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Touya opened his eyes to the darkness, his ears ringing and his head throbbing. His hair was wet, and his clothes, heavy with each breath, pressed against his chest like an invisible hand.
Fuck.
He turned to the side, breathing in short gasps, gritting his teeth at the stones digging into his back. The knees of his trousers were torn—once an old fashioned way—and the buttons of his shirt were undone all the way to his chest. He hadn’t dressed like this since the second war. Since he and Keigo married. Since Akihiko was born—
Touya jumped to his feet. Despite the cramps in his muscles, he maintained his balance. His heart pounded in his chest as he waited for his vision to adjust to the darkness.
Where was his son?
Where was Keigo?
Where on earth was he?
As the fading moon hid behind the clouds, Touya glanced around. He reached for his necklace, but his neck was bare. Touya’s whole body went cold. Keigo’s feather was gone. His hands trembled as he rummaged through his pockets, and almost screamed when he found his phone. He switched on the flashlight and looked around. He was on an asphalt road—but what the fuck was he doing here?
A few steps ahead, a sign caught his eye. Branches crackled under his boots as he ran towards the piece of wood. The phone’s light cast terrifying shadows. Although he stumbled a few times, he managed to reach it without falling and shone the light onto the sign.
Welcome to Storybrooke!
Touya read it again, and again, and again. But the words made no sense to him. What hell was he in? Where was his family?
He turned the screen brightness all the way up and went into his contacts. Even without the feather, this was how he could reach Keigo, right?
But it was empty. Touya went into the gallery. Empty. Messages. Empty. Recent calls. Empty.
It was as if the phone had been turned on tonight, just right fucking now.
Touya cursed and kicked the ground. His toes hit something hard, and lightning flashed before his eyes. He rubbed his face and counted to ten. He could do this. Yes. All he had to do was find someone. If he learned something, he could progress, go with that information!
He started walking along the path indicated by the sign. How far could it be, right?
Perhaps after half an hour, he crouched down to catch his breath. His chest ached, his throat burned, but he still hadn’t found a single sign of life.
As he looked towards the road, Touya thought he saw a small flash of light. He quickly stood up, almost tripping. The light grew larger as he walked towards it, until it blinded him.
Touya covered his eyes with his arm as the ear-piercing sound of a tire spinning on the asphalt sent a shiver down his spine. It made him want to scream.
“Oh my God! Are you alright?”
Time suddenly stopped with this familiar melodic voice.
“Sir?”
When Touya lowered his arm, he found himself face to face with the sun—his sun.
“…Keigo?”
The journey to the police station with the stranger he’d picked up in the Yellow Bug had been unusually quiet. And for the first time, it wasn’t because of the car’s color… This 1972 Volkswagen Super Beetle, a bright yellow car his sister had given Keigo for his eighteenth birthday, usually managed to silence people. Well, maybe it had something to do with the fact that Keigo was the town sheriff but alas.
However, Keigo would have preferred to speak this time…
He glanced at the stranger as he parked in front of the police station. The man, wearing grey sweatpants and a purple sweatshirt, had his hands clasped in his lap, fiddling with his fingers. Keigo hoped his trembling hands weren’t from the cold. When Keigo found him, the guy’s clothes were soaking wet, some just beginning to dry. Keigo ignored what the man said and gave him some spare clothes from the trunk. He put the stranger’s black leather clothes into separate bags and placed them on the back seats of the Yellow Bug.
“Come on,” he sighed. Because what could he say? Someone he had never met before stood in the middle of the road, looking utterly distraught, and called out to him by name.
Keigo.
With his real name, known only to three people.
“What’s your name?” he asked without thinking.
The stranger lifted his head so quickly that Keigo feared he would break his neck.
“What?”
Keigo scratched his newly growing beard. “Your name? I just realized I forgot to ask.”
The guy’s eyes widened, their blue fading further. “You… you don’t know my name?” His deep, smoky voice wavered. “You really don’t remember me?”
“I—”
Keigo lost his balance when the door suddenly opened. He would have definitely broken something if the stranger hadn’t grabbed him by the arm. Damn, he was strong.
“Daddy!” His son shouted, his pink curls flying around with each bounce. “Welcome back!”
The guy’s grip tightened. “Akihiko?”
Both Keigo and his son turned to him. Akihiko stood on tiptoe, a huge smile spread across his face when he saw their… guest.
“Papa!”
Keigo snapped his head. Akihiko never called him that.
The stranger opened the car door as Akihiko ran to the other side. The man was trembling so much he fell to his knees, but he didn’t care about the dirt or the grass staining his hands. Half walking, half crawling, he managed to reach Akihiko.
“Papa! Papa!” Akihiko threw himself into the man’s arms and hugged him tightly. “You’re really here!” Keigo watched them, his body frozen. He told himself to move, to free his son from this stranger’s embrace, but his heart… his heart beat so peacefully.
“I’m here, little parrot,” the stranger said oh so softly, holding the back of Akihiko’s head with one hand. “Your father is here.” He buried his nose in his pink hair and took deep breaths.
“Yes,” said Keigo in a voice that sounded foreign even to himself. “His father is here.” He got out of the Yellow Bug and stood in front of them, arms crossed over his chest. “I am here.”
“Daddy and Papa both here!” said Akihiko, his golden and blue eyes sparkling brightly.
“No,” said Keigo, picking up his son and pulling him away from the stranger, but they were both holding on so tightly! “Akihiko, let him go! You can’t hug someone you don’t even know!”
“But—But he is my Papa!” Akihiko sobbed, struggling in his father’s arms. The stranger watched helplessly, his hand outstretched to Akihiko, suspended in mid-air. “Don’t y-you remember? I-I told you to f-find my P-Papa!”
