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Less than a minute of being awake and Hitoshi has already decided that today is going to be a shitty day. He’d hardly gotten any sleep considering the mix of pain in his hands and back from caning welts and his already generally awful sleeping habits thanks to his insomnia. He’d finally managed to fall asleep only to be awakened around an hour or two later by Honoka throwing a tantrum in the hall. He can’t blame her. She moved there, ‘Kaiji’s Home for Troubled Children’, only 3 weeks ago. Hitoshi refuses to believe that any 5 year old could have actually done anything to deserve being labelled a delinquent so he can only assume that her quirk was what landed her there. Like many of them, her quirk had likely been classified as ‘Dangerous’ even though they all know that actually means ‘Undesirable’. It was a pretty miserable place to end up on top of the fact that she was the youngest kid living there by 4 years. So, no, he can’t blame her, but couldn’t she at least wait 30 more minutes until his alarm goes off?

With a muffled groan he carefully navigates off his bed, avoiding agitating any of the spots on his back where skin had broken the night before. He gets up slowly to prevent himself from getting dizzy or his vision going black as it does when he stands up too quickly. Though he manages to get up without trouble, he winces when he straightens his hands. Any small movement irritates the parallel welts along the opposite sides of his knuckles as well as the blue and green bruises forming around them. Resigned, he shuts off his alarm half an hour before it’s meant to go off and walks into the hall to see what the problem is this time. The room he shares with the other boys doesn’t have a door so he just steps out through the open doorway. 

As usual, it’s Yuri, the oldest of the girls, who is trying to do damage control. By the way Yuri is holding Honoka’s wrists away from each other, it seems like Honoka was trying to get her gloves off again. She wasn’t adjusting well to being forced to wear them all the time and they have been the main focus of her tantrums so far. Every kid in the home has their quirks suppressed in some way. Since they don’t know what each other's quirks are, their only hint comes from whatever is used to suppress them. Yuri’s is limited by what kind of food she eats so she gets no variety, Honoka’s comes from her hands so she has to wear gloves, and Hitoshi’s needs his voice so he wears a muzzle. ‘ It’s fine. I don't care.’ If he let himself care he’s sure he’d lose his mind. 

Honoka continues to struggle against Yuri’s attempts to get her to calm down and Hitoshi can see she’s getting a little desperate as Honoka’s crying gets louder. “Come on, Hono. I need you to calm down. What if I promise to bring you a little something from work later? Hm? Anything you want.” Hitoshi can see that Yuri offering up any of her money frustrates her. Most of her money is taken by Mr. Emoto, Emoto Kaiji aka their primary caregiver and owner of the house, the moment she walks in the door on Friday’s after she gets paid. He excuses it by saying that delinquent kids can’t be trusted to handle that much money responsibly, how she’d probably go off and buy drugs with it, or whatever other bullshit he feels like spewing. Hitoshi knows, as does Yuri, that Mr. Emoto is just a greedy bastard. So the small amount that’s left to Yuri is treasured and most is slowly being saved up. In the 3 weeks Honoka has been here, however, it’s only gotten more and more difficult to satisfy her and they’ve had to get creative.

“I want them off !” Honoka shrieks, stomping her foot on the ground defiantly. “I want my mama! I wanna go home !” The last word breaks off in a sob and Honoka drops to sit on the ground. It seems that when her attempts to pull her wrists free from the other girl failed she decided that trying to kick her hands might prove more effective. “ I wanna go home !”

Yuri’s at a loss for words and simply holds the other girl’s hands in place, not phased by the small socked feet kicking desperately at her hands. Yuri, after a moment of just staring down helplessly at Honoka, turns to look at Hitoshi with a pained and pleading expression. All he can do is stare back, eyebrows furrowed, hoping to portray his sympathy. They both startle at the sound of a door slamming downstairs then share a panicked look. Yuri releases Honoka’s wrists and turns toward the sound of heavy footsteps quickly approaching. Hitoshi hates himself for the slight tremble in his hands at the all too familiar sound. Mr. Emoto levels a glare at Hitoshi as he approaches and it takes everything in him to not curl in on himself at the scrutiny. Hitoshi is taller than Mr. Emoto, but he doesn’t need a height advantage to make him intimidating. He’s an ex hero who keeps in shape. He has a broad chest and shoulders, a cold hateful glare, and a short temper that seems to run out from even the smallest of offenses. It’s clear that he views them in the same way he’d view a villain out in the field. His experience is what led to him being trusted to handle dozens of children and teenagers, over the years, that have been labelled as a danger in one way or another. Hitoshi has to bite back a sigh of relief when the man’s gaze flicks from him over to Yuri. 

“You mind telling me what the the fucking problem is that requires waking up the whole goddamn house?” Mr. Emoto growls, gesturing angrily at the still weeping child on the floor without taking his eyes off Yuri.

Yuri doesn’t dare break eye contact while she responds. “Honoka is complaining about her gloves again. She keeps saying she wants to go home. I tried everything I could think of to calm her down, but she won’t listen.” Yuri speaks just loud enough to be heard, her voice wavering at the last few words. It’s clear to Hitoshi that she feels guilty for not being able to avoid Honoka getting in trouble, but trying to lie only ever makes things worse for all of them.

Mr. Emoto turns his glare to Honoka, sneering at her with disgust and contempt. After a moment he rolls his eyes at her distress and looks back at Yuri. In one fluid motion he slaps her clear across the face. Yuri stumbles back a step then regains her composure. “These brats won’t learn a damn thing with you babying them. When they start fussing you come to me and let me handle it. I won’t tell you this again. Now, since you’re awake already anyway and it’s almost time for the others to get up, go start on breakfast.” He waves a hand to dismiss her and turns his attention back to Hitoshi as she hurries away. “And you,” Mr. Emoto takes a step closer to Hitoshi’s tense form with a finger raised to point at him, “better not cause me any more problems today. You hear me?” Hitoshi nods stiffly and Mr. Emoto backs off. “Good. Go help Yuri with breakfast.”

Hitoshi only moves once Mr. Emoto’s eyes are no longer on him, quickly following behind Yuri down the hall turning left into the kitchen. Both are silent as they get to work, though of course Hitoshi doesn’t exactly have a choice in the matter. They pointedly ignore the sound of Honoka screaming protests as she’s dragged by the wrist down the hall after them. Hitoshi keeps his eyes fixed on his task to avoid looking at the two as they pass by in the corner of his eye. ‘ Fucking coward’. He doesn’t remember the other kids getting up, he doesn’t remember setting the table, he doesn’t remember Yuri mixing her portion in with Honoka’s set aside portion and excusing herself back to the girls room. He doesn’t even realize he’s sat down to eat until the muzzle is being removed from his face from behind. He glances back at Mr. Emoto who still has his signature glare plastered on his face.

Mr. Emoto sets the timer down in front of Hitoshi, sets it for 5 minutes, and presses start. Ever since Hitoshi’s first year living there, when he would intentionally eat as slow as possible to avoid having to put the muzzle back on, Mr. Emoto had gotten fed up with his shit and began consistently timing him when he eats. When the timer goes off the muzzle goes back on, whether he’s done eating or not. The texture makes his skin crawl, but he’s used to that and he just chokes it down. He suppresses a shudder once he gets the last bite down and swallows down the bile that starts to rise in his throat. ‘Don’t throw up, don’t throw up, don’t throw up’. That’s another thing he’d been trained out of doing. It wasn’t like anything was actually wrong with the food. Sure, it was bland as all hell, but that’s fine. For some gods' forsaken reason, Hitoshi couldn’t stand it. Any of it. Eating was always a chore for him. It all just felt bad. The taste didn’t help, but the texture never failed to make him gag. He had to learn quickly how to suck it up and deal with it though once the hunger pains and punishments become too much for him.

He takes a deep breath as the muzzle is strapped and locked back in place again. Mr. Emoto leaves after picking up the timer and Hitoshi takes his plate over to the sink to robotically begin cleaning all of the ones that had accumulated. The stinging pain as his hands hit the hot water shocks him fully back into his mind. He pulls them back out and looks them over. Right, the welts. He sighs in resignation and sticks his hands back in, fighting to ignore the pain pulsing through them. It’s not like he could use cooler water. Mr. Emoto is already in a dreadful mood so if today was one of the days he decides to check and make sure the water is hot enough, Hitoshi would rather face the pain in his hands than chance becoming the next target of that animosity. 

The awful start sets his mood for the rest of the morning and every small thing grates on his nerves. Every sound, every shift of his clothes, every smell, just everything. He lets his mind go and operates through the rest of his morning routine on auto pilot. Occasionally the pain in his hands will bring him back to the present and he’ll glare at them as though they personally offended him, because they did. He gathers his school stuff, changes his clothes, tries and fails to tame his hair, makes sure the younger boys are ready and gets them lined up at the door. ‘ Yeah, today is going to be a long, shitty day ’.

\/\/\/\/\/

“All I ask is that you think about it. More room means more cats! Nothing but positives!” Hizashi chirps excitedly at his far less enthusiastic, and far more sleep deprived, husband. 

“The positives outweighing the negatives doesn’t make the negatives stop existing, Zashi.” Shouta grumbles, taking a long sip of his coffee. He turns to narrow his eyes disapprovingly at the cat perched on his shoulder, Puddle, when she smacks him in the side of the head while attempting to bat at a few pieces of hair that had come undone from his ponytail. The expression only holds for a moment before it softens and he reaches up to ruffle the grey fur on top of her head. When he pulls his hand away her blue eyes stare back at his black ones with a look that is as close to judgement as you can get. Shouta huffs a laugh and turns his attention back to Hizashi. “I’ll think about it.”

Hizashi beams at him, clapping his hands together in elation. “Great! Okay, now that that’s settled we should get going before we’re late. Leaving any of our little listeners alone together is a bad idea . ” He chuckles at Shouta’s grunt of agreement. Hizashi finishes his adjusting gear and Shouta downs the last of his coffee before placing the cup in the sink. 

—

The two arrive on time and part with a kiss on the cheek from Hizashi after he puts the car into park. Hizashi hurries to his first class, pulling up his lesson plan for today on his laptop. He frowns a little at the messiness of the plan, silently cursing himself for his inability to properly organize his thoughts then he tries to type them out. He really should work on finding a better system for himself considering he has this problem every week, but he keeps forgetting to. He should tell Shouta to remind him later. With the way he is, he’ll no doubt also forget to do that too if he doesn’t tell him now so he sends him a quick text just as he reaches his classroom and steps inside. 

[8:22 AM] Siren Song: Jofwdnvqrvjdjdkls remind me to sort my shit out later, these lesson plans are unintelligible

[8:23 AM] Rainbow in the Middle of a Hurricane: Didn’t we have this same conversation last month?

[8:23 AM] Siren Song: Unimportant  

[8:24 AM] Rainbow in the Middle of a Hurricane: I’ll set a reminder on my phone.

Hizashi can almost hear the sigh accompanying that last text as he just smiles down at the little names they’d given each other. After getting added to the class group chat that his students put together, Hizashi had insisted that he and Shouta had to make one between the two of them. When Shouta asked why his only reasoning had been so that they could come up with cute names to set for each other on it. It took a little convincing, but it wasn’t hard for his husband to see how much he wanted it and it was such a small thing that it would have been silly, or irrational as Shouta put it, to deny him. Hizashi already had his name for Shouta picked out before he proposed the idea, but Shouta took his time coming up with the one for Hizashi. When he finally got to see it he was in class and definitely got more than a few unimpressed looks thrown his way at how loud the quirk amplified squeal he’d let out was. Hizashi glances at the time and, realizing he only has a minute left until class starts, hastily runs over to the board and begins writing out the warm up questions from his plan.

—

By the time lunch comes around, Hizashi’s bones feel like they’re practically vibrating under his skin. Nothing bad had happened, in fact his first few classes that day were uncharacteristically calm to an almost suspicious extent, but that was kind of the problem. Well, not exactly. He doesn’t want something bad to happen, just something. So, by the time the bell rings at the end of his fourth class, he’s already out of his chair and collecting the assignments off each student's desk.

“Don’t worry if you weren’t able to finish today's assignment before the end of class, little listeners. I’ll hand them back tomorrow and give you a little extra time to finish them up at the beginning of class next week if you need it.” He makes his way back to his desk with the papers stacked neatly in his hands. He puts the papers in his desk drawer designated for his 4th hour class, gathers his things in his bag, then heads out to meet Shouta in his office for lunch. Some of the kids wave at him as he passes by them in the hall and returns the gesture with a broad smile. It takes him longer than he’d like to get there, having to navigate around students the whole way. Sometimes he forgets just how large this school really is, though it never hesitates to remind him. He forgoes knocking once he gets there and instead just bursts into the room, swinging the door closed with way too much force. Shouta doesn’t even blink at the noisy entry, long used to his husband's boisterous way of being. He’s already sitting at his desk with his lunch open to his left, a small stack of essays in front of him, and a large stack of graded essays to his right.

Without looking up from the paper he’s grading, Shouta sighs exasperatedly and says, “I’m going to expel every last one of them, I swear it.” He finishes marking the last page, flips it back to the front and writes a short note on the top, then leaves it with a big red 0% on the top. 

Hizashi laughs, much to his husband's annoyance if the tired glare he receives is anything to go by. “That bad?” He pulls one of the chairs on the opposite side of the desk so close his knees almost touch when he sits down. He sets his back against the side of the chair then picks up the graded essays to glance over each of them. The numbers are pretty average, if a little on the lower side, except for a striking number of them with 0% scattered throughout. Once he’s flipped through all of them, he looks back up at Shouta with a brow raised in question. 

Shouta moves his lunch to sit on top of the rest of the essays, and starts eating as he responds. “It’s like they didn’t even try to pretend they didn’t copy each other. It would be insulting how stupid they seem to think I am if I actually cared about what a bunch of teenagers think of me.” He slumps back in his desk chair and rubs a hand down his face. “Sometimes I prefer fighting villains.”

Hizashi snorts and shakes his head at his pessimism, smile settled into a smaller, more genuine one. He sets up his lunch across from Shouta’s. “Sure you do, Sho. It looks like the others might have had some issues with the assignment. You know why?” He picks at his food with little interest in actually eating it, not having much of an appetite at the moment. He’d just take it with him and eat from it throughout the day.

Shouta shrugs. “I had a concussion and hadn’t slept in 3 days when I explained it. I’ll curve the grades when I actually put them in the system.”

Hizashi stares at his husband, mouth agape and eyes widened. He really shouldn’t be surprised, he knows what Shouta is like at this point, and yet he still finds himself baffled when he hears him talk about his sheer and utter lack of even the most basic self care. “Shouta!”

\/\/\/\/\/

Despite having given up on actually trying in any of his classes a long time ago, his new Creative Writing teacher somehow managed to make her class the exception. Fukuoka-sensei, the replacement teacher that came in 3 months ago after his old one got arrested, really should scare him. She’s impossible to read, at least a few inches taller than him, she dresses more like some kind of business woman rather than a teacher, and she dishes out detentions indiscriminately. But he supposes that's the thing, indiscriminately . It’s kind of nice not to be targeted. Her expression is always a calm smile, paired with vibrant blue eyes blown wide, as if daring anyone to act out where she can see. She never blinks. It’s uncanny. But she’s impartial and that’s the only thing he cares about. 

He was careful about it at first, of course. Last time he gave a teacher something he had written that he put actual effort and care into, they read it out to the class then scrutinized and nitpicked every little detail of it. His choice of genre, character names, any cliches he had used, inconsistencies, plot holes. Hitoshi, at the time, was 10 years old. He knew that that teacher didn’t really like him, as all but Fukuoka-sensei seem to, but he hadn’t realized just how much he had hated him. ‘ And I cried about it like a fucking baby later that day. But it’s fine, I don’t care anymore.’ During the first few weeks Fukuoka-sensei was there he gradually increased the level of effort he put into his assignments until he felt somewhat confident she wasn’t going to crush whatever was left of his self-esteem. If there even was anything left of it at this point. Now, all he has to worry about is his classmates. Unfortunately they seemed to pick up on the fact that he wasn’t totally miserable at this exact moment and felt the need to do something about it.

He knows right as soon as he sits down and starts working that the kid sitting next to him, Hitoshi hasn’t and has no interest in learning his name, is planning something. It’s pretty obvious how he hasn’t picked up his own pencil even once and keeps glancing between Hitoshi and the teacher every minute or so. Right around when Hitoshi opted to ignore the other boy is when he finally decided to act. He waits until Fukuoka-sensei’s back is turned, then reaches over to Hitoshi’s desk, grabs his papers, and starts to pull it over to his own desk. Hitoshi’s hand shoots out and grabs the other kid's wrist in an iron grip, stopping it in the dead center of the space between their desks. His cracked and chipped nails dig into the kid's arm. The other boy drops the papers with a surprised yelp then wrenches his arm out of Hitoshi’s hand with so much force that his chair slides back a little. Fukuoka-sensei spins back around at the commotion and her comically wide eyed expression finds them in an instant.

“Sensei! This fucking freak just tried to attack me!” The boy spits, glare daggers at him. Hitoshi, upon realizing that his hand is still outstretched between their desks, pulls his hand back to his chest. He becomes hyper aware of all the eyes on them, all the eyes on him, and he feels his cheeks flush red. He turns to look at his teacher instead of any of them, feeling their eyes burn holes into the back of his head. He ignores how forcing himself to hold eye contact makes his skin tingle uncomfortably. His shoulders raise to his ears on their own as he shrinks in on himself under her unwavering gaze. 

“Oh?” She makes her way over to them at a normal pace, seeming entirely unphased by the situation. “Continue your work, class.” She says without breaking eye contact with Hitoshi. Once she’s standing right in front of them her eyes flick down to the papers, to the boy still holding his wrist in his hand like it’s broken, then back to Hitoshi. “Were you trying to attack him?”

His body feels like it’s betraying itself when he feels himself relax more the longer she stares at him. He takes way too long to process the question before shaking his head adamantly. It’s not a lie, he wasn’t going to escalate until the guy tried to read his shit out loud. He flinches at the angry shriek that erupts from next to him. “Are you serious? You’re not just gonna fucking believe him, right? He has a criminal record for doing shit like this! He’s literally a goddamn villain !” Hitoshi looks over to see the other student gesturing wildly at him with the hand that had been cradling his wrist. His glare is directed at her now, accompanied by a disgusted scowl. Hitoshi would admire his audacity if he didn’t completely despise him.

Fukuoka-sensei just stares back at his anger in silence for an uncomfortably long time, her calm smile never leaving. Eventually, she asks, “What, exactly, happened, Jinno?” She completely ignores his angry outburst and Hitoshi smirks at the incredulous expression that replaces the angry one. 

Jinno’s expression flashes back to anger so quickly Hitoshi hopes he pulls a muscle in his face. “I was just trying to read the fuckers papers and he grabbed me like I was trying to stab his mom or something. Bet he’s hiding some creep shit on there. ‘S the only reason he’d feel the need to be so protective of it.” He’s not quite as loud this time, but still angry. Hitoshi thinks it has something to do with Fukuoka-sensei’s quirk. The longer she stares, the more subdued the person becomes. It could require eye contact, but it works so subtly that it’s hard to observe. ‘Quirks activated by eyes are easy to suppress. Mr. Emoto would opt for a blindfold.’

Jinno looks at him after his explanation and the disgust returns to his green eyes. Hitoshi glares back before turning back to his teacher who is still looking at Jinno. His eyes drift down the length of her pin straight ginger hair as she hums in consideration. It’s always in a loose ponytail that reaches all the way down to her lower back. He looks back up when she speaks. “Oh, well it is much more likely, then, that he was attempting to take them back rather than trying to attack you. And, considering these papers are to be turned in to me, I assure you that if anything on them raised concern I would take whatever action appropriate to address it. You don’t appear to be injured, though if you feel it necessary I will allow you to go to the nurse. I will, unfortunately, have to give you after school detention today and tomorrow for your repeated swearing and mocking comments directed at your classmate.”

Jinno glares at her then scoffs and leans back in his seat with his arms folded over his chest. He rolls his eyes so hard it looks like it hurts. “Oh whatever .” He grumbles, scowling, but he doesn’t protest any further. ‘ That quirk is something special if it managed to get even Jinno to shut the hell up.’

