[fic] [t&b] Daughter
i was a little unsatisfied with the latest episode, so i decided to fic out my frustrations. this started off as hasty scribbling on the train, so it's pretty short! by my standards XD;
sorry for lame title, i had Pearl Jam playing in my head while i wrote.
Oh, screw it.
Koutetsu activated his powers, crushed the window with a light gesture of his elbow, and leapt off the train.
When he landed with both feet on the ground, the first thing he saw was his mother's pale, horrified face.
The second was his daughter's pale, horrified face.
This was awkward.
"Kaede..."
"AAAAAAAAAA!!"
"Listen, Kaede, I can explain..."
"WHATISTHISDADGRANDMAWHAT'SHAPPENINGOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD!!"
Her powers have deactivated. And it wasn't likely she knew how to reactivate them. She sat on the ground wide-eyed, straddling what seemed like the very thin line between elation and terror.
Koutetsu took advantage of this (and of his ten-year-old's apparent hysteria) to sweep Kaede up in his arms.
"DAD I WAS. I WAS FLYING, WASN'T I? I WAS FLYING AND I HUNG IN THE AIR FOR LIKE. FOREVER AND I." Kaeded flapped her hands in front of her face, as if that would do anything. "OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD!!"
"Daddy will explain everything, okay?" he said in the most Daddy-like voice he could muster under the circumstances. "But not for now, let's... okay, let's go to Uncle's bar!" It made sense at the time; bar was closer to station than home was. "Yeah, the bar's good. Hang on!"
Kaede was normally quick with the soul-crushing comebacks, but clearly not quick enough when her father was powered up. All she could manage was another shriek as Koutetsu sprinted within two seconds flat to the station platform where her grandmother stood, and swept her up in his arms, too. (Well, one arm. Kaede took up the other harm snugly.)
Then Koutetsu made a run for it. He had barely three minutes to get to his brother's bar unseen by anyone who happened to be both standing around and able to recognize his face. Suddenly he found himself wishing Barnaby were here and able to carry them all. He'd get there faster.
"You're lucky the station's deserted at this time of day," he heard his mother yelling in his ear, against the wind, "you idiot!"
Koutetsu shut his eyes tight. "Sorrysorrysorry I SWEAR EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY."
"You want me to what."
"Plea~se," Koutetsu whined into the phone. "I'm begging you! She won't believe me, but she'll believe you! You're her Hero!"
"And you're her father. I'm not even supposed to know that about you. You see how this is not my problem?" At the other end of the line, Barnaby rubbed the bridge of his nose. The part of his face that his glasses' nose pads came into contact with suddenly and inexplicably throbbed. "Were you even thinking when you exposed yourself to her? Do you even know how hard it is for preteen fangirls to keep a secret? You might have just put her life in danger."
"This isn't an ordinary situation!" Koutetsu yelled. "She's turning into a NEXT! What did you want me to do, pretend I didn't notice my own daughter lighting up and just sit on that info all the way to Sternbild?!"
"I would have found that reaction more favorable, yes."
Koutetsu sighed angrily. He should've known better than to ask Bunny-chan for help. Then again, there wasn't anyone else he could ask for help from. Who else could he trust with his family's safety, if not his work buddy?
"Koutetsu-san," Barnaby said firmly, "we can't both be on leave at the same time. There are interviews and events lined up, points will be deducted from us both if we start missing them."
"There you go with the points again," Koutetsu growled, suddenly aware that the people inside the bar might hear him berating the most popular Hero of the year. Or at least someone on the phone whom he claimed was the most popular Hero of the year. "This is my daughter, dammit! She needs me! I don't care about points right now!!"
"Look... it's a good thing she doesn't believe you're a Hero, right? I mean, all she knows is that you're a NEXT. There are plenty of NEXTs who aren't in showbusiness."
This deflated Koutetsu a little. "So... if I'm not a Hero... what am I?"
A pause. Then a deadpan "You can't seriously expect me to help you with that, too."
Barnaby was running late for a photoshoot. With a curt "Good luck, Koutetsu-san", he cut Koutetsu's stammering short, and moved on with the rest of his glamorous day.
Koutetsu took a deep breath to calm himself before heading back into his older brother's bar, where his entire family was waiting.
"So," his older brother said dryly, "were you able to talk to that 'other Hero' you were blabbering about?"
Koutetsu scratched his head.
"You know what... let's forget that Hero thing." He sat on the stool beside Kaede's, and Kaede eyed him sidelong.
