Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There’s a mouse wearing a suit. He’s standing on a chair, nose whiskers quivering barely an inch over the desk, and, even worse, smiling. Hitoshi hates when the goons smile at him. 

“Where’s Mr. Watanabe?” he asks warily. “Did you like, commandeer his office or something?” 

“That’s a delightful way of putting it,” says the mouse, which answers nothing. “Won’t you take a seat, Shinsou?”

He doesn’t move. “How do you know my name? Who are you?” 

“I see your sense of suspicion is alive and well!” For some reason, this makes the mouse’s smile widen. “But I believe I can answer both your questions with one stone, so to speak – am I a mouse, dog, or bear? I’m Principal Nedzu!” 

Hitoshi sits down in the chair, which creaks in the exact same way as it has every single other visit. His mind runs a million miles a second. “Wait, does that mean—” 

“You’ve already gotten into UA. Congratulations!” squeaks Nedzu. “Now, I’m sure your case worker let you know you’d have to move foster homes to attend, yes?” 

“That’s what this meeting was supposed to be about, before…” Hitoshi waves a hand to encompass the crap life’s pulled on him on this fine morning. 

Nedzu says, “I’ve pulled some strings, and you’ve been placed with a family who lives very close by. However, they are… unconventional.” 

“Is that code for something?” 

“They do not meet certain standards for eligible foster families, beyond emergency licenses.” Nedzu’s eyes glitter, all black. “However, if you want to go to UA, this placement must be successful. Do you understand?” 

“Of course, sir.” 

“Wonderful!” Nedzu claps his hands. Paws? “Shall we go meet them?” 

“What—now?” Hitoshi stammers out. “I haven’t even packed.” The government usually gives him at least that much courtesy. 

“Haven’t you?” It doesn’t sound like a question, so he doesn’t answer. “Watanabe, that’s your cue!” 

Mr. Watanabe, Hitoshi’s (former?) social worker pokes his head in before actually entering, like he always does. Hung on one shoulder is the ragged, neon blue hiking backpack Hitoshi keeps all his stuff in. The limp little man gives a limp little bow. 

Nedzu sighs. Hitoshi gets the feeling this was supposed to be more dramatic. “Well, come along then.” He hops from the chair up to the desk, and then down to the floor. 

Mr. Watanabe passes the backpack to Hitoshi as Nedzu pitter-patters across the room. He murmurs, “I put some, uh, snacks in there for you. You like shrimp chips, right?” 

For some reason, this penetrates Hitoshi’s shriveled little heart more than finding out he got into UA did. Maybe it’s just that shrimp chips feel more real than a hypothetical acceptance. “Yeah.” 

Mr. Watanabe gives a smile, a little nervous, like he always is around the villain kids. The thought sours Hitoshi, and he takes the backpack without a word. He hopes Mr. Watanabe didn’t warn the parents this time. 

Nedzu does some kind of acrobatics in order to turn the door handle, and then points his snout back. “Shinsou?” 

“Coming,” says Hitoshi. They slip into an adjoining room, where two men are sitting on a threadbare couch. 

Nedzu takes the time to hop over, shake their hands, the usual. Hitoshi takes the time to observe his new foster parents. 

It’s a gay couple, but Hitoshi’s hoping that’s not why Nedzu called them unconventional. The man on the left, blond and leaning forward with a wide smile, looks weirdly familiar. Hitoshi stares at him trying to place it, but something keeps throwing him off – the hair, the glasses, something.  

It might just be deja vu, though, because the familiar feeling doesn’t go away when Hitoshi looks at the other man – in fact, it gets stronger. As if sensing his gaze, flat black eyes meet his. Hitoshi doesn’t blink. Neither does the man. 

“—and may I introduce Shinsou Hitoshi?” 

The blond guy surges up and gets, like, way too close to Hitoshi. “Hi-i-i!” 

Hitoshi flinches back, losing the staring contest. But before he can say anything stupid like get the fuck away from me, the six-foot menace has retreated to the couch, trying to drag his husband up by the arm. 

“Uh, yeah. Hi,” says Hitoshi, briefly lost for words. Maybe he should’ve gotten more than four hours of sleep last night. 

“I’m Yamada Hizashi, and this is my… husband.” The man’s grin is just a little too wide for comfort. He elbows the other man and stage-whispers, “Introduce yourself!” 

“Aizawa,” he grunts, the picture of malicious compliance. Did they have some kind of fight before this? Hitoshi’s life is so exhausting, all the time. 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you!” Yamada enthuses. “We’re going to be your new foster parents.” 

“Yeah, uh, likewise,” Hitoshi says awkwardly, trying his best to imitate politeness while staring holes into Yamada. It’s too common of a name, but Hitoshi knows he recognizes that guy from somewhere. “Have we met before?” 

“Not that I can recall!” says Yamada, but then he winks. Is… Hitoshi supposed to know what that means? 

“Are you sure?” Hitoshi deadpans, in case this is some kind of prank. 

“Practically positive!” Nothing this guy says sounds real. Maybe he just reminds Hitoshi of some cartoon character or something… 

“Everything dealt with?” asks Aizawa, inching toward the door. 

“Almost!” replies Nedzu. He turns and tugs on the hem of Hitoshi’s shirt, in a disconcertingly cute gesture. “If I can do anything for you, Shinsou, please don’t hesitate to ask!” 

Hitoshi hates hearing those kinds of lies, almost as much as he likes exposing them. “Okay,” he says, drawing out the bag of shrimp chips from his backpack, “then can you throw this away for me? Where Mr. Watanabe can see it.” 

The atmosphere grows thick. Yamada’s smile twitches on his face. Aizawa grabs the arm of the couch like he’s bracing for impact. Hitoshi belatedly realizes that this is the mammal in charge of his entire future. 

“Uh. Respectfully,” he adds. 

Nedzu chitters, in what might be the equivalent of a laugh. “No, no, I didn’t take that as a sign of disrespect!” The tension bleeds out of the room. “In fact, I’m delighted to be entrusted with your petty revenge.” 

Hitoshi breaks out in a smile—the first genuine one he’s had all day. 

“Hm-m, why don’t you stay for a while? I’d love to chat more with such a promising young man.” 

“No. This is enough,” Aizawa cuts in. He clicks his tongue and gestures to the door. 

“Shouta, he’s not a cat,” Yamada remarks. He nudges his husband aside and says, “Hey, we’re gonna go now! Let’s go!” 

“I’m not a dog either,” says Hitoshi. 

Aizawa snorts and, surprisingly, so does Yamada. A foster dad with a sense of humor. Well, there’s a first time for everything. 

The adults exchange a few more pleasantries, before Aizawa practically drags them out by the scruffs of their necks. They pile into an old minivan, Hitoshi having to share the backseat with a suspiciously large black bag. 

Aizawa, in the passenger seat, says tensely, “Go, before Nedzu decides to hitch a ride.” 

“He’s not that bad,” says Yamada, buckling himself in even slower. “I thought it was cute!” 

“Of course you’d think that,” mutters Aizawa. 

“Hey, kid!” Yamada says, twisting around in his seat instead of starting the car. Aizawa groans. “You like Nedzu, right?” 

Look, Hitoshi tried. He really, really tried to be civil, but this kind of thing is—well, a trigger. He replies, barely restraining his voice, “I don’t like being a prop in other people’s arguments.” Goodbye, UA. 

“Aw-w, guess I better find another prop!” Yamada quips back, without missing a beat. He grabs the All Might-themed air freshener hanging off the windshield, and says in a surprisingly good impression, “I like Nedzu! That’s why I signed up to work for him even though I’m already a bajillionaire.” 

“Don’t treat me like a five-year-old.” Hitoshi represses the urge to add that All Might would never be a hero just for the money. His fanboy days are past him. He swears. 

“I’m not treating you like a five-year-old, I’m treating Shouta like a five-year-old,” Yamada says with an exaggerated wink, waving the air freshener in Aizawa’s face. The underground hero sits there with an air of extreme exhaustion as the neon-yellow thing baps him on the nose. “Besides, I thought you didn’t wanna get involved?” 

“I’m always—” But before Hitoshi can finish, there’s a sharp rat-a-tat-tat from one of the car doors. He leans over to the window, and sees two fluffy white ears. 

“I told you,” says Aizawa. 

“Hey, Shinsou, can you roll down—” 

Hitoshi’s already on it, opening it all the way so he can lean out to chat. But when he tries, his vision fills with white and he’s buffeted back by a warm, furry weight. There’s a brief press of a paw on Hitoshi’s shoulder, and he can suddenly see again. 

“… the window,” Yamada finishes with a sigh. “Hey boss.” 

Hitoshi looks to his left. Nedzu’s perching sedately on the leather, like he didn’t just leap through a car window. “Hello to you too, Yamada!” 

Aizawa hits his head on the dashboard, firm, like he’s trying to knock himself out. He grumbles something that sounds like, “Why is he here?”  

“This is the shared UA faculty car, is it not?” says Nedzu. “I am faculty!” 

“Ha-ha… yeah…” says Yamada. “You, uh, realize we’re driving to—”

“Ooh, what’s in this?” Nedzu interrupts, sniffing around the large black bag that Hitoshi’s been trying to ignore. 

“It’s a dead body,” suggests Hitoshi. 

“No, it would be unhygienic to keep a cadaver in the car,” Aizawa refutes, voice still muffled from where he’s pressing his face into the dashboard. 

Yamada sucks in a breath through his teeth. “Not the strongest argument.” Aizawa glares at him, and he puts his hands up, saying, “Hey, hey, we both know how your apartment looked before we fixed it up for the child. Like, same level of sanitary as a car cadaver, I feel.” 

“You are exaggerating. Like you always do.” 

While those two squabble, Hitoshi murmurs to Nedzu, “Hey, what was Mr. Watanabe’s reaction?” 

“He sighed, and picked it out of the trash. It’s a little anticlimactic for my tastes,” says Nedzu. Hitoshi doesn’t doubt it – the guy clearly has a penchant for drama. “Would you like me to get rid of him?” 

“Eh-h-h,” says Hitoshi. “He’s just kind of incompetent, which is honestly the best flavor social workers come in. Pretty impossible to be good at your job when you’re undertrained and overworked.” 

“Of course! A systemic issue,” Nedzu says. “Hm-m. It seems I must move a few items up the agenda. Aizawa, would you be so kind as to roll down that window there?” 

They all know better than to ask why he doesn’t exit through the one that’s already open. 

Aizawa lets out a deep sigh. “Fine.” 

Nedzu hops in between the two front seats, and says, “By the way, you should really take down that air freshener. It makes Yagi uncomfortable.” 

“Really? I couldn’t tell,” replies Aizawa. 

“Of course you couldn’t tell, Yagi’s poker face is as good as mine!” Yamada remarks. 

“Yagi’s poker face is better than yours.” 

Yamada starts defending himself loudly and passionately, during which monologue Aizawa finishes opening the window completely. In a flash of fur, Nedzu launches himself out. Hitoshi thinks he even does a somersault in the air, which really is just extra. 

“Floor it,” says Aizawa. Yamada speeds out of the parking lot like a madman. 

“Remind me to listen next time you tell me to hurry up!” The blond says, vibrating with some kind of manic energy. 

“I will,” mutters Aizawa. 

“Now, Shinsou!” Hitoshi leans back a little, with all that intensity directed at him. “We have a few questions for you.” 

Hitoshi knew this was coming. So he starts talking, and doesn’t stop. “Yes, I can control it. No, I won’t use it on you or anyone else, unless it’s for self-defense—”

“Sounds good!” 

“—and I’m not budging on that.”

“Alrighty,” says Yamada. 

It’s at that moment that Hitoshi processes the actual reaction to his words. He finds himself stumped, for a moment, before deciding to push his luck a little further. 

“So about—” Yamada starts, but it’s already too late. 

“I wanna visit my mom,” Hitoshi blurts out. 

“Sure!” Yamada answers. “Where does she live?” 

“Musutafu General Prison.” 

To the credit of the couple, neither flinches. Aizawa gives a grunt, and Yamada winks, again. Hitoshi is starting to think that’s some kind of tic at this point. 

“Tell us when you go,” says Yamada.

“Um—yeah.” 

They sit in silence for a few moments, before Aizawa asks dryly, “Kid, you got anything else to say? Or is it our turn now?” 

Hitoshi just sort of shrugs, uneasy. 

“So!” Yamada smacks the wheel, and the car lets out a loud HONK.  

Aizawa does a funny little jump, and snaps, “Jesus!” 

Hitoshi snickers. 

“Whoops, sorry,” says Yamada. He makes eye contact with Hitoshi through the mirror and wiggles his eyebrows. Hitoshi suppresses another laugh. “Butterfingers, y’know how I am.” 

“Oh, I do,” Aizawa grumbles with a good deal of vindictiveness. 

“Anyhoo,” Yamada continues, “Shinsou, do you have any medical conditions we need to be aware of?” 

Hitoshi considers lying, but—what’s the worst they can do? He’s already buddy-buddy with their boss. “I get really bad migraine, which is usually triggered by my insomnia episodes.” 

“Don’t worry, we’ve got the good sleep pills.” 

“Wow, that doesn’t sound suspicious at all,” Hitoshi says, and then realizes he probably shouldn’t sass his new foster parents – at least, not this early. “Um, sorry. That was unwarranted.”

“No, no, it’s fine. I love talkers.” Yamada waves it away, a fire lit behind his eyes. Hitoshi’s definitely made a mistake, but a different kind of mistake than normal. 

Somehow, over the course of the next hour, Yamada squeezes more information out of Hitoshi than he even knew about himself. It’s more than just getting to know him—Hitoshi is being interrogated: each opinion met with a counter, and he must counter that counter, and on and on and on, even about the most seemingly insignificant little things. He thinks Yamada might even be driving in circles just to keep the conversation going, but Hitoshi is too woozy from the interrogation to pay enough attention. 

“—which really proves free will is an illusion, doesn’t it?” says Yamada, his grin a little too wide, and sharp around the edges. “But that’s just my opinion. What do you think, Shinsou?” He brakes a little too late at a red light, throwing them all forward, and then twists in his seat to make direct eye contact with Hitoshi. 

“I think I’m done, actually,” Hitoshi decides, loosening his seatbelt so it's not strangling him. He can’t do this anymore. His bullshit meter has been reached. “What’s next, having to defend the Geneva Convention?” 

“Aw, how’d you guess?” 

A realization dawns on Hitoshi. “You’re messing with me.” 

Yamada winks. Aizawa gives him a look of pity. 

“So you were just squeezing my brain out of my ears for what, fun?” Hitoshi’s never been on the receiving end of that, and damn, it burns. If not for his pride, he might be taking notes. 

“Next time don’t let him know your thoughts,” says Aizawa. “In fact, don’t tell anyone your thoughts. On anything.” 

Hitoshi considers his quirk and general disposition. “Yeah, I’m not gonna do that.”

Aizawa makes a sound that Hitoshi refuses to consider a hiss, because this is now his legal guardian and he honestly doesn’t think he can handle that. 

Conveniently, this is when Yamada pulls into an apartment building’s parking lot (clear evidence for the driving in circles theory). Just from the outside facade, it seems a nicer place than Hitoshi was in before. That’s not saying much, though. 

His new foster parents insist on taking the stairs, not the elevator, which wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t live on the sixth floor. By the time they get all the way up, Hitoshi’s panting, and desperately trying to seem like he isn’t. Neither of the other two are winded, which is just rude.

Upon entering the apartment, Hitoshi feels briefly like he’s been placed in a black-and-white film, because there isn’t a single spot of color about the place. It smells of bleach and vinegar, and the decor could be called minimalist, if said minimalist were deep in a depressive episode. 

“I know,” Yamada, who now seems even more like a cartoon character, sighs. He tries to discreetly put a yellow doorstop on the carpet. 

Aizawa grabs his hand before it can reach the ground, saying simply, “No.” 

“But you like yellow!” Yamada cries. “Plus, it’s welcoming.” 

“I don’t want to be welcoming.” 

Yamada stomps on one of Aizawa’s bright pink cat slippers with his platform boot, gesturing towards Hitoshi. Aizawa lets out a halfhearted, “Ow.”

The exhausted-looking man lets the blond put the doorstop down, and only then does Yamada take off the boots that Hitoshi is now classifying as weapons. Hitoshi toes off his sneakers, which are peeling at the soles, and shoves them under the black-lacquered bench before either man sees. It’s not that he thinks they’ll care, but it’s embarrassing. 

They give him a quick tour: living room, kitchen, bathroom. Hitoshi’s initial assessment seems to have been wrong – there are pops of color scattered throughout the apartment, although he gets that feeling that it’s in spite of Aizawa’s best efforts. Most prominently, there’s a wooden cat tree, tucked into a corner of the living room. 

“Do you have a cat?” Hitoshi asks, unable to keep hope from threading through his voice. 

“I used to, but she died,” says Aizawa, face stone cold. Then a wide, vaguely menacing smile splits his cheeks. “That’s why I got you.” 

Hitoshi opens and closes his mouth like a fish. “Uh. What?”

Yamada slings an arm around Aizawa, crying, “That’s a joke, sorry, sorry, Shouta has a crappy sense of humor, ha-ha-ha.”

He elbows him in the ribs, and Aizawa recites dully, “Please forgive me for my lack of tact.”

“OK?” Hitoshi replies. 

“Great. Now,” he continues, “would you rather sleep on the couch or in a sleeping bag?”

Yamada coughs loudly and smacks his husband’s back. “Hey, no, we got the bedframe delivered last night, remember?” In response to a blank look, he adds, “And we pawned that mattress off your neighbors?” 

“He could still want to be in a sleeping bag,” Aizawa argues. 

“I’m good on that, actually,” says Hitoshi. He’s had people unprepared to take him in before, but never this unprepared. Maybe Nedzu gave them as little warning as Hitoshi got. Springing stuff on people is probably more entertaining to watch, or something.

“Then you’ll love your new room!” Yamada declares like a TV announcer. Hitoshi stares at him, and almost, almost, remembers where he recognizes the guy from, but then Aizawa buffets against him, and the idea disappears into the ether. 

Hitoshi follows, coming into a room containing: a bed, a window (with curtains), a desk (without a chair), a dresser with four drawers, and a small lamp on the floor. He can see Yamada’s influence in that there is actual color in the room, but they’re all neutral shades rather than the neons the guy seems to prefer, which Hitoshi appreciates. 

“Not too shabby for three-days’ forewarning, huh?” says Yamada. Well, that explains a lot. “We’ll get you more stuff in a few days. Sound good?” 

“Yeah,” says Hitoshi. The question he asks next always makes him seem like a brat, but he has to do it. “How many people am I gonna be sharing this room with?” 

“Zero!” says Yamada, patting him between the shoulder-blades. Hitoshi jumps, but it’s not… bad. “Anyway, tell us if you need anything!” And then he leaves. Just like that. 

Hitoshi’s never had a room that was just his – even when he was a little kid, when his mom took care of him, they didn’t have enough money for a two-bedroom. He technically had his own room when he was living with his uncle, after his mom went to prison the first time, but nothing in that house was really Hitoshi’s. 

And in foster homes, most kinds of privacy are hard to come by. 

Most foster homes, anyway. Hitoshi’s landed in this bizarro in-between situation because of his acceptance to UA. It’s possible other kids might be in the same circumstances and get sent to Aizawa and Yamada, but foster kids don’t have the resources or support to be high achievers – honestly, most of the reason Hitoshi even got to this point is pure stubbornness. 

He plops down on the bed, arms splayed out. It has navy-blue pinstripe covers, and smells like old people. The mattress seems soft enough, and the window shuts just fine. Hitoshi just wishes he’d known he’d be moving to another home – he would’ve at least packed some snacks. 

Well, they’ll have to feed him soon enough. It’s the law, or whatever. 

So Hitoshi waits. He unpacks his clothes, folding them in the dresser (leaving space, because while it’s not likely, he’s not gonna be the jackass who leaves no room for the new foster sibling). He takes out the old Nintendo DS that he thrifted for much less than its market value, and plays Pokemon – at zero volume, because some of his guardians have gotten really pissy about that, and things that get confiscated usually don’t come back. 

He re-folds his clothes. He plays more Pokemon. He lies down on the bed and tries really hard to take a nap. He gives up on taking a nap, and instead spies on the people walking on the street below. He finishes his Pokemon game, and restarts it for the umpteenth time. Yeah, he’ll do the fire type this time. 

At some point, Hitoshi gets hungry enough that he decides it’s worth the risk, and slinks out of his room into the kitchen. 

But there’s nothing to eat. They have a rice cooker, but no rice. All he finds in the cabinets are banana-flavored protein bars and Aizawa’s jelly packs. 