That was true. That’s why Keigo had stayed up so late on watch. Because his son kept telling him to go outside and find his other father.
“Touya…” the man sitting on his knees whispered.
“What?” Keigo snapped.
He saw those blue eyes shatter. “My name is Touya. Touya Takami.”
He and Akihiko had barely managed to get Keigo home. Touya didn’t know if Keigo thought he was caught in a terrible prank or on the verge of losing his mind. If only he could tell him the truth, if only he could make him remember. They would handle the rest. They always had.
“Can you,” Keigo took a deep breath. “Could you explain it again from the beginning one more time? Please?”
They both turned to Akihiko, their son, because he was the only one who had (somehow) complete control over the situation.
“We were going on a family picnic,” Akihiko began. “We would meet my aunties and uncles by the beach because you promised to take me there!” If Touya focused, he could almost see the ghost of his wings, their fluttering. “We got there before everyone else and started getting ready, but suddenly a group of men emerged from the shadows! Daddy sent me away with his feathers while his wings acted as a shield for Papa.”
“Feathers?” Keigo laughed. “Wings?” His smile faded as he looked at them. “…Are you serious?!”
Touya and Akihiko nodded.
“In the midst of the chaos, my aunties and uncles arrived. B-But bad guys just as they found me in my hiding place, Papa transformed into a fireball and neutralized them!”
Touya couldn’t help but puff out his chest when he saw Keigo’s unblinking gaze shift towards him. Perhaps Keigo didn’t remember him now, but there was no harm in reminding him of what kind of man, what kind of father, what kind of husband he was.
“At that moment, one of them—I couldn’t see who it was—attacked us with their quirk.” His voice trembled as he spoke. Touya reached out and took his son’s hand. Akihiko sobbed. “When I opened my eyes, I found myself… here. I tried to talk to Daddy,” he looked at Keigo. “But—But he didn’t remember anything!”
Akihiko pulled his hand away from Touya and hugged himself. “Oh, baby.” Keigo lifted him into his arms. “I’m sorry, baby, don’t cry.”
Touya wanted to take them into his arms, to protect them from all the evils of the world, but here, in this… dimension, things were more complicated than he expected.
Instead of asking all that, he asked, “What did he tell you?”
Keigo glanced at him briefly, then turned his eyes to the fruits on the round table. “He told me I needed to find his… other father. He told me to find him—my true love—and bring him here. That way, with our love, we could break the spell cast by the Evil Queen and return to our own dimension.”
Touya, of course, wanted to return home, their nest, as soon as possible—he frowned. “The Evil Queen…?”
“The bad lady!” Akihiko lifted his head from Keigo’s shoulder, his face and cheeks flushed. “Madam President!” He rubbed his eyes. “And—And the others are here too! I saw them! Enji is now R-Rumpelstiltskin! And G-Grandma Rei is Belle!”
With a jarring, scraping sound and a subsequent noise, Touya stood up. His ears were ringing. His hands were sweaty, and his back was ice cold.
“Do you know them?” But when he received no answer, Keigo sighed. “I thought it was just his imagination. Akihiko loves stories. But I wasn’t about to believe his fairy tales. Especially the ones about his other father…”
“Why not?”
Keigo hugged their son tightly and stood up. “I don’t want to talk about him! Because he—”
“Because he what?” Touya pondered. He should have, he must, known. What had he done in this goddamn universe to make the love of his life hate him so much that he wouldn’t even mention him to their son?
“I…” Keigo faltered, eyes wide and unfocused. “I don’t remember.”
Touya whipped his head. “What?”
His breath caught in his throat when those golden eyes turned to him. “I don’t remember him.”
“That’s why you should kiss!” Akihiko shouted, hitting Keigo’s chest. “Because the true love kiss makes you remember!” His lower lip trembled. “True love breaks all the curses!”
“He’s not…” Keigo whispered.
Touya’s knees gave up, he lost his balance and collapsed to the ground. His heart felt like a dead weight in his chest. Could this be? Could a single quirk destroy their love, which had withstood so many battles? Could it erase every last shred of the feelings Keigo, his husband, had for him?
“They say,” Touya took a deep breath. “They say to find the thing you love and…” Keigo flinched when the blue eyes turned to him. “Let it kill you.”
“No.”
Keigo’s guttural voice startled them all.
He placed Akihiko on the couch and turned to Touya.
“You won’t die.” Keigo approached him with firm steps and knelt down. “It won’t happen again.” His pupils narrowed like those of a hawk about to catch its prey. His gaze flickered between reality and this universe, becoming dull and then refocusing.
“I found you,” Touya whispered, “but the fact that you don’t remember me is killing me.”
“I almost lost you,” Keigo continued. Touya held his breath as his lover’s hands cupped his wet cheeks. “More than once.” He stroked the corner of Touya’s lip with his thumb. “I can’t bear this pain, not again. Never again.” Their faces were so close—
When their lips met, Touya felt the flames return to him, gathering and burning in his heart, and with that kiss, they spread throughout the world like the death of a star, unleashing a fiery blaze.
When Keigo’s grip seemed to loosen, Touya ran his hands through his golden curls and pulled him closer. If this was their last kiss, his last time feeling him this close, he wouldn’t waste it.
Touya kissed his husband until he couldn’t breathe anymore. But he knew he had to control himself because their son was nearby. Keigo’s hands were clenched into fists, gripping his new sweatshirt. When they parted, Touya lightly bit Keigo’s lower lip, wanting to taste him one last time, to engrave the memory in his mind.
When Keigo opened his eyes, his irises were blown wide. Their golden color was lost within the blackness, almost resembling a ring.
“And the true love kiss makes you remember,” Keigo repeated. “True love breaks all the curses.” A small smile blossomed on his face. “Hello, hot stuff.”