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The silence between the palm trees was heavy. It was a weighted silence, thick with the pressure of a history Akira didn't know.
The ocean crashed against the shore behind them. The wind rustled the fronds of the twin palms above, sounding like hushed whispers.
"What?"
The word tumbled out of Akira's mouth before his brain could filter it.
Honoka Shuzenji took a shuddering breath. She wiped the tear from her cheek with the back of her hand — a gesture so uncharacteristically vulnerable that Akira felt like looking away. She turned to him. Her amber eyes were red, but her gaze was steady. Her eyes were full of sadness.
"Akira," she whispered, her voice catching on the salt air. "Do you know why I bought this place?"
Akira shook his head, mute. He felt like a statue carved from sea salt, afraid that moving would shatter the moment.
"Because," she said, looking back at the empty space between the leaning trees, as if seeing a ghost standing there. "This is where we got together."
Akira swallowed the lump in his throat. "Who?"
He knew the answer. He felt it in the marrow of his bones. But he needed her to say it. He needed it to be real.
She looked at him with sad eyes.
"Your father."
Hearing this, Akira's mind exploded.
Father.
The word ricocheted inside his skull like a bullet in a metal room.
In his past life as Wade, "father" was a blank space on a birth certificate. A biological necessity that had vanished before memory formed. In this life, as Akira, it was silent. A void. Honoka had never mentioned him. There were no pictures in the house. No extra toothbrush in the bathroom. No stories told over dinner.
Akira had assumed the worst. A one-night stand? A villain? A deadbeat who ran away when he saw the positive test? Or maybe he was dead, and the grief was too great. Because he was mentally older, he had respected that silence. He played the role of the mature son who didn't ask painful questions.
But standing here, under the dying light of the sun, the silence broke.
Honoka walked up to him. She didn't look like the "Hero Doctor" right now. She looked like a woman who had been carrying a mountain on her back for thirteen years.
She placed her palm on his cheek. Her hand was warm, calloused from work, and trembling slightly. She looked at him with an affection so deep it burned.
"You have always been so mature," she whispered, her thumb brushing over the feather mark on his forehead. "Even when you were a baby. You never cried for a deeper answer. You never pushed. You just... accepted us as we were."
Akira leaned into her touch. "I figured... you would tell me when you had to. I didn't want to hurt you."
Honoka let out a wet, shaky laugh. "You protect me even when you don't have to. You really are his son."
She took her hand away, turning back toward the sea. The horizon was a deep, bruising purple now. She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering in the evening breeze.
"Ask," she said. "I know you want to."
Akira took a breath. "What was his name?"
Honoka closed her eyes.
"Akira," she said softly. "His name was Akira."
Akira froze.
"I named you after him," she continued, a small, sad smile touching her lips. "Because I couldn't bear the thought of a world without an Akira in it."
She gestured to the bench between the trees. "Sit. It's a long story."
Akira sat. The wood was rough against his legs. Honoka sat beside him, leaving a respectful distance, staring out at the water.
"It started in medical school," she began. "Kyoto University. The Medical Hero track. It's the hardest program in the country. They take the top one percent of the top one percent. Everyone there was a genius, a prodigy, or a nervous wreck."
She chuckled. "I was a wreck. I was Chiyo Shuzenji's daughter. The pressure was crushing. I studied eighteen hours a day. I didn't sleep. I didn't eat properly. I was a machine made of caffeine and ambition."
She glanced at him. "And then... I met him."
"Where?" Akira asked.
"In the library," she said. "I was studying for a Neuro-Anatomy final. I was stressed out of my mind. And suddenly, this... thing drops from the ceiling."
"A thing?"
"A boy," she corrected. "He was hanging upside down from the rafters by his knees. He had these massive, magnificent crimson wings folded around him. And he had the reddest hair I had ever seen. Just like yours."
She reached out, ruffling Akira's spiky hair.
"He looked me dead in the eye, upside down, and said, 'You look like you're about to murder that textbook. Do you need a hug, or a snack?'"
Akira snorted. "Smooth."
"He was a total goofball," Honoka laughed, the sound bright and clear. "A complete idiot. He fell from the rafters ten seconds later because he forgot gravity existed. He landed right on my table. Ruined my notes. I yelled at him for twenty minutes."
