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mechazushi · 4 months ago

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Insane Dad Lore (Essential Errand)

[Slight Trigger Warning] Verbal Abuse.

[Notes] Sooooo.... change of plans.... Instead of posting the chapters in order even if I get them done out of order, I'm just going to post them as I finish them and then organize them once I port all the chapters to Ao3. Really, the ultimate goal here was to just get all the ideas on (electronic) paper anyway. So I guess ya'll are going to have fun wondering what order these are going to go in, {cuz' I'll be doing the same damn thing ᕙ (° ~ ° ~)}

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There had been a break in the lore gathering where there wasn't as many an opportunity to try and pry some new childhood history out of Kafka. That didn't mean there wasn't inciting incidents that led to new loose threads. It was after an early morning period of training did such an event arose. Reno and Kafka has just gotten back to barracks after hitting the gym just to come back and find Minase in a state of inconsolable crying. Hakua was sitting next to a tower of shaking blankets placed on the bed, desperately trying to appease the distraught soldier within by patting and rubbing its back as well as whispering words of comfort. She tried to say comforting things at least, but must have accidentally said something to make the crying worse.

"Hey, is everything okay?" Reno tried to ask as they passed through the door.

"I'm not entirely sure? I just caught the tail end of a phone conversation and now she's like this." Hakua told them as she continued to hug the pile of blankets close, "Whatever it was, it sounded pretty distressing."

"Hey, Reno?" Kafka spoke softly down to his friend, not wanting to take his eyes of of their compatriot, "Can you do me a favor and go down to the vending machine and grab a water? I feel like she's going to need it."

Reno nodded quickly and turned back out the doorway, leaving Kafka. He approached Hakua and nodded his head away, silently asking permission to sit on the bed next to Minase. After she moved, Kafka sat down slowly so as to not make the pile of blankets jump. He mimiced Hakua's original position and wrapped his large arm around the tower, Squeezing it close to him as he tried to wrap his other arm around it.

"Heeeyyy, Minase." He said cheerfully, but not loudly, "Looks like you're not having a good go of things, huh?" The covered pile only continued to cry.

"Bad days are no fun, aren't they?" He chuckled in an attempt to brighten the mood, "It's safe to say that there's never going to be a shortage of those. You wanna know what makes me feel better about them though?" He tried to ask the sad menagerie of stolen blankets. It had stopped full on crying and had downgraded to some small sniffles.

"Much like our tears, it can't be raining all the time. Otherwise we wouldn't be able to see the sun!" He smiled brightly as the pile continued to sniff harshly. Eventually, a very red face with pink, tear stained eyes managed to poke her face out from under the blankets.

"Wow, are you corny." Minase said through a mixture of tearful snorts and half-efforted chuckles.

"Got our resident Sun to poke her pretty little head out, didn't it?" Kafka joked back as he gently tugged the edge of the blanket off from around her hair.

She giggled a little in return as she leaned in harder into Kafka's embrace. Seeing Minase in a more relaxed state that what she was in earlier, Hakua took the opportunity to seat herself behind Minase and lean her weight against her back as a show of support. They all took a few minutes of the calm for themselves, just letting their friend take deep soothing breaths and let the last of her tears drain from her eyes. Reno came in after Minase had gotten her heart under control and gladly took the offered water bottle. He had decided to sit on the floor in between Kafka's legs and Minase's.

"Want us to grab anything for you? I think they're selling strawberry ice cream fish cakes in the canteen." Hakua offered as a helpful gesture. Minase's tears almost triggered again as she thought about the offer.

"Sound's great." She said bitterly, "But I think I would rather have my dogs right now."

"Oh, you have dogs?" Reno asked innocently. He started to cringe and think he said something wrong once Minase started to cry again.

"Not for much longer apparently!" She wailed, "I think my horrible step-father is threatening to kill my dogs!" She tried to wipe her tears with the edge of the soiled blanket, but it wasn't very effective.

"Now why would someone do something like that?" Kafka asked, astonished at the thought.

"I don't know! I think he's just always had it out for me since he came into the family!" Minase's tears had slowed, but her sorrowful screams hadn't, "I had them stay with Aunti Mei before I left for the defense force, but apparently her new landlord is evicting the pets at her place, so she had to drop them off back at mom's, but Chase hates me; he's always hated me! And now he's taking it out on my bubbies!"

"Oh, baby…" Hakua said softly as she tried to give Minase a hug from behind.

