Archive of Our Own

When Touya opened his eyes, he let himself wonder, traitorously, whether he really had died.

The light was blinding, painfully so, obtrusive and artificial, but the lack of eternal flame and excruciating heat made Touya second-guess himself.

His chest ignited with a jolt of searing pain when he drew a breath, submerged deep, deep underwater, where his lungs screamed for help and chest heaved for mercy, but the rocks and bits of gravel lodged in his boots made his attempts to resurface futile.

Touya couldn’t move his head. He realised, belatedly, that he couldn’t move any of his limbs, body betraying his brain when he glanced over at his bandaged fingers that remained immobile and rigid, no matter how hard Touya tried to move them.

He almost didn’t notice the doors to the room creaking open, too preoccupied with trying to make his fingertips touch to see the middle-aged woman peeking in.

“Todoroki Touya.” She spoke clearly, enunciating every syllable of his name as if she were talking to a wild animal. In a way, Touya understood why her fingers curled around the clipboard, hesitant to even step into the room, even though he was trapped in a full-body cast. “Can you hear me?”

“Yeah,” Touya tried to say, intended to say, but his throat unexpectedly closed in on him, the words scraping the inside of his trachea. The attempt at affirmation morphed into a pained garble, too obtuse and awkward for anyone to make out.

Touya closed his mouth, licking his dry, cracked lips. He opened his mouth again.

“You don’t have to speak.” The woman interrupted his second feeble attempt at human speech, like an infant mimicking his mother, letting out yet another low and throaty gurgle. She tapped her face. “I will now ask you a few questions. Nod for yes, shake for no.”

Touya let his head lull to the side, vaguely resembling a shake.

The woman looked down at her papers. Whether she ignored him on purpose was beyond him. “Do you know what day it is?”

A half-hearted motion that made Touya’s neck burn.

“Do you remember anything from the fight?”

Touya slowly craned his head upwards. His eyes found a tiny crack on the ceiling.

“How do you feel?”

He followed the crack, watched it diverge through the tiles into a spectre of sorts. It faded near the edges, seeped into the drywall. Touya wondered how long it would take before the ceiling came crumbling down.

“Are you currently in pain?”

The sharp sting that accompanied his chest each time it expanded made him grit his teeth, jerking his head upwards.

“On a scale from one to ten—”

“Ten,” Touya rasped out. The woman stopped writing and looked up at him. Touya felt obliged to touch his throat, massage it between his fingers, but his hands were held up so high, both stuck out in opposite directions, that even the thought of it made him impossibly tired.

“We will up your dosage,” the woman said, tucking the clipboard underneath her armpit. “Oh, and your family is currently outside, Todoroki-san. Shall I let them in?”

“Don’t. I don’t want to see them,” Touya said, and wished he had died in that fight.

Todoroki Enji never took no for an answer.

Touya knew that already. He’d suspected the word “no” didn’t exist in his vocabulary, crossed out and signed at the bottom of the certificate when he turned twenty and decided he wasn’t happy with second place.

Following the birth of four children, three of which were tossed aside like cheap, scratched out lottery tickets, Touya should’ve realised that his father wouldn’t stop at a single debilitated plea. He hadn’t stopped when he groveled at his feet and the thicket burned bright with wrath, and ash fell from the trees like January snowfall and coated his hair until it stained charcoal black.

He supposed the taste of humourless triumph was better than the dryness taking refuge in the back of his throat, thanking the universe for small mercies when he saw his father get wheeled into the room, dirty bandages ornamenting His royal countenance.

“Coming out of the woodwork, I see,” Touya crowed, chest heaving outwards as he hacked out a laugh. “Crowding around me like I’m the Tokyo Skytree or something…”

It was only now, with everyone circling the foot of his bed, that he finally noticed the reddish burns stretched out across their faces, ugly and fresh. Ternary patches discolouring Fuyumi’s round face, a speck or two scattered across Natsuo.

They looked just like his own.

Touya was about to open his mouth, lips instinctively curving into a cold, mocking sneer, when Rei, whose scar was the largest, like a slap to a face, a tear down her cheek, took a haphazard step forward and clasped a hand over her mouth.

“Oh, Touya.” Her feet dragged along the hospital floor, raising her hand before sharply drawing it back. From this distance, Touya could see the way the burn engulfed most of her face, left eyebrow singed off completely. It followed down her neck, peeking out from her jacket collar, a small, quiet, yet painful reminder of its existence.

Her hair was cut short. The white tresses that once covered up her cheeks now barely reached her chin, twisting and curling at the very bottom.

Touya hadn’t even noticed.

Rei paused mid-step, one foot still hanging in the air before she keeled over the bed railing, knees buckling beneath her weight. “Oh, my sweet, darling boy.”

“Mom,” said Touya, because it was the only thing that he knew how to say.

“I’m so sorry.” She pressed her knuckles against his bandages, dragging her hand down the side of his face. Touya couldn’t feel anything, but he’d like to imagine a kind of gentleness he had only been told about.

“I came to talk to you about what’s to come.” Enji tapped the side of his wheelchair, a silent signal that got Fuyumi up on her feet, pushing him closer to the bed. “I’m retiring from hero work.”

Like a meticulously stacked house of cards which has been sitting by an open window for too long, a gust of wind finally came knocking it down. Enji, no, Endeavour came crumbling down before him, and Touya, for one, was exultant to be seated in the first row.

“Oh, how sad.” Touya enunciated, each word a painful blow. His grin twisted into something bitter, but he pressed down the growing ache in his chest. “Shall I offer my condolences? A commiseration?”

“It’s been my initial plan for a long time,” Enji said. He gestured to himself with his left arm, the only arm he had left. “But look at me now, Touya. The hero, Endeavour - he burned to death. Your quirk really was stronger than mine.”

“Not that it matters now, does it? Burning and dying…” Touya narrowed his eyes, “after all this time, it turns out that you’ve always been at my heels.”

“I haven’t been there for you when I said I would, and nothing I tell you now will ever make up for it, but I want to.” Enji looked up at him. Touya had never seen him from this angle before. “From now on, I’ll visit you every day. So, let’s talk.”

A cough ripped away from Touya’s throat - it was phlegmy and disgusting and tasted like bile, but he didn’t dare tear his eyes away from Enji’s. Not like he had. Never like he had.

“A bit late now, aren’t you, father?” he rasped out, paying no mind to the doors that swung open. “Making amends on my deathbed. I’m… impressed. But then again, making calls that were long overdue - you’ve always been like this. Always a step too late. Who knows how much time I have left?”

“You’re not dying, Todoroki Touya,” a new voice said, but it wasn’t a new voice at all. Not when he’s heard it a thousand times before, memorised the inflection and ingrained the cadence into the right side of his brain.

When Touya forced himself to look away, the lack of red feathers hit him like a spear to the throat. Hawks stood before him, at the very edge of the doorway, but it wasn’t Hawks, not really - not without his large, red wings that made up half his figure and sycophantic smile that played on his lips whenever he caught sight of him.

When Hawks’ eyes met Touya’s, all he could do was falter.

His hair was shorter, messier, revealing the jagged scar stretched down on his forehead. The dark suit he was wearing sagged around his shoulders, resembling that of a child. A small yellow HPSC pin fit snugly on his blazer.

“Hawks-san,” Fuyumi said and moved to the side. Even Enji turned his head towards the source of the noise, angling his head to his best ability before Fuyumi relented and swiveled his wheelchair around.

“Takami Keigo,” he amended, his hands tugging at his tie. “Not much of a hero without a quirk.”

‘You were never one to begin with,’ Touya wanted to remark, but bit down on the profanity when Hawks turned his head towards Rei.

“Todoroki Touya isn’t dying,” he repeated again, shooting Touya a quick glance. “After your little stunt over there, most people’s bodies would have been damaged beyond repair.”

“Well, it doesn’t look like a walk in the park either.” Natsuo nodded at Touya’s bandaged self, which looked more like a mummified cadaver than anything remotely alive.

Touya instinctively cast his eyes down, ignoring the snake settling down in the pit of his stomach when Hawks looked back at him again.

“Once he gets out of the hospital, Todoroki-san will have to continue rehabilitation, that’s a given,” he said noncommittally. “But doctors think his odds are looking good.”

