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“We’re lost,” Shouta says, shoving his hands into his pockets.
Hizashi stops rubbing his stomach and looks at the GPS, trying to work out where the hell they are. “You might be right.”
“Seriously, how difficult can it be to read a GPS, Hizashi?”
“Hey, it’s not just my fault,” Hizashi says, raising his eyebrows.
“No, it kind of is, Dad,” Hitoshi says.
From her position in the pushchair, which Hitoshi agreed to push, Hibiki giggles. She’s not even a year old, but Hitoshi is her firm favourite family member.
Hizashi rolls his eyes, pretending to be offended. “Okay, whatever. This think is just confusing me.”
“Hizashi, you’re a Pro Hero. And a radio host. How on Earth can you be confused by a piece of technology?” Shouta says.
“Because I’m thick, okay!” he yells, but they all know he isn’t being serious.
Honestly, this seemed like such a good idea this morning. Hibiki loves to go on long walks (even though she isn’t the one walking), so Shouta and Hizashi decided they were going to take their family on a hike on a day off of work. And when Hitoshi got involved, he suggested geocaching, that thing where you get a GPS and direct yourself to a set location using that. And this is exactly why it seemed like fun this morning, because using a gadget and going on a long family walk seemed enjoyable. At least until Hizashi learned just how annoying these things are.
And they have only been walking for fifteen minutes, and he’s already gotten them lost. And he’s had a stomach ache since he awoke, a dull ache on the left of his abdomen, and that’s just getting worse too. Brilliant.
“Right, let me have it, Dad,” Hitoshi says, wandering over. “It seems a young person is needed.”
That makes Shouta chuckle. “Are you suggesting that a) we’re old, and b) you’ll be better at using a GPS than your dad just because you’re younger than him?”
Rather than answering both questions in turn, Hitoshi simply says, “Yes.”
Hibiki laughs and Hizashi raises his eyebrows. “Charming. Fine, take the damn thing.”
Hitoshi grabs the GPS and studies it. He sighs. “Dad, are you aware you’ve been leading us in the wrong direction?”
He stares at his son, wondering if he misheard him. His stomach twinges again and Hizashi bites back a wince. “What?”
Hitoshi turns the GPS around so Hizashi can see the screen. “Look, we started here, and the finish is over here. You should have led us left, but we went right. We’re at least a kilometre out of our way.”
“Oh… crap,” Hizashi says, about to swear but remembering he has his daughter with him – a daughter who is currently clapping her hands together and saying, “Silly,” over and over again. “Did I?”
Hitoshi nods. “Yeah, you did.”
Shouta takes the pushchair from Hitoshi and looks between them. “Hizashi, can you tell your left from right?”
“Of course I can, Shou. I’m not a kid,” he says, and his sharp intake of breath sends a worse pain cramping through his stomach.
“Really?” Hitoshi says. “Prove it.”
Shouta puts his hand on his shoulder. “Come on, don’t be ridiculous, you two,” he says, and Hizashi wonders if Shouta has noticed the pain he can barely hide.
“No, it’s fine,” he says, grinning at Hitoshi. “Game on!”
Hitoshi rolls his eyes. “Okay, then. Walk to your left.”
He goes to take a step forwards… but something occurs to him. He smiles awkwardly, forcing a laugh. "Okay… Right...now which one is left and which one is right again?"
Hitoshi sighs in utter exasperation. “Dad, are you winding me up?”
“No, I really couldn’t remember,” he says, suddenly aware of how his head feels weird, like it is full of cotton wool. He laughs, trying to make a joke (and wishing the laughter wouldn’t make his stomach ache) as he says, “Hey, I guess I can’t tell my left from my right very well!”
To be fair, he’s never been very good at it. But today is worse. His stomach pain and foggy head are making it almost impossible to think straight. What is going on?
“Anyway,” Shouta says, linking hands with Hizashi and getting Hitoshi to take the pushchair again. “I think we should let Hitoshi navigate, and get back to our walk.”
“No, ‘Toshi push!” Hibiki cries.
“I think I need to push the pushchair,” Hitoshi says, rolling his eyes (but not keeping the smile from his face). “Papa can navigate.”
“Whatever,” Shouta says, taking the GPS. “Let’s just get on with it.”
Smiling, Hizashi nods and they continue their walk. It takes another fifteen minutes, but they eventually get back on course. But even with their walk now going to plan, there is a problem. The stomach pain won’t go away; if anything, it is getting worse.
And as they start to climb a hill, Hizashi’s abdomen cramps and he feels an old yet well known sensation – he appears to be menstruating. But that doesn’t make sense. Even when he got pregnant last year, he hasn’t had a period for nearly fifteen years. Yet it feels like he is bleeding, his underpants getting damp, and he has to do something.
