●・○・●・○・●
CHAPTER TWO,
teach them young

—

༇ IT'S Saturday morning.

Most children are watching cartoons. Most parents are drinking coffee and pretending not to hear Baby Shark for the hundredth time.

In this household, Chishiya has converted the dining table into a medical table.

Flashcards. Diagrams. A whiteboard. A tiny plastic skeleton wearing a sticker that says 'Kaoru's Future If He Doesn't Pay Attention.'

Baya peeks into the room, holding a smoothie. "Are you... teaching them... what do you call it? Hematology?"

Chishiya doesn't even look up. "Correct. Blood cells today. If they pass the quiz, they get pancakes."

Kaoru is scribbling furiously. "I don't know how to spell erythrocyte!"

Hana is shaking a crayon at the skeleton. "I didn't ask for this!"

Baya blinks. "Did you... assign them specialties?"

"Obviously. Hana's on cardiology. Kaoru is trauma." He flips a flashcard. "Define 'pericardium.'"

"Why," Hana peeps, face buried in her arms. "Why do I need to know this?"

Chishiya sighs, kneeling to eye level. "Because you agreed to the pancake deal."

Kaoru drops his pencil. "You tricked us! You said this was a game!"

"It is a game," Chishiya replies calmly. "The game of survival. Say 'hemoglobinopathy.'"

Hana chokes out, "I just wanted pancakes and now I know what necrotizing fasciitis is and I can never go back!"

Baya glares at Chishiya, who is still calmly flipping the flashcards like this is totally normal. "It's Saturday morning," she snaps. "Let them live!"

"They'll thank me when they're twenty-three."

"Hana is five! Kaoru is six!"

"Advanced education is an advantage."

"Your daughter is almost crying."

Chishiya turns to Hana. "It's not even that complicated."

She lifts her head slowly, eyes full of betrayal. "You made me memorize the flow of blood through the heart. Backwards."

"And you did," he says, proud. "Under four minutes. That's a new household record."

Baya kneels beside the kids. "Okay. You've both been very brave. You're excused from the quiz."

"But," Kaoru says, "the pancakes—"

"I'll make pancakes. No quiz."

Both children collapse into her arms. Chishiya watches, mildly disappointed but impressed at the same time. "I suppose they absorbed about seventy percent," he mutters, collecting the flashcards. "That's not bad."

"I absorbed trauma."

●・○・●・○・●

"It's not even dark!" Kaoru howls, dangling upside down from the back of the couch. "I'm not tired! I'll never be tired!"

"You said that yesterday," Chishiya mutters, folding a blanket with precision. "Then you passed out in your spaghetti."

"That was an accident!"

Baya sweeps into the room, hair up in a messy ponytail. "Alright, bath time."

Hana immediately bolts. Chishiya doesn't move. He watches as Baya chases their daughter down the hallway, yelling playful threats. Kaoru takes the opportunity to climb onto the coffee table.

"You have thirty seconds," Chishiya says flatly.

Kaoru freezes. "Or what?"

"I'll tell Hana where you hid the marshmallows."

Kaoru disappears down the hall in a blur.

Later, the bathroom is fogged with steam by the time Chishiya steps in. Baya's kneeling by the tub, sleeves rolled up, humming softly as she helps Hana shampoo her hair. Kaoru is half underwater, blowing bubbles and splashing way too much.

Baya turns when she hears the door. "Good," she says. "Can you take it from here? I'll steam the towels."

Chishiya kneels beside the tub without a word, sleeves rolled up, hair pushed back.

"Papa!" Hana chirps, lifting a cup full of water and preparing to dump it over Kaoru's head. "Watch this!"

"No—" Chishiya doesn't get to finish before Kaoru shrieks, water flying in every direction, half of it landing on Chishiya's shirt. He closes his eyes and exhales slowly.

"What happened?" Baya calls from the other room.

"I'm being waterboarded by my children." He lathers shampoo in his hands, then gently starts scrubbing Kaoru's hair. Despite everything, he's surprisingly gentle. "Close your eyes," he tells Kaoru.

"Why?"

"Because you'll cry if soap gets in them and then we'll both feel guilty."

Kaoru obediently closes his eyes. "Do you really feel guilty?"

