Sweet Like Candy

My Dad Is Gay For Your Dad

The ExWires, Yukio, and Shiro waited on the steps of the shrine while Izumo paid her respects.

"I'm glad that's not you, but all's not completely forgiven." Rin told Shiro quietly. He nodded. He knew it would take a while, but as long as Rin stayed his daughter and no one else's, he'd be fine.

"Don't think that just because you're not little anymore that you're not still a kid. I still have things I can teach you. Both of you." Shiro told the twins, ruffling their hair just to mess with them.

Izumo came back down, wiping at her puffy red eyes. "She's at peace now. It's probably for the best." She sniffed. Rin smiled at the girl and the group left.

"So what are we doing about Shima? Someone's gonna have to tell his family, right?" Rin realized. Suguro winced.

"I guess I'll do it." He sighed, not looking forward to that talk.

"No." Shiemi denied. They all looked questioningly at her. "We'll do it together. We should always do things like that together. No one has to do things alone anymore."

Shiro nodded approvingly. They set out to find Juzou and Kinzou among the backup forces.

When they found the two brothers, Suguro stepped forward to start their explanation of what happened to their little brother.

"Renzo is..." He still had no idea how to put it.

"Stop. They know something." Rin narrowed her eyes at the two brothers. They shifted uncomfortably, guilt in their eyes.

"Forgive us, everyone." Was what they started with. Bad idea.

"You knew?!" Suguro cried, backing up, betrayal in his eyes.

"Renzou is our spy." Kinzou said. Rin blinked. Not what she'd been expecting, but okay.

"Why the fuck am I not surprised?!" She growled in frustration. Shima's character was chill and lazy until you looked deeper into it. He wasn't like the rest of the group-self-sacrificing and stupidly brave in the face of death and danger. He was brave in his own way, but he was also selfish. It was just like him to be a double spy.

"I'm sorry we couldn't tell you until now, but we had to keep the secret within as small a group of people as possible to protect Renzou." Juzou said. He did look like he was truly regretful, so Rin toned her irritation down some. But still-they all knew Shima's family was the reason he decided to be a spy. She wondered what reason he'd told them.

She exchanged a look with Suguro and they argued silently for a moment before deciding. They wouldn't tell his family his true reasoning. That was for Shima to tell.

But that didn't mean they couldn't give them hell for it.

"The Illuminati doesn't even see humans as people! He makes one wrong move and they'll kill him without a second thought! There probably won't even be remains for us to bury!" Suguro cried angrily.

"He chose this and we couldn't stop him! And that asshole Pheles encouraged it!" The brothers explained the meeting Mephisto had had with Shima and Suguro's fathers before highschool began.

Rin shook her head. "I rest my case, but that still seems pretty bad that he had to sneak around so much with you guys that he can do spywork that easily." She tsked. The brothers looked properly regretful and scolded, so she let them leave.

They actually found Tatsuma among the people resting from putting out the fire and raiding the underground base, which had mostly survived, as Rin had only burned the Shopping Mall part of it in her rage.

"Tatsuma!" Shiro ran past them and gathered the man in a tight hug. Tatsuma looked pleasantly surprised, laughing and hugging back so tightly that there was no mistaking that connection. Suguro seemed to have picked up on it as well, now that it was in front of his face. He wrinkled his nose.

"Gross." Rin laughed at her boyfriend's reaction.

"That's okay, it's not weird because he didn't really raise me in the first place and we're not actually related by blood." Rin waved it off. It was weird to see Shiro so happy-almost like a teenager in love, actually-but she was glad for him. She'd never realized how resigned he'd always seemed to keeping relationships strictly casual and friendly when he was posing as a priest.

"The kids are staring." She heard Tatsuma murmur to the man.

Shiro shook his head. "Don't care."

Tatsuma grinned and let Shiro hold onto him for another moment before they met the teenagers who looked varying degrees of uncomfortable.

"Wow, this is the biggest display of emotion I've seen on any teenagers in a while." Tatsuma mused, hugging his son and then Rin and Yukio too.

"Did you adopt my kids while I was gone?" Shiro asked incredulously.

Tatsuma shrugged. "Someone had to look after them, they're both disasters in their own rights." He answered honestly. "The whole group is, but I'm not surprised your kids are the ones that need the most help."

"That's true, but it still hurts." Shiro pretended to be wounded. Tatsuma chuckled.

"Please go back to being the heartless exorcist with a shotgun, I don't like this." Yukio was cringing away from his adoptive father and looked equally disturbed as Suguro.

"What did you do?" Tatsuma demanded.

Shiro winced. "I'm just gonna say on the record that I never agreed to raising children. I was charged with getting rid of them, but that didn't end well for anyone who tried it before me, including the previous Paladin, so I ended up being one of the few people to survive and since I was the only one left who knew their mom, I was forced to raise them." He explained quickly.

"Yeah, except you failed that mission too." Yukio snorted.

"Well, they've got your bluntness. That's something." Tatsuma noted.

"An optimist and a realist. I can kind of see it now." Suguro noted, not following the current topic at all. Rin snorted.

Shiro and Tatsuma's faces burned bright red at the statement.

"Well, this is getting weird for everybody, let's just go to the airport and go home already." Izumo saved them from any more awkwardness. The others muttered affirmatives.

Shiro went to follow, but looked down at his and Tatsuma's intertwined fingers and frowned, furrowing his brows.

"You can stay with your boyfriend, it's not that big of a deal, dad." Yukio rolled his eyes. The two men spluttered and the group of teenagers moved on.

They rode the bus to the airport and finally made it onto a plane home. Rin wasn't so scared of flying anymore. Since flying into Shimane, she'd faced down worse things than heights and turbulence. She fell asleep on Suguro's shoulder.

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Yo, I finally have some inspiration back! My life didn't get any better, but I just got news that it will be next summer, so I have hope again.

On another note, I've been so excited for the part where the teens see Shiro and Tatsuma's relationship and are all disturbed bc according to all the stories told, Shiro is supposed to be a cold-hearted asshole, yet he's cuddling into Suguro's Dad's arms and it's just overall weird for everybody there. Anyways, I hope y'all enjoyed this chapter! There should be more to come very soon!