CAREER DAY — NANAMI KENTO
↳ Summary: It's your favorite day of the school year, and you've never met Yuji's father... until now.
↳ WC: 4.2k
↳ AN: my submission for @nanamiweek's Day 1 Papamin prompt! I had such a blast writing this one, I've truly missed my favorite blonde. Perhaps this has the makings for a little mini-collection of Nanami, kid Yuji, and teacher shenanigans. ↳ Links: one | TWO | THREE |
You’d been up to your eyeballs in glitter, paper cups, and rocket fuel caffeine since six o’clock sharp.
Not a complaint in sight. You adored Bring Your Parent to School Day almost as much as your students did. There was something endlessly endearing about the way they paraded their grown-ups around the classroom like rare Pokémon cards, puffed up with pride, introducing them to friends as if they'd rolled up in a limousine rather than a Subaru.
“This is my mom!” one girl might yell, face luminous with excitement and star-struck eyes. “She does people’s eyebrows.”
Gasps all around. You would barely be able to keep a straight face.
The professions were almost always lost on your second-graders, their tongues tripping merrily over syllables like “chiropractor” and “esthetician” but it didn’t matter. Their awe wasn’t in the job. It was in the magic of presence. That Mom or Dad had stepped out of the nebulous, grown-up world to sit on tiny plastic chairs and drink juice boxes beside them — it made everything feel a little shinier.
You loved it, honestly. A soft, well-earned reprieve from math drills and shoelace catastrophes. It warmed you from the inside out to see the little duos in action — hands clasped, sneakers swinging under desks, pride glowing from every corner.
Most of the parents you’d met already — familiar faces from conferences and after-school sports games, or quick hellos in the pickup line. The day was as much about touching base with them as it was about stepping into the background and letting the kids run the show.
Except for one unfamiliar face paired to a brand new name.
Yuji Itadori was new this year. A mid-year transfer who had, miraculously, skipped all the usual hurdles and growing pains of social integration. No sulking in the corner, no anxiety-stricken tugs on your sleeve. The boy had walked in, grinned at you with gapped and missing teeth, and within forty-eight hours had more friends than you could count — probably even more than you had yourself.
You hadn’t met his father. Radio silence on that front aside from slips and papers returned signed in neat calligraphy, and one brief, clipped phone call before Yuji’s first day. The mysterious Mr. Nanami remained just that: a mystery.
But Yuji wrote his own mythology.
According to him, his dad was very tall, very strong, very good at math, and — most importantly — the best dad in the world.
You’d seen at least four crayon portraits of the man. A scribbled head of blonde hair. Always in a suit. Always holding Yuji’s hand. One even featured a big spotted paddle (sword?), though Yuji was quick to assure you that it wasn’t real. You’d raised a brow and let it slide. You were used to dads in superhero capes and interpretive renditions of fist-fighting monsters. This wasn’t odd.
When the phone rang that night, you’d answered with the upbeat warmth you always offered new parents — a smile in your voice, ready to build that bridge. But Nanami Kento crossed it first.
His tone was even, no-nonsense. Not unfriendly, but certainly not one for pleasantries or menial small-talk.
He informed you, calmly and concisely, that his family was undergoing a period of adjustment.
That if Yuji struggled — academically, socially, or emotionally — you were to contact him immediately.
He thanked you. Briefly. And ended the call with a curt, “Enjoy the rest of your evening.”
No mention of a mother.
None from Yuji, either.
You’d read between and colored in enough lines in your career to understand that well enough.
And even in the brevity of those clean, clinical lines of his voice, you caught a glimpse of him — this man Yuji so obviously admired. Serious. Sharp. The kind of parent who showed up and cared, even if not always in person.
Still, you hadn’t expected him to show up at all.
Not until his name appeared on the list for Bring Your Parent to School Day.
And certainly not with the kind of presence that would make you double-check the dress you wore that morning.
You’d been welcoming parents for the last twenty-five minutes, and each one brought with them another blur of motion — squeaky sneakers pelting down the linoleum hallway, the slap of a hand against the doorframe, a gleeful shriek of your name. You’d pop your head out with a wide smile, crouching low to greet each student like your own, your voice warm and sunflower-bright.
“Good morning!”
A gentle pat on the back, and off they’d go — nudged toward the long folding table piled high with boxed donuts, pastries, and room temperature juice boxes. You’d done your best to make this morning a special one within your limited means.
