Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“You were going easy on me today.”

He felt a bit bad saying it, and he said it almost under his breath, looking away, hoping that his words didn’t come off as disrespectful.

“You weren’t feeling well a couple days ago and I assumed that you aren’t completely over being sick.”

Aizawa didn’t seem very fazed by Hitoshi’s words, and when he looked back up at his teacher, Aizawa only gave him his usual yawn and tired look. He’d met back up with Aizawa at the front of the training center after their session and though Hitoshi never really allowed himself to expect or hope for anything, this wasn’t usually where their activities ended. He shifted on his feet, a distinct tickle in his lungs reminding him of Aizawa’s words, and he fought down a cough.

“I’m feeling better,” He told him, and despite the urge to cough, it was true. He’d been a mess at the start of the week, hardly able to function, let alone train with Aizawa. The school had threatened to send him home multiple times, but he’d stayed, and then had insisted to Aizawa that he would be fine to train after school. He was realizing now that Aizawa had been right to refuse him that day.

He finally gave a small, hoarse cough, and Aizawa stared at him with dark eyes.

“Did you go to that appointment?”

Hitoshi had to look away again out of pure embarrassment, “Yeah. It’s fine. Just some sort of stupid infection. They gave me medication and everything there, and said to get more sleep. Whatever, it’s gotten better.”

There was a pause, and Hitoshi rubbed the back of his neck in the silence. Aizawa had a way of not saying much a lot of the time, and Hitoshi felt the need to fill the silence with his own words. He’d learned over these past couple months that Aizawa’s silence didn’t necessarily mean he was angry with him. He just didn’t talk a lot. That was fine; Hitoshi just wasn’t used to silence not meaning bad things.

“Uh, thanks for that, by the way,” He’d already said it before, but he didn’t really think he’d properly gotten his point across the first time.

“Don’t worry about it. You were in no state to make the appointment yourself,” As usual, Aizawa was completely nonchalant. Nothing really seemed to surprise him. He was typically pretty stoic, never really showing much emotion and at first, that had been admittedly difficult for Hitoshi to deal with, despite being the same way himself. He’d always idolized and looked up to Aizawa, and it’d taken a while for him to realize that Aizawa’s stoicism was just the way he was, and it didn’t mean that he was irritated by Hitoshi or anything.

Aizawa was a weird guy, but Hitoshi looked up to him more than anyone else in his life.

“Have you eaten?” Aizawa’s voice drew Hitoshi out of his thoughts, and he simply shook his head as an answer. It was the weekend and there hadn’t been school, so he’d just taken the train straight here from home. It was fine. No one would miss him unless he wasn’t home by his curfew. Aizawa wasn’t surprised by the answer, instead pulling a pair of winter gloves on, “Let’s go, then. I want food.”

Hitoshi only nodded, having already pulled on the wool hat and scarf he had, his hands wrapped in a pair of gloves Aizawa had lent him a few weeks ago after discovering that Hitoshi didn’t own a proper pair. They were a bit big for  him, but he didn’t care in the least. He followed behind Aizawa as he left the training center, walking at his side as they headed into the cold air of the city, not questioning where Aizawa was taking him. He felt content to just walk by his side in the silence of the softly buzzing city.

Shinsou Hitoshi had a bit of a problem, and he was well aware of that.

He’d told himself for most of his life that he didn’t really care if he was pushed from foster home to foster home. He had his goals and had set himself to working solely on them, not really caring how the adults in his life treated him. He’d heard the same thing his entire life—he wasn’t fit to be a hero, his quirk was more villainous than anything, he’d be nothing but a joke if he got into hero school. People were uncreative and he’d heard the same things said to him for over a decade. By now, it was nothing new, nor was it anything new to be shoved into a new foster family who only took him in because there was nowhere else for him to go and they wanted another kid to add to the paycheck they already got.

Hitoshi knew that the system he was in wasn’t all bad, but for someone like him, it was. He had a scary quirk. The normal, caring foster parents didn’t want someone who could literally brainwash them into doing whatever he wanted. He was too much of a liability, and those types of parents wanted someone they didn’t have to live in fear of, someone they could fix. His quirk was a permanent thing. He’d remain a threat the entire time he was in their care. So the only people who agreed to take him in were the ones who didn’t care that he was a liability, and those people also didn’t care about him as a person. Which, he’d resolved, was fine.

He’d always told himself that he’d show everyone around him by becoming a hero and then people would start liking him for who he actually was, because they’d see that his quirk wasn’t a villainous thing. That was when he could start making friends and relationships.

But then he’d actually gotten into UA and his classmates had been the exact opposite of almost every kid he’d grown up around, and that had threw him off.

To make matters worse, he’d found out that the underground hero he’d idolized since elementary school taught the hero course—the very same course he was trying to get into. And then, to make things even worse, Aizawa had approached him after the sports festival with the proposition of personally training him. Hitoshi had almost thought he’d died right there, because he’d never imagined anything like this.

Hitoshi remembered the day he’d first heard of Eraserhead, the pro hero. He’d been five and he knew now that Aizawa must have been just starting out his career and hadn’t properly avoided cameras during a solo-takedown of a group of criminals. He’d been all over the news and Hitoshi had caught him on television while living in a group home. He remembered being blown away that there was hero with a quirk like that, someone who had no physical superhuman advantages, someone who’d trained to become so strong and powerful.

And Hitoshi had never forgotten about him.

He couldn’t do much at first, being five years old, but he’d printed out a photo of Eraser and stuck it above his bed in the group home. He’d researched as much as he could and when he got older, he’d wandered onto forums that focused on underground heroes and had found out more than before. It’d been incredible to learn that there was  a hero like him, someone with a non-physical quirk, a quirk that some said was better fit for a villain, and it had given him hope. Hitoshi had idolized Aizawa in the same way that people idolized All Might. It was just a little harder to find things about him.

When he’d actually met Aizawa after the sports festival, he’d partially tried to convince himself that he’d held the underground hero to an impossible standard and there was no way he could actually be that great. He’d stayed up at night before the training had started, trying to get himself to stop looking up to him so much, trying to convince himself that Eraser might actually be some total asshole who was only doing this because he was pressured to and that Eraser would work him hard and be just like every other adult in his life.

That had all been crushed on the first day, when Aizawa had told him that he’d been in general studies fifteen years ago and thought the entrance exam was unfair. He had been his usual dry, mostly stoic self, but that didn’t mean that he was mean. Hitoshi had found out in that first session that Aizawa was, oddly enough, nice. That green-haired kid from the heroics course had told him sometime afterwards that Aizawa was actually a softie, and Hitoshi had seen that that day.

Training turned out to be fine, too. Hitoshi was learning a lot from it. The most notable thing was that, unlike every other adult in his life, Aizawa wasn’t at all afraid of Hitoshi’s quirk. He had no objections to Hitoshi speaking freely and when they did sessions to strengthen Hitoshi’s control over it, Aizawa never seemed to even hesitate in letting him use it against him.

It was a new experience to be trusted. Aizawa was careful with him, and was always aware of his strength advantage over Hitoshi. They sparred, and while Hitoshi had permission to go at Aizawa with all his strength, he could tell that Aizawa held back to level the playing field between them. He never left any marks on Hitoshi, and ‘defeat’ always just consisted of Aizawa pinning Hitoshi, rather than actually hurting him.

But now, Shinsou Hitoshi had a bit of a problem, and that problem was that he’d gotten attached to Aizawa Shouta. And somewhere along the line had started seeing him as a parental figure, a replacement for all the foster home parents who’d passed him along and never quite done their job.

“How are things at home?”

Hitoshi glanced up at Aizawa, finding the teacher looking down at him again. Aizawa was only a bit taller than him, enough so that Hitoshi still had to look up at him a bit, but Hitoshi was far lankier than he was. Aizawa had forgone his usual hero uniform today, and Hitoshi suspected that it was due to him being off duty right now, bringing his thoughts back to how Aizawa had taken time out of his days off to train him and now, to spend a few mundane hours with him.

He didn’t really know why Aizawa bothered with him, but it wasn’t something he was going to complain about. He knew not to take things he had for granted.

“They’re… okay,” He glanced off to the side, still not used to actually talking about his home life with anyone, much less an adult or his teacher. Still, Aizawa already knew. One of the things Hitoshi had quickly learned about him was that he didn’t typically hide things. He’d made it clear that he’d read Hitoshi’s thick joint foster care and school file during one of their first training sessions and to his shock, Aizawa hadn’t seemed off-put by it in the least. He rubbed a gloved hand at the back of his neck again, feeling obligated to explain more, “I, uh, got into a little argument with one of my… parents. He said he was going to put it in my record, so if you see that show up…”

He glanced at Aizawa to see him raise an eyebrow at him, “Was it about the dorm situation again?”

Hitoshi let out a sigh and nodded, “He really doesn’t like the idea of giving up custody of me, even partially. I guess he’s just scared, or something.”

Aizawa continued to fix him with his hard stare, “Scared of losing a paycheck, maybe.”

“You can be really blunt sometimes, you know,” Hitoshi was well aware that he had a bit of a tongue on him sometimes, but he’d learned to only let it slip occasionally. He still got in trouble for it at home, but here, he was never reprimanded. Hitoshi had come to the conclusion that he never actually did it enough for Aizawa to consider it disrespectful.

“I just want you to be aware of the actual problem here, and that that problem isn’t you,” Somehow, though, despite his dryness and tendency to be blunt and overt with everything, Aizawa’s words did reassure him a little. “Do your best not to deal with it. Focus on your studies and training. The problem is between your foster father and me and for him to take it out on you is irrational. Ignore it the best you can.”

“I’ll try,” Hitoshi assured him, daring to meet Aizawa’s gaze for a moment. The world around them was beginning to get dark, despite it still being early in the afternoon. The sky was a grey color, and the lights lining the streets were beginning to turn on as they walked together. The air was cold, but Hitoshi felt pretty warm, given that he was now properly prepared for the winter.

Aizawa had done a lot of things for him in these past few months, things that were completely unnecessary and went beyond his role of a teacher. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but Hitoshi thought that maybe it was evidence that Aizawa realized that he had some sort of parental role with Hitoshi. He’d never talked to Aizawa about it, mostly because he hadn’t wanted to be disappointed, but objectively, he thought he had a lot of evidence pointing at that.

Hitoshi gave a hoarse cough into his gloves, drawing Aizawa’s attention again.

“Make sure you keep up with your medication, too, otherwise that infection will just come back,” His voice was a little softer this time, and Hitoshi nodded at him.

Even this last week, when he’d refused to train with Hitoshi due to Hitoshi’s coughing, fever, and the fact that he could barely stand up, Aizawa hadn’t sent him home. Hitoshi had wound up in the school’s infirmary, having been taken there by Aizawa, and he’d gone as far as to set up an appointment for Hitoshi at a medical clinic for the next day, something Hitoshi never would’ve done himself. Aizawa had hardly said anything about it, only telling him to go to the appointment, follow the doctor’s orders, and try to get rest. Sometimes, actions spoke louder than words, and he was quickly learning that.

This was stupid, he thought, this letting himself get attached to the first adult who’d actually given him the time of day. It was pathetic, really.

By now, Hitoshi knew where they were going. Aizawa seemed to like two things a lot: routine and cats, and this hit both those points. Aizawa taking him out for lunch or dinner was something that happened almost every time they trained, ever since Aizawa had commented on the fact that Hitoshi was lanky. He was well aware that he was underweight and that his lack of eating proper meals was making him physically weaker than he should’ve been, but at the time, there hadn’t been much he could’ve done about it.

Aizawa had told him that it wasn’t a problem to take him along, since he was going anyways. It was logical, he’d said. Hitoshi hadn’t argued, but he refused to allow himself to come to expect to spend time with him after training, even though it happened almost every time. In his life, he’d learned that expecting anything from the adults around him was a mistake, and he was trying his hardest to keep that policy with Aizawa.

The fact that Aizawa had never actually let him down stuck around in his head, though. It was a hard thought to shake when he was the first adult to ever keep promises to Hitoshi and actually attempt to help him.

The place they frequented was a cat cafe not far from the school. Aizawa usually took him there and he’d spend a few hours working on homework or whatever else while Aizawa graded. It was nice. Quiet. Almost a little homely. Hitoshi had even fallen asleep there a couple times, just because it felt safe to him. Aizawa would make occasional conversation with him, sometimes about important things and other times about mundane things, and Hitoshi made sure not to take him or their routine for granted.

It didn’t take much longer for them to get there, and Aizawa didn’t say anything more to him before they arrived. Hitoshi respectfully stood back as the hostesses greeted them and Aizawa presented his usual membership card.

The cat cafe was usually pretty quiet and even now, they were the only patrons. Hitoshi almost wondered if Aizawa single-handedly kept this place running. The hostesses seemed to know him pretty well, despite the fact that Aizawa only rarely made conversation with them, and were friendly with him.

They were let in the back, into the actual cafe area, and Hitoshi wasn’t surprised one bit when Aizawa took their usual spot at a table in the corner. He followed, sitting down next to Aizawa on the cushions on the floor, and leaned his back against the wall.

“How’s the paperwork going…?”

He honestly still felt a little weird asking questions. He forgot when the rule had come into place, but since he was a child, most of his foster homes and group homes hadn’t allowed him to ask questions, given that it was what his quirk needed to activate and take control. Like every other toddler, Hitoshi hadn’t been able to control his quirk until a while after it’d developed. He’d never done anything bad with it, but back when he’d been small, he’d brainwashed a few of his caregivers by accident, subsequently leading to the panic that had thrown him into the bad side of the system.

Hitoshi was so used to working around not asking people questions that when he realized Aizawa didn’t care if he did, it was still difficult to get himself to do so.

“Fine,” Aizawa said without hesitation and a small sigh as he pulled his work from the bag he’d been carrying. “I should be able to get you into the dorms by the holiday break. If I hit too much red tape, I’ll make something up to tell your foster father and move you into the dorms myself.”

Hitoshi looked down at the table. It was weird how nonchalant Aizawa could be about this stuff. Like it was nothing.

“Wouldn’t you get in trouble?” He asked him after a moment.

He heard the sound of pages flipping and Aizawa pausing to give him a response, “He already signed the paperwork giving me partial guardianship. It’s a little different, since you’re in foster care. I have a little more jurisdiction over you than I do the others. I can defend my actions in the case that it comes up.”

He glanced up, seeing Aizawa already leaning over his work. A quick look at the papers told him it was some worksheet he was looking over, presumably one that he’d given out to his classes. He had his gradebook beside him and was switching between the two.

“In any case, you’ll be in my class by the start of the next semester,” Aizawa continued, hardly even waiting for a response from Hitoshi.

This wasn’t the first time he’d heard it. Aizawa had made it clear for the last few weeks that he was trying to get everything cleared up by the end of this semester. But it still made him feel. There was a warmth in his chest at his words, something that crept into his spine. This had been his goal since getting into UA, but he’d never thought…

He’d never really thought it’d be like this. He’d imagined putting a lot more work in. He’d imagined pushing himself to his limits and having to wait until winning the festival next year. He’d never imagined he’d have help.

The training he did with Aizawa—it wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t painfully hard, either. Hitoshi would be sore sometimes, but that was the extent of it. Aizawa seemed to move along at whatever pace Hitoshi had, and he’d never worked him to a point where Hitoshi wanted to give up and never come back.

“Thanks,” He murmured, keeping his eyes down. He said it to Aizawa a lot, and he felt like it didn’t say enough. What Aizawa was doing for him meant the world to him, and he had no idea how to express that to him. There didn’t seem to be enough words to say.

Hitoshi was usually pretty good with words, but Aizawa was a quiet guy. He didn’t talk a lot, leaving Hitoshi to interpret his actions only.

“Don’t worry about it,” Aizawa said. Pages rustled. Hitoshi couldn’t bring himself to look up.

“I mean it.”

“I know you do.”

He had no idea how Aizawa could be so casual about this. He was expelling another student and moving Hitoshi into their place. That was huge. And besides that, Aizawa took time out of his week, multiple times a week, to spend with Hitoshi. He still wasn’t completely sure why.

Finally, Hitoshi spoke the words that had been on his mind for the past couple of weeks, “After the new semester, are you going to keep training me…?”

He left his question of whether or not this was going to continue unsaid. He liked this. It made him feel like he had an actual adult in his life. For a couple hours a few times a week, Hitoshi could act like he had some sort of parental figure in his life. While he wanted to be in the heroics course, he couldn’t deny that he was going to be upset if it meant losing this.

“That’s the plan,” His response drew Hitoshi’s eyes up, and he found Aizawa looking at him, a grading pen in hand, posed over one of the worksheets he’d been marking. Hitoshi didn’t let himself breathe, trying to force himself not to be relieved. Aizawa kept his gaze, voice unafflicted, “Nothing’s going to change.”

With that, Aizawa brushed his long bangs out of his face and hunched over again, marking the paper he had in front of him. Hitoshi sat back against the wall, watching as Aizawa looked over the papers in front of him. His teacher said nothing, though Hitoshi was sure Aizawa knew he was watching him.

Nothing was going to change.

Of course, things were going to change. Hitoshi’s time with his foster ‘family’ was coming to an end, and he was absolutely relieved at that. He’d still have to go back for breaks and whatnot, probably, but he wouldn’t have to go back there every night. He still wasn’t fond of Aizawa’s class, some of his jealousy still lingering, but living with them would be far better than his foster home.

He’d already been informed that Aizawa-sensei was the primary dorm parent, anyways, and that made his jealousy lessen a little. He wondered what it’d be like—would the other kids find out that Aizawa had taken some sort of weird personal interest in him? He told himself that he didn’t care. They didn’t matter, even if they made fun of him for it. It’d be better than getting called a villain. Part of him hoped that he’d still be able to see his general education classmates. While he hadn’t really gotten close to anyone in specific, they’d honestly treated him with nothing but kindness, and Hitoshi wasn’t going to easily forget that.

He couldn’t deny that he was excited to move out of the home he’d lived in for the past few years.

Aizawa had already asked if he would need help getting things out of there, but Hitoshi didn’t have a lot of possessions. He’d been in the foster care system his entire life, being passed from foster family to foster family and then to some group homes. It wasn’t practical to have a lot of possessions when he moved around so much, though admittedly, he’d been at this home for longer than he had the others.

Hitoshi let the conversation drop, watching Aizawa grade for a few minutes before he dug his own homework from his bag, sighing with content as he did so. He liked it here. He usually worked on homework or other things he had to do, made occasional conversation with Aizawa, and pet the cats that came up to them for attention.

Things were quiet for awhile. Hitoshi leaned over his math homework, a hand knotted in his hair, listening to the quiet noise of the cafe, patting the cats that sometimes rubbed against his side. It didn’t take long for him to get involved in the worksheet in front of him, everything else fading out as he tried to work out the problems and remember the processes that had been taught to him over the last week. It was hard—he had never really had a hard time with math, but he hadn’t been feeling well for the majority of the week and it was a little hard to remember what he’d been taught—

“You look frustrated.”

Hitoshi whipped his head up at the sound of Aizawa’s voice, startled out of his concentrating trance by him. He found Aizawa staring at him with dark eyes, seeming to have taken a break from grading.

“I don’t remember how to do this—” He tried explaining, tapping his pencil on the table they sat at. He was a little frustrated, mostly because he was stuck on this one problem. He kept double-checking his work, but it never worked out correctly, and Hitoshi had no idea what he was doing wrong.

“Let me see.”

Another thing Hitoshi had learned about Aizawa was that he didn’t have a lot of manners. Or, at least, if he had them, he didn’t use them a lot. He didn’t wait for an answer, instead just taking the worksheet from Hitoshi and staring at it for a long moment as Hitoshi sunk back, a little embarrassed that he couldn’t figure out a math problem on his own. It only took a few moments, and Hitoshi held his breath when Aizawa reached for Hitoshi’s pencil and pushed the worksheet back to him.

“You forgot to carry a number,” Aizawa told him, Hitoshi leaning over to see where he’d written down what he’d forgotten to do on the problem. He stared at it, at Aizawa’s neat handwriting next to his, finally letting out the breath he’d been holding in. “You did the problem right otherwise. Remember to carry next time and you’ll be fine.”

And then, like it was no big deal, Aizawa returned to his grading, marking something down in his gradebook with a glance at his stack of papers. Hitoshi didn’t do anything, looking from Aizawa to his worksheet again.

“...Thanks,” Still, he didn’t pick up his pencil and get back to work. He just sat, staring at his worksheet, at Aizawa’s handwriting right on it. He felt warm, and he couldn’t place why.

“If you need help,” Aizawa said, not even looking up from his work. “Just ask.”

Hitoshi stayed quiet, his hand shaking slightly as he picked up his pencil again and started working through the rest of the problems. He took Aizawa’s advice, and things went faster. Eventually, one of the waitresses came over and brought him the tea he usually ordered, and he was more than happy to finally get something in his stomach after not eating before leaving home.

He checked over his work, everything working out correctly, and then shoved the worksheet back into his bag. He hesitated for an instant, and then swallowed hard, grabbing the folder he’d nearly forgotten was there and turning back to Aizawa.

“I could use help on something,” Hitoshi told him quietly, watching Aizawa closely. He set down his grading pen, and Hitoshi searched for any signs of him being annoyed in his facial expression, finding nothing but his teacher’s usual flat look.

“Homework?” He asked, raising an eyebrow as he leaned forward, resting his scruffy cheek on his hand, giving Hitoshi his full attention.

“No,” Hitoshi set the folder down on the table. “Uh, job applications. I… don’t really know how to fill this stuff out… If you can’t help me, that’s fine, but I thought—”

“Job applications?” He couldn’t read Aizawa’s expression as he repeated his words, but it got Hitoshi to shut up. “You want a job?”

Hitoshi dragged his bottom lip between his teeth, letting out a breath and forcing himself to keep eye contact with Aizawa, “I thought it might be best. For when I move into the dorms. I don’t have anywhere to go after I graduate, so wouldn’t it be best to start working now?”

Aizawa didn’t respond immediately, staring at him with dark, perpetually tired eyes. Like Hitoshi, Aizawa never looked like he got enough sleep, and Hitoshi had always felt like Aizawa understood his constant exhaustion. After months of spending time with him like this, Hitoshi knew pretty well that Aizawa had some type of disorder that made him prone to falling asleep whenever during the day, and there’d been a few instances where he’d had to wake him up when he’d dozed off grading. Aizawa looked similarly tired today, and Hitoshi wondered if he’d been out patrolling the previous night.

“You’re not without some place to go after graduation, but your thinking is rational,” Aizawa gave him a small sigh, and leaned over slightly to look at the applications in the folder Hitoshi had opened. “I personally wouldn’t let the school just leave you alone like that. However, if you’re serious about this, I can help you with these.”

“Really?” Hitoshi’s voice came out a little squeakier than he’d meant it to, and he let out a breath, regathering himself. It was a relief to know that he just wouldn’t be kicked out and left alone. He kind of wondered if Aizawa was somehow implying that he’d stay in contact after graduation, and Hitoshi had to remind himself not to expect anything of anyone, especially the adults in his life.

But goddamn, Aizawa made it hard when he’d never broken a promise to Hitoshi.

“I had a job when I was your age for similar reasons.”

Hitoshi hung onto every word. It was rare—really rare—for Aizawa to talk about anything that had happened in the past. Hitoshi didn’t know why. He’d always assumed that Aizawa just didn’t want to. Maybe he didn’t think it was practical, and Aizawa always just seemed to do what he thought was practical. Hitoshi would be lying if he said he wasn’t curious, but he didn’t want to pry or do anything that could possibly annoy Aizawa.

But this time, he did ask the question that came to mind, and it was out of his mouth before he could stop it, “Where—?”

“Here,” There was no hesitation in Aizawa’s answer, as if he’d expected to be asked that. “The owner felt sorry for me since I always hung around here. I could probably talk to her and see if she needs any more staff.”

Well, that explained the weird familiarity that Aizawa-sensei had with the staff here.

“That sounds like a lot of trouble,” His first reaction was usually to reject any sort of help offered to him, but working here sounded attractive. It was near the school and place he liked, and like Aizawa, Hitoshi had a big soft spot for cats.

“It’s not. I’ll talk to her. What are you having trouble with on your applications?”

Hitoshi swallowed hard again, forcing himself not to argue with Aizawa’s offer. He looked down at the folder of blank applications, neatly printed and unmarked by him so far. He’d collected a bunch of them over the week before this one and had planned to fill them out by himself at home, but there were a lot of questions he didn’t quite know how to answer and a lot of information that he didn’t know. He’d hoped, at least, that Aizawa would be somewhat willing to help him figure out some of the questions.

After all, Aizawa did have a tendency to help him with his homework whenever Hitoshi did it here. He’d slowly gotten more comfortable asking him to check over his work or proofread things for him and had turned in work with far less mistakes as a result. Aizawa helped him with math quite a bit, though he was little to no help with English, despite being close to the head of the English department.

“Some of these questions,” Hitoshi flipped through the first few pages, not having to search long before he found an application that had stumped him. “I mean, there’s some information I don’t have, either, like my identification number and emergency contacts, but I can figure those out on my own. It’s really just the written questions that I don’t know how to answer—”

He stopped talking, looking at Aizawa’s still-stoic face. He was hard to read, and Hitoshi had learned to stop trying for the most part, but it was in times like these where he asked him to do things like this that his initial nervousness still remained and he found himself trying to figure out whether or not he’d annoyed Aizawa.

“I have your identification number in my files,” Aizawa told him after a moment, reaching into his own bag without hesitation and pulling out Hitoshi’s file, a thick folder that he knew contained all his records from foster care and all his previous schools. He ducked his head, his face heating up at the sight of it. Aizawa seemed to have it on him a lot of the time, because this wasn’t the first time that he’d showed Hitoshi something in it and pulled it from his bag without even a pause. He was always embarrassed at the size of it, though, and when he saw it, he was always forced to face the fact that Aizawa had read every infraction ever recorded on him since he was put into the system as a toddler.

