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Shouto sighs as he glances at the clock on his bedside table.
Shutting his eyes tightly, he ignores the glowing numbers and turns away in a feeble attempt to catch a few minutes of sleep. The sheets, however, weigh on him and his hair sticks uncomfortably to his neck and forehead. It’s the first day he’s willingly taken off in a year, yet he’s been tossing and turning all night, consumed by his own thoughts.
His eyes pop open again.
Even in the darkness of night, the room threatens to swallow him whole, the four corners inching closer and closer with the nearing sunrise, constricting his breath and pinning him to the bed. The memories that edge on his consciousness force him to turn yet again just to keep them at bay.
Reflexively, he reaches out towards the other side of the bed, expecting to find her comforting presence. His hand recoils when all it finds is a cold, empty space.
Deciding he’s had too much, he kicks his covers off, gets up, and walks out of his room. The cold tiles under his feet ground him and dispel any traces of sleep.
He eyes the closed door halfway down the hallway.
On a regular day, he would lower his head and walk past it pretending it doesn’t exist, but today it beckons him. His eyes lock in on the little toy giraffe that hangs from the doorknob and he finds his hand reaching towards it involuntarily.
As the tip of his fingers brush against the plastic, the image of white walls flashes through his mind and the sterile smell of hospitals hits his nostrils.
His hand flinches and falls limply next to his body.
Shaking his head, he resumes his walk. His stomach growls but he ignores it, instead heading to his training room.
Stronger , he thinks, he needs to get stronger .
As he walks away, he doesn’t notice the set of soot and frosted footprints that he leaves behind him.
Shouto reaches into his closet and pulls out his hero suit.
It’s been less than a week since the last time he wore it, but the need to get out of the house, to get away from everything and everyone, is enough to make him want to go back to work.
Despite what his wife tells him.
Despite what his mother tells him.
Despite what his friends tell him.
He is fine and he is going to prove it to everybody. Or at least, he will be as soon as he can leave. As soon as every nook and cranny stops showing him the ghost of memories that were and of a future that will never be.
So he stuffs the suit in the first bag he can find and stalks out of their bedroom.
He hasn’t taken more than five steps down the hallway when he spots Momo. She’s sitting on the couch with her legs up, her arms wrapped protectively around them with her head resting on top of her knees. Her shoulders are shaking slightly, but her long black hair cascades down the side and obscures his view.
His throat closes up and his hands start shaking at the sight.
He knows she’s crying again - it’s what she's been doing for the past four days, since they had come back from the hospital empty handed. He feels the sudden impulse to go to her side, to comfort her, to wrap her in his arms, but his legs stay rooted on the spot.
He swallows hard as his eyes begin to burn.
The black hole that had opened in his chest four days ago threatens to swallow him whole.
His vision begins to blur and he blinks rapidly to get rid of the feeling. He knows doesn’t have a right to cry, to feel upset. Not when he should have done more to keep this from happening.
He’s failed her, he realizes. He’s failed them .
If only he had been strong enough to save him .
All his life he had been praised for the strength of his quirk, yet it had proven useless in this situation.
Letting out a heavy sigh, he makes to move towards the door, but she turns to face him before he can take a step.
They stare at each other for a few seconds, the heavy silence making his chest tight.
Her eyes roam over him, from the top of his still damp hair to his freshly washed shirt and pants. They come to a stop when they reach the bag he’s carrying. Her eyes narrow as they return to his face.
“Are you going somewhere?” her voice is hoarse from disuse.
He clears his throat and sends a stiff nod her way, his eyes not daring to meet hers. “Back to work.”
She straightens up at his words, the movement drawing his eyes to her and revealing the tiny blanket laying on her knees.
His mouth goes dry and a numb feeling spreads from out the hole in his chest.
Peeling his eyes from the blanket, he looks at her face. Her normally bright and cheery eyes are dull, bloodshot, and puffy.
“What?” she asks weakly, her voice no louder than a whisper.
He wets his parched lips before replying. “You should eat something and get some sleep,” he says, ignoring her question.
She frowns and shakes her head at his words. “You should stay home, it’s only been a few days.”
