#I also embarrassingly tried to put my hand through a really big earing hoop thinking it was a bracelet | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

owletstarlet · 4 years

Note

For a prompt, maybe a Tanunatsu college AU? I'm sort of picturing something where Natsume is visiting the shrine for a weekend and Tanuma is trying not to focus on the fact that his boyfriend now has earrings

(*insert profuse apology for how long this took here* I had initially wanted to get this posted in time for @natsumeweek as one of the prompts was “future” but I guess this is more an early happy-September-birthday-to-Tanuma fic...

ao3 link in the comments.

When the doorbell rings, it’s a near thing for Kaname to not spill his tea all over the keyboard. He has to remind himself several times on his way to answer it not to look as ludicrously eager as he feels, as though his heart might float right on up and out through the top of his head, in case it’s a mail carrier or a maintenance worker at the door.

It isn’t.

It takes all of a second and a half before Kaname’s got his arms full of him, face buried in his hair.

“Hi,” he mutters, voice muffled against the top of Natsume’s head.

“Hi,” Natsume says back, and Kaname can hear the grin in his voice, feel the arms coming to rest around his waist.

They stand like that for several seconds, in the genkan with the door wide open, and Kaname can feel all the tension he’s been holding for six weeks bleed out of him. Eventually, he asks, “How was your flight?”

“I liked it.” His voice is just as muffled against Kaname’s shoulder. “Sensei didn’t.”

“Really?” Kaname finally pulls back enough to see his face. He looks well, relaxed and smiling, the barest dusting of freckles across his nose from time spent outdoors, and it’s almost enough to push a month and a half’s worth of swirling images and morbid what ifs out of his mind. “You’d think Ponta would enjoy flying.”

Natsume rolls his eyes a little, but there’s something fond in the set of his mouth. “He complained the whole time, about being stuck in human form, and kept saying it was unnatural or something to be up so high where he couldn’t even see the treetops past all the clouds.”

Kaname grins at the thought. “Where’s he off to right now?” He pulls Natsume into the genkan, finally lets him go so he can get his shoes off.

“Probably off getting drunk. Or begging snacks off Touko-san. She was pretty happy to see him.”

Natsume’s been up in Aomori for a little over a month, on a few jobs with the Matsuokas. Field training, as Natori had cheerfully put it to Kaname over the phone. And Kaname hadn’t been thrilled about that, but had felt marginally better to hear that Natori would accompany him for most of the trip.

The Matsuoka clan wasn’t particularly prominent or large, but they were well-funded and well-connected. It was Natori who’d reached out to them over a year ago, once Natsume had given his slightly grudging consent to it. Since then Natsume’s been living two and a half hours away in a spacious apartment and attending a university to which the Matsuokas happened to be generous donors. In exchange for this, and their tutelage, Natsume accompanies and assists them with exorcisms. They’re apparently pleased enough to have him, and Natsume’s told Kaname that they haven’t asked him to do anything he’s opposed to; it’s often either binding a harmful entity or else simply sitting down to listen to whatever it is the troublesome youkai-of-the-day is after. But despite Natori being on good terms with the head of the clan, he’d had to make it perfectly clear that Natsume had no interest in longterm recruitment. Or, at the very least, that potential adoption into the clan was to be a decision that Natsume would be entirely free to turn down.

Kaname himself, meanwhile, hasn’t gone anywhere since graduation. Natori had floated the idea of Kaname joining Natsume, that the Matsuokas be perfectly willing to take him on. And, admittedly, the prospect of learning how to defend himself, and others, with the basics of exorcism under his belt had its appeal. Especially since a big factor in Natsume’s own decision had been an ugly encounter with some cave-dwelling youkai that had landed him in the hospital for weeks, an incident which had ultimately led to the truth--or parts of it, at least-- spilling out to the Fujiwaras. Kaname still has nightmares about it.