"I just got off the phone with him, I don't even know how he got my number, but it's just… something he said, or how he said it… I don't know, I just feel like my babies aren't safe anymore!" She began to cry again as Kafka held her even harder, "I can't bring them here! I don't have any other relatives nearby to send them too! I refuse to send them to a shelter! I don't know what to do!"

As she continued to cry again, Reno could see Kafka's expression growing darker and darker. He had tucked Minase's head into his chest as he listened to her woes. Reno started to wonder if maybe it was so she couldn't see the quiet anger building up behind his eyes. Suddenly, like someone had flipped a switch in his head, Kafka donned as soft smile, one that barely managed to hide the softly rolling fury behind his expression. He brought a hand up to gently pat the top of her head. With a clearly sincere tone, Kafka spoke some more sweet words until she stopped crying again. When he could hear the hiccuping had slowed, he pulled her head back and made sure to look her in the eyes.

"Minase, I'm going to tell you this right now. You aren't going to worry your strong heart any longer, ya got me? Nothing is going to hurt your fluffy little friends, okay?" Minase just looked at him with a lot of burning questions in her eyes, but found that she didn't have the strength to say them.

"I wan't to hear you say 'Okay' too." Kafka gently placed both of his hands on either side of her face as he asked, "Please?"

"Oh-okay." she said meekly.

"Atta-girl." He responded as he gave her one last strong hug.

Kafka then looked at Hakua and gave her an expression that seemed to communicate a lot of things, most of which Reno just translated as 'Keep an eye on her'. He then got up loudly from the bed and stretched, groaning all the way. He walked over to his personal locker at the other side of the room and could be heard rummaging through it. Reno couldn't see what he was grabbing from his spot on the floor, but could definitely hear when he stopped going through his and suddenly started going through what he thought to be Aoi's.

"Sir, can I ask what you are doing?" Reno called out as he got up from the floor to investigate the weird behavior.

"Hm? Oh, just- uhh, changing into civilian clothes. I just remembered I had some business outside of base that I should probably take care of." Kafka said as he donned a large black jacket, thin gloves, a neck gaiter, and grabbed his over-sized black towel. The item he had seemed to grab from Aoi's locker was his spare set of combat boots.

"Okay… If it's just errands, then why do you need Aoi's boots? Aren't they bigger than your feet?" Reno continued to question as he followed Kafka out of the barracks and over to what appeared to be a supply closet.

"Oh, the boots? I-uh, noticed mine were pinching my feet, so I thought I'd take Aoi's for a spin." Kafka offered as an excuse, but Reno could tell what a poor excuse it was. It didn't distract him enough from questioning why Kafka was holding the door's handle a weird way and suddenly slamming his shoulder into it.

"Isn't that door locked?" Reno kept interrogating an uninterested Kafka. He didn't stop him once he somehow managed to bash the door open and walked inside like he owned everything.

"Only if you don't know how shittly made some of the doors are here on base." Kafka said nonchalantly as he scanned the shelves within. He found and grabbed a flat head screwdriver, a hammer, and a can of WD-40 and put them inside the towel before twisting the whole thing together and tying it in such a way as to not have the contents spill out.

"Hey, could you do me another favor? I know, I'm asking a lot today, but just this once? I'll even pay you back for the water bottle later, but first, could you help Hakua keep an eye on Minase while I'm gone?" Kafka asked as he left the supply closet and slung the impromptu bag over his shoulder.

"Wait, you're leaving now?" Reno asked as he followed him to the end of the hallway.

"Yeah, bud! I just said I had errands to do, didn't I? Don't worry, I'll be sure to tell Vice Cap where I'm going." Kafka said with an encouraging wink as he rounded the corner and quickly jogged out of sight.

Reno wasn't sure what was going on with his friend, but he was fairly certain it wasn't good. It certainly didn't make him feel better about knowing that Kafka was about to do it without him.

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It was about three am that night when Minase got woken up by another phone call. She shook the sleepy fog from her head as her pink flip-phone rang out it's cheery little chip tune. She grabbed her phone quickly and walked as fast as she could bring herself to in her groggy state out the barrack door. She walked a good distance away before sliding the device open and taking the call.

"Sweetie?" A familiar voice called out, not bothering to hide the distress it carried.

"Mom? Are you okay? What's going on?" Minase answered in a gravely tone, trying to get accustomed to understanding others on a lack of sleep.

