou should be on his way to ballet practice by now," she observed. His tongue was released of pressure, and Tai made an invisible tally with his index finger on the kitchen counter. Score: 1. "Is he there already?"

"That's what I'm calling about."

"What's the matter?" Her voice rose an octave in both pitch and volume. Gently, Tai rubbed fingers against his ear, massaging the assaulted organ. "Did he get injured? Is he okay? What's going on?"

"Calm down." He assured her it wasn't anything serious. Tarou wasn't injured, and he wasn't out of favor with his teacher, either.

"Then, what is it?"

"He's... Well..." Tai scratched a nonexistent itch in his hair, stumped for accurate descriptors. "He's... anxious."

"What?"

The word was thinned, enunciated along a low, blunt slant, like a pendulum on its downward trajectory. She even added an extra syllable, beginning it with an "ooh." He could see her on the other end of the line, lips pursed, eyebrows wrinkled, jaw rigid.

"Is this a joke, Taichi?" she ranted into his ear.

"Don't start, Hana." He endeavored to remain calm, though an iota of him was offended by her sudden jump into the accusatory. "You know Tarou. He's never been this eager to go to ballet before. Sure, he's put up with it, but I've never seen him this... excited to go."

She growled, which he could tell solely by the agitated purr of breath coming in from the receiver.

"Mon Dieu, Tai," she seethed. "Tarou has never been late to a practice ever. Of course he's going to act this way. You're going to make him late."

"It's just ballet practice! How come he doesn't act this way when we're almost late to soccer practices or games?"

His wife sighed deeply, the release of air so strong he swore he felt it scratch against his cheek.

"Mon soleil," she began. She sounded exceptionally tired after so short a conversation. But, at least, her voice had lost its angry trill. "If you are going to insist that this is a problem in our child, then I will insist on having Dr. Ryo Hiraki, psychiatrist, examine him."

Tai flinched and swatted automatically at the kitchen counter.

"Hell no!" he shouted.

He had smacked the surface so loudly his son poked his head through the entryway, thick eyebrow arched and left eye squinting. Tai waved him off, gradually becoming sensitive to the stinging in his palm. He hunched his shoulders, leaning an elbow and forearm on the counter as he lowered his voice, lips close against the speaker of his phone.

What he heard from her was a teasing giggle, and what he offered in reply was a dire and dramatic forecast of his health.

"You're going to give me a heart attack one day."

"You married a ballerina," she quipped, unfazed by his threat. "You should have known at the altar that I was going to keep you on your toes for the rest of your life."

Her retort failed to amuse him, and he set the phone down on the counter, rubbing his face with both hands.

His wife began anew.

"All right, mon amour. You want my honest opinion on this? My... theory as Professor Izumi would say?"

Tai continued to mold relaxation back into his facial muscles, strangely fixed on kneading the grey skin under his eyes.

"Hit me," he muttered.

"Tarou is probably eager to get to class because of a girl."

Fingers broke contact with his face. His eyebrows shot up.

"A what?"

"A girl. Do I need to spell it out? Our son is fourteen years old, Tai. This is going to happen. Frankly, I'm surprised it hasn't happened sooner, though we have been spared other parts of his adolescence. No midnight wet dream talk. So far, at least."

"Hana."

"Speaking of which, we need to schedule when we're going to give him the talk."

"Hana."

"They teach kids about sex in school, right? Or do we need to do that ourselves?"

"Hana."

"What?"

"You really think it's about a girl?"

"Think about it for a second, Taichi," she said, breaking her reasoning down for him. "Adolescent boy. Ballet class. Girls in skintight leotards and hose. Physical contact. If I say anymore, this conversation will get very strange."

"You mean it isn't already?"

She replied with a cross between a sputter and sigh, the result of being unable to choose whether or not she wanted to laugh or scold him.

"Just ask him," she urged.

Tai nodded to himself before he spoke his agreement, his brain splitting as he tried to think of ways to bring up the subject with his son. There was the direct approach, obviously, but his son's temperament wasn't his. It was surprisingly like his mother's, and if there was one thing he learned from Hana, it was how to expertly dance around touchy topics.

"Let me say hi to Hinata before I let you go," he said into the phone.

There was some burbling on his wife's end, a scurry away from the phone, some softly whispered beckons, before a clear voice came back on, as bright and lucid as the sun.