“I need to use the bathroom,” Hizashi says. “I just be behind that tree.”
“Ew,” Hitoshi says.
Still wearing his backpack, Hizashi dashes away from his family and into a cluster of trees, and stands behind the biggest one. His packer has a function allowing him to stand to pee like cis men, but that isn’t applicable right now. Hoping very much that a stranger won’t see him, Hizashi pulls down his pants and examines his underwear.
Sure enough, they are coated with blood. But this blood is brown, unlike what his menstrual blood used to look like. So why is he bleeding weird blood?
His heart racing, Hizashi grabs some paper towels from his bag and stuffs them into his underpants, before pulling his pants back up and rubbing hand sanitising gel into his trembling palms. Standing up straight makes his stomach hurt again, and he does wince this time.
He needs to go home, to go and see a doctor. But he can’t just bail on their family walk. Hizashi sighs, and agrees with himself to go to see a doctor when they get home after the walk. Yeah, that’s a good compromise.
Shoving his bag back on, Hizashi jogs back over to where his family is waiting, smiling and saying, “Sorry! Let’s carry on.”
As they walk, he notices Shouta staring at him. His gaze is intense, almost as if he is using his Quirk, and he doesn’t get it. Hizashi goes to rub his stomach again, but Shouta says, “What’s wrong?”
They’re walking behind Hitoshi and Hibiki, and his voice is quiet, so the kids don’t hear him.
“Huh?”
“You keep rubbing your stomach and you looked freaked out before you went to urinate and you’re getting paler and paler,” Shouta says. “Hizashi, are you sick?”
How does Shouta read him like this?
He sighs. “I guess I don’t feel the best today, Shou, but it’s no big deal.”
“Are you sure?”
“Well, course I’m not certain, but I really do think I’ve just got a bit of a stomach ache. I’ll be fine, okay?”
Shouta clearly doesn’t believe him, but nods his head. “Okay.”
About three quarters of their way up the hill, the pain changes. It hits him without warning, a sudden jolt of pain wrenching through his abdomen. Hizashi can’t even begin to hide it, gasping and hunching forwards, a hand pressed to his stomach.
“’Zashi?” Shouta says, squeezing his hand.
“Dad?” Hitoshi says, turning around to look at him. His eyes widen. “You’re so pale.”
Shouta stares at him. “You really are. You look close to fainting. Sit down.”
Hizashi nods, and is about to sit on the grass when—
“Aah, shit!” he cries, not even remembering not to swear, because he can barely breathe right now, let alone anything else.
The pain explodes through him, and Hizashi lets out a cry. He clamps his hand against his stomach, heaving in shallow breaths, the pain so intense, throbbing and burning its way through his abdomen that he wants to puke. He can’t remember pain this bad since he was in labour, but this is still different. He doesn’t know what is going on.
His knees give way and two sets of arms grab his hands. Shouta and Hitoshi ease him to the ground, and he slumps on his side, trying to breathe through the pain. He’s drenched in sweat, but he must still be pale, given how Hitoshi described him only thirty seconds ago.
“Hizashi?” Shouta says, putting his hands on his shoulders and trying to help him stay still. “What’s happening?”
“My st-stomach,” he gasps, his voice a pathetic whisper.
“Daddy?” Hibiki says, terrified.
“Look after you sister, ‘Toshi,” Shouta says. “And call an ambulance. Your dad’s sick.”
Hitoshi doesn’t even bother to be sarcastic (because what Shouta said was really fucking obvious), grabbing his phone and crouching down to Hibiki’s height, letting her hug him.
Hizashi gasps for breath, the pain so strong. And then he does end up puking, and that makes the pain so much worse tears start to stream down his face and he lets out a scream, hacking up stomach acid as pain rages through his body.
Now Hibiki is crying, and he prays she won’t accidentally use her Quirk. Shouta rubs his back, trying to calm him down.
“Where does it hurt?” Shouta asks.
He doesn’t even know how to speak at this point, so Hizashi gestures to the sight of pain with trembling fingers, before waving his hand around to try and explain that it also hurts everywhere else.
“Okay, just try to focus on your breathing and help will be here soon,” Shouta says.
And Hizashi clamps his hand over his now slightly swollen stomach and leans his head against Shouta’s shoulder and just wishes he could be anywhere else right now. Fuck, will this pain ever end?
---
Shouta yawns, slumping in his seat in the waiting room. But then yawn turns to a sigh, and he folds his arms across his chest. He’s been waiting for three hours now, and there is still no sign of Hizashi.
