Chapter Text
The words Jiji spoke the previous night stayed with Aira all the way to the next morning.
They stayed with her when she got home, they stayed with her when she went to bed, they stayed with her when she got up, and they stayed with her when she arrived early at school.
Even the conversation she was trying to have with Tsubami and Anzu played more in the background, the two people who were the entire reason she showed up to school early in the first place for the second day in a row.
The only thing that finally snapped her out of it was a quick slam on her desk.
"KYAAH!" she yelled.
"Geez, you're really out of it, this morning," said Anzu, clearly the culprit as she had a hand down on the desk.
"Don't scare me like that!" Aira said.
"Woke you up at least," said Tsubami. "You skip your morning latte?"
"It's nothing like that. I'm just thinking about how my babysitting went last night."
"Why? Was it bad?"
"No. Chiquitita's a kid who's impossible to not care for properly."
"Then what happened?"
She was getting backed into a corner, but she didn't feel comfortable saying what it was, mostly because she didn't know her two best friends to have been in the same kind of love she used to be in. Jiji's words probably wouldn't resonate with them in the way they did with her, and she still hadn't revealed to them she had been crushing on Okarun for so long.
For now, it was best to just admit the basic truth.
"Some words I heard last night. For now, I want to keep them to myself, if you guys don't mind."
"Don't have to tell us anything you don't want to," said Tsubame.
"We're they anything bad at least?" asked Anzu.
"No, just very personal."
"You still doing that babysitting with Enjoji?" asked Tsubami.
"I have to because of the deal we have."
"He must've opened up something big for you to be feeling like this."
If the previous remarks backed her into a corner before, the conversation now had Aira in a vice grip, as she let her guard down in the shock of Tsubami guessing right.
"How'd you figure out it was him who said anything?"
"I wouldn't expect a kid to say something to get you like this. Anyway, what kind of deal requires him to be around for this?"
"It's at his house. His parents set something up without knowing I was already watching the kid. The deal lets me continue watching him."
"Kinda overkill for a kid you say is easy to take care of...you sure babysitting is all that's happening?"
Tsubami gave her a sly look, the insinuation being obvious.
"Oh, great," Aira thought to herself.
"It has to be," she responded with. "The kid I'm watching has health issues."
"Oh, sorry I asked..."
"It's nothing you would've known."
At least that was able to end the kind of conversation that would've happened otherwise.
Thank goodness, too, because Aira did not need to hear about her and Jiji having a thing-
...
Her eyes went wide.
"Me and...Enjoji?"
She then slammed her own hand down on the desk.
"Me and..."
Her mind then flooded with thought after thought about him, and the more that boy entered her brain, the more her heart raced.
It gave her every explanation, why she was so willing to extend the deal and offer to have him be present at her house, why she felt the need to spy on him when that girl asked him out, and why the words from last night felt particularly poignant because they came from him.
She shot up out of her seat without a word, then walked off.
"Aira?" asked Tsubami.
She didn't hear her own name. She was just in a hurry to start walking.
"Uh, what happened?"
Anzu just shrugged.
Aira, meanwhile, was just furiously walking down the halls, trying desperately to disprove what had quickly become the answer she was looking for for so long.
"No," she thought. "No way. Not him. Not a chance."
She didn't want to accept it. It felt wrong considering who that boy was compared to her. He was goofy. She was sophisticated. He was childish. She was mature.
They were opposites.
They...complimented each other.
"No! Don't think that!"
She kept trying to disprove it, trying to think hard about all the times he screwed up.
He kept Evil Eye when he shouldn't have, endangering everyone he was around. He...was noble for doing that and wanting to help the spirit.
"Stop it!"
He was weaker than her, needing time to develop his Evil Gun when she mastered her powers instantly. The gun...saved her when she needed it to, and he aided her nicely when they fought the space globalists.
"Cut it out already!!"
She kept walking, and at some point, she found Jiji talking with a couple girls she didn't know.