It was ultimately the prospect of being able to go with Natsume while he was out on a job instead of having to sit around and fret about it that had had Kaname prepared to agree to the offer. But then Dad had needed knee surgery, and a complicated one at that. And Kaname learned very quickly just how much work it takes to run a temple essentially on one’s own. Theirs was part of a larger organization of temples in the prefecture, who had arranged for Dad to be sent here in the first place. To be fair, they’d been as helpful as they were able, and are still paying Dad a salary. Another priest would come two or three days a week to fulfill necessary duties and rites and enabling them to stay at least partially open to visitors while Dad recuperated, and a maintenance worker would show up once a week to help Kaname care for the actual grounds. But Kaname still typically spends the better part of his week at the desk of Dad’s cramped office poring over order forms and spreadsheets he doesn’t always understand, attempting to balance the books of a little temple that barely takes in enough revenue to stay afloat even with the organization’s support. He’s gotten better at it, and Dad’s helped a lot, but even though he’s recovered enough to receive visitors and resume some of his religious duties, Kaname still tries to keep him out of the office most days so he can get some rest.

Still, Dad worries, not only that Kaname is overworking himself but about how his friends have all gone off to school, how he rarely leaves the temple grounds unless he’s running errands. He knows about Natori’s offer regarding the Matsuokas, Kaname’s discussed it with him. And though he’s made it clear that it’s ultimately Kaname’s decision he’s made it equally clear that he likes the idea—both for the sake of Kaname’s mental health and for the prospect of him learning how to better protect himself. On occasions when Dad’s pushed himself too hard and worn himself out, Kaname has threatened to accept the offer but go on to major in accounting just to get hired on by the temple organization and then end up right back home. But he has to admit, he’s been dreaming of it—of the airy kitchen that always smells just a bit like the tea Natsume drinks in the mornings, of the sun-dappled corner where Sensei likes to curl up and nap, of the balcony overlooking a cityscape both unfamiliar and beautiful in its own way, the mountains that look blue in the distance. Of waking up to Natsume’s cheek squashed against the pillow beside him, safe and whole and wonderfully there. He’ll probably have to wait until the next academic year begins, but he thinks it wouldn’t be so bad at all.

“I have something for you,” he tells Natsume now, scooping up the backpack Natsume had set down while taking off his shoes. Natsume smiles, tilts his head just a bit in question. But when he does, Kaname sees something, a glinting just beneath his hair on one side. He blinks, steps forward to brush Natsume’s hair back. “What’s—”

And when he sees what it is, he thinks his face must do something odd, because Natsume’s smile has faltered a bit, turned sheepish. “I actually thought you’d have noticed them already,” he says.

“I left my glasses by the computer,” he murmurs, and he thinks he’s staring. He should probably stop staring. “And your hair’s gotten longer anyways.”

Natsume shrugs, looking a touch pinker than before. “It’s just on the one side.” A pause. “It doesn’t look weird, does it? I don’t really trust Natori’s opinion.”

“It’s not weird.” The answer is immediate, almost embarrassingly so. He realizes they haven’t moved from the genkan, and that he hasn’t quite managed to quit staring, so he takes Natsume’s hand and tugs him towards the kitchen. He hopes his palms aren’t as clammy as he thinks they are.

There are two hoops in his left earlobe, side by side, one silver and one gold, catching the light from behind strands of pale hair. They’re subtle enough—Kaname doesn’t think the tip of his little finger could fit through either—but the sight of them makes the air stick strangely in Kaname’s throat.

“Did they hurt?” he asks, a moment later.

“Not really.” Natsume takes a seat at the worn kitchen table, hand hovering up near his ear in a way that’s half considering, half self-conscious. “Right when they do it, yes, but not so much after.”

Kaname goes to get Natsume a drink, but pauses with his hand on the refrigerator door, considering. “Any particular reason you got it done?” he starts, tone as light as possible. If Natsume’s already shy about it, Kaname doesn’t want to make it worse, but he can’t pretend he isn’t curious. “Just because you wanted to, or…”

“No, I—I mean. I don’t hate it, but there was a reason.” The shade of Natsume’s cheeks is on just this side of salmon when Kaname glances back, and it’s so frankly adorable that Kaname has to turn his back again, not trusting himself to keep a straight face. “Do you remember the farm in Aomori I told you about?” Natsume continues. “The owners had called the Matsuokas for an exorcism because their livestock kept getting sick so we stayed for a few days.”

