Words, Hands, Hearts
As Musashi went upstairs and redressed, he realized with shock just how close he had been to give in to Hiruma's offer. Even though he had just seen how happy the blond was to see Mamori again, and even though he knew that his youngest children would be hearing everything they did as their rooms were just above the bathroom and adjacent to the kitchen…
He suppressed a shudder and closed his eyes to focus, calming himself with a few deep breaths.
But who could have known that Hiruma was even sexier now than he had been twenty years ago? Whoever wanted to tempt him with his reappearance, they were doing a pretty good job. He somehow wished that he had not invited Hiruma over; it was only worsening his temptation. If nothing happened, he knew that he would use the first opportunity to bend the other over and have his way with him.
After he had thought that thought, Musashi froze in his movements and realized what had just crossed his mind. His face heated up and he covered it in shame.
After all, he was really just a perverted old man.
~*~
Mamori had been right, Hiruma needed that shower. It relaxed a few muscles that he thought were not tense to begin with, but obviously they had been. Still, he cleaned himself quickly, washing his hair that felt as if it was covered with a thick layer of grease although he had just washed it the day before he took that flight back to Japan. He sighed as his hands reeked through the soft tresses without resistance, rinsing for a long time.
Stepping out of the shower, he took the towel closest to the shower stall and quickly dried himself before he put on his fresh clothes. Just as quickly, he dried his hair, after he found a hairdryer and some hair gel, which he used to make his hair stand up again in its characteristic way. As he was finished with his work, he looked into the mirror, regarding himself with no small amount of satisfaction. He knew that Musashi had been hesitating when he offered him to join him in the shower. It was only a matter of time until things were back to where they had been 20 years ago between them, but Hiruma had to be patient. He knew that Musashi would come back to him out of his own free will some day, so he just had to wait until then. If he rushed anything, it would only narrow his chances of getting back together.
Hiruma was fully aware of how unfair this all sounded, but he had his reasons. One of them was a certain event twenty years ago and another was the way Musashi hesitated to answer the question if he loved Mamori. Oh yes, this personal little scheme would make things all the better for Hiruma. But first, he had to go through the hell of one happy family celebration.
He made a bored face and stuck out his tongue at himself in the mirror, when he heard Mamori shouting loudly, "Youichi? Could you please help me get the plates into the living room when you're finished with your shower?"
Hiruma frowned at her loudness since he was only in the adjacent room and then wondered when she remembered that she had started to call him Youichi at some point and not Hiruma anymore, just to do the latter a few moments ago. He gathered his dirty clothes and exited the bathroom, walking over to the kitchen.
"Sure I can help you, but can I have a plastic bag for my stuff first?" he said calmly, but somehow he managed to startle her so much that she jumped up a few centimeters.
"Y-you! Don't scare me like that!" she reprimanded him and looked at him nervously.
Hiruma frowned. "What?"
"N-nothing," Mamori said a little too quickly maybe as she started to rummage one of the cupboards for a plastic bag. "There you are… If you got more though, you can give it to me and I'll wash them for you."
"That'd be too nice," Hiruma nodded as he put his stuff into the bag without much love. Just as he opened his mouth to say something else, he heard somebody else enter the kitchen.
"You yelled for me, mum?" a tall, slender and lithe boy said, and if Hiruma had not known any better, he would have said that his younger self was standing in the doorframe. Of course, he did not have pointed ears, his hair was not standing up as much as his did, but his hair was blond and he could not determine whether or not it was natural, but he probably bleached it just a little bit. The youth's eyes were narrow with dark lashes, even the shape of his eyebrows was similar. Hiruma's eyebrows crinkled up into a deep frown and he stared unconcealed at the one that was obviously the Takekura's oldest son.
"Who's that?" the boy asked after he looked just as incredulously at the other blond in the room.
Mamori, who was suddenly very, very nervous, laughed sheepishly and had no other choice but to introduce the two. "Um, Youichi, this is Hiruma, you know, a very good, old friend of your dad and me. Hiruma, this… this is Youichi. Our oldest son."
The words sunk heavily into Hiruma's consciousness as he was not able to stop staring. Then, he blinked, and stared down at the woman, who was still looking very nervous. "You named your oldest son after me?!"
