ecological succession

by Anonymous

Summary:

Touya was fine. 11 years after burning his entire body into a crisp, 8 years after running away from his grandparents, 6 years after getting clean, and 1 year after graduating university, he was starting his life in Tokyo, with a good job and a hot boyfriend. Was he without problems? No. But it was his life, right?

After Endeavor gets arrested for child abuse, Touya's life comes crashing down around him in a way he never imagined... but was it really so bad this way?

prewritten, will be updating quickly!

Chapter 1: The Ashes Left Behind

The pain was the first thing he remembered.

Not the fire itself, though his skin still carried the memory in twisted, angry scars, but the aftermath. The way his body had screamed even after the flames had died, the way his lungs had burned with every shallow breath.

Dad had found him.

That was the cruelest part.

Touya had wanted to die there, on that mountain, but his father had dragged him back, like something worth saving, as if he wasn’t a complete failure of a son, of a creation.

---

After that, there was silence.

No hospital, no reporters, no tearful reunions with his siblings, just the Himura estate, tucked away in the mountains.

His grandparents had taken him in without question. They were stern, quiet people, their faces lined with age and disappointment, or grief. They had never liked Enji, despite needing his dowry to secure their own future. They’d never really celebrated the marriage that had produced Touya and his siblings. However, here he was, dumped on their doorstep like damaged goods.

The estate was beautiful in the way old, wealthy homes were—polished wood, immaculate gardens, a stillness that felt more like a tomb than a house.

Touya hated it.

He wasn’t allowed outside much. His skin was too sensitive now, prone to infection, prone to splitting if he moved too suddenly. The doctors had been clear—his body would never fully recover. His quirk had ruined him.

So he sat, and he healed. His grandparents weren’t cruel, but their kindness was suffocating to Touya, who hadn’t experienced much kindness from anyone, not even himself, really.

"You must rest, Touya," his grandmother would say, her voice firm but not unkind.

"Patience," his grandfather would murmur when Touya’s hands shook with frustration.

But patience for what?

There were no letters from home, no phone calls or news from his siblings.

The world had moved on without him. His own family, too. Endeavor was still a hero. The Todoroki name was still untarnished.

And Touya?

He was a memory to them now.

---

It was raining the night he ran.

Not a storm, just a quiet, relentless drizzle, the kind that seeped into bones and made the world feel heavier.

He didn’t plan it. Not really.

But the walls of the estate had started to feel like a prison, the absence of everything he had once been felt worse than the pain.

He took only what he could carry: a bag with some spare clothes and the cash he’d stolen from his grandfather’s desk. 

He didn’t leave a note.

What would he even say?

They wouldn’t miss him anyways.

The neon lights of Kabukicho pulsed like a heartbeat as Touya stepped off the train, his duffel bag slung over one shoulder.  The hostel was a cramped, dingy building tucked between a pachinko parlor and a love hotel. The man at the front desk barely glanced up when Touya slid cash across the counter. 

"Room 304. No noise after midnight."

The room was exactly what ¥4000 a night bought you: barely bigger than a closet, with a narrow bed, a flickering overhead light, a window that overlooked the alley below. The mattress sagged in the middle, the sheets thin and smelling faintly of bleach.

He sat on the edge of the bed, fingers tracing the raised scars along his collarbone. The city’s chaos should’ve felt overwhelming after years of mountain silence, but the noise was… freeing. Here, no one cared about Todoroki Touya. No one even knew he existed.

He had no plan, b ut for the first time in years, he wasn’t alone, not really.

That first couple weeks, he wandered Shinjuku’s backstreets like a ghost, learning where the conbini clerks wouldn’t chase him out for loitering and which alleys the cops rarely patrolled. He stole when he had to, protein bars from convenience stores, a hoodie left unattended at a laundromat. 

He found himself in a dimly lit izakaya, tucked into a corner booth with a cheap beer in front of him. He wasn’t old enough to drink, but the bartender hadn’t asked for ID.

That was when he showed up.

"Mind if I sit here?"

Touya glanced up. The man was in his mid-twenties, with sharp features and dark hair tied back in a loose ponytail. 

Touya shrugged.

The man slid into the booth across from him. "Name’s Ryou."

"Touya."

"First time in Shinjuku?"

"Something like that."

Ryou chuckled, flagging down the bartender for another beer. "You’ve got the look. Wide-eyed and lost."

Touya scowled. "I’m not lost."

"Sure you’re not." Ryou took a swig of his drink. "So what’s your deal? Runaway?"

Touya’s fingers tightened around his glass.

Ryou’s smirk softened. "Relax. I’m not judging. I was one too."

Ryou became a fixture after that.

He wasn’t a good person, Touya could tell that much. But he was there, in a way no one had been in years. He showed Touya the city, the hidden ramen shops, the back-alley arcades, the places where no one asked questions. Most importantly, though, he didn’t treat Touya like he was broken.

"Those scars hurt?" Ryou asked one night, nodding at the warped skin peeking out from under Touya’s sleeve.

Touya stiffened. "Sometimes."

"Yeah, burns are a bitch." Ryou rolled up his own sleeve, revealing a twisted patch of skin along his forearm. "Got this from some asshole with an electricity quirk a while back. Took months to stop feeling like my arm was on fire."

Touya stared.

---

It happened two weeks later.

Touya’s scars had been worse than usual with the changing seasons, throbbing, tight, like his skin was trying to split apart. He’d been gritting his teeth all day, his hands shaking as he lit cigarette after cigarette with the tip of his finger, the nicotine doing nothing to dull the pain.

Ryou noticed.

"You look like shit."

"Feel like it," Touya muttered.

Ryou studied him for a long moment, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a small orange bottle. "Here."

Touya eyed it warily. "What is it?"

"Painkillers. The good shit." Ryou shook out a single white pill. "See if it helps."

Touya hesitated, but the pain was bad, so he took it. The relief was instant.

The tension in his shoulders melted away. The ache in his scars dulled to a distant hum. For the first time in months, he could breathe.

"Better?" Ryou asked.

Touya exhaled. "Yeah."

Ryou grinned. "Told you."

It didn’t stop at one pill.

Soon, Touya was taking them daily. Then twice a day. Then three times.

And when the pills stopped working- 

"Try this," Ryou said, pressing a small bag of powder into his hand.

Touya knew what it was.

He took it anyway. He needed it.

---

  On the second-to-last day of his childhood, the world had been narrowing for hours.

Touya wasn’t sure when the coughing had turned wet, when each breath had started feeling like dragging broken glass through his ribs. His skin burned, not the clean, sharp pain of fresh burns, but the deep, sick heat of infection. The heroin had taken the edge off at first, but now his body was fighting back, shaking violently even as his mind floated somewhere far away.

The first hit had barely taken the edge off.

The second made the world tilt.

By the third, his vision was swimming, his pulse sluggish in his ears. He slumped against the brick wall, the cold seeping through his jacket.

Shit.

His lungs spasmed. A cough tore through him, wet and ragged, leaving his mouth tasting like iron. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand—streaks of red smeared across his knuckles.

Not good.

He’d taken too much.

He knew that.

But the alternative, sobering up, and feeling everything, was worse.

The alley behind the bar was dim, the only light a flickering neon sign casting sickly pink shadows over the damp concrete. He’d slumped against the wall at some point, his legs numb beneath him. His fingers fumbled with the lighter, sparks catching but no flame staying. His quirk flickered uselessly under his skin, his body too wrecked to even summon a wisp of blue.

Pathetic.

A wet cough tore through him, and this time, something warm and metallic filled his mouth. He spat, and the splatter on the ground was too dark to just be spit.

His vision pulsed.

The last thing he registered was the sound of footsteps, someone swearing, a voice shouting for help.

The world tilted. Bright lights flashed behind his eyelids.

"Kid, can you hear me?"

"—pulse is thready—"

"—respiratory distress, probable pneumonia—"

"—track marks on his arms, possible OD—"

Cold plastic under his back. Straps across his chest. Something sharp in his arm.

Touya tried to open his eyes, but the light was a knife. A hand pressed against his forehead, then jerked back.

"Shit, he’s burning up—"

Something clamped over his nose and mouth, forcing air into his lungs. He gagged, tried to twist away, but his body wasn’t his anymore.

"Hold him still—"

---

He woke in stages.

First, the ache. His whole body felt like it had been run over by a truck. His throat was raw, his lungs heavy, his skin fever-hot even under the thin hospital gown.

Second, the beeping: steady, insistent, the heart monitor keeping time with his pulse.

Third, the woman sitting beside his bed.

She was in her late twenties, maybe, with dark hair pulled into a neat bun and a clipboard balanced on her lap. Her expression was unreadable. 

Touya tried to speak, but his throat was sandpaper.

She handed him a cup of water without a word. He drank greedily, the cool liquid a relief against the fire in his chest.

"Do you know where you are?" she asked.

"Hospital," he croaked.

"Good." She set the clipboard aside. "I’m Akane Mori. I’m a social worker assigned to your case."

Touya closed his eyes. Of course.

"What’s your name?"

He almost said Todoroki. Almost.

But that name was ashes now.

"Himura," he rasped. "Himura Touya."

Akane nodded, jotting something down. "How old are you, Himura-san?"

The question caught him off guard. He had to think.

"Seventeen," he muttered.

Her pen paused. "Your birthday?"

“What’s today?” 

“January seventeenth.” 

"It’s tomorrow."

A beat of silence.

Akane exhaled, long and slow. "So you turn eighteen tomorrow."

"Yeah."

Something in her voice made his stomach twist.

He knew what that meant.

Adults didn’t get the same resources. Adults could walk out of here with no one stopping them.

Adults were on their own.

Akane studied him for a long moment, then sighed, setting the clipboard aside. "You’re in bad shape, Himura-san. Your lungs are infected. You’re malnourished. And whatever you took last night nearly stopped your heart."

Touya didn’t answer.

"Do you have anywhere to go?"

No.

"Family?"

No.

"Friends?"

No.

The silence stretched.

Akane leaned forward slightly, her voice quieter now. "You’re technically an adult tomorrow. But that doesn’t mean you have to do this alone."

Touya’s chest ached.

Not from the pneumonia.

"I can help you," she said. "If you let me."

He wanted to laugh. Or scream. Or something.

But he was so tired.

And for the first time in years, he didn’t want to die.

His fingers curled weakly into the thin hospital blanket.

"Okay," he whispered.

Akane’s expression softened.

"Okay," she echoed.

One more day, and he’d be eighteen.

Two years since he left the Himura’s.

Five years since Sekoto Peak.

And now,  maybe, something else.

He closed his eyes.

And breathed.

Chapter 2: Embers

The hospital released him two weeks later, but not before Akane Mori had already mapped out his next steps like a general preparing for battle.

Touya sat on the edge of the bed, dressed in donated clothes: a gray hoodie too big for his frame, sweatpants with a fraying hem. His discharge papers listed chronic pain management, pneumonia follow-up, substance abuse counseling in neat, impersonal print.

Akane handed him a folder.

"Housing first," she said. "There’s a transitional living program in Suginami- single-occupancy rooms, on-site counseling, job assistance. You’ll have a case manager."

Touya flipped through the papers. Rules. Curfews. Mandatory drug testing.

"It’s not forever," she added, watching his expression. "Six months, if you follow the program. After that, we look at next steps."

He exhaled through his nose. "And if I don’t?"

"Then you’re on your own."

He met her eyes. She didn’t blink.

"Fine," he muttered.

The facility was clean, at least. Small room, narrow bed, a desk bolted to the wall. The window overlooked a concrete courtyard where other residents smoked under a flickering fluorescent light.

Touya set his meager belongings: a plastic bag of toiletries, the hoodie, a prepaid phone Akane had given him, on the bed.

His case manager, a tired-looking man named Sato, handed him a schedule.

"Group therapy Mondays and Thursdays. Medical check-ins every Wednesday. Job training starts next week."

Touya stared at the paper. "Job training?"

"You’ll work with vocational rehab. Figure out skills, interests, that kind of thing." Sato eyed his scars. "Assuming you’re not planning to go back to… whatever you were doing before."

Touya’s fingers twitched. "No."

"Good. Dinner’s at six. Don’t be late."

The door clicked shut behind him.

Touya sat on the bed, his spine rigid, and stared at the ceiling.

Six months.

---

Six months clean, Touya stood outside the Himura estate for the first time in years.

The gate was just as imposing as he remembered. The gravel path, the perfectly pruned trees… all of it was unchanged, frozen since the moment he’d left.

His grandmother opened the door.

For a long moment, neither spoke.

"You look terrible," she finally  said.

Touya barked a laugh, which turned into a cough, rough and startled. "Yeah."

She stepped aside. "Come in."

The tea was bitter. His grandfather didn’t look at him.

"I’m sorry," Touya said, the words ash in his mouth. He bowed low. "For running, and for… for everything."

His grandmother set her cup down. "We knew you would leave eventually. You were miserable."

"You didn’t try to stop me."

"No," she admitted. "We should have though."

Silence.

Then his grandfather slid an envelope across the table.

"For your studies," he said gruffly.

Touya opened it. A bank statement. A generous one.

His throat tightened.

"I can’t-"

"Take it," his grandmother interrupted. "And call us, occasionally."

He nodded, suddenly unable to speak. 

---

Akane Mori did not give up.

After his stint in the halfway house, she visited him at his shitty studio apartment every week without fail, always with new paperwork, new resources, new options.

"Disability services can fast-track your GED if we get the paperwork in now," she said during their third meeting, sliding a form across the table.

Touya eyed it. "Why?"

"Because you’re smart," she said simply. "And I’m not letting you waste it."

He scoffed. "I dropped out at sixteen."

"And yet, you’re still here, considering my offer." She tapped the paper. "Sign it."

He did.

Passing the test itself, though, felt anticlimactic.

Akane handed him the results with a satisfied smirk. "Told you you were smart."

Touya rolled his eyes. "Barely."

"It’s enough for this." She dropped a university brochure on the table. "Scholarship applications are due next month."

He stared at it. "You’re kidding."

"You want to rot in a dead-end job forever?"

"I don’t even know what I’d study."

Akane leaned back. "What do you wish someone had taught you?"

The answer came instantly.

"How not to char myself into a crisp."

She nodded. "Then start there."

---

The university’s financial aid office was a cramped, fluorescent-lit room that smelled of stale coffee and printer ink. Touya sat across from a harried-looking advisor, his hands clenched in his lap to hide the tremor in his fingers.

"Your test scores are impressive," the advisor said, flipping through his file. "Especially considering your… gaps in formal education."

Touya gritted his teeth. "Yeah."

The advisor, a middle-aged woman with a slicked-back bun, eyed him over her glasses. "You’re applying for the Tanaka Memorial Scholarship. It’s for students with… non-traditional backgrounds." She paused, glancing at the medical notes Akane had submitted. "And significant physical challenges."

Touya’s skin prickled. He hated that word. Challenges . Like his body was some kind of obstacle course.

"It’s a full ride," the advisor continued. "Covers tuition, housing stipend, even books. But it’s competitive."

"What’s the catch?"

*"You maintain a 3.5 GPA. Attend monthly check-ins with disability services. And," She hesitated. "There’s a volunteering component, within your field of study."

Touya exhaled. He could do that.

The scholarship committee was a panel of three: a stern-looking professor, a woman in a sleek suit who smelled faintly of lavender, and a man with a prosthetic arm who hadn’t said a word yet.

"Why quirk counseling?" the professor asked, steepling his fingers.

Touya forced himself not to fidget. "Because no one helped me when I needed it."

The woman leaned forward. "Your file mentions self-immolation. That’s… extreme, even for destructive quirks, isn’t it?"

"Yeah," Touya said flatly. "And if someone had counseled me , maybe I wouldn’t look like this." He gestured to his scars.

The man with the prosthetic arm finally spoke. "You’d be working with difficult kids. You think you can handle that? The frustration? The setbacks?"

Touya met his eyes. "I’ve had worse."

---

Akane was the one who connected him to Kenji.

"He’s a third-year journalism student," she said, handing Touya a slip of paper with an address. "Lost his leg in a villain attack when he was a kid. Has some… other complications. Like you."

"What kind of complications?"

"Phantom pain. Nerve damage. PTSD." Akane gave him a look. "Play nice. He’s softer than you are."

The apartment was on the fourth floor of a weathered but clean building in a quieter part of Tokyo. Kenji answered the door on crutches, his right leg ending just above the knee. His left sleeve was rolled up, revealing a lattice of shiny scar tissue that twisted from wrist to elbow.

"You’re the fire guy," Kenji said, grinning.

Touya eyed the scars. "You’re the ‘got too close to a villain’ guy."

Kenji barked a laugh. "Akane was right, you’re funny. Come in!"

The apartment was cluttered but lived-in, with textbooks piled on the coffee table, a half-assembled prosthetic leg on the kitchen counter, and a tacky All Might poster tacked crookedly to the wall.

"So," Kenji said, moving towards the fridge. "Akane also told me you’re a mess."

"Akane talks too much."

"She also says you want to work with kids." Kenji tossed him an iced tea bottle. "Which, honestly, is terrifying."

Touya caught it, fumbling. "Why?"

"Children are scary!" Kenji insisted. "I’d rather lose my other leg than face a kindergarten class, swear to God."

Touya choked on his tea. Maybe Kenji wasn’t so soft after all. 

---

They weren't friends.

But they did understand each other.

The first time Touya got a firsthand look at Kenji’s complications , he woke to a crash from Kenji's room. He'd stumbled out of bed, half-expecting a break-in, only to find Kenji on the floor, tangled in his sheets, his prosthetic leg discarded by the bed. His eyes were wild, unfocused, somewhere else entirely.

Touya knew that look.

"Hey," he said, voice rough with sleep. "You're in Tokyo. You're fine."

Kenji didn't respond, just curled tighter into himself, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Touya hesitated, then sat on the floor beside him, close but not touching.

"You're in your apartment," he tried again, quieter. "You're safe. No one's hurting you."

Kenji shuddered, his fingers clawing at his own arms. "It's… it's still…"

"Gone," Touya said firmly. "It's gone."

It took another twenty minutes before Kenji's breathing evened out, before the tension bled from his shoulders. He didn't speak, just slumped against the bedframe, exhausted.

Touya didn't either. Just handed him a glass of water and left the room.

They didn't talk about it in the morning.

---

Winter hit Tokyo hard that year.

The cold seeped into Touya's bones, made his scars ache and his lungs tighten. He caught a cold within the first week, nothing serious, just enough to make his head pound and his throat raw. But combined with the chronic pain, it was unbearable.

He spent days curled under a blanket on the couch, sipping tea that did nothing, trying to ignore the itch under his skin, the one that whispered just one hit, just one pill, just enough to make it stop… 

Kenji found him staring blankly at the TV, his fingers digging into his own arms hard enough to bruise.

"You good?"

"Peachy," Touya gritted out.

Kenji studied him for a long moment, then limped to the kitchen. He returned with two mugs: one tea, one coffee spiked with whiskey.

"Drink," he ordered, shoving the coffee into Touya's hands.

Touya glared. "I'm sober."

"And I'm supposed to be in physical therapy twice a week," Kenji said, dropping onto the couch beside him. "We pick our battles."

The whiskey burned. The pain didn't go away.

But the itch faded, just a little.

---

The quirk counseling center was small, tucked into a nondescript office building near the university. His volunteer program supervisor, Dr. Ishikawa, had a mutation quirk: scales along her arms, serpentine eyes that missed nothing.

"Most of our cases are kids whose quirks hurt them," she explained, leading him past a row of treatment rooms. "Burns, frostbite, electrical surges. They come in scared. Our job is to teach them control."

The first patient was a boy no older than eight, with sparks jumping between his fingers every time he sneezed.

"It stings," the kid mumbled, rubbing his reddened palms.

Touya rolled up his sleeves, letting the boy see the scars. "Mine used to do that too."

The kid's eyes widened. "Did it… did it get better?"

"Yeah," Touya said. "But it takes work."

Dr. Ishikawa smiled.

---

Three and a half years passed in a blur of classes, appointments, and the mundane routines of life.

His graduation ceremony was held in one of the university’s older auditoriums, the kind with high ceilings and stained-glass windows that cast fractured light across the graduates’ faces. Touya sat stiffly in his chair, the heavy graduation robes scratching against his scars, his cap slightly askew. He hadn’t expected to feel anything about this, just another step, another box checked, but when his name was called (Himura Touya, Quirk Counseling and Analysis, with honors), something tight in his chest loosened.

Akane was in the front row, clapping louder than anyone else, her dark eyes gleaming with something dangerously close to pride. Kenji, seated beside her, had his arms crossed, smirking like he’d won a bet.

After the ceremony, Touya found them waiting for him outside, the late afternoon sun warm on his back.

"Look at you," Akane said, reaching up to adjust his tassel. "Quirk counselor and analytic specialist. Who knew you had brains under all that angst? Oh right! Me."

"Shut up," Touya muttered, but there was no bite to it.

Kenji snorted. "Yeah, yeah, we’re all real impressed. Now can we please go eat? I’ve been sitting for three hours, my leg is killing me."

Touya rolled his eyes but didn’t argue.

His phone buzzed in his pocket.

Unknown Number:
[Image attachment: A blurry photo of the graduation stage, taken from the very back of the auditorium.]
Congrats, hot stuff. Sorry I couldn’t stick around—work thing. Drinks later?

Touya stared at the message, then at the number. He didn’t have it saved, but he knew exactly who it was.

"Who’s that from?" Akane asked, peering over his shoulder.

"No one," Touya said, shoving his phone back into his pocket.

Kenji’s grin widened. "Ohhh, is it your mystery friend again?"

"I don’t have a mystery friend."

"The one who keeps texting you at weird hours?" Akane added, eyebrows raised. "The one you definitely don’t smile at your phone about?"

"I don’t-" Touya cut himself off, pinching the bridge of his nose. "It’s just Keigo. He’s..." An acquaintance? Someone who had somehow weaseled his way into Touya’s life and refused to leave? "... someone I know."

"Uh-huh," Kenji said, elbowing Akane. "Someone special."

"Fuck both of you," Touya said, but there was no heat behind it.

Akane laughed, looping her arm through his. "Come on, genius. Let’s go celebrate."

And for once, Touya didn’t argue.

Chapter 3: A Knock at the Door

It was early September, around 8:30 pm. Toyua was sprawled across his couch, phone in hand, squinting at the bright screen in the dim light of his apartment. His thumb hovered over the keyboard, debating whether to send the text he’d just typed, something stupid and sappy, the kind of thing he’d never say out loud.

He deleted the entire message, and typed something else.

you’re annoying. when are you coming over

A second later, his phone buzzed.

KEIGO 🦅: miss me that much?
KEIGO 🦅: can’t tonight, patrol ran late. tomorrow? i’ll bring food

Touya exhaled through his nose, thumbing out a reply.

whatever. don’t forget the spicy stuff this time

He tossed his phone onto the coffee table, rubbing at the bridge of his nose where his glasses usually sat. He’d given up wearing them an hour ago; the frames irritated the scar tissue along his temples, and he wasn’t in the mood for a headache.

The apartment was quiet. The only sound was the hum of the fridge and the distant murmur of the city outside. It was a small space, cluttered but clean, the walls lined with textbooks on quirk genetics and a few framed certifications. Himura Touya, Licensed Quirk Counselor.

He’d come a long way from back alleys and hospital beds.

The knock on the door made him freeze. 

Three sharp raps against the door. Too deliberate to be a neighbor, too firm to be a delivery.

Touya frowned. Keigo would’ve texted. Akane had sworn off surprise visits after the last one ended with her walking in on things no social worker should ever see. 

He pushed himself off the couch, wincing as his knees popped. His lungs ached, as the weather was shifting, and his body always knew before the forecast did.

Another knock.

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, padding barefoot across the floor.

He yanked the door open and stopped.

A woman stood in the hallway, her posture professional, her expression carefully neutral. Behind her, three figures hovered: two taller, one small, all of them staring at him with wide, uncertain eyes.

Touya’s stomach dropped.

No.

The woman cleared her throat. “Himura Touya?”

He didn’t answer. Couldn’t. His gaze was locked on the trio behind her: on the white-and-red hair, on the too-familiar features.

Fuyumi. Natsuo. Shouto.

His siblings.

Touya stared at the four figures in his doorway, which included the social worker with her clipboard, Fuyumi with her too-tight smile, Natsuo slouched and scowling, and Shouto, small and silent, chewing methodically on the sleeve of his shirt.

For a moment, no one moved.

Running on autopilot, Touya stepped aside, gesturing vaguely toward the apartment. "Uh. Come in, I guess."

The social worker, her badge read Takada, nodded briskly and entered, her heels clicking against the hardwood. Fuyumi followed, herding Shouto gently by the shoulders while Natsuo trailed behind, hands shoved deep in his pockets.

The apartment felt smaller with them in it, the air thicker with tension. He could see Fuyumi’s eyes flickering around, taking in the mismatched furniture, the textbooks stacked haphazardly on the coffee table, the half-empty mug of tea gone cold.

“Sit, please,” he said, gesturing to the couch.

Fuyumi guided Shouto down, her voice soft. “It’s okay, Sho. Just for a little bit.”

Shouto didn't respond. His mismatched eyes darted around the room before settling on his own hands, which twisted into the fabric of his sleeve. After a moment, he brought the cuff to his mouth, chewing absently. 

Touya's gaze caught on the scar, a brutal, jagged thing that split Shouto's face from eyebrow to cheekbone, the skin still pink at the edges. His breath hitched.

What the hell did he do to you?

Takada folded her hands in her lap. "I’m sure you have questions."

Understatement of the fucking century.

"CPS was called to the Todoroki residence last night," Takada began, her voice carefully neutral.

Touya’s fingers twitched.

"A neighbor reported hearing shouting. When authorities arrived, they found Endeavor in the middle of what he called training."

Touya’s breath caught.

Training.

He knew what that meant.

"Shouto had been struck hard enough to vomit," Takada continued. "When questioned, Endeavor admitted this wasn’t unusual."

Natsuo let out a sharp, humorless laugh. “Bullshit.”

Fuyumi shot him a warning look, but her hands were shaking. “Natsu—”

“No, Yumi. He knew. He always knows.” Natsuo’s voice cracked. “And you let him—”

“I didn’t let him do anything!” Fuyumi’s voice rose, then immediately dropped again, her eyes darting to Shouto, who had started rocking slightly, his fingers now twisting in his shirt. “I—I wasn’t even there. I moved out three years ago, you know that—”

“Yeah, and left us with him—”

Takada cleared her throat, interrupting Natsuo and pressing on.

"Rei Todoroki was not present at the time of the incident. She’s been in inpatient care for the past five years."

Touya froze.

Five years?

His chest tightened. The last time he’d seen Rei, she’d been fragile, her hands shaking around a teacup, but she’d been there.

"What… what happened?"

Fuyumi’s expression tightened. "She… had an episode. With Shouto."

Touya’s gaze flicked back to Shouto’s scar.

Oh. Rei did that?

Takada cleared her throat. "Given the circumstances, we’re aiming for not separating the siblings. You’re the next of kin, and so they first go to you."

Touya blinked. "What?"

Fuyumi leaned forward. "Touya, please. I can’t take them, my dorm doesn’t allow it, and I’m still in school-"

Touya opened his mouth to argue, to protest, anything , but then Shouto made a small, distressed noise, his fingers tightening around his sleeve.

Fuyumi sighed. "Shouto, stop it-"

Touya stood abruptly. "Hold on."

He crossed to his bag, digging through the side pocket until his fingers closed around a small, squishy silicone toy, a stim chew he’d bought for a client but never used.

He crouched in front of Shouto, holding it out. "Here."

Shouto’s mismatched eyes flicked to it, then to Touya’s face.

Touya squeezed the toy once, demonstrating. "You can chew on this instead."

A beat of hesitation. Then Shouto snatched it, shoving it into his mouth with a relieved intensity. His rocking slowed.

Fuyumi stared. "What… what is that?"

"A stim toy?" Touya said, frowning. "You didn’t grab any of his before leaving?"

"His what?"

"His…" Touya gestured vaguely. "For the chewing. Did his OT not recommend these?"

Fuyumi’s brow furrowed. "An OT?"

Touya froze.

Takada’s expression darkened.

Touya’s stomach twisted. "You’re telling me no one’s ever evaluated him?"

Fuyumi shifted uncomfortably. "He doesn’t… he’s not one of those. He’s just… Shouto."

Takada and Touya shared a look.

"The hospital diagnosed him with a concussion," Takada said slowly, "but they recommended further testing. His behavior-"

"He’s always been like this," Natsuo interrupted.

Fuyumi nodded quickly. "It’s normal for him."

Takada cleared her throat. "Regardless, the situation is what it is. The boys stay with you."

Touya exhaled sharply. "I can’t."

"Please," Fuyumi whispered.

"I have health issues," Touya snapped. "I can barely take care of myself. I’ve got a history of…" He cut himself off, glancing at Shouto. "Problems. And I just started a new job."

Takada stood, smoothing her skirt. "Let me rephrase. I’m not asking."

She dropped a folder on the coffee table. "Paperwork. Stipend details. Emergency contacts. You’ll figure it out."

And with that, she walked out.

The door clicked shut.

Silence.

Four siblings.

One apartment.

The apartment felt smaller with four people in it.

Touya stood in the center of the living room, arms crossed, surveying the space like a general assessing a battlefield.

"Okay," Touya said, rubbing at his temples. The nerve blockers were wearing off, and the beginnings of a headache pulsed behind his eyes. "Rooms. Fuyumi, you’re not staying, right?"

Fuyumi shook her head. "I’ve got my dorm. I’ll visit, but…" She hesitated, glancing at Natsuo and Shouto. "Technically, you’re only responsible for these two."

Great.

Touya exhaled. "Right. So. Natsuo, you take the spare room. It’s got a bed, a desk… Kenji left most of his furniture so you should be good."

Natsuo’s eyebrows rose. "Who’s Kenji?"

"My old roommate."

"Cool," Natsuo said, though his tone suggested he didn’t actually care. He pushed himself out of the chair and grabbed his duffel bag. "I’m gonna go unpack."

He disappeared down the hall without another word.

Touya turned to Shouto. "You’re with me for now. My room’s got space for a futon."

Shouto didn’t react. His fingers tapped rhythmically against his knee, his gaze fixed on the far wall.

Fuyumi bit her lip. "He… he doesn’t always respond to direct instructions. You might have to-"

"I got it," Touya interrupted. He crouched in front of Shouto, keeping his movements slow. "Hey. You’re gonna sleep in my room tonight. Okay?"

Shouto’s eyes flicked to him, then away. But after a moment, he gave a tiny nod.

“Okay, so. Natsuo first,” Fuyumi suddenly said, smoothing down the sleeves of her sweater. 

Touya slowly stood, bracing his hands on his thighs, and going over to sit on the couch. His evening meds were wearing off, and the dull ache in his bones was creeping back in.

From down the hall, a loud thump sounded, probably Natsuo throwing his bag onto the bed. A second later, the muffled sound of a playlist started up, bass heavy enough to make the walls vibrate.

Fuyumi winced.

"Yeah," Touya said dryly. "I'm getting the impression there’s stuff I should know."

Fuyumi lowered her voice, though with the music blaring, it was hardly necessary. "He's... complicated."

"Complicated how?"

"He's got Dad's temper," she admitted, her gaze dropping to her hands. "Like, really has it. But his quirk's weak, so it's not-" She cut herself off, biting her lip.

Touya studied her. The way her shoulders hunched slightly when she mentioned Natsuo's temper, the nervous tap of her foot against the floor.

She's scared of him.

Not scared for him. 

"Snowflakes, right?" Touya asked, keeping his voice neutral.

Fuyumi nodded. "His body temperature runs too high to sustain it for long. Mostly he just makes little flurries when he's upset." She hesitated, then added, "But when he gets really mad... he breaks things. Yells. Slams doors. One time he put his fist through his bedroom wall."

 So the temper's there, but without the firepower to back it up. 

Touya raised an eyebrow. "And Endeavor just... let that slide?"

A bitter laugh escaped Fuyumi. "Oh no. Dad punished him for it. But that just made it worse. Natsuo's not…" She glanced toward the hallway, where the bass still thumped. "He's not violent violent. He's never hit anyone. But when he loses it... it's scary."

Her voice dropped to a whisper. "I think it scares him too, sometimes."

Touya exhaled through his nose.

From the floor, Shouto made a small noise around the new stim toy between his teeth, his fingers tapping an uneven rhythm against his knees.

Fuyumi's expression softened as she turned to him. "And then there's Shouto."

Touya followed her gaze.

"He doesn't talk," Fuyumi said quietly.

"At all?"

"Not since he was six."

Touya's stomach turned. "What happened when he was six?"

Fuyumi's fingers tightened around the hem of her skirt. "He took a bad hit to the head during training. Knocked him out cold. When he woke up, he just... never spoke again."

Brain damage. The words sat heavy in Touya's chest.

"You didn't take him to a doctor?"

Fuyumi flinched. "I wanted to. I tried, really, but Dad said no. Said if he was awake, and walking, the he was fine." Her voice cracked slightly. "I got in trouble for crying about it."

Touya's quirk flared under his skin, heat prickling along his scars. He forced it down, taking slow, measured breaths.

Not now. Not here.

"So what does he like?" Touya asked instead.

Fuyumi hesitated. "I... don't really know?"

What?

Touya stared at her. "You don't know?"

"Dad didn't… we weren't really allowed to-" She cut herself off, shaking her head. "He likes cold soba. And he doesn't like loud noises. Or being touched without warning."

"That's it?"

Fuyumi's cheeks flushed. "He's... particular.” 

Touya opened his mouth, then closed it again. What was the point? Fuyumi had grown up in the same house of horrors he had. She didn't know any better.

---

Fuyumi left around 10 PM, after extracting promises from Touya to text her updates and pressing quick kisses to her brothers' foreheads. Natsuo endured it with a scowl; Shouto didn't react at all.

The moment the door clicked shut behind her, Shouto's breathing intensified. His fingers dug into his thighs, blinking rapidly at the door.

He doesn't understand why she left.

Touya crouched in front of him. "Hey."

No response.

Slowly, giving Shouto plenty of time to pull away, Touya took his hand.

Shouto froze.

Touya squeezed gently.

For a long moment, nothing. Then Shouto's fingers twitched. His breathing evened out, just slightly.

Touya smiled. "You're okay."

Shouto didn't look at him, but the frantic breathing slowed.

He kept hold of Shouto's hand as he turned toward Natsuo, who was hovering in the hallway with his arms crossed. The kid looked like a storm cloud in human form: all scowling brows and hunched shoulders.

"Alright," Touya said, his voice steady despite the ache creeping through his bones. "Ground rules."

Natsuo rolled his eyes. "We're not five."

"Yeah? Then act like it."

Shouto's fingers twitched in Touya's grip, and when Touya glanced down, he saw the kid staring at their joined hands with something like fascination. Slowly, Shouto pressed his palm harder against Touya's, as if testing the pressure. Then, without warning, he leaned forward, his free hand coming up to grip Touya's sleeve.

Oh.

Touya hesitated, then carefully shifted, wrapping an arm around Shouto's shoulders. The kid went rigid for a second, then melted into it, his forehead bumping against Touya's collarbone.

Natsuo made a disgusted noise. "You know he's not a baby, right?"

Touya didn't look up. "Yeah, I know."

"Then why are you-"

"Because he likes it," Touya said flatly. “He seems relaxed.” 

Natsuo blinked.

Touya exhaled through his nose. Christ, they really don't know anything about him.

"Never mind. Rules." He held up his free hand, counting off on his fingers. "One. My meds are in the bathroom cabinet. Don't touch them. Don't look at them. If you so much as think about stealing a painkiller, I will know, and you will regret it."

Natsuo's scowl deepened. "I'm not a fucking theif."

"Didn't say you were. But they're strong shit, and I need them to function. So hands off."

Natsuo muttered something under his breath but didn't argue.

"Two," Touya continued, "you don't leave this apartment without telling me first. Not to go to the corner store, not to take a piss outside, nothing. If you walk out that door without a heads-up, I call the cops and report you missing. Got it?"

"That's bullshit-"

"Got it?"

Natsuo's jaw clenched, but he gave a sharp nod.

"Three. You respect each other and the neighbors. No screaming, no punching walls, no setting shit on fire."

Natsuo scoffed.

Touya leveled him with a look. "Try me."

For a second, they just stared at each other: Natsuo bristling, Touya unimpressed. Then Natsuo looked away first, shoving his hands in his pockets.

"Whatever."

Touya squeezed Shouto’s hand once. "That goes for you too, kid."

Shouto didn't respond, but his fingers tightened slightly around Touya's.

Natsuo watched them, his expression unreadable. Then, with a scoff, he turned and stalked back to his room, slamming the door behind him.

Touya sighed, rubbing at his temples with his free hand.

This is going to be a nightmare.

Chapter 4: Pressure Points

Notes:

I forgot to specify the ages of everyone here- it differs slightly than in canon:
Touya: 24
Fuyumi: 22
Natsuo: 16
Shouto: 11

Touya woke to the sensation of being watched.

Blinking against the morning light filtering through his cheap blinds, he turned his head to find Shouto sitting cross-legged on the floor beside the bed, staring at him with unblinking heterochromatic eyes. The kid had clearly been awake for a while—his hair was damp at the ends like he'd washed his face, and he was already dressed in the same clothes from yesterday, though they looked freshly shaken out.

"Christ," Touya croaked, rubbing sleep from his eyes. "You're like a creepy little owl."

Shouto didn't respond, but his fingers twitched against his knees where they rested.

His phone buzzed on the nightstand.

KEIGO 🦅: you alive?
KEIGO 🦅: was gonna head over around 11

Touya winced. Right. Their plans.

TOUYA: family emergency. can't today
TOUYA: sorry. still want to see you once shit settles

The reply came instantly.

KEIGO 🦅: everything ok?
KEIGO 🦅: need me to bring anything?

Touya's chest tightened. Three years ago, he would have snarled at the offer. Now… 

TOUYA: might need help with groceries later, but ill let u know
TOUYA: thanks

He set the phone down and stretched, his scars pulling uncomfortably. His morning meds sat in the organizer on the nightstand:nerve blockers, quirk suppressants, a corticosteroid inhaler for his lungs. He dry-swallowed them with practiced ease.

Shouto watched the entire process with unsettling focus.

"Morning routine," Touya explained gruffly. "You'll get used to it."

---

When Touya shuffled to the bathroom, bleary-eyed and stiff-limbed, he turned to find Shouto already standing in the doorway, watching. The kid didn't ask to join, just hovered at the threshold until Touya sighed.

"Fine. But no staring while I piss."

Shouto obediently turned to face the wall, but the moment Touya finished, those mismatched eyes were back on him, tracking every movement as he started the shower.

The kid perched on the closed toilet lid while Touya showered, his small hands folded neatly in his lap, his gaze never wavering. When steam fogged the mirror, Shouto reached out to trace patterns in the condensation with one finger, his movements precise, almost clinical.

Touya turned off the water with a sigh. "You next, kid."

Shouto didn't protest, but his fingers clenched slightly in the hem of his shirt.

"It's just water," Touya said, grabbing a fresh towel. "You're not scared of water, are you?"

A tiny shake of the head. Touya watched as Shouto mechanically removed his clothes, his movements stiff like he was following a memorized routine. The scars weren't just on his face - thin lines, burns, crisscrossed his shoulders and back, old marks from training sessions gone wrong.

The shower spray startled him at first- he flinched when it hit his shoulders - but within seconds he was standing perfectly still under the water, letting it run over him without moving, without reacting, like he'd been trained to endure rather than enjoy.

From outside the shower, Touya cleared his throat. "Don’t forget soap."

Shouto blinked, like the concept was foreign. 

The bathroom was still thick with steam when Touya opened the medicine cabinet. The scar cream sat between the bottles of painkillers and quirk suppressants, its plain white label worn at the edges from constant use.

Shouto, now dressed in clean clothes, watched from the doorway as Touya scooped out a dollop of the pale green ointment. The scent of aloe and something faintly medicinal filled the space between them.

"Gotta do this every morning," Touya muttered, working the cream into the worst of the scars along his collarbone first. "Keeps the skin from getting too tight."

Shouto inched closer, his damp hair clinging to his forehead. His eyes tracked the movement of Touya's fingers with an intensity that should have been unnerving.

"You wanna try?"

For a moment, Touya thought Shouto would refuse. Then, his hands shot out, grabbing Touya's wrist with startling strength. Shouto yanked his arm forward, pressing Touya's cream-slick fingers directly into the skin of his scarred cheek. The motion was rough, ike he thought Touya would pull away if he didn't force him to comply.

"Hey, easy!" Touya hissed, trying to gentle his grip. Shouto's fingers were like iron around his wrist. "You don't gotta manhandle me, kid. I was the one who offered."

Shouto didn't let go.

Touya recognized the look. 

This is how they've always touched me. This is all I know.

Touya stopped pulling away, and Shouto’s grip loosened.

"Okay," he said softly. "We gotta be gentle, yeah? Scars are tender. People are tender." He turned his hand slowly, letting Shouto feel the movement without breaking contact. "Like this. See?"

Shouto's grip continued to loosen incrementally as Touya smoothed the cream along his scar, his touch feather-light. The kid's breath hitched at the first proper stroke: not rough, not demanding, just careful.

Touya's throat tightened.

No one had ever touched him like he was something fragile, instead of someone to be pushed and pulled around.

The cream glistened on Shouto's cheek as Touya worked it in, the skin pink and angry under his fingertips. Shouto leaned into the touch, his eyes slipping shut, his entire body swaying forward like a flower toward sunlight.

Touya's vision blurred.

Christ.

He blinked hard, his breath shuddering in his chest. The bathroom was too hot, the air too thick. Shouto's scar under his fingers… 

Rei did that. Rei, who used to sing them lullabies, who tucked blankets around their shoulders when they were sick … 

A drop of water hit Shouto's forehead.

The kid's eyes flew open, his brow furrowing as he looked up at Touya's face.

"Steam," Touya lied hoarsely, swiping at his own cheeks. "C'mon, let's eat."

Shouto didn't move. Just stared at the wetness on Touya's fingers, his head tilted like he was solving a puzzle. Then, slowly, he reached up and pressed his palm to Touya's damp cheek.

A mirror of the gesture.

You're crying.

Shouto leaned forward, pressing his forehead against Touya's sternum.

Touya exhaled shakily and let his arms come up around the kid. He wasn’t sure who it was helping more.

---

Shouto followed him to the living room, and Shouto darted ahead, scrambling onto the couch with single-minded purpose.

Touya barely had time to sit down before Shouto was on him.

The kid climbed into his lap with the same focused intensity he'd shown with the scar cream, pressing his entire body against Touya's chest like he was trying to mold himself into the shape of him. His arms wedged between them, his legs curled up, his head tucked under Touya's chin.

"Jesus-" Touya wheezed as Shouto's full weight settled on his ribs. The kid was dense, his body temperature perfectly regulated, cool where Touya ran hot, like holding a living, breathing ice pack.

Shouto didn't wiggle or adjust. He went utterly still, his breathing slowing almost immediately. Not asleep, but somewhere close, his body finally receiving the deep pressure input it had been craving for years.

Touya's arms hovered awkwardly for a moment before settling around him.

No one's held him like this.

The thought hit with unexpected force. Rei might have, once; Touya had vague memories of her cradling him as a child, her hands gentle in his hair, but Shouto? He had been raised by Endeavor alone, with Natsuo too young, and Fuyumi too scared to intervene.

Touya's throat tightened.

---

Fuyumi let herself in, her arms laden with grocery bags. She froze in the doorway at the sight before her: Touya wheezing slightly under Shouto's weight, his face a mix of resignation and something dangerously close to affection.

"I brought…" Fuyumi's voice cracked. She cleared her throat. "I brought breakfast."

Touya lifted a hand in greeting, careful not to dislodge Shouto. 

“You’re so loud, jeez!” 

A door slammed down the hall as Natsuo retreated back into his room.

Shouto, meanwhile, had gone rigid at the interruption. But when Fuyumi approached, he reached for her with grabby hands that made Touya's chest tighten.

"He wants pressure," Touya explained as Fuyumi hesitated. 

Fuyumi's brow furrowed. "But he's never… he doesn't like being touched."

"I think he might," Touya corrected gently. "He just doesn't like being grabbed, maybe, or pulled around, but deep pressure's different: it's sensory, calms the nervous system."

Fuyumi looked lost. "How do you know that?"

"Because it's my job to know," Touya said, sharper than he intended. He took a breath. "Look, his quirk gives him perfect temperature regulation, right? His body's always at equilibrium. But pressure, that's something he's never had control over. I think it might feel nice to be squeezed, right Shouto?"

Fuyumi's face froze for a moment before she schooled it into something neutral. “I’d better get cooking.” 

Fuyumi cooked while Touya wheezed under Shouto's renewed assault, his body sprawled across Touya's chest like he was trying to fuse them together.

"You're gonna crush my lungs," Touya grumbled, but he didn't push him off.

Shouto didn't respond, his eyes half-lidded and distant. He wasn't asleep; Touya could feel the occasional twitch of his fingers, the slight shift of his weight, but he wasn't entirely present either. Somewhere between meditation and dissociation, floating in that hazy space where the world couldn't reach him.

Fuyumi moved around the kitchen with practiced ease, the rhythmic chop of vegetables and the hiss of oil in the pan filling the apartment with comforting noise. Every so often, she'd glance over at them, her expression unreadable.

"He's really... enjoying that?" she asked quietly, stirring a pot of miso.

Touya snorted. "You see him trying to crawl inside my ribcage? Yeah, I’d say he's okay."

"But he never-"

"Because no one ever let him," Touya interrupted, "or showed him how to ask, or even told him it was an option."

Fuyumi's hands stilled on the knife.

Touya sighed, adjusting Shouto's weight slightly.

---

She set the last dish on the coffee table with a quiet clink, steaming miso soup, rice, tamagoyaki still glistening from the pan. The savory aroma filled the small apartment, and for a moment, everything felt almost normal.

She settled onto the couch next to Touya, smoothing her skirt nervously. Shouto, who had been a dead weight across Touya’s chest, lifted his head at her presence.

"Hi, Shou," Fuyumi said softly, offering a hesitant smile. "You want breakfast?"

Shouto didn’t answer. Instead, he moved, clambering over Touya with all the grace of an overeager puppy, bony knees digging into ribs and thighs as he transitioned from one sibling to the other. Touya wheezed as an elbow jammed into his stomach.

"Ow, fuck, kid, watch the-"

Shouto paid no mind, already wedging himself between Fuyumi and the couch armrest, his back pressed flush against her side.

Fuyumi stiffened, chopsticks hovering over the food, but Shouto didn’t seem to notice, just leaned harder into her, his head tipping onto her shoulder. The movement was so deliberate it bordered on aggressive, less a request for affection than a demand for sensory input.

Touya watched, equal parts amused and gutted, as Fuyumi's hands fluttered uncertainly before settling stiffly around Shouto's shoulders. Her touch was hesitant, like she was handling something fragile, which was laughable given how Shouto was basically using her as a human backrest.

Natsuo shuffled in, rubbing sleep from his eyes. He took one look at the scene: Fuyumi frozen with Shouto glued to her side, Touya massaging his bruised ribs, and snorted.

"What the hell is this?"

"Family bonding," Touya deadpanned.

Natsuo opened his mouth, seemed to think better of it, and stalked past them to the kitchen instead. 

Touya rolled his eyes and reached for the paperwork Takada had left. "Alright. Let's figure this shit out."

Natsuo returned with a heaping plate of food, flopped into the armchair in the corner, and after eating, promptly fell back asleep, his long legs dangling over the armrest.

---

Natsuo's school records were a mess.

Touya flipped through the pages, his eyebrows climbing higher with each disciplinary note. "Refused quirk assessment." "Physical altercation with a classmate." "Excessive tardiness." 

Fuyumi traced a finger over one particularly damning report. "He kept getting suspended for fighting," she admitted quietly. “Or refusing to go to school.” 

Touya glanced at Natsuo's sleeping form in the armchair: all long limbs and defensive, even in rest. 

Shouto’s were somehow worse.

No school records past first grade. No doctor visits beyond mandatory quirk registration. The most recent entry was from a few days ago: "Patient non-verbal. Signs of repeated head trauma. Refer to neurology."

Touya’s fingers tightened around the paper.

Fuyumi fidgeted. "He could read before… before everything happened with Mom. Simple math too. But after…"

"Endeavor just kept him locked up training?" Touya finished flatly.

Fuyumi nodded, eyes fixed on Shouto where he slept against her. "Dad said… he said regular school would ‘make him soft.’"

Touya had to set the papers down before he burned holes in them.

Fuyumi shifted, making Shouto grumble in his sleep. "I'm sure once he's settled here, he'll catch up. Middle school will-"

"He's not going to middle school," Touya cut in, gentler than he felt.

Fuyumi blinked. "What?"

Touya tapped the most recent document: the hospital discharge papers. "They noted he's non-verbal. That he didn't respond to questions. That's not just shyness, Fuyumi."

"But he's always been quiet…"

"Not talking at all for five years isn't being quiet." Touya kept his voice low but firm. "And from what I’ve seen: the chewing, the rocking, the way he needs pressure… that's not just being sensitive or weird. It's..." He hesitated, searching for words she'd understand. "It's like his brain works differently. And that's okay, but it means he needs help he can’t get at a normal school. You get it?"

Touya pointed to the empty medical history section. "That head injury when he was six? That probably did damage. And instead of getting him help, Dad just locked him in a dojo and called it homeschooling."

A tear splashed onto the paper. Fuyumi wiped at her face hastily. "I tried…"

"I know." Touya didn't let her finish. "But now we do better. I've got contacts at the university; I'm still finishing my master's. There's programs for kids like Shouto. Special classes, therapists who know how to work with non-verbal students."

Fuyumi stared down at Shouto's sleeping face. "You really think he needs that?"

"I think we have to try it."

Chapter 5: First Days

Touya woke to the sound of his alarm and the immediate, bone-deep protest of his body. His scars ached from yesterday’s unexpected weight; Shouto had spent half the afternoon draped over him like a particularly stubborn cat, and his lungs burned from the effort of keeping up with two kids who had, until yesterday, been strangers.

He rolled over, expecting to find Shouto already awake and watching him, but the kid was still curled on his side of the bed, his face half-buried in the pillow. His scarred cheek was pressed into the fabric, his breathing slow and even.

Small mercies.

Touya dragged himself upright, wincing as his joints popped. His morning meds sat on the nightstand, and he dry-swallowed them before shuffling to the bathroom.

By the time he emerged, showered and dressed, Shouto was sitting up, blinking sleepily at the wall.

"Morning," Touya said, keeping his voice low. "You hungry?"

Shouto didn’t answer, but he slid off the bed and followed Touya to the kitchen, his steps quiet and precise.

Natsuo, predictably, was harder to rouse.

"Five more minutes," he grumbled, pulling the blanket over his head when Touya knocked on his door.

"It’s 6:30," Touya said. "School starts at 8."

"Don’t care."

Touya sighed. "I’m making eggs."

A pause. Then, muffled: "...With cheese?"

"Yeah, with cheese."

Natsuo’s door creaked open a minute later, the kid’s hair sticking up in every direction. He squinted at Touya like he was personally responsible for the sun rising.

"You look like shit," Natsuo informed him.

Touya snorted. "You’re one to talk."

Breakfast was a quiet affair. Shouto picked at his food, eating in slow, methodical bites, while Natsuo inhaled his portion and half of Shouto’s before deciding to shower.

Touya watched Shouto push his remaining rice around the plate. "You don’t like it?"

Shouto didn’t look up, but his fingers tightened around his chopsticks.

"Okay," Touya said, filing that away for later. "We’ll find something you do like."

By some miracle, they were all dressed, fed, and out the door by 8:15.

Natsuo’s new school was a short subway ride away, and Touya walked him to the station, Shouto trailing silently behind.

"You good?" Touya asked as they reached the turnstiles.

Natsuo shrugged, adjusting his backpack. "It’s school. Whatever."

Touya hesitated, then clapped him on the shoulder. "Text me if you need anything."

Natsuo blinked, clearly surprised by the gesture, but nodded before disappearing into the crowd.

Shouto stared after him, his expression unreadable.

"Come on," Touya said, nudging him toward the bus stop. "We’ve got work."

---

Shouto hated the bus. His breath hitched as the doors hissed shut behind them, his mismatched eyes darting between the fluorescent lights overhead and the sea of strangers pressed too close. The engine roared to life, and Shouto flinched hard enough to knock his knee against Touya’s. His fingers dug into the fabric of his own pants, his knuckles white.

"Hey," Touya murmured, leaning down so only Shouto could hear. "Eyes on me."

Shouto’s gaze snapped to Touya’s face, his breathing uneven.

"Breathe in," Touya said, exaggerating the motion. "Hold it. Now out."

He repeated it until Shouto’s shoulders loosened slightly, until his grip on his own thighs wasn’t quite so desperate.

By the time they reached their stop, Shouto was pale but calm, his free hand worrying at the chew toy around his neck.

Touya’s workplace was a modest clinic tucked between a ramen shop and a laundromat, its walls lined with posters explaining quirk safety and developmental milestones. The waiting room was already half-full when they arrived: parents with fidgeting children, teenagers with nervous expressions, all here for one reason: their quirks were hurting them.

Shouto froze in the doorway, his eyes darting between the patients. A girl no older than eight sat in the corner, her fingers sparking uncontrollably every few seconds. A boy across from her had skin that cracked like dry earth whenever he moved too quickly.

Dr. Ishikawa, Touya’s supervisor, glanced up from her clipboard. Her serpentine eyes flicked from Touya to Shouto, taking in the way the kid was practically glued to Touya’s side.

"He can stay in your office today," she said, her voice low. "But we’ll need a long-term solution."

Touya nodded, guiding Shouto down the hall.

His office was small, just a desk, two chairs, and a shelf overflowing with textbooks and case files. He nudged the second chair closer to the window, where the light was softer. "You can sit here."

Shouto sat, but his attention was fixed on the closed door, his body tense like he expected someone to burst in at any moment.

Touya’s first appointment was a twelve-year-old boy whose fire quirk kept igniting his own hair. 

"Alright, Haruto, let's see those control exercises."

The twelve-year-old scowled at the candle between them but obediently held out his palm. A small flame flickered to life: steady at first, then flaring abruptly as the boy's frustration spiked. The scent of singed hair filled the office as his bangs smoldered.

Touya didn't flinch. He'd smelled worse.

"Breathe," he reminded, tapping the laminated emotion wheel on the desk. "Name the feeling before it names you."

"Stupid," Haruto muttered, but his shoulders dropped slightly. "It's stupid that I have to-"

"Ah-ah." Touya nudged the biofeedback monitor closer. The screen displayed real-time quirk activity in pulsing orange waves. "What's the number one rule?"

Haruto sighed dramatically. "No value judgments during sessions."

"Good boy." Touya grinned when Haruto made a face at the praise. "Now, deep breath in, and slow the flame on the exhale. Like cooling soup."

As Haruto practiced, Touya adjusted the therapy plan in his notes:

Progress: 30 sec controlled burn (up from 15)

Next step: Introduce thermal gloves

---

The next, an extreme safety hazard. 

Mika's gravity quirk activated when she blinked. Literally.

"Third floor this time," she announced, plopping into the chair with her arm in a sling. The fifteen-year-old smiled, her cotton candy perfume following her into the room. "But! I remembered the parachute stance!"

Touya checked her chart: mild wrist fracture, no concussion. "That's my overachiever." He tossed her a stress ball shaped like All Might's face. "Now show me without breaking bones."

Mika grinned and stood, planting her feet in the wide stance Touya had drilled into her. She squeezed the ball once, twice, then deliberately blinked.

Instead of plummeting, she hovered six inches above the ground for a full three seconds before landing lightly.

"Yes!" She punched the air, then winced at the movement.

"Easy there, Space Girl." Touya noted the progress in her file. "Next week we'll work on directional falls."

Mika stuck out her tongue as a form of agreement. As she left, she waved at Shouto.

---

He had a soft spot for his next client.

The moment Touya opened the soundproofed therapy room, a familiar vibration hummed through the floorboards: three quick pulses, then two long ones. Ren's greeting.

"Hey, superstar," Touya smiled, stepping inside to find seventeen-year-old Ren sprawled on the crash mat, his tablet propped against his knees. His mother, Mrs. Shirogane, sat in the observation chair knitting what appeared to be the world's longest scarf. She waved with her needles.

Ren's entire body vibrated with barely-contained energy, making the mat's surface ripple like water. His quirk, echolocation turned inward, let him perceive the world through vibrations rather than sound, but it also meant he felt every footstep, every car engine, every refrigerator hum in a six-block radius.

Touya knelt beside the mat, pressing his palms flat against the surface. "Big day?"

Ren's fingers danced across his tablet's screen. The synthesized voice announced: "Bakery. New mixer. Earthquake. Earthquake. Earthquake."

Mrs. Shirogane sighed. "We had to leave halfway through his birthday."

"Ouch." Touya nudged the weighted blanket toward Ren. "Well, you know the drill: let's make our own music first."

Touya pulled out their "instrument box," objects that made predictable vibrations. The tuning fork came first, its 128Hz hum making Ren's eyes light up. Then the electric toothbrush taped to a wooden plank (Ren's favorite), and finally the mini subwoofer playing bass tones no one could hear but Ren could feel through his bones. Ren immediately rolled onto his stomach, pressing his cheek against the mat to feel the vibrations. His breathing slowed as he matched Touya's rhythm.

Shouto, watching silently from the corner, tilted his head as Ren began to "sing" along, his quirk modulating the vibrations into something suspiciously close to the chorus of "Y.M.C.A."

Next, the hardest part: the work part.

"Okay, superstar," he said, keeping his voice light but firm. "Time for quiet feet."

Ren's face immediately scrunched in displeasure, his fingers drumming rapidly against his tablet. The synthesized voice blurted out: "NO QUIET. LOUD IS GOOD."

Mrs. Shirogane set down her knitting. "Ren."

Just that, and Ren slumped slightly, though his lower lip jutted out.

Touya didn't push. He knew what this cost Ren. Feeling the world through vibrations was as natural to him as breathing, and asking him to dampen that was like asking someone to voluntarily mute half their senses. But it was necessary, unless they wanted a repeat of last month's incident where Ren had a meltdown in the grocery store and accidentally shattered every glass bottle in the dairy aisle.

"We'll go slow," Touya promised, setting the noise-canceling headphones on the mat between them. "Just five minutes today. Then we can do the blocks after, yeah?"

Ren vibrated the mat in protest, but reached for the headphones.

Touya pulled up the seismograph app on his phone, placing it on the floor. "Show me your normal."

Ren took a deep breath and let his quirk activate fully. The graph spiked wildly as his vibrations traveled through the floor: chaotic peaks and valleys mapping every frustrated tremor in his body.

"Good," Touya said, because it was. Because acknowledging the starting point mattered. "Now..."

He placed his hands palm-up on the mat. Ren hesitated, then pressed his own hands against them. Skin-to-skin contact always grounded him best.

"Match me," Touya instructed, deliberately making his breathing visible, in through the nose, out through pursed lips like blowing out a candle.

For the first thirty seconds, Ren's vibrations only intensified, his frustration mounting as he struggled to regulate. The seismograph lines jagged violently.

Then, a single steady pulse. Then another. Uneven, but there.

"That's it!" Mrs. Shirogane whispered.

Touya didn't speak, just kept breathing, and kept offering the anchor of his hands. Slowly, so slowly, Ren's vibrations began to sync—not perfectly, but closer. The seismograph smoothed from frantic scribbles into something approaching rhythm.

At three minutes, Ren whined high in his throat. His fingers twitched against Touya's palms.

"You're doing so well," Touya murmured. "Just a little longer."

The four-minute mark hit with Ren's entire body shaking from the effort of suppression, sweat beading at his temples. But the vibrations remained controlled, never gone, but managed.

When the timer finally beeped at five minutes, Ren collapsed backward onto the mat with a thud, his chest heaving. The moment the headphones came off, his tablet practically flew into his hands:

"HATE QUIET FEET."

"I know," Touya said, already marking the progress in his notes. Baseline variance had decreased by 18%, their best yet. "But you did it. Five whole minutes! That's new."

As promised, they ended with the foam blocks: building increasingly elaborate towers just to knock them down with precisely controlled vibration bursts.

By the end of the session, Ren was drained but calm, his vibrations settled into a steady, contented pulse. Mrs. Shirogane packed up his tablet and weighted blanket, smiling as her son lingered near the door, rocking slightly on his heels.

"Thank you again, Himura-san," she said warmly. "He's been practicing the breathing at home. It's helping."

Touya nodded. "He's doing great. Really."

As they turned to leave, Mrs. Shirogane's gaze flicked to Shouto, still sitting quietly in the corner. The boy had his sleeve in his mouth again, chewing absently as he watched Ren.

Touya caught the movement and gently redirected him, pressing the silicone chew toy into his hand instead. Shouto took it without protest, his eyes still fixed on Ren.

Mrs. Shirogane didn't comment, but her expression softened in quiet recognition. She touched Ren's shoulder, guiding him toward the door, but not before Ren sent one last pulse through the floor: a gentle, deliberate vibration aimed at Shouto.

A farewell. Shouto didn’t react.

---

The late afternoon sun painted the streets in gold as Touya and Shouto made their way to the subway station. Shouto’s grip on Touya’s sleeve hadn’t loosened since the bus ride, his fingers curled tightly in the fabric as if afraid Touya might vanish if he let go. The crowded sidewalks didn’t help; every brush against his shoulder made him flinch, every loud voice sent his free hand flying to his ear.

Touya kept his strides slow, his voice low. "Almost there, kid."

Natsuo was already waiting at the station entrance, slouched against the railing with his backpack dangling from one shoulder. His uniform was rumpled, his tie loose, and the scowl on his face could’ve curdled milk.

"Took you long enough," he grumbled, pushing off the railing.

Touya raised an eyebrow. "Long day?"

Natsuo’s glare could’ve melted steel. "They put me in the remedial class."

Ah. That explained it.

"They’ll bump you up once your records transfer," Touya said, steering them toward the quieter side streets. "Till then, enjoy the easy A."

Natsuo muttered something under his breath but fell into step beside them. Shouto walked between them, his steps measured, his gaze fixed ahead like he was navigating a minefield.

By the time they got home, Touya’s lungs ached, and his head throbbed from the day’s sensory overload (both his and Shouto’s). But the boys needed to eat, so he shoved it down and set to work in the kitchen.

Natsuo collapsed onto the couch, flipping through channels with aggressive button presses. Shouto hovered near the doorway, his fingers twisting in his sleeves.

"You okay?" Touya asked, glancing over his shoulder.

Shouto didn’t answer, but his eyes flicked to the stove.

"Not hungry?"

A tiny shake of his head.

Touya sighed. "Sorry, Sho. But you’re eating something tonight."

He made curry: simple, filling, and impossible to mess up. Natsuo inhaled three servings without pause, barely coming up for air between bites. Shouto, predictably, pushed his around the plate, eating only the carrots and rice before setting his chopsticks down with finality.

Touya didn’t push. He’d learned that much already.

Natsuo sprawled across the living room floor with his textbooks, grumbling under his breath about "pointless busywork." Shouto sat at the table, staring blankly at a children’s workbook Fuyumi had dropped off with his stuff.

Touya left them to it, retreating to the couch with his own stack of grad school materials. His master’s program didn’t pause just because his life had imploded.

At some point, his phone buzzed.

KEIGO 🦅: how’s the fam?

Touya glanced at Natsuo, now dramatically sighing over his homework, and Shouto, methodically tearing the corner of his workbook page into tiny shreds.

TOUYA: alive

Keigo sent back a laughing emoji, and Touya’s chest warmed despite himself.

At 11:30, Touya realized with a start that he’d lost track of time.

"Natsuo, bed," he called, rubbing his eyes.

"Almost done," Natsuo grumbled, but he closed his notebook with a snap.

Shouto was still at the table, his workbook replaced with a pile of shredded paper. His eyes were glazed over, his movements sluggish with exhaustion.

Touya crouched in front of him. "Time for bed, kid."

Shouto blinked slowly, then reached for him.

Touya exhaled but let Shouto lean into him as they walked to the bedroom. He helped him change, brushed his teeth for him when Shouto just stared blankly at the toothbrush, and tucked him in with more care than he’d ever admit to.

Natsuo’s door clicked shut down the hall.

What a fucking day.

But as he listened to Shouto’s steady breathing beside him, he couldn’t bring himself to regret it.

---

The clinic’s break room smelled of stale coffee and microwave popcorn. Touya leaned against the counter, cradling his phone between his shoulder and ear as he stirred sugar into his coffee with one hand. The other hand absently massaged the tight scar tissue along his ribs: four days of Shouto’s weight against his chest had left him aching more than usual.

The line rang twice before his grandmother picked up.

“Touya,” she said, her voice warm but measured. “You’re calling early.”

“Morning, Obaasan,” he said, blowing steam off his coffee. “Just had a break between clients. How are you?”

A pause. The familiar rustle of her setting down her knitting. “The gardenias are blooming.Your grandfather just finished repotting the bonsai; nearly threw out his back doing it, stubborn old man.”

A gruff voice muttered in the background. “I did not throw out my back.”

Touya smirked. “Sounds like you’re both in top form.”

“And you?” His grandmother’s tone shifted, the way it always did when she was probing for information. “How’s work? Are you eating properly?”

“Work’s fine. Eating’s… happening.” He glanced at his half-finished coffee: his nutritious breakfast. “Listen, I’ve got some news.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. So, uh. The boys are staying with me for a while.”

A beat of silence.

“What boys?”

Touya winced. 

“My brothers,” he said, bracing himself. “Natsuo and Shouto.”

A sharp inhale. “What?”

And then, distantly, his grandfather’s voice in the background: “What’s happening?”

His grandmother’s tone was clipped. “Touya says he has his brothers.”

“What?”

Touya pinched the bridge of his nose. There was a distant rustling, and then, his grandfather’s deeper voice cut in. “Explain.”

So he did.

The condensed version, anyway: Endeavor’s arrest, the social worker’s visit, the fact that he was now, somehow, responsible for two kids he barely knew.

His grandmother took the phone back, her voice tight. “That man. I told our daughter not to marry him.”

“Obaa-san-”

“No. He was always too angry. Too loud.” Her words were clipped, decades of bitterness simmering under each syllable.

His grandfather muttered something in the background.”Should’ve sent the boys here years ago,” but his grandmother scoffed.

“And do what with them? We could hardly care for Touya.”

Touya winced. That stung, even if it was true.

His grandfather’s voice grew closer. “You need to tell that social worker… Akane?- to take them. This isn’t sustainable.”

“It’s temporary,” Touya said automatically.

“For how long?”

“I don’t know.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, Shouto’s got a neuro eval today. He’s… something’s not right. I think it’s brain damage.”

A beat of silence. His grandmother’s voice softened. “From…?”

“From everything. Did you know my mom is in a mental hospital?”

Another pause. Then, reluctantly, glossing over his question: “...And Natsuo? He’s okay?”

Touya exhaled. “Angry. Like him. But his quirk’s weak, so at least he can’t set the apartment on fire.”

His grandfather grunted. “Small mercies.”

“Touya,” his grandmother cut in, her tone shifting to something painfully gentle, “you take such good care of yourself. But your health… it’s fickle.”

He knew what she meant. The hospitalizations. The days he couldn’t get out of bed. The way his lungs sometimes gave up without warning.

“I’ve got it under control,” he said, though the words tasted hollow.

“Do you?”

Touya watched a sparrow land on the railing, tilting its head at him. “For now.”

A long silence. Then his grandmother sighed. “Call us after the evaluation.”

“I will.”

“And Touya,” His grandfather’s voice was gruff but unmistakably worried. “If it becomes too much…”

“I know.”

But they all knew that even if it came to it... he wouldn’t ask.

---

The waiting room smelled like antiseptic and artificial lemon. Shouto sat rigid in his chair, fingers tapping an uneven rhythm against his knees, his gaze darting between the door and the fish tank in the corner. Every time it swung open, his shoulders tensed, waiting.

Then Fuyumi arrived, her backpack slung over one shoulder, her glasses slightly askew from rushing.

"Sho!"

Shouto was on his feet before Touya could blink, crossing the room in quick, stiff strides before pressing himself against her side. Fuyumi stumbled slightly at the impact but recovered, her arms coming up automatically, still awkward, but less hesitant than before.

"Hey," she murmured, smoothing a hand over his hair. "You okay?"

Shouto didn’t answer, just leaned harder into her, his face half-buried in her sweater.

Touya watched from his seat, exhaustion already creeping into his bones. He hadn’t slept much: between Shouto’s restlessness and his own chronic pain, nights were rarely kind.

"You ready for this?" Fuyumi asked, looking at Touya over Shouto’s head.

"No," he admitted, standing. "But it’s happening anyway."

The neurologist, Dr. Kobayashi, was a no-nonsense woman with sharp eyes and a voice that never rose above a calm, even tone, something Shouto seemed to appreciate. She ran him through a battery of assessments, and Shouto tolerated most of them with blank-faced compliance, though he balked at the MRI, his breath hitching the moment the machine hummed to life. It took both Touya and Fuyumi standing within his line of sight, their hands pressed flat against the glass, before he finally lay still.

Then came the history.

Fuyumi answered most of the questions: about Shouto’s developmental milestones, the incident at six years old, the years of "homeschooling" that amounted to little more than quirk training.

"And his speech?" Dr. Kobayashi asked, typing notes.

Fuyumi hesitated. "He... stopped. After the injury."

"Completely?"

"Yes."

"Any attempts since?"

"Not words. Sometimes sounds. Or…" She glanced at Shouto, who was now methodically stacking blocks on the floor. "He hums. When he’s upset."

Dr. Kobayashi nodded, her expression unreadable.

Two hours later, they sat in her office, the late afternoon light slanting across the desk.

"Shouto meets the criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorder," Dr. Kobayashi said, her tone matter-of-fact. "Given the traumatic brain injury at age six, though, it’s impossible to say how much of his current presentation is innate neurodivergence versus acquired symptoms. They’re... intertwined."

Fuyumi’s breath hitched. "But… he could still improve, right?"

"With the right support, absolutely." Dr. Kobayashi slid a pamphlet across the desk. "The Shinjuku Special Education Center has experience with cases like his. Small classes, sensory accommodations-"

"But he’s smart," Fuyumi interrupted, her voice cracking. "He used to talk. If we just… if we help him enough-"

Touya’s stomach turned.

Dr. Kobayashi’s expression softened. "Miss Todoroki, I understand this is difficult to hear. But Shouto’s needs aren’t a reflection of his intelligence. He is smart. That’s not the issue."

Fuyumi’s hands twisted in her lap. "I just... I thought maybe, if he was somewhere safe, he’d start talking again. That it was just... fear, or-"

No.

Touya’s vision blurred at the edges.

It wasn’t just the words, it was the hope in Fuyumi’s voice. The desperate, clawing denial that after everything, Shouto might still be different. That the damage wasn’t something love alone could fix.

And beneath that, the unspoken truth: This is Endeavor’s fault.

Touya’s quirk surged under his skin like a live wire.

The high dose of carefully calibrated suppressants in his system fought to contain it, but his body had limits. Nausea rolled through him in waves, sharp and acidic. He’d built up a tolerance over the years, could usually push through it, but this… This was too much.

His throat burned. His pulse roared in his ears.

"Bathroom," he gritted out, standing so abruptly his chair screeched.

Shouto startled, Fuyumi reached for him. "Touya?"

He was already out the door.

He barely made it to the stall before his knees hit the tile.

Vomit burned up his throat, bitter with bile and the metallic aftertaste of quirk suppressants. His body was rejecting them- his fire too strong, his emotions too raw.

Fuyumi’s face. That fucking hope.

Like Shouto was a puzzle to solve. Like if they just tried hard enough, he’d magically become normal.

Touya retched again, his fingers trembling against the toilet seat.

And Endeavor… Endeavor did this.

Touya’s fire flared again, and this time, a wisp of smoke escaped his lips.

Shit.

He forced himself to breathe, in through the nose, out through the mouth. The suppressants would stabilize if he just calmed down, if he just– 

Another heave, another wave of heat crawling up his throat.

Five minutes. Ten. Until his breathing steadied, until the fire receded to a smolder.

When he finally stood, he splashed water on his face, the cold a temporary balm.

Get it together.

---

The late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the pavement as they left the clinic. Shouto walked between them, his fingers knotted in the strap of Fuyumi’s bag, his steps slow with exhaustion. The evaluation had drained him: hours of tests, bright lights, unfamiliar hands prodding and measuring.

Fuyumi checked her phone. “Natsuo’s last class ends in twenty minutes. We could meet him at that café near the station?”

Touya’s stomach turned at the thought of food, of noise, of people. The nausea had faded, but his head still throbbed, his body wrung out from the surge of his quirk.

“No,” he said, too sharp. He softened his voice when Fuyumi blinked at him. “Sorry. I just… I need to lie down. Still feeling a little off.”

Fuyumi studied him for a second and nodded. “Okay. Home, then.”

The bus was crowded, the air thick with the scent of sweat and stale perfume. Shouto stiffened the moment they stepped on, his fingers digging into Touya’s sleeve. Touya didn’t hesitate. He guided Shouto to the least cramped corner and pulled him close, one hand cupped over the kid’s ear, the other bracing them both against the lurch of the vehicle.

Shouto melted into the contact, his forehead pressed against Touya’s collarbone, his breathing steadying by degrees.

Fuyumi watched them, her expression unreadable. Then, softly: “You’re really good with him.”

Touya kept his gaze fixed on the window. “Thanks.” 

The apartment was quiet when they returned, the only sound the hum of the refrigerator and the distant chatter of neighbors through the walls. Touya barely made it to the couch before collapsing onto it, his body leaden with fatigue.

Fuyumi busied herself in the kitchen, filling the kettle for tea, while Shouto wandered to the middle of the living room and sat cross-legged on the floor. He pulled a coloring book and crayons from the shelf beneath the coffee table, Touya had bought them days ago, after noticing how Shouto’s fingers twitched for something to do during quiet moments.

Touya closed his eyes, just for a second. 

The front door slammed open.

“I’m never taking that fucking train again,” Natsuo announced, kicking off his shoes with unnecessary force. He froze when he saw the three of them. “...What happened?”

“Evaluation,” Fuyumi said, pouring hot water into mugs.

Natsuo’s gaze flicked to Shouto, then to Touya’s prone form on the couch. “And?”

“And we’ll talk about it later,” Fuyumi said firmly, handing Natsuo a mug. “Help me with dinner.”

Natsuo scowled but obeyed, grumbling under his breath about “stupid cryptic family meetings.”

Touya drifted in and out of awareness as the sounds of cooking filled the apartment—the sizzle of oil, the chop of vegetables, Fuyumi’s gentle scolding when Natsuo nearly burned the rice. At some point, Shouto abandoned his coloring and stretched out on the floor beside the couch, his cheek pressed to the cool wood, his fingers idly tracing the grain.

When Touya opened his eyes again, the table was set, and Natsuo was poking Shouto’s side with his foot.

“Hey. Food.”

Shouto didn’t react.

Natsuo rolled his eyes. “Whatever. More for me.”

Dinner was quiet, the clink of chopsticks against bowls the only conversation. Shouto ate half his rice and none of the vegetables. Natsuo devoured three servings without pause. Fuyumi picked at her food, her gaze distant.

Touya managed a few bites before pushing his plate away.

Afterward, Natsuo disappeared into his room with a mumbled excuse about homework, while Fuyumi washed the dishes. Shouto returned to his spot on the floor. 

Family.

Not the one Endeavor had tried to force into existence. Not the one built on quirk marriages and scorched dojo floors.

Just this.

A too-small apartment. A quiet evening. A brother coloring on the floor, another grumbling over homework, a sister humming as she dried the dishes.

Touya closed his eyes again, and let himself rest.

Chapter 6: Confessions

Touya woke to his phone buzzing violently against the nightstand. He fumbled for it, squinting at the screen: three missed calls from Fuyumi and a news alert that made his stomach drop.

BREAKING: #2 Hero Endeavor Arrested – Child Abuse Charges Confirmed

The article was brutal. Details of Shouto’s training, the hospital records of his concussion, even a grainy security photo of Endeavor dragging a much smaller Shouto by the arm. The comments section was worse.

Touya tossed his phone aside before he could read further.

Shouto, already awake and sitting on the edge of the bed, didn’t react to the noise. His fingers traced the edge of his scar absently, his gaze fixed on the wall.

“Morning,” Touya muttered, scrubbing a hand over his face.

Shouto didn’t respond, but he followed Touya to the kitchen, his steps quiet.

Natsuo was already there, hunched over his phone at the table, his jaw clenched so tight Touya could see the muscle twitching.

“You seen this shit?” Natsuo growled, shoving the screen toward Touya.

Touya didn’t need to look. “Yeah.”

“They’re calling him a monster.” Natsuo’s voice wavered between satisfaction and something darker. “Good.” 

Touya said nothing. He just set a cup of coffee in front of Natsuo and turned to the fridge.

Breakfast was silent. 

---

Touya’s phone rang halfway through his lunch break.

“Mr. Himura? This is Principal Ito from Tokyo East High. There’s been an incident involving your brother.”

Touya exhaled through his nose. “What kind of incident?”

“A physical altercation. We need you to come in.”

Shouto, sitting across from him at the clinic’s break room table, paused mid-bite of his onigiri. His mismatched eyes flicked to Touya’s face.

“We’re on our way,” Touya said, and hung up.

---

The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead as Touya guided Shouto into the cramped office. Natsuo was already there, slouched in a chair with his arms crossed, his jaw clenched tight enough that Touya could see the muscle twitching. Across from him sat a well-dressed couple and their son, a wiry teenager with a split lip and a smirk that made Touya’s insides itch.

Principal Ito, a balding man with the exhausted air of someone who’d dealt with one too many unruly teenage boys, looked up from his paperwork. “Ah, Mr. Himura. Thank you for coming.” His gaze flicked to Shouto, who had immediately tucked himself half behind Touya, fingers twisting in his sweater sleeve. “And… this is?”

“Our little brother,” Touya said, nudging Shouto further into the room. “Couldn’t leave him alone, sorry.”

The principal frowned. “Perhaps he could wait outside?This is a rather... sensitive discussion."

Touya didn’t blink. “I literally just said he can’t be alone.”

A beat of silence. Shouto, oblivious to the tension, chewed absently on his sleeve, the fabric visibly damp. A beat of silence. Then the principal sighed and gestured to the small couch against the wall. “He can sit there, then.”

Touya nudged Shouto toward it, then dug through the kid’s backpack until he found the fidget cube he’d packed that morning. He pressed it into Shouto’s hands. “Here. Play with this.”

Shouto took it without protest, his attention immediately locking onto the switches and dials.

The parents, Mr. and Mrs. Watanabe. watched the exchange with poorly concealed curiosity, their eyes lingering on Shouto’s scar, his silence, the way his fingers worked the fidget with rhythmic intensity. Their son, Haruto, barely glanced at him, too busy smirking at Natsuo.

Principal Ito cleared his throat. “Right. Well. Let’s begin.” He shuffled some papers. “As I was explaining before you arrived, Mr. Himura, there was an altercation during lunch today between your brother and Haruto here.”

The smirk on Haruto’s face widened.

Natsuo’s knuckles whitened where they gripped his knees.

“According to witnesses,” the principal continued, “Haruto made some… comments regarding the recent news about your family. Natsuo took offense.”

Touya leaned forward. “What kind of comments?”

Haruto didn’t wait for the principal to answer.  "I said Endeavor’s a piece of shit who shouldn’t be allowed near kids. And this guy," he jerked his chin at Natsuo, "lost his shit over it."

Natsuo’s hands clenched into fists. "You said a hell of a lot more than that."

Haruto shrugged. "So? It’s true. Everyone’s thinking it."

"Haruto," his mother hissed, but the damage was done.

Natsuo shot out of his chair. "You wanna say that again? Say it again!"

Haruto grinned, leaning back like he’d won something. “Yeah, actually. Endeavor’s a piece of shit. And you’re just like him.”

Natsuo lunged.

The room erupted.

The principal grabbed Natsuo around the waist, hauling him away as the boy snarled, “I’ll fucking end you!” as Haruto’s parents shrieked, their chairs scraping against the floor as Mr. Wanatabe stepped between the boys.

"Enough!" the principal barked.

Touya was on his feet, stepping between them, hands raised. "Natsuo, calm down-"

Shouto had gone rigid on the couch, his fingers frozen around the fidget toy. His breath hitched before his hands flew up to clamp over his ears. His chest rose and fell in rapid, shallow bursts, his eyes wide open, unwilling to close them, afraid of what would happen. Silent tears streaked down his face, but he made no sound. No wailing, no screaming. Just quiet.

Touya was at his side in an instant, blocking Shouto’s view of the chaos with his body. He didn’t coddle, didn’t baby him, just pressed his own hands over Shouto’s, adding pressure to the kid’s already-covered ears.

"Breathe," he murmured, low enough that only Shouto could hear. "In. Hold. Out."

Shouto’s nails dug into his own scalp, but after a few seconds, his breathing slowed.

The room had gone quiet.

Principal Ito still had a firm grip on Natsuo’s collar, but his attention was on Shouto. "Is he... alright?"

Touya didn’t look up. "Don’t worry about it. Can we please finish this?"

The Watanabes were staring, their expressions a mix of discomfort and something uncomfortably close to pity. Haruto looked vaguely guilty, but mostly just awkward.

Mrs. Watanabe recovered first. "Well. Clearly, there are... issues here beyond what happened today."

Touya shot her a look that could’ve melted steel. "Let’s stay on topic."

“Right,” Principal Ito said, clearing his throat. “As I was saying…”

Shouto’s fingers twitched under Touya’s palms. Then, with surprising force, he grabbed Touya’s wrists and yanked, pulling Touya’s hands down to press flat against his own chest.

Touya didn’t resist. He adjusted his grip, applying steady, firm pressure, the kind Shouto had clearly been craving but didn’t know how to ask for gently.

Natsuo, still standing stiffly beside the principal’s desk, flushed with secondhand embarrassment. His eyes darted to Haruto, who was watching with a smirk, and his fists clenched.

“The hell are you looking at?” Natsuo muttered.

Haruto opened his mouth, but he was swiftly interrupted

“Enough,” Principal Ito snapped. “We are not starting this again.”

Touya ignored them all, keeping his focus on Shouto. The kid’s breathing had slowed, his shoulders losing some of their tension, but his fingers remained locked around Touya’s wrists like he was afraid the contact would disappear.

Touya straightened but didn’t pull away entirely. He kept one hand resting on Shouto’s shoulder, grounding him, as he turned back to the adults.

“Let’s wrap this up.”

The principal sighed. "Both of you will serve in-school suspension next week. Any further incidents, and we’re looking at expulsion. Understood?"

Natsuo muttered something under his breath but nodded. Haruto just rolled his eyes.

Touya didn’t relax until they were out of the office, Shouto’s hand clutched in his, Natsuo stomping ahead of them like a storm cloud.

The walk to the train, and the journey home, were silent.

---

Shouto barely made it through the door before he crumpled.

One second, he was standing there, swaying on his feet, his eyes glassy and unfocused, and the next, he was face-first on the couch, limbs loose like a puppet with its strings cut. His breathing was already deep and slow, his fingers twitching faintly against the fabric.

Natsuo, meanwhile, had beelined for the kitchen, moving like if he stopped, something would catch up to him. His shoulders were stiff, his hands flexing at his sides like he didn’t know what to do with them.

Touya followed.

Natsuo was at the sink, gripping the edge like it was the only thing keeping him upright. The second Touya stepped into the room, his spine went rigid.

Touya leaned against the counter, arms crossed. “You gonna tell me what’s really eating at you, or do I have to guess?”

Natsuo’s jaw clenched. “Not in the mood.”

“Yeah, no shit.” Touya tilted his head. “But you don’t get to fight someone in the principal’s office and then just walk away.”

Natsuo’s knuckles whitened. For a second, Touya thought he might snap, that Natsuo might whirl around and shout, might slam his fist into the wall. But instead, his breath hitched, just slightly, like he was holding something back.

Not just anger. Something else.

Touya exhaled, softening his voice. “Talk to me.”

Natsuo’s shoulders hunched. “I don’t—fuck—” He dragged a hand through his hair, frustration bleeding into his voice. “It’s like—one second I’m fine, and the next, it’s too much, and I can’t—” He cut himself off, shaking his head.

Touya watched him carefully. The way his breathing was too quick, the way his fingers tapped against the counter like he was counting seconds in his head.

Familiar.

“You ever feel like you’re gonna burn alive from the inside out?” Touya asked, quiet.

Natsuo stilled.

“Not literally,” Touya continued. “Just—like if you don’t do something, you’ll explode.”

Natsuo’s throat worked. After a beat, he nodded.

Touya pushed off the counter. “Yeah. I know that.”

Natsuo finally turned to look at him, eyes searching. “You…?”

Touya tapped his chest. “Quirk suppressants aren’t just for the fire. They help a lot with this.” He gestured vaguely at himself. “The anger. The… whatever the hell this is.”

Natsuo frowned. “But you don’t-”

“Lose my shit?” Touya smirked, humorless. “I can’t anymore… Learned my lesson the hard way.” He rolled up his sleeve just enough to show the edge of a scar. Natsuo’s gaze flickered down, then away.

Touya let the silence sit for a moment before adding, “Therapy helped. Meds help, although I don’t think you’re in danger of combusting. But mostly? You gotta remember it’s not you. It’s just… something you’re carrying, and you’re in control.”

Natsuo swallowed hard. “Feels like I’m not.”

“You are in control,” Touya answered earnestly. “And you’re not alone in it.”

Natsuo let out a shaky breath. 

Touya nudged Natsuo’s arm with his elbow. “C’mon. Let’s make some dinner.”

---

The weekend arrived like a slow exhale after days of held breath.

Touya woke to sunlight streaming through the thin curtains of the apartment, the faint sound of cartoons already playing in the living room. For the first time in a week, a crazy week, at that, there was nowhere to be, nothing pressing to do… 

Fuyumi was already in the kitchen, her textbooks spread across the table, a half-finished cup of tea steaming beside her. She glanced up when he walked in.

“Morning.”

“Mm.” Touya grabbed the coffee and a filter, setting up the machine and brewing himself a nice, strong coffee.

Fuyumi watched him over the rim of her glasses. “You should go out today.”

Touya blinked. “What?”

“Out.” She gestured vaguely toward the window. “You’ve been dealing with everything all week. You need a break.”

Touya scoffed. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not,” Fuyumi said, softer now. “And it’s okay to admit that.”

Touya checked on the progress of the coffee, avoiding her gaze.

Fuyumi nudged his arm. “Seriously. Go see a friend. Walk around. Breathe. I’ve got things covered here.”

Touya hesitated.

“Shouto will be fine,” Fuyumi said, reading his silence. “Natsuo’s still asleep, and I’m not going anywhere.”

Touya exhaled. “...Thank you. Okay.”

So he texted Keigo.

---

Keigo was already at the café when Touya arrived, wings tucked carefully behind him to avoid knocking over chairs. He grinned when he spotted Touya, waving him over. Keigo slid out of the booth to meet him halfway.

Touya let himself be pulled into a brief hug, Keigo’s wings curling around them for just a second.

"Missed you," Keigo murmured, pulling back just enough to press a quick kiss to Touya’s temple before letting go.

Touya huffed, but his chest felt lighter already. 

“You look like hell,” Keigo said cheerfully, sitting back down.

Touya flipped him off before sliding into the seat across from him. “Long week.”

“No kidding.” Keigo pushed a coffee toward him: black, no sugar, exactly how Touya liked it. “So. You gonna tell me what’s going on, or do I have to guess?”

Touya wrapped his hands around the cup, letting the heat seep into his fingers. He’d been dreading this conversation. Not because he thought Keigo would judge him, but because once he said it, it would be real.

“You heard about Endeavor’s scandal?” Touya started.

Keigo’s eyebrows shot up. “The child abuse thing? Yeah, it’s all over the news.” 

“He’s my dad.”

The words landed like a bomb.

Keigo went perfectly still.

Touya didn’t look at him, focusing instead on the steam curling from his cup. “I left when I was thirteen. After the… my accident.” He gestured vaguely at his scars. “Haven’t spoken to him since. But my youngest two siblings… they were still there.”

Keigo’s voice was careful. “The ones taken away.”

“Yeah.” Touya finally met his gaze. “Shouto and Natsuo. They’re with me now.”

Keigo’s wings twitched, a telltale sign of his shock. “Holy shit.”

Touya braced himself. This was the moment he was dreading, the part where Keigo realized what a mess he was tangled up in. The part where he made some polite excuse and vanished.

But Keigo just leaned forward, his voice low. “Are they okay?”

Touya blinked. “What?”

“Your brothers.” Keigo’s eyes were sharp, searching. “Are they alright?”

Something in Touya’s chest loosened. “They’re… adjusting.”

Keigo nodded slowly, processing. 

“Okay.”

Touya stared at him. “Okay?”

“Yeah.” Keigo took a sip of his coffee.

Touya couldn’t help it. He snorted- not in a cute way. “You’re seriously not freaking out?”

“Oh, I’m freaking out,” Keigo admitted, running a hand through his hair. “Endeavor’s your dad. That’s… wow. But…” 

"I know." Touya met his eyes. "So if this is too much, I get it. No hard feelings."

Keigo’s brow furrowed. "What? No." He reached across the table, catching Touya’s wrist. "I’m not… Babe..."

Touya stilled.

"Yeah, it’s a lot," Keigo admitted. "But that doesn’t change how I feel about you."

He reached across the table, brushing his fingers against Touya’s wrist. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Touya’s breath caught. 

Keigo smirked. “Unless you’re trying to get rid of me?”

“Shut up,” Touya muttered, but he couldn’t stop the warmth spreading through his chest.

They lapsed into silence for a moment, the weight of the confession settling between them. 

“So,” Keigo said lightly. “You’re a dad now.”

Touya choked on his coffee. “What?”

“You’ve got custody! That’s basically parenthood.”

“They’re teenagers, you idiot-”

Keigo grinned, unrepentant. “Still counts.”

Touya kicked him under the table.

---

Touya slipped back into the apartment just as the late afternoon light was fading. The air smelled faintly of tea and takeout Fuyumi must have ordered.

Fuyumi glanced up from her notes at the kitchen table, a pencil tucked behind her ear. "You look refreshed," she remarked, studying him.

Touya shrugged, toeing off his shoes. "Got some air."

Shouto was curled on the couch now, half-buried under a blanket, his eyes fixed on some low-volume nature documentary. He didn’t react when Touya passed by, but that wasn’t unusual. 

Natsuo’s door was cracked open for once, though no sound came from inside. Progress, maybe.

"You eat yet?"

Fuyumi shook her head. "Was waiting for you."

Touya rubbed at his temple, where the beginnings of a headache pulsed dully. He grabbed his glasses off the counter: ugly, practical things. Although his skin felt a tug, the pressure behind his eyes eased almost immediately.

Touya rummaged through the fridge, pulling out leftovers. "Shouto?"

"Had a snack an hour ago. He'll eat when he's hungry."

They worked in silence for a few minutes, reheating rice and soup. It should've been awkward; they were strangers, really, but there was something familiar in the rhythm of it. Maybe some long-buried memory of doing this as kids, before everything went to hell.

Fuyumi didn’t comment, just nudged a cup of tea toward him. "I called Shinjuku Special Education Center yesterday."

Touya stilled. "And?"

"They're expecting him Monday.” 

"We should take him tomorrow. Let him see the place before he's stuck there."

Fuyumi nodded. "I was thinking the same thing."

A thud came from down the hall, from Natsuo's room. 

Fuyumi's shoulders tensed. "He hasn't come out all morning."

Touya grunted. "Give him time."

After a minute, Fuyumi spoke again, softer this time. "Do you remember that snowstorm when we were kids?"

Touya blinked. "Which one?"

"The really bad one. The power went out, and Mom made hot chocolate on the stove." A faint smile tugged at her lips. "You kept stealing my marshmallows."

A flicker of memory: the sharp bite of winter air, the warm press of siblings huddled together, the way Fuyumi had pouted when he'd swiped the last marshmallow from her cup.

Touya huffed a quiet laugh. "You cried so hard Mom gave you hers."

"You were such a little shit."

"Yeah, well." He nudged her shoulder with his own. "Some things never change."

Chapter 7: New Normal

Notes:

thank you so much to everyone who has commented and kudosed.
much appreciated, xoxo

The alarm blared at 5:30 AM.

Touya groaned, slamming his palm down on the clock before the noise could wake the entire apartment. He lay there for a moment, staring at the ceiling, the weight of the day settling over him like a second skin. Shouto’s first day.

He dragged himself out of bed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. The apartment was silent: Natsuo’s door still shut, Shouto still sleeping in Touya’s bed.

The kitchen light flickered when he flipped it on. Touya squinted against the sudden brightness, reaching for his glasses on the counter, where they’d been abandoned at some point last night.

He pulled out the bento boxes Fuyumi had bought for them, one for Shouto, one for Natsuo, and started to cook. It was simple stuff: rice, tamagoyaki, some steamed vegetables, but hopefully good enough.  

As he worked, the apartment slowly woke around him. The hum of the refrigerator, the distant sound of traffic outside, the creak of floorboards as one of his brothers shifted in their sleep.

By the time he finished packing the lunches, the sky outside had lightened to a soft gray. He moved on to Shouto’s school bag. A change of clothes (just in case), the noise-canceling headphones (a godsend for the bus ride), the chewy toy Shouto had latched onto last week. The school had sent a list of supplies, so he added folders, crayons, pencils.

He paused, running his fingers over the straps of the backpack, feeling nervous on Shouto’s behalf. 

---

Fuyumi arrived at 8 AM sharp, her hair pulled back in a neat ponytail, her expression calm but tight around the edges.

“Morning,” she said, stepping inside. “How’s he doing?”

Touya nodded toward the couch, where Shouto sat, dressed in his new uniform, staring blankly at the wall. He hadn’t fought him on getting ready, but his fingers kept twisting in the fabric of his pants, restless.

“Quiet,” Touya muttered.

Fuyumi crouched in front of Shouto, offering a small smile. “Ready to go?”

Shouto blinked at her, then nodded once.

Natsuo emerged from his room just as they were leaving, his uniform rumpled, his expression sour. He didn’t say anything, just grabbed his lunch and school bag before brushing past them.

“See you later,” Touya called after him.

Natsuo flipped him off over his shoulder.

Teenagers.

---

The school was a low, sprawling building tucked behind a gated courtyard. The walls were painted a soft blue, the windows wide and letting in plenty of light. A few kids milled around outside, some chatting, others sitting alone under trees or on benches.

Touya’s chest tightened as they approached.

The receptionist, a middle-aged woman with a kind smile, greeted them warmly. “You must be Todoroki Shouto’s family.”

Fuyumi nodded. “Yes. We’re his siblings.”

“Wonderful. Principal Saito and Shouto’s homeroom teacher are waiting for you in the office.”

Shouto stayed close to Touya as they walked, his fingers brushing against Touya’s sleeve every few steps, like he was checking he was still there.

The principal’s office was spacious but cozy, filled with plants and framed artwork done by students. A man in his fifties stood as they entered, his smile warm.

“Ah, Todoroki-san. Welcome.” He gestured to the woman beside him. “This is Hayashi-sensei, Shouto’s homeroom teacher.”

Hayashi-sensei was younger than Touya expected, her dark hair pulled into a loose bun, her eyes sharp but kind. She bowed slightly. “It’s a pleasure to meet you all.”

Shouto didn’t react, his gaze fixed somewhere past her shoulder.

Principal Saito gestured for them to sit. “We’re very glad to have Shouto with us. I understand this is a big transition for him.”

Touya’s jaw clenched. Understatement.

Hayashi-sensei folded her hands on the desk. “Our goal today is simply to help Shouto acclimate. We’ll introduce him to the classroom, let him explore at his own pace. There’s no pressure to participate right away.”

Fuyumi leaned forward. “And his… education?”

“We’ll assess where he is academically, but our focus is on life skills first.” Hayashi-sensei’s voice was gentle but firm. “Communication, self-regulation, independence where possible. We’ll tailor his IEP as we get to know him better.”

Touya exhaled slowly. That sounded… good. Better than he’d hoped.

Principal Saito added, “We also have strict quirk regulations. Many of our students struggle with control, so we have measures in place to ensure safety.”

The one thing Shouto doesn’t struggle with.

But Touya and Fuyumi just nodded.

Hayashi-sensei led them down a quiet hallway, the walls lined with colorful student artwork and laminated schedules. The school was calm—no shouting, no chaotic energy—just the soft murmur of voices and the occasional hum of an aide guiding a student.

"Your brother will be in Class 6-B," Hayashi-sensei explained. "We have two sixth-grade classes here. Class 6-A follows a more traditional curriculum—those students mostly need support with focus, the classroom setting, or social skills. Class 6-B, where Shouto will be, focuses on life skills, communication, and foundational academics."

Touya nodded. He’d worked in enough schools as a quirk counselor to know what that meant. Shouto’s class would be for kids who needed more than just accommodations. 

Hayashi-sensei added, “We group students based on their current support needs, not ability. Shouto may transition to 6-A later if he’s ready for more academic focus. But for now, we want him to feel safe.”

Safe.

Touya exhaled.

The classroom door was propped open, revealing a bright, spacious room with low tables, sensory corners, and a small kitchenette in the back. A few students were already inside: one boy stacking blocks with intense focus, a girl tracing shapes on a tablet with an aide, another rocking slightly in a beanbag chair while flipping through a picture book.

Shouto’s grip on Touya’s sleeve tightened.

Hayashi-sensei crouched to his level. "Shouto, this is your new classroom. You can explore, or you can sit and watch! Whatever you’re comfortable with."

Shouto didn’t move, his mismatched eyes scanning the room.

Touya squeezed his shoulder. "You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to," he murmured. "Just see how it feels."

A long pause. Then, slowly, Shouto stepped forward.

Hayashi-sensei smiled. "We’ll take it slow."

Fuyumi handed Shouto his backpack, adjusting the straps carefully. "You’re going to do great."

Touya forced himself to let go.

---

Touya’s job usually required his full attention.

Today, it didn’t stand a chance.

His first appointment was a nine-year-old girl with a mutation quirk that made her skin secrete a mild acid when stressed. Normally, he’d be fully present, walking her through breathing exercises, discussing coping strategies, adjusting her desensitization training.

Instead, his mind kept drifting.

Was Shouto eating his lunch? Had the noise been too much? What if he panicked and froze the whole classroom?

“Himura-san?” The girl tilted her head. “You spaced out.”

Touya blinked. “Sorry. Let’s try that again.”

He refocused… or tried to.

By his third session, his notes were a mess, his thoughts even worse.

Did they have the right chew toy for him? Should he have packed an extra sweater? What if-

“You’re distracted today.”

Touya jerked his head up. His supervisor, Dr. Ishikawa, stood in the doorway of his office, arms crossed.

Touya grimaced. “Yeah.”

“First day?”

“Yeah.”

Dr. Ishikawa sighed. “Go home.”

Touya opened his mouth to argue.

“Go home, Himura. You’re no use to anyone like this.”

---

Touya arrived at the school an hour early.

He paced the front office, ignoring the receptionist’s amused look, until the bell finally rang.

Shouto was one of the last students out, his backpack strapped tightly to his shoulders, his expression as blank as it had been that morning. But his steps were steady, and when he spotted Touya, he didn’t hesitate before walking over.

Touya crouched down. “How was it?”

Shouto didn’t answer, but he didn’t flinch away either.

Hayashi-sensei handed Touya a report. “He did well!”

Touya skimmed the note before tucking it into his pocket.

“Thanks.”

Shouto’s fingers brushed his sleeve again.

Touya took that as a win.

---

Fuyumi had outdone herself with dinner. 

Natsuo, fresh off his in-school suspension, slouched at the table, stabbing at his food like it had personally offended him.

Touya set the school report next to his plate and read aloud:

“Shouto adjusted well to the classroom environment. He did not engage in structured activities but showed curiosity during free exploration. No signs of distress. Recommended focus: gradual participation in sensory and art-based tasks.”

Fuyumi smiled. “That’s really good.”

Natsuo grunted. “Sounds boring.”

Touya sighed. 

Shouto, for his part, was methodically separating his rice from his chicken, but he paused when Touya mentioned the art station.

A flicker of interest.

Touya filed that away for later.

---

Touya’s phone buzzed against the clinic’s break room table, the screen lighting up with Obaasan and Ojiisan. He exhaled through his nose, swiping to answer as he leaned back in his chair.

“You’re late,” came his grandfather’s gruff voice.

Touya rolled his eyes, even though the old man couldn’t see it. “By two minutes.”

“Still late.”

A shuffling sound, then his grandmother’s drier tone: “Is he eating?”

“Who, me or the kids?”

“Don’t be smart.”

Touya smirked, rubbing at the bridge of his nose where his glasses dug into scar tissue. He’d taken them off the second his last client left, but the indentations lingered. “Yeah, we’re eating. Fuyumi cooks most nights.”

A hum. “And the youngest?”

“Shouto’s fine. School’s… school.” He didn’t elaborate. They wouldn’t ask for details, not because they didn’t care, but because they’d spent a lifetime learning not to pry.

His grandfather cleared his throat. “Court date’s next month.”

“Yeah.”

“You ready?”

Touya’s fingers tapped against the table. “No. There’s no way they’ll go back to Enji. They’re not going back, so any outcome is good.”

A pause. Then, quieter: “Good.”

That was as close to we’re proud of you as he’d ever get from them.

His grandmother switched topics. “Ojiisan wants to know if you need money.”

“We’re fine. Enji’s paying.”

“Hmph.”

He huffed a laugh. “Gotta go. I have to prepare for my next client.”

“Take your supplements.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

The call ended as abruptly as it started.

Touya sat there for a moment, phone still in hand, before shoving it into his pocket and reaching for the ibuprofen he kept stashed in his desk.

---

Keigo’s wings were a flash of crimson against the gray city skyline as he dropped onto the café’s rooftop patio, grinning. “Miss me?”

Touya didn’t smile, but his shoulders loosened just slightly. “You’re late.”

“Hero work.” Keigo flopped into the chair across from him, already stealing a fry from Touya’s plate. “Some idiot tried to rob a convenience store with a butter knife.”

Touya snorted. “Scary.”

Keigo waggled his eyebrows. “I am pretty intimidating.”

“Shut up.”

They lapsed into easy silence, Keigo demolishing half of Touya’s food before sliding his own bento across the table in silent trade. Touya didn’t complain.

“How’s the kid?” Keigo asked around a mouthful of rice.

“Shouto’s fine. School’s… working, I guess.” Touya poked at his food. “Natsuo’s still pissed at the world, but he hasn’t punched anyone this week.”

“Progress.”

“Yeah.”

Keigo’s foot nudged his under the table. “And you?”

Touya scowled. “Fine.”

“Liar.”

“Fuck off.”

Keigo just grinned, unbothered.

Touya exhaled, rubbing at the scarred skin around his left eye. The glasses were back: he’d pay for it later with raw, irritated skin, but the alternative was a migraine, and he couldn’t afford one today.

Keigo’s smile softened. “You’re doing good, you know.”

Touya’s chest tightened. He looked away. “Whatever.”

Keigo let it drop.

---

Life had settled into something like a rhythm.

Mornings were a blur of packed lunches, half-awake arguments with Natsuo about forgotten homework, and making sure Shouto had his headphones before the bus came. Afternoons were work—clients, paperwork, the occasional lunch break stolen with Keigo when Hawks’ patrol route lined up with Touya’s schedule. Evenings were dinner, reports from Shouto’s teachers, and the delicate dance of not setting Natsuo off when he was in one of his moods.

It wasn’t easy. But it was theirs.

Tonight, though, the apartment was quiet. Natsuo was holed up in his room, and Shouto was curled on the couch, absently watching some cartoon.

Touya collapsed into the kitchen chair, rolling his stiff shoulders. His scars ached—a dull, ever-present throb that flared when he pushed himself too hard. He’d forgotten his pain meds this morning, too busy making sure Shouto’s bento was packed right, and now he was paying for it.

His phone buzzed.

KEIGO 🦅 : miss u

A stupid, fluttery feeling curled in his chest. 

He typed back: 

TOUYA: shut up

KEIGO 🦅 : mean 😔 whens ur next day off

Touya grimaced. Dunno. Court stuff coming up.

KEIGO 🦅 : still miss u 

Touya: yeah, u too 

He locked his phone before he could say something embarrassingly sentimental.

---

Fuyumi arrived at the apartment with a stack of folders under one arm and a frazzled expression. She dumped them onto the kitchen table with a heavy sigh, sending a few loose papers fluttering to the floor.

“Okay,” she said, pushing her glasses up her nose. “I think I have everything.”

Touya arched an eyebrow, picking up one of the folders and flipping through it. “You think?”

Fuyumi winced. “It’s a lot.”

That was an understatement. The paperwork was a labyrinth of legal jargon, financial disclosures, and character references: all of which needed to be meticulously organized before the hearing. And while Fuyumi had been the one to initiate the custody petition, it was becoming painfully clear that she was in over her head.

Touya exhaled through his nose and started sorting through the mess. “We need to separate the school records from the medical files. And where’s the housing affidavit?”

Fuyumi bit her lip. “I… I might have left it at my dorm.”

Natsuo, who had been lurking in the doorway with a bag of chips, snorted. “Smooth.”

Touya shot him a look before turning back to Fuyumi. “We have two weeks. If we’re missing anything, we need to get it now.”

Fuyumi nodded, her shoulders slumping slightly. “I know. I just… I didn’t realize how much there was.”

Touya softened, just a fraction. “It’s fine. We’ll figure it out.”

And they would. Because as much as he hadn’t asked for this, somewhere along the way, he’d started needing this to work.

The realization settled in his chest like a weight.

The court had called all three of them to testify.

Fuyumi, as the primary petitioner, would go first: her earnestness and stability making her the ideal face of their case. Natsuo would speak to the conditions they’d lived under, the reality of Endeavor’s neglect. And Touya?

Touya was the wild card.

His history wasn’t exactly pristine: runaway teen, former drug use, a past littered with instability. But he was also the one who’d taken the boys in without hesitation, the one with a steady job, the one who could prove he was capable of this.

At least, he hoped so.

“What if they say no?” Natsuo muttered, sprawled on the couch while Touya double-checked their documents.

Touya didn’t look up. “They won’t.”

“But what if they do?”

The question, despite the absurdity of the prospect of it, hung in the air, heavy and unspoken.

What if, after all this, Endeavor still won?

What if Shouto and Natsuo were sent back?

Touya’s grip on the papers tightened. “They won’t.”

Chapter 8: Fall Back

Notes:

thank you to everyone commenting and kudosing! it's so encouraging :)

The apartment smelled like miso soup and laundry detergent, the faint hum of the washing machine blending with the sound of Shouto playing with his food at the kitchen table. Touya leaned against the counter, rubbing at the tight scar tissue along his ribs as he watched Natsuo shove his feet into his shoes by the door.

"You got your gym clothes?"

Natsuo rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah."

"Water bottle?"

"Jesus, yes."

Touya didn’t push further, just nodded and tossed him a protein bar from the cupboard. Natsuo caught it with a grunt, shoving it into his bag before slinging it over his shoulder.

"I’ll be home late," he muttered, already halfway out the door.

Touya didn’t bother asking where he was going. Natsuo had started staying late at school twice a week: sometimes for soccer, sometimes just holed up in the library with a couple of guys from his biology class. He never talked about it, but he wasn’t storming out the way he used to, either. 

Touya exhaled, rolling his stiff shoulders. His scars ached, the skin tight and angry where he’d neglected his stretches the last few nights. He should do them now, slather on the medicated cream gathering dust on his dresser, and dig out the heating pad for the deep muscle pain under his ribs.

But the dishes needed washing. And Shouto’s school bag wasn’t packed for tomorrow. The thought of sitting still long enough to tend to his own body felt impossible.

Touya had always been meticulous about his own care when he was alone.

Now, with two kids depending on him, his priorities had shifted.

He never forgot Shouto’s school reports. Never skipped packing Natsuo’s lunch, and made sure the apartment was stocked with the right snacks, the right soaps, the right everything to keep them comfortable.

But his own routines?

They slipped.

The stretches got skipped. The creams went unused. The heating pad stayed buried under his bed.

It wasn’t that he felt bad, just not as good as he knew he could. A constant, low-grade discomfort, like an itch under his skin he couldn’t quite scratch.

But it was fine.

He was fine.

---

The first week of November arrived with a biting wind that rattled the apartment windows. Touya woke to the sound of rain tapping against glass and the distant clatter of Natsuo rummaging through the fridge. He lay still for a moment, listening to the muffled sounds of the apartment.

Touya dragged himself out of bed, his scars pulling tight. He grabbed the half-empty bottle of lotion from his nightstand, absently rubbing it into the worst of the scarring along his arms. He’d skipped it yesterday. And the day before. The skin was angry and tight, but he didn’t have time to deal with it properly, not with Shouto’s school meeting this morning.

He pulled on a long-sleeve shirt and grabbed a mask from the box on his dresser before stepping into the hallway.

The apartment was quiet when he shuffled into the kitchen, save for the hum of the fridge. He started the coffee, then dug through the cupboard for the thermos Fuyumi had bought him.

By the time the coffee was ready, Natsuo had emerged from his room, hair sticking up in every direction, uniform wrinkled. He slumped into a chair at the table, rubbing his eyes.

"Test today, right?" Touya said, sliding a mug toward him.

Natsuo grunted, wrapping his hands around the warmth. "Mm."

"You study?"

"Some."

Touya didn’t push. Natsuo’s grades had stabilized since starting at his new school, hovering somewhere between passing and I could try harder, but why bother . Shouto appeared next, silent as always, already dressed in his school uniform. He climbed onto his usual chair, staring blankly at the table while Touya set a bowl of rice in front of him.

It had been two months since they’d moved in, since Touya had become a guardian, a brother again. Some days, it felt like they’d been doing this forever. Other days, it felt like they were still strangers.

---

The November wind cut through Touya’s jacket as he walked Shouto up the path to Shinjuku Special Education Center, his little brother’s hand tucked loosely in his. Shouto didn’t pull away, but he didn’t grip back either, just let his fingers rest there, passive and warm.

Fuyumi was already waiting in the front office when they arrived, her cheeks pink from the cold.

Shouto moved faster than Touya expected, grabbing fistfuls of Fuyumi’s coat and pressing into her with enough force that she rocked back slightly on her heels.

“Gentle,” Touya reminded, resting a hand on Shouto’s back.

Fuyumi just laughed, hugging him tight. “It’s okay! I missed you too.”

Shouto didn’t respond, but he didn’t let go either.

Hayashi-sensei appeared a moment later, smiling warmly. “Good morning. We’re all set up in the conference room.”

The room was small but bright, a round table in the center and shelves of colorful teaching materials lining the walls. A woman in a navy blazer stood as they entered.

“Todoroki-san, Himura-san,” she greeted, bowing slightly. “I’m Dr. Shimizu, the school’s speech and communication specialist.”

Touya nodded, guiding Shouto to a chair. His little brother sat stiffly, hands folded in his lap, gaze fixed somewhere past Dr. Shimizu’s shoulder.

Hayashi-sensei began, “As you know, we’ve been working on finding ways for Shouto to communicate with us. While he’s made wonderful progress in other areas-” she slid a folder across the table, filled with photos of Shouto’s artwork: vibrant swirls of color, layered blues and reds blending into purples, bold strokes overlapping in abstract patterns- “he hasn’t engaged with any of our attempts at direct communication.”

Dr. Shimizu nodded. “We’ve tried picture cards, AAC devices, even basic sign language. He follows instructions when spoken to, but he won’t point to responses, won’t indicate yes or no, won’t look at materials placed in front of him.” She hesitated. “We’ve also observed very little vocalization. No babbling, no attempts at speech. Just occasional sighs or hums.”

Fuyumi’s fingers tightened around her pen. “At home, he’s the same. But… but he understands us. I know he does.”

“We don’t doubt his comprehension,” Dr. Shimizu assured. “But given his history of trauma and possible neurological factors, his brain may not associate communication with speech or traditional methods.”

A polite way of saying brain damage.

“So what’s the plan?” Touya asked, voice tighter than he intended.

Dr. Shimizu folded her hands. “We’d like to continue exploring. We won’t push speech if it’s distressing for him, but we do want to give him tools to express his needs.”

Fuyumi bit her lip. “Do you think he’ll ever…?”

“It’s hard to say,” Hayashi-sensei admitted. “But forcing him won’t help. We need to meet him where he is.”

Touya exhaled, watching Shouto out of the corner of his eye. His little brother was tracing the edge of the table with one finger, seemingly uninterested in the conversation.

“Okay,” Touya said finally. “No forcing. But keep trying.”

Dr. Shimizu smiled. “That’s the goal.”

Fuyumi reached over, brushing Shouto’s bangs from his eyes. “We just want you to be able to tell us what you need, okay?”

Shouto didn’t react.

The morning air was sharp with the first real bite of winter as Touya stepped onto the bus after dropping off Shouto, adjusting the black mask over his nose. Around him, half the passengers wore their own, some against the cold, some against germs, none of them looking twice at him. It shouldn’t have felt like a big deal.

And yet.

The clinic was quiet when he arrived, the receptionist nodding at him from behind her own mask. "Morning, Himura-san. You’re early."

"Paperwork," he muttered, though that wasn’t entirely true. 

He lasted two hours before his phone buzzed.

FUYUMI: Natsuo’s school called. His quirk flared in class again. I can’t leave my class to pick him up!

Touya exhaled through his nose, asking the receptionist to cancel his next session and grabbing his coat.

---

Natsuo was waiting in the principal’s office when Touya arrived, slouched so low in his chair he might as well have been melting into it. The air around him shimmered faintly with residual heat, the sleeves of his uniform damp with half-melted frost.

The principal, a tired-looking man in his fifties, gestured for Touya to sit. "We’ve spoken before about control."

Touya didn’t bother with pleasantries. "What happened?"

Natsuo’s jaw clenched. "Nothing."

"Nothing left the chemistry lab looking like a snow globe," the principal said dryly.

A muscle twitched in Natsuo’s temple. "I said I was sorry."

Touya watched the way his brother’s fingers dug into his knees, the way his breath came just a little too fast. The kid was trying, Touya knew he was, but his quirk seemed to be tied to his emotions, and with the trial looming, his moods swung like a pendulum.

Touya turned to the principal. "He’ll clean it up."

Natsuo’s head snapped up.

"And?" the principal prompted.

"And it won’t happen again," Touya said, though they all knew that was a lie.

---

Touya dug through his drawer for a fresh mask before leaving the apartment, the crisp November air already making his lungs ache. He’d learned the hard way that cold weather and his scarred respiratory system didn’t mix.

Natsuo, shrugging on his jacket by the door, eyed him. “You’re wearing that again?”

Touya adjusted the straps, careful not to let them tug on the worst of his scarring. “Yeah. Flu season.”

Natsuo rolled his eyes. “You’re such a germaphobe.”

It wasn’t about germs. But explaining that would mean admitting how fragile his body really was, how even a common cold could knock him out for weeks, and how his immune system had never fully recovered after Sekoto Peak.

He could’ve asked Natsuo to wear one too. Could’ve asked Fuyumi. But the thought of making it a thing, of watching them tiptoe around him like he was made of glass, made his skin crawl.

So he just shrugged. “Better than snotting all over my clients.”

Natsuo snorted and headed out, his breath still fogging slightly in the air despite the morning sun.

---

Fuyumi arrived that evening with takeout and a stack of court documents, her fingers drumming restlessly against the table as they ate.

“The lawyer confirmed we’re all testifying,” she said, pushing her glasses up her nose. “Natsuo, you’ll go after me.”

Natsuo stabbed at his rice. “What’s the point? They’re just gonna side with him anyway.”

Fuyumi’s chopsticks paused mid-air. “They won’t.”

“How do you know?”

The temperature in the room dropped sharply. Shouto, sitting beside Touya, blinked as a snowflake drifted onto his sleeve.

Fuyumi exhaled, slow and deliberate, her breath frosting the air. “Because we have evidence. Because Shouto’s school reports show he’s thriving. Because-”

“Because nothing,” Natsuo snapped. “You think some judge cares about school reports when-”

“Both of you.” Touya cleared his throat. “No need to give us all frostbite. Relax.”

Natsuo’s jaw clenched, but the frost receded, melting into damp patches on the table.

Fuyumi’s hands shook as she picked up her tea. “We have to try, Natsu.”

---

A week later, the wind howled against the apartment windows all night, rattling the glass in its frames. Touya lay awake, listening to it scream through the streets of Tokyo, his body tense beneath the blankets. Beside him, Shouto shifted in his sleep, his breath slightly congested, his forehead warm where it pressed against Touya’s arm.

He hadn’t meant to let the kid sleep in his bed again. But after another failed attempt at using the picture cards earlier that evening: another meltdown, another hour of Shouto sobbing into his chest, small hands fisted in Touya’s shirt like he was afraid to let go, Touya hadn’t had the heart to move him.

Now, with dawn creeping through the curtains, his arm was numb from Shouto’s weight, his throat dry, his head throbbing from lack of sleep. Beside him, Shouto shifted in his sleep, his breath hitching slightly, the tail end of the cold that had clung to him for days.

He should’ve kept his distance when Shouto first got sick, should’ve been more careful… but the kid had been so miserable, so desperate for comfort, that Touya hadn’t had the heart to push him away. Now, he could feel the telltale tickle in his own throat, the faint ache behind his eyes. Great.

The clock on the nightstand read 5:17 AM. No point trying to sleep now.

Gently, he disentangled himself from Shouto, tucking the blankets back around him before padding to the bathroom. The mirror showed the damage: dark circles under his eyes, his scars standing out starkly against his pale skin. He splashed cold water on his face, ran a hand through his hair, and told his reflection to get its shit together.

By the time Natsuo stumbled out of his room, bleary-eyed and scowling, Touya had already showered, dressed, and made breakfast: rice, miso soup, tamagoyaki. Simple, comforting.

Natsuo blinked at the spread. “You cooked?”

“Don’t sound so surprised,” Touya muttered, nudging a plate toward him.

Shouto, still in his pajamas, padded into the kitchen and climbed onto his usual chair. His nose was red from wiping it too much, his bangs sticking up in every direction. Touya handed him a tissue without a word, and Shouto blew his nose with a wet, unhappy sound.

“You feeling okay?” Touya asked, brushing Shouto’s hair back from his forehead again.

Shouto didn’t answer, but he leaned into the touch, his eyes half-lidded with exhaustion.

Natsuo shoveled rice into his mouth. “He’ll live.”

Touya shot him a look.

“What? He’s fine. It’s just a cold.”

Touya didn’t argue. His own appetite was nonexistent, his stomach churning with nerves, but he forced himself to sip at the miso soup. The warmth did little to settle him.

Fuyumi arrived at 8 AM sharp, her hair neatly pinned back, her blazer pressed and professional. She took one look at Shouto and immediately crouched in front of him, adjusting his collar. “You ready?”

Shouto blinked at her.

“That’s okay,” Fuyumi said softly.

Touya wasn’t ready either.

---

The wind screamed against the courthouse steps, tearing at their coats as they climbed. Shouto stumbled once, his small fingers tightening around Touya's sleeve, whether from the force of the gale or the weight of what lay ahead, it was impossible to say.

Touya glanced back at Natsuo, whose face had gone unnaturally pale beneath the November grey. Frost crackled along the railing where his hand had briefly touched it.

"Breathe," Touya muttered.

Natsuo's jaw worked. "I am."

Inside, the air was too warm, thick with the scent of industrial cleaner and old paper. The bailiffs moved with quiet efficiency, their polished shoes clicking against marble floors. One approached, her voice professionally neutral.

"Todoroki family? This way, please."

They were led to a small waiting room where a social worker waited to stay with Shouto.

Fuyumi knelt, adjusting Shouto's scarf. "You'll stay here with Ms. Aihara, okay? We'll come get you when-"

Shouto grabbed her wrist, his grip too tight, his nails biting into her skin.

"Gentle," Touya reminded, prying his fingers loose.

Shouto's breath hitched. His mismatched eyes darted toward the hallway where the courtroom waited.

"You're not going in there," Touya said firmly. "That's the rule."

A beat. Then, with agonizing slowness, Shouto released Fuyumi and sat in the chair Ms. Aihara indicated.

Natsuo hovered near the door, shoulders tense. "Let’s just get this over with."

---

The courtroom was smaller than Touya had imagined, with high ceilings and dark wood paneling. The benches were sparsely filled: a few court officials, a reporter in the back, and at the defendant’s table, Endeavor.

He hadn’t seen his father in person since Sekoto Peak. The man looked older, his massive frame somehow diminished in a suit instead of his hero uniform. But his presence was the same: sharp, burning, and unbearably intense. He didn’t look over at his children as they walked in.

Touya’s scars ached.

The judge called the court to order.

After opening statements from the attorneys, it was time to begin.

"First witness: Todoroki Fuyumi."

Fuyumi's hands shook as she took the stand, but her voice was clear.

"Growing up, my role was to keep the peace," she began. "When Touya left and Natsuo acted out, I was the one who smoothed things over. When Shouto-" Her breath hitched. "When Shouto cried, I was told to quiet him before Father heard."

The prosecutor nodded. "Can you elaborate on why?"

"Because Father didn't tolerate disruptions. If Shouto made noise during training, or if Natsuo complained about being ignored, it just... made things worse." She adjusted her glasses. "I thought if I could be perfect enough, if I could fix enough arguments, maybe he'd see us. But he never did."

Endeavor's fingers twitched.

"And your mother?"

Fuyumi's composure cracked. "She tried. But after Shouto's... after what happened, she couldn't…" A tear slipped free. "She couldn't protect us anymore."

The judge's pen scratched against paper.

Natsuo stood from his seat with enough force to make the chair legs screech against the courtroom floor. His breath fogged in the air as he approached the stand, the temperature in the room dropping several degrees.

The bailiff shot him a wary glance as frost began creeping across the witness stand railing.

"State your name for the record," the prosecutor said.

"Todoroki Natsuo." His voice came out sharper than intended. He flexed his fingers, willing the ice to stop spreading. It didn't.

"Can you describe your relationship with your father?"

Natsuo's laugh was bitter. "What relationship?" He gripped the railing tighter, the frost thickening under his palms. "Let me tell you about the great hero Endeavor as a father. When I was ten, my mother had a breakdown and poured boiling water on my baby brother's face."

The courtroom went dead silent.

Natsuo continued, voice shaking. "My father came home three days later. And when he did," his voice shook, the frost now climbing up the sides of the witness box, "he looked at Shouto's bandages and said, 'At least it didn't damage his quirk.'"

"That's what mattered to him. Not that his wife was in the mental hospital, or that his five-year-old son would be scarred for life. Just the damn quirk." Natsuo's throat burned. "And me? I was just... there. The useless child with no fire, an afterthought."

The defense attorney stood. "Objection, this is-"

"Let him finish," the judge said quietly.

Natsuo didn't even look at Endeavor. He couldn't. Not if he wanted to keep speaking.

"He kept training him. A toddler who couldn't even say 'stop.'"

The frost had spread to the floor now, delicate crystalline patterns blooming outward. Natsuo finally lifted his head, meeting the judge's gaze.

"That's the man you're considering giving custody back to. Someone who looked at a traumatized child and saw a tool. Someone who drove my mother to insanity and called it collateral damage."

For the first time, Natsuo turned to look at Endeavor. The man's face was ashen.

"I don't care about what he did to me," Natsuo said, his breath coming in visible puffs. "But what he did to them? That's unforgivable."

Touya rose from his seat with deliberate slowness, the scars along his arms pulling tight as he straightened. The courtroom air smelled of wood polish and something faintly antiseptic. He didn't look at Endeavor as he approached the stand - couldn't, if he wanted to keep his voice steady.

"State your full name for the record."

"Himura Touya."

The name landed like a challenge. His grandmother's name. Not Todoroki. Never again.

The prosecutor adjusted her glasses. "Can you describe your childhood relationship with the respondent?"

Touya's fingers twitched against the railing. "For the first eight years of my life, I was his masterpiece." His voice came out flatter than he intended. "His perfect heir. Then my body started failing."

A juror shifted in their seat.

"My quirk burned hotter than I could handle. The doctors warned him - one more major injury could kill me." Touya's thumb traced a particularly jagged scar along his wrist. "So he stopped training me. Just... walked away. Like I was a broken toy he couldn't play with anymore."

The prosecutor nodded. "And how did you respond?"

"I was thirteen." Touya's mouth twisted. "All I knew was that if I could just be stronger, just prove I could handle it, he'd-" His breath hitched. "I went to Sekoto Peak. Used my quirk until I lost control. Nearly burned myself alive."

The courtroom was silent save for the scratch of the court reporter's pen. Touya finally looked at Endeavor. The man's face was ashen, his massive frame rigid.

"You know what's funny?" Touya continued, voice hollow. "I woke up three weeks later in a hospital. I’ve been told he never visited. Not once."

The prosecutor stepped closer. "And your younger brothers?"

Touya's chest tightened. "Natsuo was six when I left. Shouto was barely walking. Now?" His gaze flicked to where Fuyumi sat clutching Natsuo's hand. "One's got ice he can't control from the stress of living with that man. The other doesn't speak at all because he got hit in the head too hard."

He leaned forward, scars pulling taut. "That's what Endeavor does to children. He either breaks them or makes them break themselves. And now you're asking if he should get another chance?"

The judge's pen stilled.

Touya sat back, exhaustion crashing over him. "I set myself on fire trying to get his attention. Shouto is eleven and can’t string a sentence together. Tell me - which of us got out luckier?"

The silence that followed was answer enough.

---

The neighbors spoke of hearing shouts through the walls, of seeing a small, dual-haired boy with bruises on his arms. The doctor described Shouto’s untreated head injury, the concussion that should have been monitored, the speech issues that could have been mitigated with early intervention.

Rei’s testimony played on a screen, her face gaunt but composed as she spoke from the hospital. "I failed them," she said softly. "But he broke me first."

---

The air in the courtroom grew heavier when Enji Todoroki stood. His massive frame seemed to shrink the witness stand as he took his place, the wood creaking under his weight. For the first time since proceedings began, the Number Two Hero looked every one of his forty-eight years.

"State your name for the record."

"Todoroki Enji."

His voice was gravel, the deep rumble that had once commanded battlefields now subdued before the family court. The prosecutor didn't soften her approach.

"Mr. Todoroki, do you dispute the allegations of abuse against your children?"

A pause. The courtroom's antique clock ticked three times before he answered.

"No."

"Neglect?"

Another pause. The ice along the railing from Natsuo's testimony hadn't fully melted. Endeavor's eyes tracked a droplet of water as it fell.

"No."

The prosecutor consulted her notes. "Your eldest son nearly died at thirteen by his own quirk. Your youngest hasn't spoken a word in seven years. As a father and a hero, how do you explain this?"

Endeavor's hands, large enough to crush concrete, flexed against the railing. When he spoke, each word came slowly, as if being dragged from some deep, shameful place.

"I... believed strength was everything. That if they were strong enough, nothing else would matter." His jaw worked. "I was wrong."

The prosecutor let the admission hang in the air before continuing. "Do you believe your children are better off in their current living situation?"

Every eye in the courtroom turned to where Touya sat between his siblings, his scarred arm resting protectively around Shouto's shoulders. Endeavor followed their gaze, his expression doing something complicated.

"Yes."

The single word seemed to cost him. His shoulders slumped minutely, the flames of his beard flickering as if dampened.

Judge Tanaka's chambers smelled of aged paper and strong tea. The three eldest siblings sat in stiff-backed chairs while she reviewed the final documents, her reading glasses catching the afternoon light.

"The court finds in favor of the petitioners," she said at last, removing her glasses. "Permanent custody of Todoroki Natsuo and Todoroki Shouto is granted to Himura Touya and Todoroki Fuyumi, effective immediately."

Fuyumi released the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding in. Natsuo's fingers dug into his knees.

"The respondent's visitation rights are hereby revoked." Judge Tanaka's pen scratched across the final order. "This will be reassessed in no less than three years, contingent on completion of mandatory parenting courses and psychological evaluation."

She fixed Endeavor with a look that had made lesser heroes quail. "Mr. Todoroki, you will have no contact with these children outside of court-approved supervision until such time as this order is amended. Do you understand?"

Endeavor stood ramrod straight, his voice barely above a growl. "Yes, Your Honor."

"Furthermore," the judge continued, turning to Touya, "the court will require quarterly home inspections by Child Protective Services and random drug screenings for Himura Touya for the next eighteen months." Her expression softened slightly. "Your former caseworker spoke highly of your rehabilitation. Don't make her regret it."

Touya nodded once. 

It was over.

---

The fluorescent lights of the courthouse hallway buzzed overhead as Touya leaned against the wall, waiting for Fuyumi to collect Shouto from the children's waiting area. His throat burned with the first telltale scratch of illness, his nose already beginning to run beneath the mask. He swallowed thickly, trying to ignore the way his head throbbed in time with his pulse.

Natsuo stood beside him, bouncing on the balls of his feet, his earlier courtroom intensity giving way to restless energy. "We should go out to eat," he announced, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Like, somewhere fancy. To celebrate."

Fuyumi emerged from the waiting room, Shouto's small hand clutched in hers. The boy's nose was red from being wiped too many times, his eyes glassy, but he seemed otherwise fine, just the lingering sniffles of a cold nearly kicked.

"I don't know," Fuyumi said hesitantly, glancing at the lawyer, who lingered nearby. "The press is probably already swarming outside."

The lawyer, a sharp-eyed woman named Ms. Aihara, nodded. "I'd recommend laying low for a few days. The verdict will hit the news any second now, and they'll be looking for reactions."

Touya exhaled, relieved. The thought of sitting in a crowded restaurant, forcing conversation through the fog of his incoming cold, made his skin crawl. "Takeout," he rasped, then cleared his throat. "We can order in."

The apartment was blessedly quiet when they returned. Shouto immediately beelined for the couch, curling up under the blanket Touya kept draped over the back. Natsuo flopped down beside him, already scrolling through his phone for food options.

Touya peeled off his mask with a wince, the fabric damp from his breath. He could feel the congestion settling in now, his sinuses heavy and aching. "I'm gonna change," he muttered, disappearing into the bedroom before anyone could respond.

He emerged minutes later in sweatpants and an old hoodie, his hair still damp from splashing water on his face. The others were debating between ramen and sushi when Touya's phone buzzed.

KEIGO 🦅: how'd it go?

Touya typed back with one hand while reaching for the ibuprofen with the other. won. exhausted.

KEIGO 🦅: celebratory dinner?

TOUYA: takeout. im dead.

KEIGO 🦅: that bad?

Touya hesitated, then sent:

TOUYA: getting sick. dont wanna scare the kids.

Keigo's response was immediate. 

KEIGO 🦅:want me to come over?

TOUYA: no. fuyumi's here. ill live.

He shoved his phone in his pocket before Keigo could argue.

They settled on ramen. Touya placed the order, then sank onto the couch beside Shouto, who immediately leaned into his side. The warmth of him was comforting, even if Touya could feel the exhaustion dragging at his bones.

He didn't remember falling asleep.

---

Touya woke to the sharp sting of his alarm, his throat on fire, his head pounding. For a disorienting second, he didn't remember moving to his bed, then recalled Fuyumi shaking him awake late last night, her voice soft as she told him she was heading home.

He groaned, rolling onto his back. Every muscle ached.

Across the room, Shouto was already sitting up in his futon, blinking sleepily. His nose was still stuffy, his breaths slightly wheezy, but he looked better than Touya felt.

"Morning," Touya croaked, then winced at the sound of his own voice.

Shouto just stared at him.

Right. 

Touya forced himself upright, ignoring the way the room tilted slightly. He had work. The kids had school. He couldn't afford to collapse now.

The medicine cabinet was a mess of pill bottles: painkillers, quirk suppressants, the occasional sedative for nights when his scars burned too badly to sleep. He dug out the cold medicine, swallowing two pills dry before splashing water on his face.

His reflection in the mirror was ghastly: pale, dark circles under his eyes, the scars along his cheeks standing out more prominently than usual. He tugged on his mask, hiding the worst of it.

Natsuo was already in the kitchen, shoveling cereal into his mouth. He eyed Touya as he entered. "You look like shit."

"Thanks," Touya muttered, reaching for the coffee.

The clinic’s automatic doors hissed open, and Touya stepped inside, the sterile scent of antiseptic and floor cleaner hitting him like a physical force. He kept his mask firmly in place, his hood pulled up just enough to shadow his eyes. The receptionist, a woman with a moth-like quirk that left her fingers dusted with fine powder, glanced up from her computer.

“Morning, Himura-san,” she said, her antennae twitching slightly. “Rough night?”

Touya grunted, swiping his badge over the scanner. “Something like that.”

She didn’t press. The staff here had seen him in worse states, days when his scars burned too badly to lift his arms, mornings when his voice came out in a rasp from lung damage, afternoons when he popped painkillers like candy just to get through his sessions. He was always professional. Always got the job done. That was all that mattered.

Dr. Ishikawa was already in her office when he passed, her serpentine eyes flicking up from her paperwork. The scales along her forearms gleamed under the fluorescent lights.

“You look like death,” she said bluntly.

Touya leaned against her doorframe. “You say that like it’s new.”

She snorted, setting down her pen. “Court went well?”

“We won.”

“Good.” She studied him for a moment, her slitted pupils narrowing. “You’re sick.”

It wasn’t a question.

Touya shrugged. “It’s just a cold.”

Dr. Ishikawa exhaled through her nose, the way she always did when she wanted to press further but knew better. She’d known Touya since his internship—had been the one to push for his certification despite his spotty history. She understood his limits better than most.

"You’re not contagious, are you?"

Touya shook his head. "Just a cold. I’m fine."

She studied him for another beat before sighing. "Take the afternoon if you need it."

"I don’t."

Dr. Ishikawa’s lips quirked. "Stubborn as ever." She tapped his desk once with a scaled fingertip before walking away, leaving Touya to his files.

The morning passed in a blur of client notes and half-focused therapy sessions. His coworkers gave him a wide berth, not out of discomfort, but familiarity. They were used to Touya working through migraines, through bad pain days, through the occasional flare-up of his scars. He never complained, never asked for help. It was just how he was.

By lunch, his throat felt like he’d swallowed glass. He ducked into the break room to swallow more medicine dry, chasing it with tepid coffee. One of the interns, a bright-eyed girl fresh out of university, hovered near the sink.

"You okay, Himura-san?"

Touya waved her off. "Peachy."

She hesitated, then blessedly, left him alone.

---

The apartment was warm when Touya stumbled inside, the scent of simmering broth cutting through the haze of his congestion. Fuyumi stood at the stove, stirring a pot with one hand while texting with the other. Natsuo hunched over the coffee table, scowling at a textbook.

Shouto sat beside him, methodically stacking crayons into a tower.

"I’m home," Touya croaked, toeing off his shoes.

Fuyumi glanced up, her smile fading slightly as she took in his appearance. "You look exhausted."

"Long day." He shrugged out of his jacket, wincing as the motion tugged at his stiff shoulders. "Caught Shouto’s cold."

Natsuo snorted without looking up. "Knew it."

"Thanks for the concern."

Fuyumi pressed a mug of tea into his hands. "Sit down before you fall over."

Touya sank onto the couch, the heat of the mug seeping into his aching fingers. He sipped slowly, letting the steam soothe his raw throat.

For a while, he just watched: Fuyumi moving between the stove and the table, Natsuo muttering equations under his breath, Shouto abandoning his crayons to press against Touya’s side. The normalcy of it was almost enough to make him forget how awful he felt.

Until Natsuo shoved his textbook toward him.

"Can you explain this," he demanded, jabbing at a diagram.

Touya blinked at the blur of numbers. "What?"

"This formula. I don’t get it."

Of all the days. Touya dragged a hand down his face. "Give me five minutes to change."

He hauled himself upright, the room tilting dangerously for a second before righting itself. The short hallway seemed impossibly long, his bedroom impossibly far.

He didn’t remember lying down.

​​The soft click of the bedroom door echoed in the quiet apartment as Fuyumi guided Shouto inside. Moonlight filtered through the thin curtains, casting silvery streaks across the floorboards and illuminating the scene before her.

Touya lay sprawled on top of the blankets, one arm was flung over his eyes, blocking out what little light there was, while the other rested limply at his side. His chest rose and fell steadily, but his breathing had a thick, congested quality to it, each inhale slightly labored.

Fuyumi paused in the doorway, watching for a moment. He didn’t look ill, just deeply asleep, the kind of exhausted slumber that came after days of stress finally catching up to him. His face was relaxed, free of the usual tension that pinched his features when he was awake. If not for the congested sound of his breathing, she might have thought he was just sleeping off fatigue.

Shouto shuffled past her, already tugging at his shirt in silent request for pajamas. Fuyumi moved quietly to the dresser, careful not to let the drawers creak as she opened them. She selected a set of sleepwear and handed them to Shouto before turning her attention back to Touya.

She considered for a brief moment whether to wake him, to at least tell him to get under the covers properly, but dismissed the thought just as quickly. Touya was a light sleeper on a good day, and if he’d crashed this hard, he clearly needed the rest. The last thing she wanted was to disturb him over something as trivial as blankets.

Instead, she focused on Shouto, helping him into his pajamas with practiced efficiency. The boy moved drowsily, his limbs heavy with sleep, but he cooperated without protest. Once he was dressed, Fuyumi guided him to his futon, tucking the blankets snugly around his shoulders.

"Goodnight," she whispered, brushing his bangs away from his forehead.

Shouto blinked up at her once, then burrowed deeper into the bedding, his eyes already closing.

Fuyumi cast one last glance at Touya. His breathing had evened out slightly, the congestion less noticeable now that he’d settled deeper into sleep. She hesitated, then reached for the spare blanket folded at the foot of the bed. Without waking him, she draped it loosely over his legs, enough to ward off the nighttime chill, but not enough to risk disturbing him.

Satisfied, she turned and slipped out of the room, leaving the door slightly ajar behind her.

---

The clinic’s back stairwell was quiet at midday, the concrete walls muffling the sounds of the bustling floors below. Touya leaned against the railing, the cold metal biting through the thin fabric of his scrubs as he dialed the familiar number. The phone rang twice before his grandmother’s voice, warm but firm, crackled through the receiver.

“Touya.”

“Obaasan,” he greeted, forcing lightness into his voice.

“You sound tired.”

He huffed a laugh, rubbing at the bridge of his nose where his glasses had left angry red marks. “Long week.”

“And the trial?”

“We won.” The words still felt surreal. “Full custody. No visitation.”

A pause. Then, softer: “Good.”

His grandfather’s voice rumbled in the background before the phone was passed over. “Ojiisan here. How are the boys?”

Touya exhaled, leaning his head back against the wall. “Shouto’s been a little sick, but he’s feeling better now.”

“And you?”

The question was pointed. It always was.

“I’m fine,” he said automatically. “Health’s been good. Quirk’s stable. No flare-ups.”

Another pause. 

“Touya?”

“Yes?,” he replied, wincing at the rasp in his own voice.

A beat of silence. Then: “You’re sick.”

Touya cleared his throat, which only made the congestion more obvious. “Just a little cold.” 

Another pause. Then, his ojiisan sighed. “You sound like you did that winter in university.”

Touya stiffened.

That winter.

The one where he’d ignored a cold until it turned into pneumonia, until he’d woken up in the hospital with an oxygen mask strapped to his face and Akane Mori standing at the foot of his bed, her arms crossed. “I called your grandparents,” she’d said, blunt as always. “They’re coming.”

After years of distance, after his running away, after the drugs and the burns and the anger, they’d shown up. His obaasan had taken one look at the IV in his arm, the way his ribs jutted under the hospital gown, and her face had done something complicated. His ojiisan had sat in the chair by his bed for three days straight, listening silently as the doctors listed all the ways Touya’s body was failing him.

Chronic lung damage. Scar tissue complications. High risk of infection.

And Touya, stubborn to the bone, had refused opioids for the pain, refused anything stronger than ibuprofen. “I’m not going back to that,” he’d muttered, teeth gritted. “I can handle it.”

Now, on the phone, his obaasan’s voice was firm. “You remember what happened last time you ignored being sick?”

Touya closed his eyes. “Yes.”

“And you promised,” she continued, relentless, “that if it ever got that bad again, you’d tell someone.”

Touya exhaled through his nose. “If I feel worse, I’ll tell Fuyumi, so she can take Shouto for a few days. I promise.”

His ojiisan took the phone back. “What are you taking for it?”

“Cold medicine. Tea. The usual.”

Touya’s fingers tightened around the phone.

They knew. Of course they knew.

“Don’t wait until you’re coughing blood.”

“I won’t,” he said quietly.

His obaasan’s voice softened, just a fraction. “Rest.”

“I will.”

Another lie.

But this one, at least, was familiar.

---

Touya leaned against the bathroom sink, staring at his reflection under the harsh fluorescent light. His skin was paler than usual, the shadows under his eyes more pronounced. The congestion had settled deep in his sinuses, making his head feel stuffed with cotton, and his throat burned with every swallow. It wasn’t bad, not like the times he’d ended up in the hospital, but his body didn’t handle illness like a normal person’s. His lungs were already compromised, his scars didn’t take well to fever, and even a mild cold left him feeling like he’d been run over.

He splashed cold water on his face, then pressed a damp towel to the back of his neck. The fever was low-grade, just enough to make his skin feel too tight, his thoughts sluggish. He could push through. He had to.

His phone buzzed on the counter.

KEIGO 🦅: Hey, hot stuff. You alive?

Touya exhaled, wiping his hands before typing back. 

TOUYA: Barely. Work’s kicking my ass.

KEIGO 🦅: You sounded like shit on the phone earlier. 

TOUYA: Just a cold. It’s whatever.

KEIGO 🦅: You taking care of yourself?

Touya rolled his eyes, though the concern warmed him in a way he’d never admit. 

TOUYA: Yeah, mom. I’m fine.

KEIGO 🦅: You sure? I can swing by. Bring soup. Annoy you until your cold leaves your body.

Touya’s chest tightened, but not from the congestion. He wanted to say yes. Wanted to let Keigo fuss over him, to sink into the comfort of his presence. But—

TOUYA: Can’t. Got grad school work to finish, and I still need to figure out when I have to go in for those drug tests >:/.

Another pause. Longer this time.

KEIGO 🦅: ok babe…You’re really okay?

TOUYA: I’m good. Just busy. I’ll hit you up when things settle.

He locked his phone and put it down before he was tempted to say more.

---

Touya woke to the sound of his own coughing, his body jerking with each ragged hack. His throat burned, his ribs ached, and his lungs felt like they were lined with broken glass. He rolled onto his side, pressing a fist to his mouth to muffle the worst of it, but the fit didn’t stop.

From his futon, Shouto sat up, his mismatched eyes wide and alert. 

Touya waved a hand weakly. “M’fine,” he rasped, though the words came out more like a wheeze.

Shouto didn’t look convinced.

His phone buzzed on the nightstand: his alarm. 6:30 AM.

Touya groaned, dragging himself upright. The room spun violently, his head pounding in time with his pulse. He fumbled for his phone, then hesitated.

No way in hell I can work like this.

He dialed the clinic before he could second-guess himself.

The line rang twice before the voicemail picked up.

"You've reached Shinjuku Pediatric Quirk Clinic. Our office hours…"

Touya waited for the message to end, then cleared his throat, fighting to keep his voice steady. "This is Himura. I need to call out today-"

Suddenly, Shouto was at his side, his hands pressing insistently against Touya’s face, his right palm cool against Touya’s fevered skin. Normally, Touya would let him. Today, the touch was too much, too rough, the contrast between hot and cold making his head throb harder.

“Shouto- stop,” he gritted out, batting his hand away.

Shouto flinched, his expression unreadable.

Touya immediately felt like shit. He reached out, squeezing Shouto’s shoulder in silent apology before lifting the phone back to his ear.

“Sorry,” he croaked, before continuing his phone message. “I am feeling… not good.” He hung up before the coughing could start again.

Shouto was still staring at him, his expression unreadable but his posture tense. Touya sighed, reaching out to ruffle his hair in apology.

"Sorry Sho. Didn't mean to snap."

Natsuo appeared in the doorway in his pajamas. "You sound like shit."

Touya huffed a laugh, then winced as it tugged at his throat. "Yeah, well. You're not wrong."

“Do you need…” Natsuo cut himself off, shrugging. “Like. Medicine or whatever?”

Touya blinked. 

“I’m good,” he said, softer now. “Just take care of your own lunch, and maybe Shouto’s today, please?”

Natsuo shrugged, but there was no bite to it. “Whatever.”

---

The mask made it harder to breathe.

Touya kept it on anyway, the fabric damp against his mouth as he guided Shouto through the morning crowds. Every inhale felt like dragging air through a clogged straw, his lungs protesting the strain. His head throbbed in time with his footsteps, the cold November wind biting at his exposed skin.

Shouto kept glancing up at him, his steps slowing whenever Touya's did.

"I'm fine," Touya muttered, though the words were muffled behind the mask.

Shouto didn't look convinced.

By the time they reached the school gates, Touya's vision was swimming. He crouched and adjusted Shouto's scarf.

"Fuyumi's picking you up today," he said, forcing lightness into his voice. "I've got some stuff to take care of."

Shouto's fingers curled into his sleeve, tight enough to wrinkle the fabric.

Touya pried them loose gently. "I'll see you at home, okay?"

Shouto stared at him for a long moment before finally nodding and turning toward the school entrance.

Touya waited until he was inside before sagging against the wall, coughing harshly into his elbow.

---

The apartment was blessedly quiet when he returned. Touya didn't even bother changing back into pajamas, just collapsed onto the couch, his body aching too much to make it to the bedroom.

He pulled out his phone, texting Fuyumi with clumsy fingers.

TOUYA: Can you get Shouto today? Not feeling great.

Her reply was immediate. 

FUYUMI: Of course. Do you need anything?

TOUYA: Just sleep.

FUYUMI: Okay. Rest- I’ll see you later! 

He let the phone drop onto his chest, his eyes already closing, hoping to get some rest. 

His body, however, had other plans, as it usually did. 

Touya didn’t sleep.

He’d tried, curled under the blankets, medicine in his system, the apartment silent except for the hum of the heater. But between the fever and the congestion, every breath felt like dragging in fire, and every time he closed his eyes, his head pounded worse. Eventually, he gave up, dragging himself into the shower instead.

The water was too hot, steaming up the bathroom instantly, but the heat helped loosen the vice grip around his lungs. He coughed violently into his hand, spitting phlegm down the drain, his skin flushing an angry red under the spray. His scars burned as they always did when his temperature spiked, but he gritted his teeth and endured it. The relief in his chest was worth the sting.

By the time he stepped out, his legs were shaky with exhaustion, his skin tight and oversensitive. He dressed mechanically in loose sweats, and a thin long-sleeve shirt, and forced himself to at least look presentable before Fuyumi arrived. 

He was slumped on the couch when the door opened, Natsuo first, then Shouto trailing behind Fuyumi, schoolbags slung over their shoulders.

 “Oh my god, Touya.”

Touya shook his head dismissively, then immediately regretted it when the motion made his vision swim. “It’s not that bad.”

“You look like you got hit by a truck.”

“Flattering.”

Shouto padded over, his small fingers pressing insistently against Touya’s cheek, his right hand freezing. Touya flinched, brushing him away. 

Fuyumi dumped her bag on the table and marched over, pressing the back of her hand to Touya’s forehead before he could stop her. Her eyes widened. “Touya, you’re burning up.”

“It’s just my quirk,” he said smoothly, rolling his shoulders in a practiced shrug. “You know how it is. Body runs hot.”

Fuyumi didn’t look convinced. “You sound like you’re dying.”

“Shitty lungs,” he rasped, waving her off. “I’ll be fine.”

A cough wracked him then, deep and wet, his ribs protesting. Fuyumi’s frown deepened.

“Have you taken anything?”

“Yeah.”

“Properly?”

He rolled his eyes. 

Shouto, who had been silently observing, swiftly stepped forward and pressed an icy hand against Touya’s cheek again. The shock of the cold made him jerk back.

“Kid-”

Shouto blinked up at him, unrepentant.

Touya sighed, too tired to argue. “Look, I’m just gonna take it easy the rest of the day. Maybe… keep Shouto out of our room, for a bit?”

Shouto’s nose wrinkled, the closest he ever got to looking offended.

Fuyumi hesitated, then nodded. “Okay. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need anything.”

Touya nodded, pushing himself upright. The room swayed, but he steadied himself before anyone could notice.

The bedroom was dark when he stumbled in, the blinds still drawn from that morning. He didn’t bother turning on the light, just dug through the nightstand drawer, his fingers closing around the pill bottles.

He knew he shouldn’t. Knew better than to double-dose his suppressants, knew better than to mix them with NyQuil. But his skin was on fire, his lungs felt like they were lined with glass, and the thought of another minute of this misery was unbearable.

Just this once.

The pills went down dry. A swig of NyQuil straight from the bottle.

Just enough to knock him out.

He barely managed to crawl under the covers before the drowsiness hit, heavy and suffocating. The last thing he registered was the distant sound of Fuyumi’s voice in the kitchen, the clatter of dishes, the hum of the apartment settling around him.

Chapter 9: Revelations

Fuyumi woke to small, insistent hands shaking her shoulder.

She blinked up at the ceiling, disoriented. 

Right, she’d slept on the couch. 

Shouto stood over her, his mismatched eyes wide, his fingers gripping her sleeve too tight.

“Shouto?” she mumbled, rubbing sleep from her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

He didn’t answer, just tugged at her arm until she sat up. Then he turned and walked stiffly toward the hallway, glancing back to make sure she followed.

Fuyumi stumbled after him, her socked feet slipping on the hardwood. The apartment was quiet, the pale morning light filtering through the curtains. Natsuo’s door was still shut, the faint sound of snoring coming from inside.

Shouto stopped in front of Touya’s bedroom door, hesitating for a fraction of a second before pushing it open.

The room was hot.

Not just warm, but steaming, the air thick and damp like a sauna. Touya lay sprawled across the bed, his cheeks flushed, his breathing ragged. The sheets beneath him were soaked with sweat, his hair plastered to his forehead.

Fuyumi’s stomach dropped.

“Touya?”

No response.

Shouto climbed onto the bed, his small hands pressing against Touya’s chest. Ice spread from his fingertips, crystallizing across Touya’s skin, but it melted almost instantly, water pooling in the hollow of his collarbone.

Fuyumi swallowed hard. She’d seen Touya sick before, back when they were kids, vague memories of him curled under blankets, his temperature spiking unpredictably. But she didn’t remember what her mom ever did about it. 

“Okay,” she said, forcing her voice steady. “Okay, let’s… let’s check his medicines.”

She turned toward the bathroom, Shouto trailing silently behind her. The medicine cabinet was a disaster: rows of pill bottles, some labeled, some not, all crammed haphazardly onto the shelves. Fuyumi’s hands shook as she scanned them. Painkillers. Quirk suppressants. Something for nerve damage.

“Fuck,” she muttered under her breath.

A clatter from behind her made her jump. Natsuo stood in the doorway, bleary-eyed, his hair sticking up in every direction.

“What’re you doing?” he mumbled, rubbing his face.

“Touya’s sick,” Fuyumi said, pulling bottles down one by one.

Natsuo frowned, stepping closer. “How bad?”

She didn’t answer. 

Natsuo peered over her shoulder, his breath frosting slightly in the air. “Shit. That’s a lot of meds.”

Fuyumi bit her lip. “Maybe we should wake him up? Ask him what he needs?”

They returned to the bedroom. Touya hadn’t moved, his breathing still uneven. Shouto had resumed his attempts to cool him down, his small face pinched in concentration as he pressed ice to Touya’s wrists, his neck, anywhere he could reach.

Natsuo leaned over the bed, shaking Touya’s shoulder. “Hey. Hey! Wake up.”

Nothing.

Natsuo’s breath fogged in the air as his quirk reacted to his nerves. “This is bad.”

Fuyumi’s gaze landed on the nightstand- the uncapped NyQuil bottle, the spilled pills scattered across the surface. Her stomach dropped. “Oh my god.”

Natsuo followed her stare. “Did he…?”

“I don’t know,” Fuyumi said, voice tight. She grabbed the NyQuil, shaking it. It wasn’t empty, but… “How much did he take?”

Natsuo’s hands were shaking. Frost crept up his sleeves. “We should call someone-”

A sharp knock at the front door cut him off.

All three of them froze.

Shouto was the first to move, slipping out of the room before Fuyumi could stop him.

---

The door swung open before Keigo could knock a second time.

Standing in the doorway was a kid… the kid . Todoroki Shouto, with his unmistakable red-and-white hair and wide, mismatched eyes. He stared up at Keigo blankly for a second before grabbing his wrist and yanking him inside without a word.

Keigo barely had time to process before he was being dragged down the hall, where two more stunned faces: a tall, broad-shouldered teenager with white hair and a young woman with glasses, whipped around to stare at him.

For a beat, no one spoke.

"Hawks?" the white-haired boy suddenly blurted out.

Keigo blinked. "Uh. Yeah. You're the Todorokis?"

The girl nodded slowly. 

Fuyumi, that's Fuyumi .

"You can call me Keigo," he added, because Hawks felt weirdly formal when he was standing in his boyfriend's apartment at seven in the morning.

Natsuo's eyes flicked to Keigo's wings, then back to his face. "Why are you here?"

Keigo opened his mouth, then closed it. A beat passed.

"...I'm actually here for Touya?"

Fuyumi's expression shifted to something alarmed. "Is he in trouble?"

Keigo's eyebrows shot up. "What? No-"

Natsuo gestured wildly toward the bedroom. "Because we just found like, twenty different pill bottles in his bathroom, and if this is some kind of drug bust-"

Keigo's stomach dropped. "What? No, Jesus, I'm not… " He ran a hand through his hair, realization dawning. "Oh. You guys don't… he didn't tell you?"

"Tell us what?" Fuyumi asked, voice pitching higher.

Keigo exhaled. "Okay. Uh. Sorry to break it to you this way, but I'm your brother's boyfriend."

Silence.

Natsuo's mouth actually fell open. Fuyumi's glasses slid down her nose.

Keigo winced. "Yeah. So. Anyway… can I come in?"

Fuyumi made a strangled noise. "Right, yes, sorry, please…" She stepped aside, still staring at him like he'd grown a second head.

Keigo moved past them, heading straight for the bedroom. The second he crossed the threshold, the heat hit him like a wall. The room was sweltering, the air thick with the scent of sweat and melted ice. And there, in the center of it all, Touya.

Pale, fever-flushed, his scarred skin glistening with sweat. His breathing was too fast, his fingers twitching against the damp sheets.

Keigo was at his side in an instant, pressing two fingers to the pulse point in Touya's wrist. The rhythm was rapid but steady.

"Touya," he murmured, brushing sweat-damp hair from his forehead.

Touya's eyelids fluttered. "Kei?" His voice was wrecked, barely audible.

"Yeah, it's me." Keigo's hand slid to his cheek, gauging the fever. "Fuck, you're burning up."

Fuyumi hovered in the doorway, wringing her hands. "He… he won't wake up properly. We didn't know what to do."

Keigo's eyes darted between the uncapped NyQuil and the scattered pills on the nightstand. He picked up the bottle, examining it with a trained eye before noticing something off. His fingers closed around a different prescription bottle that had rolled nearby - one with similar-looking pills but completely different labeling.

"Oh shit," Keigo muttered, comparing the two bottles. "That explains it."

Fuyumi hovered anxiously. "What's wrong?"

Keigo held up both containers. "These are his quirk suppressants," he pointed to the orange bottle, then gestured to the white one, "and these are his nighttime muscle relaxers. The pills look almost identical." He shook his head. "No wonder he's completely out of it - he probably took the wrong meds last night.” 

Natsuo's frost spread further up his arms as he processed this. "So he's not...?"

"Not overdosing, no," Keigo confirmed, already digging through the nightstand for the correct medication. "Just really fucking medicated on the wrong combination. His body's already running hot from the fever and now his system's flooded with depressants."

Fuyumi's brow furrowed. "How do you know all this?"

Keigo smirked, though it lacked its usual brightness. "Because this happens. Your brother's stubborn as hell, and his body hates him." He shook out two pills, then nudged Touya's shoulder. "Hey. Hotstuff. You gotta swallow these."

Touya groaned, turning his face away.

"Yeah, I know, you're miserable." Keigo hooked an arm under his shoulders, hauling him upright. "But if you don't take these, I'm dumping you in an ice bath."

Touya cracked one eye open, glaring weakly. "Asshole."

"There he is." Keigo pressed the correct pills to his lips, then held a glass of water to his mouth. "Swallow."

Touya did, with a grimace.

Natsuo and Fuyumi exchanged a look.

Keigo ignored them, focusing on Touya. "Alright. Next step, shower. You're fucking boiling."

Touya's head lolled against his shoulder. "No."

"Yes."

"Too cold."

Keigo snorted. "It's going to be lukewarm and you know it."

Touya muttered something unintelligible but didn't fight as Keigo hauled him to his feet, slinging one of Touya's arms over his shoulders. He was alarmingly light, he usually was, but the heat radiating off him was intense even for someone with a fire quirk.

Fuyumi stepped forward. "Do you need…?"

"I got him," Keigo said, already steering Touya toward the bathroom. "Maybe grab some clean sheets?"

She nodded, still shell-shocked.

---

Keigo had settled Touya back into bed, tucking the blankets around him with a quiet, "Stay put, idiot," before padding out to the kitchen. 

Fuyumi stood at the stove, stirring a pot of miso soup with one hand while scrolling through her phone with the other. She looked up when Keigo entered, her expression caught somewhere between wary and curious.

Natsuo and Shouto were in the living room, Natsuo sprawled on the couch with a video game controller in hand, Shouto sitting cross-legged on the floor, methodically stacking and unstacking a tower of coasters. The TV played some anime at low volume, filling the apartment with background noise.

Keigo leaned against the counter, wings rustling slightly. "He’s asleep. Fever’s down, but his breathing sounds like shit."

Fuyumi nodded, pushing her glasses up her nose. "That’s… normal for him though, right?"

"Unfortunately." Keigo eyed the soup. "Need help?"

Fuyumi hesitated, then handed him a knife and a bundle of green onions. "If you don’t mind."

They worked in silence for a minute, Keigo chopping, Fuyumi stirring, before she cleared her throat.

"So. You and Touya."

Keigo smirked. "Yeah. Me and Touya."

"How did you…?"

"Met at a networking event for quirk analysis students," Keigo said, scraping the onions into the pot. "I was there as a ‘guest hero,’ he was there as the grumpiest student in the room. I flirted, he told me to fuck off. Standard romance."

Fuyumi huffed a laugh. "That sounds like him."

Keigo’s grin softened. "Yeah. Took me six months to wear him down enough for a date."

"And now you’re…?"

"Coming up on a year and a half." Keigo tapped the spoon against the pot’s rim. "He, uh. Didn't tell you about me, huh?"

Fuyumi's stirring slowed. "No. But Touya's never been big on sharing personal stuff."

Keigo hummed, leaning against the counter. 

"I knew he had health problems,” Fuyumi casually began, “but I didn’t know it was this bad."

Keigo exhaled, running a hand through his hair. "Yeah. His quirk’s a bitch on his body. The scarring from Sekoto Peak didn’t help, but even before that-" He paused, studying her face. "You know about the genetic stuff, right?"

Fuyumi’s expression didn’t waver. "Of course."

Lie.

Keigo relaxed slightly, assuming she meant it. "Right. So the genes for your mom’s ice quirk left him with a body that tolerates cold better than heat, but his own quirk runs hot. Like, Cremation-level hot. His system’s basically fighting itself all the time."

Fuyumi’s stirring slowed. "That’s why the suppressants, right."

"Yeah. And the lung damage from when he got pneumonia while he was…" Keigo hesitated, then shrugged. "You know. Living rough."

Fuyumi’s throat tightened. She didn’t know. Not really. Touya had never talked about those years, or the things that had happened between Sekoto Peak and where he was now. But Keigo was looking at her like she did, so she just nodded.

"He’d never tell you, but it’s worse when he’s sick," Keigo continued, oblivious. "His immune system’s shot from the internal scarring, so any little cold turns into this mess. And he hates doing his breathing treatments-"

"Wait," Fuyumi interrupted, frowning. "Breathing treatments?"

Keigo blinked. "The nebulizer? The inhaler? He’s supposed to use them twice a day, especially when his lungs are acting up."

Fuyumi’s stomach dropped. She’d never seen Touya use anything like that.

Keigo, misreading her silence, winced. "Shit, sorry. I know he doesn’t like talking about it. But yeah, he’s probably been skipping them since the boys moved in… he gets distracted."

Fuyumi forced a smile. "That sounds like him."

The conversation shifted after that, easing into safer territory.

Natsuo wandered in after a bit, Shouto trailing behind him. "Food ready?"

"Just about," Fuyumi said, plating the tamagoyaki.

Breakfast was… oddly normal. Shouto sat silently, methodically separating the green onions from his soup, while Natsuo and Keigo debated the best convenience store snacks (Keigo was a fried chicken purist; Natsuo swore by the egg salad sandwiches). Fuyumi listened, interjecting occasionally, but her mind kept circling back to what Keigo had said: breathing treatments, lung damage, genetic incompatibility.

The conversation had drifted to some ridiculous hero gossip, Keigo was mid-sentence about a sidekick who'd gotten caught using their quirk to cheat at poker, when a shuffling noise came from the hallway.

Touya stood there, leaning heavily against the doorframe, his hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. His cheeks were still flushed, his breathing audible, a thick, congested wheeze, but his eyes were clearer than before. He blinked at them, looking vaguely embarrassed to be caught wandering around in just an old t-shirt and sweatpants, his feet bare against the cold floor.

Keigo was on his feet before Fuyumi could even react.

"Hey," he said, crossing the room in two strides. His voice was softer than Fuyumi had heard it all morning. "What’re you doing up?"

Touya scowled, but it lacked its usual heat. "I wanted water," he rasped, voice thick with congestion.

"You have a water bottle right next to you."

"Ran out."

Keigo rolled his eyes but was already crossing the room. “You’re a terrible liar.”

Touya opened his mouth to argue, but a cough cut him off, his shoulders hunching as his body protested. Keigo didn’t hesitate. He slid an arm around Touya’s waist, steadying him before he could sway. Touya stiffened for half a second, then sagged into the contact, too exhausted to pretend otherwise.

Keigo softened instantly. “C’mon, hotstuff. Back to bed.”

Touya grumbled something under his breath but let Keigo guide him back down the hall, his steps unsteady.

Fuyumi watched them go, catching snippets of their conversation. 

“...your inhaler-” Keigo was saying, voice low but insistent.

“Forgot,” Touya muttered.

“You forgot? You’ve had that thing glued to your pocket for years-”

“Brain fog.”

Keigo huffed. “That’s not an excuse and you know it.”

“Is when I’m sick.”

“It’s literally the opposite of an excuse, babe.”

Their voices faded as they turned into the bedroom. Fuyumi hesitated, then grabbed a sleeve of crackers from the pantry and a fresh glass of water before following.

She paused in the doorway.

Keigo had already maneuvered Touya back into bed, propping him up with pillows before pressing a hand to his forehead. “Still too warm,” he murmured, more to himself than anyone.

Touya batted his hand away half-heartedly. “I’m fine.”

“You’re steaming.”

“Quirk thing.”

“Bullshit.”

Fuyumi cleared her throat, holding up the crackers and water. “Thought you might want these.”

Keigo glanced over, his expression shifting from exasperated to grateful in an instant. “Thanks.”

Touya, meanwhile, looked vaguely mortified at being caught in such a compromised state, but he didn’t protest as Keigo took the offerings and set them on the nightstand.

“Eat something,” Keigo ordered, nudging the crackers toward him. “Then sleep.”

Touya grimaced but obediently took a cracker, nibbling at it like even that small effort was taxing.

Fuyumi lingered, struck by the quiet intimacy of the moment—the way Keigo’s fingers lingered on Touya’s wrist, checking his pulse without thinking; the way Touya, despite his grumbling, let himself be fussed over in a way he’d never tolerate from anyone else.

Keigo caught her staring and smirked. “He’s cute when he’s sick, right?”

Touya choked on his cracker. “Fuck you.”

“See? Adorable.”

Fuyumi bit back a smile. “I’ll, uh… leave you to it.”

She backed out of the room, but not before hearing Keigo’s voice drop into something softer—

“Seriously, though. You gotta take better care of yourself.”

A pause. Then, quieter:

“...I know.”

Fuyumi closed the door gently behind her.

---

Touya hated being sick.

Not just because it made him feel like shit, though it did, spectacularly, but because it forced him to acknowledge the inconvenient truth that his body had limits. Limits he couldn't power through, no matter how stubborn he was.

The first few days after his fever broke were the worst. His lungs still ached, his throat raw from coughing, and his energy levels hovered somewhere between exhausted and comatose. He spent most of that first week propped up on the couch, buried under blankets, while his siblings tiptoed around him like he might shatter if they breathed too hard.

Natsuo, surprisingly, had taken to wiping down every surface with disinfectant wipes, a habit Fuyumi had started and which Natsuo now performed with the intensity of a man possessed.

"You're gonna rub the finish off the table," Touya croaked on day three, watching Natsuo aggressively scrub the coffee table for the fifth time that day.

Natsuo didn't look up. "Don't care."

Shouto, meanwhile, had resumed his usual routine of clinging to Touya like a limpet the second he was well enough to sit upright. He'd press his icy left hand to Touya's forehead at random intervals, as if checking for fever, and refused to eat unless Touya was at the table too.

It was... sweet. In a weird, mildly suffocating way.

---

By the second week, Touya was back on his feet, mostly. His energy was still lagging, and his cough lingered like an unwelcome guest, but he could at least function like a semi-competent adult again.

Work was a nightmare of catch-up. His inbox was overflowing, his clients had been reassigned during his absence, and Dr. Ishikawa had looked at him the first day back with that particular blend of disappointment and concern that made him want to melt into the floor.

"You're on light duty," she said, her serpentine eyes unblinking. "No new assessments, no overtime."

Touya scowled but didn't argue. Things would be back to normal soon. 

However at home, things were getting bumpy.

The signs were subtle at first.

Shouto stopped brushing his teeth unless someone stood in the bathroom and handed him the toothbrush. He’d hold it limply, staring at it like he’d forgotten what to do with it, until Touya guided his hand through the motions.

He stopped showering, or changing his clothes without being prompted. Weekend mornings, Touya would find him still in his pajamas at noon, sitting on the floor of their bedroom, chewing absently on the collar of his shirt. The fabric was always damp by the time Touya noticed, stretched out from the constant gnawing.

Worst of all were the meltdowns: not violent, never violent, but devastating in their quiet intensity. Shouto would crumple to the floor, his breath hitching in silent sobs, his fingers clawing at his own arms like he was trying to peel his skin off. The first time it happened, Touya had panicked, unsure whether to touch him or give him space. In the end, he’d gathered Shouto into his lap, pressing his brother’s face against his chest and holding him tight until the tremors stopped.

The school reports painted a similar picture.

"Refused to participate in speech therapy today. Sat under the table for the entire session."

"Would not touch the picture cards. Turned his head away when presented with choices."

"After therapy, he crawled into the reading nook and would not move for forty minutes."

Touya rubbed his temples, his phone pressed between his shoulder and ear as Hayashi-sensei’s voice crackled through the receiver.

“We’re concerned,” she said gently. “He’s regressing in other areas too: fine motor skills, self-care. Have you noticed anything at home?”

Touya’s gaze drifted to where Shouto sat on the living room floor, methodically tearing a napkin into tiny shreds. “Yeah. We’ve noticed.”

On the bright side, though, Keigo came over more often. Now that the cat was out of the bag, so to speak, he was there to share the weight of Touya’s load. On days Fuyumi couldn’t come, he’d sit with Shouto so that Touya could get through his never ending assignments and take-home work from the clinic. Keigo never demanded words, never forced interaction, and so Shouto, in turn, seemed to tolerate him, which was as close to acceptance as anyone got these days.

All in all... things were looking up. 

Chapter 10: Seismic Shift

Notes:

so pleased to hear people are enjoying this!
thanks so much for sticking around :)

December arrived with biting winds and the first real snowfall of the season. Fuyumi’s lease was up at the end of the month, and Touya’s building had sent notice of a steep rent increase, forcing them into a flurry of apartment viewings between work, school, and Shouto’s escalating distress.

“This one’s close to Shouto’s school,” Fuyumi said, scrolling through listings on her phone as they rode the train to another viewing. “Three bedrooms, accessible building. A little over budget, but-”

“We can make it work,” Touya finished, rubbing at the lingering ache in his chest. His lungs hadn’t fully recovered from the November illness, and the cold air made every breath feel like inhaling glass.

Fuyumi eyed him sideways. “You okay?”

“Fine.”

She didn’t press.

The apartment was decent, spacious enough, with a kitchen big enough for all of them to crowd into, and a living room that could accommodate Shouto’s need for floor space. The realtor droned on about square footage while Touya mentally calculated the distance to the kids’ schools, the clinic, Fuyumi’s university.

“We’ll take it,” he said abruptly.

Fuyumi blinked. “We haven’t even seen the bathrooms yet…”

“I said we’ll take it.” 

Fuyumi sighed but didn’t argue.

---

The waiting room of Dr. Saito’s office smelled like antiseptic and the faint, stale sweetness of old magazines. Touya sat stiffly in one of the plastic chairs, his knee bouncing as he flipped through his phone, halfheartedly scrolling through emails, then his messages (one from Keigo: good luck at the appt, don’t lie to the doctor pls ), then the latest research on quirk-related pulmonary complications.

“Himura Touya?”

A nurse stood in the doorway, clipboard in hand.

Touya stood, wincing as his ribs twinged, a remnant of the coughing fits that still woke him some nights. He followed her down the hall, past framed diagrams of the respiratory system and a poster detailing the risks of quirk overuse.

The exam room was cold. Standard, though at this point, his temperature regulation was so shot it barely mattered. It was either overheating or shivering, no in between.

“Weight first,” the nurse said, gesturing to the scale.

Touya stepped on, keeping his expression neutral as the number flashed: a little higher than last time. Not by much, but enough to notice. That was probably good. The nurse made a note without comment, then guided him to take a seat.

“Blood pressure.” The cuff tightened around his arm.

A pause. Then, with slight hesitation: “It’s a little elevated today.”

Touya shrugged. “Parking was stressful.”

She didn’t laugh. Just noted it down and moved on.

Dr. Saito entered with her usual no-nonsense demeanor, her salt-and-pepper hair pulled into a tight bun, her tablet already open to his chart. She didn’t bother with small talk, just flipped open his chart and skimmed the latest notes before fixing him with a sharp look.

“Let’s start with the basics. How’s your breathing been?”

“Fine.”

“Scale of one to ten.”

“...Six.”

She arched an eyebrow. “That’s ‘fine’ to you?”

Touya scowled but didn’t argue.

Dr. Saito sighed and reached for her stethoscope. “Shirt off.”

The exam was thorough: listening to his lungs (wheezing, crackling in the lower lobes), checking his scars (no new breakdowns, but the old ones were tight and inflamed), pressing along his ribs (he hissed when she hit a particularly tender spot near his diaphragm).

“Pulmonary function tests now,” she said, handing him a sterile mouthpiece. “Deep breath in, hold it… now exhale, hard.”

Touya obeyed, his lungs burning as he forced air through the tube. The machine wheezed and clicked, spitting out a series of numbers that made Dr. Saito’s frown deepen.

“Again.”

He did it three more times before she was satisfied.

Next came the bloodwork, the needle sliding into the crook of his elbow with practiced ease.

Then, X-rays, standing stiffly in the cold imaging room, holding his breath as the machine whirred. The X-ray tech, a guy Touya had seen at least a dozen times over the years, winced when the images popped up on the screen.

“That’s… not great.”

Touya didn’t need a medical degree to see what he meant. The scarring from Sekoto Peak had spread, tendrils of damaged tissue creeping further into his lungs than before. The infection from November had left its own marks: hazy patches where the inflammation hadn’t fully resolved.

Dr. Saito didn’t sugarcoat it when she called him back in. “You should have gone to the hospital.”

