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Akaashi doesn’t even know why they invite him to these things if they’re only going to ostracize and berate him for his life choices.
He should’ve shredded his cousin’s wedding invitation the moment he saw it in the mailbox. Then burned it just for good measure. He has no idea why he had actually accepted the invitation and drove all the way to New York, but here he sits, across from his parents, nursing his glass of champagne because the alcohol is really the only thing getting him through this.
“This is such a beautiful wedding,” his mother comments, looking around the banquet hall with stars in her eyes. “Fitting for such a beautiful couple.”
Akaashi spares a glance to the bride and groom, swaying back and forth on the dance floor. His cousin is dressed in a white, poofy gown that swirls around her feet with each step, but her most beautiful accessory is the smile adorning her face. She catches Akaashi’s eyes across the room and gives him an encouraging smile. Out of his whole family, Mayu’s stuck by him, supported him. She was the only one to show up at his and Bokuto’s wedding, still keep in contact with him, and his sexuality has never been an issue for her.
The rest of his family is another story.
“Aren’t they just perfect for each other?” His mother leans on her husband dreamily as she continues, casting a derogatory glance at Akaashi. “A man and a woman. Just perfect.”
Akaashi rolls his eyes and flags down a waiter for another glass of champagne.
“How are things going with your friend Akaashi?” She emphasizes the word friend condescendingly, as if she could deny her son’s homosexuality by not referring to him as Akaashi’s husband. “What was his name again? Koichirou?”
“Koutarou and I are doing great.” He looks his mother in the eye as she talks, unintimidated by her patronization. “We’re still adjusting to Shouyou, but we’ve never been happier.”
“Shouyou?” His father asks. He’s staring at his cellphone, probably not even interested in his son’s life, but feeling the need to contribute to the conversation.
“Our son.” His irritation is growing. He doesn’t want to talk about Shouyou, his precious Shouyou, with people who wouldn’t accept him as a part of his life. But he forces himself to sit calmly, not wanting to give his parent’s the satisfaction of him causing a scene at Mayu’s wedding.
“Oh, you mentioned him in one of your e-mails,” his mother mumbles around the food in her mouth. Akaashi decides not to mention that he’s sent more than one email and that they had all done more than mention Shouyou; they included pictures and videos and stories about something cute he’d done that day. In his joy of finally being able to call Shouyou his, he’d reached out to everyone he’d known with the news, including his bastard family members, but that had obviously been a mistake.
“You have a kid?” His father doesn’t even take the trouble of reading his own son’s e-mails, apparently. His full attention has been dragged to the conversation now, and he gives Akaashi a disappointed look. “How long are you going to keep up this charade? It’s bad enough that you’re doing who knows what with that other man, but now you’ve dragged a poor child into this, too? What kind of upbringing will that give him?”
Akaashi grits his teeth together, but his mother speaks before he can say anything. “Didn’t your e-mail say he was disabled?”
“He’s deaf,” Akaashi grits out. He knows where this is going, and he’s prepared to fight his parents tooth and nail as soon as they say anything about his perfect, little boy. Shouyou’s deafness doesn’t make him any less of a happy, smiling, laughing child; he’s comfortable with who he is, and Akaashi’s happy as long as Shouyou is.
He wouldn’t ever expect his parents to have the decency to think the same way however.
“What are you doing, Keiji?” His mother’s exasperated, rolling her eyes as if she can’t ever understand how Akaashi can be perfectly happy with a same-sex husband and a deaf child (she probably can't). “You used to be such a good son. Good grades, athletics, scholarships. Then that bastard comes in to pull you from God’s path and you let him? And now you’ve adopted a crippled kid? Are you hoping that you can make up for your sins by fixing a broken child because that’s not-”
“Don’t you fucking dare.” Akaashi stands from his seat, leaning over the table to shove his face into his mother’s. She could insult him, and he’d sit here and take it with a sip of alcohol. She could criticize his husband, and Akaashi might snap and argue with her, but he knows she won’t change her mind on homosexuality, so he’s long since stopped trying.
But the moment she drags Shouyou into this, Akaashi fights. He fights to protect the most important thing in the world. He fights so his son’s name won’t be tainted by her words.
Akaashi won’t let anyone hurt his son.