"Hi, Daddy!"

xXx

Quickly, Tai veered into an empty parking space, one conveniently in the first line of vacancies closest to the studio entrance. The keys in ignition were twisted, dying the engine down, and he sat, unwillingly, in the quiet for a minute. He was early.

The two hours allotted for Tarou's ballet lesson gave him ample time to formulate a primary plan (and maybe a Plan B) to raise the subject of girls with his son. Why he arrived early was part of that original design. He wanted to catch Tarou upon exit, see for himself if he loitered with any particular classmates afterwards, if he looked forlornly at the turned back of any one be-tighted colleague.

He checked his watch, lips frowning when he saw he still had fifteen minutes to go. His hands tapped the steering wheel to an off, bumbling drumbeat, doing a bad time of counting the passing seconds evenly. Another parent—curly-haired and blonde—parked in the spot beside him and they exchanged nods. Tai watched as she adjusted the posture of her seat, leaning it back to dentist's chair standards before she pulled out a magazine and noisily flipped through its pages. He could hear the snap of turning paper even from inside his own vehicle.

"If there is a God," Tai muttered under his breath, "then practice will end early."

With a sigh, he removed his hands from the wheel, planting palms on his thighs so his elbows jutted out, arms akimbo. Intensely, he stared out the windshield.

He was surprised to see that he could, if only barely, make out the moving figures of people behind the building glass. Sky was reflected on the windows, broad daubs of clouds and silvery slats of blue spanning its breadth, nature's veil to the secrets taught within the secluded room.

Clearest were the feet: small and dainty, leaping with pixie facility, bound in satin. They seemed to glide over the floor, barely touching it, surrendered to the buoyancy of air. Tai wondered if that was why, of the dancers he knew through his wife (and herself included), they all appeared so distant in their gestures, in their looks, as if the world were beneath them, too dirty and too grimy for their ethereal ideals.

Yet, somewhere in that formation, in that room, was his son, who was learning how to move his feet to a tune better than a prancing pony.

Groaning, he dropped his forehead to the wheel and hit the car horn by accident. The blare jarred his senses enough to snap him out of his disdain, and he was relieved (and delighted) to see the honk had caused the parent in the car beside him to flail in her reclined seat, magazine flying out of her grip.

He held in his chuckles, glancing automatically to his right, conditioned into thinking his spouse would be in the seat beside, giggling with him. Her dawning absence sobered him instantly, and he returned to staring out the windshield. His hands went back to tapping anxiously on the wheel, enduring time in the only way he could while he waited for his son to emerge.

His patience was rewarded after another five minutes of excruciating lull, and Tarou exited the building entrance, black duffel bag hanging crossed over one shoulder, his tighted legs hidden in a pair of old soccer warm-ups. Sunshine fell directly on him, his unruly hair absorbing the golden rays, casting shadows where his face would be. His wife had the motherly habit of always reaching out and brushing the long fringe away from his eyes, to which Tarou would reply by swishing his bangs right back over. Tai had a difficult time figuring out how his son could see anything given his chosen hairstyle, but, then, he was not one to judge.

Truthfully speaking, Tarou was an uncanny replicate of himself as a teen. He was the average hobbledehoy—gangly and sparsely muscled, sinewy and lithe. He wasn't tall for his age, but Tai was betting on his growth spurt to hit within the next couple of years—just as it did for himself. Though, his wife being a whopping five foot two did nothing to help his apprehensions.

The facial details, too, were eerily alike. They shared the same heavy eyebrows, the brown eyes stippled with gold, thin lips whose natural resting positions were in a vexing, one-sided smile. When Tarou was born, the first time Hana had beheld him, she cried, "I carried this thing in me for nine long months—more than that!—and not an ounce of that hard work shows!"

Her comment was later withdrawn, excused as the hysterics of a woman still in a tizzy from childbirth, though occasionally she did ask him, in the privacy of their bedroom, why his genes had to be so damn strong. The birth of their daughter several years later counteracted her point, though even Hinata wasn't spared a touch of the Kamiya traits. She was lighter than Tarou, but still darker than her mother, and while she inherited Hana's hair color, Hinata's hair grew to a wild and untamable shape. Her best feature—or so Hana liked to claim—were her eyes, which were the best mix of her parents'. At the most basic, they were green, but they had an odd, auric sheen to them, like grass dew in the sunlight.

The sounds of approaching chatter and laughter yanked Tai's thoughts back to the present, and he blinked, catching in his sharpening view Tarou pausing in his exit, turning to speak to a female classmate.