"So you're not a Hero, then, Dad?" She might have sounded a little disappointed, but she was definitely more annoyed. He had, after all, heatedly insisted just a few minutes ago that he was a Hero - and not just any Hero but Wild Tiger, the great Barnaby Brooks' lackluster partner. Awesome by association.
If he had only presented incontrovertible proof that he was, she could've been persuaded to believe it (sadly, he had left his black mask at his apartment... and even if he'd brought it, that was no proof that he wasn't just some loser who happened to look like Wild Tiger; Kaede already had enough trouble taking anything on his say-so).
"I'm... not a Hero, Kaede." Koutetsu felt his brother staring at him. His mother had already sighed and looked away.
"What are you, then?" Kaede challenged. "Why do you have to be away a lot? What kind of work do you do that makes you say you're coming home, and then take it back?"
"I'm a contract killer."
Kaede's eyes went wide as plates. "WHAT?!"
"WHAT?!" his mother and brother echoed.
"NO. NO I MEAN." Koutetsu felt the blood draining from his face. "A contract killer, haha, you fell for that? I meant, I'm er...
He fumbled for the words. His family waited patiently. But at one point he just shut up and hung his head. After "contract killer," he wasn't exactly sure what kind of job he could have as a NEXT. There was no other way to explain himself.
"It's okay, Dad," Kaede said softly. "I already know. Grandma told me."
Koutetsu shot a quick glance at his mother, who nodded. "She did...?"
"She said you're a stuntman."
Uh... okay?
"And sometimes you're a stuntman for Heroes. That's why you can't tell people the kind of work you do - because Heroes aren't supposed to have stuntmen. But sometimes Heroes take roles on TV and the movies and they don't have time, so they get stuntmen to act like them when nobody really needs to be saved."
So. She thought he was a stuntman. And she knew how important it was to keep it a secret.
If this beautiful, intelligent little girl can appreciate the need to keep industry secrets, Koutetsu asked himself, why did he have to hide being a Hero from her?
...Then again, it would be infinitely harder to keep it a secret that your Dad was a Hero, than if your Dad was a stuntman for Heroes. Even if she had accidentally let it slip that her dad took prat falls for Wild Tiger, nobody would bat an eyelash. But their whole lives would be turned around if she ever let it slip that he was Wild Tiger himself.
He wouldn't be able to move his entire family to a safer place than Oriental Town, not with his salary. Bad guys and the media (who were sometimes one and the same) would be targeting his family left and right, and his "100 power" would not be enough to protect them.
"You're..." he stammered, "you're fine with Dad being... just a stuntman, Kaede?"
"Sure I am." Kaede blinked. "I don't think it's anything to be ashamed of. And besides... you get to be near Heroes, right? That's how you were able to get me that autographed photobook of Barnaby."
The whole room seemed to breathe a united sigh of relief. "Yeah," Koutetsu answered, "I guess it was."
"But Dad," Kaede ventured, "if you're already a NEXT... why don't you become a Hero yourself?"
Koutetsu's older brother came to the rescue. "You know, Kaede," he said to her, "it's not that easy to break into showbusiness. You need to have Hero training, and agents, credentials, certifications, things like that. That takes a lot of money and work." He glanced over at Koutetsu with a grin. "And above all, you need to be pretty in the face."
"That's right," Kaede chuckled. "Like Barnaby!"
Koutetsu facefaulted. His mother and brother laughed. On that cue, he laughed, too. And comically cut himself short.
"...Wait, are you saying your dad isn't handsome?"
"Oh Dad," Kaede sighed. That just made his brother laugh more loudly.
This was nice. Not awkward at all. This was, in fact, the best way things could've gone.
Barnaby was right... Kaede didn't need to believe he was a Hero.
"But now that you're here," Kaede chirped, "you're staying, right? To help me with my powers?"
The laughter stopped. Kaede's face fell.
"You're not, are you."
Koutetsu reached for her shoulder. "Kaede..."
"It's okay." She leapt off the stool to get away from him. "You've got work to do, Dad."
"Kaede, I swear, I'll - "
"Don't worry!" She was feigning cheerfulness. "I can do this on my own! I can do a lot of things on my own now!"
She started to walk out. Her gait was fast enough so that none of the older people in the room could catch up.
"KAEDE." But his voice had no power over her. She left the bar.
His brother and mother tried to call her back, too, and his brother had a look on his face that said Sorry she's like this, but it's your fault. Koutetsu leapt off his stool and ran to the door.
"Kaede!" Koutetsu yelled. "I'm sorry! I just... I just have some things to do, but... I'll come back soon!"
She was already jogging down the path to their house. She showed no sign of wanting to hear anything he had to say.
"I will," Koutetsu said softly. "And then I'm staying."