The parents made for an even more eclectic bunch than their children. Some arrived in scrubs, others in hard hats, mud-streaked boots trailing across your clean rug (you winced, mentally tabbing another steam-clean rental).
One mother came in juggling mannequin heads. Another brought a stethoscope, which she graciously let the kids try on. And one father — clearly playing for keeps — arrived with a black lab from the fire station in tow. The dog wriggled and basked in the attention of twenty sticky-fingered admirers, tail a blur like an overdriven metronome.
You would definitely have to steam clean the rug.
There was always one family that stole the spotlight, and this year's frontrunner had all but cinched it with four paws and a lolling tongue. That was hardly fair play.
Still, as you subtly ushered parents toward the foam cups and coffee station, you couldn’t help but notice one bright face conspicuously missing. Yuji Itadori wasn’t exactly the type to blend in, and he’d never missed a day of school.
You frowned, glancing up at the wall clock just as the minute hand slipped neatly into place.
8:29.
Right on cue, the hallway outside your classroom erupted.
There was a screech — rubber soles skidding like brakes on blacktop — and then Yuji exploded into the room with the exuberance and subtlety of a category five hurricane, sending art projects fluttering and bulletin boards rattling in his wake. He collided into your legs and wrapped himself around them.
“Told you we were gonna be late!” he howled, already twisting to glare over his shoulder.
You barely had time to ruffle his hair before a second voice — measured, calm, and cut from a different cloth entirely — followed behind.
“And I told you we would be right on time.”
The clock ticked. 8:30 on the dot.
“And we are.”
The crisp click of dress shoes in long, confident strides heralded the arrival of a man you’d heard so much about, even if written in the strokes that belonged in something as fantastical as The Odyssey.
Brown leather shoes shined within an inch of their life, gleaming like mirrors beneath long legs dressed in tailored beige — an unusual suit color, but you decided not an unflattering one. It was immaculate. Pressed. And the faint creases at the elbows and knees were the only lifeline cast to save you from the broad chest and shoulders beneath his jacket, and his face—
What did Yuji say his dad did for work again…?
You couldn’t tell. He came empty-handed without props or costume, only deepening the mystery and leaving you to your own intrigued speculation.
A model, maybe. Editorial spreads. GQ. Gentleman’s Digest, something. It had to be.
You were staring. You were still smiling and you were still staring, and at some point Yuji had un-velcroed himself from your legs and launched into a new tirade, tugging eagerly at his fathers hand.
“I wanna show you my art! And my favorite toys, and all my friends, and—oh! Nanamin, there’s a dog!”
Nanami who’d been looking at you turned to his son and took a knee, and you witnessed a 3-second timelapse of glacial melting in the stern lines of his face. His eyes went soft and his mouth untensed into the suggestion of a smile.
“I’ll look at everything in a moment,” he said, voice gentled for Yuji alone. “May I speak with your teacher first?”
You nodded encouragingly, voice tugging itself back into your throat.
“Why don’t you grab some breakfast real quick, Yuji? Then we’ll get started.”
He peeled away, drawn to the scent of sugar like a moth to flame, and behind your back came the cacophony of reunion as if it had been years and not yesterday since his classmates had seen him last. You smiled as Nanami stood, the gentleness in his expression already evaporated. Not unkind, but compartmentalized.
His warmth was not meant for you. But rather than snubbed, you felt undeniably endeared by such uninhibited paternal adoration.
“You must be Mr. Nanami,” you greeted amicably, a hand already outstretched to grasp his with a welcoming tilt of your head. He met your handshake with a firm grip, and you self-consciously tightened your own. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“All good things, I hope.”
His voice was low — husky with fatigue but smooth enough to suggest that this was just the way he always sounded. He looked tired. Moved like he’d made peace with it. You figured he’d just been designed that way — quiet, composed, and just slightly too serious for a room filled with googly eyes and glitter glue.
“Only the best,” you assured with a smile.
There was a small pause. Not awkward — just considered.
“Thank you,” he said at last. “Yuji speaks about you often. It’s clear he feels safe here.”
It was rare to receive gratitude for your efforts with your students, and rarer still for it to be delivered with such conclusivity. Non-effusive, Nanami’s appreciation was simply a fact, a fact which made it feel all the more sincere in its lack of grandiosity.
Your smile softened. “That means a lot. He’s a great kid, you must be really proud.”
“I am.”
