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It shouldn't have mattered.
He never even knew them.
Mothers.
Fathers.
So what if he didn't have them?
Yet, walking through school felt like traversing the bottom of the ocean, his thoughts swirling around like a cyclone. They washed in and out, his heart either detached from the memory, as if he had only been a bystander that weekend and all of this wasn't, couldn't, be happening to him, or it was filled to the top, overflowing with so much want of a thing he'd never obtain that he wanted to scream, but held it back, knowing all the effort would be for naught.
He should be ecstatic.
He was getting what he wanted after so many years.
Haru and Sana wanted him.
They wanted a son.
Yet the papers for his adoption were resting on the desk in his room, unsigned.
Because they'd had to find out just how alone Asahi was in the world. The law required it. The law dug up what scant trails of Asahi's past the orphanage had access to in order to make sure he truly was what he'd always believed:
Alone.
Nobody left to claim the perpetually unwanted.
“We know it’s a lot to take in. So, you just tell us when you’re ready.” Sana had held the papers as if they were made of spun sugar. Sweet. Fragile. Delicate. A matter that was not only for them to decide, but Asahi as well.
Haru had taken them and placed them where they still lay, collecting dust, stuck in the molasses of the conversation. Sweet. Thick. Wedged between his ribs.
Sana had wanted to hug him. Asahi had seen her hands twitch in her lap, fingers reaching beyond her knee. She’d stopped once Haru had said something to her. Asahi couldn’t remember what it was. All he'd clearly heard after the papers hit his desk, was the sloshing in his gut as joy and hope battled with emptiness, like he was starving and hadn’t a bite to eat.
He still felt ill staring at his lunch.
It had been boxed on the counter this morning. Waiting for him.
Reminding him he was cared for by adults.
Parents.
Loved.
Was it the only time?
He'd never been surprised that he was at the orphanage.
That he’d been sequestered when he was younger. Kept away from others until he could comprehend the misery his quirk wrought.
He knew it could give someone lasting pain. Irreparable nerve damage.
That lesson had been a horrendous one.
He wondered if that girl still wore a sling.
What had he been? Six?
Still, he hadn't thought of all the consequences beyond the immediate.
How long could someone touch him?
How deep did the pain travel?
Now he knew how alone he was without those papers.
No father.
No mother.
No one.
He tugged at the bracelet around his wrist.
When people left, it was all his fault.
At the end of the day it was always his fault.
“There you are Sa-sa!”
Asahi jumped in his seat on the concrete planter a flowerless cherry blossom grew from as Kawakami Yuusuke popped around the trunk, the blues and blacks of his hair swaying bak and forth as he stomped in the dirt before plopping down next to him. The last of a few late blooms lay scattered in the dirt, smudged and crushed. Asahi noticed a few had been blown onto the concrete with Kawakami’s entrance. He brushed them onto the ground, avoiding his friend’s eyes.
“You’re going to get your pants dirty.” Asahi muttered.
Kawakami looked at his seat where his dirty footprints now rested underneath him. “Eh… I don’t care.”
“Your parents will.”
Kawakami had made it a point to always mention how his parents wanted him to have a clean uniform, both at school and for the baseball field. He’d show up on their way to school without his piercings in. Everything about him was straightened out and washed up to perfection.
The perfect son.
Asahi wondered if that’s what he would have to be for Sana and Haru.
That’s what he should be.
But could he?
He stared at his hand.
Perfect sons didn’t have to wear gloves to protect their parents.
Perfect sons could hug and hold their family whenever they wanted.
Perfect sons didn’t come second hand.
Defective.
Disposed.
“Whatever! You can help me make sure they’re clean before I get home. I'll be a model member of society later.”
Asahi looked up from his daze, watching Kawakami take a monstrous bite of his egg sandwich.
He always ate like it was the last thing on earth.
He was seriously messy when no one was looking.
Not that anyone cared.
He was untouchable.
“Speaking of them, I didn't get to tell you about last night because you'd left early this morning. My Dad was so ridiculous about this chocolate cake my Mom had baked. Usually she doesn't make them in the off season…”
Kawakami spoke with a wad of sandwich in his cheek.
Somehow it didn’t make him seem imperfect.
With his cheek puffed up like a hamster, his smile only seemed to be brighter, the stretch of his complexion porcelain.
Even a mess, Kawakami always looked impeccable.
