Starstruckwinnerpeanutscissors - Well...

Romantic Sebby ♥️

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Ran x you

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ANTECEDENT ┊ TODOROKI TOUYA

synopsis: following Touya’s arrest you try to navigate the world as it is flipped on its head. torn between your loyalty to him and what’s best for your son, new family is formed and hope is found.

tags: AFAB reader (referred to as ‘mama’), established (kinda toxic) relationship, canon divergence: secret family au (post arrest), spoilers for touya backstory and chapters 349 onwards, hurt/comfort, original child character (‘Kaiyo’; he is your shared biological child), parent todoroki touya, mentions of canon attempted suicide and canon child abuse, themes of generational trauma, family feels, todoroki family centric, villain rehabilitation, dealing with trauma and recovery, second chances

wc: 16k+

You shouldn’t have come. 

There are crowds of press, packed so tightly that getting any closer would be futile, all of them a cacophony of questions and accusations. You’re standing atop a small brick wall encasing a flower bed of hyacinths outside of the hospital, a head above the sea of cameras, watching as a group of heroes — Endeavor and Shouto included — slowly lead Touya towards an armoured van. 

Relief floods through your system for a few precious seconds, overwhelming the hopelessness in your stomach. He was alive. 

One little rumour from a patient in your clinic, an unsure whisper of I heard they’re moving that Dabi kid from the ICU to villain corrections had led you here. It’d been two long, devastating weeks since the final battle. Two weeks with no word from him, two weeks of reading every article you could find about the ‘elusive first son of Endeavor’ and learning nothing. 

The media blackout that came thereafter was the only thing that kept you hoping that he was okay. The Todoroki family, though disastrous and complicated, held some influence in Japan. And though Touya would vehemently try to reject it, they could not allow their surviving first son to be fed to the wolves. 

And wolves they were; yelling obscenities and insults with spitting anger. Legal justice was one thing, but the court of public opinion was another thing in its entirety, a fragile and fickle thing that held the power to sway even government policy. 

Kaiyo stirs in your arms at the noise and you soothe him, rubbing your hand along his back until he quietens, then you tuck away the stray red hair that has fallen loose from beneath his hat. Truthfully you never intended to bring him here, but given recent events it has been hard for him to separate from you, cheeks still slightly pink from his earlier tantrum. 

It’d been damn near impossible to prevent the four year old from learning about the broadcast a few months prior, paired with the sudden less than frequent visits from his father, he knew something was deeply wrong and he didn’t understand it. 

Touya is scanning the crowds lazily, expression impassive to everyone but you. You could see he was exhausted, more gaunt than you last remember, but his disinterest only fed into everyone’s fury. 

“Villain!” they’re bellowing at him, fingers pointed and words sharp, “don’t you care about the suffering you’ve caused?” 

He cares, you think, more than anyone could ever understand. 

You cannot look away as Shouto lingers by his brother, the other sidekicks giving them a wide berth. Endeavor is tucked away beside the van speaking with an armed officer, his shoulders hunched forwards in an uncharacteristic manner. He appeared to be ashamed. 

Good, the thought bitter and weighing heavily in your chest. 

Touya shuffles along obediently, wrists out and pressed together against his pelvis. Quirk suppressing cuffs, you assumed. They were bulky, and no doubt uncomfortable. You hold Kaiyo a little closer as you ache, distantly wondering if he’s cold without his quirk. 

After today it was entirely possible you’d never see him again, that your son would grow up without his father.

Nobody knew of your connection to him, something both of you doubled down on after your pregnancy came to light. There would be no way for you to visit or contact him now without suspicion being cast upon your little family. Law enforcement will without a doubt assume you were aware of his intentions, and worst case they would believe you to have played a part in them yourself. 

He couldn’t allow that to happen. And yet, here you were. 

You just needed one last look at him to know he was breathing, living flesh and blood, to know that the only thing you would have to mourn was your relationship. More than anything you needed him to be ok. And he does look different – better, in some ways. The new skin grafts hug his jawbone comfortably, and the rings that once kept him together are gone. 

Being alive meant he still had a chance. 

Touya tilts his chin up, squinting against the flare of the sun, and the corner of his mouth crooks into a smile. It’s the irony, you think, as your own lips twitch. The heavens should have opened by now, rain should be soaking your clothes to your skin, influenced by the utter misery flooding throughout your body. Instead, the day is bright.

As if he can feel it, he turns, and his gaze immediately falls on your figure in the distance. You’re close enough to see the abject fury flit across his features, eyes wide and unblinking as they stare back into your own. 

The hand you have rested against Kaiyo’s back slides up over his hat to cradle his head, his small fingers curled tightly into the fabric of your shirt, drawing Touya’s attention to the boy. 

To his son. 

The anger dissolves like sea foam, it washes away to give space for his grief. This was it, the final goodbye. You couldn’t find it in yourself to hate him for his choices, because it was something he had told you he’d do from the start. 

In hindsight, you can only curse your naivety. 

You’d met Touya a few months after your eighteenth birthday while shadowing one of the senior nurses in the clinic. The place was small, run down and barely funded, but it was valuable work and they were kind enough to give you the extra experience.

He’d been brought in unconscious by a concerned passerby. The skin of his arms has been rough, raised and pale pink, inflamed where they’d been burnt. Barely nineteen at the time, it was nothing compared to what he would do to himself years later. 

“Watch him until he wakes up,” they’d told you, and you did so dutifully until his eyes flew open in alarm. 

Back then his identity as Dabi was makeshift, fresh and unrefined. With the glue still wet between the cracks it was unsurprising that he would slip. Touya. That was how he introduced himself to you on that first day, under the hazy influence of painkillers.

The memory stuck with you throughout your relationship. You’d see it now and then — you’d see Touya plainly behind the veil. Sometimes you said his name as if it was a dare, and he’d hated it so much that he loved you. With you there was no need to exert effort in maintaining his bravado, he could just be. And that was dangerous, or so he’d insisted.

He would disappear for weeks at a time. He always had a myriad of excuses, from expressing concern for your safety to spitting that you were nothing but a good fuck. You could no longer count on one hand the amount of times you’d heard the ‘I’m a villain, you shouldn’t be with me’ speech. 

Touya would leave, and yet you’d still come home to a receipt on the counter, or to your clean sheets unmade. It was laughable, and you loved him. 

The pregnancy was… unexpected. Difficult. If his emotions were a switch on the wall, your growing baby was a finger flicking it up and down incessantly. Mornings full of nausea and nights full of reassurance. You offered him an out, a door that would always be left open, and he refused it. 

Stay and be a bad father. Leave and be a bad father. Those were the only options he thought existed for him. And maybe you should’ve believed him when he told you Kaiyo’s birth wouldn’t change a thing about the path he’d set for himself. 

But you couldn’t accept it. Not as he’d held your boy in his arms, not as the apprehension and fear in his eyes softened into love. Not as he’d laughed and told you, “guess I needed to give one good thing to the world before I die”. 

Sometimes the adoration would become overcast with anguish. There were days he couldn’t even look at Kaiyo because of how much he loved him, reminded only of how little he had been loved by his own family — but he never let Kaiyo see it. 

“Just because he’s too young to understand now doesn’t mean he won’t later”.

The only small mercy is that your son remains asleep, blissfully unaware of what he is losing, and unperturbed by the noise around him. His light, shallow breaths against the skin of your neck are a warm comfort. 

Touya can’t say anything for fear it will draw attention to you both, and you think that alone is punishment enough. 

Shouto stands beside him in silence, surveying the surroundings and eventually following Touya’s line of sight to you. Instinctively you step backwards into the soft soil of the flowerbed, your thoughts offering an apology to the hyacinth flattened beneath your shoe. 

With the realisation that his youngest brother has noticed you, Touya turns and lunges in Shouto’s direction with his teeth bared. It could almost be comical if not for the unpleasant murmurings of the crowd. In the short moment that Shouto is distracted, you jump down from the brick wall and slip away. 

You don’t look back. 

A small part of you had hoped your role in the story had ended, that you now might just move forward as best you can. Instead, you were shadowed by an overwhelming sense of dread everywhere you went. There was little to do besides work and walk, yet you couldn’t help but feel watched. The cashier at your local market, your neighbour, Kaiyo’s teacher, the food vendor on the corner; with just one look you can’t help but to think that they must know, that any day now this false peace will collapse onto you like a tonne of bricks. 

The anxiety keeps you up at night, counting the glowing stars stuck to the bedroom ceiling to pass the hours, tension threading itself into your muscle fibres. Kaiyo was warm where he laid curled at your side, but the loneliness — in all its violent emptiness — made the night colder. Despite it all, you missed Touya, your eyes still searching for him across the futon. 

Remnants of him are still scattered throughout the apartment. Should anyone come looking, there would be plenty of him to find. He’d hated having his picture taken, yet always gave in to you quickly, and you never needed to ask him for anything twice. There were photographs of his lips pressed to your hair, of his smile tucked against your neck, of his arms holding the baby; hand cradled around the crown of his head, his purpled scars a stark contrast to Kaiyo’s soft skin. 

He had treated fatherhood like he was a dying man, a clear red flag that you can only now see with hindsight. He had spoiled the two of you with his time and effort, no matter how uncomfortable it made him, because he knew any day might be his last. Touya was born with inherited wounds that were left to fester. To him, his failure was terminal, and no amount of love would undo that. 

The wood panels are cool beneath the soles of your feet as you pad your way through to the bedroom, bending at your knees to pick up stray toys and socks left throughout the hallway. There’s still an ache in your cheeks, the strain of smiling too long through all the tears and questions from your son that morning before school. You wish you had answers. 

Your shared room looks much emptier with the large futon hung over the balcony to dry. You find a small star in the centre of the room that has fallen from the ceiling. Held between your fingers in the daylight it is dull, a pale yellow, much different to the green glow it emits at night. Touya had bought them for Kaiyo after a series of bad dreams, lifting the boy onto his shoulders and letting him stick them wherever he pleased. 

Another piece of him. As you are slipping the star into your pant pocket, you hear a knock on the front door. You weren’t expecting anyone — rent had been paid, Kaiyo was with his sitter and your neighbours were at work. It sounds again, reverberating throughout the apartment, and the soft hair on your arm lifts in anticipation. 

There is a sense of embarrassment somewhere within you as you creep towards the entryway, keeping your body low and your steps light. You can hear muted, muffled voices through the cheap wood, fingertips carefully lifting the peep hole cover to look through. 

You hold your breath, stunned. There are two women just an arms length from you, both of them beautiful and horrifyingly familiar to you. Rei, Touya’s mother, stands with her head held high despite the nervous fiddling of her hands. Fuyumi, his sister, is clasping the strap of her shoulder bag with a white knuckled grip. 

“Mother, are you sure this is the place?” she asks, her eyes darting anxiously over the surroundings, “maybe Shouto made the wrong assumption”.

Rei is lovely, you think, even with the air of sadness  Her smile is gentle, and her expression softly determined. “The worst outcome to this is that he misunderstood the situation,” she replies, “but if this person is important to Touya then they’re important to me”. 

Fuyumi nods, shifting her weight between each foot. You inhale shakily through your nose, blinking back the dryness in your eye as you continue to watch through the lense. 

“He said… there was a child”. 

Your forehead bumps against the door as you startle, cursing under your breath, lungs tightening as the dread floods your system. The two women freeze alongside you, observing the door cautiously, glancing at one another in silent conversation. 

“If you’re there, we aren’t here to hurt you,” Rei lifts her hand, and rests it against the door in a show of reassurance, “I believe you know my eldest son. We only want to talk”. 

The push and pull of guilt, relief and fear forces the weight of your body to sink forward, drawn to the sincerity in her voice. There is no amount of time or distance that would dilute the loyalty you felt towards Touya. Letting them in would be a betrayal. 

“Please,” Fuyumi’s voice is wet, thickening with tears, “he’s my older brother. He’s refusing to talk about you or— or anything! We just want to—”

Rei turns to soothe her, and you’re reminded of your own parenthood. If something ever happened to Kaiyo you might just scorch the earth in your attempts to find him. It’s hard to swallow the swell in your throat as you watch his sister turn into the touch, seeking that comfort. 

Touya had loved his mother, a difficult thing for him to stomach but true all the same. He’d grieved the attention he never received from her, but you knew he didn’t blame her, and it is that which leads your hand to the door handle. 

Time feels like it’s in suspension. To see them standing so clearly before you without the film of dirt from the glass is still a shock to process. Behind you is a home filled to the brim with evidence of your own criminal involvement, the first photograph they’ll see hung in the hallway is of their grandson.

Kaiyo deserved his chance at having a family. 

“Please come in,” your fingers are trembling where they sit in your pocket, curled around the divots in the star. Please forgive me, you think. 

You step backwards to allow them through, both accepting with a short bow and a quiet thank you. It’s unnerving and tense, their stares lingering along the walls and shelves, the mother and daughter now hand in hand as they take a seat on your couch. 

“Would…” a blunt point of the star sinks into the thickest part of your palm, the sensation acting as your tether, “…can I get you anything to drink?” 

“Some tea would be wonderful,” Rei concedes, her voice full of earnest and so light it’s almost wistful. As you steep the leaves you can’t help but get the feeling she knew you needed more time.

The ceramic cups are old, stained with time and well loved. You fill them with hot water, tendrils of steam billowing warmth across your face, and place them atop the coffee table before kneeling onto the floor. 

Beneath your mug is a clumsily drawn cat, the marker permanently stained into the wood. There are others, too, little marks left by mistake. Faint lines of kanji where the ink had seeped through the paper, hearts and stick figures and stars. Rei reaches her hand out to trace a finger along them, lips pressed thinly in a sad smile. 

“I apologise for our unexpected intrusion,” she tells you, “I’m Himura Rei and this is my daughter, Todoroki Fuyumi".

“Believe it or not I’ve been waiting for someone to find us,” your hands wrap tightly around the hot cup, incognisant of the sting to your skin, “it was beginning to eat away at me a little bit”.

“Then Shouto was right,” Fuyumi mirrors you, keeping her voice soothing and calm as she speaks even as her eyes are tearful. You recall Touya telling you she was a teacher, and you can see why. 

“You did know him,” she says, “it looks like he spent… a lot of time here”.

You hear yourself laugh breathlessly at her tiptoeing of the subject, “he practically lived here until he decided to join the league. After that he stayed away for our safety, I suppose”. 

She nods, seeming to accept your answer, glancing then to her mother in a silent plea for assistance. “Could you tell us what he was like?” there’s a mellow, apologetic tone in Rei’s words, but to whom she was apologising you didn’t know.

“Could you tell us all the things we missed?”

So you sip your drink to smooth the dryness in your throat and it’s scalding against the roof of your tongue, and you tell them everything you know. 

After your first meeting you’d thought about him every day for a week, haunted by the intensity in his eyes and the marks on his skin. You had talked and talked and he had done nothing but listen. While you thought you'd never see him again it wasn’t long at all until he came back to your dingy clinic, this time of his own accord, in need of painkillers and suturing. 

