Write a small self-para on how Sho came out to his friends and family, and how he looks back on it now, celebrating with the Avengers and the people of New York.
// to start with -- he hasn’t, really. not in an open conversation. but, you know what? maybe it’s time he did ! //
𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒅𝒆 𝒕𝒂𝒔𝒌: 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒍𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏. —
“Sho?”
Gaze torn away from the lights show above, Sho’s eyes fall to his grandmother, who had come out to celebrate — both to support the warm and uniting event that was pride, and to celebrate the fact that they’d be working together from now on. ( Sho is significantly less enthused by the latter reason, but has little leeway to argue that topic with either of them. Headstrong, they are. For the sake of festivities, he’s held his tongue. )
She stares at him in curious silence from where she sits next to him on the bench, and Sho gradually seems more puzzled as they exchange this look, because normally she would ask whatever it is before waiting for him to pick up the request. What’s different now? Eyebrow raised and eyes blinking, he smiles with intrigue. “...Yes, Oba-san? What is it? You’re looking at me funny.”
Kaori smiles back, but her own seems almost wan in nature, and she reaches forward to tilt up the pansexual heart pin on his shirt. Her other hand pats the top of his, and she laughs, albeit very lightly. “Sorry, sorry. I don’t mean to look at you strangely. I’m just... wondering — why didn’t you ever... tell me? You know I support your sister in just the same way.”
The look on Sho’s face is one of genuine shock, and unlike most of his passing emotions, it’s as clear as day — masked by nothing but sincerity. Had... he not told her? Come to think of it, he can’t think of a time he did talk very openly about his sexuality with the ones closest to him. He hadn’t hidden it, necessarily, he isn’t ashamed and never has been — but… among most things, this particularly large part of his identity seems to have been swept into the void that is all of the things he elects not to talk about.
Her words don’t imply that she didn’t know, but rather that they’ve never talked about it before. He hasn’t with his sister, either, has he?
It breaks his heart, to think that she’s probably known for however long she has, and thought he’d been keeping it from her purposefully. Breaks his heart to realize the same is probably true for his sister. He’s kept more than he’d like to admit to himself, but the last thing he wants is for her to think that it’s through a lack of trust. 29 years old, and he can’t believe he’s never had this conversation with her. She deserves more than to know me as little as she does, he thinks to himself.
After all, there’s no one he trusts more.
Struck with a lack of words, Sho clasps his hands around his grandmothers and opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. That’s how it usually goes, in the few times he’s tried. She doesn’t prod or demand, though, as she never does; she merely smiles at him, squeezes his hands in hers, and waits for him to be ready, if he will be. With that steady patience, Sho words are guided out, voice hushed and soft. “Of course, I know you would support me. It’s just...”
His words are lost again, but she forgives it; she understands it, well enough to stop the conversation in it’s tracks and wrap her arms around her grandson, smiling serenely as she does. Her hand ruffles in the back of his mop of a head of hair. “It’s okay,” she tells him before he can finish, and he knows she means it.
Her hug given to him then, sat on a bench of a pride festival under a neon sky ( lit by none other than their own, Mitsu ), surrounded by warmth of the community gathered there, grants Sho a stronger sense of security than he has had in a long, long time.
All he can think as they sit there is of how lucky he is, despite all of his other misfortune, to have the love he does right here.
