Chapter Text
The room is dark. Quiet, save for the hum of distant traffic and the soft whir of the prosthetic arm resting on the nightstand beside the bed. Enji sleeps with his jaw clenched, one hand gripping the sheets like he’s trying to hold onto something already lost.
The dream comes the way it always does—slow, like smoke creeping through a crack. It tastes of guilt, of every scream he couldn’t stop.
At first, it’s the old fire. Orange and gold, the way it used to be—warm, obedient, a badge of strength. Power made visible. His younger self flashes by, aflame and commanding, barking orders, crafting future heroes from ambition and embers.
Then it shifts.
Blue.
It licks up the walls of the dream like acid. His throat burns. The heat is wrong. Too sharp, too alive. And then there’s a face in it—a boy with pale skin, charred lips pulled into a broken grin.
“See me now, old man?”
Toya.
He reaches for him. Or tries to. But his left hand doesn’t move. The prosthetic isn’t part of the dream—it never is. That part of him always stays gone. Useless.
The colour changes again.
Red.
Not flame. Feathers.
They fall like ash, burning as they drift.
Hawks’ back arched in agony, charred wings still smoldering behind him. His mouth is open but no sound comes out.
Enji never reaches him, too.
He wakes with a jolt.
Sweat clings to his back, soaking the plain gray shirt he wears to sleep. The prosthetic arm, charged and still, sits on the nightstand beside him like a reminder. It doesn’t ache, but the phantom pain in his shoulder does—sharp, pulsing, real.
He sits up slowly, breath shallow.
He doesn’t scream. He never does. Even when it would help.
Fuyumi offered to stay here, once. After the divorce. After everything.
He told her no.
Now it’s just the ticking clock on the wall and the creak of his bones as he pushes himself out of bed. His skin still feels hot. The scar along his face burns faintly.
He walks to the sink. Doesn’t look at his reflection long.
×××
Morning is colorless.
The sun filters in through half-drawn blinds, a thin, pale light that does nothing to warm the silence in the estate. He keeps it bare on purpose.
He likes it that way. Or says he does.
The kettle hisses on the stove. Fuyumi made sure there were groceries when she last came by—quietly refilled the tea canister, put fresh towels in the bathroom. She never says anything about how empty the place is. Just smiles too gently. Like she’s afraid he might break if she pushes too hard.
She’s not wrong.
He pours the tea with his right hand. The prosthetic is precise, responsive, state-of-the-art, but it still doesn’t feel his. The steam fogs his face, and for a second, it almost smells like the battlefield—ash and blood and burning feathers.
He closes his eyes.
Just for a moment.
It’s been seven months since the war. Seven months since the last time he saw Toya—his son, his failure—reduced to screaming flame and hatred. Seven months since he held Hawks’ body, limp and burning, feathers singed to the bone, heart barely beating.
Seven months of silence.
He hasn’t come by. Not that he should.
They were comrades. Nothing more. Enji was never the kind of man someone should trust.
He deserves it. All of it.
The city still calls him a Hero, but the word sticks in his throat—bitter, impossible to swallow. He hears it whispered in passing, sees it scrawled on headlines, but it doesn’t belong to him anymore. Not when civilians cross the street to avoid him. Not when his name turns agency recruits rigid with fear. Not when he flinches at the sound of his own title like it’s a curse he can’t shake.
Shoto barely answers his messages. A read receipt here. A cold thumbs-up there. No questions. No how are you.
And why would he ask? What would Enji even say?
He doesn’t talk about Toya. Not to anyone. Not even to himself. That boy is dead, and so is the version of Enji that created him.
All that’s left is this—managing the agency from a desk, signing off on reports, approving rookies he’ll never meet. His name still opens doors. That’s all he’s good for now.
The phone buzzes.
Fuyumi, as always. A simple text.
Hey, Dad. Have you eaten today?
He stares at it.
His thumb hovers.
He types.
Yes.
And hits send.
He hasn’t.
He doesn’t lie out of shame. He lies because it’s easier than dragging her into the pit with him.