Touya stared at the X-rays, his throat tight. “Would it have changed anything?”

“It might have prevented this.” She pointed to a particularly nasty-looking patch near the base of his left lung. “That’s necrotic tissue. If it spreads much further, we’re talking about permanent oxygen dependency.”

The words hit like a punch to the gut, which swiftly turned into a choke-on-his-spit situation. Dr. Saito watched him cough into a tissue, her expression unreadable.

Touya wiped his mouth. “I was busy.”

“Busy.” Her voice was flat. “Mr. Himura, your FEV1 is down to 58%. Your oxygen saturation drops to 89% with mild exertion. You have bronchiectasis forming in your left lower lobe—”

“I know.”

A beat of silence.

Dr. Saito exhaled, setting the tablet aside. “This isn’t just from pneumonia. You’ve been skipping treatments, haven’t you?”

Touya’s jaw tightened.

“The nebulizer, the airway clearance, the suppressants.” She leaned forward. “I can see the flare patterns in your imaging. Your quirk’s been more active, your lungs seem more irritated.”

He didn’t answer.

She sighed. “I’m increasing your steroid dosage. Adding another bronchodilator. And I want you back on daily airway clearance. No skipping.”

Touya nodded stiffly.

“And Touya.” Dr. Saito’s voice softened, just slightly. “This condition isn’t stagnant. You know that.”

He did.

The damage from Sekoto Peak had never been just burns. It was the way his quirk had rewritten his physiology, the way his mother’s ice-resistant genetics clashed with his father’s fire, leaving him with a body that couldn’t regulate its own temperature, with lungs that scarred at the slightest provocation.

Add in the years of drug use, the homelessness, the pneumonia he’d barely survived… 

“Yeah,” he muttered. “I know.”

Dr. Saito studied him for a long moment before standing. “I’ll see you in three months. No cancellations.”

Touya waited until the door closed behind her before sagging back against the exam table, his ribs aching with every breath.

On the counter, his phone buzzed.

KEIGO 🦅: so how badly did she yell at u

Touya huffed a laugh, then immediately regretted it as his lungs spasmed.

TOUYA: Worse than you did. Send in reinforcements.

---

It started like every other failed attempt.

Fuyumi knelt on the living room floor, holding up a laminated picture card with exaggerated patience. "Shouto, look. This is a cup. Can you point to the cup?"

Shouto sat perfectly still, his mismatched eyes fixed somewhere past her shoulder. His fingers twisted in the fabric of his sweatpants, the repetitive motion the only sign he'd even registered her words.

Fuyumi tried again. "Just one try. Please?"

Nothing.

From the kitchen table, Touya watched over the top of his laptop, his grading forgotten. He could see the tension building in Shouto's shoulders, the way his breathing had gone shallow. They'd been at this for weeks - the school's insistence, Fuyumi's hopeful attempts, Shouto's silent resistance.

Then Fuyumi made the mistake of reaching out.

Her fingers barely grazed Shouto's chin, just enough to gently redirect his gaze toward the card. "Look at-"

Fire erupted.

Not the controlled flames of training, but wild, panicked bursts that erupted from Shouto's left side. His sleeve caught first, then the collar of his shirt, the fabric blackening at the edges as blue-tinged flames licked upward.

Shouto's eyes widened in pure terror.

"Fuyumi, back!" Touya was moving before he could think, his chair clattering to the floor.

Fuyumi scrambled backward, her own ice quirk flaring instinctively, a frost spreading across her fingertips before she clenched her fists to stop it. Natsuo appeared in the doorway, his breath fogging in the suddenly superheated air.

The fire wasn't spreading; Shouto's right side remained stubbornly cold, keeping the flames contained to his left arm and chest, but that was almost worse. The heat had nowhere to go, intensifying as Shouto panicked, his breaths coming in ragged gasps.

Touya approached slowly, keeping his movements deliberate. "Shouto. Look at me."

Shouto's gaze darted to him, wild and uncomprehending. The flames climbed higher.

"You're okay," Touya said, his voice steady despite the heat searing his face. "This is just your quirk. You can control this."

A shake of Shouto's head, violent enough to send droplets of sweat flying. His left hand clutched at his burning sleeve like he could somehow smother the flames that way.

Touya crouched just outside the radius of the heat, close enough to be heard but not so close he'd get burned. "Breathe with me, kid. In... and out." He demonstrated, exaggerating the motion of his chest.

For a terrible moment, nothing changed. Then Shouto's breath caught, then stuttered into something approximating Touya's rhythm. The flames flickered.

"That's it," Touya encouraged. "Now, remember what your body knows. The fire comes from here-" He tapped his own sternum, "-and you can pull it back the same way."

Shouto shook his head again, more weakly this time. Tears mixed with the sweat on his face, evaporating instantly in the heat.

"You can," Touya insisted. "You’ve done it a thousand times. Just-" He mimed the motion with his hands, pulling inward, "bring it home."

A shudder ran through Shouto's frame. The flames wavered, dimmed, then flared again as another wave of panic hit.

Touya didn't flinch. "Hey. Look at me. Only me." He waited until Shouto's glassy eyes focused on his face. "You're not in trouble. You're safe. The fire can't hurt you unless you let it."

Something in his words must have gotten through. Shouto's breathing evened slightly, and this time when the flames flickered, they didn't return. Slowly, inch by inch, the fire receded: first from his clothes (now charred but not burning), then from his skin, until only faint tendrils of smoke rose from his fingertips.

The moment the last flame died, Touya reached forward and pulled Shouto into a tight hug, ignoring the residual heat. "Good job. You did good."

Touya exhaled, then shifted his grip. "Natsuo. Take him."

Natsuo blinked. "What?"

"He's still too hot for me." Touya nodded to Shouto's left side, where the skin still radiated enough heat to make the air waver. "You can handle it."

A beat of hesitation, but he stepped in quickly. Natsuo replaced Touya, and just sank to the floor right where he was, the scorched wood creaking under his weight, and pulled Shouto against his chest.

Shouto went willingly, his body still radiating heat like a furnace, his left arm twitching with residual embers. Natsuo didn’t flinch. His quirk was snowflakes and frost, but his body had been built to withstand heat. Thanks, Endeavor . So he just held on, his arms locked around Shouto’s shoulders, his chin resting on top of his little brother’s head.

“Breathe,” Natsuo muttered, his voice rough but steady. “Just breathe.”

Shouto shuddered, his fingers digging into Natsuo’s sleeves, but his pulse was already slowing, his temperature dropping by degrees.

Across the room, Touya watched them for a moment before turning to Fuyumi.

She looked wrecked. Her hands were shaking, her glasses slightly askew, and there was a frostbitten streak in the floorboards where her quirk had reacted without thinking.

“I didn’t… ” she started to say, then stopped.

Touya opened his mouth, then closed it. His first instinct was anger. 

Why did you push him, why didn’t you stop, what were you thinking ?

But then a rough cough tore through him and suddenly he was too tired to be mad.

“I know,” he said instead, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Just… no more practicing at home.”

Fuyumi nodded immediately. “No more. I… God, Touya, I didn’t realize-”

“It’s fine.”

Silence settled between them, broken only by the crackle of cooling wood and Shouto’s uneven breaths.

Fuyumi adjusted her glasses, her voice small. “What do we tell the school?”

Touya exhaled. “The truth. That he’s not ready.”

She hesitated. “They’re not going to like that.”

“They don’t have to like it.”

Another beat. Then Fuyumi squared her shoulders. “Okay. I’ll call them tomorrow.”

Touya nodded, his gaze drifting back to Natsuo and Shouto. The two of them were still tangled together on the floor, Shouto’s face pressed into Natsuo’s shoulder, Natsuo’s fingers absently carding through his hair.

Four months ago, Natsuo would’ve scoffed at the idea of holding Shouto like this.

He’s not a baby , he’d snapped, the first day they’d met. 

Now, though?

Now, Natsuo held on like he needed it just as much as Shouto did.

---

The morning of the move dawned crisp and bright, the last day of December stretching before them with the promise of a fresh start. Touya woke to the sound of Fuyumi already bustling around their soon-to-be-former apartment, her voice carrying down the hall as she directed Natsuo on which boxes needed to be sealed.

Touya rolled onto his side, wincing slightly as the movement tugged at the scar tissue along his ribs. He wasn’t frail, not by any stretch, but his lungs ached in the winter air, and the strain of lifting heavy furniture wasn’t something he could manage without consequence. Still, he wasn’t about to let his siblings do all the work.

He dragged himself out of bed, pulling on a hoodie and running a hand through his disheveled white hair. When he stepped into the living room, he found Natsuo wrestling with a roll of packing tape while Fuyumi folded blankets into a box.

“Morning,” Touya muttered, voice still rough with sleep.

“Finally,” Natsuo huffed, though there was no real bite to it. “Thought you were gonna sleep through the whole move.”

“Would’ve been nice,” Touya admitted, stretching his arms over his head. “Where’s Sho?”

Fuyumi nodded toward the kitchen. “Eating breakfast. Or, well, poking at it.”

Touya wandered over to find Shouto sitting at the table, methodically picking apart an onigiri with his fingers instead of eating it. He glanced up when Touya entered, his mismatched eyes tracking him silently.

“You good?” Touya asked, nudging the plate closer to him.

Shouto blinked, then pushed the onigiri back toward Touya, a peace offering.

Touya snorted. “I’m not eating your leftovers.”

Shouto’s expression didn’t change, but he picked up a single grain of rice and placed it delicately on the edge of the plate, as if marking territory.

Fuyumi sighed from the doorway. “He’s been like that all morning. I think he’s nervous.”

Touya sighed. "You should eat. Big day."

Shouto’s expression remained blank, but he picked up a single grain of rice with his fingers and ate it with exaggerated slowness.

Touya rolled his eyes. "Dramatic."

---

By midmorning, the door burst open without warning, and Keigo strolled in like he owned the place, wings slightly flared to avoid knocking anything over.

“Happy moving day!” he announced, tossing a thermos of coffee directly at Touya’s face.

Touya caught it, fumbling only slightly. “You’re late.”

“Fashionably,” Keigo corrected, grinning. Then, with a flick of his wrist, several of his primary feathers detached, flitting around the room to lift boxes with eerie precision.

Natsuo stared. “That’s cheating.”

“Efficiency,” Keigo said, winking. “You’re welcome.”

Touya took a long sip of the coffee, which was still hot, just the way he liked it, and exhaled. “You’re a menace.”

“I’m your menace,” Keigo corrected, leaning in to press a quick kiss to his temple before darting off to help Fuyumi with a stack of dishes.

Natsuo made a face. “Do you two have to do that in front of me?”

“Yes,” Touya said flatly. “Don’t be homophobic.” 

“It’s not homophobia, it’s Touya-phobia.” 

Shouto, who had been watching the exchange silently, tilted his head, then reached out and poked one of Keigo’s floating feathers. It twitched in response, and Shouto’s eyes widened slightly.

Keigo laughed. “You can hold one if you want, kiddo.”

Shouto considered this, then carefully plucked a feather out of the air, holding it between his fingers like it might dissolve.

Touya smirked. “It’s molting season all over again.”

Keigo gasped in mock offense. “Are you implying I shed? Rude.”

Touya rolled his eyes. “Babe, I know you do.”

---

The new apartment was brighter than the last, with wider hallways and, most importantly, an elevator. Touya hadn’t argued when Fuyumi suggested the upgrade. His pride could handle the implication; his lungs couldn’t handle five flights of stairs every day.

Once the bulk of the furniture was in place, Fuyumi clapped her hands together. “Alright, room assignments!”

Natsuo, who had already claimed the smallest bedroom (“I don’t need space, I need privacy”), was sprawled across his new floor like a starfish.

Touya leaned against the doorframe of what would soon be his room, watching as Fuyumi carefully smoothed out the sheets on Shouto’s new futon in the adjacent bedroom.

They’d talked about this. Multiple times.

Fuyumi had explained it gently, Touya had grunted his agreement, and Shouto had listened with that unreadable stare of his. It was simple: Shouto would share the bigger room with Fuyumi, and Touya would be in the middle one, close enough to everyone, but not so close that a stray cough or fever would knock him flat for a week again.

But knowing something and accepting it were two different things.

Fuyumi, ever the diplomat, crouched down in front of Shouto as they stood in the half-empty new apartment. “Remember what we talked about, Sho? You and me in the big room?”

Shouto’s fingers curled into fists at his sides. He didn’t nod. Didn’t shake his head. Just stared at the floor like it held answers.

Touya sighed and nudged him with his knee. “Hey. Look at me.”

Shouto did, slowly. His mismatched eyes were wide, unblinking.

“This isn’t because I don’t want you around,” Touya said, voice rough. “You know that, right?”

A tiny, hesitant shake of his head. No, I don’t know.

Touya winced. Right. Of course Shouto wouldn’t get it. To him, this probably felt like being pushed away, like punishment for something he didn’t even realize he’d done.

Fuyumi bit her lip. “Sho, remember when you got sick last month? And then Touya got sick right after?”

Shouto’s brow furrowed.

“It’s because you two were sharing a room,” Fuyumi continued gently. “And when you’re sick, it’s really easy for Touya to catch it too. His lungs aren’t… great.”

Shouto’s gaze flicked to Touya’s chest, where the worst of the scarring disappeared under his shirt. His expression didn’t change, but something in his posture tightened.

Touya could practically see the gears turning in his head. My fault.

“Not your fault,” Touya said immediately. “Just how it is.”

Shouto didn’t look convinced.

Keigo, who had been hovering nearby pretending not to eavesdrop, chose that moment to chime in. “Plus, this way I can visit more.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Think of it as a trade. You get Fuyumi’s room, Touya gets me sometimes. Everybody wins.”

Shouto blinked at him. 

“Fuyumi's way better at bedtime stories than Touya anyway, right Sho?"

Shouto blinked at Keigo, then looked back at Touya. His fingers twitched like he wanted to reach out but wasn't sure if he should.

Touya exhaled and opened his arms. "C'mere."

Shouto didn't hesitate. He pressed his face into Touya's shoulder, small hands fisting in the back of his shirt.

"It's just a room, just to sleep in," Touya murmured into his hair. "Doesn't change anything else."

Shouto didn't answer, but his grip tightened.

Fuyumi smiled softly. "We'll make it nice for you, Sho.” 

After a long moment, Shouto nodded against Touya's chest. It wasn't happy acceptance, but he’d be ok with it soon enough.

Touya squeezed him once before letting go. "Alright. Let's finish unpacking before Fuyumi loses her mind from the mess.”

---

By evening, the worst of the move was over. The furniture was in place, the boxes were (mostly) unpacked, and Keigo had somehow sweet-talked the local market into selling him osechi ryori last-minute, despite it being New Year’s Eve.

“How much did this cost?” Touya asked, eyeing the stacked lacquer boxes.

Keigo waved a hand. “Don’t worry about it.”

“That means ‘too much,’” Natsuo translated.

Fuyumi gasped as she lifted the lid. “Kuromame! And kazunoko! Keigo, this is-”

“A bribe,” Keigo said cheerfully. “So you don’t kick me out at midnight.”

Touya rolled his eyes but didn’t argue.

Shouto, intrigued by the colorful arrangement, poked at a slice of kamaboko.

“It’s sweet,” Fuyumi encouraged.

Shouto took a tiny bite, chewed thoughtfully, then stole another piece when he thought no one was looking.

Somewhere between the third box of osechi and the fifth round of amazake (watered down for Shouto, much to his displeasure), exhaustion caught up with them.

It started with Natsuo slumping against the kotatsu, muttering about “never lifting another box again.” Then Fuyumi yawned mid-sentence, blinking like she’d forgotten what she was saying. Keigo’s wings drooped, feathers fluffing up in a way that meant he was seconds from passing out.

Touya, who had been leaning against the couch, felt a weight settle against his side. Shouto, half-asleep, had curled into him like a cat seeking warmth.

“Nap time?” Keigo suggested, voice already slurring.

Somehow, they all ended up in a heap on the living room floor, blankets strewn haphazardly over limbs and wings. Shouto, now fully asleep, had latched onto Touya’s arm like a lifeline.

Touya didn’t mind.

The countdown played softly on the TV, the familiar voices of the annual New Year’s program filling the room.

Ten. Nine. Eight.

Keigo’s hand found Touya’s under the blanket.

Seven. Six. Five.

Natsuo mumbled something incoherent into Fuyumi’s shoulder.

Four. Three. Two.

Shouto’s grip tightened in his sleep.

One.

“Akemashite omedetou, ” Fuyumi whispered, smiling.

Outside, the city erupted in cheers.

Chapter 11: Green

The new year had settled in with a quiet determination, much like Shouto himself.

January was always the coldest month, the kind of chill that seeped into bones and clung there, stubborn as a shadow. But the apartment, their apartment, all four of them together, was warm.

Touya had spent the first week of January assembling furniture that came with instructions written in indecipherable diagrams, and arguing with Fuyumi over where the kotatsu should go. Natsuo, for once, wasn’t hovering in the background with his usual restlessness. Instead, he was hunched over the dining table, a science textbook cracked open in front of him, a highlighter clamped between his teeth.

“You’re studying,” Touya had observed, leaning against the doorframe.

Natsuo had glanced up, blinking like he’d forgotten anyone else was there. “Yeah. I mean. Might as well.”

“Might as well?”

“College entrance exams.”

Touya stared at him. 

“What?” Natsuo had bristled. “You think I can’t?”

“No,” Touya said, and meant it. “Just didn’t think you cared.”

Natsuo had looked back at his book, shoulders tense. “Things change.”

Things had changed.

---

Shouto’s birthday passed quietly. Twelve years old. He didn’t react when Fuyumi set a small strawberry cake in front of him, didn’t flinch when Natsuo ruffled his hair, didn’t make a sound when Touya handed him a new All Might figurine, one he’d heard that many of the younger clients in the clinic thought was very cool.

Touya’s own birthday came and went with even less fanfare. Twenty-five. He didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was that finally, things were calming down, and no one could take that away.

Work kept him busy.

Quirk counseling wasn’t glamorous, but it paid the bills, and more importantly, it was something he could do without setting himself on fire. Most of his cases were kids: scared, confused, angry kids who didn’t understand why their bodies betrayed them. He knew the feeling.

Still, it meant he’d been unable to pick up Shouto more than once. Fuyumi had taken over for a few days while he caught up, and he hated the guilt that gnawed at him every time he had to text her.

But today, he was on time.

He leaned against the fence, hands shoved in his pockets, breath fogging in the air. Parents milled around, waiting for their children to be dismissed. He recognized a few faces by now, though he’d never spoken to any of them.

Then: 

“Excuse me?”

A woman’s voice, soft but deliberate. He turned.

She was petite, with long green hair pulled into a messy bun, dark circles under her eyes that spoke of long shifts and little sleep. Her scrubs were rumpled, a coat thrown over them like an afterthought.

“You’re Shouto’s brother, right?” she asked.

Touya blinked. “Yeah.”

She smiled, warm and a little tired. “I’m Inko Midoriya. My son, Izuku, he’s in Shouto’s grade, but in class A.”

Touya straightened slightly. Shouto hadn’t mentioned anyone. Then again, Shouto didn’t mention anything.

“Oh,” he said. “Uh. Nice to meet you.”

Inko’s gaze flickered to his scars, but she didn’t stare. Instead, she tilted her head toward the school doors. “Izuku won’t stop talking about him. I mean, literally won’t stop.” She laughed, a little helpless.

Touya raised an eyebrow. “Shouto? My Shouto?”

Inko laughed. “Yes! He came home saying, Mom, there’s this boy in class B who doesn’t talk at all, but he listens so well and he also loves All Might!” She mimicked her son’s earnest tone perfectly.

Touya snorted.

Before he could respond, the doors opened, and kids began filing out.

And then, there was Shouto, walking in his usual measured steps, face blank, eyes forward. But next to him, a boy, green-haired, freckled, hands flapping wildly as he talked a mile a minute, words tumbling over each other in an excited rush. His entire body was alight with energy, bouncing on his toes, gesturing wildly about… heroes, probably, given the way he kept miming punches.

Shouto wasn’t looking at him.

But he wasn’t walking away, either.

“How’d they even meet?” Touya asked.

“The playground, apparently. Izuku said Shouto was sitting alone, and he just… started talking to him.” Inko’s voice softened. “Izuku doesn’t make friends easily. Other kids find him ‘too much.’”

Touya understood that.

Mid-ramble, the green-haired boy, Izuku, grabbed Shouto’s hand. Not yanking, not demanding, just holding.

And Shouto let him.

Touya’s breath caught.

Inko made a small, wet noise beside him. He glanced over. She had a hand pressed to her mouth, eyes shining.

“Oh,” she whispered. “Oh, he…”

Touya understood. He didn’t think Shouto ever had a friend before either.

Izuku was still talking, swinging their joined hands slightly as they walked. Shouto’s face was as blank as ever, but he wasn’t pulling away.

Inko wiped her eyes quickly. “Would… would you like to exchange numbers? In case they want to meet up outside of school?”

Touya nodded before he could second-guess it. “Yeah. Yeah, that’d be good.”

They traded contacts, and when he looked up again, the boys were nearly upon them. Izuku’s gaze flickered to Touya, but there was no recognition, just curiosity before he zeroed back in on Shouto.

“-and All Might’s new takedown record is even faster than last year’s, did you see the news? It was so cool, he-”

Shouto wasn’t responding, but he wasn’t shutting Izuku out either. And that, Touya thought, was enough.

Inko sniffled again, smiling. Touya didn’t cry, he actually couldn’t, but something warm settled in his ribs.

---

The knock at the door came precisely at two in the afternoon.

Touya wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, given how Inko had fretted over the phone about Izuku being "a lot."

What he got was a small, green-haired hurricane.

"Hi!" Izuku chirped the second the door opened, already vibrating in place, his All Might-themed backpack nearly bursting at the seams. "I brought so many things! Shouto said he didn’t have action figures, well, he didn’t say it, but he nodded when I asked, so I brought three All Might ones, well, one’s actually a knockoff, but it’s still cool, and also some cars because everyone likes cars, right? And-"

Inko, standing behind him, looked equal parts fond and mortified. "Izuku, breathe."

Izuku did not, in fact, breathe.

Fuyumi, ever the saint, stepped forward with a warm smile. "You must be Inko! It’s so nice to finally meet you properly."

Inko wrung her hands. "Thank you for having him. Please call me if he’s too much…"

"Nonsense!" Fuyumi waved her off. "He’ll be fine."

Izuku, meanwhile, had already spotted Shouto lingering near the couch and beamed. "Shouto! Look what I brought!"

Shouto didn’t respond, but he didn’t retreat either. His mismatched eyes flicked to the bag Izuku was now aggressively unpacking onto the living room floor.

Touya leaned against the doorway, arms crossed, watching.

“Look what I brought!”

Action figures, toy cars, a small pile of hero trading cards, a squishy sensory ball, and what looked like half a dozen fidget toys spilled out. Shouto’s gaze flickered over them, lingering on a small All Might figurine.

Izuku didn’t wait for a response, not that Shouto would have given one. He just launched into an explanation, holding up each item with reverence. “This one’s from the Silver Age collection, see the detailing on the costume? And this car transforms if you press the button here- oh! And this one lights up when you roll it-”

Shouto reached out, fingers brushing the All Might figure. Izuku beamed and immediately shoved it into his hands. “You can hold him! He’s my favorite, but you can definitely hold him!”

Touya exhaled, something in his chest loosening.

Fuyumi, meanwhile, had already dragged Inko into the kitchen under the guise of tea, though Touya could hear her rapid-fire whispering: “Oh my god, he’s adorable! Shouto never does anything new-”

Izuku, oblivious, was now demonstrating how to make the toy car “drift” across the coffee table. Shouto watched, then slowly, carefully, mimicked the motion with his own hand. Izuku gasped like it was the most incredible thing he’d ever seen.

“You’re good at that! Do it again!”

Shouto did. Then again. And again.

Izuku’s energy was relentless.

He talked. He moved. He stimmed, hands flapping when he got excited, rocking slightly when he focused, occasionally jumping in place when a thought overwhelmed him. It was like watching a live wire, sparking and bright.

And then, halfway through an impassioned rant about hero statistics, something unexpected happened.

Shouto, still silent, lifted his hands.

And flapped them.

Just once. A small, experimental motion.

Izuku didn’t even pause in his rambling, but his eyes lit up. "Yeah! Like that! You can do it more if you want- it feels really good!"

Shouto tilted his head. Then, hesitantly, he did it again. A little bigger this time.

Touya, pretending not to watch from the couch, felt something tighten in his chest.

Izuku beamed. "Sometimes I do this too-" He rocked forward, then back on his heels, humming under his breath.

Shouto watched. Then, slowly, he mirrored the motion.

And then, he did it again.

And again.

His expression didn’t change, but there was something lighter in the way he moved. Like he’d discovered something new.

---

Shouto had reached his limit.

It wasn’t anything obvious, no meltdown, no visible distress. just a slow, deliberate retreat to the corner of the living room where a weighted pillow lay draped over the armchair. It was long and cylindrical, filled with just enough sand to provide deep pressure without feeling restrictive. Touya had brought it home months ago, pilfered from the sensory equipment at his workplace, just to see if Shouto would like it.

He did.

Touya never brought it back.

Shouto pulled it into his lap first, then, after a moment of consideration, laid down on the floor and settled it across his chest like an anchor.

Izuku, mid-explanation about the aerodynamics of Gran Torino’s cape, blinked at the sudden absence of his audience. But instead of being offended, he just nodded, like this was a perfectly normal part of the conversation.

"Oh! Quiet time?" he asked, though he didn’t expect an answer. Shouto didn’t give one, but his fingers flexed slightly against the pillow, his breathing already slowing.

Izuku grinned. "Okay! I’ll just…" He trailed off, looking around at the battlefield of toys and books scattered across the living room floor. Then, with the boundless energy of a child who had just remembered he was in a new place, he abandoned the heroes and started wandering.

Touya walked back into the living room, a mug of tea in hand. He’d expected to find the boys still knee-deep in whatever game they’d invented, but instead, Shouto was burrowed under his weighted pillow in the corner, and Izuku was standing in front of the bookshelf, one small finger tracing the spines of Touya’s textbooks.

Most of them were thick volumes on Quirk theory, case studies, psychology texts. A few were Fuyumi’s, mostly teaching manuals and children’s literature.

Izuku’s eyes were wide, his mouth moving silently as he read the titles. When he noticed Touya watching, he startled slightly, then pointed at one of the books.

"You have Hosu’s Compendium of Quirk Mutations," he said, voice hushed with awe. "That’s… that’s so cool."

Touya raised an eyebrow. "You know it?"

Izuku nodded rapidly. "It’s got this whole chapter on how emitter-types can sometimes mimic transformation quirks if the conditions are right, and…" He cut himself off, suddenly self-conscious. "S-sorry. I talk a lot."

Touya shrugged. "I don’t mind." He set his tea down on the coffee table and nodded at the book. 

“It’s fine. You into Quirk stuff?”

Izuku’s entire face lit up. “Yes.”

Touya snorted. “Yeah, figured.” He nodded at the coffee table, where a few more of his reference books were strewn. “Go nuts.”

Izuku didn’t need to be told twice. He practically lunged for the nearest one, Quirk Mutations and Evolutionary Patterns , flipping through it with the kind of speed that suggested he wasn’t just skimming. He was absorbing.

Touya raised an eyebrow. “You actually read this stuff?”

Izuku nodded rapidly. “Mhm! The- the library near my house has some, but not all of them, and sometimes the newer editions have way more information, like, did you know there’s been a huge increase in Quirk singularity cases in the last decade? It’s because of-”

And then he was off.

Touya had expected a kid regurgitating trivia. What he got was a breakdown of Quirk genetics, mutation rates, and statistical anomalies, delivered at breakneck speed with the kind of precision that made his own analyst instincts perk up.

Izuku wasn’t just reciting. He was analyzing.

Touya found himself sitting down.

“-and that’s why I think some Quirks look like they’re weakening generationally, but they’re actually just specializing,” Izuku finished, breathless.

Touya stared at him. Then, slowly: “...You’re twelve?”

Izuku flushed. “Uh. Yeah?”

Touya exhaled through his nose. Damn.

“You ever think about working for a hero agency?” he asked. “Or the Commission’s research division? That kind of analysis is…”

Izuku’s face shut down.

It was subtle, a tightening around his eyes, but Touya caught it.

And then, quieter: “...I’m Quirkless.”

Ah.

There it was.

Touya leaned back, studying him. Izuku had hunched in on himself slightly, like he was bracing for dismissal. Or worse, pity.

Instead, Touya shrugged. “So?”

Izuku blinked. “...So?”

“I can’t use my Quirk either,” Touya said.

Izuku’s eyes flicked to his scars.

“Not quirkless,” Touya clarified. “But close enough. Burns me if I try.” He tapped his temple. “Doesn’t mean I don’t know how they work.”

Izuku’s mouth opened. Closed.

“If anything,” Touya continued, “being Quirkless is probably an advantage for this kind of thing. You don’t have your own Quirk biasing your observations. You get to learn all of them.”

Izuku’s breath hitched.

And then, his face crumpled.

Not in sadness. In relief.

Touya had seen that expression before, on kids in his office, the ones who’d been told their whole lives that their Quirks were villainous, only to hear for the first time that they weren’t. That they were understood.

Izuku scrubbed at his eyes with his sleeve, laughing wetly. “S-Sorry, I just- no one ever-”

“Yeah,” Touya said. “I know.”

Izuku sniffled, then took a shaky breath. The emotions were clearly overwhelming him. His hands flapped once, twice, before he stilled them, glancing toward the corner where Shouto lay.

“Can I…?” he started.

Touya nodded.

Izuku didn’t need more permission than that. He crossed the room, stepping carefully over toys, before hesitating at Shouto’s side.

“Shouto?” he whispered. “Can I also come to quiet time?”

Shouto didn’t open his eyes.

But he scooched over.

Izuku beamed. He lay down beside him, wriggling halfway under the weighted pillow.

And just like that, the two of them were still.

Touya watched them for a moment. Then, quietly, he grabbed his notebook from the coffee table and scribbled a reminder to himself:

Get Izuku more books.

The weighted pillow was long enough to cover both boys from the chest up, their legs sticking out from beneath it like mismatched bookends. Izuku’s socks were striped- one green, one yellow, slightly rumpled where they’d slipped down his ankles. Shouto’s bare feet were pale against the floorboards, toes curling idly every so often.

Izuku was whispering.

Not stopping, because Izuku Midoriya, Touya was learning, did not stop, but softer now, his voice a hushed stream of consciousness.

“-and then All Might jumped from, like, three buildings away, and the wind pressure alone was enough to-”

Shouto’s eyes were closed, his breathing slow. But his fingers were moving, thumb brushing over Izuku’s knuckles, tracing the lines of his small, freckled hand. Not holding, not gripping. Just feeling.

Izuku didn’t pull away. If anything, he seemed to lean into it, his whisper stuttering for half a second before picking back up.

“-and that’s why I think his Quirk has to be strength-based, even though some people say it’s wind manipulation, because-”

Fuyumi, hovering in the kitchen doorway, had one hand pressed over her mouth. The other clutched a dish towel like a lifeline.

Touya knew why.

Shouto never initiated soft touch like this. Not without prompting. Not without someone guiding his hands first.

And yet here he was, mapping the shape of Izuku’s fingers like they were something fascinating.

Izuku, for his part, seemed to take it in stride. He didn’t pause his rambling, didn’t comment, just let Shouto explore, his own fingers twitching occasionally in response.

An hour later, the front door clicked as Fuyumi opened it up for Inko. She stepped in, her bag slung over one shoulder. She opened her mouth, probably to ask how it went, then froze at the sight before her.

On the floor, Izuku finally trailed off mid-sentence, yawning. His head lolled toward Shouto’s shoulder.

Shouto didn’t move away.

Inko’s breath caught.

Fuyumi, wiping her eyes, whispered, "We’re going to be the best of friends, aren’t we?"

Inko, equally teary, nodded.

And Touya?

He didn’t cry. He couldn’t.

Chapter 12: Tweaks

Notes:

thanks so much for the kind comments and kudos! excited to keep sharing :)

April arrived with the scent of cherry blossoms and the sharp, metallic tang of new textbooks.

The Himura-Todoroki apartment had settled into something resembling a routine, or as close to one as they could manage with four siblings, three different schedules, and one pro-hero flitting in and out. 

Fuyumi’s first official year as a teacher had begun, and with it came the kind of exhaustion that was equal parts draining and fulfilling. She left early in the morning, her bag stuffed with lesson plans and brightly colored markers, and returned in the evenings with papers to grade and stories about her students. She was happy, Touya could tell, the kind of happy that came with doing something that mattered.

But it also meant she was rarely still. Even at home, she was cutting out laminated shapes for her classroom or scribbling notes in the margins of worksheets.

“You’re gonna burn out,” Touya told her one evening, watching as she meticulously colored the edges of flashcards.

Fuyumi didn’t look up. “I’m fine.”

“You’ve been hunched over that table for two hours.”

“It’s important.”

Touya didn’t argue. He was learning just how stubborn she could be.

Natsuo had fallen into a stubborn new rhythm as well. 

The first sign that something was off wasn’t the missed meals or the late nights, it was the coffee cups.

Touya started finding them everywhere. Half-finished, gone cold, abandoned on the kitchen counter, the bathroom sink, the windowsill in the hallway. Natsuo had never been a coffee drinker before, preferring canned tea or sports drinks, but now it seemed like he was running on nothing but caffeine and sheer willpower.

Fuyumi noticed too.

“Natsu,” she said one morning, catching him by the sleeve as he tried to slip out the door before sunrise, “you’re shaking.”

Natsuo blinked at her, slow and bleary, his free hand gripping his thermos like a lifeline. His uniform was immaculate, he’d always been particular about that, too prideful to let himself look anything less than put together, but his knuckles were white around the strap of his bag, his shoulders tense with something that wasn’t just exhaustion.

“I’m fine,” he muttered, pulling away. “Just tired.”

Fuyumi’s frown deepened. “Did you sleep at all last night?”

A pause. Then, too quickly: “Yeah.”

He was lying.

Natsuo wasn’t neglecting himself, not in the obvious ways, at least.

He still showered every morning, still ironed his shirts, still remembered to brush his teeth. But there were other things that slipped through the cracks.

Like the way he’d forget to eat until his hands trembled too badly to hold a pen, or the way he’d rub at his temples like he was fighting off a headache that never quite went away, or the way he’d snap at Shouto if the noise from the TV bled through his bedroom door, then immediately apologize, guilt sharp in his voice.

Touya caught him one evening, standing in front of the open fridge, staring blankly at the contents like he couldn’t remember what he was looking for.

“You good?” Touya asked, leaning against the doorway.

Natsuo startled, then scowled. “Yeah.”

“You’ve been standing there for five minutes.”

“I’m thinking.”

“About what? The meaning of life?”

Natsuo slammed the fridge door shut hard enough to rattle the shelves. “Back off.”

Touya raised an eyebrow. “You’re gonna burn out before exams even start.”

“I won’t.” Natsuo’s voice was sharp, defensive. “I can’t.”

And there it was: the quiet, desperate edge beneath the irritation.

Touya exhaled. “You’re not gonna magically fail just because you slept for more than three hours, you know.”

“You’re not my dad, leave me the fuck alone.” He grabbed an energy drink from the counter and stalked back to his room, the door clicking shut behind him.

It all came to a head one rainy Thursday night.

Fuyumi had stayed late at school for a parent-teacher conference, and Touya had been out picking up Shouto from the Midoriya’s. When they got home, the apartment was dark, except for the sliver of light under Natsuo’s door.

Shouto, sensing something was off, hovered near the genkan, his fingers twisting in the hem of his shirt.

Touya nudged him toward the living room. “Go put on a movie or something. I’ll check on Natsu.”

Shouto hesitated, then nodded, padding silently away.

Touya knocked on Natsuo’s door. No answer.

He knocked again. “Natsu. Open up.”

Still nothing.

Touya tried the handle. Unlocked.

The sight that greeted him was… Well, concerning.

Natsuo was slumped over his desk, forehead pressed against an open textbook, his breathing slow and heavy. Asleep, finally, but not in bed. Empty energy drink cans littered the floor beneath the desk. A half-eaten protein bar sat abandoned next to his elbow.

And his notes… God.

Pages and pages of them, scrawled in handwriting that got progressively messier, the ink smudged in places where he’d clearly dozed off mid-word.

Touya sighed. Then, gently, he shook Natsuo’s shoulder.

“Hey. Bed. Now.”

Natsuo jerked awake with a gasp, his eyes wild for a split second before they focused. “Wha…”

“You’re done for tonight,” Touya said, cutting him off.

Natsuo blinked, disoriented. Then, groggily: “...’M not finished.”

“Yes, you are.”

“I have to-”

“You have to sleep.” Touya grabbed him by the arm, hauling him upright. “You’re gonna kill yourself before you even get to college at this rate.”

Natsuo swayed on his feet, too exhausted to argue.

Touya steered him toward the bed. “Sit.”

Natsuo sat.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. Then, quietly:

“...I can’t fuck this up,” Natsuo muttered, staring at his hands.

Touya exhaled. “You won’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yeah, I do.” Touya flicked his forehead. “Because you’re you. And you’re smart as hell.”

Natsuo didn’t answer. Just rubbed at his eyes, his shoulders slumping.

Touya tossed him a hoodie from the floor. “Change. Then sleep. Actual sleep.”

Natsuo hesitated. Then, finally, he nodded.

The next morning, Natsuo emerged from his room looking alive, at least. That was the kindest way to describe him. 

He still reached for the coffee pot first thing, but this time, Fuyumi intercepted him, sliding a plate of tamagoyaki in front of him instead.

“Eat,” she said, in a tone that brooked no argument.

Natsuo scowled. But he ate.

Shouto, watching silently from the corner, nudged his own plate toward Natsuo, an offering.

Natsuo blinked. Then, slowly, he reached out and ruffled Shouto’s hair, before eating a slice off his plate.

---

The appointment had taken months to secure.

Specialists didn’t come cheap, and even with Endeavor’s money (which Touya accepted gladly as reparations), the waiting lists were long. But finally, in mid-April, they’d gotten the call.

Shouto sat between Touya and Fuyumi, his feet dangling just above the floor, hands folded neatly in his lap. He didn’t fidget. Didn’t look around. Just stared at the wall across from them, his expression as blank as ever. The only sign of tension was the way his fingers occasionally pressed into his own wrists: small, rhythmic pulses of pressure, like he was grounding himself.

Fuyumi reached over and smoothed a hand over his hair. "It’s okay," she murmured, though she wasn’t sure if she was reassuring him or herself.

Touya slouched in his chair, arms crossed, one knee bouncing. He hated hospitals. Hated the sterile white walls, the too-bright lights, the way everything smelled like failure. But he’d sat through worse.

When the nurse finally called them in, Dr. Kinoshita was already waiting, Shouto’s file open in front of her. She was sharp-eyed and no-nonsense, her silver-streaked hair pulled back in a tight bun. She didn’t waste time on pleasantries.

"Let’s talk about what’s actually going on," she said, tapping the MRI scans spread across her desk.

The images were a mess of grayscale swirls, but the damage was clear once she pointed it out: tiny, scattered disruptions in the white matter of Shouto’s brain, like frayed wires in a machine.

"Diffuse axonal injury," she explained. "When the brain moves violently enough, like during a traumatic impact, the long connecting fibers between neurons can shear apart. It’s not like a stroke, where you see one big dead spot. This is… subtler. But just as debilitating."

Fuyumi’s breath caught. "So… his speech. That’s why he can’t…?"

Dr. Kinoshita nodded. "The pathways between his Broca’s area, where language is formed, and the motor cortex that controls his mouth and throat are damaged. Think of it like a phone line with bad reception. The call can still go through, but the words come out garbled. Or not at all."

Touya’s jaw tightened. "But he can make noise. We’ve heard him."

"Exactly." Dr. Kinoshita turned to Shouto, studying him with clinical curiosity. "Which means the hardware isn’t completely broken. The signals are just… unreliable. Sometimes they get through. Sometimes they don’t."

Shouto, for his part, didn’t react. But his fingers had stilled in his lap.

Fuyumi wiped at her eyes. "All those speech therapy sessions… we kept pushing him to try harder…"

"And that was the problem." Dr. Kinoshita closed the file with a snap. "You were asking him to use a system that doesn’t work for him. Imagine trying to write with your non-dominant hand while someone shouts at you to go faster. Must be so frustrating, right Shouto-kun? That’s what speech has been like for him."

The room went quiet.

Dr. Kinoshita softened slightly. "This isn’t about giving up on speech entirely. It’s about adapting. His brain has already found workarounds, the humming, the gestures. We just need to meet him where he is."

---

The train rattled beneath them, the rhythmic clatter of tracks filling the silence between Touya’s thoughts. Shouto sat pressed against his side, noise-canceling headphones swallowing the world around him, his fingers tapping a slow, absent rhythm against his own knee. The faint hum of the train’s overhead lights reflected in the glass of the window, casting a pale sheen over Shouto’s scar.

Touya stared at it.

Diffuse axonal injury.

The words sat like a stone in his gut. He’d known, of course. Known from the moment the social worker dumped his siblings in the living room. But hearing it laid out like that was different.

Fuyumi hadn’t spoken since they left the neurologist’s office. She sat stiffly across from them, her hands clenched around the strap of her bag, knuckles white. Her gaze was fixed on the passing cityscape outside, but Touya could see the tension in her jaw, the way her throat worked like she was swallowing something bitter.

“That bastard.”

Her voice was low, shaking with something Touya hadn’t heard from her in years. Not grief. Not exhaustion.

Rage.

Touya blinked. Fuyumi never swore. Never raised her voice. Never called Endeavor anything but Dad, even when she was furious with him.

But now… 

“He knew,” she hissed, fingers twisting tighter in Touya’s sleeve. “He knew Shouto wasn’t just being difficult, and he still… still pushed him, still acted like it was some kind of failure…”

Her nails bit into Touya’s arm through the fabric. He didn’t pull away.

Shouto, oblivious behind his headphones, leaned against Fuyumi’s side, his temple resting against her shoulder. Fuyumi’s breath hitched. She curled her free hand around Shouto’s, squeezing gently.

Touya said nothing. What was there to say?

He’d been angry at Endeavor for years. Furious in a way that burned so deep it had become part of his bones. But Fuyumi had always hoped, always believed, somewhere deep down, that their father could change. That he could apologize.

Now, watching her press her cheek to the top of Shouto’s head, her shoulders trembling, Touya wondered if that hope was finally dead.

The train screeched to a stop.

Shouto lifted his head, blinking slowly. Fuyumi wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand and forced a smile.

“Home,” she said, soft as ever.

And just like that, her moment passed.

But the anger?

That, Touya knew, wasn’t going anywhere.

---

The first week of May brought with it the kind of warm, golden sunlight that made the city feel alive.

Keigo arrived at the apartment on a Saturday morning, wings rustling as he came in through the balcony. He had a bakery box tucked under one arm and a smirk on his face.

“Guess what day it is,” he sing-songed, dropping the box onto the kitchen counter with a flourish.

Touya, who had been elbow-deep in dishwater, flicked soap suds at him. “The day you finally learn how to use a door like a normal person?”

Keigo dodged, grinning. “Nope. Two years, firefly. Two years of putting up with your grumpy ass.”

Fuyumi, perched at the table with a stack of graded papers, looked up. “Wait… two years together?”

“Yep,” Keigo said, popping the ‘p’. “And this loser,” he jabbed a thumb at Touya, “was gonna celebrate by eating cake at home like some kind of antisocial hermit.”

Touya rolled his eyes, although his cheeks were quickly turning pink. “It’s just a date.”

“Just a date,” Keigo repeated, mock-horrified. He turned to Fuyumi and Natsuo, who had wandered in at the commotion. “You hear this? He’s trying to make me look crazy for wanting to celebrate!”

Natsuo, still half-asleep, squinted at them. “You are the crazy one.”

Keigo gasped, clutching his chest. “Betrayal!”

Fuyumi laughed, setting her pen down. “You should go out,” she said, nudging Touya’s shoulder. “You never do anything nice for yourselves.”

Touya scowled. “We go out.”

“To the convenience store at 2 AM for snacks doesn’t count,” Natsuo deadpanned.

Keigo pointed at him. “Thank you.”

Touya exhaled, long-suffering, but the corner of his mouth twitched. “Fine. Whatever. Let’s go out.”

Keigo’s grin turned triumphant. “Good. Because I already made reservations.”

Touya had expected something flashy, some rooftop bar or hero hotspot, the kind of place Keigo usually dragged him to.

Instead, Keigo took him to a tiny izakaya tucked into a back alley, the kind of place that didn’t bother with a sign. The owner knew Keigo by name, ushering them to a corner booth with a gruff nod.

“You come here often?” Touya muttered as they slid into their seats.

Keigo shrugged, wings rustling against the booth. “Sometimes. It’s quiet.”

And it was. No cameras, no fans, no Commission handlers lurking in the shadows. Just the hum of conversation, the sizzle of meat on the grill, the occasional clink of glasses.

Touya relaxed, just a little.

They ordered too much food: yakitori, grilled fish, a plate of gyoza Keigo immediately stole half of, and split a bottle of sake. Touya didn’t drink much these days, but one glass wouldn’t hurt.

Keigo watched him over the rim of his cup, golden eyes warm in the dim light. “You’re staring,” Touya said.

“Yeah,” Keigo agreed, unrepentant. “Two years, and you still haven’t gotten sick of me. That’s gotta be a record.”

Touya snorted. “Don’t push it.”

Keigo’s foot nudged his under the table. “Love you too, grumpy.”

Touya didn’t answer. Just hooked their ankles together and let it linger.

---

Natsuo’s study habits had not improved.

If anything, they’d gotten worse.

His room was a disaster zone of energy drink cans, half-finished protein bars, and textbooks stacked in precarious towers. Fuyumi had taken to barging in every few hours with a plate of food, refusing to leave until he ate at least half of it. Touya, meanwhile, had instituted a strict “no sleeping at your desk” policy after the third time he’d found Natsuo passed out mid-equation.

But for all their nagging, it was working.

The email from the principal had been a shock:

Despite last year’s incidents, Natsuo has risen to the top three in his class. We’re impressed with his dedication.

Fuyumi had cried. Natsuo had scowled and immediately gone back to studying.

Now, with university applications on the horizon, he’d started compiling a list of schools, mostly ones with strong science programs, all far enough from home that he would get to live in a dorm.

“We should visit a few,” Fuyumi said one evening, flipping through the brochures he’d left on the table. 

Natsuo hummed, noncommittal, his nose buried in a practice exam.

“Take a break,” Touya snatched the paper out of his hands. “Now, Natsu. Before you turn into a fucking gremlin.”

Natsuo glared, and a chill went through the air, but he didn’t argue. 

---

The knock came at precisely 9:03 AM: three minutes late, which meant it was definitely Akane.

Touya yanked the door open before she could knock again. "You’re losing your touch. Used to be right on the dot."

Akane Tanaka, social worker, paperwork tyrant, and the closest thing Touya had to an overbearing older sister, stood on the threshold in her usual pressed slacks and sensible blazer, her dark hair pulled into a no-nonsense ponytail. She didn’t smile, but the corner of her mouth twitched. "Traffic. And you’re looking less like a stray cat these days." She reached out and patted his side, just above the hip. "Actual meat on your bones. Your sister’s cooking, or the boyfriend?"

Touya swatted her hand away, heat prickling at the back of his neck. He hadn’t noticed, but now that she mentioned it, his ribs didn’t jut as sharply as they used to. "Mind your business."

"You are my business," she said breezily, stepping past him into the apartment. Her sharp eyes scanned the living room: the mismatched furniture, the dishes drying on the rack, the pile of Fuyumi’s lesson plans spread across the coffee table. "Hm. Lived-in. I like it."

Fuyumi, who had been hovering near the couch, straightened like she was facing an inspector. "Ah, good morning! I’m Fuyumi. Would you like tea?"

Akane waved a hand. "Don’t bother. I’m not staying long." Her gaze landed on Shouto, who was sitting very still in the corner, watching her with blank, unblinking eyes. Her expression softened, just a fraction. "You must be Shouto."

Shouto didn’t react.

Akane didn’t seem to expect him to. She crouched slightly, putting herself at his eye level. "Your brother says you really like drawing."

A beat. Then, slowly, Shouto nodded.

Akane’s smile was small but genuine. "Cool. Maybe you can show me one later."

Touya rolled his eyes. "Stop interrogating the kid. You wanna check the place or not?"

Akane straightened, shooting him a look. "So impatient. Where’s the other one?"

"Natsuo’s asleep," Fuyumi said quickly. "He’s been studying really hard-"

"Wake him up," Akane said, not unkindly. "Gotta see the whole nest if I’m signing off on it."

Natsuo’s room was a disaster.

Akane took one look at the mountain of energy drink cans and raised an eyebrow. "You running a recycling center in here?"

Natsuo, who had been dragged out of bed with all the grace of a disgruntled bear, scowled. "It’s called dedication."

"Mm. Smells more like teenage boy." She nudged a discarded protein bar wrapper with her shoe. "You eat anything that isn’t pre-packaged?"

"Fuyumi and Touya shove actual food down my throat at least twice a day," Natsuo muttered, rubbing his eyes.

Akane snorted. "Good." She glanced at the textbooks strewn across his desk, the university brochures pinned to the wall. "I heard you’re top three in your class, huh?"

Natsuo blinked, surprised. "Touya told you?"

"Nope. Your principal did." Akane smirked at his expression. "What, you think I don’t do my homework? You’re part of the package now, kid."

Natsuo looked vaguely horrified at the idea of being part of the package.

The medication check was next. Touya led her to the bathroom, where his prescriptions were lined up in the cabinet: painkillers, nerve blockers, a small pharmacy’s worth of pills to manage the damage his own Quirk had done to him.

Akane picked up each bottle, comparing them to the list on her clipboard. "No extras? No fun little side trips to the back-alley dealers?"

Touya leaned against the tile wall, arms crossed. "Been clean five and a half years. You really think I’d risk it now?"

Akane gave him a long look. Then, quietly: "No. I don’t." She closed the cabinet with a click. "Place looks good. Kids seem good. You’re…" She gestured at him. "Good."

Touya exhaled. "So?"

"So I’ll be back in three months." She tucked her clipboard under her arm. "Try not to turn back into a scarecrow before then." 

Chapter 13: Crush

The last week of May arrived like a slow-motion train wreck.

Fuyumi stood frozen in the kitchen doorway, staring at the calendar with dawning horror. "Oh no."

Touya didn't even look up from his coffee. "What?"

"Parent-teacher conferences start Wednesday," she said, voice climbing an octave. "And your recertification exams are…"

"Tuesday through Friday." Touya's grip tightened on his mug. "Sounds like we’re in for a fun time, huh?"

Across the table, Natsuo shoveled rice into his mouth with single-minded focus, already mentally reviewing chemical equations. Shouto sat perfectly still beside him, methodically separating his breakfast into neat piles.

A stellar start to a shitty week. 

---

Fuyumi’s fingers fumbled with the buttons of her blouse Tuesday morning as she rushed through her routine. Parent-teacher conferences started today, which meant fourteen-hour days of back-to-back meetings, fake smiles, and carefully phrased feedback. She’d prepped extra worksheets for her students to work on independently so she could prepare materials for the meetings.

The coffee machine gurgled, filling the kitchen with the sharp, burnt scent of cheap grounds. She poured a travel mug, black, no sugar; she’d need the caffeine.

She knocked twice on Natsuo’s door. No response.

Fuyumi pushed it open to find him still curled under his blankets, his alarm blaring some pop song she didn’t recognize. His desk was a disaster zone: energy drink cans, half-finished protein bar wrappers, and a precarious stack of practice exams teetering near the edge.

"Natsu," she called, shaking his shoulder. "You’re going to be late."

He groaned, burying his face deeper into his pillow. "Five more minutes."

"You said that twenty minutes ago."

A muffled, unintelligible grumble.

Fuyumi sighed and left him to it.

---

Touya’s testing center was a sterile, windowless room in the Musutafu Licensing Bureau, the kind of place designed to make you feel like a criminal even if you weren’t. The proctor, a tired-looking woman with a minor telekinesis Quirk, handed him a tablet and a stack of scratch paper.

"Six hours," she said. "No breaks unless medically necessary."

Touya barely heard her. His head already felt too full, like his thoughts were slogging through wet cement. He’d taken his morning pills on autopilot: white one for nerve pain, blue for inflammation, round yellow one he couldn’t remember the purpose of but knew he was supposed to take.

The first case study loaded onto the tablet:

*Client is a 14-year-old with a pyrokinetic Quirk that activates during emotional distress. Parents report uncontrolled flare-ups during arguments. How do you proceed?*

Touya stared at the words. They blurred, then sharpened, then blurred again.

Focus.

He started typing.

---

Fuyumi’s third parent meeting of the day was interrupted by her phone buzzing in her pocket. A text from Touya:

TOUYA: Just got a phone call- did Natsu go to school?

She frowned. 

FUYUMI: Not sure. Still asleep when I left.

Three dots appeared, then vanished. No reply.

---

Early Wednesday morning, the pain came first: a dull, insistent throb radiating from the scar tissue along his arms and chest. Touya gritted his teeth, rolling onto his back as he blinked into the darkness of his bedroom. The doctors had told him it was fine to take something extra if the pain got bad, so he fumbled for the bottle of ibuprofen on his nightstand, dry-swallowing two before his brain caught up with the rest of his body.

Something was wrong.

Not just the pain; that was familiar, and manageable. But the cold.

It wasn’t the usual chill of early morning. It was deeper, internal, like his body had forgotten how to regulate its own temperature. His fingers trembled as he pulled the blanket tighter, but no amount of layers seemed to help. He pressed a hand to his forehead. Was he feverish? He couldn’t tell. His skin felt clammy, but he was freezing.

He needed to check.

Groaning, he pushed himself up, wincing as another sharp twinge shot through his ribs. The ibuprofen wasn’t touching this.

The apartment was silent except for the hum of the refrigerator.

Touya shuffled into the living room, intending to grab his glasses from the kitchen drawer- maybe the labels on his pill case would make more sense if he could actually see them- when he stopped short.

Shouto was sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table, bathed in the dim glow of a single lamp. His noise-canceling headphones were on, but he wasn’t wearing them properly, just resting them around his neck like a collar. In front of him, a coloring book lay open, the page a mess of overlapping reds and blues, the colors smeared together in thick, waxy puddles. His fingers moved methodically, pressing down hard with a green crayon until the tip snapped.

Touya exhaled. "The hell are you doing up?"

Shouto didn’t react, still focused on his coloring.

Touya crouched beside him, hissing as his knees protested. "You’re supposed to be in bed."

Shouto ignored him, dragging the side of the broken crayon across the page in broad, uneven strokes.

Touya sighed. He should put him back to bed. 

Instead, he sat on the couch behind Shouto, rubbing his arms against the chill still clinging to him.

"Move up here," he muttered.

Shouto didn’t, but he didn’t resist when Touya hauled him up onto the couch beside him. Touya pulled him close, tucking Shouto against his side, partly to keep him from wandering off, partly because the kid’s left side radiated heat like a furnace.

Shouto stiffened for a second, then relaxed, his head tipping slightly against Touya’s shoulder.

Touya closed his eyes, letting the warmth from Shouto’s right side seep into him. He must have dozed off, because the next thing he knew, gray morning light was filtering through the curtains, and Fuyumi was standing over him, already dressed, her brow furrowed.

"You look like hell," she said.

Touya groaned, shifting just enough to dislodge Shouto, who had somehow ended up half-sprawled across his lap, still clutching the broken green crayon. "Do I have a fever?"

Fuyumi pressed the back of her hand to his forehead, then his cheek. "No. You’re cold."

Touya grimaced. That wasn’t right. He was always warm. Even with his Quirk suppressed, his body temperature ran higher than average.

Fuyumi frowned. "Did you take your meds?"

"Not yet this morning," he told her. “I’ll do it now.” 

Shouto, now fully awake, wriggled free and slid off the couch, abandoning the crayon on the cushion. “Shouto, get dressed for school, please!” He wandered off. Fuyumi’s attention went back to Touya. 

"You have another exam today, right?"

Touya exhaled, rubbing his face. The exam. Right.

He was so screwed. Instead of lingering on it, he padded silently toward the kitchen, his socks scuffing against the floor.

“Did you sleep at all?” Touya asked her, leaning against the counter. The one good thing about the exam week, for him, was that he had no morning meetings.

Fuyumi ignored him, heading straight for the coffee maker. “I have the Nakayama conference today. Their kid’s struggling with reading comprehension, and the mother hates me.”

“She doesn’t hate you.”

“She called my lesson plans ‘uninspired’ when I met her to discuss her child’s grades the first time.” Fuyumi’s voice pitched higher. “As if that’s why her child can’t focus on the readings. Nothing to do at all with her being an iPad kid.”

Touya let it go. Arguing with Fuyumi when she was like this was pointless.

Fuyumi set her coffee mug down too hard on the counter, the sound sharp in the quiet kitchen. She’d been moving on autopilot, brewing coffee, packing her conference notes, triple-checking the schedule for today’s parent meetings, but the silence from Natsuo’s room was gnawing at her.

Sure, he’d skipped all the time last year, but he’d been on such a school-kick lately. 

“I’m gonna check on Natsuo- I don’t remember if I saw him have dinner yesterday.” 

Touya nodded. “I think I did… but I have to shower now or I’ll be late. Good luck in there.” 

She hesitated, then grabbed a glass from the cupboard and filled it with water before heading down the hall.

Natsuo’s door was still shut.

She knocked, twice. “Natsu?”

No answer.

Fuyumi pushed the door open. The room smelled stale. Natsuo was a lump under the blankets, only the top of his white hair visible.

“You’re going to be late,” she said, stepping inside.

A muffled groan. The blankets shifted slightly.

Fuyumi set the water on his nightstand, nudging aside an empty can. “Come on. Up.”

Natsuo finally surfaced, blinking blearily at her. His face was pale, his eyes bloodshot. “I’m not going.”

“You have to.”

“I can’t.” His voice cracked, raw with something that wasn’t just sleep.

Fuyumi faltered. She’d expected defiance, not this hollow exhaustion.

“Are you sick?” she asked, softer now.

Natsuo dragged a hand over his face. “I don’t know. I just… I feel like shit.”

A flicker of unease. Touya had said he felt the same almost the same thing barely twenty minutes ago. 

Do I have a fever?

“Is it like… body aches?” she tried. “Chills?”

Natsuo shrugged, the motion sluggish. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

Fuyumi bit her lip. If it was the same thing Touya had…

“Okay,” she said finally. “One more day. But if you’re not feeling better tomorrow, we’re figuring this out.”

Natsuo didn’t argue. Just nodded and slumped back against the pillows.

Fuyumi hovered for a second longer. “Do you want breakfast?”

“Not hungry.”

She exhaled. “Okay.”

On her way out, she grabbed a sleeve of crackers from the kitchen and left them on his nightstand, next to the water. Just in case.

---

Touya’s second day of recertification exams started with a headache.

The testing center was the same as yesterday: sterile white walls, harsh fluorescent lights, a proctor with a minor telekinesis Quirk who looked like she’d rather be anywhere else. The air conditioning hummed too loudly, the vents blasting cold air directly onto the back of his neck. He shivered, rubbing his arms as he took his seat.

His tablet screen flickered to life with the first case study:

*Client is a 16-year-old with a sound-based Quirk causing chronic migraines. Propose a desensitization plan.*

Touya stared at the words. His vision blurred slightly at the edges, the letters swimming before snapping back into focus. His fingers hovered over the keyboard, but his thoughts moved sluggishly, like wading through syrup.

He flexed his left hand under the desk. A sharp jolt of pain shot up his arm and he barely suppressed a flinch.

Focus.

He started typing, forcing himself through the motions.

During his first break, his phone buzzed in his pocket. 

KEIGO 🦅: How’s the test going?

Touya stared at the screen. Keigo was in Osaka this week, running some PR event for the Commission. He wouldn’t be back until Friday.

TOUYA: fine

He typed back, one-handed. His fingers trembled slightly.

A lie. But what was he supposed to say? I feel like my nerves are trying to crawl out of my skin, and I can’t stop shivering? Keigo couldn’t do anything from across the country, and the last thing Touya wanted was to drag him into this mess.

He silenced his phone and shoved it back into his pocket.

The test continued, but the  chill wasn’t lifting.

If anything, it was getting worse.

Touya rubbed his arms under the desk, his skin pebbled with goosebumps. His breath fogged slightly in front of him, just a whisper, just enough to notice.

This isn’t normal.

His Quirk had always run hot. Even suppressed, his baseline temperature was higher than average. This… was wrong.

He exhaled sharply, trying to steady himself. The proctor glanced up, eyebrows raised.

"You alright?"

"Yeah," he muttered. "Just cold."

She frowned but didn’t press.

Touya flexed his fingers, willing the numbness away. He had three more hours of this.

He could make it.

---

The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt rice when Touya finally stumbled through the door. He barely managed to toe off his shoes before collapsing against the wall, his head throbbing in time with his pulse. The exam had dragged on forever, and by the end, he’d been shaking so badly he could barely type.

Fuyumi’s voice carried from the kitchen, sharp with frustration.

"-and then Mrs. Suzuki had the nerve to say her son’s handwriting is fine, even though he writes like a drunk pigeon… oh my gods, Touya. Miki, I’m gonna call you back." She turned, wooden spoon in hand, and took one look at him. "You look like shit."

"Feel like it," he muttered. 

Fuyumi’s irritation flickered into concern. "Is it the same thing as this morning?"

"Yeah. Worse." He dug his phone out of his pocket, scrolling through his contacts. "Gonna call Dr. Saito."

Fuyumi nodded, turning back to the stove. "Good. Because if whatever you have is contagious, and Natsu’s got it too…"

Touya tuned her out as the line rang. Voicemail.

"You’ve reached Dr. Saito’s office. Our hours are…"

He hung up and redialed her after-hours line. Another voicemail.

"Damn it," he muttered, leaving a clipped message. "It’s Touya Himura. I think I messed up my meds or… I don’t know. I’m freezing, and my nerves are going haywire. Call me back."

The thought of going to the ER crossed his mind, but he dismissed it just as quickly. Last time he’d gone for something like this, he’d left with a chest infection that lingered for two months from some idiot coughing open-mouthed in the waiting room. No thanks.

Fuyumi set a bowl of rice and stir-fry in front of him. "Eat."

Touya poked at it. His stomach churned.

"Natsu still in bed?" he asked, if only to distract her from the fact that he wasn’t touching the food.

Fuyumi sighed, rubbing her temples. "Yeah. I tried to get him up for dinner, but he just…" She mimed a collapse. "It’s weird. He’s not even arguing."

That was weird. Natsuo, who’d spent the last month surviving on spite and energy drinks, who’d called Touya a hag-faced bastard just last week for suggesting he take a break, was now too exhausted to snap back.

Touya pushed his chair back. "I’ll try."

The door was cracked open, the room dark except for the dim glow from that solitary strip of light. Natsuo himself was a lump under the blankets, face half-buried in his pillow.

Touya flicked the light on. "Dinner’s ready."

A groan. "Not hungry."

"Sucks. It’s still dinner time."

Natsuo didn’t move.

Touya stepped closer, nudging the bed with his knee. "You’ve been in bed all day. Up."

"Fuck off." The words lacked their usual bite.

Touya pulled the blanket off his head. Natsuo squinted up at him, his face pale, hair sticking up in every direction. He looked… young. Tired. Not sick, exactly, but wrong, like his usual fire had been smothered.

Fuyumi appeared in the doorway, arms crossed. "Natsu, come on."

Natsuo dragged a hand over his face. "I can’t."

There it was again, that cracked, raw edge. Fuyumi’s expression softened. She sat on the edge of the bed, reaching out to brush Natsuo’s hair back from his forehead. "What’s wrong?"

Natsuo didn’t pull away. Just closed his eyes. "I don’t know."

A beat of silence.

Fuyumi’s fingers carded gently through his hair. 

"Okay," she murmured. "Okay. Just… try to eat something later, alright?"

Natsuo didn’t answer. Just curled tighter into himself.

Fuyumi stood, flicking the light off on her way out.

Touya lingered for a second longer, staring down at his brother. Something uneasy settled in his chest.

---

Thursday morning, Fuyumi woke with a jolt, her heart already racing before she was fully conscious. The principal was sitting in on her conferences today. The principal. She’d spent all night rehearsing responses to potential criticisms, her dreams a chaotic swirl of lesson plans and disapproving frowns.

She dragged herself out of bed, her limbs heavy with exhaustion. The apartment was quiet—too quiet. No sound of Natsuo’s alarm, no clatter of Touya making coffee. Just the faint hum of the refrigerator and the soft rustle of…

Fuyumi froze in the hallway.

The kitchen light was on.

Touya sat at the table, his pill organizer splayed open in front of him, an array of orange prescription bottles scattered across the surface. His glasses, which he never wore unless absolutely necessary, were perched on his nose, the frames digging into the scarred skin at his temples. His hands trembled violently as he tried to pick up a small white pill, his fingers spasming before he dropped it with a frustrated hiss.

Shouto sat across from him, methodically eating dry crackers from the box he’d somehow retrieved from the top shelf of the pantry. He watched Touya with detached interest, as if this were a mildly entertaining morning show.

Fuyumi blinked. “What’s…?”

Touya’s head snapped up. His pupils were dilated, his breathing uneven. “Hey. Good morning. Do you think you can help me?”

His voice was too calm. Too measured. It set off every alarm in Fuyumi’s head.

Fuyumi pulled out a chair and sat. “Okay. What do you need?”

Touya exhaled. “I can’t- my hands won’t stop.” He flexed his fingers, the tremors making his knuckles jump. “I think I messed up the sorting on Sunday and something is wrong.”

Fuyumi nodded and reached for the bottles one by one, reading the labels aloud:

 

• Nerve blockers (oval, white, 10mg) – For chronic pain from nerve damage

• Quirk suppressants (round, white, 50mg) – To regulate body temperature and prevent unintentional Quirk activation

• Anti-inflammatories (yellow capsule)

• Muscle relaxants (white, scored)

• Vitamins (large orange tablet)

 

The nerve blockers and suppressants were nearly identical: small, white, easy to mix up if you weren’t paying attention.

Fuyumi picked up the organizer, dumping them all out. “Let me count these out for you.”

She sorted out all the nerve blocker pills first, spreading them on the table. They worked methodically, comparing each pill to the ones in the bottles, counting and recounting. Fuyumi took over the fine work, her fingers deft as she slotted pills into the remaining places for the rest of the week.

By the time they’d tipped them all out, the mistake was clear: three extra nerve blockers, three missing suppressants.

Fuyumi sat back. “You’ve been taking double the quirk suppressants all week.”

Touya dragged a hand over his face. “No wonder I feel like shit.”

His voice was rough, fraying at the edges. Fuyumi hesitated, then reached out, her fingers brushing his wrist. “You should call your doctor.”

“I did. Voicemail.”

"You’ll run out of suppressants before your refill," Fuyumi said quietly.

Touya exhaled through his nose, his shoulders slumping. "I’ll skip Sundays for the next few weeks."

“What about the exam?”

Touya’s jaw tightened. “I’ll manage.”

Fuyumi wanted to argue, but the stubborn set of his shoulders told her it was pointless.

Shouto crunched another cracker.

Fuyumi stood, her chair scraping against the floor. "I’ll check on Natsuo. It’s about time he gets up"

Touya followed her, though he didn’t mean to. His legs carried him on autopilot, his body moving while his mind lagged two steps behind. He hovered just outside Natsuo’s door as Fuyumi knocked: once, twice, no answer.

She pushed the door open gently.

Natsuo was a lump under the blankets, his white hair the only thing visible in the dim light filtering through the curtains.

Fuyumi stepped inside. "Natsu?"

No response.

Touya lingered in the doorway, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. Fuyumi sat on the edge of the bed, her voice softening. "Natsu, come on. You have to get up."

The blankets shifted. A groan. Then, hoarse and raw: "Go away."

Fuyumi’s hand hovered over his shoulder before she pulled back. "You can’t just-"

"I can’t," Natsuo snapped, the words cracking mid-syllable. He finally turned his head, his eyes bloodshot, his face pale. "I don’t… I don’t feel right."

Fuyumi’s fingers curled into the fabric of her slacks. "Is it like… a cold? A fever?"

"I don’t know," Natsuo muttered, dragging a hand over his face. "I just… I can’t think."

A beat of silence.

Fuyumi exhaled, her shoulders slumping. "Okay. One more day. I know I said this yesterday, but if you’re not better tomorrow-"

"Yeah, yeah." Natsuo rolled over, pulling the blanket over his head.

---

Touya didn’t realize Shouto was still in pajamas until they reached the school gates.

Shouto, for his part, didn’t seem to care. He adjusted his noise-canceling headphones and marched inside, his All Might-patterned sleep pants on full display.

Touya stared after him, too exhausted to even curse.

Somewhere, deep down, he wondered if he’d make it through the exam.

But right now, all he could do was cross his fingers.

---

Saturday morning, Touya woke up with Keigo drooling on his pillow, despite having gone to bed without Keigo there. He closed his eyes again, but there was a buzz from his phone on the nightstand. 

He groaned, and reached out for it, squinting at the message on the screen. 

INKO: Izuku's begging for a playdate. Any chance Shouto's free today?

Touya responded before fully processing the words. 

TOUYA: When can I drop him off?

---

A few hours later, Keigo stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Touya outside the Midoriyas' apartment door, Shouto sandwiched between them with his backpack clutched tight.

"You sure you're good to do groceries after this?" Keigo murmured, eyeing the way Touya's fingers still trembled slightly around the list he'd scribbled.

"Better than staring at the ceiling all day," Touya muttered, pressing the doorbell.

The door flew open before the chime had finished. Izuku vibrated on the spot, his green curls bouncing as he practically shouted, "Shouto! I got the new All Might limited edition cards and we can watch the documentary and-"

"Inside voice, sweetheart," Inko chided gently, appearing behind her son. Her eyes widened slightly when she spotted Keigo. "Oh! You must be…"

"Keigo is fine," he said with an easy grin, rubbing the back of his neck. "Nice to meet you."

Izuku's entire body locked up. His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

Touya watched with grim amusement as the kid's brain visibly short-circuited, his face cycling through approximately twelve emotions in three seconds.

"Mr. Hawks I have so many questions about your feather kinematics and the maximum load capacity and-"

"Izuku," Inko said firmly, resting a hand on his shoulder. "Let Mr. Hawks."

Shouto, utterly unfazed by the hero revelation, nudged Izuku's elbow. Izuku grabbed Shouto's wrist and yanked him inside, already babbling about attack statistics.

"Text if anything comes up," Touya said, already backing away.

Inko waved them off. "Go. He'll be fine."

---

The grocery store was blessedly quiet at this hour. Touya leaned heavily against the cart while Keigo tossed in essentials: rice, vegetables, instant noodles, eggs, the cheap brand of coffee Fuyumi liked.

"You're swaying," Keigo observed, adding a bag of oranges.

"I'm fine."

"You're a terrible liar." Keigo bumped their shoulders together. "But hey, at least you're upright. There’s your win for the day."

Touya grunted. His medications were back on track, but his nerves still fired randomly, making his hands jerk when he reached for a carton of milk. Keigo caught it before it could slip, his feathers twitching like they wanted to help more.

Laundry was worse. The laundromat's fluorescent lights drilled into Touya's skull as he sorted colors with exaggerated care, his movements slow and deliberate. Keigo watched for a moment before wordlessly taking over, his fingers making quick work of the piles. Although feathers would’ve been more efficient, he was trying to stay incognito.

---

When they returned to the Midoriyas', the apartment smelled like crayons and curry.

Izuku and Shouto sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by hero cards and colored pencils. Shouto was meticulously shading a drawing: crude but recognizable outlines of two figures, one with wild green hair, while Izuku talked at approximately a million words per minute.

"-and then All Might used the Detroit Smash but the wind shear calculations don't actually match what we saw in the Kamino incident unless you account for- oh! Mr. Hawks! Did you know your top recorded speed is-"

"Izuku," Inko sighed, but she was smiling.

Keigo crouched to examine Shouto's drawing. "Hey, that's pretty good, little man."

Shouto nodded swiftly in thanks.

Izuku practically vibrated out of his skin as Keigo answered a few rapid-fire questions about his quirk, his wings fluffing up in amusement.

"Alright, Sho," Touya said, ruffling Shouto's hair. "Time to go home."

Shouto stood, but not before carefully tearing his drawing in half: keeping one piece and pressing the other into Izuku's hands.

Izuku beamed like he'd been given a trophy.

Inko pressed leftovers into Touya's arms as they left, her eyes suspiciously bright. "Any time," she said softly. "Really."

On the walk home, Shouto walked between them, his fingers twisted in Touya's sleeve. 

Keigo bumped their shoulders together again. It was gonna be ok. 

Chapter 14: Entanglements

By June, the pattern had solidified: Izuku and Shouto were inseparable, and by extension, so were their families.

It had started small. A few afternoons after school, when Inko’s shifts at the hospital ran late and Fuyumi was already picking Shouto up anyway. Then weekends, when Inko pulled double shifts and Izuku, left to his own devices, would vibrate through the walls of their tiny apartment until she caved and texted Touya something along the lines of: Is it okay if Izuku comes over for a few hours?

The answer was always yes.

Because the truth was, Shouto had never played before. And Izuku had never had a friend who listened the way Shouto did, who didn’t interrupt, didn’t tell him to shut up, didn’t get bored halfway through his rants about hero stats and Quirk theory.

So they orbited each other, and their families orbited with them.

Fuyumi and Inko had become fast friends, despite the decade between them.

It helped that Inko didn’t treat Fuyumi like a kid, which was refreshing, given how often people assumed she was younger than she actually was. And Fuyumi, in turn, didn’t treat Inko like a mom, which was also refreshing, given how often people expected her to be one to everyone.

They bonded over shared exhaustion, Fuyumi from wrangling third graders and her brothers, Inko from overnight shifts in the hospital’s ER. Over bad coffee and store-bought cookies, they traded stories about impossible workloads and the absurdity of bureaucracy.

"I swear, if one more parent tells me their child is ‘gifted’ and ‘bored’ in my class," Fuyumi muttered, stirring her tea with more force than necessary.

Inko snorted. "Try telling a parent their precious baby gave half the ward conjunctivitis because they wouldn’t stop rubbing their eyes and touching things."

"Ugh, no thanks. I’ll take my tiny literary critics over tiny plague vectors any day."

Touya watched them, something warm unfurling in his chest. Fuyumi had always been the glue of their fractured family, but seeing her like this: relaxed, normal, trading complaints with a friend over tea, was new.

Keigo, the opportunist, stole a cookie from Inko’s plate when she wasn’t looking.

Touya mostly listened, content to let them talk while he sipped his tea and pretended he wasn’t eavesdropping.

Natsuo, for his part, seemed to have bounced back from his mysterious week-long crash at the end of May. He was back to his usual routine: studying, grumbling about studying, and occasionally emerging from his room to steal food before vanishing again.

But Touya and Fuyumi had quietly adjusted their orbits to keep him in sight more often.

Today, Natsuo had surfaced long enough to grab a cookie before retreating to his room, but not before Fuyumi caught his wrist.

“You good?” she asked, quiet.

Natsuo rolled his eyes. 

Fuyumi flicked his forehead but let him go. 

The topic came up organically, as things often did with Inko.

She was watching Shouto scribble, her expression soft. “He’s really taken to colors, hasn’t he?”

Fuyumi nodded. “It’s new. He’s never really… engaged with stuff like this before.”

“It’s good,” Inko said warmly. “He’s exploring.”

Fuyumi exhaled through his nose. “I wish he’d explore communicating.”

The words came out sharper than she meant them to. Inko blinked, but Touya just sighed, used to her frustration by now.

“We saw a neurologist in April,” he explained. “He’s got a… what was it? A diffuse axonal injury, I think is the exact term. She said the pathways for speech are disrupted. Not gone, just… unreliable.”

Inko’s nurse-brain kicked in instantly. “Like a phone line with bad reception.”

“Exactly,” Fuyumi said, relieved to not have to explain further.

“They said not to give up,” she continued, twisting her hands in her lap. “But he hates speech therapy. He just shuts down, and we’re worried he’ll feel alone this way.”

A beat of silence. Then… 

“You know,” Inko said slowly, “I might know of something that could help him at least open up a little.”

Touya raised an eyebrow.

Inko hesitated, choosing her words carefully. “A friend of mine, her son deafened himself accidentally when his Quirk manifested. It was… traumatic. He didn’t want to communicate at all after that. No speaking, no interest in signing, nothing.”

Fuyumi leaned forward. “What changed?”

“They found this group,” Inko said. “It’s not just for signing, more like… alternative communication? Kids who don’t or can’t speak, kids who are deaf or hard of hearing and don’t like speaking verbally… they all meet up. No pressure, no therapy, just… being around other kids who get it.”

Keigo tilted his head. “Did it work?”

Inko smiled. “I think it worked too well… he’s a firecracker. And my friend said it helped her too. She met deaf adults who could mentor him, learned how to sign herself…”

Touya and Fuyumi exchanged glances.

Fuyumi bit her lip. “I don’t know if Shouto would go for it. I don’t think sign language is really in the cards…”

“It might be nice to expose him to other kids who are using alternate communication, though,” Inko added. “So he can see them using other ways of communicating; maybe he gets inspired!” 

Touya’s fingers twitched. “It could be worth a shot,” he muttered.

Inko nodded. “I can get the details for you.”

Fuyumi’s shoulders relaxed slightly. “Yeah. That’d be… good.”

---

The envelope was thick, official-looking, tucked into Shouto’s backpack between his lunchbox and a crumpled worksheet he’d never touched. Fuyumi found it when she was emptying his bag that evening, her fingers brushing against the stiff paper as she pulled out his untouched sandwich.

"To the guardians of Shouto Todoroki," it began.

By the time she finished reading, her nails had left half-moon indents in her palms.

Touya looked up from the couch, where he was attempting to fix his glasses with one of those teeny-tiny screwdrivers: "What’s that?"

Fuyumi exhaled. "They want to evaluate Shouto further. Since he’s not responding to any of their communication attempts."

Touya’s fingers stilled on the broken frame. "What, like… tests?"

"I guess?" Fuyumi rubbed her temple. "They’re saying he’s clearly unhappy, and they want to figure out if there’s another way to reach him."

A beat of silence. 

"Okay," Touya said, shrugging. "Let them."

Fuyumi blinked. 

"He’s miserable the way they’re trying to handle it. If they’re finally admitting their way isn’t working, why not let them try something else?" He adjusted the glasses on his face, scowling when they immediately slid crooked again. "Worst case, nothing changes."

Fuyumi folded the letter carefully. "Okay," she echoed. "Okay, we’ll sign the forms."

It started innocently enough, just an offhand comment over dinner, tossed out between bites of curry.

"Mr. Okada stayed late to help me reorganize the classroom library today," Fuyumi mused, stirring her rice absently. "He said my system was ‘logical but impractical.’"

Touya glanced up from where he was picking scallions out of his dish. "Who?"

"Mr. Okada. The new fifth-grade teacher." Fuyumi’s chopsticks paused mid-air. "He transferred from a school in Shizuoka last month to be closer to his parents."

Keigo, who had been stealing bites off Touya’s plate, perked up. "Oh? What’s he like?"

Fuyumi shrugged, a little too casually. "I don’t know. Quiet. Organized. He has this way of stacking papers so the corners line up perfectly."

Inko’s eyes lit up. She set her tea down with a soft clink. "Fuyumi. Are you…?"

"No!" Fuyumi’s ears turned pink. "I just appreciate his work ethic!"

Keigo grinned, wings rustling. "Uh-huh. What’s his Quirk?"

"Why would I know that?"

"You totally know."

Fuyumi stabbed at her food. "It’s something to do with plants, and smells? I think it's registered as Botanical Essence.” 

Inko clasped her hands together, leaning forward. "That’s adorable."

"It’s pleasant," Fuyumi corrected, but the flush creeping down her neck betrayed her.

“Eww, that’s disgusting Yumi,”  Natsuo called over his shoulder. Home from the library for approximately five minutes, he had already retreated to his room with a protein bar and zero interest in his sister’s love life.

Inko sighed dreamily. "Oh, I remember my first crush. He was a pre-med student, and he wore these glasses…"

Touya snorted. 

Keigo, undeterred, flicked a grain of rice at Fuyumi. "So. When’s the wedding?"

Fuyumi threw a napkin at him.

---

At first, it was subtle.

Shouto came home from school a little quieter than usual, his movements slower. He’d sit at the kitchen table and press the heels of his hands into his eyes for a few seconds too long before reaching for his crayons. But when Fuyumi asked if he was okay, he’d just blink at her, blank-faced, and go back to smearing colors across paper.

Izuku didn’t notice at first. He’d still chatter away during their playdates, bouncing from one hero fact to the next while Shouto sat beside him, blending red and blue into purple puddles. 

The change happened gradually, then all at once.

One day, Shouto came home and went straight to the couch, curling into a ball with his face pressed into the cushions. When Izuku arrived, chattering excitedly about a new hero documentary, Shouto didn’t even lift his head.

Izuku hesitated, then sat beside him, still talking, but slower now. “... and All Might’s punch in the Kamino fight was so strong, it changed the weather, which is crazy, because-”

Shouto flinched.

Not much, just a tiny, full-body twitch. But Izuku noticed. He stopped mid-sentence, his hands freezing in the air. “Shouto?”

Shouto didn’t answer. Just burrowed deeper into the couch, his fingers gripping the fabric like he was trying to anchor himself.

Izuku’s smile faltered. “Do you… wanna watch it with me?”

Silence.

Izuku swallowed hard and kept going.

---

The first time Shouto covered his ears, Izuku thought he’d done something wrong.

They were in Shouto’s room, the door half-closed, no adults around. Izuku was mid-explanation about Quirk evolution when Shouto suddenly hunched over, his hands slapping over his ears, his face twisting like he’d been hit.

Izuku’s voice died in his throat. “Sh-Shouto?”

Shouto squeezed his eyes shut, his breath coming too fast.

Izuku reached out, then pulled back, his hands fluttering nervously. “I… I’ll stop talking! It’s okay! I’ll…”

Shouto didn’t move.

Izuku sat there, frozen, until Fuyumi called them for dinner.

The next time Izuku came over after school, he tried really hard to be quiet.

He sat cross-legged on the floor of Shouto’s room, his All Might notebook open in his lap, but instead of talking like he usually did, he just pointed at the pages and whispered the words under his breath like a secret.

Shouto wasn’t coloring today. He was lying on his stomach on the futon, his face half-buried in the pillow, his fingers curled tight around the edges. He didn’t look at Izuku’s notebook.

Izuku’s chest felt too tight.

“D-Do you want me to leave?” he asked, his voice small.

Shouto didn’t answer. Just squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his forehead harder into the pillow.

Izuku’s hands fluttered in his lap. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Shouto always listened, even if he didn’t talk back. He always let Izuku ramble, even if he didn’t seem interested. This was all wrong.

“I can- I can talk about something else!” Izuku blurted, desperate to fix it. “Or we can just- just sit! Or…”

Shouto flinched.

Not like he was scared. Like something hurt.

Izuku’s breath hitched. “Shouto?”

A tiny, miserable noise escaped Shouto’s throat, and then, 

He covered his ears.

Izuku’s vision blurred.

Fuyumi was grading papers at the kitchen table when she heard the first sob.

It wasn’t Shouto; Shouto never made noise like that. This was high-pitched, hiccuping, the kind of cry that came from deep in the chest and couldn’t be stifled.

She dropped her pen and bolted down the hall.

The door to her shared bedroom was half-open. Inside, Izuku sat crumpled against the wall, his knees pulled tight to his chest, his hands flapping erratically at his sides. His All Might notebook lay abandoned on the floor, pages crumpled under his grip. Across the room, Shouto was curled into a ball on his futon, his face buried in his arms, his entire body rigid.

“Izuku?” Fuyumi knelt beside him, her voice soft.

“H-He’s not- he’s not listening,” Izuku choked out between gasps. His fingers twisted in the fabric of his pants. “I did- did all the- the breathing things but it’s wrong, he’s s’posed to- to listen-”

Fuyumi’s heart cracked. Izuku wasn’t just upset, he was unmoored. Shouto’s reactions had shattered their predictable friendship, and no amount of grounding exercises could patch that hole.

Behind her, the floor creaked. Touya stood in the doorway, his glasses askew.  He took in the scene with a single glance before moving quietly to Shouto's side.

"C'mon," he murmured, easing the pillow away just enough to reveal Shouto's pale, pinched face. "Let's get you some quiet."

Shouto didn't resist as Touya guided him upright, his movements sluggish. He couldn't carry him, but he steadied him with an arm around his shoulders, walking him step by step down the hall to his own room.

Fuyumi waited until the door closed before turning back to Izuku. "Okay," she breathed, sitting cross-legged beside him. "You're okay. Just breathe with me, alright? In for four," She demonstrated, exaggerating the motion.

Izuku's fingers dug into his scalp. "H-he h-hates me!"

"No. No, he doesn't." Fuyumi kept her voice firm, rhythmic. "He's just not feeling well right now. It's not about you."

"But it's wrong-" Izuku's voice cracked. "H-he's s'posed to listen-"

"I know." Fuyumi's heart ached. She pulled the weighted blanket from Shouto's futon and draped it carefully over Izuku's shoulders. "It's hard when things change."

Izuku shuddered, his fists clenching and unclenching in the fabric. He'd clearly tried his usual coping strategies, the patterned breathing, the pressure points she'd seen him use before, but sometimes, when the world tilted too far off-axis, no exercise could anchor him.

Fuyumi stayed with him, counting breaths, until Inko arrived.

---

Fuyumi spotted Inko standing near the chain-link fence, her fingers worrying the strap of her nurse's bag. The late afternoon sun slanted across the schoolyard, painting the grass in gold. A group of mothers chatted nearby, their laughter too bright against the quiet tension coiling in Fuyumi's chest.

She forced her feet forward, adjusting the strap of her own bag. "Hey," she called, voice carefully light. "I thought Izuku was coming over today?"

Inko turned, her smile already fraying at the edges. "Oh! Fuyumi. Yes, well…" She smoothed a hand over her scrubs, though there were no wrinkles to fix. "He's... not quite up to it today."

Fuyumi's stomach dropped. This was the third time this week.

"Is everything okay?" she asked, hating how small her voice sounded.

Inko's fingers tightened around the strap. The shadows under her eyes looked deeper in this light. "It's just..." She exhaled, shoulders slumping. "He had a hard morning. Kept saying his stomach hurt when I mentioned coming over."

Fuyumi nodded, her throat tight. She knew what that meant. Knew the way anxiety curled in children's bellies before their mouths could shape the words.

"I'm sorry," she blurted. The guilt tasted like metal on her tongue. "We didn't mean to-"

"No, no!" Inko reached out, then hesitated, hand hovering between them. "It's not… it's not about you. Or Shouto. Not really." She glanced toward the school doors where the first children were beginning to spill out. "He just... he doesn't understand why things have changed. And not knowing what to expect when he comes over..."

Fuyumi swallowed hard. The implication hung between them: Izuku's world had rules, patterns, predictable rhythms. And Shouto, silent and withdrawn and different now, had broken them all.

"I get it," Fuyumi whispered. She did. That didn't stop the hot shame crawling up her neck.

Inko's face crumpled. "I feel terrible about this. You've been so good to us, and…"

"Don't." Fuyumi forced a smile. It felt like cracking ice. "Izuku comes first. I know that."

The dismissal bell rang, sharp and final.

Inko hesitated, then squeezed Fuyumi's wrist. "We'll try again soon. When he's ready."

Fuyumi nodded, watching as Inko hurried toward the school doors where Izuku was emerging, his green hair bright in the sunlight.

She stood there long after they'd disappeared around the corner, the weight of failure pressing against her ribs.

---

The sound was what woke her: a wet, hitching gasp that cut through the dark.

Fuyumi jerked upright, blinking against the gloom of their shared bedroom. For a disoriented moment, she thought she'd imagined it. Shouto didn't make noise when he cried. If he ever teared up at all, it was silent, the barest shine in his eyes before he blinked it away.

Then it came again: a shuddering, broken whimper.

"Shouto?" Fuyumi scrambled from her bed, her socked feet slipping on the floorboards. Moonlight spilled through the curtains, painting his hunched form in silver. He was curled into himself, his face buried in his hands, his entire body trembling with the force of his crying.

She dropped to her knees beside his futon, her hands hovering. "Hey, hey, what's wrong?"

Shouto didn't answer. A tear dripped between his fingers, then another. His breath came in ragged, uneven gulps.

Fuyumi reached out, then hesitated. Her hands were always cold, her Quirk saw to that, and she didn't want to startle him. But when she lightly touched his wrist, he didn't flinch away. Instead, he grabbed her hand and pressed her icy palm against his forehead with a desperate, wordless urgency.

"Does your head hurt?" she asked, her voice too loud in the quiet room.

Shouto whimpered, his fingers digging into her wrist.

Fuyumi waited, counting the minutes on their alarm clock. Ten passed, then twenty. His crying didn't ease, if anything, it grew more frantic, his breaths sharp and panicked.

"I'm getting Touya," she whispered.

Touya arrived barefoot and bleary-eyed, Keigo stumbling behind him with his wings half-puffed in alarm.

"What's-?" Touya started, then froze at the sight of Shouto.

Fuyumi shook her head helplessly. "He won't stop."

Touya crossed the room in two strides, dropping to his knees beside Shouto's futon. His face was bare, his expression unguarded in a way Fuyumi rarely saw. "Hey, kid," he murmured, reaching out. "Can you look at me?"

Shouto shook his head violently, his hands pressed to his temples.

Keigo hovered in the doorway, uncharacteristically quiet. "Should I…?"

"Tea," Fuyumi said. "Or-or water, or-"

Keigo vanished.

Touya tried again, his voice softer. "Is it pain? You hurting somewhere?"

Shouto let out a choked noise, his fingers twisting in his hair.

Fuyumi bit her lip. They were asking all the wrong questions. Shouto couldn't tell them what was wrong; that was the whole problem.

She pressed her other hand to his cheek, letting the chill of her Quirk seep into his too-warm skin. "Is this helping?"

Shouto leaned into the contact with a shuddering exhale, his tears slowing, just a fraction.

Keigo returned with a glass of water and a damp cloth. He handed the cloth to Touya, who dabbed carefully at Shouto's face, wiping away tears and snot with a gentleness Fuyumi hadn't known he possessed.

"Okay," Touya murmured, more to himself than anyone. "Okay."

Shouto's breathing hitched, his fingers uncurling slightly from his hair to clutch at Touya's sleeve. He looked impossibly young at that moment, not twelve, not with the weight of everything he carried, but small and scared and lost.

Keigo settled on the floor beside them, his wings draping over Shouto like a living blanket. "We got you," he said, uncharacteristically solemn.

Shouto didn't respond. Just pressed his face into Touya's shoulder and cried, quiet now, but no less devastating.

Fuyumi met Touya's eyes over Shouto's bowed head.

They didn't say it. They didn't need to.

Something's really wrong.

And they had no idea how to fix it.

Chapter 15: The Missing Piece

Notes:

thanks everyone for your continued support!
this is all prewritten, so uploading frequently when I have the time :)

Summer break loomed on the horizon, the days stretching long and sluggish as the school year wound down. For most kids, it was a time of buzzing excitement: countdowns scratched into notebooks, plans shouted across playgrounds.

For Shouto, it seemed to only make things worse.

He came home every afternoon and collapsed onto the couch, his body limp with exhaustion. He didn't reach for his crayons. Didn't hum along to the radio when Fuyumi turned it on. Didn't even react when Touya deliberately put on the terrible daytime dramas he usually side-eyed with quiet judgment.

He just... existed. A silent, listless weight in the center of their apartment.

Fuyumi and Touya exchanged glances over his head, their silent conversations growing more frantic with each passing day.

---

The waiting room smelled like antiseptic and old magazines. Shouto sat between Touya and Fuyumi, his shoulders hunched, fingers picking absently at the hem of his shirt. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, too bright, and every few minutes, Shouto would press the heels of his hands against his eyes like he was trying to push the light out.

Fuyumi had called the neurologist first, of course. Dr. Kobayashi’s office had been apologetic but firm: Next available appointment is in October.

October. Three months away.

So here they were, in the cramped office of Dr. Morita, a general pediatrician whose online reviews alternated between "Fine for checkups" and "Wouldn’t trust him with a goldfish."

The door opened, and Dr. Morita strode in, flipping through Shouto’s chart with the enthusiasm of someone reviewing a grocery list.

"Alright," he said, not looking up. "History of traumatic brain injury, some scarring, and now… mood swings? Fatigue?"

Fuyumi nodded. "He’s not himself. He’s been withdrawn, doesn’t want to do any of the things he usually likes-"

Dr. Morita waved a hand. "How’s his appetite?"

"Fine, I guess?"

"Sleep?"

"Mostly normal."

The doctor hummed, finally looking up to squint at Shouto. "How old is he again?"

"Twelve," Touya said flatly.

"Ah." Dr. Morita leaned back in his chair, nodding sagely. "Puberty."

Fuyumi blinked. "What?"

"Puberty," he repeated, as if that explained everything. "Kids get moody. Hormones, you know. Could be depression, could just be normal teenage stuff."

Shouto, who had been staring blankly at the wall, made a small noise in the back of his throat. 

Touya’s fingers twitched against his knee, but his voice stayed eerily calm. "So you’re saying there’s nothing wrong?"

Dr. Morita shrugged. "I mean, he’s got the TBI history, but unless he’s having seizures or something, there’s not much to do. Maybe try a therapist if you’re worried about depression."

Fuyumi opened her mouth, then closed it. What was there to say? 

No, it’s not just moodiness, he’s in pain, we can tell he’s in pain- 

But the doctor was already standing, snapping Shouto’s file shut. "Give it a few weeks. If he’s still like this, we’ll run some bloodwork."

Touya stood abruptly, his chair scraping against the linoleum. "Right. Thanks."

---

Fuyumi stood in the kitchen, gripping the counter with one hand as she watched Shouto through the doorway. He was sprawled on the couch, face pressed into the cushions. She had tried everything: offering his favorite foods, turning the lights down low, even dragging out the weighted blanket he usually loved. Nothing worked. 

Touya leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, his expression grim. "We can’t keep doing this."

Fuyumi swallowed hard. She knew what he meant. Knew they were both thinking the same thing.

Fuyumi grabbed her phone before she could second-guess herself.

Inko answered on the third ring. "Fuyumi?" Her voice was warm but tired, the way it always was after a long shift.

"Hey," Fuyumi said, forcing lightness into her tone. "I know Izuku’s been needing space, but…" She glanced at Shouto, his small frame curled into the couch, and her voice cracked. "I think Shouto’s really missing him."

A pause. Then, gently: "Fuyumi… Izuku’s still pretty anxious. I don’t know if-"

"Yeah," Fuyumi cut in, her throat tight. "No, I get it. I just…" She squeezed her eyes shut. "Never mind. Sorry to bother you."

She hung up before the tears could spill over.

The phone rang less than ten minutes later.

Fuyumi snatched it up. "Hello?"

"Izuku says he’ll come," Inko said, her voice laced with quiet amusement. "He’s currently packing every All Might figure he owns, and explaining to me, in great detail, why Shouto needs to see the new limited-edition Silver Age card. I think he’s missed him too."

Fuyumi nearly dropped the phone.

Touya and Fuyumi hovered around Shouto like nervous birds, their excitement barely contained.

"Izuku's coming over," Fuyumi said, smoothing Shouto's hair back. "Isn't that great?"

Shouto blinked at her, slow and uncomprehending.

Touya crouched in front of him. "You excited to see him?"

No response. Just the rhythmic chewing of Shouto's stim toy, a textured silicone pendant he hadn't touched in months, now clamped between his teeth like a lifeline.

Fuyumi and Touya exchanged a glance.

This was... something. Not good, not bad, but something.

---

Izuku arrived with his backpack bulging at the seams, the zipper straining against the weight of All Might figures and hero cards stuffed inside. He paused in the genkan, fingers tightening around the straps as his eyes found Shouto on the couch.

"Hi," he said, quieter than usual, but with a determined set to his jaw.

Shouto didn't move, but his fingers twitched where they lay against the couch cushion.

Fuyumi held her breath.

Then Izuku marched forward and dumped his bag onto the floor with a thud. Action figures spilled out, along with a well-worn All Might blanket and at least three different hero analysis notebooks. "I brought the holographic Silver Age cards," he announced, holding one up carefully between two fingers. "And-and we don't have to talk if you don't want! We can just look at them!"

Shouto blinked slowly. Then, with what seemed like tremendous effort, he pushed himself upright.

Fuyumi and Inko lingered in the kitchen, the murmur of Izuku’s voice drifting in from the living room. They weren’t hovering, but neither of them had wandered far since the boys settled in. Just in case.

Fuyumi refilled Inko’s tea, her shoulders looser than they’d been in weeks. "I swear, if Mr. Okada asks me about coffee one more time-"

Inko grinned into her cup. "You’ll say yes?"

"I’ll throw a whiteboard eraser at his head."

Inko’s laugh was cut short by a sound from the living room, Izuku’s voice, bright and eager. "Look, Shouto! This one’s from All Might’s debut year!"

Inko peeked around the doorway, glad to hear her son having a good time.

Shouto sat cross-legged on the floor, a hero card held close to his face. His left hand covered his scarred eye completely, his right squinting at the image like he was trying to decipher fine print. It wasn’t dramatic, just... habitual.

Inko hummed. "Has he been doing that?"

Fuyumi frowned. "Doing what?"

"Covering his eye like that to look at things up close."

Fuyumi appeared at her shoulder, silent. His gaze locked onto Shouto, his expression unreadable.

Fuyumi’s stomach dropped. "I... don’t know. Maybe?"

Inko hesitated, then softened her voice. "Light sensitivity is pretty common with ASD. He could just be feeling super overstimulated lately, and that’s why he’s cranky. When Izuku was little, he used to be like that all the time, before he started talking and now I know way too much about the physical sensations he feels."

Fuyumi’s hands twisted in her sweater. "We thought he was overwhelmed with school. All the new stuff they’ve been trying… the picture cards, the writing..."

“Or…” Inko’s brow furrowed, not looking away from the boys. "Fuyumi, did he ever see an eye doctor after the burn?"

The question landed like a stone.

Fuyumi’s mouth went dry. "I... don’t remember." The confession made her sweat. "It was right when Mom got sent away... Everything was…" She swallowed. "Dad didn’t want extra doctors involved."

A beat of silence.

Inko exhaled. "Has he been getting headaches?"

Touya’s fingers twitched.

Fuyumi’s voice was small. "...Maybe?"

The pieces clicked with horrible clarity. The squinting. The eye-covering. The way Shouto came home from school and pressed his face into the couch, the way he flinched from bright lights… not just overwhelmed. In pain.

Inko reached out, squeezing Fuyumi’s hand. 

"I wish he could just tell us these things!"

Fuyumi’s vision blurred. 

Inko’s voice was gentle. "We’ll figure this out together, okay?"

Fuyumi blinked. "We?"

Inko smiled, warm and sure. "Of course. Izuku’s been miserable without Shouto too. We’re family now."

---

Tokyo Children's Medical Center hummed with activity, the waiting room a kaleidoscope of colorful murals and the occasional flicker of a child's Quirk: a girl with frog-like fingers sticking to the ceiling, a boy with miniature clouds drifting above his head. Shouto sat stiffly between Touya and Fuyumi, his hands folded in his lap, his mismatched eyes fixed on the fish tank across the room.

Touya shifted in his seat, rolling his shoulders. His scars ached today, a dull throb that no amount of nerve blockers could fully mute. He'd taken an ibuprofen this morning along with the normal meds, but something about the combination of side effects left him feeling vaguely nauseous today, his fingers tingling at the tips.

"Todoroki Shouto?"

Dr. Kato herself was a compact woman with sharp, gold eyes and hair pulled into a no-nonsense bun. The exam room was smaller than expected, but thoughtfully arranged. Instead of sterile white walls, the space was painted a soft blue, with tactile panels at child-height featuring different textures. A mobile of cartoon eyes rotated slowly from the ceiling, each pupil shaped like a different animal.

"Alright, Shouto," Dr. Kato said, crouching to his level. Her voice was warm but no-nonsense. "I know you've had a lot of doctors poke at you. Today, we're going to play some games that might feel silly, but they'll help me understand how your eyes work. Sound okay?"

Shouto blinked at her.

She didn't wait for a response he couldn't give. "First up: the flashlight game."
Her Quirk activated as she tracked every micro-movement as she swept a penlight across his field of vision.

"Left pupil reacts at 60% latency," she murmured to her tablet. "Right is normal but shows slight nystagmus on lateral tracking."

Shouto flinched when the light hit his scarred side.

"Now, keep looking at my nose. Tell me if you see any of these dots."

She activated a holographic display that projected colored dots around his periphery. Shouto's right hand twitched toward dots on the right side but didn't react at all to the left until they were nearly centered.

"Consistent left-side neglect," Dr. Kato noted. "But look at this:" She moved a dot slowly from left to right. "His brain compensates once the stimulus crosses midline. Remarkable neuroplasticity."
Shouto rubbed at his eyes, frustration evident in the tight line of his shoulders.

"Hey," Dr. Kato said gently, producing a small stress ball shaped like an eyeball. "Squeeze this when it gets hard. We're almost done."

She set up a miniature obstacle course with toy cars and bridges. "Which car is closer?"

Shouto studied them for a long moment before pointing correctly, but when asked to guide a car through the course, his hand overshot the distance by two centimeters.

"Compensated depth perception," Dr. Kato explained. "His brain's recalculated spatial awareness based on monocular cues. Probably uses shadows and object sizing instinctively."
The contrast sensitivity test revealed more: images projected onto a special screen that adjusted opacity based on retinal response. Shouto squinted at the faint shapes, his right eye identifying about 60% correctly, his left only catching the barest movements.

As Dr. Kato reviewed the results, Touya noticed how Shouto kept tilting his head at odd angles: a habit he'd developed to maximize his functional field of view. The doctor noticed too.

"You're very clever, Shouto-kun," she murmured, adjusting a dial on her diagnostic goggles. "You've been using your right eye like a spotlight and your left like... hmm, like peripheral radar, yes? But it's been tiring, hasn't it?"

Shouto's shoulders slumped slightly, the closest he'd come to admitting exhaustion all day.

Dr. Kato turned the monitor toward them, displaying the scan results. The image of Shouto's left eye showed cloudy streaks across the cornea, jagged lines of scar tissue where boiling water and immediate ice had created microscopic fractures in the delicate surface.

"The thermal shock created permanent opacities," she explained, tracing the damage with a stylus. "His brain has been essentially ignoring input from this eye for years, a condition called cortical visual impairment. What little light gets through is distorted, like looking through frosted glass."

She switched to the right eye's scan. "This one is more interesting. The optic nerve is intact, but the occipital lobe, where visual signals are processed, shows disrupted neural pathways from his TBI. It's not blindness, but a form of visual agnosia. He sees shapes and movement just fine, but his brain struggles with details, especially in low contrast."

Fuyumi's hands trembled around her notebook. "All those picture cards... the worksheets..."

"Would have been incredibly frustrating, yes." Dr. Kato wiggled a bit in her seat, getting comfortable as she continued to explain. "Think of it like watching a scrambled television broadcast. You know there's an image there, but you can't quite make it out."

Shouto, sensing the attention, rubbed at his left eye with the heel of his palm, a habitual gesture they'd mistaken for tiredness.

Fuyumi’s hands tightened around the straps of her bag. "So what do we do?"

Dr. Kato smiled. "We give him the right tools.” She clicked the screen off. “Why don’t you all head down the hall? I’ll send the prescription down that way.”

---

The optician’s workshop looked like something out of a mad scientist’s lab, and the specialist, a man with four rotating eyes (two of which were magnified like jeweler’s loupes), took one look at Shouto’s scans and clapped his hands.

"Ah! Neural misfires in the right eye, light sensitivity in the left… classic post-trauma overload. We’ll need a prismatic filter for the right lens to stabilize the signal disruption, and a light-diffusing tint for the left to reduce strain." His voice was rapid-fire, almost giddy, as he spun toward a wall of drawers.

Shouto stood perfectly still, his mismatched eyes tracking the man’s movements with wary curiosity. Fuyumi hovered close, fingers twisting in the hem of her sweater, while Touya leaned against the counter, arms crossed, trying (and failing) to look unaffected.

The optician yanked open a drawer, rummaging through it with terrifying speed. His hands moved like a stop-motion film: one second empty, the next clutching a sleek pair of frames that looked like they belonged to a sci-fi protagonist. Thick, slightly asymmetrical, with a faint blue sheen to the left lens.

"Here we go!" he chirped, and before anyone could blink, he was already adjusting the glasses onto Shouto’s face. His fingers moved with inhuman precision, tweaking the nose pads, tightening the hinges, all in the span of a single breath.

Shouto didn’t even have time to flinch.

The lenses auto-tinted in the light, shifting from clear to a soft gradient as the optician hummed approvingly. "There! Now, let’s test…"

He flicked on a wall-mounted screen, displaying a rapid-moving pattern of shapes and colors. Shouto’s entire body locked up, his right eye (the good one, relatively speaking) widening behind the lens. His breath hitched, barely audible, as his gaze darted across the screen.

Then, slowly, disbelievingly, he turned his head, taking in the room like he was seeing it for the first time. The harsh fluorescent lights no longer stabbed into his vision. The edges of objects didn’t blur or warp unpredictably. The world was stable.

Fuyumi held her breath. "Shouto?"

He didn’t respond. Didn’t even seem to hear her. Instead, he lifted a hand, touching the frames with tentative fingers, as if checking they were real. His throat worked silently.

The optician grinned, his magnified eyes crinkling at the corners. "That’s the look of someone who didn’t realize how bad things were until they got better."

---

​​Touya noticed it first in the way Shouto watched things now.

Before, the TV had been background noise, something to fill the silence while Shouto lay on the floor, eyes half-lidded, not so much seeing as enduring the flicker of light and sound. But now, three weeks after the glasses, Touya caught him sitting upright, his gaze fixed on the screen with an intensity that bordered on unfamiliar. A nature documentary played, vivid blues and greens spilling across the room, and Shouto’s fingers twitched against his knee like he wanted to reach out and touch.

The drawings came next.

Shouto had always scribbled, angry, chaotic lines that gouged the paper, more frustration than art. But now, when Touya passed his room late at night, the light still on, he saw something different: shapes. Actual, deliberate shapes. A wobbly circle, a triangle with uneven sides, a row of squares that almost looked like buildings.

Touya leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. “Trying to draw the skyline?”

Shouto didn’t look up, but his pencil slowed.

“You’re getting better at straight lines,” Touya offered, because it was true, and because Shouto had always responded better to bluntness than sugarcoating.

A pause. Then, Shouto lifted the paper, a hesitant tilt of his wrist, like he wasn’t sure he wanted to show it but couldn’t stop himself.

It was the view from his window. The apartment buildings across the street, the telephone wires cutting through the dusk. The lines weren’t perfect, but they were there, and for the first time, they didn’t look like they’d been drawn by someone with their eyes closed.

The affection he gave came back like a tide: slow, then all at once.

Shouto had always been aggressively tactile when he was feeling okay. Shoulder-checking Touya in the hallway, leaning his full weight against Fuyumi while she cooked, pressing his forehead into Natsuo’s back like a cat demanding attention. But the last month had sanded him down to someone brittle and distant, recoiling from touch like it burned.

Now, when Fuyumi reached to adjust his glasses, Shouto didn’t stiffen. He let her, his good eye blinking up at her with quiet focus, and then, like it was nothing, he hooked two fingers into the sleeve of her sweater and tugged, like he used to. 

It made sense now, that letter they'd sent home in June.

Touya hadn't understood at the time, just saw the way Shouto had crumpled the envelope in his fist, the way he'd gone stiff and quiet for days after. The school's special education team had been "concerned." They weren't sure how much Shouto was comprehending. He refused to use communication cards, wouldn't point to pictures when asked, sometimes stared blankly at worksheets like the words might bite him.

Does he even recognize letters? one teacher had written. We need to assess his literacy level.

Touya kicked himself now for not seeing it sooner. All those "identification exercises," all those times they'd held up flashcards and waited for Shouto to point… of course he'd frozen. Of course he'd shut down. 

Now when Touya left his schoolbag on the floor, Shouto didn't tense at the sight of it. Now he sometimes flipped through Touya's manga without that pinched look between his eyebrows, tracing the crisp black lines with one finger. Now when Fuyumi wrote the grocery list on the whiteboard, Shouto would stand close enough to read it, his head tilting as his eyes tracked right to left.

Yeah. It would be different come September.

He didn't test it, didn't pull out worksheets or flashcards. Summer break meant summer break. But the knowledge sat warm in Touya's chest:  next time some teacher tried to make Shouto prove he could read, the kid would actually be able to see the damn words.

Shouto caught him staring and raised an eyebrow.

"Nothing," Touya said, reaching over to ruffle his hair. “You hungry?”

---

The Midoriya apartment smelled like sugar and soy sauce when they arrived, the sound of overlapping voices spilling into the hallway before Touya even knocked. He adjusted the gift bag in his grip; Fuyumi had wrapped it, because left to his own devices he would’ve just shoved the present into a convenience store bag, and glanced down at Shouto.

"You good?"

Shouto blinked up at him, fingers twisting in the hem of his shirt. His glasses caught the fluorescent hallway light, tinting just slightly against the brightness. He didn’t nod, but he didn’t step back either, which Touya took as a win.

The door swung open before he could knock.

"Inko-san," Touya greeted, dipping his head. Behind him, Fuyumi beamed, already holding out a container of homemade dorayaki, Natsuo and Keigo waved. "Thanks for having us."

Inko’s smile was warm, if a little teary. "We’re so glad you could come! Izuku’s been… oh, Izuku! They’re here!"

A crash. A thud. 

"Shouto!"

Izuku skidded into view, socks slipping on hardwood, his All Might t-shirt rumpled and his hair even more of a disaster than usual. He looked genuinely, disarmingly thrilled, like Shouto showing up was some kind of miracle.

Izuku bounced on his toes. "You came! I mean, of course you came, you said you would, but" He cut himself off, grinning. "Do you want to see the cake? Mom made it All Might-shaped!"

Shouto stared. Then, slowly, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, clumsily wrapped box.

Izuku’s breath audibly hitched. "For me?"

A nod.

Shouto tilted his head, which Touya knew meant yes, obviously, who else would have?

Izuku’s eyes welled up. He clutched the box to his chest like it was something precious. "Thank you."

Shouto’s mouth twitched. Not quite a smile, but close.

The highlight of the evening came when Inko brought out the cake, the candles flickering brightly. Izuku’s face lit up as everyone sang off-key and slightly out of sync, but enthusiastically.

Shouto didn’t sing, but when Izuku blew out the candles, he reached over and squeezed his friend’s wrist, a silent happy birthday.

Izuku beamed like it was the best gift he’d ever received.

And for the first time in a long time, everything felt right.

Chapter 16: Fresh Air

Notes:

thanks everyone for the nice comments! so excited to keep sharing with you all <3

Touya knew school was going better before the first letter even arrived.

He could see it in the way Shouto didn’t dig his heels in when it was time to leave the house, in how he’d started packing his own bag some days: pencils, a half-chewed eraser, and that increasingly battered sketchbook he’d been filling with jagged cityscapes and misshapen cats. The kid still moved like he was half in a dream, but there was a new deliberateness to it now, like he was finally noticing things.

The first progress report came home in a bright yellow envelope, the kind teachers used when they didn’t want parents assuming the worst. Touya slit it open with a thumb while Shouto sprawled on the living room floor, adding lopsided wings to what might have been a bird or might have been a very ambitious dust bunny.

Shouto has made significant strides in engagement, the note read. While he continues to communicate nonverbally, he’s begun using picture cards when prompted, particularly for basic needs (bathroom, break, hungry). We’re working on expanding this system.

Touya snorted. Translation: We finally figured out he’s not ignoring us on purpose.

The next paragraph made his eyebrows climb. His homeroom teacher reports he’s started attempting written responses (single words and short phrases). We believe he may have retained some literacy from early elementary education; attached are samples.

The included worksheet showed shaky but legible hiragana—はい circled under a yes/no question, わからない (don’t know) scribbled beside a math problem. The strokes were uneven, the sizing inconsistent, but they were there.

"Hey," Touya called, waving the paper. "Since when do you write so well?"

Shouto didn’t look up from his drawing, but his shoulders tensed, not the old panic, just the usual I heard you and I’m ignoring you vibe. After a beat, he flipped his sketchbook around. A crude but recognizable All Might grinned up at Touya, the speech bubble above his head containing a single, painstakingly copied kanji: 強 (strong).

A shrug. 

Message received.

---

The teachers weren’t calling it a miracle, Touya could read between the lines of their carefully worded notes, but the change was undeniable. Where before Shouto would sit blank-faced through entire lessons, now he’d sometimes tap his pencil against the desk when interested, or tilt his head at certain diagrams. His art teacher had started slipping him extra supplies, and the resulting drawings (while still rough) showed something Touya hadn’t seen before: intent.

Not just scribbles. Not just frustration.

A cat with triangle ears. A building with actual windows. Izuku’s hair rendered as a green scribble-cloud with two dots for eyes.

Of course, it wasn’t perfect.

Shouto still refused the communication cards unless directly asked a question, and he’d shut down if too many people asked him to do things, but it was leaps and bounds better than it had been in June. Everyone, including Shouto, seemed pleased with the turn of events. 

The knock came just as Touya was dumping a pot of udon into a pan full of sauce, steam billowing up into his face. He swore, shaking some of the splash off his fingers.

"That better not be Hawks again," Natsuo called from the living room, where he was sprawled across the couch with a biology textbook balanced on his stomach. "Last time he showed up unannounced, he ate all the onigiri."

Fuyumi, setting the table, shot him a look. "Be nice."

Touya turned off the stove and stalked to the entryway, wiping his hands on his jeans. Through the peephole, Akane’s familiar frown greeted him, her dark hair pulled into its usual severe bun, a clipboard tucked under one arm.

He yanked the door open. "You’re early."

Akane didn’t blink. "I texted."

“I didn’t check- I’m kinda in the middle of something here.” 

"Which makes me on time," she said, stepping past him into the genkan. Her sharp eyes scanned the apartment in one practiced sweep: clean-ish floors, no visible drug paraphernalia, Shouto’s schoolbag hung neatly on its hook. "Smells like you’re burning dinner."

"I’m not-" The distinct scent of charred noodles hit him. "Shit."

The apartment smelled like food, the overhead lights warm against the evening gloom. Shouto sat at the low table, carefully arranging slices of fish cake into a lopsided star shape on his udon. He glanced up when Akane entered, his new glasses glinting under the light: thick-framed, one lens slightly tinted.

"Well, look at you!" Akane crouched to his eye level, smiling. "Those are very stylish, Shouto."

Shouto blinked. Then, after a beat, he reached for the small stack of communication cards abandoned under the kotatsu. He flipped through them slowly before selecting one: [Thank you.]

Akane’s eyebrows shot up. "Since when does he-?"

"Three weeks," Fuyumi supplied, setting down a tray of tea. "His teachers have been working with him on it."

Touya watched Akane’s face soften, just slightly, before she straightened and turned to him. "And your glasses?"

"Lost ‘em."

"Touya."

"What? They’ll turn up." (They were in his nightstand drawer, right where he’d shoved them.)

Akane sighed but let it drop, moving to inspect the kitchen instead. She checked the fridge (stocked), the trash (no empty bottles), the medicine cabinet (just painkillers and scar creams). Touya leaned against the counter, arms crossed, as she scribbled notes on her tablet.

"Work’s good?" she asked, casual.

"Same as last month." He stirred the udon absently. 

“Nothing new?” 

“Nothing new.”

Dinner passed in comfortable chaos. Natsuo inhaled three bowls of udon while explaining his latest soccer match, Fuyumi fretted over everyone’s vegetable intake, and Shouto used his [More] card without prompting when he wanted seconds.

Akane watched it all with sharp eyes, asking careful questions between bites:

"Still seeing Dr. Saito, Touya?"

"Next Thursday."

"Any new meds?"

"Just the usual."

"You look flushed."

Touya stiffened. "It’s hot."

Akane didn’t push, but later, when Fuyumi was clearing dishes and Natsuo had retreated to his homework, she cornered him by the balcony door.

"Your scars are irritated," she murmured, low enough that the others wouldn’t hear. “You’re looking a little scruffy, Himura.” 

Touya shrugged. "Forgot the cream a few days. Work’s been…"

"Overwhelming. Yeah, you said." Her gaze flicked to his hands, no tremors, then back to his face. "You sleeping?"

"Like a baby."

"Liar."

He grinned, all teeth. "Prove it."

Akane exhaled through her nose but let it go, moving to chat with Shouto instead. Touya watched as she knelt beside him, her voice gentle.

"You can tell me, okay? If something feels funny at home. Or if you’re happy. Either one."

Shouto considered this. Then, slowly, he flipped through his cards:

[Happy.]

Later, after Akane had grilled Natsuo ("He’s fine- no, he hasn’t been acting weird, unless you count hogging the shower"), after she’d double-checked the medicine cabinet (lingering on the untouched prescription painkillers), after she’d confirmed Touya’s work schedule and upcoming doctor’s appointment, she lingered by the genkan, slipping her shoes back on.

"You’re doing good," she said quietly, nodding toward the living room where Fuyumi was helping Shouto with his communication cards. "He’s more present. Natsuo seems settled."

Touya leaned against the wall, arms crossed. "Yeah, well. Don’t sound so surprised."

Akane smirked. "Update me after your appointment. And find your damn glasses."

The door clicked shut behind her.

Touya exhaled, long and slow. Then he turned back to the apartment, to Fuyumi’s quiet laughter, to Natsuo’s dramatic groaning over homework, to Shouto’s focused scribbling. 

---

The clinic smelled like antiseptic and the faint, metallic tang of X-ray developer fluid. Touya slumped in the exam room chair, his fingers drumming an uneven rhythm against his thigh as he waited. The paper gown crinkled every time he shifted, the thin material doing nothing to ward off the chill.

Dr. Saito entered with a clipboard, her silver-streaked bob swaying as she flipped through the latest test results. "Alright," she said, settling onto her stool. "Let's talk."

Touya already knew it wasn't good.

The spirometry test had been harder this time; his lungs burning halfway through, his exhales cutting off sharper than usual. The X-rays sat illuminated on the lightboard behind her, the ghostly white of his ribs framing the telltale shadows of scar tissue spiderwebbing through his chest.

"Your lung capacity's down about eight percent from last quarter," Dr. Saito said, tapping the numbers with her pen. "And your core temperature readings are elevated. Have you been pushing yourself more than usual?"

Touya frowned. "Not that I've noticed."

She raised an eyebrow. "No extra workouts? No quirk usage?"

"I don't use my quirk." The words came out sharper than intended. He forced his shoulders to relax. "Work's been busy, but nothing crazy."

Dr. Saito hummed, adjusting her glasses. "Stress?"

"Same as always."

"Family?"

He hesitated. "Shouto's school stuff, but-"

"-but that's been good stress, right? Progress?" Dr. Saito crossed her arms. "Your body doesn't care if it's good or bad. Stress is stress, and your system treats it like kindling."

Touya stared at the X-rays. The damage had always been there, the slow creep of scar tissue as inevitable as tide against shore. But now…

"You're flushed," Dr. Saito noted, pressing two fingers to his wrist. "More than usual. When did that start?"

"Dunno."

"Have you been wheezing?"

"Not that I noticed."

She gave him a look that said bullshit louder than any actual word could. "We can't increase your suppressants. You're already at the max dose without risking liver damage."

Touya rolled his shoulders, the motion pulling at old grafts. "So what's the play?"

"Rest. Actual rest, not 'I-slept-four-hours-between-shifts' rest. Hydrate. Use your damn creams." Dr. Saito sighed. "And for god's sake, stop pretending you're not winded after one flight of stairs."

Touya opened his mouth to argue, then closed it. Because yeah, okay, maybe the walk from the train station had been harder lately. Maybe he'd been blaming the summer humidity when his breath caught. Maybe Inko's concerned glances when he talked too fast weren't just her nurse's habit of diagnosing everyone in a five-meter radius.

"Fine," he muttered.

Dr. Saito arched a brow.

"Fine, I'll take it easy."

She snorted. "I'll believe it when I see it." 

Keigo was waiting at their usual izakaya, wings tucked carefully behind him in the cramped booth. He'd already ordered, yakitori, edamame, a beer for himself and iced oolong for Touya, and was scrolling through his phone when Touya slid in across from him.

"Hey," Keigo said, grinning. "You look like shit."

"Love you too."

Keigo's smile faded as he really looked at him. "Wait, actually. You okay?"

Touya hesitated. Then, quietly: "Lungs are worse."

The words hung between them, heavy. Keigo set down his phone. "How much worse?"

"Eight percent."

"Fuck." Keigo ran a hand through his hair, feathers ruffling. "What is it?"

"Stress, apparently." Touya poked at his untouched oolong. "Doc thinks I've been... I dunno. Running hot without noticing."

Keigo's eyes narrowed. "Have you?"

"I mean, I guess?" Touya rubbed his sternum absently. "Inko's been on my case about sounding wheezy. Didn't think it was that bad."

"You never do."

"Hah."

Keigo reached across the table, his fingers brushing Touya's wrist. "You gonna tell Fuyumi?"

"No."

"Natsuo?"

"No."

"Your grandparents?"

"Absolutely not." Touya grimaced. "They'll start in about how I'm 'overwhelmed,' like I'm not twenty five and have been handling my shit for years."

Keigo sighed. "Babe..."

Touya looked away. Outside, the neon signs flickered to life against the dusk, painting the sidewalk in garish reds and blues. He thought of Fuyumi's anxious pacing, of Natsuo's guilty face when he thought he was burdening them, of Shouto's fingers tapping [Help] on his communication cards…

"I'll figure it out," he muttered.

Keigo squeezed his wrist. "You will."

---

Touya set his alarm for 6:00 AM instead of 6:30.

It was a small thing, theoretically, thirty extra minutes to choke down his morning suppressants with something other than black coffee, to actually do the breathing exercises Dr. Saito had nagged him about for years. But when the alarm blared in the gray pre-dawn, his body protested like he’d asked it to run a marathon. He dragged himself upright, ribs creaking, and reached for the inhaler on his nightstand.

Two puffs. Hold for ten seconds. Exhale slow.

The meds tasted like chemical mint, bitter and cold down his throat. He grimaced, swiping at his mouth with the back of his hand, and reached for the second inhaler, the emergency one, the one he hadn’t needed in months. Just in case.

By the time Fuyumi shuffled into the kitchen at 7:00, he was already dressed, scrolling through his phone with one hand while the other pressed a steaming mug of herbal tea against his sternum. The smell of it, some ginger-lemon concoction Inko had foisted on them, made his nose wrinkle.

Fuyumi blinked at him, her sleep-mussed bangs sticking up in odd directions. “You’re… awake.”

“Astute observation.”

“And drinking tea. Where’s the coffee?”

Touya sipped it pointedly. “Don’t start with me.”

The effort was, admittedly, pathetic.

He’d been good at this once, back when his health was the only thing he had to worry about, back when his biggest daily challenge was remembering to take his meds and not setting anything on fire with his own breath. But that was before CPS dumped two traumatized siblings on his doorstep, before Fuyumi moved in, before his life became a revolving door of school meetings and therapists and grocery runs and where the hell did Shouto leave his glasses this time?

Now, trying to claw back some semblance of routine felt like rebuilding a sandcastle during high tide.

He packed lunches for himself with actual vegetables. He set reminders on his phone for his afternoon meds. He even dug out the ancient yoga mat Keigo had gifted him as a joke last year and spent exactly eleven minutes attempting the stretches that used to feel easy before his scar tissue pulled too tight and he gave up in favor of glaring at the ceiling.

The effort was methodical, almost obsessive. He meal-prepped on Sundays instead of grabbing convenience store bentos between work and picking up Shouto. He went to bed before midnight, even if it meant leaving laundry unfolded or emails unanswered. 

Natsuo, of course, had opinions.

"Since when do you eat steamed vegetables?" he asked one evening, poking at the green pile on Touya’s plate with his chopsticks.

"Since it’s good for you," Touya muttered, swatting his hand away.

Natsuo grinned. "You worried you’re getting fat?"

Touya paused, a bite of salmon halfway to his mouth. "What?"

"You’ve put on, like, five kilos since last year." Natsuo leaned back, assessing. "Not that it’s a bad thing… you were way too shrimpy before. But, like… you think Keigo’s gonna dump you if you get too chunky?"

Touya stared at him. Then down at himself. He had filled out a little, his ribs weren’t as stark under his skin, his collarbones less pronounced. He hadn’t even noticed.

"Shut up, you piece of shit," he said finally, stabbing a piece of broccoli.

Natsuo cackled.

---

The changes were small, but they added up. His morning cough loosened. The tightness in his chest eased. He still got winded faster than he’d like, but the wheezing after climbing stairs was a little less pronounced.

One evening, as he stood in front of the bathroom mirror applying scar cream (another habit he’d let slide), he realized his reflection looked less gaunt. Less like a man held together by caffeine and spite.

Huh.

Keigo noticed too.

"You look good, babe," he said during one of their sleepovers, his fingers tracing the newly softened line of Touya’s waist where his shirt had ridden up.

"Feel good too," Touya admitted, and it wasn’t even a lie.

The community center’s multipurpose room was a symphony of controlled pandemonium.

Touya stood frozen in the doorway, Fuyumi hovering just behind him with a white-knuckled grip on Shouto’s shoulder. 

"This is… lively."

Touya grunted. He’d known, intellectually, that Inko’s "parent group" was more of a support network for families with nonverbal or minimally verbal kids. But seeing it in person was different.

The space was massive—high ceilings, fluorescent lights, scuffed linoleum floors—and absolutely packed with kids in motion. A group near the far wall was engaged in what looked like an elaborate game of tag, except half of them were using quirks to dodge (a girl with vine-like hair swung from a support beam, shrieking laughter). Closer to the entrance, a cluster of parents huddled around coffee cups, their expressions hovering between exhaustion and fond resignation.

And the noise… 

Shouto, for his part, didn’t flinch. His noise-canceling headphones were firmly in place, his communication cards clutched in one hand, but his eyes, wide behind his glasses, tracked the chaos with something dangerously close to interest.

Then they spotted her.

A blonde woman in immaculate athleisure-wear, hands moving in sharp, exaggerated signs as she faced off against a spiky-haired kid who was signing back at twice her speed, his fingers a furious blur. Even from across the room, Touya could see the resemblance: same sharp features, same scowl, and the way the kid punctuated his signs with explosive little tch sounds, sparks popping from his palms. Between them, a brown-haired man with glasses rubbed his temples, signing something slower and calmer that neither seemed to be paying attention to.

Ah. The Bakugous.

The kid, Katsuki, presumably, suddenly snarled, sparks popping from his palms, before whirling and stomping off into the fray, nearly bowling over a wheelchair user in his haste. Mitsuki sighed, rolling her shoulders, before her gaze landed on them.

Fuyumi leaned close to Touya. “What… exactly are we getting into here?”

Touya opened his mouth to reply when the blonde woman spotted them and immediately brightened, striding over with the energy of a hurricane shifting course.

“You must be the Todorokis!” she announced, voice carrying over the din. “Inko said you might come. I’m Mitsuki.” She jerked a thumb at the man trailing behind her. “This is Masaru.”

Masaru offered a weary smile. “Welcome.”

Touya nodded. “Himura Touya. This is Fuyumi, and-”

“Shouto, right?” Mitsuki crouched slightly to meet Shouto’s eyes, her movements deliberately slower now. “You can go play if you want. No pressure.”

Shouto blinked at her, then glanced at the sea of kids shrieking and tackling each other. His fingers twitched toward his [No] card.

Touya couldn’t blame him. Most of these kids were running, yelling, roughhousing in ways that would overwhelm anyone with half a sense of self-preservation.

Mitsuki followed their gaze and snorted. “Yeah, most of ‘em are little shits, but usually harmless.” She scanned the room, then pointed. “See Hitoshi over there? Purple hair? He’s not big on the chaos either.”

Touya spotted the kid in question: lanky, slumped against the wall with his knees drawn up, watching the madness with the detached air of a scientist observing lab rats.

Shouto tilted his head. Then, after a beat, he squeezed Fuyumi’s wrist.

Fuyumi bit her lip. “You want to go sit with him?”

A nod.

Mitsuki grinned. “Go for it. Hitoshi doesn’t bite.”

Shouto hesitated, then shuffled off, his headphones firmly in place, his cards clutched like a lifeline.

Touya watched him go, half-expecting him to bolt back at any second. Instead, Shouto paused a few feet from the purple-haired kid, waiting.

Hitoshi glanced up. Blinked. Shifted slightly to the side.

Shouto sat down.

Neither of them spoke. Neither of them signed. They just… existed, side by side, two quiet islands in a storm of noise.

Across the room, foam blocks flew through the air as a group of preteens engaged in what appeared to be a highly competitive game of... something. Definitely not anything with established rules.

Fuyumi leaned closer, her shoulder brushing Touya's arm. "Do you think he's actually enjoying this?" she murmured, voice barely audible over the din. "He hasn't moved in fifteen minutes." She nodded toward the far corner where Shouto sat cross-legged beside a purple-haired boy, both of them observing the chaos with identical expressions of detached interest.

Before Touya could answer, Mitsuki Bakugou materialized beside them, her designer perfume cutting through the gymnasium smells. "Quit worrying," she said. "Kids like ours? They'll let you know when they're not having fun - usually by making your life hell."

As if to prove her point, Shouto picked up a blue foam block and placed it carefully atop a small tower. The other boy - Hitoshi, Touya remembered - gave an almost imperceptible nod of approval.

Mitsuki smirked. "Told you. Now come meet the parents."

She led them toward a mismatched pair of men near the snack table. The taller one had his blond hair pulled into a messy bun, orange hearing aids gleaming against his tanned skin. Even in casual jeans and a faded band t-shirt, there was no mistaking Pro Hero Present Mic. His companion was all sharp angles and perpetual exhaustion, dark hair falling into his face as he leaned against the wall with the air of someone who'd rather be sleeping.

"New recruits," Mitsuki announced, waving between the groups. "Yamada Hizashi, Aizawa Shouta - meet Himura Touya and Todoroki Fuyumi."

Yamada's face lit up with a smile that could power small electronics. "Hey hey!" His voice carried that distinctive Present Mic enthusiasm, though slightly softer around the edges. "Always good to see fresh faces in the madhouse."

Aizawa offered a tired nod. "They're the ones with the quiet kid sitting with Hitoshi?"

Fuyumi nodded. "Shouto's never been to anything like this before. We weren't sure how he'd react."

"Looks like they're getting along," Yamada observed, "Hitoshi doesn't usually engage with new people that fast."

Aizawa snorted. "By which he means ever."

The conversation flowed easily from there - Fuyumi and Yamada comparing teaching experiences (he and Aizawa both taught at UA), and Touya and Aizawa exchanging the universal look of people who'd rather be anywhere else at a social gathering. At one point, Yamada pulled out his phone to show pictures of his cats, which Fuyumi cooed over while Aizawa pretended not to be pleased by the attention they were getting.

The peace was shattered when Mitsuki checked her phone, then waved both arms in a broad, sweeping motion. Across the gym, Katsuki's head snapped up like a predator catching a scent.

He scowled but stalked toward them, his gait aggressive despite the lack of actual anger. His hands flew in sharp, staccato signs as he approached, accompanied by a stream of wordless vocalizations: grunts, clicks, the occasional explosive exhale through his nose.

Mitsuki signed back at half his speed, her motions broader but no less emphatic.

"Watch the attitude, brat," she spoke and signed back

Katsuki rolled his eyes so hard Touya worried they might get stuck, but he snatched the water bottle Masaru offered and chugged it with the desperation of a man crossing a desert.

Yamada jumped into the conversation, his fingers flying through signs too fast for Touya to follow. Katsuki responded in kind, his scowl softening slightly as the exchange continued. Aizawa watched with the air of someone who understood, but had nothing to add.

Masaru sighed. "His quirk's nitroglycerin sweat. Dehydrates him faster than you'd think."

Touya's professional curiosity prickled. "Interesting. Inko mentioned his hearing loss was quirk-related, but I wouldn’t think that would be… Sorry, I’m a quirk counselor, I can get pretty nerdy about these things."

“It’s not exactly quirk-related,” Mitsuki said, suddenly a lot quieter, turning her body away from Katsuki. 

The air shifted. Masaru's smile didn't fade so much as... fossilize. "He was four," he said carefully. "Playing hide-and-seek. Crawled into the dryer, and that happened to be the day his quirk manifested."

A muscle in Mitsuki's jaw twitched, her fingers tightening around her coffee cup.

"Small space," Masaru continued, voice steady but eyes distant. "The blast reflected back. Tympanic membranes ruptured, ossicles shattered…"

"Fucking nightmare," Mitsuki cut in, her voice rough. "Kid wouldn't communicate with anyone for a year. Just screamed. Threw things. Got himself expelled from three kindergartens."

Yamada, sensing the shift in mood, nudged Katsuki's shoulder and signed something that made the boy flip him off before stomping away. "Enter Present Mic," he said, forcing lightness into his tone. "Hero appearance at his school. Saw a little blond demon glaring at the interpreter and thought, 'Hey, new buddy!'"

Aizawa snorted. "You cried for a week after meeting him."

"Shut up, I did not…"

Touya let the bickering wash over him, turning the medical implications over in his mind. "The dehydration makes sense: nitroglycerin's hygroscopic. Does he have issues with vasodilation? Hypotension?"

Masaru blinked, visibly relieved by the clinical tangent. "Not since he was six. His body adapted; sweat glands regulate output better now. But the hearing thing was..."

"It’s permanent," Mitsuki said bluntly.

Aizawa, who'd been silent through most of this, finally spoke up. "Quirks that damage their users are more common than people think." His dark eyes flicked to the scars crawling up the sides of Touya's face, then away. "UA's infirmary stays busy."

The unspoken question hung in the air- what happened to you? -but thankfully no one asked. Just as no one asked why Shouto was nonverbal, or why a twenty-something quirk counselor and his sister had custody of a teenager. The understanding was refreshing.

Their quirk analysis tangent spiraled from there, Touya geeking out over Katsuki's biochemical adaptations, Aizawa offering dry commentary about "ill-considered mutations," Yamada interjecting with increasingly ridiculous hypotheticals. At some point, Fuyumi gently asked, "And Hitoshi's quirk?"

The temperature dropped again.

"Brainwashing," Aizawa said flatly. "Verbal activation."

Yamada's smile didn't waver, but his shoulders tensed almost imperceptibly. 

The pieces clicked: why Hitoshi didn't speak, why he lingered on the fringes, why his parents tensed at the question. Touya nodded and let the subject die.

A shadow fell across their circle. Hitoshi and Shouto had materialized like ghosts, the former slouching with his hands in his pockets, the latter holding up his communication cards with the solemnity of a judge delivering a verdict:

[Hungry.] [Food.] [Hungry.]

Fuyumi sighed. "I guess we're getting food."

Mitsuki cackled, pulling out her phone. "Give me your digits. I'll add you to the group chat from hell."

As they gathered their things, Touya watched Katsuki body-slam a kid twice his size (playfully? maybe?), Hitoshi melt back into the shadows, and Shouto, who usually flinched at loud noises, standing perfectly still as a girl with glittering scales sang off-key at the top of her lungs.

Yeah. They'd be back.

Chapter 17: Voices On

The first time it happened, Touya almost dropped his coffee.

They were in the kitchen, Shouto sitting at the table with his sketchbook, Touya half-asleep and fumbling with the coffee machine, when Fuyumi set a plate of tamagoyaki in front of their brother. Normally, Shouto would just nod or tap his [Thank you] card. This time, his lips parted, and a soft, rasping noise slipped out, something between a hum and an exhale, barely audible over the hiss of the coffee maker.

Touya froze.

Fuyumi’s hands flew to her mouth.

Shouto, oblivious, picked up his chopsticks and began eating, as if he hadn’t just shattered their understanding of what he was capable of.

It wasn’t speech. Not even close. But it was a sound, a deliberate, communicative sound, something Shouto hadn’t used since he was a toddler.

At first, it was just little noises, a hum when Fuyumi handed him his favorite red pencil, a sharp tch when Natsuo stole the last piece of salmon from his plate. But then, during one of their weekly meetups at the community center, Touya watched as Shouto let out a quiet, frustrated grunt when Hitoshi accidentally knocked over his water bottle.

Hitoshi blinked at him. Shouto blinked back. Then, slowly, Shouto scrunched his nose, an attempt, Touya realized with startling clarity, at a glare. It was the most exaggerated expression he’d ever seen on his brother’s face, and it looked painfully unnatural, like he was trying to mimic something he’d only read about in theory.

Across the room, Bakugou Katsuki was in the middle of what appeared to be a heated debate with Yamada, his signs sharp and punctuated by explosive exhales, his face twisting into a dozen different expressions. Shouto was watching him carefully.

Oh, Touya thought. He’s trying to copy Katsuki.

Maybe not the best example to follow… but better than nothing. 

---

Izuku cried when it happened in front of him.

They were at the Midoriyas’ apartment, Shouto bent over a new All Might coloring book Inko had bought him, when Izuku pointed to a particularly dramatic panel. “Look, Shouto! It’s his Detroit Smash!”

Shouto tilted his head. Then: 

“Mm!”

A sound. A real, intentional, excited sound, paired with the barest twitch of his lips.

Izuku promptly burst into tears.

“Oh my god,” he sobbed, clutching Shouto’s shoulders. “That was… you… oh my god…”

Shouto, bewildered, patted Izuku’s arm awkwardly, then held up his [Confused] card.

Inko was fanning her own face, eyes shining. “He’s right, sweetheart. That was wonderful.”

---

The noises weren’t consistent. Some days, Shouto was silent again, retreating into his cards and sketches. Other times, he’d surprise them: a huff of annoyance when Touya changed the TV channel, a quiet ah when Fuyumi handed him a bowl of cold soba.

The faces were worse. Or funnier, depending on who you asked.

Natsuo nearly choked on his rice the first time Shouto attempted a smile, an awkward, lopsided thing that looked more like a grimace. “Dude,” he wheezed. “What the hell was that?”

Shouto’s brow furrowed. He flipped to his [Happy] card and pointed.

“Yeah, no, I got that,” Natsuo said, wiping his eyes. “But your face looked like it was short-circuiting.”

Shouto frowned, an expression he could do naturally, then deliberately bared his teeth in another terrifying attempt at a grin.

Touya lost it.

Shouto, bewildered by the reaction, held up his [Happy] card again, as if they needed clarification.

As if they could ever mistake this for anything less than a miracle.

---

The first true cold snap of autumn hit like a sucker punch.

Touya felt it in his lungs before he saw it on the thermometer, that familiar, creeping tightness, like his ribs were slowly being wrapped in barbed wire. His scars ached along the graft lines, the cold turning the tissue stiff and unyielding. He woke up wheezing three mornings in a row before he finally dug out the heavy-duty humidifier from storage and set it up next to his bed, the machine chugging out warm mist like a tiny, overworked locomotive.

He was trying. Really trying.

The morning inhaler routine was religious now: bronchodilator first, then the steroid, then ten minutes of the stupid breathing exercises Dr. Saito had prescribed. The steam mask went on next, hissing as it pumped warm moisture into his airways. Twenty minutes, twice a day. Doctor’s orders.

Keigo stirred beside him, one golden eye cracking open. “You sound like a broken ventilator,” he mumbled, voice thick with sleep.

“Good morning to you too, asshole.” Touya’s retort was muffled by the mask.

Keigo stretched, his wings flaring before settling back against the sheets. “How bad?”

“Manageable.” Touya flexed his fingers, testing the stiffness in his knuckles.

He’d swapped his usual iced coffee for tea (begrudgingly), layered up under his hoodies even indoors, and started wearing a mask whenever he left the apartment, even though he usually waited until a little later in the fall to whip it out. 

Fuyumi noticed first. "You look like you're prepping for the apocalypse," she said one morning, watching as he adjusted the mask over his nose before heading out to take Shouto to school.

“Function over fashion,” Touya muttered, stirring a pot of ginger tea on the stove. He’d swapped to caffeine-free this week, another concession to his health.

Natsuo barreled into the kitchen like a tornado, his hair sticking up in every direction, dark circles under his eyes. He grabbed a protein shake from the fridge and chugged half of it in one go. “Morning.”

Touya raised an eyebrow. “You sleep at all?”

“Power nap.” Natsuo wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Got through two practice exams last night. Gonna do three more today.”

Fuyumi frowned. “That’s not healthy…”

“I’m fine.” Natsuo’s grin was too wide, too sharp. “Never better. Gonna crush these entrance exams.” He ruffled Shouto’s hair as he passed him, who was carefully arranging slices of apple into a star shape on his plate. “You good, little man?”

Shouto made a soft hm noise, one of his new sounds, and held up his [Good] card.

Natsuo laughed, loud and bright, and vanished into his room like a hurricane passing through.

Touya and Fuyumi exchanged a glance.

“He’s been like that for weeks,” Fuyumi murmured.

Touya shrugged. “Better than the alternative.”

(Last year, Natsuo had been skipping classes, getting into fights, coming home with split knuckles and a snarl. This was... progress. Probably.)

---

Touya woke at 3 AM to use the bathroom and found Natsuo at the table instead of in his room, eraser shards strewn across quadratic equations, his eyes bloodshot but bright.

"The hell are you doing?"

Natsuo didn’t even look up. "Keio’s med program requires a 90th percentile on the science section. I’m at 87."

"You’ll be at zero if you pass out during the exam."

Natsuo waved him off. "I’m fine. Never better."

And that was the thing: he seemed fine. More than fine, even. His grades had skyrocketed this year, his disciplinary record this semester, spotless. He came home with bruises from soccer with friends, not fights. By all accounts, this was the best version of Natsuo they’d ever seen.

So why did it set Touya’s teeth on edge?

---

The fluorescent lights of the small meeting room buzzed faintly overhead as Touya shifted in his chair, the plastic creaking under his weight. Across the table, Hayashi-sensei adjusted her glasses and slid a folder toward them.

"Shouto-kun has made significant strides since receiving his glasses," she began, tapping the top page. "His ability to engage with visual materials has improved dramatically."

Fuyumi leaned forward, her fingers laced together tightly. "How significant are we talking?"

Hayashi-sensei opened the folder, revealing a series of before-and-after worksheets. The early ones were nearly blank, Shouto's sparse scribbles barely filling the lines. The newer pages showed shaky but legible hiragana, a few simple math problems solved with wobbly numbers.

"His reading comprehension is approximately second-grade level," Hayashi-sensei explained. "He recognizes basic kanji and can sound out simple words, but complex sentences frustrate him. His writing is coming along—see here?" She pointed to a recent assignment where Shouto had painstakingly copied: わたしは しょうがっこうせいです (I am an elementary student).

Touya's chest tightened. It was baby steps, but steps.

"The frustration is understandable," Hayashi-sensei continued. "His brain knows the shapes of letters, but connecting them to sounds and meanings is still difficult. Speech is even harder; the motor planning just isn't there yet."

Fuyumi nodded. "But the noises he's been making-"

"Are excellent progress!" Hayashi-sensei's stern face broke into a rare smile. "Vocalizing wants and reactions is a huge leap. And his art," She flipped to another page, revealing a recent drawing: a lopsided but recognizable sketch of Izuku, his curly hair rendered as a cloud of frantic scribbles. "His detail work has improved tenfold now that he can actually see what he's drawing."

Touya studied the drawing. It wasn't masterful, the proportions were off, the lines uneven, but there was intent there. A spark of creativity that hadn't existed before.

"What's the long-term goal?" Touya asked quietly.

Hayashi-sensei folded her hands. "Independence. With continued support, we believe Shouto-kun could eventually manage simple employment… perhaps in a structured environment like a library shelving books or a café doing basic tasks. Living independently would require more time, but it's not out of the question."

Fuyumi's eyes shone. Touya swallowed hard.

It wasn't a guarantee. But it was hope.

---

That evening, Izuku came over for their Friday night hangout, his backpack stuffed with All Might DVDs and a half-finished quirk analysis notebook. Shouto, sprawled on the floor with his sketchpad, made a soft ah sound when Izuku walked in, a greeting that had Izuku beaming like the sun, but then... quiet.

Shouto tilted his head, studying his friend. Izuku was sitting too stiffly, his fingers picking at the edge of the notebook. His smile looked wrong, stretched thin at the edges, like the time he'd tried to pretend he wasn't upset about missing an All Might exhibit.

Shouto didn’t like this. Izuku was supposed to be loud.

Something was wrong.

Shouto reached out and tugged Izuku's sleeve, dragging him down to the floor next to him.

Izuku blinked. "Oh! Yeah, sorry, I was just…" He sat, still talking but not really saying anything, his words tumbling out in half-sentences. "This documentary is really cool, they talk about… well, not that it matters, but-"

Shouto frowned. He pushed himself up and grabbed the long blue pillow from the armchair, the weighted one Touya had brought home from work. 

Izuku let out a soft oof, but some of the tension in his shoulders eased. “Okay. Yeah. This is… nice.”

Shouto grunted in agreement. He liked the pressure, the way it made his body feel more there. He thought maybe Izuku needed that too.

Shouto lay down beside him, close enough that their shoulders touched. He waited.

Izuku's fingers twisted in the fabric of the pillow. "It's stupid," he muttered.

Shouto poked his arm. Not stupid.

"I just..." Izuku's voice was small in a way Shouto didn't like. "You have other friends now. At your group. And Kacchan, and…"

Shouto blinked. Kacchan? He didn't know a Kacchan. Did he? He ran through the list of people at the meetups… Hitoshi, the girl with scales, Katsuki who was terrifying, the boy who made origami… no Kacchans.

Izuku kept talking, not noticing Shouto's confusion. "-and I know I'm weird, everyone says so, and now that you're talking more and more people will see how nice you are, maybe you'll realize-"

Shouto reached over and grabbed Izuku's hand, cutting him off. He held it tight, then pressed their foreheads together like Touya sometimes did with Keigo when they thought nobody was looking.

“Oww,” Izuku's breath hitched. "Shouto...?"

Shouto squeezed Izuku’s hand tighter, cutting him off. Then, slowly, he brought their joined hands to Izuku’s chest, pressing their palms flat over his heartbeat. It was too fast, fluttering like a trapped bird. Shouto didn’t like that either.

He didn’t have words for this. Didn’t know how to say you’re important or I’m not leaving or I like your voice. But he could press closer, could hold on tighter, could hope Izuku felt it in the way their skin touched.

Izuku’s eyes were wet. “Oh,” he whispered.

Shouto bumped their foreheads together again, gentler this time. Duh.

Izuku laughed. “Okay. Okay.”

Shouto didn’t let go.

Chapter 18: Weight of Air

Touya stood at the bus stop, surgical mask clinging to his face with each labored exhale, his lungs burning as if someone had lined them with ground glass. The scarf around his neck, stolen back from Natsuo after a week-long battle, did little to stop the dry, cutting air from seeping in. He’d done everything right: humidifier blasting all night, inhalers on schedule, even choking down that vile ginger tea Keigo kept buying him, and yet…

By the time he made it home, his vision pulsed at the edges with each cough, his scar tissue pulled taut across his chest. The apartment was warm, at least. Fuyumi had left the kotatsu on, the low hum of the heater a welcome reprieve.

Shouto sat beneath it, sketching something in his notebook, a cat, maybe, or a very lumpy All Might, while Natsuo’s door remained firmly shut down the hall.

“Hey,” Touya rasped, toeing off his shoes.

Shouto glanced up, made a soft ah noise, then held up his [Tired] card.

Touya snorted. “Yeah. Me too, kid.”

He collapsed onto the couch, his ribs protesting as he leaned forward to tug the mask off. The rush of unfiltered air was a relief, even if it carried the faint metallic tang of the heater. He should get up. Should help with dinner, or laundry, or something. But his limbs felt leaden, his thoughts sluggish.

Keigo’s voice echoed in his head: “Let Fuyumi take the lead for once, hot stuff. You’re not gonna impress anyone by collapsing in a pile of your own lungs.”

Easier said than done.

Fuyumi returned an hour later, her arms laden with grocery bags. She took one look at Touya, still sprawled on the couch, now with a damp cloth over his forehead, and sighed. “How are you feeling?”

“M’fine,” Touya muttered, though the words dissolved into a cough.

Fuyumi set the bags down and pressed the back of her hand to his cheek. “You’re warm.”

“Scars always run hot.”

“Not like this.” She frowned, then turned toward the hall. “Natsu! Help me with-”

“I think he’s asleep,” Touya interrupted. “I haven’t seen him since I got home.”

Fuyumi’s frown deepened. “That’s… the third time this week.”

Touya shrugged, then immediately regretted it as his shoulders protested. “Kid’s probably just burnt out from exams.”

A beat of silence. Then, softer: “I thought I heard him crying last night.”

Touya lifted the cloth to squint at her. “Natsuo?”

Fuyumi nodded, biting her lip. “When I knocked, he didn’t answer. So maybe I imagined it.”

Touya let the cloth drop back over his eyes. “If something’s wrong, he’ll say so.”

(He wouldn’t. They both knew that. But acknowledging it would mean admitting they’d failed him somehow, and Touya didn’t have the energy for that particular guilt trip tonight.)

---

Dinner was a quiet affair, consisting of miso soup and some reheated leftovers, Shouto’s occasional hums of approval. Natsuo emerged briefly, his hair sticking up in all directions, his eyes bloodshot. He shoveled food into his mouth with single-minded focus, muttered something about “finishing an essay,” and vanished back into his room before anyone could ask questions.

Touya watched him go, something uneasy curling in his gut.

Later, as he sorted laundry, one of the few chores he could do sitting down, his phone buzzed.

KEIGO 🦅: miss u

Touya stared at the message, his chest tightening in a way that had nothing to do with scar tissue. They hadn’t seen each other in over a week, unless you counted the five minutes Keigo had dropped by to leave more tea and steal a kiss.

He typed back, miss u 2, then deleted it. Too sappy.

TOUYA: come over then

KEIGO 🦅: if ur not feeling good i dont wanna bother u 

TOUYA: since when do u care

KEIGO 🦅: since always???? dumbass

Touya grinned, then immediately winced as the motion tugged at his scars.

TOUYA: just come over

KEIGO 🦅: fine but b nice to me 

Touya didn’t argue. He folded another shirt, badly, and tried to ignore the way his breath caught.

---

By midnight, the apartment was quiet save for the hum of the humidifier in Touya’s room, Keigo asleep in his bed. 

Somewhere down the hall, Natsuo’s door creaked open.

Touya held his breath, listening to the soft pad of footsteps heading to the kitchen. A cabinet opened. The faucet ran. Then a sniff, and a shuddering breath.

Touya’s stomach dropped.

But before he could move, the footsteps retreated, and Natsuo’s door clicked shut again.

Silence.

Touya exhaled, long and slow.

Tomorrow, he told himself. Tomorrow, he’d ask.

---

Akane didn’t knock so much as announce her presence: three sharp raps against the doorframe early Saturday morning, the sound carrying through the apartment like a warning shot.

Fuyumi, who had been grading papers at the kotatsu, jumped up to answer it while Touya remained slumped on the couch, pretending he hadn't been counting down the minutes since he’d woken up. He heard the door open, heard Akane's familiar, "Fuyumi-san! Always a pleasure," in that crisp professional tone that somehow still managed to sound warm.

"Would you like some tea?"

"Please."

Shouto, sitting cross-legged on the floor with his sketchbook, glanced up at the sound. When Akane stepped into the living room, he gave her a small nod, which counted as progress, considering six months ago he would've completely ignored her.

"Shouto-kun!" Akane crouched down to his level, her sharp eyes taking in his new glasses, the communication cards spread out beside him. "I heard you've been using your cards more. That's fantastic."

Shouto blinked at her, then slowly flipped to his [Thank you] card.

Akane grinned. "You're welcome." She straightened, her gaze sweeping the apartment, lingering on the humidifier humming in the corner and the school forms and bills organized in tidy piles on the counter.

"Where's Natsuo?" she asked, pulling out her tablet to take notes.

"Sleeping," Fuyumi said, wringing her hands slightly. "He's been... tired lately. Exams."

"No behavioral issues?"

"None," Fuyumi said proudly. "He's been so focused lately."

She hummed, filing that away for later.

Fuyumi set a cup of tea on the table, and Akane took a sip before launching into her usual routine: checking the fridge (stocked), the medicine cabinet (organized), Shouto’s schoolwork (progressing). She asked Fuyumi about her teaching job, noted Natsuo’s upcoming university applications, and even managed to coax a soft hum out of Shouto when she complimented his drawing.

Touya trailed behind her, trying not to fidget. He knew this dance. Akane wasn’t just checking boxes, she was observing. The way the siblings interacted, the state of the apartment, the little details that might hint at instability.

And then there was him.

He could feel her eyes on him as they walked down the hall toward his room, the slight hitch in his breath, the way he leaned against the wall when she stopped to inspect this or that.

His room was, admittedly, a mess of medical supplies. The humidifier hummed in the corner, his inhalers lined up on the nightstand beside a half-empty glass of water and his abandoned glasses. His compression shirts were folded haphazardly on the top of the dresser, and a box of masks sat next to them.

Akane didn’t say anything at first. She just stood there, taking it all in. Then, quietly: "You’ve been following the regimen."

It wasn’t a question.

Touya shrugged. "Yeah."

She turned to face him fully, her expression unreadable. "Then why do you sound like you’re breathing through a straw?"

Touya stiffened. "I don’t…"

"Don’t lie to me," she cut in, voice low. "I’ve known you for seven years, Touya. I can hear it."

He exhaled sharply, running a hand through his hair. "It’s just the cold. You know how my lungs get."

Akane studied him, really studied him. The dark circles under his eyes, the way his shoulders slumped, the faint tremor in his hands. He wasn’t dying, but he wasn’t okay either.

"You’re doing everything right," she said finally. "But it’s not enough, is it?"

Touya’s chest tightened. "What the hell else am I supposed to do?"

Akane’s expression softened, just a fraction. "I don’t know. But I can’t ignore this." She crossed her arms. "You’ve got until January. If you’re not doing better by then, I’m recommending a hospital stay be required for continued custody."

Touya’s stomach dropped. "You can’t-"

"I can," she said firmly. "And you know I’m right."

He opened his mouth to argue, but the words died in his throat. Because she was right.

Akane sighed, her shoulders slumping slightly. "I’m not trying to punish you. But your siblings," She gestured toward the living room, "need you. And if you burn yourself out trying to take care of them, what happens to them then?"

Touya didn’t have an answer for that.

Akane reached out, squeezing his shoulder briefly before pulling away. "Figure it out, Touya. Before you do any serious damage."

---

The apartment was quiet when Keigo arrived, the only sound the faint hum of the humidifier in Touya’s bedroom. He let himself in with the key Touya had given him months ago and toed off his shoes in the genkan.

Fuyumi glanced up from the kotatsu, where she was grading papers. "Hey," she said softly. "He’s in his room."

Keigo nodded, already reading the tension in her shoulders. "Bad day?"

Fuyumi hesitated, then sighed. "Akane was here earlier."

Ah. That explained it.

Keigo knocked lightly on Touya’s door before pushing it open. The room was dim, lit only by the bedside lamp, the air thick with the scent of eucalyptus. Touya lay sprawled on the bed, one arm thrown over his eyes, his chest rising and falling in shallow, uneven breaths.

"Hey, hot stuff," Keigo murmured, shutting the door behind him.

Touya didn’t move. "Hey."

Keigo perched on the edge of the bed, his wings folding tight against his back. "Fuyumi said Akane came by."

Touya’s jaw tightened. "Yeah."

"And?"

"And nothing." Touya finally lowered his arm, his turquoise eyes burning with frustration. "She gave me some bullshit ultimatum. Get better by January or she’s recommending a hospital stay."

Keigo’s stomach twisted. He’d known Akane was worried, but this…

"What did you say?"

"What the fuck do you think I said?" Touya pushed himself upright, his movements stiff. "I told her I’m fine. That I’m doing everything I’m supposed to: the meds, the inhalers, the fucking humidity levels, and maybe this is just how I am now. Maybe my body’s just broken, Keigo. Ever think of that?"

Keigo reached for him, but Touya jerked away.

"I know I’m not at my best," Touya continued, his voice raw. "But who the hell is she to make conditions like that? I know my body. I know my limits. And I’m not… I’m not collapsing."

Keigo took a slow breath. "Babe," he said carefully, "she might be right."

Touya went very still.

"I’m not saying this to hurt you," Keigo continued, holding his gaze. "I love you. I trust you. But," He gestured to Touya’s chest, to the way his breath hitched with every other word, "you’re not just tired. You’re deteriorating. And I think… I think you might need to be a little more worried about that."

Touya’s expression shuttered. "Don’t tell me what I should and shouldn’t be worried about."

"I’m not!"

"You are." Touya stood abruptly, pacing the length of the room like a caged animal. "You’re acting just like her. Like all of them. Acting like I’m some fucking time bomb-"

"Touya." Keigo stood, his wings flaring slightly. "That’s not what this is. I’m scared, okay? I’m scared because I see you. I see how hard you’re trying, and I see how much it’s costing you. And I…" His voice cracked. "I don’t want to lose you to your own stubbornness."

Touya laughed, sharp and brittle. "Fuck off."

Keigo’s feathers bristled. "What’s that for?"

"You don’t get to stand there and act like you’re on my side when all you’re doing is pushing me too!" Touya’s hands clenched at his sides, his scars pulling taut. "I’m handling it, Keigo. I don’t need you or Fuyumi or Akane or anyone telling me how to-"

"You’re not handling it!" Keigo snapped, his patience fraying. "You’re killing yourself, Touya. And you’re so fucking terrified of admitting it that you’d rather burn yourself out than ask for help!"

Something in Touya’s expression shifted.

And then, a spark.

Keigo’s eyes widened as a flicker of blue danced across Touya’s fingertips.

Touya froze, staring at his own hands like they belonged to someone else. “Oh.”

Another spark. Then another.

“Shit,” Keigo breathed.

The flames erupted all at once, blue and vicious, crawling up Touya’s arms, licking at his shoulders. His breath came in ragged gasps, his eyes wide with terror.

“I- I can’t-”

Keigo didn’t think. He lunged forward, feathers detaching to form a barrier between the flames and the rest of the room.

Touya stumbled back, his entire body shaking. “I can’t- I shouldn’t be-”

“Touya.” Keigo grabbed his wrist, ignoring the burn of the flames against his skin. “Move.”

He half-dragged, half-carried Touya into the bathroom, feathers sacrificing themselves to smother the fire as they went. The shower door slammed open, and Keigo shoved Touya under the spray, turning the water on full blast.

The flames hissed and died, leaving behind angry red patches across Touya’s skin and the stench of burnt fabric. Touya collapsed against the tiles, his breath coming in short, wheezing gasps.

Keigo dropped to his knees beside him, his own hands trembling as he reached out. “Hey. Hey. Look at me.”

Touya didn’t. His shoulders shook, his face buried in his hands.

“Baby.”

A sob tore from Touya’s throat, raw and broken. “I can’t do this.”

Keigo pulled him close, ignoring the water soaking through his clothes, the way Touya’s nails dug into his arms. “I know,” he whispered. “I know.”

Touya clung to him, his tears lost in the spray. “I’m trying.”

“I know.”

“It’s not enough.”

Keigo pressed his forehead to Touya’s, his own vision blurring. “Then let me help you.”

Touya didn’t answer. But he didn’t let go either.

---

The first week of December arrived with a biting wind that cut through Tokyo like a blade. Touya stood at the bus stop after work, his surgical mask clinging to his face with each exhale, his gloved hands shoved deep into his coat pockets. Around him, half the city seemed to be coughing, some into their elbows, some directly into the air, and he resisted the urge to edge further away from the sniffling salaryman beside him.

Just get home. Just get home and you can stop pretending you’re not exhausted.

His office had been a minefield this week. One of his younger patients, a kid with a combustion quirk that misfired when she sneezed, had shown up to their session with red-rimmed eyes and a runny nose. He’d kept his distance, sanitized everything twice, and prayed to whatever god might be listening that his immune system would hold.

The bus shuddered to a stop, and Touya climbed on, gripping the overhead rail as it lurched forward. His chest ached, a familiar tightness settling behind his ribs. He focused on his breathing, in through the nose, out through the mouth, like he taught his patients.

It didn’t help much.

---

Keigo was already on the couch when Touya came through the door, his hero costume traded for sweatpants and one of Touya’s hoodies, which fit him like a crop. He had his wings draped over the back cushions like a blanket, his phone balanced on his knee.

“You look like shit,” he announced.

Touya kicked off his shoes with more force than necessary. “Flatterer.”

Keigo finally glanced over, his golden eyes sharp even through his exhaustion. “When’s the last time you slept more than four hours?”

“Dunno.” Touya collapsed onto the couch beside him, his joints protesting. “Tuesday?”

Keigo’s wing twitched. “It’s Friday, baby.”

Touya let his head fall back against the cushions, his eyes slipping shut. The apartment was warm, at least. Fuyumi must’ve cranked the heat. The steady hum of the humidifier in his room blended with the muffled sounds of Natsuo’s music through the wall.

A weight settled against his shoulder. Keigo, leaning into him, his feathers rustling softly.

“You’re gonna be okay,” Keigo murmured.

Touya didn’t answer. He just tilted his head to rest against Keigo’s, breathing in the faint scent of his shampoo, something stupidly expensive with a name like “Dragonfruit Mist” or whatever the hell Hawks’ PR team had picked out for him to promote this month.

Fuyumi emerged from the kitchen with three mugs balanced in her hands. She handed one to Keigo, then hesitated before offering the second to Touya.

“Tea,” she said simply.

Touya took it, his fingers brushing hers. The mug was almost too hot, the steam curling up in thin wisps. Chamomile, by the smell of it, Fuyumi’s go-to.

Keigo sniffed his own tea and made a face. “Is this the licorice root one?”

“It’s good for your liver,” Fuyumi said primly, settling into the armchair.

“My liver is fine-”

Touya tuned them out, focusing on the heat of the mug against his palms. 

---

Every public space had become a minefield.

Touya stood frozen in the grocery store aisle, hand hovering over a box of herbal tea as a woman two meters away let out a wet, rattling cough into her sleeve. His fingers twitched, the urge to abandon his cart warring with the knowledge that they were out of rice and Shouto would complain if he came home without it. He grabbed the tea with jerky movements, tossing it into the basket like it might bite him.

The cashier, a pimply teenager with a runny nose, sniffled as she rang him up. Touya held his breath the entire transaction.

The schoolyard was already filling with parents when he arrived. He leaned against the fence, pulling out his phone to check the time; three minutes until dismissal. His chest ached, a persistent tightness that had become as familiar as his scars. He tried to take slow, measured breaths, the way Dr. Saito had taught him. In through the nose, out through the mouth.

Then the coughing hit.

It started as a tickle, a faint itch in his throat. Then his lungs seized, and suddenly he was doubled over, one hand braced against the fence as harsh, barking coughs tore from his chest. His vision blurred at the edges, his free hand fumbling blindly for his inhaler.

"Touya-san!"

A hand gripped his elbow, steadying him. He looked up through watering eyes to see Inko Midoriya's worried face hovering close. Behind her, Izuku stood frozen, his backpack slipping off one shoulder.

"Here, sit down-" Inko guided him to a nearby bench with surprising strength for someone so small. Her fingers were already pulling his mask down. "Just breathe, okay? Slow breaths."

Touya wanted to protest, I know how to fucking breathe, but another cough wracked him, stealing his voice. He fished out his inhaler with shaking hands and took a desperate puff.

Inko waited, her grip firm on his shoulder, until the coughing subsided. "Does this happen often?" she asked.

Touya nodded, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Worse this year," he admitted hoarsely.

Izuku hovered nervously, his green eyes darting between them. 

"I'm fine," Touya rasped. "Sorry for scaring you, Izuku-kun."

Inko gave him that look, the one that said I'm a nurse and your friend, so don't bullshit me. But she didn't push. 

They sat in comfortable silence for a moment, watching as other parents collected their children. Izuku shifted from foot to foot, clearly torn between staying and going to find Shouto.

"You're working too hard," Inko said softly.

Touya snorted. "Pot, kettle."

She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "At least I'm not coughing up a lung at school pickup."

"Fair point."

The tea warmed his hands through his gloves. He could feel Inko studying him, not prying, just observing. That was one of the things he liked about her. She never pushed, but she always saw.

"If it would help..." Inko hesitated, then plowed on. "Izuku loves having Shouto over. We could take him on weekends sometimes? Give you a chance to rest."

Touya opened his mouth to refuse automatically, then stopped. The truth was, he was tired. And Shouto had been quieter lately, more withdrawn. Maybe...

He glanced up just as Shouto emerged from the school building, his red-and-white hair unmistakable even in the crowd. The kid was walking slowly, his headphones on, his gaze fixed on the ground in front of him.

"Yeah," Touya heard himself say. "That... that might be good."

Inko squeezed his arm. "Just text me when."

Izuku, sensing the conversation was over, brightened immediately. "I'll go get Shouto!" He darted off before either of them could respond.

Touya watched as Izuku skidded to a stop in front of Shouto, talking a mile a minute even though Shouto couldn't hear him through the headphones. Shouto blinked, then reached up and removed one earpiece, tilting his head in that way he did when he was listening carefully.

"You're doing a good job, Touya," Inko said quietly.

Touya swallowed another sip of tea to hide the sudden tightness in his throat. "Trying to."

Inko smiled, genuine this time. "That's all any of us can do."

---

The tickle started halfway through his lunch break, just a faint itch at the back of Touya's throat. He swallowed hard against it, fingers tightening around his phone as he paced the empty clinic break room. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting harsh shadows across the linoleum floor.

Probably just dry air, he told himself. Or leftover irritation from yesterday's coughing fit.

His phone rang right on time.

Touya took a steadying breath before answering. "Hey, Obaasan."

"Touya." His grandmother's voice crackled through the line, sharp as ever. "Have you been taking the vitamin C I sent?"

He rolled his eyes, leaning against the counter. "Yes, Obaasan. Every morning."

"And the zinc? The echinacea?"

"The whole damn pharmacy, yes."

A disapproving tsk. "Language, boy."

Touya opened his mouth to respond when the tickle flared again, hot and sudden. He turned his face away from the phone, clamping his lips together as his chest convulsed. A single, choked cough slipped out.

Silence on the line.

Then: "Was that…?"

"I'm fine," Touya rasped, clearing his throat. "Just swallowed wrong."

"Liar," his grandfather's voice boomed in the background. "That was a full lung cough!"

"It was not a-" The protest triggered another cough, deeper this time. And another. And another.

Touya doubled over, one hand braced against the counter as the coughing fit wracked him. His eyes watered, his ribs protesting the violent motion. The phone slipped from his grasp, clattering onto the countertop.

"-ouya? Touya!" His grandmother's voice sounded tinny and distant.

He fumbled for the phone, his free hand digging in his pocket for his inhaler. "I'm- cough- fine, just-"

"Don’t lie!" His grandfather now. "That's the same damn cough you had when-"

"Jiji, I swear to god-" Another cough cut him off. He finally got the inhaler to his lips and took a desperate puff.

The silence on the line was deafening.

When his grandmother spoke again, her voice had gone frighteningly soft. "Touya."

Touya's fingers tightened around the phone. Before he could answer, a sharp knock at his office door saved him.

"Sorry, gotta go," he said, maybe too quickly. "Client just showed up early."

"Touya-"

"Love you. Tell Ojii-san I'll call again next week." He hung up before they could protest, then immediately slumped forward, his forehead thunking against the desk.

The knock came again.

"Yes?" Touya snapped, lifting his head.

The door creaked open to reveal Keigo, balancing two takeout coffees and a paper bag that smelled suspiciously like curry bread. "Wow. Rude way to greet your favorite client."

Touya groaned. "I hate you."

Keigo grinned, kicking the door shut behind him. "Liar." He set the coffee down, his golden eyes scanning Touya's face.

Touya flipped him off, but accepted the coffee anyway. The warmth seeped through the cup, grounding him. The tickle in his throat remained, but for now, with Keigo's stupid grin and the scent of cheap coffee filling the office, it felt manageable.

For now.

---

They’d taken Inko up on her offer, and the apartment felt unnaturally quiet without Shouto.

Touya lay sprawled across the couch, his head pillowed against Keigo's shoulder, the steam mask covering the lower half of his face. Some ridiculous reality show played on the TV, something about people getting married at first sight that Fuyumi had insisted on watching, but he couldn't bring himself to care. The eucalyptus-scented steam filled his lungs, loosening the ever-present tightness in his chest just enough to make him drowsy. He'd never do this in front of them before - never let himself be caught in the vulnerable machinery of his own maintenance. But the exhaustion had seeped too deep into his bones today to bother hiding.

Across the room, Fuyumi sat curled in the armchair, still in her penguin-print pajamas at two in the afternoon. She shoveled another spoonful of cereal into her mouth, her third bowl today, the milk carton left open on the table beside her.

Keigo's fingers moved through his hair with practiced ease, blunt nails scraping gently against his scalp in the way that always made Touya's eyelids flutter. The touch lingered longer than usual today, mapping the tension at his temples, the sharp jut of his cheekbones beneath thinning skin.

"It's weird without the little menace," Keigo murmured, his voice vibrating through his chest and into Touya's skull where it rested against him.

Fuyumi snorted around a mouthful of cereal, legs tucked beneath her in the armchair. "You're telling me. I actually got to put my laundry away today." She crunched loudly, milk dripping unheeded down her chin. "Nobody rearranging all my folded shirts into 'better piles.'"

The corner of Touya's mouth twitched beneath the mask. Shouto's particular brand of humor these days was the way he'd silently dismantle any attempt at organization with the solemn focus of a demonic interior designer.

Keigo chuckled, his thumb brushing the shell of Touya's ear. "I miss his judging stares."

"And the humming," Fuyumi added through another crunch. “At all hours.” 

“I thought I was the only one who noticed! Thank God I’m not going crazy!” 

They dissolved into laughter, the kind that came too easily in sleep-deprived, worry-worn afternoons. Touya felt the vibrations of Keigo's laughter more than heard them, a warm rumble against his cheekbone.

Fuyumi wiped milk from her lips with the back of her hand. "It's ridiculous that it feels quiet without him. He doesn't even talk."

"Mm," Touya managed through the mask, the sound thick with steam and sleepiness.

Keigo's fingers stilled for a moment. "Poor baby," he murmured, so soft it might have been meant only for himself. His palm cradled the back of Touya's head, holding the weight of it like something precious. "All tired and steamy."

The words should have sparked irritation, should have had Touya shoving him away with some half-assed insult. But the warmth of Keigo's thigh beneath his neck, the steady rhythm of those fingers in his hair, the blessed relief of the steam loosening the ever-present vise around his ribs - it all conspired to leave him pliant. He let out a slow, shuddering breath that fogged the mask further, his fingers curling loosely in the fabric of Keigo's sweatpants.

Keigo resisted the urge to go still. "You really haven't been feeling well, have you babe?"

The question hung in the air between them, too big for the quiet afternoon. Touya could lie. Could shrug it off. Could do any number of things he'd done a hundred times before.

Instead, he just sighed, a wet, ragged sound, and pressed his forehead harder against Keigo's chest.

"You'll feel better soon," Keigo whispered, but his voice cracked halfway through. His fingers trembled slightly where they carded through Touya's hair. "Don't worry."

Over Touya's head, Keigo's gaze locked with Fuyumi's. Her cereal spoon hovered forgotten halfway to her mouth. The silent conversation that passed between them was somehow clear: 

This is bad.

I know.

What do we do?

I don't know.

The television audience burst into applause for some inconsequential moment. The steam mask gurgled softly as Touya's breathing evened out into sleep, his body going heavy against Keigo's side.

Keigo turned off the machine, and pulled the mask off Touya’s face, rubbing lightly at the irritated indents it left on his cheeks. 

And in the too-quiet apartment, with the winter light stretching long across the floor, they let him rest.