She stares at him for a moment longer, likely waiting to see if he’ll say anything else, then crouches down and collects the scattered papers in a pile. She hands them back to Hitoshi as she stands. She leans forward towards him slightly, one hand leaning on his desk, and lowers the volume of her voice now that she’s talking just to him. “I’m not sure what order they were in before, but I’m sure you’ll be able to sort through them pretty quickly. I look forward to reading it once it’s done.” His instinct is to automatically assume she’s being sarcastic, but when he looks from the pages up to her, stable and unchanging as ever, he can’t help hoping she’s not. He gives a miniscule nod of acknowledgement and can’t tell if he’s imagining things when he sees her smile get just a little bigger. It only lasts a second until her eyes find his hands. His eyes follow hers to the welts on the backs of his hands and he shifts his hold on the paper so that they’re turned out of her line of sight. Her eyes flick back to him, but he can’t bring himself to return the stare. “You’re injured. You should go to the nurse.” He tenses and hastily shakes his head. The tension fades quickly with her eyes still on him, but an uncomfortable feeling still remains. She doesn’t say anything else right away and he doesn’t move an inch. “Okay. If you change your mind, tell me.” He sighs in relief and nods, still not looking at her as he begins shuffling his papers.

After that she walks back to her desk and the rest of class passes in a blur. Unfortunately, the whole incident with Jinno completely threw him off so he doesn’t get much more written. When the bell rings for lunch he already has everything packed into his bag and slips out of the classroom before anything else can happen. He mechanically makes his way to the cafeteria and sits at his usual table. He tries to tune out the roaring sound of laughter, chatter, and fighting as it fills the room. He rests his arms on the table in front of him and puts his forehead down on them to try and block the blinding fluorescent light filling his eyes. His relief is short lived when he feels someone sit down next to him so close to him that their thighs and shoulders touch. He doesn’t look up until he feels the hand rapidly tapping him on the shoulder. 

“Hey, hey, Hitoshi, guess what! Guess happened yesterday!” Hitoshi turns to look at the physical embodiment of childlike wonder that has, for some gods forsaken reason, chosen him to follow around since transferring to the school a month and a half ago. Hitoshi applauds his persistence. Anyone that has tried becoming his friend before gave up pretty quickly for whatever reason. Either because of the rumors about him, finding out about his record, becoming a target themselves, or simply running out of patience to communicate with him since he can’t talk. Atsuto is a little hard to keep up with with his seemingly never ending energy, but he never asks too much from Hitoshi so he can’t help liking him at least a little. That, and Atsuto actually put in the effort to start learning and teaching Hitoshi sign language so that they could communicate easier after the first week of Hitoshi having to write everything he wanted to say. “Yesterday I learned the signs for ‘mom’, ‘dad’, and ‘brother’!” Atsuto signs the words as he says them then signs them a few more times for Hitoshi to see.

Hitoshi copies the signs a few times to remember them then signs, ‘No mom. No dad. No brother’ , casually to Atsuto. He looks over enviously at the lunch Atsuto has in front of him that he hasn’t touched yet. Hitoshi never gets to eat lunch at school because of the muzzle. Atsuto brings his own lunch from home every day. ‘I don’t even like food, I can hardly keep what little bit I get down. So it’s fine, I don't care.’

Atsuto’s head tilts to the side, his short, loosely curly, black hair flopping over with the movement, and his eyebrows draw together in confusion. “No mom, no dad…” He stares blankly for a few moments as the gears in his head catch on something until eventually they start up again and his eyes widen in realization. “Oh! You’re an orphan!” Atsuto declares way too loudly. Hitoshi winces at the volume and his face grows feverishly hot as he looks around at all of the people who had turned to look at them because of it. He groans lowly then puts his head in his hands, elbows on the table. Atsuto is quiet while he processes Hitoshi’s reaction and comes to the completely wrong conclusion. “Sorry, sorry, I wasn’t trying to say it in a judging way or anything, I promise! It’s okay to be an orphan. Well, not okay because it’s sad that you don’t have parents, but a lot of people are orphans so you don’t have to feel bad about it, okay?”

Despite his previous mortification he finds himself smiling. He pulls his face out of his hands so he can sign, ‘Thanks’ . He smiles wider, as wide as he can with his mouth held shut, at the way Atsuto beams at him in response. Atsuto takes a break from talking to eat some of his food and Hitoshi puts his head back down on his arms. It takes a few minutes for Atsuto to perk up again when he thinks of something else to say. When Atsuto moves, Hitoshi feels three sharp points jab him in his side and he jolts away from them. He grabs Atsuto’s wrist to stop him from moving and looks down at the line of 3 spikes that started extending from his forearm. Atsuto doesn’t have particularly great control of his quirk, and with how dangerous it is that can be pretty disastrous. In a short line down both his forearms he has 3 short, round bumps with holes through the middle. He can summon and fire off what are essentially red spike bullets from the holes, the bullets replenishing shortly after they’re fired off. Lack of control and spike bullets don’t mix well. ‘ Another easy quirk to suppress. Would just need some kind of really strong, tear resistant sleeves to go over the holes.’

Atsuto looks over at him with his head tilted in confusion and Hitoshi nods down to his arm. Atusto looks down then gasps, “Oh my gosh, I’m sorry, I got too excited!” Hitoshi lets go of his wrist and sends him a halfhearted glare, then motions for him to go on. Atsuto’s sheepish smile brightens again and he pulls his school bag. He opens it then pulls out a paper and sets it in front of Hitoshi. “My mom said that if I got a 80% or higher on this math test it would get my grade up enough that she would be willing to get me my own phone!” 

Hitoshi picks up the page, eyes immediately going to the 83% in the top right corner. He hates himself just a little bit more than usual when he feels a jealousy burning in his gut. ‘Why can’t you just be happy for him like a normal fucking person? You’re such a selfish fucking asshole.’ He sets the test back down and turns to Atsuto to sign ‘Good J-O-B’, trying to convey a smile with just his eyes. He has to fingerspell the second word because he doesn’t know the sign for the word ‘job’. 

Atsuto excitedly snatches the paper back and zips it in his bag with little concern about wrinkling it. “Thanks! We never really had enough extra money for me to get one before so I’m really excited!” His smile doesn’t waver and guilt tears at Hitoshi. ‘Now you’re really an asshole for being jealous.’

‘Good. Happy for you.’ Hitoshi signs in response.

Hitoshi stiffens when Atsuto swings his arms around him and pulls him into a slightly awkward side hug, Atsuto giggling delightedly. Hitoshi sits frozen for the duration of the hug. Part of him likes it, but it very quickly becomes incredibly overwhelming for him. Every part of him that Atsuto is touching feels like something is crawling under his skin and it takes everything in him to not push the other boy off. ‘ He’s literally just hugging you, stop being so fucking dramatic. You’re lucky someone even wants to hug you. Ungrateful piece of shit.’ When Atsuto pulls away he keeps a hand on Hitoshi’s shoulder and Hitoshi wishes more than anything that he wouldn’t. When he starts talking again he’s rocking back and forth in his seat and gesturing wildly with his free hand. “Yeah, I’m so excited! I already have some ideas of stuff I want to do once I get it, too. There's this one game that I heard about that I’m really interested in, but there's a lot of rules and extra content and stuff and I don’t even know where to start. So, I’m gonna look into what other people think and maybe it’ll help. Oh, what if we played together sometime! I mean, it’s not really…” 

Hitoshi only half listens to Atsuto as he rambles, nodding along absentmindedly. He feels bad for not being able to focus, usually he’s pretty good at staying engaged when it’s Atsuto talking, but he can feel someone's eyes on them and it’s making it really hard for him to pay attention. It’s not an unfamiliar feeling for him. He’s used to stares and whispers, people not even trying to be subtle when they’re talking about him to their friends. It used to make him feel like some kind of animal in an exhibit, frequently being compared to a feral dog doesn’t help that, but he’s so used to it now that he tunes most of it out. The difference now is that the feeling isn’t going away. At first he tries to be subtle about searching for whoever it is that’s staring, looking with his eyes but not moving his head, but he quickly loses his patience and makes it very obvious what he’s doing. It takes him a minute, occasionally turning back to Atsuto and acknowledging something he said, until he catches green eyes looking at him from across the room. Jinno’s eyes hold so much animosity that he feels a cold sense of dread floods through his veins. ‘Well, that’s foreboding.’ 

Jinno turns away shortly after they make eye contact, but it takes Hitoshi longer to be able to turn his gaze away. Long enough, it seems, that Atsuto notices. He finally blinks when Atsuto’s hand is waving in front of his face. He turns to look over at the other who has a pinched expression of confusion and concern. “You good, Toshi? I kind of got caught up in my rambling. You sorta spaced out. I mean, I do that sometimes too, but you kinda looked like you saw a ghost.” Hitoshi has to force himself to not look at Jinno again and instead waves a hand dismissively at Atsuto’s concern.

‘Fine. Sorry. D-I-S-T-R-A-C-T-E-D.’ Hitoshi signs and feels stupid for getting so caught off guard that he made Atsuto worry. Jinno is nothing he can’t handle. There’s no need for Atsuto to get caught in the middle of whatever is happening there. Hitoshi pointedly ignores the lingering dread. 

Atsuto studies him for a second longer, then his smile returns. “If you say so!” Atsuto goes back to talking while eating the rest of his food and Hitoshi is able to focus a little more, even though he’s still kind of preoccupied. He can still occasionally feel eyes on him, but he ignores it as best as he can. It’s easier to ignore when he can sit there and listen to Atsuto ramble all about the game, Dungeons and Dragons, he’s started obsessing over. It absolutely does not sound like a game that would be playable with only two people, but Atsuto assures him that they could manage. Much to Hitoshi’s surprise, he actually finds himself liking the thought of trying it out sometime.

As they make their way to recess, Atsuto breaks off from his side to go to the bathroom and Hitoshi waits for him outside. He, of course, has nothing to do while Atsuto is in the bathroom and without him as a distraction, his mind wanders back to Jinno. He decides to look around to see if he can find him. He’s not going to do anything, but his curiosity is getting the best of him. And if imagining the look Jinno gave him earlier makes his fight or flight kick in just a little bit, well that’s all the more reason to keep him in his sight. Except, Jinno isn’t out there. He scans his eyes over the entire shitty, rundown, playground several times, but every time he comes back with nothing. Confusing, but he should be relieved that he doesn’t have to deal with him. The feeling of foreboding just gets worse. ‘The fuck is wrong with you? Calm the fuck down. You’re fine. So what’s the problem?’ He tries to distract himself by looking around to see if Atsuto is on his way back yet. He’s not…

‘Fuck.’ Before he knows it, he’s hurrying his way towards the bathroom. He knows he’s overreacting, he’s sure of it. But Hitoshi has come to realize that he actually really cares about his chatty second shadow and if anything happens to him, especially if it’s all because of a stupid grudge, he can’t guarantee he won’t take some drastic measures to make sure it never happens again. 

He makes it to the bathrooms and when he finds that the door is locked, his heart sinks. He can hear Atsuto’s voice, though it’s so uncharacteristically shaky and frantic that it’s almost unrecognisable. Then he hears Jinno’s voice and his blood boils. He sounds so fucking smug and cocky and it makes Hitoshi want to bash his teeth in. Then he hears a scream of pain and wastes no time rearing back to kick the door down. 

\/\/\/\/\/

Fukuoka Ichiko is so done with this school. The teachers are neglectful of their duties as teachers, the students take full advantage of their clear indifference, and the principal promotes the behaviour by doing absolutely nothing to stop it. No wonder Naomasa sent her out to investigate. There wasn’t much to go on to warrant an investigation, but the few reports they got as well as the general area the school was in and one look at it from the outside was enough for them to at least check if there was anything to look into further. And there certainly is. She has gathered enough evidence, and some, to get the school shut down. That, and an extra case that she knows Naomasa will be interested in looking into.

It wasn’t hard for her to get her hands on the file the school has on Shinso Hitoshi, and it raised quite a few red flags to say the least. That mixed with his overall behaviour and the wounds she noticed on his hands earlier that day had her texting Naomasa about the kid during her lunch break. A little positive reinforcement and the so-called ‘volatile delinquent’ started actually trying and managed to get his 16% grade in her class up to a 56% in just the short time she has been teaching there. He has a clear passion for the subject which just makes it even more suspicious that his grade was so low when she arrived. The general mistreatment of this particular student is something she’s been keeping an eye on and only gets worse the more she observes. The blatant violation of the regulations in place around Quirk Suppressant Devices like his is the most damning thing she’s seen so far. Any use of Quirk Suppressant Devices on anyone, let alone children, is an incredibly outdated practice and the efforts to outlaw it are ongoing but slow. So seeing such disregard of the most basic regulations they’ve fought so hard to put in place makes her blood boil. It makes not blowing her cover so much harder, but she knows how important it is to ensure this place gets shut down for good. 

She’s sitting outside, monitoring the kids as they run around the playground that definitely wouldn’t pass a safety inspection, when things go from really bad to worse. A kid, notably smaller than quite a few of her classmates, runs up to Mimura Etsuji, the 9th grade math teacher, who's standing only a few feet away from her. The student looks panicked and frantic. “Sensei! Shinso is attacking Jinno and another kid in the boys bathroom!” As far as Fukuoka is concerned, Mimura is the worst person to be called for this. After noticing a pattern of irrationally cruel behaviour towards her person of interest from him she did a small amount of research into whatever history the two have and found out that the last time Shinso was sent to a Juvenile Detention Center it had been from getting in a fight that escalated a bit too far. The other person in the fight happened to be Mimura’s son who was also taken in with a much lighter sentence despite his injuries being considerably less. Mimura seems to still hold a grudge.

She instantly keeps her quirk activated eyes trained on him the moment his eyes narrow dangerously. “Show me.” He all but growls. She stands quickly to follow. Even if she wasn’t sure that Mimura will definitely handle this in the worst possible way, Jinno’s strength enhancement could cause some serious trouble in a fight and multiple people may be needed to deal with it. She doesn’t dare take her eyes off of him as they make their way across the small yard to the bathrooms.

The scene they walk in on is, admittedly, jarring. A student she recognizes as Atsuto Gin is sitting against the back wall in the corner as far away from the other two as possible. He’s holding one hand over the other against his chest, rocking in place, with tears streaming down his face over what looks like the start of a large bruise. Shinso is the closest to the door, sitting up on the floor, cradling his left wrist in his hand, a red oval mark on his forehead, face pinched in an obviously incredible amount of pain. The Quirk Suppressant Device is no longer on his face, instead laying discarded on the ground across the room. ‘Good riddance.’ It’s incredibly bent out of shape on one side which tracks with the gash on Shinso’s left cheek that is weeping a concerning amount of blood down his face. She follows the trail of blood down to Shinso’s mouth which is covered in blood and has more blood dripping from it. She follows a trail of blood from Shinso over to Jinno and the pieces all click together. Jinno is staring down, wide eyed at his arm. He has three lightly bleeding scratches on his cheek, his nose is clearly broken and bleeding profusely, and on his arm is what is an incredibly nasty looking bite mark. Blood runs steadily down his arm and drops off his fingers into a quickly growing puddle on the ground. It will most definitely need stitches.

Jinno is the first to look over at them while Shinso wipes the blood off his mouth. He looks a mix of enraged and befuddled. Both are panting, trying to catch their breath. Jinno gestures wildly at Shinso, who is still on the floor. “He just fucking bit me!” 

Shinso glances at them, eyes widening a little when he sees her, then looks back at Atsuto, and turns to Jinno again with a renewed fury on his face. “I’d-” His voice cracks painfully, unimaginably weak from what she can only imagine is years of disuse. He clears his throat then tries again. He’s visibly tense and his hands are trembling, but he speaks confidently and resolutely.  “I’d do it again.” He flashes a crazed, toothy, and bloody smile at Jinno. Jinno reels back, taking a step further away on pure instinct. His expression is an messy jumble of emotions, but horror and disgust stand out the most

Before she can do or say anything, Mimura rushes forward and grabs Shinso’s left wrist, the one that Shinso had been cradling in his other hand. Shinso’s eyes widen before his face quickly twists in agony. He cries out in pain and desperately scrambles to pull Mimura’s hand off, trembling much more aggressively. Mimura, either ignorant or indifferent to the pain he is causing, keeps his hand firmly around Shinso’s. He leans down more into Shinso’s face, which now has tears falling rapidly down it. “I don’t know why they ever let a criminal like you in this school. I don’t want to hear another word out of you, you hear me? You’re not getting out of trouble by controlling any of us, understand?” Mimura spits venomously. Shinso nods along with what he says dazedly, face deathly pale and trembling hand now sitting loosely on top of Mimura’s hand, with small whimpers of pain flowing from the boy.

She steps forward and is opening her mouth to say something, when a shrill voice yells out frantically. “Stop! You’re hurting him! He didn’t do anything wrong! Jinno is the one who attacked me! He broke my fingers! Let Hitoshi go!” Atsuto has stood up from his position sitting in the corner, and hastily stumbles over to Mimura and Shinso. He pushes and hits Mimura’s shoulder with his uninjured hand, attempting to get him away from Shinso. He hasn’t stopped crying, but now his tears are driven by frustration. 

Mimura actually lets go at this and the moment his hand is no longer on Shinso, Shinso lets out a high, pained whine and pulls his arm to his chest, curling forward over it protectively. Mimura raises to his full height again and steps back, looking bewildered at Atsuto. Fukuoka, deciding that this has already gone on for far too long, finally cuts in. “Regardless of fault, you also did not take proper care to avoid further injury, were emotionally charged and unnecessarily cruel, and failed to assess the situation properly before acting.” She moves forward with calculated purposeful movements, positioning herself crouched down between Mimura and Shinso, facing the boy. “You’ll be lucky to not face criminal charges if you exacerbated his injuries.” She glances over her shoulder, the expression she always wears only changing with a slight narrowing of her eyes. He at least has enough to look unsure of himself and at least somewhat guilty now that he’s taken the time to let his rational thinking kick in. “I wouldn’t count on being able to keep your job, however.” His face pales even further as he’s forced to face reality. “Take Jinno and Atsuto out to the front of the school, call the police, and wait there for them to arrive to avoid any further incident. I will handle everything else.” She leaves no room for argument, turning her focus back to the boy in front of her. 

There’s silence at first then a quiet, grumbling, “Come on.” Then he snaps, “Don’t argue.” To Jinno who huffs incredulously before stomping out of the room. Atsuto hesitates to her left, looking back at Shinso with worry. He’s still sniffling, tears coming out slowly and more sporadically, but continuing nonetheless. 

She tries to give her best reassuring look, cursing her eyes for their stiff, wide nature, softening her features as well as she can. “The best thing you can do now is take care of yourself. He’ll be okay, I promise.” Her voice is firmer on the last two words to hopefully show that she means it. He looks at her, eyebrows drawn together warily, then nods and leaves the room. She sighs as the door closes behind them, only sitting closed now that the latch is busted from being kicked in. She stands and walks over to the sink, wetting a paper towel before repositioning herself at Shinso’s side. He doesn’t even seem to notice she left. She makes sure to keep her voice soft when she speaks. “Shinso.” He flinches minorly, full body trembling barely visibly, but still looks up at her. He seems to be looking around her face rather than actually looking into her eyes, but she doesn’t mind. The tears have stopped, but based on the way his breath stutters between hiccups he seems to be fighting them back rather than them stopping naturally. He looks defeated and absolutely exhausted, any adrenaline from early long gone. “Can I help clean up your face? That cut looks pretty bad.”

He makes surprised eye contact at that, eyes widening almost as wide as hers. His eyes search hers, flicking between her face and the paper towel he just noticed in her hand, then his expression pinches and he breaks eye contact again as he blinks rapidly to get rid of newly emerging tears. He hiccups, sniffs, then nods shakily. ‘No kid should ever be shocked when someone functioning as their guardian offers to do the bare minimum of caring for them.’ She’ll have to call Nasomasa as soon as she’s done here. “Okay, sorry in advance because this will most likely hurt.” He looks at her head tilted subtly in either confusion, consideration, or both, then looks away with a shrug, followed after a few seconds by a nod. “You can talk to me. I don’t mind.” He hardly acknowledges her, raising an eyebrow at her for a second then letting his expression fall blank, staring straight at the floor in front of him.

