Chapter Text
The morning starts with the scoot of a stool against linoleum, the staggered sound of tearing cardboard, and an absent father.
None of these are particularly unfamiliar to six-year-old Keigo; the stool’s more comfortable than the floor even if one leg’s uneven. As for the cereal box in his tiny hands, he’s found tearing it clean through is much more efficient than digging around blindly. His father always says he’s getting the cereal just for Keigo, but half the time he wakes to find his breakfast mascots splashed with alcohol stains, the cereal baggie inside near-empty. That’s alright, though—tearing the box always reveals tons of stray flakes at the bottom, even if they tend to be a bit stale. One time, he even found a Gang Orca figurine down there. Nothing but cereal this time, though.
And his father’s disappearance? That’s just a daily occurrence.
Keigo picks the flakes out one-by-one and sets them in his bowl, a little archeologist at a cardboard dig site. He shakes the crumbs out of the baggie for good measure before tossing the mess beside the overflowing trash can. Tiptoes the maze of vodka bottles and wadded-up trash and settles on the sofa—careful to avoid the middle cushion where the rogue spring pokes out—and digs the TV remote from under the couch pillows.
His father rarely ever keeps any spoils from his heists. They’re always tools for bartering: the pawn shop for large hauls, the casino for trinkets. But the massive flat-screen on their wall was the one exception, and as much as his father’s shady dealings leave him squeamish, Keigo can’t imagine a better prize for him to have kept. If a hero ever tracked his father and him down, Keigo would be sure to say they owned the TV. It’s the only lie he can ever see himself telling a pro—but maybe they’d let him keep it even if he went to jail.
Keigo jabs the power button, and the massive screen ignites with life. Some kind of news interview, though he has a step to fulfill before he watches anything. He’s memorized the button scheme by now, even if he can’t read all the words perfectly yet: “Menu,” then the button with the little screen, then the bar with the color wheel. He turns the meter all the way up, saturation pooling in every hue until the colors are practically pouring from the television.
Then that awe-inspiring figure floods the screen, and Keigo snaps the menu shut at lightning speed.
The flames lining Endeavor’s frame dance with undying fervor, and Keigo feels his heart doing the same. He glances for the plush Endeavor usually at his side, but realizes he’s left it on his futon. A subtle shift of his shoulder blades, and he feels one scarlet feather dislodge, zipping around the corner towards his room.
He’s improving with his quirk. His father had said it last week, sprawled on the couch and reeking of celebratory booze. The array of rings they’d swiped that evening crowned every skinny knuckle, and Keigo watched as his father flexed his fingers in astonishment, like some evil animated monarch. The boy just stood by, guilty but blank-faced, still feeling the chill of the pilfered jewelry against his feathers. He’d just been following directions. He was supposed to follow directions.
But when his father had reached over and tousled his hair, it felt nice. He just had to tune out the brush of gold against his scalp.
A distinct sensation tickles the hairs on the back of his neck, and Keigo can feel the soft fuzz of fabric against the feather in his room. He hooks the barb around what he assumes is plush Endeavor’s arm, and sends the toy floating back into the living room. Plush Endeavor frowns at him from his upside-down position—he’s grabbed a leg, not an arm. Close enough.
Keigo perches Endeavor upright against the exposed spring and returns to the TV. Offers the doll little flakes of cereal before crunching them down himself, taking in the real Endeavor’s booming voice over his own chewing. Even as the growing gale batters his microphone, Endeavor stands firm, and Keigo watches the hero’s flames whip about in defiant technicolor. He looks like a meteor alight, set to tear through the atmosphere of Keigo’s screen and touch down right in his living room. And for a moment, Keigo finds himself wondering if the man is even human. Perhaps he really did come from space. Straight from the core of the sun.
Over the man’s massive shoulder, distant trees bow in the wind, and Keigo absentmindedly watches them sway, still pondering on Endeavor’s origins. He almost loses a red maple in the pro’s flames, and beside it, a playground half-eclipsed in its leaves: A sun-bleached spiral slide, monkey bars with chipped blue paint, a solitary swing-set with a…broken chain…
Keigo shoots from his seat, eyes wide, empty bowl toppling to the floor. He knows that swing-set. Knows that playground.
That’s right down the street.
Endeavor’s right down the street from his house.
Keigo snatches the plush so urgently it’s a miracle he doesn’t yank its arm off. Sets his eyes on the door, feathers already zooming ahead to unlatch the chain—
The news transitions to a traffic report, and he remembers.
Keigo’s feathers flutter from the lock, drifting down like ash from a dying fire. His father has never been a stickler for rules—far from it, even—but there’s one rule that’s non-negotiable in the Takami household: When his father is home, Keigo’s free to wander to his heart’s content. But when he’s out, Keigo is not to leave the house. Not to visit the playground, not to play in the rain, not even to meet his idol. His father had implemented it two years prior, when he’d come home to find a drenched Keigo heaving for breaths at a retention pond’s edge, nails caked with dirt from clawing his way out. He can still remember the look on his dad’s face as he found his son half-drowned, a sober terror unlike anything Keigo had seen before, or since.
Thief, alcoholic, and everything else he is or isn’t—he’s still a father.
The feathers float back to the boy, who takes them in his arms and hugs them close instead of losing them in his wings. At the wrong angle they can be sharp as knives, but Keigo’s cautious as he buries his face in only the softest plumage. The traffic report drones on, and he’s racked with guilt. He snuck out last week. Broke his father’s only rule last week, and the man still hasn’t found out.
Honestly, the memory alone was punishment enough: Wandering down the road, and the sight of the massive truck barreling for that minivan, like a bug set to be crushed…The dread still turned in his tiny stomach. His only instinct had been to save them, now, get them out of there, and the crimson torrent of feathers shot from his back before he could even think. Through some miracle, he’d pulled every victim from the impending collision, but the crash was still deafening enough to startle him: a monster comprised of twisted cars, the stench of gasoline burning in his nostrils. He’d fled without a word to the rescued family, raced back home and hid in his room for the rest of the day, petting his toy’s plush flames in a vain effort to calm himself. Keigo much preferred when his father didn’t involve him in heists, but that day, he’d almost wished he’d tagged along.
His father arrived home that evening with a collection of wallets. Found some wrapped candies in one of them and gave a couple to his son. Keigo tucked the candies under his pillow before bed. He definitely hadn’t deserved them.
Keigo sighs, letting his feathers settle back into his wings. Endeavor or none, he’s not making that mistake again. Heaven knows what he’d witness this time. Instead, he resorts once again to petting plush Endeavor’s head, the fuzz comforting on his tiny fingertips. The interview is over anyway, odds are Endeavor’s already off to his next job. Keigo reaches for the remote, trying to ignore the rumbling in his stomach as he does so. Bottom-of-the-box cereal is far from filling.
He flips the channel to cartoons, mindlessly twirling plush Endeavor’s arm between his fingers. It would’ve been incredible, meeting him for real. But rules are rules, and what his father says goes. And if it keeps him safe from a world of water-filled lungs and mangled metal beasts, it’s probably for the best.
Keigo settles deep into the couch cushions, back to stroking the soft flames, vibrant TV setting the trash-strewn room alight. Maybe someday, Endeavor will find him instead. Take him all the way up to the sun.