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“Papa, can I go on the big slide?”
Hitoshi peered down at his little girl in surprise. He had been fixed on something else, farther away, in the park. “Huh? Oh, ‘course sleepy-eyes. I’ll come with you.” He followed close behind his daughter as she ran to the “big kid playground”, watching over her protectively as she came in contact with the other children.
When it was clear she was getting along just fine with them, Hitoshi wandered over to a park bench nearby where he could watch his daughter and keep an eye on a petite young woman strolling aimlessly through the small grove in the distance. He thought of Ochaco.
1-A District City Park was one of the best parks in the entire city of UA. Hitoshi and his daughter, Hotaru, had come here often since they’d moved to the district a couple months ago. It was beautiful. There was a wealth of green grass and trees to run around in, three playgrounds, and lots of children in the area to play with. He’d hoped Hotaru wouldn’t be lonely living just with her dad, being in this area filled with new friends, and he had been right.
Hitoshi strained his eyes to see the lady as she strolled further away. She wore pale pink, as Ochaco often did, and was fairly short, similar to Ochaco.
“Papa! Are you listening?” Hotaru giggled and Hitoshi realized she’d been sitting next to him on the bench for a while now.
“Hotaru, sorry,” Hitoshi smiled softly and rubbed the back of his neck. “I was distracted. What'd you want, sweets?”
She stared thoughtfully into the distance, and he noticed a sober little frown as her eyes followed his line of sight and met the Ochaco-esque woman. She gasped excitedly and clasped his shoulder with tiny hands.
“Mommy’s here, finally! We should go to her!”
“No, no sweets. That’s not Mommy.”
“She looks like Mommy... She’s pretty like Mommy.”
Hitoshi felt his heart scrunch up a little like an aluminum can in a tight grip. “Heh. Yeah, I guess so. Mommy’s prettier though…”
He felt Hotaru nod vehemently. “Yeah! Mommy’s beeeauuuutiful!” She stretched her arms as far as they would go for emphasis. “When’s she gonna come see us?”
“I-I don’t think she’s going to come, sweets.”
“What?” Her lips pulled down a little at the corners. “Maybe next year, then?” She was mimicking when Ochaco used to negotiate over the phone as part of her work.
“No, not next year. I’m...I’m sorry, Hotaru. She’s...not....” His adam's apple rose a little along the line of his throat. “She’s not-”
Hitoshi felt the gentle weight of Hotaru in his lap, and he slowly moved his eyes to meet hers.
The sunlight streamed through Hotaru’s bobbing golden brown hair, and he remembered that day on the beach when Ochaco had whipped her hair around, and looked at him with that teasing grin, and…
“You know, I think you’re a real softie at your core, huh, ‘Toshi-kun?”
“I think I love you.”
At the time she laughed at his sincere statement, mistaking it for the sarcasm he had a habit of injecting into every sentence. They’d only been friends for a couple of months, and who would expect it if a weathered corporate shark lawyer fell head over heels for the owner of a space-themed diner in the boonies?
It would take two years of friendship and then hundreds of dates before Ochaco realized Hitoshi had been serious that day and told him of her own love. He married her the minute she said so, down at the city courthouse; him in a rumpled suit and her in her waitress uniform. That day, she’d said to him,
“Let’s promise to be there for each other, Toshi.”
“Of course, Sweets.”
And they made good on their promise. When she lost her business in a fire. When his foster father died. When they lost their first child prematurely. When the world was against them.
But the world doesn’t stay mad for long. Ochaco became pregnant with Hotaru, and Hitoshi started his own firm, and…they were happy. For a beautiful six years. Seasons of life do pass.
“What, Papa? What happened to Mommy?” Hotaru grasped the fabric of his coat and looked at him urgently.
“I–”
Her eyes were a bright, starry violet. So many times he’d looked at those eyes and remembered the day she was born, that picture of domestic bliss in his mind as Ochaco had looked up from their baby at the same moment the baby looked at him, both pairs of brown and violet sparkling like twin galaxies.
Her cheeks were pink like Ochaco’s, she loved space and sugar like Ochaco. The lilting way she said his name. Passerby smiled at the seemingly happy daddy and daughter duo. Inside, Hitoshi felt his lawyer-like composure begin to crumble.
“Daddy, are you ok?”
Six months and two weeks ago, it happened. One day, she just didn’t come back from work, and Hotaru never understood. She didn’t know. He wasn’t sure if Ochaco wanted him to tell her.
Tears blurred his vision of Hotaru. Childish hands began to rub his cheeks. “Don’t cry, Papa. I miss Mommy too, but she’ll come back! Don’t cry P–”
“Hotaru…Mommy died.”
His daughter’s expression froze, face gray, cheeks dead in their color. “Dead? She’s…”
“I’m so sorry, sweets.”
“She’s not coming back?”
“N–” His breath hitched. Hitoshi looked down and sighed, wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his sweater, and looked back up. “-No, Hotaru. She won’t be coming back.”
It was Hotaru’s turn to cry, but she remained silent as he hugged her tight. They sat for a long time on the park bench, mourning the first realization of the disappearance of a wife and mother forever from their lives.
The children laughed and played on the jungle gyms and dogs barked on the lawn and an airplane rumbled overhead as in the distance a carousel mocked them with its song.
THE END.