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Hitoshi has never had much of a green thumb. So when his therapist suggested he take up gardening, he wasn't exactly happy about it. “I don't want to do stupid gardening,” he rants to Aizawa later.
“You know one of the conditions to you staying here is making an effort to get better,” Aizawa answers, gently shifting the pan he's cooking with back and forth.
“I know, I know,” he snaps, thinking of crumpled leaves, earthworms, and dirt that can never seem to come out of jeans no matter how much you wash them. “I'll do it but I'm not happy about it.”
It's early fall, not exactly the best time to start a garden, but Hitoshi doesn't know anything about gardening, so he supposes it can't be too bad. Aizawa picks him up some gardening books from the library and sets up a small plot on U.A. grounds. Mic buys him some basic seeds, starter plants, and tools. Unfortunately the plot Aizawa makes up is a heavy mixture of soil and clay and needs a lot of breaking up before it'll be ready for planting. Armed with that knowledge, the first day Hitoshi tries breaking up the soil with his tiny trowel. He whacks at the ground again and again, feeling increasingly ridiculous. It's surprisingly exhausting work, and he can feel the sweat beading on his forehead despite the chilly fall air. This is fucking stupid.
“Whatcha doing there?” he hears a bright chipper voice ask. He glances up to see Kaminari's bright yellow hair beaming under the fall sun. He’s not particularly surprised to hear his voice. He may not be the best at social cues, but he isn’t completely oblivious. He knows Kaminari has been trying to befriend him for a while now and he's still not sure why. He's not great at talking to people, but it's been months, and Kaminari still hasn't seemed to have given up.
“I'm gardening,” he spits out, mouth curving into a sneer. Why even try to hide his contempt for it?
“What are you growing?” Kaminari asks without skipping a beat.
Hitoshi rubs a glove against his forehead. He can feel a few crumbles of soil stick there when he pulls his hand away. Gross.
He hears a muffled snicker and glances toward Kaminari, whose mouth is hidden behind his hand. “You have a little...something,” he says, gesturing at his forehead. Hitoshi glares at him.
“No problem!” he says. “I've got it.”
Kaminari reaches into his pocket and pulls out a napkin. In a second Kaminari crosses the distance between them and wipes his forehead with it. Hitoshi feels his face grow hot. He bats the hand away and looks down, blushing like mad. “I'm fine,” he emphasizes.
“So what's wrong?” Kaminari casually blurts. Hitoshi's head snaps up.
“What do you mean?” he says cautiously, eyes scanning Kaminari's face for any sign of bad intention. Instead they just catch on the tiny dots brushing his cheek that appear to be pale freckles. He is way too close.
“Well you don't seem to be enjoying it very much,” he says, pep still evident in his voice.
“I've never had much of a green thumb,” he replies bitterly, stabbing the dirt with the trowel, “kill everything I touch: plants, flowers,...” every relationship I've ever had.
“I could help you if you want!” he volunteers.
“I didn't know you gardened,” Hitoshi says curiously.
“Yeah I guess it's not exactly something you'd suspect with my quirk right? But I used to garden with my siblings when I was younger, mostly crop foods.”
Hitoshi ponders the offer for a moment. On one hand, he's not in a particularly social kind of mood, and he doesn't know Kaminari that well. On the other hand, it would be absolutely embarrassing if all the plants died, and even he had to admit that sitting alone in a garden patch angrily murdering the soil while thinking all his deepest darkest thoughts didn't seem like the healthiest of options.
“Just a friendly offer,” he continues, “If you’re not interested, I’ll leaf you alone, but for the record, I think weed make a good team.”
“Fine,” he agrees, biting back a groan at the horrendous pun.