He’d gone straight to you, rudely bypassing the doctors with any qualification in the ward, and shoved some money into the palm of your hand. He was still young, his attempts at carrying himself like a man seemed more like puppetry to you, but even so you entertained it and attended to his wounds. 

“Since I’m still not fully trained you’ll need to sign this”. You remember holding out the clipboard to him, your supervisor lingering by the curtains, the impatient tap of her foot echoing in your ears. 

“Touya—” 

Back then his aversion to hearing that name was much greater. Every time it’d passed through your lips was as if you had pressed your thumb on a fresh bruise, and he’d lash out in kind. 

“Don’t call me that here!” 

“Why? Are you running from something?” 

He’d laughed at you with eyes that glittered like he was about to cry, but the tears never came, they never could. “Running implies that someone is looking for me,” his skin pulled uncomfortably taut as he smiled, “there’s no one to run from”.

“He dyed his hair black soon after that,” the mug held between your trembling hands grows cold, your tea mostly untouched and leaving a faint brown ring around the ceramic, “sometimes he would visit me all soaked with rain, and the colour would run down the back of his neck”. 

You pause every so often to offer them a chance to ask questions, but the two women remain quiet, listening raptly to your story. Their genuine trust and willingness to believe you bore a sense of unease, or perhaps guilt that you’d had him to yourself while they’d been in mourning. 

“Then things eventually progressed to… more,” even with the air of melancholy, you couldn’t help but take refuge in the normalcy of being timid around your partner's family, sheepish as you recount your relationship. 

“Did you love him?” Rei asks, and though not unkind, her question makes you feel unspeakably lonely. 

Loving Touya had felt nothing like a free fall, there was no moment in which you woke up and realised your feelings. It’d been no great feat to love him, no grand prize or climax at the end of a long battle; you saw all the worst parts of him and it didn’t change a thing. Even with all his flaws your feelings only deepened until they hollowed you out. 

Despite it all, you had walked into it knowingly, each step forward towards him a purposeful choice. 

You have only your own hunger to thank. Your eighteen year old self had been fiercely persistent, and however much he denied it, you knew he was drawn to your sympathy. Even though he was never entirely honest you pursued him with the small truths he did offer, motivated by the selfish wish to see him happy. 

“Yes,” in sickness and violence, in struggle and fear; you’d loved him through holidays and birthdays, through time spent apart and nights spent alone, “I love him”. 

“And the little boy, is he your son?”

Kaiyo. An unexpected yet happy accident. Named after forgiveness and the spitting image of his father, a red haired cherub, you both already knew the answer. “You can say it, Ms. Himura,” your smile strained as you run your thumb along the handle of your mug, “he’s our son. Mine and his”. 

Fuyumi exhales shakily, slumping forward like the fight left her body along with it. You can see the moment your confession truly registers, misty eyed and sparing a glance between one another. Turning on your knees, you reach into the shelves of the TV cabinet, grasping the framed photo of your son as an infant. 

Rei takes it from you delicately as you offer it to her with an outstretched hand and traces her fingers across the glass pane, circling the swell of Kaiyo’s pink cheek. It’s a personal favourite of yours — his arms are held above his head in triumph, the lower half slightly blurred from the excited kick of his feet. He’s grinning widely, so much so his eyes are squinted. 

Touya had been the one to take that photo, making ridiculous noises from behind the camera, the ghost of their intermingling laughter still ringing in your ears. 

“His name is Kaiyo and he’ll be turning four soon,” you watch warmly as Fuyumi leans over her mothers shoulder to get a better look, hand clutching at the fabric of her knit sweater, “the pregnancy was unexpected. We didn’t… I told Touya I would raise him myself, but he insisted on taking responsibility”. 

As you recall, the very notion that he wouldn’t stick around had offended him. He loved his son. He’d even cried over the baby scans, dry blood still smeared across black and white where they sit in your bedroom drawer. But you could see how the fear had eaten away at him throughout those nine months, restlessly doting on you and bringing home stolen things for the baby every few days but never being able to touch your growing bump. 

“Then, why did he join the league?” Fuyumi asks, but you were intuitive enough to see the real question between the lines. Why wasn’t any of this enough? Why did he leave this behind, too? 

You’d guessed from the beginning that his relationship with his family was, at best, a strained one. In reality it was worse than you could’ve imagined. The small pieces to his past that he let slip every now and then would always fill you with distress, at a loss for words. 

The reveal of who his father had been all you needed to understand the secrecy, of both his identity and of your relationship. 

“In the end it was Stain,” you cross your arms over the surface of the coffee table, knees folded beneath it, and resist the urge to hide your face, “he continued to use his quirk so his condition was worsening, and his anger towards Endeavor had been festering for years”.

You ignore their plaintive wince at the mention of the Pro Hero, blunt nails curling into your inner wrists as you continue. “Touya felt his death didn’t matter. It didn’t change a thing,” and he had to watch his world move on without acknowledging it, “everything Endeavor did made him susceptible to Stain’s cause”.

Stain’s temporary reign of terror over Japan was the first time he’d ever heard anyone criticise hero society so blatantly. You remember the vengeful kindling in his eyes as he recited the vigilante’s words, your son sound asleep in his arms and none the wiser. 

It was that night, and every night that followed, that the stress had started to gnaw at your chest until you felt your lungs collapse under the weight. Panic gripped you each time he returned home with a new injury, the smell of smoke suffocating and clinging to the futon covers no matter how much you washed them. He carried a feral sense of excitement and restlessness that left you helpless — something had breathed new life into him, and it had not been you. 

Fighting had been pointless, your pleas like water to a ducks back. He loved you, he loved his son, but somehow he had rationalised that burning himself and the world would give rise to a better place.

“He already died once,” your smile is tight but not as tight as your throat,  “and it did nothing. So this time he’d do it where it couldn’t be hidden, where everyone would have to look right at his self immolation and know their part in causing it”. 

It's then that Rei carefully places the photograph on the table as she lowers herself onto her knees, the frame remaining upright with the support of its stand. With her hands resting one atop the other, she leans forward into a full bow in front of you. 

You’re stunned with arms suspended in the air as you hesitate to reach for her, a swell of tears lining your eyes at her softly spoken apology. Your son watches over the exchange, his presence poignant even through an image. 

“Ms. Himura, please lift your head,” you shift towards her, close enough to thread your fingers over her own, feeling the peaks of her knuckles against your palm. 

“I failed him as his mother,” she says, overturning her hand to hold yours and squeezing, “it was those failures that led to your own suffering. I’m sorry”. 

In your peripheral you see Fuyumi as she moves to mirror her mother, sitting close beside you, fingers ghosting a chill along your forearm where she comes to entangle with the two of you. 

“Please don’t take responsibility for my pain. Besides, it wasn’t always terrible,” you stare at the knot of limbs, comforted by the gentle warmth of their touch, “I don’t think… I’ve ever met anyone who loves as much as your son does”. 

Rei’s eyes fall shut, a faint pinch between her brows, sorrowful as she replies: “I know”.  

Her expression is so full of regret it’s almost contagious, drawing you in and reminding you of your own mistakes. There’d been so many opportunities that you could’ve fought him, could’ve said something, but didn’t for fear of pushing him further away. 

“How did you find me?” 

Your voice cuts through the plaintive silence and you shrink under their gaze as their eyes lift. Fuyumi speaks in place of her mother, her thumb rubbing back and forth over your wrist. 

“Shouto saw you as Touya was being transferred, and in all honesty he didn’t think anything of it until Touya attacked him to keep the attention on himself,” she explains with an amused lilt, “he appeared to be very protective of you”.

Idiot, you think fondly. 

“I assure you he only told my mother,” Fuyumi squeezes your forearm once again as if to comfort you, “he was concerned and wasn’t sure if he just misunderstood. But we wanted to look for you to make sure”. 

“Then, the authorities aren’t aware?” 

“No,” Rei murmurs. 

You’re surprised by just how much you were being upheld by stress, shoulders sagging forward in relief, sinking your teeth into the soft inside of your cheek to withhold a whimper. 

“Thank you,” you say hoarsely, and you repeat it again and again until the two women have swaddled you in their arms, surrounded by the gentle scent of lavender and detergent. 

“You’re family to Touya, therefore you’re family to us,” Fuyumi reassures you, “you don’t have to do this alone anymore if you don’t want to”. 

Family. The prospect almost seemed too good to be true, an enticing offer laid out only to trap you at the end. You couldn’t risk Kaiyo’s safety or wellbeing, but their sincerity is so palpable it’s stifling. 

“How is he?” you ask instead, “is he safe?” 

“This knowledge isn’t available to the public, but he has been moved into a private villain corrections centre,” Rei looks at Kaiyo’s picture as she speaks, and you wonder if she sees Touya looking back.

“He will be undergoing rehabilitation with the hopes of one day joining us for a period of probation,” she continues, turning to you with a soft smile, “rest assured we have no intention of removing his autonomy. Touya consciously chose to carry out his actions and he should take responsibility for it…”

Her voice breaks, “… but we had our own part to play in his creation, and believe he deserves a second chance”. 

It’d sound like a perfect dream if you did not know Touya as intimately as you do. You’re unable to repress the grimace that crosses your expression. 

“He won’t be happy about that,” your eyes fall closed momentarily as you exhale, “he won’t see it your way. You already took his autonomy by removing his choice to die, that’s what he’ll think”. 

“You really do understand him, don’t you?” Fuyumi laughs mournfully, “he’s refusing to cooperate. He was relatively fine in police custody but since the transfer he’s become more hostile”.

The room grows a little smaller with every word. “Do you think it’s because I was there?” 

“Shouto asked twice who you were and Touya attacked him both times. It’s a big part of why he came to me about it, and why we knew we had to find you,” Rei says. 

It would make sense. Touya always smothered his anxiety with anger, a response that allowed him some control or imitation of power, and power meant safety. You knew he found common ground with his youngest brother, that being the reason he ultimately lost to him, but that didn’t mean he trusted Shouto. The thought of him restlessly wondering if you and Kaiyo were in danger causes your chest to tighten. 

“Maybe if you’re able to tell him we’re okay, he’ll start responding to treatment?” 

“Maybe,” Rei nods and then the apartment is veiled in heavy silence. It wasn’t unlike sitting at his wake. You wished he could bear witness to how much love you all felt for him. 

Suddenly, a muted beeping sounds from the thin, mint coloured watch clasped around Rei’s wrist. She sighs and pressed her lips into a thin, displeased line. “I’m sorry but we can’t stay longer. They still get a little nervous if I’m out too long,” she says. 

Right. She too had spent time locked away in a hospital. It must be difficult, you think, to have a mistake follow you wherever you went. A perfect recovery did not mean other people would forgive, or forget. 

Maybe one day, Touya would see that he and his mother are more similar than he realises. 

“That’s fine, Ms. Himura,” you bow forward towards her, and then again while addressing Fuyumi, “I’m grateful to you both for finding us”. 

“And we’re grateful you gave us a chance,” Fuyumi lifts her arms in an aborted motion as if to hug you, but decides against it, “we’d like to leave you with our contact information. If there’s anything you need or… if you’d like Kaiyo to visit, please don’t hesitate to call”. 

Their touch lingers long after they leave. The evening moves on, sun dipping below the seam of the horizon as it always does as if nothing had changed, an unintended reminder of how minuscule your problems really were. Kaiyo is returned home by his sitter, excitedly babbling about his day, rushing throughout the apartment with bare feet padding over the spot where his grandmother had been seated only hours before. 

You’re reminded of how intuitive he is when he curls himself around your thigh, asking you if you’re okay, if you were feeling sick or sad. There’s a guilt there that can only come with parenthood, your depression smothered like a wet blanket as you pull forward a smiling mask to wear, hoping it will placate his worry. 

“I’m okay baby,” you tell him with fingers combing through unkempt red hair, his eyes wide and bright and distinctly your own, “I’m just a little tired”.  

There is an anger that accompanies the insurmountable love you feel when you look at your son. It is difficult to accept his abandonment, to know you will one day have to be the one imparting that pain into him. So gentle, excitable and considerate of those around him, qualities taught to him by his supposedly villainous parents.

Despite his mistakes and doubts, Touya tried to be a good father, he’d wanted to be one. You suspected a lot of it came from a place of wishfulness, parenting his child in a way he’d wanted for himself, as painful as it might’ve been to realise just how little he’d mattered to his own. And you can see it now — Touya’s inherited wounds are steadily present on Kaiyo, a passing of the torch, and all you can do is try to stop the bleeding.

If you truly thought about it, you could say your whole relationship had carried a disquieting dark shadow beneath its skin, something of a spreading blood wheel. You overlooked it anytime he was callous and unruly, you’d cry and ache but it pleased you to know he still cared enough about himself to be angry. 

Soon after joining the league he’d gradually plateaued, urges satisfied, and you should’ve noticed. 

“Mama, look,” Kaiyo appears and lifts a thin sheet towards you, paper wrinkling under his chubby fingers, “I drawed dad!”

“Drew,” you warmly correct, cradling his cheeks as you duck to press a kiss to his forehead. The drawing is that of three stick figures, each one distinct with features. Touya’s figure has his black spiked hair, and across the lower half of its face is a purple shadow. His scars, you assume. 

It was all perfectly normal to Kaiyo; the sutures and rings, the burns, the ever present smell of smoke. From the moment he could open his eyes, they would follow his father with love and excitement. The admiration would sometimes unsettle Touya, too familiar, too much like looking into a reflection. 

“It’s brilliant, baby,” you tell him, gentle as you take it from his grasp, “shall we put it on the pinboard along with the others?”

He huffs, incensed by your request, “but I want to show my friends!”

Therein lies the dilemma. You wonder how often this problem will crop up in the years to come, how quickly you might run out of acceptable excuses as he becomes old enough to understand. Dabi was too easily recognised, even in your son's amateur rendition of him. 

“I really love this one though Kai, it has all of us,” you twist your lips into a cartoonish pout, pulling the sweet sound of a laugh from him, “please can I keep it?”

His childish glare withers as he fights a smile, the restrained happiness plain on his face and entirely contagious. “Ok mama, I guess,” he relents, innocent and forgiving, head tilted and cheeks pink under your praise. In moments like this, you can truly understand a parent's wish to freeze time. 

You recall Touya’s claim of putting good into the world before his death. You too could hardly believe that you’d raised such an unequivocally good little boy. But as you watch your son appraise his art with an excited wiggle, you’re reminded that children are not a tool for redemption. 

“I love you,” I promise I’ll be better for you, “and dad loves you too. How about we draw him another picture? I’ll do one aswell". 

“Okay!” he takes your hand and begins to pull you along the hallway towards his room, your back bent uncomfortably to lessen his reach. Halfway to his destination, Kaiyo pauses, pulling anxiously at the hem of his metallica shirt. 

“When… When is dad coming back from work?” 

That’s right. Work in Okinawa, you’d told him. A terribly flimsy excuse given in a moment of panic. At the time you just wanted him to have a reason to hold onto, to reassure himself with, but it was slowly coming back to bite you. 