Touya felt Rei’s hand on his bicep. “I’m glad.” Her voice was almost imperceptible, so small it waned in the passing air.

“I do apologise if I sound harsh.” Enji’s eyebrows knitted together in a downward slope, “but what exactly are you doing here, Hawks?”

“Takami Keigo,” Hawks repeated with a bored expression. “If you do excuse me, I am here on behalf of the HPSC to speak to Todoroki-san.”

Touya lolled his head to the side. The honorific Hawks kept tacking on like a mere afterthought made his insides churn.

“I am really sorry to intrude, but may I request you step out for just a moment?” He nodded towards the door and clasped his hands together. “I will be fast, I promise. That’s kind of my thing.”

Rei squeezed her palm against the railing of his bed until her knuckles bled white, in the same way she wished she held onto Touya’s little hand, five fingers wrapped around one.

“It’s regarding the League,” Hawks said when she made no effort to move away from his side. “I’ve been instructed to provide updates on the rest of the members.”

“So some of them are alive?” Shouto asked, but not in the way one would when their tongue dripped with venom and words laced with vengeance that Touya was so used to hearing.

“I shouldn’t disclose anything yet.” But Hawks’ eyes softened, and that was confirmation enough.

Touya’s lips parted. He hadn’t even thought of what happened to the rest of the League or rather, what was left remaining of it. For a split-second, Touya let himself think of what might’ve happened on that day, when all hell broke loose, but all he could see were the mangled limbs of what once were his friends, either pitied for the first time in their life and killed upon impact or left laying underneath a layer of debris, gurgling in puddles of their own blood.

Touya was supposed to die on that day. He’d known it the same way he knew that the sky was blue and grass was green, ready for the gift that brought him into this world to be the thing to wipe him out.

And yet he failed at that as well. It was a funny, twisted sort of irony, Touya thought; one that could only be found in Bible stories. But amidst the vexation and hopelessness, Touya felt the irresistible urge to throw his head back and laugh until the staples holding his jowls together came snapping off.

“Dabi.” Touya’s eyes skirted across the foot of his bed, acutely aware that they were back in that abandoned warehouse, under the dingy ceiling light that flickered more than it stayed turned on, and Hawks looked so, so young, unruly blond hair tousled by the unrelenting wind.

He seemed to be mouthing something, lips turned into a small smile. His hands, twice cracked over and once burned, engulfed Touya’s palms, his skin, his secrets and promises, and it burned, burned, burned, burnedburnedburnedburnedburnedburnedburned

“Todoroki-san.” But the stench of scorching flesh was still there, wafting through the air and lingering in the back of his mind. He looked at Hawks, an older, much more tired looking Hawks, and his breath caught in his throat, wondering whether he smelt it, too.

“Oh, is this it?” Hawks waved his hand around, towards his upper back. He said it so nonchalantly, touched his shoulder like it had happened years ago.

It was Touya’s fault that Hawks’ wings had been stripped away, burned down to his very shoulder blades and deemed impotent, because what was a flightless bird if not an infirmity? At twenty-two, Hawks was busy conquering the Japanese Hero Billboard Chart. At twenty-three, his empire had burnt to the ground, leaving him wading through the rubble.

“All For One got me,” Hawks said as he walked over to his bed. He eyed the IV dripping in the bag, ducking his head under the tube. “Finished the job.”

He looked over at him curiously, then bit his cheek. “I guess I should go through the roster, huh?” he said to himself, then sifted through the folder. “As you are suspecting, All For One is deceased."

Here it was. Hawks’ mechanical voice did not lessen the blow, only exacerbate it, as he went through the list of his dead associates as if he were reading off a shopping list. Touya looked up at the ceiling, hoping that his partners, his closest friends, had died a quick and easy death.

“Shigaraki Tomura is deceased as well.” Hawks peered over the papers before glancing back down. “Garaki Kyudai has been arrested, as has Sako Atsuhiro. As for Iguchi Shuichi and Toga Himiko, they have both been hospitalised for the time being.”

Touya jerked his head towards him, wincing at the searing pain jolting down his spine, but he paid it no mind, eyes searching the intricacies of his face. He had thought, oh God, he had assumed—

“I’m yet to visit Iguchi, but I’ve heard he’s faring better.” He scratched behind his ear, lowering his folder, “but I’ve heard that Toga is still unconscious after losing so much blood. She’s been in critical condition for a while now.

“Crazy girl,” Hawks muttered under his breath, shaking his head. “Giving up her life for somebody else’s… in a time like this…”

“But… she’s going to be okay?” Touya asked, voice hoarse.

Hawks paused. “You know I’m not a doctor, Touya,” he said.

He said it so innately, as he did countless times before, when his hands were tangled in his dark hair and they were both fumbling for his cincture. That familiarity, imperceptible taste of indulgence — it scared him.

“Hawks,” Touya said instinctively, squashing down any follies at the thought of being something more, in naive thought that this thing between them was anything more than an ephemera.

“Takami Keigo.”

Touya closed his eyes. “Don’t.”

“I’m not here because of…” Hawks cut himself off, moving the IV tube to the side and stepping to the right. “I’m not- you know I’m not—”

“I know.” He opened an eye. “I know that.”

“Good.” Fumbling with the folder, Hawks walked over to the door. “I guess that’s all for now. I’ll be visiting in a week’s time.”

He looked back and opened his mouth halfway. For a moment, it seemed he had been frozen in time, lingering by the doorway with a hand too reluctant to grab the handle, but a mind too indecisive to come up with something worthwhile.

“I’ll send your family back in,” he said finally. He opened the door and slid out just as indiscernibly as he came in.

Sometimes Touya dreamed of Hawks.

He dreamed of times when Hawks was Keigo and Touya was his, waking up with cold, clammy hands and a pit in his stomach.

In his dreams, Hawks was always smiling. He frequented his mind the same way swallows do eaves and rabbits do meads, the ghost in his bedroom drawer and missed call on his burner that went straight to voicemail.

But dreams were merely unspoken odes to Anteros, silent pleas for an age-long “what if” Touya found himself revisiting on particularly drunken nights, when his only companions were the cheap, half-empty bottles of whiskey piling up on his kitchen table.

Hawks said it was better this way. Touya almost killed him, palm held over his back and a grimace burned on his face. At that moment, nothing mattered. The hours spent chasing after one another, the Sun and his admirer, he let himself get enveloped by the sunrays, engulfed by the warmth, tempted by his radiance.

Icarus, flying too close to the sun. It was only a matter of time that his wings, outstretched and proud, came melting; wax in-between feathers, ash in-between fingers.

The day Touya left him to die, Hawks was all he could see. Blood drenched in his bright hair, clumping around the roots and besmirching his face. The dirt and grime aged him, eyes yellow and tired, and yet, a broken, stilted smile still played on his lips.

“You never believed anything from the start,” Hawks told him, held him, cradling him with the same hands that killed his best friend, “but that can’t be true.”

“You don’t know anything,” Touya spat back. “You don’t know me.”

Hawks’ grin widened. “I know how you take your coffee,” he said, taking a step closer. Touya could smell the copper on his lips. “You like to pretend it’s black, but we both know you can’t get over the bitterness. I know that your favourite food is soba. I know that you hate the winter months because they remind you of your birthday, but you still get flustered when members of the League remember.”

Touya couldn't do anything, not when Hawks was looping his index fingers around the loops in his belt, not when he was drawing himself closer.

“And above all, I know that you’re trying to convince yourself that you never cared for me.” His voice dropped to something barely above a whisper. His eyes darted to his bottom lip. “But you know it’s a lie. Don’t you?”

Touya woke up with a glisten in his eyes and a confession caught in the back of his throat.

When Rei brought him flowers, three to four neatly wrapped white tulips she placed into the glass vase next to his bed, Touya cried.

Small, reticent tears gathered in the corners of his eyes, but he was quick to blink away the shame in hopes that no one would notice. Fortunately, sweet, simple Shouto began detailing the admission of his new classmate, and in doing so, guiding his mother’s gaze away from Touya’s barren self.

It wasn’t always Rei at the foot of his bed. Whenever Fuyumi visited, she spent hours crying by his side. Touya never got a word in, letting her sniffle and weep as she grabbed fistfuls of his hospital duvet, muttering incessant apologies into the space between them.

