Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In the end, Sasuke dies for Naruto.

He is sixteen and stupid and hurting and lonely, and Naruto—bright, brilliant Naruto with eyes like the sky—punches the hell out of him. Naruto, sun-yellow hair and sunrise grin, calls him friend. Naruto looks at him. Naruto looks at him. Naruto wraps his arms around him and holds him tight. Naruto, with those eyes of his, and that smile of his, rests his head on Sasuke’s shoulders and Sasuke can’t help but feel something ache in his chest, because it’s Uzumaki fucking Naruto, and Sasuke is a little in love with him. 

Naruto. The dead-last, the secret, the outcast. Naruto. The to-be leader of the village that killed his clan. Naruto. Naruto. Naruto, in Sasuke’s mind like a mantra, like salvation, like the first jutsu he’d ever learnt: Goukakyuu. Fireball. Uzumaki Naruto is a fireball, and Sasuke feels warm with the burn of him. He is set alight. He is ignited. He is thinking, Uzumaki Naruto, Uzumaki fucking Naruto, dobe, loser, idiot, someone I could love, someone I love, the only one, the sun, the moon, the universe, and somehow all these things mean the exact same thing. Somehow, when he says Naruto with a bloody breath hovering on his laden tongue, Sasuke really means: I love you. Sasuke really means: I would die for you. Sasuke really means: I dreamed of waking up next to you. I still do.

Sasuke really means: Uzumaki Naruto, it’s always, always been you.

And it had. It had always been Naruto. Right from the first moment, when their eyes met by the pier and a grin rippled to life on both of their faces. Sasuke knew, even then, with a kind of visceral, innate knowledge, that Naruto would be forever more part of his life. Naruto would become a part of him—one he could never shake off. This was proven true when Sasuke threw himself in front of a flurry of senbon at twelve for Naruto. The sky was blue, Naruto’s eyes were bluer, and Sasuke didn’t even feel his body move before he felt the cold touch of stone meld into his back. Sasuke died for Naruto at twelve, and Sasuke was willing to die for him because he had taken the memory of their eyes meeting and given it a name. Happiness. It was an enclosed space in time he would step into whenever he let himself, reliving the entire scene, just like how he let himself step into a walk with his mother and hear the familiar sound of her kunai scraping against her flak jacket when he saw the stall in the night market which sold her favorite flower. She had loved going on walks with him. Sasuke-chan, come along, go out with your kaa-san for a little walk. It won’t take long! It had always taken longer than she said it would, because she liked stopping by the weapons stalls at night and examining each one she found intriguing with particular, pointed interest. That was how Sasuke was introduced to weapons. By seven, he could name all the weapons used in common combat amongst the Five Major Villages. He was only somewhat proficient in kunai and shuriken, but his mother had promised to teach him how to use a tantō for his eighth birthday. She had died before she had the chance, but Naruto was still alive. Naruto had seen through him at twelve and fifteen and sixteen, and he taught Sasuke something he’d thought he’d long lost. Because you’re my friend, Sasuke. 

There is an ache at the back of Sasuke’s skull. Something warm presses against his head, a familiar hand, and he feels his breath catch at the feel of it. Naruto. He would know him without sight, without touch, without anything at all. It would still be Naruto. It would always be him.

“Sasuke,” Naruto says. He’s talking like Sasuke’s already a corpse, voice distorted with grief and heavy with sorrow. It sounds impartial, at first, but Sasuke knows Naruto better than he knows himself—there’s a slight waver in his breath that gives him away. Sasuke’s eyes are hazy, corneas slathered in blood and Mangekou overuse fading away his sight, but he can still see.

The sun is rising. Its rays halo the blur of Naruto’s head, and Sasuke passes through the warmth like a ghost.

“Naruto.” The name is thin in the overarching stench of war, but it’s the cool, sharp tang of a kunai in Sasuke’s mouth, thick with reminder. Naruto. Naruto. Naruto. He could say it a thousand times over and never feel sick of it. 

“You fucking idiot,” Naruto begins. “You fucking idiot. You idiot. You absolute fucking idiot. You—you, you…” He falters. Sasuke imagines the expression on his face: the crinkle between his eyebrows, the soft, forlorn blue of his eyes, the way he draws himself in to hide himself, to hide his sadness. Naruto’s breath shakes. Sasuke breathes. “Sasuke. Sasuke. Sasuke—goddamn it, Uchiha Sasuke, I am never going to forgive you if you die in my arms right now. I am never going to forgive you. Do you hear that? Do you fucking hear that? I am never, ever going to forgive you. So don’t you dare. Don’t you fucking dare. Don’t you fucking dare.”

“Hn,” Sasuke monologues. 

“I hate you.” Naruto, eyes blurred, breaks into a small laugh. “Say something more, will you?” He’s golden in the sunrise. He’s alive, smiling, tears softening the contours of his cheekbones, and there’s something so delicate about him in this moment that Sasuke burns with the need to hold him. To cradle him within his arms and card his fingers through Naruto’s hair. A domestic moment. Quiet—away from war and all it has taken from them.

“Hn.” 

Naruto scoffs gently. “I hate you.” Lie. Sasuke knows that’s a lie. “You never change, Sasuke.” Truth. But only for him. Sasuke hns his response and Naruto laughs again. Sasuke thinks, privately, that his laughter could crush mountains and end wars.

“Hey,” Sasuke says, after some time has passed. The bleeding is getting worse. Death is coming for him; it looks, seeking, and it has found its prey. His corpse will rot for eternity. The Last Uchiha, forevermore. The Uchiha will become an extinct clan, a mention in a history textbook or the Konohagakure curriculum. They will become a footnote. Something to discuss, or to debate over. A topic for a thesis paper. Sasuke wonders what history will remember them as. A bloody-thirsty clan, untrustworthy—deserving of extermination from the village they helped found? Or will they be glorified? A tragedy—the work of a single madman who wanted to end the world? And what of Itachi? What of Danzo? What of the system that had driven them to rebel—the segregation and isolation, the police force, the use of less and less Uchiha shinobi in war? What of Uncle Inabi and Aunt Suzuki and their baby daughter and the old man selling tomatoes at the corner round the main street, and Izumi, and everyone he’d ever loved in the clan, and father and mother and Shisui? What of Sasuke?

“... Yeah?” Naruto says, his voice low, hair brushing against Sasuke’s cheek. Naruto is so close Sasuke can feel Naruto’s warm breath misting over his lips. Naruto is so close Sasuke could reach out and kiss him. He doesn’t.

“Promise me something,” Sasuke says, instead.

“Anything.”

“I want… I want you to change Konoha. Promise you will. Make it what it was promised to be—to our clan, to civilians.” Sasuke coughs. His ribs clatter and break apart in his chest. Everything hurts. Blood comes rushing up his throat and empties in the air like dust. “I hate this Konoha. I want to destroy it—raze it to the ground. But if it’s your Konoha… if it’s yours… it might be different. I could…”

Sasuke doesn’t finish his sentence. The blood doesn’t let him. Naruto, now just a faint outline, bows his head and shudders. He doesn’t say anything for a split second and something in Sasuke’s heart reels. Is it too much to ask of Naruto? No matter how dear Naruto holds him, Naruto loves the village, like Itachi did. It’s something Sasuke can’t understand. And if Itachi loved the village more than him, if even Itachi, his own brother, did, then Naruto—

“I’ll change it,” he says. Resolutely. Like it’s something absolute. Sasuke can’t see him anymore, not at all, but he can still hear Naruto’s voice. And he knows Naruto, he knows him so well, and he knows Naruto never makes a promise he can’t keep. “I will. I promise. I’ll make it better.” 

