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"Saitama?"
He flinched at the voice, something Genos had never seen before. Saitama, the strongest man in the world, did not flinch.
The voice was calculated to cause it, however. Pitched with surprise and disdain, and turning the final syllable into a huff of mocking laughter. As if the very name was a cruel joke.
"It really is you," the speaker turned out to be someone wearing the uniform apron of the fish market and a paper hat. He came out from behind a cart piled with snow crabs, mouth twisted in a sneer. "I'd recognize that dumb look anywhere. What the hell happened to your hair?"
Genos surged forward, and Saitama grabbed his arm. "Hey are those crabs part of the sale too?"
"Huh?" The man, about Saitama's age, though taller and thick-jawed, scowled. "Yeah. So?"
"Can I grab a couple? Are you restocking them?"
"I- Yeah. You are Saitama, right?"
"Yeah, that's my name." Saitama put on a smile. "Do you recognize me from TV? I only recently got a hero name, but I don't like it much."
"What?" The man drew himself up to his full height, which would have been formidable if Saitama and Genos didn't regularly fight both humans and monsters far taller. "Don't you remember me?"
"Should I?" Saitama asked with hesitation. "Sorry, have we met?"
"It's Hayashi you piece of garbage."
The only thing that kept Genos from punching the man into the crates of seafood was the hand tight on his arm. Saitama let his mouth drop open. "I don't appreciate being talked to like that. I'm sorry if you think I should know you, but I think we're going to take our business elsewhere."
"What the- How can you not recognize me? We went to middle school and high school together."
"I went to pretty big schools," Saitama said. "I don't remember everybody."
"After what I-"
Saitama squeezed Genos' arm, hard enough to leave dents, and started walking. "Come on Genos, we'll have tofu tonight after all."
"Okay sensei," Genos said. He set down the basket on top of the crabs, as an deliberate insult, and followed Saitama. The man was still sputtering angrily but he didn't try to go after them. Genos looked around for someone who looked like a manager, to report his behavior, but Saitama was walking so quickly that Genos didn't have time to be thorough.
Once they were out of the store Saitama made a sharp right. There was a small alley leading to the loading dock, both empty at this time of day. Saitama marched straight to a corner far from view of any casual passerby, and hunched over and gagged.
"Sensei!" Genos exclaimed, rushing over to rub his back.
Saitama made another sound, not a gag this time but a shuddering breath, and then a choked sob. Horrified, Genos saw tears leaking through his tightly-squeezed eyelids.
"Sensei, can I- can I help?"
Saitama shook his head, wrapping his arms around his torso and leaning against the wall to hold himself up. He might have tried to say something, but he was crying in earnest now, barely able to catch his breath.
Genos didn't know how to handle this. He could be rather sensitive and prone to outbursts of emotion, but he'd never seen Saitama break down. He'd never seen him cry, or so much as sniffle at a sad movie.
Saitama managed to stop sobbing, but he was still gasping for air, and he reached out with one arm in a beckoning gesture. Genos came closer, not sure what would help and what would hurt.
"Puh- please," Saitama gasped, and Genos finally gave up on caution and wrapped his arms around him. Saitama clung to his shirt, tucked his face into Genos' neck, until Genos could feel the tears dripping down the soft rubber there.
They stayed like that, Genos holding Saitama as he slowly regained control, for what felt like a long time. According to Genos' internal clock it was only a few minutes.
Saitama pulled away, wiping eyes and nose with his sleeve. He gave a wobbly smile. "Do you think he bought it?"
Genos had been so thrown off by Saitama's breakdown that he nearly forgot the sequence of events. "That rude man? You did remember him?"
"I have nightmares about him." Saitama clenched his teeth and eyes shut once again. "Sorry."
"You don't have anything to be sorry for, sensei," Genos said firmly.
He shook his head. "Before. I squeezed too hard."
"Oh." Genos had to lift it and twist his torso to look at the back of his own arm. There was a set of four fingertip-sized dents there, and no doubt a slightly larger one from the thumb on the inside. "It's nothing sensei, they'll buff out."
"I'm sorry though."
"I accept your apology."
He managed a stronger smile this time. "Let's go. I might actually throw up if I have to see him again."
They finished their shopping as planned. It was a shame about missing the seafood sale, but they had plenty for the next few days, and Genos even snuck a package of fatty tuna with his own money. Though any pleasure he might have gotten from the triumph was tainted by the fact that Saitama had never before been too distracted to notice Genos paying for his groceries separately.
When they got home Genos didn't say anything. At first. He set to work, preparing the food to cook and brewing tea, bringing Saitama a warm mug and a plate of snacks while he waited. The redness in Saitama's eyes had faded, so had the blotches on his neck, but there was a tremor to his fingers and a hitch in his breathing.