“...so then my Mom just throws it away because she said if all the slices are that thin, then the whole thing would dry out. I had to barely eat any dinner so I could have some, and I didn’t even get to try it.” The tall boy gave a dramatic sigh and put a hand down between them, leaning his shoulder toward Asahi.
Flawless, even with scraps of egg on the edges of his lips.
Asahi wished he were more like Kawakami.
Confident.
Charming.
Dispersing pain into something brilliant.
He stabbed at the rice in his lunch.
It looked fluffy.
Like a cake.
Cakes. Celebrations. Birthdays.
He never wanted to celebrate his own again.
“Maybe she’ll make another one.”
He was trying.
Trying so hard.
To sound normal. To be normal.
To not think about those papers and the weight behind acquiring them.
His voice wavered as he spoke. He swallowed and sucked it back in as best he could.
Even his words tasted terrible.
“Yeah. Maybe.” Kawakami’s head popped into his view, spying Asahi under the wavy locks of blond that curled over his eyes to block out the world. “I can give them to you, if you want.”
“Give me what?”
“My parents.” Kawakami gave a sly grin, waving the half eaten egg sandwich in a grand gesture. “Two for the price of none. Cake not included, sorry.” He chuckled, pulling his head back and nudging his shoulder against Asahi’s. “Gosh, Masa, I wish I could have picked my parents too. You have great ones.”
Asahi flinched.
He pulled his arm in toward himself, away from Kawakami.
“Pick them?”
Those papers taunted him.
An illusion of choice.
What did he have to pick from?
Here or another orphanage?
He didn’t decide anything.
Haru and Sana could still send him away.
And with what they learned, why wouldn’t they?
He’d taken too long to sign those papers and now they had an out.
“You think this is all my choice?” Asahi’s voice grew high, clutching onto the bento. “I didn’t choose my life, Yuusuke. I don’t have parents.” They’d all believed a lie that summer. Him, Haru, Sana. They had just played pretend, because on paper he didn’t belong to them. He didn't belong to anyone. “I didn’t consciously decide that when I was born. That happened to me.” His voice was frantic as he felt the pressure of the last few days bursting through the walls he’d been desperately trying to repair. Memories that didn't exist, blowing away in the crumbling masonry of a home that never was.
“Is it really that bad? Whatever happens at your house?” Asahi’s head whipped to the side to see Kawakami, eyes wide, sandwich loosely held, egg falling onto the ground below their feet. “Is it so bad that you want to live moving at the drop of a hat? Not knowing where you'll go next? Did you think I looked over portfolios to pick which family I thought was least likely to be afraid of me? I've spent months locked…” Asahi shook, his breath expended, his wherewithal worn thin. Closed doors and closed minds. He couldn't fit everything into words. There were too many. There weren't enough. “You want to choose that over some cake? Cake?!” Kawakami reached out toward him, but Asahi stood before the hand could make something beautiful out of the disaster that he was. He snatched his bag up from the ground, food from his lunch spilling onto the ground as he stepped back hurriedly.
Kawakami abandoned his own lunch, trying to follow Asahi’s fractured steps. “Masa, that’s not what I meant.”
“It’s what you said.”
The few seconds of silence that passed between them felt like hours.
Asahi finally heard it.
Whispering.
A few students on a bench nearby were watching them.
Witnessing his utter failure at being normal.
Spectators with front row seats to see Kawakami Yuusuke, a pillar of perfection, be harassed for misplaced words from a boy nobody should have bothered to notice.
“Mas-”
“I need to go to the library to return something before the bell rings.”
He turned, not hearing a word Kawakami tried to call out as his bag rustled loudly while he tried stuffing the lid over his leftovers while walking away.
He was so hungry.
For food.
For friends.
For family.
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
Kawakami tried to talk to him all week.
And the papers sat on Asahi’s desk.
When they had to partner up in science class, Asahi took the initiative to pair up with a quiet girl in the front row before Kawakami could make it to his table and try for the umpteenth time to ask him if he was okay.
And the pages remained unturned.
During lunch, when Kawakami was distracted, grabbing his food, Asahi slipped out the door and found a corner on the third floor to tuck himself into, picking at the edges of his gloves as his meal was left untouched.
And the signature lines lay bare.
When his teammates Okazaki and Hirata caught his attention at the end of the day beside the lockers, Asahi told them he had to get home early that day, tugging his shoes on, untied, leaving quickly when he caught Kawakami’s eyes coming up behind them.
