It had been a long day and they were both getting frustrated.

Eri's birthday was coming up and now that she was living with Yamada Hizashi and Aizawa Shouta, it was time she got a proper room. When she first came to them, they'd been too busy in the aftermath of her rescue to have anything set up. Besides, they didn't know if she was going to be with them for good or just on a temporary basis. Well, they got word that they were going to be officially fostering the small child and after at least six months it would be more official than that. So the two heroes thought they'd make it a big to-do since she likely never celebrated a birthday before.

Though Shouta wished it was like… a week later. A week later would put it in the middle of winter break and they'd be able to actually enjoy themselves as a family. But no, it was right in the middle of final exams. With the timing of everything, it meant that the two hapless men had a single day to get everything done. Luckily Mirio offered to take Eri to the zoo and just out of the house all day so they could maximize the time they had, but they still had only one day.

Fantastic.

As it was, it was about mid-afternoon and they were taking a much-needed break. Well, Shouta was. Hizashi had too much energy to take breaks. Somehow with their good teamwork, pre-planning, and work ethic, they were actually ahead of schedule. All of the furniture had been put together and plastered in cat stickers. The furniture was strewn all over the place since they had simply shoved it to the side to make room as they went on to the next piece. So they just needed to arrange them in the space, move Eri's things back into the room from where they were currently sitting out in the hall, and put those little finishing touches that really would make the space feel like a home for her.

Eraser sat in the middle of the floor in his favorite pink sweatpants almost in a daze as his husband buzzed about him.

"... over here and then we could put the bed in this corner. Or we could keep the bed against the wall with the drawers over on that side of the room and the mirror hanging on this wall with the playset Nemuri got her. Or-"

The blond stopped as he realized that Shou was practically counting sheep. With a sigh, he lightly tapped the tired man on the shoulder. "Hey, I know we've been at this for hours, but once we've got this figured out, it's just a matter of pushing through brute force. We got this. I just need your help deciding where to put what."

Shouta groaned and ran his hand through his hair that was only barely tied anymore. "I'm sure she'll love whatever you come up with."

"Well naturally ," Hizashi replied with a kind of smugness that he hoped would get his husband to smile a bit. "But I can't decide what configuration I want to go with. Here, let me run through the options with you again and you tell me which one you like best."

Aizawa knew there was no arguing out of this. Besides, logically it was best if he complied. They'd get done sooner and they could rest sooner. He rubbed his tired face with his hands a few times before standing. "Alright, alright. Walk me through it."

"Okay so I've narrowed it down to three options." He was using his Announcer Mic voice, ostensibly to make it a little more lively. In itself it didn't do much for Shouta, but the fact that the Voice Hero was really trying was enough.

"So option one, we put the desk up against the window here with the bookshelf next to it in this corner. The bed would go along the far wall over here." As the energetic man spoke, he danced around the furniture strewn about the place to indicate where things would go.

Aizawa really tried following everything. He really did, but he wasn't successful. The man must have had a blank look on his face because Hizashi interrupted himself again.

"Shou, you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine I just… I'm just having trouble seeing it." All he could see was the mess before him. He just couldn't get past it. The mess. Yes. That had to be it. "It's too cluttered in here with everything all over the place. Maybe if we try out the arrangements, we can see if we like it."

Hizashi fully turned toward him, taken aback at the suggestion. "Seriously? That would mean moving all of this furniture at least three or four times. It would just exhaust us and take up way too much time. Just make a mental note of where everything is going and this will be a lot faster."

"That's what I'm trying, but I don't understand how that's supposed to help me figure out what this will look like all together."

Now the blond's face moved to utter confusion. "What?"

"I mean, I know that the bed is left, the desk at the window, and the bookshelf in the corner, but I don't know how to bring it all together."

"What are you talking about, Shou? Just remember that picture."

"What picture?"

"The one you literally just described to me." Hizashi folded his arms, trying not to look like he was starting to get annoyed. Sure, Shouta could be belligerent when he didn't want to do something but he'd expected a little better of him on this project.

Even though Hizashi was trying not to look annoyed, Shouta could see it plain as day. Knowing someone for 15 years does that. Now he was getting annoyed because it wasn't like he was trying to make things difficult here. "I wasn't describing some picture, 'Zashi. It was just my word list."

"Why are you making a word list to think about this? Just picture it."

"Why do you keep using that metaphor?"

The blond's annoyance immediately shifted to bewilderment. That was absolutely not what he expected as a response. "What metaphor?"

"Or analogy or figure of speech or whatever it is!" Aizawa was getting a bit more frustrated now. What was Hizashi doing? Doesn't he know he's speaking gibberish? "You keep talking about some picture metaphor."

Why was Shouta talking about it this figuratively? It was like he really couldn't see a picture in his mind or something.

