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Quilted mornings greet Keigo's weekends now. Every Saturday, he sleeps to his heart's content- or at least until he rolls over with an indulgent stretch to find you already sitting up, nursing some coffee.
This morning, you return your mug back to the side table the moment you catch that telltale creak of his voice trying to wake itself up. It’s a careful move not to spill, but you're also bubbling in anticipation of what's coming next:
Without fail, Keigo will crack open his eyes, fuss against the light, moan how you've moved too far away, and *army-crawls* on his tummy until he can drape an arm across you again. To watch his shoulders work as he moves is still a handsome sight… even without his wings.
As he tries to sneak in a bit more shuteye, you stroke Keigo lightly, wherever you can reach. It's mostly his hair that calls out for your hand’s touch, though as you lay some light scritches down between his shoulder blades, Keigo rustles more. When you stop, he jolts his shoulder up in a nudge.
'More, please .'
"Good morning, GoldenEye~" you greet him.
Laying a groggy kiss to nowhere in particular (just an absent press of the lips on your midsection where he could reach), Keigo trills lazily but with a smile on his face. A wakeful state rests behind still-closed eyes; he talks before willing them open,
" Gmornin', bay’bird .."
Kei's morning voice should come with a warning– if you had no bills to pay or the human need to eat and drink, you'd never leave this bed with him in it like this.
He wrenches a little pout, a scrunch of his shut eyelids, " nnngh.. -wha’ times’it ?"
To answer Keigo's drowsy twists and turns under the covers, you pull up the confirmation email on your phone with bidden excitement,
"Right about time for you to start getting yourself ready, babe," you greet softly, "we've got somewhere to be today."
An accented eye finally chances a peek up at you, "-where?"
"It's a surprise~ I'm taking you out. Up for a little adventure?"
"Adventure, huh?" Keigo cracks a smile with teasing interest, groaning into your side as he stretches yet again, " MMMMFH-hhhh .. now what's my baby got in mind f’me, huh?"
You've been introducing little spots around the city to him, slowly reintroducing him to the public per his increasing interest. You were nervous at first, but by Keigo's healthier mental balance between work and play now, you follow his lead and try to make outings fun for him.
Online, you'd come across a locals-only ticketing deal that was too good to pass up and thought to treat him to an excursion he'd likely never gotten to do in grade school... Since when would assassin training allow for field trips like most nine-year-olds get to go on?
Without giving anything away, you merely gave Keigo a small kiss on his forehead and left him confused while you urged him to get up once again. A frisky swat on his butt atop mountains of covers got him into action soon enough, chasing after you with roguish excitement.
From “Guess it’s a bit late to ask if I should have changed into a wetsuit?”
“I don’t think you’re supposed to be in the enclosures without permission, Kei. Hero or not!~”
“Cmon, you can’t swim with them?”
“Some folks do, but they get paid to do that! The rest of us get to watch how it’s done.”
“Sheesh, where’s the fun in that ?”
Giggling at his ridiculous notion, you find your darling’s interest in the building's flashy backlit signage holds more depth, like he’s reading every word for the first time.
"Y'know, I always passed this place," Keigo emerges from the car, with a set gaze at the fish captured mid-breach, "but never went inside. Couldn't risk the wings getting too wet while on the job, y'know?"
"Thought as much," you rejoin him, pocketing your keys into your coat and all but biting your lip in excitement. " Wanna see ?"
"Lead the way, pretty thing~"
So the two of you entered Kyushu's newly renovated aquarium center. It's renown as one of the loveliest in the world with a seven story high observation deck, prized for its integral underground facilities with access directly to the waterways through man-made tunnels and bayfront access. Quirk specialists who bear similar biology to nature's most wonderous aquatic life find their ‘home away from home’ here at the conjoining lab complex, and aid in conservation efforts alongside the scientists.
But out of all the inner workings listed on plaques and donor standees lining the walls of the lobby, Keigo fixates on one feature above all others the minute he steps in the door-
"They have PENGUINS?!"
You mute your giggles, cringing at his unintended echo through the ceramic walls and floors.
Merely nodding, your hush guides him to not make such an outburst again, taking ahold of his bicep and threading your arm through to keep him close.
" Surprise !" You whisper adoringly.
You feel the equivalent of a parent’s pride on Christmas morning, watching Keigo take in a sight like this as if he weren't twenty-plus years older than you were when you first came to visit one.
Unafraid and completely enraptured by the dark halls and den of water ahead, Keigo is stepping out strong with your hand in his, forgetting altogether that this is a paid attraction and he can't just spurt ahead of his own two feet.
A hard habit to break, going too fast for his own good … but your linking of fingers in his softens the sting of having to wait to show your tickets first.