A knock at the door cuts through the quiet.
He freezes.
No one ever knocks. Not without calling first.
Another knock.
He walks to the door. Opens it.
Hawks stands there, hair tousled, dark circles under his eyes, a beat-up duffel bag hanging from one shoulder. A few feathers twitch faintly behind him—red, raw, and clearly painful.
He doesn’t smile.
Just says, “Endeavor-san.”
Enji stares at him.
Blankly. No blinking. No movement. Just that same heavy-lidded, impenetrable look he’s always worn, the one that makes lesser men fold. The one Hawks used to laugh about. Used to say, “You know, Endeavor-san, your silence has more personality than half the Commission.”
But he’s not laughing now. He shifts from one foot to the other, suddenly unsure if he’s made a mistake. His bag creaks softly against his hip.
“Hawks,” Enji says at last.
The corner of Hawks’ mouth twitches, but not in amusement. “Not anymore.”
Enji’s face doesn’t move. Doesn’t flicker. He just keeps staring at the boy like the words don’t make sense. Like if he stares hard enough, they’ll rearrange into something he can respond to.
The silence stretches too long. It frays at the edges.
Finally, Hawks glances away. “Um, you know what, forget it. I shouldn’t have—”
He turns. Steps off the porch.
“What.”
One word. Flat. Thoughtless. Like breath. Not why, not how are you, not are you eating, are you sleeping, do your wings still hurt.
Just what.
Hawks pauses. Looks back, slow.
There’s something flickering in his eyes—surprise, maybe. Or maybe Enji’s imagining that. It vanishes too quickly, replaced by something duller.
“I didn’t want to bother you,” Hawks mutters.
And Enji—Enji wants to hit something. Something that would make him bleed. Because this boy shouldn’t sound like that. He shouldn’t look like that. He shouldn’t stand there on Enji’s doorstep, brittle and tired and waiting for rejection. He should be grinning, teasing, infuriatingly flippant, impossible to ignore.
He should be—
“You didn’t,” Enji says. It comes out flatter than he intends. It always does.
Hawks huffs a breath, too soft to be a laugh.
“I’m a shitty Musutafu expert,” he says, smiling—sort of. It’s the ghost of a smile. Something buried under months of pain and too much silence. “Especially without that.” He tilts his head slightly, gestures with his thumb toward his back. The feathers rustle, still sparse, raw, unfinished.
He looks down.
“But… I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow,” he adds, so quietly Enji almost misses it. “And I thought… Can I stay here for a day?”
His voice isn’t uncertain. It’s quiet. Like asking for anything is a risk.
And Enji stands there like a goddamn statue, because he doesn’t know how to say yes. Doesn’t know how to say I was afraid you died that day, I’ve been afraid every day since.
So he just nods.
×××
Hawks steps inside like he’s entering a stranger’s house.
He crosses the genkan, shoes still on, bag hanging off his shoulder like dead weight, and pauses in the entryway.
Enji doesn’t say anything about the shoes. He notices, of course. Notices everything—the way Hawks’ left wing twitches, still not fully formed; the way he keeps shifting, like he doesn’t know how to exist in a still place anymore; the way his eyes scan the house and find nothing worth looking at.
No photographs. No family portraits. Not even a mirror by the door.
Plain walls and floors. Sterile as a hospital room with no one left to visit.
“You can take one of the unused rooms on the left,” Enji says, his voice low, toneless. “It’s more… modern there.”
He’s already turning, already walking away, because that’s easier than looking at Hawks too long. Easier than asking if he’s eaten. Easier than—
“I can sleep on the couch,” Hawks says quickly. “It’s okay.”
Enji stops mid-step.
He doesn’t need to see Hawks to know what he’s doing. He’s trying not to stare, trying not to react to the emptiness of the place, the hollowness that hangs in the corners like smoke that never fully cleared. Trying to be polite, as if Enji might snap at him for breathing too loud.
He says it like it’s nothing.
I can sleep on the couch.
It’s okay.