Aizawa turned the pages of his file, giving Hitoshi little time to see the contents of the pages. He didn’t want to snoop, but he was curious, and the pages Aizawa was going through seemed to be his UA records and whatever paperwork he was working on to move Hitoshi into his class. It didn’t take him long before he came to a stop, and Hitoshi leaned over to see that Aizawa had his student profile in front of him.

“Here, write this down and don’t forget it,” Aizawa pointed to a number printed at the top of his file, and Hitoshi did what he said, immediately moving to scribble down the number he’d pointed out onto the job application, exhaling a breath of relief. That solved one massive problem. He knew he couldn’t get a job without having that number, and his foster parents had always locked important documents away from him.

“As for an emergency contact,” Aizawa folded up Hitoshi’s file again, and put it off to the side of his gradebook. “You can put me down.”

Hitoshi fixed Aizawa with a stare, his eyes slightly wide, and he fought to keep his expression neutral.

“I can…?” And it was in moments like these that Hitoshi wanted to believe that Aizawa was being more than just a teacher with personal interest in him. Right now, he wanted to pretend that Aizawa was the parent that he’d never had in foster care, the adult that had never been there for him when he was younger. If he could just act like Aizawa knew he was more than just a teacher to him, even just for a moment or two, he’d be happy.

“It’s logical. I have partial custody over you and you’ll be living under my care. I’d prefer to be called if something was to happen to you at whatever job you end up with.”

Aizawa made it hard for Hitoshi to break the illusion of pretending he was his actual parent.

“Alright,” His voice came out shaky, and he started writing out Aizawa’s contact information with a trembling hand. He didn’t look back up at him, face burning with the fact that he knew Aizawa’s personal phone number by heart now. “I still need help on the questions.”

To his surprise, Aizawa didn’t comment on Hitoshi knowing his contact information by heart. Instead, he listened as Hitoshi read off the questions to him, making short, albeit helpful comments every now and then. By the take the waitress came back to take their orders, Hitoshi had finished a few applications with Aizawa’s help, and Aizawa looked to be almost all the way through his stack of papers and seeming more and more tired by the second. It was almost amusing to see the notoriously strict teacher, the man Hitoshi had looked up to most of his life, fighting off dozing at the table.

Sometimes, he just watched Aizawa.

After he put away the job applications, a cat decided to prod him for attention, kneading him with her paws until Hitoshi patted his lap and she climbed up on him to be pet. Hitoshi stroked her fur gently, and found his gaze drifting up to Aizawa. He was still involved in his work, dark hair hanging over his face, his dark eyes moving as he read over whatever answer he was grading. He had bags under his eyes, and Hitoshi often found himself looking at the scar just below his eye, the one he’d gotten from nearly dying trying to protect his class.

Despite getting to know him and learning a little about Aizawa’s personal life and personality, and despite the fact that he’d desperately tried to convince himself that Aizawa wouldn’t be the great hero he’d held him to when he’d been a kid—

Aizawa was now, more than ever, Shinsou Hitoshi’s role model and personal hero.

Everything he found out about Aizawa just solidified that, from the initial realization that Aizawa wasn’t some asshole to the news, that he’d nearly died during a selfless attempt to save twenty kids, to even now. Today was just like any other day, any other day that Hitoshi trained with Aizawa. Nothing was out of the ordinary. Aizawa took him along with him afterwards, made conversation with him, asked him questions about his life, and helped him with the things Hitoshi couldn’t do on his own. Nothing was different. It was so…. Normal, and yet, this everyday routine meant absolutely everything to Hitoshi.

Somehow, he looked up to Aizawa even more now than he had as a kid.

He didn’t know quite what it was about him. There was the obvious answer that Aizawa had taken on some sort of parental role with him, but that was more something Hitoshi had labelled him with. He supposed it could’ve been the fact that he’d been so willing to sacrifice himself to save the kids he’d only been teaching for a few days. Maybe it was the fact that he’d taken Hitoshi under his wing without any hesitation or questions asked. Maybe it was that he actually seemed to care. Hitoshi had learned enough about interpreting Aizawa’s actions to say that the teacher most likely did care about him. There was too much evidence pointing that way, and not even Hitoshi could convince himself that Aizawa didn’t care.

Aizawa had been his hero since he was five and while he’d admired him and wanted to be like him, it was different when he knew Aizawa personally. That was nothing compared to now. He’d never really had an actual role model until now, and it terrified him how much he looked up to Aizawa.

He was a good hero, a good teacher, a good guy, and to Hitoshi, he was a good parent. He wanted to be everything Aizawa was after he graduated.

The waitress brought their orders, and the cat on Hitoshi’s lap immediately took interest in his food, standing up to sniff at it.

“Hey,” Hitoshi scolded gently, finally looking away from Aizawa to block the cat from his food. Beside him, he heard a small snort.

“You ordered fish. She does like tuna a lot,” Before he knew it, Aizawa reached out and pet the squirming cat in his lap.

Hitoshi raised an eyebrow at him, figuring it was alright to be his usual dry self as long as he wasn’t disrespectful, “How do you know that she likes tuna?”

He watched Aizawa’s lips pull up into the small smirk that he rarely saw on his face, and Hitoshi had to fight not to look away out of embarrassment. Aizawa smiled a little strangely, and Hitoshi had come to the realization that he usually smirked like this when he was feeling strangely mischievous. His rare break in stoicism was entertaining, and Hitoshi just gave him a stare.

“...You didn’t feed the cats tuna, did you?”

Aizawa didn’t answer him, instead scratching the cat behind the ears, and Hitoshi suppressed a small, almost uncharacteristic laugh. The silence was all the answer he needed.

After fending off the cat, Hitoshi was quick to eat. He’d probably get dinner back at home, too, though that was a little up in the air right now, given that his foster father had had an… intense argument with him the night before. Hitoshi was a bit of a scapegoat in the household, and he assumed it was mostly due to his dangerous quirk. Rules that applied to his ‘siblings’ didn’t necessarily apply to him, and he more often than not wound up with harsher punishments and rules.

He finished his meal and realized that Aizawa didn’t seem to have any inclination to leave anytime soon, something that Hitoshi wasn’t going to complain about. He seemed to have a lot of work to do, and Hitoshi would much rather spend time sitting in the cat cafe with him than anywhere else. He was used to it, content, and he didn’t say anything as he sat back and buried himself in the handheld game he’d brought along, involving himself in it as Aizawa worked beside him and as the sun finally set outside the picture windows of the cafe.

Hitoshi didn’t look up much beyond that, only glancing up a couple times to look at Aizawa or when the waitress tried to make polite conversation. He checked the time a couple times, but it was nowhere near his curfew. The sun had set, but it was late in the year and it was still early evening when he finally heard Aizawa starting to close up his work.

“That looks a little more beat up than it was before,” Aizawa’s voice drew him out, and Hitoshi closed up his game to find him packing up his work, watching him from under dark bangs.

“Oh,” Hitoshi tucked the game system back into his coat, trying to hide the new scuff marks on it. “I guess one of my… siblings got mad at me. She, uh, kind of threw it down the stairs at the house.”

Part of the reason foster kids like him didn’t have a lot of possessions was due to the fact that there were often foster siblings around to break, steal, or mock his possessions. Hitoshi had a locked box with a journal and a few photos from when his family had been alive, but besides that, his only real possessions were the things he took with him in his school bag, including his phone and the game system he’d gotten as a gift at a group home nearly half a decade before. The things he did have were admittedly pretty beat up, but it came with the living arrangements.

Aizawa narrowed his eyes at him and didn’t speak for a long moment, Hitoshi growing more and more nervous with every second of silence. Finally, he filed the rest of his papers away, closing his eyes and looking away from Hitoshi, “I’ve been considering doing a home visit.”

That was new. That was the first new thing that had happened all day. This was a normal day after training with Aizawa, and Aizawa hadn’t really told him anything he hadn’t known all day. It made Hitoshi’s mind stop, and he froze up completely, unable to even breathe. As far as he knew, Aizawa had only spoken to his foster father over the phone and had never actually seen the place Hitoshi lived.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” His voice was a near-whisper, and he couldn’t stop his nerves from sinking into it. He cleared his throat, coughing as his lungs ached, and tried to regain his voice. “You—you don’t do stuff like that, do you?”

Aizawa didn’t even hesitate.

“I do if it’s necessary,” He watched with huge eyes as Aizawa braced himself and stood from their place at the back of the cafe, leaving Hitoshi still sitting on the ground as Aizawa stared down at him with his tired eyes. “I need to pick something up and then I can take you to the train station.”

Getting the hint, Hitoshi rushed to his feet, slinging his bag over his body and following at Aizawa’s heels. Against his better judgement, he didn’t stay quiet, even as he was led outside the cafe and back into the cold air. It was dark now, the street illuminated by streetlamps shining down on them as they walked, Aizawa with his mouth tucked into his oversized scarf and Hitoshi with anxiety written into his voice.

“It’s not necessary, though,” He tried, already feeling a little breathless as he tried to measure out his words.

“That’s for me to decide, isn’t it?” Aizawa’s voice was the same as always, flat and quiet, soft in the cold air surrounding them.

“It wouldn’t help,” His words came out a little harsher than he meant to and—

—And he knew he made a mistake the second Aizawa whirled on him.

He felt like the breath had just been knocked from him. The street was empty, and Hitoshi immediately took a shaking, stumbling step back as soon as Aizawa faced him. Hitoshi was a tall kid, but the little height advantage Aizawa had on him felt like it was so much more and he felt much closer than he was. Hitoshi’s first reaction was to put his hands up in a signal of conceding, and his body screamed for him to breathe, but he couldn’t.

He knew it would happen. He’d finally pissed Aizawa off. He’d finally made him mad enough to snap. He’d finally done it. He’d argued enough to be rude and disrespectful and Aizawa was finally going to break him and scold him for it, and Hitoshi couldn’t even breathe as his childhood idol stared him down, Aizawa’s eyes narrowed and his lips in a distinct angry frown.

“Hitoshi,” Aizawa’s voice was louder than Hitoshi had ever heard it before, and he wasn’t even yelling. Hitoshi’s first name seemed to echo off of the empty street, and he shrunk back even further. Nobody called him that, not his teachers or his foster parents or any of his foster siblings or even his classmates. “I decide what’s necessary in these situations, and a home visit is long overdue. Your foster parents deserve to have their licenses revoked. How many kids are there—seven?”

There was a beat of quiet between them, and Hitoshi could do nothing but stare up at his teacher. He’d never seen Aizawa lose his composure, and—it was odd, seeing him actually express emotions for once.

“Eight,” Hitoshi breathed, wanting nothing more than to look away from Aizawa. “Nine, including me.”

There were a million things he wanted to say, but not one of them would come out, so he just stood there, fully expecting to get yelled at, to be punished, to be forced to realize that he’d been nothing but a nuisance following Aizawa around for these past few months. But he didn’t get any of that.

“Do you think I can ignore the things you say about your family?” Aizawa’s voice dropped slightly in volume, and it didn’t echo on the street anymore. “Do you think I don’t notice the bruises when I train you? Do you think I can ignore any of that? You don’t need to be living there, and neither do any of your siblings. Focus on your studies. Let me do what I need to do.”

Hitoshi breathed in, and immediately exploded into a fit of coughing.

It wracked his entire body, and Hitoshi coughed into the gloves that Aizawa had lent him, feeling like his body was trying to force his actual lungs up his windpipe. His chest itched and burned, and he gasped for air, and his entire body felt like it was on fire as he tried to subdue his fit. He tried forcing himself to stop, but it didn’t work, and he was made to wait it out, feeling like he was going to die having a coughing fit on the street.

What got him to finally start to relax was when he felt Aizawa’s hand on his back, warm and solid. Hitoshi wheezed, his eyes squeezed shut, and his body started to loosen around him as he did so and slowly, he caught his breath, his coughing growing weaker until it died out, leaving Hitoshi still wheezing and aching.

He opened his eyes to find that Aizawa had reached out to put his hand on his back, and Hitoshi stayed quiet, rasping as he breathed, eyes wide. It’d be so easy—

He’d thought about it before. He’d always shoved that thought down, though, telling himself that Aizawa-sensei didn’t seem like the type to like or want physical affection. Outside of sparring, Hitoshi hadn’t ever tried to touch him, though this wasn’t the first time he’d been tempted to wrap his arms around Aizawa and pull himself into Aizawa’s chest. He wanted to and now, with Aizawa’s hand on his back, it felt so possible.

He wouldn’t, though. He’d told himself that he’d never get attached to anyone before he finished school and proved himself. He promised himself that he’d never expect anything of the adults in his life. Because if he didn’t expect anything, then he couldn’t be disappointed by them. And he’d promised himself that he’d never try to reach out to an authority figure for any bullshit reason like wanting comfort or affection. It was stupid and pathetic, and Shinsou Hitoshi hated himself right now, more than ever, for getting so attached to a teacher who’d taken some kind of unfounded interest in him.

He was stupid. So stupid.

“I’ll let you do your job,” Hitoshi dropped his gaze to the concrete of the sidewalk at his feet, forcing his breathing to even out. Aizawa stepped back, and the warm hand at his back was gone, and Hitoshi hated that he missed the touch.

The world was silent. The air was still. It was cold and dark, but there was no other noise. Just silence. And then Aizawa’s usual quiet voice, though there was something in it that Hitoshi couldn’t quite place.

“Kid, if you think this is just me ‘doing my job’, then I obviously need to teach you some kind of common sense.”

Hitoshi couldn’t stop himself from looking up at him again. He pursed his lips, wanting, more than anything, to say something, for the thousands of words he had in his head to come out. Instead, he was just speechless.

Hitoshi liked to think of himself as a well spoken person who was good with words. Improving his quirk had required it. So it was rare that he was struck completely speechless.

Aizawa wasn’t looking for an answer, though.

Hitoshi hung onto his every word, listening as Aizawa sighed, turning away from him again, “Let’s go. I have to pick something up at the bakery.”

Hitoshi was silent the entire way down the street. He followed Aizawa, walking slightly behind him, his gloved hands shoved into the pockets of his coat. He stayed quiet, his mind going over Aizawa’s words again and again. He was a quiet man, but when he did talk, Hitoshi always made sure to listen and—there was no doubt in his mind, now, that Aizawa was going beyond what was expected of him because of his personal interest in him. He knew well enough, from years of being in school, that teachers could easily ignore things.

But—and he hadn’t experienced it until now—adults who cared and had assumed some sort of parental responsibility couldn’t. Which meant Aizawa realized that Hitoshi looked up to him in the way he did, and he was welcoming it instead of rejecting it.

He thought about going home, about going back to the house he shared with eight other kids and two adults. And he thought about the dorms at UA.

Hitoshi had known his entire life that his home life, wherever he was at the time, wasn’t good. It had always just been something he’d had to accept, because the other option was throwing a fit about a situation that wouldn’t change regardless. The past two years, he’d lived in the foster home he did now. It was a long train ride away, and the actual house was crowded, messy, and dirty, and the last thing Hitoshi wanted was for Aizawa to actually see where he lived and the way the people he lived with treated him.

He’d be lying if he said that he hadn’t thought about Aizawa being his actual parent, and he’d come to the conclusion that living in the dorms would be the closest thing he’d get to him being his real parent.

He’d have his own room. Where he lived now, he shared a room without a door with six other kids, and he was intentionally excluded from the rest of his foster ‘family’ with the excuse that keeping him away from everyone else was safer, since it gave Hitoshi less chances to use his quirk. He ate alone, did his homework alone, and usually had to go to bed either before or after the other kids . All because of his quirk. He hadn’t used it in his foster families since he’d been little and unable to control it, and he never had any intentions or urges to, but those few times as a child had been enough to scare everyone forever.

He supposed he could understand to some extent. He could, technically, make anyone do anything. But Hitoshi had never wanted to use it for anything bad. As a kid, he’d lost control of it a couple times and used it to get an extra serving of food maybe once or twice, but he’d never used it for anything nefarious. He’d rather try to actually convince people of things he wanted instead of just forcing them to do what he told them to. The only thing he actually wanted to use his quirk for was to help people, and no one in the system he’d been in since he was a child seemed to believe that.

He knew mentions of his dangerous quirk were on every page of that enormous file Aizawa had. He knew that he’d gotten into a lot of fights as a kid, since he’d been scapegoated a lot, and even though he’d never used his quirk in them aside from using it to get the other person to stop hurting him so he could leave the situation, every one of those fights was detailed in there and had earned him the label of a problem, defiant child who didn’t like or listen to authority.

He actually liked to think that he listened to authority pretty well. He just didn’t like it when his foster parents excluded him from everything and flung unfair, uncreative insults at him. And he didn’t like being hurt.

He’d learned from this, though, that if authority treated him like a person and gave him at least some respect, he did perfectly fine.

“You listen to me better than most of my class,” Aizawa had told him after a training session months ago. Hitoshi remembered being shocked at the praise and trying to figure out if Aizawa was being sarcastic or not, since he’d been told he was defiant and an issue his entire life.

Aizawa didn’t actually seem to care about what was in that file, though. His middle school teachers had read it, too, and he assumed that was what initially made them so wary of him. Still, he’d tried to listen to what they said and done what they’d told him, but their initial reaction to him was already tainted by the many infractions and notes in the file, and the damage was done. He’d expected it to happen in high school, too.

Truthfully, his homeroom teacher hadn’t left much of an impression on him. She hadn’t treated him badly, and she hadn’t treated him any different than the rest of the class. Hitoshi had respected that a lot, so when he’d first gotten in UA, he’d done everything he could to stay out of her way, relieved that he had a teacher who didn’t treat him like some kind of monster. He didn’t go out of his way to talk to her, either, though, deciding that he had his own goals to focus on and would do his best to excel in her class to make himself look better. He figured if he wasn’t a problem for his general education teachers, they’d treat him the same as everyone else, and he’d been right. He’d blended in as much as possible to his teachers. And he’d been pretty happy with that.

Then there was Aizawa, who made it no secret that he’d read through Hitoshi’s entire file, and who really seemed to just not care about all the things written about him in there. Aizawa, who hadn’t treated him like everyone else, because he’d picked Hitoshi out and decided to focus on him and train him and do… whatever this weird, parental thing was with him. Hitoshi had never experienced what it was like to be liked by an authority figure, but he guessed it was something like this.

Hitoshi’s plan had been to not make trouble for his teachers, train himself, excel in his studies, and then win the sports festival by his second year. After that, he’d thought it would be impossible to not move him into the hero course.

Things hadn’t worked out like that at all, though, and Hitoshi was set to go into the hero course by the start of his second semester of his first year, all because his childhood hero had, for some reason, decided he was interested in him and for some even weirder reason, decided to ignore all the horrible things written about him in his file.

It wasn’t until Aizawa stopped at the bakery ushered Hitoshi through the door that he finally worked up the courage to ask him one of the many questions on his mind.

Aizawa told the man at the counter that he had a pick up, giving his name, and then, Hitoshi saw his opening as the man ducked into the back to search out whatever they were here for.

“Sensei—” Hitoshi started, forcing himself to look at Aizawa. Aizawa gave him his attention without hesitation, and Hitoshi rubbed at the back of his neck as he tried to find the right words to say. “You’ve read through my file, right? Why did you—It doesn’t seem rational to train me after reading everything in there.”

There was that smirk again, the same one Hitoshi had seen back in the cat cafe. It took him off-guard, and Hitoshi studied Aizawa closely as he spoke to him, “It’s irrational to judge someone before you meet them. Now that I know you, I assume most of the problems outlined in your file were provoked by someone, since you’ve never shown the same behavior with me.”

He wasn’t wrong, but that hadn’t been the answer he’d been expecting to hear. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting. He almost found it a little funny.

“I wish my middle school teachers thought that way,” Hitoshi told him dryly, remembering the way he’d been secluded, especially during school. He’d always wondered what it took to be a teacher at UA, and he’d assumed that the qualifications were wildly different than for normal teachers. He doubted that anyone at UA had a lot of formal education on being a teacher, and he found himself even doubting that they were required to have teaching licenses. Still, though, Aizawa and the rest of the teachers he’d met at UA were better than the rest of the teachers Hitoshi had experienced in his life.

He’d honestly disliked school until this year. It’d been hard to like it when his teachers had treated him the same as everyone else—like he was a villain just waiting to strike. He didn’t mind it now and had even started using his studies as a way to ground himself and escape from the loneliness that was the home he lived in.

Aizawa would probably be good at teaching normal high school, too, though Hitoshi didn’t think he’d ever want to. He was well aware that UA let him get away with more than a normal school would, and he suspected that most of the things Aizawa did for him wouldn’t be tolerated in a normal setting. But, he was good at his job, and Hitoshi had never thought that his childhood hero, the elusive underground hero Eraserhead, would be good at teaching.

“Some people shouldn’t be teachers,” Aizawa could be so blunt that it was amusing, most of the time, and Hitoshi found himself snorting at his words.

Hitoshi let the conversation drop and he glanced around at the bakery. He had no idea what Aizawa possibly needed from here, and he was curious as to what he was picking up, but he didn’t say anything just yet. They were the only two here besides the man Aizawa had spoken to, and the quiet of the shop was almost comforting, enough so that Hitoshi felt fine asking another question.

“Are you really going to do a home visit…?”

“It’s for the best,” He wasn’t all that surprised to find out that Aizawa had already made up his mind. He’d assumed that his mind had been made up when he’d mentioned it in the first place. He didn’t know Aizawa to be someone who looked for input on decisions, and his initial mention of the topic had given Hitoshi the feeling that he’d already decided on what he was going to do. “Don’t worry too much about it. It’ll be sometime next week. I’ll let you know when, as long as you don’t share the information with either of your foster parents.”

“A surprise visit?” Hitoshi narrowed his eyes at him in curiosity and concern. “They could just say no, couldn’t they?”

“They could, but they should know better. It wouldn’t look good.”

He’d known for awhile that Aizawa had opinions on his home life, from the comments he made and the questions he asked, but he’d never realized until now that Aizawa actually had intentions to go along with his opinions. It was one thing to say that Hitoshi’s home life was bad. It was another thing entirely to actually do something about it. And Hitoshi didn’t really know what to think.

He didn’t care much for his foster siblings, but he knew how the system worked. Those kids would get passed along to somewhere else. Maybe it’d be good. Maybe it’d be bad. Once they were out of the current foster family, it was easy to lose track of them. Hitoshi had seen it happen more than once—a shitty foster home got shut down and all the kids in that home lost track of each other.

On the other hand, there was a voice in his head saying that this was the first time someone actually cared enough to even remotely do something. Everyone else just passed it off as something that inevitably happened in the system. It couldn’t be helped, and people always assumed someone else would do something about it if it got really bad.

“I don’t know where the other kids would go if my foster parents lost their licenses.”

“It’s not your job to worry about that.”

Hitoshi only nodded, and let out a slow breath, “I won’t say anything about the home visit, but the home isn’t exactly… nice.”

“I’ve gathered that much.”

Hitoshi frowned. Over the past few months of being trained by Aizawa, Hitoshi had told the truth and answered any questions asked with honesty. Maybe that’d been a mistake, but he wasn’t necessarily regretting it, even with the knowledge that Aizawa was planning a home visit. He tried to think about it, about Aizawa coming to his messy, dirty home, and he just couldn’t see him having anything but a negative reaction to it. He couldn’t even picture him coming over. He wondered if his foster parents would try to act differently and not exclude Hitoshi as much as usual, or if he’d be thrown into his usual scapegoat role even with his teacher around.

At least Aizawa-sensei didn’t seem to think he was exaggerating or being dramatic about his home life. Hitoshi knew it was bad, but he was well aware it could be a lot worse, and he’d stopped being upset about his situation a long time ago.

Hitoshi was drawn out of his thoughts by the other man in the shop finally coming back to them, a clear bag with a bunch of pastries in his hands. His thoughts faded back to his curiosity about why they were here, and he watched Aizawa pay as the other man tried to awkwardly make conversation with him.

His curiosity got the best of him quickly, “I didn’t think you liked that kind of stuff.”

Aizawa gave him a look, ignoring the cashier’s comments, instead answering Hitoshi, “I don’t. They’re for Hizashi. He’d been working himself to death.”

Hitoshi had to bite his tongue to keep himself from making a comment about how Aizawa was doing something undeniably nice for someone else. It wasn’t a rare thing, and he did occasionally get to hear about small things in Aizawa’s personal life. Yamada Hizashi was the loud head of the English department, someone Hitoshi would have as his English teacher come next semester. He was aware that the two of them were close and lived together, though Hitoshi had been trying to figure out for over a month now whether they were just roommates or actually together. It was a little odd to think about Aizawa having a boyfriend, since he seemed married to his work, but maybe they’d work good together.

“I’m sure he’ll like them,” Hitoshi commented instead.

“He better. I’m not going through the trouble of ordering more,” Aizawa took his receipt from the cashier, taking a moment to check his watch before looking back at Hitoshi. “We should go if you want to take the next train.”

He didn’t, but he still nodded, “Okay.”

The train station wasn’t far at all. Hitoshi had noticed that Aizawa didn’t tend to take him very far away from the school, and there was a station a few blocks from the campus. It was the same station Hitoshi took the train to and from almost every day. He didn’t mind the long commute to the school anymore, since it gave him time away from his home. Aizawa usually walked him here after he was done for the day, and Hitoshi appreciated the company. Waiting alone could get lonely, and Aizawa usually stayed until Hitoshi got on the train. He assumed he went back to wherever he lived afterwards, and Hitoshi would start the long ride back to his prefecture and then the walk back to the house.

This was one of the later trains, and Hitoshi guessed that it was probably the second or third to the last one of the day, given that it was a weekend. It was getting into the middle of the evening, bordering on nighttime, and it was as cold as ever. Hitoshi was glad he finally had actual winter clothes, since for a couple years, he’d been wearing too small second hand clothes, until he’d saved up and bought himself a winter coat. He’d knitted the scarf and hat and the gloves were from Aizawa, and he was more than grateful to be warm in the cold winter.