He got out of the car.

Some words that would remain a mystery were exchanged, travelling a vast two feet between Tarou and the female enigma. There was a headbob from Tarou, mirrored a second later by the girl, and then he side-stepped, pushing the gap to three feet, and leaned his body away, hands in his pants' pockets. Disinterest might as well have been printed on a flapping banner, trailing from the tail of a buzzing plane flying overhead.

Tai greeted his son with crossed arms and a low, rippled brow.

"How was practice?" he asked.

Tarou shrugged and opened the door to the back, dumping his duffel bag inside before plunking himself in the shotgun seat, swerving his head in such a way as to clear the bangs from his eyes as he strapped on his seat belt. Reluctantly, Tai crouched back into the driver's chair.

"Same old," said Tarou. "We found out today who made the cut to dance at the Prix de Lausanne."

Tai raised an eyebrow.

"Does that include you?"

His son laughed, the sound not so much deriding as it was amused.

"I don't qualify until next year, Dad," he said, giving him a nudge in the shoulder. Only slightly did Tai bristle. "Keep up."

"Right," Tai muttered. He turned his gaze out, hands finding the steering wheel and the keys in ignition. The girl his son had spoken to approached her ride, a path that would eventually have her passing their car. She waved as she walked by and Tarou reacted by raising two fingers in the universal gesture of peace. The smile given was politely forced, and then he looked down.

"Who's that?" Tai asked.

"Just a classmate."

With effort, Tai swallowed a grunt. His kids could never give him straight answers. They were as coy and artful as their mother.

"She your level?"

"Yeah."

"Your dance partner?"

"No."

"She go to your school?"

"No. She's Russian."

They backed out of their spot. Exit after practice was a trying ordeal, with parents all striving to leave at the same time. Tai reversed the car enough to get them stuck in a queue twelve cars long, which twitched the eye already pinched from his son's clipped, elusive answers. He wondered if "He/She/It's Russian" would forever be a conversation closing tactic. Begrudgingly, he allowed the curly-haired blonde woman parked beside him to back out and butt in front, which he would only mark as a reflection of his better nature.

"You know who else is Russian?" Tai said, deciding to play his son's game. Tarou looked at him. "Your teacher."

"Well, yeah." Tarou frowned lightly. "They're related. That's his daughter."

The steering wheel was given a small smack.

Well-fucking-played, Taichi.

Tai sucked faintly at his teeth, a mannerism unfortunately borrowed from his wife, who was obsessed with dental hygiene. He peeked to his right, at the car's glove compartment, knowing that within was an emergency packet of floss, toothpaste, a toothbrush, and a mini bottle of mouthwash. Tarou shifted in his seat.

"You hungry?" Tai asked.

"Starving."

"We'll get lunch on the way home." He paused, checking the clock and noticing a full five minutes had passed without them moving an inch. Another sidelong glance landed on his son, who was now absorbed in the screen of his cell phone. Tai opened his mouth, and a reminder to be subtle flashed through his skull. He struggled with the difficulty of the task, and why it was difficult in the first place.

"Maybe you can... uh... invite some of your classmates. Like, uh... that girl who waved at you. I'm sure you all are pretty hungry after a long practice."

At last, Tai seized his son's attentions, and Tarou raised his head, the fleeting shapes of human eyes barely visible beneath that annoying fringe.

"Evgenia's on a strict diet, Dad. I doubt her father—my instructor—would agree to having her gorge on cheeseburgers and fries with us."

"Why so resistant, Tarou?" Tai smirked effortlessly, glad to be gaining momentum in their argument. "It's just lunch. I'm sure they know Mom and Mom's impressive work history. And you know how she eats."

"You mean she'll match you in an eating contest but then groan and be grumpy about how fat you're making her feel after?" Tarou blew a raspberry. "No, thanks."

Tai chuckled, and the two of them shared looks, stifling laughter for as long as they could before they both burst out in booming guffaws. It was judged to be safe behavior, if only because Hana was not present to give them each slaps upside their heads.

"All right, then," Tai recommenced, clearing his throat as their laughter ebbed. He pressed lightly on the gas pedal as they, finally, rolled forward a foot. Pedestrian traffic in the lot seemed to have increased, an observation he commented aloud, and to which Tarou provided clarity. The older kids had been let out.

"And this is the group with the Prix de Lausanne contestants?"