“I remember.” He also remembers all the grim visuals his own imagination had served up over the course of those three long days, until he’d gotten the text that all was resolved and that Natsume was safe and whole and on a train away from that place.

“The family had a connection to a lesser exorcist clan that sort of fizzled out a few generations ago. And Sayaka-san—ah, the wife—was really her aunt and uncle’s only heir because they didn’t have children. They were both exorcists, and she’d inherited a few things from them.”

“Did the angry ayakashi have something to do with that clan?” Kaname asks, setting two cups of lemonade on the table and sliding into the seat across from Natsume. And god if it doesn’t do something to him, to see Natsume right there, right across from him, pale fingers wrapping easily around the lumpy clay cup Kaname made in middle school, afternoon light through the window settling in his hair and glinting starlike off those new tiny hoops in his ear and every day, Kaname wants this every day. Just this. He swallows, hard, forces himself to pay attention because Natsume’s talking again.

“It actually had nothing to do with them. The farm had been owned by her husband’s family anyhow, but. The land the farm sat on was at the center of some dispute between two ayakashi, some territory thing they bicker about every hundred years. All Sensei and I really did was get them both to agree to meet each other, and they mostly sorted it out themselves from there.”

Kaname blinks. “The Matsuokas didn’t do anything?”

Natsume shrugs. “They didn’t really need to. Sensei worked out what was going on pretty quickly, and didn’t really wait up for their help. He thought the exorcists barging in would just make things worse.” He pauses to take a sip of lemonade. As soon as he does, his eyes light up. “Ah—your lavender! You got to harvest it?”

Kaname feels a grin touch his lips as he watches Natsume take a second, larger gulp of the lemonade, in his face all the bliss of an elementary schooler who’s gotten his hands on an ice cream pop at the park. He’s a bit surprised Natsume didn’t notice the smell straightaway when Kaname had poured it, but to be fair the entire kitchen smells a bit like lavender most days. “I did. I’ll tell you about it later. Finish your story first.”

He does, after yet another hearty gulp. “When it was all resolved and we went to tell the family, Sayaka-san wanted to give me a gift. I told her not to, because it was more Sensei than me, and Hiiragi helped too—Natori sent her with me because Sensei didn’t want him there either—they made sure neither of the ayakashi could get away until they settled the dispute. I asked a couple of questions, mostly because I wasn’t sure what was going on—it was something about a sacred pine grove—but it wasn’t like I resolved things for them.”

Kaname doesn’t need to hear the specifics to be soundly convinced that Natsume’s not giving himself near enough credit. He takes his own sip of lemonade, the tartness of it tempered by the softer herbal taste that lingers on his tongue. “What was the gift?”

Natsume smiles, a bit rueful. “Earrings.”

Kaname points. “Those?”

“No, these were just to get the piercings done, but I can show you later. They’re talismans, and pretty effective ones from what Sensei could tell. It’s a set of six, they’re little round polished stones in all different colors. I’ve got the types of stone written down somewhere and what each of them is useful for but I don’t really remember. Sayaka-san had inherited them from her aunt and uncle.”

“Did she know what they were for?”

“Vaguely. Enough to think she didn’t have as much use for them as I might. They’d just been sitting in a box in the house, and she was really glad the problem was fixed, so. She insisted. But Natori also insisted on paying her for them.” His mouth twists. “She didn’t love that, but I think he had a sense of how valuable they were, and didn’t want anyone trying to step in and claim I’d gotten them illegitimately. I like Yasuda-san and Tanaka-san—they were the clan members that went with us—and I really don’t think they’d do something like that, but I guess it’s better to be cautious.”

Kaname’s not sure how to feel about that. “That’d technically make them Natori’s then, right?”

Natsume huffs a short sigh. “I did try to make him take at least some of them, but he said they’d do me more good than him, that he’d feel better if I wore them at least some of the time. Also that his agent would kill him anyways if he showed up with holes in his ears. So he took me to get mine done, instead.” His hand’s inching upwards again, like he can’t decide if he wants to touch his ear or hide it from sight.