"Only when I'm bathing kids who refuse to stay still."

He rinses Kaoru's head with a cup, shielding his eyes with his hand. Kaoru doesn't complain. He never does when Chishiya does things, even if he pretends to protest.

Hana, however, is another story. "I want sparkles in my hair!" she declares, picking up the glittery bath soap Baya bought and slathering it into her hair.

"That is body wash. It is not for your hair."

"Too late."

Chishiya sighs again. Not annoyed. Just deeply tired. "You and your mother are the reason I have migraines."

He gently begins rinsing her off. Hana grins at him the whole time, like she knows she's melting his heart and just doesn't feel like mentioning it. When it's all done, he wraps Hana in the fluffy towel with unicorns and Kaoru in one with little sharks. He carries Hana under one arm like a squirming puppy and tells Kaoru to walk straight to the bedroom without 'starting a nudist revolution on the way.'

As he drops Hana on the bed for pajamas, Baya peeks inside with a grin. "You survived."

Chishiya, now soaked and disheveled, looks at her. "I fixed a ruptured aorta while being screamed at by a nurse having a panic attack. That was easier than this."

But when Kaoru reaches up and hugs his legs and Hana kisses his cheek with a giggle, he doesn't protest. Just stands there a moment, one hand resting lightly on each of their heads. "I'll do it again tomorrow," he says flatly.

"Really?"

"No. I was lying." But he probably will anyway.

Baya hands him a book. "Go read."

Chishiya stares at the thing in his hands. The cover features a pink unicorn in sunglasses riding a rocket, surrounded by cupcakes. The title is in glittery bubble letters.

"This isn't literature. This is an attack on my intelligence—"

"Then it's perfect for children," Baya chirps.

Hana and Kaoru are already in bed, tucked under blankets, their eyes wide. Hana is cradling her favorite stuffed animal and Kaoru is bouncing like he just had a double espresso.

"Papa, pleaaase," Hana begs. "It's so good!"

He mutters something under his breath, then sits on the edge of the bed with a sigh. He opens the book. Glitter immediately falls into his lap. He blinks at it like it's a personal insult.

"Chapter one," he begins, "Princess Starbeam stood atop her frosting palace, gazing into the bubblegum pink sky. The Cupcake Planet was under attack, and only her Glitter Sword could save it from the huge scorch..."

Kaoru immediately erupts into a cheer. Hana gasps dramatically.

Chishiya moves on, expression blank, voice low and dry as dust. "'I will not stand for butter in my galaxy,' said Princess Starbeam, her rainbow cape flying behind her." His eye twitches. "Who wrote this? Who paid for this?"

"Read the part with the dragon!"

"The frozen dragon roared, sending a wave of molten chocolate across the sugar fields. 'You'll never defeat me, Starbeam!' he bellowed. 'Your sprinkles are no match for my chocolate!'"

Silence. Then Hana squeals with delight. "That's the best line in the whole book!"

Chishiya exhales. His fingers relax on the page. He tries again. This time, his voice shifts. Not much, but enough. He gives Princess Starbeam a slightly pompous tone. The frosting dragon gets a ridiculously deep voice. He rolls his eyes, but when the kids laugh, there's something suspiciously close to satisfaction in his expression.

By the time he closes the book, both kids are half-asleep. Chishiya lingers for a second longer.

Then he leans forward and tucks the blanket a little higher under Kaoru's chin. Reaches over. Gently adjusts Hana's stuffed animal so it isn't suffocating her.

Baya catches him in the act. "You're a natural."

"I'm an unwilling participant."

She kisses his cheek. "No, you're not."

●・○・●・○・●

The next day, Chishiya is forced to read to them again. What follows is thirty straight minutes of performance. There are slight accents. There are sound effects from Kaoru. The kids are thrilled. They cheer at every word.

When Baya glances at Chishiya, she sees something strange and terrifying on his face. He's enjoying himself. Truly enjoying it. He's sitting on the bed with the book open in one hand, a pillow behind his back, his hair a little messier than usual.

"Do the cloud voice," Hana mumbles sleepily, clinging to his side.

"You dare enter the Kingdom of Glitter?" He mimics lowly.

"More!"

Baya bites her cheek to keep from laughing. "That's good. Honestly kind of scary."

