Work Text:
Shouta has been married to Hizashi for a few years, and they have adopted two kids, when he starts thinking he doesn’t know if he understands what being in love means.
It’s not that he doesn’t feel love. There are people they love wholeheartedly, people they would die for, people they fought to live for. They love their kids so much they feel themself overflowing with it whenever they look at them, eating together or falling asleep on the couch or sitting at the edge of his bed whenever his body doesn’t allow him to move.
And he loves Hizashi—but he doesn’t know what being in love is like.
It’s a concept they never understood, even in their youth. They remember Shirakumo was quick to fall in love; he had the biggest, most embarrassing crush on Nemuri, and it was very evident. Shouta never dared to ask what it felt like, to like someone the way he seemed to like her. (Maybe, just maybe, they thought there would be time for those conversations. They always wished for time, dreaming they would have the three of them by their side, forever.)
Unable to fall asleep, he shifts in the bed, leaning over his side, and looks at Hizashi's sleeping figure. He sleeps on his back, with his mouth slightly open, golden locks splayed all over his pillow. Shouta raises a hand, slowly, and moves it to brush his hair off his face. Hizashi makes a face, tilting his head towards his hand, as if searching for his touch, and Shouta's heart aches.
He knows he feels love for him, but is it the same kind of love Hizashi feels? Is Shouta's way of loving enough to justify having him here, sleeping on the same bed, tied to him when he could find something else?
This is not the type of thing he’s used to worrying about. He’s tried to never question himself like this because he's always assumed that holding a desire to coexist alongside him was all he needed to ask him to stay, but if he's unable to fall in love, then hasn’t he lied to him all these years?
(When Hizashi confessed, they were freshly twenty-one, getting drunk for the first time in Nemuri's one-bedroom apartment; after she left them alone to go to her bed, they lay on her couch, almost chest to chest. Hizashi said, You know somethin’ funny? I think I’ve been in love with you since we were fifteen.
And Shouta, young and still lost, bleeding from wounds he still couldn’t find a way to heal, wished so hard to be able to love him back.)
Hizashi sleeps. He will wake up early, before the sun rises, and he will smile at Shouta the same way he’s been doing for years any time their schedules allow them to sleep together. He will tell him, Good mornin’, Sunshine, with that teasing tilt to it, and he will attempt to give him a morning kiss that Shouta will refuse because that’s gross, go brush your teeth.
For now, Shouta lies awake. They press a hand to his chest to feel the way it rises with each breath.
“I don’t think I'm in love with Hizashi.”
Nemuri pauses every movement. She has her cup of coffee pressed to her mouth, but she doesn’t drink. She blinks.
“Wow,” she says, lowering her cup, setting it on the table. “Wonderful conversation starter. Okay, you got my attention, handsome. What makes you think you’re not in love with your husband?”
Shouta shrugs. He doesn’t really have the words to explain it. What is romantic attraction? Is it something he should be able to identify? Would he have any sort of epiphany, if he were to fall in love? He didn’t have any of that, back when Hizashi confessed. He didn’t feel any different from before. When Hizashi said, I’m in love with you, he didn’t say it back because it didn’t feel necessary. His heart didn’t do a flip, he didn’t feel an explosion in his chest or butterflies in his stomach or a tingle inside of him that signaled anything. He knew he loved him, and that was as much as he could ever offer.
“I do love him,” they admit, and it pains them to say it—they're not used to it, and Nemuri beams like that’s the cutest thing ever, so they kind of feel like taking a nosedive from the rooftop—, but they have to be as honest as they can if they want to actually get something out of this conversation. “But I don’t love him any differently than I do any of the other people close to me, if that makes sense at all.”
Nemuri hums thoughtfully. “Well, you didn’t marry any of us,” she points out. Shouta lets out a long, tired sigh.
“Honestly, Kayama? If you asked me to marry you six years ago, I probably would’ve.”
She seems taken aback for a moment, but then she lights up. They regret telling her that instantly. They can feel a migraine coming only by seeing her shit-eating grin.
“Awww, Eraser!” she says cheerfully. “I knew you couldn’t resist my charm. Men and women want me, fish fear me, or whatever.”
“I do not want you,” he deadpans.
“But you would’ve married me! If I knew this, I would’ve married you. For profit.”
Aizawa doesn’t point out how she probably has more money than he does, since being an underground hero is not the best-paid career, to be honest. That’s besides the point.
