Second Chances || Saiouma

Chapter 25

(Epilogue, Timeskip: it's up to you how long but at least a couple of years.)

The air was crisp and sweet, the sky clear blue. The smell of dinner wafted out through the open door onto the back porch. Shuichi took a deep breath, inhaling whatever it was his mother was cooking, and continued to mess around with the flowers he was potting for her. He wasn't one much for gardening, but he had promised his mother he would plant them the next time he was over. 

It wasn't a grueling task, it was actually quite relaxing. Pulling out the plant, setting it into a bigger pot, patting fresh dirt around it, giving it a little water. He just knew he was missing out on whatever they were doing in the kitchen. Which by the sound of their laughter, was probably looking at something embarrassing from his childhood. Every time they came over, without fail his mother would pull out all the photo albums and videotapes of them as kids, even though they had seen most of them a million times.

Shuichi jumped out of thought, little pieces of dirt falling all over his lap, at the light press of a hand on his shoulder. Kokichi smirked at him deviously, obviously amused he had managed to startle him. "Dinner's ready. Are you going to keep sitting there playing with dirt or do you want to go see what your mom made?"

The food did smell delicious. He could always finish the flowers later. He sighed, pushing up from the ground, patting himself off, and grabbing the hand Kokichi had placed on his shoulder. "I was repotting flowers," he mumbled under his breath. But his grumpiness from being startled soon faded, as his gaze landed on Kokichi's hand, and the shining silver band around his left ring finger. His heart fluttered in his chest, a soft comforting feeling flooding him. He still hasn't gotten used to it.

Kokichi followed his eyes questioningly to his hand, immediately understanding why he had sprouted a goofy smile. "Come on-" Kokichi rolled his eyes, but his lip quirked up. He laced their fingers together more tightly, leaning forward and pressing a soft kiss to his cheek. "I'm hungry."

"You're always hungry."

"And your point is?"

He had no real point to his statement, he just liked teasing Kokichi. So he let himself be pulled inside, more of the wonderful smell greeting his nose. He took a stop at the sink to wash his hands, before entering the dining room and sitting at the table.

There was a widespread of food laid out, spinach ohitashi, teriyaki tofu, oolong tea, a variety of steamed vegetables, and for the main course katsudon. His mouth was practically salivating just looking at it all. He's not sure if his mother cooks like this all the time, or if it's just when they visit, but she always makes the best food.

His mother had the baby books pulled out like he thought she did, picking out pictures and showing them to his father; who was reading away at a book, nodding politely at the pictures he was handed.

"Look at how cute you boys were! This was on Halloween." She held out the photo to him proudly, tapping her manicured finger at him in a vampire costume, standing next to presumably Kokichi, but he couldn't really tell because of the sheet over his head.

"Mhm~" he hummed over the photo, smiling. The minimal reaction was good enough for his mother and she tucked away the photo, closing the album. She set it onto the floor and his father closed his book, they said their thanks and dug in.

It was wonderful of course, his mother was quite the cook, and as it turns out the notebook filled with recipes they found in the cabinet, was actually recipes his mother had given to Kokichi and he wrote down and saved. They had found that out the first time they visited his parent's house when Kokichi tried to help with the cooking. He would have helped too if he hadn't been so exhausted from 'looking around' his old room with Kokichi.