Chapter 19: Progress Report

Notes:

thanks so much to everyone for the comments and subscriptions, and kudoses :)

The café smelled like roasted coffee beans and cinnamon, warmth wrapping around them like a blanket as Fuyumi guided Shouto to their usual corner table. Outside, Tokyo glittered under a thin layer of December frost, holiday lights strung between lampposts casting red and green reflections on the icy pavement. Fuyumi unwound her scarf, cheeks still flushed from the cold, and set a plate of anpan in front of Shouto.

"Okay," she said, pulling out her phone. "Let's try the 'ah' sound again."

Shouto frowned but obediently opened his mouth, producing a soft, raspy ahhh, more breath than sound, but clearer than last week's attempt.

Fuyumi beamed. "Good! Now 'ee'." She demonstrated, exaggerating the stretch of her lips.

Shouto's brow furrowed in concentration. His tongue pressed awkwardly against his teeth, his lips trembling with the unfamiliar shape. A quiet, strained noise escaped, not quite the right vowel, but close.

"Almost!" Fuyumi tapped her phone to record the progress. "One more time?"

Shouto huffed, his breath fogging the café window beside them. He tried again, this time managing a shaky, but recognizable, ee.

Fuyumi clapped her hands together. "Yes! That's it!"

Shouto blinked, then tentatively poked at his anpan, as if rewarding himself. The café's overhead lights caught the edges of his glasses, hiding his expression, but Fuyumi didn't miss the slight tilt of his lips.

They'd been practicing for the past few weeks now, on the recommendation of the school speech therapist. His tongue and jaw muscles had lost the coordination for speech in the past six years, the neural pathways for complex oral motor control left dormant. But he was trying. And that was exciting enough, and merited a reward, in Fuyumi’s opinion.

Fuyumi was about to suggest they move on to the next sound when a familiar voice cut through the café's murmur.

"Todoroki-san?"

She turned to find Okada Haruki standing beside their table, his glasses slightly askew, a takeout cup in hand. Her stomach did a traitorous little flip.

"I-Okada-sensei!" She sat up straighter, suddenly hyperaware of her messy ponytail and the powdered sugar dusting her sweater from the pastry she’d eaten. "Hi!"

Shouto glanced between them, then deliberately bit into his anpan, his expression eerily similar to Touya's I'm judging you face.

Okada smiled, adjusting his glasses. "I didn't know you came here."

"Oh! Yes, we, um..." Fuyumi tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Rewarding speech practice. For my brother."

Shouto held up his [Hello] card, then pointed to the anpan.

Okada blinked, then, to Fuyumi's relief, didn't infantilize him. He just nodded seriously. "Anpan's good motivation. I know I'd do anything your sister told me to do for one of these." He lifted his own. "Their melon bread is dangerous."

Shouto considered this, then flipped to another card: [Yes.]

Fuyumi bit back a laugh. "Shouto is developing some strong opinions about pastries."

"I respect that." Okada grinned, then hesitated. "Actually, I was going to ask, are you free next weekend? The elementary grade teachers were thinking about doing a holiday potluck. Nothing fancy, but-"

Fuyumi's face warmed. "Oh! I don’t…"

Shouto kicked her under the table.

"Yes! I'd love to."

Okada’s smile widened. "Great. I'll text you the details." He nodded to Shouto. "Nice to meet you."

Shouto gave a small wave as Okada walked away, then immediately turned his judging stare back on Fuyumi.

"What?" she hissed.

He flipped through his cards. They were multiplying by the day, she felt. 

[Red.] [You.] 

Fuyumi groaned, burying her face in her hands. Outside, the holiday lights twinkled brighter against the gathering dusk. 

---

The Christmas lights strung across their apartment window flickered weakly against the evening gloom. Touya stood in the kitchen, staring blankly at the stove where a pot of water had long since boiled over, his throat burning with every swallow.

Keigo’s arms slid around his waist from behind, chin hooking over his shoulder. “You look like you’re contemplating murdering that pot.”

Touya leaned back into him, the warmth of Keigo’s chest seeping through his sweater. “Just thinking.”

“About how we’re definitely having the most romantic Christmas ever by eating convenience store cake in our pajamas?”

Touya huffed a laugh, then winced as it tugged at his raw throat.

Keigo stilled. “...Your throat still hurts?”

“It’s fine.”

“Touya.” Keigo turned him around, his fingers brushing the dark circles under Touya’s eyes. “We don’t even have to watch the movie if you’re not up for it. We can just cuddle for a bit.”

Touya caught his wrist. “I want to though.”

And he did. Even if his head pounded. Even if his lungs ached. Even if every swallow felt like glass.

Because Shouto was sitting at the kotatsu, carefully arranging slices of strawberry shortcake onto three plates with the solemn focus of a Michelin chef. Because Fuyumi had texted twice to make sure they were okay with her going to the potluck. Because Natsuo had actually smiled when he left for his date, his shoulders lighter than they’d been in months.

Because Keigo had looked at him days ago, seen the exhaustion in his bones, and immediately canceled their reservations without a single complaint.

Touya pressed his forehead against Keigo’s. “Just don’t pick a shitty movie. And make sure it’s dubbed.” 

Touya woke hours later to the credits of Die Hard rolling, his face smushed into Keigo’s shoulder, a blanket draped over him. Shouto was gone, his empty plate left neatly on the kotatsu.

Keigo’s fingers carded gently through his hair. “Hey, sleeping beauty.”

Touya groaned. “Did I miss much?”

Keigo rolled his eyes. “Did I miss much? Mister slept through the whole movie.” 

Touya tilted his head up, meeting Keigo’s golden eyes in the dim light. “Love you.”

Keigo smiled at Touya’s uncharacteristic softness, leaning down to kiss his forehead. “Love you too.”

---

A sharp rap at his door jolted Touya awake. Before he could even groan out a response, the door flew open, revealing Natsuo silhouetted in the hallway light, his entire body vibrating.

Touya squinted against the sudden brightness. "The hell-?"

Natsuo didn't speak. Just took two stumbling steps forward and shoved his phone into Touya's face.

Touya blinked hard, his sleep-addled brain struggling to process the glowing screen pressed inches from his nose. The university's crest. Bold text. His dry throat closed as he finally deciphered the words:

Congratulations, Todoroki Natsuo!
You have been accepted into-

A cough tore through him, sudden and violent, his lungs seizing as he doubled over. Natsuo jerked back, the phone slipping from his fingers onto the mattress.

"Shit, Touya?"

Touya waved him off, gasping as the fit subsided. He wiped his watering eyes with the back of his hand and grabbed the phone again, squinting at the screen.

"...Holy fuck."

Natsuo made a strangled noise. "Is this… am I reading this right? Is this real?"

Touya looked up at his little brother, at his wide, disbelieving eyes, at the way his hands trembled, and felt something crack open in his chest.

"Natsu." His voice came out rough. "You got in. 70% scholarship, plus room and board."

Natsuo's breath hitched. Then: 

"I GOT IN!"

The roar startled another cough out of Touya, but he didn't have time to recover before Natsuo was yanking him upright into a crushing hug.

Across the hall, Fuyumi's door slammed open. "What's wrong?"

"HE GOT IN!" Touya exclaimed over Natsuo's shoulder, his voice hoarse but triumphant.

Fuyumi appeared in the doorway, her sleep braid unraveling, Shouto hovering behind her, squinting without his glasses too. For a heartbeat, they just stared.

Then Fuyumi shrieked.

Shouto covered his ears at the noise but didn't retreat, his mismatched eyes darting between them as Fuyumi launched herself at Natsuo, her arms looping around both brothers.

"Which one?! Oh my god-"

Natsuo was laughing and crying at the same time, his words tumbling over each other as Fuyumi shook him by the shoulders. Shouto edged closer, his fingers plucking at Touya's sleeve in silent question.

Touya reached out, dragging him into the pile. Shouto stiffened for a second, then relaxed, his forehead bumping against Touya's arm as the others' excited chatter washed over them.

Natsuo's knees buckled suddenly, sending them all crashing onto the bed in a tangle of limbs and laughter. Fuyumi's elbow dug into Touya's ribs, Natsuo was half-squashing Shouto, and someone's foot was definitely in his stomach… 

Touya closed his eyes against the morning light still streaming through the doorway, his throat burning, and let himself sink into the weight of them.

---

The hotpot pot bubbled violently in the center of the kotatsu, sending waves of fragrant steam curling toward the ceiling. Keigo had somehow procured a literal tower of premium wagyu- "Hero discount!" he'd crowed, winking, while Inko fussed over the vegetable platter, rearranging the enoki mushrooms into neat little rows.

"Keio University's pre-med program," Fuyumi sighed for the fifth time, stirring her cider with a dreamy expression. "Only a 3% acceptance rate last year. Natsu, you're basically a genius now."

Natsuo, crammed between Izuku and Keigo at the table, turned an impressive shade of scarlet. "It's not that…"

"It is!" Izuku interrupted, nearly knocking over his juice in his enthusiasm. "Keio's produced more top-ranked doctors and healers than any school in the country! Their quirk-integrated anatomy labs are revolutionary-"

Touya tuned out the chatter, focusing on keeping his breathing even. The spicy broth fumes stung his raw throat, and the press of bodies around the table made the room feel airless. He discreetly adjusted the collar of his sweater where it rubbed against his scar tissue, swallowing back another cough.

The apartment hummed with laughter and the clatter of chopsticks. Shouto sat wedged between Izuku and Touya, his usual reserve softened by the warmth of the room. 

A nudge at his elbow. Shouto wordlessly pushed a glass of water toward him, his expression unreadable behind his glasses.

Touya took it with a nod, the cool liquid a temporary balm.

He watched his brother, the way his shoulders had lost their hunch, the easy grin that hadn't graced his face since childhood, and let the warmth in his chest override the persistent ache in his lungs. He'd managed to hide how he was really feeling so far, switching between tea and cool water to soothe his throat, letting Keigo subtly refill his plate when his hands shook too badly to serve himself, leaning just slightly into the couch cushions to offset the dizziness.

But Keigo knew.

By the time Inko and Izuku left, Touya’s vision had started to blur at the edges. He managed to help Fuyumi clear the table, though she kept shooting him worried glances.

"Go to bed," she finally whispered, plucking the stack of bowls from his hands. "You look like you’re about to collapse."

Touya opened his mouth to argue, but a cough tore through him instead, harsh and wet. Fuyumi’s face fell.

"Yeah," he rasped when he could speak again. "G’night."

When the apartment was quiet, and the remnants of celebration packed away, the others long since retreated to their rooms, Touya stood at the bathroom sink, his reflection gaunt in the yellow light as he took out his nightly meds, the suppressants, the nerve blockers, and the rest of the prescribed regime. 

Keigo appeared in the corner of his mirror, leaning against the doorframe, his wings tight. "I can't believe you lasted the whole dinner." 

"It's Natsuo's night," he replied. "Didn't want to bring down the mood."

Keigo stepped closer, pressing the back of his hand to Touya’s forehead. "You’re super warm."

"Yeah," Touya admitted hoarsely. "I know."

A pause. 

Keigo sighed. "Okay. Let’s keep an eye on that."

Touya leaned into the touch, his eyes slipping shut. "Yeah. Sure." A weak, self-deprecating smirk. "The clinic’s closed this week for New Year’s. I’ll definitely be able to rest. Then I’ll feel better."

Keigo pressed a kiss to his damp temple and whispered, "Yeah. You will."

Neither of them really believed it.

---

Touya woke to the sensation of his own body betraying him, his skin burning and freezing all at once, his lungs rattling with every breath. He tried to sit up and immediately collapsed back against the pillows, a wet, hacking cough tearing through him.

Keigo was at his side in an instant, one hand pressed to Touya’s forehead, the other steadying his shaking shoulders.

“Jesus,” Keigo muttered. “You’re boiling.”

Touya tried to speak, but another cough stole his voice. He swallowed thickly, tasting copper at the back of his throat.

Keigo’s expression darkened. “That’s it. We’re going to the hospital.”

“No,” Touya’s voice was a wreck, but he grabbed Keigo’s wrist with surprising strength. “I’m fine-”

“You are not fine-”

“It’s just a cold-”

“Touya, you’re shivering with a 104-degree fever-”

“You know I run hot, and it gets worse before it gets better-”

Keigo dragged a hand down his face. “You are impossible-”

Touya’s grip tightened. “Please. Please don’t make me go. I’ll just catch something worse in that fucking petri dish, and then I’ll actually die-”

Keigo’s wings twitched. “Drama queen-”

“Baby-”

A beat of silence. Keigo was not immune to being called baby. Then Keigo exhaled sharply. “Fine. But if this keeps up until tomorrow, that’s it. No arguments.”

Touya slumped back against the pillows, his energy spent. “...Yeah. Okay.”

The hours blurred together in a haze of fever dreams and coughing fits.

Touya drifted in and out of consciousness, only vaguely aware of Fuyumi pressing a cool cloth to his forehead, of Keigo coaxing him to sip broth between naps. At some point, he was half-carried to the shower, Keigo’s feathers supporting most of his weight, while Fuyumi stripped the sweat-drenched sheets. The water helped, if only for a moment, before the chills set in again.

Shouto had been shipped off to Inko’s for the day, though not before lingering in the doorway, his brow furrowed as he watched Touya cough into a fist. 

Natsuo lingered in the living room, his laptop open to Keio’s course catalog, though his eyes kept darting toward Touya’s door every time another coughing fit echoed down the hall.

By mid-afternoon, Touya’s fever had dipped just enough for him to string two thoughts together. He was propped up against a mountain of pillows, miserably sipping tea, when Keigo’s phone buzzed violently on the nightstand.

Touya didn’t need to ask. He knew that sound, the emergency alert tone reserved for major villain attacks.

Keigo’s jaw clenched as he read the message. “Shit.”

Touya closed his eyes. “Go.”

“Touya…”

“I’ll live.” He forced a smirk, though it probably looked more like a grimace. “Hero duty calls, birdie.”

Keigo hesitated, then leaned down, pressing a kiss to Touya’s damp forehead. “Fuyumi’s got you. Rest.”

Touya hummed, already half-asleep again.

Chapter 20: Code Blue

Notes:

a little drama to start off today!
thanks everyone for your encouragement!

The room spun violently when Touya woke.

One second he was drowning in fever dreams, flames licking up his arms, his father’s voice snarling weak, worthless, failure, the next he was lurching upright, his stomach heaving. He barely had time to turn his head before hot bile and thick mucus splattered across the sheets.

For a long, terrifying moment, he just stared at the mess, his brain struggling to catch up. Then the shame hit, hot and sharp, and before he could stop himself, he was crying: ugly, gasping sobs that made his ribs ache.

Pathetic. Can’t even keep it together long enough to- 

Another cough tore through him, wet and rattling, and suddenly he couldn’t breathe. Panic clawed up his throat.

“F-Fuyumi-” His voice was a wreck, barely audible. “Please, help me-”

Footsteps thundered down the hall. The door flew open, revealing Fuyumi, her face pale in the dim light.

“Touya?!”

“I’m s-sorry.” He tried to push himself up, but his arms shook too badly. “Didn’t m-mean to-”

“Stop.” Fuyumi was at his side in an instant, her hands steady as she wiped his face with the clean edge of the sheet. “Don’t apologize. Just breathe.”

But he couldn’t. Every inhale whistled painfully in his chest, his feverish skin burning under her touch. His vision blurred at the edges, the room tilting dangerously.

Natsuo appeared in the doorway, his hair sticking up from where he’d clearly been napping. “What’s… oh shit-”

“Hold him up,” Fuyumi ordered, already yanking the soiled sheets free.

Natsuo didn’t hesitate. He slid behind Touya, his broad hands bracing his brother’s shoulders as another coughing fit wracked him. Touya sagged against him, his body limp with exhaustion, his breaths coming in short, wheezing gasps.

“Fuck, he’s burning up,” Natsuo muttered, his fingers brushing the inflamed scar tissue along Touya’s collarbone. The air around them grew abruptly colder, tiny snowflakes crystallizing in Natsuo’s panic.

Touya tried to focus, but the room kept tilting. "M'fine," he slurred, his tongue thick in his mouth. He tried to keep going, but another cough stole his voice. His head lolled against Natsuo’s shoulder, his thoughts muddled.

“So warm… why’s it so warm in here…?”

Natsuo and Fuyumi exchanged a look.

“Yumi,” Natsuo said, his voice uncharacteristically firm. “We have to call-”

Fuyumi nodded, already moving. “Ambulance is on the way.”

The next ten minutes passed in a blur.

Fuyumi packed a bag with shaking hands: sweatpants, a clean shirt, his toothbrush, the little bottle of scar cream he used religiously. Natsuo kept Touya upright on the couch, one hand braced against his heaving chest, the other holding a trash can under his chin as another round of coughing brought up thick, yellowish mucus.

Touya's skin felt wrong, his scars an angry, inflamed red, the graft lines standing out like lightning strikes against his fever-flushed skin. His breaths came in short, uneven gasps, his lips tinged faintly blue at the edges.

"Medicines," he rasped suddenly, his fingers twitching toward the bathroom. "Bottles, so they know-"

Fuyumi darted to the cabinet, grabbing the array of prescriptions she remembered from helping Touya sort them out a few months ago: the inhalers, the suppressants, the nerve blockers with their long chemical names.

Natsuo's voice was uncharacteristically small. "Do we... do we even know what half this stuff is for?"

“Doesn’t matter, as long as the doctors do, right?” 

The paramedics arrived with efficient calm, their quirks subtly active, one with glowing fingertips for vein-finding, another with enhanced hearing to monitor lung sounds without a stethoscope.

"Allergies?" the first asked, pressing a cool hand to Touya's forehead.

Fuyumi and Natsuo exchanged a panicked look. "I... don't know?"

"Past surgeries?"

Another glance. "Um. Skin grafts? A lot of them?"

"Dates? Locations?"

Blank stares.

The second paramedic, older, with kind eyes, noticed their distress and softened. "It's okay. We'll figure it out." They loaded Touya onto the gurney, his head lolling as an oxygen mask was secured over his face.

"Fuyumi, go with him," Natsuo said firmly, already pulling out his phone. "I'll text Keigo. See if he knows... anything."

Fuyumi nodded, climbing into the ambulance after one last glance at Touya's unnaturally still form.

As the doors closed, Natsuo's snowflakes swirled violently in the empty apartment.

---

The hospital waiting room smelled like antiseptic and stale coffee, the fluorescent lights humming overhead. Fuyumi paced in small, frantic circles, her house slippers scuffing against the linoleum. She’d left in such a hurry she hadn’t even changed out of them, or her pajama pants, just thrown on a sweater over her sleep shirt. The clipboard the nurse had handed her sat untouched on the chair beside her, half the fields blank because she didn’t know the answers.

Allergies? She had no idea.Previous surgeries? She knew there had been many, but the dates, the details… nothing.Current medications? She’d handed over the bottles, but she couldn’t pronounce half the names, let alone explain what they were for.

She glanced at the clock: 10:47 PM. No updates. No Keigo. No idea if Touya was even conscious.

The automatic doors hissed open, and Natsuo stumbled in, his cheeks flushed from the cold, snowflakes still clinging to his jacket. He carried a tote bag stuffed with Fuyumi’s coat, her sneakers, and a convenience store haul of onigiri and bottled tea.

“Hey,” he said, slightly out of breath. “Got your stuff.”

Fuyumi blinked at him. “How’d you get here?”

“Took the bus,” Natsuo shrugged, dumping the bag onto the chair. “Figured you’d want real shoes.”

Fuyumi’s throat tightened. “Thank you.” 

Natsuo handed her an onigiri. “Eat.”

She took it, but didn’t unwrap it. “Have you heard from Keigo?”

“Not yet. Villain attack was insane… some giant sludge thing downtown. It’s all over the news.”

Fuyumi’s stomach twisted. She hoped Keigo wasn’t hurt. She hoped Touya wouldn’t wake up alone.

It was nearly midnight when the doors slid open again, and Keigo stumbled in, still in full hero gear. His wings were singed at the edges, his gloves streaked with something dark and viscous. He looked exhausted, his golden eyes scanning the room until they landed on them.

“Hey,” he breathed, crossing the distance in three stride, pulling off the gloves and shoving them in his pocket. He pulled Fuyumi into a quick hug, then Natsuo, his grip tight. “Any news?”

Fuyumi shook her head. “They took him back an hour ago. Haven’t said anything.”

Keigo’s jaw clenched, but he nodded. “Okay. Okay.” He raked a hand through his hair, then glanced at the clipboard. “What’s this?”

“Medical history forms,” Fuyumi said weakly. “I don’t… know most of it.”

Keigo took the clipboard, scanning the empty fields. His expression darkened. “Shit.”

Natsuo crossed his arms. “You know anything?”

Keigo sighed, dropping into a chair. “Bits and pieces. I know he’s had at least three major skin grafts. I know his lungs are fucked from the Sekoto Peak fire and from the shit he did to himself after.” He rubbed his chin. “But Touya’s… private. I know he wouldn’t have told me everything.”

Fuyumi chewed her lip. “What do we do?”

Keigo pulled out his phone. “I called Akane on my way here.”

Natsuo blinked. “His social worker?”

“She’s known him longer than any of us. If anyone can get his records-”

His phone rang before he could finish, the screen flashing AKANE MORI. Keigo stood, stepping a few paces away to answer.

Fuyumi and Natsuo watched as Keigo’s shoulders tensed, his voice too low to make out. 

Natsuo leaned in. “He looks stressed.”

Fuyumi shot him a look. “We should all be stressed. Touya is literally choking on his own phlegm-”

“Ew, why would you say it like that?!”

“You’re pre-med, Natsu! You need to get used to gross things!”

“Yeah, next year! Right now, I’m still allowed to be squeamish-”

After a minute, he hung up and turned back to them, his expression unreadable.

“Okay,” he said slowly. “So. Akane called your grandparents.”

Fuyumi’s stomach dropped. “What?”

“She said she called them as a friend, not as Touya’s social worker. Apparently, they have all his medical records; the original surgeries, his pneumonia admission when he was a minor, everything from when he was really sick a few years ago.”

Fuyumi swallowed hard. She’d only met her maternal grandparents once, when she was four or five. She remembered a stern-faced man and a woman with kind eyes, but nothing else. Natsuo had never met them.

“They’re coming,” Keigo said. “Should be here in the morning.”

Natsuo exhaled sharply, his breath frosting the air again. “Great. Meeting my grandparents for the first time while my brother’s dying-”

“He’s not dying,” Fuyumi snapped.

“Didn’t you just say he was choking on his own phlegm, Fuyumi-”

Keigo groaned, dropping his face into his hands. “Christ, you two.”

They fell silent.

After a long moment, Natsuo sighed and handed both of them an onigiri. “Eat. We’re gonna be here awhile.” 

---

The waiting room had grown still by 2:15 AM, the hum of fluorescent lights the only sound cutting through the quiet. Fuyumi sat with her hands clasped in her lap, staring blankly at the muted news broadcast playing on the wall-mounted TV, footage of the sludge villain attack, Keigo’s wings a blur of motion as he dove through the chaos. Beside her, Natsuo was slumped in his chair, his head tipped back against the wall, his breath even with sleep. Keigo had folded himself into an uncomfortable-looking position, his wings draped over the back of his chair like a makeshift blanket, his face half-buried in his scarf.

Fuyumi was just considering closing her own eyes when a nurse appeared in the doorway, her soft-soled shoes squeaking against the linoleum.

“Touya Himura’s family?”

Fuyumi shot to her feet, her heart pounding. “Yes?”

The nurse, a woman with a kind face and a quirk that made her fingertips glow faintly blue, smiled gently. “You can come see him now, if you’d like.”

Fuyumi’s breath caught. She turned, shaking Natsuo’s shoulder. “Natsu.”

He jolted awake, blinking blearily. “Wha-?”

“They’re letting us see him.”

Across from them, Keigo was already upright, his wings twitching with barely restrained energy.

The nurse led them down a series of corridors, the sterile scent of antiseptic growing stronger as they approached the recovery area. Fuyumi’s pulse thrummed in her throat, her fingers twisting in the hem of her coat.

Fuyumi froze in the doorway.

Touya lay propped up at a slight angle, his skin waxy and flushed with fever. An oxygen mask covered his nose and mouth, the soft hiss of air the only sign it was working. IV lines snaked from both arms, fluids, antibiotics, something else Fuyumi couldn't identify. But worst of all were his scars. The graft lines along his jaw and neck were an angry, inflamed red, the seams standing out like fresh burns against his too-pale skin.

Natsuo let out a quiet, punched-out noise and immediately retreated to the chair farthest from the bed, as if putting distance between himself and the reality of Touya's condition. Keigo, in contrast, strode forward without hesitation, dragging the nearest chair right up to the bedside. He reached for Touya's hand, the one not tangled in IV lines, and laced their fingers together.

Fuyumi swallowed hard, forcing herself to step inside.

"He's been through quite a bit already," the nurse said quietly. "We had to do an aggressive bronchoscopy to clear out his lungs, there was a lot of thick mucus and some minor bleeding from the irritation. We're also giving him IV antibiotics and an altered quirk suppressant to help regulate his internal temperature."

"What do you mean?" Keigo's head snapped up. "He's already on the highest dose."

The nurse hesitated. "I'll let the doctor explain. She'll be in shortly."

With that, she slipped out, leaving them in heavy silence.

Fuyumi hovered near the foot of the bed, her hands twisting in the fabric of her coat. Touya looked so much smaller like this, drowning in his hospital gown.

Keigo rubbed his thumb over Touya's knuckles, his expression unreadable. Natsuo, from his corner, let out a shaky breath. Tiny snowflakes crystallized in the air around him before he visibly wrestled his quirk back under control.

The doctor arrived twenty minutes later, a tall woman with steel-gray hair pulled into a tight bun and a no-nonsense air about her. She introduced herself as Dr. Tanaka before launching into an explanation that made Fuyumi's head spin.

"Your brother has a severe case of pneumonia complicated by his existing lung damage and quirk factors," she said, flipping through his chart. "The infection itself is bad enough, but the real issue is how his body is reacting to it."

She turned the monitor toward them, pointing to a series of graphs and numbers that meant nothing to Fuyumi. "His quirk suppressants are interfering with his body's natural fever response. Normally, a fever helps fight infection, but his medication is suppressing that, along with his ability to regulate his internal temperature. Essentially, his body is stuck in a feedback loop where it can't get hot enough to fight the infection properly, but his baseline temperature is still too high for safety."

Keigo's grip on Touya's hand tightened. "So the suppressants are making it worse?"

"Not intentionally. They're doing exactly what they're designed to do, keep his internal heat from spiking uncontrollably. But in this case, that same mechanism is preventing his immune system from functioning optimally." Dr. Tanaka sighed. "We've adjusted his medication to a lower dose temporarily, but we have to monitor him closely. If his core temperature rises too much, we'll have to cool him externally while the antibiotics do their work."

Natsuo leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "So... is he going to get better?"

Dr. Tanaka hesitated, just for a second, but it was enough to make Fuyumi's stomach drop. "Most likely, yes. But as you all know, his case is complicated, and at this point, we’re worried about giving him something that might have adverse effects, since we don’t have all the history.” 

Keigo's wings twitched. "He's been taking care of himself, though. Like, really taking care of himself. How did this even happen?"

"Quirk biology is unpredictable under stress," Dr. Tanaka said. "His lungs were already compromised, and the cold weather likely exacerbated things. Add in a little cold, which likely was the initial cause of the infection, and his system simply couldn't compensate." She closed the chart. "It's not his fault. Just bad luck and physiology."

Fuyumi swallowed hard. "Our grandparents will be here soon. They have his full medical history."

Dr. Tanaka nodded. "Good. That will help."

With that, she left, the door clicking shut behind her.

---

The hospital room was bathed in the pale blue light of early morning, the kind of hour where the world still felt half-asleep. Keigo had spent the night slumped in an uncomfortable chair, wings tucked awkwardly behind him, one hand curled loosely around Touya’s limp fingers. The steady beep of the heart monitor was the only sound keeping him tethered to consciousness.

Across from him, Fuyumi and Natsuo dozed fitfully, Fuyumi with her head resting against the wall, glasses askew, and Natsuo sprawled over two chairs, arms crossed over his chest like a corpse. 

Touya himself was unconscious, his breathing labored beneath the oxygen mask, skin flushed with fever. The steady beep of the heart monitor was the only sound filling the silence.

And then the door opened.

Fuyumi startled awake, blinking rapidly as two figures stepped inside. The first was a woman, poised, her silver hair pulled into an elegant knot at the nape of her neck. She wore a deep blue dress beneath her coat, the fabric immaculate, not a single crease out of place. The man beside her was slightly shorter, his hair a softer shade of gray, his expression calm but alert. He carried a small bag in one hand, the other resting gently on his wife’s arm.

They didn’t look like they’d just traveled halfway across the country at seven in the morning. They looked fresh. Like they’d just come from a spa.

Fuyumi shot to her feet, suddenly hyperaware of her wrinkled clothes and tangled hair. Natsuo straightened, eyes widening. Keigo’s wings twitched in surprise.

Fuyumi stood abruptly, her chair scraping against the floor.

"Obaasan? Ojiisan?"

The woman, Touya’s grandmother, smiled, though her eyes remained serious. "Fuyumi. Natsuo. It’s been a while."

Natsuo blinked, looking between them like he wasn’t sure if they were real. "You… you came so quick."

"Of course," the grandfather said, his voice warm but matter-of-fact. He stepped further into the room, setting his bag down on the empty chair near the bed. "Akane called us."

Keigo stiffened. He knew Touya had gone to live with his grandparents after the accident, and that he’d changed his name to theirs, but he rarely spoke about them with him. He knew the complicated nature of their relationship had something to do with his ‘lost years’, as Touya liked to refer to them as. Keigo also knew, though, that they spoke every week on the phone, and that they cared for him very much. 

The grandmother turned to Keigo, her gaze assessing but not unkind. "You must be Hawks, the boyfriend."

"Keigo," he corrected automatically, then winced. He probably looked like hell, soot smudged on his face, feathers ruffled and unkempt.

She nodded once, then turned her attention to Touya, her expression tightening slightly as she took in his fever-flushed skin, the way his breath hitched unevenly. Without hesitation, she turned to the nurse lingering near the door.

"Please bring me the doctor in charge of his care. Immediately, please."

The nurse blinked, startled by the authority in her voice, but nodded and hurried out.

Fuyumi exchanged a glance with Natsuo. "Obaasan-"

His grandmother held up a hand, already reaching into the large bag she carried. "We’ll talk in a moment."

What she pulled out was a binder, thick, well-organized, the edges of some pages slightly worn from use. She set it on the bedside table with a quiet thump, flipping it open to reveal rows of neatly labeled tabs.

Keigo leaned forward slightly, catching glimpses of dates, medical terms, charts.

His grandfather, meanwhile, had moved to Touya’s side, carefully checking Touya’s IV line, his fingers brushing over the tape holding it in place.

"Bruising a little here," their grandfather murmured, more to himself than anyone else. He adjusted the angle slightly, then smoothed Touya’s hair back from his forehead, his thumb brushing over the reddened skin there.

Keigo frowned. He hadn’t even noticed the irritation before.

His grandfather sighed, then glanced at Keigo. "Hero business kept you out late, I take it?"

Keigo suddenly felt very aware of the fact that he was still in his work jacket, which was currently smeared with dirt, sweat, and probably a little bit of villain blood.

The question was casual, though, and Keigo had trouble balancing the small talk with the situation they were in.

"Uh… yeah. Villain fight." He hesitated. "You knew his forehead would get like that?"

"His skin’s always been sensitive to friction when he’s feverish," his grandfather said simply, as if this were common knowledge. "The sweat irritates it if we don’t keep his hair out of the way."

Keigo stared.

Before he could process that, the door opened again, Dr. Tanaka stepped in. "You asked for me?" she said, polite but guarded.

Their grandmother snapped the binder shut and held it out. "I’m Himura Touya’s grandmother. This is his complete medical history."

Dr. Tanaka took the binder, eyebrows rising as she flipped through the first few pages. “This goes back to when he was thirteen,” she murmured.

“The first skin graft complications,” their grandmother said simply. “Page forty-two has the most recent pneumonia treatment, three and a half years ago. The antibiotics listed there were effective.”

Dr. Tanaka’s eyes flicked up, surprised. “You’re familiar with his care?”

"He has a complicated case," the grandmother said, as if that explained everything. "What is his current treatment?"

Dr. Tanaka hesitated only a second before launching into an update: the fever, the pneumonia, the quirk suppressants they’d had to adjust. Their grandmother listened intently, interjecting at points.

"No, he’s allergic to that antibiotic- it causes severe nausea for him. They tried it last time and it was unsuccessful. This is what worked." She pointed to a line in the binder.

Dr. Tanaka’s eyes flicked down. "Thank you. We’ll switch it out."

Keigo’s wings twitched. He exchanged another glance with Fuyumi and Natsuo. 

Touya stirred then, his eyelids fluttering weakly. For a second, his gaze, hazy with fever, landed on his grandfather.

“…Ji…chan…?” he slurred, voice barely audible.

Touya’s brow furrowed, his fever-glazed eyes struggling to focus. For a second, Keigo thought he might panic, might jerk away, might snap at them for being here, but then his breath shuddered out, and his head tipped slightly toward his grandfather’s touch.

“…’m sorry,” he slurred, barely audible.

The grandfather’s expression fractured for the briefest moment before smoothing back into calm. “Hush. Rest.”

Touya’s eyes slipped shut again, his breathing evening out slightly.

Fuyumi made a small, choked noise. Natsuo’s hands were clenched at his sides. Keigo just stared, his throat tight.

What the hell was happening?

Their grandmother continued speaking with Dr. Tanaka in low, precise tones, the two of them reviewing medications, dosages, past reactions. Her sharp eyes flicked to Touya’s back, her lips pressing into a thin line. “Has anyone checked his grafts?”

Dr. Tanaka hesitated. “We’ve been monitoring his vitals, but-”

“The scarring on his back,” their grandmother interrupted, voice firm. “When his fever spikes like this, the old grafts tighten. It restricts his breathing.”

Keigo stiffened. He hadn’t even thought about that.

The doctor frowned but nodded, turning to the nurse lingering near the door. “Can I get a hand for proper assessment of his back grafts? Look for signs of tension or inflammation.”

The nurse hurried out, returning moments later with a second attendant. Together, they carefully rolled Touya onto his side, lifting the back of his hospital gown.

Keigo’s stomach dropped.

The scarring looked worse than he’d ever seen it before, thick, ropey patches of grafted skin stretched taut between his shoulder blades, the edges red and angry. The nurse inhaled sharply.

“They are inflamed,” she murmured, gently pressing along the ridges. “And… they’re pulling. You can see how it’s affecting his rib expansion.”

Natsuo’s jaw clenched. "Why didn’t anyone notice that?"

The grandfather didn’t wait for an answer. He was already pulling something from the cloth bag he’d brought: soft-looking, wedge-shaped pillows. 

“Here,” he said, voice gruff. “Lift him.”

The nurses hesitated, but the doctor gave a single, firm nod. Together, they adjusted Touya just enough for the grandfather to slide the pillows beneath him, one supporting the dip in his lower back, the other tucked carefully under his shoulders to ease the tension in his grafts.

Almost immediately, Touya’s breathing eased slightly, the wheeze in his chest lessening.

Keigo stared. How-?

The doctor exhaled but nodded, tucking the binder under her arm. “I’ll bring this back and update you after I put this into our system.”

And then she was gone, leaving the room in heavy silence.

Their grandfather smoothed a hand over Touya’s hair, his touch lingering. “Stubborn boy,” he muttered. "When he first came to us, when he was thirteen, he was sick like this often. Not this bad, but close." His mouth tightened. "We hired private nurses. They taught us this."

Natsuo’s jaw worked. "You never took him to the hospital?"

"The hospital environment seemed to agitate him," the grandmother said coolly, but there was something brittle beneath it. "So we didn’t want to make things worse."

Their grandfather adjusted the pillow minutely, his fingers brushing Touya’s hair away from his face again. "The nurses showed us how to prop him, how to keep his airways open. It helped."

Fuyumi’s hands clenched in her lap. "You still remember all of that?"

The grandfather didn’t answer right away. When he did, his voice was quieter. "You don’t forget something like that."

Keigo’s wings pressed tight against his back.

“But he… he left,” she said. “He didn’t… he didn’t talk to you for years-”

“And we never stopped worrying,” the grandmother said simply. 

The room was silent again.

Then the grandmother turned to face them all, her gaze steady. “Now. Tell me what happened.”

Chapter 21: Steady Hands

The hospital room was quiet when Touya finally clawed his way back to consciousness.

Not silent, it was never silent in a place like this, but hushed, save for the rhythmic beep of the monitor, the low hum of the oxygen machine, and the soft, uneven rasp of his own breath beneath the mask. His body felt heavy, his limbs weighed down by fatigue and whatever drugs they’d pumped into him. His throat burned. His back ached.

And then… Snoring.

Touya blinked slowly, his vision swimming into focus. Ojiisan was slumped in the chair beside the bed, head tipped back, mouth slightly open, glasses askew on his face. The sound wasn’t loud, just a steady, wheezing rhythm. A familiar sound.

Touya’s chest tightened.

“Hope he didn’t wake you.”

Touya’s head lolled to the side, and there, in a stiff-backed chair beside his bed, sat his grandmother.

Obaasan looked out of place in the clinical setting, her silver hair neatly pinned back, her hands folded primly in her lap. She wore a long blue dress, modest and winter-appropriate, the fabric crisp and unwrinkled despite what must have been hours of waiting. Touya’s sleep-addled brain latched onto that detail. Western clothes. He wasn’t used to seeing her in them.

“We drove overnight. He insisted on taking the entire shift, which is how we arrived so quickly.”

Touya’s throat burned. He lifted a shaky hand to push the oxygen mask aside, but she intercepted him with a sharp tsk, adjusting it properly herself.

“I thought I hallucinated you being here,” he rasped, the words muffled behind plastic.

She arched one thin eyebrow. “And waste a perfectly good delusion on us? Why not imagine something more exciting.”

A weak huff of laughter escaped him, which immediately dissolved into a cough. Obaasan’s hands were on him in an instant, one bracing his shoulder, the other pressing a tissue to his mouth beneath the mask. There wasn’t much to cough up, just a thin, bloody string of phlegm that she disposed of with clinical efficiency.

“They suctioned you out when you were first admitted, apparently,” she told him, matter-of-factly, replacing the oxygen mask. “Not sure if you remember.”

Touya shook his head. “You didn’t have to come,” he muttered when he could speak again.

Tch. “Of course we did.” She settled back into her chair, smoothing her dress. “They gave you something you were allergic to at first. And you couldn’t breathe from how inflamed the grafts on your back were.” She leaned forward slightly, her voice lowering. “Don’t you notice your grandfather brought you the support pillows from home?”

Touya blinked. He shifted slightly, and oh.

He was propped up. There was a pillow beneath his shoulders, another supporting his neck, angled just so to ease the pull on his scars. The position was familiar, achingly so.

“…Ah,” he rasped. “I didn’t realize you took these back home after last time.”

The last time, three years ago, when he’d been in university and pneumonia had left him gasping in a hospital bed. His grandparents had shown up then, too, though he’d been too feverish to protest.

His grandmother sniffed. “Of course we took them back with us. Can’t trust you to keep track of these things.” She reached out, adjusting the oxygen mask slightly where it had slipped again. “That’s what we’re here for.”

“Fuyumi, Natsuo, and that boyfriend of yours were here all night. I sent them home around ten to shower and eat.” She glanced at the clock. “It’s nearly noon now.”

Touya’s chest tightened. He hadn’t even registered their presence or absence; he hadn’t registered much of anything beyond the fog of fever and suppressants. Guilt curled heavy in his gut.

Obaasan studied him, her sharp eyes missing nothing. “Stop that.”

“Stop what?”

“Whatever you’re thinking, it's making you look like a kicked dog.”

Touya huffed, but the sound dissolved into another cough. 

“Why did you come?” The words slipped out before he could stop them, hoarse and too vulnerable.

Obaasan didn’t flinch. “Akane called us, so of course we-” 

The words spilled out before he could stop them, hoarse and frayed. "I don't-" deserve it, he wanted to say, but the weight of it choked him. "After what I did to you. The way I left. The… the mess-"

His grandmother's expression didn't change, but her fingers tightened slightly around the edge of the blanket. "Nonsense, Touya. You get so maudlin when they give you amoxiclav."

The dismissal should have stung. Instead, it felt like absolution.

"You had it rough," she continued, matter-of-fact. "We could have tried harder to understand. You were a child. We were so focused on keeping you safe that we made you feel alone instead."

Touya wanted to argue. Wanted to insist he wasn't worth the trouble, that they shouldn't have bothered, but the look in her eyes stopped him.

"Now we understand each other more," she said simply. "You call every week. You send me flowers on my birthday, and those pastries Ojiisan likes for his."

Touya's vision blurred. Damn fever, he told himself.

"Okay," he whispered. "But I'm still-"

"Stop apologizing." Her hand brushed his forehead, checking his temperature. "It was seven years ago."

The words lodged in his chest, too big to voice. 

"Since the kids moved in," he managed instead, voice cracking, "I haven't been able to visit. It's just- work, and them, and-"

His grandmother's expression softened. "You're raising two traumatized children and working yourself to the bone. We know, Touya."

He opened his mouth, to protest, to explain, but another cough tore through him, harsh and grating.

His grandmother tsked again, pulling him upright until the episode passed. "Stop wasting your energy on this now. We can talk later."

Touya wanted to resist, but the exhaustion was a riptide, pulling him under. He let his eyes slip shut, the warmth of her hands lingering on his back.

"Okay," he murmured, already half-gone.

Somewhere above him, his grandmother sighed, fond, exasperated, loving. 

---

The second time Touya woke, the fog in his brain had thinned to something more manageable. The oxygen mask had been downgraded to a nasal cannula, and the sharp edges of pain in his chest had dulled to a persistent ache. His grandparents were both awake now, his grandfather sitting stiffly in the chair by the window, nursing a cup of hospital tea, while his grandmother flipped through a magazine with the same intensity one might reserve for a legal document.

The door creaked open.

Fuyumi peeked in first, her hair still damp from the shower, her glasses slightly fogged from the winter air outside. Behind her, Natsuo loomed, looking marginally more human now that he’d changed into clean clothes, and Keigo, a mess of feathers and nervous energy, his golden eyes locking onto Touya the second he stepped inside.

And then there was Shouto.

Small for twelve, clutching a folded piece of paper in one hand and his communication cards in the other. His eyes flickered around the room before settling on Touya.

Touya’s stomach twisted. He hadn’t wanted Shouto to see him like this, pale and hollow-eyed, propped up by medical equipment.

Shouto wriggled free of the group and made a beeline for the bed, clutching a folded piece of paper. He carefully climbed onto the mattress, moving with surprising grace around the IV lines and monitor wires.

Touya's breath caught as Shouto settled against him. "Hey, Sho," he murmured, voice rough. "Missed you."

Shouto responded by shoving the paper into his hands. It was a drawing, rough, but vibrant, a landscape of sorts, with jagged mountains and a swirl of colors that might have been fire or sunset or both. The lines were uneven in places, the perspective skewed, but there was something alive about it.

"Wow," Touya breathed, tracing a finger along the waxy lines. "This is great, Sho. You made this at Izuku's?"

Shouto nodded vigorously, making a pleased humming sound deep in his throat.

From his chair, their grandfather cleared his throat. "Reminds me of the drawings your mother used to make. She loved art- mostly sculpture, but she would draw or paint from time to time.” 

Touya’s grandmother studied Shouto for a long moment, her sharp eyes taking in the way he leaned slightly to the left, the way his fingers fidgeted with the edge of his cards. Then, very deliberately, she said, “You have her hands.”

Shouto blinked. Looked down at his own hands, as if checking.

Keigo, who had claimed the chair on Touya's other side, squeezed his calf gently. "How are you feeling, hot stuff?"

Touya exhaled through his nose. "Like I got hit by a truck. Then backed over. Then hit again for good measure."

Keigo's wings twitched. "You scared the hell out of me, you know."

"Psh." Touya waved a weak hand. "Just a little fever."

Fuyumi, Natsuo, and both grandparents gave him identical flat looks. 

Must be genetic. 

The conversation meandered after that, and Touya didn’t mind feeling out of the loop. He let his hand rest on Shouto’s back, thumb rubbing slow circles between his shoulder blades. The pressure seemed to help, Shouto’s breathing, which had been a little too quick when they’d first arrived, evened out slightly.

Across the room, Fuyumi perched on the edge of the visitor’s chair, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. “Natsu got into Keio’s pre-med program,” she said, voice bright with forced cheer.

Natsuo, slouched against the wall with his arms crossed, huffed. “It’s not a big deal.”

“It is,” Fuyumi insisted, shooting him a look. 

Their grandfather smiled in agreement. “An impressive achievement.”

It wasn’t effusive praise. It wasn’t even particularly warm. But Touya saw the way Natsuo’s shoulders loosened, just a fraction, at the acknowledgment.

Shouto shifted against Touya. Keigo, in the chair beside them, watched with sharp eyes. After a moment, he leaned in, murmuring low enough that only Touya could hear, “He okay?”

Touya gave a faint nod. “Just needs a minute.”

Keigo’s fingers brushed Shouto’s shoulder, testing. Shouto didn’t protest. He rose from his chair and leaned over the bed, his voice a low murmur near Shouto’s ear. “Hey, little man. Wanna switch?”

Shouto lifted his head just enough to blink at him, then nodded. He unfolded himself carefully, letting Keigo bring him to the chair Keigo was currently occupying, where the hero immediately wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him close, applying just enough pressure to make Shouto sag against him.

Touya watched as Shouto’s fingers slowed their frantic kneading, his breathing evening out under Keigo’s familiar hold. Somewhere in the last year, Keigo had become a safe, steady presence in the small circle of people Shouto trusted.

Across the room, their grandmother’s gaze flickered back to Natsuo, her expression unreadable. “You must have worked very hard, Natsuo.”

Natsuo shrugged, but Touya didn’t miss the way his shoulders straightened just a fraction at the acknowledgment.

The conversation lulled for a moment, the air thick with something unspoken. Touya could feel his grandparents’ attention drifting, not to him, not to Keigo, but to Shouto, who was now slumped against Keigo’s side, his head resting on the hero’s shoulder.

They didn’t stare. That would have been too obvious. But their eyes kept catching.

Curiosity, Touya thought. But not the rude, intrusive kind. Quieter. Guilt-tinged.

Fuyumi, bless her, either didn’t notice or chose to ignore it. “Natsu’s going to be insufferable once he actually starts,” she said, grinning.

Natsuo rolled his eyes. 

Their grandfather huffed.

Shouto, oblivious to the exchange, pressed his face into Keigo’s sleeve with a quiet sigh. Keigo adjusted his grip, his wings shifting to create a loose cocoon around them both.

Before Touya could start to spiral on it, the door opened again.

Dr. Tanaka stepped in, smiling politely. “I’m afraid I’ll need to ask everyone to step out for a bit. We need to take care of a few things.”

Fuyumi flushed, grabbing her bag. “Right! Of course.”

Keigo hesitated, fingers brushing Touya’s wrist. “You good?”

Touya nodded. “Go. I’ll be here.”

They filed out, Fuyumi herding Shouto, Natsuo muttering about hospital coffee, Keigo casting one last glance back.

The grandparents lingered just a second longer.

His grandfather squeezed his shoulder. “We’ll be outside.”

Then it was just Touya, the doctor, and the quiet hum of machines.

---

The hospital’s family waiting area was a small, sterile space, too-bright fluorescent lights, stiff-backed chairs arranged in rigid lines, and the ever-present hum of vending machines in the corner. The air smelled of antiseptic and stale coffee.

When the doctor had ushered them out of Touya’s room, Fuyumi had immediately steered Shouto toward the cluster of chairs furthest from the door. Now, Shouto sat wedged between Fuyumi and Natsuo, his lanky frame curled slightly inward, his head ducked low. 

Keigo hovered near the doorway, his wings twitching restlessly. He kept glancing back toward Touya’s room, as if he could will the door to open through sheer force of staring.

Across the room, Touya’s grandparents sat with their usual impeccable posture, his grandfather in one of the stiff-backed chairs, his hands folded neatly over his cane, while his grandmother stood near the window, her sharp gaze scanning the parking lot below.

Fuyumi leaned closer to Shouto, her voice soft. “You okay, Sho?”

Shouto didn’t respond verbally, but he pressed his shoulder into hers, a silent acknowledgment.

Natsuo, sprawled in the chair beside them, nudged Shouto’s foot with his own. “Bet you’re starving, huh? We should hit up the cafeteria after this.”

Shouto’s fingers stilled on his stim toy for a second, before he reached into his pocket for his cards, sorting them until he found the one he was looking for. [FOOD.] 

Across the room, Keigo hovered near the coffee machine, pretending to study the selection of powdered creamers while watching the grandparents from the corner of his eye. Neither had spoken since they’d left Touya’s room.

Keigo took a breath and crossed the lounge.

“Himura-san,” he said quietly, stopping a respectful distance from the grandmother.

She turned, her sharp eyes assessing him. Up close, he could see the fine lines around her mouth, the way her knuckles whitened where she gripped her purse.

“Takami,” she acknowledged.

“Keigo, please.” He hesitated, then forged ahead. “I wanted to ask, about the medical binder. If it’s not too much trouble, could I get a copy?”

Her brows lifted slightly.

“I just…” Keigo’s wings rustled behind him. “I want to be prepared. In case something like this happens again.”

For a long moment, she studied him, her gaze flickering over his rumpled hero uniform, the dark circles under his eyes, the way his fingers twitched at his sides like he was fighting the urge to fidget. Then, unexpectedly, her posture softened, just a fraction.

“You care for him, don’t you?”

It wasn’t a question.

Keigo’s throat tightened. “Yeah. I do.”

The grandmother turned back to the window. Outside, snow had begun to fall. thin, wispy flakes that melted as soon as they touched the pavement.

“When Touya first came to us,” she said suddenly, “he was so thin, so small... like a ghost. He wouldn’t speak for weeks.” Her voice was low, measured. “We thought if we could just keep him safe, if we could just fix him…”

She cut herself off, shaking her head.

Keigo stayed silent.

“That binder,” she continued after a moment, “has every fever, every reaction, every medication that’s ever worked or failed since he was thirteen. It has every time he pulled out his IV, every time he forced himself to vomit up whatever we’d given him, every time he tried to light himself on fire again…” She turned to face him fully. “Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

Keigo did. It wasn’t just a medical record, it was a history, a map of all the ways Touya had broken and been put back together.

“Yes,” he said hoarsely.

The grandmother studied him a moment longer, then nodded. “I’ll have a copy made. When you visit.”

Something warm unfurled in Keigo’s chest. “Thank you.”

Across the lounge, Shouto made a soft noise, and Fuyumi leaned down, murmuring something too quiet to hear, and Shouto held up his card again: [FOOD]

Keigo’s lips quirked. “I should-”

“Go,” the grandmother said, already turning back to the window. “We’ll be here.”

---

The hospital room had grown quiet after Fuyumi, Natsuo, and Shouto left for the cafeteria, just the steady beep of monitors, the faint hiss of oxygen, and the rustle of Dr. Tanaka’s coat as she settled into the chair beside Touya’s bed. She held a tablet in one hand, her dark eyes scanning the screen before lifting to meet the small circle of faces, Touya, propped up but still bleary-eyed, Keigo perched anxiously on the edge of his seat, and the Himuras, their postures rigid but attentive.

“Let’s start with the immediate concerns,” she said, tapping her tablet. “The pneumonia is under control, the antibiotics are working, and your oxygen levels have stabilized. But the fact that this happened at all despite your suppressant regimen and preventative care is… concerning.”

Touya’s fingers twitched against the blanket. He’d known this was coming.

Keigo leaned forward. “So… what does that mean?”

Dr. Tanaka’s gaze flicked to him, then back to her notes. “It means we’re missing something.” She turned the tablet around, showing a series of scans, Touya’s lungs, the scar tissue glowing white and dense against the darker healthy tissue. “Your history of thermal lung damage from your quirk is well-documented, but this level of recurrent inflammation suggests something more systemic.”

Touya’s grandmother spoke for the first time, her voice cool and precise. “You suspect an underlying condition.”

“I do.” Dr. Tanaka swiped to another image, a close-up of Touya’s bronchial tubes, the walls thickened and inflamed. “Given your history of chronic pain, fatigue, and now this acute episode, I believe you may have what we’re tentatively calling Quirk-Induced Autoimmune Degradation: QIAD, for short. It’s a relatively new classification, but we’re seeing it more frequently in individuals with volatile emitter-type quirks.”

A beat of silence.

Keigo’s grip on Touya’s ankle tightened. “Sorry, can you explain that a little more?” he asked. 

Dr. Tanaka nodded. “Essentially, your body has begun attacking the tissues most affected by your quirk overuse as a child and adult."

Keigo's wing twitched against the back of his chair. "But he's been on suppressants for seven years. Shouldn't that...?"

"Actually, that may be part of the problem." Dr. Tanaka swiped to another scan. "Standard suppressants work by broadly dampening quirk factors, but they don't address the autoimmune response. In some cases, they may even exacerbate it by forcing the body into a constant state of quirk withdrawal."

Touya's grandmother stiffened. "You're saying the medication meant to protect him is making him sicker."

"Potentially. The flare-up you experienced recently?" Dr. Tanaka turned to Touya.

A muscle jumped in Touya's jaw. Keigo must’ve told them- how during their last argument, flames had licked across his palms and up his arms and chest before Keigo had shoved him in the shower. 

"That shouldn't have been possible on your current dosage," Dr. Tanaka continued. "It suggests your body is becoming resistant to the suppressants while simultaneously attacking the tissue they're meant to protect."

The grandfather's teacup clattered against its saucer. "Treatment options?"

"We need to consult with a specialist. Given you're based in Tokyo, I'd recommend Dr. Nakamura at Tokyo University Hospital - she's pioneering new immunotherapy protocols for QIAD."

Touya's pulse throbbed in his temples. Tokyo was good. Tokyo meant not uprooting Shouto from his school, not abandoning his clients at the counseling center, not leaving the fragile life he'd built brick by brick.

Dr. Tanaka continued, "Immediate modifications will include: switching to a targeted biologic suppressant, pulmonary rehabilitation twice weekly, and strict stress management." She hesitated. "You'll need to reduce your caseload by at least thirty percent."

The numbers clicked in Touya's fogged mind: thirty percent meant dropping eight of his twenty-five clients. Eight children who relied on him to help control their dangerous quirks.

Keigo's hand found his, their fingers lacing tightly. "We'll make it work."

Touya barely heard him. The walls of the hospital room seemed to press closer, the beeping monitors suddenly deafening. He could feel the shape of everything he stood to lose: his masters degree program half-finished; the apartment where Shouto finally felt safe; the way Keigo looked at him like he was whole.

A coughing fit wracked his body before he could voice any of this. His grandmother was at his side in an instant, tilting him forward with practiced hands as the grandfather rang for a nurse.

"Enough for now," the grandmother said sharply to Dr. Tanaka. "He needs rest."

As the doctor nodded and stepped out, Touya slumped back against the pillows, his vision swimming. 

Keigo squeezed their hands together again. "One step at a time, okay? First we get you better. Then we figure out the rest."

Touya wanted to believe him. But as he closed his eyes against the sting of tears, all he could see were flames licking at the edges of the life he'd fought so hard to build.

---

Outside the window, Tokyo glittered under a thin blanket of fresh snow, the city preparing for midnight in bursts of laughter and distant fireworks. Inside Room 407, the Todoroki-Himura family was celebrating early.

Touya blinked awake to the rustle of fabric and low voices. Golden evening light slanted through the blinds, painting stripes across the tray table where his grandmother was arranging an assortment of lacquered bento boxes. The rich aroma of simmered fish and pickled vegetables cut through the sterile hospital air.

"Ah, you're awake." His grandfather stood by the window, adjusting the collar of a dark yukata. "Just in time."

Touya pushed himself up on his elbows, wincing as the movement tugged at his IV line. The clock on the wall read 7:47 PM, but he'd been drifting in and out of consciousness all day, the new medications dragging him under like a riptide.

The door swung open before he could respond.

"Happy Almost-New Year!" Fuyumi bustled in, her plum-colored kimono sleeves fluttering as she carried a paper shopping bag. Behind her, Natsuo ducked through the doorway in a navy blue yukata that barely contained his broad shoulders, carefully guiding Shouto by the elbow.

Touya's breath caught.

Shouto was dressed in a miniature version of formal hakama, the crisp pleats of his black trousers contrasting with the snow-white haori.

He clutched a familiar red sensory cube in one hand, but the other held something new - a small paper lantern decorated with clumsy crayon drawings of what might have been birds or maybe flames.

"Look at you," Touya rasped, reaching out. Shouto shuffled forward immediately, pressing against the bed rail. His fingers found Touya's wrist, gripping tight like he needed to confirm he was real. "Who's the fancy guy, huh?"

Shouto made a soft noise in his throat, not quite a word, but the tone was unmistakably pleased. He lifted the lantern carefully, his mismatched eyes darting between Touya and the window where the first winter stars were beginning to appear.

Fuyumi beamed. "He wanted to show you! I think he made it at school, before the break.” 

Touya's throat tightened as he examined the lantern more closely. The crude drawings resolved into distinct shapes - five stick figures holding hands beneath a swirling sun. 

"Oh," Touya managed. His vision blurred.

A warm hand settled on his shoulder. "Don't start crying yet, hot stuff. You'll ruin my dramatic entrance."

Keigo leaned over the bed, his golden eyes crinkling at the corners. He'd traded his hero gear for a deep red yukata that brought out the russet tones in his wings, the fabric straining slightly across his shoulders. A paper crown sat crookedly on his head, the kind convenience stores gave out for New Year's celebrations.

Touya swallowed hard. "You look ridiculous."

"Liar." Keigo pressed a quick kiss to his temple before straightening up. "I look amazing. Your grandmother said so."

The door swung open, revealing Touya's grandparents laden with stacked bento boxes and a cloth-wrapped bundle that smelled suspiciously of mochi. His grandmother took in the scene with a critical eye before nodding, the highest praise they were likely to get.

"We brought ozoni," she announced, setting the containers on the table. "And your grandfather made sure to get the anmitsu you liked as a boy."

Touya's throat tightened. He hadn't eaten that particular sweet shop's anmitsu since he'd left their home at eighteen. "You brought it all the way from-"

"Eat it before the ice melts," his grandfather interrupted, busying himself with unpacking the lacquered boxes.

The bento boxes revealed layer after layer of carefully prepared dishes: golden tamagoyaki rolls, glossy braised mushrooms, even tiny crescent-shaped inarizushi - Touya's favorites.

"You remembered," he murmured when his grandmother placed one on his tray.

She tutted, adjusting the cannula tubing where it had gotten tangled. "As if I could forget how you'd steal them from the offering table at the shrine."

A laugh bubbled up in Touya's chest, surprising him. It turned into a cough halfway through, but for that one moment, the weight of diagnoses and uncertain futures seemed lighter.

Keigo's wing brushed against his arm as he leaned over to show Shouto how to fold a paper crane. The hero's usually sharp features were softened in the warm light, his laughter lines more pronounced as he exaggerated his struggles with the origami. Shouto watched with rapt attention, occasionally reaching out to correct Keigo's clumsy folds with surprising dexterity.

"See?" Keigo stage-whispered. "Your brother's way better at this than me already."

Shouto's lips quirked, not quite a smile, but close.

By 10:30 PM, the medications had begun dragging Touya under again, his eyelids growing heavy despite his efforts to stay present. Across the room, Shouto was blinking slowly, his head drooping toward Fuyumi's shoulder even as he stubbornly fought sleep.

Keigo noticed both at the same time. "Alright, I think it's time for the grand finale."

He produced a small box from his yukata sleeve with a magician's flourish. Inside were six miniature champagne flutes, plastic, for hospital safety, and a bottle of sparkling cider.

"Can't have a proper New Year's without a toast," he declared, pouring careful measures for everyone.

Fuyumi giggled as Natsuo attempted and failed to look dignified while wearing his paper crown. Even Touya's grandmother's stern expression softened slightly as she accepted her drink.

Keigo raised his glass. "To new beginnings.”

The clink of plastic against plastic seemed to echo in the quiet room. Touya's sip of cider was tart and sweet on his tongue, the bubbles tickling his throat. Outside the window, the first snowflakes of the year began to fall, swirling in the glow of the hospital lights.

Touya didn't trust his voice. He reached out instead, tangling his fingers with Keigo's and squeezing tight. The future was still uncertain: the treatments, the lifestyle changes, the fear of flames lurking beneath his skin… But in this moment, surrounded by the people he loved most, it all felt okay.

Chapter 22: Homecoming

Notes:

welcome back after ao3's 20 hr hiatus. hope you all got some sun and enjoyed your day xD

"Remember, no stairs for at least two weeks," Dr. Tanaka said, tapping her tablet. "The wheelchair is just for outings, but I want you to use the rollator at home until your oxygen levels stabilize, just in case you’re walking and feel faint… but defer to the physical therapist for that as well."

Touya sat on the edge of the hospital bed, fingers gripping the plastic mattress cover as a Dr. Tanaka went over everything again. The early January sunlight streamed through the window, catching on the dust motes swirling around the wheelchair parked ominously at the foot of his bed.

"-and, the prednisone must be taken with food," she said, tapping the blister pack with her pen. "Otherwise the nausea will be unbearable."

Touya nodded absently, his attention divided between the throbbing ache in his ribs and his grandmother's meticulous repacking of his overnight bag. She had folded his sweatpants with military precision, tucking his new prescriptions into a labeled organizer that made his stomach twist. It was the kind of thing you bought for someone who would need it long-term.

His grandfather cleared his throat from the doorway. "The car is here."

Keigo leaned against the doorframe, wings carefully tucked to avoid brushing the walls. He'd traded his usual hero gear for civilian clothes, a soft-looking hoodie and jeans that made him seem younger, more approachable, most of his feathers reassigned elsewhere. "All set, hot stuff?"

Touya pushed himself upright, immediately regretting it as his vision spotted black at the edges. The five steps to the wheelchair might as well have been a marathon.

His grandmother's hand appeared under his elbow before he could sway. "Slowly," she murmured, her grip deceptively strong for someone so slight.

The wheelchair creaked under his weight. Touya hated everything about it- he hated the way his knees stuck up awkwardly, hated the way Keigo's smile didn't quite reach his eyes as he took the handles.

"You're sure you won't come stay with us for a while?" His grandfather adjusted the oxygen tank attached to the chair, a temporary measure, they'd assured him.

Touya shook his head. "Fuyumi's been holding down the fort for two weeks. And Shouto-"

"-needs his routine," his grandmother finished with a sigh. She crouched in front of the wheelchair, her sharp eyes level with his. "Monday and Thursday calls. No excuses."

Something tight in Touya's chest loosened. "Yeah. Okay."

Keigo squeezed his shoulder. "Let's get you home."

---

The smell of dashi broth and sesame oil hit Touya the moment the elevator doors opened on their floor. His stomach growled despite the ever-present nausea, a small victory.

Fuyumi had decorated.

Paper cranes hung from the ceiling in a makeshift mobile, their shadows dancing across the walls. The kotatsu was set with five place settings instead of their usual four, and a new, plush-looking armchair sat near the window.

The walk from the taxi to the apartment, twenty steps, then an elevator, then twelve more steps, left Touya sweating and lightheaded. By the time he collapsed onto the new chair, his vision was spotted with black, his lungs burning as if he'd run a marathon rather than crossed a threshold.

Keigo's hands were steady as they guided him into a reclining position, propping his feet up as the chair pushed back and the footrest went up. "Breathe, hot stuff. In through the nose, remember?"

Touya wanted to snap at him, but the words dissolved into a coughing fit that left his eyes watering.

Shouto appeared from the kitchen, his socks sliding on the hardwood as he skidded to a stop. 

"Hey, Sho. Miss me?"

Shouto made a noise deep in his throat, not quite a word, but close. He held up a card: [HUNGRY]

Fuyumi emerged from the kitchen, her apron dusted with flour. "Cold soba, just how you like it." Her smile wavered slightly as she took in the oxygen tank. "And before you ask, yes, I made the broth low-sodium."

Keigo laughed. "She's been researching diets all week."

The soba was perfect; chewy noodles, perfectly balanced dipping sauce, the subtle bite of wasabi just enough to clear his sinuses. Touya ate slowly, savoring each bite as Shouto pressed against his side, Keigo held his thigh under the table, and Natsuo and Fuyumi smiled at him from across.  

“Where did that new chair come from?” Touya asked suddenly. Keigo smiled. 

“My old apartment,” Keigo answered, casually. Fuyumi and Natsuo smiled, looking down. 

“Your old apartment?” Where did you move?” 

Keigo’s smile was blindingly bright. 

“Surprise, roomie!”

---

Inko Midoriya's help came without ceremony or schedule, a natural extension of Shouto's growing friendship with Izuku. Some afternoons she'd appear at their door with a still-warm container of ginger pork, pressing it into Touya's hands with a quiet, "We made extra." Other times, she'd linger after dropping Shouto off, her sharp nurse's eyes cataloging Touya's pallor or the new tremor in his hands before offering some practical advice.

Today she'd brought miso soup, the clear, gentle broth perfect for Touya's still-sensitive stomach. She set it on the counter next to the growing collection of pill bottles, her gaze briefly flickering to the new immunosuppressants before she turned to unpack the rest of her offerings.

"You didn't have to," Touya said, leaning against the doorway. 

Inko waved him off, her dark green hair swaying with the motion. "It's no trouble. Izuku and Shouto are perfectly happy watching that All Might documentary again."

Touya peeked into the living room where both boys sat cross-legged before the television. Izuku was vibrating with excitement even while seated, his hands flapping as he whispered commentary to Shouto, who leaned against him,  a shared blanket and a bowl of popcorn between them.

"Thank god," Touya muttered. “What would All Might do without his #1 fans streaming the same movie over and over?” 

Inko laughed, the sound warm and bright in their cramped kitchen.  "It's been nice having Shouto around to our apartment too. Gives Izuku someone to share his action figures with."

And that was the thing. There was no pity in her actions, no careful tiptoeing around his illness, just simple, practical help offered with the same matter-of-fact kindness she'd always shown. When she straightened from the fridge, her smile was easy and genuine. 

---

The morning of Shouto's thirteenth birthday dawned with an unexpected quiet.

Touya woke to sunlight filtering through the cheap blinds of their apartment, his body protesting as he shifted on the makeshift bed they'd set up in the living room. The medications left him groggy, his mouth cotton-dry, but the date on his phone, January 11th, had him pushing upright despite the ache in his ribs.

The apartment was already alive with hushed activity.

From the kitchen came the sizzle of something in a pan and Fuyumi's whispered instructions. The clatter of dishes. Keigo's low chuckle. And then, a sound, soft, but deliberate. A humming, questioning tone that rose at the end like a sentence.

Touya stilled.

He knew that sound. Knew the careful way Shouto shaped it in his throat when he was excited but couldn't find the right words. Pushing himself up, Touya grabbed his glasses.

The space had been transformed overnight. Colorful paper chains crisscrossed the ceiling, each link carefully painted with little flames and ice crystals. A banner reading "Happy 13th Birthday Shouto" in Fuyumi's neat handwriting hung above the kotatsu, flanked by two All Might balloons. And in the center of it all sat Shouto, already dressed in his favorite red sweater, methodically lining up crayons on the coffee table.

He looked up when Touya entered, his mismatched eyes bright behind his glasses. A soft, questioning noise escaped his throat, not quite a word, but the upward inflection was unmistakable.

"Morning, Sho," Touya rasped, dropping onto the couch beside him. His ribs protested the movement, but he ignored it in favor of ruffling Shouto's hair. "Excited for your party?"

Shouto responded by shoving a crayon into Touya's hand and pulling him towards a half-finished drawing of what might have been a cat or possibly Endeavor's mustache. Touya huffed a laugh but obediently started coloring in the edges.

The door burst open before he'd finished the first section.

"We're here!" Fuyumi announced, her arms laden with grocery bags. Behind her, Natsuo struggled with an enormous cake box, his university hoodie dusted with flour. "Don't look, Shouto! It's a surprise!"

Shouto, of course, immediately turned to look, his eyes widening at the sight of the cake box. A quiet, awed sound escaped him, something between a hum and a gasp.

Touya grinned. "Nice try, Yumi."

---

The Midoriyas arrived just as Fuyumi was arranging the last of the snacks, Inko with her ever-present container of food (this time, shrimp dumplings shaped like little stars), and Izuku vibrating with barely-contained excitement behind her.

"Happy birthday, Shouto!" Izuku practically shouted, thrusting a messily-wrapped present into Shouto's hands. His green curls bounced as he bounced on his toes. "Open it open it open it!"

Shouto blinked at the onslaught but obediently began picking at the tape, his movements slow and methodical. The wrapping paper fell away to reveal a limited-edition All Might figurine, the same one Izuku had been mooning over in stores for weeks.

Shouto's breath caught. He turned the figure over in his hands with something approaching reverence before looking up at Izuku, his eyes shining. A series of soft, pleased noises tumbled from his lips, not words, but the meaning was clear.

Izuku beamed like he'd been given a gift instead. "I knew you'd like it! And look!" He demonstrated how the arms moved, nearly knocking over a juice box in his enthusiasm.

The party continued in much the same way, Fuyumi and Inko chatting over tea, Natsuo and Keigo engaged in a dramatic retelling of some hero fight, Izuku's endless stream of commentary punctuated by Shouto's quiet hums and occasional flapping hands.

When it came time for cake, Shouto blew out the candles with a quiet, determined puff, his cheeks pink with happiness. He didn't speak, but when Fuyumi handed him the first slice, he carefully pushed it toward Touya, a silent offering.

Touya accepted the plate with a shaky hand, ignoring the way his vision blurred with unwelcome happy tears. "Thanks, Sho."

Shouto responded by leaning against his side, warm and solid and alive.

---

The prednisone made Touya's hands shake.

He stared at the spilled tea soaking into the kotatsu blanket, the ceramic cup still rolling in lazy circles where it had slipped from his grip. Across the table, Shouto glanced up from his crayon drawing, a surprisingly detailed rendition of the stray cat that sometimes sunned itself on their balcony, and made a soft, questioning noise in his throat.

"I'm fine," Touya muttered, swiping at the mess with a napkin. His fingers trembled against the fabric, the movement jerky and uncoordinated. The pamphlet from the hospital had warned about this, fine motor impairment listed neatly between mood swings and increased appetite, but knowing it was coming didn't make it any less infuriating.

Keigo appeared from the kitchen, a dish towel slung over his shoulder. He didn't comment on the spill, just crouched beside the table and began mopping up the tea with practiced efficiency. His wings brushed against Touya's arm as he worked, before he pressed a fresh cup into Touya's hands.

"Two-handed grip," he murmured, guiding Touya's fingers around the warm ceramic. Touya's throat tightened with embarrassment. 

"Thanks," he managed, lifting the cup carefully. The heat seeped into his palms, steadying the tremor just enough that he didn't embarrass himself again. He adjusted his glasses, which pressed uncomfortably against his grafts but at least stayed put. The headaches from squinting outweighed the discomfort now.

Keigo's mouth quirked. "You look like a sexy librarian."

"Fuck off."

The doorbell rang before Keigo could reply. A moment later, Fuyumi's voice floated down the hallway, followed by the familiar click of sensible heels.

Akane Mori, their social worker, appeared in the doorway, her ever-present clipboard tucked under one arm. She took one look at Touya, his sweater stretched a little tight across his midsection, the dark circles under his eyes, and smirked.

"Well," she said, popping a piece of gum between her teeth, "Can't say I didn't see this coming."

Touya rolled his eyes, but the corner of his mouth twitched. "Don't rub it in."

She held up her hands, the picture of innocence. "I'm not," she said, though her grin said otherwise. "Promise."

She set her bag down and pulled out a file, but not before giving him another once-over. The medications had done a number on him, his face was rounder than it had been a month ago, the prednisone puffing out his cheeks in a way that made him look oddly boyish. His hair, usually kept carefully styled to hide the worst of his scarring, hung limp and unwashed. But his skin- 

"Your grafts are looking better," she noted, nodding to where the high collar of his sweatshirt had slipped, revealing the mottled skin beneath.

Touya tugged the fabric back up self-consciously. "They itch less."

Akane hummed, already wandering through the apartment. She paused by the fridge, taking in the medication schedule taped to the door, color-coded and annotated in Fuyumi’s neat hand. The counter next to it held an array of pill bottles, a portable nebulizer, and a half-empty protein shake that Touya had given up on after two sips.

"Nice system," she said, tapping the schedule with one manicured nail.

Touya shrugged. "Yumi’s idea."

She moved on, poking her head into the bathroom. The medicine cabinet was crammed with new additions: a new brand of topical cream for his grafts, a special mouthwash for the thrush the immunosuppressants had given him, a frankly alarming number of antacids, and a new plastic chair in the shower.

"Fancy," she called over her shoulder.

Touya leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms. "You done casing the place?"

She ignored him, stepping into the living room. The kotatsu was covered in paperwork: Natsuo's Keio University acceptance letter, which came in the mail a week after the email, Shouto's latest art project, and Touya's own work files. Akane picked up one of the files, flipping through it. "Still working?"

"From home mostly," Touya said. "I go back next week."

She nodded, setting it down. "How's Shouto handling everything?"

Touya's gaze flickered to the drawing on the table. "Better than me, honestly."

Akane laughed, but it was softer than usual. She perched on the arm of the couch, her clipboard balanced on her knee. "Look, I'm going to approve you again. But I need to hear you say it. How are you really feeling?"

Touya exhaled, running a hand through his hair. "Like shit," he admitted. "The meds make me feel like I've been hit by a truck, and the new suppressants..." He trailed off, flexing his fingers again.

Akane's expression softened. "But?"

"But," he said, glancing toward the kitchen where Keigo was pretending not to eavesdrop, "I've got help. More than I thought I would."

She smiled, scribbling something on her clipboard. "Good. That's what I needed to hear."

Touya raised an eyebrow. "That's it? No twenty-page questionnaire? No under-the-bed-inspection?"

Akane rolled her eyes. "Please. Like I'd waste my time on paperwork when I could be eating your sister’s cooking." She stood, stretching. "You're gonna be fine, Touya. Don't worry."

---

The clinic smelled the same as always: like antiseptic and the faint citrus of cleaning products. Touya adjusted his glasses as he stepped into his office, his ribs protesting the effort of carrying his briefcase. The new medication regimen left him winded after even small exertions, but he'd refused Keigo's offer to walk him in.

Some things I need to do alone, he'd said, pressing a kiss to the hero's cheek before slipping out the door.

His first client was already waiting.

The sensory room was quiet when Touya entered, or as quiet as it ever was with Ren Shirogane. The faint hum of the air vents, the buzz of the fluorescent lights, the distant vibration of footsteps in the hallway, all of it combined into a low thrum that set Touya's teeth on edge. For Ren, it was deafening.

The eighteen-year-old sat cross-legged on the floor mat, his lanky frame curled inward as if trying to make himself smaller. His mother, Mrs. Shirogane, perched on a chair in the corner, her hands folded tightly in her lap. She offered Touya a tight smile when he entered.

"Himura-san," she said, relief coloring her voice. "He's been asking for you."

Ren didn't look up, but his fingers twitched against his knees, a deliberate pattern, one Touya recognized after three years of working together. 

Hello. Missed you. Hurts.

Touya lowered himself carefully to the floor, ignoring the way his joints protested. The new medications left him stiff in the mornings, but he'd be damned if he let that show in front of a client.

Ren's AAC device lit up immediately:

"You. Look. Different."

"Ren!" Mrs. Shirogane hissed, mortified.

Touya chuckled, adjusting his glasses. "It's okay. He's right." He tapped his chest. "New medicines are making me look a little different, right? And the glasses are new too."

Ren studied him for a long moment before typing again:

"Sick?"

"Yeah," Touya admitted. "But I'm getting better."

Mrs. Shirogane's expression softened. "We're so glad you're back. Ren hasn't been sleeping well since…"

A sudden spike in the room's vibrations cut her off. The water bottle on the floor between them trembled, its contents rippling. Ren's fingers dug into his thighs, his breath coming faster.

Touya recognized the signs immediately. "Hey, it's okay," he said, keeping his voice low and steady. He reached slowly for the instrument box. "Let's start with something easy, yeah?"

The tuning fork came first, its hum making Ren's shoulders relax almost instantly. Then the electric toothbrush taped to a wooden plank (Ren's favorite), its predictable buzz drawing a small smile from the teen. Finally, the mini subwoofer, with bass tones Ren could feel through the mats.

For twenty minutes, they worked through his exercises: matching vibrations, modulating intensities, the familiar rhythm of their sessions returning like muscle memory. Ren's AAC device chimed occasionally with simple phrases. 

"Too loud."

"Again."

"Good."

It wasn't until they reached Quiet Feet, Ren's least favorite exercise, that things unraveled.

"You can do this," Touya encouraged as Ren squeezed his eyes shut, his entire body trembling with the effort of suppressing his quirk. The vibration sensors around the room flickered between yellow and green, never quite reaching the stable blue of full control.

Thirty seconds in, Ren's foot tapped involuntarily against the mat. The sensors flashed red.

"I know it's hard," Touya said, rubbing his own aching wrists. "But it's important!” 

Ren exhaled sharply but nodded. They tried three more times, 45 seconds, then 28, then a triumphant 52 seconds, before Touya called it.

"Good work," he said, and meant it. Progress was progress, no matter how small.

Ren's response was to suddenly lean forward, pressing his forehead against Touya's shoulder. The gesture was so unexpected that Touya froze for a second before carefully resting a hand on the teen's back. He could feel the vibrations thrumming through Ren's body—not uncontrolled, but purposeful. A language without words.

Mrs. Shirogane made a soft noise. "He missed you," she murmured.

Touya's throat tightened. "I missed him too."

When the session ended and the Shiroganes left, Ren waving awkwardly at the door, his mother pressing a container of homemade onigiri into Touya's hands, Touya slumped against the wall, exhausted.

And he still had two more clients to get through.

---

It happened on an ordinary Tuesday evening.

Fuyumi was stirring a pot of curry at the stove, her sleeves rolled up to her elbows. Natsuo sprawled across the couch, flipping through a university prep book with one hand while stealing slices of carrot from the cutting board with the other. Keigo perched on the countertop, despite multiple warnings about it being unsanitary, narrating his day's patrol between bites of an apple.

Touya sat at the kitchen table, sorting through Shouto's school papers. The tremors in his hands made the task slower than usual, but he'd learned to work around them. Shouto himself knelt beside him, carefully organizing crayons by color, reds and oranges in one pile, blues and purples in another.

"Shouto," Fuyumi called over her shoulder, "do you want mushrooms in your curry?"

It was a routine question, asked a hundred times before. Usually, Shouto would just nod or shake his head, sometimes pointing to his communication card for "no."

This time, he paused mid-sort. His brow furrowed in concentration, lips moving silently as if testing the shape of words before speaking.

"M-mush...rooms...n-no," he said, each syllable deliberate and slow, the 'r' sounds softening into near 'w's. 

The silence that followed was absolute.

Fuyumi's wooden spoon slipped from her fingers, clattering against the pot. Natsuo's study notes slid off his lap, scattering across the floor. Even Keigo's ever-present chewing stopped mid-crunch.

Shouto, completely oblivious to the reaction he'd caused, carefully placed his crayon in the correct pile and reached for a blue one. The casualness of the movement, as if he hadn't just shattered their expectations with three clumsy syllables, was almost funny.

Touya's hands shook worse than usual as he set down his glass. He opened his mouth, closed it, then settled for reaching out to brush Shouto's sleeve. The fabric was soft under his fingertips, worn from countless washes.

Keigo recovered first. "More for me," he declared loudly, crunching his apple with exaggerated enthusiasm. His wings puffed up behind him like an excited bird's. "Extra mushrooms in mine, Fuyumi!"

Natsuo scooped up his papers with uncharacteristic clumsiness. "Y-yeah, we can pick them out for you, Sho. No big deal." His voice cracked on the last word.

Fuyumi turned back to the stove so quickly her braid whipped through the air. The rhythmic clinking of her spoon against the pot had a suspiciously uneven tempo. When she reached up to adjust her glasses again, the afternoon light caught the wet tracks on her cheeks.

Touya met Shouto's curious gaze and offered what he hoped was a normal smile. "Good to know," he managed, his throat tight.

Shouto studied him for a moment with those mismatched eyes - one clear and bright, the other obscured behind thick corrective lenses. Then, with a small shrug, he returned to his coloring, leaving the adults to their quiet revelry.

The moment passed. Natsuo resumed his studying with renewed vigor. Keigo launched into an animated story about a villain who'd gotten tangled in laundry lines. Fuyumi stirred the curry with military precision, her shoulders shaking just slightly.

---

The apartment buzzed with pre-date chaos as Fuyumi emerged from her bedroom, nervously adjusting the hem of her lavender wrap dress. The color brought out the faint red streaks in her otherwise white hair, and her glasses, usually smudged with chalk dust, were polished to a shine.

"Okay, final opinion," she said, doing a small turn in the living room. "Too much?"

Touya looked up from where he was helping Shouto organize his All Might action figures on the kotatsu. "For coffee? Yeah. You look like you're going to a wedding."

Natsuo, sprawled across the couch with a university prep book, nodded in agreement. "Way too formal. He's just some guy."

Inko Midoriya, who had stopped by to drop off Izuku for a playdate, clucked her tongue. "Don't listen to them, Fuyumi. You look lovely."

Keigo swooped in from the kitchen, a piece of toast dangling from his mouth. "They're going to a movie after," he said around the bread, brushing crumbs from his feathers. "That's date-worthy dressing."

"A movie?" Touya scoffed. "That's a shitty first date. You can't even talk to each other."

Natsuo pointed at him. "Exactly! What's the point?"

Inko shook her head, smiling. "It's sweet. Like high schoolers."

Keigo nodded enthusiastically. "Super sweet. Very nostalgic."

Fuyumi's cheeks flushed pink. "I'm twenty-three! It's not sweet, it's mature!" She adjusted her glasses with unnecessary force. "We're seeing that new historical drama about the Meiji era. Haruki knows I like-"

"Sweet," Touya, Natsuo, Keigo, and Inko chorused together.

Fuyumi groaned just as the doorbell rang.

In the corner, Izuku and Shouto sat surrounded by action figures. Izuku was in the middle of an elaborate play-by-play of an imaginary hero battle, his words tumbling out almost too fast to follow.

"And then All Might goes WHOOSH!" Izuku demonstrated with a figure, making explosion sounds with his mouth. "And the villain, Shouto, you do the villain-"

Shouto made a low grumbling noise, moving the Endeavor figure with deliberate slowness.

"Perfect!" Izuku cheered. "Now say your evil line!"

Shouto opened his mouth, closed it, then made a raspy "hrrrrrn" sound that might have been an attempt at villainous laughter. Izuku nodded approvingly.

Fuyumi took a deep breath as the doorbell rang again. "Okay. Okay okay okay."

Keigo swooped to open the door before she could move, revealing Haruki Okada standing on their doorstep. The fifth-grade teacher was dressed neatly in a light blue button-down and dark slacks, his hair slightly damp from what was clearly a recent shower. In one hand he held a small bouquet of white daisies with red centers, matching Fuyumi's hair perfectly.

"You look beautiful," he said, his ears turning pink as he offered the flowers.

Fuyumi's nervous energy seemed to melt away. She accepted the bouquet with a smile that made her look years younger. "Thank you. You didn't have to…"

"Of course I did," Haruki said, then seemed to realize they had an audience. His gaze flickered to the crowded living room, to Touya's raised eyebrows, Natsuo's smirk, Keigo's obvious delight, and Inko's encouraging smile. Behind them, Izuku waved enthusiastically while Shouto watched with quiet curiosity.

Haruki swallowed visibly. "Uh. Hi everyone."

"Don't keep her out too late," Touya said mildly, though there was no real threat in it.

Natsuo added, "And no funny business."

Keigo opened his mouth, but Fuyumi cut him off with a glare. "We're leaving now." She grabbed Haruki's arm and steered him toward the door before any more embarrassing comments could be made.

As the door closed behind them, the apartment erupted into chatter.

"They're adorable," Inko sighed.

"He's so nervous! Did you see his hands shaking?" Keigo laughed.

Touya shook his head, but there was a fondness in his expression as he turned back to Shouto's toys. "Sweet."

Natsuo stretched, cracking his back. "Well, there was our excitement for the night. Who wants takeout?"

As the others debated dinner options, Touya glanced at the closed door, then at Shouto's quiet smile as he listened to Izuku's rambling. For a moment, the ever-present ache in his lungs didn't seem so overwhelming.

Chapter 23: Connections

The art room smelled different today.

Shouto paused in the doorway, his fingers tightening slightly around the strap of his bag. The usual scent of dried-out markers and construction paper had been replaced by something earthier: wet clay, fresh pencil shavings, and a sharp citrus tang that made his nose twitch. His aide gave his shoulder a gentle nudge forward.

"New teacher today," she murmured, guiding him toward his usual seat near the window.

The classroom hummed with quiet activity. Paper lanterns, leftover from last term's festival, cast soft patterns of light across the tables. Some of Shouto's classmates were already seated, their hands fluttering excitedly as they examined the unfamiliar materials laid out before them. At the front of the room, a man with paint-splattered jeans and a messy bun crouched beside Hana-chan's wheelchair, helping her adjust her tray table.

"Ah! Another artist!" The man, the teacher, straightened as Shouto approached. His smile crinkled the corners of his eyes. "I'm Mr. Aoki. You must be Shouto."

Shouto blinked. The teacher knew his name already.

As the rest of the class settled in, some students rocking in their seats, others already reaching for familiar crayons, Mr. Aoki clapped his hands once, the sound crisp but not startling.

"Today," he said, "we're going to try something new."

He moved between the tables, placing a square of thick, bumpy paper in front of each student. Shouto ran his fingers over his sheet immediately. The texture was rough, like tree bark, but in a pleasant way.

"Texture paper," Mr. Aoki explained. He demonstrated by pressing a charcoal pencil against his own sheet. "Feel how the ridges catch?"

Shouto mimicked the motion, watching as the charcoal left a dark, uneven line. The sensation traveled up his arm, the slight resistance, the gritty feedback. He made a soft humming noise without realizing it.

At the next table, Hana was already scribbling wild circles, her paper tearing slightly from the pressure. Two seats over, Akari was methodically tapping his like a drumstick, sending tiny vibrations through the floor. Mr. Aoki didn't scold either of them, just nodded approvingly as he passed out pastels.

Shouto pressed the new crayon down gently, watching as the faintest red line appeared.

"Try a shape," Aoki-sensei suggested, appearing at his elbow. He demonstrated in the air. "Circles are nice. No corners to worry about."

Shouto's first attempt snapped the pastel. He stared at the broken pieces, waiting for the usual sigh of disappointment.

But Aoki-sensei just chuckled. "Strong grip! That's good- means you're engaged." He produced another one, and passed it to Shouto. "Try pretending you're petting a very sleepy cat."

The analogy made no sense, but the lighter pressure worked. Shouto's next line wavered, but it stayed. And the next. And the next, until something vaguely circular took shape. He switched to charcoal. 

Aoki-sensei moved through the room, praising each student's unique approach. "Excellent color choice, Hana! Koji, I love how energetic your marks are!" When he reached Shouto's table, he crouched to eye level. "Your circle has character," he said seriously. "Very interesting."

Shouto tilted his head, studying his lopsided shape. He touched the edge where red pastel had bled into black charcoal. The colors mixed in a way that reminded him of sunsets viewed through his damaged left eye: hazy but still interesting to look at.

A soft sound escaped him, a pleased hum deep in his throat.

Aoki-sensei grinned. "Exactly."

By the end of class, Shouto's hands were stained with pigment, his paper a riot of overlapping marks. As his aide helped him gather his things, Aoki-sensei pressed a fresh stick of charcoal into his palm.

"Practice at home, so that next week, we'll see what you can really do!" 

---

The community center’s fluorescent lights buzzed overhead as Touya adjusted his glasses, scanning the familiar space. The room smelled faintly of disinfectant and the citrus-scented cleaner they used on the mats. He hadn’t been here since before the hospital… so since December, then.

Keigo nudged his shoulder. "You good?"

Touya nodded, though his hands were trembling worse than usual today, a side effect of the new medication dosage. He’d thrown on an old hoodie and sweatpants, his hair hastily brushed back. 

Shouto had already slipped away, beelining for the corner where Hitoshi and Katsuki were engaged in what appeared to be an intense, silent argument, Katsuki signing furiously while Hitoshi countered with sharp, precise gestures. Shouto plopped down between them, oblivious to the tension, and immediately flopped onto his back, pressing his cheek against the cool mat.

"Classic," Keigo muttered, grinning.

Touya exhaled, relieved Shouto had settled so easily, and turned to find Mitsuki waving them over. Aizawa and Yamada stood nearby, and smiled in their direction. 

Keigo stiffened beside him.

"Uh," he said, very quietly. "Present Mic and… Eraserhead?"

Touya blinked. "Who’s Eraserhead?"

Keigo rolled his eyes. “Underground hero Eraserhead? You don’t know who that is? You’ve been hanging out every week with a cool underground hero and Present Mic and you didn’t tell me?!?” 

Aizawa’s eyes narrowed. 

Keigo, the absolute traitor, waved cheerfully. "Hey!” 

"Hawks," Aizawa hissed, looking like he wanted to strangle him.

Keigo winced. "Not in uniform! Just Keigo today. Touya’s my boyfriend." He slung an arm around Touya’s shoulders, as if that explained everything.

Touya, still processing, turned to Aizawa. "You’re an underground hero?"

Aizawa glared at Keigo like he was contemplating murder. "The point is that people don’t know who I am…"

Yamada elbowed him. "What he means is, now you’re in on the secret! So keep it, or we’ll have to kill you."

“That’s gotta be a joke, right?” Touya laughed nervously. 

“It’s not,” Aizawa grumbled, still glaring at Keigo. 

“Shouta!” Yamada laughed. “You know I’m only kidding!” 

Mitsuki cackled, dragging Keigo into a conversation about modeling for her latest line, while Masaru offered Touya a sympathetic smile. The next few minutes were a blur of pleasantries, how was New Year’s, how was recovery, how was Shouto adjusting, until Yamada asked, gently, if there had been any progress with Shouto’s communication.

Touya hesitated. "He’s said a few words. Not often. Not clearly. But… yeah. Sometimes."

The reaction was immediate. Mitsuki whooped, clapping him on the back hard enough to make him cough. Masaru beamed. Yamada’s smile was bright, but his eyes flickered to Hitoshi, still signing with Katsuki, and something in his expression wavered. Aizawa’s jaw tightened.

It wasn’t hard to miss the bittersweet edge to their celebration.

Later, while Mitsuki still had Keigo cornered, Touya found Aizawa and Yamada by the snack table.

He took a breath. "I know you don’t want to talk about Hitoshi’s quirk," he said, keeping his voice low. "But if you ever change your mind, remember, I’m a quirk counselor. I could work with him. Unofficially. No pressure."

Aizawa’s shoulders tensed. Yamada sighed, running a hand over his hair, smoothing down the flyaways.

"Thanks," Yamada said quietly. "We’ve tried before. He shuts down whenever we push. The damage was done before we got him, and…" He glanced at Hitoshi, who was now ignoring Katsuki in favor of poking Shouto’s shoulder, as if testing whether he’d react. "He’s not ready."

Touya nodded. "I get it. But the offer stands. This group," He gestured to the room, and Shouto sprawled on the floor like a contented cat. "It’s helped Shouto so much. If I can pay that back to you, even a little..."

Aizawa studied him for a long moment, then gave a single, curt nod. Not agreement, but acknowledgment.

On the way out, Shouto trailing sleepily behind them, Keigo bumped Touya’s shoulder. "Babe. Pretty sure your doctor said to cut back on work, not add unpaid clients to your roster."

Touya shrugged. "I know. But I can help him. I know I can."

Keigo raised an eyebrow. "Isn’t the whole point of this group to not pressure kids to talk?"

"Yeah," Touya admitted. "But I had to offer. Just once."

Keigo sighed, fond. "You’re too sweet."

"I’m not sweet…"

From behind them, Shouto made a noise, a garbled, but unmistakable: "Sweet."

Touya groaned. "Betrayed by my own family."

Shouto wedged his way between the two, pulling them in close with his deceptively strong, yet wiry arms. 

“Okay, okay!” Touya hugged Shouto back, kissing him on the side of his head. Keigo’s wing dragged them both in close, and Shouto’s laugh echoed down the hall. 

---

The morning of Natsuo's graduation dawned unseasonably warm for March, the cherry blossoms already beginning to peek through their buds. Touya stood in front of the bathroom mirror, adjusting his tie with unsteady hands. The tremors had gotten better since his medication adjustment a week ago, but today, his fingers refused to cooperate.

Keigo appeared behind him, wings rustling as he reached around to fix the knot. "Nervous?"

Touya scowled. "It's not me graduating."

"Exactly," Keigo said, smoothing the fabric. "Which means you have no excuse for looking like you tied this with your feet."

In the living room, Fuyumi was helping Shouto into a stiff-collared shirt, black, to match the rest of the family's formal wear. He'd shot up nearly three inches in the past three months, his limbs all awkward angles and sharp elbows. He stood patiently as Fuyumi fussed with his tie, though his fingers twitched at his sides, restless.

"You look handsome," Fuyumi said, stepping back to admire her work. 

Shouto blinked at her, then down at himself. He made a small, noncommittal noise, not quite a word, but the meaning was clear: This is uncomfortable.

Touya snorted. "I don’t like dressing up either. We’ll survive."

The ceremony was held at Natsuo's school, the courtyard lined with blooming sakura trees. Families clustered in neat rows, mothers dabbing at their eyes with handkerchiefs, fathers adjusting video cameras. Touya guided Shouto to their assigned seats.

When the graduates filed in, it was easy to spot Natsuo, his white hair stood out among the sea of identical black uniforms. He walked with the same loose-limbed confidence he'd had since childhood, though his grin wavered when he caught sight of them in the crowd.

Fuyumi immediately burst into tears.

The principal's speech droned on about futures and responsibilities, but Touya barely heard it. His attention was split between Natsuo's proud smile and Shouto's quiet fidgeting, the way his brother's fingers tapped against his knees in a rhythmic pattern, his mismatched eyes scanning the crowd with quiet interest.

Then, as the diplomas were being handed out: 

"Nassu."

Shouto's voice was quiet but clear, the syllables only slightly slurred. He pointed toward the stage, where Natsuo was accepting his diploma with a bow.

"Yeah," he managed, squeezing Shouto's shoulder. "That's him.”

After the ceremony, they found Natsuo surrounded by friends, his graduation cap tilted precariously to one side. He broke away when he saw them, crushing Fuyumi in a hug that lifted her off her feet.

"Stop crying," he laughed, though his own eyes were suspiciously bright.

"I can't help it!" Fuyumi wailed, clutching at his sleeves. "My brother is all grown up!"

Natsuo rolled his eyes but didn't protest when she insisted on taking approximately a hundred photos. He even tolerated Keigo's enthusiastic noogie, though he retaliated by messing up the hero's carefully styled hair.

Shouto hovered at the edge of the celebration until Natsuo noticed and dragged him into a headlock. "What, no congratulations from my favorite baby brother?"

Shouto squirmed, his nose scrunching. Natsuo's expression softened. He released Shouto with a gentle ruffle of his hair.

As they walked to the restaurant for a celebratory meal, Touya fell into step beside Natsuo.

"You excited for college, Natsu?” 

“Of course.” Natsuo grinned, his diploma tube tucked under his arm. "I'll be the one giving you medical advice soon."

Touya shoved him, but there was no real force behind it. "Don't get cocky, kid."

Around them, cherry blossom petals drifted through the air like snow. Shouto walked ahead with Keigo, his steps steady and sure. Fuyumi chattered excitedly about all the things Natsuo would need for his dorm room.

There was so much to look forward to, and Touya was glad he was there to enjoy it.

---

The following Wednesday, Touya woke with a familiar tightness between his ribs: not pain yet, but the warning ache of a storm gathering at sea. He lay still for a long moment, cataloging the signals: the dry heat at the back of his throat, the way his grafts prickled like fresh sunburns, the low throb in his lungs that no amount of careful breathing could ease.

Not again.

He rolled onto his side, the movement sending a ripple of discomfort through his chest. The reduced suppressants left his body running warmer than usual, not feverish yet, but the heat pooled under his skin like banked coals, waiting.

Keigo stirred beside him, one wing twitching in sleep. Touya considered waking him, but what would be the point? There was nothing to do but wait it out. This up and down... would be the rest of his life. 

---

The clinic's staff lounge was too bright, the fluorescent lights drilling into Touya's skull like hot needles. He kept his sunglasses on indoors, not unusual for him these days, but enough to draw sidelong glances from his coworkers as he fumbled with the coffee machine. His hands shook worse than yesterday, the tremors sending a splash of scalding liquid over the rim of his mug.

"Shit," he muttered, wiping his sleeve across the counter.

A shadow fell across the spill. Dr. Ishikawa loomed beside him, her reptilian pupils narrowing as she took in his hunched posture, the sheen of sweat at his hairline despite the clinic's aggressive air conditioning. The scales along her jaw caught the light as she tilted her head.

"You look like death warmed over," she said bluntly.

Touya snorted, adjusting his sunglasses. "Flatterer."

Ishikawa didn't smile. At sixty-three, she'd mentored enough quirk counselors to spot when one was pushing too hard. "We can reschedule your afternoon clients if-"

"I'm fine." The words came out sharper than intended. Touya forced himself to take a slow breath, ignoring the way it scraped like sandpaper in his chest. 

She studied him for a long moment, her forked tongue flicking out in that unnerving way she had when considering something. The staff called it her "lizard lie detector."

"Your two o'clock canceled," she said finally, sliding a folder across the counter. "Take the extra hour to rest. And for god's sake, use the voice-to-text software if your hands are acting up. No one wants to decipher your handwriting."

Touya opened his mouth to argue, but a sudden wave of dizziness made him grip the counter instead. His grafts itched fiercely under his dress shirt, the scar tissue inflamed from the flare.

Ishikawa's clawed hand hovered near his elbow, not touching but ready. "Touya."

"I know," he gritted out. "I know."

The unspoken words hung between them: This is your life now. These flares will keep coming. You have to learn to pace yourself.

He straightened slowly, the room tilting before settling. "I'll take the hour," he conceded. "But I'm keeping my three o'clock."

Touya allowed himself one minute to lean against the counter and breathe through whatever he was feeling. Then he picked up his coffee and went back to work.

---

The smell of miso soup and fresh laundry should have been comforting. Instead, it made Touya's stomach turn as he burrowed deeper under the blankets, the thin morning light slicing through the gaps in his bedroom curtains like knives. His phone buzzed incessantly on the nightstand, Fuyumi's third text in an hour, no doubt some variation of Are you awake? Can I bring you anything?

He ignored it, pressing his forehead into the cool pillowcase. The reduced suppressants left his skin fever-hot, his grafts prickling like live wires under his shirt. Worse was the simmering irritation crawling up his throat, not quite anger, but a restless, prickly energy that made him want to snap at nothing. It wasn’t a relapse, it wasn’t doctor-worthy, but just a little flare, and something that, apparently, would happen over and over. For the rest of his life. 

Great. 

The door creaked open without warning.

"I'm fine," Touya growled before the intruder could speak.

"Liar," Keigo sing-songed, nudging the door wider with his hip. He balanced a tray in one hand: steaming tea, plain rice, and Touya's meticulously organized pill case. "Fuyumi's threatening to call Dr. Saito if you don't eat something. Natsuo's pacing holes in the living room carpet. And Shouto-"

A small, cold hand wormed its way under the blankets, pressing against Touya's overheated ankle.

"-has decided to be your personal ice pack."

Touya lifted the edge of the comforter to glare at Shouto, who blinked back at him with zero remorse, already dressed in his All Might hoodie and mismatched socks. The kid's right side radiated a blessed chill, his fingers curled around Touya's ankle.

Keigo set the tray on the nightstand and perched on the edge of the bed, his wings rustling. "Couch or bathroom first?"

"I'm not…"

"Option three is Fuyumi force-feeding you while crying," Keigo interrupted cheerfully. "Your call."

Touya exhaled sharply through his nose. The urge to lash out prickled under his skin, just leave me the hell alone, but the genuine worry in Keigo's eyes kept him grounded. He hated this, the way his body betrayed him, the way his family tiptoed around him like he might shatter.

"...Couch," he grumbled at last.

The living room should have been peaceful. Fuyumi had dimmed the lights and put on some old nature documentary, something about sea turtles with a narrator whose voice rolled like gentle waves. Natsuo sat at the far end of the couch, pretending to read a medical textbook while sneaking glances at Touya every few minutes. Shouto had wedged himself between the coffee table and Touya's legs, his back pressed against Touya's shins like a grounding weight.

It was quiet. It was considerate. It was unbearable.

Every breath felt like dragging broken glass through his lungs. The inflammation had spread overnight: his joints swollen and hot, his skin pulled tight over aching muscles. The reduced suppressants left his nerves frayed, his body thrumming with a restless energy that had nowhere to go. Even the soft fabric of his sweatpants chafed against his grafts, the scar tissue hypersensitive and burning.

Touya clenched his jaw against a wave of nausea, his fingers digging into the couch cushions. He just needed-

A blanket settled over his shoulders, startlingly light.

Keigo's hand brushed the nape of his neck, feather-light. "Bedroom?"

Touya opened his mouth to refuse, but the words died in his throat. The documentary's cheerful music grated against his skull. Shouto's slight movements sent fresh jolts of pain up his legs. Even the smell of Fuyumi's tea, usually comforting, made his stomach turn.

He nodded, just once.

Keigo didn't make a production of it. Just hooked an arm under Touya's shoulders and helped him up, his wings flaring slightly to block the others' view as Touya swayed on his feet. No one commented as they retreated down the hall, though Touya caught Fuyumi's worried frown, the way Natsuo's fingers tightened around his book.

The bedroom was blessedly dark, the blackout curtains drawn. Keigo guided him to the bed with practiced ease, his hands steady where they gripped Touya's waist.

"Here." Keigo pressed a cold compress to the back of Touya's neck, his other hand already working the tension from his shoulders. "Where's worst?"

Touya exhaled shakily. His pride screamed at him to shrug it off, to make some sarcastic comment and suffer in silence. But the pain was a living thing in his chest, sharp and relentless, and Keigo's hands were so damn warm…

"Everywhere," he admitted, the word barely audible.

Keigo stilled for half a second, just long enough for Touya to know how rarely he said things like that, before his touch turned impossibly gentler. His fingers traced the knobs of Touya's spine, careful of the inflamed grafts, his wings curving around them like a shield.

"You're burning up," he murmured, pressing his lips to Touya's temple.

Touya leaned into him, his forehead dropping to Keigo's shoulder. The movement pulled at his ribs, but the relief of not having to hold himself upright outweighed the pain.

Keigo didn't ask if he wanted water or medicine or to be left alone. He just shifted them both onto the mattress, his wings draping over Touya like a second blanket, and held him as the worst of the flare rolled through him in waves.

Outside, the apartment was quiet. The documentary's narrator droned on about migration patterns. Fuyumi's soft laughter drifted down the hall. 

Chapter 24: Waves

The art room smelled like wet clay and pencil shavings. Shouto sat at his usual table near the windows, fingers tracing the rough texture of the bisque-fired tile in front of him. Around the room, aides hovered by their students: some guiding hands, others just standing watch. His own  lingered near the supply cabinet, scrolling on her phone.

Mr. Aoki placed a small dish of cobalt slip in front of Shouto. "Try the brush today," he said, setting down a flat sable brush with a worn wooden handle.

Shouto stared at the tools. Last week he'd used his fingers. The week before, they'd pressed leaves into soft clay. Each lesson built on the last in a way that made sense, unlike the random scribbling his old teacher had encouraged.

He picked up the brush, gripping it awkwardly near the bristles. The slip dripped when he dipped it in, splattering blue across the tile.

"Try holding it like this." Mr. Aoki demonstrated without touching him, fingers positioned higher up the handle. "Lighter pressure."

Shouto adjusted his grip. The next stroke was smoother, a wobbly line that tapered at the end. He made another. Then another. The rhythm settled into his bones, the brush becoming an extension of his hand.

At the next table, Hana-chan's aide helped her smash her tile into pieces, laughing as they created "abstract art." Koji was methodically painting his entire arm blue while his exhausted aide sighed.

Mr. Aoki didn't scold or redirect them. He simply moved between students, offering the same patient attention to each. When he returned to Shouto, he studied the emerging pattern of overlapping blue lines.

"You're making waves," he observed.

Shouto hadn't realized it until that moment, but the teacher was right. The lines curved and crashed into each other like the ocean documentaries Fuyumi liked. He dipped his brush again, adding smaller crests.

Mr. Aoki smiled. "Want to try something?" He produced a popsicle stick. "Drag this through the wet slip. See what happens."

Shouto pressed the stick into the blue lines, pulling it slowly across the surface. The slip parted, revealing the pale clay beneath in crisp white lines. His breath caught.

He looked up at Mr. Aoki, who nodded like he understood exactly what Shouto couldn't say.

"Next week," the teacher said, "we'll fire this in the kiln. It'll last forever."

Shouto ran his fingers along the edge of the tile, feeling the ridges of his waves, feeling pleased. 

His aide glanced up from her phone, did a double-take at his focused expression, and went back to scrolling.

---

The city pulsed around Natsuo in time with his pounding footsteps. 3:17 AM according to the glowing convenience store sign he sprinted past, his breath coming in sharp bursts that fogged in the chilly spring air. He'd been running for forty-three minutes straight, his muscles burning in that good, clean way that almost drowned out the static in his brain.

Lab schedules. Dorm assignments. Textbook prices. The way Touya had winced when he thought no one was looking at dinner. Fuyumi's nervous habit of reorganizing the silverware drawer. Shouto's new words, so few but so hard-won. 

Natsuo skidded around a corner, his sneakers squeaking against damp pavement. The night air smelled like rain and exhaust, the occasional glow of a vending machine or late-night ramen stand punctuating the darkness. He should be exhausted, he hadn't slept more than four hours in days, but his body thrummed with restless energy, his thoughts moving faster than his feet.

He checked his phone without slowing down. Four new emails: orientation details, housing confirmations, a welcome message from the pre-med society. He'd read them all already. Twice.

A garbage truck rumbled past, the workers giving him odd looks as he sprinted by. Normal people didn't run full-tilt through downtown Tokyo at this hour. Normal people slept.

Natsuo grinned, pushing harder.

The route was memorized now: past the 24-hour gym where he'd already lifted weights at midnight, across the bridge where he'd counted thirty-seven steps last time (thirty-eight today, must be going faster), looping back toward the apartment complex where the lights were still off except for… 

He slowed.

Touya's window glowed faintly blue. Natsuo could just make out Keigo's silhouette moving behind the curtains, wings flared wide before disappearing from view. The tightness in Natsuo's chest returned all at once.

He checked his phone again. 3:42 AM.

Protein shake ingredients. Laundry detergent. First aid kit supplies. The way Mom used to hum while packing bentos. The exact angle Touya holds his wrists when they hurt. The sound Shouto makes when he's proud of himself.

Natsuo took off running again, faster this time, until his lungs burned and the thoughts blurred into white noise. The sunrise found him on the apartment steps, drenched in sweat and finally, blessedly empty-headed.

He'd sleep later. Maybe.

---

The agency van's air conditioning groaned as it struggled against the late summer heat. Touya slumped against the window, his forehead pressed to the cool glass as they merged onto the highway. "I'm going to throw up," he announced to no one in particular.

"Don't you dare," Keigo said from the driver's seat, one golden wing extending back to smack Touya's knee lightly. "We just had it detailed."

Fuyumi turned in the passenger seat, her clipboard already covered in color-coded sticky notes. "Natsu, did you remember to pack your-"

"Yes," Natsuo interrupted, bouncing his leg rapidly against the floorboards. "Yes to everything. I triple-checked."

In the backseat, Shouto quietly observed the passing scenery, his fingers tracing patterns on the fogged window from his cold side. His All Might backpack sat between him and Touya, stuffed with snacks Fuyumi had prepared for the trip.

The two-hour drive passed in a blur of highway signs and Touya's increasingly creative threats against Keigo's driving. When they finally pulled up to the dormitory, a squat brick building with peeling paint around the windows, Natsuo's bouncing leg stilled.

"Home sweet home," Keigo announced, killing the engine.

Touya practically fell out of the van, taking deep breaths of non-recirculated air. "Never again," he muttered. "I'm taking the train back."

Fuyumi was already consulting her clipboard. "Okay, Natsu's room is 307, elevator is…"

"Stairs," Natsuo said automatically, hefting a box. "I'll take the stairs."

As they unloaded, Touya leaned against the van, watching Keigo's detached wings carry boxes with eerie precision. "Showoff," he grumbled, but there was no real heat in it.

The dorm room was smaller than Natsuo's bedroom at home, but the single bed and private bathroom made up for it. Fuyumi immediately began measuring windows for curtains.

"Damn," Touya whistled, running a hand along the bare mattress. "When I had a scholarship, I had to share with-"

"Kenji, yeah, we know," Keigo interrupted cheerfully, nudging past them with three boxes stacked precariously in his arms. His wings darted out to catch a slipping textbook. "You liked Kenji though."

Touya scowled. "He had one leg, kept misplacing the other one, and screamed like a banshee at 3 AM. Forgive me for being traumatized."

Keigo paused, a box of kitchen supplies in hand. "He also called an ambulance when you were running a 106-degree fever, and always picked up your prescriptions for you."

There was a beat of silence. Touya looked away. "...I guess he wasn't the worst," he conceded quietly.

The unpacking progressed with military efficiency: Keigo's wings handled the heavy furniture while Fuyumi organized the closet with terrifying precision. Natsuo found himself hovering awkwardly, suddenly unsure what to do with his own belongings.

"Hey." Touya nudged him with an elbow. "You're gonna be fine. Better than fine… you'll be amazing."

Shouto, who had been quietly observing from the corner, approached Natsuo with something clutched in his hands. He held out a drawing, a shockingly detailed cartoon sketch of their family standing in front of the apartment building. The proportions were perfect, the shading delicate. Even Keigo's wings were rendered with surprising accuracy.

Natsuo's throat tightened as he took the drawing. "Thanks, Sho. I'll put it right here." He tapped the wall above his desk.

Too soon, the room was set up, the goodbyes said. Natsuo stood in the center of his new space, listening to his family's footsteps fade down the hallway. The silence settled around him, heavy and unfamiliar.

On the desk, his phone buzzed with a text from Fuyumi: "Don't forget to eat dinner!"

Natsuo sat on the edge of his bed, the mattress creaking under his weight. He looked around at the carefully arranged room: the textbooks lined up on the shelf, the photo of his siblings on the nightstand, Shouto's drawing waiting to be hung.

For the first time in weeks, his mind was quiet. He had no idea what to do next. 

---

The fluorescent lights of the conference room hummed softly as Ms. Tanaka arranged her materials with precise movements. Touya resisted the urge to fidget in the stiff plastic chair, his fingers tapping a quiet rhythm against his knee. Fuyumi sat perfectly still beside him, her notebook open to a fresh page, pen poised.

"As we plan for Shouto's final year with us," Ms. Tanaka began, adjusting her glasses, "I want to be very clear about both his progress and the areas where he'll need continued support."

She slid a progress report across the table. The numbers and charts blurred slightly before Touya's eyes as she explained:

"Academically, Shouto has mastered single-digit addition and subtraction with 85% accuracy when using physical counters. His sight word recognition has grown to include 72 common terms, and he can match simple phrases to corresponding pictures with near-perfect consistency."

Fuyumi nodded, jotting down notes. At home, they'd seen Shouto carefully tracing words in his workbook, his brow furrowed in concentration as he sounded out each syllable.

"His communication has shown remarkable development," Ms. Tanaka continued. "While he still primarily uses his communication cards, he's begun initiating short verbal phrases when motivated. Just last week, he told his aide 'go home now' when he was feeling overwhelmed."

A small smile tugged at Touya's lips. 

"However," Ms. Tanaka's tone shifted slightly, "higher-level academic concepts remain extremely challenging. Abstract thinking, complex problem-solving - these are areas where Shouto will likely always need significant support."

Touya's knee bounced faster under the table. He knew this was coming, had known since the first time he'd watched Shouto struggle through a simple worksheet at their kitchen table. That didn't make it easier to hear.

Ms. Tanaka folded her hands. "For high school, we strongly recommend the life skills vocational track. The focus would be on functional academics: reading safety signs, basic money management, workplace readiness skills."

She pulled out a brochure. "There are excellent programs at several area schools that specialize in preparing students like Shouto for supported employment opportunities."

"Supported employment?" Touya asked, his voice coming out sharper than intended.

Ms. Tanaka nodded. "Jobs with appropriate accommodations - stocking shelves with visual guides, basic cleaning tasks with structured routines, assembly line work with repetitive motions. Many of our graduates find fulfilling positions in grocery stores, laundromats, or packaging facilities."

Fuyumi's pen had stopped moving. Touya could see her fingers tightening around it.

"We'll of course continue working on communication and daily living skills this year," Ms. Tanaka added quickly. "But I want to be realistic about-"

A knock at the door interrupted her.

"Ah," Ms. Tanaka said, visibly relieved for the break in tension. "This must be Mr. Aoki."

The door opened to reveal a man who looked nothing like Touya expected. His wild dark hair was tied back in a messy bun, paint streaked across his forearms and the front of his t-shirt. He carried a portfolio under one arm.

"Sorry to interrupt," the man said with a slight bow. "I'm Aoki Haruto, Shouto's art teacher."

Ms. Tanaka made quick introductions. Mr. Aoki slid into the empty chair beside Fuyumi, setting the portfolio carefully on the table.

"I asked to join because Shouto has been doing remarkable work in my class," he said, his enthusiasm palpable. "His sense of color and composition is extraordinary."

Touya exchanged a glance with Fuyumi. 

Mr. Aoki continued, oblivious to the tension. "There's an All-City Junior High Art Exhibition next month. I'd like to enter one of Shouto's pieces."

The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on.

Fuyumi was the first to speak. "I don't think that's a good idea."

Mr. Aoki blinked. "Why not?"

Touya gestured to the progress reports still spread across the table. "After everything we just heard... You want to put him in a competition with typical kids?"

Ms. Tanaka shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Mr. Aoki looked between them, his expression turning thoughtful.

"I see," he said slowly. Then he stood, picking up his portfolio. "Before you decide, will you come see his work? The art room is just down the hall."

Touya wanted to refuse. Every instinct screamed to protect Shouto from potential disappointment. But Fuyumi was already standing, and Ms. Tanaka was murmuring something about it being a good idea.

With a sigh, Touya pushed back his chair.

---

The art room smelled of drying paint and clay, the afternoon sunlight streaming through high windows to illuminate floating dust motes. Mr. Aoki led them past tables crusted with years of creative endeavors, stopping before a large canvas displayed on an easel in the corner.

Touya's breath caught.

The painting was of their apartment building, but not as a camera might capture it. The structure stood slightly tilted, its angles exaggerated as if viewed through warped glass. The windows glowed with uneven light, some perfectly square, others stretched like taffy. In one distorted pane, a white-and-red smudge that could only be Shouto. 

"It's..." Fuyumi reached out but didn't touch, her fingers hovering over the textured paint. "It's our building."

Mr. Aoki nodded, carefully rotating the canvas to show where Shouto had layered the paint thickly with a palette knife. "He worked on this for three weeks. Started with pencil studies first."

He moved to a filing cabinet and pulled out a stack of sketches, early attempts at perspective, each one slightly more confident than the last. The most recent showed their apartment building's fire escape rendered in what seemed to be Shouto’s warped style, with every rusted bolt and flaking paint chip recorded.

Touya picked up one sketch, recognizing the exact angle: Shouto's view from his spot by the living room window. The lines wavered in places where his motor control failed him, but the composition was undeniably intentional.

Mr. Aoki tapped the painting's edge where the brickwork dissolved into abstract swirls. "What's remarkable is how he translates what he sees. He has some issues with his vision, right? He's not hiding that, he's making it part of the art."

Fuyumi made a soft noise, tracing the outline of her own warped window silhouette. "You want to enter this in the competition?"

"Yes. In the 'emerging artists' category." Mr. Aoki hesitated. "But I wouldn't suggest it if I didn't believe he had a chance of winning."

Touya traced the edge of the canvas where the paint thickened into peaks. The technique was unrefined but purposeful, each brushstroke deliberate in its imperfection.

"This isn't just recreation for him," Mr. Aoki said quietly. "It's communication."

Ms. Tanaka shifted uncomfortably near the door, her earlier assessments still hanging heavy in the air.

Mr. Aoki turned to face them fully. "I know what the expectations are for students like Shouto. But this?" He gestured to the painting. "This could change that."

Fuyumi's brow furrowed. "You really think he could place in the competition?"

"I do, but that's not the point. More importantly..." He hesitated. "Winning isn't the only way this could help him."

Touya crossed his arms. "How so?"

"Because this…" he tapped the painting's edge. "This shows what he can do great things, untrained. And if people see that, if galleries, art programs, potential employers see that, it opens doors no life skills curriculum ever could."

The room fell silent save for the faint ticking of the cooling kiln. Touya studied the painting anew: the way Shouto had rendered their apartment building not as it was, but as he experienced it. The distorted perspective wasn't a limitation; it was a style.

Fuyumi wiped at her eyes. "You should enter it."

Mr. Aoki smiled. "I'll need your signatures on the permission forms."

As Touya reached for the paperwork, he caught Ms. Tanaka's expression, something approaching guilt.

He couldn’t sign fast enough. 

---

The apartment smelled of cinnamon and steamed rice, the kotatsu’s warmth a soft contrast to the heaviness in the air. Inko set down her tea cup with a quiet clink, the sound too delicate for the weight of the conversation.

"... So that’s their recommendation?" Inko’s voice was low, controlled, but there was something brittle beneath it. His fingers traced the edge of Shouto’s latest progress report, the words life skills track circled in red.

Fuyumi nodded, her smile strained at the edges. "The teacher said his progress with communication is remarkable, but... they still think a supported environment is best long-term."

Keigo leaned back, wings rustling slightly. "They’re not wrong." The words were careful, diplomatic. "It’s just…"

"It’s just not what we hoped," Touya finished flatly. His jaw worked, but the anger wasn’t sharp, just a dull, aching thing, settled deep. He knew the statistics, the realities. He’d spent years studying them. But knowing didn’t make it easier to swallow when it was someone you loved.

Inko’s fingers tightened around her cup. "I’m sorry," she murmured.

Touya shook his head. "Don’t be." He exhaled, rubbing at his temple. "I know that’s probably what’s best for him… it’s just... he’s so bright. I know he understands more than they think he does."

"It's not all bad," Fuyumi said suddenly, forcing brightness into her voice as she tapped the art competition flyer. "At least there's this. The art teacher seemed really sincere about Shouto's talent."  

"Yeah." Touya didn’t sound convinced.

A quiet laugh drifted from the living room, Izuku’s voice, rapid and excited, followed by a soft hum of acknowledgment from Shouto. The two were sprawled on the floor, surrounded by All Might figurines, Izuku’s hands fluttering as he reenacted some hero battle while Shouto watched, rapt.

Keigo’s gaze flicked toward them, then back to Inko. "Speaking of schools," he said, deliberately lighter, "how’d your meeting go?"

Inko stiffened, then forced a smile. "Oh! It was... good. They… they want to mainstream Izuku to the Science and Technology High School’s advanced track."

Fuyumi gasped. "Inko, that’s amazing!"

"It is," Inko agreed, but her voice wavered. "But... it’s a huge change… from a familiar, controlled environment to a big public high school. Twenty-five students per class, at the very least. Lectures, group projects, noise… he’s never been good in a setting like that before. What if he…" She cut herself off, fingers twisting in her lap.

Touya studied her, the counselor in him slotting pieces together. "You’re worried about the sensory load."

Inko nodded, eyes darting back to Izuku. "He’s come so far, but... you know how he gets. If he’s overwhelmed, he shuts down. Or worse, he pushes himself until he crashes." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "What if they take one look at him and decide he doesn’t belong there after all?"

Silence settled over the table.

Keigo swirled his tea. "Kid’s tough. And smart as hell."

"He is," Inko admitted. "But being smart isn’t always enough."

Fuyumi reached across the table, squeezing her hand. "You don’t have to decide right now."

"I know." Inko sighed. "I just... I haven’t told him yet. I don’t even know how to bring it up."

Another burst of laughter from the living room; Izuku grinning, Shouto’s quiet smile just visible beneath the fringe of his hair.

Touya watched them, something unreadable in his expression. "They’ll figure it out," he said finally. "They always do."

Inko’s shoulders relaxed, just slightly. "Yeah."

The afternoon sun spilled gold across the table, the scent of cinnamon lingering. 

Chapter 25: Roots

Notes:

thanks to everyone commenting such lovely things (and calling me out on my typos!)
grateful for your continued support <3

Fuyumi’s phone buzzed in her pocket for the third time that evening. She didn’t need to look to know it was Haruki: Running late? or Still on for tonight? or something equally patient, equally warm. She bit her lip, fingers hovering over the screen before she tucked it away again.

 

The apartment was in its usual state of controlled chaos. Shouto sat at the kitchen table, methodically sorting through a pile of colored pencils, lining them up by shade. Touya was sprawled on the couch, one hand pressed to his temple as he scrolled through case files on his laptop, his medication bottles clustered on the coffee table beside a half-empty glass of water. Keigo’s wings, despite him having relegated some feathers to a basket in the corner, took up approximately seventy percent of the couch, stray feathers drifting every time he shifted.

Fuyumi adjusted the strap of her bag. "I’m heading out," she said, voice light.

Touya didn’t look up. "Date night?"

She flushed. "Just dinner."

Keigo smirked, flicking a feather toward her. "You’ve had ‘just dinner’ every Friday for two months."

Shouto made a soft noise, tapping a red pencil against the table before adding it to his carefully arranged row. Fuyumi hesitated, then crouched beside him. "You okay if I go?"

He blinked at her, slow and deliberate, then nodded.

She kissed the top of his head. "Love you."

Keigo stretched. "Tell Haruki we all said hello."

"I’m not doing that," Fuyumi muttered, but she was smiling as she slipped out the door.

Haruki was waiting at their usual corner table, two steaming bowls of ramen already set out. His face lit up when he saw her. "You made it."

"Sorry," she said, sliding into the seat across from him. "Lost track of time."

He nudged the bowl toward her. "I ordered your usual."

The warmth in her chest had nothing to do with the broth.

---

Touya sat at the kitchen table, Shouto’s homework folder spread out in front of him. The worksheet was simple: Match the coins to their amounts, but half the answers were wrong. Shouto had circled the 500-yen coin twice, his pencil strokes heavy with frustration.

Keigo leaned over his shoulder, silent for a long moment. "He was doing better with this last week."

Touya rubbed his temple. "Yeah. Some days it sticks. Some days it doesn’t."

Shouto wasn’t in the room. He’d shut himself in his bedroom an hour ago after slamming his fist against the table hard enough to rattle the pencils, his face twisted in a way Touya recognized, not anger, but something worse: frustration, the kind that came from knowing you were missing something everyone else seemed to grasp effortlessly.

"He knows this," Touya said, voice low. "He’s used 100-yen coins at the conbini a hundred times. But when it’s on paper…" He flicked the worksheet. "It’s like it just… slips."

Keigo stepped closer, his shadow stretching across the table. "He’ll get there."

Touya’s jaw tightened. He knew Keigo was right. Knew the progress was there, in millimeters, the way Shouto could now hum along to commercials, the rare, slurry nii-san that still punched the air from Touya’s lungs every time. But tonight, the grief sat heavy. The future he’d secretly hoped for, Shouto in a quiet apartment of his own, maybe a job, something normal, felt further away than ever.

"Will he?" This isn’t just slow progress, babe. This is plateauing.He’s not gonna wake up one day and just get it."

Keigo didn’t answer right away. He picked up one of Shouto’s abandoned colored pencils and rolled it between his fingers. "You’re thinking about the school meeting again."

A muscle jumped in Touya’s jaw.

Touya had been the realist. The one who didn’t flinch when doctors said permanent deficits, who scoffed at Fuyumi’s hopeful maybe he’ll catch up. But somewhere, in the stupid, secret corners of his heart…

"You’re scared."

"Not scared, just-" Touya dragged a hand down his face. "Fuyumi’s gonna want kids someday. Natsuo’s already halfway across the country. That leaves me."

"And me."

Touya stilled.

Keigo’s voice was steady. "Unless you’re planning to kick me out."

"Don’t be an idiot." Touya’s throat felt raw. "But this isn’t what you signed up for. Four years ago, you were dating a guy with a shitty childhood. Now you’re stuck with…" He gestured at the apartment, the medication bottles on the shelf, the weighted blanket folded neatly over the big chair.

Keigo’s wings flexed, a single red feather drifting to the floor. "You think I didn’t see this coming, when they came to live with you?" His voice was quiet. 

Touya stared at him.

“I know what it’s like to be abandoned,” Keigo shrugged, but his eyes were sharp. "My mom sold me for drug money. You think I’d walk away from someone who loves me because it’s not what I pictured?"

The words hung between them. Somewhere down the hall, Shouto’s door creaked open, the soft shuffle of socks on tatami, the muffled sound of the bathroom faucet. 

Touya’s chest ached. "You’re really okay with this? Forever?"

Keigo reached across the table, his fingers brushing Touya’s wrist, over the scars, the old burns. "I’m not going anywhere."

---

The community center’s multipurpose room was alive with the kind of communication that didn’t need spoken words. AAC devices chirped and clicked, hands flew through the air in rapid JSL, and a few kids vocalized: humming, squealing, or repeating sounds under their breath. Shouto, as usual, had his noise-canceling headphones on, but his eyes lit up when he spotted Hitoshi in their usual corner. He shuffled over without hesitation, plopping down next to the purple-haired boy and pulling out his own sketchbook. They didn’t greet each other. They never did.

“They’re like cats,” Fuyumi murmured, nudging Touya’s arm before heading toward the coffee table where Mitsuki and Masaru sat.

Mitsuki waved as Touya approached. “Himura! How’s it going?”

“Same as always,” Touya said, sliding into an empty chair. 

Masaru chuckled, nodding toward the kids. “Katsuki’s been waiting all week to harass Hitoshi again.”

As if on cue, Katsuki, loud even in silence, stomped over to Hitoshi and Shouto, his hands already flying in sharp, exaggerated signs. His mouth moved along with them, half-formed sounds slipping out.

Hitoshi signed back a single, deliberate [bullshit] before pointedly turning away.

Shouto watched them, pencil hovering over his paper, his brow furrowed in quiet fascination.

Mitsuki snorted. “Christ, those two are something.”

Touya was about to reply when movement caught his eye. Yamada Hizashi, in faded jeans and a Present Mic hoodie (the irony wasn’t lost on Touya), and Aizawa Shouta, looking like he’d rolled out of bed directly into his ratty sweatpants, coming up on his left with the shitty coffee they served every week. 

“Heeey, Himura! How’s the fire hazard?”

Touya rolled his eyes. “Still standing. Unlike your fashion sense.”

Aizawa grunted, his gaze already locked on the three boys. “They seem like they’re all in a good mood today.”

Mitsuki elbowed Touya. “See? Even Aizawa can tell. That’s his ‘proud dad’ face.”

Aizawa didn’t dignify that with a response.

The fluorescent lights hummed overhead as Fuyumi, Mitsuki, and Masaru drifted toward the bleachers, their laughter fading into the background noise of shuffling papers and tapping AAC devices. Touya found himself standing with Aizawa and Yamada near the supply closet, the three of them forming an awkward triangle of unspoken tension.

Yamada was the first to break the silence. His voice, usually so loud and bright, was softer now, careful, like he was afraid of cracking something. "We've been... thinking about what you offered, for Toshi, a few months ago." He glanced at Aizawa, who stood with his arms crossed, shoulders hunched.

“Why now?” 

Aizawa’s fingers tightened around the drawstrings of his sweatshirt, his knuckles whitening. “He wants to apply to UA.”

Touya blinked. “UA? Like… hero course UA?”

Yamada’s laugh was brittle. “Yup. But, you guessed it, the entrance exam for the hero course-”

“Requires quirk use,” Touya finished.

Aizawa sighed. "He’s been practicing. Or trying to." His gaze flicked back to where Hitoshi sat, now ignoring Katsuki’s dramatic signing in favor of sketching something in the margins of Shouto’s notebook. "Every time he tries to speak, to even think about using his quirk, he shuts down for days."

Yamada rubbed at his temple, his hearing aids catching the light. "Last week, he locked himself in his room for hours after whispering one word into the mirror. Just one. And he was alone! And then…" He cut himself off, swallowing hard. “Well, you know Toshi.” 

Touya knew what came next. The depressive spiral. The way Hitoshi would curl into himself, silent and distant, like he’d retreated somewhere no one could reach him.

Aizawa’s voice was low, rough. "We don’t know what happened to him. Not really. His file just says ‘quirk-related trauma’ and ‘selective mutism.’ But we know his quirk is registered as “brainwash”, and is voice-activated. We know from his original social worker that he hasn’t used it since... whatever happened. He's never used it around his social worker, the foster family he was with before us... never."

The air between them grew heavier as Yamada leaned in, his voice dropping to something raw and unsteady.

"That last therapist, she had a quirk." His fingers twitched like he wanted to sign but forced himself to keep speaking aloud for Touya's sake. "Vocal amplification. Could make someone's voice louder just by touching them. She thought…" His breath hitched. "She thought if she could just jumpstart his voice, even for a second, it would break whatever mental block he had."

Aizawa's hand found Yamada's wrist, a silent warning, but Yamada barreled on, the words spilling out like he'd been holding them in for years.

"She didn't even ask. Just grabbed his arm mid-session and… and activated it. Like she was jumpstarting a car." His voice cracked. "He didn't make a sound, but his throat moved, like he was trying to scream but nothing came out. And then he just…"

Yamada's hands came up, trembling, fingers splaying wide to mimic an explosion before going utterly limp. "Gone. For three days. We had to-"

"Hizashi," Aizawa cut in sharply, his grip tightening.

But Yamada couldn't stop. "-had to spoon-feed him because he wouldn't chew, just let everything drip out of his mouth. He wet himself twice before we realized he wasn't even registering the need to go. He'd just sit there, staring at nothing, and…"

"Hizashi, I think he gets it." Aizawa's voice was steel. 

Yamada shuddered, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes. "Sorry. Sorry, I just…"

"I know." Aizawa’s thumb brushed his elbow. 

Aizawa exhaled through his nose. "The point is, he wants to try now. For UA. But every time he even thinks about speaking, it's like..." He gestured vaguely at his own throat.

Yamada nodded, wiping roughly at his face. "We're not asking you to fix him. We're asking if you can… be there when he's ready. No pressure. No goddamn voice-stealing quirks." His attempt at humor fell flat.

Aizawa's gaze was piercing. "You've been through quirk trauma. You get it. And he already tolerates you."

Touya almost laughed at that. Tolerates. High praise from Hitoshi.

Yamada leaned forward, desperate. "Just… come over. Hang out. Maybe tell him about your own shit. If he ever brings up his quirk... listen. That's all."

A beat of silence.

Touya looked past them, to where Hitoshi was now flicking Katsuki's forehead as the other boy was in a handstand up against the wall, while Shouto watched and seemed to be highly entertained. 

"...Yeah," he said finally. "I'll come by."

Yamada's shoulders slumped in relief. Aizawa just nodded, once.

No grand promises, no miracles, just… a shot. 

---

(A series of texts, call logs, and voicemail transcripts between the Himura-Todoroki siblings. Timestamps approximate.)

May 14
11:23 PM
Missed Call: NATSUO → TOUYA

Voicemail Transcript:
“Hey, so I was thinking—what if I double-majored? Pre-med and biomedical engineering. I mean, the workload would be insane, but like, imagine the research opportunities. I could totally do it. I pulled three all-nighters this week and I’m fine. Better than fine, actually. Call me back.”

May 15
1:17 AM
NATSUO: touya. touya. i just read this paper on quirk-based cellular regeneration and its insane. like. INSANE. what if we could apply this to ur nerve damage?? i need to talk to the professor who wrote this. im emailing him right now.

May 15
7:42 AM
TOUYA: Natsuo, did you sleep at all?

NATSUO: slept enough. had to finish my chem lab report. also signed up for summer classes.

TOUYA: Summer classes?? You just started the semester.

NATSUO: yeah but if i take summer classes i can graduate a year early. think about it.

TOUYA: …Please drink water.

May 16
3:08 AM
Missed Call: NATSUO → FUYUMI

Voicemail Transcript:
“Fuyumi. Fuyumi. Okay, so I was going over the syllabus for my genetics class and… wait, no, that’s not the point. The point is, I think I can petition to take grad-level courses next semester. I already talked to my advisor. Well, I just emailed her. But she’ll see it in the morning. Anyway, call me. I need to tell you about this internship I found.”

May 17
8:15 AM
Text Message:
TOUYA: Natsu, are you okay? You called me four times last night.

NATSUO: yeah sorry but did you listen to the voicemails??

TOUYA: No.

NATSUO: okay well the third one was the important one. i figured out how to rearrange my schedule so i can TA for the anatomy lab. it’s unpaid but the experience is worth it. also i joined the pre-med society. and the debate club.

TOUYA: …When do you sleep?

NATSUO: sleep is for the weak.

TOUYA: Sleep is for people who don’t want to crash their car into a tree.

NATSUO: dramatic. plus i dont even know how to drive so… 💕

May 18
9:30 PM
FUYUMI: Natsu, you missed Dad’s sentencing update call.

NATSUO: oh shit. sorry. was in the library.

FUYUMI: For eight hours?

NATSUO: time flies when you’re annotating six research papers at once.

FUYUMI: …Are you drinking too much celcius again?

NATSUO: no.

FUYUMI: Natsu.

NATSUO: it’s FINE! i’m FINE.

May 19
2:41 AM
NATSUO: guys. guys. i just had the BEST idea. what if i applied for that accelerated med program in the states?? the one that’s 6 years instead of 8?? i could totally do it. i could TOTALLY do it.

May 19
7:02 AM
Text Message:
TOUYA: Stop texting in the middle of the night please. Keigo wakes up every time and when he’s cranky its MY problem. 

NATSUO: oops sorry!

May 20
11:57 PM
Missed Call: NATSUO → FUYUMI

Voicemail Transcript:
“Okay, so I know you’re gonna say it’s too much, but hear me out. What if I came home this weekend? Just for a day. I need to talk to you about something. Not over the phone. It’s about Shouto. And… and Dad. I’ve been thinking. A lot. Like, too much. But I think… I think I figured something out. Call me back. Or don’t. I’ll just show up. Yeah. I’ll just-” (call ends abruptly)

May 21
7:15 AM
FUYUMI: Natsu, what was that voicemail about? Are you okay?

NATSUO: never better. just had a breakthrough.

FUYUMI: …What kind of breakthrough?

NATSUO: the life-changing kind.

FUYUMI: That’s not an answer.

NATSUO: it’s the only one you’re getting right now.

May 22
1:03 AM
NATSUO: why does no one ANSWER their PHONE

May 22
1:05 AM
Missed Call: NATSUO → FUYUMI

May 22
1:07 AM
Missed Call: NATSUO → TOUYA

May 22
1:12 AM:
NATSUO: fine. i’ll try to call later. love u guys

Chapter 26: Cross the Threshold

The clinic’s break room smelled like stale coffee and antiseptic. Touya slumped into the chair by the phone, pressing the receiver to his ear with his shoulder as he fumbled for his inhaler in his bag. His lungs burned, not the sharp, familiar pain of a flare-up, but the dull, persistent ache that had settled into his bones over the last few months. The new normal.

The line clicked.

“Touya?” His grandmother’s voice crackled through the receiver.

He took a shallow breath, forcing lightness into his voice. “Hey, Obaachan. Yeah, it’s me.”

“Are you feeling alright? You sound funny.” 

A pause. He could practically hear her frown.

“You should come visit soon. Bring the kids. The mountain air will be good for you.”

Touya exhaled, watching the afternoon light slant through the blinds. Shouto would love the forests. The open space. No crowds, no noise. But… 

“Maybe when Natsuo’s home for break,” he said. “He’s… busy at school right now.”

Busy was an understatement. The string of midnight texts hadn’t slowed down.

His grandfather’s voice rumbled in the background before cutting in. “Tell that boy to sleep- he called us the other day, and we didn’t pick up because… well, we couldn’t imagine it was anyone we knew calling at two in the morning. But tell him we’ll send more of that… whatever it’s called, for his throat, if you speak to him before we do.”

“Thank you.”

“And, Touya, when was the last time you saw a doctor?”

“I am a doctor.”

“Not yet,” his grandfather corrected dryly. “Finish your doctorate, and we’ll talk then.” 

Touya huffed a laugh, then winced as it tugged at his ribs. “I’ll call next week, okay? Love you.”

He hung up before they could ask more questions.

---

The walk from the train station to the Aizawa-Yamada house was short, but by the time Touya reached the doorstep, his breath came in thin, whistling pulls. He leaned against the porch railing for a moment, pressing a hand to his chest. Just a bad day. Just a bad day.

The door swung open before he could knock.

Aizawa stood there, already in full hero gear, capture weapon draped around his shoulders, goggles pushed up into his messy hair. Touya blinked. He’d never seen him like this. Eraserhead.

Aizawa’s eyes flicked over him. “You good?”

“Peachy.” Touya straightened, ignoring the way the world tilted slightly. “Didn’t know you were on duty.”

“Patrol starts in an hour. Hizashi’ll be back soon.” Aizawa stepped aside to let him in. The house was small but tidy, the living room cluttered with textbooks and a half-folded pile of laundry. “You sure you’re up for this?”

Touya waved him off. “This is normal now.” 

Aizawa gave him a flat look.

Hitoshi sat at the low table in the living room, fingers flying over a tablet Touya had never seen him use at the group. He glanced up when they entered, then immediately looked to Aizawa.

Touya crouched, keeping his distance. “Hey. Wanna go outside for a bit?”

Hitoshi’s fingers tightened around the tablet.

Aizawa signed something to him.

Hitoshi hesitated, then nodded.

Touya eyed the tablet. “New?”

“School accommodation,” Aizawa said. “They won’t provide an interpreter, so he types.”

Hitoshi’s expression darkened. He jabbed at the screen, and a robotic voice droned: [It’s stupid.]

Touya snorted. “Yeah. It is.”

Aizawa checked his phone. “Hizashi’s ten minutes out. Don’t set anything on fire.”

“No promises.”

Hitoshi stood, tucking the tablet under his arm. The backyard wasn’t much, a patch of grass, a weathered bench, the distant hum of the city, but it was quiet.

Touya sat, stretching his legs with a quiet groan. Hitoshi hovered, then settled beside him, fingers tapping restlessly against the tablet.

“So. UA, huh?”

Hitoshi went very still.

Touya stretched his legs out with a quiet sigh, letting his arms rest loosely at his sides. The tightness in his lungs had eased slightly in the fresh air, though a dull ache still pulsed behind his sternum. He tilted his face toward the sunlight, letting it warm his skin before speaking.

"You know," he began, voice casual, "when I was your age, I wanted to go to UA too."

Hitoshi's fingers twitched against the tablet. After a beat, he typed something, the mechanical voice responding flatly: [What happened?]

Touya smiled, not the sharp, bitter grin he'd worn for years after Sekoto Peak, but something softer. More tired. "Got into a fight with my own quirk, mostly. It's like…. Super dangerous fire that comes from my body. Burns hot enough to turn bone to ash in seconds. The problem was, though, my body wasn’t made to handle it.” 

Hitoshi's brow furrowed. 

“It was a quirk marriage, between my parents. My old man wanted the perfect combination of quirks; his is fire, my mom’s is ice. They got me instead." He rubbed absently at the scar tissue peeking from his collar. "By the time I was twelve, every time I used my flames, it felt like someone was pouring boiling water under my skin. My dad stopped training me. Said it was for my own good."

The memory should have tasted bitter. Should have made his pulse spike with that old, familiar rage. But the anger had burned out years ago, leaving only the quiet ache of scar tissue.

Hitoshi was staring at him now, violet eyes sharp with something Touya couldn't quite name. The tablet remained silent between them.

Touya leaned back against the bench, watching a sparrow hop across the grass. "I didn't take it well. Kept training in secret. I hurt myself worse every time. Got angrier, at my dad, at my body, at the whole world." He glanced sideways at Hitoshi. "You ever have trouble like that? Where your feelings just... boil over?"

Hitoshi's grip on the tablet tightened. His shoulders hunched slightly, but after a long moment, he gave the barest shrug.

Touya nodded like that was answer enough. "Yeah." He stretched his arms above his head, wincing as his shoulders popped. "Anyway, when I was thirteen, I told my dad to meet me at this little training dojo we had up on Sekoto Peak. Said I'd prove I could handle my quirk." The sparrow took flight, wings fluttering. "He was late."

The words hung in the air, weightless. Hitoshi's fingers hovered over the tablet.

"I was so mad, when I thought he wasn’t coming," Touya continued, voice still calm, "that I lost control. Set myself on fire. Third-degree burns over sixty percent of my body." He gestured vaguely at his torso. "So instead of going to UA, I woke up having to relearn how to hold a spoon."

The mechanical voice startled them both when it spoke: [You almost died.]

"Yep." Touya popped the 'p'. 

Hitoshi was staring at him with an intensity that would have been unnerving if Touya hadn't spent the past three years dealing with Shouto's equally piercing gaze. The boy typed slowly, deliberately: [Why are you telling me this?]

The sun dipped behind a cloud, casting them both in shadow. Touya turned to face Hitoshi fully, his expression open. "Because you want to go to UA. Because you've got two pro heroes for parents who adore you. Because you have people who want to help you get there." He tilted his head. "That's pretty damn lucky, you know."

Hitoshi's throat worked silently. His fingers flexed against the tablet's edges.

"That's why I'm here," Touya added gently. "To talk about your quirk, if you want. About UA. About whatever you need to pass that entrance exam." He held up a hand when Hitoshi tensed. "I understand what it’s like to have a scary quirk, and I know it can be hard to talk about… so I want you know know that there’s no pressure to say anything. No tricks here. Just... options."

The breeze picked up, carrying the scent of someone's dinner: ginger and garlic frying in a nearby kitchen. Hitoshi exhaled sharply through his nose, his shoulders slumping slightly. After a long moment, he typed a single word:

[Brainwash.]

Touya blinked. "That your quirk's name?"

A nod.

"Voice-activated?"

Another nod, slower this time.

Touya hummed thoughtfully. "Must be tough, having a quirk tied to something you don't want to use."

Hitoshi shrugged, eyes fixed on a point somewhere past Touya's shoulder.

Silence stretched between them, filled only by the distant chirp of sparrows and the rustle of new leaves in the breeze. Touya leaned back against the weathered bench, letting the quiet linger. He knew better than to rush this.

After a long moment, he spoke again, his voice deliberately casual. "I haven't used my quirk on purpose in about eight years now." He held up his scarred hands, turning them over in the sunlight. "Doctor's orders. Too much strain on my body."

Hitoshi's gaze flicked to Touya's hands, then away again.

"Accidents happen, though," Touya continued, watching a ladybug crawl across the bench between them. "Couple months back, I got into it with Keigo, and I lost my temper. Flames came out before I could stop them." He rubbed at a particularly shiny patch of scar tissue on his wrist. "Burned some of his feathers. Not bad, but enough that he had to preen for days to fix the damage."

Hitoshi's fingers twitched against his tablet. There was something in his expression now: not quite interest, but a wary attention.

Touya met his gaze. "You ever accidentally hurt someone with your quirk?"

The reaction was immediate. Hitoshi's entire body went rigid, his breath catching audibly. His fingers spasmed against the tablet's edge, but he didn't type anything. Didn't move.

Touya waited. The ladybug took flight, wings buzzing faintly.

"It's scary," Touya said softly, "when it's not on purpose. When your body does something you didn't want it to do." He flexed his fingers, watching the tendons shift under scarred skin. "Keigo could've been mad at me. Had every right to be. But he knows me, and knows I wouldn't ever try to hurt him."

Hitoshi's throat worked. His fingers hovered over the tablet screen, trembling slightly.

Touya kept his voice steady. "When I apologized, he forgave me right away. Because it was an accident. And I keep working to make sure it doesn't happen again."

The tablet's mechanical voice cut through the quiet: [How do you know he really forgives you?]

Touya smiled, just a little. "When you love someone, you have to trust them."

Another long silence. The shadows stretched longer across the grass. Somewhere down the street, a car door slammed.

Then, Hitoshi typed something quick, and the tablet spoke again: [I accidentally hurt someone with my quirk when I was little.]

Touya didn't react immediately. He let the words settle, watching the way Hitoshi's fingers trembled against the tablet's edge, the way his breathing had gone shallow and controlled. Professional detachment warred with personal concern as he carefully modulated his response.

"I'm so sorry that happened, Hitoshi," he said, keeping his voice steady and low. 

Hitoshi shrugged, his shoulders tense. The tablet remained silent.

"Were you scared?" Touya asked gently. His counselor’s cadence was automatic now - open-ended statements, validation, creating space for Hitoshi to continue.

[It doesn't matter. I didn't get hurt. They did.]

Touya noted the defensive posture, the avoidance. He shifted his weight slightly on the bench, maintaining an open body language. "It matters if you were scared," he said gently. "Accidents can be scary for everyone involved. Would it be okay if I held your hand?”

When Hitoshi gave the barest nod, Touya extended his hand palm-up on the bench between them, letting the boy initiate contact. The moment Hitoshi's cold fingers brushed against his scarred palm, Touya gave the gentlest squeeze, grounding pressure without restraint.

"Quirks that affect other people's minds or bodies..." Touya chose his words carefully, "they come with unique challenges. When we can't completely control how our quirk impacts others, it creates a special kind of fear." He kept his breathing deliberately even, modeling calm. “When our body does something we didn't want it to do, we're allowed to be scared. We're allowed to feel sad, or angry, or afraid of ourselves and what happened."

Hitoshi's breath hitched. His grip on Touya's hand tightened almost imperceptibly. Touya saw the slight tremble in Hitoshi's lower lip, the way his pupils dilated. He was teetering on the edge of overwhelm.

"Just breathe with me," Touya murmured, exaggerating his inhale. "You're safe here. Nothing bad is going to happen." His thumb traced small circles on Hitoshi's knuckles, maintaining that physical anchor. Touya leaned forward slightly. "When you accidentally hurt someone," he asked, voice barely above a whisper, "was that scary? Did something happen?"

Hitoshi nodded. 

Touya saw it happen in real time. The way Hitoshi's eyes went glassy, his pupils dilating slightly. The slackening of his grip. The subtle but unmistakable shift in his breathing, shallower now, more mechanical.

"Shit," Touya muttered. "Hitoshi?"

No response. The boy was still sitting upright, still breathing, but his gaze had gone distant, unfocused. His fingers slipped from Touya's grasp, limp against his thighs.

No response. Hitoshi’s pupils were blown wide, his body rigid but pliant when Touya adjusted his posture to keep him from sliding to the ground.

Touya banged on the back door with his free hand. 

The door slammed open so hard it rattled in its frame. Yamada took in the scene in an instant, his usual loudmouthed bravado gone, replaced by a razor-sharp focus. He was across the patio in two strides, dropping to his knees in front of them.

Yamada’s jaw clenched. For a fraction of a second, something like anger flashed across his face, not at Touya, but at the situation, at the unfairness of it all. Then it was gone, replaced by practiced calm. In three strides he was kneeling before them, his hands hovering over Hitoshi's face without touching.

"Hey, little listener," he murmured, “Dad’s here.” 

No response. Hitoshi's fingers twitched, but his eyes stayed unfocused, staring straight through them.

Yamada exhaled sharply through his nose. His hands, usually so animated, moved with deliberate care as he gathered Hitoshi against his chest. "Okay. Okay." He adjusted his grip, one hand cradling the back of Hitoshi's head. "You're safe. You're right here with me."

Touya's chest ached. "Yamada, I-"

"What happened?" Yamada's voice was low, controlled, but there was an edge to it that hadn't been there before.

Touya ran a hand through his hair. "We were talking about his quirk. He… he admitted he'd hurt someone with it before. Accidentally." The words tasted bitter. "As soon as he said it, he just-"

Yamada's expression darkened. He adjusted his hold on Hitoshi, one hand rubbing slow circles between the boy's shoulder blades. "We told you he shuts down when-"

"I know," Touya snapped, then immediately regretted it as the outburst sent him into a coughing fit. He doubled over, one hand braced against the bench as his lungs seized. The world spun dangerously.

When he finally caught his breath, Yamada was watching him with narrowed eyes.

Touya wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "I wasn't pushing him," he rasped. "He brought it up himself. We were making progress."

Yamada's jaw worked. For a long moment, he just held Hitoshi, his fingers carding absently through purple hair. Then:

"...How much did he say?"

Touya swallowed against the dryness in his throat. "Just that he'd hurt someone. Didn't say who or how. But Yamada," he met the man's gaze. "He volunteered that information. I didn’t force him, or pressure him... That's huge."

Yamada exhaled sharply. His thumb brushed over Hitoshi's cheekbone, checking for any sign of awareness. "It is," he admitted quietly. The unspoken question hung between them: Was it worth it?

Touya looked away. His head was pounding now, the world tilting slightly at the edges. He needed to get home, needed to lie down before he passed out on their damn lawn, but when he tried to stand, his legs buckled.

Yamada's eyebrows went up into his hairline. "Whoa- shit, Himura, you good?"

Touya squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the dizziness to pass. "Yeah. Just-" He waved vaguely at his chest. "QIAD shit. It's fine."

Yamada nodded like he knew exactly what that meant, which he didn't, but Touya was too lightheaded to explain.

They sat in silence for a long moment, the only sound Hitoshi's shallow breathing and the distant hum of traffic. Then: 

A twitch.

Yamada stiffened. "Hitoshi?"

Another twitch, Hitoshi's fingers curling weakly against Yamada's shirt. His eyelids fluttered, his gaze still unfocused but present in a way it hadn't been seconds ago.

Yamada's entire body relaxed. "There you are," he murmured. 

Hitoshi blinked slowly. His hands lifted, the movements clumsy and uncoordinated, but the intent was clear. 

Yamada's expression softened. “No sorry. I’m happy you’re safe.” 

Hitoshi's gaze drifted to Touya. His fingers moved again, sluggish but deliberate. 

Yamada snorted. “He wants you to come back next week.” 

Touya's chest tightened. "Yeah," he said, voice rough. "Next week."

Yamada exhaled, some of the tension leaving his shoulders. He helped Hitoshi sit up, keeping a steadying hand on his back. "Let's get you inside, yeah? Dad’s bringing mochi after his patrol tonight."

Hitoshi nodded, still dazed but more aware now. Yamada helped him to his feet. Yamada hesitated, then added, "Same time next week?"

The unspoken question hung between them: Was this progress worth the cost?

Touya looked at Hitoshi, at the way the boy was holding himself a little straighter now, despite the exhaustion in his frame. At the way his fingers kept twitching like he wanted to say more.

"Yeah," Touya said finally. "Next week."

Yamada nodded, some of his usual energy returning. "Cool, cool. Try not to asphyxiate before then, yeah?"

Touya laughed. 

Next week.

---

Haruki’s apartment was small but bright, the late afternoon sun streaming through gauzy curtains that fluttered in the breeze from his perpetually half-open window. Fuyumi loved it here, the way his space felt lived in without being messy. A stack of graded math worksheets sat neatly on the kitchen counter beside a bowl of fruit (currently lemons, since he’d been experimenting with his quirk earlier). A faded All Might poster hung crookedly above the TV, a relic from his own elementary school days that he refused to take down out of nostalgia.

They sat on his well-worn couch, knees touching, a half-finished puzzle of Mount Fuji spread across the coffee table between them. Fuyumi chewed her lip, turning a puzzle piece over and over in her fingers.

“So,” Haruki said, nudging her knee with his, “are we doing this or what?”

Fuyumi blinked. “Doing what?”

“Dating. Officially.” He grinned, bright and uncomplicated. “I mean, we’ve been ‘just dinner’-ing for months. At this point, my mom thinks you’re a figment of my imagination.”

Fuyumi’s face warmed. She set the puzzle piece down carefully. “I… yes. Obviously. I just…” She hesitated, fingers tapping against her teacup. “There’s stuff you should know. About my family.”

Haruki tilted his head, waiting.

Fuyumi took a steadying breath. “You know my dad’s Endeavor. And that he’s… not around anymore.”

“Yeah, the whole ‘number two hero in prison’ thing was kinda hard to miss,” Haruki said lightly. He reached for a lemon from the fruit bowl, rolling it between his palms. His skin shimmered faintly yellow where he touched it, the scent of citrus blooming in the air. His quirk: Botanical Essence- a weak transformation quirk that let him take on the color, and release the scent of any fruit, vegetable, or herb he held for about thirty minutes. Mostly useless, but great for impromptu air freshening.

Fuyumi huffed a laugh despite herself. “I’m trying to be serious.”

“I know, I know.” He set the lemon aside, his hands returning to normal. “Go on.”

“My youngest brother, Shouto, you’ve met him at the café.”

Haruki nodded. “Quiet kid. Likes those strawberry mochi things.”

“Right. He’s… it’s complicated. Brain injury from when he was little. He’s mostly nonverbal, has trouble with crowds, needs a lot of support.” She twisted her fingers together. “And my other brothers, Natsuo’s in university, and Touya’s…” She trailed off, searching for the right words.

“The grumpy one who glares at me when I pick you up from your place?” Haruki supplied.

Fuyumi snorted. “Yes. He’s got… health stuff. Chronic pain, mostly. And his boyfriend Keigo, the winged guy, is pro hero Hawks…” She exhaled sharply. “The point is, my family’s a lot. There are hospital visits and meltdowns and times when I’ll have to drop everything because someone needs me. Our parents aren’t in the picture, our grandparents live up in the mountains, and-”

Haruki reached across the puzzle to take her hand. “Fuyumi.”

She stopped.

“I teach fifth grade,” he said dryly. “I’ve had parents yell at me because little Botan got a B on his spelling test. Your family’s drama is nothing compared to PTA meetings.”

Fuyumi gaped at him. “That’s not-”

“And for the record,” he continued, squeezing her fingers, “I like your brothers. Shouto drew me that nice picture last time I saw him, remember? Even your scary brother seems to only hate me a little bit.”

Fuyumi’s throat tightened. “You don’t think it’s too much?”

Haruki’s expression softened. He lifted her hand, pressing a kiss to her knuckles, his lips faintly lemony from his quirk. “I think you’re worth it.”

She exhaled, the tension seeping out of her shoulders. “…Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.” She leaned forward, pressing a kiss to his cheek. Haruki’s smile, and the smell of lemons, filled the apartment, bright and warm as the sunlight streaming through the windows.

---

The text came at 4:03 AM, the buzz of Touya's phone vibrating against the wooden nightstand loud enough to startle him awake. He fumbled for it blindly, the screen's harsh blue light making his eyes water as he squinted at the message:

KEIGO 🦅:Mission extended. Home tomorrow. Love you.

No explanation. No apology. Just the same clipped update he’d gotten half a dozen times this year already.

Touya exhaled through his nose, thumb hovering over the keyboard. He typed out What happened, deleted it. Typed Are you hurt? But deleted that too. Settled on:

TOUYA: love you too, dont die.

No immediate response. Not that he expected one. Keigo would be in the air by now, wings cutting through some godforsaken pre-dawn sky, already halfway to whatever fresh hell the Commission had cooked up.

He dropped the phone onto his chest, rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his palms. The bedroom was too quiet without Keigo's stupid, rhythmic snoring.

His phone buzzed again. And again.

Touya groaned, expecting another mission update. Instead, Natsuo's name flashed across the screen.

What the fuck, Natsu.

He almost let it go to voicemail… almost. 

"Yeah?" he rasped, voice thick with sleep.

"Touya!" Natsuo's voice was too loud, too energetic for the ungodly hour. "Okay, so I was reviewing the syllabus for my summer genetics course-"

Touya closed his eyes. Not an emergency. Just Natsuo being Natsuo.

"-and I think if I petition to take grad-level courses next semester, I could-"

The bedroom door creaked open. Shouto stood in the doorway, All Might plushie clutched to his chest. 

Touya held up a finger. Shouto blinked at him, slow and unimpressed, then shuffled forward and lifted the edge of the blanket with his non-freezing hand.

"Natsu, hold on," Touya muttered, putting the phone on speaker before setting it aside as Shouto burrowed under the covers beside him. The kid was an ice pack against his side, but Touya didn't have the energy to care.

"-so anyway," Natsuo's voice crackled through the speaker, "if I take the summer intensive, I could theoretically graduate a full year early. What do you think?"

Shouto made a soft, questioning noise, pressing closer to the phone.

Touya sighed. "Say hi to Natsu, Sho."

Shouto exhaled sharply through his nose, his version of a greeting.

Natsuo's voice softened. "Hey, little man. You keeping Touya in line?"

Shouto nodded against Touya's shoulder, then seemed to remember Natsuo couldn't see him. "Yuh," he managed, the word slurred but unmistakable.

Touya ruffled his hair. "Smartass."

Natsuo laughed, the sound tinny through the phone. "Okay, but seriously, summer intensive? Genius or disaster?"

Touya stared at the ceiling. Outside, the first hints of dawn painted the curtains gray. "Go the fuck to sleep, Natsu."

"But-"

"Sleep."

A beat. Then, grudgingly:  "Fine. Love you guys."

The line went dead.

Touya dropped the phone onto the nightstand, rubbing his temples. Shouto was a solid, freezing weight against his side, his breathing already evening out. Sleep continued to evade Touya, until his alarm went off at 6:30, and it was time to get ready for the day. 

---

The text from Fuyumi buzzed in Touya's pocket as he unlocked the apartment door:

FUYUMI: Running late - Haruki's making dinner. Home by 8?*

He barely had time to read it before Shouto shoved past him into the living room, his backpack hitting the floor with a thud. 

Touya knew something was wrong the moment he saw him at school pickup, the way Shouto's shoulders hunched forward, his gait stiff and uneven as he trudged down the sidewalk. Shouto's teacher had pulled him aside at pickup with that pinched look, the one that meant something happened but we're not sure what.

He barely had time to type ok before a frustrated growl from the living room made him look up.

Shouto was clawing at his uniform collar, fingers catching on the buttons. His breaths came in short, sharp gasps, not quite hyperventilating, but close.

"Whoa, hey…" Touya stepped forward, hands raised. "What's-?"

Shouto made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat and yanked, sending buttons scattering across the floor. He shrugged out of the shirt like it was on fire, then immediately started working at his pants buckle with shaking hands.

Touya blinked. "Okay. Clothes are bad. Got it."

The buckle wouldn't give. Shouto's fingers slipped once, twice, then he let out a sound that was half-growl, half-sob and just sat down right there in the middle of the living room, legs folding under him like his bones had turned to water.

Shouto dragged his nails over his arms, leaving faint red trails in their wake. His breath hitched again, his voice cracking around the words: "I—ih—ih—"

"It's okay," Touya murmured, lowering himself down nearby. "Take your time, I’m listening."

Shouto wanted to. That was the thing. He hated when the words wouldn't come, when his throat closed up and his tongue felt too heavy. He smacked his own leg in frustration, the sound sharp in the quiet apartment.

Touya didn't flinch. "Hey. None of that."

Shouto's face crumpled. Then, all at once, the dam broke, a loud, shuddering sob tore out of him, his entire body shaking with the force of it. He curled in on himself, his forehead nearly touching his knees as he cried in great, heaving gasps.

It was messy. It was loud. And it was a thousand times better than a year ago, even, when he was completely silent. 

Touya scooted closer, close enough to touch but not crowding him. "Can I hug you?"

Shouto didn't answer, just leaned into him, his tears soaking into Touya's shirt. His skin was fever-warm on his left side, icy on his right, a living contradiction, just like always.

Touya wrapped his arms around him, rubbing slow circles between his shoulder blades. "I know," he murmured. "I know."

Shouto's sobs tapered off into hiccuping breaths, his fingers twisting in Touya's sleeves like he was afraid he'd float away otherwise.

Touya exhaled, resting his chin on top of Shouto's head. "You wanna sit on the couch? Or we can just stay here."

Shouto sniffed, then gestured weakly at the couch.

"Okay." Touya helped him up, keeping a steadying hand on his back as they moved. Shouto flopped onto the cushions, his face pressed into the armrest, his breathing still uneven.

 "You want your headphones?"

A nod.

Touya fetched them, along with the All Might plushie from Shouto's bed. By the time he got back, Shouto had burrowed under the blanket, only his messy bangs and one red-rimmed eye visible.

Touya handed him the headphones, then the plushie. Shouto tucked both against his chest, his fingers flexing against the fabric like he was grounding himself.

"You're okay," Touya said again, because sometimes it needed to be said more than once.

Shouto blinked up at him, his eyelashes still damp. Then, quietly, hoarsely: "S’rry."

Touya's chest ached. "Don't be." He ruffled Shouto's hair, ignoring the way the strands stuck to his sweaty forehead. "You wanna watch something dumb until Fuyumi gets home?"

A weak nod.

Touya grabbed the remote, flipping to some inane cartoon about talking cats. He didn't care what it was, just that it was bright and loud enough to fill the silence.

---

The apartment was dark when Keigo finally slipped through the front door, his wings aching from the long flight home. He toed off his boots as quietly as possible, wincing when one tipped over with a soft thud.

The living room was a disaster.

Shouto was sprawled across the couch in nothing but his boxers, one arm dangling over the edge, fingers brushing the floor. His school uniform lay in a crumpled heap a few feet away. His glasses had slid off his face and landed precariously close to being stepped on. On the other side of the couch, Touya was slumped against the armrest, his own glasses crooked on his nose, an All Might cartoon still playing silently on the TV.

He stepped closer, brushing a kiss against Touya's forehead.

Touya jerked awake with a grunt, glasses sliding down his nose. "Wha-?"

"Hey, sleeping beauty," Keigo murmured, catching the frames before they could fall.

Touya blinked up at him, disoriented. His gaze flicked to Shouto, then back to Keigo. "What time is it?"

"Almost midnight." Keigo set Touya's glasses on the coffee table. "Fuyumi's not back?"

Touya fumbled for his phone, squinting at the screen. A new message:  

FUYUMI: Staying at Haruki's tonight. Don't wait up. He snorted. "Guess not."

Keigo's stomach growled loudly.

Touya arched a brow. "You eat?"

Keigo shrugged. “I had some karaage earlier.” 

With a groan, Touya pushed himself upright. "There's leftover curry."

They moved around each other in the kitchen with practiced ease, Touya reheating the food, Keigo fetching plates, both careful not to wake Shouto. The silence between them was comfortable, broken only by the hum of the microwave.

Keigo eyed the pile of Shouto's clothes visible through the doorway. "Rough day?"

Touya stirred the curry absently. "The usual."

"Mm." Keigo didn't press. He knew that tone.

The microwave beeped. Touya portioned out the food, handing Keigo a heaping plate. "Mission go okay?"

Keigo took a too-big bite, buying time. The bandage under his collar itched. "Boring stuff. Paperwork mix-ups."

Touya's lips quirked. "Liar."

Keigo grinned around his mouthful, sauce smeared at the corner of his mouth. "You love me anyway."

"So," Touya said, voice low, "this 'paperwork mix-up'."

Keigo's thumb stilled on the fork. "Mhm?"

"Where'd it send you?"

Keigo took a bite, buying time. "Hokkaido."

"Liar."

A beat. Then Keigo sighed, rubbing at the back of his neck. "Okay, fine. Kyushu. There was... an incident with a smuggling ring."

Touya's eyes flicked to the fresh bandage peeking out from under Keigo's collar. "What sort of incident?"

"Minor. Don’t worry so much, babe."

They ate in companionable silence, shoulders brushing as they leaned against the counter. Touya's gaze kept drifting to the living room where Shouto lay sprawled, one arm dangling off the couch.

Keigo followed his look. 

"We should move him," Touya said around a mouthful of rice. "He'll panic if he wakes up on the couch."

Keigo set his plate down and stretched his wings. "I've got him."

In the living room, Keigo knelt beside the couch. Shouto had grown at least three inches since the winter, stretched out, he covered the entire couch, his shoulders broader under the blanket.

"Alright, little man," Keigo murmured, sliding one arm under Shouto's knees and the other behind his back.

Shouto stirred as Keigo lifted him, his nose scrunching. "Nnn-"

"Shhh," Keigo soothed, adjusting his grip as Shouto's dead weight settled against his chest. "Just getting you to bed."

Shouto's head lolled against Keigo's shoulder, his breath evening out again. 

Touya led the way down the hall, pulling back Shouto's All Might comforter. Keigo deposited him gently, wincing as the boy's left side radiated enough heat to make his feathers prickle.

Touya tugged the blanket up to Shouto's chin, smoothing his bangs back from his forehead. "Night, kid."

Shouto was already dead asleep again, his breathing deep and even.

Back in their bedroom, Touya rummaged through the nightstand for his nebulizer. The machine whirred to life with a familiar hum as he attached the medication chamber.

Keigo sat beside him, fingers working gently through the knots in Touya's shoulders.

The treatment only took fifteen minutes, but he was nearly asleep by the time it finished, his head drooping forward.

Keigo caught him, pressing a kiss to his temple as he guided him under the covers. "Get some sleep, hot stuff."

Touya grunted, already half-gone. Somewhere in the haze of exhaustion, he felt Keigo's wings wrap around them both, warm and familiar.

Chapter 27: Summer Interlude, Part One

Notes:

i've spent the last few days working at the nyc comic-con! if you were there, i bet we saw each other and didn't know it.
anywhoo... that's where i've been! glad to be updating :)

The first trimester ended, and with it came the sweet, sprawling freedom of summer break. Natsuo tumbled through the front door on the first day of break like a storm surge, luggage spilling open, textbooks spilling out, his laughter too loud for the small apartment. He'd only been gone since April, but the change was startling. The boyish roundness had melted from his face, leaving sharp cheekbones and a leaner jaw. His white hair, usually cropped short, now brushed his ears in messy waves. There were shadows under his eyes that spoke of too many sleepless nights, but his grin was as bright as ever.

"Miss me?" he crowed, sweeping Shouto up in a bear hug that made the younger boy squawk in protest.

Shouto kicked halfheartedly, but there was no real fight in it, just the usual brotherly theatrics. When Natsuo set him down, Shouto immediately put his hand out, waiting for his previously-promised treats.

"Easy there, detective," Natsuo laughed, ruffling Shouto's hair. "The mochi's in the side pocket: don't smash it."

“Welcome home!” Fuyumi emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel. "Your hair looks insane, Natsu," she said fondly, pulling him into a hug.

Natsuo scoffed. "Rude. I look distinguished."

"Distinguished like a raccoon who's been dumpster diving," Touya drawled from the couch, not looking up from his book.

“Fuck off, I still look better than you.” 

Touya rolled his eyes and looked up. Natsuo did look different. There were shadows under his eyes that hadn't been there in April, a sharpness to his movements that felt brittle.

"Natsu," Touya said, sitting up. "When's the last time you slept?"

Natsuo shrugged. "Sleep is for the weak."

Fuyumi reached up to touch his cheek. "You've lost weight too."

"Nah," Natsuo said, already dragging his duffel toward the hallway. "Just grew into my cheekbones. Where am I crashing?"

"Your old room," Fuyumi said. "Shouto's moving back in with me."

Shouto perked up at that, his mismatched eyes bright. He loved Fuyumi's room, the lavender-scented sheets, the glow-in-the-dark stars she'd stuck to the ceiling when they first moved in.

Natsuo paused in the doorway. "Wait, really? You don't have to-"

"It's fine," Touya cut in. "You always have a room here, don’t worry."

---

The afternoon sun filtered through the thin curtains of Natsuo's bedroom, painting stripes of gold across the unmoving lump under the blankets. 

Fuyumi knocked lightly on the doorframe. "Natsu? You awake?"

No response.

Fuyumi opened the door a crack. Natsuo was sprawled facedown, one arm dangling off the bed, his hair fanning across the pillow like spilled milk. His breathing was deep and even, the rise and fall of his shoulders barely disturbing the sheets.

"Wow," she whispered to no one in particular.

Down the hall, Shouto peered around his own doorway, his sleep-tousled hair sticking up in every direction. He shuffled over in socked feet, peering past Fuyumi at their sleeping brother.

"He must have been really tired from finals."

This was the third time she'd checked on him since morning. When Natsuo hadn't emerged by 10 AM, highly unusual for someone who'd been texting at all hours, she'd assumed he was just sleeping in. By noon, she'd started worrying he was sick. But his forehead was cool to the touch, or as cool as it could be, for Natsuo (who always ran warm), his sleep peaceful rather than feverish.

Shouto tilted his head, considering. Then, with the decisive air of a scientist conducting an experiment, he reached out and poked Natsuo's bare shoulder.

"Nnngh," Natsuo said into his pillow, not opening his eyes.

Fuyumi smothered a laugh. "Come on, Sho. Let him sleep."

---

By the fourth day, the pattern was undeniable.

Touya leaned against the kitchen counter, watching Fuyumi pack away the untouched lunch she'd left for Natsuo. "He eat anything today?"

"A banana at like 2 PM," Fuyumi said, sealing the rice bowl with cling film. "Then he went back to bed."

“Aren’t you worried?” Touya rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "This isn't normal."

"I’m sure it’s fine… He's just catching up on sleep!" Fuyumi said, a little too brightly. "You know how he was pulling all-nighters at school. His body's probably crashing now that he’s back home."

The words hung between them, fragile with hope.

Touya glanced down the hall toward Natsuo's closed door. "Yeah. Maybe."

---

The glow of the television painted the living room in shifting blues as the opening credits rolled. Shouto sat cross-legged on the floor, methodically arranging a handful of jelly candies by color while Keigo sprawled across the couch, wings draped over the armrest.

"Alright, who picked this one?" Touya asked, squinting at the screen where an animated hero dramatically proclaimed justice would prevail.

Fuyumi held up the DVD case with a grin. "Natsu's favorite when he was twelve. Thought it might cheer him up."

As if summoned, Natsuo shuffled in from the kitchen, a bowl of popcorn balanced in one hand. His hair was still damp from the shower, his oversized sweatshirt swallowing his frame. "Hey, you started without me," he said, voice thick with sleep but smiling.

Keigo lifted a wing to make space as Natsuo flopped onto the couch between him and Fuyumi. "Dude, you've been asleep for like eighteen hours straight."

"Fourteen," Natsuo corrected around a yawn, tossing a handful of popcorn into his mouth

Touya watched as Natsuo leaned into Fuyumi's side, his eyelids already drooping again despite his teasing tone. There was nothing alarming about it, just the normal exhaustion of a college student home for break, except Natsuo had always been the one to stay up late, talking animatedly about everything and nothing until Touya threatened to throw him out a window. This quiet, sleepy version of their brother wasn't wrong, exactly. Just... different.

On screen, the hero launched into a dramatic battle sequence. Shouto abandoned his candy sorting to crawl closer, his eyes reflecting the flashing lights.

"Remember when you used to reenact this part?" Fuyumi nudged Natsuo, who was blinking slowly at the screen like he was trying to parse a foreign language.

Natsuo huffed a laugh. "Yeah, until I broke Mom's vase."

A beat of silence. The reference to their mother hung unexamined in the air, too casual to comment on, too loaded to ignore.

Shouto's head tilted. “Hah?” 

Natsuo's smile softened. "Like an idiot." He demonstrated his poor swordsmanship with a half-hearted arm movement, too tired to actually get up.

Keigo snorted, tossing a piece of popcorn at Shouto. "Sounds like someone I know."

Touya flipped him off as Shouto caught the popcorn with surprising dexterity and ate it.

The movie played on, the familiar rhythms of heroics and dramatic speeches filling the room. Natsuo stayed awake through the whole thing, laughing at the right parts, groaning at the cheesy lines, but there was a quietness to him that hadn't been there before university. 

