The apartment was too quiet. Even the ticking clock on the kitchen wall felt too loud—too alive—for how dead the air felt between them. Keigo sat at the small dining table, one hand curled around a mug he hadn’t touched in an hour. Steam had stopped rising from it long ago. His other hand—bare, scarred, trembling just faintly—rested flat against the wooden surface, and for a moment, he just stared at it. At the veins that used to hum with warmth and power, the soft pulse that once answered to wings.

Now there was nothing.

He hadn’t realized how quiet the world could be without feathers. Without that faint rustle against his back, that comforting whisper of movement, of freedom. The wings—they were his. The one thing they couldn’t touch. His only rebellion. And then All for One took them, and the silence that followed wasn’t just in his body—it was in his head.

“Keigo.” Your voice was soft. Tired. Careful, the way everyone spoke around him these days—like he might break if someone breathed too hard. He forced a smile before he looked up. Always smile, the Commission taught him. “Hey,” he said, voice barely audible. “You’re up late.”

The commission had called him Hawks for so long that even after they stripped him bare — feathers, title, purpose — they still called him that. Hawks. The hero. The symbol. The man who’d served his country so well that they couldn’t let him fade quietly. No. They had to arrange him into a happy ending. A wife. A child. A picture-perfect life to plaster on the front of glossy magazines.

The man behind it all — Keigo Takami — was gone long before the ink on the marriage papers dried.

You were, too. You’d been for weeks now. Neither of you really slept anymore. Not since the war. Not since the arrangement, either—this perfect little domestic fantasy the Commission wrote up for what was left of their favorite hero. It was supposed to feel safe.

And maybe it would’ve, if he still felt human.

You crossed the room, your bare feet quiet against the floorboards, stopping just behind him. You didn’t touch him—he barely flinched these days, but when he did, it was always when you reached for him. Always when you got too close.

He hated that.

He hated the way he’d become something even his wife couldn’t reach.

“They’re doing another interview next week,” he muttered, voice flat, almost mechanical. “Said they want some family photos. You should pick the outfits.”

You hated that word — should. It was all the commission ever gave you. Should smile. Should stand closer. Should pretend.

You took a step closer. “Keigo, you don’t have to—”

“I do.”

“You should get some sleep,” you whispered.

He let out a soft laugh that didn’t sound like him. “Sleep? Yeah, right. I might wake up with my wings again, huh?”

It slipped out before he could stop it. And when it did, the silence that followed felt like a knife. His hand clenched. His throat burned. He didn’t cry—not anymore—but sometimes he looked like he might. He stood suddenly, the chair scraping across the floor as he muttered something about checking on the kid. But you both knew he was lying. The baby was asleep. The house was still. He just couldn’t stand sitting there—being looked at. Being seen. He walked to the window, shoulders tense beneath the loose shirt, where wings once used to arch proudly. The moonlight caught the faint scars that marked his back through the fabric.

“I used to think if I did everything right, maybe one day they’d let me be Keigo again. Just… a man. Not a tool. Not a weapon.” His eyes flicked to you then, a flash of raw breaking through the numbness. “But I think Hawks died the day they took my wings. And Keigo…” He swallowed hard, voice cracking. “Keigo never really got to live, did he?”

You opened your mouth, but nothing came out. Because what could you say?

He turned slightly, the dim light catching on his eyes—haunted, hollow, and still trying to be gentle for you. “I think they killed me a long time ago,” he said softly. “All for One just finished the job.”