Chapter 32 Why am I on Fire? by Yojimbra

I cast fireball!"

"Shoko, honey, fireball is not the solution to everything."

"Oh?"

Rei smiled and tapped my arm, "Coming from you that's more than a bit ironic."

I tore my eyes from the dice, battlemap, and books to look at my wife, currently dressed as a barbarian, complete with pointy viking hat and a small sized wooden battle axe that she had lovingly bonked me with after she had made it. "Coming from Hilfguard the illiterate, I'm surprised you care."

She just gave the biggest smile and looked towards the tag team of Fuyumi and Shoko as they figured out what spell Shoko was going to actually cast. As far as group dynamics were concerned, my family was pretty balanced around the table. Shoko was the sorceress of draconic origins and the group sweetheart, or at least she was, until her power gaming mother pointed her in the direction of Fireball. Rei was currently playing a half elf barbarian, that was roughly the size of a human and half an elf, that largely survived charging into most encounters because our eldest daughter Fuyumi was a rules lawyer and a half. Fuyumi had not only read the entire rulebook, and several supplemental rulebooks, but she also knew how to find the answer to any question that might arise, perfect for a lawful good dwarven cleric.

Touya was only the second edgidest rogue I'd ever seen.

"Dad!" Shoko stood up and looked at me with wide eyes like she had just received a revelation from god. "I cast cone of cold."

I wanted to object, but, after looking at the battlefield and seeing exactly where Shoko wanted to unleash her icy destructive powers, I couldn't help but smile. "Alright, roll damage!"

The excited look on Shoko's face as she began to count out the number of dice she would need made all the struggles of being a DM worth it.

That, and apparently, it made Rei rather frisky.

XXXX

"How do you do this one?"

By burning the book.

I ran a hand through my hair and felt like I needed to scream my head off. I had always believed that no matter what, math was going to be math. Sure, there were some differences in how math was going to be taught, especially with how I was taught to teach it, but the basic principle should have been the same. I glanced at Fuyumi's textbook again, and tried to remember if Touya went through this as well.

He didn't.

Either Fuyumi was struggling more with her homework, which seemed doubtful because she got better grades than Touya did, or she was in a slightly more advanced class than Touya was, which seemed likely. Touya's goal was to be a hero, Fuyumi's goal was to be a… well, her goal changed a lot.

But, either way, Fuyumi's math was uhh, unique.

"I'm not sure," I sighed, letting my entire body deflate alongside my pride. "What are we working on again?"

"Umm, matrices."

I blinked and looked at the book again. That made sense.

"Ooh! Right, here, let me show you how your dad will do them."

"The teacher said I'm not allowed to do it your way anymore."

"Why?"

"Because it's not the way she teaches it."

What a shitty teacher.

I let out another sigh and tapped at the problem. "Well, why don't you show me how you're supposed to do it then, I might be able to help more."

"Okay," Fuyumi tapped her pencil on the paper again and began the process of multiplying two matrices of different sizes. "So, I'm supposed to go row by column and then multiply, then add to get one of the numbers and then I do that for each one."

"Oh, okay, so that's how it's done, alright, so what are you stuck on?"

"How big do I make it?"

"Oh, Well, whichever one you're going to be multiplying horizontally determines the height, while the vertical one determines how wide it is."

Fuyumi frowned at her math homework, then, in true twelve year old fashion, slammed her head against her desk with enough force to make me jump. "That doesn't make any sense!"

I patted her on the back and smiled, "Look, give it a try and I'll check it over later," with google's help, "and if when we get it back and it's marked wrong, you can choose what we eat for dinner."

"Pancakes." Fuyumi's head shot up and she looked at me like the manic syrup goblin she was. "Oooh, or Crepes."

I rolled my eyes, "you know those aren't for dinner right?"

"People have dinner for breakfast all the time!" Fuyumi flailed her arm around as she gestured in the vague direction of Tokyo. "I mean, why else would places serve breakfast all day?"

She had me there.

"Because some people's dinner is our breakfast."

"Those are my people."

I rolled my eyes and rubbed Fuyumi's head with my left hand, messing up her hair for the night and misaligning her glasses, before I gave her a light kiss on the temple. "Fine, fine, we can have pancakes for dinner."

I blinked and realized the fault in my plan. "But only if you get an A on your next exam."

"Oh that's easy!"

Cocky little kid.

I stood off of Fuyumi's floor and gave a long stretch, fully expecting some part of my body to pop for some reason or another. Instead of a pop there was a knock, but it came from the door. Touya stood in the doorway looking like he had just kicked our dog.

And we didn't have a dog.

We should get a cat.

Why don't we have a cat? We can say it's Fuyumi's or Shoko's and force her to feed it while I reap all the benefits. Why didn't I think of this sooner? Also, Touya was still looking at me.

"Oh, uhh, what's up son?"

Touya winced.

Oh no.

He fucked up.

Burn victim? House on fire? Arson? Shoplifting? Destroyed toilet?

"Whatever it is, you know you can tell me." I took a few quick steps out of Fuyumi's room and shut the door.

Fuyumi's footsteps told us that she was very nosey.

"Umm, can we talk?" Touya asked and glanced towards Fuyumi's door. "Somewhere private?"

"I'll get my keys."

