#coincide

He goes to Taiwan, to help with some underground hero work. Then France, then Egypt. Most of the jobs are espionage, kept under wraps, need-to-know basis. The rest are off the books altogether. He flies most of the way himself, just so he can pass out each night, bone-tired, and wake up in the morning with nothing but open air behind him. 

Everything hurts, the muscle strain and the altitude headaches and the canned coffee he mainlines just to keep from falling out of the sky on overnight journeys. There’s a pressure in his chest that won’t let up, a constant squeezing sensation that feels like shortness of breath, like drowning. Like all the air sucked out of the world, and Keigo, alone, fighting to stay afloat. 

Maybe he should get that checked out. 

But then, there’s no time to think about the future. He keeps his schedule tight, barely a second to blink between each mission, let alone book a session with his Commission appointed doctor. Besides, it’s pointless, anyway— 

All of it. 

He fights, draws blood, garners secret and dangerous intel. He sits down for dinner with ambassadors and heroes revered among their people. But there’s no glory to any of it, no reverence left in him. 

He imagines himself, a glassy-eyed, shiny little kid. How deeply he would have felt these accomplishments, these feats. Now all he feels is a vague sort of wistfulness. Like he’s already an old man, been through, seen it all. 

“What the fuck, Hawks,” his handler says over the phone. It’s been three weeks since he left, the first time he’s answered their calls. “You can’t just abscond without telling anyone.”

“Abscond?” he returns, with a genuine laugh. “Like I’m a thief?”

“You are an asset to the Commission,” the handler returns. “And you have responsibilities.”

“I’m on vacation,” Keigo tells him, and hangs up. 

And he tries (really, he does), to handle things in a productive way. He reads several (more than three!) listicles about top ten ways to get over a breakup, until he realizes that the two of you were never actually together. He’s not sure what to google for that. Unearned heartbreak? Severed soulmates? Miss her so much it feels like dying? But not even just the idea of her, or our apparent future, or the pretty thoughts about destiny? Miss the way she smells and the weird way she holds her chopsticks? Miss the way she laughs, and the sound of my name on her tongue? Miss her and miss her and miss her and miss her—

He tries the listicles. Does the self care thing, bubble bath, kitschy facemasks and all. 

And — he sees paramors in every country he visits. People from his past who fawn over him, praise him, adore him. They draw his jacket from his shoulders, and it smells like sweat and ozone. They find the tiny, secret clasps on the back of his uniform, unwrap him like a present.

“Pretty boy,” they call him. Coy and sweet. Hands so sure and eager as they caress his body. 

And he winces. Takes a step back. “Can we just—” he says, running a hand through his unruly hair. It’s getting too long. He’ll have to cut it soon. “Can we just talk?”

They all agree, sure, whatever he’s comfortable with. But the tension never leaves the room, no matter how long the small talk carries on for. Because he can claim fatigue or headaches or just not feeling it all he wants. But he could never admit the truth. How dirty he feels closing the door with another body in the room. How he cringes at the touch of another. How it’s— you. Always. On the back of his mind, at the base of his throat. Behind every turn and inside every decision. You.

You, you, you.

And the constant, painful reminder — 

The feeling isn’t mutual. 

...

The wedding is beautiful. 

Everything goes perfectly. The whole event looks like something off a trip-advisor page, beautiful but quaint, elegant yet intimate. The food is delicious, the cake so moist it melts in your mouth. Even the weather is sunny and mild, as if the powers that be wouldn’t even stand in the way of today. 

You wish you could give everything the attention and admiration it deserves. 

On the trip up, you imagined that maybe this would be just the thing to pull you out of your month long stupor. Wishful thinking, perhaps, but it’s hard to resist the rustic charms of this place, and the inherent joy of the other guests. 

Soulmate weddings are commonplace nowadays, but no less special for their frequency. There’s an indescribable quality of felicity to them. A rightness, like everything is happening exactly as it should, like everyone is exactly where they need to be. It’s something of a comfort to guests and to the couple themselves; what’s meant to be will happen. And there’s nothing anyone can do, no force of nature that can stop it. 

You try to enjoy yourself. Try to take in the ambiance, the good company. And it’s nice, for the most part. Really, it’s a lovely day, and if it weren’t for the strange tightness in your throat, constantly, you might even have been able to enjoy it.

You throw up in the bathroom, after appetizers, while the first plates are going around. You’ve been drinking, already too much, and on an empty stomach. You have half a mind to simply tap out for the night, but you can’t leave your friend tonight of all nights. Especially not when she keeps turning to you, elated, to make some silly joke, or to sigh and squeeze your hand with a dreamy smile. 

