1A/N: Hey guys, I have actually written something, somehow. I've had so much homework the past two weeks it's not even funny anymore. That isn't important though! This story was just a little something I decided to do because it's Mothers Day and just why not. When it came to what characters would be involved, I only chose ones whose mother's had been mentioned, that way I don't write something about someone going out to lunch with their mom when their mom actually works overseas in business stuff all the time or something. Anyway, sorry for any errors, typos, OOCness or just overall crappy writing. This might be a bit OOC and rushed, but I was trying to make it fluffy, alright? Also, don't grill me about what they're eating, I don't know what Japanese breakfast foods are...if there are specific things...
I. Jun Arashiyama
Arashiyama knew from the moment he was woken by his alarm that his morning routine would be different than usual. The teen hurriedly grabbed his phone off of the nightstand, his arm moving much faster than the arm of someone who just woke up should. It's not like he always moved like that, but that day was a special one, and he had woken up an hour early for a reason.
Making sure to avoid the creaky floorboards in his room, Arashiyama gathered his clothes and dashed silently to the bathroom, pulling the squeaky door closed as quickly as possible to limit the noise. He had showered the previous night so he wouldn't wake anyone up doing it early in the morning, leaving him with little to do before he could start his plan for the morning.
Arashiyama ran a comb through his hair, wrangling the thick locks into their usual places before grabbing his toothbrush and quickly brushing his teeth. He then grabbed his clothes, stripping off his plaid pajama bottoms and plain t-shirt before wrangling on his jeans and a comfortable t-shirt with his favorite movie characters on the front.
Finished in the bathroom, Arashiyama quickly walked back to his room, cringing when a floorboard creaked under his feet. He mentally slapped himself as he tossed his clothes into the laundry hamper in the room, and listened to see if he'd woken anyone.
Rushing through the house with practiced footsteps, Arashiyama didn't make another sound as he made his way to the kitchen. He got right to work, having previously familiarized himself with the organization of all of his family's cookware.
The teen grabbed a glass bowl from the cuboard above the stove, a large one, and set it on the granite counter top without a sound. He then searched for the flour and sugar in the cupboard next to the refrigerator, setting the bags on the counter next to the bowl before grabbing eggs, milk and a few other ingredients.
Once he had everything, Arashiyama got started, measuring out flour and sugar and dumping the contents of his metal measuring cups into the bowl before going through the rest of his ingredients. Milk, eggs, a little cinnamon and some brown sugar, but not much.
Before he began stirring everything he had poured into the bowl, Arashiyama dug a pan out from under the stove and set it on one of the burners, then turned the dials above the oven door to activate the correct burner. As the pan heated up, Arashiyama stirred his bowl, wooden spoon combining the ingredients with practiced ease. Arashiyama had cooked for his siblings, and even his entire family, many times before, which made his current task go smoothly.
When the mixture was ready, Arashiyama grabbed a stick of butter from the refrigerator, slicking up the pan before grabbing his bowl. He dumped perfect discs of the batter into the pan until he could fit any more in, then grabbed a spatula and glanced at the clock. He still had over half an hour, plenty of time.
For the next thirty minutes, Arashiyama cooked pancakes. He poured in the batter, waited a while, flipped, waited, then took them out just to start the process over again. It wasn't very entertaining, but he didn't mind much. Plus, he was cooking for a good reason.
Just as the pancakes finished, Arashiyama heard the toilet flush. He was running out of time.
Eyes narrowing in concentration, Arashiyama set the table. Plates, forks, butter, knives and glasses hit the wooden surface quietly. Within just a minute, the table was set, and the pancakes had been warmed on the stove to ensure no one would have to eat them cold.
"Jun?"
Arashiyama turned around from where he was setting a plate stacked high with pancakes on the table to see his mother standing in the doorway to the kitchen. The woman looked a bit confused, even though Arashiyama had done the same thing every year. Then again, with Arashiyama working for Border, no one was ever sure when he'd have time off. The Neighbors didn't wait for anyone. However, Neighbors weren't on Arashiyama's mind, not at the moment.
After making sure the pancake towers wouldn't topple, Arashiyama turned to his mother and gave her a bright smile.
"Happy mother's day."
-000-
II. Osamu Mikumo
Osamu woke with a start, his eyes flying open only to be assaulted by the bright light coming through his window. He glanced at his clock, springing out of bed when he realized he had woken late. He had defense duty early in the morning with Yuma, so he couldn't afford to be late to work. He already dumped enough work on Yuma during the Rank Wars with how weak he was. The last thing he wanted was to trouble his friend further by leaving him alone on defense duty for too long.