With those wings—what’s left of them. With bones that still ache from the fire Enji’s son lit.
The words echo in Enji’s skull like a hammer against stone.
He wants to hit something.
Again.
But he doesn’t.
He breathes in. Out.
“Do whatever you want,” he mutters. “The kitchen’s there. The dining room is not in use. Modern bathroom on the left, too.”
That’s it. His hospitality, such as it is. And then he disappears down the hall, leaving Hawks standing in a house that isn’t a home.
He walks into his office and closes the door behind him—not because he has work to do, but because he needs a barrier. A wall. A shield between himself and what he just saw.
What he let happen.
He sinks into the old chair, exhales, and rests his head against the back.
Who is this boy now, if not Hawks?
The question lands like a weight in his chest. Sharp. Real.
Because if Hawks isn’t Hawks anymore—if he’s just a broken boy with burnt wings and nowhere to go—then what the hell does that make Enji?
The man who let him fall?
×××
Enji sits in his office long after.
The silence stretches like wire—tight, cutting. He stares at the same blank report on his desk for so long that the words blur. He doesn’t read them. They’re just shapes. Like everything else.
His head is full of shit again.
Toya’s face.
Rei’s scream.
Hawks’ wings, half-grown and trembling.
The couch.
That goddamn couch.
He presses his thumb and forefinger against his eyes until he sees stars.
Eventually, he stands.
The hallway is quiet. No sound. Just his own heavy footsteps echoing back at him like an accusation.
He heads to the kitchen. Cold steel. Clean lines. A space no one really uses. Not since—
Fuyumi’s groceries are still there. Lined neatly in the fridge, like she thought he might actually do something with them. It’s enough for two people.
He doesn’t eat much anymore.
He used to. When he was a Hero. When the weight of muscle and duty still meant something. When strength was everything.
Now he doesn’t train. Doesn’t fight. Doesn’t need to keep up appearances.
Enji opens the fridge.
He looks for something with substance. Protein. Fats.
Soft meat, a voice says in his head.
You know that he doesn't like what doesn’t chew.
His hand hovers over a pack of chicken breast. He stares at it.
He remembers that. Not the birthdays. Not the agency anniversaries. But that. How Hawks liked his food tender. Warm. Nothing dry.
He doesn’t know how to be a father.
He doesn’t know how to be human.
And now here he is, trying to be—what? A host? A caretaker? A man picking dinner for a broken boy he once watched burn?
He sighs. Deep and heavy.
The door behind him creaks open.
The shift in the air. The tentative steps.
Hawks stops in the doorway.
Enji turns his head slightly, just enough to meet his eyes. Golden. Wide. Cautious. Wary, like a bird still expecting a storm.
“What do you want?” Enji says, voice low. “The food, I mean.”
Hawks blinks. His eyebrows rise a little, faintly surprised. “You cooking?”
Enji narrows his eyes. “I live alone.”
The words come out sharper than he intends. Defensive, almost.
Whatever hint of amusement Hawks had falls away like dust. His eyes drop. “Yeah.”
The weight of that word punches Enji in the ribs.
Yeah.
Of course you do.
Everyone left.
Enji clenches his jaw.
“Hawks—”
“I told you,” Hawks cuts in, voice tight. “Not anymore.”
Enji stops. Blinks once.
“Then who?”
Hawks doesn’t answer right away. His throat works around the silence, like the words get stuck.
“Keigo,” he says. “Just Keigo.”
Enji nods.
Not Hawks. Not the Commission’s golden boy. Not the hero who soared too high and burned on reentry.
It feels like something more than an introduction. A declaration. A boundary. A plea.
“Keigo,” he repeats.
It sits strange on his tongue.
Even in his own thoughts. Off-balance. Like trying to step onto a stair that isn’t there.
He turns back to the fridge. Grabs the chicken.
Behind him, Hawks—Keigo—shifts again, just slightly. Still hovering at the doorway like he’s not sure he’s allowed further in.
And Enji, for some reason, finds himself saying, “Call me Enji, then.”
×××
Enji moves with muscle memory more than intent.