His grip on the bag tightens. “We are heroes, Momo. We have a duty to fulfill.”
“Shouto, you need to give yourself time to-”
“I’m fine, Momo,” he interrupts her as he turns and resumes his walk towards the door.
He hears the soft thud of blankets falling to the floor followed by the sound of her slippered feet going after him. He doesn’t dare look back at her. He doesn’t dare come face-to-face with her pain and risk making it worse.
He can deal with his own feelings, he thinks, in his own way. But he won’t dare inflict more pain than she’s already feeling.
“You say that yet you train all day, every day and refuse to talk about what happened,” she says, her voice much closer than he expected it to be.
He flinches involuntarily and his eyes widen slightly but his steps never waver. He keeps his eyes fixed on the door in an attempt to ignore the uncomfortable feeling that settles in the pit of his stomach.
He can’t afford to get distracted right now, not when his goal is so close, not when he can almost feel the fresh air that he so badly needs, that he hopes will keep his ghosts at bay.
“I have nothing to talk about.” He leans over and puts on his shoes, the grip on his bag never lessening.
“You can’t go on like this forever, Shouto.” Her voice is soft and breaks at his name. He stops for a second, his hand hovering over the doorknob as his resolution falters.
He swallows hard and considers giving in to the prickling feeling in his eyes.
He’s about to drop the bag on the floor when an image of her crosses his mind and chills him to the bone.
She’s hunched over, tears rolling freeling down her eyes as she clutches a brand new stuffed animal closely to her chest. The sobs that rake through her body are the only sounds that fill the deafening silence that shrouds their home. He had attempted to console her then, but his presence had done nothing to appease her cries.
He shakes his head to get rid of the memory. He couldn’t do anything to keep the pain away then, and he can’t do anything now.
So he pushes all his feelings down, down, down, where they can’t reach him. Where they are easily ignored.
He turns to look at her one last time and truly looks into her eyes for the first time in days. Past the redness and the puffiness, he sees the woman he loves. He sees the happiness they had shared become eclipsed by the pain he had been incapable to keep away.
He sees his own feelings and brokenness reflected back at him openly and unashamedly and all thought leaves his mind. He feels the hole cave in and his knees tremble, threatening to collapse beneath him.
So he sets his shoulders, squares his jaw, and grabs the doorknob with more force than it’s necessary, seeking something to hold on to.
He turns to face the door and swallows hard.
“Watch me,” he says in a low voice as he exits and slams the door behind him.
The late afternoon sun casts long shadows on the ground when he gets there.
It has been a year since he last stood in that same spot. Since the stone memorial has been erected in his family’s burial ground. Since the last time he has felt whole.
The fall foliage covers the ground in an array of bright colors that could almost liven up the place. Despite the season, the sun still has a gentle warmth to it and the sky is woven out of a beautiful, uninterrupted tapestry of blue.
It is the perfect day.
Yet he wishes for dark clouds, for dark skies, for rain. At least that way the weather would reflect his current mood -- his only mood, it seems at this point.
So he bows his head and prays for rain. Rain so that at least some drops would fall, even if his refuse to. Rain so that, if his ever come, nobody would notice.
Yet he knows, deep within his chest, that neither will come.
His shadow covers the writing on the stone and obscures the words that marr the surface, but he doesn’t need light to see them. One name. One date. Both carved in his heart as deeply as they are carved on the stone.
A bright red leaf catches his eye and he leans down to pick it up, its color as deep as the setting sun. He turns it over in his hand with reverent care as he examines it. So thin, so easily crumpled, so bright in its last moment of life.
It tickles a memory, but he shakes his head to get rid of the thought.
Clearing his throat, he blinks rapidly and leans over to place the leaf on the stone monument so that it stands right next to the name. He clears his throat again, the knot that is lodged there refusing to go.
You’re a hero, damn it , he reminds himself.
He is one of the top heroes in Japan.
He is one of the strongest.
He is unbeaten.
He is unbreakable.
Yet he feels anything but.
The constricting feeling in his chest, the knot in his throat, and the uncomfortable twisting in his stomach remind him that the past few months have been nothing like what the magazines and news articles have suggested. He is nothing like the image the world sees of him.