Just like that, it passed — his gaze shifted briefly behind you and his mouth twitched, a convection between an exasperated smile and down-turned fluster, already slipping past you. “Yuji! Wash your hands before eating if you’re going to pet the dog—“ * The morning began in earnest not long after you pressed a conciliatory coffee into Nanami’s hands. Chairs shuffled and screeched into a half-circle and name tags were peeled from their sticker sheets and affixed to breast pockets, labels, scrubs, and sleeves. You ran a quick welcome with your own steaming espresso in hand (god knows you needed it) before handing the floor over to the parents.
Suddenly your second grade classroom was a parade of bladeless scalpels and stethoscopes, a menagerie of machinery and manicure sets. Laughter bloomed bright and uninhibited in the kids as each grown-up took their turn in the spotlight, answering questions as palatably as possible for their innocent audience.
You knew one mother was a cardiovascular surgeon, but in front of the class she simply said, “I help hearts feel better when they’re sick,” folding a model valve between her fingers. The lawyer in the corner — slim briefcase at his feet, a heavy gavel making its rounds like a party favor — told them he made sure “bad guys went to jail.” No mention, of course, of the murder trial he’d wrapped up the week prior.
You encouraged questions, and your students — bless their lack of tact — took you at your word. The shy ones curled against a parent’s leg with owlish eyes, while the bolder kids launched a barrage of increasingly personal inquiries: Has anyone died? Have you ever been to jail? Has your dog ever peed in the fire truck? You did your best to redirect the worst of them, gently steering the conversation away from blood and bladder-related incidents.
And through it all, Nanami watched it unfold. Tucked into one of the red plastic chairs you’d borrowed from the snack table, he looked like he might snap the thing in half just by breathing too hard. His limbs folded into reluctant submission up toward his chest, tragically origamied, the entire chair tilting forward with each shift. He’d finished his coffee by then and now quietly sipped on a comically tiny juice box.
Stone-faced, but not indifferent. His gaze tracked each speaker with judicial interest. And when the air grew too thick with awkward silence after a hesitant finish, it was Nanami who occasionally lifted one long arm to ask a polite question — enough to nudge things back into motion and, you suspected by the nature of some of his questions, simply to satisfy his own curiosity of the subject. You liked him for that.
“Alright…!” You clapped your hands. “Yuji, why don’t you send your dad up here next?”
Yuji’s eyes blew wide, his mouth popping open in an exaggerated ‘O’, then he swung at Nanami’s arm, batting at him and tugging on his sleeves.
“Gogogo!” he whisper-shouted.
Nanami looked up at you and you smiled. You spread your arm wide with a flourishing ‘the floor is yours’ gesture.
Nanami stood, unfolded himself and his ensemble with a smooth brush of his palms over the fabric. He stepped forward to take your place at the front of the room and you happily shifted aside, sitting upon the corner of your desk and crossing your ankles.
From where he stood, a paper caterpillar peered just over the top of his head with big wobbling eyes.
He straightened the cuffs of his jacket and adjusted his tie, pinching the pristine Windsor in his palm and hiking it up to his throat. He scanned the room, meeting eyes, chin down-tilted to examine his under four-foot tall crowd.
“I work in finance,” he began. “Specifically, I manage assets and perform risk assessments on financial portfolios to ensure return on investment, primarily through domestic and international equities.”
A long silence followed. One of the kids in the corner let out a tiny sniffle.
Unperturbed, Nanami pressed on. “What that means is I analyze companies and determine whether it is strategically sound to invest money in their future operations. I also track market fluctuations and perform cost-benefit analysis on various classes of stock.”
You saw it happen in real time — the eyes of your students glazing over like the sticky donuts they’d grubbed from the table. Even a few parents tilted their heads, bewilderment blooming in the stitch of their brows as though suddenly realizing they’d forgotten something on the stove.
One girl leaned sideways to whisper to her mother, “Is he saying math?”
Yuji was practically vibrating in his seat. Elbows on his scuffed knees, chin in both hands, he stared up at his father with the full, undiluted adoration of a boy watching his hero. Nanami could’ve explained the intricacies and importance of counting grains of rice and you were sure Yuji still would’ve looked at him like he’d hung the stars himself.
If Nanami realized his audience was all but lost to him, he didn’t seem to show it. Not when he turned around to face the white board to erase the cheerful doodles of the water cycle drawn by the meteorologist who’d gone before him, nor when he uncapped a black marker and began sketching out a meticulous diagram — boxes and arrows, sloping trend lines in red and blue, neat little yen symbols penned with paradigm precision.