"Yeah."

"You know any of them?"

"A few. Only from productions. Not from classes."

Tai hummed lightly, accepting his son's answer as improvement.

Still speaking in "See Spot run" sentences, but at least there's more of them.

"Do they know who you are?"

The question was met with silence, and Tai turned to his right to investigate. His son frowned visibly at him. In the past, that pout was akin to looking at a puppy begging for a treat, but there was dark offense glinting in Tarou's eyes—or, at least, what he could see of them through that ridiculous hair.

"I'm my mother's son, Dad," he retorted, using a tone Tai was familiar with using himself. "Everybody knows my name."

"And they damn well should, Tarou," Tai replied, attempting to be assuaging. He shrugged, as if to offer the harmlessness of his original question. Tarou relaxed in his seat but brought his phone back to eye level. It was like a door slowly being shut in Tai's face.

"...And if that's the case," he continued, his eyes following the figure of one such older ballet student, one whose walk suggested just a bit of the diva, "then the girls should be all over you."

Shockingly, Tarou replied readily, almost as if he were expecting the switch in topics. His answer was carried so flatly, Tai thought it had been rehearsed.

"I don't make a good celebrity, Dad. Everyone knows the fact, but I don't go around repeating it."

Tai felt his lips thinning, the flesh firming under pressure. His kids were too good, his son too God damn humble.

"If you don't, your mom and I will," Tai warned.

"To what?" Tarou sputtered a cheap laugh. "Get me a girlfriend?"

Tai's neck muscles stiffened. As best as possible, he shielded a grimace with a rigidly raised shoulder, staving off the inevitable cringe. His kids were too good, too humble, and too God damn smart. He wondered where they could have inherited such characteristics, because he doubted both he and Hana had passed those traits along.

Regrettably, Tai allowed silence to fall in, willing himself to accept the conversational respite as a part of the natural way of things. He couldn't talk forever, and neither could his son, though the break gave Tai just enough pause to rethink his game plan.

The car moved forward by inches.

"Tarou," Tai said.

"Dad," Tarou mimicked.

Tai winced.

Teenagers.

In truth, he was hoping he wouldn't need to resort to the jab Tarou's sharp reply demanded. But if his son was making a serious effort to increase his difficulty, Tai would repay the gesture in full.

"Tarou," Tai began anew.

"...Yeah?"

"Are you gay?"

Whatever reaction Tai was aiming for, it wasn't given. The question hung in the air like a bad odor, infusing oxygen molecules with its rank impertinence. Tai waited for some growl or a quick-as-a-reflex denial, but neither arrived. A soft, almost wry chuckle was his immediate result, and Tai, baffled, glimpsed at his son.

Tarou stared at him from under the shade of his ludicrous bangs, a crooked smile on his face.

Calmly, though with no less arrogance, he said:

"I like girls, Dad."

To which Tai found himself applying the evasive measures he had expected of his son. First, denial:

"Not that I had any doubt, Tarou," he blabbered, shrugging as he toggled the steering wheel. "And not that there's anything wrong with it even if you were."

"Chill, Dad."

Chill, Dad.

Tai couldn't figure out if he shuddered or seethed at the order. He'd be damned the day his own son treated him the way he treated Dr. Joe Kido, appointed hyperventilator of their group. His grip tightened on the wheel, his right index finger pointing at the windshield.

"So why not... er... Evgenia?" He scratched his head, glad Hana was not around to laugh at him for his awful pronunciation of the Russian name.

Tarou shrugged.

"She's a friend. She's nice, don't get me wrong, but she's not my type."

"You have a type?" Tai blurted out.

Tarou remained unaffected, offering him another limp shrug as he leaned forward in his seat, tucking his cell phone in his pants' pocket.

"I haven't dated anyone, if that's what you're thinking, Dad."

"Why the hell not?"

It surprised Tai how offended he was at the confession. If his son was truly a near carbon copy of himself (minus the affinity for ballet), then Tarou should have been just as awkward a mess with girls as he was at fourteen.

"Haven't met the right person," was Tarou's practical answer.

Tai squinted, his stare narrowing in suspicion as he watched Tarou gaze out the windshield, brown eyes lightly following the trail of the prima-diva-ballerina Tai had noted earlier.

Aha!

"That one?" he said, attempting to be as nondescript as possible, testing his mental connection with his son.

Tarou didn't even look away.

"That's Ryoko Hino."

