Chapter Text
Hitoshi ripped his head up from the counter in a cold sweat. His chest was heaving and his body shivered like the AC rattling incessantly above him. The remnants of tears-to-be were drying in their ducts.
As he slowly readjusted to the waking (or at this point, unwaking) world, he did his damndest to rub away what would inevitably become a red mark on his forehead. The convenience store was empty. It was still pitch dark outside the windows. There were no cars in the parking lot. He was just working the late shift.
It was silent.
Well, not really. That stupid AC unit would drive him mad one day, and the lights always buzzed at a frequency just low enough to be heard, but as silent as a convenience store could reasonably be.
So basically everything was fine. It was just another one of those stupid recurring dreams, it really wasn’t anything to be concerned about. I mean, he even had shoes with soles on them now. His place in the world was looking up, he couldn't afford to slow down now.
Eraserhead was staring at him. Craning his neck up to watch as Hitoshi fumbled to stop the bleeding. He was using what was left of his shirts to staunch the wound, but he needed to change them every few seconds to keep up with the bleeding.
Eraserhead was whispering in a hoarse voice “Call. Call. Call.” but Hitoshi’s fingers were too blood-soaked to press any of the buttons on his phone. When he tried. His fingers slipped around in the mess of blood covering the keys. At the same time, he innately knew that letting Eraserhead go, even for a moment, would lead to his hero’s death.
When he looked down he was on his last shirt, the one from his back. He needed more time, but someone was banging on his door. They were shouting “We know it's you. Your guardians told us you’d be here.”
They broke down the door, and hoards of heroes pinned him to the ground. He begged them to let him keep tending to the stab wound, but it was too late. Eraserhead’s eyes were staring blankly at the ceiling.
“He’s dead.” they said. “You killed him.”
“No!” he said. Begging. Always begging to deaf ears. “I was trying to help! I was stopping the bleeding!”
A man with yellow hair came forward and looked directly down on him. Hitoshi had always been tall for his age, but this man reminded him that he was still a child. A pathetic child.
“Why didn’t you call? He begged you to.”
Hitoshi tried to tell them. “My fingers were covered.” He said. “They wouldn’t type.”
To exemplify his point, he picked up his phone and futilely tapped at it.
“Get him.” the blonde man said. “He’s holding the knife.”
The heroes began to swarm him, but he needed them to understand! “I don’t have the knife,” he said. “This is just my phone!”
But then he looked down, and in his blood stained hands was not his old brick of a phone, but the knife he’d found on his bathroom floor.
Then he’d remember. It was him. He had killed Eraserhead. The heroes were right, Hitoshi was a villain. He needed to be locked away where he couldn’t hurt anyone.
Then he woke up. Always as the heroes dragged him away from Eraserhead’s lifeless body.
He’d panic for a bit when he woke up, but that was the extent of his lingering fears. He had too much work to do to worry about the psychological trauma of almost killing a man.
… Maybe actually killing a man. What if Eraserhead got sepsis and died? He’s heard horror stories about MRSA too… Would that be his fault? Probably, right? Would they be more likely to hunt him down if Eraserhead died?
But nobody had come looking for him yet, so he was probably fine. Nothing to worry about.
Anyways, he didn’t have much time for those kinds of thoughts between finals, work, and finding new, unassuming places to take naps. The only place he could afford to have breakdowns were in his dreams, which was efficient enough for the whole ‘processing your guilt’ process. At least for him it was.
It wasn’t like he was going to create a pitiful scene in Grab N’ Go! Where you go to get your greatest goods! Not worth it. Never worth it, honestly.
A man could run in juggling chainsaws, and that still wasn’t a good enough reason to have a breakdown.
Strangely though, he liked his job. The people were nice enough, and it gave him plenty of time to work on his homework, do some sketching, and just general busywork. It was one of those 24-hour places, and most of his coworkers were too grateful for him for taking the undesirable hours to pay much attention to how he spent it.
