Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s not his fault, he says.

They made me do it, he says.

He’s lying.

He’s been lying for years, not that anyone would know. Who would know?

Izuku knows.

Izuku knows by the subtle twitch of his eyes, by his slightly erratic heartbeat, by the way that his fingers twitch ever so slightly.

Izuku doesn’t say anything. No one would believe him.

For the best, probably; the other man would be found out in time.

And Izuku didn’t need more people trying to figure him out, trying to look at all the cracks and barely kept together pieces and try to put him into a box.

He’ll look them in the eyes and tell them that he doesn’t know anything about why they made him do it, just that they did. Just like how three months before the man had told his wife that he was needed for an urgent business trip. Like how he’d told his son that he’d come back.

The man hadn’t come back. If he had, then he wouldn’t be there. The police office shifts and twists strangely, barely real. Shadows cover and shift and some of them are living, and others are not. It is insane. It is perfectly sane.

Izuku doesn’t know much of anything right then. All he knows is that this is somewhat off, not real but not unreal, either. It is somewhere on the thin, thin line in between; and the shadows creep around him until he runs.

He is running the same as he always has, away from the shadows and the lights and straight into the black empty void that is the bitter yet sweet relief from the melting mess of dreams and half-truths and knowing but not knowing.

It is ironic that he feels more comfortable here than in his own skin.

Then again, many things are iconic here/ many things are not.

Even if it is a black mess of a void is still has some semblance of reality, and the shift in color is all the warning Izuku gets before he is thrown - not physically, but more of a mental form of throwing. He tumbles, stutters, tears across the nothingness like a rocket in the middle of a still pond, shattered fragments of what might have been dreams tumbling past him. The light is here, now, and it is oddly magenta, instead of the deep turquoise it had been for the past visits to the place.

The low hum begins to fill his ears, and Izuku knows what happens next as well as he knows the shift in color. The hum rises, falls, rises again, and gets louder, transforming into a shriek, a scream, a wail. Any thoughts he might have held are driven out of his mind by the sound, and Izuku only can lie in the nothingness as he desperately wants out of the terrible, terrible place.

The source of the scream reveals itself then, a creature unlike any in reality. Its skin is smooth, covered in stripes of a pale color a few shades off from the rest of its skin. Six luminescent eyes look back at him, and a maned head opens a mouth filled with teeth and screams at him.

And then Izuku wakes up.

His heart is pounding and he's shaking but he is alive, and he takes what precious seconds he can to get his breathing back under control. Another nightmare. He’s been having them more recently than he used to. He wonders why, but finds no answer in his wondering. It's not too important, though. What’s more important is checking his surroundings, making sure everything is in place, undamaged. He checks his room and, to his relief, it is - the worst ‘damage’ is to his bed, with the blankets mostly tangled around him. That's fine, though; Izuku has gotten better at making his bed. And he does just that, taking minutes at most to neaten it up, before heading over to his window.

There isn't any particular reason that he goes to his window first. Maybe just for a breath of air. It's comforting, the smell; he has no idea why, but Izuku enjoys it nonetheless.

A low hum in the back of his mind reminds him that not all is safe, yet. It is only  a hum, yet, and not a screaming wail as other times. Still, Izuku is sure to quickly but gently press down upon the hum, shush it and tell it to sleep. It does and the the creature behind it quiets, and Izuku is grateful. His hands are partly clammy, and his mouth is dry - it is one of the best times to go into the kitchen for a glass of water, his mind helpfully supplies. So he does, tiptoeing across the carpet and tile of the apartment he resides in with his mother.

His nightmares are always nonsensical things, he ponders as he pours a glass and proceeds to down it. What causes them to be such? Is it the slumbering creature of stars and the sea that lies in his head? Izuku is never sure, but he is at least glad for the repetitiveness of it; he knows what to expect, which is better than nothing.

He turns and goes back to his bed; the school day doesn't start until a few hours, and it is better to get what sleep he can.

~| |~

The school day is about as average as it always is.

Bakugou screams at him at least twice, and everyone else avoids him, and Izuku tries to keep the humming creature of stars and the ocean from waking up. When it is awake it strains against the mirrored, invisible cage Izuku has made in his mind, begging and pleading to be let free. Izuku does not know what it will do if it is free. He does not want to know.

His memory from when it first manifested is in bits and pieces; not much of it had survived. He remembered being grabbed by a hand, someone he didn’t know. He remembers being terrified. He remembers being in the middle of a city while the stranger had rambled on and on, and he remembers waking up again, half-dead, at the beach which has long since been covered in trash. He remembers the short second of feeling a calming sense of power, or waves rushing in and out and of starshine, and then of nothing before the beach.

Izuku had done his best to learn about what had happened that day; it wasn’t too hard, since it had been all the news had wanted to play for days afterwards. A shimmering, purple-green-black creatures with scales and fins and feathers. The cameras hadn’t captured the best shots, being what grainy quality they were, but he saw enough to know the damage that had been done on that day.

Which was why, no matter how much it pleaded or screamed or cried, Izuku would not let the creature in his head free. Evangellion, the media had named it. A monster that only waited, Izuku called it.

He hadn’t ever been the same since that day, not really. Not when spotted scales and feathers would appear on him when he was scared or nervous, not when sometimes there would be fins growing in behind his then lengthened ears, not when he’d had to face what he would become if he wasn’t careful.

It was a lot of trauma to pile onto a four-year-old.

At least the schooldays were mundane and easy enough to ignore.

Bakugou and the other students mainly ignored him, unless Bakugou was yelling at him. The gtwp had been friends at some point, but along the way Bakugou had gone on to pursue other things that he deemed more important. Mostly becoming a hero by going to Yuuei. So Izuku stayed where he was, content to never draw attention to himself and his oddities.

Izuku went to school, and then wandered for a bit before going home. His mother wouldn't be worried; he had done this too often for her to not get used to it, eventually. It wasn't that he didn't want to worry her; more that he needed time to decompress, to let himself submerge.

The creature - Evangellion - was humming again. Some faint tune that was reminiscent of the waves. The beach, then.

The beach was one of the few shelters where Izuku let himself stretch and let Evangellion wake enough to shift his body into that of a non human creature. Never enough for Izuku to fully lose control of his own body, but enough for him to be lost in the song of stars-sea-tides-crashing and enough for him to be content in the deep waters for a whiles.

Once he got to the beach, Izuku carefully stashed his bookbag, phone, house keys, and school uniform near an older rusty refrigerator; he’d brought a spare change of clothes, which he eagerly changed into. Any time he used the quirk - borrowed from and became Evangellion - his clothes would get in some semblance of destroyed, so it was better to do that with older clothes instead of his nice school uniform.

Once that was done, he wasted no time in striding to the shoreline, taking a few lunging strides until it was deep enough to submerge himself in. once he had done that, the mental prison almost entirely dissolved; he could feel the subtle shift of skin and bone and muscle, and when he opened his eyes he had six and not two. His arms were longer, covered in small scales and with claws where his fingers would be, sail-like fins springing from his wrists and ankles, and a ruff of feathers lazily moving with the tide around the base of his now much longer neck. His two tails moved with the water as well, and the large fins across his back spread with a longing to be submerged in deeper waters.

He moved downwards; the gills on either side of his chest breathed in one, two, one, two, and the farther down he went the larger his form shifted. The more he loosened the cage the more Evangellion gave its form to him, the more he became it. But it was safer down here in the waters, where it was calm and he would not hurt anyone.

As the water darkened he eventually rose again, taking care to place Evangellion back in its cage before surfacing. He changed back into his school uniform, and got on a train back home; Izuku’s mother greeted him, told him he was just in time for dinner, and he ate all while a deep part of him wanted desperately to go back to the ocean. He knew that as the days passed, he would stay out longer and longer, and eventually Izuku and Evangellion would be one in the same, living deep in the ocean with no care for the world of humans. It was inevitable.

Still, for the evening he relaxed, did his homework, and simply spent time in the presence of his mother. The future and all its certainties could wait. The present was good enough for now.

Chapter Text

He woke up from the dream the same way that he always did, with Evangellion humming ever-so-softly and with his arms and legs tangled in his blankets. And, like he always did, he made his bed and headed down to get a glass of water.

The house was as quiet as it always was.

Nothing moved.

It was just Izuku and Evangellion.

Izuku had half a mind to go to sleep, but he knew that whatever came from tomorrow, he would be better prepared without the disorientation from his nightmares.

Instead, he turned to the beach.

Izuku didn’t take anything with him when he went. Just the clothes on his back, which were old and faded and had been turned into sleep clothes. Izuku might have been slightly more comfortable if he had been wearing shoes, but he’d not wanted that slight delay, and Evangellion sang beneath the stars anyways, so it didn’t matter as much.

While the trip on the trains felt halfway suffocating, when he emerged into the silent and still night he felt that much better, the slightly chilled air feeling like comfort against his skin. The stars seemed brighter as well, and Evangellion sang all the more loudly. He didn’t bother to keep the glass cage built, instead gently lowering it about halfway. Within seconds there were frilled fins poking out of his now purple-streaked hair, and his ears now were covered in shimmering iridescent purple scales, and they pricked and moved at any slight noise. But for the most part it was silent, and his two tails lazily moved from side to side, the hair and fins and feathers on the ends of them following a few seconds after the main mass of scale-covered skin.

It was somewhat of a risk to lower the cage as much as he did out in public and not underwater, but the footage from a decade ago had been of poor quality and no one would thin to connect him to the Evangellion that had been whispered about for weeks afterwards. He felt much more alive like this, sharing control with Evangellion, the breeze and winds filling his nose wit scents of the water.

Within moments he was at the beach, and while he wrinkled his nose at the stench of the trash, the familiar salty smell soon overpowered it and he felt at ease. He dove into the water, and lowered the cage even more. Soon he was almost completely Evangellion, only a thin line of glass separating the two minds. It was as calming as it always was, and Izuku let himself sit for a moment or two near the starlit surface before diving deeper into the depths.

He headed back home when the moon had begun to drift downwards. He still needed sleep after all, even if he wouldn’t gain much in the first place. He wasn’t particularly inclined to pull the glass cage back upward, only bothering to lift it enough to drag himself out of the water. The farther away he went, the easier it was. Gently floating and bobbing with the find as he hovered a meter or so above the ground, in his tranquil, dream-like state he hadn’t bothered with keeping his size to that of a smaller shape, instead choosing to stretch out like Evangellion sang at him to do, the feathers adjacent to his fins rustling in the breeze against his mane of hair and the fins themselves, and each of his six limbs idly paddling forwards.

He still had to go home, but he didn’t want to quite yet. But the moon was setting, and he really should be back home. Evangellion trilled sadly as Izuku lifted the glass cage back upwards, fastening the invisible mental latch and keeping all traces of Evangellion from his appearance. He went home like that, in partly-torn, sopping wet sleep clothes on the subway, looking more like a homeless person than anything else. Luckily for him there were almost no people on the trains at that hour; the few that were gave Izuku a strange look or two, but didn’t say anything.

When he got home, Izuku took a moment to get into a different set of older clothes, carefully placing the ones he had been wearing into the laundry where his mother would discover them and clean them to the best of her ability, as she had made him promise he’d let her do whenever he came home from his midnight wanderings. Action complete and now in warmer, drier clothes, choosing to cocoon himself in his comforter like the sea had done.

He fell asleep within minutes.

~| |~

Izuku woke up to the sound of Evangellon’s gentle humming, the half-imagined sound of ocean waves in his ear, and a sense that today would be a bad day.

He could deal with two of those things; he shook his head out and took a quick shower, doing his best to get the salt out of his slightly-purpled hair, and he let the fins and feathers sprout from his head and neck and et his ears lengthen without much thought. Mom didn’t question him when he joined her at the dining table, and they both peacefully ate their breakfast.

Izuku got onto the trains once he had finished his breakfast, ears twitching every so often. He could hear little snippets of conversation, and some bits he picked out more than others.

“-they say it was just floating along-”

“-bro i swear it was just a dream, like I just looked out the window and there this thing was, all black and shimmery and stuff-”

“-look there’s even a news article on it!”

That bit was probably important. Izuku pulled out his phone and checked the more recent news; scrolling down a bit, he found an article titled “Evangellion: Terrifying Villain, or Reclusive Cryptid?”

This should be fun , Izuku thought, and tapped on the link. Skimming the article, he had to give whoever had written it credit - they did a good job of looking at both sides. The description of Evangellion was a new one, though. ‘Some sources estimate a maximum length from muzzle to tailtip at five meters, with two sets of forelegs and a set of hind legs, pale blue-green fins at locations relative to the wrist and ankles, as well as behind the ears, down the back spine, and in the middle and end of the two tails it has to it’s name’, was definitely a very detailed description, in base anatomy.

‘Possessing six eyes as well as a set of ears that appears to swivel similarly to those of a horses, the creature dubbed ‘Evangellion’ has been noted to have several feathers located above and behind every set of fins, as well as a larger collection of feathers at the base of its neck, and from what little footage is available it can be inferred that Evangellion also possesses a set of teeth designed similarly to other large carnivorous animals. While all footage has been taken in areas too dark to see the true colors, it can also be inferred that Evangellion is primarily made up of greens and purples for a color palette, with the possibility of lighter colors suggested by the apparent iridescence of its scales’. That was an entire chunk there, and again, Izuku had to give the author of the article credit. They seemed to have done a good job. Still, izuku would have to be more careful. If people went looking for Evangellion, trying to find out about it, then Evangellion would attack them, which was the reason why Izuku only ever let the glass cage down as far as he did in the ocean, in the ocean, where there weren’t people in the first place.

The stopping of the train pulled Izuku from his thoughts, and he put his phone back into his bag and continued his journey to his school. As that small gut feeling had told him, today was probably going to be a bad day. Bakugou gave him a glare intended to murder as soon as Izuku walked in, which was always a signal for fun times ahead (read: Izuku was probably going to get beat up by the end of the day). His teachers ignored Izuku for the most part, but Izuku knew that some students were just waiting for an excuse to rough him up. (Izuku hated days like this)

“What are you looking at, you shitty lizard?” Bakugou growled at Izuku, and belatedly Izuku realized that in zoning out he’d been staring at Bakugou. Oh, dead.

“Why do you assume I’m looking at anything, Bakugou-kun?” And the name fell off his lips like water at a pH of 5.6, not quite acid rain but enough to kill lakes and ponds. His fins twitched and his ears swiveled backwards.

“What the hell does that mean?” Bakugou looked like he was dangerously close to attacking Izuku then and there for merely insinuating that Bakugou could have been at fault.

“It means what it means.” Izuku answered simply. His mind was drifting away from the conversation even in that minute, drifting away like a cloud caught in tailwinds and dragged from its place of birth, accompanied by Evangellion’s crooning and singing of the stars and the deepest ocean tides, and of how Izuku would love to be underwater right now, with the scent and taste of salt and that strange feeling of weightlessness all around him-

Bakugou growled again and Izuku’s mind snapped back to the current time and place The look of Bakugou’s face made it very clear to Izuku that he was not going to go exempt from a beating later that day. A shame, really, since Izuku had wanted to go home and curl up somewhere in the house and sleep.

The rest of the day passed in somewhat of a haze; accompanied by Evangellion’s steady humming and the faint chatter of classmates, it was only until the last class of the day that the subtle balance shifted.

“Now,” their teacher said, passing out forms, “it’s important to consider what your future is going to be like, so we’re handing out these forms for you to put down what high schools you’re considering going to.”

The resulting whooping from his classmates was instantaneous, and Izuku tilted his head and hummed thoughtfully. Bakugou was saying something in the background, but Izuku ignored him, putting down his top three choices of high schools that were known in his mind. Nitsukuru was an option, though it was a school primarily for those interested in careers such as social workers, doctors, lawyers, and the like. There was also Gijutsu Academy, for those interested in the support category of careers, which would be an interesting lifestyle. Finally, of course, there was Yuuei, which Izuku had placed down for the sole fact that no matter the quality of teachers or overall teaching methods, Yuuei held that prestige that would be useful no matter where Izuku ended up in life. Assuming he didn’t end up living in the bottom of the ocean, glass barrier between he and Evangellion nonexistent.

The bell rung just as Izuku had finished filling out his forms, and Izuku, though thoroughly anticipating the beatdown that was to come, made sure that his completed form was given to his teacher. Bakugou and the ever-present gaggle of onlookers of Izuku’s misery stalked Izuku all through the hallways as he retrieved what little things he had in his locker from it, exchanged his school shoes for his sneakers, and exited the school grounds. Not even a full yard out of the school grounds before Bakugou grabbed Izuku by the ruff of feathers that had grown from his neck, painfully yanking on several and almost causing Izuku to yelp. Then, Izuku was tossed to the ground, and as he’d predicted, got a beatdown. His best hope was to just cover what of his body he could in the near-black scales given by Evangellion and ride the storm out.

When they’d gotten bored of kicking him around, Izuku slowly got back up, tilting head from side to side and flicking his fins and ears experimentally. Satisfied, he stood up more than he had been, brushing dirt off of his pants before picking his backpack back up and slinging it around one of his shoulders. Time to head home; no time for a trip to the beach today. Mom would be worried about him, as she’d noticed his slight tenseness that morning. Even if she didn’t know the full extent of his quirk, Izuku was kind enough to at least tell her that sometimes there would be days that ended up badly for him no matter what he did.

She’d gotten better at it over the years, and Izuku was eager to return home and decompress.

It was when he was walking under an underpass that an out of the ordinary thing happened, as they did. The slight grating of a manhole cover, and a glimpse of something greenish, before suddenly Izuku couldn’t breathe, and this wasn’t the same kind of breathlessness as underwater because Izuku knew the underwater and this was not it .

Izuku reached inside of himself to where Evangellion was throwing itself at the glass cage and screeching, and begged, help me!

The effect was immediate. His form rippled and smoothly shifted, and then he was snarling, about one and a half times the size he had been, doing everything he could to get the revulsive creature off of him, whatever he could to survive. Screeching more, he kept away from the creature as best he could, and hissed. Who- or whatever it was, it tried its best to scurry away, rambling about how Izuku wasn’t human.

A flash of light and vaguely familiar words were what signaled Izuku to the presence of another being, and he reached back into the well where the cage was kept and gently pushed Evangellion back into its cage, coming to his senses when as much of his human appearance that could be gained back was. Izuku looked up, and holy shit it’s All Might!

“A-All Might-san!” His voice was half of a trill but he ignored it. “Oh my god i just got saved by All Might-san, I was going to die oh my god , A-All Might-san, sir!” All Might looked away from where he had bottled up whatever villain had attacked Izuku. “My notebook, could-could you maybe sign it? I know tons of people have asked you but?” Izuku felt like he was vibrating at a speed too fast to tell. Maybe he was.

Regardless, All Might only smiled and in his booming voice said, “No need to fear, young man! I have already signed your notebook for you! Now, I must be off!” And with that, the man leapt into the sky.

Not that Izuku was paying much attention. Instead he still was struggling with the fact that he’d a) almost died, and b) met All Might face-to-face. Today had been. . . so surreal. So, so, so surreal, the way an oasis is, or the way the water seems much shallower than it truly is before you drowned.

Izuku still needed to get home. So, gathering his things once more, he stood up, carefully latched the glass cage, and scurried through the underpass, walking briskly along the roads towards home. His attention was caught by a commotion further ahead, and he weaved his way through the crowd to look.

His gaze caught on a face that had been etched into his mind since he was four years old.

The man did not see him but Izuku remembered him grabbing a much younger Izuku, making threats, lying about how he’d been forced to do this and “ if you just let me through peacefully I’ll let the kid go and i can take you to the people who are making me do this” .

The glass cage shattered.

Chapter Text

Gatsuki Kakusu was feeling lucky that day.

He;d successful escaped from the police, and had even managed to snag a few snacks along the way. Walking around the streets of Mustafu was a good way to find victims as well. A blond, surrounded by people who seemed more interested in avoiding him than actually listening to him.

Perfect.

“Hey kid..” He said, strolling up to him. “You want to be a hero, right?”

“Of-fucking-course.”

“Great. Works for me.” Quicker than the blink of an eye, one of Kakusu’s arms was around his neck, clawed hands lightly gripping his throat. The panic from the surrounding crowd was instant, and Kakusu felt a twinge of satisfaction as he always did.

Several heroes rushed forwards to act, but Kakusu pressed down harder with his claws, and they stopped. “I have a few demands.” He said in the practiced manner that he had.

The familiar brown trenchcoat of one Tsukauchi Naomasa, the detective who’d become the go-to for whenever Kakusu appeared, stepped forwards. “What are your demands?” His tone was even, measured.

“Easy.” Kakusu answered. “Thirty thousand yen and uninhibited transport to Kyushu.” His feelers perked up a bit, sensing more people approaching. Lovely, it always was such fun to put on a show.

Except this wasn’t that. Barely a milisecond and the t hing was in front of him, hissing and snarling. The crowd screamed, and Kakusu let go of the kid he’d grabbed in order to dodge the attacks of the furious guardian devil that had appeared a decade ago. It was smaller now, and in broad daylight, but Kakusu would recognize it’s wailing screams anywhere. They’d stayed in his nightmares for months.

~| |~

Naomasa could only look on in horror as he observed the scene.

The civilian that Gatsuki had kidnapped had been removed from the scene as quickly as the heres could get to him while Gatsuki himself was concerned with dodging the attacks of the thing attacking him.

It hissed, and flared its fins and feathers, and Naomasa did his best to piece together his memory of that night those years ago with what was in front of him. Evangellion, as it had been dubbed, was in a more humanoid shape, in that it was only twice the size of Naomasa and that it had five talons on its forepaw rather than the four that it had had. It screamed again, all pain and rage, and slammed one of it’s tails down on Gatsuki’s more fragile moth wings.

The man howled, and struck with his claws at the thing, catching against dark purple claws that shimmered green and causing Evangellion to screech again. In response, it pinned him to the ground, and would have shredded Gatsuki’s internal organs with its second set of forelegs and its hind legs had someone on the scene not finally done something and drawn its attention away.

That someone being Naomasa.

Evangellion stared at him, and through its six eyes Naomasa swore he could see galaxies and ocean waves reflected in them.

Evangellion paused, then, lifted its head and surveyed the scene, then with the abruptness of a deer realizing it was caught in the path of a car, Evangellion turned tail and ran, at points leaping forwards with an extra bounce that could not have been achieved had the laws of gravity applied to it.

From the ground, Gatsuki laid, concrete broken from the force that Evangellion had used to slam him down into it.

Naomasa, recovering his wits a second later, stepped forwards and put a pair of handcuffs on the moth-quirked man, who was pale and looked shaken. There were other officers at the scene by now as well, and Naomasa wordlessly handed Gatsuki to them.

This was going to be a nightmare to deal with, and Naomasa could only pray that there would be enough coffee to get him through the all nighters he would have to pull to deal with the mess.

~| |~

Izuku’s mind solidified when he was on the beach, and the last edges of Evangellion drained away as the glass cage was painfully rebuilt with his own willpower.

The beach was blessedly empty, and Izuku headed deeper into the areas with the less-scavenged parts, where less people would venture. Every step was agony, and he was aware of a cut on his back that twinged with every step. He thought there might have been one on his face as well, because it hurt. A lot.

He staggered over to the most hidden area he’d find, and began dutifully removing the bloodstained uniform shirt that he wore. His left shoulder twinged with his back, and he lowered the cage enough for enough flexibility in his neck to turn and see that there were three gashes along his back, deeper than he’d thought. The blood pooled sluggishly from them, though the one on reaching from the beginning of his left shoulder down to right above the tailbone was the worst, the other two smaller ones being below that one and not reaching as far.

His face twinged again, and Evangellion wailed, and Izuku pulled the cage back up and latched it, adding on a lock that was more for mental comfort than anything else. Izuku lifted two fingers to his face, and gently brushed them across it, stopping when the area under his right eye spiked with the pain. Keeping his fingers even more gentle and light, Izuku brushed them along his face, trying to figure out where it started from. The gash seemed to start right at the edge of his nose and continued almost all the way around to his jaw.

At least the one on his face didn’t hurt as much as the ones on his back.

Izuku tried to push himself back up again. He had to keep moving. If they found him, Izuku wouldn’t have enough mental strength to keep Evangellion caged, and then anyone who approached him would get hurt.

But as soon as he stepped he faltered, knees buckling and falling to the sandy ground without grace. Blinking wouldn’t get rid of the spots dancing in his vision, and Izuku was left to slowly fall into the depths of his own lack of consciousness.

~| |~

He woke up on a hospital bed.

Izuku had never really gone to hospitals, but he could identify one easily.

His left arm felt numb, and his right arm felt vaugely less numb, with some puffiness. Looking over as much as he could, Izuku was greeted with the sight of his right arm having several IV drips attached to it. Moving his head the other way confirmed that his left arm, particularly the shoulder, was bandaged, as was his torso and face from what he could feel of it.

So now he was in a hospital. Fun.

A doctor entered the room, and Izuku couldn’t stop himself from shrinking down as much as he could. Doctors would ask questions, and Izuku couldn’t answer those questions truthfully. If he dd, Mom would find him, and then Izuku would have to explain the whole mess he was in, which he. Very much didn’t want to do.

“Ah, you’re awake. That’s good. How are you feeling?” The doctor had a kind smile, and had the circumstances been different Izuku probably would have given her the honest truth. But.

“I-I’m as f-fine as I can-can be, ma’am.” It was ridiculously easy to slip into the facade of being a shy, frail child. Bakugou and his friends had done their best to keep izuku being the submissive child he had been, and even if their taunting didn’t work, Izuku at least could use it to his advantage. “Can-can I ask where-where I a-am?”

The doctor’s face softened in sympathy. That, or pity. “Of course. You’re in Mustafu General Hospital.” She continued to talk, saying how he was lucky that his friend had found him when he was in the condition he was.

Izuku wasn’t sure what she was talking about, since he had no friends, but didn’t comment on it. For now he had to think of a way to make sure they didn’t follow him or find out who he was. What stories could he successfully create? An orphan living on the beach? No, that’s too overused, they’ll know I’m lying . What else, then?

An idea hit him. Amnesiac; given the pain he’d gone through it wasn’t unlikely, and he could get away with not answering anything, wouldn’t even have to give a name.

Plan decided, Izuku waited until the doctor entered the room. “Are you adjusting well?”

He nodded.

“Good. I’m glad to hear it. Now, I have a few questions for you, if that’s alright?”

A quiet “yes ma’am” from Izuku prompted her to continue.

“What’s your name, young man?”

“I-I don’t remember.” Izuku poured the panic and confusion into his voice. “I-I don’t remember my name. I-I should but-but I don’t-don’t and that’s-that’s not g-good and-” Izuku trailed off, and the famous Midoriya trait for tears came out full force, eyes welling up within seconds.

The doctor’s face softened again, and she gave hims a few seconds. “Do you remember anything else? The name of a loved one, perhaps?”

“No-no ma’am.”

Disappointed and pitying that she was, the doctor offered him a smile, and stood from the chair she was sitting in. “Well, I’m sorry that you have to experience this. Your friend is waiting outside - I’ll send him on to see you.” With that, she left, and Izuku had a few seconds before someone else entered the room.

The someone was a boy with hair that rivaled Izuku’s own in terms of sheer levels of defying gravity (and which were a minty green color as opposed to Izukur’s darker locks), with tanned skin and a set of glasses on his face, with eyes that were a molten gold. He also was in a purple hoodie that seemed to swallow him up, giving how big it was, and Izuku had to guess that it was probably for someone a lot bigger than him.

“So.” he began. “What’s your name?” When Izuku tried to put on the fake-persona the boy just held up a hand. “Dude. We both know you’re lying.”

“Somehow I’m not surprised.” Izuku muttered aloud.

“So, gonna tell why?” The other boy asked, pulling out what was probably his phone from the large pocket of the hoodie.

“Basically, my mom would never trust me again and everyone would be on eggshells around me. Well, be more on eggshells around me.”

“Yeah, that’s fair.” The boy stuck out a hand. “I’m Kyokusei Jishaku, but call me Pol.”

“‘Pol’?” Izuku repeated, the question on his voice.

“Yeah, like the poles! Like magnets!” Pol said, bouncing up and down slightly.

“I don’t suppose you have any way to help me get out of here?” Izuku asked, absent-mindedly scratching part of his arm.

Pol just shook his head, then paused. “Wait, I might have an idea. Give me a few days.”

~| |~

As it turned out, Pol’s idea was for Izuku to continue to pretend to be an amnesiac for the next week or so until he’d healed enough to actually do things, and, y’know. Not. cause any suspicion.

“Did you really have to make me wait an entire week before i could be freed of that awful place?”

“Aw, Midori! You weren’t alone at least! I visited you!” Pol shot back in his cheery voice, pale curls bouncing as he bounced on one of the hospital window sills, glasses barely hanging onto his face. “Besides, you’re free now!”

Izuku huffed, but didn't reply. His fins had long since been waving in the air, as were his two tails. Pol had looked at Izuku a bit oddly when Izuku had shown that aspect of his quirk, but hadn’t paid it any mind in favor of unnecessarily hyping himself up for that moment. “So, what’s the plan?”

