Work Text:
“That one looks like a bear,” Hitoshi remarks, pointing up at a particularly fluffy cloud. He turns to his sister, laying on the grass next to him. “What do you think?”
Eri sighs, throwing her arms out onto the lush lawn. “It looks like a kitty to me…”
Hitoshi bites back a laugh. The sigh would be more suited for a stressed-out businessman in a bar, thinking about how his life is falling apart. It’s definitely not fitting for a cloud-gazing 6-year old girl in a Present Mic t-shirt.
“You’ve said that about all of them, though,” he points out.
“I can’t help it, Nii-chan,” Eri whines. “I just... I live in a world full of kitties, but… none of them are mine! Where’s the justice, huh?!”
Hitoshi’s almost in disbelief at just how worked up she’s getting. Tears begin to form in his eyes as he fights back the laugh threatening to force its way out. Though, when Eri turns to look at him with her cheeks puffed out in frustration, Hitoshi’s quick to put on the saddest look he can muster. He hopes it’s as convincing as he needs it to be because the only thing worse than Sad Eri is Grouchy Eri.
“I understand, believe me, I do. I’ve been on Dad for years—and Papa has been too, about getting a cat. Dad just says we aren’t home enough, it’s illogical, too much work, blah blah blah. You know how he is.”
“So, it’s Daddy’s fault…” Eri mutters, contemptuously. It seems like she’s thinking hard about something based on the face she’s making, but then it twists up, possibly in frustration. After a few moments, her expression finally evens out and she sighs again, sounding almost defeated.
“Can’t you just… brainwash them or something?” Eri proposes, rubbing her temples.
“Well—wait, what? Eri, no.”
Hitoshi can’t fault her for her persistence or attempt at problem-solving, but he’s not enjoying this style of logic she’s going with. That’s when the idea hits him, and he sits up so quickly, it makes him a little lightheaded.
“Hey, I know! What if we just show Dad all the benefits of having a cat around?” He suggests enthusiastically, smiling from ear to ear. “You know, the logical side! He can’t say no if our argument is solid, right?”
Eri gasps and jumps to her feet. “Nii-chan, you genius! Fight logic with logic!” She exclaims, throwing a tiny fist in the air. Hitoshi huffs a laugh, getting up as well. No one can deny that her enthusiasm is contagious.
“Let’s get the party started then! Start thinking of names, Eri-chan, we’re getting ourselves a cat!” He declares animatedly, causing the little girl to cheer excitedly as they run back to the house to scheme.
Once inside, they set up their work station in Hitoshi’s room. It consists of Hitoshi’s laptop and Eri’s unicorn notebook, along with, by Hitoshi’s estimate, about a million jumbo glitter crayons that she’s surrounded herself with on the floor. Eri decides to “take notes” and “report her findings back to the team.”
“Okay, so what kind of facts can we put in our presentation?” Hitoshi asks, his PowerPoint presentation open and ready. He turns his chair around to face his sister, glancing down at her. She’s writing furiously, having filled a page and a half already, though Hitoshi can’t quite read it from the distance. Eri points to one of the lines she’s written.
“So, based on my research, kitties are soft. That needs to be in there.” Eri declares with a little more intensity than necessary, given the subject matter.
“Ah, yes. That’s the most important point, so I’ll put it at the end. It’ll be a good closer, don’t you think?” he offers, humouring her. “What else?”
Hitoshi watches as Eri tucks some hair behind her ear, then brings her hand up to stroke her chin thoughtfully. Normally he’d take a photo or short video to send to the family group chat, knowing how much his fathers—especially Hizashi, love to coo over the little girl. Though, he’ll have to sacrifice this one to avoid blowing their cover.
She hums to herself for a few moments, seemingly deep in thought. Then suddenly, she hits her tiny fist against her notebook. “I know! They’re really smart.” she finally concludes, with a serious nod.
“They are, that’s true,” Hitoshi confirms. “I’ve read about these hospitals with cats that can sense when people are dying and stay with them until they pass away.”