The wind blows. After war’s terror, everything seems cold. Even the chirping from wayward birds sounds solemn, and the morning’s yellow glow frosts around Sasuke’s skin; all the living shinobi have left the battleground and only the dead remain. It’s just Sasuke and Naruto. One dying and one living.

Naruto says: “I’ll tell everyone about your clan and what they did for the village. The lives they protected and how the village betrayed them. I’ll tell them about your mother and father and you. I’ll tell everybody about you.” 

“The good things.”

“No way! I gotta tell them all about how you’re this grumpy little piece of shit who doesn’t like ramen and eggplant and always picks at the mushrooms—I see it, don’t deny it—and does that ‘I’m so much better than you so shut up’ glare all the time. Man, if I had an inch of chakra control for each time you did that, I’d be like Sakura-chan by now. And—”

“Shut up, dobe.”

“See! There’s that glare. That’s what I’m talking about.” Sasuke scoffs. Naruto rambles on and Sasuke memorizes his voice. He forgets. He memorizes. He forgets. Memorizes. Forgets. Memorizes—this moment like a photograph, amber and tender. Naruto’s breath melding into his, Naruto’s hands melting into his, Naruto’s body sinking into his, Naruto’s voice, like a cassette tape, carrying over the horizons into his. Sasuke’s. Sasuke imagines it, for a short second: the idea of Naruto being his. Maybe… maybe if they’d had a little more time. Maybe with one more year, or two. Maybe it would be different, then. Now it hurts to think of something so impossible. Now Naruto is fading away.

Hearing and touch are the last two senses to go when someone dies. Sasuke supposes his end is near.

“—and I’ll get rid of the Hyuga’s branch families and ROOT and I’m going to get Kakashi-sensei to be a major advocate for all shinobi going to therapy…” Fading out. Somewhere, Sasuke is dimly aware of a voice calling his name. It’s unfamiliar, but oddly enough, Sasuke feels as if he knows it. It’s the kind of knowing that tells Sasuke he is of the Uchiha clan, son of Uchiha Mikoto and Uchiha Fugaku, that he has an older brother named Uchiha Itachi, nii-san for the first few years of his life and That Man for the latter few, then nii-san, again, for a precious few seconds, and he’s dead for the rest. It’s the kind of knowing that’s innate, intrinsic—the voice calls for him and he blinks. Mother. 

“...the sky’s really pretty today, Sasuke. As far as it goes, I guess it’s good that we got rid of Kaguya and Madara on a day like this, right? It’s way better than fighting in the rain. Not that I mind getting soaked, but…” Sasuke-chan. Sasuke-chan. Sasuke-chan. And then, like the blade of a chokutō, Sasuke. Cold and heavy and familiar. Father. A hint of affection, tenderness. Sasuke. “—Sasuke, I really want to go to Ichiraku’s right now. Maybe I’ll try out the new challenge they’ve been setting up, yeah? Ayame-chan told me in secret that it would be eating twenty bowls of ramen in a row, and I could totally do that. Winner gets a new ramen dish named after them! How cool is that? I think I’ll name it Super Duper Ninja Bowl, or is that too…”

Otouto. 

“...man, I feel like I’m talking to a wall. Say something will you, idiot? I—I…”

“—I wonder what Kakashi-sensei’s doing. I know he took Sakura-chan back since she was gonna pass out from chakra exhaustion, but I bet he’s wandering around Konoha reading Icha Icha like some kind of pervert! Man, I swear it’s so creepy how…”

“I got it. I’m going to name my ramen dish Uchiha Sasuke is an Idiot. I’m gonna make the old man put in loads of mushrooms and eggplant and…”

“Sasuke, don’t you want to see it? Don’t you want to see me being Hokage? I know you’re gonna laugh at me for so long ‘cause I’ll have to wear that stupid old hat, but I wouldn’t mind it. Really. Well, maybe for a bit, and I’d smack you around the training fields a little, but not that much—”

“Sasuke, Sasuke. Don’t you… don’t you want to stay? Don’t you… I, just—why can’t you do this with me? Why can’t you stay? I want it to be with you. I want to show you my Konoha, Sasuke. I want you to stay. I want you to. I want you, I—”

“Naruto.” I love you. You are the most wonderful person I have ever met in this life. You have made me want to live. I have never believed in love, but I believe in you. I want to hold you close and cry with the burn. If love was a color it would be yellow; it would be you. I love you. I wish we had one more day. I wish we had a year. I wish we had two. I wish we could spend the rest of our lives together. I wish I could go to Ichiraku’s with you and see you wolf down those twenty bowls of ramen, and I would’ve eaten your stupid Uchiha Sasuke is an Idiot bowl if you asked me to, mushrooms and all. Disgusting. But worth it, if you smiled. I would die for you again and again. I hope Sakura and Kakashi take care of you. Don’t forget to eat when everything gets busy, after the war. You’re going to be an incredible Hokage. I wish I could’ve seen it.

Sasuke cracks a smile. “You talk too much, dobe.” 

Sasuke dies smiling. He knows Naruto will cremate his body, burn it at the Uchiha’s pyre, like he’d told him to. Sasuke will return to the flames, the ashes of Amaterasu’s embrace. Tsukuyomi will kiss his forehead and take his sword, the rite of passage into the Hall of the Dragons. Sasuke has died fighting. Sasuke has died an honorable death. He will be allowed entry. Behind the vast, weathered doors of the Hall will be his family and his Clan. All his forefathers and ancestors will welcome him into their midst, and at the very end will stand Mother, Father and Itachi. Father will be strict. He will be disappointed that Sasuke has not restored the Clan’s honor to pre-massacre years, but he will know that Sasuke has tried his very best, that he has spent more than half his life trying to wear the mantle of the Last Uchiha. Mother will hold him and wrap her arms around him, resting her head in the crook of his collarbone. He will be taller than her, now, but no less of a child. He will cry, silently, and Mother will smile into his hair. Itachi will stand there, softly. He will be healthy and smiling and Sasuke will first kill him again before he hugs him. Sasuke will call him nii-san, and Itachi will poke his fingers onto Sasuke’s forehead, like he always does, except this time Sasuke will poke him right back. He will have an eon of this. This happiness; his family. His Clan. 

There will be no Naruto, but it will be a worthwhile ending. Naruto will find his own happiness elsewhere, and Sasuke will be glad that he has known Naruto in this lifetime. Sasuke dies smiling.

He wakes up to the sound of a baby’s thin cry.

Chapter Text

Todoroki Touya does not cry when he is born. Rei’s water breaks four weeks and four days before Touya is due; she rises from the bedroom floor, collects her hospital bag, finds her Maternity and Children Health Handbook, and drives to the hospital. She calls Enji before Kawaguchi-sensei does a pelvic examination, but he doesn’t pick up. She leaves a message for him: Musutafu General Hospital, Room 204. Touya’s here early. Could you bring some flowers? The door shuts and Kawaguchi-sensei says, Todoroki-san, you are going into labor.

Enji is on patrol and only hears of the news one hour later. He does not remember who he talks to in order to excuse himself, or, indeed, if he talks to anyone at all. Enji only knows that his phone gets lost somewhere as he rushes to the hospital, his heart racing like a bullet. It is good that Enji has already memorized the room Rei is in, because otherwise he would have to spend an additional minute stammering at the receptionist’s desk, trying to articulate yes, my wife, Todoroki Rei, white hair, gray-eyed, beautiful, her. Yes. Preterm labor. Yes. Four weeks and four days before the due date. Yes. Is she okay? Is she—Enji barrels out of the elevator doors onto the second floor, his head frantically searching from side-to-side, looking for a guiding plaque that will give him the right direction, and it takes him twenty eight seconds before he finally arrives in front of Rei’s room. He is one hour, fifteen minutes and forty eight seconds late. 