Natsuo stole a cushioned chair from the reception on the first floor, smuggling it up three flights of stairs and two narrow hallways, because he refused to sit on the plastic ones, claiming that it made his back hurt. Touya decidedly didn’t point out that his entire body felt like it had been torn apart and restitched by a first year med student, allowing Natsuo to revel in his complaints.

Shouto rarely came alone, often dragged in by one of his siblings or asked to accompany his mother on the weekends.But there were instances, rare occasions, that his nurse knocked on his door and Touya was surprised to look up and see Shouto standing by the doorway, lanky and awkward.

It came as no surprise that he’d be seeing his father more often, as well. “To atone”, he claimed, like he always did, but there was nothing that could have been done to undo even a sliver of what his darling father had done.

For the first time, Enji had talked to him as if he were someone worth granting his attention to, his words honeyed lemons. But Touya tasted the acerbity from a mile away, barking a string of profanities at his nurse, threatening the poor woman whilst still taped motionless to the mattress that if she lets his father in, he’ll set fire to himself. His nurse, although sceptical of the validity of his claims, did her best to keep Enji at bay.

But she was but a woman. What was she to do when face-to-face with the top hero in all of Japan?

After three visits he had to forcibly lie through, trying to keep as still as possible in hopes of warding off the predator, even feigning sleep when his throat was too sore to keep on complaining, he realised the futility of his endeavor.

Despite the fickleness in his family’s visits, there happened to be a constant in his life that persisted despite it all, a leech stuck to his ankle as he forded through murky waters, the canker sore under his tongue, making his mouth taste like blood after every rendezvous.

Circling him like a hawk, Touya dreaded the monotone reports that dragged by as slow as molasses. Hawks always looked over at him, as if to double-check that Touya was still paying attention and had not fallen asleep in the process. Touya guessed that his father must’ve ratted him out to Hawks, telling him all sorts of things after having endured yet another monologue session with Touya refusing to open an eye.

“Oh, before I forget. I am to inform you that you will be having visitors next week.” Hawks had already put away the folder, neatly tucked between his elbow and hip. Touya eyed him warily. In his mind, he was dispelling him out of the room, knowing well enough that he had long overstayed his welcome.

“Toga Himiko will be visiting,” he continued, the faint smile lines on his cheeks twitching upwards, “under police supervision, of course, but she’s been doing much better. She constantly asks about you. I know you two were close.”

Touya stared at his feet. He wondered whether he’d regain at least some feeling in his toes.

“We’ve told her that you’re…” Hawks’ eyes follow Touya’s gaze, “not capable of speaking for longer durations due to your, uh… condition.”

He looked at his arms, then trailed over to the foot of his bed.

“From what I’ve heard, it won’t be much of a problem.” He does the laugh he always used to do whenever Twice had said anything out of pocket - that strained, awkward little huff of air.

“You know, Hawks has a weird laugh,” Twice had leaned over and told him. “Maybe it’s a bird thing.”

Touya grimaced. “It’s definitely a bird thing,” he said, disdain staining his lips. He didn’t have the heart to tell him that he’d been faking it. Twice should be grateful, really. Hawks’ real laugh was a cacophony of sounds, and that was Touya sugarcoating it.

Hawks looked at him a little funny. “Uraraka-san reports that Toga has been more and more talkative with each passing day,” he said, then jammed a hand into his jean pocket. “So, there’s that to look forward to.”

Touya refused to look up. Instead, he bit back an exasperated retort that would only annoy Hawks and irritate his throat.

“It’s weird, being in a room with you without either of us trying to actively kill the other.

“Well, it’s not like you really have a choice, though, huh? You’re strapped to that bed whether you like it or not.

“... Sorry. I know you can hear me.

“You know, I think I finally figured it out. Why the doctors keep saying that you’re getting better and your ability to speak has been slowly coming back.

“I reckon it’s because you never say anything to me. It’s like…

“Like you save up that power to talk for someone who is actually worth talking to.

“Ouch. I didn’t mean it to come off that way.

“Hah. But it’s true, isn’t it? I get it, don’t worry. I know that I shouldn’t be… well… conflict of interest.

“...

“...

“...

“You must be wondering why I’ve been assigned to you. Do you think it’s God’s way of punishing us? Cruel, I must say, although I do guess I deserve it.

“Touya—

“Todoroki. I never told anyone about us. Nobody at HPSC, not even to my closest friends.

“I didn’t want anybody to- it’s, well- it’s personal information. Had they known I had this affiliation with you, I’d be the last person they’d want aiding you like this.

“I know that you probably don’t care. You, hah. You made that explicitly clear.

“I just wanted to tell you.

“Thought this was a good time to… well.

“...

“You wouldn’t have listened to me otherwise.”

The day that Toga visited him, there was not a single cloud in the sky.

She practically flung herself onto Touya, having to be restrained by a brown-haired girl whilst Mirko and two other police officers entered the room after her. Hawks lingered in the corner, giving him an irking smile when their gazes met.

“Touya-kun!” Toga blubbered, stringing words together in hopes of forming a coherent sentence amidst all the tears and snot that came trickling down her face. “I thought- I was so- I- well- I’m so—”

The girl with the brown hair rubbed her back in soothing, circular motions, awkwardly holding up a tissue. “Himiko-chan,” she murmured, glancing back at Mirko and Hawks. “Ought we give them some privacy?”

“Are you crazy?” Mirko barked at her, crossing her prosthetic arms against her chest. Despite her short stature, she had always scared Touya. Her body seemed to be more metal than meat, but that didn’t stop her from glowering at him the moment she walked into his hospital room.

She shifted her weight from one leg to the other. “Leaving the two of them unsupervised? Are you out of your mind?”

“And what exactly would they do?” Hawks asked, peering over at Touya. “I’m sorry, but one of them is completely immobile.”

“I really don’t think that it’s in Himiko-chan’s best interest to kidnap Todoroki-san,” the girl with the brown hair reasoned. She obviously wasn’t aware of Toga’s capabilities.

“You’ve grown too soft, Uraraka.” Mirko could see Hawks growing comfortable by her side, so she turned around and jabbed her finger into his chest. “You too, jackass!”

“Are you okay?” Toga whispered, hands gripping at the duvet, searching for something. “You look…”

Touya’s smile grew. “I’m fine, Himiko. Just a little tired.”

“A little bedridden.” She wiped her eyes into the crook of her elbow. “A little hurt.”

“Look, how about we have one person stay here?”

“If anybody’s staying in this goddamn room, it’s going to be me.” Mirko said in a voice that made even Hawks shiver - Touya grew amused at the way he jumped when she merely looked at him, still rubbing at his sternum. “We’ll give them fifteen minutes of privacy. After that, I’m dragging both of you back, you hear me?”

As the room slowly but begrudgingly emptied itself, Toga turned back to Touya and leaned over his hospital bed. “So, now that everyone’s gone,” she said in a hushed tone, holding her breath, “the plan to revive Tomura-kun is underway.”

Mirko’s ears perked up, angling them towards the bed. “The what now?”

Toga was a dandelion in the aspect that even the gentlest of winds came knocking her over, spilling bright laughter into her hands, poorly concealing the pappi floating through the crevices between her fingers.

“She’s just joking, ma’am,” Touya tacked on, as if it weren’t obvious already. The look he received from Mirko was furious, but at this point, he couldn’t care less about the things she heard - not when he was strapped to his bed, helpless and pitiful, with Hawks on the other side of the door. “I’m sorry.”

“What a killjoy, Touya-kun,” Toga breathed out in-between laughter. “I really missed you.”

“I never thought I’d hear that laugh again.” Closing his eyes, he attempted to focus on the noise, on the way the whole world ached everytime she leaned in for a breath. “You sound happier. I’m glad.”

“I am happy.” Toga’s smile turned thoughtful. “Uraraka-san has been wonderful to me. My recovery has been going smoothly and it won’t be long before I’m taken into a rehabilitation programme - and it’s all thanks to her.”

Touya watched her fiddle with his blanket. “She sounds nice,” he hummed.

“She is nice.” She looked down, almost as if she were embarrassed. Then, she murmured something into the duvet, so quiet that Touya barely registered that she was saying something.