He is broken, yet he can't show it to the world.
They will never know his pain, will never know what he had gained and what he had lost. They will only ever see one part of him -- it is the price he has to pay to keep his life private.
He has been cleaved in two parts, their edges errored to the point where he doesn’t even remember how they fit together anymore.
In the distance, he hears the soft clicking of heels and the crunching of leaves beneath slowly approaching feet. He is not surprised when the sounds stop directly behind him, neither is he surprised when a soft voice reaches his ears, a voice he has not heard in months. A voice he has craved for since the day she left.
"I wasn't sure you would be here today." His heart tightens at how calm she sounds and his fingers shake slightly.
He stuffs his hands in his pocket.
He takes a moment before replying, making sure that his voice won’t betray any of his emotions. He waited until the late afternoon to come to avoid running into anybody. To avoid running into her .
Yet, here she is.
She really does know him better than he knows himself. The thought intrigues him a little but his face remains as impassive as ever.
"How could I not?" he finally says, letting out a relieved breath when he finds his voice even.
The steps and the crunching of leaves resume until they come to a stop right next to him. He trains his eyes on the red leaf and refuses to turn his head towards her.
Her perfume reaches his nose and he can’t do anything to fight the onslaught of memories that attack him. His chest constricts and he fights to take another breath.
In the blink of an eye, he finds himself consumed by the last memory he has of her. Of the day she walked out of his life.
~~~
82 days.
It has been 82 days since his life had changed forever.
He’s in his training room, as he has been for the past 82 days. He first entered the room as the sun was rising, but the light streaming in through the windows tells him it’s now close to noon. Yet he continues, his body threatening to crumple to the floor if he stops. He feels the beads of sweat as they roll down his forehead and make his eyes sting and his vision blur.
He ignores it, choosing instead to focus on the searing heat and freezing cold that coat his hands as he punches the air.
Drowned out by the noise from his training, he hears the door open, betrayed by the high pitch squeaking he had promised himself he would fix in time for his arrival.
Out of the corner of his eye he sees her standing tall against the door, her hair pulled away from her face. The comforting smell of her perfume reaches him and he falters in his next movement. He catches himself and manages to connect it with a punch, joining the two seamlessly.
Chancing a glance her way, he spots her full purse and traveling coat on her arms.
He doesn’t stop his training.
“Shouto,” she calls him weakly.
He turns his back to her and sends a fiery kick and punch in quick succession towards the opposite wall, painting another dark line on the previously bright white canvas.
“I’m leaving, Shouto,” she sighs heavily. “I can’t do this anymore.”
He stills momentarily, but his eyes remain trained on the wall across from him. His heart beats loudly in his ears, almost drowning her soft words.
“I’ll be at my parents’ house if you need anything.”
Refusing to show any reaction, he resumes his training and aims another fiery kick to the wall. His head buzzes as the kicks burn hotter.
The thought of being without her sends a chill down his back despite the heat.
It’s better this way, he thinks. He can't protect her when she's next to him anyway.
He hears her take a deep breath, and, out of the corner of his eye, sees her turn around, pulling her luggage behind her down the hallway.
He stops and turns to stare at her retreating back as she walks away. The hole in his chest threatens to burst open, but he pushes it further down.
She doesn’t see the thin sheet of ice that covers the room after she leaves.
~~~
A sudden movement to his right brings him back to the present.
He blinks slowly, giving his mind time to catch up. To resurface from the haze it had succumbed to.
He sees her as she kneels on the ground before the monument and he allows himself to truly look at her. Her black hair cascades down her back in soft waves, longer than he remembers. Her back is straight and her shoulders set as her delicate hands brush away the colorful leaves that had fallen on the stone, cleaning it with the type of care she reserves for her most precious possessions.
Her hands still as they come close to the leaf he placed there and his breath hitches in his lungs. She has no way of knowing he had placed it there, no way to think it different from the others that had littered the place.
His eyes widen slightly when her hand moves over the leaf, letting it stand where he placed it. In an instant, a miniature toy giraffe pops from her outstretched hand. All air leaves his lungs when he sees her place it next to his leaf.
His eyes burn as he looks at her.