A nurse tells Enji he is not allowed entry.

Enji paces outside Room 204. It takes twelve steps for him to get from one side of the wall to the other, twelve steps to get back. Multiples of twelve. Forty eight. Sixty. Seventy two. One hundred and forty four. Six layers of vinyl patterning the floor. Twenty nine flecks of paint peeling down the walls. Two hundred and forty. Six hundred. One thousand and two hundred. One thousand, three hundred and—flowers. He stops. Flowers. What had Rei said about flowers?

Enji curses himself for losing his phone. He doesn’t remember where he’d dropped it. Maybe in the taxi, or when he left his patrol without notifying anyone. But it’s gone now, and Rei’s phone is somewhere in Room 204—that closed, impenetrable room—and he has nowhere to look except his memory.

Musutafu General Hospital, Room 204. Touya’s here early. What had she said, after? His mind had gone blank after he had read early. Flowers? Flowers. Rei likes flowers. Does she want flowers? Enji bores a hole into Room 204’s windowless door. Is he even allowed to bring flowers into a hospital room? 

Enji weighs his options. If Rei wants flowers, and Enji doesn’t get her flowers, then she will be mad. Very mad. At him. Which Enji doesn’t want. But if he’s misread that line he’d skimmed over and what she really wants is something else, Rei will also be mad. Which Enji also doesn’t want. And if he’s just imagining the presence of another line, if there isn't another line at all, if the line is just a product of his brain abruptly malfunctioning, like it tends to do when something has anything to do with Rei, then he’ll be leaving Rei to herself. While she’s giving birth. To their child. Which Enji really, really doesn’t want. So. Enji weighs his options. He paces. Twelve steps. Enji looks back at Room 204. He scowls.

The nurse who told him he wasn’t allowed entry comes back. He’s holding a clipboard, feet clattering on the vinyl-floor like metal spokes. The nurse—Tanaka, Enji reads off his name tag—is about to step past him before Enji crosses into his path, standing before him, unyielding. Tanaka tilts his head and flashes a bemused smile. 

“Todoroki-san, are you in need of my assistance?”

Enji clears his throat. He tries to shape the words in his mouth, but they tangle like a cat’s cradle around his tongue. Enji isn’t a good speaker yet, not like how he will be when he’s aged into the Endeavor of the future, the proud, confident Number Two Hero who can speak with hardly a second thought. Enji is twenty one and second on the Hero Billboard Chart, which is not the same as being the Number Two Hero. He is tall and has broad shoulders and an unmoving face, placid like a stone statue, but he is young. He fumbles with his words and his voice comes out harsh, guttural: “Are flowers allowed to be brought into a hospital room.” 

It’s supposed to be a question. Enji’s voice doesn’t rise at the end quite right; no lilt signifies the question mark. His ears redden and he shifts on his feet, wondering if it is too late to add onto his sentence.

“I’m afraid not. Flowers are an allergy risk, and they may act as vectors for the transmission of pathogens. It is not recommended that one brings them to a patient in labor.” Tanaka peers at Enji, his smile curved and sly, like a fox. “If I may ask, are you seeking to bring Todoroki Rei-san a bouquet?”

Enji’s eyes open wide with surprise. How does Tanaka know? Perhaps it is to do with his Quirk. A Quirk which shows one’s current wish? Mind-reading? It is possible, though not likely. A quirk like that would have led Tanaka to become a hero. Then, Rei may have told him something. “Did Rei say that.” Enji winces. Not a question, again.

Tanaka takes no notice of his struggle, or perhaps he does and is just ignoring it. “No, she didn’t. It was just…” Tanaka’s smile grows wider. Enji looks down at Tanaka’s head, counting the brown strands of hair waving about in the chilled air. Like grass. Tanaka’s hair is like brown grass. Twenty five, he counts up to, when Tanaka continues: “Well, Todoroki-san, I suppose you gave it away yourself.”

“Me?” Enji asks. At last, a question. He feels something warm in his heart. He will take note of this moment and tell Rei, later, when Touya has been born and she is back home in his arms. Rei has been teaching him to improve his ‘social cues’. She likes hearing of times when her teachings work favorably, and she rewards him with a kiss on his throat, or cheek, or collarbone. Enji likes it too, because of that.

“Yes, you,” Tanaka says. Enji counts to forty four. “When you asked if flowers were allowed in the hospital, I surmised a guess. Your question would make logical sense if it were applicable to yourself, would it not?”

“Oh.” Enji looks at Tanaka. His face blurs beneath the brown. Tanaka is very short, Enji realizes. He is almost the same height as Rei, and she barely reaches his chest. Tanaka is only half a finger taller, his quirked smile shadowed by long, dark bangs. Tanaka, Enji thinks, is very, very short. Tanaka also doesn’t have a mind-reading Quirk. 

Enji frowns. There is not much he can do if the hospital does not allow flowers to be brought in. Perhaps he will place an order at Ito’s before Rei comes home and place them in every corner of their house, instead. Rei will be angry if she truly wants flowers, but Enji is hopeful that such an act will appease her. He will order rindous. 

Enji steps aside to let Tanaka pass, aware that he is blocking his way. Tanaka, however, does not move. He gazes at Enji, brown eyes as round as a sparrow’s, his lips still curved up. “Todoroki-san, I may be stepping out of my place by doing so, but I would like to offer you an alternative. You could leave the flowers outside her window if you wished. There is a thin sill that can support such a weight.”

“Oh,” Enji says. “That’s—good. I will do that.” A windowsill, Enji thinks. Yes, that will do. And perhaps he will get to glimpse Rei—

“The windowpane is one-way, unfortunately, so Todoroki Rei-san will be able to view your flowers, but you will not be able to see her.” 

“Oh. Yes.” Of course. Privacy reasons. Enji is a fool for thinking otherwise. He turns his back on Tanaka and is about to walk the now-familiar route to the elevator, before he thinks of something. He shifts back to meet Tanaka’s gaze. “T–Thank you.” Enji has to swallow twice before he says it. Before Rei, he never had to say thank you. He never had to apologize. He never had to do a lot of things, but Enji likes the way Rei makes him do them. Perhaps it is just because Enji likes Rei—not just for her Quirk, although it is certainly powerful, but her. Enji thinks it must be a special thing, because Enji has never been so willing to do something for someone else, to listen to someone speak and possess a pressing, all-consuming want to wind their voice into a cassette tape and play it every night. Rei is special. Rei says he should say thank you when someone has helped him, so he does.

Tanaka looks startled. His eyebrows uplift, sparrow eyes large and probing, and he smoothes a hand down his brown hair. The look passes from his face as quickly as river-water. His lips curve wider and his mouth opens. He laughs. What an odd man, Enji thinks. Tanaka is an odd nurse. The hospitals Enji frequents are of the frantic, frenzied kind, the hospitals that specifically cater to heroes injured when on duty. There is hardly any opportunity for an exchange with the nurses or doctors, who are overrun with patients. The more powerful the Quirk, the larger the recoil. Such is the most obvious with Healing Quirks. They take the most from the user; the user’s own vitality is a common price to pay, unless blessed like Recovery Girl. The doctors are either treating heroes or recovering from Quirk Exhaustion, and even then—when there is time—no one is likely to engage. Heroes are needed on the field at every minute; a delay is simply a waste of time. 

Enji has visited, of course, the hospital Rei was supposed to go to for her delivery. It is a private hospital in Kyoto, one close to the mountains. Enji supposes there hadn’t been enough time for her to get to Kyoto, which is why she is here now. But even then, no nurses had approached him like Tanaka does, so close and talkative. They scuttled away from him like ants. Enji has not met anyone like Tanaka, and he doubts that he ever will again.

