Stardust

[moonshadows]

It was late in the evening on a Friday when Hizashi heard the knock on his apartment door. Unbothered by the fact that he was wearing soft, floral-print pajama bottoms and a slightly-faded Sailor Moon tee, he checked the peephole and then fumbled with the door, rushing to get it open as fast as humanly possible so he could verify with his own two eyes that standing on the other side was-

“Taachan?”

The word was nearly breathless, his voice small and high, stuffed with hope and disbelief in equal measures, and in the hall Shouta Aizawa flinched, his gaze dropping to the floor.

“Are you okay?” Hizashi asked, gripping door and doorframe in sudden fear, but the other man nodded. He might have thought about saying something, but his train of thought was violently derailed by the slim blonde pulling him into a hug that was almost more desperate cling than it was comfort. Hizashi released his visitor after a few breaths, only to pull him inside and nudge the door shut. “Come in! Sit down! Are you hungry? I can order food – are you thirsty? Wh…” He swallowed, mingled fear and hope forming a lump in his throat. “What brings you here?”

Aizawa’s gaze slid to the side. “I’m not really sure,” he admitted slowly.

That got him hugged again. “Doesn’t matter,” Hizashi said firmly. “You’re here, and that’s all that matters. I was serious about food, by the way. I’ve got the radio show tonight and I was gonna order something for dinner. Got any preferences?”

Arms full of human cockatoo, torn between embracing him tightly and holding his arms awkwardly out of the way, Aizawa let out a choked noise at having been blindsided by the question. Fortunately, his response seemed to not be required.

“How about Chinese? I know a good Chinese. Let me grab my phone…”

And just like that Hizashi was gone, darting across the huge, open main room to snatch his phone up off the broad and generous couch, then immediately turn and flop into it, absently pulling his hair up to cascade down the back before looking up at his guest with a smile so brilliant that it pulled the other man across the room to perch almost awkwardly on the couch, close enough to touch but not close enough to be touching. Aizawa watched as Hizashi’s fingers flew over the screen, as one strand of golden hair slipped down off the back of the couch to frame his face, held away from his eyes by the red, plastic frames of his glasses, as the slender man gently gnawed his bottom lip before looking up with another brilliant smile.

“Okay, order placed! Should be here in about half an hour. I got way too much food, but that just means we’ll have leftovers. D’you want tea? I have some really good tea I was going to make boba tea with, but I keep forgetting to order the boba pearls…”

Aizawa ducked his head, letting his mouth – and the faint, soft smile it was threatening to curve into – be hidden behind the binding cloths pooled around his head and piled on his shoulders. “Tea would be nice,” he said, and Hizashi leaped up to hurry into the kitchen area.

As the water was boiling, Hizashi rummaged for mugs and came out with one that was white with big, colorful flowers and a hummingbird, and one that was a dark blue with a black cat sprawled across it. He kept up a running stream of sound, sometimes commentary and sometimes random song lyrics, and when the water boiled he turned the blue mug so that the cat’s face was visible from the couch. “Watch, watch!” he urged happily as he filled the mug.

Heat-sensitive paint on the mug changed colors; the cat opened golden eyes. Aizawa’s exhausted and pensive expression softened.

“Do you like it?”

“Of course,” Aizawa replied quietly.

Hizashi brought both mugs over and sat beside his guest – close enough to touch, close enough to lean against – and talked about his radio show while the tea steeped and the water cooled enough to be drinkable.

“You can stay for it, if you want,” he offered almost hesitantly as they sipped. “I run a queue of music from the little studio and kinda wander around doing commentary and talking about stuff while it plays in the background.”

“When does it start?” Aizawa asked, knowing very well when it started.

“Four hours.” The pitch of Hizashi’s voice made it almost a question, an implicit invitation to stay that long and a plea that his friend accept. “And it runs until five in the morning. You can sleep on the couch, if you want,” he added hopefully. “I have extra pillows and blankets.”

Neither of them mentioned that 5AM was usually the time when Aizawa left in a sudden fit of panicked anxiety, on the rare occasions that he wound up in the Voice Hero’s apartment.

“…unless you have something you need to do,” Hizashi said when there was no immediate response.

There was a fragile, wounded quality to his voice that made guilt twist in Aizawa’s gut, and he shook his head. “Nothing on my schedule. If you’re sure I wouldn’t be intruding…”

The delight that bloomed on Hizashi’s face somehow made the guilt weaker and stronger.

