Chapter 14: Backstage Passions
The whiskey in Shouta’s glass caught the afternoon sun, a slow amber swirl as he tilted the crystal. He was shirtless, a pair of low-slung grey sweatpants hanging from his hips, the intricate tail of a dragon tattoo disappearing beneath the waistband. The bed was an island of rumpled black silk sheets, and he was propped against a mountain of pillows, a biography of some long-dead politician open in one hand. The room smelled like him—sandaled wood, expensive whiskey, the faint, clean scent of his sweat.
Izuku ruined the quiet.
He’d been pacing for ten minutes, a storm cloud in a tiny, lace-trimmed black chemise, his hair a wild torrent down his back. He was whining, a high, steady stream of grievances poured forth in rapid, musical Japanese.
“It’s stupid, it’s so stupid, Daddy, I don’t want to. My tongue feels too big. It sounds ugly. I sound like a baby when I speak it, a stupid baby. Everyone at school already thinks I’m dumb, and when I talk English, I prove it. I hate it. I don’t see why I have to practice here. Here is home. Home is Japanese. You’re Japanese. I’m Japanese. Why are we speaking… that other language? It’s for outside. Not for in here. Not for our room.”
He flung himself onto the bed, the mattress groaning. He didn’t cuddle up to Shouta. He lay on his stomach, face buried in a pillow, his voice muffled but no less fervent. “You just want to embarrass me. You think it’s funny. I heard you laughing with Miguel last week on the phone about how I said ‘sheet’ instead of ‘shit’. I hate you sometimes.”
Shouta took a slow sip of his whiskey. He turned a page. He didn’t look up.
“Daddy! Are you listening to me?”
Another sip. The ice clinked.
Izuku scrambled up onto his knees. His eyes were shining, not with tears yet, but with the frantic frustration of not being the absolute center of attention. He crawled across the sheets until he was kneeling beside Shouta’s thigh. He pulled the book from his father’s hands and tossed it aside. It thumped softly on the rug.
Shouta’s eyes, dark and unreadable, finally lifted to meet his son’s.
“Speak English, baby,” Shouta said, his voice a calm, low rasp. He reached for his whiskey again, his movements deliberately slow. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
Izuku’s mouth fell open. A shudder ran through him. It was the sentence he’d been dreading. “No,” he whispered, the word slipping out in Japanese. “Iiya.”
“English,” Shouta repeated. He took a drink, watching Izuku over the rim of the glass.
“You understand me!” Izuku cried, the Japanese spilling out in a hot rush. “You’re pretending! This is a mean game! I’m not playing! I’m upset! Your son is upset and you’re just sitting there drinking and pretending to be deaf!”
Shouta’s expression didn’t change. He set the glass down on the nightstand with a definitive click. “Every word you say in Japanese is a word you don’t get to say to me right now. You want to talk to me? You want to whine at me? Do it in the language of the country we live in. Or be quiet.”
The finality in his tone was a door slamming shut. Izuku stared at him, his pretty face crumbling. The first fat tear welled up and rolled over his cheekbone, tracing a path through the faint blush he’d applied earlier. He didn’t sob. A quiet, wounded sound escaped his throat.
He launched himself forward, wrapping his arms around Shouta’s torso, burying his face against his father’s bare side. He clung like a limpet, his body shaking. “Daddy, please,” he mumbled, the plea muffled against hot skin and ink.
Shouta didn’t push him away. He didn’t hug him back. He simply sat, a pillar of muscle and resolve, letting the kid cling. He picked up his whiskey again with his free hand.
“I’m right here,” Shouta said, still in that infuriatingly calm English. “But you’re talking to the wall.”
Izuku cried harder, frustrated, angry tears. He hated this. He hated the feeling of being locked out. Their connection, usually so fluid, a constant exchange of teasing and needling and affection, felt severed. The language barrier he faced outside was now a wall inside their own sanctuary. It was a betrayal.
He cried for a long minute, his tears slick on Shouta’s skin. Shouta just drank his whiskey, his gaze fixed on the sunlight patterning the far wall.
Finally, the storm began to ebb into hiccups. Izuku’s grip loosened slightly. He nuzzled his wet face against Shouta’s ribcage, a subconscious, comfort-seeking gesture. He took a ragged breath.
“It’s… hard,” Izuku whispered. The words were in English. They were small, broken, and badly pronounced. ‘It’s’ sounded like ‘eets’. ‘Hard’ came out as ‘hah-do’.
But they were in English.