He pulls out a pan, rinses the rice, sets it to steam. Chicken gets a quick seasoning—salt, mirin, soy. Ginger, garlic. Carrots, broccoli, bell peppers, green beans. Habits die last, even in the ruins.
It’s the kind of thing he used to eat after training, when his body demanded fuel, not pleasure. Balanced. Efficient. Enough.
Behind him, Keigo still stands in the doorway. Light on his feet, always.
Even without his wings.
Enji’s jaw tenses at the thought.
The boy has always moved like he belonged in the air. Now that same eerie silence carries into this grounded version. It’s wrong. Not just because Keigo’s walking instead of flying—but because he’s making himself small. Like someone taught to survive by not taking up space.
Enji’s hand moves automatically, scraping vegetables into the pan, stirring the chicken as it sizzles, browning neatly.
“Um…” Keigo’s voice floats in behind him. A little hesitant. A little unsure. “I would help, but… I don’t know shit about cooking.”
Enji doesn’t laugh.
He doesn’t even scoff. Just stands still for a second, fingers tightening on the wooden spoon.
He tries to remember the last time he laughed. Not a bitter huff. Not a bark of exhaustion. A laugh. Something real. Something with breath in it.
The silence stretches, then:
“I didn’t know either,” he says.
The words feel heavier than they should. Like an admission. A confession. A piece of a man he’d never let anyone see.
A beat.
“Fuyumi helped,” he adds.
That one lands like a stone in water. Ripples out.
Behind him, footsteps finally move—soft, hesitant, into the room. The quiet shuffle of someone testing unfamiliar ground.
Enji knows.
Knows Keigo is standing there, hands probably shoved in his pockets or curled around his own elbows, not sure what to do with himself.
The rice cooker clicks softly. The smell of soy and ginger fills the space between them, warm and familiar in a way that scrapes at something in Enji’s chest—a memory he doesn’t want to touch, but can’t quite forget.
Enji stirs the pan again.
He plates the food without flourish—just two simple bowls: rice, chicken, vegetables. He adds a bit of scallion on top, not for flavor, but because Fuyumi once said it makes the food look less sad. That stuck, somehow. Like a rule.
He brews the tea automatically. Genmaicha—mellow, nutty, plain. The kind that settles the stomach and doesn’t beg for attention.
Two mugs. No coasters. No ceremony.
He sets everything down on the low kitchen table, the kind meant for one, now awkwardly shared by two.
He doesn’t eat in the dining room anymore.
Too big. Too hollow. The echoes in that room know all his secrets.
Keigo is still standing. Like a bird startled onto the wrong branch. He looks down at the food, then at the tea, steam curling upward like a ghost he almost recognizes.
He blinks.
“Sit. Eat,” Enji says, gruff.
Not unkind.
As close to warmth as he knows how to sound.
Keigo sits, slowly, as if still waiting for the ground to vanish beneath him. He picks up the chopsticks in one hand—left, Enji notes, same as before—and wraps the other hand around the mug.
Then—
He flinches.
Just for a second. Barely a twitch. But Enji sees it. The kind of reflex born not from heat, but from memory.
Burning.
Feathers.
Pain.
Enji doesn’t comment.
He picks up his own chopsticks and starts eating. Carefully. Slowly.
The food turned out well.
Edible.
Keigo sits there for a while with the chopsticks in one hand, the tea in the other, his eyes down. Not sulking. Just waiting. Like he’s trying to remember how meals work. How sitting at a table with another person is supposed to feel.
Enji chews, swallows.
One bite at a time.
No one speaks.
Keigo eats with that same uneasy quiet. Not like someone enjoying a meal. Not even like someone present. It’s mechanical. As if there’s a switch in his brain that tells him: food now. Be normal. Keep eating. Finish what’s given.
Like a child who knows if he finishes his plate, he won’t be punished.
Enji frowns at that thought. He hates it. Hates that he recognizes it.