They stood on the train platform, only a few other people scattered on it, huddled in small groups or under the weak heaters. Hitoshi dug in his bag for his ticket, dreading finding it since he knew he was out of punches on it and would have to buy a new one. He just hoped he was remembering wrong and still had a chance of having a ride or two left. It was wishful thinking, though, since when he found the flimsy paper ticket, all ten rides were punched out and he would definitely have to buy a new one.

He had enough money for it, but he was always a little mad when he had to spend it on tickets. His foster parents were supposed to provide transportation for him, given that he used the train to get to and from school, but they either forgot or flat out refused most of the time. To make matters more frustrating, the train conductors often forgot to take tickets, but Hitoshi could never guess when, and the only truly nefarious thing he’d ever done was riding the train without a valid ticket.

“I’m going to go get a new ticket,” He said, trying to keep the irritation he was feeling at himself out of his voice. He should’ve noticed it was about time to buy a new one and tried asking his foster parents, but he’d been too focused on everything else.

“No, you’re trying to save your money. Stay here.”

Aizawa always said things so nonchalantly, like they were no big deal. Hitoshi did as he was told, realizing it was useless to put up a fight, instead choosing to show his confusion and displeasure with a frown and averted eyes. Even that was nothing, because before he knew it, Aizawa was pushing a blank ten ride ticket into his hands.

“You didn’t have to—” Hitoshi held the thin paper between his fingers, staring at it, refusing to look back up at Aizawa out of sheer embarrassment.

“I know that. I don’t do things because I have to,” He could feel Aizawa’s eyes on him, and he was almost tempted to shrink back at his gaze.

“Thanks,” He sheepishly met his gaze, feeling a lot smaller than his teacher despite their small height difference. He was grateful, and he tried to show that, even if Aizawa’s show of kindness was unnecessary. “I really—thanks.”

“If you need help with things, just ask.”

It was the same thing Aizawa had said earlier about Hitoshi’s homework, and Hitoshi had to bite back a reply of the fact that he couldn’t. He’d been trained his entire life to not ask when he needed help. He’d been told to keep his mouth shut and stay quiet.

He didn’t respond, instead just standing by Aizawa’s side on the train platform, the cold air biting at his exposed face. He pushed his face further into his scarf, leaning forward to peer down the train tracks, finding them empty. The next train was nowhere in sight and despite the way the cold was settling into him, he was relieved.

He didn’t want to say anything to Aizawa, but he really didn’t want to get on that train home. Even if he’d gotten used to the commute itself, he still dreaded going home every time he waited here. It wasn’t because of the length of time it took to get back home—it was the fact that he was going home in itself. There was nothing he could do about it, though. Even if he dared to not go home, there was nowhere for him to stay, and at least it was a house with a bed, no matter the other people living in it.

Still, it was hard to keep his mind from wandering.

He’d fantasized a lot as a kid and he’d thought he’d been able to drop the habit about daydreaming about things that could be. It didn’t seem practical to him, though maybe that was just Aizawa’s thinking rubbing off on him. There was no use thinking about things that didn’t pertain to his goals, and he’d found as a child, daydreaming had just brought more pain than good. He’d done his best to stop, but now—he couldn’t keep himself from doing it.

He forced himself to actually think about a real scenario, instead of some fantasy where the guy standing beside him was more than just some strange teacher-parent amalgamation. In a few weeks, he’d be moving into the dorms, where he’d have his own room for the first time in years. He’d be living with nineteen other kids that he’d been increasingly jealous of for months, but in reality, Hitoshi didn’t actually have to interact with them if he really didn’t want to.

He imagined it’d be better. A lot better than what he went home to now.

He found himself looking at Aizawa again, instead of watching for the train. His mind went back, to not even an hour before, when he’d been tempted more than ever before to push himself forward and wrap his arms around him. He hadn’t wanted affection in years since meeting Aizawa and now he felt pathetic. He didn’t need affection. He didn’t need anything, and yet, here he was, unable to stop himself from thinking about Aizawa as the parent none of his caregivers had ever bothered to be, unable to stop himself from expecting and wanting things from him, even though he’d told himself that he’d never let himself fall into this trap.

He had this horrible, irrational attachment to the teacher who’d been training him for the past few months, and as pathetic and weak as Hitoshi felt because of it, he wouldn’t give it up for the world.

He didn’t really know why he decided to do it. Maybe it was the fact that he was trying to be honest with himself. Maybe it was just that for some reason, on the train station platform in the bitter cold, it just felt more possible than it had before.

Before he could stop himself, Hitoshi was moving forward, wrapping his thin arms around Aizawa’s middle, nearly resulting in shoving his face into his back. He heard Aizawa’s sharp inhale, only barely catching how he raised his arm to his scarf, as if he was going to grab at his capture weapon, and then he just stopped. Hitoshi fully expected to be pushed off and yelled at, and honestly, he kind of wanted to be just so he could stop himself from looking up to Aizawa so much, but the harsh words never came, and neither did a shove or an attack.

Hitoshi closed his eyes, and a hand settled into his unruly hair, followed by a soft voice, “Warn me next time.”

Hitoshi pressed his chances and buried his face in Aizawa’s wool jacket, letting out a shaky sigh into the material of it. He held onto him tightly, and Aizawa was warm against him, and Hitoshi had to force himself to let go, stepping back and staring at the train tracks, too embarrassed of himself to say anything.

Down the tracks, he could see the unmistakable light of a train approaching.

The dread was sinking into his stomach and as the seconds passed, the sound of the train moving towards them met his ears, rattling on the tracks as it began slowing to a stop at the station. He stood still, his body rigid, filled with nothing but foreboding as he counted the moments until it would screech to a stop.

“I don’t want to go home,” He barely heard his own voice, and he hoped that Aizawa hadn’t, because the words had slipped out without his permission.

He would never be that lucky, though.

The noise of the train was growing louder, the horn cutting through the air, an announcement starting over the speakers of the city station announcing the arrival and soon to be departure. Aizawa raised his voice over all of it, and Hitoshi heard him clearly, even with everything else.

“Then don’t.”

Hitoshi cast him a side glance, “You know I don’t have anywhere to go.”

Aizawa had his dark eyes narrowed at him, his voice the same unaffected tone it usually was, “It wouldn’t be a problem if you stayed with me.”

“In the dorms?”

“I live in an actual house, you know,” Aizawa closed his eyes for a long moment. “There’s a second bedroom that you can stay in.”

Hitoshi hesitated. Everything told him to say yes, that this was what he’d wanted since he’d first started realizing how attached he was to Aizawa, that Aizawa was offering so much more than his literal words—but he hesitated, because he wasn’t supposed to expect anything, because the last thing he wanted to do was be a nuisance and ruin what he had with the one good authority figure in his life.

“I’m not sure that’d be okay,” Hitoshi watched the train screeching to a halt in front of the platforms, another announcement playing denoting that boarding had begun.

“If I say it’s okay, then it’s alright.”

Hitoshi made no move to board the train when the sliding doors opened. The others at the station got on quickly, filing onto the train, no doubt to get into its heated compartments. Hitoshi knew he should be doing the same. But he stood still.

“I’d get in trouble. You probably would, too,” He normally tried to hold his tongue, but there was no point in it now, when he was trying to talk himself out of this and convince himself that it was a bad idea.

“I won’t let you get in any trouble. I’m an adult who can deal with any consequences that come my way.”

It was hard to argue with Aizawa. He always bluntly made his points, and there was never a lot of room to contest them. Even now, Hitoshi couldn’t say anything as a rebuttal. He was right. Aizawa was an adult, and he didn’t hesitate in dealing with consequences to things that happened, and Hitoshi couldn’t help but to trust him when he said that he wouldn’t let Hitoshi get into trouble. Aizawa had a way of doing things and keeping promises that made it incredibly hard for Hitoshi to keep the same distance he tried to keep from everyone else.

The doors on the train closed with a final warning. There was a pause, and then the train started off again, leaving Hitoshi with Aizawa on the train platform.

“You already bought me a ticket,” He said, talking half to himself now. It was all he had left. It almost felt too good to be true, and Hitoshi had no idea what he needed to do. God, he wanted this, but—

—But he was so used to doing things and coming at things on his own that when help shoved itself into his face, he didn’t know how to accept it.

“Doesn’t matter,” Aizawa told him simply, and Hitoshi couldn’t stop himself from believing him. He hung onto every word from him, and let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

He looked up at his teacher, finding Aizawa staring at him with his tired eyes, nothing in his face betraying any sort of hesitance or indication that he didn’t actually mean the words he was saying. He knew he had a choice now—he could either wait for that last train, or he could take Aizawa-sensei’s offer and leave with him.

He didn’t know how he’d gotten so horribly attached, but his mind had already been made up the second Aizawa had told him that not going home even was an option.

“Okay,” He breathed.

“Good, I’m tired. The house isn’t far from here,” Aizawa didn’t wait for an answer, starting off in the opposite direction they’d came. Hitoshi followed at his heels, the same as he’d been doing for the last few months.

“Alright,” His own voice was flat and almost automatic. He had to walk fast to keep up with him, and it wasn’t until now that he noticed that he was tired, as well. He coughed into his hand, wondering if he’d actually be able to sleep in Aizawa-sensei’s house. It was surreal, surreal that he’d offered to take him home, surreal that he’d said that he wasn’t doing this because it was his job, surreal that he wasn’t going back to his foster home.

“There’s cats at the house. And Hizashi. He’ll like you.”

Hitoshi didn’t say anything as Aizawa led him down the street in the direction of the school. For awhile, it was just silence between them, Hitoshi walking quickly to keep up with Aizawa, still bewildered and shell-shocked by what had happened at the train station.

He found his words again, though, and he knew that somehow, he needed to say something.

There weren’t enough words to express himself. There were never enough words. Nothing sounded right. Nothing sounded good enough.

“Thank you,” Was all he could get out, and the words sounded softer than usual in the freezing air as they entered into a residential neighborhood. “This—No one’s ever cared enough to help me like this.”

He wanted to say more, but nothing else would come out. It felt flat. Minor. Not enough. But he didn’t have any more words.

Aizawa didn’t care, though. He never seemed to care about Hitoshi’s lack of ability to properly express his gratitude or how much Aizawa’s presence in his life actually meant to him. Aizawa gave him a glance, putting his hand on Hitoshi’s shoulder, yawning before he spoke.

“Don’t worry about it.”

And for once, as they approached the house Hitoshi assumed Aizawa lived in, a brightly lit, quiet one stuck between two other similar ones, Hitoshi did what Aizawa told him to, and forced himself not to worry. He’d tried never to take things for granted, but he’d never gotten a chance to really enjoy certain soft moments in his life, and for once, Hitoshi let his weary eyes fall shut, and he took everything about the moment in, committing it to his memory to keep in a safe place forever.

This was everything he’d ever wanted. There were a lot of uncertainties. He had no idea if this was a permanent thing, though Aizawa was usually up front with things, and he had a feeling that he would’ve said something had it been temporary. He didn’t know if Aizawa was going to try to get the foster care licenses of his foster parents revoked. He didn’t even know if Aizawa was going to try to increase his partial custody over him into a more complete thing. But for once, he was kind of alright with not knowing. There was a bed and room for him, and Aizawa didn’t sound like he had any second thoughts or hesitations. Hitoshi was wanted, and that was more than enough. That was everything he’d ever wanted.

So he didn’t worry about it, and for the first time in his life, Shinsou Hitoshi let himself put all the trust in his heart in an adult, and he let this happen to him, not fighting or vying for control so he wouldn’t get hurt. He was safe with Aizawa, and he finally, finally let his guard down, and he didn’t worry about it, and it was the single most freeing thing he’d ever experienced. He decided, right then, in that moment, that he was going to hold onto this, and he was going to do everything in the world to never let it go.

Chapter Text

He didn’t quite know what he expected when Aizawa led him into his house. The fact that Aizawa was taking him home with him didn’t even fully hit him until he walked through the door that his teacher held open for him.

Hitoshi stopped in the small entryway, looking around the brightly lit house, barely able to breathe. His heart felt like it was about to pound to a stop in his chest and he tried to gather himself, trying to keep the shocked, bewildered look off of his face. This house—it was like the exact opposite of the one he lived in with his foster family. The first thing that hit him was the warmth, quickly shaking the cold outside from his body, making Shinsou’s skin light up with sensation the moment he walked in. The second thing was the light—the house was bright. Bright and welcoming and everything his foster home wasn’t.

Hitoshi forced himself to breathe, letting out a slow breath as he made an attempt to relax himself. He’d let himself put his trust in Aizawa and Aizawa had taken him back to someplace warm and safe, two concepts that were almost entirely foreign to Hitoshi by now. He hadn’t known what to expect, but it wasn’t this—this open, clean house that felt inviting and friendly. It was a place clearly lived in, though free of clutter and dirt, the house open with the living room, dining room, and kitchen all connected. The lights in the open room were on, brightly illuminating everything, and quietly, Hitoshi could hear music playing from a radio next to a bookcase full of books and magazines.

There wasn’t a lot of furniture, but there was enough to make the room feel comfortable. A couch, a television, a couple bookcases, the radio, a stand-up keyboard, even a kotatsu that looked appropriately inviting. In the far corner of the room, near the windows, was what looked to be a cat tree and as Hitoshi’s nerves started to calm, he spotted a couple scratching posts and beds placed around the room, and Hitoshi remembered Aizawa saying he had cats.

Hitoshi forced himself to look away, dropping his gaze and slowly, with automatic movements, he copied what Aizawa was doing, taking off his shoes and shrugging off his coat and winter gear before Aizawa silently took it from him, and tossed it in the closet next to the entryway. Hitoshi couldn’t look at him, not with the way he’d been staring and looking around the room and not with all the questions circling in his head, but he could feel Aizawa’s dark eyes on him, his gaze feeling like it was burning a hole straight through his body.

“You’re shaking,” He heard, Aizawa’s voice soft in the quiet of the rest of the room. Hitoshi managed to raise his head a little, looking at Aizawa from under the purple hair that had fallen into his face from the cold weather outside, and he breathed out again, exhaling slowly to try to force himself to calm down.

“I’m still a little cold from outside,” He lied, willing his body to stop trembling. He kept his breathing even, daring to glance around again. He could hear sounds from the other rooms, and his eyes followed the noise to one of the doors leading off from the main room, and from what little of it he could see, he guessed it was a bedroom, meaning that the noise was most likely coming from the person Hitoshi knew Aizawa was close with—Yamada Hizashi, the head of the English department at UA.

“Hitoshi,” Hitoshi looked back at him at the sound of his name, as if Aizawa had given him an order to do so. His skin felt like it was on fire, and his mind was going around in circles and he hadn’t yet completely processed that he was here, in Aizawa’s house, because his teacher had offered to let him come home with him. This was the same thing he’d imagined when things got rough—Aizawa Shouta, his childhood hero, mentor, and the only real parental figure in his life taking him in. He almost couldn’t believe it, and he made himself look at Aizawa, not allowing himself to look away as the man spoke to him quietly and bluntly, “You don’t need to worry about being here. I wouldn’t have offered if I hadn’t wanted you to come back here.”

Hitoshi just stared at him.

Wanted him to come back here? That—he wanted to say it couldn’t be true, but the fact of the matter was that Aizawa had never let him down or lied to him and he didn’t really see a rational reason as to why he would start now. He was letting himself put his trust in Aizawa, the only adult he’d even let himself do this with, and as much as he wanted to trust and believe that statement, it felt wrong. No one had ever wanted him. Everyone had just dealt with him because Hitoshi needed somewhere to go and the system couldn’t actually just throw him on the streets until he turned eighteen. No one had wanted him. They’d wanted the paycheck that came from taking care of him, maybe, but not actually him, and that was something Hitoshi had just grown used to over the years. No one wanted a kid with a dangerous quirk and a file full of infractions.

It felt completely wrong to hear that someone wanted him to stay with them, even if it was only for tonight. He couldn’t argue with it though, because truthfully, Aizawa hadn’t had to do this. There was no real benefit to him offering to take Hitoshi back here, not for Aizawa. Even if it was a cluttered, dirty foster home, Hitoshi did actually have a house to go back to, but Aizawa had offered to take him back here, had done so without a second thought and with fully knowing the potential consequences. Even Hitoshi couldn’t find any other reason for Aizawa doing this, other than he’d just wanted to.

“Okay,” He said quietly, almost too quietly for himself to hear. He dragged his bottom lip between his teeth, and here, in the silence of the rest of the room, feeling like he was cut off from the horribleness of the world standing in the entryway with Aizawa, he finally gave voice to the one question that had stuck around in his head, “Do I have to go back?”

There was no hesitation, not even a pause between Hitoshi’s question and Aizawa’s answer. It was like he didn’t even have to think about it, “No. I’d rather you didn’t. When I told you that you could stay with me, I didn’t mean as a temporary thing.”

The breathlessness was back, and Hitoshi felt like the air had just been knocked from his lungs. He still found the strength to talk, though, his voice shaking a little as he did, “Is that really alright…?”

“Yes,” Aizawa stared at him, expression never changing. He was stoic and blunt, but Hitoshi’s face felt hot and there was a tight pressure in his throat as he struggled to understand. It was so simple, right there in front of him, Aizawa always holding his gaze with his dark, tired eyes, and his tone was still soft when he went on, “You don’t have to worry. I’ll take care of everything. I’ll do the home visit tomorrow, but even if it goes well, you’re still going to come home with me.”

It wasn’t a question, but a statement. A fact. There was no room for argument, and Hitoshi didn’t try, even at the mention of the home visit again. He didn’t know how Aizawa planned on still having him come back here afterwards or what was going to happen, but he trusted Aizawa, as much as he hated the idea of putting his trust in anyone. If there was one thing he’d learned from training with him over the last few months, it was that when Aizawa told him something, he meant it. That included promises, and things like this. Hitoshi decided to trust him—if Aizawa said that he could still come home with him regardless of the outcome of the home visit, then he’d find a way to make that happen.

Hitoshi just nodded, glancing away from Aizawa again. The noise from the rest of the house filtered back in, and Hitoshi lingered in the entryway with Aizawa, almost waiting, and he didn’t even know what he was waiting for until the noise from the bedroom stopped, the door swung the rest of the way open, and Hitoshi stared as he looked over a man he’d only seen in passing before.

Being in the general education department, Hitoshi didn’t see a lot of the teachers that the heroics department did. Heroics was prioritized and tended to get the most high-profile teachers. Even Aizawa taught things besides heroics courses—math and ethics, mainly—and Hitoshi didn’t have him for any actual classes. The same went for English. Hitoshi knew, in passing, who the head of the English department was and had seen the loud radio host at various events, but he’d never been taught by him.

And honestly, if Aizawa hadn’t told him ahead of time who was going to be home, there was no way Hitoshi would’ve recognized him.

Present Mic was a famous radio and television personality, a high-publicity hero. Hitoshi knew him from his loud, flashy persona, with the leather outfits and the trademark hair. He knew him from the unique use of his powerful voice quirk, the way he’d use it to announce and host events, and his way of speaking, with his excitability and energy.

So it was a little hard to recognize the calm, mature man who came out of the bedroom, with his hair pulled into a bun and dressed down in a normal shirt and sweatpants. If it wasn’t for the mustache and the wide, toothy grin he flashed at him, Hitoshi would’ve thought that this was someone completely different. But no, this was Present Mic in his civilian clothes, and by now, from being mentored by Aizawa for the last couple months, Hitoshi was one of the few people who actually knew him better as Yamada Hizashi.

He’d never actually met the guy, having only listened to his radio show a couple times and seen him at the sports festival and other school events, and Hitoshi was a little surprised to see him looking so calm and quiet in his personal life. Yamada smiled wide at him, not ignoring him for a second, his entire face seeming to glow along with his grin, and he immediately recognized the man’s voice when he spoke to him, even if his tone was much slower and softer than he was used to from him.

“Ah, you’re Shinsou Hitoshi!” Yamada gave him an excited wave before crossing the room to them, not even hesitating as he reached out for Aizawa-sensei, tangling his hands in the scarf Aizawa’s had around his neck, pulling it looser as he began to unwind it from him. Hitoshi just stared in shock at his affectionate action, and Yamada never dropped his gaze, words picking up in both pace and volume a little, “I’ve heard so much about you! All good things, though. Shouta loves to tell me all about your training sessions and how fast of a learner you are—”

“Hizashi—” Aizawa was no longer looking at Hitoshi, instead groaning at Yamada and glaring at him from under his bangs, and if it were any other situation, Hitoshi might’ve laughed, because he rarely ever saw Aizawa show so much emotion, even if it was irritation.

“Hush,” Yamada scolded, though his tone sounded playful. He finished unwinding the scarf from Aizawa’s neck, Aizawa making no move to push him away or stop him as he did so. Yamada stepped away, giving Aizawa one last look over before turning back to Hitoshi, “In any case, it’s nice to finally meet you! You can go ahead and sit down or look around, but I’m gonna steal Shouta for a few minutes.”

The implication was clear enough. They were stepping away to talk. About him.   

“Sure,” He said simply, keeping his voice and expression neutral. He wasn’t about to show his feelings, not around this new guy, this person he’d never met before. Yamada gave him another bright, happy smile, his hand closing around Aizawa-sensei’s wrist as he started to pull him away. Aizawa went without a word, without looking back, letting Yamada pull him into the bedroom he’d just come from. The door shut with a quiet noise, leaving Hitoshi alone in the bright room, still standing in the entryway.

He didn’t really have to wonder what they were talking about. It didn’t take a lot of thinking to figure it out. Aizawa had offered to let him stay here without talking to Yamada. He didn’t know what they were, but they were obviously close, judging from the way Aizawa had allowed Yamada to touch him earlier. He expected arguing, for Yamada to be upset that Aizawa had taken Hitoshi back here without even calling him, but none of that came, even as Hitoshi stood in the entryway, waiting, waiting for the yelling to come.

It was his curiosity that made him finally creep forward and dare to go further into the house. The first step was the hardest and Hitoshi felt like he had to force himself into the carpet living room. It was easier—just slightly—after that, but Hitoshi stood for a moment, next to the couch, staring into the welcoming, warm house. It was surreal. This was where Aizawa lived. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but it wasn’t something so… so normal.

He took another step, finding some of the tension easing off of him. He breathed slowly, feeling the soft carpet beneath his feet. He was curious, too curious, and he couldn’t hear anything coming from that room that Aizawa and Yamada had disappeared into. There was no arguing or yelling. There was just quiet. He didn’t make the conscious decision to try and get closer in order to hear what was going on; it just happened and somehow, Hitoshi found himself creeping forward until he was near the pair of doors on the other side of the room, having been careful to not make any noise.

His heart beat wildly in his chest, loud enough that he was terrified Aizawa was going to hear it behind the door. He dared to go further, lingering next to the staircase, just beside the closed door. He leaned forward, holding his breath, and waited and finally, finally heard a soft voice from the other side of the door.

“—You want me to go pick up the paperwork tonight?”

That was Yamada, though it was in no way the way he usually recognized his voice. It wasn’t loud or excited, more soft and—concerned. He was talking quietly, his words clearly directed at Aizawa and he sounded worried, not angered or annoyed.

“Are you alright with that?” That was Aizawa, his voice the same as ever, though he was obviously trying to be quieter than normal. His voice was stoic and low, though there was something in it, something that Hitoshi had heard earlier, earlier when Aizawa had talked to him on the way to the bakery, when he’d firmly told Hitoshi he was going to do the home visit.

“Sure,” Yamada again, his voice picking up a little. “You said he’s a little sick, right? He seems pretty comfortable with you. Leave the paperwork to me and you stay here and look after him. I’ll make dinner when I’m home. It shouldn’t take too long. Make the report, request some custody paperwork, make a few calls—it’ll be easy.”

No—there was no way they were talking like this. He had to be mishearing. Aizawa hadn’t even called Yamada after leaving the train station. Why was he so nonchalant about this? Why were they both so nonchalant about this? This was a huge thing, and the fact that they were even discussing a custody transfer opened up an even bigger hole in Hitoshi’s chest. It was hard to talk about whether or not he was going home. When Aizawa had told him that he didn’t have to, he logically knew that something had to happen legally, but a custody transfer—  

He wasn’t an idiot. He knew what those words meant. And he knew it was just a more legally-correct way of talking about adoption.

There was no way this was happening.

No, they couldn’t be talking about actually adopting him.

Hitoshi had been in foster care from the time he was four. Eleven, almost twelve years. It was all he knew. Adoption was a thing for other kids, the kids in the group homes or foster homes that didn’t have dangerous quirks and weren’t labelled problem children. Adoption had never been a real possibility for him.

He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about it—about Aizawa actually taking him in. It’d always been just a fantasy and lately, Hitoshi had only been letting himself think about the more realistic scenario of living in the dorms, because fantasizing about things only led to disappointment and living in the dorms was the closest he’d thought he was going to get. His mind wandered sometimes, though, and landed on Aizawa actually taking him in. He hadn’t thought it was possible, thinking that Aizawa was the type of person who wanted at least some professional distance between them and taking him in would destroy that. He’d shoved that idealistic scenario down, telling himself that there was no way Aizawa would ever do that and even if he would, he’d quickly see why Hitoshi had changed hands so much in foster care.

Part of him just couldn’t imagine it, either. He’d never been part of a normal home. He couldn’t imagine Aizawa losing his temper on him like his foster parents constantly did, nor could he imagine what it’d be like in place of that. He had no idea what it was like being the only child in a house, and he had no idea what a functioning family was like. The closest he’d ever gotten to having a real parent was his days with Aizawa after training or when they didn’t train at all, but it didn’t seem possible that things could be like that all the time.

Sooner or later, he’d see. Sooner or later, Hitoshi would do something that would make him angry enough that he’d understand why Hitoshi had been passed from foster home to foster home his entire life. He just hadn’t seen it yet because as much time as he spent with Hitoshi, at the end of the day, Hitoshi always got on that train and went back to his foster home. He didn’t have to deal with him all day, everyday.