“He still has a lot to do baby,” an understatement if you’d ever heard one, “it’ll be a little while. But we can be patient, can’t we?”

His lips purse into a pout, eyes shimmering with unshed tears as he bravely nods, and the thought of Rei’s phone number waiting in your contacts lingers in the forefront of your mind. 

Truthfully it haunts you throughout the rest of your week, stomach lined thickly with guilt. You eat, you work, you walk Kaiyo to school with eyes on every corner. You sleep in Touya’s most recently worn hoodie and pretend it’s his skin, his hands, too attached to his scent to wash it. 

Kaiyo continues to draw, to write and create. He brings graded homework back from school to keep in one of your old folders along with his other keepsakes; just in case Touya comes back, just so he can show him. 

You were looking over some of the old home made cards the night you finally called Rei, reliving another time and wondering if it ever really had been better, or if it’d just been a figment of your imagination. 

It can be difficult to know when a memory has been altered by nostalgia. 

“What’s this?” Touya had said as Kaiyo handed him a Father’s Day card, the inside lined with confetti and star sequins that toppled into his lap when opened. 

“I— I made it for you,” Kaiyo had explained nervously with eyes wide, hands flexing at his sides, “see… that’s you and— and me!” 

“Those potato shaped things are us?” Kaiyo had visibly deflated even with Touya’s playful tone, “this is pretty fuckin’ cool if you ask me”. 

“Freakin’,” you’d gently chided, lacking any heat for it to sound truly scolding at the time, too pleased by Kaiyo’s excited dancing. You recall the relaxed smirk on Touya’s lips and how he’d pressed a kiss to your shoulder, a rare moment of him being truly at ease and present. 

“And the heart, why s’it blue and not red?” 

“Because of your fire, dad!” Kaiyo grinned as he lifted his arms, mimicking the pose of a hero, “I hope I have blue flames, just like you”. 

Fragile. You'd watched on as Touya’s expression became strained, closing the card and setting it on the table, “I guess we better keep it somewhere safe since you worked so hard on it”. 

Into the folder it went. 

You decide to make the leap the following morning, allowing Kaiyo to sleep a little longer while you sift through your shared wardrobe for a suitable outfit. Work had happily allowed you a day off — even though they were chronically short staffed, you didn’t often call in sick so they were glad to give it to you. 

Usually Kaiyo would be dropped off with his sitter, an older woman known in the neighbourhood for fostering children. She’d been around for a long time, had seen and worked with many a criminal, and she understood young people more than you could comprehend. You trusted her with your son, trusted that even if he unknowingly slipped up she wouldn’t say a thing. 

But today that wasn’t necessary. You feel the fabric of the small knitted sweater between your fingers, frowning at the aggravating itch. He wouldn’t wear this, too scratchy, but it was also the closest to nice clothing he had. 

It isn’t like you’re living in poverty, but one mistake and it could very well be a truth for you. Clothes were fine as long as they fit — Kaiyo loved the little band tees his father would bring him more than anything, he didn’t care much for formal wear. 

The unbidden image of Touya’s displeased scowl flashing through your thoughts is enough for you to put the sweater back. Forcing Kaiyo to conform for the sake of his wealthier relatives, indicating that your own reality was something lesser, is something you wouldn’t do. Something Touya would hate you for. 

A small lump curled up beneath the futon covers begins to move. Kaiyo stirs, almost as if he can feel your turmoil, sleep lined eyes searching for you. 

“Ma?” 

“Mornin’, handsome,” a smile pulls naturally at your lips and warmth unfurls in your chest when he reaches for you. Half of his hair is pressed flat to the side of his head where he’d laid. 

He blinks slowly from your lap, his fathers nose wrinkling as he surveys the clothes you’d been mulling over. It’s an unspoken question. 

“I have a surprise for you so I wanted to find something nice for you to wear,” you tell him, hand rubbing along the length of his back. He perks up noticeably, foot kicking out against the sweater you’d just been holding. 

“Don’t like that one,” he says. You laugh, eyes closing for a moment to silently send thanks to Touya, even if he had just been a fleeting piece of your imagination. 

“Thought so,” you murmur, leaning forward to move it aside, “pick something for yourself, then. Make sure it’s something you’ll feel good in, because we’re going to meet some new people today”. 

“Who?” he asks, mouth wet and shaped into an ‘o’ as he fists his hands into another one of his dark coloured t-shirts. 

“You know how a lot of your friends have more than just a mother and father?”

He mumbles a dejected ‘yes’. 

“Well, I know you’ve been missing dad so I thought we might be able to connect with him in a different way,” you explain, helping him lift his pyjama shirt over his head and refraining from pinching his belly. 

“What would you say if I told you… I was going to take you to see your grandma right now?” 

“Grandma?!” he squeaks from behind the clean shirt you loop over his head, frowning then as you help him push his arms through the sleeves, releasing a small noise of complaint. 

“That’s right, your dad's mother,” — your smile dims slightly while he insists on dressing himself, reminded of how quickly the time has passed, how much he was growing — “I guess he didn’t talk about his family a lot did he?”

Kaiyo shakes his head excitedly, bouncing on his toes as he struggles to tug his pants over his clean underwear. He relents and allows you to do up the fiddly top button of his trousers. 

“That’s not all…” 

“More?!”

“You have an auntie and two uncles,” you tell him, and his hands fly to cover his mouth as he begins to dance with excitement. His joy is contagious, you feel it fill you and spill over as you pull him back into your lap, holding him tightly. 

Rei and the siblings, that had been the deal. No Endeavor. Touya may forgive the former, but never the latter. You wouldn’t do that to him.

It isn’t strenuous getting him out the door, but it is taxing to get him to the station, hair once again tucked under a knitted beanie despite the day's warmth. He jumps over the cracks in the pavement, follows the pattern with his feet, stops to greet every stray he sees. 

And you let him. Because his happiness is your own, and you dread to imagine him without it. Maybe it was selfish for you to cover his ears to the cruelty around him. He knew of fear, pain and crime, he knew that people sometimes did bad things to others. But it had never been personal to him, not yet. 

Perhaps the biggest question as a parent was just that — at what point do you expose your children to what may hurt them? 

You had told Rei the cover story ahead of time, embarrassed by your own lies, but she’d been understanding. Gentle. Somehow it only left you more ashamed. 

You wanted to preserve the innocent lense in which he viewed the world, wanted to encase the image he held of his father in amber. Because the power of those traumas stay with you, chemically alter you; they become the epicentre of your nightmares, they shape your convictions and morals, they fuel your will. Especially as a child. Touya knew that more than anyone. 

You observe Kaiyo while he watches the surroundings change, clutching the backrest of his seat as he looks out the train window, propped up on his knees and ignorant of the glare from the elderly woman beside him. Folded on her lap is the morning newspaper, a grainy black and white photo of flames and the words ‘Where is Endeavor’s Villainous Son?’ printed across the front. 

You adjust the hat, his eyes fixed on the moving landscape. He’d never been this far out of the Kanagawa prefecture, Touya’s unease with regards to your safety always taking precedence over the freedom to explore, so you let him press his nose to the glass and laugh as his voice begins to vibrate with the train. 

“Do you remember the names I told you?”

“Fuyu!”

“Fuyumi,” you emphasise, tucking the tag by his neck back into the confines of his shirt, “who else?”

He holds out his fist, fingers unfurling one by one as he counts, seeking your praises as he goes. “Fuyumi… Shouto… Natsu…o… Natsuo!”

The two hour journey passes in what feels like a minute. With one blink the train arrives in Shizuoka, slow as it pulls up to the second platform, the anticipation knotting thickly like yarn in your gut. Kaiyo, as perceptive as he can be, is bubbling with too much enthusiasm to notice your inner turmoil. 

You hold him on your hip, arms pressing him close into your chest as the sliding doors part, and step into the throngs of people waiting to board the train. As if you’d been in a soundproof bubble the noise of the city amplifies, a cacophony of voices and cries and whistles echoing uncomfortably in your ears. There are suits everywhere, hats tipped over eyes, too many unknowns in such a crowded space. 

The relief of stepping out onto the clear street almost buckles you. Kaiyo is squirming in complaint, wanting to be put back on the pavement but you hike him up a little higher. You couldn’t let him down, couldn’t let him out of reach, couldn’t let anyone take him. 

“Sorry baby, you can walk soon. I just need to find the car first—”

You’re interrupted then by a low, nasal voice, startling you to pivot on your feet. Behind you stands a large figure, bowler hat held politely to his chest as he bows forward. Kaiyo shrinks into the crook of your neck at the sight of a stranger, sensing your unease. The man repeats your name, the well groomed moustache sitting on his top lip moving as he speaks, curled into spirals at either end. He’s formally dressed, wearing a three piece suit and a large black topcoat. 

“That is you, correct?”

Grappling at your thoughts, you recall the riddle that you had given to Rei after her suggestion of having you picked up. She hadn’t wanted you to make your own way there, adamant that the family staff would drive the two of you to her home, and you gave in only at the promise of a safeword.

You inhale to steady yourself. “What is it that, given one, you’ll have either two or none?”

His eyes soften considerably but it does nothing to soothe the tension, only when he gives you the answer do you let yourself relax. “A choice,” he says, “my apologies. I should have been more considerate of your circumstances”. 

Circumstances. What a kind understatement. 

“My name is Ono Hiroki, I’m under the service of Ms. Himura and will be your driver,” he continues with a well meaning tilt to his head as he leans towards Kaiyo in greeting, “and what is the young master's name?”

You feel your son shift beneath your chin, presumably to look up at Hiroki, but he remains stubbornly quiet. “This is Kaiyo,” the grip he has on your shirt lessens at the sound of your voice, “we appreciate you coming out here to meet us but… please don’t refer to him with that title”. 

Touya would turn his nose up if he heard. You can almost imagine the shiver that may have run down his back just now, wherever he may be, and the thought forces you to hide a smile into Kaiyo’s knitted hat. 

“Of course,” Hiroki assents, and he begins to lead you towards the car. You cringe at how obviously it stands out amongst the more common models, clearly something owned by someone with great wealth and status. Even with having chosen your best outfit, the clothes on your back suddenly felt like straw, cheap and unfit for the occasion. 

The drive is smooth, though your sense of time becomes warped — had someone asked you how long it took to arrive, you wouldn’t have an answer for them. Kaiyo, just as he had done on the train, pressed his nose and fingers to the window; leaving behind murky smudges against the glass. 

As the car pulls to the curb you’re left feeling alienated by the neighbourhood. Worse, Hiroki steps out and speeds around to your door, opening it for you with a reflexive bow. 

It feels… uncomfortable. 

The property itself is walled off from the street and the building is large, though you’re sure that’s only in comparison to your own homes. You’re drawn in by the greenery that surrounds it, though the trees were likely put there for the sake of privacy the garden was clearly a labour of love. 

It appears to be a single story house, the roofs tiled dark brown with broad waves and an exterior hallway that frames around each room. You could picture Rei tending to her garden while her children sat on the veranda in the summer months. 

It was beautiful. 

Hiroki slowly leads you up the path, the gravel between each step crunching beneath your shoes. The pace can be attributed to Kaiyo’s adamance in standing on each individual stone, which the man kindly indulges. 

The entrance is made up of a large sliding door with plaster slitted windows. Hiroki pushes it across and moves aside to allow you into the house. You murmur in wonderment at the width of the genkan, the wall above the shoe cupboard  lined with traditional calligraphy. 

“Yes— it’s fine! I’ll bring them through…”

A sweet, familiar voice echoes throughout the entryway. Kaiyo tucks himself against the back of your knees as Fuyumi rounds the corner, socked feet slipping slightly on the wooden flooring in her excitement. 

Her lips part to greet you, the words caught in her throat as her gaze is drawn to the movement behind your legs. Typically Kaiyo could be quite rambunctious around others, loud and eager to befriend others. Here you can feel his anxiety, how small he must feel in this large, unfamiliar place. 

Fuyumi, too, is at a loss for words. A little pale, teary eyed as she blinks, visibly composing herself in front of you both.  “It’s good to see you again, Fuyumi,” you say as the silence stretches on, taking pity on her. 

Her demeanour lightens, and she appears grateful. Somehow her awkward loss of words and your son's hesitance lent you courage even if you, too, did not have your footing. 

“How about we take off our shoes and make proper introductions?” the question ends with a soft hum, a gentle verbal push, reaching back to pluck the hat from Kaiyo’s head. 

His hair is mussed, cowlicks pointed in all directions after being pressed beneath the yarn. You run your hand through it, wetting the pads of your fingers to flatten some of the more unruly curls down until they’re neat. The red is brighter in the sunlit genkan, and Fuyumi does well to conceal her sharp inhale. 

Kaiyo steps forward, nervously wringing out the material of his t-shirt, and Fuyumi lowers herself to his height as if approaching a cornered animal. Tender with her motions, she reaches out to still his anxious tic, ducking her head to smile where he can see it. A teacher, you remember. 

“It’s so wonderful to meet you Kaiyo. I’m your aunt Fuyumi,” she says. He turns over his wrist and takes three of her fingers into his fist, head nodding forward in what you know to be a bow. 

“Nice to meet you, aunt Fuyumi,” he replies. 

“Don’t worry about formalities, sweetheart,” she uses her free hand to straighten out the hem of the shirt, her eyes flickering over the logo with some recognition, “you can call me ‘Fuyu. You are my nephew, after all”. 

Kaiyo straightens his back, overjoyed by the privilege, and looks up to share the feeling with you. If you could read his thoughts you’d guess it was something along the lines of told you her name was ‘Fuyu, mama. 

“Natsuo isn’t here yet as he stayed overnight at his girlfriend's dorm,” Fuyumi continues as she rises to her feet, still keeping a firm hold of Kaiyo’s hand, “but mother and Shouto are in the tatami room. She likes having all the doors open on a day like this while we sit together, would you like to meet them?”

“Yes!”

In his excitement he pushes up onto the tip of his toes, shedding his timid attitude and grinning so wide his cheeks begin to pinken. It’s infectious, Fuyumi brightening considerably at his sudden comfort in her presence, and she begins to guide you both through the house. 

Soft spoken murmurings become louder as you approach the open sliding door into what you presume is the tatami room. Kaiyo pauses a few steps before, hidden behind the panel, waiting until you’re close enough for him to wrap an arm around your thigh. 

“You’re ok, baby,” you whisper warmly, “let’s go in together”. 

You enter the room with an awkward gait, slowed by the weight of your son against your leg, the matts firm beneath your feet. Immediately you are embraced by the scent of earth and autumn bellflower. Rei is seated on a pale green cushion across from Shouto, cross legged and holding a steaming cup of tea with both hands, on the table between them is a vase blooming purples and blues. You garner their attention, self-consciousness twisting uncomfortably in your chest as they appraise you and Kaiyo, a part of you always ready to jump to his defences. 

But the two, despite the cool air and unreadable expressions, only seem to thaw as their eyes fall to your son. 