Sometimes it bothered him that his coworkers could be grateful to have a night off, particularly the teenage ones. He found he couldn’t be chill with the fact that he was grateful to have a night shift at all. Even if he liked his job, it didn’t mean he liked that he had to have a job.
But then again being grateful was a stupid concept. It was a tool to keep people like Hitoshi from getting too many ideas about human worth or whatever. If someone tells you to be grateful, it’s to tell you to know your place, and to not ask for more than you’re owed. Hitoshi heard “be grateful” a lot in his life.
You don’t like your quirk? “Be grateful you have a quirk at all! There are kids out there with no quirk that would kill to get a quirk like yours.” He heard that one after a group of kids tried to superglue his mouth shut. He told his teacher that he didn’t like his quirk anymore, and that was her response.
You don’t like your job? “Be grateful that you have a job at all! Nobody needed to hire you, and I’m sure there are lots of people happy to take your place!” This he heard when he was ten. This particular group of fosters had a family business, and everyone had to participate. He worked for less than minimum wage.
Your foster family sucks? “Well, you’ve got a roof over your head and food on the table, right? Be grateful.” That one was his social worker. She didn’t care much for him.
You ran away from your foster family and are now living on your own at fourteen? “There are children being abused in that system right now, you’re doing fine for yourself. Be grateful .” He said this one to himself. It’s around that time he decided that he never needed to be grateful for anything he didn’t feel grateful for.
He didn’t want to be grateful for his shitty foster placement, or his shitty job, or his shitty apartment in his shitty neighborhood with shitty prospects! Nobody would force him to be grateful for something that he just wasn’t.
But here he was, swallowing down the remaining dread from his dream, grateful that he hadn’t been wrongfully arrested for murder. Grateful that he was technically homeless. It filled him with fury that someone would be grateful for that. That he was grateful for that.
But he was. Grateful, that is. Because at the end of the day Eraserhead was alive, and he could rebuild from here.
*Ring-a-ling*
After doing his job, that is.
It was a woman that entered. She had no distinguishable mutations that Hitoshi could see. Pretty basic as far as people went: Dark blue hair, a little above five feet tall, and wearing a large green zip up sweatshirt.
“Hello, Welcome in.”
She walked up to the counter and smiled at him.
“Hi! I’ve got a quirk that lets me shoot bullets from my eyes. Empty the register please, and don’t make it obvious I’m threatening you.”
Damn robbers. Do they have anything better to do than bug teenagers on their nights off? This lady seemed a little smart at least. She went out of her way not to look like a robber or act like a robber.
Well… but they could totally see her face on the camera footage they had…
He wasn’t very well versed in the pros and cons of costuming in small time robbery. If she was wearing a wig right now that would be smart, he decided. That’s how he would rob a convenience store if he ever had to. Maybe add a cheap facemask to the mix.
“Sure, I couldn’t care less about this place, just let me grab the key to the till.” He rumaged around in the drawers behind the counter a little. “I have to ask though, why stick up a convenience store?”
“I’ve got bills to pay, mouths to feed. A lot of reasons, really… Hey! You’re stalling…”
Aaaand, got her. It was too easy, really.
Unfortunately for those thieves looking to get lucky at this particular worse-than-average convenience store, Hitoshi was probably a robber’s worst nightmare. It’s part of the reason management liked having him work the night shift— he was basically robber-proof. He even had a system at this point.
“Tell me your name.”
“Sumida Kei”
“Thanks.”
First, he took a piece of paper from the drawer under the counter. On this, he wrote Nice try Sumida Kei. I’ve only reported you for petty theft and banned you from the store. Don’t come back.
“Take this piece of paper and put it in your pocket.”
Sumida followed her orders.
“Now, without hurting yourself, go to the back of the store and grab a copy of the Gossip Daily magazine. With the magazine in hand, walk out of the store and to the train station.”
He was kinda sad to see her go. Robberies were the most interesting parts of his shift. Now all he had to do was actually report Sumida Kei for petty theft on the police website.
