Chapter Text
Izumi is three years old and sitting outside of a police station, she knows she should go in and talk to an officer, but she is scared.
It's early or late depending on your perception of time, to Izumi who has had trouble sleeping for as long as she can remember it didn't really matter to her. It was six in the morning, judging by where the sun was, and she had been there since three.
Lost in her own mind, figuring out what she should say, Izumi almost missed the cough that she assumed was to get her attention without scaring her.
"You okay kid?" A man in a long tan coat asks her.
"Un, just...trying to figure out how to tell I'm in trouble...but not in trouble." She tells the man, he looks confused at her words before he's crouching in front of her.
"Okay." The man's face is open in a way she's not used to as he speaks. "My name is Tsukauchi Naomasa, I'm a detective, let's go in and see if I can help."
Izumi takes a deep breath and takes hold of the detective's offered hand, as he stands he pulls her to her feet. His hold is gentle, it's not something she's used to, but it's good.
Izumi is so focused on looking around her at the messy desks with tired looking adults behind them, and listening to the adults shout back and forth at one another she doesn't really pay attention to the man holding her hand.
When they cross into a cluttered office the detective let's go of her hand, his soft words stop her from panicking. "Take a seat, I'll just go get something hot to drink."
Doing as directed Izumi crawls on to the chair in front of the messy desk, it's hard for her, she's small, closer to the size of a two year old and the seat of the chair is the same height as her chest.
Once she's seated semi comfortablely she just waits, tapping out the rhythm of her favourite nursery rhyme. When the tall man finally came back he had two big cups, one had the same sharp smell of the stuff that Hisashi drank in the mornings, she couldn't smell the other with the sharp smell overtaking it.
With a half filled cup in her hands she peers inside only to find that it is hot chocolate, the last and first time she had been given hot chocolate was when Inko had left her at a coffee shop for hours.
"Okay kiddo, let's talk." The detective's voice cuts through her thoughts, it makes Izumi jerk a little in surprise.
"Nice to meet you, I'm Izumi." She tells him, it's only proper manners, she had learnt this from watching people on the street.
"Inko and Hisashi left me here, they don't want me. Hisashi said I'm not his, and Inko does what Hisashi wants. It was three on the clock in the car." Izumi is careful with her words, she knows that she can't call Inko and Hisashi her mom and dad.
"Who are Inko and Hisashi?" The man asks her.
"My... caretakers?" She doesn't know how to describe them, they had given her two small meals a day and three dresses, they took her places and always came back hours later.
"Your parents?" The man asks.
"I...no? Inko says that I was a mistake, Hisashi says I'm not his blood….uh Inko said to do a test to tell you who my dad is." Izumi parrots the words she had been told thousands of times, and what she had been told when she had been told to get out of the car.
The man sighs deeply, Izumi isn't really sure what that means, so she stays quiet.
"Okay, so we will order a paternity test, and you can stay here with me until it happens." He's running a hand through his hair as he picks up the phone on his desk.
Izumi shrugs at him and takes a sip of her hot chocolate. It's good, not as good as the cafe she had been left in, but so much better than the odd tasting water she usually got at the house.
Izumi had no idea how long she had been waiting with the detective when there was a heavy knock at the door.
"Come in." The man said he sounded tired, and Izumi wondered if he had trouble sleeping like she did.
A cat-person came into the room, they were followed by what looked to be a woman with a wooden arm that was holding a big silver case.
"Izumi, this is officer Sansa, he will take care of you when I can't." The words drag Izumi's attention back to the detective, she nods letting him know he was heard.
"Sansa, Shiba-san, this is Izumi-chan. We need a rush paternity test against all known males in the system." Izumi follows the words being said, she understands what's happening mostly, but she doesn't know how a test will tell her who her dad is.
The woman, Shiba-san, drops the big case on the floor near Izumi. It makes her jerk back in surprise, almost dropping her cup.
Izumi watches as the woman starts to ruffle through it, there are lots of things she doesn't know in the case, she wants to ask but knows that questions aren't really welcome.
Shiba-san makes a noise, it's triumphant and short but it makes Izumi look at what the woman is holding. It's a long package that has paper on one side and clear plastic on the other, Izumi can't really tell what's inside cause Shiba-san's hand is covering most of it.
"Izumi-chan, we need you to open your mouth, the swab that Shiba-san has is going to rub the inside on your cheeks." Tsukauchi-san brings her out of her observation of the woman, and Izumi wonders how this is a test.
With a shrug Izumi opens her mouth wide, and waits.
The wired little stick with fluff on the end feels odd in her mouth. The fluff makes it itchy and dry, and the stick keeps hitting her teeth and tongue.
Shiba-san is humming a tune that's covering the whispered murmuring coming from the two men in the room. When the sound cuts off and the 'swab' is pulled from her mouth Izumi is both happy and overly curious.
"When is the test? Do I get to study first?" Izumi asks, it's not directed at anyone really, just in general, and to make sure that was actually the test as she had assumed.
Shiba-san snorts as she's closing her case, but Izumi ignores her when she sees officer Sansa move in the corner of her eye.
"The swab was the test, Izumi-chan." Sansa told her, his voice sounded like he was purring.
Izumi misses when Shiba-san leaves, she's too distracted by trying to pick apart the expression on the cat-persons face, it was hard, but then she realized that much like Tsukauchi-san she really only needed to look in his eyes.
"Alright Izumi-chan, Sansa is going to get some breakfast for us, then he is going to watch you for a bit." Tsukauchi-san tells her, his eyes are soft and worried, but Izumi has no idea why.