Inside changes Keigo's demeanor entirely. From giddy interest comes a deep, profound quiet he was still very much capable of. You took the lead, enlightening him to all sorts of creatures which -you'd come to learn today- he'd never seen before:
Shrimp were little marvels Keigo had only ever seen sauced up and on a skewer, so to watch them mosey about in their natural state brought a funny tweak of regret to his lips. Jellyfish were the 'roadkill of the beach’, to him. Never before had he seen how big they could get or how beautifully they migrated out in the open ocean. Fish with spikes, eels that glow, creatures with tails longer than their entire bodies, whipping around their cratered homes all set under interchanging lights… it all rendered Keigo nearly speechless.
So speechless, he didn't pay a single mind to a few nearby kids who were whispering to their moms if the man over by your side ‘is who they think it is’...
You'd catch their eyes, mocking a little hush of the lips and sending a wink to their guardians- an unspoken word between you promised to let everyone just explore at their own peace and pace.
These are the beautiful times you are gifted to spend together; now more than ever. While you wish under every star in the sky that Keigo Takami’s newfound free time was not at the expense of his hero work, you are grateful for the perks his rehabilitation period offers you now. In this time of healing, your relationship has flourished; not unlike the sea life around you.
Much like the aquatic life you walk by from enclosure to enclosure, the far-off vision of these sights in the wild remind you that so many beautiful things can exist under the surface of turbulent waves. From the skies, ‘Hawks’ in his larger-than-life glory became drawn to you just over a year ago: rooted to the ground as you were. Now grounded himself, It’s here that -once again- you amaze him with a new perspective, this time sharing marvels with him that exist far under both your feet, under the sea. By his awestruck reactions, you’re proud that you can enlighten him to something he’s never experienced. So many times, you’re so sure that he’s seen it all… but you still manage to surprise him.
As he rightfully deserves. You’d give Keigo the world if you could.
Though for now, his complete joy seems to stem from checking out the baby penguins, half covered in the fuzz of their infant downy feathers. For a split second, your chest pangs when he makes an offhand comment about how they’re just like him, flightless. But Kei settles any subtle concern you hold, because his laughter is far too giddy for you to worry that he’s self conscious.
Had you not known what horrors and traumas he’s gone through with his quirk, you’d think this is the funniest sight to see a grown man revert to child-like excitement. But now, it means so much more to see him so happy and carefree.
It’s not that you’re desensitized to such creatures, mind you! While you’d been taking candid photos of Keigo for your own private collection, a couple birds suddenly squawked an internal debate, demanding the attention of you both. It’s clear a race had been cast, because the penguins then slid right onto their bellies to a quick, friendly speedrun to the bottom of the slicked, icy slide into the water. When one emerged from the pool ‘laughing’, Keigo wheezed and started a cheeky round of applause for all bystanders to join in on.
Birds of a feather , you assume, and they love a good race– whether in the air or not, I guess!
"Can we-- maybe go back again?” Keigo paused before you could veer off to one of the last passageways before the end of the museum, “Wanted to see something again ‘fore we get too far ahead."
So you backtrack through the exhibits, and return to ‘The Great Room’.
At his lead, you're back at the tank the resident whale shark calls home, but you're caught off guard by where he chooses to settle– watching Keigo walk right up by the glass- not quite a foot away. In the middle of the feature wall, sitting down criss-crossed, the man you’ve loved in and out of the spotlight makes himself the whale shark's newest neighbor, smack dab on the floor.
Five-year-old Keigo has arrived, and your heart could break at the sight.
Looking over his shoulder for you, he's got a boyish look on his face that's a little hard to read. By his posture, he's relaxed as ever, but a hidden story sits behind his eyes like a mist. His scar pales into the rest of his cheek under all these watery refractions of light, to the point where you forget for a moment it's there.
At his pat on the ground, you mirror his seating arrangement and join him. No one else is in the room at this moment, but even if it were jam packed with chiding eyes around you both, you'd never refuse him.
Keigo looks back up through the glass when you curl up next to him- staring off everywhere and nowhere at once. For once, a lost look across his face doesn't make him look haunted. He's just overcome .
"I feel... small."
"Small?" you ask.
"Mhm. But in a good way," he follows the third lap of a long, spotted fish, surrounded by the tiniest minnows in a cloud around it. "It's different when you're down low, when you've always seen things from up top."
The perspective he holds has been completely inverted. You worried this was a hurt he likely carried around unspoken: not being able to fly.
"They probably think waves are like the sky to them," Keigo looks up to where he sees the residual bubbles of all the wildlife rising to the surface. The light and the overlook banisters above casting their shadows highlights the tiny pockets of air, “n’to think like that card back there said, you can’t even see the surface when you’re on the bottom of the actual ocean floor. This is– just incredible .”
You’re glad to see him so happy, to have given him something new to discover.
Keigo is quiet for a while, until he grows softer still in his normally unwavering voice. Seems now he’s not just found his ‘inside voice’, but the one he keeps special just for you.