He spoke the whole while, low and steady, detailing the invisible scaffolding that held up the adult world: markets, investments, value over time. He laid out the bones of capitalism, and at points showed his true feelings toward the structure with how he’d slice and jab the marker to make particularly impassioned points. You got the impression this particular machine was one he raged against often.
“And that,” Nanami concluded, recapping the marker and adjusting his tie again, “is the basic structure of my work in a securities firm. Thank you.”
Silence.
Yuji led the charge. Loud, earnest applause that rang out in sharp claps, his face split in a grin wide enough to rival the sun. A few other children joined in, more from peer pressure than understanding, while a mother near the back whispered to another nearby: “God, he’s quite serious, isn’t he?” To which the other nodded, “It’s kind of hot.”
You had to agree.
You clapped along with them, encouraging the display until it naturally died down. “Thank you, Mr. Nanami! That was… incredibly thorough!” You beamed, he looked at you sideways. “Does anyone have any questions for Mr. Nanami?”
You hadn’t expected a single hand to raise… except maybe Yuji. But he instead whirled around in his seat, pleading with wide brown eyes and a trembling lip for any excuse to keep his dad at the center of attention. Because really, what would a bunch of second graders want to know about stock exchange or insider trading? But to your delight, one by one, tiny hands shot up like spring sprouts.
Nanami, too, looked taken aback. He gestured to a boy in the second row.
“Do you have a dog?”
Nanami blinked. “… No.”
There was a ripple of dissatisfaction at that. You saw him shift his weight to the opposite leg as he called on a young girl.
“Are you rich?”
“Depends on how you define it,” he said.
“Do you go to the gym?”
“… Yes.”
“Ohhh,” someone whispered, followed by a murmur of approval as if this, at last, was finally relevant information.
Then the questions poured in:
“Can you lift a car?”
“Do you fight robbers?”
“What’s the strongest thing you’ve ever punched?”
“Can you fight my dad?”
Nanami blinked once. You watched him recalibrate his entire moral framework in real time.
“I don’t make a habit of fighting people’s fathers,” he said.
“But could you?”
That made the corners of his mouth twitch — enough that you could tell he was debating the ethics of indulging a six-year-old’s thirst for chaos.
“I suppose if your father were endangering others, and all other options had been exhausted—”
Helpfully, Yuji shouted: “He could! I know he could!”
You saw that boys father shrink in the back, a sickly sallow overtaking his face. He clearly didn’t fancy his odds.
Nanami glanced at you like he was seeking diplomatic extraction. You gave him a bright, innocent smile and shrugged your shoulders. He should’ve predicted this larger than life reputation set forth by his son with that statistical brain of his.
“They’re very engaged,” you whispered, and he gave you a look that could only be described as deeply disappointed.
Mercifully, after three more questions about whether he could punch through a wall, you finally stepped in with a laugh, clapping your hands to wrangle the brewing chaos. “Okay, okay! Let’s all thank Mr. Nanami for visiting and giving us a peek into his very responsible, very serious job.”
The children groaned their disappointment, already half-convinced he must moonlight as a superhero, but they still chorused their thanks with sticky-fingered enthusiasm. By the end, there was a suspicious sparkle in Nanami’s eye that made you think he may have liked the attention more than he let on. * By the time the final parent wrapped up and the dismissal bell rang, your kids and their short attention spans had all but forgotten about Nanami standing in the back of the room, arms crossed against a tall cabinet, clearly having forsaken his small seat.
You dismissed your class one by one, sent off with folders tucked, backpacks zipped, and final reminders about homework and forgotten lunch boxes as small groups filtered out of the door. The glitter remained in every corner of the room, as did the smell of bleach and acetone from an unfortunate and entirely predictable accident with the fire dog.
Yuji bounced over to collect his things, tugging at his fathers sleeve as they turned to go.
“You forgot to tell them about the time you beat that cursed—“
Nanami coughed. “—Budget shortfall,” he said, the words surgically clipped in two.
Yuji frowned. “That’s not what I was gonna—“
“Cursed budget shortfalls,” Nanami repeated. “They can be quite aggressive.”
Yuji pulled a face, eyes narrowed suspiciously and scampered off to barter holographic stickers by the cubbies. A friend had gotten a shiny tiger, which was decidedly much cooler than his dinosaur.