Pol’s grin grew wider. “Oh, that’s easy!” He waved a hand at the half-open window in what would soon be the former hospital room of Izuku’s, and slung an arm around Izuku’s midsection. “We're gonna jump out this window, and I’m gonna reverse our polarity so that we don’t die!”

Izuku got no time to protest, and Pol, in a single motion, opened the window the rest of the way, and launched the two of them out of the window. I f we die because of this, I’m going to kill him.

Luckily, they didn’t die. They almost did, if Pol’s nervous laughing after they’d gotten to solid ground was any indication, but they hadn’t died, so that was a plus.

Pol had then grabbed Izuku’s arm and basically dragged the other boy to . . . somewhere. Izuku didn’t actually know where Pol was dragging him. But he didn’t get any sense of negativity or anything of that sort from the other boy, and Evangellion seemed to like him (if the ever growing singing was an indicator), so Izuku let himself be pulled along.

“Where are you taking me?” He finally asked after they’d gone past more than a few houses.

“My house, duh.” Pol replied. “You’re still wearing a hospital gown, and any decent parent would be concerned if their child showed up after at least a week in nothing but a hospital gown.”

Ah. That. Was true.

They did end up at Pol’s house, in only a few more minutes (“is your house just. . . near hospitals?” “nah, it’s just near the one, since the one is near the beach, and i like to scavenge the beach for machines i can cannibalize for parts in projects of mine.” “ah,,, i see,,,,” “Midori i have no idea how you managed to pronounce several commas following each other, but that is a big mood ”), so they made it to the house in pretty good time.

Pol didn’t say anything, just stalked forwards through the doorway (dragging Izuku along with him) until they were at what Izuku assumed was Pol’s bedroom. The walls and ceiling were a pale cream color, while the floor was covered in a dark hardwood tile with the occasional carpet. The room had several piles of mechanical pieces, including at the corners of the room, on the two visible dressers, and on the desk (which also had a fair amount of scattered papers). The only part of the room that didn’t have some sort of metal or mechanical part to it was the bed, which was just as messy as the rest of the room.

Izuku found himself awkwardly standing in the doorway of the room as Pol rummaged around his room, finding a set of clothing that he deemed appropriate. “This should work.” Pol declared, and shoved the clothing into Izuku’s arms. “The bathroom is down the hall to the left.” He called as Izuku left to get out of the (very thin and not at all comfortable) hospital gown.

Following Pol’s instructions, Izuku changed and put the hospital gown into the trahscan in the bathroom. He did his best to raise the glass cage, keeping Evangelion away for the most part; it would be better not to turn into a giant lizard-bird creature in his new friend(?)’s house.

“You still here? Great!” Pol was visibly bouncing again. “You can keep the clothes, I have a bunch that I never wear anyways.”

“I- okay?”

“ An yways!” Pol grabbed Izuku’s hands (again) and pulled him once more along through the house. “You’re here, and my parents are going to wonder where I’ve been, so I might as well introduce you to them now to avoid any questions!”

“Wait-” Izuku began to protest, but realized it was pointless and just let himself be pulled along. The fins on his head wavered slightly along with the increased volume of Evangellion’s singing, but it wasn’t any problem, so he let Evangellion hum as his fins wavered in the breezeless hallway. The house wasn’t actually that big, but Izuku got a better look at it as Pol led him through at a slower pace. The rest of the house was rather plain and well-kept compared to the chaotic mess that was Pol’s room.

The two boys ended up in what Izuku assumed was a sort of living room, where a man and a woman sat on a sofa. They both looked up as Izuku and Pol stepped into the room. For a few moments, everyone stood still, not moving.

Finally, the woman spoke. “Jishaku,” she said, slowly, “would you care to explain what you’re doing?”

“Not particularly.” Pol answered with too bright of a grin.

She fixed a hard stare on him. In the silent moments between, Izuku let himself have time to observe more about the room and its occupants. The woman (Pol’s mother) had the same wild curls and molten eyes, but her hair was of a dark teal rather than minty green, and her skin was more pale. The man, Pol’s father, was the one with the mint green hair, which was straight and pulled back into a ponytail, as well as having eyes that were a shade of grey that was almost black, and skin of the same tanned color as Pol.

After a few more seconds, Pol cracked. “Okay, so I might care to explain what I’m doing.”

“Then explain.” His mother said, in a tone that left no room for argument.

“We-e-el-l-l, I found my friend here passed out on a beach and I took him to a hospital and we bonded over a hate of hospitals?” Pol offered.

Izuku turned to him and, in the most deadpan voice he could manage, said, “Did you really just tell them everything after i faked amnesia for a week so that no one could draw any connections to me or my family? Because that’s kind of rude.” He might have let some of Evangellion’s aggravated humming through with his voice, because Pol looked very guilty and humbled after Izuku had spoken.

The room fell into silence once more, until Pol’s father spoke up. “Well, circumstances nonwithstanding, it’s nice to meet you. . . ?”

“Midoriya Izuku.”

The man nodded again. “It’s nice to meet you, Midoriya. Maybe you can keep my son out of trouble. My name is Kyokusei Sasu.” He nodded to his wife. “And she’s-”

“Kyokusei Jikai.” She said. “Do your parents know that you’re here?”

Evangellion seemed to like her (probably because of her no-nonsense, “I’m going to make sure you’re comfortable if it’s the last thing I do” that she had). Izuku shifted awkwardly. “Well, no, my mom doesn’t know I’m here. But!” He continued speaking before Pol’s mother started talking over him. “My mom won’t mind, I promise.”

Mrs. Kyokusei cast a suspicious look on him, but didn’t comment. Instead, she turned to Pol. “Can you at least make sure he gets home, Jishaku?”

“Can do!” Pol mock saluted his mother, and turned to Izuku. “Come on, Midori, time to get you home!” In a quieter tone, he added, “Before my mom kills me.”

“Well, we’d better go then.” Izuku followed Pol back out the door, through the hallways and out of his house. Pol kept up a quiet, continuous chatter throughout the entire trip to the apartment complex where Izuku lived.

“Do you want to help me move parts and stuff from that broken down beach?” Pol asked when they were almost at the apartment complex.

“Sure, I don’t see why not.” (Evangellion trilled with hope in returning to the beach; it had been separated from its home for too long). They arrived at the entrance of the apartment complex. “Do you want to meet my mom?” Izuku offered to a nervous-looking Pol.

Pol didn’t answer, but Izuku gently grasped his arm with his tail and led him through the building until they were at Izuku and his mother’s apartment. Izuku rung the doorbell, and after a moment, mom opened the door. Her eyes fell on Izuku, and then he was being squeezed by the force of her hug. Neither of them said anything; they didn’t need to.

When he'd become freed from her embrace, Izuku led Pol through the doorway as the three of them moved to their simple living room. “This is my mom,” he told the boy, “-and mom, this is my friend. He helped me out with not getting questioned harshly by anyone.”

“My real name is Kyokusei Jishaku, but I go by Pol.” Pol was still nervous, which was understandable. Mom was a bit intimidating, even as short-statured as she was.

Mom only nodded slowly. “I’m glad that Izuku has a friend. Thank you for making sure he got back to me safely.”

“It was nothing.” Pol reached up and adjusted his glasses. “I . . . I should be going home now.”

“Yes, your parents must be worried.” Mom agreed with him. “Take care.”

Pol nodded, then waved goodbye to Izuku before leaving.

The house fell into silence again, and Izuku let himself unwind for the first time in roughly two weeks. The glass cage was lowered a fair amount, and his clawed hands and feet stretched out as his tails, fins and feathers shifted around as Izuku made himself comfortable on the couch, unable to work up the energy to move to his bedroom. Mom was making food in the kitchen, and even though it was quiet, it was a comforting silence.

Life was good.

Chapter Text

He’d woken up on the couch a few hours later, with the house quiet and dark, and to the sound of Evengellion’s gentle crooning. Izuku noticed that the blinds had been drawn back partially, allowing for the soft moonlight to creep partly into the room.

The house was still quiet, though, and Izuku felt a longing for the ocean’s deep, lulling waves. It had been more days than he wanted to spend away from the ocean, and it may have been a bleed through of emotions from Evangellion, but Izuku just wanted to be under the pressure and cold of the deep sea, with the salt filling up his nostrils and filtering through his gills and the water weaving through the hair and feathers on his body.

He knew mom wouldn’t mind. If she had wanted him to stay home, she would have done more to stop him, instead of encouraging him like she did. From the moonlight letting him see to the way that the door was unlocked and the way that there was extra food ready to be reheated for whenever he was hungry, to the way that the materials to make hot chocolate were in reach, the way that there was a drawstring bag with a clean set of clothes already in it next to the couch where he had been sleeping.

And, of course, there was the short, hand-written note, with only the words “don’t forget to warm yourself up when you get home” written on it. So, Izuku went, the glass cage shifting and lowering as it always did. Fins sprouted from behind his ears and his back and along the middle and ends of his tails, and feathers grew adjacent to the fins and around his neck, and Izuku knew that that pair of pajamas were now resigned to a watery, dead fate, but they had been old and needed to be gotten rid of anyways.

The night air was cold, thin, and had a bite to it - and Izuku burrowed further down into the feathered ruff on his neck than he was already. The stars shone rather brightly around him in the sky; miniature suns, thousands upon thousands of miles away from the earth, giving faint but gently light onto the world, always there, always existing, even if not visible. Izuku supposed that they probably shouldn’t have been that bright, for he and his mother living in the middle of a city -  but they lived in one of the ‘bad neighborhoods’, where crime was more prevalent and things weren’t as fixed up. Mom always claimed that it was because the rent was cheaper. Izuku thought it might have been the way that she always had her first-aid kit on her, the way that she and he and the other citizens of their area knew how to look at each other and take the broken pieces and fix what they could. Sure, a few members might be low-level villains, or vigilantes, and even the occasional underground hero, but before all of that they were all flesh and blood and bone and living, and humans would packbond with anything in times of distress and a shady community became a home of sorts.

Izuku didn't think others wouldn’t understand it overly well. How the elderly neighbors could always count on the younger ones a few stories down, who had been yakuza once, to help them with their domestic life. How if any child came running from an abusive parent or friend, the vigilantes, villains, and underground heroes would pretend not to know who was what in favor of keeping the children safe. How no one questioned the people who downplayed their quirks more than normal, or those who said they were quirkless when they weren’t.

In a way, it was because of the odd, almost paradoxical community Izuku had grown up in that he was able to feel as safe wandering the streets after hours as he did, and why he was as comfortable with Evangellion as he was. No one judged you in his neighborhood, and no one asked too many prying questions, and even if it wasn’t absolutely functional to what the general populous considered normal, the saying still went that “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it”, and that was that the few almost worn-down, almost-broken neighborhoods of apartment buildings lived by.

Mrs. Yukimura was watching him as he strolled by, with his two tails lazily drifting through the air and two additional sets of eyes and a set of arms that hadn't been there that morning. She didn’t say anything, only offering a nod before returning to watering the plants on her small outdoor balcony. Izuku didn’t mind, though. He strolled to the very edge of what Mom would consider a balcony, small as it was; he perched on the guardrail, and in a fluid movement, pushed off with his hind legs and let the gravity pull him down for a few moments before the levitation that was always brought with Evangellion made itself known. Now he hung, untethered to the earth, several feet above the ground. The cage lowered more, and he grew bigger, and swam through the air in the silence and starlight of the moonless midnight.

He arrived at the beach, as he always did, and gratefully sank into the waves, fins and scales and mane of hair merging into them, rendering what was now a blend of both Evangellion and Izuku near invisible in the water. Izuku drifted, letting Evangellion have some control, and letting the water calm him. Izuku was simply Izuku, and Evangellion was simply Evangellion, and the two of them together were simply the monarch of the reptiles and the birds, of the sea and stars.

The ‘monarch of the sea’ aspect showed  when Izuku and Evangellion were under the water in the lizard-like form, large, freely drifting, letting the currents take them where the currents would. The sea creatures broke away from any formations to let them pass, and they had a faint awareness of all of their presences, as it had always been. They were in need of food, Evangellion decided, and so they moved with the dolphins and sharks to search for a school of fish, or some other larger creatures to feed on.

There were several killer whales in the area, most of them adults. Izuku knew, logically, that the loss of two of the population would cause no harm, and Evangellion knew, from the whispers of the water, just as it knew that removing two of one of the other populations of whales would cause much harm. Evangellion choose two of the older adults that had more than likely fostered an offspring at least once in their lives. The killer whales had no questions, as they were not quiet sentient in the way that humans were. The killer whales looked their death in the eyes and calmly swam forwards to eat it. And then they were gone.

And the two drifted, still, with the moonlight streaming through the parts of the ocean it was bathed in, and Evangellion's crooning echoing eerily through the water. But Evangellion craved not just the starlight but also the darkness and deep, deep pressure and cold of the very bottom of the ocean floor, where there was no song of the stars, only the song of the sea. So it dove down, deeper, deeper, until there was no light to be seen save for the distant flashes of an angler fish or other bioluminescent creature, and until Izuku could feel his entire body being pressed down upon by the thousands of tons of water and the creatures living in it, until he felt nothing but a bone-deep, aching chill, and heard only the echoing notes of Evangellion's song.

Home. Evangellion thought in memories and emotions more than actual words. Here is where I am home, just as the skies.

Eventually, they rose from the smaller ocean trench they had wedged themselves into, and, using tails which could knock a building over each, with clawed and webbed talons on powerful limbs and fins that cut through the water, they rose. When they got to the surface, the glass cage rose just as the two had, and then there was no longer Evangellion, but Izuku.

There were several things that Izuku realized. One, was that the pajamas that Izuku had been wearing were now soaked in saltwater and thoroughly shredded. Second, Izuku was now a she.

Her initial surprise was not unwarranted; to be fair, it had been a while since she had been a she, as usually she was anywhere from he to xe to they, sometimes being fae. But today she was she. So, izuku grabbed her bag, and, crouched in the darkness of the rusted beach with its robotic machine parts as cover, she stripped off the shredded remains of the older pajamas as quickly as she could, before changing into the dry clothes that mom had given her.

She’d wandered back home slowly, enough to gaze at the stars and moon and clouds, but not enough slowly enough that the moon had fallen enough for the sky to change shades. Her internal clock said that it was somewhere around one AM, and checking with Forceweight, one of the Underground Heroes, confirmed this. Forceweight looked at Izuku a bit strangely, but they were rather new to the neighborhood, so they didn’t know about Izuku’s wanderings just yet.

Izuku returned to a home as quiet and still as she had left it, and she trudged through the rooms until she arrived at her bedroom. Too exhausted to do much more than run her head under the sold water from the showerhead, she collapsed into her bed soon after. Almost as soon as she closed her eyes, she was asleep.

The next morning had her feeling a bit miserable, both from the scars and from the way that her body felt weighed down as if she was helplessly crushed under mountains of earth, far from the free and familiar pressure of the water. But she would manage. She'd managed before, from when the weight of the world seemed almost too much to bear. Things would be find, in time.

Izuku had made all the effort to trudge down the hallway to the living room, only to be told to go back to her room and rest more, because mom was good at noticing things, and Izuku had, in the time between leaving her room and stumbling into the living room, her neck, arms, and legs were covered in feathers, which she sank down into as she shivered.

That was how Izuku ended up staying home for an additional week, because mom insisted; Izuku had now missed around a month at school, and she knew she was going to have to come up with some sort of explanation when she came back. She knew her grades wouldn’t suffer too badly, since Izuku had a habit of wandering and going through different pages on the internet at nighttime, when it wasn’t quite the right time to sink into the ocean, so Izuku knew a fair bit of information. And besides, she could always get notes from the few classmates who were in the nearby neighborhoods. They were kind, even if they didn’t have the same ride-or-die attitude towards their community like Izuku’s own had.

There was the matter of attendance and sick days; but, in a twist of luck, Izuku had not been absent for any of the days yet in that school year, so she would have enough to spare for a month. Or for at least most of it. Then again, Izuku and her mother could always claim that she had been caught up in a villain attack; their neighborhood was one of the worse-off ones in terms of income, and it was common knowledge that there were at least three villains living in the area. Who wouldn’t believe that a newer villain had arrived and attacked? Even with the knowledge of the strong community that her neighborhood had (which was usually only given to more permanent members of the community itself), it still was likely that a villain would be driven to do such a thing.

The first two days of her week of rest were spent mostly sleeping. On the third day xe woke up, decided that xe wanted ice cream, and went to the fridge and got ice cream, ignoring the fact that Izuku probably wasn’t allowed to have ice cream at the moment and that xeir mom would be made at xem. (Mom caught xem anyways. Xe were forbidden from ice cream for the rest of the week. Xe weren’t having fun.)

It was a few hours after xe had been forbidden from ice cream that Izuku got bored. Xe didn’t really have anything to do, most of the people in the apartment complex were out working or had school-

Oh wait! It was almost like a lightbulb went off in xeir head. Evangellion was trilling too, so that had to mean it was something good. We have a new neighbor- she moved in a day ago, right? She’s still settling in, probably. Maybe she’ll like the extra help. With the idea firmly in mind, and backed by Evangellion’s airy presence, Izuku went decidedly did not go get more ice cream, and instead grabbed xeir phone and bag and headed out the door in hopes of finding out who the neighbor was.

Good news: xe found their neighbor.

Bad news: both Izuku and xeir neighbor were currently in the middle of a park while there was shouting going on around them.

At least it was the smaller park of the neighborhood which didn’t have as many potential dangers?

No, no, that was still bad. There were people screaming. Why were people screaming?

“Did you see that?!” His neighbor said (he’d need to find out her name at some point and - oh, he was a he now) with a touch of hysteria in her voice.

“No.” Izuku admitted. “I wasn’t paying much attention. What happened?”

His neighbor gave him a disbelieving look, but began to talk anyways. “There was this giant orange and black bird that just flew above us!” She said. “How could you miss the giant bird?” Oh, that was definitely hysteria.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” Izuku might not have been paying attention, but even if Evangellion hadn’t warbled at him, he would have known to comfort her. “You're going to be okay. The bird isn’t here, there’s no danger, you're okay. We’re both safe. Everyone is safe, it's all okay.”

Eventually she calmed down, and zuku led her over to one of the little cubbies that he’d wedged himself into more than a few times. “You okay?” His voice was soft and quiet, and she gave a smaller nod. “I’m sorry you had to see something so crazy as soon as you got here. But it’s okay; that’s one of the most insane things around here, so if you can get through that, you can get through almost anything.” He kept patting her head and rubing circles on her back as soothingly as he could, letting the warmth and lightness of the sky fill his words as he always did when someone needed comfort and calming. “I’m Midoriya Izuku, by the way.”

“Ura- Uraraka Ochako.” She gave her name in turn, and though she was still a bit pale, she seemed to be recovering well. “What was with that bird?”

Izuku shrugged. “Like I said, he’s one of the weirder things in our neighborhood. Part of the reason why it's so cheap. Most people think the bird is a villain, and the neighborhood is already filled with underground pros, villains, vigilantes and the like, so the civilians like us usually have to find ways to make sure no one kills each other or something.”

Uraraka gave him another disbelieving look. “No, it’s not bad i promise!” Izuku said, waving his hands and arms frantically. “We actually have our own little community because of it, it’s pretty tight-knit.”

:How come you’re telling me all this?” She asked, a tilt to her head. “You just admitted that there were villains and vigilantes here. What’s stopping me from calling the police?”

“Because you’re a part of the community now!” Izuku felt almost bad springing it on her like that, but it had to be done. She would learn eventually, anyways, so better for her to learn sooner rather than later. “Come on, I can take you to my mom. She’d be able to explain better than i would.”

Ochako honestly hadn’t been expecting. . . whatever her new home was like.

First, she had moved in, and it had taken a few days for her to get settled. She’d made sure that all of the work for her middle school was done, and all the tests taken, before moving to where she would be living for the next three or so years. She had heard that is was a cheaper area, and that there were villains living in the area, but that most people kept to theirselves. So, ochako has had expectations.

Of course, those expectations had been shattered pretty early on by the giant orange-and-black bird that radiated heat, and the boy with green curls and small feathers on his cheeks and arms.

Then he had calmed her down when she was panicking, gave her some information about their neighborhood that made her want to panic again, and led her to his apartment to fetch his mother, who would apparently be able to explain the situation better than the boy - Midoriya - could. Which didn’t sound ominous, not at all! Don’t let your worries get to you, Ochako.

He led her up some stairs and through a few hallways, and Ochako wasn’t sure how he remembered all the different twists and turns, but Midoriya greeted each person they came across, greeting them all by name. Ochako was impressed by his memory; he had said that the community was more tight-knit, though, so maybe she’d be able to remember all their names when she got more settled in to the community.

Eventually they made it to a rather plain-looking apartment, with the nameplate displaying ‘Midoriya’ proudly. “Mom!” Midoriya called as he entered. “I’m back!”

As soon as they stepped in the doorway, a blur shot out across the room towards Midoriya, wh stumbled as if being pulled forwards. His braced himself against the ground (and did he grow two tails? Were those fins around his ears?) and the blur stopped just short of crashing into them. “Midori!” Cried the blur, who was another boy with mint-green hair and a set of circular glasses.

“Oh, Pol.” Midoriya responded, as if the newly-named Pol always did. . . whatever he did. Maybe he did that often? Ochako wasn’t sure.

“Who’s the girl?” Pol asked, peering around Midoriya to look at Ochako.

“My neighbor.” Midoriya said.

“I’m Uraraka Ochako.” She held a hand out. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Pol grinned. “Nice to meet you too, Uraraka!” He shook her offered hand. “I’m Kyokusei Jishaku, but call me Pol, cause I like magnets and it’s a pun.”

“How is it a pun?” She asked, and Pol grinned wider.

“Here, lemme show you!” He whipped out a piece of paper and a pen (did he always carry those with him?) and began jotting something down.

“Okay okay so!” He began, motioning for Ochako to come closer to see what was on the paper. “My family name is ‘Kyokusei’, right?” He tapped the kanji. “But it could be translated to ‘polarity’. And my given name is ‘Jishaku’, but that can be translated to ‘magnet’. So my name basically means polarity magnet.”

“Is that where you get your nickname from, then?”

“Kinda!” he was bouncing on his feet again; he seemed to do that a lot. “But it’s also because of my quirk! I can ‘magnetise’ two or more things to a different thing! So i basically make two different things magnets! And i can make them opposite or equal charges, so that the things get pulled towards or pushed away from each other. I can control how much they push or pull, which objects get pushed or pulled and how much force is put on the pushing or pulling!” He was still bouncing, his grin never wavering despite that large amount of information he’d dumped on her.

“What do you mean when you say you can control the ‘force’?” Ochako asked.

“Oh, that’s easy!” Pol replied. “So you know how if a magnet is right next to another magnet, it’ll either pull towards the magnet or push itself away really fast, but if the magnet is farther away, it doesn’t do it as much? That’s what i mean.”

“Wouldn’t that just be a part of controlling how much they push or pull, though?”

“Not really.” Pol reached for a pencil and seemed to be doodling while he talked. “The push or pull is like. . . like, like. . . like what i said about putting the magnets next to each other. The strength of the pull is like the strength of a magnet; really strong ones will have stronger pulls and weaker ones will have weaker pulls.”

Ochako nodded slowly. “Yeah, i think i can understand it now.” The two sat in the silence a little bit while Midoriya did something just out of sight. “Hey, I never asked,” Pol picked his head up to look at her while Ochako spoke, “but what’s the name of your quirk, anyways?”

“Oh! It’s called Magnet Maker.” He put down the pencil, stretched, and resumed drawing. “What's yours?”

“Zero Gravity. If i touch something with all five fingers I can cancel it’s gravitational effect and make it float, but if i use my quirk too much i vomit.”

“Fair enough.” Pol replied. He carefully picked up the doodle, then folded the piece of paper up and put it in his pocket. Then he turned his head and yelled, “Hey Midori!”

“Yeah?”

“What’s your quirk?”

Midoriya wandered into the living room where Pol and Ochako had been sitting. “Oh, my quirk is called Archosaur.” He lifted up one of his arms, and it was covered in green scales, before the scales were replaced by purple feathers. “It lets me manifest bird- or lizard-like features, but i can’t do both at the same time.”

Pol looked like he wanted to ask more questions, but there was a knock on the door, and all three teenagers turned as one to look at it. Midoriya’s ears perked up (and Ochako didn’t know how he could do that - longer, swiveling ears weren’t a thing that birds or reptiles had, right?) before he nodded, satisfied with something.

Then the door opened, to a shorter woman with hair a lighter green than Midoriya’s, but with that same air of comfort and safety. There was no doubting who she was when Midoriya threw himself at her, with a cry of “mom! You’re home!”

The woman - Midoriya’s mother - scanned the room, then sighed. “What trouble did you get into today, Izuku?”

“Not much, I promise!” he answered. “I made a friend! She’s our new neighbor and her name is Uraraka Ochako! And we have to explain the neighborhood to her like we did with Forceweight-san and the other people new to the neighborhood!”

“Is that so.” Midoriya’s mother said, and she looked around the room again, before motioning to the three teenagers to follow her. “Come on, then. You’ll want to be sitting, since this explanation might take a while.”

Hitoshi was honestly drained.

It wasn’t like he had done anything to make himself so tired, just -

School had been particularly bad that day.

His parents knew how bad the school was, but they couldn’t afford to go anywhere else.

It was alright though; Hitoshi knew there were a few teenagers in the same building that his family lived in, so if worse came to worst, he might be able to make friends with them.

Hitoshi really didn't want to do much of anything, though. He did his best to keep his grades up and to avoid causing any trouble (because of his grades slipped or he had any record it would be that much harder to get into Yuuei), but other than that he had no reason to enjoy school.

Wouldn't make much sense trying to enjoy it anyways, since everyone tormented him as much as they wanted and got away with it. Besides, no one would talk to him, no one would answer any questions, and there was nothing but the bleak loneliness at the end of the day. No one wanted to answer him, too terrified of being brainwashed. At least you can hide part of your quirk , said the traitorous little voice in his head. Ma can't hide her quirk .

Shut up , he told the voice back. It didn't make him feel any better.

"Hitocchi?"

Speak of the devil and she shall appear . Hitoshi's mother stood in the doorway of his room, where he had thrown himself onto his bed with no grace. Her darker blue hair was pulled into a man-bun, and she spoke softly.

"Dinner is ready, Hitocchi."

"Thanks, Ma." Hitoshi then lifted himself from the bed, carefully avoiding putting any pressure onto his newly-sprained wrist and ankle. The walk to the kitchen was a silent one, but unlike at school where the silence was thick and suffocating, this silence was light, comforting, and comfortable. The wall to the kitchen wasn't long, but Hitoshi enjoyed it all the same.

Pa was in their small living room/dining room, with the three plates of food on the coffee table. It looked like they were eating a foreign dish today; at least dinner wasn't as repetitive as school was. They all recited a quick "thanks for the meal" before eating, and for the majority of the time it was silent. When they finished eating, Pa went to go sleep, as per usual; he needed the rest, since he worked the night shift at the local convenience store.

In all honesty, Hitoshi's family could have been living somewhere a lot nicer than where they were. But people judged them for their Quirks, and there was nothing they could do about that but to try and keep going.

" Hitocchi? "

His attention snapped to his mother. "Yeah?"

" Do you want to meet our neighbors? " she asked, and Hitoshi knew the exact moment when Q&A took effect, and his lips moved without his doing.

" Not really. I know that there are two kids around my age living not door, but. . ."

" You're afraid that they'll be like your classmates? "

Again he spoke without will. "Yeah." he sighed and began putting away the utensils and cleaning the dishes. Ma helped him, and for a few moments it was silent again.

"I still think you should at least try." Ma said softly, hesitating a moment before placing a hand on Hitoshi's head. "They're from the same neighborhood as us, after all. They're family to us as much as we are to them."

That last part was the one that convinced him. Hitoshi nodded, slowly, then went to change into clothes more comfortable than his scratchy school uniform.

He found himself standing outside of the door of the neighbor closest to their own apartment. The nameplate said 'Midoriya', just like how Hitoshi's apartment's had 'Shinsou' on it. There was the sound of conversation from inside, and Hitoshi almost backed out. But Ma had made a point, and Hitoshi needed to interact with new people at some point.

He knocked on the door, and all noise ceased. A few second passed, before a person (fae, his mind said. Hitoshi listened) with green curls and freckles and feathers around his neck opened the door. "Hi there!" fae chirped. And Hitoshi meant, fae l iterally chirped. Maybe some kind of bird quirk?

" Are you one of the Midoriyas? " Hitoshi asked, feeling kind of awkward already.

" That's me, yes! Midoriya Izuku. What's your name?"

Midoriya seemed eager to know, but he didn't have Ma's Q&A quirk, so Hitoshi could lie all he wanted on this one. "I'm Hitocchi."

"I'm pretty sure that's not your actual name."

"Well, Western tales always say not to give away your true name to a fairy."

"But I'm not a fairy." Midoriya said, and as he said that there was a click, and now he was a he. Oh. Hitoshi had an idea of what was going on now.

" You're Inko-san's Midoriya Izuku, right? Genderfluid, with the dinosaur quirk? "

" Archosaur, " Midoriya corrected, "and yes, that's me. I didn't know I had a reputation; how'd you figure it out?"

