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Hitoshi is twenty-four going on forty with the way his joints crack and a throaty groan makes its way out of him. He always thought Shouta's grey hairs were genetic, but the stress of being an underground Pro is no joke.
Days on end of catching sleep when he can, running across the roofs of his city, and catching flights all around the world. It's late and he's just gotten home from a two week trip to the states, an undercover operation that he's looking forward to sleeping off for as long as humanly possible.
The house is dark, his parents already asleep, and his room is exactly as he's left it. Not identical to the emo-punk stylings of his teenage decorations, but close enough that it's a bit of a mindfuck retreating back to it each night. He's, frankly, too lazy to redesign it and he doesn't plan on vacating his fathers' house until he absolutely has to, so he makes do.
He leaves his capture weapon tossed on the floor, despite Shouta's many attempts to get him to hang it up, and he swaps his hero costume with a baggy band shirt and some sweatpants. Each movement is hell, his limbs sore and stuck in molasses. He dreams of vacation days and sleeping on a bed full of kittens before his head hits the pillow.
A shy knock at his bedroom door keeps him from flopping on to his sheets for a well deserved rest and he sighs. A house full of people with the worst sleeping issues he's ever seen and he expected none of them to notice his languid entrance? He really is out of it.
"It's open," he calls out, sitting on the side of his bed. It's just as soft as he remembers and his muscles melt into it.
The door slowly creaks and a pair of big doe-eyes peek around it, followed by shiny silver hair that reflects his warm lamp light. At the sight of his sister, he perks up and smiles.
"Hey, kid," he says, opening his arms.
She silently pads over in quick strides and falls into his embrace. Her knees hit the floor and she shoves her face into his stomach, squeezing his middle as tightly as she can. He bends over her head to hug her back, nuzzling his face against hers and blowing a raspberry into her cheek to make her giggle.
"You're up late," he observes, his alarm clock flashing with the hours of witching. "Couldn't sleep?"
Because she certainly wasn't waiting up for him. His schedule is too hectic for anyone to really know when he'll be in or out of the house. He tries giving a heads up when he can, like the text he sent the family group chat that he'd be back in the next day or two, but it's impossible to know specifics when he's constantly being tugged in every direction.
Eri doesn't make a sound, quiet as a mouse. She just looks up at him, red eyes glossy and face smoothed into a small pout. She's eight years older than she had been when they first met but, in his arms, there is no difference between the two. She's the same little girl hiding behind his dad's legs, whimpering at the overwhelming stress of being moved into a new house.
Back then, Hitoshi knelt to her level, unsure if he could even handle his parents adopting another smaller, cuter child, and waved. His feelings remained twisted up for another couple years before the routine of playing with her and settling into movie nights where she picked princess films cut through his abandonment issues.
Now, it's much easier to heave her into his lap and let her attempt to crawl into his skin. The role of an older brother is one he's never been particularly good at, but it's been long enough that he knows what his sister needs from him when she gets like this.
"Wow, I can't believe they left the baby alone like this," he deadpans, referring to their parents. "What ever shall we do?"
Eri tucks her head under his chin and gingerly fists his t-shirt. Even at fourteen, she's still fairly behind compared to her peers. Strangers tend to assume she's still in the upper end primary school with her knobby limbs and chubby cheeks. It helps, he thinks, that she's so physically small. Eri's headspace can be as volatile as her early childhood and the ease her brother and fathers have in picking her up makes things feel more believable for her.
Unlike Hitoshi, who likes to pretend his own regression no longer exists, she doesn't have to worry about her appearance setting her off and aging her back up.
"Hmm, that's a good idea. I think a warm bottle is in order," Hitoshi says, almost entirely to himself. He's never too sure if Eri can actually understand him when she's like this, but he likes talking to her as if she can. It keeps her involved and him from getting triggered by someone he loves not answering his questions.
He stands up with her in his arms, only grunting a little bit from the weight of a growing teenager that is fed as much as they can get away with. Her arms obediently go around his neck and her legs lock around his waist, used to the routine by now.
Hitoshi expertly navigates the dark halls that he's memorized like the back of his hand. Years of night missions make his eyes adjust quickly and he avoids the random cats scurrying beneath his feet with ease. He flicks the kitchen light on and tries to set Eri on the counter, only to be met with a too-loud whine and a tightening grip.
"No? You don't wanna be put down?" He doesn't know what he expected. Eri is a velcro baby, through and through.
