[benz] a nice, small family
Title: a nice, small family
ID: benz
Word count: 1,494
Rating/Warnings: none
Character(s) or pairing(s): Nana Sawada
Nana recalls them only ever once talking about children, before they were married. They had been walking down the street in a faint drizzle, holding hands still somewhat stiffly, running out of things to talk about but not really wanting to go home just yet. Some blocks ahead of them the traffic lights turned red and a woman carrying her groceries home began to cross the street with great dignity; from behind her elegant grey skirts three boys of assorted age and size leapt out and ran joyously ahead of her, their yellow rainboots splashing through the puddles.
"It's expensive, isn't it?" she remembers asking aloud.
"What is?"
"Children's clothes, and they grow out of them so quickly!"
"Ah, well, they can't go running around naked..."
"My mum used to knit our clothes," Nana remembers saying, "and when we were too big for them she'd unravel the clothes and add on to them and make them bigger. I have some jumpers made of my baby clothes somewhere in a drawer back home. Mums are always very practical."
"Yes they are," he had agreed. "You'll have to be, won't you?"
They had never spoken about being parents or even living together before; still, Nana collected her old jumpers the next time she went home, and spent a few nights carefully unravelling them. Thus when Tsuna was born he spent most of his infanthood crawling around dressed most lovingly in pink and lavender smocks and bootees. When he grew old enough (and self-concious enough) to realize and voice a hesitant opinion that this was not entirely manly, Nana stopped the practice and bought manlier, duller, earthier clothes for him instead; the pretty pastel knits went back into a drawer in the back of her closet, and Tsuna heaved a sigh of relief before leaving the house for kindergarten.
Once, Iemitsu asked if she wanted a girl. The question - carefully structured, casually phrased - rose over the couch after one of his marathon dinners, long after she had washed up and had settled down to read by the window. “I thought you were sleeping,” she had said.
“No - just thinking,” he replied. “So, what do you think? A nice, small family…”
“Do you think Tsuna’s lonely?”
“Eh, if he is he’ll get over it,” Iemitsu said. Nana smiled at his dismissive confidence and returned to her book. A page crackled as she turned it; the cold air creeping around outside in the garden tried to push under the crack at the bottom of the door, but was defeated by a heavy rag rug Nana had pushed firmly against the door. Iemitsu cleared his throat, repeated his question.
“Oh, would you like that, dear?” she asked.
“Sometimes I think you would,” he said. “It’s not always just about Tsuna and me, you know.”
“I’m happy with just Tsuna and you,” she said, and the way she said it he guessed it to be true.
*
Years passed, and although he never asked again, although he was hardly ever home, Nana remained happy with just Tsuna and him. There were the holidays when he came back, and her visiting relatives who came to stay for a while and gossip with her, and his visiting relatives who usually came with an army of black-suited bodyguards, all of whom gently refused her offer to squeeze them into a couple of spare rooms and simply melted away out of sight, like guardian spirits. In high school Tsuna suddenly began bringing a variety of friends home; the pretty girl who stayed over tea to study, the athletic boy who kept them up all night talking to Tsuna in loud earnest whispers, the sulky foreign student who slunk around at her son’s heels devotedly and only reluctantly left when she asked him, nicely but firmly, to smoke out on the porch. Then there were the younger children who inexplicably loved her son so much they followed him home; the baby, the crybaby, and the bowling-pin girl. And then everything began to unravel, leisurely, as if it was perfectly natural: the explosions and the fights and the accidents, the foreign student’s beautiful sister and the poison cooking. Everyone stumbling home for dinner bruised and bandaged and sweaty, not even complaining when she told them they would have to shower before sitting down at the table . . .
Nana remembered the baby, the first of all Tsuna’s new friends, telling her matter-of-factly that he would be staying. She remembered how small he had seemed, his legs dangling off the seat of the chair, how very harmless he looked. How old he had sounded. Much later, her husband teased her about it, saying, “A talking baby in a business suit! You didn’t suspect anything?”
“I felt he was doing it for Tsuna,” she said.
The only time she felt they had not been doing it for Tsuna, he came home all cut up and bone-tired, looking like he had won and lost the entire world. Before that night, he had been out every waking hour for weeks, munching through dinner like a zombie, sneaking out the back door to “train some more, some more, some more . . .” “Some kind of extracurricular competition, dear?” she had asked, and watched him flinch - “Some kind,” he had said, weakly, and kissed her cheek before he went out (the last time he kissed her on her cheek he had been small enough to sit in her lap). After watching him walk down the driveway she had gone to the phone and dialed the secret emergency number her husband had given her, to be called only in case of secret[1] emergencies. It was the first voluntary [2] break in routine she had ever made and she remained somewhat ashamed of herself all the way through the call (the person on the other end had been incredibly kind and reassuring, though she sensed him to be under great pressure). After putting the phone down she had broken out her knitting needles and put the TV on and watched, alternately, the news and the American stock market with great interest until it was very early in the morning and Tsuna was still not back yet.