Kaname reaches across the table and intercepts his hand midair, lacing their fingers together in a move that’s objectively more awkward than suave, but it makes Natsume’s lips twitch nonetheless, and that feels like an achievement. “What’d the Fujiwaras say?” he asks.

“Well when I explained why I got it done, they were all for it, but.” Lips pursed, he looks equal parts embarrassed and affectionately exasperated. “I think it sort of amused them. Touko-san said it looked ‘very handsome’ and had me promise to clean them really well, and Shigeru-san cracked a few jokes about rock stars.”

“I mean—”

Natsume shoots him a withering look. “Don’t you start.”

Kaname agrees with Touko; can picture the barest hint of mischief touching the corners of her wide, delighted smile. “Will you get the other side done?” he asks. “If you’ve got six.”

He shrugs. “Natori said two at a time would be fine. And both sides seemed a bit…”

There’s a dozen different adjectives Kaname could fill in at the end of that sentence, none of them remotely close to what Natsume looks to be thinking. If he had showed up with both sides done, Kaname’s quite sure that his own reaction would’ve embarrassed them both.

“I did think—” Natsume starts, then seems to need a moment to rally himself before continuing. “If you wanted,” he begins again, looking rather more at some spot on Kaname’s cheek than at his eyes. “You could take some of them.”

“Oh.” It’s safe to say that’s not an offer Kaname had anticipated. “I’m not…I’m not an exorcist, though.”

“Neither am I,” Natsume counters, his fingernail tracing idly across the back of Kaname’s hand where their hands are still twined together across the tabletop. “Not really. And you are good at cleansings and banishings, anyways.”

“That’s…it’s kind of just a matter of showing up and remembering the words, but thank you.” He’d been practicing a bit of that at Dad’s suggestion and with his help, and had genuinely found the memorizing to be the most arduous part of it all; he’d taken to muttering the trickier, more unwieldy bits of sutra under his breath to practice while watering the plants or doing housework, most days.

“You’re good at it,” Natsume repeats. “I don’t want to make you feel like you’ve got to go and put holes in your ears if you don’t want to but I thought…” he trails off, looking uncertain.

“Thought what?”

He lets out a tight breath, then says, the words jumbling together a bit as though he’s afraid he’ll lose his nerve if he doesn’t get it out quickly, “I thought you could use them if you still wanted to come apprentice with the Matsuokas too.”

“I do.” He surprises himself with the immediate answer, but it crystallizes inside him even as he says it. “I will.”

Natsume’s eyes go round. “Really?”

“Really.”

Natsume smushes his lips together for a moment before speaking again, the taut look on his face suggesting there’s something before him now that he’s not sure he ought to hope for. “But…your dad—“

“I think Dad’s close to packing my bags himself if I don’t get out of here soon and go do something that doesn’t involve spreadsheets and invoices.” He feels himself smile. “I’d need to wait for the new school term, and don’t think I can do much to help out an exorcist clan, but…”

“You’ll do fine,” Natsume interjects, in a murmur. “I told you that.” And he had; as nerve-wracking as it is for Kaname to consider that he’d be literally blind to so many of the youkai the clan would be taking on, Natsume had said that he’d already met a handful of respected exorcists who worked for or alongside the Matsuokas whose sight for the supernatural was even less than Kaname’s. Some, even, with no sight whatsoever—who, like Dad, could compensate for that fact with knowledge and technique and become formidable in their own right. It’d been a comfort to know, but Kaname can’t say he’s not nervous about getting someone hurt because he couldn’t keep up, or excusing himself to go be sick behind a tree in the middle of some crucial binding or ritual because his body wouldn’t tolerate it.

Still.

“I want to go with you.” It’s out of his mouth before he can even find it in himself to be embarrassed about it. He’s staring at their hands, his own wrapped tightly around Natsume’s cool fingertips like he’ll find himself alone in the kitchen if he lets go.

Some of the creases in Natsume’s forehead soften. “That apartment’s too big for just me,” he says, with a tiny smile, looking down into his cup. “As long as you don’t get yourself eaten.” He pulls a slight grimace. “Or recruited.”

The first option’s more likely than the second, Kaname thinks but doesn’t say. “I won’t if you don’t,” he says instead.