Quite frankly, Hitoshi’s had enough. He had a brief stint of wondering if this was some kind of secret endurance test Nedzu had set on him, but then decided not even the UA Hero Course was worth eating one of those protein bars. 

He marches into the living room. Yamada’s perched on the back of the couch, feet resting on Aizawa, who is lying facedown on the pillows. 

“I need food,” says Hitoshi. 

“I was just about to order takeout!” Yamada says. Okay, that sounds fine. “It’s an exciting new place, just opened up—Italian-Korean fusion…” 

Never mind. “I’m not eating that,” says Hitoshi. “But, legally, you need to give me real food. Not protein bars or jelly packs.” 

Yamada stares at him with wide, birdlike eyes for a moment, and then nudges Aizawa with his toe. “Shouta. Problem.” 

Aizawa’s eyes snap open, and he jumps up onto his feet. Somehow, he avoids smacking any body parts into furniture or Yamada. Hitoshi’s only a little jealous. “Problem?” 

“The child needs food.” 

Aizawa scoffs. “There are army rations in one of the secret compartments.” 

“Army rations,” Hitoshi repeats, despairing a little. Must he sacrifice his taste-buds to go to UA?

“Not anymore.” Yamada slides up into a standing position, unfolding his arms and legs like some kind of huge insect. He steps up uncomfortably close to Aizawa – chest to chest. Why is he doing this? Please, please do not start making out right now. “Because I ate them.” 

“No, you didn’t.” Aizawa goes up on his tippy-toes so he’s the same height as Yamada. “I made it up. I don’t actually have army rations in the secret compartments.” 

What does he have in the secret—wait, no, this doesn’t matter. 

“Guys, can you stop it with the mind games?” asks Hitoshi. “I just want, like, fried rice or something.” 

The couple don’t stop their stand-off, but Aizawa’s eyes creep over to meet Hitoshi’s. “I like fried rice,” he says. 

There’s a flash of movement, and Yamada suddenly has his arms wrapped around Hitoshi’s and Aizawa’s shoulders, and is dragging them out the door. “Then it’s settled! We’re going to the grocery store!” 

“This is your fault,” Aizawa says to Hitoshi. 

On the walk over, Yamada quizzes both of them on allergies, favorite snacks, dislikes and likes, preferable routes through the grocery store and what tasks they’d like to be in charge of, because apparently they’re treating this like some kind of military mission. 

By the time they get there, Hitoshi feels drained. It was a short walk, but Yamada has a talent for squeezing twenty minutes of talking into five. 

Aizawa stops them before they go in, holding out a handful of slightly crumpled face masks. 

Hitoshi doesn’t take one. “What are these for?”

“Grocery store has security cameras,” says Aizawa, slipping on his own. 

“Why would I care about that?” 

“Facial recognition technology gets better every day,” he replies, ominously. 

Hitoshi stares at Aizawa for a moment, rattled, and then covers it up with a cough. He asks Yamada, “Is he serious?” 

“Afraid so,” says Yamada, smiling. “Our faces have already been recorded extensively, but it’s cute that he’s trying, isn’t it?” 

“Are—are you serious?” 

Yamada winks, and pulls out a mask from his own pocket—that looks exactly like his actual face. Mustache and everything. 

“You both need psychiatric help,” decides Hitoshi. 

“I’ve never met a therapist that could handle me,” says Yamada, with a blinding smile. “Now, let’s get this party train a-chug-chug-chugging!” 

“Never say those words in that order ever again,” says Aizawa. 

Hitoshi can’t help but agree. But Yamada just cackles shamelessly, and plows into the store. The other two hurry after him. 

“What’s the limit?” asks Hitoshi. “For how much money we can spend.” 

“You don’t have to worry about that,” says Yamada, smile turning a little smaller and more private. “Seriously.” 

“Just don’t get unnecessary things,” Aizawa drawls.

Hitoshi starts doing the familiar mental calculations of how much he can survive on for the week, but his thoughts are interrupted by Yamada smacking Aizawa upside the head for no clear reason. 

“It seems I didn’t articulate myself correctly,” says Yamada. “There is no limit, so stop thinking about it! And if you do think about it, I’ll know, and I will stop you.” He smiles with pearly white teeth, the kind of white that’s clearly artificial. “Sound good?”

No limit? Yamada must be loaded… plus he seemed so familiar… Maybe he’s a talk show host? Or a pro-hero? 

Hitoshi dismisses that last thought immediately. Pro-heroes have to be mentally stable, and Yamada would not be cleared by any psychologist worth their degree. 

Instead, Hitoshi says, “Sounds good.” It doesn’t feel like it would be a great idea to argue with him right now. 

Whatever intense mood had gripped Yamada fades, and he asks, “Are you okay getting snacks by yourself? This guy,” he points a thumb towards Aizawa, “can’t be left alone in grocery stores.” 

“Seriously?” 

“Seriously.” Aizawa suddenly seems so much taller, looming in front of Hitoshi. “You’re in an unfamiliar neighborhood, and you’ve never been to this store before. You are surrounded by potential hostiles. Do you want to stay together?” 

“I wasn’t scared before you put ideas in my head,” says Hitoshi. 

“Don’t worry, we’ll protect you,” says Aizawa. 

Something traitorous in Hitoshi’s chest warms up. Protected. He wants to be protected. Dammit, he wants Aizawa and Yamada to like him. 

“Fine,” says Hitoshi. The depths he’ll go to for anything resembling parental affection from anything resembling parental figures. 

So they go around the stupid grocery store, and have stupid banter, and it’s all stupid and ridiculous and in no way meaningful at all—well, except for one thing. 

Shrimp chips. Hitoshi’s greatest love. His most loyal ally. A bag of crunchy miracles. 

He snatches one and sneaks it into the cart, but Yamada’s eagle eyes snap onto his attempt immediately. But instead of making him put it back, Yamada puts two more in, with the usual over-dramatic wink. 

From anyone else, Hitoshi would’ve considered it a bribe. Fake. But, well, it’s Yamada. If he wanted to butter Hitoshi up, he would’ve put way more pizzazz into it. 

It’s the feeling of sincerity that makes Hitoshi wink back. 

Yamada emits a high-pitched noise of excitement. Aizawa elbows him in the stomach, cutting the sound off neatly, and steers the shopping cart over to one of the checkout counters. Or more accurately, to the huge line behind one of the checkout counters. 

“Why don’t we go to the one over there?” Hitoshi suggests, pointing to one that's less crowded, near the corner.

“We won’t,” says Aizawa. 

“But it has a way shorter line,” Hitoshi points out. 

“We are going. To this one,” Aizawa growls. It even cows Hitoshi a little. 

The effect is immediately ruined by Yamada leaning over and whispering, “He’s buddies with the cashier.” 

“We’re not buddies,” Aizawa snaps immediately. “We are…” 

“Besties?” 

“… associates.” 

Okay, Hitoshi needs to see Aizawa’s bestie. He cranes his neck to look over the people in front of them, to the register. 

He catches a glimpse of a girl with a pink buzz cut and dinosaur claws for hands, which are wrapped in flimsy plastic gloves. She takes a receipt with her knuckles and hands it to a middle-aged woman, smiling a close-lipped customer service smile. 

At the sight of Aizawa, she seems to smile for real, parting her lips to reveal pointed teeth, spaced apart from each other and curved backwards. The phrase obligate carnivore springs to the front of Hitoshi’s mind. “Hey dude!” 

Aizawa refuses to look at her. “Please cover your name tag.” 

“No prob.” She crooks a single claw over it. 

“Thanks, Ryu!” exclaims Yamada. Aizawa’s eye twitches. 

Their initial interaction makes Hitoshi worry the cashier’s going to be chatty, but she’s not. If anything, it’s Yamada who’s talking too much, but somehow Ryu coasts along that conversation without being blindsided by his Yamada-ness. The talents of retail workers never fail to amaze. 

When they’ve paid for everything and put it all into big tote bags, Hitoshi thinks they’re done with this surprisingly un-bizarre interaction. Of course that’s not what happens. He’s pretty sure being normal for five minutes would make his foster parents combust, or something. 

“15,000 yen, and you never saw us,” says Aizawa. Almost too quick to see, he passes the cash into Ryu’s hand. She nods and slides it into her pocket. 

“15,000 yen?” Hitoshi sputters. “Is this some kind of blackmail situation?” 

Yamada bursts into laughter, latching onto Aizawa as his whole body shakes. The other man just sighs. 

Ryu looks at Hitoshi, and tells him, “Not cool.” 

Somehow, those two words are one of the most devastating blows he’s ever felt. 

So Hitoshi does what he does best, and redirects his feelings into antagonism. “Do you seriously bribe cashiers to pretend they didn’t see you at the grocery store?” 

“Or recognize me if anyone asks,” adds Aizawa. “And it’s only one cashier.” 

Hitoshi turns to Ryu, but the only thing that comes out is a single, inarticulate, “Why?”  

She shrugs. “Free money.” 

“What if someone else offers you more money?” Hitoshi prods. “Would you give him up?” 

“Nah.” 

“Why not?” 

“Same reason why I go to work every day instead of robbing a bank or whatever,” says Ryu. “‘S called a stable income, my dude.” 

His foster guardians are wearing twin grins, bright and mocking. Hitoshi shrugs and mutters, “Whatever.” 

Deciding that’s enough drama for the public today, they usher him home. He helps the two put away the groceries, and then slips away once they start arguing about whether or not to put the eggs in the fridge. 

Well, if it really is just his room…

Hitoshi does something that he hasn’t done in the daytime for years. He unzips the secret pocket hidden in the lining of his backpack, and takes out a Ziploc bag filled with colored plastic tokens – sobriety chips. They’re much brighter when there's sunlight to see them by.

Then he takes out a tiny mail package, one he picked up from his P.O. box this morning. Hitoshi opens it carefully, making as little noise as possible from habit. The sobriety chip shines gold in his hand: 2 years. 

Hitoshi registers the knock on the door just as Yamada bursts in. 

“Hey, kid—” Hitoshi can tell the exact moment the man catches sight of the sobriety chips. He crushes the urge to shove them back into the backpack—he doesn’t want Yamada to know where the hidden pocket is. “Ooh, is that a two-year chip I see? I’m proud of you!” 

He holds his hand up for a high-five. 

“They’re not mine,” snaps Hitoshi. “I would never do that.” 

“Well, whoever it is, I’m proud of ‘em!” says Yamada. When Hitoshi continues to leave him hanging, he high-fives himself. “Anyway, I just wanted to pop in and say toodle-oo, since I’ve gotta skedaddle.” 

By the time Hitoshi’s unscrambled Yamada’s meaning, the man’s already left the room. He scrambles after him, and calls out, “Wait, going where?”  

“I have night shifts, you know,” says Yamada, eyes twinkling. “And my own apartment.” 

“You guys… don’t live together?” Hitoshi asks. He hates how small his voice sounds. 

“We don’t have relationship troubles, don’t worry,” says Yamada. “It’s just a little bit unconventional.”

“Unconventional?”  

“Shinsou…” says Yamada, kneeling down and putting his hands on Hitoshi’s shoulders. “You know this is a barely-legal foster arrangement, right? Nedzu didn’t mislead you, I hope.” 

“… No.” 

Yamada pats his cheek. “Besides, you know if I lived here full-time, I’d eat all your shrimp chips. And I’m up at all hours of the night. And I’m a huge slob. Really, I’m a horrible roommate!” 

“Oh shit, really?” Hitoshi asks mockingly. 

“Language,” Aizawa reprimands him.

“Yeah, watch your fucking language!” Yamada shouts, dodging his husband before he darts out the door. It closes with a dull thud, leaving them in the gloom of the hallway. 

“Letter,” grunts Aizawa. 

“What?” 

He points. Hitoshi looks down, and sees, under his dirty sneaker, a thick envelope marked with the UA seal. His heart jumps up into his throat. With shaking hands, he picks it up, and then retreats hastily to his room. 

But it doesn’t tell him what he wants to hear. 

It’s an honor to get into UA. It was a long shot even to get into General Education. Still, for some reason, Hitoshi starts crying. 

There's a knock on the door. Hitoshi wipes away his snot and tears with his sleeve, but suspects he doesn't do a very good job.

“Shinsou—oh,” says Aizawa, looking extremely uncomfortable. “Uh, do you want a jelly pack?” 

Unable to control his tongue, Shinsou says, “Who the fuck approved you as a foster parent?” 

“Nedzu.” 

“I already knew that,” snaps Hitoshi. 

“Then don’t ask the question,” says Aizawa. His voice is calm—his face unaffected—his stance passive. Hitoshi is struck with the odd notion that this is Aizawa trying to be gentle. 

“Just… go away, please.” 

“Okay.” Aizawa closes the door almost all the way, then pauses. “I’m gonna make fried rice with whatever I find in the groceries. If you don’t want to eat it with me, I’ll put a serving aside and you can warm it up. But you will be eating it.” The door shuts silently. Well-oiled hinges. 

Hitoshi stares at those hinges and wishes, not for the first time, that his mom was here. But a new desire, small and unfamiliar, wells up in his chest: that Aizawa hadn’t closed the door. That Yamada hadn’t left. 

Most strongly, though, Hitoshi feels the urge to watch the UA rejection-acceptance. Again. And again. And again. 

After a while, he’s desensitized enough that he doesn’t cry, or look away, or close his eyes. This means Hitoshi’s vision is clear when, at the end of his speech, the Present-Mic-facsimile gives a very, very familiar wink. 

“Holy shit,” says Hitoshi. “Holy shit, he’s Present Mic! Oh my god!” 

Barely registering that his surroundings are far darker than when he last checked, Hitoshi sprints out of the room. He races into the kitchen, and is faced with the red eyes and floating scarf of Eraserhead. At the sight of the man, Hitoshi feels hatred, or maybe gratitude, which finally fades into embarrassment. Then he clocks the pink cat slippers on the man’s feet, and realizes—

“Holy shit,” says Hitoshi,  “you’re—” 

“Language,” says Aizawa, pro-hero alias: Eraserhead. He turns around, and puts a plate of fried rice into the microwave. It gently beeps as the plate circles around. He grumbles, “Took you long enough, though I don’t get why you were running around in the middle of the night screaming bloody murder. I thought you were an intruder.” 

“No, no, I found out—” 

Aizawa-Eraserhead shoves the plate at him, ordering, “Eat.” 

Dumbstruck, Hitoshi does so. Then Aizawa tromps away, and comes back with a thick white pill in one hand, and a glass of water in the other. 

“Take these.” 

“Are they the good sleeping pills?” He can’t help but ask. 

“They’d knock out a horse,” says Aizawa. “Now, I’m going to bed, and so are you. Goodnight.” 

“Goodnight?” 

Apparently unsatisfied with the uncertainty in Hitoshi’s response, Aizawa drags him by the back of his collar to the room. He turns the UA projection off without comment, and then asks, “Do you need me to tuck you in?”

“No!” Hitoshi snaps, feeling blood rush to his face. 

Aizawa just shrugs, and ambles out of the room, taking any answers to Hitoshi’s questions with him. Well… maybe he can just ask them… tomorrow… 

Hitoshi wakes up the next day at noon, on the floor, feeling more rested than he has in years. Those pills are no joke. 

He hears the telltale sound of bickering from the other room. He brushes his teeth and changes in record speed, desperate not to miss Yamada, now he knows exactly how busy he is. 

“Hey sleepyhead,” Yamada greets as he comes into the living room. Hitoshi can't help but note the irony of that statement, considering that Aizawa next to him looks like he's about to faceplant into his coffee mug. “What’s up?” 

“You’re Present Mic!” Hitoshi blurts out. 

A smile spreads across Yamada’s face – wide, and a little mischievous. “I was waiting for you to figure it out!” 

Hitoshi rubs the back of his neck. “Ah-h… yeah… I’m not good with faces…” He shakes the embarrassment off, and adds, “I always knew there was something off about you, though.” 

“Really? Tell me more.” 

“Well, you clearly aren’t a normal person. You have money but work weird hours, you make these big announcements like you think you’re on TV,” Hitoshi lists. “And you two don’t act like a traditional married couple, but pros marry for legal reasons a lot, so it makes sense that you’d be married to Eraserhead but not live in the same—” 

Aizawa’s sharp tone cuts through Hitoshi’s rambling. “You know who I am? How?” 

“Uh, when I was a kid, I went searching for heroes with villainous quirks…” Hitoshi lies. But it sounds believable, right? You can find anything on the internet. 

“Get me the intern,” says Aizawa, who then chugs his entire mug.

That can’t be directed at Hitoshi, right?

“Hizashi,” Aizawa sounds irritated, “I need the intern.” 

“Oh, you were saying that to me?” replies Yamada, a vicious look in his eyes. The hairs on the back of Hitoshi’s neck rise up. “Sorry, I didn’t realize I had clocked in as your secretary for the day. Would you like some coffee while I’m at it?” 

Apparently unaware of the clear danger he’s in, Aizawa says, “No, I can make my own.”  

Yamada smiles. 

Hitoshi retreats to his room, to get out of the line of fire. 

An hour and a lot of screaming later, Aizawa knocks on Hitoshi’s door. “I’m going to get the intern myself,” he says. “If you need something… don’t ask Hizashi.” 

“Can I come along?” asks Hitoshi. 

“Yes,” says Aizawa, and turns around, sweeping down the hallway. “How long’s it been since you went outside the house of your own free will?” 

Hitoshi hurries to keep up with him, running his hands through his hair. He didn’t know they were going now. “A while.” 

“You don’t have any friends?” 

“No.” 

“Neither did I, at your age,” grunts Aizawa, slipping on boots that he fastens with Velcro. He sweeps out of the door without looking back. 

Hitoshi jams on his sneakers, and staggers behind with laces untied. “How did you fix that?” 

“Got into UA’s hero course.” 

“Oh.” Well, Hitoshi’s already failed at that. 

“You got in gen ed, right? You can fix that with the sports festival,” says Aizawa. “I can train you.” 

Hitoshi’s heart makes a pathetic little leap. He can still get in the hero course, and a real pro-hero is offering to train him? It’s almost too good to be true. 

No. It’s definitely too good to be true. 

“What do you want in return?” Hitoshi asks. He’s not shaking any hands until he knows the catch. 

Aizawa gives him a long look. Hitoshi can’t see anything behind those flat black eyes. 

“I want you to win.” 

It’s no choice at all. 

“Deal.” 

They ride the train out to a beach that Hitoshi’s pretty sure was full of trash a year ago. He can just about see two figures, sitting beside each other on a bench: one tall and rickety, the other small and stocky. 

They both wave as Aizawa and Hitoshi approach. 

“Intern!” says Aizawa, the closest noise to a shout Hitoshi’s ever heard him make. 

“Eraserhead, sir!” The smaller one jumps up. He looks Hitoshi's age, maybe a year or two younger, and a few mean comments away from crying. 

“This one,” Aizawa jabs a thumb toward Hitoshi, “could find my name on the internet. Fix it.” 

“Right!” The intern straightens, and an eerily familiar fire enters his eyes. Hitoshi feels a small flash of fear. “When was this?” 

“It was on some hero forum, I dunno… I don’t remember much ‘cause it was a while ago.” That sounds realistic, right? 

“How long ago?” 

Hitoshi tries to think of an age that’s old enough he could reasonably find a buried forum post unsupervised, but young enough that he doesn’t have to ‘remember’ details. “Like, three? Years ago?” 

The intern swings a neon yellow backpack in front of him, bringing out a laptop that, under all the All Might stickers, looks crazy expensive. It takes his fingerprints before he can type in a password that’s at least twenty characters long. 

“I thought you didn’t trust technology.” Hitoshi watches the computer scan the intern’s eyes. “Especially new technology.” 

“I don’t,” Aizawa grunts. 

“It was a gift for young Midoriya from his mother, at my suggestion,” says the old man, rubbing the boy’s shoulder. He adds proudly, “I donated much of the funds for it, of course.”

“Who’re you?” asks Hitoshi. 

“I’m Yagi Toshinori. Pleased to meet you.” As an aside to Aizawa, Yagi says, “It seems your son takes after you when it comes to the social graces.” 

“Not his son,” says Hitoshi. 

“Ah.” 

“Foster situation, I’m guessing,” says Midoriya, click-clacking loudly on his keyboard. “Nedzu finally pull out the old license loophole, huh?” 

“None of your business,” snaps Hitoshi. Midoriya startles out of the fugue state that seemed to possess him while he was researching (?) on his expensive computer, and stutters out incoherent apologies. 

“That’s a good attitude, that really is,” Aizawa places his hands on Hitoshi’s shoulders and stares uncomfortably into his eyes, “and I want to encourage not telling anyone anything. But the intern is an exception. He can be trusted to keep quiet—” 

“How do you know that?” asks Hitoshi. 