Kaminari beams. “Coolio! Lemme put my number in your phone so you can let me know when to help!” He hands over his phone, a brief hesitating moment before letting it drop into the yellow-haired boy's hands. He glances at Kaminari as he types his number in. If your teeth could be less impossibly white, that'd be great thanks. I don't need to be blinded every time you smile which seems to be all the time. He suddenly catches the corners of his mouth creeping up and forces them back down. It's annoying. Or at least that's what he tells himself. “Here you go!”
Hitoshi grabs the offered phone, ignoring the slight nervous jolt when their fingers brush together. “Seeya,” Kaminari shouts, waving as he walks away, “I’m excited to see our friendship blossom.”
Hitoshi checks his contacts looking for the new addition. Luckily, he doesn't have too many to scroll through. Lightning Bug. He rolls his eyes, but he ultimately doesn't bother to change it.
***
They spend the next few days discussing the plan for the plot and trying to loosen the soil a bit more. Surpringly, Kaminari is really good company. People always assume Hitoshi doesn't like them-something about his unnerving stares and lack of facial expressiveness, but the truth is he's just not too great at the whole social thing. But Kaminari doesn't seem to mind his lack of eye contact and lackluster responses. He just keeps talking. It's nice. Safe.
At least it is until the subject of quirks comes up one day. “I really like Bakugou's and Mina's and Jirou's and oh! yours of course!” Kaminari says, gesturing wildly. Hitoshi ducks under his flying hand.
“You don't have to say that,” Hitoshi mutters quickly, looking away.
“What do you mean?” he asks, and his voice sounds so genuine, and Hitoshi desperately wants to believe he hasn’t thought about it, how his quirk could be used for evil.
“I know my quirk is kinda freaky,” he says through gritted teeth, refusing to think too much about it, refusing to let angry tears build in the corners of his eyes. He’s spent enough time thinking about it; he certainly doesn't want to think about it now.
“What do you mean?” he asks as if he's never really considered it. “Your quirk is so cool! Think of all the villains you could stop without even touching them! That's powerful.”
“People think I’m going to become a villain,” he blurts out, not even registering the words he’s saying.
“Well those people are stupid,” Kaminari says. “Have they met you? How could they talk to you and think you’d become anything less than a hero? You would never do anything bad with your mind control. I trust you.” Hitoshi blinks back tears.
“I’m sorry if I don’t believe you.”
“Well you should believe me because I’m right. You should be less hard on yourself.”
He smirks. “Hey, that's what dad said, right before nabbing me with his capture weapon,” he replies, remembering yesterday’s training.
“Holy shit, did you just call Aizawa dad?”
In an instant, all the blood in Hitoshi’s body rushes to his cheeks. He hadn't even realized he thought of Aizawa in that way, much less said it out loud. “You can't tell anyone I said that!” he blurts.
“Aizawa is your dad?!”
“No! I don't know!” he stutters, “Tell anyone and I'll murder you.”
“Jeez, Bakugou, chill out. Your secret's safe with me,” he says laughing.
“Did you just call me Bakugou?” Hitoshi asks, eyes narrowing in incredulous disgust, “Take it back.”
“Nope.”
An evil grin slides across his face, “Take it back or else.”
“Make me,” Kaminari taunts. Hitoshi grabs a clod of soil and rubs it in Kaminari's face. Kaminari blinks at him stupidly. Hitoshi can't help but let out a loud laugh that seems to shock Kaminari out of his stupor. He feels a lump of dirt smack against his neck and crumble down his collar.
“Oh it is on.”
Suddenly, dirt clods are flying. One smacks across his breastbone. Another lands smack against his jaw. He keeps lobbing, grateful that hero training has at least somewhat improved his aim and strength. However, he's still losing this fight. Kaminari ducks behind a pillar where Hitoshi can't reach with his throws. Hitoshi can just barely see him peek out from the pillar, dirt in hand. Luckily Hitoshi has other methods of fighting.
“Hey Kaminari are you ready to give up?” he asks sweetly.
“Never!” Kaminari cries, and Hitoshi feels him go blank under his control.