“No chance of that.” Natsume taps the side of his cup with two fingers. “I think Sensei would rather eat me himself than consent to working for an exorcist. It puts him in a bad enough mood to be mistaken for a shiki as it is.”

Natsume had been very clear from the beginning, that his only reason for working with the Matsuokas was to learn to protect people, though Kaname also knows that means doing so without having to harm any ayakashi that ought to be left well enough alone. Kaname’s not sure why any of that has to be mutually exclusive from pursuing exorcism as a career path, but he’s certainly spent less time with exorcists and clan politics than Natsume has. And he can’t say he wouldn’t appreciate Natsume choosing a less dangerous day job.

“You’re sure?” Natsume’s asking him, now. His expression hasn’t changed much, but behind his eyes Kaname can see the years stacked upon years of learning to brace himself for rejection.

“I am."

***

They’re on the veranda now, legs hanging over the edge, the tips of Natsume’s socked toes not quite brushing the mossy carpet below. Heaped on the floorboards between them is what Kaname now realizes is probably an excessive amount of lavender: dried blooms in a glass jar, loose stems fastened with twine into bunches, yet more blooms rather poorly sewn into cotton sachets with simple blessings Dad had helped him write tucked inside. And finally, currently perched atop Natsume’s head where Kaname had placed it on a whim a moment ago, a carefully twisted wreath of pale purple and silvery green.

“You don’t have to use it all,” he tells Natsume, tapping lid of the jar. “Or take it all. It’s a lot.”

Natsume gives him a small sidelong grin, and with those slitted eyes catching and holding the afternoon sun as if it belongs to them, Kaname has to remind himself to breathe.

“Did you leave any for yourself?” Natsume asks wryly.

A soft snort. “Plenty. I had no idea they’d bloom so much this year, after how pitiful it was last year. I harvested most of them twice.”

Kaname’s got a literal dozen plants, the seeds a gift from one of Dad’s associates who’d gotten them on one of his frequent trips to a network of temples in Hokkaido. Kaname had sprouted them in egg cartons and had done his best with them, knowing that plants more suited to a milder climate far to the north would be finicky to say the least. It had taken two years to coax a decent harvest from them, and that had taken digging up a long strip of garden space to fill in with the sand and gravel they needed, and then painstakingly potting and repotting them all to move them between the flowerbed and a sunny storeroom he’d cleared out at the rear of the house when the weather grew too wet. Dad had joked that they’d bloomed so well this year because Kaname had spent so much time mumbling sutra while tending to them, but whatever the case it had been deeply satisfying to cut and hang the bunches of long fragrant stems up to dry when they’d been so scraggly the year before.

Natsume takes a sachet into his hands, holding it gently between his fingers up to his eye level. It turns a faint purple where the afternoon sun lights it from behind.

“I’m not sure it’ll do any actual good in protecting you,” Kaname says, watching him lightly touch his fingertip to the outline of the card where the blessing is inked. “Taki would be better for that. But it’ll make your pillowcases smell nice, at least.”

Natsume brings it up to his face, letting his eyes shutter as it covers his nose and mouth. “It smells like your room,” he says softly. He reaches up to where the wreath is settled in his hair. “This too.”

“Well I’ve got the one on the wall near my bed,” he says, certain he’s failing to sound casual when there’s that rare, unveiled softness in Natsume’s eyes. His tongue feels heavy and strange, and there’s a sensation like so many soda bubbles fizzing and popping in his chest, but he somehow manages to say, “The smell’s relaxing, so I like it there, but. You can put it anywhere you want. Sorry for not tying it so neatly.”

Natsume takes his hand off the wreath, sets it over Kaname’s, fingertips chilled from the refilled cup he’d carried with him. “It’s a good thing the apartment has a big veranda.”

Kaname chuckles, shakes his head. “Not big enough for a dozen large pots. Where would we hang the laundry?”

“We’ll fit them.” Natsume shrugs, tips his head back, looking utterly serene. “Won’t you want them for your tea?”

And that’s about when Kaname can’t take it anymore. He turns, cups Natsume’s face in both hands, and kisses his parted lips.