And the dust continued to settle.
Asahi had always been an expert at avoiding people when necessary. Staying hidden.
Kawakami was likewise adept at discovering him.
But, eventually, he gave Asahi space.
So when the next week rolled around, Kawakami would look over at Asahi from across the room… then join in with one of the groups who always vied for his attention.
He stopped starting questions that Asahi never answered.
He had others he could eat lunch with.
There were an abundance of friends who he could choose from to walk around with after school.
Top of the class.
Social royalty.
Why did he even bother hanging around Asahi?
What did Asahi have to offer anyone but inevitable pain?
How was he ever going to talk to Kawakami again?
He’d moved past the initial frustration and anger at Kawakami, realizing the lack of ill intent behind his words.
His friend had no idea what taunted Asahi in his room every day.
What choices he was making.
How that word was like an anchor thrown at him from the middle of the ocean, leaving him stranded in a vast sea where he saw no life above or below him, only endless sky and dark waters.
It was the same cloying heartache that suffocated him when he had tried to send a message to Shinsou in the game they played together before it had been pulled offline.
He sat in his room, looking at half-written letters he’d never be able to send to the only other person he’d gotten close to.
His friend.
Best friend he’d had, until now.
Someone who made him feel like he was more than his quirk.
Someone he’d pushed away.
Just like Kawakami.
Asahi wasn’t great at making friends, much less making up with them.
Where did you start?
Asahi opened his window and leaned out, resting his chin on his crossed arms. Humidity burst across his face, the night sky feeling that much more thick with the way the air pushed down into your skin.
Like sinking into the ocean.
Kawakami had already apologized, and Asahi had heard similar words hanging on his lips when he’d been trying to talk to him initially.
He didn’t need to apologize.
Asahi did.
‘Sorry’ didn’t seem like enough.
Should he tell him about how much harder class was without someone that you wanted to talk to?
Should he share his past?
Should he say that he missed taking his gloves off for just a few seconds and feeling a hand brush against his while he walked home?
He wrapped his gloved fingers around the long sleeves of his shirt, covered from head to toe.
It made everything immeasurably warm.
It made him feel infinitely safe.
The heaviness of the air hugged him.
If he closed his eyes, he could imagine it was Kawakami.
Hands wrapping around his shoulders.
Weight pressing against him.
Voice calling his name.
Below.
Asahi’s eyes shot open and he looked down to see a pale figure, moonlight highlighting the sharp contrast of light skin against dark clothing.
“Masa?”
Kawakami peered around a tree that stretched against the side of Asahi’s house.
“Yuusuke? Wh-what are…?”
“Can I come up?”
“You mean in?”
“No,” Kawakami grabbed a branch above his head, tugging on it, testing its strength. “I mean ‘up’. I bet I can climb this.”
Asahi looked over at the digital clock on his desk. It was late. Way past dinner. Asahi, by all rights, should have been asleep, but Sana and Haru had left him be over the last couple weeks.
Kawakami should have been asleep too.
He shouldn't have been halfway up a tree, trying to reach Asahi’s window.
“Yuu, why didn’t you go to the front door?”
Standing at the base of a branch and reaching for another, Kawakami answered, “It’s late, Masa. I’m not going to wake up your parents.”
Parents
Something inside Asahi clenched.
“Plus,” Kawakami grabbed hold of another limb, wrapping both hands around it and leaning forward. “This was the best way to get you to talk to me.”
“Yuu! Don’t! You’re going to fall!” Asahi lowered his voice after he realized he was bound to do exactly what Kawakami hadn’t wanted to do, wake up Haru and Sana. He found himself pressing against the frame of his window, hand outstretched, worriedly offering assitance to the boy he hadn’t spoken to for weeks.
Defying the order and seeing the helping hand, Kawakami swung forward, his feet a pendulum, his hands rotating around the bark. He threw his weight behind his hips to thrust himself forward.
He jumped.
One hand grasped onto the bottom of Asahi’s window. The other, his arm, jerking the smaller boy down before he engaged his muscles to pull.
Asahi pulled, astonished he could help at all.
A few months with the baseball club and not merely engaging with fighting fantastical beasts online had garnered him a small amount of strength.
Not much.
Just enough to not feel like he’d be ripped in half when Kawakami used him to brace as he dragged himself inside.