“Because somebody was stupid enough to take a chance on him with state secrets, and he hasn’t screwed it up.” This comes with a pointed look at Yagi. Hitoshi wonders what state secrets Midoriya knows, and how to squeeze them out of him. “You must give the intern any and all information he asks for, so he knows how to best erase it from the internet web.” 

“Ha-ha, erase!” says Midoriya. Everyone turns to stare. “Erase, Eraserhead. Um. Sorry, that was a bad joke.” He hides his head behind his computer, and starts click-clacking again. Yagi pats his shoulder in consolation. 

Hitoshi decides to ignore that – not because he’s decent enough to spare the quivering intern, but because there’s bigger fish to fry. “I’m not paranoid enough to do that, Aizawa.” 

“I am not paranoid,” says Aizawa. 

“Yes, you are,” replies Hitoshi. He knows he’s signing his own eviction notice, but he really can’t help himself. 

“Oh, I dunno about that,” says Midoriya. Honestly, Hitoshi respects his boldness for continuing to talk, even after embarrassing himself like that. He wouldn’t have expected that from a little dude like Midoriya. “You’d be surprised how many assassination attempts Eraserhead’s gotten.” 

Wait, what the fuck?  

“How many?” Hitoshi demands. 

“Um-m-m, I mean, that’s classified information. Um.” 

This kid is gonna crack like an egg. 

“Tell me,” Hitoshi repeats, staring him down. 

“If you tell him, I’ll fire you,” Aizawa butts in. 

“Jesus Christ, okay, don’t tell me,” says Hitoshi. He doesn’t have a lot of boundaries, but he’s not getting someone fired. “How can you live with this guy as your boss?” 

It’s a genuine question, for once. Hitoshi’s been let go from quite a few jobs because he refused to take the bigger guy’s shit. Well, maybe he made a few unprovoked comments, but popping their egos is practically community service. 

“To be honest, it’s been pretty good for my self-esteem,” says Midoriya. “No matter how bad I feel about myself, I know I’m useful to Eraserhead.” 

“You are very useful,” says Aizawa, and even sounds like he genuinely means it. At least three assassination attempts, Hitoshi decides. “Are you wearing a face mask when you go to the grocery store?” 

“Yeah, totally!” says Midoriya, lighting up like his whole purpose is to wear a face mask when going to the grocery store. 

Hitoshi is suddenly very suspicious of this kid. “Hey, how come you know about the license loophole, anyway?”  

“Oh no, don’t worry! I may see Eraserhead as a father figure, but I’d never want him to be my actual father,” says Midoriya, patting Hitoshi’s shoulder like he’s the one in need of comfort. “It’s like they say, never meet your heroes, since they’ll inevitably disappoint you.” A dark look briefly crosses over his face. “And it’s the same with dads!” 

“Hear, hear,” says Aizawa. 

Yagi leans over to murmur something to Midoriya, a distinctly guilty look on his face. Hitoshi can just make out the words “merch” and “first edition” in Midoriya’s reply. 

Hitoshi’s first training session with Aizawa starts at 6 AM the following morning. 

“Why is this so early? I don’t even have school to miss,” Hitoshi complains. “And you work in the small hours of the night. Why are you making me run?”  

“Sure, you can go right back to sleep,” says Aizawa. “You won’t have to run, either. In fact, you can forget about having to train altogether.” 

Hitoshi gets the hint, and runs. 

An hour later, when Aizawa’s made him do laps, push-ups, sit-ups, yoga, and weights, Hitoshi gasps out, “How,” pant, “is this,” pant, “related to hero work?” 

“Conditioning,” Aizawa says, with a demonic smile. He clicks a button on the stopwatch, now that Hitoshi’s completed a mile. “Seven minutes. Let’s get it down to three.” 

After going through hell twice over, the sadistic demon that lives inside Aizawa’s mind has been sated, and they go back to the apartment. 

Only to be confronted with a bright-and-bushy-tailed Yamada, despite the fact that he’s already had a several-hour shift at the radio station and a villain attack that got on the news, declaring, “We’re going out!”

“End me now,” says Hitoshi. He thought his trials were over for today, but God decided it wasn’t enough. 

“Don’t you want your bed to have some nice, clean sheets?” Yamada asks. “And a chair for your desk? And a carpet? And a crate of more clothes?” 

“No,” says Hitoshi. 

“Well, too bad!” 

Surprisingly for a rich pro-hero, a lot of the things they get are taken from friends or neighbors who aren’t using them, or from Yamada’s own apartment. The fact that Yamada’s not spending actual money on him, and that all this stuff was just lying unused (as the man repeats, again and again), alleviates Hitoshi’s guilt, as well as his nervousness at any debt he might be racking up.

He wonders if Yamada knows that. The guy seems to catch on to a lot more than he shows. 

The furniture pieces end up being a bit mismatched, but Hitoshi’s really going for function over style. However, Yamada seems to draw the line at clothes, so they go to an actual mall to buy some. 

It’s loud and crowded, and Hitoshi has to sit through two hours of being Yamada’s dress-up doll before they can finally leave – with a literal crate of clothing. The worst thing about this guy, thinks Hitoshi, is that I can never tell when he’s exaggerating.  

“Okay, that’s everything – except for the sheets, we’ll have to order those, but no biggie!” says Yamada. Hitoshi prays that this is it. “Oh, I almost forgot.” Dammit. “Do you have a computer?” 

“No,” says Hitoshi. 

“I’ll ask Sasaki. I hear the guy goes through laptops like a chainsmoker goes through cigarettes,” says Yamada, and Hitoshi chokes on air. “You have a phone?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Show it to me.” 

His stomach curdling, Hitoshi takes out the battered, cracked old phone that he’s used for the past few years. Yamada’s face gets the pinched expression that everyone gets when they first see it. 

“Yeah, that’s not gonna do it,” says Yamada. Cheerful. Clinical. “We’ll probably have to buy you a new one, too, since planned obsolescence fucks up all the older ones…” 

“No, I mean—it’s too expensive,” says Hitoshi. 

“Don’t worry, I have a bunch of coupons,” says Yamada, bringing out an actual mountain of papers from his wallet. “I think I could even get them to pay me!”  

See, Hitoshi knows his phone is crappy. It was crappy even when he first got it. His mom had promised that she’d get him a better one – once she got a better job, once she got a little money in the bank, once the courts said she was fit to take care of him. 

Stupidly, Hitoshi had believed her at the time. He supposes he’s still stupid, though, because when Hitoshi looks at his old, crappy phone, he can’t bring himself to throw it away. So he sure as hell won’t let Yamada do it, either. 

“No,” says Hitoshi. “It’s not an option.” 

“I’ll let it go if you tell me why,” Yamada states. He slides his sunglasses down, electric green eyes locking on Hitoshi’s. “And the truth this time, dig me?” 

Hitoshi hesitates. But then he says, quietly, “My mom got it for me.” 

“Alright,” says Yamada. “Then let’s clean it up a bit, yeah?” 

“What?” 

“Don’t worry,” says Yamada, “I know a guy.” 

He brings up a contact called Maijima on his phone, and dials. Unfortunately for the person on the other side, they pick up. 

“My man!” he cries, and Hitoshi can practically hear how screechy it must be on the other end.

“Hey Yamada.” 

Yamada has the phone on speaker, but it’s still pressed up right to his ear. Hitoshi eyes the man’s black hearing aids, and wonders if they’re malfunctioning. Or maybe he's doing it on purpose. Hitoshi can never figure this guy out.

“How’s the Ingenium project going?” 

“It’s going fine, so you don’t need to stick your nose in it this time.” The words are harsh, but Maijima’s tone is reluctantly fond. 

“What, you didn’t appreciate my help?” Yamada tuts. 

“No, you did help, but…” A staticky sigh over the speaker. “What are your suggestions?”  

“No, no, I was actually calling to ask you for a favor!” 

“Oh.” Hitoshi’s pretty sure Yamada’s the only person who could make someone relieved over doing him a favor. “What is it?” 

“I need a cell phone guy!” 

“I am a pro-hero support technician,” says Maijima, “not a cell phone guy.”  

“But you gotta know someone, right?” Yamada says. “Huh? Huh?” 

“Alright, I do. He won’t do it for free, though.” 

“Aw-w, not even a discount for the friend-of-a-friend?” 

“You’re not getting me with that again,” Maijima says. “I’m sure you can talk your way into getting your own discount.” 

“Boo,” says Yamada. 

They end up heading over to the other side of the city, to a small electronics repair shop. Hitoshi tentatively hands his phone over to Yamada, who winks. Weirdly, it’s comforting. 

“Good afternoon, whaddya need?” asks the man, wiping his hands with a rag and making his way to the front. 

“Can you look at this for us?” Yamada asks, holding Hitoshi’s phone out. 

The man whistles, and takes the phone with careful hands. “Oh, when was this, nine years ago? Does it still work?” 

“It works,” Hitoshi interjects – from the look Yamada gives him, a little too forcefully. “Most of the time. Can you fix it?” 

The guy shrugs. “It’s – I mean, is it even worth fixing,” he says. “There are way better options.”

“I don’t care if there are better options. I want that phone functioning,” says Yamada, using his height to its full advantage and towering over everything else in the shop.  

The guy raises his eyebrows, and says he’ll do his best, but he makes no promises. And, somehow, Yamada still gets a discount. The man’s a menace, and Hitoshi’s taking notes. 

Two weeks later, Hitoshi’s woken up at 5 AM. 

“Get to the gym in fifteen, and we’ll spar,” says Aizawa. 

It’s way too early, and he got way too little sleep last night, but Hitoshi knows that if he doesn’t do this now, he’ll never have another chance. So he crawls out of bed, and gets ready to spar in ten minutes, not fifteen, scarfing down his breakfast. 

“Oh, you’re early,” says Aizawa, and smiles in the way he does when Hitoshi does something wrong. “But you really should take advantage of every single second of your prep time.” 

He’s proven right in just a few rounds, when Hitoshi’s keeping his breakfast down while trying to block and counter-attack what he's starting to think is some sort of inhuman machine. Like the Terminator.

Aizawa throws Hitoshi on the ground without breaking a sweat, but at least his food stayed down. Small victories. 

“Get up,” says Aizawa. 

Hitoshi gets up. Aizawa knocks him down again. 

“Get up.” 

His lungs and limbs are burning, but there’s something in his heart pulling him forward. He’ll keep going. He needs to keep going. This is his future on the line. 

“Exactly,” says Aizawa, grinning as he makes Hitoshi eat shit, again. 

Behind the stars in his eyes, he can almost see his future solidifying before him: train with Eraserhead, win the sports festival, get into the hero course, and at his graduation, he’ll have Aizawa and Yamada and his mom.  

Well, if she’s gotten out by then. And if Yamada isn’t too busy. But at least – at least Aizawa will show up, he thinks. Even if it’s just for the class, that would be enough for Hitoshi. 

He feels okay, for the first time in a long while. Maybe it’ll even last.

Chapter Text

The overhanging clouds almost seem blue against the prison facility’s brutalism. Hitoshi retreats further into the stale warmth of the car, but still refuses to meet Aizawa’s gaze. It’ll piss him off, and then he’ll mouth off, which will make this take even longer. 

His mom… well, she’s probably fine. It’s just that probably isn’t good enough anymore. Shouldn’t have been good enough for the weeks Hitoshi kept avoiding it, all the way until the day before the new school year starts. 

Aizawa’s voice cuts through his thoughts. “And how long will you be in there?” 

“I already told you, I don’t know,” says Hitoshi. “They change up the security at, like, the drop of a hat.” He thinks the guards get bored when they get assigned the general prisoners instead of the villains. 

Aizawa smiles—sharp and toothy. Hitoshi’s only ever seen him smile one way, just at different levels of intensity. Even his sincere smiles are a little creepy, but the dial can go all the way up to completely unhinged. 

Right now, it’s a quiet threat. “Let me rephrase. At what point will I need to go in there and get you?” 

Hitoshi bites back the scathing reply on his lips. Yamada, in some sick way, enjoys Hitoshi’s back-talk, but he also back-talks the back-talk, which there isn’t time for. Aizawa’s stoicism seemed to be a plus at first, but now Hitoshi’s extremely aware of the fine line he treads—Aizawa values bluntness, but attitude will be repaid double in training. 

“… Shouldn’t take more than three hours,” he grinds out. 

Aizawa nods, whipping out his sleeping bag from wherever he stashes it. Hitoshi rolls his eyes. 

“Attitude.” 

He scrambles out of the car and into the brisk air of the parking lot. The train doesn’t come all the way out, so he’s always been dependent on the whims of his foster parents to get here. Aizawa was at least quiet about it. 

Hitoshi greets the receptionist politely, and in return she slips him a hard peppermint. Hitoshi’s pretty sure she thinks he’s way younger than he actually is, but he doesn’t mind. The peppermint’s nice. 

Eventually, the security guards escort him to another room where they pat him down, scan him, et cetera, while they take turns playing cards in the corner. 

One, however, leans down and makes eye contact with him. Attention is never a good thing from these guys. “Hey, baby Shinsou, right?” 

“Yeah,” he says. 

“Your mom’s a bore,” the guy says. All the other men laugh. 

“Excuse me?” Hitoshi refuses to break eye contact, or blink. Just stares up at the man. 

“I said, your mom’s a bore. You know, boring?” More laughs. 

“You’re really funny. Oh, and clever,” Hitoshi sneers. “Who knew changing one consonant would suddenly make you not a sexist douchebag?” 

One man calls out, “Take a joke!” 

Hitoshi feels the red shame of powerlessness again, as the snickering guards show him to the visitor’s room. He heads to the corner where one of the lights has gone out—Hitoshi didn’t get a lot of things from his mom, but insomnia runs in the family. 

Shinsou Kaori sits slumped in the dark, gray-lavender hair hanging like cobwebs. Her nose is pinched shut with a little plastic clamp: the genius idea of the prison’s quirk counselor, probably. 

Hitoshi slouches into the chair across from her and pushes down the acidic anger that rises in his throat. “Sorry for taking so long. I was. Busy.”  It comes out a little in his tone, anyway. 

Kaori doesn’t reply, removing the clamp with her eyes still closed. She blows out a deep, wet breath through her nose, and a warm sleepiness starts to sink into Hitoshi. 

“No nap today,” he says, before it can get too intense. His last foster home was in the middle of the city and had horrible sound-proofing, so his visits were mostly made up of sleeping. It was always a relief when Hitoshi got there, but by the time he left, he was jittery with all the things he hadn’t said. “They have the good sleeping pills, at my new home.” 

Kaori finally opens her eyes, two blank spaces in her face. Hitoshi feels the drowsiness lessen, and out comes a thrumming undercurrent of affection and some kind of twisting, sharp emotion. Regret, maybe. 

“What is it?” he demands. 

“Hm?” Kaori tilts her head, because most people can’t tell she’s looking at them without the benefit of a visible pupil. Hitoshi used to hate it, hate how she flattened herself—but, at some point over the years, he forgot how to read her blank eyes. 

“What are you feeling so bad about?” Hitoshi presses. 

“I gave you my sleeplessness,” she answers. It’s not the whole truth, but the whole truth is too big to say. And Kaori has never been one to dredge up painful things just to point them out. She doesn’t like thinking about things she can’t fix. “I’m sorry.” 

“Aren’t we all,” Hitoshi mutters, half-sarcastically. 

She smiles—and then delicately, inexorably, makes to place the clamp back on her nose.  

“Jesus, don’t put it back on. You know that’s just a muzzle on a budget, Kaori.” 

Hitoshi wishes he could say that calling his mom Kaori makes her angry.  He’d know – with her quirk, anger comes up quick and intense, unmissable. Things like love and sadness, on the other hand, seep in slowly. 

With white eyes set on him, all Hitoshi feels from Kaori is leaden, helpless guilt. It weighs down his limbs, his eyes, his tongue, overpowers even his own bitterness. 

“Good behavior,” says Kaori. She closes her eyes, and after a few moments Hitoshi can breathe deeply again. The nose clamp is returned to the table. Small victories. 

Sometimes, he comes in here with a script. It always goes perfectly as he planned, because Hitoshi just talks, and Kaori just listens. When he was little, he thought his mom was magic, for always knowing when he needed someone to just listen. 

But Hitoshi was a hyper-verbal toddler, and an obvious one at that. It wasn’t so hard to let him talk himself out. No magic necessary. 

Hitoshi continues, anyway. He tells Kaori about UA, and Nedzu, and his weird new foster guardians—excluding certain less-legal details. He tells her yes, he’s been holding steady at the animal shelter job, and no, he hasn’t visited his uncle’s grave. 

“I’m visiting here, though,” he says. 

“I’m not dead yet,” Kaori sighs. She does it through her nose, so Hitoshi can really feel her disappointment. 

“If I didn’t visit, then would you be?” 

His mom doesn’t open her eyes, though her mouth pinches tight. She’s the one person who never rises to his bait, but it’s not like he needs to know. It’s not like it matters. 

He told her what he wanted to tell her. He did what he wanted to do. He can go now. 

“Hitoshi.” 

Hitoshi stops, as always. He looks over his shoulder, and a wave of warm, warm, love washes over him as he meets his mother’s eyes, along with the usual twinges of guilt. He nods, once. He understands. 

Then Hitoshi goes, through the security and the receptionist and out into the brisk air of the parking lot. He walks over to the car, and sees Aizawa in the exact position he collapsed into when he left, snoring quietly. He knocks on the door. 

The man immediately sits up, eyes wide and darting around, before he slouches back again, lethargically unlocking the car. Hitoshi slips in. 

Aizawa’s eyes rest on him for a moment, and then scuttle away. It raises Hitoshi’s hackles. 

“Don’t you have anything to say?” he demands. 

“Not really,” Aizawa replies. “Do you want me to?” 

“What are you, my therapist?” Hitoshi rolls his eyes. “I thought you valued bluntness, not dancing around a point and wasting both of our time. I mean—”

He trails off when he realizes that the rough, rumbling sound is Aizawa chuckling. 

“I – why are you laughing?” 

“You’re a lot like Hizashi, you know?” Aizawa says, something like a smile tugging at his lips. “You just need something to set you off.” 

“Whatever,” Hitoshi mutters. 

Aizawa’s phone buzzes. He mutters a curse, as is the standard Aizawa reaction to interacting with any technology. He fishes it out from the bottom of his sleeping bag, and whatever it is turns Aizawa’s annoyance-frown into a concerned-frown. 

“Shinsou, can you provide more details about where you found out information about me?” he asks. “The intern has been unable to find it, which is unusual considering his perfect track record.”

“Perfect?” 

“Most likely because he wrote a lot of those internet posts himself.” Aizawa mimes zipping his lips shut. “But don’t tell him I know that.” 

Hitoshi smiles weakly. “Um-m-m… What will you do if the intern can’t find it?” 

“Hire an actual cyber-security professional.” 

Hitoshi looks away, although he feels the weight of Aizawa’s expectant gaze. “It’s—I lied, earlier,” he stutters out. “I… didn’t know you from a, a hero forum, or whatever. You were there at my mom’s trial.” 

Aizawa’s only reaction is a thoughtful hum. “Shinsou…” 

“Kaori. Shinsou Kaori,” Hitoshi finishes for him. “She can’t really control her quirk, especially when she’s emotional. So they were gonna charge her with villainy, for, um, quirk-assisted obstruction of justice, ‘cause she influenced the feelings of the jurors.” Which would’ve gotten me blacklisted from every hero course in the country, goes unsaid. “You erased her quirk, so she could have a fair trial.” 

A silence follows. 

Hitoshi remembers being a little boy, drinking from a juice box that the man with the red eyes—Eraserhead—had given him. He was scared, because he couldn’t feel his mom's love anymore, just the stuffiness of the courtroom. So he asked Eraserhead to be his dad, but Eraserhead said no. 

Hitoshi used to look at that as the day he was set free, and the day he lost control. But a long enough time has passed to make it feel like his life could’ve never happened any other way. And there’s no point feeling anything about inevitabilities; you just have to live with it. 

“… You were going to live with your uncle,” says Aizawa, tugging Hitoshi back to the present. 

“Yeah, well, he was—sick. Mentally ill.” Mr. Watanabe isn’t good for much, but the man’s way of couching things in emotionless terminology keeps Hitoshi from sinking back into the memories. 

Aizawa offers no condolences. “We’ll take care of you,” he says, and rests a hand on Hitoshi’s shoulder. 

Hitoshi stares at this guy, who’s just… offering it all on a plate. He feels the words slip out, a little against his will, like always, blunt stones dropping from his lips. “You know you’re not gonna be able to adopt me, right? I already have a mom.” 

“Are you saying that because you think you have no other options?” 