The light knock of Shouto’s mug levelling atop the table surface brings you above water. “Greet your grandmother properly, sweetheart,” you step further into the space and lower to your knees, Kaiyo mirroring your actions with caution, facing Rei with his hands resting politely on his knees. 

You bow forward, thank you for having us Ms. Himura, and watch with fond exasperation as Kaiyo leans until his forehead is touching the tatami in your peripheral. “It’s nice to meet you, grandmother. It’s— it’s nice to meet you, uncle Shouto,” he recites, “my name is Kaiyo!”

You smile at the force behind the words, as if he’d practised them in his mind repeatedly before arriving. Rei appears to come to the same conclusion, returning the words and beckoning him to sit beside her, and Fuyumi ushers you to take a seat by Shouto.

In closing the distance Rei appears mystified, eyeline wet as she blinks back the tears, hands lifting to cradle your son's face in her palms. Kaiyo tenses for a moment on contact, shoulders relaxing as her thumbs graze over the swell of his cheeks. You wonder who she was truly seeing as she looked at Kaiyo, a little boy almost identical to her own. “My hands are a little cold, aren’t they?” her voice is soft, weak. There’s an intonation of grief, of regret, and an apology in her eyes. 

And your son, ever loving and perceptive, covers them with his own as if to tell her it doesn’t bother him in the slightest. Then he shifts closer on his knees until he’s tucked against her chest, her chilled touch running along the length of his back as she holds him. At your side you feel Shouto exhale a short, hot breath of emotion. 

“Tea?”

You look to see Fuyumi has set out more cups, now with a pale cream teapot in her grip, unphased by the temperature as tendrils of steam wisp and dance from the spout. Along the curve of her jaw is a single tear, and she tilts to wipe it on her shoulder with a weak sniffle. You feel it too, pulling the sleeves of your shirt over your wrists to conceal the trembling, lifting your chin to keep the emotions behind your eyelids.

“That’d be great,” you nod, accepting the cup that Shouto slides towards you, “thank you”. 

You’re tempted to thank Fuyumi again as you bring the ceramic to your lips, a slight sting to the skin of your palms and your lower lip, breathing in the potent scent of green tea. This family must enjoy it a little stronger, steeping the leaves for longer, the bitterness heavy on your tongue. There is at least some respite in the distraction it provides — you could not talk if your mouth was busy. 

Kaiyo ignores the silences, leaving his grandmother's lap to squeeze himself next to Shouto. You try not to laugh, the youngest at a loss for what to do as your son looks up at him in wonderment and admiration, though it is hard to restrain yourself at the barrage of questions Kaiyo targets him with. 

“Are you really going to be a pro hero, uncle Shouto?”

“I am,” he replies solemnly, “I’ll be a hero that my family can rely on. Do you want to be a hero?”

“Hell no!” 

“Kaiyo—”

“I’m going to go to space,” he barrels on without a care, too wrapped up in his own passion to recognise the informality, but with Rei’s quiet laugh you realise there was no need to worry. As Kaiyo stumbles over his words about asteroids and comets, about how the sunset on mars is blue and isn’t that so cool, Shouto seems to relax even further. 

“He doesn’t think he’s good at talking to children,” Fuyumi whispers at your side, “believe me, Kaiyo is doing him a favour”. 

Even as the time passes Shouto’s tea remains steaming in his left hand while yours begins to cool, and Rei observes their back and forth with an autumn bellflower petal between her fingers, gently as she handles it like it were something precious. There’s no tension, any growing pains soothed as Kaiyo soaks up the attention, the beating heart of the room. 

“I’m gonna go to space an’ clean up all the junk,” he announces. A goal that you’d heard many a time, manifested in his fathers arms one evening as they’d sat together watching a pre-quirk era documentary about space travel. 

“Pro heroes came along and suddenly we forgot everything that used to be important to us,” Touya muttered, “going to space is—”

“—a hero's job in its own right,” Shouto says. 

You do well not to drop your drink as Kaiyo launches himself into Shouto’s lap, one of his arms outstretched to not spill his own while the other steadies the boy to his chest. Gleeful, childish laughter wells throughout the room, paired with the balmy sun and the whistle of a Japanese tit flitting through the gardens. 

“Dad told me that too,” you feel as the mother, the sister and the brother all hold their breath at the mention of Touya, the one topic they weren’t sure if they could even touch upon, “do you really think so, uncle Shouto?” 

“I do…” he shifts, hugging Kaiyo only after glancing at you for permission, “...and you don’t need to prefix my name with ‘uncle’ every time. You can be casual”. 

“Prefix?” 

“A word that comes before another,” you interject gently, “he means you can just call him Shouto, baby”. 

In that instance your back straightens at the sound of another voice ringing throughout the house, low and distant. “I’m home,” they shout with familiarity, “sorry I’m late!”.

Fuyumi jumps to her feet, leaving to meet the new arrival, and Kaiyo watches her go with a chubby fist curled into Shouto’s sweater. He pats his hand awkwardly to Kaiyo’s thigh in reassurance, “don’t worry, it’s just Natsuo. He’s my other older brother”. 

Kaiyo lessens his grip, tentative as he watches the open doorway, and you can’t help but to reflexively reach out to pinch his cheek. “It’ll be fine,” you murmur. 

Your first impression of Natsuo is that he’s much bigger than his siblings. He must’ve inherited his build from his father and his demeanour in spite of him, because even with the chill that he brings, his grin is refreshing. The type of person that sets you at ease and wordlessly invites you in, that actively wants you to feel welcomed. 

“Wow, you’re really here. You’re really…” Natsuo's throat bobs as he swallows his next words, silenced by Fuyumi’s encouraging touch. Rather, he hastily greets his mother with a kiss to the cheek, and then he settles down at the table facing Kaiyo. 

A litany of emotions flicker through his face, like he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to feel. Even so, his smile doesn’t waver as he introduces himself to you, nervously rubbing his neck as he bows. 

“And you must be Kaiyo. I’m Natsuo, I guess that makes me your uncle,” he inhales deeply, chest expanding and falling, “you… you really do look like your dad”. 

He sounds mournful. Kaiyo senses the change in atmosphere, though he doesn’t understand it, and the anxiety settles into his restless fingers as they pick a thread loose from Shouto’s sweater. 

Fuyumi lightly swats at him: “Natsuo, you’re freaking them out!” 

He gives a wounded complaint, dramatic only in a way you can find with siblings as he clutches at his bicep, and Kaiyo laughs. Like it was called upon, the sun moves from behind a cloud and brightens the room. 

“Sorry, buddy. I didn’t mean to be awkward, I was just surprised,” he says. 

Kaiyo slides down from Shouto’s lap, the youngest briefly forlorn at the loss before schooling his expression once more. “It’s ok, mama said I look like dad too. That’s why I’m so handsome,” he grins triumphantly. 

Your chest knots tightly at the spotlight it shines on your relationship with Touya, thoughts running amok with assumptions of what they must think of you, whether they approve of how you have raised Kaiyo. But despite your inner conflict the family don’t flinch, in fact — they smile with him. 

“Touya was indeed a beautiful little boy,” Rei briefly looks at the purple petal still held between her fingers, “I have a lot of pictures here. Would you like to see?” 

Kaiyo scrambles, almost knocking the table as he stands, “yes please, grandmother!”

There’s an air of nostalgia as she leans down to take his smaller hand into her own, in the way he looks up with love, height falling just short of her hip. The last time she had seen her children this size had been before she was sent away. You can’t even begin to comprehend such a loss.

“Just 'grandma' is fine,” she assures, and Kaiyo bounces with each step as they leave to find the photographs. 

You realise, then, that you are left alone with the siblings. Fuyumi pours more tea, the sound of running water loud in your ears, Natsuo’s words barely audible to you. 

“I wanted to thank you,” he says, cup in hand with his thumb anxiously tapping the rim, “for being there for Touya when we couldn’t be. For bringing Kaiyo here even when you have every right to distrust us”. 

The words pick away at the composure you’d maintained throughout the morning, their gratitude, while completely genuine, feels undeserved. In the grand scheme of things your relationship to Touya had not changed much at all, perhaps he’d staved off his mission for a while to play house with you, but the outcome was the same. 

“It isn’t you that I distrust,” the ‘Endeavor’ goes unspoken but still heard, “I wanted Kaiyo to keep his connection to his father. And you don’t need to thank me, I didn’t…”

Didn’t help him. Didn’t save him. Didn’t stop him. You only loved him. You laid with him in darkness and thought if you held him tight enough that something might crack, that the light might get in. 

“What I did wasn’t enough,” you tell them, the words broken with your wet exhale, “it was your actions, your dedication to understanding him. It’s… it’s you I should thank, Shouto”.

“Still,” Fuyumi is tender as she speaks, her hand resting between your shoulder blades, “knowing that all that time he wasn’t alone, knowing that he had you, it means a great deal to us all”. 

Even if he hadn’t been alone for those few years, there was still a rotten past from before he met you that he wouldn’t touch. Touya, stone faced and eyes narrowed, watching you from beneath the sheets of his hospital bed as if he were a wounded animal. Your slow, telegraphed actions, promising respite. That’s why despite wanting to stay away from you, he couldn’t — because you saw who he was, and you still loved him. The burning flesh, the distended skin, the smoke and the blood. You saw the bodies on the news, you saw the flames across the city, and you still loved him. 

Maybe that was the only thing you got right; because there isn’t much else worse than someone loving the potential of who you could be, or loving someone you’re not. In the end, you think, we all want to be seen first and loved second. 

“I do think he’s worried about you,” Shouto interjects plainly, “ he’s not directly asking about your wellbeing because he doesn’t want to reveal your identity, but the staff say he’s restless”. 

“You can be quite perceptive, Shouto,” Fuyumi says. 

“A friend of mine has told me that before,” there’s a flicker of a smile pulling at his lips and it warms his expression. If you needed to attach a word to it you’d pick fond. 

“Though he also said I make all the wrong assumptions about what I’m seeing,” he exhales through his nose in what you think might be a laugh, “that’s why I went to my mother first. This seemed… too important to be wrong about”.

“I’m truly grateful for your discretion,” you wipe a tear along the heel of your hand, ignoring the sting in your sinuses, “and for your acceptance of us”.

“You’re our family now,” Natsuo’s grin widens, “and I can’t say I wasn’t curious ‘bout the kind of person my brother fell in love with”.

You knew what Touya would say to that. You're too good for me, I don’t want to hurt you. You should’ve seen through it then, with every premature apology. People only say those things when they know they’re going to hurt you. 

Over your thoughts you hear the siblings begin to talk again with affection, your eyes drawn to the empty end of the table. You should be here, you think, I wish you were here. 

Kaiyo returns excitedly with a large picture frame held to his chest, the paint worn and flaking, encasing an old school photograph of Touya. His uniform is buttoned to the top, face youthful and pale, not a scar to be seen. You recall his discomfort with high collared clothing, always irritable against his sutures. 

Following behind is Rei with an album of family pictures. Some of them have been awkwardly cut, some burnt along the edges, some faces notably scribbled over with a pen almost out of ink.

“Mama look, he really does look like me. And dad’s hair was white! Did he colour it like that, too?”

“No sweetheart,” you murmur with gaze fixed to the page as it turns in Rei’s lap, the siblings all gathered around to look, “remember, he told you he had red hair like yours, but it changed like magic”. 

“So cool,” he mumbles in awe under his breath, “dad is so cool”. 

Rei stiffens minutely. Maybe that, too, was uncomfortably familiar. 

The conversation continues into the late afternoon, moving only to sit beneath the clear skies and stretch your legs, Rei guiding you along her well loved flowerbeds. They tell Kaiyo stories of his father, diluted but true for the most part, their smiles tightening with the memories. It feels odd, wrong, mourning a man that is very much alive. You give them a piece of him and in exchange, they offer one back as the hours pass. You come to know another Touya — their Touya — and when you line him up aside your own you find that they aren’t all that different.  

As Kaiyo’s confidence grows with his newfound family he begins to wander. Natsuo lifts him into the air and he laughs joyfully, a sound you wish you could solidify and keep by your breast, and they take off to hide in the house with Fuyumi close behind. 

“Are you sure it’s ok for him to play indoors? I’d hate to leave any mess—”

Rei smiles. The light reflects against the crown of her head forming something of a white halo and Shouto is at her side, eyes softening at his mothers happiness. 

“I assure you it’s alright,” she says, “truthfully I think I’ve missed the mess”. 

You think of toys left astray, crayon smudging cheap wallpaper, juice rings staining the coffee table. Marks of your little boy left all around the apartment. Touya cursing as he steps on a building block, hopping on one leg theatrically to make Kaiyo laugh. Touya spilling the warm bottle of milk as he falls asleep and Kaiyo on his chest, exhausted from a day without rest. 

“I know what you mean,” you reply. 

Shouto only blinks. You couldn’t imagine that he was allowed to make much of a mess at all, and that thought alone makes you ache. His brow furrows then, and anticipation settles in your gut. 

“There was something we wanted to ask of you now Kaiyo is distracted,” he seeks Rei’s support as he talks, and she nods gently before turning to face you. 

“As we’ve told you… Touya is not being cooperative to treatment. In all honesty, we are getting anxious that he will be removed from the programme,” she says with regret, “you are free to refuse. But as you suggested when we first met, I thought he might benefit from knowing you’re safe”.

It feels as if the ground beneath your feet has steepened, a weightlessness flooding through your chest, and you reach for the closest pillar on the veranda to steady yourself. 

“You’ll let me visit him?” 

“Strings can be pulled to get you a visitor's pass,” Shouto confirms sagely, “typically it is for professionals or family. Which you now are”.

You hadn’t even let yourself entertain the idea of being able to see him again. The possibility of hearing his voice, of holding him again, felt too good to be true. 

“And Kaiyo? Where will he stay?” you ask, “I can’t take him with me, I don’t want him to see his father like that—” 

Approaching you from the house is the soft, pitter patter of socked feet. You feel a weight fall on your back, Kaiyo interrupting to wrap his limbs around your waist and neck, giggling into your nape. Natsuo lands unceremoniously on the tatami matts, leaning himself against the inside of the sliding door panels with pink blossoming on his cheeks, “damn, kid. You’ve got too much energy”.

“Your house is so big, grandma,” the words carrying a little embarrassment as Kaiyo says “ours is a lot smaller”.

“Sometimes houses are too big,” Natsuo reassures as he slumps forward to rest his chin against his fist, “you can get lost and feel lonely in a big house. I bet at your place, you can always find your mama, huh?” 

He nods, bouncing on the balls of his feet and rocking your body forward with the motions, “does that mean dad was lonely in the big house?” 

Rei’s hands wring tightly in her lap, the question pulling a forlorn atmosphere over the three, and you’re quick to try and rectify it. “Even if he was, he won’t be anymore because he has you,” you say as you twist your body to pull him into your arms, squirming as your touch curls against his ticklish stomach, “isn’t that right?” 

“Yes,” he stammers between deep inhales, giggles tumbling from his lips and ringing across the garden. Rei reaches to thread her fingers through his hair, the red stark against her skin.