"Should be," Chishiya mutters. "The cloud eats clouds."

He reads the next paragraph, half-animated, half-monotone, somehow striking the perfect balance. Hana's little hand slides into his. Kaoru's head flops against his arm. Chishiya barely moves, just lets them sink into him. "And as the storm rolled across the candy fields," he reads, voice slowing, "the pink knight drew his sword, ready to face—"

Pause. A long one. The page doesn't turn.

When Baya looks up, Chishiya's head is tilted back against the headboard. His eyes are closed. The book is slipping sideways in his lap. Kaoru has curled fully against him, thumb tucked in his mouth.

He's out. And he looks peaceful. Baya watches for a moment, the corners of her mouth pulling up. Then she tiptoes forward, gently taking the book from his hands and covering all three of them with a blanket.

She has never been happier. Genuinely. Her dream life has begun.

●・○・●・○・●

Chishiya sits at the table with a pen twirling in his fingers. Across from him, Hana is sitting, tongue poking out slightly as she writes the number five backward for the third time in a row.

"This is math," Chishiya says. "It's not supposed to require this much emotional resilience."

Hana glances up at him. "Mama says Kaoru is sensitive and she says I'm not sensitive but I do think I am so I'm sensitive so you shouldn't be saying this to me because I'm sensitive and because I'm sensitive it will hurt me because I'm so sensitive and sensitive people get hurt by words because they're sensitive and those words hurt them because they're sensitive—"

"I'm aware," Chishiya replies.

The worksheet in front of them has dogs holding balloons, and a big title: Count the Balloons.

"Okay," Hana says. "One, two, three... seven!"

"There are five," Chishiya says without looking. "Count again."

Hana furrows her brow and counts again. "One, two, three... eight!"

Chishiya stops twirling the pen.

"Hana."

"Yes?"

"There are five balloons. Five."

Hana blinks at the paper, then turns to Chishiya with wide eyes. "How do you know for sure?"

"I passed medical school."

"What's that again?"

"A place where people go to waste many years of their life so they can count balloons correctly."

Hana laughs. Chishiya doesn't.

"Let's try again." He leans forward and points. "This balloon. One. This balloon. Two. This—"

Hana interrupts, "Papa, if I get this wrong, will I never become a surgeon?"

Chishiya pauses. "No. I never expected you to become a surgeon anyway."

"That sounds sad."

"It is."

"Okay! Okay, I'll do it!"

She counts slowly this time. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

Chishiya nods. "Good. Write five."

Hana writes something that's close enough.

Chishiya blinks at it, then slowly sets the pen down and rubs his temples.

"Can we take a break now?"

"Not yet."

Just then, Baya walks by and peeks over Chishiya's shoulder. "You look like you're about to die."

"She thinks a triangle has five sides."

Hana beams. "It's a fancy triangle."

Chishiya stares at her. Then mutters, "You and I are going to have to work on definitions."

But even as he says it, he tugs Hana a little closer and guides her small hand to hold the pencil properly. He doesn't raise his voice, and he doesn't give up.

●・○・●・○・●

"Say gastroesophageal reflux."

They stare at their father.

"It means heartburn," he explains coolly. "Which you will both experience if you keep eating seven slices of toast before bed."

"I don't wanna say it," Hana whines.

"Gas-tro-e-so-pha-ge-al reflux. It's not difficult."

"They're six and five," Baya reminds him gently.

Chishiya shoots her a glance. "And they can count to eighty-seven backwards while hopping on one foot because you made it a song."

"Exactly. Songs work."

He turns back to the kids and crouches to their level. "We'll make it a game. Every time you pronounce the term correctly, you get a chocolate chip."

"Only one chip?" Hana asks suspiciously.

"That's the system. Take it or leave it."

"Okay. But I want two if I can spell it."

"Deal."

Ten minutes later, the dining room is chaos. Hana has chocolate on her nose. Kaoru is chanting 'gastroesophageal reflux' over and over.

Then comes the next word:

"Hematopoiesis."

"No!" both kids yell.

Baya bursts out laughing, clutching her mug.

Chishiya remains unimpressed. "It's the formation of blood cellular components. Very relevant."

"Is this what I'll be learning at school?" Kaoru asks. He'll be going to elementary school for the first time in a few weeks.