\/\/\/\/\/

“You didn’t think to mention that you’re a cop?” Hitoshi asks Fukuoka-sensei, sneering at her from across the table in the interrogation room. They had been sitting there just staring at each other for what probably felt like way longer than it actually was and she showed no interest in starting so he decided to break the silence. ‘I’m so tired.’ He leans forward on the table, elbows on top of it and arms folded over each other. His left wrist is in a cast now and the cut on his face needed stitches. The trip to the hospital was a nightmare, but he was surprised and grateful when she came with him. Her quirk was a big help when he was trying not to hyperventilate. ‘Fuckin hate hospitals.’ He was also surprised when she also accompanied him to the police station and followed him into the interrogation room. ‘At least it’s someone I’ve met before.’ But then he got pissed off because of course the one adult he likes is a cop. The one adult he likes is going to be the one that seals his fate. ‘And damn does that suck.’ So now he’s pissed and also terrified and so beyond ready for this to just be over. At least they haven’t brought out another muzzle yet. It’s sort of uncanny hearing his voice after so many years, though he can tell it’s pretty messed up from not using it for so long. He can’t even remember what it used to sound like. “That didn’t register to you as something worth mentioning?” 

She has that same look on her face as she always does and doesn’t react in any way physically to what he says. He used to not mind it, but now it just pisses him off more. ‘Why the fuck are the lights in here so damn bright?’ “I didn’t think it would have been beneficial to mention beforehand. Would you be less upset now if I told you back at the hospital?” He glares at that because how is he supposed to know how he would feel in a hypothetical scenario like that? 

He rolls his eyes exaggeratedly. “Doesn’t fucking matter, would have been nice to have some kind of heads up.” His hands twitch because he can’t crack his knuckles the way he does when he gets agitated like this because of the cast, and he can’t run his hand through his hair because his good wrist is chained to the table. “Can we get this over with?” He glances at the empty chair next to her, glaring at it. His anger is fighting tooth and nail to hold up against her quirk. He slides down his chair a bit and kicks the chair under the table, hissing when it wobbles but doesn’t fall over. 

“Why? It’s not like you have anywhere else to be.” It takes her a second to process her own retort, but when she does her eyes get impossibly wider and her plastered smile drops, clearly surprised by her own words. Her mouth opens to say something then closes again without any sound coming out and any anger he had left dissipates at seeing someone so composed be rendered speechless by herself. He’s silent for a moment, then bursts out into laughter. He’s sure he’s probably losing his mind, but he doesn’t think it matters at this point. He also most likely looks the part right now. He hunches over, head hung between his arms and stomach clenching a little uncomfortably because of how hard he’s laughing.

“I am so fucked. ” He wheezes before his laughter turns into uncontrollable giggling. He hardly notices as tears start flowing down his face, dripping onto the floor.

He can’t see her face anymore, but when she speaks again her voice is considerably softer. “Not necessarily.” He brings his head up again to lift an eyebrow at her, still laughing lowly.

“Have you seen my record?” He asks, gesturing to himself, in between laughs. “I am completely fucked, sensei.”

She nods, smile still softened. “I have, and I stand by my statement.”

Before he has a chance to respond, the door is opened and a plain looking guy with short brown hair walks in, closing the door behind him. He’s holding a large file in his hands. The guy looks surprisingly friendly, but he knows better than to trust that from a police officer. Still, Fukuoka-sensei’s quirk on him has lowered his guard so much that he can’t even manage a convincing glare. He settles into a bored expression. 

The man sits down and addresses him first. “Hello, Shinso. My name is Tsukauchi Naomasa. I’m a detective. I will be conducting your interview today.” Hitoshi zones out through the detective reading him his rights, already knowing what they are and not caring. Then comes something he wasn’t expecting. “My quirk lets me know if someone I’m talking to is lying or not.”

‘ So that’s why they haven’t brought in another muzzle yet.’ “Is that not something you should keep to yourself? You know, so you can catch people in lies?” Hitoshi asks, having to clear his voice afterwards. ‘ Specialized noise cancelling headphones or some kind of earplugs, that one's an easy one to suppress. If he can’t hear the answer, his quirk won’t activate.’ Such a small amount of speaking really shouldn’t make him feel out of breath, but it’s starting to. ‘Having that thing on so long really fucked me up, huh?’

“If I ask someone a question that’s incriminating and they refuse to respond, that's usually enough of an answer to whatever I asked. Why not answer a question that would exonerate you? It helps skip a lot of the unnecessary stuff.” The man answers easily, as if it’s a question he gets asked frequently. “So, where did you get the injuries on the backs of your hands?”

“Huh?” ‘ Wasn’t expecting that.’ “Uh…” Hitoshi shrugs. “Got ‘em at home.”

The detective stares at him for a silent moment, expression unreadable, then clears his throat. “Right, sorry, my quirk can be a little particular. That came back inconclusive. Sometimes what you subconsciously disagree with something you say or strong feelings you have about something can muddle the results. Try rewording your response.”

Hitoshi narrows his eyes at the detective, unimpressed. He rolls his eyes, but does as he’s told. ‘Not like I have much choice.’ “I got them while inside the place I live.” 

Tsukauchi nods. “Okay, and the ones on the back are the same?”

Hitoshi nods before remembering they need a verbal response. “Yep.” The welts and cuts on his back had been discovered while he was at the hospital and they were treated and bandaged. It’s nice to not have to do it himself for once, but he couldn’t feel much relief in the moment because he was too busy despising everything happening to and around him.

There's a slight downturn to the detective's lips for a moment before his expression returns to being impassive. “Alright, we’ll revisit that later. Now, how did the fight with Jinno start?” Hitoshi recounts the events leading up to the fight, his instincts telling him something was wrong, Atsuto’s scream, and him kicking down the door. 

“He broke Atsuto’s fingers, so I tackled him and broke his face with my forehead. Hence the broken nose.” He smirks smugly. The look on Jinno’s face after that flashes through his head and it makes his smirk turn a little more feral.

Both detectives do a good job keeping their emotions off their faces, though Tsukauchi’s eyebrows do raise a little. “And after that?”

“He punched me in the face with his quirk activated and broke the…” He trails off at the word muzzle. He internally scoffs at heat he can feel coming up to his cheeks. ‘I’m not embarrassed. I don’t care. It’s stupid. It doesn’t matter. Just say the damn word. It’s fine.’ “...you know.” ‘Pathetic.’ He clears his throat before he continues. “The metal cut open my cheek,” he gestures to the stitched wound on his face, “I bit him, then he broke my wrist to get me to let go, and I scratched him across the face.”

Fukuoka-sensei speaks this time, a hint of surprise in her tone. “You bit him before he broke your wrist? Not as a reaction to it?”

Hitoshi supposes that’s the more logical conclusion to come to. “Yeah.” ‘I wanted to hear him scream the same way he made Atsuto scream.’ The last bit of self preservation he has forces him to not elaborate on that last part. Luckily they both take that as an adequate answer, nodding for him to continue. “And right after that is when Mimura and Fukuoka-sensei arrived.” He winces when he says Mimura’s name and absentmindedly runs his hand along the cast on his wrist.

Tsukauchi’s expression darkens ever so slightly. “And what did Mimura do when he got there?” Hitoshi can guess that Fukuoka-sensei, or someone else, already gave him some of the details of what happened at some point. It makes Hitoshi, begrudgingly, like him a little more that he at least seems to not be blowing that whole thing off as nothing. 

Hitoshi shrugs nonchalantly. “Came in, got pissed off that I bit Jinno, grabbed my wrist right where it was broken, and held on harder when I tried pulling my arm away. He said some shit, sounded angry. Don’t remember whatever the hell he was going on about though.” He deadpans. ‘I was too distracted by the blinding pain shooting through my arm to pay attention.’  A phantom sensation of the sharp pain sears through his arm as he recalls the experience, and he instinctively tries to raise his hand to run it through his hair to soothe himself, then scowls when the handcuff stops him. “Is this really necessary?” He asks with a glare.

Tsukauchi at least has the decency to look apologetic as he reaches into his pocket. “No, sorry about that. Cautionary measure.” He pulls out a key from his pocket and leans over the table a little to unlock the handcuffs. Once his hand it’s instantly in his hair, running through it a few times until he flops it back down on the table with a loud smack. Tsukauchi sits back in his seat again, mirroring Fukuoka-sensei by crossing one of his legs over the other. “So, now you have two possible places to go from here.” More than he was expecting. “First things first, with or without your cooperation we will be launching an investigation into your current place of residence in an effort to get it shut down.” The detective gives a sympathetic smile at Hitoshi’s shocked expression, but barrels forward without pause. “Frankly, at this point your cooperation will just make the process much faster for us, but is by no means necessary.”

Fukuoka-sensei cuts in briefly. “In the same vein, the evidence gathered against your middle school is being processed and will, no doubt, be shut down within the week.”

Tsukauchi nods along to this. “This all, of course, is being taken into account regarding your case. To me, it is clear that rehabilitation efforts up to this point have not been successful so it would make no sense to send you back to a place that has failed twice in the past.” Tsukauchi waves his hands in front of himself placatingly when Hitoshi tenses at his words. “I’m the head of a rehabilitation program for children in similar positions to you. For a year and 8 months, I and a group of hand picked professionals have been making an effort to help as many kids and teenagers in bad situations as we can with a focus on trauma recovery and destigmatizing. Wards of the state are, like you were, disproportionately put in the ‘Dangerous Quirks’ registry and often face mistreatment because of it. And I theorise that, more often than not, if a kid on that list acts out in some way, it’s more likely a result or reaction to that mistreatment instead of an indication of an inherently volatile nature. And, over this last year and 8 months, I’ve gathered a rather substantial amount of evidence to support that theory.” Tsukauchi leaves a moment of silence for his words to sink in, they do not. He sets his hands down on the file he brought in with him. “ Your file, your record, everything I’ve learned about you makes me believe that you're one of those kids.”

For a while, Hitoshi just stares, unable to comprehend the mass of information that was just dropped on him. He looks down at the file, glaring halfheartedly at it, then looks back up at the detective again. “I’m not a charity case, detective.” He knows it would be illogical to not take this opportunity. He’d never get luckily like this again if he lets this chance go, but accepting comes with a whole lot of uncertainty that he is not prepared for. He was prepared for juvie or jail, whichever, because he’s been there before. He already knows how that goes, even if it would have been a lot longer this time as a repeat offender. He’s been dreading it, but had already accepted it. This was never even a possibility that he could fathom, let alone consider. 

“This isn’t charity, it’s your last chance. Convicted felons, especially repeated felons, even if the charges are all gotten at a young age, don’t often get a lot of opportunities in their lives. Having a criminal record will complicate everything in your future and ruin a lot of things for you.” Tsukauchi’s expression changes to one of understanding. “I know that this is a lot, but you won’t just be thrown into anything. I’ll go over everything with you and answer any questions you have about the process. You’ll be given a way to contact me and the social worker that would be assigned to you at any time.” He folds his hands together and leans forward against the table, staring at Hitoshi with sincere determination. “Let us help you. Take a chance. What do you have to lose?”

‘Nothing.’ Hitoshi doesn’t have to think about it, he knows that the detective is right. Maybe if he goes along with this they’ll let him see Atsuto again. He doubts it, but maybe. More of a chance than he has if he gets locked up. Hitoshi sighs. “This is going to be a mistake. Fuck it, I guess.” He already regrets it the moment he says it.

Tsukauchi smiles at him way too brightly at that. “Well, I hope I’ll be able to change your mind on that, but this is a good starting point. Now, we have a few questions we want to ask about the place you’re currently living, then we’ll go over what you should expect over the next few days. After that, you can ask any questions you’ll have.”

\/\/\/\/\/

Half of Hizashi’s gear is already off by the time he opens the door to Shota and his apartment. This is a common occurrence. Because, for whatever reason, his younger self decided that having three jobs would be a great idea and now he has a 75 hour work week. And that’s after cutting down on some of his hours. He loves all of his jobs, but sometimes he misses sleep.

He shrugs off his jacket and boots once he’s through the door, and tosses the rest of his hero gear on the kitchen table, kicking the door shut behind him. Shota is sitting where he usually is, on the couch in the living room, curled up with Puddle on his lap and his laptop propped up on the arm of the couch next to him. His hair is down, his reading glasses are on, and he’s in a lazily thrown together outfit of whatever was on top in his drawer. It seems like today that was a black, v-neck, long sleeve shirt and maroon sweatpants. Much better than the blue and red combo he ended up with yesterday. 

He walks over to the couch, flopping down with a huff next to his husband and disrupting Puddle who jumps off Shota and scurries away from the couch. Hizashi lays his head down on Shota’s lap in place of Puddle, looking up at the man who is looking down at him now. 

Shota raises an eyebrow down at him. “Not even going to get changed first?” Hizashi just grunts in response and turns away, closing his eyes with a tired sigh. He hears an airy chuckle from above him and feels a hand on his arm, rubbing up and down it. It likely would have ended up in his hair instead if it wasn’t still coated in gel and hairspray. If he moves too much can hear it crunch as it shifts and gets more moved out of place. Most days he would care about damaging it, but by the end of the week it’s hit or miss on if he’ll actually put the effort into taking care of it or not. 

The only peace he has gotten all day is rudely interrupted by the ringing of his phone. He lazily pulls it out of his pocket and is surprised when he sees who it is. He answers and puts the phone up to his ear. “Hey, Tsukauchi. What’s happening, man?”

“Mic, sorry to call right after you get off work. Is Aizawa there with you?” Tsukauchi responds tiredly, muffled sounds of people talking and some kinds of movement almost constantly present in the background of the call. 

“No worries. Yeah, he’s here.” Hizashi dismisses his concern, knowing Tsukauchi wouldn’t have called him so late if it weren’t important.

“Okay, good. I’m calling about the rehabilitation program. I saw you got your foster licenses finally sorted out?” Hizashi sighs exasperatedly at that. To say they had a hard time getting approved would be an understatement. Being in a gay relationship in Japan, the only reason they were eventually approved was because they’re both Pro Heroes and he has a good public image. Being teachers, especially at A.U., also helped, but the whole thing was just a pain.

“Yes. Two weeks ago we finally finished getting everything sorted out.” He perks up a little, sitting up next to Shota. “Why? You already got a little listener you want us to take?” Shota looks over at him with his eyebrows raised slightly in surprise, sitting up straighter as well. Hizashi puts the phone on speaker. 

“It’s a short notice, but if you two would look over the files I’ll have Kuno send them over to you. His name is Shinso Hitoshi, 15 years old, left by his parents at a hospital shortly after he developed his quirk, and was put into a home for kids with ‘Dangerous Quirks’. The kid never had a chance there. He’s going to need a lot of support and patience… I wanted to call you two first because his quirk is voice activated.” The last sentence is spoken more softly than the others, almost gentle. Hizashi shares a look with Shota who's looking right back at him, eyebrows pinched together. Hizashi gives him a small, sad smile. 

“Ah, I see. How long do we have to make our decision?” He really doubts they’ll have to talk about whether they’ll do it too much, but they don’t know what they’ll find in those files and will have to be ready to prepare themselves for anything. These situations are very delicate and not communicating or preparing properly beforehand will only end up doing more harm than good.

“I’ll need an answer by morning, sooner if you can. Because if you can't, I have a whole list of other parents I have to try to call. Text any questions you have directly to me and I’ll answer them as soon as I can.” Tsukauchi can be heard as he says something muffled, phone likely held away from his face, to someone with him in person, then a long sigh as he puts the phone back to his mouth.

“Alright, we’ll get back to you once we’ve gone over everything.” Hizashi says, with Shota nodding along with what’s being said. 

“Thank you. I really think that you two would be the best fit for this kid. He’s got a lot going on, but ultimately his heart is in the right place. That’s all for now, I’ll talk to you later.”

“Talk to ya later, Tsukauchi.” He hangs up and seconds later gets a message from Kuno, one of the social workers that work with Tsukauchi. The only thing in the message is an attached file. He sighs again, this one much longer than the other and bone deep tired, and drops phone on his lap and thumps his head back against the back of the couch. 

He sees Shota roll his eyes in the corner of his eye and feels his phone being pulled out of his lap. “I’ll read anything important out loud.”

Chapter Text

Hizashi had decided to take a quick shower while Shouta set up Hitoshi’s files on his laptop to make it easier to read and take notes on. Shouta insisted that if they are going to take this seriously then they are going to have to take notes to make sure they keep track of everything that might be important. Hizashi was in and out of the shower in about ten minutes. He decided to take a cold one to try to wake himself up a little, but it can only help so much with how sleep deprived he is. Still, he needs to take this seriously so he does his best to wake himself up and puts his hearing aids back in. While he would love nothing more than to take them out for the rest of the night, this whole ordeal will be much more efficient with them in and they have a lot of stuff to go through. 

He rushes back out to the living room and Shouta is in the same position, only now his head is tilted back against the couch and one of his hands is brought up to pinch the bridge of his nose. Shouta lets out a long shaky sigh that fills him with dread, then drops his hand from his face and turns to look at Hizashi.

“Hizashi,” his tone is deceptively even, but has an unmistakable edge to it, “his medical record. It barely exists .” The last two words come out almost hissed. Shouta spins the laptop around where it rests on the armrest of the couch. Hizashi finishes making his way over to the couch and picks up the laptop, looking at the spreadsheet of information Shouta has already started. He frowns when all he sees is a few early doctor visits for vaccinations, three hospitalizations when he was four for intense migraines and fevers, one hospitalization for whooping cough when he was seven years old, two hospitalizations at eight and eleven for some broken bones and lacerations, and one a year ago for-

“ Septic shock?! ” Hizashi’s eyes snap up to look at Shouta whose eyes are glowing red to stop his quirk from slipping into his surprised shout. He feels the blood drain from his face and knows his horror is clearly displayed on his face.

Shouta nods, eyes narrowed. “Infection on his back worsened to sepsis, then septic shock. Not one person stepped in until the kid was half dead .” Shouta holds his hand out for the laptop. “The dental records aren’t any better. They don’t exist after four years and six months. We have a lot of appointments to set.” He would smile at how Shouta and him seem to be on the same page about taking the kid in if the circumstances were different. Hizashi hands him back the laptop and takes his seat back next to him on the couch. “The hospitalizations when he was eight and eleven were from both times he’s been put in juvenile detention before.”

Hizashi winces at how young the kid was for both incidents. “Eight years old? There’s no way he started that fight, right? I mean, I know it happens, but I wouldn’t be surprised with a history like this if it was just blamed on him.”

“For the same reason, I wouldn’t be surprised if he did start it. We don’t have the details of that case or the other kids' injuries so there's no point in speculating about it.” Shouta clicks over to another tab opened to a list of recommended therapists, psychologists, and other trauma specialists. “They sent a list for us to pick through, but we could always go for someone not on the list if none of them match what we want. They have a lot of specialists for quirk discrimination which will be helpful. Someone that specializes in neglect cases would be good too. But we’ll go through all of this later.” He goes back to the tab with the files and goes into his school record. There are a plethora of detentions, a couple suspensions, and a wall of F’s. Every class, for all three years of middle school, has a failing grade. Hizashi is almost scared to see his elementary school grades and how long this has been going on for. 

“At least we’re both teachers.” Hizashi says, trying to find a bright side to this situation. “If anyone would be able to help him with his school troubles it would be us. This part is probably the least of our worries.”

Shouta nods along without looking at him. “Still important to note. We should ask Tsukauchi if they’re investigating this school because every teacher there should be fired.” He says dryly. He keeps scrolling until they reach Hitoshi’s school pictures.

Shouta grimaces a little at the photo, while Hizashi scoffs in disbelief, feeling rage painfully clench in his gut. “Make that arrested for criminal negligence . ” Shouta’s eyebrows draw together a little more, nodding his head in understanding. 

“That’s an outdated model.” Shouta notes with an emotion in his voice that Hizashi can’t quite place in his current state of mind. The look in his eyes, however, makes him wonder if they’re both remembering the same incident. Four months into their first year at U.A., Shouta helped talk Hizashi down from one of the worst anxiety attacks he’s ever experienced after one of their classmates projectile vomited on him. The smell, the texture, even the temperature, all of it a reminder of the night he almost died. It was later that year when the law passed that required muzzles - or, as they’re long winded and formally referred to as, Voice Activated Quirk Suppressant Devices - not cover the wearer's nose. 