That's when it clicked and Hizashi's whole demeanor softened. Was something like that even possible? He had to make sure. "Wait Shou…. Hold on. Can you humor me for just a sec? I need to confirm something."

Seeing his husband's whole attitude change made the raven-haired man pause himself. Shit. Did he do something wrong? "'Zashi, I didn't mean to snap at you. I'm just tired."

"I know, I know. Let's just sit for a little while." Hizashi hobbled around the random furniture and found enough space for them both to sit, Shouta relented and followed.

"Okay Shou, let's both close our eyes. Can you tell me what you see?"

"I don't see anything."

"Nothing at all?"

"Right."

"Hmm… How about… try imagining a tree right in front of you. Its roots are reaching deep into the ground beneath you. It's an old tree, gnarly and full of knots. The trunk is so big there's no way your arms can wrap around it. But the real beauty is in the leaves. They're shifting radiant colors. At first you think it's some trick of the light, but one floats to the ground in front of you and you see it melt from one color to the next in a dazzling display-"

"Hizashi, what are you talking about?"

"Are you telling me that you still don't see anything?"

"Of course not! It's not like anyone can see anything with their eyes closed. That's not something we can do."

Yup. There it was. Hizashi paused for a moment before he responded quietly. "You mean it's not something you can do."

Shouta opened his eyes and just stared at his husband for a while as he slowly worked through his thoughts. "Zashi… are you trying to tell me that you can?"

Hizashi just nodded. "And always have."

"Then I guess I never… have." Aizawa turned his head away like his mind wasn't being totally fucked right now. "I… I always thought it was just a saying. 'Imagine this,' 'picture that.' They're not just sayings? People can actually see those things like they were real pictures in front of your real eyes? What's that like?"

"Pretty much, yeah." How was he going to explain this? "I guess some people are better than others? Not so much from skill, but it'd be like cameras. Some people have top-notch cameras with crazy lenses. I'm more of a 'family's first digital camera' kind of guy. Pretty good and serviceable, but not lifelike in full detail. How do things work for you?"

"I don't know. I never really thought about it before. I guess it's like… I don't remember things as they were but on how I responded to them. What I thought or felt about something or some observation."

"And by 'observation' you mean like a comment or something?"

"Yeah. You know that weird bookshop I keep trying to tell you about? I literally can't remember anything about that place except for the fact that every time I pass it, I think "Huh that's weird" and go on with my day. I have no idea why."

"Huh." Yamada leaned into his husband, messing up the perfect blond bun he'd been sporting the whole day. This was all just as mind-blowing to him as it must have been for Shouta. He suddenly came to the realization that something he thought was a basic function of everyone's lives wasn't necessarily something he really shared with everyone. What else was he taking for granted?

"Shit, we need to get a move on. They'll be back in a couple of hours."

Hizashi echoed the expletive and got up, helping Shou to his feet as well. "So I guess now that we have that sorted, we know why we had a communication break down. We still need to figure out an arrangement for this room. What can I do to make all of this something you can work with?"

The man scratched his head in thought. "I always try to make them visible in some way. As in something my eyes can see. It doesn't even need to be that good, just something to get an understanding of size and shape."

Then came a genuine smile from Mic as a solution dawned on him. "I got an idea!" He went to the corner where they'd been keeping basic supplies they never actually needed. Things like extra tools, rejected sticker sheets, and lots of tape. The man emerged victorious with three rolls of tape.

"Okay, so the blue painter's tape will be option one, the black electrical tape option two, and the third will be that awful neon green duct tape you got last year when we ran out of the normal silver." The whole process took only a few minutes. All of the outlines were down and they could easily compare all of the configurations with each other.

Hizashi patiently watched his husband walk through everything. Now that he knew Shouta couldn't actually see anything in his mind, he paid extra attention to the thought process here. He noticed the man making small gestures to himself and turning every so often as if to see the room from different vantage points. It was strange until he got to one of the proposed play corners and crouched down, looking at the door.

"Hey 'Zashi. You don't think she'd mind if we can see her playing from the hallway, right? I mean, I know it'd make me feel better but I don't know if she'd feel weird that we can just watch her like that."

The blond understood now. It wasn't just the furniture that Shouta couldn't see, but also how Eri might use it. Since they couldn't approximate that in tape, he had to make it real some other way. Embodying it himself. He couldn't see it, but he could replicate the experience of it. There was definitely going to be a lot of googling about all of this as soon as they got a chance. It was highly fascinating to realize just how differently their minds operated.

"I think she'd be fine with it. It might actually make it easier for her to invite us in."

"In that case, I think option two might be the best."

"Let's get things moving then!" Hizashi was already pulling off the tape from the rejected proposals. "I think we might actually pull this off if we hustle."