Taiya didn't know what was worse. Waking up in a hospital room or just waking up in the nation of Japan in general.
His head was pounding and his limbs felt like they were made out of lead. He felt like shit. Shifting a little in place did nothing to ease the awful pain. It was like an ice pick to the brain.
"Good afternoon." A voice greeted. Taiya flinched and opened his eyes, sitting up to try to search for the voice. "Hey, calm down. Its okay.".
The boy relaxed upon seeing the doctor approach him. "Dr. Okimoto." He greeted.
The man gave him a sad sort of smile. "Hi kid, glad you're finally awake. How are you feeling?" He asked as he walked over to adjust the IV tubing that was hooked up to Taiya's arm. The teen hadn't even noticed it before that moment.
"Shitty." Taiya answered honestly. He looked at the man for a moment. "Did the police tell you everything?".
"No, your teacher, that hero, did." The doctor explained, "What kind of shitty? Headache, nausea, aching anywhere?".
"My head is killing me and it feels like too much effort to even keep my eyes open." He relayed. Dr. Okimoto nodded and walked to the corner of the room, filling a paper cup with water. He held out the cup alongside another with two white pills in it. "This is a normal dose of Aspirin, if the pain continues you can take more in 6 hours." He explained. Taiya nodded and swallowed the pills immediately, eager for the pain to stop.
Dr. Okimoto was a doctor with his own clinic, he wasn't normally in hospitals. The clinic saw a few of the most popular people from Taiya's entertainment agency. He had been seeing the man regularly since he was about six or so.
"What are you doing here?" Taiya asked.
"That makes it sound like you don't want to see me." Dr. Okimoto teased, "I'm here because my patient was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance.".
Taiya's eyes went wide with shock. Ambulance? He didn't remember that at all and voiced as much.
"You wouldn't remember it, you had passed out. Luckily, you seem okay now. A headache is normal. You were severely dehydrated and in and out of consciousness for quite a few hours. Its now 12 pm, you passed out at about 5 am.".
That was...a lot. Taiya was confused though, hadn't he been drinking enough water?
Then he remembered how many times Mori offered him some and he declined. Shit. He hadn't had anything since before the awards show. That made sense.
"We ran a lot of tests to make sure your body was going to make it through this okay and we discovered some rather troubling information." Dr. Okimoto continued after the brief pause he left so Taiya could process things a bit. "You're showing signs of malnourishment and you're underweight.".
A stiff silence enveloped the room.
"Taiya," The man started, his voice oozing compassion in a way that made Taiya's eyes prick with tears.
The boy bit back the urge to tell the man to shut, or to rip the IV out of his arm and storm off.
"You're sick." Dr. Okimoto told him in no uncertain terms. "But you were tested for a lot of things, none of them came back positive. That leaves me to believe that you've developed an eating disorder.".
Taiya remained silent, biting the inside of his cheek. "I cautioned you about this last year, remember? After you hurt your wrist on the set of the drama?" He continued, "You asked me about dieting and losing weight and I told you that you were already on the verge of being underweight.".
He did remember. He remembered very clearly, now that the doctor had brought it up.
"I'm not mad at you, Taiya." He assured him, "No one is going to be upset with you, or mad or do anything to you for this, okay?". Silence. "I need you to at least give me a nod kid. Taiya nodded reluctantly.
"There are a few questions I need to ask as a preliminary measure." He explained. "Have you ever made yourself sick or induced vomiting in any way?".
Taiya felt his head swim with the amount of times.
He didn't like this. He didn't want to talk about this. He wanted to go home. And fuck, he didn't even know where home was anymore.
Hot tears pricked in his eyes. He really wanted to go home.
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Taiya had been in the hospital for well over 48 hours when he was finally discharged. A nurse had come to remove the IV and he had been allowed to collect some of his things that had been confiscated from him at the police station, including the new phone.
Now he was just sitting in a waiting room, again. He spent a lot of time in waiting rooms these past two days. Or maybe three days? He wasn't sure he slept through the parts where there wasn't a police officer or doctor present.
They told him his guardian was coming to pick him up and when they had he was relived. It had to be Mori, right? The company had custody over him if his mom and her husband were out on bail, right?
The door opened and Taiya got to his feet a little too quickly, ending up a little dizzy.
"Careful." A voice cautioned, "You just got discharged, but don't think I wont march you back to the front desk if I think you're too sick to leave.".
No amount of acting training could stop Taiya from letting his face fall in pure disappointment.
His teacher stood across from him in the room. Aizawa noticed the reaction immediately and offered him an apologetic look. "Come on, problem child. You're stuff from the apartment has been moved into your new dorm room. You'll start school again in two days on Monday, if you're up for it.".
The boy seemed to be rooted in place. "Where's...." He trailed off, not trusting himself to sound stable or unaffected. "Where's Mori?".
"He's not coming.".
Taiya blinked at his teacher. "What?" He asked.
"He's not coming." The teacher repeated, watching the boy's reaction closely.
'Why?' Was Taiya's first thought. Was he stuck in traffic? Was he also in the hospital? Had the agency called him into an emergency meeting?
"I'm your temporary foster carer." Aizawa explained. "As a licensed hero, I'm a foster parent and seeing as I know you already, I was the welfare office's first choice.".
"Wouldn't...." Taiya started again but stopped himself. 'Wouldn't Mori be the first choice?' He thought. Was he going insane? What was going on? Why wasn't Mori here? Why wasn't he their first choice?
