Chapter Text
"I feel like you should know by now that whenever they say something like that, they're probably joking," Shouta grumbled with a flick of his ear.
"Right, right…" H'zashi replied as he drooped.
"Eri, this is my uncle, Atsuhiro Sako," Hitoshi explained as he stepped forward and hoisted her onto his shoulders.
"Hello there, Eri-chan, it's wonderful to meet you. Thank you for taking care of Hitoshi while we were separated!" Atsuhiro hid a smile behind his hand, but dropped the limb when Eri gave him a small smile in return.
"I took care of him? Really?" Eri perked up hopefully, tilting her head in question.
"Why of course! You stayed with him so he didn't feel alone! He's told you how humans are pack animals, right? Well, when we don't have a pack we get really sad. So you made sure he was happy!" Atsuhiro beamed. Mei separated from him and he gave her a head pat.
"Woah…" Eri breathed with wide eyes.
"Would you like to see something cool?" When Eri nodded, he took the cards and made them fly between his hands in a card spring. She stared with rapt attention as he divided the deck into two halves before pushing the corner tips into each other and bending them in half, and as he slowly released the pressure, the cards fanned into a riffle fan. "Pick a card, any card, and don't show me what it is! Once you have it memorized, hand it back!" After he put them forward, she selected a card, stared at it intensely, and showed it to Shouta and H'zashi before depositing it into Atsuhiro's waiting hand. "Alright!" He sat it on the top of the deck and did a few Faro shuffles, before spreading them in a normal fan. "The cards are all mixed up, right? Well, I can use my magic to find out which card was yours!" He pressed two fingers to his temples and eyed the cards sternly before twirling his fingers over the deck. "Was…" Grabbing a card from the middle of the deck, he presented it dramatically. "... this your card?"
"Woah! How did you do that?" Eri gasped in amazement as she gazed at the card with a pink bug on it.
"How did he do that?" H'zashi murmured to Shouta, who shrugged. (He picked that up because he could dismiss people without bothering to talk.) Hitoshi knew how he did it though, he just slightly bent the corner of the card as he took it back so he could tell which it was.
"A magician never reveals his secrets!" Atsuhiro declared with another deep and elegant bow.
"Fascinating! Those tricks were truly impressive, Mr. Sako, you'll have to show me more sometime!" Nedzu'u squeaked, causing everyone to turn to him. Hitoshi took the initiative to step out of the shuttle and into the dock's hallway.
"I'd be happy to! It's been quite a while since I've been able to perform, so the opportunity is a welcome one indeed!" Atsuhiro replied with a dip of his head.
"You were a performer? Did you just do card tricks?" H'zashi chirped in curiosity, elicited a small chuckle from the man.
"Of course not! I also know how to do circus silks, trapeze, and tightrope walking! I grew up in a traveling circus, after all," He revealed with a flippant wave. "In fact, that's how Hitoshi's mother and I met! She was hired to make new costumes for the troupe."
"I also did circus silks when I was younger, courtesy of Uncle Atsuhiro. They're two long strips of fabric that hang from the ceiling, and you climb and wrap them around your body in various ways to do tricks. Mei, my little sister, and I used to work at the circus as a summer job. I did circus silks, Mei was a technician, and Haruko was a contortionist, which is when you bend your body in ways that seem impossible since she was really flexible," Hitoshi explained as they all started down the hallway towards Nedzu'u's office.
"Interesting, interesting. And what are trapeze and tightrope walking?" Nedzu'u questioned, peering at Atsuhiro with his beady black eyes.
"Trapeze is when an acrobat swings and flips from horizontal bars hanging by two ropes, usually high up in the air, and tightrope walking is walking on a single rope while also high up in the air. I normally did tricks like cartwheels and splits atop it," Atsuhiro explained.
"That sounds… incredibly dangerous," Shouta commented with a flick of his ear.
"Oh, it was. However, you start practicing close to the ground so that if you fell you weren't seriously injured. Once you were confident in your abilities, you would go higher, but there were still safety nets beneath you in case you slipped."
"Right. Okay then," Shouta acknowledged, seemingly deciding that thinking about it wasn't worth it anymore.
"Hitoshi! Did your internship get cut short too?" Hitoshi looked forward and saw Izukk'u walking down the hall with Todorokki by his side.
"Yep. This idiot decided to do something not legal, and I caught him, leading us to discover that he is, in fact, my basically-uncle that also got yoinked," Hitoshi shrugged, jabbing a thumb in Atsuhiro's directions.
"I beg your pardon! I am far from an idiot, you little shit," Atsuhiro tsked, waving a finger jokingly.
"That's exactly something an idiot would say. I'm on to you, Uncle."
"How callous. After two years you've reunited with your dear old uncle and this is how I'm treated? For shame, Hitoshi."
"Yo mama," Hitoshi responded with a shrug.
"Keep my mother's name out of your mouth! Imagine that I'm clutching my pearls right now" His godfather gasped, placing a hand to his heart.
"L + Ratio, old man," Mei grinned, sticking her tongue out at him.
"Mei, you too? I've been betrayed!" He exclaimed.
"Are they actually arguing?" Todorokki whispered to Izukk'u.
"We're joking," Hitoshi assured with a grin.
"You always say your joking, but none of the jokes make sense… I've been told jokes need a punchline," Todorokki huffed, putting a paw to his chin as he leveled Hitoshi with a blank stare.
"Todorokki, my sweet summer child, most human jokes rely on the ability to understand our language. If I translated them into Common they would be incomprehensible. For example: A fromurkan walks into a restaurant and says: 'Can I get a steak and a…….. drink?' The waiter asks: 'Why the big pause?' The fromurkan says: 'I don't know, I was born with them.' That joke makes sense in English, but not in anything else, see?" Hitoshi explains. There was silence for a moment before Atsuhiro perked up with a grin.
"Good one! In English, the word for 'pause' is said exactly the same as the word for 'paws', it's a simple pun," He agreed.
"...I'm so confused…" Todorokki murmured.
"Hi so confused, I'm Atsuhiro Sako!" This got groans out of Mei and Hitoshi.
"I can't believe you're already going for the dad jokes."
"I need to make up for what you've missed out on, my dear boy!"
"You really don't," Hitoshi sighed good-naturedly. Hopefully Atsuhiro's presence wouldn't cause any problems. Let's hope.