“See?” Kawakami triumphantly declared through heavy breaths, halfway in the window, “It worked.” He smiled up at Asahi, “We’re talking.”
“I can’t believe you…” Asahi mumbled. It was the fire escape all over again. Running. Rash. Sudden. Like Kawakami had to do something now or there would be no time for it in the future.
“Why’re you wearing your gloves?”
“Huh?”
Kawakami nodded in the direction of Asahi's hand anchoring his elbow. “You're in your room. At home. Why the gloves? Also, aren't you boiling in this?” He tugged on the sleeve under his fingers.
“It’s to…” To protect, now that he knew what he was truly capable of. Because he was trouble without it. Because without Kawakami, there wasn't anyone who could touch him and hadn't they not been talking?
Suddenly, Kawakami slipped, ending Asahi’s runaway train of thought. The short blonde reached his arms around Kawakami’s back, grabbing his belt loops to pull him up. He made it through with a few scrapes of his feet against the siding, tumbling onto the floor while Asahi caught his breath beside the window.
“Masa?” Sana’s voice called out beyond his door. “Is everything all right?”
Both boys looked at each other.
A plan.
Asahi needed a plan.
This was his wheelhouse. Split second thinking. Shortstop. Aware of the whole field. Bases loaded. A hero evading discovery while undercover.
He grabbed a notebook and threw it out the window.
“Yeah, sorry. I was studying. It was stuffy so I opened the window and my notebook dropped.”
Kawakami gave him a thumbs up.
Asahi waved at him to shush.
“Oh?” A wide yawn could be heard from Sana as she rested her body on the other side of the door. “Did you need me to—”
“No!” Asahi walked quickly to the door, pressing a hand against it from his side. She couldn’t come in. Perfect sons didn’t pull in people through their windows.
They probably also didn’t lie to their mothers.
But he wasn’t perfect, was he?
“No…” He repeated. “I’ll go get it.”
A pause from the other side.
Asahi could hear the floor creak below her feet as she swayed from side to side.
Thought about something to say to him.
Maybe she wanted to ask about school.
Or the adoption papers.
Or how fast he could pack if he was sent home tomorrow.
“Don’t stay up too late. I know it’s a weekend, but…” But perfect sons didn’t keep the lights on at night and cover up the tracks of boys who convinced them the world wasn’t wholly bad and to just try to be a part of it and made you feel comfortable in a way you never should have because you weren’t perfect. “... Sleep well, Masa.”
“You too.” His voice strained, swallowing the tornado of waning optimism and intrusive trepidation. “Stay here.” Asahi whispered, still looking at the door, but speaking to the boy behind him. “I’ll be right back.”
He slipped out of his room, taking as many breaths as his body could handle, but soon realizing that deep breathing was just as likely to make you pass out as not having enough breath, so he stopped outside and tapped the notebook against his head rhythmically, willing his body to breathe normally.
Kawakami was in his room.
Kawakami was in his room.
Kawakami was in his room?!
In an oddly placed sense of etiquette even at the late hour that it was, Asahi grabbed a plate from the kitchen and put a few mandarins and leftover cookies on it that had been resting on the counter. He grabbed the first couple canned drinks he could reach in the fridge and went back up stairs.
What was he doing?
Were they going to snack and talk and hang out like they’d just gotten out of school?
Ashai shook his head, kicking himself for still not knowing what he’d say first, before he opened the door.
Kawakami sat on his bed, an unsealed letter in one hand, a worn piece of paper in the other.
“Who’s Shinsou?”
Asahi’s breathing became erratic again.
He closed the door with more force than he wanted, cringing for a moment, but realizing it should be fine since Sana knew he’d just gone downstairs. He whipped around toward the bed, quickly made his way over, tossing the plate and notebook on top before snatching the letter from Kawakami’s hands.
“Nobody.” Asahi gathered the others strewn on his bed, along with the shoebox that contained other knickknacks from his past. “Well…” He didn’t want to lie anymore tonight. “A friend. Old friend. Maybe not even my friend anymore.” Asahi ran his thumbs over the folds of the letters.
“I doubt that.” Kawakami leaned back on his hands while Asahi placed the letters into the box. “He’d probably think it was awesome that you’re getting adopted. Hey, are these snacks for us?”
Asahi’s eyes snapped up. “How much of my stuff did you look through?!” He abandoned the box, walking over to the desk where he saw the papers shifted from the position they’d sat in for weeks.