“By two decades. They can’t even try to claim ignorance! They’re teachers, they know this shit! We have training to handle stuff like this for a reason. No one did anything. It’s still happening.” He gestures weakly to the photo. The anger in his voice lessens with each sentence, quickly devolving into more distant and desperate. “Shouta, they all saw and they did nothing. ” The painfully familiar sentiment brings a barrage of unpleasant memories to the forefront of his mind. His hands reach up to his face unconsciously and find their way to the faded scar across his nose. The movements of his own body feel disjointed from his mind. Shouta spins his laptop away from them and places it on the coffee table to stop Hizashi from continuing to look at the image. He pulls Hizashi’s hands from his face and holds them, rubbing his thumbs over the backs of them. Hizashi is aware of what’s happening and wills himself to focus on the grounding presence of Shouta’s hands on his. Dissociation is a frequent issue anytime those memories come up so they avoid it if possible. That will certainly complicate things, but Hizashi has already accepted that. 

He can hear sounds that he thinks is Shouta speaking, but he can’t get himself to look up from his hands to check. The sound is muffled and he really doesn’t feel like he can even try to interpret it. He doesn’t feel the couch shift when Shouta gets up, only noticing when his hands leave. Without him there it’s a lot harder for Hizashi to stay present in his mind. He instead tries to focus on the sensation of clenching and unclenching his fists. He has no idea if Shouta was gone for a minute or ten, but at some point he comes back. Hizashi is pulled back to his mind a little more when an ice cube dragged up from his wrist to his elbow and back down. Shouta has started talking again and he can hear it a little better now, but is still having a hard time focusing on the words. Once his hand has been pulled back into Shouta’s unoccupied one, he’s able to force himself to look up at his face. With a mix of what he can hear and reading his lips, he’s able to get most of what he’s saying. “...warned her ahead of time last time so that’s what they did this time. Except this time Ryu decided that, instead of following the plan that she and the rest of her team came up with, she was going to go off on her own and try out a new move that she thought up. All without discussing it with anyone. She caused significant damage to the building they were trying to infiltrate and cost her team the match before they even actually started. One month from the end of the year and they’re still pulling stuff like this. I figured the first time getting expelled would have been enough to scare them, but apparently I need to take more drastic measures. What do you think I should do?” Shouta raises an eyebrow at him but doesn’t stop alternating between squeezing his hand and sliding the ice cube across his arm. 

He smiles a little as he responds. “You know, I think you should have them spar with the Third Years. Two days with quirks and two without. I’m sure they have plenty they’d be willing to teach them.” His own smile widens at the smile that comes across his husband's face. It’s a smaller version of his signature creepy one. It drops, after a few seconds, to a more considerate one and he narrows his eyes slightly at Hizashi.

“What do you think our students would think if I told them that you help me come up with more than half of my punishments for them?” Shouta raises an eyebrow at him.

He gasps and slaps a hand over his heart dramatically. “ You wouldn’t . I have a reputation to uphold! Besides, it would just make you less scary.” Shouta huffs a laugh and Hizashi drops his hand back down. “Thanks. How long ‘s it been?” Shouta grabs a paper towel that he’d had sitting on the armrest, wipes the water away, then places the mostly melted ice in it and sets it on the coffee table.

“About twenty-five minutes. Not that long. I just talked about how much of a menace Puddle was before you got home, why it surprises me that Kan hasn’t quit being a teacher yet, I got up and got the ice cube, and then finished with why it surprises me that I haven’t quit being a teacher yet. I’ll be taking that idea, by the way. They need it. Being beaten with ease by people only a few years older than them should remind them they’re not as good as they think they are. They need the reminder before the end of the year. I don’t think it’s hit them yet how close it is.” Shota’s expression falls back to his usual, almost impassive, one. He leans forward and picks his laptop back up. The tab has been changed back to the one with the list of therapists. Hizashi assumes it was changed when Shouta got up earlier.

“I have some kids that I’m giving a little extra attention to to make sure they get their grades up enough before the end of the year. Some of the little listeners have had some trouble, but it’s nothing that I can’t help clear up as long as they let me.” He breaths a long sigh and fully relaxes back into the couch. He can’t help the twinge of uncertainty he feels. “Do you think we’re ready for this? We already have so much on our plates and our own plethora of issues to deal with. I mean, I hope that we’d be able to figure it out, but what if we only make everything worse? We’re not always the best at even dealing with our own problems.” He’s, of course, already brought up most of these concerns before they decided to agree to Tsukauchi’s proposal, but now is their last possible chance to back out and he can’t stop himself from bringing up his insecurities one last time before it’s too late.

Shouta gives his hand a reassuring squeeze. “There is no being ‘ready’ for something like this, at least not in the way you’re hoping. We won’t know how to handle every problem we’ll run into, that’s why we have a list of 43 trusted and specially trained professionals that do know how to handle those things. We’ve done the research, we have it in lists. Now what we need to do is be able to and ready to adapt when we need to. The same goes for our own problems. We work with the hand we’re dealt. No one gets it right every time so setting that kind of standard for yourself is setting yourself up for failure.” Shouta takes Hizashi’s second hand in his as well and turns to face more towards him. His gaze is softer than usual, but is also firm. “I believe we can and want to do this with you. If you’re not ready, we can’t force it. Do you want to do this?”

“More than anything.” He doesn’t hesitate. He’s wanted to bring a kid home for years now, but didn’t actually think it would be an option with how busy and chaotic their lives are. Now they’re so close to that dream and it doesn’t feel quite real yet.

Shouta smiles softly. “Then we do it.” He gives both of Hizashi’s hands one more squeeze then lets go and stands with a sigh. “Text Tsukauchi, tell him we’ll take the kid.” He twists his back until he winces at a painfully loud pop. “Let’s check to make sure everything is set around the house. Did you remember to get rid of any alcohol we had?”

Hizashi nods slightly, fishing his phone out of his pocket and also rising up from the couch. “Yeah, gave it to Nemuri.” He sends a quick text and slides the phone back into his pocket.

“That was most definitely a mistake. The room’s set up?” Shouta pulls out his own phone, going to the checklist they made together after their extensive research. 

“Yep! I also have the snack basket in there and I tried to fill it with as much variety as I could. But, if we have time, we should stop by the store and maybe buy a few more things to make it a little more welcoming.” He peers over Shouta’s shoulder at the list, seeing most of the things already checked off.

Shouta nods. “We’ll probably also have to get the kid some clothes, so we need his clothing size. Ask Tsukauchi if there is anything they know that the kid likes. Hobbies, favorite color, favorite foods, if he likes cats.” He casts a glance at Puddle who is sleeping, half hanging off the top of the cat tree. “Anything that they can get out of him before we go to the store.”

Hizashi’s phone buzzes in his hand as he pulls it out of his pocket. “He says we have two hours until Kuno and Hitoshi get here. We should be outside when they get here to invite them in.” In response he sends their short list of questions and informs him that they would be going to the store to get a few things.

“We better head out then.”

\/\/\/\/\/

Shouta is leaning on the railing of the stairs that lead up to their apartment complex, Hizashi sitting on the step next to his foot, when a small white car stops on the road nearby. A woman he assumes is Kuno steps out of the driver’s seat and Shinso steps slowly, sluggishly, when she opens the passenger side door. She says something to him that he can’t hear, hesitates when she doesn’t get a response, then gently takes the black trash bag that he assumes has the kids belongings. She puts a careful hand on his back and guides him over to them, a polite smile on her face. Despite her touch being gentle, he jolts away from it and walks ahead of her. Hizashi stands up as they approach. 

Now that Shinso is in front of him, he takes a moment to take in his appearance. The first thing he notices is the stitched up laceration on his cheek. The end of the laceration crosses through a long prominent scar along where the muzzle would have been sitting on the tops of his cheeks, across the bridge of his nose, and trailing down the sides of his face. Along the scar are bandaged cuts, and friction blisters. His experience with Hizashi lets him know that those were either from sleeping with it on, it being strapped on far too tightly, or both. ‘We’ll have to make sure that those don’t get infected.’ He also doesn't miss the budding, oval, bruise in the direct center of his forehead. He sees Hizashi subconsciously raise a hand to trace his own scar, so he grabs it and holds it to help keep Hizashi grounded. 

The next thing he notices is how sickly thin Shinso is. It’s blatantly obvious how severely underweight he is. The clothes he assumes were given to him at the police station or hospital are way too big and only exacerbate how malnourished he looks. Shouta pushes down his anger to keep it from entering his expression. The kid’s wild purple hair is a horribly damaged, tangled mess that he knows Hizashi will be itching to help with if he’s allowed. There’s a cast around his wrist and notable welts along his hands. He’s wearing an ankle monitor. He’s taller than Shouta expected, the top of his head coming up to his chin, and he has dark eyebags that make him look as exhausted as he probably is by now. It reminds him that it’s nearly 3 AM. They’ll have to make this quick.

Shouta doesn’t miss the way the kids' eyes narrow on their interlocked hands, and linger for way too long. Despite the slightly squinted eyes, his face shows no readable emotion. He hopes this won’t end up being a problem. With a quick glance at Hizashi, he can tell that he’s thinking the exact same thing and having a harder time keeping his anxiety off his face.

Hizashi is the first one to speak, making sure to carefully monitor his volume. He smiles brightly at the kid, releases his grip on Shouta’s hand, and turns to the side without looking away from him. “Heya, kiddo, my name is Hizashi and this here is Shouta. Why don’t we head inside so we can get you settled? I’m sure you’re probably tired.” His smile turns to one of understanding and Shouta feels a little bad. He knows how exhausted the blonde is even though he’s excited for this. He wishes this all could have happened on any other day when he wouldn’t be running on no sleep. He also can’t help feeling a little weird about his first name being given, but he knows it makes sense considering the circumstances. 

Shinso finally looks up from where their hands had been and side eyes Kuno, barely turning his head towards her, with a raised eyebrow. She smiles back at him, her polite smile turning into a more gentle one. “I just have to talk to one of them before I go. You can go inside. If you want to take your things now you can, or I can send them in with Aizawa when he goes in.” She gestures to him when she says his name, but keeps her eyes on Shinso. The first bit of recognizable emotion crosses his face when he looks at the bag, glaring with a small scowl. He turns away without a word and follows Hizashi inside. 

\/\/\/\/\/

He can’t help glancing back at Hitoshi every few seconds to check on him as he leads the way up to their apartment. He opts for the elevator since they’re both dead on their feet. He stops himself from fidgeting to avoid accidentally making his anxiety too obvious to Hitoshi and making him anxious too as a result. The silence, however, cannot stay.

He thinks hard about what to say, nothing feeling good enough, then just decides to go for it. “So, I know that a lot has probably happened to you today. If you wanna talk about any of it, both Shouta and I are here to listen, but it’s totally fine if not.” He gestures with his hands as he talks, betraying his emotions way more than he’s trying to. “We got you some stuff, but we can go through that tomorrow.” The elevator opens and they make their way down the hall. When Hitoshi doesn’t say anything, he keeps talking. “I’m gonna heat up something for you to eat then we’ll show you around the apartment when Shouta is done talking to Kuno. Oh, and I can introduce you to Puddle, our cat.” As he’s hoping, he actually gets a reaction from that. It’s only a slight raise of his eyebrows, and it’s a bit delayed, but it’s something. He clings to it. “She’s really friendly and incredibly fluffy. She might try to climb up your pants leg, but you can just pull her off if you don’t want her on you. She will sit on your shoulder if you put her up there or let her climb on you when you’re sitting on the couch.” Hitoshi doesn’t show any more of a reaction to what he’s saying, but he still counts it as a win. 

He unlocks and opens the apartment door, ushering Hitoshi inside and taking his shoes off as he follows. When Hitoshi just stands there, he says, “You can just take your shoes off and leave them over here.” He gestures to the area next to his shoes. He worries for a moment that he’s just going to be ignored when Hitoshi doesn’t move at first, but eventually he mechanically follows Hizashi’s lead. ‘Is he… dissociating? Probably exhausted, mentally and physically. Could be both. It wouldn’t be surprising.’ 

Puddle pads over to them and Hizashi scoops her up. “ This is Puddle. Shouta named her. She’s a troublemaker, but she’s adorable so she gets away with it.” He squeezes her close to his chest and she purrs loudly as he pets down her back. He has to shake off the fur that collects on his palm every time he pets her. He’s delighted to see Hitoshi staring intently at the cat. “You can pet her if you want.” He holds the cat out a little closer to Hitoshi who glances up at him then slowly lifts his right hand to her. When his hand makes contact with her fur his lips turn up into a tiny smile. His hand barely moves, mostly just resting on her, then drops to his side again limply. His very slight smile drops into a tired frown. Hizashi takes that as a good sign that he should move on to getting the kids something to eat. It’ll be good to be done with that step by the time Shouta gets back so they can finish showing him around as quickly as possible.

Their apartment opens to the living room, expanding to the right, with the hallway to the two bedrooms and bathroom straight ahead of them past the living room. The combined kitchen and dining room is through an open archway to the left. Hizashi leads Hitoshi to the kitchen. “You can go ahead and sit down at the table.” Hitoshi robotically sits down and Hizashi hesitates as something occurs to him. “...You’re aware that you’re allowed to talk to us, right?” Hitoshi rests his broken arm on the table and doesn’t look up from it when he gives Hizashi a thumbs up. “Okay, great, that’s good, I’m glad.” He focuses on his breathing for a moment to ward off the numb fog creeping back over his mind. He knew this would be difficult, but he wouldn’t have said yes if he didn’t think he could do it. He’s going to give his kid the same reassurance that he was given when his moms saved him. 

Once he’s given himself enough time to refocus his mind, he continues. “And I wanted you to know that that right will never be taken away from you by either of us. Ever, for any reason.” His voice is firm and clear, doing his best to emphasize his sincerity and that he’s taking this seriously. He knows it’s not that easy, and he knows that they’ll have to prove that sentiment time and time again, but now is the time to set that precedent to be followed. He waits, not sure if he’s going to get an answer or not, until he sees an almost imperceivable nod. 

\/\/\/\/\/

“Is there any chance of reunification with his parents?” Shouta asks Kuno in his usual monotone. Of course the ultimate goal would be to get the kid back with his parents as long as they’re able to make sure they’ll treat him well. If there is a chance, they’ll have to sort out visitation throughout his rehabilitation. Though it’s hard knowing how much the kid has suffered since leaving their care - and being certain there’s plenty more he’s unaware of - he holds off on any judgment. He doesn’t even know their names, let alone their circumstances. For all he knows, they could have really thought they were doing the best thing for their kid. Besides, his parents are hardly the only ones to blame for everything he’s gone through. The state should be able to be trusted with the health and safety of the children that fall into their care. He forces his train of thought to stop there. Anger won’t serve him right now.

She shakes her head solemnly. “When we managed to contact them they officially handed all guardianship over to the state. They said they wish him well, but don’t want any further contact.” There’s frustration in her voice. She sounds tired. 

Shouta nods. “Any other family that you know of?” He knows the answer before she says it.

When she shakes her head again her expression holds subtle anger, but her voice only comes out even more tired this time. “None that agreed to take care of him.” He can feel that there’s a lot more to it, but asking her to elaborate would be unnecessary and more of a bother than anything at this hour. “We’ll organize long term care further into his rehabilitation once we have a better idea of what kind of support he’ll need. For now, he’ll stay with you unless he for some reason needs to be moved to live with a different family. He’s been given a phone for emergencies and contacting myself and Tsukauchi. It’s only good for sending and receiving texts or calls and is not to be taken away, even as punishment. He has some cuts on his back. The doctors bandaged them, but you’ll have to keep up on keeping them clean.” He nods along, arms crossed over his chest. Tsukauchi had given him and Hizashi a run down of this whole thing and talked to them quite a lot about a few of the kids they’ve already helped. She pulls out a small device with a line of buttons and a screen. “This is for the ankle monitor he’s wearing. It’s simple but very customizable depending on how close you need him to be to wherever you are.” She goes through the basic controls then gives it to him. 

“Right, anything else?” He pockets the device.

She hands him the garbage bag with Shinsou’s belongings in it. He can tell the moment it’s in his hands just how little stuff the kid has. He wouldn’t be surprised if it was just clothes. “Just keep us updated. We’ll come by next month to see how everything is going.” She gives him a small but genuine smile. “Reach out if you need anything . We’re here to help.”

“We will.” By the time he enters the apartment, Shinsou and Hizashi are both sitting across from each other. Hizashi is fidgeting and looks thoroughly uncomfortable, concerned, so uncharacteristically unsure of himself. Shinsou has his arms folded on the table with his forehead resting on them. They both look up at him when he enters, Shinsou much slower than Hizashi who springs out of his seat almost immediately. When he gets a look at the kids face he swears he looks even paler than he did when he got there. ‘Something to keep an eye on.’ Being sick during the adjustment period would make everything more complicated. Though he hopes that the hospital would have informed them if they saw anything that was cause for concern. 

“Shouta!” Hizashi’s look of relief is immediate. The kid grimaces and his hands twitches up off the table before settling back down at Hizashi’s volume, the most reactive he’s seen him since he got here. Hizashi’s expression turns sheepish and his voice is lower when he continues. “Great, alright, let’s get this part over with so that you can get some sleep, little listener.” Hizashi waits for Shinsou to stand up then leads the way through the living room. “You’ve, of course, already seen the living room. I’ve tried to get Shouta to agree to add more decorations, but this is the best I could do.” He gestures broadly to the room, but both of them keep their eyes on Shinsou to gauge his reaction. The kid, at most, looks uncomfortable, and at least is entirely expressionless besides his partly squinted eyes.

“I told you that if you could keep them alive, you could get more plants. Don’t blame me for your own failings.” He deapans.

Hizashi gasps in mock offense, slapping a hand over his heart dramatically as they make their way into the bathroom. “It’s not my fault they died. I swear, it’s like they had it out for me.” He pouts childishly then his face almost instantly returns to a bright smile when he turns his attention to Shinsou again. He puts a hand down on the bottom shelf behind the toilet that has a small set of basic toiletries on it. “So, kiddo, this shelf is yours. We weren’t sure what you liked so we’ll just have to get whatever else you want when we go to the store. Down here,” he moves his hand down to the cupboard under the sink, “is where we keep the first aid supplies. That and the cleaning supplies, but that’s less important. You can take a shower at any point, just make sure to ask anyone else at home if they have to use the bathroom before you do because we only have one bathroom.” He’s about to walk back out when stops and adds. “Oh, and be careful not to accidentally trap Puddle in here when you leave. She’s sneaky.” Shouta grunts his agreement.

With that they make their way down the rest of the hall. They briefly show him the contents of the closet. An extra first aid kit, more toilet paper, towels, wash rags, medications, and a bunch of extras of everything they have in the bathroom. They stop outside of their bedroom. “This is our room. Just knock or open the door and flick the lights a few times to get our attention. We’re both light sleepers, but it takes a bit more to wake me up since I can’t hear without my hearing aids.” He gestures to the devices in his ears. Shouta knows that he would have preferred to take them off shortly after getting home like he usually does, but he hasn’t gotten the chance with everything going on. He assumes they’ll come off the moment the kid is in bed. 

“Avoid waking either of us up by directly touching or shaking us unless you have to. As pro heroes we’re always on high alert and being woken up like that can be… unpleasant.” He’s hesitant to say ‘dangerous’ because he doesn’t want to scare the kid. It’s very uncommon and usually only happens if they were already experiencing a nightmare, but there have been times when they’ve both lashed out after being woken up. Luckily none of those times ended in any injury beyond some bruises, but they’ve made it a rule to avoid physical contact if they can when they need to wake each other.

“But if needed, don’t hesitate to. Sometimes it’s necessary with me so don’t worry about it too much.” Hizashi’s smile doesn’t falter as he waves off the concern. Shouta knows he doesn’t want to worry the kid, but he wishes he would take it a little more seriously. Even with his experience as a hero, those moments seeing his best friend of over a decade come at him with no recognition in his eyes still make him uneasy when he remembers them. He doesn’t want to find out how a traumatized child would react to something like that. 

Shinsou only nods in acknowledgment and they move on to the last room. “And this,” Hizashi swings the door open a little too quickly and scrambles to stop it from hitting the wall, “is your room.” They walk into the room and give Shinsou a moment to look around. Shouta sets the bag holding Shinsou’s belongings on the ground next to the other bags. “This space and everything in it is yours to do with what you want. You can move stuff around or leave it as it is.” He walks over to the four bags lined on the wall next to the door. “Don’t worry about these. We’ll go through them tomorrow, but they’re for you. It was kind of a short notice before you got here so we didn’t have time to put anything away. It’s okay if you don’t like everything, but we just wanted to get you some things to make the room feel a little more like your own.” Shinsou’s eyes widen slightly as they trail over the line of bags, narrow again at his own bag of belongings, then stop on the basket of snacks on the dresser. “This is for you too. You can take anything from it at any time and whenever it starts getting low we’ll refill it. I tried going for variety since I didn’t know what to get, so make sure to tell me what you do and don’t like.” Hizashi’s fidgeting has gotten significantly worse and he’s basically staring into Shinsou’s soul, looking for approval that he’s more than liking not going to get in any form other than a head nod. He doesn’t even get that this time, instead Shinsou only flicks his eyes to Hizashi then back down. 