He was smiling, and he had...a very nice smile. He was silly, and it...gave him a good personality. He was talking to other girls, and that was...not okay.
Her hands balled up into fists, but then she caught herself.
Then, a war broke out inside of herself all at once.
She was jealous, and it made her accept the truth initially, but she didn't want to accept it, so she tried to fight it.
And then, his voice.
"Oh hey, Aira!" he said. "I missed you this morning! Sorry girls, but I need to talk to Aira."
He then left the girls to go straight to her.
"He missed me. He wants to talk to me instead of them."
This was making everything for her worse.
Once he got to her, he noticed how red she was, and whatever he had to talk about was gone as his concern changed.
"Actually, are you okay?"
"...Huh?"
"You look red. Do you feel sick?"
"He's...worried about me?"
At that point, everything broke, and what started with walking trying to clear her head ended with her running as she tried hiding her face as best she could while her mind and heart exploded.
"Aira?!" Jiji yelled in concern.
She didn't look back as she floored it to the girls bathroom.
She first took a moment to try and compose herself, taking a few seconds to catch her breath and give her mind and body some time to calm down. Then, she splashed some water on her face as she managed to draw out slower breaths.
A few of those deep breaths later, and she felt at least better to walk out into the halls again.
Unfortunately for her, Jiji was waiting there outside.
"...What are you..." trailed Aira.
"I just wanted to make sure you're doing okay. I didn't know if you were sick or not. Are you?"
Above all, he was very, very sweet.
There wouldn't be anything else she could do now to disprove it. Just him doing all of that, without even trying, made her break like this.
And she hated it.
"I'm going to homeroom," she said without giving him an answer.
She had her answer, though, one she didn't want, but now had to accept.
"Damn it...I like him."
This was disgusting.
In a way, almost cruel.
Aira, who had just spent the past few months crushing on Okarun without realizing he already had another girl in his heart and was working to get over it, was instead now crushing on his best friend, who had just so happened to be in the same position of heartbreak as her.
How was this acceptable? How did all of that combine to put her where she was now?
This was Jiji, who, beyond the similar heartbreaks, was not her type at all. He was obnoxious, loud. He sold himself on having too much personality that still made all the girls around him swoon. He wasn't quiet, soft-spoken, just happy to be in his own lane, mature, or sophisticated. He wasn't anything she would've liked in her ideal man.
But then, it turned out he was.
He was friendly and patient. He was noble and incorruptible from his ideals. He saved a little boy's soul when that soul wanted to kill everyone on the instinct of being a yokai born out of hatred and vengeance. He was good with kids, with Evil Eye and Chiquitita as proof.
He was...very much like her ideal man in the ways that really mattered to her.
And yet, she just didn't want to accept it.
Their relationship didn't feel like one that should've progressed to this. She kept him in check most of the time, yelling at him for screwing up, punching and kicking him if he said something that annoyed her. He was a burden to her originally because he wanted to control Evil Eye. It was just a list of negative after negative as she thought about their relationship initially.
Until it wasn't, and she instead thought about his positives.
Seeing him improve his chi to the point of almost getting control of Evil Eye by himself, improving further by developing his hand blasts into a genuinely powerful weapon in the Evil Gun, getting comfortable enough around him that she could just have an easy conversation with him without needing to hide behind a mask.
Actually, she was very comfortable around him. If she wasn't, they wouldn't always be walking to and from school together. She also wouldn't regularly be so close to him.
"When did I..." she thought.
She wanted to believe this relationship was something she was still getting used to. She wanted to pretend he would be one of the last people she picked for her team if she could.
But her mind was going crazy with thoughts of just Jiji being Jiji, and she finally recognized what those thoughts were doing to her heart.
She liked him, and she had a lot of good reasons to like him.
She was going to be stuck on this for the rest of the day. Homework felt next to impossible as she just couldn't concentrate properly.
And it definitely wouldn't get better once her phone went off, and she saw that it was because of Jiji.
