Ink Stained

57: family food*

家族食

They got there twenty minutes later, successfully meandering through the throng of people outside. Nobody spared her so much as a passing glance, the pendant she wore around her neck doing its job wonderfully and making her out to be Hengen right alongside them. The people around her all seemed friendly, even smiling at her as she walked past them with politeness.

As they walked, she fancied that she could correctly guess what Hengen she saw on the street, though it was more like a gambling game to her. Kitsune, she guessed, were those whose ears were slightly pointed, their faces beautiful and sharply angled. Or, they could be Ookami. She didn't know how to distinguish between the Kitsune and Ookami, though she thought the Ookami were the ones with fur lining their pointed ears. Anxiety stirred in her, however, whenever she remembered how Aihara could easily tell that Haru, Shin, and Shouta were Hengen.

Daichi had elusively kept where they were going to himself, but when a little boy dashed out of a shop shouting, 'Oji, Oji!', she knew instantly where they were.

'There' happened to be Daichi's family home.

The shop was at the centre of the main village. It was a big clinic, aptly named, 'Kobayashi Health'. When she tilted her head up, she saw that there was a house right above it, one floor. Considering that the building itself was as wide as it was tall and long, she guessed that a large family could comfortably live in it.

Daichi laughed as he bent and swept the boy up in a big hug, spinning him around in the air twice before easily setting him on his shoulders with his legs dangling on either side of his neck. The boy had dark hair tousled from playing, big and bright amber eyes that mooned as they grinned down at Daichi, dimples indenting his cheeks. Quivering in excitement on his back was a small pair of jet-black wings, and an orange sash was tied around his wrist.

For a second, Pai, astounded, genuinely wondered if Daichi already had a family that he had never mentioned before. The little boy looked like he could be his son, and from the look on Daichi's face, she knew that they were close.

"Hey, big man." Daichi laughed, ruffling the boy's dark hair and making it even messier than before. "You've grown since I last saw you, haven't you?"

The boy proudly lifted his chin. "Yes, I have!"

"How old are you now?"

"Six! I'm a grown man now, Oji!"

"Six?" Daichi put on a comically shocked expression. "You sure you're not sixty? I could have sworn I saw a little old wrinkly man coming at me just now."

"I'm six, I'm six, I'm six!" the boy exclaimed indignantly, swiping at Daichi's head to emphasize every declaration of his true age. "You're the old man!"

Somehow, while still keeping a firm hold of the little boy, Daichi managed to duck every hit. His glasses, however, weren't so lucky, and started to slide off his head. Pai jumped forward and caught them just before they would have fallen to the ground.

He laughed, eyes twinkling merrily, as he turned to her. "Thanks," he said, grinning. "It'd be a pain to get Manase-san to make new ones."

"No problem," she replied, a smile tipping her lips up from Daichi's infectious happiness. She had never seen this side to him before.

"Oh, and this little rascal is Yato-kun, my nephew. He's my older brother's son, Gin."

Oh, she thought, surprised. So he knows what it's like to be the younger brother...and the older, she added, remembering Daichi's little sister, Rika.