Just different.

When the credits rolled, Natsuo was the first to stretch and announce he was turning in. "G'night, losers," he mumbled, ruffling Shouto's hair as he passed.

Fuyumi waited until his bedroom door clicked shut before whispering, "He's okay, right?"

Keigo shrugged, wings rustling. "Seems okay to me."

Touya watched him go.

---

Saturday morning sunlight streamed through the kitchen windows as Fuyumi set down a platter of tamagoyaki, golden layers of egg folded neatly, just the way their mother used to make it. She'd added an extra pinch of sugar, the way Shouto liked it.

"Eat up," she said, nudging the plate toward Natsuo, who was slumped at the table with his chin propped in one hand. His hair was a wild tangle from sleep, his eyes still puffy.

Keigo, already on his third cup of coffee, grinned. "Looking alive there, Sleeping Beauty."

Natsuo flipped him off halfheartedly before stabbing a piece of egg with his chopsticks.

Shouto sat quietly beside Touya, methodically arranging his food into neat sections: rice here, miso soup there, tamagoyaki cut into perfect squares. The rhythmic tap tap tap of his chopsticks against the bowl filled the comfortable silence.

Then, without preamble, Shouto said, "Mmm... mom's."

The table froze.

Fuyumi's teacup hovered halfway to her lips. "What was that, Sho?"

Shouto's brow furrowed in concentration. He pointed at the tamagoyaki with his chopsticks. "M...Mom. Made." His tongue pressed awkwardly against his teeth as he struggled with the next word. "L-like... this."

The silence that followed was deafening. Natsuo's chopsticks slipped from his fingers, clattering against his plate.

Touya recovered first. "Yeah," he said carefully. "She did."

Shouto nodded, satisfied, and went back to eating.

Keigo, wisely, said nothing, just sipped his coffee with wide eyes.

Fuyumi's hands trembled slightly as she set down her cup. "Shouto, you... remember Mom making this?"

Shouto shrugged, his shoulders hunching slightly. "T-tastes s-s-same."

Natsuo leaned forward, suddenly more awake than he'd been all morning. "But you were so little when she-" He cut himself off, glancing at Touya.

Shouto seemed oblivious to the tension, carefully stacking his egg squares into a tiny tower. 

Fuyumi's chopsticks trembled slightly as she picked up a slice of egg. "So! Um. Touya, have you… have you talked to Obaasan lately?"

Natsuo shot her a look.

"What?" she said defensively. "I just thought maybe we could..."

"Run away from the emotionally loaded conversation?" Natsuo muttered into his rice.

Keigo kicked him under the table.

Touya ignored them both, watching Shouto. The kid showed no signs of distress, no fidgeting, no itching the scarred side of his face. Just... casual recollection, as if mentioning their mother was no different than commenting on the weather.

"They want us to come up and visit," Touya said, taking the lifeline Fuyumi offered. "We should go soon.” 

Shouto perked up slightly at that, his chopsticks pausing mid-air.

Keigo, ever the peacemaker, grinned around a mouthful of rice. "Oh man, the onsen up there is legendary."

"You could come," Touya said, though they both knew the answer. “How’s next weekend?” 

Keigo pulled out his phone, scrolling through his schedule with a practiced flick of his thumb. His smile dimmed. "Ah, shit. Got assigned to security detail for the Hosu conference." He flashed an apologetic look at Shouto. "Next time, for sure."

Shouto nodded, his expression unreadable as he returned to methodically separating his rice grains.

Touya nudged Keigo’s foot under the table. "We'll bring you back some of her pickles."

"Better be the spicy ones," Keigo grumbled, but he was smiling again.

Natsuo stretched, his shoulders popping. "How long is the train there?"

"I think it’s like… three and a half, if we take the express," Fuyumi said, visibly latching onto the change of topic. "But the last one leaves at 4:30 PM."

Touya tapped his fingers against his tea cup. "I can take Friday afternoon off. Leave around noon."

Natsuo raised an eyebrow. "Since when do you take days off without a medical emergency?"

"Since never," Keigo muttered under his breath.

“Traitors.” 

Natsuo leaned forward, suddenly animated in a way he hadn't been all week. "Do they have a bathhouse?"

"Mm." Touya nodded. "And the plum trees out back should be fruiting."

Fuyumi stood abruptly, gathering empty plates. "I'll check the train schedules." Her voice was too light, too quick.

Touya watched her retreat to the sink, her back rigid. The morning light caught the red strands in her hair.

Natsuo leaned over, lowering his voice. "Think Sho remembers anything else about... you know."

Shouto, oblivious, was now drawing circles in his leftover rice.

Touya shrugged.

Keigo's phone buzzed. He groaned. "Duty calls." Standing, he pressed a kiss to Touya's temple. "Don't have too much fun without me."

As the others dispersed, Natsuo to "pack" (read: nap), Shouto to stare at train videos on Touya’s laptop, Touya lingered in the kitchen doorway. Fuyumi was still at the sink, her shoulders hunched.

"You okay?" he asked her quietly.

Fuyumi nodded. "I used to visit her," she said abruptly. "Every other month, before… everything with Dad happened." Her fingers tightened around the dish towel. "I stopped when everything happened because I thought if Shouto ever asked about where I was going, I didn’t want to lie, and if he remembered, or if I reminded him…"

Touya didn’t interrupt. Just waited, his scarred arms crossed over his chest.

Fuyumi exhaled sharply. "But maybe he did remember. This whole time. And he didn’t care. And I just… left her there." The words came out cracked, like ice giving way underfoot.

"Not your job to fix her," he said, voice rough. "Or any of us."

Fuyumi shook her head. "But if I’d-"

"Fuyumi." Touya flicked her forehead, just hard enough to sting. "You were what? Fourteen, when everything happened? You weren’t responsible for making sure Mom wasn’t alone."

A wet laugh escaped her. She swiped at her eyes with her sleeve. "Someone had to."

"Yeah, well… you should’ve only worried about yourself." Touya tossed the towel back at her. "Turns out we all were terrible at our jobs."

Fuyumi turned, her eyes glassy. "She was sick."

"Yeah. And now she’s getting care. From professionals. She’s fine."

Fuyumi turned off the faucet. The sudden silence felt heavier. "Do you think she wonders why I stopped coming?"

The question hung between them.

He exhaled slowly. "I think..." A cough rattled his chest unexpectedly, harsh and wet. He turned away, pressing his sleeve to his mouth as his shoulders shook.

"Touya?" Fuyumi's hands were on him immediately, one on his back, the other reaching for a glass of water. "Hey, hey, breathe-"

He waved her off, but the coughing only worsened, each hack like a knife between his ribs. His vision spotted as he gasped for air, bracing himself against the counter.

Fuyumi guided him to a chair, her voice pitching higher. "Should I call-"

"No," he gritted out between spasms. "Just-" Another cough tore through him. "-give it a minute."

The attack lasted three minutes and seventeen seconds. Touya counted each one as he fought to get air into his burning lungs. By the time it subsided, his throat was raw and Fuyumi's nails had left half-moon indents in her palms.

He took the water she offered, sipping slowly. "I'm fine."

Fuyumi didn't look convinced. "You're not."

"Not the point." He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Look... you didn't abandon anyone. You raised a kid who wasn't your responsibility because our shitbag father couldn't be bothered. You kept this family together."

Fuyumi's eyes shone in the light.

"And if you want to visit her after we see the grandparents," Touya continued hoarsely, "I'll go with you."

A beat. Then Fuyumi let out a wet laugh. "Since when are you the wise older brother?"

"Since you forced your way into my apartment." He nudged her foot with his.

Fuyumi exhaled, some of the tension leaving her shoulders. "Thanks, Touya."

"For what? Nearly hacking up a lung on the clean floor?"

She rolled her eyes. "For reminding me I'm not alone in this."

Touya studied her for a moment, the stubborn set of her jaw, the way she'd already started reorganizing the dish rack to calm herself.

"Yeah, well." He took another sip of water. "Don't get used to it."

---

The train rattled northward, cutting through golden rice fields and clusters of cedar trees. Shouto pressed his nose to the window, his breath fogging the glass as he tracked the landscape rushing past. 

Touya, on the other hand, swallowed another wave of nausea, gripping the seat armrest.

Thanks, motion sickness. 

 He focused instead on Shouto’s wide-eyed wonder instead of the bile rising in his throat.

We should’ve done this sooner.

Natsuo sprawled across the seat beside him, already half-asleep despite the shaking of the train. Fuyumi, ever prepared, had packed snacks: rice crackers, sliced fruit, a thermos of tea, and a pack of peppermint candies that she passed to Touya with a knowing look.

Fuyumi nudged his shoulder, offering the bag. "You’re looking green," she murmured.

Touya popped the mint into his mouth, the sharp flavor grounding him. 

Shouto suddenly turned from the window, grabbing Touya’s sleeve. His mismatched eyes were alight. "F-fast," he managed, the word thick but clear.

"Yeah," Touya croaked, smiling despite the churn in his stomach. "Really fast."

Shouto beamed, then went back to watching the world blur past.

Fuyumi squeezed Touya’s hand. "He’s happy," she whispered.

Touya nodded, throat tight.

We all are.

---

The mountain air was crisp as they stepped onto the platform, scented with pine and damp earth. Shouto inhaled deeply, his shoulders relaxing: no crowds, no city smog, just open sky.

Their grandparents’ house stood at the edge of the village, its wooden veranda overlooking terraced fields. Obaasan waited at the gate, her apron dusted with flour.

"There you are," she said, pulling Touya into a hug before he could protest. Her hands lingered on his ribs, assessing. "You’ve lost weight again."

Touya ducked away. "I’m fine."

Ojiisan herded them inside, where the table groaned under dishes of grilled mountain vegetables, miso-glazed trout, and a steaming pot of rice. Shouto hovered near Fuyumi, shy, until Obaasan pressed a bowl of chilled soba into his hands, his favorite.

"You’ve grown," Ojiisan observed as Shouto slurped his noodles.

Shouto nodded. 

"Almost eight centimeters, right?" Fuyumi translated. "Since winter."

Another nod.

Obaasan chuckled. "Soon you’ll be as tall as your brothers… well, you’re already almost taller than Touya…"

Natsuo, mouth full of trout, grinned and ruffled Shouto’s hair.

Later, as the others got ready for bed, Obaasan cornered Touya in the hallway.

"How are you really?" she asked, her voice low.

Touya leaned against the wall, suddenly exhausted. "Managing."

She studied him. "The treatments?"

"Helping. Mostly."

Obaa-chan sighed, her knotted fingers brushing his wrist. "You’ll tell us if it gets worse?"

"Yeah."

“Good boy.” She patted his cheek, her palm rough and warm. "Goodnight, Touya."

---

Touya’s childhood bedroom was exactly as he’d left it, the narrow bed, the desk covered in old burn marks from when he’d practiced his quirk in secret, the view of the mountains through the single window.

He sat on the edge of the bed, the wood frame creaking under his weight. Thirteen years ago, he’d hated this room. Hated the quiet, hated the pity, hated how his body refused to heal fast enough. He’d thrown bowls against the wall, screamed until his throat bled, wished every day that the fire had finished the job.

Now, he traced the scars on his arms, silver and ropey under the lamplight, and wondered how different things might have been if he’d just let himself be loved.

Down the hall, Shouto laughed at something Natsuo said, the sound muffled but unmistakable.

Touya lay back, staring at the water stains on the ceiling. Tomorrow, they’d hike to the hot springs. Shouto would see fireflies for the first time. Fuyumi and Natsuo would take too many pictures. 

He closed his eyes, listening to the wind in the pines outside.

Thanks to his grandparents, he’d be here for all of it. 

Chapter 28: Summer Interlude, Part Two

The digital clock on Izuku's nightstand blinked 11:47 PM | July 14th in glowing red numbers. Tomorrow he would be fourteen. Tonight, the world still felt suspended in that fragile space between childhood and whatever came next.

Shouto lay beside him in the nest of blankets, his mismatched eyes reflecting the faint glow of the All Might nightlight plugged in near the door. Izuku could hear him breathing—slow and steady, the way he did when he was concentrating.

"You awake?" Izuku whispered.

A rustle of fabric as Shouto nodded.

Izuku rolled onto his side, facing his friend. "I've been thinking...I don't think I want to be a hero anymore." The words tasted strange in his mouth, like admitting a secret he hadn't even told himself until now.

Shouto went very still.

"I mean…" Izuku's hands fluttered in the dark, "I still want to help people! More than anything! But the more I analyze quirks and watch hero fights, the more I realize...I'm better at understanding them than being in them." His voice dropped. "My body doesn't...work right for it."

The unspoken truth hung between them. Even in this modern age, even with all the advancements, some doors remained closed.

“That's okay though! Because I can still help, like your brother does, but more tactical? Analyzing quirks in real-time, coordinating teams..."

His voice dropped to a whisper. "I think I'd be better at that than trying to punch people."

Shouto considered this.

"G-good," Shouto said firmly.

Izuku blinked rapidly. "You... you think so?"

Shouto nodded. 

Izuku's eyes welled up. "No one's ever… I mean, thank you." He cut himself off, swiping at his face. "Never mind. What about you? What do you want to do when you grow up, Sho?"

The question hit Shouto like a physical blow. No one had ever asked him that. Not seriously.

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Tried again. "M... Make." Shouto exhaled sharply through his nose.

"Make...things?" Izuku guessed.

Shouto made a frustrated noise. His fingers brushed Izuku's palm, tracing invisible lines.

"Like making pictures and stuff, like art class?"

A relieved sigh. Then, laboriously: "M-make. P-pictures. G-good." Each word was a struggle, his mouth fighting to shape sounds his brain couldn't easily access.

"That's amazing," Izuku whispered. "You're already so good at art! Sho, you’re gonna be an amazing artist!!!” 

Shouto's fingers clamped around Izuku's wrist again, tighter this time. 

Izuku looked at the clock. 12:03 AM - July 15th.

Izuku didn't realize he was crying until a tear splashed onto their joined hands. "I'm really glad we're friends," he blurted.

It wasn't what he meant to say. He meant to say Thank you for trusting me or You're going to be incredible or I don't know what I'd do without you. But those words took too long to say, so all that came out was... that.

Shouto’s hand slid down to tangle with Izuku's, squeezing so hard their knuckles pressed together like puzzle pieces locking into place.

---

The visiting room smelled of antiseptic and the faint floral scent of the potted orchids lining the windowsills. Fuyumi's knees pressed together tightly as she sat on the edge of an overstuffed chair, her fingers knotting in her lap. Touya leaned against the wall beside her, arms crossed, staring at the framed landscape painting across the room, some generic mountain scene meant to be calming.

The door opened with a soft click.

Rei Todoroki stepped in, her silver hair pulled back into a loose braid, her pale blue cardigan hanging slightly too large on her slender frame. Her eyes, so like Shouto's, widened when she saw Fuyumi.

"Fuyumi?" Her voice was softer than Touya remembered, more fragile. "Is it really you?"

Fuyumi shot to her feet, her chair scraping backward. "Hi, Mom."

Rei rushed forward, pulling Fuyumi into a tight embrace. "Oh, my sweet girl," she murmured into her daughter's hair. "Look how grown up you are." Her hands fluttered over Fuyumi's face, tracing the lines that hadn't been there the last time she'd seen her. "It's been so long, hasn't it?"

Fuyumi swallowed hard. "Almost three years."

Rei blinked, as if trying to reconcile that number with her own sense of time. Then her gaze shifted to Touya, and her expression turned politely puzzled. "And your friend is...?"

"Mom," Fuyumi said gently, taking her mother's hand, "it's Touya."

Rei went very still. Touya watched the recognition fail to spark, the way her eyes skipped over his scars, the man's body that had replaced the boy she'd last seen thirteen years ago.

Touya swallowed hard. He stepped forward, removing his glasses with exaggerated slowness. "Pretend there's no scars," he said, forcing a smirk. "Recognize me now?"

Rei's breath hitched. Her hands flew to her mouth as tears welled in her eyes. "Oh," she whispered.

Then she was pulling him into the embrace, her fingers tracing his face like she was memorizing him. Touya stiffened at first, thirteen years of distance couldn't be erased in a moment, but gradually relaxed into the contact.

When she pulled back, her eyes were bright. "Let me look at you," she demanded, her hands framing his face. Her thumbs traced the edges of his scars, the curve of his cheekbones. "My beautiful boy."

Touya's throat tightened.

Rei didn't let go of either of them as she guided them to the sitting area, one hand clutching Fuyumi's, the other tangled in Touya's sleeve like she was afraid he'd vanish. "Tell me everything," she said, her voice trembling with excitement. "Natsuo, he must be so big now! And Shouto…"

Fuyumi squeezed her mother's fingers. "Natsuo's at Keio University. Pre-med, top of his class."

Rei's face lit with pride. 

"And Shouto," Touya added, "he's...quiet. Sweet kid. Really talented in art class."

Rei beamed. "He always loved colors. Even as a baby, he'd stare at flowers for hours." Her expression clouded momentarily before brightening again. She turned to Touya. "And you? What do you do?"

"I'm a quirk counselor," he said. "Work with kids who have trouble controlling their abilities."

The pride in Rei's eyes was almost too much to bear. 

The conversation flowed, carefully curated anecdotes about Natsuo's all-nighters, Fuyumi's teaching job, the mountain trip with their grandparents. Rei drank it all in, her fingers never leaving Touya's sleeve, as if afraid he'd disappear.

Then, as the afternoon light began to fade, Rei's grip suddenly tightened. Her gaze grew distant, her pupils dilating slightly. "The shadows are moving again," she murmured, staring at the far wall.

A nurse appeared in the doorway with a small paper cup. "Rei, it's time for your medication."

Rei took the pill without protest, but the change was immediate, her posture slackened, her bright curiosity dulling into something placid and faraway.

Fuyumi kissed her forehead. "We'll come back soon. Maybe bring the boys next time."

Rei nodded absently, her fingers still tangled with Touya's as the nurses helped her to her feet.

Out in the hallway, Touya stopped the attending physician. "What exactly is her diagnosis?"

The doctor adjusted his clipboard. "Bipolar I disorder with intermittent psychotic features. The manic episodes are less frequent now, but when they occur, they're severe: paranoia, hallucinations, sometimes violent outbursts. The depressive episodes are more common and can last months."

Touya absorbed this. "And the medication?"

"Lithium for mood stabilization, plus an antipsychotic as needed." The doctor glanced toward Rei's retreating form. "She's been relatively stable these past few months. The delusions about her husband are less frequent now that he's..." He trailed off awkwardly.

"In prison," Touya finished flatly.

The doctor nodded. "She asks about all of you often. Especially the little one."

Touya's chest tightened.

---

The street was bathed in golden evening light when they emerged. Fuyumi exhaled shakily, her hands stuffed deep in her pockets. "That was... a good visit. Sometimes she only lasts twenty minutes before the paranoia starts."

Touya grunted in agreement, and they headed in the direction of the train station.

Fuyumi hesitated. "Do you think... we should bring the boys next time?"

Touya thought for a second. The image of Shouto facing their mom, who’d scarred him so horribly he was functionally blind in one eye, made his stomach twist. "Let's take it one visit at a time." 

---

The last days of summer break had turned the apartment into a gallery of Shouto’s creations. Sketches covered the fridge, taped haphazardly with too much washi tape. The living room walls bore faint pencil marks where he’d gotten inspired during movie nights. 

“I swear to god,” Touya muttered, peeling a crayon sketch of what might have been a very abstract Keigo off the window, “if one more of these ends up on the wall…” 

Keigo, lounging on the couch with his wings draped over the back, snorted. “Relax. It’s just pencil. Fuyumi said it’ll erase.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then what is?”

Touya gestured vaguely at the wall where Shouto had drawn an impressively detailed. if slightly lopsided, rendition of their mountain trip, complete with stick-figure grandparents and a suspiciously large hot spring. “He’s everywhere. Like a tiny, artistic poltergeist.”

Keigo grinned. “Admit it. You’re proud.”

Touya didn’t dignify that with a response.

Across the room, Natsuo lay sprawled on the floor with Shouto using his stomach as a pillow, both of them absorbed in some pre-quirk-era cartoon. Shouto’s fingers twitched absently, tracing shapes in the air as he watched, probably planning his next mural. Natsuo, unusually quiet, had one hand resting on Shouto’s head, his fingers idly carding through red-and-white hair.

Touya frowned. “You think Natsu’s okay?”

Keigo followed his gaze. “Looks fine to me.”

“He’s been like that all day. Just… lying there.”

“It’s his last day home,” Keigo pointed out. “Maybe he just wants to soak up time with Sho before heading back.”

Touya chewed his lip. That should have made sense, except Natsuo wasn’t the type to sit still for more than five minutes, let alone an entire afternoon. The Natsuo he knew would have been bouncing off the walls, talking a mile a minute about all the projects he was excited to start, the friends he couldn’t wait to see.

This Natsuo just… existed. Like a battery running low.

---

Dinner was Natsuo’s favorite, katsudon with extra pork cutlets, the way Fuyumi only made for special occasions. She’d even dug out the good plates, the ones with the cherry blossom pattern their grandparents had given them.

“All packed?” she asked as she passed Natsuo the soy sauce.

Natsuo shrugged, pushing rice around his bowl. “Mostly.”

Fuyumi and Touya exchanged glances.

“You got your lab manuals?” Touya pressed.

“Yeah.”

“And your-”

“Yes, Touya,” Natsuo snapped, then immediately winced. “Sorry. Just… yeah. I got it.”

The table fell silent. Even Shouto paused mid-bite to glance between his brothers, his brow furrowing.

Keigo, ever the peacemaker, cleared his throat. “So! Who’s excited for Shouto’s first day back? Bet you’ve missed your art class, huh, little man?”

Shouto considered this, then nodded solemnly and returned to his food.

The conversation limped along after that, Fuyumi’s classroom setup, Keigo’s upcoming mission, Touya’s new counseling cases. Natsuo contributed exactly three words total before excusing himself to “finish packing.”

Touya waited exactly seventeen minutes before following.

The first knock got no response.

The second knock, louder, more insistent, was met with a muffled sniffle.

He knocked again. “Natsu? You decent?”

Still nothing.

Touya pushed the door open a crack. “Look, if you’re jerking off in there, I really don’t-”

The words died in his throat.

Natsuo was curled on his side in bed, his face pressed into his pillow. The room was freezing: not Shouto-level arctic, but enough that Touya could see his breath. Little flurries of snow swirled around Natsuo’s hunched form, dusting the sheets and floor with a fine powder.

And Natsuo was crying.

Not the dramatic, performative sobbing he’d done as a kid when he skinned his knee or didn’t get his way. This was silent, shuddering grief, the kind that left a person hollow.

Touya crossed the room in three strides, sitting heavily on the edge of the bed. “Hey. What’s going on?”

Natsuo shook his head, his breath hitching.

“Natsu.” Touya reached out, squeezing his shoulder. “Talk to me.”

“I don’t…” Natsuo’s voice cracked. “I don’t want to go back.”

Touya blinked. “To school?”

A jerky nod.

“But… you love school.” Touya frowned. “You’re killing it in your classes, you’ve got that research assistant position-”

“I can’t,” Natsuo burst out, rolling over to face him. His eyes were red-rimmed, his cheeks blotchy. More snowflakes spiraled from the ceiling as his breath hitched. “I’m so tired, Touya. I can’t… I can’t keep doing this.”

The raw desperation in his voice sent a jolt through Touya. He reached out instinctively, pulling Natsuo into a hug. “Okay. Okay, it’s gonna be okay.”

Natsuo shuddered against him, his fingers clutching at Touya’s shirt. “No, it’s not, it’s too much and I-”

“Natsu, just breathe. We’ll figure it out.” Touya rubbed circles between his shoulder blades, the way he did for Shouto after nightmares. “Look, tomorrow, when we drop you off, we’ll go to the registrar. See about lightening your course load, maybe dropping that second lab you added...”

"And if that's not enough?"

"Then we'll figure that out too."

Natsuo exhaled shakily, the flurries slowing to a stop. Touya held on a moment longer before pulling back to look at him.

"We’re here for you- me, Keigo, Fuyumi… whatever you need: breaks, extensions, a fucking trimester off… we'll make it work."

Natsuo nodded, his eyes red-rimmed.

Touya fetched him a glass of water, and when he returned, Natsuo was sitting up, staring blankly at the wall. The expression on his face, distant, unfocused… it sent a jolt of recognition through Touya. He'd seen that look somewhere before.

But where?

Chapter 29: High Tide

Notes:

thank you all for your kind comments! i am so grateful and pleased to have everyone along for the journey with me.
hope you continue to enjoy, and thanks so much again :)

The call came at 3:17 AM, rang twice, then cut itself off. 

Touya fumbled for his phone, squinting at the screen. A second later, Natsuo's name flashed back at him, along with a blurry selfie of him grinning in what looked like a lab.

NATSUO: THANK U FOR TALKING TO THE REGISTRAR!!!! Got approved for independent research w/ Dr. Tanaka!!! Only 16 credits now so I’ll have TIME to focus on CELLULAR REGENERATION STUDIES!!!!

Touya groaned, dropping his phone onto his chest. Next to him, Keigo stirred.

"Everything okay?" he mumbled into his pillow.

"Natsu," Touya grunted. "Somehow turned 'reduce workload' into 'add more work.'"

Keigo chuckled, his wing draping over Touya like a living blanket. "Sounds like someone I know."

Touya wanted to be annoyed, wanted to worry... But the truth was, Natsuo did sound better, his texts full of the same positive energy as before, his voice on their calls bright with excitement. Maybe he'd just needed a break. Maybe Touya had been overthinking. 

---

"You're sure you're free tonight?" Touya asked for the third time, shoving his feet into his least-scuffed shoes.

Keigo rolled his eyes, adjusting the collar of his (suspiciously nice) shirt. "Yes, for the fifth time, I…" His phone buzzed. He glanced at it. Grimaced. "...Okay, I was free."

Touya leaned against the wall, already exhausted. "Commission?"

"Bank robbery downtown. High-speed pursuit." Keigo was already shrugging into his jacket, his wings rustling impatiently. "I'm sorry-"

"Go," Touya said, waving him off. "Just don't get shot."

Keigo pressed a quick kiss to his forehead. "Love you too."

The door slammed shut behind him. Touya stared at the takeout menu in his hand, the sushi place Keigo loved, the one they'd been talking about for weeks, and sighed.

Fuyumi poked her head out of the kitchen. "Date night canceled?"

Touya flopped onto the couch. "Hero shit."

Shouto, sprawled on the floor with his sketchbook, made a quiet noise of sympathy.

Fuyumi hesitated. "Actually... since you're free, can you look at Shouto's homework? He's been... difficult about it."

Touya arched a brow. "Difficult how?"

As if on cue, Shouto slammed his sketchbook shut with more force than necessary and stormed out, his jaw set in a stubborn line.

Ah. That kind of difficult.

---

The worksheet was simple. Five addition problems, all sums under ten, with cheerful cartoon apples and oranges serving as visual aids. But tonight, it might as well have been advanced calculus.

Shouto’s hand trembled, the pencil squeaking as he pressed too hard, obliterating an apple in a smear of graphite.

“It’s okay,” Fuyumi said softly, her teacher-voice firmly in place. “Just take a breath. You know this.”

Shouto shook his head, his jaw clenched. He tried again, his fingers white-knuckled around the pencil. 

2 + 3. 

He wrote 6, then immediately scribbled it out.

“Let’s try using the counters,” Fuyumi suggested, pushing the little basket of plastic bears toward him. It was a strategy that had worked before: tactile, visual, breaking the abstract into something he could hold.

Shouto stared at the bears, his breathing starting to hitch. He picked one up, then another, his movements jerky. One… two… He lined them up. Three… four… He was supposed to add them, count the total.

He wanted to understand. He wanted the numbers to make sense, wanted the words to stop jumbling together. He wanted to not feel this hot, sharp thing clawing up his throat.

Instead, his fist closed around the bears. A sharp crack echoed in the quiet kitchen as the plastic shattered in his grip.

Fuyumi flinched.

Shouto stared at the shards in his palm, the blood pooling where he’d slightly stabbed himself with the plastic, his face paling. Then, with a sudden, violent motion, he swept the entire worksheet and the basket of counters off the table. They clattered across the floor, bears scattering everywhere.

“Shouto!” Fuyumi’s voice was sharp with shock.

He shoved back from the table so hard his chair screeched and tipped over. He was on his feet, his chest heaving, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. A low, guttural sound ripped from his throat, nothing like his usual quiet hums or frustrated whines. This was pure, unfiltered rage.

Fuyumi stood slowly, her heart hammering. 

“Hey,” she said, keeping her voice low and calm, though it shook. “It’s okay. We can stop.”

He looked at her, his eyes wide, apologetic. He backed away from her, from the mess, until his back hit the wall. A terrified whimper escaped him. He slid down the wall, crumpling to the floor, and wrapped his arms around his head.

“N-no,” he choked out, the word mangled and thick. “N-no… h-hurt.”

Ice crackled feebly around his feet, not forming the protective wall he seemed to want, just creating a slushy, melting mess. 

He couldn’t let her near him. What if he did it again?

The air grew cold. Snowflakes, weak and insubstantial, began to drift down from around him, dusting his hair and shoulders. He was shaking uncontrollably, trapped between the fury that had erupted out of him and the terror of what he’d almost done.

Fuyumi stood frozen, one hand pressed to her mouth. The logical part of her brain, the teacher part, knew this was a meltdown, a reaction to overwhelming frustration and fear. But the little girl inside her, the one who had watched her father’s temper shake the very foundations of their house, was terrified. She saw Natsuo’s teenage rebellion, their father’s cold fury, the shadow of every man who had ever made her feel small and unsafe, all reflected in her baby brother’s terrified eyes.

The front door opened and closed. 

"I'm ho- what the…" Touya stood in the entryway, taking in the scene. “Fuyumi… everything okay?” 

She just gave a tiny, jerky nod, her eyes wide.

"What happened?"

"He was upset," she whispered, her voice thin. "The math… he couldn't… he got so frustrated. He didn't mean to, he just… he scared me." She wrapped her arms around herself.

Touya nodded, understanding the unspoken layers in her admission. "Okay. It's okay. He's okay. You're okay." He adjusted his grip, his back protesting. "Fuyumi, go make some tea. Go sit on the balcony. Breathe. I've got this."

She hesitated for a second, then nodded, fleeing to the kitchen with a palpable sense of relief.

He waited until she had moved, robotically, toward the kitchen, before he turned to the corner. He didn't approach Shouto like a threat. He moved slowly, wearily, and lowered himself to the floor with a quiet grunt of effort. He didn't try to touch him right away.

"Hey, buddy," he said, his voice raspy. "Rough day, huh?"

Shouto flinched, pressing himself further into the wall. A small, terrified whimper escaped him.

"I'm not mad," Touya said, settling onto his knees. The cold from Shouto's slush seeped through his slacks. "I get it. I really do. Sometimes your brain feels like it's full of bees and you just wanna scream, right?"

Shouto peeked out from behind his arms. His face was streaked with tears and melted hail.

"Can I come closer?"

A tiny, almost imperceptible nod.

Touya moved behind him, wrapping his arms around Shouto’s chest and pulling him back against his own, enveloping him in a tight, secure hold. It was a deep pressure hug, the kind that sometimes helped ground him. Shouto fought for a second, a weak, uncoordinated struggle, before the tension broke and he went limp, a sob finally wrenching free.

Touya held on, gritting his teeth against the strain of holding Shouto upright, so he wouldn’t faceplant onto the ground; he was getting so tall… and heavy. He rocked them slightly, a steady rhythm. "I've got you. You're okay. You're not in trouble. Just let it out."

The snow stopped. 

"It's alright," Touya murmured into his hair. "Everyone gets mad. It's what we do with it that matters. And you did good. You didn't hurt anyone. You just got scared." He held him tighter. "Everything will work itself out, I promise. But right now, we're just gonna sit here until you feel like you're back in your body again."

Slowly, the tremors subsided. The oppressive heat faded, leaving behind the chill of melted snow and exhaustion. In the kitchen, Fuyumi clinked a cup, her breathing audibly evening out. Held securely in the circle of his brother's arms, Shouto finally began to calm, the terrifying, unfamiliar anger receding, leaving only a hollowed-out shame and the relief of being held.

---

The Aizawa-Yamada living room was a sanctuary of controlled coolness, a stark contrast to the oppressive August heat shimmering outside the windows. The air conditioner hummed like a trapped insect, working overtime. Despite it, Touya felt a layer of sweat prickle under his shirt collar. It wasn’t just the weather. A deep, bone-grinding exhaustion had taken root in him, and his skin felt itchy, too tight for his frame. The image of Shouto’s terrified face from the day before was burned on the back of his eyelids. He’d barely slept.

He took a slow sip of the iced tea Yamada had pressed into his hand, the condensation wet against his palm. From the kitchen, he could hear the low murmur of Aizawa and Yamada pretending not to listen. They were trying to be subtle, but the clink of mugs and the occasional rustle of a newspaper were too deliberate. They were standing guard, ready to intervene if their son dissociated again.

Hitoshi sat across from him on the floor, legs crossed, fidgeting with a loose thread on his jeans. His purple hair was a mess, his eyes shadowed. The tablet sat between them like a silent witness.

The silence stretched, thick and patient. Touya let it. He watched the dust motes dance in a sliver of sunlight cutting through the blinds. Rushing this would be worse than not doing it at all.

"Last time," Touya began, his voice low and even, "you told me something important. You said you hurt someone with your quirk." He paused, letting the words settle. "That's a heavy thing to carry around. I understand completely how that would make it hard to want to speak again."

Hitoshi’s shoulders hunched almost imperceptibly. He didn't look up, his focus locked on that loose thread.

"I'm not here to judge you," Touya continued, his tone remaining a flat, calm plane. "Accidents happen." He let that hang in the air. "The thing is, if you want to go to UA, if you want to be a hero, you've got to get a handle on on your quirk, which means… you do need to speak again. And to do that, we need to understand what we're working with. We need to understand what happened."

He leaned forward, just a little, elbows resting on his knees. "So, I need to ask you some stuff. You can answer however you want: tablet, a nod, a shake, a note. Whatever. But I need to know." He took a slow sip. "First question: when you try to talk, what happens?” Touya pointed to his throat. “Does your throat just… close up? Like a door slamming shut?" He demonstrated, closing his fist tightly. "Or do the words get stuck in your head and can't find the way out?" He tapped his own temple.

Hitoshi was still for a long moment, processing. Then, slowly, he lifted a hand. He pointed to his own throat. Then, after another pause, he tapped his temple.

"Both," Touya translated softly. "Okay. That's good to know. Really good. We can work with that."

Hitoshi didn't move. 

"I need to understand, Hitoshi. Not to blame you. Never that. But to help you, I have to see the monster you're so afraid of. I need to know what it looks like." He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "Can you tell me what happened? The last time you used your quirk?"

Hitoshi’s fingers stilled on the thread. He shook his head, a minute, terrified motion. He didn't look up.

"It's okay," Touya said, though he knew it wasn't. "I’m not going to ask you to say it out loud. You can type it, if you want to."

For a long minute, Hitoshi was frozen. Then, with a tremor in his hand, he reached for the tablet. His fingers hovered over the screen. He typed one word, then another, his movements agonizingly slow. He’d type a few characters, then delete them, his frustration mounting with each erased syllable. It was too slow, he’d never get through it all. 

Finally, with a sound of pure frustration, he shoved the tablet away. It skidded across the table and would have fallen if Touya hadn't caught it.

Touya’s heart ached. He was pushing too hard, too fast. "Okay," he backpedaled immediately. "Okay, it's alright. We don't have to-"

Hitoshi scrambled to his feet, and went straight to the kitchen doorway, where the pretense of privacy had long since vanished. Hitoshi’s hands began to move, signing rapidly, his expressions strained.

Yamada’s face softened with understanding. "He wants us in there," he translated quietly for Touya. "He wants to tell you, but… he needs help."

Aizawa placed a steadying hand on Hitoshi's shoulder, a silent pillar of support, and guided him back into the living room. They all sat on the floor now, a small circle. Hitoshi positioned himself between his fathers, drawing strength from their proximity. Yamada sat next to Touya, across from Hitoshi, ready to interpret.

"Okay, little listener," Yamada said, his voice uncharacteristically gentle. "Whenever you're ready. We're right here."

Hitoshi took a shuddering breath. He looked at the floor, his hands trembling slightly as he began to sign. Yamada’s voice was a soft, steady murmur, translating the flowing gestures into words.

“My quirk came in… a few months before. It was late, so they thought I would be quirkless. So we went to a cabin in the mountains, to celebrate that, and for my birthday.”

His signs were slow, deliberate, each one costing him.

“There were… bad… scary men.” His fingers shaped the words for bad and scary with a child’s remembered terror.

Yamada’s voice hitched slightly but he pressed on. "My parents… their quirks. My mom could… suggest things. Through eye contact. Make you feel calm, or want to do something. My dad could… move small things with his mind. But he had to be close." He swallowed. "They weren't… fighters."

The story unfolded in halting signs and Yamada’s quiet, heartbreaking translation. How the villains had overwhelmed them. How his father, a young surgeon, and his mother, a therapist, were no match for sheer, brutal violence. How Hitoshi, terrified out of his mind, had seen one of the men raise a weapon.

“I screamed at him, asking him to stop, asking him why…”

The signs were sharp, anguished.

And he did.

A pause. Hitoshi’s breath hitched. Aizawa’s hand tightened on his shoulder.

“I made him walk. Off the balcony. To get away. I don’t know if he survived. The other one… I made him lock himself in a closet.” His hands faltered. “But he was strong. He broke the door. He was so angry.”

Hitoshi’s hands came up to his own face, miming a brutal impact. “He hit me. Here. Everything went black.”

The room was utterly silent except for the hum of the AC and Yamada’s strained voice.

“When I woke up… it was quiet. He was… going through our things. My mom’s jewelry. Dad’s watch. I… I played dead. I didn't make a sound. I knew if I did…”

He didn't need to finish. 

Touya felt the air leave his lungs. Jesus.

“When he left, I tried…” Hitoshi’s hands stilled completely for a long moment, his head bowed. When he moved again, the signs were heartbreakingly small. “I tried to use his quirk on my mom and dad. To wake them up. It didn’t work.”

A single tear traced a path down Yamada’s cheek as he voiced the words. He quickly wiped it away.

“I walked to the road. My mouth was… it was bad. Swollen. Opening it hurt more than anything. Someone finally stopped. Called the police.”

The story unfolded further, sign by painful sign. The hospital. The wired jaw. The first foster home, where he arrived silent and broken. The wary looks from the foster parents when the wires finally came off, when they read his file and saw the word Brainwash. The dawning, crushing realization that his voice was something scary. The memory that his voice had thrown someone off a balcony. 

“It was just… easier not to,” Yamada translated, his voice thick. “I was afraid people would hate him. And now… now even trying to make a sound feels like that day. It brings it all back.”

He finished. His hands dropped into his lap, utterly spent. He leaned heavily against Aizawa, who pulled him closer, his own expression carved from granite and grief. The silence that followed was profound, broken only by the relentless hum of the AC, now feeling woefully inadequate against the heat of this shared, horrific history.

Hitoshi was trembling, overwhelmed but present. He had not dissociated. He had walked through the fire of his memory and come out the other side, scorched but whole.

Touya looked at the boy, at the two men who had built a fortress around him, and felt a respect so deep it was almost painful. He had come here to be a quirk counselor. It was blindingly clear the job at hand was something else entirely first.

"Thank you," Touya said, his voice rough with an emotion he couldn't name. He looked at Hitoshi, then at his fathers. "Thank you for trusting me with that."

Hitoshi, looking smaller and more fragile than ever, signed something to Aizawa, his movements slow and exhausted.

Aizawa gave a short, sharp nod. "Go on. We're right here."

Hitoshi didn't look at anyone as he pushed himself to his feet and shuffled out of the living room, heading down the hall toward his bedroom. The quiet click of his door closing felt like a full stop at the end of a devastating sentence.

Yamada translated, his voice still rough. “He says he’s tired. He’s going to go lie down.”

Touya nodded, running a hand over his face. "That's good. He needs to rest after that."

Aizawa’s expression was grim. "I don't know about good. Hitoshi and napping… it's not always a good sign." He didn't elaborate, but the implication was clear: sleep was often an escape, a precursor to the depressive episodes that could swallow their son for days. He quickly shook his head, as if to dislodge the thought. "But this… this was necessary. We had the police report. We knew about his parents, the assault… but we never knew how much he saw. How much he… did." The word did hung in the air, heavy with the weight of a child forced to become a weapon.

Yamada let out a wet, shaky laugh that was entirely devoid of humor. “Yeah. Mystery solved.” He ran a hand over his face, the attempt at a joke falling painfully flat. The weight of what his son had been forced to do, to survive, was clearly crushing him.

Aizawa refocused, his voice returning to its usual pragmatic tone. “This gives us a real starting point. We can get him a therapist who specializes in this kind of trauma. Someone he can actually talk to about it. Then, once he’s… processed some of this, we can come back to the quirk counseling.”

“I have some recommendations,” Touya offered immediately, pulling his phone from his pocket. “Colleagues who are good with quirk-related PTSD. I’ll send you their info.”

“Thank you,” Aizawa said, and the gratitude in his voice was profound and genuine.

“Yeah, really,” Yamada added, his usual exuberance muted but sincere. “We’ve been… God, we’ve been spinning our wheels for years.”

Touya pushed himself to his feet, his body protesting with various aches and a fresh wave of fatigue. The emotional toll of the session was settling in, amplifying the physical ones. “I’m gonna head out. Let him rest. You know where to find me.”

Yamada surged forward and wrapped Touya in a brief, tight hug. “Thank you,” he whispered fiercely before releasing him.

Aizawa didn’t hug him, but he met Touya’s eyes and offered a small, tight smile, the kind that reached his eyes and conveyed more than words ever could. It was a look of shared understanding, of respect. “We’ll be in touch.”

The journey home was a blur. The sun was oppressively bright, and Touya’s head throbbed in time with his footsteps. He still didn’t feel well; if anything, the deep-seated itch under his skin and the ache in his joints felt more pronounced. But beneath the physical misery was a quiet, steady hum of accomplishment. He had helped break a dam that had been holding a boy hostage for eight years. He had given a family a path forward.

The image of Hitoshi’s exhausted but clear-eyed face as he left the room stayed with him. It wasn’t the blank dissociation of before. It was the drained stillness that comes after a storm has finally passed. Touya had a feeling, a solid, good feeling, that once Hitoshi had the right tools and the right support, he wouldn’t just heal: he would flourish.

Chapter 30: Settle

Notes:

thank you again to everyone! i've finally finished it up (on my end) so i'm even more excited to be sharing these chapters with you <3

September arrived not with a bang, but with a sigh. The heat broke, replaced by a cool crispness in the air. For the first time in months, the city seemed to breathe easier. The news cycles slowed, the villain attacks grew less frequent, and Keigo’s patrols ended at a reasonable hour more often than not. His presence in the apartment became a constant: his wings taking up space in the hallway, his laughter mingling with Fuyumi’s, his quiet conversations with Touya a steady hum in the background. A fragile, hard-won peace settled over the Himura-Todoroki household.

The school year’s new approach for Shouto was a cautious dance. His team had listened, truly listened, to Touya and Fuyumi’s concerns. The stack of frustrating worksheets was replaced with more tactile, project-based learning. It was a relief to see the constant tension leave his shoulders, but Touya watched with a wary eye. He didn’t want them to give up on him, to relegate him to a life of only simple, hands-on tasks. It was a fine, difficult line to walk.

But all those concerns were set aside for one bright Saturday in mid-September: the art competition.

The gallery was a sleek, modern space in a part of Tokyo that Touya rarely visited. Glass walls, polished concrete floors, and the hushed, reverent atmosphere of money and culture. It was immediately clear that most of the young artists were from a different world. They stood in clusters, dressed in crisp uniforms from elite academies or stylish casual wear that screamed private tutors and summer homes abroad. Their parents sipped champagne and spoke in low, confident tones.

He stood slightly apart from his family, fidgeting with the cuff of the new button-down shirt Fuyumi had bought him. The scar on his face seemed more pronounced under the gallery’s perfect lighting, a stark contrast to the unblemished, carefully curated faces around him. 

Shouto’s pieces were easy to find. They weren’t hung in a place of prominence, but they commanded attention nonetheless.

There was a large canvas dominated by swirling, chaotic blues and greys, with a single, stark streak of vibrant orange cutting through the center: a representation of a storm, or perhaps a feeling. Another was a series of smaller clay sculptures, figures that were warped and melted in a way that was unsettling but deliberate, each one glazed in a different, clashing color. The technical skill was undeniably raw next to the polished still lifes and perfect perspective drawings from students at elite academies. But Shouto’s work had vision. It was messy, emotional, and utterly unique.

“He looks so nervous,” Fuyumi whispered, clutching Touya’s arm.

“He’s fine,” Touya said, though his own stomach was knotted. 

The doors swung open and Natsuo burst in, a whirlwind of manic energy. His hair was a wild mess, his eyes too bright, and he smelled faintly of stale coffee. “I made it! I thought trains were supposed to be fast, but this one crawled. Where’s our little artist?” He clapped Shouto on the back with enough force to make him stumble, already talking a mile a minute as Shouto stared at him, clearly uninterested. 

Shouto tolerated it, his gaze scanning the entrance.

A moment later, Inko Midoriya appeared, a gentle but firm anchor for her son. Izuku was practically glued to her side, his shoulders hunched, his face half-hidden by the hood of his jacket. The bright, chatty boy Touya knew was gone, replaced by a ball of palpable anxiety. His red noise-canceling headphones were clamped tight, and his fingers were twisting the hem of his shirt in a frantic, repetitive motion.

Inko gave their group a warm, if slightly strained, smile. “We found parking right out front, what luck!” she said, her voice a familiar comfort.

Shouto’s entire posture changed. He took a small step forward, a silent question in his eyes. Izuku peeked out from behind his mother, saw Shouto, and offered a tiny, wobbly smile. He didn’t let go of Inko, but he nodded.

“Go on, sweetie,” Inko encouraged softly, giving him a little nudge. “Shouto’s been waiting to show you his art.” She watched him go, her expression a mix of pride and concern. “Big crowds are very hard for him,” she explained to Touya and Fuyumi, her voice low. “All the noise and the people… it just… short-circuits him a bit. But he wanted to be here for Shouto more than he wanted to avoid being uncomfortable.”

“We really appreciate it,” Fuyumi said, her teacher’s heart going out to the anxious boy now tentatively following Shouto through the displays. “Our grandparents wanted to come, but Ojiisan threw his back out again trying to move a stone in the garden- apparently Natsuo’s been calling them all week to check in.”

Inko laughed, a warm, genuine sound. “It’s no trouble at all,” she insisted. She turned her attention fully to Touya. “And speaking of- Fuyumi mentioned you all took a trip to the mountains this summer. It sounded lovely.”

“It was,” Touya said, relaxing into the easy small talk. “Shouto loved the train. And the hot springs. Though I think I’m still finding sand in my shoes from where Shouto decided to use them to build a dam in the creek.”

Inko laughed, a bright, genuine sound. “Oh, that sounds like a proper adventure!” As she laughed, Touya took a slightly deeper breath to respond, and a faint, dry wheeze escaped him. Inko’s sharp eyes immediately flicked to him, her smile softening with concern. “Touya, dear, are you catching a cold? I heard a little wheeze there.”

Touya waved a dismissive hand, though the concern was noted. “Nah, just the change in weather. My lungs have never been fans of autumn. It’s nothing.”

Before Inko could press further, the gallery doors opened again with a burst of energy. “Inko-chan! There you are!” Mitsuki Bakugo swept in, a force of nature in a stylish jacket, with her quieter husband, Masaru, trailing in her wake. Her eyes scanned the room, lighting up when they landed on Inko.

“And Touya! Fuyumi! Look at this place, it’s so fancy.” She looped her arm through Inko’s, seamlessly joining their conversation. “Masaru, come say hello. Don’t just stand there looking at the art, you see it every day at home.”

Their makeshift family circle expanded again with the arrival of Aizawa, Yamada, and Hitoshi. Hitoshi looked more settled than the last time Touya had seen him, offering a small, shy nod. Then Katsuki spotted them and beelined for Hitoshi and his dads.

Katsuki’s hands began flying, his signs sharp, aggressive, and punctuated with loud, unintentional grunts and exhalations. Hitoshi signed back with a deadpan expression.

Yamada joined them, his own signing fluid and expressive. He said something that made Aizawa roll his eyes, though a faint smirk played on his lips. The trio created a small, animated island of silent conversation that was somehow louder than the rest of the room.

Mitsuki, mid-laugh with Inko, shot a glance at her son. Her hands moved in sharp, motherly signs. Katsuki didn’t miss a beat, his fingers snapping back a rude retort without even looking at her.

Mitsuki threw her hands up in exasperation, turning to the group. “He’s deaf! How is he the loudest person in the room?!”

Aizawa deadpanned, “You’d be surprised. Hizashi, without his hearing aids, could flatten a villain without even activating his quirk.”

Yamada grinned. “What can I say, babe, I have a gift.” 

It was a chaotic, overlapping tapestry of conversation: spoken words, flying hands, laughter, and Katsuki’s persistent, noisy punctuations. For a moment, watching Shouto patiently point out a detail in his painting to a slightly-less-tense Izuku, Touya felt it. Not the weight of their various traumas and struggles, but the fragile, strengthening web of connection they were all spinning together. This makeshift family, bound by choice and circumstance. Even Mr. Aoki stopped by to say hello, introduce himself to the group, and express his excitement over Shouto’s work. 

A respectful hush fell as three judges began their final walk, clipboards in hand, their expressions unreadable.

The gallery fell into a tense, expectant silence as the head judge, a woman with severe glasses and a kind smile, took the small podium. Fuyumi’s grip on Touya’s arm was vicelike. Natsuo had finally stopped vibrating and was now statue-still, his bloodshot eyes fixed on the judges. Keigo had subtly positioned himself so that one wing created a slight barrier between Shouto, Izuku, and the bulk of the crowd. Inko had her hands clasped under her chin, her gaze darting between Izuku and the stage.

Aizawa’s hands began to move almost imperceptibly, translating her words into JSL for Yamada and Katsuki, his expression as bored as if he were reading a grocery list.

“Thank you all for coming tonight to celebrate the incredible talent of our young artists,” she began, her voice artificially bright. “It was a truly difficult task for our judges, as the creativity and skill on display were exceptional.”

The speech droned on, praising the school, the parents, and the spirit of artistic expression. Touya felt his own breathing grow shallow, the wheeze in his chest a faint but persistent whistle. He wasn’t sure if he was more nervous for Shouto to win or for him to lose. Both outcomes felt fraught.

“And now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for,” the woman trilled. “Third place, for her technically masterful and evocative watercolors, please congratulate Suzuki Aimi!”

Polite applause echoed through the gallery. A girl from a prestigious private school, her uniform crisp, walked primly to the stage to collect a small ribbon. Shouto watched, his expression unreadable.

“Second place,” the announcer continued, “awarded for a piece that demonstrates a truly unique and powerful artistic vision, a collection of work that challenges perception and conveys profound emotional depth… Todoroki Shouto’!”

The applause this time was warmer, peppered with the more robust clapping from their corner of the room. Touya’s breath left him in a rush. Second place. Not first, not overlooked. Second. It was perfect.

Shouto blinked, seeming to process the words. Izuku, his own anxiety forgotten for a split second, gave Shouto’s hand an excited squeeze. Fuyumi let out a choked sob of relief next to Touya, clapping so hard her hands must have stung.

“Go on, Sho,” Touya murmured, giving him a gentle nudge.

Shouto let go of Izuku’s hand and walked to the stage, his movements a little stiff but steady. He accepted the silver medal placed around his neck by a smiling judge, bowed precisely, and stood for a photo. 

His face was a careful blank, but there was a faint pinkness to his ears that betrayed his pleasure.

When first place was announced, a hyper-realistic charcoal portrait from another elite school student, Shouto bowed again to the winner and then made his way back to his family, the medal clutched in his hand.

The formalities concluded, the crowd began to break up, the tension dissolving into a buzz of conversation. Their group migrated outside into the cool September evening air, which felt like a balm after the stuffy gallery. The city lights glittered around them.

Once they were clear of the building, the dam broke.

“You did it!” Fuyumi cried, pulling Shouto into a crushing hug. Natsuo ruffled his hair, babbling about “textural innovation” and “raw thematic power.” Keigo clapped him on the back, his grin wide. “Look at you, kid! A medalist!”

Shouto endured the attention with wide eyes, but he was leaning into it, not pulling away. He sought out Mr. Aoki in the dispersing crowd and gave him a deep, formal bow. The teacher returned it, his face full of genuine pride. “It was an honor to display your work, Shouto. Never stop creating.”

Then it was the makeshift family’s turn. Inko enveloped him in a soft hug. “It was beautiful, sweetie. Just beautiful.” 

Yamada gave him a thumbs-up and a loud, “Awesome job, little listener!” that made several people on the street turn to look. Hitoshi offered a rare, small smile and a nod of respect.

Shouto stood in the center of it all, the silver medal gleaming in his hand. He looked at the faces around him: his brothers, his sister, his brother’s boyfriend, his friend, his friend’s mother, his teacher, his… his people. He looked down at the medal, then back up, his mouth opening and closing as he searched for words.

The celebratory chatter died down. Everyone stilled, giving him the space and silence he needed.

It was slow. It was painstaking. Each word was a mountain to climb, his tongue struggling to form the shapes, his breath catching. The sounds were slurred, the cadence all wrong. But his voice was clear in the quiet night air.

“Th-thank you… f-for… c-coming.” He took a shaky breath, his brow furrowed in concentration. “I… am… gr-grateful. F-for… you.”

The simple, heartfelt words landed with more weight than any polished speech could have. Fuyumi had fresh tears in her eyes. Touya felt a lump in his own throat. Inko was smiling through tears.

Katsuki, who had been watching Shouto’s mouth intently, scowled in frustration. He tapped his mother’s arm and signed, sharp and quick, clearly having missed the moment. 

Mitsuki signed back, her movements a fond exasperation. She then broke the emotional moment with her typical bombast. “Alright, enough standing around on the sidewalk! Everyone’s coming back to our place. We’re feeding you all. Masaru, call ahead to that place I like, tell them we’re need the family meal #3… two of them!”

There was a general murmur of agreement and happy surprise. It felt like the natural, right way to extend the celebration.

Izuku, however, paled. The anxiety that had receded during Shouto’s moment came flooding back. “O-oh, w-we don’t have to… I mean, Mom, we probably should…” he stammered, looking up at Inko with wide, pleading eyes. The thought of another crowded, noisy environment, especially the often-volatile Bakugo household, was clearly overwhelming.

Shouto, attuned to his friend’s shift in mood, immediately reached out and reclaimed Izuku’s hand. He didn’t look at him, but his grip was firm and reassuring. He gave a single, determined nod, his message clear: I’ll be there. You’ll be okay.

Izuku looked at their joined hands, then at Shouto’s calm, resolute face. He took a deep, shuddering breath and gave a tiny, hesitant nod of his own.

The group began to move, a noisy, chaotic, happy procession heading down the illuminated street towards the Bakugo home. Touya fell into step beside Keigo, watching Shouto walk ahead, one hand holding his medal, the other firmly holding onto his friend, leading him into the next adventure. The worry, the wheeze in his chest, the constant calculations… it all faded into the background, just for tonight. There was only the cool air, the warmth of his found family, and profound pride. 

---

Early October painted the world in shades of gold and crimson, but inside the Todoroki-Himura apartment, the air was thick with the weight of impending decisions. Brochures and pamphlets were spread across the kotatsu like a paper mosaic, each one representing a different future. Mitsuki’s advice had been blunt: Start now. Good spots fill up fast, especially for kids who need… specific environments.

Touya rubbed his temples, the text on the page in front of him starting to swim. He’d already been feeling off all day: a deep, unshakable chill that had settled in his bones despite the warm apartment, and a headache brewing behind his eyes. His glasses felt heavy on his face. Shouto sat across from him, posture rigid, his gaze fixed on a point somewhere beyond the scattered booklets. He wasn’t ignoring them; he was actively not looking, a defense mechanism against the overwhelming tide of options.

Keigo, ever the pragmatist, had taken charge of organization. He’d sorted the schools into piles with a frightening efficiency that spoke to his hero training.

“Okay,” Keigo said, tapping a stack of glossy brochures. “These are the mainstream high schools. They have ‘strong support programs.’” He made air quotes with his fingers. “Which, from what I can decipher, means a resource room you can go to when you’re overwhelmed and maybe a teacher’s aide who’s spread across three students who need her.”

Touya grunted, picking up one of the brochures. Smiling, neurotypical kids stared back, their futures seemingly assured. “Feels like being shoved in a closet and told not to make noise.”

“Pretty much,” Keigo agreed. He moved to the next pile. “Vocational tracks: culinary arts, basic computing, automotive repair. Good job prospects, I guess. Structured. Predictable.”

Shouto’s nose wrinkled almost imperceptibly at the automotive brochure. The idea of loud, greasy environments was his personal hell.

“Then there’s this one,” Keigo said, his voice softening as he held up a single, more sober-looking pamphlet. “The Higashiyama Academy. It’s… a high-support needs school. Smaller classes, one-on-one attention, focus on life skills and vocational training in a controlled setting… and expensive… but I guess your dad would be paying for it anyways.” It was the safest option. The most protective. The one that made Touya’s chest tighten with a complicated mix of relief and grief.

Finally, Keigo slid two last brochures to the center of the table. They were different. Vibrant, splattered with paint, photographs of students wielding blowtorches and sculpting clay. “The arts schools. This one’s local, decent reputation. And this one…” He tapped the cover of the most striking brochure. “Tokyo Metropolitan Arts School- it’s a public school. Their rep sought out Mr. Aoki after the competition. They’re interested in seeing your application, Sho.”

Shouto’s mismatched eyes lifted, finally focusing. He reached for the brochure, his touch almost reverent. He traced the image of the welding student, then turned the page to a gallery of student work: wild, imaginative pieces that prioritized vision over technical perfection. It looked like a place his own warped, textured art would belong.The cover was a dynamic shot of a student welding a massive metal sculpture, sparks flying. “Look at this place. They have glassblowing, forging, digital media… It’s where you make art, like, for real.”

Touya’s chest tightened, and not just from his worsening symptoms. “It’s all the way in Shibuya. Two train transfers. The crowds…” The logistics were a nightmare. The idea of Shouto navigating that twice a day, every day, sent a spike of pure fear through him. “And the portfolio… it’s intense: 10-15 original works. 5 observational drawings. 1 written artist statement (500 words). Interview.”

A written statement. Five hundred words. For Shouto, that was an insurmountable mountain. The hope in his eyes dimmed.

“We can help with that,” Keigo said immediately, his voice firm. “The statement. We’ll figure it out. We can dictate, use speech-to-text, whatever you need. The interview… we can practice. It’s just talking about your art. You can do that. This is what you want, isn’t it?”

The question hung in the air. It wasn’t a question Touya had asked. He’d been asking What can you handle? Keigo was asking What do you desire?

Touya looked between Keigo’s determined optimism and Shouto’s overwhelmed resignation. The responsible older brother in him screamed to veto it, to steer him toward the safe, supported school where he wouldn’t be set up to fail. But the part of him that remembered being a desperate, burning teenager, screaming for someone to see his potential until he’d almost died over it, stayed his tongue. 

Touya thought about how Keigo, who’d had his entire childhood sold for drug money and his adolescence run by the Commission. Keigo, who’d never had a choice, was fighting like a lion for Shouto to have one. He wanted Shouto to chase a dream so he’d never know the soul-deep resentment of a path chosen for him.

“Okay,” Touya breathed, the fight going out of him. The fuzziness in his head was winning, making his thoughts swim. “Okay. We’ll apply. To this one, to the supported school, to the vocational… we’ll cast a wide net.”

The relief on Shouto’s face was palpable. The decision, or rather, the permission to try, had been made.

Touya pushed himself up from the floor, the room tilting slightly. “I just… I need to lie down for a minute. Keigo, can you…?” He gestured vaguely at the mountain of applications.

“Go,” Keigo said, his voice softening as he took in Touya’s pallor. “We’ve got this.”

Touya didn’t argue. He stumbled to the couch and collapsed onto it, his glasses digging into the side of his face. He took them off, and hoped nobody would step on them. He closed his eyes, listening to the low murmur of voices from the kotatsu.

Keigo’s voice was patient, clear. “Alright, let’s break this portfolio down. It says five finished paintings. You’ve got… let’s count ‘em…” There was the rustle of paper. “The one from the show, the big textured one… that’s one. The one with the cool blue and red swirls Fuyumi loves… that’s two…”

Shouto made a quiet sound of agreement.

“Then we need ten drawings. Sketches, life studies… we can work on that. And then five pieces of 3D work. Sculpture, ceramics… think you can make some weird little clay guys?”

A huff of air from Shouto, almost a laugh.

“We’ll make a list for Mr. Aoki. He’ll know what they’re looking for.”

As Touya drifted in a feverish, half-aware state, the sound of Keigo’s steady guidance and Shouto’s soft, engaged responses wove together. The anxiety of the choice was still there, a cold knot in Touya’s stomach, but it was soothed by a profound, aching gratitude. He’d gotten lucky. So incredibly lucky. In the middle of his own crumbling health, in the chaos of their patched-together family, he had a partner who didn’t just tolerate his brother’s needs but embraced them. Who saw Shouto’s dreams as something not just to manage, but to champion.

He didn’t know how they would manage the trains, or the portfolio, or the terrifying prospect of letting Shouto step into a world so much bigger than their apartment. But listening to Keigo patiently explain, he knew they would figure it out. 

---

The fatigue was no longer a wave; it was the ocean itself, and Touya was drowning in it. For a week, he’d moved through the world wrapped in cotton wool, every breath a conscious effort, every joint a dull, throbbing complaint. It was more than his usual QIAD bullshit. This was a deep, systemic wrongness that settled in his marrow. He’d finally caved and called Dr. Nakamura’s office, moving his quarterly checkup up by three weeks. The appointment, a week away, felt like a lifetime.

He’d told his grandparents during their usual Thursday call. His grandmother’s sigh of relief had been audible through the phone. “Good. You listen to your body, Touya. Don’t be stubborn.”

He’d promised he wouldn’t. Then he’d hung up and gone straight to bed at eight PM, too exhausted to even apologize to Keigo for leaving him with Fuyumi and Shouto for the evening. Sleep had come instantly, a black, depthless void.

The phone’s vibration was a distant earthquake in that void. Touya stirred, a faint groan escaping him, but didn’t surface. He was too far under.

 He didn’t hear his phone vibrate on the nightstand. He didn’t stir when Keigo, with a hero’s light sleeping habits, jolted awake at the first buzz.

“‘Lo?” Keigo’s voice was a sleep-roughened murmur.

The voice on the other end was not sleepy. It was wire-tight, vibrating with a frantic energy that was audible even from where Touya lay unconscious. “-need to talk to Touya. Now. It’s important.”

Keigo sat up slightly, rubbing his face. “Natsu? It’s two in the morning, man. He’s out cold. Can it wait?”

“No! No, it can’t wait. Why are you answering his phone? Put him on.” The demand was sharp, paranoid.

A frown creased Keigo’s brow. He and Natsuo usually got along, bonding over teasing Touya, video games, stupid memes. This tone was new. “I’m answering because he’s sick and needs to sleep, dude. What’s going on?”

“Put him on the phone, Keigo. I’m not fucking around. This is important. It’s about Dad.”

The mention of Endeavor sent a cold trickle down Keigo’s spine. He glanced at Touya, who remained motionless, his breathing deep and even. “You can tell me. I can pass it along.”

“No! I can’t! You wouldn’t get it! It’s… it’s biology, it’s genetics, it’s… it’s family stuff. I need to talk to him.” Natsuo’s voice was rising, losing coherence. “Why are you keeping him from me? What’s going on over there?”

“Natsuo, I’m going to hang up,” Keigo said, his patience wearing thin. He was tired, and the paranoid edge in Natsuo’s voice was starting to unsettle him. “Call back at a decent hour.”

“No! Don’t you dare hang up!” The shout was followed by a ragged, wet sob that was utterly shocking. “Keigo, please. Please, wake him up. I’m… I’m scared. I figured it out and I’m scared and I need my brother.”

The raw terror in that sob was what did it. It cut through Keigo’s annoyance like a knife. This wasn’t a manic rant; this was a cry for help. “Okay,” he said, his voice softening. “Okay, hold on.”

He shook Touya’s shoulder gently. “Touya. Babe, wake up.”

Touya moaned, swatting weakly at his hand. “Go ‘way.”

“It’s Natsuo. He’s on the phone. He’s really upset.”

“Tell him to fuck off,” Touya mumbled into the pillow, his words slurred with sleep and pain. “Calls… all the time… ‘s nothing…” A thrumming headache was already building behind his eyes.

“Touya, he’s crying. He says it’s about your dad. It sounds serious.”

With a monumental effort of will, Touya forced his eyes open. The room was dark, but the light from Keigo’s phone screen was a tiny, cruel sun. Every joint ached. He felt like he’d been run over. “Gimme the damn phone,” he gritted out, pushing himself up against the headboard.

Keigo handed it over, looking relieved and deeply worried. Touya put the phone to his ear. “Natsu? This better be good.”

“Touya! Finally! He wouldn’t let me talk to you, I thought… I thought he was one of them…” Natsuo’s words were a torrent, tumbling over each other, breathless and saturated with a paranoid energy that was entirely new.

“One of who?” Touya asked, already exhausted by the conversation.

“It doesn’t matter! Listen, you have to listen. I was going over the old man’s research notes, the ones they released in the trial discovery, and I cross-referenced them with the quirk marriage laws and the genetic predisposition markers for autoimmune degradation and I think… no, I know… it wasn’t an accident.”

Touya closed his eyes against the throbbing in his skull. “What wasn’t an accident, Natsu?”

“Us!” Natsuo cried, his voice cracking. “He didn’t just want a powerful quirk. He was trying to engineer one. A perfect quirk. But genetic instability… it’s not a defect, Touya, it’s a feature. A failed feature! Your QIAD, it’s not some random tragedy, it’s a direct result of the specific combination he forced! And I think… I think he knew. I think he knew it would break you. I think that’s why he-”

“Natsuo,” Touya interrupted, his voice flat. The theory was insane. Convoluted. The ramblings of a sleep-deprived, over-caffeinated mind. But a cold knot was forming in his gut nonetheless. “Stop. Just… stop. You need to go to sleep.”

“You’re not listening!” Natsuo sobbed, the sound raw and desperate. “I can prove it! I have charts! I just need you to-!”

Touya held the phone away from his ear as Natsuo descended into a jumble of scientific jargon and tearful, incoherent pleas. He looked at Keigo, who was watching him, his golden eyes wide with worry. Touya felt a surge of guilt for snapping at him. Keigo had been right to wake him. This was different.

Resigned, Touya reached for his nebulizer on the nightstand. If he was going to be awake for this, he might as well multitask. He set the phone on speaker, placed it on the bed, and started the familiar, rattling ritual of his breathing treatment.

For the next hour, Natsuo’s voice filled the room, a frantic, paranoid soundtrack to Touya’s medical routine. He talked about mitochondrial DNA, quirk factor manipulation, statistical anomalies in sibling pairings. He wept about their father’s cruelty, then pivoted to a grandiose plan to publish a paper that would expose everything. Touya said nothing, just breathed in the medicated mist, his body trembling with fatigue and fever.

He leaned back against the headboard, the nebulizer mask muffling his world. He watched the first hints of dawn paint gray light across the ceiling. Keigo had shifted in his sleep, sprawling horizontally across the bed now, his head a warm weight on Touya’s lap. 

Touya let his hand rest on Keigo’s hair, the familiar softness a small comfort. The machine hissed. Natsuo ranted. The room grew lighter.

Eventually, the torrent of words slowed. The crying and ranting had stopped, replaced by a hollow, exhausted silence on the other end of the line.

“...just wanted you to know,” Natsuo whispered, his voice suddenly small and utterly broken. “Before… before anyone else.”

“I know. Thank you for thinking of me,” Touya said softly, the mask muffling his words. “Natsu?”

A shaky exhale. “Yeah.”

“You all done?”

“...Yeah.”

“Are you safe? Are you in your dorm?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Go to sleep. We’ll talk again tomorrow.”

“...Okay.”

The line went dead.

Touya removed the mask, the silence deafening. The medication had cleared his lungs a bit, but done nothing for the crushing fatigue or the new, cold knot of fear in his stomach. The content of Natsuo’s rant was scientific gibberish, but the delivery wasn't. The frantic energy, the paranoia, the tears… it wasn’t just stress. It was something else. Something familiar in its pattern but terrifying in its intensity.

He looked down at Keigo, asleep in his lap, trusting and peaceful. He looked at the dawn light, too bright and too early. The irritation was gone, completely burned away, leaving only a deep, chilling dread. 

Chapter 31: Forethought

Shouto’s murals had started taking over the walls of his room. Swirls of color, abstract shapes that might have been figures or flames or landscapes seen through warped glass, climbed from the floor to the ceiling. A single All Might poster, a gift from Izuku, was neatly tacked beside the door. In one corner, his art supplies lived in organized chaos: tubes of paint, jars of brushes, and stacks of paper of every texture.

They were sprawled on Shouto’s bed, a fortress against the world. Izuku was in the middle of a spiral, his words tumbling out in a frantic, anxious river.

“-and it’s not even the work,” he was saying, his hands fluttering like trapped birds, “I know I can handle the work, probably, I hope, but it’s the everything else. The hallways are so much bigger, and there’s so many people, all the time, and the lights are so bright and humming and the bells are louder and what if I can’t find my classes? What if I get lost and I’m late and everyone stares? And there won’t be aides anymore, not really, and I’ll have to remember everything myself and what if I forget and I look stupid and no one will want to be my friend because I’m too weird and I talk too much about quirks or I don’t talk at all and I’ll have to eat lunch alone and I won’t have you there and-and-and…”

He finally ran out of air, slumping back against Shouto’s pillow with a gasp, his chest heaving. His green eyes were wide with a fear that was six months premature but felt utterly immediate.

Shouto had listened quietly, his gaze fixed on a particularly interesting crack in the ceiling that looked like a dragon. He wondered, idly, if he should be more scared about high school. It seemed like the logical thing to feel. Izuku’s fear was a buzzing, tangible thing in the room, and it made Shouto’s own vague anxieties feel… quieter. More like a dull hum than a scream.

He pushed himself off the bed and padded over to his desk, rummaging through a pile of papers until he found the familiar stack of brochures Keigo and Touya had forced on him. The glossy paper felt foreign in his hands.

He brought them back to the bed and dropped them between them. Izuku blinked, his anxious spiral momentarily interrupted. “What are those?”

Shouto pointed to them, then to Izuku, then mimed reading.

“You… want me to read them?” Izuku asked, sitting up.

Shouto nodded. Reading was hard. The letters jumped sometimes, and putting them all together into words, and the words into sentences, and the sentences into meaning… it made his head feel hot and full of static. It was easier to listen. And maybe it would help Izuku to have a task.

“O-okay,” Izuku said, picking up the first brochure. He cleared his throat, his voice still a little shaky from his earlier panic, and began to read. “The Higashiyama Academy. Our mission is to provide a nurturing environment for students with diverse learning needs…”

Izuku’s voice, once focused on a task, lost its anxious edge and settled into its natural, analytical rhythm. He read through each brochure with intense concentration, summarizing the key points about class sizes, vocational programs, life skills curricula, and graduation rates. He was, Shouto thought, probably already memorizing it all.

When he got to the last one, the Tokyo Metropolitan Art School, his tone shifted to one of pure, unadulterated awe. “...offers intensive studio programs in traditional and digital media, including… wow, Sho, they have forging and glassblowing… a required portfolio submission of pieces demonstrating technical skill and conceptual depth…”

When he finished, he set the brochures down neatly. “They all sound… really different.”

Shouto was quiet for a moment, processing. Then he pointed a finger at Izuku, then at the brochures, then made a ‘which one?’ gesture.

“M-me?” Izuku stammered, his anxiety returning. “Oh, no, I couldn’t… that’s not my decision, Shouto, I’m not qualified to-”

Shouto shook his head, insistent. He pointed again, his expression serious. He trusted Izuku’s brain. It saw patterns and details his own brain missed.

Izuku chewed his lip, looking at the brochures like they were a difficult exam. “Well,” he started slowly. “The art school… It sounds the coolest. By far. You could make… anything there.” He looked at the murals on the walls. “It’s where you belong.” Then his shoulders slumped. “But it’s really far. And the portfolio is huge. And… from the pictures, it looks like it’s mostly… neurotypical kids? I didn’t see anything about support services. It might be… really hard.”

He picked up the supported school brochure. “This one seems… safer. It’s familiar. It’s like our school now, but bigger. It would be easier.” 

Shouto looked between the two brochures. The art school with its flying sparks, the supported school with its smiling, generic students. He took a breath, preparing the words. They came out in a slow, halting stumble, each one a conscious effort.

“I… w-want… the art one,” he managed, the words slurred but clear in intent. “The… f-fancy one.” He looked at Izuku, his brow furrowed. “But… scared. If… I g-get in. It… n-not go… good.”

Izuku’s face softened. “You’ll be great, Sho. Your art is… it’s amazing. They’d be lucky to have you. Don’t worry, it’ll be okay.”

Shouto considered this. He looked at his friend, who was so smart and so kind and so terrified of a future he was more than capable of handling. A thought formed, clumsy and simple. He pointed at Izuku.

“You… s-smart,” Shouto said, the ‘s’ sound dragging. “For… the s-s-science school. The… ha-ard one.” He tilted his head, genuinely puzzled. “So… why… you worried? You… be okay. Too.”

Izuku stared at him, his mouth slightly agape. The logic was so straightforward, so unassailable, coming from Shouto. It bypassed all his intricate layers of anxiety and went straight to the core of the issue. He’d been so busy fearing the unknown, he’d forgotten to factor in his own capabilities.

A slow, wobbly smile spread across Izuku’s face. “Yeah,” he said, his voice small but sure. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

Shouto gave a single, satisfied nod. He had said what he meant.

---

The air in Tokyo University Hospital was the same sterile, chilled temperature as every other hospital, but it smelled different. Less like desperation and antiseptic, more like expensive cleaning products and freshly brewed coffee. The wing was new, all soft lighting and calming earth tones.  He sat on the edge of the examination table, the crinkly paper loud in the silence, his legs dangling like a child’s. He’d already been poked, prodded, and made to breathe into a machine until he saw spots.

Dr. Nakamura entered with a quiet efficiency, her tablet in hand. She was a woman in her fifties with sharp, intelligent eyes and a demeanor that was both no-nonsense and deeply empathetic. She’d seen him at his worst, back in December when the QIAD diagnosis had finally put a name to the slow unraveling he’d felt for years.

“Touya,” she said, offering a small smile as she sat on her rolling stool. “How have you been since we last spoke?”

“Fine,” he said automatically, the lie smooth and practiced.

She didn’t call him on it. She just looked at her tablet, scrolling through the results of today’s tests. The silence stretched, punctuated only by the hum of the computer. Touya’s fingers tapped a nervous rhythm on his thigh.

“Your lung function is down,” she said finally, her voice neutral. “Fifty-four percent.”

The number hung in the air between them. It was a concrete, brutal thing. Two years ago, it had been seventy-five. A twenty- percent drop. He’d felt the decline, but hearing the number made it real in a way he couldn’t ignore.

“Okay,” he said, because there was nothing else to say.

“The chronic inflammation from the QIAD is accelerating the scarring in your lungs,” she explained, turning the tablet to show him a graph that meant nothing to him. “Your body is essentially in a constant, low-grade war with the remnants of your own quirk. The fact that we’ve had to scale back your quirk suppressants to let your immune system function…” She sighed. “It’s a balancing act. We’re trying to prevent infections, but the trade-off is that the autoimmune response is more active. Hence the fevers, the joint pain, the… itchiness.”

Itchiness. Such a small, stupid word for the maddening, crawling sensation under his skin that made him want to claw his way out of his own body.

“We need to be more aggressive,” Dr. Nakamura said gently. “The prednisone dosage you’re on isn’t cutting it anymore. I’d like to increase it.”

Touya’s stomach clenched. Prednisone made him jittery, insomniac, and ravenously hungry. It bloated his face and hollowed his moods. “How much?”

She named a number. It was significant.

“There’s another option,” she continued, watching his reaction. “A course of targeted immunosuppressive infusions. It’s not chemotherapy, but the principle is similar: it would more forcefully tell your immune system to stand down. It would mean coming in twice a week for a few hours each time.”

Twice a week. His mind immediately began to calculate. Shouto’s school applications. Natsuo’s increasingly erratic calls. His own clients, the kids who relied on him. Keigo’s unpredictable schedule. His life would have to be planned around this. It would become the central fact of his existence.

“The side effects can be… pronounced,” she added, her voice softening. “Fatigue, nausea, potential hair loss, increased susceptibility to infection. It would be rough.”

Touya stared at a poster of a smiling lung. He imagined his life shrinking to the four walls of this office, to the inside of an infusion room. 

“Let’s try the higher dose of prednisone first,” he said, his voice firmer than he felt.

Dr. Nakamura studied him for a long moment. “Touya,” she said, and now her voice held a note of gentle warning. “Due to the side effects, you might ultimately feel worse, even as your numbers improve slightly. Are you sure?”

“I can’t do the infusions right now,” he said, the words tasting like ash. “My family… there’s too much going on. I just need to… get through the next few months. Then we can reassess.”

It was a gamble. A delay. He knew it, and she knew it.

She sighed, but nodded. “Alright. We’ll try the increased prednisone for two months. But I want you back here the second week of January. No excuses. And if your function drops below forty-eight percent, or if you have any major flares, I highly recommend moving to the infusions immediately. Understood?”

“Understood.” The agreement felt like a surrender.

She printed out the new prescription, the sound of the printer abnormally loud. As she handed it to him, her expression was grim. “This is a stopgap, Touya. Not a solution. Your body is fighting itself. We’re just choosing which weapon it uses to do it.”

He took the paper. It felt heavy.

The walk out of the hospital was a blur. The autumn sun was bright, but he felt cold. Fifty percent. The number echoed in his head with every shallow breath he took. He didn’t want to scare anyone. He couldn’t. Fuyumi would hover, Shouto would worry, Keigo would try to fix it, and Natsuo… he didn’t even want to think about that right now.

He got on the train, found a seat, and stared at his reflection in the dark glass of the window. Himura Touya, he thought. Twenty-six years old, lungs at fifty-four percent, body actively trying to kill itself. He’d spent over half his life like this, first from the catastrophic damage of Sekoto Peak, then from the slow decay of drugs and pneumonia and homelessness, now from this elegant, insidious disease with a clinical name.

He clutched the prescription in his coat pocket. It was just more pills. 

He could handle pills. He could handle the side effects, and pretend a little longer.

The train rattled onward, carrying him home.

---

Saturday morning dawned clear and crisp, a perfect autumn day.

The conversation with Dr. Nakamura was a stone in his stomach, and the looming, unspoken worry about Natsuo was a constant hum in the back of his mind.

Keigo, perceptive as always, had taken one look at him and declared, “We’re getting out of here.”

They ended up at a small, sun-drenched café tucked away on a side street near the university district. It was a place from another life. The walls were still the same warm yellow, the tables still scarred with generations of student graffiti. They’d come here often when Touya was finishing his degree

Settling into a corner booth, the familiarity was a comfort and a sting. Touya stirred his coffee, watching the steam curl into the air.

“You’ve been quiet,” Keigo said, not pushing, just stating a fact. He nudged a plate of melon pan toward Touya. 

A weak smile touched Touya’s lips. He broke off a piece of the sweet bread but didn’t eat it. “I saw Dr.Nakamura yesterday.”

Keigo stilled, his playful demeanor shifting into something more attentive. “And?”

Touya took a breath. The air felt thin. “Lung function is down to around fifty percent.” He said it to the tabletop, unable to meet Keigo’s eyes.

Keigo went very still. “Okay,” he said, his voice carefully neutral. “What’s the plan?”

“She wanted to start infusions. Twice a week. Immunosuppressants. Like… a softer version of chemo.” He finally looked up. Keigo’s face was a mask of calm, but his gold eyes were wide, the pupils slightly dilated. Touya pressed on, the words coming in a rush now. “It would… it would knock my immune system on its ass. Fatigue, nausea, maybe hair loss. I’d be basically living at the hospital, for a bit. I said no.”

Keigo’s mask didn’t crack. “What did you say yes to?”

“Higher dose prednisone. For now.” He sighed, twirling his spoon in the mug. ““I know it’s a stopgap. I know the side effects suck in a different way. But I just… I need to get a handle on whatever the hell is going on with Natsuo, and I need to get Shouto through these high school applications. I can’t check out for three months to lie in an infusion clinic right now.” 

He finally looked up, his gaze pleading for understanding. “He’s going to be with us his whole life, Keigo. You know that, right? This isn’t a temporary thing. And if I’m getting sicker… if there’s going to be a point where I can’t…” His voice broke. “I’m scared I won’t be strong enough for him. And I know you already said you’re in, but I feel like you said yes without you really knowing what you’re signing up for.”

He laid it all out, the fear he’d been carrying since he left Dr. Nakamura’s office. It wasn’t a death sentence, not yet. It was a life sentence of managed decline. And Shouto’s future, his need for stability and care, was a constant, looming reality.

Keigo was silent for a long moment, looking out the cafe window at the students passing by, their lives full of mundane, uncomplicated worries. When he spoke, his voice was low and sure.

“First of all, you’re the strongest person I know. So don’t give me that ‘not strong enough’ crap.” He reached across the table, his hand covering Touya’s jittery one, stilling it. “Second… you think this will scare me off? My childhood was sleeping in train station bathrooms and then growing up in a military compound. This?” He gestured vaguely, encompassing all of it: the illness, the trauma, the complicated dynamics. “This isn’t a burden. This is a family. I’ve never had one before. I want this. And besides, I'm a pro hero, babe. I'm not afraid of anything.”

He squeezed Touya’s hand. “So here's the plan, okay? We get Shouto into a school. We figure out what’s going on with Natsuo. And then, when the time is right, you start the infusions. And I’ll be there. Every time. I’ll drive you, I’ll sit with you, I’ll bring you stupid magazines and make fun of the bad daytime TV. And Fuyumi will help with Shouto. We’ll make it work. It’s not going to ‘mess everything up.’ It’s just the next thing we have to do.”

Touya felt the tightness in his chest loosen, just a fraction. The weight was still there, but it was no longer his alone to carry. “You should probably tell Fuyumi, though,” Keigo added gently. “She’s tougher than you think. And she deserves to know.”

Touya nodded, a wave of exhaustion following the relief. “Yeah.”

They sat in silence for a while, the sun warming the small table. The future was still a frightening, uncertain road. But sitting in their old cafe, with Keigo’s hand solid and warm over his, Touya allowed himself to believe that it would all be okay. 

Chapter 32: Calling Card

Breakfast sat like a stone in Touya’s stomach, a leaden weight that pulled him back under the waves of a drugged, uneasy sleep. The medication did that: gave him a frantic, artificial energy followed by a crash that felt like being dropped from a great height. He was sprawled on the couch, one arm thrown over his eyes to block out the Sunday afternoon light, his breathing a shallow, whistling rhythm.

In the quiet living room, Shouto was supposed to be working on a worksheet about identifying different types of professionals. Instead, he was sketching in the margins, adding intricate, swirling patterns to the tie of the cartoon doctor. The house was peaceful. Fuyumi was in the kitchen, the soft scratch of her red pen grading papers a familiar white noise. Keigo was on patrol, a fact that usually left a quiet emptiness, but today it just felt still.

The peace was shattered by the jarring buzz of Touya’s phone on the coffee table. Shouto jumped, his pencil skidding across the paper. He looked at the screen. Natsuo. He glanced at Touya, who hadn’t stirred.

Hesitantly, Shouto picked up the phone, and fumbled with the buttons until the video call activated.

Natsuo’s face filled the screen. It was a shock. His brother’s usually bright eyes were wide, his pupils blown. His skin was pale, stretched tight over his cheekbones, and his white hair was a wild, uncombed mess. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week.

“Touya? I… oh. Shouto.” Natsuo’s voice was too fast, too high. “Is he there? I need to talk to him.”

Shouto shook his head slowly. He turned the phone, panning it over to show Touya dead asleep on the couch, his mouth slightly open, his breathing a shallow rasp.

Natsuo deflated slightly. “Oh. Okay. Don’t… don’t wake him up.” He chewed on his thumbnail, thinking. “Can you… can you just put the phone near him? So if he wakes up, he can see me and know what I’m talking about?”

Shouto nodded. He carefully propped the phone against a vase on the coffee table, angling it so Touya’s sleeping form was in the frame.

“Thanks, little man,” Natsuo said, his voice softening for a fraction of a second before the manic energy rushed back in. “Okay. So. You know how cells work, right? They have little… instructions inside them. DNA. Like a recipe book for making you.”

Shouto gave a tentative nod. 

Recipe book. He could picture that.

“Right. Well, I’ve been looking at something… it’s like the book has sticky notes all over it.” Natsuo’s hands gestured wildly, even though Shouto could only see his face. “Little tags that tell the book which recipes to use a lot, and which ones to ignore. And those tags… they can get put on from things that happen to you. Really scary things. Really sad things.”

Shouto’s pencil stilled. He was listening intently now. 

Scary things. Sad things. He knew about those.

“And the craziest part,” Natsuo continued, his voice dropping to an intense, confidential whisper, “is that I think… I think some of those sticky notes don't come off. And when mom and dad had us, I think… I think their sticky notes got copied into our recipe books.”

Shouto’s brow furrowed. 

He wasn’t sure he understood. Copied?

“It means…” Natsuo’s eyes were blazing now, desperate for Shouto to grasp the enormity of it. “It means the really bad, scary feelings they had… the ones that made Mom so sad she couldn’t get out of bed… the ones that made Dad so angry all the time… I think those feelings left a mark inside them. A… a stain. And that stain… it got passed to us.”

The word stain landed with a sickening weight. Shouto’s hand went unconsciously to the scar on his face. 

A permanent mark.

“It’s like a ghost,” Natsuo whispered, his voice trembling with terrible excitement. “A ghost of their pain, living inside our cells. And it’s whispering to our bodies. It’s telling Touya’s body to get sick, to fight itself. It’s why his lungs are so bad. And it’s why…” Natsuo’s gaze fixed on Shouto with a heartbreaking intensity. “It’s why your brain got hurt so easily. The ghost was already in there, Shouto. It was already there, making everything fragile. It’s not your fault you’re different. It’s not your fault you can’t talk right sometimes. Your recipe book was written with their pain. We never had a chance. We were born with a time bomb inside us, made out of Mom’s sadness and Dad’s anger, just waiting to go off.”

Tears welled in Shouto’s eyes, silent and hot. He wasn’t drawing anymore. The pencil rolled off his lap. 

A ghost. Inside him. A stain that wasn’t his fault but was his. A time bomb that had already exploded in his head, that made words hard and noises too loud. 

Natsuo was making it make a terrible, horrifying sense. 

It wasn’t an accident. It was a legacy. He was built broken.

Fuyumi chose that moment to walk in, a red pen behind her ear. “Shouto, are you almost done with the-?” She stopped short, taking in the scene: Shouto crying silently, the phone propped up, Natsuo’s voice tinny and rapid-fire.

“Natsuo?” she said, her voice sharp with concern as she hurried over. “What’s going on? What did you say to him?”

Natsuo didn’t seem to register her tone. “Fuyumi! Good, you’re here. I was just explaining to Shouto about transgenerational epigenetic inheritance! It explains everything! The mental illness, the autoimmune stuff, the neurodivergence… It's all a legacy! He should be upset! We all should be!”

Fuyumi’s face paled. She looked from Natsuo’s wild-eyed image to Shouto’s tear-streaked, terrified face. “Natsuo, stop it,” she said, her voice low and firm. “You can’t talk to him like that. You know he doesn’t understand this. You’re scaring him!”

“He needs to understand!” Natsuo insisted, his own frustration boiling over. “He needs to know it’s not his fault! Wake up Touya, he’ll get it! He’ll understand why this is important!”

“What is with you?” Fuyumi cried, her own composure cracking. “You’ve been calling at all hours, talking about these… these crazy theories! This isn’t normal, Natsu!”

The raised voices were the final straw for Shouto. A low, distressed noise built in his throat. His hands came up, pressing against his ears. His breathing hitched, turning into ragged, panicked gasps. He started to rock, a frantic, self-soothing motion that was tipping into a meltdown. The ghost was inside him, and now the world was too loud, and it was all too much.

“I have to go, Natsuo, he’s- Shouto, honey, it’s okay-” Fuyumi dropped to her knees in front of him, her teacher voice gone, replaced by pure big-sister panic.

On the screen, Natsuo’s face crumpled. “I’m just trying to tell the truth! Why won’t anyone listen? Fuck you!” The call disconnected abruptly.

The sudden silence was worse. Shouto was fully lost now, crying in great, heaving sobs, his body trembling. He grabbed Fuyumi’s wrists, his grip painfully tight, and tried to pull her into a crushing hug, trying to make her squeeze him, the deep pressure the only thing that sometimes helped when words failed. But he was too big now, all lanky limbs, and Fuyumi, trying to hold him, was struggling, her own tears starting to fall.

The commotion finally pierced Touya’s drugged sleep. He groaned, pushing himself up on his elbows, his vision swimming. “Wha’s goin’ on?” he slurred, his voice thick with sleep and medication.

He took in the scene: Fuyumi on the floor, trying to contain a sobbing, frantic Shouto. 

“Natsuo,” Fuyumi choked out, looking up at him, her face a mask of distress. “He called. He was… he was saying these horrible things to Shouto about genetics and ghosts and time bombs… he scared him.”

Touya’s stomach dropped. He moved to get up, but a wave of dizziness and the deep, familiar ache in his joints stopped him. He wasn’t going to be any help physically. He stayed on the couch, his voice the only tool he had. “Shouto. Hey. Look at me. Natsu’s… he’s studying too hard. His brain is tired. He doesn’t know what he’s saying. It’s not real.”

His words were slow, weighed down by fatigue, but they were calm. Fuyumi, taking her cue from him, stopped trying to squeeze Shouto and instead just held him, rocking him gently, murmuring soft, nonsense reassurances. “It’s okay, it’s okay, we’re here, you’re safe.”

Slowly, incrementally, Shouto’s sobs began to subside into hiccups, his rigid body going limp with exhaustion against Fuyumi.

In the sudden quiet, Touya and Fuyumi’s eyes met over Shouto’s head.

“Natsuo isn’t just stressed,” Fuyumi whispered, her voice raw. “This is… something else.”

Touya leaned his head back against the couch cushions, closing his eyes. The prednisone made his heart beat too fast. The ghost of Natsuo’s frantic words echoed in the room. 

A biological echo. A time bomb.

“I know,” he said, the words barely audible. “I know.” 

---

The evening bled into a tense, quiet night. Shouto, emotionally spent, had attached himself to Keigo the moment the hero walked through the door. He was too big to properly sit in Keigo’s lap, but he’d managed to fold his lanky frame against Keigo’s side, burrowing into the soft down of his primary feathers. He was absently chewing on the silicone tip of a chewy necklace, a self-regulation habit he’d been slowly outgrowing until today. The sight sent a pang through Touya; it was a regression, a sign of how deeply Natsuo’s words had shaken him.

Keigo listened, his expression growing grimmer as Fuyumi and Touya recounted the afternoon’s events in low voices. His arm was wrapped around Shouto, his fingers gently carding through the boy’s two-toned hair.

“A ghost in his cells?” Keigo repeated, his voice tight. “Jesus, Natsu.”

“He wasn’t trying to be cruel,” Fuyumi said, though she sounded like she was trying to convince herself. “He sounded… convinced. And so, so scared himself.”

“It doesn’t matter what he was trying to do,” Touya said flatly, exhaustion sanding the edges off his words, “look at Sho.”

They all looked at the boy curled into Keigo’s wing, his eyes closed but his jaw working anxiously on the chewy toy.

“We need to check on him,” Keigo said finally. “Not over the phone. In person.”

Touya nodded, pulling out his phone. His thumbs hovered over the screen. “I’ll text him. Keep it light.”

He typed slowly, choosing his words with care. 

TOUYA: Hey. Sorry I missed your call earlier. Everything ok?

The three of them waited in a suspended silence, the only sound the faint rustle of Keigo’s feathers and Shouto’s quiet breathing. The response came a few minutes later.

NATSUO: no biggie. ill call u soon. caught some crazy breakthroughs in the lab. gonna change everything.

Touya showed them the screen. Fuyumi bit her lip. “He’s acting like it was a normal conversation.”

“Maybe he doesn’t remember how it ended,” Keigo suggested quietly. “Or he’s compartmentalizing.”

Touya took a breath and typed again. 

TOUYA: Sounds intense. What if we all came to visit you next weekend? Take a break, get some real food.

The response was quicker this time.

NATSUO: ugh i wish. cant. research group meeting saturday, then gotta prep my presentation for the symposium. next month maybe.

Touya exchanged a look with the others. 

TOUYA: Come on, Natsu, he typed, trying to keep it playful. You can’t take off a bit to see your family? :)

The typing bubbles appeared. Disappeared. Reappeared. The response that came through was a violent jolt.

NATSUO: dont u fucking dare. i have to work my ass off for this scholarship. i dont have time for your guilt trip bullshit. fuck you.

Touya stared at the screen, the words like a physical blow. The anger was so sudden, so vitriolic. This wasn’t the brother who’d worked so hard to be better, who’d apologized for his past dickishness and had become their steadfast, if occasionally annoying, support.

TOUYA: whoa. i was joking. im sorry.

NATSUO: dont need you or any of your shit. dont talk to me again.

The finality of the message hung in the air. Touya dropped the phone on the couch like it had burned him. He ran a hand over his face, his breathing suddenly shallow. The wheeze was back.

“Well,” Keigo said into the stunned silence, his voice carefully neutral. “That really backfired.”

“What do we do?” Fuyumi whispered, her eyes wide with fear. 

Shouto, sensing the shift in tension, stirred against Keigo’s side. He pulled one headphone off his ear, looking up at Touya with a questioning, anxious hum.

“It’s okay, little man,” Keigo murmured, pulling him closer. “Just grown-up stuff.”

But Shouto’s gaze was fixed on Touya, reading the distress on his brother’s face. He made a soft, worried sound and reached out a hand, his fingers brushing Touya’s knee.

The gesture, so small and caring, broke something in Touya. He was supposed to be the older brother. He was supposed to fix things. But his body was failing, and now his other brother was spiraling into some kind of psychotic break. 

“I don’t know what to do,” Touya admitted, his voice cracking. He looked at Keigo, then at Fuyumi. “If we show up there, he might actually lose it. If we don’t… What if he hurts himself? Or someone else?”

“We can’t do nothing,” Fuyumi said, her voice firm with a resolve that belied her fear. “He’s our brother.”

“I could fly over tonight,” Keigo offered. “Just… scope it out. See if his lights are on, if he’s… I don’t know. If he’s okay.”

“And if he sees you?” Touya asked. “He’ll see it as a threat. An invasion. It’ll just make him angrier.”

They lapsed into a frustrated silence. Shouto, picking up on the helplessness, began to chew more vigorously on his necklace, his anxiety mounting again.

Keigo sighed, resting his chin on top of Shouto’s head. “Okay. New plan. We give him twenty-four hours. No contact. Let him cool down. Then… then Fuyumi calls him.”

Fuyumi nodded slowly. “Okay. I can do that.”

“And if that doesn’t work?” Touya asked, the dread a cold stone in his gut.

Keigo’s golden eyes were serious. “Then we call his university. The counseling center. Or we go there ourselves. We don’t have a choice.”

It was a plan. A fragile, terrifying plan. Touya looked at his phone, at the string of cruel messages.

Don’t talk to me again.

The words felt like a door slamming shut. 

---

Monday evening brought with it a familiar ritual: the pre-Akane Mori apartment scrub-down. It wasn’t that they were messy, but Touya always felt a compulsive need to present a picture of flawless, controlled stability when she visited. 

By the time the doorbell rang at 6 PM sharp, the apartment gleamed. Fuyumi had strategically placed a plate of freshly baked cookies on the kotatsu. Shouto, forewarned, was sitting at the table with his math homework actually open, a rare occurrence.

Touya opened the door. 

“Himura. You’re upright. That’s a good start,” she said, stepping inside and toeing off her boots with practiced ease.

“Mori. You’re on time. Shockingly,” Touya retorted, a familiar, easy rhythm falling into place. 

Her first stop was always the bathroom medicine cabinet. It was a dance they’d done for years. She opened it, her gaze scanning the contents with a clinical eye. Prednisone, nebulizer medication, nerve blockers, inhalers. All legally prescribed, all neatly organized. She gave a satisfied nod and closed the door.

Next, the kitchen. She peeked in the fridge, well-stocked with healthy food, and the trash. Her inspection was quick, professional, but thorough. It was a search for the ghosts of Touya’s past: signs of drug use, neglect, instability. She found none.

Finally, she turned her attention to Shouto. “Hey, kid. How’s school?”

Shouto looked up from his fractions. “G-good.”

“He’s been doing great,” Fuyumi interjected smoothly, pouring Akane a cup of tea. “His art teacher says he’s really blossoming.”

“Oh yeah?” Akane said, accepting the tea. “Let’s see.”

Shouto, used to this part of the visit, slid off his chair and retrieved his portfolio: a battered folder overflowing with his work. He spread a few recent pieces on the table. Akane leaned over, her professional mask slipping into genuine surprise.

“Whoa, these are… these are really good.” She picked up a print, a chaotic, textured explosion of cool and warm tones that somehow felt cohesive. “This is really something.”

“He got second place in a city-wide competition last month,” Touya said, unable to keep the pride out of his voice.

Akane whistled, impressed. “No kidding.” She looked at Shouto. “You’re gonna be famous, kid.”

Then came the inevitable question. “So, high school applications are coming up. What’s the plan?”

Touya took a breath. “We’re applying to a few places. The local supported academic track, a vocational school… and the Tokyo Metropolitan Art School.”

Akane’s eyebrows shot up. She set down the painting. “The art school in Shibuya? Touya, that’s… that’s a hell of a commute. And it’s a rigorous program. Are you sure that’s the right fit?” Her social worker hat was firmly back on. “The supported school has a great transition program. Or the mainstream school with inclusion… that seems more his speed.”

It was the logical response. The safe response. The response Touya had expected.

But Shouto surprised them all. He looked directly at Akane, his brow furrowed in concentration. “I… w-want… to go,” he said, each word a deliberate effort, slightly slurred but unwavering. “I w-want… to… M-my li-ife.”

Akane stared at him. She was used to his quietness, his body-language cues. A full, spoken sentence, especially one so defiant, was rare. She recovered quickly, a slow smile spreading across her face. “Well, shit. Go for it, kid. Good luck.” She meant it.

The rest of the visit was easier. She asked about work, and Touya talked about his quirk counseling, carefully omitting any mention of the extra hours he’d put in to help detangle Hitoshi’s trauma. She asked about Natsuo, and Touya gave the easy, polished answer: “He’s great. Loving university. Pre-med. Super busy.” The words felt like ash in his mouth, but they were smooth and convincing.

As she was packing up to leave, she turned to him at the door, her expression turning serious. “And you? You’re good? You look tired.”

It was the opening. He could have told her about the lung function, the prednisone increase, the specter of infusions. He could have told her about Natsuo’s 2 AM rants and the terrifying text messages. He could have told her he was scared.

Instead, he gave her the same smile he’d given her for eight years. The one that said I’ve got this under control. “Increased the prednisone last week. You know how it is. Makes me jittery and ruins my sleep. But it’s working. I’m good, Akane. Seriously. You know me, I’m always good.”

It was a lie they both participated in. A necessary fiction to keep the delicate balance of his custody agreement intact. He was a chronically ill former drug addict raising a disabled sibling. The margin for error was vanishingly thin.

Akane didn’t call him on it. She just held his gaze, her expression unreadable. “Okay,” she said finally. She finished her tea and stood, gathering her things. “But remember, Touya. I’m your social worker. That means I’m your safety net. Not your judge. If you need something… anything… you tell me. Understood?”

The offer was there, as it always was. A lifeline he was often too proud or too scared to grab.

“Understood,” he said, walking her to the door.

She paused on the threshold, giving the apartment one last sweeping glance. Her eyes landed on Shouto, who had gone back to his drawing, seemingly undisturbed. “He’s doing well, Touya. You’re doing a good job.”

It was the highest praise she ever gave. It felt like both a blessing and a verdict.

“See you next time,” she said, and then she was gone, leaving behind the scent of her perfume and the weight of her unspoken worries.

Touya closed the door and leaned against it, exhaling a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. 

---

The world was deepest blue, the hour before dawn where everything felt suspended and unreal. The shrill ringtone, Keigo’s work phone, sliced through the silence. Keigo was awake and fumbling for the phone on his nightstand before the second ring, his hero instincts overriding sleep. Touya stirred beside him with a groan, mumbling something into his pillow.

“Hawks,” Keigo answered, his voice a gravelly rasp, already mentally preparing for a disaster downtown.

The voice on the other end was thin, watery, and utterly unexpected. “K-Keigo?”

Keigo sat up straight, the last vestiges of sleep vanishing. “Natsuo? What’s wrong? What’s happened?” His mind raced: accident, injury, arrest.

There was a wet, shuddering inhale. “I… I think I messed up. Really bad.”

The raw misery in his voice was a punch to the gut. This wasn’t the manic, frantic energy of the previous calls. This was the crash. Keigo swung his legs out of bed, padding quietly out of the bedroom so he wouldn’t wake Touya further. He leaned against the cool wall of the hallway.

“Okay,” Keigo said, keeping his voice low and steady, the same tone he used to talk down civilians from ledges. “Start from the beginning. What’s going on?”

“I was so awful,” Natsuo whispered, the words breaking. “To Touya. To Shouto. To Fuyumi. I said… I said horrible things. They’re gonna hate me now.”

“Nobody hates you, Natsu,” Keigo said firmly. “We’re all just worried about you. Where are you right now? Are you safe?”

A choked sob. “I’m in the library. I… I hid in a bathroom stall when they closed last night. I had to finish this paper, and then I was going to review my notes for my biochem midterm, but I must have fallen asleep and now… now I’m locked in. And I’m so tired, Keigo. I can’t think. I don’t know what to do.”

Keigo closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. The image was heartbreaking and deeply concerning. “Okay. First, take a breath. It’s going to be okay. You have two options. You can call campus security right now, tell them you got trapped studying in the library and need to be let out. Or, you can go back to the bathroom, wait until they open in a few hours. Which one sounds better?”

The question seemed to overwhelm Natsuo. The dam broke completely. “Everything’s going wrong,” he wept, the words tumbling out in a desperate, incoherent rush. “Everyone hates me, I know they do. I’m so tired. I’ve been taking too many classes, I’m in three research groups, I haven’t slept in… I don’t know. Days? And I keep reading these things, these scary things about genetics and trauma and it all makes sense but it’s so dark, and I feel like… what’s the point? I’m never going to be a doctor. I’m never going to help anyone. I might as well just… die. Dad was right. I’m just… useless.”

The confession hung in the silent hallway, stark and terrifying. Keigo’s grip tightened on the phone. “Natsuo, listen to me. That is not true. None of it. You are one of the smartest, most capable people I know. You’re just burned out. Your brain is lying to you because it’s exhausted.”

He didn’t wait for a response. He launched into a steady, calm monologue, pulling from every de-escalation training he’d ever had. He talked about mundane things: the terrible coffee in the HSPC lounge, the way Shouto’s face lit up when Natsuo visited, the stupid, funny memes he and his friends sent to each other. Slowly, the hysterical edge of Natsuo’s breathing evened out, leaving behind a hollow, spent silence.

“I’m coming to get you today,” Keigo stated, his tone leaving no room for argument. “We’re bringing you home. We’re going to look at your schedule together and fix it. No arguments.”

“I can’t miss class,” Natsuo protested, but the fight was gone from his voice. It was a reflex, not a conviction.

“Natsu, based on what you’ve just told me, going to class is the least safe thing you could do right now. Do you agree? Be honest with me.”

A long, shaky pause. Then, a whisper so faint Keigo almost missed it. “...Yeah.”

“Doesn’t it sound better,” Keigo pressed, his voice softening into something almost tender, “to just come home? Sleep in your own bed? Let us make you food and not talk about biochem or genetics or anything heavy for a few days? Just… rest.”

The longing in the silence that followed was palpable. “...Yeah,” Natsuo whispered again, his voice cracking. “That sounds… really good.”

“Okay. Then it’s a plan. You call campus security, get let out. Go straight back to your dorm. Pack a bag. I’ll text you when I’m close. See you soon, okay?”

“...Okay.”

The line went dead. Keigo stood in the hallway for a long moment, the phone still pressed to his ear, listening to the silence. The first faint rays of dawn were beginning to filter through the window.

When Touya finally stumbled out of the bedroom around 6:30, drawn by the smell of coffee Keigo had mechanically started brewing, he found his boyfriend staring out the kitchen window, his wings drooping.

“You’re up early,” Touya mumbled, rubbing his eyes. “Everything okay?”

Keigo turned, his expression grim. “Natsuo called.”

Touya went still, all traces of sleep gone. “What happened?”

Keigo recapped the conversation, keeping his summary clinical, locked in the library, overtired, feeling remorseful, overwhelmed with his course load. He carefully edited out the depth of the despair, the suicidal ideation, the raw self-loathing. Touya had enough on his plate.

“He sounds like he hit a wall,” Keigo finished. “I told him I’m going up there today to bring him home for a few days.”

Touya sank into a chair at the table, running a hand through his sleep-mussed hair. “Jesus.” He looked exhausted already. “I… I can’t take the day off. I’ve used too many sick days lately.” The unspoken because of my own health hung between them. “Are you okay to go alone?”

“’Course,” Keigo said, forcing a lightness he didn’t feel. “I’ll fly. Be faster. I’ll have him back by dinner.”

Touya looked up at him, his expression a complex mix of guilt, gratitude, and profound worry. He reached out, and Keigo crossed the kitchen to take his hand. “Thank you,” Touya said, his voice rough. “For being a brother to my brothers.”

Keigo leaned down and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “They’re my family too, hot stuff.”

---

Touya pushed the apartment door open, his body humming with a deep, familiar ache that had nothing to do with the day's work. Shouto shuffled in behind him, dropping his backpack with a thud by the genkan. The usual after-school quiet of the apartment felt different today, charged with a new, heavy presence.

Then Touya saw him.

Natsuo was sprawled on the couch, buried under the All Might blanket, one arm dangling off the side. He was deeply asleep, his breathing even and heavy. He looked younger like this, the sharp angles of his face softened, the frantic energy that had been crackling around him for weeks completely gone, leaving behind a hollowed-out shell.

Shouto froze in the doorway to the living room, his eyes wide. He took a half-step back, bumping into Touya’s legs. The memory of Natsuo’s terrifying words, ghosts and time bombs was clearly still fresh.

“Hey,” Touya said softly, placing a hand on Shouto’s shoulder. “It’s okay. He’s just sleeping. He’s really tired.”

Shouto glanced up at him, uncertainty written all over his face.

“Go on,” Touya encouraged gently. “Say hi.”

Hesitantly, Shouto crept forward. He stopped a few feet from the couch, then reached out a single finger and brushed it against Natsuo’s bare forearm.

Natsuo stirred instantly. His eyes fluttered open, bleary and unfocused. For a second, he just blinked at Shouto. Then recognition dawned, and with it, a wave of such profound remorse that it seemed to physically pain him.

“Shouto,” he breathed, his voice raspy with sleep. In one fluid motion, he pushed himself up and pulled Shouto into a crushing hug. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t mean any of it. I’m so sorry.”

Shouto stiffened for a second, surprised by the force of the embrace, then awkwardly patted Natsuo’s back. “S’okay,” he mumbled into Natsuo’s shoulder.

Natsuo held on for a long moment before releasing him, his own eyes suspiciously bright. He looked over Shouto’s head and saw Touya standing there. He got shakily to his feet, looking wrung-out and fragile.

“Touya,” he said, his voice thick. He moved to hug him but stopped himself, his hands fluttering nervously. “I’ve been… I’ve been so horrible. I don’t… I don’t know what’s been going on with me.”

Touya closed the distance and pulled him into a careful, brief hug. “It’s okay,” he murmured. “We’re just glad you’re here now.”

Natsuo nodded, swallowing hard. “I’m gonna… I’m gonna lay back down,” he said, the words slurring with exhaustion. He didn’t wait for a response, just collapsed back onto the couch and was asleep again within seconds.

Touya watched him for a moment, his chest tight with a confusing mix of worry and relief. The hurricane had passed, leaving only wreckage and stillness in its wake.

“Go change out of your uniform,” he said to Shouto. “Then bring your homework into the kitchen.”

Shouto gave a long-suffering sigh but trudged off to his room without argument.

Touya made his way to the kitchen. Fuyumi was already there, her face pale with concern, and Keigo was leaning against the counter, looking more serious than Touya had seen him in a long time.

“He’s out again,” Touya announced quietly.

Keigo nodded. “He’s been like that since we got home. Woke up when Fuyumi came in, mumbled hello, then crashed again. It’s like someone flipped a switch.”

“What was it like? At his dorm?” Touya asked, lowering his voice even though he knew Natsuo was dead to the world.

Keigo’s expression turned grim. “It was… a disaster zone, Touya. And I’ve seen some messes.” He ran a hand through his hair. “My feathers cleaned up probably two dozen energy drink cans. Takeout containers everywhere. Piles of clothes, some clean, most not. But the scary part was the desk. It was covered in stacks of paper, textbooks open to random pages, and these… these insane webs of sticky notes connected with string. It looked like a conspiracy theorist’s wall. All about genetics, neurobiology, epigenetics… It was chaotic.”

He shook his head. “And he just… let me pack for him. No fight, no energy. Just this flat, docile acceptance. It was night and day from the guy on the phone. On the train home, he slept the entire way. Didn’t stir once.”

Touya absorbed this, the picture becoming clearer and more frightening. The manic, sleepless energy building to a peak, followed by this utter, desolate crash. It fit a pattern he’d seen before, in textbooks, in case studies. A pattern he’d never wanted to see in his own brother.

“Okay,” Touya said, leaning heavily against the kitchen table. “I’ll… I’ll talk to my contacts at the university. Someone in the psych department. There has to be someone who can point us in the right direction for help.”

He ran a hand over his face, the fatigue a permanent state of being. “I just have to get through this damn midterm first,” he groaned. The final stretch of his own master’s degree in quirk counseling felt like a cruel joke amidst the escalating family chaos. “There’s never any time to breathe.”

Fuyumi reached out and squeezed his arm. “We’ll make time. We’ll figure it out. We always do.”

In the living room, Natsuo slept on, oblivious to the worried conference happening just feet away. The storm inside him had quieted, for now. But they all knew, with a sinking certainty, that it was only a matter of time before the pressure began to build again. 

---

The rhythm of the week was established by Wednesday morning. As Touya was fumbling with his inhaler, his phone buzzed with a text. 

INKO: Good morning! Just wanted to let you all know the offer stands- Izuku would be happy to have Shouto over after school again today. It’s no trouble at all!

It was a lifeline, offered with impeccable grace. Shouto, after being offered the plan, had simply nodded, a quiet relief in his eyes. The apartment had been thick with a tension he didn’t understand but acutely felt. So, each day, he and Izuku walked home together from their specialized middle school, a routine that provided a much-needed island of calm for everyone.

By Saturday, the pattern was set. Touya woke to another text in the group chat, this time sent at 8:03 AM.

INKO: Good morning! Just letting you all know Shouto is here. The boys are already deep into some project!

Touya’s breath hitched. Shouto had gone to the Midoriyas’ on his own. Without telling anyone. He’d gotten dressed, left the apartment, navigated the several blocks to their building, and let himself in, all while Touya was asleep.

A spike of parental panic lanced through him. He didn’t tell me. What if something had happened? But beneath the fear, another thought, quieter and more persistent, whispered: If he can do that… if he can navigate there alone… could he, eventually, manage the trip to Shibuya?

He pushed the thought aside, texting back:

TOUYA: Thanks, Inko. Sorry, I was asleep! 

-before dragging himself out of bed. The apartment felt different. The oppressive, sick-room atmosphere of the first few days had lifted. Natsuo was already in the kitchen, showered and dressed, scrolling through his phone with a familiar, focused intensity. He wasn’t the manic, wild-eyed theorist of the previous week, nor the despondent, hollowed-out shell of Monday. This was the Natsuo they knew: driven, a little brusque, and single-minded about his goals.

“Hey,” Touya said, his voice still rough with sleep.

Natsuo looked up. “Hey. You seen my biochem notebook? I swear I packed it.”

“Haven’t seen it,” Touya said, reaching for the coffee maker. “You sure you didn’t leave it at your dorm?”

“Must have,” Natsuo muttered, his thumb flying across his phone screen, probably firing off a text to a classmate. “I need to get back. I’m so far behind. My grade is screwed if I don’t have that paper draft by Monday.”

His anxiety was palpable, but it was a normal, academic anxiety. It was almost comforting in its familiarity.

Keigo wandered in, yawning, his hair a spectacular mess. “Morning. Plotting world domination or just your return to academia?” he asked Natsuo, his tone light.

“Academia,” Natsuo said, a faint smile touching his lips. “The world can wait.”

When Fuyumi returned with groceries, the four of them actually managed a semi-normal breakfast. The conversation was stilted, careful, but it was a conversation. It felt like they were gingerly stepping around a sleeping bear, hoping not to wake it.

It was over the washing up that they made their move. Fuyumi broached it, her voice carefully neutral. “You know, Natsu, the semester is almost over. Maybe it would be worth taking a medical withdrawal? Just to give yourself a real break. Come back fresh in the spring.”

Natsuo’s shoulders stiffened. He didn’t look at her, focusing on drying a plate with intense concentration. “A medical withdrawal for what? A bad week? I’m fine now.”

“It was more than a bad week,” Touya said, leaning against the counter. “You haven’t been sleeping. You weren’t making sense. You scared the hell out of us, man.”

Natsuo finally put the plate down, turning to face them. His expression was earnest, frustrated. “I know. And I am sorry. Truly. I don’t know what that was. I just… I got in over my head. But you guys helped! You got me to drop the research groups, the extra clubs. It’s just classes now. I can handle my classes.” He said it with a conviction that seemed genuine. He truly believed he was fixed.

Keigo, ever the diplomat, tried a different approach. “Maybe just talk to someone at the student health center? Make sure everything… you know, stays this way?”

Natsuo’s face closed off. “Talk to who? You think something’s wrong with me?” The defensiveness was back, a sharp edge to his voice.

“No one thinks that,” Fuyumi said, her voice pleading. “We just think you went through an overwhelming, maybe scary, time, and it might help to work with a professional so it doesn’t happen again.”

“It won’t happen again because I’m not going to let it!” Natsuo’s voice rose, his composure cracking. “I’ve learned my lesson! I’m better! You’re not my parents, okay? You’re my siblings. And I’m an adult. I get to decide what I do.”

The words hung in the air, a stark reminder of the legal and emotional lines between them. They were his family, but their power ended at concern. They couldn’t force him.

“We’re not trying to be your parents,” Touya said, his voice low with a mixture of exhaustion and defeat. “We’re trying to be your family. And families help each other when they see them heading for a cliff.”

“Well, I’m not heading for a cliff,” Natsuo snapped, his patience gone. “Thanks for the… the concern. But I’m going back to school tomorrow. You can’t stop me.”

He turned and strode out of the kitchen, towards Shouto’s room, where he’d been storing his things. They heard the door slam shut, followed by the aggressive sound of a zipper and things being thrown into a bag.

In the devastating silence he left behind, Fuyumi sank into a chair, her face in her hands. Keigo let out a low whistle. “Well. That was a spectacular failure.” 

Touya just stared at the doorway, the sound of Natsuo’s packing like a countdown clock. He had been so sure, so certain that this would work.

The rebound between last week’s Natsuo to this one had been so complete, so convincing. He was positive he’d be able to see what they were all seeing… but he hadn’t. And that, Touya realized with a sickening dread, was perhaps the most frightening part of all.

Chapter 33: The Shape of Things

A week of silence followed Natsuo’s return to Keio. It was a tense, watchful quiet on the Todoroki-Himura end. Fuyumi jumped every time her phone buzzed. Touya found himself checking the news for his brother’s university district, a habit he thought he’d kicked years ago. Keigo’s feathers would twitch at unexpected sounds, his hero instincts on high alert for a crisis that didn’t come.

Then, precisely seven days after he’d left, the first call came.

It was evening. Touya’s phone lit up with Natsuo’s name. He exchanged a wary glance with Keigo before answering, putting it on speaker.

“Hey, Natsu.”

“Hey, Touya.” Natsuo’s voice was even, pleasant. There was no underlying tremor of anxiety, no frantic energy. It was… flat. Calm. “Just checking in. How’s everything there?”

“Uh… good. It’s good. Keigo’s fine too. How… how are you?” Touya stumbled over the question, thrown by the unnatural normalcy.

“I’m well, thanks. Keeping up with the coursework. It’s manageable now.” The words were precise, practiced. “And how is Shouto? Is he keeping up with his art?”

“Yeah, he’s… he’s good. Working on his portfolio.”

“That’s excellent. Please tell him I said hello. And Fuyumi? How is she?”

“She’s… she’s good too.”

“Good, good. And your… health? Everything’s okay?”

The question was so rote, so clearly the next item on a mental checklist, that it sent a chill down Touya’s spine. This wasn’t his brother’s concerned, if sometimes clumsy, care. This was a recitation.

“I’m fine, Natsu. Same as always.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Okay, I should probably get back to studying. I’ll call again in a couple of days. Talk to you then.”

The call ended as abruptly and politely as it had begun.

Touya stared at the phone. “What the hell was that?”

Keigo frowned. “That was… weirdly normal.”

“That wasn’t normal,” Touya countered, a knot of unease tightening in his stomach. “That was… a performance.”

The pattern held. Like clockwork, every forty-eight hours, Natsuo would call. The conversations were always the same: a polite greeting, a specific inquiry about each family member’s well-being, a mention of his own manageable studies, a promise to call again soon. The emotional temperature never fluctuated. There was no humor, no frustration, no warmth. It was a flawless impression of a perfectly stable, mildly concerned younger brother.

After the third call, Touya hung up and tossed his phone onto the couch in frustration. “I can’t do this.”

Keigo looked up from where he was preening a primary feather. “Do what? He sounds okay. He’s checking in. Isn’t that what we wanted?”

“Is it?” Touya ran a hand through his hair. “Keigo, that’s not him. That’s not Natsuo. Natsuo complains. He rants about his professors. He sends me weird memes. He gets excited about some dumb bacteria and talks my ear off for an hour. This?” He gestured to the phone. “This is like he’s following a script for ‘Mentally Stable Sibling.’ It’s freaking me out more than when he was yelling.”

The truth of the words settled over them. The episodes had been terrifying in their chaos, but they had been Natsuo: all his passion and intelligence twisted into something destructive, but undeniably his. This… this placid, polite stranger was somehow worse. It was a mask, and they had no idea what was happening behind it.

“You think he’s… what? Faking being okay?” Keigo asked, his wings giving a concerned rustle.

“I think he’s trying so hard to prove to us, and to himself, that he’s fixed, that he’s locked everything else away,” Touya said, the realization dawning with a sickening clarity. “He’s so terrified of being that person again, of scaring us, of needing help, that he’s just… shut down. He’s on autopilot.”

The silence that followed was heavy. The weekly calls from the manic, desperate Natsuo had been a fire alarm. These new, scheduled, perfectly calm calls were the silent, steady spread of carbon monoxide: undetectable, and just as deadly.

“What do we do?” Keigo asked quietly.

Touya had no answer. How do you help someone who has convinced themselves, and is trying to convince you, that they no longer need it? All they could do was wait, and listen to the carefully constructed calm, and dread the day the mask inevitably slipped.

---

He’d felt the changes: the way his shirts strained across his shoulders and chest, the new softness around his middle that made his scars feel tighter, stretched. He’d told himself it was temporary. A side effect. It would go away when he could lower the dosage.

But on this chilly November morning, reality refused to be ignored.

He stood in front of the bedroom mirror, a pair of his favorite black work pants in hand. They were soft from countless washes, forgiving in the way that good, worn-in clothes are. Or so he’d thought. He tugged them up his thighs, over his hips, and went to button them.

The button wouldn’t meet the hole.

He sucked in his stomach, twisted, pulled the fabric until it strained. Nothing. A full inch of space yawned between the button and its intended destination.

He let go, the elastic waistband snapping back against his skin with a soft, mocking thwack. He stared at his reflection. The man staring back was a stranger. His face was rounder, softened at the jawline, the sharp angles he’d carried since adolescence blurred into something moon-faced and unfamiliar. A soft swell of a belly, pale and vulnerable, curved over the waistband of his boxers. His body, once a roadmap of sharp bones and ropey scars, was now… soft. Unrecognizable.

A hot, shameful tear escaped and traced a path down his cheek. Then another. He wasn’t sobbing; it was a quiet, hopeless leaking of grief for the body he was losing, for the control that kept slipping through his fingers. He was disappearing, being replaced by this puffy, fragile shell.

The bed creaked. “’S too early for a fashion show,” Keigo mumbled, his voice thick with sleep.

Touya didn’t answer. He couldn’t.

Keigo must have sensed the profound silence. He rolled over, blinking blearily. His gaze landed on Touya, standing half-dressed before the mirror, the discarded pants on the floor, his face wet with tears.

“Hey,” Keigo said, instantly awake. He was out of bed in a second, coming to stand behind him, his hands resting gently on Touya’s shoulders. “What’s going on?”

“They don’t fit,” Touya whispered, the words choked.

Keigo looked down at the pants, then back at Touya’s reflection. “Oh, babe. Those things are ancient. We can get new ones. You look fine.”

It was the wrong thing to say. The kindness, the easy dismissal, felt like a lie. The dam broke.

“Fine?” Touya’s voice cracked, sharp and brittle. He shrugged off Keigo’s hands, turning to face him. “Look at me, Keigo! How can you even say that? I’m huge. I don’t even look like myself anymore!” The words were laced with a venom he didn’t mean to direct at Keigo, but it spilled out anyway, fueled by steroid-fueled rage and a bottomless well of self-loathing.

Keigo flinched, just slightly. He didn’t fire back. He just stood there, his golden eyes wide, taking the hit. The silence that followed was worse than the shouting.

The anger evaporated as quickly as it had come, leaving behind a crushing wave of guilt. Touya’s shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry,” he choked out, covering his face with his hands as a fresh wave of tears overtook him. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to say it like that. I just… I hate this. I hate what it’s doing to me.”

Keigo stepped forward again, slowly this time, and wrapped his arms around him. He didn’t offer empty platitudes. He just held him as Touya cried, his tears soaking into Keigo’s t-shirt.

“I know,” Keigo murmured into his hair. “I know you hate it. It’s shitty. And it’s okay to hate it.”

They stood like that for a long time, until Touya’s tears subsided into shaky breaths. Keigo guided him to sit on the edge of the bed, keeping an arm around him.

“This is the deal, right?” Keigo said softly. “The prednisone helps your lungs, but it messes with everything else. It’s a trade. And we knew that.”

“I didn’t know it would make me into a different person,” Touya said, his voice raw.

“You’re not a different person,” Keigo said firmly. “You’re Touya. You’re just… a temporarily puffy Touya. And I love every version of you. Even the ones that are mean to me before coffee.” He offered a small, crooked smile.

Touya managed a weak huff of laughter, wiping his eyes. “What happens when the trade stops being worth it?” he asked, the fear naked in his voice. “When I need the infusions, and I’m sick and tired all the time? What happens to Shouto? To us?”

Keigo was quiet for a moment, his fingers tracing idle patterns on Touya’s back. “We talked about this, baby. We hire someone if we need to. Fuyumi helps more with Sho. I take fewer overnight missions. We make it work.” He looked at Touya, his gaze steady and sure. “This is it, Touya. You and me. For better, for worse, in sickness and in health. We don’t need a piece of paper to prove that, do we?”

The words were so simple, so unwavering. They bypassed all of Touya’s fears and landed directly in his heart.

“No,” Touya whispered, leaning his head against Keigo’s shoulder. “We don’t.”

“Good.” Keigo kissed his temple. “But maybe we can have a really nice party someday anyway. When things are calmer. I’d look good in a tux.”

The image was so absurd and so perfectly Keigo that Touya finally felt a genuine smile touch his lips. “You’d look pretty cute, I guess.”

“Damn right.” Keigo kissed him again. "Now, find some new pants, and I'll make coffee." 

---

The izakaya was their usual spot, a cramped, steamy haven where the clatter of dishes and the low hum of after-work chatter provided a comfortable anonymity. Fuyumi nursed a glass of chilled sake, the day’s exhaustion beginning to melt from her shoulders. Across the table, Haruki was animatedly describing the chaos of his fifth-period class.

“...and then Kenji, you know, the one with the cloud hair, sneezes, and his quirk activates right as I’m handing out the vinegar for the volcano experiment.” He ran a hand through his own hair, which currently held a faint greenish tint and smelled subtly of fresh basil, a lingering effect of the basil plant he’d watered before leaving his classroom. “So instead of erupting, the entire science fair project just… floated away. We had to open all the windows.”

Fuyumi laughed, a real, unforced sound. “What did you tell his parents?”

“That their son had floated away my lesson,” he deadpanned, taking a sip of his beer. “They seemed proud.”

This was easy. This was them. Work stories, shared jokes, the quiet understanding of two people who lived in the same demanding, rewarding world of teaching. Haruki was steady. His presence was like his quirk, a subtle, comforting shift in the atmosphere. After the constant turbulence of her family, his calm normality was a balm.

He set his beer down, his expression softening into something more tentative. “So, I was looking at apartments online during my free period.”

“Oh yeah?” Fuyumi asked, spearing a piece of edamame. “Find anything good?”

“Actually, yeah.” He leaned forward slightly, his forearms on the sticky table. “There’s a place two blocks from school. Older building, but it’s got a decent kitchen, a balcony that actually gets sun… two bedrooms. My lease is up at the end of December.” He paused, watching her. “I was thinking… maybe we could look at it together.”

The edamame stopped halfway to her mouth. The noise of the izakaya seemed to swell, then recede, until all she could hear was the frantic thumping of her own heart. Two bedrooms. December. Together.

Her face must have given her away. The hopeful light in Haruki’s eyes flickered and dimmed. He leaned back, his shoulder brushing against a fellow salaryman, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“Or not,” he said, his voice carefully neutral, too neutral. He picked up his beer again, just for something to do with his hands. “It was just a thought.”

“No, it’s not… it’s a great thought,” Fuyumi rushed to say, her words tripping over each other. “It really is. I just… January feels really soon. With everything… with Shouto’s school applications, and Touya, and Natsuo…” She gestured vaguely, a helpless, all-encompassing motion that meant the constant, low-grade emergency that is my life.

“Right,” Haruki said. He nodded, his gaze fixed on a knot in the wooden table. “Of course. Sorry, I shouldn’t have sprung that on you.”

The distance between them, though they were still at the same small table, felt vast. This was the unspoken fault line in their relationship, and she’d just stumbled right into it.

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” she said, her voice dropping. “Haruki, I really do. It’s just…” 

Haruki was quiet for a long moment. The cheerful noise of the izakaya pressed in around their sudden silence. When he spoke, his voice was soft, devoid of accusation, just layered with a quiet sadness. “I know. I see it every day. How much you do for them.” He gave a small, helpless shrug. “And I love that about you. I do. It’s why I fell for you. But sometimes…”

He paused, searching for the right words. “Sometimes it feels like I’m living in your life’s waiting room. And I’m just… waiting for a spot to open up. I know it’s not your fault. I know they need you. But I need you, too. I just want to feel like I’m… next in line.”

His words weren’t a demand. They were a confession. He wasn’t asking her to choose; he was just admitting how it felt to love someone who was already spoken for by so many obligations. The honesty was more devastating than any argument could have been.

Tears welled in Fuyumi’s eyes. She reached across the table, covering his hand with hers. “You are,” she said, her voice thick. “You are next in line. I promise. This… this is what I want.” She took a shaky breath, grasping for a lifeline that would appease him without being a real commitment. “I just… I need to talk to Touya. To make a plan, you know? For the logistics of it all. I can’t just spring it on him. Once I talk to him, we can… we can make it work.”

It was a stall tactic. A ‘maybe’ disguised as a ‘yes, after I do this one thing.’ She had no intention of seriously discussing it with Touya, not with his health so precarious and Natsuo a silent question mark. The guilt of the lie curdled in her stomach.

Haruki searched her face. He saw the tears, the desperation to please him, and the deep, underlying conflict. He was too kind to push further. He squeezed her hand, a faint, sad smile touching his lips. “Okay,” he said softly. “Logistics. You talk to Touya.” He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Just… tell me I’m not crazy for hoping. That one day, there might be a ‘you and me’ that doesn’t have to be scheduled around everyone else.”

Fuyumi’s heart cracked. “You’re not crazy,” she whispered back, the words tasting like ash. “I want that, too.”

And she did.In that moment, she wanted it so badly it hurt. But as they paid the bill and stepped out into the cold night air, his hand finding hers, she felt the weight of her other life settling back onto her shoulders. She loved the sweet, steady man beside her. But she was a Todoroki. And her first duty was always to the ruins of her own house.

---

The art room during lunch period was a world apart from the noisy halls of the lunchroom. Sunlight streamed through the large, paint-splattered windows, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air. The room smelled of turpentine, clay, and the peculiar, sweet scent of gummy erasers.

In the center of the organized chaos, Shouto was a study in intense, silent focus. He stood before a large canvas, a palette knife in one hand, a tub of heavy gel medium in the other. His brow was furrowed, his mismatched eyes fixed on the textural landscape he was creating. With deliberate, precise movements, he layered the clear gel, building up ridges and valleys that would, when dry, hold layers of paint and create a topography all their own. This wasn't just a painting; it was a terrain. His left side radiated a gentle warmth, just enough to speed the drying of the lower layers so he could work faster.

This portfolio was his future, and he was building it one painstaking layer at a time.

Mr. Aoki moved through the room with a quiet, watchful presence. He didn't hover. He'd offer a single, succinct piece of advice: "Remember to step back and look from a distance, Todoroki-kun," or "Try using the edge of the card to scrape that section", before giving him space to work it out on his own. 

In a far corner, perched precariously on a stool he’d deemed “clean enough,” was Izuku. A half-eaten bento box sat beside him, forgotten. He was hunched over a massive textbook titled Advanced Quirk Genetics, his lips moving a mile a minute as he devoured the text.

“…so if the activation factor is tied to the mitochondrial DNA instead of the nucleus, it could explain the sporadic inheritance patterns in emitter-class quirks, but the cellular energy cost would be immense, which might be why they’re so often linked to metabolic disorders, oh but wait, what about Kugo’s theory on…”

His muttering was a constant, low-level hum in the room, a counterpoint to the scrape of Shouto’s palette knife. Every so often, he’d glance up, his green eyes tracking Shouto’s progress with silent, fierce pride. He’d made a wide berth around the pottery wheels, the slick, slimy look of the wet clay made his skin crawl, and he carefully avoided touching any of the drying sculptures, his fingers twitching at the thought of the unpredictable textures.

His primary self-appointed role, however, was nutrition enforcer. He’d wait for a moment when Shouto paused to mix more paint, then seize the opportunity.

“Sho,” he’d say, “Try the salmon onigiri- my mom made them and they're really good.”

Shouto would grunt, not looking away from his canvas, but his hand would absently find the bento box, lift a rice ball, and take a mechanical bite. He’d chew without tasting, his eyes still fixed on the problem of the sunset’s reflection in the imaginary windows of his city.

Izuku would nod, satisfied, and dive back into his book. “...which would create a feedback loop, potentially explaining the rapid cellular decay in destructive quirks, the energy output literally burning out the host’s…”

It was a perfect, symbiotic partnership. Shouto fought for his future with a palette knife, building a world where he belonged. Izuku fought for his alongside him, arming himself with knowledge, making sure his friend was fueled for the battle. They didn’t need to speak. The shared space, the mutual focus, the scrape of the knife and the rustle of pages, it was its own language. In this sunlit room, surrounded by the evidence of creation, their respective anxieties, about high school, about socializing, about the overwhelming future fell away. There was only the work, and the quiet, unwavering certainty that they were both exactly where they were meant to be.

Chapter 34: Calculation

Notes:

thanks again for joining me for this story, and for all the comments!
tbh was not expecting haruki to come across so villainous! interesting takes from the readers, but i hope that you stick around to see his purpose in fuyumi's life and how he will encourage her to grow as a person.
anyways, here we go!

Haruto, at fourteen, was a testament to time passing in a way that sometimes startled Touya. The boy was all limbs and a newly acquired teenage slouch, but the nervous energy was the same. He’d been a client of Touya’s since he was eleven, a referral from a school terrified of the kid whose hair would burst into flames during math tests. Back then, the sessions were about containment, and fear. Now, years later, the fear was mostly gone, replaced by a different frustration.

He sat in Touya’s office, scowling at a rebellious lock of his bright red hair that was emitting a thin, sugary plume of smoke. “It’s so dumb,” he muttered, his voice cracking on the edge of adolescence. “I’m not even mad. It just… fizzles. Like a shitty firework.”

Touya offered a small smile. “It’s not dumb. It’s a habit. Your body’s default setting when it has a bit of extra energy and doesn’t know what to do with it. Think of it as a pilot light. It’s always on. The trick isn’t to snuff it out; it’s to learn how to channel that steady burn into something useful.”

He nudged the fireproof tile on the desk between them. On it sat a single, unlit candle. “Just the wick. A focused spark. Not the whole tile.”

Haruto sighed, the sound full of teenage exasperation, but he complied. He pointed a finger, his concentration palpable. The smoldering lock of hair flared with a soft whump, a brief, bright flower of flame that singed the air but left the candle wick stubbornly untouched.

“See?” he groaned, slumping back. “Useless.”

“You’re trying to shout at it,” Touya corrected gently. “You need to whisper. It’s a conversation, Haruto. You’re asking the energy to take a little trip down your arm. It’s shy. You have to be patient.”

They spent the rest of the session on breathing, on visualization: imagining the spark as a tiny, glowing ember rolling from his scalp, down his neck, along his shoulder. It was slow, frustrating work, but Touya found it deeply comforting.

After Haruto left, the quiet of the office settled around Touya. The session had been an anchor, a return to the professional self he knew how to be. Himura Touya, Quirk Counselor. It was a identity that felt solid, capable. Unlike the terrified older brother watching his family unravel.

His gaze drifted to the framed photo on his desk: a rare picture of him, Keigo, and a beaming Shouto at the art show. His heart, and his greatest source of chaos.

The thought arrived then, sharp and unwelcome.

Hitoshi.

Guilt, cold and immediate, washed over him. He’d sat in the Aizawa-Yamadas’ living room and listened to childhood trauma so profound it had left him shaken. He’d made a connection with a child, then he’d disappeared. He’d become the exact kind of flaky, unreliable adult he’d promised himself he wouldn’t be.

He grabbed his phone, pulling up his messages with Aizawa. The last text was from weeks ago, a lifetime in crisis time. He typed quickly, his thumbs clumsy with a need to make it right.

TOUYA: Hey-  sorry about the radio silence on my end- family stuff. How’s our kid doing? Any chance he’d be up for a session before the year is out?
TOUYA: Zero pressure, just want to check in.

He set the phone down, expecting the usual long wait. Aizawa wasn’t known for his speedy replies.

The response came in under a minute.

AIZAWA: It’s fine. We figured.
AIZAWA: He liked the new therapist you recommended more than his old one, so it’s been going well. He’s starting to make sounds again. Whispers, mostly. A word here and there. The therapist says the capacity is there, it’s just about convincing him he’s safe enough to use it. Still no quirk use. We don’t know any more than ‘voice activated.’

The image of Hitoshi, whispering a word, was a small, bright point of light in the fog of Touya’s own worries.

AIZAWA: He’d probably say yes. When were you thinking?

A genuine, weary smile touched Touya’s lips. This was a thread he could pick back up. A life outside his own crumbling walls that he could actually help mend.

TOUYA: Next week?
TOUYA: Really glad to hear about his progress. That’s huge!!

He put the phone down. Nothing about his own situation had changed. But he felt like Touya Himura, Quirk Counselor. And that identity, however fragile, felt like a piece of himself he’d desperately missed. He had something to offer, something that wasn’t just damage control.

---

The "check-in" calls from Natsuo were the worst kind of torture. They happened with a punctuality that felt unnatural, every two days at 7:00 PM on the dot. Fuyumi would put the phone on speaker, and the three of them would huddle around it like it was a Ouija board, hoping for a sign of their real brother.

"Hey, Natsu," Fuyumi would say, her voice artificially bright. "How was your day?"

A beat of silence, then his voice, carefully modulated. "It was fine. Studied for my chemistry midterm."

"Which chapter?" Touya would jump in, trying to pry the door open a crack. "You were struggling with thermodynamics last week, right?"

Another pause, slightly too long. "Yeah. Got it figured out. It's fine." The subject was slammed shut.

They could almost hear him on the other end, mentally checking a box: Asked about my day. Gave appropriate response. Do not elaborate. Check. 

"Are you… eating okay?" Fuyumi would try, her voice softening with genuine concern.

"Yep. Cafeteria food. You know how it is." The tone was dismissive, a brush-off wrapped in normalcy. It was clear he was forcing himself to be bland, to be safe.

The calls always ended the same way. "Okay. I'll call in a couple days. Bye." And then a dial tone.

The silence after was always heavier than the call itself. "He's trying so hard," Fuyumi would whisper, her eyes sad. 

"It's fucking creepy," Touya would mutter, running a hand through his hair. But the anger was just a cover for the fear. The real Natsuo was in there, screaming to get out. They could all feel it.

---

The Aizawa-Yamada living room was a sanctuary of quiet. Hitoshi was already there, curled in his usual spot like a lanky cat, a tablet in his lap. He wasn't drawing or playing a game; he was just staring at the screen saver, a picture of a sleeping calico cat. He looked up as Touya entered, and a flicker of something, not quite a smile, but a relaxation of his usual wary expression, crossed his face.

"Hey, kid," Touya said, sinking onto the couch with a quiet groan. His joints were complaining today.  “Alright, kid. We’ve been dancing around it. You’ve been doing the hard work, getting your scrawny butt kicked by Eraserhead. But we gotta talk about the other thing.”

Hitoshi’s shoulders immediately crept toward his ears. He gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod. 

“I know you know,” Touya said, his voice losing its usual lazy drawl, becoming earnest. “And I know the last time you used it was… bad. I get that. We don’t have to talk about that; I know you’ve got someone else you’re working with. But we gotta ask about the quirk itself. It’s like a tool. A really powerful, scary tool that got left out in the rain and rusted shut. We gotta clean it off, see if it still works.”

Hitoshi picked up his tablet, his fingers hovering over the screen for a moment before he typed. The tinny voice read his message out loud. 

[I don’t remember how. Just that it… pulled.]

“That’s okay. That’s our starting point.” Touya leaned forward, his notepad ready. “You told me it felt like a ‘pull.’ That’s huge. Can you tell me more about that? Where did you feel it?”

Hitoshi’s brow furrowed, his gaze turning inward, searching the dark, dusty corners of his memory. He was quiet for a long time, and Touya let the silence sit. Finally, Hitoshi’s fingers moved, slow and deliberate.

[Behind my eyes. A pressure. Then it’s like a string. A connection. From me to them.]

“A string,” Touya repeated, scribbling it down. “A mental connection. Okay, that tracks. And once the string is connected, you feel like you’re pulling them? Pulling what? Their attention? Their will?”

Hitoshi shrugged, frustrated. He whispered, the sound raw and scratchy. “Just… pull.”

“Good. That’s really good, Hitoshi,” Touya said, his tone matter-of-fact. “So, we know it’s voice-activated. But what does that mean? Is it any sound? A specific word? A command? A compliment? An insult?” He leaned forward. “We have to run some tests. In a safe place. With people you trust.”

Hitoshi’s head snapped up, his eyes wide with instant panic. He shook his head violently.

“Hear me out,” Touya said, holding up a placating hand. “Your dad. The loud one. Yamada.”

Hitoshi stared, confused.

“Think about it. His quirk is his voice. He’s got insane control over it. If anyone could understand the mechanics of a voice-activated quirk, it’s him. He might even be able to feel something on his end. And more importantly,” Touya leaned in, “your other dad will be there. Aizawa. Standing right next to him. If anything goes wrong, if you get scared or can’t break the connection, he blinks and it’s over. Erased. Just like that. Safety net.”

The logic was sound, and Hitoshi’s panic slowly receded, replaced by a nervous calculation. 

[But we don’t know what makes it start. What if I can’t? Or what if I do and I can’t stop?]

“That’s the whole point of the test,” Touya said gently. “To find out. We’ll try everything. We’ll have you say his name. A greeting. A command. A statement. We need to see what, if anything, triggers that ‘string.’ And Aizawa is the emergency stop button.”

He could see the conflict warring on Hitoshi’s face, the terrified boy who never wanted to use his power again versus the determined aspiring hero who knew he had to.

“We’ll plan it all out,” Touya pressed. “No surprises. You, me, and both your dads. We’ll agree on a simple, stupid command beforehand. Something like… ‘touch your nose.’ Something harmless. We’re just trying to find the key that starts the engine. You don’t have to get it right on the first try. Hell, you might not get it right at all today. That’s okay. It’s data.”

Hitoshi looked down at his hands, clenching them into fists. He was remembering the pull, the string, the terrifying feeling of absolute control that was tied to his worst memory. He thought of UA. He thought of proving everyone wrong.

He took a shaky breath and looked up, meeting Touya’s eyes. His voice was a ghost of sound, barely more than a breath, but it was clear and deliberate.

“...Okay.”

It wasn’t enthusiastic, but resigned, and terrified. However, it was a yes.

---

The apartment was filled with the crisp, hopeful scent of citrus and pine. Tomorrow was New Year's Eve, and from his nest of blankets on the couch, Touya watched her adjust a sprig of kadomatsu by the door for what felt like the hundredth time. He felt bad, leaving her and Keigo to set up alone, but he was truly exhausted, and they’d insisted it was fine. 

A soft chime from a feather hovering by the door announced the arrival before Fuyumi could. “They’re here!” she said, her voice a mix of excitement and tension.

The door opened, letting in a cold draft and his grandparents. They looked smaller, more fragile than he remembered. Their eyes, however, were sharp, and they immediately found him on the couch.

“Touya,” his grandmother said, her voice softening with a concern reserved only for him. 

“Obaasan, Ojiisan,” he said, offering a tired smile. He saw the flicker in their eyes, the quick, clinical assessment of his weight gain, the pallor of his skin, the way he was bundled up despite the warm apartment. They said nothing, their politeness a shield, but their worry was a palpable thing in the room.

Keigo, ever the buffer, landed softly between them, a whirlwind of cheerful efficiency. “Welcome! Let us get your coats,” he said, and two of his primary feathers darted forward to gently take their outer layers, floating them to the closet with precise control. His grandparents’ faces relaxed into genuine smiles. Everyone was disarmed by Keigo.

The apartment settled into a polite, slightly awkward rhythm. Shouto, seated at the low table, was immersed in his sketchbook, his brow furrowed in concentration. He didn’t look up.

“And what are you working on, Shouto?” his grandfather asked, his tone kind but formal, the way one would address the child of a casual acquaintance.

Shouto flinched minutely but didn’t retreat. He simply turned the sketchbook slightly to show a detailed, stunningly intricate ink drawing of a dragon. He gave a single, sharp nod, then pushed his thick-framed glasses back up his nose and returned to his work.

“Very… precise,” his grandmother said, the compliment feeling like it had traveled a long distance to get here. Fuyumi beamed, a nervous flutter in her hands.

“He’s applying to an arts high school. He’s incredibly talented.”

The conversation lulled again, the silence filled by the soft scratch of Shouto’s pen and the rustle of Keigo’s feathers as they set out teacups.

The peace was shattered by the front door slamming open.

“I’m home!” Natsuo’s voice was a cannon blast of energy. He stood in the genkan, his frame filling the doorway, a duffel bag hanging from his shoulder and a grin on his face that was too wide, too bright. His cheeks were flushed.

Touya, Keigo, and Fuyumi exchanged a single, swift glance.

The message was clear: This is the up-swing.

“Natsuo!” his grandmother exclaimed, her surprise evident. He swept her into a bear hug that was all forceful, manic energy.

“Obaasan! Ojiisan! Sorry I’m late! Keigo!” He released his grandmother and clapped Keigo on the shoulder with a force that was just a little too hard. His grandparents watched, their polite smiles now tinged with confusion at this whirlwind of a grandson they barely knew.

He finally zeroed in on the couch. “Touya! Hey! How’s the… you know.” He gestured vaguely at Touya’ entire being, the question rapid-fire, his eyes scanning him with an intensity that felt invasive.

“Still chronically shitty,” Touya drawled. “You seem to be in a good mood.”

“Got a lot to be in a good mood about!” Natsuo declared, collapsing into an armchair. He launched into a breathless, slightly incoherent story about a research paper, a professor, a groundbreaking future in quirk medicine. The words tumbled out, one over the other, a rushing river of grandiose plans.

A single, small red feather darted from Keigo’s wing and came to rest gently on Touya’s knee, a tiny, silent point of contact and understanding. Fuyumi brought Natsuo tea, her movements careful, her eyes never leaving him.

Touya watched his brother’s animated face, the brilliant, unstable energy that seemed to vibrate through him. This wasn't the withdrawn ghost from a month ago. This was something else entirely, a dangerous, glittering high. Natsuo caught him staring and grinned even wider, a crack in the facade. “What?” 

Touya forced a smirk onto his face. “Just wondering what they’re putting in the water at Keio. Seems potent.”

Natsuo laughed, a loud, booming sound that didn’t sound like joy at all.

---

The low, constant ache was Touya’s new normal, a familiar hum beneath his skin. He emerged from his room on New Year's Eve feeling like he’d been run over by a truck, which was, unfortunately, standard. He found the kitchen already a warm, fragrant hub of activity.

Obaasan and Fuyumi were a study in contrasts at the counter. Fuyumi moved with a kind of frantic, cheerful precision, her glasses fogging slightly from the steam of a pot of osuimono. Obaasan, by contrast, was a portrait of calm, deliberate tradition. Her hands, gnarled with age, moved with an economy of motion as she shaped osechi ryori with a focus that was almost meditative.

“-and you must soak the kombu for the dashi for exactly thirty minutes, no more, no less,” Obaa-chan was saying, her voice low and even.

“Thirty minutes,” Fuyumi repeated, scribbling a note on a pad she had stuck to the fridge. “Right. I usually just guess.”

Obaasan made a soft, non-committal sound that conveyed a universe of gentle disapproval and patient teaching. Touya smirked, shuffling to the kettle to make tea. “Careful, Fuyumi. You’re about to learn the difference between ‘edible’ and ‘correct’.”

“Oh, hush,” Fuyumi said, but she was smiling. “Did you sleep okay?”

“Like a baby,” Touya deadpanned. He leaned against the counter, cradling his mug. “Where is everyone?”

“Ojiisan took Shouto to that French patisserie he likes. I think he’s trying to bridge the gap between them with buttercream. Keigo and Natsuo went for a run.”

Touya’s eyebrows shot up. “Wow, that’s dedication.” 

Fuyumi met his eyes. “You know, some people just have excess energy to burn.” The implication was clear. 

One by one, the household trickled back in. Ojiisan and Shouto returned first, a box of exquisite pastries in hand. Shouto, clutching his own bag with a chocolate eclair, gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod to Touya, a high praise from him. Ojiisan looked quietly pleased with himself.

Next came Keigo and Natsuo, bursting through the door flushed and panting. Natsuo was still talking a mile a minute, detailing his pace and heart rate to a patiently nodding Keigo, whose feathers were already darting around, tidying stray shoes and fetching water glasses without him moving a muscle.

The real event, however, was the arrival of the Midoriyas.

Inko came first, her arms laden with containers. “I brought the kurikinton and the datemaki!” she announced, her kind face beaming. “I hope it’s alright!”

“Inko-chan, you shouldn’t have!” Fuyumi fussed, even as she gratefully took the boxes. The two women immediately fell into easy conversation, a well-practiced dance of mutual appreciation.

Izuku hovered in the genkan behind her, looking uncharacteristically shy as his eyes landed on the unfamiliar, traditionally-dressed elders. He offered a deep, stiff bow. “It’s very nice to meet you! Thank you for having us!” he squeaked, his form perfect and utterly terrified.

Obaasan and Ojiisan offered polite, formal bows in return. “The pleasure is ours, Midoriya-san,” Oji-san said, his tone serious but not unkind.

This lasted for all of about ninety seconds.

Once the initial pleasantries were over and Izuku was shown Shouto’s latest dragon sketch, the dam broke. The two boys retreated to a corner of the living room, and soon a rapid-fire, one-sided conversation was underway. The grandparents watched this sudden transformation with bemused curiosity.

The rest of the day unfolded in a warm, chaotic blend of tradition and their own unique family rhythm.

They all worked together to make mochi, a hilarious and slightly dangerous endeavor. Keigo used a single, super-strong primary feather to pound the rice in the usu with terrifying precision, while Natsuo, still buzzing with energy, took over the turning and wetting with an enthusiasm that splashed water everywhere. Touya supervised from a safe distance on a kitchen stool, offering unhelpful commentary.

“A little to the left, Birdie. No, your other left. He’s going to pulverize the table, someone stop him.”

Izuku, once he’d gotten over his nerves, proved to be a meticulous and eager student under Obaasan’s direction, carefully shaping the soft mochi with a focus that mirrored Shouto’s artistic intensity. Shouto himself preferred to watch, analyzing the process before executing his single, perfectly formed piece of mochi with solemn satisfaction.

As evening fell, they sat down to the feast. The table was a beautiful clash of Fuyumi’s earnest efforts, Obaasan’s pristine traditional dishes, and Inko’s lovingly homemade contributions. They ate, they laughed, they shared stories. When midnight approached, they bundled up, Touya in approximately seven layers, and walked to the local temple for hatsumōde. The crowd was thick, but Keigo’s feathers subtly carved a path for them, ensuring Touya and the grandparents weren’t jostled. They threw their coins, rang the bell, and prayed.

Touya stood between Keigo and Fuyumi, the mask over his nose and mouth dampening his face. He listened to the solemn bell, the murmurs of prayer, Natsuo’s energetic wish for “academic domination,” and Izuku’s earnest, mumbling litany of hopes for his friends and the local heroes, and of course, All Might.

He didn’t pray for himself. He looked at his family, the one he was born into and the one they had chosen, all together, safe for this one perfect night. He felt Keigo’s wing brush gently against his back. 

Touya leaned into the touch, the snark gone from his voice, leaving only a tired, contented warmth, watching the steam of his breath join the prayers rising toward the sky. 

Chapter 35: Scribble, scrabble

The low-grade fever and the prednisone made a potent cocktail for fitful napping. Touya hadn’t been asleep on the couch so much as drifting in a miserable, semi-conscious haze for the past twenty-five minutes, lulled by the quiet of the apartment. Keigo had taken Shouto for a walk, a necessary break after the artist’s statement portion of the art school application had reduced his little brother to near-silent, steaming frustration.

The low murmur of voices from the kitchen had been a background hum at first, easy to ignore. Fuyumi and Haruki. But then the tone shifted. The gentle cadence of Haruki’s speech, usually as soothing as the scent of lavender he sometimes unconsciously produced, grew strained.

Touya kept his eyes closed, but his breathing shallowed, his focus narrowing to the crack in the doorway.

“…just thought we’d be packing by now,” Haruki was saying, his voice tight with hurt. “You said you’d talk to him in November, Yumi.”

“I know, I just… the holidays were so busy, and with Natsuo, and Touya’s new medication…” Fuyumi’s voice was a plea, a list of reasons that sounded flimsy even to her.

“So you didn’t talk to him, did you?” Haruki asked again. 

Fuyumi’s silence spoke for itself. 

“It’s always gonna be something.” The hurt was winning. "Did he say that he needs you? That Shouto needs you? Because if he did, that's one thing, we can figure that out together… and I don’t mind, really. I get that family is important. But if he didn't..." He took a shaky breath. "Do you just not want this? To be with me? Please, just be honest."

“Haruki, I do, I just-” 

“Just what? I don’t want to push you, I don’t want to pressure you, and I’m not trying to like… take you away from your family, or force you to come live with me if you want to live with them, but… I’m scared you don’t want me the same way I want you. I just need to know if you… need me. At all.” 

The vulnerability in his voice hung in the air. Touya heard Fuyumi’s sharp intake of breath, the beginning of a denial that would be more about comfort than truth.

He shifted, his leg jerking involuntarily with a sudden spike of pain in his hip. His foot connected with a small side table, sending a blessedly empty mug clattering to the floor.

“Fuck,” Touya muttered to himself. 

A beat of dead quiet followed from the kitchen. Then, Haruki’s voice, softer now, defeated. “I’m sorry for getting worked up… I think I should go. Call me when you know what you want.”

Touya heard the soft shuffle of movement, the click of the apartment door, and then a profound, aching silence. He didn’t move, staring at the ceiling, waiting.

A few minutes later, Fuyumi crept into the living room, her eyes red-rimmed. She froze when she saw he was awake.

“How much did you hear?” she asked.

“Enough,” he said, his voice gravelly. He slowly pushed himself up to a sitting position, wincing. “So. What haven’t you talked to me about?”

She sank into the armchair opposite him, looking small and exhausted. “Haruki… he found a place. It’s perfect. He wanted us to move in together after New Year’s. I told him I had to talk to you first. To make sure… to make sure you and Shouto would be okay without me.”

“And you didn’t.”

“I was going to! But then…” She waved a hand, a gesture that encompassed all the chaos of their lives. “It never felt like the right time.”

“It’s never going to be the right time, Fuyumi,” Touya said, not unkindly. “There will always be something. My health isn’t going to magically improve; in fact it will probably just keep getting worse.” Fuyumi was quiet, taking his words as one would a scolding. Touya softened his tone to try and keep her from spiraling. “Don’t feel bad for me, Yumi. It’s just a fact.” He took a measured breath, the air scraping in his lungs. “What I think this is really about, though, is Shouto, isn’t it?”

Tears spilled over onto her cheeks. She nodded. “I just… I always tried to look out for him, and I try so hard to take care of him like I wish I could’ve when we were little, and for the rest of my life I feel like I’m going to have to keep working to make up for the fact that I couldn’t protect him when we were living at Dad’s house.” She took a shaky breath. “Every day, I just had to watch it happen, and I was never brave enough to... I was just a coward.” She wiped her tears off her cheeks. “When I went to college, and left Shouto there, and Natsu, it was the first time in my life where I didn’t have to spend every day making sure they were wearing clean clothes, or eating, or bathing, or-or-or any of it. And I felt so guilty every day, I could hardly focus on school, or making friends. And then… well you know what happened next.” She sniffed wetly. Touya wrinkled his nose and passed her a tissue. 

“Blow. You’ll feel better.” 

She did.

“Listen,” he began, “Keigo and I talked, months ago. We know Shouto’s going to need someone, probably forever. We’re okay with that. We don’t… we don’t want kids. We don’t have plans to travel, or move or… any of that. We’re prepared for Shouto to stay with us, for as long as he needs to.”

Fuyumi stared at him, her mouth slightly agape.

“But your health-” she started.

“-is my problem,” he finished. “If I need help, I’ll call you. I’m not stupid, and I’m not too proud. But don’t use me- don’t use Sho, or our fucked-up family, as an excuse for you not to live your life, or to do what you want to do. That’s a shitty excuse, and it’s beneath you.”

Another tear traced a path down her cheek, and she wiped it away. “It’s not an excuse. It’s just… it’s all I’ve ever done. What Mom needed. What Dad needed. What you and Natsuo and Shouto needed. What my students need.” Her voice broke. “What do I need? What do I want? I don’t even know how to want.”

Touya’s expression softened. “Then I guess you’d better figure it out. And for what it’s worth,” he added, a faint, familiar smirk touching his lips, “a guy who smells like a fruit basket when he’s happy and gets sad instead of angry when you screw up seems like a pretty good place to start.”

A wet, hiccupping laugh escaped her. She wiped her cheek. “He does smell like a fruit basket sometimes, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah.” 

“He makes me so happy. He makes me feel important, and he loves me, and I really do love him.” She pushed up her glasses and pressed the palms of her hands into her eyes. “I don’t know what to do.” 

Touya put out a hand. She reached out and grabbed it. “Yumi, do you want to live with Haruki? Or do you want to stay here with us?”

She exhaled shakily. “I feel like such a bad person for wanting to go with him. I feel like I’m abandoning you both when you need me the most.” 

“You’re not abandoning anyone. I am not your responsibility. And I’m telling you, Sho is going to be my responsibility now, mine and Keigo’s. You put in thirteen years of taking care of him already. Let me take a turn now, okay?” 

Fuyumi nodded. 

“Good. Now go call your man. Apologize for waiting so long. And for god’s sake, tell him the truth. That you’re scared, but you want to be with him. You deserve this.”

“Okay,” she whispered, a real decision settling in her eyes. “Okay, I will.”

---

The front door clicked open, letting in a gust of cool air and the sound of quiet footsteps. Keigo entered first, his sharp eyes immediately taking in the scene: Touya on his knees by the coffee table, mopping up a puddle of cold tea with a wad of paper towels. A lone mug sat, unharmed, on the table.

"Making a mess without me?" Keigo asked, his tone light though his gaze was assessing.

“I’m a graceful gazelle,” Touya grumbled, sopping up the spill. “Kicked the table. Didn’t break, just made a mess.” He didn’t elaborate, and Keigo, sensing the mood, didn’t press.

Shouto hovered behind Keigo, his expression its usual neutral mask, but the faint scent of ozone, a telltale sign of his quirk reacting to low-grade stress, lingered around him. The walk had clearly not fully dispelled the frustration of the artist's statement.

"Right," Keigo said, effortlessly accepting the explanation. A single, primary red feather detached from his wing, zipped to the kitchen, and returned with a proper towel, which it began efficiently sopping up the spill with. "Well, break's over. Time to slay the dragon."

Shouto’s shoulders slumped almost imperceptibly. He trudged to the low table where his portfolio was spread out, a collection of stunning work that stood in stark contrast to the single, terrifyingly blank sheet of paper beside it. He picked up his pencil, his grip immediately becoming white-knuckled.

Touya hauled himself back onto the couch with a soft groan. "Okay. Where were we?"

Shouto didn't look up. "W-words," he muttered. "N-no g-good... at... w-words."

"I know, kid. Nobody's expecting a novel." Touya leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "We just gotta get the idea across.”

They picked up where they’d left off. It was painstaking. Touya would ask a question, “What do you hope people feel when they see your art?”, and they would wait through long, agonizing silences as Shouto wrestled the concepts in his head into something his mouth could form.

“I… I w-wa-ant th-them to… s-see,” he forced out, his words slurred and thick, each one a battle. 

Keigo’s feather was already moving, transcribing the stumbling words.

“And why this school?” Touya pressed, gentling his tone. “Lots of schools have art.”

Shouto’s gaze dropped to his drawings, the dynamic heroes, the serene landscapes. “T-to… m-make it… b-better. L-learn.” He struggled, his face tightening with the effort of corralling his thoughts into a linear path. “N-not just… p-pretty. M-mean so-ometh-thing.”

I want to learn how to make my art better, not just pretty. I want it to mean something.

After nearly an hour, they had a paragraph. It was rough, filled with simple, stark language, but it was authentic. Touya looked at the words on the page, then at his brother’s exhausted, strained face.

“Hey,” he said, his voice softer than usual. “That’s enough for today. That’s good.” He gestured to the portfolio. “Why don’t you go put this somewhere safe? Then maybe clean up your art supplies in your room. I’ll see if Izuku is free tonight. You guys can watch a movie or something.”

The relief on Shouto’s face was immediate. He nodded, carefully gathering his precious drawings and shuffling out of the room without a word, eager for the reprieve.

Once he was gone, the quiet in the living room felt heavy. Keigo watched Touya, who was staring at the single, poorly written paragraph as if it were a life sentence.

“You okay?”

“Peachy,” Touya muttered, closing his eyes. “Just the normal amount of abnormally tired.”

“I was thinking,” Keigo said, moving to sit beside him. “Maybe we… I don’t know, call the school? Explain the situation. He’s got the diagnoses. They know who your dad is. They have to know there’s… history. Maybe they can make accommodations. Let him do only the oral interview.”

Touya let out a short, humorless laugh. It hurt his chest. “They’re a prestigious arts school, babe. They’ll see it as him not being able to handle the workload and reject him outright.”

“It’s worth a try,” Keigo insisted, his voice gentle but firm. “The worst they can say is no.”

“The worst they can say is no and Shouto ends up depressed and forced to bake or learn to do oil changes for the next three years in vocational school,” Touya countered, though the fight was leaving his voice, replaced by a deep, weary resignation. He looked toward the hallway where Shouto had disappeared. “He wants this so badly. He’s worked so damn hard. It’s just…” He picked up the paper and shook his head. “We’ll get him through it. We’ll just have to figure out how.”

---

The train ride to Tokyo University Medical Center was a study in silent tension. Touya stared out the window, watching the city blur past, but seeing none of it. His mind was replaying the difficult phone calls from the past week, apologizing to the parents of a little girl with pyrokinetic hiccups, explaining to the family of a boy who emitted sleep-inducing pollen why he had to transfer their care. Each call had felt like a small death, a step away from the person he was trying to build himself into. The email to his thesis advisor, formally requesting a medical withdrawal, had been the final, heavy stone on the grave of his normal life. He was all-in on this now. There was no other play left.

Keigo sat beside him, a solid, quiet presence. He didn’t try to fill the silence with empty platitudes. He just kept his shoulder pressed against Touya’s, a point of contact and stability, his fingers laced through Touya’s own, thumb rubbing slow, absent circles on his knuckles.

The QIAD treatment center wasn’t like the rest of the hospital. It was quieter, the lighting softer, the air smelling faintly of antiseptic and desperation. The nurse at the station greeted them with a practiced, gentle smile.

“Himura-san? We have you all set up in bay four. Right this way.”

The bay was a small, curtained-off area with a large recliner, a vital signs monitor, and the IV pole. It felt terrifyingly clinical.

“Alright, let’s get you comfortable,” the nurse, whose badge read ‘Nurse Kawano,’ said cheerfully. She went through the pre-treatment checklist with efficient kindness. Blood pressure cuff, pulse ox clip on his finger. “This’ll just take a moment. Any questions before we start?”

“How long?” Touya asked, his voice rough.

“The infusion itself will be about three hours today,” Kawano said. “Then we’ll monitor you for another thirty minutes to an hour afterwards. So, you’ll be with us for a while. Get settled in.”

Keigo helped him into the recliner, fluffing the pillow behind his head. Touya’s hands were cold. Keigo took them, chafing them gently between his own.

“You want me to put on that terrible true crime podcast you like?” Keigo asked, pulling out his phone.

“It’s not terrible,” Touya muttered, but he managed a weak smirk. “Yeah. Go for it.”

The nurse returned with the bags of medication, clear liquids that looked innocuous. “Okay, Himura-san. Little poke.” She expertly found a vein on the back of his hand, taped the line down. “You might feel a cold sensation moving up your arm. That’s normal. Ring the bell immediately if you feel itchy, short of breath, anything unusual.”

And then it began. The slow, steady drip into his veins. For the first forty-five minutes, it was just boring. The podcast droned on about a decades-old mystery, and Keigo scrolled through hero news on his phone, his thumb stroking the inside of Touya’s wrist where it rested on the arm of the chair.

He got really cold, all of a sudden. A throbbing headache built behind his eyes, and a foul, metallic taste flooded his mouth, so strong he could taste it with every breath.

The nausea was the last to arrive, a slow, insistent rolling in his stomach that grew with every drip from the bag. He spent the last hour of the infusion with his eyes shut tight under the feather, jaw clenched, focusing every ounce of his will on not throwing up in front of a room full of people. He counted the drops. He listened to Keigo’s steady breathing. He tried to disassociate from the prison of his own body.

When a new nurse finally came to disconnect him, he was drenched in a cold sweat. “How are we feeling?” she asked gently.

“Peachy,” he gritted out, his voice strained. He sat there a bit longer, as they made sure he wouldn’t pass out. 

After a half hour, she returned, and she and Keigo helped him stand. His legs were rubber. An orderly appeared with a wheelchair, a small humiliation he was too sick to protest, and wheeled him to the taxi Keigo had already summoned.

The cab ride was a special kind of hell. Every stoplight, every turn, sent a fresh wave of nausea crashing over him. He kept his eyes squeezed shut, Keigo’s hand a steadying pressure on his knee.

They pulled up to their apartment building. Touya practically fell out of the cab, stumbling onto the pavement. The cold evening air hit him, and that was it. His body convulsed. He barely made it to the scraggly hedge lining the sidewalk before he was violently, painfully sick, vomiting up nothing but acidic bile.

“Whoa, okay, easy,” Keigo said, holding his shoulders, keeping him from pitching forward.

Touya spat, his whole body shaking with the aftershocks. “S-sorry,” he choked out, humiliated.

“Don’t be,” Keigo said, his voice firm but gentle. He pulled a packet of tissues from his pocket and handed them over. “Let’s just get upstairs.”

The elevator was a blessedly smooth and short journey. They stumbled into the apartment. Fuyumi was there instantly, her face etched with worry. “How did it go?”

Touya just shook his head, shuffling past her toward the hallway, desperate for the bathroom.

Keigo answered for him, his tone deliberately light. “It was fine. We’re just going to go lie down.”

“I made congee, if you’re hungry,” Fuyumi said, her voice trailing after them. “It’s plain, for your stomach…”

Touya’s stomach clenched again, a painful, urgent spasm. “Kei,” he gasped, his voice ragged. “I’m gonna be sick again.”

“Okay, okay, right here,” Keigo said, shouldering the bathroom door open and steering him inside. Touya fell to his knees on the cool tile, dry-heaving over the bowl, his body wracked with tremors he couldn’t control.

He felt Keigo kneel behind him, a solid warmth against his back. One hand pulled his hair back, the other rubbed slow, firm circles between his shoulder blades.

“I’ve got you,” Keigo whispered, his voice low and steady against the spasms. “Just breathe through it. You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

On the other side of the door, they heard Fuyumi’s swift, understanding shift into crisis mode. “Shouto, sweetie, come help me with this, will you? I can’t get this lid off.”

When the heaving finally subsided, Touya slumped back against the bathtub. He was crying, all of a sudden, before he could even try to stop it. He was so tired. So scared. This was only the first day.

He turned his face into Keigo’s shoulder, and a sob escaped him. Keigo just held him tighter.

“I know,” Keigo whispered into his hair, his own voice thick. “I know, Touya. It’s shit. It’s so fucking shitty.”

And on the cold bathroom floor, Touya finally let himself fall apart.

---

The Tuesday infusion had hollowed him out. By Thursday afternoon, propped on the couch with a laptop burning through the blanket on his knees, Touya felt like a ghost haunting his own body. The screen showed Mika, seventeen now, her face pinched with effort.

“It’s the blinking again,” she said, her voice tight with frustration. “I get frustrated, I blink, and-” She demonstrated, her eyes shutting for a split second. With a soft poof, she lifted six inches from her chair, hovering for a moment before settling back down with a sigh. 

“It’s a release valve, remember?” Touya forced his voice into a semblance of its usual calm. A wave of nausea chose that moment to roll through him, cold and insistent. He clenched his jaw, willing it away. “We just need to find you a better one. The grounding technique. Five things you can see.”

He guided her through the exercise, each word a conscious effort against the fog of fatigue and the ever-present metallic taste in his mouth. When the session ended, he didn’t move. He just sat there, breathing carefully, until the scheduled time for his next client.

Ren’s face filled the screen, his expression distant, overwhelmed. His mother sat beside him, a hand resting gently on his shoulder.

“Hi, Ren,” Touya said, his voice softer, slower. “How are you doing today?”

Ren didn’t look at the camera. His fingers tapped a rapid, anxious rhythm on the table. His tablet, his primary voice, lay dark beside him.

“It’s been a loud day,” Mrs. Shirogane said gently. “The construction next door… it’s been a lot.”

“I bet it has,” Touya said. He took a shallow breath, trying to ignore the ache in his own bones. “Ren, do you want to try and tell me about it? Or maybe we can just sit for a minute?”

Ren’s tapping intensified. He shook his head, a sharp, jerky motion, and let out a low, distressed hum. Touya tried again, suggesting a simple exercise, but his focus was fractured. His thoughts were sluggish, his words coming out muddled. He lost his train of thought mid-sentence, staring blankly at the screen for a moment before blinking back to awareness. Ren had started to rock slightly, his distress growing palpable even through the screen.

Mrs. Shirogane’s face was full of understanding, not judgment. “I think we’re done for today,” she said softly, pulling her son into a gentle side hug. “It’s okay.”

The failure was a bitter taste, sharper than the medicine. “Shirogane-san, I’m… I’m so sorry,” he said, the apology raw. “I’m not well. This isn’t fair to him. I should… I’m going to refer you to Saito-sensei for a while. He’s excellent with-”

“No,” she interrupted gently but firmly. “No, we’re fine. We’ll wait. We’d rather wait for you. You just focus on getting better, okay?” Her smile was warm and genuine. “We’re not going anywhere.” 

She ended the session. 

The silence after Ren’s disconnected call was a physical weight on Touya’s chest, heavier than the blanket. He’d failed. The session had been a disjointed mess, his own muddled focus only amplifying Ren’s distress. He let the laptop slide to the floor with a soft thud, the sound unnaturally loud in the stagnant air of the apartment. He leaned his head back against the cushions, pushing up his glasses and pressing the heels of his hands into his eye sockets until stars burst behind his lids. The metallic taste of the medication was a constant, foul presence on his tongue.

His gaze drifted from the blank television screen to the hallway. There they were: three cardboard boxes, sealed with crisp strips of tan packing tape.

The sharp screech of the front door’s lock turning jolted him. It swung open, and a gust of cold, fresh air cut through the apartment’s stifling warmth.

“We’re back!” Inko Midoriya’s voice rang out, a sound so fundamentally healthy and capable it was almost jarring. “I hope you’re decent, Touya.” 

He readjusted his glasses and tried to look less miserable than he really felt. 

The chaotic energy that followed her was a force of nature. Izuku tumbled in first, his backpack swinging wildly, already mid-sentence to a patient-looking Shouto behind him. “…and then the hero, his quirk was like hydrokinesis but only with already-existing water, not creating it, which is a huge limitation, right? So he had to have these water tanks on his back, but the villain had a corrosion quirk and…”

Shouto, as ever, was a silent island in the stream of Izuku’s enthusiasm. He shuffled in, toeing off his shoes before scanning the room and immediately landing on Touya. 

Inko bustled into the living room, her arms laden with reusable bags. She stopped short, her cheerful expression softening into one of gentle assessment. Her eyes, the same green as her son’s but tempered by years of nursing and single motherhood, took in the pallor of his skin, the way he was curled into himself, the discarded laptop on the floor.

“Oh, my dear,” she said, her voice dropping its boisterous quality. “You look like you’ve been through the wringer.” She didn’t wait for a response, marching into the kitchen. “Shouto, put the frozen things away, in the freezer, not the fridge, please. Izuku, keep an eye on him, and can you put the electric kettle on? We’re making ginger tea for Touya.”

“But I was reading and it said that ginger’s efficacy for nausea is mostly anecdotal and that the studies are-” Izuku began, rummaging in a bag for a snack.

“Izuku,” Inko said, her tone leaving no room for argument. “Now, please.”

“Yes, Mom.”

Touya watched the efficient takeover of his kitchen from his nest of blankets. After setting the bags on the counter for the boys to put away, she came and sat on the edge of the coffee table facing him, her nurse's eyes doing a quick, professional sweep of his face.

"You look awful," she said, her voice soft but direct, devoid of any sugar-coating. "What happened today? Any new symptoms?"