“Someone’s dying?!” Eri nearly screeches, tears already forming in her big eyes. Hitoshi is sure his ears are ringing but the panic has already begun to set in, overtaking any other information his body may be trying to process.
“No, no, no, no, no! No one’s dying, don’t cry, don’t cry! It’s okay, I just read about it once! It’s got nothing to do with us! I don’t even know if it’s happened in this country!” Hitoshi rambles frantically, jumping out of his desk chair. His life begins to flash before his eyes, but suddenly the mental slideshow is interrupted.
“Oh, okay, good!” She remarks, cheerfully, a complete 180 from about five seconds ago. Hitoshi stares at her wide-eyed for a moment, before falling back in his desk chair with a heavy sigh. He can feel his heart pounding, and wonders if this is what it feels like after narrowly escaping a shark attack.
“So… anyway,” he wheezes, sinking down in his chair. “What, uh, what else is there?”
ϟϟϟ
“It’s gotta be in here…” Hitoshi says mostly to himself, crouched down and rummaging through the official junk drawer in the bathroom. He’s wading through a sea of expired cold medicine, loose band-aids, and about a hundred travel-sized containers of floss from the dentist, with no luck in sight.
After a few minutes of stacking the floss containers and cold medicine boxes, Hitoshi’s taken out of the drawer, the boredom sets in and Eri decides to abandon the towers. As she stands up, she knocks over her tallest tower, catching her brother’s attention. He shoots a look in the direction of the noise, more caught off-guard than anything.
“Oopsie?” she offers apologetically, grinning warily.
His face softens quickly, accepting her “apology,” and turns back to his digging. Eri stands around for a moment and then her curiosity finally gets the better of her. She peers over her brother’s shoulder, trying to get a look at what he’s doing.
“Whatcha lookin’ for?” she questions as she attempts to use Hitoshi’s shoulder for leverage to better her view. She doesn’t remember the drawers being as deep as the ocean, so he must be looking for something specific.
“That black face paint we had, remember? From Halloween?” he explains distractedly, still rooting away.
“Oh yeah, from when Papa went as Uncle All Might!” Eri recalls excitedly, and the mental image makes Hitoshi laugh. No one could ever forget the pained smile on All Might’s face in the photos Hizashi most definitely forced them to take together.
“Yeah, exact—Found it!” he exclaims, holding the small black tube triumphantly in the air. “There’s no stopping us now, Eri-chan!”
The duo makes quick work of dumping everything haphazardly back into the drawer. They head back down the hall toward their bedrooms, feeling even more determined than before. Before they split off to take care of their own shares of the group project, Hitoshi pauses.
“Remember, it’s gotta be black and it’s gotta be cute,” he reminds Eri, locking eyes with her. “You’re our secret weapon here, so I’m counting on you.”
She looks up at him and salutes. “You can count on me, Nii-chan! I won’t let you down!” Eri calls back as she charges towards her room.
Hitoshi laughs to himself as he pushes his own door open. Immediately, he heads over to his closet and within minutes, he’s got what he needs. He pulls the black hoodie over his head and wrestles his way into some black jeans. He decides to make his way over to Eri’s room to check on how she’s doing.
As Hitoshi gets closer to Eri’s room, the rustling gets louder. He stops just outside, taking a moment to eye the cat-themed sign hanging from her door with her name printed on it. When he hears a particularly loud huff, Hitoshi knocks lightly on the door.
“Hey Eri-chan, how’s it going in there? Do you need any help?”
“Ugh, yes, come in. I’m suffering,” she calls back exhaustedly. Hitoshi covers his mouth to keep himself from laughing and pushes the door open.
“Oh my god, what happened?” he blurts out before he can stop himself. Upon surveying the room, it appears that almost every article of clothing the little girl owns is laying on the floor, surrounding her. There are only two items left hanging when Hitoshi steps further into the room and checks the closet.