"Listen Sweetie, I get you were upset at your father about what he said about the dogs-"

"He's not my dad." Minase interrupted in a quiet voice, knowing that her mother was just going to ignore the comment anyway,

"- But I don't think it warranted hiring a hit-man to get them!" Her mother whispered harshly. In the background, she could hear the sound of sirens and her step-father shouting at someone.

"Wait, what?" Minase asked as she rubbed her face.

"I understand you're attached to your little goobers, but Chase wasn't actually going to hurt them! He loves them too, he just has a hard time showing it and-"

"Mom, stop, back up. What was that about a hit-man?" Minase thought she had heard her mother wrong when she said something about a hit-man.

"A strange man broke into our house tonight and stole your dogs!" Her mom said as her quiet tone got increasingly shrill.

"Maybe start with that?!" Minase almost felt like she was shouting once she heard about the break-in.

"What, that someone stole the dogs? I thought I did?" her mom questioned.

"No-god, the break in! Someone broke in?" Minase's mind started to fray again. First with her step-father threatening her dogs and now this!

"Yes, I thought that was implied with the dog-napping?" her mother could be scatter-brained some days, but tonight was taking the cake. Minase was growling as she tried to think of her next question, but stopped once she heard her mother scuffling with someone on the other end of the line.

"god damn it woman just hand it here- YOU." A clearly irritated voice broke into the private conversation with an enraged bellow, "Listen here you dumb bitch, I get that being a Defense force officer might make you feel like such a big girl now, but getting one of your suped-up, mutant Kaiju super-freaks to come down here and take away your stupid mutts is a clear overstepping of where you stand in life! How many dicks did you have to suck off for that, Huh? Did you have to get on your hands and knees, bat your dull little eyes at the first dumb schmuck that would listen to you? It really speaks to the quality of your fellow members that if you were that desperate for your yippy rats, you somehow managed to find some deprived knuckle-dragger willing to dedicate some serious grey matter to this idiotic plan of yours and-"

"Shut up, just shut UP!" Minase yelled into her phone, "I didn't ask anyone to get my dogs back! No one even knows where you live because I actively try to forget you exist! We don't even have any mutant Kaiju hit-men for me to even bother sending out to your dilapidated rust bucket shed you call a house!"

"Oh yeah? Tell that to my right fist I just sent through someone's eye socket! Not to mention the fact the fridge has a dent in it now from where that stupid asshat sent me flying into it! Ya wanna come down and take a look at it and continue to be the stupid little bitch that you are, huh? Denying that you got someone from your freak division to come down here and fuck up my shit? You know your paying for the damages, right? I'll be expecting money for a new fridge, a nice one, from your paycheck and it better be before the sun rises on your precious bitch lackey's funereal!-" At that point, Minase just clicked the flip phone shut.

The creaking of its case echoed slightly into the empty hallway as her fist tightened around it in restrained rage. Her arm shook with the force of her quiet wrath before launching her phone into the nearest wall with the full force of everything she wanted to hold back. She watched as it bounced off the wall and bench under it before coming to a stop a few feet from her. The phone looked like it remained intact, with was more than what one could say about her emotions right now. Minase tried not to fall directly onto her knees and instead stumbled quickly over to a nearby vending machine, its light acting as a pleasant beacon in her mind. She tried to stop herself from falling onto it, but her knees gave out at the worse time and caused the machine to rattle a little from the force of her landing. Tears had been welling up for a while, but now fell freely from her tired eyes. She felt her legs lose their strength as she slipped quietly onto the floor, covering up her sobs as best she could.

"Minase? Is… that you?" A tired voice cracked the night's stillness, causing her to turn and face the newcomer.

"Sorry. Did I wake you?" Minase whispered as she gathered herself up just enough to ask Iharu, who was standing in the hallway with just a pair of sleep shorts.

"No… Well, kinda. But that's not important." Iharu rubbed the sleep from his face as he came over to the vending machine and helped Minase onto her feet just enough to help shuffle her over to the bench next to it.

He turned around and went back to the barracks and returned shortly with cash, and paid for a can of hot corn soup from the machine. He chugged some of it and hissed from the heat before sitting down next to her on the bench.

"Here, it's cold out here. You should get something warm in ya." He said as he offered the half eaten can.

She took the offered can with reserved appreciation and took a small sip for herself. A part of her didn't want the company, but considering it could have been anyone else that found her, she was at least glad that it was Iharu. When growing up with a family life that was less than ideal, it tends to make one yearn for anything stable in their life. Minase initially left because she wanted just that, and joining the Defense Force gave her the perfect opportunity. While continuing her training, she came to hear all about how the Defense Force was a great place to not only meet great people, but a place to form deep bonds with them. Something she wanted to experience with all her heart.