"She's Japanese?"

"She dyes her hair blond."

"Is she good?"

"She's amazing."

"I'm guessing she's going to the Prix de Lausanne?"

"Yep."

"You talk to her?"

"Only when Mom's around. Ryo loves talking to Mom and asking her about her time dancing for the Paris Opera."

Tai waged battle against the gag reflex strangling him once Tarou uttered Ryoko's pet name. He coughed into the dashboard. What the hell was it with his family and people named Ryo?

Or, rather, what the hell was up with his wife and people named Ryo?

Still, as he followed his son's cow-eyed stare at the mysterious Ryoko Hino, he had to (rather proudly) admit Tarou had good taste.

"You're ambitious, I'll give you that."

"Weren't you?"

"That wasn't an insult, Tar—What?"

His son looked back at him innocently.

"With mom," Tarou explained.

Tai could feel his face crinkling, and, perhaps, heating gently.

"Your mom is a beautiful woman, Tarou, but she's not like your Aunt Mimi."

"Well, no, but..." He sighed. "Yeah, you got a point."

Tai laughed.

Well, at least this means he's agreed with the rest of the world that Mimi is glamor incarnate. Even his wife was subject to the universal truth, admiring their friend's face in the media like a dreamy preteen girl—any potential jealousy thwarted by the direct pull of her purifying beauty.

"Did you see the way she looked cooking those salmon fish sticks on her show, Taichi?" Hana had gushed one day. "Mon Dieu, fish sticks never looked so fine. It was like watching porn."

"Should I invite Ryoko Hino to lunch, then?" Tai suggested.

"No way."

"But you just said—"

"Dad, my first outside conversation with Ryo isn't going to be because my dad invited her to lunch. If I'm going to talk to her, I'm going to talk to her. Me."

Tai shrugged and tapped a button in his left arm rest. The locks on the car doors unclicked.

"We're not moving at the moment, Tarou," he said, "and Ryoko's standing three feet away from us. Better take advantage of it."

Tai's smile broadened while his son's inverted. Tarou sat twisted in his seat, as if he were caught mid-writhe or mid-thrash, frozen in physical protest. What brought Tai unique pleasure was that his son never looked away from him. His eyes were fixed in challenge and, likely, momentary hatred. He could almost see the golden flecks in Tarou's eyes begin to flicker like match flames.

His son's lips twitched, but no sounds left his mouth. Tai reached for the keys in ignition and casually killed the engine with a turn of his wrist. He raised an eyebrow.

Tarou squinted, his frown gaining definition, before the inner points of his eyebrows slanted, forming an arrow aimed precisely at him. A second later and Tai was staring at his son's turned head. The shotgun door flung open with a hard kick from Tarou's sneakered foot.

A moment was taken for Tarou to prepare—or so Tai assumed. Arms were lightly shaken. A hand passed through his hair, pushing bangs back in either a gesture of suaveness or a need to tame bedhead. He straightened his shirt.

Tai turned the engine back on and rolled down the shotgun window.

"Do me proud, son!" he bellowed.

Tarou ignored him and pressed forward while Tai leaned back in his seat. It would have been no small lie that he was enjoying himself—perhaps too much. He half expected his wife to materialize out of nowhere and flick him hard on the forehead.

Regardless, the unfolding scene was worth his keen attentions. His son was treading deep in the awkward, turbulent sea of adolescence, and Tai was confident his son would triumph rather than flail. At least, he hoped he would.

The interest, unknowingly, was a shared mindset. Tai's line of vision so eagerly followed his son's trail that he didn't catch the car impatiently backing out in his periphery—and neither did his son.

By the time the danger registered, the screech of a rapidly stamped brake pedal and its halting tires already echoed like an alarm in the air, followed by a groan and a thud. Tai received flashes of his own motor accident as a teen, blinks of his bike bent out of shape, the scrape of rough pavement, pain orbiting his skull. He flung open his door and leapt out, calling his son's name.

His reply was a murmur from the ground. Tai didn't understand it, but for a second his fears were tamed. Tarou lifted an arm, thumb up albeit his continued moaning. His son was okay—or would be. Tai turned his focus next on the negligent driver, arms spreading and chest puffing like a mother bear on the offensive. Traffic was already bad, but he'd worsen it.

He opened his mouth, resigning the next ten minutes to righting the injustice.