Cookie lodged into his cheek, Kawakami’s voice came out muffled behind the shortbread, “But I know you’re a foster kid.” He chewed a few times and swallowed, cracking open one of the drinks. “Writing to someone from a foster home and getting adopted aren’t exactly secrets, are they?”
“That’s…!” Asahi started off louder than intended, bringing his voice back down again, pushing the papers away and looking over at Kawakami who was shoving another cookie in his mouth. “It’s not that simple. ” He crossed his arms, leaning against the edge of his desk, eyes traveling to a stubborn stain on his floor that had never come out. “Shinsou wasn’t just a friend he was… he was the closest thing I had to a brother. What I think a brother should feel like.”
Kawakami’s hands on everything begged the unease in Asahi to seep out. He’d touched his past, he’d touched his future, and each poke and prod and leap through his window shook the words out of his throat until they spilled across his room, new indelible marks pressed into the air from truths that had been unspoken.
“Because I don’t know.” Asahi quieted even further, chewing on his lip. “I don’t know what family feels like because I’ll never know because when Sana and Haru looked into adopting me they had to find out that I didn’t have anyone. I don’t have anyone.”
His jaw shook.
“They’re dead.”
The silence from where Kawakami sat was deafening.
“They’re all dead.”
Asahi closed his eyes and shook his head, the past, the present, and the future welling up in his chest. He didn’t know how to say this perfectly. He wasn’t perfect. He’d never be. So, the words tumbled out indelicately. “So I yelled at you, and I’m sorry. You had no idea. I didn’t either. Not until a couple weeks ago. I thought maybe someone was out there, but they aren’t, and they won’t ever be. And it’s because…”
Asahi gasped, breath coming in short, tears fighting through his lashes. “It’s all because I…” His words were merely huffs of air as he caged everything in so Haru and Sana couldn’t hear.
“I’m the one who…”
So Kawakami wouldn’t think he couldn’t handle this.
“When I was born… I…”
So the truth might hurt less if spoken softly.
But it didn’t.
“My mother… she…”
Arms wrapped around him.
His head cradled, buried in fabric that smelled like late summer heat and the tree outside his window.
“I’m sorry, Sa-sa.” Kawakami’s voice rumbled, vibrating through his chin that rested on the top of Asahi’s head. “I’m so sorry.” Each hum of his voice shook a tear loose. “I’m sorry I didn’t know.” Each apology rattled a fear away from Asahi’s chest. “I’m sorry I stopped asking”
“And my… my father couldn’t handle… so he…”
Asahi wondered if this was the same pain his father had felt losing his wife.
The pain he felt looking at the son who had done it by simply existing.
He gasped, silently choking on the consequences of being.
“Stop. Just stop.” Asahi could feel Kawakami’s fingers threading into his hair. The one part left bare. He felt the warmth of the other boy’s quirk as it absorbed his pain and changed it into something harmless. “You’re always talking, and I’m here for it a million percent, but right now I just need you to listen.”
Breathing shaky, Asahi nodded, eyes closed, burrowing further against Kawakami’s chest.
“Whatever happened in the past, you can’t blame yourself for that. You can’t blame yourself for being born, Masa.” Asahi squeaked out a questioning hum, “Just listen. ” Asahi swallowed his contentions, taking in an unsteady breath as he felt Kawakami’s body rise and fall with a deep one of his own, the still air quiet, save for the chirping of nearby cicadas, and Kawakami’s voice brushing his ear in hushed tones, “We can’t control our quirks and we shouldn’t feel guilty about that. You’ve never meant to hurt anyone. You wouldn’t. What happened… it’s awful and horrible and… it’s not your fault.”
Kawakami’s voice spoke the words Asahi had tried to repeat to himself, but had been drowned out in his solitude.
He wasn’t loud enough on his own.
His shoulder shook with a stuttered exhale.
“You have a family. You live with them. They’re adopting you because you are family to them.” Asahi’s limp arms tentatively moved to rest at Kawakami’s side. They flinched as the first threads of fabric were felt, even through the gloves. The fear of touch fresh in his mind. What he could do. What he’d done.
Kawakami held on.