He still can’t get the sounds of Hizashi’s cries out of his mind. Poor Hizashi was in such agony, to the point that even when the paramedics arrived and gave him strong painkillers those barely helped. He wanted to go in the ambulance with Hizashi, but he couldn’t leave the children. So as they drove Hizashi off to hospital, he and the kids rushed back to the car and followed the ambulance, making a stop on the way to the hospital to dump Hitoshi and Hibiki on Nemuri.
And then he got to the hospital and asked for his husband’s name, and when he told the staff about his relationship to Hizashi, one of them said, “Mr Yamada is about to have surgery. You need to hurry if you want to see him.”
Even though he wanted to faint at the word ‘surgery’, Shouta nodded and followed her directions. He ran into the emergency room and found Hizashi’s cubical, and found his husband surrounded by nurses. He squeezed his way into the cubical and managed to see Hizashi. He was even paler and naked from the waist up, clearly showing a swollen portion of his abdomen.
Hizashi was barely conscious from the painkillers, but looked at Shouta. He looked utterly devastated, and Shouta didn’t know why.
“So what’s wrong with him?” Shouta asked, stroking Hizashi’s sweaty hair.
“We did a CT scan when Mr Yamada arrived,” one of the nurses said. “And we discovered that he has an ectopic pregnancy.”
Shouta stared at her. “What?”
“An embryo had implanted in one of his fallopian tubes, and ruptured it. He’s bleeding internally and needs surgery.”
Pregnancy. Embryo.
Was Hizashi pregnant? And… and it was killing him. Oh shit.
“You’ll be okay, ‘Zashi,” he said, trying to sound reassuring and giving Hizashi a gentle kiss.
“We need to take him into surgery now.”
“Please wait in waiting room nine and you’ll be informed when the surgery is over.”
Shouta barely processed what they were saying, only staring at Hizashi as they wheeled him out of the cubical.
That was three hours ago, and he wants to be sick from anxiety. When he popped outside to phone Nemuri (Hitoshi and Hibiki were okay, considering how they were worried about their dad), he did a bit of research on his phone. And now he knows exactly what an ectopic pregnancy is. And how dangerous they are. And how they literally almost always end up with the embryo being lost and the fallopian tube being lost. And about how if it happens again, Hizashi will be infertile forever.
He hunches forwards in his seat, trying not to think about it. But he can’t help it. So Hizashi must have been a few weeks pregnant without anyone knowing, only to get horrible stomach ache one day and it end with his massively stretched fallopian tube rupturing inside of him and causing severe internal bleeding.
He groans, screwing his eyes up. Hizashi has to pull through. He just has to.
---
When Hizashi awakes, everything is fuzzy. His vision is blurred even more than when he isn’t wearing his glasses, and everything is just comfortably hazy.
Except pain is stinging in his abdomen (not very much, but it is still there) and memories are coming back to him, memories of stomach ache and blood and collapsing as pain exploded through him and ambulances and fear and, and…
“You’re having an ectopic pregnancy, Mr Yamada. An embryo has implanted in your fallopian tube and caused it to rupture…”
He had an ectopic pregnancy. He got pregnant again without realising it… and lost it. And he nearly died.
Shit.
---
Hizashi spends several hours in the recovery room, barred from having visitors, but finally Shouta is allowed to see him. A nurse leads him into Hizashi’s room, and he gets to see his husband.
Hizashi looks dreadful, but not quite as bad as before. He is no longer pale and clammy, but is instead half-asleep, his eyes groggy, and covered with wires and tubes, hooking him up to machines and IV bags.
But he smiles the loveliest smile as he notices Shouta, managing a slightly slurred, “Shou!”
“Hi, ‘Zashi,” he says.
He sits beside Hizashi and clasps his hand. Hizashi squeezes his hand weakly and Shouta smiles.
But Hizashi’s smile starts to fade. “Shou… it was, it was… I was pregnant.”
“I know,” Shouta says. “The nurses told me.”
“I… I lost it.”
“I know.”
Tears start to form in Hizashi’s eyes, making them sparkle. “Shou… are you mad?”
“What? Why the fuck would I be mad at you. This wasn’t your fault. Or mine. Or anyone’s. It just happened.”
The tears spill over and leak from the corners of Hizashi’s eyes, running down his temples.
“Come on, don’t cry,” he says, giving Hizashi a quick kiss. “It’s going to be okay.”
Hizashi sniffs and manages a weak smile. He tugs on Shouta’s hand, and, taking the hint, Shouta leans down and rests their foreheads together.
“Thanks,” Hizashi whispers, his breaths tickling Shouta’s lips. “Love you.”
“Love you too,” Shouta says, kissing him again.