Nanami hovered by the door a respectful distance from you, his gaze drifting across the emptying classroom. A couple of rogue pencils lay belly-up beneath desks. Someone had left their water bottle weeping onto the reading rug. There was a half eaten donut hooked over the pot of your plant on the windowsill. It seemed he was just as interested in where his son spends his day as the students were in where the adults usually spent theirs.
You watched him quietly. There was something about Nanami Kento that drew you — nothing overt, not even that he had a nice face. But there was something so… artificial about his authenticity. He presented himself as a boring man, dressed in boring colors, with a boring job, and had a voice that could probably put you to sleep. The type that probably ate oatmeal for breakfast every day, and bland conbini meals on the train home every evening. It’s like he was trying to be unassuming, to snag no second-glances.
Frankly, you thought that it was bullshit.
Your intuition was sharp. You knew when your students stole from each other, and could sniff out the culprit in record time. You knew when the dog had actually eaten someone's homework, or if they’d just forgotten it at home. There was something more to Nanami, and you would’ve picked at that thread if you had more time to do so… but curiosity would not kill the cat today.
But there would be other days.
“Thank you for coming,” you said instead, a sly smile in the Cheshire curl of your lip. “You made quite the impression.” Maybe more on you than on the kids.
“I’m not sure that’s a compliment,” Nanami said.
“Oh it is,” you beamed, gesturing to the boardroom-esque diagram still drawn on the whiteboard. “I think I may be teaching the next generation of stock brokers and market analysts here.”
Nanami grimaced, turning his shoulder away to scrub a hand over his face. “It was a cautionary tale,” he tsked. “They should find something that’s worth doing. Like meteorology. Or baking. Anything but office work. Teaching is a much more rewarding and worthwhile occupation.”
There it was. The little glint of something more. A cautionary tale of slipping into monotony and tedium, suffering a daily slog with no end in sight, a mere cog in a machine that nobody would notice if it suddenly broke off the belt. Your students would notice your absence. Their parents too, if only because of the inconvenience. But who would notice Nanami, one man in a suit standing on a train full of other men in suits?
“Well… it made Yuji’s day,” you suggested, softened — not sharp — with conviction. “In fact, he’s going to talk about this until summer break, I can already tell.”
A preternatural stillness took the business-casual mannequin as he looked over at his son — all spiky pink hair, too-big puffer jacket, trading up his stickers with enough business savvy to make Nanami proud.
Eventually he sighed, heavy like he’d been holding it in all day as he adjusted the strap of his watch. “He mentions you at home,” he said again.
You smiled, no less warmed by the repetition than you were the first time.
“He’s a pleasure to have in class, honestly. I’m really amazed by how well he settled, most kids struggle to acclimate but…” you watched as Yuji hopped in a circle, one shoe on as he wrestled with the other. “Not him!”
Nanami gave a small nod, his gaze still fixed outward but you reckoned his attention was much closer.
“Apparently you give out gummy stars.”
“… Only for exceptional behavior,” you said with a wide grin. “Or sometimes for being unusually charming.”
That got you a glance — dry, inscrutable.
“Then I imagine he’s amassed quite the hoard… and I have you to blame for the frequent sugar highs.”
You weren’t not flirting with him. Subtle enough to fly over his head if he chose not to acknowledge it, and you had no intention of pushing your luck much further. It was a small miracle you’d met the man behind the mythos at all. But you couldn’t resist a final parting shot.
You turned and stood on your toes, reaching for a wicker basket stashed high on a shelf, rifling through crinkly cellophane wrappers to procure one such gummy star. You held out your hand — and found yourself pleasantly surprised when Nanami reached out to accept it.
“For exceptional behavior,” you declared. Or for being unusually charming.
He regarded the gummy with an expression you couldn’t read, his mouth a neutral set frown that you’d noticed seemed to just be his default expression. He didn’t speak, not until his fingers creaked closed around the treat and retreated into his pocket.
A win, you think. One glittering, citrus-sugar coated win.
“Thank you.”
You merely smiled, gracefully bowing out of the tentative curiosity you’d cast in his direction, just in time for Yuji to veer back towards you both.
You said your goodbyes and your “see you next week”s, then with one hand swinging Yuji’s backpack and the other resting steadily atop his head, the last of your stragglers stepped out into the sunny hallway.
You watched them go.
The gummy star was still in Nanami’s pocket.
And you were still smiling like a fool.