It wasn't hard to make friends here with everyone being fairly like minded people. It had only been about a month and she already felt like she was a sister to everyone here. She couldn't even begin to explain just how quickly she became attached to everyone, including the witty old guy in their battalion. Minase knew it was way too early to admit this, but she really did like to think of Kafka as the dad she wished she had. And if Kafka was her dad, then Iharu felt like the brother she always wanted. Most girls here probably would have had their hearts racing at the thought of having an indirect kiss with the resident hot-shot, but to her it just felt like something a caring brother would have done.

"So can I ask what happened, or do you want to sit in silence together until you feel like letting me walk you back to bed?" Iharu asked with a yawn, slouching over until his elbows hit his knees.

Minase bitterly chuckled, "I don't think I'm going to be able to sleep for a while, let alone tonight."

"What, did the fucked-up old man say something stupid and insane like usual?" Iharu tried to be helpful as he tried to cut her step-father down.

"No." Minase tried to playfully counter before contradicting herself, "Well, yes, and it's actually kinda serious, but it wasn't what he said about me."

She took a deep breath before she spoke, "Someone broke into my parent's place tonight."

"Anyone hurt?" Iharu reflexively fired back.

"No one that didn't deserve it. Chase got thrown into the fridge after he slugged the guy, but the biggest problem is that the guy that broke in stole my dogs." Minase answered before she took another sip of the hot canned soup.

"Fuuuuck." Iharu sleepily droned out, "Ain't that a swift kick in the nuts."

"You know what hurts the most?" Minase hinted at, "Is that I feel a little relieved that it happened." She tried to hold back another wave of sobs which caused her lungs to hiccup and her frame to shake again.

"Nooo, Minase! You don't mean that, come on." Iharu drawled as he scooted closer and wrapped an arm around her. She tucked her head into his chest as a hand came up to hold back her tears.

"They have a chance to go to a nicer family this way, right? They practically look like pure-breeds so some fancy, upper-crust family would have to pay out the nose to give them a happy life." Minase continued to quietly sob as she did her best to hug Iharu back for personal support.

"Look, it's been reported to the police, right? Maybe in the morning we can head to your parents' place and we can ask your mother for details. Or maybe we just spend a day or two posting flyers, I don't know. Either way, we can all pitch in to get your dogs back." Iharu tried to comfort her as he rubbed soothing circles into her shaking back.

"There's no point if I have no where to keep them!" Minase did her best to muffle her pitiful wails behind her already occupied hands.

Off in the distance down the hallway, they heard a strange noise, loud enough to be heard over their emotional conversation. Iharu spared a glance down the darkened hallway in what he hoped was the direction the noise was from. Since Minase didn't seem to hear it the first time, he ignored his instincts and went back to comforting her. However, he couldn't bring himself to ignore his gut feelings any longer once he heard what sounded like chairs crashing and a muffled curse.

"What was that?" Iharu muttered suspiciously as he shifted on the bench.

"Yeah, I heard it too." Minase confirmed as she wiped away the last of her tears.

The two of them looked at each other before deciding to get up and follow the noise. They traveled down the almost pitch black hallway with Minase peering into the dark panes of glass that lined the corridor with the light from her phone. Iharu quickly found a janitor's closet in the dark and began to brutally shoulder the door open. He reached inside and grabbed a wide broom and met back up with Minase.

"What's that for?" she asked.

"Intruders?" Iharu answered with an unsure shrug.

"Why would anyone want to break into a Defense Force Base?" Minase countered.

"I'm sorry, do you think we get paid enough to ask that kind of question right now?" Iharu retaliated as he brandished the makeshift weapon.

They didn't have to continue very far before they noticed something strange in one of the offices on that floor. Looking through the inner window, they both noticed that one office was a lot brighter than the others, mainly due to the fact that one of the outer windows was open and the blinds covering it were drawn up. The full moon outside gave out enough light to let the duo see what was a clear outline of a large, hunched figure currently ducked behind a desk. They quietly rushed to the office door, and once finding it unlocked, let themselves inside. With her phone off, they stealthily rounded the desks behind the lumbering figure.

Iharu couldn't tell what the person was saying, but could tell that they were struggling with something wriggling in their jacket. As he lifted the full weight of the broom to come down on the intruder's head, he accidentally knocked the head of it against the lip of a desk next to him. As he let out a clipped curse, the stranger in front of them quickly turned around and scrambled backwards across the floor screaming. Startled by his screaming, both Iharu and Minase began to scream as well. Once everyone started screaming, did two little yapping fluff balls make their presence known.

