Chapter Text
The afternoon moved like Hizashi’s smoke; it started strong, then gradually faded and lingered. Shouta’s mother admittedly didn’t know how to entertain guests as young as Eri, so she spent much of the afternoon being interrogated by the woman. Her guardians occasionally interjected when they sensed she was overwhelmed, but that was only when they themselves weren’t being verbally attacked by Kiyo.
Eri found saving grace once the front door swung open.
Mr. Aizawa was a tall man—even from Eri’s seated view of him from the couch. His glasses were round, and his hair was cropped close to his skull. The difference, Eri thought, was astounding. Shouta barely resembled him; that was, until he opened his mouth.
“Son.”
“Dad.”
“How were the noodles?”
His voice was flat, stoic. Beside her, the ends of Shouta’s hair moved without a breeze. Before his quirk fully activated, the man added, “I’m not looking. Your mom told me she made them.”
Shouta’s sigh of relief was loud enough for even Eri to feel relaxed. Whether the relief was from not having his insides seen—or not having to expose his eyeless socket—she didn’t know.
Mr.Aizawa kicked his shoes away from his feet haphazardly. His belongings were left at the door. As he approached the couch, he bent down to meet Eri at eye level. A scar above his eyebrow was white against his tanned complexion.
“Is this Eri?” He asked, though it came out more as a statement.
The girl nodded, her eyes on her lap.
“Is she developing fine? Do you take her for her checkups?”
Shouta made a noise of approval. “She’s healthy.”
Mr. Aizawa outstretched his hand; Eri flinched when his palm neared the top of her head. As quickly as it had appeared, an all too familiar, scar-covered one batted it away.
“Don’t touch my kid without asking.”
Eri looked up at Shouta. Dark blades of hair stood on end as he erased his father’s quirk. It was the first time she had seen his scarred eyelid since he briefly showed it to her after the war.
Mrs. Aizawa’s voice was shrill against the tense silence in the room. “Hey! Now that Dad’s home, why don’t we take a family photo, hmm?”
“No, that’s okay—”
“Come on, Shou!” Kiyo appeared behind the couch, a hand playfully hitting her brother’s head. “We haven’t taken a pic together since we were kids!”
“I got it!” Hizashi rose to his feet and yanked his phone from his back pocket. He made his way to the opposite couch, holding the phone sideways as the family positioned themselves to fit in the frame.
“Shou,” Eri whispered. “Why isn’t he in the picture?”
The man gave her shoulder a squeeze, and smiled shyly.
Dinner was much the same as lunch. They ate too much food by the back porch; Hizashi kept one eye on the mosquitos trying to come in through the netting, and another on Shouta. Eri was bombarded with questions she had already answered at lunch—this time for Shouta’s father to hear.
Despite the streaks of purple that remained in the darkening sky, her eyes grew heavy with fatigue . She remembered taking her seat on the couch between Shouta and Hizashi—but didn’t remember climbing under the covers of Shouta’s old bed. She still wore her outfit from the afternoon. The comforter had a textured scent; the night had come.
Quietly, Eri tiptoed towards the wall. Opening the door, she was greeted by the distant sound of Shouta’s voice. She kept her feet light as she approached the top of the stairs, but was stopped by a figure huddled on the ground before the first step.
“Shh,” Kiyo whispered. Eri could only see the woman’s glowing red irises as her head swiveled to meet her. Her eyes disappeared in the darkness, and the girl realized her face was pressed flat against the wooden floor.
The voices only grew now that she was closer to the living room.
“She doesn’t have to call me ‘dad’ if she’s not comfortable with it,” Shouta growled.
“It builds a bond!” Mrs. Aizawa exclaimed.
Eri caught her breath.
“She knows I’m not her blood father. She doesn’t remember anything from before we rescued her, but she knows she’s adopted.”
His father proclaimed, “So you’re a single father whose child doesn’t even call you ‘dad’. What will you do if you find a nice woman and want to settle down?’
“Never thought about it.”
“After all these years you’re still so damn stubborn, Shou.”
Shuffling. The dim light at the bottom of the stairs only gave a sample of the growing tension. Eri imagined her caregivers on the couch—Hizashi with his impatient ankle bobbing, and Shouta with his hand on the back of his neck.
“Ma, Dad. Hizashi is my partner.”
“Oh, like a sidekick?” Mrs. Aizawa asked.
“No.”
“Knew it,” Kiyo breathed. Her position reminded Eri of a bird that hides its head in the ground. “Oh—they’re holding hands!”
Silence followed. Eri placed a hand to her mouth, fearing her breath would be heard from the top of the stairs.
“You should never have become a hero.”
“Cool it, man,” Hizashi growled.
“Look at you. You’re missing a damn leg. You’re unkempt. You have a random child—”
“She’s my child.”
His mother cried out, “Both of you, calm down—”
“You should have become a doctor—”
“Didn’t want to be one—”
“You could have been a normal kid, going to a normal school, with a normal job and a normal family. You stopped being yourself when that friend of yours died!”
“Don’t talk about Oboro like that!” Hizashi yelled. “Shou and I would still be together even if he were alive!”
“Stay out of this, Yamada!” Mr. Aizawa screamed back. “You’re not even a hero to boast about. We spent months avoiding questions from colleagues about whether or not it was our son making kids fight villains—”
“Wait…” Mrs. Aizawa interrupted, her voice low. “What do you mean he’s missing a leg?”
