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Yusuke sighs, twirling the feather around his fingers. Back and forth between his thumb and pointer finger, watching it twirl around and around. He hopes that by inspecting it from every angle, he’ll get some type of answer for what he wants to do with it.
No such miracle answer comes from the sky to give him an idea, and in the end all he ends up doing is setting the feather to the side and staring at his blank canvas. He had an idea, he knows that. Otherwise he wouldn’t have snatched the feather up from the ground in the first place. Then again, maybe he would’ve. Akira has always said he’s more impulsive than he lets on.
Maybe he wanted to paint the feather. Why, though? Maybe he wanted to paint with the feather? That could be interesting, but it might prove difficult and time consuming. Did he want to stick the feather on a piece? That can’t be it, he’s never done art like that before.
Yusuke has no clue what compelled him to bend down and snatch the feather up on his way home, and now he’s stuck with it. He doesn’t want to get rid of it, just in case whatever it is comes back to him. It’ll probably end up in what Goro has lovingly dubbed, “The Inspiration Hoard”. It’s a box full of things he picked up in the name of inspiration only to forget about them and store them away as if he’ll ever think about them again. Goro has tried to get him to throw it away on several occasions, but they both know it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.
Goro walks through the door, looking more than tired.
“Welcome home,” Yusuke calls, turning to watch him.
Goro snorts, rubbing his eyes.
“Yusuke, why do you have a crow feather?”
A lightbulb goes off.
“That’s why I picked it up!” He bounces on his heels and grabs a paintbrush. “I nearly forgot, thank you love.”
“Hm?”
“Don’t mind that. How was work?”
“Oh, you know. Had an interview with Nana today.” Goro collapses on the couch with a sigh. “I have to put her on antidepressants I think. But there’s a family that really wants to adopt her, so I had good news for her at least.”
“Well that’s good, that she’s going to get the help she needs,” Yusuke says quietly.
He starts with light colors in the background, getting them down on the canvas absentmindedly while he listens.
“It is. I’m glad she seems to be improving too, because for a while there…”
“You were really worried about her, I know.”
“She’s gone through a lot. I’m talking with the family tomorrow, to see if they’ll be good for her.”
Yusuke smiles to himself. He doesn’t think Goro expected himself to end up where he has today, and in some moments it hits Yusuke how much he’s grown and changed over time. He’s really become someone Yusuke is proud to love. He always has been, really.
“That’s good. Do you have any feelings about it yet?”
Yusuke wants to hear Goro’s voice, listen to him go on and on about his day and work. It’s the perfect background as he works on the background for his piece, the sound serving to calm him.
“I spoke to them briefly already. They definitely seemed earnest,” Goro says, though there’s slight hesitation in his tone. “But you never know. And I want Nana to like them too, not just for them to be her best option for a new life. So we’ll see, but I’m pretty hopeful.”
“You’ve been working with Nana for a while now, haven’t you?”
“She was one of my first kids,” Goro sighs. “We fought really hard, and it’s so...it feels amazing to see her finally getting good things in her life. I don’t even know how to explain the feeling. But I’m a little sad she might not need me soon, if she settles well.”
Yusuke turns away from his work to look at Goro. Sometimes Goro still hides things in his voice, teetering on the edge of emotion without letting it spill over. But his eyes are usually not so hidden, and Yusuke can at least find the truth in them.
Now, Yusuke only sees deep satisfaction with the hint of sadness.
“You did so well with her,” Yusuke tells him. “I know I haven’t met her, but just the way you talk about her case. I know it means a lot to you, I know she means a lot to you. You’re really amazing at this, Goro. I think you were made for it.”
Yusuke watches the tears fill up in his husband’s eyes with a fond smile. He tucks his paintbrush behind his ear and sits by him, letting Goro tuck himself against his side and cry it out.
He’s used to saying things and having them hit much harder than he intended. Goro is much more emotional than he ever was, like years of holding things back have made it impossible to do so now. Yusuke rubs his back gently.
“You can’t just say those things,” Goro complains wetly, wiping his eyes.
“I just think it’s true.”
Goro grumbles something about him being unfair and presses closer to him.
Yusuke knows Nana reminds Goro of himself. He begged for her case, Yusuke remembers the day he came home with the file and that self-satisfied smirk.
“Got her,” he’d said.
Nana is ten years old now. She was five when Goro first picked up her case, a little girl whose father abandoned her and her mother. Her mother was a drug addict who got her money from god knows where and did her best to support her daughter alone. Her best wasn’t good enough, and that’s when Goro stepped in. Nana was separated from her mother while she went to rehab, and Goro spent a lot of long nights in his office space working on all the paperwork.
Nana’s mother committed suicide, and Goro cried for a long time.
Nana has been bouncing around foster homes for a couple of years, but Goro has been fighting to get her adopted and they’ve finally found a family. A mom and a dad with an adopted little boy as well.
Goro spends a lot of time with Nana, and even Yusuke doesn’t know everything they talk about. But he knows Nana likes to draw, that she’s very advanced in terms of reading for her age. She talks very grown up, and everyone always compliments her on her manners. Goro calls her brilliant, a little prodigy.
Yusuke knows it was just Goro’s influence.
Yusuke picked up the crow feather because yes, Goro used to be Crow in the Metaverse. That much is obvious. And crows are truly known for not getting along with other birds, usually being the aggressor in many situations. It’s a hostility Goro used to mirror. He still does, sometimes.
And Yusuke thought it was hilarious, when Goro had come home that one day with a handful of shiny buttons and pins that he’d said were a gift from Nana. They still sit in that beautiful wood box set on top of their dresser.
Crows like shiny things, and they get along with humans better than other birds.
Yusuke kisses the top of Goro’s head and stands. He grabs his sketchbook, gently pressing on the canvas to see if it’s still wet. It is, and the color comes off on his finger. He frowns down at it and sits back with Goro, pressing the finger to his cheek. Goro glares at him with no heat.
He starts to do a sketch of Goro in his Metaverse, his memory after all these years still maintains the image. It had stuck with him, funny and dramatic as it was. That doesn’t take him a moment, but then he has to grab Goro’s phone and open his album of Nana. He finds a recent one so he can start sketching her as well.
“What are you drawing?”
Goro is peering over his shoulder, his breath fanning over his neck he’s so close. Yusuke moves a little closer and tilts his sketchbook.
“Just a girl and her Crow,” he dismisses. “The feather reminded me.”