In his scramble to get up, Osamu got his foot tangled in his blanket and ended up tripping. He face planted into the floor without the slightest amount of grace, a loud 'thud' echoing through the room. If his mom wasn't awake yet, which was highly unlikely for the early riser who was Mrs. Mikumo, she was now.
Getting to his feet, Osamu ran around his room, picking up clothes for the day before rushing to the bathroom. He combed his hair while brushing his teeth, something he was scolded for as a child since he couldn't multitask well, and simply did a poor job with both his teeth and hair. He didn't care at the moment though, since he was already twenty minutes behind.
With his teeth and hair out of the way, Osamu quickly changed his clothes before running back to his room. He dumped his pajamas into the overflowing laundry bin near his door, making a mental note to take care of that issue when he had more time.
Turning away from the laundry, Osamu searched his room for his Trigger, which he spotted on his desk and shoved into his jeans pocket before running out of his room, only to back track when he realized he had left his glasses behind.
Osamu ran down the stairs as quickly as he dared, which was at a speed much quicker than his hand-on-the-railing-and-one-step-at-a-time pace from before he was stabbed in the Second Invasion. Near-death changes people, and so does running late.
As Osamu passed the kitchen, he smelled his mother's cooking, which smelled about as irresistible as food could possibly smell. Usually, he never went out the door without breakfast, but he was going to have to make an exception.
Leaning in the doorway to the kitchen and dining area, Osamu saw his mother sitting at the table, quietly eating her food as she made a grocery list.
"Mom! I have to miss breakfast today. I woke up late, and I have defense duty with Kuga this morning," he said, his leg twitching toward the door, though he stopped when his mother put her hand up. She rose from her seat and moved to the stove, pulling the lid off of a pan and pulling out two large spheres, which looked to be meat buns. She then grabbed two large squares of paper towel from the roll on the counter, expertly wrapping the buns before crossing the room and handing them both to her son.
"I know, you told me last night. Eat one of these, then give the other to Kuga-kun. You're both too skinny," she complained in her usual monotonous voice, gesturing to the meat buns. Osamu nodded.
"Thanks mom!" he said, jogging to the door with the meat buns in hand. His mother, Kasumi, went back to her seat at the table and resumed eating, as well as writing her list.
Seconds later, just as Osamu stepped out the front door, Kasumi heard him shout something, and it brought a small smile to her face.
"HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!"
-000-
III. Yuichi Jin
Jin let out a sigh when his alarm went off for the fourth time. He'd had the day off, so he allowed himself to stay in bed rather than get up at 7am, but he had forgotten to turn of his alarm. The wretched thing had woken him up and he hadn't been able to fall asleep again. Plus, he was sure there was a maximum number of times one could hit the snooze button before it stopped working, and it seemed he had already exceeded that limit.
Finally giving up, Jin shoved the blankets off of his body, kicking them away with his feet before rolling out of bed. One of his hands went up to push his bedhead out of his face, though due to how thick his hair was and how long it had gotten over the past few months, the effort was fruitless. He made a mental note to have his hair cut soon, or even just have Reiji shorten it up a bit.
Jin rubbed the sleep from his eyes as he got to his feet, stumbling around the room in search of clothes. He nearly crashed into a stack of rice cracker boxes, but was able to change course at the last second. Somehow, he managed to find his clothes without breaking anything, and decided not to stay up until 5am reading reports on Neighbor attacks again.
A quick, cold shower successfully woke Jin up, and he tamed his messy hair with his comb. He dressed in the clothes he had found, then brushed his teeth before checking in the mirror to make sure he looked like a decent human being and not some sleep-deprived demon.
Done with his morning routine, Jin tossed his things on the floor in his room, deciding to bother with laundry later. Instead of doing anything productive, he ended up going downstairs to see who was at Tamakoma, stretching his arm over his head and twisting his spine until it let out a satisfying crack.
"You should be glad Konami isn't here yet, or she'd slap you for that."
Jin turned to the familiar voice of Tamakoma's impeccably composed beefcake, as Shiori as referred to Reiji when she introduced him to Chika, Osamu and Yuma back when the first joined Tamakoma, flashing him a smile.
"I don't see why it freaks her out so much," he said with a small chuckle, cracking his back again as if he was making a point. The sound always made Konami squirm, and she always got mad when anyone cracked their back or knuckles when she was around.
Walking over to where Reiji stood in the living area, Jin glanced around, taking in the empty building around them.
"Everyone's out?" he questioned, trying to remember where everyone was.