“You are both free to sleep in my guestroom tonight,” she offers warmly in response to your earlier concern, “we will watch him while you’re busy tomorrow”. 

“We can have a sleepover!” Natsuo shouts, the excitement forcing him to sit straight and eyes gleaming. Kaiyo gasps, mirroring his uncles enthusiasm as he clings to your shoulders. Shouto, however, remains plain faced as his gaze flickers between the two. 

“Is it really that fun?” he asks. You hide your abrupt laugh into Kaiyo’s hair as Natsuo’s expression settles into disbelief. 

“What? You’ve never had a sleepover in the dorms?”

“We have a curfew,” Shouto shrugs, and Natsuo guffaws.

“What the f… heck is wrong with your school—”

As they bicker you observe contentment settle around Rei. A gentle breeze passes through the shrubbery and you hear the leaves rustling, light breaking through the canopy above and dancing along the grass. Fuyumi calls everyone back into the house as the scent of curry is coaxed out into the open, and you all make your way to the dining area. 

The night comes sooner than you expect. Kaiyo whines at the full feeling in his stomach, cheeks orange and smattered in sauce. Apparently Rei brought over all the childrens things during her move — everything, from toys to certificates to baby clothes, and you’re offered the hand me downs with a wistful smile. 

Aside from the red sleeves the shirt is white, a flame embroidered into the centre and the word fire written below it. Then you’re given an old blanket, slightly thread bare and clearly well loved. It is a light purple, faded after years of being washed, and dotted with stars. It’d belonged to Touya, she’d said, he always loved stars. Kaiyo clutches it tightly to his chest where he lay across from you on the guest futon. 

“Did you have fun today?”

The covers shift, a tell tale sign that he’s kicking his feet. “Yes mama,” he mumbles, nose wrinkling as he fights to keep his eyes open, “I feel really happy”. 

“I love you baby,” you hum fondly, leaning over to needlessly readjust the covers once more, if only for an excuse to kiss his forehead again, “are you sure you’ll be alright while I’m gone tomorrow?” 

Kaiyo nods, cheek turned against his pillow, jaw already slackening as he succumbs to sleep. It isn’t home, there’s no glowing iridescence on your bedroom ceiling tonight, but the space across from you feels empty as it always does. 

“Watching you two sleep soundly together was the happiest I’d ever been,” he’d said. You have no doubt in your mind that he had been telling you the truth. 

When you're pulled into consciousness it happens gently, the house so quiet that it’s unsettling. You were used to rousing with voices in the streets, car engines spluttering as they passed, thuds from the apartment above your own. Here it’s peaceful, a reality that you never thought you’d come close to, and for a moment you can hardly believe you’re awake. 

The staff offer to make the two of you breakfast but you politely refuse, a possessive twist in your stomach. Accepting help never came easily to you, a deeply buried seed of insecurity in your heart that first leapt to defensiveness. You could feed your son just fine on your own. 

Rei joins you soon after tending to her potted plants, Kaiyo pushing up onto the tip of his toes to kiss her cheek as she holds her dirtied hands away from his clean clothes, passing by you to wash the soil from between her fingers. “Grandma, will you have breakfast with us?”

“Of course,” she smiles. 

The rest of the family slowly trickles into the dining room with slow, sleep leaden movements. A full table, a full heart, a full stomach. Breakfast tastes all the better in their company, even Kaiyo seems to have soaked up the serene atmosphere as he quietly recounts a strange memory he had to Fuyumi. 

Still, the dread begins to settle, your knee bouncing restlessly and concealed by the table cloth. Hiroki enters the house with a deep bow and a lanyard around his wrist, your ID badge clipped securely to the end. “It’s best we leave now to avoid any run-ins with the press,” he tells you apologetically, “the likelihood is low. But I’d like to completely mitigate the chance, if possible”. 

Kaiyo lingers in the genkan, shifting on either foot, fiddling with the strings on his sleep shorts. “I’ll be back later, baby,” you hook your pinky around his and squeeze, “I promise”.

He presses a wet kiss to your cheek and you do not wipe it away, the morning air cooler on the skin where the imprint is left. An off duty officer waits by the curb to follow behind Hiroki’s vehicle — another safety precaution, they say — and he opens the side door on your behalf. 

“What will happen once we get there?” you ask, stare fixed on the streets as they speed past, flocks of people continuing with their days as normal. The thin, plastic card in your hands feels like lead. 

“Upon arrival the officer will escort you to the reception as I am not permitted to enter the building,” he explains while subtly adjusting the rear view mirror to watch you, “you will sign yourself in and then you’ll just have to wait. I’m afraid Master Touya isn’t aware that you are his visitor, so it’s entirely possible he’ll refuse to see you…”

Eventually the words become muffled, a disjointed hum in your ears, and your fingers tighten around the lanyard. You play out every hypothetical in your head, try to script questions in preparation, explanations and excuses. But you come up empty. 

Anything that you think of would be rendered useless as soon as you laid eyes on him. 

Pulling in, you survey the land. The facility is double fenced, double gated, and for all intents and purposes it looks to be a prison. There are patients spread out across the grounds, some lounging in the shade while others gathered under staff supervision. 

Surprisingly you are hesitant to part ways with Hiroki, the man bidding you goodbye with a bow and with promise to pick you up as soon as you’re done. The click of your shoes echoes throughout the building as you walk, the accompanying officer striding ahead of you and silent, beckoning you hastily through the security scanners.

A man stands incredibly tall behind the desktop screen situated atop the main desk, large auburn jackrabbit ears protruding from the crown of his head, paired with two large antlers. As you approach his nose wrinkles. 

“Pass?” he asks, interrupting any chance of you greeting him. You swallow the agitation in your chest and show him the ID card, to which he scans with a handheld device and waits until it beeps. Satisfied, he hands you a clipboard detailing a list of names and tells you to find yours. 

“Write your signature in the arrival slot, and when you leave write it in the departure slot. Wait to be called upon in the seating area”. 

You exhale shakily as you sink into your chair, taking in the room, unable to describe it as anything other than impersonal. You had spent a good deal of adulthood working in a clinical setting, and yet this place only seems to make you uneasy. No colourful posters, no informative leaflets, no magazines for people to read. No stickers by the doors, no colour in the staff uniform, guards posted at every entrance. 

Eventually a red light above the doors to the wards flashes red, a loud buzz cutting through the silence and startling you so harshly your chair scrapes against the tile. A doctor calls your name from the doorway, all eight of her beady eyes observing closely as you get to your feet. 

“The patient is being given forty milligrams of quirk suppressant every four hours while he acclimates to his skin grafts. So rest assured he will not burn you,” — you quickly smother your anger at her insinuation — “since you have a high ranking family pass, contact has been allowed, but if anything goes awry there are guards posted at the door”. 

You’re barely given time to process her explanation or the new information as she abruptly comes to a halt, almost stumbling into her back. All eight of her eyes blink at you expectantly as the door clicks open, inclining you to enter. 

“Thank you,” you mutter as you pass, flinching when the door once again clicks shut. You steel yourself with a deep inhale, lungs ballooning to expend the anxiety spiking throughout your chest, and lift your head. 

The air remains there, held in your mouth so as not to make a sound. Touya stands across the threshold with his back to you, facing the wide barred up windows and observing the other patients. He’s in a loose fitting t–shirt and pants, all white and blending into the rest of the room. Where the collar dips below his nape you can see pink, inflamed skin, and for a moment you are reminded of your first meeting. 

“Finally decided to come look your failure in the eye, did you?” his voice is harsh, like talking through gritted teeth and lilted with sarcasm. You’re frozen in place, muscles tensed as if you were bracing for impact, throat swelling just from hearing him speak again. 

“Hate to say it but there’s no cameras here,” he laughs, a hollow and dry sound as he begins to turn, “so you can drop the fuckin’ act—”

The anger dissipates as soon as he meets your gaze, his seething grin slipping until his jaw slacks in surprise. Even as your eyes sting you cannot blink for fear that he’ll disappear, a wishful figment of your imagination. He’s really here, a few feet from you, flesh and blood and breath. 

Closer now, you can clearly see there are lines of scarring where his previous body had been sutured together. No longer held by staples and rings, the patchwork skin fitting the curve of his cheeks without pulling taut and tearing. He doesn’t wince in discomfort as his expression contorts into disbelief, as his brows pinch and he starts toward you. 

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing here?” 

Even with the obvious ire behind his words you aren’t frightened by him. Your legs carry you to meet him halfway, reflexively reaching out for him in all the ways you had longed to over the past few months, only for him to catch you by your wrists. His grip tightens in warning, answer me he snaps, but his demand goes ignored. You’re focused entirely on how cold he feels, sharp around your forearms, just like his tongue. 

“You’re freezing,” you whisper.

He huffs in exasperation, a sound you never knew you could miss. “I know,” he says, dropping your arms as his hold loosens and you silently mourn the loss, “it’s like this all the fuckin’ time now”. 

“Because you don’t have your quirk?” 

He nods curtly, lips twisting in disdain, the confusion in his eyes sinking through realisation and settling on betrayal. “You’ve been getting cosy with my family, haven't you? It’s the only way you would’ve been able to get in here,” he sneers.

You rub away the chill from your inner wrist, following him further into the room as he walks away from you, pleading with him to listen before he makes any assumptions. “Touya, it isn’t what you’re thinking—”

“Don’t call me that!”

Your own anger steers you then, frustrated by his refusal to hear you.  “Touya. Touya. Touya. Touya,” you repeat childishly until he spins on his heel to glare at you. I’m going to keep your name in my mouth until my last breath, you think.  Arguing, scowling, you’ll take anything in this moment as long as he keeps looking at you. 

“Your mother and sister tracked me down, I didn’t go looking for them—” your own fault, you shouldn’t have been there “—they wanted to help me. They wanted to look out for your son!”

He hums like he doesn't believe it, and the forced amusement in his smirk irritates you, crawling hot through your chest. “I bet you’ve been enjoying all that bastard's money, right? He’s got plenty to throw at you and keep you quiet”.

You almost forget to breathe with how his accusation takes you by the throat, the regret crossing his features being the only thing keeping you in the room. It’s hard to handle his vitriol when it is directed at you, hard to see him like this, so wounded and cornered. In his mind you have gone behind his back, you have sought help from the people who hurt him the most, and you are only here on their orders. 

It’s a cycle he cannot break from. He’s gone again, tethered still to the world, but they are all moving on without him. He’s gone again, tucked away where no one needs to look at him, and they are all better for it. 

“I have not met Endeavor and I have made it clear that Kaiyo will not meet him either,” you tell him firmly, “I have not, and will not, accept financial help from that man. You… I’d never do that to you”. 

He wilts then, partially limbless as he sinks back against the hospital bed frame tucked beneath the barred window, covers still spotless and unused. As you glance up at the star-less ceiling, you wonder if he manages to get any sleep at all. 

“Why are you here?” he asks again, no fight left in his words. Without the bravado to keep him up he looks exhausted, torpid. You join him cautiously, settling yourself on the edge of the mattress. 

“To reassure you that we’re okay. That we aren’t in any danger,” you murmur, splaying your hand out in the space between your bodies, “we’re worried about you, Touya. Why aren’t you talking to them?”

He rests his hand beside yours, stretching out his pinky to hook over your own; the one you’d linked with Kaiyo only two hours before. “What good would that do?” he says, “I’m defective and this is just a waste of taxpayers money. Why let me live in the first place?”

The worst part of it all is the grating monotony in his tone, the total disregard for his own life and wellbeing. “Don’t say things like that,” you rasp, “it isn’t true. You have a real chance to do better now”.

“Fuck you,” he snorts without malice, giving a light shake of his head as he continues, “I was always going to end up here. You knew the path I was going to take from the start”. 

“And so did you, Touya!” 

The words come hoarse as they catch in your throat, heavy where they press against your nerves. Around you the room becomes smaller, stifling, and yet he is still miles from your reach. You’d do anything if only it meant wiping that look of indifference from his face. 

“You knew, and you could have made the effort to change. Don’t act as if this was predestined for you, it was your own choices that led you here—” 

“This wouldn’t be happening if you just hadn’t come looking for me!”

“Of course I looked for you,” you pleaded with him, “what would you have had me tell Kaiyo?”

“That I was dead,” he replies plainly, “he would’ve been better off”.

“You…” fatigue floods your system and you feel yourself sink back against the bed frame “…you truly believe that”. 

You don't sob, don't let yourself whimper, you simply let the salty burn overtake your vision and clog your throat, thick and cloying. “Don’t cry,” he murmurs, “you know I’m bad with crying”. 

“You’re crying too,” and he laughs humourlessly, eyes still dry. Amongst the quiet you can hear people outside talking, the window panel slightly ajar to let in a continuous breeze, carrying in the scent of spring. You shiver, and when his icy touch begins to move away you upturn your hand, interlocking your fingers together to keep him there. 

You can feel him watching you as you appraise his belongings. No character, no personality, everything looks brand new and unused. Compared to your stingy one bedroom apartment tucked away in the sparse Yokohama neighbourhoods, this place was completely lifeless. He must hate it here, waking up in yet another unfamiliar place against his will, treated as if he were something to fix.

Though after everything he’s been through, it must be a relief to do something bad and be punished for it, rather than to be punished for all the things you couldn’t do. 

“How is he?” he asks, ending the drawn out silence. 

“He knows something isn’t right,” you say, feeling the chill along your wet cheeks, “he wants to see you”.

He makes a sound of acknowledgement as he strokes his thumb along the back of your hand. You tighten your grip, still habitually cautious of the sutures that are no longer embedded into his skin. “What a kid wants isn’t always what’s good for them”.

“That’s priceless coming from you,” you huff, and he knocks his shoulder against yours in response. Bittersweet, you recall how you sat beside him on a hospital bed just like this five years ago, IV hooked into his veins to ward off infection. Hair white, skin mottled, growing accustomed to your freely given affections. 

You breathe, the exhale long, and lean your weight into his side. Your hands, still interwoven, rest together in your lap. “We just wanted to be closer to you,” you tell him, your apology unspoken, “Kaiyo misses you. I miss you. Even if I’m angry with you, don’t ever believe that we aren’t thinking of you”. 

The word sorry does not come naturally to Touya, it never has. Remorse was best shown through action, overbearing attention and unnecessary gift giving that only ever left you wondering who he’d stolen from. When he rests his cheek atop your head, nuzzling softly into your hair, you know he’s trying to apologise as well. 

So you recount everything that happened over the past two weeks. Of nightmares and paranoia, of old photographs and starless ceilings, of autumn bellflowers and cultural dissonance. You rush each story, unsure of how much time you would be allowed in this place, nor how often you would be able to visit. And he listens, slowly sagging against you the more you speak, your bodies two beams upheld by the other. 

“Oh, and the driver called him ‘young master’ at first,” a small grin pulls at your lips at his amused snort, the only sign that he was still awake, “I know. I told him right away not… not to call him that. I knew you’d hate that”.