More questions, but even though Midoriya didn't have Ma's quirk, Hitoshi didn't want to lie this time. "One of the secondary effects of my quirk. If I talk to someone, I get a little bit of basic information, like their general health and pronouns and such." Well, it wasn't completely the truth, but it wasn't technically a lie, either. He got most of both of his parents' quirks, with a spin that was entirely his own. So, Hitoshi didn't need to talk with anyone to know things about them. But talking to someone did let his brain pick and find more information.

Midoriya nodded. "Yeah, that makes sense." They both stood there for a moment, awkwardly, before Midoriya spoke again. "Do you want to come inside? We don't bite - well, Pol-kun might, but only if you put your fingers too close to his mouth."

"Uh." Crap. This is not the time to panic, Hitoshi! "Sure, I guess."

Midoriya beamed. "Great, follow me!"

Hitoshi did as he asked, following the boy as he lead Hitoshi through an entrance hallway and towards what Hitoshi assumed was the living room, which had a door leading to an outside balcony straight ahead, and another hallway to the left. Sitting on the couches were three people. One of them he assumed to be Midoriya Inko, given that she was the only one who was an adult. The other two consisted of a brown-haired girl wearing a loose shirt and baggy pants, and a minty-green-haired person with glasses in a hoodie that swallowed him up and shorts. Why they qere wearing shorts in the colder months like now, Hitoshi didn't know.

It was the hoodie person who spoke first. "Midori! Who's this?"

"He introduced himself as 'Hitocchi'." Midoriya said rather than any greeting.

"My name's Shinsou Hitoshi." Hitoshi offered.

"Nice to meet you, Hitocchi!" said the person. "I'm Pol." Kyokusei Jishaku, going by the alias Pol. Huh.

"Your name is a pun." Hitoshi said. "Your quirk is called Magnet Maker and your name means polarity magnet - your name is such a pun , oh my God that's great! " Hitoshi had to stiffle his sudden laughter.

"He knows pronouns and quirks and stuff if he talks to people. It's part of his quirk?" Midoriya offered to the others in the room.

To their part, they seemed pretty accepting. Which was. Better than at school.

" You're Uraraka Ochako, right? " he asked the brown-haired girl.

"Yeah, that's my name. How did you know?"

" Just. . . Part of my quirk. "

"Do you have that part on the legal registration of your quirk?" Midoriya Inko spoke up, suddenly. At Hitoshi's shake of a head, she 'hrm'-ed thoughtfully. "Your quirk is probably like Izuku's, then. It could causing others to attack you if they knew the full extent of it, I mean. Am I correct?" Hitoshi nodded, and she took a moment, before handing something to him. "Our contact information." she explained. "In case you or your family needs help."

"I-" Midoriya Inko was. . . A kind woman. "Thank you, Midoriya-san."

"Please, just call me Inko, dear." she smiled at him, then got up and went off somewhere else in the apartment.

"So." Began Pol. "What's everyone's preferred pronouns?"

When Midori's mom had left to go make food (because she probably was doing that, since it was getting close to dinnertime and she seemed determined to feed them all (was it because she grew up being a mom friend to everyone? Did she just make more food than needed so that it could be shared with others?)) - no, Jishaku, get back on track.

When Midori's mom left it was a bit quieter, and the small conversation had stopped. This gave him lots of time to consider and think (because he was always thinking, that's just how hour was). And then he realized something.

"So." Jishaku began. "What's everyone's preferred pronouns?"

Hitocchi stared at him, and so did Raka. "What?" Jishaku said, a bit defensively. "I never asked. I could have been misgendering you all for all the time that I've known you!"

"Well, I guess Pol does have a point." Raka said (and Jishaku was very proud of giving her a nickname so quickly, thank you very much). "I'll go first?" when everyone nodded, Raka continued. "Well, I use she/her, so no worries there!"

A collective nod, and the heads turned to Hitocchi. "Uh. I use he/him." He seemed a bit embarrassed by saying the words, but as long as it was said then they were all good, right? Better to know.

Everyone looked at Jishaku now. "I use he/him and they/them for my pronouns!" he said, cheerfully as ever, a smile on his face. Because really, smiling was better than not smiling, and Jishaku didn't want people to think he was upset, so he smiled, y'know? "You can use either, I don't really care." He added.

Midori was the last one to speak, and he seemed. . . Fidgety. "W-well, I'm - I'm genderfluid, and I use they/them, he/him, she/her, xe/xem, and fae/faer for pronouns." Midori seemed nervous, and -

Wait.

Wait wait wait.

" Oh my God I'm so sorry I must have been misgendering you so much Midori I'm so sorry- "

"Ah! No, no it's fine, Pol, it's fine I swear! You were using the right pronouns the whole time you've known me, I promise." Midori tried to calm Jishaku down, and Jishaku calmed down. . . Some.

"We need to find some way to know what pronouns you're using at the given time." Jishaku said in a voice leaving no room for argument. "Because I don't want to misgender anyone."

Midori, Raka, and Hitocchi all considered that. Then, everyone nodded (or, well, made a sign of agreement, which was the same thing).

"How are we going to do that, though?" Raka asked. "Are we going to have, like, bracelets with different patterns or colors to show what pronouns to use?"

"That's. . . A good idea, actually." Midori said thoughtfully.

"I can get materials to make the bracelets." Hitocchi offered.

"Thanks, Shinsou-kun." Midori said, giving a half-smile. "We need to chose what colors will go with which genders, though."

"Why do we need to know that, dear?" Midori's mom said from the doorway, and everyone but Midori spun around to look at her.

"Um." Jishaku was the first to break the silence. "We can explain?"

Midori giggled, and Jishaku, Raka, and Hitocchi all looked at Midori as if he (?) was insane. "Don't worry about it, guys. Mom knows I'm genderfluid."

The tension drained out of the three other teenagers in a singular fluid motion. "We wanted to make bracelets for Midori so that we'd know the pronouns to use for that moment."

Miss Midoriya beamed. "That's a lovely idea! How many are you going to want to make? I could help you with the process."

"I was gonna get the materials." hitocchi said. "But we still gotta figure out which colors go with what."

"I vote purple for he/him." Raka said.

"Wait, why?" Hitocchi seemed genuinely confused (or was he just asking to ask? Jishaku had a feeling that he was the kind of person to ask more questions than strictly necessary).

"Because we don't want to stick to gender norms, and also I want us all to wear a bracelet too, and I think purple is a good color." Raka stated her reasons clearly, with no hesitation.

"Can we make the ones for fae from some kind of, like, white shimmery material? And maybe a black shimmery for xe?" Midori asked, fiddling around with a pen, doodling. "And we can have like a cream for they?"

"They're going to be your bracelets, mostly, so whatever you wanna do." Jishaku shrugged, and Raka and Hitocchi nodded soon after he said that. "If we're doing non-gender conforming, we could do like a light blue for she days?"

"I like that idea!" Midori chirped. "What are the bracelets going to be made of, though?"

"Fabric, chain links, and clips to take them on and off." Hitocchi said immediately. The three teens stared at him (because Miss Inko had wandered off into the kitchen again) and he sighed before elaborating. "I used to be into seeing when I was younger so I have a lot of ribbons and stuff, and if we add little chain links we can make a nice little pattern."

"That sounds like a good idea, Shinsou-kun. How soon do you think you can make them?" Midori was still doodling.

"Well, considering that we still have around six months of school left, and that I have only so much material. . . Eh, two or three days." Hitocchi shrugged as he said this. "I can make, like, six or seven of each kind, just in case. We can all group up here to pass them out, if you want?"

" I'd be fine with it if your parents are! " Inko called from the kitchen.

"It's a deal, then!" Midori chirped. "See you all in three to four days!"

School wasn't as bad as he would have thought it would be, all things considered. Izuku got away with his excuse of a villain attack, and other than the teacher telling him to get the class work from some other students, things went on as normal.

The work wasn't that hard to do, as Izuku had stolen one of the lesson plans a few months back and was able to teach himself what he needed to know, so the classwork was more of a review than anything.

Of course, there was the matter of his classmates. They. . . Were less than pleased at Izuku's disappearance. Especially Bakugou.

"Where the he'll did you get those scars, Deku?" Bakugou had Izuku pinned against a wall in that moment, high enough that even with the glass cage lowered his feet still didn't touch the ground, and only the tips of his tails could reach.

"No idea what you're talking about." Izuku grunted, and his clawed hands desperately tried to get Bakugou's grip to loosen, because if Izuku didn't get air soon, something bad was going to happen. Something that probably involved a small, eldritch lizard-bird tearing apart several of Izuku's classmates.

"Don't fucking lie to me, you little shit." Bakugou snarled, and the hands forcing Izuku upwards started to get up more than they had been.

Oh, so that's the game you want to play, Bakugou? A grin spread across Izuku's face, and Evangellion's hum grew louder. I can play that game better than you . Within seconds, wings burst from Izuku's back, and feathers covered his arms and legs and two crests of feathers vaugely resembling fins wavered in the air from the side of his head, and once more Izuku's hands and feet became talons, and now his tails were feathered and longer. And Izuku radiated heat , and still he smiled at Bakugou.

"I just got caught up in a villain attack at home, Kacchan ." the use of the discarded childhood nickname made bakugou flinch. Just a little. Just enough. "We all know what my neighborhood is like." The smile was still on Izuku's face. "So there's no reason to think I'm hiding anything."

Bakugou growled, but couldn't say anything about that. He released his grip, and Izuku felt to the floor, gasping. As Bakugou stalked away, Izuku just laid there on the floor, catching his breath and carefully raising the cage from where it had been slammed down before. Once all traces of feathers and heat had left, Izuku gathered himself and got back up to finish the school day.

He had a feeling that the next few months of school wouldn't be as fun as they had been.

Ochako had various expectations of her new school. For one, it was the same school as Shinsou and Midoriya's, so from their descriptions of it, she was already nervous.

The first day went better than expected, at the beginning of the second week into the school year. People were polite enough. Ochako had even been lucky enough to be in the same class as Shinsou!

Of course, things went south soon after that. Everyone hated Shinsou, and since Ochako associated herself with Shinsou, everyone hated Ochako. She didn't need to be friends with them, anyways. They all cared about what your quirk was and nothing else.

"What is your quirk, anyways?" She asked Shinsou one day at lunch. "They all care about quirks so much, and judge on stereotypes, so I figured you probably had a 'villainous' one, right?"

Shinsou raised an eyebrow at her, eyes half-lidded with exhaustion. "Yeah, no duh , Raka-chan. If my quirk was anything else they wouldn't treat me the way they do."

Ochako stole one of his fries. "So what's your quirk?" She munched on the fry, ignoring Shinsou's grumbling about how she was a theif.

"Why do you care what it is?" He asked, reaching over to steal one of her nuggets in turn.

"Because if I know what it is, we can train and make your quirk stronger so you can have a better chance of getting into Yuuei." She stole another fry, and slapped away his hand when he tried to grab a nugget.

"Wouldn't I need to train my body too, though? I'm a noodle right now." He eventually just dumped all of his fries onto her tray, and went back to eating the rest of his food.

"Well duh." Ochako answered. "Hey, why are we eating western food, anyways? We could have just gotten food from the cafeteria."

"Yeah, but Ma makes killer western food, and if I bring my food then that's less of a chance that our dear ", and here he laid on the sarcasm thickly, "- classmates can mess with my food."

"Yeah, that makes sense." Ochako figured. "I'll need to thank her for making food for me."

"Nah, don't worry about that. Ma is like Inko-san - she will feed you, and that's just part of her job as a civilian in our neighborhood. You take care of people, it's what you do. If you tried to thank you for making food for you she'd just shove more food into your arms and tell you that feeding people is her job." He stretched, and at Ochako's raised eyebrow, he continued. "No, I'm serious - word-for-word, that's what she's said before."

"Sure." Ochako said. "I'll believe it when it happens to me."

The bell rang, then, and the two got up to throw away their trash before heading back to class. Yay, school. Hopefully Yuuei would be less boring than school now?

Jishaku didn't like school. He didn't dislike school, but he didn't like it.

For one thing, everyone was too concerned about being in all the popular social circles (which was dumb, because why would that matter at all in a place that you're supposed to learn in???).

For another thing, the teachers never bothered to explain anything in a way that could be understood("it's how everyone else does it!" Well shut up Todoroki, I don't care if you have a family name that sounds like the number two hero's, you're still a jerk and you're not special). And they expected you to remember everything, no matter what you did.

And there was the fact that they never let Jishaku build anything, even when he had done his work. If they were going to stick him in a building for eight hours a day and not even teach him sufficiently, then at least let him do things he was good at! One of the other kids, Okyoita, seemed to share this frustration, so at least Jishaku wasn't the only one building things under his desk in class.

It was funny though, when the teachers tried to figure out which one of the nicknamed gadgeteers had built which mechanical thing that had disrupted class. (Most of the time is was the fault of one Okyoita "Bit" Aki, but Jishaku always took the fall because Jishaku figured that Okyoita was at least going to do something with his inventions, and he'd probably need a cleaner record in order to get into a good school so that he could do that.)

So, maybe school wasn't that bad, if he at least had common ground with someone. But Jishaku always loved when the last bell rang, and he could go and meet with Midori, Hitocchi, and Raka and do whatever dumb stuff they did.

Which was where they were now, five days after their initial meet-up, at Midori's house as promised. They were all gathered at or around the coffee table in front of the couch (which led to most of them sitting on said couch), waiting. Jishaku didn't know what they were all waiting for, but it must have been for something.

Finally, Hitocchi spoke. "So. . . I made the bracelets."

"How many?" Raka asked, though they all had a guess.

"I made five of each kind." Was Hitocchi's answer. "Take the ones you're going to use." Having said that, he put the bracelets on the coffee table. Raka immediately snatched up one of the blue bracelets, and Jishaku and Hitocchi took a purple one each (with Jishaku also grabbing a cream bracelet), which left Midori to get one of each kind of bracelet. Midori then put on the purple bracelet.

"Thank you for making these, Shinsou-kun." He said, with the other four bracelets in his hand. "It makes me feel better, knowing that at least you three will know which pronouns to use for me."

"Hey, we're friends, aren't we?" Jishaku said, putting an arm around Midori's shoulder. "Friends respect friends' pronouns and boundaries and stuff. It's what you do."

". . . Thanks, Pol." Midori didn't add anything else, but the implied 'it means a lot to me' didn't need to be said.

"So anyways!" Raka said, before the silence got to be too thickening, "How much longer do we have middle school for?"

Jishaku, Hitocchi, and Midori all exchanged glances. "At least six more months, why?" Hitocchi finally answered, his tone one of suspection.

"So we can make a plan of attack to be read for the Yuuei entrance exams, duh." Raka replied without missing a beat. "What else would we do with all of our time?"

"Sleep?" Hitocchi suggested.

"Be a cryptid?" Said Midori.

"Build stuff and have hobbies?" finished Jishaku.

Raka looked at them all dissapointedly. "How are you going to get into Yuuei if you don't train for it?" she asked.

"Counter point: I don't want to get into Yuuei." shot back Jishaku.

"Well too bad, you still gotta be in shape. It'll be good for.you! And you can train your quirk too." Raka sounded decisive on the matter.

"Do I really need to train my quirk, though?" Jishaku asked. "I mean, the whole point is that I'm downplaying it so that the government doesn't force me into the military or something."

". . . I guess that's fair." Raka said. "But you still have to train your body, because I'm not letting you get away with being a noodle."

Jishaku shrugged. "That's a good enough midpoint for me, I guess. What about you, Midori?"

Midori, who had been silent this whole time, lifted his head. "Well I mean, I don't know if I want to get into Yuuei or not? I want to help people, but I don't entirely have to have a legal licence to do that because, y'know, who's going to arrest a lizard-bird that's seemingly-full grown?" As he finished saying that, his eyes filled with panic.

"Midori." Jishaku began. "Do you want to elaborate on that."

"Well, um." Midori was fidgeting now. "You know how I say my quirk let's me manifest bird and Lizard attributes? Well, I, uh, I downplay it a lot for similar reasons as Pol-kun."

"And?" Raka promptdd.

"And I can turn into a big lizard and bird and I'm pretty sure that the bird can spit fire and I'm kinda accidentally the villain Evangellion?" he - no, they had put on the cream bracelets - seemed more nervous and fidgety now. "Please don't tell anyone? I. . . I don't want to be arrested or anything."

For a few moments, it was silent. Then -

"My lips are sealed." Raka said, and Jishaku and Hitocchi quickly voiced their agreement.

"You don't hate me?" Midori asked, sounding genuinely suprised.

"Of course not!" Raka insisted. "You were only like four, your quirk just manifested, of course they'd think you were a villain if you were all of a sudden just a giant lizard. It's not your fault, and you're still a good person. And most importantly, you're my friend." once again, Jishaku and Hitocchi voiced their agreement with Raka's statements.

Midori looked like they were about to cry, and said a watery "thanks", before Jishaku decided that that was enough of his friend feeling sad, and gave Midori a hug. Midori seemed suprised, but Raka and Hitocchi joined in, and then it was just a group hug of a girl, a boy, and two people. (It was a warm hug, too, and a comfy one.)

School wasn't as bad after that. Sure, people gave Hitoshi the occasional look, but Uraraka was there to stare right back at them, and they managed to get Midori to sit with them at lunch, so it was better than it could have been.

Uraraka kept stealing his fries, though, and Hitoshi kept stealing her nuggets, because somehow Ma found the time to make food from a western lunch to give to the two of them. Whatever, Hitoshi wasn't complaining, he had nuggets and his idiot classmates couldn't claim that they had nuggets made by a loving mother, and oookay Hitoshi, we're going to steer away from that bitter train of thought.

The training was a bit. . . Difficult at first, mostly because they convinced Forceweight (who told them that her actual name was Aizawa) and Akaguro (one of the more experienced vigilantes in the neightborhood) to actually train them, but it got better, and Hitoshi definitely felt more fit.

Summer came and went, as it always did, and they all celebrated Hitoshi's birthday (which meant Ma and Pa, Midori and his mom, Pol and his mom and dad, and Uraraka - which was a significant increase from last year), and then when it was Midori's birthday, they did the same thing.

School started again after summer break, but it was more bearable by the knowledge that soon enough they'd be able to apply for Yuuei and get in. The only one of them who wasn't determined to get into Yuuei ("no matter what" promised Uraraka) was Pol, who had decided that they'd apply for a few different schools, as they weren't entirely sure where they wanted to go. Uraraka and Hitoshi had managed to convince Midori to want to go to Yuuei, though.

So the school days seemed to fly by. Which led to where the four of them were now - standing at the gates, ready to walk in. "You guys all ready?" asked Pol.

" As one? " suggested Hitoshi. The other three all made noises of agreement, and, after a second, they all stepped forward in unison. One step closer to their goals. That step became another, and soon they were walking through the front doors. There was a sort of receptionist area, only with no receptionist.

"That's probably where you go to see where you go for which entrance exams." Pol deduced. "Shall we?"

"We shall." Uraraka answered, and onwards they went.

It turned out that the exams for the support course were on the other side of the building, so that was where they had to part ways with Pol.

"I hope he does okay." worried Midoriya.

"Are you kidding? " asked Uraraka. "It's Pol-kun. If he doesn't burn the place down, he'll have built a mechanical dragon or something."

"Yeah, probably." Hitoshi said. "They'd be more likely to burn down the place, though."

Midoriya snorted. " Wow , Shinsou-kun, you have such faith in Pol-kun."

"Oh I have faith." Hitoshi said, with a shit-eating grin on his face. "Faith that they'll have a hard time trying to contain them if they do get in."

They didn't get much of a chance to continue speaking after that, as they had reach the examination rooms, and had to quiet down to take the written part of the exams. Hitoshi hoped that he had done well; he'd studied with Midoriya, Forceweight, Uraraka, Pol, and Green Lightning, one of the more elusive vigilantes who never showed their actual face, but had good advice and a treasure trove of knowledge nonetheless.

After that, the three teens moved to a seminar room of sorts, where they got a first-hand look at Presentation Microphone (what do you mean that was't his actual hero name?) explaining the rules of the practical part of the test. Some jerk was snipish at Midoriya for muttering, but Hitoshi and Uraraka flared at him and he seemed to get the message pretty quirk, so there was that.

Then they looked at the locations they had to go to for the practical part, and-

" Are you kidding me? " Hitoshi grumbled. "You two get to be in the same fake city but I have to be all alone?"

"Think of it this way, Shinsou-kun. You get to feel less guilty for using your quirk on people this way." Uraraka suggested.

"You don't even know what my quirk is ." Hitoshi shot back. "How do you know I'd feel guilty about using it?"

"Well, your mom asked me I knew what it was, and when I said no she told me and made me promise not to be a jerk to you about it, so." Uraraka shrugged then. "Just saying."

"Whatever." Hitoshi said. "Let's all do our best, okay? No matter if we get into Heroics or Gen Ed, we're still going to try. Yell heah?"

"Yell heah!" Said Uraraka.

" Yell heah! " Midoriya said it a little louder this time.

"And an honorary yell heah! for Pol-kun." Hitoshi finished. "Good luck."

Okay, so, here's the thing.

Technically, if Izuku really wanted to, they could lower the glass cage and turn into the lizard form of Evangellion and get however many points. Technically. But the lizard form was also technically a villain, so. The bird aspects would have to do it.

And they seemed to be doing pretty well; Izuku's talons had managed to cut through a couple wires and such, so a few robots were down. Wings kept Izuku from falling over or losing their balance, and the two tails (the few bits of the lizard form that Izuku would keep) did a pretty good job of smashing into robots.

So, all in all, Izuku thought that they were doing well.

Life always had to throw obstacles into the way, though, didn't it?

It was after a few minutes that the sound of something big moving through the fake city became apparent. Izuku turned, and - that. Was a giant robot. They'd seen all of the other robots. Which meant that that one was the zero-pointer. That was the zero-pointer ?!

Izuku now was fairly sure that Yuuei was insane . The zero-pointer moved forwards steadily, and everyone ran. Well. Most everyone. Some were still frozen in shock, and others - screams of terror were all the confirmation needed. Izuku would have moved as well, but -

Uraraka screamed,

and

Izuku

moved.

They scrambled towards her, and the two of them both desperately tried to free her ankle from where it was caught under the slab of concrete, to no luck. The zero-pointer was getting closer, and Evangellion screamed , and the walls of the class cage were slammed down so fast as to crack violently, and then -

Then Izuku screamed , and in the form of a bird with two sets of wings and two tails covered in feathers and reeking of heat and ozone and stara and rage - Izuku screamed, and fire spilled forth from their beak, and the giant robot melted .

Reality returned in pieces, as both Izuku and Evangellion tried to carefully raise the cage walls without damaging them any further. When Izuku could finally breathe without ashes on their tongue, they stood on shaky legs, looking to see what had happened. Uraraka was right there next to them, letting Izuku lean on her.

"Aaand that's IT! " Yelled Present Mic from somewhere above them. "The test is UP !"

Oh, thank the gods. It was over - now Izuku could rest . Granted, they were hoping that it would be a bit less anticlimactic, but the fact that they could now go home and sleep was incredibly pleasing to Izuku.

"Midori! Are you okay?" Uraraka asked, still on the ground, only with her ankle now freed.

"I could ask you the same question." They replied, stretching their arms, legs, and wings, and stopping a bit when their arms twinged. "You're the one who has a sprained ankle."

"Yeah, but you took one step and then turned into a giant eldritch-y bird that spat liquid fire. Are you sure you're okay?" the worried undercurrent became the only tone she was using, and Uraraka's glance at their slightly-smoking legs gave Izuku the realization that they'd probably worried Uraraka a lot more than they had meant to.

"I'm fine, Uraraka-chan, I promise." They gave her their best reassuring smile, but it probably fell short.

Around that time, an elderly lady came walking through, handing out gummies and giving kisses to people that seemed to heal them (?? they weren't too sure on that one). When she got to where Izuku and Uraraka were, she tsk-ed thoughtfully, before doing what it was that she had been.

"You should make sure to go easy on that ankle in the future." she suggested to Uraraka. "It seems to have a history of sprains. Do be kind to it." Uraraka nodded and gave thanks.

"As for you, young man," ( don't be upset don't be upset she doesn't know she's not being mean it's not on purpose ) she said to Izuku, "you should rest your arms for a few days. And try to avoid eating anything too spicy, as it could cause damage to your mouth after that show you gave. You may be able to breathe fire while in your transformed state, but it's still important to respect your body's boundaries."

With her speech said, she gave Izuku and Uraraka a gummy each, then continued on to the next person.

". . . So. . . ." Uraraka began. "Do you wanna go see if Shinsou-kun and Pol-kun have finished their exams yet?"

"We may as well." Izuku replied. "I don't think there's much else more for us to do here."

Thus, on they went, searching for the fake city that Shinsou was in - site G, Izuku thinks? Either way, they don't have to necessarily look for long, because Shinsou literally runs into them.

"Oh, hey." he said. "Fancy seeing you two here."

"Don't be a smart-ass, Shinsou-kun." said Uraraka in mock seriousness, before she giggled. "You're never going to believe what I just saw."

"What?" asked both Izuku and Shinsou, the former trying to look around, and the latter seeming uninterested.

"Okay, so, look behind you to the left a little, but not too obvious ." she instructed. "See those students over there?"

There were, in fact, other students. One of them had bright pink skin and hair, and the other had more normal, flesh-colored skin, with black hair that was roughly shoulder length. The first seemed to be trying to cheer up the second, but Izuku wasn't sure if the second was actually cheered up or just acting. Either way, Izuku decided that it would probably be nice to say hi, and they decided to do that; Uraraka and Shinsou joined them in walking towards the two people.

"Hi!" Izuku began with a chirp. "We saw you two standing over here, and you seemed like you were pretty happy about something, so we wanted to know why?"

"Not that you're not allowed to be happy." Shinsou quickly added. "We were just curious."

"Oh, that's easy!" said the pink one. "Kiri and I are getting into Yuuei for sure, so I'm trying to help him get over his nervousness."

"Fair enough." Shinsou reasoned. "As long as you're not straight-up denying his anxieties, I mean." he ran a hand through his ever-messy hair, and held it out to shake. (Wasn't that a western thing? Were they doing western things now??) "Shinsou Hitoshi." he introduced. "And I use he/him, just so you know."

Uraraka was the next to continue this. "I'm Uraraka Ochako, and I use she/her!" Her smile was bright and entirely genuine.

The pink one and the other caught onto this quickly. "I'm Ashido Mina!" said the pink one, "and I use she/her as well!"

"I'm Kirishima Eijirou. I use he/him." Kirishima said as well, and then once again there was only Izuku left.

"I'm Kyokusei Jishaku, but call me Pol. Oh! And I use he/him and they/them." Pol added.

Wait.

When did Pol get there?

"When did you get here?" Shinsou asked, eyeing Pol. "Isn't it like all the way on the other side of the campus for the Support exams?"

"Well, technically yes. But you can get around a lot faster if you use my quirk." Pol stretched, before looking around. "So what are we doing?"

"Introducing ourselves to our new friends." Uraraka said, and wow, we're this two friends already? The group had only know them for a minute or two at most, was that really enough time to be considered friends? Apparently so.

"Nice to meet you!" Ashido said, rocking back and forth on her heels some. "Oh! We never got your name and pronouns." She pointed at Izuku hen she said that.

Which raised a bit of a problem. If Izuku told her all of the pronouns that they might use, she could judge them or use the wrong ones on purpose, but if Izuku didn't tell her the pronouns. She would think that Izuku used the pronouns for their assigned gender, and would think she wasn't doing anything wrong when calling them by the wrong pronouns. . . This was not a fun situation.

Pol seemed to notice Izuku's discomfort first. "You don't have to tell them." he told Izuku. "You're allowed to keep that information private, if you want."

That sounded appealing, it really did, but. . . "No, I'll tell them." Izuku decided. "Better that they know now and don't use the wrong pronouns than them not know until later and feel bad, right?" They smiled shaking, already having bad memories of trying to come out to his classmates, but did his best to push aside his worry. No room for that here. "My name is Midoriya Izuku, and. . . And for pronouns, I currently use they/them, but I can also use he/him, she/her, fae/faer, and xe/xem." Don't turn into a puddle don't turn into a puddle you're going to be okay -

"Thank you for trusting me with this." it was Kirishima who spoke this time. "It must have been kinda difficult to tell all that to two people you only just met. That courage is so manly, dude!" He said the word like it was something positive, but. . . Well. . .

"Um, could - could you please not call me manly?" Izuku asked. This was getting a little awkward for them, because no one else had said anything about boundaries and such, but Izuku would assume that they'd have the common decency to respect Izuku's boundaries, right? "I - I don't feel entirely comfortable with you calling me that."

The change in demeanor in Kirishima was immediate. "Oh I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable - I'm sorry, I can totally not call you that, du- uh, Midoriya! I don't want to make you uncomfortable." He looked like he wanted to continue apologizing, but Izuku cut him off.

"It's fine, you didn't know. Just. . . Don't call me it in the future, and we're good, yeah?" A small, less-shaky smile was offered. "I'd stay and chat more, but we probably have to start going home soon."