A few seconds after declaring that, he realized he'd left his daughter's drawing on the train.
sorry for lame title, i had Pearl Jam playing in my head while i wrote.
Oh, screw it.
Koutetsu activated his powers, crushed the window with a light gesture of his elbow, and leapt off the train.
When he landed with both feet on the ground, the first thing he saw was his mother's pale, horrified face.
The second was his daughter's pale, horrified face.
This was awkward.
"Kaede..."
"AAAAAAAAAA!!"
"Listen, Kaede, I can explain..."
"WHATISTHISDADGRANDMAWHAT'SHAPPENINGOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD!!"
Her powers have deactivated. And it wasn't likely she knew how to reactivate them. She sat on the ground wide-eyed, straddling what seemed like the very thin line between elation and terror.
Koutetsu took advantage of this (and of his ten-year-old's apparent hysteria) to sweep Kaede up in his arms.
"DAD I WAS. I WAS FLYING, WASN'T I? I WAS FLYING AND I HUNG IN THE AIR FOR LIKE. FOREVER AND I." Kaeded flapped her hands in front of her face, as if that would do anything. "OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD!!"
"Daddy will explain everything, okay?" he said in the most Daddy-like voice he could muster under the circumstances. "But not for now, let's... okay, let's go to Uncle's bar!" It made sense at the time; bar was closer to station than home was. "Yeah, the bar's good. Hang on!"
Kaede was normally quick with the soul-crushing comebacks, but clearly not quick enough when her father was powered up. All she could manage was another shriek as Koutetsu sprinted within two seconds flat to the station platform where her grandmother stood, and swept her up in his arms, too. (Well, one arm. Kaede took up the other harm snugly.)
Then Koutetsu made a run for it. He had barely three minutes to get to his brother's bar unseen by anyone who happened to be both standing around and able to recognize his face. Suddenly he found himself wishing Barnaby were here and able to carry them all. He'd get there faster.
"You're lucky the station's deserted at this time of day," he heard his mother yelling in his ear, against the wind, "you idiot!"
Koutetsu shut his eyes tight. "Sorrysorrysorry I SWEAR EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY."
"You want me to what."
"Plea~se," Koutetsu whined into the phone. "I'm begging you! She won't believe me, but she'll believe you! You're her Hero!"
"And you're her father. I'm not even supposed to know that about you. You see how this is not my problem?" At the other end of the line, Barnaby rubbed the bridge of his nose. The part of his face that his glasses' nose pads came into contact with suddenly and inexplicably throbbed. "Were you even thinking when you exposed yourself to her? Do you even know how hard it is for preteen fangirls to keep a secret? You might have just put her life in danger."
"This isn't an ordinary situation!" Koutetsu yelled. "She's turning into a NEXT! What did you want me to do, pretend I didn't notice my own daughter lighting up and just sit on that info all the way to Sternbild?!"
"I would have found that reaction more favorable, yes."
Koutetsu sighed angrily. He should've known better than to ask Bunny-chan for help. Then again, there wasn't anyone else he could ask for help from. Who else could he trust with his family's safety, if not his work buddy?
"Koutetsu-san," Barnaby said firmly, "we can't both be on leave at the same time. There are interviews and events lined up, points will be deducted from us both if we start missing them."
"There you go with the points again," Koutetsu growled, suddenly aware that the people inside the bar might hear him berating the most popular Hero of the year. Or at least someone on the phone whom he claimed was the most popular Hero of the year. "This is my daughter, dammit! She needs me! I don't care about points right now!!"
"Look... it's a good thing she doesn't believe you're a Hero, right? I mean, all she knows is that you're a NEXT. There are plenty of NEXTs who aren't in showbusiness."
This deflated Koutetsu a little. "So... if I'm not a Hero... what am I?"
A pause. Then a deadpan "You can't seriously expect me to help you with that, too."
Barnaby was running late for a photoshoot. With a curt "Good luck, Koutetsu-san", he cut Koutetsu's stammering short, and moved on with the rest of his glamorous day.
Koutetsu took a deep breath to calm himself before heading back into his older brother's bar, where his entire family was waiting.
"So," his older brother said dryly, "were you able to talk to that 'other Hero' you were blabbering about?"
Koutetsu scratched his head.
"You know what... let's forget that Hero thing." He sat on the stool beside Kaede's, and Kaede eyed him sidelong.
"So you're not a Hero, then, Dad?" She might have sounded a little disappointed, but she was definitely more annoyed. He had, after all, heatedly insisted just a few minutes ago that he was a Hero - and not just any Hero but Wild Tiger, the great Barnaby Brooks' lackluster partner. Awesome by association.