His muscles tense then as an intrusive knock reverberates throughout the room, a white knuckled grip on your hand at the interruption. The doctor from before steps into the threshold and is followed closely by one of the guards, eight eyes blinking simultaneously as she takes in the scene, her expression unreadable. 

“Your allotted time for visitation is up,” she says, her voice softer than before and perhaps even tinted with regret, “I’ll give you a few moments to say goodbye and notify your driver”. 

A part of you wishes that the wordless goodbye you gave back at the hospital by the hyacinth beds had been your last, because this time around it is impossibly harder. If his expression is anything to go by you think, if he could, Touya would freeze your hands together in an eternal block of ice. 

“Touya,” he begrudgingly meets your gaze, “what happened to you was undoubtedly a tragedy. Still you— you hurt people, and you need to accept that. I’m not going to tell you to forgive anyone, you don’t have to, but…”

You lean forward, pressing your forehead to his “…even if others can’t, I want you to forgive yourself”.

“For who I was or for who I wasn’t?” he mutters, so close you can see the stray white stripes in his eyelashes. The doctor clears her throat quietly where she lingers by the door, and so you get to your feet. His throat bobs as he swallows, expression suddenly pleading as you let him go, and you take his face between your hands. 

His cheeks are rough, the sore skin raised under the pads of your thumb. “For all of it,” you say. 

You’d always thought that love didn’t need to be so complicated. Sometimes it was as simple as I see you, and I understand you. Sometimes it was dirtying your hands to make their life a little easier. Sometimes it simply took the form of an illusion, and all you needed was for someone to point out the tangled lines, the true image irreversibly seen. 

“We love you. If that means anything to you, then take advantage of this second chance and let yourself be better”. 

Afraid of testing their patience, you step away from the bed, heading towards the door where your guide awaits. While only four strides, it feels like a lifetime, and you find yourself dragging your feet to stall for time. The thought of leaving him here made your stomach sink, an invisible magnetism tied to your spine and begging you to turn around. 

You startle as the guard suddenly steps forward, recounting Touya’s patient number with warning, but the doctor holds her hand out to settle him. You’re tugged back against a firm chest, familiar if not for the deathly temperature, arms circling firmly around your waist. 

Their presence falls away as he kisses you, and the sensation is new. No awkward angle, no need to be aware of his sutures, no copper tang left on your tongue as you pull back. Once, twice, and thrice — Touya kisses you without regard for time he was wasting, for the people who were waiting to take you home, and you give him every extra second you have. 

“Tell Kaiyo I’ll be out by the time he starts his training at JAXA,” he murmurs. You laugh wetly, finally forced to take your leave. 

“Better make that ten years sooner, you hear me?” 

The door begins to shut behind you and he’s crying again, eyes dry as he calls out to you.

“No promises!”

---

Hear me out : making the most raunchiest, down right disgusting sextape with mammon and someone accidentally watches it and hears EVERYTHING 🤭

You remained in your demon boyfriend’s arms, scrolling through your phone, looking at social media. Mammon watched with you, telling you to scroll back up and click on things after you scrolled past them, making you playfully scold him. He kept on doing it, laughing at your reaction and trying to fluster you more. It wasn’t until you heard a ping from Mammon’s cell that you put your phone down.

“Aren’t you gonna check that, hmm?” You exaggerated your tone, lacing it with sarcasm.

He huffed and lifted it to his face. “Nah.” He then put it back down and put his arm back around your waist.

“What if it’s important?”

“It’s just Asmo, probably something makeup or fashion related.” He shrugged.

“Okay, you’re probably right.” You returned to your social media before you also received a message from Asmo. “What the hell?”

You opened it and read: ooooooooh~

You typed up a message, disturbed by the vagueness.

Mc: Huh?

Asmo: hehe

Mc: what???

Then no response. Mammon’s DDD rung again. And then two other pings followed. You turned to him, making him groan.

“I was comfy, ya know!”

“Get your DDD and figure out what’s going on.” The pings continued, equally frustrating and worrying the both of you. Mammon opened his DDD and went to the group chat shared between his brothers and then his eyes went wide and his jaw dropped open. He went pale and you started to panic. “What is it?” You pulled his cell to your eyes and saw immediately what it was.

Asmo: guys look! *sends video*

Asmo: they make such a good couple! I’m so happy they’re compatible in all forms! I gotta say I’m a little jealous!

Levi: JADNFJRNFJNRNF

Satan: no fucking way

Beel: ☹️

Asmo: I know, who would’ve thought Mc was that nasty! Wait until 23:42 where they take him into their mouth right after he pulls out of them!

Satan: all I needed to see was the thumbnail. No thank you. Mammon’s little mammon isn’t something I’ve ever wanted to see.

Belphie: I got about 2 minutes in, they already have spit everywhere even though they’re just making out. So dramatic.

Asmo: I think it’s passionate! Romantic! And messy. Our little Mc clearly isn’t shy when it comes to spit! They let Mammon spit in their mouth at around 7 minutes.

Beel: I can’t watch. Please stop telling us what happens.

Asmo: but I didn’t even tell you the best part!

Belphie: if it involves Mammon I don’t want to hear it

Satan: how can it not involve Mammon?

You and Mammon remained frozen, watching as more messages filled the chat. Levi remained silent and, rather terrifyingly, Lucifer remained absent from the chat. Mammon prepared to type a message and then you stopped him.

“There’s no point. Only Asmo and probably Levi will watch it at least.”

“At least!!! Mc! They have no right to be able to see you like that!” He sat up and started typing.

“Uh! Obviously! But typing something will only egg them on, you know that! Plus what about Lucifer!” You tried to reason with him, sitting up beside him. “And the even bigger worry is how the hell did Asmo find the video! It’s on my DDD!” You showed him where your messages were still open with Asmo, clearly not showing any sign of you sending the tape. Despite you telling him not to, Mammon started typing.

Mammon: HOWD YOU GET THAT!

Asmo: I found it

Beel: you didn’t send it?

Mammon: NO!!! WHY WOULD I SEND THAT??

Asmo: it just appeared in my videos one day. I’m not sure how but I’m not upset. Did you not want us to watch it?

Mammon: EXCUSEEEE MEEEE???? NO! MC IS NAKED AND DOING A WHOLE LOTTA STUFF! AINT NO WAY I WOULD DO THAT OR THAT HAPPENED!!!

Lucifer: A sex tape?

The both of your hearts skipped a beat.

Lucifer: A sex tape that magically appeared in Asmo’s phone? Did Mc send it? Mammon is clearly too possessive to willingly send a video of Mc naked and “doing a whole lotta stuff” for lack of better terms.

You both heaved a sigh, thankful he didn’t immediately lecture you both.

Asmo: could’ve just been fate.

Mammon: Mc didn’t send it! Lucifer, you gotta figure out what Asmo did!

Levi: current status: 5:14. Mammon asked Mc “you’re already desperate, huh?” Directly after Mc said they were desperate for him. Mammon is clearly a little behind.

Mammon: STOP WATCHING

Lucifer: I will figure out what happened. However, Mammon and Mc, you will need to realize that for evidence, I will likely have to watch it.

Mammon: WHAT

Lucifer: who knows what happened, Mammon. Asmo could’ve snuck in when you didn’t notice and cursed your DDD.

Mammon: NUH UH! I’ve watched that video over and over, ain’t no way.

Lucifer: seems as though you’re the desperate one then, hm?

Lucifer: also, to clarify, I won’t exactly enjoy seeing your little Mammon either. Would you rather me send it to Barbatos to figure out what happened?

Mammon: you know what, I don’t even care. Just.

Mammon: Don’t.

Mammon: Watch.

Mammon: IT.

Lucifer: You know what, I’d rather leave this be as well. Everyone needs to have this video deleted from their library. I will be inspecting everyone’s phones to make sure it’s not there.

Mammon: WHAT

Levi: NOOOO

Asmo: okay well don’t be surprised by what you see

Belphie: this government (Lucifer) is too oppressive.

Satan: what will Mc think? Going through her phone? Personally, I think we should overthrow our government (Lucifer).

Beel: I don’t have anything to hide. Just don’t judge me.

Mammon: I’m leaving the House of Lamentation. Nah, the whole Devildom. You’ll never see me again.

Lucifer: 👍🏻

The two of you looked at each other, defeated and deflated. Both of you, hunched over, staring at the messages flying across his DDD. While you wanted to figure out what happened, you just accepted that it’s better not to probe. Needless to say, you were also encouraging of Mammon’s idea of a vacation from the Devildom, not necessarily a permanent one.

The two of you did not leave your room for at least 24 more hours. You just didn’t want to deal with it. However…

Asmo to you privately: want some ideas?

Maybe this wasn’t entirely too terrible.

(This was also so fun akfjdjfndn)

---

— Ran eyes the stairs that lead to his childhood home with hesitation. He glances at the rusted metal on the railing in remembrance — staring at the chipped paint on the walls next door. His initials are still carved into the wood below — his brother’s mirroring his own underneath. 

Ran hasn’t seen his mother in a long time. He hasn’t been back home for even longer. 

He's not sure he would even call this place home. 

He'd messed up terribly at the age of thirteen, and had spent a good amount of time in a correctional facility to make up for it. By the time he was out, he'd decided to leave the apartment he’d grown up in behind. He didn't give his mother much room to object — she didn’t have it in her to do so either. She'd grown weary of her words falling on deaf ears. She loved her boys, she really did. But there was only so much her heart could take — there was only so much destruction she'd allow them to partake in under her roof. She’d simply nodded when he told her he was leaving, not bothering to meet his gaze. But he remembers the fight she’d put up when Rindou had said he was coming too. He remembers the ache in his heart at being cast to the side. And he wonders if he would’ve stayed if she had begged him to. He wonders what it would be like for her to fight for him too. 

At fifteen, he’d dropped out of school. At twenty, he was an active member in a street gang. He never went to visit her — he never told her how he was doing either. Rindou left out as many details as he could when he did. For their sake and for her own, she never asked anyway. 

The two boys cleaned up their act as they got older. They'd started their own business — had grown extremely well known and successful in the industry too.

Still, he never called. Still, he rarely went to visit.

Yet here he was, standing at her doorstep, debating over whether or not he should knock ─ over whether or not it was wise to come speak to her. He had something to tell her; something really important. But a part of him didn’t want to see her look at him in disappointment — a part of him wanted to avoid her look of regret. It was that part of him that had decided to avoid her altogether. He despised that look — he hated how inferior and small it made him feel. Like he was fifteen all over again. Like he wasn’t edging thirty-five. Like he hasn’t long since been responsible for not only himself, but others too.

He had a difficult relationship with his mother. A push and pull he'd never been able to figure out. They were too much alike. He never felt like he was enough. 

She wasn't a cruel woman. She wasn't evil by any means. She'd been good to him — good to the both of them. She always has been. She always would be. 

But he's just like her — a part of her ribs, a part of her soul. He's just like her and it terrified her to her core. She’s just like him and it made him want to hate her even more. 

But a mother was a mother, and he was still her boy. A mother was a mother, and he had no choice. 

So he sighs, and he brings his knuckles up to the door. 

He hears her shuffle around before it opens and she blinks at him in surprise. She doesn’t smile but she reaches for him immediately and he bends to let her hug him. Her embrace lasts only for a moment. He doesn’t think he could stand it if it lasted any longer. Fragile arms hold his face, scolding him for looking so gaunt — criticizing him for smelling like smoke. 

He thinks he's home now, here with her words. He wonders if this was still home.

Whatever that meant at this point. Whatever that was supposed to mean. 

She ushers him inside and he's nervous all over again. He can't remember the last time he'd been this scared to face her. 

Maybe it was when Rindou had broken his arm and he had to be the one to tell her — when he was only seven and it was his fault. He should’ve looked after his brother better. He should’ve stopped him from his own stupidity. 

Or maybe it was when she'd stared at him behind the visiting glass at the juvenile prison — when she’d stared at the bruise on his face and the avoidance in his gaze and didn’t bother saying a single word to him. 

He furrows his brows at the flurry of thoughts. He doesn’t want to remember any of that at all.

She doesn't sit, so he follows her into the kitchen. He eyes the sliced meat and the cloves and the spices scattered across the counter. He takes a seat at the small dining table in his childhood home and she goes back to cooking. 

"What is it?" she asks him, breaking the silence. 

Her back is to him as she stirs the pot and he stares at her — at how small she is compared to him —at how small everything here was now that he was older and taller. 

"What makes you think it's anything?" he replies. 

She rolls her eyes, licking her teeth.

"Don't start with me, boy. You never visit without your brother."

He looks down at his knuckles. He eyes the emptiness in his hands.

"What's going on?" she says again. Her voice is still sharp but there’s a softness to it. Like she's prepared for the worst. Like she can handle it if he told her.

He sighs, leaning back in the wood chair. It creaks under his weight and he scratches at the worn out material of the table. It was old. Everything here was so old. She'd refused to let them move her out even after they'd had the means to. "Leave it alone,” she had said. “I'm fine with the way things are."

Ran had shrugged, dropping the subject after the first time they’d brought it up, but Rindou had kept insisting. 

He never got his way in the end.

"I've been seeing someone," he tells her. She pauses her stirring, but doesn't turn around.

He keeps going, rubbing the back of his neck as he tenses.

"For about a year. A little longer than that, I think."

She doesn’t say a word as she holds her breath, pretending to reach for the salt instead — as if she hasn’t used enough of it already — as if she needed anymore.

"She’s pregnant, Ma."

Her eyes are sharp and wide as she turns to look at him. He sees himself in her silent rage. He sees himself in the lavender of her fury. And he knows it's rage for your sake. He knows what she's thinking.

That poor girl. That poor, poor girl.

It's courtesy for you. It's concern and worry for a girl she hasn't even met yet.

Not for him. He doesn't think it's ever been for him. 

"Is she your woman?"

He dwells on the question for a moment, pondering between the literal and the figurative. He decides to go with the former. 

"She was.”

“Was?” 

“I messed up," he reveals.

"What did you do?" Her anger is silent ─ it's quiet and building.

"I said some shit I shouldn't have when I found out."

There it was. There it is.

That look of disappointment he'd wanted to avoid — that silence he hated drowning in. 

Your fault, the still air seemed to ring out. It’s all your fault.

"Is she keeping it?"

He glances at her when he replies.

"Yeah."

"Do you plan to be in their lives? Because if you don't, you leave that girl alone. You do your part financially, and you leave her alone. Do you understand me?"

The skin around her knuckles turns a ghastly white as her grip tightens against the ladle in her palm. 

She’s quick to speak — quick to assume. Quick to judge — quick to decide for him. She’s right, he knows that. She’s always been right. But he hates the lack of autonomy — he hates that he gets no say when it comes to her. He digs his nails into the skin of his palm and he wonders just how hard he'd have to press to dissipate his anger — just how much would it take to stop the pressure in his lungs.

But he thinks of you, and he decides against it. He thinks of you, and he decides to explain instead.

He tells her that you’d broken up with him after all that he’d said. He tells her that he'd apologized not even a week later. He would've apologized earlier but you had refused to see him. He’d wanted to say sorry immediately, but you wouldn't let him. 

