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The ride back from Tartarus is deathly silent, save for Hizashi’s fingers drumming quietly at his seat.
Shota keeps his gaze focused on the road. His eyes are still damp, his vision blurry around the edges, but he insisted on driving home after they got brought further back from the prison. The radio they were listening to cuts out for a minute, and Hizashi stops his drumming.
When it comes back on, he stays still.
“You know...” he starts, voices quiet in the comfort of the car, next to his husband.
“Hizashi. Please,” Shota strains, eyes not flickering away from the asphalt in front of him for even a minute. They’ve got about five more minutes before they’re home.
“Shota, Eri is waiting in there. Shinsou’s going to be home in a few hours. They’re both going to know something is wrong, and what are we supposed to tell them—”
Hizashi has a tendency to let his mouth wander when his anxiety gets bad. Shota, on the other hand, hasn’t spoken since leaving the chauffeur’s car that wheeled them further and further away from the events that just unfolded. He lets go of the steering wheel with one hand and brings it to his forehead, pinching at his nose bridge. “Please. Just stop. There’s nothing to tell them. We had a rough day at work, hero stuff. Tell them I have a migraine and need a nap.”
Shota catches the downturn of his husband’s mouth out of the corner of his eye. They’re both stressed out, and this clash isn’t helping them communicate in any way. He sighs. Hizashi tenses when Shota grabs his hand and intertwines their fingers. They come up on a familiar street.
“The kids will be fine,” he murmurs. “This isn’t anything new. It sucks, but Oboro has been gone for years. We can’t hang onto the hope that he’s suddenly going to come back, just from seeing him like this.”
Hizashi squeezes his hand tight. Uncomfortably. “You always do this. You’re pushing down your emotions so you don’t have to feel the pain and worry, and I’m always left trying to suck it up.” He sniffles and wipes at his eyes with a free hand. “You’re so distant and closed off. I thought the Shota I saw in there was finally ready to face this grief. Clearly, I was wrong.”
His words are muddled by the saliva in his throat and the tears welling up behind his eyes. He faces away from Shota as much as he can, and a pang travels through him as he comes to a stop at a stop sign and turns toward the blond. He still won’t look at him.
“I’m sorry.” He knows it doesn’t do a lot, and he doesn’t know exactly what to do to make Hizashi happy—to make him see that he is facing the grief from all those years ago. He rolls forward again, and in another minute of silence, they come to the driveway. Hizashi undoes his seatbelt, but he doesn’t open his door.
“What are we gonna do?” he asks, helplessly.
Shota takes a deep breath and shuffles in his seat. “We’re going to go into our house together,” he starts, “and make sure Eri’s doing okay. We’ll make her a snack, and if—if—she asks what’s wrong, we’re going to tell her that daddy and papa are sad, because they miss their old friend.”
With a few wet blinks, Hizashi’s eyes graze the floor of the car and settle on where their hands are connected. “What about Hitoshi?”
“We’ll tell him that we had to meet with a member from the League, and it... opened up old wounds. Like how Nezu said it.”
“They’re going to pry.”
Shota bites back the eye roll, because he knows Hizashi is just anxious. “If they do, we’ll answer as honestly as we can. And if we can’t, we’ll just tell them some things are classified because of our very important and secretive jobs.” Hizashi bites his lip. Caressing his cheek, Shota directs the man’s gaze to him. “Does that sound okay?”
Hizashi’s eyes are red, but the tears have stopped flowing. “Yeah. I think it sounds okay.”
Shota still has this heavy rock sitting in his chest, but it becomes just a little lighter when he leans in and places a kiss on Hizashi’s cheek, and a second one lightly on his lips. “Let’s go inside and check on Eri and the cats.”
Hizashi opens the door first, crouching to pick up Furball and Hairball before they can run out the door. Shota feels immediately more relaxed with the low light inside their house, compared to the sun beating down outside, taunting them, and he rips his scarf off as soon as the door shuts behind them. “Eri!” he calls. “We’re home.”
Eri pokes her head out of her room in the hall. “Daddy! Papa!” she exclaims, running toward them. Since she’s been more emotionally regulated, lately, her quirk proving not to be a liability while unsupervised, Shota and Hizashi have been taking turns leaving her home alone while they tend to teaching and hero work. Hitoshi often arrives home before them to take care of her until they get back, too. “You’re home before onii-chan.”
Hizashi picks her up while he gives Shota their two cats, letting Hairball climb onto his shoulder like she often does. “We just missed you so much!” Hizashi tells her, spinning her around. “Papa was so hungry, he had to come home right away.”
Another fraction of Shota’s stress melts off as he watches his lover hold Eri in his arms. They never expected to have kids—it wasn’t even a conversation, and when it did come up once or twice, they ended up with two cats. But there’s a budding fondness for the family they’ve created, now that both of them are teachers and their jobs feel more stable than before. Despite his concern about their careers, he feels nothing but safe in these four walls.
“How have you been feeling?” he asks, putting the cats down to get Hizashi a banana and grab himself an apple-sauce packet. He knows they got them for Eri, but he loves them. Hizashi gives him a side eye but lets it go, taking the banana in his free hand.
“I’m okay! Obaa-chan stopped by this morning and helped me with writing,” Eri says as Hizashi shares a bite of his food with her. While Shota’s parents are both dead, Hizashi’s mother and father live a few blocks away, and they’ve pitched in a lot of time in actually raising Eri, since the two of them don’t have much experience with kids in comparison to the Yamadas. “Mirio and I send letters now.”
