MARTINI BLUE oikawa tooru

eighteen. BUT YOU'RE FAMILY SO I GUESS I'LL HELP YOU FIX YOUR SAD LOVE LIFE

 

          "Paris, I didn't know that you cooked too." Daya points out as she passes more skewers to the other side of the table. The man and his dark blue hair blushes, waving her off. Everyone at that table knew that he had a compulsion to keep feeding people around him, something that became astonishingly obvious when the four teenagers first showed up at their home for wayward souls.

          Beneath his joyous smile and lengthy anecdotes about the emotional benefits of food, he too felt the aftermath of Aoki Daniel's overdose. It came as a shock to them all that someone who appeared to be relatively dedicated to life just up and decided to overdose. Paris likes to wonder if that's how his friends and coworkers saw his attempt to take his own life before he left Tokyo.

His hair was growing up and was pinned to the nape of his neck with a few accessories that that boy, Araragi, had talked him into. More than ever he felt like a grandmother that was at least double the age of everyone at that table. For once he feels responsible again.

          "I cook plenty. Besides good food is one of the fundamentals for a good life."

          "That's true." Mary points as they all sit down crammed around the little table.

          Tahji's been hungry for the past few days, she's been hungry for cookies (Paris happily supplying), she's been hungry for news (any news aside from his same comatose state), and she's been hungry for warm cuddles (her boyfriend gladly providing until she fell asleep with the blessing of her friends). This was the first time she was actually eating a meal in days after being sick for a week and then this mess with her best friend that didn't even bother to apologize to her.

Didn't she teach him better than this?

As if to answer her anxieties the door opens to the ranch home with a thud as someone stomps down the hallway. For a moment the inhabitants look at each other, is this how they'll die? Is this what a police raid feels like when you've done nothing wrong?

           Their woes are answered. "Okonome Tahjiko. I am so fucking sorry. I hope you accept my apology." A distraught voice calls out among the shared silence. Mary sighs at the actions of her little brother as Daya almost spits out her water. Daniel doesn't know that they're all piled in the kitchen because despite being emotionally traumatized people, they all managed to keep a relatively sane eating schedule. Lunch and dinner altogether and then snacking at all hours of the day in between.

His apology to no one continues as Tahji cringes out of secondhand embarrassment for him.

          "I'm sorry for putting you through what happened three years ago again. I'm a dick! Come down and curse me out or hit me or something. I'll never talk my way out of core day again. You're my best friend in the world and I don't want to leave you. So come down! Talk to me!" Tahji can hear her best friend shine through in every word, she can hear the boy that used to force her to go outside in the sun and eat meals on a regular basis. She can remember the boy that texted her every fifteen minutes for an entire month just to make sure that she was alright, that she knew there was someone to pay attention to her.

He was there for her and she has to be there for him. It's what family does.

          So Tahji stands, she'll stand for him even if he did something cruel to her. Quietly padding into the hallway where she can see Aoki Daniel in his Sunday best looking more like a sun-sick toothpick than ever is a familiar sight. "You're so fucking loud." She sighs, he looks like a mystified puppy as he sees that she is not, in fact, still hiding away from the world.