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Hizashi has always wanted a family of his own.
All his life he’s searched for it and yearned for it, a family that chooses one another. A family that endures. A family that doesn’t begin and end with a surname, and a home where everyone can belong.
A family of his own, and their unconventional, unbreakable bonds. It’s taken years, a good thirty-odd years, but he has found it here, finally.
Peacefully at this moment, he’s thankful to survey. When Hizashi watches his partners sleep it is with unending longing. It’s a surrealism he cannot swallow; watching them, guarding them, guiding them through the nakedness of slumber. Devout and dutiful, an indescribable euphoria, as if he is there, and yet as if he is not there, blessed with the privilege preserved for a God. He’s always been an early riser—o ur own little rooster —his parents would groan as they shook the sleep from their heads each morning before the sun took its turn.
And so it is now, his turn. Hizashi has trained his eyes well to drink the precious image in. Hardly a snore’s pause away, the little black lightning bolt in Denki’s hair bleeds into the pitch dark scruff decorating Shouta’s neck. Even without touching it, Hizashi knows the rough texture, how it feels under his fingernails, his eyelashes, and his lips. He should remind Shouta to shave, but rioting villains have been a constant this month and their on-duty hours have been long. Hizashi is the only one of the three who turns to his obsessive— uhhh —impeccable grooming habits under stress.
An impressive divot of drool narrows into a dribble heading straight for Denki’s brow, making the younger blond furrow them in his sleep. Hizashi could stop it before it drips but why would he? It’s nothing worth risking some much needed rest. Shouta would never admit to the drooling, or that he was the clingiest when it came to cuddling, and it was both of the blond’s greatest glee to tease Shouta relentlessly for camouflaging his soft heart with stubborness. “ Of course you don’t. ” Hizashi always agrees innocently, and makes sure Shouta sees the poltergeist-like swivel of his eyes under his half-moon glasses. “ Heavens forbid! ”
He couldn’t begrudge Shouta for his habits, adorable or not, because after all it’s his own habits that have somehow given him this .
His family, a clump of indistinguishable shadows in one thoroughly broken in King-sized bed. Commitment, twisted together under the pale dew of pre-dawn and Denki’s cloud-shaped nightlight, a housewarming gift from Momo that’s just shy of eight years old. Older than Hizashi’s marriage to Shouta. Older than Denki’s ascension into the top ten rank of pro-heroes. Older than their son.
Much older.
Tight between the swollen keyhole scars on Hizashi’s chest lies a little head. A soft, wrinkled, impossibly small head smelling of peaches and that calming newborn scent that can’t be bottled and sold at Albertsons. Here is the prominence of Hizashi’s family—his son. Carried by him and loved by them and not since his birth has he been allowed out of Hizashi’s sight. This was no accident— Derek —he was wanted for so long, every cell of him, he was intentionally made.
Given his age, and the length of his hormones, Hizashi knew conception was unlikely. He also knew he couldn’t rest knowing he gave up on something so important to him without trying. Shouta’s hysterectomy meant he couldn’t offer anything but his support and they’d nearly adopted— nearly— until Denki came along. Next came Derek.
The shock of voluminous canary-yellow hair was a given even through the black and white ultrasound, but no one expected his eyes. They’re closed currently, still Hizashi has memorized them, their depth and the clarity of color that enriches every day. Rings of molten gold settle evenly among the gentle green, like little sunflowers spreading for warmth. Shouta doesn’t hide the pride in his smile when Hizashi sings praises about them during diaper changes; bonus: it makes Denki the sliiiightest bit envious that he has to ask for the same attention now.
That’s the best part about fatherhood, isn’t it? Those moments. They come and leave before you realize how much you’re missing them. Even now, in fond reminiscence. Even now, as Hizashi is pressed against his found family, he misses them. There is a sacred secrecy to sleep and the dreams one carries to waking. Still, Hizashi prefers the moment his partners open their eyes to a world so bright they have to trust in the love at their bedside to make sense of it.
“Derek” Hizashi whispers to the stirring infant in a delicate tremor that took him decades to master. Love is not at its most outstanding when it is loud. And Hizashi knows a thing or two about the ferocity of volume. Errr more than a thing or two, truthfully. There is no greater victory than knowing exactly how valuable this silence is.
“Shall we wake your other daddies up, hmmmm?”
Derek blinks and yawns by the fresh glory of sunrise. His fist curls and uncurls, active and curious. Fingers creep around his doting father’s chin, brushing across a puckered lower lip. The infant laughs when puffs of air between quick kisses dance across his skin, instantly collecting all the love falling free from Hizashi’s heart.
Family is all Hizashi has ever wanted. Family he has chosen. Family he has created. Family he has found.