“I’m sorry?”

“Being loved,” Toga mustered, her downcast gaze hiding the warmth spreading on her cheeks. “It’s nice.”

Touya’s lips pressed together. It sounded alien coming out of his own raspy throat. “Being loved?”

But Toga’s voice got even softer as she twisted the duvet with her hands, toying with it nervously. “Romantically, I mean.” She pinched the fabric. “I wish… I wish I could’ve had… this… sooner.”

“You mean…” His eyes glanced down at her, the gears slowly turning in his brain. “You and her?”

Suddenly, Toga shot up like a rocket, face turning sunset red. “You don’t think that it’s that bad, is it?” she pressed on, her eyes widening as she waited with bated breath. “Someone like her loving someone like me?”

“What?” Touya wasn’t sure he was hearing this properly.

Sparing a nervous glance at Mirko, who seemed to be scrolling through her phone mindlessly, leaning against the wall, he drew what was left of his eyebrows together. “It’s not bad, Himiko,” he breathed out, shaking his head. “Don’t- please don’t think that it’s bad, I mean- I…”

Touya pressed his lips together, huffing out through his nose. He hoped that it wasn’t too obvious, the way his eyes innately flickered to the door and lingered, though only barely, as if he were waiting for something to happen.

“I’m happy for you,” he said, and really meant it.

“Say,” Toga raised her gaze, “have you ever been in love, Touya-kun?”

Touya’s smile faltered. He had been stripped of any sort of teenage romance, this longing after the feelings of another quickly replaced by the drive for his father’s acceptance, his gaze, a mere inkling of acknowledgement.

He experienced no greater pit in his stomach than when he woke up inside an alien body with a voice too low and limbs too lanky, knees that wobbled when he walked and scars that marred his pale face, and realised that in the end, it had all been for nothing.

Has Touya been in love? Hell, has he ever been loved by someone, anyone?

And Touya, he—

There had been a simpler time, when the smoke in the air came from his half-lit cigarette resting in between his fingers rather than from the dozen charred corpses burning in the back of a dingy alleyway.

Touya stepped aside, his feet dangerously close to tipping over the ledge of the building, when he heard something rustling behind him.

Most of the League were asleep at this point in the night. The footsteps were too light to be mistaken for Twice or Magne, too forward to be Shigaraki or Toga. And then there was the flap of the wings.

There were certain times that Touya despised Hawks. Showing up to their doorstep with a rattle in one hand and a sob on his lips was way too convenient, too suspicious for someone of Hawks' nature. It was only a matter of time before this facade came bursting at the seams, and Touya was ready to bring it down one way or another.

“Fancy seeing you here, hero,” he said, taking another slow drag from his cigarette and blowing the smoke into his general direction. He wasn’t stupid - Hawks always wore his heart out on his sleeve, rolled up for everyone to see, and someday, that stupid go-lucky attitude was going to catch up with him.

“Can’t sleep,” Hawks replied, pulling up his hood a little higher. Touya raised an eyebrow but said nothing, holding out his cigarette as a makeshift peace offering that Hawks graciously accepted. He pressed it up to his lips before hacking out a cough.

However, there were instances, split-seconds, where Touya let himself indulge in this fantasy of sorts - where he let himself believe that perhaps Hawks really was being truthful.

It endeared him, the way Hawks covered up his mouth in an attempt to silence himself and yet still managed to wake up the entire neighbourhood with his incessant coughing. And that small part of Touya irked him like no other.

“You’re so stupid, you know that?” Touya asked, reaching over for the cigarette. He dropped it onto the ground, putting it out with his shoe. “I thought you took up smoking.”

“Tastes like shit,” he said, zipping himself up even higher. “The Commission would kill me if they found out.”

In hindsight, it made sense. Hawks had always been their golden boy. Had they found but one scratch on his perfect, pristine skin that hadn’t been caused by the Commission themselves, they would’ve flipped the whole world on its head. Hawks made it a habit of hiding his scarred knuckles, but Touya recognised the cicatrices that periodical lashes left behind.

Touya crouched down atop of the cold concrete, tilting his head over. “The Commission would kill you if they found out all the things you were doing.”

“What, like you?” Hawks grinned, sitting down next to him before jerking upwards again. “You and your stupid fire quirk,” he mumbled, wrapping his wings around himself for some kind of warmth.

“You don’t have to be out here, you know.”

“I know.” He kept his eyes firmly trained on the sky. It was a cloudless night. Touya was pretty sure he could see Venus. “Can’t sleep, that’s all.”

“So I’ve been told.” He looked up as well. He could tell, from the corner of his eye, however, that Hawks wasn’t looking at the sky anymore.

“Do you know any constellations?”

“I can see Sirius’ hat.” Touya used his pathetic squirming as an excuse to wrap his right arm around him, bringing him closer to his side. He ignored the way Hawks’ left wing automatically folded around him. He pointed up to the sky with his left. “Right over… there.”

Hawks squinted up at the stars. “I don’t see it. You… what did you say it was again? Sirius’ hat?”

Rolling his eyes, Touya scooted over closer. “Yeah, right over there.” His fingers pointed at three starts in particular, all in the shape of a triangle.

“I don’t think I believe you,” Hawks huffed out, his breath lingering in the cool air. Touya averted his gaze and looked down at him. “I didn’t even know that Sirius had a hat.”

“He totally had a hat.” His eyes drifted down to his lips, slightly extended outwards in a downward slant. “It’s like Orion and his belt.”

As if determined to prove him wrong, Hawks let out a sigh, raising his head a little higher. From this side, he could see the way his blond hair framed his face, loose strands that kept falling into his eyes from being tousled up by the cold January wind.

“You’re fucking with me, aren’t you?”

“I’m not fucking with you, Hawks.”

After an embarrassingly long amount of time, he tore his gaze away from the sky and pulled his eyebrows together. “Sirius didn’t even have a hat.”

“Of course he had.” Touya bit back a smile. “Pointy at the top. I don’t believe that you can’t see it.”

”What enjoyment do you get out of this?” Hawks studied his face. Despite his peeved expression, he leaned into his side, although Touya gathered that it must have been because of the warmth his quirk radiated.

Touya smoothed his fingers over one wing. “What, you mean aside from ruffling a few feathers?”

But then Hawks looked back at him in a way he couldn’t decipher, in a way that made his stomach lurch suddenly, so violently, that he pulled away his hand and planted it firmly on the concrete behind him. Hawks moved back as well, turning his head away.

“I should get going,” he said, dusting off his trousers. “My patrol starts early.”

“Yeah.” Touya forced himself up, but his limbs were too heavy to move. “I should head back, too.”

Hawks flashed him something unreadable. A silent plea. A glint of hope. “I’ll see you tomorrow, though? Same place?”

There were times like these that Touya couldn’t help but smile, fondness seeping into his exasperation. “Yeah. I’ll see you.”

Hawks held up two fingers in a mock salute and spread out his wings, large and overbearing, before he stepped off the edge of the building. He fell straight straight down, limbs thrashing around wildly until he lifted both wings and soared.

It was only then that Touya’s body jerked towards the ledge. “Hawks, wait!”

He leaned against the cold railing, fingers wrapping around the half-chipped rust. He didn’t know what compelled him to, whether he’s been too sleep-deprived in the past couple of weeks or the cold has finally been getting to him, but when Hawks turned around, something inside him broke a little.

“What?” he yelled over the noise of his wings flapping. The wind howled as he lowered himself onto the other side of the railing, balancing himself on the ledge.

He didn’t know what compelled him to, and yet when he reached over for Hawks and pressed their lips together, he couldn’t help but melt into him.

Hawks’ hands on his coat, in his hair, and on his skin; he let his touch consume him whole. Hawks kissed the way he lived - hungrily, unapologetically, wholly. And Touya getting to experience but a fraction of that ardency was enough for him.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come over to my apartment?” Hawks asked breathlessly. His fingers were tangled in his hair, tugging at the ends. “It gets pretty chilly this time of year.”

Touya was acutely aware of the fact that Hawks’ apartment was twice as warm as the hideout he was forced to stay at with the rest of the League, when all he had to wrap himself up in was a moth-eaten blanket, threadbare and thinning out, but he decided to stay quiet.

