Family's Family

"Well, that's good..." Taylor said. "I just feel so ridiculous. It's been better lately, but..." She shrugged.

She looked at the ropes and then Junko and laughed. What harm could it do? She had nothing that she could prove by refusing to sit on a rope, and so she sat on the middle rope and pushing the top one up over her shoulder. Once she was through, Taylor grabbed the top rope and catapulted herself over it. She soared through the air and all the way down to the floor, where she bounced into a neat forward roll and ended on her feet. She loved being in the air, more than almost anything.

She grinned. She felt weird. She wanted to apologize to Johnny. She wanted to know for sure that Junko was for real. She wanted to know where this unconditional love broke down. She wondered if she'd find out, and if it'd be like things were with her own mom. She wondered if she really would be together with Johnny for as long as they lived.

She shook her head. Regardless of what Junko said, she didn't know much. But at least she knew the answer to one of those.

Johnny fidgeted while they were in the cab. They were just about to pull up tot he restaurant where his dad was. He had been worried about Taylor meeting his mom. His fears had come true in every conceivable way but somehow the two managed to come together. In the end, it was all he could hope for.

But this was different. Taylor had been excited to meet his dad and he was worried that her expectations might not be met. He was pretty sure the two of them wouldn't get into an actual fistfight but there were other things to worry about. He turned and looked at Taylor and clasped his hand over her leg, running hit up and down for a few moments.

"I'm sorry about all this formal stuff, babe. I think it's pretty stupid but it's just the way things are around here." Johnny frowned. Johnny then looked away as they pulled up to the restaurant. He pulled out his phone and checked the time. They were about five minutes early. That was good. Johnny had no clue how things were going to go with his dad and he was way more nervous now than he was when she Taylor was meeting his mom. Even though he expected a worse reaction from Junko.

Johnny stepped out of the car and waited for Taylor to follow. He walked into the restaurant and looked around. He had been here many times and he didn't have to look too hard. He found the booth near the back where a newspaper was covering the lone occupant. A can of Japanese beer was sitting on the table. Just one, and then he'd switch to tea. Johnny looked at his phone again. In a minute, he'd pull his newspaper down and look a round. Johnny grabbed Taylor's hand and walked her forward.

As he approached, the newspaper was folded down perfectly at the crease with a single, deft flip of his fingers. The man was wearing glasses, a dress shirt and a monocolored navy tie. He had stern features and a perfectly coiffed black hair, parted down the side and swept over his head. It was starting to thing, as well as gray, but he otherwise had distinguished features.

He stared from Johnny to Taylor, not saying a word and remained still and stoic as he seemed to be waiting for the two, his eyes surveying his son's bride with careful scrutiny.

"It's okay," Taylor said with a smile. She did her best to hide how nervous she was, but she spent the entire cab ride wringing her hands and dreaming up all sorts of ways this meeting could go wrong. Given how things went with her mother-in-law, she had reason to worry.

She wanted to make a good impression. She had dolled herself up in a fine black kimono, with rose embroidery around the skirt and a soft blue obi. She checked every angle in the mirror, twisting and craning to make sure everything was exactly in the right place. She wanted to look like... that thing the Japanese said that meant "the perfect Japanese woman" or something, even if the Japanese idea of the perfect woman was really pretty stupid and lame. She wanted to be that so that Johnny's dad would see that she was a good call.

Then she changed her mind. She shucked off the kimono and tossed it on the bed, and changed into a black dress with dark stockings and a silver necklace and matching bracelet. She still wouldn't wear her rings, the eyebrow nose and ear ones, but she couldn't live with herself if she went into tonight pretending to be someone else. If Johnny's dad was going to approve, he was going to approve of her.

The dress itself fell to just above the knee with a fluttery skirt, and was fitted to her body from the waist up. The neckline was modest, and the straps resembled a tank top with a racerback. It was a provocative mixture of elegance and sportiness, and it was perfect.

Taylor stepped out of the car and was to the door first, but through it last. She followed behind Johnny to the booth where he sat. She stared at the newspaper and waited, holding her breath and shifting from foot to foot. She wanted to check her hair, she'd worn it loose but her long bangs were held aside by a pretty barrette, but the newspaper was lowered and there was her father-in-law.

She wasn't disappointed. He was... probably the word was handsome. He looked like a businessman or something. He said nothing, though, and his silent gaze made Taylor squirm. She was too uncomfortable to be still, or to be quiet.

"Hi!" She said loudly, with her very best smile. The smile that had been photographed and filmed and cheered by fans, put on posters. She had always thought that her smile was her best feature. Her dad had told her so.

She stepped forward and stuck out her hand. "I'm Taylor." She said, looking him straight in the eye.

Johnny watched as the two met. Clashed maybe? It was hard to say. Taylor was going to be herself and really, Johnny didn't want her to be different. He also believed that if his dad didn't approve of her for who she was, then that would be that.

Johnny's father took notice of every last detail of her. When she stuck out her hand, he ignored it and looked at Johnny. "Hmmmm." His voice was low and the sound was slow and purposeful. "She really isn't Japanese." It was impossible to read his features. Whether or not he was disappointed or merely stating an obvious fact.

The man then picked up the news paper he set down. He scanned the page he had been reading before they arrived and then set it back down. He then turned back and looked at Taylor. "I have heard that you're not working right now." Again he spoke as though he were merely stating a fact. "Junichi-kun, sit down. The server has a job to do." Johnny frowned and tugged on Taylor's arm to pull her into the booth.

