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15
Fuyumi could only look at her father’s back as he exited the training room, barely acknowledging her.
Her eyes then fell on Shoto as he bandaged himself.
She wanted to say something, anything, but she could only look. Shoto had become better at it and it broke her heart that he had to learn how to do it himself.
Their mother wasn’t here anymore. Touya wasn’t here anymore. Even if Natsuo smiled and joked outside the house, once in, he shut himself into his room.
Fuyumi could only look at everything, powerless.
.
Even if she should hate her father, she still remembered her mother’s cries at night, a part of her longed for his attention. Maybe it was all those family tv series that got to her head, or when her friends at school talked about how their ‘old men’ were ‘so annoying’. Anyhow, the longing to have a connection with her father was strong and maybe it was why she was trying to start a conversation every now and then, when her brothers were inside their room, set to ignore their father.
“I saw your battle on TV today,” she said, thinking that breaching toward his job as a hero would make him talk.
He grunted a response.
They ate the rest of the supper in silence.
16
As a rule, the doctor had told her, she shouldn’t talk about her father to her mother.
“She’s very fragile” the doctor had said when she was barely 13 and had still a hard time grasping the situation.
“How’s your father?” Her mother asked suddenly an afternoon after Fuyumi had babbled stories about Natsuo.
Fuyumi stopped her movement to look at her mother, unsure of how to answer. Her mother had asked about the family before but she never asked about her father.
“Good,” she paused, “I think” she added because she never was sure how her father was ever feeling.
“Make sure he eats well,” her mother replied with a sad smile and she quickly changed the subject.
The odd conversation sat weirdly inside Fuyumi but she knew better than to ask.
20
Even if Endeavor never really undisclosed his name, people sometimes asked if she related to ‘The Endeavor’.
It always took her by surprise and she almost wanted to ask how did they know.
“Yes, but I don’t know him well,” she replied because it wasn’t a lie.
“That’s still so cool! He’s such a great hero!”
Sometimes, Fuyumi stayed awake at night, thinking that maybe all the suffering her family had was a price to pay for all the people her father saved.
22
Something shifted after UA’s Sports Festival. It was clear with Shoto, as he visited their mother for the first time. It was clear with their mother, having Shoto back in her life was her biggest wish.
It wasn’t clear with their father though Fuyumi felt it changed. As Shoto was now in the UA dorms, they had more time to be just the two of them. There was never a real conversation per se, but small things were present; he’d ask her how was her day, and asked if she spoke with Shoto and Natsuo. When she’d ask how was his day, he’d still reply curtly but it was way better than the grunts she used to have.
Something had shifted their family dynamics, she just wasn’t sure what.
.
“It’s a new flower bouquet?” Fuyumi asked her mother as she entered the room.
Rei barely nodded, a small smile on her face.
“They are beautiful!”
“I know.”
.
The sound had been deafening. Fuyumi didn’t go see what had happened in the training room but she can only guess her father’s anger at what happened in Kamino.
The Symbol of Peace, the person her father had long to surpass was no more.
She prepared Kazumochi and left it in the dining room.
She wasn’t ready when the next morning as she was almost at the door to go to work, her father whispered a ‘thank you’.
She cried on her way to the train.
.
All things considered, meeting Hawks in all of this had been a blessing, not that she knew at that moment.
Looking at the fight in Fukuoka had been emotionally stressful, especially not knowing if her father would get better after the surgery.
Fuyumi had brought a change of clothes for her father while he was still in surgery when she met the new number 2 hero.
“Thank you for helping my father,” she had said, emotion caught in her throat.
Hawks looked at her sadly before he shook his head no. “Your father saved me.”
She didn’t have the time to ask what he meant that he was called somewhere else.
.
She met Hawks again when he stopped by their house with a popular brand of manju from Hakata.
“I’ve seen those on TV before!” She exclaimed happily.
“Yeah, your father said that if I insisted to buy a souvenir, I had to buy something sweet that you would enjoy.”
Fuyumi paused at the comment, a soft smile on her face. “Would you like to come for tea or coffee?”
“I don’t want to impose…”
“Please, as a thank you for the manju.”
Hawks finished by come in and Fuyumi prepared tea as the hero sat at their kitchen table.
“I’ve been wanting to ask you,” she started as she poured him a cup, “when we briefly met at the hospital, you said my father saved you…”
Hawks have a tiny blush on his cheeks, something she wouldn’t think of seeing in such a cheeky person. “He was my inspiration to be a hero,” was all Hawks said.
Fuyumi looked down at her tea, restraining the tears to flow. Part of her wanted to be mad, she still couldn’t fully forgive her father and she wanted to be so mad at him that while he had inspired others, he had broken his family.
But she couldn’t stay mad, not while Hawks was exclaiming how delicious the tea was and started chatting away anecdotes about hero meetings.
It was perhaps the moment Fuyumi decided to try to go forward with their new horizon her family was going.
25
“Dad! I leaving the food in the fridge!”
Her father came into the kitchen. “What?”
“The food! Veggies are at the top, I did both salmon and pork and they are labelled to take whatever you feel like eating.”
Enji grunted what sounded like an ‘okay’. “Give that to your mother,” he then said, giving her an A4 size brown envelop.
“Okay, what is it?”
“Just give it to her.” Fuyumi narrowed her eyes, suspicious but didn’t pry.
“How is it… with him?”
Fuyumi can’t help to let the giggle escape her, making her father frown at her. It was the same pout that Shoto did when he knew he wasn’t getting his way. Who knew it came from dad… “Good.” She finished by answer. “He asked…”
Her father raised an eyebrow, showing his interest in her to finish her sentence.
“Keigo asked me to move in with him… in Fukuoka.”
Enji stayed impassive.
“Even if I say yes, it won’t be before at least April. I won’t quit the job in the middle of the school year. I still need to ask if I could get transferred from the school board here to the school board over there but…”
“You don’t want to?”
“I worry. I know Shoto and Natsuo would be there for mom but as they are both so busy, she’ll be alone in the house often. And… will you eat if I do not come?”
Enji let out a small chuckle, something Fuyumi would always remember the first time she had heard it, how surprised she had been. “I can take care of myself, Fuyumi.”
In the back of her mind, she remembered her mother asking her to make sure he ate well. “Maybe you should hire a maid, just to make sure.”
Enji scoffed. “You should go,” he said, tone back to serious. “You don’t have to worry about me… or your mother.” He then paused. “And even if you worry, talk to him. Don’t do the same mistake I did…”
Fuyumi smiled. “Mom told me the same thing.”
“About moving?”
She shook her head no. “You are the first to know about moving. When we started to date, I was worried about dating a hero and mom told me to talk to him and not do the same mistake she did…”
Enji had a distant look on his face, making Fuyumi wondered what more was between those two, what regrets that didn’t meet the eye were in their hearts that they wanted their children to avoid.
“Fuyumi, give me back the envelope.”
Fuyumi gave it back and Enji exited the room, telling her to wait few minutes. He came back quickly with a small A6 size envelope.
“Give her that.”
Fuyumi knew better than ask. “I’ll be going then!”
“Fuyumi,” he called as she was putting her shoes on, “before you leave for Fukuoka, come with Hawks for dinner. I’ll treat you to whatever you want.”
Fuyumi smiled. “I’d almost believe that you love Keigo.”
Enji scoffed, crossing his arms, “You know I can’t stand that buffoon.”
Fuyumi laughed.
“But he makes you happy.”
“He does,” she gave him a bright smile. “Thanks, dad.”
She left as she knew he looked at her back.