Keigo’s left hand clutches the chopsticks. His right still rests around the tea mug, which has cooled now to something just above lukewarm. He’s not drinking it. Just holding on. Like the warmth is something he doesn’t want to let go of.
And then, despite himself—despite all the rules he’s etched into his skin about not asking, not inviting, not caring—Enji speaks.
The words come before he can think about why.
“Doctor’s appointment,” he says. His voice isn’t soft. It never is. “Tomorrow, you said.”
Keigo finishes chewing, swallows slowly, then blinks at his plate like he forgot what it was.
Finally, he lifts his gaze. Those golden eyes are hard to meet. They’ve always been bright. Sharp. Too much like someone who knows how to read through people, even when he pretends not to.
“Yeah,” he says. Quiet. “Check-up. Wings.”
Enji nods once. More like an acknowledgment than a response.
“They’re still… slow,” Keigo adds, glancing back at the feathers where they barely fan out behind him. “But I’m lucky they’re growing back at all.”
Enji says nothing to that.
Because lucky feels like the wrong word for what happened. Lucky doesn’t explain charred skin, screams, the stench of burnt flesh.
Keigo’s thumb traces the edge of the mug absently. His voice drops even lower.
“The nerves are… kind of weird. Sometimes I feel things that aren’t there. Sometimes I don’t feel anything at all.”
Enji clenches his jaw.
“Need a ride?”
It comes out blunt. Like an afterthought. But it’s not.
Keigo blinks. Looks up again. Eyes flicker—shock, maybe. Then something gentler.
“I was gonna take the train,” he murmurs.
Enji raises an eyebrow. Just slightly.
Keigo shrugs with one shoulder. “But… sure. If you’re offering.”
Enji nods again. Then returns to his food.
And Keigo, after a beat, does too.
×××
After dinner, Enji clears the plates without a word.
Keigo watches him in that quiet, unreadable way of his. The way he used to watch targets—casually, patiently, like he was waiting for something to slip.
The bowls are empty.
Keigo ate everything eventually.
Enji doesn’t know if it was because he was hungry, or because he thought he had to. He’s not sure which one he’s hoping for. Not sure what kind of answer would hurt more.
He rinses the plates in the sink, methodical as always—scrape, rinse, set aside. No sound except the tap and the occasional clink of ceramic.
The silence has teeth. But neither of them breaks it. Neither of them knows how to speak without bleeding.
He rinses his tea mug last.
Keigo is still sitting at the table, hunched a little over his cup, hands cradling it like it’s something fragile. He’s finally drinking the tea. Not much, just small sips. It must be cold by now.
Enji could warm it up. Easily. A flick of heat, a pulse from his palm, even just a whisper of flame. Just enough to bring the warmth back.
With his right hand, of course.
There’s no more fire in the left.
Not since Toya.
Not since that night.
He flexes the prosthetic instinctively.
And still—he doesn’t offer to warm the tea.
Because to use his quirk—would be to remind them both. Of flames. Of pain. Of what fire did to wings that once flew beside him.
So Enji just stands at the sink, not looking at Keigo, not reaching for the heat he’s used his entire life.
He tells himself it’s better that way.
Safer.
But it still feels like a kind of cowardice.
He turns.
Slow. Deliberate.
His eyes flick briefly over Keigo’s face. Then he grumbles, low and flat, “Follow me.”
He doesn’t wait for an answer.
Just leaves the kitchen like it’s a command, not a suggestion.
Keigo blinks, surprised for a second. Then pushes away from the counter and follows, quickening his steps to catch up.
“Where to?” he asks as he falls into stride beside him.
No answer.
Enji’s footsteps are heavy, deliberate on the polished hallway floor, heading toward the left side of the estate—the newer wing, renovated. It’s quieter here. Less memory-soaked. Less haunted.
Keigo frowns slightly. He’s slower than he used to be.
“Hey, big guy,” he says, trying for casual. “Really, no need. I told you, I can sleep on—”
Enji isn’t listening.
He’s already unlocking one of the doors and pushing it open.
He probably wouldn’t have let All Might sleep on the damn couch. Not now. Not even before. So Keigo Takami sure as hell isn’t an exception.