Shota zones out while Hizashi and Eri keep talking. Their voices are a soothing hum, but not enough to block out the concern forming in his mind and manifesting between his upper and lower jaw. He suddenly feels dizzy. “I’m going to go lie down.”
Hizashi passes him a nod, Eri hardly realizing as she sorts through the letters. Shota gives Hizashi a look that he hopes conveys just how much he appreciates Hizashi, knowing the man has infinitely more patience than he does. Hizashi receives it and blows a comically exaggerated kiss in his direction, making his jaw loosen up just a bit.
A few minutes after he gets into the room, fully flopping onto his stomach on the bed, Hizashi comes in. Shota curls onto his side without saying a word. He feels like a kid again.
“Hi, baby,” Hizashi says in that sweet, soothing tone that makes Shota all loose and soft. A warm hand settles over his shoulder and rubs. “Anything I can get for you?”
Shota reminds himself that Hizashi’s suffering, too, and triple the guilt floods his veins. “No.”
“Come on, baby. We said we’d get through this together. I... I know what you feel like.”
That’s not it, though. Hizashi can say what he’s feeling—always does, in fact, to the point that he overwhelms himself. Shota knows he can’t stop once he’s started, but sometimes he wishes, for just one second, that he had that ability. He wishes he could sort all the shit in his head. Instead, his feelings die on his lips in the form of thin tears.
Hizashi quiets for a moment too long to be comfortable, and Shota sits up. “I’m not ready,” is all he can spit out. “To talk about it.” It’s been nearly 20 years, and he doesn’t think he’ll ever be ready to talk about it.
“That’s okay. That’s okay, love. We don’t have to talk about it.” Hizashi kisses his head, and then his lips, his caress warm on Shota’s cheek before it gently fades away. “I just want to know we’re okay. I’ll leave you to get some rest. I’m here for you. Call if you need anything.”
With a wordless nod, Hizashi leaves the room, and Shota finds his husband’s pillow with his face.
As the sun starts to set outside the window, Shota stirs from his half-slumber, half-mope state. There’s the sounds of footsteps, and then a gentle knock at his door. “Dad,” he hears from the other side. It’s Hitoshi.
“Come in,” he grumbles as loud as he can. The door opens, and he tries not to hiss at the light seeping into the relatively dark room. Hitoshi closes the door gently behind him.
“Pa said you weren’t feeling well,” the boy says, rubbing the back of his neck. From this angle, Shota notices the similarities in their body language—the way Hitoshi leans his weight from foot to foot, the way he picks lightly at the hair on the nape of his neck. But his courage? His kindness? That’s all Hizashi.
Shota sits up and puts his head into his hands. Hitoshi has only been living with them for three years, officially adopted as of a few months ago. Despite little to nothing changing, Shota knows that the definition of their relationship means he should be more honest. Hitoshi is his son, and not only that—he’s growing more and more every day. Shota hiding his emotions isn’t going to be a very good-parent-award move, and he isn’t about to make a hypocrite of himself after all that confidence in the car.
“Yeah,” he finally sighs. “Today was difficult. Come, sit.”
Hitoshi approaches the edge of the bed where he sits, coming to his side. He sits up straighter, looming over Shota’s hunched form, but there’s no judgement or tension in the way he kicks his legs out and sits back onto his hands. “What’s up?”
“I’m reconsidering my line of work,” he says satirically, but there is the slightest hint of truth in it. If he didn’t choose to become a hero, he wouldn’t have ended up adopting Eri or Hitoshi. He wouldn’t have met Hitoshi or Oboro. He wouldn’t have even gone to UA. He presses the pads of his fingers into his forehead. His skin feels greasy. “I just... have regrets.”
Hitoshi’s nod is slight, but he can feel it nonetheless. “Well. How old are those regrets?”
Shota thinks for a minute. “I don’t know. Some of them are years old. Some of them, seconds.”
A soft huff of laughter wafts between them, settling into a comfortable silence. Hitoshi leans towards Shota, dropping his head to his shoulder. It startles Shota, but he doesn’t show it.
“Did I ever tell you how grateful I am that you and Pa took me in?”
“You cried when we showed you the adoption papers.”
“Before that, too, though. When it was just temporary. And when all the dorm stuff happened... I don’t know what I would’ve done without you two.”
Shota nods, and Hitoshi sits back up and looks at him.
“I also don’t know how those two would even survive without you,” he says, tone lighter, laced with humor. “They’re a wreck!”
“That they are.”
“But they love you. They rely on you, and you rely on them. On us.”
Shota wants to disagree, given all of the bullshit he spewed about telling Eri and Hitoshi the truth, when he can’t even begin to process it, let alone explain it to his kids. But he decides to listen the best he can. “You guys, especially you and Eri, aren’t responsible for all the stuff that goes on in Pa’s and my life. But... I understand what you’re saying.”
“Good.” Hitoshi stands up and makes for the door. This time, Shota has enough time to prepare his eyes before it opens to the bright hallway again. “Come on. Pa made chicken.”
Shota follows him out into the hall, his steps less heavy, gratefulness bubbling in his throat.
“Oh, also, he burned himself on the edge of the pan.” Hitoshi gives him an unnerving smile, and Shota wonders if that’s what he looks like to his students. “So... good luck with that.”
And just like that, the gratefulness is squashed, a smile spreading to the corners of his lips.