He let out the breath he’d been holding, focusing on listening again. Thinking like this—it wasn’t actually getting him anywhere. Out there, when he’d walked home with Aizawa, he’d told himself that he was going to trust him, as much as he’d never wanted to put his trust in an adult. Trust him and do what he said and not worry about it. It was hard, almost impossible, but Hitoshi forced himself to the ground, breathing in the warm air of the house, staring around the living room at the bright lights and comfortable furniture, listening to the two in the bedroom as he tried not to ruminate or think about anything other than where he was and what he was going on right now.

“Thanks,” Aizawa paused, a small silence falling on the other side of the door. Hitoshi heard a footstep, as if one of them had closed the distance between them, and they suddenly sounded much closer, both to each other and the door, “He has some sort of chest infection. If you could pick up something for that—he has antibiotics, but anything else that’ll help him.”

“Sure. I can stop by the store on the way home.”

There was another short pause, some rustling, and then the handle of the door was rattling and Hitoshi stared at it, wide-eyed, realizing it was too late to move away without looking suspicious, not that he could if he tried, given that he still felt like he was in shock. His heart beat hard in his ears, the rhythm fast and painful, and Hitoshi held his breath, terrified that he’d break out into a fit of coughing. He could only look up when the door opened, unable to hide what he’d been doing, standing incriminatingly close to the door, still leaned forward.

Aizawa was the one who met his gaze, and Hitoshi wanted to disappear into the floor or curl up and die, knowing he’d been caught.

He waited for the anger and annoyance, but Aizawa only raised an eyebrow at him and Hitoshi swore he saw a hint of a smirk on his lips, “Eavesdropping?”

Hitoshi looked anywhere but at him, settling for staring at the window behind Aizawa, if only to make it look like he was still holding eye contact with him. His face burned and he inhaled sharply, forcing himself to keep his head up and not stare at the floor in embarrassment, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” There was no hesitation, and Aizawa stepped out of the room, Yamada following him. Hitoshi glanced at him, watching as Aizawa pulled the door to the room mostly shut, acting like it was no big deal that he’d just caught Hitoshi listening in on their conversation. “Hizashi’s going to go pick some things up. I’ll be staying here with you.”

“A report—” Hitoshi said, trying to keep his voice even. He was failing, uncertainty seeping into it with every word, “—You’re going to make a report?”

Aizawa’s expression didn’t change in the least. He was hard to read and Hitoshi looked him over, searching hard for any signs of anger or hesitance, only finding the usual tired, stoic expression Aizawa wore, “It’s logical. You don’t want to go back to your foster home. I told you that you can stay with us. I have to file a report before I can do anything.”

Hitoshi glanced to the side at Yamada, who was in the process of pulling on a coat and scarf, holding a ring of keys between his fingers. Hitoshi didn’t argue, closing his mouth and frowning, body stiff as Yamada smiled a gentle grin at him, giving him another wave, “I’ll see you later! Feel free to look around while I’m gone!”

Hitoshi didn’t say anything and with a slam of the front door and a gust of cold wind from the outside, he was left alone with Aizawa again. Hitoshi couldn’t look at him, shaking slightly as he tilted his head up, staring a the ceiling, hoping that that was at least a little more respectful than looking at the floor, “...Custody. You guys are going to try…”

He trailed off. The word ‘adoption’ and everything related to it was foreign to him. He was fifteen years old and had been in foster care for eleven years at this point. Adoption was an idea that had stopped being a possibility when he’d been labelled a problem child. With that and his quirk… the best option for getting out had become to age out of the system and hope for the best. He’d lived for a decade just trying to stick it out and wait.

He still couldn’t believe this was happening. It didn’t feel possible. It didn’t feel real.

Today had been normal. It’d been completely usual and commonplace, right up until Aizawa had brought up the possibility of a home visit. Everything had spiraled from there, from the way Aizawa had confronted him while they’d been walking to Hitoshi admitting that he hadn’t wanted to go home and deciding not to get on that train the moment Aizawa told him he didn’t have to. Things had been so normal earlier, and now he was somehow standing in Aizawa’s house while his childhood hero talked about getting custody over him.

He didn’t really know how things had escalated this far. He’d admitted to not wanting to go home, and now he was here.

“Adoption is the rational thing here, isn’t it?” Hitoshi didn’t answer; he knew it was a rhetorical question. Aizawa continued on without missing a beat. “You don’t want to go back. I would rather not let you go back. We’re fine with taking you in. It’s the rational answer, unless you’d rather go somewhere else.”

“No!” Hitoshi immediately said, the word coming out of his mouth faster than he could process an actual, intelligible sounding answer. His chest itched with his sudden reaction and Hitoshi forced himself to swallow down a fit of coughing, rubbing at the back of his neck in his usual nervous habit, “I mean—This… really isn’t your job.”

He dared to raise his eyes to look at Aizawa, but he had to quickly glance away again, feeling like his teacher’s dark eyes were burning holes straight through him. Aizawa had an intense stare and could be incredibly intimidating, and Hitoshi didn’t know if he realized that. He stared like a cat would—intensely and almost entirely without blinking, and it didn’t really help that Aizawa’s eyes were near-black, making his expression that much harder to read. It was times like these where he had no idea if Aizawa meant to look as serious as he did, or if it was just his natural state of being.

His voice, however, was softer when he spoke, saying similar words to the ones he had before, “This isn’t me ‘doing my job’. I’m not saying this as your teacher. I’m not even saying this as your mentor. And I’m not doing this because I have to.”

The itch in his chest was burning more, and Hitoshi didn’t even allow himself to breathe, letting the silence fall between the two of them. He looked out the window, avoiding glancing at Aizawa, and exhaled slowly, his body betraying him as the breath turned into a weak cough. With that, he knew the conversation was over, Hitoshi raising a hand as he coughed a few more times, each one growing more violent until his chest stung and his eyes watered and he tried to swallow the rest, keeping his mouth shut as he stopped.

“Go sit down,” Aizawa told him, Hitoshi still bent over, now staring at the floor, his hand still covering his mouth. He took a test breath in, lungs itching as he did so, and gave a last cough through his closed mouth. He started to stand back up, looking at the couch and how comfortable it seemed, and then nodded.

He made his way back into the main area of the house, hesitating before sitting himself down on the couch, drawing his knees into his chest and curling up on one end of it, intentionally trying to take up as little space as possible. It was comfortable, and it made Hitoshi feel a little better to sit down. He hadn’t really noticed how much his body had started to ache until he did. It was a side effect of his infection—the achiness covering his body and seeping into his limbs. It felt much better to be able to sit down and curl himself against the end of the couch, and Hitoshi finally let himself breathe a sigh of relief.

He was tired, too. He’d been tired ever since the train station. Or, maybe he wasn’t tired. He was exhausted more than anything. He wasn’t sleepy so much as his mind was just tired of working, tired of thinking and hesitating and trying to analyze things. Hitoshi had always been good at watching people, at taking situations and thinking them over and noticing different things. He was good at convincing people without using his quirk just because he’d listened for so much of his life. But sometimes he just wanted to stop. The thing was—he’d never really been able to let himself stop until now. Being in foster care meant having his guard up all the time. Everyone wanted something from him and no one could be completely trusted, so Hitoshi had never let himself stop analyzing things.

Now that he was somewhere new, with someone he’d decided to trust, despite never trusting any adult completely, he could just stop. He’d already unconsciously been letting his guard down around Aizawa. It’d happened gradually over the last few months, until Hitoshi started being able to speak more freely by default and trust Aizawa to help him with things, and now that he was here—he just wanted to stop thinking and give his mind a rest for once.

“I’m tired,” He said quietly, half to himself, half just wanting to fill the silence of the room. Aizawa didn’t speak a lot and Hitoshi still wasn’t quite used to it. He always wanted to fill the empty space between them with words, even if he knew the silence didn’t mean Aizawa was angry at Hitoshi.

“Then sleep.”

Hitoshi raised his head, seeing Aizawa in the kitchen, holding a metal kettle. The room was open and Hitoshi could easily see into the kitchen and could easily hear Aizawa from where he was standing. He sunk down a little, realizing that if he could see Aizawa, then he could see Hitoshi, and part of him just wanted to hide his expression from everyone right now because for the first time in a long time, he was having trouble controlling his emotions.

“What do I tell my foster parents?”

“Nothing,” Aizawa replied immediately. Hitoshi heard the noise of the metal kettle being set down, the turn of a dial on the stove, and the flicker of the flame starting. “Let me deal with them. Ignore any calls or messages you get from them. Don’t say a word to them and don’t look at anything they say.”

Hitoshi reached for his cellphone, the device tucked into the bag that he’d set down near the couch earlier, when he’d gone to eavesdrop on Aizawa and Yamada’s conversation. The screen was slightly cracked, but when he turned it on, he could still read the time, the minutes ticking by until curfew. Something gnawed at his stomach, a feeling of dread that he’d grown used to over the years. It was an automatic reaction to seeing the clock so close to curfew time and not being home—he felt it whenever he missed his train or the trains were running late or delayed or the weather was bad. Now, it was worse than ever, because he didn’t have any control over what was going to happen with them. Ignore them—that didn’t even feel possible, and Hitoshi hated the thought of Aizawa having to listen to his foster parents in their usual anger at Hitoshi not making it home in time.

Their anger had always been his responsibility to deal with. It was just a fact of life that he’d accepted over the years of living with them. Pushing that responsibility onto someone else felt wrong.

He sunk down a little further, still curled into himself, though now he was basically lying on the pillow. Silently, he unlocked his phone, looking through the few messages he had, all of them read. None of them were from his foster parents or any of his foster siblings. There were a couple from his classmates, mostly consisting of messaging about what homework assignments they were given. Recently, he’d acquired Midoriya Izuku’s number, though Hitoshi hadn’t messaged him much beyond the initial one to give him his number. The most messages he had were actually from Aizawa, and he scrolled through that conversation, reading over the messages.

It wasn’t anything special—usually just messages containing a time and address to meet at or asking for confirmation on something, but it was the most messages he had from anyone. His call log was similar, full of short calls to and from his teacher, with longer, infrequent calls from his foster parents. There was one call, a call he’d placed to Aizawa at four in the morning about a week ago, and Hitoshi stared at that entry, remembering that night. He hadn’t been able to sleep and had been hurting from a confrontation with his foster parents, so his solution had been to call Aizawa at four in the morning after a lot of deliberation. He remembered that night well, sitting outside his foster home, and he remembered that his teacher hadn’t been angry at him for calling so late and that he’d actually had a conversation with Hitoshi.

Raising his head slightly, Hitoshi peeked over the top of the pillow he was slumped against.

From here, he could see into the kitchen. There were cabinets hanging from the ceiling and Hitoshi could see the back of the stove and the counters and through the opening, he could see his teacher, Aizawa standing near the stove, leaned up against a counter, doing something on his phone and not looking at Hitoshi. It gave him a chance to observe him. He’d been hanging around Aizawa for the last few months, but he’d never seen him this at home. He looked like he belonged here, seeming completely relaxed and at ease, not looking worried or particularly stoic as he stared down at his phone, dark hair falling over his face. He just looked normal—neutral, relaxed, comfortable. Like it was no different having Hitoshi here.

“...What about Yamada?” Hitoshi’s voice fell in the silence of the room. It was the question he’d had on his mind since overhearing their conversation, and he hadn’t wanted to ask, almost feeling like if he did, he was stepping into territory that he couldn’t walk away from. He watched carefully, as Aizawa looked up from his phone, giving him a glance, expression not changing.

“What about him?”

“Don’t you need to talk to him about this?” He still wasn’t sure what Yamada and Aizawa’s actual relationship was, but there was no doubt that they were close. Close enough that Aizawa hadn’t even seemed surprised when Yamada had touched him and messed with his scarf earlier. He didn’t know if they were dating or just close friends, but regardless, that didn’t change things. Yamada lived here too, and it felt… unfair for Aizawa to make the just decision to take him in without talking to him much, even if Yamada had sounded fine with it earlier.

He didn’t have to wait long for a response. The kettle on the stove blared, starting off with a low, quiet whistle that quickly rose into a high pitched screech that made Hitoshi duck his head, gritting his teeth as Aizawa took it off the burner, the shrieking dying back down as he set it on the counter. He answered him, then, Hitoshi peeking back up to see that Aizawa wasn’t even pausing as he moved around the kitchen more, opening cabinets and washing out a dish quickly.

“We have talked about this. Extensively.”

“But today—”

“Today is far from the first time we’ve talked about taking you in,” Aizawa was still busy with what he was doing, talking to Hitoshi as he poured the water from the kettle. Coming from one of the other rooms next to the kitchen, a room Hitoshi couldn’t see into, was a persistent jingling, growing louder and louder until Hitoshi saw a flash of grey and then watched Aizawa bend down, Hitoshi looking away to avoid his eyes as he stood back up.

There were footsteps approaching him and Hitoshi did his best to look buried in his phone, frozen and stiff again, not daring to look up until Aizawa came to a stop in front of him, at which point Hitoshi breathed in slowly and looked up, finding his teacher and childhood hero staring down at him with dark eyes, expression softening just enough for Hitoshi to notice when he hesitantly held his gaze. Tucked against Aizawa’s chest, being supported by his arm wrapped around its hindquarters, was a long-haired grey cat, purring happily. Without a word, he leaned in slightly, over Hitoshi, and the cat immediate leapt from his arms and to Hitoshi’s side with a flurry of jingles from its collar, brushing its head against his side.

Hitoshi exhaled hard and, though his hands were trembling, he reached out and pet the cat behind its ears, scratching it lightly. He found it in himself to relax a little, to let his guard down again, and he didn’t hesitate when Aizawa held the mug of tea he had in his hand out to him.

“It has honey in it. It should help your throat,” He told him, voice a bit softer than Hitoshi was used to. He took the cup offered to him, holding it in his hands, having not noticed until now how cold his fingertips were. He finally uncurled himself from the tight ball he was sitting it, sitting cross-legged on the couch, still being careful to not take up too much space. The cat took it upon itself to step onto his lap, kneading against his thigh, and he heard a snort of amusement from Aizawa, “Her name is Jelly. She’s friendly.”

That got Hitoshi to relax, if only for the sheer ridiculousness of hearing that name, “Jelly? Seriously?”

He raised an eyebrow at Aizawa, watching as he moved, taking a seat on the other end of the couch from Hitoshi. On the floor of that end of the couch was a stack of papers—grading, he assumed—and the bag of work Aizawa had been working on earlier today. Aizawa didn’t immediately start working, though, giving Hitoshi an incredulous look, “I named her after the first thing that came to mind. Seemed logical at the time.”

“Jelly…” Hitoshi thought for a moment, and when he happened upon the answer, he wanted to laugh and despite his attempts to stop it, a small smile broke past his worried front. “Right. You like those jelly packet things. It’s still a weird name.”

“That’s probably why Hizashi didn’t let me name the other one.”

“There’s another?” Hitoshi found himself leaning forward a little, his tone more excited than he meant it to be. He’d always liked cats—they were quiet, chose when they wanted attention and when they didn’t, and he’d played with the strays around his first group home a lot when he’d first been moved into the system. None of his foster homes had ever had pets, though, and he’d always wanted at least one when he was on his own.

“Three,” Aizawa answered him, and Hitoshi glanced up to see that his expression had pulled into a small smirk. “The youngest is shy. The oldest is lazy. They’re somewhere in the house. This is the only social one.”

Being here was getting easier, slowly, and the conversation was undoubtedly helping. Hitoshi scratched the cat behind her ears again, eyes drifting around the house. Besides the open main room, there was the door to what Hitoshi assumed was the master bedroom, now mostly shut, next to it being another shut door, and then the staircase leading up to what looked like a loft. There was more behind the staircase, next to the kitchen, but Hitoshi couldn’t see that far from here.

“You’re free to look around.”

Aizawa’s voice nearly startled him, and Hitoshi realized he was staring. He shook his head, trying to hide his frown by petting the cat and trying to distract himself from the lingering nerves surrounding being here in general. He was just starting to get comfortable here. He didn’t think he could bring himself to actually explore around the house.

“I’m fine,” He tried to cover his anxiety, bringing the mug of hot tea to his lips and taking a drink of it. The distant, near-constant itching in his throat was almost immediately soothed by the smooth, sweet honey mixed into the liquid.

“That’s the master bedroom,” Aizawa didn’t comment on Hitoshi’s refusal to move, Hitoshi instead following where he was pointing, turning his gaze to the room that Aizawa and Yamada had been talking in. His lips twitched into a further frown, his nerves not completely at ease, but relaxed enough that he could distract himself a little with trying to decide what kind of relationship Aizawa had with Yamada. He paid attention to Aizawa as he pointed at the room next to the master bedroom, “You can either take the bedroom next to us or the one upstairs. It’s fine either way.”

Hitoshi stared at the room, mind straying again. He forced himself to think about what was being asked of him, as much as he just wanted to leave the realization for later that he was allowed to stay here and that things were suddenly happening faster than he could process them. He took a breath, not letting himself ignore the unsaid question, and made himself think about it. The notion of even staying here overnight, let alone more than one night—it was a lot to handle, but Hitoshi didn’t want to disappoint Aizawa and not answer him.

Being upstairs felt so… far away. The house was nice—warm, comfortable, clean—but Hitoshi didn’t even want to think about being alone here. The only reason he wasn’t making himself sick with anxiety and overthinking was because Aizawa was here and making conversation with him. Aizawa was the only reason he was even remotely alright, and Hitoshi hated how attached to him he’d become.

“The—uh, the room down here is fine,” Hitoshi ducked his head away, taking another drink of his tea to give himself a cover for the turmoil he was feeling. It was hard to control his expressions and his voice, and Hitoshi was well aware that he’d developed a bad habit of letting his guard down around Aizawa.

“It should be ready,” Aizawa made no comment on Hitoshi wanting to take the room next to his, making him breathe a sigh of relief. He wasn’t sure how to explain that, anyways. Aizawa moved on, though, pointing up at the small area Hitoshi could hardly see behind the staircase, “There’s another bathroom over there, next to the dining room. Upstairs is the loft, another bathroom, and a bedroom we mostly use as a study. You’re free to go and do whatever you want here. Just try to clean up after yourself and follow what Hizashi and I tell you to do.”

“This is really—” Hitoshi clutched his mug of tea hard, swallowing the panic that threatened to burst from his sore throat. “—Quick.”

He was trying to behave the best he couldn’t and was doing everything he could to not be disrespectful, trying to pick his words carefully, and he only hoped that it didn’t sound like he was whining or complaining. He was grateful. He really was. This was just fast.

There was a pause, a beat of silence, filled only by the jingling of the cat’s collar as she rolled against his thigh, clearly wanting more attention. Hitoshi dragged his bottom lip between his teeth, staring forward at the wall and staircase. He didn’t even try to look at Aizawa, knowing for a fact that he wouldn’t be able to stand seeing his expression.

Silence, and the ringing of the bell on the cat’s collar didn’t help. It felt like forever, forever of Hitoshi feeling the warmth from the mug beneath his fingertips, forever of listening to his heart pounding in his ears, and forever as he waited for an answer.

He heard Aizawa take a breath, and his voice was far quieter, far softer than he’d expected it to be. He’d rarely ever seen his teacher express emotion and had learned that that was just the way Aizawa was—a stoic man who thought that actions spoke louder than words and didn’t waste the few words he did speak—but right now was one of those times, “It is a little unfair to spring this on you like we’re doing. I’m well aware that it’s a lot for you. Hizashi and I are well equipped to take care of everything. This is something we’ve thought and talked about for a while.”

Hitoshi still couldn’t look at him, words coming out as half-formed, breathless thoughts, “You—want—”

Even he didn’t know what he was trying to say.

Aizawa seemed to understand, though, without Hitoshi having to finish that sentence, “We want to take you in, yes.”

He looked over at Aizawa, finding that his expression had softened and Hitoshi swore he could almost see emotion in his face. He held Hitoshi’s gaze, never faltering and never looking the least bit hesitant. He wasn’t wearing the usual hard, stoic expression, instead looking different, concern so evident in his face that even Hitoshi couldn’t convince himself that it wasn’t there. Hitoshi didn’t breathe for a long moment, and when he found his words again, his voice had fallen to nothing more than a whisper.

“You really mean this.”

“I don’t say things I don’t mean.”

Hitoshi glanced down at the still steaming tea in the mug he held between his hands. Beside him, the cat’s paws kneaded at his thigh, her rumbling purr filling the space between them.

“You’d be my parent,” He murmured, half talking to himself and mostly just wanting to fill the silence so his thoughts wouldn’t. He almost wanted to take it back, hating how stupid his words sounded and how he was doing nothing more than stating the obvious. Of course he’d become his parent. Hitoshi didn’t have a lot of experience with it, but he knew that that was what adoption meant. Aizawa didn’t need that pointed out to him.

“I’m aware of that,” Aizawa didn’t chastise him for pointing out what he already knew, though. “You’re just as aware as I am that that’s already a role I’ve taken on with you.”

Hitoshi could hear his heartbeat in his ears again, and he was terrified Aizawa could, too.

Part of him didn’t think this was real still. The things he was hearing—they were things that Hitoshi had only ever wanted to hear and never thought Aizawa would tell him. He’d realized Aizawa had taken on a parental role with him, but he’d honestly thought that a lot of that was just Hitoshi himself hoping and interpreting his actions as that. Earlier today he’d said something similar—that Hitoshi needed more common sense if he truly thought that Aizawa was doing this because he thought he had to, and Hitoshi had wanted desperately to interpret that as an admission that he realized that Hitoshi saw him as a parent.

This, though—

When Aizawa said it bluntly, there was really no other way to take it.

When Hitoshi didn’t say anything, Aizawa did in his place, “Things aren’t going to change much.”

They were going to change. A lot. But Hitoshi knew what Aizawa meant by that. Things were going to change a lot, but maybe not much between them. That gave him some hope. Sitting here, talking about this, with the notion that he wasn’t going back to his foster home—it was terrifying because so much was going to change. He’d have to move here and get used to living here and having Aizawa as his parent, as well as Yamada, from the sounds of it. But the fact that not much would change in the relationship he had with Aizawa gave him hope, because he liked the way things were, and with everything else changing, it was comforting that at least one thing would stay the same.

Hitoshi didn’t say anything still and Aizawa kept quiet, too. The silence didn’t feel deafening, though. It was more natural, settling between them like a blanket and letting Hitoshi have a few moments to just think. He breathed a sigh, taking another long drink of the tea, the honey soothing over the itch that had risen in his throat. The cat had settled down on Hitoshi’s lap, warm and purring happily and he reached down and brushed his fingers through the long grey fur on her side, earning him another bout of kneading on his leg.

Somewhere, he found it in himself to smile, lips twitching upwards as he stared down at the content cat in his lap, allowing himself to relax as he sat back. He glanced at his phone, watching it, and soon enough, as he watched the minutes turn into a new hour, his alarm went off. The noise was quiet at first and rose and rose, filling the room until Hitoshi reached to turn it off. It didn’t surprise him, Hitoshi having watched his phone as it went off, having been expecting it since he’d initially realized earlier how close it was to curfew.

It only took a few more moments, and then his phone lit up again, displaying the name of his foster father calling him. He breathed out hard, cupping his hands around the mug tightly in order to stop himself from picking it up and answering it.

He kept his silence, and the moments felt long and horrible as he listened to his cell phone vibrating on the couch next to him. It felt like hours when it’d only been seconds.

“Let me answer it,” Aizawa’s voice drew him out of his dread-filled trace, and Hitoshi raised his head to him, seeing that Aizawa was completely serious. He tried not to let himself think, picking up his vibrating phone and holding it out to him.

               “Okay,” He breathed in agreement, and Aizawa made no hesitation in taking it from him and hitting the button to pick up the call, immediately rising from the couch as he did so, giving Hitoshi a quick, serious glance before he turned away.

What met Hitoshi’s ears was the sound of his foster father’s voice, loud enough that Hitoshi could hear it through the receiver. He looked down, unable to make out his words or anything other than the fact that he was mad and close to yelling, and he drew his legs a little closer to his body, petting the cat’s fur again in an attempt to calm himself. He could hear Aizawa’s footsteps and the noise of his foster father’s scolding getting quieter, and he was more than grateful that there hadn’t even been a question about Aizawa taking the phone call to a different room.

“Hitoshi is staying with me—” It was the last thing he heard before the closing of a door, cutting Aizawa off in the middle of his sentence. Hitoshi made no move to follow, having no desire to eavesdrop into that conversation like he had before. He leaned back on the couch, tilting his head up to stare at the ceiling, brushing his hands through the cat’s fur.

She was soft and that, along with her purring, her entire body rumbling with warm happiness, forced him to stay here, on the ground, instead of disappearing into the thoughts in his head. They threatened to burst from him, but he instead focused on the feeling of the soft fur under his fingertips and the feeling of the friendly cat kneading his thigh and occasionally rubbing her head against his arm.  

Vaguely, he could hear noise from the other room. He couldn’t make out any words and thankfully, it was just Aizawa’s voice he could hear. He sounded a bit louder than usual, just enough for Hitoshi to actually notice, and he could tell that his tone was firm and scolding, one that he rarely used with Hitoshi and a harsh one that Hitoshi had really only heard him use with misbehaving students. In any other situation, Hitoshi might’ve found it amusing that Aizawa was talking this way to someone who was probably older than him, but now, he was just worried.

He knew that Aizawa was an adult and he knew that Aizawa had decided to do this and was well aware of what it entailed, but that didn’t mean that Hitoshi was alright with him getting yelled at and having to face the brunt of his foster father’s anger on his behalf. It wasn’t like he was going to tell Aizawa anything he didn’t already know, given that Aizawa had read Hitoshi’s thick file and had access to his record, but Hitoshi knew how loud, insulting, and all around shitty his foster father could be, and he didn’t want anyone else to have to experience that.