Hitoshi stares down into his lap. He’s a little surprised to see that his hands aren’t curled into fists. “No. Kaori’s – my mom’s trying. She got sober, and she’s gonna get her high school diploma, and she'll try and get a real job when she gets out.” It runs out like water, each word following the other in a well-worn pattern. 

“Do you trust her?” 

“I want to,” Hitoshi replies. “It’s just… one last chance. That’s all.” He can’t quite explain why he can’t give up on Kaori just yet. It’s the same reason why he can’t give up on the hero course, probably. Hitoshi’s more stubborn than he is smart. 

“Adoption will be plan B, then,” Aizawa says. 

Hitoshi lets out a short, surprised bark of a laugh. “Plan B?” 

“Nedzu’s not the only one who likes you, you know.” Aizawa’s smile creeps closer and closer to unhinged. 

“Oh my God,” says Hitoshi. “Have you even talked about this with Yamada?” 

“Don’t need to.” 

“Oh my God.” And then Hitoshi starts laughing, and he can’t stop. It bubbles out of him, inevitable as the tide. There’s a warmth in his chest, too, one that he’s only felt when he’s been within quirk range of his mother. 

They go home in a kind of joyful haze, which is shattered the moment Aizawa opens the apartment door. 

A salivating, growling beast jumps and tugs at the only thing holding it back, a stick-thin cord held by a stick-thin man: Present Mic himself. 

“Hi guys!” he greets, like there’s nothing wrong here. “I’m dog-sitting—isn’t Tiramisu so cute?” 

“No, he isn’t,” says Hitoshi, vaguely fearing for his life. 

“You mean, no she isn’t,” Yamada corrects, focusing on the least important aspect of this situation. The beast jumps up and down, spit flying. 

“Keep that rabid thing away from me.” Aizawa’s pinned himself against the wall, activating his quirk. This does not deter Tiramisu, although Yamada’s making some pointed humming noises and pointing to his throat. 

Aizawa drops his quirk, inching down the hallway. Tiramisu tries to follow after him, making some kind of horrible bark/scream… yelp. 

“It’s not rabid, is it?” Hitoshi asks. “Shouldn’t dogs be trained, or something?” 

“This is Vlad King’s dog,” Yamada says, turning his head to bore cartoon-green eyes into Hitoshi. “Are you suggesting that a pro-hero wouldn’t properly train his pet?” 

With those eyes piercing into him, Hitoshi feels the same way as when his middle school teacher asked him if he thought she was incompetent, or when his uncle asked if Hitoshi thought he was stupid. “Yes.” 

“Wonderful! I’ll call him, so you can say so to his face.” In getting out his phone, Yamada drops the leash that was holding the ravening beast back, and Tiramisu tackles Aizawa with a vengeance. 

The dog bowls the man over, but instead of ripping flesh and drinking blood, it starts licking him. On his face, his neck, his ears… the list goes on. Hitoshi goggles in shock. 

“Tiramisu loves Shouta. Aggressively,” Yamada says. He transfers his attention to the phone and croons, “Sekijiro!” 

“What is it? Is everything okay with Tira?” The man sounds overly worried for a beast that can overpower Aizawa. 

“Yes, yes, everything’s fine. She’s showering Shouta with love at the moment,” Yamada replies carelessly. “I just have a listener here with something to say to you!” 

He prods the phone at Hitoshi’s face, who’s shocked still from the fact that a) Tiramisu hasn’t murdered Aizawa and b) Yamada actually went and called a pro-hero because of a stupid thing Hitoshi said. 

He’s saved from having to answer by Aizawa, who’s holding the dog at bay with both hands and a leg, saying, “Vlad, Hizashi only called you to use you as a pawn  his psychological warfare.” 

“… Okay,” says Vlad King. “But to be clear, Tira’s fine?” 

“Yes, the dog’s—” 

“Then it isn’t really any of my business,” Vlad King interrupts, and then hangs up. 

Aizawa freezes, enough fury in his eyes to make someone drop dead. “I hate that guy so much.” Unbothered, Tiramisu licks his hand. The man turns his red-lit gaze onto the dog and hisses, “You’re just like him.” 

Yamada takes a photo. “So cute,” he says, wiping a fake tear from his eye. Then he leans over and grabs the scruff of Tiramisu’s neck, who scrabbles at the floor as she's dragged away from her victim. “Say hi to her, Shinsou!” 

“Hi,” says Hitoshi. He carefully holds out a hand to the slobbering, gnashing maw. Tiramisu sniffs at his hand, and then licks a stripe up his arm, but there’s no jumping or tackling. 

“She’s careful with kids,” says Yamada. 

Hitoshi considers the wrinkly brown muzzle, Tiramisu staring up at him with clear expectations of being pet. Hitoshi caves. 

“I still like cats more,” he says. 

“Scratch her under her chin, she likes that,” is Yamada’s rebuttal. 

Hitoshi scratches her under her chin, and Tiramisu’s tail-wagging accelerates. Aizawa squeezes past them and tries to make his escape further into the apartment. 

 In the good spirit of vindictiveness, Yamada calls out, “Hey, where are you going?” 

“I’m making yakisoba, or something,” Aizawa spits out. “Don’t disturb me while I’m cooking, or fifteen laps.” With that, he flees. 

Hitoshi spends the next few hours tentatively trying to control the beast Tiramisu, and definitely not thinking about his first day at school tomorrow. Yamada’s doing something unspeakable to a can of hair-spray in the corner, and being very loud about it. Occasionally he makes snide comments about Hitoshi being a performative cat person. 

“I’m not!” Hitoshi hisses, making sure that his voice is low enough so Aizawa doesn’t hear. “She’s a savage animal. I’m taming her.” 

Yamada offers to show him how to make her roll over, but Hitoshi absolutely refuses. He’s not here to play around. 

Eventually Aizawa comes out with blackened hands and a filthy apron, holding steaming, singed dishes of yakisoba. Hitoshi doesn’t care enough not to dig in—any food is good food, and to some extent he's still waiting for the day his foster guardians get tired of doing this for him. When he'll have to go back to the way it was before...

Yamada, however, hesitates. “Uh, Shou… is this safe?” 

“Eat it or starve.” 

“Your love is so beautiful,” Hitoshi comments between mouthfuls. 

“Shut it, brat.” 

They stay in slurping silence for a while, enjoying Aizawa’s tasty, if dubious, cooking. Finally, Hitoshi works up the nerve to ask, “Yamada, are you staying tonight?” 

A small smile, constructed with a touch of apology, graces Yamada’s face. It’s not enough to cool Hitoshi’s resolve. “Afraid not.” 

“Then I’ll sleep over at your apartment,” he says, sharp instead of pleading. 

Yamada looks shocked for a split-second, but—well, it’s Yamada. “Of course!” he cheers. “Just make sure you have all your stuff for your first day at school tomorrow, yeah?” 

Hitoshi’s always packed, so it’s not like that’s a problem, but he double-checks everything anyway. Tiramisu follows them around almost as closely as Aizawa, who keeps on slipping things into his backpack—extra pencils, a neck pillow, Yamada’s highlighter-yellow doorstop… 

Hitoshi’s trying and failing to ignore Tiramisu’s puppy eyes when there’s a sharp r-r-rip, and a knife clatters onto the floorboards. 

“That’s a poor-quality knife sheath,” Aizawa says, nonplussed. “What material is this?” He fingers at the tear on the side of Hitoshi’s backpack. 

“It’s not a knife sheath!” Hitoshi sputters out. 

“Then what is it for?” he asks, raising an eyebrow and gesturing to the narrow pocket like there’s no other reasonable explanation. 

“Not knives!” 

“Okay,” says Aizawa, with the air of someone who’s dealing with a demanding toddler, and scoops the blade up from the floor. “Then where should I put it?” 

Yamada leans over and plucks the weapon out of his hands. “You can’t give Shinsou a knife.” 

Is he actually being a reasonable person right now? 

Yamada continues, “He doesn’t know how to use it yet! Here, have some pepper spray instead.” 

Of course not. 

“You people are insane,” Hitoshi says, but takes the spray bottle. 

“Aim for the eyes,” Yamada advises. 

They finish packing pretty soon after that. Aizawa hovers around, delaying their exit, until Yamada threatens to sic Tiramisu on him again. 

Hitoshi follows after the blond and the dog to a bench just outside a metro station. The metal of the bench half-reflects the harsh white of fluorescent lights, and half the fire of the setting sun. Yamada fills the quiet with chatter, but Hitoshi just stares at the sky. 

“Mic?” A bulky figure approaches, and Hitoshi’s almost surprised. He just didn’t expect a pro-hero meeting place to be here. Or for a pro-hero to wear flannel and hiking boots. 

“Yo!” Yamada waves wildly, almost hitting both Hitoshi and a stop sign. 

“Oh, Tiramisu,” Vlad King sighs out. She bounds up to him and starts licking everything she can reach, a huge furry maniac. He laughs, rubbing her wrinkly neck. “Aw-w-w, good dog. Yes, yes, I missed you too!” 

Slightly uncomfortable, Hitoshi sneaks a look at Yamada—who catches his eye and winks, a comfortable smile on his face. 

“Thanks for taking care of her, man,” Vlad King says to Yamada. Tiramisu has a big doggy smile, pressed against Vlad’s leg as the man scratches her head. “You too, kid.” 

Hitoshi feels his face turn red, even though it really shouldn’t. “I didn’t, really, do much. Apart from distracting her from Aizawa, I guess.” 

“Well, that’s still pretty good in my books.” 

“See you tomorrow, Sekijiro?” Yamada says. 

“Usual time,” he confirms, leaning back with his hands on his hips. “I’m guessing we’ll be picking you and the kid up tomorrow morning?” 

“You betcha!” Yamada gives him two finger guns and a wink. “Ask Nemuri, she has my address—and the keys to my apartment. Hey, while you’re on that, can you tell her she’s not allowed to barge in while the kid’s there?” 

Hitoshi’s heard about Nemuri a million times since he came to live with Aizawa, but he’s never actually met her. They say it’s because she’s “a lot,” whatever that means, but Hitoshi knows it’s thanks to Aizawa’s hermit tendencies. He’s pretty sure if he lived with Yamada, he would’ve been introduced to every friend and friend’s friend and casual acquaintance in the whole prefecture. 

While Yamada’s talking, Vlad tugs at Tiramisu to leave. Yamada wraps himself around the broad man before he can escape. “We-e-ell?” 

“I doubt she’d listen to me,” he mutters. 

Yamada makes a tutting sound, but releases Vlad. The pro-hero and his dog bid a hasty retreat. 

They head to the metro station. Yamada regales Hitoshi with stories of his day—Tiramisu chewing through his slippers, trying to train Tiramisu to shake his hand and failing, keeping Tiramisu from drinking his coffee… Hitoshi tunes it out after a while. 

“Oh, but enough about me!” Yamada swings an arm around his shoulder, and Hitoshi just barely doesn’t flinch. If he did, Yamada would move away, and it’s cold on the train. “How was your visit to your mom?” Yamada nudges Hitoshi’s shoulder with his own. “You can talk to me about it. I promise I won’t tell.” 

Hitoshi’s confused for a moment—it’s not like there’s anyone to tell. Then he realizes: he took Aizawa with him. Even though he didn’t say anything to the guy, Yamada can’t know that. Notoriously nosy Present Mic must think he’s the only one out of the loop. 

Well. It’s not like Hitoshi owes him anything, nor that he trusts Aizawa any more. Hitoshi’s family used to do this all the time, jostling over who the family’s youngest liked best—until they heard what he did to beloved Uncle Fuu. 

It doesn’t take much. Just piss them off enough, and everything will come pouring out. 

“Aw, you jealous that Aizawa’s my favorite?” 

“Aha, very funny, but let’s not make those kinds of jokes around Shouta, hm-m?” Yamada suggests, winking in the same way as always. Is he really unaffected or just that good at lying? 

“Why not?”

“He is—I think Nemmy put it as chronically competitive,” Yamada says. “If there’s a contest, Shouta has to win it. If there were a ranking for unders like there is for us…” He sucks in a breath through his teeth. 

“Seriously?” Hitoshi says, out of disgust rather than disbelief. He thought underground heroes were supposed to be better.

“Woah, easy on the judgment! We all got something wrong with us, kid,” Yamada says, eyes hidden by the brightness of his glasses, his teeth. “It’s a matter of whether the good parts outweigh the bad, yeah?” 

His hand ruffles Hitoshi’s hair, and then lays there like some wide, warm spider. It stays a steady support, even as the metro shakes all of Hitoshi’s protests out of him. 

“How do you decide?” Hitoshi asks, finally, staring at Yamada’s messenger bag as its inertia swings it against the rhythm of the train. “Who’s good enough, and who’s not worth it.” 

“Eh-h-h, it’s not an exact science,” he smoothly avoids answering. So slippery—getting a read on Yamada feels like scrabbling at a wall of plastic. 

“Stop evading the question,” says Hitoshi, embarrassment supplanted by frustration. It can’t be that hard to give a straightforward answer. “For a limelight hero, you sure seem good at deflecting attention away from yourself.” 

“And for an underground hopeful, you sure seem pretty nosy!” 

“I’m – it’s not like that!” Hitoshi stutters out in offense. “I would never be a limelight, that would – I mean,”  he back-tracks as Yamada’s eyebrows creep higher and higher, “uh. That’s… not how I meant it?” 

“Aw-w-w. I’m sorry, you’re a super cool and tough underground pro-hero who’s nothing like those shallow limelights.” Yamada manages to keep up the facade for a few seconds longer, but at the sight of Hitoshi’s face, he lets out a clear, ringing cackle. “Cheer up a little, listener! I’m plenty nosy too, ya know.” 

Hitoshi buries his face in his hands. “Don’t call me a listener. It doesn’t even make any sense, I’m not listening to anything.” 

“You listen to me, don’tcha?” 

“No comment.” 

Yamada gently mocks Hitoshi for the rest of the ride. They walk out into a brighter, louder part of the city than they left, even this late at night. People who are waiting at bus stops and eating in restaurants and selling street food all call out to Yamada as they pass by, and every single time, the man stops to chat. 

Hitoshi finds himself being introduced to more new people than he’s seen this month, many of which shove food into his hands. Yamada doesn’t pay for it, but he tells stories that have people in uproarious laughter, trades gossip in too-loud whispers, and is obnoxious but somehow charming. Lit by flashing neon lights and with that special city-smell of piss and street meat, Yamada slides along with the grace of a native. 

Hitoshi, for his part, breathes a sigh of relief once they enter a huge, shiny apartment building. But then Yamada proceeds to have a lengthy discussion with the receptionist about her boyfriend’s cooking, and Hitoshi’s just about ready to tear his eyes out. 

“Please,” he begs, “can we go?”  

“Alright, alright. I’ll get his recipe some other time,” Yamada laughs. He hands the receptionist a bit of cash, and says, “For putting up with me.” 

“Hey, how come I never get paid for putting up with you,” Hitoshi grumbles. 

“Because you aren’t forced to be nice to me so you don’t lose your job,” Yamada replies, elbowing him. Then he wiggles his fingers in a wave at the receptionist. “Sato, your shift goes ‘til tomorrow morning, right?” 

“You’ll have your triple shot espresso,” she replies, with a small smile. 

“I’ll get the owner to give you a raise!” From anyone else, it would be hyperbole. From Yamada… well, he’s a force of nature. 

Yamada then tries to make him take the stairs up to the apartment, but Hitoshi point-blank refuses after realizing the guy lives on the actual top floor. He’s already run so many laps today, thanks to Aizawa’s cruelty, and this is a step too far. Yamada, unlike his husband, laughs and lets him go with the keys. 

In the quiet sterility of the elevator, anxiety creeps up on Hitoshi. They’ve built up a routine: he lives with Aizawa, and Yamada visits, never staying long enough to get sick of Hitoshi. Maybe this whole thing was a mistake. 

The elevator slides open with a cheery jingle. Yamada didn’t tell him the number, but the bright yellow welcome mat and disco ball hanging off the door-handle give it away. So tacky. 

Nudging the disco ball aside, Hitoshi clumsily unlocks the door, and nudges it open. The first thought that comes to mind as he’s given a full view of Yamada’s apartment is fire hazard. 

The room is lit only by a scattered arc of candles, which illuminate the room enough to show that there are oddly-shaped things everywhere, but not enough to show what those things actually are. The flickering lights are centered around two glittery blobs that, once Hitoshi’s eyes have adjusted, reveal themselves to be two women, kneeling in sparkly outfits and swirling glasses of syrupy black wine. 

The taller one springs up like a bear-trap, eyes flashing blue. “What are you doing here?” 

“Uh,” says Hitoshi, with a distinct voice crack. 

The woman still on the floor blows out the candles and laughs—a familiar laugh—and her hair… is that Ms. Joke? Why is Ms. Joke in Yamada’s apartment? 

Before he can ask, the other woman flicks on the light, illuminating the familiar features of the pro-hero Midnight. She peers at Hitoshi over her cat’s eye glasses, but he’s too busy staring at the furniture. 

The green hand-shaped chair draws the eye like nothing else, if it weren’t for the chair right beside it with countless nails sticking out. Ms. Joke’s leaning against a shiny leather sofa with bright yellow stripes emblazoned down the side. Her cowboy boots rest on some kind of convoluted metal sculpture that is holding, in total: a candle, two TV remotes, a mug, and a half-eaten croissant. 

Scattered around the room are weird little knick-knacks: a statue of a bulldog on two legs and wearing a suit, a lamp with a huge doll-head for a lampshade, hanging records spray-painted haphazardly in neon.  

It is, Hitoshi decides, ugly. The kind of ugly where all the little ugly bits form a cohesive ugly whole. He kinda likes it—not that he’ll ever tell Yamada. 

“Hey, Earth to kid,” says Midnight. “Who the hell are you?” 

“None of your business,” says Hitoshi automatically, and then, “Why are you in Yamada’s apartment?” 

“Oh, wait, you’re the kid,” Midnight realizes, and takes a sip from her wine glass. “Mm. Never mind. Where’s Hizashi?”

“Answer my question first.”

“I’ll talk about this with an adult, actually,” Midnight says with a painted smile. 

“Seriously?” Hitoshi questions, 

“Sorry, kiddo!” Ms. Joke jumps in, grinning with bright teeth—almost as bright as Yamada’s artificial whiteness. “She doesn’t like kids younger than high school. Too sticky.” 

“Too much sticky, not enough intellectually stimulating conversation,” Midnight agrees. 

“My first day of UA is tomorrow,” Hitoshi argues. 

“It’s a matter of principle.” 

“Yo, yo, yo! Talk about bad timing!” Yamada chirps from right behind Hitoshi, who startles violently. Both women laugh at him. “Nemmy, should you really be getting drunk the day before the new semester starts?” 

“I’m not drunk, I’m tipsy,” says Midnight, who Hitoshi really should’ve known was Aizawa and Yamada’s Nemmy earlier . “Besides, it helps me sleep better.” 

Yamada scoffs, loudly. Before the argument can go any further, Ms. Joke leans in to ask Hitoshi, “Hey, don’t I know you from somewhere?” 

“Shiketsu entrance exam.”

“Right!” She snaps her fingers. “You’re one of the kids that ditched us for UA, right?” 

“Yeah,” Hitoshi confirms, feeling Yamada’s gaze sharpen and drill into him. 

Ms. Joke continues, “I’d say it’s not too late to enroll in Shiketsu’s hero course, but methinks Nedzu’s already got his claws in you, huh?” He nods. “Well, there’s no escape from that.” She shrugs, eyes darting to the other adults in the room, who look a little unsettled. 

“I like Nedzu,” says Hitoshi, trying to break the weird atmosphere. 

“You like Nedzu?” Midnight raises a single eyebrow, looking at him like a particularly interesting bug. “Why?” 

“I thought I was too sticky to talk to,” Hitoshi snipes. 

“Okay, okay,” Yamada steps in, waving his hands. “I’m still not sure if he has my place bugged, so op-dray edzu-nay, dig me?” 

“He has your place what?” Ms. Joke repeats, voice screechy with alarm. 

“It’s a joke, I was joking!” Yamada’s hands wave even more erratically. “Hey, you know what, it’s a school day tomorrow, Shinsou needs to go to bed—”

Hitoshi interrupts, “I don’t—” 

“Shinsou, you are going to go to bed,” Yamada commands, with an eye hard and unblinking. “Super sorry about this Nemuri, bad timing, let’s do a rain check—”

“Yada yada, I get it,” Midnight replies, looking fond. Hitoshi didn’t know Midnight could look fond. “Don’t I at least get a proper goodbye?” 

“Of course, Nemmy.” 

They kiss each others’ cheeks twice, arms in a loose embrace. They don’t hug, but it feels intimate anyway. 

(Yamada would probably hug Hitoshi if he asked.)