"And that's how you fell in love?"
"No," Honoka shook her head. "That's how I made a rival. Or so I thought. He just decided we were best friends."
She leaned back, looking at the stars beginning to puncture the sky.
"His quirk was Crimson Wing. He had these beautiful, expansive red wings. They weren't just for flight; he could use the feathers to sense air currents, navigate hazardous zones, and even shield patients. He was brilliant, Akira. But he didn't act like it. He was always smiling. Always joking. He wore bright tropical shirts to class because he said the hospital whites were 'depressing.'"
"At that time," she continued, "I was so focused on being the best doctor that I had never considered stuff like dating. I thought it was a distraction. I thought emotions were messy."
"But then that goofball wouldn't leave me alone. He studied with me. He brought me food when I forgot to eat. He dragged me to karaoke when I was on the verge of burnout. My life, which had been gray and clinical... suddenly became colorful."
She paused, her expression turning wry.
"Even at the most serious moments, he would manage to make me laugh. During our first cadaver dissection, I was shaking. He looked at me and whispered, 'I bet this guy was a fun drunk.' I laughed so hard I got kicked out of the lab."
"After the first year," she said softly, "we began to date."
Suddenly, her expression darkened. She looked annoyed. "Although I have to say... it took a year for that dumbass to realize I loved him! Like, jeez! I was practically throwing myself at him! For a while, I thought he might be gay or something. Or maybe he just really liked studying!"
Akira laughed. "Maybe he was just respecting boundaries?"
"No," Honoka huffed. "It turned out, just like me, he had never dated. He had zero experience in this field. He thought I was just being 'professional' when I invited him to dinner. Candlelit dinner. Idiot."
She wiped another tear away, but she was giggling now.
"Years later, we graduated together. Top of the class. We became Field Doctors. We didn't join big agencies. We formed a unit. Just the two of us."
"The Duo," she whispered.
"Akira — your father — was the navigator. He would scoop me up in his arms, wrap those big red wings around me, and fly us straight into the heart of the disaster. He could weave through falling buildings, dodge debris, and find the safest path through the fire. He was the wings. I was the hands."
"We saved thousands, Akira. We were unstoppable. He would drop me at the triage point, then fly back into the danger zone to find survivors. He would carry them out, two at a time, talking to them the whole way, making them laugh, making them feel safe."
Then she laughed again, shaking her head. "But god, that guy was such a wuss when it came to violence. He had a true doctor's heart. He couldn't hurt a fly. Literally. If a villain attacked us, he would panic. He would try to talk them down. He would feel sympathy for the evilest villains, saying things like, 'Maybe he just had a bad day, Honoka! Don't hit him so hard!'"
"And you?" Akira asked.
"I punched them," she said simply. "I did the fighting. I protected him, and he protected the patients. It worked. He was the heart, and I was the fist."
She looked around the beach.
"Years later," she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "The idiot finally proposed to me. Right here."
Akira looked at the space between the palm trees. He could almost see it. A red-haired man with wings, nervously holding a ring, probably stumbling over his words while the ocean roared behind him.
"He hung the ring from one of the palm fronds," Honoka said, pointing up. "He tried to fly up to get it down dramatically, got his wing caught, and ended up hanging upside down again. Just like when we met."
"He asked me to marry him while swinging from a tree like a piñata."
Akira smiled. "And you said yes."
"I laughed for five minutes, cut him down, and then said yes."
Honoka sighed, a long, rattling exhale that seemed to take the last of her energy.
"Everything was perfect, Akira. We were married. We were heroes. And after a while... I got pregnant with you."
She looked at him, her eyes searching his face for traces of the man she lost.
"He was so happy. You have no idea. When he found out, he flew laps around the hospital. He bought every baby book in existence. He painted the nursery. He talked to my stomach every night, telling you bad jokes so you'd recognize his voice."
"It was the happiest time of my life."
The wind picked up. The temperature on the beach seemed to drop ten degrees in an instant. The joyful memory in Honoka's eyes shattered, replaced by a haunting, hollow darkness.
"But then," she whispered, her voice cracking. "That day came."
Akira knew what was coming.
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This is today's chapter! How you liked the whole backstory. See you all tomorrow.
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