“I might get your carpet dirty,” Touya whispered, pressing a gentler kiss to the side of his lips. “Didn’t you pay an absurd amount of yen for it?”

“Fuck the carpet,” Hawks snarked back and shut him up.

“I don’t know,” he replied, looking up at the ceiling. “I don’t know if I’ve ever been loved.”

“Well, I love you, Touya-kun. And I’m sure you’ll find the one eventually,” Toga chirped, poking his arm. “I used to think so, too, but then I met Ochako-chan.”

Touya let out a sad, little sigh. The smile lingering on his face hurt, the muscles in his face beginning to spasm. “Well, actually. There was this boy…”

“Touya?”

He rolled over to the side, mumbling something incoherent into the pillow.

“Oh.” He opened a bleary eye at the voice, until his vision focused on Hawks’ outline, like an angel here on Earth. “You’re still here.”

“Of course, I’m here,” Touya murmured, propping his head a little higher. “Are you off?”

Hawks shuffled under the covers, kicking his leg against Touya’s. “I have a few more hours left,” he whispered, burying his neck into Touya. “Had a bad dream.”

Touya pressed his lips against his forehead. “You want to talk about it?”

“Nah. I’m feeling better already.”

“Okay.” He breathed in the lemongrass scented shampoo, raking his fingers through his soft hair. “Hey, Keigo?”

“Yeah?”

“What are we doing?”

“Cuddling.” He felt Hawks’ hands snake around his back as they drew him in, getting dangerously close to groping him from behind. “Going for round three if I get lucky.”

Touya pressed his knee against Hawks’. “Shut up,” he said with no bite in his voice. “I meant- this. Why am I here?”

Hawks rolled onto his back. “I get lonely sometimes. So do you.” He cast him a sidelong glance. “We make it work.”

“An arrangement,” Touya muttered into his hair. For some reason, his stomach churned at the realisation.

He didn’t have much time to dwell on it - not when Hawks was already pulling him into a sleepy, close-mouthed kiss. “A symbiotic relationship,” he amended, gently thumbing over his scarred face.

“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

“I really like you a lot, Touya.” The bed dipped and he felt Hawks’ legs slip in between his. “Probably more than I let on.”

Tentatively, Touya let his hand drift down from his hair as he cupped his face. “How embarrassing,” he said, and hoped that Hawks picked up on his nervous way of saying “I love you”.

But Hawks only laughed into his chest. His own, private way of telling him “I’ve known for a very long time”.

When Uraraka and Hawks came back into the room, Toga, who had been sitting on the plastic chair next to him, talking a hundred miles a minute for the past half hour, whipped her head around, face lighting up immediately.

“Ochako-chan!” she crooned, but didn’t let go of Touya’s hand. “We were just talking about you!”

Uraraka seemed to be taken aback by this, her pale cheeks reddening at the idea of being mentioned. “Only good things, I hope.”

“I really don’t think she’s capable of shit-talking you, Uraraka,” Mirko commented from the sidelines. “About Hawks, however.”

“They talked about me?” Hawks asked, and Touya didn’t know whether he wanted to strangle Mirko for actually listening to their conversation or set himself on fire for bringing him up in the first place.

But Mirko only smiled. “Confidentiality, my dear Keigo,” she said with a wink, and all of a sudden, murder didn’t seem like such an enticing option after all.

“We’re going to have to get going,” Uraraka said once she came closer to his hospital bed. She smiled tightly at Touya, but there was something undeniable in her eyes. As if she were forcing herself to look at his decaying, mutilated corpse. “Todoroki-san.”

Touya looked up at her and tried not to squirm under her gaze.

“I’ll visit you as soon as possible,” Toga told him, standing up from her seat. “I’ll even smuggle you your favourite soba.”

“I don’t think that Todoroki-san is capable of eating yet.” Uraraka turned her head and eyed the numerous tubes coming in and out of his body. “But we’ll get him something once he gets better.”

“The explosives I was talking about,” Toga whispered with a grin, looping her arm around Uraraka’s, and shamelessly intertwining their fingers. The open and nearly impetuous action made Touya avert his gaze, biting the inside of his cheek. “Must we go, Ochako-chan?”

“We have an allotted time slot, Himiko-chan.” Uraraka tucked Toga’s stray strand of hair behind her ear, “but we can come next week. How does that sound?”

Toga smiled at her, innocent. “How about in two days?”

“Three,” was Uraraka’s response, although Touya could spot a smile of her own itching on her face.

“Deal,” said Toga, much to Mirko and Hawks’ dismay.

“You can’t just give into everything she asks for,” Mirko berated her as the two headed towards the door, followed by the police officers rounding onto Toga. Only Hawks lingered by the door frame before approaching his bedside.

“If there’s anyone else from the League that you’d like to see,” he said, tapping something onto his phone. “I can arrange that for you.”

“Like Twice?” Touya said. Hawks looked down at him with that bewildered expression of his and it infuriated him. “Just quit with the pleasantries already, will you? Quit acting like nothing happened between us.”

Hawks opened his mouth, then promptly closed it. “Todoroki-san…”

“Keigo.” He let his eyelids close, swallowing thickly. He ignored the soreness that followed. “What’s my prognosis?”

“Your-” he heard papers shuffling and resisted the urge to reopen his eyes again, just to roll them at him. “If I’m not mistaken, you’ll still need to undergo multiple surgeries and skin grafts that might take months to heal. After that, it’ll just be rehabilitation.”

“Just rehabilitation.” Touya’s lips turned into a snarl. “Look at me! I’m a sick dog that needs to be put down. My own family can’t bear to look at me properly.”

“That’s not true.” Touya recognised that tone, that cadence, and he refused to open his eyes, afraid of what he might see. “Touya, you know that isn’t true.”

“I’ve seen how brown hair has been looking at me.” Pained, disgusted, disturbed. She could hardly stand to look at him, and every time she fortuitously did, her face fell in forced pity. “Your rabbit friend, too.”

“Don’t say that.” Any sliver of professionalism Hawks was attempting to maintain had consequently been thrown out of the window, not when his voice instinctively dipped an octave lower, and suddenly, Touya was back in his old apartment, exchanging body heat on the couch nearest to the window.

“I quite like your scars,” Hawks had told him, kissing over his bruised neck on a particularly late night, after the two of them had drunk a few too many shots. “It’s a pity you can’t feel anything.”

Touya had scoffed at him, reaching over to pinch his hip. “You only like them because of the staples,” he said as Hawks’ fingers ghosted over the fine line where mauled met healthy skin. “You and your stupid bird brain.”

But Hawks wasn’t looking at his array of staples etched out on the side of his face, nor was he eyeing the piercings Touya had gotten at seventeen as an act of rebellion - no, Hawks was staring straight at him, cheeks flushed from the alcohol.

He leaned over, nearly toppling the both of them in the process. “I keep saying it, Touya,” he murmured into the crook of his neck, snaking his hand around his waist, “you know I keep saying it, but I—”

Touya opened his eyes.

Hawks was bent over the bed, yellow eyes focused on blue. He blinked away the itchiness behind his eyelids. “You’re a liar, Takami Keigo.”

“And what does that make you?” Hawks asked, drumming his fingers against the railing of his bed. When he finally left, Touya rang up the nurse and asked for another dose of morphine.

The heat was unbearable. Scalding flames licked his arms, nipped at his heels, ripped through his tendons and tore through his nerves until a numbness took over him like a bucket of water poured over his head.

And then it began. Each stagger sending shocks through his entire body, charred fingers rubbing against one another, crumbling at the tips, tipping himself off the edge.

Smoke filled his lungs, burned through his throat. Touya couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t. Stop. Panic. Burn. Fire. Hurts.

“Touya!” A voice echoed through the fire. The voice warped, twisted into something incomprehensible. He turned towards the noise, shaking his head blindly over the deafening roar of the conflagration. “Oh, Touya!”

In a hasty attempt to pinpoint voice to face, Touya nearly lurched forward, knees buckling under the weight of his decaying corpse. It sounded like his mother. Mother. Mom.

Touya garbled something animalistic, vocal chords long destroyed by the excruciating heat. The miasmic scent of scorching skin sickened him, letting his head fall low and choking on smoke.