She put her knitting down and checked the clock over the TV and also her watch, just to be sure; she went to the kitchen for water and put all the dishcloths in the wash, because it was dishcloth day tomorrow, and replaced them with clean ones. Nothing else to do; she sat down in the easy-chair (only five minutes, she promised herself) and when she woke up Tsuna’s house slippers were no longer waiting by the door; his sneakers lay neatly on top of the shoe-rack, laces folded.
Nana started up, wanting to get out of her chair and be beside her son in the same movement, but her back complained sharply about sleeping in a chair and she had to stop to appease it.
“Are you all right?”
She looked up, saw the baby coming down the stairs. He held his finger to his lips, pointed upstairs. “All sleeping,” he said. “School starts in three hours.”
“Well, that’s all right then,” she said.
The baby cocked his head to one side. “Aren’t you going to ask how they are?”
“You wouldn’t have dared to bring them home if they weren’t all right,” she said.
“Ah, that’s true. I didn’t bring some of them home.”
“Tsuna’s home.”
“Yes,” the baby said. “Yes, he’s home.”
“Let me know where the others are,” she said. “I’ll go visit them, when he’s at school. Hospital food isn’t very exciting.”
The baby looked at her, his soft little mouth puckered in what could have been a grimace or a grin.
“Thanks for staying up,” he said.
“He’s my son,” she said. “At the very least, I’ll always stay up and wait for him. But tell me, why do you stay with him?”
“Ah; because he was someone’s son,” the baby said, “in the beginning. Now, well, maybe, I stay just because it’s him.”
Nana bent down and patted him on his head.
“That’s all right then,” she said. “Go on and get some sleep. I’m going to make something really nice for breakfast and you won’t enjoy it if you’re all groggy and cross.”
“I look forward to it!” the baby said.
She waited to hear the door closing behind him before she picked her knitting up and climbed the stairs to her own bed. A chorus of snores lit her way up most fabulously; she recognized Lambo’s whiny falsetto, I-Pin’s cryptic whistling, Yamamoto’s forest-rumbling baritone, and Tsuna’s unremarkable mumbling. From the absence of other familiar snores she also recognized who was not there, and began to wonder if in their other beds they were snoring as loudly and uniquely as they would have snored in her house.
“I’m sorry, darling,” she said out loud, “it’s not just about you and Tsuna any more.”
END
[1] The emergency would be addressed by a capable third party. Still, since Iemitsu was so totally inaccessible when he was away for work, whatever the emergency, it would remain a secret to him until he came home.
[2] Involuntary breaks in routine were plentiful, for example sending Bianchi to get extra groceries because I-Pin had accidentally gone off in the larder.
ID: benz
Word count: 1,494
Rating/Warnings: none
Character(s) or pairing(s): Nana Sawada
Nana recalls them only ever once talking about children, before they were married. They had been walking down the street in a faint drizzle, holding hands still somewhat stiffly, running out of things to talk about but not really wanting to go home just yet. Some blocks ahead of them the traffic lights turned red and a woman carrying her groceries home began to cross the street with great dignity; from behind her elegant grey skirts three boys of assorted age and size leapt out and ran joyously ahead of her, their yellow rainboots splashing through the puddles.
"It's expensive, isn't it?" she remembers asking aloud.
"What is?"
"Children's clothes, and they grow out of them so quickly!"
"Ah, well, they can't go running around naked..."
"My mum used to knit our clothes," Nana remembers saying, "and when we were too big for them she'd unravel the clothes and add on to them and make them bigger. I have some jumpers made of my baby clothes somewhere in a drawer back home. Mums are always very practical."
"Yes they are," he had agreed. "You'll have to be, won't you?"
They had never spoken about being parents or even living together before; still, Nana collected her old jumpers the next time she went home, and spent a few nights carefully unravelling them. Thus when Tsuna was born he spent most of his infanthood crawling around dressed most lovingly in pink and lavender smocks and bootees. When he grew old enough (and self-concious enough) to realize and voice a hesitant opinion that this was not entirely manly, Nana stopped the practice and bought manlier, duller, earthier clothes for him instead; the pretty pastel knits went back into a drawer in the back of her closet, and Tsuna heaved a sigh of relief before leaving the house for kindergarten.
Once, Iemitsu asked if she wanted a girl. The question - carefully structured, casually phrased - rose over the couch after one of his marathon dinners, long after she had washed up and had settled down to read by the window. “I thought you were sleeping,” she had said.
“No - just thinking,” he replied. “So, what do you think? A nice, small family…”
“Do you think Tsuna’s lonely?”
“Eh, if he is he’ll get over it,” Iemitsu said. Nana smiled at his dismissive confidence and returned to her book. A page crackled as she turned it; the cold air creeping around outside in the garden tried to push under the crack at the bottom of the door, but was defeated by a heavy rag rug Nana had pushed firmly against the door. Iemitsu cleared his throat, repeated his question.
“Oh, would you like that, dear?” she asked.
“Sometimes I think you would,” he said. “It’s not always just about Tsuna and me, you know.”
“I’m happy with just Tsuna and you,” she said, and the way she said it he guessed it to be true.