Shouta takes that as a sign to wrap this up. “Zashi, it’s 3 AM. Get some sleep, kid. We’ll talk more tomorrow.” He doesn’t see it because he’s no longer looking at Shinsou, but he can hear a barely audible, shaky, sigh of what sounds like relief from the kid. He’s almost pushing Hizashi out the door and grabs the handle to pull it closed behind them. 

Hizashi puts his hands up placatingly. “Okay, okay, you’re right. Just let us know if you need anything, kiddo. Chances are we’ll be up for a few more hours, but even if we’re not we’ll still be here for whatever.” The moment the door shuts, Hizashi’s smile drops into a frown. Without another word, they make their way to their bedroom. They both sit, side by side, on the edge of their bed. Hizashi stares at the floor, hands clasped in his lap, and he’s so still that Shouta almost worries he’s dissociating again. But the look in his eyes isn’t the same blank expression it is when he dissociates, it’s calculating, so he waits and lets him collect his thoughts. Silence hangs heavy around them for several minutes. When Hizashi breaks the silence, his voice is firm, cold, and - most unnervingly - quiet. “They should be put in Tartarus. Every last one of them. I want to watch them lose everything.”

Shouta nods slowly, careful with his response. Reminding him that Tsukauchi will do everything he can is a nice sentiment that they both know is true, but they both know that it’ll never be enough. Never feel like enough. Saying that the best they can do now is focus on helping the kid would just emphasize the feelings of helplessness. All they can do is damage control when that damage never should have been done to begin with. And of course, trying to say that anger won’t help them is only invalidating, unhelpful, and would make him a hypocrite. So, he slides his hand between Hizashi’s clasped ones, takes one to hold between his own rubbing over his knuckles with his thumb, and responds simply. “I do too.” Hizashi takes a sharp breath then exhales shakily. The tension drains from his body and he slumps against Shouta’s side, laying his head on his shoulder. There’s silence between them again, but it’s more calm.

“...We have a lot of appointments we need to set.” It’s said in a way that lets Shouta know that he’s dreading that whole process. He rolls his eyes.

“Yes we do. We need to set up a regular doctor for him, but we should take him to Recovery Girl on Monday to take care of all of the immediate stuff. We’ll more than likely end up having to set multiple dentist appointments if they can’t take care of everything in one go. Tsukauchi said that even with just talking with the kid he could see a lot of obvious decay.” He has, almost unintentionally, slipped into his hero mindset. His tone is the one he uses when he gives reports to the police. It will be better if he can keep himself detached emotionally for now. Getting this over with is his main goal. “Vision and hearing screenings, but those shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Definitely a psych evaluation and whatever follow ups after that.”

“And a nutritionist!” Hizashi cuts in, some anger back in his voice overshadowed by worry. Shouta, far too used to his husband's loudness, doesn’t react to the sudden yelling right next to his ear with anything more than signing for him to quiet down. Normally he wouldn’t bother, but now he doesn’t want to accidentally startle or scare Shinsou. Hizashi doesn’t miss a beat as he continues, but does so with a much softer voice. “You saw how skinny he is, Sho.” He sits up suddenly and turns Shouta with wide eyes. Hizashi moves his free hand on top of their interlocked ones and squeezes them. “Oh my God, Shouta, you were still talking to Kuno when I had him eat something. I was so worried he was going to make himself choke. I didn’t know what to do. He barely chewed his food. I don’t know if he was worried I was going to take it away, or if he just really hated what I gave him or something. I don’t know. I didn’t ask what he likes because I figured I wouldn’t get an answer, but holy shit I was not prepared for that.”

He remembers Hizashi’s expression when he walked in and the paleness of the boy's face. “I was wondering about that. He looked really pale, paler than before. I was hoping he wasn’t getting sick, but this seems like a bigger issue. Another reason to get a psych evaluation and doctor appointments done as soon as we can.”

“We can’t throw all of this at him at once though. Overwhelming him with a million appointments before he’s had enough time to process at least some of this would be a bad idea.” Hizashi says. Shouta hums in agreement, knowing that Hizashi is speaking from experience. They’ve talked about it extensively. “He was just at the hospital, I think we could hold off on Recovery Girl until Tuesday. One of us should stay home with him on Monday, give him an extra day to settle in.”

“That should be fine. We can do the vision and hearing screenings a little further out unless it becomes an issue. We can wait a little bit on the psych evaluation, but not too long. We should prioritise the doctor and dentist appointments.” He knows first hand how draining psych evaluation can be so he figures it might be best to wait at least a little while before scheduling one, at least until the kid is more comfortable there so he can have a stress free environment to go afterwards. 

Hizashi nods along until he’s done then hesitantly - quietly - adds. “He hasn’t talked in ten years. Can’t even cough properly with those things on. He’s going to need voice therapy.”

“And we’ll help him through it.” ‘ We already know how .’ But he leaves that part unsaid. It would just be an unnecessary reminder. He runs a hand comfortingly up his arm.

“Yeah, yeah I know.” Hizashi falls back against the bed, pushing the air in his lungs out in one big huff. Shouta follows, much slower, onto his back. “I wonder what kind of music he likes. Wait,” he makes a small distressed sound, “Shouta, what if he doesn't even know what kind of music he likes?”

His own eyebrows furrow a little at the implication. ‘ How many experiences has this kid missed out on?’ He dismisses it as quickly as it comes. No point in worrying about it now, they’ll surely find out soon enough. “Then it’s a good thing you’re probably one of the most qualified people to help him learn.”

Hizashi snorts quietly at that. “Yeah, I can ramble on about the past 50 years of music history then give him playlists with thousands of songs on them for each decade. By the time I’m done he’ll probably be so done with it that he’ll never want to listen to another song ever again.”

He turns his head to look at his husband who is already staring back at him. “You’re overthinking it. You’re good with kids, they like you.” He leans over and pecks him on the lips. He pulls back enough to look into Hizashi's radioactive green eyes, bringing up a hand to cup his cheeks. “We’re going to do fine.”

Hizashi smiles tiredly and presses their foreheads together. After a moment of silence he mumbles. “Laying down was a bad idea. I don’t know if I can get back up.”

Shouta just rolls his eyes and pulls away again, sitting up this time. He puts a hand on Hizashi’s knee. “You worked thirteen hours today, just go to bed. I’ll take care of it.”

He hears Hizashi sigh with relief from behind him. “ Thank God . I don’t know if I could have functioned properly enough to even been any help with setting up the appointments. You usually do mine for me so I don’t even really know how to.” Hizashi sits up and takes out his hearing aids, setting them in their charger. He leans over and quickly kisses Shouta on the cheek then signs. ‘Love you. Don’t stay up too late. Goodnight.’

He smiles softly as he stands up. ‘Goodnight. Love you too. I’ll try.’ 

Chapter Text

Once he’s processed the door closing behind Eraserhead and Present Mic, Hitoshi flicks off the light. The absence of blinding light lets his eyes finally stop straining. Every step towards the bed feels weighed down, like he has to force his body to cooperate with him. A dull pain pulsates where his chipped fingernails dig into the palm of his right hand. The pain flashing weakly in waves through his entire body is the only thing that feels real in that moment. Everything else he knows is real, logically, but it all feels so distant that it’s like it’s fake. He can feel, physically, all of his negative emotions pooling in his chest, but can’t process all of them at once so the only thing in his head are his racing thoughts. ‘What are you going to do? This was a mistake. You’re such a fucking idiot. What is wrong with you? Why is just being normal so fucking hard for you?’ The uncertainty is the worst part. Two people, two Pro Heroes , are taking him in for an unspecified amount of time to monitor him and his progress of becoming less of a fuck up. ‘Of course you were paired with fucking Erasure.’ The only reassurance he has as his entire life gets flipped upside down is that if it sucks as much as he’s anticipating, he could always just choose to go to prison instead. ‘What an unappealing alternative . ’

He lays on his right side since his left arm has the cast around it. Moving in pretty much any way further irritates one or multiple of his wounds. Any sense of time is lost on him as he lays there for what easily could have been hours, just staring into the darkness. He can’t force his hand to unclench and it makes the muscles in that arm start cramping. Laying there, tense, for so long, is agonizing. When he’s finally able to relax his body, a fresh wave of exhaustion takes over him and not even his insomnia can keep him from passing out.

—

Enough time passes while he’s asleep that the sky outside is fully lit up. His entire body is stiff and it’s clear that he didn’t move much, if at all, in his sleep. A common occurrence when his body is too physically exhausted to move. In addition to all his injuries, a lot of his muscles are sore from being tensed. Some of the muscles in his arm cramp if he closes his fist too tightly. He tries to move to sit up, but decides that it’s not worth it when it seems to agitate every injury he has as well as make him aware of the start of a headache behind his eyes. He lets himself fully relax into the bed again and finally notes how soft it is. Sluggishly his hand slides over the surface next to him, pleasantly surprised to find that all of it is like that. There are several pillows and he finds his fingers linger on one with an extra fuzzy case. He indulges in simply running his hand back and forth across it with only enough energy to move his wrist rather than his arm. While such a stark contrast to what he's used to does serve to remind him of his current situation, it's undeniably nice.

By the time he feels up to moving to pull out his phone, the beam of sunlight shining through the window has shifted considerably. He knows it’s going to be a little late in the day when he checks the time, but his eyes widen when he reads 3:06 PM. The all too familiar feeling of dread kicks in. ‘They’re going to think you’re lazy. They probably already hate you and you’re just making it worse.’ He tries to reason with himself that if they really wanted to they could have just come in and woken him up. Then he wonders why they haven’t. ‘There’s no way they’re still asleep, is there?’ He easily dismisses that thought because when he focuses he can distantly hear talking in the other room. That and he definitely heard movement out there earlier that he wasn’t awake enough to pay any mind to. 

His body protests the movement the whole way as he finally sits up. He takes the time now to look around the room. The walls are a soft beige color, there’s a tall dresser across the room from the bed, a large bookshelf with maybe five books on it, and a desk with a few sets of colorful supplies on it. He remembers the four bags of mystery items lined up against the wall. Next to that, the bag of his things. The pang of searing hatred that comes over him overwhelms everything else. Ignore it and move on. Next to the door is a small trash can with a lid on it. On the side of the bed that isn’t pressed up against the wall there's a little table with two drawers, a digital alarm clock, and a lamp on top. Even just the change from stained white walls is an off puttingly nice change. ‘Nicer than you deserve.’ The lack of yelling is also a pleasant change of pace.

Hitoshi strains his ears again to try and hear into the other room. He can hear Present Mic talking, but he can’t make out what he’s saying from here. He doesn’t hear anyone reply so he’s either on the phone or he’s talking to Eraserhead and his responses are just too quiet for Hitoshi to hear. The latter feels more likely. Eraserhead doesn’t seem like the type to be loud which adds yet another thing Hitoshi will have to adjust to. The question is, is he angry quiet, or normal quiet? Quiet is unpredictable. The thought of actually getting up and going out there makes his heart rate spike uncomfortably. He knows he’ll have to, and putting it off isn't going to change that, but there’s something so indescribably relieving about just being able to sit alone for once and breathe. Having the door there, even though it’s no real barrier if anyone wanted to come inside, puts him more at ease than he thought it would. It makes him feel safer and him knowing that's irrational doesn't change it. Because he knows the moment he opens that door everything is going to change. Everything is already changing out there. So, as long as that door stays closed it stays out there. For as long as it's closed, he can pretend for just a little longer. 

‘Just a little longer.’ Everything swirling in his chest forms tears that make the corners of his eyes sting. A shaky sigh escapes him and he moves the fuzzy pillow into his lap and runs his hand back and forth across it. He tries to ignore the shaking in his hand. There’s something calming about watching it get messed up just to smooth it back out afterwards. A problem with an immediate solution. His breath stutters a few times as a couple tears drop out of his eyes. He can’t even make proper sense of all of the emotions he’s feeling. He curls his knees up to his chest with the pillow on top of them and presses his face into it, careful to not press too hard on any of the cuts or bruises. ‘Just get through it. This is your last chance. You have to get through it.’ All those thoughts do is help remind him of how completely fucked he is. When he inevitably does something to mess this up, that’s it for him.

“Fuck..” He pulls his face out of the pillow and swings his legs over the side of the bed. No time like the present. He figures he’s put it off long enough and makes his way over to the door. Every step of the way he has to fight with himself to not turn back. ‘Don’t be a coward. You dug your grave, time to lay in it.’ He puts his hand on the doorknob, but pauses before opening it. He can hear what's being said out there a little better now. Curiosity wins him over - as well as another reason to procrastinate - as he presses his ear up to the door.

Present Mic is much easier to hear now, even without straining, because the volume of his voice has increased considerably. “...and fuck the Red Woman! The R-”

Eraserhead’s voice is much harder to make out through the door, but it just barely intelligible. “Language, Zashi. There's a kid in the house now.” Though he's scolding the other for something, his voice doesn't betray any anger. That further cements to Hitoshi that Eraserhead is going to be a nightmare to live with. He dreads having to pick apart everything just to get a hint at what he's feeling.

“Right, right, I'll have to get used to that. Anyway, absolutely screw the Red Woman! The only good thing she does is bring Jon back to life, and die. And it wasn't even a good death! She should have gotten one like Joffrey!”

“Or Oberyn.” Eraserhead cuts in, still entirely monotone.

“Or Oberyn! Or, ya know, the little girl she had burnt at the stake! I totally forgot her name. I hate the Red Woman. She's the worst. She's so overpowered! She murdered Renly with a shadow demon baby thing! How is someone meant to fend off a shadow demon baby thing? Brianne stood no chance. Oh I love Brianne! Brianne is lovely. She's one of my favorite characters. She's kinda rude to Podrick at first, but they end up working well together. I'm glad she got to be the one to kill Stannis. She deserves that at the very least. That and so much more, honestly. She gets screwed over so badly. Not enough people in the show appreciate her. Jamie especially was just the absolute worst to her. He made her fall in love with him and then ditched her to go back to gettin his groove on with his sister!” A loud exasperated sigh can be heard. Hitoshi can piece together that they're talking about a book, TV show, or movie of some kind, but he has no idea what it is. Whatever it is, Present Mic sounds, if not angry, definitely at least annoyed about it. Which makes Hitoshi even more hesitant to go out there if he's already worked up about something. Though Eraserhead is responding as though they're having a normal conversation, which just makes it all even more confusing.

“I don't know what he saw in her. There's nothing to see besides exactly what she presents and what she presents is malice and arrogance.” Eraserhead replies.

The response is immediately, almost cutting off the end of Eraserhead's sentence. “ I know! It's complete bullsh- crap!” He continues right on despite his partial slip up and Eraserhead doesn't mention it. “She killed so many people and made their lives miserable, and she gets to die in the arms of her lover, who might I remind you is also her brother, as the building collapses… on them.” The last three words are harder to hear and more hesitant than the others. There's an abrupt pause in the conversation. Hitoshi assumes something happened that he can't see or couldn't hear.

Eraserhead breaks the silence, no notable change in tone. “What time is it? We should probably wake the kid up soon. We need to make sure he eats something.” Hitoshi feels his breath catch in his throat for a moment when he hears himself get mentioned. He puts his hand over his heart where it's still beating uncomfortably fast, willing it to calm down a little before he throws up. ‘Don’t throw up. Don’t throw up.’ Or passes out. 

There's only a very slight delay, where Hitoshi assumes Present Mic pulls out his phone to check, before he answers. “Holy crap, how is it already 3:30? There's no way I was ranting about Game of Thrones for that long!” His voice holds none of the annoyance from early, now only disbelief and shock.

“You didn't, you started with talking about your 4th period class, switched to ranting about your disagreement with Kan, talked about the case you've been working on, one of the people reminded you of The Hound so you started talking about Game of Thrones.” Eraserhead says plainly.

“Oh, I completely forgot I even told you about what happened with Kan. Anyway though, back on track. I feel bad waking him up. He looked exhausted yesterday and I don't blame him after the day he had. But it is getting kinda late. Maybe let's wait until 4:00 and see if he gets up on his own?” His volume has gone down to only slightly louder than average, which Hitoshi is realizing might just be his baseline. He doesn't know what to make of them letting him sleep in. He'd have assumed it's just because they don't want him as unresponsive as last night for whatever their talk is going to include. But Present Mic has no reason to lie here. ‘Why would he feel bad? It's my own fault. I took it too far. I was an idiot. I should've gone to a teacher instead of taking matters into my own hands.’ They never helped him before. Fukuoka-sensei did, he could have trusted her.

“We can wait, but we shouldn't wait any later than that. You still have to make the food and we have to go over stuff with him after.” Eraserhead’s voice is back to monotone. 

“I would start the food now, but I don't want to accidentally make something he hates or something like that. I didn't get a chance to ask him about what he likes last night…” Hitoshi steps away from the door. He can't leave the room now because the timing would be too convenient. There's no way they wouldn't suspect that he was listening to them. But he can't stay there until 4:00 because he won't be able to properly fake that he is asleep when they come in. He knows he's not a convincing enough actor and they're literally trained to be able to tell if someone is acting suspiciously. If they questioned why he didn't come out right after he woke up, he wouldn't have a good answer for them. 

He pulls out the phone from his pocket and checks the time. 3:26 PM. So he'll go out at 3:44. Not too late, but not too early. He hopes. Until then his thoughts will spiral and his heart will beat so fast that it physically hurts. ‘It’s fine, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine.’ He doesn't let himself sit back down on the bed or else he doesn't think he would be able to get himself to get back up when he needs to. But standing up he fights the urge to pace across the room. He can't do that because it would make too much noise so he settles for bouncing his leg in place. ‘It’s fine, it's fine, it's FINE.’ Nothing feels fine. ‘They’re going to hate you. They probably already hate you. They probably heard all about you from the police. They're Pro Heroes, they're whole job is to fight people like you. Criminals. Villains . And they're teachers. You're so stupid. They've probably already seen your grades and know just how much of a fucking idiot you are. Gods, you're so pathetic. They'll realize how worthless you are and they'll give up on you. You're a lost cause.’ But the detective thinks he has a chance. So does Fukuoka-sensei. ‘It’s just because they don't know you. They think you're like those other kids. Don't lie to yourself. You know you're not. You're disgusting.’ Atsuto didn't think he was disgusting. ‘He was just being nice to you. Because he's a nice person. He knows now. You bit someone in front of him. Do you really think he'd still talk to you after that? Still even look at you? Just like a rabid dog. A dog that needs to be muz- shutupshutupshutupshutup.’

His breath hitches sharply, immediately slapping a hand over his mouth to muffle the sound, as tears pool in his eyes. He tips his head back, trying and failing to stop them from falling. When that doesn't work he wipes them away aggressively with his arm. That is, until it irritates all of the wounds on his face and messes up some of the bandages. He settles on blinking rapidly to keep them clear. ‘It’s fine. I'm fine. I don't care. It’s fine.’ His breathing stutters as he struggles to regain control of it. He continues like this, checking the time every few seconds and wishing it would just go faster. He needs it to go faster. But the closer it gets to time the more anxious he also gets. If it's even possible for him to be more anxious at this point short of a full blown anxiety attack. Which he only knows the name of because Atsuto explained it to him during one of his long winded rambling sessions. He tries to force himself to stop thinking about Atsuto or he's worried he'll start crying again. Shocker, it doesn't work. 

Finally, the clock reaches 3:44 and he almost runs to the door before remembering that he has to seem like he just got up and hasn't been spiraling for the last almost 20 minutes. He takes a deep breath and, before he loses his nerve, opens the door. And he immediately regrets it when all attention is immediately turned to him. Whatever conversation the two men were having halts as they look at him. Eraserhead has the cat on his lap, sitting on the couch. He has a laptop open on the armrest. One hand is occupied by petting the cat, the other by the laptop. Present Mic seems to have been pacing in front of the couch which is backed against the wall. Hitoshi doesn't want to move, worried he might fall on his ass if he does with how light headed he feels, but he forces himself to take measured steps toward the main room. Having two people staring at him adds an unfortunate difficulty in having to choose which one he should make eye contact with. ‘Really should have thought about what to do before coming out here, dipshit.’ But it's not like he has any clue what to expect or what they're expecting from him. He decides to focus his eyes on Present Mic’s for now since he seems like the one who talks the most.

