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“I don’t want to.”
“Hitoshi.”
“I said I don’t fucking want to, Aizawa!” Hitoshi paces the length of the kitchen with nowhere better to go, tearing a hand through his hair.
It’s been a long day and it’s barely the afternoon.
It started with Hitoshi skipping breakfast even though it’s Saturday and he can usually manage it on the weekends.
Actually, if he’s honest, it started earlier than that. The entire last three days have been a slowly mounting clusterfuck of unfortunate scheduling and skipped meals. Hizashi isn’t here to mediate, so it’s just Shouta and Hitoshi. And they’re too similar.
Shouta heaves a deep sigh, and somehow it just makes Hitoshi more mad. Regulating. Right. Because he’s so calm and rational and Hitoshi and his fucked-up brain are not.
“Kid, I know this is hard for you, but you need to eat.”
“Oh, really?” Hitoshi laughs. “No, I forgot that after the first thousand fucking times you said it!”
“Language.”
“Go to hell!”
“Do not speak to me like that.”
Hitoshi laughs again, banging a fist on a cabinet hard enough for dishes to rattle inside. “What are you going to do? Put me in time out?”
Shouta just glowers and points at the untouched plate on the counter. “No one is leaving this house until you’ve eaten that or something else substantial.”
“Hope you’re prepared for a long wait, then.” Hitoshi crosses his arms.
“I don’t understand why you’re acting like a child. If you would talk to me so I understand what’s going on-“
“Fuck you!” Hitoshi snaps. “Fuck you, it’s not like you have to care.”
“I am trying to help you-“
“I don’t want to be helped!” Hitoshi shouts. “Just leave me alone.”
“I can’t do that.”
“You can’t do much else either, can you? Just beg me to eat like I’ll change my mind if you say please. If you were brave enough to hit me you could at least get me to listen. Even my real dad knew that.”
Shouta flinches. Hitoshi looks away, glaring a hole in the wall, but he can’t make himself take it back. There’s a pause while the words real dad echo, a pause while they both decide not to acknowledge them.
“I’m not going to hit you,” Shouta says tightly. “But there will be consequences if you don’t eat.”
“Yeah? Fucking prove it.”
He stalks out of the kitchen, leaving Hitoshi to stare at empty space. Well, okay.
After only a few seconds his angry footsteps return, and Hitoshi tenses as his brain catches up to the fact that he just made his dad very mad. On purpose. Shit.
Shouta holds up his keys; they jangle sharply in the air. “If you don’t eat, we go to the hospital.”
“What the fuck,” Hitoshi blurts in a whisper. He backs up until the counter digs into his back. “No! No hospital, you, you fucking promised, you can’t take me-“
“I can and I will. I won’t stand by and watch you starve out of sheer stubbornness!” Shouta shakes the keys, closing the gap between them. His eyes burn red. “Like it or not, I’m responsible for you, and I am not going to sit here and let you kill yourself.”
He gestures wildly at the last words, underscoring them, but all Hitoshi sees is a fist and a flash of metal.
He blinks, and he’s standing with his arms up to cover his face. Not a block like he’s been trained to use in class, but like a little kid, weak and ineffective.
The keys fall to the floor. He jumps again at the clatter.
“Shit,” Shouta whispers. “Shit, Hitoshi-“
“I’ll go,” he blurts.
He’d actually prefer to choke down the food right now, but he’s smart enough to know that’s no longer an option. Shouta’s too angry now. And if he doesn’t comply and go along with the hospital, Shouta will have to escalate, and that…
He’s a coward, but he doesn’t want it to hurt.
“Toshi, wait, you don’t have to-“
He flinches back from Shouta—Aizawa, he can’t be attached now—and hurries over to the door. “Don’t, you don’t have to, I’m coming willingly. I’m coming, I’ll go.”
“Kiddo, I’m not taking you to the hospital.”
Hitoshi freezes. “What?”
“We’re not going, not after that, shit, I never should’ve suggested it-“
Not after that. He messed up. It’s going to be worse now.