"Unfortunately not," Chishiya says.

●・○・●・○・●

Chishiya sits at the head of the table wearing latex gloves and a mildly annoyed expression. In front of him are two metal trays, a scalpel, and two very dead frogs.

Across from him sit Hana and Kaoru. Kaoru's tongue sticks out the side of his mouth as he holds the scalpel  Hana, on the other hand, is poking her frog's leg like it might still move.

"This is disgusting," Hana mutters.

"You said you wanted to know how the body works," Chishiya replies. "This is how it works."

Baya clears her throat loudly. "Correction: you wanted them to know how the body works. I said, and I quote, 'Why don't we take them to the zoo today?' and somehow we ended up with dead frogs on my kitchen table."

Kaoru lifts the frog delicately. "Are we doing the cut now?"

Chishiya gives him a small nod. "Start below the sternum. Don't go too deep, you don't want to damage the organs."

Hana gags a little. "What if I do want to damage the organs?"

"Then you'll be a terrible surgeon or a very effective assassin."

Baya groans. "This is why normal families don't let their emotionally repressed fathers run classes."

Hana looks up. "What does 'emotionally repressed' mean?"

"Ask your father."

"It means your mother likes to insult me with big words so she feels smarter."

"I am smarter," Baya shoots back.

"Mom wins," Hana says instantly, poking her frog. "This one's name is Nobu, and I'm sorry for murdering you, Nobu."

"Stop naming the specimens," Chishiya says.

Kaoru frowns. "Can I keep some of the bones after?"

"No," both parents say in unison.

"But what if I use them for a school project later?"

"Still no," Chishiya mutters.

Hana pauses, tilting her head. "Are we gonna do humans next?"

"No," Baya says quickly. "Absolutely not."

Chishiya just shrugs. "Give it a few years."

"Shuntarō!"

"Kidding." A pause. "Mostly."

Hana leans over to Kaoru and whispers, "Dad used to be scary. Mom said he blew up a guy once."

Chishiya sighs. "That's not how it happened."

"I said stabbed with a needle, not blew up," Baya corrects.

"Cool," Kaoru says, grinning.

"Absolutely not cool," Baya retorts. "There's no stabbing."

Chishiya carefully picks up one of the frogs and guides Kaoru's hand, demonstrating the incision. "Observe the organ placement. Look how everything connects. The circulatory system, the way the liver—"

Kaoru interrupts. "Does it explode if I poke this thing?"

Chishiya glances at Baya. "You know, when I imagined having children, I didn't expect... this." Chishiya exhales.

"You? Imagining children?" she teases, raising an eyebrow. "What a softie."

"It must've been a head injury."

Baya smiles and shakes her head, watching as the kids dive back into their dissection.

●・○・●・○・●

The house is quiet, except for the hum of the refrigerator and the wind outside. The digital clock on the oven says 12:47 a.m. The entire house is asleep.

Except Hana. She creeps into the kitchen, dragging her blanket behind her like a cape, and climbs onto a stool at the counter and hugs her knees.

A minute later, soft footsteps echo down the hall. Chishiya enters. "Bad dream?"

She nods slowly. "It was... loud. There were people screaming. And fire. You weren't there. And Mommy wasn't there either."

He watches her for a moment, then moves to the cabinet and pulls out a cup. "You want warm milk or something with sugar that'll rot your teeth?"

"Rot," she answers immediately.

Chishiya smirks faintly and pours two glasses of very sweet tea, placing one in front of her. He sits across from her.

She drinks her tea in silence for a while, then says, "Kaoru says you used to do experiments on people."

"Kaoru is a loudmouth."

"So is Mommy."

"She's worse."

Hana grins behind her cup.

Chishiya leans back in his chair, watching her. "Want to know a secret?"

She nods.

"When I was your age, I couldn't sleep either. I used to stay up and take apart my toys to see how they worked. I wasn't allowed, of course. But I did it anyway."

"What did you do when you had bad dreams?"

He's quiet for a long moment. "Sometimes I pretended I was someone else."

Hana looks at him, then whispers, "Can I pretend to be you?"

He chuckles softly. "You'd be bored. And emotionally constipated."

"I don't know what that means."

"Good. Don't learn."