XXXX

The Pacific Ocean was to our left as we cruised along the twilight of the fading day. It'd be dark by the time we got home at this rate, but I intended to drive as far as I needed to to get Touya to talk. The more looks I took towards him, the worse he was looking. Whatever this was, it was eating him up inside. For ten years I've been watching this boy grow up, trying to help him understand himself even as I tried to understand him.

It wasn't like I was alone in this either; Rei was a big help in helping my transition into a father be ever so slightly less chaotic than it otherwise would have.

I took an exit off the highway, going down towards a beach we had visited during the summer, and guided the car into a parking lot. Even now as winter was upon us, a few shops were still opened along the boardwalk. The BBQ place that me and Rei said we'd come back to but never did was as lively as the day we took our kids there. But, the beach was sparse enough that a simple walk would give us all the privacy we'd need.

I exited the car and stretched. It took a moment for Touya to join me, the cold wind slapping his shaggy red hair about for a few moments. With a breath, I ignited a beard on my face, if only to help against the chill.

I walked first, guiding the way down a path I had never been down before. Only that wasn't true. I had walked this path before, behind my own father. I felt a bit of fear well up inside of me as I remembered what that talk had been about. What I had been so afraid of talking to my own father about. Though, I had the sensibility of talking to him early on the weekend, and we had fishing poles.

We didn't catch any fish.

We walked down a long pier that we had all jumped off of that day, Shoko had gone first, followed by Rei, then Touya, then myself, and lastly Fuyumi. She'd never admit it, but she might be a bit afraid of heights.

But, only a bit.

When we got to the edge, we were as far away from people as we could get. I found the ocean waves a few meters down, calling to us to jump in once more. I sat down and stared out at the last remnants of the sunset and waited for Touya to begin.

He waited until the final sliver of orange vanished from the sky.

"Do you remember, back when I was little?" He stopped and bit his nail, a few sparks rising from his palm out of frustration.

"I remember a lot about when you were little, like how you climbed every tree you could see, or how you were such a momma's boy, or—"

"Do you remember when you read Fuyumi that wizard story for the first time?"

I blinked.

That was right after I first started out as Enji. "Yeah,"

"I wasn't asleep."

Oh.

"Oh."

"Yeah," Touya muttered. "So. You're... not my real dad, are you?"

I sighed and flopped back against the wooden pier so that I was looking up at the stars. "There's a lot I could say to that, you know."

"Yeah."

"Genetically, I am your father." I paused, letting the word soup in my mind come to a calm. "And I'm in love with your mother. So much so that she married me twice." I held up my fingers even though he wasn't looking at me. "And I've always tried to be there for you, I've tried to raise you so that you'd be happy, and I've always thought of you as my son."

A thick cutting silence washed over us a thousand times louder than the waves crashing beneath us.

I started again. "But, as to whether or not I'm your dad, that's up to you."

"What happened to him? And, what was he like?"

"To be honest, I have no idea what happened to him. One day, I was just me, then the next, I was, well, who I am now, only about ten years younger." I let out a long sigh and thought about how to word things right. "But it's not something I've really worried about. This is my life now, so."

I shrugged.

"But, as to what he was like. Uhh. Hmm. He was not exactly, uhh, well, you have some memories of him don't you? You should know what he was like."

Touya kept leaning forward, staring out at the ocean. "Kinda. I mean, I remember hating training with him once I got my quirk, and I remember mom avoiding him, but I'm not sure why. I can't really ask mom about this, though."

"Well, he was a bit of a bastard. He only cared about becoming the number one hero, and he didn't love your mother." Talking bad about someone like this was leaving a bad taste in my mouth, even if it was technically my past self. "He married her because of her quirk. He wanted to create a child that could one day beat All Might."

Touya finally let out a laugh and flopped back down next to me. "So the exact opposite of you, dad?"

"Damn ocean water, must have splashed up on my eye or something." I gave the biggest cheesiest grin I could muster and looked at my bright eyed son. "Touya, never doubt that I love you, and I'm proud of you."

Touya shot up. "Guh, that was so sappy."

"Oh, right, you're a teenager. Those sap allergies suck huh? Do you get hives when you see me and your mom make out yet?"

"Nope, only when I hear you two take a bath."

"You can hear that?"

"Fuyumi and Shoko can too."

"Well, sucks to be you guys."

Note to self, figure out a way to make the bath a bit more soundproof.

"You know, I really thought you'd be like, mad about this, or something," Touya admitted as we stood up. "Like you'd be like all 'you have discovered my secret and must perish.' kind of deal."

"Dude, realy?" I asked, finally getting my knee to pop when I stood. "I think you're spending too much time on the internet."

"Says you."

Damn, called out by my own son.

"And hey, can you keep this between us? I'd rather not deal with a lot of interviews." I paused, and blinked. "Or like, rumors in general."

"Don't worry, your secret's safe with me."

"Awesome, now we good? Or you wanna get something on the way back?" I checked my phone. "Your mom wants a milkshake, Fuyumi too, and so does Shoko. Why isn't she in bed? Apparently we're having a family movie night."

"Isn't it cold enough?" Touya rubbed his arms with a bit of fire. "Seriously, I'm starting to think Mom's a bigger freak than you are in the winter."

I couldn't really argue that.

I checked my phone again real quick; a text from Nezu had gone unread from earlier.

Rat-Bear-Dog: Stop by U.A. this weekend! I want to have a chat! You can bring your wife. Or not. I like her. She's funny. 1 pm. I'll serve lunch.

Well there were several reasons why that was alarming.