….
"Oh, I wouldn't mind that at all." Rei chuckled. "It's been so quiet in this room for years... this is much nicer."
The moment Dabi entered, four pairs of eyes snapped toward the doorway.
"PAPA!" both girls squealed in unison.
Rumi walked to him. "All done?"
"Paperwork's done." Dabi said, raising the folder slightly before dropping it onto the nightstand. His gaze drifted toward Rei, softening into a smile–
"Saturday morning, mom. Next weekend, you're officially checking out."
Rei looked at her son, a disbelieving smile touched her lips. "Really, Toya? It's... all settled?"
"Packed and cleared." Dabi nodded, stuffing his hands into his hoodie pockets. "The room at my place is already prepared. Natsuo and Fuyumi are showing up to help carry your boxes, so you don't have to strain at all."
"Himi is carrying the shoe boxes!" Himiko announced proudly.
"And I have the soft blankets." Eri added, nodding firmly.
Before Dabi could even take off his boots, Himiko slid off the bed like an eel, grabbing his sleeve, while Eri caught his other hand.
Working in tandem, the two toddlers forcefully dragged their towering father, shoving him down onto the armchair right beside Rei's bed.
"Sit down, Papa!" Himiko commanded, planting her hands on her hips with adorable bossiness. "You always get lost! Stick close to us! And now you gotta tell a story!"
"Yeah, Papa, a story!" Eri chimed in, climbing directly onto his knee and looking up with pleading eyes. "A fun one! Grandma wants to hear it too!"
Dabi blinked, leaning back against the cushions.
"Use your heads, gremlins." He drawled, as he tapped the tip of Eri's nose. "It's two in the afternoon. Bedtime stories are for midnight."
"Stories aren't just for bed!" Himiko protested, flopping onto his other leg. "Grandma's cheeks are tired from laughing! She needs to sit and listen to Papa talk!"
From the windowsill, Rumi let out a laugh, clearly enjoying his misery.
She pushed off the sill, strolling over to lean casually against the back of his chair, resting an elbow on his shoulder. "C'mon, Patchwork. Don't be a spoilsport. Entertain your daughters and your mother. Show 'em that sparkling charm you're so famous for."
Dabi tilted his head back, giving Rumi a deadpan look. The corner of his mouth slowly curved upward into a mischievous smirk.
"A story, huh?" He murmured smoothly, resting an arm along the edge of the chair. "Alright. I've got a great one. It's about a loud, feral high school girl who couldn't sit still in a classroom if her life depended on it."
Rumi froze, as her white rabbit ears instantly shot straight up into the air. Her eyes widened in sudden, horrifying realization.
"W-wait!" she hissed, gripping his shoulder tightly. "Dabi, don't you dare."
Dabi simply turned his head toward the two girls in his lap, letting out a sigh of disappointment. "See that girls? I wanted to tell you about the wildest ring fighter in the underground, but your mama is opposing it. Guess we can't do storytime after all."
"MAMA, NO!" Himiko wailed instantly, turning around to fix Rumi with the most betrayed, heartbroken puppy-dog pout imaginable. "Don't be mean!"
"Please, Mama?" Eri added softly, clasping her hands together in front of her chest. "Just a tiny story?"
Rei covered her mouth with both hands, letting out another soft giggle as she watched the fierce Number Five Pro Hero get completely backed into a corner by two toddlers.
Rumi's face flushed a deep, embarrassed pink.
She glared daggers at the back of Dabi's head, groaning loudly as she threw her hands up in defeat. "Fine! Whatever! Tell it, you jerk! But if you make me sound lame, I am kicking your shin into next week!"
"I wouldn't dream of it." Dabi chuckled, shifting Eri so she was comfortable in his lap while Himiko leaned eagerly against his arm.
Rei leaned forward too, her soft gray eyes shining with delight. "What kind of high school girl was she, Toya?"
"A total disaster."