"Taylor-chan's been really excited to meet you, dad." Johnny said with a grin. "You don't need to go and make her nervous and junk by bein all serious." Johnny scratched the back of his head. "Taylor, this is Higurashi Ichiro, my father. Dad... this is Taylor, my wife."

"Hmmmm." Ichiro said as though he were considering every word carefully.

"He's not gonna shake, so..." Johnny said with a shrug and grabbed a menu to look over. "How's Hiroshima?" Johnny said, trying to spark some sort of conversation.

Taylor's smile lost some of it's shine when Ichiro spoke. Was he really just going to leave her hanging? And so what if she wasn't Japanese? She blinked in disbelief. His first words to her were about being unemployed?

Oh no, she thought. He's a dick!

She reinvigorated her smile and smoothed her skirt against the back of her legs as she slid into the booth. She reached across and grabbed Ichiro by the sleeve to pull his arm up so she could clasp his hand and give it a single pump.

"Please," she said. "I don't think Junichi would want me to be Japanese. And you don't seem to get along that well with Japanese women either, right?" She said with a twinkle in her eye. She was torn between the part of her that froze with fear that Johnny's father would reject her and the part that only thought "you motherfucker". She managed to wrangle her conflicting emotions and shape them into her usual sort of playful irreverence. It's what gave her her charm.

Not that everyone found her charming... She kept smiling, but didn't wait for him to answer about Hiroshima. Small talk could wait. "And that's not exactly true. I have my own business now. I'm just not getting beat up for money anymore."

"Hmmm." Ichiro said in response to Taylor's jab. He turned his head and looked at Johnny. "I've moved to Fukuoka." He said simply.

"That's cool man." Johnny said as he shifted in his seat. "Must be a lot of babes down there and junk. I bet all you do is just hang out at the beaches all day and junk."

"Hmmmm."

Ichiro turned back and looked at Taylor. "You have your own business." His face remained unchanging, very sturdy and hard to read and once again he spoke as if he was making a statement rather than asking a question.

Taylor neatly folded her hands in her lap and quieted down her smile until her face was just as blank and humorless as Ichiro's. She looked back at him and said, just as deadpan as he, "I have my own business."

She picked up the newspaper for a moment and skimmed over it. She couldn't read a word of it, her Japanese reading was limited mostly to public signs and menus, but she used her finger to indicate where her place would've been if she had a place to keep. "Hm." She set the paper back down and looked again at Ichiro.

"You're very Japanese."

Ichiro ignored her and called the server over with a look. He ordered promptly and Johnny followed suit. Johnny waited for Taylor to order as well and then turned back to Ichiro.

"Yeah, man, she makes shirts and stuff. I think she does other things too..." Johnny wasn't entirely sure to what expanse Taylor's business had grown. He mostly knew about the shirts. That seemed to be the biggest part of it. Or the part of it she shared with him the most. Even if his father didn't seem to be curious, Johnny was.

"What DO you have going on, babe?"

"Hmmm." Ichiro seemed to think about what Johnny was saying.

"<The same, please>." Taylor answered the server in Japanese. She wasn't going to go through the awkward, fidgety routine of trying to order on the spot, so whatever Johnny was having was good enough for her.

Taylor masked her growing disappointment with Mr Higurahi Ichigo-san by continuing on brightly, as if completely undaunted by his stone faced super Japan-man routine. "Mostly shirts, yeah. T-shirts, tank tops. I talked to my guy about adding some more stuff, like wrist warmers, sports bras, beanie's," she said, motioning to each body part the articles would cover, putting her hand over her wrist, pointing her thumbs at her boobs, and putting her hands over the top of her head. "For Cassie, ya know. It's a work in progress, but I don't care that much about, like, selling tons of stuff, I mostly just like designing them. I can write off crayons as a business expense!" She laughed, and didn't care if she was the only one who did.

"And then I do volunteer work, which isn't part of the business, obviously, but it's like, really important to me now. I do, like, youth programs and stuff, and before I couldn't speak any Japanese and they couldn't really speak any English, so I basically ended up just playing soccer with a bunch of kids. Now I can speak it, so now I can talk trash to little kids while I school them in soccer." She laughed. "I actually suck at soccer. I keep pulling for baseball. I figured that'd be an easy sell, here, but nooooooo. What do you do?"

Ichiro took a careful inventory of Taylor's words, noting them down mentally. Johnny was mostly just happy that he was mostly accurate about Taylor's business and there wasn't some super secret thing she had going on that she mentioned that he forgot. It all sounded cool. Taylor wasn't really the best artist around, but she had made her style work and Johnny thought that was pretty cool. He wished he could be creative sometimes but he decided it was best if he just stuck to lifting weights and wrestling.... chicks...

"I work in the resource procurement division of Tokoyama Industries. They are a subsidiary of the Yuu-Group. After years of dedicated service I have achieved a comfortable upper management position." He spoke as if he were reading from a textbook. "I have done well to honor my family." He said and lowered his head. "There is more I can do." He added.

"Yeah man." Johnny said. "That's why he's always moving and junk. It sucked when we were growing up. Dad wasn't ever around that much. But, I guess that he worked hard so we could live comfortably and Ma was always there to take care of us." Johnny shrugged and slipped his hand under the table and took Taylor's.

"Hmmm." Ichiro said and looked to Johnny. "Your career's going well." He stated.

"Have you been checking out my matches?" Johnny said, getting a little excited at the thought.

"No." Ichiro said matter-of-factly. "Yamato-san's new secretary was speaking about it. She's young."