“You’re very welcome, Todoroki-san.” Tanaka bows. Enji clears his throat and leaves. Flowers. Yes. He will leave them on the windowsill.

/

Enji is let into Room 204 after fifteen hours, twenty two minutes and fifty nine seconds have passed. It is the middle of the night and the sky is black like a raven’s wing. Tanaka opens the door for him, and Enji steps in like he would cross a villain’s domain, feet careful and probing. The floor is white. Six layers of vinyl, except this time it is not twelve steps to the wall. This time it is twenty one steps to Rei.

She faces the window, her long, white hair streaked with sweat, sticky against her back. The hospital gown is loose on her form and she is swaddled in a harsh fluorescent glow. Enji sees her eyes gray like sunned silver lilies in the dark of the windowpane. Rei turns when Enji is two steps away, three strands of hair untangling from snowfall and brushing against her cheek. A smile breaks to life, and her gray, gray eyes fix on his.

A scorching heat burns in Enji’s belly, like Hellfire. He swallows.

“Enji!” Rei says. She tucks her escaped hair behind her ear, and Enji follows the play of her fingers like the tides follow the moon’s gentle pull. “Thank you for the flowers.”

“Of course,” Enji says. He shifts on his feet. There is no infant in Room 204 like he had been expecting—just Rei, and a man standing near the door with his hands clasped behind his back, eyes black and stern. His name tag reads Kawaguchi.

“Where is Touya?” Enji asks. Rei’s smile curls in on itself. Kawauchi slips into presence, into motion, as he steps forward and takes Enji by the elbow. Enji doesn’t shake him off, even though he hates it when strangers touch him, because Rei has shuttered off. Rei has an expression on her face Enji has never seen before, an aching contortment of her features—a kind of compression, like a magic trick—that makes his throat squeeze. Her head bows until her hair covers her face. Enji turns to Kawaguchi, expectant.

“Why don’t we take this outside, Endeavor-sama? There is a lounge we can talk more comfortably in, and I’m afraid—”

“Here is fine.”

Kawaguchi glances pointedly at Rei before looking back at Enji, intent clear. Enji stares back at him without a word. Silence hangs in the room for sixteen seconds before Kawaguchi reluctantly acquiesces to Enji’s unspoken demand, releasing Enji from his tight-fisted grip.

“I will unfortunately have to be the bearer of bad news, then. Please pardon my frankness.” Kawaguchi looks at Enji, eyebrows narrowed and skin creased above the thin line of his mask. “Endeavor-sama, your child was born prematurely. This means that he may be underweight, prone to disease and complications, including, but not limited to, short-term effects such as breathing, heart, brain and temperature control issues. Long-term effects can be more varied. Your child is 2.5kg—approximately 1.5kg lighter than a normal infant. However, as it is Endeavor-sama’s wife’s thirty fourth week of pregnancy, the infant has a good likelihood of survival, and of course, we, as hospital staff, shall strive to do our utmost to minimize any undue complications. He will need to be incubated and monitored at this hospital in a neonatal intensive care unit for approximately two weeks before he is discharged. You will be able to visit him and stay in his room.”

Enji nods and goes to Rei, bending down until he is level with her. Rei looks at him and smiles weakly, eyes tired and solemn. 

“It seems like Touya’s just like his father,” Rei says. “Hurried and always moving. He wants to see us as soon as possible. You should’ve seen him when he came out—he has a tuft of red hair, like yours.”

Enji closes his eyes and breathes in the scent of Rei—sweat, a tinge of blood, sandalwood, and wisteria. Rei cups Enji’s face in her hands and Enji feels his heart thrum with the cold. “It’ll be fine, Enji. Touya is strong.”

“Japan is, after all, the country with the lowest infant mortality rate,” Kawaguchi adds, his voice echoing by the door. “Rest assured, Endeavor-sama. Your child is in good hands.”

“See?” Rei says. “If Kawaguchi-sensei says so, it’s true.” Kawaguchi’s eyes curve politely in agreement. Thirty five seconds pass like this, Rei’s hands cold on his jaw, his cheek, her touch suffusing into him.

Kawaguchi clears his throat, inclining his head forward. Rei loosens her hold on Enji, hands falling to her lap. “Pardon my interruption, Endeavor-sama. There is something I need to discuss with you. May I have a moment of your time?” 

Enji stands up. “Speak.” 

“There is… a slight issue with protocol, you see. Endeavor-sama’s wife is reserved for delivery at Kyoto Medical Clinic; she has made ten check-ups there already, and usually it would not be possible to give birth at a hospital one has not attended before. Of course,” Kawaguchi emphasizes, “it was an emergency, and Endeavor-sama’s wife did well in coming here. However, as I am sure you can understand, protocol cannot be an exception for anyone. It causes a multitude of problems in the long-run. Still, in light of your excellent work in protecting our society—I am, after all, a personal fan—I do believe that there is room for negotiation. As such, a referral letter from Kyoto Medical Clinic would be appreciated to, ah, legalize the circumstances of birth.”

Kawaguchi looks like an insect in the blunt light of Room 204. Enji has a sudden urge to see what his head looks like when squashed against the ground, although he doesn’t act on it.

“Refer to my agency,” Enji says. “They will take care of the technicalities.” 

“Ah, of course. I will contact them soon.” Kawaguchi hesitates, eyes gazing at Enji. Enji stares at him, and Kawaguchi hastens on. “Thank you for your wonderful cooperation, Endeavor-sama. I hope that you are satisfied with the care your wife and son have received at this hospital. Please do not hesitate to contact me, or any other hospital staff, if you identify any places for improvement, or—”

“Which room is Touya in?” 

“Oh—he is on the third floor,” Kawaguchi says, eyebrows thick and furrowed. “I can take you there if you wish.”

“Can Rei come.”

“Well—it…” Kawaguchi closes his eyes, then opens them. “It would not be generally advised. Endeavor-sama’s wife is weak from labor still, and—”

“I will carry her.”

“But—”

“Enji,” Rei says. “Stop arguing with Kawaguchi-sensei, and stop speaking about me like I’m not here. I’m not an inanimate object. Kawaguchi-sensei, I apologize for my husband. He is… adjusting.”

“There is nothing to apologize for,” Kawaguchi says hurriedly. “It is my fault for not giving a proper explanation.” 

“Enji is at fault,” Rei repeats. “I apologize. However, would it be impossible for me to see Touya with him? I can assure you that I am well-rested.”

Kawaguchi remains silent for a moment, fingers twitching behind his back. His foot taps on the floor six times. “It… would not be impossible. ”

“A wheelchair,” Enji says. 

“What?” Kawaguchi says, before catching himself. “I apologize—what do you mean?”

“Bring me a wheelchair.”

Kawaguchi looks at him for a second, some kind of emotion flickering in his eyes. His hands untangle from behind his back after three seconds have passed, and they open the door to Tanaka’s silent, unwavering figure. Tanaka’s face is bright under the hospital lights, his sparrow eyes quick and moving as he glimpses Enji. Kawaguchi tells him something, quietly, and Tanaka leaves. Kawaguchi turns back to Enji.

“Endeavor-sama, I must inform you that Musutafu General Hospital will not be liable for any mental or physical damage suffered by your wife on account of your actions. I would still—”

“I understand,” Enji says, breathing in as Rei lies her hand on his.

Rei’s hand is soft and damp, splayed on his palm like a starfish. She smiles at Kawaguchi. “Thank you for all of your help, Kawaguchi-sensei. I know that Enji is just as appreciative as myself, although he may not show it so clearly.”