“Yknow that feeling where you gotta scratch your eye, but no matter how many times you try, the itch is still there?”
You follow, with a hum.
“That’s how it feels sometimes.” Keigo doesn’t look at you, but you can read his wistfulness through the first panes of glass in front of him. “I don’t necessarily think of it every minute of every day… but man. When it itches, it really itches . And nothing settles it.”
You rarely bring the war up on your own– reminding Keigo of such fresh events would be cruel, you thought. You only respond with your thoughts whenever he asks for them in a formal, work-related capacity, but you know it’s affected him in every way regardless of how quickly he appeared to bounce back. It’s also a sensation you’d never have an equivalent to share with him. In terms of support, you often weren’t always sure what to say to console him on the days he appeared the most down; it’s not that you could ever truly relate.
Robbed of his quirk– robbed of the air. To feel as weightless as the creatures in the water, unbound by gravity.
“But these guys–” Keigo looks up again with a smirk, “--they don’t even gotta worry about things like blinking . And anytime they get caught by some seaweed or something- look how the others take care of ‘em. Look how happy they are.”
You seek out the pod of fish he’s been tracking. Expert eyes, he’s still lightyears ahead on you with his eagle eyes. They are far away now, murky due to distance from the foreground…
…it’s not about the fish anymore.
It’s about his healing. Finding his place in the world. Keigo feels like a fish out of water, now– even in his new role as President of the Hero Public Safety Commission, but he’s confessing a key part of his journey now: the after, and how it’s maybe not so far away as you expected.
It took Keigo a while to sleep shirtless around you, after everything. It was physically hard to do so, first of all… but more than practically, the act of baring himself in any way was tender in more ways than that of newly supple skin. He’d grown used to his entire torso being wrapped up for so long… his true emotions concealed and lying deeper still.
Even longer, he spent a month wearing constant compression -like a tight fitting bodyglove or even a too-small hoodie- as it was more comfortable than strutting around bare-chested as he once did. Healing was more of a never-ending action plan, rather than a passive point of rest like most would picture. There were therapies and tinctures and salves and appointments that all guided a former hero like him back into a state of truly feeling better and treated as a normal member of society- civilian.
That title, still so strange to him. Alien. Another reason he’d wanted to keep layers on while he accepts his own skin. Over midafternoon tea one day, Keigo had grumbled on a grim day that he’d worried he’d never be considered ‘normal’, even if he completely healed; that some wounds were too deep and he’d never be seen as anything other than a hero- even a failed one.
However, the page turned one day- Keigo coming to you quickly after getting out of a shower to snuggle up to your figure washing the dishes. The telltale warmth of his chest hit the back of your shoulders, same as the arms which wrapped around you snug and close. Kisses along your neck served to try and distract you from your tasks, but the bigger surprise remained how vulnerable he stood behind you: he was shirtless once again.
The thought made you smile, your darling love finally embracing you in a fully relaxed state... Content, happy- or at the very least assured enough to turn you around, begging softly for some more kisses in that saucy way, and sheepishly requesting a backrub 'like you used to'.
Maybe it was healing for you as well, getting the chance to cover Keigo in restorative love. It's always been a source of pride for you, and served to give you connection in ways the rest of the world didn't see– a place to put your care and attention in new ways for the man who gives his all to everyone else.
He's still so beautiful, like this. He's got spark to his chatty tongue again, a lift to his cheeks, and lingers for your every touch, melting on the spot even without a single feather to hint at how he feels. He doesn't need them; his eyes do all the talking for him.
You'd always care for the hero inside him- those instincts will never die, truly. Hawks' brilliance lives through his natural leadership and street-savvy command as head of the HPSC… But to nurture the sleepy, tired boy who is still finding his feet on the ground, who works every day to make the world a better place than the one he was brought into, and who missed out on so much… he’s your top priority.
You sink onto his shoulder, met by his craning atop yours. Though the reflection of the glass, Keigo doesn’t look at you, but bears the most content smile while resting with you, sneaking your hand and twisting the pretty rings adorned on it. He’d gifted you most of these, anyhow.
"They're sure not in any rush,” Keigo coos after the floating, drifting life ahead of him.
The swarms of sea life, ebb and flow of plant life, and the simulated tides created all washes over you two in quiet beauty. The way each group of fish move in their own current is the most relaxing sight and -yes- drifts along at an unhurried pace.
You hum your agreement.
"Slowing down's not such a bad thing, huh."
"No, not at all ."
Eventually distracted by your own lazy watching, you check on Keigo again as he’d turned his head to kiss your temple while still entranced by the aquarium. In a soft voice, he asks with a pining whisper,
“How long we got in here, sweet’eart?”
“I think it closes at four today~” you share, but make the mental note to upgrade your passes to the annual membership before you leave…