You sneak out when the party begins to pick up pace, leaving the revelry and crawling out a backdoor, into the insipid chill of encroaching night. You find a nice little staircase alcove, planning to settle down for a few minutes, but the sudden sight of another person on the stoop takes you aback. Even more so when you realize it's the groom himself, taking a drag on a cigarette.

You’ve never officially met, until today, and even that was just pleasantries, no time to talk. You’re not sure how to approach this situation; a part of you instinctively wants to apologize, but that would just make things even more awkward.. 

He peers at you, waiting for you to say something. But you don’t, so he does. 

“My last one,” he says, holding it up in salute. “I was thirteen, when I started. Thought I was a real rebel. It turns out I was just an idiot.” He looks at the cigarette, a strangely wry smile on his face. “Could never work up the nerve to stop, but… she hates it, so I’m quitting.” 

“A nice wedding gift,” you say, gathering yourself. You come to lean against the metal railing next to him. It’s cool against your bare arms, and you relish the sensation, the shock of it enough to keep you grounded, for the moment. 

“Ah,” he sighs, shaking his head. “Not a gift. Just… wanna make her happy.”

You look at his hand, the cigarette already halfway done. It smells different than any other you’ve encountered before, oddly mild, almost floral. And it makes something inside you well up, the thought that a life could be changed so wholly, so staunchly. 

You think, how special, to have someone who breaks bad habits for you.

It’s enough to cause you to burst into tears. Before you can stop it, your whole face is wet, and your breath is coming out in hiccuping gasps. 

The groom looks on, terrified. He stubs out his cigarette on his heel before handing you, of all things, a handkerchief.

He says, timidly, “Wanna talk about it?”

It takes a few long, awkward minutes before the initial wave of misery subsides, and you can speak. 

“Fuck.” You wipe your nose, unattractively, with his handkerchief. You shake your head. “Nah. It’s your wedding. Go have fun.” 

The groom shrugs. “I’m not one for spectacle. This is for her. Later, when we’re alone and eating pizza in bed, that’s for me.”

That’s nice, you think despite yourself. It just sounds — very nice. 

“She told me,” the groom says after a minute. “About your… soulmate, thing.”

You shrug. What else could you do? There’s nothing to be said. You’ve moralized and offered platitudes your whole life. You’ve lied and said you were content. But here, at your one best friend's wedding, alone, there’s no more slack to give. You’re faced with the truth lying at your feet, like a dead bird. 

You’re alone and it’s so hard. 

“She loves you. That’s never going to change,” the groom tells you. “Even if a lot of other things do.”

You think about that for a moment. Nod. “Yeah,” you say. “I know. Thank you.”

It takes you a few more minutes to calm down, fully. You’d tell him to go back inside, but you get the odd sense that he doesn’t really care that you’re crying in front of him, that he’s not as uncomfortable as you might have expected him to be. So the two of you hover there, on the stoop in the dark, until finally, you feel centered enough to rejoin the festivities. 

You brush off your dress. You offer him a hand up. 

“I can see why she likes you,” you tell him as the two of you make your way back inside. The instant heat upon walking through the door almost makes you wince. 

“Aw, nice,” he says, grinning. “Best friend stamp of approval.”

...

Keigo’s first stop, once he’s back in Japan, is a convenience store. The second is Enji Todoroki’s temporary, secret residence. 

It’s a small house, on the outskirts of a small city. Barely any thru-traffic on the streets. Most of the population is in their later years. No one recognizes Keigo as he trawls the street, looking for the discreet entrance. It’s hidden by a wall of laced kudzu vines. 

Enji is slow to answer the door. Keigo sent a text to say to expect him soon, but who knew if the other man saw it. He hasn’t been himself lately. 

When he finally opens the door with a grunt of surprise, Keigo just holds up his plastic bag in greeting. The outline of six tall boys is prominent. 

“I haven’t had alcohol in 20 years,” Enji says, his voice without inflection. Still, he takes the bag, leaving the door open in his wake for Keigo to shuffle in after him. 

The living arrangements are spartan. Hardly any furniture, and what comforts they offer is slim. Hard, cold surfaces. No throw cushions, or blankets, or pictures on the wall, or magazines bookmarked with old receipts. No sign of life at all, save for the single pair of shoes, tossed in a careless pile at the door.

The pair sit on the floor in the middle of what is probably the living room. There’s no furniture at all, here. The tatami is worn to softness beneath them, ages old. The combination makes everything feel stark, exposed. There’s a vulnerability to an empty house, no places to hide, no way to obscure yourself. 