“Good boy. Now take that lump of dirt in your hand and smash it into your face.”
Kaminari looks at his hand dazed before smooshing his face in it. Hitoshi barks out a laugh at the scene playing out in front of him and lets go. Finally released from his control, Kaminari stumbles towards him and trips into the flowerbed.
“That was dirty,” Kaminari shouts.
“Could be dirtier” he says innocently, batting his eyelashes.
“Fuck” Kaminari says emphatically, “You can't just say things like that.”
“Like what?” he asks in the same tone of voice. Kaminari looks at him, and he tries to suppress the grin that's threatening to take over his face.
“At least gimme a hand to help me up man,” Kaminari whines, and Hitoshi obliges him.
He suddenly feels himself tumbling down with the swift yank of an arm. He stumbles and lands on top of Kaminari, legs falling over the other boy’s lap, somewhat straddling him. He blinks in surprise. Judging by the bright red on Kaminari's face, that hadn't exactly been what he meant to accomplish. He stares down at Kaminari for moments that seem like hours. His hand unwittingly moves to wipe the dirt off Kaminari's face. Kaminari squirms beneath him, face a red rivaling Kirishima's hair.
“Could you get off me please?” he squeaks.
“Oh...uh….yeah sure,” he answers dazedly and scrambles off of him.
After a moment of composure, Hitoshi speaks again, “Always a flirt until the cards are down aren't you?” he teases.
“Don't judge me. I'm gay and weak,” he mumbles into his hands. Eyes scanning over Kaminari in a way that definitely does not involve Hitoshi checking him out, he notices something interesting: there's a lot more dirt clinging to Kaminari than there is to himself.
“What’s with all the dirt?” he wonders aloud.
“I believe that was your doing,” Kaminari answers.
“No, I mean why is there so much?”
“Oh um, yeah, static,” he says waving his hand, “because of my quirk. I get really staticky when I'm feeling strong emotions.”
“Oh,” Hitoshi says, curiosity bubbling, “what strong emotion are you feeling?”
Kaminari buries his head in his hands, “Gay.”
Hitoshi takes a moment to survey the situation, glancing down at their clothes which have turned from whatever they had originally been to a dark murky brown. “Wow these are gonna be stained forever.”
Kaminari waggles his eyebrows at him. “Would you say they’re….soiled?”
“I hate you,” he mutters. They both know it’s a lie.
“Let’s get hosed off.”
***
The breaking up of the soil probably shouldn’t be taking so long, but Hitoshi doesn’t quite know how loose the soil needs to be, and even Kaminari admits that his father used to do that step for them. Today, however, Hitoshi is in an even worse than usual mood when they start. He lost a mock battle in class, tripped during lunch, sending his food tray flying, and now he has to do the activity he's been dreading all day. He groans.
“Bury me,” he says, handing Kaminari a shovel and flopping onto the gardening patch.
It compresses under the weight of his body, undoing some of the progress they made loosening the soil. “Um what?” Kaminari yelps.
“Fine I'll start then,” he says, scooping the soil over his body like he's seen people do at beaches with sand. It seemed to work well enough for them.
“Why?” Kaminari asks. Hitoshi shrugs.
“Can't garden if I'm dead.”
Kaminari rubs a finger across his chin thoughtfully, “Can't argue with you there.” Shoveling a bit of dirt over Hitoshi’s legs, he continues, “Your death will sadden me greatly.” Hitoshi snorts.
“You'll get over it,” he replies.
“How could I ever get over the death of my dear friend, Shinsou? Your dad is going to kill me,” he replies lightly, touching the back of his hand to his forehead.
“Hey this grave has room enough for two,” Hitoshi threatens.
“I'm good thanks. I got my dying in last week when I suggested Bakugou was a bottle blond.”
Hitoshi feels a laugh escape. It wracks his lungs until tears stream down his face. “This coming from you?” he chokes out.