In a testament to how strong these feelings actually were, she never pulled her screen up faster, eager to see that he sent her a message.
A message that started with a phone number she wasn't familiar with, before three more came her way.
Sorry to send this to you so randomly
My mom's number, her request I send it to you
Team Chiqui are we XP
This just felt like fate forcing them even closer together.
Now, she had even more direct contact with his family beyond him. It was going to be a fight to the death if she wanted these feelings to leave her.
Not that she was truly complaining, though, especially since she liked his parents irrespective of her feelings for him. Plus, this could give her more insight into who Jiji was and what kind of stuff he might like if she could get closer to his mother-
"No! Stop! You're supposed to hate this, remember?!"
After fighting herself, she did have to face another truth after getting those sets of texts: she still hadn't talked to her dad about him coming over.
She was already sinking enough into her feelings that the idea of him coming over to her house just felt like one more thing to stack up in her mind, but this was going to be something she needed to do. This wasn't just an agreement with Jiji, but with his whole family, especially since it was his dad who proposed it.
So, she decided to just take a breath, get up, and make the walk to her dad's study.
She knocked on the door before letting herself in.
"Hey, Dad?" she said.
"Need something, Aira?" he asked, looking up from the work he had to bring home with him that night.
"...I need to let you know about something. I'm going to be getting Chiquitita back from the guy who's watching him now...but I agreed with his family that he can come over when I do watch him."
When it came to talking to her own father, she was just as authoritative as she would be with anyone in the main group. She wanted to approach this topic as being no different, addressing him in the most matter-of-fact way she could even, but this being the house under his name, he was well within his right to say no, especially for someone he had never met before.
"Wait, you said 'he.' Does that mean..."
"Oh no..."
He somehow gave her a worse answer than just saying no by immediately springing to his feet and rushing to the picture of his wife.
"Honey, you won't believe this! Our little girl has finally found someone!!"
He hugged the picture with dramatic tears coming down his face as Aira could only cringe at the site. Far be it from her to criticize her dad for not being able to move on, but this always just seemed unhealthy to her, continuing to use her image as a crutch to pretend she's still around.
He also took the one point she didn't want him to focus on and ran with it.
"Dad...he's the other babysitter. Chiqui would have to have gotten attached to him by now."
Her father's antics did a great job at helping her forget her own feelings for a moment as she tried to justify this, though from the sound of it, he already agreed without saying it.
"He's even good with kids," he said, still crying to the picture of his wife. "I can't believe she met someone so nice!"
"Can you just say 'yes' or no?'" she finally asked, wanting this charade to end.
He pulled himself together and put the picture back. Then, he got up from his knees. The speed at which he could switch attitudes was astounding as he got himself back to having a normal cadence with her.
"How often will he be coming over?"
"We haven't agreed on anything yet."
"You have been out of the house on a lot of random days these past few weeks."
And that statement didn't even count all the times she was involved with fighting aliens and yokai.
"Talk to him about it and see if you can give me a hard number,' he finally said. "I can get some stuff for the nights he will be."
"Thanks, dad."
"Just one condition, though. I get to meet him at some point."
Oh, that sent a shiver down Aira's spine. No way would those two men have anything resembling a normal conversation since they were anything but normal themselves.
But it was also a request she was quickly going to agree to.
"Okay, fine."
It was only right since the same thing happened with Jiji's parents. This way, they could get it over with early before she felt like she owed it to her dad.
"I'll make sure you two can make this the most fun house in the city!"
As much as that conversation between him and Jiji filled her with dread, she did have to admit, they were probably going to hit it off without a hitch.
The good news for her was that this was behind her, so she could feel a little more at ease.
However, as she began to walk away, her father caught her attention again.
"Hey, Aira?"
"What?"
"What day are you watching Chiquitita next with the other babysitter?"
"Two nights from now."
"Perfect! Why not start early and have them come over here then?"