For the space of a breath, Natsume’s motionless against his mouth, but Kaname barely has the time to start to wonder if he’s done the wrong thing before he can feel the cool grip above his elbows, practically taste the featherlight sigh between lips that have opened wider to move with his own.

When they part, a long lightheaded moment later, Natsume’s reaching up towards his own hair, brows scrunching together, cheeks marvelously flushed under Kaname’s fingers. “Isn’t this poking you in the face?” He taps his makeshift crown.

“Yes,” Kaname says simply, leaning in to peck the very tip of Natsume’s nose.

Natsume bites down on a smile, not quite managing to look disapproving, and not moving to take it off, either. “All the flowers will fall off.”

I’ll make a better one, is what he means to say. What comes out of his mouth instead, entirely unbidden, is, “I missed you.” His voice snags oddly on the last word, and he swallows hard. A month and some change does not warrant falling to pieces on him, Kaname tells himself sternly, a handful of colorful nightmares notwithstanding. He’d made enough of a scene when he’d nearly tackled him at the door, hadn’t he. Still, he doesn’t trust himself to speak until Natsume does, his throat feeling suspiciously thick.

Natsume, for his part, looks a bit stricken, at first. And Kaname has the sudden thought that he’s grappling with the idea of being missed to such a degree in the first place. But the expression shifts soon enough into one of concern, and warmth.

“You won’t have to, for long,” he murmurs, after pulling Kaname back in for a gentle brush of lips across his cheekbone. “I won’t, either.” A lingering pause. Then, “…ah, sorry. That’s got to be stabbing you in the eye, right?”

Kaname blinks when Natsume abruptly pulls away, feeling muzzy and untethered and wanting very much for Natsume to be kissing him again until he realizes that Natsume’s gingerly lifting the wreath off his head. It catches on his hair despite his best efforts, enough to tug a few blossoms loose, and enough to knock aside those strands that have grown out just long enough to fall past his earlobes.

And Kaname couldn’t have pretended not to stare if his life depended on it.

His hand’s up, fingers outstretched before he even realizes. “Can I, um. It’s not going to hurt you or anything if I—”

“No. Go ahead.”

But Kaname’s only just touched the tip of his finger to the outermost hoop—the barest amount of pressure enough to make it lie flat against the bottom of Natsume’s earlobe—when Natsume sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth, ducking his head out of Kaname’s reach.

Kaname snaps his hand back, distressed. “I’m sor—”

“No, it tickles.” Natsume straightens back up, rubbing at his ear with more vigor than he probably ought to whether it’s fully healed or not, leaving the metal gleaming against reddened skin.

Kaname raises an eyebrow. “Really?”

The glare Natsume shoots him is truly remarkable, though the effect is somewhat dampened by his mussed hair, the crumbly bits of lavender that have fallen onto his shoulders. Kaname throws his hands up, a picture of innocence, tucking this particular scrap of information away for a later date.

“For what it’s worth, though…” he starts, once he is well and truly sure that Natsume won’t try to scoot himself several meters down the porch and out of his reach; his arms are wrapped loosely around himself and he’s smiling again, though warily. But at that moment Kaname finds himself so thoroughly arrested with love that he couldn’t have launched the anticipated attack if he tried. “For what it’s worth. The earrings look good.”

#I didn't mention it in the fic but I need you all to know #Nishimura is absolutely thrilled by this development #'let me touch them' 'no'#natsume yuujinchou #natsume's book of friends #natsuyuu #tanunatsu #tanuma kaname #natsume takashi #owlet's fanfic #lizzyeleven #prompt fic #ask meme

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danganronpa-21 · 4 years

Note

Happy birthday to Makoto and koichi!!!

Happy Birthday to the boys!! Sorry that this is so darn late, Wednesdays are my long days at school. Plus, one of my poor pups had ear surgery today! He’s doing okay, but he’s very drugged up and sleepy. Therefore, he needs a lot of attention. Got the cone of shame and everything.

But yeah, BIRTHDAY! Seiko made them t-shirts and everything. Let’s do some birthday headcanons, shall we?