Everyone seemed saddened at the prospect of leaving their new friends and returning home. "We can exchange phone numbers at least?" Ashido suggested. "And keep in touch that way until we all get into Yuuei?"

"Sounds like a plan!" Said Uraraka, and everyone else made some sort of agreement with her. (Well, kind of- Pol had muttered "maybe I don't want to go to Yuuei", but it was the thought that he would get accepted that counted. Probably)

After quickly putting the contact information in, Izuku, Shinsou, Pol, and Uraraka all parted ways from Kirishima and Ashido. Here was to hoping that they did well.

Over the course of the next week or so, Pol took a few more additional exams to several other schools. Hitoshi figured it was a fairly smart plan; that way, even if you didn't know exactly where you wanted to go yet, you had options. Hitoshi had only one option, really, and that was Gen Ed, because - well, because. No use dwelling on things.

Ma, Pa, Inko, and Pol's parents all seemingly worked in shifts to make sure that the four children weren't causing any more chaos than strictly necessary. Quite dedicated to it as well, nagging the children to make sure that they slept at a reasonable time, and that they ate.

True, it was only two weeks of waiting for the results, and school had ended a few weeks ago, but it still felt like an endless wait to Hitoshi. Even if he knew where he was going to go, it still was eating him up with anticipation. He did feel bad for Uraraka, Midoriya, and Pol, though, because for Uraraka and Midoriya, they'd bet everything on Heroics, and for Pol, they had taken multiple entrance exams, which meant several things to choose from, assuming that they got into at least two of the schools.

"Why are you moping about, Shinsou-kun?" asked Pol one day while they were visiting. "It's not like you didn't get in."

"That's the point , though. " Hitoshi answered. "I don't know if I got in. I didn't even break any robots or anything!"

"Well, what did you do?"

"I mostly ran around helping people, using my quirk to get them to move out of the way. I used Ma's technique along with Pa's mesmerising tricks, so I did fairly okay on helping people get out of danger and steer them towards and robots."

"So, basically , you used your quirk to help out other people for the whole exam." Pol summarized.

"Yeah, sounds about right."

"Well then, you should be fine!" Pol said. "I don't think they would dock points for doing the important parts of hero-ing. If they did then that would just be stupid."

" You don't like heroes very much, do you? " Hitoshi commented, sitting up from where he'd been laying on his bed. "How come?"

"Well. . ." Pol opened their mouth, closed it, opened it and closed it again, and furrowed their brows as they tried to explain. "It's not like I don't like heroes, just that too many of them are all flashy and about publicity and not actually doing what needs to be done. That's why people who have quirks like yours get out down, because not enough heroes care enough to stop villainy where it starts, which lets people with quirks like yours get pushed to villainy. Which makes people think quirks like yours are villainous, and it's a whole stupid cycle!" They threw their hands into the air as they took a moment to breathe.

"And then people who have really powerful Quirks like mine are pushed into being heroes whether we want to be heroes or not. Which lead to heroes that are doing the bare minimum, which leads to the same problem, and the whole system is stupid and I just hate it!" They were scowling now, and they made an angry noise. Then, Pol was silent.

It wasn't until a few moments later when Hitoshi lifted his head to look at them that Pol spoke again, this time much softer and quieter. "I just wish people weren't such jeans about quirks and stuff. I. . . I think that maybe, if enough people cared, we could stop all those people from getting hurt."

"I. . . I know how you feel, Pol-kun. That's why I'm going into Heroics. I want to help those people that the system let's slip through the cracks." Hitoshi shifted so that he was sitting next to Pol, on the edge of his bed. "Someone's gotta do it, right?" Hitoshi gave Pol a small smile.

". . . Yeah. You're right." Pol slowly leaned on Hitoshi, and the quiet moment simply was.

The next few days heralded nervousness and worry for all four of the teens. Finally, the letters from Yuuei came (though Uraraka had to go back to where her parents lived, as she'd forgotten to change her address yet).

The teens all sat in the Midoriyas' living room, as it had the most space, and waited anxiously. The waiting continued, until after several minutes Pol burst through the doorway, holding several different letters. "Sorry I'm late!" They said, brushing off any dust. "The schools all decided to send their letters at the same time."

"Finally!" cheered Uraraka. "Now we can open them!"

"Oh, nice!" Pol walked over to one of the couches and plopped themselves down next to Hitoshi. "Who wants to go first?"

"I'll go." Midori offered. When no one said anything against it, they opened the envelope in a single motion, and something fell out of it. The something turned out to be a small hologram, which projected a video of All Might (he was teaching at Yuuei now?), and which said how Izuku had earned both villain and rescue points (Pol shot Hitoshi a look when All Might revealed that second ranking system), and that Midori was accepted into the hero course.

"I got in." Midori said, voice half-full of disbelief. " I got in! "

"I wanna open mine next!" Cried Uraraka, and she did just that, snatching up her later from the table. It also contained a hologram, which said just about the same thing, though the amount of points she got was different. She raised a fist in the air and cried triumphantly, and then Midori, Uraraka, and Pol all looked at Hitoshi.

"Go on, open it!" Uraraka prompted.

"Yeah yeah, I'm getting there!" Hitoshi snarked back. The four of them all held their breaths as the hologram played. "T he bare minimum amount of points needed to get into Heroics is 45 points. Young Shinsou, you earned 46 points. You may have scdped by, but you passed." the hologram said something else after that, but Hitoshi had stopped listening. He'd done it. He got in! Hitoshi threw both hands in the air and cried triumphantly, just as Uraraka had done, and the other three teens joined in as well.

"Pol! Pol you gotta open your letters now!" Uraraka said, bouncing on her heels. "We gotta know if you got in!"

"Yes indeed, right away Raka-chan!" Pol was grinning just as brightly as they all were, and of the four letters they had, they chose the one from Yuuei first. This turned out to be an actual letter and not a hologram, which Pol skimmed before cheering. "I got in!"

"Nice!" Midori cheered. "What about the other three?"

"I'm getting there, gimme a sec!" Pol opened the other three letters and skimmed those as well, cheering as they did so. "I got into all of them!"

" Nice! " Uraraka said this time, and the four teens all looked at each other before breaking back into cheer.

Midori's mom insisted on cooking dinner for them all that night in congratulations. Hitoshi felt like he was on cloud none the whole time from the sheer disbelief of actually getting in .

"Two more weeks until we got to Yuuei." Uraraka said after they ate, as the four teens were all sprawled out on futons on the floor.

"Yeah. Two more weeks." Hitoshi reached out with a hand until it hit someone else's. It turned out to be Pol's hand. Pol's hand was very warm and kind of soft.

"We made it." Hitoshi said again.

"Yeah, we all made it." Midori confirmed this time.

Hitoshi couldn't wait to go to school.

Chapter Text

The four teens all went together to get their school materials in the middle of the week after that. They'd all gone together, because Izuku was terrified to go alone and be with people that might judge her. And also because if they all went together they could pool their money, and they were all, excluding Pol and his family, relatively poor.

"Look at us, going to get materials for the fancy Yuuei with its fancy uniforms and it's fancy specific items that you need." Pol jokingly said, as he gathered his supplies from nearby.

"Hey, any reason why we're at this super fancy store that's probably expensive?" Uraraka asked. "Because, I'm not saying anything, but . . . I kinda don't think that we'll be able to afford all of this stuff easily."

"I think this store has the best chance of getting everything that we need instead of just most things." Shinsou answered.

Roughly thirty minutes later, the four of them all met up again at the food court in the mall, supplies gathered. "We all have everything we need except for the uniforms, right?" Uraraka asked, adjusting some of the bags on her arms.

The other three all confirmed this. "Do you guys want to get some food before we go get the uniform!s?" Izuku suggested. "I'm not sure about you three, but I'm hungry."

"I can pay for the food." Pol offered. "I know you three don't have as much money as I do, so. . . I can at least help you guys by buying food?" He seemed hesitant, and was probably afraid of offending them.

Izuku and Shinsou both turned to Uraraka, who had the least money of all of them. Finally, Uraraka nodded. "That would be nice. Thanks, Pol."

With that decision made, the four of them set off in search of food. Once the food was acquired, they chose a table and sat, and planned to generally just enjoy their food.

"Excuse me?" Someone said a few minutes after they had sat down. "May I sit here?"

Izuku turned to look at the person who spoke. They had long black hair, which was pulled into a ponytail, with paler skin, and their voice had a bit of an accent.

"Sure!" Said Uraraka cheerily. "What's your name?"

“Fei-Long Lin.” He (?) said. Then Fei-Long blinked, and seemed to correct himself. “Rin Hiryuu, I mean. That is my name in Japanese.” He seemed a bit embarassed by it, but judging by the hint of an accent and his appearance, Fei-Long - or Rin - was a foreigner, so the need for correction made sense.

“Nice to meet you.” Uraraka replied, cheery as ever. “Do you want us to call you Fei-Long, or Rin?”

“I would prefer if you would call me Rin while I am here in Japan.” Was Rin’s answer.

“Fair enough,” Shinsou said, shooting a look at Urarka that said something along the lines of ‘calm down and stop being such a hyperactive poodle’, to which Uraraka’s eyes shot back ‘maybe you should stop being such a demented carpet cat’. Or, well. Something to that effect.

“So, Rin.” Pol said while everyone else busied themselves with eating. “I’m guessing that you’re not from Japan?”

Rin nodded. “You are correct. I was born in China, but was offered a scholarship to one of the prestigious heroics schools in this country.” 

“You speak good Japanese for someone who’s been living in a different country your whole life.” Shinsou commented. “I’m impressed.”

Rin shrugged, loosening up as the conversation went on. “I have been learning as much Japanese as I could ever since the plans were made for my attending the school in this country.”

“Makes sense.” Izuku commented. “You sound a bit formal, but if I only heard you speak I probably wouldn’t have noticed. What school is it that you’re going to, anyways?”

“A school by the name of Yuuei.” Rin replied. “I still have yet to obtain the uniform.”

“Oh that’s so cool!” Uraraka said suddenly. “We’re going to Yuuei too! Maybe we can all go together?”

Several things happened in quick succession after she said that. One, Uraraka’s face reddened as she realized possible implications of her statement. Shinsou said with a shint-eating grin “oh?”. Pol fell out of his seat, cackling. Rin’s face lit up as well, and he started stammering in Chinese. And Izuku was left wondering why their friends were so ridiculous.

After several minutes of awkwardness and bouts of strangled laughter (mostly from Shinsou and Pol) the now group of five collectively went in search of the one specific place that they would be able to get Yuuei uniforms. Of course, it was in one specific store in one specific mall, because it was Yuuei and of course Yuuei was more extra than it ever needed to be, but no one said anything because it was Yuuei.

At least the contrast between sounds and colors of areas helped Izuku’s mind from wandering off into the depths, though. 

Eventually they managed to get inside and properly obtain some clothing that would fit them (Izuku had wandered to one of the employees of the store to see if they had any stretchy or self-healing fabric, since they had explained that their quirk sometimes activated due to emotional resonance and they didn’t want any damaged uniforms. The employees had seen to getting some clothes meeting those requirements, which was nice of them). Pol had insisted on helping pay for some of Uraraka’s clothes so that she could get more than one of both the summer and winter outfit, and Izuku had obtained both winter and summer versions of the male and female versions of the uniforms, and then the group was off out of the store. 

They ended up all exchanging phone numbers (which led to Pol immediately making a group chat “for later”) and Rin went his separate way from the four others. When they went further along, Pol separated from them as well, and from there it was just three teenagers on a train heading into the less well-looked after part of the prefecture. From there it was just separating to their individual apartments. Mom greeted Izuku, and they greeted her back, and put away their freshly bought schoolthings, and then Izuku slipped into the skin of Evangellion as they rested, sides lifting and falling as they laid on the couch, curled around mom. With their tailtips flicking and fins and feathers shifting, Izuku let the weary experiences of the day wash away as they slept.

~| |~

everything was

off?

somewhat to the left of what it should be

not what was wanted?

why was it all so out of control

where was the comfort

there was no light

no shadows either no shifting backgrounds or backdrops everything was   static unchanging frozen and he wanted it to stop make it stop?

it wouldnt stop

he spun uselessly in the ethereal void that was his prison

he wanted out

please let him out

he wanted out

why was he not let out?

hello

is anyone there

i can see you

but you dont speak

why do you not speak?

you think i am not you

but i am you

you just dont know

how can you not know

has no one told you

has no one taught you these things you need to know

did they lie to you and teach you nothing?

ah

so they did

its okay

im here for you

i will teach you if i can

i am you

it should not be too hard?

The shadows are dripping and slipping and spinning out of control and now he is free but he wants only to scream but he has no voice and 

im sorry 

you dont deserve this pain

im sorry

He slows and the dizzying mix of light dark shadow and smoke stops and he just breathes, confused and disoriented. What was happening, he didn’t understand? 

Then there was a feeling of something he could not explain.

And Izuku understood.

Evangellion

that is me and i am you

stood (stood? Could a creature stand in a place that had no boundaries, no floor or gravity, nothing but a floating chaotic void?) in front of Izuku. 

“You are me.” Izuku said, voice echoing and becoming a chorus, ever-reflected in the place with which he now resided in.

i am you and you are i

“I’ve been so silly all this time, haven’t I?” izuku mused, reaching a hand out and watching as it became scaled and feathered, cloaked in shades of green and blue and purple to match the forearms of Evangellion. “I was thinking you were something separate from me. But you’re not, are you?”

no

i am you and you are i

we are one in the same

you are the conscious mind and i am the mind not conscious

we cannot be without each other

you are the one who lives in the earth and i am the one who lives in the sea and sky

we are not one without the other

i am your quirk and you are my mortal prison

you are my quirk and I am your mortal prison

we cannot exist separated

Izuku hummed in agreement, letting his body shift and change to match the one of the creature across from him, in some shape between a bird and a lizard. It was a creature with fins jutting out from patches of feathers and scales, a mane of purple-green, wings resting on a scaled back, six limbs with forearms feathered and finned, in mock imitation of wings, and scrawny, powerful hind legs with those same almost-winged finned ankles, and two tails, swishing and shivering and moving constantly in the space-that-was-not, fins and feathers moving in tandem. It was, in essence, a paradoxical creature, of starshine and ocean currents. It was a creature of man-made appearances, of unfinished songs and of thoughts and feelings buried by a dead mind.

“This is the closest thing I’ve ever had to a fever dream, I think.” Izuku commented. “It’s interesting.” He should not have been able to talk. His mouth was no more but was a muzzle hiding razor teeth, eyes glancing around more eyes than any natural things should have, more eyes than was was needed or expected , ears pricked up to listen what is the use of ears but to cause more concern? Neither lizards nor birds have ears but he had ears to the half-whispers and voices of the quantum space he rested in.

“Do you think that i would be able to talk, wearing your skin?” Izuku wondered, stretching and feeling the shift in his skin and muscles. “If I can talk now, I could learn to talk in your form.”

i dont know

but you can always try

everything can do nothing but try

The void-space remained what it was, but Izuku felt a subtle shift.

“Ah.” Izuku said, softly. “It is time for me to wake.”

And Izuku woke.

He woke to his mother looking at him concernedly. “Are you alright, dear?”

“I’m fine.” He replied. “Why do you ask?”

“You’ve never fallen asleep transformed before.” She said. “And now you’ve woken up, but you seemed scared in your dream.”

Izuku looked at himself. It was a valid concern. “What time is it?” he asked, hoping to take her mind off of it.

“Oh, only about nine in the morning.” Mom said, giving Izuku a few pats on the head, perhaps in an attempt to convince herself that izuku was fine. “I made breakfast if you want any.”

“Thanks, mom!’ Izuku chirped, and he any let the scales and feathers fall away as the glass cage between conscious and subconscious was thoroughly latched shut. The breakfast was as filling as always, and tasty, and Izuku went about his normal routine of getting properly woken up. Once he had gone back to his room and gotten dressed, Izuku joined his mother on the couch. Neither of them said anything, but it was a comforting silence.

“Hey mom?” Izuku said, voice soft so as to not break the silence as harshly.

“Hhm?” 

“Do you ever wonder if the things you do have any affect in someone else’s dreams?”

“I’ve never thought about it that way, to be honest.” His mother replied. “But it’s a very unique idea. And one that might have more truth than others.” She smiled at Izuku, then. “No matter what others say about you, or how different you may be to them, know that I’m here for you, okay sweetie?”

“I know, mom.” Izuku leaned forwards and hugged her.

~| |~

It was three days later when Izuku ventured back to the ocean.

They didn’t know why.

They didn’t have a specific reason.

They just went, pulled by the draw that the sea had, to sink into it and let it sink into them, and to let their very existence be the sea and its salty waves and haunting, echoing song.

And so the shift between forms and mindsets came again.

The dark water was refreshing to their body as they swam through the water. They swam deeper still, letting the cold envelop them. It was a bone-deep chill, and they dove further still, drawn to the deepest parts of the ocean, accompanied only by the rumbling, soothing song of the waves.

Their mind was nearing that point of more control to Evangellion than to Izuku, but they paid no mind. They cared not whose thoughts were theirs or who had how much control, only that they find this comfort and peace in the almost-still waves and in the ocean's song.

The air around them was calming and gentle, and when had they risen to the sky? It did not matter. The fact was irrelevant.

They rose until they were above several clouds with feathers and eyes searching for places to fly to. Almost unnoticed, the control seeped away to Evangellion, and it stretched its body and shook out its feathers, a short soft trill escaping it's beak.

It had been a long time since it had been allowed this much control over the shared body. Green Valley was afraid of what it would do. It did not blame the smaller creature, but it was glad to have total control for the first time in several years. It had missed the way the stars sang around it, the way that its movements felt real to it.

Evangellion did not do much that night. It only soared in the sky for several hours, maybe three at most, listening to the starsong and oceansong, letting the notes echo from inside its chest and throat before escaping into the night. Then, it let its control seep away, reluctant as it was to do so, and Izuku let the feathers and scales melt away until they were on the rooftop of their apartment building, and the glass cage was raised, letting only starlight into it to give Evangellion something to see.

(It had been a good night.)

~| |~

Halfway through the second week before school started back again, Pol came up with an idea. 

“Hey, wanna have a sleepover at Midori’s place?” They asked, fidgeting with a pencil and doodling much like the first time that Hitoshi had met them.

“Not that I’m not all for a sleepover, but why is it in my apartment?” Midori asked, munching on a small bag of chips.

“ ‘Cause your home is closest to the school we’re gonna go to, and it’s also the biggest since you guys live on one of the top floors. ” Pol reasoned.

“But you have an actual house that you live in.” Midori shot back amusedly. “It would, logically, make more sense to have a sleepover there.”

“Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaah.” Pol whined sadly. “But I wanna have the sleepover at your apartment because my house is a constant mess and your mom is nice and if we have a sleepover here then there’s enough room for us all to chill in this one room by itself.”

Midori was silent a moment, considering, then turned and went into one of the other rooms, presumably to get their phone and ask their mother. Sure enough, they came back a few seconds later. “Mom says we can have a sleepover as long as each of our parents is okay with it. Do you want to invite Rin-kun?”

“ You know what, sure, let’s invite Rin-kun, why not? ” Hitoshi said.

Which was how the group ended up convincing Rin to come over for the next two days (they’d had to ask his host family, who was more than willing and seemed glad that he had made friends already). 

Hitoshi was probably the second person other than Midori to arrive; the first person was Pol, who, when they saw Hitoshi, bodily threw themselves at him. 

“Hittochi!” They said, cheerily and swallowed in a hoodie at least three sizes too big, as was normal. “You’re here!”


“Yeah, I can see that.” Hitoshi snarked back. “ How goes the preparations? ”

“ Pretty good. ” Midori answered for them. “We have the TV set up to either play movies from disks or from streaming them, and we just got done making popcorn. We have a few group games too, if you’re interested in that.”

Hitoshi nodded. “Nice to know.”

Soon enough, Uraraka showed up a few seconds after Hitoshi had, and she set to work helping get everything else set up as well. “Do we know if Rin-kun is going to be coming?”

“ He said he would be. ” Midori confirmed. “But I don’t know how far away the place he’s staying at is, so it could take a while for him to get here.”

“So. . . what do we do in the meantime?” Pol asked, once again fidgeting with what looked like some kind of spinning toy (and where had they gotten that from?).

“Is that a Nintendo Wii?” Asked Uraraka suddenly. “Do you have Wii Sports?” 

“ We have Wii Sports, yes. ” Midori said. “Why do you ask?” 

Her change in demeanor was like the flip of a switch. She had gone from a kind, softer aura to one of competitiveness and determination. “ I wanna know who’s the best at Wii Tennis. You and me, one on one.” Her gaze was begging for Midori to say no so that she could convince him.

Midori, being intelligent, chose the better option. “Sure!” They said. “Singles or doubles?”

While the two of them got increasingly more competitive over Wii Tennis, Pol grabbed Hitoshi’s arm and forcibly sat Hitoshi onto one of the couches. 

Hitoshi raised a brow. “ What was that for? ”

Pol’s grin widened. “ There’s no point in standing up all the time, Hittochi! ” They stretched and put their spinner into the large pocket on their very large hoodie. “Besides, this couch is comfy, and you’re free laying-on material.” 

Hitoshi blinked. “I don’t know what those words mean when put together in that order, but okay.” Hitoshi decided to just settle there, with Pol laying half-on top of him, as they watched the game between Uraraka and Midori with interest. Hitoshi had to admit, the pressure of another person laying next to him was. . . nice. Not exactly what he was used to (then again, who was used to a person laying on top of them?), but definitely comfortable after the initial few seconds. Hitoshi yawned, unbidden.

“You okay, Hitocchi?” Pol looked away from the ongoing battle between the two other teens to look down at Hitoshi.

“Mmhhmm.” Hitoshi responded with a sound more than actual words, but the message got across all the same. “I’ve had insomnia ever since I was younger, so I’m used to not getting a lot of sleep and being tired.” Hitoshi was feeling more tired than usual that day, but it was probably just because he’d stayed up later the night before. He yawned again, and closed his eyes. He’d just rest his eyes until Rin got there. Not too much of a problem.

He woke up slowly, a bit confused. “ Wha. . . ? ”

The sound of giggles was made apparent and Hitoshi opened his eyes, groaning. “ Why are you all looking at me like that? ” He asked, and sat up. “Oh, hi Pol. Why are we cuddling? ”

“ You fell asleep and then cuddled me until you woke up. ” Was their answer. “Did you know that you mumble in your sleep?”

“I do now.” Hitoshi said. He stretched and wiggled out of the loose hug that he had been in with Pol, and stood. “If any of you are thinking of using this against me, don’t even think about it. I have no shame.”

“I can believe that.” Midori said. “There’s stories about you. Apparently you’ll take any bet.”

“Will you?” Uraraka said.

“ Maybe. ” Hitoshi answered. “But we’re here for a sleepover and whatever stuff goes with it, not discussing what dumb things I’ll do.”

Uraraka sighed dissapointedly, but she didn't say anything else about that. "Hey Rin-kun!"

Rin, who'd arrived sometime between when Hitoshi had fallen asleep and had woken up, startled. "Yes?"

" Do you know what Wii Sports is? "

His face filled with confusion. "I- no? "

Uraraka grinned then, all teeth and sharp edges. "Well then, I'll teach you! It'll be fun, I promise!" 

"Poor Rin-kun." Pol said, still draped on the couch. "He will be missed."

"Indeed he will." Midori added, wiping away an imaginary tear. "He was so young. . ."

" Can you please stop talking about me like I'm dead? " Rin asked. "It's kind of weird."

" Oh, sorry. Won't do it again." Midori promised. From besides them, Pol nodded.

They spent the next couple of hours cycling through the various different possible activities, from Wii Sports to Just Dance, to older console games like Minecraft.

Halfway into the first night in the Minecraft world that Midori, Pol, and Rin had decided to play on, there was a knock from the door. "I'll get it." Midori said, before they got up. 

A few seconds later Midori came back over to where the rest of them were, with a blonde, grey-eyed boy follow them. 

"This is my cousin, Neito." Midori introduced. "He's also the one who's family lives in the apartment across the hall from ours."

"So basically, we're all neighbors." Uraraka said.

" Kinda? "

"Wait wait but no, not all of us are neighbors." Pol pointed out. "Rin-kun and don't live in this apartment complex, let alone love next door."

"Yeah, you have a point there." Uraraka admitted.

" Can we play Minecraft instead of having debates on whether we all are or aren't neighbors? " Asked Neito, who had sat down and claimed the fourth controller for himself. 

" Yeah, let's do that. " Midori agreed, and they, Rin, and Pol all went back to continue playing the game. 

"It's more boring when you have nothing to do but watch other people play stuff." Hitoshi grumbled under his breath. 

"Well honestly, I'm tired and have no complaints about just watching." Uraraka said from on the couch next to Hitoshi.

"Suit yourself." he replied back, and melted further into the cushions of the couch, closing his eyes and hoping that he'd at least be able to rest his eyes some more.

~| |~

"Is everyone sufficiently tired out yet?" It was Inko who asked that, standing in the doorway that presumably led to her bedroom. "It's getting rather late." she pointed out.

"Yeah, we know." Midori said, stretching. "We're gonna go to bed soon."

"Good night Auntie Inko!" said Midori's cousin.

With that, Inko left, and the six teenagers were on their own in the relatively quiet living room.

"Hey." Jishaku asked. "Neito-kun?"

"Yeah?" 

"What's your full name? I don't wanna call you by your given name since we aren't related or anything, and if I know what your full name is I can give you a nickname."

It was quiet for a little bit longer. "My full name is Monoma Neito." was the answer. "What's yours?"

"Kyokusei Jishaku." they said. "But call me Pol, everyone does."

"Well then, nice to meet you, Pol." Mono (that seemed like a fitting nickname) said.

"Nice to meet you too!" Jishaku replied cheerily. 

"Please tell me we aren't going to have another round of 'share your name and pronouns'." Hitocchi asked. 

"That's exactly what we're gonna do." Jishaku said, cheer still in their voice. "It's important to know these things!"

Hittocho groaned, but didn't say anything else to protest it. "You have to go first though." He told Jishaku.

"Fine by me!" Jishaku yawned then, and stretched before talking again. "I'm Kyokusei Jishaku, but call me Pol 'cause everyone does, and I use they/them or he/him pronouns! I don't care if you use either, just use one of those."

They assumed that everyone else nodded in the darkness, or at least understood what they said.

"I guess I'll go next?" Hitocchi asked. When no one said anything else, he continued. "I'm Shinsou Hitoshi, and I use he/him pronouns."

"I'm Uraraka Ochako! I use she/her!" Raka said, just a few second after Hitocchi had finished. 

"Do I go next?" Rin asked. "I guess - I guess I'll go next. I'm Rin Hiryuu, or Fei-Long Lin in Chinese. I use he/him."

"Is it my turn?" Mono asked.

"Yep!" Raka confirmed.

"Well, I'm Monoma Neito, and I use he/him and they/them."

"Oh, same!" Jishaku reached over Hittochi to give Mono a high-five.

"I'm the only one left now, right?" Midori asked.

"As per usual." Hitocchi said. "And don't think for a second about feeling bad because of that "

"If you say so, mom ." Midori snarked back. "Well, I'm Midoriya Izuku, and I use he/him, they/them, she/her, xe/xem, and fae/faem."

"Wow. There are a lot more of us that are trans than i thought." mono said. "Izuku, do you do this on purpose?"

"I promise you, Neito, I did not specifically collect a friend group that was mostly trans." Midori snarked back. (Did Midori just snark more when they were tired? That made sense, actually.)

"Wait, who here is trans, though?" Raka asked. "Because I know I am, and we know that Midori, Pol, and Monoma-kun are, but is there anyone else?"

"Me?" Hitocchi volunteered. 

"Wow." Rin said after a few seconds. "I'm the only one here who isn't trans."

"You're the token cis." Midori said. 

"Do you know what that means?" Raka asked.

"I'll protect you all from transphobes and you'll protect me from biphobes?" Rin asked, with an equal but opposite tone in his voice.

"Exactly!" Jishaku said. "Wait, you're bi?"

"Yes." Rin answered. He seemed. . . A little hesitant, but Jishaku couldn't really blame him. "Few members of my family know, but my older sister has helped me come to terms with my identity, and I feel more comfortable taking about it now."

"That's pretty brave, Rin-kun." Hitocchi said. "I'm glad you trust us enough to share that."

"It was only fair." Rin replied. "All of you shared personal parts of your identities with me, after all."

"Fair enough." Mono said. "We should probably go to sleep soon though. Pol looks like they're about to pass out on us." 

Jishaku made a noise of protest, and their friends giggled around them. "You're all mean!" They complained. "Except Hitocchi, who didn't laugh at my expense."

"Just go to sleep." Raka said. "You can be upset in the morning." 

"Yeah yeah, whatever." Jishaku grumbled. Still, they settled down, as did everyone else, and tried to sleep.

They didn't know how long they had been asleep for, but at some point they'd woken up to someone next to them.

"Oh shi- sorry Pol, didn't mean to wake you up." Hitocchi whispered.

"It's fine." Jishaku whispered back. "Why are you still up?"