“Help me,” Eri whines. “It needs to be perfect and none of these are right!”
Hitoshi walks over to her, patting her head softly. He glances at the closet of two and eyes a dress that Eri’s never worn before, tags still hanging from under the sleeve. “What about that one? Dad picked that out, didn’t he?” he asks, gesturing towards it.
Eri stands up and walks to the closet, standing on her tip-toes to reach the item her brother’s pointing at. The dress is black with long sleeves and a tulle skirt. She gives it a once over and makes an affirmative noise.
“This’ll do.”
“Okay, good. You change into that while I go get the other supplies.”
“What about all this?” Eri asks, motioning towards the mound of clothing on the floor.
“Uh… we’ll… we’ll get back to that. That’s a problem for Future-Us, not Present-Us,” Hitoshi decides, knowing full well that it’s a terrible idea and Future-Hitoshi will resent him for it.
“Or Present Mic…” Eri mumbles, grinning devilishly.
Hitoshi makes a mental note not to cross Eri in the near future. “I—why don’t we just worry about the cat thing first? I’ll be right back, okay?”
“Okay!” she chirps brightly.
As Hitoshi heads for the door, he spots the most important piece of his look sitting next to some of Eri’s favourite accessories on her dresser. He’s quick to snag the item as he makes his way out of her room.
ϟϟϟ
“Hey, Shouta? Do you know what the kids are up to? I haven’t seen them all day,” Hizashi pouts, slumping down in his desk chair. He turns his back around to face the mountain of unmarked assignments and drapes himself over it dramatically. “I miss my little angels,” he sighs, and Shouta chokes on his coffee.
“Angels. Yeah right,” he barely chokes out through his coughing fit.
Once recovered, he turns back to the work spread out across his own desk and sighs. As he picks his pen back up, he recalls his husband’s question.
“No, though. I haven’t seen them more than in passing this morning, I guess. They’re bonding—scheming, probably, but it’s nice all the same, right?”
As Hizashi opens his mouth to respond, their phones ping at the same time. They look at each other before Hizashi begins shuffling the sheets around to get to his phone. It’s hidden somewhere beneath the mounds of paper he’s accumulated on his desk. Shouta glances to the side, seeing his own phone within reach, but decides his husband has already committed to the quest, so he doesn’t say anything. When Hizashi finally finds his device, he checks the notification to see it’s a new text message.
“It’s from my favourite son, Hi-to-shi!” he sing-songs, earning a familiar eye-roll from Shouta. “I know, I know, ‘he’s your only son,’ but that doesn’t mean he can’t still be my favourite one!”
“I don’t sound like that,” Shouta says flatly. Though they both know he’s lying, and the way Hizashi’s now smirking just confirms that fact, making Shouta huff.
“Just read the message already.”
Hizashi nods and looks down at his phone. His eyes scanning the screen for a few moments before holding his phone up for Shouta to see. It’s a text from Hitoshi to the family group chat—well, the three family members who have cellphones, anyway.
[from Hitoshi: 16:57]: please meet the children in the living room immediately.
Hizashi pulls his phone back and furrows his brow as he reads the text message again.
“Is it just me, or does this read a little…”
“Ominously?” Shouta supplies, earning a thoughtful nod from his husband. With a sigh, Shouta reluctantly pushes himself out of his chair, groaning nearly the entire time.
“Well, let’s get whatever this is over with.”
The two men take the stairs at the end of the hallway down to the main level. The staircase is lined with numerous family photos and school photos, virtually no space for new additions. The collection originally started when Hizashi had framed a photo from their wedding and hung it at the top of the stairs. He had told Shouta that they could add more photos to the wall like a visual timeline of their life together, like the Pinterest mom he is.
Shouta was against the idea at first, citing it would be unnecessary clutter. Though, when he looks at them now, he’s glad Hizashi fought him on it and won. Shouta can’t help but smile as he watches their family grow through the photos, from Hitoshi’s kindergarten photos to their first Christmas with Eri. He’s lost in thought when Hizashi snaps his attention back to reality. He’s standing at the bottom of the stairs looking up at Shouta.