She presses her face as hard as she can into his neck and sniffles. Hitoshi coos at her and gently bounces her to keep her from fussing too much. Shouta sleeps so lightly that he doesn't even need a baby monitor to feel the disturbance in the universe when one of his kids is crying. It wouldn't be the worst thing if he woke up, but Hitoshi is perfectly capable of putting her back to bed himself.
"Yeah, yeah, all right," he mumbles, patting her on the back. "Can't say no to uppies from an infant. Just don't throw up on me when I feed you."
Mechanically, Hitoshi goes through the motions of preparing her milk. He grabs one of her bottles from the lower shelf (his are collecting dust on the top one) and fills it with the almond milk Hizashi insists on buying. It's not bad and, arguably, it's better for Eri's tummy, but Hitoshi misses being able to make his chocolate milk.
It's flavored enough on it's own that Hitoshi can add a few drops of red food coloring to turn it pink (the only way Eri will drink anything that's not juice) and pop it under the faucet for a few minutes to warm up. Eri waits patiently, probably not even aware of the passage of time, and Hitoshi rocks them back and forth as he turns the bottle beneath the steaming water.
"Wanna sleep in my bed?" Hitoshi asks her and is met with her squeezing him in response. A yes, then.
That's fine. His bed has plenty of space for the two of them. Hopefully Hizashi is awake enough in the morning to check his room before screaming about Eri's disappearance, though.
Bottle in hand, Hitoshi turns off all the lights and takes her back to his room. If she seemed more upset, he might've taken a detour to grab one of her plushies, but she's been an angel—which could mean she's just tired, she feels good, or she feels bad enough that she doesn't want to be a burden by crying. Two good options, one bad. Hitoshi likes those odds.
"Alright, I gotta let go of you for a sec," Hitoshi warns, putting her bottle on the nightstand and laying her down on the side furthest from the door.
Doors make her anxious, even on good days. It took months and a decked out canopy bed that blocked the door from sight before she even entertained the idea of sleeping in her room.
As expected, she whines and starts to cry when he pulls her fingers off his shirt. It breaks his heart, but he reminds himself that she's fine. She's just a disgruntled baby, that's all. She'll be okay in a few seconds.
"I know, I know," he says. "I'm a horrible brother leaving you to die, I know."
He crawls into bed beside her and rearranges them so they can comfortably lay propped up against his pillows. He grabs his remote and selects a quiet movie on his TV, which gives him a few valuable moments of distraction to grab her milk.
"Okay, bottle then bed," Hitoshi tells her. "Dad'll kill me if you mess up your sleeping schedule. We wouldn't want that, right? No, no we wouldn't."
He doesn't like baby talking her because it inevitably ends with his lisp turning genuine and his brain going hazy, but he can't help putting on a bit of the accent when she looks up at him utterly unfazed by what he's saying. He could tell her every violent thing he did on his trip and she wouldn't understand a single thing when his tone is so sweet.
It's an innocence she never had before, even when she was just six and moving in. Eri had always been far too aware with eyes that understood too much and a heart that could empathize with anything. It's healing, in a way, to see her regress back into something that only really lays there for snuggles and a bottle.
Hitoshi boops her nose, chuckling at how she scrunches it up, and brings the nipple of the bottle to her lips. She latches on easily and makes adorable little suckling noises as she curls into him and returns her attention to the pretty colors on screen.
After a couple weeks of dealing with drugs, gangs, and many sleepless nights staking out warehouses, the baby soft warmth of her face against his neck is a balm and exhaustion weighs heavily on his bones. He knew being a hero would be hard—his father reminded him of that fact every time they trained together—but it's still more difficult than he anticipated.
Maybe it'd be easier if he were just as alone as he'd been during his first year at Yuuei, without anyone or anything to return to when the nights drag out longer and longer. But he has a family, and he knows he's missing a lot every time he's asked to leave for weeks or even months at a time. Eri has grown so much in the last couple years, she's almost unrecognizable every time he comes back.
He pushes the sorrow down. There's no use grieving lost time, not when this is still the same.
Eri only finishes half of her bottle before she's pushing it away and turning to cling to him. It doesn't escape him that she made this choice seconds after he tried to subtly wipe away a stray tear he hadn't meant to let fall. Still, he sets the bottle back on the nightstand to deal with later and takes her into his arms, needing to hug her back just as much.
He kisses the top of her head and inhales her scent: the same strawberry kiwi shampoo Hizashi bought her eight years ago. It's familiar, and it smells like home.
"I'm here," he murmurs, mostly for himself. "I missed you too."
At the very least, he knows she understood that.