He let out a breath that was half a sigh, half a wheeze. "Just... work. Tried to do a couple sessions. Didn't go great."

"In the state you're in? Touya, for heaven's sake." She leaned forward, her expression a mix of concern and gentle exasperation. "Working and trying to go through these treatments is really hard. Maybe you should take some real time off. A proper medical leave."

The suggestion, though logical, sent a spike of anxiety through the fog of his fatigue. "I can't. The bills don't stop. I've already cut back to almost nothing." He gestured weakly toward the hallway. "I can't just stop completely."

Inko's lips pressed into a thin line. She looked like she wanted to argue, but she held her tongue. Instead, she reached out and placed a cool hand on his forehead, checking his temperature with a clinical touch. "I just hate seeing you feeling so bad," she murmured, her voice thick with a fondness that had been built over two years of shared school events, shared worries, and shared family dinners, of their boys being each others’ first and only friend. 

"Hopefully when these treatments are done, I'll be doing a lot better," he said, the words feeling like a hollow promise even to himself.

"I know," she said, her tone shifting back to its practical warmth. "I was looking at the research on this protocol last night. It's aggressive, but the data is really promising. It should help. It just has to get through the ugly part first." She gave his knee a reassuring pat and stood up. "Alright, enough lecturing. I'm going to get started on dinner. Stay put."

He didn't have the energy to argue, to tell her she didn't have to, that she'd already done enough. He just nodded, a wave of gratitude washing over him. "Thanks, Inko."

She waved a dismissive hand and moved back to the kitchen, where Izuku was already mid-explanation to a silently listening Shouto. "...and the active components, gingerols and shogaols, they bind to receptors in the digestive tract, see, which is why it's so effective for nausea, even if people argue that the studies are..."

The domestic sounds, the low murmur of voices, the gentle hum of the electric kettle, it was a lifeline, pulling him slightly out of his miserable isolation. Fuyumi coming home was barely a blip on his radar, despite the kiss dropped on his forehead upon arrival. 

The evening passed in a haze of ginger tea and the gentle, savory smell of simmering okayu. Keigo returned from his shift, his wings drooping with fatigue, but his smile was genuine when he saw Inko orchestrating dinner.

Later, after the meal was eaten and the kitchen cleaned, after Inko and Izuku had said their goodbyes, the apartment settled into a deeper quiet. Keigo was in the shower, Fuyumi preparing everyone’s bentos for tomorrow’s lunch. Touya remained on the couch, too exhausted to move to the bedroom, drifting in a shallow, unsatisfying doze.

The soft pad of bare feet on the floorboards pulled him back. He opened his eyes. Shouto stood beside the couch, backlit by the soft light from the hallway. In his hands was the familiar white jar of scar cream.

He didn’t speak immediately. His eyes, one gray, one blue, were fixed on the exposed skin of Touya’s chest and neck, where the latticework of scars was pulled taut, shiny and inflamed from days of neglect. The skin was dry, itching in a way he’d been too sick to properly notice.

Shouto’s brow was furrowed, not in his usual blankness, but in a faint, clear line of concern. He extended the jar.

“F-forgot,” he said. 

The echo of the past was a physical ache. He remembered their old ritual, the careful, silent application of this same cream every morning, a reminder that touch could be gentle, that care was consistent.

“Yeah,” Touya admitted, his own voice a dry croak. He took the jar. The plastic was cool against his palm. “I guess it’s been a few days.”

Shouto didn’t move away as Touya unscrewed the lid. The clinical, faintly sterile smell filled the space between them. Touya dipped two fingers into the cool gel and began to slowly, carefully, smooth it over the ruined skin of his collarbone, his jawline, and his hands. The relief was immediate, a soothing counterpoint to the constant, deeper ache beneath. Shouto leaned over, and Touya spread a bit on the scar around his eye. Satisfied, Shouto closed the jar, and walked back into the bathroom. 

Hours later, lying in the dark beside a sleeping Keigo, the phantom scent of the cream still clinging to him, his mind finally turned to the other, more worrying silence. His phone, charging on the nightstand, had been dark for days. No texts. No missed calls. The last communication from Natsuo was that brief, generic message in the group chat for Shouto’s birthday.

The quiet was unnerving. Natsuo’s silence felt heavier, more ominous, than his own had ever been. A knot of guilt tightened in his stomach, intertwining with the nausea. He should call. He should text. 

Hey, little brother. Just checking in. Things feel pretty shitty over here, how’s it going with you?

But the energy required to navigate that conversation, to potentially face whatever version of Natsuo was on the other end, felt Herculean. As sleep finally dragged him under, his last thought was a vague hope that Natsuo’s silence was just the calm between storms. 

Chapter 36: Taking a Turn

Notes:

the following chapter contains:
questions about natsuo answered? check!
hitoshi's dreams coming true: check!
fluff and angst rolled into one? check!

thanks for being here! hope you enjoy <3

The morning of January 18th dawned gray and cold, a perfect mirror for how Touya felt. He was twenty-seven. The number felt meaningless, a tally of years that didn’t reflect the reality of his life, which was currently measured in infusion cycles and bad days. He’d spent the first hour of his birthday kneeling on the bathroom floor, riding out a fresh wave of nausea that the meds had decided to gift him.

He was back on the couch, wrapped in a blanket and sipping ginger tea that did little to settle his stomach, when his phone buzzed. 

Akane Mori

A faint, wry smile touched his lips. Of course she’d remember. He answered, his voice raspy. “To what do I owe the pleasure? Calling to wish me a happy birthday or to make sure I haven’t accidentally set the kid on fire?”

Her laugh was exactly as he remembered: a sharp, delighted crackle. “Happy birthday, you little shit. And as a reminder, my official checks ended in November. This is just me checking on my favorite pain in the ass. How’s it going?”

“Oh, you know. Living the dream.” He shifted, a joint in his hip protesting with a sharp twinge. A new side effect, the rheumatological joys of his immune system attacking itself. “Shouto’s good. Working on his art portfolio. It’s… it’s actually incredible.”

“I’d expect nothing less. And you?” Her tone shifted, the professional curiosity softening into genuine concern. “You sound tired.”

He hesitated. Akane had seen him at his absolute worst. There was no point in lying to her. “Honestly… health stuff’s gotten a bit more complicated. Started some new treatments a few weeks ago. They’re… rough. But the doctors think they might help me stabilize for a while longer if they work.”

“Shit, Touya. I’m sorry.” He could hear the frown in her voice. “What kind of treatments?”

“The kind that make you feel like you’ve been run over by a truck for three days straight, every four days,” he said evasively. “But hey, it’s my birthday. Let’s not dwell. Other news… Fuyumi’s moving out. Moving in with her boyfriend.”

“Wow. Big step. How do you feel about that?”

“Happy for her. She deserves to be happy. It does mean Keigo and I are going to be talking to a lawyer soon, though. Figured we should make our custody of Shouto official. Sole custody, all that.”

“Smart,” she said immediately. “Very smart. Makes everything cleaner. If you need a character reference or anything from me, you know I’m there.”

The offer was genuine, and it loosened something tight in his chest. He took a slow breath, the decision forming as he exhaled. “Actually… since you’re offering… there is something else. It’s… a different brother.”

“Oh?” He could practically hear her leaning forward, her social worker instincts kicking in.

“Natsuo. He’s at Keio.” Touya paused, choosing his words carefully. Akane only knew him as Touya Himura, a burn victim with a messed-up quirk. The sordid Todoroki family drama had never been part of her file. “Our mom… she has bipolar disorder. And lately, Natsuo’s been… we’re starting to worry he might be showing signs, too. His behavior has been all over the place. Super high, making wild plans, then crashing. He’s been… erratic.”

“I see,” Akane said, her voice neutral and professional.

“The thing is… we haven’t heard from him. Not really. Since New Year’s. He sent a text for Shouto’s birthday a week ago, but that’s it. No calls. Nothing in the family chat. It’s… not like him. Even when he’s down, he usually checks in every other day, at least.” The guilt he’d been suppressing tightened his throat. “I’ve been so out of it with these treatments, I haven’t… I haven’t been able to chase him down.”

There was a long sigh on the other end of the line. “Touya… he’s a college student. Radio silence for a few weeks around exams or a new semester isn’t exactly a red flag. It could just be him adjusting. Without a specific, immediate threat, there’s not really a case for me to investigate.”

“Yeah, I figured. It was a long shot. Thanks anyway.”

“Hold on,” she said, her tone shifting. “I said there’s no case. But that doesn’t mean we can’t do something. You’ve got a family history of serious mental illness, and you’re reporting a recent, uncharacteristic change in behavior followed by a loss of contact. That’s enough for me to make a call. I can’t promise anything, but I can see about getting a wellness check, have someone from a local agency near his campus just knock on his door, make sure he’s answering, that he’s… you know. Okay.”

The relief was so sudden and profound it made his eyes sting. “You’d do that?”

“It’s my job to worry about people, Touya. Even the ones who aren’t officially on my caseload anymore. Especially the ones who are little shits but try really hard. Text me his address and dorm info. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you, Akane. Seriously.”

“Happy birthday, kid. Try to eat some cake, okay? Or at least some jello. I’ll be in touch.”

The call ended. 

He looked out the window at the gray sky, feeling the familiar ache in his bones and the new, worrying tenderness in his joints. 

Twenty-seven.

---

The flicker of hope Akane Mori had given him was short-lived. She called back two days later, her voice tight with frustration.

“I’m sorry, Touya. I hit a wall. Without a specific, immediate threat of harm, they won’t authorize a wellness check. ‘Erratic behavior and loss of contact’ isn’t enough. They said if he’s a student, to contact campus security, but…” She trailed off, and he knew what she was thinking. Campus security would likely do little more than call his room, and if Natsuo didn’t answer, that was that.

“It’s okay,” Touya said, the words tasting like ash. “Thanks for trying.”

A somber family consensus was reached over text, Fuyumi, Touya, and Keigo agreeing that showing up unannounced at Keio would likely send Natsuo, in whatever state he was in, into a tailspin. The only thing they could do was wait. They wouldn’t be mad, they promised each other. They’d only be grateful to hear anything from him at all.

The victory of the week belonged to Shouto. With the steadfast help of his art teacher, Mr. Aoki, he had finished, photographed, and uploaded his portfolio. The artist’s statement, a product of immense struggle, was attached, as was a videotaped verbal statement, which the school was reluctantly accepting in place of an in-person interview. His transcript, however, was a stark, ugly truth next to the beauty of his art. Pages filled with classes like ‘Life Skills,’ ‘Adaptive Speech,’ and ‘Social Communication’, the official record of a brain rewired by trauma and a system that had segregated him.

“It’s good,” Keigo said, looking over the submitted application on the laptop. “The art is incredible. The statement is honest. That has to count for something.”

Touya, slumped beside him on the couch, shook his head. “They’ll see the transcript, Keigo. They’ll see he’s not in Algebra II. They’ll see ‘Speech’ instead of ‘Literature.’ They’ll think he can’t handle the workload. They won’t care about the art.” He said it not with malice, but with a weary certainty that felt carved into his bones. He was a realist. It was his job to manage expectations. “It’s okay. He has other options.”

Keigo looked like he wanted to argue, to inject his relentless optimism into the situation, but he just sighed and closed the laptop. “We’ll see.”

---

On Fuyumi’s last night, at the end of the month, she made soba, both her brothers’ favorite. Haruki was there, smelling faintly of citrus and the bitter scent of anxiety. They’d explained the move to Shouto again over dinner. 

“I’m just moving a few stops away on the train,” Fuyumi said, her voice overly bright. “You can visit whenever you want, and I’ll be here all the time. I’ll still see you almost every day, I’ll just be sleeping somewhere else.”

Shouto, who for weeks, had seemed to intellectually understand that the move was happening, finally seemed to realize that it was here. It settled over his features, hardening them. He spent the entire meal staring at his plate and refusing to acknowledge a single word Haruki said. 

Touya managed to sit at the table, a monumental effort, but he mostly pushed the food around his plate, his stomach churning. He’d lost a little weight, nearly reversing the effects of the prednisone once again. 

When dinner was over, Shouto stood up, placed his dishes in the sink with a quiet clatter, and walked straight to his room, shutting the door without a word to anyone.

Fuyumi’s face fell. “I knew it,” she whispered, her eyes glistening.

“He’ll come around,” Keigo said, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. “He just needs time to adjust. It’s a big change.”

“It’s my fault. He won’t be mad at you,” Haruki said softly, his skin taking on the muted gray of wilted thyme. “I’m the reason she’s leaving.”

“No,” Keigo said firmly. “You’re the reason she’s happy. That is the truth and that’s the narrative we’re focusing on with him. He’ll get there, it just will take him a minute.”

Later, after Fuyumi and Haruki had left with the last of her boxes, the apartment felt different. 

It was the end of an era. 

Touya and Keigo got ready for bed in a peaceful silence. For the first time in weeks, there was a flicker of something between them. Maybe it was the need for comfort after the emotional dinner, maybe it was a fleeting moment of Touya not feeling actively horrific. As they settled under the covers, Keigo leaned in and kissed him, soft and slow. It was a gentle press of lips that quickly deepened into something more yearning. Touya responded, his hands coming up to cradle Keigo’s face, his thumbs stroking the sharp line of his jaw. It had been so long since they’d had the energy or inclination for anything like this.

Keigo’s fingers carded through Touya’s hair, a tender, intimate gesture. And then Keigo froze. His entire body went still.

Touya pulled back slightly, breathless. “What? What happened?”

“Nothing,” Keigo said, too quickly. 

In the dim light from the window, Touya could see the sheen of tears in his eyes. “Babe, really. What is it?”

Keigo’s hand slowly pulled away from his hair. And nestled in his palm was a clump of white strands. A significant, terrifying amount. It had come out at the root, silently, painlessly.

“Sorry,” Keigo choked out, the word cracking. “I’ve… I’ve been trying so hard not to get emotional about all of this, but I…”

The reality of what he was holding crashed into Touya. His hair. It was falling out. He’d known it was a possibility, a side effect listed on the handout, but knowing it and seeing it were two different things. His stomach clenched into a cold, hard knot. It was just hair. It meant nothing. He hardly ever left the house anyways so it’s not like he cared about what he looked like. Touya took the hair from Keigo’s hand, the clump of strands feeling insubstantial and horrifying.

“It’s okay,” he said, his own voice getting high and tight, betraying him. “I knew this might happen. It’s… it’s fine. I’m fine.”

“I know, I know,” Keigo said, swiping at his eyes, trying to pull himself together for Touya’s sake. “It’s okay. Are you okay? I’m fine, really, I don’t know why I- I just-”

A soft, hesitant knock on the bedroom door cut him off.

Shouto stood in the doorway, backlit by the hall light. His breath was hitching in that familiar, awful way it would when he was completely overwhelmed but trying not to make a sound. 

He’d held it together through dinner, through her leaving, and now it had shattered. He took a step into the room, his body trembling with the effort of containing his sobs. He looked at Touya, his expression a plea for the comfort he didn’t know how to ask for.

But Touya, at that moment, felt brittle. The shock of the clump of hair in his hand had left him nauseous, and the idea of Shouto pressing against his body felt unbearable.

Shouto seemed to sense his hesitation, his frustration and confusion mounting over the repeated rejections.

First Fuyumi, now you?

A small crackle of ice flickered over his right arm before he stifled it.

“Sho,” Touya conceded, his own emotions a tangled mess. “Come here. Come sit.” He patted the space on the bed between him and Keigo.

Shouto shuffled forward and sat on the edge of the mattress, his shoulders hunched. Keigo, understanding instantly, didn’t use his feathers. He wrapped his arms around Shouto from the side, pulling him into a firm, secure hug, the kind of deep pressure that always helped ground him. Touya, dropping the hair on the nightstand, reached out and took both of Shouto’s hands in his, holding them tightly.

It wasn’t what Shouto maybe wanted, but it was working. As Touya felt his little brother’s hands slowly relax in his, the cold knot of fear in his own stomach loosened, just a little. His own impending grief was momentarily shelved, replaced by the familiar, urgent need to be strong for someone else. 

It was a distraction, and in that moment, a gift.

---

The beanie was a dual-purpose accessory. It was late January, so no one would look twice, and it hid the alarming thinness of his hair, the patches of scalp that were starting to show through. Touya tugged the wool knit a little lower over his brow as Keigo walked with him through the front door of the Aizawa-Yamada’s. 

"I don’t like you doing this at all… so don't overdo it, please," Keigo murmured, his voice low as he helped Touya out of his coat.

"Wasn't planning on it," Touya rasped. "Just here to coach."

Keigo nodded, but his eyes were watchful. He settled Touya on the couch with a bottle of water before turning to their hosts. "Yell if you need anything. I'll be in the kitchen."

The stage was set. Hitoshi sat on a cushion on the floor, looking pale and tense, directly across from Yamada. Aizawa lurked in his customary armchair behind Yamada, a silent sentinel ready to activate Erasure at a moment's notice.

"Alright, kid," Touya said, smiling yet serious. "One month left until the exam. Let's see if we can't figure out your secret weapon today."

Hitoshi gave a tight nod.

The goal was simple: get Hitoshi to brainwash Yamada into performing a simple, harmless action: scratching his nose.

Hitoshi took a shaky breath. "Scratch your nose," he whispered, the words barely audible.

Yamada leaned forward, his smile faltering slightly. "Sorry, little listener, you're gonna have to crank the volume a bit! These ears aren't what they used to be!" He tapped his hearing aid.

Hitoshi flushed. He tried again, a fraction louder. “Scratch. Your. Nose.”

Yamada winced. “I’m so sorry, Toshi, I’m just getting the consonants. I can’t quite make it out.”

They tried three more times. Each attempt was a little more strained, a little more desperate. Hitoshi’s shoulders were up around his ears. 

Was it the volume? The intent? The command itself?

Touya watched the repeated misfires, his own frustration mounting. They were so close. He could feel it. “Keigo!” he called out, his voice rasping. “Can you come in here, please?”

Keigo was there in an instant, leaning against the doorframe. “What’s up?”

“New plan. Hitoshi, you’re not loud enough for him to hear you properly. But Keigo…” Touya gestured. “Keigo can hear a mouse sneeze from three blocks away. Yamada, sit next to Hitoshi. Hold his hand if it helps. Hitoshi, you’re going to try and brainwash Keigo instead. Same command.”

The shift in dynamic was immediate. Yamada moved to sit beside Hitoshi, taking his hand and giving it an encouraging squeeze. “Remember, Dad’s right there, just in case of anything. So do your best, okay?” Hitoshi nodded, meeting Aizawa’s eyes across the room. 

Keigo took Yamada’s spot on the floor, his expression open and patient. “Alright, little dude. Hit me with your best shot. Make me do something embarrassing, I dare you.”

Hitoshi took another steadying breath. He looked Keigo dead in the eye. “Scratch your nose,” he whispered, his voice barely audible.

Hitoshi took another steadying breath. He looked Keigo dead in the eye. “Scratch your nose,” he whispered, his voice barely audible.

Nothing happened. Keigo just blinked. “I heard you, but… nada. Felt nothing.”

“Okay,” Touya said, thinking aloud. “Maybe it’s not a command. Maybe it has to be a question. Try phrasing it as a question.”

Hitoshi’s brow furrowed. He looked at Keigo. “Can you… scratch your nose?”

Again, nothing. Keigo shook his head. 

Aizawa was watching intently, bristling with concentration.

“What does it feel like, Hitoshi?” Touya pressed. “When you try? Is there a… a pull? A connection?”

Hitoshi nodded, his eyes wide. “B-behind my eyes,” he whispered. “The string. But it… it won’t hook.”

“The hook,” Touya repeated. “It needs something to hook onto. Maybe… maybe the other person has to engage. They have to… respond. Not just hear you.” The idea clicked into place. “Keigo, he’s going to ask you a question. You have to answer it. Verbally.”

Understanding dawned on Keigo’s face. “Ohhh. Got it.”

Hitoshi looked terrified but determined. He met Keigo’s gaze. His voice was still a whisper, but it was clearer now. “...Do you know what time it is?”

It was a stupid, simple question. But Keigo played along. “Yeah, it’s about….”

He froze. His eyes went glassy, pupils dilating. The change was instantaneous and chilling.

“It hooked,” Hitoshi breathed, his own eyes wide with shock and effort. “I… I feel it.”

“Give the command, Hitoshi,” Touya urged, leaning forward, his own fatigue forgotten.

“Scratch your nose,” Hitoshi said, his voice firming with newfound confidence.

Like a marionette on a string, Keigo’s hand lifted. He scratched his nose with a comical, robotic precision. He held the pose, his expression utterly blank.

“Holy shit,” Yamada whispered, his grip tightening on Hitoshi’s hand.

"It's a response," Aizawa murmured from his post, his voice laced with clinical interest. "It activated the moment he answered the question."

"Okay, good. Now tell him to stand up and walk to the door," Touya instructed.

Hitoshi did. Keigo stood and walked to the front door with a smooth, unnerving gait.

"Now break it," Touya said.

Hitoshi’s brow furrowed. He looked panicked. "I... I don't know how."

"Just… stop!" he said, his voice desperate.

Keigo remained by the door, statue-still.

Aizawa’s hair floated up, his eyes glowing red. The connection broke. Keigo blinked, shaking his head slightly as if clearing water from his ears. "Whoa. That was… weird. I could hear you, but it was like… my body was on autopilot. Cool."

Hitoshi looked overwhelmed, his breathing quickening.

"Maybe we should stop for today," Yamada said softly, rubbing Hitoshi's back.

“No,” Touya and Shouta said in unison.

Touya continued. “This is like a muscle. It’s best trained when it’s tired. You have to learn how to latch and unlatch. Try again.”

Hitoshi, emboldened by his success, nodded. He turned back to Keigo. “What’s your favorite color?”

“Crimson,” Keigo answered instantly. And he was hooked again.

They practiced for another hour. They discovered the command had to be verbal. They figured out Hitoshi could give a timed command, “Snap your fingers in five seconds”, and the connection would break automatically after the action was completed. They found that a sharp, physical shock, Shouta tapping Keigo’s arm, could also break the trance.

After two hours, Hitoshi was flagging. He started to get quiet again, his responses down to nods and shakes. He was squinting a little, his shoulders tense.

“He’s getting a migraine,” Shouta said, his voice flat with experience. “Session’s over.”

Touya looked at Hitoshi, who gave a tiny, miserable nod. “Okay,” Touya said, his own energy beginning to drain rapidly too. “That’s enough. You did good, kid. Really good. Best thing to do now is treat the headache before it really digs in.” He managed a tired smirk. “You’re gonna be unstoppable once you can speak at a decent volume. We could look into a support item, to help with your volume, if you get past the exam.”

“When he gets past the exam,” Keigo corrected, ruffling Hitoshi’s hair. “You were awesome, little dude.”

Yamada was beaming, his eyes shiny with pride. Shouta just gave a single, firm nod of approval. Hitoshi, despite being in a little pain, looked satisfied with himself. 

In the cab home, the brave face Touya had maintained for two hours crumbled. He slumped against the window, his eyes closed, every ounce of energy spent on fighting through the brain fog and staying present.

“You did good today,” Keigo said softly, taking his hand. “Hitoshi seemed really proud of himself.” 

“Mm,” was all Touya could manage. The good day was ending, but for a few hours, he’d helped someone else find their footing. And it felt like being human again. 

---

The scent of miso soup and freshly steamed rice seeped under the bedroom door, a Saturday morning ritual that was both a comfort and a reminder of Fuyumi’s absence. For the third week in a row, she and Haruki had arrived early to cook breakfast in her old kitchen, a bridge between her old life and her new one. It was a good system. Touya’s infusions were Tuesday and Friday, leaving him a hollowed-out wreck by Saturday morning. Having other adults there to manage Shouto and the meal was a relief for both Touya and Keigo, and one they were so grateful for, even if Touya lacked the energy to show it.

He’d almost stayed in bed, buried under the blankets, listening to the familiar sounds of Fuyumi’s efficient movements and the lower murmur of Haruki’s voice. But the clatter of bowls and the rich, savory smell finally drew him out. He shuffled into the dining area, looking every bit as crusty as he felt, his pajamas rumpled and his dark gray beanie pulled low over his brow.

“There you are,” Fuyumi said, her voice warm with a sisterly fussiness he’d missed. “I was about to send a search party. Sit, sit. I made extra rice. Try and eat, okay?” She gestured to his typical  seat at their table, which was laden with traditional breakfast fare.

Last Saturday, Shouto had pointedly ignored them, his silence a wall of adolescent disapproval. This week, progress. As Fuyumi set a bowl of miso soup in front of him, he looked up, his gaze flickering between her and Haruki. “Th-thank you,” he said, the words soft but deliberate. He then offered a barely perceptible hum in Haruki’s direction, which they all took as a positive step.

They settled into the meal, the conversation flowing easily. Fuyumi talked about the challenges of assembling furniture in her new apartment, her visit to their mother last Sunday, and the antics of her students. She pointed to the fridge. “I made extra curry and tonkatsu. They just need to be reheated.” Touya felt a surge of gratitude so strong it momentarily eclipsed his nausea.

In turn, Keigo described their session with Hitoshi, the breakthrough with his quirk, the pride in his voice evident. Touya managed a hoarse, “Kid’s gonna be a menace in the best way,” which made Fuyumi beam. They mentioned submitting Shouto’s portfolio, and Shouto gave a single, sharp nod, a flicker of pride in his own heterochromatic eyes.

It was almost normal. Almost peaceful.

The piercing ring of Fuyumi’s phone shattered the moment. She frowned, pulling it from her pocket. “It’s Natsuo,” she said, a hopeful smile touching her lips. “Maybe he’s finally decided to stop being so… You know what? Let me stop complaining, and be grateful for the call.” She answered, putting it on speakerphone. “Hey Natsu! Where have you been? We’ve been-”

“Hello?” A young, sweet-sounding female voice interrupted her. “Is this Todoroki Fuyumi?”

The entire table went still. The air went out of the room.

“Yes…?” Fuyumi said, her voice suddenly cautious. “Who is this?”

“Hello, I’m calling from Shonan Kamakura General Hospital. I’m using your brother Natsuo’s phone. He’s here with us, and he’s safe.”

The air in the room went cold and still. Touya froze, rice halfway to his mouth. Keigo’s wings gave an involuntary, subtle rustle. Shouto’s head snapped up, his eyes wide.

“Hospital?” Fuyumi’s voice was tight with panic. “What happened? Is he okay?”

“He’s safe,” Nurse Hanako repeated, her voice a calm, practiced balm. “He was brought in last night and he’s currently under a voluntary psychiatric hold for his own safety. He’s resting now; the medications have helped him sleep. But this morning, just before he fell asleep, he was clear in asking us to call you. He was very insistent.”

“A psych hold?” Touya breathed, the words barely audible. The food in his stomach turned to lead. “What happened?” 

“I’m afraid I can’t give out any more details over the phone,” Nurse Hanako said gently. “But he is safe, he is being cared for, and he asked for you. I… I just thought someone might want to be with him when he wakes up… and if I may say so, he shouldn’t leave here alone tonight.”

“We’ll be there,” Fuyumi said immediately, her voice shaking but firm. “Thank you. Thank you for calling us. Thank you for taking care of him.”

“Of course. Drive safely.” The call ended.

The silence that followed was deafening. The cheerful breakfast tableau was now a frozen scene of shock.

“Looks like that’s two hours away,” Haruki said looking down at his phone, already standing up, his usual gentle demeanor replaced by swift efficiency. “I’ll get the car. Fuyumi, is there anything left here that we can bring him? Toothbrush, a change of clothes, anything?”

Fuyumi nodded, looking shell-shocked but moving on autopilot. “He asked for me,” she whispered, as if she couldn’t believe it.

Touya felt a wave of guilt so strong it rivaled the nausea. He should go. He was the oldest. But the thought of a four-hour round trip car ride in his current state was unimaginable. He’d be useless. “Fuyumi… I…” he started, his voice thick with shame.

“Don’t,” she said, stopping him with a look. “You need to rest. This is what I can do. We’ll bring him home.” 

As Fuyumi and Haruki bustled out the door minutes later with a hastily packed bag, the apartment fell into a strained silence. Keigo immediately turned to Shouto. “Hey, little man. Let’s you and I do something useful. Let’s clean out Fuyumi’s old room. Make it nice for Natsuo.”

Shouto nodded. He followed Keigo down the hall. Touya stayed at the table, listening to the sounds of them working: a drawer opening, the rustle of Keigo’s feathers efficiently stripping bed linens, the soft thump of a vacuum cleaner being retrieved from the closet.

He looked down at his half-eaten breakfast, his appetite gone, hunger replaced by a cold, dread-filled certainty. Natsuo had called for help. He had finally crashed. And he was coming home. 

---

The two-hour drive to Shonan Kamakura General Hospital was a silent, grim pilgrimage. Fuyumi sat stiffly in the passenger seat, her hands clenched in her lap, staring unseeingly at the highway. Her mind was a whirlwind of terrified what-ifs, each more devastating than the last. Haruki, usually a source of gentle, calming scents, was focused and quiet behind the wheel. The usual hint of sweet peach was gone, replaced by a neutral, serious aroma that mirrored his expression. His competence was a quiet anchor in the storm of her fear.

The hospital was a stark, modern complex. The reception area was quiet. When Fuyumi gave Natsuo’s name, the clerk directed them to the fourth-floor psychiatric unit.

The doors to the ward were locked. They had to buzz in. Inside, the atmosphere changed instantly: softer lighting, thicker doors, a palpable sense of contained crisis. The air smelled of antiseptic and unease, and from down the hall, Fuyumi could hear the low murmur of a television and the sound of someone weeping loudly.

A nurse led them to a small, private consultation room.

Dr. Endo, a man in his late fifties with a weary, intelligent face, met them there. "Thank you for coming so quickly," he said, shaking their hands. His grip was firm, his eyes kind but direct. "Your brother is resting. The medications we administered were necessary to ensure his safety. He was in acute distress upon arrival."

“What does that mean, ‘acute crisis’?” Fuyumi asked, her voice trembling. “What happened?”

“He called emergency services himself,” Endo said gently. “He reported experiencing intrusive, violent thoughts directed at himself. He was articulate and very frightened. That self-awareness is what brought him here safely.”

Fuyumi pressed a hand to her mouth, a sob catching in her throat. Haruki immediately placed a hand on her back, his touch firm and grounding. He pulled out his phone, opening a notes app. “What is the treatment plan, Doctor?” he asked, his voice low and practical, a stark contrast to the emotional turmoil in the room.

Endo nodded, appreciating the directness. “We’ve started him on a mood stabilizer, Lithium, to address what we believe is a manic episode. We’ve also prescribed a low dose of Quetiapine to aid with sleep and help mitigate the severe depressive crash that inevitably follows. It’s a starting point.” He detailed the dosages, the critical need for consistent blood testing to monitor Lithium levels to avoid toxicity, and the common side effects: thirst, hand tremors, drowsiness, potential weight gain. Haruki typed diligently, a silent scribe in the crisis.

Fuyumi felt the world tilt. Manic. Depressive. The words were terrifyingly familiar. “Doctor,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “May I interrupt, for just a moment? It’s about our family history.”

Endo nodded. 

“Our mother,” Fuyumi said, the words feeling like a betrayal of a family secret. “She… she has Bipolar I. She’s been hospitalized because of it, and some other complications, for the past few years. My older brother and I… we’re the only ones who know the specifics. Natsuo… he thinks it was all because of our father. A breakdown from the stress. It’s not… it’s not the whole story. We should’ve told him, but…”

Endo’s expression softened. “That is… incredibly significant. It doesn’t change his immediate care, but it helps paint a much clearer picture for his long-term diagnosis. The genetic component is strong. Thank you for telling me, Todoroki-san.” 

When they were allowed into his room, Fuyumi’s breath hitched. Natsuo looked small in the hospital bed, swallowed by the starched sheets. An IV was taped to his hand. She pulled a chair close and simply held his hand, watching the slow, drugged rise and fall of his chest.

They sat in silence for what felt like an hour. Finally, Natsuo’s eyelids fluttered open. He blinked, disoriented, his gaze cloudy and unfocused from the sedatives. When it finally landed on Fuyumi, his expression crumpled into one of utter shame. A tear escaped and traced a path into his hairline.

“’Yumi? I’m… I’m so sorry.”

“Shhh,” she soothed, squeezing his hand. “It’s all ok, don’t worry. I’m just so glad you’re safe. We all are.”

He began to cry then, silent, heaving sobs that seemed to wrack his entire body. “It was so loud,” he choked out. “And then it was so… empty. I’ve never been so scared.”

Later, when a nurse brought a tray of food, Dr. Endo and a social worker returned to speak with him. They were gentle, asking him to describe the rollercoaster of the last few months. Natsuo’s answers were flat, monotone, filtered through a thick haze of medication and depressive fatigue. He described the dizzying highs, the belief that he was destined for medical greatness, the frantic energy, the crash into a despair so profound he couldn’t see a way out.

Fuyumi filled in the gaps with her observations, her voice soft but clear. Haruki continued to take notes, a quiet pillar of support.

Dr. Endo nodded. “What you’re describing, the severity and duration of the mood swings, points strongly toward Bipolar I Disorder.” He folded his hands. “The question now is about your care, Natsuo. We can keep you here for a longer observation period. Or, I can discharge you with a strict medication regimen and a referral to a specialist in Tokyo for ongoing treatment. I understand your family is there.”

Natsuo looked down at his hands, his shoulders slumped. The medication had smoothed out the terrifying peaks and valleys, but it had left him a hollowed-out shell. “I… I want to go home,” he whispered. Then he looked up, a flicker of his old anxiety surfacing through the chemical fog. “If… if I’m still welcome. After how I’ve been.”

“Of course you are,” Fuyumi said instantly. “Keigo and Shouto were already cleaning out my old room for you this morning.” She paused, seeing the confusion on his face. “Oh, Natsu, you didn’t… I moved out. I’m living with Haruki now. I thought you saw it in the group chat…”

He shook his head slowly, the information seeming to take a long time to process. “No. I… I haven’t been reading it.” 

“Well, it doesn’t matter. We’re taking you home. That’s final.” 

The relief on his face was palpable. “Yeah. I want to go home.”

The discharge process was slow. By 8 PM, almost thirty hours after he’d been admitted, the paperwork was done. Fuyumi handed him the bag of clothes they’d brought: his old high school gym shorts, a soft sweatshirt, clean socks and underwear.

He moved slowly, and clumsily. Fuyumi helped him change out of the hospital gown, into his clothes.  “Lift your arm, big guy,” she said softly, maneuvering the sweatshirt over his head. “There we go.” She was trying for a lightness she didn’t feel, a desperate attempt to bridge the chasm of the last few months. “Just like when you were little and I had to help you get dressed for school. Remember? You always put your pants on backwards.”

A ghost of a smile, the first she’d seen all day, touched his lips. “You always took care of us, didn’t you?” 

Haruki carried the paper bag of medications and discharge instructions. They walked out of the hospital, Natsuo holding Fuyumi’s arm, not meeting anyone’s eyes. He slid into the back seat of the car and was asleep almost instantly, his head lolling against the window.

Fuyumi buckled herself into the passenger seat and finally let out a long, shuddering breath. She looked back at her little brother, then at Haruki, who reached over and took her hand, his skin smelling faintly, comfortingly, of chamomile.

“You did good, sweetheart,” Haruki said softly. “You’re bringing him home. It’s gonna be okay now.”

Fuyumi nodded, tears finally spilling over. The immediate crisis had passed. But as Haruki started the car and began the long drive back to Tokyo, she knew the real work was just beginning.

Chapter 37: The Weight of Waiting

Notes:

this chapter was a lot of teen boys, despite whatever else is going on in their heads... being teen boys.
thanks for sticking with me, yall. hope you enjoy <3

The apartment had become a museum of precarious new normals. For Shouto, who thrived on routine and predictability, it felt like the floor was constantly shifting beneath his feet.

His people were all wrong.

Touya was trying. He held his video sessions from the couch, his voice a solid imitation of its former professional cadence. But when Shouto would pass by, he’d often see his brother’s head lolled back, eyes closed in a losing battle against the fatigue. The beanie was a permanent fixture now, but it couldn’t hide the fact that the hair peeking out at the temples was wispy and thin, or that the sharp angles of Touya’s cheeks and collarbones were becoming more pronounced. 

Then there was Natsuo. His brother was a ghost haunting Fuyumi’s old room. The loud, energetic presence was gone, replaced by a heavy, medicated silence. Keigo had taped a detailed medication schedule to the fridge: Lithium with breakfast and dinner, Quetiapine at night. Some days, Natsuo would sleep for sixteen hours straight, a side effect of the stabilizing drugs. Other days, he’d manage to keep regular sleeping-waking hours, but would pick at his food, the Lithium curbing his appetite. 

Even Izuku was different. At school, instead of his usual mumbling analyses of hero news, he was jumpy and distracted. His knee bounced under the lunch table, and he’d flinch at sudden noises. Inko had called Keigo to cancel their usual weekend hang-out; Izuku’s anxiety about starting high school had crescendoed into full-blown panic attacks, leaving him too drained for anything else. Shouto’s one reliable anchor outside the home was gone too.

And Shouto himself was waiting. The silence from the art high school was a physical weight on his chest. Every day, he checked the mail with a hope that felt more desperate each time. The frustration was turning inward, curdling into a regression he could feel happening but couldn’t stop.

His words, hard-won over the past year, were abandoning him. He’d open his mouth to ask for the salt and a garbled, slurred mess would come out. He’d brought home a reading comprehension worksheet, but the words he’d mastered months ago were now swimming on the page. That morning, he’d stood in the bathroom for a full five minutes, toothbrush in hand, utterly unable to remember if he was supposed to put the toothpaste on first or wet the brush, or if it mattered.

It came to a head at dinner three nights later. Keigo had made katsudon, usually a safe food. But the pork cutlet was too crispy, the sound of Natsuo chewing too loud, the overhead light too bright. Touya was pushing food around his plate, looking seconds from falling asleep into it.

A question lodged in Shouto’s brain, something about a fight Izuku had mentioned while he and Inko walked Shouto home today, something he wanted to ask Keigo. He tried to form it. The words fragmented. “H-hero… the… the r-robot… no… f-f-ix… ugh!” He slammed his fist on the table. The dishes rattled. Everyone jumped.

“Sho?” Touya said, his voice weary.

The frustration boiled over. A sharp spike of ice shot up from the floor, encasing the leg of his chair. 

“Okay,” Keigo said, his voice calm but firm amidst the sudden chaos. He was up in an instant, his movements swift. He didn’t scold. He simply guided Shouto up from the ice-locked chair. “Let’s go. Walk time.”

Shouto didn’t resist. He was trembling with shame and a frustration so profound it felt like it would crack him open. Keigo grabbed a jacket for him and guided him out the door, down the elevator, and into the cool, evening air.

The change in atmosphere was immediate. The cold was a shock to his system, dampening the internal fire. The silence of the street was a relief after the oppressive noise of the apartment. They walked for a block without speaking.

“It’s a lot, huh?” Keigo finally said, his hands shoved in his pockets. “Touya being sick. Fuyumi living with Haruki. Natsu being… moody, I guess, you could call it... Everything is different, all at once.”

Shouto gave a sharp, jerky nod, his eyes fixed on the cracks in the sidewalk.

“I get it.” Keigo sighed. “Everything feels wrong… because it is. It’s all different from how things were before, and change is so hard.” 

Another nod. 

“We’re gonna figure it out,” Keigo said, with a confidence Shouto was sure he didn’t feel. “All of it. It’s just a really shitty season right now. But we’re all still here for each other. And we still love each other. Just trust me, it won’t be forever. Yeah?”

Shouto didn’t respond. He just kept walking.

---

The decision was practical, if isolating. With his immune system in tatters, Touya’s world had shrunk to the apartment and the sterile confines of the treatment center. So on a crisp Saturday at the end of February, it was Fuyumi and Haruki who accompanied Shouto to the meet-up for non-verbal and minimally verbal kids.

Shouto was visibly cranky in the backseat of Haruki’s car, arms crossed, staring out the window with a scowl. He hadn’t been to the group in months, and the disruption to his new, fragile routine was clearly grating on him.

“You know,” Haruki said, glancing in the rearview mirror with a gentle smile, his usual scent of fresh citrus finally returning, “at this rate, Shouto, you’re going to be disqualified from this group soon. You’ve been talking so much more!”

Shouto just shrugged, his expression unchanging. Fuyumi, having been briefed by Touya and Keigo on his recent moods, tried a different tack. “We’re so proud of how much you’ve been practicing! After you’ve seen everyone you want to see, we can stop at that bakery you like. The one with the melon pan you liked.” 

Another shrug. Fuyumi sighed softly, sharing a look with Haruki. 

It was going to be a long afternoon.

The community center hall was a familiar racket of controlled chaos. It was quieter than it had been when the kids were younger, the energy less about running and more about congregating. A group of pre-teen boys tossed a foam ball back and forth, their laughter punctuated by the occasional groan of disappointment or excited shout. A cluster of girls sat painting each other's nails, communicating with a mix of sign language and text-to-speech apps on their tablets. In a quieter corner, a few parents still facilitated play for their children, whose communication remained profoundly minimal, yet who were clearly engaged and content.

And under the basketball hoop were Hitoshi and Katsuki. Predictably, Shouto broke away from Fuyumi and Haruki and made a beeline for his friends. 

Katsuki was in the middle of an explosive story, his hands flying through the air in sharp, emphatic signs. His face was a canvas of expression: eyebrows furrowed, mouth moving silently but with clear intensity. He was, as always, a loud signer, his movements taking up space. Hitoshi stood opposite him, signs in response slow, measured, and lazy in their delivery. It was a study in contrasts.

Fuyumi was immediately swept up by the other adults. Mitsuki enveloped her in a brief, fierce hug. “Fuyumi-chan! Long time no see! And who’s this handsome fellow?” she asked, elbowing Haruki playfully.

“This is Haruki,” Fuyumi said, her cheeks pinkening. “My boyfriend.”

“’Bout time!” Mitsuki laughed. Her husband, Masaru, offered a much softer, “It’s lovely to finally meet you.”

Almost immediately, Hizashi Yamada and Shouta Aizawa joined their circle. The greetings were warm but quickly turned concerned.

“How’s Touya doing?” Aizawa asked, his voice low and serious.

Fuyumi’s smile faltered. “It’s… a process. The treatments are really rough on him. His energy and immune system are shot at this point, so he’s basically on house arrest. He’s hanging in there.”

“Send him our best,” Yamada said, his voice uncharacteristically soft without its Present Mic bravado. “Tell him the Little Listener is making real progress. He’d be proud.”

The conversation naturally shifted, as it always did with this group, to the upcoming UA exams. Mitsuki jerked a thumb towards the basketball hoop. “This one’s driving us up the wall with UA prep… thinks he’s gonna be the first deaf hero to top the charts… aside from you, of course, Hizashi.”

“The written exam won’t be an issue,” Aizawa stated flatly. “His academic records are impeccable. The practical is the question.”

Yamada nodded, his expression turning thoughtful. “It’s a different challenge than I had. I was already starting to lose my hearing when I took the exam, but I could still hear… maybe fifty, sixty percent of what was going on?”

Aizawa cut to the heart of it, his tone not unkind, but brutally pragmatic. “Katsuki hears maybe ten percent on a good day, and that’s if someone is shouting directly into his ear, which they won’t be. It’s not that he can’t pass,” he added, seeing the defensiveness flash in Mitsuki’s eyes. “It’s that his challenge is exponentially greater than Hizashi’s was. He’ll have to rely on sight and vibration alone. It’s a huge disadvantage.”

Katsuki, oblivious to the discussion about his future, was now signing at Hitoshi more emphatically, who seemed to be splitting his attention between watching him and explaining slowly what Katsuki was saying to Shouto, whose brain could not handle another language. This had downgraded Shouto, in Katsuki’s mind, from potential friend to tolerable extra. Shouto didn’t seem to mind.

Mitsuki crossed her arms, a fierce pride in her eyes. “He’ll figure it out. That kid’s never met an obstacle he didn’t blow up. He’ll find a way. He has to.”

Yamada nodded in agreement. “The kid’s got more drive in his pinky than most pros have in their whole bodies. UA would be lucky to have him.”

Masaru, ever the realist, wrung his hands slightly. “We just don’t want him to be devastated if it doesn’t work out. It’s a competitive exam… and to be honest, the world isn’t always set up for someone like him to succeed.”

“It is certainly competitive,” Aizawa agreed. “Realism isn’t the same as doubt. It’s about managing expectations. The world isn’t going to accommodate him. He has to be twice as good to get half the credit. It’s the unfortunate truth.”

Fuyumi found herself nodding along, her own anxieties finding an echo in theirs. “It’s the same with Shouto,” she confessed, her voice lowering. “He applied to that arts high school in Shibuya. His portfolio is… it’s honestly very good. But his transcript…” She trailed off, the unspoken worry hanging in the air. “Touya and I are so scared for him. From what we can tell, he wants it very badly, and we just don’t know if they’ll see past everything else.”

Mitsuki gave a sharp, understanding nod. “It’s hell, watching them pin their hopes on something. Disappointment is a part of life, but try telling that to your kid.”

“The trick is teaching them how to get back up after,” Aizawa said, his gaze drifting over to Hizashi, who nodded in agreement. 

It was Mitsuki who saw it first. Her eyes caught a flash of movement in her periphery that was too aggressive for the usual roughhousing. Her head snapped around.

“Oh, for fuck’s- KATSUKI!” she yelled, already launching into a sprint across the gym.

All heads snapped toward the commotion.

It wasn't a schoolyard scuffle; it was a shockingly violent display between two powerfully built fourteen-year-olds.

Katsuki was a storm of controlled aggression. He didn’t yell, but his face was a contorted mask of silent fury. He launched a lightning-fast jab at Shouto’s face. Shouto, moving with an instinct that was both terrifying and heartbreaking to witness, didn’t flinch. He slipped the punch by a millimeter, his body flowing into the motion like water. It was a defensive maneuver Fuyumi had seen a lifetime ago, in a training room she tried to forget.

Katsuki followed with a vicious hook. Shouto’s left arm came up in a perfect, solid block, the impact making a loud smack against his forearm. He didn’t cry out. His expression was eerily vacant, a stark contrast to the lethal precision of his movements. This was no longer her brother; it was a puppet whose strings were being pulled by a ghost.

Katsuki, frustrated, lunged forward, trying to tackle Shouto around the waist. Shouto didn’t give ground. Instead, he met the charge, his own body dropping into a stable stance. They grappled, a tangle of limbs and silent strain, each trying to gain leverage. Katsuki was stronger, fueled by pure adrenaline and years of active training. But Shouto’s technique was unnervingly efficient, every block and shift of weight designed to minimize effort and maximize effect, the cold, calculated combat training that Endeavor had beaten into him before he could even read.

Mitsuki was already plowing through the gaping kids, her signing a furious, sharp flurry in Katsuki’s sightline. [STOP! NOW! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!]

Fuyumi was right behind her, her heart hammering against her ribs. “Shouto! Stop it! Let him go this instant!” Her voice was high with panic, utterly useless against the primal feedback loop of the fight.

Hitoshi had pressed himself flat against the wall under the hoop, his usual cool detachment shattered into wide-eyed alarm. He was utterly frozen.

The other parents watched, horrified, some pulling their own children back.

It took three adults to break them apart. Yamada and Masaru dove for Katsuki, grabbing him under the arms and hauling him backward. Katsuki fought them like a wild animal, his elbows flying, his feet kicking out, his hands still threatening to fire up.

Aizawa moved with lethal grace on Shouto. His capture scarf, which Fuyumi had thought was merely a winter accessory, shot out, wrapping itself around Shouto’s torso and arms, pinning them to his sides. As he pulled Shouto back, Aizawa’s hair lifted off his shoulders, and his eyes burned a threatening red. The Erasure was a silent, invisible wave. The air around the two boys seemed to still, the potential for Quirk-aided violence extinguished in an instant.

The second the fight was broken, the change was instantaneous and chilling. Katsuki, still held by Yamada and Masaru, continued to seethe, chest heaving, his glare promising murder. But Shouto… Shouto just went limp. The second Aizawa’s Quirk hit him and the physical struggle stopped, the fight drained out of him completely. He stood within the loose bind of the capture weapon, head bowed, breathing shallowly. 

Aizawa’s gaze swept over both of them, his expression grim. He made sure his hands were in Katsuki’s line of sight as he spoke aloud, his voice a low, dangerous growl that he simultaneously signed with sharp, clear motions.

[Outside. Now.]

---

The group spilled out into the crisp afternoon air, the tension from the fight clinging to them like smoke. Hitoshi trailed behind Fuyumi and Haruki, his usual apathy replaced by a watchful, concerned stillness. He hovered a few steps back, a silent observer.

Aizawa gave a slight tug, and his capture scarf unwound from Shouto, slithering back into its place around his neck. The moment he was free, Shouto’s knees buckled. He didn't collapse so much as melt, his rigid posture dissolving into a boneless lean against Fuyumi. She caught him, her arms wrapping around his shoulders. He wasn’t fully dissociated yet, but he was teetering on the edge, his breathing too even, his eyes glassy and fixed on nothing. Worry spiked through her; he’d been so fragile lately, and this was the last thing he needed.

“Okay, okay, I’ve got you,” she murmured, lowering them both to sit on the grass. Shouto ended up half in her lap, his body limp, his breathing shallow. The chill of the ground seeped through their clothes, but neither of them cared- not that they really felt cold anyways.

She could already see the beginnings of a bruise on his cheekbone where one of Katsuki’s punches had landed. But Katsuki hadn’t gotten off unscathed either; a faint trickle of blood seeped from his nose, and a red mark was blossoming on his jawline. It had been an even match.

Haruki, seeing the state of both boys, told Fuyumi he was going to look for a first aid kit and ran back inside. 

Mitsuki planted herself in front of her son, her hands flying. [What the hell were you thinking? Are you trying to get yourself grounded for life? Explain yourself!]

Katsuki, still held loosely by his father and Yamada, glared at the ground, his chest heaving. He refused to look at her. Instead, he roughly shook off Masaru’s and Yamada’s hands and turned specifically to Yamada. He would only communicate with the one person he knew was fully fluent, who wouldn't miss a nuance.

Yamada nodded, his usual exuberance completely gone, replaced by a sober focus. He gently nudged Masaru aside and took his place in front of Katsuki.

Katsuki’s hands flew, his signs explosive and dripping with venom. Yamada watched intently, simultaneously translating for the group in a calm, steady voice, his tone a stark contrast to the fury he was interpreting.

“He says… ‘They talk now.’” Yamada’s eyes flickered to Hitoshi, then to Shouto. “‘They talk to each other. I can’t hear them. I don’t read lips. Stupid.’” Yamada took a breath. “He says… ‘They should leave. Never come back. They think they’re better now. Because they talk. Because they hear. Fuck them. Fuck everyone.’”

The raw, jealous pain behind the anger was breathtaking. Katsuki’s signing became even more frantic, more desperate.

“‘Hitoshi was my friend,’” Yamada continued, his voice softening with pity. “‘One friend. Not an extra. Not an idiot. We signed. Now… now all he’s gonna do is whisper with Icy-Hot…’ oh, his name sign for Shouto is Icy-Hot, that’s- sorry- ‘And I can’t… I can’t even try to follow.’” Katsuki’s hands slammed together in a gesture of finality before starting again, his expression twisting into something more vulnerable.

“‘And he’s going to get into UA,’” Yamada translated, his own face falling. “‘And everyone will talk there. Nobody will sign. He’ll talk to everyone. And I’ll be the freak with the interpreter. Alone. I’ll be completely alone.’” Katsuki’s hands finally stilled for a moment, his chest heaving. Then, with a devastating, defeated finality, he signed one last thing, his shoulders slumping.

Yamada’s voice was barely a whisper. “‘But it doesn’t matter. I probably won’t even get in.’”

Hitoshi, who had been watching the entire confession, took a step back. His own face was ashen. The weight of Katsuki’s words, the accusation that he was abandoning their friendship, that his hard-won voice was a betrayal… He looked like he might be sick.

Aizawa saw it. He placed a firm hand on Hitoshi’s shoulder. “Come on,” he said, his voice low. “Let’s go back inside.” He gently steered him away from the emotional black hole forming in the parking lot and back through the community center doors, giving them all space to deal with the fallout.

The fight drained out of Katsuki completely, replaced by a crushing wave of despair. The anger had been a shield, and it had shattered. His face crumpled. He made a choked, wet sound and roughly shoved his mother away when she tried to reach for him, turning his face into his father’s shoulder instead. 

Yamada watched for a moment, his expressive face etched with a deep sadness. He gave a small, helpless shrug to the group. “I’m… I’m going to go find Shouta and Hitoshi,” he said quietly. He turned and hurried back inside the community center, leaving the two families to their separate pieces of the mess.

Mitsuki, having been rebuffed by her son, let out a long, weary sigh. “Here,” Mitsuki said, her voice much softer now, all her earlier fury replaced by a gruff empathy. She knelt beside Fuyumi. “Let me help you with him. Kid’s solid.” Together, they managed to get their arms under Shouto and hoist him to his feet. He was unsteady, his legs wobbling, but he was upright.

“I am so sorry about this,” Mitsuki said, her tone genuine. “My son is a temperamental asshole on a good day, and he’s… he’s really struggling with all this UA pressure. It’s no excuse, but…” She trailed off, then seemed to grasp for a way to mend the fracture. “Look, after these damn exams are over, and everyone’s had a chance to cool off… dinner. At our place. We’ll get the whole gang together. We can even invite Inko and Izuku. Something lowkey. No pressure.”

Fuyumi, feeling emotionally wrung out, nodded gratefully. The offer felt like a lifeline back to normalcy. “That… that sounds really nice, Mitsuki-san. Thank you.”

Just then, Haruki returned from inside, holding a small first aid kit he’d procured from the front desk. He wordlessly opened it, took out some antiseptic wipes and bandaids, and handed half of them to Mitsuki.

“Thanks,” she said, taking them. She glanced over to a bench a little ways away where Masaru was already sitting with Katsuki, signing to him in slow, calm motions. Katsuki had his arms crossed, focus low, but he was watching. “I’d better go,” Mitsuki said with a sigh. “Sorry again.” She gave Fuyumi’s arm a quick squeeze before walking over to her family.

Haruki and Fuyumi guided a pliant but unresponsive Shouto to their car. Fuyumi climbed into the back seat with him while Haruki took the wheel. As they pulled out of the parking lot, Fuyumi gently took one of Shouto’s hands, wiping the blood from his scraped knuckles with an antiseptic wipe. He flinched at the sting but didn’t pull away.

The silence in the car was thick. Fuyumi, trying to bridge the gap with her typical, slightly awkward earnestness, said, “Well… Touya is never gonna let us take you anywhere again, huh, Sho?” It was a weak attempt at a joke, an effort to lighten the unbearable weight in the car.

He didn’t respond. He just stared out the window, his body tense.

A few minutes later, as they merged onto the highway back towards Touya’s apartment, a quiet sound broke the silence. A hitch of breath. Then another. Fuyumi looked over to see silent tears tracking down Shouto’s face. They weren’t the angry, frustrated tears from earlier. These were tears of pure, overwhelmed misery.

“Sho?” she whispered.

He tried to speak. His mouth opened, but all that came out was a strained, guttural noise. He tried again, his brow furrowed in intense concentration, the words tangling and collapsing on his tongue.

“H-h… h-hur…” he forced out, the sound choked. He gestured vaguely at his body, then his head.

“What hurts?” Fuyumi asked softly, leaning closer. “Your hand? Your face?”

He shook his head violently, frustration mounting. He hit his own thigh with a clenched fist, a gesture of pure anger at his own inability. He tried again, the words slurred and mashed together. “F-f-felt… d-do… dojo. Fl-flo-oor.”

Fuyumi pieced it together, her stomach dropping. “It felt like the dojo? The floor?”

He nodded, a sob finally breaking free. The tears were falling freely now. He was trembling, his hands clenching and unclenching. He was trying so hard to explain the terror, the visceral flashback, but his brain wouldn’t cooperate. The more he struggled, the more the words disintegrated.

“D-don’t…!” he gasped, the word bursting out of him. “N-no… f-f-fight! N-no… tr-train!” It was a desperate, fractured plea.

“Oh, Shouto,” Fuyumi breathed, her own vision blurring. She understood. She carefully put her arms around him, pulling his stiff, resistant body into a hug. He didn’t relax into it, but he didn’t push her away either. He was crying in earnest now, harsh, silent sobs that shook his entire frame. She held him tighter, rocking him gently. “You’re not there,” she whispered into his hair, her voice firm despite her tears. “You’re here. You’re safe with me. You never have to fight like that again. Never.”

She kept rocking him, a slow, steady rhythm against the motion of the car. Haruki drove on in silence, his eyes occasionally meeting Fuyumi’s in the rearview mirror, full of shared worry. 

Chapter 38: Preparations

Notes:

happy halloween!
i had time... and its all prewritten so why not.
here is your treat (as in trick or treat!)
xoxo <3

Early March arrived, not with a flourish of spring, but with a damp, stubborn chill that seeped into the bones. Inside the apartment, a new, quiet alliance had formed. Shouto, in a concerning but understandable retreat from anything that reminded him of his body’s capacity for violence, had become a fixture in Natsuo’s space and in the pantry. He’d appear in the doorway of Fuyumi’s old room, now Natsuo’s, clutching his sketchbook and a family-sized bag of shrimp chips. Without a word, he’d climb onto the bed, and Natsuo would wordlessly shift over to make room.

It was a far cry from healthy. Dinner often became a negotiation. Touya or Keigo would plate up a balanced meal of rice, fish, and vegetables, and Shouto would push it around before eventually retreating for more snacks. Natsuo, his appetite still unreliable thanks to the Lithium, often joined him, the two of them creating a nest of wrappers on the couch while watching documentaries.

Touya had wanted to put a stop to it immediately, but a call with Shouto’s therapist had given him pause. “Right now, his body doesn’t feel safe,” she’d explained. “The fight was a massive trigger. Forcing him into ‘healthy’ eating or exercise could feel like another form of control, another demand. Let him find comfort where he can. The goal right now is stability, and calories, not nutrition. We can reintroduce movement, and proper nutrition, as a positive thing later, when he feels secure.” So, Touya bit his tongue, watching the junk food accumulate with a mixture of worry and resignation.

Natsuo, at least, was showing real signs of improvement. The new medication cocktail was finally doing its job, sanding down the terrifying peaks and valleys of his mood. The crushing despair that had landed him in the hospital had lifted, leaving behind a flat, but stable, neutrality. He was attending his therapy sessions without being prompted. He wasn’t the loud, boisterous brother they remembered, but he was present. He could hold a conversation. He could sometimes even manage a joke. 

Touya watched it all from his command post on the living room couch. The third month of infusions had etched its reality onto him. He was thin again, the weight he’d put on during the prednisone now vanished, making his already prominent burn scars seem more pronounced against the sharp angles of his collarbones and wrists. His skin had a perpetual, waxy pallor, and dark shadows lived permanently under his eyes. The most dramatic change was his hair; what hadn't fallen out was wispy and thin, like fine, white gossamer, making a beanie or some kind of head covering a non-negotiable part of his identity for now. He looked fragile, like a strong gust of wind could break him, but not decrepit. Keigo and Fuyumi were relentless in their care, ensuring he sipped nutrient shakes and electrolyte drinks even when he had no appetite. 

He felt truly awful about seventy-five percent of the time: a constant, flu-like state of ache, fever, and nausea. But he’d become a strategist of his own well-being, ruthlessly scheduling his life around the other twenty-five percent. His most resilient clients got video calls during those windows. He used the energy for quiet time, like the previous night’s dinner where he’d managed to sit at the table and listen as Natsuo, in a monotone but coherent way, described the fascinating life cycle of a parasite he was studying. It wasn’t lively, but it was family. It was them, together.

The most sacred ritual was the pre-infusion cafe trip. Every Tuesday and Friday, before the medical center, they went. This morning, Touya was bundled in a heavy sweater and scarf, his beanie pulled low, but he insisted on their usual table outside. “Fewer germs,” he’d croaked.

Keigo watched him stir a generous stream of honey into his tea, a futile attempt to mask the perpetual metallic taste in his mouth. The silence between them was comfortable, but Keigo had a restlessness to him today.

“I’ve been thinking,” Keigo started, uncharacteristically hesitant. He traced the rim of his coffee cup. “About the Commission. The… the leash is chafing. Badly.”

Touya looked up. “Yeah?”

“It’s all PR tours and sanctioned ops they can spin for good press. They’re talking about rebranding me, making me ‘softer’, more ‘approachable’.” He made a face. “I spent my whole life being their weapon, now suddenly just their poster boy. I think… I think I might want to try just being on my own. Maybe go independent. Take the jobs that actually need doing, not the ones that look good on the billboard charts.”

The confession hung in the cold air. It was huge.

Touya held his gaze for a long moment, taking in the earnest frustration in Keigo’s eyes. He saw the man who wanted to use his wings for more than just flying between photo ops.

A faint, tired smile touched Touya’s lips. “’Bout damn time,” he rasped, his voice full of a weary but unwavering support. “They’ve always sucked, babe.” He took a slow, careful sip of his tea. “Look, right now my brain is almost clear. But I’m gonna feel like absolute shit in about six hours and I will one hundred percent forget this entire conversation. So, can we table the ‘you quitting the manipulative government organization’ talk for, say, three days? When I’m back in the twenty-five percent and can properly cheer you on?”

Keigo let out a surprised, relieved laugh, the sound bright against the quiet street. The tension bled from his shoulders. “Yeah,” he said, his grin genuine. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

---

The large, official envelope from the Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education arrived on a Tuesday, conspicuously mixed in with the usual medical bills and junk mail. Shouto, who had been listlessly paging through a workbook, picked it up. Recognizing his name, he turned it over, his brow furrowing. The printing on the front was dense and formal, the kanji swimming together on the page in a way he knew would trigger a headache if he tried to decipher it.

Without a word, he walked over to where Touya was dozing on the couch and dropped the envelope on his chest.

Touya jolted awake, a hand flying to his chest where it’d fallen. "Wha-? Oh." He saw the return address and his heart leapt into his throat, a confusing mix of hope and dread. He fumbled for the letter opener on the side table with trembling fingers, his own weakness suddenly infuriating. He slid it open and pulled out the thick, creamy paper.

His eyes scanned the text, faster than Shouto could ever dream of. He read it once. Then again. A slow, disbelieving smile spread across his face.

"Sho," he rasped, his voice thick with emotion. "You did it. You got in."

Shouto blinked.

"It says… 'We are pleased to inform you…'" Touya read the formal sentence aloud, his voice gaining strength. "'…that you have been accepted to the Tokyo Metropolitan Arts High School for the upcoming academic year.'"

From the kitchen, where Keigo was washing dishes, there was a loud clatter. A moment later, Keigo was there, his wings fluffed up in excitement, dripping soapy water onto the floor. "Seriously?!"

Natsuo, drawn by the commotion, emerged from his room. "What's going on?"

"Shouto got into the arts high school," Touya said, the wonder evident in his tone.

A rare, genuine smile broke through Natsuo’s medicated flatness. "No shit. That's awesome, Sho."

The celebration came a week later after their middle school graduation. The actual ceremony was a blur, but the real event was the dinner at the apartment. Inko had outdone herself, covering every surface with homemade katsudon, sushi rolls, and a massive cake decorated with All Might and a poorly drawn, icing dragon. 

“We’ll still see each other all the time!” Izuku promised Shouto, his words tumbling out in a rush. “We can take the bus together to the station and then I’ll switch lines which I’m kinda scared for but at least for most of it we can be together! It’ll be an adventure!”

Shouto, picking at his celebratory katsudon, just nodded. He’d eaten a bag of chips an hour before and now his stomach felt oddly full and sour. The excitement was there, a low hum under his skin, but it was muted by the anxiety of so many people and the newly-uncomfortable pressure of his glasses. The fight with Katsuki had left one of the arms bent and the thick lens on his scarred, mostly-blind eye was slightly scratched. They sat crooked on his nose, a constant, irritating reminder.

---

The two-week spring break stretched before them. It was during this time that the consequences of Shouto’s sedentary, snack-heavy retreat became unavoidably physical. His stomach hurt constantly, a dull, bloated ache. His skin, usually clear, broke out along his jawline. And one morning, he tried to pull on his favorite pair of sweatpants and while he got them up, they squeezed his stomach uncomfortably. He pulled them down again.  

He stood in his room, staring down at the pants pooled around his ankles, a cold wave of confusion and frustration washing over him. Fuyumi had always just bought him new clothes when he grew out of the old ones… but he’d never outgrown anything so quick she couldn’t replace the old ones first. 

He padded out into the living room, pantsless, where Keigo was carefully folding laundry. Shouto didn’t say anything. He just held up the too-small sweatpants, a lost look on his face.

Keigo glanced from the pants in his hand to the way his stomach was pushing out against his shirt to Shouto’s distressed expression. “Ah,” he said softly. He put down the shirt he was folding and patted the couch beside him. “C’mere.”

Shouto sat, the defective pants in his lap.

“You know,” Keigo began, his voice gentle, “when I was growing up, in the Commission, they controlled everything I ate. It was all about performance. Peak physical condition. It made my body strong, but it never felt like mine. It felt like a tool.” He looked at Shouto. “I think maybe you’re feeling the opposite right now. Like your body isn’t listening to you at all.”

Shouto gave a tiny, sharp nod.

“Hurts.” He hiccuped. Painfully. 

“Taking care of your body… it doesn’t have to be about being dangerous or strong,” Keigo said. “It can just be about making it feel good. Happy. So your stomach doesn’t hurt. So your clothes feel comfortable. It’s not about training. It’s about… maintenance. For you.”

Shouto was quiet for a long moment, processing. The concept was foreign, but Keigo’s analogy made a strange kind of sense. He wasn’t maintaining a weapon. He could be… maintaining himself.

“How about,” Keigo offered, “tomorrow, when your stomach feels better, we can go for a walk. Just a short one. No training, I promise. Just a walk. And maybe we have an apple with our chips later.”

Shouto gave a slow, considering nod. It was a start.

---

The victory of Shouto’s acceptance was immediately overshadowed by the sheer, daunting reality of what came next. The Tokyo Metropolitan Arts High School had never had a student like him. His entire education had taken place in a self-contained, specialized classroom. The concept of navigating a mainstream schedule: moving between classes, surrounded by hundreds of neurotypical teenagers, expected to manage academic coursework with a fifth-grade reading level and a vocabulary of maybe two hundred spoken words, wasn't just challenging; it was potentially catastrophic.

The battle for his Individualized Education Plan became a full-time job that landed squarely in the lap of the three most exhausted people in Tokyo.

Touya became the general, strategizing from his couch and the infusion chair. During his precious few good hours, between clients, he was on the phone, his voice a raspy but relentless force. 

He’d explain, over and over, the reality. Shouto wasn’t just a shy artist. He needed a paraprofessional aide, or at the very least, a designated helper in each class. He needed all his academic materials, for the mandatory core classes of Japanese, Math, and Social Studies, modified and provided in advance. He needed to be assessed orally, or allowed to use his tablet for all written work. He needed a quiet, designated space to decompress when the sensory overload of a mainstream classroom became too much.

The responses were often bureaucratic and bewildered. We don’t have a special education program… We’ve never had a request for this level of accommodation… The teachers aren’t trained for that…

Fuyumi and Keigo took over when Touya’s energy or voice gave out. Fuyumi, with her teacher’s patience, would email detailed explanations. Keigo, using the slight intimidation factor of his hero status, would follow up with calls, his tone cheerful but unyielding. “Yeah, hi, Takami Keigo here, just following up on my partner’s call about the IEP meeting for Todoroki Shouto? We really need to get that scheduled.”

They finally secured a meeting. The conference room at the high school was sterile and intimidating. On one side of the table sat the Vice Principal, the guidance counselor, and Shouto’s soon-to-be art teacher, a woman named Ms. Inoue who looked kind but overwhelmed. On the other side sat Touya, Fuyumi, and Keigo.

Touya had forgone a beanie for a black bandana (sue him, he was getting bored), which, combined with his sharp, pale features, wispy hair, and the dark circles under his eyes, made him look less like a concerned guardian and more like a yakuza enforcer recovering from a nasty illness. He wore a mask, but it did little to hide his evident exhaustion. He was trying his absolute best to be professional and menacing, and failing spectacularly at the former.

Keigo, sitting beside him, had to fight a hysterical urge to laugh. The situation was so profoundly absurd; the three of them, a sick man, a schoolteacher, and a pro hero, trying to convince these educators that their primarily non-speaking, traumatized little brother could not only survive but thrive here. 

It felt like the blind leading the blind.

The meeting was a wake-up call for everyone except for the art teacher, Ms. Inoue, who was both enthusiastic and optimistic. “His portfolio is extraordinary,” she gushed. “I really pushed to have him here; a talent like his needs to be developed, and I hope we can make it work academically so he can thrive artistically.”

Then they looked at the academic curriculum. The Vice Principal slid over the reading list for Japanese Literature: dense, classical texts. The math syllabus involved complex equations. Social Studies required extensive essay writing.

A heavy silence fell. Touya leaned forward, his elbows on the table. “To be perfectly honest,” he stated flatly, pointing to the book list, “most of this is beyond him right now. He understands a lot but analyzing is something he’s never done. I don’t think he can read at this level. He’s never written an essay, and most of the time, translating his thoughts to written words is physically painful and requires help. This is a public school, and he has the right to access an education here, just like any other student. So. What are you going to do?”

The reality of the challenge settled over the room. This wasn’t about giving him extra time on a test; this was about fundamentally redefining what learning looked like for him in those subjects. The guidance counselor looked overwhelmed. The Vice Principal looked stumped.

By the end of the meeting, they had a bare-bones, shaky plan: Shouto would take a modified version of the academic classes while sitting in the classroom with everyone else. A teacher’s aide would be assigned to him, to guide him through the lessons and help fill in the holes . His assessments would be entirely practical or oral, conducted one-on-one. It was a patchwork solution, held together with hope and duct tape.

Walking back to the car, Keigo finally let out the laugh he’d been holding in. “Touya, I’m sorry, but you looked like you were about to offer to break the Vice Principal’s kneecaps if he didn’t comply. I think it actually helped our case.”

Touya, completely oblivious to the impression he’d made, just frowned. “I was perfectly civil; what do you mean?” Fuyumi coughed, pretending to look at a nearby tree.

"If perfectly civil means menacing them to the point where they suspect we're out here slashing their tires... then yes, sweetheart, well done." 

Fuyumi choked on her spit. 

---

Two days before the start of the new term, Natsuo took Shouto on the long-awaited shopping trip. The department store was a temple of daunting normality, buzzing with other families on the same last-minute mission.

The uniform section was a sea of stiff, dark fabric. Shouto picked up the gakuran jacket, his nose wrinkling at the coarse, scratchy texture. His old school’s uniform had been a soft, forgiving tracksuit. This was… official. Grown-up.

“Yeah, it’s not exactly pajamas, is it?” Natsuo said, noticing his expression. “Here, try this one.” He handed Shouto a size. It was too tight across the shoulders and chest. The next size up fit in the torso but drowned him in the arms. They compromised, hoping he’d get taller and eventually it would fit better. Standing in the fitting room, staring at his reflection in the stark, formal uniform, Shouto looked less like a boy and more like a young man. It was unsettling.

Next was the optometrist. The new glasses were almost identical to the old pair: sturdy, black frames, one lens thick and corrective, the other a lighter, protective shield. But they felt different, and were a definitive break from the pair that had flown off during the fight, a fight that felt both a lifetime ago and like yesterday.

Afterward, laden with bags, Natsuo steered them to a quiet udon shop. Bowls of steaming noodles were placed before them, a comforting familiarity amidst the change.

Shouto slurped a noodle, then looked at Natsuo, his brow furrowed in concentration. “N-Natsu… g-go back? To s-school?” The words were slow, each one carefully chosen and pushed out. He’d stopped being so self-conscious about his speech with Natsuo; his brother never rushed him or looked frustrated.

Natsuo shook his head, poking at his tempura. “Nah. Not yet. I’m taking a medical withdrawal. Gotta get this,” he tapped his temple, “figured out first. The meds are helping, but… it’s a process.”

He took a breath, the next part clearly rehearsed. “Speaking of that… Touya told me something. About Mom.” He waited until Shouto looked up. “She… she has something called bipolar disorder. It’s what I have. It makes your brain… lie to you. Makes you do things you wouldn’t normally do when you’re really sick.” He met Shouto’s heterochromatic gaze, willing him to understand. “He told me so I’d know it wasn’t only my fault that I was so out of control; it’s something that can be genetic. I’m not telling you this as an excuse for my behavior, though.  I was doing crazy things, and I said some crazy things to you… and I’m sorry I did. But I’m telling you so you know it wasn’t your fault that she... When she… when she hurt you… You know? She was having an episode. She was sick. It wasn’t because of you or anything you did. Do you understand?”

Shouto considered this, chewing slowly. “’Kay,” he said simply. The weight of the absolution Natsuo was trying to offer didn’t quite land, but he accepted it.

The conversation lulled. Shouto poked at his udon, then looked back at Natsuo, his expression openly uncertain in a way it rarely was. “’S-school…” he started, struggling. “Think… I will… l-like it?”

Natsuo put his chopsticks down. He was honest. “Maybe. Maybe not. It’s gonna be super different than your old school. Probably… probably you won’t like a lot of it.” He saw Shouto’s shoulders slump slightly and hurried to add, “But you’ll learn a lot. Your art will get so much better. And you’ll probably learn some school stuff, too, in your own way. And no matter what… even if you hate it and want to quit… we’re all gonna be so proud of you for trying.” He was saying it as much for Shouto as he was for himself, a mantra for his own rocky path.

Shouto processed this, his gaze distant. The honesty was a relief, a stark contrast to the anxious, false cheer from the others. “F-feel… n-nerv-vous,” he admitted.

“Yeah,” Natsuo said, a sad smile touching his lips. “Me too. About a lot of stuff. But we just gotta try it out, right? See what happens.”

Shouto gave a single, sharp nod.

It was the most either of them could promise. 

Chapter 39: Day One

Notes:

thank you again to everyone for your comments and everything! hugs and high-fives to you all :)

The stiff, dark fabric of the new gakuran felt like a costume. Shouto stood by the door, his bag weighing heavily on his shoulder. Inside was the new tablet, a lifeline to the incomprehensible world of academic classes, and a simple flip phone, just in case.

Natsuo emerged from his room, smiling over at Shouto. “Ready?” he asked, his voice even.

Touya was on the couch. A fever over the weekend had made breathing hard and energy scarce that morning, the day of the week which was supposed to be his best, so he could only give a hug and weak thumbs-up as the pair left the house. “Kick school's ass, kid.” 

At the platform, a ball of green anxiety was already vibrating. Izuku looked like he was about to be sick, his own new uniform, a blazer and tie, perfectly pressed, his muttering a frantic, barely audible stream about bus schedules and potential quirk analysis of future classmates.

“You’re gonna be fine, Mido,” Natsuo said, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “It’s just a new building. Same you, different place.”

Izuku jumped, then offered a wobbly smile. “Right! Yes! Same me! Thank you, Natsuo-san!”

The train arrived, a roaring beast that swallowed them whole. Inside, Shouto immediately put on his noise-cancelling headphones, the world dissolving into a soft hum. Izuku, seeing this, fumbled for his own, the muttering thankfully ceasing. They weren’t the only ones; the carriage was full of students tuning out the world. Their particular brand of weird, Shouto’s stark heterochromia and thick, mismatched glasses, Izuku’s intense anxieties, blended into the general teenage strangeness.

Natsuo made easy, calming small talk, mostly directed at Izuku, about the weather, about the train line, about anything but school. Shouto was content to watch the world blur past, his stomach a tight knot of dread.

Too soon, they reached the transfer station. This was where they split. Izuku’s stop was next. He went grey, his hand gripping the strap of his backpack like a lifeline.

As the train doors slid open, Shouto reached out. He didn’t say anything. He just took Izuku’s hand and gave it a firm, solid squeeze. Izuku looked down, surprised.

“You… ’kay,” Shouto said, the words thick but clear enough. He gave Izuku’s hand another squeeze, meeting his eyes. “’S… ’kay.”

It was a monumental effort, and it drained him, but the message was received. Izuku’s eyes welled up, but he nodded, a determined look replacing the panic. “You too, Shouto-kun. Good luck!” And then he was gone, swept away in the crowd.

The doors closed. Shouto’s hand, now empty, felt suddenly cold. He reached over and grabbed Natsuo’s instead, holding on tight for the rest of the journey to Shibuya.

The school was a sprawling, modern complex, a world away from his small, specialized middle school. The office was bustling. Natsuo gently guided him to the counter.

“Todoroki Shouto,” Natsuo said. “We’re here to meet his aide.”

A young woman with a bright, eager smile popped up. “That’s me! I’m Ayame Chō! I’ll be working with Todoroki-kun!” She bowed deeply. “It’s so nice to meet you! I just got hired on Friday, so this is all very new for me, too!” Her enthusiasm was almost overwhelming.

Natsuo blinked, a flicker of concern in his eyes that he quickly masked. He pulled Chō aside for a moment, his voice low. “Okay. A few things. He’s pretty calm, if you treat him normal and just… explain things slowly. He’s blunt, so if he says anything that hurts your feelings… I’m sorry. He doesn’t mean it to be mean. What else… I mean you know this, but he needs help with math and reading… his writing is very legible and nice but half the time he’s copying and not comprehending, so I guess that’s your job… but yeah. The tablet has everything.” He nodded, then a final thought. “If he tries to talk, please be patient. Let him finish. Don’t try to guess his words for him.”

Chō nodded vigorously, her expression turning serious. “Of course! Absolutely. Patience. Got it.”

With a final, reassuring squeeze to Shouto’s shoulder, Natsuo left. “See you later, Sho! You’ve got this.”

And then he was alone with a stranger. Chō smiled at him. Shouto tried to smile back, but from her reaction he’s guessing it didn’t work out that way. 

Chō led him to his homeroom. As they walked through the halls, Shouto’s initial fear began to recede, replaced by a dawning curiosity. The student body here was nothing like he’d imagined. The uniform was treated as a vague suggestion. He saw first-years with vibrantly dyed hair, multiple ear piercings, elaborate makeup, and glasses with frames in every colour and shape imaginable. His own red and white hair, his scar, his functional, odd glasses… they didn’t make him stand out. They made him blend in. Thank god. 

He saw no one who was obviously a heteromorph, but he wondered about their quirks. Did someone have fingers that could blend pastels perfectly? Could another create their own ink? Was there someone who could see in wavelengths that inspired entirely new colors?

Chō, with an intuitiveness that surprised Shouto, guided him to a seat in the front row, on the left side of the classroom. It was the perfect position; it put the teacher and the main whiteboard directly in the sightline of his good right eye, minimizing the need to turn his head. He gave her a small, almost imperceptible nod of thanks, which she beamed at.

He took his seat, Chō sitting attentively in a chair beside his desk. The teacher called roll. When she said “Todoroki Shouto,” he just lifted his hand slightly, and she moved on without a second glance. No one stared. No one whispered.

He looked around at his new classmates. For the first time all morning, the tight knot in his stomach loosened, just a little. He wasn't sure what kind of artist he was yet, or what kind they were. But for the first time, he was in a place where that question felt exciting, not terrifying.

The morning was a gauntlet of academics, a stark, jarring contrast to his old school. There, the pace was glacial. Here, it was a firehose of information.

First was Modern Japanese. The teacher, an elderly man with a droning voice, began discussing the thematic undertones of a classical novel they were to read. He handed out a dense packet of excerpts. The font was small and cramped. Shouto’s head began to pound almost immediately. He stared at the page, the characters swimming into an incomprehensible mess.

Chō quickly pulled out his tablet, pulled up the digital copy of the text they’d been provided, and enlarged the font to a massive size. She then began quietly summarizing the teacher’s main points in simple terms. It wasn’t the nuanced analysis the class was getting, but it was the CliffsNotes version he could actually process. The relief was physical. The headache receded from a stab to a dull throb. She was good. Very good.

Next was Mathematics. The teacher, a stern-looking woman, launched directly into a lesson on quadratic equations, writing complex formulas on the board. This was a language Shouto had never learned. He felt a familiar panic rising, the feeling of being irretrievably left behind. The teacher’s eyes scanned the room and landed on him. She paused, her expression softening slightly. She walked over and placed a single sheet of paper on his desk. It was a worksheet on basic geometry: identifying shapes and calculating area. It was work meant for a much younger student.

“This is your focus for today, Todoroki-kun,” she said, not unkindly, but with a clinical distance.

A hot flush of shame washed over him. He knew he was being given baby work. He could feel the eyes of a few students nearby, curious but not malicious. He looked down at the simple shapes. It was a relief, yes, to have a task he could actually understand. But it was also a stark example of how far behind he was. He mechanically picked up his pencil, his jaw tight. Chō gave him an encouraging smile, but he couldn’t meet her eyes.

Social Studies was the worst. The teacher was a young, energetic man who believed in “dynamic participation.” He called on students at random, demanding quick opinions on current events. Each time a name was called, Shouto flinched, his heart hammering. He stared fixedly at his desk, praying to be invisible. When the teacher’s gaze swept over him, he seemed to remember the notes in his folder and moved on. But the constant, unpredictable threat of being called on left Shouto wound so tight he could barely breathe. Chō, sensing his anxiety, spent the entire class subtly shaking her head ‘no’ at the teacher whenever he looked their way, a human shield against participation.

The teachers weren’t mean. They were just… busy. They had a classroom of thirty other students and a curriculum to get through. He was an anomaly they’d been warned about, a problem to be managed with accommodations they were still figuring out. Their kindness felt professional, distant. They were ignoring the problem, not him personally, and he was acutely sensitive to the difference.

The other students mostly ignored him. They were wrapped up in their own social worlds, their own anxieties about starting high school. A few glanced curiously at the aide sitting next to him, but it was a passing interest. He was part of the scenery, the quiet, weird kid with the helper. It was isolating, but in that moment, he preferred it to being noticed.

By the time the lunch bell rang, Shouto was utterly drained. His head ached from the effort of concentration and the stress of being perpetually on alert. The morning had been a rollercoaster of small reliefs and crushing realities. As students around him burst into chatter and pulled out lunch boxes, Shouto just sat there, staring at the geometric shapes on his math worksheet, feeling profoundly, overwhelmingly lost.

Chō, after a moment of watching him, seemed to remember a crucial part of his plan. “Oh! Right! Todoroki-kun, we’re supposed to go to the quiet room for lunch. It’s in the plan.”

She led him through the bustling halls to a small, unmarked club room. Inside, it was blissfully silent. The lights were off, the blinds drawn, letting in only soft, diffused light. There was a single beanbag chair in one corner and a small basket containing a few stress balls and a textured fidget cube.

The moment the door clicked shut, sealing them in the quiet, the last of Shouto’s composure shattered. He didn’t sit on the beanbag. He simply let his body go limp, collapsing onto the floor beside it with a soft thud. He curled onto his side, his face pressed into the cool linoleum, and let out a series of quiet, hitching sobs. It wasn’t loud or dramatic; it was a silent, full-body release of the immense pressure that had been building all morning.

Chō panicked. “Todoroki-kun! Are you okay? What’s wrong? ” Her voice, though whispered, was sharp with anxiety in the silent room.

Shouto didn’t have the words. He just made a long, low, “Shhhhhhhhhhhhh” sound, the universal plea for silence, without even lifting his head.

“But… but you’re crying! Should I call your brother? Do you need the nurse?”

He flinched, covering his ears with his hands, his whole body tensing again at the mention of more interaction, more noise, more people.

“SHHHH!” 

Finally, the message seemed to get through. Chō fell silent. He heard the rustle of her own lunch being unpacked, the quiet click of a chopstick case. He stayed on the floor, breathing deeply, consciously unclenching his jaw, relaxing his shoulders one by one—exercises Touya and his therapist had drilled into him. The cool floor against his cheek was a grounding anchor.

After what felt like a long time, her voice came again, soft and tentative. “Todoroki-kun? There’s about fifteen minutes left in lunch.”

Slowly, he uncurled. Still lying on the floor, he lifted a hand and made a vague grasping motion towards where she was sitting.

She stared for a second, confused, then understanding dawned. A small, almost-laugh escaped her. “Oh! Right.” She carefully placed his bento box on the floor within his reach.

He ate like that, lying on his side on the floor, methodically working his way through Natsuo’s subpar but edible cooking. The absurdity of the situation wasn’t lost on him, but the primal need to regulate himself outweighed any sense of dignity.

When he was done, he sat up, finally feeling the tension recede to a manageable level. He felt hollowed out, but clear.

Chō was watching him, her expression a mix of concern and dawning comprehension. “So… are you excited?” she asked, trying for a bright tone. “We’re going to art now!”

Shouto turned his head and gave her a flat, deadpan look. It was a look that clearly said, I am going to art. You are going to sit and watch.

She blinked, then a real smile spread across her face. She got it. “Okay, okay, fair. You are going to art. I am going to… appreciate your art from a respectful distance. Maybe I’ll doodle.”

Despite the rough morning, a flicker of something like camaraderie sparked in Shouto’s chest. They were both hopelessly out of their depth, both suffering through this bizarre experiment together. She was trying. She was learning. And she hadn’t freaked out too much when he’d melted down.

He looked down at his hands, then back at her. It took a moment to form the words, to push them past the exhaustion. “I… l-like. You.” It came out stilted and blunt.

Chō’s face lit up, her earlier anxiety completely vanishing. “I like you too, Todoroki-kun,” she said, her voice warm and genuine. “Even if you eat lunch on the floor.”

For the first time that day, something approximating a real, faint smile touched Shouto’s lips. Art was next. He could make it through.

---

If the morning classes had been grey smog, the art studio was pure, brilliant oxygen.

Ms. Inoue’s classroom was everything Shouto had dreamed of and nothing like the sterile, cautious art room at his old school. The air itself smelled of creativity: an intoxicating blend of turpentine, clay, graphite, and paper. Canvases of all sizes leaned against the walls, some blank, some bearing the ghostly outlines of previous masterpieces. Shelves were crammed with jars of brushes, their handles stained with a rainbow of pigments. There were potter’s wheels, blocks of marble and wood for carving, and racks of stretched linen waiting for paint.

Ms. Inoue, who had seemed overwhelmed in the administrative meeting, was in her element here. Her energy was warm and infectious as she laid out the plan for the semester. Their first unit would be pencil drawing.

“We’re going back to the absolute fundamentals!” she announced, holding up a single, perfect graphite pencil. “Line, weight, shadow, form. You will learn to see before you learn to create.”

Shouto was mesmerized. He drank in every word, his earlier exhaustion completely forgotten. This wasn’t a language he had to struggle to decode; it was a language his soul already understood. She spoke of negative space and cross-hatching, and he could immediately visualize it, his fingers itching for a pencil to try.

Chō, wisely, had retreated to a stool in the corner. She gave him a small, encouraging wave and then left him to it. He was on his own, and it was glorious.

His assigned seat was, again, perfectly positioned on the left side of the room, giving him a clear view of the demonstration board and the shelves of beautiful, professional-grade art supplies. He ran his fingers over the smooth, cool surface of the drawing board clipped to his easel, a sense of rightness settling over him.

After the lecture on pencil techniques, a different teacher came in for an hour of “Anatomy for Artists.” This, too, was fascinating, but in a different, more analytical way. They studied diagrams of musculature, of bone structure, learning how the underlying form created the surface appearance. It was a puzzle, a code to crack to make his drawings more alive. He paid rapt attention, his focus absolute.

Finally, Ms. Inoue clapped her hands. “Alright! The last hour is for exploration. Look at the materials. See what calls to you. This is your space now. Get excited!”

It was permission to play. Shouto drifted from station to station like a kid in the world’s greatest candy store. He gently touched the bristles of a fan brush, examined the different weights of printing paper, peered into the deep, vibrant hues of the oil paint tubes. He stood for a long time by the potter’s wheel, imagining the spin of clay under his hands.

This was why he was here. This was the mountain they had moved to get him to the top of, and the view was breathtaking. The humiliating math worksheet, the terrifying social studies class, the overwhelming noise… it all faded into insignificance. He belonged in the studio in a way he had never belonged anywhere.

When the final bell rang, signaling the end of the day, it felt impossibly soon. He packed his new pencils and sketchpad into his bag with a reverence usually reserved for religious artifacts. 

Chō walked him all the way to the school’s main entrance, the stream of departing students flowing around them. “Okay, Todoroki-kun,” she said, her bright energy softened by the long day. She took his flip phone, her fingers moving with a surprising deftness as she input her number. “You call or text this number if you’re ever going to be late or absent, okay? That way I’ll always be in the right place to meet you.” She said it like they were co-conspirators, and he gave a slow, serious nod. She handed the phone back, giving him a hopeful smile. “You did really well today.”

Then she was gone, absorbed back into the building, and he was alone.

The journey home was an exercise in sheer mental endurance. He followed the crowd to the train, his body on autopilot. He had to count the stops on the first line, his internal tally a fragile thing against the roar of the train and the press of bodies. Five stops. Then transfer. The Shibuya station was a labyrinth of noise and shifting crowds. He found the correct platform, his heart hammering until he saw the familiar train design. Then more counting. Seven stops. Each announcement was a beacon he had to focus on entirely. By the time his station finally arrived, his head was throbbing, and he felt scraped raw from the inside out.

He shuffled off the train, his shoulders slumped under the weight of the backpack. And then, like a miracle, he saw him. Natsuo was leaning against a pillar, looking tired but solid. The relief that washed over Shouto was so profound it made his knees feel weak. He didn’t say anything, just walked straight to his brother’s side. Natsuo pushed off the pillar and fell into step beside him, and they walked the familiar route home in a heavy, comfortable silence.

The apartment door clicked open. Touya was on the couch, as usual, his laptop open on the coffee table. He looked up. “Hey! How’d it go?”

That was all it took. The simple, caring question broke the last of Shouto’s control. The overwhelming sensory assault of the day, the lunchtime meltdown, the intense joy of the art studio, the crushing stress of the academics, the exhausting journey… it all coalesced into a wave that crashed over him. He burst into tears,

Touya’s eyes widened. “Whoa, okay…” He tried to push himself up from the couch, but the movement was too quick. He swayed, a wave of dizziness making him grab the armrest to steady himself.

Natsuo saw it all go down. In a smooth motion, he guided the crying Shouto over to the couch. Touya, having sat back down, made space, pulling Shouto down to sit beside him. He didn’t try to hug him tight, just put an arm around his shoulders, letting him cry into his side. Natsuo crossed the room again, arms crossed watching them. 

“Okay,” Touya murmured, his voice a low, raspy comfort. “Let it out. It’s okay.”

When the storm of tears had subsided into shaky hiccups, Touya started asking questions, slow and gentle. “Was it bad? Did something happen? Was someone mean to you? Did you eat lunch?” As he spoke, he noticed Shouto picking at the stiff collar of the gakuran jacket. With careful hands, Touya helped him shrug out of it, tossing the harsh fabric aside. Shouto went limp, allowing himself to be tended to.

Then, slowly, haltingly, Shouto began to explain. The words were disjointed, slurred, and he had to fight for each one, often repeating himself or gesturing to get his point across.

“Ch-Chō… she… n-new. But… g-good,” he started, then took a shuddery breath. “J-Ja-apanese… wo-words… too s-small. Head… hurt.” He mimed a pounding in his temple. “Math… b-baby wo-ork.” His face flushed with the remembered shame, and he wrinkled his nose, the Shouto sign of disapproval. “S-Social st-t… ughh. S-scary. Loud.”

He paused, gathering himself for the important part. “L-Lunch. Room. Qu-quiet. Ate… on th-the f-f-floor.” He said it matter-of-factly. “Art.” His whole demeanor shifted. The tension left his body, and a light came into his eyes. “W-w-was g-good. T-teacher… g-good. Pe-encils… cl-ay… e-everything.”

He’d hit every major beat of his rollercoaster day. Touya listened patiently, never interrupting, just nodding.

“I am… n-not s-same as… th-the o-other ki-ids.” He took off his glasses and wiped at his eyes.

Natsuo looked away. 

“I know, kid.” Touya sighed, and asked the most important question again, his voice soft. “Do you want to go back tomorrow? It’s okay if you don’t. We can figure something else out.”

Shouto looked up, his heterochromatic eyes still wet but clear. He took a deep breath, forcing the words out with a determined clarity. “I… I do.”

“You’re sure?” Touya pressed, needing to be certain.

Shouto nodded, his jaw set. 

It had been the best and worst day of his life. Well… not the worst. He could think of at least two worse days. But still, he was sure. He wanted to do it all over again.

Notes:

here's my thoughts on shouto at this point in the story:
does he have asd? yes. does he have tbi-related stuff? yes. but he's i think more aware and more able than his siblings and care team and everyone maybe suspect.

except keigo. i think keigo just... knows.

without the tbi, what would be severity of his asd (as in, like, old-school labels of level 1,2,3,etc.) be? maybe not as bad as they suspected at the beginning, when he'd had no interventions or therapy or treatment or attention. and so he's finally like maybe getting closer to who he *could've* been without the disaster of his early childhood in this au.

i also know from my own experience in being neurodivergent, from my same-aged cousin who is on the autism spectrum, and from working with students with asd and other disorders happening in the same brain/body, there is awareness of your peers can do that you can't. of what they're feeling but you don't. and sometimes, knowing you're different and feeling different, feeling left behind... it really sucks.

i hope that explains a bit, in case there's confusion of what's in his brain and what he can express to others. his perspective has been so interesting to discover and i want to be truthful about experiences neurodivergent people have, and so like this is probably not 100% how someone in his situation may be developing their internal world, but i hope through my research and lived experiences i've been able to do it respectfully.

xoxo <3

Chapter 40: Everything Upside-Down

The Bakugos’ house in the Tokyo suburbs was a testament to their success in their industry: sleek, modern, and impeccably designed, every textile, print, countertop, and piece of furniture a deliberate choice. It should have felt cold, but the warm, savoury smell of Masaru’s cooking and the low hum of conversation made it feel like a home.

Touya, for his part, had claimed a stool at the massive kitchen island. He was finally feeling human again, the brutal cycle of infusions having ended two weeks ago. The constant, flu-like misery had receded, leaving behind a profound fatigue, but a clear head. He was hatless, and though he looked fragile, with his head covered in a soft, white peach fuzz he’d shaved into uniformity the week prior, there was a levity and brightness to him that hadn’t been there in months. He was content to watch the party from his perch, a glass of water in hand, while Masaru calmly finished the rice.

“Glad you could make it,” he said to Touya, stirring. “You’re looking a lot better than the last time we saw you.”

“Feeling it,” Touya rasped. “Mostly just tired now. It’s a nice change.”

Their quiet conversation was punctuated by the sudden, percussive stomp of Katsuki crossing the living room to deposit empty plates in the sink, who exhibited the most drastic change in the kids since starting school. He was a ghost of his former self. There was no loud, aggressive signing, no baiting Hitoshi, no explosive energy. He was withdrawn, sticking close to his parents like a much younger child. He ate when food was put in front of him, and when Mitsuki signed for him to help clear some plates, he did so quietly. It was unnerving.

In stark contrast, Hitoshi was almost glowing. He wasn’t using his tablet at all, and though he was still quiet, he was engaged. He was talking, in his slow, measured way, and even smiling. When Shouto guided Izuku over to him, the introduction was smooth.

“Hitoshi, Izuku. Izuku, Hitoshi,” Shouto said, his words slow but clear.

“Oh! It’s so cool to finally meet you!” Izuku burst out, immediately launching into a mumble about how cool Hitoshi’s quirk was, asking about his performance in the UA entrance exam, and on-the-spot analyzing it in depth.

Hitoshi’s smile widened slightly. “Yeah. It was… something.” He began to respond, his voice a low, steady murmur. Shouto, content to let his two friends connect, found a perch on a nearby armchair, keeping one eye on the easy flow of conversation between Izuku and Hitoshi and the other on Katsuki, who was pointedly avoiding their corner of the room.

The party naturally splintered into smaller groups. Fuyumi and Haruki were deep in conversation with Inko and Mitsuki about school curriculums, Haruki’s gentle presence a calming counterpoint to the mothers’ energetic debate. Keigo, ever the social butterfly, was effortlessly flitting between groups, though a stray feather was subtly ensuring Touya’s water glass was always full.

“So,” he said quietly to Masaru. “How’s UA treating him?”

Masaru sighed, wiping his hands on a towel. He kept his voice low, as if Katsuki would’ve been able to hear them, Masaru’s eyes following his son. “He’s… struggling. Academically, he’s brilliant. Top of the class. The interpreter is excellent, and Shouta is his homeroom teacher and signs while he’s lecturing, which helps immensely. But…” He trailed off, his expression pained. “There’s only one other boy in the class who knows any sign, he’s a CODA, his parents are deaf, so he can talk to Katsuki. But Shouta can’t just pair them together for everything. Katsuki is… intense. I think it’s hard for the other kids to relate.”

Touya nodded slowly. “And the hero training?”

“That’s the worst part,” Masaru admitted. “They’re all learning to work together, but he’s completely cut off from it. He doesn’t lipread, and the other kids try, but they don’t sign well enough for him to understand. As much as Shouta and All Might, who is apparently one of his teachers now, encourage them to incorporate hand signals into their verbal communication, they’re struggling to learn how to include him. He’s falling behind in the practicals, and it’s killing his spirit.” Masaru looked shocked at the memory. “He brought up hearing aids the other day. Not like we haven’t offered a million times, but… he was really serious about it. He’s never wanted them. Always said they were for ‘weak extras’. The audiologist isn’t sure he has enough residual hearing for them to be effective, but he wants to try anyway. The support course at UA is talking about bone conduction technology, but…” He shrugged helplessly. “We don’t know if he’ll last the year.”

“It was better he be brought up proud of who he is, though,” Touya offered, though it sounded weak even to him. “You made the right choice letting him lead on those things.” 

“I know,” Masaru said. “For his soul, it was the right choice. He has a community. But for his dream…” He looked over at Hitoshi, who was now laughing softly at something Izuku had said. “He avoids Hitoshi, you know. Since the fight with Shouto. But it looks like Hitoshi is doing just fine.” Masaru turned off the stove. “We’re so happy for him, but…  It’s hard to watch Katsuki in contrast.” 

Across the room, the scene was indeed a stark contrast. Inko was now attempting to sign with Katsuki, her movements clumsy but her expression full of warm affection. Mitsuki stood beside her, smoothly interpreting Inko’s spoken words into more fluent JSL for her son. Katsuki tolerated it with a quiet patience that was entirely new.

Meanwhile, the trio of Shouto, Izuku, and Hitoshi had migrated to a corner, a pile of hero analytics magazines between them. Izuku was talking a mile a minute, Hitoshi was interjecting with dry, witty comments that made Izuku laugh, and Shouto seemed to be enjoying the conversation as well. 

Touya accepted a bowl of meat and rice from Masaru with a quiet thanks. The party hummed along, a current of easy conversation and clinking dishes, but Touya’s focus remained narrowed on the quiet drama unfolding across the room. He watched Katsuki finish the stilted, translated conversation with Inko. The boy’s shoulders were set in a tight line of endurance, not engagement. When Inko reached out to pat his arm, he flinched almost imperceptibly before offering a stiff nod.

Then, without a word to anyone, he turned and walked out of the living room. They all heard his footsteps on the stairs, not angry stomping, just heavy, deliberate steps, followed by the soft click of a bedroom door shutting.

A silence fell over the adults. Inko and Mitsuki exchanged a look, both wearing identical expressions of maternal concern. Inko made a move as if to follow him, but Mitsuki placed a hand on her arm and shook her head, leaning in to murmur something too low for Touya to catch. Inko’s shoulders slumped in resignation.

Touya’s gaze swept from the closed door at the top of the stairs to the corner where Hitoshi, Shouto, and Izuku were clustered. Hitoshi’s face was animated, open in a way Touya had never seen. He was thriving, freeing himself from the prison his trauma had created.

A cold knot of sympathy tightened in Touya’s gut. 

There was nothing to be done. No amount of encouragement or support could bridge the chasm between Katsuki and his classmates. He would either find a way to claw his way across, or he wouldn't. All they could do was watch.

---

The air in Dr. Nakamura’s office was cool and sterile, a stark contrast to the nervous heat simmering under Touya’s skin. He sat stiffly in the patient’s chair, his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his hoodie. The new growth of white fuzz on his scalp felt insubstantial, a poor defense against the clinical scrutiny of this room. Keigo sat beside him, a study in casual calm, but one of his primary wings was extended just behind Touya’s chair, a silent, solid barrier against the world.

“The results are objectively positive, Touya,” she began, her voice calm and clear. “The infusions achieved their primary goal. Your inflammatory markers have dropped dramatically. The high-resolution CT shows a significant reduction in the ground-glass opacity around your lung tissue, that’s the active, autoimmune inflammation we’ve been targeting.” She turned the screen to show them the comparison scans. “Your quirk factor itself is also reading as less volatile. It’s a very strong response.”

A shaky breath escaped Touya. Keigo’s wing pressed infinitesimally closer.

“However,” she continued, and the word landed with the weight of a verdict, “we are managing a chronic condition, not curing a cold. The goal is sustained remission. Your history, the pyrokinetic trauma, the subsequent pneumonias, plus… everything else, has left your pulmonary system uniquely vulnerable. The current theory is that this damage triggered a dysregulation in your immune system. It now misidentifies your own quirk-generated proteins as a foreign pathogen. So, your body attacks your quirk, your quirk reacts defensively, and the cycle of inflammation continues, causing further damage.” She pointed to the scan. “We’ve dampened the response, but the embers are still smoldering. To stop the cycle for good, we need a more prolonged suppression.”

Touya’s stomach clenched. He knew what was coming.

“I am recommending one more round of infusions,” Dr. Nakamura said, her tone leaving no room for negotiation. “A final, aggressive course to fully reset your immune response and allow your system to recalibrate. This is not about extinguishing your quirk, that’s not possible. It’s about forcing a ceasefire between your body and your power.” She held up a hand. “But not yet. Your body is depleted. Your white blood cell count is still critically low. Starting now would be dangerous.”

She leaned forward, her gaze intent. “Your job for the next four to six weeks is recovery. I need you to focus on three things. First, nutrition. I want you to gain at least three kilograms. Protein shakes, healthy fats, whatever you can keep down. Second, vitamin D. Not from a pill. I want you outside, in the sun, for at least twenty minutes a day. It regulates immune function. Third, rest. And I don’t mean lying on the couch scrolling on your phone. I mean genuine, mental and physical rest.” 

Touya felt a surge of frustrated anger. 

Rest? All he’d done for months was rest. He was a professional rest-er.

He just gave a tight, jerky nod, unable to trust his voice. Keigo, once again, was the one who spoke, his voice steady. “Thank you, Doctor. We understand. We’ll make it happen.”

The walk out of the clinic was a silent, heavy trudge. The bright spring sunshine felt like a mockery. They walked towards the bus stop.  

“Another round. I just… I can’t do it again, Keigo. I can’t go back to feeling like that. I’d almost rather let the damn thing burn out on its own terms.” Touya finally bit out, feeling raw and exposed. 

Thankfully, Keigo didn’t immediately contradict him. “It’s a shitty situation,” he agreed, his voice low. “There’s no way around that. It’s fucking unfair.”

The validation took the edge off Touya’s anger, leaving behind a hollow ache. “I’m so tired,” he whispered, the words barely audible. It was a confession that went far beyond physical fatigue.

“I know,” Keigo said softly. He waited another moment, letting the weight of it sit between them. Then, he stopped walking, grabbing Touya’s hand. “Alright. We’re not going home yet.”

Touya opened his eyes, looking at him questioningly.

“We’re going to get a disgustingly sweet coffee thing that would make a nutritionist cry. And then we’re going to the park. And you’re going to sit on a bench and get your twenty minutes of sun while you drink it. Doctor’s orders.”

Twenty minutes later, Touya was holding a massive iced concoction that was more caramel and whipped cream than coffee. They found a bench in a nearby park. Touya took a long sip. The overwhelming sweetness was a violent, welcome assault on the persistent metallic taste in his mouth.

They sat in silence for a while, watching a couple play fetch with a dog.

“I just got excited by the idea of being me again,” Touya said quietly, not looking at Keigo.

“I know,” Keigo said. He didn’t try to fix it. He just sat there, a solid presence, sharing the bench and the burden. “But for the next hour, your only job is to soak up the sun and finish that liquid candy. The rest of it can wait.”

---

By mid-May, a fragile new normal had settled over the apartment. The cherry blossoms were long gone, replaced by the vibrant green of late spring, and with it came a subtle shift in routines.

Shouto had, against all odds, found a rhythm at his new school. The mornings were still an academic gauntlet, but Chō had become a proficient translator of the overwhelming world into something he could process. His classmates in the visual arts track were all eccentrics; his own quiet strangeness was just another color on the palette. They respected the intense focus he brought to the studio, the way he could lose himself for hours in the texture of clay or the gradation of a graphite shadow. Nobody cared that he did simplified geometry while they solved calculus problems. In their world, his talent was the only currency that mattered.

But the train rides were lonelier. Izuku was no longer there.

At first, Shouto thought their schedules had just misaligned. Then a week passed. Then two. He’d stand on the platform, his headphones on, scanning the crowd for a flash of green hair and a muttering, anxious face. It never appeared.

One evening, he found Fuyumi in the kitchen, chopping vegetables for dinner. Touya was perched on a stool at the island, looking more present than he had in months, sipping a protein shake. He was still thin, the shadow of his illness clinging to him, but there was a new sharpness in his gaze. He’d started seeing a few of his clients in person again, a tentative step back into the world.

“’Yumi,” Shouto said, his voice cutting through the quiet. “Izuku. Where?”

Fuyumi paused, her knife hovering over a carrot. She and Touya exchanged a quick, knowing glance.

“He’s probably just busy with school, Sho-chan,” she replied, with a false air of distraction. “I’m sure you’ll see him soon.”

Shouto didn’t move. He knew a placating tone when he heard one. He gave a slow, dissatisfied eye roll and retreated to the living room, pretending to look for something. He lingered just around the corner, out of sight but within earshot.

He heard Fuyumi’s sigh, the soft thud of the knife on the cutting board. Her voice dropped to a concerned murmur. “Inko called me today. She’s… really worried.”

Touya’s voice was low. “Yeah?”

“It’s the school. He’s not… he’s not okay, Touya. His IEP says he can take breaks whenever he needs, he can use resources the school has available, but he hasn’t. He’s too scared of falling behind. She says he comes home every day completely overstimulated. He can’t focus in class, so he spends all night trying to teach himself everything he missed. He’s not sleeping. He’s just… crying. A lot.”

Shouto froze, his hand stilling on the back of the couch. 

“The rush hour train was too much for him,” Fuyumi continued, her voice thick with sympathy. “He takes one an hour earlier now, just to avoid the crowd. Inko said it’s like… it’s like he can’t swim, but is too proud to wear floaties.”

There was a long pause. 

“Damn. And there’s nothing she can do?”

“What can she do? Force him to use his accommodations from a distance? He doesn’t have a one-on-one, and besides, he’s almost fifteen… he has to want it too.”

The conversation shifted then, to Natsuo’s new part-time job at the library, a quiet, structured environment that seemed to be good for him, and to Touya’s clients. But Shouto had stopped listening.

Later, he found Touya on the couch, going over notes. Shouto stood in front of him, his expression troubled.

“Izuku’s school… is b-bad?” he asked, the words coming out stilted.

“Eavesdropping, huh?” Touya looked up, setting his papers aside. “It sounds like it’s a lot harder for him than we thought,” he said carefully.

“Sad?”

“Yeah, buddy,” Touya said, his voice gentle. “I think he’s pretty sad. And stressed out.”

Shouto processed this. His own school experience was a series of challenges met with a dedicated aide and the sanctuary of the art studio. It was hard, but it was structured. The idea of Izuku, bright, passionate, endlessly knowledgeable Izuku, being crushed by the weight of it was impossible. Izuku loved school. Or, he used to.

“Se-ee him s-soon?” Shouto asked, a note of pleading in his voice.

“We can try,” Touya said. “We’ll call Inko. Maybe we can have him over on the weekend.”

But Shouto knew, with a sinking certainty, that it wouldn’t happen. 

Izuku was studying. Izuku was catching up. 

Izuku was hiding.

Shouto missed him. He missed the comfortable silences, the excited mumbling about heroes, the simple, easy understanding that had existed between them. The respect of his classmates was cold compared to the warmth of Izuku’s friendship. He had found his place, but he had lost his person. Shouto felt his absence like a physical ache.

---

The fluorescent lights in his calculus class hummed a specific, grating frequency that seemed to drill directly into Izuku’s temples. The air conditioner roared like a jet engine, and the girl two rows up wore a cloying, sweet cotton-candy perfume that made Izuku’s stomach turn. He’d spent the entire Friday lecture trying to mentally block out the sensory assault, which meant he’d absorbed exactly none of the new integration techniques. Now, it was Sunday, and the textbook pages might as well have been written in a foreign language. He was falling behind. He could feel it, a cold, sinking panic in his gut.

So when his mom had tentatively asked if Auntie Mitsuki could come over to watch some new special with their favorite celebrity, Izuku’s first thought was a desperate, internal no. He wanted to burrow under his weighted blanket with his mom all afternoon, a quiet, pressure-filled balm for his overwhelmed nervous system. But she was working a double tomorrow, and she looked so tired, and he didn’t want to be the reason she missed out on her one fun thing. So he’d pasted on a wobbly smile and said, “Sure, Mom, that’s fine.” He’d just hide in his room. He could review the biology chapter on cellular respiration, that was usually okay, and maybe, maybe try to tackle calculus again.

He was on his hands and knees, digging through the pile of clean laundry on his floor for his noise-cancelling headphones, when a sharp, familiar knock echoed from the front door. Mitsuki. He sighed, his search becoming more frantic. 

Where were they?

A soft knock came at his own door. “Izuku?” It was his mom. She sounded… weird.

He opened the door a crack. Inko was standing there, wringing her hands, her face pale with a kind of panicked apology.

“Izuku, honey, guess who’s here?” she said, her voice too bright.

“Auntie Mitsuki,” he stated flatly. It wasn’t a guess.

“Yes! But, um…” Inko bit her lip. “Katsuki-kun came with her. He… he said he wanted to spend time with you.”

The words didn’t compute. They were nonsense syllables. Izuku’s brain short-circuited. “What? No. No, no, no, no.” The denial was immediate and absolute, his volume rising with each word. “Mom, I have to study! I have to figure out the u-substitution for inverse trigonometric functions. I didn’t get any of it on Friday because of the air conditioner and the perfume and Saito-kun’s head is really big and I couldn’t see the board and-and-and… I can’t hang out with Kacchan. He doesn’t even like me! We’re not friends! I don’t know sign language and his quirk is really loud even though the nitroglycerin sweat is a fascinating biological adaptation with clear combat applications it still makes me really nervous and-and… but please tell him to leave. Please, please, please.”

Inko slipped into his room and closed the door, leaning against it. “Izuku, deep breaths. Honey, in for four, hold for seven…” She guided him through the breathing exercise until his panicked gasping evened out. “I know, baby. I know. I’m so sorry, I didn’t know he was coming either. But… I think Katsuki-kun is having a hard time, too. At his new school. And I don’t know why he wanted to come over, but he’s here. Maybe it would be nice? You haven’t seen Shouto-kun in weeks. You seem… a little lonely.”

Izuku shook his head, the motion frantic. “But my homework…”

“Izuku,” Inko interrupted gently, a sudden, brilliant idea striking her. “Did you know that Katsuki-kun is apparently top of his class? Maybe… maybe he wanted to come over and help you with your math homework?”

The frantic motion stopped. Izuku blinked. The chaotic tumble of anxieties in his brain screeched to a halt, rerouting onto this new, unexpected track. 

Kacchan is…. good at calculus, and wanted to come over… to help me?

The logic was shaky, but it was a specific, actionable possibility in a sea of overwhelming uncertainty. Help. With the one thing causing him the most acute stress.

“…He wanted to come help me with my homework?” Izuku asked, his voice small.

“Maybe!” Inko said, her relief palpable, as Izuku somewhat came to accept her lie. “Why don’t you let him hang out in here for a little bit and you can ask him?”

Izuku nodded slowly, the decision made. “Okay. He can come in.”

Inko’s whole body sagged with gratitude. “Oh, thank you, sweetie. You’re such a good friend.”

Izuku looked at her, his expression utterly serious. “But me and Kacchan are not friends.”

Inko sighed, a sad, weary sound. “Right.” She gave him a weak smile, turned, and opened the bedroom door. A moment later, Katsuki stood in the doorway of his room, his hands shoved in his pockets, his expression a familiar, guarded scowl. He didn’t look like someone who was here to help with homework. He looked like he’d rather be anywhere else. Izuku just stared, his brain already beginning to whir again, trying to calculate the odds of this interaction ending in anything other than total disaster.

Katsuki shouldered his way into the room, his red eyes doing a quick, dismissive sweep of the All Might posters, figurines, and bedding. Izuku braced for a sneer, a wordless insult about his decorative taste, but Katsuki’s expression didn’t change. He didn’t seem to register the decor at all. He just stalked over to the only clear spot on the floor and dropped down, his back against Izuku’s bed. He pulled out his phone, his thumbs flying across the screen.

Izuku stood awkwardly amidst his pile of clean laundry, feeling exposed. This was worse than he’d imagined. 

A moment later, his own phone pinged from somewhere under a t-shirt.

UNKNOWN CONTACT: this is katsuki. my mom got your number from your mom

Izuku fumbled for his phone, nearly dropping it in his haste. He saved the contact, his heart hammering. He looked up. Katsuki was still typing, his brow furrowed in concentration. The silence stretched, thick and absurd. Izuku’s anxiety spiked. He should be studying. He should be reviewing the unit circle. He desperately wished he knew sign language so he could just tell Katsuki to leave.

Ping!

KATSUKI: i heard youre bad at calc. i can help you if you help me with something.

Izuku’s pride, buried deep under layers of anxiety, prickled. He typed back, his own thumbs clumsy with nerves.

IZUKU: I'm not bad at math, I just can't focus in class because there are a lot of distractions.

He hit send, then immediately added,

IZUKU: But I'm happy to help you, if you help me.

The transactional nature of it was something he could understand. A deal. A trade. This was starting to make a strange kind of sense.

Katsuki snorted, a quiet, breathy sound. He typed again.

KATSUKI: whatever. i want to learn to lip read
KATSUKI: and i want to say some words and make sure they dont sound like shit. i know you're a big fucking nerd. figure out how to do it with me. 

Izuku blinked. That was… not what he was expecting.

KATSUKI: you help me with that. i'll tutor your dumbass in calc. auntie told my mom youre doing bad in school because you're not using your education plan, which is stupid of you.
KATSUKI: but im really good at math, and i can catch you up. easy.

Izuku stared at the screen. The offer was incredibly tempting. A way out of the calculus nightmare. But…

IZUKU: Wouldn't it be better to ask a professional? Your parents could probably hire someone really good.

Katsuki’s face twisted into a scowl. He typed furiously.

KATSUKI: no. i dont want them to know. if i suck at it i dont want them to feel sad about it. and i dont want ua to think im hopeless.

The raw, unexpected vulnerability in the text hit Izuku like a physical blow. He looked up from his phone at Katsuki, who was glaring at him, his jaw set in a defiant line, as if daring Izuku to pity him.

KATSUKI: arent you like sort of family? arent you supposed to want to help me?

IZUKU: Not that I know of. 

Katsuki rolled his eyes, the universal sign for ‘you are an idiot,’ and typed.

KATSUKI: our moms are best friends. that kind of makes us like cousins, right?

Izuku stared at the text. He was pretty sure that wasn’t how family worked. His mom and Auntie Mitsuki were best friends, yes, but that didn’t automatically make him and Katsuki cousins. They’d known each other their whole lives, but they were more like… acquaintances bound by maternal proximity. But Katsuki was glaring at him from across the room, and correcting him felt like poking a bear.

IZUKU: I thought you didn't like me?

The response was immediate.

KATSUKI: you don't sign. I just dont know you  

The truth hit Izuku like a blow. He felt a pang of guilt.

Another message popped up before he could formulate a response.

KATSUKI: i dont care tho, its fine. 

KATSUKI: and dont families all actually hate each other deep down anyways? im an only child so idk.

Izuku, also an only child, found he couldn’t really argue with the logic. It tracked with a lot of family dramas he’d seen on TV though. He sighed, the fight going out of him. This was happening.

IZUKU: Okay. Fine. But calculus first please.

KATSUKI: whatever. get your textbook nerd.

Izuku couldn’t help but think, as he dug through his backpack, that this was the weirdest, most stressful study session he had ever agreed to.

Chapter 41: Sit in Discomfort

The doctor’s orders were a cruel joke. Eat more. Gain weight. As if his body were a machine he could simply fuel, and not a traitorous thing that fought him at every turn.

Touya stood in front of the open refrigerator, its cool air doing little to soothe the simmering frustration under his skin. He was supposed to be shoveling in calorie-dense foods: nut butters, whole milk, fatty cuts of fish. But the thought of any of it made his stomach clench in revolt. The forced weight gain after the brutal weight loss from the infusions, which itself had come after the puffy, prednisone-induced swelling, had left his body feeling alien and wrong. His skin, especially around the old, ropey burn scars on his chest and arms, was stretched taut and angry, pulling with a constant, uncomfortable tightness that was a physical reminder of his brokenness.

He ran a hand over the stubble on his head. It was growing back patchy and weird, a mix of coarse white and softer, almost transparent hairs.

He had maybe three weeks before he had to willingly walk back into that medical center and let them pump that poison into his veins again. Three weeks of this uncomfortable, bloated purgatory. And hanging over it all was the nebulous, stressful cloud of Keigo’s impending departure from the Commission. It was the right choice, Touya knew that, but the timing felt catastrophic. He had no energy to be the supportive, enthusiastic partner Keigo deserved. All his energy was spent on the Herculean tasks of chewing, swallowing, and not screaming.

He was, consequently, a nightmare to be around.

He wasn’t picking fights. He was just a black hole of miserable energy, sucking the light out of every room. He’d snap when Keigo asked a simple question like “What do you want for dinner?” because the answer was nothing, I want to not have to think about food. He’d sigh heavily and turn away when Keigo tried to show him a funny video, the sound grating on his already frayed nerves. He was a storm cloud, and Keigo was constantly, patiently, waiting for the lightning strike.

It happened on a Tuesday evening. Keigo had spent an hour making a rich, creamy pasta carbonara, exactly the kind of high-calorie meal Dr. Nakamura would approve of. He set a heaping plate in front of Touya with a hopeful smile.

Touya looked at it. The smell of cheese and grease, which normally would have been appealing, turned his stomach. The sheer effort of it, of Keigo’s hope, felt like an accusation.

“I can’t,” he muttered, pushing the plate away.

“Just a few bites,” Keigo encouraged gently, his wings giving a little, anxious rustle. “You gotta keep your strength up.”

Something in Touya snapped. The constant, gentle pressure to be better, to get better, was a weight he couldn’t bear.

“Stop fucking hovering, Keigo,” he snarled, his voice laced with a venom that wasn’t really meant for him. “I don’t want your… your pity pasta. I feel like shit, I look like shit, and the only thing I have to look forward to is feeling even worse in a few weeks. Just back off.”

The words hung in the air, sharp and ugly. The hopeful light in Keigo’s eyes extinguished completely. He didn’t flinch, but his wings drew in tight against his back.

The silence stretched, thick and toxic.

Finally, Keigo spoke, his voice dangerously quiet. “You think I don’t know that? You think I enjoy watching this? Watching you hate yourself every second of every day?”

“Then stop watching!” Touya shot back, the anger a cheap, easy fuel for his misery.

“I can’t!” Keigo’s voice finally rose, cracking with a frustration he’d clearly been holding back for weeks. “That’s not how this works! I’m your partner, not your audience! You don’t get to just shut me out because you’re hurting. I’m hurting too! I’m scared shitless about quitting my job, I’m terrified of what these next treatments will do to you, and I come home every day and walk on eggshells trying to help and all I get is this… this asshole yelling at me!”

“Well, maybe you should’ve thought about that before you decided to upend your entire life right when mine is falling apart!” The moment the words were out, Touya knew he’d gone too far. He’d aimed for the jugular, and he’d hit.

Keigo took a step back as if physically struck. The fight drained out of him, replaced by a weary, profound hurt. “Wow,” he said, the word barely a whisper. “Okay.”

He didn’t yell. He just turned, walked towards their bedroom. 

The ugly, hateful words echoed in his head, and the cold wave of guilt that followed was instantaneous and paralyzing.

“Keigo, baby, wait,” he called out, his voice rough, stripped of its earlier venom. He stumbled after him, stopping in the doorway of their bedroom. Keigo had his back to him, shoulders tense. “I’m… I’m sorry. That was-”

Keigo didn’t turn around. “For what?” The question was flat, devoid of its usual warmth. It was a challenge. Be specific.

“For what I said. About your job. About… about you upending your life. That was a shitty, low blow. I’m just… I feel awful, and I took it out on you. I’m sorry.” The apology felt inadequate, a tiny bandage on a gaping wound.

Keigo was quiet for a long moment. Then, he finally turned. His expression wasn’t angry anymore; it was just deeply, profoundly tired. He took a shaky breath. “This is the only job I’ve ever had, Touya. The only life I’ve ever known. It’s the same cold government agents who bought me from my parents and raised me in a white room. Leaving… it’s the right thing, I know it is, deep down. But my body… my stupid bird-brain nervous system… it doesn’t know that. It just knows the perch is gone. It feels like free-fall. And I could really use my boyfriend right now. Not… not whoever you are.”

The raw honesty was a knife to Touya’s heart. He’d been so wrapped up in his own suffering, he’d completely missed the silent panic attack Keigo had been living through.

“I’m so sorry, baby,” Touya whispered, the words thick with remorse. “You’re right. You deserve so much better than this... Than me, lately.”

“Yeah,” Keigo said softly, not to be cruel, but just stating a fact. “I really do.”

Touya took a step forward. “How can I make it up to you? What do you need?”

Keigo looked up, his golden eyes glistening. “Just… be nice? Love me? I know it’s hard when you feel like shit, I get it, I do. But just… tell me you love me. Tell me you still do. Act like it.”

“I do,” Touya said immediately, closing the distance between them and pulling Keigo into a tight hug. “I love you so much. I’m just a fucking idiot.”

Keigo hugged him back, his grip fierce for a moment before he gently extricated himself. He walked to the large drawers under their bed and pulled their comforter off the bed. He wrapped it around his shoulders like a cocoon.

“I just… I need to be alone for a little bit,” he said, his voice muffled by the fabric. “Just to reset. My feathers are all… tingly.”

Touya’s heart ached, but he understood. The need for solitude, for a quiet space to piece yourself back together, was a language he was fluent in. “Yeah,” he said, his own energy utterly spent. “I get it. I’m just gonna… lie down here.” He gestured weakly to the bed, which looked naked with only the mattress and sheets.

Keigo gave a small nod and shuffled out of the room, a solitary figure bundled in a comforter, seeking solace in the quiet of the living room.

Touya collapsed onto the bed, the guilt and dread settling over him like a lead weight. He was a terrible boyfriend. But maybe, just maybe, acknowledging it was the first step toward being a less terrible one.

---

The library was a sanctuary. For Natsuo, its silence was the perfect antidote to the noise that had been on full blast inside his head for months.

His job was mindless, and he was profoundly grateful for it. Shelving books required just enough focus to keep his thoughts from spiraling, but not so much that it became stressful. 

One afternoon, an elderly patron approached him, looking lost. “Young man? I’m looking for a book on… oh, what was it… knot tying? For sailing?”

“Maritime section. Follow me.” He led her to the right aisle, found the book, and even managed a small, stiff smile when she thanked him profusely. The interaction was simple, positive, and it didn’t drain him. It was a victory.

The routine was his lifeline. Walk with Shouto to the station in the morning, work his shift in the library, then meet Shouto at the station in the afternoon. He told himself it was because the journey home was mentally taxing for Shouto and it was a relief to see a friendly face, though he knew, on some level, he was probably projecting. It made him feel useful, needed. He’d help with dinner if Keigo or Touya hadn’t already started it, then lose himself in a novel… but fiction only; his therapist had been adamant about no textbooks, no studying, no stress. Then, he’d sleep. He slept as much as his body demanded, a deep, medicated sleep that felt more like a reset than a rest.

Sometimes, he’d take the train to Fuyumi and Haruki’s apartment for dinner instead. Stepping inside was like entering a different dimension. It was quiet, but it was a peaceful quiet, not a tense one. Everything was tidy and smelled faintly of lavender and whatever Haruki was cooking. The domestic calm was a stark contrast to the cluttered, medically charged, decidedly male atmosphere of the Todoroki-Himura-Tamaki apartment.

Dinner was pleasant, easy. They asked about his job at the library, and he found himself actually describing it without a layer of bitterness. They talked about Fuyumi’s students, about Haruki’s latest project at the botanical gardens where he worked, about Shouto’s growing confidence in his art class.

One particular evening, as Haruki cleared the plates, the conversation drifted toward the future. Fuyumi was talking about her plans to visit their mother the following Sunday.

Natsuo’s heart began to beat a little faster. The words felt thick in his throat, but the numbing blanket of the medication gave him just enough courage to push them out.

“Fuyumi,”  he started, his voice hesitant. He put the plate in his hands on the counter carefully. “Do you think… Maybe I could come with you? When you go see mom.”

The silence that followed was profound. Fuyumi stopped moving, a dishcloth frozen in her hand. She looked at him, her eyes wide with surprise, then concern. He hadn’t seen their mother in nearly a decade, not since the aftermath of the incident with Shouto, the swift and permanent removal that Endeavor had orchestrated.

“Natsu,” she said softly. “Are you sure? It’s… it can be hard to see.”

He nodded, his jaw set. “I think… I need to see her. Now that I understand her a little better.”

Fuyumi’s expression softened. She looked at Haruki, who gave her a small, encouraging nod.

“Okay,” she said, her voice firming with resolve. “Okay. We’ll go together.” 

---

The art studio was the only place where the world made sense. The smell of turpentine and clay was a better perfume than anything else Shouto had ever smelled. Right now, he was fully absorbed in a pencil drawing. Ms. Inoue had been teaching them about negative space, and Shouto saw it everywhere now. He wasn’t drawing the vase; he was drawing the air around the vase, the shape of the nothingness that defined the something. His lines were sure, his focus absolute. He felt… different.

Later, in the quiet room during lunch, Chō unpacked her bento. Shouto was lying on his side on the floor, not crying today, just empty. He why Chō w kept staring at him with that look on her face. 

Chō didn’t ask if he was okay. She’d learned that was a useless question. Instead, after a few minutes of comfortable silence, she asked about something else. 

“That drawing you started today. The negative space one. It’s really cool. What are you thinking for it?”

Shouto rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling. Forming the words was like trying to grab smoke. “The… the a-air,” he started. He took a breath, frustrated. “It… has… sha-ape. Too. Not ju-ust… the… sh-sh… ugh.”

Chō nodded, chewing thoughtfully. “Yeah. I get that. It’s like the silence between musical notes. It’s part of the song.”

He gave a slow blink of agreement. It was more than he’d said to anyone all day.

The feeling of emptiness followed him home. He waited until he was in his room, then pulled out his clunky flip phone. He scrolled to Izuku’s name and pressed call. It rang once, then immediately clicked over to a robotic female voice.

“The person you are trying to reach-”

Shouto hated the voicemail lady’s voice. He snapped the phone shut.

Hours later, as he was trying to decide what to draw next, the phone buzzed. A text. He squinted at the tiny screen, the words a blurry, grey mess. He couldn’t make them out. He hated texting.

Touya and Keigo’s door was closed. He’d heard raised voices earlier and he didn’t want to go in. They’d been fighting lately. It sucked. A little part of him worried their fights would go beyond just yelling, but his therapist assured him that most adults didn’t throw each other against walls or pull each others’ hair when arguing. 

That was apparently not normal behavior. 

Instead, he found Natsuo in the living room, reading.

“Natsu,” he said, holding out the phone. “Read.”

Natsuo took it. “It’s from Izuku. It says… ‘Sorry I didn’t answer, I'm super busy with homework. Do you wanna talk later?’”

A weird, hollow feeling opened up in Shouto’s chest. Busy. Homework. Later. It was always the same.

“You wanna text him back?” Natsuo asked, his fingers poised over the keypad. “I can type for you.”

Shouto shook his head. The hollow feeling was growing. If Izuku wanted to talk later, he would call later. But he never did. Shouto didn’t understand. He knew school was hard for Izuku now, but was he that busy? Had he done something wrong? The thoughts were a tangled knot he couldn’t unpick.

He didn’t want to think about it. Thinking about it made the hollow feeling worse. He wanted to make a mark. A definite, black mark.

He walked into the hallway where the light switch was. It was a plain, white plastic plate. Boring. Empty. He got a black sharpie from his room. He didn’t think about what to draw. His hand just moved.

He started with the negative space around the switch. He filled it in with solid black, making the switch itself a white island. Then, around the edges, he drew sharp, jagged lines, like cracks of lightning or the edges of broken things. It wasn’t charming. It wasn’t technically skilled. It was just… a feeling. A feeling of something contained, something breaking out, something defined by what surrounded it.

When he was done, he looked at it. The plain white switch was now a stark, strange, abstract artwork. The hollow feeling was still there, but it was quieter now. He had put the feeling outside of himself, onto the wall. He felt a little better.

---

The following Saturday, Izuku told his mom a little about the arrangement as he headed out to the library. “Kacchan’s going to tutor me in calculus,” he explained, the half-truth feeling strangely heavy.

Inko’s face lit up with such profound relief and joy that Izuku felt a pang of guilt. “Oh, honey, that’s wonderful!” she gushed, straightening his collar. “I’m so glad you’re getting out of the house! And spending time with Katsuki-kun! He’s so… focused.” She beamed at him, her eyes shiny. “You look so nice. And you’re not crying!”

As he was heading out the door, she called after him, “Oh, honey? When you have a chance, please reach out to Shouto-kun. Touya is starting his treatments again next week. I think Shouto could really use a friend right now.”

“Okay, Mom,” Izuku said absently, his brain already whirring with the logistics of derivatives and the social minefield of teaching someone to lip-read. The reminder about Shouto registered as a task for later, filed away in a mental folder already overflowing with urgent, unfinished things.

The library study room was a capsule of tense, artificial silence. They sat across from each other at a small table, the only sound the hum of the ventilation system.

IZUKU: Should we do calculus first?

KATSUKI: obviously. u need all the help u can get 

And so they began. Izuku, nervous, started to mumble an explanation of where he was stuck, his hands flapping a bit, his words tumbling over each other. Katsuki held up a hand sharply, silencing him, and pointed at his own ears, then at his phone.

KATSUKI: type it. did u forget why we r even here deku?

Chastened, Izuku typed out his problem. What followed was a masterclass in brutal, efficient tutoring. Katsuki didn’t offer praise or hand-holding. He cut through Izuku’s anxieties with sharp, clear explanations over text. He snatched a piece of paper and drew graphs with such precise, angry lines that the concepts suddenly became crystalline. He made Izuku work through each problem step-by-step, texting corrections the instant he went astray. He was, infuriatingly, a genius. And a surprisingly good teacher.

After an hour, the calculus problems were done. Izuku actually understood them. The silence that followed was heavier, charged with a new kind of dread.

IZUKU: ok. your turn.

He pulled out his laptop and opened a PDF he’d meticulously prepared: “Intro to Lip-Reading & Speech: A Beginner’s Guide.” He turned the screen for Katsuki to see. Katsuki’s scowl deepened as he scanned the document.

KATSUKI: this looks stupid.

IZUKU: Excuse me, but YOU WANTED THIS! You’re basically blackmailing me into doing this!

With a grunt of annoyance, Katsuki nodded. Izuku took a deep breath, feeling incredibly self-conscious. He moved to sit directly across from Katsuki, making sure his face was well-lit.

Then, it was time for Part Two of their deal. The air in the room grew thick with a new, different kind of tension.

Izuku pulled out his laptop and opened a PDF he’d compiled after hours of research. He turned the screen to face Katsuki.

IZUKU: I looked up the best methods. We should start with vowel shapes. Your eyes have to learn what the mouth looks like when making different sounds. I’ll say a vowel slowly and you try to guess it.

Katsuki’s scowl deepened, but he gave a curt nod.

It was incredibly awkward. Izuku, already self-conscious about everything, now felt hyper-aware of his own mouth. He spoke slowly, exaggerating the movements. “Aaaaah,” he said, pointing to his own wide-open mouth.

Katsuki stared intently, his brow furrowed in concentration. He pointed to the letter ‘A’ on a chart Izuku had made.

They moved through the vowels. It was painstaking. Then came the speaking part. Katsuki pulled up a notes app on his phone, revealing a list of phrases.

The list was all practical commands: Go right. Go left. Stay back. Follow me. Behind you.

IZUKU: Okay. I’ll say the first one slowly. Watch my mouth. Then you try to feel the shape and the air.

Katsuki gave a terse nod, his posture rigid with concentration and dread.

Izuku took a breath, positioning himself so Katsuki had a clear view. He exaggerated the movements, feeling ridiculous. “Go,” he said, holding the ‘o’ sound. “Riiiiight.” He held the ‘i’ sound, his lips pulling back.

Katsuki’s eyes were locked on Izuku’s mouth, his own lips moving silently, trying to mimic the shapes. Katsuki had hearing for his first four years of life, and he had spoken then. He’d stopped after the accident, so he was hoping muscle memory would take over. 

He took a sharp inhale.

“Guh,” he started, the sound a hard, guttural explosion of air. The ‘o’ was a strained, tight noise. Then came the ‘r’. His tongue seemed to fight him, producing a wet, aspirated sound that lacked any of the alveolar ridge tap or trill. It was just air and frustration. “Guh. O. Uhhht.”

It was barely recognizable. The effort was written all over his face, a mask of intense strain. Izuku didn’t have the social aptitude to pretend, and Katsuki wasn’t under any delusions he’d been successful.

KATSUKI: fuck
KATSUKI: that was bad wasnt it

IZUKU: It wasn’t that good. But you’ll get it!
IZUKU: The “go” was the closest. The “right” is hard. The R sound. Your tongue has to tap the roof of your mouth. Here, watch.

Izuku demonstrated again, pointing into his own mouth, which was deeply uncomfortable for both of them. Katsuki tried again. And again. Each attempt was a variation on the same strained, gruff, and unclear sounds. His voice was low and rough from disuse, a gravelly rumble that he couldn’t hear and therefore couldn’t modulate.

After the fifth failed attempt, Katsuki’s frustration boiled over. He slammed his fist on the table, making Izuku jump.

KATSUKI: THIS IS POINTLESS
KATSUKI: just leave u fucking extra

The anger was a shield. 

IZUKU: I can’t leave, I still am helping you! You just haven’t practiced speaking in a long time, so of course it won’t be good the first time.

KATSUKI: SHUT UP
KATSUKI: YOU’RE JUST DOING THIS BECAUSE YOU FEEL BAD FOR ME

Izuku read the message, his brow furrowing. This was an emotional accusation, and it was illogical.

IZUKU: I don’t feel bad for you. You’re rich, and you go to UA ,and you’re gonna be a hero. I’m stating an objective fact.
IZUKU: And you can’t be mean to me. We’re cousins.

Katsuki’s head snapped up. He glared, his fingers stabbing at his phone.

KATSUKI: WE ARE NOT COUSINS. I SAID WE’RE LIKE COUSINS. THERE’S A DIFFERENCE. OUR MOTHERS ARE FRIENDS. THAT MAKES US NOTHING. TECHNICALLY.

Izuku parsed this. The distinction seemed arbitrary.

IZUKU: But you’re the one who said it first. To make me help you. So if we’re not cousins, then the obligation is void, and this is just a weird thing we’re doing. Which is fine. But you still can’t be mean to me. It’s counterproductive.

Katsuki stared at the screen, then at Izuku’s utterly serious face. The fight seemed to go out of him, replaced by a weary exasperation. He ran a hand through his spiky hair.

KATSUKI: whatever. its not working today.

IZUKU: It’s our first session. Learning has a steep initial curve. Maybe for lip-reading practice, you could watch Herotube analysis videos. You can slow them down to half speed and turn on the subtitles. You can watch the pros give commands and see the mouth shapes.

Katsuki read the suggestion, his expression unreadable. After a moment, he typed back, his pride clearly wrestling with the practicality of the idea.

KATSUKI: herotube is for extras with no real-world responsibility. its a waste of time.

Izuku had the distinct feeling that Katsuki would be meticulously studying every frame of Mirko’s latest press conference. 

They packed up in silence. The session was a failure by any standard of progress. Yet, as Izuku walked home, he didn’t feel the crushing exhaustion he usually felt after most social interactions, since in his mind, this was something different. It was been a project with a difficult partner, where there were rules, a goal, and most importantly... a clear exit strategy.

Chapter 42: Transactions

Notes:

thanks for sticking with me through this y'all! things will start to get back into our fluffy flow soon but you know there's no comfort without... you know.
plus, more izuku katsuki friendship... if it can be even called that.
anyways thanks so much for reading xoxo!!

The anger was a low, simmering heat under Touya’s skin, a dangerous precursor to the fever that always accompanied his body’s rebellion against his quirk. For days, he’d been actively tamping it down, a conscious effort that left him feeling hollowed out and drained, a low-grade ache permeating his bones. It was the worst possible way to start another round of infusions: already exhausted, already feeling unwell.

The unresolved tension from the fight with Keigo weeks ago hung between them like a ghost. Touya had been carefully curating his misery, hiding the depth of his physical and emotional fatigue. He knew Keigo was drowning in the stress of untangling himself from the Commission and launching his own agency, all while dodging a press corps hungry for a scandal. The last thing he wanted to be was another weight on Keigo’s shoulders, especially when he still felt the lingering chill of his boyfriend’s justified frustration.

The morning of the first infusion was tensely quiet. Touya pulled on a pair of soft, worn sweatpants and a hoodie: one of the few outfits that didn’t irritate his sensitive skin or feel too tight over his strangely redistributed weight. He forced down a few mouthfuls of plain white rice, his stomach already clenching in protest.

“Ready?” Keigo asked, his voice carefully neutral. He was already dressed, his wings held a little tighter than usual against his back.

“Yeah.” Touya’s reply was a monosyllabic grunt.

He gave a quick, awkward wave to Natsuo and Shouto, who were eating breakfast at the table. “See you later.”

Natsuo gave a quiet, understanding nod. Shouto just stared, his expression unreadable but intense.

On the train ride downtown, the silence was heavy. Touya leaned his head against the cool window, closing his eyes against the rhythmic sway. He felt Keigo’s hand cover his. He didn’t pull away, but he couldn’t bring himself to reciprocate.

“You feel kinda warm,” Keigo murmured, his thumb stroking the back of Touya’s hand. “You okay?”

“’M fine,” Touya mumbled, not opening his eyes. It was a lie so transparent it was almost insulting.

They walked into the treatment center, that familiar smell of antiseptic and dread washing over them. Touya moved on autopilot through check-in. He was surprised when Keigo followed him past the waiting room chairs toward the infusion bay.

“You don’t have to stay,” Touya croaked, clearing his throat. “I know you’ve got… agency stuff.”

Keigo shook his head firmly. “I don’t have an agency yet. I have a lawyer and a lot of paperwork. I’ll be here all day.”

The statement landed with a surprising weight. A small smile touched Touya’s lips before he could stop it. “Okay.”

The nurse, he’d seen her before but forgotten her name, led them to the same familiar recliner. “Welcome back, Touya-kun! Look at that, your hair’s coming in so nicely!” she chirped, as if it wasn’t all going to be falling out in a few weeks again. Her cheer felt violently out of place. 

Touya just grunted, offering his arm. The routine was the same: the cold swipe of alcohol, the sharp prick of the needle, the tape securing it all in place. As the nurse walked away, leaving them alone with the slow, silent drip of the IV, the dam finally broke.

It wasn’t sobbing. It was worse. Silent tears just began to stream down Touya’s face, a complete loss of control he couldn’t stop. He turned his head away, ashamed.

Keigo noticed immediately. “Hey. Hey, what’s wrong? Are you in pain? Did she mess up the IV?” His voice was pitched low with concern, a feather already twitching as if ready to summon a doctor.

“’S nothing,” Touya choked out, swiping angrily at his face with his free hand. “I’m fine.”

“You are very obviously not fine,” Keigo said, his voice gentle but firm. He leaned forward, using his thumb to carefully wipe the tears from Touya’s cheek. “Talk to me, baby. Please.”

The kindness undid him completely. The carefully constructed wall of ‘I’m fine’ crumbled into dust.

“I just…” Touya’s voice cracked, the words barely a whisper. “I didn’t want to do this again. I already felt like shit and now… now I know I’m just gonna feel worse. For weeks. I’m so tired, Keigo. I’m so fucking tired of it already.” He felt childish, pathetic, voicing the fear, but it was a relief to let it out, to stop pretending. “And I’ve been so horrible and I’ve tried to be more nice but everything just feels so bad all the time, and it’s not getting any better, and I’m so sorry and you deserve more and-and–” 

Keigo’s expression softened with a profound empathy. “I know, baby. I know you are.” He didn’t say it would be okay, or that it would be over soon, which in that moment, would’ve felt worse. “Just close your eyes. Try to sleep through as much of it as you can. I’ve got you.”

As he spoke, two of his primary feathers detached, zipping away down the hall. They returned moments later with a fresh, warmed blanket, which Keigo tucked carefully around Touya’s body, anticipating the deep chill that would soon set in.

Touya let his eyes fall shut, the warmth of the blanket a small comfort against the cold dread seeping into his veins. He was still scared. He still felt awful. But he wasn’t hiding it anymore. And Keigo was still there, a warm presence beside him.

---

The following weekend, Fuyumi drove Haruki’s sedan out of the city with a white-knuckled intensity that had Natsuo subtly checking his seatbelt for the third time. She was a new, and frankly terrible, driver, her movements either too hesitant or too jerky. The tense silence in the car was punctuated by the occasional sharp gasp from Fuyumi as she merged lanes and the low, steady hum of the engine.

Natsuo sat in the passenger seat, feeling half-numb. The new medication kept the sharp edges of his anxiety filed down, but it also muted everything else, leaving him in a flat, emotionless haze. The landscape blurred past, a stream of unfamiliar shops and houses. Touya and Keigo’s final request echoed in his mind: Please don’t say anything to Shouto. Not yet. It was a precaution that made logical sense, a buffer against an unpredictable outcome, but it felt like holding a secret, adding to the weight in his chest.

As the cityscape finally gave way to greener suburbs, Fuyumi’s nervous chatter filled the car. “She’s going to be so happy to see you, Natsu.” She glanced over at him, her smile strained. “I should… I should probably warn you. Her condition… it’s more severe than yours. A lot more severe. She was only eighteen when she married Dad, you know. She’d already had Touya and me before the serious symptoms really started. And he… he never got her help. He never let her rest. He just expected her to be perfect.” Her hands tightened on the wheel. “It’s not her fault.”

Natsuo nodded slowly, watching the trees blur past. The facts were clinical, something to be observed.

“Sometimes,” Fuyumi continued, her voice dropping as if someone might overhear them in the moving car, “she has… episodes. Hallucinations. Or her mood will shift really fast, out of nowhere. If it happens, just… don’t be scared, okay? It doesn’t mean that’s going to happen to you. You’re getting help early, you’re on medication… You’re going to be more fine than she is, when you’re her age, okay?” She said it with a conviction that sounded like it was meant to reassure herself as much as him.

The sanatorium was a series of low, modern buildings set in manicured gardens, a place designed to look peaceful rather than institutional. The air inside smelled faintly of disinfectant and lemongrass.

They were led to a bright, sunlit visiting room with comfortable chairs and potted plants. And there she was.

Rei Todoroki sat by the large window, a book open but unread on her lap, her hands folded neatly on top of it. She was thinner than Natsuo remembered, her white hair cut into a simple, short style that framed a face that still held a haunting trace of the ethereal beauty that had captivated Endeavor. Her eyes, a pale, washed-out gray, lifted as they entered. A small, polite smile touched her lips when she saw Fuyumi, a familiar routine.

Then her gaze shifted to Natsuo. It was a look of pleasant, distant curiosity. “Fuyumi-chan,” she said, her voice soft and airy, like wind chimes. “You brought a friend. That’s so nice. Is Touya not coming today?”

Fuyumi’s laugh was a little too bright, a well-practiced sound. “No, Mom, Touya was busy today. He couldn’t make it.” The lie was smooth, effortless. She’d been telling it for a year. She gently guided Natsuo forward. “This is Natsuo. Look, he’s gotten so tall since the last time you saw him. He’s all grown up.”

Rei’s eyes focused on Natsuo, really looked at him. The polite curiosity in her expression flickered, then shifted into something more confused, then dawning recognition. A tiny, almost imperceptible tremor went through her hands. “Natsuo?” she whispered, the name a breath. Her eyes welled with sudden tears, but they didn’t fall. She just stared, as if seeing a ghost materialize out of the sunlight. “My baby. You’re… you’re so grown. A man.”

Natsuo’s own numbness cracked, just for a second. A hot, sharp lump formed in his throat. He managed a stiff bow. “Hello, Mom.” 

He took the seat opposite her. The visit unfolded in a series of stilted, careful conversations. Fuyumi carried most of it, a steady stream of cheerful noise.

“The gardens here are so beautiful this time of year, aren’t they, Mom? All the azaleas are in bloom.”

“Yes,” Rei said, her gaze drifting to the window. “The pink ones by the koi pond. The fish like to hide under them when the sun is too bright.” It was a lucid, observant comment.

But her attention kept snapping back to Natsuo with a loving, almost painful intensity. After a few minutes, she slowly, hesitantly, reached out a hand across the space between their chairs. “Natsuo… may I?”

He nodded, his own movements stiff, and placed his much larger hand in hers. Her fingers were cool and delicate, and they trembled slightly as they closed around his. She didn’t let go, just held on as if he might vanish.

“My little boy is all grown up,” she whispered, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. “I’ve missed you. Tell me… tell me about your life. Are you… are you happy?”

Natsuo’s carefully maintained countenance wavered. He couldn’t tell the truth; the crushing depression, the hospital stay, the diagnosis that linked them irrevocably. He chose a version of the truth that wouldn’t hurt her.

“I’m… okay,” he said, his voice low and even. “I have a job now. At a library. It’s quiet. I like it.” It was the most he’d said all afternoon.

Rei’s face lit up. “A library! My smart boy. You always loved your books.” She squeezed his hand. “And your brothers? Touya… and Shouto?”

Fuyumi shot Natsuo a grateful look, relieved he was engaging. Natsuo carefully extracted his hand from his mother’s gentle grip to pull out his phone. “Shouto’s… really good,” he said, scrolling to find the photos Keigo had sent him. “He’s at a new school. For art.”

He turned the screen to show her. There was a stunningly detailed ink drawing of a dragon, its scales rendered with impossible precision. Another was a charcoal study of a crumpled piece of fabric, the play of light and shadow so realistic it looked like a photograph.

Rei brought a hand to her mouth, her eyes wide. “Oh… oh, Natsuo. He’s… he’s so talented.” Her voice was full of awe. “So much better than I ever was. Is he… is he happy?”

“He’s doing well,” Natsuo said, the practiced phrase feeling inadequate but safe. He didn’t mention the fights, the regression, the struggles. He showed her the art, and the art spoke of a talent that was undeniable and thriving. It was a gift he could give her, a piece of Shouto’s life without the context.

After that, he let the conversational baton pass back to Fuyumi. He’d done his part. He sat back, his hand once again captured in his mother’s gentle hold, and let Fuyumi’s bright, steady chatter about her students and the weather wash over him. He answered when directly spoken to, a quiet “yes” or “no” or “it’s good,” but mostly he just sat, absorbing the surreal reality of the moment: his mother’s cool hand in his, the smell of lemongrass and disinfectant, the profound and complicated love that existed in this sunlit, sterile room. It wasn’t the reunion he’d maybe dreamed of as a child, but it was what he needed now.

---

A new, sluggish weight had settled over Shouto as it got hotter outside. He moved through the apartment like a ghost, spending long hours lying on the couch or his bedroom floor, staring at the ceiling. The vibrant energy he’d found at school seemed to drain out of him the moment he stepped back into the apartment.

Touya, between his own naps, watched him from his own nest on the armchair. “He’s just… lying there,” he muttered to Keigo, his voice raspy with fatigue. “You don’t think he’s… depressed, do you?” 

Keigo, folding laundry with the help of a few diligent feathers, glanced at Shouto’s still form. “Maybe- his therapist said she thought he might be. It’s a lot of change. And Izuku’s gone radio silent.”

The absence was a physical ache Shouto didn’t have the words for. One afternoon, he found Touya sipping ginger ale at the kitchen table, looking pale but vertical. Shouto stood in the doorway for a long moment, marshaling his words.

“Touya,” he finally said, the name slurred.

Touya looked up, his eyes tired but focused. “Yeah, kid?”

“Ask Inko? A-ask… if Izuku is… b-busy?”

Touya’s expression softened with understanding. “Yeah, Sho. I can do that.”

He texted Inko. The reply came quickly, and Touya read it aloud, his tone carefully neutral. “She says he’s studying right now. And that he’s sorry, and he’ll call you back when he can.”

It was the same message, every time. Studying. Sleeping. Being tutored at the library. The excuses piled up, a wall of polite deflection. Shouto didn’t understand. He felt… a hollow feeling. It wasn’t anger. It was a confused, profound sadness that Izuku’s “when he can” never seemed to arrive.

Frustration, an emotion he was becoming intimately familiar with, began to seek an outlet. Since he couldn’t make Izuku call, and he couldn’t make the hollow feeling go away, he started making marks. It began with a small, dark scribble in the corner of his wall behind his desk, a tangible expression of the tangled mess inside. Then another. Then a large, jagged crack he drew radiating from the light switch, black Sharpie against white paint.

He didn’t try to hide it. When Keigo came in to bring him clean clothes, he stopped short, letting out a low whistle. “Whoa, little dude. It looks like a Dali exploded in here.” He didn’t sound angry, just observational.

Natsuo, passing by the open door, peeked in. “Hey, that’s actually kinda cool,” he chimed in.

Touya, on the other hand, took one look and sighed, too exhausted and nauseous to muster any real disciplinary energy. “Just… try to keep it off the floor?” he’d mumbled before retreating back to the couch.

The only respite was school. In the art studio, the frustration had a purpose. He could channel the chaotic, angry energy into the precise slash of a charcoal line or the controlled violence of stippling ink onto paper. Ms. Inoue praised his “raw emotion.” Chō gave him space to work it out. It was the one place where the feelings inside him weren’t a problem to be solved; they were just more colors on his palette.

He was grateful for the distraction, for the practice, for the structured time that kept the vast, confusing emptiness of Izuku’s absence at bay. But at home, the walls of his room continued to fill up with a silent, sprawling map of everything he couldn’t say. 

---

The pressure was a constant, screaming static in Izuku’s skull. School was a relentless assault of fluorescent lights, overlapping conversations, and the oppressive fear of falling behind. His carefully constructed IEP felt like a useless piece of paper; the accommodations were there, but using them felt like waving a flag of failure. And now, layered on top of it all, was the massive, unexpected responsibility of Katsuki Bakugo.

He’d somehow become semi-obligated to this semi-cousin, and the weight of it was pulling him under. The library sessions were a special kind of exhausting, a forced focus that left him mentally shredded. So, on a Sunday in early June, he broke. He’d texted Katsuki the night before, a desperate, rambling message begging him to come to his apartment instead. 

IZUKU: The library is too loud, and bright, and people are there, and my brain is melting. Please come here- my mom’s working an overnight so when she comes home she’ll be sleeping. 

Katsuki’s response had been a single, characteristically blunt word: FINE.

At 8:30 AM, Izuku’s phone buzzed on his nightstand, pulling him from a fitful sleep.

KATSUKI: im outside. 

Izuku blinked, his brain foggy with exhaustion. The words on the screen took a moment to process. Outside. Panic jolted through him. He stumbled out of bed, his All Might pajama shorts and t-shirt rumpled, and half-ran to the intercom to buzz Katsuki in.

When he opened the apartment door, Katsuki stood there, already looking critically around the small, cozy space. His eyes landed on Izuku’s pajamas, and his nose wrinkled slightly, but he didn’t comment further. He just shouldered past him and toed off his shoes with a practiced efficiency.

KATSUKI: why are you still in pajamas. fucking lazy.
KATSUKI: go shower. you stink.

Izuku didn’t have the energy to argue. He mumbled something incoherent and shuffled off to the bathroom.

When he emerged twenty minutes later, damp-haired and in clean sweats, a bizarre sight greeted him. Katsuki was in their kitchen. He’d found rice, eggs, and vegetables, and was in the process of making tamagoyaki with a focused intensity usually reserved for bomb disposals. The kitchen, usually Inko’s domain, was unnervingly tidy.

Izuku just stared. Katsuki didn’t look at him, just pointed a spatula at the small table. 

Izuku sat. A perfectly rolled omelet and a bowl of rice were placed in front of him. Katsuki then stood across the table, arms crossed, watching him with an unnervingly analytical gaze, as if waiting to see if the food would be accepted by his system.

This was the scene Inko Midoriya walked into an hour later, exhausted from her double shift. She opened the door to the smell of a cooked breakfast and the sight of Katsuki Bakugo, of all people, standing over her son like a drill sergeant, watching him eat a bowl of rice. Calculus textbooks were spread over the coffee table.

Her sleep-deprived brain tried to process it. 

Katsuki. Here. Cooking. Tutoring? 

Her internal monologue was a silent, screaming What the hell is happening?

Katsuki gave her a curt nod, then immediately turned back to the kitchen. Before she could protest, he’d plated up a second serving of tamagoyaki and rice and set it at her usual spot at the table.

Inko sat down slowly, feeling like she’d entered an alternate dimension. They ate in a mostly silent breakfast, the only sound the clink of chopsticks. Katsuki did not sit. He cleaned the kitchen and watched Izuku eat.

After he finished, Katsuki picked up his phone.

KATSUKI: speech now. your room.

They gathered the textbooks and moved into Izuku’s room, shutting the door. Inko stayed in the kitchen, trying to process the bizarre normalcy of it all. 

Inside the room, Izuku’s anxiety spiked. He pulled out his phone.

IZUKU: Aren’t you worried my mom will hear you?

Katsuki scowled at the screen.

KATSUKI: im gonna be quiet dont worry.

Izuku didn’t have the heart to tell him. Katsuki was never quiet. His attempts at speech were gruff, strained explosions of sound. His footsteps were heavy. His presence was loud, a constant, vibrating energy.

They started. Izuku exaggerated his mouth shapes. “AAAAH. EEEEE. IIIII.”

From the kitchen, over the sound of the sink as she washed the dishes, Inko heard her son’s painfully clear enunciation, followed by a series of low, guttural, frustrated noises from Katsuki that sounded like someone trying to start a stubborn lawnmower.

Izuku’s voice, obnoxiously slow and clear, enunciating every syllable. “GO. LEFT.”

A pause.

Then, a rough, gravelly, shockingly loud sound that made her jump. “GUH. LEH.” It was followed by a frustrated growl that was unmistakably Katsuki. hen her son’s voice again, patient and analytical: “Your tongue needs to be farther back for the R sound. It’s more like a growl.” Another pause. “Wait, I’m gonna text that to you, I mean… ugh…” 

What. Is. Happening.

A louder, more frustrated noise. A thump, probably a fist on the desk.

The whole situation was so profoundly strange she could only stare at Izuku’s closed door, her mind a whirl of confusion and a dawning, hesitant curiosity. 

Chapter 43: Bad Vibes

Notes:

had some free time, why not post?
thanks for all the comments and help with my editing errors haha- and so glad you're all enjoying and theorizing on what's coming. its so interesting to see how things are taken and also like to help me shape through editing to make things more clear, so... yeah! thank you for the comments.
anyway-
still in angst-landia for now.
xoxo!

The day was rotten from the start. Rain lashed against the windows, a dreary gray drumming that matched the mood inside the apartment. Shouto woke to the sound of Touya being violently sick in the bathroom, the aftermath of yesterday’s infusion. The smell made his own stomach turn. Natsuo, trying to help, had made breakfast, a lumpy, oversalted attempt at oatmeal that Shouto refused to force down. He’d even packed Shouto’s lunch, which was a kind gesture, but Shouto knew it would likely be a sad, misshapen onigiri and a bruised apple.

The walk to the train was a wet, miserable slog. His socks were damp, a small, grating discomfort that felt like a personal offense. By the time he reached school, he was already frayed, his nerves feeling raw and exposed.

Modern Japanese was first. The teacher had given him a simplified worksheet on identifying themes in a short story, a parallel assignment to the complex literary analysis the rest of the class was doing. It was still hard. The sentences were long, the concepts abstract. But Chō was there, her quiet presence a steady anchor. She broke the questions down into yes-or-no options, helping him piece together his answers. It was challenging, but it was a challenge he could meet. 

Then came math. The regular teacher was absent. The substitute was an elderly man who smelled of mothballs and seemed bewildered by the modern classroom. When Chō quietly approached him before the bell to explain Shouto’s accommodations, that he would be working on a different assignment on his tablet, the man squinted at her through thick glasses.

“Nonsense,” the sub said, his voice raspy. “If he’s in this class, he takes the quiz like everyone else. I won’t have special treatment.”

Chō kept her voice low and polite. “It’s not special treatment, sir. It’s an accommodation. It’s in his education plan.”

“I wasn’t informed of any plan,” the man insisted, growing flustered. “He’ll take the quiz, or I’ll report him for insolence.”

The rest of the class had gone silent, all eyes on the conflict at the front of the room. Shouto could feel their stares like physical pressure on his skin. His heart began to beat a frantic, irregular rhythm against his ribs.

Chō, trying to de-escalate, turned to Shouto with a forced calm. “It’s okay. Let’s just sit with the paper for now, alright? You don’t have to do it.”

But the damage was done. The phrase “sit with the paper” echoed in his head. It meant be present with the thing you cannot do. It meant fail to perform publicly. A new, terrifying feeling bloomed in his chest, a hot, tight pressure that was part shame, part sheer, overwhelming panic.

He tried to do the exercises Touya and his therapist had taught him. Breathe in for four. Hold for seven. But the numbers got tangled. His lungs felt too small. The pressure was building, a weird, burning sensation spreading from his chest up into his throat. He felt a familiar, dangerous heat flicker over his left side, a warning sign he desperately tried to clamp down on.

He picked up his pencil, a futile attempt to comply in some way, to make it all stop. His hands were shaking so badly the graphite point skittered across the page, leaving a useless, jagged line.

“Shouto,” Chō said gently, her own anxiety bleeding into her voice. “Do you want to step outside?”

The question was a paradox. It was a choice, and he had no capacity to make choices. The pressure was a scream trapped inside him with no way out. Very slowly, with trembling fingers, he reached up and took his glasses off. The world immediately softened into a blurry, distorted mess. It was better. He didn’t want to see the sub’s unhappy face. He didn’t want to see his classmates staring.

And then, silently, the tears started. He didn’t understand what was happening in his chest, only that it was too much, and it was terrifying.

Then it hit. 

Embarrassment. Shame. 

Chō’s professionalism snapped into place. “I’m so sorry, we need to go,” she said to the substitute, her voice apologetic. She gently took Shouto’s glasses from his limp hand, scooped up his bag, and with her arms under his armpits, guided him to his feet.

The walk out of the classroom was a gauntlet of blurred faces and muffled whispers. Chō’s hand was firm on his elbow, a guiding pressure he usually found grounding. Today, it felt like a shackle. The humiliation was a hot flush crawling up his neck, a feeling so foreign and overwhelming he had no name for it. His body began to react without his permission. His free hand came up, fingers twisting together in a frantic, repetitive motion, a stim he usually suppressed in public.

In the hallway, the hum of the fluorescent lights was a physical assault. The pressure in his chest, that hot, tight ball of shame and panic he had no name for, expanded. It needed an outlet. His free hand, the one not being guided, began to flap erratically at his side, a jerky, unfamiliar motion. He never stimmed like this. The movement was embarrassing, which only fed the cycle, making the pressure build faster.

He tried to pull his arm from Chō’s grip, a sudden, sharp tug. “Ne-eed… space,” he forced out, the words a garbled, wet mess.

“Okay, okay,” Chō said, her voice calm but tight with her own anxiety. She loosened her grip but didn’t let go entirely. “We’re almost to the quiet room. Just a little farther.”

The attempt to create distance, to escape the overwhelming sensory input, morphed into something else. The shame was a fuel he didn’t know how to process. As they passed a bank of lockers, his swinging hand, still flapping, accidentally connected with the cold metal with a loud CLANG.

The shock of the impact, the sharp burst of sensation, was a bizarre relief. It was a feeling outside the internal chaos. He did it again, on purpose this time, hitting the locker with the side of his fist. Clang.

“Shouto, no, honey, stop,” Chō urged, trying to gently pull his arm down.

But the dam had broken. The calm, passive boy was gone, replaced by a raw nerve of pure, dysregulated agony. He yanked his arm from her grasp with a strength that surprised them both. His body remembered Endeavor’s training, the pivot, the shift of weight. He didn’t aim for her, but a wild, swinging fist came dangerously close to her shoulder as he tried to shove her away, to get distance.

His breathing was ragged now, coming in sharp, useless gasps. He turned back to the lockers, pounding his fists against them, each impact a desperate attempt to ground himself in a world that was spinning too fast. 

Clang. Clang. Clang. 

The metal dented under his knuckles. He didn’t care about the pain; he welcomed it. It was a simpler, cleaner pain.

Chō saw his movements becoming more erratic, his head dipping toward the unyielding metal. That was her line. This wasn’t just about protecting herself; it was about protecting him.

Her quirk activated not as an attack, but as an embrace. The air around Shouto thickened, slowing his frantic movements to a dreamlike, syrupy languor. In this suspended space, she moved with purpose. She carefully guided his head away from the locker, her hands gentle but firm. She wrapped her arms around his torso, pinning his arms to his sides in a secure hold, and half-guided, half-carried him the last few feet to the quiet room door.

Inside, she didn’t force him into a chair. She used the momentum of their slowed entry to lower him, painlessly and slowly, onto the soft, forgiving carpet. In one fluid motion, she grabbed the heaviest weighted blanket from the basket and draped it over his trembling form.

The sudden, profound pressure was a circuit breaker. The violent thrashing ceased, replaced by harsh, shuddering breaths. He was scared, lost in the blurry, overwhelming storm of his own breakdown. But Chō wasn’t scared. She knelt beside him, her presence steady and sure.

“You’re okay,” she murmured, her voice a low, constant hum. “You’re safe here. Just breathe. No one is mad at you.”

She gently smoothed his sweaty hair back from his forehead, her touch a fixed point in his spinning world. Slowly, the tremors subsided into utter exhaustion. He lay on the floor, zoned out and completely spent, unable to move a muscle.

“Shouto?” Chō’s voice was soft, breaking the long silence. 

There was no response. Not a flicker of recognition.

She sighed, the sound full of empathy. “Okay. I think I need to call the nurse… and I think you might feel better if someone picked you up after school today.”

The idea of trying to navigate the crowds and the noise of the journey home by himself in this state was impossible. He was stranded. He wished he could muster up the energy to care… but he couldn’t. 

Chō watched him for another moment. Then she stood up, and pressed the intercom to the office. 

---

The world was a nauseating, spinning tilt. Touya was curled on his side on the bathroom floor, the cool tiles a small mercy against his feverish skin. The first day after an infusion was always the worst, a full-body revolt that left him hollowed out and trembling. His phone, discarded on the bathmat, began to vibrate with an obnoxious, persistent buzz.

Ignore it, he thought, pressing his forehead harder against the tile. Just let it go to voicemail.

But the buzzing didn’t stop. He finally spared a glance to the screen. 

School- AYAME CHŌ.

A cold dread, separate from the chills wracking his body, shot through him. He fumbled for the phone, his vision swimming. 

“Fuck,” he croaked, his throat raw. He swiped to answer, bringing the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

“Himura-san? Hi, it’s Ayame Chō.” Her voice was professional, but he could hear the underlying strain. “I’m so sorry to bother you. Shouto had a bit of a… challenging morning. He’s okay, he’s safe with me and the nurse, but… we think it might be best if someone could come pick him up at the end of the day today.”

Touya’s heart hammered against his ribs. “What happened?”

“A significant meltdown. He’s calmed down now, but he’s very… out of it, to be perfectly frank. I want to be very clear,” she continued, her tone earnest, “that he is absolutely welcome to stay here with me for the rest of the day. I’m not calling to send him home early. But… I do not believe he will be able to commute home by himself. It would be… it would be too much for him, I believe. If someone could come get him at the end of the school day, that would be best.”

Five more hours. The thought of Shouto, hollowed-out and miserable, just sitting in that quiet room for five more hours, was unbearable.

“Okay. Okay, I… I’m on my way.” The words were automatic, a parent’s programmed response. He pushed himself up onto his elbows, and the world immediately swooped violently. A wave of pins and needles shot down his limbs, followed by a cold sweat that had nothing to do with fever. The mere thought of putting on shoes, walking to the station, navigating the crowds… Panic, sharp and acrid, joined the nausea. He couldn’t do it.

“I… actually, hold on just a second, Ayame-san. Can you hold on a second?” he managed to say, his breath short.

“Of course.”

He put the phone on his chest, his mind racing. Keigo. It was Keigo’s first day at his new agency. The launch of everything he’d worked for. He couldn’t interrupt that. He couldn’t ask him to leave to deal with this.

His fingers, clumsy and shaking, found Natsuo’s number. He prayed he wasn’t with a patron.

It rang twice. “Touya?

“Natsu,” Touya gasped, the relief making him sound even more pathetic. “I am so sorry. I need… I need a huge favor. Can you… can you leave work? Please?”

“What’s wrong?” Natsuo’s tone immediately shifted to alert.

“It’s Shouto. He had a… a bad meltdown at school. His aide called. She said he’s safe, he can stay there, but… he can’t come home on his own. They’d have to leave him there for five more hours, Natsu. He’s just… sitting there, and I…” His voice broke. “I can’t get up. I literally can’t stand. And Keigo… today’s his big day, I can’t-”

“Touya, stop,” Natsuo interrupted, his voice firm but not unkind. “No panic. It’s okay. I’ll go get him. It’s fine. I’m leaving now.”

Touya sagged back against the bathtub, the phone slipping from his hand. He heard Chō’s tiny voice from the speaker. “Himura-san? Everything alright?”

He fumbled for it. “Ayame-san? My brother Natsuo is on his way. He’ll be there soon. Thank you. Thank you for calling.”

He ended the call and let his head thunk back against the porcelain. Guilt warred with overwhelming relief. A fresh wave of nausea rolled over him, and he dry-heaved miserably into the toilet.

Okay, he thought, squeezing his eyes shut. Okay. Natsuo’s handling it. Just… just get to the couch. You can’t let them find you on the bathroom floor.

The thought was a motivator. He waited for the worst of the vertigo to pass, then, using the edge of the bathtub, he hauled himself unsteadily to his feet. The world tilted precariously. He leaned heavily against the wall, shuffling one foot in front of the other like a man three times his age. Each step was a monumental effort. He made it the short distance to the living room couch and collapsed onto it, pulling a blanket over himself just as another violent shiver wracked his frame. He was out of the bathroom. It was a small victory. He lay there, listening to the rain and counting the minutes until his brothers came home, praying the simple act of being on the couch would be enough to give Shouto some glimmer of normalcy. 

---

Keigo pushed open the apartment door a little after 8 PM, his wings drooping with a day’s worth of new-job fatigue. The first thing that hit him was the smell: a bizarre combination of slightly burned rice and the sharp, clean scent of bleach. The living room was dim, the only light coming from the kitchen.

Touya was nowhere to be seen. Their bedroom door was firmly closed.

His eyes adjusted to the gloom, landing on a figure on the floor in front of the couch. It was Shouto, lying on his back with his noise-cancelling headphones on. He was shirtless and bare-legged, wearing only his boxers, his school uniform discarded in a damp, crumpled pile by the genkan. The weighted blanket was folded neatly over his chest and stomach, leaving his arms and legs exposed. One hand was curled near his mouth, his knuckles resting against his lips as if he’d been seeking the comfort of a sleeve to chew on and settled for fingers instead.

In the kitchen, Natsuo was at the sink, scrubbing a pot with a focused intensity. The counter was lined with glass Tupperware containers holding the slightly charred remains of what looked like an attempt at stir-fry. Shouto’s thick-framed glasses sat neatly beside them.

“Hey,” Keigo said, dropping his bag by the door and shrugging off his jacket. “What’s up with… all this?” He gestured vaguely at the scene.

Natsuo didn’t look up from the pot. “Touya was puking all day. Hence,” he said, nodding toward the closed bathroom door, “the bleach. I scrubbed the toilet after he finally went to bed. Maybe… 7:15? 7:30?”

Keigo’s heart sank. “Right.” He looked back at Shouto’s still form. “And the little dude?”

“Meltdown at school. Something about a substitute teacher, his aide said. I picked him up. When we got home, he just… stripped off his clothes and did that.” Natsuo finally turned off the water and dried his hands. “At least he ate something while lying down there.”

“Did Touya eat?” Keigo asked.

Natsuo grimaced. “Yeah. It didn’t stay down.”

Keigo sighed, running a hand through his hair. He leaned against the counter, the weight of it all settling on him. 

“How was work?” Natsuo asked, changing the subject with a clumsy kindness.“How was the first day? The big agency launch?”

The question was genuine, and it pulled Keigo out of his worry for a moment. “It was… actually pretty good,” he said, a real smile breaking through his tiredness. “Chaotic. A million forms to fill out. But it’s mine. No one’s looking over my shoulder. I hired two sidekicks, fresh out of school, and a little naive, but they seem like good kids with promising quirks.” He rummaged in his bag and pulled out a little clear plastic tray of cupcakes from a grocery store bakery. “I brought these home, to celebrate.”

He popped the lid and slid the tray onto the table. Natsuo didn’t need to be asked twice. He picked up a chocolate cupcake and took a huge bite, then immediately grabbed a vanilla one too.

“These’re good,” he said around a mouthful of frosting.

Keigo took one himself, leaning against the counter. He watched Natsuo, really looked at him. The flat affect of the medication was still there, but there was a calmness to him, a sense of purpose that had been missing for months.

“You seem… good, though,” Keigo observed. “All things considered.”

Natsuo finished the first cupcake and licked some frosting off his thumb. “Yeah, I guess so.” He looked toward Shouto’s still form on the floor, then back at Keigo. “Feels nice to be needed, I guess. Sucks that it’s because everyone else had a shitty day… but I do feel good. Useful.”

Keigo nodded, understanding completely. He finished his own cupcake. “Good. I’m glad.” He looked around the chaotic, bleachy-smelling apartment, at the closed bedroom door and the brother on the floor. “I guess I feel good today, too. It’s okay to feel good.”

Natsuo picked up the second cupcake. “Yeah,” he agreed, his voice quiet but sure. “It is.” 

---

The announcement came on a humid evening in late June, a bright spark in the apartment’s lingering atmosphere of convalescence and quiet stress. Fuyumi and Haruki had come over for dinner, a rare occasion where Touya felt well enough to sit at the table. Haruki’s usual gentle, fruity scent was tinged with nervous excitement.

“We have some news,” Fuyumi said, her cheeks flushed pink. She held out her left hand. A simple, elegant diamond solitaire caught the light. “We’re engaged!”

The reaction was immediate and joyous. Keigo whooped, his wings fluttering and sending a napkin flying. Touya managed a genuine, tired smile. “Congratulations, ‘Yumi. ‘Bout time.”

 Even Natsuo offered a quiet, “Happy for you.”

Shouto looked at the ring, then at his sister’s beaming face. He understood the significance. Change. Another change. He gave a firm nod, the most congratulations he could muster.

The biggest change, though, came from Shouto. The hollow ache of Izuku’s absence had curdled into a quiet mourning. The texts had stopped entirely. The excuses were non-existent. The loss was a quiet stone in his gut, a constant, dull weight.