Genos made dinner simple but filling. Saitama noticed the tuna and gave Genos a suspicious look, but didn't say anything outside of praise.
When it was finished, when Saitama had cleaned the dishes and returned to flip through channels on the TV, Genos finally cleared his throat and asked what he'd been wondering since he heard Saitama's name spoken by a stranger hours ago.
"Sensei? Who was that?"
Saitama switched off the TV. "I was kind of hoping you'd let that go."
"You don't have to tell me everything, sensei. But, please?"
He turned, took his usual seat across from Genos at the table. The plate of crackers sat untouched where Genos had moved it to make room for dinner. That, at least, Saitama had eaten every bit of. Now Saitama fixed his eyes on the crackers rather than looking at Genos as he spoke.
"Hayashi was my classmate. For all of middle school and high school." Saitama took a breath. "He made those six years hell."
"Did he bully you, sensei?"
"Yeah. I mean." Saitama rubbed his eye with the heel of his hand. "Saying 'bullying' makes it sound like kids stuff. It was every day, him and his friends. He wasn't even the ringleader. But he was the one who singled me out as a target. I don't know why."
"What did they do?" Genos asked, immediately regretting it and saying, "No, never mind sensei, you don't have to tell me."
"It's okay," Saitama said. He picked up a cracker and began carefully breaking it into pieces. "They'd spit on me."
Genos sucked in a breath, prepared to agree that was disgusting and unacceptable, but Saitama went on.
"And wipe snot on me. And once one of them managed to steal my outdoor shoes and piss in them."
Genos felt his mouth drop open.
"They stole my indoor shoes too. A few times. And starting in high school they stole my lunch every day." Saitama paused for a moment. "That's not- I'm not exaggerating. They stole my lunch every day. If I tried to buy food from the cafeteria they'd follow me there and wait until I paid for it and steal it out of my hands. Once I bought some bread and tried to shove it in my mouth before they got to me. They grabbed me and stuck their fingers in my throat and made me throw up in a trash can right there in the cafeteria in front of everyone."
Genos couldn't hold back a gasp. "Sensei that's- that's horrible. Didn't anyone try to stop them?"
"No. No one tried. And it was so fast... I think they were hiding behind other kids when they did it. The teachers didn't even see it." Saitama crumbled the last piece of cracker into a very fine powder. "At least, I hope not. I want to believe they'd have done something."
"Why didn't they do anything any of the other times?"
"I don't know. It wasn't just me, they picked on a few guys." Saitama sighed and wiped his hand on his shirt. "I'm kind of glad I ran into him. I'm glad he remembered me. I'm glad it was personal. I know a lot of bullies don't actually care about the people they bully, they just target someone with easy flaws to point out, or without enough friends to defend them. But I guess Hayashi really hated me for some reason."
"Sensei, I'm so sorry that happened to you..." Genos clenched his fists on his knees, boiling with impotent rage. "If I see that man again, I'm going to kill him."
"Genos, no," Saitama sighed.
"Heroes punish monsters, and that man is a monster."
"You don't get to make that call. What if you went to jail? What if you lost your job?"
Genos couldn't help a little smile. "You don't care if he dies, you only care if I get in trouble for it?"
Saitama shrugged. "You're important. Hayashi isn't. That guy isn't worth the two seconds it would take me to punch his head off." He took a slow breath. Aside from the destruction of the cracker, Saitama hadn't shown any signs of being upset by the conversation. "I used to think about it, you know? When I was training to be strong. I'd think about if I saw him or the others being attacked, whether I'd save them or not. I used to fantasize about them begging me for help."
"That's understandable."
"Yeah, but... then I stopped. After it started actually fighting monsters and helping people, I stopped thinking about them. I hadn't thought about them in years." Saitama frowned. "I wish it didn't still hit me so hard."
"There's nothing you can do about that, sensei. You can't help being traumatized by things that happened to you when you were so young."
"Traumatized. Now there's a serious word."
"It's true, sensei! What they did to you? Every day? Of course that would leave mental scars."
"Yeah, I know. I think I've always known." Saitama reached for another cracker. "But I'm okay. It was a long time ago, and... I'm okay. I'm not hung up about it." He popped the cracker in his mouth. "Sho le'sh jush buy fish somewhere elsh."
Genos smiled. "Okay sensei. You're right, that's the mature thing to do."
Saitama went back to watching television while Genos opened his notebook. Saitama wouldn't be suspicious of the note-taking, Genos did it every night, but this time Genos hoped Saitama didn't ask what he was writing or glance over his shoulder on the way back from the bathroom.
Saitama was okay with putting his past in the past, and ignoring people he didn't want to see. Genos was younger, and more petty. And with his status as an S-Class hero it would be very easy to get one man fired from a fish market.
After all, they had good sales there. Hayashi might not be worth their time, but the snow crabs were.