If he had only presented incontrovertible proof that he was, she could've been persuaded to believe it (sadly, he had left his black mask at his apartment... and even if he'd brought it, that was no proof that he wasn't just some loser who happened to look like Wild Tiger; Kaede already had enough trouble taking anything on his say-so).
"I'm... not a Hero, Kaede." Koutetsu felt his brother staring at him. His mother had already sighed and looked away.
"What are you, then?" Kaede challenged. "Why do you have to be away a lot? What kind of work do you do that makes you say you're coming home, and then take it back?"
"I'm a contract killer."
Kaede's eyes went wide as plates. "WHAT?!"
"WHAT?!" his mother and brother echoed.
"NO. NO I MEAN." Koutetsu felt the blood draining from his face. "A contract killer, haha, you fell for that? I meant, I'm er...
He fumbled for the words. His family waited patiently. But at one point he just shut up and hung his head. After "contract killer," he wasn't exactly sure what kind of job he could have as a NEXT. There was no other way to explain himself.
"It's okay, Dad," Kaede said softly. "I already know. Grandma told me."
Koutetsu shot a quick glance at his mother, who nodded. "She did...?"
"She said you're a stuntman."
Uh... okay?
"And sometimes you're a stuntman for Heroes. That's why you can't tell people the kind of work you do - because Heroes aren't supposed to have stuntmen. But sometimes Heroes take roles on TV and the movies and they don't have time, so they get stuntmen to act like them when nobody really needs to be saved."
So. She thought he was a stuntman. And she knew how important it was to keep it a secret.
If this beautiful, intelligent little girl can appreciate the need to keep industry secrets, Koutetsu asked himself, why did he have to hide being a Hero from her?
...Then again, it would be infinitely harder to keep it a secret that your Dad was a Hero, than if your Dad was a stuntman for Heroes. Even if she had accidentally let it slip that her dad took prat falls for Wild Tiger, nobody would bat an eyelash. But their whole lives would be turned around if she ever let it slip that he was Wild Tiger himself.
He wouldn't be able to move his entire family to a safer place than Oriental Town, not with his salary. Bad guys and the media (who were sometimes one and the same) would be targeting his family left and right, and his "100 power" would not be enough to protect them.
"You're..." he stammered, "you're fine with Dad being... just a stuntman, Kaede?"
"Sure I am." Kaede blinked. "I don't think it's anything to be ashamed of. And besides... you get to be near Heroes, right? That's how you were able to get me that autographed photobook of Barnaby."
The whole room seemed to breathe a united sigh of relief. "Yeah," Koutetsu answered, "I guess it was."
"But Dad," Kaede ventured, "if you're already a NEXT... why don't you become a Hero yourself?"
Koutetsu's older brother came to the rescue. "You know, Kaede," he said to her, "it's not that easy to break into showbusiness. You need to have Hero training, and agents, credentials, certifications, things like that. That takes a lot of money and work." He glanced over at Koutetsu with a grin. "And above all, you need to be pretty in the face."
"That's right," Kaede chuckled. "Like Barnaby!"
Koutetsu facefaulted. His mother and brother laughed. On that cue, he laughed, too. And comically cut himself short.
"...Wait, are you saying your dad isn't handsome?"
"Oh Dad," Kaede sighed. That just made his brother laugh more loudly.
This was nice. Not awkward at all. This was, in fact, the best way things could've gone.
Barnaby was right... Kaede didn't need to believe he was a Hero.
"But now that you're here," Kaede chirped, "you're staying, right? To help me with my powers?"
The laughter stopped. Kaede's face fell.
"You're not, are you."
Koutetsu reached for her shoulder. "Kaede..."
"It's okay." She leapt off the stool to get away from him. "You've got work to do, Dad."
"Kaede, I swear, I'll - "
"Don't worry!" She was feigning cheerfulness. "I can do this on my own! I can do a lot of things on my own now!"
She started to walk out. Her gait was fast enough so that none of the older people in the room could catch up.
"KAEDE." But his voice had no power over her. She left the bar.
His brother and mother tried to call her back, too, and his brother had a look on his face that said Sorry she's like this, but it's your fault. Koutetsu leapt off his stool and ran to the door.
"Kaede!" Koutetsu yelled. "I'm sorry! I just... I just have some things to do, but... I'll come back soon!"
She was already jogging down the path to their house. She showed no sign of wanting to hear anything he had to say.
"I will," Koutetsu said softly. "And then I'm staying."
A few seconds after declaring that, he realized he'd left his daughter's drawing on the train.