“I’m sorry, wait, please let me go, I won’t do it again, you can still take me-“
“Hitoshi, no. You’re not in trouble and you’re not going anywhere, please just…fuck, just sit down.”
Numbly Hitoshi slides to the floor. He doesn’t know how he ended up next to the front door with one sneaker on, but he isn’t going to move now.
“Okay,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
Aizawa just looks at him with an expression Hitoshi can’t read.
“I need…shit. I-I need a minute, don’t go anywhere, please stay there.”
He walks back to his bedroom. Hitoshi stays where he is.
————
Hizashi’s phone rings just as he’s getting back to the dorms. He checks to find Shouta calling him, but he’s barely two minutes from the apartment, they can talk in a second. He feels a little guilty about declining the call regardless, but Shouta will understand.
He hums as he unlocks the door, pushing it open—and stopping. The door is stuck, not even half open. Experimentally Hizashi nudges it, gets a little give, but without knowing why it’s stuck he doesn’t want to push and risk breaking something. So he squeezes through the small space, peeking around to see what-
“Toshi? Hey there, kiddo, whatcha doin’ here?”
He gets no response.
He has a bad feeling he should’ve picked up Shouta’s call.
After a quick glance confirms his husband isn’t in the vicinity, Hizashi sets his bag down and moves slowly in front of Hitoshi, pulling his phone out to call Shouta back.
“Kitten, I’m calling your dad, okay? Can you look at me, say something?”
Hitoshi stares blankly into the middle distance, giving no sign that he registers Hizashi’s presence. Fuck, this is bad, and Hizashi has no idea how long he’s been here.
A voice crackles in Hizashi’s ear. “Zashi."
“Hey, Sho, where are you? I just got home and Hitoshi’s, uh, dissociating in front of the door?”
“Shit,” Shouta gasps. He sounds…he sounds like he’s been crying. “I’m in the bedroom, I was, he, I was making it worse, I triggered him.”
Hizashi blows out a slow breath. “How long ago?”
“Not even ten minutes, I swear, I called you so you could help.”
Well, that’s something. “I’m gonna get him settled as best I can and then we are going to talk, but very quickly, tell me what I’m dealing with.”
“He thought I was going to force him to go to the hospital. And hit him. Twice.”
“Sho…” Hizashi breathes.
His husband sniffles. “I know, I know, just, please-“
“I’ll take care of him. Get yourself regulated in the meantime, ‘kay?”
“‘kay.”
He hangs up and focuses back on Hitoshi. Hitoshi, who, for some reason, only has one shoe on. “Hey, kiddo, it’s me. It’s Dad. Um, Hizashi?”
No response.
“Alright, that’s cool. Seems like whatever happened shook you up pretty bad. But you’re safe, okay? No one’s gonna make you do anything you don’t want to do. I want to help you.”
Hitoshi sways a little, blinking rapidly.
“There you go, Toshi, there you go. It’s okay, you can come back, it’s safe here. I’m gonna keep you safe. Can I touch your shoulder? You’re a little wobbly.”
After a long moment, Hitoshi drags his gaze to Hizashi’s face. He lowers his chin slightly.
“I’m gonna take that as a yes,” Hizashi says, smiling gently as he rubs his shoulder. “See? All good. You’re not in trouble, I’m not going to hurt you.”
Hitoshi’s mouth twitches like he wants to protest, but nothing comes. After a little more coaxing, Hizashi gets him on his feet (now with no shoes) and back to his room. But when he pulls the teenager toward his bed, Hitoshi jerks away, swaying in the center of the room.
“Woah, hey, what’s wrong?”
Wordlessly Hitoshi goes to the corner between his desk and the wall, holing up in the small space there. Ah. Of course, he should’ve known. Hizashi grabs pillows and a blanket from his bed, carefully approaching the corner without blocking him in too much.
“Here. Might be more comfy with a little nest, yeah? I’ll give you some space.”