“Not at all! I’ve got a backup set of studio headphones – Bluetooth, of course, can you imagine me trying to haul a cable all over the apartment? – so you can hear me in real time and hear the music, and I’ll mute it so no one knows you’re there. You don’t have to wear them if you don’t want to – you can just listen to me talk and watch me bounce around being a dork. You can just listen to the show as it’s broadcast, but you might get some lagged echo from hearing me, too…”

“It wouldn’t be right to not hear the music after you picked it out,” Aizawa said quietly, gaze buried in his tea. “If you’re sure it’s alright for me to wear your backup headphones…”

Impossibly, the delight brightened. “Of course! You can help me pick the music over dinner, if you want. I had some songs picked out, but now I’m reconsidering.”

Aizawa smothered a wince. It was all too easy to guess that the lineup had included songs that reflected the blonde’s loneliness, something that his presence had now made inappropriate, and he wondered how it had ever seemed so utterly vital that he stay away. He’d known that Hizashi had periods of deep unhappiness, and of course he’d wanted to ease them, but the traumas of his past had screamed at him to stay away and preserve this precious man with his distance, and now the voice of those fears seemed somehow much weaker than he remembered.

“I’ll do my best,” he said quietly, “although I’m sure your expertise far outshines mine.”

While they waited for food, Hizashi brought out the tablet he used to select from his vast collection of music and cleared the dozen songs already pulled into a playlist, but not before Aizawa caught a glimpse of one track title he recognized - Stardust. It was a song that he’d long known was his friend being lonely, something that was hard to miss with lyrics like “when will I see you again”, but that he’d tried to convince himself wasn’t about him when Hizashi played it.

Now he had to admit that it probably was, and that he’d caused the human cockatoo extra suffering by not answering what really had been a blatant plea for him to come back.

The temptation to brood was interrupted by a knock on the door, followed by a muffled voice announcing that they’d be listening eagerly to the show, and then Hizashi was retrieving what turned out to be two big bags of take-out and unloading container after container of food until the strip of counter that divided the kitchen from the living room was practically full and he was gesturing Aizawa over to take his pick.

“You didn’t have to order all of this,” he protested reflexively, not meeting Hizashi’s eyes. He knew the man would be giving him a look that would make the guilt sink its claws deeper into him.

“I know,” came the soft response. “I just wanted you to be able to choose from things you like without putting you on the spot. There’s crab rangoons,” he added hopefully, pointing to a wax-paper bag.

Hizashi watched anxiously as his guest perused the choices, and eventually picked one out before taking a pair of disposable chopsticks from the pile.

“Thank you, Hizashi,” Aizawa said in an equally soft voice, the barest hint of a smile on his lips and in the corners of his eyes.

Grabbing the container of cashew chicken and chopsticks of his own, not to mention the crab rangoons, Hizashi happily followed his guest back to the coffee table where they sat on pillows pulled from the couch and popped open their containers of food. In a display of unholy skill, Hizashi managed to keep up a stream of commentary on music choices while devouring his dinner, pausing only to give Aizawa brief pouty looks that spurred him into eating more than he’d thought he would – but somehow still less than the slender man was packing away. There was nearly three hours’ worth of songs in the playlist by the time they were done eating, and then Aizawa awkwardly took a seat on the couch again while his host put the rest of the food in the fridge and tossed the trash into one of the paper bags it had been delivered in.

When he returned, he grabbed the tablet and flopped down next to Aizawa, close enough that all either of them had to do was shift their weight slightly and they’d be leaning on the other. As Aizawa was processing this temptation, Hizashi leaned against him and uttered a tiny, happy sound.

Whether oblivious to the effect he was having on his guest or only pretending to be, Hizashi resumed the happy music chatter with one arm threaded around Aizawa’s and his head on the other man’s shoulder, pillowed on loop after loop of binding cloth. The occasional comments coming from his guest got shorter and fewer, devolving into vague wordless sounds by the time the last hour had been filled out.

“We’ve still got over two hours before I have to get ready for the show,” Hizashi said softly, setting the tablet aside with one hand while the fingers of the other intertwined with Aizawa’s. “Wanna watch a movie?”