The room is clean. Sparse. Tidy in a way that says it’s rarely used, if at all—but cared for. Blankets folded. Floor swept. Windows closed. There’s no dust.
No explanation.
Enji doesn’t say if someone once lived here. Doesn’t say if he cleaned it up for tonight, or if it’s always looked like this.
He just steps aside and looks at Keigo.
Keigo meets his gaze. Doesn’t flinch.
Then Enji speaks.
“The bathroom’s door on the right. Blankets and stuff are in the closet.”
That’s it.
Nothing more.
He walks back down the hall before Keigo can say anything else.
He tells himself it’s just hospitality.
Just the decent thing to do.
That’s all.
And it’s not like his chest clenches at the sound of Keigo’s slower footsteps behind him, or the echo of pain in the way he breathes. It’s not like his hands itch with the memory of scorched wings, of feathers burning under blue fire. It’s not like he wants to rip his own heart out of his chest and leave it on the floor of that guest room, as if that could make up for anything.
No.
It’s just a room.
Just a bed.
Just blankets and space and silence.
Nothing more.
He keeps telling himself that.
×××
For once, morning doesn’t arrive like a threat.
Enji wakes slowly. Not with a jerk. Not clawing at his sheets or gasping through phantom flames.
Just… quietly.
There’s light behind his eyelids—the pale wash of early spring sun filtering in through the curtains. No smoke. No sweat.
Just breath. Slow. Measured.
His body aches, but in the dull, ordinary way. Age. Habit. The weight of too many years lived wrong.
For a long moment, he doesn’t move.
He lies there, flat on his back, and doesn’t understand why his heart isn’t racing.
He’s still. He’s… calm.
It’s so unfamiliar it feels like a mistake.
His prosthetic fingers twitch once on the sheets. He forgot to take it off for the night. Or maybe he did it on purpose. The room is quiet. Nothing stirs beyond the closed door.
And—absurdly—he dozes off again.
Just for a moment.
And in that moment—
Blonde hair.
Golden eyes.
A crooked smile, impossibly bright in the sun. A laugh—easy, open, always too loud for Enji’s brittle silences. That laugh, again, filling the room like wind through open windows—
Blood.
So much blood.
A scream, ripped from lungs not made to survive flame.
Agony.
Blue fire swallowing red feathers.
Enji’s eyes snap open.
Shit.
He bolts upright, his breath caught halfway between control and collapse. The prosthetic whirrs as it shifts awkwardly with the motion, a mechanical echo in the stillness.
He sits there for a second, jaw clenched, spine rigid.
The calm is gone.
What’s left is the familiar weight in his chest. The burn behind his eyes. That cruel voice in the back of his mind whispering—
You thought you deserved rest?
×××
The kitchen is cold when Enji steps in. Not from the weather—it’s early spring, and the light seeping in through the high windows is soft, almost golden—but from emptiness. The kind of cold that settles in the corners of the house and never leaves, no matter the season. The kind that doesn’t belong to the air, but to the silence.
He crosses the room without a sound. His footsteps echo faintly off tile that’s too clean, too bare. Everything here is in its place. Always has been. It’s easier when nothing is out of order. Easier when the world doesn’t surprise him.
He goes straight to the kettle. Doesn’t think about it. Just fills it, clicks it on. Routine moves through him like muscle memory, like armor.
Then—footsteps.
Soft. Hesitant. Light, but not effortless—not anymore.
The estate is too big. It swallows sound, stretches silence into something heavy and strange. Even with just two people in it, Enji could have heard Keigo’s approach from across the house.
But now he’s near. Close.
Stands in the doorway, framed by the dull gray wood, looking… wrong.
His skin is too pale, nearly the color of unlit paper. The kind of pale that belongs in hospital sheets, not in morning light. His frame is even thinner than before, stripped down like something essential was taken and never returned.
He used to be small, yes—but it had never felt like weakness. He had filled a room, somehow, despite his build. Filled the sky. His wings had given him presence, gravity, noise.