Smoke. Breathe. Can’t. Can’t. Can’t.

The pain had regressed him. Thirteen going on twenty-four. Touya scrambled for some kind of leverage, hacking and coughing through the smog. “Na-ats-u…!” he howled, the ash seeping into his lungs. “Fu-uyu-mi…!”

“Fuyumi!”

“Touya-niisan?” Fuyumi shook him once, small hands curling around his grey sweater. “Are you okay?”

The television was crackling next to him, some cartoon playing at low volume. Fuyumi had been watching him intently, shaking him one more time before Touya finally drew his arm away, rubbing at his wrist.

“Has Touya-nii fallen asleep again?” Natsuo’s voice came floating from the kitchen. It carried that teasing lilt Touya often despised. “You’ll miss the show.”

“I won’t,” Touya huffed out, crossing both his arms. The familiar jingle began and he reached over for the remote, raising the volume of the programme as a small hero jumped on-screen, flashing his big smile and snow-white hair.

He ran from one side of the television to the other, jumping up and down, credits rolling in. Touya’s face pulled into a small frown when he noticed Fuyumi still staring at him. “You’ll miss the show,” Touya mimicked, furrowing both eyebrows at Natsuo who jumped down onto the sofa next to him, knocking his head against his shoulder. “Watch carefully, yeah?”

“I’m watching,” Fuyumi’s eyes seemed to scream back at him, amidst the crackling and hissing of the fire. “I’m watching, Touya!”

“Cut it out, man!” Natsuo was standing next to her, shielding his face with both his arms. He pulled them both down with great force, raising his head high. “You shitty excuse for a brother!”

Brother. Natsuo called him brother. “Ah hah…” Touya didn’t think he could last much longer. His vision was beginning to blur, white flashes drawing him in and out of consciousness. “Hah…”

‘Everyone is looking at me,’ Touya mustered, legs finally giving in. He let the flames inundate him whole. Destroy him completely. Chest heaving painfully as the smoke burned his insides. ‘Oh. So that’s how it feels.’

His mother was still trying to reach him, wading through deep currents with her arms held out, outstretched and inviting. Fuyumi was gripping Natsuo’s wrist. Natsuo was crying, mouthing profanities at him. Endeavour fought through his blockade until he was standing right in front of him, skin chipping off the side of his face.

‘If it was such an easy thing to do,’ he thought to himself bitterly, letting out another mangled cry, ‘then why didn’t it happen sooner?’

Everything was so, so hot, until he was plunged into a freezing darkness and let the cold engulf him completely.

The days slowly began to merge into one another when they wheeled Touya into surgery again.

He woke up with his head cracked open, drugged out of his mind back in his hospital room with multiple doctors surrounding him, only to drift back to sleep and wake up a week later with a fresh set of bandages, and pain in places he hadn’t even thought of.

His family’s visits began waning due to Touya’s constant narcotised state, but he was disgruntled to find out that that didn’t deter Hawks.

“How are you feeling?” he asked one uneventful Tuesday afternoon.

“Shit.” Touya decided he was above childish pettiness and chose to humour him just this once. He was also extraordinarily bored and the nurse refused to give him any more drugs to compensate, but Hawks didn’t have to know that. “I feel like shit.”

He heard Hawks chuckle to himself. “It was a stupid question,” he conceded, then leaned back on his chair. “Forget that I asked.”

“How are you doing?”

“Me?” Hawks readjusted himself on the chair, making an awful squeaking noise in the process. “Oh, you know. Adjusting to real life, I guess.”

“Why’re you still working for that shit Commission?” If Touya craned his neck just a sliver, he could still catch a glimpse of that ugly pin tacked onto his suit. “They ruined you.”

“A trained bird never flees its cage.” He undid his pin and placed it into the palm of his hand. “I want to change this agency for the better.”

Typical Hawks. The naive optimism practically oozed out of him, making Touya grit his teeth like a stray dog.

“That’s my plan for the foreseeable future, anyway,” Hawks continued, undeterred. He never was. “What about you?”

A surprised laugh rippled through his throat. “You mean, once I skip on over to prison?”

Hawks didn’t reply right away. When Touya looked over at him, he was met with a pointed expression.

“I’m a wanted criminal, Keigo.” Touya must have been really bored out of his mind to keep entertaining Hawks like this. “What did you expect was going to happen?”

Hawks averted his eyes. “Rehabilitation programmes.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. Toga-san is being enrolled in one.”

“That’s because Toga’s seventeen. She’s still a kid. But me?” He pushed down the urge to laugh again, sparing his chest a painful heave. His recent inability to control himself has had jarring consequences on his health. “I’m beyond saving.”

“You’re so full of shit, Touya.”

“Not so full of shit when you realised that she has a lot going for her.” His mind drifted to Uraraka, rising hero and loving partner, and something inside of him churned with envy. “With brown-haired girl’s seal of approval, it’d be hard not to give her a chance.”

“You’re related to one of the top heroes in Japan.” Hawks reminded him of something he’d very much wanted to forget. “Even if you can’t get Shouto or Endeavour on your side, I’d be glad to step up.”

There he goes again, with a heart full of gold and a head filled with hay.

He didn’t know what infuriated him more - Hawks’ belief that the legal system would somehow let him off the hook or the small, childish part of Touya that wanted to believe every word he said.

“What would you do if you weren’t Dabi?”

They have gotten to that point in the night where oversharing came as naturally as stealing chaste kisses when they assumed that no one was looking, dragging one another behind dumpster bins and down abandoned alleyways.

Touya had to bite down on his tongue for a moment. The last time they crossed such dangerous territory was when he inadvertently blurted out that he was related to the biggest piece of shit to ever stain this wretched Earth, and consequently made Hawks nearly fall over in surprise.

“You mean, if I weren’t a Todoroki?” Touya tried focusing his gaze on Hawks’ blurry figure, only illuminated by the dim bedside lamp buzzing next to them.

“If you were some random guy living on the other side of the country.”

“Well.” It’s embarrassing, the way Touya’s mind stayed completely blank for a few seconds. Sure, he had wishes and aspirations before thirteen, his desires a wild flock of herons that always flew out of his reach, circling above his house and watching him from the water.

They lowered their beautiful heads in Sekoto Peak, as if in mutual understanding and acceptance, when the flames burned brighter than the Sun, brighter than anything they’ve seen before.

“I never wanted to be a hero, you know?” Touya leaned his head against the headboard, making a soft thud. “Fighting bad guys… I have always been told that I was way too sensitive for my own good.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hawks tilt his head towards him, knocking their shoulders together. “I like seeing that side of you,” he murmured, exhaling gently. “Better than the ‘scary, brooding’ Dabi I’ve met a few months ago.”

Touya snorted, shaking his head. “Oh, I thought you found his sordid disposition quite attractive, actually.”

His smug grin only widened when he felt Hawks’ hand push his face in the opposite direction. “Don’t be so daft.”

“And I’ll take that as a yes.”

“You would’ve made a wonderful hero, Touya,” Hawks piped up after a moment. “You would’ve been great at anything you’d put your mind to.”

“I always wanted to be a writer.” If the light coming from the bedside table had been any stronger, he might have seen the crimson in his face.

He felt Hawks’ head lean down against his shoulder, tousled hair tickling his exposed collarbone. “What would you have written about?”

“Anything,” he replied, envisioning a rack of books all signed to his mother’s maiden name. “I would’ve gone to school, gotten a degree in something useless. I would’ve fallen in love. Started a family. Been a nobody and lived the way I wanted to.”

Hawks hummed in response, then shifted his weight on the bed and leaned towards the table. “Hey, Touya?”

“Yeah?”

“Isn’t it your birthday today?”

“Huh?” Touya blinked at his phone, eyes lowering down to the date. The small, white numbers “18/1” stared back at him. “Oh. I guess it is.”

“Happy birthday.” Silence, at least for a little while. Then, “don’t forget to make a wish.”

Touya turned his head towards the sound of his voice, something warm unfurling in his chest. “Do I get a birthday blowjob to celebrate the occasion?”

In the dimness of the room, he could barely make out the curve of Hawks’ manic grin. But it certainly was there.