With one eye firmly on Hizashi, Hitoshi lays out the bedding to make the corner more comfortable and curls up. He looks like he’s starting to zone out again, so Hizashi risks moving closer.
“You feel up to talking at all yet? Or writing? It’s fine if you don’t.”
Hitoshi hesitates, then mimes writing in the air. Hizashi passes over his phone, staying within arm’s reach. Hitoshi types slowly, pausing every few seconds like it’s difficult to focus, but eventually turns the screen toward Hitoshi.
no hospital?
no leaving?
“No hospital,” Hizashi confirms. “Leaving…do you mean you leaving us?”
He nods.
“Oh, honey, no, never. You’re ours. We’re never going to send you away.”
Hitoshi swallows thickly and starts typing again.
but i did bad
“Baby, there is nothing you can do that would be bad enough for us to stop loving you. I promise.”
aizawas mad
Hizashi winces at the name. “I don’t think he is, not at all. I can have him come tell you that himself, if you want.”
Hitoshi shakes his head quickly. yelled
“Okay, so maybe he was a little mad at some point, but he’s not anymore, and he is so sorry he yelled at you, I promise.”
Hitoshi chews on his lower lip.
“Do you want to talk about what happened while I was gone? Shouta yelled, what else?”
don’t wanna eat
yelling
we fought
Fought? An actual fight? They’ve only had a few of those, and not in months and months. And according to Shouta, Hitoshi thought he was going to be hit?
“Why don’t you want to eat?”
Almost immediately the phone slips from Hitoshi’s hands to the floor, his eyes going glassy. Shit. There’s something there.
“Hitoshi, hey, come back, you don’t have to answer. I’m not mad. It’s safe. You don’t have to answer the question.”
He closes his eyes and shudders, a tiny whimper escaping his clenched teeth. But he does look at Hizashi after.
“Can you keep writing for me? Just a little more, I promise. I want to ask if you’re okay with talking to Shouta right now.”
Hitoshi fumbles for the phone with shaking fingers. you stay?
“Yeah, of course I’ll stay with you.”
Hitoshi squints at the screen, tapping exactly three times before frowning deeply, like it’s advanced calculus and not a disjointed sentence. Hizashi’s heart hurts.
can you
can i
touch
“Oh, kitten, of course we can. Whatever you need.” Hizashi moves to touch, but Hitoshi spins the phone back around so fast he nearly drops it, prompting him to hold still a little longer.
you
my side?
Hizashi frowns, taking a second to parse that. “Hitoshi, there’s no sides here. This isn’t a fight.”
His son starts to tremble, biting his lip. Hizashi swears mentally. Clearly the wrong thing to say. Hitoshi types something frantically, then makes a frustrated noise before showing him.
always sides
don’t want him don’t want him don’t want
“Hey, hey, calm down. Whatever you want, kid, you’re calling the shots. Are you worried the two of us will agree you did bad and punish you?”
After a long pause, Hitoshi nods.
“That’s not gonna happen, kiddo. I already talked to Shouta on the phone when I first got home, I promise he’s not angry, he doesn’t think you’re bad, and neither do I. Have I ever broken a promise to you?”
Hitoshi shakes his head.
“Exactly. So if you’re okay with it, I’ll sit with you and call him in and we’ll work this whole mess out as a family.”
Finally he lands on the right word, watching Hitoshi’s shoulders slump at the word family.
“Okay,” he whispers. “Here? Please?”
Hizashi scoots along the wall until they’re sitting almost shoulder to shoulder, facing the door. Hitoshi is mostly blocked by the desk, though, by design. He grabs onto Hizashi’s arm, squeezing tightly as he starts to shake again. With the hand not captured in a vice grip, Hizashi pets his hair.
“It’s gonna be okay, sweetheart. You do whatever you need to, I’m right here.”
Both he and Shouta have noticed, without commenting directly, that Hitoshi’s developed a habit of clinging when he’s anxious. It’s both heart-wrenching to look at and, on some level, reassuring. He trusts them not to hurt him, to keep him safe.