Now he’s quiet. And it’s not the good kind.
Keigo’s eyes flick up—gold, dulled now—then drop again, like the weight of eye contact is too much.
Enji stares at him a second too long.
Then looks away. His throat is dry.
“Morning,” he says, but the word comes out hoarse and strange, like something rusted from disuse.
He turns his back again. Reaches for two mugs. The kettle clicks off behind him, and he pours the tea carefully, hands steady. No trembling. Not outwardly.
He places one cup on the table, in the same spot Keigo used yesterday, then lingers at the counter, eyes drifting to the fridge. He opens it—not out of need, but because it’s somewhere to look.
Eggs. Tofu. Leftover rice. Yogurt. A half-full bottle of soy sauce. A neatly arranged row of vegetables, too perfect to have been placed there by him.
Fuyumi again.
She keeps trying. Keeps refilling. Like if she leaves enough behind, it’ll start to matter to him again.
He hears the chair scrape the floor behind him.
That sound slices through the air—too sharp in the stillness.
He turns his head. Watches.
Keigo lowers himself into the chair carefully. Too carefully. Like he’s calculating how much of himself he’s allowed to rest against the world.
The moment his back touches the chair, he flinches. His spine immediately straightens.
He exhales through his nose. Controlled. Quiet.
Enji watches the mug. Watches Keigo’s hands wrap around it.
Then turns away. Opens the fridge again. Not for the food.
Just to breathe where he can’t see his failures.
He hears his voice leave him before he decides to speak.
“What time is your appointment?”
Flat. Measured. The best he can manage without it sounding like concern.
“Ten-thirty,” Keigo murmurs.
It barely cuts through the quiet.
Enji nods once. That’s all.
×××
The drive is short.
It feels longer.
Enji grips the wheel with one hand, the prosthetic resting motionless on his thigh. The metal doesn’t twitch. Doesn’t shake. Doesn’t betray him like flesh does. He stares straight ahead.
The city rolls past in slow pieces. Late morning traffic. Pale sunlight crawling up the sides of buildings.
Keigo sits in the passenger seat, angled ever so slightly forward. Not enough to be obvious. But Enji sees the tension in his jaw, the way his hands are clenched on his thighs. He’s not leaning back.
Because he can’t.
Because his back—what’s left of it—is still torn up enough that even a cushioned seat feels like punishment.
Enji swallows.
He wants to pull the car over and let Keigo breathe, move, stretch, exist without the sharp press of pain crawling up his spine.
But he keeps driving.
The radio is off. He never turns it on.
The silence grows roots between them.
Keigo shifts once. Not a wince. Not quite. Just… adjusts. Barely.
It still says too much.
Enji’s fingers tighten on the steering wheel.
A burn starts in his chest—not heat, not the familiar, controllable kind. Worse—memory. The image of feathers falling like ash. The sound of screaming. The smell. Toya’s laugh.
He blinks. Hard.
There’s a red light ahead. He stops.
Keigo’s breathing is even, but wrong. Too shallow. Like he’s rationing it.
Enji forces himself to look.
Just for a second.
Keigo’s eyes are on the window. Dull reflection. Blank glass. His jaw is locked tight, mouth a thin line. He’s biting it down. Whatever it is. Pain. Words. All of it.
His shoulder twitches.
And Enji sees it again—bare skin under the collar, scarred red and white, shaped like a handprint that should never have been made.
Fingers.
Toya’s fingers.
Burned into a back that had once carried the sky.
Enji looks away. The light turns green.
He puts the car in motion.
Neither of them speaks.
By the time they pull into the hospital lot, the weight in his chest has settled like stone.
He parks.
Puts the car in gear.
Doesn’t move.
The engine ticks quietly. Cooling.
Keigo unbuckles slowly. The sound of the seatbelt retracting is too loud.
He opens the door, but doesn’t get out. Just sits there, hand on the frame.
Then, voice too light, too flat:
“You gonna come in?”
Enji shakes his head once. Doesn’t trust himself to answer out loud.