"Wait, dogs?" Iharu called out first once he heard the unusual disturbance.

"Shit, Iharu?" The barely masked stranger guessed after he calmed down.

"Kafka?" Minase and Iharu both answered once they heard the intruder's voice.

"Well, so much for anonymity." Kafka groaned sarcastically as he pulled down his face mask.

Minase turned and bolted for the light switches back next to the door to the office and turned the lights on. Coming back she saw two familiar looking lumps of hyperactive fur rapidly shaking in the confines of the large black jacket Kafka was still wearing.

"Ronny! Tototo!" She cried as she scrambled for her twin Pomeranian pups.

Kafka unzipped his jacket and very carefully pulled them out so he could hand them over to a very teary eyes Minase. Iharu let the broom drop to the floor as he watched with astonishment while Minase fell to her knees and lavished her once forsaken pets. She held them close as she lovingly pelted them with loud kisses before fully falling to the floor and laid on her side, letting them lick her back with equal voracity. More tears came to spill out, not of sadness for once, but out of happiness and was now mixing into a layer of joyous dog slobber being lathered on her face. Her enthusiastic giggles could not be contained and instead echoed slightly in the mostly empty office. As the scene unfolded before them, Iharu slowly moved closer to Kafka and helped the quietly elated man off the floor.

"Jeezus, man! What the hell happened to your eye?" Iharu asked once Kafka had dusted himself off.

"Hmm! Oh, this?" Kafka answered as he pointed to the fresh shiner blooming over his right eye, "Got distracted and walked right into a light pole! Can ya believe it!" He tacked on a great big smile to hopefully sell the lie.

"Uh huh." Iharu grunted, already suspicious, "Was the distraction caused by the dogs or from recovering getting knocked in the head first?"

"Don't know what you're talking about." Kafka muttered as he innocently shrugged.

"Really?" Iharu incredulously countered, "You seriously expect us to believe that you didn't just break into Minase's Dad's house, knock his front door in, and make away with the dogs in question."

"Yes, because what the story actually is-" Kafka began with a mischievous glint in his good eye, "That I graciously intervened in what was clearly a home invasion gone wrong, rescued the dogs off the street after failing to apprehend the suspect that just so happened to be a similar build and height to me, and have so humbly decided that I could bring these poor, distraught, and fluffy victims to a safe location before notifying their proper owner. Who, come to find out, I just so happen to work with." Kafka finished smugly, "There's already a police report and everything."

Iharu rubbed his hands over his tired face for a moment and groaned loudly, "Oh, this is bad. Oh, you are going to get so caught." Those same hands came up to pull back on his hair, "How did you even know which house to hit? Minase never says anything about her family. E-e-even then, what's your excuse for being out so late? You have to know that Vice-Cap is going to kill you for being out this long."

"I don't know if you know this, but there aren't a whole lot of guys living in Western Japan with the legal name Chase, let alone living with a woman whose last name is Akari." Kafka informed as he patted Iharu's back, "And look, just leave the rest of the scary shit up to me. This may come as a shock, but this isn't the first time I've had to duck an assault charge as well as B+E." Upon hearing this, Iharu slowly turned and looked up at the fellow brother-in-arms, now a complete stranger to him once again.

"Please tell me this is just another Germany thing?" He asked, wanting it to coax out some reassurance that Kafka wasn't as crazy as he was being led to believe.

Kafka just let out a breathy chuckle, "I'll tell you about it some other time." He left cryptically open-ended.

Iharu watched as Kafka walked off and joined Minase on the floor, pulling out strips of cold, precooked bacon from the pocket of his jeans and teased the Pomeranian brothers with it. Iharu, still being too tired to continue to question any of this, just shook his head gave up, preceding to join the other two people on the floor and introduced himself to the new ferociously furry company.

"i really appreciate you doing this for me Kafka!" Minase cheered as she held her pups close to her chest, "But it doesn't change the fact that they can't stay here. I'm sure the higher-ups wouldn't let us."

"You let me worry about that too." Kafka countered as he tore up the last strip of bacon he owned, "Who knows, maybe Bakko could do with a pair of friends."

"Or a set of snacks." Iharu mumbled as he reached out a hand for one of the Pomeranians to sniff at.

"Don't even joke like that." Minase growled as she harshly pulled her dogs out for Iharu's reach.