“Shou, come on, the kids are waiting!” Hizashi calls to him, smiling brightly. A warmth spreads through Shouta’s chest as he returns the smile and continues down the stairs.
Upon reaching the living room, they realize they’ve arrived first. Hizashi glances around the room before his eyes land on a notecard on the coffee table. He opens it up to find what he recognizes immediately as Hitoshi’s handwriting and holds it out to his husband. Shouta takes the card, looking over it for a moment.
“He could be a doctor with writing like this…” he mumbles to himself, squinting at the scrawled message. Hizashi barks out a laugh before taking the note back.
“It says, ‘please be seated. The presentation will begin shortly.’”
Shouta simply shrugs and sits down on the couch, Hizashi tucks the note into his pocket before taking the seat next to him. They sit together silently waiting for whatever it is to start. After about a minute or so, music begins to play, and the two men share a glance.
Hitoshi and Eri emerge from the doorway. Their all-black outfits are accented with matching cat noses and whiskers painted on their faces. Eri’s long hair tied up in buns on either side of her head, in an attempt to mimic cat ears. Hizashi begins cooing almost uncontrollably at them, while Shouta just watches silently with widened eyes as the children walk past to stand on either side of the television. Hitoshi’s balancing his laptop on his arm, his expression as unreadable as always as he clears his throat.
“We’ve gathered you here today to—”
“Yes,” Shouta affirms immediately.
Hizashi nearly gives himself whiplash as he swings his head around to gape at his husband, confusion painted all over his face.
“But you don’t even know what they’re gonna say!”
Shouta sighs, squeezing his tired eyes shut and pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Fine. Okay. What were you going to say?”
Hitoshi straightens his cat ears, feeling as confident as possible given the situation. His well-rehearsed speech already playing in his head as he begins.
“Well—" he starts, but then is promptly cut-off by his sister.
“We want a kitty!” Eri interrupts, throwing her arms in the air, absolutely filled to the brim with enthusiasm. She’s practically bouncing in her excitement, with a smile so big it’s bound to make her cheeks sore. Shouta looks between his children for a moment.
“Done.”
Hitoshi’s eyes widen more than he thought possible, and his mouth falls open. His father’s tone is entirely certain as if he hadn’t been the one against the idea for years. Hitoshi really can’t believe what he’s hearing, and apparently, neither can his other father.
“Shouta!” Hizashi gasps dramatically.
The betrayal in his tone has no chance of going unnoticed. But before Shouta can respond, Eri’s already running to them. She throws herself into Shouta’s lap, shrieking with delight as she hugs him with bone-crushing strength, throwing I love you’s and thank you’s out left and right. He ruffles her hair as best he can and hugs her to his chest as he stands up. Shouta holds Eri straight out to Hizashi, jostling their daughter a little, causing her to erupt with laughter.
“I had to, Hizashi. I had no choice,” he stresses, peering around her to look at his husband. “Could you say no to this?” he asks, using Eri to gesture to their other cat-eared child.
Hizashi stares at him, in complete and utter disbelief. He’s speechless, which is something no one’s ever said about Yamada Hizashi—until this moment, that is.
Shouta takes the silence as a sign that he’s good to go. He pulls Eri back into his chest and begins carrying her out of the living room. There’s a small smile on his face as she begins rhyming off all the potential names she’s already written down in her notebook. This seems to snap Hizashi out of his shocked state, and he trails after them, unloading a barrage of questions, which his husband is likely to ignore entirely.
Hitoshi just watches in stunned silence as the scene unfolds in front of him, and before he knows it, he’s left completely alone. He looks down at his laptop still in-hand. The title screen ready to go, reading Give Us A Cat or Else. 50 Reasons Why We Need One. He sighs weakly.
“But my PowerPoint…”