"Like I said, insomnia." One of the others shuffled slightly in their sleep, and both Hitocchi and Jishaku paused before continuing their conversation. "I haven't slept well since I was little and my parents would let me cuddle with them."

"Well, Hitocchi," Jishaku began, "have you ever considered that you, I dunno, need to cuddle someone to sleep, or something?"

"What makes you think that?" Hitocchi asked, shuffling himself and the blankets he was laying on to be closer to Jishaku, and hopefully not wake up the others.

"Well, you fell asleep pretty quickly earlier today when I laid on top of you, so I'd say that's some solid evidence. And you said your parents used to let you cuddle them when you were little and than you slept well then, so?" Another shuffling from one of the others; Midori this time. "It's just a suggestion."

"Are you trying to get me to cuddle you?" Hitocchi asked.

"Maybe I am." Jishaku answered him, both still whispering. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Probably just cuddle you, I guess.” Hitocchi said.

“Then get over here already!” Jishaku whisper-yelled.

As per Jishaku’s request, Hitocchi shuffled further over to where they were lying. After maybe a minute of additional shuffling to find a position that worked, they settled comfortably, with Jishaku basically using Hitocchi as a pillow.

“You’re a comfy pillow.” Jishaku said, drowsily.

“Wow, thanks.” Hitocchi’s laugh was little bubbles of dark blue and melting purple, and one of his hands carded through Jishaku’s longer hair.

“Your laugh is a really pretty color. . .” Jishaku yawned at the end of their sentence.

“Most people don’t describe sounds in color, but okay?” Hitocchi paused in the carding through Jishaku’s hair, and Jishaku made a noise of protest before he continued. “Your hair is softer than it looks.”

“Yeah, well, mom always made sure I knew that if I was going to have long hair I’d take care of it.” Jishaku mumbled, pressing their face further into the crook of Hitocchi’s neck. Hitocchi was warm, and a comfy pillow. Jishaku had already said that though, hadn’t they? It didn’t matter. “You’re very comfy.” They mumbled again, drowsily.

“So you’ve said.” Hitocchi said softly, voice quiet. His hand still carded through Jishaku’s hair, while the other rested around Jishaku’s waist. “You’ve pretty comfortable yourself.”

“Thanks.” Jishaku yawned again. “Your hair smells like strawberries.”

Hitocchi laughed again, and the bubbles of blue-purple returned amidst the ribbons of dark blue-purple and threads of silver. “Yeah, I’d expect so. My mom loves the smell, so she always gets those scented shampoos and conditioners - you know those ones that you hold the top up to your nose and you can just smell the strawberries? Those are the ones - and she always buys a bunch of the stuff so whenever anyone gets out of a shower at my place we always end up reeking of strawberries.”

“Well, I think it smells nice.” Jishaku yawned again. “Your hair is pretty soft too. . .”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Hitocchi whispered, the dark blue-purple-silver ribbons more easily seen when it was so quiet. “We should go to sleep.” He said soon after.

“Hmmmnnn. . . okay.” Jishaku yawned again, the noise a soft orange without a proper shape, and Jishaku nestled further into Hitocchi’s arms. “G’night Hitocchi.”

“Goodnight, Jirachi.” Hitocchi said, voice soft and paler purple ribbons slowly moving to the rhythm of his breaths. “Sleep well.”

~| |~

He woke up suddenly and quietly, as he always had.

Lin stretched, letting himself wake a bit more. Sitting upwards, he cast his gaze around the partially darkened room; the blinds were partially raised, allowing for enough sunlight to stream into the room so as for it to be bright enough to see, but not bright enough to wake anyone up from the light alone.

Letting himself rest further, he looked around the room to see the state of the five other people who’d become his friends in a single day. Midoriya was asleep on the couch, two tails wrapped around a pillow as Midoriya slept, partly hanging off of the couch upside-down. Uraraka, meanwhile, slept on the floor, sprawled in a star shape, blankets kicked off of her in the night. She slept on her back, snoring slightly. Nearby on the floor was Monoma, who was curled slightly into a ball on his side, silent unlike Midoriya and Uraraka. 

By far the sight that Lin noticed the most was where Shinsou and Kyokusei had ended up through the night. Whether intentional or not, Kyokusei and Shinsou had ended up cuddling, both of them firmly hugging each other in their sleep. Their breaths fell at almost the same pace - Kyokusei’s just a moment later than Shinsou’s. It was, honestly, an adorable sight.

Eventually, the others woke. Unsurprisingly, Midoriya was the first to wake other than Lin. Midoriya yawned and reached for one of the bracelets that they kept nearby. “Good morning, Rin-kun!”

“Good morning to you as well, Midoriya-kun.” Midoriya flinched slightly at Lin’s choice in words. “Ah, my apologies - I did not mean to use the wrong honorific for the moment.”

“It’s fine, really.” Midoriya said. “I can teach you which bracelets mean which pronouns, if you want?”

“Is that what those bracelets are for?” Lin asked, braiding his hair as he talked with Midoriya.

“Yep!” They confirmed. “The purple ones are for he/him, the blue ones are for she/her, the white ones are for fae/faem, the black ones are for xe/xem, and the cream ones are for they/them. Does that make sense?”

Lin nodded. “Yes, it’s easy to understand once informed of it. You’re wearing the white bracelet, so I should use fae for you today?”

“Exactly!” Fae said. 

“Which honorifics should I use for you, then?”

Midoriya paused. “You know, I actually haven’t thought of that. . . honestly, I don’t like honorifics that much, come to think of it. Hmm.” Fae shrugged. “Oh well.”

“I can refer to you without honorifics, if that is what you’d prefer?” Line offered.

Midoriya’s face lit up at that. “That would be great, thank you!” Fae now had a small grin on faer face, and fae stretched before letting their quirk deactivate, tails receding into their spine and ears shrinking back into their normal, only slightly-pointed shape. Midoriya also seemed to look around the room, until faer gaze stopped on one pair of Lin and Midoriya’s shared friends.

“Are Pol-kun and Shinsou-kun cuddling?” Midoriya asked.

“It seems like it.” Lin answered.

“. . . Should we wake them up?”

“If you want to, you may, but I would prefer not to.”

It turned out that neither of them would wake either up, because barely a second passed before Shinsou sat up, yawned once, and looked around. “Morning.” He said. “How’s everyone doing?”

“Well, half of us are asleep, but I’m doing good.” Midoriya answered.

‘I am also doing well.” Lin added. “Did you sleep well?”

Shinsou paused a moment, giving Lin an odd look. “You’re not going to ask about. . . this ?” He asked, gesturing to where he sat next to Kyokusei. 

“Not in the slightest.” Lin answered.

“Huh.” Shinsou said, more of a noise of astonishment than anything. “Well, i slept good. It seems like Jirachi’s theory of my needing to cuddle someone to sleep is pretty accurate.” 

“‘Jirachi’?” Midoriya asked.

“Yeah, like the pokemon.” Shinsou carded a hand through Kyokusei’s hair, almost absentmindedly. “Did you know their hair is a lot softer than it looks?”

“I didn’t know that.” Midriya said. “I’m guessing you made a good pillow?”

“Apparently so.” Shinsou replied. “Apparently my voice is also a pretty color, whatever that means? Jirachi specifically said ‘your laugh is a really pretty color’, so.” He shrugged.

“I think I’ve heard of something like that - it’s called. . . synesthesia, I think?” Midoriya offered.

“Eh, it’s no big deal. Jirachi probably knows that they have it, if they do, and if they don’t know that they have synesthesia, then we can just explain it to them later. No big deal.” Shinsou then shrugged again, and started braiding Kyokusei’s hair.

“Wow, Shinsou-kun.” Midoriya said after a few seconds. “You seem more. . . energetic than usual.”

“Well, I just woke up well-rested for once, so it’s probably that. I’ve always been a morning person.”

“That does make sense.” Lin agreed. “Is there a reason why you’re braiding Kyokusei-kun’s hair?”

Once more, Shinsou shrugged. “Eh. I figured they’d probably have an easier time if all of their hair wasn’t all in their face and all. So, I’m braiding it, so that it doesn’t.” With a small flourish, Shinsou finished the braid.

“That does make sense.” Lin agreed. After a few seconds, he spoke again. “Shall we find something to eat while the others wake up?”

The other two agreed, leading to Midoriya untangling faemself from the pillows and blankets, and Shinsou carefully untangling himself from Kyokusei’s grip. Unfortunately, Shinsou wasn’t able to untangle himself from Kyokusei carefully enough, because Kyokusei woke up halfway through the detangling process.

“‘S it time to wake up already?” They grumbled. “I w’nna go back t’ sleep. . .” their voice was slurred with partial sleep, and they stretched, yawning. “‘S probably no point in trying to go back to sleep though.”

“I can get you food and some coffee maybe, if there’s any?” Shinsou offered. 

Kyokusei stretched again and moved over to lean themself again the couch. “That would be nice.” They said. “I’ma try not to fall back asleep.” 

“Gotcha. Be back with food and coffee soon.” Shinsou promised.

Luckily, the Midoriya residence did in fact have coffee and cereal in its pantry, so retrieving both breakfast and coffee was easier than it could have been. Lin waited as Shinsou returned, gifting coffee to the parties that wanted it, before draping himself over the couch, ignoring Midoriya’s squawk of protest.

“I was sitting there!” Fae said, upset. “You can't just steal my seat!”

“I just did.” Was Shinsou’s smug reply.

Midoriya didn't say anything else. Instead, fae walked over to the couch and sat on Shinsou, causing him to lose all the breath in his lungs, and fae to look just as smug as he had.

“Do you think we should do anything about that?” Asked Uraraka, who has woken up by how.

“Nah.” Kyokusei waved a hand in a placating manner. “Let them be. I just want to sit and enjoy my coffee and be a gremlin.”

“That's fair.” Uraraka said, as she went back to doing whatever it was on her phone. “School’s gonna start a couple days from now.” She commented a few minutes afterwards. “I'm looking forward to it.”

“As am I.” Lin said. “Kyokusei-kun, have you decided yet which of the schools you are going to go to?”

Kyokusei gave Lin an odd look. “Well, I got a Yuuei uniform, so I figured it would be kinda obvious that I'm going to Yuuei?” 

“I just wanted to clarify.”

Kyokusei nodded. “Makes sense.”

“School. School sounds like it's either going to be great, or hell.” Shinsou commented, having regained his breath and somehow managing to seem like he didn't notice that Midoriya was sitting on him. “I hope it's the first one, but knowing my luck it's the second one.”

“If anyone is mean to you, I'll beat them up for you.” Uraraka said, voice perfectly conversational. “That's a promise.”

“I'll hold you to it.” Shinsou said, stretching as best as he could. “Let's hope the first day of school goes well.”

~| |~

" Are you dyeing your hair? " Hitoshi asked, watching Uraraka from the couch of her apartment. 

" Yup! " She confirmed cheekily. "I'm dyeing it pink."

 "I can see that." Hitoshi snarked at her. " Why, though? "

 Uraraka shrugged. " Why not? I've wanted pink hair for forever, and since it showed up on my doormat with a not saying it was for me, I figured why not use it? "

" Fair enough. " Hitoshi said. He went back to eating his bag of chips on her couch, and she went back to dyeing her hair.

~| |~

Ochako bounced on her heels, waiting for Midoriya and Shinsou to meet her out at the front entrance to their apartment building. Today was their first day of school, and she was more than excited - there were going to Yuuei! Ochako was going to learn how to be a hero so that she could actually help people! It was a big deal!

“Finally, you two are here!” She said when she spotted the two. Shinsou and Midoriya both wore the same uniform as Ochako did (though they wore the male version), but Shinsou’s had somehow managed to gain a rumpled look to it, and his tie was looser than it should have been. Midoriya’s uniform, to contrast, was smooth and seemed to have no wrinkles whatsoever, tie neatly tied in place, though tied incorrectly. Ochako liked to think that she was somewhere between the two in levels of uniform-neatness.

“What, were you expecting us to get all the way down here speedily fast?” Shinsou drawled, eyebrows raised. “Midoriya made me take the stairs with xem. Do you know how many stairs are in this apartment building?”

"I have no idea.” Ochako admitted. “I’ve always just scaled my way up and down the outside walls.”

“You what.” Was Shinsou’s reaction. “You. Scaled the walls up and down. To get to your apartment.”

“Yep.” Ochako popped the ‘p’. “I climb in through the window.”

“Oh, so that’s why that window is always unlocked.” Midoriya mused aloud. “I was wondering about it.”

“You know there’s an elevator in the building, right?” Shinsou asked.

Midoriya and Ochako both looked at him. “There is?” they both said, unanimously.

Shinsou continued to stare at them. “ You didn’t know there was an elevator in the building? ”

“No.” Ochako admitted.

“I forgot it was there.” Midoriya said. “I’ve always took the stairs. Can’t skip leg day, and all.” Xe fidgeted in place a bit, two tails (what was it with Midoriya and always have the two tails? Wasn’t it tiring to constantly be using their quirk?) slowly weaving through the air. “Anyways, we should get going. We don’t want to miss the train.”

“Right.”

With that, the three of them began the journey to the train station, chatting idly as they did. Along the way they were joined by both Pol and Rin. Somewhere between getting onto the train and arriving at their stop, Ochako noticed that Monoma had joined the party.

“When did you get here?” Ochako asked him.

Monoma only shrugged. “I’m a cryptid who prefers to just enjoy the company of my family and friends. Who knows when I show up or leave. It’s not really important.’

“. . . You know what, that’s fair. You’re valid.” Ochako said.

“Thank you!” Monoma said, cheerily. “We’ll be at Yuuei soon.”

“Everyone know what class they’re in?” Midoriya asked. 

“Well, I’m in 1-B.” Shinsou said.

“I'm not! I'm in 1-A.” Ochako said. 

Midoriya nodded. “As am I. In 1-A I mean.” Xe turned to look at Monoma, Rin, and Pol. “I’m going to guess that you two are in 1-B”, they motioned to Monoma and Shinsou, “and Pol-kun, you’re in class. . .?”

“1-H.” He said, fiddling with a pencil. “I’m going to be all alone from you guys.”

“Well, hopefully we’ll at least have the same lunch schedule.” Ochako said. “We probably will, so it can’t be that bad, right?”

“Yeah.” Pol didn’t seem very convinced, but the train pulled up to their stop before Ochako could say anything, and the six of them all exited the train car so as to get to the school entrance. 

The next few minutes were a bit of a blur of trying to figure out where the heck they were supposed to go, but eventually they got help from an upperclassman with navy hair and pointed ears, and started heading towards their destinations. Pol had to part with them, as the Support classrooms were on the other side of the building, and the five others wished him luck before continuing on their way. They made it to a classroom which had “1-B” written on the door in large lettering, and Ochako and Midoriya both said their farewells for the moment to Rin, Monoma, and Shinsou.

Now it was only Ochako and Midoriya heading towards the classroom for !-A.

“Do you think that Bakugou-kun or that one boy who got on your about mumbling will be in our class?” Ochako wondered aloud.

“Hopefully not.” Midoriya answered. “But knowing my luck, they probably are.”

The two made it to the doorway at that point; the door seemed bigger when it was the one they had to walk through. “Do you want to go in first, or should I?” Ochako asked, glancing at Midoriya.

“I’ll go.” Xe said, fiddling with xeir black bracelet. The two of them held their breath as Midoriya opened the door, only to let it out when they saw that less than half of the class was there already. 

There were only about eight or so students in the classroom. One of them was a boy with yellow hair that had a black lightning bolt pattern in it, who was chatting animatedly with another student that had what looked like a crow’s head, complete with a beak, and a shadowy bird-like creature clinging to the person. Another student was Ashido, who was also partaking in the conversation with the lightning-bolt boy. There was a boy with hair that was split red-and-white, red on the left and white on the right, sitting next to a pretty girl with long black hair in a ponytail. In one of the desks near the window was a girl with long green hair that turned out to be vines on further inspection, and nearby was a boy with full lips and spiky black hair, who seemed to be munching on something sweet. Finally, there was another blond boy, who had shorter hair and a tail, which was resting on his shoulder as he sat.

From besider her, Ochako heard Midoriya squeak. Se turned to them. “What, what is it?”

“That boy, he- he has a tail.” Midoriya said, staring at the mentioned boy.

“. . . and?”

“Raka-chan, you don’t understand. It’s so cool, he has a tail , does he have it all the time, is it a mutant quirk? He must have worked so hard to get in if his quirk is one of the less flashy ones-” Midoriya was mumbling again, and Ochako grabbed xeir arm and led them to one of the seats. 

“I was rambling again, sorry.” Midoriya rubbed xeir neck awkwardly with one of their hands, scales creeping up along xeir arm.

“It’s fine.” Ochako said. “I like listening to you ramble; it means that you feel safe enough to do so, which I think is pretty awesome that you think I’m someone safe to be around!”

Midoriya smiled at Ochako. “Thanks, Raka-chan.”

“It’s fine.” She said again. “I wonder who our classmates will be?”

The two of them sat and chatted idly as the other students filed into the classroom, filling with faces that neither of them knew. Towards the time when class would be starting, Midoriya had to move away from where he was sitting near Ochako to be in his assigned seat, but the two of them had phones and thus used them to continue their conversation.

Archetype Saucer: here’s hoping Bakugou won’t be in our class

Antigravity: let’s hope that that guy who was snipish at you also isn’t here bc he was a dick

Archetype Saucer: we’re probably gonna have at least one of them in our class though

Antigravity: well let’s hope that whoever it is, it isn’t Bakugou

Memory Blank: are we talking shit about Bakugou

Archetype Saucer: not at the current moment I don’t think

Archetype Saucer: but that is subject to change

Alien Queen: wait who's Bakugou 

Flying Dragon: i don’t think i’ve met Bakugou yet

Memory Blank: lmao, no you haven’t

Archetype Saucer: trust me

Archetype Saucer: you don’t want to

Archetype Saucer: he is. . . 

Memory Blank: a dick?

Antigravity: a dude who beat you up for just existing?

Mockingbird: someone who thinks that if you’re not completly strong at all times than you’re a failure for existing?

Archetype Saucer: now that’s one i haven’t heard yet

Archetype Saucer: your reasoning?

Mockingbird: i confronted him about being mean to you once

Mockingbird: he went on a tangent about how because your quirk was flashy you were “supposed to be strong” or something

Mockingbird: he makes no sense

Mockingbird: like if you’re gonna hate someone have it be for a legitimate reason, like if they murdered your family or something

Rockwall: that's a Yikes™ right there

Flying Dragon: that does sound like an unpleasant person to meet

Ochako looked up at the doorway as what looked like the last of the students arrived. The boy who was mean to Midoriya was there, but thankfully Bakugou wasn't.

Antigravity: hey who do you guys have in your class

Alien Queen: me and kiri are in you and midori's class!!!!

Rockwall: hell yeah

Antigravity: hell yeah!!

Memory Blank: someone shoot me, we have Bakugou 

Archetype Saucer: press f in the chat lads

Antigravity: f

Mockingbird: f

Aurora Australis: f

Flying Dragon: f

Memory Blank: f

Alien Queen: f

Rockwall: f

Archetype Saucer: no offence but I'm actually really glad that we don't have Bakugou in my class

Archetype Saucer: bc he used to beat me up before when he was trying to keep a "clean record" so he could get into Yuuei

Archetype Saucer: I don't wanna know what he'd do now that he's *in* Yuuei 

Alien Queen: oh yikes

Rockwall: okay so it's a really good thing that Bakugou isn't in our class then

Aurora Australis: ye

Antigravity: Monoma, Shinsou, Rin, I'm trusting you three to keep him contained

Mockingbird: I will do my best

Antigravity: thank

With that done, Ochako out away her phone. Everyone sat in their seats, but people were still chattering. Ochako let herself relax into the best some, letting the chatter be some white noise.

Slowly, the noise stopped, and Ochako looked towards the doorway. There was a man standing there, in a dark outfit with some kind of pale scarf around his neck. "It took you all eight seconds to quiet down." He held up some kind of work-out outfit. "I'm you homeroom teacher, Aizawa Should. You each should have one of the gym outfits. Get changed and meet me outside. You have ten minutes."

From there it was a scramble to get to the lockers and changed, and then try to figure out where they were supposed to meet their teacher. Finally, Ochako skidded towards one if the doors leading outside and opened it, trying out triumphantly when she saw Aizawa. Ho looked her up and down, the scene to nod, before returning to his uninterested stare. "You're the first one here. Good job."

Ochako let herself smile a small smile, before showing her face into a neutral one, waiting for the others to arrive. Surprisingly, the second one to get there was Midoriya, who was waking in some hunched manner, arms close to the ground as if xe were prepared to start running on all fours - which, honestly made sense. Xeir twi tails were behind them to keep them steady, and heir lens and legs were already scaled and clawed, with feathers sprouting from the wrists and ankles. The fins behind their elongated ears wavered slightly, and feathers grew out in front of the fins in seconds as xe shivered. Heir face was elongated into a scale muzzle, which somehow didn't look odd on xem.

"Did you track me by smell, or something?" Ochako joked.

" Hey . You dyed your hair yesterday , and hair dye has a very noticeable smell. Plus, it's a valid tracking method." Xe defended xeirself, letting most of heir quirk melt away, save the fins and one of the tails.

Ochako shrugged. "Shall we wait for the others?" She suggested.

"We shall."

 Which is what they ended up doing. Eventually everyone made it to the area they had met at; Kirishima ended up being the last one to make it to the group. Ochako only recognized him because of his voice - he'd dyed his hair like Ochako had, and spikwd it up with hair gel, probably.

"It took three minutes for all of you to make it here." Their teacher said, tone uncaring and bland. "You'll have to reduce that time by the end of the semester." Privately Ochako thought that expecting them to know where everything was in the first day of school was unfair, but she kept her mouth shut. "Today I'm going to give you a test to see where you're at in terms of skills." He gestured at the fake city behind him. "There are several flags hiden in this face city. Your goal I'd to get as many as you can before the time runs out."

"This sounds like fun!" One of her classmates said - she identified it as the yellow-haired boy with the lightning bolt pattern. 

That was a mistake.

"Fun, you say?" Aizawa grinned. "How about this, then. Whoever has the least amount of flags once the timer runs out will be expelled. You have thirty minutes. Go."

 Ochako and Midoriya both took off running - one of the things Forceweight had drilled into them was that no one was going to give you a countdown in a fight. Ochako didn't see where Midoriya went, but she did see xem transform into a more bird-like creature, so she figured that xe were going to give it xeir all, just like she was.

Who cares if Midoriya can turn into a bird? Ochako reasoned with herself. I've been scaling the walks of my apartment building up and down for months. I've got a fair bit of experience. With that thought in mind, Ochako jogged to the nearest building, jumped, caught the thin cracks in between the metal plated walls, and started climbing. 

Three minutes later, she and Midoriya had decided to work together, navigating the buildings and putting their training from Forceweight into use, through parlour and the actual spotting of the small, black flags. Ochako didn't know how many there were in total, or did she want to know, but she figured that she and Midoriya had both gotten a decent amount. 

Midoriya screeched and dove, and Ochako clung to xeir feathers and mane of hair as best she could without pulling too hard, and then she dropped, grabbed the flag, skidded vertically down the building for a few seconds, only to be caught by Midoriya. 

Which was how the rest of the exercise went, mostly - Midoriya and Ochako taking turns retrieving the flags and helping the other get around. Ochako had to admit, it was kind of fun. (She wasn't going to tell Aizawa that, though.) 

Thirty minutes was not actually a lot of time for sn exercise like this. Ochako noticed that one of her classmates seemed to be struggling - "should we help him?" She yelled to Midoriya, over the roar of the wind from their higher vantage point. Midoriya shrieked, and then dove; she would take that as a yes. 

Roughly four seconds later the boy had been picked up and launched into the air before Midoriya dove down again so that he would land on xem.

"Hi there!" Ochako called out over the wind, cheerily.

"What the fuck is happening?" Shrieked the boy, in fear or rage. One of the two.

Midoriya dove again, and Ochako and the boy both held on for the sake of not falling onto the ground in a splatter of limbs. Landing on the rooftop of one of the fake buildings, Midoriya began to shrink from xeir bird-like form into one more human, feathers and wings pulling inwards on themselves and compacting. Ochako did the smart thing and dragged herself and her classmate off of Midoriya's back as xe transformed, so that. . . well, Ochako didn't know what would happen if she was still on top of Midoriya while xe transformed, but she didn't want to risk it.

"Hi." Midoriya said after they'd returned to a mostly human appearance. "Wanna team up with me and Raka-chan so we can get more points?" Xeir feathers glittered slightly in the sunlight, shifting from a pale purple to blue to green, arms twitching at xeir side. "I can do most of the retrieving of the flags and serve as a vantage point, and you to can spot them out and collect some flags."

 The boy shrugged and said, "why not."

 "Great!" Midoriya chirped. "I don't know if you know, but my name is Midoriya Izuku. My friend with the pink hair-" Ochako waved, "-is Uraraka Ochako."

"Kaminari Denki." He said. "Guess we're gonna be working together for the rest of this exercise?"

 "Yep! Come on!" Midoriya said, before jumping and transforming into the bird-like, two-time creature again. Xe perched on the edge of the building, swiveling xeir long, swan-like neck as if to say well, are you coming or not? 

The rest of the exercise was similar to how it had been, only with Kaminari as a member of the group. Some sort of alarm went off, signaling the end of the exercise, and Midoriya landed, Ochako and Kaminari sliding off of xeir feathered back.

Aizawa stood in the center of the fake city, fron where the alarm had sounded fron, and he waited before all of the class had assembled before speaking. "The student with the highest amount of points is Krishna Ejirou with fifteen points."

 Ignoring the way Kaminari shrieked " what?! " behind them, Ochako spelled forwards. "Congrats, Kirishima!"

 "Yeah, good job Kiri!" Ashido cheered from nearby. 

Midoriya didn't say anything, but xe gave what would be taken as a celebratory gesture.

Aizawa continued speaking. "Tied for second is Midoriya Izuku, Uraraka Ochako, and Kaminari Denki with fourteen each."

 "Wait didn't we get more than that though?" Kaminari asked from besides Midoriya. 

"He probably split the total points in three since we were working together." Ochako reasoned. "It would make sense."

 Aizawa went on to announce who else was in what place; a girl named Yaoyorozu Momo and a boy named Ojirou Mashiaro had tied for fifth, and someone named Satou Ridikou was the unfortunate soul who had come in last. His face was filled with despair, and Ochako felt a little bad for him.

Then- 

"It was a logical ruse." 

What. 

"No one is getting expelled." Aizawa looked at them all with that shit-eating grin, and Ochako just stood there as she realized who her teacher was. He was a liar who probably thought that the end justified the means. Maybe that was a bit harsh. But he'd scared several of her classmates, which was kind of rude, and he'd apparently changed his mind last minute, so he was still something of a liar.

Ochako hoped that Aizawa wouldn't set a precedent.

~| |~

Izuku had been having somewhat of an alright day. Xe had woken up to Evangellion's warbling trill and the afterimages of the warped and twisted police station on xeir eyelids, gotten dressed in the Yuuei uniform, met up with Uraraka, Shinsou, and Pol, met up with Rin along the way to the school, and had separated from all but Uraraka as the rest of xeir classmates went to their different classrooms. 

Xe had been very, very glad that Bakugou wasn't in xeir class - Evangellion's ruling hum had quieted and slowed once it was reassured that it wouldn't have to deal with the blonde for a while yet. Xeir teacher had announced some kind of exercise to start the school year off, and Izuku, with the near-silent croon of Evangellion in xeir head, had thought why not? It can't be that bad .

Except it was that bad. There were the different flags everywhere , how was Izuku supposed to gather any before they were taken by everyone else?

Evangellion had let out a half-shriek of a noise then, loud and demanding attention. Then, amidst it's song of stars-fire-heat-air-freedom , Izuku heard what it was trying to tell xem. The starry form of a bird was not one Izuku was familiar with. But it was definitely one that would help Izuku do what xe needed to in the moment.

So Izuku had lowered the glass cage, let xeir form shift into a bird-like starspeckled creature, and had set about gathering the flags that would get xem the points needed to avoid being expelled. The starsong was not the soothing, gentle tones of the nighttime, with the oceansong alongside it; no, this starsong - sunsong - was loud, bright, and made of heat and searing light and rumbling notes and melodies that sang of power. 

But the sun was still a star, and so Izuku, wearing Evangellion's starred, feathered skin, flew through the air, plumes of feathers on xeir two tails shifting as xeir four wings beat, legs scrabbling to grab any flags that xe saw.

At some point Uraraka joined them, and with less effort needed to find the flags in the first place, Izuku was able to restrain Evangellion from taking all control and rampaging, spurred on by the brash sunsong. 

Then they'd collected another classmate, and an alarm had rung, and before Izuku knew it the exercise was over. She did her best to coax Evangellion back down into the cage; if it went into the cage willingly, then it wouldn't be so determined to get out, and Izuku would be able to focus more on her actual schoolwork. Still crooning the sunsong slightly, Evangellion receeded, and the feathers disappeared from her body.

The rest of the school day was more mundane, really. They had Present Mic as their English teacher, and Izuku thought that that was hilarious, sharing a look with Uraraka, and then trying not to burst out laughing in the middle of class.