It wasn’t long before the bandages entrapping Touya’s body finally came off. He didn’t know what kind of voodoo magic the doctors cast on him, but the moment his nurse told him that the long awaited moment was here, he couldn’t help but tear up.

The second he found out that his tears lacked the pleasant burning sensation, however, he turned to the nurse, demanding a mirror and a round of tissues before finding out that his gauzes were still suspiciously clean.

He spent the next half hour fighting back the fat tears rolling down the side of his face as his nurse helped him out of his cocoon with a cast saw, unsure of what to do about the small flood dripping on his chest.

“Don’t cry so much, Todoroki-san,” the shorter nurse chastised, handing him yet another tissue. Relief seemed to flood her face when she heard someone knock on the door. “Here, we need to get this off your face.”

Two sets of hands worked on cutting the bandages from his face, taking short intermissions to dab at his eyes. Touya continued to blubber incoherent apologies into the crinkled tissues, averting his eyes from the bedside table. He didn’t want to see what he looked like, he couldn’t bear to even glance at the mirror’s direction.

“Don’t look at me,” Touya snapped the moment he noticed Hawks weaseling his way into the room. He tried to cover up his face, but the two nurses blocked his movements, hands still cleaning up the remaining bandages. “I don’t want to be perceived.”

“Well, I-” Hawks stopped by the foot of his bed, pressing his lips into a straight line. “I, uh-” He stiffly held up a coffee and a cup of soba he must’ve gotten at a convenience store. “Hi.”

“Hey.” Touya hated the way Hawks’ eyes undressed him, the way the nurses kept smiling at him placatingly, patronisingly, pitifully. “How bad is it?”

Hawks let his head drop a little. “Bad?” he parroted stupidly, because he had always been so simpleminded and big words seemed to scare him. “I mean—”

“As good as new,” one of the nurses said, pinching his cheek. A spark of pain erupted on his skin and Touya was about to bark out an expletive if it weren’t for the fact that he hasn’t felt anything on that side of his face for the past eight years.

“You look good,” Hawks managed, placing the unopened soba onto the table. “Let’s not inflate your ego.”

Touya’s lips curl petulantly. “Show me.” He huffed out his chest, but hated the anticipation gurgling inside of him as he watched Hawks reach for the mirror and angle it towards his face. He closed his eyes, counted to three, before finally looking down at himself. And he—

“It is going to take a few months to heal completely,” the taller nurse piped up, glancing down at him, “so don’t worry about any red splotches.”

Touya wasn’t going to worry about any red splotches - the red splotches were the least of his worries. How could he, when the purple scarring stretched out across his entire face was replaced with a warmer pink, his face rounder and softer than it was before.

This wasn’t him. It couldn’t be him. Baby blue staring back at him, he tried moving his head around from side to side, as if to catch any strays of that sickly shade of damson hiding in the crevices of his skin, but grew increasingly frustrated at his inability to do so.

He was a stranger in his own skin. He couldn’t recognise the man staring back at him in the mirror - a younger, gentler boy with unruly hair and a smile brighter than the stars.

“What?” he muttered numbly, eyes darting across his reflection. “How?”

“I’ll fetch the doctor,” one nurse told him before heading straight for the door. The other nurse bowed her head slightly, wrapping her arms around the discarded pieces of the cast and hauling it off behind her.

“What the fuck did they do to me?” Touya asked again, eyes flitting over to Hawks. “Are you seeing this?”

But Hawks’ lips were drawn so close together, the small gap between the top of his lip and his bottom teeth peeking out almost imperceptible. “You’re so beautiful,” he said, looking at him as if he had hung the moon.

Like a cat that has been caught on the kitchen counter for the fourth time that week, Touya bristled under his gaze. “Oh, so now we’re just ditching professionalism altogether, huh?” he sneered, but struggled to push down the heart that had suddenly leapt into his throat.

“I’ve ditched the professionalism a long time ago,” Hawks told him, raising his right hand, and the stupid sincerity that tagged along in his voice made Touya want to do something he might regret.

“Just so you know,” Touya began and leaned into Hawks’ outstretched palm, “I’ve had a shit day. I’ve cried about ten times already, and I’m not afraid to keep going.”

The calloused skin on his hand rubbed against Touya’s burns, and yet his touch ghosted over his puffy skin, gently cupping the side of his face and thumbing over his cheekbone. “Tears of happiness, I hope,” he whispered into the air between them, lowering his voice as if he feared being overheard.

But Touya only bit the inside of his cheek, eyelashes fluttering shut. “What else, idiot?” he asked, teeth bared like a wild animal, drawn into what could only resemble a smile.

Touya was to leave the hospital.

The doctors weren’t letting him off the hook that easy, though - his family was sat down for a good hour and a half as the doctor explained the next few months of rehabilitation that was crucial to adhere to, whether it be coming to the hospital for physical therapy or a loose schedule Touya was to follow once he got home.

Home. Touya had to double take when he heard that word, eyeing the doctor as if he had started speaking a different language until he got tapped on the shoulder by a very pleased looking Shouto.

This all felt like some big, elaborate joke. Touya rolled his eyes at the doctor, scoffed into his elbow when two police officers confronted him about it, clicked his tongue when Hawks was dragged in as a last resort.

It was cold for April. Touya had been taken out in a wheelchair, patchy head wrapped in three thick scarves, tied neatly at the bottom of his chin. “We can’t have you getting sick,” Fuyumi told him, zipping up the parka a little higher.

The coat was two sizes too big for him, sleeves engulfing his hands and sagging down his shoulders. Touya said nothing about the comical size difference, deciding to bite his tongue when he saw Natsuo leaving the hospital from behind, wearing only a light sweater.

“And so this is it,” Hawks said once they stopped walking, drumming his fingers against the handles. They waited for Fuyumi to go fetch her car and drive it to the entrance of the hospital. “Free.”

“Well.” Touya tried to shake his left leg, acutely aware of the small contraption they had attached to his foot just minutes prior. It beeped back at him. Sighing, he cast one quick glance at Natsuo and Shouto, who were standing right by the curb, watching Fuyumi’s red Toyota lap around the parking lot. “You’ll come visit me on the weekends?”

He said it with such certainty, but hastily bit down on his tongue before he could get a little too selfish and add “weekdays” into his plea. But he deserved it, Touya thought to himself a little tiredly. He deserved to be a little selfish.

He felt Hawks’ hands stop moving, fingers suspiciously still. For a moment, Hawks fell silent, and Touya began wondering whether he heard his request in the first place.

Perhaps Hawks was better off not hearing him at all, Touya thought to himself, attempting to shrink himself further into the seat. Internally, he prayed for Fuyumi to come faster. If only her car came around now, he’d be saved from this discomfort, wheeled into the corner of her one-bedroom apartment, and could commence his lamentation an hour early.

But then, Hawks shuffled from behind his chair, dipping his head. “If you’ll still have me,” he said finally, slow and deliberate.

The drumming on the handles resumed at a sparser pace. Sporadic. Apprehensive. Timid.

Touya stopped sinking in his chair. He let his knees knock one against the other, experimentally. He felt the pain surge through his thighs, letting it linger before looking up at him. “Since when have you ever cared about that?”

Hawks looked uncomfortable. “Touya…”

“Don’t you ‘Touya’ me,” he hissed, a glass of water filled to the brim, finally beginning to spill over. “Acting so coy now but claiming otherwise a week ago,” Touya’s voice suddenly dropped into a stage whisper. “If I remember correctly, a week after your initiation, you hounded me like a dog until I finally gave in and slept with you.”

Touya carefully omitted mentioning the amount of times he’d catch himself staring, flushed cheeks paired with a scowl whenever Toga or Twice brought it up. In the end, even he wasn’t sure how he ended up clawing at the headboard after way too many drinks, pants pooling around his ankles as Hawks positioned himself between his thighs and fucked him so hard that multiple staples came flying right off.

Hawks began chanting a tirade of apologies until the phrase “oh my god, I’m so sorry” was the only thing looping in Touya’s head, despite his futile attempts to salvage the situation, and in doing so, save his already half-hard cock from becoming increasingly more flaccid.

Because in reality, Touya would never admit that the simple act of being looked at, being perceived and wanted by someone for something more than his utility made him weak in the knees.

