Chapter Text
November 24th 2X41
Izuku furrows his brows, looking down at his notebook in discontent. “It needs to be smaller,” he mutters, “but I’m starting to run out of eraser.”
Hitoshi puts down the dry grass he was weaving together and peers over Izuku’s shoulder. “If it gets any smaller, it will be impossible to read,” he comments, and Izuku frowns, because, well… he’s right. His handwriting is already as small as he can possibly make it without it being illegible.
“Maybe I can try to squeeze more into the white space?” he wonders.
“What white space? There is no white space,” his best friend remarks, and Izuku has to resist the urge to try and strangle himself with the blanket Sara-san is halfway through finger-kitting.
“Dammit, you’re so right,” he replies, and then he tosses the notebook to the side and places the pencil down carefully on top of it before throwing himself into Hitoshi’s lap. The taller boy lets out a small oof as he looks down at Izuku. “Hitochan, what am I going to do?” he wails, drawing out the last word dramatically.
“Submit another request?” Hitoshi contemplates, running his fingers through Izuku’s hair soothingly. “How long has it been since you made the last one?”
Izuku huffs, but leans further into the other boy’s fingers as they scratch against his scalp. “A little under a month,” he replies, popping his knuckles to stretch his sore fingers. “I really tried to draw it out this time, though. I don’t even know if they’ll keep being so lenient if I continue burning through supplies like this.”
Hitoshi’s hands massage gently around his temples, and he shifts his legs slightly to make their position more comfortable. “I don’t know what to tell you, ‘Zuchan.”
“Tell me about your quirk, then,” Izuku says without thinking.
He regrets it almost immediately when he feels Hitoshi stiffen underneath him. The hands in his hair stilling their gentle movement. Izuku immediately tries to backpedal, apologizing profusely, but the other boy cuts him off.
“Do you really want to know?”
“I’ll tell you about mine—what I know, at least—if you tell me yours,” Izuku says.
He’s been thinking about this for a while, and though it’s scary to think about Hitoshi pulling away out of fear of Izuku’s quirk, he doesn’t think that will happen. That’s why they’re all here, after all, isn’t it? Because they have that in common: scary, dangerous quirks.
Izuku looks carefully at his friend’s tired eyes, searching for an answer in his lilac gaze. Hitoshi’s throat bobs once. Twice.
“Okay,” he says quietly, “I’ll tell you.”
-
December 5th, 2X41
“Look, boys!” Sara calls from the open door to their block. “There’s snow.”
Izuku perks up at that, rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he rolls off his cot and pads over to where the older woman has the door cracked so the cold air doesn’t freeze the whole room.
Sure enough, tiny white flurries dance through the air in a slow journey to the ground. Izuku doesn’t know if it will stick—he had read in one of his science books that sometimes even if it was cold enough for snow, the ground still clung to leftover warmth from the sun.
Still, there’s snow.
Snow is always welcome, since they aren’t provided with warmer clothes for winter, and that meant they’re all forced to spend most of their time inside.
Snow gives them an excuse to be outside, even though the adults say they need to stay warm lest they catch a cold.
Izuku has found that he hates staying inside. Last winter had been a few brutal months of seeing only the insides of their concrete block in between hustling to and from the dining line for meals, and he’ll take any excuse to be outside at face value before it gets too cold to bear.
When Izuku looks at the sky, watching the snow meander down lazily, he can pretend that he remembers what soft, warm things feel like.
Sara tells them stories about warm fires and hot chocolate. Gina talks about the little brother he had to leave behind that liked to wear two pairs of gloves when they built snowmen. Shinju recalls the three cats she used to own, and how they would cuddle up to her and rumble their deep purrs.
They don’t have things like that here. Even the blankets Sara knits are scratchy and made with cheap yarn, and she gives them out as fast as she can make them, when the cold starts to seep through the walls and the nights become chilly and dry.
Izuku has Hitoshi’s hair, the soft skin just behind his ears and beneath his unruly green curls, and the insides of his mouth where his cheeks meet his gums.
These are the only soft things he remembers, now.
“Hitochan!” he calls, tone laced with excitement. “Get up and come over here!”
There’s a pained groan from his best friend’s cot. “I’d rather die.”
Gina chuckles tiredly, reaching around the divide to rub his hand in Hitoshi’s messy purple locks. “Aw, don’t be like that, baby bro, Izukun will expire without you.”
Izuku splutters indignantly, face flushing, and Sara laughs as she closes the door so no more heat escapes into the frigid outdoors. “I will not—expire.”
“Shrubbery dies in the cold, little man,” Gina says, with an air of seriousness that is just downright offensive.
“I’m not a bush!” Izuku squeals, hiding his red face behind his hands. “Hitochan, come over here right now. We’re leaving!”
“Noooo,” Hitoshi calls back, attempting to further merge himself with the thin mattress. “It’s nap time.”
Izuku rolls his eyes. “It’s 6:45 in the morning.”
Hitoshi peaks an eye open. “Yeah, and?”
Izuku prances across the room and tugs his friend’s arm until he comes tumbling onto the cold, hard floor. “Come on! We only have fifteen minutes before the breakfast bell; let’s play!”
“Being a morning person should be illegal,” Hitoshi grumps, but he gets up and slips behind the divider to change into his jumpsuit, Izuku close behind.
“You say that a lot,” Izuku snickers.
“I’m trying to speak the law into existence,” Hitoshi says back, cracking a tired grin.
Out in the main area, the other three watch the divider with fond expressions painting their faces.
“It’s at times like these when I’m reminded that they’re only eight,” Shinju says quietly from her place on the opposite wall.