Suddenly-a thought broke through his muddled stream of consciousness.
'What if he doesn't want to come get me?'.
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Mori stared down at the table that separated Aizawa and him. He took a deep breath and took the information in full.
"Sorry, you just did a really bad job at explaining that." He said, laughing. It was definitely more of a 'laughing instead of crying' moment though.
"Sorry. I've never been the most tactful hero. I avoid the public, most of the time." Aizawa explained, somewhat apologetic. Mori just laughed more and waved the apology off.
He folded his arms in front of his body on the table and looked over at Aizawa. "Can I ask you something?" He started.
"Within reason." The teacher replied.
Mori took a quick breath and pressed forwards. "I have partial custody of Taiya already. And I'm his primary caregiver, because he's lived with me for the past five months.". Aizawa nodded. "From a hero standpoint, how strong do you think my case would be if I tried to petition the court for full custody?".
Aizawa seemed a little taken aback. He hadn't even considered that outcome. He had expected Mori to be interested in fostering Taiya, sure, but asking for full custody was just like asking to...no it wasn't even 'just like', it was asking to adopt the kid.
"Its unconventional, sure. I'm his manager and bodyguard, I really shouldn't have any place in parenting him, but I've basically been parenting him from the moment the agency hired me until now. If he's finally getting away from his mother and he agrees to it, I'd like to have full custody.".
"This is a big decision." Aizawa cautioned, "The legal fees, the emotional stress you'll be put under, no one can guarantee that you'll be successful. The pain of losing in court could be worse than if you just remained as his foster parent.".
"Well I'm not one to do things half way." Mori told him with a smile. "He's already basically my kid. It wont change anything to have full custody really, except I'll have the authority to keep him away from any of the adult celebrity stuff he always wants to try.".
That had been about a day and a half ago and somehow, despite being the person managing the schedule of one of Japan's most famous and most difficult to wrangle celebrities, this had been the busiest day and half of Mori Kiyoshi's life.
He hadn't had any documents prepared in case he was in a position to adopt the child actor he was managing. Because, well, why the hell would he have that?
Look, the thought had crossed his mind. More times than he'd really like to admit. Sure, Taiya was a brat who, at one point, had a pretty bad drug and alcohol problem. But he was Mori's little shit, you know?
Honestly that period of time leading up to U.A had solidified to Mori that Taiya needed him. Who else was going to drag him out of parties before something bad happened? Or prevent career ending scandals? Or drag the kid home from an intensive three day shoot and not mind that he sometimes shredded the seatbelts with his fangs in his sleep?
He didn't claim to be the perfect parent, of course. He was far from it. There was a lot that he was sure most people didn't know about him. It certainly wasn't public knowledge.
Now that he took a step back after the strangest turn of events he's ever seen, Mori realized that he needed Taiya too. Being without him was strange. Returning to his apartment in Tokyo had felt just as strange as it always had.
With how often they were on the road, Mori was almost always in a hotel. Usually the room right next to Taiya's for safety. So on the rare times he dropped Taiya off at the mansion and then had to actually drive to his own apartment after, it had always felt strange. He hadn't felt that way in a while, the strange emptiness when the kid wasn't around.
Thank fuck the company paid him well and he had savings, both from his time as a bodyguard before being hired by the entertainment agency and from his time in, and there's no tactful way to reveal this, Japan's special forces.
They don't just let anyone carry around energy weapons in their car, that's for damn sure. Mori didn't bring it up often because to him it was just another job he did because he wasn't sure what to do with himself after high school.
At least a government job would look good on his custody appeal. Honestly, that was all he had thought about since he got out of the police station. Taiya and the custody hearing. Aizawa had directed him to the police and Mori had made his intentions clear. The custody hearing would follow the trail of Taiya's parents. God knows when that would be, hopefully the case's high profile would get it fast tracked, but Mori wouldn't be offended if the case was treated like any other. If it was any other celebrity he wouldn't want them to have special privileges.
Actually never mind, if it was another celebrity under 18 Mori probably knew them, or had at least met them at this point. And none of them were really bad, just a couple young misguided handfuls.
God, his thoughts were a mess. He needed to figure this out quickly.
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Did someone say ✨flashback✨?
Also sorry this chapter is a couple days late, I wanted to give the poll some time. You know, let as many people as possible participate.
That being said....as of me checking this last as I'm writing this author's note they are evenly matched. I had to read all the comments this time, because so many people liked both ideas. I had to figure out which was the person's ultimate choice 😅
Uh so yeah I'm not really sure what to do
You think I'm joking because normally right now I'd be like 'HA just kidding I'm going to tape sticky notes with 'a' and 'b' to some snails and race them' but I'm fresh outta snails guys.
Honestly, I'm just flattered with how much you guys seem to like my fics😊 ! Its giving me a lot of confidence to talk about some of my other ideas.
Maybe one day I'll even write the sequel 'invasion of the body snatchers'. Which fic is this the working title to the sequel for? That's for me to know and you guys to figure out 😈
Or maybe I'll even post the 21 chapter alternate universe version of one of my fics that I wrote by accident once. You guys probably don't wanna hear all of this 😅 basically I'm gonna leave voting open until chapter 37 comes out in hopes the score will tip in one side's favor.
I'd just write them both but exam season it coming up. Over summer tho, the possibilities are✨ limitless✨
Stay Tuned!