He brushes the thought away, irritated. Just ‘cause this guy’s a little too close with Midnight—oh. Oh no. 

It can’t be true. But it all lines up. The hesitance in calling Aizawa his husband, the different apartments… Oh God, is that why Nedzu said it was unconventional? Does Nedzu know? 

The pair of women wander out the door. “So, my place?” Ms. Joke says to Midnight. 

“Absolutely not.” 

“Is it the—” 

“Yes, it’s the clowns.” 

The door shuts. Hitoshi hears the door lock. Because Midnight has the keys to Yamada’s apartment. Yamada gave her the keys to his apartment.  

“Hey kiddo, whatcha thinking about?” 

It comes tumbling out almost before Yamada finishes his sentence. “Are you having a secret affair with Midnight?”

“First of all, if I wanted to have an affair with Midnight, I’d definitely tell Shouta about it,” Yamada retorts, green eyes flashing. “Communication is key!” 

A lightbulb goes off in Hitoshi’s brain. “Oh-h-h, wait, are you… like…” 

“Yes, we have an open relationship,” says Yamada. “You see, sexually, I—” 

Hitoshi shrieks and puts his hands over his ears. “No! Don’t tell me!” 

“You ask the question, you get the answer! I don’t censor myself, kid!” 

He buries his head in his hands, hot and itchy. God, that was a dumb question to ask. He’s never felt the consequences of his words so strongly. This is worse than doing five extra laps for pissing Aizawa off. At least then they’re both having a bad time—Yamada, that sick man, delights in Hitoshi’s suffering. 

“He-heh,” Yamada chuckles, proving his point. “Bee-tee-dubs,” of course he’s the kind of person to say that, “you don’t have to go to bed right now. That was a lie that I made up.” 

“So Ms. Joke wouldn’t ask about Nedzu bugging your apartment?” Hitoshi asks through the gaps in his fingers. 

“Aw, you got your mojo back!” This is definitely not an answer. “Now, what’s this I hear about you being accepted to Shiketsu?” 

“Why do you need to know?” Hitoshi shoots back. 

“Because it seems like you did something pretty stupid, kid!” Yamada is not smiling, but baring his teeth. He’s trying to get a rise out of Hitoshi and—of course it works. Hitoshi’s skill at provocation comes from his extensive experience in being provoked. 

“It’s not stupid. I know I’m good enough for UA’s hero course. I know it.” It’s a conviction set deep into Hitoshi’s bones. He will be a hero, and he will attend UA to do it. “I’m not settling for anything less than that.” 

Yamada leans down, and—pinches Hitoshi’s cheeks. The emotions knotted in his chest unravel and transform into sheer incredulity. 

“I like your spirit!” says Yamada. “Let’s see if you can live up to it, huh?” 

“Well, Aizawa’s training me, so obviously he thinks I can,” Hitoshi retorts.  

“Woah, let’s cool down a li’l, huh?” Yamada suggests, turning around to grab the half-eaten croissant on the sculpture/table and tossing it into a trash can.  

Of course he says that once he’s already gotten the information he wants out of me, Hitoshi thinks. Out loud, he says, “Is there a gym around here? I need to keep up with training.” 

Yamada’s face makes a complicated series of twists. “Not a fan of leaving you unsupervised around heavy equipment.”

“You can supervise me—I mean, you could even train me yourself,” Hitoshi tries. “I’m sure I could, um, benefit from a different perspective.” 

“Eh-h-h, I’m a ranged fighter,” Yamada says. “Don’t wanna burst anybody’s eardrums, you get me?”

“Aizawa said that everyone needs hand-to-hand skills, no matter their quirk.” 

“Which is why we won’t be mentioning to him that I’m a tad bit rusty. He’d pounce on me,” Yamada stage-whispers. At Hitoshi’s face, he adds, “I’m no good at teaching it, anyway.”

No, no, no. Aizawa already said he wouldn’t have as much time for training during the school year, and that Hitoshi would have to make it up himself. He’s going to get behind, and then he’s never going to win the Sports Festival, and he’s never gonna be a hero, and—

“Hey, hey, hey! We can still do training, just maybe… a different kind of training!” Yamada claps a hand on Hitoshi’s back. “What do ya say we do some quirk analysis? Aizawa’s always been shit at that.”

“Nice save,” says Hitoshi, instead of something embarrassing like thank you so much. 

“Aw-w-w, thanks!” 

Yamada leads Hitoshi to the living room, moving the TV, furniture, and modern art sculptures to the wall. “Just in case,” he explains. 

“Now, tell me your parents’ quirks. Biological, I mean,” says Yamada, folding himself up into a criss-cross on the floor. He pats next to him, and for some godforsaken reason, Hitoshi joins him there. 

“My mom, she makes people feel her emotions,” says Hitoshi. Yamada stares at him like he should say more, so he adds, “Like, she emits chemicals from her nose based on what she's feeling, and we breathe them in, and it activates receptors in our brain or whatever.” He remembers something about mirror neurons, but not what was important about them...

“And your dad?” 

“And nothing.” 

“Alrighty,” says Yamada. “Let’s see a demo!” 

“What?” 

“Demo, like demonstration.” 

“No, I know that. I just—you know what my quirk is, right?” says Hitoshi. “Brainwashing.” 

“Yup!” he confirms. “Don’t worry, I have fail-safes in place.”

Hitoshi blinks. “Fail-safes?” 

“I like you, kid, but I’m not leaving my autonomy in the hands of a fifteen-year-old. And no, you don’t get to know what they are.” Yamada claps his hands, a crisp sound. “Now use it on me. We don’t have all day!” 

Hitoshi squints, trying to figure out if this is some kind of bluff. But Yamada just grins at him, tapping his foot pointedly. 

Fine. 

“Do you want to be brainwashed?” 

“Yeah!” Yamada’s face goes slack. Hitoshi usually doesn’t care about the zombie-look of his quirk, but Yamada without his manic energy is just wrong. 

Hitoshi kicks the guy’s leg, breaking him out. “Ta-da,” he says in monotone. 

“Ta-da!” Yamada echoes with enthusiasm. “Reminds me of when I used to be a magician.”  

Hitoshi’s gotten a lot of reactions to his quirk. Fear, disappointment, anger. Out of everything he could have expected, it wasn’t this.  

Mistaking his silence for an invitation to continue, Yamada adds, “I wasn’t that good of a hypnotist—my voice isn’t right—so I always picked the drunkest person in the crowd. Way easier to get ‘em zonked out. Can’t do very good tricks, though. Too clumsy.” 

“Zonked out?”

“Hey, that’s what your quirk does, right?” 

“No, I don’t—zonk people out,” says Hitoshi. “I brainwash them. Make them do what I say.” 

“Yeah, what I said,” Yamada agrees, infuriatingly. 

“Are you doing this on purpose?” Hitoshi snaps. 

“No, hey, I know magicians get a bad rap – that’s part of why I quit, it wasn’t great for branding. The best time to be one was, like, a hundred years ago.” At the sight of Hitoshi’s face, Yamada visibly restrains himself from saying more. “But most of hypnosis is just putting someone in the right mood, y’know? And your mom puts people in moods. So-o-o…” 

As much as Hitoshi hates to admit it, Yamada might actually have a point, and not be engaging in some elaborate ploy to shame him. Or something. 

“So my quirk could be a specialized version of my mom’s – she makes people feel her emotions, but I can make them feel…” Yamada wiggles his eyebrows. Hitoshi grits out, “Suggestible.”

“Sounds like a reasonable hypothesis, yo!” 

“I dunno,” Hitoshi hesitates. Quirk counselors have only ever been concerned with how to stop his quirk, so for all he knows it’s been running on rainbows and sparkles. Could it really be this easy? “Is suggestible even an emotion?” 

“Okay, fine, not emotion. Brain chemical state or whatever,” Yamada says, waving his hands around. “I’m just sayin’, if regular drugs can get you zonked out... It's probably a similar mechanism as, say, your mom being relaxed and then relaxing other people around her.” 

“Stop saying—wait, but me and my mom's quirks don't have similar mechanisms," says Hitoshi. “I, you have to reply to a question of mine. Otherwise I can’t get you under.” 

“Where do you think that activation requirement comes from, then?” Yamada leans forward, the same glint in his eye as when he interrogated Hitoshi on that first day. 

It unbalances Hitoshi. “I – are you asking me?” 

“Who else, ding-dong?” It sounds like an insult, but the word’s too stupid to have much bite. 

“I, um, always thought the question-answer thing was, like, just psychological. ‘Cause my mom, her quirk works better with her eyes open, because then she can focus on someone. But it’s not actually, physically related to the function of the quirk.” It might’ve come from his dad, too, but the idea feels wrong. Hitoshi’s never gotten anything from the guy, and as far as he’s concerned, that should include his quirk. 

“Sure, yeah, like implicit consent,” Yamada agrees. “But, y’know, speaking comes from breathing, so they have a lot of organs in common.” He leans back a little, and settles a hand on his chin, half-satirically. “Hm-m. Methinks I have a hypothesis.” 

“Why did you say it like that?” 

“Oh, did you just say: I want to hear your hypothesis, Yamada! Please tell me! What a kind and smart person you are!” That’s a scary good impression of Hitoshi, actually. “Of course I’ll do that for such a polite young man.” 

Hitoshi sticks his tongue out. Yamada pounces, and they end up wrestling on the squeaky floor. 

Through a combination of sneaky tactics and sharp elbows, Yamada wins. He traps Hitoshi in a relentless noogie. 

“Okay, okay, tell me your hypothesis,” Hitoshi eventually begs out. The man releases him with a condescending pat on the head, and goes to sit peacefully across from Hitoshi like nothing happened. 

“You see, before we talk, we take a special kind of breath.” Yamada inhales quickly, with a little haa, to demonstrate. “And then when we start talking, that’s just a long, controlled exhale.” 

“Uh-huh…” 

“So, if you are letting out some kind of brain-altering chemical, it’s possible that it can only reach the brain using, I dunno, a path that opens up with that special inhale,” says Yamada. “Or maybe it’s just how we hold our breath… Could be a lotta different things!” 

“But, I mean,” Hitoshi scrambles his words. “Why does it have to be a question, then? That’s still psychological!” 

“Two things can be true at the same time,” Yamada says, with the infuriating patience of someone who’s absolutely sure he’s right. “But if you really wanna prove me wrong, then we need to experiment.” 

Yamada sets up measurements for the time it takes for the quirk’s effect, their distance away from each other, the room temperature, and a billion other things that Hitoshi can’t keep straight in his head. It doesn’t help that Yamada keeps cackling. Plus ultra? 

They determine that less distance and higher temperature increase the speed of the quirk effect—which apparently reinforces Yamada's hypothesis. The longer they go on, the easier it gets, too, which Yamada says could be a result of the brainwashing-pathway getting more used in his brain, or that the air is getting saturated.

“Okay, now we’re trying my hypothesis,” says Hitoshi. 

White teeth glint in the semi-gloom. “Hit me with it.” 

“It’s psychological,” he insists. “It’s not the breath, it’s the talking.” 

“Okay, okay, smarty-pants,” he laughs. “Let’s try sign language, and see if your hypothesis is correct!” 

“Okay.” Hitoshi takes a deep breath before he says it, which is another thing Yamada pointed out that he can’t stop noticing. “Are you ready to lose?” 

Yamada signs something as a response. His eyes stay clear, hands speeding up as his face gets more and more smug. 

“It’s just ‘cause I don’t understand JSL,” Hitoshi insists. “It’s like you said—we need multiple trials, for good evidence.” 

Yamada tries teaching him a few phrases, but no matter what they do, it doesn’t work. He goes under if Yamada speaks verbally while signing, but that doesn’t prove anything they don’t already know. 

Eventually, Hitoshi gets sick of the guy’s smug face, and snaps, “I haven’t given up yet.” 

“You better not!” Yamada cries, and then adds, “You got any ideas, punk?” From leather-bound, audacious Present Mic, punk isn’t an insult. It’s an expectation. 

Hitoshi pushes down his self-doubt. “It didn’t work because I don’t understand sign language. Let’s talk in nonsense words, and if it doesn’t work, then we know mutual understanding is needed. Right?” He can’t help but tick the question on, right at the end. 

“Sure!” Yamada beams. 

“Okay, cool,” Hitoshi mumbles. “Blah blah blah blah? Wait, sorry, I didn’t put my quirk into it.” He clears his throat, which feels a little rough. Whatever. “Blah blah blah? I—do you think I overused my quirk? Is this what it feels like?” And right before the first day of school, too. 

“No no no!” Yamada hotly denies, reaching over to take Hitoshi’s hands in his. “This is proof! You can’t activate your quirk if you’re not using real language yourself.” 

“What? But the quirk works on you, not on me.” 

Yamada stares at him like a particularly challenging crossword, and then smiles. “You know, once, back in my magician days, I hypnotized someone, but forgot to tell them to do what I say. He just stood there, and eventually we had to snap him out of it. Very embarrassing, but a good teaching moment!” 

“That’s like the only thing that could’ve been more embarrassing than being a magician,” says Hitoshi. “Failing at being a magician.” 

“Point is, you can zonk people out real easy, but you need to set up that channel of communication, otherwise they won’t listen to you.” Yamada shrugs. “And communication is two-way.”

“So… I guess it makes sense that my quirk would also be two-way,” Hitoshi finishes. “Man…” 

“Why don’t we try it with only me talking nonsense?” Yamada suggests. “Always good to do extra trials.” 

Predictably, it doesn’t work. Hitoshi takes a moment to wonder if he should learn sign-language. Or how many languages he’ll have to learn, if he ever wanted to work with people who aren’t Japanese. 

Interrupting his thoughts, Yamada says, “Let’s try the same one again.” 

“What? Why?” 

“My nonsense-speak wasn’t up to par!” 

Recognizing that Yamada’s ridiculousness cannot be swayed by logic, Hitoshi sighs, and asks, “Do you really wanna do this again?” 

Yamada replies in nonsense, more nasally and fast-paced than before.

“Ugh, we already did this trial,” Hitoshi mutters. “Hey, hit yourself.” 

It’s a half-hearted thing, just one of the barbs Hitoshi throws out. But Yamada actually does it, slapping himself so hard that it leaves a red handprint on his cheek. 

“Oh my god, I’m sorry, I didn’t – I didn’t think it would work, why did it work now? Oh God, I’m so sorry…” 

Yamada just gives a half-smile, massaging his cheek. “It worked this time ‘cause I wasn’t talking in nonsense. I was talking in French.” 

“Wait, so that means… mutual understanding isn’t needed? But then—what?” 

“The intent to communicate, I think,” says Yamada. “If we’re talking brain, then maybe the language centers need to be activated. Receptive.” 

“I guess that makes sense…” Hitoshi should read a book about neuroscience, at this rate. “Wait, so the reason I couldn’t do sign language couldn’t have been because I didn’t understand.” He wrinkles his nose. “Oh, were you right about the breathing thing?”

“Looks like it!” says Yamada, obnoxiously cheerful. “But all verbal languages are a-go. Ya win some, ya lose some!” 

“Okay,” says Hitoshi. He did not expect quirk analysis to be this exhausting. “I guess it is a lot like hypnosis.” 

Yamada leans in, and says, “Honestly, PR-wise... that might be a better name than brainwashing, huh?”

“No,” Hitoshi snaps. “I don’t—my quirk is brainwashing. I don’t care about PR, that’s so stupid.” 

“Seems like this session is over,” Yamada tuts. He rocks back, stretching his overlong arms, and then bounces to his feet. 

“What, just because I didn’t agree with you?” 

“Because you aren’t in the right headset. Quirks are a hot button with you even at the best of times,” Yamada explains, his smile wide and condescending. He holds out a hand for Hitoshi to take. 

Hitoshi gets up on his own—dizzy and hot, he says, “Sorry, sir.” He snatches up his backpack, which swings and hits the stupid, ugly dog statue. 

It sways, and Hitoshi feels a spike of panic. The inevitable swing of a pendulum, it hits the floor with a ceramic clunk, and breaks into sharp pieces.  Yamada jumps away. 

“Sorry,” says Hitoshi, gluing his eyes to the floor and hunching a little. He hates himself, his weakness. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” 

“Shinsou—”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he babbles like some kind of fucking child. “I—I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.” 

“Listen, we can fix it, okay?” Yamada’s hands flutter from Hitoshi’s shoulders, his hair, his cheeks. “We can glue it back together. Right now, even.”

“Right now?” Hitoshi whispers. 

Yamada nods. “It’s not even the first time it’s been broken—see that chip on its foot? That was Shouta.” 

“Aizawa?” 

“Uh-huh. You wanna hear the story of how we got it? It's pre-e-etty wild."

Hitoshi ends up pressing the broken pieces together as Yamada slathers on glue enthusiastically. The man tells a long-winded story that starts at a flea market but continues into an expensive museum auction. Hitoshi starts suspecting the story’s exaggerated at the attempted theft, and his suspicions are confirmed when Yamada claims that it was a key piece of evidence in a heist. 

“This sounds like the plot to some B-list movie,” Hitoshi says. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Yamada exclaims grandly. Then he hunches down a little, sets a hand on the back of Hitoshi’s neck. “We feeling better now?”

His face turns red, remembering his earlier freakout. “Yeah I’m fine.” 

“Good, ‘cause it’s just about time for us to go to bed.” Yamada smiles, and ruffles his hair before dropping the contact. “Your room’s gonna be the second door on the left.” 

Hitoshi slinks away. He brushes his teeth and puts on his pyjamas, but it feels like an act. Tonight’s going to be a sleepless night, he can already tell. Right as he crawls into his sheets (soft, patterned like a movie theater floor), there’s a knock on the door. 

“What is it?” His voice wobbles. 

Yamada cracks the door open, and says, “I’ve got sleeping pills here, if you need ‘em.”

“I don’t need the pills.”

“Are you sure? You said your insomnia acts up if you’re anxious, and I know my first day at UA scared the hell outta me.” Why did Hitoshi tell him that? Stupid. 

“I’m sure,” says Hitoshi. “Don’t—don’t come in the room.” 

A long silence. Then, “If you say so!” And he shuts the door. 

Then Hitoshi begins waiting. He lays stock-still in his bed, desperately bored but without the energy to get up and do anything. All he does, for hours and hours, is watch the digital clock, glowing red by the nightstand. He waits for the minute to change, and each time it does, it comes as both torture and relief. 

At some point, he stops watching, and falls into almost-wakefulness, some kind of purgatory state of being both aware and unaware, consciously asleep. When the sun’s rays start filtering across the room (of course Yamada would have huge windows), and the clock’s gotten out of witching hours and into normal morning hours, Hitoshi decides to get up. He feels both tired and buzzed with energy—the effect of, he concludes with horror, Aizawa's training. He wants to exercise.

Hitoshi stumbles out of the room with only the vague goal of getting coffee. There are noises coming from the kitchen—one Yamada’s voice, and somebody else. His mind flashes back to open relationship, and for a brief, terrifying moment, he considers the possibility that Midnight or Ms. Joke returned for more. 

But then Hitoshi recognizes the low monotone filtering out from the doorway. Weird, but probably fine. He enters and makes a bee-line for the coffee maker, which Yamada holds out of his reach. Instead, a cup of tea and a rice ball are pushed into his hands. 

Yamada’s wearing the least co-ordinated outfit Hitoshi’s ever seen him in—tight leather pants with a stained Put Your Hands Up! Radio T-shirt. Aizawa looks the same as always, if with more of a dreaded glint in his eye. 

“Morning, Shin!” Yamada says. 

“Why is Aizawa here?” 

“He got paranoid and decided to spy on us,” says Yamada. “Creeper.”

“I was just checking up on you after patrol,” Aizawa refutes irritably. 

Yamada directs a smirk into his tea. “Still a creeper.” 

“Shinsou’s a child, and you take your hearing aids out when you sleep. It was logical.” 

“And yet I didn’t need my hearing aids to notice you loitering on my balcony,” Yamada shoots back. 

“And your hand-to-hand is rusty.” 

“It was three in the morning!!”

So it’s another of those weird Aizawa-and-Yamada things. “Better than Ms. Joke coming back,” Hitoshi mutters. 

Aizawa’s face goes pale, and for the first time, Hitoshi sees what looks like fear on the man’s face. “Ms. Joke was here? She found out where you lived?” 

“Yes, because Nemuri has the keys and brought her here,” Yamada answers, rolling his eyes.

“So… if she and Nemuri were… you know,” Aizawa clumsily side-steps the actual words, which is both a comfort to Hitoshi and also kind of funny, “then she’s moved on. Right?” 

Yamada tuts. “She’ll do that when you stop leading the poor woman on.” 