"Well, um, yes?" The woman laughed sheepishly.
"What the fuck?!" Hiruma growled and grabber her shoulders, just about to shake her, when a strong hand grabbed his wrist and pried it away from the woman's body.
"Hey, don't treat her like that!" Youichi stepped in, glaring at the older man hostilely.
"You don't tell me anything, fucking… fucking boy!" Hiruma snapped back, pulled his wrist out of his grip and glared at the boy.
Mamori sighed and stepped between the two hotheads. Somehow she had expected something like that to happen.
"Hiruma, Youichi, both of you, please calm down. I promise I'll explain everything later, but first, please help me carry these into the living room, okay?" she said and handed each of them a plate with baked potatoes.
The two blonds glared at each other for another second for good measure before Youichi snorted and turned around to walk into the living room. Hiruma just shook his head and followed him.
~*~
"Dad, please, ask Kurita-san or Kobayakawa-san to teach our team!" Ken begged his father, who sighed, because they had had this discussion endless times.
"You know my answer to that. They are all busy men, working hard. I already asked them before and everybody said that they're not fit to teach anybody anything. Yukimitsu said that he would, but he's so busy with his job as a lawyer, he really doesn't have the time," Musashi sighed and lifted Sachiko up into her chair.
"You know, I'd ask mom to train us, but I fear that the other guys don't want her to," Ken argued. "I know she'd be more than able to chase us around, but-"
"You do know how busy the both of us are. That's why we're glad you spend so much time at school, really," Musashi sighed and put a hand upon the shoulder of his second oldest son.
"But, dad. We really want to go to the Christmas Bowl this year, you know? It's our last chance, too. Deimon doesn't allow their third years any club activities," Ken kept on begging.
Musashi sighed. He probably knew best, because he had went through all of this himself when he was 17, just a few months older than his son now. And with the minor change that he did not go to High School because of his father.
Besides his looks, his second son had inherited his kicking abilities, but was not only limited to that. In fact, he was also a decent runner, which made him the ace of the team. In fact, he was the team, as nobody else seemed to be interested in American Football theses days. He had two good friends that helped him keep the club alive, but other than that… They were off pretty bad. Unfortunately – or fortunately – Ken did not have Hiruma's attitude to blackmail other clubs' members into helping them out, therefore they had yet to play in one tournament.
It was not as if Musashi did not understand his son, no, he probably knew exactly how he felt, and he had really asked everybody that he could think of, even Seijuro Shin, but all of them had to refuse due to the lack of time and interest. Shin had been a special case; Musashi had been sure he would have agreed to train a High School Football team, but even he had to refuse, because he had already been hired as Japan's National trainer and for a High School team in America. Musashi had not had the heart to tell his son the entire truth, so he had kept the High School part to himself as he had told him about it.
"I know, son," he sighed. "But there's nothing I can do about, sorry. Hey, Takeshi! Stop playing and sit down at the table."
"In a moment, dad, I'm just about to win this game," the youngest son mumbled.
"You said that the last time I asked you. Just save the game and come to the table, understood?" Musashi said sternly.
"Yes, dad," Takeshi sighed and did as he was told.
"Oh, by the way, we have a guest tonight," Musashi said suddenly. "You don't know him, so try to behave… and do not stare too much, okay?"
"Why, who is it, dad?" Ken asked, brow furrowed.
At that very moment, Youichi came in through the door, followed closely by Hiruma and Mamori.
"It's him," Musashi mumbled as he watched how his sons' eyes became as big as saucers.
~*~
Thanks to Mamori's iron discipline, they managed to sit down at the table and started to eat before any vital questions could be asked. Hiruma was still a little irritated by Youichi and kept glancing over to him with a frown, but he was even more irritated by the looks he got from the other two sons. It seemed like his fears that the youngest, Sachiko – who was a spitting image of her mother by the way – would be his biggest problem were absolutely without reason.
"Alright, fucking kids, stop staring right now," he said after a while, putting down his knife and fork rather forcibly. "Yes, the ears are real. Is that why you were staring? Yes? Then you know it now, so stop it already."