A vaguely-affirmative hum was all the answer he got, and with an answering happy sound he reached for the tablet again and pulled up the app that controlled the flatscreen TV hanging across from the couch. He was fairly certain that Aizawa wasn’t actually processing any of what was on the TV, but it was a movie they’d both liked in high school and it was an excuse to cuddle and if his guest happened to fall asleep, well, he honestly looked like he needed a good nap or three anyway.

Sure enough, Aizawa had passed out by the time the credits finished rolling, and Hizashi shamelessly spent a good fifteen minutes just cuddling his sleeping Husband™ and hoping that this time, he would still be there in the morning. Then he laid Aizawa out on the couch with a pillow and blanket, the few contents of his pockets on the coffee table in easy reach. After a moment of hesitation, he picked the phone back up and checked to see if the lock code had been changed since last time.

It hadn’t.

Quickly, he opened the mail app and checked the drafts folder. Not only was the draft still there, but it had been updated that very morning and with his breath suddenly caught in his throat he opened it up to see if the contents had changed –

For the most part, they hadn’t. It still started with the ‘if you’re reading this and I’m dead, I’m sorry I never said it while I was alive’ love confession that made him choke up every time, but there was a new bit at the end.

If you’re reading this and I’m not dead, take the spare key to my apartment.

Nothing else, no explanation, and for a single, eternal, frozen moment Hizashi could only think he knows. Aizawa had figured out that he knew the draft was there and checked it every chance he got. He knew that Hizashi knew all the things he hadn’t been able to bring himself to say. But then that moment passed and like a cockatoo being presented with a new toy, his brain latched onto the actual meaning of the words instead of the implication.

Take the spare key.

Almost absently, he closed the mail app and put the phone down with one hand while the other was already reaching for the small ring of keys – and sure enough, there were two identical apartment keys. Hardly daring to breathe, Hizashi worked one of them loose and attached it to his own keychain, feeling something harder and brighter than hope lodge in his chest. Hope, he was used to. It was light and airy, warm and bright, like being outside on a sunny day with a warm wind in your hair and puffy white clouds drifting by overhead. This was hot and bright, hard and sharp, like the moment you realize there’s an opening in your opponent’s defenses and victory is within your grasp. This was an implicit invitation, an acknowledgment of the inevitable retreat due to panic and anxiety and a plea to not let it dissuade him.

He was going to get his Husband™ back.

Now filled with bright determination, Hizashi ran through his pre-show preparations and brought out the spare studio headset, placing it on the coffee table by Aizawa’s phone, wallet, and keys. Although he didn’t drink coffee himself, he did have a little one-cup-at-a-time pod machine for guests and he picked a pod at random, washed out the cat mug, and left the machine ready to go at the press of a button. Should he change clothes? He’d showered after his patrol, washing out the hair product that made all the difference between Present Mic and Michael Preston, and dressed for comfort – but now he had company. Change to show off? Change to just not be wearing pajamas in front of his guest? But Aizawa’d already seen them, and not changing would be a gesture of saying he was comfortable having Aizawa in his living space…

And, well, when it came down to it, this really wasn’t the most socially inappropriate thing his Husband™ would have ever seen him wearing.

Hizashi opted to not change.

He made a token effort to wake his sleeping guest when it came closer to the show starting, but got only a wordless grumble as a response so he resisted the urge to kiss Aizawa’s forehead and slipped into the smaller studio to get the show started. Once there, of course, he got distracted and it was the better part of an hour before he was suddenly reminded of his guest when the ‘headset 2’ light flicked on, indicating that the feed was live and the mic was muted.

It took an effort to not immediately dance out of the little studio and beam at Aizawa.

Fortunately, the next song was very danceable, and Hizashi cheerfully twirled his way out with pauses to play enthusiastic air guitar while rambling about some dumb shenanigan from middle school that the song reminded him of. When he got to the living room, Aizawa was upright again, the black cat on the mug staring at him as his guest sipped from it, the headphones firmly in place.

“You know what, listeners?” Hizashi asked rhetorically, feeling somewhat breathless at the look of quiet contentment on his friend’s tired face, “I’m feeling the love tonight. Cosmic connection. We are all connected by this music and my voice, and I want to know if you feel it, too. If you know the routine, jump on it, but if you don’t…”

By rote, he rattled out contact information – email, text, and website – and invited his listeners to reach out and tell him where they were and what they were doing so he could read the responses over the air and let everyone know how far that web of connectedness spread. His phone was making soft little pings before he even finished, and cheerfully he flopped into the big, comfy chair – somewhere just short of being a love seat – and began reading out where people were listening from.