“I’m not leading anyone on!” Aizawa retorts in what seems to be an old argument. “All I did was make her breakfast the morning after—” 

“Which is way more than anyone else has ever done for her, because Fukukado has shit taste in men,” Yamada interrupts. He points his mug at his husband and says, “Exhibit A: you.” 

Aizawa barrels on. “And suddenly she wants to marry me because she heard Present Mic has an open marriage with his underground hero husband.” Aizawa counter-points his mug at Yamada, the two clinking together. “Whose identity he refuses to disclose. To anyone.” 

“You know that if I tell any of my personal life to more than three people, it will get leaked to the tabloids,” Yamada says. “Which will make you even more upset. And won’t even give Fukukado closure!” He closes his eyes and sips judgmentally. “This is your mess, so you fix it.” 

“That’s rich coming from the man who’s called me in the middle of the night asking for bail, because you got arrested in a foreign country.” Aizawa narrows his eyes. “Twice.” 

“One of those was mistaken identity and you know it.” 

“Like I buy that story,” Aizawa replies. “Clearly you bribed your arresting officer. I saw the selfie with you he posted afterwards.” 

“Interesting how the only time you’ve ever been aware of things happening on social media was to undermine me.” 

“No, Nemuri showed me because she thought it was funny.” 

“Hey,” God, Hitoshi can’t believe he’s saying this, “can we do some morning training?” 

Aizawa smiles—wide. “Oh, Shinsou.”  

Hitoshi’s face grows hot. Is this… what Parental Approval feels like? 

“Actually, we don’t have time,” Yamada interjects. “Vlad’s coming to pick us up in twenty minutes or so.”

Aizawa groans, making a face. “Hizashi…” 

“Don’t give me that. Look, we invested in the communal faculty car, and that means that we have to use it. Communally,” Yamada insists. “I mean, you know I prefer to take the metro.” 

“Yes, because on the way to the metro station, you can bully old women out of their noodles,” Aizawa replies. 

“Mrs. Hashimoto gives me noodles because she likes me!” Yamada squawks in protest. 

“You’re sabotaging her business.” 

Breakfast continues like this, which is honestly just typical. Still, Hitoshi’s jittery with nerves as he gets ready for school, and Yamada’s loud ‘vocal warm-ups’ do not help. Neither does Aizawa’s sadist love of jumpscares. 

Despite the general chaos, they get out of the apartment in reasonable time; Hitoshi and Aizawa are in uniform, with Yamada keeping the rest of his hero costume and three cans of hair-spray in a bag. He explains that he can’t leave the building in his Present Mic get-up, because of ‘stalker incidents.’ 

“So you get stalkers, and Aizawa gets assassination attempts?” Hitoshi says, trying for a joke. 

“Any stalker is a possible assassin,” Aizawa grunts. 

Yamada laughs uncomfortably. “Yeah, that’s kind of the problem. Hey, why don’t we see if Sato got me my coffee, huh?” 

It’s a more awkward pivot than Yamada usually has up his sleeve, but Hitoshi lets it go. He can have tact sometimes. When they get downstairs, the receptionist’s ready with Yamada’s god-forsaken coffee order. His thanks are so profuse they’re almost late. 

Outside, the familiar, beaten-up minivan pulls up. 

The window rolls down slowly, revealing Midnight, who’s tilting her head to look over sunglasses. “Oh God, do you two live together now?” 

“Aw-w-w, you jealous? You feel left out?” Yamada coos in baby-talk, getting overly close to her. “Does Nemmy wanna kiss to feel better?” 

“Pwease,” says Midnight, and Aizawa’s expression changes from exhaustion to disgust. 

There’s two sharp thuds, and a voice comes out from behind Midnight. “No PDA in the faculty car!” 

Yamada and Midnight snicker like two schoolchildren. Aizawa reaches over and yanks his husband back, clearly not trusting his judgment. Somebody opens the big car door, exposing everyone inside to Hitoshi’s view. 

See, he’s been too up-close and personal with Yamada and Aizawa to really feel awe at Present Mic and Eraserhead. But this is a car full of real pro-heroes. 

Midnight and Vlad King have both transformed from regular, boring adults into colorful and intimidating pros. Snipe, Hitoshi’s idol from when he had a very ill-advised cowboy phase in junior high, is fastening his mask and knocking elbows with Ectoplasm, AKA one of the actual coolest daylight heroes around. 

Thirteen smiles and waves, helmet on their hip, and Hitoshi almost dies on the spot. 

“Why did you bring this sticky child here?” Midnight asks, taking a look at him and snorting. Hitoshi’s hero worship shrivels up immediately. 

“I’m not sticky—I’m literally going to my first day at UA! I am a high schooler!” he denies. 

“But you haven’t had your first day yet. Which means you’re still a gross little baby,” says Midnight, grinning wickedly. She calls out, “Hey, who wants to take the child?”

A large, thin hand raises itself from behind Thirteen. “There’s some space here, if the young man doesn’t mind sitting in the back.” 

While Hitoshi clambers in, Vlad comments, “If they can bring their kid, I don’t see why I can’t bring my dog.”

Midnight sighs. “Look, Sekijiro, we all love Tiramisu—”

“Not all of us.” 

“—except for Aizawa, but we don’t want slobber on the seats, or dog hair on our hero costumes, or to have to find a place to put a big ol’ mutt during the school day.” 

“She’s very well-trained!” 

“No she’s not,” Aizawa retorts. 

Hitoshi decides to stop paying attention to that conversation. “Hey, Yagi.” 

“Good morning, young Shinsou.” Yagi smiles, and Hitoshi attempts to look normal in response. 

Hitoshi wouldn’t say he’s familiar with the man, but every so often Aizawa drags him along for ‘supervision’ of Yagi and Midoriya’s training. Hitoshi’s been using that time to try and squeeze information out of Midoriya behind Aizawa’s back, and he’s pretty sure Aizawa wants to squeeze information out of Midoriya behind Yagi’s back. The green-haired boy himself has turned their interrogations back on them many a time, just from his natural talent of word-vomiting.  

While all this was happening, Yagi would usually stay back, offer vague inspirational advice, and generally fail at diffusing the tension. One time he took Midoriya and Hitoshi out for ramen, even though he usually only took Midoriya. It was nice until he and Aizawa almost had a fist-fight in the restaurant over who’d pay the bill. Nobody was surprised by this—except for Yagi. 

Basically, all this means that Hitoshi feels extremely awkward whenever he talks to Yagi. What do you say to the man who’s playing checkers while everyone else is playing (and losing) four-dimensional chess? 

Yagi fixes this dilemma by guessing awkwardly, “You’re in… heroics?”

“General education.” But oh, how it burns to say. Before Hitoshi can add his plans to transfer, Yagi continues talking. 

“Oh, sorry. I’m afraid this is my first year teaching, and, well, I suppose I’m a bit out of my depth.” 

“More than a bit,” Aizawa twists around to say, staring with venom at Yagi. He interrupts the man’s stuttering defense with, “I’ve got my eye on you, teacher’s license.” 

Hitoshi decides to step in – Yagi is obviously too frail to be participating in his foster parents’ conversational warfare. “Hey, stop bullying him.”

Aizawa’s attention shifts over to Hitoshi. His expression is halfway between outrage and frustration. “Excuse me?” 

“I’m serious,” Hitoshi replies. “Why are you targeting this poor old man?” 

A large hand settles on his shoulder. “Young Shinsou, I appreciate it, but in this case I’m afraid looks are deceiving.” Yagi smiles a sharp smile. “I can fight my own battles.” 

“Then fight them. You keep letting people pick on you,” says Hitoshi. “Like that green-haired lady who always tells you off for staying at the beach too late. It’s public land.” 

“Green-haired—you mean Inko? That’s Midoriya’s mother,” Yagi sputters, brow furrowing. “She doesn’t want her son to stay up too late. Or me, but she’s hardly in charge of that…”  

Stupid. Of course it’s Midoriya’s mom. This isn’t even the first time this has happened—Hitoshi has some weird mental block with mothers. The concept doesn’t make sense to him. 

Hitoshi backtracks. “But you still shouldn’t be scared of Aizawa. He lost to an over-excited bulldog.” 

“You and I may have different perspectives,” Yagi deflects. Hitoshi decides to argue some more, but his plans are cut short by the man’s next question. “By the way, are you aiming to join the hero course?” 

“Oh—yeah,” says Hitoshi, scratching the back of his neck and looking away. “How’d you know?” 

“There’s a certain look in your eyes that I’ve seen before.” Yagi elbows him and winks. “A conviction, hm-m?” 

“Conviction is one word for it,” Yamada calls from the front. He hasn’t forgotten the Shiketsu thing, then. 

Slightly desperate, Hitoshi says, “Stop eavesdropping and oil your jacket or something.”

That makes Midnight cackle, high like a cartoon witch. Aizawa, lying dead asleep on her shoulder, doesn’t even twitch. 

“What made you decide to be a hero?” asks Yagi. Not try out for the hero course.

“Lots of people told me I’d be a villain, and I’m a contrarian,” says Hitoshi. It’s his standard answer, and probably the one that’s most true. 

“Ah,” says Yagi, and Hitoshi feels like he’s failed some kind of test. Which is stupid. It’s not like he cares about what Yagi thinks of him, anyways. 

Their conversation dies at that point, but the car’s loud enough that Hitoshi can ignore it. The rowdiest people are, of course, Midnight and Yamada, who are pulling on their costumes and gossiping loudly at the same time, although Aizawa puts on a good showing when he wakes up now and then to be a frenetic backseat-driver. The air is filled with hairspray and undercut with the sound of Thirteen murmuring directions to Vlad. 

They get to UA without any car-crashes, surprisingly enough, and the bundle of pro-heroes rush through the gates. Hitoshi winds his way to the 1-C classroom, and takes a nap until class starts. The teacher bundles them out to orientation, into a huge, shiny auditorium. There’s a stage and soft chairs and fancy lights, and it feels very expensive. Must be where all the tuition fees are going. 

They arrive fairly early, so he gets to see the auditorium fill up with what looks like all of the first-years—only there’s a conspicuous, hero-class-size gap at the front. Hitoshi feels half-angry at the sheer cockiness, and half-jealous that he’s stuck here, waiting for some lame speech. 

In the corner of his eye, Hitoshi spots Yamada, who waves at him, enthusiastically enough to almost whack Ectoplasm in the face. Hitoshi pretends that he doesn’t see it. 

Tap-tap-tap. Nedzu trots up the stage, and picks up the mic. Hm, maybe this won’t be so boring after all. 

“What does it mean to be a hero? This has been one of our most essential questions, through the eons. From Gilgamesh—” 

Never mind. Hitoshi zones out immediately. He wonders vaguely where Aizawa is. What did he do to get out of this, and would he be willing to let Hitoshi in on it? 

He’s brought back to reality by a classmate tapping him uncertainly on the shoulder. 

“What?” he whispers. 

They point to the stage, where Nedzu’s staring directly at Hitoshi. 

“Yes, you! The half-asleep one with the purple hair!” 

Yamada lets out a whoop as Hitoshi clambers awkwardly over his classmates. He’s so embarrassing. 

“Welcome to UA, young man!” says Nedzu. “Would you give your name, year, and department, please?” 

“Shinsou Hitoshi, first-year. And my department is general education—but it won’t stay that way.” Hitoshi smiles, and swipes the microphone. “Come the Sports Festival, I’ll win my way into the hero course. And I’ll have earned it, too, unlike everyone who’s coasted by on their flashy quirks.” 

Yamada, who’s been making frantic gestures for him to stop talking for the last ten seconds, finally gives up. Hitoshi continues, “To the hero students who bothered to show up: consider this a declaration of war.”

There’s unease in the crowd, with a few people either yelling out insults or challenges, mostly from the front row, where the hero classes are supposed to be. Most of the kids seem unmoved, but most of the kids aren’t Hitoshi’s intended audience, anyway. Just the important ones. 

“Thank you so much. Everyone, please give a round of applause for Shinsou Hitoshi!” There’s some scattered, confused claps. Yamada does not whoop again. “What a perfect example of UA’s plus ultra spirit—” 

Hitoshi slinks nonchalantly back down the stage. Honestly, he wants to get off as fast as possible, but he needs to keep his cool right now. He ignores the furious whispers from Yamada, and the judgmental eyebrows from Midnight, and returns to his seat. 

The speech continues for a good forty more minutes, and then they’re finally set free. As they all file out in an orderly fashion, Hitoshi gets a few glares from hero students, which feels pretty satisfying. He also gets side-eyes from his classmates, which is… less satisfying. 

He heads to his next class, according to the schedule: Art 1 with Midnight. Hitoshi picks his seat in the row behind the front. 

When all the students are done trickling in, Midnight cracks a grin, and hands out thick packets of paper. “That, my dearies, is your syllabus for the new year! Hold on to it, because I’m not going through this twice.”

To be frank, Hitoshi chose art as an elective for two reasons: because he likes to draw as a stress reliever, and because he figured it would be an easy A. Watching Midnight go over the course syllabus (composition, perspective… oh God, color theory), Hitoshi gets the feeling that’s not gonna happen. The slack jaws of the other students echo his inner sentiment. 

Well, almost all the other students. There’s a frantic scratch-scratch-scratch coming from the back of the room. Hitoshi cranes his neck, with vague suspicions of a rodent scratching at the walls, but no. It’s Midoriya, sitting next to a hero student with a spiky ponytail. 

Wait—that uniform. Midoriya’s a hero student. Hitoshi chews on that thought for a moment. 

Really, it shouldn’t shock him. Of course Midoriya is in the heroics course. It makes sense. He had just thought… that he and Midoriya were the same. 

The spiky-haired girl makes eye contact, and he looks away. 

Midnight keeps talking until class ends, at which point Hitoshi rushes into the middle of the crowd, hunching his shoulders and blending in as best he can. He winds his way over to the library and hides there for the rest of the lunch period. The rest of the school day passes in a sleep-deprived haze. It’s been a while since he had an all-nighter and Hitoshi’s a little embarrassed at how hard it’s hitting him. The ring of the final bell releases a wave of relief, and he rushes over to the teachers’ lounge. 

Yamada’s having a lively discussion with Thirteen while Aizawa’s zipped up in his sleeping bag on the couch. Neither of them look anywhere close to being ready to leave, and Hitoshi’s heart sinks. 

He sidles up and awkwardly taps Yamada on his shoulder. “Hey, um… aren’t we going home now?”

“Sorry kid, all the teachers have a meeting to get to,” says Yamada. He hesitates, and then grabs a paper from a pile that looks like it’s been sitting on that table for a year. “Why don’t you head on out to one of these clubs, and when we’re done, we’ll pick you up.”

“Can’t I just take the metro back on my own?”

“Security risk,” Yamada dismisses. 

“You’re only doing this because you want me to join a club,” he accuses. 

“It’s good for first-years to participate in extracurricular activities,” Yamada eyes him from behind his glasses, “especially those who need help socially.” 

“I don’t— need help socially.” What kind of condescending euphemism… 

“Maybe that’d fly if it weren’t for your little speech at orientation, bub,” Yamada says, and then adds in a mutter, “God knows Nedzu’s an enabler.” 

Hitoshi tries for a different tactic. “I don’t need friends, I need to focus on my studies to get into the hero course.” 

“Sure! But you gotta do that,” Yamada clucks and points at the door with a flourish, “outside the teachers’ lounge.” 

“Seriously?” 

“School rules.” Aizawa may only have one kind of smile, but Yamada has lots—maniacal, uncomfortable, soft. Right now, Yamada has a mean smile, and Hitoshi knows that it’s on purpose. 

He scowls, and takes the paper. Official UA clubs… well, homework club sounds quiet. He could probably take a nap there. He notes this antisocial activity loudly as he’s shooed out, but Yamada just laughs. 

Hitoshi spends at least half an hour wandering the halls before he finally finds the right classroom. It’s in the far end of the management wing. Neutral ground. 

The first thing he sees when he opens the door is a pouf of black hair, obscuring a desk. Then it bounces up and away as its owner shoots up, her face pink with surprise. It’s the hero student who he saw with Midoriya earlier—only there’s no green head in sight. 

Hitoshi gives the girl a nod, in hopes that a silent acknowledgement will satisfy her. 

“Oh, hello there!” she says. Dammit. “Are you here for the homework club too? I didn’t see anyone else. I’m Yaoyorozu Momo, by the way.” 

“Shinsou Hitoshi. I was planning to take a nap here,” says Hitoshi. Then he notices what’s tucked underneath her folded arms. “Uh, is that a calculus textbook?” 

“Multivariable calculus, yes,” she says. “I did a little self-study over the break.” 

Hitoshi stares at her for a moment. Something hot bubbles up in his throat—a little self-study over the break. Said so casually, like it's nothing. Hitoshi spent his break getting used to living with people who actually take care of him, who help him with clothes and who make sure he has food whenever he's hungry. He knows UA is a private school, and expensive, and he'd even expected to deal with spoiled rich kids... But when that discrepancy is so obviously staring him in the face like this, all Hitoshi can feel is angry.

“God, I hate rich kids,” he mutters. 

Yaoyorozu’s face does a little spasm. “Sorry?” 

Hitoshi swings himself into a chair, crosses his arms, and closes his eyes. “You can’t even do me the favor of being an asshole about it?” 

“I think you’ve got that covered.” 

“Consider it reparations,” replies Hitoshi. 

Yaoyorozu takes a deep breath in, lets it out. “I’m not going to engage with this.” 

Then she opens her multivariable calculus textbook, and Hitoshi has never had a greater urge to fuck with someone in his entire life. “How much did that cost?”

“Actually, I borrowed it from my tutor.” She smiles, as if Hitoshi’s going to give up that easily. 

“Really? I thought it was just a little self-study,” he sneers. “How much did the tutor cost?” 

“I understand that, because of my family, I have gotten a lot of opportunities that other kids don’t,” she starts, “but I need this for my quirk—”

“So it’s about your quirk now?” 

Her knuckles turn white as she grips the paper. A r-r-rip echoes through the quiet room. Hitoshi feels smug satisfaction bloom in his chest. 

“Oh no, did you rip up your precious—” 

“Look, you jerk—” 

The door slams open, startling them both into silence. Out comes a familiar shout, “AW-W-W, YOU MADE A FRIEND!” 

“We’re not friends,” Yaoyorozu and Hitoshi say at the same time. 

Since Hitoshi has been refusing to look at him in his Present Mic costume on principle, Yamada gets the drop on him. He wraps his elbow around Hitoshi’s neck in a pseudo-noogie, definitely messing up his hair. “Sorry to interrupt, but Shinsou and me gotta skedaddle!” 

Yaoyorozu lets out a small, delicate giggle, manicured hand over her mouth. Hitoshi has never been in such an embarrassing situation in his entire life, and he’s pretty sure Yamada’s doing it on purpose. 

He’s dragged out of the homework “club” in shame while Yamada talks his ear off. 

“—so, I mean, should I really throw away the itemized list I made of possible friends for you, with phone numbers included by the way?” Yamada’s waving said itemized list under Hitoshi’s nose.

“Could you be any less subtle?” asks Hitoshi. 

“I could try!” 

“Please don’t.” Then Hitoshi spots a familiar name on the list. “Wait, isn’t that Aizawa’s intern?” He needs to intimidate Midoriya into giving him all the secrets he knows, and mysteriously acquiring his phone number is a good way to start. 

Yamada takes this as a request to press the whole list into his hand. “Here you go. I’m pretty sure Midoriya already has your number, though.” 

This is useless then. Hitoshi tries to pass it back, saying, “You know I’m not here to make friends, Yamada.” 

“Sure!” Yamada barks out a laugh, and slaps Hitoshi’s back so hard he stumbles. “But you’re gonna need ‘em, kid.” 

“I don’t.” Hitoshi drops the list on the ground. 

“Hey, hey, litterbug!” he shrieks, pointing an accusatory, scandalized finger. 

Hitoshi’s face heats up, and he scoops up the paper. Yamada pats his head, making cooing noises. This guy… he’s just… so… 

Whatever. Hitoshi can just shove it in his pocket, and then throw it away the moment his guardian’s out of range. 

They go to grab Aizawa, who’s knocked-out on the floor of his classroom. Yamada drags the sleeping bag behind him while chatting airily, like he’s not carrying a grown man. The UA teachers, plus Hitoshi, pile into the faculty car to be driven home. Yagi asks how his day was, so stilted that Hitoshi pretends to fall asleep in order to avoid the awkwardness. 

By the time they’re trudging up the stairs to Aizawa’s apartment, he feels fuzzy and unfocused. On the second floor, Hitoshi stumbles trying to walk on a step that’s not actually there. He looks down, and sees sparkles where his foot should be. 

“Woah, you okay?” Yamada asks, catching Hitoshi by his elbow. 