Aira's mind went completely blank. The statement almost didn't want to register.
Then, the words actually settled in, but not before her dad was already planning everything in his head far too late for her to say something against it.
"HUH?!?!"
"This works out great!" he said, paying no mind to his daughter's clear discomfort at the suggestion. "I shouldn't have any work like tonight, so I can spend tomorrow getting everything you guys could want! Maybe I'll even call off the next day to make sure everything is ready!"
"I DIDN'T EVEN AGREE TO THI-"
"Actually, I should go see if a butcher is still open to make sure you guys can have something delicious for dinner! I'll be back soon, cupcake!"
He then kissed her on the head, threw his coat on, and headed out on his self-appointed mission, leaving her to sulk at the thought of this whole situation getting wildly out of her control. In just a few days, Jiji's family was ready to regularly see her, she realized she had feelings for him, his mom provided a direct line of communication, and now, he was going to be meeting her dad.
And that started with asking the boy she liked tomorrow to come over to her house for the next babysitting night.
What a mess this was to her.
The next morning saw Aira pacing around the spot she often met Jiji at.
She was functioning off of around 45 minutes of sleep.
Her mind never felt so jumbled. It made fighting the Kur look easy. At least when she fought them, there was a singular thing on her mind she had to focus on. Here, her mind was fighting a war on several fronts.
How would she ask? How would she ask the boy she liked? Would he agree to it? Would his parents jump in once they found out?
It was just question after question until she saw the red-haired boy coming her way.
"Aira," he shouted when he saw her. "Morni-"
"Enjoji, we need to talk!"
That was the first time she ever cut off a statement from him. If there was ever something that would force her to just get straight to the point, that was it.
And so, as they walked, she explained what her dad wanted from him, as every question got answered purely through Aira just wanting to get all of this out of the way.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I tried to stop him, but he was too insistent. When we watch Chiquitita tomorrow, it'll have to be at my house."
"Well, if he's asking, no way I can say 'no!'"
"Again, I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize! If anything, we can get this out of the way now instead of dragging it out like what happened with my parents...I should be the one to apologize, though."
She was confused.
"What did you do?"
"I didn't stop my dad from making this suggestion in the first place. If I'm being honest, I was afraid to even bring it up again because I wasn't sure you'd be comfortable with it. I wouldn't have minded just staying away from your house on those days if you didn't actually want me there."
And that made her mind go crazy with the terrible possibility that he didn't like her, after all.
"I get it, Aira," he said in her mind. "You don't want me around you. I get it. I'll stop hanging out with you..."
Like hell she'd let him think that was the case!
"Of course I want you there!"
That, however, came out with much more force than she would've liked, startling even him, which forced her to figure out how to save face.
"B-by now, Chiqui's had to have built an attachment to you. I just want him to be as happy as possible, and you don't make him less happy!"
Her face was away from him so he couldn't see the blush on her face.
"True dat! Plus, it sounds like your dad wants me there, I'm happy to oblige him!"
Okay, sounds like he was still happy to be around her. Crisis averted.
"Wait, why did I even think something like that would even happen? That's not Enjoji at all!"
As they walked and she fought her own mind, he spoke up again.
"Is there anything you want me to know going in? Like anything I shouldn't talk about with him?"
"Nothing truly pressing...just try not to bring up my mom. He's still struggling with it."
A lot heavier of a statement than he was expecting, but it definitely answered the question.
No question, he would accommodate that request.
"Got it," he said.
"Honey, our little girl hangs out with the most beautiful people!"
And there went the rule.
At least Jiji didn't have to worry about slipping up now if Aira's dad was going to self-admit it the moment the teen walked through the door.
He didn't even bring anything up. He just walked in with Chiquitita and it set Aira's dad off like this.
Though Jiji learned everything he needed to know just from this one moment of her dad clinging to the picture of his dead wife.
"Sir, your wife was beautiful!" he said, now just as dramatically emotional.