Shifting her weight back on her heels and lightly brushing her hands on her pants, she gets up and their eyes meet for the first time in months.
Deep within his chest, beneath the layers of frost he has been carefully rebuilding over the past twelve long months, he feels a flame flicker, reluctant to burn out.
At that moment he knows, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that he still loves her.
That he will always love her.
And that is precisely why you can’t be with her , he reminds himself. You’ll only hurt her .
She’s already saved him once, given him everything his heart had longed for. They had had it all. Until their world, their wishes, their future had been ripped away from them.
He can still feel the ragged edges in his heart, threatening to make him bleed every time he breathes. He can’t let her get too close lest she gets hurt. Lest her wounds open up again after she has come this far. He can’t drag her back down with him.
He’ll protect her, even if it means impaling himself in the process.
He swallows thickly and wills his eyes away from her but they don’t obey him, choosing instead to stay trained on the obsidian orbs that were his refuge for so many years.
He is not sure what she sees in his eyes, but whatever it is it softens her expression and makes the corners of her mouth turn downwards into a small frown.
This time he succeeds in looking away.
His heart jumps in his chest as he feels her hand grasp his, her warmth seeping into his cold fingers while her other hand reaches for his cheek.
“You need to allow yourself to mourn him properly, Shouto.”
He starts shaking his head but her hand on his cheek stops him.
Mourning , he thinks. For what? It won’t bring him back.
So he blinks, sets his jaw, and squares his shoulders, lifting them as he raises his emotional barrier back up. He knows he can push his feelings deep down, squish them until he can’t feel anything anymore, until the only thing that remains is his outer shell. He had lived that way in the past, after all.
Before she had showed up, before her warmth had turned his life around.
Her voice reaches him, stopping his thoughts from spiraling any further down. “We all grieve differently, I understand that now,” she says, her hold on his hand tightening. “We both made mistakes and assumed many things, but you need to know that you are not alone.”
He moves his free hands to rest on top of hers, encasing her softer one in between his coarse, calloused ones. The feeling of metal against his fingers makes his breath hitch and sends a chill down his spine. Shifting his hands again, he lifts them up to eye level, bringing hers along.
She is still wearing the rings.
His left thumb caresses the two metal bands as his right one holds her hand close. His eyes settle on the bright stone that still reflects the sun, despite all the years of constant wear. He looks into her eyes again and finds them shining with unshed tears.
“I love you, Shouto. I am here for you and I am not going anywhere,” she whispers as her other hand slides down from his cheek and comes to rest atop his heart. “You don’t have to be the strongest, you don’t have to protect me.”
He lowers his eyes, the knot in his throat growing with every passing second. He swallows in an attempt to get rid of it, but the more he fights it, the more it grows.
“I-,” his voice breaks. He clears his throat before trying again. “I am a hero, Momo. It’s my duty to protect.”
She sighs and lets go of his hands. She reaches up to him, grabs his chin, and softly guides his eyes to hers. “We are a team, Shouto. I am a hero too, you know? I can also protect you, so let me be your strength when you falter and let me lift you up when you fall.” She smiles up at him. “We can still have a future, together.”
A future together , he thinks, the words bouncing aimlessly in his head, attempting to find purchase, but he finds nothing. He opens his mouth to refute her statement, but when he turns to look at her, he finds her cheeks flushed a pretty pink, her mouth set in a wobbly smile, and her eyes hopeful.
His chest tightens and he looks away in a hurry to avoid her eyes. He looks towards the memorial and notices the little toy giraffe and the leaf that they had placed there earlier. A question rings in his mind.
“Why did you leave that leaf there? You cleaned away all the other ones.”
“You put it there didn’t you?”
He snaps his head towards her at her words, his mouth opening and closing in disbelief.
“How…?”
Her smile wavers at his question and she looks away. “It’s the first thing you said when you saw his hair, ‘As red as the brightest leaves falling from the trees outside our window’.”
“Oh,” is all he can say in reply.
The memory of that night breaks through the barriers of his mind. He sees him clearly, his hair, his closed eyes, his unmoving chest. His vision begins to blur with unshed tears.
At that moment, he realizes that he hadn’t just lost him a year ago.
