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Hizashi is staring up into the darkness of their empty bedroom when the snow begins. The brightness of the white snowflakes circling around outside the window is what catches his eye, and he turns to stare blearily at the visual noise. He’s been awake ever since he became aware of the coldness of not feeling his partner in bed next to him, and for a moment he’s able to distract himself from the silence and his spiraling thoughts by watching the snow, thinking about how rare it is for the area, romanticizing how his view of it makes him feel like he’s on the outside of a big snow globe.
He takes a deep breath and turns his head to the door. He doesn’t want to sleep alone, but he’s not sure he’s ready to go after Shouta right now, either.
Lying in this room, Hizashi’s been agonizing about their coming conversation for what feels like hours. He thought that everything that needed to be said between them had already come out. He thought they were already over “the incident” from a few days ago. But, now that he reflects, he realizes he was the one who had done most of the talking.
Hizashi sits up and looks down at the empty side of their bed. What’s going on in Shouta’s mind right now? Hizashi usually likes to give Shouta the space he needs to process things at his own pace, but… tonight is different. Tonight Hizashi is home after spending days in the hospital. Tonight, he needs Shouta to be here with him. Tonight, he wants things to be normal between them again.
Back in the hospital, Hizashi understood Shouta’s physical and emotional distance. Hospitals are not the sites of happy memories for either of them, and even if Hizashi had been there for a few stitches Shouta would have been tense. But Hizashi had been there for something worse, and he had spent most of his time awake reassuring Shouta that he was fine without much success. He had been hoping that his move back home would be what it took to finally get Shouta to relax, to feel better.
His hand smooths over the sheets that should be covering his husband’s warm body. How can it be that Shouta feels even farther away from him now in their own home than when they were separated under the cold lights of the hospital ward?
Hizashi sighs and bunches up the sheets in his hand. Whether he’s ready to face him or not, he has to find Shouta.
Taking one more deep breath, Hizashi pushes the covers off himself and rises from the bed. Squaring his shoulders, he brushes his hair forward to provide better cover for his wounded neck and steps with more confidence than he feels into the living room.
The room is barely brighter than their bedroom, but Hizashi’s eyes are well-adjusted to the darkness by now. He sees Shouta sitting on the far end of their sofa and, curiously enough, his eyes seem to be fixed on the snow circling outside the window just as Hizashi’s had been not long ago. Hizashi’s presence is enough to break his concentration, though.
Shouta turns towards him, and Hizashi watches as Shouta’s body immediately tenses. Hizashi’s own heart begins to twist.
“Are you alright,” Shouta asks, his voice terse yet clearly still concerned. “Did you need something?”
Hizashi sighs as he drops himself down in the middle of the couch. If he’s not mistaken (and, god , Hizashi hopes he is), Shouta seems to retreat away from him and into the arm of the couch.
Still, Hizashi does his best to put on a brave smile. “I came out here to get you. Look at all that snow! It’s freezing in bed all by myself!”
“Ah…” Shouta’s mouth opens, closes, then opens again. “I’m sorry. Go back to bed. I’ll be right there.”
The words are a critical blow against Hizashi’s weak attempt at a smile. His lips fall along with the shoulders he had put so much strength into before coming out here.
That’s not the response he was looking for.
“Shouta, I… ” He swallows, and his throat feels thick and sore. “Why are you avoiding me?”
Shouta inhales quickly at the accusation. “I’m…” he turns his head away from Hizashi and quietly, unconvincingly, insists, “I’m not.”
“You are,” Hizashi shoots back, and he doesn’t mean for so much hurt to bleed into his words, but it does. “I thought I was imagining it at the hospital, but I wasn’t, was I?”
“Hizashi,” Shouta rasps. “Please… just…. just go to bed. I said I’ll be right there.”
“And why would I believe that?” Hizashi leans into his space, and even though Shouta’s not looking at him, he somehow still knows to pull his body further away. Emotion rises in Hizashi’s voice as he cries, “You can’t even stand to be next to me on this couch!”
Suddenly, Shouta’s face whips back towards Hizashi. “Aren’t you scared,” he shouts.
“S- Scared? ” Confusion knocks Hizashi back away from Shouta. “Scared of what?”
