Chapter 4: Chapter 4: A New Home
A week passed with Aizawa visiting once and Nemuri visiting every day. On the fourth morning Dafydd was shocked when an incredibly irate Aizawa walked into the room with an incredibly smug and affectionate Nemuri locking arms with him. Dafydd shrugged.
"Good morning Aizawa-san, Nemuri-san." Dafydd greeted.
"Good morning, Daffy!" Nemuri cheered and rushed over to him, enveloping him in a crushing hug. "You're being discharged today, and we are here to take you to your new home. Shoto-kun and I spent the last while finding a suitable new house for us all."
"Really?" Asked Dafydd. "I thought you said I could just spend a few days a week at either house so you could do your work stuff easy enough."
"Nemuri-san insisted, and our superior insisted." Grated Aizawa.
"No~ I was just right that the child protective agency wouldn't find your small studio flat fit for raising a child in. Besides, I was looking for a new place anyway." Nemuri stated as she somehow lifted me up and treated me like a four year old would a teddy bear.
"Regardless." Aizawa said, "You'd best get changed. Here's a fresh set of clothes, we can get you some things you'd like more tomorrow."
"Thanks." Dafydd escaped from Nemuri and quickly got changed behind a curtain. When he came out he was dressed in baggy trousers, a grey shirt, and an unzipped dark blue hoodie which he was in the process of zipping up. On his feet were a pair of dull blue trainers.
"Like the clothes?" Nemuri glanced over him, and nodded her head.
"Yeah, they're comfy." Dafydd said, stuffing his small hands in his pockets.
"Alright, let's go." Said Aizawa, "We'll show you the new place after picking up some stuff from the supermarket."
Dafydd was lead to an unassuming black car, which Aizawa then drove to their new house, as Dafydd quickly fell asleep in the backseat.
"He fell asleep so quickly. Cute." Nemuri hummed to Aizawa. "So Shoto-kun, do you think he'll really be ok? I mean, he's just putting on a brave face, its obvious."
"That's fine." Aizawa said. "Let's be honest with ourselves Nemuri. Neither of us know what it means to raise a kid, but what we do know is trauma. I still can't unsee Shirakumo-san's death. I'm sure there are things which keep you up at night as well. The best we can do is be there for him."
"Wow. More than a few words." Nemuri giggled. "Let's do that then. I'm going to be the best wife and mother. Ow" Aizawa chopped her head.
"We're not married, nor will we be getting married. It is co-habitation and nothing else."
"Oh, do I not entice you Shota-kun, I wouldn't mind sharing you with Ms. Joke." She teased. "OW! Hey! I didn't know you liked it rough." Nemuri playfully moaned, causing Aizawa to scowl and sigh. Nemuri changed the radio channel to pop music and Aizawa sighed again.
As they were pulling up to the house Dafydd woke up. The house was two stories tall, including the ground floor, and had a wide driveway, a sleek black sports car was already parked there. The house itself was rectangular, built of an orangeish coloured stone. It was very different from his old house which was two stories high, built of rough hewn stone slapped together by concrete with your typical European roof. Dafydd decided he'd give it a chance at least. It was separated on both sides, to left was a dull grey house with a huge front gate and to the right was a large white rectangular building that looked quite modern. Unfortunately, he couldn't properly get a nosey look through the windows.
"Well Kid, you coming?" Aizawa asked, holding open the door. With a small exclamation Dafydd hurried inside. Despite the rather plain and dull outside, the inside felt good to him. The wooden floor wasn't new, but it wasn't old. The kitchen was spacious with plenty of bench space, the living room had a sofa, two recliners, a big tv with an alien gaming console and games. The stairs were fun to run up, and were carpeted as opposed to the ground floor, the carpet was green and stayed like that up to the landing. The bathroom was large, with a nice big tub and shower, and a towel warmer. There were six rooms on this floor, two large rooms, a medium sized room and a small room. One of the large rooms had a queen sized bed and red carpet, the other had no bed and grey carpet. The medium room had a blue carpet, a single bed, a desk of drawers and a cupboard, a normal desk with a chair, a bookshelf, and a window which was directly opposite a window from the modern white rectangle house next door. The purple curtains were drawn.
