You first met Yukichi at first-grade orientation when the colorful classroom smelt liked the coffee the teacher had prepared for all the parents, laminated paper, and crayons. It wasn't particularly thrilling, but it was the start of one of your kid's first school years ever, so it was special nonetheless. You and him, sat in the same row in the back of the class as the teacher spoke to the kids.

His child resembled him distinctly. Same exact face, just chubbier, rosier cheeks, and same exact hair color. Same polite air as him. And your child? Looked just like you. Literally looked the way you did when you were a child. You and Yukichi didn't know it: maybe it was the same cubby row, the same love for obscure animal facts, your kids clicked immediately. Or maybe fate just liked to play matchmaker in the weirdest ways.

As parents, you two acquainted slowly. Short nods turned into waves during morning drop-offs, smiling at each other during class events where you both just happened to volunteer at, small talk outside the gates before pickup time. There was a gentle cadence to it. Friends, just how your baby and his were.

He didn't pry into your life, didn't get personal as you did the same for him. Though, you had both heard rumors. Somehow. Other parents talk. He's widowed, raises his kid alone, barely dated before the mother of his child. He had heard that the father of yours had left early on.

Navigating through parenthood alone wasn't easy. It was chaotic, it was soft, it was loud, loving, all at once. Balancing personal work, the house, and of course your child was difficult to coordinate every now and then, but knowing your child was so close to another whose parent was basically just like you put you at ease.

Your child never asked about their father, not really. You had explained his absence, just once, and they just took it from there. Didn't ask further questions, only the occasional mention or request for a possible phone call. Just like Yukichi's never asked about their mother. The unspoken silences between questions filled the space easily enough.

After all, there was so much else to focus on. Book fairs, class plays, holiday events, field trips where you and Yukichi chaperoned on (of course), and project shopping. Project shopping for something specific: the family tree project.

Innocent on paper. Construction paper with your child's surprisingly readable My Family at the top of their paper, glue, stickers, fun colors, drawings, glitter and all. Harmless. Until you took an extra long glance at your kid's project, at the My Parents section to be exact. There was you, of course, and you should've expected your child to draw their absent father anyway. But no. A drawing that looked like Yukichi took that place instead.

Apparently, his kid had done the same to you as Yukichi had expected for that spot to be blank, or for there to also be a photo of his late wife. The day the project was due, he had looked over his kid's project and there you were. There was no other woman that drawing could've possibly been.

The kid's logic was simple and devastatingly childlike, yours being along the lines of: "Well you guys are together all the time. And he fixed my paper lantern and walks me to you when I get lost, so he's kind of like a dad, right?" and his kid's being: "She makes good cookies so she's like a mom."

The next day, at pickup, you ran into him by the gates. He was holding his kid's version of the family tree project, the parent portion nearly identical, holding hands under the sun with sunglasses. Except the crayon depiction of you had longer eyelashes.

He looked down at the paper for a long moment, then up at you with something you hope isn't with the intent of embarrassing you. "They seemed to have decided for us, haven't they?" He murmured, holding the project up to you. "Well. I suppose it would be rude to argue with the artist's vision."