Keigo nods like he expected that.
His eyes flick toward him—briefly—and then away.
“Thanks for the ride.”
He steps out. Shuts the door behind him. Clicks it closed like he’s afraid too much noise might crack something.
Enji watches him walk toward the sliding glass doors, shoulders stiff, back straight, posture controlled like a soldier under inspection.
He doesn’t look back.
And Enji stays there in the car, hands frozen on the wheel, staring at the empty seat where Keigo had been sitting like maybe, if he stares long enough, the burn will fade.
It doesn’t.
×××
The hospital doors slide open like they’re tired too.
Keigo walks out looking as he got hit by a truck, then backed over for good measure. Shoulders hunched, gait uneven, skin too pale in the daylight.
He stops halfway down the steps. Just stands there, squinting at the parking lot like it’s a math problem he’s too fried to solve.
He doesn’t see the car at first.
Then his gaze lifts.
Sees Enji’s car.
Enji watches from behind the wheel.
Keigo stares. Like the sight of Enji still there doesn’t compute. Like he expected to walk out into emptiness.
And now this—the car, still parked, engine quiet, Enji still in the driver’s seat, staring at him back.
Keigo blinks slowly. Then—against all odds—he laughs. Just once. A dry, short exhale through his nose.
He walks to the car. Not fast. Not steady.
By the time he reaches the passenger side, he’s breathing hard.
The silence sits between them like a third person. Angry and bitter and old.
Then Keigo lets out a low breath.
And starts laughing again.
It’s not funny.
It’s not even close.
But it keeps coming—quiet at first, then louder. Ugly. Sharp around the edges. A little too close to crying.
He presses his knuckles to his mouth, like that’ll stop it. It doesn’t.
Enji watches him with that same sunken expression.
Keigo finally chokes on his own breath and wipes his eyes with his hand. Still not looking at Enji.
“They gave me options,” he says, voice hoarse. “All of them fantastic. ‘Pick your nightmare.’”
Enji listens. Heavy. Quiet.
Keigo keeps going.
“Option one,” he says, holding up a finger like it’s a punchline. “Do nothing. Just let it all fester. Wings’ll grow in like twisted weeds. Nerves don’t come back right. Hurts all the time. No control. Like having a pair of broken knives stitched to my spine.”
He grins—sharp, hollow.
“Option two—drugs, injections, nerve shocks. Constant, crawling-under-your-skin, can’t-sleep, can’t-move, scream-into-your-pillow pain. Maybe rejection. Maybe psychosis. Regeneration shit that might kill me if the side effects don’t drive me off a roof first.”
A beat.
“But maybe… flight. Someday.”
He huffs a thin breath, bitter.
“Isn’t hope adorable?”
Enji’s jaw ticks.
Keigo exhales, tilts his head back against the seat.
“And then there’s lucky number three.”
Pause.
“Amputation.”
The word hangs heavy in the car. A guillotine.
Keigo doesn’t say it like a tragedy. He says it like a punchline. But his voice breaks on the edges.
“They cut the whole mess off. Clean. Logical. No wings, no pain, no delusions.”
He goes quiet for a second.
Then: “Feels like a funeral.”
Another pause.
“Guess I should be grateful they didn’t just throw in a ‘buy one get one’ deal. Lose your wings, get a therapist half-off.”
Enji shifts in his seat. Like he wants to say something and doesn’t know how.
“Why are you still here?” Keigo asks, suddenly.
Not angry. Tired. Confused.
Enji blinks. Look straight out the windshield.
“I thought you’d leave,” Keigo says. “Figured you’d drop me off and vanish. Like the rest of it.”
Enji’s voice is low. Rough. “Didn’t seem right.”
Keigo huffs. A humorless sound.
“Yeah, well. Nothing seems right anymore.”
He presses the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I don’t even know which one’s worse. Living with it. Fighting through it. Or cutting it off before it kills me.”
He drops his hands.
Enji finally speaks.
Not much. Just a murmur.
“You’re still here.”
Keigo snorts. “Yeah. For now.”