"Hey, Midoriya," asked Kaminari between classes. "How come you're wearing the girls' uniform? I know you were wearing the boys' uniform earlier, but now you're not."

 Izuku paused, and, sensing her spike in nerves, Evangellion began to hum again, tune resembling a mix of sunsong and starsong. Izuku shushed Evangellion. She didn't need a hum that loud to drown out her thoughts.

It seemed that Kirishima, Ashido, and Uraraka had heard Kaminari's question, or at least noticed Izuku's sudden discomfort, because between one second and the next the three were there next to her.

"Why does it matter what color bracelet she wears?" Uraraka asked. "She's alowed to wear whichever uniform she wants."

 Kaminari's brows furrowed. "Why are you using 'she' for Midoriya? He's a boy."

 Izuku tried not to flinch when Kaminari said that. She knew that that was probably what was going to happen, since none of her classmates knew, but - it still. Wasn't very fun being misgendered. Not fun at all.

Ashido reached over and slapped Kaminari on the arm in the time that Izuku took to pause, and shush Evangellion from where it had reared and tried to clamber over the cage walls, hissing. "Kaminari!" She hissed at him. "You don't just say those things!"

 "What?" He shot back defensively, rubbing his arm where it was slapped. "What did I say?"

 "There's a thing called social etiquette , Kaminari!" Ashido was mad now. 

"It-it's fine, Ashido-kun." Izuku said. "You don't have to be mad at him."

 "But Midoriya!" She said. "He-!"

 "I know." Izuku said. "But really, it's fine. I've dealt with questions before." She tried to give Ashido a quick smile, but the other girl still looked mad. 

After a few seconds, Ashido sighed. "Fine." She said. "I'll drop it. But you ," she jabbed a finger towards Kaminari, "need to learn manner and social etiquette."

The bell for the next class rang then, and everyone scramble back to their seats before the lesson began. Evangellion remained a presence, humming and thrilling and purring, almost, and Izuku tried to learn with its song in her head. 

Lunch would be after the class she was in now. She could make it to then.

~| |~

Neito wasn't quite sure how his day was going to go.

For one, there was the fact that spike before he'd managed to blend into the crowds easily enough, performing an average amount and content to be a cryptid, now he was in Yuuei, and it was a lot more difficult to be a cryptid in Yuuei. Especially once word got out about how he was cousins with Izuku. Izuku xemself was a cryptid, and people always wanted to know more about cryptids. So once word got out there would probably be people trying to get information about Izuku from Neito, Neito's chances of remaining as a cryptid would be significantly diminished.

Luckily, it seemed that not much had happened for the first half of the day. Neito had found his seat, sat in it, and had texted in the group chat that Pol had made for a bit. Shinsou and Rin joined him, both of them occasionally chatting to some of their classmates as they trickled in. 

Shinsou had mostly stuck to feeling his head down and attempting to get some extra rest, while Rin had been talking quietly to one of their classmates, a boy with pale, mid-length hair and a set of rounded external teeth. Neito had just looked around the room, observing, wondering who his classmates would be.

And then Bakugou walked in the door. 

Within seconds the blonde was sneering at one of the other students for some reason or other. "You think you're better than me, huh?" He said in a challenging tone at a silver-haired boy, who had extremely long eyelashes.

Great. Just perfect! Neito had always had a flare for the dramatic, and a sarcastic streak a mile wide, and why should he hide these things in his own thoughts? Turning towards where Shinsou sat, Neito spied the purple-haired boy with his head raised enough to see, darker purple eyes narrowed. 

Shinsou then glanced at Neito, with a slight tint to one of his eyebrows. ' Can you believe this? ' His expression said.

' I can't believe we have to put up with him even more. '  Neito's own expression said back. 

Luckily for Neito, class began soon after that. They didn't do much for homeroom, mostly just icebreakers, like "what's your name" , "what's your quirk", " what's your least favorite thing", and so on. The most entertaining version of this was Shannon's turn.

"I'm Shinsou Hitoshi." He drawled, and had Neito not known the boy beforehand he would have mistaken the general exhaustion for indifference. "My quirk is Brainwashing, I'm not telling you what it does since you'll figure that out layer anyways, and my least favorite thing is Bakugou Katsuki."

 Bakugou, who had already had a turn, gritted his teeth and looked like he was about to explode. Literally.

Then it was Neito's turn. "My name is Monoma Neito. My quirk is Copy, and it lets me copy people's quirks for a certain amount of time. My least favorite thing is also Bakugou Katsuki." Then Neito sat down, and attempted to blend into the background like what Shinsou had done.

The rest of the day passed in a similar manner to middle school. Neito would speak up once, maybe twice, and then fade back into the background, content in his cryptid status. His seat was close enough to Shannon's that Neito was able to give the boy a warning anytime a teacher was about to focus on him, allowing shinsou to both pay somewhat attention, and doze.

The bell for lunch rang, and Neito was out of his seat like a spring, grabbing onto both Shinsou and Rin's sleeves and dragging them towards the cafeteria. "Come on, you two! We need to find an empty table so that the whole group can sit there. Now hurry up before they all get filled in!"

 So. Neito might have been a bit pushy. But he got the point across, and, thanks to their respective parents' cooking and home-based lunches, Neito and Shinsou were able to secure a table for the group while Rin went to go get his food. The first of the rest of the friend group to join them was Uraraka, followed soon after by Pol and Ashido, and then Rin, with the last of the group to arrive being Kirishima, Ashido, and Izuku. 

"Gang's all here?" Ashido asked, already eating.

"Pretty much." Uraraka said. "Unless any of you have anyone else that you think should join?"

 Everyone else, including Neito, shook their heads. Most of them were eating already, but Neito tapped Izuku on the shoulder. "I have a present for you." He said.

"What is it?" She asked, a touch of skepticism in her voice.

Wordlessly, Neito held out his hand. Nestled in his palm was a similar goldfish cracker.

Izuku stared at Neito. Neito stared at Izuku. Then, in a single motion, Izuku slammed her head onto the table with a loud bang . 

"I hate you." She whined, dragging the last syllable out. "You swore to never mention it again!"

 "Technically I'm not mentioning it." Neito said. "I'm simply alluding to the Goldfish Incident."

" You swore to never mention the Goldfish Incident again! " She shrieked again. "I trusted you! I devote my life to our lord and savior All Might and this is the thanks I get?!"

 Neito tried to answer, but all he could do was wheeze from laughter. After a few minutes, he'd calmed down enough to the point where could resume eating. 

The group as a whole made chatter throughout the lunch period. When the bell rang to get back to class, they all said their goodbyes. "You can make it through the rest of the day." Neito reassured Izuku. "Sith Uraraka, Ashido, and Kirishima there to help? You'll make it, I'm sure."

 Izuku just nodded, but she had two tails wavering in the air now, so he would take it as a good sign. She'd calmed down enough that there wasn't sorry of her quirk going haywire if she didn't keep it unactivated.

Neito would like to have said that he paid attention for the rest of the day, but he really didn't. He mostly just thought.

"-oma-kun. Hey, Monoma-kun!"

 His gaze snapped upwards to meet that of one of his classmates - Tokage, he thought. "Yes?"

 "You zoned out there." She said.

"I'm aware." He relied, evenly. "Do you want to be friends?"

 His question seemed to throw her off. "Huh?"

 Neito shrugged. "Well, you've obviously noticed my existence, and you went through the effort to approach me, so. . . ?" He shrugged again. "Do you want to be friends?"

 "Sure, why not?" Tokage then plopped herself into the seat next to him. "I dunno if you know, but my name's Tokage Setsuna."

 "Monoma Neito."

"So where'd you disappear off to go lunch?" She asked, head tilted.

"I sat with my pre-established friends." Neito answered honestly. "There's room for a couple more people at the table, I think, so you're welcome to join if you want tomorrow."

 "I' take you up on that offer." She said, grinning.

The final bell rang then, and everyone got out of their seats at various speeds, some wanting to be home as soon as possible, others willing to take their time.

Neito met up with his cousin and neighbors later on, and the four of them traveled to their shared apartment building in a quiet comfort.

"Remember that there's an elevator." Shinsou told Uraraka, who stuck her tongue out at him, and followed Izuku up the stairs. Neito took the stairs as well, prompting Shinsou to sigh before following them upwards.

There wasn't much homework, since it was only the first day, so Neito mostly sprawled on his bed and dozed before dinnertime. He woke up to eat dinner, spent a few moments on the company of his parents, and then crawled back into bed, content and hoping for sleep. Perhaps he'd have a good dream that he would remember that night.

~| |~

Jishaku had had a decent first day of school.

School at Yuuei was. . . Fairly normal, ti be honest. Aside from a girl in his class stating that "we're rivals now, Kyokusei Jishaku!" ("Please, Hatsume-kun, call me pol. It's easier to say. Why are we rivals anyways?" "You're the only one with nearly as much of a passion for making things!" ), nothing out of the ordinary happened. 

Lunch was a fun experience, getting to sit and talk with his friends. The thought that he'd be able to see them all nearly everyday was a good one, and Jishaku had trouble stopping smiling throughout the time period.

Then it was off to class again. The teachers, somehow, didn't seem prepared for Jishaku; he'd disassembled three of the "unfixable" projects in the corner of his classroom and had taken the parts and began building. He wasn't sure what he was building, but it was something. 

Hatsume tried to take parts from the disassembled bots, but Jishaku shooed her away. Then she tried to poke his cheek, and he tried to bite her fingers.

Their teacher didn't notice, which was good, because Jishaku didn't want to risk getting sent to the principal on the first day of school.

Most of the rest of the day was spent listening to the teacher's lecturing while Jishaku fiddled with mechanical pieces. When the final bell rang, he eagerly gathered his things and set off towards home.

His mother wasn't there when he got home, but that was fine. Her office job was keeping her later and later more recently. His father, however, was home, and greeted Jishaku army once he'd walked into the living room.

"How did your first day of school go?" Dad asked, looking up from his laptop where he'd been working on his novel.

"It was good!" Jishaku responded cheerfully as ever. "I got to sit with my friends at lunch, and then after that there were these unwanted both that I disassembled. One of my classmates declared me her rival for whatever reason. But it was a good day."

 "I'm glad to hear that." Dad said. "Remember to do your homework. And try not to blow anything in your room up!" He called as Jishaku headed towards his room.

Once his homework was done, Jishaku pulled out the project that he'd started in class and smuggled out of the school. He had a while before Mom got home and he had to go to bed; Jishaku could see what he could do to make the thing into a cooler thing.

~| |~

Click.

"Hello?"

A voice.

 ". . . I see. You said the rival gang was where?"

 "I'm aware that we only recently added that area to our grounds, yes."

"The rival gang is who ?!"

The voice is sharp now, and it's owner raises an eyebrow, though the recipient of the gesture is unable to see it.

 "You mean to tell me. That we have just engaged in a territorial dispute. With Shie Hassaki ?! Are you out of your goddamn mind?!"

The voice is sharper, still, and the owner feels like smacking the senses out of their conversation partner in that moment.

"No I don't think it's a bad idea! I think it's a lovely idea! We could gain a large amount of territory if we take down Shie Hassaki."

 "That's if , Hisomu-san. If ."

The voice has returned to a conversational tone, though it is still somewhat tight.

 "They have what ?"

The voice is sharper again, in disbelief, and trembling with barely-suppressed rage.

 "Hisomu-san. Could you repeat that for me?"

It's said slowly, with the jars of someone who's hoping that what they just heard was incorrect.

 "So, to summarize: our most recent territorial dispute is with Shie Hassaki, we'll gain a large swath of territory should we destroy and or assimilate them, and the current head's granddaughter is being used in experiments by the acting head to make quirk-erasing drugs."

 There's a sigh.

"I’ll see what I can do. But we need to begin preparations immediately." 

The voice has a tone that stated that there's no arguing with its owner.

"If we went to get that little girl away from the abusive situation she's in anytime soon, then we need to move as soon and as fast as we can. Preparations begin now. Inform my brother, and make sure to tell him to help tell the rest of our gang."

 There's a slight pause. Then the voice continues.

"We Kaiyou Meka have defeated our rivaling gangs in the past, and assimilated those members that were worthwhile. I see no reason why our strategy would fail now."

  Click . The phone is put away, and the owner of the voice sighs. 

"I need a drink." The say, and they rub a hand against their face. 

A moment passes, before they sigh again. "Later." They tell themself. "Later. I still need to be there when Izuku gets home."

The owner of the voice places their phone in their phase, makes sure their hair isn't significantly ruffled, and exits the shadow of  building that they had been in.

Midoriya Inko walks out of the shadows and towards her apartment. She'll need to be there to greet Izuku when they get home, after all.

Chapter Text

Hitoshi was having an internal crisis. The memories of what he’d overheard kept swirling in his mind. He’d had his suspicions before, of course. His Ma was one of the highest ranking members of Kaiyou Meka, and she’d made sure that Hisothi and Pa knew this. Loyalty was important in their family, as was honestly, and logically, it made the most sense to tell your spouse and child that you were involved in something dangerous, so that they could at least protect themselves somewhat.

Hitoshi had had a suspicion that his Ma’s boss - the true head of Kaiyou Make, not the individual acting heads scattered over the different chunks of their gang’s territory - was Midoriya Inko. It made sense with how much his Ma seemed to respect her (how much everyone did), and how she always knew which gangs were doing what, and how she knew so much about not getting captured by the police, but. . . 

Hitoshi hadn’t expected to be right . Somehow that was the most difficult part of it all. Because he knew Midoriya izuku - Hitoshi was friends with the cryptid-child! And now he knew that Midori’s mother was the head, and. . . Hitoshi had the choice between telling Midori, or not telling Midori.

These thoughts persisted throughout the day, even when Hitoshi tried to take his mind off of it.

“ Hitocchi? ”

“ Yeah? ”

“ Would you be willing to take out the trash? I would do it, but. . .” She gestured to the cat peacefully sleeping on her lap. 

“ I’ll do it. ” Hitoshi answered, getting up off the couch. It would be good to have something to do, rather than just sit around and stew in his thoughts. Grabbing the trashbag of, well, trash, Hitoshi began the trek towards the dumpster that was located behind their building. It wasn’t necessarily a long trip, but it was one long enough that Hitoshi unfortunatly found himself getting lost in his thoughts. I should tell Midori, right? But if their mom hasn’t told them it’s probably for a good reason , but if -

Hitoshi shook his head violently from side to side, hoping to clear his thoughts. Focus, Hitoshi. Just. . . put the garbage in the dumpster, and you can wallow in your indecision later . Mind made up, Hitoshi traveled the rest of the way to the dumpster with minimum wallowing-in-thoughts. Lifting the lid off of the dumpster, he swung the bag into it with one arm, and he almost turned away, had he not heard a quiet “ ow .”

Hitoshi slowly turned around, and lifted back up the lid of the dumpster. Peering in between the bags of trash, he dropped the lid in his surprise, which shut with a loud bang . Scrambling back up from where he had fallen, Hitoshi lifted the lid back up again, with a tighter grip on it. He grabbed his phone from the pocket of his purple hoodie, turning the flashlight on. The muffled noise of protest from inside the dumpster confirmed that Hitoshi had seen correctly: there was a person in the dumpster.

They were small, and thin, with skin that was a sickly white and resembled a corpse more than a living person. They were covered in grime, and what Hitoshi could see of their clothes were dirty and falling apart. On closer inspection, they seemed to have pale hair, but the shade of it was hidden by the pure amount of dirt and grime on them. Hitoshi moved his phone a bit as he switched arms to hold the dumpster lid up, and the person groaned again, eyelids sliding open to reveal dull yellow eyes. Hitoshi thought that their pupils might have been lighter than average, but he was too far away to be sure. 

All thoughts of his previous worries had left Hitoshi’s head as he looked at the person. Making a split second decision and deciding fuck it , Hitoshi crawled into the dumpster, trying not to scrunch his nose too much at the trash he was crawling over to reach the person, or the stench of said trash. 

Upon further inspection, the person was a boy - he was even thinner up close, and were it not for the small rise and fall of his chest Hitoshi might have thought that the boy had died. Hitoshi’s phone was the only source of light in the dumpster, and the harsh contrast between light and shadow did little to make the other boy look any more healthy than he had. Hitoshi tapped the boy on the shoulder, a bit hesitantly. “Hey.” He said, voice soft. “ Hey, are you okay? ”

The boy groaned again, and an eyelid slid open again; the eye was still a dull yellow-gold, but it didn’t have any pupils that Hitoshi could see. “ Why the fuck are ya shinin’ a bright-ass light in m’ face? ” He grumbled, shuffling to sit up as much as he could in the limited space of the dumpster.

“ Why are you in my dumpster? ” Hitoshi countered.

The boy stared at him. “ What do ya mean ‘your dumpster’? This place is my summer home.”

Hitoshi raised an eyebrow. “ Well, this it both the dumpster that my family puts our trash in, and the dumpster that I sleep on top of sometimes. So. Why are you in my dumpster? ”

The boy didn’t say anything else. He shuffled slightly again, and the light of Hitoshi’s phone shone on parts of his skin that hadn’t been seen before. Hitoshi’s breath caught in his throat. The boy’s left arm was covered in purple-and-yellow bruises, and so was his right arm, though the right one wasn’t as bad. Peeking out from under the collar of the boy’s shirt were more bruises, in shades of blue, purple, and yellow, and there were probably a lot more that Hitoshi couldn’t see. His arms had several smaller scrapes on them, and there were several patches of his shirt that were stained a suspicious brown-red color. 

“Hey, I know I’m good looking, but you don’t need to stare.” The boy said, somewhat jokingly.

Hitoshi only stared at him more. “You look like you’re about to die.” He said plainly.

The other boy gave half of a laugh. “Guess I’ll die then -”

Hitoshi reached forwards then, gathering the other boy in his arms as best as he could while on his knees in a dumpster, and hefted him in his arms like a sack of potatoes, one arm making sure that the boy didn’t fall, while the other was used to push against the dumpster lid. "I swear to god if you die I'm going straight to heaven to yoink your soul back into your mortal body-"

The other boy squirmed a bit, but was too weak to really put up a fight. "Bold of you to assume I'll be let into the heavens." His voice was quieter now. Not by a whole lot, but still quieter. That probably wasn’t good.

"Well wherever you end up,” Hitoshi carefully jumped down from the dumpster, doing his best to keep the other boy from feeling too much of the impact, “I'm still going to drag your soul back into your body!"

The boy didn’t reply that time, and Hitoshi was able to then carry him bridal-style into one of the cleaner, unused dumpsters. “Stay here.” Hitoshi told the boy. “I’m going to be right back with a first-aid kit. Don’t die.” Hitoshi turned away and began towards his apartment. A second later, he thought better of it and turned back, taking off his hoodie and tying it around the boy’s middle, where most of the smaller wounds seemed to be. Doing his best to ignore the probably involuntary whimpers from the smaller boy, Hitoshi tried to make sure that there would be enough pressure the close the wounds somewhat. Then, he pressed a knife into the boy’s hand. “Use this if anyone comes and tries to kill you.” He said. 

Then, he began running back towards one of the closest fire escapes, clambering up in with the grace of a three-year-old. It wasn’t by any means incredibly fast, but it would be faster than going inside, and Forceweight’s training meant Hitoshi was better suited to clamber up the sides than he would have been a year ago. The window of his bedroom came into view, and Hitoshi swung into it through the ever-open window, quickly grabbing the first aid kit from where it’d been stashed. Then it was downwards again, though Hitoshi was much more reckless and dropped down several flights of stairs at a time. 

The boy was in the same position that Hitoshi had left him in; his eyes were closed again, and his breathing was still shallow, but he was alive. Hitoshi nopped over the edge of the dumpster easily, first aid kit held tightly in his hands. “Hey,” he said, trying not to startle the other boy too much, “I have a med kit. I can patch you up now if you’ll let me.”

The other boy didn’t move. That was - strange. He wasn’t dead, Hitoshi knew that, but what -?

Oh. He’d fallen asleep . “Oh well.” Hitoshi commented to himself. “Guess I’ll patch you up anyways.” The job was easier said than done. For as ill-fitting and baggy as the boy’s clothes were, they clung to his skin as Hitoshi tried to peel them away to bandage the several wounds. The bleeding didn’t help, either. Hoodie discarded to the side of the dumpster, Hitoshi hissed as he got a look at the gashes on the boy's abdomen. The wounds weren’t deep, but they bled sluggishly and looked nasty. 

“This is probably going to hurt.” Hitoshi said as he began wiping them down with antiseptic wipes. The boy twitched in his sleep, face scrunching a few times, but he stayed asleep throughout all of it. With the wounds on his abdomen cleaned as much as Hitoshi could, the purple-haired teen then began wrapping bandages around the other boy’s abdomen and waist, where the worst of the gashes were. That task done, Hitoshi thanked Sunbird that he’d bought two extra boxes of bandaids the other day, and began placing them on the smaller cuts on the boy’s arms. 

With the torso taken care of, it was now time to check his legs. Hitoshi replaced the ragged shirt, bloodstained and dirty as it was, and began rolling up the legs of the boy’s pants. Thankfully, there wasn’t anything major on his legs, aside from a gash on his right calf (which was quickly bandaged), and the rest of the smaller cuts had bandairs put on them, too. Then, Hitoshi packed his first air kit back the way it had been, wiping his hands off with a wet wipe. 

The flickering on of streetlamps and the quickly approaching darkness made Hitoshi realize just how late it was. He shivered, and reached for his hoodie to put it back on. It was cold outside; of course, it was still spring, so that was to be expected. On the cold metal floor of the dumpster, the other boy shivered as well. Hitoshi debated for a few seconds, before crawling over to him again. He rolled the pants legs back down, and maneuvered him so that the boy was laying upright against Hitoshi’s chest. It wasn’t much, but Htoshi didn’t think he had the energy to move both himself and the boy inside the apartment building, so cuddling the smaller, already half-dead boy to keep him from freezing to death in the middle of the night would have to do.

Sure enough, as the night grew darker, it grew colder. Hitoshi shivered more, and the other boy drew closer to Hitoshi in his sleep. Hitoshi was tired. He blinked. His arm was around the boy’s shoulders. He blinked again. One of the boy’s legs was in Hitoshi’s lap. He blinked again, and yawned. Then, before he had realized it, Hitoshi fell asleep.

~| |~

Hitoshi woke to the smell of garbage around him, the cold metal of the dumpster behind him, and the lack of a weight of another person. When his mind comprehended that the other boy from yesterday was gone, he scrambled upwards, eyes now wide open and searching around. It took him a few seconds, but he spotted the other boy at the other end of the dumpster. Oh thank Sunbird he’s okay . 

The bot was watching Hitoshi. Hitoshi watched the boy. They both sat against the walls of the metal dumpster, looking at each other. Finally, Hitoshi spoke.

“ Are you okay? ” The words were barely out of his lips before he smacked himself in the forehead. “Of course you’re not, you were bleeding and on death’s doorstep. But ,” he continued, looking back up at the boy, “ you’re not in too much pain? I did my best to bandage you, but I’m not exactly a doctor, and I only really had a limited amount of medical supplies.”

The boy looked at Hitoshi as if he were some odd puzzle that the boy was trying to figure out. Then, in a tone of utter disbelief, he said, “ why the hell did ya help me? ”

Hitoshi stared at the boy. “ Because. . . you were bleeding and bruised and alone in a dumpster and looked like you were about to die, and I’m a decent human being who values the lives of people regardless if I know them or not? ”

The boy was silent again.

“Mostly because you were hurt and you looked like you were gonna die, and I’m not just going to let someone die while knowing I could have helped keep them alive.” Hitoshi shrugged. “ Plus I wanna be a hero, so there’s the whole ‘saving people’ and all, y’know? ”

The boy chuckled, humorlessly. “ Ain't no hero bothered with a stray dog like me before. "

“Well, I’ll be the first then.” Hitoshi said. “Technically you could say that you were saved by yakuza, considering my mom is basically the head of a gang and I’m her son.” he added thoughtfully. “But eh, it doesn’t matter who or what saved you. The point is, I don’t care if no one else gave a damn about you before. I’m not gonna just. . . let you die. That’s just mean.”

The boy looked at Hitoshi strangely again. 

“ What? ” Hitoshi said, feeling a bit defensive. “It’s the truth. It would be cruel to just walk by someone dying and not try to help them.”

The boy was still silent.

Hitoshi sneezed suddenly, and they both flinched at the sound. “Well, I reckon it’s time to go back inside. It’s cold as hell out here, and I don’t trust that your wounds aren’t infected since you were in a literal dumpster.” He held a hand out to the boy. Slowly, hesitantly, the boy took it.

“C’mon.” Hitoshi said again, standing up and slowly pulling the other boy up with him. “If we get there early enough then we can get the first bit of Ma’s breakfast. She cooks good breakfast too.” Hitoshi didn’t really know why he was all rambly at that moment, but he blamed it on having been relatively well-rested, and the fact that the other boy looked like he was ready to jump out of his skin at the wrong sound.

Getting out of the dumpster was an unexpected problem, because the walls were just high enough that if the boy lifted his legs to clamber over it would probably reopen his wounds, assuming they’d closed in the first place. So, Hitoshi sat precariously on the edge of the dumpster, then carefully guided the other boy until he was sitting on Hitoshi’s lap. After that Hitoshi let gravity do its thing as he slid off the edge of the dumpster onto the ground, grunting from the weight being forced onto his feet and ankles. At least the boy didn’t have to feel the impact though, so hopefully his wounds would remain shut.

Hitoshi grunted, hefting the boy higher in his arms, now carrying him in some sort of bridal-style carry, with the other boy’s head tucked against his chest, and Hitoshi’s arms wrapped around his torso and supporting his legs. Then Hitoshi began to walk towards the fire escape; he wasn’t going to walk in through the front door - there were too many people there who could see, and Hitoshi got the feeling that the other boy wasn’t too fond of being stared at.

Now, usually the fire escape was pretty easy to get up and down. However, Hitoshi usually didn’t have a half-dead teen in his arms while maneuvering said fire escape. Eh, whatever. Hitoshi would just have to be more careful and make sure not to let the boy get bumped or dropped. His knees might scream at him after the boy had been put down somewhere safe like the couch of their apartment, but for now Hitoshi would just have to keep climbing the fire escape.

“Ya know I can walk.” The boy commented when they were at around the fourth story.

“Yeah, but I figure it’s probably faster if I carry you.” Hitoshi said back, pausing a moment before forcefully continuing forwards and upwards. The boy wasn’t actually that heavy, but Hitoshi had just woken up and hadn’t eaten much the day before, so that wasn’t doing him any favors. 

Eventually they made it to Hitoshi’s bedroom window. Hitoshi had chosen the room in question to be his bedroom when they’d moved into the place from America, mostly because he had been easy to scare as a child and had wanted to be able to get out quicker if there ever was a fire. It sure came in handy now; Hitoshi was able to slide open the window, set Racket on the windowsill, shimmy through the window himself, Then, Hitoshi carefully half-dragged, half-carried the boy from the windowsill onto his bed. 

Feeling proud of himself for making it so far but also feeling incredibly exhausted, Hitoshi flopped down onto his bed, ignoring the way that the other boy was now partly being laid on. Or, well, not ignoring it, but. Hitoshi didn’t intentionally try to keep the boy trapped. “You can look around my room if you want.” He said, stretching out more and lifting his legs so that the other boy could get up. “I don’t know if you wanna check out the rest of the apartment yet, Ma and Pa currently don’t know you’re here to the best of my knowledge and I’d rather not deal with them getting on my for sleeping in a dumpster.” 

Hitoshi looked up to see that the other boy had moved to sit down on the floor. Huh. That was fair enough. He put in enough effort to turn himself so that he was facing the ceiling.

“ Sooo… ya gonna just hide me under ya bed like a puppy ya not supposed to have if they check in? ”

Hitoshi looked up at the boy, flipping back over onto his belly and propping himself up with his elbows. “ Hmm. . .  pretty much yeah, i guess. I mean, if Midori comes over then I’m gonna have a bit of trouble hiding you because their quirk can give them enhanced sense, but they’ve never come over before so I doubt they will now.” His bit said, Hitoshi flopped back onto the bed, not willing to spend more effort to flip back over onto his back. 

“I’ma rest my eyes a bit.” He said, before letting his face be smothered by his pillow. The other boy should be fine. Hitoshi was only gonna rest for a few minutes and then they’d work out a better plan at keeping him hidden from his Ma and Pa. 

When Hitoshi woke up (he’d fallen asleep again? Goddammit, he really needed to start setting alarms when resting) to several things. One of these was Ma, banging on the door. “Hitocchi!” she said. “Hitocchi come out here now !” Oh. Uh oh. That was the tone of voice she used when she was serious. 

Wait.

Where had the boy from before gone?

Hitoshi scanned his room, hoping that he hadn’t chosen to jump out the window. He saw a flash of something tattered and looked down beneath his bed. And what did he find? He found the boy that was still injured, wedged underneath Hitoshi’s bed. “Hi.” he said plainly. “There’s banging on the door so I’m hiding.”

Hitoshi then fell off his bed (as one does when they’re leaning off the edge and don’t have a good grip on the mattress) and hit the floor. Thankfully, the thick carpet absorbed most of the noise.