“This hair is perfectly natural baby!” he says, tracing the lightning bolt pattern in his hair with his finger, “And stop laughing. This is a very serious funeral I'm having here.”
“I'm sorry. Continue with your funeral”
“It's your funeral actually. Have some respect.” He takes a moment to collect himself. “In loving memory of the human equivalent of a drained battery pack.”
“Hey!” he objects.
“Shhhh you're supposed to be dead.”
“Fine.” Hitoshi quiets down.
“In memory of my dearest friend: Gengar kin, plant-killer, lover of cats and absolutely nothing else, I have a fitting excerpt from a famous elegy I'd like to recite:
The glowing violet,
The musk-rose, and the well attir'd woodbine,
With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
And every flower that sad embroidery wears;
Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed,
And daffadillies fill their cups with tears,
To strew the laureate hearse where ‘Shinsou’ lies.
For so to interpose a little ease,
Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise.”
Silence hangs in the air for a moment as the words sink in. “That was the worst thing I've ever heard,” Hitoshi replies.
“I'm trying to mourn you dammit.”
“Couldn't you pick something more modern?” Hitoshi complains.
“No because they're copyrighted.”
“Make something up then,” he teases.
Kaminari ponders a moment.
“Here lies Shinsou, betrayed by his own hoe,” he states, dramatically holding up the gardening tool for emphasis. “He valiantly attempted to garden, and for that he will now become the garden.”
“Your funerary practices are so bad that I'm resurrecting myself to avoid them.”
“You've gotta get to work then,” he warns him, tossing him the spade.
“Bossy,” Hitoshi mutters, but there's a smile on his face.
***
They're gardening in silence one day. It’s fall, but it’s not so late that the birds have left yet, their piercing cries permeating the air. He can only be 80% sure that Tokoyami isn’t one of them. A cool breeze whips through the air and tints their cheeks and ears pink. Cicadas whir in the distance, their whining a soft call beneath the birdsong and a loud whisper on the wind. The plot itself is finally ready to start planting, thank goodness. There is only so much hoeing a person can take. Hitoshi hears Kaminari's voice break the silence.
“Is Aizawa actually your dad?”
Hitoshi stiffens. “I thought we agreed not to talk about this,” he mutters.
“I agreed not to tell anyone,” Kaminari clarifies.
He sighs. “I'm staying with him for a while,” he admits. “It's kinda new, and I don't know if it'll work out.” He purses his lips, trying not to think about it too hard.
“And you see him like a dad?” Kaminari asks.
Hitoshi blushes all the way down to his toes. “I don't know,” he says, embarrassed. “I'm not entirely sure what it feels like to have a dad,” he admits. Eri, Mic, and even Mirio's faces flash before his eyes, “or even a family of any kind.” He suddenly regrets the whole concept of talking in general. Truly a mistake, allowing humans the power of speech.
“Well you're always welcome in my family,” Kaminari replies with a warm smile. Something flips in Hitoshi’s stomach.
“Shouldn't you check with them first before saying stuff like that?” he asks, not really caring to know the answer.
“Nah, my parents love everyone I bring home. They trust me to pick good friends. They even accepted Bakubro. And you're way nicer! They'd love you.”
“I don't feel very nice,” he mutters, turning his head back towards the seeds he’s scattering.
“Dude, you're totally nice. You laugh at my puns, and you don't call me stupid, and you've never once told me to shut up.”
Hitoshi's eyes widen in a disgusted shock. “That's what your standard is for nice?! I don't think I'm nice,” he mumbles, “I think the problem is that your standards are too low.” Hitoshi glances up to see Kaminari's smile wobble.
“My friends are just teasing. They don't mean any of it,” he says, biting his lip.
Hitoshi’s lip curls into an easily hidden sneer. “Well I promise I'll never call you stupid, not even jokingly,” Hitoshi replies.