"Young man, you're such a gentleman!"
Both men then hugged each other as Aira just flopped down on the couch in absolute shame. These were the men she had to associate with, and the teen was now the boy she had a crush on.
Chiquitita just stood around confused as to what anyone was even doing.
"I'm sorry," Mr. Shiratori said, both men now getting control of themselves. "I shouldn't be acting like this in front of company. Welcome to our home!"
"Thank you for having me!"
The two then proceeded to talk as if their very first minute together sulking over Mrs. Shiratori never happened.
"Since this is your first night here, don't stress too hard. I'll be making dinner for you guys, so just focus on taking care of Chiquitita! I set up a PlayStation in the living room if that interests you guys. As long as the game's suitable for kids, feel free to buy whatever you want on the store."
"I can play Astro Bot while I'm here?!"
"You play that too?!"
While Jiji was managing to make a new friend for life, Aira sighed before picking herself up since Chiquitita still needed someone to get him milk.
"Chiqui, do you best not to let your friends be around your dad once you get to high school," she said to him. "It's just humiliating."
"They look like best friends, deezch," the alien responded. "Will we be coming back here more?"
"Yeah. Enjoji and I made an agreement to have more days over here in the future."
She made it to the kitchen and poured him his glass of milk in a sippy cup before handing it over to him.
"Don't get used to my dad being here. Like when it was only me watching you, in the future, he'll either be doing work in his den or out at the office. He's only here to meet Enjoji for the first time."
"He's making us dinner, too, deezch."
"Yes, and he's making us dinner."
She took Chiqui's hand and guided him back to the living room as Jiji planted himself on the couch getting the PlayStation going.
"Chiqui, I'm gonna show you a banger of a game tonight!!" he said, turning to look at the alien.
But what caught his eye was Aira again, and just how sweet she was being with the alien. She was also in much more casual clothing than he was used to seeing from her, wearing a zip-up hoodie compared to her normal wardrobe of premium sweaters. For some reason, that extra element was just doing something for him.
She wasn't just a kyootie in his eyes, right now. She was...very pretty.
Why did his stomach suddenly get tight?
Since the couch in her house was smaller compared to his, her only choice was to sit right next to him, which made his stomach even tighter, as she hugged the alien child on her lap.
"What game are you going to play, deezch?" the alien asked.
He provided the words that got Jiji to come back to reality.
"Uh, oh right. Astro Bot!"
As Aira's dad got to work cooking, Jiji played the platforming game while Chiqui watched on in awe in Aira's arms. A favorite game of the teen meant multiple playthroughs had already been done by him, meaning Chiqui got to watch Jiji be really good at a video game. Aira was simply happy the alien was happy.
Every now and then, Mr. Shiratori would get a peak of them from where he was in the kitchen, and every time he did, he couldn't help but smile at the nice sight, the view of those two teens entertaining and caring for the child like pros.
Almost like real parents to their kid.
He had begun to form those suspicions from the moment he found out Jiji was a guy, and how they were acting now was only reinforcing what he believed. However, he knew better than to bring it up directly, and he'd rather get to know his future son-in-la-
Uh, scratch that, Aira's babysitting partner through natural conversation anyway.
When dinner was ready, he did just that.
"So, aside from games, got anything else you're passionate about?" he asked while they ate his prepared meal of gyukatsu with rice and assorted veggies.
"I'm really into soccer," the boy responded with.
"Nice! Which team do you rep?"
"Zaint-Germain."
"Ah, you watch the French league."
"When I can. I care about the European League more, but any game they play, I try and tune in. My folks make enough money that they could afford a good sports package for TV."
"Same here! I'm more into baseball myself, though."
"I like keeping up with it! Which league?"
"I watch both the Japanese and American leagues. I was a huge fan of Ichiro and the teams he played for became my teams, so I root for the Buffalos and the Marines."
"Hey, that's what I did with Ohtani! I didn't switch teams when he went to the Dodjers, though. I'm still repping the Anjels!"