Gina frowns, eyes sad. “I don’t want to see the day this place crushed their spirits,” he murmurs.
“We won’t let that happen,” Sara intones coolly. “We’ll give them the best we can, and if that means breaking some rules here and there, then so be it.”
-
January 19th 2X42
Izuku sits in a circle with Gina, Chikako, and Hitoshi.
The cold front that swept in during the past week is keeping them completely confined to the indoor spaces. Chikako hasn’t even been able to go for her daily runs.
“I spy with my little eye,” Gina drawls, head tilting to rest against the wall, “something gray.”
Chikako busts out laughing, Izuku groans, and Hitoshi tackles Gina from the side.
-
March 17th 2X42
“It’s starting to get warmer,” Riohei comments, shuffling so his wings won’t cut the concrete they’re walking past on the way back from the lunch line. “We should be able to sit outside again soon.”
Izuku hums excitedly, pulling Hitoshi along behind him as they make their way back to block 3.
Spring is quickly becoming his favorite season.
-
April 7th 2X42
“You’ve been getting more headaches recently.”
Hitoshi hums in response.
“I think it’s because they won’t let you use your quirk.”
Another hum.
“Do you have one right now?”
A nod.
“Okay. I’ll leave you to your quiet, then.”
A twitch of pale, thin lips.
“I’m really sorry, Hitochan.”
A dismissive wave.
Izuku grabs his notebook and walks along the west wall, away from his friend.
-
May 14th 2X42
“Use your quirk on me.”
Hitoshi drops the fantasy book he’s reading in surprise. “What?”
“You heard me,” Izuku says. “I want you to practice your quirk on me.”
“‘Zuchan,” his friend hisses, “I can’t.”
Izuku rolls over to face him. They’re lying in the thin strip of grass between the path and the outer wall on the north side of camp. “Why not?”
“It’s against the rules, that’s why.”
“That’s never stopped us before,” Izuku pushes, trying to bypass the closed off expression Hitoshi now sports.
“Sharing a cot on a cold night is a lot different than quirk use,” Hitoshi whispers quietly. “There used to be another kid here,” he says, frantic. “She was a few years older than us; her name was China, and she had a quirk that could make people attracted to her.”
Izuku sits up straight. He had never heard of this before.
“She accidentally activated it and got extra food to try and attract some birds to watch.”
“What happened to her?” Izuku mutters quietly.
Hitoshi looks away quickly, but not quick enough for Izuku to miss the silver lining his eyes. “I don’t know.” He meets Izuku’s viridian gaze with his lilac one. “I haven’t seen her in two and a half years.”
Izuku gulps, but decides to drop the subject.
-
June 30th 2X42
“Hitochan.”
There is no response from the purple lump smushed down into the thin mattress, covered in an itchy knit blanket.
“Hitochan, you need to get up for lunch.”
“Hurts,” is the only reply Izuku receives, and Hitoshi rolls further into his alcove.
His heart pulls angrily at his chest. If they would just let him use his quirk—
But they don’t. And they won’t.
They never will.
Sometimes it feels like there is something crawling beneath Izuku’s skin, begging to be let out, let loose. He knows what it is, waiting just beneath his bones and flowing through his veins like charged energy.
But Izuku has only been ignoring his quirk for one or two years (he’s not really sure anymore). Hitoshi has been suppressing his for close to five.
Everything he’s read has told him that quirks are like muscles; the more you use it the stronger it becomes.
But unused muscles will eventually start to atrophy.
Hitoshi’s muscle just happens to live in his brain.
And that scares Izuku more than he can put into words.
Izuku doesn’t know what to do. He’s not a doctor, and they don’t have any medicine even if he was. He’s pretty sure he’s still only eight.
Just a stupid kid who can’t help his best friend.
His brother.
“I’ll share with you so you don’t have to get up,” he promises. He’ll be a bit hungry until dinner, but it’s worth it. Hitoshi will always be worth it.
Izuku doesn’t know what else to do.
He gets no response.
-
July 8th 2X42
“I’m fine,” Hitoshi insists, pulling forward a bit so he’s two paces ahead of Izuku. The grass in soft and full now, with the hot humidity of summer air, and it squishes gently beneath their bare feet as they skirt along the edge of the wall.
“You’re not,” Izuku fires back, tugging his sleeve further up his arm, the thick fabric clinging to his sweaty skin in a way that makes him feel slightly icky.
“I am, promise.” Hitoshi’s arms are curled around his middle. He’s lost weight, Izuku notes, as he watches the bones in his arms push sickly against his brother’s stretched skin. “They’re just headaches.”
“You were almost non-responsive again last night,” Izuku mutters, and the words taste like ash in his mouth, bitter and burnt.
“But I wasn’t.”
“But you almost were.”
“But I wasn’t, Izuku,” Hitoshi says, so quietly that Izuku almost misses it, almost misses his given name falling off his tongue in hushed tones.
It jars him, hearing his name like that, when it’s always the stupid, cutesy little nickname or some variation of it—that last attempt at clinging to a normal childhood.
“Hitochan…” Izuku lets the rest of his thought trail off. There’s no point in arguing. He knows Hitoshi won’t budge, and it would just start a fight between them. Izuku feels so helpless, though, and he hates it. He hates it so much, because it means he has to watch his brother suffer in silence.
It means he can’t be his hero.
They keep walking in silence.
The physical distance between them is small, but in this moment it feels like an ocean.
-
August 1st 2X42
His eyes are glassy.
Izuku knows he can’t hear them.
He doesn’t know what to do.