An assortment of locations within Japan, ranging from within the neighborhood to a fishing boat almost out of Japan’s waters. Nearby countries, a handful of African and European nations, almost half of the states in America. Late-night studying or working third shift and bored, out shopping with friends, in a park, waiting in line, partway through a multi-hour highway trip, waiting for a loved one in the airport. Some listeners had been with him for years; others were responding for the first time. The dizzying reach of his voice humbled him, as always – knowing that so many people in such diverse parts of the world and walks of life were all sharing this moment with him. Then he got one response that stole his voice away. It read, simply, right here.

When Hizashi looked up, Aizawa was giving him a smile that was trying and failing to hide how soft and vulnerable it was.

“Ahhhh, listeners, you are all amazing!” Hizashi beamed at Aizawa. “I wish I could hug each and every one of you right now, except for the ones who aren’t comfortable with hugs. And for those of you who aren’t, maybe a fistbump or a shouldernudge or just grinning at each other from across the room and making excited noises because you all make me so fucking happy, you really do. Hearing from all of you drives it home that none of us are actually alone, because someone doesn’t have to be in the room with you for you to share their company. You don’t have to have met in person for someone to be important to you. And if someone is important to you, listeners, it’s never a bad time to let them know that. So for all the people who are important to me – and you know who you are,” he added, signing it’s you, “this is your reminder that you are important and that I care deeply about all of you. So this next song,” he said, grinning as he dragged one to the top of the queue, “is dedicated to you all.”

As ‘Heaven Is A Place On Earth’ started playing, Aizawa ducked his head in an attempt to use the binding cloths as a way to hide the warmth staining his cheeks.

Hizashi bounced out of the big, comfy chair and began mock-waltzing around the living room, microphone muted, singing the refrain in a soft, high voice while Aizawa did his best to hide in the scarves piled around his head.

The rest of the show proceeded as was normal for something as chaotic as it was, with plenty of happy babble about the music and little events of the last week, places he’d gone and things he’d eaten, interactions he’d seen or been a part of, and a shout-out to the Chinese restaurant for ‘preventing another episode of Mic’s Kitchen Of Horror’ – wherein he attempted to make food and typically failed in some way – by allowing him to order a whole, whole lot of food late at night. There was a lot of smiling at Aizawa, who went from just sitting on the couch to comfortably nested in the blanket and propped up with pillows, and the usual segues into serious topics like reaching out to estranged friends and not forgiving people who showed no remorse for their actions, like parents who caused harm to their children by either not listening or not caring. He finished the show by thanking his listeners and urging them to be kind and compassionate to others, but also to themselves.

“That means you, too, Taachan,” he teased as he took the studio headset off and collected the backup from his guest. “I’m gonna go put these back. Will you be okay here until I get back?”

In other words, would he still be there, or was the panic setting in?

Aizawa pulled the blanket a little higher up, covering his face almost to the eyes. “I’ll be fine,” he murmured.

Hizashi nodded. “Okay. I’ll be right back.”

As tempting as it was to just chuck the headsets on the desk and return to his friend, he forced himself to put them away properly and make sure everything was shut down before closing the studio door behind him, half-convinced that the couch would be empty when he returned to it – but no, there was still a tired and uncertain Husband™ swaddled in a blanket on one end. Greatly encouraged by this, Hizashi folded himself up into the big chair and hesitantly asked Aizawa what he’d thought of the show.

“Amazing,” was the quiet answer. “you’re always amazing, Hizashi.”

The human cockatoo squeaked in blushing delight, then blinked. “Wait – always?”

Aizawa sank deeper into the blanket and scarves.

“Taachan, you…you listen?”

The words were in that small, high voice, stunned and hopeful, and they made guilt climb into Aizawa’s throat. He nodded, unable to force any words out past that lump. For just a second, something that could have been hurt or confusion dimmed Hizashi’s sparkling green eyes, but then he offered his guest a soft smile.

“The lighthouse doesn’t know how many ships see its light,” he said quietly. “I’m glad you enjoyed my show.”

I’m glad I could be there for you.

Aizawa wanted to say something to that, but finding the right words would have been impossible even if he’d been thinking clearly, and after hours and hours of fighting the nagging certainty that it was a dreadful mistake, giving in to the urge to visit Hizashi, his brain felt foggy and thick.