"Oh, I'm so sorry," her dad said with an understanding laugh.
"Yeah, I don't wanna talk about it...but, Zaint-Germain is doing well in Europe and that's what I really care about!"
While this wasn't a conversation Aira could fit into since she didn't watch much sports, she could not have asked for a better introduction between her father and the boy. For all the cliches and stereotypes of fathers meeting boys for the first time, this was about as pleasant as it could've been.
She was truly thankful that Jiji was the way he was. For all his flaws, it was to everyone's benefit that he was able to get along so well with pretty much everyone around him. She did not want her home life to be negatively affected because someone she knew couldn't get along with her dad.
This new setup was going to work, and work well.
Even beyond her crush, it had been building in her that she felt the need to thank him for everything he had been doing for her. She needed to tell him how thankful he was for just being him, and she wanted to do it when it was just the two of them.
She found it after her dad had found some time to show Jiji around the house, stopping at the balcony connected to his bedroom. Mr. Shiratori saw that Jiji was enjoying the cool night breeze, so he offered to watch Chiquitita so the teen could soak in the night. Since he was no slouch in gaming, he showed Chiquitita what he was made of in a baseball game he had, allowing her to slip away and meet up with the boy.
She saw him making a dopey, blissful face as she entered out onto the balcony with him.
"It can't feel that good," she said as she closed the sliding door behind her.
"I love a nice, cool breeze," he simply responded with.
She took a seat in the closest chair to her.
Her feelings were making her celebrate the alone time, but she still had something to thank him for, so that would be what she communicated.
"Hey, thank you for getting along with my dad so easily."
"He's a good guy...I get why you said not to say anything about your mom."
"Sorry about that..."
"Why be sorry? I'd never judge someone for grieving."
"It's been a while, though. She died when I was really young, and he's still like this...I just want him to be okay."
A silence fell on them as she curled a leg in to hug for comfort.
"I think it's nice that he's still devoted to her," he said. "He loved her a lot, didn't he?"
"...Enough that he hasn't even tried dating since."
"Your mom was clearly a good woman."
"She was."
She had few memories of her to back that up, but the way her dad acted both to her and to her mom's memory was all she needed to know her mom was a wonderful person.
Again,was able to talk about all of this because it was just so easy to do with Jiji.
"Thank you," she said, releasing her leg to cross it with her other one.
"What for?" he responded.
"For just...being you. I trust you with a lot more than I thought I did. You're good with Chiqui, and my dad...and letting me intrude where I don't belong."
He wanted to feel touched by this unfiltered gratitude, but that last part confused him.
"Where are you intruding?"
"The plan you had with your parents."
"We all forgave you for that already."
"That doesn't mean it was right of me."
The way she was sitting, like an executive businesswoman hearing a pitch on what the future of her company should look like, was being betrayed by her words. Conveying authority wasn't just about fitting the role of leader to her friends. Sometimes, it was her second mask. If she looked like a leader, maybe it would help her feel more confident saying the words she felt needed to be said.
"I'm going to pay you back...in a real way," she said. "I'm not going to let you get nothing in return. I promise I'll figure something out."
He had no idea how to respond. Those words were not what he was used to from Aira, and that stare she was giving him, entirely serious on following through with what she just said, all he could do was sit in awe.
The knot in his stomach was back, and his chest joined the fun.
Aira then got up and walked in after speaking one last time.
"I can watch Chiquitita, so stay out here as long as you want."
She may have shut the door, but he just kept staring in the direction she went.
Never had he heard Aira be so...like that to him
His body was still going crazy with the sensations, and now his mind joined in as it started to fill with images of her. Her elegant, beautiful image was now plastered everywhere in his brain as he moved his hand to cover his mouth.
He knew what this meant, and those words she spoke ignited them for him to fully realize it.
However, Evil Eye was ready to say it explicitly, anyway.
"Yup, you like her."