*
Years passed, and although he never asked again, although he was hardly ever home, Nana remained happy with just Tsuna and him. There were the holidays when he came back, and her visiting relatives who came to stay for a while and gossip with her, and his visiting relatives who usually came with an army of black-suited bodyguards, all of whom gently refused her offer to squeeze them into a couple of spare rooms and simply melted away out of sight, like guardian spirits. In high school Tsuna suddenly began bringing a variety of friends home; the pretty girl who stayed over tea to study, the athletic boy who kept them up all night talking to Tsuna in loud earnest whispers, the sulky foreign student who slunk around at her son’s heels devotedly and only reluctantly left when she asked him, nicely but firmly, to smoke out on the porch. Then there were the younger children who inexplicably loved her son so much they followed him home; the baby, the crybaby, and the bowling-pin girl. And then everything began to unravel, leisurely, as if it was perfectly natural: the explosions and the fights and the accidents, the foreign student’s beautiful sister and the poison cooking. Everyone stumbling home for dinner bruised and bandaged and sweaty, not even complaining when she told them they would have to shower before sitting down at the table . . .
Nana remembered the baby, the first of all Tsuna’s new friends, telling her matter-of-factly that he would be staying. She remembered how small he had seemed, his legs dangling off the seat of the chair, how very harmless he looked. How old he had sounded. Much later, her husband teased her about it, saying, “A talking baby in a business suit! You didn’t suspect anything?”
“I felt he was doing it for Tsuna,” she said.
The only time she felt they had not been doing it for Tsuna, he came home all cut up and bone-tired, looking like he had won and lost the entire world. Before that night, he had been out every waking hour for weeks, munching through dinner like a zombie, sneaking out the back door to “train some more, some more, some more . . .” “Some kind of extracurricular competition, dear?” she had asked, and watched him flinch - “Some kind,” he had said, weakly, and kissed her cheek before he went out (the last time he kissed her on her cheek he had been small enough to sit in her lap). After watching him walk down the driveway she had gone to the phone and dialed the secret emergency number her husband had given her, to be called only in case of secret[1] emergencies. It was the first voluntary [2] break in routine she had ever made and she remained somewhat ashamed of herself all the way through the call (the person on the other end had been incredibly kind and reassuring, though she sensed him to be under great pressure). After putting the phone down she had broken out her knitting needles and put the TV on and watched, alternately, the news and the American stock market with great interest until it was very early in the morning and Tsuna was still not back yet.
She put her knitting down and checked the clock over the TV and also her watch, just to be sure; she went to the kitchen for water and put all the dishcloths in the wash, because it was dishcloth day tomorrow, and replaced them with clean ones. Nothing else to do; she sat down in the easy-chair (only five minutes, she promised herself) and when she woke up Tsuna’s house slippers were no longer waiting by the door; his sneakers lay neatly on top of the shoe-rack, laces folded.
Nana started up, wanting to get out of her chair and be beside her son in the same movement, but her back complained sharply about sleeping in a chair and she had to stop to appease it.
“Are you all right?”
She looked up, saw the baby coming down the stairs. He held his finger to his lips, pointed upstairs. “All sleeping,” he said. “School starts in three hours.”
“Well, that’s all right then,” she said.
The baby cocked his head to one side. “Aren’t you going to ask how they are?”
“You wouldn’t have dared to bring them home if they weren’t all right,” she said.
“Ah, that’s true. I didn’t bring some of them home.”
“Tsuna’s home.”
“Yes,” the baby said. “Yes, he’s home.”
“Let me know where the others are,” she said. “I’ll go visit them, when he’s at school. Hospital food isn’t very exciting.”
The baby looked at her, his soft little mouth puckered in what could have been a grimace or a grin.
“Thanks for staying up,” he said.
“He’s my son,” she said. “At the very least, I’ll always stay up and wait for him. But tell me, why do you stay with him?”
“Ah; because he was someone’s son,” the baby said, “in the beginning. Now, well, maybe, I stay just because it’s him.”
Nana bent down and patted him on his head.
“That’s all right then,” she said. “Go on and get some sleep. I’m going to make something really nice for breakfast and you won’t enjoy it if you’re all groggy and cross.”
“I look forward to it!” the baby said.
She waited to hear the door closing behind him before she picked her knitting up and climbed the stairs to her own bed. A chorus of snores lit her way up most fabulously; she recognized Lambo’s whiny falsetto, I-Pin’s cryptic whistling, Yamamoto’s forest-rumbling baritone, and Tsuna’s unremarkable mumbling. From the absence of other familiar snores she also recognized who was not there, and began to wonder if in their other beds they were snoring as loudly and uniquely as they would have snored in her house.
“I’m sorry, darling,” she said out loud, “it’s not just about you and Tsuna any more.”
END
[1] The emergency would be addressed by a capable third party. Still, since Iemitsu was so totally inaccessible when he was away for work, whatever the emergency, it would remain a secret to him until he came home.
[2] Involuntary breaks in routine were plentiful, for example sending Bianchi to get extra groceries because I-Pin had accidentally gone off in the larder.