He tells her what he’d told you — that he wanted to be with you, that he wanted to take care of you and the baby. And he tells her what you'd told him — that you'd quietly nodded, accepting his words, but that you wouldn't take him back. Not yet at least. Not so soon after that.

 "I need to have this child first," you had said at the time. "I need to know you won't leave when I do."

She leaves the ladle in the pot and moves to sit at the table in front of him, listening intently. It's the most she’s ever heard him say. It's the most he's ever directly said to her about his life. 

It's ironic and heartbreaking ─ the sad reality of a mother and son who know nothing of each other — the truth behind those who have made no attempts to forgive and to heal and to move on with one another.

She sits back.

"Smart girl. Good on her."

He runs a hand across his face, groaning. "Come on, Ma."

She sighs, her chin in her palm as she stares at her eldest son.

"I'm worried about your choice in women though."

He laughs at that. For the first time in a long time, he laughs with his mother. For the first time in a longer time, she smiles back.

He remembers when she’d walked in on him having sex just after he’d turned eighteen — at how angry she’d been that the woman had been in her late, late twenties. And though she’d been visiting the apartment out of concern for her kids and their terrible eating habits — she had still ended up throwing her shoes at the both of them. He thought she was crazy at the time. He had been convinced she was out to make his life a living hell. But he understands now — why she'd been so angry. He gets why she'd been so scared and hurt — why her fear that he’d get taken advantage of had blinded her with rage.

She remembers when Rindou had shown her a picture of the girl Ran had been dating when he was twenty-one. She remembers looking at the screen, shaking her head in disappointment. She could tell from her eyes alone that the girl had ill intentions — that she was no good at all. She’d told Rindou that much on his way out. He’d shrugged, thinking nothing of it. 

She’d found out later that the two boys had been robbed — that they'd nearly been jumped — and that the girl had been involved. 

Ran doesn’t speak to his mother in the hospital. She’d doted on Rindou the entire time instead. 

—

The two of them sigh synchronously.

"You’ll like her more than you like me," he says into the still air. 

She tilts her head at him, and she wonders what he thinks her perception of him is. It doesn’t seem good. It doesn’t seem good at all. And she can’t help but wonder if she is to blame.

“No, you’ll love her,” he reiterates.

There’s a fond smile on his face as he looks back at his mother, and she wonders idly about the girl that was able to bring a gentle expression to her son’s face at the mere mention of her presence.

"I'd like to meet her — the mother of your child. I want to meet her."

He looks at her, and he nods. He was hoping she’d say that. She looks back at him, and she tries to smile. She was hoping he’d agree. 

The two of them were a mirror image of each other in ways they would never understand, in ways they could never explain. They tore each other apart and the pieces never fit together properly again. There was room for Rindou. There was always room for his mistakes.

But Ran had to cut himself up piece by piece to find a place. He’d had to tip toe through the mess and cut his skin against her shattered fury before he’d given up altogether. She didn’t know he’d been looking so desperately. He didn’t know he didn’t have to look that far.

"Yeah.” He says. “Yeah, I'll bring her over."

She tells him that it seems like the two of you are on good terms despite it all, and he chuckles, nodding in agreement. He feels himself grow weary when he tells her that he's proposed to you multiple times since then, and that you'd rejected him every time. 

She laughs a little too loudly for his liking and he shoots her a glare.

"Bring her over soon. I need to meet this girl."

She goes to make him a plate, ignoring his protests as she places it in front of him on the table. He sighs in exaggeration at her insistence and she shakes her head as she stands before him, watching as foregoes his etiquette. She musses his hair before her gaze falls to a silver strand in the darkness of his hair, and her stomach sinks with guilt. She hadn't realized how much older he'd gotten. She hadn’t noticed all that she’s missed out on. She clears her throat, ridding herself of the thought as she peers at her son once more. 

"How old is she, by the way?"

His mouth is full, when he replies "twenty-four" and she smacks the back of his neck immediately — ignorant of the food he chokes on.

"You fucking idiot."

"Give it up, woman.”

She shakes her head, mumbling obscenities to herself as she washes the dishes. 

He doesn’t leave until he finishes his plate. 

—

He calls you on his way home, your voice soothing him as his phone connects to the speakers in his car.

"Hello, gorgeous,” he says, the moment you pick up.

"What’s wrong?"

He rubs at his temple at your response.

"I can flirt with the mother of my unborn child without there being an ulterior motive, you know."

"I know." you say. There’s a pause — a brief one from your end. "But there is something, isn't there?"

He stares at the screen. There is.

He wonders how you know. He wonders about all that you know. He avoids your question instead.

"What are you doing this weekend?"

You hum in thought.

“I have an appointment on Saturday.”

“For what?” He furrows his brow. He’d been consistently attending the ones you’d told him about. This was the first he’d heard of this one. “Do you want me to come with you?”

“No, it’s okay,” you say. “I just need to get blood drawn, it shouldn’t take long.” 

“Alright. What are you doing after?”

"Nothing, I think,” you respond as you fold a t-shirt — his t-shirt. “Why?"

"My mom wants to meet you."

There's another pause from your end. There was more weight attached to this one — more emotion and fear, worry and concern.

"You told her?"

"I did."

"What did she say?"

You're nervous — a little scared, even. He can tell by the subtle change in the lilt of your voice. You didn’t want her to think of you as an ‘easy girl’. You knew that it was traditionally frowned upon to have a child before marriage. Your grandmother had given the two of you an earful herself. “Put a ring on her finger,” she’d scolded him. “She won’t let me,” he’d complained right back. It went well in the end. It went better than you would’ve thought. 

But you’d never met his mother before. He rarely spoke to you about her at all. And you're worried she’ll look down on you — that she'll hate you before you’re able to be anyone but the mother of her son’s child. You’re scared that your identity will be reduced to just that. 

The low tone of his voice brings you back, and you grip the phone to your ear as he responds.

"That she wants to meet you."

You furrow your brows.

"That's it?"

"Yeah.”

“Really?”

“What do you want me to say? That she cursed me out for knocking you up? She's on your side, you know. Called you a smart girl for not taking a ‘good for nothing’ man like me back. The hag gave birth to me but she's siding with you. I can’t believe this shit." He shakes his head in fake disbelief. He’d expected just as much from her anyway. But you didn’t need to know that. 

You laugh, and he loves it. You laugh, and he loves you. The sound makes its way around his car and he finds comfort in the beauty of your joy.

"I miss you," he says after a minute. It's been a few days since he'd last seen you — a few days too long.

You hum again in response. 

He drives in the quiet for a little, listening as you move around, and he wonders what you're doing in the apartment on your own.

"I miss you too," you finally confess.

Your voice is soft — quiet. He might’ve missed it had his phone not been connected to the speakers in his car. The gentle smile reserved just for you makes its way back onto his face and he glances at your name on the screen. 

"How are you? How's the baby?"

He nears the daunting building of his penthouse, but he finds himself thinking more and more about you and your one-bedroom apartment and all the space you let him take up when he was with you. He wonders if you'd let him come over. He wonders if you’d let him stay. 

Home. He thinks briefly of the word again and he finds that there’s a person attached to it now — and he knows that it’s never been a place. Not for him at least. Not since you.

You eye your belly, stroking the swell of your stomach.

"She's good. A little fussy today though."

“She's keeping you up?”

You sigh, and he knows then that the baby had been relentless in her efforts to do so. 

“She thinks it’s fun to kick my bladder.”

He snorts. Funny kid. 

"And you? How are you?"

Your heart flutters just a little at his incessant need to check up on you.

"I'm okay."

He tells you he wants you to keep talking to him. Talk about anything, talk about whatever — just until he gets home. He doesn't tell you why. He doesn’t need to either. You knew that his relationship with his mother was strained. You knew they had a hard time being around each other. And you knew that his nerves were probably shot.

So you sit on the couch and you tell him about your day — what you watched, what you ate, how many times your baby kicked, and a few of the names you'd been considering. You talk and it's everything to him — you talk, and you breathe life back into him. You're a little distracted in your speech, pausing at odd times, forgetting your train of thought here and there, and he figures you must be doing something else while talking to him. He doesn't tell you that he's been sitting in the garage of his penthouse for seven minutes now. He doesn't tell you that he's already home. It's selfish of him, but he needs you to ground him for just a little longer — for just a bit more.

"I have to pee, Ran."

He tilts his head against the headrest, grinning as you interrupt his train of thought.

"By all means, baby. Go ahead."

"Pervert.” 

He laughs and the concern in your chest eases up just a little. He's okay. He'd be okay. He tells you he'll see you soon, and you nod in agreement.

“I love you," he says before you can hang up.

And you want to say it back like you used to. You want to say it back like you've always done before.

But you don't. Not yet.

Not yet.

"I know," is your quiet response. 

And he's thankful for that at least. He's thankful that you know.

—

He lights a cigarette as he leans against his car in wait for you. You hated when he smoked in your apartment, but you’d despised it even more when you’d gotten pregnant. He’d resorted to smoking outside when he came to visit — a plastic chair set aside just for him now resided on your balcony. You’d read his text, but you hadn’t responded — so he smokes and he waits, and he eyes your door as he exhales. He takes another drag before he crushes the stick of nicotine underneath his shoe, and he runs a hand through his hair as he makes his way up to the second floor.

He knocks and he waits for a moment. He decides to wait another two. 

You open the door right before he’s about to knock again and his eyes soften instantly at the sight of you.

He was so lucky. He was so ridiculously lucky. You were always so lovely — always so beautiful.

But your eyes are wet and there’s a pout on your lips — a slight tremble to them that you’re trying to hide. He finds that he can’t even greet you properly. His first thought is to comfort you instead.

“What’s wrong, baby?”

He moves one hand to the small of your back, the other shifting to cradle your bump instead. You’re beautiful in the dress you’d decided to wear and you’re pretty as you look up at him with tears in your eyes. 

“What’s wrong, love?” he says again.

“My shoes won’t fit.”

He blinks at you as he processes your words, and he resists the urge to smile.

“My feet hurt and my shoes won’t fit. Don’t laugh at me, asshole.”

You almost cry, and he moves his thumbs to your lash line before you do.

“Not laughing at you, baby,” he says, hiding his grin. “Come on, princess.” 

He takes your hand and guides you to the dining table. You sit, wiping at your eyes while he digs through the small pile of shoes in your closet. He finds a loose pair of sandals that he knew had to fit, and he waves them once over his head. 

“Ta-da.”

He kneels in front of you, reaching for your feet as he switches your shoes out for you. He slips the sandals on, long fingers gently tugging at the straps, and he rubs at your feet before he smiles up at you. He looks tired, you think. He looks a little scared. 

You go to reach for his face but he stands before you’re able to stroke his cheek. 

“Where’s your purse, baby? We gotta go.” 

You nod, grabbing your bag, and he takes your palm in his silently as he locks your door behind the two of you. He pockets your key and you understand. You know that he wants you to stay over at his place tonight. 

And maybe exes shouldn’t treat each other like you and him. Maybe they shouldn’t brush eyelashes off of each other’s cheeks. Maybe they shouldn’t have copies of each other’s keys. Maybe he shouldn’t kiss your jaw. Maybe you shouldn’t grip his wrist.

But the lines have been crossed in more ways than one, and the bridging continued to occur.

You don't let go of his hand the rest of the way there. He doesn’t think he wants you to either.

—

You’re scared.

You’re really, really nervous. Your hand naturally drifts to your belly, and you shy away to stand behind him when he knocks on the door. 

He turns to kiss your forehead, brushing your cheek gently in the process.

“It’ll be fine,” he says. “It’s okay.”

You listen as the door unlocks — you watch as it creaks on its own hinges and opens. Ran bends to kiss his mother’s cheek and you watch as a thin hand pats his back before a woman speaks. 

“Yeah, yeah. Where’s the girl?” 

He rolls his eyes and moves slightly out of the way. You peer at her from behind him and her eyes widen. You smile and it’s filled with nerves — filled with kindness and a gentle nature. 

She stares at you in awe. She stares at you in wonder. 

“Oh.”

What good could her son have possibly done in this lifetime, and how quickly was he repaid for it with you? She can’t help but reach for you. She hesitates for a moment, worried it’ll make you uncomfortable, but you step into her embrace and she hugs you. She hugs you and she says nothing else, and you want to cry at how tightly she holds you. You want to break down at how much she looked like him. 

She’s a thin, spindly woman — shorter than her son, but a little taller than the average woman. Her hair is long and black — her face framed with strands of gray. Her eyes crinkle when she smiles and your heart aches. The lavender in her gaze looked just like his. The subtle hurt in her eyes mirrored his own too.

He looks away — gazing into his childhood home instead. 

He can’t look at her. He can’t look at you. 

She ushers the two of you inside, and you follow her into the kitchen. She talks, and you listen. And though her gaze had drifted to your belly a few times over, she doesn't say anything about the baby. She doesn’t say anything at all. He watches as the two of you fall into a natural rhythm, and he lingers near the entry as you help her set the table, fingers twisting the ring in his pocket. He expects that rejection is inevitable tonight as well. 

Dinner is quiet. They don’t talk to each other much. The air isn’t tense, but it’s brutal in its presence. It’s a silence they’re used to — a silence they’re unable to live without. She asks about you, and you tell her all that you can. She asks and you answer and it isn’t so bad. It isn’t so bad at all.

You’re unable to read the expression on Ran's face as he picks at his food, and your brows furrow in slight concern as you stand to help her clear the table. 

It’s then that he rolls his sleeves up. 

It’s then that she gives a disapproving look and sigh as her gaze drifts to the tattoo wrapped around his arm. 

She shakes her head and he drops the plates into the sink. You flinch at the sound. 

“Are you gonna react like that every time?”

Her eyes flit to you for a second, before her gaze sharpens at her son. 

“When your kid comes home at thirteen with a tattoo covering the entire left side of their body, you’d be bitter about it for a long time too.”

“It’s been twenty years, Ma.”

“Like I give a shit,” she mutters as she moves to turn the sink water on. 

He’s angry now. You watch in worry as they bring out the worst in each other. You watch as they weave a web of sorrow — you watch as they strike and suffocate one another.

“My kid can mess up all she wants. She’ll still be my fucking kid.”

He doesn’t realize that she knows that already. He doesn’t get that she knows that very well. He’s still her son. He’s still her boy. And she hurts because he’d sought refuge in other vices instead of her. She hurts because she had no one to blame but herself. She quiets when her gaze drifts to you once more and she turns to the pot on the stove, busying herself with its contents.

Your eyes are wide as you stare at your lover. 

His chest rises and falls in resentment as he glares at her, before he reaches for his cigarettes, making his way back outside.

You don’t know what to do with yourself. You don’t know what you’re supposed to say. You don’t know who to comfort. You don’t think it’s your place to even do so.

It’s then that she turns to you, the lilac in her eyes shining underneath the dim kitchen lights. 

“You’re having a girl?”