Makoto’s Birthday — 2020:

February 5th, 2020 brings a seemingly typical day for Makoto at first. As it’s a Wednesday, he’s still expected to drag his butt into work. He doesn’t even get to sleep in! Kyoko claims that they can pretend to be late because of “morning sickness”, but he doesn’t think anyone will believe it. She’s in her seventh month of pregnancy with their first, and fully intends to go to work with him. She’s much too stubborn to take maternity leave until she has to. At the very least she talks him into skipping a breakfast at home, as he’d have to be the one to cook it anyway. He later discovers that by the time he gets there, Aoi’s already baked some muffins for him and dropped off a cup of coffee — just the way he likes it! If that weren’t enough, some of his students left him gifts. One of his favourites is a small succulent in a hand-painted pot, which he cheerfully places by his window.

He assumes that maybe this is going to be the extent of his special day, but he’s wrong. When he goes to do his paperwork, he discovers that almost all of it has been done already. His meetings have been cut in half, and all because his friends took over some of his work! He’s overwhelmed with love, and makes sure to shoot them some thank you messages. He then does the rest of the work that’s left over, which holds him for just enough until Kyoko comes bursting into his office. She’s planned a picnic for his lunch. They eat together in the school’s gardens, chatting and cuddling. Kyoko can’t help but tell her husband how grateful she is for him, and how excited she is to be carrying his child. Makoto can’t help but laugh and tell her how lucky he feels to be the subject of her love.

The rest of his school day is spent in meetings and popping in and out of classrooms to chat with the students. When work ends, his friends drag him out for dinner, and then to the karaoke bar. They spend the night drinking, singing, and laughing until the late hours of the morning. Makoto, Yasuhiro, and Byakuya are mid-way through a trio song of “Hakujitsu” when they realize they should probably head out... as Kyoko and Toko had started to nap in the corner. To settle things down a bit, they pop into Aoi’s café — where they have a sweet birthday cake waiting for Makoto. He gets a cheerful singing of happy birthday, and all kinds of love and hugs from the people around him. They even prepared in advance and brought their gifts for him to the café!

Byakuya just straight up gifts him cash. He insists that he doesn’t know what to buy someone so painfully average, but everyone knows it’s because Makoto nearly had a heart attack at last year’s birthday gift. He really wasn’t expecting to get a car for his twenty-fifth, so for his twenty-sixth... Byakuya plays it safe. Toko and Komaru choose to collaborate on an adventure manga for him, in which he is depicted as a valiant hero saving people from despair (and inevitably winning the heart of his pretty detective boss in the process). Aoi puts together a collection of CDs for him, with every song he’s ever sung along to on it. It’s really hard not to cry when they put it on and hear Sayaka’s voice playing through the speakers. Yasuhiro opts to gift him a couple of free fortune tellings, before also passing along a brand new hoodie. Hiro says that he figures if he knew one thing, it was that Makoto loves comfortable clothing. So he thought it would be fun to pass along something he knew Makoto would use. As for Kyoko, well, she goes super romantic on her gift. It’s a huge notebook, filled to the brim with photographs and journal entries of all of the adventures they ever had together. She’s even notably added passages from her personal journals, in which she first begins to cite her feelings for him. At the end of the book, he finds the words “... and I can’t wait to have even more adventures with you”.

Below this, is the ultrasound photo of their daughter.

Koichi’s Birthday - 2037:

Koichi has never really been someone who likes too much birthday attention. Most of the time he’s content to spend it with his family. Growing up, he’d usually take the day off school. Kyoko would take the day off work, and they’d go around doing whatever he wanted to do until the rest of the family got back from work and school.

This year, he chooses to go to school. Not because he really wants to, but because he has friends who are desperate to see him for his birthday! So his dad wakes up that morning for school as always, with the two of them wishing each other a mutual happy birthday. He gets to eat a happy breakfast with his family, who is sure to shower him with love and affection. It seems like none of them can stop talking about how old he’s getting! Even Seiko’s going on about it, as if she’s not getting older herself.