“The thing is,” he says, trying to bring the conversation back to its rails, “I think he is in love with me.”
“Oh, he is,” Nemuri says, nodding. She drinks a bit of her coffee. “It’s a bit sickening—and I say that very lovingly. He’s so in love with you I get the urge to run away in your place.”
Shouta scoffs. Nemuri realized, a few years ago, that she was completely romance repulsed. It was a bit of a confusing moment for her, but overall, she seemed to take it well, which is why Shouta thought that if someone had an answer to give him regarding his current ailments, it would be her.
“But I don’t think I’m in love with him.”
She stares at them like they’re a pretty interesting bug and she wants to dissect them, which is not very comforting. They stare back, trying not to show how her extended silence makes them uncomfortable.
“But you do love him,” she says. He nods once, sharply, averting his gaze. “You two have been together since you were, what, twenty-three? And you've been married for five years by now. Why are you worried now?”
It’s not that he’s never worried before. He has thought about it: how he lacks the burning fire of love, the intensity. It was just different, back when it was just the two of them, when their schedules were too conflicting and Shouta had many other things to worry about. When they had the time to be together, without having to think about work, or duty, or catching some hours of sleep, Shouta did his best to shut himself down, focus only on the time they shared.
(But they do think about it all the time: how, of all the broken creatures Hizashi could ever love, he bothered with him. And Shouta can’t even reciprocate.)
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot,” he tries to excuse himself. He plays with a napkin. He stares at his black coffee, untouched in front of him. The apartment is quiet: Hizashi left to help a few students with patrolling, Hitoshi is in their boyfriend's house, and Eri is going to spend the day with Mandalay and Kouta. It’s only Nemuri and him, now. “Even more since the kids started living with us.”
They think of Eri, coming to their room to lie on their bed when she can’t sleep at night. Hizashi, very tired, holding her and humming lullabies. He’s been teaching her to play the guitar. Hitoshi, who wasn’t very close to him before the adoption process started, ended up warming up to him almost immediately—how couldn’t him, when he showed him nothing but tenderness since the very beginning?
Hizashi has so much love to give. Shouta wonders if he’s not wasting it all on him. If he didn’t give a family to someone who will never be able to stand on equal ground with him.
Nemuri sighs. She offers her hand, and after a second of hesitation, Shouta takes it. When she wraps her fingers around theirs, they can feel the warmth of her skin. It’s oddly comforting. She looks soft; Shouta doesn’t know how to take her kindness.
“Listen,” she says. “I know it might be confusing. I kind of thought I would stop realizing things about myself before I turned twenty. What you need to understand is that, even if you don’t feel romantic attraction towards him—or anyone else, for that matter—, that doesn’t mean your love means any less. You love him enough to form a family with him; what difference does it make, if it’s romantic or not?”
Shouta sighs. They hate when Nemuri is rational; she has this annoying habit of being right.
“I still feel like I need to let him know,” he mutters. She brings his hand to her lips, leaving a small kiss on his fingers. It leaves behind a lipstick stain. It doesn’t annoy him as much as it should.
“You can take your time,” she says encouragingly. “It will be fine. Hizashi will understand.”
They hope so. The sole thought of ruining everything they’ve built over the years makes them scared.
Since Shouta is still working hard in rehabilitation to learn how to move more fluidly using his prosthetic leg and the loss of his eye made his quirk almost useless, he’s not been patrolling during the nights.
It means he can stay awake for longer, since he won’t need to be up in the middle of the night, so now he has dinner with his family.
Their routine is almost the same every day. Shouta and Hizashi take turns cooking for dinner, with Hitoshi occasionally offering to make food for them. Eri helps set up the table and do the dishes, mostly because she likes helping around, and if they finish with dinner early, they sit on the couch to watch a movie or some shitty TV show together. Eri, who is an early sleeper and a late riser, falls asleep quickly, and then Hitoshi carries her to her room.
Some other nights, Hitoshi leaves as soon as the dishes are done, going to his room to be alone for a while. “Ah, teenagers,” Hizashi jokes sometimes. Eri tends to stay around a lot, always trailing behind each of her parents or her brother, and Shouta makes sure to enjoy each moment before she grows up and starts growing apart.
It’s rare for Hizashi and Shouta to get some alone time, nowadays. Since both the kids are home, they indulged themselves by ordering food. Then, they went to the bedroom, where Hizashi took it upon himself to undress Shouta and get him in his pajamas. He also brushed his hair, applied cream to his stump. He showered him with kisses and love; Shouta didn’t know what to do with all of it.
