Nemuri’s job as a heroine always interfered with our time together. My life’s become a lot more simpler now that I’m living with her. But there’s still that nagging feeling that things are about to change again.
That phone call sticks in my mind, but also my mind lingers on the thought of Nemuri. I hope she’s doing okay out there. I’ve already arranged an appointment with a therapist. Of course I tried to pick the right one.
So here I am, taking the train into a deeper part of the city, music pumping in my ears just to drown out other people. Keeping on to get where the office is. At the time I scheduled it, I followed my brother’s recommendation. It was the only way I’d willingly go. Just because my brother knows a guy who knows a guy. I follow the directions to the… house? Well, it’s one way to describe it. It’s not a normal house by any means. It’s a western-styled house in an eastern country.
But then there’s the doctor. A man around Dad’s age. Maybe younger. His soft golden eyes look at me and he smiles. He’s got graying blue hair, he’s not reedy but not exactly muscular. Wearing an almost casual looking polo and slacks but baggy and looking like he had to hitch it with a belt.
“Ah, Mister Todoroki. Nice to meet you.”
“It’s Koyurei, sir.” I bow and he smiles.
“I get it, my name’s Takeo, I’m a therapist.” He leads me towards the inside of the house, “I practice from home.” Looking down I notice something odd.
“You’re not wearing shoes.” he looks down too and grins up at me.
“Well, Koyurei. It’s just easier that way!” he leads me into a cushy room with soft couches and even some plushies. Sitting down, he hops onto the chair across from me and squats, one leg up and one down.
“So, how have things been?”
“Is that really how this all starts?”
“Yes.”
I think for a minute, “Well, things have been normal… I guess. It’s not bad, I’m engaged.” he brightens and grins.
“Well, congratulations!” he exclaims, “A new chapter in your life, right?”
“If you want to put it that way then yes. You could say it is.” my eyes dart down to my knees, “I’m… nervous.”
“Nervous about what, Koyurei?”
“It’s a long story.” my eyes close, “Most of my life my parents… when it was just me and my brother it was happy.”
Nights where Dad would come home and sweep both me and Toya into his arms, laughing that booming thunder laugh and spinning us around faster and faster until WHAM. We’re on the couch laughing and he’d end up tickling us half to death.
But the rest is fuzzy.
Takeo laughs and I smile, continuing.
Mom would be softer, gentler. Sometimes I’d come home with a scrape or something holding back tears because it wasn’t heroic only for Mom to kneel and clean it, all the while telling me how it’s okay to cry.
Again, fuzz like a TV screen untuned to a channel.
“It’s because… I’m scared that if Nemuri and I have kids I’ll end up the same way as my father. Just… obsessed with some dream I couldn’t achieve.” he wrote pretty much all of this down. So he answers.
“Well, considering your father I can assure you those are nearly impossible shoes to even fill, but also considering your vagueness about the memories your mind DID show to me, you’ve been repressing a lot of it.”
“Wait your quirk…”
“Shows me some memories of my patients, of course it deletes soon after, so I have to write down what I saw.” he stops and smiles with my cheeks reddening.
“So, your siblings. You have…”
“Three. Fuyumi, Natsuo, and Shoto. At least surviving. My older twin Toya died when we were thirteen. Part of me died with him.” I sigh, “It’s like the same thing playing in my mind over and over.”
“What happened that day, Koyurei?”
“I… well, your quirk probably already saw it.”
“Barely anything.”
“Well, can we talk about it later?”
He nods, “Whatever you want.”
We sit for a bit, “It’s a lot, you know? When you’re on the other side of what hurt you.” I state, brushing my scars just a little, knowing where they came from, where I come from. I didn’t really get to live a life.
“Trying to find a way to live is just half the battle.” I sigh, “It’s hard when you’ve never really had a life before heroism.”
“So identity issues?”
“Yeah.”
He smiles and nods, our time is far from over. As I kept going, the more I realized there were dead ends, holes and gaps in my memories. How much do I remember? How much do I not remember?
Well. He’ll help me find out. As I get out of there all I have to do is figure out how to live with all this.
Nervousness fills me like nobody’s business when Nemuri gets home. The day went well, I spilled my guts at the appointment and now I know why I’m so scared of this next step. The door opens and there she is, removing her boots as I tie my hair back and begin working on dinner.
Her scent wafts through the house, she’s not wearing her fieldwork costume, her scent is warm and comforting. Reminding me of home, at least back when it was one. My eyes are on the food. They have to be.
“Smells good, baby!” she exclaims, hugging me from behind and kissing my cheek, the slight scent of her quirk still hangs in the air. Still softly billowing and calling me to sleep.
“You know, you could start a business with this food.” she suggests, “But that’s just what my Dad would say, you know?”
“Yeah? Well, I don’t think this pig slop’d get me very far.” I sigh, chopping up the vegetables, Nemuri squeezes me, burying her face into my hair.
“You’re a wonderful cook, honey…”
“I’ve given so much, Nemuri…” I sigh, “My childhood, my career, this…” I grab her hand, tracing the ring I gave her, “What if I’m not a good husband? What if this is just a mistake? What if I fall out of love with you?”
She turns me around, “Koyurei, sweetie. There’s something I’ve learned from my experience. You never stop loving that person. You always think of them, and what you did wrong.” she tips my face up, her azure eyes filled with so much kindness.