When Koichi comes to school, his friends are sure to greet him with as much as they can manage. Tamiko, Natsumi, and Phoenix have decked out his desk in balloons and confetti. They’ve each placed a little wrapped gift for him on his desk, and Tamiko even went ahead and made him a birthday cupcake. The three of them (embarrassingly) sing a rendition of happy birthday in front of everyone, and the whole time, Phoenix is happily snapping pictures.

Unfortunately, he does have to spend much of his day in class because it’s still a school day, but at least his friends make it fun. For lunch, they decide to sneak out and go to a local restaurant. Being a technical yakuza heiress, Natsumi covers all of lunch and tells everyone to order whatever they want. Naturally, the group stuffs themselves full of tasty food before returning back to school. They slip back in mostly undetected... well, if being noticed by Aoi but not chided is considered “mostly undetected”.

After school ends, Koichi goes to meet his parents as always. He’s surprised to discover that his father has gone out to pick up their birthday cakes, and that he intends to meet them at a surprise location... Which his mother is taking them to. After picking up Seiko from school, Kyoko takes all of her kids to the local arcade. They’re told that they can play as many games as they want for [retty much as long as they want. The kids all decide to team up in an attempt to win a huge purple teddy bear, just for the fun of it. Seiko kicks everyone’s butts at whack-a-mole (including Makoto’s, when he shows up), Hope absolutely destroys at Dance Dance Revolution, Kyoko shoots a decent amount of hoops, Makoto is able to stop on just the right spot at the prize wheel multiple times, and Koichi has nothing but victory at the ski ball machine. They manage more tickets than they ever thought possible, and of course managed to nab the teddy bear. They decide it should be kept in Seiko’s room, given that she’s the kind of person who could probably find space for something like that.

When they return home, Hope and Seiko challenge their brother to play a quick game of basketball outside while Makoto prepares dinner. Being the most athletic of the three, naturally, Koichi beats his sisters into the ground. But they get a lot of good laughs out of it, and they end off the match with Hope having slung Koichi over her shoulder and walking him back into the house for dinner. Dinner is Oyakodon, paired alongside some homemade gyoza. Despite having had a big lunch, Koichi eats something like three helpings, which his family teases him about. “The older he gets, the more he eats! He’s gearing up for that big growth spurt!”

For dessert, they of course, have two birthday cakes. One of them is Makoto’s, and the other Koichi’s, and each of the boys gets their own rendition of happy birthday. Makoto’s birthday cake is a vanilla-flavoured cake, whereas Koichi’s is a strawberry ice cream cake. They take turns pretending to blow at each other’s candles, just to mess around. It makes for some great pictures. Everyone tries to have small slices of each cake, so they can enjoy it. The only people who get big pieces are of course, the birthday boys. And when cake is done, they follow it with presents. Being the younger one of the two, Koichi gets to go first.

From his parents, he gets a new video game. One that he’d been saving his allowance for for a long time, I might add. He’s ecstatic! He’s sure to thank his parents several times, especially considering that they’d complained about how pricey it was. Seiko’s birthday gift to him comes with a card she made herself, decorated with as many happy penguins as she could fit onto the page. They’re his absolute favourite animal, after all! The gift she ends up giving him is a set of different tea flavours for him to try -- most of them being far off from the kinds you can find in stores. She also throws in a little plushie penguin that Kyoko and Hope helped her sew. Truthfully, it’s not really pretty, but Koichi loves it. He promises to treasure it, before tearing into Hope’s gift. She’s managed to get him a brand new stack of novels, ones from authors she knows he admires. She confesses that she sort of raided his room to figure out which authors were his favourite.

They watch Makoto open his gifts next. He receives about what you’d expect for a man his age. Hope gifts him a whole bunch of new yarn to knit with, as well as some of his favourite candy. Seiko gives him a clay sunflower she made at school in her art class, as sunflowers are his favourite flower. Koichi gifts him a set of headphones that have become popular in the past year or so, figuring he will make use of them while he’s working or trying to sleep. Kyoko gives her husband her gift in the form of kisses... as well as multiple picture frames that contain photos of their family. Notably, even the older pictures of his parents that she found are added.

All in all, the boys have a great day.

#danganronpa #makoto naegi #koichi naegi-kirigiri #naegiri #Naegi Makoto

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