Kaminari shoots him a warm smile. Hitoshi feels like a beam of sunshine is shining directly into his eyeballs. Kaminari pokes his cheek. “See? Nice!”
“It's just basic human decency,” he mutters shyly.
“Ni-iiice,” the other boy sing-songs.
“Can I still tell you to take the biggest flower you find and shove it up your ass?”
Kaminari shoots him a wink. “Kinky.” Suddenly, his hand drops down into the dirt, rooting around for something.
Hitoshi watches Kaminari slip a rock into his pocket. It’s a little weird, but he doesn’t think much of it.
***
Hitoshi looks at the small shoots of flowers poking through the dirt. There aren’t very many. He's not sure if the rest are dead, or if they're just slow growers. Either way, he's not entirely impressed.
“Well this is anticlimactic,” he says.
Kaminari grins beside him. “No, it's totally neat!” he exclaims, “We did this. We grew these plants into being.”
“I'm still not impressed,” Hitoshi mutters.
“We need to name them,” he exclaims suddenly.
“Name what?....the plants?”
“Yes!” Kaminari hisses, and Hitoshi can hear the exclamation point. “Me and the sibs used to always name our plants. It's tradition! This,” he says, pointing to a small orange plant, “is Marigold the Destroyer. And this,” he says, scanning the patch before pointing to a tomato plant peeking out of the soil, “this is Tomato, the God-slayer. Now you name one.”
Hitoshi scans the garden for the perfect specimen. He points to a small sprig that's just barely poking out of the ground, looking withered and lonely. “Behold Pansy the Pitiful,” he says, “If she doesn't perk up and grow into a beautiful flower, I'm disowning her.” Kaminari snickers.
“Don't worry I love you equally,” he says to the flower patch. There's no reply….being that they are plants. Kaminari points suddenly to a small budding pansy with yellow petals tinged purple at the ends, “This is Kaminari Jr.”
Hitoshi points to the purple edges, “I'm afraid you are mistaken. This is clearly a child of my own,” he says in a serious tone.
Kaminari's face grows somber. “I hate to inform you of this, but this is in fact our love child. We're parents,” he finishes with a solemn air. They both stare at each other for a minute before bursting out laughing. “What, you have a problem with naming our child Kaminari Jr.?” he asks in mock offense.
“I just don't see why it couldn't be Shinsou Jr.,” he replies.
“What about...Shinkami Jr?”
“Perfect,” Hitoshi agrees.
***
Now that a few flowers are fully grown, Hitoshi is not entirely sure what to do with them. Kaminari insists that you're just supposed to leave them in the ground to look pretty, but Hitoshi thinks that if he's gonna put in all that effort, he might as well use them.
There are a lot of things most people don’t know about Hitoshi: he brushes his teeth with cinnamon toothpaste instead of mint; he’s very allergic to cats although he pets them anyway because fuck allergies--cats are cute; he runs a Warrior Cats fan blog, a popular one at that; and finally, as a kid he spent a lot of time waiting around, waiting to be picked up from school, from therapy, from being babysat by the neighbor children. He spent a lot of time waiting, usually outside, often near flowers or flowery weeds. As Kaminari rambles about his day, his nimble practiced fingers start looping and pulling a few flowers together, gradually making the chain longer and longer. When he's done, he lays it on Kaminari's head.
“Did you just braid me a flower crown?!”
“Just take the fucking flower crown,” Hitoshi grumbles. While Kaminari is adjusting it on his head, Hitoshi takes his phone out as inconspicuously as possible and snaps a picture.
“If you think that's going to work as blackmail, then you're sorely mistaken. I think I look beautiful in this flower crown.” He throws a peace sign. “I'm the prettiest damn princess in the whole courtyard.”
Hitoshi snatches the flower crown off his head, “Who's the prettiest princess now?”
“Wait no, man, give it back! That was a gift!”
“Maybe I decided I wanted to be the princess,” he deadpans.