Inside his head was a little nagging voice. ‘ You’re gonna call the police now?’ It hissed, ‘You hesitate when it concerns you, but somehow gambling with this girl’s future is better? hypocrite.’
_________________
“I cannot BELIEVE you! In WHAT WORLD do you think it's okay to go on any patrol without your COMMUNICATOR AND FIRST AID? You’re going to give me a heart attack. Y’know, it’s one thing knowing that my husband is hopping around town with regulation safety equipment, but a whole other ballgame for you to disregard your general health in such a stupid, unnecessary fashion.”
Shouta watched in his peripheral over the top of his laptop as Hizashi paced around his room, making himself red in the face with whatever new argument happened to cross his mind.
God, he loved that man. And that wasn’t just the pain meds talking.
“Mmm. c’mere.”
He felt his entire body lift off the cot as his husband flung himself to his side. It hurt like hell, but he’d endured much worse than hell before. Being close enough to give him a little peck on the cheek by far made up for any momentary discomfort.
“You’re an idiot, Mr. Logical . An idiot.”
“I love you too. While I’ve got you, I need help with an ID.”
“Yeah? D’you remember the perp’s face?”
Hizashi snuggled further into his shoulder with his head turned towards the screen. It was a familiar scene. Perhaps too familiar, given one of them had to be injured to conjure up this scenario. Still, it was nice, working though cases in a hospital bed with his husband.
“I’ve already got him. I’m looking for whoever was in the apartment.”
“The guy who called me, yeah? The runner?”
“Right. I have reason to believe that whoever was living in that apartment was at most a young teenager. Male, probably. And I remember purple, but I’m not sure in what context”
“Hm.”
“I don’t remember much, truthfully, but I do remember him saying that he wanted to be a hero. He was worried calling the police would ruin his chances for whatever reason.”
“Have you checked security cameras in the surrounding area?”
“In that area? They’re all either private or vandalized. I can check with some of the stores around the apartment, but they’re likely to say no.”
“Can you get the name on the lease?”
“There was no lease. It was an under-the-table situation. It does support my theory that this guy is in his early teens. Maybe a runaway?”
“I’d buy it.”
The pair continued to create what they could of a profile, Hizashi pressed into his side, his chin on his shoulder. The hospital was too cold, too sterile, too banal, but they were warm and content together, just like when they were teens, brand new to navigating the world together. As the trail ran cold they began to succumb to their mutual exhaustion, falling asleep in the tiny hospital cot.
The staff was not quite so happy at the scene. Lovebirds made work so much more difficult.
_________________
There weren’t any more robbers, just a few poor souls working either far too early, or far too late coming in for a shitty coffee. Eventually the sun began to rise, and one of his coworkers came in to take his place.
He was glad for the humid summer air— he could just climb up the maintenance hatch in the back and take a good long nap on the roof before he had to leave for school. The worst case scenario is that it would begin to rain, but by that point most of his classmates would be soaked too.
Never one much for easy sleep, Hitoshi found himself planning his next steps.
Firstly, he needed to figure out what to do about his apartment. He needed to be able to access and change the mailing address without being suspicious. Speaking of, he’d probably need to change his address period. It’s possible that his landlord had other properties that he was willing to rent under-the-table. Hitoshi had a well established job, which was more than some other tenants could say. Maybe that could work in his favor…
Point being, if he wanted to attend a hero school, he needed to have a steady place. He’d been on the streets for periods of time before, and that does shit to your brain after a while. He could even shell out a little more in rent and still cover his tuition.
Damn being fourteen. It made everything more difficult. He couldn’t wait until the next fiscal year.
There was also the matter of finding out whether or not Eraserhead was alive. The nightmares (napmares?) needed to stop. He needed to have a reliably restful sleep. It was important for mental quirks.
He could do this.
The sun started its ascent to the sky, while Hitoshi’s eyes drifted to a close. Maybe there was a beautiful sunrise, maybe the birds were singing pretty songs of hope in the trees, but Hitoshi shut it all away.
He would do this.