He looked at the big eyes that were still looking at him. "…What?"
"I know you," the youngest boy suddenly said. "Yes, I know you! You're that demon-guy from that old game that also has dad in it!"
"What are you talking about?" Hiruma asked with a frown, too irritated to remember his own schemes from over 25 years ago.
"You know… that game… that you blackmailed some people to make… about the Deimon Devil Bats," Mamori said lowly. "We… have a copy here. And well, it's Takeshi's favorite game."
"Second-" the boy tried to say, but was interrupted by his older brother.
"Please! I'm begging you! Train our team so that we can go to the Christmas Bowl this year!" Ken said suddenly after he had jumped up to bow low in front of Hiruma. The blond just looked at him with a surprised look, then snorted.
"Fucking old man, fucking mother hen, could you please tell me what's going on here?" he growled, not caring one bit about the glare that Youichi shot him. "I get the part about the game, but what does he want?" Hiruma pointed at Ken, who still bowed low in front of him. "And why the fuck does he", he pointed to Youichi, "look like me when you named him after me? Am I responsible for his existence or what?! Was I the one who knocked you up 20 years ago?!" Hiruma was yelling by now and glared at Mamori, feeling somewhat betrayed by the only two people he had ever let very close to him.
"Calm down, will you? I'll explain it," Musashi mumbled, looking decidedly uncomfortable.
"Make it quick, my patience is running low," Hiruma grumbled as he leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms over his chest.
Musashi sighed, exchanged a look with his wife and shot his oldest son an apologetic look. Then he took a deep breath, before he started to explain. "Youichi was born about one month after we married… After you disappeared."
"But you're not my dad!" Youichi chimed in, obviously pissed off by the pure thought of it. Hiruma opened his mouth to say something in return, but Musashi continued to talk.
"We, Mamori and I, we missed you and we both… like you very much, you should know that. And we wanted to thank you in some kind of way, too-"
"Stop being so mushy, I think I get it. You named him after me as some kind of tribute, right?" Hiruma snorted, still not happy with the whole situation, but highly amused by it.
"Right," Musashi nodded. "At first, we did not think much of it when he got his first blond hair… and then the next and so on, but when they still didn't get darker when he reached puberty, we… made a paternity test. Secretly."
"What?!" Youichi gasped, his anger now directed at his father. "Why didn't you tell me about it? That kind of stuff is important to me, too, you know?"
"Calm down," Musashi sighed, "the results of the test confirmed unmistakably that I am your biological father."
"It seems like Gen has some European genes in him, too, from his great-great-grandfather," Mamori chimed in. "It seems like it was something the Takekura family tried to forget over the years. But it explains why Gen's beard started growing so early… and other things."
Hiruma grinned at her blush, knowing exactly what she meant. "You mean the size of his-"
"Anyways," Musashi interrupted quickly, before Hiruma was able to finish his sentence. "It's a strange coincidence that Youichi is the spitting image of you… Minus a few features."
Hiruma snorted, still grinning broadly because he was amused of something. "I'd say it's a cruel joke of nature. At least your other kids look like yourself. That doesn't explain though, why he," he pointed down, "is still down on his knees there."
"Ken, get up!" Mamori said quickly. "Ask properly and explain yourself before you do."
Reluctantly the boy stood up again and sat back down at the table. Then he sighed and looked at Hiruma with big pleading eyes. "Please, you have to be the trainer of my team. You're the best football strategist that I ever heard of and we really need some drastic measures. See, it's only me and two friends who keep the Amefuto-Club at Deimon alive and we really, really want to go to the Christmas Bowl this year. It would be an honor for us if you trained-"
"Not interested," Hiruma said flat out, resuming eating.
"What?! Why!?! But we need you!!" Ken protested.
"Ask somebody else. I stopped playing football when your father did and that was 27 years ago."
"But-"
"Didn't you hear me, fucking wimp? I said, I'm not going to train you and that's it! Stop begging like a spineless idiot!"
"Hiruma…"
The teenager's eyes narrowed as they started to water with anger and frustration. At the same time, his brows furrowed and he started to pout. "…Fine. I won't ask you again. If it's that what you want, I will make you beg to train our team!"