His art began to reflect it. It could no longer be contained to the pages of his sketchbook or even the four walls of his bedroom. It started to bleed out.

It began with the hallway outside his door, a continuation of the sharp, abstract cracks he’d started around his light switch, now spreading like black lightning across the pale paint. Then, a corner of the living room wall, behind the armchair, became home to a meticulously stippled, shadowy figure that could have been a person or a ghost. He drew on the back of the bathroom door in dry-erase marker, a swirling, intricate pattern he could change when he got bored.

Touya and Keigo had long since surrendered. 

Natsuo thought it was brilliant. “It’s like living inside his brain,” he’d remarked, studying a new addition of geometric shapes overlapping near the ceiling. “It’s kind of cool.”

The apartment was becoming a living gallery of Shouto’s internal world, a map of frustration, isolation, and a profound, non-spoken sadness. It was messy, and unconventional, and a little heartbreaking, but it was also his voice. The promise of summer break, six weeks of respite, of no schedules or assignments or substitute teachers, hung in the air, close enough to taste. 

Chapter 44: Summer Interlude, Part One.One

Notes:

okayyyyy starting to move through angst to something productive!

As summer break descended, the structured chaos of the school year was replaced by a formless listlessness from its primary inhabitants, Touya and Shouto.

Touya was perpetually exhausted, his appetite virtually nonexistent, abd Shouto, disturbingly, seemed to be mirroring him. The bottomless pit of anxiety and teenage appetite that had driven him to consume entire bags of shrimp chips in one sitting, only four months ago was gone. He picked at his food, moving it around his plate before eventually giving up. He showed no interest in Touya’s work, or his own art, no interest in going outside, no interest in much of anything. He spent his days in a state of quiet apathy, drifting between the couch and his increasingly mural-covered bedroom.

The only bright spot was Natsuo. The routine of his library job, the stability of his medication, and the profound sense of purpose he’d found in being the family’s emergency responder had coalesced into a genuine, steady well-being.

“I think I’m ready,” he announced one evening at dinner, pushing around the food he’d cooked, edible, yet bland, “to go back to school in September. For real this time.”

Touya and Keigo exchanged a look. 

“Yeah? That’s… that’s great, Natsu.” The praise was genuine, but followed by a cautious, older-brother addendum. “You should definitely talk that through with your team at the clinic, though. Make a plan. A realistic plan.”

Natsuo nodded, calm and assured. “I will. It feels… right, to do it now.”

Fuyumi, with her summer vacation also in full swing, took it upon herself to be the family’s activities director. She’d arrive at the apartment full of cheerful, teacherly energy. “Alright, Sho! The weather’s nice! Let’s go to the park! Or the museum! They have a new sculpture exhibit!”

Shouto’s response had become a well-honed, silent performance of rejection. He would look at her, his expression utterly blank. Then, with a slow, deliberate motion, he would reach up, take off his glasses, and hold them out to her. Once she reflexively took them, he would simply turn and walk away, retreating to his bedroom and closing the door with a soft, definitive click.

The first time it happened, Fuyumi was left standing in the living room, holding his glasses, utterly bewildered. “What… what was that?”

From the couch, Touya let out a weak, hoarse laugh that turned into a cough. “I think that’s his way of saying ‘I’m not even going to look at this idea, it’s so ridiculous.’”

Keigo, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes, added, “He’s evolved. No more meltdowns. Just… peaceful non-compliance. It’s kind of iconic.”

After the third time in as many weeks, Fuyumi’s frustration mounted. She stood on the sidewalk outside the Himura-Takami’s apartment building and called Inko, her last hope.

“Inko, I’m at my wit’s end,” she confessed, the sound of traffic buzzing in the background. “Shouto just… he won’t engage. He won’t do anything. I thought maybe… if Izuku came over? Just to say hi? Maybe he’d listen to a friend.”

On the other end, Inko’s voice was warm but distracted. “Oh, Fuyumi-chan, of course. Let me just check with him, he’s home right now.” Fuyumi heard the muffled sound of Inko’s hand covering the receiver, then her voice, slightly distant. “Izuku? Honey? Fuyumi-san was wondering if you could pop over to see Shouto-kun? He’s having a bit of a rough time…”

There was a pause. Then, Fuyumi heard it, a sharp, sudden intake of breath that was unmistakably Izuku’s, followed by a frantic, muffled stammering she couldn’t make out. It wasn’t his usual excited mumble; it was panicked, hyperventilating.

Inko’s voice came back on the line, tight with forced calm. “Fuyumi, I am so sorry, can I call you right back?” In the background, the frantic, wheezing breaths grew louder.

“Of-of course! No worries!” Fuyumi said quickly, her heart sinking. “Is everything-”

But Inko had already hung up. Fuyumi was left standing on the sidewalk, holding her phone.

---

The air in the Midoriya apartment smelled of birthday cake and an underlying whiff of tension that materialized when guests arrived. Fuyumi and Haruki had delivered a quiet, reserved Shouto to the door, a neatly wrapped present in his hands. Inko had answered, her face blooming into a warm, genuine smile.

“Shouto! Oh, it’s so good to see you!” she gushed, ushering them inside. “We’ve been so lonely without you over here all the time!” She was already steering him toward the kitchen, oblivious to the way he subtly stiffened at the effusive welcome. “You have to tell me all about school! Your art! Everything!”

Izuku stood by the couch, a stark contrast to the festive atmosphere. He looked exhausted. Even for summer break, his complexion was sallow, with deep, bruised shadows under his eyes that spoke of relentless stress and sleepless nights. He offered Shouto a small, nervous smile. “H-hi, Shouto.”

Shouto smiled back. It was a real smile, but it was distant, guarded. The usual, immediate physical affection, of a wordless hug or a grounding hand squeeze, was conspicuously absent. A wall of silence, built over months, stood between them.

Izuku gulped, his hint of Adam’s apple bobbing. “Um. Do you… want to pick a movie?”

Inko, meanwhile, had turned her attention to Fuyumi, happily gushing over her engagement ring. The normal, happy birthday chatter filled the room for a precious moment. Then, Inko turned back to Shouto, her tone kind and conversational. “It really has been too long! Though I guess Katsuki been over a fair amount this semester, so the place hasn’t been completely quiet-”

“Mom!” Izuku’s voice cut through the room, sharp with a panic that was utterly unlike his usual anxious mumbles. 

The room went silent. Shouto’s head turned slowly from Inko to Izuku. His expression, usually a placid mask, became a devastatingly clear map of dawning hurt.

He processed the information. His words, when they came, were slow, slurred, and thick with the effort of pushing them past a rising tide of confusion. “Yo-ou…  s-seeeing him?” he asked Izuku, his brow furrowed. “And… n-not… me?”

“No! It’s not like that!” Izuku’s own words tumbled out in a frantic, stammering rush, his face pale with panic. “He’s- he’s tutoring me! In calculus! It was so hard, and I was failing, and he’s really smart, and I help him out with his… his other stuff too! But I had so much work! I was so tired and overwhelmed, I swear-”

The clarification did nothing to soothe the hurt; it only provided the data for Shouto to form a perfectly clear explanation. The burning feeling of inadequacy he’d been getting since he started at his new school ignited in his chest.

“You c-can… b-be wi-ith him,” Shouto stated, his voice gaining a quiet clarity. He looked down at his own hands, then back at Izuku, his eyes wide with the sting of the conclusion he’d drawn. “’C-cause he’s… s-smart.” The unspoken second half of the sentence hung in the air, louder than if he’d shouted it: 

And I am not.

This was when the adults jumped in, a unified front of frantic reassurance.

“Oh, Shouto, honey, no,” Inko said, her voice soft. “That’s not it at all! You are smart! Katsuki is only-”

“Izuku was really struggling with school, right Inko?” Fuyumi cut in firmly. “This was about Izuku needing help, not about you.”

But their words were just noise. They were trying to solve the wrong problem. They thought Shouto needed to be told he was smart, but they were far from correct; he cared that his best friend had replaced him, and the reason was a skill he would never possess.

Izuku, seeing Shouto’s shut-down expression, spiraled further. “It’s not! He’s just- he said we’re cousins, so I had to, and there are too many smells in my class, I can’t learn anything, and he’s so needy-”

“Huh?” Inko repeated, bewildered, momentarily derailed by his bizarre tangential thinking. She shook her head, getting back on track. “Izuku, that’s not the point-"

But it was too late. Shouto, pushed past his emotional limit, defaulted to its new shutdown protocol. His face went completely, chillingly blank. With a slow, deliberate motion that was both heartbreaking and mechanically precise, he reached up, took off his glasses, and held them out to Fuyumi.

Fuyumi, acting on the instinct she’d developed all summer, automatically took them. She immediately regretted it. “Shouto, no, this isn’t your apartment, you can’t just-” she pleaded, trying to push the glasses back into his hands.

But he was already turning, walking robotically toward the Midoriyas’ front door, opening it, and running out into the hallway without a backward glance.

“I am so sorry,” Fuyumi gasped to a stunned Inko and a now-hyperventilating Izuku. “He’s been doing this all summer, and he can’t really see without them so I have to just- we don’t know why he’s been like this- ” She clutched the glasses and bolted after him, Haruki was quick on her heels, leaving Izuku with a hurried, “Sorry, man! Happy birthday!” thrown over his shoulder.

The door clicked shut, leaving a devastating silence in its wake.

Izuku slid down the wall, sobbing. “He h-hates me! I’m a terrible friend! K-Kacchan is just so… and I… and the smells… and cousins aren’t friends, they're cousins, so technically I- I…” He was spiraling, the guilt, the stress, and the social failure crashing down on him all at once.

---

The week following Izuku’s disastrous birthday party was a special kind of hell. Touya oscillated between the urge to wrap Shouto in a blanket and never let him experience pain again, and a profound desire to shake him until his teeth rattled for making things so difficult. It was a contradiction that left him emotionally drained on top of being physically wrecked.

Natsuo was a godsend, having developed a passion for cleanliness in their apartment to make up for his less-than-mediocre cooking, and working almost every day at the library with a purpose that felt stabilizing to all of them. He’d been officially cleared to return to Keio in September, a fact he announced with a calm pride that made Touya’s heart ache with relief. Keigo was back to his daily patrols, a whirlwind of red feathers and heroics that felt blessedly normal, aside from the mandated Tuesdays and Fridays he kept clear for accompanying Touya to his infusions.

Fuyumi had filled in her co-parental figures in on the party debacle, but unsurprisingly Shouto himself hadn’t uttered a word about it. His communication was solely through his art, which on the one hand was a relief after the total apathy he’d shown two weeks ago, but the mural spreading across their living room wall was getting… concerning. The once neutral abstract shapes had morphed into a darker aesthetic expression. There were now stark, shadowy figures that seemed to be turning away from each other, and the red parts of the design had deepened to a near-blood crimson. It was less an expression of sadness and more a silent scream.

Tuesday, as always, was a write-off. Touya mostly knocked out after the infusion and spent the night drifting in a nauseous, feverish haze. Wednesday morning brought the first of his bi-weekly, post-infusion puke-fests. He was kneeling on the bathroom floor, forehead pressed against the blessedly cool porcelain, when the door creaked open.

“Shouto, I said do not come in here when I’m throwing up,” Touya groaned, his voice raw. “It makes me self-conscious.” 

Shouto ignored him, stepping inside. He was fully dressed, but he looked profoundly frustrated, his brow furrowed, his movements agitated. He was holding his pants up by the waistband.

Touya wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, willing the world to stop spinning. “What do you need, bud?” he asked, trying for sympathy but landing somewhere closer to exasperation. It was easier to be annoyed now that Shouto was taller than him, a lanky teenager radiating frustration instead of a small child.

Shouto didn’t answer with words. He just held the waistband of his pants out, showing Touya the unbuttoned fly. 

Skill regression, Touya’s brain supplied, the term familiar from a dozens of therapy sessions he’d accompanied his brother to. A common response to extreme stress. To make it worse, Shouto’s glasses were missing… again.  

I wonder why, Touya thought with a spark of dark humor. It’s not like he’s started a new habit of taking them off and handing them to people when he’s upset… and that he’s somehow always upset. 

Touya tried to think of who put them away yesterday, and where they could possibly be. Without them, Shouto’s depth perception was shot and his eyes were irritated, making the fine motor skill even harder.

He was embarrassed, his cheeks flushed. Shouto had never really been embarrassed before starting at his new school, Touya realized. He’d never been around that many neurotypical kids before.

“Okay, okay,” Touya sighed, the fight going out of him as he realized Shouto hadn’t come in just to bother him, and probably wasn’t looking for an excuse to sit around and watch Touya puke for fun. “C’mere. Kneel down.” He was in no position to stand.

Shouto obeyed, kneeling on the bathmat. From his spot on the floor, Touya reached out, his own hands trembling slightly from weakness. “Watch,” he said, his voice calmer now. He slowly guided the button through the hole, demonstrating the angle and the slight twist needed. “See? You have to get it at the right angle.”

Shouto watched, his intense, unblinking gaze fixed on Touya’s fingers.

“Now you try,” Touya said, pulling his hand back.

It took Shouto a solid thirty seconds of concentrated effort, his tongue peeking out between his lips, but he finally managed it. A tiny, almost imperceptible sigh of relief escaped him.

“Good. Now unbutton it and do it again,” Touya instructed, falling back on the therapist’s advice for rebuilding lapsed skills. Shouto did, faster this time, the muscle memory slowly returning.

Once it was done, Shouto stood up and left without a word. Touya was immensely grateful. A wave of vertigo was washing over him, and he carefully laid his cheek back down on the cold tile floor, praying it would pass.

Two minutes later, the door opened again. Touya internally screamed. 

What now?

But Shouto was holding a tall glass of ice water. He held it out. “D-drink,” he stated.

“I can’t, Sho,” Touya mumbled into the floor. 

Now who’s embarrassed? 

“It’ll just come back up.”

Shouto didn’t move. He just stood there, holding the glass, staring down at Touya with his unnervingly intense gaze. It was deeply unsettling. Just to make him stop staring, Touya pushed himself up on a wobbly elbow and took a small sip. The cold felt good on his raw throat, even if his stomach immediately clenched in protest.

He expected Shouto to leave. He did not leave. Instead, he sat down on the edge of the bathtub.

Defeated, Touya slowly, miserably, shifted so he was sitting up, leaning his back against the tile wall. He needed to say this while he had a sliver of coherence.

“Don’t… don’t tell Keigo about this, okay?” he said, his voice low. “He’ll worry. He’ll try to stay home with next week, and I don’t want him to feel like he has to sit here all day and watch me puke.” He looked pointedly at Shouto. “In fact, I don’t want anyone to watch me do this. So…” He let the hint hang in the air, hoping against his better judgement it would land.

It did not land. Shouto just blinked.

Touya gave up. “And don’t tell Obaachan or Ojiisan either when they visit. They’ll worry and try to take me back to Hokkaido with them.” This Shouto seemed to understand. He gave a sharp, serious nod. The secret was safe.

A long, uncomfortable silence stretched between them, broken only by the drip of the faucet. Then, Shouto spoke, his voice quiet and slurry, but the question crystal clear.

“A-am I du-umb?”

The question hung in the air, a stark, painful thing amidst the lingering scent of antiseptic and sick.

Touya closed his eyes, sending a silent, desperate plea to whatever gods might be listening for the strength to not vomit while navigating this psychological dumpster fire. He really picks his moments, he thought, a wave of sheer exhaustion washing over him. He took a slow, careful breath, the air scraping his raw throat.

“You’re not dumb, Sho,” he said, his voice a raspy but firm anchor in the uncomfortable quiet. He kept his cheek pressed to the cool toilet seat, the solidity of it grounding him. “Your brain just works different. That’s the first thing you gotta understand. It’s not worse. It’s just… different.”

Shouto’s brow remained furrowed, his gaze fixed on the grout between the tiles. “I a-am not sma-art,” he stated, the words slow and firm with conviction. “Like I-Izuku. Or Ka-ats-suki.”

Touya couldn’t sugarcoat it. Shouto deserved honesty, even when it was brutal. “No,” he agreed softly, the word feeling heavy. “You’re not smart like them. But they are… they’re outliers. Their brains are built for that specific kind of speed, for processing information in that way. It’s not a normal thing. Most people aren’t smart in the way they are.”

He saw the minute slump in Shouto’s shoulders and pressed on, desperate to build a new foundation before the despair could set in. “You remember what the doctors said, right? About your head? You got hurt really badly when you were little.” It was a fact they’d worked hard to demystify over the years. “So now, the pathways in your brain, the ones for reading and finding words and… and just dealing with a lot of things… they’re a little busted. Your thoughts have to take the long way around. That makes things harder, but doesn’t make you less.”

He paused as a fresh wave of nausea crested. He pushed himself up slightly, gagged dryly into the bowl, a harsh, empty sound, and collapsed back against the tank with a shuddering groan. Shouto watched the entire process with a detached, clinical curiosity, utterly unfazed by the display of physical misery.

“There are different kinds of smart, Sho,” Touya continued, his voice weaker now. He wiped his mouth. “You… You're creative smart. You see shapes and shadows and connections that are just… invisible to the rest of us. You can pull things out of your head and put it on paper, or into a sculpture, or onto the wall. That’s a different kind of intelligence. And don’t forget, you’ve got a great sense of humor.”

He took another shaky breath, the room tilting slightly. “And you know Izuku loves you. You’re his best friend. He would never try to hurt you. What happened… that was a misunderstanding, and a mistake... A big, stupid mess.”

Another wave of nausea, stronger this time. Touya rolled his head over again, his body convulsing as he threw up the scant water he’d managed to sip a few minutes ago. It was humiliating. And he was exhausted. Through it, he was hyper-aware of Shouto still watching him.

When it was over, he was trembling, drenched in a cold sweat. Shouto was still there, waiting patiently for the conversation to continue as if there had been no interruption.

“Besides,” Touya whispered, his energy utterly spent, “I know Katsuki and Izuku. I can’t imagine they’re actually having fun. They probably argue all the time. And you know how Izuku hates yelling and how he gets nervous about doing the wrong thing. It’s probably… a transaction… a trade.” He used the word he knew Shouto would understand from their own careful discussions about social dynamics.

A flicker of understanding, or at least consideration, crossed Shouto’s face. He gave a slow nod.

The vertigo was returning, and his stomach was staging another revolt. He had to end this.

“Hey, Sho,” he said, his voice growing thready. “You know… maybe you could give me a little space? Just for a bit? I’m not feeling so great.”

He tried to make it a suggestion, not a command.

Shouto just looked at him, his head tilting. 

Why would anyone want to be alone when they felt bad? 

He subtly shifted his weight, scooting back an inch. Touya’s breathing hitched again.

Touya tried to roll his head over but only made it halfway before his stomach clenched. 

The subtle suggestion hadn’t worked.

“Shouto,” he said, putting as much gentle force into the name as he could. “I love you. But I need you to leave now. Please. Can we please talk about this more later? I promise. Soon.”

Shouto’s eyes widened slightly in realization. He stood up, hesitated for a second, looking down at his brother’s crumpled form, then turned and left, closing the door softly behind him.

The silence lasted exactly five seconds before Touya was heaving again, the conversation echoing in his throbbing head. He’d told Shouto the truth, and now, he was completely depleted. He slumped against the toilet, spent, hoping to those same gods that he’d said the right thing. 

---

Work had been a special kind of hell lately; a new street drug, they were calling it Trigger, was flooding the ER, leaving a trail of patients coming down from terrifyingly enhanced temporary Quirk awakenings and fractured psychological states. Inko, after a brutal string of overnight shifts, felt like her soul had been scoured raw along with her chapped hands. The chaos at work, however, was a known quantity. The quiet, aching worry waiting for her at home was a different, more terrifying beast.

It was her first day off in nearly two weeks, since the disastrous birthday party. The apartment was silent, save for the relentless, repetitive sound of pacing. Izuku was a ghost. He wasn't muttering hero stats or sketching in his notebooks. He was just… stimming, constantly, which she normally encouraged, but this was something else. He was wearing a path in the floor from the kitchen to the living room window and back, his fingers twisting together or hands fluttering in anxious, repetitive patterns. When she’d stumbled in at 8 AM after her last shift on the cycle, he’d looked up at her coming through the door with red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes that mirrored her own. He hadn’t slept either.

She forced Izuku, and herself, to take a nap first, knowing she was too drained to handle this conversation properly. A few hours of fitful sleep later, she started on the katsudon, using the methodical process of cooking to steady her own nerves. The comforting smell of fried pork cutlet and savory broth began to fill the small apartment, a siren’s call to her distressed son.

He picked at his food at first, his shoulders hunched nearly to his ears. The tension was a wall between them. After dinner, she guided him to the couch with the promise of rewatching his favorite All Might movie, opening her arms. At fifteen, he was still on the small side, with long spindly limbs and full of teenage angst, but in some ways, he was still her little boy. He collapsed against her side, letting her pull him into a hug, his body rigid at first before slowly melting into the contact.

"What is it, sweetheart?" she murmured, gently stroking his hair. A few green strands lifted slightly, tugged by the faint, unconscious use of her telekinesis, a telltale sign of her worry.

The words started slowly, then became a torrent. "I hate it," he whispered, his voice muffled against her shoulder. "It's so loud all the time, and the lights hum and everyone knows how to do everything already and-and-and at my old school… Everything was just… the same all the time and I didn't have to ask for things because everything was always how it is supposed to be and it was quiet and things always made sense, but-but now I have to know when I need a break or when I need to-to-to do things a different way and I have to decide things all the time and I have tell the teachers and leave classes to just have some quiet time or to cry for a little bit so I feel better and-and then everyone looks at me when I leave and I think… I-I think they make fun of me. I'm so alone but there are too many people all the time and I can't think!"

Her heart broke for him, and tears welled up in her eyes.

"And then there's Kacchan," he continued, the name a sigh of exhaustion. "He said we're like cousins. So I had to help him because family helps each other but sometimes he’s so mean to me but I don’t know if he’s really being mean or if he’s just really blunt like Touya or if he just is mad because I don’t know JSL even though sometimes I try to use it but I get too nervous and then I make too many mistakes and-and-."

Inko pulled back slightly, cutting him off. "Izuku, honey, you and Katsuki aren't cousins. You aren't related in any way, although it’s… nice that he feels like we’re his family too." The clarification felt necessary, even as a part of her was oddly touched by Katsuki's bizarre claim. "And even if you were actual cousins, you don't have to help him if it's too much. Family can say no sometimes. It was very nice of you to help him in exchange for calculus tutoring, but if it's draining you… I can try to pay him, if he insists on being paid. We'll find a way."

“We don’t have money to pay him,” Izuku cried, his face pressed against her shoulder. “Kacchan said so. He said Dad’s a deadbeat and that’s why we’re poor! I didn’t even know we were poor! I-I don’t want to lose our apartment because I can’t pass calculus because its too hard to focus at school!”

Inko stiffened, a flash of anger and embarrassment shooting through her. That was a conversation for another time. She pointedly ignored the Hisashi-shaped landmine. “We aren’t in poverty, sweetheart. We don’t have as much as the Bakugos, but we are not in danger of losing our apartment. We could figure something out with Katsuki,” she said, her voice carefully even, “if you don’t want to tutor him anymore.”

“No,” Izuku said, surprising her. “I… I like it. When we’re studying together and he’s not mad at me. I don’t have to think about social stuff. He just tells me exactly what he wants. It’s… straightforward. But he’s also so… much. He gets so angry so fast, and he’s really bad at talking so he’s always so loud, and sometimes I just want to hide in the closet after he leaves.”

Then guilt twisted his nose and mouth into a frown. “And I felt so bad! Because I was seeing Kacchan and I wasn’t seeing Shouto, and I didn’t know how to tell him, so I just… didn’t. I thought maybe if I just waited, it would all just… go away. Or he would forget about me. And we’d never have to see each other again and I wouldn’t have to… to see him look at me like I’d failed him.” A sob finally escaped him. “And now he hates me. And he’s right to hate me. I’m a terrible friend.”

“Oh, Izuku,” Inko sighed, holding him tighter. She let him cry for a moment, the weeks of stress and isolation finally breaking. “You’re in over your head. You should have told me.” She smoothed his hair. “But avoiding Shouto without telling him why… honey, that hurt him. He cares about you. Your absence…”

She chose her next words carefully. “You have to remember, Shouto’s brain… it processes things differently. He probably isn’t angry. He’s hurt and very, very confused. He doesn’t understand that you didn’t want to see Katsuki, or that you were nervous to see him because of using your energy for socializing on tutoring. All he sees is that his best friend disappeared and he feels he was replaced by someone else.”

Izuku cried harder. “I didn’t mean it though!”

“I know, baby. I know.” She rocked him gently. “But we can try to fix it. Let’s give him a few more days. And then… we’ll go over there. Together. And you can apologize. Not for needing help, but for hiding from him. Okay? We’ll make a plan.”

Izuku nodded against her shoulder, his breathing slowly evening out. The weight of his disastrous first trimester was now resting on both their shoulders, and for the first time in weeks, it felt just a little bit lighter to bear.

Chapter 45: Summer Interlude, Part Two.One

Notes:

y'all, it means so much to have people commenting and bookmarking and letting me know you're reading... makes my day so bright! thank you thank you, and i truly love hearing your thoughts on where things are going in the story and any ideas you have!
xoxo

The Himura grandparents’ trip was preceded by a series of careful, preparatory phone calls from Fuyumi. Touya didn’t know the specifics of what she’d told them, only that they’d been briefed on everything: Touya’s sickly appearance, Shouto’s moods, Fuyumi’s new home... their unfiltered reactions were something he wanted to spare them, and himself.

They arrived on a Monday, his best day. Three full days had passed since his last infusion, leaving him feeling merely like he was on the tail end of a nasty flu, weak, achy, but okay. He’d forced himself into clean, lightweight sweats and a soft bandana tied over his head. The beanie was too hot for summer, and his hair, cropped brutally short and patchy, was a sight he preferred to shield them from.

When the doorbell rang, it was Shouto who answered, standing stiffly in a clean but very wrinkled t-shirt and shorts, his socks mismatched. It was a small testament to the fact that this was an all-male household, one where domestic precision was often sacrificed to the larger battles of health and sanity. Natsuo was on a cleaning streak, so the apartment was sterilized and tidy, but it was devoid of fussy decoration, except for the unsettling mural spreading across one wall.

Obaachan and Ojiisan stood in the hallway, their postures ramrod straight, faces etched with a gentle sternness. Their eyes did a quick, assessing sweep: taking in the neat-but-sparse living room, the moody artwork, Shouto’s haphazard dress before landing on Touya, who had pushed himself up from the couch to greet them.

There was a beat of silence. Touya saw the flicker in his grandmother’s eyes, a split-second of heartbreak at his general air of fragility quickly mastered. His grandfather’s gaze was harder to read, but his jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.

Then, Ojiisan gave a single, firm nod. “Touya. You’re looking well.”

It was such a profound, stoically delivered lie that Touya almost smiled. “Thanks, Ojiisan. Train ride wasn’t too bad?”

And just like that, they fell into the familiar, comfortable rhythm of ignoring the elephant in the room. They settled around the low table, Obaachan unpacking a container of homemade manju. Touya nibbled on one, the sweet bean paste a welcome change from the metallic taste that usually haunted him. He made dry, raspy-voiced jokes about city life. Shouto sat quietly, observing, on his best behavior.

Obaachan’s eyes eventually drifted to the sprawling, dark mural. “My,” she said, her tone diplomatically neutral. “That’s… quite a lot of drawing, Shouto-kun.”

Shouto just shrugged, a universal gesture of teenage non-answer.

The atmosphere lifted when Keigo returned from a shortened patrol, his wings rustling with cheerful energy, and again when Natsuo came home from the library. Finally, Fuyumi and Haruki arrived, Haruki’s gentle, fruity scent a pleasant addition to the room. The small apartment was full, buzzing with a familial warmth it often lacked. For a few hours, over a simple meal of delivery sushi, Touya could almost pretend he was just a guy hosting his family.

The next morning was infusion day. The cheerful facade of Monday evaporated. In a rare act of compliance, Shouto agreed to leave with the grandparents, Fuyumi, and Haruki for a local cultural festival. It was a kindness, sparing them the sight of Touya’s decline.

The day passed. Touya endured the medical ordeal, Keigo a silent anchor beside him. By the time they returned home, Touya was a shivering, nauseous wreck. He retreated directly to the darkened bedroom, not wanting to be a specter on the couch when everyone returned.

The group had a lovely time. They went from the festival to Fuyumi and Haruki’s neat, conventionally well-decorated apartment for a proper dinner. Shouto, surprisingly, seemed engaged, even pointing out a few things at the festival he’d found interesting. They returned to Touya’s apartment around 8 PM, their voices soft with the evening’s contentment.

Keigo met them at the door, his voice hushed. “Hey, guys. He’s sleeping. Thanks for bringing Sho home.”

From the couch, where he was eating ice cream straight from the container, Natsuo gave a lazy wave. “Hey.”

Obaachan’s face fell with gentle concern. “Ah, he’s sleeping already? We had hoped to see him before we turned in.”

“It was a rough day,” Keigo said, his tone carefully light. “Maybe tomorrow? If you see him, maybe you could… you know, just casually get him to drink some water? Or eat a little something, if you have time when you swing by? Depending on your plans.”

It was a quiet, coded request for help. A way to let them care for him without making a production of his sickness.

Ojiisan nodded, his expression grave but understanding. “Easily done. We will see you tomorrow, then.”

With quiet goodbyes, they left for their hotel, leaving the apartment in a silence that felt heavier than before. The visit was a delicate balancing act: a dance of love, concern, and the unspoken agreement to pretend everything was just a little bit more okay than it actually was.

---

The next day, Wednesday, was always the worst. The grandparents arrived at the apartment mid-morning. Shouto answered the door, swinging it wide open and stepping aside. 

Before they could even step inside, the sound of retching echoed from behind the closed bathroom door. Obaachan flinched.

Shouto looked from them to the door and back. “T-Touya said… sta-ay out. Of the b-bathroom. When he’s… p-puking.” The sentence was delivered haltingly, but the message was clear.

Ojiisan’s face rumpled in concern. “Does this happen every time?” he asked, his voice low.

Fuyumi, who had come with them, sighed. “I think he feels pretty bad afterwards but he won’t always let us help… He hates people hearing him be sick, so I try to respect that,” she explained softly. “Maybe… maybe we should go out for a bit? Give him some privacy?”

Shouto shifted his weight, looking uncertain. He was hesitant to leave Touya alone.

Suddenly, Fuyumi’s phone buzzed. She pulled it out, her brow furrowing at the caller ID. “It’s Inko,” she murmured, moving into the kitchen to take the call. “Hello? …Oh, hi! …Yes, he’s here…”

Ojiisan, left in the entryway with Shouto, took in the boy’s chaotic ensemble. He gave a soft, almost imperceptible sigh. “Alright, Shouto. Let’s… let’s find you some clothes that… match, huh?” he said, his tone not unkind, but practical.

Shouto huffed, a sound of pure teenage indignation, but he allowed himself to be guided back to his room. In his heart, he’d thought the contrast between the cozy cats of his flannel pants and the formal polo was a stroke of genius.

A few minutes later, Fuyumi came back into the living room, her expression a mix of apology and hope. Ojiisan emerged from the hallway with a much more cohesively dressed Shouto: dark jeans and a simple gray t-shirt, though Shouto looked profoundly displeased with the downgrade.

“That was Inko,” Fuyumi explained to her grandparents. “You remember Izuku? Shouto’s best friend. Well, they… had a bit of a misunderstanding. She was hoping we could bring Shouto to the park near their apartment. Izuku wants to apologize. I know it’s not exactly how we planned the day, but… Sho only really has the one friend. He’s been so miserable without him. Would you mind terribly if we did that?”

Obaachan and Ojiisan exchanged a glance. “How about we stay here?” Obaachan offered gently. “Just in case Touya needs something. I know he feels uncomfortable with people seeing him like this, but we could just… be out here. Let him know we’re here if he needs anything. It might be good for Shouto to go without distractions.”

Fuyumi looked uncertain, glancing toward the closed bathroom door. But the sight of Shouto, now dressed for an outing, decided it. “Okay,” she agreed, “If you're sure. Hopefully Touya won't mind." She rubbed her hands together. "Sho? Guess what? We’re gonna go see Izuku.”

At the mention of Izuku’s name, Shouto’s hand instinctively went to his glasses. He started to take them off, preparing to hand them to Fuyumi in his now-standard gesture of refusal.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Fuyumi said, deftly avoiding his hand and instead grabbing it to pull him toward the door. “Not this time, mister. This is good for you. Shoes on, let’s go!” She gave her grandparents a quick wave. “See you later! Text if he needs anything!”

And with that, she pulled a bewildered, slightly resistant Shouto out the door, leaving their grandparents in the apartment with Touya.

---

Touya emerged, one hand braced against the wall for support. He was pale and trembling, dressed only in a pair of boxers and one of Keigo’s old shirts, a soft, faded gray thing with the wing holes in the back gaping. His head was bare, the patchy, short-cropped white hair and the map of scars fully visible. 

He shuffled into the living room and froze.

His grandparents were not at the park. Obaachan was carefully folding a pile of laundry he and Keigo had left in the dryer. Ojiisan sat beside her, scrolling slowly through something on his phone, his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. They looked up, their expressions softening from quiet conversation to gentle concern.

A hot flush of humiliation warred with the chills wracking his body. He hated this, the being seen, the being perceived in his weakest moments. He instinctively straightened his posture, a pathetic attempt at dignity.

“Oh. You’re still here,” he said, his voice rough. He tried to sound normal, but it came out flat. “Thought you went with Fuyumi.”

“Something came up with Shouto’s friend,” Ojiisan said. 

Obaachan was already rising. “We preferred a quiet afternoon here. Come, Touya. Sit.”

It wasn’t a suggestion. It was a gently spoken command. The ingrained host in him, the part trained by a childhood of performative perfection, warred with the raw, sick animal that just wanted to crawl into a dark hole alone. He couldn’t be rude.

“Right,” Touya mumbled. He wanted to bolt for his bedroom but it seemed rude. He forced his feet to carry him to the armchair opposite them, each movement a calculated effort to minimize the screaming in his joints. He didn’t sit so much as lower himself, collapsing into the cushions with a barely suppressed groan.

“You should’ve gone,” he said, leaning his head back and closing his eyes against the spin of the room. “Seriously. I’m just gonna… crash. You’re stuck here doing nothing.”

“We are perfectly content,” Ojiisan stated, not looking up from his phone. “My Candy Crush game is still loading. The internet in this building is terrible.”

Obaachan set the folded pants aside. “Can I get you water? Tea?”

“No. No, thank you.” The thought of anything in his stomach made it clench violently. 

A few minutes of silence passed. Touya focused on his breathing, on the steady fold-smooth-place rhythm of his grandmother’s work. It was almost peaceful. 

“The festival was crowded, I bet,” he mumbled, a weak attempt at the normalcy he thought they expected. He just had to get through a few minutes of polite conversation, then they’d leave him be. 

“Very crowded,” Obaachan agreed softly. A particularly violent wave of dizziness washed over him. He swallowed hard, his throat working. He pressed the heel of his hand against his sternum, as if he could physically push the sickness down. The slight movement made the old scar tissue on his arm pull and burn. A small, pained sound escaped him.

“Touya.” Ojiisan’s voice was quiet but firm. He had set his phone down. “Your back is going to lock up. Couch is better. You can stretch out.”

Touya opened his mouth to protest, to say he was fine right where he was, but another wave of nausea chose that moment to crest, making his mouth water unpleasantly. He swallowed hard, his throat working. The thought of moving was unbearable, but the pain was winning.

Seeing the sheen of sweat on his grandson’s forehead, Ojiisan stood. He didn’t wait for permission. He just moved, a man of practical solutions. “Come on. Before you get stuck.”

He offered a hand. It wasn’t to pull, but to be a steadying point. Touya, too miserable and in too much pain to muster any more pride, took it. Ojiisan’s grip was firm and sure, taking most of Touya’s weight as he hauled himself upright. The world tilted nauseatingly for a moment, and he swayed, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Easy,” Ojiisan murmured, guiding him the couple of steps to the sofa.

Touya half-fell onto the cushions, a groan of relief and pain escaping him as he was finally off his feet. Immediately, Obaachan was there. She took one of the couch cushions and tucked it firmly behind his back, altering the angle to take pressure off his lungs. Another, softer cushion was slid under his knees, easing the strain on his hips.

They didn't ask. They just knew. 

Obaachan pressed the back of her hand to his forehead and then his cheek.

“You’re warm,” she murmured.

“’S normal now,” he slurred, eyes closed. “Off suppressants… for now.” 

He must have dozed off, because the next thing he knew, his eyes were flying open and the nausea returned with a violent, urgent pitch. The room swam. He fumbled, a panicked gesture towards the floor where he wished a basin would materialize.

Ojiisan was there. He didn’t scramble or panic. He simply reached for the small, plastic trash bin he’d already placed beside the couch and slid it into Touya’s hands just in time.

The sickness was brutal and humiliating, wracking his already sore body. When it finally passed, he felt a cool cloth wipe the back of his neck. Obaachan took the bin without a word. Ojiisan handed him a glass of water with a straw. “Rinse your mouth.” 

Touya did, spitting the water weakly into the bin. He collapsed back into the nest of pillows, completely and utterly defeated. The shame was still there, but it was now dulled by an overwhelming, bone-deep gratitude. They had seen him at his absolute worst over and over, and hadn’t flinched.

He drifted after that, in a hazy, feverish doze. The sounds of the apartment were a gentle lullaby: the soft rustle of Obaachan resuming her folding, the tap of Ojiisan’s finger on his phone screen, He drifted after that. The sounds of the apartment layered over him: the rustle of laundry, the tap of a phone screen, the eventual clatter of pots from the kitchen. A good smell began to spread: ginger, scallion, broth. It was nothing like the burnt meals Natsuo attempted to feed them with.

Keigo came home a little after four, looking tired. He stopped inside the door, taking in the scene: the clean apartment, the smell of real food, the quiet.

His eyes found the couch. Touya was asleep, propped up in a nest of pillows, his breathing even. The plastic bin was within reach.

His grandmother was at the stove, stirring a pot. She glanced over. "He had a bad time of it today," she said, her voice low. "But he's sleeping now."

Keigo's shoulders lost some of their usual tension. He looked from Touya's still form to his grandmother at the stove, to his grandfather, who gave a short, quiet nod from the kotatsu.

"Yeah," Keigo said, his voice soft. "Okay."

He toed off his boots and went to wash up. Dinner was almost ready.

---

The air in the park was thick and heavy with mid-August heat, the cicadas buzzing in the trees. Izuku sat stiffly on a bench by the swingset, the metal warm even through his shorts. Across the park, he saw the Todorokis approach, their red and white hair a stark banner,. Izuku’s stomach clenched. Inko, who had been sitting with him in supportive silence, placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“It’s going to be okay, Izuku,” she murmured, but her voice was tight with her own worry.

“I know, Mom.” He didn’t sound like he knew.

Fuyumi and Inko met midway on the cracked asphalt path. Izuku watched their conversation: the worried glances, the hesitant gestures. Fuyumi pointed back toward the park’s entrance, and Inko nodded, her shoulders tense. They were creating a perimeter, giving them space. As the two women walked away, Shouto continued his solitary approach.

He looked… fortified. His hands were jammed in his pockets, his shoulders drawn up near his ears. His bangs were a curtain, obscuring his eyes, making both the scarred and smooth sides of his face equally unreadable. He stopped a few feet from the bench, his gaze fixed on a point somewhere beyond Izuku’s left shoulder.

“H-hi,” Izuku managed, the word cracking.

Shouto’s eyes flicked toward him for a split second before darting away. A single, tight nod. He didn’t sit.

The silence was a physical presence. Izuku’s mind whirred, a cacophony of rehearsed speeches and tangled emotions, all tripping over each other. He could write a thesis on conflict resolution, but speaking it aloud felt impossible. He wrung his hands, the words clotting in his throat.

Finally, Shouto moved. He sat on the very edge of the bench, leaving a full foot of empty, sun-warmed wood between them. He stared intently at the dormant swings.

“You… you d-didn’t… w-want to s-see-”

“I did want to!” The denial exploded from Izuku, too loud, too fast. He forced himself to take a breath, to slow the racing train of his thoughts. “I wanted to, Shouto, I promise. It’s just… everything at school… it got so bad.”

He looked down at his hands, focusing on a freckle to ground himself. “The classrooms… the lights hum, and it’s so bright and they flicker but nobody is bothered by it except me and then I bring it up and everyone laughs. And everyone talks at once, and the teacher goes so fast, and the numbers in calculus… they just wouldn’t make sense. I was failing. I’d come home every day and just… shut down. Or cry. And then I’d try to teach myself everything I missed because I couldn’t focus.”

Shouto listened, his body still but his head tilted in that way he had when he was focusing, processing. 

“And then… Kacchan found out I was failing.” Izuku’s voice dropped to a confessional hush. “He… he offered a trade. He’s… scarily good at math. He can make it make sense. And he… he’s struggling, too. At UA.”

He chanced a glance at Shouto. His friend’s expression hadn’t changed, but the line of his jaw was rigid.

“He can’t understand anyone. He can’t talk to them. He’s… really alone.” Izuku swallowed. “He offered to tutor me if I… if I’d let him practice speaking with me. He’s trying so hard now, but it’s… it’s really difficult for him. His voice is too loud and it doesn’t sound the way he wants it to, and sometimes he gets so frustrated with himself he… he gets angry. And it’s… it’s intense. It scares me a little. And after he leaves, I have to just… decompress for an hour. It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t like being with you. It felt like… another assignment. A really hard, scary one. I didn’t tell you because it was so messy and I was ashamed of failing and I thought you’d think I was replacing you with him, when the truth was, I was just… trying to keep it together. And then it had been going on for so long, I didn’t know how to start the conversation. I just wanted to forget it was happening.”

The whole story tumbled out, imperfect and raw. Izuku fell silent, waiting for the judgment.

Shouto was quiet for a long time. The cicadas filled the space. Izuku could see the effort in the set of his shoulders, the way he was gathering the words, piecing the fractured sentences together in his mind.

“I th-thought…” he began, then stopped, his brow furrowing in frustration. He tried again, the words emerging haltingly. “You d-didn’t wa-ant me. ‘C-cause I- I’m… n-not sma-art. Like… s-school.” He finally turned his head, and the look in his eyes was one of deep, unguarded hurt. It was a vulnerability Izuku rarely saw. “I’m-m not… g-good at… s-s-chool li-ike you.”

“Shouto, that’s not-”

Shouto held up a hand, a request for patience. He needed to finish. “I’m s-smart… in d-diff-ferent w-ways,” he said, each word deliberately chosen. “In m-my art. I r-rem-member pa-atterns. A-and p-people. W-what they… m-mean.” He looked down at his own hands, flexing his fingers slightly. “You d-don’t… ha-ave to be my f-friend… if you d-don’t se-ee.”

The quiet resignation in his tone shattered Izuku’s carefully constructed composure.

“No.” The word was a choked sob. He scrambled across the foot of space on the bench, his hands fluttering, desperate to bridge the gap. “No, Shouto, please. You have it all wrong. I need you. I need your kind of smart.”

He was crying openly now, tears cutting tracks through the dust on his cheeks. “When the world is too loud and too bright and I can’t think, I need you to sit with me. I need you to listen to me talk about heroes, even when I’m going a million miles an hour. I need to see your art because you see the world in a way that makes me see it differently, too. I need to know what you’re thinking because you think about things in ways that make my thoughts all make sense. Our movie nights, our sleepovers where we don’t have to talk at all and we can just be together and eat popcorn and it’s still the best thing all week… that’s … That’s everything. You’re not a different kind of smart. You’re the best kind. Please. Please keep being my friend. I’m so sorry I made you feel like you weren’t enough. You are.”

Izuku’s plea hung in the air desperately. He was trembling, his whole body shaking with the force of his emotion.

Shouto watched him, his own eyes shimmering. The hurt in his expression softened. The intricate, equal give-and-take of their friendship had been thrown out of balance, but the foundation was still there.

He shifted forward on the bench, closing the distance, and wrapped his arms around Izuku, pulling him into a firm, solid hug.

Izuku froze for a heartbeat, then collapsed into the embrace, his arms locking around Shouto’s back, his face buried in the familiar cotton of his shoulder. He cried then out of guilt and relief, feeling the steady, quiet beat of Shouto’s heart against his own.

From a bench near the park entrance, Inko and Fuyumi watched the two boys. They saw the tense distance, the frantic explanation, the tears. They held a shared, nervous breath. And then they saw Shouto move, saw the embrace, saw Izuku’s tense form finally go limp with relief.

Inko let out a sigh of relief, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. Fuyumi smiled, and gently squeezed Inko’s arm.

---

The silence of the house after ten p.m. had a different quality to it. It wasn't just an absence of noise; it was a settled, breathing thing. The day's tensions: Fuyumi’s cheerful but watchful presence, the grandparents’ efficient, loving ministrations, the low murmur of a documentary from Shouto’s room, the profound quiet from behind Touya’s closed door, had all been absorbed into the walls. Now, under the buttery glow of the kitchen’s pendant light, the only sound was the steady hum of the refrigerator and the scrape of a spoon on cardboard.

Natsuo, freshly twenty, felt both too old and too young for the weight in his chest. He sat at the worn wooden table, a tub of premium vanilla bean ice cream, the kind with the little black specks, half-gone in front of him. He wasn’t really eating it out of hunger, though. The ritual of it was comforting: the cold shock on the tongue, the slow melt of sweetness. The freezer’s hum was the only sound, a steady, companionable drone.

The soft, almost silent pad of bare feet on linoleum made him glance up. Keigo shuffled in, looking rumpled and grounded. His feathers were slightly askew, his sweatpants low on his hips, a testament to a long day finally shed. He looked his age, which was a rare thing. He moved to the drawer, the sound of it opening and closing overly loud in the hush, and pulled out a spoon. He didn’t ask. He just slid into the chair opposite Natsuo, reached across the table, dug into the ice cream, and took a large, unceremonious mouthful.

They sat like that for a few minutes, the only sound the soft scrape of metal on cardboard.

“Can’t sleep?” Keigo finally asked around a mouthful, his voice gravelly.

“Mind’s racing,” Natsuo admitted, poking at a particularly large vanilla bean fleck. Natsuo shrugged, staring into the white depths as if they held answers. “Textbooks showed up today. Heavy fuckers.”

“Ah,” Keigo said, the sound full of understanding. 

“Yeah.”

The silence returned, but it was the easy kind. Keigo had a gift for just occupying space without demanding anything in return. It was one of the reasons Natsuo liked to be around him.

“I’ve got it all set up,” Natsuo said, more to the table than to Keigo. He was listing facts, trying to make them feel real. “The new therapist on campus, she’s got good reviews. And Dr. Miura here… we’ve got the virtual appointments scheduled for every other Thursday. Meds are… fine,  levels are good. I’m… it’s all under control.”

He said it like a mantra, like if he said it enough times it would solidify into truth. He’d been “good” before, too. Top of his class, thriving, right up until the floor had vanished beneath him last year. 

“That’s solid, man.” Keigo said. His tone was neutral, supportive without being cloying. It made the truth easier to say next.

“It’s just…” Natsuo’s spoon clattered against the tabletop. A cold mist began to plume from his shoulders, tiny, snowflakes materializing in the warm kitchen air and drifting soundlessly onto the linoleum. He scowled, swatting at the air around his head as if shooing a fly. “What if it happens again? I get there, I’m in my dorm, and I just… fuck up, again, and have to drop out again, call you guys to come get me again and I have to start from zero… Again.” He let out a shaky breath. “And my classmates… my professors… I just vanished last year. What do I even say to them?”

Keigo didn’t react to the miniature snow flurry. He just watched the flakes land and melt on the warm wood of the table. He was quiet for a long moment, finishing his bite of ice cream.

“Have you considered that people will mostly just mind their own business?” he asked, his voice low and even. “I feel like you’ll be okay, Natsu. You’re good with your meds, you know the signs… I have a good feeling about it.” 

Natsuo shook his head, the anxiety pivoting to a more tangible, external worry. “And Shouto… who’s gonna walk him to the train in the morning? You know how he gets when it’s too crowded. He just shuts down. And if Touya has a really bad week, like, can’t-get-out-of-bed bad, and you’re stuck on a long shift… who’s gonna make sure there’s real food? Sho would never eat another vegetable again if he wasn’t forced to. He’ll just disappear into his room and no one will…” He trailed off, another frustrated puff of snow escaping his lips. “He needs someone here.”

Keigo listened, finishing his mouthful of ice cream. He set his spoon down with a deliberate click.

“We’ve loved having you here, Natsu. Seriously,” he said, and his voice carried a weight of genuine emotion. “After everything last year… you being home was… it was good, for Touya, and Shouto, and for me.”

He leaned forward, his elbows on the table, his gaze intent. “But you staying parked here forever because you’re scared something might go wrong? That’s not a life, man. That’s just… putting yourself in storage.”

He gestured vaguely around the kitchen, at the sleeping house. “We’ll figure the other stuff out. Touya’s last infusion is at the end of the month. He’ll be back on his feet soon, and he’ll be able to keep a closer eye on Sho. I’ll talk to my sidekicks, rearrange my schedule for the rough weeks, and Fuyumi’s only a phone call away. We’ll manage. That’s on us.” He pointed his spoon at Natsuo. “Your job is to go be Natsuo. Be a student. Be a genius. Become a doctor, a nurse, a lab rat… whatever the hell you want to be. We don’t need you to be anything other than yourself, and to take care of yourself.”

There was a rare, raw intensity in Keigo’s words. Natsuo knew why. Keigo’s own life had been a series of commands and contracts since childhood. 

He wanted something different for Natsuo.

“You’re not the family’s emergency blanket, Natsuo,” Keigo said, his voice dropping softer. “You’re our brother, and you deserve to go live your life! We’ll be here. The door’s always open, the phone’s always on… but don’t chain yourself to this apartment because you feel like you have to be the one to hold it together.”

The words slowly permeated the cold anxiety gripping Natsuo’s chest. The nervous snow flurry around his shoulders finally stilled, the last few flakes vanishing into the air. The fear wasn’t gone, but Keigo’s blunt certainty was a powerful counterweight. They would manage. They had managed worse.

“Yeah,” he murmured, the word a concession. “Okay.”

Keigo nodded, the intensity fading into his usual laid-back weariness. He reached for the ice cream tub again, scraping from the sides. “Now, are you gonna hog the rest of this, or what? Patrol burns calories.”

A faint, genuine smile finally touched Natsuo’s lips. “Get your own, freeloader. That’s mine.”

“Touya put a moratorium on my ice cream purchases. Says I lack ‘portion control’.”

“He’s not wrong.”

“This doesn’t look like portion control to me either, Natsu…” 

They lapsed back into a comfortable silence, the remains of the ice cream between them. Natsuo’s future was still a vast unknown, filled with potential triggers and embarrassments. But for now, it was just him and Keigo, sharing a tub of ice cream.

---

The silence in the apartment was punctuated by the sound of retching from behind the bathroom door. Obaachan sat in the living room, looking through the information given to Touya by his doctor, while Ojiisan stood at the stove, slowly stirring a pot of plain rice porridge, which they hoped might stay down. They had overstayed their planned visit by three days, a silent, stubborn rebellion against Touya’s weak protests. They’d been rescheduled to take the train back to Hokkaido the following morning. 

In the hallway, Natsuo hovered, shifting his weight. “You sure you’re good here?” he asked, for the third time.

Ojiisan didn’t look up from the pot. “We are sure. Go. Be with your brother.”

The bathroom door opened and Touya emerged, grey-faced and trembling, leaning heavily on the doorframe. “For god’s sake, Natsuo, go,” he rasped, his voice raw. “Get Shouto out of this tomb. I don’t want him listening to this all day.” Another wave of nausea visibly hit him and he retreated, slamming the door shut again. 

Natsuo had decided a Brother Day was in order. He’d found Shouto in his room, meticulously shading a detailed pencil drawing of a crow perched on a power line.

“We’re going out,” Natsuo announced from the doorway.

Shouto looked up, his expression neutral. He didn’t protest, but he didn’t look thrilled by the prospect of Tokyo’s chaotic energy either.

“And,” Natsuo added, “I already texted Izuku. He’s meeting us at the station.”

At this, a faint light of interest flickered in Shouto’s eyes. He gave a small, almost imperceptible nod and carefully closed his sketchbook.

Their destination was the MORI Building Digital Art Museum in Odaiba. Natsuo had chosen it for a reason: it was immersive and visually stunning for Shouto, it was largely a cool, dark space which would help with Izuku’s sensory issues, and it was something he himself could tolerate without feeling like he was just shepherding two kids around. It was art, but it was also science. It felt like a good compromise.

They met Izuku at the station, the green-haired boy buzzing with a nervous energy that immediately focused on Shouto. “Hi! Is this okay? We don’t have to go in if it’s too much, I looked it up and it said it’s dark but there are a lot of lights and sounds, but maybe it’s a different kind of lights and sounds, we can always just go find a quiet cafe instead, or…”

Shouto shook his head. “‘S o-okay,” he said, his voice quiet but firm. He glanced at the museum’s entrance. “Int-teresting.”

And it was. For the next three hours, they wandered through the vast, pitch-black rooms where digital art bloomed and swirled around them, flowing over walls and floors. Shouto was mesmerized, tracking the impossible colors and patterns, his usual reticence replaced by a quiet, focused absorption. Izuku, though occasionally overwhelmed by the scale, was captivated by the technology, muttering to himself about projection mapping and interactive design.  They bought overpriced drinks from the museum cafe and sat in a relatively quiet corner. Natsuo felt calm, at peace as Izuku worried about choking hazards presented by tapioca pearls and Shouto rolled his eyes. 

It was the right choice. 

---

Meanwhile, in a large, warehouse-style store filled with educational supplies, Fuyumi and Haruki were in their element. The second trimester began soon, and the hunt for the perfect bulletin board border and non-squeaky dry-erase markers was a serious pursuit.

“Do you think the solar system border is too cheesy for fifth grade?” Haruki asked, holding up a roll of planets and stars.

“I don’t think so at all” Fuyumi countered, adding a pack of star-shaped stickers to their overflowing cart. “It’s about inspiration, not accuracy.”

They moved through the aisles with the easy synchronicity of a long-established partnership, their conversation a mix of classroom logistics and comfortable domestic chatter. It was a world away from sick brothers and complex family dynamics, and while Fuyumi felt the lingering sense of guilt she always did over having a good day while her siblings struggled, Haruki’s hand in hers grounded her in the moment… and she clung to it gratefully.

---

Keigo came home around two, his wings drooping. He nodded silently to Touya’s grandparents, his gaze flicking to the closed bathroom door. He didn’t need to ask where Touya was; the sound of retching was faint but unmistakable. 

He changed out of his hero gear and joined the crowd in the living room. Obaachan was reading aloud from a gardening magazine. Ojiisan was meticulously organizing the apartment’s small junk drawer. Keigo closed his eyes. 

After a while, the bathroom door opened. Touya emerged, leaning heavily on the doorframe. Keigo was there in an instant, slipping an arm around his waisy.

“Hi baby,” Touya slurred, his throat raw, mint on his breath. “’M done. Just… bed.”

Keigo walked with him him the short distance to their bedroom, lowering him onto the mattress. Touya was asleep almost before his head hit the pillow, his body finally succumbing to the post-purge exhaustion. 

The farewell dinner that evening was a quiet affair. A spread of delivered dishes covered the kotatsu. Fuyumi and Haruki had returned, smelling of new poster board and laminate. Natsuo and Shouto were flushed from their day out, Natsuo explaining the exhibit and Shouto nodding along.

Touya was sleeping deeply in the other room, and not a single person suggested waking him.

Obaachan’s eyes were a little watery as she pressed containers of homemade pickles and jars of miso paste into Fuyumi’s and Natsuo’s hands.

Ojiisan shook Keigo’s hand, then Haruki’s, then Natsuo’s, his grip firm. “You look after each other,” he said, his usual economy of words speaking volumes. He placed a gentle hand on Shouto’s head for a moment, a wordless goodbye.

When they left for their hotel, the apartment felt both emptier and lighter. They had been cared for, and now they were left to continue on their own. 

Chapter 46: UA Interlude

Notes:

here we go! so hard to write fighting scenes haha which is why i stick to slice of life-ish... but it IS mha... so yeah. enjoy!

The morning air carried the chill of last night and the smell of damp concrete as Katsuki trudged toward the main building, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, his shoulders hunched. His gaze was fixed on the pavement, a scowl already etched onto his face. 

Second trimester. 

It felt like he’d been at UA for forever and for no time at all. He wished it would be over already. 

A flash of movement ahead of him made him glance up. Hitoshi, looking as dead-eyed as ever, was walking flanked by his two dads. Yamada-sensei was speaking verbally, his hands a blur of expressive gestures even when he wasn't signing. Aizawa-sensei, just looked like he wanted to be swallowed by the earth.

Hitoshi’s eyes scanned the courtyard, a lazy sweep that landed on Katsuki. There was a pause, a fraction of a second where recognition flickered, followed by something more complicated: a question, maybe an old, worn-out hurt. A year ago, Katsuki’s hand would have come up to say hello. 

Now, his gut twisted into a cold knot. He jerked his head away, pretending to be fascinated by the ugly pattern of the brickwork, and accelerated toward the student entrance. The memory was a fresh bruise: Hitoshi forming words for Todoroki, for teachers, for anyone who wasn't him. Each spoken word had felt like a door slamming shut. He hadn’t tried to talk to Hitoshi since the blow-up where he’d beat up Icy-Hot. 

Stupid. A hero would never beat up someone like Todoroki… not that the kid couldn’t pack a good punch… but it was like messing with a little kid. It felt wrong. Katsuki would never be a hero if he kept that shit up. 

He shouldered the heavy door open, the silence of the hallway a physical relief. His interpreter wouldn’t be here for another twenty minutes. This was his time. Classroom 1-A was almost empty. Only Iida Tenya was there, already performing some bizarre ritual of desk organization. Iida looked up, his movements becoming even more precise and rigid. He made a clumsy, over-enunciated gesture with his hand, a painfully obvious attempt at a signed [Good morning].

Katsuki’s upper lip twitched. He flicked his fingers in a curt, dismissive reply. [Morning.] Iida, looking profoundly relieved to have done his duty, turned back to his pencils. Conversation over.

Katsuki slunk to his desk. As he dropped his bag, he saw it. A small, black, sleek box sitting right in the center of his desk. The Support Department logo was stamped on the side. A note in Hatsume’s chaotic scrawl was stuck to the top: 

BAKUGO, 1A- We couldn’t wait! Hope you like them! :)

He didn’t need to open it. He knew. They’d been talking about it for weeks. His parents, the school counselor, his new, actually-certified speech therapist.

The summer had been a miserable, humid blur of frustration. It began with nearly two months of after-school sessions with Izuku, trying to force his mouth to form shapes it couldn’t feel, trying to strain his eyes to read Izuku’s lips that moved too fast whenever he forgot he needed to type or try to sign, which was constant because when Auntie didn’t remind him, Izuku forgot to take his meds, which made him both anxious, hyperactive, and forgetful... Izuku, who tried so damn hard it was pathetic, whose face would crumple every time Katsuki’s voice came out as a garbled, too-loud screech. Izuku, who finally broke down crying himself one afternoon because he “just wanted to help, Kacchan, I’m so sorry,” but whose mom had found out and called his own parents.

The intervention had been swift. No more Izuku. Instead, a professional, three times per week all six weeks of summer break. And she was… better than Izuku. She had charts and diagrams and a calm, unwavering patience that was somehow more infuriating than Izuku’s emotional rollercoaster. She’d helped him make progress… albeit tiny, incremental, humiliating progress. But with progress came expectation. The expectation that he would use this, that he would try to lip-read, that he would attempt to speak. That he would be… less Deaf.

And now this. The ultimate symbol of that expectation. Hearing aids. Not the clunky old-fashioned kind, but some high-tech UA bullshit designed to “maximize his residual hearing” and “facilitate classroom integration.” He snatched the box and shoved it to the very back of his desk, behind his textbooks. It felt like a betrayal of everything he was. His identity was carved from this. His world was built on the visual, the tactile. He was Katsuki Bakugou, and he was Deaf. He didn’t need to be fixed.

But a smaller, colder voice whispered the other truth: To be a hero, you might have to.

The classroom door swung open. Kirishima Eijiro bounded in, a shock of red hair and a blindingly bright grin, followed by Ashido Mina, her lips moving in a rapid, incomprehensible stream. Kirishima’s eyes found him immediately. He broke into a smile and a fluent sign. [Morning, Bakugou!]

Katsuki signed back, his movements sharp, contained. [Morning.] 

Kirishima was a CoDA, a Child of a Deaf Adult. His signing was natural, his presence easy to tolerate. He was the only person in this entire hell-school Katsuki could tolerate for more than thirty seconds.

[Ready for Hero Law?] Kirishima asked, leaning against the desk. [I heard it’s brutal.]

[Whatever,] Katsuki signed, his shoulders tense. 

They fell into a stilted back-and-forth. The room began to fill, the air thickening with the vibrations of footsteps and the dizzying visual noise of a dozen simultaneous conversations. Katsuki kept his eyes locked on Kirishima’s hands, an anchor.

Then Kirishima’s gaze flickered over Katsuki’s shoulder. His hands stilled. Some blond extra in Katsuki’s periphery was talking to him. Kirishima glanced back at Katsuki, then toward the other boy, a flicker of conflict on his face.

Katsuki saw it happen in slow motion: his tether to the social world of the classroom pulling away. He saw Kirishima’s lips form shapes and then he turned fully away to engage.

Frustration, hot and acidic, burned in Katsuki’s throat. He didn’t want his pity; he didn’t need his charity conversation. 

He reached out and jabbed Kirishima’s arm. When the redhead turned back, Katsuki’s signs were short. [Go. Talk to them.]

Kirishima’s eyebrows came together. [You want me to interpret?] he signed, his expression painfully earnest.

[No,] Katsuki’s signs were explosive, his face a mask of contempt. [I don’t wanna waste my time.]

He saw the genuine conflict on Kirishima’s face, the decent guy who wanted to include everyone, so before he could decide, Katsuki made the choice for him. He slammed his hands into his pockets, turned his back, and dropped into his seat, staring out the window at a world that was too loud and too quiet all at once.

His interpreter slipped in, offering him a small, professional smile. He ignored her.

---

The air in the prep room was thick with the scent of cleaner and the buzz of nerves. Katsuki stood apart from his team, a lone island of simmering intensity. His fingers, hidden in his pockets, were clenched into fists, one of them squeezing the small, discreet case in his pocket.

Inside were the hearing aids.

He’d pictured doing this in a sterile office with the audiologist and his parents, a controlled, clinical environment. But the taunting memory of his first-trimester, with the confused silences, the way his teammates’ faces would screw up in frustration when he missed a shouted command, the pitying looks from Class 1-B, had decided for him. He couldn’t go out there looking weak. Not again.

So he’d put them in. The design was sleek, functional, and blatantly, unavoidably obvious. A subtle, flesh-toned plastic arm curved over the top of each ear, but the main processor was a small, sleek module attached directly to his temple, just above his cheekbone. It looked less like a medical device and more like a piece of tactical tech. From there, a clear, nearly invisible tube snaked down to the custom-molded dome that sat in his ear canal. A two-pronged attack on his deafness. 

Once they were on, the world changed. 

It wasn’t sound, not as he dimly remembered it from over a decade ago. It was a chaotic, disorienting onslaught of sensation. A low, constant hum vibrated through his skull, and a high-pitched, mosquito-like whine came from the above; the lights, maybe? The rustle of costumes and the thump of a boot on concrete weren’t just felt; they were now accompanied by a fuzzy, staticky noise that seemed to originate inside his head. It was overwhelming. His heart was already hammering, a frantic beat he could feel in his throat but now also heard as a dull, rhythmic thud in his ears.

Across the room, Aizawa-sensei began the pre-battle briefing. True to form, his hands moved in clear, concise JSL even as sound, a low, tired monotone, buzzed faintly and distortedly in Katsuki’s new aids.

[Exercise is capture the flag. Standard rules. Teams are as posted.] 

His eyes, dark and assessing, scanned the room and lingered on Katsuki for a half-second longer than anyone else. There was a question in that look. A silent check-in. Katsuki glared back, refusing to look away first.

He felt a nudge at his elbow. Kirishima. His face was split with an encouraging grin. His hands moved quickly. [You good, man? You look… on edge.]

Katsuki’s jaw tightened. He gave a short, sharp nod. [New support gear. Testing it.] He didn’t elaborate. He didn’t have to. Kirishima’s eyes lit up with immediate, unwavering enthusiasm.

[That’s so manly, Bakugou!] he signed, his movements broad and excited. [Going for it in a live exercise! The best way to test it!]

Katsuki just grunted, the sound oddly loud and flat in his own head. Kirishima’s support was genuine, but it did nothing to calm the storm of sensory overload brewing behind his eyes.

The briefing ended. As they moved into the simulated cityscape, the disorientation magnified. His own footsteps were a jarring, amplified thump-thump-thump. Jiro, scouting ahead, whispered something to Sero. Katsuki saw her lips move, heard a faint, high-pitched whispery noise that might have been words, and had no idea what was said. He was already lagging.

The sound was a burst of distorted static, a shout that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. It was Kaminari. Katsuki’s head snapped toward the noise, his body flinching instinctively. He’d heard the direction, a first for him, but the word itself was just noise. He saw Kaminari’s mouth moving, saw him pointing frantically.

“What?” Katsuki snarled back. The word erupted from him, too loud, too rough, devoid of the tonal nuance he couldn’t hear. It was a blunt, deaf-sounding bark that made several of his teammates jump. They’d never really heard his voice before, and the mismatch between his fierce, intimidating appearance and the awkward, unmodulated sound was jarring.

Kaminari’s face twisted in confusion, then flashed with clear irritation. He tried again, shouting slower, his lips forming exaggerated, patronizing shapes. 

It was useless. The hearing aids gave him noise, not language. This had been a mistake. His pride had gotten the better of him. 

Before Katsuki could even attempt to parse the lip movement, a vine from Komori’s Quirk shot out from the left flank, exactly where Kaminari had been trying to warn him. It snagged his ankle, yanking him off balance.

He hit the ground hard, the impact jarring. The hearing aids transmitted the scrape of his costume against the concrete as a horrifying, amplified SCREECH directly into his skull. Gritting his teeth against the sensory assault, he ripped himself free with a small, controlled explosion that made his own ears ring with painful feedback.

He scrambled up, chest heaving. He saw the looks now. Not just frustration. It was worse. Jiro shot him a glare, her eyes sharp and annoyed before she turned away, muttering something to Yaoyorozu that he couldn’t hope to catch. Sero wasn’t just shrugging helplessly anymore; he was actively avoiding looking in Katsuki’s direction, his posture tense.

They thought he was a liability. A dead weight. A problem.

And then, as quickly as the frustration had come, it shifted. He saw Jiro’s angry shoulders slump. She glanced back at him, and her expression softened into something that made his stomach curdle: pity. She saw the high-tech hardware on his face, saw his wide, disoriented eyes, and her anger melted into awkward sympathy. Kaminari’s exasperation faded into a look of uncomfortable guilt. They weren’t just frustrated with their teammate anymore; they felt bad for him.

That was a thousand times worse. His worst fear, realized. They were looking at the tech on his face and looking down on him. They saw the disabled kid struggling, not a hero student failing. The humiliation was hotter than any explosion. It wasn't just that he was failing; it was that their perception of him had permanently shifted from formidable to feeble. Rage eclipsed the sensory overload. He wasn't drowning anymore; he was boiling over.

Across the square, the opposing team was holding their position. His eyes, burning with fury, landed on Hitoshi whose team wasn’t up yet. He was watching Katsuki, his head tilted. His usual bored expression was gone, replaced by a sharp, analytical focus. His eyes were narrowed, and for a split second, they weren't on the tactical situation, they were on the support gear plastered to Katsuki's face. It was a look of understanding, and that, somehow, was the most humiliating thing of all.

Katsuki bared his teeth in a soundless, furious snarl and turned away, violently shutting out the world, both the one he couldn’t hear and the new, terrifyingly noisy one he now could. He was a liability, and a pity case, and that was absolutely fucking unacceptable.

The looks from his teammates acted like a bucket of ice water. 

Fine. If they thought he was a liability, he’d show them. He didn’t need their garbled shouts or their pathetic attempts at communication. He didn’t need to understand the meaningless noise flooding his skull.

He needed to win.

A switch flipped inside him, and he stopped trying to parse the distorted sounds and straining to read lips that moved too fast. He let the unidentifiable world of sound become a dull, roaring backdrop, a static ocean he would simply swim through. His world narrowed to the visual, the tactical, the explosive. This was what he knew. This was what he was good at.

Ignoring the frantic, buzzing attempts of his team to coordinate, Katsuki launched himself forward with a series of concussive blasts from his palms. He was a one-man army, a blonde streak of destruction cutting through the simulated cityscape. He didn’t look for approval or wait for signals. He saw an opponent from Class 1-B and took her down with a precise, non-lethal blast to her vine-producing hands before she could even react.

“Bakugou, wait!” 

A sound came from behind him, which he couldn’t understand. He didn’t turn. He saw Sero in his peripheral vision, gesturing wildly, his mouth moving. It was all noise. Just noise.

He was a predator, and his prey was the other team’s flag. He could see it, tucked away in a mock building across the square. His team, his anchors, he thought with a fresh surge of anger, were lagging behind, probably still trying to have a committee meeting about what to do.

A flash of movement to his left. He pivoted, ready to blast, but it was just Jiro. Her face was a mask of frustration. She was signing something… or at least trying to, her hands moving in sharp, angry jerks. But she was flustered, and her signs were incomprehensible. She made a gesture that looked like a crude attempt at [Stop!], but it was sloppy. At the same time, her mouth was moving, yelling words that reached his ears as a high-pitched, tinny garble.

“I can’t understand you!” Katsuki roared back, his own voice a foreign, too-loud instrument in his head. The words were blunt and mangled, lacking any inflection. Jiro’s eyes widened, not with understanding, but with alarm. Her gaze snapped to something just behind his right shoulder. Her expression shifted from frustration to pure, unadulterated shock.

It was that look that finally broke through his solitary focus. 

What was behind him?

He started to turn, his body moving a fraction of a second too slow.

The hearing aids, which had been a constant roar of sound, had been screaming a warning he couldn’t decipher. 

His head was only halfway around when a fist, hardened and steel-like, connected with his jaw with a sickening CRUNCH.

---

Consciousness returned not with a jolt, but as a slow, heavy tide. The first thing Katsuki registered was the silence. A deep, profound, and blessedly familiar silence. He was just… him again.

He was in the UA infirmary, the lights were dimmed, and the new support gear was gone, leaving only a faint, tender ache along his jawbone and the ghost of its invasive presence.

His interpreter, Ms. Akagi, sat in a chair across from the bed, her hands resting patiently in her lap. And sitting next to her, surprisingly, was Yamada, not in his Present Mic gear, but casual clothes. He was uncharacteristically quiet, scrolling on his phone. He looked up the moment Katsuki’s eyes fluttered open.

Before anyone could move, the curtain rustled and Recovery Girl bustled in. She gave him a once-over, then leaned in and planted a firm kiss on his forehead. The familiar wave of draining exhaustion washed over him, pulling the last remnants of pain from his jaw but leaving him feeling hollowed out, like a wrung-out rag. He was so, so tired.

Recovery Girl spoke, her voice a silent movement of her lips that Ms. Akagi’s hands instantly translated into smooth JSL. [The boy from 1-B, Tetsutetsu, is very sorry. He thought you would duck. He did not mean to put so much force behind it. He was quite upset, but I sent him home. You had a broken jaw, and I’m sure a bit of a concussion, but it’s all fixed now.]

Katsuki tried to swallow, his throat dry. He opened his mouth to ask if he could leave, but the words that came out were a thick, slurred mumble. 

Recovery Girl blinked, her expression politely confused. She hadn’t understood a word.

A hot flush of humiliation and frustration burned through his exhaustion. He clenched his jaw, winced at the tenderness, and instead raised his hands. His signs were sharp, jerky, his eyes fixed on a point on the wall past Recovery Girl’s head. [Can I go?]

Ms. Akagi voiced the question aloud.

Recovery Girl nodded. 

[Yes, you’re free to go. The healing took a lot out of you, so you’ll be very tired. I’ve already spoken with your parents. They know you’re resting but okay. Yamada-san offered to take you home whenever you woke up.]

Katsuki gave a tight nod. He signed again, this time to the interpreter. [You can go. Thank you.]

Ms. Akagi looked to Yamada, who nodded. She gathered her things with a soft smile and slipped out, leaving them in the quiet infirmary.

Yamada stood up. [Here are your clothes.] He handed Katsuki a neatly folded uniform and then tactfully stepped outside the curtain to give him privacy.

Changing was a slow, clumsy process. Every movement felt weighted. When he was done, he pushed the curtain back. Yamada was waiting, holding Katsuki’s backpack and the rest of his things from the classroom.

Katsuki’s eyes scanned the area around the cot.

[Where are the hearing aids?]

Yamada’s expression was gentle. [Support took them back. To… fiddle with them. Shouta said…] He made Aizawa’s name sign, a flat hand brushing down over his face, representing his perpetually tired, deadpan expression, [they weren’t helping very much.]

Katsuki’s shoulders slumped. He made a sharp, dismissive sound in the back of his throat. 

Yamada studied him for a long moment. The usual boisterous energy he projected was banked, replaced by a quiet empathy. [Talk to me about it,] he signed, using Katsuki’s name sign, a quick, sharp motion of the hand mimicking an explosion opening, followed by the sign for ‘win’.

The use of his name sign, something from his childhood, something Hizashi had given him, made the wall around his composure crack. He looked away, his shoulders slumping.

[I hate quitters.] The sign for ‘quit’ was final, a firm gesture of dismissal. [I don’t want to be one.] He looked down at his own hands, unable to meet Yamada’s gaze. [But… I don’t think I can do this anymore.]

Yamada moved to sit on the edge of a nearby cot, putting himself at eye level. His signs were measured, thoughtful. [Today was a bad day. Just one day. Don’t decide your whole future on one bad day.]

Katsuki shook his head, a frantic, desperate motion. The dam was breaking. [I don’t want to think about it anymore!] His signs were becoming more agitated, less precise. [I’m so tired of feeling like shit. I’m tired of people looking at me…] He made a sign, his fingers pointing to his eyes and then down, a clear expression of being looked down upon. […like that. Their faces. The pity. It’s worse than them being angry with me for fucking up.]

Yamada watched, his expression somber. He was one of the only people who could truly understand the chasm between the person you were inside and the way the world perceived you. He’d built a whole hero persona around being loud and flashy, a stark contrast to the man who could sit in perfect, understanding silence.

[I know,] Yamada signed, the two words holding a universe of empathy. [I know that look. It’s… heavy.] He paused, choosing his next words carefully. [The gear… it was too much, too fast. That’s not quitting. That’s… learning. You learned it doesn’t work for you that way. Maybe there’s another way. Or maybe,] he signed, his expression turning fierce and supportive, [you show them you don’t need their way at all.]

He leaned forward. [But not today. Today, you let your parents baby you. You eat well. You rest. Let today be over.]

Katsuki looked at him, the fight finally draining out of him, leaving only the overwhelming fatigue. He didn’t agree, but didn’t have it in him to argue either.

The walk to the teachers’ parking lot was silent. Katsuki kept his head down, and for once Yamada didn’t try to fill the quiet with meaningless chatter. He just walked beside him, a steady, silent presence.

Yamada’s car was, unsurprisingly, a sleek, sporty model. He unlocked it and slid into the driver’s seat. Katsuki slumped into the passenger side, dropping his backpack at his feet. As Yamada started the engine, he didn't reach for the radio dial. Instead, he glanced at Katsuki, a question in his raised eyebrows.

Katsuki gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod.

Yamada’s face broke into a small grin. He turned the knob, and the car was instantly filled with a deep, thunderous bassline that vibrated through the very frame of the vehicle. It wasn't noise, but pure physical sensation. Katsuki, almost instinctively, leaned sideways and pressed his body against the door's speakers. He closed his eyes, letting the rhythmic vibration travel up his arms, through his bones, and into his chest, where it seemed to shake loose some of the tight, angry knots inside him. The world outside the windows was a silent movie, the roar of the engine and the music a feeling, not a sound.

When Yamada pulled up in front of the Bakugou house, the car fell silent. The sudden absence of vibration left Katsuki feeling unmoored again. He sat there, staring at his own front door, unable to make his hands move to unbuckle the seatbelt.

Yamada waited, giving him the space.

Finally, Katsuki’s hands lifted into the dim light of the dashboard. His signs were small, hesitant. [I’m sorry.]

Yamada tilted his head. [For what?]

[For being mad. All the time.] Katsuki’s fingers fumbled. [For ignoring you. And… Hitoshi.] 

Yamada was quiet for a moment. Then he reached over and gently tapped Katsuki’s knee to get his full attention. His signs were clear and direct. [Hitoshi misses you, too.]

“Tch.” Katsuki’s face screwed up. [He hears. He speaks. He has friends. I see him with all the dumb extras at lunch.] The signs were sharp, dismissive.

Yamada shook his head, his own signs firm. [It’s not the same. Having people around you… and having your friend… it’s not the same.]

Katsuki’s scowl melted away, replaced by a struggle he couldn’t hide. His hands hovered in the air, searching for signs that could possibly contain the tangled mess inside him. He gestured vaguely to his own chest, his face twisting in frustration.

[I just…] he tried, then shook his head, dropping his hands. He tried again. [It’s like… everyone is in a room. And I’m on the other side of the glass. I can see them talking. Laughing. And I…] He sighed, frustrated, unsure how to express what he wanted to. […I can’t get in.]

His breath hitched. The dam he’d been holding back all day, all summer, finally broke. A hot, silent tear traced a path down his cheek. Then another.

[I feel lonely,] he finally signed.

Yamada didn’t try to hug him or pat his shoulder. He just looked at him, his own eyes looking suspiciously bright. He signed two words, slow and sure. [I know.]

He let Katsuki cry for another minute, before the porch light of the Bakugo house began to flicker on and off. Once. Twice. A third time. Mitsuki, checking on her son.

Katsuki saw it too. He drew in a shaky breath and roughly wiped his face with the sleeve of his uniform jacket, erasing the evidence as best he could. He took another deep, steadying breath, the kind that hurt on the way down.

He unbuckled his seatbelt and grabbed his backpack. He gave Yamada one last, quick nod, and pushed the car door open.

He didn’t look back.

---

The scent of miso soup and frying rice filled the Yamada-Aizawa household, a warm, earthy counterpoint to the sterile smell of the infirmary. 

“I’m home,” he called out, as he toed off his shoes in the genkan.

From the kitchen, Shouta grunted in acknowledgment, his focus on chopping scallions with a terrifying precision. Hitoshi was at the small kitchen table, meticulously setting out three bowls and chopsticks. He didn’t look up, but his shoulders tensed almost imperceptibly.

“How is he?” Shouta asked without preamble, his knife never slowing its rhythmic tap-tap-tap on the cutting board. He spoke aloud, for Hitoshi’s benefit. As a family they were trying to speak more, and sign less, to encourage Hitoshi to practice speaking too. It was sort of hard, especially on days like today, when Hizashi only wanted to rip them out and let noise be muffled for a while, but sacrifices for your children were always worth making. 

Hizashi leaned against the doorway, watching his family. “Tired. In one piece. Recovery Girl fixed the jaw. It was a clean break.” He kept his tone light, factual.

“Tetsutetsu’s fist versus Bakugou’s face,” Shouta said dryly. “He never stood a chance. Kid didn’t even see it coming. The new support gear… it was a disaster. He was completely disoriented. A liability to himself and his team.” He spoke bluntly, but there was no malice in it, only fact.

“He was trying,” Hizashi said, coming into the kitchen and snatching a piece of carrot from the cutting board. 

Shouta swatted at his hand half-heartedly. “It was too much, too fast.”

Dinner was served, a simple, hearty fried rice. They sat around the table, the easy rhythm of their family routine taking over.

“How was the rest of the exercise?” Hizashi asked, directing the question to both of them.

Shouta grunted. “1-B won. Vlad wouldn’t shut up about it.”

Hitoshi spoke up, his voice still a bit quiet, a little scratchy, but clear. “Kendo’s strategy was good. She capitalized on the confusion.” He didn’t look at either of them, focusing on his food.

There was a pause. 

Hizashi looked between his husband and his son. “You know… he asked about you, Hitoshi. Said he was sorry for… well, for everything.”

Hitoshi kept his eyes on his rice. “Oh.”

“He’s having a really hard time,” Hizashi pressed gently. “It might be nice for him to have a friend who… gets it. You know? Maybe you could text him. Or something.”

Hitoshi shrugged one shoulder, a dismissive, almost imperceptible gesture. He didn’t look up. “Maybe,” he said, the word non-committal and hollow.

The response was polite, but his body language screamed a different story. His shoulders were hunched, his arms crossed loosely over his chest. It was a clear, subtle no. Shouta and Hizashi exchanged a quick, surprised glance over the table. They’d known Hitoshi had been holding onto hurt feelings for months, but this felt different, like… moving on.

They let the subject drop, the rest of the meal filled with easier topics: plans for the weekend, a funny thing one of the cats had done. Hitoshi helped clear the plates and then mumbled something about homework before heading upstairs to his room.

Once they heard his door click shut, Hizashi let out a long breath and slumped against the counter.

Shouta came to stand beside him, leaning his hip against the counter. “He’s making his own way. It’s what we wanted.” He paused. “What happened in the car? You looked like you’d seen a ghost when you got back.”

Hizashi rubbed a hand over his face. “He broke down. Completely. Said he feels like he’s on the other side of glass, watching everyone else live. He said he’s… lonely, Sho. He cried. Katsuki… I didn’t think I’d ever see him cry.”

Shouta absorbed this, his dark eyes looking weary. “Damn.”

“I know.”

They stood in silence for a moment, the hum of the refrigerator the only sound.

“I’m not sure I’’m going to pass him through the hero course,” Shouta said finally, his voice low and grim.

Hizashi’s head snapped up. “Shouta, don’t say that. It was one bad day-”

“It’s not about one bad day,” Shouta interrupted, his tone leaving no room for argument. “It’s about reality. My philosophy isn’t to coddle students. It’s to prepare them for a job that will get them killed if they’re not equipped. Right now, Katsuki is not equipped, and I don’t know if he ever will be.”

He looked away, his gaze distant. “In the real world, a villain isn’t going to care that he can’t hear them coming up behind him. There won’t be an interpreter on patrol. If we can’t find support gear that works with him instead of against him… then keeping him in the hero course is a waste of his time and a danger to his life. It would be irresponsible.”

Hizashi heard the unspoken weight behind the words. The ghost of Oboro Shirakumo, their bright, loud, fearless friend who had died, hung between them. Shouta’s entire teaching ethos was built on the bedrock of that loss. He would never, ever pass a student he believed was heading for a similar fate.

“He’s trying,” Hizashi insisted, his voice pleading. “He’s the most stubborn kid I’ve ever met. He’s not a quitter. Don’t give up on him yet.”

“I’m not giving up on him,” Shouta said, his voice softening slightly. He reached out and squeezed Hizashi’s arm. “I care about him, you know I do. But I have to be honest about what I see. And right now… I see a major liability and a kid who is miserable. We need a solution. And there might not be one.”

He pushed off from the counter. “I’m going to make sure Hitoshi’s working on his homework and not playing that game again.”

Hizashi stayed where he was, staring out the kitchen window. The fear that Shouta was right was a knot in his stomach.

Chapter 47: Geometry

Notes:

thanks so much for the kind comments and follows and kudos!
back with a touya-centric chap... it's been a while since we really caught up with him!

The late September sun streamed through the living room window, catching dust motes dancing in the air. It was a clean, quiet light, illuminating the scene of concentrated effort around the kotatsu.

On one side, Shouto was engaged in a battle with his current nemesis, a passage from a simplified version of Kokoro by Natsume Soseki. His classmates were grappling with the original text's themes of isolation and changing societal values; Shouto’s adapted version focused on core vocabulary and simpler sentences, but the underlying concepts were the same. His art-trained hand could reproduce the kanji with perfect, elegant strokes; the shape was easy. The struggle was in the meaning, in wrestling the author’s intent from the symbols and holding it in a mind that processed information at its own deliberate pace.

“He f-felt… a-alone,” Shouto murmured, his voice a low, careful rumble, “b-because… the w-w-world wa-as… d-different.”

Touya, sitting beside him, nodded. He wasn’t reading over Shouto’s shoulder, but watching his brother’s face for signs of frustration or fatigue. “Yeah. It’s a classic feeling. Why do you think he couldn’t just talk to his friend about it?”

Shouto’s heterochromatic eyes stayed fixed on the page, his brow furrowed. The question required inference, moving beyond the text on the page. It was the real work. “P-pride?” he ventured after a long moment.

“Maybe,” Touya said, his tone neutral, encouraging. “Keep going, keep thinking about it”

Across the kotatsu, the energy was entirely different. Izuku was a vortex of quiet productivity, surrounded by a fortress of textbooks: Calculus, Principles of Modern Physics, Ethics, Japanese Literature Year One. His notebook was full of equations, diagrams, and annotations, his pen flying across the page. His muttering was a nearly silent, rapid-fire stream of unashamed, out-loud processing and problem-solving.

The front door clicked open, breaking the focus. The smell of fresh daikon, ginger, and the rich aroma of takeout coffee filled the apartment.

“Delivery service!” Keigo announced, his voice a cheerful boom he immediately modulated when he saw the focused students. He kicked off his shoes, his arms full with several reusable grocery bags. Inko followed, her arms also full, a gentle smile on her face.

“We got the chicken from the butcher you like, Touya,” Inko said, her voice a warm, calming presence. She glanced at the boys. “Making progress?”

Izuku looked up, blinking as if returning from another planet. “Oh! Hi, Mom! Yes, I finally cracked the Lagrangian application for projectile motion with variable air resistance!” He then immediately looked at Shouto, his expression shifting to one of gentle checking-in.

Shouto held up one thumb. 

“My cue for a break, boys,” Touya said, pushing himself up from the floor. The movement was smoother than it had been a month ago, but he still placed a hand on the wall for a second to steady himself. The aggressive bi-weekly infusions were over, replaced by a new cocktail of daily oral immunosuppressants, quirk suppressants, and weekly self-injections of a different biologic drug meant to maintain the fragile remission they hoped he’d achieved. The constant nausea had receded to an occasional background hum, and the terrifying, racking joint pain had dulled to a manageable ache. A pale, peach-fuzz halo was growing back on his scalp. He was due back at the quirk counseling clinic part-time next week, a prospect that filled him with both anxiety and excitement for the return of normalcy.

“Izu, that problem 5 is a trap,” Touya said, heading for the kitchen. “The derivative is inside the integral. Look for the substitution. Keigo, the rice cooker is actively hostile today. It beeped at me three times for no reason.”

Keigo laughed, following him into the kitchen and immediately beginning to unpack the groceries with practiced efficiency. “It beeps because you look at it with murder in your eyes, hot stuff. It’s preemptive self-defense.”

Inko settled at the kitchen counter, unpacking a bag of deep green spinach. They’d started seeing each other every week while the boys did homework together, and Touya didn’t shy away when he’d catch her subtly assessing his color, his energy levels. She was also a great cook, and today’s mission, alongside Keigo, was meal prep: a large batch of ginger-packed chicken meatballs, a savory vegetable curry, and miso-glazed salmon that could be easily reheated throughout the week. She would take half of everything home for her and Izuku, a practical system that lightened the load for everyone.

In the kitchen, Touya leaned against the counter, watching Keigo and Inko fall into an easy rhythm: Keigo chopping vegetables with surprising precision, Inko forming the meatballs. The domestic normalcy of it was still a novelty.

“Seriously,” Touya said, his voice low. “Thanks. For all of this.”

Keigo glanced over, his gaze softening. 

“Don’t get sentimental,” Touya muttered, but he couldn’t fight a small, tired smile.

---

The grand, airy lobby of Tokyo Metropolitan Arts High School thrummed with a vibrant, creative energy. Sunlight streamed through high windows, illuminating swirling dust motes and the excited faces of visitors. The air was a rich tapestry of sound: a distant orchestra rehearsing, the percussive beat of a modern dance routine, and the warm hum of conversation. For most, it was exhilarating. For Izuku, it was a beautiful, overwhelming assault. He walked pressed against his mother’s side, his noise-cancelling headphones a blessed barrier, his eyes wide as they took in the chaos.

They were one part of a large, cheerful group that had gathered with a single purpose: to celebrate Shouto. The Todoroki-Himura-Takami family: Touya, looking robust and healthy in a sleek black jacket, his growing hair hidden under a beanie; Keigo, wings subtly folded, a bright smile on his face; and Fuyumi, beaming with pride formed the core, Haruki beside her. They had been joined by the Bakugo and Aizawa-Yamada families, making for a boisterous party of eleven.

The atmosphere was one of uncomplicated celebration as they moved through the crowd toward the main gallery. Touya chatted easily with Shouta and Hizashi, a familiar, relaxed dynamic between them. Keigo was making Fuyumi and Inko laugh with a story about a mishap at his new agency. For a moment, the various threads of their lives wove together into a cohesive, happy whole.

Then they entered the gallery and saw it.

Centered on a vast white wall was Shouto’s piece. It was monumental, a six-by-eight-foot canvas that commanded silence and awe. It was abstract, but powerfully evocative. The foundation was a tumultuous, textured field of charred black and ash grey, laid down with thick acrylics and real flecks of charcoal. Sweeping across this darkness were bold, violent slashes of crimson and angry orange, the paint applied with such visceral force it was almost sculptural.

Yet, rising from this chaos, emerging from the very center, was a breathtaking growth of crystal and delicate-looking flowers, rendered in shades of cerulean, silver, and the softest pink. There were layers of resin, fused glass, and paper collage, it caught the light and glittered. Underneath it, in metallic, reflective silver-leaf, the silhouette of a woman, only partially visible beneath the semi-translucent piece on top.

A collective hush fell over the group. Fuyumi’s hand flew to her mouth, tears instantly welling in her eyes. Haruki squeezed her shoulder. Keigo’s jaw went slack. “Holy shit, Sho,” he whispered, the words full of reverence. He turned and wrapped Shouto in a huge, careful hug. “This is… there are no words.”

Touya stood perfectly still, his arms crossed tightly. His eyes were bright, his expression one of overwhelming pride. The spell was broken by happy, sniffly laughter. The moment was pure and good.

As the group began to chatter again, praising Shouto, the different dynamics within the larger party naturally reasserted themselves. Izuku, spotting his friend free, immediately detached from his mother and glued himself to Shouto’s side, his constant, low muttering now a stream of earnest artistic critique meant only for him. Shouto listened with a slight tilt of his head, his occasional soft “Hn” the only vocal reply needed.

The Bakugos and Aizawa-Yamadas formed their own smaller cluster. Mitsuki, Masaru, and Hizashi were sim-comming seamlessly, speaking and signing at the same time to ensure Katsuki was included. For a moment, it worked. Katsuki was even slightly engaged, his eyes flicking between their hands and faces, a faint, grudging interest on his features as they discussed the power of Shouto’s artwork.

Masaru, ever the gentle peacemaker, turned the conversation to include Hitoshi, his hands still moving. [And Hitoshi, your fathers say you’re enjoying your class in 1-B? Making new friends?]

Hitoshi looked up from his phone. He didn’t glance at his dad’s signing hands. He directed his flat, verbal reply solely at the hearing adults. “It’s fine. The class is okay.”

The deliberate exclusion was a door slamming shut. Katsuki’s faint engagement vanished, his face shutting down into a familiar, stony mask. 

A faint frown touched Shouta’s face. He didn’t look at Katsuki, but at his son. His voice was low, a quiet parental correction. “Hitoshi, please. We’re all talking.”

Hitoshi’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. He gave a short, dismissive nod but didn’t look up from his phone, offering no further comment and making no effort to sign. The silence that followed was profoundly uncomfortable, but its chill was contained to their little subgroup. The rest of their party, Touya, Keigo, Fuyumi, Haruki, and Inko, were still basking in the afterglow of Shouto’s achievement, completely unaware of the micro-drama unfolding a few feet away.

Katsuki had had enough. He tapped his father’s arm. When Masaru looked down, Katsuki’s signs were sharp and final, his eyes fixed on a point on the floor. [I want to go. Now.]

The hurt was buried deep, visible only in the tight line of his shoulders. Masaru’s face softened with concern. He signed back, his movements apologetic. [Just a little longer? We’ll go soon. Promise.]

Katsuki didn’t acknowledge him. He just shoved his hands back in his pockets and took a deliberate step back, putting physical distance between himself and the source of his humiliation.

Touya, ever the perceptive ringmaster, clapped his hands together, drawing the entire group’s attention. “Alright! I hear there’s a calligraphy demonstration that ends with free samples of mochi. I’m a simple man. I see free mochi, I move.” He began cheerfully herding the group away from the gallery and back into the flowing current of the festival.

The festival’s energy was a stark contrast to Katsuki’s mounting misery. They passed a room where a jazz band was playing, the brassy notes a silent vibration in the air that everyone else seemed to feel. In another hall, a drama club performed a slapstick comedy routine, the audience’s laughter a jarring, physical tremor underfoot. Every burst of silent sound, every smiling face, felt like a personal attack. The resentment born from Hitoshi’s dismissal curdled into a genuine, throbbing pain behind his eyes. The headache, psychosomatic or not, was becoming very real.

He grabbed his mother’s elbow, his face pale. [My head…] he began, then pressed the heels of his hands against his temples. […it really hurts. I need to go home.]

The anger was gone, replaced by a genuine, miserable plea. Mitsuki’s teasing energy vanished in an instant. Her brow furrowed with concern as she reached out, her cool hand pressing against his forehead and then his cheek. “Oh, honey,” she said, her voice softening. Her hands quickly followed, signing as she spoke. [A migraine? Okay. Okay, we’ll go right now.]

She turned to the group, raising her voice to cut through the chatter. “I’m so sorry, everyone! We have to duck out. Katsuki’s got a migraine coming on.”

The response was immediate and sympathetic. Inko’s face crumpled with concern. “Do you need some water? I have some pain relievers in my bag…”

Fuyumi offered a gentle, knowing smile. “Those are the worst.”

There was a chorus of understanding goodbyes. As Mitsuki and Masaru began shepherding their son toward the exit, Shouta fixed Hitoshi with a look that promised a very quiet, very serious discussion later. Hizashi offered the Bakugos an apologetic wave, his expression sad.

Once the Bakugos were gone, the atmosphere within the group lightened almost imperceptibly, the source of the tension removed. They enjoyed the rest of the festival: watching the calligraphy, sampling the mochi, admiring more student work. As the crowds began to thin and the late afternoon sun cast long shadows, they gathered their things to leave.

Fuyumi and Haruki left first, with promises to get the recipe for the mochi they’d sampled. Inko was checking her phone for the train schedule when Shouto, who had been unusually quiet, shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He looked at Touya, then down at the pavement, gathering his words.

He reached out and tapped Touya’s wrist. When his brother looked down, Shouto’s voice was soft, the words pushing past their familiar hurdles. “T-Touya? C-could… c-could Iz-zuku… c-come f-for a s-slee-epover?”

Touya blinked, a slow smile spreading across his face. “A sleepover, huh?” 

Shouto nodded, a faint blush coloring his cheeks. He glanced at Izuku, who was watching the exchange with barely-contained hope, his hands clenched in front of his chest. “J-just be-ecause,” Shouto confirmed, “it’s… n-not a s-school ni-ight.”

Touya’s smile widened. He looked over at Inko. “You hear that, Inko? What’s the verdict?”

Inko’s face broke into a warm, relieved smile. “I think that sounds wonderful,” she said. “If you’re sure it’s no trouble.”

“The only trouble is Keigo’s cooking,” Touya said, “but we’ll order pizza. It’s a sleepover law.”

Izuku finally exploded into a whirlwind of excited thank yous to both Inko, Keigo, and Touya, his earlier anxiety completely forgotten.

Laughing, the group parted ways. Inko headed for her train, and the rest started the walk back to the apartment, the two boys walking a few steps ahead, already lost in their own world. 

---

The air in Dr. Nakamura’s office was, as always, cool and carried the faint, clean scent of antiseptic. It was a smell that had become as familiar to Touya as his own, and one that usually tied his stomach into knots. But today, he sat perched on the edge of the examination table, the crinkly paper beneath him the only sound, feeling a strange, foreign sensation: cautious optimism.

Keigo was squeezed into the small chair in the corner, wings folded tightly against his back. He was uncharacteristically still, his focus entirely on the doctor as she scanned through the results on her tablet.

Dr. Nakamura looked up, a genuine smile breaking across her face. “Well,” she began, her voice warm. “I have to say, Touya, this is the best set of results we’ve seen in a long time.”

Touya’s breath, which he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, left him in a soft rush. Keigo’s shoulders dropped a fraction of an inch from his ears.

“Your inflammatory markers are down significantly,” she continued, tapping the screen. “They’re not in the normal range, and with QIAD, they likely never will be, but they’re in your normal range. The range where we see minimal disease activity.” She looked at him directly. “Your quirk activation levels are stable. No new flares. And your lung function…” She paused, and for a heart-stopping second, Touya braced for bad news. “It’s holding steady at fifty-two percent. No significant decline since your last pulmonary function test.”

The number wasn’t good. Fifty-two percent lung function was a permanent disability, a reminder of the damage that could never be fully undone. But it wasn’t worse. After years of watching that number tick steadily downward, ‘holding steady’ felt like a miracle.

“The weight gain is also a very positive sign,” Dr. Nakamura added, her smile widening slightly. “Putting on muscle mass naturally tells me your body isn’t cannibalizing itself anymore. It has the energy to rebuild.”

Touya looked down at his hands, at the wrists that were no longer quite so bony. He gave a slow nod. “So… what does this mean?”

“It means the new biologic is working. It means we’ve found a treatment regimen that your body is actually responding to. You’re in a solid, clinical remission.” She held up a finger. “This is not a cure. This is management. You still need to be careful. Avoid stressors, both physical and emotional. Get your rest. And your quirk…” She gave him a look that was both stern and sympathetic. “I know it’s a part of you. But it remains your single biggest stressor. A small, controlled use likely won’t send you into a tailspin anymore, but I want you to continue to think of it as a last resort. Understood?”

“Understood,” Touya murmured.

Keigo finally spoke, his voice uncharacteristically soft. “So he’s okay?”

“He’s okay,” Dr. Nakamura confirmed, her gaze warm as she looked between them. “He’s going to be okay. Keep doing what you’re doing.”

Twenty minutes later, they were seated at a small, sun-drenched table outside their favorite café. The late morning traffic was a distant hum. Before them sat two ridiculously elaborate coffees: a caramel-drizzled, whipped-cream monstrosity for Keigo and a slightly less decadent but still very sugary white chocolate mocha for Touya.

Touya stared at his drink, then out at the people walking by, living their ordinary lives. He felt… ordinary. In a way he hadn’t in a long time.

“Remission,” he said aloud, testing the weight of the word. It felt foreign on his tongue.

Keigo grinned, licking a swirl of whipped cream from his thumb. “Sounds good, doesn’t it? ‘Clinically solid remission’. I like that. Very official.” His expression softened. “How’s it feel?”

Touya was quiet for a moment, watching the condensation bead on the side of his plastic cup. “It feels…” He searched for the right word. “It feels like I can breathe.” He let out a short, breathy laugh. “Which is stupid, because my lungs are still shit.”

“Nah,” Keigo said, shaking his head. “It’s not stupid. There’s nothing hovering right over your head anymore.” He reached across the small table, not to hold Touya’s hand, but to flick a bit of lint off his jacket sleeve. “We should celebrate. For real. Not just with sugar-caffeine bombs.”

Touya finally picked up his mocha and took a long sip. The sweetness was overwhelming and perfect. “What did you have in mind?”

Keigo’s eyes lit up with a familiar, mischievous glint. “I don’t know yet. But it’ll involve doing something crazy.” He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a mock-conspiratorial whisper. “Maybe we’ll even stay up past eleven.”

A real, easy smile spread across Touya’s face. The day hadn’t erased the scars or filled his lungs with air, but it lightened the load he’d been carrying for so long. He was still sick, and would always be sick, but for now, the war inside his body had reached a ceasefire. And for today, that was more than enough. He had a sugary coffee, the sun on his face, and his partner planning his big return to life as it should be. 

It was undeniably a good day. 

---

The first morning back at the quirk counseling practice felt like stepping into a past life. The waiting room smelled the same: like lemongrass cleaner and the faint, sweet scent of the crayons in the basket by the tiny chairs. Touya’s own office, however, felt like a museum exhibit of a person he used to be. He ran a finger over his desk, leaving a trail in the fine layer of dust. 

His mentor, Dr. Ishikawa, found him there. At sixty-five, she moved with a slow, deliberate grace, the subtle greenish scales on her forearms catching the light. Her yellow, slit-pupiled eyes, usually so analytical and detached, were soft with an uncharacteristic warmth.

“You’re early,” she said, her voice a low, familiar rasp.

“Didn’t want to be late on my first day back,” Touya replied, offering a weak smile. He’d chosen his clothes carefully: soft, non-restrictive trousers and a loose sweater that hid the lingering thinness of his arms.

She leaned against the doorframe, studying him with a clinician’s eye that quickly gave way to something more personal. “You look… less like a strong wind would knock you over.” It was the closest she would ever come to a sentimental outburst. She cleared her throat, the moment passing. “Your clients… they’ll be glad to see you.”

And they were. 

His first appointment was with Ren Shirogane, now nearly twenty-one, and his mother. When Mrs. Shirogane guided him into the office, Ren’s hands were fluttering gently at his sides, a sign of mild agitation. But the moment he saw Touya, his entire body stilled. His eyes, which often seemed to look through a person, focused directly on him. A low, steady, happy hum resonated from him, a vibration Touya could feel through the soles of his shoes.

“You’re back!” Mrs. Shirogane’s hand flew to her chest, her eyes instantly glistening with tears she didn’t bother to wipe away. “Oh, it’s so good to see you... really see you. We’ve missed you! The video sessions were great, but it’s not the same.”

The session was quiet, familiar. Touya didn’t push. He just talked in a calm, steady monotone, about the change in the seasons, about a new tactile game he’d read about. Ren occasionally reached out a hand, not to touch Touya, but to feel the vibration of his voice through the air, something that Touya read in the client notes was a new development with his quirk. Great. With Ren, there was always something new to work through. 

Next was Mika, now sixteen and all elbows, knees, and anxiety, her quirk as unpredictable as ever. Her arms were a patchwork of fresh bruises and yellowing scrapes from sudden, uncontrolled levitations and subsequent crashes back to earth.

“The new beta-blockers help,” she mumbled, picking at a loose thread on her ripped jeans. She refused to make eye contact, her gaze fixed on a poster of the muscular system on the wall, “so I only float my textbooks now. Mostly… Though I did my history book on Miyamoto-sensei’s head last week. It was an accident.” A faint smirk touched her lips. “Mr. Ishikawa was nice, but… she kept trying to get me to ‘visualize my blink’.” She finally looked at Touya, rolling her eyes so hard he thought they might pop out. “How do you visualize a blink? It’s a blink.”

 

Touya couldn’t help but chuckle. “You don’t. It’s a useless exercise. Let’s talk about blink patterns instead. What if we treated it like a muscle twitch you can feel coming? A pre-blink tension in the eyelid?”

 

He saw two new clients that day too. A terrified seven-year-old who, when startled, turned his hair into sharpened, projectile pencils (“It’s why we shave his head,” his exhausted mother whispered). And a fifteen-year-old girl named Aimi whose vocal quirk caused minor, unintended suggestions; she’d accidentally convinced her entire math class, including the teacher, they had no homework for the rest of the year. 

 

By the end of the day, Touya’s brain was full, buzzing with the familiar, satisfying fatigue of using his mind to help untangle impossible problems. His body ached with a deep weariness, but it was a good ache, an earned one. He’d made a difference today. He’d been present.

The pattern repeated. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. He fell back into the rhythm of it: the detailed intake forms, the careful, non-judgmental conversations, the small, hard-won breakthroughs. He drank more water than coffee. He ate every bite of the nutritious lunches Keigo meticulously packed for him. He came home tired, but not shattered. It was progress.  

Friday morning arrived, his scheduled day off. He was awake, but he felt… leaden. The kind of tired that felt structural, as if his very skeleton was made of iron and weighed a thousand pounds. From the kitchen, he could hear the familiar symphony of the morning routine. The definitive click-whirr of the rice cooker finishing its cycle. The confident sizzle of tamagoyaki in the pan. Keigo’s cheerful, low chatter, a constant reassuring hum.

“-and the sauce is in the little container with the blue lid, not the red one, the red one has the extra ginger for your… yeah, that one. And your tablet is charging, don’t unplug it yet.”

Touya heard the soft, stuttered murmur of Shouto’s reply, then the sound of his backpack zipper. Guilt, cold and sharp, lanced through the fatigue. He should get up. He should be out there. This was his job, his brother, his home. But his body refused to obey. The mere thought of swinging his legs over the side of the bed felt like a Herculean feat. A familiar, cold anxiety began to prickle at the base of his skull. Is this it? Is this the relapse? Was one week of normalcy all I had in me?

The bedroom door creaked open. Keigo slipped in, dressed in soft sweatpants and an old t-shirt, wing slits stretched out with age. He took one look at Touya, who was still lying flat on his back staring at the ceiling as if it held the answers, and his expression softened from morning bustle to deep understanding.

“Hey,” Keigo said, his voice quiet. He sat on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping under his weight. “Shouto’s all set. Bento packed, tablet charged, shirt on the right way around. Good day so far.” 

Touya let out a breath that was half laugh, half groan. He dragged a hand over his face. “I should be doing that. I should be out there.”

“Why?” Keigo asked, genuinely curious. “I’m here. I’ve got it.” 

“I just… I should be able to,” Touya said, his voice rough with a frustration that was directed entirely inward. “It’s three days of desk work. Talking to kids. I shouldn’t be completely wiped out from three days of talking.”

Keigo was silent for a moment, choosing his words with care. “Touya,” he began, his voice dropping into a register that was deadly serious. “Your body was literally trying to kill itself a year ago. Your immune system was waging a civil war and your organs were the battlefield. Two months ago, you were spending half your day with your head in a toilet bowl. You’ve been pumped so full of immunosuppressive poison that it’s a miracle to me that you are still alive, let alone counsel traumatized kids with dangerous quirks all day.” He squeezed gently. “It’s gonna take a while to feel normal. It might take forever. And it might never feel like it did before. That’s not a failure. That’s just… what it is now.”

The words were a balm and a burden. They acknowledged the struggle without diminishing it. Touya closed his eyes, the fight going out of him. “I know. Logically, I know. I just… I get nervous. That this exhaustion, this is just… it. The new normal.”

“Yeah,” Keigo said, not offering empty platitudes or false hope. He was a hero; he dealt in realities. “It might be. And that’s gonna have to be okay too. We’ll figure it out. We always do.” He leaned down and pressed a firm, lingering kiss to Touya’s forehead. “Now, your only job today is to rest. That’s an order from your live-in nurse-slash-pro-hero boyfriend. And I don’t take disobedience lightly.”

He slipped back out of the room, closing the door quietly behind him. Touya listened to the final sounds of the apartment: Shouto’s quiet “bye” from the genkan, the front door clicking shut, and then the sounds of Keigo’s shower falling to the background. The anxiety didn’t completely vanish, but it receded, soothed by Keigo’s blunt, loving honesty. He wasn’t failing. He was healing.

Chapter 48: Anchors

Notes:

just fluff!
back to plot soon... but let's enjoy good times while we can!

The break room at the counseling center was a small, quiet haven. Sunlight poured through the single window, illuminating the motes of dust dancing in the air above the aging microwave and the faded poster about deep breathing techniques. Touya cradled the office phone between his shoulder and ear, a lukewarm cup of tea steaming on the table in front of him.

“...and the frost came early this year,” Obaachan’s voice crackled warmly down the line from Hokkaido. “The whole garden is finished. Your grandfather had to cover the last of the greens. But the persimmons! Touya, they’re perfect this year. We’re drying so many.”

Touya could picture it perfectly: the sharp, cold air, the stark beauty of the frosted garden, the rows of orange persimmons hanging under the eaves of their traditional home. A homesick pang went through him.

“Sounds beautiful,” he said, meaning it. “Save me some. The stuff they sell here tastes like sweetened plastic.”

“Of course, of course,” she chimed. There was a pause, a shuffling as the phone changed hands.

“Touya.” Ojiisan’s voice was a deeper, quieter rumble. “You said last week you were going back to work. How was the first week back? And this week? You’re holding up?”

Touya leaned back in his chair, a genuine smile touching his lips. For months, the calls had been filled with reports of setbacks, hospital visits, and unpleasant half-truths. Today was different.

“It’s good,” he said, and for the first time in a long time, it was a complete truth. “Really good. I saw Ren and his mother on Tuesday. Mika yesterday. It’s… it’s like I never left. Tiring, but the good kind of tired, you know?”

The line was silent for a beat. He could almost hear them exchanging a look a thousand miles away.

“Oh, Touya,” Obaachan’s voice came back, thick with emotion. “That is… that is the best news.” There was a soft sniff. “We prayed so much. To have you back doing your work… it’s a blessing.”

Ojiisan’s voice, when he spoke again, was gruff with a pride so deep it was almost tangible. “You’ve fought a long battle. You’ve earned this.”

The simple words landed with a weight that stole Touya’s breath for a second. He blinked rapidly, staring at the swirl of steam from his tea. “Thanks,” he managed, his own voice a little rough. “It… it feels good to be useful again.”

They talked for a few more minutes: about Natsuo’s excited calls from Keio, about Fuyumi’s latest, more hopeful visit to see their mother, Rei. It was a conversation filled with the ordinary, cherished details of a family healing.

“We will be there for New Year’s,” Ojiisan stated, as if it were a law of nature. “No arguments.”

“No arguments here,” Touya laughed softly. “It’ll be good to have you.”

They said their goodbyes with promises to talk next week, at the same time. Touya hung up, sitting for a moment longer in the quiet break room. The unwavering, steady pride from hundreds of miles away felt like an anchor he could tie himself to. He was doing it. He was really doing it.

---

The gathering that Friday evening was a quiet, warm affair. The Himura-Takami apartment was filled with the low hum of conversation and the rich, comforting smells of homemade food. It wasn’t a party; it was an assembly of the chosen family who had held the walls up during the worst of the storm.

Fuyumi and Haruki had brought a massive pot of savory nikujaga, and Inko had contributed a platter of perfectly rolled tamagoyaki and a salad, but the centerpiece was the extravagant spread Mitsuki had arrived with: delicate agedashi tofu, glazed yakitori skewers, and a plate of gyoza so perfectly golden-brown they looked professional.

“Don’t just stand there, Touya, try one!” Mitsuki commanded, shoving the gyoza plate toward him the moment he answered the door. Her bark had no bite tonight, only a fierce, genuine warmth. Behind her, Masaru offered a gentle smile, holding a nice bottle of sake.

“Thank you for having us,” Masaru said softly, once they were inside. He found Touya later, as people settled with plates of food, and leaned against the kitchen counter beside him. “Inko told us about your doctor’s news. Clinical remission. That’s… that’s wonderful, Touya.”

Touya nodded, picking at a yakitori skewer. “It is. It feels… strange.”

"How are you holding up at work? It's a lot, after being away for so long."

"Exhausted," Touya admitted, "in a way I forgot was possible. It's not just the body being tired. It's the… the mental tax of being 'on' for people again."

Masaru nodded, his gaze understanding. "Like retraining a muscle that's atrophied. It will ache. The fatigue is proof you're using it again. You're doing the hard work, Touya. Be proud." The praise, delivered in Masaru's quiet, unwavering tone, felt earned and solid.

Hizashi, ever the social facilitator, looked around after a while, his brow furrowing slightly.

"Hey, where's the other half of your dynamic duo, Mitsuki?" he asked, his voice cheerful but genuinely curious. "Katsuki not feeling up to a crowd?"

Mitsuki didn't miss a beat, though a faint shadow passed behind her eyes. She kept her focus on arranging the food on a serving platter. "Something like that," she said, her tone a masterful blend of casual and final. "He's having one of his days. You know how it is.” 

In the living room, a different dynamic was playing out. Izuku had unearthed a DVD from his backpack: Space Heroes: Nebula Quest, a brightly animated series popular with the middle-school set a few years back. He and Shouto were immediately engrossed, sitting cross-legged on the floor about two feet from the television screen. Shouto was tracing the flight patterns of the animated ships with a faintly moving finger, utterly captivated by the swirling colors and simple, epic plot. Izuku was providing a whispered, real-time commentary on the heroes' quirks and tactics, despite the show's scientific accuracy being decidedly lax.

Hitoshi had been offered a prime seat on the floor next to them but had chosen the sofa instead. He wasn't watching the show. He was scrolling through his phone, his thumb moving steadily. Every so often, a particularly loud explosion or a triumphant shout from the cartoon would make him glance up, his expression unreadable. He wasn't scowling or sighing with impatience; his politeness was a practiced, almost clinical thing. He was simply enduring it, waiting for the time to pass.

From the kotatsu, Inko watched the trio with a soft, grateful smile. She turned to Shouta and Hizashi. "You'll have to thank Hitoshi for me," she said quietly, nodding toward the living room. "Letting them watch that. I know it's probably a little... young for him. It's very sweet of him to indulge them."

Shouta followed her gaze, his dark eyes taking in the scene: his son's detached politeness, the two younger boys lost in their own world. He gave a slow, thoughtful nod. "He's usually a pretty good kid," Shouta murmured, almost to himself. His brows came together. "I don't know what's been going on with him and Katsuki lately, though. He's been..."

"An asshole?" Hizashi supplied, not looking up from the edamame he was shelling.

Shouta shot him a look. "You can't call our son an asshole in public."

"Why not? It's the truth," Hizashi said with a shrug, finally meeting his husband's gaze. His voice was matter-of-fact, not angry. "He's been cold, he's been dismissive. He's being an asshole. We can love him and still call a spade a spade."

Inko placed a gentle hand on the table, drawing their attention. "It's growing pains," she said, her voice warm with the wisdom of a mother who had seen her own child through difficult phases. "When Izuku was little, before Katsuki's accident, they were so close. But Katsuki could be so rough with him. There were things Kacchan could do that Izu couldn't, and he didn't always understand why. Mitsuki and Masaru were aware, they were working on it... and then the accident happened, and everything turned upside down for them. We tried to be there, of course we did, but then... things with Hisashi, Izuku's father, got bad, and Izuku had a major regression. Everything was chaos." She took a small breath, her eyes distant for a moment. "And for all his intelligence, Izuku could never really get the hang of JSL…” 

She shook her head, a little flustered. “Sorry, I’m rambling. What I mean to say is, that’s how kids are. They’re figuring out who they are, and sometimes they do it by pushing people away. Hitoshi will find his way back. The fact that you see what’s going on,” she said, looking pointedly at Shouta and Hizashi, “means you can guide him. That’s what matters.”

---

The living room in the Himura-Takami apartment had acquired a permanent, low-level scent of acrylic paint and gesso. What had begun months ago as a dark, frantic scribble of charcoal on a single section of the largest wall was slowly, methodically transforming.

Empowered by the acclaim his festival piece had received, Shouto had approached the wall with a new sense of purpose. The original, chaotic marks were still there, but they were no longer the focus. They had become the foundation, the scorched earth from which something new was growing. He’d started incorporating color: first, deep, cool blues and silvers that coiled around the dark colors like frost, then, tentative streaks of a soft, buttery gold and the faintest blush of pink.

The change had not been without incident. A week prior, Keigo had walked in to find the distinct smell of ozone and charred drywall. Shouto, frustrated with his inability to get the right shade of black with paint alone, had been attempting to sear the pigment directly onto the wall with a controlled flicker of blue flame from his left index finger.

The resulting panic had been brief but intense. Touya had laid down the law. “Absolutely not. You want to be an artist, you learn to use the tools, not just your quirk. This is a building, Sho, not a studio. We can’t have you accidentally setting the whole place on fire because you’re having a creative block.”

So the mural continued, but now it was a testament to patience as much as emotion. Shouto spent hours after school on a step stool, a palette of paints balanced precariously beside him, his tongue peeking out in concentration. The piece was becoming less of a diary entry and more of an epic.

One evening, Touya and Keigo stood side-by-side, watching him work. Shouto was adding delicate, vein-like lines of silver through a section of deep blue, completely absorbed in his world.

“It’s…” Keigo began, his voice low so as not to break Shouto’s focus. He gestured with his chin at the sprawling, ever-expanding artwork that now dominated their main living space. “I mean, it’s amazing. But it’s a lot.”

Touya crossed his arms, a thoughtful frown on his face. “It’s him,” he said simply. “Last winter, that wall was the only place he could put all that… I don't know what that is, to be honest. Now, it looks like he’s putting his happy thoughts up there, too.” He glanced at Keigo, a wry smile touching his lips. “Would you rather he kept it all bottled up?”

“God, no,” Keigo said quickly, shuddering at the memory of Shouto’s silent, withdrawn misery. “Let him paint the whole damn building if it helps. I’ll just… learn to appreciate modern art.”

---

Across the city, in the cozy, slightly cluttered Midoriya apartment, a different kind of creation was underway. The coffee table was buried under an avalanche of magazines, fabric swatches, and notebooks filled with Fuyumi’s neat handwriting.

Fuyumi sat on the floor, knees drawn up, holding two nearly identical swatches of off-white chiffon up to the light. “This one has a warmer undertone,” she mused, “but this one has a nicer drape.”

Inko, sitting on the sofa with a cup of tea, leaned forward, her glasses perched on the end of her nose. “The warmer one,” she decided. “It will look beautiful with your coloring. Haruki will be wearing a navy suit, you said?”

“Yes,” Fuyumi said, a dreamy smile on her face. She held the swatch against her cheek. “A small ceremony. Just family and a few close friends.”

“Oh, that would be lovely,” Inko breathed, her eyes sparkling. “And for the reception? A nice dinner, nothing too formal…”

They debated the merits of buffet versus plated meals, the feasibility of spring flowers in April, and the delicate politics of guest lists. It was a world away from the intense, emotional art happening on the other side of the city. This was about logistics, about joy, about building the foundation for a new beginning.

“Natsuo offered to walk me down the aisle,” Fuyumi said, her voice softening. She set the fabric swatch down.

Inko's eyes grew wide and watery at the thought. “I think that’s a wonderful idea. What a sweetheart.”

Fuyumi’s smile wobbled. “It’s just… it all feels so normal, you know? Planning a wedding. Worrying about napkin colors. After everything…” She trailed off, not needing to finish the thought. After their father, after their mother’s breakdown, after Touya’s illness… the sheer normalcy of it all felt unreal.

“That’s the best part,” Inko said, her voice firm with conviction. “This is your life now, Fuyumi. You get to have this. You get to worry about napkin colors.”

Fuyumi laughed, a light, happy sound. She picked up her notebook, her pen hovering over a page titled ‘Catering Questions’. “Okay, next crisis. Chocolate fountain: timeless classic or messy nightmare?”

Inko grinned. “Let’s weigh the pros and cons…”

---

The first true cold snap of the season hit Tokyo like a physical blow. A dry, sharp wind whipped down the canyons of the streets, scouring the pavement and rattling the windows of the apartment. For Touya, the change wasn't a passive event to be observed; it was a condition to be managed.

He stood at the genkan, getting ready to go. First, the heavy wool coat, a deep charcoal grey that Keigo had insisted on buying him last year. Then, a soft, navy blue scarf woven by his grandmother, meticulously wrapped. Finally, he plucked a disposable mask from the box on the shelf and secured it over the lower half of his face. It was a ritual of defense.

As he finished, he caught his reflection in the dark glass of the door. For a fleeting second, a old, familiar insecurity prickled. The coat fit a little more snugly across his chest and shoulders. When he’d moved to zip it, there had been the slightest resistance over his stomach, a new softness that hadn't been there during the gaunt months of his treatment. The weight gain, a sign of health his doctor celebrated, sometimes felt like a betrayal to the sharp-edged image he’d held of himself. The grafts and scars on his neck and jaw felt tighter, more prominent against the fuller flesh beneath them, a sensation that was physically uncomfortable and mentally irritating.

He couldn't hit a gym to turn this new weight into muscle; his lungs would rebel spectacularly. This was just… pudge. But the larger, more rational part of him swatted that thought away. This pudge was a victory. It was stored energy. It was a sign that his body was finally on his side.

“Looking like a properly bundled-up citizen,” Keigo’s voice chirped from behind him. He leaned against the doorframe, already dressed in his own hero-grade winter gear, which somehow managed to look sleek and tactical instead of bulky. His eyes, golden and sharp, crinkled at the corners. “All that’s missing is the helmet.”

“Shut up,” Touya grumbled, but there was no heat in it. He turned, adjusting his scarf. “Is he ready?”

As if on cue, Shouto emerged from his room. He was swamped in a puffy navy blue jacket so large it had to be a hand-me-down from Natsuo. He looked like a sleepy, multi-colored marshmallow.

“You’re gonna overheat in that thing the second we get on the train,” Touya observed, his voice muffled by the mask.

Shouto just blinked slowly, looking down at the coat as if seeing it for the first time. “’Don’t g-get wa-arm,” he reminded them. His quirk took care of most temperature regulation needs for him.

“Can’t argue with that logic,” Keigo laughed, pushing off the doorframe. “Alright, team, move out.”

The walk to the train station was a battle against the wind. Touya kept his head down, his hands shoved deep in his pockets. He noticed the difference immediately. Last winter, a walk like this would have left him breathless and aching, his bones feeling like they were filled with ice. Today, he was merely… cold. It was a monumental improvement.

At the clinic, his proactive measures felt justified. The waiting room was a petri dish of sniffles and coughs. He kept his mask on, sanitized his hands religiously, and felt a quiet sense of competence in managing his own health. It was a fragile control, but it was control nonetheless.

That evening, back in the warm, paint-scented apartment, the feeling of sturdy well-being persisted. He was rolling out dough for okonomiyaki with Shouto, a messy, therapeutic process, while Keigo chopped cabbage with terrifying speed and precision.

“You’re in a good mood,” Keigo noted, not looking up from his knife work. “You didn’t even complain once about the wind.”

“Didn’t need to,” Touya said, concentrating on pressing the dough into a pan. “Wasn’t that bad.”

Keigo did look up then, a slow, appreciative smile spreading across his face. “Yeah? Good.” His gaze flicked down to Touya’s torso and then back up, a glint of pure affection in his eyes. “The extra padding’s doing its job, then. Suits you.” 

It was a gentle tease, but it held a kernel of raw affection that made Touya’s ears grow warm. Their relationship had always cycled with his health. When he was sick, Keigo was a caretaker, all gentle hands and worried eyes. But when Touya felt good, like he did now, the dynamic shifted. The teasing had a flirtatious edge, the casual touches lingered longer. It felt less like being cared for and more like being partners.

Shouto looked up from the dough. “D-did you get … lo-otion?” he asked, his speech slow and deliberate. “F-from the… the ph-pha-armacy?”

Touya nodded. “I did. Thanks for reminding me, Sho.” It was a testament to their life that his little brother kept track of his prescription refills.

During dinner, Touya had more energy. He engaged Shouto in a conversation about his mural, asking specific questions about the color choices he was making. He debated with Keigo about a case at the clinic, his mind sharp and present. He wasn’t just pushing food around his plate; he was enjoying it, going back for a second piece of katsu without a second thought.

Afterwards, while Shouto took a shower, Keigo cornered Touya by the sink as he was washing dishes. He wrapped his arms around Touya’s waist from behind, resting his chin on his shoulder. “I like this version of you,” he murmured, his voice a low vibration against Touya’s back. “The one with the energy to argue with me about ethics.”

Touya leaned back into the embrace, feeling the solid warmth of Keigo against him. He could feel the slight softness of his own stomach under Keigo’s hands. “Yeah?” he said, a smile in his voice. 

Keigo nuzzled against his neck. “Yeah.” He pressed a kiss just below Touya’s ear. “Now go get Shouto out of the shower before he uses up all the hot water. I’ll finish the dishes.”

Chapter 49: lunch and snack

Notes:

hope you enjoy- sort of fluffy but i was excited to continue getting deeper into this katsuki-hitoshi drama, and really excited to bring kirishima a little more into the story... idk why i haven't written a kirishima story bc i do love his character a lot and think he is a cool guy... but yeah. just a drip drop of eijiro!

The quiet room at Tokyo Metropolitan Arts High was Shouto’s sanctuary. It wasn't officially his, but in the six months since he'd started in April, he and Chō were its only consistent occupants. The school called it a "multi-purpose sensory respite room," which meant it had soft lighting, sound-dampening panels on the walls, a few beanbag chairs and weighted blankets, and a basket of fidget toys. For Shouto, it was simply the place where the overwhelming buzz of the main campus faded into a manageable hum.

Their routine was sacred. Every day, they would retreat to the quiet room. Shouto would immediately lie on the floor, his head on a small cushion, and put on his noise-cancelling headphones. Chō would sit at the low table, unpack both their lunches, and periodically pass him a piece of tamagoyaki, an apple slice, or an onigiri, which he would eat without removing his headphones, his eyes closed against the fluorescent lights.

It was during this ritual in early December that the pattern shifted.

The door to the quiet room opened with a soft click. Chō looked up, expecting a teacher. Instead, it was Ono Yumi, a girl from his homeroom. She was a slight figure, who always seemed to be half a step out of sync with everyone else. Her uniform was always slightly rumpled, and she had a habit of chewing on the end of her pen during class.

She stood in the doorway, clutching her bento box to her chest like a shield. Her eyes darted from Chō to Shouto, who was already lying on the floor, oblivious.

“Uhm,” she began, her voice a little too loud in the hushed space. She winced and lowered it to a whisper. “Is it… is it okay if I eat lunch here today?”

Chō offered a gentle, professional smile. She’d been trained for this, to facilitate social opportunities, but never to force them. She leaned down slightly towards Shouto. “Shouto?” she said, her voice calm. “Ono-san from our class will be eating her lunch here today. Isn’t that nice? The more the merrier!”

Shouto didn’t open his eyes. 

“Thank you,” Ono whispered. She moved to the table, sitting as far from Chō as possible, and unpacked her own lunch with quiet, careful movements. She pulled out a volume of manga and began to read, her brow furrowed in concentration.

For the rest of the period, the room was silent save for the rustle of pages and the soft crinkle of Shouto’s snack bag as Chō passed him another piece of fruit. Ono kept her eyes firmly on her book. Shouto kept his eyes closed. It was less a shared lunch and more two solitary acts happening in parallel.

Chō watched, curious. Ono wasn't trying to engage. She wasn't looking at Shouto with pity or fascination. She seemed to simply crave the same thing he did: quiet. The absence of social pressure.

The next day, just as the lunch bell rang, Ono was there again, hovering by the door of the quiet room. She didn't ask this time, just looked at Chō with a questioning raise of her eyebrows.

Chō glanced at Shouto, who was already heading for his spot on the floor. “Is it still okay if Ono-san joins us?” she asked softly.

Shouto paused mid-step. He looked at Ono, his expression unreadable behind his thick, slightly smudged glasses. His white-and-red hair was, as usual, a mess, having been given a quick, perfunctory brush by Keigo that morning before he’d ducked away from the attention. He gave another brief, non-committal nod before continuing to his spot and putting his headphones on.

And so it continued. Day after day, Ono would appear. She sat at the table, read her manga, and ate her lunch. She never offered Shouto food or tried to get his attention; her presence was like a piece of furniture that had always been there: unobtrusive, expected.

Shouto, for his part, began to acknowledge her with a glance instead of waiting for Chō to announce her arrival. It wasn't friendship, but more of a… tolerance, an acceptance of a new variable in his equation. 

---

The Sunday study sessions at the Himura-Takami apartment had settled into a comfortable rhythm, but by early December, a new, dissonant note had been introduced.

Izuku still came over, his backpack heavy with textbooks, but the energy that usually came with him was gone. He’d set up at the kotatsu across from Shouto, open his textbook to the right page, and then… just stop. His pencil would hover over the paper. His eyes, usually so bright with focus, would go distant, fixed on the grey sky outside the window or a random crack in the wall. The constant, low-voltage mutter that was his soundtrack had fallen silent.

Shouto noticed first. Their communication was built on a foundation of shared quiet, so any shift in its quality was glaringly obvious to him. After ten minutes of watching Izuku stare blankly at a complex integral, Shouto slowly slid a Hero Weekly magazine across the table. He tapped a specific page featuring a detailed sketch of Hawks’s primary feathers, a subject he knew Izuku could talk about for an hour.

Izuku blinked, pulled from his trance. He looked at the book, then at Shouto. A faint, tired smile touched his lips. “Oh. Yeah. The, uh, adaptive ligament structure there is… really efficient.” He didn’t launch into a lecture. He just went quiet again, his gaze drifting back to the window.

Another time, Shouto pointed at a new section of his mural, where he’d added intricate, delicate silver lines weaving through the darker blues. He looked at Izuku, a silent question in his eyes.

“It’s… good,” Izuku said softly… And that was it. The spark, the frantic joy of shared obsession, was absent. Shouto’s brow furrowed slightly. He didn’t understand the change, and his attempts to engage felt like dropping a stone into a deep well and hearing no splash.

The adults noticed too, though they filtered it through their own lenses.

Inko was packing up her knitting to leave one afternoon. She sighed, watching her son stare vacantly at his untouched homework. “He’s just been so tired lately,” she said to Touya, her voice low with a mother’s worry. “School is really wearing him out this trimester. The workload is immense, and the social aspects… you know how it is for him.” She wrote it off as the predictable cost of forcing a square peg into a round hole.

Later, Touya tried to help, leaning over Izuku’s calculus book. “See here,” he said, pointing. “You can use a trigonometric substitution to simplify that radical expression.”

Izuku jolted, as if surprised to find someone next to him. “Hmm? Oh. Sorry. Yeah. Substitution.” He picked up his pencil but made no move to actually write anything.

Touya and Keigo shared a glance over Izuku’s head. It was a look of mild, confused concern. This wasn’t the kid who would argue the merits of different problem-solving approaches.

Keigo, ever the deflector, tried to lighten the mood. He used his feathers to float a bowl of popcorn from the counter and let it land perfectly on Izuku’s textbook. “Special delivery from the snack department!”

Izuku usually would have yelped or at least smiled. This time, he just slowly moved the bowl onto the table, muttering a quiet “Thanks,” without looking up. Keigo’s wings drooped slightly. The joke had landed with a thud.

One evening in mid-December, the apartment was quiet. Shouto was in his room, and Izuku and Inko had gone home. Touya was leaning against the kitchen counter, a cup of tea in hand, looking at a calendar pinned to the fridge. A small smile touched his lips.

Keigo wandered in, wrapping his arms around Touya’s waist from behind and resting his chin on his shoulder. “What’s got you smiling? Finally figured out what's going on with Izuku?”

"I wish," Touya chuckled, leaning back into the embrace, “but I think maybe he's like... just starting to like... be a moody teenager. No, I'm thinking about how Natsuo’s coming home next week, for the whole New Year’s break. It’ll be good to have everyone under one roof again.”

“Yeah?” Keigo’s voice was warm against his neck. “You think you’re ready for all that excitement?”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Touya said, and the truth of it resonated in his voice. He turned in Keigo’s arms. “It’s different this year. Last year I was just… trying to survive the day, counting down the hours until I could go back to bed...” He gestured around them, at the clean, warm apartment, at his own body that felt solid and present. “This year, I actually feel like I’ll enjoy it.”

The statement was a testament to his hard-won health; his focus was on the future.

---

The air in Class 1-A was charged with a low buzz of excitement. Two days before winter break, Aizawa had introduced a new practical exercise.

“Hero work is rarely a solo endeavor,” Aizawa droned, leaning against his podium like a tired shadow. “Even loners end up relying on backup. Your next assignment will be a team-based urban simulation. The pairs will be assigned, but I want you to start thinking strategically. Who in this class complements your skills? Who covers your weaknesses? I’m not asking for friendship. I’m asking for tactical compatibility. Submit your top three choices to me by the end of the day tomorrow.”

The buzz grew louder as he left the room. Students immediately began clustering, talking over each other about Quirk synergies and battle strategies.

Katsuki sat perfectly still at his desk. The assignment was a minefield. It wasn't about who he wanted to work with, but more so about who would tolerate the liability of working with him. He watched Kirishima easily loop an arm around Kaminari’s neck, laughing at something Sero said, and a fresh wave of isolation washed over him. 

Lunch felt especially heinous today. He found his usual isolated spot at the end of a long table, slamming his bento down, eager to just get through the next thirty minutes.

He was viciously stabbing at a piece of chicken when a flash of familiar purple hair caught his eye. Hitoshi was cutting through the cafeteria with a couple of guys from 1-B. They were heading toward the vending machines, deep in conversation.

One of them, a guy with a sharp-toothed grin and a boisterous laugh, said something and nudged Hitoshi, jerking his thumb in Katsuki’s direction. Hitoshi’s gaze followed, and they locked eyes. His gaze, usually heavy-lidded with apathy, sharpened. His mouth pressed into a thin, annoyed line. He shook his head and his lips moved. Everybody laughed. 

A cold dread, instantly superheated by rage, flooded Katsuki’s veins. He was the punchline. Again. The months of being the one to first turn away, the bitter satisfaction of it curdling into isolation, the art festival, the way Hitoshi had built a whole new life where Katsuki was just a ghost he’d outgrown… it all detonated at once.

His chair shrieked against the floor as he launched to his feet. He crossed the cafeteria in a few ground-eating strides, planting himself directly in Hitoshi's path. The laughter from Hitoshi's friends died in their throats.

[What did you say?] 

Hitoshi looked down at him, his expression shifting from surprise to icy dismissal. He spoke, his mouth moving in slow, deliberate shapes that Katsuki strained to decipher.

...not... time... place... this…

The tone was unmistakable. 

[What did you SAY?] Katsuki’s signs were sharp, violent jabs in the air between them. [What’s so fucking funny?]

Hitoshi’s jaw tightened. He understood perfectly, but he refused to enter Katsuki’s world. He spoke again, louder, his voice dripping with a condescension Katsuki could feel in his bones. 

I said… not … here…. It's pa–... Go…down.

Katsuki only caught some of it, but the patronizing look on Hitoshi’s was the final spark. He shoved Hitoshi hard in the chest, making him stumble back into his friends. [Stop TALKING! Use your hands, you coward! Or are you too good for me now? Too good for this?]

Hitoshi’s cool facade shattered into raw anger. His friends tensed as one took the bento Hitoshi was shoving into his hands. For a second, it looked like he would push Katsuki back. Instead, his hands finally came up, his signs furious and precise, each movement a lash. [My problem? YOU started this! You ignored me for months! You pushed me away first and now you’re mad I actually left? You don’t get to be mad now!]

[You shut me out!] Katsuki’s signs were a blur of incoherent rage. [You and your new, perfect, hearing friends! You think I’m broken! You think I’m nothing since I can’t hear your stupid voice!]

The accusation hung in the air. Hitoshi’s eyes flashed, and for a split second, something like guilt flickered behind the anger before it was smothered. [I think you’re a self-pitying asshole who pushes everyone away and then gets mad when they don’t stand there and take it!] Hitoshi’s signs were brutal, his face a snarl. [You did this! You made this choice! Not me!]

With a roar, Katsuki lunged. He drove a fist into Hitoshi’s ribs, a satisfying thud that made Hitoshi grunt and double over.

Hitoshi came up swinging, his own control vaporizing. He landed a solid punch to Katsuki's shoulder, then another to his side. The fight was messy, brutal, and eerily silent except for the grunts of effort and the sickening thuds of impact.

Katsuki, a berserker fueled by pure rage, absorbed the blows and kept coming. He landed a wild, glancing punch that snapped Hitoshi’s head to the side. Hitoshi’s eyes glinted with fury. He retaliated with a perfectly aimed, devastatingly hard right hook directly to Katsuki's face.

The crunch was audible. White-hot, blinding pain exploded in Katsuki's nose. Blood, hot and shockingly copious, poured down over his mouth and chin. He staggered, his vision swimming, the world tilting. But the anger was a fire that burned hotter than the pain. He shook his head, spraying blood, and let out a guttural, soundless cry, charging again with blind fury, hands grasping for Hitoshi’s uniform, shoving the taller boy against the vending machine with a thump.

It was only then that two teachers finally waded through the stunned crowd and physically pulled them apart. Katsuki thrashed against the teacher’s hold, his signs a bloody, furious mess. [LET ME GO! I’M NOT DONE WITH HIM! I’LL KILL HIM!]

He was half-dragged, half-carried to the nurse’s office, his interpreter, Ms. Akagi, appearing swiftly at his side to facilitate between him and the nurse. Recovery Girl tsked at the sight. "Oh, my boy. You've made quite a mess." Ms. Akagi’s hands moved, translating her words as she efficiently cleaned the blood from his face. "A broken nose. A clean break, but a nasty one. Let's get you fixed up." She set it straight again, which hurt more than Katsuki thought it would, and then leaned forward and pressed a firm, healing kiss to his forehead.

The intense, shattering pain receded instantly, replaced by a deep, full-body ache and the bizarre, itchy sensation of the bone knitting itself back together under the skin. The magical healing sapped his energy, leaving him feeling hollow, spent, and profoundly ashamed. "You'll need to sit here for a bit to recover your stamina before Principal Nezu sees you," Recovery Girl said. Ms. Akagi interpreted. He gave a sharp, dismissive nod, and she stepped outside to give him space, leaving him alone in the quiet, antiseptic room.

The door opened a few minutes later. Katsuki expected a teacher. Instead, it was Kirishima, walking stiffly, one hand pressed against his rib cage.

[What happened to you?] Katsuki signed, his movements slow and heavy with fatigue.

Kirishima offered a pained, lopsided grin. [Wrestling match with Tetsutetsu, from 1-B. Got a little carried away.... I think I cracked a rib. Again.] He winced as he lowered himself carefully onto a nearby cot. His eyes then went wide, taking in the bloodstains on Katsuki’s uniform and the faint, residual swelling around his nose. [Dude. What… what happened?]

The question, asked in his own language that felt like a lifeline, shattered the last of Katsuki’s defenses. The story tumbled out in a torrent of sharp, jerky signs, his emotions raw and unvarnished. [Shinsou. That bastard. I’m done. I can’t do it anymore.]

Kirishima’s face fell. [What do you mean? You’re done fighting with him?]

[No.] Katsuki’s sign was final, a sharp slash of his hand. [I’m done with all of it. This school. This… hero shit. I’m quitting. I’m telling Nezu I quit.]

Kirishima stared, his expression shifting from concern to outright alarm. [What? No! Bakugo, you can’t quit! You’re going to be an amazing hero!]

[What’s the point?] Katsuki’s signs were now desperate, drenched in a defeat he’d never shown anyone. [I’m useless here. I’m a liability. I can’t hear commands. I can’t hear villains. I can’t be on the field alone. It’s more trouble than I’m worth to keep me around. Everyone just pities me.]

[That’s not true!] Kirishima’s signs were firm, emphatic, his own pain forgotten. [Your quirk control is the best in the class! You’re crazy strong and you’re smart! If we’re on a team together, you wouldn’t be a liability. I’ve been wanting to ask you!]

Katsuki shook his head, looking away. [You’re just saying that. You feel bad for me.]

Kirishima’s expression shifted to one of utter sincerity. He leaned forward, ignoring the pain in his side. [No. I’m not. I don’t feel bad for you. I think you’re cool. And you’re smart. And yeah, your temper is kinda terrifying, but it’s also… really manly.] He paused, his signs becoming a little slower, more deliberate. [I wish… I wish you wanted to be my friend.]

The admission hung in the sterile air. Katsuki stared at him, stunned. [Nobody wants to be friends with someone like me,] he replied, the words a bitter confession.

[Let me,] Kirishima signed, his movements sure and clear. [Let me be your friend. For real.]

The door opened. Ms. Akagi and Recovery Girl returned. 

[Principal Nezu is ready for you now, Bakugo] Ms. Akagi told him.

Katsuki stood up. 

Kirishima shot him one last, desperate look. His hands moved in a final, quick plea. [Think about it. Please. Don’t quit.]

Then Katsuki looked away. The idea of walking into Nezu’s office and quitting didn’t feel like a relief anymore. It felt like a surrender.

Chapter 50: Closing Circles

Notes:

hello!! thanks so much everyone for reading and commenting... makes my day! anywho, i've been trying to space out my updates but i enjoy editing what i've written and posting so like why not lol.

anyways... yeah. thanks a bunch! enjoy!

The first thing Natsuo did when he stepped into the genkan was breathe in deeply. The apartment no longer smelled of antiseptic, anxiety, and the faint, metallic tang of illness. It smelled of miso broth, lemon cleaning spray, and the piney scent of the small Christmas tree Keigo had insisted on putting up, even though none of them celebrated. 

It smelled like a home.

“I’m back,” he called out, dropping his heavy duffel bag. 

The response was a clatter from the kitchen and then Keigo appeared, a bright red apron tied over his casual clothes. “Natsu! You made it!” He grinned, wings giving a happy little flutter. “Train wasn’t too packed?”

Before Natsuo could answer, Touya emerged from the living room. The change in his brother was still a small shock, a miracle Natsuo was learning to accept daily. Touya’s frame, once terrifyingly gaunt, now had a solidness to it. He was wearing a soft, grey sweater that hid the worst of the scars on his neck, and his white hair, the same shade as Natsuo’s, was getting long enough to curl slightly at his ears. He looked… comfortable.

“Hey,” Touya said, a slow smile spreading across his face. He didn’t move to hug him, but the warmth in his eyes was enough. “You look less like a stressed-out med student and more like a person.”

“Thanks,” Natsuo said dryly. “You look less like a strong breeze would kill you.” The old, familiar teasing came easily, without the undercurrent of fear.

A movement behind Touya caught his eye. Shouto offered him a smile.

“Hey, Sho,” Natsuo said, his voice softening. He opened his arms in invitation.

Shouto hesitated for a second, then stepped forward and allowed himself to be pulled into a one-armed hug, his body stiff for a moment before relaxing. “H-hi, N-nii-san,” he mumbled into Natsuo’s shoulder.

“Look at you,” Natsuo said, pulling back and ruffling Shouto’s hair. “Still drawing all over the walls, I see.” He glanced past him at the sprawling, breathtaking mural that now dominated the living room wall. It was no longer just a depressing, macabre outburst; it was a story. A dark, scorched foundation was now being overgrown with intricate, beautiful patterns of ice and light. “That’s… incredible.”

Shouto’s cheeks flushed slightly. He looked over at his mural. “Not d-done.”

“Doesn’t have to be,” Natsuo said. “It’s already fantastic.”

The doorbell rang, and a moment later, the apartment was filled with their grandparents; Obaachan’s arms were laden with containers of food, which she immediately began unloading into the kitchen, issuing gentle commands to a bemused Keigo, and Ojiisan stood in the genkan, his sharp eyes scanning the room like a general assessing his troops.

His gaze landed on Natsuo, taking in his clear eyes and steady posture. He gave a grunt of approval. Then he looked at Touya, really looked at him, noting the healthy weight on his bones, the lack of fatigue in his stance. Ojiisan’s stern expression softened. 

Obaachan, meanwhile, had already cornered Shouto, cupping his face in her hands. “You’re too thin,” she declared, though he visibly wasn’t. “Are you eating enough protein? I brought crab.”

The chaos multiplied when Fuyumi and Haruki arrived. They moved as a unit, Haruki effortlessly taking the heavy bag of groceries from Fuyumi and storing it in the kitchen without needing direction.

“Sorry we’re late!” Fuyumi said, her cheeks pink from the cold. “The train was- Oh! Natsu! You’re here already!” She enveloped him in a vanilla-scented hug.

Haruki offered a polite bow to the grandparents before easily falling into conversation with Keigo about a recent news story. Fuyumi gently steered her grandparents to the kotatsu with cups of steaming tea.

“The venue is confirmed,” she told them, her voice happy but calm, “and we found a photographer whose work we love. Her use of natural light is just…”

“Whatever you choose will be wonderful, dear,” Ojiisan reassured her, and Fuyumi beamed.

The doorbell rang just as Keigo was complaining about the amount of cabbage that needed to be chopped. Inko and Izuku stood there, their faces flushed from the cold, their arms laden with a beautifully decorated chocolate cake and a large, flat, carefully wrapped package.

“Happy New Year!” Inko chirped, immediately enveloping everyone within reach in a warm hug. She was immediately drawn into the kitchen by Obaachan, the two of them comparing notes on mochi recipes.

Izuku hovered behind her, looking more relaxed than he had in weeks. The break from the sensory assault of school had done him good. His eyes, however, immediately found Shouto, and a small, genuine smile touched his lips.

Shouto, without a word, walked over to the kotatsu and retrieved a flat, carefully wrapped package. He held it out to Izuku.

“F-for you,” Shouto said, the words pushed out with effort. “N-new year.”

Izuku’s eyes widened. He carefully tore open the paper. Inside was not a sketchbook, but a handmade hero analysis journal. The cover was a piece of thick, handmade paper, painted with an abstract design of green and gold energy lines. Inside, the pages were blank, but Shouto had meticulously tabbed sections with labels written in his careful, blocky kanji: Quirk Mechanics, Costume Design, Weakness Analysis, Hero Team-Ups.

Izuku stared at it, his mouth slightly agape. “Sho… this is… this is amazing. You m-made this?” His voice was thick with emotion. “The tabs… the organization… it’s perfect.”

Shouto nodded, a faint blush on his cheeks. Izuku’s muttering started up, a soft, rapid-fire stream of gratitude and ideas as he flipped through the blank pages, already envisioning them filled. Shouto just stood beside him, watching with quiet satisfaction.

Dinner was a loud, joyful affair. They pushed the kotatsu aside and laid out blankets, creating a massive picnic on the living room floor, the mural watching over them like a silent guardian. Obaachan insisted everyone try her pickles. Keigo’s tamagoyaki was, in fact, a little rubbery, but everyone ate it with gusto. Stories were traded: Natsuo’s tales of a particularly eccentric pathology professor, Fuyumi and Haruki’s ongoing wedding plans, Keigo’s stories of the mishaps at his new agency.

Touya mostly listened, soaking it in. He ate everything on his plate and went back for more. The weight of the food in his stomach, the weight of his family around him… it was a good kind of heavy. A nourishing one.

As the clock neared midnight, they bundled up and crowded onto the small balcony to brave the cold for the first sunrise, hatsuhinode. It was a tight fit. Keigo offered to fly people up to the roof, an offer Touya immediately vetoed with a sharp look.

“We’re all staying on solid ground, thank you,” Touya said, pulling his scarf tighter.

They stood shivering together, passing around a thermos of sweet amazake. The city glittered below them, vast and silent.

“T-too c-cloudy,” Shouto observed, his breath puffing out in a white cloud. “W-we won’t s-s-see.”

“That’s not the point,” Fuyumi said, leaning into Haruki’s side. “The point is being here to try.”

Just as she said it, a faint, golden sliver of light broke through the cloud layer, painting the horizon line with fire for a breathtaking second before disappearing again.

Back inside, warm and drowsy, they prepared for the final ritual. Bowls of toshikoshi soba were passed around, the long noodles symbolizing a long life, and the crossing from one year to the next.

“Everyone ready?” Inko asked, smiling.

Natsuo slurped his noodles dramatically, making a show of it. Shouto’s lips twitched into the ghost of a smile. Keigo attempted to mimic him and almost inhaled a noodle down the wrong pipe, resulting in a fit of coughing and laughter. Even Ojiisan chuckled, a low, rumbling sound.

Touya ate his slowly, savoring the simple, savory flavor. His eyes traveled around the room. His grandmother, nagging his grandfather to chew properly. His sister, her head resting on her fiancé’s shoulder, looking more at peace than he’d ever seen her. His brothers, home. His partner, laughing, his golden eyes crinkling at the corners.

His gaze finally landed on the mural. The dark, charred beginnings from a year ago, the chaotic, angry slashes of his worst days, were still there. But they were now almost entirely covered by the beautiful, intricate, resilient patterns of ice and light, of growth and hope. It was their story. Not just Shouto’s. Theirs.

The final moments of the year ticked down on the television. As the countdown reached zero and the chorus of “Akemashite omedetou!” filled the room, they all looked at each other, smiles easy and genuine.

The new year was here.

---

The hallways of UA were quieter after the break, the festive energy replaced by the stoic determination of a new term beginning. For Eijiro Kirishima, the usual buzz of first-day excitement was drowned out by a single, resolute thought thumping in time with his heartbeat. 

Don’t let him quit.

He stood outside the door to Aizawa-sensei’s office, his fist raised to knock. He’d rehearsed this all break, practicing in the mirror, arguing his case to his reflection. Facing the dark, wooden door of the teachers’ office, though, his confidence felt as shaky as a house of cards. He took a deep, steadying breath, hardening his resolve like he hardened his skin. Manly. Be manly about this. He knocked.

A gruff “Come in” sounded from the other side.

The office was bright, and the desks were largely empty, the other teachers already at their homeroom posts. Aizawa himself looked like he’d been there all break, wrapped in his yellow sleeping bag at his desk, grading papers. 

“Kirishima. Shouldn’t you be getting ready for class?”

“Yes, sensei, it’s just…” Kirishima stood stiffly in front of his teacher’s desk. “I… I need to talk to you about the team assignment. And about Bakugo.”

That made Aizawa look up. He set down his pen. “Go on.”

“I want to be his partner,” Kirishima said, the words coming out in a rush. “For the assignment. And… and not just for the assignment.”

Aizawa leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers. “The pairs are being assigned based on tactical compatibility, Kirishima. Why do you want to work with him so badly you had to come speak to me about it… and a week past the deadline.”

“I know, and I’m sorry I’m late… but being so compatible is why it should be me!” Kirishima took a step forward, his hands coming up to emphasize his points. “Look, tactically, it makes perfect sense. My Quirk is hardening. I’m a shield. Bakugo’s Quirk is explosions. He’s the ultimate offense. I can get in close, create openings, and he can deliver the finishing blow with pinpoint accuracy. He’s got the best battle sense in the class: he sees things the rest of us don’t. And… and…” He faltered, the rehearsed speech hitting its first real obstacle.

“And the accessibility issue.” Aizawa prompted, his voice neutral.

“Right.” Kirishima nodded, grateful for the opening. “That’s the other part. I’m a CoDA. Both my parents are Deaf, my older sister is Deaf... I’ve been signing my whole life; I’m fluent. I can interpret for him in the field instantly, no delay. I can make sure he gets all the information, every command, every warning. He wouldn’t be at a disadvantage. We could turn it into a strength. Our communication would be silent, fast, impossible for villains to overhear or intercept.”

He was breathless, having laid out his entire case.

Aizawa was quiet for what felt like eons. “That’s a well-thought out argument, Kirishima. Logistically, it’s sound.” He paused. “But this seems like a lot of effort for a simple class assignment. Why are you going to such lengths for Bakugo?”

The question, delivered in Aizawa’s flat, unimpressed tone, punctured Kirishima’s bravado. The tactical facade crumbled, revealing the raw, nervous boy underneath. He looked down at his shoes, his shoulders slumping.

“My parents… they’re both architects,” he said, his voice quieter now. “Really successful ones. But when I was a kid, I saw how hard they had to fight for it. The clients who didn’t want to use a video relay service, the contractors who thought they could shortchange them, as if being Deaf meant you couldn’t do math, the people who talked to me instead of them because I could hear.” He looked up, his eyes earnest. “The world is a giant obstacle course for them, sensei. Every single day. They’re the strongest people I know, just to live their lives.”

He took a shaky breath. “Bakugo… he’s like that. He’s so strong, and so smart, and his Quirk is amazing! But this school, this world… It's built for people who can hear. And he’s trying to do it alone because he thinks asking for help is weak, or means he’s incapable.” Kirishima’s voice hardened with conviction. “But it’s not weak. Needing a ramp isn’t weak. Needing an interpreter isn’t weak. It’s just… a different way of doing things. He can be a great hero, or even a legendary one, maybe… if he doesn’t have to do it alone.”

Aizawa’s expression was unreadable. “You’re proposing a permanent team-up. That’s a significant commitment, Kirishima. It’s a career path. It’s not something to enter into because you feel sorry for him.”

“I don’t feel sorry for him!” Kirishima’s response was immediate and fierce. “I feel… angry for him. And I admire him. He’s the manliest person I know, sensei. After the fight with Shinso, in class B… he told me he was quitting.” The memory made Kirishima’s chest tighten. “He said he was a liability. That he was ‘more trouble than he was worth.’” He met Aizawa’s gaze, his own eyes shining with a sudden, fierce intensity. “He’s alone, sensei. And he thinks… he thinks that’s all he deserves. I just… I want to be his friend. A real one. And isn’t that what being a hero is really about? Seeing someone who’s hurting and just… not walking away?”

The office was silent. Aizawa looked at the kid in front of him, and saw the ghost of Oboro Shirakumo in Kirishima’s unwavering loyalty. He was asking for permission to run headfirst into the fray, not to fight a villain, but to save a peer.

Aizawa let out a long, slow breath. He picked up his pen and made a note on a piece of paper. “When Bakugo returns,” he said, his voice as gruff as ever, but with a new, subtle undercurrent, “the two of you will be a designated pair for all future exercises. I’ll inform Nezu of the accessibility rationale. We’ll treat it as a professional hero partnership for training purposes.”

Kirishima’s face lit up, a massive, relieved grin breaking out. “Really? Sensei, thank you! You won’t regret this, I swear! We’re gonna be the best team this school has ever-”

“Don’t,” Aizawa cut him off, holding up a hand. “Don’t make me regret this, Kirishima. It’s not going to be easy. Between us, I’ve known Bakugo for years. He’s stubborn, proud, and difficult. He will push you away. He will get angry. This isn’t a friendship bracelet; it’s a commitment. You’re signing up to be his tether to a world that often excludes him. That is a heavy weight. Are you sure you can carry it?”

Kirishima’s grin softened into something more determined, more solid. He stood up straight, meeting his teacher’s gaze without flinching. “Yes, sensei. I’m sure.”

Aizawa gave a single, curt nod. “Good. Now get to class. And Kirishima,” he added as the boy turned to leave. “This was a very… hero-like thing to do.”

The praise, coming from Aizawa, was worth more than a trophy. Kirishima felt his chest swell with pride. “Thank you, sensei!”

He left the office, closing the door softly behind him. He’d done it! He’d actually done it. He wasn’t just going to be a hero who fought villains, he was going to be a hero who built bridges.

---

The Aizawa-Yamada house was oppressively quiet. The usual sounds of Hizashi’s pre-show vocal warm-ups or the low hum of Shouta’s documentary-watching were absent. It was the first day of the spring term, and the house felt hollow without all the usual inhabitants to fill it. For Hitoshi, the silence was a sentence.

He was grounded, as well as suspended for a week for fighting. His fathers, both teachers and heroes, had meted out additional punishments with a grim, united front. The suspension stood,  his phone and computer privileges were revoked, and every day, on top of completing all his missed school assignments, he was to complete extra coursework they set for him: essays on conflict resolution, the ethics of heroism, and the psychological impact of social isolation.

He knew he deserved it, that was the worst part. The memory of the fight, the crack of his hand against Katsuki’s face, the shocking warmth of the blood… it played on a loop in his mind. 

So he did the work. He sat at the kitchen table and meticulously worked through calculus problems and English grammar exercises, wrote the essays, and cleaned his room until it was spotless. By 3 p.m. on day one, with hours still to kill, he started on dinner. He made miso soup from scratch, simmering the dashi patiently, and prepared a simple but perfect salmon and rice. It was an apology in the only language he felt he could speak right now: action.

Around 4:00, the front door opened and closed. Hizashi was home. Hitoshi heard the quick, light steps down the hall to his soundproofed home studio. The door clicked shut. A moment later, the faint, thrumming bass of his father’s intro music vibrated through the floorboards. Put Your Hands Up Radio was on air. Hitoshi was alone again.

Just after 5:00, the door opened again. Slower, heavier steps. Shouta. Hitoshi stayed in the kitchen, stirring the miso soup that was already done.

Shouta appeared in the doorway, looking exhausted. He dropped his capture weapon on a hook and his teaching bag by the door with a sigh that seemed to come from his bones. His dark eyes scanned the immaculately cleaned kitchen, the pot of soup on the stove, the rice cooker keeping warm. He looked at Hitoshi.

“The work is on your desk,” Hitoshi said quietly, not meeting his eyes. “All of it.”

Shouta gave a short nod. “I’ll look at it after dinner.” He went to change out of his hero costume.

A half hour later, Hizashi emerged from his studio, his energy still buzzing from his performance. “Listeners were on fire today!” he announced, though his cheer felt a little forced. He ruffled Hitoshi’s hair as he passed. “Something smells amazing, kiddo.”

They ate at the kotatsu. The meal was delicious, but the silence around it was strained. They talked about safe, easy things: Hizashi’s show, a funny thing one of Shouta’s students had done, the new grading software the school was implementing… It was polite, and careful, and nothing like their usual easy, often sarcastic banter.

As Hitoshi gathered the empty bowls, Shouta spoke, his voice neutral. “Kirishima came to see me today.”

Hitoshi paused, a bowl in his hand.

“Oh?” Hizashi said, sipping his tea. “Everything okay?”

“He proposed an idea,” Shouta continued, his eyes on Hitoshi. “He wants to form a permanent training partnership with Bakugo. For all team-based exercises. He made a compelling tactical case. His hardening quirk protects him from Bakugo’s explosions, and his fluency in JSL effectively removes Bakugo’s largest barrier in the field.”

Hitoshi couldn’t help it. A faint, derisive snort escaped him. He immediately schooled his features, but it was too late.

Shouta’s gaze sharpened. “You have an opinion you’d like to share?”

Hitoshi put the bowl down carefully. “No. It’s fine. Kirishima’s a nice guy. He’ll have fun with that while it lasts.”

The room went very still.

“Hitoshi,” Hizashi said, his voice losing its radio-show brightness. It was just his dad’s voice now, quiet and disappointed. “That’s a cruel thing to say.”

The words landed like a slap. Hitoshi pushed on though. “Why? It’s true. Bakugo’s a nightmare to work with. Kirishima’s just feeling sorry for him.”

“That’s not what it sounded like to me,” Shouta said. His tone wasn’t angry. It was analytical, dissecting. “It sounded like a student identifying a problem and proposing an innovative, heroic solution. Something you used to be very good at.”

Hitoshi flinched.

“What is going on with you?” Hizashi asked plainly. “This… this coldness. This isn’t you. To join in with people making jokes about someone? To deliberately exclude him? To hit him? We didn’t raise you to be cruel.”

The word hung in the air. Cruel.

“I’m not being cruel,” Hitoshi muttered, his fists clenching under the table.

“Then what are you trying to do?” Shouta asked. “Because from where we’re sitting, you saw someone struggling, someone you once called a friend, and you chose to make his struggle harder. Explain the tactic to me. What was your objective?”

Hitoshi felt cornered. Their disappointment was a weight, pressing down on him. They weren’t yelling, they were just asking… And their questions felt worse than any shout.

“He started it!” The defense sounded weak even to his own ears. “He ignored me for months after I started speaking! He literally fought Shouto over it, which feels low-key criminal because Shouto is literally mentally disabled. He acted like I’d… like I’d committed a crime just by trying to get better!”

“So this is revenge?” Shouta asked, his head tilted. “An eye for an eye? He hurt your feelings, he hurt Shouto, so you get together with your classmates to isolate him? You break his nose?”

“No! It’s not!” Hitoshi’s composure cracked. “He made me feel like finding my voice was a mistake! He acted like I betrayed him just for trying to get better! And now he’s just… this angry, pathetic lump, and you all expect me to hold his hand because I used to know him! Why is it my job? Why do I have to be the one who’s nice to him? He’s not nice to anyone!”

The words spilled out, raw and messy. 

The room was silent for a long moment. Hizashi looked heartbroken. Shouta just looked tired.

“Hitoshi,” Hizashi said softly, “no one is asking you to be his keeper, or his friend. If you don’t want to be his friend, that’s… that’s your choice.”

Shouta picked up the thread, his voice low and steady. “We are asking you to be a decent human being. There is a vast canyon between being someone’s best friend and being a tormentor. You didn’t just walk away, you’re standing on the other side and throwing rocks.”

Hitoshi stared at the grain of the wooden table, his vision blurring. Under the quiet, devastating glare of his parents’ love and disappointment, he felt small and mean.

“He was my friend,” Hitoshi whispered, the admission tearing something inside him. “And then he wasn’t. It hurt.”

“I know it did, kiddo,” Hizashi said, his own voice thick. “But hurting people back never makes it stop hurting. It just makes more hurt.”

Shouta leaned forward. “You are not responsible for his happiness, Hitoshi. But you are one hundred percent responsible for your own actions. You chose to use what you knew about his insecurities against him, you chose to exclude him, and you chose to fight back with violence. Those are your choices.”

The truth of it was inescapable. Hitoshi nodded, a single, jerky motion. A tear escaped and he quickly wiped it away, ashamed.

“I’m not asking you to apologize to him,” Shouta said, surprising him. “Not yet. An apology without understanding is meaningless. I’m asking you to think. Really think. About who you want to be. A hero who sees someone drowning and walks away because they’re difficult? Or a hero who, at the very least, doesn’t hold their head under water?”

He stood up. “The suspension stands. So does the grounding. Keep up with the work.”

He left the room, leaving Hitoshi with Hizashi.

Hizashi reached out, placing his hand over Hitoshi’s clenched fist on the table. “We love you so much,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “That’s why this hurts us. Because we know the amazing, kind person you are. We just need you to remember him, too.”

Hitoshi didn’t trust himself to speak. He just nodded again, his throat too tight.

Hizashi squeezed his hand and then stood, taking the dishes to the kitchen.

Chapter 51: Fresh Starts

The Quiet Room’s newest fixture, Shouto’s classmate, Ono, had returned with the new term, her presence now as established as the weighted blankets in the corner. The routine was sacred: arrive, bow to Chō, receive a nod from Shouto, retreat to the low table. For weeks, the only sounds had been the rustle of manga pages, the crinkle of snack bags, and the soft, rhythmic scratch of Shouto’s pencil as he sketched, lying on the floor with his noise-cancelling headphones sealing him in a silent world.

The shift happened on the Thursday of that first week back. Ono finished her current volume of Solanin with a soft, final sigh. She closed the book, her fingers tracing the embossed title on the cover. She’d been engrossed and started early. She had a good twenty minutes of lunch remaining. She glanced across the room. Shouto was on his back, one knee bent, staring at the acoustic tiles on the ceiling, his headphones a barrier against the world. His lunch sat half-finished beside him.

Ono chewed her lip. She fidgeted with the strap of her all-purpose canvas bag. The silence, usually a comfortable cocoon, felt suddenly… expansive. And a little lonely.

“It’s… it’s really good,” she said, her voice a little too loud, cracking the quiet like a dropped plate. It was the first time she’d initiated a conversation unprompted. Shouto didn’t react. The headphones did their job perfectly.

Chō looked up from her own lunch, offering a gentle, encouraging smile. “What’s that, Ono-san?”

Ono flinched, as if surprised her words had actually manifested in the physical world. She held up the manga. “This. Solanin.It’s sad but… really beautiful.” She was speaking to Chō, but her eyes kept darting to Shouto’s prone form, a silent question in her gaze.

“It sounds interesting,” Chō said, her voice a warm neutral. “Do you read a lot of slice-of-life?”

“Yeah. And romance. I like… I like stories about ordinary people. Feeling ordinary things.” She was twisting the manga in her hands now, a nervous energy making her movements jerky. “It’s… the art is really expressive. The way the artist draws their eyes when they’re… Yeah. Just everything.”

She fell silent again. The clock on the wall ticked audibly. Shouto remained still and silent. 

Ono took a shaky breath, gathering her courage like a handful of scattered seeds. She looked directly at Shouto. “T-Todoroki-kun?” Her voice was softer this time, a tentative probe.

Nothing.

Chō gently reached over and tapped Shouto’s ankle. He gave a full-body jolt, and pulled one headphone off his ear. He turned his head to look at them, eyebrows raised. 

“Ono-san was just telling us about her manga,” Chō said, her voice calm and clear, enunciating for his benefit. “She says it has very expressive art.”

Shouto’s gaze shifted to Ono. He didn’t say anything. He just looked, waiting. His silence wasn’t hostile; it was simply… void.

Ono’s cheeks flushed a delicate pink. She held the book out a little. “It’s… it’s really good. The art.” She was floundering, the words feeling inadequate. “Do you… do you want to look at it with me?”

The question hung in the air, awkward and hopeful. Shouto squinted at her, then at the book. His brain seemed to be processing the request on a fundamental, logistical level, as if she’d asked him to explain a complex physics principle. The unspoken social expectation was that he would get up and go sit next to her at the table.

He made no move to do so.

Chō saw the misunderstanding crystallizing. She gave Ono a gentle, apologetic smile. “Ono, I think Shouto is very comfortable on the floor. Maybe you could go sit with him and you can look together?”

Ono’s eyes widened in a moment of dawning understanding. “O-oh! Yeah! Of course! ” She looked momentarily flustered, as if the idea of abandoning the sanctioned furniture for the freedom of the floor had never occurred to her. She gathered her bento box and her bag, stood up, and walked the three feet to Shouto’s spot. She hesitated for a second, then carefully lowered herself to sit cross-legged about a foot away from him, placing the manga in the space between them like a sacred text.

Shouto watched her, then slowly pushed himself up into a sitting position. He pulled his headphones off, letting them rest around his neck like a scarf, and put his glasses back on. He looked at the book, then at her, waiting.

“So, um,” Ono began, her voice gaining a little confidence now that the physical barrier was breached. She opened the book to a page she’d dog-eared. “See, this panel here? The way the lines are all shaky and thin? You can really feel how anxious the character is. It’s not just told to you, it’s shown. You feel it in your stomach.”

Shouto leaned forward, his nose almost touching the page. He studied the lines intently, his head tilted. He pointed a slender finger at the character’s wide, sketched eyes. “W-wide,” he murmured, the words slow and slightly thickened, as if pushed through clay.

“Yes!” Ono said, her face lighting up with the thrill of being understood. “Exactly! It’s showing us that she’s overwhelmed. You know?”

Shouto gave a slow, single nod. He did know.

Emboldened, Ono turned the page. “And then here, after this big fight with her boyfriend, the art gets really… empty. There’s all this negative space. It makes you feel how lonely she is. The silence is, like, a character itself.”

Shouto’s finger traced the edge of a panel that was mostly blank white, with a tiny, hunched figure in the bottom corner. He grunted in agreement. 

For the next ten minutes, Ono talked. She talked about line weight and screen tone, about how a character’s slouched posture could tell a whole story of defeat without a single word of dialogue. She wasn’t talking at him; she was sharing a language, and Shouto was listening with a level of focus he usually reserved for his own art or the intricate patterns of Izuku’s muttering. He didn’t say much, but the silence between himself and Ono was no longer empty, but engaged. 

Chō watched from her seat at the table, her heart doing a quiet, professional victory dance. She kept her expression neutral, not wanting to break the spell, but inside she was elated. This is it. This is a real, organic connection! It was clunky, but it was real.

The lunch bell’s shrill, electronic ring was a violent intrusion into their carefully built world. Both of them flinched. Ono looked up, startled, as if waking from a dream.

“Oh,” she said, blinking rapidly. “Time’s up.”

She began to gather her things, a noticeable reluctance in her movements.

As she stood up, slinging her bag over her shoulder, Ono looked down at him. “I… I have the next volume. At home.” She twisted the strap of her bag. “I could… bring it tomorrow. If you want.”

Shouto looked up at her from his spot on the floor. The severe, often blank line of his mouth softened perceptibly. The tension around his unusual eyes eased. 

“O-okay,” he said, the word clear and intentional.

Ono’s face broke into a relieved, bright smile. “Okay! Great! I’ll bring it tomorrow!” 

Chō finished packing Shouto’s things into his backpack and handed it to him. Ono walked a half-step ahead, Chō and Shouto just behind. The hallway was crowded and loud, a jarring contrast to the room they’d just left. Shouto’s shoulders tightened slightly, and he subtly moved closer to Chō’s steadying presence. Ono glanced back, saw his discomfort, and slowed her pace just a little, not saying anything, but creating a smaller, calmer pocket of space for them within the chaos.

It was a tiny, almost imperceptible act of awareness. But to Chō, watching it unfold, it was everything. It was awkward, it was stilted, it was a million miles from a normal teenage friendship... but it was a start.

---

The rhythm of the apartment had settled into something sturdy. The frantic energy of illness had been replaced by the hum of life being lived. Touya moved through the kitchen with a confidence that was still new, chopping vegetables for dinner. His hands, once too shaky to hold a knife, were steady. The scent of ginger and garlic sizzling in the pan was a victory in itself.

The front door clicked open and shut. Keigo’s footsteps were slower, heavier than usual. There was the rustle of his wings being meticulously preened in the genkan, a sign of a long, frustrating day. He padded into the kitchen, a silent golden presence.

Touya didn’t turn, focusing on the carrots. “Hey. Long day?”

Instead of answering, Keigo came up behind him. But it wasn’t the usual quick, playful squeeze or the efficient check-in, a hand on the forehead, an assessing glance. This was different. He wrapped his arms around Touya’s waist, his wings curving forward to encircle them both in a soft, feathered cave. He buried his face between Touya’s shoulder blades and let out a long, shuddering sigh that seemed to come from the very core of him. His whole body leaned into Touya’s, not for support, but for comfort.

Touya stilled, the knife hovering over the cutting board. The touch was familiar, yet it felt foreign after so many months. This wasn’t about checking his temperature or gauging his strength. This was Keigo, seeking. Needing. The weight of him was solid, real. Touya could feel the hard planes of Keigo’s hero costume against his back, the softness of his own worn sweatshirt between them.

He relaxed into the embrace, letting his head fall back slightly against Keigo’s. “That bad, huh?”

“Just… people,” Keigo mumbled, his voice muffled by the fabric. “Paperwork. Politics. Missed this.”

This. 

The domesticity, normalcy. Touya’s heart gave a squeeze. He covered Keigo’s hands with his own, feeling the contrast of his own scarred skin against Keigo’s smooth, perfect fingers. Keigo’s hands were splayed across his stomach, and a familiar, unwelcome flicker of self-consciousness sparked in Touya’s gut. He tried to let the feeling go, to focus on the moment, on the man holding him. He gave Keigo’s hands a gentle pat. “Go change. Dinner’s almost ready. I made the stir-fry you like.”

Keigo nuzzled his back once more before releasing him. “You’re a lifesaver.”

Later that night, after dinner and after Shouto had retreated to his room, they moved through the familiar routine of getting ready for bed. The bathroom was steamy from Touya’s shower. He stood at the sink, brushing his teeth, clad in a pair of soft sleep pants. He caught sight of them in the mirror: a study in contrasts.

Keigo, shirtless, was all lean, defined muscle and golden skin, a masterpiece of effortless beauty. Even tired, he looked like he’d just stepped out of a hero magazine. And then there was him. His white hair was growing in, a fluffy, uneven mess that stuck up in weird directions. The map of angry, silvery scars across his chest and arms seemed more pronounced against his pale skin. And then there was the rest of it—the soft curve of his stomach, the fuller line of his hips, the way his sleep pants sat a little tighter than they used to.

He spat into the sink, a bitter taste in his mouth that wasn’t from the toothpaste. “You know what the tabloids would say,” he said, his voice deliberately light, “Japan’s number three sexiest hero is really slumming it these days. Looks like he picked up a stray who’s been stress-eating for the past three months.”

He meant it as a joke, a self-deprecating jab to preempt any pity. He expected Keigo to snort, to fire back a teasing remark about getting soft in his old age.

The room went very still. Keigo, who had been toweling his hair, went rigid. In the mirror, Touya saw his reflection’s expression shift from tired amusement to something hard and unreadable.