Or. Right now, it seems like he just trusts Hizashi. He senses a hard few days coming for them.
He gets his phone back and texts Shouta to come in the room, carefully. He knows his husband is upset when he doesn’t even get a sarcastic reply about how of course he’s not going to barge into the traumatized kid’s room, he’s not an idiot.
The door eases open slowly, Shouta sliding inside. He notices Hizashi immediately, red-rimmed eyes flickering to Hitoshi’s hands and the small amount of his face that’s visible.
“Hi, Hitoshi,” he croaks. He sounds awful. “It’s, um, Shouta.”
The hesitancy in his voice makes Hizashi wonder if Hitoshi called him Aizawa to his face, too. Ow.
Hitoshi shakes harder and buries his face in Hizashi’s shoulder.
“Do you want him to leave?” Hizashi whispers.
Hitoshi shakes his head immediately. Okay. That’s something.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Shouta says. “I could never. I’m sorry I yelled, I’m sorry I threatened you with the hospital. I was angry, I never should have said any of that.”
“Was bad,” Hitoshi mumbles. “D‘served it.”
“No, baby, no, never,” Hizashi says. “Here, let’s have Shouta tell us what happened, and you can tell me if it lines up with what you remember, okay?”
Hitoshi makes a little noise of affirmation.
Shouta swallows. “We were arguing over lunch. I was angry that Hitoshi didn’t want to eat but couldn’t give me a concrete reason why. It escalated until I had to bring up consequences. Hitoshi pushed me because he’s a teenager and teenagers do that, but I let him get to me and walked off to get the keys. I said he either had to eat or go to the hospital.”
Hizashi winces. Shouta lowers his gaze, posture screaming shame.
“He started panicking, but I was too angry to notice, yelling at him and walking closer waving the keys around and he—he flinched. Like I was going to hit him.”
“Sorry,” Hitoshi mumbles into Hizashi’s shirt.
“Not your fault. Not your fault at all,” he promises. “And then?”
“I tried to backtrack and fix it, but he started babbling about going to the hospital willingly, I’m not totally sure, and when I moved toward him he flinched again. I tried to talk him down, but he was at the door putting his shoes on so I asked him to sit down and he…did. And I felt like I was going to fall apart, I had to leave, I called you-“
“And I came home, right,” Hizashi says. “Toshi? Does that line up with what you remember?”
He nods minutely. Hizashi has a feeling he’s lying, or at least omitting something, but he doesn’t want to push.
“Okay. Now that everybody’s a little calmer, do you think you can explain why you didn’t want to eat today?” Hizashi is careful handling the question, wary of Hitoshi’s earlier reaction.
He doesn’t slam up a mental wall this time, but he does pull away, curling up into a tight ball and pressing as far into the corner as he can.
“Hitoshi, please,” Hizashi says. “No one’s going to be mad at you, no matter what the answer is.”
“Right. We just want to understand, so we can help.”
Hitoshi peeks over at Shouta. He doesn’t move, but wheels are obviously turning in his head.
“Dunno,” he mumbles, and then immediately flinches violently despite no one moving a muscle.
“Hey, hey, kiddo, you’re okay. I told you already, no one’s mad, right, Sho?”
He glances at Shouta for confirmation, but his husband has his eyes closed, the lines of his body tense in a way Hizashi usually associates with pain. He feels like he’s stumbling half blind through this entire situation, and dammit, he’s only one man, he can’t handle two breakdowns at once.
“Okay,” he says slowly. “Hitoshi, Shouta and I are gonna step out for a sec and have a little chat. You’re still not in trouble and we’re not going to get rid of you, I just don’t accidentally want to make you more upset, okay?”
Hitoshi nods without looking at him. Hizashi reaches under his shirt and pulls a necklace over his head, holding it out until Hitoshi takes in the ring swinging on the end of the chain.