They had lost their son.
The image of the empty, unused crib hiding behind a closed door sneaks into his mind and all at once the tight rope that had been holding his feelings together snaps in two.
He crumples to the ground, his hands fisting the earth beneath them.
At first, silent tears roll down his cheeks, the drops he has wished and prayed for finally falling. He feels her arms wrap tightly around his shoulders, her head laying on one of them as a hand rubs tiny soothing circles on his arm.
Soon enough, the tears bring sobs with them and his shoulders shake under their pressure. His chest tightens painfully, every breath a herculean effort. Everything he had held back for a full year comes out at once and floods his senses.
Pain, regret, jealousy, sadness -- unbearable sadness that threatens to hold him down forever.
He is drowning and yet she holds him. She is his lifeline, and she is guiding him back to the shore.
He is not sure how long they’ve been kneeling on the ground. All he knows is that, when his tears finally subside and the sobs stop shaking his body, the shadows are gone and the darkness of night covers them.
One of her hands sifts through his hair while the other still holds onto him, and for the first time in a long, long time, his heart feels warm.
He chances a glance at her and his heart breaks when he sees the tear streaks that stain her beautiful face -- he feels like crying again.
He had promised her a happy, fulfilling life when they had gotten married.
Had promised a home with kids. A home where they could be happy together. Where they could have what neither of them had enjoyed growing up.
A future together.
Yet here they are, kneeling and crying in front of a memorial that shouldn’t exist. The memorial of someone who should be by their side. Someone who they should be holding in their arms.
He opens his mouth to apologize to her for failing her. For not being strong enough to protect her and their son. For making her cry again. But the words die in his mouth when she smiles at him, a soft, watery smile that breaks his heart, but a smile nonetheless.
“How-” he clears his throat, his voice hoarse from the tears. “How can you do that?” At his words, her smile dims a little and a crease forms in between her eyebrows. “Smile, I mean.”
She lets out a deep sigh as the same small smile returns to her face. “It’s been a year Shouto. A year where I’ve broken down more times than I dare count. And where I have also come to understand that missing him and grieving him doesn’t mean that I can’t move on.”
His eyebrows scrunch up together in confusion. “Move on?”
She takes both of his hands in hers and nods. “I learned that it’s okay to cry and feel mad. It’s okay to feel jealous of what others have and we don’t, of what we missed out on. But it’s also okay to allow yourself to be happy again, to think about what awaits ahead rather than what lies behind.” A lone tear rolls down her cheek and he lifts a hand to wipe it away.
Their career demands an unflappable appearance, and so he delivers. But seeing the woman he loves crying yet still smiling in front of the slab of stone makes him realize that she has always been the strongest of the two. She had faced her grief and pain and had come out victorious on the other side -- scarred and wounded, yes, but victorious nonetheless -- while he has run away and let his job consume him.
She speaks up again when he doesn’t say anything. “It’s going to take time, Shouto, but it’s worth it. And this time, I am not leaving your side.”
He feels his eye prickling again.
“I-,” his voice breaks. He clears his throat and tries again. “I am a hero, Momo. One of the best. And I couldn’t keep my own son safe. I couldn’t do anything to save him.”
She holds him close once again and places a kiss on the top of his head, already holding steadfast to her promise of being there for him.
“Shouto, what happened was not your fault,” she says. “It took me a while to understand it, but it’s neither of our faults. Sometimes- sometimes these things just happen, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
He looks at her and tilts his head to the side, not really understanding what she means. If as a hero he is able to save hundreds of people he doesn’t know, surely he should be able to save his own family, to keep them from suffering.
Her warm, comforting eyes don’t have all the answers he seeks, but he finds that he trusts her, trust that her words are true.
So he nods, hoping that one day he will come to understand, and holds her in his arms.
They stay there, wrapped in each other's arms, until the winds grow too cold for comfort and he is too exhausted to activate his quirk.
With the stars high above them, she intertwines their hands and stands up, bringing him up with her. She squeezes his hand. “Let’s go home, Shouto.”
Casting a last glance at the stone and making a silent promise to actually be there for her and with her, he lets himself be pulled by the hand and follows her wordlessly.