"Are you fucking crazy!"

xXx

Tai sat in the living room recliner trying not to sweat—as if he could fight his body's natural response to imminent death. His arms lay stretched atop the chair rests, fingers drumming the upholstery. Across from him sat his son, who, as a result of his sabotaged attempt to ask Ryoko Hino out to lunch, had his right leg propped up on an ottoman, ice wrapped in bandages around the knee. Beside him sat Hinata, who was currently peppering him with questions about the injury and how it happened.

"Does it hurt, Onii-chan?"

"Not really. Kind of numb now, actually."

"Is it broken?"

"No, Nat."

"Will you go to the hospital?"

"No."

"How long is it broken?"

"I told you, it's not broken."

Pacing behind them was their mother, returned from her visit to her father, slowly and methodically unpacking goods she had brought back. She did so without speaking a word, but that did not mean the process was noiseless. Crinkly packets of sweets slammed on the kitchen counters. Clothes bought unfolded by flapping them crisply in the air, like someone cracking a whip. Other objects—boxes and tins of tea, bundles of wooden chopsticks, plastic bento accessories—were also thrown onto the counter with passive-aggressive irreverence.

Tai glanced at the living room clock, counting the minutes he had left to live before his wife's ire engulfed him in flames.

"Daddy."

"Huh?" Tai looked away from the clockface, Hinata's green eyes finding him. They glowed with innocence and inquiry.

"Did you take Onii-chan to the hospital?"

"No, Hinata. I did not."

"But he got hurt."

"Not everybody who gets hurt goes to the hospital."

"But I thought—"

"Mon soleil."

Hana's voice cut into the conversation like a claymore beheading a poor soul—definitive, heavy, and portending of hypothetical bloodshed. That she used her pet name for him made the impending encounter all the more gut twisting. "I love you," it said, "but I will not hesitate to beat the shit out of you for putting our son in harm's way."

"Mama," Hinata called, turning her head. She looked from Tai to her mother, then back to him. She smiled. "Daddy looks sick, too. Maybe we should take both of them to the hospital!"

For all her cuteness, his daughter's tease couldn't dent his wife's steel visage.

"Maybe we should," she agreed, her voice low. Her crossed arms unfolded, one hand turning palm up as a single finger beckoned Tai forward. He stood up slowly and ruffled the hair of both his children as he followed Hana into the kitchen, the way a person rubbed a rabbit's foot for good luck. Only, his tot daughter had the nerve to whisper, as he left:

"Daddy's in big trouble, isn't he?"

Hana spun on her heel and leaned against the rim of the kitchen counter, arms still crossed as she faced him. Tai saw movement beneath her closed lips, her tongue sliding over her teeth, like a tiger wetting its jowls, preparing to lunge.

"So?" she began.

"So, what?" he replied stupidly, shrugging.

She scowled.

"I come home and my son has a giant bruise and scrapes on his face and a swollen knee! He's limping!"

"It's nothing serious, Hana," Tai said, keeping his voice leveled.

Her eyes seemed to double in size, pupils constricting.

"It's not serious?" she shrilled. "Tai, Tarou could have broken his leg! His career could have ended before it even began!"

He bit into his lip, looking away to keep himself from rolling his eyes at her. Instantly, the topic of Tarou's future as a dancer came up, and he always retaliated by saying she was being like her late mother before her—unfair and controlling. Tarou showed promise, that much was true, but that didn't mean he was bound to the profession.

"But it's not, is it?" he argued. "He's fine, Hana. He took a fall. That's it. People fall. Nothing's broken."

"He took a fall?" she echoed, skeptical. Her eyebrows rose sharply, turning from hills to mountains in seconds. "Tarou has trained in ballet for years and does soccer on top of that, and you're telling me he clumsily took a fall in the parking lot after practice?"

Tai didn't know what else to tell her. He shrugged, offering her hands empty of further explanation.

"Yeah, I am."

"Don't lie to me, Tai."

"I'm not lying!"

"Then there's something else you're not telling me. Tarou didn't just fall, okay? Something must have caused him to trip up."

"Nothing did." Tai scratched his temple, a lying reflex, which he knew Hana would pick up on. He probably shouldn't have done it, but it was an impulse, uncheckable, as natural as breathing.

"What did I say, Tai?"

"I'm not lying, Hana."

"Yes, you are. What was it? Was it... what? He missed a step? You honked at him in the car and startled him? Someone left their bag on the floor? Someone pushed him? What was it?"