“I mean it. You hang onto this for me while I’m gone, so you know I’m coming back. Okay?”
Hitoshi takes the ring gently, staring at it with wide eyes. “Okay.”
“We’ll only be a few minutes, listener.” Reluctantly, he climbs to his feet, wincing at the pain shooting through his lower back. “Shouta, c’mon, our room.”
They need to talk.
————
“What’s going on right now? What’s in your head, babe?”
Shouta tries valiantly to hold on to the shreds of his composure, he does. His hands shake anyway as he shoves hair out of his face. “God. He still—that’s exactly what he was saying all morning, he doesn’t trust me, not, fuck, not like he trusts you.”
“Shouta, he adores you. Of course he trusts you.”
He snaps, driving his fist into the wall. Not nearly his full strength, not even enough to leave a mark, but as soon as it’s done he hates himself for it.
No wonder his son looked at him like he was a monster.
“Fuck—dammit!”
“Sho, your hand-“
“Don’t!” He turns his back, trying to force his breathing to steady. “Shit, this is why—he thought I was gonna hit him, Zashi, you didn’t see his face and I just-"
Strong arms wrap around his waist, an inaudible hum vibrating through the chest pressed against his spine. “Hey. Breathe for a second, it’s okay.”
“It’s not,” Shouta hisses, curling in on himself. “It’s not, what if I get angry again, what if I snap and just, just hit him because he’s there, I can’t-"
“Shouta-“
“-promised him he’d be safe, and now he’s too scared to be in a room alone with me and he’s right-"
“Shouta, you are not like that,” Hizashi says firmly.
But Shouta knows the stats, intimately. Knows it’s all too common for heroes to bring the violence of work home with them. For instinct to kick in. Knows the shape of his own anger under the tight leash of his will.
Hizashi sighs and moves away a little, pulling them both toward the bed. “Listen to me, Shouta. If you were going to hurt Hitoshi you wouldn’t be panicking over the mere idea of it. You’re a good person. You just made a rough call today.”
“So what if it happens again?” Shouta demands.
“You’ll be better.” Hizashi shrugs. “It’s what you do.”
“Logically.” Not when he’s angry enough to see red, literally.
“Emotions are logical, babe.”
Shouta shoots him a tired glare and doesn’t bother responding. Hizashi shuffles over so they’re pressed together, shoulder to hip to thigh.
“Okay. You want to tell me what had you so freaked out in there about Hitoshi’s answer to the last question?”
“Told you, he was saying that all morning. Like a broken record.”
“That he didn’t know?”
“Yes.” Annoyance and frustration and yes, anger, flare up at the memory. “No matter what I said. Like he didn’t trust me enough to tell me the real answer, and since I didn’t know I couldn’t help him, and we were just…going in circles.”
Hizashi leans back to look at him. “Shouta,” he says slowly. “Shouta. He wasn’t lying.”
Shouta stares at him for one, two, three seconds before it fully sinks in. “Oh, fuck.”
He wasn’t lying. Why the fuck didn’t Shouta consider that? That maybe he just didn’t know, because anxiety is strange and complicated and Hitoshi is just a kid?
“Did you call him a liar?”
Shouta chokes. “No! But I didn’t exactly believe him, no wonder he was so mad, fuck.”
Father of the goddamn year, that’s him. Who let him have custody of a kid? Who looked at Hitoshi and thought Shouta was fucking capable?
“Babe, honey, you’re spiraling.” Hizashi takes his shoulders. “Hey. Hitoshi’s okay. He’s just a little upset. Nothing irreparable.”
“I still hurt him,” Shouta chokes out, ashamed at how it wobbles. He doesn’t have any right to be crying.
“You’re a human being, you were always going to make mistakes. Hell, you have. Both of us have. And we’re still here, right?”
“He was scared of me.”
“Sure,” Hizashi agrees easily, twisting like a knife in Shouta’s heart. “You triggered him, his instinct is to be wary. We’ll work through it.”
“What if we can’t?” Shouta whispers.