As anticipated, Present Mic is the one who breaks the silence. Despite his earlier upset, his smile is as bright as it was the day prior. “Heya, kiddo. I was just about to go wake you up. How ya feelin? That's probably a dumb question. I can't imagine you're feeling too great. We have some pain meds if you want any. We'll just have to keep an eye out for any side effects or reactions. You don't have any documented allergies, but that doesn't mean you don't have any that you just don't know about.” There's a very brief pause then he adds. “Oh, right. Like I said last night, if you even remember which I wouldn't blame you if you don't, you're totally allowed to talk here and that will never change. But, if you don't want to, you can also just write down whatever you want to say.” Present Mic goes over to the coffee table to grab something, but Hitoshi doesn't let himself break eye contact to look at whatever it is. He forces down the urge to shy away when the hero makes his way over to him. Only when he's holding the objects out for Hitoshi to take does he glance down to see a notebook and a pen. The bright, sparkly, pink pen with a pink puffball at the end allows him a very brief moment of relief as it momentarily takes his attention off his panic. He desperately wants to reach out and touch the puffball, but he refrains. He forces his eyes back up when Present Mic starts talking again. “Or, I guess, if you happened to know sign language that would work too.” He adds it like an afterthought, clearly not expecting Hitoshi to know it, while gesturing to the hearing aids in his ears that Hitoshi hadn't had the chance to notice earlier.

Hitoshi's brain kind of short circuits for a moment as he tries to take in everything with his already racing thoughts. He's never taken medicine for pain before, except at the hospital, so he doesn't know how to react to being offered some casually. Especially because it wasn't really phrased like a question that he can just say yes or no to. Would they think he's overreacting to the pain he's in if he asked for some? They could just be offering to be nice. Doesn't mean they won't judge him for it. He remembers being told he's allowed to talk as much as he remembers not believing that that will always be the case. Now he's being told it again and it makes his heart sink. ‘You manage to make people hate you easily enough already, imagine what will happen when you open your mouth.’ He's gotten used to what behaviours he's meant to do and not meant to do, but he's never had to pay attention to what he should say in any given situation. All he knows for verbal responses is that swearing isn't allowed and ‘giving attitude’, as he's heard Mr. Emoto describing it to the others, is bad. ‘I wonder what will happen to them.’

The choice of what way to communicate is easy. He knows so little sign language that they'd probably just get annoyed if he even mentioned it because it would be way too inefficient to try and use. Writing everything down is way too slow and they would no doubt quickly get tired of having to wait. If they're going to expect more communication from him, he'll have to talk. He's already been silent for far too long based on the expression on Present Mic's face so he speaks without getting to put much thought into what he's saying. “If I can talk I might as well. It'd be a waste of everyone's time to write it all down. And my handwriting is barely readable so it would be more inconvenient than anything.” He starts gesturing with his hand while he's talking. That might be weird. Atsuto does it, but everyone already looks at him like he's weird for even talking to Hitoshi. He quickly puts the hand back in his pocket, just in case. “Um, I'm fine. It's not that bad.” Ignoring the pain pulsating through his body is not very hard for him. Neither of them react to how rough his voice is, which he finds himself feeling grateful for. No need to mention the muzzle yet. 

In his peripheral vision he sees Eraserhead stand up from the couch and is very unsettled that he can't really see what he's doing while having to look at Present Mic. Hitoshi can see some emotion that he can't identify flash across Present Mic’s face, but it quickly circles back to a smaller smile. Surprisingly, it doesn't look forced. “Alright, kiddo.” He steps briefly to the side to place the objects on the couch. “You do have a prescription from the doctor that one of us will pick up when it's ready. Should be later today or early tomorrow. I should start on food then, if you're sure.” He turns to head to the kitchen. Hitoshi follows when Eraserhead gestures for him to. “We'll need to switch your bandages, but we can do that after dinner. I wanted to wait so I could ask you if there is any food that you like and see if we have it. Or anything you don't like so I can avoid it. I can show you what we have and you can point stuff out. Anything that seems interesting or that you wanna try. Whatever you want. It could even just be something random.” 

His eyebrows furrow a little. It takes him a moment to come up with a reason why they’d help him change his bandages. ‘You’re too stupid to do it yourself. If you die on their watch it would look bad on them.’ A shudder rips through his entire body.  “I'm not picky.” ‘Liar.’ “I'll eat anything. You don't have to worry about it.” Without being able to monitor Present Mic’s facial expressions Hitoshi has to focus a lot more on his body language to gauge his reactions. He’ll have to figure out quickly what he is and isn’t allowed to say. All the trial and error will make the beginning of this transition by far the hardest part. ‘As if it’ll get any better. If anything I’ll just get more used to managing it.’

Present Mic’s shoulders droop a little as he comes to a stop in the middle of the kitchen and Hitoshi instinctively shies away a little when he turns around. ‘Don’t flinch.’ He tries to release some of the tension from his already sore muscles. There’s a slight furrow to Present MIc’s eyebrows and his smile is a little smaller. ‘Good job, dumbass, you already fucked it up.’ But his words don’t seem to reflect any obvious anger. “Ah, fair enough then. I can still show you what we have if you want, pick something random or that looks interesting? If not, you can sit in here or wherever you want while you wait. Dinner shouldn’t take me too long to make. One of us will come get you when it’s ready if you wanna go wait in your room.” 

‘Just tell me what you want, for fucks sake.’ Suppressing a shrug, that could be seen as rude, he responds carefully. “If you want me to. You’d know what to choose better than I do.” His skin crawls while thinking over what to say. It feels like his thoughts are racing a mile a second, far too fast for him to actually make any sense of them.

Present Mic’s smile widens again. A good sign. He waves a hand dismissively. “Eh, a lot of the time I just throw things together and hope that it works out. I have learned a lot and know generally what goes together, but I do experiment a bit.” He nods to Eraserhead who is looking through the fridge in Hitoshi’s peripheral vision. “Shouta also knows some cooking, but isn’t as big a fan of it as I am.” Eraserhead’s only acknowledgement of being mentioned is a very brief glance to them. “We could teach you a little about it sometime if you’re interested. But for now let’s just have a look around and you can tell me if anything catches your eye, kay?” 

Present MIc ends up showing him around to everything they have, pointing out his own favorites and things he recommends. In his state of overwhelm he just picks a few random things and takes the opportunity to go back to the guest room before he can get roped into more conversation. He hesitates once he steps through the door. Just because they shut the door doesn’t mean he's allowed to. But he really wants to close it. It’s not like they told him not to, but it could be an unspoken thing. He leaves it cracked open.

\/\/\/\/\/

A sort of fidgety nervous energy radiates off of Hizashi that can be felt across the room while he intently stares down at the pan of food as if it will make it cook faster. There’s silence in the room besides the scratching of the pen and flipping of the papers he’s grading at the table. The silence, while calm to him, is obviously an anxious and awkward one for his husband. He knows him well enough to know that he has a lot to say. Sometimes he isn’t sure how to say what he’s thinking though, so in cases like this one it’s up to Shouta to start the conversation. It’s easy to guess he’s worrying about the kid.

“That went well, considering the circumstances.” Some people might read his tone as sarcastic, but Hizashi knows better.

The response is immediate. “It did?” Hizashi finally takes his eyes off of the food to look at Shouta. “Okay, good. I couldn’t tell. I kind of felt like everything I was saying was wrong.” He’s talking notably more quietly than he normally does. “Yeah, yeah it was fine. Considering the circumstances, that went well. Now, what all are we gonna talk about after we eat?”

Hizashi goes back to messing with the food while Shouta answers. “Appointments, expectations, a little bit about ourselves, and what the next few weeks are going to be like. Especially school and our work schedules.” 

Hizashi nods slowly without looking at Shouta. “Then after that we should help him with his bandages and go through the stuff we got him. I know you said you got everything sorted with Recovery Girl, but were you able to get the dentist and a more permanent doctor set up?” Hizashi sets down the utensils he’s using and sits across the table from Shouta while they wait. He grabs a few of the papers off Shouta’s pile and starts helping grade them, taking a pen from a small cup of pens, pencils, and markers on their kitchen table.

“The dentist was easy, I called this morning after they opened. I had some issues with the doctor. They said they would call back and if they don’t by tomorrow then I should call them again.”  Shouta responds while marking a paper with a 36%.

Hizashi sighs heavily and lets go of some of the tension he was holding. “Okay, good.” They sit in relative silence, grading papers, with Hizashi occasionally getting up to check the progress of the food. 

Once the food is done Shouta gets up to get Shinsou from his room while Hizashi sets the table. He raises an eyebrow at the door being cracked open as he approaches, opting to knock on the door frame instead of the actual door. “Fo-” Before he can even get out the first word the door swings open. Dull purple eyes stare straight up at his own. Shinsou stands unnaturally still, posture straight with one hand in his pocket and the other on the door handle. Shouta only takes a moment before continuing. “Foods done.” He nods down the hall to indicate for the kid to follow him when he starts walking back. “If you end up not liking it we can make you something else, not a big deal. Hizashi wouldn’t mind.” He glances back at his reaction, but it’s hard to read when barely any of his expression changes. The bottom half of his face moves more than the top half. A learned behaviour, surely. Though the corner of his mouth does twitch downward.

Shinsou only nods at first then a few seconds later he says quietly. “Okay.” Shouta intentionally doesn’t react to the hoarseness of the kid’s voice. Hizashi will address that later. When the two enter the kitchen there are three bowls laid out on the table, two next to each other on one side and the other across from them.

When they all start eating, Hizashi takes over the conversation as usual. “Sewing is actually a lot more tedious than I was expecting. Trying to learn how to measure myself proved to be a challenge. Oh, and setting up that sewing machine for the first time was a nightmare! My hands aren’t steady enough to to fit the string through the little hole in the needle. It’s a pain, but I think I’m figuring it out! Just, slowly. It would probably be easier to learn if I had more free time to practice, but you know how it is.” He finishes off with a shrug and a smile. His smile gets increasingly strained as his eyes flicker over to Shinsou. It’s easy to tell why. Shouta now gets an idea of what Hizashi was talking about last night. The kid hardly chews before swallowing. Hizashi gives Shouta an uncertain and concerned look. ‘Should we say something?’ Hizashi signs off to the side.

Shouta turns to Shinsou without responding. “Hey, kid.” The kid’s eyes snap up to his eyes instantly, fully freezing his movement. His entire body is so tense it has to be uncomfortable. “You should slow down a little, we don’t want you to choke.” His eyes widen ever so slightly then settle back down to being partially lidded.

Shinsou starts to nod, then pauses halfway and responds verbally. “Okay, sorry.” For the rest of dinner Hizashi keeps talking, occasionally trying to add Shinsou into the conversation but only getting a few words for each answer. 

“I had a little trouble setting up a playlist for what songs I wanted to play tonight at the radio station, but I think I came up with a pretty good line up in the end. Say, kiddo, you got any songs you like? I could play them, as long as they’re appropriate for radio.” His smile is gentle when looking at the kid, waiting patiently while he hesitates to answer.

Shinsou’s expression is subtly uncomfortable, more so once both of their attention turns to him. “Uh, no, sorry.” The ‘no’ is barely above a whisper.

Hizashi eases past his answer, clearly having expected it. He just moves on to what he wanted to offer to begin with. “No need to be sorry, kiddo.” He waves a hand and smiles even brighter to emphasize his point. “I’d love to show you some sometime. I’ve got playlists for even some of the really niche genres. I’m sure that we could find something you’re into.” 

Shinsou hesitates less this time, his expression back to a slightly softer neutral one. “Okay… if you want to.” Hizashi asks a few more questions but stops when Shouta signs for him to. They can talk more later, but every time he asks a question Shinsou gives him his full attention so it’s making eating take way longer than it should. They have more important matters to get to for now. By the time Shinsou is done, Shouta is relieved to see that, at the very least, he doesn’t look nearly as ill as he did last night after eating. 

Hizashi takes care of the dishes, leaving Shouta with Shinsou who's growing anxiety is becoming increasingly obvious. Obvious at least to Shouta. The kid’s gaze is fixed straight down at the table and his shoulders are tense and raised near his ears. He seems to be struggling to keep his breathing controlled. Both Hizashi and himself had anticipated this, though Shouta had to put a lot more effort into making himself appear more approachable. His generally intimidating demeanor helps with wrangling classes full of rowdy students and fighting petty criminals, not so much with trying to calm down traumatized teenagers. He pulled his hair up into a ponytail, chose a very casual outfit in lighter colors than he usually wears, and has been putting an active effort into controlling his resting facial expressions. Of course it will only help so much. First impressions are important, but how today goes will set the foundation for what's to come.

Hizashi starts talking as he's sitting back down and Shinsou finally looks back up from the table to look at him. “Alright, kiddo. We just have a few things to talk about. Mostly what this next week is gonna look like for us. A lot of it will be just settling in and getting used to a new schedule. First things first, both of us work a lot, but we’ve arranged our work schedules so that you’ll always be with one of us. You will have to come with us to school. Most of the time you’ll be in the teacher’s lounge, but occasionally you’ll have to go out to the training grounds with us. It’s not ideal, but it’s the best we can do.”

Shouta cuts in. “It will give you time to work on your own school work.” Shinsou grimaces reflexively before seemingly remembering that other people can see his expressions and dropping it back down entirely blank. “We’ll be here to help you with whatever you need help with. You’re going to be homeschooled for the rest of the school year so we can focus on exactly what you need before next school year.”

Hizashi seems to take note of the kid’s flash of expression and redirects the conversation again. “But we don’t have to worry about any of that quite yet. For now we want to make sure you settle in alright. We know that this is a big change and it’s going to take a lot of getting used to. So, if you have any questions for us about this whole process, about us, anything at all, you can ask. We don’t know how much Tsukachi told you, but if there’s anything else you want to know or are curious about we’d be happy to tell you.” 

Neither says anything to give Shinsou a chance to ask something, but he seems to struggle to think of a question. Despite it not actually taking him that long to think of something, his quiet panic seems to get worse for every second of silence. That anxiety comes through, against his efforts, in his already hoarse and quiet voice. “The detective answered my questions about this whole process. He only said a few things about you two. Just what your jobs are and that you’re, uh, kind of married… but not legally?” There’s a little more hesitation and awkwardness in that last part. He pauses briefly as his eyes flick rapidly between the two. He’s even quieter when he actually asks the question. “Um… what made you want to be teachers?” He looks like he’s about to say something else too, but stops himself. 

Shouta sees Hizashi in his peripheral vision who immediately turns to look at him which Shouta intentionally doesn’t reciprocate, instead keeping his attention on the kid. If the time comes later on, he’ll bring up Oboro to Shinsou and tell the full story. But that's a story for another time and for now he gets the watered down version. “Someone needs to make sure these kids know what they’re getting themselves into trying to become heroes. There’s a lot more to it than they think and they should know all of what to expect going into it.” He could add more, a lot more, and be more harsh about it like usual, but he wants to avoid scaring the kid any more than he already is scared. He nods his head sideways at Hizashi. “He’s the one that convinced me to do it after I brought up the possibility to him.” Now he looks at Hizashi to segue over to his side of this story.

The thing about Hizashi is that he has a knack for acting. The years of putting up a persona for his hero work and radio show have helped him in that department, as well as seemingly having a sort of natural skill with it. So if he really wants to, he’s pretty good at masking how he’s actually feeling. He just rarely feels the need to or considers it, even in situations where it might really benefit him. When it comes to Oboro though, either thinking about him or when he comes up in conversation even very indirectly, he consistently diverts to his more practiced persona. Much less so when it’s just the two of them alone, or with Nemuri, but when anyone else is involved that mask comes up. In instances like this, where the other person couldn’t possibly even know who Oboro is or that they’re both thinking about him, it seems more like an instinctive response. 

Hizashi’s smile, though it faltered slightly for a second, comes back bright as ever as he turns to look back at Shinsou. He claps a hand down on Shouta’s shoulder a bit too hard, earning him a very halfhearted glare. “I was already a teacher when Shouta mentioned that he was interested. Guess my stories about the more, uh, reckless students I’ve encountered encouraged him to give it a try. As for me, I was inspired by my own teachers at U.A. when we went there. The good ones really made a difference for me and I wanted to see if I could have that kind of impact, I guess. I mean, it’s certainly not for the pay. There's a reason we have multiple jobs.” He laughs and lets his hand drop off Shouta’s shoulder. “Nah, if we wanted to we could both just pick one job or the other, but we like our jobs. Hence why I have three of them!”

“Speak for yourself. Those kids just give me migraines.” He retorts, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed.

Hizashi laughs loudly and shakes his head. He juts out his thumb toward Shouta, leaning forward against the table. “Don’t listen to him. He doesn’t admit it, but he gets just as attached as I do, if not more.”

“I don’t know if it’s possible for someone to get more attached to their students than you.” He refutes, deadpan in tone but he lets the slightest smile take over his expression. He’s relieved to see that, while certainly not calm, Shinsou seems at least a little less on guard than before. His posture is still rigid, but his shoulders aren’t quite as high as they were. 

Hizashi beams at him, then turns back to Shinsou again. “I keep in contact with some of my old students. A lot of them have grown to be amazing heroes, and some chose other career paths after actually trying it out. Either way, I want to be here to support them. I tell them to go with whatever their heart tells ‘em.”

Shouta rolls his eyes lightheartedly. “He’s understating it. He gives every student his personal phone number and email when they graduate, goes on missions with them, let some of them stay here before when they needed it, and has gone to two of their weddings he was invited to. It would have been three, but he was busy.”

Hizashi doesn’t waver, pointing an accusing finger at Shouta. “Don’t act like you’re not guilty of two of those four things. And the only reason the last two aren’t true is because you haven’t been asked to one yet and none of your students have needed a place to stay. Or they’re too scared to ask you.”

“I give out my work phone number and our address both specifically for emergencies while they're in school, and have reconnected with a handful that reached out after graduation. Any missions are because I don’t trust them to not get themselves into trouble. And I don’t do weddings. If I was invited to one I would send a gift.” Shouta corrects, still keeping his focus on Shinsou so as to not entirely exclude him from the conversation.

Hizashi’s attention has entirely turned to him now, gesturing more broadly with his hands as he gets more into what they’re talking about. “Oh come on, Sho. You’re telling me that if Nermuri was getting married and asked you to come, you wouldn’t?” There’s something slightly more pinched about Hizashi’s expression now that makes him think a little more about his response.

“Nemuri is someone we’ve both known since highschool and she is also a Pro Hero who works with us at U.A.” He informs Shinsou who just nods in response. “If there was anyone I would trust to throw a half decent wedding, it would be Nemuri.” He glances at Hizashi, raising an eyebrow at him. “I don’t ever see her settling down, though. She isn’t exactly the type and has plenty of other things she focuses her energy on. That could change, but I wouldn’t bet on it happening any time soon.”

His expression returns to the way it was before as he laughs lightly again, nodding to what he said. “Yeah, I bet she would throw a fun wedding. She’d probably give it some kind of theme, like the people that make the stuff at their weddings Halloween themed. No way she’d do just a plain white dress.” Hizashi looks lost in thought for a moment before turning back to Shinsou again, waving his hands defensively. “Ah, my bad, we’re getting way off topic. You got anything else you wanna know, kiddo? Don’t feel like you have to ask everything now if you don’t want to. We’ll have plenty of time later, too.”

Once both of their attention are back on him, most of the tension in Shinsou’s shoulders returns. He’s quicker to respond this time and any previous emotion is gone from his voice. “What else do we need to talk about?”

Shouta takes the lead for this part since he’s been the one sorting out most of the appointments and scheduling. “One thing is appointments.” Shinsou’s eyes widen, but he doesn’t say anything. Nothing else about his posture or facial expression changes. Shouta notes that in the back of his mind as he continues. “Only two for now. I set a dentist appointment for you last night, and have to call the doctor's office back later to set one there.”

Shinsou responds so quickly this time that he almost cuts off the end of Shouta’s sentence. “Doctor? Why? I was just at the hospital and have an appointment scheduled to go to another doctor in six weeks to get the cast off. They already took care of everything else, I’m fine.” There’s a panicked, harsh quality to his tone and the speed that he talks. 