Dabi declared, ignoring Rumi's muttered curses from behind his chair. He leaned back, crossing his legs, and cleared his throat with dramatic pomposity. "The title of today's saga is: The Legend of Tiger Bunny: Fall of the Fluffy Menace."
"Oh…" Rumi groaned, burying her red face in her hands. "Don't give it a dramatic title, you hack!"
"Silence, side character, the narrator is setting the scene." Dabi dismissed her with a flick of his wrist, turning toward his captive audience. "It was a humid evening day in an underground warehouse, with flickering lights, damp concrete, and the smell of cheap ramen."
"Dabi, nobody cares about the humidity or the ramen!" Rumi hissed, kicking the wooden leg of his armchair.
"Details build immersion, Bunny." Dabi shot back smoothly, turning to Eri and Himiko, who were staring with wide, completely spellbound eyes. "Anyway, your mother was supposed to be doing proper, disciplined hero training. But she thought regular sparring was for babies, and she wanted pure violence.
"So she ditches her high school class trip, sneaks past the security guards, cuts through three chain-link fences, trips over an empty paint bucket–"
"Do not add your creativity into the story and stick to the original!" Rumi snapped defensively.
"-and breaks into an illegal underground fight club called the Masquerade." Dabi continued without missing a beat. "Now, obviously, she couldn't let her teachers find out she was moonlighting as a cage fighter. So what does this tactical genius do?
"She snatches a cheap, five-hundred-yen tiger mask from a stall, kicks the arena door off its hinges, jumps twenty feet straight into the center of the ring, and lands in a dramatic superhero crouch."
Himiko bounced on Dabi's knee, gasping. "A crouch?!"
"A crouch." Dabi nodded with deadpan solemnity. "The dust clears, the spotlight hits her, and she puffs out her chest before pointing at the reigning champion, some seven foot tall brawler with steel knuckles, and declaring in the deepest, raspest voice she can manage, 'Hear me, mortals! I am the shadow of the ring! The apex predator! TIGER BUNNY!'"
Himiko and Eri both gasped in sync, breathless amazement.
"TIGER BUNNY!" Himiko squealed, tossing her hands in the air. "She was a fierce tiger!"
Dabi explained that Rumi had genuinely believed her disguise was perfect.
The kids listened closely as he revealed the problem.
"Two enormous white rabbit ears were sticking straight through the top of the tiger mask, twitching with every movement, while a fluffy cotton ball tail poked out from the back of her shorts."
Rei covered her mouth to hide a laugh as Dabi continued, describing how the champion stared at Rumi, the referee stared at her, and the entire crowd fell silent before some drunk man in the front row suddenly recognized her as Usako the Fight Crasher from Hiroshima.
The kids immediately burst into laughter.
Dabi kept going, telling them how the entire arena began chanting "Usako! Usako!" while Rumi stood frozen in the middle of the ring, desperately trying to maintain her terrifying persona and insisting she was a cat.
Himiko was already laughing against Dabi's chest, while Eri buried her face against his arm, her tiny shoulders shaking with giggles.
"It was terrifying!" Rumi shouted over the kids' wheezing laughter, her face blazing red as she reached over the chair, hooking Dabi's neck into an aggressive, playful chokehold. "I beat the snot out of that champion! I kicked him and three other guys completely out of the ring!"
"You got caught by your homeroom teacher ten minutes later because your tail gave you away." Dabi choked out, chuckling through the headlock.
"I still won the prize money, you jerk!" Rumi barked, though she couldn't keep the fond grin off her mouth as she ruffled Himiko's hair with her free hand.
Across the bed, Rei watched the loud, chaotic laughter, and grins.
For decades, the rooms she lived in had been filled in silence.
Now, her room was filled with rowdy noises. Her son was back, and the family he had built was loud, messy, and fiercely alive.
A peaceful, gentle warmth settled deep into Rei's chest as she watched them, her eyes curving into the softest, most genuine smile she had worn in twenty-five years.