“Of course we can. Plus ultra, right? We’ll fix this. And the first step to doing that is getting back in there with him and having a chat.”
Right. Their son is still in his bedroom, pressed into a corner because he’s scared. Because Shouta scared him.
He has to make it right.
“Okay,” he says, drawing in a deep breath and scraping his composure together. “Let’s go.”
————
Hitoshi creeps out of his corner after Hizashi leaves. He wraps his weighted blanket around his shoulders, feeling distinctly like a child, but he can’t bring himself to stop.
He runs his fingers along the wedding band, hovering in front of his door. Should he go? Hizashi said they’d come back, does that mean he wants Hitoshi to stay?
There’s a knock before he can decide.
“Hitoshi? We’re back, can we come in?”
“Yeah,” he rasps, stepping back so the door doesn’t hit him when it swings open.
His parents stand at the threshold, staring at him. Hitoshi clutches the weighted blanket tighter, searching Shouta’s face.
He looks tired. A different kind of tired than usual. He’s been crying.
“Sorry,” Hitoshi whispers. “Are you-"
He closes his mouth.
Shouta looks pained. “Please don’t-"
“No, no, wait.” Hizashi stops him with a hand on his arm. “Hitoshi, you can ask questions. Go on.”
“Are you…okay?”
Shouta winces. “I’m fine. Just worried about you."
Hitoshi looks down. “Sorry. I. I was trying. I shouldn’t have said…” he hesitates, glancing at Hizashi, “what I said. Before.”
“And I said things I shouldn’t have,” Shouta replies. “I’m sorry I made you feel unsafe. This is your home and you deserve better than that.”
“‘s okay.”
Shouta sighs heavily. Hitoshi flinches again.
“Hitoshi,” Hizashi interrupts gently, “do you feel up to eating anything right now?”
He doesn’t, he really really doesn’t. He’s in one of those strange moods where the thought of eating anything disgusts him, not anxious, but something else. At the same time, his stomach cramps with hunger. He has to eat. His dads really want him to eat, and he’s caused enough trouble today.
“Okay,” he whispers.
Because he’s weak, he slots himself into Hizashi’s side, letting his dad’s arm wrap around his shoulder, warm and reassuring in a way his weighted blanket can’t even manage. Shouta walks a few steps ahead of them, so Hitoshi can’t read his face, but this is what he wanted all day, right?
“Sit,” Hizashi says gently, nudging him into his usual chair. “Do you want anything special?”
Everything he can think of sounds horrible. He shakes his head mutely.
“You said you don’t know why you don’t feel like eating today. Can you elaborate a little? Are you anxious, was there something about the food that bothered you, do you need something other than food, maybe? Want to eat on the couch?”
Hitoshi shakes his head. “I’ll eat. It’s…better now.”
Hizashi squeezes his shoulder and heads to the kitchen. Usually this is where Shouta would sit down and chat with Hitoshi, or just be with him in the silence, but he hovers with his husband in the kitchen instead. Alone, Hitoshi would usually mess with his phone or the cats, but today he doesn’t feel like doing anything except resting his head on the table. He’s tired.
“Hey, little listener, you awake?”
Hitoshi nods and drags his head up. Hizashi slides a plate of ginger rice in front of him.
“Start with this. I’m making chicken if you’re still hungry after. If you decide you want something else, let me know, okay?”
Hitoshi nods and starts picking at the rice. It’s good. It’s always good. He just…doesn’t feel like eating it. He sips his water to stall for time, pushing rice around in his bowl in an attempt to look like he’s eaten some. His dads join him after a little while with chicken and rice of their own. The bowls are still steaming faintly. Hitoshi’s rice has gone cold, and the thought just makes his chest tight. He resists the urge to shove the bowl away.
All his meals end up cold, dry, reheated, rubbery—he’s lived with subpar food since forever, but now that he doesn’t have to it’s just. Depressing. It’s such a small, stupid thing to care about. His eyes sting.