“Ruling is my God given right,” Kaminari whines, trying to snatch it off his head.
Hitoshi evades him and grabs a trowel. “If you want it back, you're going to have to fight for it,” he threatens, brandishing the trowel like a sword.
Kaminari smirks and grabs a spade, crashing it against his 'weapon’, “Bold of you to assume I won't.”
Hitoshi paries expertly, “Bold of you to assume I assumed you wouldn't.”
The two fight with hard, fast strokes, the tang of metal clanging on metal grating against Hitoshi's ears. He’s soon forced on the defensive and takes a step back too far, stumbling out of the gardening bed. Kaminari takes the opportunity to point his spade comically at Hitoshi's throat. Breathing heavily, he relents, “I guess you can have it back.”
Kaminari puts the crown back on and smiles at him. The sunlight glints off his hair, making it turn gold. His heart flutters. Stupidly white teeth. “Thank you, I'm going to wear my bounty around the dorms so everyone can see the spoils of my victory,” Kaminari says with a small bow.
“Are you sure you don't want to leave it outside?” he asks as they reach the dorm doors.
Kaminari gasps, “Fuck off, man. I'm keeping this forever.”
“It's gonna wilt,” he chides, but he can feel the smile stretching across his face.
“You have a nice smile,” he says with ease, as if that weren't a hard thought to stomach, as if he didn't even have to think twice about it. Hitoshi blushes and buries his face in his scarf.
“That's not something people say that often,” he mumbles.
“Why not?” Kaminari questions. His eyebrows wrinkle. He seems genuinely surprised. Hitoshi feels a warm feeling settle in his stomach.
“People usually say it's creepy,” he mumbles in reply, choosing to stare at the doormat rather than Kaminari's face. It’s a dingy green thing with garish gold-trimmed edges. The center is so worn that it’s almost rust colored.
“What do you mean?” he hears Kaminari say, a thoughtful tone to his voice, “ I just think it's cute!”
“You can't just say stuff like that,” Hitoshi mutters.
“Why not?” he asks cheerily. And Hitoshi doesn't really have an answer. He takes a swig from his water bottle instead.
“Also you're hot,” Kaminari says, and Hitoshi spits out the water he’s drinking.
“WHAT?!”
***
“You seem to be really chipper lately,” Mic notes at dinner, “Have you been enjoying the gardening?”
Hitoshi scoffs, pushing around the food on his plate with his chopsticks, “No. Gardening is still stupid,” he asserts.
“Then why the change in attitude?” Mic asks.
Aizawa looks up from his food to curl his lips into a menacing looking smile. Hitoshi can feel the temperature in the room drop 5 degrees. Oh no. “Could it have something to do with a particular boy you've been gardening with?”
Hitoshi's eyes widen. “How do you know about that?!” he asks quickly, far too quickly to be normal. Shoot.
“You are aware I can see the courtyard from my classroom window, right?” he says, casually plopping a piece of food into his mouth, “I can see you when I’m grading papers.”
Mic has a gleeful look in his eyes. If he thought Aizawa’s smile was terrifying, this was at least 1000% scarier. “Ooo...who is this boy?” Hitoshi glares silently at them in defiance.
“You already know him, Hizashi. Kaminari's in your class.” Hitoshi glares more, but he can tell it's not very intimidating, especially as his cheeks grow redder and redder. “If you’re going to date someone from my class, why couldn't it be someone with better grades?” he continues.
“Oh really?” Mic exclaims, “Kaminari does really well in my English class... at least after we worked a little on his writing.”
“Does Hitoshi have a boyfriend?” Eri pipes up from next to him.
“I don’t know. Does Hitoshi have a boyfriend?” Mirio teases.
“It sure looked like it from what I could see,” Aizawa responds.
Hitoshi doesn't think his face can get any redder. “Oh my gosh, dad,” he groans. Wait. Shit.