“Of course,” Kawaguchi says. “It is my absolute pleasure to have been of service to Endeavor-sama and your esteemed self.” Inane pleasantries are exchanged further; Tanaka brings the wheelchair in between Kawaguchi’s words and waits just outside Room 204. Enji lifts Rei into his arms and places her in the wheelchair, laying a spare blanket from her hospital bed on her lap. Kawaguchi stands by, hands wrangling into knots behind his back.

As the elevator rises, Enji grasps the handles of Rei’s wheelchair and watches the flickering electrical number. He counts to ten before the doors slide open and Kawaguchi leads him to a private neonatal intensive care unit, motioning for Tanaka, who follows one step behind, to remove two masks from his pocket.

“Endeavor-sama, it would be recommended for the two of you to wear a mask when in the care unit. There is also a sink at the entrance of the room you are expected to wash your hands with. To minimize transmissions, you see. My Quirk—I have used it on this room—allows for the removal of pathogens from certain entities, but it is not infallible.” 

Kawaguchi waits for Enji’s grunt before he slowly opens the door, leaving Tanaka standing outside. The wood yields under Kawaguchi’s fingers and fluorescent light blazons out of a room silhouetted with the forms of two nurses. They are bent over a glass container, and both raise their heads to look directly at Enji at the sound of his entrance. 

Kawaguchi makes a motion with his fingers and the two nurses exit the room. He shuts the door as Enji shuts the tap off for Rei. “Take care not to touch him, Endeavor-sama. You may view him through the incubator.”

Enji pushes Rei towards the glass, glimpsing a rectangular translucency through the fading distance. He stops before the wheelchair hits the container. One day, this will be his most cherished memory. One day, Enji will look back on this moment, this very second before Rei gasps, and Enji reflexively glances down, and everything stands still, and think to himself how easy it would have been if he had not fallen into the hero Endeavor like song falls from bird. Today, it is far away—the inevitability of it all, the pain he will cause. Today, Enji looks at his son.

First, there is a shape, as small as one of Enji’s hands. Then, there is color. It is red like the soft tinge of a blush on Rei’s upturned cheek, and wrinkled like a dried plum. This is when something spills in Enji’s chest, like a bucket of water knocked on its side, and Enji starts to stare. Enji takes in all of the shape. He counts the fingers—five on each hand. He counts the toes—five on each foot. He looks at the head and calculates the slope of its soft incline, adjusting for the way it turns, slightly, as it breathes. Its body is almost translucent when viewed against the solidity of the long metal tubes entangled around it, and Enji’s heart twinges. He walks forward a step, then another, until he is right before the shape, until it starts to eat into his retina like a dog devours bone, until—

“Enji!”

Enji does not jump, but it is a close thing. Rei’s hand rests on his forearm. 

“Your hands,” Rei says. She faces him in her wheelchair, eyes gray and lovely. Enji takes a step back and breathes. His hands are smoking, tiny flames flickering on his fingertips. Enji releases a shaky breath and extinguishes the flames. He hasn’t lost control of his Quirk since he was seven; in all the years he’d been at UA and after graduation, during hero work, his Quirk has never materialized unconsciously. He has had razor-sharp control of it since he burnt his parents’ house down at seven and his tiny, contained world fell apart like smoke. Enji has not lost control. Enji should not be losing control. Enji counts. Half a second between each heartbeat thudding in his throat, five seconds before only one flame remains, stubborn on his thumb, then six seconds before it all ends, and Enji can breathe, again, and another two seconds before Rei clasps her hands in his. Enji’s mask is hot around his skin.

Rei looks up at him, fingers stroking the palm of his hand, cool and light. “It’s okay, Enji. Look at Touya. Just look at him. Isn’t it incredible? I still can’t believe he’s our son. Ours. Even though I gave birth to him!” 

Incredible, Enji thinks. His breathing slows, and he counts one and a half seconds before his heartbeat resumes its regular pace. Enji looks again at the small, red shape curled on the white linen, sequestered in a glass enclosure cut off from the rest of the world, and breathes. Our child. Ours, Enji thinks, and something pinwheels forward in his chest, his feet moving inadvertently towards its centrifugal force, and—and. Ours.

“Ours,” Rei repeats. 

Touya. An arrow of light, impaling Enji with a warm, tender heat. Touya, like two taps of sunlight playing on Enji’s tongue. A desperate twist of joy thumbs its way through Enji’s throat and Enji counts and counts and counts, again and again. He counts the strands of fine hair plastered like down feathers on Touya’s skin, and the soft crevices of his opened mouth, the numbers running through his mind like the small, pattering feet of baby mice. Enji could spend a year counting Touya. He could spend an eternity. He doesn’t.  

/

A list of the things Enji knows about Touya, aged one:

1. Touya is a quiet child. In Kawaguchi’s follow-up sessions, he repeatedly underscored that premature infants were generally more prone to emotional regulation issues, but he was wrong. Touya is not angry. He is just silent.
2. Touya does not like to be touched, especially by Enji. When Enji first cradled Touya in his arms, Touya started screaming. It was the first time Touya had been so loud. Enji handed him to Rei and sat on his bed, hands numb.
3. Touya hates breast milk. Rei breastfed Touya for a total of five months before he refused to drink any more. Kawaguchi advised them on a number of different ways to reintroduce breastmilk to Touya, but none of them worked. Instead, they let Touya eat solid food.
4. Touya loves tomatoes. When he was seven months old, he picked up a tomato from Rei’s plate with his chubby fingers, and took a bite. It was the first time Enji had seen him gurgle with delight. Tomatoes are not recommended for infant consumption—too acidic—but Enji lets Touya have them, sometimes.
5. Touya enjoys listening to music. When Enji plays the koto, accompanying Rei’s high, sweet voice, Touya’s eyes flutter shut. He sits on the tatami mats, sunlight raying his red tufts, and listens. Occasionally, he smiles.
6. Touya’s favorite color is orange. Enji once wore an orange shirt and Touya crawled over to him, eyes as clear as a blue caldera, demanding to be held. Enji took him into his arms and watched as Touya’s mouth gentled his chest. Enji buys him orange clothing now. Orange everything.
7. Touya likes to play with a stuffed animal in the shape of a cat. He holds it firm in his grasp when lying in his cradle, and he keeps a watchful eye on it when he eats. Rei finds it adorable. Enji thinks it should be donated.
8. Touya is sickly. Kawaguchi tells Enji that Touya will never be completely healthy; he will suffer from a weak immune system and a body that does not listen to him. There are doctors, and there are Quirks, but this is not a flesh wound. This is a core part of him—and, Kawaguchi adds, even if there is a Quirk that can cure him, there is no guarantee the user will be willing to use it. Enji looks for one, anyway.
9. Touya is Rei’s child. He has Enji’s hair, and Enji’s eyes, but he is Rei’s child.
10. Touya will be a big brother.

Chapter Text

Fuyumi is a loud child. She is born in the cold, frigid winds of winter, her first cry piercing the delivery room like crackling sunlight, and she is normal in all the ways in which Touya is not. She squalls and screams and gurgles, and she flails around like a landlocked fish when Enji changes her diapers. She gladly drinks breast milk, her mouth firmly and ravenously clasped onto Rei’s breast as she suckles. It takes time for her to adjust to solid food, unlike Touya’s quick severance. She is also healthy, and large, and googly-eyed, adhering to what the countless parenting books Enji has read have to say about infant behavior. She is, as Kawaguchi repeatedly reassures, a wonderful, normal child, born in the right place and at the right time. Enji often brushes the tip of his nose against Fuyumi’s skin and drinks in her milky, soapy scent, the unique smell that only infants possess. Touya lost it too soon—every time Enji breathed him in, more of Touya’s scent drew out of his skin and lightened, drifting up in the air to dissipate like warmed snow. There is an ephemeral quality to Touya, one that Enji registers whenever he looks him in the eye or stares at the small, smooth shape of his skull. Touya, ever-fleeting, who is delicate and sick, and watches Enji with an indecipherable stare.