"No, it was—" He caught himself, reeling back from falling into Hana's trap. Unfortunately, he didn't retreat fast enough for her to belay him.

"What?" she pressed. "What was it?"

"It was..." He sighed, rubbing his forehead. "It was a car."

The words seem to fall out of his mouth like teeth knocked out by a fist, rolling and burbled.

"It was a car?" she shrieked.

"Before you explode—as usual—it wasn't like a hit and run—which I would know, hello, because I survived one if you don't remember—"

"He got hit by a car?"

His wife's eyes lost their focus, their spark, as if cataracts were forming instantaneously before him, blinding her to all else.

"Hana," he said. It was a useless hook. For all her doubt about being a good mother early in their marriage, she had an easy time transitioning into the clucking mother hen when her brood suffered even the most minor of injuries.

"Mon petit bebe!" she fretted. Thin hands pressed to the sides of her face, which contorted, nose wrinkling, chin jutting, dappled with worry. "Mon petit fils!"

"Hana."

Tai reached out, hand landing on her elbow, ready to draw her to him, when the subject of their conversation hobbled into the kitchen, bad leg dragging.

"Mom," groaned Tarou. She stopped, too startled by the interruption to continue her hysterics. She glimpsed at him as if she couldn't recognize who he was. She was that confused. Tarou extended a staving hand, warding off his mother and her indulgent worry.

"Chill, all right?"

Hana balked, chin retracting so much it practically blended into her neck. Tai had to divert his chuckle into a soft cough.

"It wasn't a car," Tarou explained. "Well, not entirely. I..." He dawdled, bringing fingers up to his forehead, massaging the hairline. "I... It... " He sighed. "It was a girl."

"A girl did this to you?"

The fist was planted on a hip, the first indication that her skepticism was returning—and returning fast. Thankfully, Tarou had learned not to bullshit his mother far quicker and far earlier than Tai ever had. Hopefully the boy would use it to his advantage.

"Not... directly. But..."

Again, Tarou wavered, and Tai felt impelled to intervene. They were the two men of the house. They had to watch out for each other.

"So..." said Tai, taking a long, sliding stride toward his wife. He opened his arms in front of her, as if expecting a hug. She glared up at him, arms folding over he chest, denying him the physical affection. He grinned. "That means you were right."

"What?"

"It was a girl." He moved aside and nodded at Tarou, prompting him to agree, to play along. His son raised an eyebrow. Tai continued. "Tarou was eager to get to practice because of a girl."

"Not really, Da—"

"You idiots."

Hana sighed, posture dipping as the breath left her. Tai could hear the air streaming through her nose.

"Mon Dieu," she went on, annoyed. Still, it was better than angry. "Did your father tell you to chase some tail?"

"What?" Tarou reddened. "No!"

"So you decided to chase it yourself?"

"No! I mean... Yes. No! I mean—"

Before Tarou threw himself into his own grave, the doorbell—by some sympathetic cosmic power—rang. The chime—sweet, light, and re-orienting, left its listeners stunned in suffused shock, except for Hinata. Her footsteps could be heard clopping on the wood floors to the front door.

"I'll get it!" she hollered.

Tai went after her, issuing a firm, "Hinata," as he followed her to the door. The worst case scenario always found a way to play in his head: at the door was a kidnapper-pedophile, and his darling daughter would be seized and hauled away kicking and screaming. He never seemed to take into account that he was only a few steps behind her, able to rescue her if need be, but still, the fear was real, gripping his chest like a claw. But she was a quick, elfin thing, and by the time he cornered her, she was already at the door, turning the knob.

"Hinata," he repeated.

She didn't listen and pried open the panel.

"Hi!" she sang. Finally, her green eyes acknowledged Tai, and she opened the door even wider, revealing in its gap the face of Tarou's classmate, Evgenia.

"It's Onii-chan's friend from ballet!" she announced.

"It is, Hinata," said Tai, somewhat distractedly. He edged in front of his daughter, ushering her back further into their home, trying to rapidly overcome his shock at the surprise visit. Still, a small part of him warmed with the pride of knowing that the girl was sweet on his son. It had only been an inkling, but, now that she was at the door, of course the idle suspicion had ballooned to incontestable fact. "Go get your brother," he ordered.

While Hinata dutifully left to obey her orders, Evgenia bowed to Tai—awkwardly. A foreign concept to her, he imagined.