The room was still ringing with Himiko's breathy snorts and Eri's bright, bubbly giggles when Dabi lazily turned his head toward the glass of the entrance.
Without breaking stride, he tapped his knuckles against the armrest of his chair.
"How long are you three gonna lurk out there in the hall?" Dabi called out. "The story's already over. Move your asses inside."
There was an awkward, muffled scuffle on the other side, followed by a frantic shushing sound.
A second later, the door slid back on its track with a sheepish rattle. Standing in the doorway, caught completely red-handed, were–
Natsuo, Fuyumi, and Shoto.
Fuyumi was holding an insulated picnic tote, her face a bright, flushed pink from trying to hold in her laughter.
Beside her, Natsuo stood with both hands shoved defensively into his jacket pockets, looking ceiling-ward as if he could magically pretend he hadn't had his ear pressed against the door for the last five minutes.
And then there was Shoto.
The youngest brother stood with his school blazer slung over one shoulder, his mismatched red-and-white hair slightly tousled from the commute.
His eyes drifted past Dabi and locked squarely onto Rumi.
He stared at the ferocious Number Five Pro Hero in disbelief, as though everything he thought he knew had just been turned upside down
Tiger Bunny.
Rumi caught that deadpan stare and instantly short-circuited. A blush rushed up from her collarbone, blazing straight past her cheeks and turning the tips of her white rabbit ears crimson.
"Don't look at me like that, half-and-half!"
She snapped, instinctively crossing her arms and baring her teeth, though the sheer mortification in her voice completely ruined the bite.
This was not the impression she wanted to stamp into Toya's younger siblings. She was Mirko, the lone wolf and relentless savage of the Top Ten, not some teenage delinquent wearing a mask who got exposed by her own tail.
"I didn't say anything." Shoto murmured, though his eyes flicked toward her ears with curiosity.
"That makes it worse, you little punk!" Rumi barked. "Dabi, I am revoking your speaking privileges for a month!"
"Good luck enforcing that, Usako." Dabi smirked, not even glancing back at her.
Rei covered her mouth with the edge of her blanket, her shoulders trembling with quiet, delighted giggles as Fuyumi stepped past the threshold.
"We brought cold soba and some stewed chicken."
Fuyumi offered, clearing her throat to rescue the rabbit hero from dying of secondhand embarrassment.
She set the tote down on the low table, her cheeks still rosy. "We... we didn't mean to eavesdrop, Toya."
"You were standing there for ten minutes, Fuyumi." Dabi grunted, rolling his eyes. "You think, me or Rumi couldn't smell you?"
"You could have opened the door earlier instead of ratting us out, you jerk." Natsuo cursed. "We were trying to find an opening that didn't interrupt storytime."
"I called you here to carry boxes next week, not loiter in the corridor like peeping toms." Dabi replied.
"Boxes?" Fuyumi paused, her head tilting as she looked between Dabi and their mother. "Wait... the paperwork actually cleared? You weren't joking on the phone?"
"Saturday morning." Dabi answered. I arranged everything with the head doctor."
Fuyumi gasped, her hands flying to her mouth as her eyes instantly shimmered with moisture. "Mom... oh, Mom, that's wonderful!"
Before she could dive in for a tearful hug, the two little gremlins in Dabi's lap decided the grown-ups had spent enough time talking about boring adult things.
Himiko's golden eyes snapped wide open the second she clocked the tall, spiky-haired young man trailing behind Fuyumi.
"GIRAFFE UNCLE!" she shrieked in absolute victory.
Natsuo's spine instantly went rigid.
The memory of two toddler kisses seemed to burn fresh across his cheeks, and his face flared into the exact same shade of red he had sported on the hospital steps the previous evening.
"Oh no." Natsuo muttered, taking half a step backward toward the frame. "Not again. Shoto, get in front of me."
"No." Shoto said instantly, stepping aside without a hint of hesitation. "Face your responsibilities."
"You traitor–"
.
….
[To be continued…]
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