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Hawks’ job had always required him to maintain his smiley image, the image of a boisterous and confident hero that let nothing get to him, every critique and rumor sliding off his shiny red wings. But now, Hawks sat in an office, no wings in sight. The smile he wore was stretched and thin, corners of his lips twitching as he flipped through pages of annoying paperwork.
Hawks was a cheerful, peppy, confident hero. It was supposed to be the same when he lost his quirk, when he took up the role as the president of the completely remodeled Hero Public Safety Commission. He sat where the President who took him in had sat, but he felt wrong in the chair. He felt out of place. He kept the smile on his face regardless.
So, with all the smiling he was doing, it was easy to forget his problems. It was easy to forget that never, not once in his life, had he cried. Not as a child, when his father would throw bottles across the room, or in some cases, throw Keigo. Not when his mother screamed, or when his father disappeared, or when he was forced to stay in the small, enclosed space of the creaky wooden closet that became his safe haven. He didnt cry when he abandoned his mother, he didn’t cry during commission training, he didn’t cry when injured in fights or on missions. He didn’t cry when his wings were burnt away by the one person he cared about, nor as he drove a blade through his first true friend. He didn’t cry when there was a hand around his neck, tearing his quirk—the one thing that made him important—away from him. Hawks, the number two hero, didn’t cry. Keigo didn’t cry. Not as a child, not now. He didn’t cry, except for once.
Except for once, in the arms of his written enemy, who brushed tears away from his face after a particularly difficult ‘training’ session, who tended to his wounds gently, as if Keigo would break beneath his fingers. Keigo had cried once, in the arms of the villain Dabi, in the arms of Touya Todoroki. Touya Todoroki who changed his worldview, who challenged what Keigo thought was the line between heroes in villains. Touya Todoroki who was the first person to show Keigo what it was like to not be alone. Touya Todoroki, who had been in the hospital for five years after the war, before moving to house arrest at his childhood home, filled with resentment for his past yet willing to try, for his brother. For his sister. Keigo wondered what it was like to have a family. Keigo didn’t cry when he thought about this, nor did he cry when he visited Touya at the hospital, telling him stories that he would never respond to. Keigo would leave, and he wasn’t sure if Touya stayed silent because he physically couldn’t respond, or because looking at Keigo filled him with hatred.
The last time Keigo had seen Touya, they were sitting on a shitty futon in the smallest room of the Todoroki house, staring into each other’s eyes like it was the first time they had seen each other; like it was the first time they had seen anyone. There were three words on the tip of Keigo’s tongue, words he had never felt before, words he had never said before. Not once. Not to anyone, not to anything. The words never left his lips.
Keigo didn’t cry.
The phone on his desk rings once, twice, three times. He thanks every god he can think of for the short break he’s about to get from paperwork. Apparently, the gods were not listening to his thanks.
A gruff voice speaks on the other end, notoriously angry even though the statement was flat and empty.
There’s no warning, no alarm, no way to prepare himself for what he hears. “Touya is dead.”
He laughs. It’s a sick fucking joke, the man on the phone is a sick liar, playing with Keigo as a sick prank. Keigo laughs and laughs until he can't breathe, until the static on the phone halts with the interruption of the voice again.
”This isn’t a joke, Hawks. Touya is dead.”
The word “dead” rings through the air like an ear piercing scream. The voice growls on the other side of the line, and Keigo burns with hatred the way that Touya taught him, because right now, Touya’s murderer is on the phone, and he had killed him not once, but twice. The only person who had made Keigo feel solid, feel cared for, feel worth something. Despite everything, Touya had forgiven Keigo, even when Keigo hadn’t forgiven himself—he still hadn’t.
Keigo doesn’t feel like Endeavor saved him. He doesn't feel like that man has ever saved anyone. All he can hear when he hears his voice is the roar of red hot flames, consuming Touya’s body. What was the point of Endeavor saving Keigo, if the man couldn’t even save his own son?
”Touya is dead.” Endeavor repeats himself with a cruel finality, as if Keigo is too stupid to get it through his head. Keigo wasn’t supposed to care. Keigo is waiting for the ‘gotcha!’, for the cruel laugh that makes him the butt of some cruel joke. It never comes.
“Touya is dead…” Keigo repeats, heartbeat thumping in his ears. It repeats, over and over and over again.
After a decade and a half of living out of spite, Touya Todoroki was dead. Keigo wonders if he ran out of spite to live off of, if healing was the thing that killed him. He wonders if Touya Todoroki was ever meant to be happy, and then he wonders the same thing about himself. They would die before they could be happy. They were never meant to kiss, never meant to love, to live, to live selfishly and happily with real, genuine smiles on their faces. It makes Keigo so sick that he feels a hot wetness trail down his cheeks.
Touya, who barely got to be a boy, let alone a man, was dead.
Keigo, in nearly 30 years, has never cried. But the foreign stream of salty water streams down his cheeks faster and faster until it's dripping down his neck and he’s clawing at himself just for a single breath. It’s ridiculous, it’s embarrassing, and before he realizes it, his papers are scattered across the floor, chair in the corner; discarded like Touya’s life.
Keigo curses the world. He curses heroes, he curses Endeavor, he curses his parents. He curses everyone for creating a world where Touya couldn’t be happy. Keigo remembers the first time he saw a genuine smile on Touya’s face, and he’s sick, because the world will never see it, and Keigo will only see it in his memories. Keigo curses himself for not letting those stupid three words leave his lips. How hard is it to tell someone you love them? That they are the first thing to bring your life meaning? How hard is it to overcome the love that has just been ripped out of his heart. If he closes his eyes hard enough, he sees Touya’s eyes. Rippling cerulean blue, sparkling the same color as the dangerous flame that once lapped up each feather on Keigo’s back. He finds himself longing for that moment, willing to risk the pain over and over again if he got to see Touya’s eyes, to feel his heat against Keigo’s skin.
Papers fly around the room, and Keigo wishes to mimic them, but there's a gaping emptiness where his wings should be, and for the life of him he just can't take off.
Touya is dead.
Hawks is dead.
Keigo was never really alive.
The line goes dead with a sullen beep that lets Keigo know he will never see Touya again, not his beautiful eyes, nor his shiny staples that hold together scars that show nothing but determination and years of pain that weighed on the soul of a broken boy. Touya died before he could heal, and Keigo felt as if the once chance he had left to be happy was ripped away from him like the feathers off his back.
The chair in his office is too big, and now it is too broken. The papers are meaningless, the sky is gray, his back is empty. All at once, with each hot tear, it comes crashing down.
Keigo has lost everything. For the first time in years, he cries. He cries, and cries, and cries.
Because of course, even when he’s dead and gone, Touya is the only one who can make Keigo feel anything. He thinks that maybe, they could’ve saved each other; but now, neither of them would get the chance. Keigo’s not sure if the tears will ever stop.