Page 23 of Bad Daddy

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It was only when he was stumbling through his front door at two in the morning that Danny remembered he was supposed to text Haru. He was freezing from just the walk from the car to his building, exhausted from the day, and sore. All of him ached, and he knew he’d have fresh bruises in the morning, even though Clint still wasn't supposed to leave any.

But he’d promised Haru, and Danny hated breaking promises. So even as he told himself it was stupid for texting two hours after midnight, he did it. At least Haru would get the text in the morning and know Danny had tried.

He limped into the shower and nearly fell asleep under the spray, managed to towel himself off and brush his teeth, then fell into bed.

He fumbled for his phone to plug it in to charge overnight and realized, breath stuttering, that he’d gotten a voice message. From Haru.

He pushed the button to play the message out loud, allowing his eyes to slide shut while he listened to it.

He drifted off to Haru’s voice saying, “I’m glad to hear you got home safe. Sleep well.”

Chapter 6

Danny dragged himself out of bed when his alarm went off, glaring when he saw the fresh bruises on his wrists and on his neck. He was once again grateful it was winter and that he had the excuse for long sleeves and high collars. He wasn’t sure what he’d do once the weather got nice again.

Just thinking about three or four more months with Clint had bile rising in his throat, and he shoved those thoughts away. He had to take things day by day, just keep putting one foot in front of the other. That was how he’d always survived.

He grabbed his backpack and a granola bar for the road, then headed out to the library. It was even colder today, and Clint’s coat was practically useless, so Danny was glad that he had opted to layer heavily. He was looking forward to getting his warm coat back from Haru.

Even if he wasn't looking forward to seeing Haru, exactly.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see Haru again, because he did. He owed the man a lot, and aside from Danny wanting to apologize again, he…liked Haru. It wasn’t just that Haru was nice to him, it was the way he was nice. How he continually thought of Danny’s preferences when treating Danny to food, or how bright his smile got whenever Danny went along with Haru’s slightly quirky sense of humor. It was the way he asked questions about Danny that made it seem like Haru was genuinely interested, like Danny was a person worth his interest. Danny just liked—he liked spending time with him.

But Danny had also been a supreme mess yesterday. He wasn’t sure he wanted to face Haru down, the man must be thinking the worst of Danny’s poor behavior.

Lily provided a welcome distraction. She was already there when Danny showed up, even though he was definitely on time this week, and she was vibrating with some kind of energy.

Danny asked if everything was okay, and got a deluge of resources for dyslexic-friendly learning.

“This too,” Lily said twenty minutes into the onslaught, while Danny blearily tried to keep up. She held up what looked like a large phone.

“What is it?” Danny asked, tentatively taking it.

“It’s a note-taker,” Lily said brightly. “Jacob invented it. There’s a little stylus that pops out the side–see? And you write down your notes like you would write on paper, and it detects your handwriting to convert it into text. It also integrates with an online database that tracks common misspellings and letter flipping and has machine learning capability so it can auto correct typos as it learns your handwriting. It also can run all your notes through a text-to-speech function, which lets it recite everything out loud.”

Danny stared down at the little rectangle. “So you just… you just have to write the notes down once?”

“Yeah! And then it’ll organize it all for you. It takes dictation too, so you can just speak to it and it’ll take the notes for you, and it responds to vocal commands and will search or cross-reference if you ask it to, so it’s easier to find the information. And it can wirelessly connect to printers. Jacob finds it way more intuitive than trying to use a keyboard. But I guess that depends on how you take notes and stuff.”

“Wow.” Danny didn't have to pretend to be impressed. “That’s really amazing.”

“Right? I’m mad I didn’t come up with it myself.”

Danny tried to smile, since he knew Lily meant well. “Thanks for showing me,” he said, and offered it back.

Lily frowned at him, holding up her hands. “Uh, no? That’s for you.”

Danny blanched. “What? I can’t take this.”

“Yeah you can,” Lily said matter-of-factly. “My brother literally invented it. I can give ‘em to anyone I want.”

“But…” Danny couldn't even imagine how much this thing had to cost.

Lily stuck out her lip. “Do you know how badly Jacob wants to meet you? Haru raved all about how smart you are, and Haru doesn’t impress easily. Jacob’s dying to shove tech into your hands and make all your teachers suck it.”

“I–” Danny didn't have a response to that. Haru had told other people that he thought Danny was smart? “Thank you?”

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