Shouta growls in frustration. “Of me , Hizashi! Of me trying to-” Shouta’s voice momentarily breaks. His eyes squeeze shut and he continues, saying, “trying to kill you, just like I did last week!”
It happened on their way home during a rare night out together. One moment they were walking side-by-side, their hands clasped tightly between them, and the next moment Shouta had him pinned to the sidewalk, both his hands wrapped tightly around his neck.
Right, Shouta had attacked him, strangled him.
But he hadn’t, not really. It had been a villain using his mind-control quirk from a distance. Shouta wasn’t to blame. Everyone agreed.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Hizashi says. “I’ve already told you, I don’t blame you for what happened that night! You weren’t in control!”
“That’s not an excuse,” Shouta replies, dropping his head. “I shouldn’t have let it happen in the first place. I’m a pro.”
One of Hizashi’s hands tightens into a fist by his side. “Yeah, well so am I! We make mistakes! It happens!”
“You don’t understand,” Shouta shouts, his hands coming up to grip at the roots of his dark hair. “It wasn’t just a mistake! It was a violation!”
Hizashi stops his next words and stares. Shouta is -he’s shaking.
In all honesty, Hizashi has tried to put that night as far out of his mind as possible. He doesn’t like remembering the sight of his husband’s face so blank. He doesn’t like remembering the adrenaline and the fear. He doesn’t like remembering the pain.
Hizashi lifts his hand up to his collarbone, his fingers brushing just beneath some of the dark bruises still blotching his skin. All the memories threaten to hit him at once, but he manages to swallow them back down before they can swallow him.
“Okay,” Hizashi says, trying to calm the air between them. “It’s… it’s okay, Sho. Sho, look at me.”
There’s a moment of hesitance, but, slowly, Shouta drops his hands and turns an eye towards Hizashi.
Hizashi locks onto that eye as he brings up his hand to the bruises on his neck. “Touch me here, right here. Lay your hand on my throat, Sho. I trust you.”
Shouta’s one eye looks terrified.
“No,” he says, and the word reverberates around them definitively.
Hizashi bites his lip. That… was probably too much to ask of Shouta, especially with the bruises on his neck still visible.
“Then give me a kiss,” Hizashi asks, much quieter. “It’s simple, like you always do. Just a kiss.”
Shouta doesn’t move, doesn’t speak. Hizashi doesn’t feel like he can breathe.
“Shouta... can you kiss me?” Hizashi repeats.
Shouta doesn’t answer.
Hizashi chokes, and the sensation of his throat constricting throws him head first back into all the memories he’s been pushing away. He feels like he’s drowning , and on instinct he reaches out desperately for Shouta. He finds his hand lying on the couch between them and grips it tightly. There is some relief, at least, when Shouta doesn’t rip his hand away, but it is far from true comfort.
“Baby, come here,” Hizashi begs. Still, nothing. “Please, just come closer to me.” He pulls his husband’s hand to himself and shakily places it on top of his knee.
Hizashi waits for a response -for something, anything - but Shouta continues to give him nothing. Waiting is a painful game, and Hizashi is losing. Lacing his clammy fingers with Shouta’s own freezing digits, Hizashi tries not to sound like he’s breaking as he says, “I… I’ll just hug you, then. You’re okay with that, right?”
He manages to push a smile Shouta’s way, but Shouta just turns away.
“I’m sorry, Hizashi. I… I can’t.”
Those words rip out from Hizashi’s throat the tears that have been building up in him for days.
“Why,” Hizashi cries. “Why can’t you?”
“I just can’t,” Shouta grits out.
“That’s not a reason! Shouta!”
“I’m scared!”
Shouta’s voice echoes in their small apartment with more power than Hizashi could ever hope to infuse in his own voice.
“Maybe you’re not scared, but I am,” Shouta continues. “That night I blacked out, and when I woke up you were-!” Shouta cuts himself off and tears his hands back from Hizashi. Holding both of his quaking hands out before himself, he hisses, “I hurt you. My hands -they hurt you. They put bruises on you. I could have killed you, and I’m scared . I’m scared that if I go to sleep, or, or even get near you, I’ll do it again, and I can’t -! I can’t….”
Back at the hospital, they had had a conversation in the same spirit as this one. There was less shouting, less desperation, and by the end Hizashi had believed the whole business was settled. Clearly, Hizashi had been wrong; he had underestimated the severity of his husband’s wounds.