The rice is right in front of him, and he’s not anxious, and yet he can’t eat.
He pulls his knees into his chest. It’s awful table manners. Hizashi glances up at him, concerned.
“You okay, Toshi?”
“I can’t,” he whispers. “I want, I want to, but I can’t, I don’t know what’s wrong with me-”
“Hey, shh, it’s okay.” Hizashi rounds the table, pulling the bowl away a little and crouching next to him. “Talk to us. Tell us what’s going on.”
He glances at Shouta, watching him with the same worried, pained expression as usual. “I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t apologize, you’re alright. We just want to help.”
“I just can’t.” Hitoshi grips his legs tighter, unable to find the words to articulate. “I’m sick of this, I’m so tired of this, I just want to eat.”
“I know, baby, I know. It’s just a bad day. We’ll get through it.”
“I want it to be over. I wanna go to bed.”
Hizashi rubs his back. “Can you please try to eat something? You haven’t eaten all day.”
“What are you gonna do if I don’t,” he mumbles, burying his face in his knees. “Send me to the hospital?”
“No,” Shouta says, quiet but forceful, making him raise his eyes. “That is a last resort only.”
Hitoshi swallows a sarcastic comment and hides his face again. He doesn’t know what to do. They’re not going to just let him leave, but he can’t stomach the idea of sitting here all night struggling through a meal. He just can’t. He’s so fucking exhausted of living in his own skin.
“Can I please just go to bed.”
He can feel his dads having another one of their eyebrows-only conversations over his head. Hizashi rubs his back again.
“Okay. If you get hungry, or need one of us, or want to come back out for some company—anything. Just let us know. We can try again tomorrow.”
He peeks up at both of them. “Really?”
Shouta nods. “Sometimes you have to pick your battles.”
It feels wrong to leave the table behind, wrong to change into his pajamas and crawl into bed—it’s still light outside—but Hitoshi can’t summon the energy for anything more. He pulls the covers over his head so it’s mostly dark, surprised when sleep rises up to claim him easily.
————
Hitoshi wakes up disoriented. His room is pitch black and he has the special kind of grogginess that comes from a truly epic nap. He checks his phone, squinting at the harsh light. It’s just past ten at night.
The phone is nearly dead, so he plugs it in and lays there in the darkness, doing his level best to fall asleep again. This time, it doesn’t work. He’s not hungry, but his stomach is gnawing at itself and his limbs are getting the hollow, floaty feeling he’s ninety percent sure is only psychosomatic.
On the bad days he feels so insubstantial he could drift away.
After an hour of trying and failing to find sleep again, he sits up. Usually when he feels bad he…
But they wouldn’t want him right now, would they?
Shouta was upset. He made Shouta cry again. Even if they’re not mad (which he still finds hard to believe), his dads have to be upset. They might want space. Hell, they might just be tired of dealing with him all day. He’s too old for this and he knows it.
I’ll just look, he tells himself. See if they’re okay.
He slips into the hall and over to the cracked bedroom door beside his. It squeaks a bit when he nudges it open, revealing his dads sitting up together. They both turn to look at him. Hitoshi freezes.
“Sorry. I’m fine, I’ll go.”
“Can’t sleep?” Shouta asks softly.
Hitoshi shakes his head.
“Hungry?”
Hitoshi shakes his head. Shouta hums.
“Can I make you something to drink, kid?”
He chews on his lip. Hizashi looks so hopeful, and he still owes Shouta, and he has to prove—to himself, to both of them—that he’s not scared. Because he isn’t.
He doesn’t want to be.
“Okay.”
Shouta slides out of bed, padding to the kitchen in his bare feet. Hitoshi wraps his arms around his waist, wishing he brought his weighted blanket, and follows.
His dad is already putting a kettle on when he enters. Shouta rummages through the pantry and pulls out a package of chocolate chip cookies, setting them on the counter before moving a few feet away back to the stove. The invitation is clear.