“ Shinsou Hitoshi , if you don’t come out here right now I will come in there myself!”

“Ma’s mad at me.” Hitoshi commented. “ Can i hide down there with you? ”

“ I’m the shy boogeyman though. ” The boy said.

“Too bad.” Hitoshi said. “Move over. I don’t want Ma to yell at me. If she has to look she’s more likely to see both of us, and if I’m right, which i should be, then her mothering instincts will outweigh her anger.”

The boy eventually scooted over as much as he was able to, and Hitoshi wriggled into a spot under the bed next to the boy. Right in time, as hardly a second later was the sound of his door’s lock being picked, and then the door swung open to reveal Shinsou Eiliana in all her American, blue-haired and silver-eyed glory. “Hitoshi.” She said, her voice sounding like venom. “ Would you like to explain why you’ve decided to skip school today? ”

She wasn't looking at Hitoshi, but she didn’t need to. “ I didn’t plan on skipping school today. ” He answered, and his Ma, used to finding people more cleverly hidden than Hitoshi and the other boy, quickly located them under the bed. She crouched down, about the chew Hitoshi out, but her eyes fell on the other boy, and Hitoshi was able to pinpoint the exact moment that her anger turned into pure motherly instinct.

“ Who’s this? ” She asked, crouched down beside Hitoshi’s bed.

“ I dunno quite yet. ” Hitoshi answered. “I never got around to asking his name.”

Ma looked at the boy, expectantly. “ What’s your name, then? ”

" They call me Racket. Name tells all. " The boy said, still thoroughly wedged under Hitoshi’s bed.

“ Are you two going to get out from under Hitocchi’s bed? I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that neither of you have eaten.”

“ I can get out from under the bed.” Hitoshi said. “But what do I get out of it?”

“Food.” Ma answered.

“Fair enough.” Hitoshi said, before beginning the process of wiggling out so as to no longer be trapped under the bed. It only took a few seconds before sweet, sweet freedom. Hitoshi stretched again, back pressed against his bed and arms and legs splaying out. Then he slid down, until his head was on the floor. He looked at Racket, who looked kinda silly from upside down, but most things did so that made sense. “ You wanna get out from under there and get some food? ” Hitoshi offered.

Racket didn’t say anything, only remaining solidly wedged beneath the bed. 

“ No? Not getting out from under the bed? ” Hitoshi squinted at Racket. “Well, I’m not going to force you to get up out of there, but Ma won’t let me bring food into my room so if you do want food then you’ll have to at least come over to the doorway.”

Racket still didn’t move, but that was okay. Hitoshi could probably sneak some food into his room later, if the other teen didn’t join them himself. Standing back up and brushing any dirt off of his clothes, Hitoshi followed Ma out of his bedroom to the kitchen. He did the dishes from last night while she set about making waffles and scrambled eggs, and Pa blearily staggered to the living room couch not soon after Hitoshi had finished the dishes, and the food had been cooked. 

“Good morning, Yume.” Ma said, setting a plate in front of him. “ How was work? ”

“ Exhausting. ” Pa said, gratefully accepting the food. “A few cultists visited and bought all of the flammable objects they could find. Evangellion - you know, the bird-lizard cryptid? - appeared again and bought all the Goldfish. I don’t even know how a cryptid like it managed to get enough yen to buy Goldfish, or why it would buy Goldfish of all things.” He sighed, and shook his head slowly. “As soon as I can I’m going to quit that job. It’s giving me too much stress.”

“I’m sorry, dear.” Ma said, pulling Pa in for a quick hug. “I haven’t yet found luck in the job hunt, but with luck I’ll find a job soon.” 

After that statement, the three of them busied themselves with eating. Hitoshi didn’t speak, only focused on his food. Hopefully, if he was lucky, Ma wouldn’t mention Racket.

“So, Hitocchi.” Ma said, when everyone had finished eating, or just about (Hitoshi still had about half of a plate’s worth). “I’m sure your father would like to know about the boy that was in your room.”

“ I’d like to know about what? ” Pa said sharply, looking up. “ Am I missing something here? ”

Damn. No choice but to tell Pa, then. If Hitoshi didn’t then Pa would just keep trying to get answers (he supposed that was where he got his persistence from). “ I went to take the trash out yesterday, but I found him in one of the dumpsters. He was - is - half-dead, Pa. I got my med kit and patched him up as best I could, but I wasn’t going to let him freeze to death.”

“ So? ” Ma prompted.

“ So I cuddled him. Body heat and all that.”

“ And then? ”

“ And then I woke up, and figured that it would probably be better if we were both inside and not in the freezing spring morning, and climbed the fire escape into my room. And then I apparently fell asleep and he wedged himself under my bed when Ma came knocking.”

“ Is he still there? ” Pa asked.

Hitoshi shrugged. “ I dunno. ” He said, scratching the back of his neck a bit. “He didn’t seem to trust Ma at all, though, which I guess makes sense, but she hadn’t done anything to him, and he was at least a little trusting of me, so. . .” Hitoshi trailed off awkwardly. “I dunno.” He said again.

It was silent for a few moments more. Then, Pa sighed. “I suppose we can’t do anything but make sure he doesn’t die.” 

Hitoshi was still, trying not to hope.

“I’ll revoke the ban on food in your bedroom for as long as he’s here.” Pa said. “He seems to trust you, so you’re probably the only one who can get him to eat right now.”

Hitoshi blinked. “ You’re being serious? ” He asked, suspiciously. There was no way that his parents were going to just. . . leave it at that.

“ Yes, I’m serious. ” Pa said.

Oh. Maybe they would. 

Huh. 

“ Can I go take this to him, then? ” Hitoshi asked, gesturing to the food still on his plate.

“ I don’t see why not. .” Ma answered. ‘Make sure he gets a shower or a bath as well!” She called as Hitoshi walked towards his bedroom. “He seems like he could use one!”

“I know!” Hitoshi called back without turning his head. He reached the door to his bedroom and, balancing the plate on one hand while turning the doorknob with the other - why had he closed the door? Now he had to open it again - and walked in. As predicted, Racket was still somewhat hidden underneath his bed, though in a different position. Probably not wanting to get cramps from being still for however long it was.

“I brought food.” Hitoshi announced. He set the plate down a little bit away from where Racket was, then stretched and walked over to his closet. Choosing some clothes at random, plus a set for Racket (because judging by the state of the clothes he wore, the other boy didn’t have any other clothing options), Hitoshi then exited the closet.

During the maybe two minutes Hitoshi had turned away, Racket had gotten out from under the bed and had eaten the offered food. Racket was also licking the plate clean like he hadn’t had a good meal in days, which, given that he had been in a dumpster, Hitoshi didn’t have too hard of a time believing.

“I’m gonna take a shower.” He announced to the other boy. “You should too - it’ll help if you’re clean. You’ll feel better.”

Racket snorted. “I’ve soaked ten years in garbage juice. Pretty sure that doesn’t just come off.”

"Well, if anything can get through grime, it's the raw, unfiltered strawberry smell of the shampoo, bodywash, and soap that Ma is always buying." Hitoshi replied. “Besides, even if you don’t get rid of all of the grime, it’s still better to try.”

"Oh, that's why ya smell like berries-" Racket said, setting the plate down.

“Yep.” Hitoshi said, popping the ‘p’. “Now come on, you need to at least t ry to get clean.” Racket didn’t show any signs of getting up himself, but that was okay, because now Hitoshi was somewhat rested and could pick up the lighter teen with more ease. Which is what Hitoshi did, reaching forward and scooping Racket up into his arms. “Time to get clean.” Hitoshi said, and, grabbing the clothes and making sure that they were somewhere that they wouldn’t be forgotten about (read: on Hitoshi’s bed), Hitoshi walked across the hall and into the bathroom.

He set Racket down on the floor of the bathroom, then walked over to where the shower was and twisted the handle on the shower to the left. It wasn’t as far as he would have if it would have been just him taking a shower, but Racket also needed to get clean, and Hitoshi figured that the risk of him being hurt even more from the shock of hot water all of a sudden wasn’t worth it. While the water ran and warmed up, Hitoshi walked back over to Racket. He reached over and grabbed the edge of his shirt, stopping when Racket tensed.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Hitoshi said, voice soft and hopefully not one that would frighten the other. “I’m not going to do anything to you. But you need to take a shower and get clean, and, well, you can’t really take a shower with clothes on.” This was. . . awkward. “I mean, you could shower with clothes on, but I don’t think that would help much.” Racket loosened up, slightly, but still remained tense. “I’ll. . .  let you get your clothes off yourself, then.” Hitoshi said, and turned away from Racket to strip off his own clothes. Shuffling from behind him told Hitoshi that Racket probably had stripped as well.

“If the water gets too hot then you can change it.” Hitoshi said, gaze still focused on the wall.  “But it might be a bit cold, too, so you can change it then as well.”

Racket didn’t say anything, but Hitoshi heard the rustle of the shower curtains, so he figured that the other teen had gotten in. 

For a while, there was just the sound of the running water. Then from nowhere came a snarl from Racket, one which sent the hairs on the back of Hitoshi’s neck standing on end. Why would he snarl? Hardly a second later did Racket whine, and Hitoshi felt an icy cold wash over him. Something wasn’t right.

Hitoshi stood, and he would have pulled back the curtain to check on racket had he not remembered where they were. Right, Racket was taking a shower. It would be an invasion of privacy to just pull back the curtains, no matter what was going on.

“. . . really shouldn’t have eaten that much so quickly.” Racket commented, and Hitoshi furrowed his brows. Why would eating a plate full of food cause problems? Unless - well. Racket had looked like skin and bones. Like he probably hadn’t eaten more than scraps in a long while.

Number one rule when having not eaten in a while: eat in small increments, not all at once. It hadn’t been more than a single plate, but to Racket that was probably more than he’d had in days, at least. 

Shit.

Hitoshi had about two seconds to register this information before he was tearing open the curtains, because Racket was probably going to faint and Hitoshi didn’t want to think about how much the other teen could be hurt if he hit his head. Hitoshi had moved just in time, too, because Racket’s knees had buckled, and Hitoshi had half a second to catch the teen before he could get injured.

Hitoshi tried not to stare, but it was kind of difficult when the person in question that you were looking at wasn’t wearing clothes and had so many scars. Hitoshi could count at least ten smaller nicks and scrapes, and the bruises didn’t look much better a day after Hitoshi had first saw them. The gashes in Racket’s skin looked even worse now that the grime was partially cleaned off, and they’d opened at some point between when Racket had been bandaged up and now. Hitoshi shifted, adjusting Racket in his grip so that the other teen was leaning against Hitoshi’s chest rather than being awkwardly carried. 

“Well, shit.” Hitoshi said aloud. “What do I do now?”

He obviously couldn’t leave Racket - the other teen was still inured, and Hitoshi didn’t want to chance that grime hadn’t been washed into the possibly-infected reopened wounds. Well, time to put my money where my mouth is on the ‘no shame’ comment . Because Hitoshi didn’t want Racket to get any infected wounds or to be any closer to death than he was, and Racket still did need to get clean, but Racket was also barely conscious right now, so there weren’t very many options.

Hitoshi took a breath, asking Sunbird to please not let this be more awkward than it already was, and adjusted Racket in his grip before stepping into the shower with the other teen halfway cradled against him. Then he closed the shower curtains, because he didn’t want to get more water on the floor than there already was, and set about getting Racket clean. There was so much grime on the boy that Hitoshi sent a quick thanks to Sunbird for the existence of scrunchies, because they made getting the dirt off of Racket so much easier . The dirt swirled down into the drain, turning the water black, and Hitoshi would be lying if he didn’t say that he used a liberal amount of the somewhat used bottle of bodywash that they’d been using for a bit. Strawberry scented, of course, as everything was. As the grime washed away, Hitoshi was able to see some of Racket’s scars easier. Aside from the various smaller ones, there were a few slashes on his upper back and lower neck, as well as a slash on the upper right arm, and an odd discoloration on both of his forearms. Additionally, there was a scab on Racket’s neck that ended just above the collar bone, what looked like several smaller scars on the soles of Racket’s feet, and he was missing a toe. 

Once the large majority of the grime had been washed out (with the wounds cleaned as carefully as Hitosi could), it was time to work on Racket’s hair. It was long, tangled and matted around his shoulders, and there was so much dirt and grease and grime in it that even with the water running on it, Hitoshi still couldn’t tell what Racket’s hair color was. Grabbing a bottle of shampoo and conditioner, Hitoshi set out to work. 

The first challenge was untangling it all. This took several minutes, as the hair was very much matted and tangled and the length of it didn’t help at all, but eventually Hitoshi got Racket’s hair untangled enough to start getting the grease and grime out of it. Thus the second challenge began: actually getting Racket’s hair clean . Thankfully, Hitoshi’s Ma had bought more hair care products recently. Hitoshi had a feeling that they would have significantly less soon. He soon got into a rhythm; apply shampoo to Racket’s hair, rinse it out, apply conditioner to the hair, rinse that out, apply more shampoo, and so on. Hitoshi did his best to keep the suds from the shampoo from getting in Racket’s wounds, but the involuntary twitches meant that he wasn’t doing as good of a job as was possible. 

Still, though, Racket’s hair was getting cleaner. The water washing into the drain was more clear than it had been, with only a bit of a tint. Giving Racket’s hair a final rinse, Hitoshi made one last check on the boy’s wounds, making sure that there wasn’t any soap or grime in them, before turning the water off.

And then he remembered that he himself had not yet taken an actual shower. So Hitoshi, sighing and internally wondering why he was as much of a scatterbrain as he was, reached over and turned the water back on. While he waited for that water to get warmed again, he somewhat awkwardly carried Racket over to the bathtub, setting him down in there before grabbing a towel and wrapping it around the other boy. Then, as the water finally reached a steaming temperature, Hitoshi stepped back into it, taking probably the fastest shower out of all the ones he’d ever taken. Thank Sunbird that his hair was shorter and could get washed quicker. 

With that out of the way, Hitoshi turned the water off again for good this time and got a towel for himself, making sure that it was securely around his waist before picking Racket up and carrying the other to Hitoshi’s room. Hitoshi could have technically left Racket in the bathroom, but his clothes were all in his room, and there was no way that he was just going to leave a half-naked Racket alone in the bathtub in an apartment of people he didn’t know. So, getting dry and putting clothes on the other teen it was. Thankfully Hitoshi had already had clothes laid out on his bed for easy retrieval, so that was a couple of seconds saved. 

As Hitoshi toweled Rackety off, and then himself, he wondered why he wasn’t feeling as awkward about this entire situation than he should be. The majority of people would be feeling awkward right about now, right? Then again Hitoshi has never really felt awkward with much of anything , so. Deciding that he just didn’t have the energy to spend being awkward, Hitoshi now got back out his med kit and began bandaging Racket’s wounds again. They looked better now that they’d been more thoroughly cleaned - they were still, y’know, wounds, but without all the grime and blood in the surrounding areas, the wounds themselves didn’t look as bad. Still, each one was a decent sized gash, and Hitoshi found himself with much less bandages than he had had the day before.

Then it was on to putting on clothes, which was probably the most awkward part of the entire thing. Hitoshi decided to put the loosest, baggiest clothes on Racket, because he didn’t want the other to have his clothes catch and reopen a wound or something. Hitoshi took less care in getting his own outfit on, because he really didn’t care much about it for himself. 

And then it was just Hitoshi, sitting on his bed, with Racket leaning up against him. Now that he had time to reflect and properly think, Hitoshi noticed more things about the other. Like the fact that his hair was a light blue. It looked almost white - which was surprising, because the amount of grime had made Hitoshi assume that Racket had had some darker shade. But. White-blue hair. Ma’s gonna get a kick out of this . Hitoshi mused to himself. White-blue hair, gold eyes like Ma? He looks like he could be my brother . Hitoshi also noticed another scar on Racket - it looked like something might have shot at him, and from the way that his left ear was torn at the end, it seemed like Racket had been lucky to get away with just the scar rather than having a hole through his head.

Knocking on the door tore Hitoshi from his thoughts. “ Yeah? ” He called out. “You can come in.”

Pa opened the door some and stuck his head through. “ Are you alright? ”

“ Yeah, I’m good. It just took a while to get this gremlin over here-” he waved an arm above the still unconscious Racket “-properly clean. He was covered in grime and dirt and shit like that.”

Pa’s brows furrowed. “ Is he okay? It looks like he’s fainted or something.”

Hitoshi shrugged. ‘ He did faint, but I think he’s gonna be okay. He just ate too much food too soon, I think.”

Pa looked at Hitoshi again. “ You cleaned him, toweled him off, and got him dressed  - just like that? No awkwardness? ”

“ Nope! ” Hitoshi rubbed a hand against the back of his neck. “You know me - no shame. Besides, I am still considering being a surgeon or a doctor or something if I don’t make it as a hero, and you don’t really have the time to be awkward when you’re a doctor or surgeon, so.” He shrugged, eyes closed. I figured it would be better to just get him clean so that none of his wounds can get infected.”

Pa nodded slowly. “Yes, that makes sense.” He paused, then continued. “Oh! I just remembered. Your mother wants me to make sure that she’s going to be making lunch in a few minutes.”

Hitoshi cheered a bit, because he’d given most of his food from breakfast to Racket, so Hitoshi was hungry. Also, Ma’s cooking was good. 

Pa then left to go back to whatever it was that he had been doing (probably sleeping), and Hitoshi, a bit bored, stared at the ceiling, contemplating things. Like life. What defined one as living? What made something dead? Were all things that were living, dead? Was the reverse true? What if you were immortal? Did it count as being alive and dead at the same time? Did you even belong to such rules of physics as life and death, or did you exist outside of them entirely?

Hitoshi snorted at this last thought. “Geez, I need to stop drinking so many energy drinks.” A few minutes of boredom and he was already wondering philosophical questions about the universe. Deciding that he could at least do something with himself while he waited for food, Hitoshi peeled himself off of his bed and began tidying his room. It didn’t need to be cleaned, really, but he was bored so he cleaned anyways. When that was done he sat on his bed, once again bored.

Thankfully, Hitoshi was saved from his boredom by Ma’s shout of “ food’s ready! ”

“ Finally .” Hitoshi muttered to himself, sliding onto the ground. He was halfway to the door when he turned around to look at Racket, who was sprawled out on top of Hitoshi’s bed now that the purple-haired teen wasn’t there to lean against anymore. Deciding that he wasn’t going to be responsible for the blue-haired teen getting any cricks in his neck or back, Hitoshi walked over to the bed again, picking Racket up, making sure that there were blankets over him so that he’d be less cold when he woke up, and then Hitoshi left the room.

Ma looked at him with a raised brow when he walked into the kitchen. “ No Racket? ”

“ Nope. He wasn’t conscious when I last checked.”

Ma stood in alarm, but Hitoshi waved a hand. “Ma, relax . He didn’t hit his head or anything, and i bandaged his wounds. He probably just fainted because he wasn’t used to so much food, having come off of the streets and all.”

Slowly, Ma sat back down. “I hope you’re right in him not being in any serious risk, Hitocchi.” She said. “Moving on from that. . .” She motioned towards the small island. “Food is ready.”

“Thanks, Ma.” Hitoshi grabbed a plate and served himself some food, wandering to his favored position on the arm of the living room couch. Hey, it was a comfy seat. Ma had made extra food this time, probably in anticipation of Racket being hungry, so Hitoshi didn’t have any worries about getting too much food.

Hitoshi mostly just sat on the arm of the couch, eating his lunch, idly swinging his legs. “So,” he asked after a few minutes, “am I gonna stay home from school for the rest of te day, or what? I mean it’s already noon, so. . .” he trailed off. “I’m just. Trying to figure out what we’re gonna do.” He clarified quickly, hoping that Ma didn’t think he was trying to get out of any work or such.

Ma, from over in the kitchen, sighed. “I suppose you’ll stay home today.” She said. “Since, it is already noon.” 

“Thanks, Ma.” Hitoshi said.

“You will go back to school tomorrow.” She said, golden eyes narrowed at him.

“I know.” Hitoshi said. “Don’t worry.” 

She stared at him a second more with narrow eyes, before nodding. “Good.”

Hitoshi was in the middle of lifting more food to his mouth when he sneezed.

“Bless you.” Ma said, on reflex.

“Thanks.” Hitoshi said, before sneezing again. “Huh. This is like the third time I’ve sneezed today.” Usually he didn’t sneeze that much, if ever. 

“ Hitocchi, are you alright? ” Ma asked, walking into the living room. “You usually don’t sneeze that much. Did you breathe in some dust or something similar? ”

“ I dunno. ” Hitoshi said. “I’m probably fine though.”

Ma cast a doubtful look at him, but nodded. “If you’re sure.”

Hitoshi smiled. “Don’t worry Ma. I’ll be fine.” He promised, then went back to eating. 

Once his food was finished, Hitoshi put his plate into the sink and walked back to his room, intending to grab his laptop and play a few games or such. This plan was dashed when he walked into his room, however, because Racket had, in the time that Hitoshi took to eat lunch, returned to consciousness and sat up, and was now just. . . sitting on Hitoshi’s bed, looking around.

He looked up when Hitoshi opened the door. “ How long was I out? ” Racket asked, running his fingers through his hair. Then he paused. “. . . the fuck did you do to my hair?” The white-haired teen grabbed a lock of his hair and held it in front of his face. “Holy shit.” He said, stunned. “Ya actually did it. Ya managed to bring my hair-color back. How the hell - how long was I out? ”

“ About an hour or so. Not too too long.” Hitoshi said casually, crossing the room to get to his desk (or, more specifically, his laptop). “ How long have you been up for? ” Hmmm, what games to play. . . oh, that was one. Thank Sunbird for gaming websites and free, simple yet time-consuming games. 

“ Uh. . . a minute at tops? ” Racket said, and Hitoshi glanced over to see him running fingers through his hair again, and sniffing at his skin.

“ Have you been given the overpowering strawberry scent yet? ” Hitoshi teased. “I had to use like an entire bottle of shampoo and conditioner to get your hair so clean. I’m honestly glad, the new ones we got are a different brand so they smell more like natural strawberries than the artificial ones.” Hitoshi then turned back to his laptop, sitting down into his chair like he was supposed to do before Racket spoke up. (It was a good chair. A swivel chair, so he could put his laptop in, well, his lap, and wheel across the room when bored. Sure, the wheels didn’t roll as good on carpet, but Hitoshi honestly didn’t care.)

“ What, couldn’t have gone with blueberries? ” Racket asked in a somewhat teasing tone Hitoshi swiveled around to look at him, brow slightly raised. “I’m sure I’ll smell like garbage again soon enough. Strawberries are nice an’ all but they really don’t work with the whole ‘homeless angry mutt’ persona I got goin’ for.”

Hitoshi shrugged. “Maybe so, but I’m not going to just let you get covered in trash just like that. It’s surprisingly expensive, finding products that actually smell like strawberries.” He swiveled around some, a bored expression on his face. “Although I’m not retracting my earlier statement. I don’t like that previous brand.” 

Hitoshi perked back up when he remembered something. “Oh yeah! There’s food in the kitchen.” He turned around to face Racket (for the nth time). “I can get you some if you want.”

“I… I guess I should eat.” Racket replied. “But I don’t know if my stomach can handle it.” Okay, that was fair enough. He had just fainted from eating too much, after all. “I really have no self control when it comes to food when it’s in front of me either, so I wouldn’t know when to stop.” That. . . was also fair. 

Hitoshi hummed thoughtfully. “ Maybe if I went and got a small amount, and then a little bit later I go and get another smaller amount? ” He swung his legs back and forth as he held a loose fist under his chin. “That way you don’t eat too much all at once, and your stomach can adjust to having food again.”

Racket nodded a couple of times.

“Okay then!” Hitoshi said, putting his laptop down on his desk. “I’m going to get food. I’ll be right back.” Hitoshi got up and, as promised, walked to the kitchen, grabbing a plate and putting a small amount of food onto it, before heading back to his room. Ma was in the living room, doing something on her computer, but she didn’t look up. Once back in his room, Hitoshi set the plate down in Racket’s lap. “Food, as promised.”

“Huh, didn’t know ya made deliveries.” Racket commented.

“Eh.” Hitoshi said. “Ma’s in the living room and I didn’t want you to freeze up if you went out there yourself.” He got back out his laptop, searching around a bit on Youtube for something to watch. Ooooh, hey, speedpaints, those would be fun.

“So.” Hitoshi began. “ Cats or dogs? ” Hitoshi, what were you doing? Why would you start doing icebreakers? Yeah, Hitoshi didn’t know a lot about Racket, and yeah, Hitoshi was feeling kinda awkward now, but honestly, why the hell should he not try and learn more about Racket? The kid had been in a freaking dumpster , probably for a less-than-pleasant reason. Add that to all his scars and the way he seemed tense whenever Hitoshi moved too fast, and it didn’t paint a pretty picture about what racket’s experiences must have been.

Racket’s face split with a big grin, before he opened his mouth and barked . If Hitoshi hadn’t seen Racket open his mouth, he would have guessed that there was an actual dog in the room because of how realistic it was.

“. . . Well. then.” Hitoshi said. “I guess that means dogs.” It wasn’t the weirdest thing Hitoshi had seen someone do, after all. He’d seen Pol jump of the side of a building to try and catch a pidgeon with a baseball cap, wearing sunglasses and rollerskates. Actually, that event fell more into ‘stupid things’ than ‘weird things’, but the point stood.

“Well, i am one, so.” Hitoshi wasn’t sure why Racket would refer to himself as a dog - maybe it was a persona or something? Whatever the case was, Hitoshi didn’t really care. Racket wanted to call himself a dog? Go for it. 

“ Coffee or tea? ” Hitoshi asked again, legs crossed as he sat and swiveled in his chair. He was probably going to make himself a bit dizzy, but he’d stop before it got to anything more than a slight bother. 

“ What’s coffee? ” Racket said with an innocent look on his face. Was. Was Racket serious? Had he never had coffee before? Hitoshi stared at Racket for a few seconds before he started laughing, a laugh that was wild, uncontrollable, and sounded like a hyena’s. “Sorry,” he continued, “I just. Don’t know. Haven’t had coffee in my life, an’ the last time I had any tea was when I was like… four? Five? ” 

“Geez.” Hitoshi said under his breath. “That’s. . . kinda surprising considering how coffee is everywhere nowadays.” He shook his head. “Well, I’m not gonna judge you on that. Some people don’t like either, which is fine.”

“I had one drink of cold caffeinated thingy once. Officer Sansa refuses to look me in the eyes anymore. Sirius went quiet that day. Satan is afraid to call for me anymore.” Racket said conversationally. Well then.

“I suppose that that’s fair.” Hitoshi said. He pondered a bit before coming up with another question. “ If you were a bird, what bird would you be? ”

“ Seagull! ” Racket replied happily. “I’d get to scream at people, steal their shit, and I’d taste good!” Yeah, that was fair. Hitoshi couldn’t see any flaws in that logic.

“Makes sense.” Eventually Hitoshi got bored of watching speeedpaints, so he turned his laptop off and put it back down, turning back around to look at Racket, who was finishing his food. “Uuuuuuhhhhhhhh. . . what’s your opinion on the LGBTQ community? ” Well. That was. Not the question he meant to ask. But it was a question, and at least Hitoshi would be able to know some of Racket’s personality and stance on the whole thing?

Racket blinked a couple of times. “ Honestly speakin’, no foolin’ around? ” A pause. “I’ve seen good ‘n’ bad from the folk who say they’re part of the community. Some of the bad been targeted at me, some at other peoples. But then there’s the good parts. Like the old lady at the soup-kitchen who always sneaks bit extra meat into my meals.” Another pause from Racket. “Personally, I don’t care what ya are when it comes to sexuality or gender.” He continued. “Don’t see the point of judgin’ people on that. So… I don’t mind ‘em, some could argue I kinda belong in there ‘cuz I’m basically pan. But at the same time when I hear the term, I kinda feel… disconnected? ” Racket scratched the back of his neck at that. “ I.. Guess ya could say I don’t mind what ya are, ‘s long as ya ain’t tryin’ to hurt someone for something they are and can’t help with? ”

Hitoshi nodded, slowly. “ Yeah. ” He paused for a moment, before nodding again. “As long as you don’t hurt people for no reason, you’re good in my book.”

The room fell into silence then.

“So.” Hitoshi said after a bit. “ Got any questions to ask me? ”

“ Several, if I could think right now. ” Yeah, that was fair. Hitoshi waited, and let Racket gather his thoughts. After a few seconds he spoke again. “ What’s going to happen to me next, are my clothes in the trash already, why is the sky blue, what’s your future hero-name, am I ever going to see my pack again, when do you want your clothes back? ”

Wow, okay, that was. . . more questions that Hitosi had been expecting. He took a breath and began answering them to the best of his ability. “ You’re probably gonna stay here for another night because Ma doesn’t like the idea of anyone sleeping outside where they could get sick, your clothes should still be in the bathroom where I left them because I didn’t know what to do with them, the sky is blue because of the way light rays hit the atoms in our atmosphere, I haven’t figured that one out yet, I don’t know who your pack is but most likely, and after we get you some new clothes of your own. ” 

Hitoshi stretched, and decided to just flop down onto the floor instead, because he’d been sitting in the chair cross-legged for a couple minutes and his legs were starting to go numb. “ Anything else? ”

“ What did the ocean say to the beach? ” Racket continued a few seconds later, grinning. “ Nothing. It waved. ”

Hitoshi snorted. “Dork.”