He scrambles from the kitchen into his room at speeds Iida could only dream of.
***
It's a rainy day, far more violent than the soft drizzling mists they've worked through and instead solidifying into hard fat drops that don’t linger in the air but instead hurdle to the earth at breaking speeds: the kind of day with loud crashing thunder, and bright flashes of lighting occasionally lighting up the classroom even brighter than the fluorescent lights do, like some not too important god is taking an entry level course in flash photography and hasn’t been told not to startle the subjects by shining a brief brilliant light directly into their eyeballs.
Gardening is out of the question. Hitoshi is not disappointed. He is, however, surprised when Kaminari asks him after class if he still wants to hang out. He doesn't have any real plans, and he's grown to like hanging out with Kaminari, so he doesn't see any point in seeing no. Kaminari insists on breaking out a chess set of his, which surprises him, but then again Kaminari is full of surprises.
Kaminari insists Hitoshi walk with him to his room to get it. He leaves the door open when he enters. Hitoshi stares at it, unsure if he's allowed to follow. “Come in,” Kaminari yells from inside.
He opens the door a little wider and softly slips inside, still feeling like an intruder. While Kaminari roots through his drawers, he takes a moment to look around. The room is about as messy as he expected, clothes and trash covering the floor and trinkets littering the dresser. He sees a spinning top, a rubix cube, a bright blue and neon green dice set, two seashells, and the flower crown, looking oddly different than the last time he saw it, kinda like the potpourri his previous foster mom had kept on her dresser. All her clothes had smelled faintly of rose and lavender. He hated the smell, having to endure it every time they were alone together in the house. It’s just a safety precaution, she’d say when she’d make him sit in her room, who knows what kind of trouble you’d get up to alone. “You kept the flower crown,” he muses aloud. Kaminari stops.
“Of course I did, man. I said I would,” he replies without skipping a beat.
“How is it not, you know, wilted?” Hitoshi asks.
“Oh I pressed it,” he exclaims, “Now it'll keep forever.”
Something strange and ephemeral pumps in his chest. He glances past the crown in an attempt to collect his feelings. His eyes dart across a collection of rocks of varying colors, sizes, and shapes. There are dark smooth rocks, bright mouthed geodes with spiky crystals, tiger’s eyes, and pink and blue agates. They’re arranged in a plastic segmented box, and he briefly wonders if there’s a geological key lying around anywhere. He eyes a small pile of plain black and brown rocks separated from the rest, many of which look a lot like the ones they find in the garden, some still with dirt on them. “What are those rocks?”
Kaminari's face turns bright red like a cherry tomato and wow he really needs to stop with this whole gardening thing.
“Oh,” he squeaks, “they're memory rocks. I, um, like to keep pick them up when I have something that I want to remember about that day. Anyway, here's the thing I came to get. We should go and not look at the rocks further.”
“You're being weird,” Hitoshi complains. But he steps out of the room when Kaminari waves him to.
They walk to the common room and sit down at the nearest table. Hitoshi kicks his legs under the table in boredom while Kaminari sets up the chess set. Hitoshi has a vague idea of how to play chess. Mic tried to teach him when he first started living with them, but he didn’t have the patience to get good. The game starts with a little banter that quickly dies off as they get more invested. He’s never seen Kaminari this focused before.
“Remember the other day when you recited that elegy?” Hitoshi blurts out suddenly.
“Yeah, Lycidius by Milton. Why do you ask?”
“It's kinda impressive that you have all that memorized,” he says, moving his pawn forward.
“Nah, that's pretty easy to do,” he says as if memorizing a poem, much less in English, much less in older English isn't hard to do.
“How many poems do you have memorized?” he asks, watching Kaminari take down one of his bishops. Darn.
“I don't know at this point,” he says, “at least 20.”
“That's amazing,” Hitoshi says.
“I mean it's not that impressive--” Kaminari starts.
Hitoshi cuts him off, “and I was thinking about the chess.”