It wasn’t like this was the first time Aizawa had talked to him, though. Aizawa didn’t talk much about his interactions with Hitoshi’s foster father, but he knew that he’d talked to him multiple times about Hitoshi moving into the dorms and from what Hitoshi could gather, they didn’t like each other. Aizawa seemed to try to keep Hitoshi out of it by not telling him much about his conversations, but his foster father didn’t give him the same courtesy and had pretty explicitly told him that he hated his teacher’s guts.

He knew that his foster father only saw him as a paycheck, and he’d known that for the entire two years he’d lived in that household. It didn’t matter anymore—when Hitoshi had been labelled as a problem due to his quirk early on, that was what most adults saw him as. He’d just gotten used to it. Besides that, the guy didn’t care about him. Hitoshi was, for the most part, entirely ignored at home, unless someone wanted to get him in trouble for something. He was secluded, supposed because that kept him out of trouble, and on a normal day where none of his siblings or parents had a reason to be angry at him, they acted like he didn’t exist. He did everything alone—having to eat, go to bed, and wake up separately from everyone because he’d been labelled as such a problem. Even his curfew was different. He knew better than anything that that man didn’t care about him unless he wanted something to take his frustrations out on, and that was fine. He’d gotten used to it.

He was a problem, and that was fine. He’d learned that no matter how much he tried to keep to himself and stay out of things, he always wound up being the scapegoat, anyways. It was easy, with the way his quirk had already put him on a lower level than everyone else. He still did his best to be quiet and follow the rules, but even he couldn’t deny that it got lonely in that house, being ignored unless someone was angry.

And now—the only reason that his foster father was even fighting about the dorm situation or this, as he assumed he was probably arguing with Aizawa, was just because he didn’t want to lose that paycheck. No one else had wanted Hitoshi, so the system had given this foster home a bit more incentive to keep him, resulting in Hitoshi having stayed there for two years. He supposed the stability had been nice and he’d always been afraid that if he moved any further away, that he wouldn’t be able to go to UA. Right now, he was being offered something so much better, and his foster father was only fighting about it because Hitoshi was just a paycheck in that house.

 It didn’t hurt anymore. It might’ve when he’d been younger, but it didn’t now. It was just the way things were, and the only thing that hurt about the conversation going on behind that closed door was that Aizawa had to experience his foster father’s anger on his behalf.

The cat purred loudly on his lap, rolling over and nearly knocking the mug from his hands as she stretched out her front paws, laying across him and staring up at him with happy green eyes.

“Hey, be careful,” Hitoshi told her quietly, giving her a scratch behind her ears. It put him a little more at ease to be talking, even if it was mostly to himself. It drown out the sound of Aizawa talking in the other room, letting Hitoshi stop worrying about the argument he assumed was happening in there. “I guess it’s good you like me, since I’m going to be living here. Or something. I’ve always kinda wanted a cat.”

She continued to purr on his lap, closing her eyes as he moved to scratch her chin.

“You seem pretty nice. I bet you like it here,” He kept talking, finding that having a distraction was helping more than he thought it would. Usually, he’d distract himself with his phone and read something or look at his homework, but Aizawa had taken his phone into the other room with him, leaving Hitoshi with the cat. He supposed he could get up and explore the house, but he was finally able to relax on the couch and he didn’t want to make himself even more nervous by looking around. So he just kept talking to the purring cat, trying to drown out the little that he could hear from the other room.

“You know, when I was younger I used to play with the cats outside the home I lived in,” He told her, not letting himself stop and think how odd talking to a cat was. If it helped, it helped, and that was all that mattered. “They were a bunch of strays, so they didn’t belong to me or anything, but they were fun to play with. When I moved away, sometimes I’d go back there and play with them, though I got in a lot of trouble for that a few times. I guess I wasn’t very good at following the rules back then. I just sort of did what I wanted.”

He smiled at the memory of it, feeling more nostalgic than upset at it. After the years of being in foster care, Hitoshi had learned to set aside most feelings of hurt associated with his history. He wondered if he’d someday be able to look back on his time in the most recent foster home like this, if he’d ever be able to laugh about it now that his time there had come to an extremely abrupt end.

“I hope I can stay here,” It was far easier to admit this to a cat than it was to his teacher or even to himself. The cat stared up at him with huge eyes, and then blinked slowly at him. “It seems pretty nice, you know? I can probably get used to Yamada and Sensei… well, he said he wants me here, right? If he wants me here and Yamada does, too, then it’s alright, isn’t it?”

He fell silent, realizing that he was mostly trying to convince himself that this was all alright, that he wasn’t imposing on his teacher and his… whatever Yamada was to him.

From the other room, he couldn’t hear anything, but that only lasted a few moments, before he heard Aizawa’s voice pick up again. He was ready to start talking to himself again, to fill the silence and distract himself, when the noise stopped suddenly and a moment later, Hitoshi heard the door open and then shut, not quite slamming shut, but the sound did echo through the house, startling the cat and making Hitoshi sit up straight. He didn’t say anything at first and neither did Aizawa, Hitoshi looking at him as he stood in the dining area, running a hand through his long hair before he glanced at Hitoshi, not saying a word.

“I’m sorry—” Hitoshi managed to say, voice coming out a little choked.

“Why?”

He couldn’t look away as Aizawa approached him, holding his phone out to him, Hitoshi taking it with shaking hands and watching as Aizawa sat on the other end of the couch, just as he had before, like nothing had happened. Hitoshi bit his lip again, working out his words, “I’m sorry you had to deal with him. I heard him yelling at you.”

“I’m more than capable of handling irate people like him,” Aizawa brushed his hair back from his face once more before leaning down, Hitoshi looking to see him feeling for the stack of papers he had next to the couch, picking up about half of the stack and leaning back, looking at Hitoshi one more time. “Try to relax and rest. I’m going to do some work. Hizashi will be back soon and make dinner. If your foster parents call or contact you, don’t respond. Unless I tell you to, I don’t want you to say a word to them. Understand?”

“Yes,” Hitoshi nodded, voice falling flat. That was easier to understand. He knew how to deal with orders and he was more than happy to follow what Aizawa told him. If he told him to not talk to them and specifically instructed him not to, then Hitoshi wouldn’t. He did everything he could to follow Aizawa’s orders and even though this was far more personal, this was no exception. He forced himself to relax again, to do what he’d been told.

Aizawa didn’t say anything more, and Hitoshi didn’t expect him to. He’d said what was necessary. For once, though, Hitoshi didn’t try to fill the quiet with words. As the silence settled, he was, for the first time that night, fine with it. There was the happy purring from the cat and the noise of Aizawa occasionally flipping pages or writing things down, and Hitoshi was fine with that.

Usually, back at home, the silence was crushing. Back in his foster home, it was never really silent with so many people living there, but it might as well have been, given that Hitoshi was treated like he didn’t exist. Here, though, even though he wasn’t being actively talked to, he knew he wasn’t being ignored. Aizawa being here was enough and having someone sit with him, even when they were both involved in their own things, was more than he usually got back at home.

It was odd to not be ignored, but Hitoshi felt warm as he sat there. Warm enough that the guilt of Aizawa having to deal with the anger of his foster father eventually passed and Hitoshi started feeling comfortable.

Comfortable enough that he reached into his bag and pulled out his beat up handheld game, choosing to play that instead of looking at his phone, not wanting to see if his foster parents were trying to contact him or not. He quickly buried himself into it, not even realizing that he’d been playing it for a while until Aizawa got up and turned on low music, the radio on a station Hitoshi quickly recognized as the one Yamada worked at. Quiet, low music filled the air, and Hitoshi’s mind started slowing even more, until all he could feel was the exhaustion that sat heavy in all his limbs.

He was tired of thinking. He could stop here, for the first time in what felt like years. He could stop and just—not think about anything. He let himself, struggling to keep his eyes open until he finally just gave in and closed his game, checking to make sure Aizawa wasn’t watching him before he leaned against the pillow on the end of the couch and let his eyes fall shut.

He honestly didn’t mean to fall asleep, meaning to just let his mind rest and listen to the low noise around him, but he slipped into sleep quickly, the nerves in his body relaxing enough that the feeling of security crept up on him, reminding him that he was safe here.

The thing that woke him up was the sound of a door opening and a gust of cold air, and the panic hit Hitoshi almost immediately.

He stiffened, his entire body going rigid in response. He didn’t move, didn’t even let himself breathe, heart feeling like it was about to stop beating entirely—

“I’m home!”

The joyous near-shout was met with a harsh shushing, and Hitoshi let out the breath he’d been holding slowly, still not daring to open his eyes or move.

He wasn’t at home. That voice belonged to Yamada Hizashi and the shushing belonged to Aizawa Shouta, and Hitoshi wasn’t even anywhere near his foster home. He was in Aizawa’s house, having dozed off on his couch, and he wasn’t about to be scolded or yelled at for falling asleep out here and not doing the chores assigned to him or slacking off. Aizawa had told him to rest earlier, when Hitoshi had said he was tired and then after he’d come back from talking on the phone to Hitoshi’s foster father.

The last thing he remembered was letting himself lay down against the end of the couch, still with the cat in his lap. Aizawa had been working not far from him. The cat was gone now and he felt oddly warm, but sure enough, Hitoshi felt someone getting up from the other end of the couch, and then footsteps he quickly identified as Aizawa’s.

“Oh—” That was Yamada again, his voice much lower now and barely above a whisper. “He’s sleeping.”

“Yes,” Aizawa’s voice was similarly low, and Hitoshi heard him come to a stop where he assumed Yamada was. “Don’t wake him up. As far as I can tell, he didn’t sleep much at his foster home. He needs all the rest he can get.”

“Right—you said he slept in a room with six other kids, right?” Yamada whistled quietly. “Damn, that’s a lot of kids. No wonder he didn’t get a lot of sleep. We can let him sleep until dinner’s done and then wake him up. He’s pretty scrawny, Shouta. Kinda like you in high school.”

Hitoshi was careful to keep his breathing even and not move much, not wanting them to know that he was actually awake. It wasn’t that he thought he’d get in trouble, but more that he wanted to listen to them talk without having them talking directly to him. It wasn’t stressful to listen in like this and part of him kind of liked the way they talked to each other. It was so calm and even affectionate, like they’d be around each other for so long that they were just used to each other by now. Hitoshi wasn’t used to that. His foster parents seemed to hate each other. Or, at least, they hardly spoke together unless it was yelling. It was similar in other households—if there were two adults in the house who were supposed to be parents, the relationship between them always felt and sounded strained.

“He’s a lot taller than I was in high school,” He heard Aizawa point out dryly.

“Yeah, well, you were tiny back then,” A soft laugh, and then Yamada’s voice dropped back to the quiet tone he’d had before. “Anyways, I didn’t know what the kid liked—is he picky like you? He looks and acts a lot like you, so I thought maybe he was.—so I just picked up a whole bunch of stuff I thought he might like. Oh, there’s jelly packets, too! You were running out of them, so I got you a few more boxes.”

He heard Aizawa hum and following the sound was the noise of someone looking through what Hitoshi assumed was plastic grocery bags. He’d been too initially panicked to even hear Yamada put them down in the first place.

Knowing that Aizawa and Yamada were both at least momentarily distracted, Hitoshi dared to half-open his eyes and shift around a little, finding out quickly that there was a blanket over him, which explained the odd warmth. He tilted his head up a little, and found that the small decorative pillow he’d been lying on had been replaced by a real pillow from a bed, and Hitoshi was stuck wondering how he hadn’t woken up. Following that was the realization that Aizawa had done this, had draped the blanket over him and given him a real pillow to lay on. His phone and tea mug were on the kotatsu in front of the couch, and Hitoshi noticed that his schoolbag had been tucked in the corner with Aizawa’s stack of papers.

He frowned; he must’ve been pretty deeply asleep to have not woken up during all that. It was unsettling, initially, to think that he’d just stayed asleep through all that, but moments later, the same feeling of safety from before set in, reminding him that that was fine here, that for once, he wasn’t in any danger of getting into trouble and Aizawa had been right—he didn’t sleep well at his foster home, partially because he knew he was never really safe and partially because it was always so crowded and noisy.

“As far as I know, he’s not picky,” Aizawa was saying, Hitoshi still hearing the sound of bags rustling. He shut his eyes again, pulling the blanket tighter around him so that he could bury his nose in it. “I haven’t asked him about it, but he seems to like anything at the cafe I take him to. Let’s see—ah, good, more honey. He’s got a bad cough, so that’s helpful.”

“I picked up cough medicine, too!”

“Keep your voice down,” Aizawa wasn’t scolding him and it instead sounded like a soft reminder. “We don’t want to wake him up, remember? Wait—Hizashi, what’s this? This isn’t food.”

There was a pause, and then a laugh, though it was clear that Yamada was trying to stay quiet, “I, uh—thought he might like it! You know, kids like to have a comfort object. Or, you probably don’t know that, actually. But it’s true, I promise!”

It was almost enough to make Hitoshi look up and reveal himself, but he stayed where he was, face half-hidden under the blanket, face burning as he wondered what they were talking about.

Though he was warm and comfortable, he honestly was starting to not feel well. It was no surprise—his infection seemed to feel worse at night than it did in the daytime. Back at his foster home, he’d been thrown out of the room a couple times for coughing too much and he’d been pretty sure he was running a fever a couple of those nights, not that he could do anything about it but try to rest and just wait it out. The itch in the back of his throat was back, and his body was starting to heat up a little, and not just out of the embarrassment he felt at being talked about. He was getting better, the medication helping with that, but it still got bad at night and right now, Hitoshi wanted to hide himself away and deal with it alone so no one else would have to know.

But he stayed where he was, continuing to listen in to the conversation.

He heard what he thought was a laugh from Aizawa, but he couldn’t be sure, having not heard it often and not being able to look at his face, “I’m sure he’ll like it.”

Another pause, and then Hitoshi heard Aizawa stand back up, Yamada’s voice falling even softer in response, “I’ll start dinner. You’re both probably hungry, right? Soup would probably be good for him…”

“Fine by me,” Their voices were growing more distant and he could hear footsteps accompanying them. Hitoshi opened his eyes again, tilting his head further up, hoping they weren’t paying attention to him anymore. Luckily, they weren’t, the room open so that Hitoshi could see the two of them in the kitchen together, standing close together. Aizawa was the first to speak again, voice carrying through the openness of their house, “The pastries on the counter are for you.”

Oh, right. He’d almost forgotten about going to the bakery with Aizawa. That felt so far away now and so long ago.

“Aw, Shouta, that’s so nice of you!”

And then, Hitoshi watched as Yamada leaned in, wrapped an arm around Aizawa’s waist, and pulled him in, pressing what was undeniably a kiss against him. That very quickly solved the mystery of whether the two of them just lived together or were actually dating. It made sense—they lived together, were on first name bases with each other, and Aizawa had referred to the master bedroom as ‘theirs’ a few times. Hitoshi just hadn’t really wanted to make assumptions and had been to nervous to even begin to work out how to ask.

“Shouta, are you gonna help me cook?”

“I’m going to try to.”

Hitoshi sunk back down, breathing out and lying his head back on the pillow. He shut his eyes again, listening to the noises that surrounded him. From the kitchen came the noise of pots banging and then another sharp hushing from Aizawa, followed by a whispered apology. There was the noise of things being brought out and set on the counter and Hitoshi almost felt like he was ready to drift back off to sleep when the conversation resumed.

“Here, Shouta, peel these,” That was Yamada, and he set something down on the counter presumably in front of Aizawa following his words. He heard a whistle from Yamada, a pause, and then the man’s voice dropped to a more serious tone, “Did you talk to his foster parents?”

“‘Talk’ is a strong word,” Close to Yamada, Aizawa sounded annoyed, and Hitoshi felt his heart drop with the same guilt from earlier. There was a hum from Aizawa and he continued on, still sounding irritated, “Hitoshi’s foster father is a little… insufferable. And selfish. The police might be coming by later.”

“Ah,” Yamada didn’t seem surprised at that. “Did he threaten to file a missing person’s report? Or report him as a runaway?”

               “Both, actually. He couldn’t seem to decide which one would cause more damage. If the police come, it should be easy to explain, especially since you filed the report.”

A beat of silence, and Hitoshi nearly jumped when he heard the noise of a knife on a cutting board coming down particularly hard, the sound bouncing off the walls and filling the room. He heard a hiss from Aizawa that he assumed was probably a curse of frustration.

“Woah, Shouta, be careful. Please don’t cut off your finger or something. You need those. Come here,” Footsteps, another hiss from Aizawa, and then water running. Hitoshi had gripped the blanket at the loud noise, and he just clenched it harder as he heard a wordless yell from Aizawa, quickly cut off.

“Hizashi, that water’s boiling,” His voice fell to a mumble, though it was really more of a growl. The running water nearly drown it out. “Stop that, I can wash the cut off myself!”

“Hey, hey, quiet. Kid’s trying to sleep,” Yamada chided at him, tone gentle enough that Hitoshi could almost imagine the smile on his face, despite hardly having met Yamada. His personality shone through in his words and voice, and Hitoshi supposed that there was a reason he was called the Voice Hero and had the most popular radio show on air. There were another few moments of the water running, a few more grumbled words from Aizawa that he couldn’t quite catch, and then Yamada spoke again, “Alright, go put a bandage on it. Can’t have you bleeding into my soup. Also, no more knife for you.”

“I can handle it.”

“Sorry, but your bleeding hand speaks louder than you do.”

More footsteps, heading into the room that Aizawa had taken the phone call from—a bathroom, Hitoshi recalled. The door opened and Hitoshi could hear the quiet, muffled creaking of a cabinet opening and then someone going through things in it. The noise died out quickly, leaving Hitoshi alone with the sounds of Yamada in the kitchen. The other man was quiet, not making much noise other than resuming the chopping that Hitoshi assumed Aizawa had been doing earlier. It stayed like that for a few long moments, before Hitoshi heard the bathroom door quietly shut.

“All better?” Yamada was still being quiet, though he called out to Aizawa. He heard a huff from the other side of the room, which he quickly decided was Aizawa. “Good. Now come here and measure things for me.”

Hitoshi wondered distantly if the conversation was going to drop off again. For a bit, it seemed like it, and Hitoshi was drifting too close to dozing off to really think about what either of them were saying. There were footsteps and moving around, instructions from Yamada and cooking questions from Aizawa, and Hitoshi truly thought that they were done talking about important things until Yamada finished cutting things and there was another long moment of silence, his voice uncharacteristically soft and almost—shaky as he talked.

“Shouta, I don’t want him to have to talk to the police.”

The room was mute except for the two of them and the low bubbling from the stove. He didn’t quite know what was going on and if they’d finished cooking for now or were just taking a break, but Aizawa’s tone matched his—quiet and full of emotion that Hitoshi wasn’t used to hearing from him, “Neither do I. It’d be best to avoid it, but having the police think we kidnapped him wouldn’t be very good. If they do come… I’ll try to make it so their conversation with him is short. If they could deal with us more, that’d be ideal. Besides… it shouldn’t be hard to clear things up…”

“You’re right,” There was a small sigh from Yamada. “I just—he seems like he’s gone through a lot. I don’t really want him to hurt more, you know?”

“He has been through a lot, and this is happening fast for him. Let’s deal with that if and when it happens. For now, we should just focus on making him feel welcomed.”

With that, the conversation did die off. There were a few more words, exchanged quips about mundane things that didn’t have to do with Hitoshi. Hitoshi let out a breath, releasing his tight grip on the blanket, shifting so that he was a little more comfortable, and let himself drift off once more.

He didn’t know how long he slept for this time. It couldn’t have been long, but he drifted off again, body feeling hot and heavy and his throat itching with the cough that threatened to erupt from him, and the next thing he knew, his name was being called and someone was shaking his shoulder. Luckily, there was no moment of confusion this time and Hitoshi knew exactly where he was the moment he came to, opening his eyes to find Aizawa crouched in front of him, at his level, staring at his with his dark, tired gaze.

Hitoshi rubbed at his eyes, not quite sitting up yet, words a little mumbled as he spoke, “...How long have I been asleep?”

“Two hours at the most,” Aizawa answered him, though he made no move to get up. He continued to stare at Hitoshi, and Hitoshi just rubbed at his eyes, waiting, waiting, waiting, until Aizawa finally said something, “I know you’re tired, but are you feeling up to talking to someone for a few minutes?”

Hitoshi knew immediately who it was. He remembered the conversation from before, how Aizawa had told Yamada about his conversation with Hitoshi’s foster father. Hitoshi hadn’t wanted to ask about it, since Aizawa seemed to want Hitoshi to stay out of it, but hearing that his foster father was threatening to either report them for kidnapping or report Hitoshi as missing was… concerning. He hated the thought of it, the thought of Aizawa and Yamada potentially getting in trouble for this.

There was an eerie silence in the room and as Aizawa continued to stare at him, Hitoshi stopped rubbing his eyes and hauled his aching body up, clenching his teeth at the uncomfortable, burning heat that coursed through him at the action. Sitting up wasn’t much better, because the moment he pushed himself up, he was met with a sight he’d never wanted to see.

He was still in Aizawa’s living room. The lights were still bright and the new scent of hot food filled the room, enough to make Hitoshi’s mouth water and his stomach growl. Aizawa was crouched down in front of the couch and standing in the entryway, looking as though they’d just come into the house, were two uniformed police officers. Yamada was near the kitchen, hair tied up and an apron over his clothes, his expression full of what Hitoshi could only interpret as worry.

Hitoshi tried to speak, but the second he opened his mouth, the itch in the back of his throat erupted and Hitoshi was forced to cup his hands over his mouth, coughing into them. His face burned both with the heat from the rest of his body and embarrassment, and no one said anything as he coughed, struggling to choke each movement back, breathing hard when he finally managed to stop, eyes watering a bit as he forced himself to look back at Aizawa.

“S—Sure,” He didn’t mean to sound unsure, but the coughing fit had left his voice hoarse. He’d be fine talking to them. If he could convince the police that everything was fine, then they’d leave Aizawa and Yamada alone. If anyone was going to get in trouble for this, Hitoshi wanted it to be him.

But Aizawa still didn’t get up. Instead, he narrowed his eyes at Hitoshi, studying him, Hitoshi holding his breath as Aizawa just looked at him, wondering if Aizawa had any idea how intimidating he looked right now, especially when he was asking Hitoshi to talk to two police officers. But Aizawa didn’t scold him or say anything, and instead, before Hitoshi could stop it, Aizawa had the back of his hand against Hitoshi’s forehead.

Hitoshi let out the breath he’d been holding, letting his eyes shut. Aizawa’s hand was cool against his head, a needed respite from the heat that coursed through his entire body, and he found himself even leaning into his touch.

“You have a fever,” Aizawa told him quietly, voice soft enough that Hitoshi could almost forget about the others in the room. “Are you sure you feel up to talking?”

“You said it’s just for a few minutes, right?” Hitoshi asked, half opening his eyes. Aizawa drew away from him slowly and Hitoshi leaned back on the couch. “I’ll be alright.”

“Yes. Afterwards, I’ll give you something for your fever. You probably don’t have much of an appetite, but Hizashi made dinner and eating would probably help,” Aizawa finally stood back up, glancing at the two police officers and speaking to them instead. “Please keep it short. Hitoshi isn’t feeling well.”

Hitoshi followed his gaze and to his surprise, neither of the officers looked particularly—upset. The first was a woman, the other a man, and the woman gave a smile to Aizawa, one that didn’t look like it held any malice at all, and the chipper, calm tone of her voice only served to further confuse Hitoshi, “Thank you, Eraser. We’ll try to be quick. If the two of you could leave for a few minutes, we’d appreciate it.”

Hitoshi said nothing and neither Aizawa nor Yamada argued, Yamada being as positive as ever as he encouraged Aizawa out the door, Hitoshi not missing the way Yamada cast a worried glance back at him. The front door shut again and Hitoshi was left with the two police officers, wondering when they’d gotten here and how he hadn’t woken up when they had. It was just like before, Aizawa having draped a blanket over him and pushed a pillow under his head, all without Hitoshi noticing. To make matters worse, he was still tired.

It was probably the infection, he decided. That, and he’d never really realized how utterly exhausted he was, mostly because he’d never been able to just stop and feel everything.

He turned his tired eyes to the two police officers, watching with a hard stare as the woman approached him, though she was smart enough to keep her distance from him. She was giving him the same smile that she’d given Aizawa, and Hitoshi couldn’t help but to ask himself if she was patronizing him. He decided to be the one to break the silence first, and asked her a blunt, straightforward question, “You think Aizawa-sensei kidnapped me, don’t you?”

She didn’t seem very surprised by it. Neither did her partner.

“We’re here to investigate a claim of that, yes,” She told him, still with that smile. Hitoshi breathed out, forcing himself to see her as friendly rather than threatening. He had to try to stay hopeful, even if his approach to everything his entire life had been to view everything negatively so that he wouldn’t be disappointed. “Why don’t you go ahead and tell us about what happened today? We can take action from there and help you.”

“Taking me away from Aizawa-sensei wouldn’t be helping me,” He said dryly, expression not changing. His throat was burning again, and he had to push the blanket off of him to help ward off some of the heat from his body. He immediately shivered, somehow cold without it on, despite the way his entire body was in flames. “Neither would arresting him and Yamada.”

“Currently there’s no plans to do either of those things,” The lead officer told him, smiling still. “You can call me Officer Katsuko, by the way. If you tell us what happened today, we’ll do everything we can to help you.”

“Fine,” Hitoshi honestly didn’t mean to be rude or anything, but his first instinct was to distrust anyone and everyone, especially people claiming to be able to help him. He only trusted Aizawa because he’d spent years idolizing him and Aizawa had built up even more trust with him after months of actually helping him and not letting him down. He was the outlier. With these two, though, his first reaction was to distrust them.

