Ken returned not long after the trio had finished their discussion. He took a seat at the table which was now filled with various dishes cooked by his mother and Naomi.
"Itadakimasu."
Ken dug into the food, appreciating the home cooked meal. Around 30 minutes later, everyone had finished eating while Yuki and Naomi retreated to the kitchen to clean up.
"Daichi, Rohan… I need you guys to start looking for another place to stay. Once the twins get here, this house will become too cramped." Ken announced, his expression impassive.
"PFFT."
Daichi stifled his laugh briefly, but quickly broke out into a snicker.
"Hmm?" Ken looked at his brother who seemed to have lost his mind after being told to get out of his house. But it wasn't just him that was reacting weird, his father had his face in his hand, facepalming.
"A big softy huh?" Daichi said after a while, speaking to Chris across from him.
"Alright, what's happening here?" Ken asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Dad just told us we need to find a place soon since you would be too soft to kick us out," Daichi replied, his amusement evident.
Ken finally understood what was funny and couldn't help but chuckle dryly, "I might be a softy, but not when it comes to my kids." He explained, "Sometimes as a father, you need to make tough decisions, right Dad?"
Ken's gaze turned to his father, the man who had held up the family this long. His gaze was filled with appreciation and recognition of all the sacrifices that his father had made for their family his whole life.
Taking Daichi into the family despite the financial burden. Taking a higher paying job even when it meant he would have to travel away from his family for months at a time.
Not to mention the biggest burden he carried, something that Ken had never mentioned, nor would he in this life. It was not light, though he had managed to escape any repercussions thus far.
He was of course talking about the disappearance of Tetsuhiro Suzuki, the Ex CEO of Suzuki Corporation.
Chris seemed taken aback for a moment before his expression relaxed, a small smile creeping onto his lips, "You're right son. The first step to being a good father is being able to make the tough decisions and identifying what's best for your family."
Ken nodded along, accepting his wise words of wisdom.
"Wait, Rohan… Aren't you poor?" Ken asked, his voice silencing any discussions.
"Huh?"
"Oh sorry, I meant you haven't got your new contract yet right? Did you need us to find you somewhere for a few months before you get the new contract?" Ken clarified.
Rohan blinked a few times, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. While he appreciated the concern, being called poor in front of the family made him feel quite embarrassed.
"It's alright, we found a place down the street, Rohan can stay with us until he gets paid." Daichi said, placing a hand upon Rohan's shoulder beside him.
"Oh that's great." Ken said succinctly.
The atmosphere turned less tense afterwards and the conversation soon turned to baseball, as it often did.
"So are you guys confident with finishing the series tomorrow night?" Chris asked, taking a sip of water.
"Somewhat." Ken was the first to answer. Of course he intended on blowing out the game tomorrow, but in reality he would be fighting against Ryan Smith, the person who had been his unofficial rival all these years.
Though they took different paths, they had arrived at the same destination. It was almost like fate.
"If they don't walk me, we'll win easy." Daichi said, his expression not changing.
"I'm not sure about that…" Ken replied with a chuckle, "You know Ryan is pitching tomorrow right?"
"Doesn't matter," Daichi quipped, "I've analyzed Ryan's pitches ever since my injury, as long as its somewhere in the strike zone, I'll hit it."
"Love the confidence little bro." Ken responded, choosing to keep his words to himself. While Daichi was probably acting a little overconfident, there was no point in bringing him down when the game was tomorrow.
If it was as he said and Daichi had been analyzing Ryan's pitches for the past week, it was definitely possible that he could catch the guy off guard. All they needed to do was get a single run on the board.
'With me pitching, they'll struggle to get runs…' Ken thought to himself, 'As long as we get a single run, we'll win, just like game 1.'
Of course Ken wasn't so naive to think that Ryan wouldn't have made any changes. This was probably a reason why he didn't pitch in game 4, because they wanted to save Ryan for the final game in case they couldn't close it out.
"Don't count yourself out either Ken, I saw how you were hitting the ball tonight, its like you're a changed man." Chris added, sounding impressed.
"Hehe, well… I have been practicing hard lately." Ken said, acting a little embarrassed.
"Practicing hard napping…" Daichi mumbled.
"Hmm? What was that little bro?" Ken who had clearly heard him, sent him a stiff smile.
"Nothing…"
"Rest and recovery is an important part of training, Daichi. How many times do I need to tell you this?" Miho put her 2 cents in from a sports nutritionist point of view.
"Yes honey…" Daichi replied.
Clearly this had been a talking point for a while.
Ken laughed much harder than he expected. Seeing his brother getting cowed easily by a woman was satisfactory in itself.
At least that was until his own wife spoke up.
"Don't you start, besides these past two weeks I don't think you've taken a proper break ever since I've known you." Ai said, pinching him on the arm. "Once the babies are here, you need to take a long break okay?"
"Yes honey…"
Everyone in the room laughed at this, even Yuki and Naomi who were busy in the kitchen.