They drink in relative silence. Keigo arrived in the late afternoon, and the day passes into night without obstruction. No one gets up to turn on the lights when the sunset fades into ashen stars, both of them content to sit there in the dark. 

It’s easier like this, almost a waking dream. Neither of them have been sleeping well, taking care of themselves. 

It’s been a long time since Keigo has drunk, too. Soberness was his default, an expectation of the job. Heroes don’t get days off, not really. There’s always the expectation that if some disaster should occur, they will be able to rise to the occasion. That doesn’t mesh well with substance use. 

Occasionally, Keigo will have a glass, to keep up appearances. But he can’t remember the last time he felt like this, tipsy, a mellow warmth settling beneath his cheeks.

Moonrise turns everything to shadow. Like this, tall, dark, and faceless, Enji finally speaks. 

“I wish I’d done things differently,” he admits. His voice is no longer booming, and proud. It’s quieter than Keigo has ever heard it. “I wish I could have seen that more than honor or strength, what they needed was… kindness.”

“It’s not too late,” Keigo says, but the words are empty. How would he know? He’s never had to consider these things before. Never had terrible, all-consuming regrets before. 

“In some ways,” Enji says. “Society would have you believe that amends are as simple as an apology,” he says. “But I will be paying for my mistakes for the rest of my life. And it still won’t fix everything. Some things are broken forever.” 

“That’s convenient for you, too,” Keigo says. He peers at Enji, eyes bright, intent. “In some ways.”

Enji peers back at him, expressionless.

“Now they’re tied to you forever, like you said,” Keigo explains. “You can’t fix things, but you can keep them.”

“That’s not my decision to make.”

Keigo’s response is quick, brusque. “Isn’t it?” 

He realizes he’s leaning forward, too tense, too defensive. This isn’t about what it’s about anymore. It’s not about anything, really. He sinks back into a relaxed posture, reestablishing his practiced nonchalance. He takes another sip of beer. His hand is trembling.

“No,” Enji says, simply. “It’s not.”

The pair fall back into silence. Enough has been said, for one night. 

...

Kirishima sends you home. 

It’s the last thing you’d expect, after taking several days off for the wedding. You come in early, ready to elbow through a backlog of work, only to find the floor already bustling with a small crowd of unfamiliar faces.

It’s about eight people, total. Some of them are heroes. You can tell from the way they’re dressed, the way they hold themselves. Kirishima is in the middle of them, more dour than you’ve ever seen him. 

He comes to you, when he spots you, skirting his way around the visitors to meet you at the door. 

“Ah.” He rubs the back of his neck, glancing back at the group he left behind. “Why don’t you head home for today? This is all kind of, uh. Not safe for you.” 

“Should I be…” you try to glance around him, get an appraisal of the situation, but he’s such a mountain of a man that he takes up nearly your entire field of vision. “Like, worried?”

“No,” Kirishima is quick to say. “No, everything is going to be fine. But this isn’t quite your area of expertise, and I don’t want you getting caught in the crossfire.”

He’s taken on his hero mien, shoulders back, a little more tense than usual. His tone is kind, but unmoveable. Leaves no room for arguments, or questions.

“Okay,” you say slowly, still a little unsure about all of this. “But you’ll let me know if you need help, right?”

Kirishima smiles at you, but not in a condescending, what would a small-fry like you be able to do, way, like any other hero might. His affection is so stalwart and genuine, his friendship so gentle. It only makes you worry all the more, for anytime that the goodness of Kirishima Eijiro might be at risk, that humanity might be deprived of him, for any moment, in any way. 

He holds out a fist, and you knock knuckles, shakily. “Promise,” he says. 

Then he pats you on the back, subtly steering you back to the elevator, away from whatever catastrophe he now has to face, alone. 

You have a vague idea of what all this might be about, but who knows what might have changed in the three days you’ve been away. The hero world moves at a breakneck pace, and it seems like you’ve fallen out of the loop. 

You think about the classified documents you’ve sorted through, the cases piled up on your harddrive. You’ve seen enough of past villainy to know that it’s not all stars and stripes and showing up at exactly the right moment. There’s a lot of accidents. A lot of almost made it, so close. Sometimes, the heroes just aren’t fast enough. Sometimes they make mistakes. 

It’s a job that risks more than one life. A burden on all fronts. If a hero dies, odds are many other lives get taken down with them. It’s why Kirishima wants you kept away from whatever is going on. The big bold word of the hour — casualty. Someone adjacently related to the incident, an unnecessary death. You’re not strong enough to protect yourself, not the way you’d need to, to exist in the same space as the heroes. Not enough to protect someone else.