“But… but it wasn’t you.” Hizashi’s hands fumble up to pull back his hair, exposing his neck in the faint neon light of a far away sign. “Look, Shouta. Look at me, please. This is his work. That villain, Mindfreak or whatever the hell his name was. It was him , not you who did this.”
Shouta can’t seem to keep his eyes on him long. He drops his gaze back down to his hands, and it hurts Hizashi to see his husband this way, shaking and pale like he’s physically ill. Hizashi knows he has to do something to help them get back on the road to recovery together. Why? Because he knows he needs some semblance of his Shouta back before the end of the night.
Hizashi carefully leans back into Shouta’s space and asks, “How long have I known you?” Hizashi pauses, but he doesn’t really expect a response. He doesn’t get one, either. “How long have you loved me?” Again, no response. Hizashi smiles sadly and rests his head on Shouta’s shoulder. “It’s going on half our lives now, and you’ve never once tried to hurt me like that before. You’re so against hurting me that you’ve almost been in tears over me getting a black eye.”
“I… have not,” Shouta mumbles, and Hizashi almost laughs.
“Almost. I said almost.”
Hizashi gently takes one of Shouta’s hands into his own and tenderly strokes his calloused palm with his thumb.
“It wasn’t you,” Hizashi whispers, his voice still watery from his earlier tears. “It never could have been you.”
Hizashi feels Shouta’s head move, and he looks up to see his husband looking back down at him. He looks scared, it’s true, but more than that he looks grateful.
Hizashi almost feels like he can breathe again.
“Can I…” Shouta starts. “Can I ask you just… one thing?”
“Of course, baby. What is it?”
Shouta takes in a labored breath. “When… when it was happening, were you… were you ever scared of me? Even for a second?”
Hizashi’s eyes widen at the question.
The world is very rarely kind to Shouta. Everyone can see how it beats him down physically, but Hizashi is the only one who sees how it beats him down mentally, emotionally. Shouta is very good at telling the world he doesn’t care what it thinks of him, but there are moments when the weight of all the times he’s been called a villain finally breaks him. This time, it seems the breaking point was the possibility that Hizashi, his dedicated partner of fifteen years, could genuinely be afraid of him.
“No, never,” Hizashi answers honestly. He speaks his words clearly because Shouta needs to hear them. “In those moments I was only scared for you. I knew that if I couldn’t get you to stop, you’d never forgive yourself for what would have happened. I didn’t know you’d be this upset even after I turned out to be alright.”
“You’re not alright. You still have bruises.”
“Bruises heal.”
Shouta’s eyes seem to be searching Hizashi’s for something, but if it’s hesitation, he’ll never find it. Hizashi’s bruises will heal. All Hizashi is worried about now is if Shouta’s heart ever will.
Shouta closes his eyes and presses his forehead against Hizashi’s. It’s the first intimate contact Shouta’s initiated with him in days, and it allows Hizashi to take in a deep breath of his scent. The air fills his lungs and makes him feel safe.
“You...” Shouta sighs. “You should go back to bed. You shouldn’t be awake this late after just getting out of the hospital.”
“If I go, will you come with me?”
“I…” Shouta pauses. “...I can sit on the bed with you?”
“Not good enough,” Hizashi stubbornly insists. Shouta frowns. “I want you to hold me, but I understand if you can’t. I just… I need to feel you lying next to me again, Sho. I’ve missed you.”
“You really still want me?”
Hizashi brings up a hesitant hand to cup Shouta’s face. “Baby, I only want you right now.”
Shouta’s frown deepens, but it doesn’t seem to be a manifestation of outright discomfort. It looks more like he’s just a bit overwhelmed.
“People say I’m stubborn,” Shouta grumbles. “But when you want something, you’re impossible to beat.”
“Does that mean you’ll come back to bed with me?”
Shouta sighs. “Yes.”
Cautious optimism seizes Hizashi’s heart. This isn’t their first conversation about what happened that night, and this isn’t the first time Shouta seems to be on the path to moving on and forgiving himself for what happened. They will probably have this conversation again and again over the next few months.
Still, Hizashi hopes this is the first solid step in the right direction for them both.