Another quiet moment passes. She sips her tea. He flips open his journal.

"You can sit here until you're tired," he says, eyes on the page. "I don't sleep much either. Your mother loves to make noises in her sleep. Loves to kick me, climb on top of me, and do whatever else while she sleeps."

"Sometimes I hear Mommy cry at night," Hana admits quietly.

Chishiya nods. "She and I have a few bad memories. It was years ago, but it still hits hard. It especially hurts your mom."

"Wake me up next time. I'll give her a hug. I love hugs. So does Mommy. Do you even like hugs? Kaoru likes hugs. Kaede is even worse than me and Mommy combined! He hugs everyone all the time. He even hugs Agu."

To Hana, Arisu is Ari. Aguni is Agu. Usagi is Usa. Heiya is Hei. Kuina is Kui. She doesn't want to call them anything else.

The same way Kaede still calls Chishiya 'Shush'.

Hana leans her head on the counter, watching her father. After a while, her eyelids grow heavy.

Chishiya doesn't say anything. Just reaches over, brushes a strand of hair off her forehead, and keeps reading. Once she's asleep, he carries her back to bed.

Then he returns to the living room.

Baya pads down the hallway then, her sweatshirt hanging off one shoulder. She squints into the light.

"You're eating cereal at one in the morning?" she mumbles.

Chishiya doesn't look up. "It's a valid food group."

"They're Honey Stars."

"They're shaped like stars. Nutritionally, that implies importance."

She makes a face and slides into the chair across from him. "You're such a weirdo."

"And here you are."

She rests her head on the table, cheek pressed to the cool wood. "I couldn't sleep."

"Nightmare?"

"No. Just... mind racing." She exhales.

She studies him. His hair is messier than usual. His glasses—golden and round, mostly to make himself look 'fancier'—are slipping down the bridge of his nose. The sleeves of his hoodie are pushed up to his elbows, revealing a faint scar on his left forearm. She stares at it for a beat too long.

He notices. "You've seen that one before."

"Yeah. I just forget it's there sometimes."

"So do I."

Baya reaches over and gently traces her finger along the scar. "This was from the overdose, right?" She murmurs.

Chishiya nods. "I thought I was tired of the world. Turns out I just hated everyone in it."

"Wow."

"Then I met you. And things got so much worse."

She laughs softly. "You're an asshole."

He eats another spoonful of cereal. Baya falls quiet, letting that settle between them.

"You know," she murmurs eventually, "when I first met you, I thought you were going to kill me."

"I considered it."

"Do you remember it? The very first time?"

"You were in the hospital, taking kidneys from our storage. It was a very small room. I opened the door." He sets the spoon down and leans back, stretching. "You made this face and I thought, 'hm. I should probably ruin her life instead."

She shakes her head, a smile tugging at her lips. "Well, congrats. Mission accomplished."

Baya looks around the room: the drawings on the fridge, the crumbs from Kaoru's snack earlier, the lone sock under a chair Hana refused to admit was hers. This imperfect little world.

Then she moves without hesitation, sliding into his lap. He wraps his arms around her waist as she buries her face in his neck. They sit like that for a long time.

Baya murmurs into his skin, "Can I have some of your cereal?"

"No."

"I gave birth to your weird children."

"And I did the dishes yesterday."

"That doesn't even compare—"

He feeds her a spoonful to shut her up.

She chews slowly, eyes fluttering shut with dramatic satisfaction. "Sweet things always taste better at night."

He doesn't argue. Instead, he cups her cheek and kisses her. She softens instantly, arms curling around his neck, fingers tangling into his hair as she shifts in his lap. His breath catches.

Her sweatshirt slips further off one shoulder as his hands find her waist. Their mouths move together in a rhythm.  "Upstairs?"

They rise together. Baya catches his hand and laces their fingers tightly as they move to the hall like two teenagers sneaking around in their own house.

"The kids are home, though."

"And the door locks."

"And Kaoru picks locks."

"Right."

They head upstairs quietly. He nudges their bedroom door shut with his foot. She throws on one of his t-shirts instead of the sweatshirt. He pulls the blanket up over them both. They lie in the quiet together, her back against his chest, his arm around her waist.

"We've got, what, another year before we can have privacy?"

"At least."