"This is your room kid." Aizawa said from behind him, "You can decorate it however you want, so have a think. Ramen for dinner?"
"Uh, sure?" Dafydd replied, taking in the room that was twice the size of the one back home. Sure its big, but it doesn't have my books, or my pictures, or my… stuff. "Um, Aizawa-san? Would it be ok to get stuff to draw and write with?" Aizawa nodded.
"Dinner will in a few hours. You'll be spending a week here to settle in then we'll send you off to school."
"Sure." Dafydd just started inspecting the corners of his room until Aizawa brought him a book and some pencils. Dafydd started drawing out the weird shapes he sometimes dreamed of and what they meant. Time passed fairly simply, Nemuri brought him some water whenever she checked on him, every hour. Eventually, though, Dafydd stopped drawing. He drew all the things he could remember, and what they meant. Then looked out the window to see a small girl with purple hair, black eyes and ears with earphone earlobes making silly faces at him. She froze, with her fingers pulling down her eyes and jutting her jaw out. Dafydd just waved unsurely at her, she slowly de-morphed her face and waved back. Dafydd then copied what she had done earlier until they eventually got into a fight of silly faces. It was a glorious battle, she retaliated with a classic thumb on nose, to which Dafydd countered with the suitable thumbs on ears with hands splayed. She then did the pig face, how vulgar! Dafydd put her in place with reverse hand goggles and a jutted out jaw that showed my teeth. He forgot the next load of war-faces until the girl smushed her face against the window, to which he replied by doing the same. It was near simultaneous when started laughing at each other's dumb faces.
"Dafydd-chan, what're you laughing at? Oh." Nemuri barged into his room grandiosely she saw the purple girl casually sitting in the middle of her windowsill, and Dafydd doing the same on his. The purple girl waved at her smiling, and Nemuri waved back. "Dafydd, dinner is ready. Say goodbye then come down yeah?" Dafydd just nodded at her then began to write "dinner" in his newly learned language of Japanese. He showed it to the girl. She nodded knowingly, Dafydd waved goodbye, and she waved back. He then kind of, just got up and left.
According to Nemuri the dinner was definitely homemade tonkotsu ramen and not take out. It tasted pretty good. He even got a fish shaped pastry with custard in the middle for pudding, taiyaki they called it. He then spent a few hours reading a random book he found about someone transmigrating with Nemuri wrapping her arm around him in a hug as she watched the tv.
Nemuri shepherded him to bed after confiscating his book. Dafydd, who was about to close the curtains saw a piece of paper attached to the purple girl's window which simply read 'Goodnight'. Dafydd, not wanting to be rude, wrote down 'Good morning' and stuck it on his window with some blue-tack. He then drew the curtains, got changed into some warm pyjamas and went to sleep, with Nemuri saying goodnight from his doorway.