"I'm sorry to inconvenience you, Mr. Kamiya, but I heard what happened to Tarou and I just wanted to see if he was all right and to wish him well?" She colored as she ended her question, and the box she had been carrying in her hands was retracted.

"Not an inconvenience at all," Tai replied. He avoided saying her name on purpose. He knew Hana was standing behind him, waiting for him to botch up the pronunciation. His wife caught on and stepped into the entryway, beaming a bright smile at the ballet student.

"Evgenia," she greeted. "It's very kind of you to stop by."

"Hello, Mrs. Kamiya," was all Evgenia could, in her fluorescent embarrassment, say.

Echoing in from the foyer were Tarou's groans at being summoned against his will.

"Chill out, Nat!" he fussed. "What are you doing dragging me to the front d—"

He ended on an exclamation of surprise, as if he had been the successful mark of a ghoulish prank, hands even flying upward.

"Evgenia..." he managed to mumble through his lips. With a quick tilt of his head, he tossed his bangs out of his eyes, eyes which zoned in on Tai with alarm and just a speck of hatred. "Did you do this?" they seemed to demand.

Tai wagged his head.

I wish I had, he thought.

"Oh, it looks bad," said Evgenia, eyeing Tarou's bandaged knee.

"N-No, it's not," he blabbered. "Just a scrape. I'll deal—heal, I mean. I'm okay."

She smiled.

"I'm glad."

Tai felt Hana's elbow bump into his side, her way of telling him, "Check it out." He nudged her back, sharing a wink with her before he turned and focused on his son, whose expression seemed to soften in light of Evgenia's honesty. Tarou's whole body seemed frozen—relaxed, but still—arms at rest, posture natural. It was a vulnerable position, approaching surrender, and the brown eyes that were once bent on staring hard and staring past the girl in front of him shied under humble eyelids. They glanced at her feet, then the box in her hands, then her face. He was looking at her, truly looking at her, studying her body language like a mute questing for the right words to speak.

"Thanks, Evgenia," he finally said.

She smiled and nodded, apparently too grateful to have been given the gratitude to utter anything else. The box in her hands was offered, and the prop allowed her to find her voice.

"It's cake," she said. "My grandmother's recipe. I thought you'd like it."

"I do," he said, taking the box. "Thanks. Again, I mean."

"You're welcome."

He saw her off with a wave, which she returned, and after giving her respectful bows of farewell to Tai and Hana, she left and Tarou shut the door, cake box balanced atop the spread of one open hand, like a waiter. He sighed.

"Ohhh, look at my son!" Hana cooed. She chirped into French, grabbing Tarou's chin and drawing it forward, pinching one cheek while the other was peppered with motherly kisses. Naturally, Tarou reacted with disgust.

"Mom," he whined. "Stop."

"Come on," Tai intervened, setting a hand on Hana's shoulder. "Give it a rest."

"Oh, fine," she ceded, stepping back. She hefted Hinata up on her hip and told her to give her brother a kiss.

"For what?" Tarou groaned. Hinata didn't need a reason to bestow affection. Despite his protests, her kiss was given much in the same manner as her mother's, and then they departed back into the kitchen, filling the hallway with echoes of their high-pitched chatter. Tai could hear them sorting through the countertop items again, Hana schooling Hinata on the objects, their colors, how to spell them, where they go in the cupboards.

Tarou blew a weak raspberry through his lips, looking glumly down at the cake box in his hand. He knew what accepting Evgenia's homemade gift meant. While viewed as a minor and basic courtesy to outsiders, natives to Japan knew its other, more romantic implications. Tai clapped him on the shoulder and gave him a light shake, enough, he hoped, to rattle him out of his embarrassment. As much as he would have liked to shout, "That's my boy!" he held his tongue—for Tarou's sake. If his son wanted to talk about it—about Evgenia—then he would, Tai trusted. Of course, it didn't hurt to offer a prompt.

"Anything on your mind, ladykiller?" he joked.

Tarou winced beside him but looked up regardless, defeated. His bangs fell back over his eyes. Tai couldn't help a smile.

"Girls," he grumbled.

xXx

A/N: Just so you know, I hope Tai's question to his son (and you know which one I'm referring to) didn't insult or come off as... crass, for lack of a better term. I just want to make that clear, but I feel him asking and opening a dialogue about it is better than leaving the topic of his children's sexuality untouched. Hope that makes sense.

Thanks for reading and reviewing!