He knew that Hawks wasn’t pursuing him because of his looks - the scarred, mutilated skin was enough to make any sane person fake a smile and avert their gaze, out of sheer politeness or disgust, Touya assumed it was a bit of both.

But the way Hawks looked at him, the way his yellow eyes glistened in the soft afternoon light, immovable, persistent, fond - a small, infinitesimal part of Touya forgot about his disfigurement and let himself sink deeper into him, deeper into this illusion most people called love.

It must have caught up to him, though, the way Touya stared up at Hawks only for the man he had fallen so tragically in love with to turn away his head, refusing to meet his eyes.

Look at me, he wanted to scream, eyes pleading and wide. Suddenly, he was thirteen again, tear-stricken and trembling, the heat unbearable on his scorching skin. Please, just look at me. Why won’t you look at me?

“You know, I can’t even look at you without seeing him,” Touya confessed, the lines between the two beginning to blur. Perhaps they’ve been that way for a long time, but he was a little too tunnel-visioned to notice.

He looked at the self-proclaimed Takami but saw Hawks instead, wide-eyed and smiling, always smiling. He saw the same Hawks that had to fight him tooth and nail to get a kiss in the morning even though they were already half an hour late to a League meeting, and kissed him goodnight, so featherlight in hopes of not waking him up, unaware that Touya had been wielding a valiant battle against sleep just so that he’d catch that moment.

How could he think of anyone else, possibly even fathom starting anew, when all he saw was the face of Apate, the same face that killed his best friend, and yet Touya still kept clinging onto something imperceptible in hopes of something, anything—

“Hawks is all I see,” he breathed out into the cool morning air. “It’s impossible to separate the two, but why should we? Why should we, when you are..." his throat inexplicably closed up, "all I have ever..."

Touya really was a dog, he thought to himself nauseatingly. Curled down by his feet, mangy and shivering, he slowly rolled onto his back in one final attempt to make him stay. His stomach was exposed. The ball was in his court now. And he waited.

Maybe Hawks should’ve killed him instead. He waited, eyes closed and tail tucked between his hind legs, and he let his head fall down to the side. At least Twice had something to strive towards, unlike himself, left alone to his own devices for the first time in years with no clue where to even begin.

He waited, because in the end, what else was there to do?

But nothing came. The mere absence like a dull knife thrust into his chest, knocking the wind out of his lungs. He was suffocating, sucking in sharp, staccato breaths as Fuyumi’s car came to a slow stop in front of the building, window rolled down and head peeking out.

“You ready to go, Touya-nii?” Shouto yelled over the wind, gesturing for Hawks to bring him over. “So, we’re strapping him to the top of the car…”

“Yeah, ‘s the only way,” Natsuo commented, nodding along with a finger resting on his lips. He cast a glance to the side, the smile forming on his lips faltering. “Hey, are you feeling alright?”

“I’m fine.” Natsuo didn’t look entirely convinced, but then again, the scowl that had taken hold of his face wasn’t helping either. Touya tried relaxing himself, tacking on an additional, “Just, super not looking forward to actually seeing Enji again.” in hopes of alleviating the situation.

It must’ve worked, though, because Natsuo’s knitted eyebrows immediately shot up to his hairline. “Ugh.” He opened up the side door and grabbed the handles. “We’re going to keep him away from you with a ten foot pole until you move in with Fuyumi-neesan, don’t you worry.”

“And this is why you’ve always been my favourite brother,” he murmured, biting away a forced smile when Shouto looked over, frowning. “I’m kidding. Now haul me into the seat, plebeians.”

“Keep talking like that and we’re really strapping you to the top of the car,” Shouto deadpanned, but extended his arms towards him, taking his hand into his own.

“Get home safe, you guys,” Hawks said from the side, giving Shouto and Natsuo a tight smile as they strapped Touya in. The moment they walked to the other side of the car, opening up the trunk to stuff his wheelchair in, Hawks leaned into the car with his hands holding himself up. “Did you mean it?”

Touya looked up, bewildered. “What?”

“What you said earlier. Did you mean it?”

A million thoughts surged through his head, his chest heaving a little harder. Paws up to the sky, he let himself raise his head gently, timidly, hopefully.

“What do you think, Keigo?” he asked gruffly, attempting to pacify his racing heart. “What do you think?”

“I think,” he pressed his lips together, “that it’s pretty embarrassing.”

For a moment, Touya didn’t breathe. He couldn’t, no, he daren’t breathe, not when Hawks’ face broke into a small smile, as if he were being let into an inside joke only the two of them shared. Touya’s heart swelled with fondness, recognition, acknowledgement, blinking away the warmth spreading on his face.

“Idiot,” he laughed wetly, letting his eyelashes flutter shut when Hawks finally angled his head inside of the car.

“I was so afraid,” Hawks muttered into his skin, breathing him in, inhaling him so. “You have no idea how much I missed you.”

“Idiot,” Touya repeated like a broken record, because he knew that Hawks understood anyway. He had always been more perceptive than the others. “Idiot.”

Nobody noticed the kiss Hawks imparted on him, nor did they question the big smile playing on his lips after they began driving away.

It was hard, slipping into this new normal. Fuyumi’s apartment was a quaint little thing on the side of Musutafu, but Touya still woke up in the middle of the night, groggy and bewildered, sweat pooling down his back. It always took him a couple of seconds to realise that he wasn’t at the hospital anymore, nor was he stowed away in the hideout.

He was safe. He was home.

Slowly, Touya fell into a routine. He visited the hospital with Fuyumi, went to his physical therapy appointments, got a therapist.

He began writing. Met up with Toga on the weekends, visited Spinner and Mr. Compress. Bought a hoard of melatonin pills to help with his restlessness.

He had breakfast with Fuyumi. Made lunch around noon. Ordered takeout when he got too lazy to fix himself up a quick dinner.

He learned how to walk again. His voice returned, albeit still gruff and scratchy in the morning hours. The red, irritated skin faded away with time.

It had been months since Touya had fallen off the face of the Earth. He took himself off the map, hiding in his family’s shadow. It had been better that way, hiding from the public for his sake and his family’s, too.

Some people rumoured that he had died at the hospital and this was all a big cover up, others swore that they’ve seen him walking down a particularly busy street, two coffees in hand and a spring in his step.

It didn’t seem to bother Touya, though. He couldn’t give more of a shit about what the world thought of him.

He was just in the middle of typing out a paragraph on the computer Shouto and Natsuo bought him as a housewarming gift, when someone opened the doors, slipping into his room. “I’ve heard that you died on Kyodo News today.”

Touya stopped clacking, fingers drawn to a standstill. Sighing, he swiveled around on his chair. “Hello to you, too, Keigo.”

“You seem to keep dying every other week,” he said with a grin, walking over and leaning down to kiss him. Touya rolled his eyes but tilted his head to the side, deepening the kiss when he felt Keigo’s fingers rake through his hair. But it was always over too soon, Touya thought to himself disappointedly as Keigo pulled away, eyes focusing on the laptop screen. “What’re you working on?”

“I don’t even know anymore.” He had stopped paying attention a long, long time ago, words slowly clumping together, hopping from sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph on his unsaved word document. He grew a little self-conscious after a moment, gently pushing Keigo’s face away. “Okay, that’s enough.”

“And it was just beginning to get good, too,” Keigo huffed out, then leaned against his chair. “What do you think of going out to dinner somewhere? My treat.”

Touya bit back a smile. “And how do you think that Kyodo News is going to feel, having seen me rise from the dead so soon?”

“Thrilled. They’ll have more to write about in their next article,” Keigo said, opening up his closet and digging around for a sweater to purloin for the day. He pulled a grey one over his head, fabric clinging firmly around his shoulders. He tugged at the hem a few times before glancing over at him, eyebrows raised. “Why don’t you quit undressing me with your eyes and get ready, yeah? We’ll go to that place downtown that does the fish.”

With that, Keigo marched out of his room, humming the tune of an older song under his breath.

Touya sighed. He looked over at his laptop screen and saved the file before switching off his computer. Reaching over for the crutch propped up against his desk, he hoisted himself upwards. He smiled inwardly and followed him out of his room.

Outside of Fuyumi’s apartment, a heron folded its large wings and perched itself on the guardrails. It was a good day.