But—maybe she was telling the truth. Aizawa hadn’t kidnapped him or coerced him into coming here. It’d all been Hitoshi’s choice. At worst, Hitoshi would be told he was a runaway and he’d already decided that he was fine getting in trouble as long as Aizawa and Yamada didn’t.

“Aizawa-sensei trains me,” He told the two of them, looking the lead officer in the eyes. “It’s usually a few times a week. I live in a foster home that’s not the greatest, and Aizawa’s been helping me for the last few months. We were training today and then he took me to run errands with him. He always spends time with me after training—usually a few hours. He said he wanted to do a home visit or something. When he took me to the train station, I told him that I didn’t want to go back home and he offered to let me stay here. I came back here with him, met Yamada, and then I guess I fell asleep for a few hours. Now I’m talking to you.”

He said it all simply, not allowing any emotion into his voice. He dumbed down the events of the day, since he didn’t want to get into a lot of detail, and passed it off like it was all commonplace—because most of it was. Today had mostly been an average day that had only started deviating the second Aizawa had told him about doing a home visit to his foster family. And even after that, after being taken back here, it’d been calm, aside from Hitoshi’s own lingering anxiety. Aizawa hadn’t made a big deal out of anything and that had definitely made Hitoshi feel more comfortable here.

“Sensei didn’t push or anything,” He continued on, leaning his head back in an attempt to calm the burning in his face. “He told me it wouldn’t be a bother or anything and then once we got back here, he said that he didn’t want me to go back to my foster family, but he also said I didn’t have to stay here if I didn’t want to. So he’s not forcing me to stay here. He didn’t kidnap me or anything. I came here because I wanted to.”

Without even a pause, the male officer looked at his partner, “His story matches with both of theirs.”

Hitoshi let out a breath of relief.

“Yes, and Mic-san’s report seems to match, as well,” She commented to him before she turned back to Hitoshi. “How do you like it here?”

Hitoshi didn’t say anything for a moment, thinking over his response. He considered himself to be good with words, having worked on his language skills his entire life, but right now, he didn’t want to draw out his responses or even think too hard about them. He was tired and, like Aizawa had said, not feeling well. He just wanted this over with. So he didn’t let himself tell her in detail, instead simplifying the truth down to its barest bones.

“I like it,” He said, rubbing at his eyes again. “Yamada and Aizawa are nice. I’m glad I came here.”

Part of him wanted to beg and plead with her to not make him go back to his foster home and let him stay here, but he was trying to come off as mature and put together, and the last thing he wanted was these two thinking he was some child who could barely put his thoughts in order. So he shoved that part of himself down, forcing a mature, stoic front, only hoping that he got his point across.

“Good,” She still sounded chipper, even more so now than before. “Honestly, Shinsou-san, between the two of us, the report that Eraser and Mic-san kidnapped a child was very hard to believe and we suspected something else was going on. Can you tell us about your foster home? Eraser mentioned some bruising…”

Hitoshi didn’t respond again, glancing away from her. Again, the scent of homemade food met his nose and his fever burned at him, reminding him that Aizawa had told him that he’d give him something—medication, Hitoshi assumed—for his fever.

“With all due respect, I’m really not feeling well right now. I can tell you more about it on a different day, but to be completely honest with you, I’m tired and would really just like to go back to sleep,” He kept his tone solid, looking the woman in the eyes again. “I’d be happy to talk to you on a different day, but if that’s all you needed today, I’d like to go back to sleeping.”

The woman didn’t seem upset or shocked by his words, “Yes, of course. We’ll leave you to rest. Please feel better. Our department will contact Eraser to schedule a more formal interview with you about your foster home.”

He raised an eyebrow, “You’re letting me stay here?”

“Our job is to make sure that you’re not in danger,” The man offered, voice serious. “To us, it sounds like you’re out of danger here. There’s no reason to return you to a place that may not have been as safe when you’re here of your own volition and are being adequately cared for.”

The female officer nodded, agreeing with her partner’s words, “As I understand it, Eraser and Mic-san would like it if you stayed here and from what we can tell, they’re prepared to take you into their home. We’re going to investigate your foster home a little and there will be a more formal interview process, but for now, it seems like this is the best place for you. Do you want to stay here?”

There was no hesitation.

“Yes,” Hitoshi answered, breathing out the word and dropping his gaze to his lap. He didn’t say anything more, hoping that his admission would be enough, and the officers didn’t prompt for anything more.

“That’s all we needed then,” The woman’s voice picked up again, cheery and happy. “Please feel better, Shinsou-san. We’ll be in touch.”

“Sure,” He raised his head again, watching as she motioned to her partner. The two of them went to the front door, saying another goodbye to him, before they opened the front door, a cold gust hitting Hitoshi, both of them disappearing outside and leaving Hitoshi alone in the house.

Outside, he could hear a quiet murmuring that he assumed was the officers and Aizawa and Yamada talking, but he couldn’t make out the words. He considered, briefly, going to eavesdrop, but he didn’t move, tired both physically and emotionally from that conversation. He considered lying back down again, the only thing stopping him being Aizawa’s previous promise of food and a potential relief from his fever. Whatever Yamada had made smelled good and he did have an appetite, Hitoshi’s stomach growling as he waited.

He didn’t have to wait long, either. Soon enough, the front door opened again, Hitoshi basking in the cold air that hit him momentarily, and Yamada’s loud voice met his ears, not missing a single beat.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

He sounded genuinely happy, the grin on his face looking real even as the man shivered, and despite himself, Hitoshi found it a little amusing that Yamada hadn’t thought to put on a coat. He shook his head, not saying anything, glancing from Yamada to Aizawa, who had thought to put on a coat and was currently shrugging it off and hanging it up.

“I guess not,” Hitoshi murmured, watching the two of them, Yamada crossing his arms over his body in what was probably an attempt to warm himself up. Hitoshi raised his head a little, focusing on Aizawa. Yamada was a nice guy, but Hitoshi felt more comfortable talking to Aizawa, having known him longer, long enough that Hitoshi had unwittingly put a lot of trust into him. “They’re letting me stay here.”

“I didn’t doubt they would,” Aizawa shut the door to the closet, giving him a glance. “There’s no reason for them not to let you stay. You didn’t do anything wrong and you’re safe here. It was a misunderstanding that was easy to clear up. You did well.”

Hitoshi kept his mouth shut, the praise unexpected. He watched as Aizawa made his way to the kitchen, sitting still and refusing to let himself look away. Aizawa didn’t glance at him and Hitoshi watched him move around, reaching into a cabinet and getting down what looked like a bottle of medication. Only then did Aizawa look at him again, beckoning him over, “Come here and bring me the antibiotic you were given. You have it with you, right?”

Hitoshi scrambled to do as he was told, ignoring the burning and aching of his body. It was his first time getting up and walking around since he’d eavesdropped on Aizawa, and he pushed down the nerves again, instead focusing on doing as he was told. He quickly went to his bag, where Aizawa had put it next to his work, and dug out the bottle of medication the doctors had given him at the clinic Aizawa had sent him to. He heard a laugh from Yamada and his face went even hotter, but he managed to force himself towards the kitchen, stepping into unfamiliar territory as soon as he passed Yamada in the entryway.

Being on this side of the room was a little different. He could see the kitchen clearly, noticing how oddly clean it was. It was still clearly used, with a sink full of dishes and a few things left out on the counter, but the counters and appliances were clean, free of dirt and grime. On the stove was a large pot, and Hitoshi assumed that that was whatever food Yamada and Aizawa had made. He stopped at the edge of the kitchen, toes just barely brushing against the place where the tile met the carpet, and took a deep breath.

With that, Hitoshi crossed into the kitchen, Aizawa watching him with dark eyes as he did. Hitoshi felt warmer than ever now, wobbling on his feet a little as he stopped in front of where Aizawa was, having to lean on the counter heavily to stand up properly. He glanced at what Aizawa had, looking at the bottle of pills he hand, reading the label as some fever reducer. Somewhere out in the rest of the room, he heard Yamada moving around, but he didn’t care to glance and see what he was doing. He was too focused on Aizawa and what was happening with him.

“This should help your fever,” Aizawa was holding out pills to him and Hitoshi stared at what he was being offered, gaze drifting to the counter where there was a full-looking cup waiting. His grip tightened on the bottle in his hands and instinctively, he shut his mouth. He wasn’t going to say no, though, he’d just had—bad experiences with being given medication in the past. Logically, he knew Aizawa wasn’t going to force it down his throat, but the memories were still there. If Aizawa noticed, though, he didn’t say anything about it, going on in that unaffected, suddenly calming tone of his, “You can take it with your antibiotic and then eat. You should get more rest, since tomorrow I’m going to do that home visit and—”

“Okay—” Hitoshi breathed, unintentionally cutting him off. As soon as he realized what he’d done, he looked away, choosing to stare at the counter, feeling slightly ashamed for interrupting. The idea of the home visit still sat heavy with him, and while he remembered that Aizawa had earlier said that no matter what, he’d come back with him, Hitoshi still felt a lingering anxiety that if he saw nothing bad, he’d be alright with leaving Hitoshi there. His foster parents had a good way of acting better when there were people around.

He shook the thought from his head, instead taking what Aizawa was offering him, pausing to measure out the medication he’d been prescribed, as well. Aizawa stayed silent, only pushing the glass at him when Hitoshi was done, Hitoshi looking and seeing what he thought was juice inside. Not questioning it, he dropped the pills into his mouth, preparing to swallow them—only to gag and nearly spit them out the second the liquid touched his mouth.

He forced himself to swallow the medication, though he came up wide eyed and staring at the liquid in the cup, before raising his eyes to Aizawa, coughing from the disgusting taste of whatever the hell he’d given him to drink.

“—What is this?!” He managed to sputter out, pointing at the remaining liquid in the cup. It’d been bitter and pretty revolting, distantly tasting like juice. It was enough to get him to break through the nervousness and worry that’d returned, and he gave Aizawa an incrediculous expression.

“There’s cough syrup mixed in,” He said simply, leaning over and looking at the liquid with slightly narrowed eyes. “I assumed you’d notice, but I didn’t think it’d be that bad.”

“It’s gross!” His voice was louder than he’d meant it to be, but instead of getting scolded, he heard another laugh from the living room. He managed a pout, puffing out his cheeks and sticking his bottom lip out.

“You don’t have to take it.”

“I’m not a kid; I can drink cough syrup by itself,” Hitoshi insisted, and only deepened his pout when he watched Aizawa lean back, the corners of his lips twitching up into a rare smile. Despite the fact that he’d just unknowingly drank disgusting cough syrup, this felt scarily normal, and somewhere, spurred on by Aizawa’s expression and the laugh Yamada had given him, Hitoshi was fine with continuing to act completely offended by this.

               “It would taste even worse by itself. Why do that when you can mix it with something?” Aizawa countered, looking oddly amused. “That sounds pretty irrational to me.”

Another laugh from the living room, Hitoshi angling his head to see Yamada sitting on the floor, the same grey cat from before sprawled across his lap. He shot Hitoshi a wink, “Shouta even mixes stuff into his alcohol. This is his philosophy on everything.”

And then, Hitoshi found it in himself to smile, too, pushing the fact that he’d just had to talk to the police to the back of his mind. Even through the idea of a home visit, the feeling of being safe here settled over him heavily, and he sighed, letting his body relax.

He ended up giving in, forcing the rest of the cough syrup down after Aizawa insisted that it would help, even if it tasted revolting. Hitoshi supposed that he was right—it didn’t taste as bad mixed in with actual juice and once he got used to it, forcing it down wasn’t the most difficult thing in the world.

Things got easier, after that, if only a little. Easy enough that Hitoshi was able to calmly sit at the dining table when Aizawa urged him to and easy enough that he listened to Aizawa and Yamada finish dinner and then easy enough that Hitoshi was able to push away his anxiety when they actually sat down to eat with him.

In reality, he wasn’t used to any of this. Things at home were more frantic than this, the house always loud and busy and still somehow, Hitoshi felt nothing but a distant loneliness when he was there. He was a problem child—and no one wanted to do anything with him. He even usually ate alone and he was so used to sitting down and shutting up and being treated like he didn’t exist that it was weird to sit down and actually have a meal with other people.

He was lucky, though, because Yamada seemed determined to not let there be silence between the three of them. As soon as Hitoshi sat down, Yamada started talking and asking questions and even though the voice hero had a lot to say, Hitoshi didn’t mind listening to him.

“—Hitoshi-san, what kind of food do you like?” Was what Yamada started off with, setting down a bowl of hot, homemade soup in front of him, Hitoshi just staring up at him as he continued talking. “Shouta’s really picky, so he doesn’t eat a lot of foods, and it’s usually unhealthy stuff—”

“I eat just fine,” Hitoshi heard Aizawa interject from where he was also sitting at the table, a sea of papers spread out before him.

“I’m not picky,” Hitoshi told Yamada, raising his head back to him after giving Aizawa a long look, trying to hide his own amusement. That seemed to delight Yamada, because the man immediately launched into a spiel about cooking and how he had an excuse to try out new things now. Hitoshi just listened, not quite feeling comfortable enough to fully engage, only nodding along and occasionally making a comment or answering a question. Yamada didn’t appear to mind at all, though, carrying on, Hitoshi listening to every word he said, as well as every interjection from Aizawa.

The food was good, too. There was usually food at his foster home, as opposed to some places he’d been, but anything homecooked was a rarity usually reserved for when his foster parents were trying to show off for someone. This felt so casual, like it was a normal thing here, and having homemade dinner with two people who actually paid attention to him wasn’t something he was used to, but it definitely wasn’t unwelcomed.

As the minutes passed, Hitoshi started feeling a little better physically, as well, the itch in his throat all but fading out and the burning in his body finally cooling. Drowsiness took its place, but he’d been expecting it, given what he’d taken. By the time he’d finished the food that’d been given to him, he was fighting to keep his eyes open, trying to stay awake long enough to move back to the couch.

Aizawa was the one who said anything, Hitoshi leaning forward, eyes half-shut as he tried to listen to Yamada, Aizawa cutting in during a moment where Yamada paused, “If you’re feeling tired, it might be best to rest in your room.”

Aizawa drew Hitoshi’s attention away from Yamada. He was looking at Hitoshi from over his papers, which Hitoshi quickly recognized as grading. Hitoshi dropped his gaze, barely fighting back a yawn, slowly processing what he’d just said.

His room.

Hitoshi couldn’t even begin to deal with that right now. He hadn’t had his own room in a long time and… he sort of didn’t want to be alone right now, the simple idea of wandering into the other parts of the house sounding anxiety-inducing. He just wanted to stay out here, where at least he knew it was safe, and he didn’t want to fall asleep again, guilt resting heavy in him because he’d hardly done anything here besides sleep.

“I like it out here,” He mumbled, staring down at his empty bowl. “—I sort of feel like all I’ve done is sleep…”

“You’re sick. You need rest. If you feel more comfortable out here, then it’s fine if you want to stay out here.”

Aizawa was always so blunt about things. He was logical to the point that Hitoshi often found himself unable to argue with him because Aizawa had a way of making himself clear enough that Hitoshi could see his points. He raised his head again, looking back at his teacher, only to watch Aizawa drop the pen he’d been grading with, straighten his papers, and get up from the table.

“Go lay back down. Hizashi can keep you company while I clean up.”

Hitoshi didn’t argue, rubbing at his eyes with the palm of his hand, leaning heavily on the table as he got up and shuffled his way back to the couch. Sitting down again felt nice and Hitoshi sunk back, closing his eyes and breathing out. He’d pulled the blanket over himself and somewhere, he heard Yamada following him and the jingling of a cat’s collar. The sounds of Aizawa cleaning up met his ears and he knew he should’ve offered to help, but it was hard enough to keep his eyes open and Hitoshi honestly didn’t feel like he could focus enough to properly help and not just get in the way.

He didn’t have to think too long, though, because before Hitoshi could get lost in his own head, Yamada was talking to him, bringing him back down to the ground just as Hitoshi heard Aizawa start washing the dishes.

“Hitoshi-san, have you met this one yet?”

Curiosity killed the cat and Hitoshi opened his droopy eyes to see Yamada standing in front of him, grinning wide and holding a struggling, squirming black and white, almost kitten-looking cat.

               “Is...Is that the young one?” He asked, still leaning his head back, though he didn’t let his eyes fall shut again. Almost instinctively, he raised his arms, holding his hands out, and Yamada only smiled more as he came forward and helped Hitoshi take the squirming, chittering cat from him.

“No, no, this is our oldest! She’s… fifteen, I think. She’s a rescue! So are the others, but we got her a couple years ago!” Yamada explained to him, voice picking up with excitement. Hitoshi pulled the cat close to him, hearing her chirp at him and she squirmed around on his lap, able to move around a bit since Hitoshi wasn’t holding her very tightly. “Her name—it’s, uh… Her name is Blanket. Shouta named her. I stopped letting him name our cats after Jelly.”

He’d heard the same thing earlier when Aizawa had introduced him to the first cat. Blanket chirped again and Hitoshi let up, the cat immediately jumping off of his lap. She didn’t go far, though, leaping onto the couch, only to flop onto her back and bat at the sleeve of Hitoshi’s shirt.

“What an odd name…” Hitoshi commented, reaching out to rub her belly, thinking that was what she wanted with the way she’d rolled onto her back, only for her to reach out with her front paws, claws outstretched, and catch his hand, sharp claws digging into his skin as he grimaced at the stinging pain. It wasn’t hard enough to draw blood, but it definitely did hurt.

“Shouta names his cats after the first thing he thinks of,” Yamada frowned at Hitoshi getting his hand caught, leaning down and gently pushing the cat’s paws away from his hand, Hitoshi having been too slow to do so himself. Yamada was a lot closer now, and Hitoshi felt a little strange being so near him, but Yamada only flashed him a more gentle smile, “Blanket was pretty sick when she came home—like you!—so Shouta had her wrapped in a blanket for a while because that was the only thing that calmed her. I guess Shouta thought that would be a good thing to call her. She’s usually pretty lazy but it looks like she likes you enough to try to play!”

Hitoshi looked from the cat to Yamada again, not saying anything at first. In the kitchen, he could still hear the water running. His mind was running slowly, his thoughts never quite fully formed, but his fever had died down enough that Hitoshi no longer felt hot and ill. He was fine like this, even if he didn’t quite know how to respond to Yamada.

Yamada didn’t seem to be expecting a response, though, because he sat next to Hitoshi, where Aizawa had been earlier, focusing on him as he continued on, letting Hitoshi relax back as he talked, “You know, you look an awful lot like Shouta. I mean—you’re clearly not actually related to him, but the faces you make are pretty similar. You kinda talk like him, too.”

“Do I really?” He murmured, hardly even thinking about the words that came out of his mouth.

“Yeah!” Yamada’s voice rose in volume and then fell back almost instantly, Yamada laughing quietly.“You remind me a lot of him—especially when he was younger. He was a lot shorter than you, but other than that, pretty similar. Hey, wanna see?”

That interested him. He’d always been curious about Aizawa, his curiosity only growing in the past few months. He’d always wondered what kind of person Eraserhead was and when he’d found out that Aizawa was actually the heroic, honest guy Hitoshi had always imagined him to be, he’d just gotten more and more curious about Aizawa—to the point where he’d often found himself wondering how Aizawa thought and what his life was like, both now and in the past, so Yamada offering to show him what Aizawa looked like back in high school immediately got his attention.

“Sure,” Hitoshi agreed simply, Yamada nodding, grinning and getting up from the couch. Hitoshi watched him, eyes following him as he went to the bookcase pushed up against the opposite wall, pausing and crossing his arms before crouching down, pulling what looked like one of many thick photo albums from the bottom shelf. He paused again before bringing it over.

“Oh, I have something else for you. Hang on,” He pushed the book at Hitoshi and Hitoshi automatically took it, holding the thick photo book in his hands, staring down at it and not even thinking to open it yet. Drowsiness dragged at him, but he was too curious to tell Yamada that he just wanted to rest. He heard the sounds of a plastic bag being rustled, just as the water stopped running from the kitchen, Hitoshi looking to see Aizawa leaning on the counter, clearly watching them.

Hitoshi definitely wasn’t expecting it when Yamada returned to him with what looked like a stuffed cat. It wasn’t like he hadn’t remembered Yamada’s conversation with Aizawa earlier, from before he’d talked to the police, but he’d shoved that part into the back of his mind in favor of worrying about a police visit instead. This—it hadn’t been what he was expecting, but Hitoshi couldn’t deny that he had the urge to take it from Yamada and hide it away like he did with everything else he kept close to him.

Being in foster care meant having only a few possessions. No one in the system had a lot of things, but Hitoshi had even less, given that he’d been moved around a lot. It wasn’t anything that he felt disappointment at—rationally, not having a lot of things was better. Keeping stuff was a bad idea. Things got stolen. They got intentionally broken. They got lost and taken away. It was better to just save the disappointment.

Hitoshi’s possessions consisted of a few pieces of clothing, his school bag, his old handheld game system, and a locked box that he kept objects that held some value to him, usually photographs and little things. He’d never had a comfort object. He hadn’t had one when he’d entered foster care like most kids did and after that, he’d learned to shut himself off and do everything he could to not be jealous of or pay attention to the others, knowing that his circumstances were wildly different and he’d be in the system until he aged out of it.

“Why—?” Was all he could ask, not quite understanding. It didn’t make sense. He was fifteen years old and—honestly he’d thought he was a little old to have things like this. It didn’t mean that he didn’t want it; it was just the way he’d gotten himself to not be jealous of the other kids in foster care, the way he’d learned to put his feelings aside—by separating himself from everyone else and thinking of himself as someone who was fundamentally different than all the other kids.

Yamada didn’t miss a beat, giving Hitoshi that same gentle smile from before, “Think of it like… a welcome gift. Shouta said you don’t have much back at your old home and when I was a kid, I really liked stuffed animals. I still have a bunch of mine! They’re in one of the closets upstairs. I’ll show them to you sometime. But things like this are good to have, trust me!”

Yamada didn’t wait, instead softly placing the toy in his lap, Hitoshi staring down at it for a long moment. It wasn’t big, maybe the size of the real cat still trying to play with his shirt beside him. It did look soft, though, with black fur and dark eyes, and Hitoshi could feel both Aizawa and Yamada looking at him as he brushed a hand through the soft material that made its synthetic fur.

“Thanks,” He murmured, quiet even though he genuinely was appreciative. He was still trying to act mature, trying to not let himself be childish, even with the way the medication from before was making his mind slower. He was terrified that if he acted too excited, he’d somehow ruin things. He looked to the side, where he could still see Aizawa leaning on the counter, arms crossed on the surface, watching, and then raised his head to Yamada, forcing the moment to pass, “You said you’d show me pictures…?”

“Right!” Yamada chirped, not even hesitating to take his seat next to Hitoshi again, the cat jumping out of his way as he sat closer, pulling the photo book over both their laps. Hitoshi let him, too tired to be shocked or anxious about being so close to someone else, and it was easy enough to lose himself in what Yamada was saying, rather than to disappear into his own thoughts, “Shouta and I went to highschool together—”

“You’re showing him high school pictures? How embarrassing.”

Hitoshi didn’t look up at Aizawa, too engrossed in the photos before him. Yamada had opened the book and Hitoshi immediately recognized both Yamada and Aizawa, a page full of photos of the two of them meeting his eyes. They looked different, though only in that they were younger, and Hitoshi stared at the younger version of his teacher, looking similar to how he did now, yet different. It was jarring and Hitoshi wanted to keep looking, wanted to see what Aizawa had been like before he’d been a hero.

“Hush, Shouta,” Even like this, Hitoshi could tell that Yamada’s voice was nothing but playful, and the man was all too excited to turn back to Hitoshi, Hitoshi listening to every word he said as he pointed to pictures, explaining with a fast, happy voice, “I’m sure Shouta’s told you the story of how he transferred classes! I guess you’ll be just like him, right? Here’s when he first transferred into my class…”

Hitoshi didn’t quite recall lying down, nor did he remember at what point he’d chosen to close his eyes and fall asleep. Drowsiness had overtaken him and he’d listened to Yamada’s stories, something drifting to where Aizawa had sat on the floor across from them, surprising Hitoshi by abandoning his grading to play with one of the cats as Yamada told him stories. At some point, though, Hitoshi fell asleep and then woke up once more long after, opening his eyes to find the room fairly dark, the only light coming from the kitchen.

He fully expected to just go back to sleep—or at least try to. He was still tired, his body just used to waking up multiple times at night. His head was oddly quiet and he knew where he was, knew he was in Aizawa’s house, lying on the couch in the living room, a blanket covering him and a pillow under his head. He was sure Aizawa and Yamada had gone to bed long ago, after Hitoshi had fallen asleep.

The thing that kept him up a little longer, though, was when he realized he wasn’t alone.

It was the breathing he heard, realizing that it’d been part of the quiet noise of the room, close enough that it made Hitoshi’s eyes widen a little. He raised his head a little, rolling onto his back rather than his side, and looked up to see that he definitely wasn’t alone, because Aizawa was sharing the couch with him, sitting mostly upright with his feet tucked under him, resting his cheek on his hand, clearing fast asleep.

This was far from the first time he’d seen Aizawa asleep in an odd place or position. He knew Aizawa had some sort of sleep disorder that made him unnaturally tired during the day—which, Hitoshi supposed, was part of the reason he did hero work at night—and Hitoshi had seen him dozing off more than once at the cat cafe Aizawa usually took him to, almost always in a similar position that he was in now.

Hitoshi’s head was clear enough that he could figure out that Aizawa had accidentally fallen asleep out here, given that he looked similar to when he unintentionally dozed off when he spent time with Hitoshi after training. After everything Aizawa had done for him today, the least Hitoshi could do was wake him up so he could actually sleep in his room, rather than out here with him. Even if Hitoshi didn’t like being alone, there was no reason for Aizawa to sleep in the living room.