Shouta’s chest moved in a slow, deep breath. He put the glass down. His hand came up, not to force Izuku away, but to settle heavily on the crown of his head. His fingers slid into the inky black hair, massaging the scalp with a firm, familiar pressure.
“I know it’s hard,” Shouta said, his voice dropping into a gentler register, though he kept the language steady. “Everything worth a damn is hard. Boxing is hard. Learning a language is hard. But you have to do hard things, baby. Or you stay small.”
“I am small,” Izuku muttered, the English slurred with residual hurt.
“Not what I meant.” Shouta’s hand kept up its rhythmic massage. “Your mind gets small. Your world gets small. You want to just talk to me and the cats and your little friends forever? Fine. But what about when you want more? What about when you see a pretty boy at a coffee shop and you want to tell him he’s pretty? You gonna mime it? Draw him a picture?”
Izuku was quiet, listening to the deep rumble of his father’s voice through his chest.
“You were so good at International Night,” Shouta continued. “You owned that room. You were smart. You were charming. You knew your shit. That was you. That can always be you. But only if you can talk to people. Really talk.”
“I talk to you,” Izuku said, the sentence simple but complete.
“And you always will. But I won’t always be the only one you need to talk to.” Shouta’s thumb stroked his temple. “So practice on me. It’s safe. You say ‘sheet’ instead of ‘shit’, I’ll laugh, but I’ll tell you why it’s funny. Then you’ll know. Better to laugh with me than have some little fuckboy at a party laugh at you.”
Izuku considered this. His daddy had a way of framing things that cut through his brattiness. It wasn’t about humiliation. It was about armor. It was about giving him tools. Shouta had given him everything else—the clothes, the protection, the adoration. This was just another thing. A difficult, annoying, tongue-twisting thing.
He shifted, pulling back just enough to look up at Shouta’s face. His own was a mess: tear-streaked, eyes puffy, nose running. He didn’t care. “I want to tell you why I am… angry.”
“Okay,” Shouta said. “In English.”
Izuku took another shaky breath, assembling the words in his head first. “My… head feels… full. Japanese is here.” He touched his own temple. “The words are… fast. Easy. English words are… slow. Stupid. They get stuck.” He pushed a fist against his own chest. “Here. It makes my chest… hurt. Because I know the… the thing I want to say. But my mouth makes the wrong… sound.”
It was the most articulate he’d been about the struggle in either language. The effort was painted on his face.
Shouta listened, his dark eyes sharp and attentive. He nodded. “That’s the work. That’s the feeling of your brain growing. It’s supposed to feel like that. Uncomfortable. Like a muscle getting sore.”
“I hate it.”
“I know you do.” A ghost of a smile touched Shouta’s lips. “You hate anything that doesn’t come easy to you. Like math. Like folding laundry.”
“Laundry is boring!”
“And English is hard. But you still have to wear clean clothes, and you still have to order your own damn food at a restaurant.” Shouta cupped his chin, his thumb wiping a stray tear from Izuku’s cheek. “Now. Tell me again why you’re mad. From the start. In English. Slow is fine. Wrong words are fine. Just talk.”
Izuku sniffled. He felt raw, exposed. But the wall was gone. His daddy was looking at him, seeing him, waiting. The demand was still there, but the connection was back. He could work with that.
He began, haltingly. “Today… Maria, she… she said the kimono from the school night… it needs… special clean. She said it is… expensive. She said I cannot just… throw it.”
He paused, frowning, searching for a word. “The… the box? For clothes?”
“The garment bag,” Shouta supplied softly.
“Yes. That. She said it must go in the… the garment bag. And I said… I said…” He flushed, the memory bringing back a flicker of his earlier anger. “I said, ‘It is my kimono. I will put it… where I want.’ And she said… she said to talk to you.” Izuku’s jaw tightened. “She used that voice. The ‘I am in charge’ voice. In my house.”
“Our house,” Shouta corrected, but there was no heat in it. “And Maria is in charge of the clothes. That’s her job. You were rude.”
“I was not!” The English slipped, his voice rising. “She was… condescending.” He stumbled over the big word, but he got it out, proud he remembered it.
“She was doing her job. You were being a brat about a piece of fabric because you’re still floating on how pretty you looked in it.” Shouta’s tone was matter-of-fact. “You looked stunning. It was a perfect night. But the night’s over. The kimono gets cleaned and stored. That’s life.”
“I wanted to hold it,” Izuku confessed, the admission small and childlike. “I wanted to… sleep with it. It smelled like the night. Like the tea and the… the attention.”
Shouta’s eyes softened a fraction. He understood that. The tactile need to cling to a feeling. “You can’