“You okay there?” his host asked with gentle concern. “Need another pillow or blanket? Glass of water, maybe?”

With effort, Aizawa shook his head.

“Okay. I’ll be right here if you need anything,” Hizashi said, curling his long limbs into a ball within the embrace of the chair, using the armrest as a pillow and letting his golden hair cascade over the side. “Good night, Taachan.”

A vague sound was all Aizawa could force out before his heavy eyelids slipped shut and refused to open again.

 

===

 

Hours later, Hizashi woke to the disappointing but expected sight of the empty couch, blanket tangled and tossed to the side, pillow discarded on the floor. He could almost have thought that Aizawa had just needed to pee really, really bad all of a sudden, but the coffee table was empty of his friend’s things.

This was fine, he reminded himself. He’d known this would happen. He’d planned for it, while waiting for sleep to take him. He had a plan and things were going to be different this time, and this was fine.

None of that prevented him from unfolding his legs and practically falling straight from the chair to the couch to wrap himself around the tangled blanket that smelled faintly like Husband™ and claim a few more hours of sleep.

 

===

 

The trip back to his apartment had been a panicked blur for Aizawa, nerves jangling with every sound and flicker of motion, and only once the door to his tiny, empty apartment had closed behind him did anything leap into focus – but when it did, it was the act of unlocking his door. Why was that nagging at him?

A glance at the keys still clutched in his hand provided the answer: one of them was missing.

The spare apartment key, the one he’d attached out of the foolish hope that his weird conviction was right, was missing. Unless he’d been the victim of an exceptionally good pickpocket who would later murder him in his sleep out of disappointment for there being nothing of value to steal from him, that meant it was in Hizashi’s possession and he was not thinking about any of the implications of that.

It didn’t mean anything. It didn’t mean the weird conviction he’d woken up with was right. It certainly didn’t mean the cockatoo had read…that.

It would be hours before Hizashi woke up, he was certain. He’d find out then if anything was going to change, but in the meantime…

…he was not thinking about it.

 

===

 

Hizashi had placed the order the evening before, and that was the only reason it was ready for him the second his favorite coffee shop opened for business. Yawning every third breath, he thanked the shop owner in tourist Japanese as he collected an insulated cup and a paper bag containing two warm pastries. The owner smiled tolerantly and wished him well with whatever was so important that it had pried him out of bed so early. He gave the man a sleepy smile and thanked him, and then with the coffee’s heat soaking into his hand he made his way to an address he knew by heart but had never visited.

The apartment building was dingy and more than a little disheartening, but Hizashi ignored it as he counted doors and then juggled his burden to be able to unlock the correct one with his stolen – borrowed – key. Inside, it was dark and empty, with the only furnishings being a cheap couch and coffee table that probably came with the apartment. A kitchen area, not even a kitchen. No dining room. One door, closed. The whole thing was probably only a little bigger than his bedroom.

Luckily, his Husband™ wouldn’t be staying there much longer, so there was no point in dwelling on the conditions he’d been living in. Hizashi set the cup and bag on the coffee table and took his glasses off, the plastic frames making the tiniest click as he set them by the cup before curling up on the couch. It was hard and stiff, uncomfortable enough that he doubted anyone had ever sat on it for longer than a few minutes, but he’d worked late into the night and not gotten nearly enough sleep before setting out at such an unholy hour of the morning, and it was mere minutes before his jittery thoughts got fuzzy and faded out altogether.

 

===

 

“Hizashi?”

Footsteps, then hands on his arms, and then warm bulk propping him up and a shoulder under his head.

“Why are you in my apartment?” Aizawa asked, not awake enough for the concern lacing his words.

“Missed you,” he murmured in the high, tiny voice he’d used throughout his whole childhood. In the pause that followed, he nearly fell back asleep.

“You missed me that much?”

He wasn’t even remotely awake enough to untangle the emotions in Aizawa’s voice, so he just nodded into the other man’s shoulder and gave a happy, sighing sound as a hand caressed his hair, tugging at the hair tie holding it up in a messy bun before running through its full length.

“...I’ll...try not to make you miss me like that again. If you want,” added Aizawa, as if there was a chance in hell Hizashi would ever not want.

Still half asleep and boneless, Hizashi groped for words and then gave up. “Come home?” he asked in that same tiny, sleepy voice. “Got a room cleaned out for you. Bed of your own. If you want it,” he clarified, realizing belatedly that his invitation could be interpreted as not wanting his Husband™ to share the master bed with him.