Sometimes, Enji wakes up, his back soaked with sweat, and feels that Touya is no longer in his room, that Touya is gone, gone, gone; and Enji slips out of bed, Rei’s steady breathing accompanying the hurried rustle of the futon, his feet padding rapidly along the corridor before halting at Touya’s door like a startled, wild colt. Enji slides open Touya’s shōji screen and sees, relief golden-rodding within his chest, that Touya is fast asleep. Most of the time, this is how it ends: Enji closes Touya’s shōji screen and walks silently along the corridor to Rei’s room, then climbs back into bed. He wraps an arm around Rei’s waist, breathing in the faint scent of lavender on her skin. His heart beats slowly and easily. He falls asleep. Most of the time, this is how it ends. Most. Once, and only once, when Touya is around five months old, Enji wakes up, his back soaked with sweat, and walks to Touya’s room. Enji slides open Touya’s shōji screen and sees that Touya is fast asleep. It is early dawn, the sun yolked barely above the horizon, pale morning light flowering between curled curtain blinds. It is the latest Enji has ever woken up for these ‘moments.’ Enji looks at Touya, who does not move. Sunlight suffuses through Touya’s pale, uncovered arms, his body infused with the lighting sun. Then—almost like a wave coming ashore—Touya turns translucent, limpid, clear, as see-through as a glass figurine. He passes through Enji’s irises like a ghost. Enji blinks. He keeps his hand on Touya’s screen to steady himself. He tries taking a step, but stumbles.

Enji… His heart gallops within his chest. He can hear it in his ears, loud and pounding. Two hundred. Two hundred and five. Two hundred and twenty. Hooves, galloping. Two hundred and twenty two. He can’t move. His mouth is wide open. He wants to say something. He wants—he wants to stand by Touya. Enji takes a step, and then another, and another, his knees meeting the edge of Touya’s bed. Touya, who is no longer there. He has melted into his sheets like he was just a figment of Enji’s imagination, and now that Enji’s imagination is no longer enough to manifest him into existence, he has dispersed into the morning sun. Touya is gone, Enji thinks. Gone. Enji’s numbers can no longer memorize him. Enji breaths. Something he cannot identify crawls in his chest.

When Enji was sixteen, he had a bad training accident and singed his mouth with fire. He had been trying to increase the temperature of his flames, to make them hotter and more deadly, so that they were more efficient in battle. Enji had succeeded, but the resulting rise in heat left his flames leaking off every part of his skin, their volatility uncontrollable. Attempting to contain them had led to a spark spitting on Enji’s tongue, fire growing like a yawning furnace in his mouth. His eyes stung with smoke. He picked up his water bottle, which was placed to the right of the training room, and drank, water pouring over the fireplace on his tongue, dousing its boiling red into the smooth-flowing waters of an ancient crater lake. Enji has never forgotten that feeling—that desperate, ravenous hunger with which he drank—or the taste of ash; bitter as the dregs of tea-leaves, or the charcoal, gritty smell of something charred black. He swallows. Enji touches his palm to Touya’s arm; the warmth of it brings Touya back into focus. Enji sees Touya, again, sleeping soundly in the red blanket of Enji’s widened eyes. Touya’s thumb is in his mouth, drool wetting his lower lip. His chest rises. Enji takes his hand off Touya’s arm and pulls up a fallen edge of Touya’s blanket, laying it across Touya’s chest.

Enji has counted Touya since the day he was born, just like how he graphs the proud arch of Rei’s nose, or records the number of different advertisements plastered on the TV of a taxi back-seat—one, two, three, four, all the way up until ten—or how he passes his gaze over his subordinates, the every brick and stone of his agency. There are six hundred floorboards in his office, two of them stamped with the permanent stain of blood from when Enji’s nose had bled after getting hit by the former Pro-Hero Shadow. There are twenty seven bones in Rei’s lithe, slender hands. There are one hundred and forty thousand strands of red willowing from Touya’s scalp. There are numbers. There are infinite geometric progressions within Enji’s people, and endless parabolas in the landscape of Enji’s life. Enji measures. He quantifies his memory, revealing Touya in numbers, graphs, charts, sloping lines of growth. Eighty centimeters of warmth. Eleven point two kilograms of heat. Touya is real in Enji’s numbers. He is concrete, something Enji can hold and touch.

Enji touches Touya's wrist again. His thumb is large and sun-dark, thicker than two of Touya’s wrists laid on top of one another. Touya’s heart beats steadily, or maybe it is just the rhythm of Enji’s thumb, which has its own rapid pulse. Morning light tangents onto the tatami mats. Enji leaves, the sliding door clicking shut. Fuyumi’s scream intercepts his quietude and the day begins anew.

/

The day is too short. There are so many things to do with Fuyumi learning to crawl—the family house limned with a boundless sea of sharp edges and rough corners—and Touya’s health deteriorating as his third birthday draws near. Enji feels time slipping away from him; one hour, five hours, a day, three, a week, a month, six, a year. Just yesterday, Fuyumi was born, forty nine centimeters and three point five kilograms. Just yesterday, Enji held her in his arms for the first time. Just yesterday, he saw Fuyumi’s nose flare, doe-like, in the cold. Just yesterday, Touya said his first word. Enji and Rei had brought Fuyumi home, and Touya, who stood white-socked on the shikidai, his toes curled inwards like a cat’s tail, fixed his gaze on Fuyumi with a fervor Enji had never seen before. Touya was fifteen days away from turning two, and still he had not spoken his first word. Kawaguchi told Enji that it was most likely a side effect from being born premature. Developmental problems. Touya had issues with his height, weight, and motor ability. Although he could walk, he was often unstable. His immune system was incredibly weak. He seemed to be unable to process pain. He had not spoken a single word since he was born. He was quiet, like a ghost. Rei worried over him, accompanying Touya to every check-up at Musutafu General Hospital, her first child, her little boy. She saw him standing stolidly in the cold—only his fingers shivered—and wrinkled her eyes, her mouth setting into a fluttering, uncertain smile. Touya watched them draw near, the red of his hair stark against the canvas of snow layering the tataki, his cheeks flushed. Rei stooped to look him in the eye, kneeling. She cradled Fuyumi—a blue bundle—in her arms.

“Touya, this is your little sister,” Rei said. A curtain of wind ruffled her hair. “Her name is Fuyumi.”

Touya stared at his little sister. Only a portion of her face was visible; her eyes were closed, her breathing deep with the muddy waters of sleep. The wind whistled. The air froze. The half-broken icicle attached to the kawara tiles dripped water.

“Fuyumi,” Touya said. Enji felt something drop in his chest. Touya’s voice was thin, but it had a cadence to it, a small, subtle lilt, like wind-chimes colliding in afternoon light. It was startling. Enji would never forget the way Touya’s voice sounded in December, his ankles cold and blue against the shikidai’s pale, varnished wood, eyes blue—Enji’s eyes—and calm, like an uncountable number. Enji thought of a zero. Enji thought of the way light and tomorrow were the same word: 明. Enji thought of the way Touya was both. The future. Indivisible. As perfect and unknowable as infinity.

Rei’s breath shook. “Touya,” she said. “Touya. You—you…”

Enji felt his eyes grow wet. That unfamiliar touch of feeling welling up, the uncontrollable blurring of the winter day. Bad weather. He glanced at Rei and protractored the curve of her pressed-shut mouth, the footholds her teeth made in her bottom lip as she trembled. She was crying. She was crying, but she was so, so very happy.

“Enji, Touya spoke. He spoke! He said his first word.”

“I know.”

“His first word was Fuyumi. Fuyumi. Fuyumi, look at your brother. Come on, wake up. Look at him. He just said your name. Did you hear that? Your name, Fuyumi.”

Fuyumi was an inch of skin and closed eyes peeking through a thick sheet of blue. She gurgled. Rei laughed.

“I suppose that you didn’t.” Rei hummed, rocking Fuyumi in her arms. “But it’s okay. Because you’re his little sister.”

Touya says it, again and again. Fuyumi, Fuyumi, Fuyumi, like a litany of winter. Little sister, imouto. Rei. The day he turns two he calls her mother. A week later he says Enji. Never father. Seasons number away. Touya grows into his voice, though the thinness that strung it the first time he spoke never quite fades. He still feels ephemeral, like snow. Enji still wakes up in the middle of the night and steps quietly to Touya’s door, though he no longer goes in. He only listens for Touya’s breath, steadied by each inhale and exhale. Then, he sleeps.

Touya’s third birthday comes to heel like a fist against Enji’s palm, and so does his health. He is sick, but Enji does not know how sick. For now, it is enough that Touya sometimes loses his breath, that he cannot run, that there is a dark overlay of scarring in his lungs, and that he gets colds, and flu, and every illness under the sun too easily. It is enough that Touya cannot hear at times, that Rei has to raise her voice for him to glance at her with the recognition that she has spoken. It is enough that Touya suffers this much. It is enough. Enji does not think that he can suffer more. Enji also does not know how bad it will get, yet, that Touya’s third year will invite nothing but summonings to the hospital and multiplying darkness under Rei’s eyes, because there are good moments, too. There is always good before the bad.

There is the time Enji sees Touya kneel beside Fuyumi, who is asleep, arms stretched out like a starfish on the living room’s tatami mats. Rei rushes to the kitchen a minute before, the high-pitched cry of her prized Nambu Tekki kettle—molded from the hands of her great-grandfather, who had spent his childhood in Morioka learning at the foot of ironware artisans—stealing her away. In that moment of absence, Touya creeps into the room, slipping off his orange-patterned uwazori at the doorway, and folds his legs beneath himself. He is a sliver of a hand away from Fuyumi. Two centimeters. Enji stays at the doorway, counting. Touya doesn’t touch Fuyumi—though he shifts once as if he might—but he looks at her. He looks at her like Enji once looked at him through that rectangular glasswork in the neonatal intensive care unit. Touya’s eyes are furrowed and shadowed, the afternoon light condensing into lemon-milk on his bare knees, and he bends his head so that Enji can only see a corner of his face, but Enji still glimpses it. Touya, with Fuyumi, is gentle.

Little Fuyumi grumbles in her sleep, her mouth scrunching up. Touya’s breath nets itself—soft, unspoken, the same kind of gentleness as when Touya first said Fuyumi’s name—and the galloping world slowed to a halt. Touya leans to Fuyumi’s closed eyes. His exhale touches her nose. His voice a thin trail on a rising hill, Touya whispers little sister.

Enji is still standing. He thinks: yes. The birds are chirping. Life is growing in the garden of their home, seedlings greening in their tiny holes. Spring is coming.

There is the good. There is the time Enji glimpses Touya walking down the engawa that borders the inner garden and—subtly, so small of a gesture that Enji barely sees it—holds Rei’s hands. His fingers stretch in the softness of her palm. Rei bends down so that Touya doesn’t need to tip-toe, and she leads him through the garden, her long, white hair trellising along her back. The April wind is dusty-soled and playful, its tendrils blowing a strand of red from Touya’s neck. Touya concentrates on keeping up with Rei, his feet tripping over themselves. Rei glances down at him, her neck curved as delicately as a church’s arch, and smiles.

Yes, there is the good. There is the time Touya is five months away from turning four, and Fuyumi is toddling around, and Enji is cooking dinner while Rei keeps a watchful eye on their children, sashiko patterns threaded in her lap, and the air is plaited with quietude. Summer washes into the Todoroki family home, warming cold kitchen tiles underfoot. There is no sound apart from Fuyumi’s occasional mumbling and the song of cicadas perched on leaning branches, which slant in through the kitchen window. The stove rumbles. Enji tastes his simmering chikuzen-ni, braised chicken melting on his tongue, carrot slices hot and sweet. Touya plays with his stuffed animal in the corner and snacks on cherry tomatoes. The scent of Enji’s boiled vegetables drafts over the room, shiitake and lotus roots burbling in dashi stock and soy sauce. They eat dinner together, the four of them, in the kitchen, because the summer air has crept into their muscles and lazied each sinew. Chopsticks clink against porcelain. Enji does not know how to count this scene, but he thinks it is okay. He does not have to. This will not be the last time. There will be many more.

Oh, there is the good until there is not. There is the good until Kawaguchi summons Enji and Rei to the hospital six times in the span of four months. Blood tests. Hearing tests. X-rays. Healing Quirks upon Healing Quirks. Autoimmune system deficiency. Touya is one month and one day away from turning four, and he is sick. He is sicker than Enji could ever know—than Enji could ever want to know. Every time Enji gets a call, his heart beats past forty. Every time he gets a call, Rei’s eyes gray like trampled snow. His subordinates have begun asking Enji why he hasn’t been running as many missions recently. Why his office is beginning to collect dust, why he no longer patrols as regularly as he used to, why, Endeavor, why. Enji does not know how to reply. At this moment, he does not know how to be Endeavor—he can only be Enji. He is more human than Pro-Hero, more father than savior.

Enji meets Tanaka in the gold-lit corner space of ‘foolish heart.’ Tanaka sits elegantly in a red-velvet armchair next to a colorful assortment of posters, back-straight, posture perfect. He is reading a foreign text—what Enji deciphers as Chinese—reading glasses tilted on his nose. One of the posters tacked next to Tanaka’s armchair says “DON’T EVEN THINK OF PARKING HERE,” the THINK bolded. Enji has not thought about parking in a long time. The only two places he needs to park now are his office and the Musutafu General Hospital, where a spot has been holed out as a result of Enji’s continuous visits. Enji does not want to think about the hospital, or what that means. He looks at another poster, which reads ‘Man Cave.’

Just above the table hangs a dart-board, attached to the stone overhang that ceilings Tanaka’s chosen spot. A small lamplight reaches its arm across the table, gold spilling across Tanaka’s glass of coffee, like misshapen kintsugi.

“Tanaka,” Enji says. “I don’t have time for this. Stop playing one of your jokes.”

Tanaka looks up from the book he is reading, his brown hair stalked up in tufts. Enji frowns and resists the urge to flatten it for him. “Ah,” Tanaka says, smiling. “Todoroki-san, you’re here.”

Enji bends under the stone overhang and sits himself in the opposite armchair, a coffee table sandwiched between him and Tanaka. He hunches over slightly, the stone slant too low to be comfortable for his height. He glances at the menu papered on the table. “Why did you ask to meet?”

“It was my turn, wasn’t it?” Tanaka asks. “I thought we went to your choice last time.”

“I never agreed to this… arrangement.” At Enji’s reply, Tanaka slides his book closed. His milk-yellow cardigan silhouettes a white t-shirt that is slightly too big for him, and it hangs loosely off his arms. Tanaka is off-duty on Saturdays—one of the three days this cafe is open.

“Yet you still came.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

“I wouldn’t say that, Todoroki-san. I’m sure it does.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Well, you gave it away yourself.”

“What,” Enji says, feeling like this exchange has happened before, though in a more polite manner. “What do you mean.”