“If you keep looking back, it’ll fill you with wishful thinking. Looking forward can give you tunnel vision, but now?” her arms wrap around my back, “I think I want to eat dinner.”
“You got it, baby.” I answer and she pecks me on the lips, drifting into the living room. Sushi trotting after her and hopping into her lap. I continue to cook and listen to her in the other room watching a drama.
She likes dramas, I don’t know how I missed that. When the food’s done, there’s a good chunk of time where I just… sit and savor it. The soft idea of a life beyond all of this, a life I love and cherish with all my heart.
The drama plays in the background, the sound of the water boiling, popping bubbles, all of it. I still feel the tough skin stretch on my skin, the burns and…
Flames, orange with scathing pain. The trees going up like kindling doused with gasoline. It climbs and licks at the trunks, eats the branches, and rages right for me. They start consuming me and my body lights up like a match, pain screaming through me.
It hurts.
God, it hurts! Suddenly the floor rushes up to meet me.
“Honey!” Nemuri yells, holding onto me, “Baby, breathe…” she soothes.
“It hurts…” I mumble into her chest, “It hurts… it hurts it hurts it hurts…”
“Don’t wake me up, don’t wake me up…”
“Koyurei, you’re awake. You’re awake, Koyurei…” she soothes as I lie sobbing in her arms, almost thinking that I’m already dead. She’s just a dream and when I open my eyes she’s going to be gone and I’ll just realize that all this time was a dream.
“I should’ve died. I should’ve died.” I mumble.
“No, no. It’s okay…” she sighs, “Shhhh…”
I howl into her chest, closing my eyes and just letting it all out. All of the rage and the pain and the ways it wasn’t fair. Tears rain down from my eyes, soaking the scarred skin that was once charred black by the flames, torn open by the heat.
She picks me up, turning off the burner, “I’ll handle dinner tonight,” she says. Easily enough carrying my tall and wiry frame from the kitchen to our bedroom. She lays me down on the bed, pulling the sheets back and numb. I climb into them with everything fading out into muffled noise.
My cheeks are sticky, the salt is still stuck to it. But I settle in anyway.
Then I see her take off the rest of her white ‘fanservice’ suit, the one that’s by no means a combat suit. She tears off the fabric, her lithe back towards me. Noticing something as she grabs a sweater, there’re scars.
Legs, marred by thick white scar tissue against her softly tanned skin. Arms, pocked with more and her back… those are the worst. She pulls off her hero glasses, switching them for the round ones. She pulls her hair back, sweeping it away and leaving the tapestry of scars for me to see.
“Do they hurt?” My voice is soft and small. Nemuri heard me, and she turns and walks over, kneeling with the gentle scent of her quirk dancing through the air.
“Yeah.” her answer makes sense, but there’s a pause in her movements, a hesitant sigh too.
She touches my cheek, her expression with that soft smile, the one she used when she would rise above me as we made love. The soft curve of her brow, the way her soft but rough hand brushes where the scars make their home…
I close my eyes and she leans in, kissing me on the lips, she still tastes divine. Like she always does. She gets back up and leaves for the kitchen. I hate that I had to have a flashback so close to dinnertime, now I’m forcing my fiance to cook for me because of it!
But I wiggle my way into a sitting position, waiting for her to come back in with the food. There’s no sense in fighting her on it. I just hope that everything’s okay. But I lie there, thinking alone in the room with all the memories surging around me like an ocean about to swallow me. If anything I should allow it to.
But I don’t. Nemuri pokes her head back in, “Hey Koyurei?”
“Yeah?”
“You deserve to live, okay? Whatever saved you that day means you were meant to live.” she smiles and blows me a kiss, “Dinner’ll be ready soon, okay?”
“Nemuri?” I start.
“Hm?”
“Thank you.”
She giggles and leaves me to it.
Today was one helluva day, a hostage situation and they almost called in Aizawa to handle it. But I got it. Of course, coming home is always a treat because I get to see Koyurei again. He’s the only thing in my life so far that gives me any kind of peace and quiet. Focusing on the food, I think back to his breakdown. How he got distant, really quiet, and then screamed. He screamed into my arms and my chest like I was the only thing he had. The only person who understood what it was like.
To tell him the truth, I have no idea what it’s like. Living like everything is going to be ripped away from you. The food is done, it’s Miso soup with pork in it. Something simple, something traditionally served to warm up for a meal. I guess he had to make this often when he was younger? I ladle it out into two bowls and get it on the bed tray, moving it into our room with Sushi padding after because he’s just as worried about him as I am.
Opening the door, he’s barely asleep, opening his dull blue eyes and looking at me with that shy smile he gave me whenever we woke up around the same time. I sit on the bed, looking over at him and he curls closer to me. We eat and he doesn’t talk, he doesn’t want to or need to I guess. He just kind of is.
Pulling him into my arms at the end of the day is the best part. Koyurei’s soft red hair, wavy and falling to the middle of his neck, spackled with white through all of it. But that’s not what I focus on when he’s asleep.
My hands brush against the scarring, the discolored skin where he was burned rough and it’ll never go away. I hold his wiry, muscular body close, his head resting on my shoulder and almost on my chest but not really. My quirk is already working on him, gently lulling him to sleep. His eyes flutter closed, and back open. Again and again he tries to fight it. He won’t allow himself to sleep, to live, and even feel. It will get better but he won’t be able to get out of this.
So I hold him, he calms, and I calm down too.
We’ll get through this.