“This is gonna be good,” Kiyo murmured.
Something ruffled downstairs. The woman’s scream sent Eri back to bed.
Eri woke up once again to a dark room. This time, rolling over to her side revealed she wasn’t alone. On the floor below her was Hizashi, fast asleep with his hair sprawled across his face. Beside him was Shouta, whose phone screen was lit low as he scrolled through it. In the light, she could see a hint of the scar under his eye.
“Shouta,” she whispered.
“Oh, Eri,” he whispered back. He set his phone against his chest as he sat up to meet her. “Can’t sleep?”
She shook her head. Then, realizing the room was dark, quietly said, “Nope.”
“Me neither. Want to go outside, get some fresh air?”
He winced as the prosthetic fit into place. As they left his bedroom, Eri couldn’t help but notice how Shouta’s head moved as they walked. It was peckish, like he couldn’t keep it still for a single moment. Every step he took was a silent shadow.
Crickets ebbed in song when they found their place on the back porch. Shouta leaned against the railing on his exposed elbows. At some point he had stripped down to his undershirt and boxers.
“You crashed earlier. How was your sleep?”
“I woke up at one point. You and Hizashi were talking to your parents.”
“What did you hear?”
She chose her words carefully, recalling what she had heard. When she finished, Shouta took a deep breath.
“Ah,” he mused. “So, everything.”
He took a deep breath, then exhaled. “My parents like to hold onto the idea that I’ll settle down and marry a woman one day. They still see me as that young man who dated Ms. Joke all those years ago.”
“Hizashi said once that you like boys and girls,” Eri mused.
“It’s more like I like girls and Hizashi.” He rubbed the bare spot on the back of his neck. “For a long time I thought I was better off alone. Hero work doesn’t leave much time for creating relationships.”
“What about Kiyo? She’s older than you but she still lives here.”
“She helps out at home, so it gives her a pass. Besides, she’s a little…” He raised his brows in search of an appropriate word.
“I saw her watching you through the floorboard,” Eri confessed.
“I’d be surprised if she didn’t do that.”
“Are you…” The words dried in her cheeks. “Okay? With your parents, I mean?”
“No.”
“Oh.” She kicked at a loose pebble under her foot.
A gentle hand wrapped itself around her arm and pulled her towards him. She rested her head against Shouta’s upper arm. “I’m going to tell you a story that even Hizashi hasn’t heard, okay?”
“I went home the night Oboro died. I didn’t turn on a light, or care for the sound of my footsteps. I just crawled into bed. But I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned all night. Part of me wanted to believe what I saw was fake—that it would all turn out okay in the end and he could be saved. But deep inside I knew the truth.
“I still remember the next morning. Mom made scrambled eggs for breakfast. I took one look at them and ran outside to puke. Right there.” He pointed to a corner of the yard, made invisible by the night’s dark blanket. “Then I looked up at the sky and realized it was clear—not a single cloud was visible.
“I went to school that day as usual. Hizashi and I didn’t talk about what we saw. Actually, we didn’t talk at all. We drifted apart until we became teachers. I hated him for it.
“Anyway, I couldn’t talk about it with my folks. If they suspected anything, they didn’t say it. They were already upset that I chose to join the hero course—I didn’t need them to know how dangerous it really was. I also didn’t have a lot of privacy growing up. Having two family members with x-ray quirks made it difficult to be alone in my own bedroom. If Kiyo or Dad wanted to, they could have spied on me when I was vulnerable.
“I started staying late at school, then immediately went out to patrol the streets. One night I packed a duffel bag with some belongings, and walked out the door. I left a note saying I’ll be back eventually. And I did come home sometimes. But once I became a teacher, it became harder to balance hero work with family. I was so elusive that Mom had to get my contact information by calling the school once she read in the paper that I was hired.”
He finished with a sigh. “I’m telling you this because I want you to know they’re not bad people.”
Eri sat in silence as he spoke. She knew about Oboro; he and Hizashi visited his grave once a month, and spoke highly of him when prompted. She knew he existed, and that he died during an internship, but it never went beyond that. Talking about him this extensively humanized the concept of him—that he existed once, and it affected Shouta.
“Do you ever wish you told them what happened?”
He hummed loud enough to be heard over the mosquitos. “It’s easier to dwell on the past than appreciate what’s in front of you. You have to be brave to make that change.”
“That being said,” he continued. “It’s going to be a long time before we see this house again.”
Eri immediately regretted the exasperated sigh that escaped her lips. That was, until Shouta laughed along with her.
“You too?” He questioned. She made a shy noise in agreement. “Don’t worry. We’ll have breakfast, then run out of here. Ma insisted we stay the night.”
Shouta covered his mouth with a fist as he yawned. “The sooner we get to sleep, the sooner we can leave. How does that sound?”
He placed a hand on her shoulder and directed the two of them towards the door. Yet, something still pressed against her throat, unable to be held down.
“Wait.” The man stopped at her words. “Is it still okay if I don’t call you ‘Dad’?”
“I told you to call me whatever you want, as long as it isn’t a bad word.” He crouched down to meet her eyes; he couldn’t hide the contorted expression on his face from his prosthetic. “But you’re still my kiddo, okay?”
“Okay.”
Shouta rose to a standing position and held the door open for them. When he turned to lock it and close the curtain, a pair of glowing red eyes blinked from the kitchen ceiling.