“It’s not that hard to beat you,” he says.
“Okay, no, I'm terrible at chess, but you still own a chess set and voluntarily play it,” he muses.
“So what's your point?”
“I think you, Kaminari,” he says pointing directly at his chest, “are smarter than you let on.”
“Don't let the chess and poems fool you, man, I'm at the bottom of our class,” he replies.
“There's not just one way to be smart,” Hitoshi asserts. For some reason it's important to him that Kaminari gets this.
“Did you have a point?” he asks.
“Not really,” Hitoshi replies, “just something I was thinking about.”
“Well focus on your chess moves instead,” he replies, taking out his queen.
“Dang it.”
***
He looks at the absolute mess in front of him. He blinks, trying to make sense of the chaos, the ripped up flower beds and torn up plants. “What the--”
“It looks like we've got rabbits,” Kaminari muses and the ‘we’ really shouldn't hit him so hard, especially since he’s said it before, but it causes a small flutter in his chest.
“I don't-I didn't think we even really had rabbits on school grounds…” He pauses a moment, staring dazedly at the flower beds before--“...Kouda. I'm going to kill him,” he mutters.
“Dude you can't kill Kouda.”
“No, I'm gonna kill Kouda,” he asserts calmly.
“No!” Kaminari yelps, “Kouda is too pure to be killed,” Hitoshi stares at Kaminari blankly. “Look it's an unspoken rule that you don't hurt Kouda, Tsuyu, or Kirishima. You just don't,” he says.
Hitoshi looks down. “Fine,” he spits out, “but I'm gonna tell him to keep his rabbits out of our garden,” he replies. Again that word-‘our’.
“Be nice!” Kaminari demands.
“When am I not?” he says, letting a creepy smile slink across his face. He turns to leave.
“Wait-Shinsou. I don’t think you really got my message! Shinsou?!”
***
It finally comes out in one of his therapy sessions. “My classmate ruined our garden,” he complains, frustration leaking into his tone.
“So you decided to do gardening,” his therapist says. “You haven't mentioned it before. When did you start doing it?” he asks, pen clicking against his mouth.
Hitoshi’s eye twitches. “The first session,” he replies, “when you suggested it.”
“Oh,” the therapist says casually, “and how are you liking it?”
Suddenly all the resentment he has about gardening comes rushing to the surface and pouring out his mouth, like black smoke from a cheesy low-budget exorcism movie. “I hate it! Half my clothes are stained with dirt now, and you know that feeling when you step in a puddle, and bad shivers run up your spine? That's a multiple time a day occurrence. And all this for some freaking flowers that just sit there and look pretty in a place that isn't even my own?! Have you seen the bugs that live in the soil? Worms are fine and all, but have you seen an earwig? Have you ever tried gardening nearby someone with an animal summoning quirk?” He stops a moment to catch his breath. His therapist looks at him with raised eyebrows. He lets out a soft sigh.
“Hell, Shinsou, if you didn't like gardening, you should have said something. I was trying to suggest relaxing activities, not things that would stress you out. Gardening was just a single example.”
Hitoshi startles. “What?!” he yelps.
His therapist sighs and begins again, “Just talk to me next time. That's kinda the point. If you don't tell me things, these aren't going to be very helpful sessions for you,” he finishes.
The session cannot end soon enough. When his time's up, he scrambles out the door, a singular thought on his mind, “I did all that for nothing.”
But then again, it hadn’t really been nothing.
***
“Gardening's off,” he says walking past Kaminari the next day at their usual time. “Want to go get some food?”
“Be careful, Shinsou. It kinda sounds like you're asking me out on a date,” Kaminari teases.
“It is a date. Are you coming or not?” he says, continuing walking. He hears a soft squeak from behind and rapid footsteps as Kaminari scrambles to catch up. A small smile tugs at his lips.
Maybe gardening is good for something after all.