Hitoshi creeps forward and takes a cookie, retreating to avoid getting in Shouta’s way as he nibbles the edge of it. It’s not awful.
Shouta fiddles with cups and teabags for a minute before taking his own cookie and leaning against the counter, facing Hitoshi. Questions flicker behind his eyes, but he doesn’t voice them.
“I’m not afraid of you,” Hitoshi says softly.
“Okay.” Just okay.
He takes a breath. “Are you mad at me?”
“I’m mad at myself,” Shouta replies.
Hitoshi blinks. “Why…why?”
“I took you into this house to get you away from people who hurt you. I wanted to give you a safe space, a happy home life. I swore to myself that I was going to do it right, and all these months later I still can’t seem to stop hurting you.”
“It wasn’t you,” Hitoshi blurts.
Shouta laughs with no sound. “If you’re going to lie to make me feel better I’d prefer it was at least believable, kid.”
Hitoshi shakes his head. “No, really. It’s like…like that time Kaminari zipped your sleeping bag up all the way as a prank and you almost attacked him. It wasn’t him you were trying to fight, just someone who took your eyes.”
The kettle whistles. Shouta removes it from the fire. “You don’t have to try to cheer me up.”
“I know that.”
He looks at Hitoshi for a long second, then turns to the tea. “Good.”
It’s only when he takes his tea—lemon and ginger, as always—that he realizes he’s eaten most of his cookie. Shouta doesn’t comment on it, just brings the package to the living room with them.
Hitoshi eats two cookies alongside his cup of tea. "I don't want to die, you know."
Shouta jolts and stares at him. "I... Okay. That's good."
"You said, before. You didn't want to watch me, uh. Kill myself."
"Oh," Shouta says. "Shit. No, I didn't mean it like that, Hitoshi, I shouldn't have said that."
You've been saying that a lot lately. Hitoshi stares into his mostly-empty cup. "I know. It just...bothered me. I wanted you to know. I'm not trying to do that."
"I know. I'm glad."
It’s midnight by the time they finish.
Shouta stands, stretches. “I’ll clean up. You should get some sleep.”
Hitoshi hands over his cup, but doesn’t leave right away, wrapping his arms around himself again. Shouta doesn’t notice as he puts everything away, but on his way to turn out the light he stops.
“I meant sleeping in a bed, not the couch.”
“Can I…” Hitoshi bites his lip, staring at the floor. “If you don’t need space.”
“You want to sleep with us?” Shouta asks, sounding shocked.
Hitoshi nods.
“There’s always space for you. C’mon.”
Hitoshi doesn’t think they’re quite up to leaning on shoulders yet, but he sticks close by Shouta on the way to bed. Hizashi is still up, smiling warmly at them as they enter.
“Hey, Hitoshi. Feeling better?”
He shrugs with one shoulder, climbing into his usual space between them. “I’m tired of doing this every day.”
“Not every day is a bad one,” Hizashi reminds him, pulling him in. “We’re getting there, even if it doesn’t feel like it right now.”
Hitoshi tucks himself into his chest, swallowing the urge to cry. “It’s like I’m hungry but I can’t—I can’t. I don’t know what’s wrong. I just feel like shit and I want it to stop.”
You could stop it if you just sucked it up and ate something.
Shouta smooths a hand down the length of his spine. “I know. I wish we could make it stop. I would take it from you in a second if I could.”
Hizashi hisses, “Shouta!”
“I would. I hate that you’re hurting. But I am proud of you for trying so hard.”
Hitoshi sniffs. “Didn’t do much good today.”
“Doesn’t mean you didn’t try. Go to sleep. We’ll try again in the morning.”
The thought is still exhausting, but not quite as daunting as it seemed before. Hitoshi closes his eyes and lets his parents hold onto him tight enough that he can’t drift away.
————
In the morning, Hitoshi hugs Shouta before he sits at the table. Hizashi asks him if he wants eggs with his usual toast, and he surprises all three of them by saying yes.
Not every day is going to be a bad one.