“No. I have an aura, my vision’s all… sparkly,” says Hitoshi. His tongue feels tingly and swollen.  

Aizawa says “Aura?” at the same time that Yamada exclaims, “Sparkly?!”  

Hitoshi closes his eyes. “Yeah, it’s like… it means I’m gonna have a migraine attack.” He’s never really had to explain this before—his mom and his uncle had migraine too, and it’s not like his foster parents ever cared enough to ask. 

“What do you want us to do?” asks Aizawa, hovering like he can swat away the migraine. Ha. 

“I just need to be somewhere dark, and quiet, and… do you have Coca-Cola?” 

They don’t have Coca-Cola, but they can get him a dark and quiet space—something harder to find in Aizawa’s apartment now, after the months Hitoshi’s been living there and therefore months Yamada’s stopped by at least once a day. There’s real furniture, and color, and weird little knick-knacks that Hitoshi can now recognize as the precursor to a full-blown novelty item collection. 

Hitoshi usually doesn’t mind this Present-Mic-ification, but with a pounding headache and growing aversion to light, he flees to his room as soon as possible. He has to practically shoo Yamada and Aizawa away, to keep them from fluffing his pillows or whatever stupid thing. Why can they never be normal about anything? So suffocating.  

Hitoshi presses himself into the darkest corner and closes his eyes. It’s so stupid, but he just wishes he had a Coca-Cola. He wishes they hadn’t made such a big deal out of it, that he could just deal with his migraine attack like before: curl up in his bed and drink his Coca-Cola, with nobody to bother him or care. Even his uncle let him have that. 

Chapter Text

Hitoshi knows he must’ve fallen asleep at some point because he wakes up in the middle of the night. Blurry-eyed, he slinks over to the kitchen. Within seconds of starting a pot of instant noodles, Aizawa appears, slouching in his hero costume. Hitoshi wonders if he went out on patrol, or just didn’t bother to change. Or both.

“Is your migraine over?” he asks, leaning against the counter. 

“Yes,” Hitoshi lies, even though he has a little bit of headache left. It’s not worth the effort to explain, he tells himself. Aizawa just stares at him, and Hitoshi feels red creep up his cheeks. “Hey, where’s Yamada?” 

“Working.”

“On patrol or the radio?” 

Aizawa shrugs. 

“Wow, so helpful,” Hitoshi grumbles, and reaches around the man to get to the tantalizingly shiny coffee maker. Aizawa sets a hand on his forehead and pushes him away. 

“No coffee for you, pipsqueak,” he says. 

“And today was already bad enough,” Hitoshi groans, but he doesn’t try again. He can make another stab once the night fades into the morning—Hitoshi will lose, as he does every morning, but it’s the principle of the thing. 

“I heard about that.” Aizawa folds his arms and smirks. “A declaration of war, was it?”

“Did Yamada tell you?” He’s such a gossip.  

“Actually, Nedzu did.” A demonic smile briefly overtakes Aizawa’s face. “I liked it.”

Hitoshi pauses. He’d expected judgment, hostility—above all, he had meant to provoke. He’d never really anticipated a positive response to what he had said. Well, Hitoshi supposes that’s a kind of provocation too… Something to think about. 

It’s only a few hours ‘til the morning. Aizawa sits with Hitoshi in some kind of twisted solidarity, although he does nod off a couple times. Once the sun comes up, Hitoshi tries to mimic what normal people do in the morning, brushing his teeth and putting on his uniform. Aizawa just lies face-down until an alarm on his phone goes off, at which point he informs Hitoshi they have to leave right now or they’ll miss the train. 

They end up having to run several blocks—Hitoshi’s used to this kind of exertion after weeks of Aizawa’s training, but he’d really not like to risk being late on the second day of school. 

Halfway through the ride, Aizawa’s phone starts buzzing. He ignores it for about thirty seconds until it shuts off. Then the buzzing starts up again. 

“Aren’t you gonna answer that?” Hitoshi asks. 

Aizawa lets out a long sigh. Acknowledging it probably undermined his plausible deniability of not noticing the call. He picks up, and says, “What is it?”

“Where are you?” Yamada demands, loud enough for Hitoshi to hear even though the phone isn’t on speaker. Aizawa angles the screen away from his face. 

“The child was slow,” says Aizawa. Hitoshi shoots him a dirty look. 

“Was the child slow, or did you forget not everyone can do your Spider-Man moves?” Yamada continues before Aizawa can answer. “You know what, we don’t have time for this. Get over here ASAP!” 

“Alright, alright.” Then he frowns at his phone. 

“What is it?” asks Hitoshi, curious despite himself. 

“He hung up on me. It must really be serious,” Aizawa muses, mouth set in a concerned line. “Do you think you can make it the rest of the way by yourself? Mic might need some… impulse control.” 

“I’ve done it a million times before,” says Hitoshi, ignoring the twist in his stomach. He’s gotten soft, under Aizawa and Yamada’s smothering. He’s not a five-year-old who’s never taken the train on his own. 

They slide to a stop, and Aizawa books it. Hitoshi puts in his crappy little earbuds and tries to ignore the steady stream of UA students that trickle in. When he sees the parade of gray uniforms all exit, he figures that’s his stop, and surreptitiously follows after. 

Once he’s off the platform, Hitoshi slows down to a snail’s pace, so he can detach from the UA herd. Anti-small talk measures. He gets a granola bar from the vending machine, since he missed breakfast in the rush to get to the train on time. 

He speeds back up once he’s out of the station. There’s a low rumble that gets louder and louder as he approaches the school. Hitoshi turns a corner, and sees a crowd of reporters hooting and hollering at the school gates. Closer, poorly hidden behind a bus stop, a gaggle of UA students bicker. 

“We can just go in,” suggests a boy with impressive silver eyelashes. 

“You think they’ll let us?” asks a purple-haired girl, her elongated earlobes twitching. 

“We’re just first-years, why would reporters care about us?” 

“Maybe they’ll target us because we’re easier to crack than the upperclassmen!” 

“There’s no way out but through,” a calm voice cuts through the noise. The girl who said it, a hero student with an orange ponytail, continues, “We have the power of numbers.” 

“Yeah, I’m not scared of a few reporters!” declares a very pink girl. “I say we rush ‘em.”

There’s yells of agreement. Hitoshi looks around, and realizes with horror that he’s surrounded by hero students. The herd stampedes forward—the pink girl catches his elbow as he tries to escape. 

“Careful!” she says, in an annoyingly chipper voice. Hitoshi can’t even fault her for it, because the next moment he trips, and would’ve fallen if it weren’t for her steady grip. 

He ducks his head as they pass through the gates, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. He doesn’t want the whole nation to know that he lowered himself to the indignity of traveling in a pack. 

Not quite inconspicuous enough, however. Yamada, who’s stationed at the entrance for some reason, lets out a holler of, “Shinsou!” 

Hitoshi ducks his head down even more, but not before he catches a glimpse of the entire crowd of reporters taking a few steps back. What did Yamada do to them?

He can’t ask right now without drawing attention to himself. Hitoshi hurries over to his classroom before any of the hero students can try to make conversation with him. 

At the very least, his migraine-sleep makes him more functional than the day before. He takes actual notes,  and even has a civil conversation with one of his classmates. Yamada would be proud. 

Hitoshi is sneakily doing his art homework when an alarm starts blaring. Everyone starts moving, and, slightly confused, Hitoshi stands up too—but doesn’t get with the flow. Somebody elbows him, and then a bag slams into his knee. 

“Ouch,” Hitoshi mutters, limping along with the crowd. The direction gets confusing as they bottleneck through the door, the stream of people pushing through. Trying to be strategic, Hitoshi edges around the mob, only to hit the doorway—with the same knee.

As some kid with glasses rockets up to yell at people to calm down, Hitoshi leans against the wall and tries to breathe. The crowd disperses a little, but his kneecap feels like a gong vibrating in his flesh. 

“Shinsou—what’s wrong?” Midoriya skids up to him, right in Hitoshi’s face. 

“I’m fine. Don’t—” 

But Midoriya doesn’t listen to him, throwing Hitoshi’s arm around his shoulder and practically dragging him across the hall. “I’ll bring you to Recovery Girl, don’t worry!” 

Hitoshi tries to protest, or detach himself, but it’s impossible to fight against the absolute machine that is Midoriya, arms like iron even as he spews cheerful platitudes. 

Recovery Girl sighs the moment they come into her office. “Midoriya, already?”

He laughs, face red, and says, “Ah! No! I’m just escorting Shinsou, um, here. I’m not hurt. I swear. Uh. Please don’t call my mom again.” 

Recovery Girl tuts, but points to a bed. Embarrassingly, Midoriya practically carries Hitoshi there, setting him down with a conciliatory pat to the shoulder. 

“Really, I’m fine,” Hitoshi insists. 

The old heroine’s cane smacks the tile, and Hitoshi meets flint-like eyes. “Young man, do you see how many students are in my infirmary? I don’t have the time to waste on this nonsense.” 

Sometime along his many, many years of antagonizing authority figures, Hitoshi’s developed a sense for the danger level of any given adult. Being the way he is, he usually ignores it. However, when he makes eye contact with the little old lady standing across from him, all the alarm bells in Hitoshi’s head start ringing. 

He can’t piss her off—fuck, he’s already pissed her off. And he’s pretty sure he can’t walk on his own right now, so he needs to make up for what a burden he’s being.

“Now tell me what’s going on,” says Recovery Girl. 

“I can do CPR,” Hitoshi blurts out of desperation. 

She blinks. “Excuse me?” 

“If you need it. I have a CPR certification.” Technically he can only do it with supervision, but Recovery Girl totally counts as supervision. 

“I’m not letting a fifteen-year-old do CPR in my infirmary,” she replies, brows furrowed. “Besides, nobody’s in a bad enough condition to need it—most of you kids just need an ice-pack and some sympathy,” she adds in a gentler tone.

“I can do that,” says Hitoshi, getting up. 

Recovery Girl’s wiry arm shoots out, clamping onto his shoulder and pushing down without mercy. Even after Aizawa’s strength training, Hitoshi’s forced back onto the cot. 

She hands him an ice-pack wrapped in a towel, and orders, not unkindly, “Put this on your injury.” 

Hitoshi puts it on his bruised kneecap. To his chagrin, it does come as a relief. 

“Thanks.” 

“It’s my job,” she says briskly, and makes to walk away. 

“Hey, what about my sympathy?” Hitoshi calls out, feeling a little braver. 

Recovery Girl tosses a pack of gummies to him. She adds, “If you’re a very good boy, you can even get a lollipop.” 

With that, the hero goes to fuss over a limping business course student. Despite her age, her hands don’t shake in guiding the boy over to a cot and examining the damage. Recovery Girl calls over another student, coaching them in how to check for an ankle sprain. 

Huh. 

“Hey, do you know if she teaches nursing classes?” Hitoshi asks Midoriya. “Like, as an elective.” 

“You want to spend more time with Recovery Girl?” Midoriya asks, horrified. “I mean. Not that I don’t respect—” 

“Too late, troublemaker,” Recovery Girl snaps, smacking him with her cane. “Shoo! Or I’m accepting Inko’s dinner invitation!” 

Midoriya runs away like there’s a hellhound nipping at his heels, but Hitoshi draws into himself. Inko. Why would Midoriya Inko invite Recovery Girl to dinner? That seems strange between a mother and the school nurse, but it’s not like Hitoshi knows anything about normal parents. 

Recovery Girl sighs, and shakes her head. “That one’s coming out to be just like All Might.” 

“Why did you say All Might like pain in my ass?” Hitoshi smacks a hand to his mouth. “Uh—shit—I mean. He’s the greatest hero of all time!”

“And the greatest pain in my ass of all time.” Flintstone eyes assess Hitoshi. “Hm. You’re Mic’s new kid, right? Who’s trying to be a hero.” 

“Will be. Not trying to be. ”

“Well, try not to be too good at it. All the great heroes die,” she murmurs, and then harrumphs, “Or I don’t like ‘em! And all heroes wanna stay on Recovery Girl’s good side…” 

Hitoshi sits back, blinking up at the ceiling. His knee quietly aches. “Am I on your good side?” 

“Yes,” she says. “It’s not as hard as Midoriya makes it out to be.” 

Hitoshi feels a small burst of satisfaction at being better than Midoriya in some way. Yamada wouldn’t like that— antisocial behavior—but if he likes the kid so much, he can go foster Midoriya instead. 

“Come back to class when you’re feeling better,” Recovery Girl says. “Make sure to use the sign-out sheet as you go.” 

“Alright.” 

A few more students trickle in, and then trickle out. After a couple of minutes, the bell rings, announcing the start of the next period. Art, for Hitoshi. His knee has mostly stopped aching, but he still hasn’t done the homework. 

He sits back and weighs his options. Midnight and his foster guardians are friends, so she’d immediately rat on him. Hitoshi’s only staying with them on the condition that he goes to UA, and missing his first homework assignment doesn’t give him a great outlook. Not to mention the possible damage to their reputations. Hitoshi’s ruined quite a few reputations, including his own, and the aftermath can be seriously ugly. 

And the idea of humiliating himself in front of Midoriya and Yaoyorozu… Better to skip today’s lesson entirely, and make up for it in the next few days. Hitoshi’s always been a quick learner. 

“I need to supervise some second-year rescue training,” Recovery Girl says. “You should return to class now.” 

“But my knee hurts,” Hitoshi says. It’s not that much of a lie, more of an exaggeration. 

“Mhm.” She raises her eyebrows, unmoved. “Do you have a test today?”

“No. Who has a test on the second day of school?”

“Aizawa’s class had one yesterday,” she replies. “And I believe Vlad’s is having theirs today.” 

“Well, I’m not a hero student,” Hitoshi retorts coolly. 

“Then what is it? Are you being bullied?” 

“No! I’m not being bullied!” he snaps, heat rushing up his neck. “Why would you think that?!” 

“Alright, alright,” Recovery Girl relents, turning away.

“My knee really does hurt!” It doesn’t. 

She purses her lips, and then tells him, “You don’t get help if you don’t ask for it, kid.” 

Hitoshi doesn’t say anything more. It’s too late to take the lie back. At least Recovery Girl doesn’t seem like the gossiping type… 

She leaves him alone there, dimming the lights. Hitoshi breaks halfway through the period and leaves—but, unwilling to show up in the middle of art class, fakes his sign-out time so it’s right when lunch starts. It’s not like Recovery Girl will know the difference. 

Hitoshi dashes over to the library, catching a nap through the rest of the class period and the entirety of lunch hour. 

The school day after that goes by without incident, until Hitoshi finds himself once again standing awkwardly outside of the faculty lounge. 

Midnight opens the door when he knocks. “Hey, missed you today,” she says, smirking. 

“Yeah,” he says, scratching his neck, “I kinda had to go to the infirmary. Hit my knee in the rush from the… reporter… thing. Nothing serious.” 

“Uh-huh,” she replies, smirk getting bigger. “If it’s nothing serious, then you wouldn’t mind giving me the homework that was due today.”

Shit.

“You’re giving him an extension,” Aizawa cuts in, looming over the other hero’s shoulder. 

Unfazed, Midnight twists around until they are nose-to-nose. “And why should I do that? Wouldn’t that be—” she gasps in mock offense, “—favoritism?”

“Not favoritism. He had a migraine yesterday.” 

“Okay,” says Midnight. “Favoritism, just this once.” 

“It’s not—” 

Hitoshi slips around the two bickering pro-heroes and into the room itself. Yamada beckons him over, leaning against a counter and swirling a mug of tea. 

“Hey there, Mr. CPR certified,” he says. 

“Wh—how did you – who told you about that?!” Hitoshi stammers. God, that moment was so embarrassing. 

“Me and RG are great friends, don’tcha know? We talk all the time.” To be fair, Yamada talks with everyone all the time. 

“Oh,” says Hitoshi lamely. He’s only half-aware of what’s coming out of his mouth, busy racking his brains for a way out of this situation. 

“She was telling me about this morning—” Yamada continues, but Hitoshi’s stopped paying attention. 

He needs a distraction. Maybe he could snitch to Aizawa that Yamada hasn’t been practicing his hand-to-hand. If Hitoshi’s lucky, it could even result in an impromptu spar… No, that’s too extreme. 

Yamada puts both his hands on Hitoshi’s shoulders. Oh, he’s still talking. 

“Shinsou,” he says, as the conclusion of what was probably a super inspiring speech or whatever. “Are you being bullied?”

“Yamada hasn’t been practicing his hand-to-hand!” Hitoshi shouts out desperately. “At all!” 

Aizawa materializes. “What.”

Hitoshi turns around and runs out of the room, dodging Midnight to flee across the school. His footsteps ring far too loud, but he can’t risk turning back to see if either of his guardians are coming after him. Hitoshi puts on speed, heading to the only place where he knows nobody will be. He skids into the classroom, and carefully closes the door behind him. 

“Uh-h-h…” says Yaoyorozu. 

“Why are you here?” Hitoshi pants. After yesterday, he figured the homework club must’ve moved locations or something. He didn’t think that the same girl would show up here again. 

“Because I have a right to be. I’m not going to let you intimidate me,” she replies, matter-of-factly. Then her cheeks pink, and she adds, “Also, um, if this is some kind of playground, pulling-my-pigtails thing, you should know that I am. Um. A lesbian.”  

“Oh no, I’m not – I don’t even know if I like girls,” says Hitoshi, and then, realizing that’s TMI, tries to fix it by saying, “Uh, that’s, it’s not. Well, I mean.” He scrambles desperately for a change of subject. “I saw two pro-heroes fight each other. Just now.” That’s a good distraction, right? And technically true. Although Hitoshi should probably make up a lie about Mt. Lady or something, if Yaoyorozu has follow-up questions. 

Yaoyorozu’s brow furrows, and then her eyes go wide in realization. “Pro-heroes—two of the teachers?”  

Dammit. They’re in school, of course the pro-heroes would be teachers. This girl’s way too quick on the uptake. 

The door slams open, revealing Aizawa. Ah, time to die. 

“Shinsou, come with me.” 

Yaoyorozu’s eyes go even wider, and her hand flies up to her mouth. “Aizawa-sensei?”  

Hitoshi nods, slow and purposeful. Yaoyorozu’s hands flutter to and fro, eventually resolving to grip her calculator like she’s trying to strangle it. Hitoshi vaguely wonders if she might faint. It’s okay if you’re sitting down, right? 

“Shinsou. Now.”

Aizawa drags Hitoshi over back to the office, and makes him stay outside while he “cleans up.” Hitoshi is distracted from whatever that might mean by Yamada showing up and mentioning that he was about to call Hitoshi via the PA system (it’s unclear whether he means the literal school PA system, or just his voice). Some hairs are splitting from his gelled monstrosity of a ‘do, but far fewer than Hitoshi would expect. His grin is unfriendly and blinding. 

“Okay, you can come in now,” Aizawa says, ushering both of them into the office that looks—just about normal. There’s a crack in the window that Yamada slides over to cover with his banana hair. 

Hitoshi shrinks as he walks through the door. Today was not a day of good decisions. 

“Shinsou, that was not the way you should’ve told me that Hizashi has been slacking,” Aizawa says. 

“—But, we’re more concerned about our convo before the incident, alright?” Yamada swivels the focus.

“I’m not being bullied, Jesus,” Hitoshi says. “It’s literally fine.”

“If everything’s so fine, then why did you act so evasive when I asked?” Yamada leans in, his costume a little too big and voice a little too loud in the small space. 

“It’s just embarrassing for you to ask me that,” Hitoshi admits. “Like, I can protect myself. I’m not a wimp.” 

“People who get bullied aren’t wimps,” Aizawa cuts in sharply. “They’re just easy targets. Foreigners, disabled people, or those with… undesirable quirks.” 

“I know what my quirk is.” He isn’t stupid. 

Aizawa narrows his eyes. Hitoshi narrows his eyes back. They stare each other down, until finally Yamada announces, “All right, clearly this is going nowhere. If there’s no crisis going on, then we can just leave this here for now. Sound good?” 

They both grumble assent. 

“Great!” Yamada’s grin gets a notch more aggressive as he ushers them out of the office and into the lounge again. Hitoshi’s not the only one unhappy with this turn of events. “But let’s keep me and Sho’s little kerfuffle on the DL. Don’t want my little listeners getting the wrong idea.” 

“Uh,” Hitoshi winces. “It… might be too late for that.” 

“A student knows already?” Yamada exclaims, eyebrows jumping up to his hairline. “Jesus, you kids have some speed…” Hitoshi frowns—it’s not like he did it on purpose, 

“Missing the good ol’ days, Yamada?” Midnight calls out from the couch. 