The next morning Dafydd woke up and found his rather empty room waiting for him. He got a good enough sleep, it was weird sleeping somewhere new after all. The clock in his room read that it was six thirty in the morning. He got up and out of bed with a minor groan, and quickly chucked on his new clothes. He opened the curtains and saw that his neighbour hadn't opened her curtains yet. He shrugged and quietly made his way down to the kitchen and rummaged about. He found eggs, bacon, and a few tomatoes and though he could read the labels on other foods, he had no idea what they were. So, Dafydd made do and started cooking three meals worth of bacon, poached egg, and fried tomatoes. Once done, only the tomatoes were a little burnt, and Dafydd carefully carried a plate up to the room that had grey carpet and creaked the door open. He stood at then end, and only really saw a yellow caterpillar in the room. Not sure what was going on, Dafydd partially opened his third eye and found that inside the caterpillar was Aizawa. Dafydd just left the plate of food on the floor next to the door and said "breakfast.". He then retreated downstairs, picked up another plate, and walked upstairs to the room with the red carpet. Again, he opened the door, and this one gave off no creak but revealed a room with a large bed that had cuffs attached to it, and a lightly snoring Nemuri in it, half covered by the duvet. Her shirt was pushed up slightly and she wore shorts to bed. Dafydd simply walked in, put the food on the bedside table and shook Nemuri a little saying "breakfast." before leaving the room with a now waking Nemuri. Finally, Dafydd walked downstairs, picked up his own food and began to eat. It was ok, not as good as his mum's, but better than his dad's. The bacon was a little different. Moving away from thoughts of his parents, he quickly stuffed his face and clambered up next to the sink to start washing up. After ten minutes of scrubbing plates, pans, and cutlery, Dafydd was drying his hands and watching cartoons on the tv. He heard no footsteps coming down the stairs but turned to find a grumpy Aizawa slowly chewing on bacon.
"Thanks for the meal kid, but who told you you could cook? You could've hurt yourself." He grumbled, and looked to the kitchen. "At least you didn't make a mess."
"Why would I burn myself?" Dafydd chuckled "Mum taught me better than that." His voice trembled as he spoke that last part, but tried to keep his face light.
"Well." Aizawa coughed, "Good job. You usually make yourself breakfast?"
"Yeah. I don't know what half the stuff in the kitchen is though. Can you tell me? Can you get me recipes?"
"Uh… sure." Aizawa said, and started telling him what all the ingredients were and what he knew of how they were used in foods. Of course he also explained that he wasn't the best to learn this from. Nearly a half hour passed by the time Nemuri came bounding down the stairs loudly in a tight fitting dark purple turtleneck and jeans.
"That was delicious Daffy! Thank you!" She sang as she haphazardly placed the dish in the sink and left it there. Dafydd smiled until he realised she wasn't going to wash up, then sighed. Before he had time to complain about it Nemuri had taken him by the hand and pulled him towards the door. "Come on Daffy, get your shoes on. Time to get you clothes. Are you coming Shota-kun?"
Aizawa looked at Dafydd with an apologetic and pitying gaze. "No, I was going to go and buy a few more things for his room. Anything you want kid?"
"Uh… recipe books, normal books, a lot of stuff draw and write with? Um I don't know." Dafydd replied as he was literally dragged by Nemuri to her fancy car and driven away by the manic woman who was chattering away about how she couldn't wait to see how cute he'd look in various outfits. He just sighed, not liking where this was going.
Dafydd's ominous feelings were realised when he found himself standing in front of a changing room with Nemuri carrying three bags of clothes for him to try on and had more energy than a spaniel on red bull. After an hour and a half of being forced into different outfits by his new guardian, including pyjamas, sportswear, suits, swimwear, casual wear, they finally were ready to pay. Luckily, he had convinced Nemuri to mostly buy clothes he liked himself. Like navy-blue hoodies, black cargo trousers, and shirts with funny things on them. His favourite was a grey shirt that had flexing stick man on it. As they were waiting in line he couldn't help but notice a certain earphone-earlobe girl sulkily following behind a much taller and more elegantly dressed version of the little girl who wore black glasses. Dafydd blew a rather loud raspberry at her whilst squishing his cheeks. The girl startled back and looked at his dumb face, she giggled and retorted with a fart noise whilst pulling down one eyelid.
"Dafydd" "Kyoka" Nemuri and the other lady said reproachfully at the same time. Then looked at each other, then at the two kids who were grinning mischievously at each other.
"Sorry." Nemuri smiled.