Shouta managed to get a few hours of sleep after that, but as usual, they woke up in the middle of the night. They blink their eye open, staring at the ceiling before sitting up slowly. Hizashi sleeps soundly, so they try to search for their crutches and stand up as silently as possible.
They walk outside the room and to the apartment's balcony. They need some fresh air, some nights. Hitoshi often accompanies him since they both have trouble sleeping at night, but he’s not home, so Shouta stands outside alone.
Nights are getting colder. He stares at the moonless sky, counting stars, trying to keep his mind clean. He can hear the sounds of the city in the distance, like they're worlds apart.
He doesn’t know how long he spends standing there, watching as the stars twinkle; he gets lost in the silence, breathing in and out.
He doesn’t know how long it takes for Hizashi to come looking for him, but he does, hugging him from behind.
“You weren’t in bed,” he says, his voice hoarse. He nuzzles his face against the side of his throat; Shouta feels the small tickle of his mustache.
“I wasn’t,” he affirms, nodding. His leg is tired; he tries to move, lean his weight against a leg that is not there anymore. He ends up leaning against one of his crutches. Hizashi keeps him up, tightening his hold around his waist.
“Did somethin’ happen?”
Shouta shrugs. Hizashi kisses his jaw. There was a time when Shouta would escape any form of physical affection; being around him for longer than a decade has helped him get used to this. The light touches. It rarely goes further than that: Shouta doesn't mind sex, but they don't really initiate it, either. They don't feel the need to. Hizashi used to search for it more often when they were younger, but he never was too intense about it.
He looks at the stars. The sky is so dark it looks black.
“There's something I have to tell you,” they say softly, carefully, because if they don't do this now then who knows when they will, and Hizashi deserves their honesty.
“Uh oh,” he says against his skin. Shouta can feel his grin. “Scary. Do you want to sit first?”
It would probably be smart, but he doesn’t want to move just yet. He wants to stay here, pressed against his body, feeling the cold night air on his skin.
“I’m okay.”
“Your call, sweetheart.” He caresses the side of their body softly. “What is it?”
Shouta sighs. How can they even begin to explain?
“First, I need you to understand that this doesn’t mean I don’t love you,” they begin. They can feel themself tensing a bit, but they can will their muscles to relax. Hizashi kisses his shoulder, which means he feels it, too. “Because I do. You have to know that by now.”
“I do,” Hizashi confirms.
They’re feeling uncomfortable on a least five different ways, but they have to get this out. So, they gather up the courage, and they say:
“I don’t think I can feel romantic attraction.”
There’s a beat of silence. Hizashi is clearly waiting for an elaboration. Shouta both wishes he could see his face and it's thankful that he can’t at the same time.
“I have thought about it before, but I’ve never thought it was relevant enough to bring it up,” he continues, trying to keep his tone neutral. “And I didn’t know how, either.”
I was scared of hurting you, goes unsaid. Shouta hopes Hizashi can understand.
Hizashi moves away and tugs at him gently, signaling him to turn around. Shouta does. His back ends up pressed against the rail, the city behind him. Hizashi looks at him with such gentleness Shouta feels sick.
“Oh, Sho,” he says, ever so softly, “you could’ve told me.”
He raises a hand and brushes his cheek with his fingers. Shouta doesn't pull away, so he takes the invitation, cupping his cheek.
“It’s not something easy to tell to your husband.”
“Well, you're lucky your husband is very understanding,” he says teasingly. His thumb caresses their cheekbone. “Except—this is not you asking for the divorce, right?”
Shouta huffs out a laugh. “No, Hizashi. I am not asking for the divorce.”
Hizashi actually lets out a relieved sigh at that.
“Phew. Then we're totally good.”
Shouta stares at him. They look at his expression, calm and sweet, and can’t hold back a small smile.
“You’re taking it very easily.”
“Do you want me to cry? I can cry on command,” he jokes. Then, quietly, he adds, “It’s okay if we love each other differently. If you say you love me, then I believe you. I know you wouldn’t say something you don’t mean. I love our family, and I love having you in my life, so I'm okay with anything, as long as you're happy. Which you are, right? Are you?”
Shouta doesn’t think he’s ever felt as strongly for him as he does now. He moves forward, pressing his forehead against his chest.
“I am,” he mutters. He’s the happiest he's ever been.