"Kyosuke is at work, Konami said she was sleeping in until 2pm today, Rindo-san and Yotaro are at HQ for a meeting, Amatori is practicing sniping at HQ, Kuga and Mikumo have defense duty and Usami is working with them at HQ," Reiji informed before walking to the kitchen in search of leftovers.
"I see," Jin replied simply, dropping down on one of the couches. He had the whole day off, but he wasn't really sure what to do. The idea of wandering around town looking at futures didn't seem very appealing at the moment.
Reiji bustled around in the kitchen for a few minutes, later returning to the living area and sitting down on the couch across from Jin with two bowls of curry, one of which he gave to the brunette.
"What are you doing today?"
Jin looked up at his red-haired comrade with his head tilted sideways slightly, like a confused dog.
"You have this day off every year, so I assumed maybe you'd come up with something to occupy yourself for the whole day by now," Reiji clarified.
Jin nodded, leaning back in his seat. His eyes locked on the ceiling, eyebrows drawing together as he thought about what he could do.
"I'll do the usual thing tonight, but I don't have anything to do until then. Maybe I'll go see how Chika-chan is doing in sniper practice," he contemplated aloud, getting a nod from Reiji.
"If you do go watch, tell me if you see anything Amatori can approve on. She usually does a good job from what I can see, but there's always room for improvement," he said.
"You're a tough teacher," Jin pointed out, lowering his eyes to meet Reiji's. Reiji shrugged.
"She's a tough kid. Plus, its better to be hard on her now and make sure he has the skills she needs rather than going easy on her and sending her to her death when she gets on an Away mission," the older of the two reasoned. Jin simply nodded, not giving a verbal reply, though he did note how Reiji said 'when' Chika made it on an Away mission rather than 'if'.
Deciding to get up before he became one with the couch, Jin wolfed down his curry and got to his feet.
"Alright. I'm heading out. I'll be sure to check up on Chika-chan for you," he promised. Reiji nodded at the brunette as Jin headed to the door, only stopping in the kitchen to clean out his bowl.
-000-
By evening, Jin had wandered the entire city twice. True to his word, he had gone and watched Chika shoot, but he didn't know enough about sniping to catch anything she might have been doing wrong.
It was just after seven when Jin made his way to a small flower shop near the middle of town. He walked in and greeted the familiar old man behind the counter, who gestured Jin over. The man knew of Jin's yearly habit of coming to the store, and he decided to always set aside his best white rose for when the teen came in at just after 7pm on the same day each year.
"Thank you, Yamamoto-san," Jin said as he paid for the single flower, throwing an extra few coins into the tip jar.
"You're presence is always appreciated here, Jin-kun, even though you only come around a few times a year. I like having a young soul in here for a change," the man, Yamamoto, said. Jin smiled, a genuine smile, as he accepted the beautiful white rose Yamamoto handed him.
"I'll try to come around more often when I have the time, Yamamoto-san, though my new kouhai have been keeping me on my toes these past few months," Jin informed, getting a chuckle from the older man.
"Be good, Jin-kun," he said as Jin walked out of the store, waving over his shoulder.
After leaving the flower store, Jin made his way across town to his final destination for the day, every trace of the smile that had been on his face in the flower store now gone.
Jin listened to the leaves that crackled under his feet as he walked through the Mikado Cemetery, passing row after row of gravestones. He tried to avert his eyes from the graves, not wanting to see the similar end dates on so many stones. The days of the First Invasion.
Too soon, Jin found himself in front of a familar stone. It was slightly weathered from almost five years of being exposed to the elements, but the name carved into it was still perfectly legible.
Jin knelt down in front of the stone, placing the rose on the ground before clasping his hands together for a quick, silent prayer. When he unclasped his hands, he let one fall to his side, while the other rose up to the letters carved into the smooth stone.
Jin traced the letters of the name lightly, his fingers ghosting over the stone. It was as if he thought the stone would crumble to dust if he dare treat it like it was any more durable than a butterfly's wings. There was a smile on his face again, and the setting sun reflected in his eyes, turning ice blue into auburn flames, which danced as a few tears hovered on the tip of his bottom eyelid. They didn't fall, but they didn't disappear either. That's how it was every year, but no matter how much his throat tightened with emotion, Jin never failed to come to the same spot every year on the same day. He couldn't ignore an important day like the current one.
Lightly placing his hand on the top of the gravestone in the same way that someone would put a hand on a shoulder, Jin's eyes locked on the black lettering in front of him.
"Happy mother's day, mom."