To see him speak out freely so suddenly makes Shouta think more carefully about how he’ll respond. It doesn’t take much thought to connect the dots from every time he’s been around doctors back to an event in his life that was likely traumatizing. Based on the kid’s records, Shouta can safely assume that doctors only have negative connotations in his mind. “Firstly, if you’d rather it, we can have the school nurse at U.A. take care of that cast for you.” Hizashi and himself had already planned to have Recovery Girl take care of his current injuries, but it’s important for him to have a say in his own care. Especially when it comes to something like this that seems to be an upsetting topic. “She deals with broken bones on a regular basis. With her quirk she could also heal your other cuts. It would only take her a few minutes and there would be significantly less people there. You could also meet her beforehand if that will make you feel better about it. It’s up to you if you would prefer that or having a regular doctor do it.” He pauses for a moment to let that information sink in before he continues. “The appointment is for the things that the hospitals didn’t check for or do. The hospital focuses on the specific thing or things you went there for and anything else that could use immediate attention. If there needs to be any follow up they’ll usually refer you to another doctor and tell you when to schedule an appointment for. People, especially children, are meant to have a primary care doctor that they go to for check ups every few years and any non emergency concerns. They can check for a lot of things. They don’t do all of them every time you go in, most of it is only if there are concerns about specific things. Two things we would want them to do for you would be a blood draw and catching up on vaccinations you’ve missed. We can go over more specifics later if you want. I wouldn’t be able to list everything from memory.”

Any color, except the light pink from inflammation around the bandages, has drained from his face leaving it sickly white. He also notices one of his hands raise out of his lap to pinch a bit of the skin on his arm hard between his jagged fingernails. It takes him quite a lot longer to respond this time, and when he does his voice wavers significantly and is much quieter than before. “Okay… The, uh, school one is probably more convenient then. We’ll be there already anyway.” If either option was more or less upsetting than the other, it’s near impossible to tell. It’s blatant that he’s freaked out by the prospect of any doctors in general. Unfortunately this isn’t the kind of thing that they can avoid so they’ll have to do everything else they can to minimize the stress around it as much as possible. 

“You know,” Hizashi says with a very subtle hesitation, “now that I think about it, we could also just have Recovery Girl do a physical examination and regular check up. Like you said, it would be more convenient because we’ll already be there and it wouldn’t just be an extra random new doctor. Does that sound good to you?” And that’s why he was hesitant to say it. Shouta would warn him to not make suggestions he can’t guarantee, but he knows that Hizashi already knows that. For him to make the offer means he’s sure, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that he can convince Shuuzenji to do this for them. Not an illogical assumption, however she wouldn’t have everything she’ll need at the ready so they’ll also have to talk to Nedzu to get her access to any necessary extra items. He isn’t worried about it, he trusts Hizashi’s judgement.

The kid’s grip on his arm isn’t any looser, if anything it seems tighter. Although his tone inexplicably shifts to being entirely flat, if still a bit quieter than average. He nods, his expression also back to being totally blank. “It would be easier. Better to just get it over with. I…” Shinsou pauses suddenly. Shouta can pretty easily assume he’s overwhelmed, but trying to guess what's actually going on in his head would be a near complete shot in the dark considering how little he actually knows about the kid at this point. Shinsou’s shoulders briefly raise higher with the long breath he takes before he continues. “What else? What else do we need to talk about?”

It’s clear to Shouta that Hizashi wants to say more to try to help, but for now it seems like he’ll move on. Shouta looks at Hizashi who also turns to him. “Did you ever print out our schedules? You didn’t bring it up earlier when we were talking about school.”

Hizashi's eyes widen and his hand flies to his pocket. “Oh, right! I remembered to print it out, I just forgot to mention it. Hold on.” He struggles a little to pull the paper out of his pocket. When he pulls it out it’s folded down impossibly small and Hizashi has to take a few extra moments to unfold it fully. He lays it flat in front of Shinsou, smoothing it out with his hands. “If you want one that isn’t all wrinkled and folding in on itself, we can get another one. I had it in my pocket all day so ended up fidgeting with it.”

Shinsou looks down at the paper, scanning over the words. “It’s fine, I can read it.” His tone is mostly monotone mixed with a very small bit of what seems like irritation.

Shinsou looks back up at him as Shouta gestures towards the paper and starts talking. “Having a physical copy of our schedules will be easier than trying to memorize them. Our schedules will change occasionally because hero work can be unpredictable and sometimes we have to work overtime. It doesn’t happen very often, but it will at some point so we wanted to bring it up. We’ll text you whenever we need to stay late and we made sure one of us should always be available as long as nothing goes exceptionally wrong. In a situation where neither of us are, Nemuri, the other U.A. teacher we mentioned, would come here and watch you.”

Shinsou nods slowly as he listens with no other visible reaction. “Okay.” He waits for a moment then picks up the paper and looks over it again before refolding it and putting it in his pocket. It becomes noticeable that his hands are shaking lighty with how he fumbles while trying to fold it. 

Shouta nods back at him before he moves on to the last topic they wanted to talk about. “Just one more thing then. Hizashi already touched on it a little. This upcoming week or two are going to be us getting used to the change. We’ll have your appointments, but besides that we’ll mostly be between here and the school. For now, we don’t want you to worry about the community service, getting your grades up, or starting therapy. All of that will come later. For now we just want you to try and be patient with us while we get everything sorted out. Anything you want or need, at any point, we want you to tell us. It doesn’t have to be anything big. We want to do what we can to help you feel comfortable while you’re here. One of us can go through the things we already got you in your room with you later. But, if you think of anything we can do or get for you, just tell us.” They all know it won’t be that easy, but it’s good to put it out there for when Shinsou actually feels comfortable enough to consider it.

Hizashi speaks up again, more upbeat this time. “Also, if you want, at some point during the week Shouta can take you out to get some new clothes, too! I’ll be at work during the day, but Shouta can take you after school. We couldn’t get you anything when we went to the store before you got here because we didn’t know what your size was and also didn’t know what you would have liked. Now that you’re here you could go with him and he could help you pick out some things you want. Since we haven’t gone through your things yet we obviously don’t know how much clothes you already have, but irregardless it couldn’t hurt to have a few extra pairs. But if you’d rather not go out we can also just have you tell us what kind of style clothes you like and what size you wear so Shouta could go find a couple things. If we wait until next weekend to do that then I could also go, but that’s up to you. We technically could tomorrow, but we kind of wanted that to be an extra chill day to not worry about anything, ya dig?” Shouta knows that Hizashi would prefer to be able to help with this, but he won’t show that so as to not influence Shinsou’s decision. He won’t want to make him feel the need to wait on him for something like this.

Shinsou’s eyebrows crease subtly, then he finally releases his grip on his arm. He rubs over the slightly inflamed spot on his arm before he drops it down into his lap again. “...Okay. Um, thank you, for all of this. We can do whatever works best for you. I know that this is all… inconvenient. I’m sorry you have to deal with it.” Shinsou talking essentially about himself as just an inconvenience reminds him of the way he’s heard Hizashi talk about himself. Especially around the time they met. Shouta has come across enough in both his lines of work to know just how many things can cause mentalities like that, but he does wonder how similar Hizashi and Shinsou’s backgrounds are. 

He lets Hizashi say what they’re both thinking because it would probably come across more reprimanding if it came from him. “Kiddo, we signed up for this. None of this is an inconvenience. We’re happy to have you here.” Hizashi stands from the table after another quiet noncommittal acknowledgement from Shinsou. “Alrighty. We can talk more about all that later . We should get you clean bandages. Do you have a preference for who helps with ‘em?” Shinsou just shakes his head this time. “Okay, then I’m gonna have Shouta do it then while I make sure I have everything ready for work. That’s if you don’t mind?” He says, this time looking at Shouta. It’s a courtesy question, he knows that Hizashi knows he doesn’t mind. They’re in this together. 

Shouta stands up, cracking his neck as he does. “I’ll do it. It won’t take long.” He slides past Hizashi over to Shinsou who also gets up when he approaches.

“Good, Shouta is faster with that kind of stuff anyway. I still have a couple hours before I have to head to work, but I like making sure I have everything ready ahead of time or I feel like I’ll forget something. No matter how many years I do this, that feeling never really goes away, ya know?” Hizashi smiles calmly at both of them one more time before he walks past them into the living room. As he passes he pauses for a moment to run his hand down Shouta’s arm affectionately. “I’ll be in our room if either of you need me. It shouldn’t take me too long to get ready. Unless I get distracted, which I probably will.” Hizashi heads down the hall and Shouta nods for Shinsou to follow him as he trails behind Hizashi. 

\/\/\/\/\/

The porcelain under Hitoshi is cold. The heart pounding painfully fast in his body's chest causes his fingers to tingle numb and hands to shake. He observes everything from behind his eyes, like watching someone else take over piloting his body. The light is blinding, reflecting off of all the white surfaces. Instead of looking at it he stares at the bundled up shirt in his hand. The way the folds curve and dip, the different shades of blue made by the shadow, the way the light shifts on the fabric when he moves his hands under it. The color kind of reminds him of the sky, but a little darker. But the sky is, of course, much smoother looking. The closer he looks the more detail he can see in the texture of the cotton. The structure of the material.

“I’m going to take off the last one now.” He hears Eraserhead say distantly. Hitoshi knows, logically, that Eraserhead is right behind him, but his voice sounds like he’d be on the other side of a closed door. Despite the warning and the gentleness of the touch he still flinches away from his hand. The flinch isn’t anything too significant, closer to a twitch, but it keeps happening. It hardly even hurts when he pulls the bandage off because, as he had for all the others, he rubbed something on it to help loosen the medical tape beforehand. Every little touch is just too much for how heightened his nervous system is right now. It’s disorienting for his body to react so much physically when there’s nothing really there emotionally. 

He doesn’t show any kind of acknowledgment verbally or physically to what Eraserhead said. He narrates everything he does before he does it, so responding got repetitive. That and in order to talk or even make any kind of sound he has to drag it out with force and he’s not sure he could put that much effort in right now if he tried. He just keeps trying to see what shapes he can find or make in the shirt folds and how the shadows shift in them. Several times he doesn’t properly recognize that he was spoken to and has a slightly more intense physical reaction. At some point he shifts his focus to the backs of his hands, having pulled the bandages off them himself. He stares at the raised lines of mixed purple and red gradient into pink. Some of the in-between shades remind him of a sunset. 

Something else is said, but he’s not tuned in enough to actually interpret it. An unexpected touch on his upper arm makes him jerk away much more aggressively and turn his head to look at Eraserhead. The bags under his eyes are deep, similarly to Hitoshi’s. He looks tired. Or bored, or angry. “I’m done, you can put your shirt back on. Can you turn around so I can get the ones on your face? Then I’ll check your hands.” Hitoshi takes a moment to wonder how he’s already done with his back and how much time has actually passed before he swings his legs over the side of the bathtub and spins to face Eraserhead fully. He hesitates to put the shirt back on and get rid of the thing keeping his hands busy, but does anyway. Now that he’s looking at Eraserhead he finds his eyes locking onto a particular faded scar on his face. It’s thick, slightly raised, just below the right side of his jawline. He doesn’t think much of it, just looking at how the texture and color changes from the scarred skin to the space next to it. Eraserhead moves occasionally, but Hitoshi’s gaze doesn’t follow. 

He, again, doesn’t realize how much time he lost until he feels a pain in his hand and looks down to see it being tended to. His hand instinctively twitches back a little before he forces it back to where it was. His other hand instinctively goes up to touch his face and feels bandages on it. He momentarily considers that they’re still the old ones and Eraserhead decided to help with his hands first, but there’d be no reason to switch which order he said he was doing it in. “I’m almost done.” His tone doesn’t seem to have changed. He rubs an antibiotic ointment on the spots with broken skin. “You can probably leave these uncovered, as long as you keep them clean. It’s more inconvenient to switch bandages every time you have to wash your hands.” Eraserhead doesn’t look up from where he’s crouched when he talks, keeping his eyes on what he’s doing. He quickly moves on to Hitoshi’s left hand and does the same thing he did on the right while avoiding getting anything on his cast. “Alright, that’s it. We’ll change them again tomorrow.” He pats a hand on Hitoshi’s knees then stands back up. “You can go back to your room or come out to the living room and watch something. Hizashi is paying for, last time I counted, six different streaming services and we have a bunch of DVD’s, so you could look through those and see if anything interests you. Up to you what you want to do. I’ll be out there getting some work done. Hizashi will probably be out there too once he’s done getting ready for work.” He puts the few things back into the first aid kit and slides it under the sink. For as much as Hitoshi would want to take him up on that offer in most other circumstances, right now he can’t even focus during something as simple as this. A missed opportunity that he’ll probably care about later.

For now though, he just nods automatically then his body gets up and walks back to the new room before anything else is said, shutting the door behind him fully.

\/\/\/\/\/

Shouta does as much as he can to accommodate Shinsou while he seems to be very blatantly dissociating to varying degrees. He tries to keep talking throughout the process, explaining each thing before he does it, in case it helps. He doesn’t mind when he stops getting responses and repeats himself when needed. He works as efficiently as he can while being mindful of any injuries, which comes easily considering his experience in doing so. His main goal is to get it over with so the kid can take some time to do whatever he needs to. He assumes he’ll go back to his room, but once he’s done he gives the option of staying out in the living room with him just so he knows he’s allowed. As expected, the kid goes back to his room as Shouta goes into his and Hizashi’s room to grab his laptop back out from where he had set it to charge. When he walks in Hizashi is where he usually is at this time every Friday and Saturday, sitting on his phone checking and double checking everything is in order for tonight. Ever since ‘Put Your Hands Up Radio’, Hizashi’s radio show, has shifted to include interviews and talking sections rather than just music, he has been even more obsessive over making sure that everything is set up properly several hours beforehand. That still doesn’t stop him from procrastinating certain parts and rushing to get them done last minute which he’s undoubtedly also doing right now.

Hizashi looks up when he enters the room and sits up straight from his laid back position. “Already done? Oh, Shouta, pick a number one through four.” He stares at him expectantly.

“Four. And I said it would be quick.” Shouta almost always just picks the highest number. Not like it makes a difference when he isn’t given the context. He walks around then unplugs the laptop and grabs it off the desk.

Hizashi is quiet for a moment as he looks back down at his phone then nods. “Okay, yeah, thanks.” He looks up again. “What’re you up to now?”

“Going to clear out my work email then start lesson planning for the week.” He tucks it under his arm then turns back to actually address Hizashi.

Hizashi’s eyes widen then he sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “I have to do that too.” He rubs his hand over his eyes then lets it settle over his mouth which makes the rest of what he says slightly muffled. He groans, “If I put it off now I’ll end up forgetting. I can’t stay up late again to get it done, I’ll wither away and turn into dust.”

Shouta huffs a quiet laugh then nods towards the door. “I’m going out there to do it in case the kid needs anything.” Shouta assumes Shinsou might feel like he’s imposing more if he has to knock on their room door and distract him from what he’s doing rather than just walking out to where he’s sitting in the living room. He wants to make himself as available as possible.

Hizashi grimaces lightly then talks in a much lower tone. “Yeah, I’ll probably head out there too then. How’s he doin?” Hizashi shuts his phone off and slips it into his pocket then swings his legs over off the side of the bed.

“It seemed like he was dissociating a lot. I think the thing we should really prioritize, once he’s had a little time here, is getting him in with a therapist. Everything else is important, but if we’re looking to spread them out more to not overwhelm him I think that that should be what we focus on next.” An educated guess would be that Shinsou hasn’t been taught anything in regards to how to process or regulate his emotions which would make all of the change now even worse for him than it might have been had he been from a good home that just fell on hard times or similar. Shouta walks back to the door, silently indicating for Hizashi to follow.

Hizashi jumps up and follows behind him. The closer to the door he gets, the quieter he gets. “I agree, hundred percent. I just want him to get at least a little more comfortable here before we introduce him to yet another new thing. Especially with how he reacted earlier when you brought up going to the doctor. Trying to get that done is probably going to be a challenge.” Shouta nods in acknowledgment as they both walk back out into the living room. Shouta takes a seat on the couch and Hizashi plops down on the armchair. Hizashi has to pick Puddle up, who was laying there, and set her him his lap instead. Puddle seems very irritated with him at first, but quickly lays back down in his lap as he pets his hand down her back. Hizashi starts signing instead of talking, with one hand so he can still pet Puddle. ‘Maybe wait three weeks?’

Shouta watches Hizashi sign then finishes opening up his laptop and opening what he needs for work before signing back. ‘We can do three weeks unless we end up feeling like we should wait longer or do it sooner.’ 

Hizashi nods slowly, still looking like he’s thinking through a lot of stuff. Shouta starts going through his work email while looking up on occasion at Hizashi. After a few moments he sees Hizashi waving a hand in his peripheral vision and looks up to let him sign. ‘I shouldn’t try to go through the stuff in his room with him before work then?’

Shouta takes a second then signs back. ‘Check an hour before you leave. If not, I’ll check in later.’ Shouta looks at the time to see it’s about 20 minutes to 6 PM. That will give about an hour and a half for Shinsou to self regulate since Hizashi leaves at 8 PM. Hizashi nods again then takes his phone back out and presumably starts doing work on it. One handed of course because his other hand is occupied by petting Puddle. The two sit in a familiar, comfortable quiet as they work. The light sound of Puddle’s purring and the clacking of the keyboard create a constant white noise. Shouta can see Hizashi tapping his foot rhythmically in his peripheral vision, but it’s light enough to not make a noticeable sound. Puddle quickly gets tired of being pet by Hizashi and leaps off his lap only to jump up onto the couch and lay down against Shouta’s side. Hizashi shifts how he’s sitting regularly and Shouta stays almost entirely still aside from his hands moving over the keyboard. Despite the current changes in their lives they return, at least for a while, to a semblance of normalcy.

\/\/\/\/\/

The thing that pulls Hizashi out of his focus on lesson planning is his alarm blaring at 7 PM. Having totally lost track of how much time has passed by, the sudden sound startles him and he instinctively snoozes it rather than shutting it off like he should. Instead of waiting for it to go off again he just goes into the app and shuts it off then turns it back on to reset it. He puts his phone in his pocket and hops out of the chair. Shouta sets his stuff to the side much slower to take a break, sliding a disgruntled Puddle’s head off the side of his leg. As Hizashi walks past he ruffles the fur on top of Puddle’s head which leads to her swatting and biting his hand. He makes his way to Hitoshi’s room, but stops on the way in his and Shouta’s room to grab the rewritten page of vocal and breathing exercises he used to use from voice therapy. He makes sure not to knock too loudly then calls through the door. “Hey, kiddo, I just wanted to check in to see how you're doing and if you wanted me to go through your stuff with you before I leave for work?” He hears a muted thud from in the room then footsteps approaching the door that swings open as he finishes talking. Hitoshi’s expression is totally flat, eyes staring straight back at his.

“I’m,” there’s a very brief pause before Hitoshi continues, “good. We can go through the stuff if you want, if it won’t take up too much of your time.” His voice is also very flat beside being a little quiet and hoarse. Hitoshi takes his hand off the door and quickly steps to the side to let Hizashi in.

Hizashi waves a hand at his concern with a wide smile. “Not a problem, kiddo. I’ve still got an hour before I have to go and even if we didn’t get through everything, Shouta could go through whatever was left with you.” He turns to the bags still lined up against the wall and walks over to the first one that Hitoshi came here with. “Why don’t we start with the stuff you brought here? Just go through it, find a place for everything. If there’s anything you want to get rid of we can just make a pile and I’ll do something with it once we’re done.” Hitoshi sort of just stares for a moment once he looks at the bag, then nods and they both get to work going through his things. 

They’re quickly both seated cross legged on the ground, pulling out everything one by one. Hizashi purposefully monitors his visibly reaction to the amount of clothes ripped and stained by blood, but offers as much opportunity as possible for Hitoshi to know that they can just get rid of them and they will make sure he has enough new clothes to replace them and more. As much as he wants to just get rid of them and get him new stuff, there’s no way for him to know what items might bring him comfort. It’s very easy for certain clothing items to be some of those comfort items, regardless of the state of said item. “We can try to get some of the stains out, Shout and I have to deal with that a bit anyway, and I could sew any holes, but like I said earlier we do also want to go out and get you some new clothes and we can just get you some new stuff if you don’t want to keep your old stuff. We can replace anything you want to get rid of.”