“And you have that friend from where you were before. He’s not here, but he’s somewhere, and I don’t think he’d ever forget you.” Asahi felt the old string on his wrist press in below the glove. Tied and retied. Because he never forgot. “I wouldn’t. I won’t.” Kawakami’s heart thumped against Asahi’s cheek, steadily growing as Asahi twisted his fingers into the hem of the other boy’s shirt, easing in after his body tried to retreat.
Because he couldn’t.
Not when the hand around his back kept him upright and the fingers in his hair warmed him from the crown, down. Part of him wanted to run before Kawakami could dig into the cracks of his imperfections, but a more determined part wanted to stay and keep his fragile form whole in this embrace.
“You have me.” Asahi kept his eyes closed. “And… and our teammates,” This had to be a dream. “And our classmates… and,” He’d fallen asleep at his window and all of this was a fevered nightmare and Kawakami would vanish at any second. “And… me.” It had to be.
But when he opened his eyes he saw specks of glittering red dust shaken from the tips of his hair as Kawakami’s hand moved around to comb through again, and he felt the mugginess of the open window, and he heard a deep breath digging through his roots as Kawakami’s face pressed into his head, he knew he was awake.
“Even when we fight…”
And if Kawakami stayed like this, it wouldn’t be a nightmare.
“Even when I say something stupid…”
And if he kept talking, it might even feel more like a dream.
“Even when I do something stupid… you have me. On the phone. Or down the street. Or making really awesome jumps through your window…”
The tension and worry and fear bubbled out in a small, watery laugh against Kawakami’s tear stained shirt.
“Ah, see? I knew you thought it was cool.”
Asahi pushed back enough to lift an arm to run across his wet cheeks and stuffy nose. “It was so dumb.”
He looked up to see Kawakami smiling down at him, soft, secret. “You think I could do it again?”
“Just knock, like a normal person.”
“You and I both know I’m anything but normal.”
When he wasn’t the picture of perfection at school? Asahi supposed so. Kawakami had two sides of himself. Right now he defied the expectations of a class president with his long hair half tied up, and chains and piercings all…
“Where are your earrings?”
Asahi watched his hand in slow motion as it came into view, touching Kawakami’s ear.
Like it was natural.
Like it was what he was supposed to do.
He was suddenly all too aware of Kawakami’s hand at his neck and around his back and his own grabbing Kawakami’s shirt and how brilliantly blue Kawakami’s hair was at nighttime and just how much he was staring at the way strands hung loose, away from what was pulled back, grazing Kawakami's cheeks that were turning just as pink as his own.
Asahi stepped back further, pulling back his hand and holding onto it. He wished he didn’t have his gloves on so he could have felt how warm the pink was that traveled from Kawakami’s cheeks to the tips of his ears.
Kawakami cleared his throat, nervous laughter covering Asahi’s retreat. He reached for his ear, sparkling red staining his face. “Oh, um… I left kind of quickly.”
Asahi watched the dust linger where his hand could have still been, creating new marks of his own, if he trusted himself more. After everything Kawakami had said, why couldn’t he just rip the gloves off in his room? They just hugged. They had held hands during the fireworks festival.
The summer evening felt scorching as a blush traveled down his neck, remembering the night on the rooftop.
“We could have just talked tomorrow.” He wrapped his arms across his stomach.
“That’s not the only reason I—”
Wooden boards creaked down the hall.
Asahi placed a finger up to Kawakami’s mouth, bringing his other to his own, shushing them.
The steps moved closer.
Past the staircase.
Asahi’s eyes grew wide.
He mouthed ‘Hide’ to Kawakami before pushing him away from the door. Asahi grabbed his notebook and sat down at his desk, hastily opening it, pushing back the various controllers, mouse, and keyboard that sat in front of his multiple monitors, pulling his lamp closer. He kept his head down, praying that Kawakami had found somewhere to stash his tall, lanky body in record time.
A soft knock.
“Masa, are you still awake?”
It was Haru.
“Yep. Yeah. Just… studying.”
“That’s what Sana said. Mind if I come in?”
Asahi swore on the top ten and all of the civilian saves they’d had that year on Kawakami’s hiding place being decent.
Because a perfect son couldn't keep his parents out.
“Yeah, that’s fine.”
Asahi grabbed his hair and watched the red dust sprinkle down onto the page.
Oh no.
Oh no, no, no, no!
Kawakami’s quirk!
He grabbed his school jacket off the back of the chair and threw it over his head.
His door yawned open.