“Never!” Yamada strikes a flamboyant pose, ceasing all pretenses of being a reasonable person. “You know I’m all about the now, baby!” Then he drops over the back of the couch, stage-whispering, “But I’ll admit the gossip was juiciest when we were in high school.”

“That’s because children lie,” says Aizawa. 

“I know that, I used to make stuff up all the time!” Yamada leaps back up and elbows Hitoshi forcefully in the side with one of his dagger-like elbows. 

“Okay, I get it,” Hitoshi wheezes. Yamada got him right in the lung. 

Yamada doesn’t mind him. “Wanna keep things professional, right Eraser?”

“It’s not that unprofessional.” 

“Sho,” Yamada groans. He looks at Aizawa, decides he’s a lost cause, and diverts his attention (bright, overwhelming attention) to Hitoshi. “Look, kid—the students copy us, see? If there’s a conflict, or even if they think there’s a conflict, between teachers, the atmosphere gets real uncool real fast.” He shakes his head and mutters, almost to himself, “Teenagers will turn on each other in the blink of an eye.”

“Teenagers do suck,” Hitoshi begrudgingly agrees. He should know—he’s one of them.

“Aw, but you’re cute sometimes!” Yamada reaches out to pinch his cheeks, but he dodges. “That’s why we teachers have to be careful, as role models to our volatile young students. It’s like how Eraser and Vlad’s attitudes only make their class rivalry worse.” 

“It’s good motivation,” Aizawa mutters. 

Yamada ignores him, saying, “Think, this could start a rumor that Eraserhead can’t control his aggressive impulses.” Aizawa sits up, suddenly attentive. “Oh, now you care, huh?” 

“What if they say you can’t control yourself?” Aizawa argues. 

“I’m Present Mic.”

Silence. Then, “It’s fine, I’m sure that Yaoyorozu is discreet,” Aizawa tries. 

“Discreet?!” Midnight gasps in delight. “Oh my. Don’t tell me you two—” 

“It’s not—” 

“We didn’t—” 

It takes way longer than necessary to clear up the misunderstanding, mostly because Midnight was misunderstanding them on purpose. She wouldn’t have the same reaction if his foster guardians did something that inappropriate. Hitoshi hopes. 

Aizawa says to Hitoshi and Yamada, “The train’s leaving in five minutes. We should go now.”

“I still have some work to take care of,” Yamada says apologetically. 

“That’s fine, Shinsou and I can just go to my place,” Aizawa replies. 

“Oh, so you can be late again?” he snarks. 

“It was one time,” Aizawa argues. “I’ll plan it out better next time.” 

“Yeah, and you can plan it out, at my place.”  

Aizawa loses that argument. He grunts something, and then motions for Hitoshi to follow him. He leads the teen to one of UA’s state-of-the-art gyms, where they can train. Hitoshi can’t help the thrill that runs through him—this is just like a real hero student. 

Aizawa sends him onto the gymnastics equipment. Hitoshi spends an unreasonable amount of time flailing around—Aizawa watches with the usual glint of sadism in his eye. It’s nice to move, though, and with a start Hitoshi realizes he’s become the kind of person who likes to exercise. 

They take the train back to Yamada’s apartment. Yamada, bright and no longer with his ridiculous hairdo, says hello to what seems like an ever-increasing number of people. A good number of them greet Hitoshi as well, by name even. Aizawa isn’t spoken to, only offered food, which he accepts with more grace than Hitoshi thought he was capable of. Food must be the best way to a grumpy underground hero’s heart. 

Hitoshi does his homework in Yamada’s guest room, listening to screamo on taped-together earbuds. 

He falls asleep the moment his head hits the pillow, exhausted from the plus ultra workout Aizawa put him through at UA’s gym. Yamada wakes him up in the morning, grin a little too bright for how early it is. 

They eat breakfast, bicker, and eventually pile into the farcical spectacle known as the UA faculty carpool. 

“Excited for your third day of school, young man?” Yagi asks. 

“Not really,” he replies, too tired to even pretend. 

Yagi laughs, which means Hitoshi’s social faux pas must’ve been on the endearing side. “I can’t say I’m surprised. You have some quite impressive eye bags there, if you don’t mind me saying.” He pauses, and then adds, “If you have trouble sleeping, I do have some medicine that I’ve found quite helpful—” 

“Yagi, do I look like the kind of man who doesn’t have sleeping pills?” Aizawa interrupts. 

“It was just an offer,” Yagi tries to smooth it over. Aizawa gives him a dirty look, which he then transfers to Hitoshi, as if to call him a traitor. Hitoshi rolls his eyes. 

There are no break-ins or injuries that morning as Hitoshi goes through the increasingly-familiar routine of school. He turns in yesterday’s homework to Midnight with only a slightly red face, avoids eye contact with most people but especially the two hero students he ran into yesterday. 

Unfortunately, Yaoyorozu has other ideas. The moment the bell rings, she heads over to Hitoshi’s desk. He packs up and flees with the ease of years of experience. There’s only one place he’ll be safe from a stubborn goody-two-shoes like Yaoyorozu: the teacher. 

Unfortunately, said teacher is Midnight. Instead of standing there and talking to him like a normal person, she sweeps out of the classroom, beckoning him along with a crooked finger. Hitoshi can feel the heat of Yaoyorozu’s gaze on his back, so he hurries after. 

“I have cafeteria duty today,” Midnight explains. “Ask me your question on the way, hm-m?” 

This is bad. Hitoshi can’t sneak off to the library like he usually does—the lunch from home excuse won’t hold up to the woman who Yamada tells every single detail of his life to, in nightly phone calls. Then Mr. and Mr. “The-Correct-Diet-Is-Vital-For-A-Hero-Student” will pounce on him. And it’s not like Hitoshi could explain that it’s for self-defense against the teenage hordes. They choose to hang out with teenagers all the time. 

“Spit it out, kid,” Midnight says.

“How can I change electives?” Hitoshi tries to mimic her cutting nonchalance. 

“You fill out a form, talk to your counselor, and see if it’ll fit into your schedule,” she replies, the corner of her mouth twitching up. “But I suggest you keep in mind that UA has no slack-off classes.” 

“I’m not looking to slack off,” Hitoshi denies. He’s just as dedicated as everybody else. 

“Yuh-huh,” Midnight agrees condescendingly. “Hey, here it is—why don’t you run off to Lunch Rush, hm-m? Little boys need their vegetables.” 

Hitoshi storms off to the lunch line, so eager to leave the conversation that he forgot totally about avoiding the cafeteria in the first place. Midnight just… unsettles him. 

He takes his noodles from Lunch Rush, and settles in to eat them by an empty table in the corner. He studiously avoids looking at Midnight, who’s drawing half the room’s gaze anyway. 

Unfortunately, Hitoshi’s lunch doesn’t stay peaceful. In the middle of slurping up a noodle, a vaguely familiar pink girl slams her hands down on his table. She’s flanked by Midoriya, who’s writing something in a notebook, and Yaoyorozu, who doesn’t make eye contact with him. 

Oh, rich girl doesn’t want people to think they’re friends. She’s very lucky that Hitoshi’s repulsion to the idea outweighs his desire to fuck with her. 

“Hi, I’m Ashido Mina from class 1-A!” she says, all smiles. She gestures to her right, saying, “This is Midoriya, he’s here to… take notes?” 

“Think of me as your gossip intern!” the boy exclaims. 

“You’re adorable,” Ashido tells him, and then points to her left. “This is our vice prez, she’s here to supervise.” 

Yaoyorozu smiles uncomfortably. “Hello.” 

“Now!” Ashido slams her hands on the table. Again. Face incredibly serious, she says, “I heard that you saw Aizawa-sensei fighting another teacher. Who was it? Why do they hate each other? Who was winning?” 

“They don’t hate each other,” Hitoshi denies. Yamada said it was important that the UA faculty present a united front. 

“Ah. Enemies-to-lovers, huh?” Ashido nods sagely. “I see.”

“I don’t think you do,” says Hitoshi. 

Yaoyorozu sighs. “This is why I came along—Mina, you can’t just say stuff like that.”

“Right, you should have a segue into gossip. Can you give an example of what that would look like?” Midoriya asks, pencil poised to note her response. 

She turns red. “Well, I mean. I’m not exactly experienced at this either, you know!” 

It’s at this point Hitoshi has a realization: the only other person who knows about the incident is Yaoyorozu. She must’ve purposefully passed it along to Ashido, and then followed along pretending to be good and proper, when she actually just wanted to hear more. You know, instead of asking him herself.

“I think you’re plenty experienced, Yaoyorozu,” says Hitoshi, slow and distinct. 

She smiles in the way that well-mannered people do when they’re displeased. Hitoshi smiles right back, the gleeful, malicious grin he copied from Aizawa. 

“Record scratch, hold on—you two know each other?” Ashido says. “Aw, I feel bad about forcing the juicy deets out of Yaomomo, now.” Forcing…? “Were you trying to protect your friend?” 

“We’re not friends,” they reply in unison. Okay, this is getting embarrassing. 

Ashido gasps. “More than friends?!” 

Hitoshi’s about to say that Yaoyorozu doesn’t like guys, but pauses—is she even out to her class? He doesn’t want to out someone on the basis of petty dislike. He’ll go far for petty dislike, but not that far. 

“Actually, Ashido… that’s not possible,” Yaoyorozu says slowly, holding her chin high. “Because. I’m a lesbian.” 

“O-M-G, I shouldn’t have assumed! I’m so sorry, Yaomomo!” Ashido throws her arms around Yaoyorozu’s torso, since she’s too short to reach the shoulders, and squeezes. Yaoyorozu pats her on the back awkwardly, range of motion limited to her forearms, but her face is a pleased kind of embarrassed. 

Furiously writing, Midoriya leans over to Hitoshi and asks, “Would you say this is an appropriate reaction to a friend coming out to you?” 

“Stop taking notes on this.” 

“Okay.” Midoriya complies immediately, if a little poutily. Months of being Aizawa’s intern must have conditioned him. 

After some more hugging and a little crying that Hitoshi respectfully ignores, Ashido says, “Okay, back to business! I just need a li’l information from you. Capisce?” 

“Let’s just get this over with,” Hitoshi reluctantly agrees. 

“Sweet!” Ashido’s face brightens into something that’s a little hard to look at. “Who was he with? How many clothes were they wearing? And if you had to pick a song to describe their relationship, what would it be? No Frank Sinatra.” 

“Why… a song?” he asks. 

“Well, you see, I’ve already made a bunch of fan-cams of Aizawa-sensei—”

“Wait, wait, what’s a fan-cam?”  

“Just, like, a fan video. Every year I pick a teacher and record them a bunch, just doing teacher stuff,” Ashido explains calmly, like any of the words that just came out of her mouth make any sense. “This year I picked Aizawa-sensei ‘cause he’s a cryptid and I wanted a challenge.” 

“He’s confiscated her phone every day since school started,” Yaoyorozu adds. “And occasionally also the phones of her enablers.” 

“My phone is a sacrifice I choose to make for art.” 

“As well as other people’s phones,” Midoriya chimes in helpfully. 

“Look, this doesn’t matter,” Ashido dismisses. “Besides, school rules say you gotta give it back by the end of the day. That’s what the principal said, anyway.” Of course Nedzu is involved with this. “He might’ve made it up T-B-H, but he says he likes my initiative, and that as long as I don’t post it anywhere it’s okay.” 

“See? It’s ethical,” mutters Midoriya, eyes wild and pencil scratching at light speed on the paper. 

“Sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself,” says Hitoshi, lightly amused. Ah, Midoriya. Always a breath of fresh air. 

“Anyway, point is, I gotta do something with all my footage that I worked so hard for. This is the perfect opportunity! I’m gonna make an edit of Aizawa-sensei and his one true love,” Ashido concludes her insane plan. “With special effects and a song. Which is why I asked for your personal song choice for them, although I make no guarantees about the final product.” 

“Okay, sure,” says Hitoshi, who’s not being paid enough to care, “but why, exactly, are you doing this?” 

Ashido holds up her index finger. “First, because I love love.” A second finger. “Also for blackmail.” Hitoshi has a suspicion as to who suggested that.  

A blur of black catches Hitoshi’s eye. “Oh, speak of the devil. Aizawa’s coming right this way.” 

Stalking is a better word for it. A silence hushes the cafeteria as Eraserhead, quirk activated and (Hitoshi suspects) extremely embarrassed, stares down the four students in the corner. 

Ashido whips out her phone to record him, but his scarf unfurls in record speed to smack it to the ground. She makes a wounded noise. 

“That’ll be really good footage. An action shot, you know?” Midoriya says to her, trying to cheer her up. 

They don’t see if it works, because then the scarf wraps Ashido up, reaching all the way to her nose. She tries frantically to communicate with her eyes, but tragically nobody understands. 

Midoriya leans into Hitoshi’s personal space and whispers, “It’s Mic, isn’t it?” 

“Midoriya,” says Aizawa. “Why don’t we see what’s in that notebook of yours?” 

“Godspeed,” Midoriya murmurs to Hitoshi. Then, resigned to his fate, takes some of the scarf and wraps his arms up in it. 

“Shinsou, we’ll have words later,” says Aizawa, ignoring Hitoshi’s complaint that he didn’t do anything. “Yaoyorozu… discretion is the better part of valor. Try and avoid causing scenes like this in the future.”

She nods, face bright red. 

Aizawa sweeps out of the cafeteria, his prey hurrying along behind him. Midoriya stares very intently at Ashido’s frantic eye motions, and then brings out his phone. However, before he can start recording, Aizawa snatches it away.  

“Wow,” says Hitoshi. 

“I apologize that you had to see us so undignified,” Yaoyorozu says, straight-backed and straight-laced. “I assure you that class 1-A normally acts with far more grace.” 

“Boo. I almost thought you were interesting for a second there.”

Yaoyorozu flushes red, closes her mouth, and trots back to the table she came from. A purple-haired girl with long ears places a careful hand on her arm, and then gives Hitoshi a dirty look. 

Whatever. 

After school ends, Hitoshi finds himself with the unenviable task of finding something to occupy himself with while his guardians do teacher stuff. There are clubs he can join (he checked, and the homework club did move classrooms from last year), but the idea of human interaction is not appealing right now. Or ever. 

Besides, he’s not letting Yaoyorozu out-stubborn him. Hitoshi is going to sit in the old homework club room until she gives up. 

They sit in silence, occasionally glancing at each other, then quickly away if eye contact is made. It’s possibly the most awkward thing Hitoshi has ever been a part of, but he refuses to be the one who chickens out. 

That’s why, when Midoriya bursts into the room slightly breathless, Hitoshi’s actually glad. He’ll take any distraction at this point. 

“Hi Shinsou? I got your location from your phone, you should really disable that feature by the way, but just so you know I gave your number to Mina.” His expression, with those big green eyes and fluffy hair, is almost pitiful enough for Hitoshi to forgive him. 

“Seriously?” 

“I’m sorry, she’s just really hard to say no to!” 

“There’s no need to be rude.” Yaoyorozu goes as far as to step between Hitoshi and Midoriya, which is a little ridiculous considering that Midoriya spent months being Aizawa’s intern. Even existing in the same space as Aizawa means growing a thick skin. 

“Right, sorry I forgot to greet you, Yaoyorozu, that was rude,” the confused boy apologizes again. 

She whirls around, and takes a few steps back. “No, that wasn’t—I meant he didn’t have to be rude to you. Mina is really hard to say no to! For anyone!” 

Hitoshi considers arguing, but remembers her interrogation at lunch. Her crazed energy was hard to counter. Hitoshi might have folded, had Aizawa not stepped in. 

But it’s not like Yaoyorozu knows that. 

“What’s so hard about it?” he asks lazily, tipping his head and widening his eyes in a way he knows the girl will hate. 

But instead of giving him a look of frustration, Yaoyorozu shoots a sharp, disdainful glance. It… cuts deeper than Hitoshi expects. 

“That’s good,” Midoriya says with a sigh of relief. “Look, you need to tell Mina she’s wrong about the enemies-to-lovers thing. She has some serious misconceptions about Aizawa-sensei and,” Midoriya visibly steels himself, “Mr. Yagi.”  

A grin spreads on Hitoshi’s face. This is way funnier than anything he could have anticipated. 

“Why should I?” Hitoshi says, thoroughly amused, at the same time that Yaoyorozu says, “Are we sure they’re misconceptions?” 

“You’ve been listening to her, haven’t you?!” Yaoyorozu says nothing to deny these allegations. “I wouldn’t lie about that!” 

“I’m not saying you’re lying, but you’re very close to the situation—” 

Hitoshi is distracted by a buzz in his pocket. A text? He never gets texts. Yamada prefers calling, because messages can’t properly get his obnoxiousness across, and Aizawa just hunts Hitoshi down by smell or something. 

Unknown Number

hiiiii 👋 is mina 💖💞💘

fyi i figured it out. its that old skinny blond guy right??? 

i saw him & aizawa sensei having a HEATED 🥵 discussion the other day 

plus mido went RED af when i asked him abt it and yk that boy knows everything 

E 👏 VE 👏 RY 👏 THING 👏

soz abt harassing u @ lunch btw

It takes Hitoshi a minute or so to partially decode the message. This must officially be a rumor, now. Better than the teachers having a feud. Actually, he bets Yamada would get a kick out of this one. 

It’s getting around the time to leave anyway. Easily slipping by Midoriya and Yaoyorozu, who are deep in discussion, Hitoshi makes his way over to the teachers’ lounge. There he finds Midnight giving condescending pats on the back to Aizawa, pausing occasionally to snicker behind her hand. 

“Hey there troublemaker!” she says brightly. 

“Don’t encourage him,” Aizawa grumbles. “Now I have to deal with Ashido, too…” 

“I haven’t known the kid for that long, but I doubt she’d believe we hate each other,” Yamada says. “She’s a positive thinker, y’know?” 

“He’s right. Ashido doesn’t think any of the teachers hate each other.” Hitoshi pauses for dramatic effect, and then says, “She just thinks Aizawa’s in love with Yagi.” 

Yamada wheezes, while Midnight gets a thoughtful look on her face. Aizawa turns stiff as a board, hands gripping the couch so tightly that his knuckles turn white. 

He growls out, “Which. Yagi.” 

Hitoshi blinks. “Uh…”

“Ha-ha, don’t you remember that Shinsou doesn’t know the, uh, bigger Yagi?” Yamada says, nudging Aizawa’s side for some reason. 

The tension releases out of Aizawa with a great sigh. “Okay. Not great, but… fine. Fine.”

“I thought you hated him,” says Hitoshi, flabbergasted. Does Aizawa like… like Yagi? Is that what all the arguing is about? 

“Well,” Midnight interjects, “Shouta does like blondes.” 

Her comment practically sends Yamada into hysterics. He’s howling, clutching at his stomach, and Aizawa takes the opportunity to shove him off the couch. He continues laughing on the floor. 

Yamada’s laugh is just loud enough to be grating, but the expression on his face is nicer than the wrinkled, heavy concern he had talking about conflicts between teachers. 

You

Aizawa likes blondes. 

Ashido Mina

🤩

yagizawa 5ever!!!!!!!!!

You 

Yagizawa 5ever. 

“Are you texting Ashido right now?” Aizawa asks with a tone of despair. 

“They’re friends!” Yamada cheerfully informs him, based on absolutely no evidence. 

“Hey, what about Yaoyorozu? She’s nice and quiet,” Aizawa tries to argue. “You can make friends with her.” 

“I don’t like Yaoyorozu.” 

A deep, heavy sigh. “Just—not Ashido. Please.” 

“Too late,” says Hitoshi. “I’m gonna ask her to send me her fan-cams.”

“I don’t know what that means.” Aizawa gives him a good glare, and then adds, “But still don’t do it.” 

“Send them to me too,” says Yamada, who also definitely doesn’t know what that means. 

“Don’t encourage her,” says Aizawa. “I need to take my class on a field trip tomorrow, and Ashido makes enough trouble without you riling her up.” 

“I’m sure you’ll survive,” Yamada says, and laughs. Hitoshi laughs too. 

They get back to Yamada’s apartment earlier than the day before, since both his guardians have a lot of work to do. It’s nice, but means Hitoshi doesn’t get training time with Aizawa. They order takeout (from a regular restaurant, not one of Yamada’s monstrosities). 

“Are you sure we can’t train?” Hitoshi asks again, hating how desperate he sounds. Aizawa already sent him on a couple laps ‘round the neighborhood, but it just pumped him up more. 

“Everyone needs rest days,” Aizawa says firmly. “We can do something tomorrow. Depending on how long it takes 1-A to complete their rescue training, there might even be a window of time when the USJ is free. I’ll see if we can use it then.” 

“Right. Cool. Yeah,” Hitoshi agrees. 

He goes to bed feeling oddly okay. Maybe he’s finally getting used to this.