It’s the first time she’s acknowledged the baby. You remember what he’d said in the car, as he’d gazed at the traffic with a forlorn expression. “She’s always wanted a girl.” He’d smiled in exhaustion before he’d turned to pinch your nose. “Now she gets two.”

You blink back at her and you nod. 

“Yes,” is all you can say. 

Her eyes soften, and she turns to occupy herself with the mess on the counter. 

Your gaze drift to the door as it shuts loudly behind him and you yearn for the man you love. You leave the kitchen quietly as you turn to look for him.

You find him seated at the bottom of the stairs, fiddling with the box in his hands.

The cigarette lights up his face momentarily as he brings the nicotine up to his face and he breathes out into the still air, shaking his head as he rests his arms on his knees.

He hears the front door open behind him and he knows it’s you. It could only be you.

Your smile is soft — nervous, even — as you close the screen door behind you gently. He puts the cigarette out before he scoots over a little, making room for you as you make your way down, and he laughs as you awkwardly situate yourself beside him. You pinch his bicep in fake irritation and he grins as he kisses your forehead in greeting. You sigh as you settle down beside him. 

“Are you okay?” he asks you. 

“Are you?” you retaliate. 

Your voice is soft. He thinks you must be getting sleepy. 

“Yeah, I'm good. Nothing I haven’t heard before.”

He doesn’t say anything else — looking out into the now quiet neighborhood instead. 

Soon, it would be loud again. Soon, the doors would open and people would make their way downtown — to pachinko parlors, and nightclubs, to convenience stores, and karaoke.

But right now, the air is still. Right now, Roppongi was surprisingly quiet. 

You reach for his hand in the flickering dark. You trace the lines on his palm. You trace the scars and the outline of his rings. You trace his name and you trace yours. You trace a heart in between. Neither of you says a word. But as you lean your head against his shoulder, you look out into the world and you wonder what he sees. The apartment complex he’d grown up in was worn down and dull. Yet it’s surrounded by bright lights. Everything was full of color. 

What was a child expected to do on their own in this hub of chaos? Where was a child expected to go? 

“She can’t stand the sight of me,” he says — breaking the stillness on his own.

“She thinks I corrupted Rindou,” he chuckles darkly at that. Your heart aches at his words.

“You didn’t.”

He pretends like he doesn’t hear you. 

“She thinks I’m gonna ruin your life too.” He glances at your belly. “Yours and hers.”

“You won’t,” you follow up — not bothering to entertain the thought.

He stares off, rubbing his hands together as he pulls his palm out and away from yours. 

“How do you know?”

“I won’t let you,” you whisper. 

You angle your knees towards him and you stare at the man before you with longing in your eyes. How hurt he was — sitting here beside you — how scarred and flawed, how abandoned and lost. 

You hold his face and you tilt your head in worry, and his heart races at the sight. It hurts. It hurts so bad. And he’s sorry. He’s sorry for all that he’s ever done. He’s sorry for what he might do. He’s sorry for any tears he’s made you shed. He doesn’t want to fail you too. 

You kiss his jaw and you pull him into you. His eyes widen at the words you utter against him. 

“It’s not your fault,” you say. 

He grips your dress. 

“It’s not your fault,” you repeat. 

He holds you tighter. 

He wants to believe you. He hopes that one day, he will. 

He drops his head to your shoulder. You hold him even tighter — you pull him in even closer. Your fingers run through the short strands of his hair and he kisses the exposed skin of your shoulder in silent appreciation. 

His mother watches the two of you from beyond the window. There’s a strange warmth that settles into her ache. 

You were good. You were so good. Maybe even too good. 

Too good for this family. Too pure for their hurt. 

He tells you he just needs a minute more, gesturing towards the cigarettes, and you nod as you stand. He kisses your hand before you make your way back up the stairs and you smooth the dark strands out of his face, gently stroking his cheek as he places a stick in between his lips. “Take your time,” you tell him. 

His mother waits for you in the living room. There’s a worn out tray on the chabudai before her, and you smile as you take a seat. She exhales as she pours the tea, and you thank her as she sets it down. 

“He’s never liked Sencha,” she tells you fondly as she stares at the cup in her hands. 

Yes, you want to say. I know that very well. 

But you want her to have this part of him — this little known fact that she’d managed to get a hold of. You want her to be a mother. You want her to be his mother. 

She traces the lip of the cup and you can’t help but ask her if everything was alright. Her quiet held meaning. Her silence meant questions. 

“Why are you with him?” she asks. It’s a blunt question — slightly aggressive in its nature — and you see her children in her. 

“I —”

She cuts you off before you’re able to explain. 

“He told me that you broke up with him, and rightfully so too.”

You wince a little at the wording. 

“But you’re here. You’re here and you’re good to him. Why are you good to him? Why him?” 

She tried, she really did try. But she doesn’t understand. She doesn’t get it. She can’t seem to wrap her mind around it at all. You’re a good girl. You seemed like a wonderful woman. So why her son? Why not anyone else? Why not spare yourself the heartache and the trouble?

She doesn’t understand why you’re here instead.

Ran stands in the darkness of the hallway as he listens in. The cigarette pack is crushed beneath his grip and he regrets not making more noise when coming in. 

This was not good. 

This was not good at all. 

He tilts his head up towards the ceiling and curses his mother’s inability to feign ignorance. 

He could leave.

He could walk out and wait till the conversation was over and the two of you had moved on before he came back inside. But there’s a vile part of him that wants to hear your truth. There’s a sick part of him that wants you to make him hurt. Why were you with him? Why were you here at all?

You hum as your gaze drifts to the photos she had lined up near the tv. There’s a picture of the two boys outside. Their grins are wide and their hair a brilliant blonde. You smile softly because you know he despises his natural hair color. You know he hates it because of his father. And you know that Rindou had been too young to remember anything of the man. But Ran knew enough to detest him. He knew enough to never go back to blonde. You look at another photo, and you think he must be in his twenties. Rindou’s smile is the only one to be seen. Ran mirrors his mother — in stance and appearance. You think they must’ve argued before the photo was taken. And you wonder if he’d kept his hair long and dark to spite her — as if to say “Look at me. I’m everything you hate. Look at me. I look just like you.” He wanted her to look at him and wince. He wanted her to see herself in him. He was everything she failed at. He was everything she couldn’t control.

He’s beautiful, despite his pettiness, and you look back at her. 

Why are you with him? You smile at the loaded question. 

“Because I love him,” you tell her as much, and your chest blooms. It aches because you do — you love him. You love him. And sometimes you don’t know what to do with it all. Sometimes, you don’t know where you’re supposed to keep it — all this love; all these feelings. But you don’t think that’s what this is about.

You don’t think that this is what she’s asking about at all. 

You tell her she’d done well. You tell her that both of her boys were good men — that they were respected and revered and admired in their work. But then you tell her that if she kept holding on to the past — if she kept holding on to his past — then she’d only destroy them even further. Her eyes widen and you’re worried you might’ve crossed a line, but you keep going. You keep going because it’s not fair to him. You keep going because it isn’t fair to her.

“He’s riddled with guilt,” you say quietly. “It’s not his fault,” you say again. “It’s not.”

“Then whose is it?” She challenges. “Who is responsible?”

“I don’t know,” you respond. “But he’s not thirteen anymore. He’s not fifteen. He’s not twenty.”

She can’t help the slight sheen that covers her eyes — at all the time that she’d missed; at all that she’d desperately clung to. She’d been selfish in her approach. And she knows that it’s not her fault that she was alone. She knows it’s not her fault that she was always tired and away for work. But somewhere along the line, she’d forgotten that he’d had to bear the burden of raising himself and his brother — and that he’d done the best that any child could do. She looks away from you and she thinks he must’ve been scared. She looks away and she thinks he must be tired too. 

She holds her breath and you think she’s just like him in that regard — that they were both the type to shoulder their hurt and smile, as if everything was okay — as if the sharpness in their eyes didn’t dull and they weren’t affected by everything around them.

You can only imagine how isolated she must feel. You can only wonder how lonely it must be. 

Her gaze drifts back to your belly and you know she’s holding herself back. You know she wants to touch the baby — that she wants to seek comfort in a grandchild she’d only come to know about. It’s a lot to process. It’s a lot to take in. You silently ask her for permission as you reach for her thin fingers — placing her palm onto your stomach. To know that your oldest child had their own on the way and to realize that you had no place in any of it at all — it’s a damning feeling. And maybe she’d been a shit mother. Maybe she hadn’t done all that she should have. But she can’t help but wonder if it was too late. Would he let her be his mother? Would he let her be a grandmother? Was this all she’d come to know of the child?

She’s lost in her own thoughts when your brows furrow, and you wince when your baby kicks against her palm.

The woman before you starts to cry.

It’s quiet, the steadiness in which her tears stream down her face. They follow a common path – down the hollow of her eyes, down to the curved line of her mouth — down, down, down they go. 

“Forgive me,” she goes to say. You brush her apology off with a tired smile.

“She’s excited to meet her grandmother.” 

She blinks at you again – at your choice of words and the necessity of their timing – and she shakes her head at the irony. 

She laughs for the first time all night, and she decides that she doesn’t want you to see her cry anymore. 

The two of you sit together in the living room — your eyes fixed onto the tv and the late night game show.

Your lover makes his way back into the living room, looking away as he sits beside you. He pretends he didn’t hear a single word. He pretends he didn’t hear anything at all.

He pours himself a cup of Sencha, wincing at the flavor. 

His mother chuckles at the sight. 

Her hand doesn’t leave your belly. 

—

He takes you back to his place that night. You don’t object as you nod off in the car. You’re tired. You wonder if it’s always been like this for him — if he’s always felt at war in the very place he was supposed to belong. He reaches for your palm, fiddling with the emptiness of your ring finger as the red light washes over your figure. Your gaze is haunting and he falls in love with you all over — again and again, his heart falls victim to you. Again and again, he’s certain of his love for you.

The two of you don’t talk about tonight.

Not yet at least. Not right now. 

You lean into his side on the way up to his penthouse. He wraps an arm around your waist and strokes your jaw.

Still, you don’t say much. Still, you don’t say anything about it at all.

You’d resorted to sleeping in the guest bedroom after the two of you had initially split. On days that you’d had early appointments — on nights that you’d felt sick and alone — he’d preferred that you stay with him. You didn’t mind at all. His presence was comforting — safe and reassuring. 

He’d played along with the front you’d put up at first. He’d let you shut the door and pretend to sleep on your own for a day or two. It didn’t take long for him to find his way back to your side. It didn’t take long for you to fall asleep in his arms while he drooled into the pillow overhead and you clutched his shirt tight.

But this time, when he unlocks the door and you make your way over to the guest bedroom, all he does is kiss your forehead in passing. All he does is stroke your cheek in goodbye. He doesn’t tease you at the entry way. He doesn’t fake a scene or hold you tight.

“Goodnight, sweetheart,” is all he says.

You watch as he heads to his bedroom instead — you feel lonelier than you’d felt the first night you’d slept alone. 

And he knew you deserved better. He knew he didn’t think this through. He knew that this was too much — that this was all too much for the both of you. And he knew that any excess stress right now wouldn’t be good for you at all. 

But his head hurt, and his chest ached, and his shoulders were strained under the weight of all his burdens. 

You stare at him in concern, eyes filled with worry and hurt — and you want him back. 

You want your lover back. 

You sit in the guest bedroom after you’d washed and changed and you eye the clock in a daze. You think an hour passes. Maybe more.

Your daughter kicks impatiently and you exhale at the pressure, rubbing at the spot as though to comfort her. 

“Yes, I know,” you tell her. “I know, baby.” I know.

You don’t bother knocking on his door as you make your way into the master bedroom. It’s dark, save for the twinkling lights of the city below. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, his back facing the door as he hunches over — his hands covering his face. Slowly, you climb onto your side of the bed. Your palms smooth over the untouched blankets and you eye your pillow on his side of the bed. 

It’s been a while since you've slept here. It’s been a while since you’ve (more or less) split.

You sit on your knees directly behind him and you grip the sheets beside you as you let your forehead fall onto his back.

“Ran?” you whisper.

His muscles tense, but he doesn’t respond to you otherwise.

“Baby,” you say.

“Come back,” you nearly beg.

You trail a finger down his spine — finger smoothing over every ridge; heart aching with every touch. 

He turns to you then, slightly, as he peers over his shoulder.

Your eyes are wide and hopeful, and he shakes his head at the sight. 

“No good for you. I’m no good.”

“Yes, you are.”

There’s a slight tremble to his shoulders and you press your cheek to his back as you lean against him.

You wrap one arm around his waist, stroking the skin of his side. It’s too much. His heart can only take so much. 

“It’s okay,” you mutter, lips moving against his back. It’s not your fault. It’s not. You did good. You did well. You’re a good man, you tell him. And I love you, you say against him.

He stills. 

You say it again.

“I love you.”

He looks down at his palm — at the small ring settled down in the center. It sparkles in the dark and he closes his fist against it at the sight.

“Marry me then,” he says — as though it’s a challenge — as though he’s given up on any chance of you saying yes.

“Okay,” you whisper.

His brows furrow in confusion. He’s not sure he heard you right. He doesn’t know if you understand.

He turns to you immediately. Adoration lines his eyes as he stares at you and his gaze darkens as his nerves are shot with fear.

“What?”

Don’t play with me, his gaze seemed to say. Don’t mess with me right now. Not you. Please not you.

Your hand strokes the soft stubble on his cheek and you smile. It’s tired and loving, genuine and you. 

“Ask me again,” you say as he stares. He’s quick to oblige — quick to fulfill your request.

He’s scared you’re going to fade away. He’s scared you might still leave. 

“Marry me,” he pleads. “Marry me. Please.”

You think he’s dizzy from all that he’s feeling. You think he’s high off of everything that’s happened. But you know his heart and you know yours, and you know there’s only so much he can take. You know there’s only so much hurt he can handle.

And he loves you. He loves you. He adores you. 

“Yes,” you whisper, and you try not to cry as he slips the ring onto your finger. 

“Yeah?” he mutters, eyes hazy as he stares into your own.

“Yes,” you say again. “Yes.”

He kisses you then, with need and want.

He kisses you like you’re the love of his life.

He kisses you like you’re the mother of his child.

He kisses you like he wants to marry you — like he fully intends on doing so too. 

It’s been eight months too long, but you lay beside him on your side of the bed, and he smiles down at you in love and need. 

He kisses you once more as you whine for sleep, and he smiles against your lips at the complaint. Just one more, he says. Just one more, I promise. You push at his face and he laughs at your insistence. You feel your daughter move soon after, and you reach for his wrist, placing your palm on top of his as you guide him to her. As you always would. As you always will.

The two of you would enter parenthood soon — a marriage would follow soon after. You’re both a little scared. You’re both a little terrified. And you know he can’t help but think of all the ways it could go wrong. You know he’s afraid he’ll be the one to screw it all up — quick to take the blame; quick to deny himself the benefit of the doubt.

But you fit your hand in his and you hold on tight.

You trust him, and he trusts you. 

You love him, and he loves you. 

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