Everything feels strange and uneasy. Like you’re teetering on the knife point of something huge. But you can’t fit all the puzzle pieces together, no matter how long you mull it over. It’s been like this for so long, you can’t trace back the origin of this foreboding feeling. Maybe you’ve always felt this way. You try to recall a time you’ve felt completely at ease, comfortable in your own skin, but you come up short, unable to pinpoint a moment, unable to figure out why not. 

You spend the rest of your day in PJs on the couch, eating icecream straight from the tub, fretting and fretting. Wondering when the anchorpoint of your life became fear. 

...

His next stop is the Commission HQ. 

No matter that he hasn’t slept in forty-nine hours. The Commission has already figured out that Keigo is in-country, and there’s work to be done. 

Firstly, he’s reprimanded. Loudly, and for a solid fifteen minutes. 

This is interrupted by a handler conspicuously walking right between him and the higher ups, and dragging him bodily out of the room. Keigo allows himself to be hauled away, waving as he goes. 

He’s asked to report on a number of missions he underwent while he was away. Provide details, recall key facts. He took diligent notes, but a lot of things require his own explanation, or follow up information. This takes up almost the entire day. Suddenly he regrets keeping so busy, over the past few weeks. 

It’s already late, late into the evening by the time he sets foot in his own agency. Things are quiet. There’s not much work to be done when Keigo himself is not around, so it’s unsurprising that most of the night workers have taken off. 

It’s nice to have a little privacy, even with another handler tailing him as he takes stock of the building. Nothing much has changed. Even his office is spotless. For some reason, he’d expected dust to have gathered in his absence, but of course the cleaning people would never let that happen. 

It’s almost like he hadn’t left, at all.

Exhausted, he intends to make one final stop at his locker before heading home. He just needs to grab another flight suit, dump his dirty ones in the hamper, to be cleaned. 

He’s still carrying around the bag he traveled with. He hadn’t taken much; his mode of transport doesn’t allow for heavy packing. He took the essentials, a few toiletries, a few flight suits, one spare change of civilian clothes. He dumps all of it in the bottom of his locker, to be sorted through when his bones feel less likely to melt out of his body altogether. 

He took one personal effect, and it stares at him from the top of the pile. The sweater he’d nabbed from your place. On nights he did sleep, he slept with it. Wrapped around him, or bunched up in his arms. It’s no longer soft, handled so much that the fibers had been worn to crimped bone. It had stopped smelling like you after the first week or so. Even with his heightened senses, eventually all traces of you were lost, the altitude and his own body overwhelming your scent. 

It was pointless to hold onto. It didn’t stave off the cravings, only made him remember all the times he had actually touched you, your skin, your hair. Felt your breath, or heard your voice. Dead weight, unnecessary baggage for his long trips. Still, he couldn’t get rid of it, no matter how many times he told himself he would leave it at whatever hotel he ended up in that night. Some mornings he would slip it on, pull it tight around himself, until he felt the constriction, until he thought the threads might snap under his grip. But the craftsmanship of it was impeccable, and it survived his rough treatment, and he would spend those mornings with the not-quite comfortable fabric wrapped around him, watching the sun rise miserably.

He shuts the locker door. Maybe this will be the end of it, now.  

He sends the handler home, assuring him that he’d be up and at ‘em at the crack of dawn tomorrow. The handler doesn’t look especially reassured, but there’s nothing to be done now, and he’s ready to call it quits himself.

Alone on the office floor, finally, Keigo takes a moment to just breathe. He closes his eyes for a moment. Tries to shut out all thoughts. They’d taught him to meditate as a child. He’d alway thought it a pointless endeavor, but now he kind of wishes he’d paid better attention, that he could simply will away his mind like turning off a light.

He barely has a minute to try. Someone clears their throat, asking for his attention. 

He turns to them with a smile. “What’s up?”

He recognizes the young man. A PA, hired a few years back. 

“Intel for you, Sir,” he says. “I wasn’t sure if you’d want to wait until tomorrow to take a look.”

Keigo motions for the file in his hands, flipping through it as soon as he has it. No sense putting things off.

The PA explains, “The task force has discovered a list of addresses. Around half of them are the residence of record for established heroes. Another handful are homes that heroes have kept off the books. The one connection they all seem to have is that they are currently occupied by at least one civilian, as well.”

Keigo nods, peering at the list. 

The PA says, “Right now we’re operating under the assumption that these are a list of targets.” 

