A/N: Hey Everyone.
Sorry for posting a day late. Life, man.
Enjoy.
The art of love is largely the art of persistence. – Albert Ellis
IX
Fuyumi Todoroki lined up her students in class order, walking down the line to make sure they all had their things. Together, the class made their way to the playground area where they could play until their parents came to pick them up. The other younger classes were on the playground, and as her kids took off to join them, Fuyumi stepped back under the shade.
"Hey."
Fuyumi looked up to see another teacher, Hide, walking over to her. His students joined the fray of playing children, and he seemed completely worn.
Fuyumi smiled and pushed herself up off the wall. "Hide. How are you?"
He ran a hand through his hair. "I beat my record. I had to remove three crayons from two separate noses today."
Fuyumi chuckled. "Oh, no. Were they different colors this time?"
Hide nodded his head. "All different. Blue, red and green."
"That still doesn't beat the time one student swallowed our pet rock," she said, smiling.
Hide laughed and moved step closer. "Good thing it was the size of a pebble. Any plans this weekend?" His cheeks shaded pink as he asked, and he ran a hand through his hair a second time.
Fuyumi knew where this was headed, and while she hadn't spent a ton of time thinking about a date with Hide, it had crossed her mind. He was kind, passionate about his job, and the type of awkward that kept her feeling comfortable. She liked all that about him. "Uh. I don't have anything planned."
Hide relaxed at her answer and stepped in front of her. "Well, see, there's this band I really like, and they are playing a gig at—"
He was interrupted by a shriek coming from one of the kids. Fuyumi looked over to the playground and saw Hawks playing with the children. He was flying them around with his feathers, and holding two of them upside down. The children flocked around him, his fame being their primary reason.
Fuyumi narrowed her eyes. "Excuse me, Hide."
Without listening to Hide's reply, she marched over to Hawks, crossing her arms. "Are you crazy? What if you dropped one of them?"
Hawks flashed a smile and held up one of the boys in his hands. "Nah. Does it feel like I'm going to drop you, little man?"
The boy in his hand pumped his fist. "No way!"
Fuyumi scoffed under her breath and maneuvered around the mass of children. "What are you even doing here?"
"We are going on a date," he said plainly.
"We?" she said.
"You won't say yes to a date with me, but you won't flat out reject me either. So I decided to take matters into my own hands. You and me. One date. Today." The feathers that flew kids around moved to new ones, some dropping them off at their parent's feet as they came to pick them up. Hawks set the two kids in his arms down, and they scattered off.
Fuyumi tried to count back how many times he had asked her on a date. More often than not he asked her at the most inconvenient times for the both of them. "You can't just show up at my school. And you've never properly given me a chance to say yes… or reject you." She added the last part after a short pause.
"So now's your chance. Go on a date with me." He separated the sea of children with a swift motion as he lessened the gap between them.
"Hawks…" she said lowly, glancing away from him. That was equally as embarrassing, as all the students were looking at them expectantly.
Hawks put his hands in his pockets and waited for her answer. "She should say yes, shouldn't she?" His question was directed at the kids around him.
There was an eruption of encouraging shouts from her students, the all around excitement unbearable. Fuyumi blushed and looked away from him.
"Okay, fine," she said, a soft smile touching her lips. "But exploiting children for that answer was beneath you, and you know it."
He grinned widely. "Whatever works."
X
Hawks took a deep breath and tried to steady his hands. He had never been more reluctant to do something than he was to do this.
But he had to.
All night he'd gone over what he would say. The thought of it made him sick, but he would play his role perfectly. He could not, would not, get her involved.
The prospect of it made him consider refusing the mission in the first place, but Hawks always served a higher purpose. He had since the very beginning. A purpose higher than both her and himself.
He hesitated at the doorway, the last bits of reluctance clawing at his lungs. His breath was short, but he feigned his casual attitude when he knocked on the door. There wasn't an immediate answer, and for a moment, he relaxed at the thought that she might not be home yet. But his hatred for what was about to happen deceived him only slightly. He knew she was home, the door sliding open was only proof of that.
Her features softened when she saw him. "Hi."
Hawks stepped inside the gate. "Hey. Are you busy?"
Fuyumi walked up to him and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. This would be the last of those, and he had half a mind to steal another just for the sake of it all.
"I was just about to make dinner. Do you want to stay? My dad's home, and I know how much you love him." There was jest in her tone, calling to the better parts of him, and he couldn't stop the short laugh that slipped from between his lips.
"I can't stay. I just came to talk."
She was no idiot, and her expression morphed through apprehension and knowing. At least she wouldn't be shocked by his words, the smallest of silver linings on this perpetual cloud.
"Okay. Let's talk." Fuyumi backed up a step, crossing and arm over the other.
Hawks stuffed his hands, balled into fists, into his pocket and relaxed his shoulders. He gazed at her, taking her in before letting it all go.
"We can't see each other anymore."
She released a noise of acknowledgement, nodding as her she cast her eyes to the ground. It was a moment before she spoke, and he waited impatiently for it. They hadn't been together for too long, but he knew her well enough to know she wouldn't just let it go.
Watching her fold in on herself as her mind ripped through the possibilities was near torture.
"Why not?" There was a strain in her voice, and she wouldn't look up at him right away.
A clean break, he repeated, fighting off the part of him that wouldn't do this. It has to be this way.
"Because I don't want to be with you." The lie itself was easy enough, but his entire body rejected it. So much so, he actually closed his eyes a second when he said it.
She whipped her eyes up to his, not believing what he had said.