“I brought you some tea. You know how Sana has that electric kettle in… the…”
Asahi knew he looked ridiculous.
He knew that Haru was watching his future son and questioning his sanity.
“Masa… are you… okay under there?”
“Fine.” Asahi’s voice squeaked out. He cleared his throat and pulled the collar around his face, turning slightly to see Haru. “I’m totally fine. It’s… easier to concentrate. Just blocking out the extra noise. Bugs. Cars.” The breathing of a boy who had snuck into his room.
“Interesting new, uh, study aid.” Haru set the cup down on the side of Asahi’s desk. “Don’t want to keep you. Just making sure you didn’t fall asleep with the light on.” Asahi nodded, elbows leaning on the desk, covering up the notebook where the red dust had settled, only just starting to fade away.
“Thanks.”
Haru turned to move away, stopping halfway. Asahi saw his hand hovering at the edge of his desk.
Beside the adoption papers.
You have a family
Kawakami’s words rested in the dense air, filling the space, swallowing Asahi’s doubts.
“Could we talk?” Haru looked back as Asahi asked a question he’d been waiting to hear for weeks, eyebrows raised, hopeful. “Tomorrow, I mean? It’s late. And Sana’s asleep. So… tomorrow?”
Because he still had a part-time delinquent hiding somewhere nearby.
Haru smiled, patting the side of the desk. “Sure.”
Asahi had always appreciated how few words Haru used, and how full and satisfying each one was.
It almost made him forget about the captain of the baseball team tucked away behind him.
Asahi turned his head to the side to see if he could make out a glimpse of pale skin gleaming in the moonlight.
“Pancakes?”
Asahi’s head snapped back to the door where Haru had paused in closing.
“Huh?”
“Tomorrow. Pancakes?”
Pancakes.
Haru had said they were to celebrate something worthwhile. The mundane. The every day. The things you appreciated but didn't want to jinx with fanfare.
Not a full cake, but just enough.
Like the first day of school, or finishing a piece of art, or making a new friend.
Asahi nodded, hoping that the stray bits of glitter had nearly evaporated.
“Alright. Night.”
“Night.” Asahi echoed as his door clicked shut.
He pulled the jacket off of his head, the smallest increment of the evidence of Kawakami’s quirk left clinging to the inner lining.
“Pancakes?!” He heard a fervent whisper from across the room, coupled by the shifting of a comforter, revealing Kawakami covered in his sheets, tucked against the wall, looking like a dark, innocuous lump. “I love those pancakes. With the plum sauce?”
“I'll save you one then, but for now, you should probably go.” Asahi walked over to the mess of his bed, gathering the remnants of snacks from the plate he'd brought up. It had fallen into the lower corner, pushed to the side, a mandarin rolling in his sheets.
“Or I could just… stay?”
“Stay?” Asahi slowly set the tray down, glancing toward the door to make sure that all traces of Haru and Sana were gone. Lights off. Floorboard silent. “If it’s about getting outside, I think we can get you down… stairs…” He looked back over at Kawakami, only to see him curled into a corner, picking at the sheets wrapped around his legs.
“Yeah. Of course. We can… yeah… I’m super quiet.”
“Yuu?”
Kawakami pulled out his phone, his eyes locked away from Asahi. “I'll just message, um… Hirata?” He was scrolling up and down, never settling. “Maybe Mori. Probably more likely to get back to me, even if I wake him up…” Rattling off names of their teammates, it sounded like Kawakami had no intention of going home.
The bed sank where Asahi sat in front of Kawakami.
The other boy didn't look up.
Just kept scrolling.
Muttering.
“Yuusuke?” Asahi placed his hand somewhere near an ankle, though it was hard to tell with the sheets crumpled around Kawakami's legs.
“I could take the last train to Kuma’s.” The distracted boy reached a hand toward his pocket and sighed. “ Of course I’d forget my wallet.”
He was obsessed, devising weak plan after weak plan.
Asahi touched the top of Kawakami’s phone, fingers obscuring the screen.
The preoccupied boy looked up.
A low growl roiled beneath the sheets.
Kawakami’s stomach.
“Guess I should find a late night ramen shop.” He half heartedly laughed, his phone falling slowly against his legs. “Oh, wait, no wallet… right.”
It protested once more.
He was hungry.
The tray had been nearly empty.
Asahi should have noticed sooner.
The way Kawakami got excited around food.