“Don’t you dare tell me that the only reason I have Shouyou is because I hope that I can ‘fix’ him. There’s nothing to fix! He’s so, so perfect, but you wouldn’t know because you won’t take your head out of your ass long enough to try and understand that. And it’s even more ridiculous that I would do it to compensate for sins that don’t even exist in the first place!” He grabs his coat from where it hangs on the back of his seat and pulls it on hurriedly. His mother is staring at him, but his words must have flown right through her empty head because she still looks immensely disappointed. “If you excuse me, I have a beautiful family waiting for me at home and it’s a long drive back to Chicago.”
Then, he turns on his heel, and with one last apologetic glance at his sympathetic cousin, walks out of the banquet hall.
To say Akaashi is pissed would be an understatement. He strangles the steering wheel the entire time back to Chicago, and he doesn’t stop to rest for the duration of the nine hour drive.
All he wants is to get home, grab Shouyou, and hold him close while he sleeps for the next century.
When he finally, finally, parks in his apartment complex, it’s 3 a.m. He sends a text to his husband, on the off chance that he’s still awake, and taps his foot impatiently as he waits for the elevator to take him to his family. He fumbles for his keys in front of his front door, clumsy in his impatience.
Swinging the door to his apartment open, Akaashi is ready to crawl into Shouyou’s bed and just hold them while he sleeps.
What he’s not ready for is the chaos he’s just stepped into.
The entire apartment is a mess. Toys litter the floor of the foyer, and one glance into the kitchen reveals food thrown across the counters. Akaashi’s about to check the living room when something collides against his legs and wraps around them.
Shouyou grins up at him, all sunshine and smiles, and hugs his dad’s legs a little tighter.
Even though he’d wanted nothing more than to pepper kisses across his son’s face a few moments ago, he takes one look at the mess around him and his mood worsens. “Did you make this mess?”
Shouyou’s smile falls a little bit as he nods shamefully, and Akaashi sighs. “Where’s your father?”
Shouyou lets his arms slip from his hug, so he can answer, “He fell asleep.”
Akaashi sighs, again, because he’d been hoping to clear his rotten mood by spending time with his family, but now he has to do damage control for his three year old. He’s just so exhausted, he’s exasperated and frustrated, and he can’t even relax when he gets back home.
Shouyou, unaware of the annoyance stewing inside of Akaashi, beckons his dad towards the living room. “I drew a picture!” Then, he grabs his dad by the hand and leads him into a war zone.
Akaashi’s irritation rises.
He can’t catch a break can he?
Markers are strewn about the entire floor of the living room, blending in with the toys and stuffed animals that are also spread across the carpet. There’s a grape juice stain near the couch, and the offending juice box is still tipped on its side next to it.
But the worst part of it all was Shouyou’s picture, drawn on the beige walls of the living room in marker.
Shouyou stands in front of his work proudly, pointing out the different animals and people he’d scribbled. Akaashi’s not paying attention, though, because the aggravation inside of him has finally reached its boiling point.
“Shouyou,” he hisses, but of course his son doesn’t hear him, so he grips his shoulder tightly.
Shouyou must realize the anger on Akaashi’s face, because his face pales.
“You drew a picture on the wall?” He signs the last word angrily, hoping to get it across to Shouyou that he’s in trouble.
Shouyou glances at the drawing behind him and rushes to defend himself. “There wasn’t any paper.”
“Shouyou,” Akaashi’s hand motions become more aggressive as his exasperation seeps into his movements. “You can’t draw on walls! And with markers! Do you know how hard it is to clean this up?! I’m going to have to fix this now, Shouyou!”
Shouyou’s eyes go wide as Akaashi yells. He’s been in trouble before, but his dad’s never been so mad at him. His fist rubs his chest in repeated ‘I’m sorry’s, but Akaashi’s at his limit so he signs, “Go to your room.”
But Shouyou doesn’t listen, still apologizing pleadingly, so Akaashi gives him a soft but firm shove in the direction of his bedroom. With one last teary look, he scrambles away.
Akaashi spends the next few seconds glaring at the wall, but his aggravation slowly fades and he ends up slumping against the floor, laying his head in his hands tiredly.
He knows that getting angry at Shouyou like that was so, so wrong of him, but the exasperation had been building inside of him for hours. This mess was all it took for everything to tear out of him, including his resentment towards his parents. And he’d thrust that all onto Shouyou.
He’s pretty sure that makes him an awful father.
His self-loathing is interrupted by a loud cheer of “Keiji!” And then his husband is diving on top of him and pulling him into a tight embrace. Akaashi lets himself relax into it This is what he had wanted when he got home. Hugs, kisses, love. “What are you doing back already? I thought you were going to stay for a- What the hell happened in here?”