He had to commit. He couldn't serve both his mission and his love for her. The reel of his reality replayed in his head, and the lying got a touch easier.
"Not anymore," he continued when she didn't say anything.
The words stung, he could tell as her eyes pooled with the start of tears. "What did I do?"
Hawks rubbed a hand along his chin, fingers crossing his mouth to conceal his frown. "Nothing. I just dated you because you're Endeavor's daughter," he said.
Fuyumi let out an exasperated laugh. "Like some sort of prize?"
He shrugged, the only response he could keep with a neutral face.
She laughed again, but there was pain behind every noise. "I always thought you wanted me for..." She trailed off, the words getting caught in her throat. The tears followed silently, and she tried to hold her breath.
Fuyumi glared at him after a long pause. "Well, you did it. You won your prize. Congratulations, Hawks."
She wasn't someone who had much darkness in her, but the look she gave him spoke to the Endeavor side of her lineage. Hawks again had to remind himself of why he was doing this, why he was willingly hurting her. Still he remained silent, it being the only option when so many other things threatened to come spewing from his lips.
"I was falling in love with you, you bastard," she whispered.
XI
Fuyumi sat with her back against the dresser. In her hand she clutched the only picture of her whole family she had had, three of them not with her. Her mother. Toya. Now Shoto.
When the call had first come, Fuyumi assumed her youngest brother was with their mother. Endeavor immediately knew something was wrong, but she had tried to stay positive. Her father had been out searching since it was confirmed Shoto wasn't coming home.
She gripped the picture tighter in her hand and placed her head on her knees. It was all falling apart. Perhaps it had never really been together in the first place. Her body shook with silent tears, and Fuyumi did the one thing she could think of in that moment.
Grabbing her phone, she dialed the number she told herself she would delete a long time ago and let the phone ring.
One. Two. He picked up.
"Fuyumi."
His voice was so gentle and hearing it like that made her gasp. "Hawks."
He cleared his throat. "Are you home?"
She nodded though he couldn't see it, but he seemed to know already.
"I'm coming. Stay there."
The line went dead, and she leaned her back again, trying to regain herself. Within a few minutes of deep breaths, she had at least stopped the sobs.
He must not have been far away because the beat of wings brought Hawks to her bedroom window not long after. There was a slight blur in her vision as she stood up. He easily got in through her window, shutting it behind him.
Before he could get close, she held up her hands. "I know-I know calling you was stupid… And I don't even know why I did..."
"It wasn't stupid," he said quietly.
"No," she backtracked. "No, I do know why I called. Because you…" She shifted her weight from foot to foot, wrapping her arms around her. "Shoto is gone. He's just gone."
Hawks knit his brows, risking a step forward. "Okay…"
Fuyumi took a deep breath, her lower lip shaking a bit as she thought about it all again, the truth of it. The tears started up again, and she was surprised she had any left. She didn't want to be so weak as to cry in front of him again, but she couldn't stop them. "I can't keep my family together, Hawks. I've tried my whole life, and I can't do it. I'm not strong enough."
He had inched his way closer to her as she spoke.
"I couldn't keep you around either…" Embarrassment worked its way from the pit of her stomach throughout her whole body. "But when you were around, you somehow made everything okay."
He was a step away from her when she finally looked up at him, and she could feel the energy spark between them, just like it had been before.
"Make it okay again. Please." Her final word was bordering a beg. "Just for one night."
Hawks stared at her, and she could see how conflicted he was. Her vulnerability in that second seemed to overtake her, and Fuyumi was about to turn away when he pulled her into his arms. She buried her head in the crook of his neck, and he leaned into her ear.
"You aren't weak." His wings spread wide behind his back; she could feel them expand as she wrapped her arms around his waist.
She battled the side of her that knew this was all a bad idea, shoving it down into the lowly depths of her. As her inhibitions against him stripped away, her body relaxed, her vulnerability spinning to a good thing. And just as it was before that horrible evening, small amounts of comfort she had lost clicked into place.
While she wouldn't say she had called him there for it, nor that she was expecting it, when his lips touched hers, she wasn't surprised. She was eager. If she was going to have a night from the past when everything seemed to be okay for a short while, this was only natural.
She snaked her arms around his neck, and he lifted her into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist. Hesitation on his end fell away as well. Without parting his lips from hers, he backed up to the bed, and the two collapsed on it.
Fuyumi listened to Hawks' heartbeat as he played his fingers through her hair. His chest heated her cheek, while the cool air across her bare back sent shivers down her body.
A multitude of feelings rushed through her so quickly they all swirled together and manifested as numb. In contrast, Hawks was perfectly at ease beneath her. When he moved his hand from her hair along her arm, he reached down and pulled the bed covers over her body.
She didn't move.
"What are you thinking about?" he asked.
After a beat or two of silence, she responded. "How disappointed my mother would be in me right now."
"Because you had sex?"
"Because I had sex with you."
His hand stopped moving up and down her arm, and she wondered if that had hurt a little. The thought of upsetting him didn't sit well with her.
"She was somewhat of a prize, you know…"
It took Hawks a bit to speak, and the space caused Fuyumi to finally look up at him. There was no malice in his expression, but a touch of sadness, maybe. "Why did you never go on a date with Hide?"
The reminder of the temporary state of this reset hit her then. This wouldn't last. The regret of asking such a thing of him settled in her heart; she had brought back to life all the feelings she had tried so hard to kill.
"I don't love Hide."
The non-confession made her feel pathetic. After all this time, she was still in love with Hawks. And as he stared back into her eyes, regardless of how he had physically expressed himself, she couldn't tell whether or not he still loved her.