"Same." The other lady replied with a small smile, taken back a little at how energetic her daughter had gotten. "I'm sorry if this is out of the blue, but do you think you could help me find some clothes for my daughter, she hates what I chose.". Nemuri's eyes lit up like Christmas as she evaluated the little, now sweating Jiro. Dafydd mouthed 'run' to Jiro, her eyes widened in fear and made to move but it was too late. Nemuri acted, pulled Dafydd by his hand, linked arms with the lady who held Jiro's hand and marched off into the store.
"Certainly, lets go lets go, I cant wait to see her in cute clothes. Oh, we'll make her look delicious." Nemuri squealed as Dafydd sighed. "Oh, I'm Nemuri Kayama, by the way. This is Dafydd."
"Oh. uh." The lady stuttered at the abrupt Nemuri. "my name is Jiro Mika, and my daughter Jiro Kyoka."
"A pleasure to meet you, Mika-san, Kyoka-chan." Nemuri enthusiastically said as they pulled up in front of the girls section of the shop "Now, what were you thinking of? I think she would be adorable in a little pink or purple dress".
Another hour later and Nemuri had made a very good friend in miss Jiro, even after Nemuri told her they were now neighbours. They had dressed up Kyoka like a doll time and time again. They even had Dafydd pick out some clothes, to which he just threw a salmon-coloured shirt, a jacket, and some cargo trousers with little enthusiasm. She seemed to like it though. After the hell that is clothes shopping the four of us found our way to the food court with burgers.
"So, you're sending him to my daughter's school then?" Miss Jiro asked as we sat down. "You'll have to take care of him while he settles okay Kyoka?"
"Yes mum!" Kyoka saluted cheekily, fry in hand. "So where are you from? You look different." Kyoka turned to me.
"Britain." I answered simply, before her mother could scold her. "It's like Japan but on the other side of the world."
"How is Britain like Japan?" Nemuri asked incredulously.
"It's an island nation in the northern hemisphere. There used to be a structured class system in a feudal society, where knights and samurais both pledged loyalty to a lord and required to participate in wars which were common in their feudal societies. Plus, both warrior types were bound by their own codes; Chivalric code for knights and bushido for samurai. Pretty similar if you strip away culture." I answered quickly before taking a bite out of my burger even though it was far too big for my mouth.
"Well… I guess that is one way to look at it." Nemuri sighed.
"He's certainly smart isn't he?" Mika giggled as she ate.
"What's your quirk? Mine is earphone-jack, if I plug my earlobes into something I can channel my heartbeat through it, they're also hard and stretchy." Kyoka excited pulled her earlobe and it stretched down before returning to normal.
"Mine is weird. Don't have a name for it yet since I was never properly tested. But I can see things, and do things… but I'm not allowed to. Oh, just um, don't make genuine promises to me, my quirk makes them binding with consequences if broken." I answered feebly, I noticed Mika look at Nemuri with a confused face and decided to head to the bathroom. "Nemuri-san, I'll be back in a bit, I need to go to the bathroom."
"Of course Dafydd." Nemuri reassuringly smiled at me.
<3rd person POV >
"Don't mind him, he's probably just worried people won't talk to him lest they somehow bind themselves with a promise to him. It doesn't quite work like that though, the promise has to be made seriously and he has to accept the intentions. It's different for signed deals or Oaths, though he can't quite explain the latter one." Nemuri waved her hand easily. "It isn't really anything to worry about." Nemuri smiled at Mika, who looked a little bashful.
"Sorry." Mika groaned.
"Don't worry about it." Nemuri smiled.
"Nemuri-san, why does Dafydd call you Nemuri-san and not Okasan?" Kyoka asked innocently.
"Probably because he was adopted by myself and my colleague recently and doesn't actually see me as his mother. Maybe one day he will." Nemuri bopped Kyoka's nose with a fry when she looked a little sheepish. "Don't worry about it Kyoka-chan."
Dafydd came back quickly and the erst of the day was spent buying school supplies which the kids ran up and down the aisle choosing whatever they wanted.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone