Chapter Text
When Hina woke up that Friday morning, she knew something felt off.
The Animation Hero stood on the perimeter of one of the UA indoor training grounds, watching the students go through various challenges and drills set up by her colleague, Eraserhead, as she let out a long exhale. She was trying to settle the violent churning in her stomach, cooly leaning back against the wall for support, but it felt like the ground was about to be pulled out from under her.
Eraserhead - or Shouta Aizawa to Hina, given their history of more or less questionable friendship, depending on who you asked - quickly caught on to the art teahcer's major change in demeanor. Usually, he couldn’t get a word in with her edgewise and would be tuning out her endless blabbering, but so far she’d offered a brief greeting earlier and proceeded to speak only when spoken to. He would be reveling in the silence, if he didn’t know this was out of the ordinary.
Aizawa discreetly turned his gaze to the brunette, pulling his attention away from the students, and examined her more closely. He knew she was very good at hiding how she felt, but luckily for him, he was even better at catching lies.
“You okay?” he asked in a hushed tone, returning his attention to the bursts of overzealous war cries coming from the first years.
His acute peripheral vision caught her immediately straightening up again. She was making an effort to conceal her pain, looking more casual as she leaned against the wall. Artiste crossed her arms and lifted her chin to try and prove how well she was.
Clearing her throat: “Yeah! Yeah, I’m fine.”
Now she was just insulting him. “Hm.”
She couldn’t really think he was that stupid. He looked once more at her face as she watched the students; even behind her visor he could tell her eyes weren’t focused: glazed over and staring into the middle distance. Her shoulders then slouched again, blue veins pulsating. All of a sudden, through her deathly pale complexion…
Before he could ask again, a hand flew to her mouth. Artiste launched herself off her heel and bolted through the front door with a slam. Aizawa was left standing there, not sure what to do about the violent retching coming from outside.
A few students noticed the dramatic exit of their art teacher - and current extra supervisor for training. Thankfully, Aizawa acted quickly to cover for her, sharply blowing his whistle.
“Alright everyone, take five and rehydrate. Artiste and I… will be back in a moment.” he watched his students descend from the various industrial structures they had been using for their drills, and make their way to their bags with a chorus of grateful groans.
Waiting for most of them to pass by and move away from the exit, Aizawa slinked out the front door and closed it again behind him. He was met with Artiste kneeling next to a garbage can, her knuckles somehow even paler than before, as her fingers gripped its metal rim: the only thing currently keeping her upright.
A low, shaky moan escaped her lips as she failed to steady her breath, not even noticing him standing there. Aizawa hovered awkwardly around his ill coworker at first, trying to not breathe in the pungent smell escaping the trash can. He reached down and gently wrapped his hand around her upper arm, the denim of her cropped jacket scratching against his calloused palm, and coaxed her to try and stand. He was met with little resistance as she feebly rose to her feet. He quickly moved his other hand to support her sagging upper body. She immediately rested her hip against the edge of the can to fight off a dizzy spell, Aizawa still not having let go of her arm.
Looking her over again, his brow furrowed in frustration to mask his underlying concern. “Hina, why would you even come to school if you felt this sick? It’s just irresponsible.”
She chuckled at his scolding, trying to make light of the situation to ease her embarrassment. “Well, I’m a mom, a hero, and a teacher. I don't get sick days.” Her laughter was brittle as her chin fell to her chest. The brunette squeezed her eyes shut in hopes that when she opened them again, the world would stop spinning.
“Did the students -?”
“No, they’re on break.”
Pursing her lips, she blew out a quivering exhale, her stomach finally starting to settle again. Aizawa loosened his grip, but stood close by, just in case.
“Sorry, I know. I thought it was just some 24-hour bug that should’ve been gone by now but -” she turned her head to spit in the trash, trying to rid her mouth of that foul taste.
Despite his aggravation, Aizawa spoke calmly at low volume: the best effort he could make for comfort. “Go see Recovery Girl, I’m sure she can give you something for the nausea. Then go home, you can’t do anything here in this state.”
Artiste didn’t respond for a second, ready to argue, but there didn’t seem much point. She hated it when he was right. So the art teacher steadied herself and slowly nodded in agreement, letting out a heavy sigh.
“Okay, fine. I will.” she straightened with wavering confidence.
Aizawa stepped back, slightly reassured that she wouldn’t pass out, at least. “Do you need me to contact…?”
Artiste took in a few deep breaths to test her body. The wave of nausea had died down, but she still felt unease in her gut. She mulled over his offer to call her husband, but lazily shook her head, sweaty fringe sticking to her skin. “Thank you, but no. No, I’m already feeling a little better, and he has so much work to do at the agency today. I can get myself home.”
Aizawa was not convinced. He saw her forehead start to glisten again, but he didn’t push it. “Hm. Alright. Just go see Recovery Girl first.”
“Aw look, Eraserhead does care.”
He exhaled sharply, not giving her the satisfaction of rolling his eyes. “If you can make jokes, you can walk. Just go.”
Artiste shook her head trying to hide her snicker, Aizawa was still as cold as ever.
“I’m going, I’m going.” she picked herself up and inhaled deeply to try and steady her turbulent stomach once again. “Thanks, Shouta.”
The underground hero didn’t answer, he just watched her take a few more increasingly sturdy steps away from the building before heading back in. The Animation Hero heard the door click closed, his voice immediately barking new drills to the students whose break had ended all too quickly.
Hina sluggishly made her way through UA’s maze of corridors, her body moving on autopilot so as to focus on not painting the walls a sickly green. She knocked gently when she finally made it to the medbay door. The familiar, comforting voice of the school’s nurse granted entry.
Hina opened the door as the elderly woman swiveled around on her small stool, squeaking on its hinges. “Ah! Tsukuru!" she announced, happy to see a friendly face. "One of my favorite patients. What can I help you with?”
“Actually, it's Toyomitsu.” she gently corrected through a forced smile, still trying to keep down whatever was left of her breakfast.
“Oh! Of course." the school nurse corrected, her memory stuck on nostalgia. "I still see you as that chubby-faced chronic fainter. I’m still convinced you would come in here just to nap though… ” she chuckled, reminiscing about the art teacher's days in academia. Hina's quirk’s energy-leeching had caused her to go down quite quickly in her first year, before intensive stamina training.
Before she could respond, however, Recovery Girl got a better look at her colleague. Her thin lips pulled flat as she immediately recognized all of Hina's physical symptoms, exaggerated under fluorescent lights. “Come. sit.” She rolled over to one of the beds, tapping the edge with her small hand. The art teacher sat with relief, worried that if she had remained standing, she might have regressed to her high school condition.
Recovery Girl started her usual procedures, the comfortable silence within the cozy room occasionally interrupted by the gentle sounds of medical tools. “Elevated heart rate, headache, muscle and chest soreness… the nausea is irregular but persistent?”
“Well, not exactly, for the past week or so it would come and go. But this morning I felt fine.”
“Did you eat?”
“Yes. I’ve been hungrier than usual too, actually, but that’s backfired a bit. The only other time I vomited was last weekend, but I thought I would be over whatever this is by Monday.”
“Hmm…” Recovery Girl turned around on her stool and grabbed a nearby clipboard, jotting down some notes and tapping the pen in thought. The silence drew out longer than Hina expected, wondering what the school nurse could be pondering over so heavily. It started to make her nervous.
With a sharp inhale the nurse broke the hush in the room. “Well, considering your symptoms, you either have a very inconsistent stomach flu, a sudden new allergy, or, most likely: you’re pregnant.”
She was so casual, as if just chatting over coffee.
Hina blinked. “...sorry, what?”
Recovery Girl stood up and went to put down the clipboard on her desk. “I think you might be pregnant, Toyomitsu.”
This… was a joke.
This was some mean, cruel, vile joke.
It had to be. Why would anyone be so vicious as to taunt her like this, if it weren’t for a cheap laugh.
The silence grew heavy, thick with a rising tension radiating off of the art teacher. “That’s…not possible.” she stated flatly. Her nausea had been suddenly overwhelmed by the fury bubbling in her chest she was failing to quell.
Recovery Girl pushed up her glasses and started rummaging through the supply cupboards, looking for something as she spoke again. “When is your next menstruation cycle expected?”
Hina’s patience was being heavily tested at this moment, letting out a shaky breath to muster up what little self-control she had left. “It should be starting this week. But they aren’t reliable anymore.”
What Recovery Girl pulled out of the cupboard stopped Hina’s heart dead: something she would purposefully avoid looking at when visiting the pharmacy, not even going down that aisle unless she had to: a box of pregnancy tests. “Right. But it hasn't started yet? Is it late? Because these symptom irregularities are really only consistent with -”
“I said -” she refused to hear this through any longer. Her usually tolerant demeanor crumbled as the words poured out, swearing she almost spat real venom along with them. “I am not pregnant. It’s not possible. So please, just drop it.”
…The following silence was unpleasant, to say the least.
Recovery Girl sat, shocked at the way her former student had just spoken to an elder, never having expected such a nasty tone to come from one of the cheeriest people she knew. She was about to chew out the art teacher for her blatant disrespect, until she caught sight of the wetness behind her red visor. She glanced down at Artiste’s hands, which were balled so tightly into fists that they started to shake. The nurse’s anger immediately dissipated. “...Okay, my dear.” she breathed, releasing a sigh that rattled her old bones.
The stillness of the room remained, Hina’s gaze firm as she refused to let the tears fall, averting her colleague's eye out of shame. Recovery Girl quietly shuffled to a cupboard, rifling through a few medications until she selected one. She brought it back to her desk to write down a note and poured a few into a separate packet. Leaving her seat, she walked over to her younger colleague and placed them in her hand. “These should help with the discomfort. Go home, drink fluids, and get plenty of rest.” she returned to her desk without another word to continue her previous paperwork, allowing the Animation Hero the dignity to leave without an audience.
Looking over the small pills filling the sachet in her palm, Hina slowly stood up. Mustering a weak ‘thank you’, she hastily made her way for the door before she could break down and embarrass herself even more. Grabbing the handle, the art teacher pushed open the office door a crack but stopped before leaving.
The box of pregnancy tests Recovery Girl had pulled out still sat on the corner of her desk.
Taunting her.
Daring her.
What if -?
Something deep down - some tiny, minuscule part of her that had not already been beaten down and grief-stricken told her to take it; while the large, jagged scar through her stomach and back ached with a pain, long past.
But, as if to only torture herself, Hina snatched the box.
She left the office and closed the door behind her. Recovery Girl looked back at the vacant room, her gaze shifting to the now empty spot on her desk. Her eyes softened sympathetically, a part of her regretting even bringing out that box. She turned back to her computer and hesitated before doing a quick search to pull up the teacher database, then reached for the phone.
The entire journey home was a haze. Hina didn’t even remember getting into the car she had called to bring her home. She only really became conscious of the world around her once the driver turned down her street. She muttered a robotic thank you, exiting the car with her satchel thrown over her shoulder. She walked up the stone steps and down the pathway to the porch, absentmindedly kicking Natsumi’s yellow ball back onto the lawn. Hina fumbled with her keys, pushing them into the lock of their grand front door, and stepped inside. The noonday light shone through the tall windows scattered around the house, showering every corner in warmth. Hina and Taishiro had bought this house shortly after they were married. There were tall ceilings and wide corridors to accommodate her husband’s fluctuating size, and enough natural light to make any artist swoon. Once Natsumi had fallen into their lives, she really made their house the perfect home.
Right then, though, it felt hauntingly lonely.
The Animation Hero stumbled through the halls to the master bedroom, narrowly avoiding tripping over strewn toys as another wave of nausea made itself present. She quickened her pace, practically running to the ensuite bathroom before throwing herself over the toilet bowl as she forcefully dry heaved. Spit coated her mouth and dribbled from her lips, along with a small amount of yellow bile. It surprised her that there was anything left to come back up. Hina quickly rinsed out her mouth and brushed her teeth to cleanse herself of the horrid taste. She began stripping in a frenzy. She just wanted her hero costume off her, as she threw it on the armchair that sat in the corner of the room. Hina crawled into her and her husband’s king-sized bed, not bothering to put on pajamas, to avoid having anything extra touching her skin.
Her head collapsed onto the pillow, eyes shut tightly, trying to stop the heartache from escaping. But in the privacy of their home, messy tears streamed down her face while she choked on heavy sobs. The suffocating emotions brought back from her traumas glued her to the bed, and all she could do was ride the wave of grief and pain until she could forget it all over again.
Hina didn’t even realize she had fallen asleep until the sun had moved enough in the sky that it shone right on her face, difficult to ignore. Her eyes were crusted shut, making them uncomfortable to open. She rubbed at them furiously, smudging her mascara while the bun in her hair had fallen out during her nap. She had left her phone in her bag across the room, so she didn’t know the actual time, but it felt like she had been asleep for hours. Lazily slinking out from under the plush comforter, her bladder screamed for release, but she was just thankful that the nausea had subsided again. Grabbing the throw blanket, Hina wrapped it around herself and dragged it across the floor to grab her phone.
As she reached in to pull it out, her hand flinched as it grazed the cardboard of the other item she had blissfully forgotten was in her current possession. Her body froze.
Every rational part of her mind screamed at her to drop it.
Don’t do it.
It was going to cause nothing but another spiral of heartbreak and misery, leaving her to pick up the pieces she had spent so long putting back together.
But -
But… what if … Recovery Girl was right?
What if this was her one chance - what her surgeons, doctors, and all those fancy specialists had told her time and time again was practically impossible anymore. After a nearly fatal incident during the war, it had taken so agonizingly long for her to accept the loss.
But… She and Taishiro hadn’t exactly been… Careful since her infertility diagnosis. They found no need to be. So, in that regard… No matter how slim, the chance was technically still there.
Her heart started to race as she pulled the box out, allowing the blanket to pool around her kneeling form. Hina sat there, staring at the subdued colors of the packaging, reading it over and over again. She looked at the full-body mirror that sat by the chair and stared at her reflection. Finding it hard to make eye contact with herself, as if she couldn’t face the side of her that had already been burned so many times. She found herself standing up as the blanket fell off her shoulders. She examined her body with wary eyes, her gaze immediately honing in on the large, nasty, sawtooth scar that sat right by her belly button. She turned to also see its twin on her back; red, raised, thin skin twisting and pulling with every movement. She couldn’t hate to look at something more. The phantom feeling of her skin and internal organs squishing around that piece of thick rebar resurfaced from deep within. Stretching across her midsection like a plague, it reminded her of the betrayal she had experienced at the hands of a so-called ‘friend’: the person who shoved her out of a high-rise building while searching for civilian survivors, sending her plummeting into the piles of dangerous rubble below. She sniffled and breathed deeply to stop herself from crying again, already having lost so much time to grief.
The box was still in her hand. She looked down at it again, eyebrows knit together.
Just… get it over with.
She didn’t let herself think about it any longer, because if she did, her sanity would kick back in.
Hina strode to the bathroom as quickly as possible to rip open the packaging, skimming over the simple instructions as she picked out one of four individual tests. She did what she needed to and placed the test face-down on the sink, so she could fight the urge to touch it and possibly ruin the results. The timer was set. Hina threw on her light blue bathrobe and stood as far away from the test as possible, sitting on the edge of the bathtub and fidgeting with her nails, not sure if she was feeling nauseous because of her condition or her nerves.
Second after second.
Minute after minute.
Finally, the alarm on her phone rang.
Her legs felt stuck in wet cement. But, cautiously, step after step, the test came closer into her reach, until she could pick it up - albeit like it was made of glass. Hina squeezed her eyes shut, already feeling the tears well up at the single line she just knew had to be on that stupid little piece of plastic. With a deep breath, she opened them one at a time and forced herself to look at the small screen, pulling it away from her face to accommodate her farsightedness.
Two lines.
Two lines.
Two lines.
Hina felt her whole body wanting to go limp. But she tightened her grip on the test, refusing to let any of this slip through her fingers this time. She grabbed the box and frantically dumped the other tests onto the counter, chugging as much water as possible to the point of almost making her sick again, and retook every single one.
Positive.
All four tests, positive.
If asked, Hina has no idea how long she sat on that cold marble bathroom floor.
She refused to move. Refused to do anything that could change the outcome of this fucking miracle sitting in her hands, right there, in red and white.
The Animation Hero barely heard the front door open, the sound of heavy footsteps following suit, and then the calling of her name, but she just couldn’t bring herself to answer. The sound grew closer as the call echoed much more clearly from the doorway of their bedroom, her husband's large, quirked-up form filling her peripheral vision.
Taishiro felt a rising panic as he didn't see his wife in bed (after searching the entire house). Receiving that voicemail from Recovery Girl had done a number on his blood pressure. But, he did know that Hina hadn’t been feeling well this past week, so maybe it was just catching up to her like he had warned so many times - if he knew his wife, she would never voluntarily slow down. Still, what caused greater concern was the tone of the school nurse’s voice: almost...uneasy. Her vagueness had made him want to come home and check on her himself.
The BMI hero did a quick pass over the room, yellow ochre eyes taking in his surroundings. Passing by the open bathroom door, he did a double take when he noticed a usually manicured foot poking out from around the corner of the tub. Entering the bathroom, he released a heavy sigh of relief to find Hina sitting on the floor, conscious and unharmed, unlike what he had started to imagine.
“Darlin’, you scared the shit out of me.” he laughed, pulling off his black mask. “You weren’t answering any of my check-in calls and then you weren’t answering me when I came into the house -” Taishiro stopped as he noticed that Hina still hadn’t even acknowledged his presence in the room. His eyes narrowed as he stepped over to her. “Hina? What’s wrong?” he asked gingerly, kneeling down in front of her. Her bathrobe was askew as it hung loosely over her shoulders, exposing ghostly skin underneath. She still hasn’t even looked at him, her eyes fixated on something behind tucked knees. Now he was getting scared.
“Sweetheart, Hina, can ya look at me, please.” He ordered as gently as possible, pulling off his hood as this felt all too eerily familiar to her isolated demeanor after the war.
It took another long second, but Hina finally looked up through uncombed bangs. His heart clenched at how red and puffy her face was, especially her poor eyes, rubbed raw. She was clearly fighting back more tears, her face instantly tensing as she made eye contact with her husband. Before Taishiro could ask anything else, Hina pulled her hand from behind her knees and weakly offered what she was holding. Glancing at the white bundle of sticks in her fist, unsure what they were at first, he hesitantly took them in his large hand. But once Hina released them from her grasp and the other half she was covering now revealed, he knew immediately what they were.
The whole world froze as he saw those dark red lines contrasted by the white of the pregnancy tests.
Taishiro just… stared at them. His mind refusing to take in what this meant. He slowly sank down onto his heels and simply kept studying them, somehow thinking that if he turned away, they would fizzle into a figment of his imagination.
They’d been through...so, so much.
She’d been through absolute hell.
All to be told that in the end, this was nothing but a lost dream. That she no longer had any choice in the matter.
And yet -
The proof was right there, tangible in his hands.
He didn’t care how it happened, how this was maybe some medical anomaly, or even if all four tests were somehow defective. Nothing and no one was going to take this away from them.
Not this time.
“Say something...” he heard his wife beg, hands drooping in her lap while waiting for him to react. He managed to pull his gaze away and catch hers again, forest green intensely searching yellow ochre. Taishiro eventually turned and placed the tests on the sink counter, making sure none would fall. He faced Hina, crouching down further to try and be more directly at her eye level, and tore off his gloves, throwing them to the side. He cautiously brought his hands up to tenderly cradle her soft, beautiful face, wiping away any new tears that broke free. He pushed her bangs away from sticking to her cheeks, and just looked at her.
He could say a million things.
He could scream ‘hallelujah’ from the rooftops. He could pick her up and swing her around, laughing in absolute bliss together. He could bombard her with endless questions about when and how. that he knew she probably couldn’t answer either. But, all he really wanted to do was just hold her. That everything was going to be okay.
He knew that's what she so desperately wanted to believe.
He knew.
What started as a trickle turned into a downpour, as Hina threw herself into his massive, comforting arms. She unabashedly wept - in happiness, fear, anger, she didn’t know, but didn't care.
He held on tight to that woman he was so lucky to call ‘his’, and was not letting go. His own eyes grew blurry, soothingly swaying and rubbing his hand up and down her back, as she clung to his yellow hoodie, wrinkling the fabric under her vice grip. He buried his nose into her hair, inhaling that sweet vanilla-rose scent - a fragrance that had become an instant comfort for him.
They stayed on that bathroom floor for as long as they needed.
Her sobbing eventually died down enough to hiccups, until Hina broke the silence and muttered that she wanted to move to the bed. Wordlessly, Taishiro picked her up and cradled her in his arms, extra careful not to jostle her now, and placed her on their luxurious mattress. He pulled the covers over her and kissed her forehead, whispering to her he would be right back, before grabbing his phone to step out into the hallway. Taishiro called his in-laws, and Mrs. Tsukuru answered, as always, on the second ring. Working through the string of questions Hina’s mom always had when they spoke, Taishiro quickly got to the point to ask if they would be able to take Natsumi for a night or two. Of course, although thrilled to, Mrs. Tsukuru asked why, and Taishiro just embellished the truth: Hina was quite sick, and they didn’t want Natsumi catching whatever she had. Her grandparents were always happy to have her, and fortunately, they were on the daycare pick-up list, so he didn’t have to make any extra calls. Needless to say, hanging up the phone, he felt intense parental guilt. Even so, he did not want Natsumi to see them like this, and he knew Hina would wholeheartedly agree. She was only three, and would not even be able to begin to understand what was going on, so it was best to just shelter her from it for now.
He came back into the bedroom, Hina’s gentle breathing the only sound in the still air. Taishiro partially drew the curtains to bring in some comforting darkness, threw on his lounge clothes, filled the mug on her nightstand with fresh water, and crawled into bed with her. Resting his head on his pillow, he adjusted the covers onto both of them while Hina shuffled in as close as she could. He wrapped his arms around her tightly and gently stroked her hair with his thumb as they lay there in total silence, trying to process it all.
“…What…do we do now?” she whispered, letting the question hang in the heavy air.
Taishiro didn’t respond at first, wondering what the actual answer was. He sighed deeply, her hair ruffling under his breath. “Doctor’s appointment for you, I’d think.”
“This is a good thing, right? I-it has to be?” it sounded more like she was asking herself rather than him. She lifted her head from his chest, their eyes locking over the fluffy comforter.
Her face was difficult to read: emerald eyes glimmering with hope, but eyebrows and mouth plastered with anxiety and distress.
He didn’t know what to say. She was asking questions that he lost the answer to awhile ago. But with her, the truth is all that mattered, and what she wanted. “Honestly… I think it is. I really think it is.” he let a small smile grace his lips as he stared back. Despite everything, the excitement of the possibility of being a dad again bubbled in his chest. But, he remained very cautious of his emotions, knowing how sensitive Hina was to his reactions regarding all of this.
She watched his face for even the smallest hint of trepidation while she let out a shaky breath. Taishiro could smell the fresh mint from her recently brushed teeth before she rested her head against his. “I don't want to say it but… I hope so too. I hope this is real." Her voice cracked, breathing deeply to steady herself. "If it’s not, I -” Hina was shocked she still had tears to shed.
“If it’s not -” he continued for her, trying to intercept her suffocating thoughts. “I’ll still be here. We’ll still have all this, everythin’ we’ve already made, together.” he, too, of course still had his own scars from that horrific time of war and destruction. They lost so many friends to the carnage, and he had almost lost her. He pulled his head away to look at her again, then leaned in to gently press their lips together.
“I know ya know that.” He softly chided, no weight attached.
“…I know.”
They layed in bed, appreciating the reassurance they both brought to each other. The silence in the room no longer felt like drowning, but instead brought kindness and understanding, wrapping them both like the hug they shared.
The sunset casted fiery hues through the window panes of their ornately decorated bedroom. Taishiro's stomach rumbled, murmuring to Hina that he was going to make some food for them. He asked her what she would like, but it was less of a question of what she wanted to eat and more so what she could stomach. In the end, she settled on a simple soup, not wanting to push her luck. He offered to serve her in bed, but Hina decided to follow him to the kitchen, thinking some distance from that room would do her some good. Tying her robe around herself, she followed Taishiro to the main living area, hand in hand. Clinging to her husband, she stayed close and opted to sit at the island to watch him in his element. She would never not be grateful for marrying someone with such a knack for cooking, or she would have been eating burnt chicken and bland veggies for the rest of her life. He turned on the TV for ambiance while Hina just sat there in quiet, domestic bliss. Her wordlessness was filled with a lot of questions, and a lot of nerves, figuring out their next steps. Nevertheless, at least for the rest of this evening, she could just be by his side and soak in that seemingly natural comfort her husband brought to anyone who needed it, like he was the warm yellow glow of a window in a well-loved home.
Her home.
Soon enough, Taishiro set down a bowl in front of her, insisting she not move a muscle from the chair. Kissing her head as he sat down next to her at the island, he set out his own, much larger spread of food across the granite countertop. They ate slowly, Taishiro eyeballing his wife to make sure the food he had made wasn’t going to make her sick again. She cautiously took small spoonfuls, him feeling satisfied that her cheeks were gaining more color as the hot liquid warmed her slowly from the inside out. His foot found the bottom rung of her stool, their feet touching: a small comforting gesture he’d been doing out of habit for years now. The TV became white noise in the background that would occasionally catch their attention with some dumb joke or dramatic line.
After finishing their meals, the pair retired to the couch. Hina let her body take control. Sinking into the cozy cushions, she folded herself into Taishiro’s side, feeling the soft cotton of his t-shirt under her cheek. He lazily wrapped an arm around her, their eyes glazing over, watching whatever tacky game show was on the screen now.
Taishiro almost found his hand subconsciously moving to her abdomen out of instinctual wonder, but he strictly resisted the urge.
But he just couldn’t stop his mind from wandering… Pulled back to a time when these wishful thoughts hadn’t been crushed by multiple tons of concrete and the metallic stench of oozing blood. He looked over at her and admired her gentle face, illuminated by the kaleidoscope of colors from the TV screen.
What would they look like?
Would they have his height and Hina’s hair? Her temperament and his appetite? Oh, he hoped that they would get her eyes: those enchanting emerald eyes that made him fall in love all the deeper that first time he’d ever seen them while on patrol together. He wrapped his arm around his wife even tighter, leaning down to nuzzle her ear and peck her warm cheek, recalling the fond memory.
She didn’t react at first, but eventually craned her neck upwards to gently lock lips, passively rubbing his sturdy chest and feeling the powerful, rhythmic thumping of his heartbeat under her palm. She understood how Natsumi was always so easily lulled to sleep in her hero’s arms, as it was doing the same for her now.
Taishiro didn’t realize he had fallen asleep until a particularly loud advertisement blasted from the TV speakers. Waking up with a start, he scrambled to find the remote and turn the volume down for his sake and Hina’s. Tossing the device back onto the couch with relief, the grogginess subsided enough for him to realize it was very late, and that Hina was no longer curled into his side. Curiosity quickly replaced confusion as his eye caught the dim light shining through the cracked door of her studio.
Sore joints made him groan as he stood, the blanket that he could only assume was tenderly placed by Hina falling off his stomach. His socks slid against the hardwood to shuffle his way over to the paint-stained studio entrance (courtesy of Natsumi, where little handprints littered the bottom of the door). Pushing it a little more open just to glimpse inside, he found her in her usual spot, sitting cross-legged on her stool. Her back faced him while another of her large canvases sat on the easel. He noticed It was the same painting she’d been working on for quite a while, but seemed to always redo the same sections over and over.
Considering the state of her studio, one wouldn’t pin her as a perfectionist, but when it came to her art, that couldn’t be more wrong. He always loved her studio, it was like peeking directly into her mind. Unfinished projects and various paint splatters coated every corner of the floor; but surprisingly, the walls stayed quite clean under the multiple pinned sketches, references, and fanart she had accumulated over the years.
She didn’t seem to notice his presence, as she wore her equally paint-stained headphones (which stayed in her studio for that very reason). She was lost, once again, in her art, most likely to keep her mind from being anywhere else. It was her greatest form of escape.
He knew better than to interrupt her when she was deep in her flow. Despite it being well into the night, and that she would benefit most from some good rest, he was no longer one to argue. If this is what she needed right now, then so be it. Watching for a moment longer to soak in the comforting sound of paintbrush on canvas, he left the door open a little wider and made his way back to their bedroom. He collapsed onto their bed, making sure to fluff her pillow with his for when she would finally come to bed as well. Before sinking into the mattress and resting his head, Taishiro let out a chest-rattling sigh that he hadn’t realized he’d been holding since he walked through the door earlier today.
He had been so blissfully unaware that everything was going to change. He sincerely thought they had gotten through all of the grief that fate had planned for them already, but evidently, it still wasn’t enough. For now, he could only hope that, for Hina’s sake, this wasn't a part of that plan. Because, if it was… They barely made it through the first time, and he couldn’t stomach the thought of seeing her so depressed again.
The cruelty of life knew no bounds.
Taishiro was no religious man, yet he found himself praying as his eyelids grew heavy: praying that this was not a dream he would wake up from when the morning came.