Aizawa went still for a long moment before grinding out the words, “You’re sure I wouldn’t be imposing.”

If he said yes, would that mean yes, I’m sure or yes, you’d be imposing? Hizashi wasn’t awake enough to figure it out, and instead he just repeated himself. “…please come home?”

A tiny, choked sound was the only response that got for several breaths. “Tonight?” Aizawa asked once he’d recovered, but by that point Hizashi was only vaguely awake.

“Okay,” he murmured, his voice the barest thread of sound.

“We can work out the moving arrangements later,” Aizawa was saying, but the words didn’t register.

Hizashi had fallen asleep on his shoulder.

 

===

 

“The guest room over here…” Hizashi darted ahead, to a door on the opposite side of the living room area. “Used to keep it for guests, but it got cluttered. Spent all day yesterday clearing it out.” Hopefully, he opened the door and watched for Aizawa’s reaction.

It was easily bigger than any bedroom he could remember ever staying in, with a queen-sized bed in the middle and a dresser to one side, a bedside table with a lamp next to it. A generous closet on the other side, a set of empty shelves, a standing hamper, and a small desk in the corner by the door. Everything had been freshly cleaned and dusted, the throw rugs vacuumed, and the bed made up with new linens. Aizawa shifted his one smallish suitcase from one hand to the other, awkward in the knowledge that everything he owned was inside it.

“You can do whatever you want with it, of course,” Hizashi said into the silence. “Decorate it however you want. It’s your space, because everyone needs to have a space that’s just theirs, no matter what the rest of their living arrangements are.”

Setting the suitcase down by the door wasn’t conceding to anything but the fact that he was tired of holding it, Aizawa told himself. Hizashi missed him that much, he couldn’t just ignore the man’s feelings and leave him all alone in the master bedroom. Assuming it was a big and comfortable as everything else in this oversized apartment, anyway.

“You don’t have to-”

“I’ve never seen your bedroom,” Aizawa interrupted whatever Hizashi had been in the middle of saying. The naked hope on the other man’s face had him chiding himself the entire way across the apartment as he followed his host to the room he’d never let himself think too hard about.

It was enormous, almost as big as his entire shitty apartment, with a king-sized bed absolutely littered with a riot of pillows and tangled blankets.

I can’t leave him all alone in this big bed, he thought in horror. Then the design on the closer body pillow registered, and he resisted the urge to cover his face because it was him, Eraserhead, in a fully-clothed but inviting pose. I’d have to be a monster to make him sleep by himself when he’s this desperate to have me close by.

But how did he go about broaching that subject?

“You…really missed me that much,” he said numbly, staring at his own cartoon face.

“Yeah,” said Hizashi in a very subdued voice.

For a long moment, Aizawa stood there with his eyes closed, breathing deeply and bracing himself. Then he pulled the very startled human cockatoo into a hug.

“You deserved better than that,” he said softly. “It won’t happen again, I promise. I was afraid of you getting hurt, but…”

In his arms, Hizashi had started trembling, and his breathing was ragged.

“…but by staying away,” he continued resolutely, “I hurt you anyway. I’m sorry, Sunshine.”

“It’s okay,” Hizashi whispered, but he didn’t really sound okay. “I knew you were hurt, and that’s why you were staying away. I knew…”

Aizawa closed his eyes tight and held his cockatoo tighter. “You read the draft email.”

Hizashi froze. “I’m so-”

“Shhh. Don’t apologize. If I knew how to say any of that, I would have said it already.” Sudden anxiety that his feelings were unrequited stole his breath, like being punched in the gut. “Do you…?”

Arms wormed around his torso, reassuringly tight. “Since halfway through first year. Please don’t leave again, Taachan.”

“I don’t want to,” Aizawa whispered, choked by emotions he’d kept locked away for far too long. “But…Hizashi…I’m a mess.”

“Don’t care,” was the firm and slightly-sulky answer. “You came back and I’m not letting you go. I have you. You’re right where you belong. You’re home.”

The truth of that statement shook Aizawa to his core, banishing all the fears and anxiety that had kept him away – or at least, banished it for the time being. His feelings were not just understood but returned, and he had a lot of lost time to make up for – but for the first time, he had a shard of hope that things would turn out alright.

“Tadaima.”