Keigo had assumed. With the momentum gained from Rei’s attack it would figure that the villain would keep going. Attention tends to spur on bigger and more intense feats.  

“Who else knows about this?” Keigo asks. 

“Only heroes assigned to the task-force, sir.” 

“No one from the Commission?” 

“The intel came to us from Deku’s agency,” he returns. “The Commission will receive the information as soon as Deku has convened with his people.” 

Keigo nods again, then returns his attention to the page. The first step would be to mobilize the people at these residencies, but how to do that without alerting the culprit would take some creative problem solving. The page is nearly full, numbers reaching toward the margins.

Still, despite the massive amount of work to come, this is a step in the right direction. 

He’s about to hand the file back to the handler and pay a visit to Deku’s agency himself when something catches his eye— 

Your building address, and next to it your unit number. You. 

He’s out the door and in the air in ten seconds, flat. 

...

The last thing you expect is to see on your impromptu day off is your door literally being cracked at the hinges.

The second to last thing is the man you haven’t heard from in weeks, pushing past you, stalking straight inside like he owns the place.

He looks… not great. He’s definitely lost some weight. There are horrible, dark circles under his eyes. His hair is a little longer than he prefers. He smells like how he always smells after taking double patrols, like sweat, and the city, and the sky. 

Has he been taking care of himself? Has anyone been looking after him?

“Get what you need,” he calls. “We’re leaving.”

He starts grabbing things himself. Your cardigan. The book you’re reading. Your sturdiest pair of shoes. His arms are full by the time you can work up the nerve to respond. Even then it sounds like more of a squeak. 

“Keigo?” 

He glances at you. He’s breathing hard. “Why aren’t you packing?”

“Because,” you sputter, “what the hell?” 

You reach for him. Then pull away. You take a step back, but you’re too unsteady on your feet to do anymore than that. Your legs might just give out, anyway. 

You’re reeling from his appearance, not able to make sense of any of it. Maybe you’re dreaming. But —

He’s standing right in front of you, the brightest thing in the room. If he were a little closer, you could feel his warmth. 

It’s been so long since you’ve seen him, it feels like you should have forgotten what he looks like. But it’s just the same as always, him in your space. Feels so right, even when everything is all turned around like this. Recognition, in its basest form.

He leans in toward you. Opens his mouth, about to say something. From this angle, oddly, he looks like he might be about to bite you, the subtlest hint of teeth, his breath still leaving him in heavy drags. Like a predator, all keyed up and ready. 

Like if you run, he’ll chase. 

You can hardly get the words out. “What’s happening?”

An expression crosses his features, a flash of emotion that’s gone in an instant. A tick of remorse, disconsolate. Then he’s back to his unshakeable, placid smoothness. 

“You’re not safe here,” he says. It’s a tone he’s never taken with you before. Stern, cool. 

You have a hundred more questions, but they’re like little dragon flies, flitting around your skull. You keep grasping for them, but missing. You can’t figure out what to say. You can’t figure out what’s happening. 

Then —

You taste it, before anything. A metallic twinge to the air, like an ink blot of blood, coins on your tongue. 

Suddenly, your center of balance is off. You’re falling, bracing, falling. But not falling, because Keigo has you in his arms, hauling you, painfully, in some direction. 

A noise you can feel in your bones, that makes you think your teeth might fall out from the force of it.

You’re airborne. You think you might vomit. The night is whip-cold but also brutally, violently hot. 

—Falling. Again. For real, this time. 

You feel the soft brush of grass. He’s pressing you into it. He’s shifting you on top of it, rolling you.

“Are we on fire?” you gasp.

“Not anymore,” he returns.

His hands are all over you, bracing, touching, searching. Your skin is oddly numb. You can’t quite tell which way is up, anymore. You can barely hear anything, the whole world muffled, static. 

Somewhere, in the dark you catch a glimpse of molten light, and the sluggish neurons of your brain struggle to the conclusion that your home used to be there. Everything that’s yours used to be there. Now lit up, glowing like a midnight sunrise. Blinding you. But you can’t look away. 

Keigo’s on you again. All around you. He has a better grip on you, now. Not painful anymore. 

Two flaps and you’re airborne again, clutching to him with all your meager strength. Being clutched in return.

The heat from the flames follows you up, licks into the sky, and you think you must still be burning, you have to be. 

But Keigo has a hold of you, so tight and visceral it swallows all your thoughts, all your fear, and eventually you make it far enough that the ash is distant, and the night swaddles you like a cool blanket. 

“You’re okay,” Keigo is whispering, lips against your crown, your temple. “I got you. I’m sorry. You’re okay.”