Hitoshi sat up more, pulling himself up with only a little difficulty, most of the achiness having left his body. He hesitated, not sure if touching Aizawa was allowed, even if it was just on his shoulder. He wasn’t used to touching people at all and the idea was still odd to him, so he opted for the more logical route and used his voice.

“Hey, Sensei.”

It didn’t take anything more than that. He sat back, hearing Aizawa’s breath hitch. There was a beat, a beat of silence, before Aizawa raised his head, messy black hair falling over his face, and half-opened his eyes at Hitoshi. This wasn’t the first time he’d woken his teacher up, either, and the way Aizawa always gave him a bleary-eyed look usually amused him a little.

Hitoshi cocked his head at him, keeping his voice quiet, not wanting to wake the other person in the house, “You fell asleep.”

Aizawa didn’t immediately respond, and Hitoshi didn’t expect him to. Aizawa always seemed to take a few moments to fully wake up after his sleep was interrupted. He rubbed at his eyes, but didn’t get up, hardly even moving around. Hitoshi waited, having all the patience in the world when it came to Aizawa, and Aizawa yawned, finally speaking in a similarly low voice, “I intended to.”

Hitoshi stopped, staring at Aizawa, feeling his lips twitch into a confused frown. He’d assumed that Aizawa falling asleep on the couch was unintentional, just like all those times he’d fallen asleep at their table at the cat cafe, hunched over and like he’d just closed his eyes and then nodded off. He hadn’t really considered that Aizawa had meant to doze off out here.

“You meant to fall asleep?” Hitoshi asked, wanting to hear it verbally before he made any more assumptions. It didn’t really make sense—Aizawa obviously had a room and a bed and from looking around before, Hitoshi had seen that the door to the master bedroom had even been left open, so he wouldn’t have been completely alone.

“I figured it might be best to keep you company in case you were to wake up,” Aizawa leaned his head on his hand again, arm resting on the end of the couch. “Like you did.”

“Oh,” Was all Hitoshi could see, still looking at his teacher. He would’ve been fine out here, especially if they’d left the door to the master bedroom open, but—he couldn’t deny that it was better to not be alone at all. He could imagine his thoughts starting to circle and get louder if he was alone, but with Aizawa here… it was different. He didn’t know what it was, but something about not being alone made things a lot more comforting.

“I didn’t get to say this before, but…” Hitoshi was saying things before he could stop himself, and when he realized what was coming out of his mouth, he made no attempt to. It was what he’d been thinking and feeling since the moment he’d stepped into this house. “…Thanks for this. It’s a lot and everything’s happening fast, but I’d like to stay here and…”

He closed his eyes.

“…I’m not taking this for granted.”

Hitoshi had learned during his life to not take the few nice things that came his way for granted. He knew how to appreciate and savor them, mostly because he never knew when another good thing was set to come his way. Fate was a funny thing, a thing that never seemed to like Hitoshi much, and he’d found that not expecting things and trying to work hard for what he desired was the only way to get through things.

He’d never expected this. This had been a thing that he only imagined when things were really hard, when one of his foster parents or his older foster sibling got physical with him, when the loneliness got to be too much, or when Hitoshi would sit back and force himself to watch everyone else with real, functional families. He’d never dared to ask for this, never even fully told Aizawa what happened at home. He’d figured it out on his own, from the things Hitoshi let slip, among other things. It still didn’t feel quite real, but Hitoshi didn’t want this to go away.

As fast and confusing as this was, he wanted this.

“I know you aren’t,” He could feel Aizawa’s gaze on him, softer than it usually was. “Focus on getting more comfortable here. When I told you I’d take care of things, I meant it. You’re still nervous, but no one’s going to make you go anywhere, especially back to your foster parents.”

He’d decided that he was going to trust Aizawa earlier. As much as his instincts told him not to, Hitoshi breathed out and nodded, believing in every word he heard.

“And tomorrow…?” Hitoshi opened his eyes again.

“I still plan on doing a home visit,” Aizawa told him, raising an eyebrow at him. “You don’t have to come with me if you’re not feeling up to it. You being there isn’t required.”

“No,” Hitoshi said immediately, looking down at his lap. “I’ll come with.”

“You can change your mind.”

“It’s alright,” Hitoshi said, sighing and laying back again, resting his head against the pillow. Pushed under it was the plush toy Yamada had given him earlier, Hitoshi slipping a hand under the pillow to brush against it, hoping that Aizawa didn’t catch him. “You said it doesn’t matter what the outcome is, right? Earlier you said that I can still come back here. So it’s fine.”

“Yes, but putting your emotional health in jeopardy just so I can move your case along faster isn’t something I want,” Aizawa’s voice was a little stronger, a little more solid, and Hitoshi understood that this was more of an instruction than anything. He pulled the blanket up further, letting his eyes fall shut, listening to Aizawa talk to him, “If you change your mind at any point about going, let me know.”

“I will,” Hitoshi told him quietly, already settling back into trying to sleep again.  

A moment later, he felt something on the blanket, near his feet, patting around, and he realized that Aizawa was trying to give him some comfort. His hand eventually found him, settling, warm and heavy on his leg, and Hitoshi tried to fight the way his lips threatened to curl into a smile.

Chapter Text

“It’s dark…”

Hitoshi stood on the wooden, mostly bare train platform, looking up at the quickly darkening sky, pulling his scarf tighter around his neck. The cold air hit his nose and he gave a small cough into his gloved fist before tilting his head back up, lips parted as he stared at the sky. Out here, it was easier to see the stars starting to shine in the sky and as a consequence, the dark here was a lot different than the dark in the city, even if it was just starting to fall. There was no light pollution to highlight the horizon and cover the stars and Hitoshi knew well that if they didn’t get moving soon, they’d be walking in complete darkness, given that half the rural town’s street lights were out.

“It’s winter. It gets dark early.”

Hitoshi looked behind him, turning slightly, eyes focusing on Aizawa, dressed in a heavy jacket, with a bag slung over his arm, Hitoshi knowing that he at least had a notepad and a recorder with him. Aizawa finished sorting out their tickets, having offered to hold onto Hitoshi’s, shoving them into the pocket of his coat before giving Hitoshi a nod, sounding no different from how he usually did.

“Which way to your foster home?”

Hitoshi was a little hesitant to leave the platform. While he’d gotten used to the commute back home, he’d always hated leaving the train station, since it meant making the journey back home. At least when he was riding on the train, he could read or work on schoolwork, but after he stepped out of the station and started walking the familiar path back to the crowded house, he had nothing but his own thoughts and while Hitoshi had the ability to get into anyone’s head with a few clever words, being in his own mind was frustrating and tiring.

Even now, he was forcing himself to remember that he wasn’t alone this time, and that he’d be coming back to the train station, also not alone. He’d been doing this for so long that his immediate feeling, standing on this platform with Aizawa, was nothing but horrible dread that sat heavy against his stomach.

“That way,” Hitoshi nodded to his left. The train station was old and wooden and didn’t have much shelter, and Hitoshi could see the low lights from the string of houses lining the street the station was on. They were spaced out, the small town surrounded by farms and open space, the collection of households and streets and the rare business hardly enough to even be called a town. He took a sharp breath, and made himself look at Aizawa again, if only to remind himself that he wasn’t alone, “They know we’re—that you’re—coming, right?”

“I called and told them,” Aizawa answered him, not wasting any more time, passing Hitoshi quickly, Hitoshi instantly following at his heels, knowing that he should be the one leading, since he was the one who knew the way. He didn’t, though, feeling far safer following behind Aizawa like he usually did. He didn’t want to be the one leading him around. “Your foster parents seem to realize that it’s not smart to turn me away with everything else going on and that doing so would only make them more suspicious.”

“Right,” Hitoshi could understand that much. They’d always wanted to prevent outside trouble and there was no doubt that that was exactly what Aizawa was causing for them right now. They’d always been good at cleaning up a little and putting on a slightly better appearance, so they more likely than not saw this as a way to clear their name—and potentially get their paycheck back.

Hitoshi didn’t know if Aizawa had told them whether or not Hitoshi would be staying. He didn’t exactly want to ask out of fear of what the answer was.

“The house is, uh—” Hitoshi fought to fill the silence, the cold air of the dark town bothering him and only deepening his anxiety as the two of them made their way to the wooden steps that led down to the street. Hitoshi followed in Aizawa’s footsteps, trying to fill the enormous open space with his words, “—Well, it’s pretty crowded. And it’s usually pretty cluttered and dirty. They probably cleaned up a little, though. It’s just… nothing like your house.”

“My house is a certain way because it’s the opposite of what I was used to at your age,” Aizawa commented, not even looking back at him as they hit the bottom step, Hitoshi’s shoes thumping against the concrete pavement. He stopped for a moment, glancing in the direction Hitoshi had indicated earlier, before starting down the street, Hitoshi keeping pace with him.

There was a lot in Hitoshi’s head right now. His frantic thoughts had started the moment he’d gotten on the train with Aizawa back in the city. It was a lot. Too much. But he’d deal with it, reminding himself that this would be over and according to Aizawa, he could still back out.

The morning had gone well. Or, the afternoon had, because Aizawa and Yamada had let Hitoshi sleep in until early afternoon, when Hitoshi had gotten himself up. Aizawa had spent the night on the couch with him, Hitoshi waking up a couple more times to find him still there, asleep sitting up like he had been previously. Hitoshi had felt better upon waking up, feeling significantly healthier than he had since he’d caught this infection in the first place. Getting actually restful sleep had been nice, and Yamada’s cooking was ten times better than the stuff he usually ate, and the man was basically pushing lunch at him the moment Hitoshi had woken up.

There’d been a couple odd things—Hitoshi’s disconnected phone being one of them, as well as the conversation Aizawa had had on the phone with the police shortly before coming here, though he’d taken that to a different room, so Hitoshi had no idea what it was about.  

The sky was gradually growing darker overhead, Hitoshi looking up again to see that more stars had appeared, decorating the darkness that hung over them. There were a few streetlamps, a couple of them flickering as Hitoshi and Aizawa walked underneath them, threatening to burn out and further darken the street. Hitoshi pulled his scarf up, over his mouth, protecting himself from the cold air.

Up until getting here, the rest of the day had been—enjoyable.

Being somewhere so normal was odd. Having people pay attention to him was odd and he wasn’t used to it yet, but it was something that Hitoshi liked. It wasn’t like he wanted to be talked to all the time or that he needed a lot of attention, but—not being ignored and having two people around who seemed genuinely interested in him, even if one of them hardly ever stopped talking, was something he actually enjoyed. It helped that the house wasn’t crowded, that it was only Aizawa and Yamada there and now, he supposed, Hitoshi. While Yamada talked a lot, the guy seemed to just want to get to know Hitoshi and even with that, the house was quiet and calm and Hitoshi had distracted himself with playing with cats and playing his handheld game, preventing his thoughts from getting loud.

He’d never thought he’d miss something that he’d only experienced for one day, but here he was, walking down the rural street of his town with Aizawa, wishing that he could just be back in Aizawa’s house with him.

“Left up here,” Hitoshi spoke, the silence unnerving to him. He pointed at the next street that branched off of the main one, where they’d be turning left and be almost to Hitoshi’s house. That street was significantly darker, with only a few houses on it and not nearly enough life for there to be a streetlamp there. Aizawa just nodded, giving him a short glance, and Hitoshi took a breath, wanting to just talk, even if Aizawa didn’t talk back, just so he could get out of his head, “There’s eight other kids there. Most of them are younger. The only one who’s older than me is my foster parents’ actual kid.”

Hitoshi paused, thinking. He had no idea what this was going to be like. Aizawa had told him on the way here that it most likely wouldn’t be a long visit, though Hitoshi wondered if that was him assuming that something bad would happen, and that part of the purpose of this visit was to gather the small amount of things that Hitoshi had, which was why Hitoshi was wearing an empty backpack. He was nervous, nervous for Aizawa to see his house, the room he shared with most of the other kids, and for him to meet the people he lived with.

…Had lived with? Hitoshi shook the thought from his head. It was fast and… that wasn’t something he could think about right now. Yesterday he’d spent most of the day with Aizawa under the impression that when the time came around, Hitoshi would be getting on that train back home alone and would be continuing his life in the same way he had for the last few months. And now—he was here, with his teacher, with the understanding that he wouldn’t be staying here and that when this was over, he’d get to take the train back into the city and spend another night with Aizawa and Yamada.

“Most of the others actually have parents,” Hitoshi continued on, following Aizawa around the corner he’d pointed out earlier. It took a moment, but Hitoshi’s eyes quickly adjusted to the even lower level of light here, though Aizawa didn’t seem bothered by it. He was probably much more used to the darkness and being out at night, given that was when he did hero work. Part of him wondered if Aizawa had taken a day off just to do this. After following him for a decade, Hitoshi didn’t want to think about being the reason why he’d not be able to do his job.

“The others—most of them got taken away from their parents or… some of them are there because my foster home is strict and I guess some of the kids aren’t fit to be with their families.”

“I’m not sure if strict is the word for it,” Aizawa commented. “I’m strict. Your foster parents are neglectful and abusive. There’s a difference.”

Hitoshi drew a sharp breath in, heart pounding harder in his chest, Aizawa’s words falling onto him, heavy and suffocating.

“You really are blunt sometimes,” Hitoshi turned his head away as Aizawa looked back at him, staring at the dark sidewalk.

“That might’ve been too much,” Aizawa’s voice was softer, and Hitoshi hated the way that it almost sounded like an apology. He didn’t want an apology. He wanted things to be the same, for nothing to be different just because he was obviously nervous and upset. Hitoshi didn’t look at Aizawa, glancing to the side, where the row of spread out houses sat, an all too familiar house standing only a few meters from them. They were close. Aizawa noticed, too, because he stopped, Hitoshi stopping with him, “When I told you last night that you could back out at any time, I meant it.”

Hitoshi shook his head, “I’m fine.”

There was silence between them. The world was eerily quiet here. Hitoshi had never liked it.

Hitoshi had never thought of himself as an extrovert, but he liked to be around people. Being here was simultaneously too lonely and too crowded. The town was fairly empty, Hitoshi having never met and had just rarely seen the other people who lived on this street. There was a lot of space between the neighbors and the foster home, and the home itself was backed up against a farm field, Hitoshi having spent countless sleepless nights out on the back step, looking out into the field that stretched as far as he could see and disappeared over the horizon. When he walked the streets, he hardly ever saw anyone.

At home, including him, there were eleven people. Two foster parents and nine kids—one of which being a biological child, one being an infant, three of the kids being between three and seven, the other two being a little older. Hitoshi was the outlier in more ways than one—his quirk, his age, his status as a problem child, the fact that he was an orphan, among other things—and he was never allowed to forget that. The house was crowded and yet, just as lonely as the rest of the town was.

“You need to tell me if you want to leave,” They hadn’t started moving yet and Aizawa’s voice had thankfully lost its softness, instead raising to a tone that told Hitoshi that he was giving him an order. “If you want to go, then we will, but you need to tell me. Understand?”

“Yeah, I understand,” Hitoshi didn’t hesitate, nodding, stilling looking at his foster home. He could understand orders. He could follow orders. It was just everything else that confused him. He trusted Aizawa and Aizawa hadn’t let him down, had never told him to do something that harmed him. If Aizawa told him to do something, then Hitoshi was going to do it, because he was the one adult he actually trusted and the one person who’d never broken any of the trust he’d put in them.

“Good,” Almost unwillingly, Hitoshi felt himself relax at the single word of praise. It didn’t last long, though, “That’s the house?”

Hitoshi didn’t look away. He knew where Aizawa was pointing. The house was the only brightly lit up one on the street, the front yard having piles of clutter—mostly consisting of toddlers’ toys and trash that hadn’t been taken out properly—along with a fence and an unlocked gate to get in. Even from here, just from the brightly lit windows and from what he knew with his experience here, he knew that the house was lively and the sight of it made his stomach drop.

“That’s it,” He answered quietly.

They stood there for a moment more in the darkness, Hitoshi unable to look away from his foster home, the dread only growing and growing until it felt like it was definitely going to swallow him whole. He was frozen to his spot, unable to take that first step, hardly able to breathe, and he had no idea what to say or do—

And then Aizawa went, and Hitoshi followed.

He didn’t say anything, the dread he felt overtaking his need to speak. He shut his mouth, staying silent, and he knew perfectly well that what he was feeling was only what he was conditioned to feel and there was no real threat or reason to feel afraid, but that didn’t change at all that he felt it in the first place. He dropped to walking behind Aizawa, rather than trying to stick at his side, following him through the gate and up the few steps to the house. He could only stand behind Aizawa and watch as he knocked at the door.

He could hear noise inside. It was muffled, but what met Hitoshi’s ears was the familiar sound of kids whining and others talking over them and as the shouting started, Hitoshi drew back, cringing and recognizing the unmistakable voice of his foster father telling the other kids to get out of the way and be quiet.

The second the front door swung open, Hitoshi sincerely wished that he’d stayed back at the house.

He wished he’d never got on that train, never walked to the house, and never come back here. He wished he’d taken Aizawa more seriously when he’d said that his emotional health was more important than this. He wished he hadn’t come here just so he could act like he wasn’t bothered by the things that went on at home, just so he could put on some sort of a show of being mature and able to handle things. Hitoshi didn’t consider himself a weak or emotionally vulnerable person and had worked for years at drawing up a facade of being unbothered and cynical to the world around him, but the second that door swung open, Hitoshi wanted nothing more than to cower and hide more than he already was.

Yoshida-san was a large man and standing in the doorway of the house, blocking most of the light from the inside and casting long shadows over the front lawn of the house, he looked even bigger than he normally did. He wasn’t particularly strong or bulky, but he was tall, and the sour, openly scowling expression on his face didn’t do much to make Hitoshi any less intimidated. Aside from his height, he was normal, no different than any civilian on the street—and he even looked as if he’d cleaned up a little for this, wearing a clean set of clothes and having trimmed his facial hair.

Hitoshi didn’t move. Part of him wanted to leave right now, but he shook the thought from his head. There was no danger, he told himself. He was already partially hiding himself behind Aizawa, putting his teacher between himself and his foster father.

“You must be Shinsou’s teacher.”

The noise from the rest of the house died down and in the silence, the man’s deep voice seemed to echo around the street. He was looking directly at Hitoshi, making no secret of it, and Hitoshi forced himself to remain neutral, glancing to the side of him so he wouldn’t have to meet his eyes.

The urge to reach out and grab the back of Aizawa’s jacket was hard to fight. He refused to do it, though, not wanting to act like a child, knowing that even if Aizawa didn’t care, someone else would see and point his behavior out and use it to ridicule him.

“Yes, we spoke on the phone,” Aizawa sounded formal, but Hitoshi was used to that. It was the same way he heard him speak to other teachers and adults. It was about as polite as he got.

“Are you here to return my kid to me?”

Hitoshi could feel the man’s gaze on him still, burning holes straight through him, but he didn’t look back at him, unsure if he could hold it together if he did.

“I’m here to do exactly what I said over the phone,” There was no change, and Hitoshi was almost relieved that Aizawa didn’t seem the least bit surprised by his foster father’s rudeness. “Nothing more and nothing less. I believe you agreed to allow me to do my job, so I’d appreciate being let in.”

For a moment, nothing happened. Hitoshi didn’t want to look and see his foster father’s expression to see if he’d gotten angrier. He just waited, standing behind Aizawa, grateful that he wasn’t being prompted to talk or answer or even face Yoshida-san. He waited, waiting for something to happen, trusting Aizawa when he’d told him that he’d take care of things.

“...Come in,” The words were followed by his foster father moving enough out of the way to let them through. Hitoshi didn’t immediately move, not until Aizawa did, keeping his head down as he followed him through the door and into the entryway of the house.

The shame that hit him was instantaneous.

The house smelled. It didn’t smell like anything in particular—a combination of little children, left out food, and people who didn’t seem to know how often they were supposed to bathe—but the smell hit him as soon as he walked through that door and it was strong and it was like walking into a wall of it. Hitoshi had gotten used to it, but it was strong enough to the point where he’d have to re-acclimate to it every time he left the house for a few hours. It’d never bothered him much, but now that he’d brought someone else to the house, it was the thing that initially made him feel ashamed.

That feeling was only worsened as he glanced around. True to what he’d expected, the house was cleaned up a little, but the only reason Hitoshi knew that was because there were a couple places where piles of things had disappeared. After spending a night away from here and spending that night in some place clean and normal, the house looked even more cluttered and dirty than it had when he’d left it yesterday morning.

He couldn’t help but to notice that Aizawa was looking around, too.

The house wasn’t anything like Aizawa’s house. It was closed off and even though they were just standing in the entry room, Hitoshi could see how dirty it was. There were bags of trash leaned up against the wall, piles of clutter on the floor and the decorative table, a pile of unsorted, various sizes of shoes piled on a mat. He was embarrassed of the state of the house, hanging back at little, rubbing at the back of his neck, still able to feel his foster father’s eyes on him as he shut the door behind them.

Still, though, to Hitoshi’s relief, he didn’t talk to him, instead directing his words at Aizawa, “What, exactly, does ‘doing your job’ entail here?”

Hitoshi tried to make himself look busy, going through the motions of taking off his shoes and putting them in the messy pile with the other kids’, listening closely as Aizawa responded to him, “This is a home visit, so I’ll observe, take notes, and record what I feel fit, as well as intervene—if necessary.”

“It won’t be.”

“We’ll see.” Aizawa turned to Hitoshi and his heart nearly stopped with anxiety, but Aizawa didn’t scold him or even speak harshly of him, asking something of him that thankfully didn’t require a verbal response, “Hitoshi, show me the rest of the house.”

“That’s my job,” Yoshida-san interjected before Hitoshi could do anything, but Aizawa didn’t even look at the man.

“It isn’t.”

Hitoshi cleared his throat, trying to stand up straight and maintain his neutral expression and tone. His voice shook a little, but he managed to get his words out, even if his nerves seeped into them, “Follow me, Sensei.”

He didn’t dare to look at his foster father. His instincts and conditioning took over and Hitoshi brushed past the both of them, hearing Aizawa immediately follow him. He was halfway down the short hallway when he heard the exasperated annoyed huff of his foster father as he trailed after them.

The hallway wasn’t long, and to Hitoshi’s dismay, the smell of the house only grew as he turned into the common room of the house. It was a large room, though it looked significantly smaller than it actually was with the amount of clutter and things in it. There were children’s toys strewn across the room, stacks of homework and half-destroyed books on any surface available, plates and silverware interspersed with them. Hitoshi frowned, pushing back a scowl, when he realized that the room was almost as cluttered and messy as it had been yesterday, if not worse. A couple kids were in here—two of the younger ones, two girls—and they immediately looked up at them as they approached.  

Neither of them glanced at Hitoshi for very long, instead looking at their foster father and Hitoshi’s teacher, someone they’d never seen before.

“This is the living room,” He hated the silence, even with the noise of people in the other rooms and the banging that was coming from the kitchen. “You should be able to observe from here. Uh—you can sit down, if you want, and I can make you tea. I think the others are getting dinner ready. Or I can make you something else if you want…?”

He didn’t know what to do, so offering to do things for Aizawa was his resort. He felt watched by the both of them, though he was fine and used to Aizawa watching him. It was his foster father that was bothering him. While he was usually ignored here, the attention he did get from Yoshida-san had conditioned him to feel wary whenever he looked at him.

“No, tea is fine, thank—”

“Don’t answer him.”

Hitoshi drew back a little, taking a sharp breath in at his foster father’s snapped words, cutting Aizawa off. He shut up, not saying anything. And he didn’t have to, because Aizawa didn’t even hesitate.

“…Excuse me?”

“One of his rules is that under no circumstance is he allowed to ask questions,” He hated the way his foster father sounded proud, like he was happy he got to indirectly scold Hitoshi in front of his teacher. “It’s the only way we can prevent incidents with him.”

“I’ve never—” He started.

“Quiet.”

Hitoshi shut his mouth again, scratching at the back of his neck. He should’ve known better than to speak.

“I don’t recall reading about him ever using his quirk under your care.”

Hitoshi looked at Aizawa, finding that he was still defending him, saying what Hitoshi had meant to before he’d been cut off and told to be quiet. There’d been incidents in the past, though after the initial couple years of not having any control over his quirk, the only time Hitoshi had ever used it was in emergencies when someone, usually a foster sibling, was getting violent with him. Even then, all he’d do was use it to remove himself or them from the situation and make things stop. He’d never used his quirk here, though, since even in self defense, it was always more trouble than it was worth.

“He’s a problem child,” Yoshida-san insisted, and the words hurt more than Hitoshi wanted to admit they did. He really did try to not be an issue here, but it was hard when the only interaction he ever got was when he was yelled at, insulted, and punished. It wasn’t like he went out looking for trouble, but lately, when Yoshida-san or any of the older people here started insulting him, it’d been difficult to not argue back. After all, he was going to get in trouble anyways, and arguing back felt good, if only just in the moment.

He didn’t like being hurt. That couldn’t be such a strange thing.

“Yes, you’ve told me that before. Repeatedly,” Aizawa’s voice was starting to lose its neutrality, his tone going dry. “I’ve never had any of the same… problems that you describe with Hitoshi. He’s always been respectful and well-behaved with me. Which leads me to think that the issue might lay here rather than with him.”

“Are you insulting my parenting style?” Suddenly, Hitoshi was glad that he wasn’t between the two of them. Yoshida-san was getting aggressive, riled up, and angry. He’d seen it before, the same escalation, probably hundreds of times. “Surely you know that Shinsou is only here because no one else would take him. My house is a last resort for these kids. The rules I have are in place because they’re a necessity.”

“Why don’t…” Hitoshi stopped himself before he could fully form a thought, and neither of them seemed to have heard his murmured words. He wanted to step in, but he’d already been snapped at once for asking something. He wasn’t about to risk that again, and interrupting without a question was hard. He’d gotten used to not asking questions over the years but spending one night with people who hadn’t cared about him asking things had set him back.