Frothing at the mouth for a morsel.
Cleverly grabbing the extras. Sneaking a bite from his friends.
Like it was a game.
Asahi knew better.
He should have seen it.
He still had plastic wrapped snacks and drinks squirreled away in a drawer out of habit. He’d spent months at a time in some of the places he’d stayed never knowing when his next meal was. Either he was locked in his room, unable to leave while whoever he stayed with mustered up the courage to let him out, or those dubbed caretakers were just in it for the extra yen and barely knew how to take care of themselves, much less anyone else.
He held a finger in front of Kawakami’s face, indicating he should wait, “I’ll just take that mandarin, Masa. I should probably get going if I want to try...” Ignoring Kawakami’s chatter, Asahi dipped over the side of his bed and reached under, sliding out a plastic bin. He pulled out a bag of potato chips and a mixed variety of nuts. “...Hirata is online, but he probably fell asleep playing…” He was still talking when Asahi set the food in his lap.
Kawakami picked up one of the colorful wrappers, looking at it, then Asahi.
“Sort of an insurance policy. Not that I need it anymore. Better you take them. They might be a bit old though.” He couldn’t actually recall when he’d last looked inside the bin. He’d grown so comfortable where he lived. Fed. Clothed. Watched over.
Wanted.
Kawakami slowly pulled open the chips, “Thanks.” He whispered, confidence making way for embarrassment.
Asahi thought about their argument and the cake and the words Kawakami used.
He'd had to eat less.
Something about the off season.
Of baseball?
He thought of the comments and praise and pressure Kawakami had to be just like his brother.
Star player.
The smell of the spices hit the air, and Kawakami’s stomach grumbled once more.
The perfect son.
Perfectly starving.
Asahi looked at his gloved hands.
Two steps forward and one step back.
He was starving too.
He tugged at the fingertips of one glove, slipping it off, clutching it to his chest.
Asahi pulled his legs up onto the bed. He didn’t know what to ask first. When was the last time Kawakami had eaten? Why wasn’t he going home? Why had he left so fast?
He leaned forward, reaching toward the bag, fingers skimming over Kawakami's as he reached inside for a chip, red dusting his knuckles.
They both stared at the bag.
Their hands within.
Fingers slotting together as they drifted around the food. Sliding against each other as Asahi produced a chip.
He rocked back onto his heels, popping it into his mouth.
Kawakami ate one as well, red painting his lips.
Asahi pulled his fingers away and looked down.
Glitter stuck to his fingertips.
He rubbed his thumb across his lips.
More glitter.
Kawakami was watching.
Then he wasn't.
Both boys wiped their sparkling hands on their pants, though it did little to get rid of the rouge that scattered itself from the tips of their noses to the curve of their ears.
Kawakami started to chuckle quietly, a chip held between his teeth.
Asahi giggled, putting the gloved hand over his mouth.
Kawakami continued, shoulders shaking as he tried, and failed, to hold in the growing noise.
Their infectious laughter met in the middle, Asahi shushing Kawakami and his friend holding his mouth to the chip bag to capture his snort, sending a puff of spices and red dust straight into his nose. He held his hand over his mouth, trying to muffle his cough, the comedy of errors sending Asahi into a fit. He lunged forward and tackled Kawakami, desperately attempting to quell the noise by pulling part of the bunched up comforter over his mouth. They lay in a heap, belly laughs sitting in their chests as Asahi hid his face in Kawakami’s shoulder, squeaks and grunts of residual playfulness easing the emotionally charged evening.
Asahi lifted his head to see Kawakami, shining in the darkness.
He was covered in the sparkling aftermath of their struggle for peace.
He looked content.
Full.
Fed.
Blue eyes flitted down to meet Asahi, shining as bright as the glittering mess that made the cobalt in his hair turn violet.
His cheek fit perfectly against the cup of Kawakami’s palm.
He wanted a lot of things.
To protect Kawakami.
To eat more chips.
To rest like this all night.
A branch cracked.
Asahi fumbled backward, grabbing a pillow and settling against the wall, heart sprinting.
An owl hooted outside the window, head bobbing in the darkness, wide eyes glistening.
Kawakami chuckled again.
Asahi threw the pillow his way.
Smiling.
He'd figure out what to tell Haru and Sana.
It was late.
They were tired.
And every question he had felt superfluous.
So he opted for the obvious.
“You can stay.”
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