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It starts with a cat.
It’s only been a couple of months since Touya moved out of the rehabilitation clinic and into Keigo’s new apartment when he brought back the first stray.
To be honest Touya was already struggling with feeling like he was crowding Keigo in his home at that point, so when he found the loud, scraggly looking cat out in a random alley he was fully prepared to take it to a shelter and leave it there.
Then the vets at the shelter told him she was deaf, and therefore she would have a hard time getting adopted.
Well, shit.
Touya’s vocal cords had been permanently damaged during his final battle in the war, and he relied on sign language or communicating in writing these days, and he knew the world wasn’t always friendly to people with different needs and disabilities.
And so the cat came home with him.
Keigo reacted much better than Touya had thought he would in all honesty.
Luckily Keigo had a decent amount of knowledge about sign language from his work since it was something all heroes were expected to know the basics of, and after Touya had come to serve his probation with him he had gotten even better at it, so Touya could at least explain himself.
“I took her to the shelter first, I promise,” Touya signed, and Keigo just looked at him with a puzzled expression as he petted the cat gently.
“It’s okay, you don’t have to defend helping an animal in need, Tou,” Keigo said softly, and Touya huffed.
“It’s not like that,” he signed, before he paused, then added;
“Well, actually, it kind of is, but only because she’s deaf.”
Keigo’s face softened.
“The poor thing was living on the streets alone without being able to hear?” he asked as he picked the cat up, who in turn purred happily in the hero’s arms.
Touya nodded.
“She’s kind of like me,” he signed, and Keigo’s eyes widened.
“Don’t look at me like that, I just mean she could use someone like us, like what you did for me, is all,” Touya signed as his face grew redder by the second.
“You’re absolutely right Hot-Stuff, so we should keep her, don’t you think?” Keigo said simply as he let the little cat down on the floor again and she slinked over to where Touya stood to rub against his legs.
Touya hid his smile by sitting down to pet the cat.
“Shouto knows a lot about cats right?” Keigo mused, and Touya nodded.
“We should facetime him, get him to give us a list of things we need and so on,” Keigo said more to himself than to Touya at this point it seemed.
So that’s what they did.
After a long conversation with Shouto (and several of his classmates that all demanded to see the cat) and a quick trip to the pet store, the little cat had settled in quite nicely.
Shouto had insisted on helping name her, and after quite a bit of back and forth they all had agreed to a fitting name; Little Void.
Void for short.
-
Then came the dog.
Now, this one was actually Keigo’s fault.
After the war he had been an active part of a group trying to change hero society for the better, and one of these programs included a community outreach thing, which brought Keigo to a local shelter for the day.
The idea had been that he would post some social media content with the pets, show himself working there for a day, trying to get more people to both volunteer and adopt instead of shopping for pets.
And so Keigo met Casper.
The dog was small, a chihuahua mix, the lady working at the shelter told him, and with its white fluffy fur and giant, nervous eyes, it looked quite strange.
But that wasn’t why Keigo fell for the little creature.
It wasn’t until the shelter worker told him about the little guy’s backstory, one of abandonment that lead to extreme separation anxiety, that Keigo knew he wouldn’t be leaving this place alone that day.
“Don’t be mad,” Keigo called out the second he opened the door to their home that night.
Void, who had noticed the vibrations from the door opening and closing, let out a happy, loud noise as she saw Keigo, and Touya’s messy white head peaked around the corner from the kitchen.
“Why would I be mad?” he signed, a curious look on his face.
Keigo grinned sheepishly as he opened his coat to reveal the tiny dog in his arms.
Touya’s mouth fell open.
“Surprise?” Keigo said with a nervous laugh, and Touya just shook his head slowly.
“A dog, Keigo?” he signed, a look somewhere between shock and intrigue on his face.
Keigo nodded.
“I know, I know, but he has PTSD, Touya!” Keigo explained, and Touya’s face softened as he slowly came closer.
Keigo and Touya both sat down on the floor, and Keigo carefully placed the nervous little dog down.
Touya stretched out a hand, and the dog strutted over to him to give him a sniff, before he quickly accepted the soft pets around his head.
“His name is Casper, and he was abandoned and has separation anxiety,” Keigo explained softly, feeling his heart nearly explode as he watched his boyfriend interact with their new family member.
Touya looked up at him with a cheeky smile.
“So what, this one is like you then?” he signed, and Keigo gasped indigantly.
“If wanting to spend as much time as possible with my boyfriend means I have separation anxiety, sure!” he said with a small pout and Touya rolled his eyes.
“Sure, whatever you need to tell yourself to sleep at night,” he signed, and Keigo stuck his tongue out at him.
Just then Void came slinking around the corner, and when she saw the tiny dog her big yellow eyes widened.
“Don’t interfere,” Touya signed, and Keigo bit his lip.
Easier said than done.
Casper looked at the cat curiously, and when Void realized Touya was giving out pets she came closer eagerly, and while Keigo watched with bated breath, the two small creatures gave each other a quick sniff, and then that was that.
Touya petted Void with one hand and Casper with the other, and smirked up at Keigo as if to dare him to say something.
“That was… easy?” Keigo mumbled, and Touya smiled.
“So far, so good,” Touya signed, before quickly continuing to pet both the animals as they each demanded attention.
Keigo smiled softly at the scene before him.
“So far, so good, indeed,” he agreed.
-
It doesn’t stop there.
After the very successful social media campaign Keigo did for the shelter, both he and Touya start going there to volunteer regularly.
While insisting that Touya should come along didn’t get him off the hook of the separation anxiety accusations, Keigo was willing to deal with that to get to see his boyfriend light up whenever he spent time around the animals at the shelter.
Touya was just as loving towards the pythons and tarantulas that sometimes came in as he was with puppies and kittens, and Keigo started to worry that his home would one day be filled with more types of animals than their local zoo.
But seeing how safe and happy both Void and Casper had become in their home, Keigo wasn’t one to kick up a fuss.
Not only had both the pets found safety and comfort with Keigo and Touya, they had also found a great friendship with each other, and honestly Keigo had never known how much joy and laughter such little creatures could bring to one's life.
Getting to see Touya show more and more of that softer, patient side of him he had spent so long trying to hide was also incredibly special to Keigo, and he knew that if keeping on helping animals in need was what needed to happen for that to keep happening, he would love nothing more than to oblige.
Anything for Touya, after all.