The Matchablossom Family

Chapter 5 - Adopting Child #1

A/N: ENJOY READING! =)

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"I'm sorry!" Reki was bent forward into a bowing position, which forced him to stare down at the hospital floor.

"What are you sorry for?" Cherry asked impatintly.

"Running off when I was supposed to visit you."

"I sure hope the issue with Langa was resolved then?"

"It was Sir."

"Good." Cherry's voice may have gained a slight tinge of happiness, but it still remined mostly stern. "Is there nothing else you need to apologise for?"

"Ummm. . . I don't know?"

"Wrong answer!" Cherry smacked Reki on the back of the head with his rolled up news paper. "Try again!"

"Ow!" Reki lifted his head up from his bowing position to glare at Cherry for hitting him. "I really don't know!"

Reki watched as the pink haired mans eyes narrowed. "For running away from the cops! Do you have any idea how much trouble you caused?!"

"I didn't know it would cause so much trouble. I swear!"

"Clearly." Cheery sighed.

"I'm sorry. I won't do it again, you have my word." Reki bent back down to continue his bowing, to show how serious he was.

"Good." Cherry smiled. "How look up. The world hasn't ended yet."

But mine did. Reki thought to himself, but he kept quiet and did as he was told, looking up.

"About time. It looked like you were going to murder the boy," Joe, who was the only other person currently in Cherry's hospital room, finally piped up.

"I wasn't going to murder him!"

"I'm just saying, give the poor kid a break, Kaoru. He's had a rough week."

Cherry sighed and patted the empty spot on the end of his hospital bed.

At first Reki was confused as to why Cherry had done this, so he stared at the spot in bewilderment. But after turning to face Cherry, who was looking at him patiently, he realized that Cherry just wanted him to sit down there.

So hesitently Reki crawled onto the suprisingly tall hospital bed and sat crossed-legged at the bottom of the bed, opposite from cherry who sat face-to-face with him.

"The three of us need to have a talk." Cherry slightly shited to the side and gestured for his husband to sit down next to him, so that the three of them sat in a little triangle on the bed.

"Oh." Reki stared down at the plain coloured sheets underneath him.

"Relax kid. It's nothing bad. Just. . . important," Cherry spesified. "Is there anything you want to talk about Reki?"

"You are under no obligation to do so though," Joe clarified, as he sat on the edge of the matress beside his husband.

"I don't know," Reki admitted.

"That's okay." Cherry gave Reki a small reasuing smile. "Before we start, there is something we need to clarifiy though."

"Yeah, what is it?"

"Miya. He was devistated by what you said to him Reki," Cherry explained.

"I know." Reki closed his eyes and breathed deeply. "I will need to apologise to him."

Reki didn't need to open his eyes to know that the two adults where smiling at him. But soon he heard Cherry sigh seriously, before saying: "I know this mornon beside me promised you he'd never call the foster agency on you. But I hate to brake the news to you kid. I will need to do so eventually, so that they know you are safe and accounted for."

Although his heart was beating at a million miles per hour, Reki tried not to show his panic and nodded his head in understanding instead.

"But I can promise you this," Cherry added. "We will try, with everything in our power, to get you into a home in which you are comfertable and happy."

"But I don't want to stay with people I don't know!" Reki protested.

"And we understand that," Joe said. "So is there anyone you can think of that you do want to stay with?"

"I don't know."

"Would you want to stay with us then?" Cherry asked, his voice soft and hesitant.

"Huh?" Reki looked up for the first time since he sat down on the hospital bed to stare at Cherry, utter shock and confusion set deep in his face.

Cherry and Joe kept eye contact with the shocked boy, waiting quietly and patiently for a response from him.

"Would you want to live with us Reki?" Kojiro repeated, not sure if the kid even understood what Kaoru had offered him.

Reki's shock didn't wear off after Joe's clarifiying words, he actually looked even more skocked and confused then before, (which nither adult even thought was possible). "Are you sure you want me to live with you?"

Kojiro figured Reki's confusion may have been contagious, because now Kaoru also looked confused.
"Of course we do. Why would we offer if we didn't really mean it?" Cherry queried.

Joe sighed. "What my impassive husband means to say is: We care about you Reki. Which means that we want to help you find a safe home. And if that's with us, then we will be happy to offer you that home."

Reki thought about what Joe had said to Cherry on the phone a few days ago. 'If Reki wants to stay with us, where he is safe and cared for, where he has a roof over his head and a warm bed, then I will be happy to take him in. If he doesn't want to stay with us, then so be it, he should be old enough to make his own desisions. But Kaoru, I would so love it if we could show him that he can trust us.'

Joe must have noticed that Reki was deep in thought about it, so he stayed quiet for a few moments, letting Reki process whatever was going through head, before saying: "Reki, you don't have to say 'yes' if you don't want to. Don't feel obligated to say yes for whatever reason. Don't say it just to avoid hurting our feelings. Our egos can take it. Say yes only if you want to. It's your desision. And no matter what your heart tells you to chose, we will support your desision. Even if it's a no."

"I. . . I-I don't know. . ." Reki wanted to say what he was actually thinking, but because so many differnt thoughts where swarming his head in a frenzy of a tornado that made him feel dizzy, he couldn't formulate any of them into words. ". . .I don't know."

After many quiet minutes (probebly closer to 20 minutes) in which the young boy took a moment to imagine his life living with the married skater couple, tears begun to slip from his eyes.

"Reki?"

"What's wrong kid?"

The couple begun to worry.

"Huh?" Reki was confused again, until he reach up to his cheek and finally realized he was crying.

It wasn't really such a shock that he was suddenly crying. Reki had spend the better half of this last week constantly, non stop, crying.

He was never much of a cryer. It didn't matter what the situation was, he just never really cried. At least, it was like that until his family all left him behind, and now all of a sudden Reki spent more time crying then when he wasn't crying. He was honestly shocked his body could still produce more tears at this rate.

Kaoru couldn't stand to see the young boy so broken. So he crawled forward, ignoring the pang of pain that seered up his arm when he forcefully tugged on his IV in order to reach Reki. He gently warped his arms around the redhead to try and comfort him, and soon Kojiro joined in on the group hug.

After a long while of hugs and sobbs, Reki managed to mutter between grasping tears: "Yes. . . My answer is yes. I want to live with you."

To say Kaoru and Kojiro yelped with joy, would be an understatment.