Keigo turned. He didn’t say anything. He just walked over, took the toothbrush from Touya’s hand, and set it on the counter. His movements were deliberate, calm. Then he turned Touya around to face him, his grip firm but not harsh.

“Don’t,” Keigo said, his voice low and utterly serious. It lacked all its usual playful cadence. “Don’t do that.”

Touya blinked, thrown. “Do what?” Keigo narrowed his eyes at him, and Touya huffed. “It was a joke, babe.”

“It’s not a joke,” Keigo said, his eyes intense, holding Touya’s gaze. “And if you keep saying it, you’re going to start believing it. And then you’re going to put it between us.”

The air left Touya’s lungs. The bathroom felt too small, too bright. “Keigo…”

“I know your body’s been fighting you,” Keigo continued, his voice softening a fraction, but losing none of its intensity. “I know it’s betrayed you over and over. I’ve watched it happen. I held a bucket for you while you puked,I saw you so thin I was afraid to hug you.” His hand came up, not to touch a scar, but to cradle the side of Touya’s face, his thumb stroking his cheekbone. “This? This body right here? You want to make a joke about it?”

Touya looked away, his throat tight. “It’s just… it’s different. You’re… you.” He gestured vaguely at Keigo’s flawless torso. “And I’m… this.”

“Look at me,” Keigo commanded, gently but firmly. When Touya met his eyes again, he saw no pity, no frustration. Just a deep, unwavering certainty. “I don’t love you in spite of your body, Touya. I love the whole package: the scars, the softness, the hair that’s doing… whatever the hell this is…” He managed a small, wry smile, and some of the tension broke, “it’s all part of the man I came home to today because I needed to hold him. The man who makes my favorite stir-fry after a shitty day. The man who is alive. Do you have any idea how sexy it is to be alive?”

Touya couldn’t speak.

Keigo’s expression softened further. “I can’t manage your feelings about your body, but I need you to know that when I touch you,” he slid his hand from Touya’s face down to his chest, resting his palm over his heart, “I’m not comparing you to some ideal. I’m touching you. And I want to. So much.”

The moment hung between them, charged and fragile. The insecurities didn’t vanish. They were still there, a whisper in the back of Touya’s mind. But they were quieted, overshadowed by the raw, honest love in Keigo’s eyes.

It was Keigo who closed the distance. He didn’t kiss him with the desperate passion of their youth, or the careful, fearful gentleness of the past sick year. He kissed him with a slow, deep certainty, a relearning. His lips were warm and familiar, yet it felt new. There was no taste of medicine, no underlying fear of breaking. 

The slight scratch of Keigo’s stubble, the softness of his own lips, the solid, living warmth of their bodies pressed together in the steam-filled room.

When they broke apart, Touya was breathless for a reason that had nothing to do with his lungs. He rested his forehead against Keigo’s, his eyes closed.

Keigo took Touya’s hand and led him out of the bathroom. In the quiet of their room, Keigo’s touches were different. His fingers traced the line of a scar on Touya’s ribs, smoothed over the softness of Touya’s stomach, not with judgment, but with a possessive, grateful warmth. He kissed the hair on Touya’s head, the sensitive skin of his inner wrist, the pulse point at his throat, each touch a quiet reaffirmation.

And Touya, for perhaps the first time, let himself be appreciated in this new body. He allowed himself to feel the pleasure of the touch without the filter of self-criticism. He focused on the sensation: the weight of Keigo’s leg thrown over his, the comforting solidity of him, and the way his wings created a private, dark canopy around them. This body, for all its history of failure, was the vessel that held him while Keigo loved him.

---

The walk back into UA after his suspension was the longest of Katsuki Bakugo’s life. The whispers didn’t need to be heard; he felt them as a prickle on the back of his neck. The sidelong glances from his classmates in 1-A were a mixture of curiosity, pity, and wariness. They’d heard the rumors, filtered through the gossip mills of 1-B and the teachers' lounge: a brutal fight, a broken nose, a suspension. The details were murky, but the outcome was clear: Bakugo had finally exploded in a way that couldn't be ignored.

He kept his head down, his expression a granite mask. He focused on the interpreter’s hands during their morning academics: Japanese Literature, Modern Society, Mathematics. The words were just shapes; his mind was a storm of static. He just had to get through the day.

When the lunch bell finally rang, a wave of relief washed over him. The plan was simple: tell the interpreter she could leave, grab his bento, and eat alone in the empty classroom. The updates to his IEP, which his parents had fought for after the fight with Hitoshi, allowed him that small mercy.

He was digging in his bag when a shadow fell over him. He looked up. Aizawa-sensei stood there, his face as impassive as ever. The interpreter, who had been gathering her things, paused.

Aizawa signed, rather than sim-comming, offering a sliver of privacy. [Can we talk?]

Katsuki’s stomach clenched. He gave a short, sharp nod. The interpreter, taking the cue, slipped quietly out of the room.

Aizawa leaned against a nearby desk, his arms crossed. His signs were slow, deliberate. [Kirishima came to see me last week. He proposed that the two of you become a designated hero team for all training exercises. He made a compelling tactical argument.] 

Katsuki’s blood ran cold. That idiot had gone behind his back. He’d gone to their teacher and begged for a pity assignment. Humiliation burned in his stomach.

Aizawa watched him, his dark eyes missing nothing. [He seemed to imply it was a mutual idea. That you were in agreement. Is that not the case?]

The question hung in the air. Katsuki could tell the truth. He could expose Kirishima’s lie, reject the charity, and seal his fate as the class’ lone wolf who couldn’t be helped. He saw the future stretching out: endless, isolating exercises where he’d be a liability, a problem to be solved.

Or.

He could lie.

A moment of shocking, cold maturity settled over him. He met Aizawa’s gaze, his own hands moving with a confidence he didn’t feel. [Of course. We discussed it. We’re in agreement. It’s a smart strategy.]

Aizawa held his gaze for a beat longer, and Katsuki knew, with absolute certainty, that his teacher saw right through him. But Aizawa simply gave a curt nod. [Good. It’s settled then. The new arrangements begin this afternoon.]

He left, leaving Katsuki alone in the silent classroom. The lie tasted like ash. He was furious at Kirishima for his presumption, and at himself for his capitulation. He slumped into a chair, tearing open his bento with more force than necessary. He was so fucking confused. Why would Kirishima do this? What did he want? The conflicting feelings churned in his gut, a nauseating cocktail of anger, shame, and a terrifying, fragile flicker of hope. For not the first time, he wondered if something was fundamentally broken inside him, that he couldn’t even parse the intentions of someone trying to be nice.

The afternoon practical training was held in Gym Gamma. Aizawa stood before the class, his voice and hands moving in unison. “Effective immediately, Bakugo and Kirishima will be a designated hero team for all training exercises. This is a tactical decision based on Quirk synergy and to facilitate clear, uninterrupted communication in the field.”

A ripple of surprise went through the class. Katsuki kept his eyes fixed straight ahead, but he could feel every pair of eyes on him. He saw Kirishima from his periphery, standing a little straighter, a determined set to his jaw.

The exercise was a simple capture-the-flag scenario. It started as a disaster. Katsuki was stubbornly resistant, operating as a lone agent. He’d blast forward, ignoring Kirishima’s attempts to communicate.

Kirishima, however, was endlessly patient. He didn’t yell. He didn’t get frustrated. He used clear, large signs that were easy to read even in the chaos of mock battle. [LEFT FLANK!] he’d sign, pointing. [I’LL BLOCK, YOU GO HIGH!] He’d use his hardening to create a shield, a perfect platform for Katsuki to launch from, a strategy that was clearly well thought out.

It was purely tactical, but it was… inclusion. It was the first time Katsuki had ever received real-time, seamless communication in a fight. He found himself, almost against his will, starting to fall into the rhythm Kirishima was setting. A grudging respect bloomed alongside his irritation. The idiot wasn’t just strong; he was smart.

They fell into a groove. Kirishima would defend, Katsuki would attack. Kirishima would signal a direction, Katsuki would clear the path. It was brutal, efficient, and terrifyingly effective. They moved like two parts of a single engine. When they captured the final flag, securing the highest marks, a foreign feeling surged through Katsuki: the thrill of total victory.

After school, as the others filtered out, Katsuki cornered Kirishima by the lockers. His lip curled, his hands flying. [Why did you talk to Aizawa without me? I don’t need your pity partnership, Shitty hair!]

Kirishima’s expression didn’t falter. He didn’t flinch or look away. His expression was firm and open. [It’s not pity, it’s strategy. You’re the strongest guy I know, and I’m the sturdiest. That’s a good team. Aizawa-sensei agreed.] He paused, his confidence wavering just a fraction. [And… I meant what I said in the nurse’s office. I want to be your friend.]

[I don’t need friends!] Katsuki replied, the lie feeling hollow even to him.

[Everyone needs a friend,] Kirishima told him earnestly. [And I want to be yours. Not because I feel bad. Because I think you’re amazing. And I think we could be amazing together.]

The fight drained out of Katsuki. The wall of anger was still there, but it was crumbling under the relentless, genuine assault of Kirishima’s sincerity. He was so tired of being alone. He was so tired of the war inside his own head.

[Fine,] he signed finally, the motion jerky, conceding.

A brilliant, sharp-toothed grin spread across Kirishima’s face. It was the most honest expression Katsuki had ever seen directed at him. [Yes! Awesome!] Then he hesitated, a shyness entering his body language. [What’s your name sign? I’m sick of fingerspelling.]

It was the final surrender. A first name was… personal. Katsuki looked away, then back. He made a quick, sharp motion with his hand, mimicking an explosion bursting open, followed by the sign for ‘win’. [That’s my name sign. Like the Kanji for my name.]

Kirishima’s eyes lit up. He repeated the sign, then grinned. [Cool!] He then made his own sign: fist with the thumb tucked between the index and middle fingers, knuckles facing out near the mouth and moving outward in a small, bright arc, finishing with the hand opening slightly, fingers spreading. [E, for Eijiro, and big smile. That’s me.]

Katsuki gave a curt nod, committing it to memory. 

[Can I get your number?] Eijiro pulled out his phone. [So we can… you know. Plan tactics.]

With a long-suffering sigh that wasn’t entirely genuine, Katsuki input his number into Eijiro’s phone. [Don’t blow it up with stupid messages.]

[No promises!] Eijiro answered, beaming. [See you tomorrow!]

He bounded off, leaving Katsuki standing alone in the hallway. The storm inside him had quieted to a confused, but manageable, rumble.

He walked out of the school gates, the late afternoon sun casting long shadows. Across the yard, he saw a lone figure walking towards the teacher parking lot: Hitoshi. Their eyes met across the distance.

There was no anger left. No hatred. Hitoshi looked away first, shoving his hands in his pockets and walking off towards the teachers' parking lot.

Katsuki turned and started for home.

Chapter 52: Visits

Notes:

thank you all so much! i am grateful to you for reading and commenting and leaving me your thoughts on this piece. xoxo!

The Sunday sun streamed through the living room windows, painting warm rectangles across the kotatsu. It was their established rhythm, a scene of quiet productivity. Shouto was frowning at a reading comprehension passage, his finger tracing each line. Izuku was a whirlwind of focused energy, three calculus textbooks fanned out around him, his muttering a low, constant stream of numbers and theories.

Inko Midoriya hovered by the genkan, pulling on her coat. "I am so sorry, Touya-kun," she fretted, her voice tight with anxiety. "An unexpected shift call, a multi-car pileup on the expressway. The ER is swamped. Are you sure it's not too much trouble?"

"Not at all, Inko," Touya said, waving a dismissive hand from the kitchen where he was washing lunch dishes. "We've got it. The usual drill. He'll be fine."

Keigo, chopping vegetables for meal prep with a terrifying avian precision, nodded. "Yeah, don't worry! We'll feed him something that isn't just curry. Maybe even a vegetable."

Inko offered a weak smile. "Thank you. Izuku, be good. Listen to Touya and Keigo." Izuku, already lost in a differential equation, gave a distracted hum. With one last worried glance, Inko slipped out the door.

The quiet hum of the apartment resumed. For a while, it was peaceful. Touya dried his hands and came over to check on their progress. Shouto was stuck on a metaphor. Touya broke it down for him, using simple, concrete examples. Then he turned to Izuku. The boy was staring at a particularly nasty integral, his brow furrowed. His muttering had taken on a sharper, more frantic edge.

“Hit a wall?” Touya asked, leaning over his shoulder.

“It’s the substitution,” Izuku mumbled, his hand gripping the pencil so tightly his knuckles were white. “I see it, but I can’t… the steps won’t… it’s all jumbled.”

“Okay, let’s walk through it,” Touya said calmly. “Start with the base function.” He began to guide him, step by logical step. But Izuku wasn’t following. His breathing hitched. The muttering became a desperate, incoherent torrent, words crashing into each other.

“I can’t, I can’t, it’s too much, it’s all too much, it’s wrong, I’m wrong, I’m going to fail, I’m going to fail everything, I’m so stupid!”

“Izuku, look at me. Breathe.” Touya’s voice was firm but calm.

But it was too late. The dam broke. A raw, guttural sob tore from Izuku’s throat. He slammed his hands on the table, sending pencils rolling. Then his hands flew to his head, pulling at his hair. “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!”

Keigo was in the doorway in an instant; his eyes widened at the scene. Shouto had frozen, his workbook forgotten, his eyes wide with alarm.

"Shouto, come with me," Keigo said softly, his voice leaving no room for argument. He gently guided a stunned Shouto from the room.

Touya acted on instinct, developed professionally counseling kids through Quirk-related panic and four and a half years of navigating Shouto. He didn't try to reason. He didn't tell him to calm down. He moved.

“Izuku,” Touya said, his voice a low, steady anchor in the chaos. He didn’t try to stop the hitting immediately; instead, he moved closer, creating a boundary. “I’m here. You’re okay. You’re safe. Just breathe with me.” He took a deep, exaggerated breath, hoping Izuku would subconsciously mirror him.

When Izuku’s flailing arm connected with his own chest, Touya gently but firmly caught his wrists. “I can’t let you hurt yourself, buddy. As he knelt, a faint, annoying pins-and-needles sensation shot through his feet. 

Damn legs falling asleep.

He wrapped Izuku in a firm, full-body hug, applying deep pressure. “I’ve got you. Just let it out. I’ve got you.” He began to rock slowly, a steady, rhythmic motion. “You’re not stupid. You’re overwhelmed. It’s okay to be overwhelmed.”

He kept his voice a soft, monotonous hum, and didn’t ask questions, or offer solutions. Slowly, the storm began to pass. The violent sobs subsided into ragged, hitching breaths, then into utter exhaustion. Izuku went completely limp in his arms, boneless and spent. 

Touya didn’t move. He stayed there, holding him, for a long time. When he was sure the crisis had passed, he gently extracted himself.

Keigo was standing in the hallway. “He’s okay,” Touya said, his own voice rough. “He’s just… crashed. Keigo, can you put on that old All Might cartoon? Mute it, please.”

Keigo nodded, moving quickly.

Touya went back into the room. “Come on, kid. Let’s get you to the couch.” He helped a lethargic Izuku to his feet and guided him to the couch. Keigo draped the weighted blanket over him. The silent cartoon played, its bright colors moving soundlessly across the screen. 

Shouto watched him for a moment from the doorway. Then, without a word or a prompt, he walked over and sat on the very edge of the couch cushion. He didn't look at Izuku. He simply placed his hand, palm up, on the cushion between them.

Izuku's eyes, glazed over, flickered down. After a long moment, his hand crept out from under the blanket and slid into Shouto's. Shouto didn't move. He just sat there, holding his friend's hand, for the next two hours.

When Inko came to pick him up hours later, she found them like that: Izuku asleep on the couch, Shouto still vigilantly holding his hand, the silent cartoon casting blue light over them.

Her face fell. “Oh, no,” she whispered, her hand flying to her mouth. “Touya, what happened?”

Touya guided her to the kitchen, speaking softly. “He had a hard time with some calculus. He got overwhelmed. He’s okay now.”

Tears welled in Inko’s eyes. “His teachers… they all say he’s doing well in class. He’s keeping his grades up, and never acts out there. But at home… he’s like this. He comes home and just… collapses. Or he has these… these meltdowns. I’ve told him we can leave that school, find something else, but he insists on staying. He says he has to be there.” A sob escaped her. “I’m his mother. I should be able to fix this. I’m… I’m such a failure.”

“Inko, no,” Keigo said, his voice uncharacteristically gentle. He placed a cup of tea in front of her. “You’re not a failure. You’re a great mom.”

“He won’t talk to me about it,” she cried. “He just says he’s fine. But he’s not fine.”

“We know,” Touya said, leaning against the counter. “And you’re not alone in this. We see it too. This is a safe place for him to… not be fine. That’s okay.”

They reassured her until her tears subsided, packing up a container of leftovers for the Midoriyas and walking them to the door, with promises that next week would be better.

---

Their weekly family meal at the Himura-Takami apartment was a lively, comfortable affair. Fuyumi had brought over a rich, homemade nikujaga, and the scent of simmered meat and potatoes filled the space. It was after the meal, as they were clearing plates and Keigo was brewing tea, that Fuyumi’s cheerful demeanor began to fray at the edges. She twisted her napkin in her lap, her smile becoming strained.

“So,” she began, her voice a little too bright. “Haruki and I… we’ve finally set a firm date for the wedding. April 28th. ”

“That’s great, ‘Yumi!” Keigo said, setting a cup of tea in front of her. “Spring will be beautiful there.”

“It will,” she agreed, but her eyes were on Touya. She took a shaky breath. “There’s… there’s something I need to talk to you about. About the guest list.”

The air in the room shifted. Touya felt it instantly, a cold trickle of dread down his spine. He knew where this was going. He slowly lowered himself back into his chair. Keigo, sensing the change, came to sit beside him.

Fuyumi’s gaze was pleading. “I… I want to invite Mom.”

Touya’s immediate, visceral reaction was a surge of protective anxiety, specifically for Shouto. His leg, under the table, began to jiggle with nervous energy. A faint, prickling sensation, like static electricity, shot through his calf. He absently reached down to rub it.

Keigo’s hand found his under the table instead though, giving it a firm, grounding squeeze.

Touya took a slow breath, pushing the anxiety down. He looked at his sister’s face, so full of hope and fear. This was her day, her chance at a happy beginning. He couldn’t deny her that.

“It’s your wedding,” he said, his voice quieter than he intended. “You should have whoever you want there.” He saw her shoulders slump with relief, but he pressed on, voicing the fear that was coiling in his gut. “But ‘Yumi… springing a reunion on them at the wedding… that’s a super high stress environment, a huge one, for both of them.” 

Fuyumi nodded vigorously, leaning forward. “I know. I’ve thought about that. That’s why… that’s why I have a proposal.” She took another steadying breath. “I want to arrange a visit to the hospital before the wedding. Just us: you, me, Natsuo, and Shouto. A controlled… reintroduction. I’ve already talked to Natsuo; he’s willing to come too. The goal is just to see how it goes.”

The proposal hung in the air. A visit with all four of them... It was a monumental step. Touya’s mind raced. The potential for it to go wrong was staggering. What if it set Shouto back? What if it shattered their mother’s fragile stability?

He looked from Fuyumi’s hopeful, determined face to Shouto, who was now quietly stacking plates in the pantry, oblivious to what was being discussed. This was the right thing to do, the brave thing: to try and mend a fracture, however carefully. 

“Okay,” he said, the word feeling like it was being pulled from him. “Okay. We’ll try it. We’ll… we’ll go see her.”

Fuyumi’s face lit up, tears of relief welling in her eyes. “Thank you, Touya. Thank you!”

The tension in the room didn’t dissipate; it simply transformed from a question into a looming anxiety. The decision was made. 

---

The car ride to their mother’s residence was a special kind of torture. Fuyumi was a terrifying driver; her turns were too sharp, her accelerations too sudden, her focus on the road obviously secondary to her anxiety.

In the passenger seat, Touya felt every lurch and swerve in his gut. The nearly hour-long drive was a slow-motion rollercoaster of nausea. Natsuo and Shouto were silent in the back, Natsuo looking vaguely carsick himself, Shouto staring out the window, his expression unreadable.

As soon as Fuyumi pulled into a parking space, Touya shoved the door open, stumbled out, and vomited onto the pristine asphalt.

“Ugh, really, Touya?” Natsuo groaned, climbing out and patting his back with a brother’s mix of sympathy and disgust.

“S’not my fault,” Touya gasped, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and accepting the water bottle from his sister. “Fuyumi drives like she’s being chased by villains.”

“I do not!” Fuyumi protested, her cheeks pink. “You’ve just gotten sensitive!”

“He’s always been a terrible passenger,” Natsuo said, a flicker of an old, normal sibling dynamic breaking through. “Remember when we would drive to the beach in the summer, and Touya would puke every time? I was only… what, five but I still remember.”

A ghost of a smile touched Shouto’s lips as he got out of the car.

The walk from the car to the hospital’s main doors felt endless. The building was modern, designed to be welcoming, with lots of glass and light wood. But the air inside was still, cool, and carried the faint, antiseptic scent that made Touya’s skin crawl. The mood among them was intensely anxious, a silent, shared dread.

Fuyumi took charge at the reception desk, her teacher-voice firmly in place. “We’re here to see Rei Todoroki.”

They were buzzed through. The hallway to the visiting rooms was long, the linoleum floor gleaming under the fluorescent lights. The silence was broken only by the squeak of their shoes and the distant, muffled sound of a television.

As they walked, a pinching, tingling sensation ran down Touya’s leg. His foot caught on nothing, and he stumbled, pitching forward.

Natsuo’s hand shot out, catching his elbow in a firm grip. “Whoa, you okay?” His voice was low, immediately serious. The teasing from the parking lot was gone.

Touya righted himself, yanking his arm back a little too quickly. “Fine. Just tripped.” He couldn’t meet Natsuo’s eyes. He could feel Fuyumi’s worried gaze and Shouto’s quiet, observant one.

“Yeah,” Natsuo said slowly, exchanging a glance with Fuyumi. “Okay.” 

Fuyumi took the lead. “I’ll… I’ll go in first. Just for a minute. To… prepare her.” She slipped into their mother’s room.

The three brothers stood in the hushed hallway. Natsuo shoved his hands in his pockets, looking older than his years. Shouto stood perfectly still, his expression a carefully neutral mask, but Touya could see the tremor in his hands.

Fuyumi emerged a few minutes later. “Okay. She’s ready. She’s… she’s really happy you’re all here.”

They filed in. The room was bright, spare, and peaceful. Rei sat in a chair by the window, dressed in a soft blue sweater and trousers. She looked fragile, her white hair fine and styled neatly, her hands clasped in her lap. Her eyes, the same pale gray as Touya’s and Natsuo’s, were wide and nervous.

Her gaze swept over her sons, lingering for a heartbreaking second on each face. Then it landed on Shouto, who stood slightly behind Touya.

The reaction was subtle but profound. Rei’s breath hitched. Her eyes widened, taking in the glasses, the way he held himself with a slight, wary tension. Then her gaze found the scar, the stark, mottled patch of skin that marred the left side of his face. A tremor went through her. Her hand fluttered to her mouth, her eyes glistening with instant, shame-filled tears.

“Shouto,” she whispered.

She had never been told the full extent of the damage from the burn on his face. Endeavor had seen to that. She’d been shielded, in her fragile recovery, from the consequences. Seeing it now, all at once, was a devastating shock.

Shouto didn’t speak. He gave a single, shallow bow of greeting, his own posture rigid with anxiety. He knew, intellectually, that she wasn’t the monster from his childhood memories. Therapy had given him the words: acute stress-induced psychosis, a victim herself. But the body remembered fear.

“M-mom,” he said. 

Fuyumi jumped in, her voice artificially bright. “Mom, look how tall he’s gotten! And he’s an amazing artist, remember we showed you last time? His work was featured at his school’s festival.”

Rei seemed to force herself to breathe, to drag her eyes away from the scar. “An… artist?” she said, her voice thin. “That’s… that’s wonderful, Shouto.You always… you always liked the bright colors in my kimono. Do you remember that?”

Shouto’s response was a tight nod. He remembered the kimono. 

Her eyes drifted back to his face, and a new, unsettling light entered them. “The left side… it’s his side. But your right eye…”

“Natsuo, why don’t you tell Mom about school? He’s going to be a doctor, remember?” Fuyumi said proudly.

Rei’s eyes softened, looking at Natsuo. “My smart boy.” Then her gaze drifted back to Shouto. “Your… your father, he was so strong. So resilient. It’s good you have that, too.”

The room went still for a fraction of a second. Touya, who had been a silent sentinel, shifted his weight. Natsuo’s smile tightened. Shouto felt a cold stone drop in his stomach. She didn’t mean it as an insult, he knew that. But comparing any part of him to Endeavor, especially the part that had survived her, felt like a violation.

“I’m nothing like him, Mom,” Natsuo said, his voice carefully neutral.

“Oh, no, of course not,” Rei said quickly, flustered. “I just meant…“

The conversation was halting, awkward. Fuyumi and Natsuo carried it, talking about the wedding plans, about Natsuo’s studies, about the unseasonably warm weather. They were steady anchors in the emotionally charged room. Rei listened, but her eyes kept drifting back to Shouto, a flicker of anguish crossing her face each time.

“Your… your hair,” she interrupted Natsuo suddenly, her focus sharpening on Shouto again. “It’s still so… perfect. The red and white. So… symmetrical.” She reached a hand out slightly, as if to touch it from across the room. “He was so obsessed with that…”

“He’s just Shouto, Mom,” Touya said, his voice low but firm, his hand coming to rest fully on Shouto’s back, grounding him. “That’s all that matters.”

Rei flinched, hearing the rebuke. “I… I… I’m sorry.” She looked at Shouto, her expression pleading. “Do you… do you still like cold soba? I remember… I used to make it for you, with the green onions chopped very fine. You didn’t like them too big.”

It was another offering, another fragment of a mother’s love she was trying to reassemble. But it was another demand for a specific, correct response. Shouto’s mind blanked. The words got tangled. He remembered the soba, yes, but the question felt like a test.

“I… it’s… it’s…” he struggled. “I… ye-es.”

The answer was nonsensical, and he knew it. Frustration bubbled inside him. He saw the confusion in her eyes, followed by a fresh wave of guilt, and he felt responsible for it.

Fuyumi, ever the facilitator, gently steered the conversation back toward something else.

The visit was just under an hour. It felt like twenty. It wasn’t a magical healing moment. It was mostly just exhausting… but it was a start. As they prepared to leave, Fuyumi gently broached the subject of the wedding. Rei’s eyes filled with tears. “I would like that,” she whispered. “I’ll… I’ll have a nurse with me. To help.” Her eyes found Shouto one last time. “You’ll be there, won’t you, Shouto?”

He managed another nod, the motion tight and exhausted. He gave one more, final bow. “G-goodb-bye,” he managed, the words clear but flat.

Stepping back into the hallway was like coming up for air. 

Touya was right behind him, a steadying hand on his back. “You did good,” he murmured. “You did really good, Sho.”

Shouto nodded, swallowing hard. He had seen his mom, and he realized that yes, he had missed her. And yet, he was profoundly, overwhelmingly relieved to be going home. 

---

The car ride home was silent; the draining emotional work of visiting Rei really zapped them of any conversation motivations. 

Fuyumi dropped Natsuo off at the train station first, then Touya and Shouto off. 

When they finally entered the apartment, the silence didn’t break; it just changed texture, becoming heavier, more fraught. 

Keigo was waiting for them.

“Hey,” he said softly, stepping aside to let them in. “How’d it… go?”

No one answered. Shouto walked past him like a ghost, straight to the living room, where he stood perfectly still in the center, his back to them. Touya exchanged a look with Keigo that said, I’ll explain later.

Keigo took a cautious step toward the living room. “Sho? You hungry? I could make some tea?”

Shouto didn’t move, or acknowledge the question. 

Touya’s own anxiety spiked as Shouto’s breaths grew shallower. He knew these signs. This was the pressure building in a sealed container with no release valve. “Hey,” Touya said, keeping his voice low and even. “You’re home, it’s over. All we need to do is rest now.”

Keigo, trying to help, moved closer. “It’s okay, kid. You did really good today.” 

The reassurance seemed to have the opposite effect. Shouto’s breathing hitched, becoming ragged and too fast. He brought his hands up and pushed his glasses over his eyebrows, pressing his palms hard against his closed eyes, as if trying to physically push the overwhelming stimuli out of his head. 

He began to pace in frantic, agitated circles on the rug, his movements jerky and uncoordinated. He stumbled into the edge of the couch, his hip connecting with a solid thud that would leave a bruise. He didn’t seem to feel it. His hands flapped wildly near his head, a desperate attempt to regulate the system crashing inside him. With a spasm of overwhelmed frustration, he swiped a vase off the bookcase. It shattered against the floorboards.

Silently, because no matter how long it had been since leaving Enji’s care, the instincts remained, tears streamed down his face as the sound of the breaking ceramic snapped something inside him. Frustrated and scared, he stumbled away from the broken pieces, stumbling over the corner of the couch and clipping his shoulder on the wall. The pain of it seemed to give him clarity, and he hit his shoulder on the wall again more forcefully, and then his head too, which seemed to daze him a bit, but he went back to do it again. It was all happening so fast that Touya and Keigo could hardly stop him. 

“Shouto, stop, you’re going to hurt yourself!” Touya said, his voice laced with alarm. He moved to intercept him but Shouto shoved him away with a blind, panicked strength that sent Touya stumbling back. 

“I’ve got him,” Keigo said, his voice calm but firm. This was not a time for gentle words; his was the ugly side of things. He moved into Shouto’s frantic path, becoming an immovable object. When Shouto stumbled into him, Keigo wrapped his arms and wings around him in a firm, full-body hold, pinning Shouto’s arms to his sides to stop the wild, dangerous flailing. “I’ve got you,” he murmured, “just let it out. I’ve got you. You’re okay.”

Shouto struggled against the hold for a moment, before the fight suddenly went out of him. He went completely limp, sagging against Keigo, still crying. The two melted down onto the floor.

Touya stood frozen, his own heart hammering against his ribs.

---

he apartment was finally, profoundly silent. Shouto, emotionally spent, had been guided to bed and had fallen into a deep sleep almost instantly. 

Touya moved through the kitchen on autopilot, the familiar ritual of making tea a desperate attempt to impose order on the chaotic evening, the stressful day. He filled the kettle, his movements precise, but to a trained eye, something was off. His gait was slightly stiff, lacking its usual fluidity. There was a barely perceptible hesitation as he shifted his weight from his right leg to his left, a minute wince tightening the corner of his eye before he smoothed his expression back to neutral. He thought he was hiding it. He was concentrating so hard on appearing normal that every movement became a conscious effort.

Keigo watched him from the kitchen doorway, leaning against the frame. The hero in him, the one trained to observe the most subtle tells in a villain’s posture, saw it all. Every instinct screamed at him to swoop in, to demand answers, to pick him up and carry him to the nearest doctor. But the partner in him, who had learned that love wasn’t about fixing but about supporting, held back. Forcing the issue would be a violation of the trust they had spent years building. It would be treating Touya like a patient, not a person.

Their eyes met. Touya’s expression was undefined; he was braced for a confrontation, ready to dismiss any concern with a sharp retort, but hoping it wouldn't come to it.

Keigo’s face held only the furrow of his brow, the softness of his mouth. 

“Did he hurt you?” 

“No,” Touya answered honestly. The shove from Shouto had been surprisingly forceful, but he’d felt steady enough on his feet that it hadn’t caused him to really fall. “It’s… I’m fine.” 

Keigo sighed. “The offer to carry the mugs is always open.”

The fight drained out of Touya instantly. His shoulders slumped in a mixture of profound relief and acute shame. He looked down at the mugs on the counter, his hands stilling. “I’ve got it,” he murmured, but his voice lacked its usual defensive edge. It was just tired.

“When’s your next appointment with Dr. Nakamura?” Keigo asked, his tone carefully neutral, conversational. He didn’t move from the doorway, giving Touya space.

“Friday,” Touya said, his voice low. He picked up the kettle, his grip a little too tight.

“Okay,” Keigo said, the word a sigh of relief. “Good.”

It was a frail balance between concern and respect, between the desire to protect and the need to empower. Keigo didn’t want to push, but he would watch, and he’d be there, his offer to carry the mugs, and everything else, always standing.

---

The waiting room at Dr. Nakamura’s office had never felt so cold. The sense of cautious optimism he’d come to associate it with was gone, replaced by dread. Filling out the pre-appointment forms, under ‘Reason for Visit’, he wrote: Numbness, tingling in feet. Gait instability. 

Writing it down made it feel real. And that felt… bad. 

The appointment began routinely. His weight was stable, his blood pressure acceptable, his lungs clear-ish. Dr. Nakamura was her usual calm, professional self. But when she asked, “And how have you been feeling, really?” the carefully constructed dam broke.

“My feet,” he said, his voice flat, “they’ve been… buzzing. Like they’ve fallen asleep, but they don’t wake up. I almost fell last weekend.”

Dr. Nakamura’s pleasant demeanor shifted into something focused and sharp. She put down her tablet. “Describe the sensation. Is it constant? Does it move? Any weakness?”

He answered her questions mechanically, and told her everything, watching her face for a reaction. Her expression remained neutral, but the intensity in her eyes was terrifying.

“Let’s see what’s going on, then,” she said, her voice calm but leaving no room for argument.

The examination was thorough and humiliating. She tapped his knees and ankles with a small rubber hammer, and his reflexes were sluggish. She pricked the soles of his feet with a pin; the sensation was muffled, distant. He walked heel-to-toe, his balance wavering. He closed his eyes and almost tipped over.

When it was over, she helped him back onto the exam table. 

“Touya, what you’re describing are neurological symptoms. We need to determine the cause, and we need to do it quickly.”

He just stared at her, feeling numb all over now.

“It could be a few things,” she continued. “The most likely are two possibilities. The first is a manifestation of your QIAD. Autoimmune diseases can sometimes decide to attack the nervous system. We call that neuropathy.” She paused. “The second possibility is a side effect of your immunosuppressant. The drug that’s keeping your inflammation down can, in rare cases, be neurotoxic.”

She scheduled him for an immediate MRI of his brain and spine and a nerve conduction study. 

As he was gathering his things, she spoke again, her voice softer. “Touya… until we know what we’re dealing with, your balance is compromised. I’m going to suggest you use a cane. Just for stability, to prevent a fall.”

A cane.

He saw it instantly: the sleek, metal thing leaning against his desk at the clinic. The looks from his young clients, the pitying glances in the street, the loss of anonymity. He’d just gotten used to the weight gain, the weird hair, the scars. He’d just started to feel solid in this new body. Now it was betraying him in a whole new way. It wasn’t anger, but a deep, weary sense of again? He was taking five steps back, and he hadn’t even finished moving forward.

“Okay,” he said, the word hollow. There was no point in arguing. She was right.

The journey home was a blur. He didn’t remember the train ride. He found Keigo in the living room, meticulously organizing a stack of hero agency invoices. He looked up, a bright, expectant smile on his face that immediately faltered when he saw Touya.

“That… doesn’t look like a ‘everything’s fine’ face,” Keigo said cautiously, setting the papers down.

Touya didn’t sit. He stood in the middle of the room, feeling unsteady but unwilling to sit. “It’s not,” he said, his voice still that awful monotone. “She… she’s worried. It’s neurological.”

He saw the color drain from Keigo’s face. 

“She ordered an MRI. And a nerve study.” The words felt like stones in his mouth. “Could be the disease. Could be the meds.” He finally looked at Keigo, and the fear he saw in his partner’s eyes was a mirror of his own. “She suggested I use a cane, so I don’t fall.”

Keigo was silent for a long moment, absorbing the information, his own anxiety fighting to stay hidden. 

Finally, he let out a long, slow breath. “Okay,” he said, his voice steady. “Okay. Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it.” He stood up and walked over to Touya, not to smother him, but to stand beside him, to hold his hand. “A cane’s not the end of the world. It’s a tool; it’ll keep you safe.”

It was the right thing to say, the logical thing. But Touya could hear the slight tremor underneath Keigo’s calm tone, the way his wings were held stiffly against his back.

“I know,” Touya whispered. “I know it is. It just… it feels like I’ll never get out from under it. Every time I start to think things are getting better, something else knocks me down.”

Keigo’s hand found his, their fingers lacing together. “I know,” he said, his voice soft now, full of a shared pain. Touya leaned into him, drawing strength from his solidity. Whatever came next, they'd face it together. 

Chapter 53: Being Left-Handed

Notes:

thank you to all who subscribe and comment and kudos... it makes my day! some hard things and some good things... but the story is entering a fun arc i think.
anywhooo... enjoy!

The world outside began to thaw as winter softened into a damp, cool spring. The frantic energy of the third trimester gave way to final exams and the anticipation of the school year’s end. 

On the last day of classes, Ono finished her manga, closed it with a definitive snap, and then did something unprecedented. She pulled out her phone, a slightly outdated model with a cute charm dangling from it, and held it out to Shouto.

“I have a phone,” she said, her cheeks dusted pink. “We should exchange numbers, so we can… you know… Talk about the new volume over break. It comes out next week.”

Shouto took his own phone and input her number. He showed her the screen for confirmation.

Ono beamed, a bright, relieved smile. “Okay! Great! Have a good break, Todoroki-kun!”

“You t-too,” he mumbled, watching as she gathered her things and practically floated out of the room.

Chō, who had been observing the entire exchange with rapt attention, could barely contain her excitement. As they walked to his locker at the end of the day, she casually asked, “So, Shouto… do you like Ono-san?”

Shouto considered the question. “Sh-she is… q-quiet an-and sh-shows me a-art. Sh-she d-doesn’t… t-talk too m-much.”

Chō smiled. “That’s good. But I mean… Do you like her? Like… have a crush on her?”

Shouto stopped walking. His brow furrowed in profound confusion. The word meant nothing to him. “Hm?” 

Chō bit her lip to keep from laughing. “A crush. It’s when you… you think about someone a lot. You feel happy when you see them. Your heart might beat faster. You might want to… hold their hand. Or be their boyfriend.”

Shouto processed this. He thought of Ono. He thought of her art explanations. He did not think about holding her hand. He thought about the precise line work in the last panel she’d shown him.

“No,” he stated, with absolute, unshakeable certainty. “No… c-crush.”

Chō’s hopes for a sweet, awkward teenage romance deflated slightly, but she couldn’t help but smile at his utter sincerity. “Okay. A friend is good too.”

At home, the apartment felt fuller, warmer. Natsuo was back from Keio, his presence a loud, solid comfort. He’d immediately reclaimed his old library job, coming home each evening smelling of paper and ink. He didn’t treat Touya any nicer than he had before, which was the greatest gift he could have given. 

“Hey, old man,” he’d say, clapping Touya on the shoulder as he navigated the kitchen with his cane. “Try not to trip over your own feet and break your other hip.”

Touya would swat at him with the cane. “Watch it, or I’ll ‘accidentally’ trip you.”

But the cane was no longer a symbol of defeat. It had become a practical, grudgingly accepted tool. Touya had almost fallen twice in the dark, once stumbling against the doorframe on his way to the bathroom, another time his numb foot catching on the edge of the rug. The sharp jolt of fear each time had been more persuasive than any doctor’s order. The cane provided a third point of contact, a steadying rhythm. Tap-step. Tap-step. It was the sound of caution, of managing risk. He hated it. He was also deeply grateful for it.

The true whirlwind, however, was the wedding. With only a month to go, Fuyumi’s planning shifted into a military-grade operation. Her apartment became ground zero. Swatches of fabric appeared on every surface. Seating charts were debated with the intensity of war-room strategy sessions. Haruki was a constant, calm presence, gently steering Fuyumi away from potential meltdowns over floral arrangements.

One evening, they were all crammed around her table: Fuyumi, Haruki, Natsuo, Touya, Keigo, and a silently observing Shouto, as Fuyumi presented three nearly identical shades of white for the napkins.

“This one is ‘ivory whisper,’” she said, holding up a swatch. “And this is ‘pearl blush.’ And this is ‘cream dream.’ Which one says ‘elegant spring wedding’ without saying ‘trying too hard’?”

Natsuo squinted. “They’re all white, ‘Yumi.”

“They are not just white!” she cried, on the verge of tears. “They have undertones!”

Keigo, who had been quietly folding paper cranes for a centerpiece, looked up. “I like the dreamy one.”

Touya, leaning on his cane as he got up to fetch more tea, chuckled. “Just pick one, Fuyumi. No one will remember the napkins. They’ll remember if you’re happy.”

Fuyumi looked at him, at the cane in his hand, at the simple, weary wisdom in his statement. The fight went out of her. “You’re right,” she sighed, slumping against Haruki. “Cream dream it is. It’s the dreamiest.”

Natsuo snorted, and Keigo stifled a laugh. 

“You’re all immature!” 

In Dr. Nakamura’s office, the MRI scans and nerve conduction study results were up on the lightboard, revealing a new, permanent truth.

Touya sat perfectly still in the chair, his hands resting on the handle of his cane. He felt a strange sense of detachment, as if he were watching this happen to someone else.

Dr. Nakamura didn’t mince words. “The tests confirm it, Touya. It’s a mild-to-moderate peripheral neuropathy. The nerve signals to your feet and lower legs are being disrupted.” She paused, her gaze steady and compassionate but unflinching. “It’s a direct neurological manifestation of the QIAD. The disease itself is evolving.”

The words landed, not with a shocking impact, but with a heavy, final thud. Evolving.

“It’s not the medication,” she continued, “it’s the disease; the course is likely to be progressive, but the rate is unknown. It could plateau, it could, in some cases, even reverse somewhat if we can get the systemic inflammation under better control… But for now… our goal shifts. It’s no longer about achieving remission in the way we thought we had, it’s about managing these symptoms and slowing the progression as much as possible.”

Touya was silent. He felt the hope, the hard-won belief that he could someday be well, drain out of him, leaving behind a hollow numbness. 

“What’s next?”

Dr. Nakamura nodded, as if she’d been expecting this reaction. “We adjust your medication. We’ll try a different blend of immunosuppressants, see if we can target this neurological inflammation more directly. I’m referring you to a neurologist for ongoing management. And physical therapy is non-negotiable. They can teach you exercises to maintain strength, improve balance, and prevent falls.” She looked him directly in the eye. “Your goal now is to preserve function and maintain your independence for as long as possible.”

Touya gave a single, slow nod. He asked a few more questions in that same, deadened tone: about pain management options for when the tingling turned to burning, which she said was a possibility. About the likelihood of the neuropathy spreading to his hands. Each answer was a brick in the wall of his new reality.

He left the office with a folder full of referrals and a prescription slip. The cane tapped a steady, grim rhythm on the linoleum floor. 

---

When Touya walked through the door, Keigo took one look at his boyfriend’s face before his own fell. It wasn’t angry or sad, but empty in a way Keigo had never seen before.

Touya walked straight to the armchair and sat down heavily, letting the cane clatter to the floor beside him. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and stared at a point on the carpet.

Keigo’s heart was pounding. “Babe?” he prompted softly, kneeling in front of him. “What did she say?”

Touya didn’t look up. He spoke to the floor, his voice a monotone recitation of facts, like he was reading a disastrous weather report. “It’s not the drugs, it’s the disease. It’s… evolving.” He swallowed. “It’s probably going to get worse. The goal is to slow it down. It’s likely permanent.”

Each sentence was a hammer blow. Keigo listened, his own breath catching. He saw it then, the thing he’d been most afraid of: the light in Touya’s eyes, the fierce, stubborn fight that had gotten him through everything, had been extinguished.

There were so many things Keigo wanted to say, but he held himself back. 

When Touya finished, he finally looked up. Without a word, Keigo opened his arms.

For a long moment, Touya just remained where he was, folded in on himself, before slowly, imperceptibly, he leaned forward, allowing his head to rest against Keigo’s shoulder, his body going limp.

Keigo wrapped his arms and wings around him, holding him tightly, anchoring him. He didn’t shush him or tell him it would be alright. He just held him as Touya finally stopped trying to be strong, as the full, crushing weight of his chronic, progressive condition settled onto his shoulders for good. 

---

The first weekend of spring break dawned bright and clear, but inside the Bakugo house,Katsuki was on the living room couch, a blanket pulled up to his chin, staring at the ceiling. The world maintained a persistent, sickening tilt. The planned training session with Eijiro was an impossibility.

With a grunt of frustration, he fumbled for his phone, his movements careful. 

KATSUKI: sorry, cant train today

The response was immediate.

EIJIRO: whats wrong? u ok? 

Katsuki hesitated. Sharing this felt like revealing a cracked foundation. But Eijiro had proven himself solid. He typed slowly.

KATSUKI: i went deaf from blasting my ears with my quirk as a kid. sometimes i get vertigo and migraines. not often tho

He hit send and dropped the phone. The admission felt like a surrender.

EIJIRO: damn bro that sucks
EIJIRO: feel better soon 🥲

The next day, the vertigo had receded to a low-grade hum, a dizzying pressure behind his eyes that made focusing difficult. He was lying still, trying to convince his brain the room wasn't gently swaying, when a vibration through the couch cushions signaled someone at the door. He ignored it. A moment later, a heavier vibration, footsteps, approached the living room.

The door opened. His mother stepped in, a carefully neutral expression on her face. Behind her was Eijiro Kirishima, holding a DVD case and a convenience store bag.

Katsuki’s eyes narrowed. He pushed himself up on his elbows, the movement making the room lurch. His hands flew up, sharp and irritated. [What are you doing here?]

Mitsuki, watching from the doorway, held her breath. 

Eijiro didn’t flinch. His hands moved in a quick, easy reply. [Brought a movie.] 

[I don’t want to watch a movie,] Katsuki signed back, his movements choppy with annoyance. [I want to not feel like I’m on a boat.]

Eijiro shrugged, unfazed. He looked around the room, his gaze taking in the large television, the sleek sound system, the minimalist decor. [Nice place. Bigger than mine.] It was a blatant subject change, a refusal to be dismissed.

From the hallway, Masaru had joined Mitsuki. Katsuki having friends? This was new.

[What movie?] Katsuki signed, the question coming out almost unwillingly. 

Eijiro held up the case. “Chimera: Dawn of the Beasts.”

[Heard the plot is trash but the explosions are awesome.]

A flicker of interest, against his will, sparked in Katsuki’s eyes. He’d seen the trailer. The CGI was top-tier. 

Eijiro got to work, putting the DVD in the player. He sat on the far end of the large couch, leaving a wide berth, and opened the bag of snacks: spicy chips and two cans of cola. 

For the next ninety minutes, the only sound in the room was the movie’s soundtrack, which Katsuki couldn’t hear, and the crunch of chips. Their conversation was a silent, running critique.

Katsuki pointed at the screen, his expression scornful. [The shockwave from that blast is all wrong. The debris pattern is backwards.]

Eijiro nodded, swallowing a mouthful of chips. [Yeah, but look at the rendering on the monster’s carapace. The texturing is insane.]

[The hero’s stance is garbage. He’s off-balance. One good shove and he’s down.]

[Maybe his Quirk is super-gravity? Roots him to the spot?] Eijiro suggested.

[Then he wouldn’t be able to jump like that five seconds later. Idiot.]

For the Bakugos watching from the hall, the entire exchange was a miracle. They weren’t just seeing their son communicate; they were seeing him engaged. 

When the movie ended, Eijiro gathered the trash. [I know it means nothing to you, but your parents have a top-tier sound system… Do you feel the bass vibration? It’s EPIC!] 

Katsuki grunted in agreement. [Thanks for the snacks too. My mom never buys that garbage.]

Eijiro smiled. 

[Plot was worse than I expected though,] Katsuki added.

[Told you,] Eijiro replied, rolling his eyes. He stood to leave. [Feel better. Text me when the world stops spinning. We’ll train.]

It was a statement, not a question.

Katsuki gave a quick nod. 

Eijiro left with a wave to the Bakugos in the genkan. The house settled back into silence. Katsuki lay back down, closing his eyes against the lingering dizziness. The visit hadn’t cured his vertigo. It hadn’t magically made him sociable or pleasant to be around, but he hadn’t had to perform or explain, and for a couple of hours, he hadn’t been alone.

In the hallway, Mitsuki leaned her head against Masaru’s shoulder. “I think he has a real friend,” she whispered, her voice thick with an emotion she couldn’t name.

Masaru squeezed her hand. “I think so too.” 

---

The park was a riot of early spring color. Cherry blossoms were just beginning to tentatively unfurl, painting the gray branches with soft washes of pink. Inko, armed with the fervent advice of Izuku’s therapist, had practically shoved them out the door with a command to “get vitamin D” and “breathe fresh air.”

So they walked. Izuku’s sneakers scuffed against the paved path, his hands shoved deep in his pockets. His usual stream-of-consciousness muttering was absent, replaced by a heavy, preoccupied silence. He wasn’t observing the quirks of passersby or analyzing the aerodynamic flight of a hero in the sky. He was somewhere deep inside his own head.

Shouto, beside him, could feel the difference in Izuku. After ten minutes of this, Shouto stopped walking.

Izuku took two more steps before realizing he was alone. He turned, his expression startled. “Sho? What’s wrong?”

Shouto looked at him, his head tilted. His voice, when it came, was slow and deliberate. 

 “S-some-something is… b-bothering you.”

Izuku’s face immediately arranged itself into a weak, unconvincing smile. “What? No. I’m fine. Just… tired. You know, from school.”

Shouto’s heterochromatic eyes narrowed slightly. He hated this. He hated when people saw his slow speech and his flat affect and assumed he couldn’t perceive the world around him. zuku was usually better than this.

“‘M not… stu-upid,” Shouto said, with only a hint of accusation in his voice. “S-something is… in you.”

The attempted smile vanished. Izuku’s shoulders slumped in defeat. He looked down, scuffing his toe against a crack in the pavement. 

“I… I can’t, Sho,” he whispered, his voice thick. “It’s… it’s too much. It’s just one more thing, you know? One more thing that makes me… different. Weird.” He kicked at a pebble on the path. “And I know… I know it’s stupid to be scared. I know it’s… it’s fine. But knowing something and… and feeling it are different. My brain just… it just won’t stop.”

Shouto waited.

The dam broke. The words started tumbling out in a frantic, tearful jumble, tripping over each other. “It started with… with this feeling. In my stomach. When I’d see… certain people. And it wasn’t like wanting to be their friend. It was… different. Warmer. Scarier. And then I’d see guys on TV or in magazines and I’d… I’d notice them. Not like ‘oh, cool quirk’ but… but…” He flailed his hands, desperate for a word. “About thinking about someone a lot. Your heart beating fast. That’s… that’s what it is. But it’s… it’s only ever with… with boys.”

He was gasping for air, tears streaming down his face now, oblivious to the few people in the park starting to glance their way. “And it’s so confusing and I don’t have the right words for it and it’s like there’s this whole… this whole script everyone else knows and I’m just… I’m just faking it and I’m so scared and I think… I think there’s something wrong with me…”

Shouto’s brow was furrowed in intense concentration, trying to parse the emotional torrent. The concept of a ‘crush’ was still abstract, a theoretical thing other people did. Romance was an unfamiliar country he had no desire to visit. “How?” he asked, his confusion genuine. 

Izuku squeezed his eyes shut, as if saying it in the dark would make it easier. The words came out in a choked, terrified whisper. “It’s only for boys, Sho. I think… I like boys. I like… I like boys.”

There. It was out. Hanging in the spring air between them. He braced himself for shock, for disgust, for the bewildered rejection he’d been terrifying himself with, even though he knew, logically, it wouldn’t come from Shouto.

Shouto processed this. His expression didn’t change. He just looked at Izuku, whose face was a mess of tears and snot, and cocked his head to the side.

“I… I l-like b-boys,” he stated, as if commenting on the weather. “You. N-aatsuo. Toshi. To-ouya. K-keigo…” 

Izuku’s eyes flew open. “No, Sho, you don’t understand,” he said, his voice desperate. “I don’t mean like… like family. Or just as friends. I mean the… a crush feeling. The heart-beating-fast thing. Only for boys.”

Like Chō said.

Shouto continued to look puzzled. He struggled for the words, his brow furrowed. He connected the dots: Izuku’s panic, Chō’s explanation, his brother’s relationship. 

“T-touya. W-with a boy. K-keigo.” He paused, searching his limited vocabulary for the right concept. “L-like… be-eing le-eft-h-handed.”

The sheer, breathtaking simplicity of his acceptance was what finally broke Izuku. The months dissolved under the weight of Shouto’s mundane comparison.

Like being left-handed.

A sound escaped Izuku’s mouth, a half-hysterical laugh that immediately twisted into a sob. He doubled over, his whole body shaking. People in the park were staring now.

Shouto took Izuku’s elbow and gently guided him off the path, under the sheltering branches of a large tree. Pink petals drifted down around them in the gentle breeze.

Shouto did the one thing he knew offered comfort. He opened his arms.

Izuku didn’t hesitate. He fell into the hug, clinging to Shouto like he was the only thing in the world. He buried his face in Shouto’s shoulder as he sobbed in relief.

Under the tree, with petals catching in their hair, Izuku cried for a long time. And Shouto simply held on. 

Chapter 54: Wedding Bell Blues

Notes:

xoxo!

The two-week countdown to the wedding should have been a time of happy chaos; instead, it was a regression so subtle in its beginnings that Touya almost missed it, lost in his own worries about neurologists and physical therapy.

The first sign was the food. The variety of meals Shouto would eat began to shrink. The flavorful curries, the tangy salads, the spicy noodles Keigo loved to make all were met with a silent shake of his head. He reverted to a shortlist of bland, beige foods: plain rice, unseasoned chicken, soba noodles, apples. 

The second sign was around Natsuo. The moment Natsuo’s key turned in the lock each evening, Shouto would appear, looming until Natsuo acknowledged him. Then, he’d open his arms in a wordless request for a deep, crushing hug, the kind he’d needed constantly in the first terrible year they’d lived with Touya.

Natsuo would grunt on impact, wrapping his arms around his brother and squeezing firmly. Shouto would stay there until the internal pressure seemed to ease.

Another sign was the reappearance of the chewelry. Touya found a familiar, gnawed-upon silicone pendant, long since abandoned in a drawer, now sitting on the coffee table. 

He spoke less. His words became even more scarce, his sentences shrinking. The headphones, which had recently been used for music or to simply dampen noise, were now a near-permanent fixture again, sealing him off from the world for hours at a time.

And the mural that had grown over the winter was being slowly, methodically painted over. Not with anger, but with a deep, somber melancholy. Dark, swirling grays and deep, cold blues were consuming the brighter colors. It was no longer a story of resilience; it was becoming a storm cloud.

His phone, which lived on the kitchen counter, would occasionally light up with a text. The screen would show a name: ONO YUMI. It would buzz softly, and be ignored. The social obligation of it, the unread message, the expectation of a response... Shouto hated texting. The words swam on the screen, and crafting a reply was exhausting.

The phone was for emergencies, for if he got lost. It wasn’t for this.

One evening, Touya watched as Shouto picked at his plain chicken and rice, his headphones on, his gaze a million miles away. Keigo caught Touya’s eye from across the table, his expression worried. They were losing him. The progress of the last year was quietly unraveling, and they were powerless to stop it. The stress of the upcoming wedding, of seeing their mother again, was pulling him back into a shell they’d worked so hard to help him out of. 

“Sho,” Touya said, his voice gentle but firm. He waited until Shouto slowly pulled one headphone off his ear. “Talk to me. What’s going on in there?”

Shouto looked down at his plate. He shook his head.

“Is it the wedding?” Touya pressed. “Is it… seeing Mom?”

Shouto’s shoulders tightened almost imperceptibly. He gave a tiny, jerky nod.

“Okay,” Touya said, leaning forward. “Okay. That’s okay to be nervous. What about it is scary?”

Shouto was silent for a long time, chewing on his silicone necklace. When he finally spoke, the words were slow, thick, and pushed out with immense effort. “Sh-she… w-was s-scared.”

Touya frowned. “Of course she’s scared, Sho. It’s a big day. She hasn’t been out in-”

“N-no,” Shouto interrupted, a rare show of frustration. He pointed a finger at his own face, at the burn on the left side. “W-when sh... She… s-scared. O-of me-e.” He took a shaky breath, the words a painful crawl. “A-at the h-hospital… sh-she loo-oked. A-at m-my f-f-face. N-nervous. D-don’t… wa-ant to sc-care her. Y-yu-umi’s day.”

Shouto wasn’t worried about his own feelings, he was internalizing the trauma, believing his very presence was a source of fear for the woman who had hurt him.

“Oh, kiddo,” Touya breathed, his voice soft. “No. That’s not… that’s not it at all.” He moved to sit. “She was scared of herself. Of what she did. And seeing your face… It reminds her of a time she was very, very sick. It’s not you. It’s never been you. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Shouto listened, his expression unchanging, but he was listening.

“I promise you,” Touya said, putting a hand on his brother’s knee. “You will not scare her. We can make a plan, okay? We don’t have to sit with her. We can sit in the very back row. And as soon as the ceremony is over, if you want to leave, we leave. We don’t have to stay for the party. Fuyumi will understand. I’ll make sure of it. The party might have really good cake, but if it’s too much, we go. Deal?”

The offer of an escape route seemed to loosen something in Shouto. The rigid tension in his shoulders eased a fraction. He gave a slow, definitive nod. 

Later that night, Shouto’s phone buzzed again on the counter. Natsuo, grabbing a beer from the fridge, picked it up. The screen showed a new message from Ono.

ONO YUMI: Hope you're having a good break. The new volume of Solanin is out. It's really good.

He looked over at Shouto, who was curled in the armchair, watching muted nature documentaries. “You gonna answer her, Sho? She’s texted you like, eight times.”

Shouto shook his head, pulling his knees to his chest. 

Natsuo grinned. “Just say ‘no, not yet.’ It’s not rocket science. Or is there another reason you don’t wanna talk to her?” he teased. “Is she more than a friend?”

Shouto did not dignify the question with a response. 

“Okay, okay,” Natsuo laughed, sitting beside him. “What do you want to say back? ‘Thanks. I will read it’? ‘Cool’?”

Shouto considered it. “C-cool,” he mumbled.

Natsuo typed it out and showed him the screen. Shouto took his phone back, hit send and immediately closed it, dropping it back on the table. The task was complete, and the anxiety, for now, was momentarily appeased.

---

The air at the small, neighborhood shrine was cool and carried the clean scent of stone and cypress. It was a crisp spring morning, the kind perfect for special occasions.

True to his word, Touya had secured them a seat at the very back, off to the side. It offered a clear, diagonal view of the altar but provided a crucial sense of distance, a buffer against the crowd. Shouto sat between him and Keigo, a solid wall on either side. He was wearing a new, dark blue suit, his posture rigid, and his hands clasped so tightly his knuckles were white. The guests began to filter in, a quiet murmur replacing the shrine's silence. The first to approach their back-row bastion were the Himura grandparents. Obaachan’s eyes immediately welled up at the sight of them all together, dressed up.

“Look at my boys,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. She reached out, her cool, dry hand cupping Touya’s scarred cheek, then Shouto’s smooth one. Her eyes scanned Touya up and down. “Touya-kun. You look… It’s so good to see you looking so well.” Touya forced a thin smile.

Ojiisan, ever more pragmatic, gestured with his chin to the cane leaning against the pew. “And the legs? Dr. Nakamura on top of it?”

“She is,” Touya said, opting for a version of the truth. “Some days are better than others.” He kept his tone light.

Before they could say more, another elderly couple approached, their movements hesitant. Enji’s mother and stepfather. Their eyes, sharp and critical, scanned the three of them, their gaze snagging on Shouto’s scar with a flicker of uncomfortable recognition. Then their eyes moved to Touya, and there was only blank confusion. They hadn’t seen him since he was a child, before the burns and everything else. 

“Shouto-kun,” the step–grandfather said, his voice formal and devoid of warmth. “You look… well.”

Shouto gave a shallow, silent nod, his eyes fixed on a point beyond them.

The older man’s gaze returned to Touya, squinting. “I’m sorry, do we…?” he asked, his tone implying they likely did not.

Touya felt Keigo go very still beside him. He kept his own expression a carefully neutral mask. “Touya. It’s been a while.”

The pieces visibly clicked into place. The man’s eyes widened in sheer, undisguised shock, darting from the white hair to the web of scars, down to the cane. His wife, clutching her purse, gasped softly. “Touya? But we thought you were…” He trailed off.

“I survived,” Touya said, his voice flat and final, “shockingly.” 

“Good. And… congratulations on the wedding.” The awkwardness was uncomfortable. After a few more stilted pleasantries, Enji’s mother and stepfather practically fled to seats on the opposite side of the shrine.

Soon, their corner filled with friendlier faces. Inko and Izuku slid into the seats in front of them. Izuku turned around, beaming, his own social anxiety forgotten in his joy for Fuyumi. “Your suits look so cool!” he whispered. Mitsuki and Masaru Bakugo arrived, Mitsuki giving them a sharp, approving nod. Aizawa and Hizashi slipped in just before the ceremony began, Aizawa looking intensely uncomfortable in his, like a cat forced into a sweater.

When Natsuo walked Fuyumi down the aisle, Touya felt a lump form in his throat. Fuyumi was radiant, her happiness a tangible force that seemed to light up the dim shrine. She glanced towards their back row as she passed, her eyes finding them, and she gave them a small, tearful smile.

Rei, who looked fragile and ethereal in a pale lavender kimono, was in the front, a calm-faced nurse a half-step behind her chair. Rei’s gaze remained downcast, her hands trembling slightly in her lap, a napkin twisted between her fingers.

The ceremony itself was a beautiful, solemn Shinto ritual. Throughout it all, Touya kept a hand resting lightly across his brother’s shoulders, hoping the slight pressure would help him stay calm.

As the ceremony concluded and the guests began to mill about, heading towards the reception hall, Izuku turned to Shouto. “That was so beautiful, wasn’t it? The chanting… it was all so peaceful. Are you… are you okay? Do you want to go home now?”

Shouto looked from Izuku’s hopeful face to the stream of departing guests. He glanced at Touya, a silent question. Touya gave a slight nod: The promise stands. We can go.

Shouto took a deep, visible breath. He looked towards the reception hall, then back at Izuku. “S-stay,” he said, the word quiet but clear. “A… a li-ittle.”

The reception was held in a bright, airy hanare adjacent to the shrine. Touya guided them to a table in the corner. While Izuku and Inko engaged Shouto in a low conversation about the floral centerpieces, Touya saw his moment. He caught Keigo’s eye and nodded towards where Rei was sitting with her parents and her nurse.

Touya picked up his cane and made his way across the room. The pins and needles in his feet were a persistent, annoying buzz, making him tread carefully on the polished wooden floor. He approached the table slowly, not wanting to startle her.

“Mom,” he said softly, when he was still a few feet away.

Rei looked up. Her eyes, so like his own, were wide and a little fearful, but they were clear. “Touya.” 

“You look beautiful,” he said. It was true. 

She blushed. “Thank you. Fuyumi… she’s…” She seemed to search for the word. “She’s shining.”

“She is.” Touya gestured beside him. “This is Keigo. My partner.”

Keigo gave a small, respectful bow. “It’s an honor to meet you, Todoroki-san. Your daughter is wonderful. Today was perfect, wasn’t it?”

“It was.” Rei looked at Keigo, taking in his kind eyes, his easy posture, the way he stood close to Touya, a hand ready but not hovering. She offered a shy, wobbly smile. “It is nice to meet you. Thank you… for making my son happy.” 

Later, as a soft jazz standard began to play for the first dance, Touya watched from their corner table. Fuyumi and Haruki moved together, smiling, lost in their own world. A deep, self-pitying ache settled in Touya’s chest. He’d never been much of a dancer, even before his body became a minefield of pain and instability; he’d always felt awkward, all limbs and no rhythm. But now, watching them, he wished he could.

Keigo followed his gaze. He leaned close, his voice a low murmur. “We could... you know, dance. Right here. I’ve got you.”

Touya shook his head, the moment of self-pity passing, replaced by practicality. “And give everyone a show when I trip over nothing? No thanks.”

“I don’t care about everyone,” Keigo said, standing and offering his hand. There was a challenge in his golden eyes. “I care about you. And I want to dance with my boyfriend.” 

After a moment’s hesitation, Touya took his hand. Keigo pulled him up, his grip firm and sure. He pulled him into a slow, swaying embrace right beside their table. Touya leaned into him, letting Keigo take his weight. It wasn’t dancing, per say, but it was exactly what he wanted.

---

After the cake was cut and served, the noise and the crowd began to reach a tipping point. Shouto had been resilient, but Touya saw the signs. the way his shoulders were creeping towards his ears, the glassy, distant look in his eyes. He’d had enough.

Touya caught his eye. “Ready to go?”

Shouto’s response was an immediate, relieved nod.

They found Fuyumi and Haruki, who were flushed with happiness, accepting congratulations. “Leaving so soon?” Fuyumi asked, but her smile was understanding. She pulled both of her brothers into a tight, fierce hug. “Thank you for coming. You have no idea what it meant to have you both here.”

“Congratulations, ‘Yumi,” Touya replied. “Haruki. You’re a lucky man.”

Outside, the cool air was a relief. The three of them walked slowly down the stone path, the sounds of the reception fading behind them.

Chapter 55: Keio University Interlude

Notes:

aaaand its a natsuo special!
xoxo!

The alarm on Natsuo’s phone was a soft, chiming melody, not the harsh electronic buzz he’d used in high school. His new therapist had suggested it. “Start the day with a shock, and your system spends the first hour trying to recover. Start it gently, and you give yourself a fighting chance.” It was one of a hundred small adjustments that defined his new life.

He swiped the alarm off before the second chime, the screen’s light illuminating the grey light of his single dorm room. It was small, but all his. A Keio banner was tacked to one wall, a photo of him with his siblings: Fuyumi smiling brightly, Touya with a wry smirk, Shouto with a rare, soft expression, was propped on his desk. The window was cracked open, letting in the cool, damp air of a Yokohama morning, a welcome counterpoint to the stuffy, recycled dorm heating.

His first conscious action, before even sitting up, was to reach for the two small pill cases on his nightstand. One was for morning, one for night. Today’s compartment contained a small, pale blue tablet and a larger, chalky white one: Lamotrigine and Lithium. He dry-swallowed them with a practiced flick of his throat, the faint, bitter aftertaste a familiar greeting to the day. For stability, he thought, the mantra as routine as the pills themselves.

His phone buzzed on the nightstand. A text from Touya.

TOUYA: Hey. Dropped my favorite mug 😡. Keigo says hi. Don’t forget to eat something that isn’t cup ramen.

A small, fragile snowflake crystallized in the air above Natsuo and drifted silently onto his duvet. He hated when his quirk did that, a tiny, involuntary betrayal of his inner state. He worried about Touya constantly. Natsuo’s dream of becoming a doctor was, in no small part, fueled by the desperate, probably naive, hope that he could find a way to fix it.

He typed back, his thumbs clumsy.

NATSUO: Sorry about the mug. Tell Keigo hi. And I eat better than you do. 

The reply was almost instant.

TOUYA: Liar. Go shower. You probably smell.

A faint smile touched Natsuo’s lips. Touya’s brand of affection was abrasive, but was grounding, in a way.

Another text came through, this time from their group chat with Fuyumi. A picture from Fuyumi of two perfectly arranged bentos she’d made for herself and Haruki. 

FUYUMI: I did so well with these!!! 

Natsuo’s smile faded slightly. Fuyumi’s relentless domesticity always sent a prickle of unease through him. Was she happy? Truly happy? Or was she just recreating the structure of a home they never had, slotting a kinder man into the role their father had poisoned? He knew Haruki was a good guy, a fifth-grade teacher who looked at Fuyumi like she’d hung the moon. But the ghost of Endeavor loomed large, casting a long shadow over all their relationships. 

Natsuo couldn’t help but watch for cracks, for signs of control or unhappiness, always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Instead, he sent back a thumbs-up emoji. 

The worry was a catalyst. It got him out of bed and into the bathroom. The shower was lukewarm at best, but the shock of the water helped scour away the lingering mental fog. He dressed mechanically, and ran a hand through his hair, deciding against the effort of taming it.

Food was the next step. His stomach felt uneasy, a common side effect of the meds, which made the idea of eating deeply unappealing. But he knew skipping breakfast was a one-way ticket to a jittery, nauseous crash by mid-morning, so forcing himself to eat was the best option. 

The university cafeteria was a riot of noise and smell. Students clustered around tables, laughing over trays of fried rice or coffee and sugary pastries. Natsuo’s mouth watered, but he bypassed it all. Tyramine was the enemy. Aged, fermented, and processed foods, the very things that made food delicious, could interfere with his MAOI, potentially sending his blood pressure skyrocketing and rendering his medication useless. No aged cheeses, no cured meats, no soy sauce-based dishes in large quantities, no overripe bananas… 

He headed for the quieter salad and grain bar tucked in the corner, a recent addition for the health-conscious students. 

“Brown rice base?” the server asked, already reaching for a bowl.

“Please. Double portion,” Natsuo said, his voice a little rough. 

He pointed to steamed chicken breast, a mix of leafy greens, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, and a generous scoop of chickpeas. For dressing, he chose simple olive oil and lemon juice from the safe options.

“That’s it?” the server asked, looking at the decidedly unexciting bowl.

“That’s it,” Natsuo confirmed. He found an empty table in a corner and forced himself to eat.

---

His first class was Organic Chemistry, a weeder course for pre-meds. The lecture hall was large and raked, and the professor, a man with an unkempt beard and a passion for molecular orbitals, spoke in a rapid-fire monotone that left many students frantically scribbling notes they wouldn’t understand later.

Natsuo, however, felt that this was a language he could parse. The logic of electron movement, the predictable behavior of carbon chains… it was orderly, and made sense. His notebook filled with precise diagrams and notations, his handwriting neat and controlled. For ninety minutes, the static in his mind quieted, replaced by the single stream of scientific thought. It was a reprieve.

After class, the crowd spilled into the hallway, a river of chatter and rustling backpacks. A voice called his name.

“Todoroki! Hey, Todoroki!”

He turned. It was Imai Daigo, a guy from his study group. Imai was always slightly frantic, his glasses always askew. “You’re coming to the library, right? The midterm is next week and I am so, so doomed. I don’t get any of the NMR spectroscopy stuff.”

Natsuo nodded. “Yeah, I’ll be there. Just gotta grab my notes from my dorm.”

“Great, great, great. See you there. Don’t be late! My sanity depends on it!” Imai said, already hurrying away, narrowly avoiding plowing into a water fountain.

The study group was a necessity for survival. They met in a reserved room on the third floor of the main library. When Natsuo arrived, Imai was already there, along with two others: Sugiyama Aimi, an intelligent woman whose academic achievements overshowered her social awkwardness, and a guy named Takata Daichi, who seemed to be there mostly for the vibes. They spread their textbooks and notes across the large wooden table, a fortress of academic siege.

For an hour, it was a grind. They took turns explaining concepts to each other, working through practice problems. Natsuo found himself explaining spin-spin coupling to a bewildered Imai.

“See, look,” Natsuo said, sketching a molecule on a whiteboard. “These two hydrogens are equivalent, but they’re adjacent to a carbon with three different hydrogens. The signal will split into a quartet. It’s not magic, it’s just the magnetic environment.”

“It feels like magic,” Imai moaned, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Black magic.”

The door to the study room clicked open. Natsuo, mid-explanation, glanced up.

“Sorry I’m late,” a new voice said, soft but clear. “Lab ran over.”

A girl stood there, slightly out of breath. She was a heteromorph, with soft-looking white mouse ears, but dark hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, a few strands escaping to frame a face with sharp, intelligent features and warm, brown eyes. She wore a light coat over her jeans and sweater, and was holding a stack of books and binders close to her chest.

“Taniguchi! Thank god,” Takata exclaimed. “Maybe you can make sense of Todoroki’s witchcraft.”

The girl offered a small, apologetic smile as she slid into the empty seat next to Natsuo. “I’ll try, but I think I’m behind on the witchcraft chapter.” She began unpacking her bag, and the faint scent of antiseptic and jasmine soap wafted towards him.

Natsuo found himself momentarily derailed. He’d seen her before, once or twice, but he’d never really noticed her. Today, though… there was something about her today. 

“We’re on NMR,” he said, his voice coming out a bit hoarser than he intended.

“Ah, the bane of my existence,” she said with a slight sigh, but her eyes were bright with humor. She looked at his whiteboard drawing. “That’s a good way to explain it, though.”

She leaned over to grab a textbook from her bag, her shoulder briefly brushing against his arm. A tiny, perfect snowflake poofed into existence, and he stiffened, hoping no one had seen it. 

“You’re taking Bio too?” Natsuo asked.

“Mmhmm,” she said, nodding as she found her notes. “We’re identifying unknown pathogens. It’s like a murder mystery, but with petri dishes and a lot more hand sanitizer.”

“Who’s the victim?” Takata asked, looking up from his phone.

“My social life,” Taniguchi deadpanned, and the whole group chuckled, Natsuo included.

The study session resumed, but the dynamic had shifted. Where before it was a solitary struggle against a common enemy, now there was a new energy. She asked sharp, insightful questions. She didn’t just accept explanations; she poked at them until she understood the principle of the solution. When they moved on to particularly nasty problems, it was Taniguchi who cracked them first.

“Look,” she said, turning her notebook towards Natsuo. Her diagrams were clean and precise. Like his. “If you map the genotypes in this order, the recombinant frequencies make sense. The book has a typo in the answer key, I’m sure of it.”

Natsuo studied her work, following her logic. She was right. “You’re right,” he said, impressed. 

She smiled, a real one this time that reached her eyes and created a small dimple in her left cheek. “I have my moments.”

They worked side-by-side for the next hour, their conversation a low, focused exchange of ideas. Natsuo found himself talking more than he usually did, explaining his thought process, and listening to hers. The heavy blanket of his morning depression felt a little lighter, as if someone had lifted a corner to let in fresh air. He was aware of her presence, the way she tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear when she was thinking, the faint scent of her soap.

During a short break, while Imai and the others went to grab coffee, it was just the two of them in the room.

“So, pre-med?” Taniguchi asked, taking a sip from her water bottle.

Natsuo nodded. “Yeah. You?”

“The same. Though some days I wonder why I’m subjecting myself to this.” She gestured at the mountain of books.

“Family,” Natsuo said without thinking. It was the simplest, most honest answer.

Taniguchi looked at him, her head tilted. “Yeah. I get that. My mom’s a nurse. She’s my hero. It feels… like a way to pay it forward, you know?”

“Yeah,” Natsuo said softly, thinking of Keigo holding Touya steady at the wedding, of Shouto’s quiet struggles. “I know exactly.”

There was a comfortable silence. Natsuo noticed she had a small, almost invisible smudge of blue ink on her jawline. He had a sudden, inexplicable urge to tell her about his brothers, about the weight of his worries, about the careful balance of his medications. He didn’t, of course. The vulnerability was too great, the fear of seeing pity or misunderstanding in her warm eyes too strong.

Instead, he asked, “What’s your unknown pathogen? In the murder mystery.”

Her face lit up. “It’s a stubborn one. I’m running PCR tests tomorrow to confirm, but I’m pretty sure it’s Staphylococcus aureus. Not the cool, antibiotic-resistant kind, sadly. Just the regular kind that gives you boils.”

“Boils are cool,” Natsuo said, completely seriously.

She blinked, then let out a surprised, genuine laugh. It was a nice sound. “You know, to a microbiologist, that would probably be a valid pick-up line.”

Natsuo felt his ears grow warm. “It wasn’t a… I mean, I wasn’t trying to…”

She smiled, saving him. “I know. It’s refreshing. Most people would just say ‘ew’.” The others returned then, bearing coffee and a renewed sense of panic about the midterm. The moment broke, but the connection felt solidified.

The study session wound down a couple of hours later. As they were packing up, Taniguchi turned to him.

“Hey, I’m usually here on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If you ever want to… not suffer through practice problems alone.”

“Yeah,” Natsuo said, zipping his backpack. “I’d like that.”

“Great,” she said. “See you around, Todoroki.”

“Natsuo,” he said. “You can call me Natsuo.”

“Yuki,” she replied. “See you, Natsuo.”

He watched her leave, her coat swishing around her calves. For the first time that day, the low hum of anxiety in his chest wasn’t entirely unpleasant. It was mixed with something else, something lighter. A flicker of anticipation.

The walk back to his dorm was quieter. The campus was bathed in the golden light of late afternoon. He pulled out his phone. Another text from Touya, a picture this time of a black ceramic mug, clumsily glued back together. 

TOUYA: kintsugi!!
TOUYA: it still leaks a little, so I’m turning it into a pencil-holder for my office

Natsuo smiled. 

---

Back in his room, the fatigue began to return, but it was a quieter, more manageable exhaustion. The kind earned from work, not inflicted by his own mind. He ate his dinner, grilled salmon, steamed broccoli, and white rice, at his desk while reviewing notes. The evening meds went down with a full glass of water.

As he got ready for bed, his phone buzzed one last time. It was a message from a new number.

UNKNOWN: hey, it’s yuki from the study group. imai gave me your number, hope that’s okay!
UNKNOWN: forgot to mention, the library’s 3rd floor west wing has better outlets, more privacy, and fewer creepy portraits. we should study there next time instead :) 

A sprinkle of snowflakes bloomed above his bed. This time, Natsuo didn’t brush them away. He watched them spiral down, catching the faint light from his desk lamp before it disappeared.

He saved her number.

NATSUO: Thanks for the tip- I’ll scout it out tomorrow. Good luck with your murder mystery!

He lay in bed, the day’s worries still there, but for now, quieter. The thought of a dimple in a smiling cheek and the prospect of a place in the library with better outlets lingered in the forefront of his mind, a small but exciting promise of something new. 

 

Chapter 56: Days and Days

Sunlight streamed through the kitchen windows, where Keigo moved in a whirlwind of red feathers and positive vibes. “Fuel for the masses!” he joked, setting three matching bowls on the table. On the kitchen counter sat three neatly packed bento boxes, each containing tamagoyaki, blanched broccoli, and onigiri shaped, with varying degrees of success, into pandas. 

The rhythmic tap from down the hall announced Touya’s approach. Keigo’s smile didn’t falter, but his movements became subtly more attentive, eyes locking onto Touya.

Touya leaning on his cane, was dressed for work, in dark slacks and a soft, charcoal-grey sweater, he managed to look both professional and slightly rebellious, a few strands of white hair defiantly escaping his otherwise neat style.

“Smells less like a disaster than usual, Birdie,” Touya said, navigating to the table and lowering himself onto the cushion with a controlled exhale.

“Hey, my cooking has vastly improved!” Keigo replied, sliding a cup of tea toward him. 

Touya grunted, accepting the cup. “Where’s Sho?”

“Getting his bag. Shouto! Food’s getting cold!” Keigo called out, just as Shouto’s door opened.

Shouto padded into the room, his expression its usual placid neutral. He sat silently, immediately picking up his chopsticks and starting on his rice.

“Sleep okay?” Touya asked, his tone softening. 

Shouto nodded, his mouth full.

“You got everything?”

“Yes.”

“Good. And please don’t take your glasses off today; don’t ‘lose’ them again,” Touya said, a dry note in his voice. 

A flicker of amusement crossed Shouto’s face before it settled back into neutrality. Shouto finished, placed his bowl in the sink, collected his bento and his art portfolio, and gave a small wave goodbye before heading out the door. “Have a good day, Sho!” Keigo called after him.

The door clicked shut, and the apartment’s energy shifted imperceptibly. The performance for Shouto was over. Touya’s shoulders slumped a fraction of an inch. He let out a long, slow breath that was more honest than any sigh he’d allow himself in front of his brother. He rubbed his thigh absently.

“Okay,” Keigo said, his voice bright and practical, cutting through the momentary quiet. “We’re on in ten. You got your keys? Your wallet? The patience of a saint for whatever tiny demons they throw at you today?”

“Right,” Touya said, pushing himself up. The movement was stiffer now, less edited.  “I left my patience in my other jacket. It’s gonna be one of those days, I can feel it.” 

“You’re a regular superhero,” Keigo said, grinning as he gathered the dishes.

“Damn right I am. Watch out, #3,” Touya shot back, making his way to the genkan. The walk was slower, more deliberate without an audience.

Keigo followed, pulling on his own jacket. He watched as Touya sat on the bench with a soft grunt to put on his shoes. His fingers fumbled slightly with the laces, his jaw tightening in a flash of frustration he quickly suppressed.

“Hey,” Touya said, not looking up from his task. “If you beat me home tonight, can you do me a favor?”

“Anything,” Keigo said instantly, leaning against the doorframe.

“Can you check Shouto’s school bag? See if Chō left any notes about homework? Our beloved brother, the comedy genius, has decided that ‘I lost my glasses’ is a valid excuse for not doing his work… I thought we were over the direct supervision shit with his stuff.”

Keigo groaned. “Yeah, I’ll check.”

They left the apartment together. Thankfully, their building had an elevator, a small mercy Touya accepted with grumbling gratitude, never admitting how much the stairs had become a daunting prospect.

“So,” Keigo said as the elevator doors closed. “Who do you have today? Pyro-kid and Cryo-kid. You got a plan?”

Touya leaned against the mirrored wall, a sly grin spreading across his face. “For the pyro? Gonna give him a stack of old newspapers and a lighter and tell him to have at it in a metal trash can. He’s been doing really well for a while… but sometimes you gotta let the volcano erupt.”

“And the other one?”

“That one’s trickier. Gonna suggest she starts carrying a stress ball. Like, a microwavable one.”

“You really care about them, don’t you?” Keigo laughed. 

“Don’t let it get around,” Touya said, pushing off the wall as the doors opened to the lobby. “It’ll ruin my reputation.”

They stepped out into the bright Tokyo morning. Keigo stretched his wings, the red feathers glinting in the sun. “Alright. Try not to have too much fun without me. Try to save some of that saintly patience for tonight. I’m making mapo tofu.”

“You asshole,” Touya called after him, already starting his careful, measured walk towards the train station. “You know I can’t eat that spicy shit anymore. Are you trying to widow yourself?”

Keigo just shot him a brilliant, unrepentant grin over his shoulder. “I’ll make you a separate bland batch! Love you!”

And with a powerful downbeat, he was airborne, a flash of red against the blue sky.

Touya watched him go. 

---

The quiet room was still Shouto’s favorite place in the entire school, besides the art room. 

He had been here for fifteen minutes of the forty-five-minute lunch period, and for ten of those minutes, he had been lying flat on his back on the cool, low-pile carpet, staring at the acoustic tiles on the ceiling. The pressure of the floor against his spine was lovely. The world outside this door was loud, and bright, and unpredictable, but in the quiet room, it was just the hum of the air conditioner and the rhythm of his own breathing.

“Shouto.” 

Chō was sitting at the table a few feet away, holding up her phone, the timer going off onscreen. “Ten minutes is up. Time to sit for lunch.”

Shouto let out a slow breath. He didn’t like Chō’s new rule. Lying down was better. Sitting was more work. But Chō was persistent, and she always had a reason. “It’s better for digestion, Shouto.” “We need to practice sitting for longer periods.” He supposed the reasons were logical. He just didn’t like them.

He made his way begrudgingly over to the table. Chō smiled and passed him his bento box and his chopsticks. “Thank you. Keigo-san sent extra apple chips today.”

The door to the quiet room opened softly, and Ono slipped in. She gave a small, shy wave to Chō and sat down in her usual spot, a few arm’s lengths away from Shouto. She unpacked her own lunch, a colorful bento with little octopus-shaped wieners.

For a few minutes, the only sound was the clack of chopsticks and the crinkle of paper. Shouto ate methodically, focusing on the textures: the soft give of the rice, the crispness of the broccoli, the firmness of the chicken.

It was Ono who broke the silence, her voice a hushed, excited whisper. “Todoroki-kun,” she began, pulling a volume of manga from her bag. Its cover was a riot of pink flowers and a boy and girl staring dramatically into each other’s eyes. “Have you ever read A Kiss of Starlight?”

Shouto looked from his bento to the book. He shook his head.

“It’s so good,” she breathed, her eyes wide behind her large glasses. “The main character, Hana, she has this huge, secret crush on the student council president. Every time she sees him, her heart does this crazy pound-pound-pound!”

Chō smiled. “That sounds very dramatic, Ono.” 

“Don’t you think that must be the most amazing feeling?” Ono continued, her eyes dreamy behind her large glasses. “I wish something like that would happen to me. I want someone to look at me like I’m the only person in the world. Someone to share my umbrella with in the rain, or to give me their jacket when it’s cold…”

Shouto picked up a piece of broccoli with his chopsticks and ate it. He chewed slowly, and considered the question. He did not feel the need to give anyone his jacket. People should bring their own jackets when it's cold. He then thought about his heart. It usually beat in a steady, reliable rhythm. If he was overwhelmed or upset, it would speed up. That feeling was unpleasant; it made his hands feel shaky and his chest hurt. That did not, in fact, sound amazing at all.

He also did not feel the need to give anyone his jacket. People should bring their own jackets when it's cold.

Before he could formulate his response, Chō gently interjected. “Shouto, Ono is talking about having a crush,” she said softly, “we’ve talked about this before, remember? A ‘crush’ is when you think about someone a lot and you feel… excited, or nervous in a happy way when you see them. It’s a feeling people sometimes have about someone they like as more than a friend.”

Shouto remembered the conversation. He wished people would stop talking about this all the time. 

He liked Ono. She was quiet(ish) most of the time, and she followed the rules of the quiet room. He liked having her around, but he didn’t like where this was all going. The excitement in her voice was starting to feel sharp, disrupting the calm of the room. But he’d been working very hard with his therapist on being polite, on not just shutting down or walking away when people talked about things he found confusing or overwhelming. So he didn’t. He just focused on his rice, building a mental wall between himself and the torrent of romantic imagery.

“It’s just the best feeling in the world,” Ono concluded, finally taking a bite of her own lunch. “Don’t you think, Todoroki-kun?”

Shouto paused, a piece of tamagoyaki halfway to his mouth. He looked at Chō, then back at Ono. “S-sounds… c-c-complicated.”

Ono blinked. “Complicated?”

“The… j-jacket,” he elaborated slowly, trying to get his thoughts across. “If-if you are c-cold… they a-are c-cold. Then… b-both are cold.” He looked puzzled.

Ono stared at him for a moment, her mouth slightly agape. Then she giggled. “It’s not about logic, silly! It’s about the gesture! It’s sweet!”

Shouto considered this. A gesture that made both parties colder. He shrugged, deciding that  this was a topic best filed away under ‘Things Other People Do That Make No Sense But I Don’t Want To Get Into It So I’m Going To Pretend I Do’. He returned to his lunch, hoping the subject was closed.

“It’s okay, Shouto,” Chō said gently. “It’s a complicated feeling. Not everyone feels it, or feels it the same way. It’s nothing to worry about.”

The rest of the lunch period passed with Ono sighing over her manga and Shouto focusing very hard on the specific order in which he ate his food.

---

The familiar, shrill ring of his phone was a precise and expected event. Shouto picked it up from his desk where it sat exactly parallel to the edge, flipping it open and walking back to his bed.

“Hello.”

“Shouto-kun! Hi!” Izuku’s voice was a burst of static and warmth, words tumbling out in a relieved rush. The phone call was a nightly ritual, a necessary decompression for both of them after the strain of navigating a school day. “How was- was it okay? The- the classroom? You said there was a new… a new lighting setting? Did it… was the frequency different? It wasn’t flickering, was it? Sometimes fluorescent lights have a flicker that’s almost imperceptible but it can really, really compound sensory input and lead to a cascade of-”

“‘S F-fine,” Shouto interrupted, not unkindly.“W-was… goo-od.”

A loud, relieved sigh came through the receiver. “Oh good. That’s good. I’m glad. My day was… it was a lot. There was a pop quiz in Modern Heroic Literature and the questions were so subjective. ‘Discuss the thematic resonance of the sidekick’s sacrifice in Chapter 12.’ Thematic resonance! How are you supposed to- to quantify that? It’s not like a math problem. There’s no right answer, just… a lot of possible answers, and picking one feels like… like guessing.” Izuku’s words were a rapid-fire stream of consciousness, a direct line into his buzzing, overstimulated brain.

Shouto listened, lying on his bed and staring at the textured ceiling. “Ugh,” he said as astatement of solidarity.

“Right?!” Izuku’s voice was full of gratitude. “You get it. Anyway, I think I did okay. I wrote four pages. I probably over-analyzed it. But then, in chemistry…”

Izuku’s voice changed; the anxious, high-speed rhythm slowed, making way for a softer, more hesitant, deliberately-chosen tempo. 

“Chemistry was… fine. The lab was on reaction rates. We had to use a water bath to control the temperature. And… um…”

Shouto waited. He could hear Izuku breathing, a little shaky.

“There’s this guy. In my class. Kaito.”

Shouto adjusted his position on the bed, pulling his knees closer to his chest.  A month ago, Izuku had told him that he liked boys. It hadn’t been a big revelation to Shouto; people were people, but he knew it was a very big deal to Izuku, and that he was the only person Izuku had told. That made the information important. It made listening carefully important.

“He did this… this really cool thing with his quirk today.” Izuku’s words started to come faster, tumbling over each other. “He has hydro-hydrokinesis, right? But it’s not for big waves or anything. It’s super precise. Today, we were supposed to be observing a reaction that creates a precipitate, you know, the cloudy stuff? And it was happening too fast in the beaker to really see the formation of the crystals. So Kaito, he just… he used a tiny sphere of water, like a perfect marble, and he suspended the reactants inside it. He slowed the whole reaction down. We could see every single crystal form and link together. It was… it was like watching a galaxy being born in a water droplet. It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.”

Shouto listened. He pictured a tiny galaxy in a drop of water. It sounded beautiful. Izuku’s voice was filled with a kind of pure awe that Shouto enjoyed hearing.

“He’s just… he’s so smart, Shouto-kun. And he’s nice. He didn’t have to do that, he just… thought it would be cool… and it was so cool, and -and and when he was concentrating, his tongue was stuck out a little bit. And then when it worked, he smiled, and his whole face kind of…”

Izuku fell silent for a moment, and Shouto could almost hear his heart pounding through the phone. “And my stomach felt… really weird. All fizzy. Like I drank too much soda. And my brain kept… replaying it. The crinkle. All through history class. I couldn’t make it stop.”

Shouto processed this. The description was more detailed than Ono’s, but the central theme was the same. A person. A fizzy feeling. Repeating thoughts.

“A… c-crush,” Shouto stated. 

“Y-yeah,” Izuku breathed out, sounding relieved. “I think it is. A big one. Is that… is it stupid?”

“No,” Shouto said immediately. Izuku’s feelings were never stupid. They were just… a lot. But they were important. “N-not… st-tupid.”

He heard Izuku let out a shaky sigh. “Thanks, Shouto-kun. It’s just… it’s all I can think about. I wanted to tell you. You just always… listen.”

That was it, Shouto knew. That was why Izuku told him these things. He wouldn’t get overly excited and embarrass Izuku, or offer complicated advice that would just make him more anxious. Shouto would just… receive the information. And for Izuku, who was constantly battered around by his own intense emotions and anxieties, having a place to put them all out into the air, without judgment or expectation, was good.

“Do you…” Izuku started nervously, then hesitated. “Do you ever… feel like that? About anyone?”

Shouto looked at the wall. “No,” he said, his voice even.

“Oh,” Izuku said. “That’s okay. It’s kind of overwhelming, actually. You’re lucky.”

“S-sounds… c-complicated,” Shouto offered, echoing his thought from lunch.

Izuku let out a wet-sounding laugh. “It really is. It’s the most complicated thing in the world.”

They lapsed into silence. Shouto could hear Izuku’s breathing evening out, the anxious energy from the beginning of the call dissipating. He had said his piece. It was out in the world, and Shouto was holding space for it.

“Thanks for listening, Shouto-kun,” Izuku said, his voice soft and genuine.

“Mm-hm,” Shouto replied.

They talked for a few more minutes about other things: a new All Might figurine Izuku had seen, what movie to watch this weekend, and whether the tamagoyaki in Shouto’s bento had been too sweet, before saying goodbye.

Shouto closed his phone and placed it back on his desk. He sat thinking for a long time before getting up to turn out the lights.

---

 

Chapter 57: Reset Button

Notes:

thank you all for your comments and feedback!! xoxo <3

Keigo slipped into the apartment, the weight of the day: the paperwork, the petty villainy, the endless, smiling diplomacy, all sloughing off his shoulders the moment the door closed behind him. He was home.

He found Touya exactly where he’d expected: on the couch, legs stretched out, a book resting on his chest as he stared at the ceiling. The television was off. The only light came from the lamp in the corner, painting the room in soft gold and deep shadow. Touya’s cane was leaning against the coffee table within easy reach.

“Hey, you,” Keigo said, shucking off his jacket and hanging it by the door.

Touya’s eyes slid towards him, a faint smile touching his lips. “Hey, birdie. Save the city from the perils of jaywalking and littering?”

“And a particularly aggressive pigeon,” Keigo said, crossing the room and dropping a kiss onto Touya’s forehead. “How were the tiny terrors?”

“One got mad and tried to set my notes on fire, and the other one successfully cryo-froze her school bag to the seats in the waiting room. So, a regular Tuesday.” Touya’s voice was laced with a familiar, weary humor. He shifted, a barely suppressed wince betraying the movement.

Keigo’s sharp eyes didn’t miss it. He perched on the edge of the coffee table, facing Touya. “So, I heard something interesting today from Sora.” Sora was one of his younger sidekicks, a fitness enthusiast outside of her hero work.

Touya raised a skeptical white eyebrow. “Do I want to know?”

“She was talking about her mom, who has bad neuropathy from some old injury. She said her started doing this… restorative yoga stuff, and she swears it helps with the circulation. The static feeling. Even the balance.”

The skepticism on Touya’s face hardened into a full-blown grimace. “Yoga. Right. Me and a bunch of people in hundred-dollar leggings, contorting myself into a pretzel. Sounds like a great time.” He gestured vaguely at his own body. “This isn’t exactly built for downward dog, babe.” 

“I know, I know,” Keigo said, his voice softening. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “I’m not talking about a class, not talking about anyone watching, just you and me. We could push the table aside, and pull up a beginner video on HeroTube, something super simple. No pressure at all. If it sucks, we never speak of it again.” 

Touya’s defenses were strong, but Keigo’s earnestness was his kryptonite. The promise of absolute privacy was the key. No witnesses to his struggle, no one to see him fail but Keigo, who had seen every version of him already.

“Fine,” Touya relented with a heavy sigh, as if agreeing to a root canal. “But if that video tells me to ‘find my inner light’ or some shit, I’m throwing the remote.”

“Deal,” Keigo said, a brilliant smile breaking across his face.

They pushed the coffee table against the wall, clearing a small space on the rug. Keigo pulled up a “Gentle Restorative Yoga for Beginners” video on the large screen. A woman with a preternaturally calm voice and a serene smile appeared. “Hello, and welcome. Let’s begin by finding a comfortable seat, connecting to our breath, and setting an intention for our practice…”

Touya snorted. “My intention is to not fall on my face.”

“Shhh,” Keigo whispered, grinning. “She’ll hear you.”

They followed her instructions, sitting cross-legged. “Breathe in… and breathe out…”

“She breathes weird,” Touya muttered under his breath. “It’s too loud. Who needs to hear their own breath that much?”

“Maybe her nose is stuffy,” Keigo whispered back.

The instructor guided them into a simple cat-cow stretch on their hands and knees. “Arch your back like a frightened cat… now drop your belly and moo like a happy cow…”

Touya collapsed onto his forearms, his body racked with silent laughter. “Moo? Did she just tell us to moo? What the hell kind of pose is that? Is the next one ‘bark like a dog’?”

“Maybe it’s ‘oink like a pig’,” Keigo wheezed. The merciless mocking was their shield, deflecting from the awkwardness and vulnerability of it all.

But the humor began to fade as the poses became more challenging. They moved to a standing position for a simple mountain pose. Touya wavered, his balance uncertain on the unfeeling platforms of his feet. The instructor moved into a triangle pose.

“Extend your right leg… hinge at the hip… rest your hand on your shin, or if you can, the floor…”

Touya tried. His body refused to cooperate. The scar tissue along his side pulled taut, a sharp, familiar pain, and his leg trembled violently. He grunted in frustration. “This is stupid. I can’t- Forget it.” He started to straighten up, ready to quit.

Keigo moved, standing beside Touya and placing a steadying hand flat against his hip. “I’ve got you,” he said, his voice low and sure. 

The frustration in Touya’s eyes didn’t vanish, but it softened. He tried again, leaning into the stretch, letting Keigo be his anchor. He only made it to his knee, but he held it. They breathed together.

The mood in the room shifted, with Keigo’s hands on his body and their breathing more intentional.

The video ended with them lying on their backs in shavasana, the “corpse pose.”

“Release everything. Let the floor hold you.”

The silence that fell over them was laced with a new intimacy. They lay side-by-side on the floor, the only sound their slowing breaths. Keigo turned his head on the rug to look at Touya. After a moment, Touya turned his head, too. Their eyes met.

The attraction between them was old and familiar, but in that moment, it felt brand new. Keigo reached over and laced his fingers through Touya’s. Touya’s gaze flicked down to their joined hands, then back to Keigo’s eyes. He gave Keigo’s hand a slight, answering squeeze.

It was all the permission Keigo needed. He shifted, rolling onto his side, and Touya met him halfway. Keigo’s hand came up to cup Touya’s jaw, his thumb stroking the line of his cheekbone. Touya’s hand slid into Keigo’s hair, pulling him closer.

They broke apart, breathing heavily, foreheads resting together.

“The floor’s not very comfortable,” Touya whispered, his voice rough.

“I don’t mind,” Keigo replied, his own voice husky.

A single, primary red feather detached from Keigo’s wing and zipped silently down the hall. It hovered outside Shouto’s door for a moment, then slipped underneath. It found Shouto at his desk, headphones on, carefully shading a drawing. The feather landed on the desk. Shouto didn’t look up. It would alert them the moment he started to move.

The kissing resumed, hotter this time. Hands began to wander, tracing over familiar skin with a renewed sense of discovery. Touya’s sweater was pushed up, Keigo’s palm skating over the soft skin of his stomach, tracing the ridges of scar tissue. Touya fumbled with the back of Keigo’s shirt, his fingers finding the delicate parts of his wings and stroking softly. 

They were a tangle of limbs on the floor, surrounded by pushed-aside furniture and the soft, encouraging voice of Serenity still playing from the television screen. A few minutes later, the  feather zipped back into the room. They broke apart, breathing ragged, clothes disheveled. Keigo’s wings were ruffled. Touya’s hair was a complete wreck. They were both flushed and a little sweaty, and they quickly, wordlessly, began to put themselves to rights.

Just as they were sitting up, trying to look nonchalant, Shouto’s door opened down the hall. He emerged, blinking slowly, and padded into the living room. He looked at the two of them sitting on the floor, faces flushed, the yoga video having automatically restarted.

Shouto looked at the screen, then at their clearly exercised state. A thought formed, connections firing. 

“Wow. I… di-id not kno-ow… y-yoga was-s s-so… ha-ard.”

There was a beat of perfect, stunned silence.

Then, a snort escaped Touya. It was followed by a choked laugh from Keigo. The dam broke. They burst into laughter, the kind that made their sides ache and tears stream down their faces. It was a release of tension, of joy, of the sheer, ridiculous absurdity of it all.

Shouto watched them, a faint, confused smile touching his lips. He hadn’t meant to be funny, but he was glad they were happy.

Touya, wiping tears from his eyes, reached out and snagged Shouto’s wrist, pulling him down into a loose, one-armed hug. “You have no idea, kid,” he gasped between laughs. “You have no idea.”

---

The first two months of Katsuki’s second year at UA had settled into a rhythm he could tolerate. It was a rhythm built on strict routine and controlled environments. His interpreter was his anchor in 2A, where his new homeroom teacher, Snipe, did not sign like Aizawa did, and in the gym or on the training grounds, he had Kirishima- Eijiro, who was his dedicated training partner, for UA and presumably beyond. 

But the social spaces; the bustling lunchroom, the chaotic hallways, or the collaborative study sessions, those were a different map entirely. For most of first year, his strategy had been one of strategic isolation. He was an island, and that was fine. 

Islands didn’t need anyone.

Kirishima, however, was a force of nature who refused to acknowledge the existence of unbreachable fortresses. He was a bridge, and he was built to connect.

It started small. A tap on the shoulder. Katsuki would look up from his bento to see Eijiro’s bright, sharp-toothed grin. [Lunch?] he’d ask, his gestures fluid and easy. [We’re all going to the cafeteria.]

Katsuki’s response was always a sharp, negative shake of his head, his hands staying firmly in his lap. The denial was automatic.

But Eijiro was relentlessly, kindly persistent. He didn’t ask every day, but he asked often enough that the invitation became a part of the routine. One Tuesday, Eijiro loped over to Katsuki’s desk, his smile blindingly genuine. 

[Lunch with us. Table by the window. More manly than eating alone.]

Katsuki’s glare could have melted steel. His hands snapped up. [I’m fine.]

[No, you’re not,] Eijiro signed back, his expression stubbornly cheerful. [Sero brought extra gyoza. Come share.] He didn’t wait for a refusal. He simply picked up Katsuki’s bento box, tucked it under his arm, and jerked his head toward the noisy cafeteria. The audacity was so purely, stupidly Eijiro that Katsuki, after a moment of stunned fury, found himself standing and following, if only to reclaim his food.

The table was a riot of sound he couldn’t hear. Kaminari was animatedly telling a story, his hands flying. Jiro was nodding along, a small smile on her face. Sero was already pushing a container of gyoza toward the empty seat Eijiro guided Katsuki into.

The conversation flowed around him, a silent movie with no subtitles. Katsuki kept his eyes on his food, his shoulders tense. This was a mistake.

Then Eijiro tapped his arm. Kaminari had just said something, puffing out his chest. Eijiro’s hands moved. [Kami says he aced the combat simulation. He is lying. He tripped over his own feet and short-circuited himself.]

A snort escaped Katsuki. He hadn’t meant to. Kaminari saw it and pointed, his mouth moving in a wide grin. Eijiro translated. [He says he’s glad you find his pain funny.]

This became the pattern. Eijiro, with an effortless grace that Katsuki would never possess, became his conduit. He’d turn to him mid-conversation, his hands subtly signing the gist of what was being said, asking for Katsuki’s opinion. [Ashido says the new Rescue Training uniforms are ugly. What do you think?]

Katsuki’s responses were first always signed back to Eijiro for translation. [Tell Pinky she has no brains. Function over fashion. Always.]

Eijiro would then relay it aloud. 

The table would laugh, not at him, but with the echo of his personality. They were learning his voice, even if they couldn’t hear it.

And slowly, encouraged by having Eijiro as a safety net, Katsuki began to try to use the one they could.

Lipreading was a bitch. It was an infernal puzzle of shapes and context, a skill he attacked with the same vicious determination he applied to everything else. He practiced in the mirror like his speech therapist wanted him to, watching the way his own mouth formed sounds he’d never clearly heard. He stared at his teachers, at Eijiro when he sim-commed, at their classmates as they gave presentations, his crimson eyes narrowed in focus.

He started to catch snippets. When people faced him directly and spoke clearly, he could sometimes piece it together.

…train… later?

…homework… due…

It was exhausting. It was also a victory.

The first time he tried to speak was after a particularly intense training session. Eijiro was hydrating, and Katsuki wanted his water bottle, which was just behind him. Instead of signing, he grunted to get Eijiro’s attention. Eijiro turned.

“Wa- wuh-” Katsuki attempted, the sound a rough, gravelly scrape in his throat. It had no volume, too loud and too quiet all at once. He grimaced, frustrated, and finished sharply with his hands. [Water. Now.]

Eijiro’s eyes widened, not in pity, but in pure, unadulterated triumph. He beamed, grabbing the bottle and handing it over. “Yeah, man! Here!”

It was garbled. It was messy. But it was an effort, and in kind, the group began to unconsciously adapt to him too. They learned to pause their overlapping chatter when they saw Katsuki’s focus sharpen on someone’s lips. They made a point to turn and face him when they spoke to him directly. If a conversation became too rapid-fire, someone would pull out their phone and type a summary for him to read. It wasn’t a formal accommodation, but just… what they did for a friend.

A moment of true integration came during a lunchtime debate about the best pro heroes for disaster relief. Kaminari, eager to contribute, made a joke. It was a pun, something about wattage and voltage, and he said it quickly, with a smirk.

Katsuki caught the shape of the words but the meaning evaporated. The punchline was lost on him. His face blanked, the familiar wall of exclusion slamming down. He looked down at his rice, preparing to disengage.

But Eijiro was faster. His hand flicked out under the table, catching Katsuki’s eye. [Bad joke. Electricity pun. Not funny.]

Before Katsuki could even process that, Jiro’s sharp eyes, always observant, caught the exchange. She pointed her chopstick at Kaminari. “Yeah, Kaminari, that was terrible. Explain it so Bakugo can judge you properly.”

Kaminari, to his credit, didn’t falter. He turned to Katsuki, spoke slowly and clearly, and painstakingly explained the pun. Katsuki watched, his expression unimpressed. When Kaminari finished, Katsuki made a deliberate, slicing motion with his hand across his throat, a near-universal sign for kill it, and then signed his response to Eijiro.

Eijiro burst out laughing. “He says your provisional license should be revoked and that it’s a wonder you can operate a toaster.”

The table erupted in laughter. Katsuki didn’t smile, but the tension left his shoulders. He was in.

The real test came a few weeks later. The group was working on a collaborative history project at a cafe off-campus.

They were crammed around a small table, textbooks and notebooks scattered everywhere. The brainstorming was chaotic, everyone talking over each other, a silent, frantic pantomime from Katsuki’s perspective. He watched their lips, catching fragments, piecing together the flawed logic of their plan. Eijiro was the anchor, his presence a steady hum in Katsuki’s periphery, his hands occasionally moving to summarize a point for Katsuki’s benefit. [Kami thinks the trigger was the trade embargo. Sero says it was the assassination.]

Their plan was a mess. A convoluted, overly complicated web of causes and effects for their history presentation. It was inefficient. It was illogical. It was driving him insane.

He saw the flaw, the clean, simple through-line they were all missing. The economic collapse wasn’t a result of political instability; it was the cause. Everything else was just noise.

He tried to break in. “Guh- Yuh-,” he rasped, the sounds uncomfortable as they rumbled in his throat. No one heard him. No one saw him. The old anger, the fury of being ignored, bubbled hot in his chest. But instead of exploding, he channeled it. With a grunt, he yanked his phone from his pocket. His thumbs flew across the screen, typing with violent precision. He shoved the phone into the center of the table, screen bright.

The text was all caps, utterly Bakugo: 

YOU’RE ALL WRONG. THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE CAME FIRST. THE POLITICAL SHIT WAS A SYMPTOM, NOT THE CAUSE. STRUCTURE THE WHOLE PRESENTATION AROUND THE MARKET CRASH. IT’S SIMPLE. IT’S OBVIOUS.

The conversation screeched to a halt. Four pairs of eyes dropped to the screen. Silence descended as they read the message. Ashido’s pink finger traced the words. Kaminari’s mouth hung open.

“Whoa,” Sero breathed, the sound barely a whisper.

“Holy crap, Bakugo,” Kaminari said, his voice full of genuine awe. “That’s… that’s actually it.”

Jiro leaned back in her chair, a slow smile spreading across her face. “He’s right. We were going in circles. This is a way better thesis.”

The praise was unexpected. It wasn’t the condescending kind he hated; it was real, impressed. It should have felt good. Instead, it prickled. He looked at Eijiro, his hands moving with sharp, irritated motions. Eijiro’s eyes flicked between the signs and the group.

“He says,” Eijiro translated, a grin tugging at his lips, “‘I was the #1 score on the entrance exam. I’m #2 in the class, right behind Ponytail. Why are you all so surprised?’”

The bluntness of it, delivered through Eijiro’s cheerful filter, broke the tension. 

Kaminari was the first to break, leaning across the table with a look of utter, comical desperation. “Kirishima, tell him! Tell him we’re dumb! Please, Bakugo, you have to tutor us! I’m begging you! My grade is hanging on by a thread!”

Ashido joined in, clasping her hands together in mock prayer. “Yes! Oh, academically-gifted king, please bestow your knowledge upon us, your humble, stupid subjects!”

Katsuki watched their theatrics, a familiar scowl on his face. But it lacked its usual heat. He signed again.

Eijiro translated, chuckling. “Fine. But one session. And if any of you waste my time, I’m using you for target practice.”

The tutoring sessions became a semi-regular occurrence. So did the texts. They weren’t long conversations, but they were there. A meme from Kaminari. A question about homework from Sero. A link to a new hero documentary from Jiro. Katsuki never replied with words, usually just a single, aggressive thumbs-up emoji or a screenshot of the message with a red circle around the grammatical errors. It was his way. They seemed to get it.

The idea came, as the worst and best ideas often did, from Kaminari. It arrived via text one evening.

KAMINARI: hey bakugo serious question
KAMINARI: u know how u r learning to say words n stuff
KAMINARI: wanna learn the BEST words
KAMINARI: the most manly of all words

Katsuki, lying on his bed and reviewing calculus, scowled at his phone. He knew where this was going. He’d seen the shapes of those words on their lips plenty of times.

BAKUGO: If this is about profanity, I’m blocking your number.

KAMINARI: NO WAIT
KAMINARI: its for educational purposes!!!
KAMINARI: think of the communication applications!!!
KAMINARI: imagine u are in a fight u can strike fear into their hearts with ur voice!!!!
KAMINARI: its tactical!!!!

It was the stupidest argument Katsuki had ever heard. It was also, in a profoundly childish way, incredibly compelling. 

BAKUGO: …When.

KAMINARI: TOMORROW BEFORE SCHOOL!!!! ROOF. BE THERE.
KAMINARI: BRING YOUR BAD ATTITUDE.

And that’s how Katsuki found himself on the UA roof at 7:15 AM with Kaminari, who was practically vibrating with glee.

“Okay, okay!” Kaminari said, speaking with exaggerated slowness and clarity. He pointed to his mouth. “Watch. Ffffff. Uhhhhh. Kkkkk.” He mouthed the word ‘fuck’ with the seriousness of a brain surgeon.

Katsuki watched, his brow furrowed in concentration. He mimicked the shape, the breath. “Fff…uhhh…kk.”

It came out as a breathy, guttural rumble. It was utterly ridiculous.

Kaminari’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. “YES! DUDE! That was perfect!”  

His phone buzzed. 

KAMINARI: ok, now with feeling
KAMINARI: imagine iida just told u u cant run in the halls or that your behavior is unbecoming

Katsuki’s scowl deepened. He took a breath. “FUHKK.”

“YES! Now this one! Shhhh-ihhh-t.” Kaminari demonstrated.

“SHH…IHT.”

They went on like this for ten minutes, two sixteen-year-old boys on a roof, one patiently (and goofily) coaching the other on the finer points of profanity. It was absurd. It was also, Katsuki realized, fun.

The next day during hero training, their new homeroom teacher, Snipe, had them running team-based obstacle courses. Katsuki and Eijiro moved together like a single organism, a well-oiled machine. A flick of Eijiro’s fingers, [Left!] and Katsuki would already be moving, using his explosions to clear a path. A sharp nod from Katsuki, and Eijiro would harden and launch himself as a living battering ram.

They were clearing the course faster than any other team. As they landed from a synchronized jump, Eijiro turned to him, signing, [That was awesome! We’re crushing it!]

Katsuki looked at him, a wicked glint in his eye. He remembered the roof. The childish, stupid, hilarious morning lesson. He took a breath, focused, and aimed his voice.

“Fuhh…king… right… we… ahhr,” he rasped, the words uneven and gravelly but unmistakable in their intent.

Eijiro froze. His eyes went wide. His jaw dropped. For a full three seconds, he just stared, utterly stunned. Then, a sound burst out of him, a loud, incredulous, joyful bark of laughter that echoed across the training grounds.

“OH MY GOD!” Eijiro yelled, sim-comming. “DID YOU JUST-? KATSUKI! THAT WAS AMAZING!”

From across the field, Snipe’s drawl cut through the air. “Alright, which one of you hooligans is cursin’ up a storm? That’s five points off for un-heroic language! But,” he added, and they could almost hear the smirk under his mask, “gotta admit, the teamwork was mighty impressive. Now get movin'!”

Eijiro was still beaming, clapping Katsuki on the shoulder. [I can’t believe you! Who taught you that? Wait, let me guess. Kami?]

Katsuki didn’t answer. He just gave a proud nod, a real, almost-smile tugging at his lips. He felt a rush of something light. It wasn’t just about the stupid words. It was about the surprise. The shared joke. The way Eijiro’s laughter felt like a victory.

He was still himself. Still angry, still driven, still the best. But for the first time in a long time, he felt his age. Not a victim, not a patient, not a problem to be solved. Just a sixteen-year-old boy on a training field, who had just made his (best?) friend laugh by saying a bad word. And it was, against all odds, pretty fucking great. 

---

The digital clock on Fuyumi’s classroom wall clicked over to 3:00 PM. The final bell had rung ten minutes ago, and the last of her third-graders, a whirlwind of oversized backpacks and shouted goodbyes, had been swept out the door by waiting parents. She was stacking reading journals on her desk when her personal phone, set to vibrate, buzzed insistently in her cardigan pocket.

Pulling it out, she saw the caller ID and felt a flicker of concern. Shouto almost never called. 

“Shouto? Is everything alright?” she answered, keeping her voice soft. 

There was a pause on the other end, long enough that she checked the screen to see if the call had dropped. Then, his voice, low and slightly slurred, the words pushed out with effort. “Yumi.”

“Yes?”

Another pause. She could picture him, his brow furrowed in concentration, assembling the request. “I… c-come to y-you… T-today? Af-fter… sch-chool?”

“Of course you can,” she said immediately, the concern melting into delight. “Of course. Haruki has his photography club today, so it’ll just be me. I’ll be home by 3:45. Do you need me to meet you at the station?”

“No.”

“Okay. I’ll see you soon then.”

The call ended as abruptly as it began. Fuyumi stood for a moment, the phone held to her chest. Her mind, ever-practical, began to spin theories. He must need help with homework.Or perhaps he wanted a specific meal? The most worrying possibility was a fight with Touya. Their brother’s declining health was a constant, low-grade stressor, and Touya’s patience, while deep, had its limits, especially on bad pain days. Did something happen?

She finished tidying her classroom with renewed purpose, her movements quick and efficient. By the time she locked her classroom door, her plan was set: stop at the market for eggs and chicken, air out the apartment, put the kettle on.

Her small apartment was, as always, immaculate. Haruki was tidy, and Fuyumi’s need for order was deeply ingrained. Still, she fluffed the cushions on the sage-green sofa, wiped down the already-clean counter, and arranged a few new blooms from her balcony garden in a small vase on the counter. The familiar, gentle scent of lavender from a diffuser filled the air. She changed out of her teaching clothes into soft, comfortable linen pants and a sweater.

At 4:10 PM, the intercom buzzed. She pressed the button to unlock the main door and waited, listening for the slow, measured tread of his footsteps in the hallway. When the knock came, it was quiet, three soft taps.

She opened the door to find him standing there, his art portfolio case slung over one shoulder, his head slightly bowed. His two-toned hair was messy, as if he’d been running his hands through it.

“Hey,” she said softly, stepping aside. “Come in.”

He shuffled past her, toeing off his shoes and lining them up with a precision that mirrored her own. He placed his portfolio carefully against the wall.

“How was school?” she asked, falling into their usual script.

“Ok.” The word was flat, devoid of its usual slight inflection.

“Art class?”

“G-good.”

He stood in the middle of the living room, not moving toward the couch or the table, just… standing, seemingly adrift.

“I was going to make some tea. Would you like some? Or juice?” she offered, moving toward the kitchen.

A slight shake of his head. “N-no.”

“Okay.” She abandoned the kitchen idea. “Well, make yourself comfortable. Did you… have homework you wanted help with? Touya mentioned to me last night you had an essay due soon.”

His heterochromatic eyes flickered towards her, then away. 

The third option, a fight with Touya, seemed more likely. She decided not to press. If he wanted to talk, he would, in his own time and in his own way. Pushing him never yielded anything but a deeper retreat into silence.

“Alright,” she said, her voice deliberately light. She sat on one end of the sofa and picked up a book. “Well, I’m just going to read for a bit. You can just… be.”

He stood for another minute before finally moving to the far end of the couch. He sat upright, his hands resting on his knees, staring at the blank screen of the television.

Fuyumi turned a page she hadn’t read. “The daisies on the balcony are really blooming now… I think they like this warmer weather. The aphids are trying to stage a takeover, though, and I’ll be pretty disappointed if they end up infesting my entire garden.”

It was mundane, pointless chatter. But it was safe. It was about things that grew predictably, followed seasons, and could be managed with soapy water.

“Haruki tried to make dan-danmen last night,” she continued, her voice a gentle, steady hum. “He used twice the amount of chili bean paste the recipe called for. I think he was trying to impress me. We had to eat it with about a gallon of milk!”

She saw Shouto’s shoulders drop a fraction of an inch. He was listening. In a world that demanded constant interpretation, Fuyumi was consistently the same. The sound of her voice, the utterly normal, boring stories… they made Shouto feel like everything was as it should be. The afternoon sun shifted, painting a warm rectangle of light across the floor that slowly crept towards them.

Fuyumi was describing the plot of a terribly melodramatic show she’d been watching, knowing its absurdity might amuse him, when he moved. He pushed himself up from his corner of the couch and adjusted to sit directly beside her, his thigh pressing against hers. Then, without any indication, he leaned his full weight against her side, his body listing into hers like a felled tree. His head dropped heavily onto her shoulder with a soft thud.

Fuyumi froze, her breath catching in her throat. Before she could even process the sudden contact, his hands came up, clumsy with need. He grabbed her arms, his grip strong, and began physically pulling them around himself.

“Gently, Sho,” she murmured instinctively, her voice barely a whisper. “Remember to be gentle.”

He’d never been good with gentle. 

His grip loosened immediately at her reminder, but the message was clear. He didn’t want to talk. He didn’t want food. He didn’t want help with homework.

He wanted to be held.

It had been years since he’d sought physical comfort like this. When he was younger, in the first few years after their father’s arrest, he’d been like a limpet, clinging to Touya or herself, seeking the pressure and safety he’d been starved of. But as he’d grown older, learned other ways to self-soothe.

Fuyumi’s shock melted away, replaced by a surge of protectiveness. She recovered in an instant, her body moving before her mind had fully caught up. She adjusted, wrapping her arms around him and pulling him into a firm, secure hug. 

The moment her arms closed around him, she felt the tension drain from his body all at once. It was a physical sensation, a complete surrender. A deep, shuddering sigh escaped him, a sound that seemed to come from the very core of his being. His entire frame went limp and heavy against hers, his head a solid weight on her shoulder.

She rested her cheek against his soft, two-toned hair and began to talk again, her voice a low, steady murmur.

She talked about the soil mixture she used for her daisies. She described the look on Haruki’s face when he’d taken a bite of his nuclearly spicy meal. She listed the colors of the cars she’d seen on the train home. It was the poetry of the utterly mundane, a litany of normalcy.

She felt his breathing deepen, evening out against her side. The rigid line of his spine softened. After a long while, she felt a dampness seep through the shoulder of her sweater, and she held him a little tighter. His body relaxed, and his head drooped from her shoulder to somewhere on her chest. Fuyumi’s arms moved to support him.

They stayed like that as the rectangle of sunlight climbed the wall, faded from gold to orange, and then disappeared entirely. The room was bathed in the soft blue-grey of twilight when Fuyumi heard the key turn in the lock.

Haruki slipped inside, quieting his steps as he saw the scene on the couch. He raised his eyebrows in a silent question. Fuyumi met his gaze over the top of Shouto’s head. She gave a small, tired smile and mouthed, He’s asleep.

Haruki crept closer, his kind face full of concern. He knelt beside the couch, his voice a whisper. “Is he okay?”

Fuyumi looked down at her brother. In sleep, the faint frown line between his brows was gone. His face was smooth, his breathing was deep and even.

“I think so,” she whispered back, her voice raspy from hours of use. “He just… needed this.”

Haruki nodded, understanding without needing more. He reached out and gently brushed a strand of hair from Shouto’s forehead. “How long?”

“A while,” Fuyumi said. She shifted slightly, and a pins-and-needles sensation shot through her arm that had been trapped underneath him. “Almost two hours.”

Haruki’s eyes widened. “Your arm must be dead. Do you want me to…?” He gestured as if to help her extract herself.

Fuyumi shook her head immediately. “No. I’m fine here.”

Haruki leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to Fuyumi’s temple. “I’ll order takeout. He’s gonna want soba, right?” 

He moved into the kitchen to make the call. Fuyumi closed her eyes, listening to the sound of her brother’s breathing, feeling the steady beat of his heart against her side.

Chapter 58: Face the Facts

Notes:

thanks so much for your comments and kudoses!
two things:
1. i hope you all start liking yuki bc i think she's cool and she's here to stay haha
2. we're in a bit of a lull, so enjoy the relaxation for now, but stick around, more drama coming soon!

The light in the apartment had deepened to a velvety blue, the only artificial lighting coming from the kitchen where Haruki was quietly putting away clean dishes off the rack. Fuyumi’s arms were sore from holding Shouto’s torso in place, but she wouldn’t have moved for the world. The steady, even rhythm of his breathing was a metronome of peace in the quiet room.

The sudden, shrill ring of her phone on the kotatsu was a violent intrusion. Shouto jolted in his sleep, a soft, distressed sound escaping his lips. Fuyumi flinched, her heart leaping into her throat. Haruki was across the room in an instant, snatching the phone before a third ring could shatter the silence. He saw the caller ID, Touya, and answered.

“Touya? Hey-”

The voice on the other end was a frantic, staticky crackle, loud enough for Fuyumi to hear the panic even from across the room. “-is he there? Is Shouto there? He never came home from school, he’s not answering his phone, I called the Midoriyas, he’s not there, and Chō said he left at the normal time, I don’t-”

“Touya, Touya, breathe,” Haruki interjected, his voice low and steadying. “He’s here. He’s right here. He’s sleeping.”

There was a dead silence on the other end of the line. Then, a sound that wasn’t a word, a raw, choked gasp that was half-sob, half-sigh of relief. “He’s… he’s there?”

“Yeah, man. He’s here. On the couch. Out cold.”

“Oh my god.” Touya’s voice was thin, frayed at the edges. “Oh my god, Sho…”

“You okay?” Haruki asked, his kind face creased with worry.

A shaky breath. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m… I’m fine. Just… yabai. I was so scared. My brain just… went to the worst places.” 

“I get it,” Haruki said softly. “But he’s safe. He’s just… having a quiet afternoon at his big sister’s. It’s all good.”

They spoke for another minute in hushed tones before Haruki hung up. He looked at Fuyumi, his expression a mixture of relief and lingering concern. “Somebody didn’t tell Touya he was coming over.” Shouto didn’t twitch. “Keigo’s gonna come get him in a bit.”

About thirty minutes later, a soft, almost imperceptible tap came at the door. Haruki opened it to reveal Keigo, deep in incognito mode. Most of his vibrant red feathers were detached and hidden, leaving only the primary ones necessary for balance tucked tight against his back. A black baseball cap was pulled low over his brow, and a medical mask covered the lower half of his face. He looked less like the Wing Hero: Hawks and more like a slightly-anxious birdwatcher.

“Hey,” he whispered, slipping inside and toeing off his shoes. His sharp gold eyes immediately found Shouto on the couch, still dead asleep on Fuyumi. A soft, understanding smile touched his eyes above the mask. “Oh. I see.”

“He’s been out for a while,” Fuyumi murmured.

“Thanks for everything, and sorry if Touya freaked out on the phone,” Keigo said. “He’s kind of a mess right now. When he gets all worked up… well, you know Touya. Anyways, I’ll get this one home.” He approached the couch and knelt down. “Hey,” he said, his voice a gentle rumble. “Time to go.”

He placed a hand on Shouto’s shoulder and gave a slight shake. Shouto stirred, groaning softly. He blinked open bleary, mismatched eyes, disoriented. When he saw Keigo, his face immediately clouded with a familiar, stubborn resistance. He shook his head, burying his face deeper into Fuyumi’s chest.

“C’mon, Sho,” Keigo said, patiently as ever. “Touya’s waiting. He was worried.”

Shouto just shook his head again, a wordless, childlike refusal.

“It’s okay,” Fuyumi said softly. “You can come back anytime.”

It took another few minutes of gentle coaxing from both Keigo and Haruki to finally pry him upright. He was groggy and uncoordinated, his movements sluggish. Keigo helped him into his shoes, shouldered his art portfolio, and guided him toward the door. Shouto looked back at Fuyumi, a lost expression on his face, before Keigo gently steered him out into the hall.

The night air was cool, and the walk to the station was quiet. On the train, they found two seats together and sat down. The car was nearly empty, so they could talk a bit without disturbing any of the other passengers. 

“So,” Keigo began, his voice casual. “You had us going for a minute there, kid.”

Shouto kept his gaze fixed on the dark window, watching the blurred lights of the city streak past.

“What’s up?” Keigo pressed gently. “Did something happen with you and Touya? Or with me? You usually just come straight home.”

Shouto didn’t look at him. He traced a circle in the condensation on the window.

“Did she make you your favorite dinner?” Keigo tried again.

A slight shake of the head.

“You guys watch a movie?”

Another shake.

“You wanna tell me what was so great about her apartment tonight that you forgot to tell us where you were going and scared your brother half to death?”

Shouto’s shoulders hunched. He knew he’d messed up. The guilt was there, but it was tangled up with the overwhelming need that had driven him there in the first place.

“Yumi is… the s-same,” he finally said, the words pushed out with difficulty.

Keigo frowned. “The same as what?”

“Al-always.” Shouto turned from the window, his heterochromatic eyes earnest in their frustration. “Sm-mells s-same. T-t-talks… a-about s-same. P-plants, c-cooking.” He struggled for the words, his hands clenching and unclenching on his knees. “W-won’t… do ho-omework.”

Ah. There it was. 

Keigo leaned back. “So you went to Fuyumi’s because it’s… predictable. And because you didn’t want to do your homework?”

Shouto shrugged, looking down at his lap. It sounded so childish when said out loud. But it was so much more than that.

“You just don’t like homework? Is that it?” Keigo asked again, keeping his tone neutral.

Shouto was quiet for a long time. The train rattled over the tracks. When he spoke, it was so quiet Keigo had to lean in to hear him.

“E-everything… m-more… co-om-mplicated,” he whispered.

“What is?”

“P-people.” The word was a sigh. “T-talking, ho-omework. Di-ifferent. A-a-all the t-time. Except Yumi.”

The social labyrinth of school, the academic demands that were stretching the limits of his capabilities, the confusing conversations about crushes and feelings... It was a constant, exhausting onslaught of things that didn’t come naturally. Fuyumi’s world was simple, ordered, and unchanging. 

“M-my… h-head hu-urt,” Shouto confessed. “T-too m-m-much… thi-inking.”

Then, as if to physically demonstrate his point, he reached up, took off his glasses, and handed them to Keigo.

I am done. I cannot see this. I cannot deal with this.

Keigo took the glasses, folding them carefully and tucking them into his own jacket pocket. 

“Hey,” Keigo said softly. He put an arm around Shouto’s shoulders, pulling him into a sideways hug. Shouto stiffened for a second, then allowed it, his body leaning into the contact. “Look. I get it. Life is hard. It sucks a lot of the time. It’s noisy and confusing and it feels like too much. I’m really, really glad you have Fuyumi. I’m glad you knew to go somewhere to feel better.”

He felt Shouto relax a fraction.

“But,” Keigo continued, his voice gentle but firm, “you can’t just hide, Sho. You scared us. You can’t run away from the stuff that’s hard. You gotta talk about it. You can talk to Touya, or to me. We can’t… we can’t escape our problems. We have to face them.”

Shouto was quiet for a long moment. Then, a simple, devastating logic from a mind that preferred binary choices. “If I… h-hide,” he said slowly, carefully forming the words, “pe-eople… c-can’t f-find me. Then I-I do-on’t ha-ave to.”

It was rooted in a childhood strategy of survival. 

Hide from Dad. Stay small. Stay quiet. Make yourself disappear and he can’t hurt you. 

He filed this traumatic revelation away to discuss with Shouto’s therapist later. 

“The problem is still gonna be there, buddy,” Keigo said, giving his shoulders a squeeze. “You’ll just be avoiding it… and you’ll be alone while you avoid it. And we’ll be worried sick.”

Shouto grunted. He didn’t agree, but he’d heard it.

“What’s the hardest part right now?” Keigo asked, shifting tactics. “The schoolwork? Or… the people part?”

Shouto was silent for so long Keigo thought he might not answer.

“Pe-eople… f-feelings,” he finally said, each word pulled out with effort. “T-talking about things. I know w-words. B-but I d-don’t… get.” He made a vague, agitated gesture with his hand. “I w-want. My b-brain… wants. But it’s… t-tired. It j-just… st-tops.”

Keigo nodded. 

“A-and I don’t al-always wa-ant to a-ask Chō.” 

“What if,” Keigo ventured, “you had a… shortcut? Something you could say to anyone, not just Chō. If it’s too fast, or it doesn’t make sense, you could just say… ‘Hey. I need you to say it simpler, please.’”

Shouto glanced at him, a flicker of skepticism in his tired eyes.

“Why not? It’s just telling the truth. It’s not a big deal.”

Shouto looked back out the window, considering. He didn’t look convinced it would work, but he was turning it over in his mind.

The train announcement for their stop crackled overhead. 

The walk from the station to the apartment was silent and heavy. Shouto’s shoulders were hunched, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, every step radiating a dread that was almost palpable. Keigo matched his pace, saying nothing. The click of his own boots and the soft scuff of Shouto’s sneakers were the only sounds on the quiet street.

He unlocked the apartment door and pushed it open. The light from the living room spilled into the genkan, illuminating Touya where he stood, leaning heavily on his cane. His face was a pale, tight mask of emotions held in precarious check.

The moment Shouto stepped inside, the dam broke.

“What were you thinking?” The words were a cracked whip of sound, sharp with a fear that had curdled into anger. Touya took an aborted step forward, his free hand gesturing wildly. “Do you have any idea what you-? You can’t just-!”

Then his eyes, blazing with fury, truly focused on Shouto. He saw the exhaustion etched into every line of his little brother’s body, the way he seemed to shrink under the weight of the shouted words. The anger evaporated. His shoulders slumped, the fight going out of him all at once. The cane seemed to bear more of his weight.

“Oh, kid,” he breathed out, the words ragged. “Don’t… don’t you ever do that to me again.” The command was weak, stripped of its force, replaced by pure relief.

Both brothers stood frozen in place. “Go on. Go change out of your uniform. There’s food if you haven’t eaten.”

Shouto gave a tiny, jerky nod, not meeting Touya’s eyes, and shuffled past him down the hall to his room. The door clicked shut with a sound of finality.

Touya stood there for a moment, staring at the closed door, before he let out a long, shaky exhale and turned toward the kitchen. He moved with a pronounced stiffness, each step a careful negotiation. Keigo followed, leaning against the doorframe as Touya began pulling containers from the refrigerator with more force than necessary.

“Well?” Touya asked, his back to Keigo. His voice was low, trying for casual and missing by a mile. “What was the grand adventure at Fuyumi’s? Did they have plans? She didn’t text me.”

“No plans,” Keigo said. He watched Touya’s back, choosing his words carefully. “I think he just… had a day. You know how he gets”

Touya’s expression softened. He hummed in understanding.

Keigo went on. “He said… everything at school is getting more complicated. The work, the social stuff. It’s all just… a lot. Makes his head hurt.”

The microwave hummed into life. Touya braced his hands on the counter, his head bowed. “He told you that?”

“Took some pulling, but yeah.”

“He never said anything to me,” Touya muttered, almost to himself. It wasn’t an accusation; it was a statement of fact tinged with sadness.

“Maybe he doesn’t want to bother you,” Keigo offered gently.

Touya huffed. “Right. Because why would anyone tell me things anymore? One more issue and I’ll probably combust, right?” He winced as soon as the words were out, shaking his head. “Sorry. That’s… ignore that.”

“Already forgotten,” Keigo said easily. He pushed off the doorframe and came to stand beside Touya, hip-checking him lightly. “Point is, he’s okay. He just needed some… quiet. And Fuyumi’s place is nothing if not quiet.”

“Quiet,” Touya repeated, the word tasting bitter. “Yeah.”

The microwave beeped. The sudden noise seemed to break the tension. Touya pulled out the container of steaming rice. “He say anything else?”

Keigo hesitated, then decided on a half-truth. “He said he knew that Fuyumi wouldn’t make him do his homework.” He kept his tone light, almost joking.

Touya’s head snapped up, a flicker of his old fire returning to his eyes. “Oh, for- of course she wouldn’t! She’s soft on him. That’s why he went there.” He shook his head, but there was no real heat in it. “Brat. Manipulating Fuyumi to avoid his homework.”

“He’s a Todoroki,” Keigo said with a grin. “Resourceful and stubborn. It’s in the genes.”

Touya almost smiled at that. He dished the rice into bowls. “Well, he’s doing it after dinner. No arguments.”

The bedroom door opened then, and Shouto emerged, dressed in soft grey sweatpants and an old t-shirt. He hovered in the doorway to the kitchen, looking uncertain.

“Food’s ready,” Touya said, his voice deliberately normal now, all the earlier storminess gone. He gestured to the table with a spoon. “Come on. Let’s eat.”

Shouto moved to the table and sat down. The three of them began the quiet, familiar ritual of dinner. The hard conversations about hiding and facing problems were shelved, but as Keigo watched Touya carefully hide a wince as he shifted in his chair, and saw Shouto’s eyes flicker away, he knew the tension still lingered.

---

The air in the Keio library during finals week was a peculiar kind of silence. It wasn’t peaceful; it was a pressurized, frantic quiet, thick with the scent of stale coffee, desperation, and the soft, frantic scratching of pens on paper. Natsuo felt it pressing in on him, a physical weight on his temples. His focus, usually a laser beam, kept fracturing. A diagram of the Krebs cycle would blur, and in its place, he’d think about how Fuyumi kept updating him on things Touya would conveniently leave out of their conversations. 

Focus. Breathe. 

He ran a hand through his hair, his fingers trembling slightly, a side effect of the lamotrigine, or maybe just the four hours of sleep per night he’d averaged this week. He forced his eyes back to the notes, the carefully color-coded diagrams of metabolic pathways that were supposed to be his ticket to success.

His phone buzzed on the wooden desk, a soft vibration that felt like a seismic event in the hush. He flinched, earning a dirty look from a girl across the table. It was a text from Yuki.

TANIGUCHI YUKI: How’s the memorization of every enzyme known to man going?

A small, unexpected smile touched his lips. He typed back, his thumbs clumsy with fatigue.

NATSUO: I think phosphofructokinase-1 is my new nemesis.

TANIGUCHI YUKI: PFK-1? Mood. It’s such a gatekeeper. You’ve got this. Remember, it’s allosterically inhibited by ATP and citrate.

NATSUO: Are you… quoting my own notes back to me?

TANIGUCHI YUKI: Maybe. I have a photographic memory for nerd stuff. And for the really good onigiri place near campus. Post-finals? My treat. You’ll need it.

He could see it: a cold beer, decent food, her eyes, her mouth…

NATSUO: Yeah. Yeah, I’d like that.

The next thirty-six hours were a blur of scantrons, essay booklets, and the bitter taste of caffeine. He moved through his exams on autopilot, his body operating on muscle memory and discipline drilled into him in the last year of keeping himself from a breakdown. He took his meds with precision, ate bland, safe meals, and forced himself to sleep for five-hour blocks, even when his brain screamed that he should be reviewing.

The last exam, Organic Chemistry II, was a brutal three-hour siege. When he finally put his pen down, his hand was cramping. The relief was so profound it felt like a physical blow. He walked out of the lecture hall into the bright afternoon sun, and the world seemed to buzz with a different energy. The pressure was gone. He felt light, almost dizzy with it.

He made it back to his dorm room, dumped his backpack on the floor, and fell face-first onto his bed. He slept for fourteen hours straight.

When he woke, it was to the buzz of his phone. The group chat was exploding.

IMAI DAIGO: WE ARE FREE!!!!!!!!!!

SUGIYAMA AIMI: Statistically, based on the distribution of questions, I believe I passed.

TAKATA DAICHI: WHO’S GETTING DRUNK TONIGHT? MY TREAT (until my wallet runs out)

And then, a direct message from Yuki.

TANIGUCHI YUKI: So. Still on for onigiri? Or are you joining the mob for cheap beer?

NATSUO: Onigiri. Definitely.
NATSUO: Beer after, if you want, but I need real food first.

TANIGUCHI YUKI: A man with priorities. I like it. Meet you there in an hour?

---

The onigiri place was a tiny, steamy hole-in-the-wall packed with students celebrating the end of their ordeal. They found a small table tucked in the back, surrounded by the happy roar of conversation. Natsuo devoured a salmon onigiri, the simple, salty taste feeling like the most exquisite thing he’d ever eaten.

“So?” Yuki asked, sipping a mug of barley tea. “How’d it go? Conquer the gatekeeper?”

“I think so,” he said, wiping his mouth. “I mean, I didn’t leave anything blank. That’s a victory.”

“A triumph,” she agreed, her eyes smiling. “I had my microbiology practical this morning. Had to identify an unknown under a time limit. I think it was E. coli. Pretty basic, but still nerve-wracking.”

They fell into easy shop talk, dissecting exams, complaining about professors, comparing notes on the brutal pre-med workload. It was comfortable. With her, he never felt like he had to explain the drive, the near-obsessive focus. She was in the trenches too.

Eventually, they joined the rest of the group at a noisy izakaya. The air was thick with the smell of grilled meat and beer. Imai was already loudly recounting a question he was sure he’d gotten wrong. Takata was ordering rounds of beer for everyone.

Natsuo found a spot at the long table, Yuki sliding in beside him. A tiny, perfect snowflake crystallized above his knuckle and vanished.

Yuki saw it. She didn’t comment. Instead, she leaned closer, her shoulder brushing his, and said directly into his ear, her voice clear and measured. “Imai is convinced he mixed up the Michaelis-Menten and Lineweaver-Burk plots. He’s being dramatic.”

The warmth of her breath on his ear, the simple act of her ensuring he was included, sent a jolt through him. The noise faded into a background hum.

The conversation was a lively post-mortem of the exam, peppered with complaints about professors and plans for the summer. Natsuo mostly listened, content to let the wave of chatter wash over him.

As the night wore on and the beers flowed, the group began to thin out. Imai, thoroughly drunk, was trying to explain quantum physics to a very patient Sugiyama. Others made their excuses and left. Eventually, it was just the two of them, sitting amidst the debris of empty plates and beer glasses.

The noise had faded to a comfortable hum. Natsuo felt the tense coil of anxiety that had been wound inside him for weeks finally begin to loosen. He was tired, but it was a good tired. It felt well-earned. 

“Thanks for making me come,” he said, staring into his half-finished beer. “I never come out anymore.”

“I know,” Yuki said softly. She was playing with the condensation on her glass. “You have a tendency to hide in your room.”

He looked at her then. There was a smudge of something on her cheek. He had a sudden urge to wipe it away. “You’re pretty perceptive, Tanaguchi”

She smiled, a little shyly. “I’m pre-med. It’s pretty much required.”

They lapsed into a comfortable silence. It was different from the strained quiet of his dorm room. This silence felt shared.

“I should probably head out,” she said eventually, though she made no move to get up. “Last train.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Me too.”

They gathered their things and stepped out into the warm summer night. They walked toward the station unhurried.

“I’m glad exams are over,” Yuki said, tilting her head back to look at the sky. “I feel like I can breathe again.” 

“Yeah,” Natsuo agreed. “I feel so much lighter.” 

They reached the station entrance, a brightly lit mouth leading down into the underground. This was where they would usually part ways with a quick “see you in class.”

Yuki turned to him. “Well. Goodnight, Todoroki. Get some sleep.”

“Natsuo,” he said. The beer and the exhaustion were making him bold. 

She smiled, a real, full smile that reached her eyes and made the dimple in her cheek appear. “Okay, Natsuo. Goodnight.”

She took a step toward the stairs. He didn’t want her to go. The feeling was sudden and overwhelming. All the carefully constructed walls, the focus, the control… it all narrowed down to this single, pressing point: her, standing under the fluorescent lights, about to walk away.

“Yuki.”

She turned back. “Yeah?”

He closed the distance between them in two strides. He didn’t think about the consequences, about the potential for rejection, or about messing up a friendship.

He cupped her face in his hands, his thumbs gently brushing the smudge on her cheek. Her eyes widened in surprise, but she didn’t pull away.

He leaned in and kissed her. It was hesitant, a little clumsy, tasting faintly of beer and grilled fish. 

He pulled back, his heart hammering against his ribs, the world snapping back into sharp, terrifying focus. 

What had he done? Idiot. Stupid, impulsive- 

Yuki’s eyes were still closed. She slowly opened them. She didn’t look angry. She looked… dazed. A slow blush spread across her cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” Natsuo said quickly, dropping his hands and taking a step back. “I shouldn’t have-  that was-“

She didn’t let him finish. She grabbed the front of his shirt, pulled him back down, and kissed him again.

This one was not hesitant. This one was sure, and warm, carrying the faint scent of her jasmine shampoo. It was the release of a tension he hadn’t even fully acknowledged was there.

When they broke apart this time, they were both breathless. The world had narrowed to the space between them, the sounds of the city fading into a distant hum.

Yuki bit her lip, her blush deepening. “I’ve been wanting to do that since you explained that stupid genetics problem to me last month.”

A disbelieving laugh escaped Natsuo. He felt dizzy. The carefully managed equilibrium of his life had just been joyfully upended.

“The… the linked genes? With the fruit flies?”

“Yeah,” she said, grinning now. “It was really attractive.”

He laughed again, the sound foreign and wonderful to his own ears. He leaned his forehead against hers, right there under the glaring station lights, not caring who saw them.

“The last train,” she murmured, though she made no move to go. He took her hand, lacing his fingers through hers. 

“Screw the last train,” he said. It felt incredible.

Chapter 59: Summer Interlude, The Third Summer

Notes:

i hope you guys like this - a bit of a deviation from how it went down in canon, but like... psh.
xoxo!

The air in late July felt like a heavy, wet blanket, smelling of hot pavement and exhaust. For Shouto, summer break meant escape. It meant permission from Inko, a frantic, last-minute trip to the Don Quijote for travel-sized toiletries, and the long, north-bound rhythm of the Shinkansen.

This was only the second time Shouto and Natsuo were making the trip to Hokkaido to see their grandparents, and the first trip up for Keigo and Izuku. 

As the train pulled away from the station, Touya was already looking queasy and clutching a motion sickness bag like a lifeline. Natsuo, buzzing with a relaxed energy, was teasing him about it. Keigo stowed everyone’s bags in the overhead with a flick of his feathers. Izuku, a contained explosion of excitement in the seat next to Shouto, his muttering a steady, happy stream of facts about the train’s maximum operating speed.

Shouto himself felt a loosening in his chest the moment the urban sprawl began to give way to green. After an hour, the world outside the train window began to move at a different, slower pace.

“I’m fine,” Touya gritted out for the third time, his knuckles white where he gripped the seatback in front of him. His face had taken on a distinct greenish tinge.

“You are not fine,” Keigo said, not unkindly, from the aisle seat. He nudged a bottle of water toward him. “Drink. Small sips. It’s the elevation changes.”

“It’s the fact that we’re a metal tube hurtling through space at an ungodly speed,” Touya muttered, closing his eyes against the blur of passing scenery.

Natsuo, sitting across the aisle, leaned over. “Want me to see if I can find a barf bag with a more festive pattern? I think I saw some with cartoons on them. Very retro.”

Touya cracked one eye open to glare at him. “I will end you, shithead.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Try me.”

Izuku was scribbling in a notebook. “The average speed of the Hayabusa Shinkansen is about 320 kilometers per hour, but the perceived motion sickness is more related to the inner ear’s sensitivity to acceleration and the inability to focus on a fixed point-”

“Midoriya,” Touya interrupted, his voice strained. “I will pay you five thousand yen to stop talking, please.”

Izuku flushed. “S-sorry!”

Shouto watched the exchange from his window seat. He turned back to the window. Rice paddies had given way to forested mountains, their peaks shrouded in soft, grey mist. The world was getting bigger, emptier, quieter.

By the time they transferred to a local two-car train that chugged its way into the heart of the countryside, even Touya’s nausea had subsided into weary relief. The air that washed in when the doors opened was cool and clean, smelling of damp earth and pine. The station was a small, impeccably maintained wooden structure, its flower boxes bursting with precisely arranged blooms.

And there, waiting on the spotless platform, were the Himuras.

Ojiisan was tall, leaning on a polished wooden cane, his white hair combed back neatly, his jinbei perfectly pressed. Obaasan stood beside him in a simple yukata, her silver hair coiled in a bun.

“Touya. Natsuo,” Ojiisan said, his voice a low, resonant rumble. His sharp eyes, the same pale grey as his daughter’s, then found Shouto, and his expression softened a fraction. “Shouto. It is good to see you.” His gaze then shifted to Keigo and Izuku, and he gave a slight, formal nod. “Keigo. Izuku. Welcome.”

Obaasan offered a slight, formal bow. “We have been looking forward to your visit. The house is ready for you.”

As the group began to gather their luggage, Ojiisan fell into step beside Touya, who was moving with careful deliberation, his own cane tapping on the platform.

“I see we have matching accessories,” Ojiisan observed, his tone dry. He tapped his own cane lightly against Touya’s. “Though yours is far more modern.”

Touya let out a short, surprised laugh. “Gotta keep up appearances, Ojiisan. Can’t have a boring old wooden stick.”

“Hmph. Boring? This one has stood the test of time,” the old man retorted, but there was a glint of amusement in his eyes. “Mind the gravel. It can be… treacherous for those of us on unsteady legs.”

“I’ll follow your lead.”

Keigo drifted naturally to Touya’s other side, not offering an arm, but positioning himself as a steadying presence should the gravel prove too treacherous. Natsuo fell back with Izuku and Shouto, slinging an arm around their shoulders. “Ready for a week of fresh air and no signal? You might have to actually talk to people.”

Izuku grinned, his nervousness melting away. “The Himuras’ property is in a designated zone of natural beauty! There’s a documented history of rare bird species in this watershed! I made a list of things I want to see!”

Natsuo laughed. “Of course you did.”

Their house was a ten-minute walk away. It was impeccably maintained, the garden a masterpiece of controlled wildness.

Inside, it was cool, quiet, and orderly. Touya made his way to the engawa and lowered himself onto a cushion with a controlled sigh. “God, I’m never moving again.”

Keigo was there instantly, a glass of cold water appearing in his hand as if by magic. Natsuo and Keigo efficiently moved luggage. Izuku, trying to mimic their quietness, followed Obaasan toward the kitchen, his eyes wide.

Shouto simply stepped into the garden. The silence was a cool, clean cloth on his overheated mind. Everything had its place.

The freedom began the next morning. After a breakfast of perfectly prepared food, Ojiisan looked at the five of them.

“The river path has been cleared,” he stated.

They set out. Ojiisan led with a slow, stately pace. Touya walked beside him, his gait less steady but his pace matched. Keigo hovered a step behind, a silent shadow.

Natsuo fell back with the teenagers. “Alright, kids. Try to keep up. No running off. Unless you see a bear, then by all means, run. Especially you, Izuku. You look tasty.”

Izuku’s eyes went wide. “There are bears? What species? The Ussuri brown bear is native to Hokkaido, but their range is usually further north and at higher elevations, although habitat encroachment could theoretically-”

Natsuo ruffled his hair. “I’m kidding... Mostly.”

Shouto just walked, soaking in the clean air. Izuku, unable to contain his energy, buzzed around him like an excited hummingbird.

“Look, Shouto-kun! That’s a kitsune mushroom! It’s edible! And over there, that’s a Japanese wood pigeon! Their call is a really low-pitched hoo-hoo-hoo! And the soil composition here is really different from Tokyo, it’s much more volcanic, feel how soft it is-” He scooped up a handful of dark earth to show him.

Shouto looked at the dirt, then at Izuku’s excited, smudged face. He gave a slow blink. “You are… v-very lo-oud. Go-ood for… for sc-caring a-away… b-bears.”

Izuku beamed. 

They reached the river, wide and crystal-clear. Without a word, Shouto sat on a large, flat rock, took off his shoes and socks, and stepped in. The cold was a sharp, pure shock. He loved it.

Izuku was at the water’s edge in a flash, toeing off his own shoes. “Is it cold? It looks cold. My mom says I catch colds easily but I think my immune system is actually pretty robust considering-” He yelped as his feet hit the water. “IT’S FREEZING! SHOUTO HOW ARE YOU NOT COLD!”

Soon, Natsuo was in too, skipping stones. Keigo’s attempts were pathetically bad. “

Touya and Ojiisan remained on the bank, observing. 

“Go on, then,” Ojiisan said to Shouto. “Show them how it is done.”

Shouto selected a flat, smooth stone. He weighed it, then flicked his wrist. The stone skipped once, twice, three times, four, five-

“Six skips,” Ojiisan announced, sounding satisfied. “Form is everything.”

Natsuo whistled. “Show-off.”

Izuku was staring at the water, mesmerized. “The angle of incidence combined with the rotational force you generate creates a lifting force that counteracts gravity momentarily… Shouto, you’re amazing!”

---

The days unfolded with a quiet rhythm. They helped Obaasan weed the garden. Izuku, upon learning the name of each plant, would immediately recite three facts about it. Shouto just weeded, enjoying the simple, repetitive action of pulling unwanted things from the ordered soil.

One afternoon, they found an old, half-rotten wooden rowboat pulled up on the riverbank.
“Whoa! A boat!” Izuku yelled, scrambling toward it.

“It’s probably full of spiders,” Natsuo said cheerfully. “And snakes.”

Izuku froze mid-step. “S-snakes?”

“Ojiis-san s-says no s-sna-akes,” Shouto stated blandly.

Natsuo grinned. “Ojiisan also says his back doesn’t hurt. He’s a liar.” He grabbed the frayed rope. “Help me pull it, you cowards. We’re going on an adventure.”

The “adventure” consisted of the three of them crammed into the leaking boat, using sticks to pole themselves a grand total of ten meters downstream before getting stuck on a sandbar. They were soaked and laughing, even Shouto.

On their last night, Obaasan brought out the lacquer box of photos. Izuku nearly vibrated with excitement, pointing at pictures of a young Rei Himura. “She looks so like Shouto-kun! And the composition of this photograph is incredible, the use of natural light-”

Shouto found a photo of himself as a toddler in his mother’s arms. He stared at it for a long time. He wasn’t sure how to feel about it. Touya took it gently out of his hands, and put the photo away.

The morning they left was clear and bright. As the train pulled away, Shouto watched his grandparents until they disappeared.

The journey back was quieter. Shouto watched the green landscape turn into the familiar grey grid. The pressure began to return.

He closed his eyes, arranging the memories of the trip carefully, and held onto the light feeling.

---

Touya leaned his head against the cool glass of the bus window, eyes closed. Physical therapy had been a special kind of hell today. The new therapist, a young and relentlessly cheerful man, kept using phrases like “push through the burn” and “listen to what your body is telling you.”

His body was telling him it was a broken, betraying piece of shit.

The session had focused on balance exercises. Simple things: standing on one leg, walking a straight line heel-to-toe. Tasks a child could do. And he’d failed, over and over, his legs trembling with the effort, the static in his feet screaming into a full-blown roar, his scar tissue pulling tight and angry with every misstep. The cheerful therapist had finally called it, his smile never faltering. “Great effort today, Himura! We’ll get there!”

He’d wanted to scream.

He fumbled with his keys at the apartment door, his fingers uncooperative. All he wanted was the blessed, silent darkness of his bedroom.

The apartment was blessedly quiet. He toed off his shoes, and dropped his keys in the bowl on the genkan shelf with a clatter, before a beeline for the living room couch, moving with the stiff, careful gait that had become his norm.

He collapsed onto the cushions, the breath leaving his body in a heavy sigh. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. It was the PT. It was the cane. It was the way Keigo sometimes looked at him when he thought Touya wasn’t watching, and the softness around his middle that his sweaters couldn’t hide, and the memory of what his body used to be able to do. 

He was so tired. So fucking tired of the fight.

A sob tore out of him unexpectedly. Then another. He tried to stifle them, pressing his hands harder against his face, but it was useless. It was ugly, messy crying, leaving him gasping for air, his shoulders shaking. 

He didn’t hear the soft click of a door opening down the hall.

He was lost in the miserable, cathartic release, his body shuddering with the force of it, when a small, hesitant voice cut through the haze.

“T-Touya?”

Touya froze. His head snapped up. Shouto was standing at the edge of the living room, still in his pajamas, his hair mussed, and his glasses slightly askew. He was holding a half-eaten apple.

Panic lanced through Touya’s misery. 

Shit. Shouto. He’s home. Of course he’s home, it's July, it’s summer break. Stupid, stupid… 

He swiped frantically at his face, turning away, trying to compose his features into something that wasn’t a blotchy mess. “Hey, Sho,” he said, his voice embarrassingly wobbly. “Didn’t… didn’t know you were home.”

Shouto didn’t move. His eyes were wide, fixed on Touya. “C-crying?”

“No, I’m not,” Touya said too quickly, forcing a laugh that came out as a strangled cough. He rubbed at his eyes again, as if he could physically erase the evidence. “’S nothing. Just… just got something in my eye. Allergies… Probably dust. We need to clean more.”

He kept his face averted, busying himself with straightening a cushion that didn’t need straightening. He could feel Shouto’s gaze on him, a physical weight. The silence stretched, thick and uncomfortable.

Then, Shouto’s voice came again, quieter, but with a new, hard edge. “N-not… d-dumb.”

Touya finally looked at him. “What? Sho, I never said you were-”

“You’re l-lying,” Shouto interrupted. “I kno-ow w-what… c-crying is. I kn-now wha-at… s-sad is.” He took a step closer, his brow furrowed in frustration. “My… vi-ision is ba-ad. Not… my b-brain.”

“I know you’re not dumb, Sho,” Touya said, his own frustration beginning to bleed through his attempt at calm. “I’m just tired, okay? Just drop it.”

But Shouto wouldn’t drop it. He took another step forward, his body tense. “You a-always… d-do this. You and Yumi. And Na-atsu. Y-you th-think… I d-don’t s-see. I d-don’t kn-now.” His voice was rising, each stuttered word hitting Touya like a small, sharp stone. “I’m not… st-tupid.”

“I never said you were stupid!” Touya’s composure finally snapped. He pushed himself upright on the couch, wincing at the flare of pain in his back. “Why are you making this into a thing? I said I’m fine!”

“Why… y-you’re n-not… h-honest w-with me?!” The question was almost a shout, raw and frustrated. The temperature in the room dropped several more degrees. A fine, delicate frost began to spiderweb across the surface of the coffee table. Shouto’s breath came in visible puffs. “You te-ell me… to sh-share my f-f-feelings with you. Bu-ut you… you… lie!”

Touya’s anger evaporated, replaced by a cold spike of alarm. Shouto’s quirk was reacting to his distress. Ice crystals were spiraling up one forearm, steam rising from the other, and his eyes were wide.

“Shouto,” Touya said, his voice dropping, becoming calm and firm… the big brother voice. “Hey. Look at me.”

Shouto’s chest was heaving. The frost on his arm was thickening.

“Sho, listen to me. I need you to take a deep breath. Right now. With me.” Touya took an exaggerated, slow breath in, holding it for a count of four, then let it out just as slowly. “Come on. Do it.”

For a terrifying second, he thought Shouto wouldn’t comply. That the frustration would tip over into a full meltdown and Keigo would come home to a winter wonderland. But then, with a visible shudder, Shouto mimicked the breath. His inhale was ragged, but his exhale was longer, more controlled.

“Again,” Touya instructed softly. “Good. That’s good. Just breathe. Let’s get the ice to simmer down, okay? It’s okay. You’re okay.”

He kept talking in that low, steady rhythm, guiding Shouto through the breaths. Slowly, the ice on Shouto’s arm began to recede, melting away into nothing, and the heat on his other arm seemed to even out. The frost on the table stopped spreading. The fierce, frustrated tension drained from Shouto’s shoulders, leaving him looking small and exhausted.

The silence that followed was heavy, but different. The anger was gone, replaced by a shared, raw vulnerability.

Touya sighed, the fight going out of him. He sagged back against the couch cushions. “I’m sorry, Sho.”

Shouto didn’t say anything. He just stood there, looking at the floor.

“You’re right,” Touya continued, his voice quiet. “I was lying. I wasn’t fine.” He gestured vaguely at his own body. “I’m… really frustrated. It doesn’t… work right. It hurts. And it’s… embarrassing. And sometimes it just… gets to be too much.” He looked at his brother. “I wasn’t trying to treat you like you’re dumb. I was… I was trying to hide because I feel weak. It’s stupid.”

Shouto was silent for a long moment, processing. He finally looked up. “Not… we-eak.”

Touya let out a wet, shaky laugh. “Feels like it sometimes, kid.”

“W-why h-h-hide from m-me?” Shouto asked, the frustration returning, but softer now.

“I don’t know,” Touya admitted, running a hand through his hair. “I guess… I’m the big brother. I’m supposed to be the strong one. I’m supposed to take care of you, not the other way around.”

Shouto considered this. He took a final, shuffling step forward and sat down on the couch next to Touya, leaving a careful inch of space between them.

“You d-do,” he said quietly.

“I try.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes.

“Hu-urts right n-now?” Shouto asked, his voice tentative.

“Yeah,” Touya said, the honesty feeling like a weight being lifted off his chest. “My legs feel like… lots of little stabs. And my back is really tight, and it sort of hurts to breathe or sit or stand or lay down.”

Shouto nodded slowly. Then, he shifted closer, leaned over, and laid his head gentlyon Touya’s shoulder. Touya slowly brought his arm up and wrapped it around his little brother’s shoulders, pulling him in. Shouto's left side was solid and warm against him.

“I’ve missed my human blanket,” Touya murmured, his voice full of an emotion he couldn’t begin to hide.

Shouto hummed, a low, contented sound, and settled his weight more firmly against him. The last of the tension bled out of Touya’s body, and they stayed there for a long time.

---

The Midoriya apartment was warm and filled with the comfortable, overlapping sounds of a party. The smell of katsudon, Izuku’s predictable birthday request, lingered deliciously alongside the sweeter scent of the birthday cake Inko had spent all morning decorating. Balloons were tied to chairs, and wrapping paper was strewn across the floor in happy disarray.

Touya was holding court on the couch, legs stretched out on the ottoman, Keigo tucked against his side, a solid, warm presence, idly playing with a loose primary feather between his fingers. Across from them, Haruki was laughing at something Natsuo had said. Natsuo himself was half-in, half-out of the conversation, his phone buzzing incessantly on his knee. He’d glance at it, a small, secretive smile touching his lips, type a quick reply, and then rejoin the conversation.

“Who’s got you on a string, little brother?” Touya asked, nudging Natsuo’s foot with his own. “Your study buddy? What was her name… Yuki?”

Natsuo’s ears turned pink. “Shut up. It’s just… a group chat. About summer classes.” 

Keigo grinned. “A group chat that makes you smile like that? Must be some fascinating chemistry class.”

“I will stab you with a fork,” Natsuo muttered, but he was still smiling.

In the center of the room, Izuku and Shouto were locked in a tense, silent battle over a board game. It was a complex-looking strategy game Izuku loved and Shouto, to everyone’s surprise, had a terrifying knack for.

“You,” Shouto said, his voice a low, focused monotone. He had already systematically dismantled Izuku’s northern flank.

Izuku was chewing on his thumb, muttering under his breath. “Okay, okay, if I move my cavalry here, but then he’ll just counter with the archers, unless… unless I sacrifice the trade route to lure him in…”

From the kitchen, the gentle murmur of Inko and Fuyumi’s conversation provided a soft backdrop. The scene was a picture of hard-won, peaceful normalcy.

It was shattered by a sound so sharp and out of place it made everyone jump: the piercing ringtone of Keigo’s hero phone.

All conversation stopped. The sound was a bucket of ice water. Keigo was on his feet in an instant, the relaxed man of a second ago gone, replaced by the Wing Hero: Hawks. His posture was ramrod straight, his eyes sharp and focused as he pulled the phone from his pocket.

“Hawks,” he answered, his voice clipped and professional. He listened for a moment, his golden eyes scanning the room without really seeing it. His expression gave nothing away. No fear, no surprise, no urgency. It was a perfect, neutral mask. “Understood. En route.”

He ended the call and slipped the phone back into his pocket. The mask dropped, replaced by a look of apologetic regret as he turned to the room.

“I am so sorry,” he said, his voice shifting back into its familiar, warmer register, though it was now edged with purpose. “I have to go.”

“Oh! Of course, Keigo-kun, don’t worry!” Inko said immediately, fluttering her hands. “Hero business comes first! We understand!”

“Yeah, no problem!” Izuku said, his hero-worshipping brain already spinning with possibilities. “Is it… is it something big?”

“Probably not,” Keigo said smoothly, already grabbing his jacket from the back of a chair. He leaned down, gave Touya a quick, hard kiss on the forehead, and whispered, “Don’t wait up. Love you.” Then, louder to the room: “Happy Birthday, Izuku! Save me some cake!”

And then he was gone, the apartment door clicking shut behind him. The joyful energy of the party noticeably dimmed.

Izuku was still staring at the door, his brow furrowed. “You guys… you don’t think it’s something bad, do you?”

“Nah,” Touya said, his voice deliberately casual. He shifted, hiding a wince as he adjusted his leg. “Happens all the time. Remember that thing last month with the highway overpass? He was gone for twelve hours just to help with traffic control. It’s probably something boring like that.”

“Right,” Natsuo chimed in. “He’ll have probably already handled it by now and just be stuck doing paperwork.”

They were good lies. 

The party slowly stuttered back to life. The board game finished (Shouto won), and cake was served, but a faint undercurrent of anxiety remained. 

---

Hours passed, and nothing. The three brothers went home.

The sun set, no word. 

“I’m hitting the shower,” Natsuo announced, heading down the hall. “Tell Birdbrain not to wake me up when he gets in.”

Shouto gave a quiet nod and disappeared into his room.

Touya settled on the couch with a book, his cane leaning against the armrest. He expected to hear the familiar sound of a key in the lock any minute. Keigo hated being out late on these calls. He’d usually text an ETA.

An hour passed. Then two. The apartment was silent except for the hum of the refrigerator. Touya’s book lay unread on his chest. He checked his phone. No messages. He sent a quick text.

TOUYA: Hey. All good?

No response. The read receipt didn’t even appear.

A cold, familiar knot began to form in his stomach. This… this was an old feeling. A feeling from years ago, when Keigo was still owned by the Hero Public Safety Commission. When he’d vanish for days on end with no warning and return silent, hollowed-out, and covered in bruises he couldn’t explain. It hadn’t been like that since he’d started his own agency. Keigo was meticulous about communication now. It was a rule between them, a way to keep the ghosts of his past at bay.

He’s probably just in a dead zone. Or his phone died. He’s fine.

---

Touya had spent the night trapped in a cycle of fitful, anxious half-sleep on the couch, jerking awake at every creak of the building, every distant siren, his hand shooting out to grab his silent, dark phone. Each time, the screen remained blank. No messages. No missed calls. By 5 AM, he’d given up on sleep entirely. He just sat in the pre-dawn gloom, watching the sky lighten from black to grey to a sickly orange, the knot in his stomach tightening with every passing minute.

He moved through the morning routine like a ghost. He made breakfast for Shouto, his own stomach churning too much to eat. The silence of the apartment was oppressive, screaming with Keigo’s absence.

Then, at 8:50 AM, his phone finally rang. The caller ID made his heart slam against his ribs: KEIGO.

He answered it so fast he fumbled the phone, his hands trembling. “Keigo? Are you okay? What the hell- where are you?” 

“Hey, babe.” Keigo’s voice was there, thank god, but it was all wrong. There was a faint, metallic echo behind him, the sound of a large, hollow space.

“Don’t ‘hey babe’ me,” Touya snapped, the relief making him vicious. “You didn’t come home. Your phone was off for twelve hours. What is going on?”

“I’m okay. I’m… in one piece,” Keigo said, which was a hero’s answer, not a boyfriend’s. It was a dodge. “Look, I can’t explain right now. It’s… it’s a whole thing. But I need you.”

The sheer need in his voice cut through Touya’s anger. “Anything. What do you need?”

“I need you to come to Osaka.”

Touya blinked, the surrealness of the request cutting through his panic. “Osaka? Why? Keigo, what is happening?”

“There’s… a situation. We need a good quirk counselor. A really good one. Aizawa requested you specifically.”

Aizawa. Shouta Aizawa. Eraserhead, Their friend.

“Aizawa’s there? With you?” Touya’s mind was reeling, trying to connect the dots. An emergency big enough to pull in Hawks and Eraserhead, and now a children’s quirk counselor?

“Yeah, he’s here. There’s a train from Tokyo Station at 9:30. Can you make it? I’ll text you the address here.”

Touya’s eyes flickered to his cane, leaning against the couch. The thought of navigating the morning rush hour crowds, the stairs of the station, the long train ride with his leg screaming in protest… it was daunting. But it was Keigo. 

“Yeah,” he said, his voice firming with resolve. “Yeah, I can try. I’ll… I’ll figure it out. I’ll get there.”

“Okay, good, that’s-” Keigo’s voice cut off. Touya could hear muffled voices in the background, a rapid, tense exchange he couldn’t make out. Then Keigo came back on, his voice slightly breathless. “Wait. Hold on. Change of plans.”

“What?”

“Yamada, he’s coming down too. He’s already on the road. He can pick you up. It’ll be faster. Can you be ready in… twenty minutes?”

Yamada. Coming to pick me up in twenty minutes. To drive to Osaka. 

The situation was escalating from concerning to utterly surreal. 

“Babe,” Touya said, his voice dropping to a whisper. “You have to give me something more. What kind of situation?”

He heard Keigo take a shaky breath, the sound raspy over the line. “There’s a kid, Touya. It’s… it’s really bad. Her quirk… it’s terrifying and she has no control. It’s… it reminds me of Hitoshi’s situation, but worse. Please, just come.”

How could it be worse than killing your parents’ killer with your own quirk? 

The professional part of Touya’s brain clicked into gear.

“Okay,” he said, his voice now calm, steady. The counselor’s voice. “Okay. I’ll be ready. Tell Yamada to text me when he’s close.”

“Thank you,” Keigo breathed, the relief palpable. “I love you.”

“Love you too. See you soon.”

He ended the call. The early morning sun streamed through the living room windows, illuminating dust motes in the air. Everything seemed normal, and yet, there were scary things happening, and they needed him.

He looked down at his cane. He wasn’t a field agent, or a social worker, or a hero… he was a guy who knew a lot about quirks and helped kids use them.

And yet they were asking for him. 

Taking a deep, steadying breath, Touya turned and began to move. The limp felt more pronounced this morning, but he pushed it aside as best he could. He had twenty minutes to pack a bag: clothes, his medication, his tablet. He had to call his office and cancel his appointments, and leave a note for Natsuo and Shouto.

They were waiting for him in Osaka.

Chapter 60: Osaka

Notes:

thanks so much for reading, commenting, kudos-ing, etc. i am so grateful for your thoughts and to share the story with you all :)

The car ride to Osaka was a blur of tense silence and speeding landscapes. Hizashi Yamada, usually a torrent of energetic chatter, was unnervingly quiet, his knuckles white on the steering wheel, his focus absolute. The radio was off. The only sounds were the hum of the engine and the occasional, too-casual update Hizashi would give to Shouta.

“Yeah, we’re making good time… Yeah, I’ve… Okay. Okay.” A pause. “I know. I know. We’re almost there.”

Touya sat in the passenger seat, his cane propped between his knees, watching the world whip by. He didn’t ask questions, more focused on not letting his motion sickness get the better of him. The tight set of Hizashi’s jaw, the way he gripped the wheel… Touya had never seen him like this. The man was a live wire of contained anxiety. It told Touya everything he needed to know about the gravity of the situation and nothing at all.

They pulled up not to a hero agency or a police station, but to the emergency entrance of a large, austere hospital in Osaka. The air here felt different, charged with a professional, grim efficiency.

Hizashi flashed a badge at a security checkpoint, and they were waved through to a private parking area.

“This way,” Hizashi said, his voice hoarse, as if he’d been shouting for hours. He led Touya through a maze of sterile, quiet hallways to a secured wing. The air here was different: charged, hushed, with the underlying tension of a contained crisis.

 A pro hero Touya didn’t recognize stood guard at a nursing station, giving Hizashi a curt nod.

And then, down the hall, leaning against a wall, was Keigo.

Touya’s breath caught. Keigo was wearing a standard-issue grey sweatsuit, too big for him, with slits cut into the back.  One of his wings was… sparse. Whole sections of primary and secondary feathers were missing, making the crimson limb look patchy, molting. A butterfly bandage was stuck above his eyebrow, and he held himself with a slight stiffness that spoke of deep bruising.

But he was upright. He was breathing. He was here.

Keigo’s eyes found Touya’s, and the professional mask of the Wing Hero dissolved into one of sheer, unvarnished relief. He pushed off the wall, wincing slightly as he moved.

“Touya,” he said, his voice rough.

Touya closed the distance between them, his cane tapping a hurried rhythm on the linoleum. He didn’t care about the guards, about Hizashi, about anything. He reached out, his hand hovering for a second before cupping the side of Keigo’s face, his thumb gently brushing the edge of the bandage. “You idiot,” he whispered, his voice thick. “You look like shit.”

Keigo leaned into the touch, his eyes fluttering closed for a second. “You should see the other guy,” he quipped weakly, but there was no humor in it. He opened his eyes and looked at Touya’s cane, then back at his face. “I’m sorry. I know this is a lot. The travel… are you feeling-”

“Shut up about me,” Touya said, his tone leaving no room for argument. He let his hand drop, his gaze sweeping over the damaged wing. “Are you… will they…?”

“They’ll grow back,” Keigo assured him quickly, following his gaze. “Just gotta give it time. A little preening, some high-protein meals, good as new. Docs already cleaned me up. It looks worse than it is.” They both knew he was lying, but Touya let it slide. 

Before Touya could reply, a door down the hall opened and Aizawa stepped out.

He was still in his full hero costume. The black fabric was dusty, streaked with unknown grime, and smelled faintly of concrete dust and sweat. His capture weapon was loosely draped around his neck. He looked like he’d been through a war and then decided to stay on the battlefield. His eyes were the real story: bloodshot, the skin around them irritated and raw, as if he’d been rubbing them constantly.

"Hizashi," he said, his voice a dry croak, before clearing his throat and addressing Touya more professionally. “Himura, you made it; thanks for coming on such short notice.”

Hizashi was on him in an instant, his energy an intense, anxious thrum. "Sho, babe," He gestured to the dirty costume, his voice hushed but strained. "You need to change. You need to shower. I brought your things from home. Your eyedrops, and the black sweatpants and-"

"Later, ‘zashi." Aizawa’s voice was flat, exhausted. He didn’t even look at him, his attention on Touya.

"It can't be later. You've been in that for over twenty-four hours. You know you-” 

"Not now." The two words were a door slamming shut. Hizashi rolled his eyes and put the duffel bag on a chair. Aizawa turned his full attention to Touya, effectively ending the discussion.

“Shouta,” Touya nodded. “What’s going on? Keigo said it’s a kid.”

Aizawa’s exhausted eyes flickered toward a reinforced door at the end of the hall. “Her name is Eri. She’s five, we think.” He said the age like it pained him. “Her quirk… it’s registered as Rewind. It’s… disruptive.”

The understatement was so vast it was almost funny.

“Disruptive how?” Touya asked, his counselor’s brain engaging, pushing his personal worry aside.

“It reverts living matter to a previous state,” Aizawa said flatly. “Uncontrollably. It’s… painful. And dangerous. To herself and everyone around her.”

Touya’s blood ran cold. 

“She was… kept in a bad situation,” Keigo added quietly. “A yakuza group was using her blood to create a new drug. We got her out, but she’s… she’s terrified. Of everything… especially herself.”