“Oh…” Tanaka’s smile is curved and river-deep. He has not changed in the three years and eleven months Enji has known him; he still uses keigo, even through text. “Yes, you. It has been years since I invited you to the bookstore near the General Hospital—almost four, I believe—and you came then. You have come every time I have called you and given you an address, whether it is a far-away cafe or bookstore, despite your reluctance to. You have also picked out cafes and bookstores for us to visit, Todoroki-san. It is not just my own efforts. That is how I surmised a guess. Would I be incorrect in assuming that this arrangement means something, then?”

Enji stares at him. He has changed, Enji thinks. Tanaka is much more casual now then he was before—he is almost sarcastic in how he talks. Politeness still governs his tone, but he jokes now. He was never scared of Enji the way most people are, but he is even less afraid. Enji does not know how he feels about that. Enji does not know how to feel about Tanaka most days, and especially on these days, where they meet each other in bookstores and cafes and do nothing but read. Well, Tanaka reads. Enji just sits there, thinking. Occasionally, they talk. Enji does not know why he follows Tanaka’s lead, either.

He had given Tanaka his LINE on the second visit to the hospital and Tanaka had sent him a message on Touya’s condition, and somehow—for no reason—Tanaka had started talking to Enji. Enji’s replies were monotonous, his replies always locked to one or two words, and he left Tanaka on read. Tanaka didn’t mind. Tanaka sent him music recommendations, bookstores, cafes, strange fan-site articles that ranked Pro-Heroes according to how they excluded ‘significant other material,’ the latest financial update, issues with the current healthcare system. Tanaka talked a lot. Tanaka used a lot of emojis and stickers. Enji had learnt to expect Tanaka. Now, he doesn’t know a day where LINE notifications from Tanaka don’t launch on his phone screen.

After Enji began his trips with Tanaka, Rei complimented Enji on his recent ‘growth’ in social skills numerous times. Rei also likes Tanaka—she tags along for some of their trips sometimes, and talks to Tanaka about books. They are both well-read. Enji likes to hear their discussions from behind; the cadence of Rei’s voice like quiet rain flowing down the stone pathways of an old town, and Tanaka’s voice perpetually vibrating like cicadas after a thunderstorm.

“Whatever you say,” Enji says. It is more like a grumble. Tanaka’s smile grows larger, and he laughs knowingly. Enji does not deign to respond to that, instead looking at the menu. He beckons a waiter over. “An iced latte.”

“Oh, Todoroki-san,” Tanaka says, “never change.”

/

Enji does not change, but the world does. It is Touya’s fourth birthday and his Quirk comes to life. Before this, Touya’s birthdays were mostly an uneventful affair. He had not had an oshichiya because he had been in the hospital, but Touya had celebrated his first birthday with the typical isshou mochi. Touya was not strong enough to carry it on his back—Kawaguchi had advised against letting him fall, as he was fragile—so he simply stood on it, toes peeking out from hand-sized zori. The bare, smooth skin of Touya’s soles pressed against 寿—kotobuki, meaning longevity—and 轟燈矢—his name in kanji—through the coarse cloth of furoshiki. Enji thought about that then—about longevity, and living forever, and what it could mean. Enji knew that there was no such thing as forever. There was nothing he could not count. If forever existed, it would be in the beauty of Euler’s identity, or the perfect spiral of the Fibonacci sequence. It could not belong to a person. Yet, despite this, even then Enji knew with a deep, intrinsic belief—one as simple and concrete as the first prime number—that he wished Touya could carry happiness with him forever. That Touya—or at least Enji’s memory of Touya—could exist forever.

Yes, Enji wanted forever for Touya. He has never stopped wanting. Enji has the picture of Touya’s slim fingers grabbing the blade of a pair of orange scissors during his erabitori memorized by frame. 10x10. The relatives had cooed at Touya’s choice, noting him to be a future creative, but all Enji had done was to catalog the light glinting in Touya’s eyes like a spectrophotometer, each wavelength embedded into his memory-frame.

He wishes he could forget.

On Touya’s fourth birthday, his Quirk comes to life. It is everything Enji thought it would be, everything Enji hoped for it to be, a flame so hot it is as blue as a summer’s day, and it destroys Touya. It eats Enji’s son from the inside-out. It scars every organ and Enji does not know what to do, does not know what to feel, how to feel. Nothing at all. Enji watches his flame sprout to life in his son and wants nothing but for it to disappear. Kawaguchi meets him in the sterile hallways of the hospital that Enji has now learnt the blueprint of and tells him firmly, Endeavor-sama, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Enji has become an architect of the phrase. He maps the phrase as a mountain range, tall and wide as the Hida Range. He climbs each stroke, every crag slitting blood from his palms, and never glimpses the top. There is no relief to this. There can never be a relief to this. The birthday cake sputters blue flame as Touya’s hands light up, and Enji knows how many decibels Rei’s scream contains even in his dreams. Touya does not scream. Touya blinks, his hands melting, and looks at the palm-heavy bonfire like he is seeing his hands for the first time. He is so quiet that Enji does not think, for a split second, that anything has occurred. Touya stares at his hands, and Rei screams, and everything stops. They call Kawaguchi. They bind Touya’s hands with ointment and bandage and drive him—disregarding numerous red lights—to Musutafu General Hospital. Kawaguchi unwraps Touya’s hands and sighs.

“It’s his Quirk,” Kawaguchi says. “Congratulations. It seems to be a powerful one—much like yours, Endeavor-sama. Emitter-type fire.”

Rei looks down at her lap at the word congratulations. She cradles a sleeping Touya in her lap, stroking a hand through his hair. Kawaguchi’s eyebrows furrow as he notices her expression, his hands interlaced properly at his front. His nails are neatly clipped. His name tag rises and falls as he breathes.

Kawaguchi looks appropriately apologetic at his comment. Enji fists his heart into the fluorescent glow of Room 204 and wills himself to stay still. “With that being said, Endeavor-sama, there is little we can do about body compatibility. We can ease the pain, but fundamentally, Touya-kun’s body won’t be able to handle his Quirk. It appears that he has not inherited your high resistance to fire. We would have to engage in further Quirk tests to check. I apologize for the inconvenience on behalf of our hospital.”

“Quirk specialists,” Enji says. “Send a list of the ones you know. My agency will take care of the rest.”

“Understood. I will be doing that, then. I have assigned Tanaka to hand the medicine to Endeavor-sama’s wife.”

Enji nods and stands up. Rei looks up at him, her hair trembling over her ears. Before he leaves and finds Tanaka, he stops at the doorway.

“Rei.”

“Pardon?” Kawaguchi glances at Rei, then stares hesitantly at Enji.

“Her name is Rei.”

Enji lets the door shut behind him and almost stumbles into Tanaka, who stands outside, his loose hospital garb draped over his shoulders.

“Hello, Todoroki-san.”

“Tanaka,” Enji says. Tanaka does not say anything, his sparrow eyes wandering. Enji’s heart pounds so hard he thinks it might overheat. He tries to count Tanaka’s hair, brown as always, but everything blurs before him and the numbers evaporate into thin air. Kawaguchi's words are all that remain in each of them. Body compatibility. One. Quirk. Two. Nothing. Three. Three. Four. Four. Four. Four. Four. Four. Four. Four. Four. Four.

“Todoroki-san,” Tanaka says, his voice strangely distanced by the cleric smell of the hospital, but close, like he is only two, one centimeters away, then four millimeters, one millimeter—fabric. Sterile. Tanaka’s clean grass scent. “Pardon me, Todoroki-san. I hope you will forgive me for embracing you.”

Tanaka’s head bumps into Enji’s shoulder. His hair ruffles Enji’s bare arms. Enji closes his eyes and breathes.

/

In the hospital room, Sasuke’s eyes open.