He stretched, and decided that the floor wasn’t as comfortable as he had wanted it to be. Getting up, Hitoshi dragged himself over to his bed and flopped on top of it next to Racket, wiggling around a bit until he’d managed to worm himself under some blankets. 

He turned his head to see Racket looking at him. “ What? ” Hitoshi asked. “The blankets are arm, and I’m cold.”

"What, didn't say nothin'." Racket said, a bit of a confused lilt to his voice.

“Still.” Hitoshi said. “The blankets are warm.” Racket only hummed in response, and didn’t say anything else. The room returned to a comfortable silence, and Hitoshi found his eyelids drifting closed. He let them; a nap couldn’t hurt.

~| |~

Ochako looked at Midoriya, and they looked back at Ochako. It was almost time for class to begin, and none of the members of their friend group had seen Shinsou all day. 

‘ Do you have any idea where he could be? ’ Ochako mouthed at Midoriya.

‘ I don’t know . ’ They mouthed back, before Aizawa walked into the classroom and homeroom began. ‘ I’ll try to find out .’ They promised, and then the both of them had to pay attention to their schoolwork.

Ochako found herself being distracted during the day; it wasn’t even halfway to lunchtime, and she’d already spaced out at least twice. Thankfully Midoiya had her cover, so she was able to avoid getting in trouble. Homeroom and history were the easier classes, but English with Present Mic was honestly just a headache, if not from her own spacing out than from Mic’s constantly loud voice. Still, Ochako did her best to push aside her worries and focus on her schoolwork.

Lunch was a blessing in disguise. With the rest of her friends there with her, it was a bit easier to have faith that Shinsou was okay.

“He probably just slept in and decided not to come or something.” Monoma suggested as they all ate.

“Maybe he was kidnapped by aliens.” Ashido suggested.

Midoriya, Rin, and Ochako all snorted, while Kirishima looked at her like she had said that bugs tasted like spinach, and Monoma and Pol both looked like they were trying not to laugh.

“What?” Ashido said, chopsticks moving through the air as her hands waved about for emphasis. “It could happen!”

“I doubt it.” Monoma said dryly, halfway through eating an apple, which he seemed to have conjured through the air. Or something like that. Ochako wasn’t sure why or how Midoriya or Monoma were such cryptids with seemingly unexplainable habits and actions, but she wasn’t going to ask.

The conversation derailed from there, as Ashido tried to convince the group that aliens existed, and Pol tried to argue against her that aliens didn’t exist. Ochako watched with a fond sense of friendship, smiling at the dorky actions of her friends. She was sure that things were fine and that Shinsou was okay. He was probably just taking a day off to sleep in or something, like Monoma said. He’d be fine.

~| |~

Yume honestly had not known what to expect when he’d woken up that afternoon.

His wife and son, preparing for the day? That was what he had expected. Food being made, a conversation about Yume’s time at work before he got any necessary things done before his work shift started? Also expected.

What was not expected included several things.

Hitoshi, sill being home despite the fact that it was a school day. The news that Hitoshi had apparently brought another teenager into their home from on the streets (who was injured and needed bandages ). Then the news that Eiliana had decided that she wanted to keep the other teen in their home for at least a week - well, that last point wasn’t as surprising. Eiliana had always had a soft spot for younger people, particularly those that were in rougher spots like the both of them had been.

Yume had planned to perhaps organise some of the small plants that lived on several shelves in the living room area. Would it be better to check in on Hitoshi and the other teen, though? Hitoshi had mentioned that the teen was injured, but hadn’t said how injured - only that he needed bandages. The idea was dashed when Yume went over to Hitoshi’s room, because neither of the two teens were there. Oh, they’re probably getting cleaned off. I imagine spending a night outside wouldn’t help anyone get clean .

With the thought in mind to check in on Hitoshi and his friend later, Yume went about organizing the plants, like he’d wanted to do. It wasn’t  organizing so much as it was just moving the pots around a bit, dusting off the surrounding area, and watering them as well as adding any additionally needed nutrients, but it was a way to occupy a couple of minutes.

When that was done, Yume found himself drifting towards the study that Eiliana had worked from for a time. The room had been organised and reorganized and had its purpose and contents shuffled about several times, but it retained its cozy feel of home-ness. Sighing softly, Yume walked over to one of the bookshelves, gathered a few books from their messy arrangement, and began the task or reorganizing everything in the room for the nth time.

It ended up taking him about an hour and a half, but Yume looked at the newly-dusted shelves, the polished and dust-free desktop computer on the desk, and the blankets neatly folded on love-seat, and felt a sense of accomplishment. Cleaning was good. It took up time and left you feeling good for doing something. He checked his phone. 4:36. He still had half an hour before his shift started. He could check in on the teens now before doing something else.

He checked the living room first, just to be sure that neither teen had migrated there at any point. Seeing the room teen-less, he then moved on to the kitchen, and then made his way to Hitoshi’s room.  In the hallway he saw another boy - shorter than Hitoshi was, with skin almost as pale as a sheet of paper, and white-blue hair. That must be the other boy, then. 

“Oh, you’re awake?” Yume asked, conversationally.

The boy - what was his name? Eilana probably knew, he’d have to ask her - flinched violently, jumping up several feet as he did. Yume winced at the sight. He hadn’t meant to scare him so badly.

“Uh, it’s just -” The boy started. “Ya kid, he’s - well -” He seemed nervous, and the deep breath he took, along with the quiet hum afterwards, didn’t help prove otherwise. “He’s burnin’.” It was stated deadpan, with only a hint of any emotion-brough tremor in the voice. “I ain’t an expert, but I think he might have a fever. A bad one. Keeps mumblin things I doubt he wants me to actually know.” 

That was concerning. Hitoshi hadn’t ever gotten sick, not in the past ten years at the very least. For him to be sick now , well - Hitoshi couldn’t be having a very fun time. Yume quickly walked into Hitoshi’s room, and it seems that the other boy - really, what was his name? - had been correct. Sprawled out under the blankets, Hitoshi mumbled something inaudible, eyes half closed and filled with a feverish light. Yume gently placed a hand on his son’s forehead, and let out a quiet hiss. He was burning up, like the other teen had said, and up close Yume could see that Hitoshi was shivering.

“‘S cold. . .” Hitoshi mumbled, and Yume sighed, softly, quietly.

“I know.” He told his son, gently carding a hand through lavender hair. In the fluorescent light of the room, Hitoshi’s hair shifted from lavender to rose to teal, much like Yume’s hair shifted through a kaleidoscope of colors. “I know. You’re cold, and I’m sorry.”

“It hurts.” Hitoshi mumbled again, twitching as if to curl up. “Why are you hurting me? I didn’t do anything to you.” The pain in Hitoshi’s voice tugged at something in Yume’s heart, and he tried not to gather his son in his arms right then and there. That would only hurt Hitoshi; any movement from his tentative safe comfort might cause the illness to get worse. Yume didn’t know if that was exactly possible, but he didn’t want to take any chances.

“I’m sorry.” Yume said again. “I’m sorry that you’re hurting. I’ll go get your Ma and some medicine, and then we can help you get better, okay?”

Hitoshi only mumbled something about his ribs hurting in response, and Yume brushed a hand through his son’s hair one last time before standing back up from where he’d crouched and exiting the room, heading in search for Eiliana. She would be able to go out and get the medicine while Yume began the struggle of haggling with his superiors at the convenience store to let him stay home sick because “ no, no one will rob the store while I’m gone, I promise that nothing will be damaged while I’m gone, I need to stay home because I’m sick ”. 

When he managed to finally get off the phone after reassuring his coworkers and convincing his superiors to let him use the sick days he’d saved up through six years, Yume slumped into couch on the living room. Then, sighing again for what must have been the tenth time that day, Yume dialed the number for administration at Yuuei, hoping that he could at least inform them of Hitoshi’s sickness for the immediate future. If they were informed then hitoshi’s teachers would know, at least, and would hopefully not be overly concerned for his health. Not that any of Hitoshi’s previous teachers at his old schools had given any care, but perhaps Yuuei would be different. Yume would hope so, at least.

When that phone call was over, Yume sighed again and slumped down into the couch, choosing to rest. Sunbird , why did making phone calls to administration have to be so draining? Nonethematter. Hopefully Eiliana would be back soon with medicine. They hadn’t ever gotten a proper stock of flu or fever medicine, due to the resistance to illnesses that the three had, but this had proved to be a drawback in this instance. The front door to the apartment opened, and Yume peered around one of the walls to see Eiliana walking through the apartment hurriedly, holding a plastic bag holding what Yume would assume to be medicine.

“Let’s go, then.” She said, discarding the bag onto the coffee table while she held and opened the box of medicine. Her face remained as calm and still as it always did, but Yume could tell that she was worried from the undercurrent in her voice and from her hurried pace. “The sooner we get this medicine to Hitoshi, the sooner he can get better.”

“Of course.” Yume said, voice soft as it always was, and the two of them approached Hitoshi’s room. Walking through the door, Yume saw the boy from before move further into one of the corners of the room, that small bit of space between the foot of Hitoshi’s bed and the wall. Yume might have wondered more about why he was trying so hard to wedge himself into a place that was difficult to get out of, but in that moment he gave it a passing thought and nothing more, hit attention focused on Hitoshi. 

During the minutes that Yume hadn’t been in the room, Hitoshi had managed to get himself even more tangled in the blankets, a paler arm being the only thing not swaddled in them, reaching out as if he had been holding something. Perhaps Hitoshi had thought that he was. Eiliana laid a hand on his forehead, and she pulled her hand back soon after, wincing at the way that Hitoshi’s forehead scrunched up. “He’s definitely got a fever, alright.”

“We should get him that medicine, dear.” Yume gently reminded her.

Eiliana looked down at the bottle she held in her hand, seeming to have forgotten it, before looking back at Hitoshi and nodding decisively. “You’re right.” She sat down on the floor rather than crouching, and unscrewed the lid to the bottle, pouring out the needed amount into the cap before leaning over to gently shake Hitoshi’s shoulder.

Their son mumbled, and pulled away from the touch, but upon further shaking his eyes slid open halfway from where they’d been tightly closed. “. . . Ma. . . ?” His voice sounded rough, almost like he’d been screaming. Yume wasn’t sure how his voice could have changed so drastically over only an hour, at most. It likely had to do with the sickness, though.

“Hitocchi, little one, I need you to drink this.” She held the lid of liquid up to Hitoshi’s lips. “It’ll make you feel better.”

“Mmmnnkay. . . “ Hitoshi said, drinking the medicine without complaint. He made a face at the taste, but otherwise made no other reaction. “‘T tastes funny. . .”

“I know, little one. It’s supposed to. That’s how you know it works.” Eiliana kept her voice quiet and soft, and she took a moment to screw the lid back onto the bottle before setting the medicine back on the floor. She brushed some of Hitoshi’s hair from his face, before pressing a quick kiss to his forehead. “Get better soon.” She said, before getting back up, helping Yume stand as well.

The two of them were about to exit the room when Yume paused and looked at the other boy from where he’d now fully wedged himself into the space between the bed and the wall. “Are you alright?” Yume asked, head tilting somewhat to the side. “You don’t have to stay in Hitocchi’s bedroom. We have a spare room that you can stay in, if you’d like.” 

The other boy was silent for a few moments, probably thinking the offer through. Yume wouldn’t blame the boy if he chose to stay in Hitoshi’s room; after all, he didn’t know Yume or Eiliana, and was still injured. Yume did hope that he chose to stay in the guest room, though. It hadn’t been used very often, if ever, and there was a thin ( very thin) layer of dust on some of the shelves, but it was neat, and clean, and if the boy chose to stay there then he wouldn’t have to worry about catching Hitoshi’s sickness from being in such a close proximity to the lavender-haired teen.

Finally, the other boy spoke up. "If it's all the same,” he began, chewing on his bottom lip and glancing between Yume, Eiliana, and Hitoshi, “I'd rather stay here for a bit longer?"

Well. Yume couldn’t blame him for that decision. After all, he was in an unfamiliar environment with people he didn’t know, and the window in Hitoshi’s room was as good an escape route as any. And Yume figured that he might honestly feel a bit awkward about staying in the guest room, which was also fair.

“Fair enough.” Yume replied, giving a nod to Eiliana, who then exited the room. Turning back to the boy, he added, “don’t feel like you have to stay there in that corner the whole time, though. If you need or want anything, by all means come and ask Eiliana or I, and we’ll do our best to help you, alright? You’re a guest, and you deserve to be comfortable in our home.”

The white-haired teen didn’t say anything, but he really didn’t need to. Yume left Hitoshi’s room soon after, closing the door most of the way behind him, before he and Eiliana began doing their best to set up a routine on how often to check up on Hitoshi. 

It was after the first few minutes that the boy with his near-white blue hair creeped into the living room, shifting and fidgeting as if he were ready to bolt at any second.

“Yes? What do you need, dear?” Eiliana asked, looking up at him.

“Purple needs some water.” He said, plainly.

“Purple?” Eiliana’s brows furrowed for a second. “Oh! You must mean Hitocchi.”

The boy nodded. “Yeah, him. He keeps asking for water.”

“I’ll bring it to him.” Yume offered, and the two of them looked at him. Yume paid them no mind, however, and rose from his seat to go get a glass of water and give it to his son.

They ended up falling into this pattern, the three of them. Yume and Eiliana would go about doing chores and such, and the golden-eyes boy would creep from his watch in Hitoshi’s room, informing them of any needs that Hitoshi had had in the moment. Sometimes it was Yume who brought things to Hitoshi, and sometimes it was Eiliana, but it was always one of them going to deliver the requested thing to Hitoshi while the other boy watched. 

Eventually, Eiliana started on making dinner, so it became just Yume and the boy, Yume bringing water and more blankets and whatever else to Hitoshi while the boy watched with his golden eyes, ever observant. When Eiliana was finished with dinner, she chose to abandon all subtleties, instead calling out “ dinner is ready! ”

The boy, from where he’d been standing next to Yume, jumped at the loud voice, which was probably the loudest voice he’d heard in the house all day.

“Would you like to join us for dinner?” Yume asked, head tilted again ever-so-slightly.

“. . . will Purple be okay?” he asked somewhat hesitantly, eyes glancing back to the door to Hitoshi’s room from where they stood in the hall.

Yume smiled softly, a small smile that he hoped would encourage a feeling of safety. “Hitocchi will be alright for the time we spend eating, I’m sure. It will only take up ten minutes at the absolute most.”

The boy still seemed a bit jumpy, but slowly nodded. “I. . . I’ll join ya for dinner then, if that’s okay with ya?”

Yume’s smile softened even more, and he tilted his head slightly to the other side. “I wouldn’t have asked if I wasn’t okay with it.” he pointed out. “Now, let’s go to the kitchen and get some food. It’s always best when it’s still hot.”

The blue-haired boy trailed after Yume as he walked to the kitchen, giving Eiliana a quick greeting as he did so. Yume took a plate of food, and turned towards the living room, but paused when he saw that the boy from earlier was still standing there in front of the food, a plate in his hands. “Is something wrong?” Yume asked, concerned. The boy hadn’t gotten Hitoshi’s sickness, had he? Was it his injuries, were they hurting?

“Hm?” The boy looked up, momentarily startled. “Oh. Tryna figure out how much I can eat without gettin' sick."

“That’s a reasonable concern.” Yume mused aloud.  “Do you want me to help you choose an amount, or do you think that you’ll be able to get a safe amount of food yourself?”

The boy hesitated a moment, before shaking his head. “I can do it myself.”

“Fair enough.” Yume said, and resumed in his walking to the living room. He sat on the couch, and Eiliana joined him. The other boy tentatively sat on the opposite end of the couch, almost on the arm of it. For a few minutes, it was just the comforting silence of a happy, loving home, the only noises being the scraping of silverware against plates. 

After a while, everyone had finished eating. The teen with the white-blue hair still sat on the couch, although he was somewhat fidgety. Eiliana and June both rose; Eiliana went to go to bed, and Yume decided he would give one last check on Hitoshi. "Come on, then." He said to the teen. "I expect you'll probably be needing to sleep soon."

Yume walked to Hitoshi's bedroom, the teen following him, and he opened the door to Hitoshi's bedroom as quietly as he could. Hitoshi was sleeping, breaths even, and Yume sighed again, softly, in relief. His son would be okay. He wasn't mumbling anymore, so Yume would let himself hope that the worst of the fever was over. He padded over to his son, and, much like Eiliana had done, pressed a kiss to his son's forehead. "Sleep well, Hitocchi."

Turning around, Yume saw the other teen, standing awkwardly in the doorway. "You can stay in Hitocchi's room if you'd like." Yume offered. "I can get more blankets and pillows for you to use, and I'm sure we have an inflatable mattress if you'd rather not sleep on the floor."

"Nah, I'll just sleep on the floor." The boy said. 

"Very well then." Yume said again. "I'll at least get more pillows and blankets for you to use." Which he then did - it was fortunate that Eiliana seemed to collect both items, because Yume didn't want the other boy to sleep on two hard of a surface, no matter if he didn't care about it himself. "I'll let you arrange your bedding yourself." With that, Yume left Hitoshi's room to go find something to occupy himself with; after all, he'd gotten used to staying up late from working the night shift, and whether he was working or not, it would still be a while yet before he slept.

~| |~

Hitoshi had drifted in and out of awareness. He'd remembered swimming under the blankets, falling asleep, and then being cold - and it had been very, very cold. His ribs had hurt (not too much, just enough to be a bit of a bother), and he'd thought that he'd seen someone there ( Ma? ).

Then more cold, and warmth, and then cold again. Then he'd seen another person, and Hitoshi wasn't sure if he had spoken or not - he had too many thoughts all jumbled from whatever haze he was in. He was offered a liquid, he knew that, and Hitoshi knew that he had drunk it. It wasn't a very good tasting drink.

Then he fell back into an even hazeir mess, some kind of dream place. He wasn't sure how long it was that he stayed there, but Hitoshi did notice that it got warmer. With the warmth came a less hazy, more nonsensical dream - the way dreams were supposed to be. 

He wasn't sure when he woke up. All Hitoshi knew was that it was darker now, and a lot more still. 

There was a warm weight somewhere around his left armpit, and he looked down towards it. There was a cat. In his armpit. Purring like a jet engine. 

Hitoshi blinked. 

The cat opened its eyes slightly, yawned, and stretched before settling back into the ball it had curled into inside of Hitoshi's armpit.

Hitoshi tried not to cry. He failed. 

He then tried to grab his phone to check the time without disrupting the cat, which he managed to succeed in. What time is it ? He squinted at the brightness of his phone screen, going to turn it down only to find that it was at its lowest setting. Well, heck. Blinking a couple times, Hitoshi's eyes eventually adjusted well enough to actually see the clock on his phone. 3:18 AM.

Great. It was three AM, Hitoshi was silently crying, and there was a gold and white cat sleeping in his armpit. What a lovely way to start the day.

It suddenly occurred to Hitoshi to wonder if Racket was okay. Then he wondered where Racket even was . He was about to lean up to look, but then remembered a very important thing - the cat was still peacefully snoozing in the crook of his armpit. And Hitoshi really didn't want to be the one to make the cat move. So now he was in a crisis; did he lean up to try and look for Racket, and risk disturbing the cat, or did he stay still where he lay and hope that Racket might make some movement to confirm his being alive? 

Eventually, Hitoshi decided to try a third option. " Hey, uh, Racket? You alive? " 

It was a couple seconds, but Hitoshi did get a response. Kinda. If a grumpy (or tired) whine counted. 

"Well, you're alive." Hitoshi said, not really wanting to stay in the silence. "That's good."

He was met with silence. Which was. Fair enough, he supposed. " What happened while I was out, anyways? " He asked. " Nothing bad happened, right? " A thought came to him before his previous question could get an answer. " How long was I out for, anyways? "

There was a growl - had Racket snuck a dog into the room, or something? " A day or so. . . " He answered. "They got ya meds, I was on watch duty. Actually sat down to eat with 'em, which was totally not an awkward moment." Not awkward. Sure . Hitoshi had a bit of trouble believing that, going by his current knowledge of Racket (though that wasn't actually all that much). "Now I'm tryna rest before I take Lipton back to the pack."

" Pack? " Hitoshi wondered aloud. " Like, a wolf pack, or a pack of dogs, or what? "

" . . . street animals ." Was the answer. "Dogs 'n' cats that no one wants 'round. Forgotten 'n' unseen."

"Oh, so like me then." Hitoshi said. Then his mind caught up to what his mouth had said, and he wished that in that moment, he could throw himself into the talons of Sunbird to await death.

". . . nah." Racket said after a few moments. "Ya have family that loves ya. The pack. . . the pack's only has itself."

"They have you." Hitoshi said, not thinking again, and again, wanting the throw himself to the waiting claws of death. 

"Hah." Racket laughed at that. "Good one. Nah, I'm part of the pack. Part of the unseen, ya know? "

"Well, you're being seen now ." Hitoshi said. " And besides, even if you're a part of the pack, you should still at least kinda qualify as seeing them, right? " 

A snicker. " Not what I meant an' ya know it. There's a whole slew of people 'n' animals that the neat an' tidy people like to ignore. We don't exist to them." That. . . Was a fair point, but it also got Hitoshi wondering just how much the other boy had gone through to get this mindset. " I know it's kinda hard to understand, an' I ain't sayin' ya life's bunch of roses compared to mine, but to those who're left behind or are unwanted? We ain't seen, an' we ain't heard."

The room fell into silence, apart from the jet engine purr of the cat. 

"Well, I. . ." Why was it always so hard to talk about the things that you knew you needed to talk about? Why was it so much easier to talk about the things that you didn't need to talk about? "I. . . Kind of know that feel. Of being left behind, unwanted." Sunbird, why was this so hard to say? Oh, wait, it was because Hitoshi had had it drilled into his head that he wasn't worth anything, and that complaining about it or mentioning it would only lead to trouble. "I mean, most everyone ignored me or acted like I just didn't exist for some kind of sick amusement, or would beat me up when they didn't ignore me, so I. . . Kinda know how that feels." God, he was rambling again. Get it together, Hitoshi. "What I mean is, I'm sorry that you and your pack have had to go through that." There. That was an actual response instead of rambling about himself.

"Nothin' to be sorry for." Hitoshi could hear the shrug in Race's voice. "It's how things are, an' ya didn't put me or other homeless folk on the streets." Once again the room fell into silence, as Hitoshi tried to think of what to say next. Then, Racket spoke again. ". . . If ya really sorry, become a hero. One that doesn't just look away when a starvin' child comes to tug ya sleeve."

". . . I'll do my best not to let you or the rest of them down, then." Hitoshi said, voice suddenly soft. "I swear on my lungs. I won't let you down." 

The room fell back into silence, and this time it stretched for several minutes longer than the previous few times. Hitoshi wanted to break the silence, but as it went on it got harder and harder to find something to say, and eventually he just lay in his bed, with the still unnamed cat purring in its comfortable curl.

Movement from the foot of Hitoshi's bed had his eyes snapping open from where they'd been drifting closed, and he watched as Racket quietly padded over to around where Hitoshi's arms were.

"I'm gonna take Lipton back to the rest of the pack, now." He said, and his voice was quiet and soft.

"Okay." Hitoshi replied, voice just barely a whisper.

Carefully, Racket reached over and picked up the cat - Lipton - and gathered it in his arms. Then, he slowly got onto Hitoshi's bed to exit the room through the window, taking care not to step on any of Hitoshi's arms or legs. He took care not to step on Hitoshi at all, really. Racket seemed to be trying not to disturb Hitoshi at all, because whenever he put a foot or hand down in his journey out of the window, he always put it somewhere farther away from Hitoshi, so as to avoid making the bed dip too much. Racket was a kind person, it seemed.

Then, almost as soon as he'd been in the room, Racket was out of it, along with Lipton. The room. . . Seemed colder without the two of them. It was colder when Hitoshi waa alone. He had, in the two days so far that Racket had been in Hitoshi's presence, allowed himself to hope that Racket would stay for longer, that maybe Hitoshi wouldn't go back to being alone.

Hitoshi was a fool for hoping. Racket had his own life outside of Hitoshi's delusions. He'd probably decided that he didn't want to put up with Hitoshi and all the weird things Hitoshi did, or how Hitoshi didn't really show emotion. Whatever the case, Racket was gone. And Hitoshi was alone again.

"Guess I was an idiot for getting my hopes up, huh." He said, softly, quietly, and it might not even have been said aloud. "Stop letting yourself be deluded into thinking people will stay. Everyone leaves. That's just how it is. You don't deserve friends, they'll only leave once they know what your quirk does." 

It hurt, saying the words aloud, but. . . It was true, wasn't it? Of course it was. Everyone else had said so, and they all knew better than look, deluded Hitoshi, who was afraid of the wonderful Deba, who'd done nothing wrong at all - everyone was right, of course. Any attempts to think that someone would stay were just Hitoshi being delusional. He didn't deserve friends.

Racket had left as soon as he had came, and Hitoshi was alone. And that reminded that he'd always be alone, no matter what he did. . . It hurt. But it was the truth.

Hitoshi hurt, and it was his own fault.

It's still silent. Hitoshi had no idea how long the silence has been pressing down on him, but it's suffocating, and Hitoshi wishes that there was some noise, any noise. 

A small scraping sound. Hitoshi's breath caught in his throat, and he held his breath, not wanting the sound of breathing to cause him to not notice any other sounds. Another scraping sound, a bit louder, and this time Hitoshi recognized it as coming from the window. There was a flash of something pale, as a figure tried to move through the opened area quickly. Something caught, and the figure made a hushed shout of "oh, fu -" before they slammed down on top of Hitoshi, the both of them loosing all air in their lungs from the action.

Hitoshi blinked, and tried to get breathing again. Racket. . . ? " You came back. . . ? " It was a hushed, barely heard question.

Racket didn't answer immediately, only letting out a continuous stream of muffled curses. One leg was still caught on the outside ledge of the window, likely because of how much bigger Hitoshi's clothes were on the boy; the rest of the white-blue hate, gold-eyed teen was a limp ragdoll on Hitoshi's chest and stomach. 

Hitoshi wast sure if he was dreaming or not. Racket had time back - something that never happened. No one came back after they left. But Racket. . . Racket had. And Hitoshi. . . Hitoshi didn't want Racket to leave again. He was barely aware of his own movements as he wrapped his arms around the other teen, quickly as he could, and was barely aware of when he pulled Racket closer to him, under a couple of the many, many blankets on his bed.

"Don't leave." Hitoshi whispered, half a crying wail. "No one else has come back before. Please don't leave again." He was shaking, now, and his voice trembled, as quiet as he tried to keep it. "I don't want to be alone."

". . ." Racket was quiet for a few moments, and for those moments Hitoshi wondered if the blue-haired teen had even heard him. 

" Can't promise I won't leave for trips outside, " he began, after what felt like at least several minutes, voice soft and what could have been in a soothing tone, " but I won't leave tonight anymore, okay? And if I do leave, I'll come right back." Racket sounded like he was telling the truth, but how could Hitoshi know ?

" . . . You promise? " This question was a proper whisper. Still quiet, but one wouldn't have to strain their ears to hear it, so that was. Better, at least. "Promise you won't leave me again?" Sunbird , how Hitoshi hated that vulnerable tremor in his voice. He was being weak , burdening Racket with his own emotional fears while not even asking about any of Racket's issues. Hitoshi was weak for not being able to just deal with his problems like everyone else did.

Racket shifted, and Hitoshi snapped out of his downward spiral of thoughts to look at him. He had his hand held towards Hitoshi, pinky sticking out. "Promise." He said, firmly but gently.

Slowly, hesitantly, Hitoshi held his own hand out, and wrapped his pink around Racket's, slowly shaking it up and down ever so slightly.

"Congrats, ya adopted a mutt." Racket's voice had an amused tone. "Now go back to sleep ya dork. Ya still got a fever to beat."

Hitoshi whined, quietly. "But if I go to sleep you'll leave my room or something." He complained. "And I don't want to be alone. I can't sleep when I'm alone." It was the truth, like anything else Hitoshi had been saying. "Can. . ." He began, before taking off. " Can you stay here and cuddle me? You don' have to," he added quickly, "I know it's a weird request, but. . . I've always slept better when I have someone to hold." 

A beat. "... yah." Racket said. "Yeah, I can do that. But if I hear someone comin' I'm hidin' under the bed."

"Th't works." Hitoshi said, and the emotional exhaustion caught up to him then. He pulled the remaining blankets over the two of then, and wrapped his arms around Racket, pulling the other close. He smelled like strawberries - or maybe that was just the smell of the apartment - but Racket also had some unidentifiable smell that reminded Hitoshi of comfortable blankets and of rain and of cool evening nights, and Racket was warm.

Hitoshi's eyes drifted downwards, and cuddling the boy who had broken the previous rules of life, he fell asleep, warm and almost happy.