Even though he hadn’t heard him, Yoshida-san turned his attentions towards Hitoshi, staring hard at him, “What are you waiting for? Go. You have chores piled up to take care of and now that you’ve also brought a guest home, he’s your responsibility.”

“I understand,” Hitoshi answered, almost automatically, and forced himself away from the conversation, tensing as he heard his foster father following him through the archway into the dining room and kitchen, leaving Aizawa behind in the mostly dark common room. He’d really wanted to get away from his foster father, not that he’d wanted him to continue arguing with Aizawa, but watching and hearing that had been more stressful than Hitoshi had ever imagined it’d be.

He tried to ignore it and the moment he walked through the doorway to the dining room, loud noise met his ears. He knew Aizawa could probably still see him, given that the entryway to this room was large and left open, and he’d be able to see anything that happened, but being separated from him for the first time since yesterday only made Hitoshi more on edge.

Most of the others were in here. The kitchen was small and he could hear the baby whining in his foster mother’s arms, some of the other little kids sitting on the floor and babbling, a couple of the older ones doing their best to make dinner, being too small to actually reach most of the cabinets. A few of them looked up at him, his foster mother, Shino-san, giving him a deep, unhappy frown, but no one said anything to him and after a moment, it was like he didn’t exist at all. There were no greetings, no questions, not even a snide remark. Nothing. It was like he hadn’t disappeared for a full day and then come back without much of an explanation.

That was fine. It wasn’t like he was staying here.

Hitoshi didn’t know when he’d started allowing himself to take comfort in that, or when he’d started letting himself believe it was actually real.

It was like nothing had changed here. Even his foster father had abandoned following him to scold one of the smaller children, yelling at the boy for leaving a toy out or something—Hitoshi wasn’t totally sure because as he watched, he felt like the noise all ran together, like he was watching something he was totally uninvolved in from a window outside the house.

He had to look behind him to make sure that everything in the past day hadn’t been some sort of fever dream or fantasy he’d slipped into, and he let out a breath of relief when, in the dimness of the living room, he could see Aizawa sitting down, head bowed as he wrote notes on the pad Hitoshi had seen him tuck into his bag before they’d left. If anything, that was reassurance that things were different, even if everything here, with the general ignorance he’d been met with, was terrifyingly normal.

Hitoshi forced himself to keep moving. He unwound his scarf, took off his hat and the gloves Aizawa had lent him a few weeks previous, unzipping his coat and hanging it on one of the dining room chairs. He didn’t say anything, not even looking at anyone for longer than was necessary, as he slipped into the little bit of empty space in the kitchen. He was used to this, moving around as much as he could so as not to bother anyone, working almost automatically. He took down a mug, spotting a bit of dirt in it, and moved to the sink to try to wash it out.

That was where he made his biggest mistake of the night, the mistake that broke through the little self-control his foster parents had.

The issue was that his foster mother was standing near the sink. Not in front of it, but near it enough that she was definitely in the way. He thought he could work around her, though. Of the nine foster kids, six of them, including himself and the baby, were in here, as well as his foster mother and when the kitchen was already small and cramped, it had a tendency to lead to a lot of accidents.

And this was an accident. Even if Hitoshi later thought that he should’ve known better or waited a little longer, it was still an accident.

He tried to move into the empty space and in doing so, mistakenly bumped against Shino-san, having misjudged the amount of space he had and jostling her, his arm and hip hitting her body. It wasn’t nearly enough to knock her over, but it was enough to sway her a little, and she noticed. She noticed instantly.

There wasn’t a single second between him running into her and her scream, and not a moment between that and the noise of her slapping his arm, and then the thud of him hitting the counters and cabinets behind him.

The momentum of being shoved back so violently caused him to slam his head into the upper cabinets. He was tall, tall enough that he was easily able to reach them and tall enough that when he was pushed back against them, he’d hit his head hard. It hurt, and it hurt bad, his ears ringing as his head throbbed.

“Shit,” He yelped, not thinking, grasping onto the counter, using his other hand to rub at the back of his head. He clenched his teeth, trying not to curse anymore at the pain. It wasn’t like he didn’t regularly get pinned or thrown around during training but god, at least Aizawa was careful enough to not actually hurt him.

“Watch your goddamn language!” There was hardly a pause, his foster father not even giving Hitoshi enough time to recover before his yell filled the room. Hitoshi’s head spun and he scowled at all the noise, not even realizing until he looked around that he’d dropped the mug he’d been holding. It hadn’t hit anyone, but there was a mess of ceramic pieces on the floor. Yoshida-san noticed, too, because he continued yelling, “Clean that up and then sit down where you belong and think about what you did!”

He knew what that meant. He’d been told to sit alone at the dining room table for a punishment so much that that was just where Hitoshi spent most of his time at home, even when he wasn’t told to. It always made him feel like a little kid, being forced to sit at a table without any interaction, being given the silent treatment and not being allowed to do anything, and he was fighting to not argue, to not snap at his foster father and tell him that he wasn’t a small child and this had been an accident. He held back, though, if only because Aizawa was here, and instead just grit his teeth, clenched his hands into fists, and ignored his throbbing, hurting head as he tried to make his way to the closet to get the broom.

He was interrupted, though, but it wasn’t by either of his foster parents.

“Hitoshi, come here.”

It was called to him from the common room, and Hitoshi stopped, heart beating hard.

He went. He didn’t question it. He didn’t ask for permission. He went when Aizawa called him and did what he was told, leaving the room with everyone else and going to him, even when his foster father shouted after him.

Aizawa was sitting on the couch, next to a pile of what Hitoshi assumed was the older boy’s college paperwork. He beckoned Hitoshi to him, staring up at him with dark eyes when Hitoshi stopped in front of him.

“Is your head alright?”

“It hurts,” Hitoshi said, trying to keep any emotion out of his voice. Distantly, he could hear his foster father following him, making no secret of his anger as he stomped around, but Hitoshi wasn’t focused on him. Aizawa had put aside his notes and had all his attention on Hitoshi, his usual stoicness gone, concern replacing it. Hitoshi raised a hand to the back of his head, feeling a little wetness back there. He pulled his palm away and stared at it.

“Sit down,” Aizawa instructed him, pointing at the spot on the floor directly in front of him. “Let me see it. If it’s bad enough, we’ll have to go to the hospital.”

Again, Hitoshi did as he was told without question. He sat down, his back against the couch, drawing his legs to his chest. The room around them was dim, no lights having been turned on and the only brightness coming from the open doorway to the dining room. He sighed, dropping his head a little to help out when he felt fingers brushing through his wild hair, pushing apart some of the strands.

“What are you doing?! He has a mess he needs to clean up.”

That was Yoshida-san. Hitoshi didn’t look up at him, keeping his head down. Aizawa quickly found the spot he’d hit, and vaguely, Hitoshi wondered if he’d hit the edge of the cabinet when he’d fallen. He hadn’t been able to tell, since everything had happened so quickly, but if he was bleeding, that was most likely what had happened.

“Your wife pushing Hitoshi and making him hit his head is far more concerning to me,” Aizawa pressed his thumb against the worst part, Hitoshi hissing in pain at that. Aizawa let up, though he still had Hitoshi’s hair pushed apart, moving his hand to above the worst part of the injury. He tapped Hitoshi on his shoulder, and Hitoshi hummed in acknowledgement to tell him he was paying attention. Aizawa seemed satisfied enough with that, “Are you drowsy at all?”

“No,” Hitoshi answered immediately.

“Do you know where you are.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know what day it is?”

Hitoshi rattled off the date. He didn’t feel tired or confused at all and he was well aware that Aizawa was checking to make sure he wasn’t concussed. Hitoshi had been before, but he hadn’t hit his head hard enough to be. It hurt and was bleeding a little, but mentally, he felt fine.

“It looks like a cut,” Aizawa told him, a pressure that made Hitoshi hiss again following his words. The pressure kept up, and Hitoshi wondered what Aizawa was pressing against the back of his head. His only thought was that he was trying to mop up the small amount of blood back there. “If it keeps bleeding, you’ll have to get stitches, but it looks like it’s stopping.”

“He’s fine,” There was no doubt now that Yoshida-san was getting annoyed. Hitoshi could hear it in his voice.

“Your wife shoved him pretty hard and slapped him. That’s not fine by any means.”

“She slapped him on the hands because he touched her.”

Hitoshi dared to raise his head a little, though whatever Aizawa was pressing against his head forced him to keep it down for the most part, “…I didn’t mean to bump into her.”

His tone was a little angrier than he’d meant it to be, and he didn’t let himself say any more, too afraid that he’d fly into an argument with his foster father if he said any more.

“You’re lying.”

Hitoshi’s hands clenched into fists, nails digging into his palms, but he clenched his teeth and didn’t make a sound. He wasn’t going to take the bait that he was being given. He’d told himself that he didn’t want to argue or fight and he was trying to behave, but it was getting more and more difficult with the way he was being pushed.

“Stop that,” At first, Hitoshi thought it was directed at him, before he realized that Aizawa was talking to his foster father, his words said as if he were lecturing a misbehaving high schooler. “Are you trying to get him to argue with you? What are you, a grade schooler?”

Yoshida-san said nothing. Finally, the pressure let up and Aizawa drew back, though not before tapping Hitoshi on the shoulder again, “We’re almost done here. Show me your room.”

“You just got here!”

Hitoshi ignored his foster father’s exclaimed words, grabbing onto the edge of the couch and pulling himself up, raising a hand to his head again to feel around where he’d hit it. He looked down, eyes immediately drawn to Aizawa’s clothes, where he could see a large spot of blood on the sleeve of his jacket, and Hitoshi realized that he’d been pressing his arm against the back of his head to get the bleeding to stop.

“I’ve seen enough,” Aizawa said, standing up and tucking his notepad under his arm. He gave Hitoshi a nod, ignoring any further arguments from Yoshida-san. Hitoshi got the hint and started leading the way, keeping his head down and just doing what Aizawa told him to. Shame stirred in him as well as more anxiety as he realized what Aizawa was about to see, but he led him to the small hallway and then down it, turning on the light to the large, shared bedroom.

He stopped in the doorway. Aizawa did, too. Hitoshi’s face burned hot with total embarrassment. If there’d been a way to avoid this, he would’ve, but Aizawa had told him prior to this that this was part of any home visit and Hitoshi wanted some things from here, anyways. It was a necessary thing, but that didn’t make it any better.

“I’m sorry,” He stared at his bed, at the incriminating things. “This must be really embarrassing for you.”

There was silence and then, from behind him, despite everything that had happened just now, Hitoshi heard a snort of amusement from behind him, “It’s a little flattering. Not embarrassing.”

Hitoshi, after all, hadn’t thought to take down the photos he had hanging above his bunk. Posters and most decorations weren’t allowed, but Hitoshi was a ‘permanent’ kid and the one thing that had stuck with him throughout every foster home and every group home was his habit of printing out photos of his favorite hero and taping them above his bed. If Hitoshi had had the chance, he would’ve taken them down, but there’d been no way he could’ve known this would happen and to make matters worse, he had the bottom bunk right across from the door.

Right across from them was Hitoshi’s bed and above it, in the space between his bunk and the upper one, Hitoshi had about ten pictures of Aizawa’s hero persona taped above his bed, and had had that for the past two years he’d lived here. It was embarrassing that he hadn’t taken it down when he’d first started formally training with Aizawa and had actually met him, but meeting him had only caused Hitoshi to like and idolize him even more.

He honestly felt too ashamed to move, so when Aizawa brushed past him, looking around the room a little more, Hitoshi was relieved and followed him in. The room was fit for a lot of kids, seven of them sleeping in here at one time. There were four sets of bunks, Hitoshi purposefully having the one directly across from the doorway to ‘keep an eye on him’. The room had no actual door and Hitoshi had few possessions and as Aizawa looked around, Hitoshi went to his bedside table and took off his backpack, opening the top drawer.

“Sorry about what happened out there,” Hitoshi said quietly, taking out the locked metal box inside the drawer. He fished the key out of his pocket, sliding it into the lock and biting his lip as he turned it and wiggled it to try to get it to unlock the old thing. “I really should’ve been watching where I was going more.”

“It’s not your fault,” Aizawa told him, and Hitoshi stopped for a moment, hearing him approach him. “You bumped into someone by mistake. It happens. The reaction your parents had wasn’t justified at all.”

Hitoshi kept quiet, finally feeling the lock give, “…Sorry, this is really embarrassing, too.”

Inside were the only things of real importance to him. Hitoshi had learned to not attach a lot of sentimental value to objects, since in foster care, they were so likely to get lost and disappear in one way or another. But these things—they were a few things he’d collected over the years that he wanted to keep. It was mostly photographs—some of his parents, yellowing at the edges, a few from over the past few years, one from about a month ago when Hitoshi had convinced Aizawa to take a photo with him. Besides that was his journal, a bell from a cat’s collar that he’d played with a long time ago, and… a replica of Eraserhead’s goggles that he’d made for a school project in elementary, as well as a paper he’d written for Aizawa’s class and gotten full marks on.

His face was burning again, and he didn’t say anything more as he pulled his backpack over the box and dumped it all in. He’d already made the decision to leave the box here, letting himself be hopeful that he wouldn’t need it anymore. He noticed that Aizawa had sat on his bed and started writing again, giving Hitoshi enough time to gather some clothing, roll it up, and shove it into his bag, too.

He stood up, then, giving a last glance at the photos he had hung on the wall. He’d leave them up.

“Are you ready?” Aizawa was looking up at him from over his notes again, raising an eyebrow at him.

“We’re really leaving?” Hitoshi asked, voicing his first real question since he’d gotten here. “We really did just get here.”

“I’ve seen enough,” Aizawa repeated the same thing he’d said earlier. “I recorded the audio of what happened. There’s nothing more for me to see and staying here is damaging your health. I’ll take you back home and send all this to the people managing your case.”

“Alright,” Hitoshi just nodded, looking away from Aizawa and the photos on the wall again. If Aizawa was right and if Hitoshi was letting himself believe that he could stay with him, then this would be the last time he’d be here. He wouldn’t see his foster parents again, or his foster siblings, or even this house. While he hoped that if something was done for him and whatever case that had been started with him also caused the other kids to be removed—

—He couldn’t bring himself to miss this place at all.

He was itching to get out of here. He grabbed his backpack and led Aizawa out of the room again, and the second he entered the common room, he knew something was wrong, because most of his foster family had moved into here, including both of his foster parents. Still, Hitoshi didn’t let himself linger, returning to the kitchen to get his coat, and was in the process of slipping it on and pulling his hat over his still throbbing head when he heard Aizawa break the eerie silence.

“Hitoshi’s coming with me.”

The break was instant and Hitoshi froze in his spot, clutching his knitted scarf in both hands. His foster father’s voice was loud and booming, reaching into every corner and crevice of the house, “You can’t take my kid from me.”

“Law enforcement said he could stay with me, so yes, I can,” Aizawa sounded almost bored, irritated and like he wanted to be done talking to Yoshida-san. With shaking hands, Hitoshi pulled his scarf onto his neck and barely managed to zip up his coat, hearing his foster father start to lay into Aizawa again.

“Who do you think you are? Coming into my house, criticizing my parenting, insulting me—”

Hitoshi stepped into the doorway, having put his backpack on and gotten all his winter clothes on. Suddenly, every person in the room was looking at him, every pair of eyes on him, from Aizawa to his foster parents to the rest of the kids he’d lived with over the past few years and Hitoshi felt small and weak as every one of them stared at him.

“Come on, Hitoshi,” Aizawa beckoned him and Hitoshi went, to his side as Aizawa prepared to walk out. He followed him, just behind him and at his heels, as his teacher walked back into the entry hallway, keeping his eyes on Hitoshi, as if to make sure he was following him.

It was the moment that Hitoshi stepped into the entryway that his foster father grabbed him, fingers curling around his arm in a grip that was crushing.

Hitoshi’s eyes went wide and he pulled, instinctually using all of his strength, yanking his arm from his grasp, staring him right in the eyes as he did so.

“—Don’t touch me—” He hissed through his clenched teeth, stopping dead in his tracks. He narrowed his eyes, hating the way he could still feel his foster father’s grip on his arm, even though he’d pulled away from him. The taller man looked shocked, eyes wide, giving Hitoshi the single most vulnerable expression he’d ever given him. The room was utterly quiet, silent to the point where Hitoshi could hear every breath his foster father took. The man reached out again, clearly trying to grab Hitoshi again, but Hitoshi moved back, too quickly for him to touch him. He opened his mouth again, voice coming out sharp and harsh and louder than he’d ever spoken in this horrible place, “Don’t touch me!”

“You’re not leaving,” Yoshida-san told him, though his tone couldn’t match Hitoshi’s. Hitoshi had too strong of a voice, and he couldn’t mirror it. “You don’t want to leave. Tell this guy that you’re not going anywhere. Tell him how much you like it here.”

There was nothing. Nothing, but only for a split second. In that nothing, Hitoshi felt something that he’d never quite let come to the surface before. It was something he’d always distantly felt, something he’d tried to cover up with realism and stoicness. But now, as he stared at this man, he realized something. He might’ve been taller than Hitoshi, but Hitoshi was stronger than him and had been able to rip himself from his grasp and right then, he realized how much he absolutely hated this man and his wife and this house and everything they’d ever done to him.

And he wasn’t going to put up with it any longer.

“Are you kidding me?” Hitoshi made no attempt to keep his voice down. He was yelling now, every word of his shouted into his foster father’s face, as he glared up at him and completely let go of his composure. “I hate it here. Living on the fucking streets would be better than this. Do you really think that I want to stay here?”

Silence.

The short laugh that Hitoshi let out reeked of bitterness and the nonresponse just made him angrier, “You—even now you still think I’m trying to brainwash you? Are you serious? You get to beat me around and insult me and act like I don’t exist and then when I ask you a simple question, you can’t even answer me? Do you honestly think I’m some sort of monster?”

“You’re lying. It’s not that bad here.”

“Not that bad?” Hitoshi felt like laughing again, but it wouldn’t come. “It’s horrible here. Everything you do is horrible. You don’t even say a word to me unless it’s to insult me or scream at me. Everyday I come home and none of you even say anything to me. None of you even acknowledge that I exist. It’s like you don’t even think about me unless you need some kind of punching bag. I can’t sleep. You refuse to let me eat if I’ve done something to make you mad. I’m constantly getting beat and pushed around by everyone here and you tell me every fucking week that I’m going to become this horrible villainous person just because of my quirk and—”

Hitoshi stopped, dragging a hand down his face. Something hot and wet ran down one of his cheeks, and he wiped it away with the sleeve of his coat.

“—And I’m so goddamn lonely all the time that I’d rather be homeless than live here. So no, I don’t want to stay here.”

When he felt a hand curl around his wrist, he didn’t fight. He wiped at his face, brushing away the tears that had started falling. The grasp on his wrist was loose, enough that Hitoshi could easily break away if he wanted to, and he let it happen when Aizawa started pulling him towards the door.

His foster father didn’t say anything more, but he ran after them, but the person he grabbed this time wasn’t Hitoshi.

Aizawa had pushed Hitoshi out the door and was halfway out himself when Hitoshi realized, through bleary, tear-filled eyes, what was going on. He tried to say something, but nothing would come out other than a wordless, quiet whimper, the cold air of the night biting at him and feeling like it was determined to freeze the tears to his face.

He couldn’t do anything but watch. Aizawa halted, halfway out the door, still holding Hitoshi’s wrist, and Hitoshi could see that his foster father had grabbed Aizawa.

It didn’t last long, and Hitoshi didn’t expect it to. Aizawa was clearly trying to keep quiet as he leaned in and hissed his words to the other man, but Hitoshi still heard them, “Unless you’d like to get into a fight with a pro, I suggest you let go of me.”

               There wasn’t even a pause. The other man apparently had enough common sense to realize when a threat was a reality and let go, the sound of the door slamming making Hitoshi jump and gasp.

It was over, then.

Hitoshi couldn’t move on his own. His legs wouldn’t work unless he was pulled around. That was what happened, Aizawa not speaking to him as he pulled Hitoshi down the steps by his wrist. Hitoshi went, going where he was directed, and he couldn’t stop the small, occasional whimpers that escaped him. The tears were even harder to hold back, and Hitoshi stopped trying, just letting them fall as his teacher pulled him down the street and away from the house he’d lived in for the past two years.

Hitoshi didn’t look back. He wanted to be away from here as quickly as possible.

Aizawa didn’t stop until they were back on the street with the lights.

It was under a flickering streetlight that he finally pulled Hitoshi to a stop, Hitoshi rubbing at his eyes and trying to wipe the tears away with his sleeves. His head was still hurting and the crying was just making it worse, especially as he tried to hold it back, feeling nothing but shame as Aizawa fixed him with his dark stare.

“I’m sorry—” He breathed, trying to hold his mouth shut so he wouldn’t let out any sobs or whimpers. He watched, expecting to be reprimanded for yelling and cursing at his foster father, but Aizawa’s expression just softened.

               He really wasn’t expecting it when arms wrapped around him, pulling him in close, but Hitoshi just grabbed at Aizawa’s shoulders, pressing his face into his chest. He didn’t let himself think, and eventually, under the flickering street lights, neither of them saying anything, Hitoshi’s crying finally died down and he was able to pull back, wobbling a little on his feet, having leaned into Aizawa for support. As much as he’d wanted to stay holding onto him, he wanted more than anything to get out of this town.

“What are you apologizing for?”

Hitoshi coughed, clearing his throat and brushing away the last few tears. When he raised his head to Aizawa, there was a definite wet spot where Hitoshi had buried his head in his chest and cried into him. He stood back, still shaking a little, and Aizawa waited, not prompting him again until Hitoshi was ready to speak, “Yelling, I guess. I didn’t mean to get so mad back there. I didn’t mean to cry, either.”

“Crying’s fine. It’s a good way to release emotional pain,” Aizawa’s tone was soft, and Hitoshi held onto it, listening to every word he said. “I would’ve stopped you back at that house if I thought you were doing something wrong. It’s good to have some closure, even if that closure is doing what you did.”

Hitoshi only nodded, having no more words. His mind felt—empty. And he liked it that way. He didn’t like spending time in his own head.

“Are you ready to head back home?”

Again, Hitoshi nodded, and Aizawa didn’t ask any more questions.

“We can go wait at the train station, but I’m going to call Hizashi to pick us up. I don’t think a long train ride would be best for you right now.”

“Is—is he around?” Hitoshi asked, still trying to find his voice again. He gave another cough, throat itching a bit.

“He’s not far. He had some fundraiser he was doing not far from here. The ride back to the city will be quicker by car.”

“Okay,” Hitoshi whispered.

Aizawa stared at him a long moment and as Hitoshi looked down at the sidewalk, he reached out, putting his head on Hitoshi’s head. They stayed like that a little longer before Hitoshi was finally able to move on his own, and they made their way the short distance to the train station

Waiting wasn’t so bad.

Hitoshi sat on the steps with Aizawa. The sky was nearly pitch black and Hitoshi spent a lot of time staring up at it as Aizawa wrote out more notes by the small light that the station provided. Aizawa eventually pushed what Hitoshi quickly identified as a jelly packet into his hands, telling him to drink it to stay hydrated, and Hitoshi had followed his directions as they waited.

It wasn’t bad. Hitoshi just sat, not doing much, not feeling like doing much. He swung his feet a few times as the life started to creep back into him, and watched the stars in the sky above him.

This would be his last time here.

Yesterday, everything had been normal. Things hadn’t been good at all, but there was one thing Hitoshi did enjoy in his life, and that was his meetings with Aizawa. Things were changing now, but—from what Hitoshi could tell—they were going to get better.

Things had felt so normal at Aizawa’s house. He wanted that. That was being offered to him, and Hitoshi was going to take it.

He trusted Aizawa more than he’d trusted anyone else in his life. He was starting to trust Yamada, too. Staying with them—having a normal life, the life they were offering him, was something Hitoshi had only occasionally allowed himself to fantasize about. His plan had been to wait things out and show everyone that he could be a great hero and then start living a normal life. The plan had essentially been to just wait it out and age out of the system and do everything he could to actually make something of himself. This, though, was better. This was everything he’d ever wanted, and everything he’d never let himself want because wanting things only led to disappointment.

He took to watching the road eventually, and then going between that and looking up at the rural sky. He didn’t know how long it was—and it didn’t matter—but eventually, he saw the lights of a car approaching them. It drew Aizawa’s attention, too, and he urged Hitoshi up onto his feet and the car pulled to a stop, hardly parking before Yamada was out and greeting them.

“Shouta! Hitoshi-san!” He sounded relieved, and happy. He was excited to see them, and Hitoshi watched as he pulled Aizawa into a tight hug and then flashed a bright grin at Hitoshi. “I’m so happy the two of you are alright.”

“Hizashi, you look ridiculous.”   

Aizawa’s comment pulled Hitoshi back to the ground, and he looked to see that Yamada’s face was half-done in makeup, and Hitoshi was reminded that he’d been coming from a radio fundraiser. It looked like they’d interrupted him in the middle of getting ready.

“Yeah, well, I told everyone that I had a family emergency.”

The word family struck him hard, and Hitoshi stayed silent, Yamada grinning at him again.

“Ready to go home, Hitoshi?”

It was Aizawa that spoke, and Hitoshi glanced at him, still trying to come back to himself a little. He nodded, though, and Yamada opened the back door to the car for him.

“Yeah,” Hitoshi murmured. Before he could stop it, his lips twitched up into a smile, and it wasn’t bitter or fake, but genuinely happy. This would be the last time he’d see this town unless he chose to ever come back and visit it, and Hitoshi couldn’t be more relieved at that. He got in the car, shutting the door behind him and leaning back, shutting his eyes as he heard Aizawa and Yamada get in as well, talking to themselves. Yamada was excited, still, going on about making something celebratory for dinner and Aizawa was humoring him, from the sounds of it. He didn’t pay much attention, though, opening his eyes again to watch out the window as they started to leave the town behind.

For the first time in his life, Hitoshi was going home.