I have a son.

I am actually a father.

When Keigo shows me his photo, all I register then is blank. It takes me a few minutes in my drunken state to comprehend that the child whose picture was bright on Keigo’s phone is mine. Keigo and I then talk about him raising Kaito alone, and the Commission’s way of keeping Keigo under their control with the way they trained him. It takes Keigo some time to calm me down again, and the conversation shifts to Kaito. I can see that he’s keeping something from me about the boy; I don’t blame him for it. Once he leaves to get to Kaito as soon as he can, I make my way to another part of the warehouse, and start mulling over what I had just learned over the past hour, without the League members hovering around me.

Waves of embarrassment wash over me as I start to sober up. Here, I thought Keigo would confront me after figuring out that I was Touya and I end up being the one who reveals myself to him. I clutch my face as I try to shake the embarrassment away.

And then settles in the guilt.

For ten years, ten years that I had walked alone in the streets, my Baby Bird had had our child, and had vigilantly raised him. My son, for those past ten years, thought his father to be dead, had been keeping a hope that I had somehow survived and would make my way back to him. I had missed everything; as I remembered the pictures that I had gone through not a few moments ago, I felt shame. My son grew up and I never was around to see him grow.

To be honest, as a teenager, I had always envisioned building a family with Keigo. I had been very absolute about it, I saw no future without Keigo then. It was all my fault. I thought I was leaving them all behind, my family and Keigo, without any regrets. I did not know that ten years later, I would have to face my biggest regret of all. To have left Keigo, and my child, my son, all alone, that too for ten long years.

The anger and frustration that now built up in me was directed more towards my selfish decision of the past. The blood starts to flow from the patches under my eyes, having fried tear ducts meant that I bled instead of crying salty tears. The fire in my hands incinerated the space in front of me, and the part of the warehouse I decided to hide myself for a while is burning by the time I come to my senses. My blue flames are soaring high within the room, and within a few minutes, everything in it is burnt to a crisp. I take a deep breath to center myself at the moment. It comes to me that what happened in the past, was now dealt and done with. I had the opportunity of a future with my boys in front of me now, and there was no doubt that I am about to snatch it.

One of the biggest obstacles would be trying to get to meet Kaito, especially when he is under the watchful eye of the Commission. I could try and meet him at Keigo’s apartment, but the chances are that it may be under surveillance. If the Commission finds out that I am Kaito’s father, they could use him against me; I being a villain they are currently after. As I am pondering my options, pings sound from my personal phone, and I smile as Keigo and Kaito’s self-portrait pops onto my screen. It seems that Keigo has already informed our son that I am Touya as the wide smile on Kaito’s face is evidence enough. My fingers brush over the two’s faces and my determination grows even more. I want to be in Kaito’s life, no matter what I have to do.

I message Keigo, clear on my intentions of wanting to meet Kaito. He messages me back that it will take some time and reiterates what I had already deduced that it would be difficult due to the peskiness around them created by the Commission. I sigh, I know not to expect too much, but after being absent from my son’s life for so long, there is no way I’d still stay away.

It takes about another week, with Keigo sending me pictures of Kaito daily, when we are at the now half-singed warehouse alone again. While trying to cement his place within the League, Keigo had been corresponding with them through me and I am able to easily lie to them about wanting to meet Hawks on his follow-up task. The others shrug and let me go without another enquiry and now there I am, a few hours of peace guaranteed with my Baby Bird. At first, we start talking about the League, but the conversation changes to what I had been upto in the past ten years.

“I…well,” I nervously scratch my neck. “You could probably say I was more of a vigilante? I lived with this woman who I called Onee-san first and well, she didn’t get to live for long. I guess her death caused me to take matters into my hands and since then I worked to get suckers like her killers off of the earth.”

“What happened to her?” he asks curiously.

“Physically abused, raped and then tortured.” I answer back. He is silent for a while before he speaks. “And the people you went after?”

“Domestic abusers, rapists, drug dealers, thieves and others of the kind.” I counted out with my fingers. “The word in the underground goes around faster than you think. Over the years, I was able to draft a list with their pictures and find the fuckers. Many of them paid the law enforcement off and were able to avoid prison sentences; they were on my priority list. Killing them off, it felt like I was on a high. As long as I was keeping the world safe from those bastards, I would dirty my hands.”

“And the piercings and hair?” He asks.

“Just to match the staples keeping my skin together and the hair was to mask who I really was.” I reply back.

After another 30 minutes of talking about my past, Keigo then asks me again. “Do you want to really meet Kaito?”

“More than anything else in the world.” I answer back determined. “If I had known that I was gonna be a father, I would have never left. I probably would have planned to get you and Kaito away from the Commission and settle with you someplace safe.”

My answer seems to satisfy him, as he then pulls out his personal phone. After messaging someone, he then taps on an icon and I realize he’s video calling someone. He shifts closer to where I am sitting, propping the phone in front of us and as the video pops onto the screen, I see our son on the other side of the screen.

I am suddenly nervous.

The boy is curiously looking back at the both of us. He’s set down his own phone and his hands are free. He then starts to sign and I am instantly confused.

“Yes, he’s your dad Kai.” Keigo chuckles back at our son.

Oh, I am so curious now. I wave at him with a “Hi” and he waves back at me, before signing again. Keigo smiles as he interprets it for me.

“He’s asking how you’ve been.” Keigo tells me.

“Oh.” I say nervously. “Good I guess.”

I whisper to Keigo as well, “Why is he signing?”

“I’ll explain it later.” he whispers back and I nod.

The awkwardness I feel at this moment is confusing me too. I have been around kids before if you consider my siblings, but somehow talking to my recently discovered son (well in my case) is making me more nervous than I have been around anyone in my life. I try not to let the discomfort on my face show, as the kid stares at me through the screen, his own expression as calculative as Keigo’s when he’s thinking. My curiosity gets the better of me.

“Why is he looking at me like that?” I ask Keigo.

Kaito signs back and that causes Keigo to burst into laughter.

“What? What did he say?!” I shake Keigo, trying to get him to translate what Kaito signed. Kaito himself is sitting there, smug and tick marks seemingly appear on my forehead as I realize that the punk signed something cheeky. And I am right.

“He says he’s looking at you like that because you are uglier than he thought you’d be.” Keigo finally lets out before bursting into laughter again, rolling on the floor next to me.

“Oh really?” I ask back, my voice deadly calm. I face the screen again and tell Kaito, “Don’t think Imma forget that young man, just wait when we can meet finally.”

I see Kaito shiver a bit, but I smile and he calms down, smiling back at me. We talk for a few more minutes before Keigo says that Kaito needs to go, otherwise a Commission member could catch him. As the call cuts, I face Keigo, my voice serious as I say.

“So why was our son signing instead of talking, Keigo?”