Akaashi cringes, reminded of his harsh words to his son. “Shouyou.”
“Shouyou? But I put him to bed hours ago.”
Akaashi laughs, but it’s forced. “Well, I guess he woke up.”
“Where’s Shouyou now?” Bokuto looks around the room, as if he expects Shouyou to pop up from behind the couch.
“I sent him to his room.” Akaashi drops his head against his husband’s shoulder. “I yelled at him, Koutarou. I was just so exhausted, and then I came home to such a mess, and I just snapped. He didn’t deserve that. I wasn’t even that mad at him, just at every other shitty thing that’s happened these past couple of days.”
Bokuto squeezes Akaashi a little tighter. “Your family?”
He nods. “It was bearable until they started talking about Shouyou. They called him broken, Koutarou, he’s not-” He doesn’t even realize he’s crying until a hiccuping sob erupts from his throat. “He’s not broken, he’s perfect and I love him so much and I yelled at him because I was mad at my family. I’m such an awful parent, how could I do that to my own son, he took the brunt of my own problems. I’m an awful parent, I’m so sorry.”
Bokuto’s never been someone who can be described as comforting. Enthusiastic, yes. Dramatic, too. But never comforting or considerate or soothing.
When it comes to Akaashi, though, he’s able to read his husband's mood to the tiniest of emotions. It’s something he’s perfected over years of their relationship, and he knows how to respond to all of them. So, for the rare occasions where Akaashi breaks down, Bokuto can build him back up again.
“You’re family’s a bunch of assholes.” Well, he never did say that comforting Akaashi required tact. “If they want to look down on Shouyou, that’s their problem. We just won’t let them anywhere near him, alright?” He shifts so he can smooth down Akaashi’s hair comfortingly. “And you? A terrible parent? That’s absolutely ridiculous, Keiji. I’m the one that fell asleep while my kid was ruining our apartment.”
“But-”
Bokuto gently kisses Akaashi’s shoulder. “You’re a wonderful parent. You love Shouyou so much, and that’s all you really need. We’re still new to this, Keiji, of course we’re going to make some mistakes. That doesn’t make you a terrible parent.”
Akaashi nods, but the guilt still gnaws at him. Bokuto pulls back with one last squeeze and gives his husband a sloppy kiss. “Come on,” he says and pulls Akaashi to his feet. “You go to bed. I’ll check on Shouyou.”
Akaashi looks at the mess of their apartment skeptically, but Bokuto just pushes him to their bedroom. “It’ll still be there in the morning, we’ll deal with it then. The marker on the wall should come right off. That’s why they make them washable.”
After successfully pushing his husband into their bed, Bokuto slips into Shouyou’s bedroom, expecting his son to be fast asleep with his owl clutched against his chest.
He doesn’t expect to find his son curled in a ball on his bed, crying quietly.
Immediately, Bokuto is beside him, pulling him into his lap and rocking them both side to side. Shouyou’s making clumsy movements with his hands, and it takes a while for Bokuto to figure out exactly what he’s saying. When he does, his heart shatters.
“Please don’t take me back, I won’t do it again, I promise I’ll be good, please let me stay here, I don’t want to leave.”
He repeats the phrases over and over, and Bokuto does his best to soothe him. He hugs him tightly, plays with his hair, kisses his head. But nothing’s calming him down, and he continues his choppy rambling.
“Keiji!” Bokuto calls out. He’s panicking a little bit. Shouyou’s cried before, but they’ve always been loud and teary, easily calmed by soothing words and gentle motions. Seeing his son silently sobbing without any sign of stopping is the scariest thing Bokuto’s ever seen.
Akaashi bursts into the room only a few seconds later. As soon as he sees Shouyou crying in Bokuto’s arms he surges towards the bed, pressing himself against his husband so he can pull Shouyou into his lap without taking him too far away from Bokuto.
At the appearance of his other dad, Shouyou’s signing speeds up until it eventually just becomes a mess of hand-shaped blurs. Amazingly, Akaashi must be able to decipher it, because he presses his face into Shouyou’s hair and leaves a kiss there soothingly. Then, he turns Shouyou towards him and, with tears running down his own face, signs, “We’re never, ever going to take you back. We love you so much, baby, you’re going to stay with us forever, okay?”
It takes Shouyou a while to calm down, and Bokuto and Akaashi diligently repeat their ‘I love you’s and ‘forever’s until he’s snoring softly against Akaashi’s chest. They all fall asleep like that, dried tear tracks on their faces, and the people they love pressed against their hearts.