The Art of Listening

Chapter 10 - To Find a Voice

It was safe to say that, after all of the appropriate testing, her son had sensorineural hearing loss. Hearing loss to components of his inner ear. This type of hearing loss could be helped with the use of hearing support devices, as the doctors had initially suggested to her when Izuku was born. But the expenses were high, and her income was meager at best. Insurance didn't cover the cost of hearing aides, either. So, instead of taking the easy route, the one that would have made his life easier, she'd spent all of her extra time learning just for him. She'd learned Japanese sign language. She used pronounced facial expressions. She maintained eye contact when she spoke to him. She took him to all of the appropriate specialists because more than anything, she wanted him to be able to communicate. She wanted him to be able to sign and read and write.

Each day, Inko communicated with her little Izu. She god to see his smiles, hear his laughter, and watch him grow into a happy toddler. But while she did this, Hisashi sat there and did nothing.

Inko had just put Izuku to bed and was preparing to leave for her night shift at the hospital. Hisashi sat on the couch with a bottle of sake in his hand, like always. All he did these days was sit in front of that TV and drink his life away. Not once had he tried to find a job since he'd lost his. He never tried to do anything except get drunk. It was getting old really fast.

Inko found a flame of anger burning higher and higher in the pit of her stomach. It was one that had been there once she realized how wrong it was for her husband to have left her there, alone, in the hospital. And it was seeping out of her now. She slammed her work bag down on the counter, which startled the drunk from whatever stupor that he was in.

"What the fuck, Inko?" he slurred.

"When are you going to do something?"

"Do what?" he asked before knocking back the last of his sake. "What are you on about, woman?"

"Oh, I don't know, anything!" she stated, her voice rising quickly to a shout. She didn't have to worry about yelling. Izu wouldn't wake up. Her sweet baby would never know the arguments his parents had in the dead of night whilst he slept soundly. "You haven't done anything since you got laid off from your job, Hisashi."

He snorted, looking away from her and back at the TV screen. "I took out the trash yesterday."

"That was Tuesday! It's Saturday!"

"Who's keeping track?"

"I am."

"Why?"

She stared at him baffled. Why. Why? What the hell did he mean 'why'? The flames that were building inside of her erupted into a fiery hellscape of emotions and anger.

"Why? Because you hardly do anything around here!" she roared. "I need you to do something."

"Like fucking what?"

"Do the dishes. Throw away your beer cans. Find a job. Or, I don't know, interact with our son!"

"How can I do that when the kid can't hear me?"

Inko threw up her hands in frustration and signed, "Like this."

"I don't know what that means."

"Because you never try! You could have gone to the classes with me," she raved. "Your mother paid for them and was watching Izuku for us just so we could! But you were too busy getting drunk like you always do, Hisashi!"

"I'm not changing my life around for some broken kid."

There was that word again. Broken. The one she'd said so many times to herself that night in the hospital... The one she'd sworn she'd never allow to be used to describe her child. Here it was again, his very own father using it to belittle him. Inko wasn't having any of it.