Aizawa went on. “The Commission sent their top analysts and doctors, but she won’t talk to them or even look at them. She just… cries, or panics, and when she panics…” he rubbed his eyes, “don’t even ask. She hasn’t eaten, she won’t accept anything from anyone. The doctors are talking about an IV, but they’re afraid if they touch her, even with gloves, she’ll rewind them. This is just… it’s not sustainable.” He looked at Touya, and sighed. "Get her to eat something, please, and see if she'll talk… about anything, really. Just… see if you can get her to feel safe enough that I don't have to have my quirk activated and ready to go every second." He rubbed his temples. “I’ll be watching from the one-way glass out here, just in case I need to erase her quirk, but please…” 

"I'll try."

Touya looked at Keigo, who gave him a small, encouraging nod. Then he remembered the plastic container in his bag. He’d packed a change of clothes, his meds, his tablet… and, on a whim, the slice of Izuku’s birthday cake he’d wrapped up for Keigo. It was probably a smashed mess.

He unzipped his bag and pulled out the container. He opened it. The cake was indeed a little squashed, the frosting smeared. But it was still recognizably cake.

He looked at Aizawa. "I'm going to need a tray. With some real food.”

---

Fifteen minutes later, Touya was pushing a small wheeled tray into the hospital room. The room was softly lit, but felt sterile and cold. In the center of the large bed, was a small figure.

Eri was tiny, pale, and impossibly frail. Her white hair was messy, and she was clutching a standard-issue hospital blanket like a lifeline. Her red eyes, wide with a bottomless fear, were fixed on him the second he entered.

Touya stopped just inside the door, not approaching further. He kept his movements slow, predictable.

"Hey there," he said, his voice soft. "My name is Touya. I help kids who have really strong, sometimes scary feelings. And really strong, sometimes scary quirks."

Her grip on the blanket tightened. She didn't speak.

"I brought you some food." He gestured to the tray. There was a small sandwich, some apple slices, and the slightly smushed piece of birthday cake on its own plate. "I also brought this.” 

Her eyes flickered to the tray, then back to his face. The cake seemed to confuse her more than entice her. She looked suspicious, as if it were a trick.

“It's cake. It's from a birthday party. It's sweet."

He pulled up a chair with a soft scrape and sat down with a quiet groan.

"It's okay if you're not hungry," he continued. "You can just look at it. It's got sprinkles. I like the blue ones best."

They sat in silence. Touya didn't try to fill it.

After a long time, her small, whispery voice filled the space. "…Sweet?"

"Yeah. It's made with sugar. It tastes good."

She was silent again, processing. The concept seemed foreign, and therefore, suspect.

"Are you… afraid of trying it?" he asked gently.

A tiny, almost imperceptible nod.

"That's okay. New things can be scary." He looked at the tray, then back at her. "What if I try a little bit first? Would that be okay?"

Her eyes widened slightly. 

Slowly, Touya broke off a tiny corner of the cake. He made a show of eating it. "Mmm. See? It's good. It won’t hurt you."

He pushed the tray a little closer. The decision was hers.

Hesitantly, her small hand emerged from the blanket. She pointed not at the cake, but at the apple slice.

"Apple first?" he guessed.

A tiny nod.

"Good choice."

He didn't hand it to her. She had to take it. Slowly, she reached out and took a single apple slice. She nibbled on it, her eyes never leaving him. It was a monumental effort. The simple act of eating, of being perceived, was draining.

When she’d finished the slice, she looked at the cake. She didn't take it. She just looked, her eyelids drooping.

"You tired?"

A slow blink. A nod.

"Okay. You can rest. I'm gonna go now. But I'll be right outside. The cake will be here for when you wake up."

Her eyes closed. The terrified tension in her small body eased a fraction. She was asleep in seconds.

Touya sat for another minute, watching her sleep. Then, as quietly as he could, he stood, retrieved his cane, and slipped out.

The moment the door clicked shut, he was surrounded. Aizawa, Hizashi, Keigo, and a man in a white coat.

"Well?" the doctor asked impatiently. "Any progress? Did she speak?"

Touya looked at them, then back at the closed door.

"She ate half an apple slice," he said, his voice flat with exhaustion. "And she told me she was scared."

The doctor looked unimpressed. "That's it? After all this-"

"And then she fell asleep," Touya continued, cutting him off. He met Aizawa’s tired eyes. “She felt safe enough to sleep while I was in there with her. That’s good."

The relief softened the crease between Aizawa’s eyebrows. 

The doctor blinked. "What did you do?"

Touya shrugged. "What can I say? Kids love sweets."

---

The next few days in Osaka settled into a strange rhythm. The hospital became Touya’s entire world, its wide corridors and antiseptic smell a backdrop to the painstaking work of building trust with a traumatized child.

His sessions with Eri were less about talking and more about quiet coexistence. He’d sit in the chair by her bed, sometimes reading aloud from one of the children’s books Hizashi had bought at the local thrift shop, or sitting together in silence, him working on case notes on his tablet, subtly watching as Eri drew pictures about what had happened to her. There was always food available to her, no matter when.

“Mr. Touya? The blanket is… blue, right?” she asked one afternoon, her voice barely audible.

Touya looked up from his tablet. “Yeah, it is. It’s a nice dark blue. Like the sky before it gets dark.”

A pause. “I like… this blue.”

“Me too.”

The quirk counseling was even more subtle. He called her power her “rewind.” He spoke about it as a part of her, like her hair or her eyes, neither good nor bad. The goal was for her to stop seeing it as a monster that lived inside her, so that she could learn to work with it.

“Your rewind is very strong,” he said once, as she nibbled on a piece of melon. “It’s like… having really, really strong muscles. If you don’t know how to use them, you might accidentally break something you didn’t mean to. But that doesn’t mean the muscles are bad. It just means we have to learn how to use them carefully.”

Keigo stayed for three days, a restless, grounded bird in his hospital sweats. His feathers were already showing signs of regrowth, a faint, reddish fuzz covering the bare patches.

On the second night, Touya found him on the roof of the hospital, staring out at the Osaka skyline, his good wing fluttering with restless energy.

“You should go home,” Touya said, leaning against the railing next to him.

“I’m not leaving you here.”

“I’m fine. I’ve got this. It’s… it’s what I do.” He nudged Keigo’s shoulder with his own. “But Shouto and Natsuo… they need someone home. I’ve talked to them every night, but it’s not… I don’t know. I think one of us should be home.”

Keigo was silent for a long moment. “You’ll call me? Every day?”

“Twice a day. I promise.”

Keigo looked at him, his eyes soft. “Okay. Okay, I’ll go.” He leaned in and kissed him, a slow, lingering promise. “Don’t be a hero.”

“Not a chance.”

---

With Keigo gone, the dynamic shifted. It was just Touya, Shouta, and Hizashi now. Whenever Touya wasn’t with Eri, Shouta was. After a day and a half, he’d finally allowed Hizashi to bully him into a shower and to change out of his uniform into the soft, familiar sweatpants and sweater from home. The exhaustion on his face, however, was permanent.

One night, after Eri was finally asleep, the three of them were in the small family lounge.

“What’s the plan?” Touya asked quietly, cradling his own cup of tea. “For when she’s discharged? She’s almost cleared to go home, right?”

“At the end of the week.” Shouta didn’t open his eyes. “She’ll come home with us. It’s the only logical place.”

Hizashi nodded, stirring honey into his tea. “If there’s an incident… Shouta can handle it. No one else can.”

Touya considered this. It made sense. It was also a monumental life change. “How’s Hitoshi been, with you both here?” he asked carefully.

This time, Shouta’s eyes opened. “He says he’s fine.”

Hizashi let out a short, tense breath. “He hasn’t been by himself this whole time; after the first day, Mitsuki picked him up. He’s staying with the Bakugos.”

Touya’s eyebrows shot up. “The Bakugos? After he and Katsuki…”

“Don’t,” Hizashi cut him off, holding up a hand. “Don’t ask. I don’t even want to think about how that’s going. By the time we get back to Tokyo, they could both be missing teeth.”

A surprised laugh escaped Touya. “What does he say about Eri coming to stay?”

Hizashi’s expression was unreadable. “He says he’s fine with it, but-”

“-he’s a teenager,” Aizawa continued. “He might be internalizing his resentment. We could come home to a delinquent.”

Touya laughed again. “A delinquent?”

Shouta looked at him, utterly serious. “It was an observation. Not a joke.”

Hizashi sighed, a fond, exasperated sound. “Babe, it was very funny.”

“I fail to see the humor in Hitoshi becoming a juvenile delinquent, especially after he’s already started fighting at school...”

As they bickered softly, Touya watched Aizawa carefully. The absolute, unshakeable dedication. The hyper-logical, almost socially oblivious way he viewed the world and the people in it. The blunt, literal honesty that bordered on tactlessness but was never meant unkindly. It was a way of moving through the world that was so familiar it was like a punch to the gut.

He saw Shouto. He saw the same directness, the same disregard with the unspoken rules of social engagement, the same intense, single-minded focus. But in Aizawa, these traits were honed. They were the foundation of his strength as a hero and a teacher. His logical, binary thinking cut through chaos, his social obliviousness made him immune to manipulation, and his intense focus allowed him to endure hardship.

In Shouto, those same innate traits had been shattered, over and over. The TBI from their father’s abuse had scrambled the pathways that might have allowed him to organize his thoughts with that same razor clarity, the repeated trauma had turned his social confusion into a deep-seated anxiety, and his focus was often hijacked by the task of processing the world.

Unintentionally, the question rose: Would Shouto have been this sharp? Would he have been this resilient? If his brain hadn’t been injured, over and over, could he have learned to work with his differences, instead of being constantly at war with them? Could he have been a hero, if he wanted to? 

Would he be…

He brushed the thought away as best he could. It was a worthless emotional road to go down. Shouto was who he was. The what-ifs were a form of torture he refused to indulge in. Aizawa was Aizawa, and Shouto was Shouto. 

Comparisons were a thief of peace.

---

After eight days, Eri was deemed stable enough to travel. The car ride back to Tokyo was a carefully orchestrated operation. Hizashi drove with a focused calm. Touya sat in the passenger seat, gripping the ‘oh shit’ handle and staring fixedly at the horizon, fighting down the nausea.

In the back, Aizawa and Eri were both asleep. Eri was curled on the seat, her head pillowed on a folded blanket. At some point, she had shifted in her sleep, her small hand coming to rest on Aizawa’s arm. He hadn’t stirred, but his hand was open, palm up, a silent, unconscious offering of safety.

Touya watched them in the rearview mirror. A special connection had already formed between them, and now, they were going home.

Chapter 61: Moving Forwards and Backwards

Notes:

xoxo! thank you for reading!

The key turned in the lock, signifying the end of a very long, draining journey. Touya shouldered the door open and stepped into the genkan, dropping his duffel bag with a thud that seemed to echo in the quiet apartment. He was beyond exhausted, a deep weariness that the five-hour car ride, spent fighting motion sickness and the low-grade anxiety of being responsible for a traumatized child, had only intensified.

The first thing that hit him was the smell of a familiar, comforting aroma of Keigo’s curry. He shuffled into the living room and stopped dead. The mural. It had… metastasized.

Before he’d left for Osaka, it had been contained to two walls: a chaotic, often depressing explosion of Shouto’s inner world that Touya had learned to mostly ignore. Now, it had consumed the entire room. Every available inch of wall space, from the ceiling to the baseboards, was covered in a dense, intricate tapestry of charcoal and ink. The overall palette had shifted from the bleak greys and angry reds of a few months ago to something more… intense. Vivid blues swirled into deep purples, fiery oranges bled into electric yellows. It wasn’t depressing, but it was… overwhelming.

“Yeah, I know,” a voice said from the kitchen doorway.

Keigo was leaning against the frame, holding a wooden spoon. He looked tired but clean, dressed in soft sweatpants and a t-shirt. His wing, while still patchy, looked fuller, the new feathers coming in as dark red pins. “He didn’t want to talk about it. Just… kept going. It was like a compulsion.” 

Touya just stared, his tired brain trying to process the sheer scale of it. “A week,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I was gone for one week.”

“Tell me about it,” Keigo said, pushing off the doorframe and coming over. He leaned his forehead against Touya’s. “Welcome home, baby. How was the drive?”

“Yamada drives like a maniac. I think I left my stomach somewhere near Nagoya.” He opened his eyes and looked at Keigo properly. “How are you? Really?”

“Bored. Itchy. The new feathers coming in are a nightmare.” He gestured with his chin toward the hallway. “Natsuo’s in his room video-chatting with what’s-her-name... Yuki. He’s been so cheerful… It’s unsettling. And Sho’s in his room working on… something. Not sure what. He’s been a little quiet since he finished the wall two days ago.”

Touya absorbed the domestic report. It was good to be home.

“Oh, speaking of Sho,” Keigo said, sitting up a bit and reaching for a manila folder on the coffee table. “I was trying to find his summer homework packet to see how behind he was- don’t ask, it’s a disaster- and I found this shoved in the bottom of his backpack. Along with a bento from the last day of school. It was… well, you’re lucky you didn’t have to smell it. I threw it out.”

He handed the folder to Touya. It was a little crumpled, with a faint, worrying stain in one corner. On the front, in elegant print, were the words: All-Japan High School Contemporary Art Prize.

Touya opened it. Inside were glossy brochures showcasing previous winners’ work, a list of rules and regulations, and an application form. The grand prize was a significant monetary award and a featured exhibition for the winning portfolio at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo.

“His art teacher must have given it to him,” Keigo said quietly. “He never said anything.”

Touya flipped through the pages. The competition was intense. It required a cohesive portfolio of multiple pieces, a written artist’s statement, and a rigorous selection process. This wasn’t like the middle school competition he’d placed in; this was the big leagues.

“He’d have to create an entire new body of work for this,” Touya murmured, his mind already clicking into problem-solving mode. “The hours… it would be so time-intensive.”

“I know,” Keigo said. “I’ve been watching him this week. When he’s in it, he’s in it. He forgets to eat. He doesn’t want to sleep. He’ll work for eight, nine hours straight if I don’t step in. It’s… not sustainable.”

Touya thought about their nightly routine. The two, sometimes three hours it took just to get through a few pages of reading and a handful of math problems. The frustration, the slow, painstaking process of helping Shouto untangle his thoughts and get them on paper. It was exhausting for both of them. The idea of adding the immense creative and logistical burden of this competition on top of that was daunting.

But…

He looked back at the mural. He thought of Shouto’s face when he was creating, the focused calm that settled over him. 

“He needs to do this,” Keigo said, his voice firm.

“I agree,” Touya agreed. “But his schoolwork… It’ll have to become a condition,” he continued, the idea forming as he spoke. “He can work on his portfolio. But he has to get his schoolwork done first. Every day. No avoiding it. No ‘losing’ his glasses. He puts in the focused time on his homework, and the reward is focused time on his art.”

Keigo frowned, looking skeptical. “Touya, the homework is focused time for him. It takes everything he has. To ask him to do more…”

“I know it’s hard,” Touya interrupted, his tone leaving no room for argument. “But this is a motivator. A real one. He needs to learn that the things you want require work, even the stuff that’s hard and sucks. Especially that stuff.” He ran a hand through his hair, thinking of how to make this work. “We’ll structure it. An hour of homework, a thirty-minute break, a real break, a walk, some food, then an hour of art. We’ll break the evenings into chunks he can handle. But he has to show up for the homework part. No negotiation.”

He looked at Keigo, his expression serious. “This isn’t me being a hardass. This is me believing he can do it.”

Keigo was silent for a moment, studying Touya’s face. He slowly nodded. “Okay. Okay, I’m in.”

“It’s the only way I see,” Touya said, his gaze drifting back to the mural. He saw the immense effort it represented, and saw the passion. Now, they just had to help him channel it. 

---

The final weeks of summer bled away in a haze of paint fumes, controlled flames, and the low, constant hum of energy that radiated from Shouto. The living room became a workshop. Canvases in various states of completion leaned against every available wall. Sketchbooks lay open on the floor, filled with frantic, intricate drawings that were blueprints for the larger pieces. There was scrap metal piling up in Shouto’s room, and wool and mesh pieces in a pile. 

The old rule was strict and non-negotiable: no welding in the apartment. Shouto’s quirk control was scarily precise; he could direct a needle-thin flame from his right index finger with the accuracy of a laser cutter, fusing scraps of metal into startling, delicate sculptures, cooling them instantly, but the risk of setting the entire building on fire was too great, especially with the size of pieces he was creating. 

So, the roof of the building became his forge. Under the watchful eye of Natsuo or Keigo, he’d work for hours, the sharp hiss-crackle of his quirk a familiar evening sound. Natsuo would sit out there with him, textbooks open on his lap, stealing glances between paragraphs on pathophysiology to make sure his little brother wasn’t about to accidentally sever a finger or ignite the railing.

“You know,” Natsuo said one evening, watching Shouto carefully bend a piece of copper tubing into a graceful arc with nothing but heat and his own two hands, “most people need tools for that.”

Shouto didn’t look up, his brow furrowed in concentration. “M-m-ight as we-ell… u-use my qu-qui-rk for someth-thi-ing.”

Natsuo had to laugh. The drive was incredible to witness. The deal with Touya: homework first, then art, was working, but it was a grueling pace. Shouto would spend the morning and early afternoon at the kotatsu, grinding through his summer homework assignments with a dogged determination Natsuo had never seen him apply to academics. The frustration was still there, the moments where he’d slam his pencil down or press the heels of his hands hard against his eyes, but he’d push through. The art was his lighthouse.

And then, the moment his work was done, he’d vanish into his room or onto the balcony, or the roof, consumed by the need to create. He was eating, sleeping, and breathing his portfolio.

Natsuo understood obsession. His own brain was a master of it. Lately, his obsession had a name: Yuki. Their texts had evolved from study group logistics to all-day conversations. She was sharp, funny, and didn’t seem to mind his occasionally gruff exterior. He found himself thinking about her constantly, a buzzing, excited energy under his skin that made even the most tedious organic chemistry problem feel a little brighter.

But for Natsuo, excitement was a double-edged sword. He’d lie in bed at night, phone held to his chest after a goodnight text from her, and a familiar, cold anxiety would creep in. Is this normal? Is this just what liking someone feels like? Or is this the start of a climb? Mania, for him, didn’t always look like euphoric delusion; sometimes it looked like hyper-focus, like boundless energy. It felt good, which was the most dangerous part. It felt so much better than the gray, leaden weight of depression that was its inevitable counterpart.

The question hung over him, a shadow in the midst of the sunlight Yuki brought: When do I tell her? The diagnosis was a part of him, as fundamental as his hair or his size. It dictated his diet, his sleep schedule, his medications. To not tell her felt like a lie, but telling her was just as high of a risk.

He hadn’t decided yet. So he just kept texting, and kept worrying, the two feelings intertwined. 

---

Across the city, Touya was running a marathon his doctors would be really unhappy with. His life was a precarious juggling act.

He spent four days a week at the clinic, a relentless parade of small anxieties and big fears. He’d spend an hour coaxing a terrified eight-year-old to understand that the scales growing on her arms weren’t a disease, followed by an hour guiding a teenager through breathing exercises to keep his sonic scream from shattering windows. It was rewarding, draining work.

Then, two evenings a week, he took the train across town to the Aizawa-Yamada household. The sessions with Eri were a different kind of exhaustion altogether. It wasn't just counseling; it was a form of delicate, quirk-specific physical therapy for a power that was pure trauma given form. They didn’t try to use her rewind. The goal was far more basic: to get her to stop fearing its accidental activation. They’d sit on the floor of the living room, and Touya would have her hold a small, potted plant.

“It’s okay,” he’d say, his voice a low, steady monotone. “It’s just a plant. If your rewind touches it, it might get a little smaller. It’s just a plant. It’s okay.”

She’d hold the pot with trembling hands, her entire body rigid with terror, her red eyes wide and fixed on the leaves. It was microscopic, painstaking work, and he really worked for every dollar UA was paying him to do this. 

The wheeze in his chest had become a constant companion, a tight, whistling reminder of his limits. His legs, plagued by the static-numbness of neuropathy, would sometimes simply give out after a long day.

He was in the kitchen one evening, leaning heavily against the counter. Every movement felt like wading through syrup, and the act of deciding what to have for dinner felt like an insurmountable task. Keigo was watching him from the doorway, his newly-regrown primary feathers rustling with a soft, anxious sound.

“You’re doing too much,” Keigo said. His voice wasn’t accusatory. Touya’s shoulders tightened instinctively, and a sharp retort rose in his throat, but died before it reached his lips. The energy for an argument simply wasn’t there. 

He let out a long, slow breath that hitched into a faint wheeze at the end. “I know,” he murmured, the words a quiet surrender. He didn’t look at Keigo, instead focusing on a crack in the tile grout. “I know I am.”

Keigo moved into the kitchen, his steps quiet. He didn’t try to touch Touya, just leaned against the opposite counter, giving him space. “The Eri case… it’s a lot. It’s okay to admit that.”

“I couldn’t say no to her,” Touya said, the protest weak, meant for himself more than for Keigo. “I couldn’t leave her to some Commission assholes. That’s no better than the fucking yakuza.” 

“I know you couldn’t,” Keigo replied, his voice gentle. “And she’s lucky to have you. But your job is to help people, not break yourself for them. You’re no good to her, or to any of your patients, if you’re running on empty.”

The truth of it settled over Touya, heavy and undeniable. He’d cut his clinic hours for a reason. This was the same reason. He’d just been too stubborn, too proud, to see it. The UA paycheck had felt like a justification, but it was starting to not be worth it.

“I just…” Touya started, then stopped, shaking his head. He wanted to articulate the fear: the terror of being seen as useless, of his body’s betrayal defining his entire life… but the words wouldn’t come. 

“You just want to be the guy who can do it all,” Keigo finished for him, his understanding a soft landing place. “I know. But you’re not that guy. And that’s okay.”

Touya finally looked up, meeting Keigo’s gaze.

“I need to knock back to three days at the clinic,” Touya stated, the decision finally solidifying. It didn’t feel as bad as he thought it would to say it out loud. 

Keigo nodded, a look of profound relief washing over his features. “That sounds like a good plan. A smart plan.”

He pushed off the counter and closed the distance between them, finally wrapping his arms around Touya in a careful, solid hug. Touya leaned into the embrace, his head dropping onto Keigo’s shoulder, his body going slack with a relief that was entirely emotional.

“I’m sorry,” Touya mumbled into Keigo’s warm skin.

“Nothing to be sorry for,” Keigo said, his hand rubbing slow circles on Touya’s back. “I just want you to be okay.” 

---

The Aizawa-Yamada household had always operated on a specific, understood frequency. The low, constant hum of Hizashi’s records spinning: classic rock, punk, anything with a driving bassline he could feel through the floorboards, the thump of a cat launching itself off a bookshelf, and the silent, brooding presence of Shouta in his sleeping bag that was, paradoxically, a loud statement in itself. It was a house of men, of deep voices and comfortable non-silences. 

Then, Eri arrived.

The change wasn't dramatic. It was sneaky, the way the volume on the record player was now kept at a respectful 3/10, and the way they all moved through the halls with a conscious lightness, and in the new, pastel-colored blankets draped over the couch, the small pair of slippers by the door, and the faint, sweet smell of child-friendly shampoo in the shower. 

It was especially in the crying.

Eri cried a lot. Not tantrum crying, but weeping that usually came in the dead of night. Hitoshi, a lifelong insomniac, would lie in bed, staring at his ceiling, and listen to the sounds from down the hall: the murmur of one of his dad’s voices, the soft creak of the floor as they paced with her, the endless, heartbroken sniffles. The nightmares were a near-nightly occurrence.

Hitoshi didn’t mind Eri. How could he? His dad’s quirk was the only thing that could truly make her feel safe, and Hitoshi understood that kind of bond. She was sweet, and quiet, and she liked Hitoshi… a lot. When she was calm, she would sometimes sit next to him while he did his homework, watching him with a solemn curiosity. He felt a protective urge toward her, and a fulfilling sense of responsibility. 

But.

Things had changed.

Hitoshi knew he wasn’t being ignored; Hhs fathers were meticulous about it, and he felt secure in it.

But some days, he’d feel something else, a tightness in his throat that made it hard to swallow. He’d be at the dinner table, and Eri would be pushing her food around her plate, her lower lip trembling. Shouta would be watching her, his entire focus a laser beam of quiet concern. Hizashi would be telling a story about his radio show, but his eyes would be flicking to Eri every few seconds, his voice kept deliberately soft.

And Hitoshi would want to say something. Something funny about his own day, a question about a hero news story, a complaint about a teacher. The words would be there, lined up in his mind. Then the tightness would come. His heart would give a sudden, frantic pound against his rib, and the words would wither. He’d look at the ecosystem of anxiety at the table and decide to just stay quiet. It was a feeling he knew. It was the old feeling, from when signing was safer. He hated it. 

He thought he’d outgrown this.

He tried not to dwell. He was doing well in school, and his dads were constantly, effusively grateful for how patient he was with Eri, for how understanding he was being. 

You’re such a good kid, Hitoshi. We don’t know what we’d do without you. 

The praise cemented him into the role he’d been trying to earn back since his fight at school with Katsuki: The Good Kid. The One Who Doesn’t Make Trouble.

Surely, he thought, shoving the tightness down, this was just an adjustment period. Things would settle. 

One Tuesday evening, it came to a head. Hizashi was attempting to cook dinner, and Eri was sitting at the kitchen table, coloring. Or, she was supposed to be coloring. Instead, she was staring into the middle distance, her crayon frozen in her hand, her eyes welling with tears. A waking dream, probably. They came on at random times.

Shouta was kneeling beside her chair, his voice a low, steady murmur. “You’re here. You’re safe. It’s just a memory. It can’t hurt you now.”

Hitoshi was supposed to be setting the table. He was holding a stack of plates, watching the scene. The tightness was in his throat, a hard, anxious knot. The kitchen, usually Hizashi’s loud, chaotic domain, was silent except for the sizzle of food in a pan and Shouta’s soft words.

Hizashi waved his hand, catching Hitoshi’s attention, and signed, [Ask her if she wants to stir the sauce.]

It was a common tactic: distraction, in the form of a small task, to ground her.

Hitoshi saw the request. The words formed in his head. Eri, do you want to help? 

He opened his mouth but nothing came out. The tightness seized his vocal cords. His heart hammered. Don’t. Don’t interrupt. Don’t be loud. You’ll scare her. You’ll mess it up.

He stood there, paralyzed, the plates heavy in his hands.

Hizashi, hearing no response, glanced over his shoulder. He saw Hitoshi standing frozen, his face pale. He turned down the heat on the stove and walked over. He put a gentle hand on Hitoshi’s arm, his expression concerned. [You okay?] 

A hot wave of shame washed over Hitoshi. He couldn’t even do this one simple thing. He jerked his arm away, the movement too sharp, and the plates in his hands clattered together with a loud, jarring sound.

In the sudden noise, Eri flinched violently, a small gasp escaping her. She dropped her crayon and shrank back against Shouta.

The look on Shouta’s face wasn’t anger. It was just… weary. He pulled Eri a little closer, his focus immediately returning to her.

Hitoshi saw it. He was the problem.

The tightness in his throat exploded into a suffocating panic. He couldn’t breathe. Without a word, he shoved the stack of plates into Hizashi’s hands, turned on his heel, and fled the kitchen. He didn’t stop until he was in his room, the door slammed shut behind him, his back pressed against it as he slid to the floor, gasping for air.

He sat there in the dark, his knees pulled to his chest, the old, familiar silence closing in around him. The house was quiet again downstairs. All he’d wanted to do was ask a simple question. 

The shame was a slow burn across his skin. 

He was supposed to be the easy one, the one who didn’t add to the stress.

A soft knock sounded on the door behind his back. It wasn’t Shouta’s firm, single rap. It was Hizashi’s, a gentle, almost hesitant tap-tap-tap.

“Hitoshi?” His voice was muffled by the wood, carefully modulated to be soft. Everything was soft now. “You okay in there?”

Hitoshi squeezed his eyes shut. He didn’t want to talk. He wanted to disappear, but ignoring him would only make it worse. He took a deep, shaky breath and pushed himself up, unlocking and opening the door just a crack.

Hizashi was standing there. He’d taken off his apron. He didn’t try to push the door open, just waited.

“Yeah,” Hitoshi said. His voice came out rough, scratchy. He cleared his throat. “Yeah, I’m… I’m okay. Sorry. I don’t know what… spooked me.” The lie felt flimsy. 

Spooked me. As if he were a nervous animal.

Hizashi was quiet for a beat. Hitoshi could feel him thinking. “Okay,” he said, his voice still low. “It happens.” He was trying to make it light, to give Hitoshi an out.

“Is she okay?” Hitoshi asked quietly.

“She’s fine… A little startled, maybe, but Shouta’s got her helping with the sauce now. She’s concentrating very hard on not splashing it.” Hizashi bumped his shoulder gently against Hitoshi’s. “You’re okay too?”

The pressure was there, the expectation to be fine, to be the easy one. Hitoshi took another breath, the tightness easing just a fraction. “Yeah,” he said, his voice firmer this time. “I’m fine.”

He could feel Hizashi studying his profile in the dim light. He knew his dad wasn’t entirely convinced. 

“Alright,” Hizashi said after a moment, accepting the answer for now. “Dinner’s almost ready. Come down when you’re… when you’re ready too.” He paused at the door, his hand on the knob. “You know you can talk to us, right? Me or Dad. About anything. If you’re not fine.”

The words were right there. I’m not fine. The quiet is too loud. I miss the music. I feel like our life is disappearing. I’m scared of the tight feeling in my throat. They lined up on his tongue, ready to be set free.

“I will,” Hitoshi said, “but I’m fine.”

Hizashi nodded and slipped out, closing the door softly behind him.

Hitoshi lowered himself back onto the floor, listening to the faint sounds of dinner preparation resume downstairs. 

---

The October air slicing through Shouto’s open window was cool and carried the distant, metallic scent of the city. It was a useful smell, one that cut through the sharper, more noxious fumes of the oil paint and solvent he was using. His room was a testament to his frantic, pre-competition push. Canvases in various states of completion leaned against every wall. Small metal sculptures, products of his balcony welding sessions, sat on his desk and windowsill, catching the evening light. He was on his knees on a drop cloth, meticulously adding a final layer of glazing to a large, abstract piece dominated by swirling blues and aggressive slashes of crimson. His focus was absolute, his world narrowed to the brush in his hand and the texture of the canvas.

The shrill ring of his flip phone was an intrusion he’d been expecting. He didn’t startle. He set his brush carefully across the mouth of the solvent jar, wiped his hands on a rag already stained with a rainbow of colors, and answered.

“Hello, Izuku.”

“Shouto-kun! Hi!” Izuku’s voice burst from the speaker, a torrent of excited energy that was a stark contrast to the focused quiet of Shouto’s room. “Are you busy? You’re busy, aren’t you? I can call back later, I know you’re finishing your pieces for the portfolio, I just- I had to tell you- but if it’s a bad time-”

“I’m p-painting,” Shouto said. “You can t-talk. I’m l-listening.”

He put the phone on speaker and set it on the floor beside him, picking up his brush again. Izuku’s voice became the backdrop to his work, a familiar, comforting stream of consciousness.

“Okay! Okay, good. So. You know Kaito? From my chemistry class? The one with the hydrokinesis? I’ve talked about him before. Well, more than before, lately, I guess, now that I think about it, I probably mention him a lot… oh man, do I mention him a lot? I probably do-”

Shouto dipped his brush in the ultramarine blue. “W-water qu-quirk.”

“Yes! Exactly! Him!” Izuku’s relief was palpable. “Well, today, after lab, he… he asked me if I wanted to go get bubble tea with him. And I said yes! Obviously! And we went, and we were talking, and it was really nice. He was telling me about this project he’s doing on using hydrostatic pressure to clean microplastics from water samples, and it’s so innovative, and then he… he said he’s liked me for a while. And he asked if I… if I wanted to be his boyfriend.”

Shouto’s brush paused mid-stroke. The Izuku-Stream usually contained facts about Kaito’s quirk, his grades, and his interesting ideas. This was a different category. 

“Oh,” Shouto said. It was a neutral sound. He resumed painting, the soft scratch of the bristles against the canvas filling the short silence.

“And I said yes!” Izuku continued, his voice bubbling over with barely contained joy. “I really like him, Shouto-kun. He’s so smart and he’s really kind and when he smiles his whole face gets these little crinkles by his eyes and it’s just… really nice.”

Shouto listened, adding a darker shade of blue to create depth in his swirl. He was happy for Izuku. Izuku deserved nice things. But the subject matter was… uncomfortable. The thought of kissing, of all the stuff Izuku had described before, it seemed… overwhelming. 

But this was Izuku, his best friend. Being supportive was what you did for friends.

“G-good,” Shouto said, carefully forming the words. “H-happy f-for you.”

“Thank you!” Izuku chirped. Then his voice shifted, becoming more serious, tinged with nervous energy. “So… that’s the other thing. Now that I… have a boyfriend… I think I need to tell my mom. About me. About liking boys.”

“Yes,” Shouto said, his voice firmer now. “She-e will… be h-happy for-for y-you.” 

“You really think so?” Izuku’s voice was small, hopeful.

“Yes.” There was no doubt in Shouto’s tone.

He could hear Izuku take a deep, shaky breath over the line. “Okay. Okay, I’m gonna do it. Tonight. I’m gonna tell her.”

“Ok.” Shouto added a final, decisive slash of crimson to the center of the canvas. It was done. He sat back on his heels, regarding his work. The phone call was reaching its natural conclusion. 

But Izuku wasn’t quite finished. 

“I keep thinking about it,” Izuku started again, his voice dipping into a dreamy, confidential tone. “About what it’ll be like. On the date. I wonder if he’ll… you know.”

The brush stilled in Shouto’s hand. A familiar, weary frustration began to prickle at the back of his neck. He’d had enough of this topic. The whole concept of romance was a tangled, confusing mess that had already caused him one spectacular meltdown this school year. Ono was now strongly encouraged not to engage with Shouto regarding her romance-manga-daydreams in the quiet room, a rule that had restored some peace, but the entire subject was tainted. He cared about Izuku. He wanted to be a supportive friend. But he really, really did not want to listen to him speculate about hand-holding.

“I… ha-ave to… m-mix more p-paint,” Shouto interrupted, the words coming out more abruptly than he intended. 

It was a flimsy excuse. 

Izuku, thankfully, seemed to pick up on the cue, or was too wrapped up in his own nervous excitement to notice the awkwardness. “Oh! Right! Of course! Sorry, I’m just rambling. I’ll let you go. Thanks for listening, Shouto-kun. You’re the best.”

“Hn,” Shouto replied, the tension leaving his shoulders. “G-good lu-uck. With… your m-mom.” 

“Thanks, Shouto-kun. Talk to you tomorrow!”

Shouto flipped the phone closed and dropped it onto the drop cloth as if it were hot. He took a deep breath of the cool, paint-tinged air. He was happy for Izuku, but the interaction had left him feeling strangely drained, and… itchy.

He looked at the painting, then at the open window, the cool night air washing over him. He picked up his palette knife, deciding to scrap the subtle blending for now. He needed to do something more direct, more physical. He scooped up a large glob of blue and began scraping it onto the canvas with aggressive, satisfying strokes.

Romance talk was over. Now, only paint.

Chapter 62: Blossom

Notes:

thank you all for your ideas stemming from the last chapter... i've got to admit i'm really thinking hard on this one now- i have it all written but it's inspiring me to think further about what i've got!

anyways, please enjoy, and thanks for reading!

The air on the Keio campus in late October was crisp, carrying the smell of fallen leaves and distant city exhaust. Natsuo felt that crispness mirror the sharp, clear anxiety in his chest. He and Yuki were walking back from the library, their steps slow, the silence between them heavier than usual.

For weeks, it had been texts that stretched late into the night, study sessions that lingered over coffee, and a comfortable, growing ease in each other’s presence. They’d never put a label on it, but the understanding was there. They were a thing. And Natsuo knew, with a certainty that felt like a stone in his gut, that he couldn’t let it go any further without telling her.

The manic energy that had first fueled his excitement had settled into a steady, warm glow, but the old fear lingered. Was this real? Or was it just another peak before the inevitable crash? He owed her the truth before she got any more invested.

He stopped walking under the orange glow of a streetlamp, turning to face her. “Hey. Can we… talk for a sec? About something… not school-related.”

Yuki looked up at him, curious. “Sure. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. No. I don’t know.” He ran a hand through his hair, a nervous habit. “I just… I need to tell you something. Before this,” he gestured vaguely between them, “goes any further.”

Her expression changed. “Okay?”

He took a deep breath, the words he’d rehearsed a dozen times in his head suddenly jumbling together. “So. You know how I’m always really specific about what I eat? And I’m kind of a nut about my sleep schedule? And I have, like, a terrifyingly organized pill case?”

A small smile formed on her face. “I had noticed you’re the most disciplined person I’ve ever met, yes.”

“Right. Well, there’s a reason for that.” The words stuck in his throat for a second. He forced them out. “I have Bipolar Disorder.”

He watched her face, waiting for the flicker of pity, confusion, or worse, fear. 

“It’s… it’s a mood disorder,” he continued, the clinical explanation easier than the personal one. “It means my brain chemistry can swing between really intense, productive highs, and some pretty brutal depressive lows. The meds, the diet, the routine… It's all to keep me level. To keep the swings from getting too extreme.”

He finally met her gaze. “I’m telling you this because I like you… a lot. And this is a part of my life. It’s managed, but it’s always going to be there. And I… I would completely understand if that’s… a lot to deal with, or if it’s something you want to think about before we see each other again. And if you don’t want to date anymore… Well, no hard feelings. Seriously.”

He braced himself for her response, his heart hammering against his ribs.

Yuki was quiet for a moment. She didn’t look shocked or scared, but thoughtful.

“Natsuo,” she said, her voice calm and steady. “Thank you for telling me.” She paused, choosing her words carefully. “I’m not going to pretend I know what that’s like. But I’ve known you for a while now. As a friend, and… more. And the person I know is incredibly self-aware, and, responsible, and strong.” She gestured to him. “I mean, look at you. You’re in one of the hardest pre-med programs in the country, you have a social life, you take care of your brothers… and you’re doing it all while actively managing a serious mental health condition. That doesn’t scare me. It kind of… amazes me.”

She took a step closer. “The thing that would scare me is if you weren’t taking care of yourself. But you are. You’re on top of it. So, no, it doesn’t change how I feel. Unless… unless there’s something specific I should know about what to do, or not do, If you’re having a hard time?”

The relief that washed over Natsuo was so profound it left him lightheaded. The stone in his gut dissolved. 

“Just… be patient with me,” he said, his voice a little rough. “And if I ever seem off, or if I need to cancel plans because I just… can’t that day, please know it’s not about you.”

“I can do that,” she said softly. Then she smiled, a real, bright smile that reached her eyes. “So… does this mean we’re officially dating now? Because I’d really like to be able to call you my boyfriend.”

A laugh, genuine and free of anxiety, escaped him. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d like that too.”

---

In Tokyo, the air was also cool, but inside the bustling soba shop, it was warm and steamy. The smell of buckwheat noodles and savory broth was a welcome comfort.

Shouto sat between Touya and Keigo in a quiet booth, a large bowl of cold soba in front of him. His art portfolio, a heavy, professional case containing months of his blood, sweat, and silent tears, had been safely deposited with his teacher that morning. He was done.

He was exhausted, down to his bones, but satisfied. More than anything else. He methodically dipped a bundle of cold noodles into the sauce, his movements precise.

“To the artist,” Keigo said, raising his glass of iced tea. His wings, now almost fully regrown, were tucked carefully behind him in the booth. “Seriously, kid. What you pulled off… the hours you put in… it’s insane. In a good way.”

Touya clinked his own glass against Keigo’s, then nudged Shouto’s shoulder with his own. “He’s right. You worked your ass off. And you kept your grades up. Solid B-minus average is nothing to sneeze at, especially with everything else.”

Shouto didn’t look up from his noodles, but a faint pinkness touched the tips of his ears. Praise was still something he processed quietly, internally.

“The… m-metal w-was… the ha-ardest,” he said slowly, the words pushed out with effort around the fatigue. “W-welding. Ge-etting the-the ba-alance r-right.”

“Well, it looked damn impressive,” Touya said. “Even if you gave your big brother a heart attack every time you fired up that finger-torch of yours.”

“Was o-okay,” Shouto mumbled, a faint hint of defensiveness in his tone.

“It was,” Keigo agreed quickly, shooting Touya a look. “It was very controlled. And the painting with the layered resin? The one that looked like a frozen wave? That one’s my favorite.”

They continued eating in comfortable silence for a few minutes, the sounds of the restaurant a cozy backdrop.

“So,” Touya said, finishing his last noodle. “No more art finals. What are you gonna do with all your free time now?”

Shouto considered this, chewing thoughtfully. “M-maybe. Sta-art n-new p-projects.”

Touya and Keigo exchanged a look over his head, a look of fond exasperation and deep pride.

“Of course you will,” Touya said, a smile in his voice. He reached over and ruffled Shouto’s hair, a gesture Shouto tolerated with a slight grimace. “You did good, kid. Really good.”

Shouto didn’t reply. He just picked up another bundle of soba.

---

The meeting was set for a Saturday afternoon at a popular cat cafe in a trendy part of Tokyo. Izuku had been a vibrating bundle of nerves over the phone for two days leading up to it. “You’ll really like him, Shouto, I just know you will! He’s so smart and kind, and he thinks it’s so cool that you’re an artist!”

Shouto, for his part, felt a low thrum of anxiety; new people were always so complex to navigate. But this was important to Izuku, so he would try.

When they arrived, Izuku’s new boyfriend, Kaito, was already there, saving a table. He was tall and lanky, with carefully styled dark hair and a friendly, open face. He lit up when he saw Izuku, standing to give him a quick, awkward hug. “Hey! You made it!”

“Hi! This is my best friend, Shouto,” Izuku said, beaming, gesturing to Shouto who stood slightly behind him.

Kaito’s smile turned toward Shouto. It was still friendly, but it shifted somehow. It became… softer. Wider. A little fixed. “Hey there, Shouto!” he said, his voice dipping into a tone people often used with very small children or particularly cute animals. “It’s really great to finally meet you! Izuku talks about you all the time.”

Shouto gave a small bow. 

They sat down. Izuku launched into an exciting story about a hero incident he and Kaito had analyzed for a school project. Kaito listened, nodding along, interjecting with smart points. He was clearly very bright. He also kept glancing at Shouto, his smile never quite leaving his face.

When there was a lull, Kaito turned his attention fully to Shouto. “So, Izuku says you’re an artist! That’s so awesome. You like to draw… pictures?”

The pause before “pictures” was microscopic, but Shouto heard it. It was the pause of someone choosing simple words. He nodded slowly. 

“That’s great!” Kaito continued, his voice infused with exaggerated enthusiasm. “It’s really good to have a… a nice hobby. It must be very… relaxing for you.”

Shouto’s brow furrowed slightly. His art wasn’t a hobby. It wasn’t for relaxation. It was a compulsion, his language, and his future. But explaining that felt too complicated, so he just nodded again.

The conversation continued like this. Kaito was perfectly nice. He asked simple, closed-ended questions that required only yes or no answers. When Shouto got a sentence in, Kaito would respond with a hearty “Good for you!” or “That’s wonderful!”, as if Shouto had just successfully cured cancer. 

He never looked away impatiently. He never interrupted. But he also never engaged with anything Shouto said on a deeper level. He spoke to him like one would speak to a deteriorating grandparent, or a dog.

Izuku, lost in the happy bubble of his new relationship, seemed completely oblivious to the patronizing undercurrent. He just seemed thrilled that his best friend and his boyfriend were in the same room and no one was fighting.

An hour and a half later, as they said their goodbyes outside the cafe, Kaito clapped Shouto on the back. “That was great! It was so wonderful to meet you, Shouto!” he said, once again with the wide, fixed smile. “You take care now, okay?”

Shouto just nodded, feeling a strange, hollow sensation in his chest.

On the train ride home, Izuku chattered happily. “See? I told you he was great! He’s so nice, right? He really seemed to like you!”

Shouto stared out the window at the passing buildings. “V-very… n-nice,” he agreed, because it was technically true.

But the feeling stayed with him. It wasn’t anger… it was a feeling of being diminished. Of being seen as a simple, uncomplicated thing when he knew his own internal world was vast and complicated.

That evening, he found Touya and Keigo in the living room. Touya was reviewing case files from his clinic, and Keigo was meticulously oiling his newly-regrown primary feathers, the sharp, clean scent of the oil filling the room.

Shouto stood in the doorway for a moment, gathering his words.

“I d-don’t l-l-like… Izuku’s boyf-friend,” he stated, the sentence coming out in a rushed, clumsy jumble.

Touya looked up from his papers, pen frozen mid-air. Keigo’s hands stilled.

“Izuku has a boyfriend?” Touya asked, his eyebrows shooting up.

Keigo’s face broke into a wide grin. “No way! Really? Our Izuku? Has a boyfriend? No way!”

Shouto looked between their surprised, excited faces. A flicker of uncertainty crossed his own. “He… t-told his m-mom. I th-thought… w-was o-okay to…”

Touya recovered first, seeing the hesitation on Shouto’s face. “No, no, it’s okay, Sho. It’s just news, that’s all. Usually, it’s polite to let the person tell people themselves, but in this case it’s okay. We’re glad you told us.” He leaned forward. “Now, what’s this about not liking him?”

Shouto shuffled further into the room, sitting on the edge of the couch. He struggled to find the words. “N-nice. To Izuku.”

“But?” Keigo prompted, setting his feather down.

“T-to me…,” Shouto’s brow furrowed in frustration, searching for the right description. “S-slow. Like a-a b-baby. S-said go-ood f-for you… t-too m-much. I dr-raw pi-ictures’.”

Understanding dawned on Touya’s face, followed by a sharp glint of protective anger in his eyes. He knew that tone. The condescending, pat-on-the-head tone that people used when they couldn’t be bothered to see past a person’s exterior.

“Ah,” Touya said, his voice carefully neutral. “That kind.”

Keigo’s excited expression had sobered. “The patronizing kind.”

Shouto nodded, relieved that they understood without him having to explain further. “N-not… m-mean. B-but… f-felt b-bad.”

“It feels bad because it is bad,” Touya said firmly. “He’s not seeing you. He’s seeing what he thinks you are. It’s ignorant, and rude.”

“So?” Shouto asked, the question genuine. Social retaliation was not in his skill set.

Keigo and Touya exchanged a look. This was familiar territory for them, in different ways.

“Well,” Keigo started, “you could always go the blunt route. My personal favorite. Next time he says something like ‘You must have fun drawing pictures,’ you could just look him dead in the eye and say, ‘I’m an artist, not a toddler.’” He demonstrated with a sharp, Hawks-like glare.

Touya shot him a look. “Or… we could try a slightly more diplomatic approach that won’t cause an incident with Izuku’s first boyfriend.” He turned back to Shouto. “You don’t have to be mean. But you can be direct. You could say something like, ‘I like to discuss my work.’ Or, if he uses simple words, you can respond more precisely. If he says ‘you draw nice pictures,’ you can say, ‘I like to explore texture and welding sculptures.’ It lets him know the level you operate on without outright calling him out on his behavior.”

“It’s about refusing the box he’s trying to put you in,” Keigo added. “Without making a huge scene.”

Shouto processed these takes. 

“He might not even realize he’s doing it,” Touya said. “Some people are just ignorant. It doesn’t always make them bad people. But you get to decide how you let it make you feel.”

Shouto was quiet for a moment. “D-did no-ot l-like it.”

“And that’s valid,” Touya said firmly. “So next time, you have a choice. You can try one of those phrases. Or, if it’s too much, you can just excuse yourself. You don’t have to stay in a conversation that makes you feel small.”

Shouto nodded slowly, the uncomfortable hollow feeling in his chest beginning to ease. He nodded, and then turned to leave, before suddenly pausing at the door. “D-don’t… t-tell Izuku I…”

“Our lips are sealed,” Keigo promised, miming zipping his lips.

As Shouto left, Touya and Keigo exchanged a look.

“Down, birdie,” Touya said, though his own expression was grim. “I don’t like it either, but let it play out before you pounce.”

---

The atmosphere in the Aizawa-Yamada household during Touya’s sessions had shifted from a state of high alert to one of fragile calm. The change was most evident in Eri herself.

They still worked on the quirk counseling, the slow, patient untangling of fear from power. But now, instead of clutching a potted plant with white-knuckled terror, Eri could hold a small, fast-growing succulent, trembling, but with more curiosity now instead of pure dread.

One afternoon, a tiny, pale green shoot on the succulent suddenly withered and browned under her fingertip, reverted back to a dormant state. Eri gasped, her eyes flying to Touya’s face, expecting reprimand and fear.

Touya didn’t flinch. He just leaned forward slightly. “It’s okay! You are still here. I am still here.”

Eri stared at the tiny dead spot, then back at Touya. Slowly, hesitantly, she reached out and poked the healthy part of the plant. It remained green. A wave of relief came over her body. 

These small breakthroughs were happening. She was eating more. She could tolerate Hizashi playing music on the record player at a more normal volume, and had even begun drawing shaky, tentative pictures for Shouta, usually of him, a tall, black scribble.

But the cost of this progress was etched on the house itself, and on the people in it. 

The waiting quiet seemed to have seeped into Hitoshi’s heart.

Touya had known Hitoshi for years, since the boy was a silent, but otherwise content, thirteen-year-old. He’d watched the grueling process of him learning to use his voice again, to trust that his words wouldn’t be a weapon against him. Even at his most frustrated, there had been a spark in Hitoshi, a dry wit, a stubborn determination, and a flicker of dry humor that would emerge.

That spark seemed dimmed. Extinguished.

Touya saw it one evening as he was packing up his things. Hitoshi came down the stairs, presumably to get a drink from the kitchen. He moved quietly, his shoulders slumped, his usual slouch looking less like casual teenage ennui and more like a physical weight was pressing down on him. His eyes, when they briefly met Touya’s, were flat. It was a far cry from the kid who, just a few months ago, would roll his eyes with fond exasperation at his dads’ antics or offer a quiet, dry observation about one of Touya’s quirk-counseling techniques.

Later, as Touya was lacing up his shoes in the genkan, Hizashi appeared, leaning against the doorframe. His usual vibrant energy was muted, replaced by a deep, worried fatigue.

“Hey,” Hizashi said, his voice low. “Thanks for today. She’s really been responding to your techniques.”

“She’s doing the hard work,” Touya said, straightening up. He hesitated, then nodded toward the kitchen. “How’s… how’s Hitoshi doing?”

Hizashi’s face fell. The cheerful mask he usually wore for Eri’s benefit dissolved completely, revealing the raw anxiety beneath. He smoothed a hand over the top of his hair. “We don’t know,” he admitted, the words heavy. “That’s the thing. We just… we don’t know.”

He glanced over his shoulder to make sure they were alone, then lowered his voice even further. “He’s not… bad. He’s not acting out, his grades are fine, he’s seeing his therapist, and- and he’s… he’s so good with Eri... It’s like he’s trying extra hard to be easy.” He let out a frustrated sigh. “But it’s like the light’s gone out. It's like he’s just going through the motions. He comes home, goes to his room… He’s still talking to us, but it’s like he’s reading from a script.”

Touya nodded slowly. He knew that version of ‘fine’.

“He hasn’t said anything,” Hizashi continued, a little helplessly, “but Shouta and I… we think he’s depressed. Again.”

The word hung in the air between them.

“After talking to his therapist, we brought up the idea of… maybe going back on medication,” Hizashi said, his expression pained. “He was on antidepressants for years, not sure if you remember, and they helped, but he hated the side effects. He was so relieved when his therapist agreed he could try without them. And now… he just shut down when we mentioned it. He doesn’t want to go back.”

Hizashi looked at Touya, his eyes pleading for an answer Touya didn’t have. 

His heart ached for them. He thought of his own struggles, the stubborn refusal to admit defeat to his own body, the pride that was really just fear in disguise. He saw a shadow of that in Hitoshi’s silence.

“I don’t know, man,” Touya said honestly, his voice soft. “Sometimes… sometimes just letting him know you see it. That he doesn’t have to be ‘good’ for you. That it’s okay to not be okay.” He thought of Keigo, forcing him to admit his own limits. “The pressure to be the easy one… it’s a hell of a weight to carry.”

Hizashi nodded, swallowing hard. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.” He managed a weak, grateful smile. “Thanks, Touya. For listening. And… just… keep an eye on him, yeah? When you’re here? You’ve got a good read on him.”

“Of course,” Touya said. “Anything you need. Just let us know.”

He left the house, the image of Hitoshi’s hollowed-out expression staying with him. The walk to the station felt longer than usual. The progress with Eri was real, a small miracle in the making. But it was a miracle built on the silent, crumbling foundation of another kid’s peace. It was a terrible, unfair math, and there was no easy solution.

Chapter 63: Katsuki and Hitoshi's Interlude

Notes:

this one is sort of hard... but i hope you stick it out. theres some good and some hard, and if it was a story about katsuki and hitoshi we'd get deeper in... but it's not. its like a taste test of ice cream when you don't know what flavor you want. but like... idk i thought it would be okay to touch on.
anyways, lmk. and hope you're good!

tw: depressive episode

The first week of December arrived, bringing a brittle, gray cold to Tokyo. In the Aizawa-Yamada home, the quiet that had been developing in Eri's presence began to curdle. 

It started on a Friday. Hitoshi came home from school looking pale, his shoulders hunched against a chill that seemed to come from within. Dinner was a quiet affair. Eri, sensing the shift in the atmosphere, was particularly clingy with Shouta, eating her food in tiny, nervous bites. Hitoshi pushed his food around his plate.

“You feeling okay, kiddo?” Hizashi asked, his voice deliberately light. “You’re quiet tonight.”

Hitoshi just shrugged, not looking up. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it again, a faint frown creasing his brow. He shook his head slightly, as if annoyed with himself.

Later that night, Shouta, doing his final rounds before bed, found Hitoshi not in bed, but sitting on the edge of it, fully dressed, staring at his hands. His breath was hitching in silent, ragged gasps. Tears streamed down his face, utterly soundless.

“Hitoshi?” Shouta’s voice was low, calm, but his own heart rate spiked. Hitoshi flinched at his voice. He opened his mouth again, a desperate, straining motion. He looked over, his eyes wide and panicked. The words were gone. 

Shouta in front of him in an instant, his hands on Hitoshi’s knees, grounding him. “Hey. Breathe. Just breathe. You don’t have to talk. It’s okay.” The mantra was old and familiar, yet the words felt like ashes in his mouth.

---

Saturday, Hitoshi didn’t emerge from his room until past noon, moving like a ghost through the hallway to the living room to collapse onto the couch. Eri hid. 

Hizashi tried first, sitting on the edge of the coffee table. “Hey, sweetheart. You feeling sick? Nauseous? You got a fever?” He reached out to feel Hitoshi’s forehead; it was cool and clammy. Hitoshi leaned into the touch. His eyes, when they briefly flicked open, were dull and empty.

Shouta tried a different tack, bringing him a glass of water and a protein bar. “You need to drink something.” Shouta held the glass to Hitoshi’s lips, and held his hands in place so that he’d take a hold of it too. Hitoshi took a small, obliging sip, then turned his face away into the couch cushions.

They called his therapist, then his psychiatrist that afternoon, their voices hushed and urgent in the kitchen. The doctor called in a prescription for a low dose of antidepressants to the pharmacy down the street. “With his history, and his quirk, we need to try the medication right away. It might help take the edge off, get him back to a baseline where he can engage in therapy again,” the doctor said, his tone cautious. “But if he deteriorates further, if he stops eating or drinking entirely, you need to bring him in.”

Hizashi went to pick up the pills. That evening, they tried to get Hitoshi to take the first one. It was a struggle. He wouldn’t open his mouth; he just stared at the small white pill in Hizashi’s palm with a horribly disappointing look on his face.

“It’s going to help, sweetheart,” Hizashi pleaded. “Please. Do it for me and dad.”

It was Shouta who finally did it, his voice leaving no room for argument, though it was softer than usual. “Hitoshi. Take this now.” He pressed the pill between Hitoshi’s lips and held a glass of water to them until Hitoshi swallowed reflexively. No matter how necessary it had been, the act felt like a violation. 

Sunday was worse. The medication hadn’t had time to work, but the act of taking it seemed to have severed the last tether to any semblance of participation.

On Monday morning, the alarm for school blared from his phone. He didn’t move. Shouta came into the room and turned it off. “Hitoshi. School.” There was no response. Not a groan or a shift. It was as if he hadn’t heard it at all. 

That was the day the real vigil began. Shouta called UA and emailed his teachers about “a severe flare-up of a pre-existing medical condition” were sent, and his schoolwork was collected. Hizashi took Monday and Tuesday off. Shouta took Wednesday and Thursday. They alternated, a rotating watch of despair.

They’d sit in his room, grading papers or reading. They’d bring him smoothies, coaxing him to sip through a straw, and crackers and nutrition drinks. They’d change his sheets around his limp body. He was a teenager, too big to be carried, too old to be coddled, yet too sick to care for himself. 

The days bled away. The antidepressants seemed to be doing nothing; if anything, the blankness was deeper. The psychiatrist’s tone on the phone grew more urgent. “He needs a higher level of care. He needs to be inpatient. We can adjust his meds there, monitor him, keep him safe.”

The word “inpatient” hung in the air. Shouta, phone to his ear, glanced at Hizashi with a look of grim resignation. Hizashi’s eyes filled with tears. They both knew what it meant.

They made the mistake of discussing it at the dinner table that night, hoping Eri was too absorbed in her food to notice.

“His doctor called the hospital- they’ll have a bed ready for him tomorrow morning,” Shouta said, his voice low.

Eri’s head snapped up. Her chopsticks clattered onto her plate. “H-hospital?” The word was a whisper of pure terror. Her eyes, wide and horrified, darted from Shouta to Hizashi. “No! No hospital! They hurt you there! They put things in you! Don’t take him! Please!” She dissolved into hysterical, gasping sobs, scrambling from her chair to start punching at Shouta’s leg, her small body trembling violently.

In the end, a new, terrible compromise was reached. Shouta would stay. His presence was Eri’s anchor. Hizashi would take Hitoshi to the hospital with Nemuri’s help.

The admission process was a blur of paperwork and quiet, clinical questions Hitoshi couldn’t answer. He was placed on a 72-hour hold. The new, stronger medication regime they started him on in the hospital was a sledgehammer to his system. He could barely keep his eyes open. He was fed, hydrated, and safe, but it was like the real him was switched off.

Almost a week after he was admitted, he was discharged, deemed “stabilized” on the new dosage. The car ride home was silent. Hizashi helped him into the house, his movements slow and shuffling. He was cleaner, better fed, but his eyes were still vacant. The silence that had begun as a symptom of his depression had now calcified into a side effect of the medication meant to treat it. He went straight to his room and got into bed.

He was home. But he wasn’t. 

---

The Bakugos’ dinner table was mostly silent. The clatter of dishes and vocalized reactions were the only sound; Mitsuki, Masaru, and Katsuki conversed entirely in JSL.

Mitsuki’s signs were sharp, her face expressive. [The Aizawa-Yamadas cancelled. Obviously. Hizashi called. He seemed… stressed.]

Masaru’s signs were slower, his expression grim as he explained the situation to Katsuki. [Hitoshi is not doing well. They had to hospitalize him. He’s been completely non-speaking for over a week. Couldn’t get out of bed.]

Katsuki, who had been shoveling food into his mouth with single-minded focus, stilled. He put his chopsticks down.

[Hospital?] his hands snapped, demanding clarification.

[Hospital,] Mitsuki confirmed, her signs softening with concern as she met his eyes. [He’s having… mental struggles again.]

Katsuki’s face remained unchanged, but a muscle in his jaw twitched violently. He went back to eating, though the food started to taste like ash.

Later that night, sprawled on his bed, he video-called Eijiro. The moment Eijiro’s grinning, sharp-toothed face appeared, Katsuki’s hands were flying.

[My parents’ dinner with Eyebags’ dads cancelled because he’s sick. That’s why he’s been out of school.]

Eijiro’s smile faded. [Why? Everything okay?]

[No. Hospital. Severe depression. Non-speaking again.] Katsuki’s signs were clipped, each motion a period at the end of a grim sentence.

Eijiro’s face fell into one of understanding concern. [Oh, man. That’s… shit. I’m sorry.]

[Why are you sorry?] Katsuki signed, his expression twisting with defensive irritation. [Not your fault. We’re not friends.]

[Doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck,] Eijiro signed back, his movements gentle but unwavering. [You grew up with him. That… You still care for him. Even though you’re not close anymore, it’s hard to see him sick.]

Katsuki was silent for a long moment, his hands resting in his lap. 

[What do you even do?] he finally signed, the question frustrated. [When someone is that badly depressed?]

Eijiro’s expression grew serious. He took a breath, his signs becoming slower, more deliberate. [I’ve been there, you know. Not that bad, but… bad. It feels like… you’re trapped behind glass. You can see everyone, but you can’t reach them. Everything sounds muffled. Everything feels… heavy. Like moving through cement. And talking… it takes more energy than you have. Everything feels pointless.]

Katsuki watched him, his own irritation melting away into focused attention. Eijiro never talked about this.

[You can’t pull them out,] Eijiro continued. [But you can sit on the other side of the glass. So they know they’re not alone. It sounds small, but it means a lot.] 

Katsuki grunted. It didn’t sound small... it sounded like a strategy. A mission. 

---

The decision to go to the mall felt, to Katsuki, like a tactical maneuver. Eijiro had suggested it over video chat the night before. 

[We should get him stuff he actually likes. Not just… healthy stuff. Stuff that feels like him.]

So, on a bright, cold Saturday morning, they met at the Shibuya mall. The place was a sensory assault even for hearing people, a roaring cacophony of pop music, chatter, and the relentless hum of commerce. For Katsuki, it was a wall of meaningless vibration. He automatically tuned most of it out, his world narrowing to the visual: the flash of signs, the movement of crowds, and Eijiro, a steady, red-haired beacon at his side.

Their first stop was a massive music store. Katsuki knew Hitoshi had a thing for loud, angry punk music: a fact that had always seemed at odds with his quiet demeanor. They found the section, rows of CDs and vinyl adorned with skulls and screaming faces.

A clerk with brightly dyed hair approached, smiling first at Katsuki. “Looking for anything specific?”

Katsuki met his eyes, gave a curt shake of his head, and pointed a thumb at Eijiro, already turning back to browse the shelves.

The clerk’s smile faltered for a split second before switching to Eijiro. “Can I help you find something?”

Eijiro didn’t miss a beat. “Nah, we’re good, thanks! Just browsing.” He turned to Katsuki, signing as he spoke aloud for the clerk’s benefit, a habit born from a lifetime of being the hearing bridge for his deaf family. [This one? The album is called ‘Logical Fallacy’. That seems very… him.]

Katsuki snorted, a silent puff of air. [Yeah. Let’s get it.]

At the register, a different clerk held up the CD. “Great album! Their early work is way more raw, but this one has the best production.”

The clerk was looking at Katsuki, who was pulling out his wallet. Katsuki caught the gist of it from his lips, ’great album’, and grunted. 

“Yeah.”

The word came out flat, toneless, with the thick, slightly distorted vowels of his deaf accent. The clerk’s eyes flickered with that brief, familiar moment of surprise people got when they realized he was deaf. His gaze immediately shifted to Eijiro.

“That’ll be ¥2,800,” he said, now addressing Eijiro directly.

Eijiro smoothly stepped in, signing and speaking simultaneously. [He says it’s ¥2,800.] He gestured to Katsuki’s wallet. [You got it?]

Katsuki handed over the cash. 

Next was a magazine stand. Katsuki pointed to a niche publication about mountain bicycles. [He used to bike with his dads, and me. Before UA.]

Eijiro grabbed it. [Good call.] 

Their final stop in the mall was a candy store specializing in international imports. Katsuki beelined for the sour section, grabbing an armful of the most intensely sour gummies he could find, the kind that made your face contort. [His favorite,] he signed to Eijiro, a rare, almost-smile touching his lips.

The teenage girl at the counter looked at the massive haul of sour candy and laughed, speaking to Katsuki. “Wow, someone has a death wish!”

Katsuki saw her laugh, saw the words ‘death wish’ on her lips. He scowled, not understanding the joke. 

“No,” he said, his voice too loud, the single syllable blunt and final.

The girl’s laughter died instantly. She blinked, confused and a little startled by his intensity. Her eyes darted to Eijiro for translation.

Eijiro gave her an easygoing grin, defusing the tension. “He means no death wish! They’re for a friend who’s hardcore. We’ll take it, thanks.”

As they left the mall, loaded down with bags, Katsuki felt a strange sense of accomplishment. The mission was a success.

The grocery store was their last objective, for the practical supplies: protein drinks, easy-to-eat fruits, electrolyte water. It was here that the rhythm of their partnership felt most natural. Eijiro navigated the crowded aisles, grabbing a cart and effortlessly keeping up a running commentary in sign. [Okay, the shakes are probably down this aisle. Vanilla ones, right? Or chocolate?]

Katsuki signed back, [Vanilla. Less fake taste.]

At the dairy case, an elderly woman trying to reach a carton of milk on a high shelf tapped Katsuki’s arm. “Excuse me, young man, could you…?” She mimed reaching up.

Katsuki grabbed the carton and handed it to her.

“Oh, thank you so much!” she said, smiling warmly at him.

He gave a quick, sharp nod and turned away, his social obligation fulfilled.

Eijiro smiled and waved, then turned back to Katsuki. [Vanilla, got it. Let’s get bananas too... but for me. I’m getting hungry!]

At the checkout, the cashier was another elderly woman. She smiled warmly. “A lot of snacks today!” she said, her words slightly mumbled and hard to lip-read.

Katsuki caught the gist of it. “Yeah,” he grunted, the sound rough.

She continued scanning, speaking mostly to herself. “...my grandson loves these too, but he makes such a mess…”

Katsuki looked at Eijiro, a slight frown on his face. [What’s she saying?]

[She’s just rambling about her grandson,] Eijiro interpreted seamlessly.

Katsuki nodded, happy to continue ignoring her, and paying for the items, collecting the bags.

The entire day unfolded this way. A series of small, navigated interactions. Eijiro was his interpreter, his buffer, his translator of the hearing world’s confusing nuances. But he was never his voice. It was a crucial difference, one that Katsuki, who valued his autonomy above almost all else, deeply appreciated.

On the train ride home, bags piled around their feet, Katsuki watched the city streak by the window. He replayed the day in his head. The annoying clerk, the startled candy girl, the grateful old woman. Through it all, Eijiro had been a constant. Not just a bridge, but a… partner.

He glanced at Eijiro, who was scrolling on his phone. Everything had been so easy. There was no frustration, no exhausting effort to lip-read or make himself understood, no pulling out his phone and typing and waiting. There was just… them. Moving through the world together.

He realized that he liked being with Eijiro. He liked his stupid, sunny disposition, and that he was strong, both physically and in his unwavering resolve. He liked that they shared the same dream, the same drive to be heroes. But more than that, he liked the quiet comfort of their fluency. With Eijiro, he could talk. Really talk. Not in single-word utterances or blunt statements, but in the complex, nuanced language he was most comfortable using. He could be fully himself, and he was never, ever met with confusion or pity.

Katsuki didn’t have a name for the warm, expansive feeling that came with the realization, and wasn’t in a hurry to analyze it or push it away. He just let it sit there for now, gently humming in his chest.

---

The bag of supplies, the CDs, the sour gummies, the magazine, and the protein drinks hung heavy in Katsuki’s hand. This wasn't a social call, but a mission to a front line he hadn't visited in over a year.

He rang the doorbell, the chime a silent vibration somewhere deep in the house. The door was opened not by Hizashi’s usual vibrant energy, but by Shouta’s silent, weary presence. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week, his shoulders slumped. His eyes, however, sharpened with a flicker of recognition and something like gratitude when he saw Katsuki.

[Katsuki,] he greeted him, [come in.]

Katsuki gave a curt nod and stepped inside, putting his shoes where he’d always put them, beside Hitoshi’s sneakers. The atmosphere in the house felt different than it had before, though.

Eri peeked out from the living room doorway, her red eyes wide and curious. She clutched a worn stuffed rabbit to her chest. She stared at Katsuki, this tall, sharp-edged stranger with spiky blond hair. She mumbled something, her voice a soft, hesitant whisper directed at Shouta.

Katsuki saw her lips move, but the sounds were too quiet, too shapeless for him to catch. He couldn’t read them. He looked at Shouta for translation.

Shouta placed a hand on Eri’s head. [She asked who you are,] he signed to Katsuki. Then he spoke aloud to Eri, his voice a low rumble as he sim-commed for Katsuki’s benefit. “This is Katsuki. He’s an old friend of Hitoshi’s, and he was my student last year at UA. He’s come to visit.”

Eri’s eyes darted between Shouta and Katsuki. She didn’t seem scared, just uncertain. She mumbled something else, even quieter.

[She says your hair is spiky,] Shouta interpreted, a ghost of a smile touching his lips.

Katsuki gave her a stiff, awkward wave. 

[Hitoshi’s upstairs,] Shouta told him, his expression sobering again. [He’s awake. The new medication is… very sedating, in combination with his quirk and the other factors related to his mental and neurological health… so don’t expect much.]

Katsuki shrugged. [I brought– ] 

He held up the bag.

[Thank you.]

Katsuki took the stairs two at a time, the familiar layout of the home feeling foreign. He stopped outside Hitoshi’s room, squaring his shoulders before pushing the door open. The room was dim, the curtains drawn against the afternoon sun. Hitoshi was in bed, but not sitting up. He was lying flat on his back, staring at the ceiling. His eyes were open, but they were glassy, unfocused. The high-dose medication held him in a thick, chemical haze. He was present, but deeply submerged.

Katsuki walked in and set the bag down on the desk with a soft thud. Hitoshi’s eyes didn’t flick toward the sound, but his head turned slowly, languidly, on the pillow. His gaze drifted over Katsuki, recognition moving through the fog at a glacial pace.

Katsuki didn’t wait for an invitation. He pulled the chair from the desk and sat down next to the bed, positioning himself squarely in Hitoshi’s line of sight. He began to sign, as if they were having a normal conversation.

[Hey. Your old man looks like shit. Tired.] A blunt, typical Katsuki opening.

Hitoshi’s eyes tracked the movement. The part of his brain that understood JSL was still online, processing.

[Went to the mall. Got you some things.] Katsuki reached into the bag, pulling out the CD. [New album. I know you don’t have it, since it came out while you’ve been fucked up.] He held it up. Hitoshi’s eyes drifted to it, held for a moment, then drifted back to Katsuki’s hands.

[And the disgusting sour worms you like.] The bag of neon gummies came out next. [Ate one. Tastes like battery acid. Your taste is shit. I can’t believe you eat this garbage.]

Then the magazine. [Biking magazine. Has some articles that aren’t too boring. You better read it, since it was fucking expensive.]

He pulled out the protein drinks last, lining them up on the nightstand with a series of soft clicks. [And these. Drink them. You’re wasting away, after you put in so much effort to stop being such a beanpole.]

He finished signing and sat back in the chair. He didn’t expect a response. He didn’t get one. Hitoshi just continued to stare, his blinks slow and even. 

Katsuki sat in Hitoshi’s desk chair and pulled out his phone. He had another half hour until his parents were coming to pick him up, might as well relax. 

After twenty minutes, maybe less, he stood up to stretch. He looked down at Hitoshi, at his lank, greasy-looking hair. An impulse struck him. Slowly, and hesitantly, he reached out and scratched Hitoshi’s head. It was the same rough, affectionate gesture his own mother used, a gesture that said I’m here and you’re a pain in my ass in equal measure.

Hitoshi’s eyes closed slowly at the touch, not in rejection, but in a faint lean into the contact. Katsuki pulled his hand away, his fingertips tingling. He didn’t say goodbye, he just turned and walked out. 

He closed the door softly behind him and went back downstairs. Shouta was in the living room with Eri watching some pony princess cartoon.

[He was awake,] Katsuki signed. [I left some stuff in his room.]

[Thank you,] Shouta signed again, the gratitude deeper this time. [It means a lot. I know you two have been… at odds lately. But he cares for you. And it’s good to know you still care for him.]

Katsuki just grunted, a nondescript acknowledgement. He shoved his feet into his shoes and left, stepping back out into the cool air. The mission was complete. He’d navigated the awkward, painful space of a history that was no longer a friendship, and offered what he could.

Notes:

i dont blame eri for this, i don't think hitoshi or shouta or hizashi do either. it's just... a big change and sometimes those are hard.
anywhooo
next time is better!
xoxo

Chapter 64: A New Year

Notes:

xoxo!

Haruki navigated the increasingly snowy roads with a schoolteacher’s calm patience, the car a warm, tightly packed capsule against the whitening world. In the backseat, a delicate ecosystem had been established. Fuyumi was wedged between the door and Keigo, who had shed as many feathers as possible and stored them in his backpack, was engaged in the complex spatial puzzle of folding his remaining wings in a way that didn’t engulf Natsuo. Natsuo, all long limbs, had one knee pressed against the back of Touya’s passenger seat and the other tucked against Shouto, who was hypnotized by the endless, hypnotic swirl of snow against his window.

It was a comfortable, familiar squeeze. The relief that everyone was finally, miraculously, healthy enough for the trip was a palpable hum in the car. Touya, in the front, had his cane propped between his legs, and was trying hard to keep his breakfast inside, not out. The cold was his enemy, making his scarred lungs tighten and the neuropathy in his feet scream with static, but his mood was defiantly good. 

They arrived as the early winter dusk was painting the sky in shades of violet and deep blue. The kominka stood like a dark, sturdy ship in a sea of pristine snow, smoke whispering from its chimney. Ojiisan and Obaasan were waiting on the engawa, bundled in thick, hand-knitted sweaters and woolen coats, their smiles visible even from the car.

The unpacking was a flurry of activity. Obaasan immediately began directing traffic, handing out cups of steaming barley tea. “Fuyumi, the mochi flour is in the kitchen. Haruki, the futons are in the back closet, the thick ones. Natsuo, be a dear and bring in more firewood. Shouto, come, let me look at you.” She cupped his face, her thumbs cold but her touch gentle. “So tall. You need feeding up.”

Ojiisan assessed Touya with a critical eye as he navigated the slippery path with his cane. “The cold will bite today,” he stated. “Your breathing will be tight. The tea will help, then a hot bath.” 

The following days settled into a gentle, healing rhythm. The world outside was a hushed, white blanket, and the house became a world unto itself, governed by the soft hiss of the iron kettle on the hearth and the scent of pine and simmering broth.

New Year’s Eve was a day of purposeful activity. Natsuo joined Ojiisan in the yard, their breaths pluming as they shoveled paths and checked the well pump, their low murmurs a steady counterpoint to the silence. Inside, the kitchen was Fuyumi and Obaasan’s domain, a warm, fragrant whirlwind of preparation for the night’s feast. Shouto moved through the house like a quiet ghost, sometimes standing perfectly still in the garden to feel the immense weight of the snow, other times sketching the frozen landscape from the warmth of the kotatsu. 

The evening’s mochi-pounding was a burst of glorious, chaotic noise. Natsuo took a turn, his muscles straining with the effort, laughter bubbling up as the sticky rice threatened to defeat him. Even Shouto tried, his swings surprisingly controlled and powerful. The rhythmic pounding filled the house, a primal, joyful sound.

New Year's Day dawned clear and bitterly cold. The first order of business was ozoni, the special soup with the soft, freshly pounded mochi. Obaasan’s version was a clear, delicate broth with a slice of salmon, the chewy mochi, and a perfect, aromatic curl of yuzu peel. It was simplicity and perfection in a bowl.

Later, bundled up, they made the quiet walk to the local shrine for Hatsumode. The world was utterly silent but for the crunch of their boots on packed snow. Touya moved with deliberate care, his breath a sharp cloud, but he kept pace, his jaw set with determination. At the shrine, they performed the ritual purification, washing hands and mouths with the icy water from the chōzuya. They offered a coin, rang the great bell, and offered silent prayers for the year ahead. Shouto watched every motion with intense focus, his own actions a precise mirror.

Back at the house, Obaasan unveiled the beautiful lacquered boxes of osechi ryori. For hours, they grazed on the many symbolic dishes: sweet black beans for health, herring roe for a prosperous family, sweetened chestnuts for wealth. The conversation was light, flowing around the crackle of the fire.

It was during a comfortable lull, as she passed Haruki a container of pickled lotus root, that Obaasan asked her question, her tone as mild as if she were asking about the weather. “And when might we expect a great-grandchild? You’ve been married a while now.” The resulting flush on Fuyumi’s face and Haruki’s choked sputter provided the afternoon’s biggest laugh.

Later, Touya, warmed by tea and the glow of family, turned to Shouto. “Hey, Sho. How’s Izuku? He have a good New Year’s?” Shouto, focused on the intricate arrangement of a hanafuda card, didn’t look up. “I don’t know.” “You didn’t talk to him? I thought you guys talked every day.” 

Shouto’s shrug was a small, tight movement. “B-busy. Wi-ith h-his b-boyfriend.” A faint chill entered the warm room, and the subject was gently, quickly steered away.

The week blurred into a peaceful routine of walks, reading, games, and endless eating. In those days, Touya felt a rare, perfect peace. The pain, the worry, the fatigue… it was all still there, but it was held at bay by the cold outside and the warmth of time together. 

---

Visiting her mother always left Fuyumi feeling a little emotionally scoured, the sterile, quiet halls a stark contrast to the life she was building as she got older. Today, the feeling was worse. The false alarm, the two weeks of desperate, hopeful googling of symptoms, the secret purchase of a test she was afraid to take, followed by the crushing, familiar arrival of her period, had left her feeling hollowed out. She needed her mother. 

Rei was sitting by the window in her room, a blanket over her knees, watching the winter light. She looked peaceful, her white hair neatly brushed, her hands resting calmly in her lap. She smiled when she saw Fuyumi.

“Fuyumi. How are you, dear?”

The kindness undid her. The words tumbled out in a hushed, tearful rush. “Oh… it’s been hard. Haruki and I… we’ve been trying for a baby. And it just… it’s not happening. And this month I thought… but it was nothing. Again. I just feel like… like my body is failing me. Like I’m failing.”

She waited for the soothing words, the maternal reassurance that it would happen, that she was young, that these things take time.

Rei’s smile didn’t fade, but it changed. It became something older, sadder, tinged with a bitterness that was usually buried deep. She reached out and patted Fuyumi’s hand, but her touch was cool, detached.

“A baby,” she repeated, the word sounding foreign on her tongue. She looked out the window again, at the bare, frozen trees. “Your father… he was so obsessed with an heir. A legacy. He forced me, Fuyumi, one after the other... It was my duty. My body was never my own.” Her voice was a flat, quiet monotone, recounting a weather report from a distant country. “You’re so lucky. You have a choice, you have a husband who loves you... You’ll never be burdened like I was. It’s better… it’s so much better not to have any.”

Her words weren’t meant to be cruel; in Rei’s fractured mind, they were a comfort, a blessing she was bestowing upon her daughter. But to Fuyumi, her deepest desire was being reframed as a curse. She sat there, frozen, her own tears drying on her cheeks, unable to form a response. The conversation died there, in that sunlit, sterile room, leaving Fuyumi with a new, traumatic experience nestled beside the old ones.

A week later, the house was filled with the warm, happy chaos of Shouto’s birthday. The heavy scent of nabe broth filled the air. In the living room, Touya, Keigo, and Haruki were engaged in a loud, competitive board game, their laughter echoing. Shouto and Izuku had vanished into Shouto’s room, likely to examine a new art book or game.

Fuyumi and Inko found themselves in the kitchen, tasked with refilling drinks and bringing out more food. The easy camaraderie they’d built over years of shared school events and family gatherings settled between them. Inko was washing a few stray bowls, her kind face softened by the steam.

“It’s a wonderful party, Fuyumi-chan,” Inko said. “Shouto seems so happy.”

“He does,” Fuyumi agreed, arranging cookies on a plate. The normality of the task, the domestic warmth of the kitchen, made the words come easier. “It’s nice. After… everything… It’s nice to have a happy day.”

Inko glanced over. She turned off the tap and dried her hands. “Is everything alright? You seem a little… far away today.”

The simple, gentle question broke the last of Fuyumi’s resolve. The plate of cookies clattered slightly as she set it down. “I… I went to see my mother last week,” she began, her voice barely above a whisper. “Haruki and I… we’ve been trying to have a baby for a while now. And it’s just… not happening. I thought maybe talking to her would help but…” She trailed off, the memory of Rei’s words a fresh ache.

Inko’s expression filled with immediate, profound understanding. She didn’t offer empty platitudes. She simply said, “Oh, Fuyumi. That is so hard.”

“She told me I was lucky,” Fuyumi blurted out, the tears welling up again, “that it was a burden. That my father forced her and… and that I was better off.” She wiped at her eyes angrily. “And I know she didn’t mean it to hurt me. I know her life was… was a nightmare. But it just made me feel so… so alone.”

Inko listened, her hands wrapped around her own teacup, her expression one of deep, empathetic sadness. 

When Fuyumi was done, Inko sighed, a sound that held the weight of years. “Oh, Fuyumi. There’s no right or wrong way to feel about this. Your mother’s experience… It was born from a place of violence and control. Of course she sees having children as a prison. Her children were used against her, her body used to have children for a purpose outside of just loving them.” She took a sip of tea. “But your desire… that comes from a place of love. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

She was quiet for a moment, gathering her thoughts. “My experience… it was somewhere in the middle, I suppose.” She gave a soft, self-deprecating laugh. “It wasn't planned. Izuku, I mean. I was twenty, in my third year of a pre-med program. I had my whole life mapped out. Med school, residency, a career… and then, there he was.”

Fuyumi looked up, surprised. 

“His father…” Inko’s smile became strained. “Well, he wasn’t prepared for any of it. He was charming and fun, but a family? It wasn’t for him. He left when Izuku was about four. We haven’t heard from him since, and my parents were so ashamed that I got pregnant unmarried and in college that they haven’t spoken to me since before Izuku was born. They’ve never even met him.” She said it matter-of-factly, the old hurt long since scabbed over. “So, I was alone. I had to drop out of my program. My dreams of being a doctor… they just vanished. There were diapers to buy, and rent to pay…”

She looked toward the hallway, as if she could see her son through the walls. “Izuku was… a very challenging baby. He didn’t sleep, he cried for hours, he was incredibly sensitive to sounds, to textures… He was diagnosed as on the autism spectrum, which felt like a life sentence on its own, and then, quirkless, then ADHD, then anxiety because of those things... It explained so much, but it also meant more specialists, more therapies. It was a lot.”

Inko’s gaze grew distant, remembering. “When he was finally old enough for preschool, I went back to school. I couldn’t afford the time or the debt of medical school, so I decided to pivot and became a nurse. It was a little faster, and it was stable. It was a good job that let me take care of my boy.” She looked back at Fuyumi, her eyes soft. “It wasn’t the life I planned. It was harder, and lonelier, and more exhausting than I ever could have imagined. There were days I was so tired I thought I would break.”

She reached across the table and placed her hand over Fuyumi’s. “But Fuyumi, he was also the best thing that ever happened to me. He is the best thing. The joy he has brought me… the person he is… I wouldn’t trade it for any version of the life I had planned. The struggle didn’t make his existence a burden. It just made our story ours.”

She squeezed Fuyumi’s hand. “Your mother’s story is one of pain. Mine is complicated. Your story will be your own. There’s no right answer. Only what’s right for you and Haruki. And whatever that is… it’s going to be okay.”

Fuyumi looked at Inko and saw not just the sweet mother of her brother’s best friend, but a woman of immense resilience and depth. Her pain wasn’t dismissed, and her desire wasn’t shamed… It was understood.

The dull ache in her chest didn’t vanish, but it loosened its grip. The echo of her mother’s words lost some of their power. She wasn’t wrong for wanting what she wanted. 

---

The months of January and early February passed for Shouto in a monochrome blur of school, homework, and art. The frantic, all-consuming drive of the competition was gone, replaced by the steadier, more familiar rhythm of creating for his school’s upcoming festival. He wasn’t bored. His hands were rarely still. But the structure of his weeks had developed a new, quiet hollow.

Izuku’s presence, once a reliable constant, had become intermittent. His social calendar had been thoroughly annexed by Kaito and the looming specter of university entrance exams. The Sunday morning study sessions at their apartment dwindled. Kaito, a science and tech whiz, had seamlessly taken over Izuku’s math tutoring, a development that was a relief to Touya, who’d long ago hit the ceiling of his own mathematical understanding. Shouto understood the logic of it all. Exams were important. New relationships were exciting. But understanding didn’t stop the feeling of being replaced. 

There had been a few group hangs Shouto hadn’t been able to avoid: a movie, a trip to a hero museum exhibit, a new cafe... Kaito was there, a permanent appendage. Shouto had tried to employ the strategies Touya and Keigo had given him. When Kaito praised a simple observation with a hearty “Good job!”, Shouto had managed a flat, “Was ju-ust a f-fact.” The look of faint surprise on Kaito’s face had been satisfying, and Izuku, buzzing with happy energy, had missed the exchange entirely. The tools were good, but they required a specific energy Shouto often didn’t have the willpower to muster.

Before he knew it, the ceremony for the art competition was upon him. The ten pieces were carefully crated and transported to the Museum of Contemporary Art. The scale of it, the reality of his work being displayed in such a hallowed space, didn’t truly hit him until the day of the event.

And then, his people arrived.

It wasn’t just Touya, Keigo, Fuyumi, and Haruki; Natsuo showed up, looking more relaxed than he had in months, and beside him was the mysterious study partner, now officially introduced with a faint blush as “my girlfriend, Yuki.” The Bakugos arrived, Mitsuki’s loud voice a stark contrast to the hushed gallery tones, Masaru a calming presence beside her. Katsuki trailed behind them, hands shoved in his pockets, his usual scowl in place, but he was there.

Then came the Aizawa-Yamadas. Hitoshi walked between his fathers, his posture less slumped than it had been in December. He wasn’t the vibrant, sarcastic kid Shouto remembered from before, but he was feeling at a solid 60%. He was talking, his voice quiet but clear. Eri held Shouta’s hand, her red eyes wide as she took in the soaring ceilings and the serious-looking art.

A sense of rightness settled over Shouto. This was his world. 

And then Inko Midoriya arrived, her face beaming with pride, her arms open for a hug. Izuku was beside her, practically vibrating with excitement. “Shouto-kun! This is so amazing! I can’t believe it!”

And beside Izuku, hand resting lightly on the small of his back, was Kaito.

Shouto’s face, which had been in a state of neutral observation, tightened almost imperceptibly. His shoulders drew up a fraction. It was a microscopic shift, but Katsuki Bakugo, whose entire life was built on reading the micro-shifts in a fight, saw it. A sharp, silent laugh escaped him, a puff of air.

He nudged Hitoshi, who looked at him, surprised. 

[Ask him,] Katsuki signed quickly. [Ask Icy-Hot why he doesn’t like Deku’s boyfriend.]

Hitoshi blinked, processing the request. Getting into the drama was so… un-Katsuki-like. 

Maybe the Class A idiots were rubbing off on him. 

He turned to Shouto, his own signs slower, more deliberate. [Katsuki wants to know why you don’t like Midoriya’s boyfriend.]

Shouto’s eyes flicked from Kaito, who was cheerfully explaining the lighting in the gallery to a nodding Inko, back to Hitoshi. He didn’t hesitate. ”Tr-treats me l-like a ba-aby. Or a d-dog that d-did a tr-rick. P-pa-pat-troni-izing.” 

Shouto was pleased with himself. 

Patronizing. What a great word. 

Hitoshi’s lips quirked up. He interpreted for Katsuki.

Katsuki knew all about people who were patronizing. A wicked grin spread across Katsuki’s face. [Should we beat him up?] he replied, the motion for ‘beat him up’ particularly aggressive.

Hitoshi rolled his eyes but relayed this to Shouto.

Shouto considered this for a moment, his head tilted. Then he replied, his expression utterly serious, “No. Izuku w-will c-cry… He-he’s an u-ugly c-crier… R-ruin ev-everyone’s d-d-day.”

Hitoshi’s interpretation was accompanied by a snort of laughter he couldn’t suppress. Katsuki, however, didn’t hold back. A loud, barking laugh exploded from him, completely devoid of volume control. It echoed through the high-ceilinged gallery, turning several heads. “HAH!”

Immediately, a chorus of signed reprimands shot from the parental units. Mitsuki Bakugo signed a furious [KATSUKI! INSIDE VOICE!] while Aizawa fixed him with a flat, unamused stare, and signed [Respect. The. Space.]. Hitoshi just shook his head, a faint, real smile on his face for the first time in months.

It was at that moment that Izuku, drawn by the commotion, pulled Kaito over to their little group. “Kacchan! Hitoshi! It’s so good to see you both!” Izuku said, his voice bright. “Kaito, these are my friends, Bakugo Katsuki and Shinsou Hitoshi. Guys, this is Kaito.”

Kaito offered his same wide, friendly smile. “Hey! It’s great to meet you guys! Izuku’s told me so much about you.”

Katsuki looked at Kaito’s smiling face, then at his outstretched hand. He didn’t take it. Instead, he deliberately spoke, his voice a low, gravelly rumble shaped by deafness, the words slurred and without vowels. “M’deaf. Sorry. Can’t hear you.”

It was his get-out-of-jail-free card. Without another glance, he turned and shouldered his way through the crowd, making a beeline for the refreshments.

Hitoshi, after a beat of stunned silence, offered Kaito a slight, apologetic shrug that wasn’t really apologetic at all, and followed Katsuki, leaving Shouto alone with a beaming Izuku and a slightly confused-looking Kaito.

“Oh! Right, sorry, Kaito,” Izuku said, flustered. “Kacchan is… well, he’s Kacchan. He doesn’t really… talk to new people.”

Kaito’s smile didn’t falter, but it became a little fixed. “No problem! It’s cool.” He then turned his attention to Shouto, and the smile widened into that familiar, condescending curve. “And the man of the hour! Congratulations, Shouto! I can’t wait to see your drawings!”

The tone was there. The one that made Shouto’s skin prickle.

“It’s so nice that they’re including your work in this… Inclusion is so important!”

 A hot, frustrated pressure built behind his eyes. He wanted to force the words out that would make this guy see, but he knew the effort would be useless; the words would come out garbled, slurred, and would only reinforce Kaito’s perception of him as simple. And worse, the emotional storm would take him hours to recover from. This was his day. He wouldn’t let this guy ruin it.

Izuku, blessedly oblivious, bounced on the balls of his feet. “Shouto! Where’s your section? I want to see it!”

Grateful for the distraction, Shouto gave a nod and led them through the crowd. He navigated toward the corner where his family had gathered like a protective shield. Keigo had, through some mysterious hero-level logistical feat, procured a chair for Touya, who was sitting with his legs stretched out, a look of pale but determined pride on his face. They were all clustered in front of Shouto’s designated space.

And it was impressive. Two massive, moody paintings dominated the wall: one a turbulent, frozen seascape, the other an abstract explosion of color and texture that seemed to depict a mind unraveling. On pedestals stood his sculptures: intricate, welded pieces of scrap metal that looked like frozen lightning strikes or skeletal, mechanical birds. There were smaller hybrid pieces, paintings with sculptural elements breaking through the canvas.

Kaito stopped dead. His jaw actually dropped. The patronizing smile vanished, replaced by genuine, unvarnished shock. “Whoa,” he breathed, the sound entirely real for the first time. Then, the condescension crept back in, disguised as concern. “Wow. Who… who helped you do these?”

The question hung in the air, ugly and blunt.

Izuku’s smile finally faltered. A flicker of confusion and dawning discomfort crossed his face. “Kaito, don’t be silly,” he said, his voice a little too high. “Sho is amazing! He does these all by himself! Obviously!”

But Kaito wasn’t looking at Izuku. He was staring at the welded metal pieces, his brow furrowed. “I mean, the welding though… that’s really precise work. You need to be super steady for that. Is it… is it safe for him to be doing that?”

That was the final straw. The pressure in Shouto’s chest boiled over. He turned to face Kaito directly, his heterochromatic eyes blazing. He forced the words out, each one a struggle, pushed through a throat tight with anger. They were slurred, the consonants soft, the vowels flattened, but their meaning was razor sharp.

“I. Am. R-right. Here,” he ground out, the words hitting the air like stones. “You c-can. T-talk. To m-me.” He took a step closer, his voice gaining a shred of volume, laced with a frost that had nothing to do with his quirk. “And I. Ha-ave. P-perfect. Qu-quirk. Con-control.”

The silence that followed was profound. Izuku was staring, his eyes wide, his face pale. The anxiety Shouto knew lived just under his friend’s skin was now plain to see, his hands fluttering slightly at his sides. 

Kaito looked stunned, then defensive. “I- I didn’t mean… I was just worried about-”

Shouto didn’t let him finish. The effort of that short sentence had drained him. The angry feelings were looming, a black cloud at the edges of his vision. He had to get away.

“I am… W-walk a-away. From you. N-now,” he stated, each word a deliberate, shaky effort. And he did. He turned his back on them both and walked stiffly over to where Natsuo and Yuki were standing, inserting himself between them like a human shield.

He didn’t look back. He felt Natsuo’s hand come to rest on his shoulder, a steadying weight. He heard Natsuo’s low murmur, “You okay, Sho?” but he couldn’t form an answer. He just stared straight ahead, breathing slowly, trying to force the storm back down.

The tension was broken by the sound of a microphone clicking on. The ceremony was starting. The crowd shifted, attention turning to the stage. Shouto kept his focus there, a fixed point in a swirling sea of unwanted emotion.

They announced the winners. Out of the twenty finalists, he’d earned third place. When they called his name, “Todoroki Shouto,” the sound was muffled, distant. There was a wave of applause from his corner of the room, louder and more fervent than for anyone else. Touya was on his feet, leaning heavily on his cane, whistling through his teeth. Keigo was whooping. Fuyumi was crying. Natsuo was clapping him on the back.

He walked to the stage, his movements automatic. He accepted the certificate, shook a hand, and managed a slight bow. Third place. Not the grand prize, but one of his pieces would stay in the museum. Through the numbness, pride began to seep in.

As the crowd began to disperse, his family enveloped him in a wave of hugs and congratulations. He was still feeling raw, overstimulated, when a woman with sharp, intelligent eyes and a portfolio under her arm approached their group. She bypassed the adults and spoke directly to him.

“Todoroki? My name is Chiba Mio. I’m a curator with a gallery in Ginza.” She handed him a business card. “Your work… the mixed-media piece with the resin and the charred wood… it’s stunning. The emotional texture is extraordinary. I would be very interested in talking to you about the possibility of featuring your work in the future.”

Shouto took the card, staring at it. The words slowly filtered through the fog in his brain. 

A gallery. In Ginza. Interested in him!

He looked up from the card to the woman’s face, then over to where Izuku was standing alone with Inko, Kaito nowhere to be seen. The frustration and hurt of the earlier interaction was still there, a cold stone in his gut.

But as he looked down at the crisp white card in his hand, he felt the stone get a little smaller. 

He looked back up at her and nodded.

Chapter 65: I Am Who I Am

Notes:

thank you so much to everyone for your heartfelt comments- i'm so grateful that i've actually achieved my goals of portraying disability and the ways we all live with the different challenges we face in a way that touches and educates people... thank you all very much and i hope that you are all doing well and having a great day!
things are gonna get a little bit scary but it'll be okay i promise!
xoxo

Natsuo’s dorm room looked like the epicenter of a bomb blast. Textbooks on immunology, organic chemistry, and molecular biology were splayed open in chaotic, overlapping fans across his desk, bed, and floor. Pages were dog-eared and bristling with a forest of multi-colored sticky notes. Empty coffee cups and crumpled energy drink cans formed a precarious sculpture on the overfilled garbage can. The air hummed with the frantic energy of a mind moving too fast for its own good.

Yuki sat perched on the edge of his bed, which was neatly made, and in stark contrast to the rest of the room. She watched Natsuo pace the narrow strip of free floor, talking for forty-five minutes straight, a rapid-fire monologue that leapt from T-cell activation to the flaws in modern pharmaceutical research to a grand, sweeping theory about “reprogramming the human immune system from the ground up.”

“-because the current model is fundamentally reactive, see?” he said, his words tumbling over each other. “It’s a defense system. But what if we could make it predictive? Proactive? A network of cellular sentinels that could identify and neutralize pathological threats before they even manifest symptomatically! I’m talking about a paradigm shift… a complete revolution in immunology!”

His eyes were bright, almost feverish, his pupils wide. A fine, constant tremor shook his hands, making the highlighter he was clutching skitter unpredictably over a diagram of an antibody. She’d brought him a container of grilled chicken and rice, but it sat unopened on the desk, already going cold.

“Natsuo,” she interjected gently, seizing a half-second pause for breath. “That sounds… incredible. Really. But you’ve been going for hours. Maybe take a break? Have a few bites to eat.”

He waved a dismissive hand, the movement jerky. “I’m not hungry. Food is a distraction.” He stopped pacing and pointed the marker at her. “You see? You see how all the connections are firing?”

She saw. And it was terrifying. 

She remembered his quiet confession weeks ago. She realized with a cold dread that was probably what his mania looked like.

“Maybe just one bite?” she tried again, her concern sharpening into fear.

“Later, later,” he snapped, uncharacteristic impatience edging his tone. The warmth he usually had for her was gone, sandblasted away by this frantic energy. He ran a hand through his already disheveled hair. “I need… I need a cold shower. To focus my thoughts.” 

He practically bolted for the small ensuite bathroom, locking the door behind him. A moment later, she heard the spray of the water hit the tiles.

The moment the door clicked shut, Yuki moved. Her heart was hammering against her ribs. She remembered meeting his siblings at the art show, remembering who she was supposed to call. 

She snatched Natsuo’s phone from the desk, her fingers trembling as she scrolled through his contacts. She found “TOUYA” and hit call.

It rang twice before a rough, tired voice answered. “Hey, asshole. Shouldn’t you be memorizing something right now?”

“T-Touya?” Yuki stammered. “It’s Yuki. Natsuo’s girlfriend.”

There was a beat of silence on the other end, the casual tone vanishing instantly. “Yuki. What’s wrong?”

“I think… I think something’s wrong with Natsuo,” she said, the words tumbling out in a hushed rush. “He told me about… his bipolar. And I know he’s been working so hard to stay on top of his classes, but this… this is different. He’s not sleeping, I don’t think he’s eaten all day. He’s pacing, talking so fast I can barely keep up, and he’s rambling about crazy stuff, like, cure-all-diseases type of thing, and he looks kind of… wild, I guess? I’m scared for him.”

On the other end of the line, Touya was sitting on the couch, TV on mute as he listened to Yuki. Keigo was beside him, his sharp eyes missing nothing. Touya had been feeling awful for days, a deep, bone-weary fatigue, a low-grade fever that made his skin feel too tight, and the ever-present pins and needles in his legs had escalated to a maddening, painful buzz that made focus nearly impossible. 

He closed his eyes. “Yeah,” he said, his voice grim. “That’s mania. He’s manic.” He put a hand over the receiver and looked at Keigo. “It’s Natsuo. He’s manic. I should-”

Keigo’s expression tightened. He took in Touya’s pallor, the sheen of sweat on his brow. “You’re not going anywhere,” he said, his voice leaving no room for argument. “She needs to call Fuyumi.”

Touya wanted to argue. The urge to go, to fix it, was a physical pull. But his body was a traitorous anchor. He nodded, a short, frustrated jerk of his head. He got back on the line.

“Yuki, listen. I’m… I’m not… I can’t get up there right now. But I need you to call our sister, Fuyumi. Her number is in his phone too. Call her. Explain exactly what you told me. She’ll know what to do.”

Two hours later, at nearly 11 PM, there was a soft knock on Natsuo’s dorm room door. Yuki was gone, having left at Touya’s insistence; Natsuo might feel betrayed if she was there when Fuyumi showed up, and her presence could make him more agitated.

Natsuo, now dressed but still vibrating with restless energy, yanked the door open. His eyes widened in surprise. “Fuyumi? What are you doing here?”

Fuyumi stood in the hallway, her coat buttoned neatly, her expression calm and neutral. There was no panic, no tears. She looked like she’d just popped over for a casual visit. “I had a tip that maybe something was up,” she said, her voice even. “Thought I’d check in.”

Natsuo’s face tightened with defensiveness. “Who the fuck said there was something up? I’m fine! I’ve never been better, actually!” He launched into it again, the words tumbling out. “I just had a major breakthrough, I’m going to ace my exams and then present my thesis on targeted immunotherapy at the fall conference; it’s going to revolutionize the field!”

Fuyumi didn’t try to interrupt him. She just listened, nodding slowly as if he were explaining a complex recipe. While he paced and gestured, she began to move quietly around the room. She gathered the empty energy drink cans, stacking them neatly. She closed the textbooks that were splayed open, setting them in a pile. She picked up the forgotten container of onigiri and placed it on the desk near him.

Her movements were not a criticism; they were a quiet, grounding counterpoint to his frenzy. It was what Fuyumi always did: create order amidst chaos.

“It sounds like you’ve made a real breakthrough,” she said when he paused for breath. Her tone was utterly sincere. “Your brain must be working overtime to make all those connections.”

“It is!” he said, the validation fueling him. “It’s like… everything is firing at once!”

“I bet it is,” she agreed. She picked up a stray shirt from the floor and folded it. “You know, when my thoughts are going too fast, like when I’m grading a hundred papers and planning lessons, sometimes a change of scenery helps. How about we go for a little drive? Just to clear the static. You can tell me all about your plan again- maybe the motion will help you think even better.”

The suggestion was perfectly pitched. 

Natsuo hesitated, his eyes darting to his notes. “I should really keep working…”

“Bring your notebook,” Fuyumi said smoothly. “You can jot things down in the car. You wouldn’t want to forget any of it. Oh, and a toothbrush! Just in case we end up out for longer and need to sleep over somewhere.”

That decided it. The fear of losing a single, precious thought was greater than the urge to stay. “Yeah, okay. A drive sounds good.”

The night air was cold and helped a little. In the passenger seat of Fuyumi’s car, Natsuo started talking again, the words pouring out even faster, fueled by the new stimulus. He scribbled in his notebook, his handwriting a frantic, nearly illegible scrawl of half-formed equations and jargon.

Fuyumi drove calmly, listening. After a few minutes, she spoke again, her voice gentle. “You know, Natsu… when my best students are working on a huge project, sometimes they get so excited their ideas get ahead of their ability to explain them. The thoughts come too fast to get them down right.”

Natsuo grunted in agreement, still writing.

“I bet,” she continued, “if we stopped by the hospital, just for a second, the doctors could give you something to just… slow your thoughts down a little. Not stop them, just slow how fast they’re coming, so you can make sure you’re writing everything down exactly as you want it. So that when you present it, everyone will understand you perfectly, and you won’t have to repeat yourself, and then you can keep going.”

Natsuo stopped writing. He looked out the window at the passing streetlights, his mind wrestling with the logic. The idea of anyone not understanding his brilliant thesis was intolerable. “You think… they could do that? Just slow it down a bit? So I can get it all down right?”

“I really do,” Fuyumi promised him.

He was quiet for a long moment. The grandiose energy was still there, but it was beginning to fray at the edges. “…Okay,” he muttered. “Yeah. Okay.”

In the ER, Fuyumi’s performance was masterful. While Natsuo sat in a chair, frantically scribbling unintelligible notes in his messy notebook, she spoke to the triage nurse, then the doctor, her voice low and measured.

“My brother has Bipolar I Disorder,” she stated, the clinical term sounding both foreign and terrifyingly familiar. “He’s experiencing a manic episode. He’s been awake for over 48 hours, has consumed excessive caffeine, and has not eaten for at least 24. He has agreed to a voluntary admission for observation and rescue medication to help him stabilize. He’s a pre-med student at Keio; the exam stress has been a significant trigger.”

The nurse glanced at Natsuo, who was now muttering to himself as he wrote, completely disconnected from the conversation, and saw the truth of Fuyumi’s words. The admission process was swift. 

They were led to a quiet room. A nurse administered a fast-acting sedative to bring him down from the acute mania and an antipsychotic to help clear the chaotic thinking. Natsuo didn’t fight.

---

He woke to the pale grey light of morning filtering through the hospital room blinds. He was disoriented, his mouth cottony, his body feeling like it was made of lead. The world was muffled and slow. He remembered pieces: the frantic studying, Fuyumi showing up, the car ride… but it was a foggy, disjointed film reel.

“Hey,” Fuyumi said softly. She was sitting in a chair by his bed, looking tired but otherwise fine.

“What… what happened?” he mumbled, his voice rough.

“You needed to rest,” she said simply. “The doctors gave you something to help. You’re okay.”

The discharge process was quick. Fuyumi had already handled everything. She drove him back to his dorm in silence. She had taken the day off work. Inside, she made him a cup of weak tea and put a simple onigiri from the grocery bag she’d brought the night before on a plate for him. He ate it slowly, each bite an effort.

The humiliation was a cold, heavy blanket. The grandiose ideas of the night before felt like embarrassing delusions. The world was grey and utterly devoid of the brilliant, compelling clarity he’d been certain was real.

Without him asking, Fuyumi took his phone. She called the student services office, made the arrangements, and confirmed the accommodations Natsuo had in place for when these crashes would happen.

A few days later, exams were over. The frantic energy of the campus had subsided, replaced by the relieved exhaustion of the semester’s end. Natsuo felt more himself: subdued, deeply embarrassed, but stable. The chemical fog had lifted, leaving behind the sobering wreckage of his episode.

He found Yuki sitting on a bench outside the main lecture hall, waiting for him. His stomach clenched. He couldn’t meet her eyes.

“Yuki,” he started, his voice low. He stared at his shoes. “I… I owe you an apology. And an explanation. What you saw… that’s part of it. The bipolar thing.” He finally forced himself to look at her. Her expression was unreadable, but she was listening. “I try to manage it. I swear, I do. The meds, the diet, the sleep schedule… but sometimes, under pressure, it just… breaks through. I understand completely if that was too much. If you don’t want to… you know. Be with someone who comes with… that.”

He braced himself for the gentle let-down, for her to say it was all too much.

Yuki was quiet for a moment. Then she reached out and took his hand. Her grip was firm. “Natsuo,” she said, her voice clear and steady. “You didn’t scare me away. You worried me. There’s a difference.” She gave his hand a small squeeze. “I called for help because I care about you, not because I wanted to run. Seeing how your family knew exactly what to do without any drama… it showed me that this is just a thing you manage. It’s a part of you, but it’s not who you are.” She offered him a small, sure smile. “So no, I don’t want to break up.”

The relief that washed over Natsuo was so profound it left him lightheaded. She had seen him at his most fractured, most out-of-control, and she wasn’t leaving. It felt like nothing short of a miracle. 

---

March had started well enough; he’d been diligent over the past year, he’d kept his appointments with Dr. Nakamura every three weeks, taken his immunosuppressants and pain meds with clockwork precision, and used his cane without complaint. He’d even started saying ‘no’ to new patients, preserving his energy. He was, against all odds, okay.

But the pollen was an enemy his carefully built defenses couldn’t withstand. It started as it always did: a familiar, dry tickle in the back of his throat, a slight tightness in his chest when he took a deep breath. Annoying, but manageable. He upped his inhaler use and hoped it would pass.

It didn’t pass. It escalated.

Over the course of a single week, he watched his body betray him with a ruthless efficiency. The wheeze became a constant, wet rattle deep in his chest. The congestion wasn’t just in his sinuses; it felt like his lungs themselves were filling with a heavy, viscous fluid. Every cough was a painful, jarring effort that left him dizzy and gasping. The familiar pins and needles in his legs, usually contained below the knee, began creeping up his thighs, a cold, numb fire that made standing a precarious ordeal.

By Thursday, he conceded defeat and called out of work. He spent the day on the couch, propped up on pillows, a blanket pulled up to his chin despite feeling feverish. Keigo fluttered around him, bringing tea, adjusting pillows, his face a mask of controlled worry. Shouto would hover in the doorway, his silent presence a question.

“I’m fine,” Touya would rasp. “Just… bad allergies.”

Friday was worse. The act of getting to the bathroom required Keigo’s support, his legs feeling like distant, unresponsive logs. His world shrank to the distance between the couch and the toilet.

Saturday morning, he knew. Lying on the couch, listening to the ragged, bubbling sound of his own breathing, he felt a cold certainty settle in his gut. He checked his pulse oximeter; the number made his already racing heart stutter: 90. His baseline was a shaky 92-94 on a good day, 90 was a warning sign flashing in bright red.

Keigo was sitting on the floor beside the couch, sorting through mail. Shouto was sketching at the kotatsu, though his eyes kept flicking up to Touya.

Touya reached out a hand, his fingers trembling slightly, and tapped Keigo’s shoulder. Keigo looked up immediately, his golden eyes sharp with concern.

“Keigo,” Touya whispered, the sound barely audible over the rasp of his breath. “I think… I need to go to the hospital.”

There was no argument. No ‘are you sure?’. Keigo just nodded, his expression grim. He’d been waiting for this, hoping that Touya would decide to go before something forced Keigo to make the choice for him. “Okay,” he said, his voice low and steady. “Okay. Let’s get you ready.”

The process of getting dressed was a humiliating ordeal. Keigo had to help him sit up, his head swimming with the movement. He had to guide Touya’s arms into a sweatshirt, pull soft sweatpants up over his numb legs, tie his shoes because Touya’s fingers were too weak and uncoordinated. Shouto watched, his face pale, his sketching forgotten. They were all scared, but there was a horrible, practiced rhythm to it. 

Keigo called Fuyumi. Within twenty minutes, she was at the door, her car keys in hand, her face a study in calm efficiency. “Shouto, you’re coming home with me tonight, so bring your backpack, and grab Touya’s bag, please,” she instructed softly. “Keigo, get him to the car. I’ll drive.”

The ride to the hospital was a blur. Touya was slumped in the passenger seat, his head resting against the cool window. He was so consumed by the effort of drawing each breath that he barely registered the motion of the car, a small mercy. When they pulled up to the ER entrance, Shouto leaned forward from the backseat and squeezed Touya’s hand.

Then Fuyumi got out. She came around to the passenger side, opened the door, and without a word, leaned in and wrapped her arms around him in a firm, secure hug. It was brief, but it was fierce. “Good luck,” she said, her voice thick with a worry she wouldn’t let him see. “You’ll be okay.”

Touya nodded, unable to speak around the lump in his throat that had nothing to do with congestion. The thought struck him, bizarre and sentimental: six years ago, Fuyumi had been a stranger, from a life he’d tried to erase. Now, her presence was a fundamental pillar of his safety net. The realization made him nervous, for some reason. 

Keigo was already out of the car, flagging down an orderly. A wheelchair appeared, and Keigo and the orderly transferred him into it. As he was pushed through the automatic doors of the emergency room, Touya closed his eyes.

Chapter 66: Unwelcome Updates

Notes:

another toughie- thank you for standing by :)

The emergency room was a cacophony of beeping machines, hushed voices, and the distant wail of sirens. To Touya, it was a nauseating swirl of sound and light. Every breath was a wet, ragged fight, a desperate gasp against the liquid weight filling his lungs, and his world viewed through a haze of fever and oxygen deprivation.

The triage nurse took one look at his pallor, the blue tinge to his lips, and the pulse ox reading Keigo rattled off, and they were rushed past the waiting room into a curtained bay. Hands were on him, efficient and impersonal. His shirt was cut away, a small, distant indignity he barely registered. Cold stethoscope on his burning chest.

“Lungs are full of rales,” a doctor murmured, his voice grim. “We need a chest X-ray, stat. Start him on high-flow oxygen.”

The oxygen cannula was shoved under his nose, a blast of cold, dry air that did little to alleviate the drowning sensation. He was wheeled away for X-rays, the world tilting and blurring, Keigo a constant, anxious shadow at his side, his wings held tight to his back in the cramped spaces.

Through the fog, he was aware of Keigo’s voice, a steady, sharp counterpoint to the medical murmur around them. It wasn’t panicked; it was fiercely, relentlessly factual.

“His allergies are listed here: cephalosporins and sulfa drugs,” Keigo stated, not asking, but informing. He held a well-organized binder, its tabs neatly labeled, that Touya’s grandmother had compiled years ago: a complete history, medication lists, allergy alerts, and copies of scans. Keigo held it like a shield. “And he has extensive scarring across his back and shoulders. He can’t lie flat. The skin is fragile and prone to breakdown. He needs to be propped at least at a 45-degree angle.”

A nurse nodded, already adjusting the bed. The relief was immediate, a small comfort in a sea of agony.

The diagnosis, when it came, was a weary, expected blow. Pneumonia. Allergy-induced, taking brutal advantage of his scarred, compromised lungs and the immune system haywire from QIAD. The antibiotics, the correct ones, burned a cold trail up his arm through the IV.

But it was the other symptom that truly terrified him. The pins and needles, his constant companions in his feet and legs, had become a burning, crawling invasion. He tried to move his toes, to flex an ankle. Nothing. Just a distant, staticky fizzle.

“The numbness…” he rasped, the words a raw scrape over the oxygen’s hiss. “My legs… can’t feel…”

The doctor’s expression tightened. The reflex hammer tapped, the sharp point dragged. Touya felt nothing but vague pressure. “The infection is causing significant inflammation,” the doctor explained, his tone carefully neutral. “It’s exacerbating the neuropathy. We’re hoping it recedes as we get the pneumonia under control.”

Hoping. The word was a chasm opening beneath him.

---

The first night felt so, so long. The fever spiked, sending violent chills through him despite the sweat soaking the sheets, and coughing fits seized him without warning, each one leaving him dizzy and gasping, the oxygen mask fogging with his pathetic, insufficient breaths. Through the haze, he was aware of Keigo’s presence, a hand on his forehead, a steadying grip during a coughing fit, the low murmur of his voice reassuring. 

Early Sunday morning, the door to his room opened. Touya, swimming up from a fitful doze, expected a nurse or Keigo, who had finally been convinced to go down to the cafeteria for coffee.

Instead, a familiar, calm figure stood there: Dr. Nakamura. She wasn’t in her usual white coat, but in a simple sweater and slacks, a large purse over her shoulder. She’d come on her day off.

“Himura,” she said, her voice as steady and straightforward as always. She approached the bed, her sharp eyes doing a quick visual assessment, taking in the oxygen, the IV, the pallor of his skin.

Touya tried to speak, to form some semblance of a greeting, but all that came out was a wet, rattling cough that stole his breath and left him trembling.

Dr. Nakamura waited it out, her expression neutral. When the fit subsided, she pulled up a chair. “The pneumonia is a nasty one,” she stated, not sugarcoating it. “But your vitals are stabilizing. The antibiotics are working.”

Touya looked at her, his usual sarcasm and defiance completely stripped away. The walls he tried so hard to maintain were gone. “It doesn’t… feel like it’s getting better,” he whispered. He was shaking, an involuntary tremor. “I’m… I’m really scared.”

Dr. Nakamura’s stern expression softened further. She reached out and placed her cool hand over his, which was clutching the sheet in a white-knuckled grip.

“I know you are, sweetheart,” she said, her voice quieter than he’d ever heard it, and the endearment so out of character. “But you are going to be fine. Your white blood cell count is already improving. It’s a brutal fight, and your body has less to fight with than most, but it is fighting. You have to trust it. And trust us.”

He wanted to believe her. But his body was telling him otherwise. 

---

The week and a half that followed was full of ups and downs. The fever broke, leaving him weak and drenched in sweat, his skin clammy and sensitive to the starch of the hospital sheets. The coughing fits became less violent, then less frequent, each one a painful tremor through his ravaged core. The crushing weight in his chest began to lighten, inch by painful inch, measured by the gradual weaning from the high-flow oxygen mask back to the standard, whisper-thin cannula that looped behind his ears.

His room became a revolving door: Shouto would sit for hours, not speaking, Natsuo brought him new, ridiculous magazines: one about competitive fishing, another about luxury yachts he’d never afford, and talked about everything except medicine, Fuyumi and Haruki brought homemade food in colorful containers: delicate broths and soft, steamed vegetables that he could barely stomach, but the love in the gesture meant everything. Inko came once too, her kindness a gentle, soothing balm. And Keigo of course was a constant, his arrival each day after work marked by the rustle of his jacket and a tired smile, his presence as essential as the oxygen flowing into his nose.

But the victory over the pneumonia was pyrrhic; the downside was stark and immobile. The sensation in his legs did not return. The buzzing, static numbness remained entrenched from his toes up to his mid-thighs, a constant, maddening void. He would dig his fingernails into the flesh of his thigh, pressing hard enough to leave crescent-shaped welts, chasing even the ghost of pain, but feeling only the buzzing.

The hospital’s physical therapist, a woman named Aimi with a relentlessly cheerful demeanor that felt like a personal affront, came by daily. “Time to get the blood flowing!” she’d chirp, guiding his limp legs through passive range-of-motion exercises. Touya would watch, disassociated, as his own limbs were moved for him like a doll’s.

Then came the session where she didn’t start with the exercises. Her smile was a little softer, her tone shifting from cheerful to carefully professional. “Okay, Himura. We need to talk about the next steps for getting you home. Your strength is improving, but your balance is compromised due to the neuropathy. You’re an extreme fall risk.”

The euphemism hung in the air, heavy and ugly. Fall risk. It sounded so clinical, so manageable. It wasn’t. 

“We’ll get you evaluated by Occupational Therapy today,” Aimi continued, her voice deliberately light, “and most likely, get you fitted for a wheelchair. It’s just for safety and mobility for now! It’s not permanent. Think of it as a tool to keep you independent while we work on getting you back on your feet.”

The words were a death sentence delivered in a singsong tone. A wheelchair. The cane had been a compromise, a tool that extended his reach and stability. This was different. It meant insurance evaluations, arguments with providers over what was “medically necessary,” measuring doorframes, and a whole new world of inaccessible spaces and the specific, gut-punching pity in people’s looks. It meant admitting that his body was not just weakened, but fundamentally, perhaps permanently, altered. 

Dr. Nakamura visited again towards the end of his stay. She was more optimistic now, but her optimism was tempered with a brutal, scientific realism. She pulled up his latest nerve conduction studies on a tablet, showing him the flat, sluggish lines that represented the signals that couldn't bridge the gap.

“The neuropathy is usually the last thing to recover,” she explained, her voice calm and even. “The inflammation from the sepsis has to completely recede before the nerves can even begin to think about healing. It’s a process of demyelination, the insulation around the nerves is stripped away. Regrowth, if it happens, is measured in millimeters per month.”

She looked at him, not with pity, but with a directness he appreciated, even through the numbness. “It may take weeks. It may take many months. You may get most of it back. You may get patches of sensation and movement. You may not. It’s impossible to say for sure. The goal now is to prevent further injury, like a fall that could break a hip, and maintain your muscle integrity until we know what we’re working with.”

Touya listened, his face a neutral mask, but inside, the last embers of the fierce, stubborn positivity he’d worked so hard to cultivate over the past year were guttering out. 

---

The day before discharge, a change in the weather mirrored a change in Touya’s condition. A late March chill had seeped back into Tokyo, and with it, a shallow, rattling cough had returned to Touya’s chest. He was listless again, the brief window of clarity closing, his skin taking on a waxy, translucent quality. The discharge was now a question mark, contingent on the fever breaking by morning. 

The cold rain outside mirrored the mood in the room. Keigo watched the droplets trace paths on the window, a counterpoint to the soft, rattling sound of Touya’s breathing. The fragile progress of the last six months,  healthy weight Touya’s body needed, was being swiftly carved away by the dual assaults of pneumonia and now this QIAD flare.

Keigo heard them before he saw them, the familiar, measured tap-tap of Ojiisan’s cane preceding them down the hall. Then they appeared in the doorway: Obaasan, her silver hair in its impeccable bun, a woven bag under her arm, and Ojiisan, stooped but steady, his eyes missing nothing.

They carried the scent of rain and the train station with them. Ojiisan’s tall frame seemed to fold into the room, immediately cataloging the IV, the oxygen, the fever-flush on his grandson’s cheeks. Obaasan, practical and unflinching, placed her dripping umbrella neatly in the corner before approaching Keigo.

“How are you holding up?” she asked, patting his arm. 

“I think we’ve all been better,” Keigo answered, squeezing her hand. “The fever came back last night,” he continued, “the QIAD is flaring. It started… it was just some allergies almost two weeks ago, right Sho?” 

Shouto nodded. 

“The pollen count was high. But with his lungs already weak, it turned into pneumonia so fast.” He ran a hand through his own messy hair. “And now this.”

Ojiisan grunted, a sound of deep understanding. He moved to the bedside, his large, work-roughened hand resting for a moment on Touya’s blanket-covered ankle. He then turned to Shouto, who had been curled into the corner, knees drawn up.

“He looks terrible,” Ojiisan stated, not unkindly.

Shouto agreed with a sharp dip of his chin.

Ojiisan looked his youngest grandson up and down, his gaze sharp behind his spectacles.

“Your sister says you’ve been grumpy,” Ojiisan stated, not unkindly.

Shouto’s jaw tightened. He looked away, towards the window, struggling. The words seemed to jam in his throat. “…F-frus-strated,” he finally ground out, the single word costing him visible effort.

Ojiisan just nodded, as if that one word was enough to explain it all. 

“Keigo,” Obaasan said, her tone leaving no room for argument. “You look exhausted. Take Shouto. Go get something warm to drink. We will sit.”

Grateful for the order, Keigo guided a reluctant Shouto out of the room and down to the nearly empty cafeteria. The silence between them was heavy. Shouto stared into his hot chocolate as if the swirling liquid held answers.

“You’ve been quiet,” Keigo ventured. “Quieter than usual. What’s this about? Touya?” 

Shouto shook his head no. 

“Something else?” 

Shouto’s shoulders tightened. He was quiet for a long time, assembling the thoughts, but Keigo was patient. “At the ga-gallery. Fo-or the… the c-c-comp-petition.” He took a breath. “Kaito. ‘You did a-all this? B-by yours-self? Wh-who he-elps you?’” Shouto’s imitation was flat, dripping with disbelief. “Like I… I c-couldn’t. Like I nee-eded… he-elp.”

Keigo felt a spike of anger but kept his voice calm. “What did you do?”

“I-I s- I said I di-idn’t nee-ed help.” Shouto’s hands, resting on the table, clenched into fists. “I w-walked a-away. Izuku… was unc-comf-fortab-ble. Said K-kaito w-was j-jok-king. I o-overre-eacted.”

“And since then?” Keigo prompted gently. “Are you fighting with Izuku?” 

Shouto shrugged. “No c-calls. J-just… te-exts.” He rolled his eyes. “‘H-how’s To-ouya?’ ‘Th-thi-inking of-of you.’” Shouto’s voice was thick with frustration. “Na-atsu r-reads for m-me.” 

There it was. 

“He doesn’t get it,” Keigo said softly. “He doesn’t understand how hard it is for you with texts.”

Shouto shrugged, wrinkling his nose in disagreement with Keigo’s assessment of the situation, but looked back down at the sticky cafeteria table without offering any alternative. “I mi-iss… my f-friend.”

There was nothing else to say.

---

The morning of the discharge, the fever had broken, leaving Touya hollowed out and ready to be in his own home. Dr. Nakamura signed the release forms with a stern reminder: the borrowed wheelchair was for transport only, a temporary measure until the custom-ordered one arrived. The Quirk suppressants and the cocktail of medications for nerve pain and residual inflammation would leave him hazy and emotionally volatile. “Rest, please, and be patient with your body,” she’d said, her final words a quiet command.

The journey from the hospital room to the curb was a study in logistical humiliation. Keigo and Obaasan worked in silent tandem. Keigo handled Touya’s weight, transferring him from the bed into the clunky, vinyl-upholstered hospital wheelchair while Obaasan managed the belongings. Touya endured it all with his eyes closed, his jaw tight. 

Fuyumi was waiting at the curb in Haruki’s sensible car, the engine running to fight the lingering chill. Her smile was bright and strained. “All set?” she asked, her voice a little too cheerful.

“As we’ll ever be,” Keigo replied, his focus on navigating the wheelchair over the uneven pavement. The process of transferring Touya from the chair to the passenger seat was another awkward, silent ballet. Keigo bore most of the weight, Touya’s arm slung over his shoulder, his own body a solid brace. Touya’s feet scuffed uselessly against the asphalt. He hated the passivity, the feeling of being a parcel to be moved.

The clunky wheelchair was folded and shoved into the trunk.

The drive was quiet. Touya leaned his head against the cool window, watching the city blur past. The world outside seemed too bright, too loud, too fast. He felt raw, his nerves scraped bare. The medications hummed in his veins, a low-grade static that clouded his thoughts and left him feeling both detached and hyper-aware of every jolt of the car.

When they pulled up to their apartment building, Fuyumi put the car in park and turned. “Okay, I’ll come up and help you get him settled.”

“No,” Keigo said, the word coming out a little too quickly. He softened it with a tired smile. “Thank you, Fuyumi, really. But we’ve got it. Obaasan is here. Natsuo is waiting upstairs. You should go home to Haruki.”

It wasn’t just about managing the physical task. It was about preserving the last shreds of Touya’s dignity. 

Fuyumi looked uncertain, her eyes flicking to her brother’s profile. “Are you sure? It’s no trouble-”

“We’re sure,” Obaasan said, sliding out of the backseat. “You’ve done enough, Fuyumi. Go.”

Reluctantly, Fuyumi nodded. “Call me if you need anything. Anything at all.”

The working elevator in their building was a blessing, but then the doors opened on their floor, and the final, most daunting obstacle lay ahead: the apartment itself.

Natsuo was waiting in the hallway, his large frame filling the space. His presence was a solid, comforting thing. “Welcome home, Niisan,” he said, his voice low and steady.

Keigo positioned the wheelchair in front of the door and knelt in front of Touya. “Okay. The chair’s too wide for the hallway. You remember the walker? The blue one from before? It’s just inside. Natsuo and I are going to help you. Just a few steps to the couch.”

Touya’s eyes, which had been dull with fatigue, flashed with a spike of pure, undiluted fear. The walker was a relic from a darker time, a symbol of a weakness he thought he’d conquered. The idea of trying to stand, to trust the buzzing, alien limbs beneath him, sent a cold wave of nausea through him.

“I can carry you,” Keigo said softly, his voice meant for Touya’s ears only. He knew the offer was a landmine over Touya’s pride. “Just say the word.”

Touya shook his head. “No. I can… I can try.”

Natsuo brought the walker out, its aluminum frame seeming to mock them with its cheerful, clinical blue paint. The two of them got Touya to his feet, each taking an arm. His legs held him, but it was a precarious, swaying balance. The neuropathy screamed up his nerves, a dissonant chorus of pins and needles and a deeper, bone-ache that the medications couldn’t quite touch.

He took one shuffling step, then another, the walker scraping against the genkan’s tile. The doorway was a tight squeeze. And then, halfway across the narrow hallway to the living room, his right knee buckled. It wasn’t a dramatic collapse, just a sudden loss of balance. A soft grunt escaped him.

That was all it took. In one fluid motion, Keigo shifted his grip, one arm sliding under Touya’s knees, the other supporting his back, and lifted him cleanly off his feet. It was effortless for Keigo, but the ease of it was its own kind of humiliation for Touya.

“I’ve got you,” Keigo murmured, his voice a steady anchor. “Just to the couch.”

Touya didn’t fight it. The brief attempt had sapped the last of his stubborn energy. He let his head fall against Keigo’s shoulder, his body rigid with shame. 

Natsuo hurried ahead, clearing a path, fluffing cushions on the worn sofa that faced the large window of their living room. Keigo settled Touya onto the cushions, arranging one behind his head, and a familiar, soft blanket over his legs.

And that was when he broke.

It started as a tremor in his hands, then a tightness in his throat that he couldn’t swallow. The medications made his head feel stuffed with cotton, yet every emotion was amplified, raw and too close to the surface. The frustration, the fear, the sheer, overwhelming exhaustion of the past two weeks, the fight to breathe, the fight to live, and now this new, demoralizing fight just to move from one room to another… it all crested at once.

He brought a hand up to cover his eyes, a futile attempt to hide the collapse, but his shoulders began to shake with silent, ragged sobs he could no longer contain.

Obaasan, who had been quietly putting away the few belongings in the kitchen, stopped. She met Natsuo’s gaze across the room and gave a small, almost imperceptible nod. Without a word, she gestured for him to follow her, and they retreated into the kitchen, giving the illusion of privacy.

Keigo moved in to hug him, and just let him cry. He let the storm rage until the sobs subsided into hitching breaths, and the tears slowed to a trickle. The apartment was silent except for the sound of Touya’s ragged breathing and the distant hum of the city from the window.

When Touya finally lowered his hand from his face, his eyes were red-rimmed and glassy. He looked utterly spent. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice hoarse.

“Don’t,” Keigo said, his own voice thick. He brushed a strand of damp hair from Touya’s forehead. “Don’t ever apologize. Just focus on feeling better.”

“I feel… I don’t know what I feel,” Touya admitted, the confession torn from him.

“Are you hungry? Nauseous?”

“Both,” Touya sighed, closing his eyes again. 

“There’s some congee. It’s plain. You can try a few bites. Or just some water.”

Before Touya could answer, a soft clatter came from the kitchen, followed by the low murmur of Natsuo’s voice and Obaasan’s crisp reply. The sound of a kettle being filled. The ordinary, domestic sounds of life continuing. They were a promise. This moment of utter defeat was not the end of the story. It was just a particularly brutal chapter.

Keigo kept his hand on Touya’s back, feeling his heartbeat gradually slow to a more steady rhythm. The fight wasn’t over, and the recovery would be long and uncertain. But for now, on this sunlit couch, with the smell of home around them and the quiet industry of family in the next room, they had won the only battle that mattered today.

---

The late afternoon sun slanted through the living room window, painting a long, warm rectangle across the floorboards that ended at the edge of the couch. Touya drifted in the hazy space between sleep and waking, the weight of the blanket and the residual fog of medication a heavy anchor. The sharp edges of the morning’s humiliation had been sanded down by exhaustion, leaving behind a dull, pervasive ache, both physical and emotional.

The soft click of the apartment door opening didn’t fully rouse him. He heard the murmur of voices in the genkan, the shuffle of shoes being removed. Then, quiet footsteps padded across the floor. He didn’t need to open his eyes to know it was Shouto.

He settled on the floor beside the couch. There was a gentle pressure as Shouto leaned his head against the cushions, his temple resting near Touya’s limp hand which lay palm-up on the blanket. Touya opened his eyes to look: Shouto wasn’t looking back at him, but was staring into the middle distance of the living room, his expression unreadable.

Slowly, Touya lifted his hand. It felt like lifting a bag of sand. He let his fingers come to rest on Shouto’s hair, the strands soft and familiar, a mix of red and white. He began to card his fingers through it, the motion clumsy at first, then falling into an old, forgotten rhythm, a gesture from another life, from six years ago when a traumatized, non-speaking eleven-year-old would crawl into his bed in the middle of the night. 

Keigo watched the scene through the doorway of the kitchen, and turned back to the small table where Obaasan was methodically slicing vegetables for dinner and Ojiisan was sipping a mug of tea, his gaze sharp and assessing.

“Shouto’s been quiet,” Ojiisan stated, his voice a low rumble. He nodded toward the living room. “When we were out, I asked him about his plans. For after high school. He had nothing to say.”

Keigo leaned against the counter, crossing his arms. He felt a weariness that went deeper than bone. “Shouto doesn’t usually have much to say about anything,” he said, the words coming out with a wry, tired edge. It was a joke he and Touya would have shared.

Obaasan’s knife stilled on the cutting board. She did not look amused. Ojiisan merely fixed Keigo with a flat stare, the kind that could strip paint. The attempted humor landed with a thud, highlighting the gulf between Keigo’s found-family dynamics and their more traditional, literal interpretation of things.

Keigo sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Sorry. That… wasn’t funny.” He uncrossed his arms, letting his hands fall to his sides. 

Obaasan’s gaze was direct. “So, what are the plans? Has he taken any practice exams? Looked at any universities? Art programs?”

This was the conversation Keigo had been dreading. He and Touya had talked about it in hushed tones late at night, a low-grade anxiety humming beneath the surface of their lives for the past year. 

He sighed, the sound heavy in the quiet kitchen. “The truth is, we… we haven’t pushed it. Because we don’t think he should go. To university, I mean.”

Ojiisan’s eyebrows rose slightly. Obaasan’s face remained impassive, waiting.

“He hasn’t studied for the entrance exams. He couldn’t,” Keigo continued, his voice dropping. “It’s not his fault. It’s just… not where his abilities lie. His aide, Chō, she’s been wonderful. She’s been working with him on academics at what they say is about a first-year middle school level. And he’s been struggling with those concepts for the last year and a half.” He looked from one grandparent to the other, willing them to understand. “And that’s okay. It really is. We’ve made peace with that. But it’s… it’s not university level. It’s not even close.”

“So, what will he do?” Obaasan asked, her tone not critical, but deeply practical. “A young man needs a purpose. Something to do with his days.”

“I know,” Keigo said, a thread of frustration weaving into his exhaustion. “We know. Touya and Fuyumi and I… we were going to sit down with him once the new school year started. Talk about options. His school has a transition program, they help with work placements. Maybe a part-time job at a frame shop, or a gallery, something quiet where he can be around art. We know he wants to keep making his own art, and we’ll support that forever, but…” He trailed off, gesturing vaguely. “Making a career of it is hard for anyone. And with Shouto…”

He didn’t need to finish the sentence. 

“We wanted to find something that would make him happy, that would give him some structure, without overwhelming him,” Keigo finished, his shoulders slumping. “But then… all of this happened.” He glanced toward the living room. “It hasn’t exactly been a priority. Maybe it should have been. I don’t know. I’ve been… a little overwhelmed.”

The admission felt like a failure. 

There was a long silence, broken only by the gentle bubbling of the stew. Ojiisan looked toward the living room, where Touya’s hand was still moving slowly through Shouto’s hair.

“We will be here for a few weeks,” Obaasan stated, her voice cutting through Keigo’s spiraling thoughts. “Until Touya is more stable. We will handle Touya, and the apartment.”

Ojiisan nodded, turning his gaze back to Keigo. “That will free you up. You and Fuyumi. To have this talk with Shouto. To figure out what this year should be.”

The relief that washed over Keigo was so profound it felt like a physical force. He hadn’t realized how much he was carrying until the weight was offered to be shared. “Thank you,” he said, the words thick with emotion. “I… thank you.”

“He is our grandson too,” Ojiisan said simply.

Chapter 67: Getting On And Off The Horse

Notes:

xoxo!
things are gonna start spicing up a little after this so... bear with me for one last tricky one.

The cherry blossoms were a brilliant pink against the gray skyline, a symbol of new beginnings that felt like a mockery. Keigo stood with Fuyumi outside Tokyo Metropolitan Arts High School, the sleek, modern building a stark contrast to the utilitarian hospital they’d spent so much time in recently. 

“Ready?” Fuyumi asked, adjusting the strap of her bag. She held a crisp new notebook and a colorful pen that screamed ‘elementary school teacher’. 

“No,” Keigo answered honestly, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets. “But let’s get it over with.”

The conference room was small, dominated by a table that reflected the fluorescent lights overhead. Three women waited for them. Chō, Ms. Suzuki,  the work-placement counselor, and Mrs. Yamamoto from the city’s adult services.

“Thank you for meeting with us,” Fuyumi began. “We’re here to discuss a plan for Shouto’s final year and his transition.”

Ms. Suzuki nodded, opening the top folder. “Of course. We want this to be a productive and supportive year for Shouto.”

“I’ve reviewed his file extensively,” Mrs. Yamamoto said, opening a thick binder. “As you know, his academic progress has… plateaued. The most recent assessments place his functional literacy and numeracy at approximately a sixth-grade level. Our primary focus for this transitional year needs to be on life skills and community integration.”

The words felt sterile. 

Plateaued. Functional literacy. Community integration. 

Keigo’s jaw tightened. 

Fuyumi’s pen scratched across the paper. “Could you define ‘community integration’ practically-speaking, Mrs. Yamamoto?”

“Of course.” The social worker adjusted her glasses. “It means finding a placement where Shouto-kun can contribute in a structured, supportive environment. We have several excellent partners.” She slid a brochure across the table. It showed smiling, blurry-faced adults sorting mail in a brightly lit room. “The Sunflower Center, for example, offers packaging and assembly tasks. There’s also a custodial services program with the city, or a role shelving books at the local library branch.”

Keigo stared at the brochure. He saw the routine, the safety... but he also saw the ceiling, low and unbreakable. This wasn’t a path; it was a holding room.

“We understand the need for structure,” Fuyumi said, in a placating tone Keigo recognized as a coping mechanism. “But we’re concerned about him losing the academic and artistic momentum he’s built. He’s a part of this school’s community. We want him to feel that, especially this year.”

Chō, who had been silent, leaned forward slightly. “If I may,” she said softly. “Shouto’s artistic achievements are significant. He placed third in the All-Japan Youth Art Competition last fall. His portfolio is one of the strongest in the senior class. His classmates like him and like working with him on projects. They accept him fully as a peer. That should be considered alongside his academic records.”

Ms. Suzuki gave a patient nod. “And we celebrate that, Chō-san. Truly. But we have to be realistic about his prospects. Making a living as an artist is challenging for anyone. For Shouto, the demands of self-employment, marketing, networking, financial management, it would be…” She trailed off, searching for a diplomatic word.

“Impossible?” Keigo finished for her, his voice flat. He uncrossed his arms and leaned forward in his seat. “We’re not expecting him to be a famous artist. We know that. But we don’t want him shoved into a room to stuff envelopes because it’s the easiest option. He’s smart. Not in the way you test for, but he is. He understands people. He has incredible focus when he’s being engaged in ways he can contribute. We want him to be challenged, not just… occupied.”

The room was silent for a moment. Mrs. Yamamoto cleared her throat. “Mr. Takami, the goal of these placements is productivity within a supported framework. It’s not about being ‘occupied.’ It’s about building a routine that can carry him into adulthood.”

“A routine that will do nothing for him,” Keigo shot back. “He knows when people are talking down to him or infantilizing him. He feels it and completely understands it. We don’t want him in an environment where that’s the norm.”

He was the cheerleader. He was the one who had seen the light in Shouto’s eyes when he was first becoming creative and expressing himself through his art. He was the one who had argued with a hesitant Touya, “Let him try the arts school. Believe in him.” Now, it felt like the school itself was giving up before Shouto had even finished.

Fuyumi placed a subtle hand on his arm under the table, a silent plea for calm. “What Keigo is trying to say,” she interjected smoothly, “is that we’d like to explore options that leverage his strengths and interests. Perhaps a framer’s shop, where he could be around art? Or a gallery, even in a volunteer capacity, where he could observe and learn?”

Ms. Suzuki’s expression was pained. “We have tried to place students at the local galleries, Todoroki. They often require… more independent social skills than Shouto possesses. A frame shop is a possibility, but they’re usually small businesses. The owner would need to be willing to provide a level of supervision we can’t guarantee.”

The conversation spiraled into a maze of limitations. Every potential avenue was blocked by a wall of “can’ts” and “wouldn’ts.”

Mrs. Yamamoto outlined the transition to adult services at age eighteen: a new government caseworker, the end of school-based support, the potential for funding for a day program for adults with disabilities.

“These programs offer structure, social activities, and supervision, for safety reasons, of course,” she explained.

Fuyumi’s pen stilled. She looked down at her notes, a detailed map of a future that felt suddenly small and confined. The words “day program” were written in her neat script, and beside them, she had unconsciously drawn a frowny face. The thought of Shouto in a room doing generic “activities” and being “supervised for safety” was a physical pain in her chest. She was grieving the future she had perhaps secretly, foolishly, hoped for, a future where Shouto’s talent somehow magically transcended his disabilities.

The meeting ended with vague promises to “explore options” and a plan to reconvene after further discussions with the potential work sites. The farewells were polite, strained.

Outside, the early April sun was bright and cheerful, a stark contrast to the heaviness they carried. They walked in silence for a block, the sounds of the city a distant roar.

Keigo finally stopped, running a hand through his hair in a gesture of pure agitation. “They weren’t listening. They had their checklist and that was it.”

Fuyumi hugged her notebook to her chest like a shield. “They’re doing their jobs, Keigo. They have to be practical.”

“Practical?” he snapped, then immediately regretted it. He took a breath. “I’m sorry. I just…”

“I know,” Fuyumi said softly, her own composure cracking. She looked away, her eyes glistening. “I wrote it all down for Touya. But reading it back… it sounds so bleak. It’s like they’re writing him off.”

“He’s more capable than they’re giving him credit for,” Keigo said, his voice thick. “He knows things. He understands more than people think he can. There has to be someone who takes a chance on him.” 

Fuyumi nodded, wiping discreetly at her eyes. “We have to be his advocates… but we have to be smart about it. Yelling at people won’t help.” She took a deep, shuddering breath, the teacher-mask reassembling itself. “Chō was an ally. We need to work with her… And we need to get Shouto in the room next time. He deserves to be part of this conversation, and tell them what he wants.”

Keigo looked over at her. She was strategizing, the steady hand to his passionate heart... Like Touya would be.

“You’re right,” he conceded. “We’re a team. You, me, and Touya. Even if Touya can’t be there in person right now.” He gestured to her notebook. “He’ll have your notes. He’ll have ideas too.”

 It was a tightrope walk between acceptance and ambition, between protecting Shouto from a world that didn’t understand him and preparing him for the world as it actually was. 

---

The last week of April bled away in a series of small victories. The apartment, once a minefield of narrow doorways and cluttered pathways, had been stripped bare of its obstacles.

Rugs were rolled up and stored, leaving smooth, unforgiving floors, ideal for wheels. The temporary, clunky hospital wheelchair was a hated guest, but it had served its purpose, teaching them the clearances needed. The custom chair, sleek and measured to Touya’s frame, was only a few weeks away from delivery.

The real progress, however, was in Touya himself. The hollowed-out look was gone, the medications had been fine-tuned, the Quirk suppressants balanced as well as possible, and he could now, with careful planning and a hand braced against the wall, make the slow journey from the couch to the bathroom alone. He could microwave one of the countless labeled containers Obaasan had packed into the freezer. He could sit upright for an hour without being seized by a coughing fit that left him gasping.

It was a life measured in inches, not miles. But it was life.

On the morning of their departure, Obaasan was a whirlwind of quiet efficiency. She moved through the apartment one last time, her sharp eyes checking for dust, for a dish out of place, for any sign of the chaos she feared would descend the moment she left. The freezer was a fortress of meticulously prepared meals: stews, curries, soups, each container dated and described in her precise script.

Ojiisan’s contributions were quieter but no less essential. The leaky faucet in the kitchen that had dripped a maddening rhythm for months was now silent, the washer he’d replaced sitting in the trash. He had spent several afternoons sitting at the table with Shouto, his large, rough hands patiently holding a ruler as Shouto struggled with the geometry in his math homework. 

When the time came to say goodbye, Touya pushed himself up, his movements still slow and deliberate. He gripped the handles of the walker, his knuckles white. The journey from the living room to the genkan was ten feet. It felt like a marathon. Keigo hovered a step behind, not offering anything, but ready to catch him if the neuropathy in his legs suddenly betrayed him. Shouto watched from the kitchen doorway, his expression unreadable.

Fuyumi and Haruki arrived, bringing with them the faint scent of the outside world. The small genkan became crowded.

Touya reached the doorway, breathing a little heavily. It was a small thing, standing there to see them off. For anyone else, it would be nothing. For him, it was everything. It was a declaration that he was still part of the world, still capable of meeting it at the threshold.

Obaachan turned to him first. She didn’t hug him; physical affection had never been her language. Instead, she adjusted the collar of his shirt, a quick, practical gesture.

“The lamb stew needs forty-five minutes in the oven at one-eighty. Not the microwave,” she instructed, her voice firm. “And air out the apartment when the weather is good. Stagnant air is bad for the lungs.”

Touya nodded, a smile touching his lips. “Yes, I will.”

She then turned to Keigo, her gaze sharp. “You will call if you need anything- anything at all. Do not be stubborn.”

Keigo promised.

Ojiisan clasped Touya’s shoulder. The grip was firm, and grounding. Then he turned to Shouto, who had crept closer. “Keep up your hard work,” Ojiisan said. “And remember what I showed you about the ruler. Measure twice, cut once.”

Shouto nodded. 

The final goodbyes were a murmur of “thank you” and “be safe.” Obaasan gave Fuyumi a tight, brief hug. And then they were gone, their figures disappearing down the hallway toward the elevator, the sound of their footsteps fading away.

Fuyumi and Haruki lingered for a moment, but the atmosphere had shifted. The purpose that had filled the apartment for three weeks had vanished. “We’ll come by tomorrow,” Fuyumi said, her voice a little too bright. “For family dinner.” 

Keigo just nodded, his eyes still fixed on the empty hallway.

When the door clicked shut, the silence was profound. It was no longer a quiet punctuated by Obaasan’s puttering or Ojiisan’s low rumble. It was a deep, empty silence. The apartment felt larger, the ceilings higher. Every small sound, from the hum of the refrigerator to the tick of the clock, was amplified.

Touya stood by the door. The effort of the short walk and the emotional weight of the goodbye had drained him. The defiant spark in his eyes had dimmed. Keigo felt the weight settle back onto his own shoulders. It was a physical sensation, like a heavy cloak he had temporarily been allowed to take off. For three weeks, the burden had been shared. The meals, the logistics, the constant, low-grade anxiety… it had been distributed among four adults. Now, it was his again. His and Touya’s.

“Okay?” Keigo asked, his voice soft in the quiet.

Touya didn’t answer immediately. He looked around the stripped-bare living room, at the clear path to the kitchen. It was an apartment adapted for disability. It was a home that had been reshaped by sickness.

“I’m going to lay down,” Touya replied, not answering the question. 

He began the slow, careful pivot back towards the couch. Keigo didn’t help. He just watched, his heart aching with a love that was equal parts admiration and sorrow. He watched the concentration on Touya’s face, the way he calculated each small movement, the slight tremor in his arms as he lowered himself onto the cushions.

Shouto, sensing the shift in the atmosphere, disappeared into his room. The apartment was now truly quiet.

Keigo went to the kitchen and opened the freezer. The stacked containers were a testament to Obaasan’s love, but they also felt like a countdown. A map of the lonely days ahead. He closed the door and leaned against the counter, staring out the window at the bright, indifferent city.

The battle wasn't over. It had just entered a new, quieter phase. The frontline was no longer the hospital or the doctor’s office. It was here, in this adapted apartment, in the simple, exhausting act of getting from the couch to the door and back again.

---

Dust motes floated through the afternoon sunbeams slanting across the floor, illuminating the clear paths that now defined the space. Touya sat on the couch, his laptop a heavy weight on his thighs. The browser window was open to his email. 

Dear Dr. Ishikawa,
Please accept this email as my formal resignation from my position as a Quirk Counselor at Tokyo Quirk Counseling Clinic, effective immediately. My current health situation makes it impossible for me to continue to meet the demands of the role…

The words were professional, and gave no hint of the seven years they were erasing.

His mind drifted back, not to the clinic’s beige walls or the smell of antiseptic, but to the people who had filled the small therapy rooms.

Ren, Mika, Haruto, and now, Eri. 

He had wanted to do so much more. He’d dreamed of finishing his Master’s, of specializing in Quirk-trauma for children under 16. He’d wanted to publish papers, and build a legacy.

Now, he couldn’t even manage a forty-minute train commute, let alone the physical and mental focus of a full day of sessions. The fatigue was a lead blanket, and the neuropathy in his legs made standing for more than a few minutes a dizzying risk. The QIAD flare had receded, but it had left his system fragile, a house of cards waiting for the next gust of wind.

His fingers, clumsy and cold, hovered over the keyboard. He’d added a final paragraph, a plea that felt both necessary and humiliating.

While I must step away from my full-time duties, I would be grateful if we could discuss the possibility of my retaining a very limited number of private clients, specifically those for whom a consistent, familiar therapeutic relationship is paramount. These sessions would, of necessity, be conducted on a reduced frequency and from my home. I understand if this is not feasible.

It was a compromise, a thread thrown to him from a lifeboat. But it felt like an admission of defeat. 

His body had become unreliable; the past few years had been a slow erosion, a series of medical absences that stretched from weeks into months, leaving his clients in the lurch. It was the profound inconsistency that felt like a betrayal of their trust. How could he guide a teenager through the delicate process of Quirk control when his own lungs might seize in a coughing fit mid-session, or when the brain fog from his medications would roll in, leaving his thoughts slow and syrupy? 

His illness had become a third, disruptive presence in the therapy room, and it wasn't fair to them. Quitting wasn't about giving up on his career; it was a final, responsible act of care for the people he had sworn to help.

Thank you for everything. Your mentorship over the past decade has been a gift, and I will be forever grateful. 

He took a shallow breath. The cursor blinked over the ‘Send’ button. It was just a click. A tiny, digital action. It would trigger no alarm, no fanfare. It would simply end a chapter of his life.

He clicked send.

The screen refreshed. 

Message Sent.

The silence in the apartment deepened. The hum of the laptop seemed louder. He slowly closed the lid.

It was utterly anticlimactic. There was no sudden sense of relief, no weight lifting from his shoulders. Instead, a hollow space opened up inside him. For ten years, his identity had been built around that title. Quirk Counselor. It was what he said when people asked what he did, what he wanted to do, who he wanted to be. It was how he defined his worth, his contribution to the world. He helped people. 

Now, what was he?

The tears welled up and overflowed without a sound, tracing hot paths down his temples and into his hairline. He didn’t bother to wipe them away. He curled onto his side on the couch, facing the back cushions, pulling the blanket over his head like a child. He just wanted to disappear into the fabric, into the numbness. The profound sense of loss was a physical ache, deeper than the one in his legs.

He didn’t know how much time had passed when he heard the key in the lock. The door opened, bringing with it the sounds of the outside world: traffic, the rustle of Keigo’s hero costume, the quiet shuffle of Shouto’s footsteps.

“We’re home,” Keigo called out, his voice cheerful but edged with the fatigue of a long day. There was a thump as he dropped his gear by the door.

Touya didn’t move. He held his breath, hoping they would think he was asleep.

He heard Keigo’s footsteps pause in the middle of the living room. He could feel his gaze. The cheerful facade would be dropping, the professional hero giving way to the worried partner.

The couch dipped as Keigo sat on the edge near his hips. A warm hand settled on his shoulder, over the blanket.

“Touya?” The voice was soft now, all pretense gone. “Babe?” 

Touya didn’t answer. He couldn’t. The lump in his throat was too large.

Keigo didn’t push. He didn’t try to pull the blanket back. His hand just stayed there, a steady, warm pressure.

After a long moment, Keigo sighed, a quiet, weary sound that seemed to hold the weight of the entire last month. He leaned forward, and Touya felt his forehead press gently against his back, through the blanket. 

Chapter 68: Shouto and Yuki's Lament

Notes:

literally floored by how nice and invested y'all are in this with me.
thanks so much, xoxo, and enjoy.

The May sunlight was too cheerful for the mood in the apartment. Touya was on the couch, not resting, but bent over his own laptop. His resignation had created a vacuum, and he was trying to fill it with research. He scrolled through medical journals on Quirk-induced neuropathies, the screen a blur of complex terminology that mirrored the static in his own legs. It was a poor substitute for his work, a frantic attempt to master the one subject he was now forced to live: his own failing body. Physical therapy happened twice a week, a grueling hour of trying to remind his muscles what they were supposed to do, but the rest of his time was this; a restless, sedentary purgatory.

In the silence, the absence of sound from Shouto’s room was louder than any noise. For weeks, a slow retreat had been underway. The door stayed closed. He was a stone sinking into deep water.

Fuyumi felt the sting of it most acutely. Saturday’s “family day,” reinstated with a determined optimism, had become a weekly exercise in quiet rejection. She’d arrive with a bright smile, only to be met with a wall of sullen resistance.

“Shouto, let’s look at this budgeting exercise. It’s about planning a trip to the art supply store,” she’d say, her teacher-voice firmly in place.

Shouto would stare at the paper, his fingers tracing the edges. “Don’t… w-want to.”

“I know it’s not your favorite, but it’s important. Come on, I’ll help you.”

“No.” The word was flat, final. It wasn’t just about the homework. It was a rejection of her care, her order, her attempt to fix things with a color-coded planner. She’d pack her things away, the hurt a sharp little knot in her chest, and spend the rest of the visit talking to Touya about things that didn’t matter while Shouto went to hide in his room.

On weeknights, the task fell to Keigo and Touya. The scene was always the same: Shouto at the kitchen table, his homework open. He’d hold his pencil in a death grip, his brow furrowed not in concentration, but in a kind of furious paralysis.

“Just try the first one, Sho,” Touya would say, his voice thin. He didn’t have the energy for a fight. Pushing Shouto felt like trying to push a mountain.

Keigo would try a different tack, leaning over his shoulder. “Look, if you have three-fourths of a pizza and you eat half of that… how much pizza is left?”

Shouto would shrug, his shoulders hitting his ears. The work would be half-done, sloppy, a stark contrast to the meticulous care he put into his art. Notes from Chō began to appear in his backpack, written in her careful script: Shouto seems disengaged. Having trouble with concepts he mastered last semester. Appears to be regressing in some areas.

The regression wasn’t just academic. It was in the small, daily rituals of self-care that he’d managed for years. “Shouto, did you brush your teeth?” Keigo would ask in the evening. A grunt, a shuffle towards the bathroom, the water running for only a few seconds. His hair, usually kept neat, hung lank and uncombed. His shoelaces were often untied, a tripping hazard he seemed oblivious to.

One evening, desperate to crack the shell, Keigo tried a different subject. “Hey, Sho? Have you heard from Izuku lately? How’s he doing?”

Shouto, pushing food around his plate with his chopsticks, went perfectly still. He didn’t look up.

Touya, watching from the couch, tried to amplify the question. “Sho. Keigo’s asking you a question.”

For a long moment, there was only the sound of the clock ticking. Then, with a slow, deliberate motion, Shouto reached up, took off his glasses, and placed them neatly beside his half-eaten bowl of rice. 

“I thought we were over this, dude-” 

He stood up, his movements clumsy without his sight, and walked toward the hallway that led to the bedrooms. He misjudged the distance, his shoulder bumping hard into the doorframe with a dull thud. He didn’t even flinch. He just corrected his course and disappeared.

A beat of silence hung in the kitchen. Then, a small, incredulous sound escaped Keigo. It was followed by a choked snort from Touya. It wasn’t mean; it was the helpless, breathy kind that comes from sheer absurdity and pent-up stress.

“He’s so…” Keigo started, shaking his head, a weary smile on his face.

“Ridiculous,” Touya finished, the smile fading as quickly as it came, replaced by a deeper worry. The laughter had broken the tension, but it underlined the problem. Shouto was so desperate to escape a conversation that he’d literally blind himself.

The next morning, the silence from Shouto’s room felt different. It was past the time when he usually emerged, a blur of mismatched socks and uncombed hair, to grab his bento and rush out. Keigo knocked softly. “Sho? You’re going to be late.”

There was no answer. He pushed the door open.

Shouto was sitting on the floor, his back against his bed. He was still in his pajama bottoms, but his white button-down shirt was hanging open. His head was bowed, his hands clenched into fists on his knees. The shirt was buttoned wrong, the top button fastened into the second hole, creating a lopsided, strained panel of fabric across his chest. He’d clearly tried to fix it, and it wasn't working. His face was flushed, his breath coming in ragged hitches. He was crying, but it was a silent, furious crying, tears of pure frustration streaming down his face. In his hands, he was clutching the uniform shirt, his fingers fumbling uselessly at the first small, plastic button.

The more he tried, the more his hands shook, the more the hot, helpless anger boiled up inside him until it overflowed without a sound.

Keigo crossed the room and sank to the floor beside him, not touching him at first, just being there. After a moment, he reached out and gently pried the shirt from Shouto’s white-knuckled grip.

“It’s okay,” he said, his voice low and calm. “We can fix this.”

Shouto shook his head, a sharp, jerky motion, wiping his face angrily with the back of his hand. He was frustrated.

Keigo held up the shirt. “Watch,” he said softly. He slowed his movements down to a glacial pace. He guided the stiff edge of the button through the slit of the hole, his large, capable hands making the task look effortless. “We just have to go slow.”

He did the first button, then the second, then held the shirt out. “You try the next one.”

Shouto hesitated, then reached out with trembling fingers. He failed twice, his breath catching, but Keigo just waited. On the third try, the button slid through. A tiny, insignificant victory. Keigo helped him finish the rest.

He then retrieved a hairbrush from the dresser. Shouto’s hair was a tangled mess. Keigo knelt behind him and began to brush it, starting from the ends, working out the knots with a patience he usually reserved for preening his own wings. Shouto sat rigid at first, then slowly relaxed into the rhythmic pulls. It was a quiet, intimate act of care. Keigo made him a simple breakfast and stood there until he ate it. He packed his bento, slipping a note inside his homework folder for Chō: Rough morning. Please be patient! 

When Shouto was finally ready, shoes tied and bag on his back, Keigo went to the living room. “We’re walking him to the station,” he announced to Touya.

Touya looked up from his laptop, surprised, but he saw the look on Keigo’s face, and Shouto’s blotchy red cheeks, and nodded.

The journey to the train station was slow. Keigo pushed the clunky chair, the wheels rumbling on the pavement. Shouto walked a few steps ahead, his shoulders hunched, the morning’s humiliation still clinging to him. They didn’t speak. They just moved together through the bright morning, a silent, mismatched trio.

They watched him shuffle through the ticket gates, a solitary figure swallowed by the crowd of uniformed students.

On the way back, the morning sun warm on their faces, Keigo finally broke the silence. “He couldn’t button his shirt, babe. He’s been good on that for years.”

Touya, watching the world pass by from his seated height, let out a long, slow breath. “I know.” 

“It’s not just about Izuku. Or school. It’s… everything.”

“He’s scared,” Touya said, his voice quiet. “We’re all talking about his future like he’s not a part of it. He hears that. He knows what it means, and he’s not trying to be a part of the conversation… at all.”

“What are we supposed to do?” Keigo asked, the question hanging in the air between them for a moment. 

“Be patient?” 

There was no simple solution.

---

The delivery arrived on a Tuesday morning, a large, flat cardboard box that seemed to suck all the air out of the genkan. Keigo maneuvered it inside with a grunt, his wings fluttering slightly for balance. Touya watched from the couch, his heart a frantic drum against his ribs. This was the beginning of… something else.

An hour later, the box was a crumpled pile in the corner, and the chair sat in the center of the living room like a sleek, black insect. It was nothing like the hospital’s clunky loaner. This was custom-molded, with a dark, breathable mesh backrest and cushions designed to prevent pressure sores. The wheels were cambered, giving it an athletic look. It was a finely engineered tool… and he hated it.

Kondō, the occupational therapist, was a woman in her forties with a no-nonsense demeanor and a buzz cut that for some reason, made Touya like her a little more than he thought he should. “Right, Himura, let’s get you fitted.”

The process was a clinical, humiliating intimacy. Kondō had him transfer into the chair, then she began her adjustments, her touch impersonal and precise. 

“Your center of gravity is off,” she murmured, more to herself than to him, as she used a hex key to adjust the angle of the footrests. “With your history of Quirk-related thoracic scarring, we need to ensure your posture doesn’t put additional strain on your lungs. The ‘Cremation’, yes? With the QIAD? Nasty business… They leave the diaphragm weakened.”

Touya flinched at the casual mention of the way his body tried to kill him over and over. 

Kondō didn’t notice, or didn’t care. She was focused on the mechanics.

“The neuropathy,” she continued, tapping the side of his thigh. He felt the vibration, but not the touch itself. “You won’t feel pressure points. So we need to be meticulous. Shift your weight every fifteen minutes. Use these.” She indicated small, knob-like projections on the handrims of the wheels. “Push down on them to do a ‘push-up’ in the seat. Prevents tissue breakdown.”

Each instruction was a reminder of his body’s betrayal. He was an object to be calibrated. She adjusted the backrest angle, the seat depth, the height of the armrests. She showed him how to engage and disengage the locks on the wheels, her hands guiding his through the motions. His fingers, still clumsy, fumbled.

“It will become second nature,” she said, her voice devoid of false cheer. “This model has a gyroscopic stabilizer. Standard for individuals with a history of pyrokinetic or energy-based Quirks. It will engage automatically if it detects a sudden, involuntary muscle spasm, a common side effect of certain Quirk-suppressants, to prevent tipping. A safety feature.”

A safety feature. Because his own body couldn’t be trusted. Great. 

“Alright. Try it.”

Keigo was watching from the kitchen doorway, his arms crossed, his expression carefully schooled.

Touya placed his hands on the handrims. The rubber was grippy. He pushed forward. The chair glided across the bare floor with a whisper-quiet hum. It was effortless. He pushed again, a little harder, and rolled into the hallway. He turned, a simple shift of weight and a pull on one rim. He navigated the turn into the kitchen. For the first time in months, he moved through his own home without pain, without fear of his legs buckling, without needing to grip a walker or lean on Keigo.

A bizarre, conflicting emotion surged in his chest. It was a thrill, a sense of liberation, immediately chased by a wave of bitter shame. He was excited by a wheelchair. Grateful for it. He hated that he needed it, but he was desperately, profoundly grateful that it existed.

“Good,” Kondō said, following him. “The apartment is mostly accessible, but as you know, the real world is not. We’ll schedule sessions for curb cuts, ramps, and dealing with public transport. But for now, practice here. Get to know the chair. It’s an extension of your body now.”

An extension of his body. 

The phrase stuck with him long after Kondō had left, her business card placed neatly on the table.

For the rest of the afternoon, Touya moved. He wheeled from the living room to the kitchen and back. He opened the refrigerator himself. He retrieved a bottle of water without asking for help. It was mundane, but it was a revolution. The constant, low-grade anxiety of falling, of being a burden, began to recede, replaced by a tentative sense of agency.

Keigo finally broke the silence as the sun began to set. “So?” he asked, leaning against the doorframe.

Touya stopped his slow circuit of the living room. He looked down at the chair, at his hands resting on the wheels. He thought of the fear that had kept him prisoner in this apartment, the sheer mental exhaustion of calculating every step.

“It’s… fine,” he said, the word inadequate.

But when he looked up at Keigo, he saw the relief in Keigo’s golden eyes, the slight relaxation in his shoulders. Having this meant that Keigo didn’t have to worry so much anymore, about Touya falling while he was at work, about Touya avoiding doing things he needed to, like drink water, or eat, because he didn’t want to go across the room alone. 

“But…” Touya swallowed. “I won’t be afraid to go to the bathroom anymore.”

Keigo smiled. “That’s a start!” 

Touya still hated the wheelchair, and everything it represented for his future. But because of Keigo, he would never, ever take it for granted. 

---

The first truly sticky night of early June had settled over Tokyo, and Yuki’s third-floor apartment was a sweltering box. The ancient air conditioner in the window rattled and groaned, emitting a stream of air that was only marginally cooler than the atmosphere outside. Natsuo lay sprawled on the threadbare rug, his medical textbooks forming a fortress around him, a single desk lamp creating a pool of light in the oppressive gloom.

A frustrated groan came from the direction of the bed. He looked up.

Yuki was standing in front of her full-length mirror, which was propped against the closet door. She had just peeled off her skinny jeans, which now lay in a puddle on the floor. She was standing there in nothing but a pair of simple cotton underwear and a thin, lace-trimmed camisole top, her hands planted on her hips.

“Ugh, Natsu, look at this,” she muttered, twisting to see her profile. “These are my favorite jeans. They’re ruined.”

Natsuo pushed his biochemistry book aside. “Did you tear them?”

“No, they’re just… tight. They didn’t used to be so tight.” She tugged at the fabric around her middle, where the button had left a faint red mark on her skin. “It’s this stupid stress, I swear. I’ve been so hungry lately. Like, bottomless pit hungry. And I don’t know why.”

He took her in. Yuki had always been built like a blade of grass: slender, with a delicate frame and narrow shoulders. It wasn’t a gym-honed body; it was just her natural shape, all sharp angles and graceful lines. But now, as he looked at her in the dim light, he saw what she meant. It wasn’t a dramatic change, nothing anyone else would likely notice. But he knew her body intimately, had mapped its contours with his hands and memorized its feel against his.

There was a softness to her lower belly that hadn’t been there a month ago, a subtle curve where there was usually a taut, flat plane. His eyes traveled upward. Her breasts, always small and high, seemed fuller beneath the thin cotton of her camisole, straining against the fabric in a way that made the lace edging dig in slightly. Even her backside, as she turned back to the mirror with a sigh, had a new, gentle roundness.

A completely unbidden, utterly male thought flashed through his mind: She looks great.

He immediately felt a flush of guilt and shook his head to clear it. She was complaining about feeling bad about herself, and here he was objectifying her. He should be thinking about… not that.

“It’s probably a little of everything,” he said, his voice a little too loud in the quiet room. He sat up, crossing his legs. “You’ve been stressed with your club responsibilities, your sleep schedule’s been all over the place because of midterms… and I’ve been cooking a lot of rich food lately, trying to cheer you up.” He gave her a lopsided grin. “Maybe my curry is just that good. It’s probably just comfort eating.”

Yuki sighed, dropping her hands. “Maybe. But I feel… puffy. And tired. All the time. Even when I sleep.” She gestured vaguely at herself. “I’ve been skipping the gym because I just feel so run down. It’s a vicious cycle.”

Natsuo pushed himself to his feet and walked over to her. He wrapped his arms around her from behind, resting his chin on her shoulder. They looked at their reflection together: his broad, solid frame dwarfing her slender one. He could feel the new softness of her body against his forearms.

“You’re beautiful,” he said, and he meant it. He kissed the side of her neck, just below her ear. “You’re always beautiful. And most people gain a little weight in college. It’s normal.”

He turned her around to face him. Her expression was still pinched with worry. He cupped her face in his hands, his thumbs stroking her cheeks. “I’m serious, Yuki. I love your body.” To prove his point, he leaned down and kissed her, slowly and deeply. He let his hands slide down her back, over the new curve of her hips, pulling her flush against him. He poured all his affection into the kiss, trying to kiss away her insecurity.

When he pulled back, her worry had been replaced by a faint, flustered blush. “Natsu…” she murmured, a small smile finally touching her lips.

“I like it, you know,” he murmured, his voice dropping, taking on a huskier tone. His lips traced a path down her neck to her shoulder, where he pushed the thin strap aside. “Feels nice. You feel… really good.”

Yuki tilted her head, giving him better access, a soft sigh escaping her. The tension from her frustration began to dissolve, replaced by a different, warmer kind of awareness. The conversation about jeans and stress evaporated in the humid room, forgotten for the moment. Natsuo’s physical appreciation was a temporary answer to a question neither of them cared to investigate further.

---

The quiet room had evolved over the past two years; it wasn’t just Shouto’s space, but it was Chō’s and Ono’s too. Mid-June sunlight poured through the large windows, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air. Ono, today, was particularly animated. Her round glasses magnified her bright eyes as she sketched furiously in a large notebook, her lunch of onigiri half-forgotten beside her.

“See, the key is the eye contact,” she explained, not looking up from her drawing. It was a panel from a romance manga she was developing. “In the first panel, they’re avoiding each other’s gaze. There’s tension. But here,” she flipped a page to show a more detailed sketch, “their eyes meet, and it’s like… zap! Everything else falls away.”

Shouto chewed his rice slowly, his gaze drifting between her drawing and the pattern of the carpet. He understood the technical aspects: the line work, the composition. The emotional content, though, the zap, was a foreign language. He nodded anyway. Ono’s special interest in romance was a constant, steady stream they’d tried to ban at some point from The Quiet Room, however at this point there was no use… Shouto had just learned to tune her out.

Chō, sitting between them, offered a gentle smile. “The line work is getting very expressive, Ono-chan.”

Ono beamed, then her expression turned thoughtful. She closed her sketchbook and tucked a strand of dark hair behind her ear. She looked directly at Shouto. The directness was unusual. Usually, her intense focus was on her art or her thoughts.

“Todoroki,” she began, her voice a little higher than normal. “I was thinking.”

Shouto looked up from his bento, his chewing slowing. Her tone had changed. It had a… weight to it.

“We’ve been eating lunch together for a long time,” she continued, her fingers tracing the spiral binding of her sketchbook. “And I… I really like it. I like being with you. I think you’re… really cute.”

Chō froze, unsure of whether or not she should leave or stay.

Shouto’s tongue felt thick in his mouth. The words he tried to form got tangled, the syllables slurring together. “U-uh. Th-thanks…?” It came out as a question, shaky and uncertain.

Ono’s hopeful expression faltered. She had delivered her line from the manga, but he wasn’t responding with the correct dialogue. “I was wondering,” she pressed on, her voice growing quieter, “if… maybe you’d like to go to the art supply store with me? On Saturday? Just us?”

A low-grade panic began to buzz in Shouto’s chest, and his thoughts became a swamp. 

Cute. Store. Saturday. Alone. 

The concepts swirled but refused to connect into a coherent feeling or response. He knew what she was asking, intellectually. But emotionally, there was a void where the fluttery, excited feeling she had ascribed to this moment was supposed to be.

He looked down at his hands, at the half-eaten tamagoyaki. He shook his head, a sharp, jerky motion. “N-no,” he managed to force out. “I… c-can’t.”

The rejection was clumsy. Ono’s face fell. The hopeful light in her eyes extinguished, replaced by a welling of disappointed tears she quickly tried to blink away. The narrative in her head, the one she had so carefully constructed, had shattered. She gathered her bento box with trembling hands, the plastic containers clattering.

“Okay,” she whispered, the word barely audible. “I… I see.”

She stood up, not looking at him or at Chō, and hurried out of the quiet room, the door sighing shut behind her.

The silence she left behind was different now. It was bruised.

Shouto sat perfectly still. He felt a confusing mix of relief that the confusing interaction was over and a vague, unsettled guilt. Chō slowly set her papers aside, anticipating a conversation. She didn’t speak immediately, giving him space. She watched him stare at the space where Ono had been sitting, his brow furrowed in concentration.

After a few minutes, he looked up at her, his eyes seeking an answer in her familiar, calm face.

“Ch-chō?”

“Yes, Shouto?”

His words came out slow. “Ono… s-said… I w-was c-cute. She w-wa-wanted… I… d-don’t...” He sighed. “She… m-mad n-now?”

Chō moved to sit in the chair Ono had vacated. “She was sad because she likes you in a special way. A romantic way. And when you said no, her feelings were hurt.”

“I… d-don’t,” he said, struggling. “F-feel... Fo-or… Ono.”

“And that’s perfectly okay, Shouto,” Chō said, her voice firm and gentle. “You don’t have to feel that way about Ono. You don’t have to feel that way about anyone if you don’t want to.”

This seemed to both comfort and confuse him further. He was quiet for a long time, his gaze turning inward. The regression that had made buttons difficult and homework a torment was also stripping away his already limited ability to articulate complex emotions. He was grasping for something just out of reach.

“Bu-ut…” he started, then stopped. He tried again, his speech more slurred than usual, the words bumping into each other. “I… s-see. T-together. K-Kei and Tou-uya. N-natsu and Yuki.” He looked at her, his expression one of genuine puzzlement. “They… h-hug. K-kiss. They- they look… ha-appy. I… I think… m-maybe… I w-want…?”

Chō nodded, understanding the distinction. “You see that it makes them happy, and you wonder if it would make you happy too.”

He nodded. 

“It’s okay to want that,” she said. “But it’s also okay if you don’t know yet. Or if you never feel that way. Finding someone you feel that way about… it takes time. There’s no need to rush it.”

Shouto absorbed this. The pressure to have an answer, to fit into Ono’s narrative or the patterns he saw in everyone around him, eased slightly. It was a question that didn’t need an immediate solution.

He looked back at his bento. He picked up his chopsticks, his movements slow and deliberate.

“Ono… w-will… sti-ill c-come? For lu-lunch?” he asked, his concern practical. He didn’t want the routine to change.

“I don’t know,” Chō answered honestly. “She might need some time. Her feelings are hurt. But we’ll still be here.”

He sighed. The larger, more abstract question of romance and connection was filed away in a part of his mind labeled ‘For Later’.