Hitoshi very quickly shakes his head. “It’s fine. I don’t want to make you spend even more money on extra things I don’t need.”

Hizashi feels a small pang in his chest that he pushes aside. “Kiddo, money isn’t a factor. Shouta and I have more disposable income than we have uses for. That won’t be an issue while you’re here. It’s okay if you want to keep them, but I promise it would be no issue for us to get you new stuff if you don’t. You could also keep a few and get rid of the others or the other way around. Whatever you want. Whatever you’re most comfortable with.” He knows what it’s like to not believe that so he hopes they’ll be able to start proving it soon. 

He seems to take a little more time to consider it, then responds much more hesitantly. “Can I just get rid of a few of them?”

Hizashi gives him a small smile. “Of course.” The two go through and get rid of the worst of the clothes, leaving Hizashi with a whole lot of feelings he’ll have to put away and come back to later. There truly aren't very many different things in the bag. About eight pairs of clothes, a few old school supplies, a sketchbook with half the pages missing, an old toothbrush, and a small handful of books. Hitoshi blatantly waits to see Hizashi’s reactions to each thing before doing or saying anything. The only thing he doesn’t try to be impartial about is the toothbrush because they already got a new one for him and this one is long past the time it should have been replaced. Besides that, he tries to be as objective as possible.

When Hitoshi pulls out the handful of books, Hizashi looks over them and sees that some are in worse condition than others. One has its full cover page ripped off, open to the front page, a few have a bunch of wrinkled or folded pages with pencil marks all over some of them, and one is mangled beyond readability. Hitoshi, this time without waiting for any kind of prompting from Hizashi, grabs the mangled book and stares down at it in his hands. His expression, while still hard to read, becomes more pinched, until he looks back up at the rest of the pile and it hardens. He gently sets the mangled book in the pile of stuff to get rid of, then grabs the rest of the books from Hizashi and drops them much more carelessly, almost aggressively, into the pile to get rid of as well. Hizashi wants to ask about it, but isn’t sure what to say and doesn’t want to accidentally make him think he disapproves. A conversation for another time.

They move on to the next bag, the first of the few from the store. Some of the things are a bit random. There are two different small patterned blankets and a handful of small to medium sized stuffed animals that take up the first bag. Collapsable storage shelves, a random puzzle, multiple notebooks and sketchbooks, the largest pack of both markers and colored pencils that the store had, scented and unscented lotion, a few tall skinny candles, some things for crafts, and extra supplies like tape and scissors.

“If you want to light any of the candles all you have to do is ask one of us to light it for you. We can’t give you a lighter because it would be a safety concern, but as long as you stay in the room while the candle is lit and put it out when you leave, those will be fine. All you have to do to put the fire out is put the lid back on the candle.” He hands one of the candles to Hitoshi after smelling it again. He tried picking more soft, soothing smells and spent way too much of their very limited time going through all the candles. He was very picky when choosing them and Shouta had to pull him away. 

Hitoshi takes and holds the candle with so much care it’s like he’s worried it will shatter in his hands. His eyes are wide as they scan over everything, fall on the thing in his hands, then look back up at Hizashi. “There’s so much…” His tone is almost insecure and disbelieving sounding. His eyes briefly flick down then back up. “ Thank you. ” His mouth opens a little like he wants to say more, but can’t seem to think of what else to say.

Hizashi’s smile is nothing but a genuine, gentle kindness. “Of course, kiddo. And don’t feel obligated to like or use everything if you don’t end up wanting to. We could always find other uses for any of it if you don’t want some of the things.” Hitoshi nods slowly and sets the candle down, again so gently it’s as if he’s afraid any impact will risk the integrity of the glass, to pick up one of the stuffed animals. It’s a basic bear stuffed animal. It has an amount of firmness to it, but is still soft, and it’s a deep shade of purple with black beady eyes. The subtle sadness returns from Hitoshi's earlier expression, a little more pronounced this time. Hizashi gestures to the tag left on the bear. “There are names on the tags. You can go with that name, or you can make up your own. It’s up to you. I find it fun to look at the names because sometimes they’re completely normal, and sometimes they’re super random. You also don’t have to give it a name, it’s just a thing that some people do.”

Hitoshi looks down at the tag, opening it from where it was folded, and for the first time Hizashi sees a small smile come across his face. His expression drops back to being flat when he looks up at Hizashi again. He turns the tag to Hizashi and says the name out loud as Hizashi reads it. “It’s name is Norman.”

Still with a smile, one that he’s been holding for so long that it’s starting to make the muscles in his face hurt, Hizashi squints his eyes at it a little. “I don’t know or have any context for why, but the name Norman makes me think of an either 40 or 60 year old man with no in between. Has to be one or the other. Like a 40 year old detective or something.”

A little bit of a wider smile fills Hioshi’s expression, even if it’s still very awkward, closed lip, and flattens back out fairly quickly, and Hizashi prides himself on that achievement. “The origin of the word Norman was the combination of the words ‘north’ and ‘man’ in Old English.” Hitoshi presents the fact with nervous hesitation. There is still palpable discomfort and caution coming from Hitoshi, naturally, but something in this moment has shifted enough to allow some level of back and forth.

Hizashi’s eyebrows raise up and his smile widens once again. “Oh, I didn’t know that! I’ve tried looking into the meaning of names before, but I never actually remember any of them. Where’d you learn that?”

Hitoshi fidgets with the bear still in his hands, crossing and moving its arms while still looking at Hizashi. It looks like he doesn’t realize he’s doing it. “I read a book about them. It’s just called ‘The Name Book’. I only remember a few of them.”

“I didn’t know there were books about that. But also I’ve just never really thought about it before and it makes sense that there would be.” Hizashi responds, looking a little off to the side as he thinks. He’s snapped out of his thoughts by his 7:50 PM alarm going off on his phone that makes both of them jump, his phone buzzing in his pocket. He hastily swipes to shut it off, actually dismissing it this time instead of snoozing it. “Dam- Dang things gonna give me a heart attack. It has to be loud or I’ll completely ignore it.” He puts it back in his pocket. “I can’t believe it’s already been 50 minutes. How long was I talking about lotion?” His eyebrows furrow in perplexity. He says the last sentence a little more mumbled and to himself, shakes his head. “Probably really boring to listen to. Whatever, anyway, let’s find a place for all of this real quick, then I gotta head out. You can also always rearrange anything and move it, including the furniture, if you want to. It’s your room and your stuff. But for now we’re just gonna set them wherever makes sense for now.” 

Hitoshi nods then stands up with Hizashi. “Okay. I’m sorry I took longer than you expected me to.” Hitoshi grabs the pile of desk supplies off the floor.

Hizashi waves a dismissive hand. “Not a big deal. I had the alarm set for a reason. I talk too much about random stuff, my fault. We’re still on time and this part shouldn’t take long.” Hizashi also grabs one of the piles they had made and the two get to work finding a spot for everything to go. Normally when Hizashi says something shouldn’t take long it takes a considerable amount longer than he anticipates, but this time they actually get done only five minutes after the time he’s meant to leave. Once they’re done he turns back to Hitoshi and says. “Okay, great. That should be everything. I will take this,” he gestures to the last pile that has everything to throw away, “and get rid of it for you. I’ll be back at about 12:30. Shouta will be here so you can ask him if you want or need anything. I’ll probably head straight to bed when I get back, but if you stay up after that Shouta is usually up for a while after too.” He waits for an acknowledgement from Hitoshi then goes to grab the pile, but stops midway. “Oh, wait. I almost forgot.” Turns around and picks up the notebook of vocal exercises off the floor behind where he had been sitting. “One more thing. The first few pages of this notebook have vocal exercises that I used to use… I wanted to give them to you, to use, if you want them. They should help you get used to talking and using your voice.” 

Hitoshi’s eyes stare down at the notebook then very briefly go up to Hizashi’s face, squinting over the faded but still visible scar that runs across his face, then snap back down to the book as he tentatively takes it. He looks back up at Hizashi after a moment. “Thank you…” He says quietly. Hizashi gives him a smile and a nod then grabs the last pile off the ground. “Okay, but now I really have to go. Shouta will be here, if you need anything you can ask him. In case you’re not awake when I get back I’ll say goodnight now. See ya in the morning, kiddo.” He makes sure he has everything before going to his and Shouta’s room to drop it all into the corner to deal with later. He walks back out to Shouta who is back on the couch working.

Shouta looks up at him, hands resting on the laptop keyboard. “Did you get through everything then?”

Hizashi nods and smiles. “Yeah, I think it went well, too. But, I am running late and do have to leave, like, right now.”

Shouta glances down at the little clock in the bottom right corner of his laptop then back at Hizashi. “Yes you do.” Hizashi leans down to kiss Shouta then pulls back and heads to the door. “I’ll see you when you get back.”

“Love you!” He says as he’s opening the door.

“Love you too.” Shouta responds as he goes back to whatever work he had been doing.

\/\/\/\/\/

The rest of the night goes off relatively without a hitch. Shouta has Shinsou come out of his room a little while after Hizashi leaves and has him eat a bit more food then teaches him how to brush his teeth and floss properly. Besides that he pretty much leaves him alone, figuring he could probably use a bit more alone time. Shouta stays mostly stationary, multitasking, doing his work and watching ‘Sweet Genius’ - a baking show Hizashi got him into. He can feel fatigue settling throughout him, but knows he won’t be able to fall asleep until at least several hours from now. He could take his medication which has a chance of working, but he also won’t feel very okay with going to sleep if he knows the kid is still awake. Until he’s at least somewhat sure the kid will be comfortable waking him up if he needs to, he would prefer to go to sleep after him.

At one point, shortly before Hizashi is meant to get home, he gets up and makes tea then goes to check on the kid. He knocks on the ajar door and waits this time to see if he hears footsteps before starting to talk. A moment of silence, then barely audible footsteps approaching the door before it’s pulled open. “I’m just checking in. I understand that it might be hard for you to get to sleep, especially in a new environment, but it’s still important for you to get sleep so I want you to try to get some sleep if you can. You don’t have to worry about sleeping in, we don’t have anything to do tomorrow. Tea sometimes helps me sometimes when I can’t sleep so if you want some at any point you can just come out and ask. I’ll be out there for a while with the TV on in the background and you’re free to go out there with me and sit if you end up wanting to. If not, that’s fine too and in that case I’ll see you in the morning.” 

Shouta watches in his peripheral vision as Shinou’s hand goes up to the same spot on his arm as earlier and pinches it between his fingers. “Okay, thank you.” Shouta nods then heads back out through the hallway as Shinsou goes back in his room and once again leaves the door open about an inch.

—

Time flies by while Shouta truly gets almost nothing done. He’s not especially worried about getting much more done before he goes to bed considering he has another day before the week starts. It shouldn’t be too hard for him to get what he needs done tomorrow - at this point tomorrow is technically today at about 3 in the morning, but that’s besides the point. If he ends up being the one that stays home with Shinsou on Monday it could also be convenient for that, but it’s unlikely he’ll need the extra time. An extra day off would also just be nice, but Hizashi has been seeming a little more like he could use it lately so he sees no issue letting him be the one to stay. He hadn’t had a chance to bring it up to Hizashi when he got home because Hizashi arrived 15 minutes late, used the bathroom, mumbled a goodnight, then went into their room and promptly passed out. Hizashi is very high energy most of the time, but once that runs out he’s down for the count. Another thing for tomorrow.

He moved on from ‘Sweet Genius’ after he finished the third and last season to ‘MasterChef Junior’. The junior version was picked because the children are far more entertaining to watch than the adults and much more likeable. While he has watched a few of the seasons before, Hizashi has a habit of picking one or two kids to root for and not finishing the season if those ones get voted off, so Shouta has to go back if he wants to finish some of them. About halfway through season three, he hears quiet but quick footsteps from down the hall and turns to see Shinsou walking very hastily into the bathroom. A sight that wouldn’t make sense to question if it weren’t for the fact that he faintly hears the faucet get turned on the moment the door is closed. He partially returns to what he is doing, but glances back in the kid’s direction when he hears the door open again several minutes later. The kid has droplets of water across his face, one with just barely not enough water to drip off his chin. The edges of his hair around his face are soaking wet. His eyes are a bit red and eyebags are especially pronounced in the shadow of the hallway. Shouta notices he seems just a little unsteady on his feet. 

Shinsou startles visibly when he looks over and makes eye contact with Shouta, clearly having not realized he was still sitting there. His eyes dart very briefly to the TV, just as one of the kids in the show burns their hand, then flick back to Shouta. “Are you okay?” Shouta asks, a little quieter than usual considering what time it is. He, of course, has no worry about waking Hizashi up, but talking too loudly might be a bit more jarring to Shinsou.

His shoulders draw up slightly as he nods. “Yeah, sorry.” Again, his hand goes up to that same spot on his arm and pinches it between his fingers.

Shouta nods as well, slower and more considerate, then he says, “Okay. There’s no need for you to be sorry. I know I already said it, but if you can’t fall back asleep you can still come and sit out here, or I could make tea, or you can grab whatever from the kitchen if you're hungry or thirsty. I’ll be out here until about 6 AM if you end up needing anything.” 

He gets back a slightly quieter, “Thank you.” 

“Of course.” He says, then lets his gaze linger for a second longer before he turns back around. There’s a moment of silence before the sound of quiet shuffling and light footsteps retreating away.

\/\/\/\/\/

Hizashi is wide awake and preparing lunch by the time Shouta wakes up. First thing he did was take care of the pile of Hitoshi’s stuff he had left in their room. If he put it off any more he would have forgotten to do it. Shouta moves sluggishly over to the coffee machine and pours out his first cup of the day. It’s surely room temperature by now, but it’s not abnormal for him to not care this soon after waking up. “How’d you sleep?” His eyebags are prominent as ever, but some nights are still better than others.

Shouta responds without looking up from the table. “It could have been better. I woke up a few times, but it didn’t take as long to fall back asleep as it sometimes does.” There’s a soft thunk as he sets the cup back down on the table after taking a drink. “There is a phone and a laptop on the table?” Shouta observes. 

Hizashi looks over at the phone and laptop still in their boxes, one stacked on the other. “There is! I figured the phone that he got from Tsukauchi only does texting and it would be good to get him a good normal phone of his own.”

Shouta raises an eyebrow at him. “And the laptop?”

Hizashi’s expression drops a little then pulls back up into a small smile. He shrugs. “It’ll help give him more stuff to do while he’s here. Over the next three months while school is finishing up and waiting for the next year to start up he’ll be stuck at home a lot.” Hizashi finishes with what he’s making and sets it on the other side of the stove for now. He lowers his voice just a bit, though he doubts Hitoshi would be able to hear him in the kitchen from his room. “And it might help him feel a little more like a regular kid.” He pours out the old coffee and starts brewing a fresh pot.

Shouta nods in understanding. “We’ll probably have to teach him how to use them.” Hizashi watches Shouta’s attention turn to the bag from the pharmacy next to them. “Thanks for going out to get those.”

Hizashi grabs a plate of food then sits down across from Shouta. “Yeah, I mean, I figured I might as well. I was up pretty early. And I grabbed the other stuff while I was out so it was convenient.”

“I’m guessing he hasn’t come out at all since these are still out here?” Shouta asks between sips of coffee. 

Hizashi shakes his head. “Not yet. Either he’s still sleeping, doesn’t want to come out yet, or came out while I was gone.”

“Okay.” Shouta nods and the two sit together for a while.

—

About an hour later Hitoshi comes out of his room while the two are in the living room together watching TV and grading papers and Hizashi immediately springs up to bring him the things that were gotten for him. “So, I went out this morning to get your prescription and on the way back I stopped by the store and I got you two things that I figured would be good for you to have.” He grabs them off the table and spins around to face Hitoshi who looks at them wide eyed. His eyebrows narrow with what seems like confusion, fluctuating back and forth between shock and confusion. Hizashi smiles at him. “I figure it would be nice to have a proper phone that you can do whatever on. Well, not whatever whatever, but pretty much whatever. You can play games, text people, look stuff up. Phones are also good for keeping things organized, but Shouta can attest to the fact that I’m bad at actually using those features.” There’s a soft huff of agreement from where Shouta watches from a short distance away in the archway between the kitchen and living room. “And the laptop can do that but better, basically. More, better options. Phones are just convenient because it’s easier to carry around and use on the go. It is an oversight on my end that I didn’t grab a mouse to use with it now that I think about it. I’ll get one either later today or tomorrow depending on which one of us we decided will stay here with you tomorrow.”

Hitoshi stares at him in awe then back down at the items once he’s done talking. Hizashi extends them towards him, waiting for him to take them. HItoshi grabs them with utmost gentleness while also white knuckling the edges of the box to be certain it won’t suddenly slip from his hands. He looks back at Hizashi, still with wide eyed bewilderment and surprise. “Thank you, so much.” He pauses for a moment as his eyes flick back between Hizashi and the things in his hands. “I promise I won’t break them.” His expression shifts to a bit of worry.

Hizashi’s smile softens. “You’re welcome, kiddo. I’m not worried about them getting broken. I got a two year warranty on the laptop so if it breaks within that time we can send it back and get another one. And the phone, people get new phones a lot when new ones come out anyway. They break fairly easily. I will get a case for it though when I go out to get the computer mouse to hopefully help protect it a little more at least. If you need any help setting anything up with them or anything just ask us and we should be able to help you with it. There will probably be a few things we’ll have to help with because it can be kind of confusing.”

“Okay, thank you. I’ve barely ever used any phones or computers before.” Hitoshi’s tone is uncertain.

Hizashi says. “That’s fine. Like I said, we’ll help with anything you need help with. Actually, why don’t you just go set those in your room then come back out and eat something then I can help you set them up after if you want? I already made food so there’s a few leftovers you can pick from. You should also take some of the medicine after you eat too, but then we can set those up.”

Hitoshi nods then says, a little quietly, “Okay.” He waits for a moment, then turns and walks back out of the kitchen. 

—

Far later that evening both Hizashi and Shouta sit in the living room next to each other. Hizashi’s head is laid on Shouta’s shoulders, the 13th season of Grey’s Anatomy being the show Hizashi picked. Shouta busies himself with literally anything else on his phone, checking through the few apps he has. He much prefers any of the cooking shows, any other shows in general, but Hizashi insists they finish this one. He claimed that once they got to season 6 they had already spent too much time on it to not finish it, Shouta thinks he’s just curious to see how bad it can get. Shouta is less of a fan of hate watching things so he doesn’t afford it much of his attention. 

After several hours of silence, Hizashi speaks up. His words are kind of mumbled and quiet, tired. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay home tomorrow? I’m okay with going if you don’t want to.” They’d had that conversation a bit earlier and Shouta told Hizashi he could take the day off, but Hizashi has been having a hard time just accepting that answer. “I mean, we could also both stay. It could be nice to have an extra day off, both of us.”

Shouta glances down at Hizashi who hasn’t turned to look at him. The offer is tempting, very tempting, but he doesn’t let himself accept it. “You know we should keep as many of our days off as we can in case of emergencies even more now. I’ll go. You won’t be able to actually use it as a day off if you keep worrying about it.”

“I’m worried because I know you want to and aren’t so that I can.” Hizashi mumbles.

“I’m not worried about it, Zashi.” Shouta slides his arm out from under Hizashi and moves it around him to rest around the side of his waist. Hizashi sighs heavily, obviously not pleased with that answer, but leans more into Shouta’s side regardless.

“Okay.” Hizashi says, defeated. 

The two sit together for several more hours, one or the other occasionally getting up to check on Shinsou who seems to mostly be occupied by the gifts Hizashi gave him earlier. A little more than halfway through the 13th season, Hizashi gets up and heads to bed. Ignoring the habit of following him, Shouta stays put in case Shinsou comes back out at any point. The moment Hizashi leaves, Shouta switches the TV to a different show. Shouta listens to Hizashi telling Shinsou that he’s heading to bed and wishing him a good night. 

Shouta also gets up and tells Shinsou similar to what he told him last night. He’ll be awake till early morning, he’s welcome to join him if he wants to, and he’s here if he needs anything. Similarly to the night before, Shinsou thanks him but doesn’t come out of his room until much later again looking a bit pale and shaken. Shouta checks in on him, but doesn’t push him and lets him return to his room. He doesn’t come back out for the rest of the night.