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Hatori Nozomu didn’t think much was wrong with him as a child. He spent his days climbing trees and complaining about homework. He lived in a rural area. Sometimes the power would surge.
When his parents got divorced and he moved with his father to the city, he realized that it wasn’t bad telephone poles; it was him. It was always him.
He talked. He talked and he talked and he talked and he knew he was annoying his father but if he didn’t get out what he was thinking he felt like he would explode. He saw his dad not paying attention to him, his father staring at the television screen, and he wanted his attention. Nozomu would do anything for it.
When their TV screen flickered, then showed Nozomu’s face on the screen, his father finally looked at him. He looked scared. Over the course of the next few weeks, his fear turned to apprehension, then annoyance.
One day, in the early spring, Nozomu was blabbing about the classroom pet, a baby chick that he got to take care of, and was dealt a slap to the face.
Nozomu froze. His head was forced to the side, glasses clattering against the hard floor of the living room. He felt the air in his lungs push against his throat, begging to come out, but it was like a sock was shoved in his esophagus. His throat burned; his face burned; his jaw was slack, and he found he couldn’t close it. His vision was hazy without his glasses, but he found himself focusing on the view out the window- the watercolors of sun reflecting off of leaves and early flower blossoms. He waited for the feeling of tears dripping down his cheeks, but they never came. His eyes felt surprisingly dry.
“Stop talking, Nozomu.”
His father never hit him again. He had no reason to.
Nozomu was good at following orders.
In the summers, Nozomu would visit his mother. She was always warm and kind. He’d help her farm and bake.
He never told her about his powers. She loved him; Nozomu would never give her any incentive not to, if he could help it.
He ached for those summers; his father disregarded him, ignoring him unless he was needed. Talking with his mother was like listening to cicadas next to the stream that flowed behind her house.
“Why don’t you talk as much anymore, Nozomu?” She asked one day, and he felt himself sink into his brain like it was a bed of feathers and he had just come home from what his father called ‘a long day at the office’.
He shrugged. “I guess I grew out of it.”
She seemed happy at that response. She must not have wanted Nozomu to talk, either.
Only when his father was at work, and only when Nozomu was alone at home, he’d try using his powers. He’d sit in front of the television, turning it off and on, off and on. He’d change channels, turn the volume up and down, and project his face. It was as easy as breathing. He didn’t understand how or why he was able to do this, but he stored his newfound abilities in his brain anyway.
At school, he bloomed around others, even if they called him annoying. Talking simply came easily to him. He liked talking to others; it was like a game, or a puzzle, or a test. He made friends and never asked them to come over. He stored this in his brain, as well.
One day, one of his closest friends invited him over instead. Nozomu thought about it, before recalling that his father would be working late that night. He agreed.
His friend had something new. Something Nozomu had never seen before. His friend handed him a controller.
Nozomu spent nearly every day after school at his friend's house, playing on his GameCube. Nozomu was good. Scarily good. His friend said it was incredible, face pink like blossoms, and Nozomu felt something.
His friends’ parents walked in on them doing something they shouldn’t have, faces closer than they should’ve been. His friend changed schools.
Nozomu asked his father for a GameCube of his own and received it wordlessly.
Nozomu worked through adolescence in a hazy blur, like experiencing life without glasses. He powered through school, powered through social situations, feeling like the television screens and computer monitors he could control easier and easier with each passing day. He worked and graduated middle school. He worked and graduated high school. He worked and nailed a simple computer job he could do with ease. He was the best at what he did, and felt his face smile at a job well done, even if he didn’t feel it.
His work garnered attention from someone very important. He loomed over Nozomu in a way that reminded him of his father. He introduced himself as Suzuki Touichirou, said he had similar powers and abilities, and offered quadruple the amount Nozomu was getting paid now.
Nozomu would’ve been an idiot if he said no.
He expected a stern boss. He expected eccentric coworkers with similar powers. What he didn’t expect was for Suzuki to have a son.
“Do you play Mobtendo DS games?”
Nozomu turned away from his game, controller sweaty in his hands. The eight-year-old in front of him looked strange in the dark of the room, the only light reflecting off of him from the television. Nozomu pushed up his glasses.
“A few.”
“Do you have Mobtaro?”
“Yes.” At that, Shou brightened considerably.
“Can we please please please play together? Pretty please?” Nozomu scoffed. He looked over the boy, thinking. He knew that Shou didn’t have many friends; out of the three closest to Suzuki, Nozomu was the youngest, at nineteen. He could’ve been Shou’s older brother. He could see that Shou was like him, in some way. He could see his reflection in Shou’s eyes; he didn’t recognize himself. He never did.
“Sure.”
Work wasn’t hard. In fact, it was incredibly easy. He trained with Shimazaki and Minegishi. He got to play around with more electronics and enjoyed the feeling of energy coursing through him. He liked being able to feel something that wasn’t tied to him the way his emotions were.
Shimazaki and Minegishi, however, were very powerful espers. Nozomu was the first one to call it quits in every training session. It made him feel a little disappointed, but he shoved that down. He knew his powers weren’t fighting powers, like his coworkers’ were.
He sighed, battered and bruised, as Minegishi looked him over with a blank face.
“Nice try, Hatori,” they said.
“Yeah, better luck next time,” Shimazaki ruffled Nozomu’s hair.
All Nozomu could do was nod.
Nozomu knew things weren’t on cloud nine between Shou and his father. Suzuki was pragmatic, calculative, and very brutal. Nozomu didn’t know much about Shou’s mother, but he had never met her. Nozomu assumed they were divorced, just like his parents were.
One day, he was heading towards Suzuki’s office to talk with him about the success of a recent recruit - a man named Shibata - when he heard shouting. Shou was shouting at his father; Nozomu couldn’t focus on what he was saying but could tell that it was serious and important to Shou. He continued moving forward, seeing the pair come into view around the corner. He then halted as he saw Suzuki deliver a slap so powerful that Shou crumpled to the floor.
He watched Shou’s nose drip blood, and watched Shou look up at him, and watched Shou turn red with embarrassment as he vanished into thin air.
Nozomu felt like Hatori. He felt like a name that wasn’t his. He felt like a blank sheet, a monitor that was only displaying static.
“Hatori,” Suzuki greeted formally. “How was the mission?”
All Hatori could do was watch history repeat itself.
The night of his twentieth birthday, Hatori drank so much he blacked out. He pressed his fingers into the skin of his arm, not feeling it. He couldn’t feel anything. He looked in the mirror; he couldn’t see his eyes.
He was Hatori. He was nobody. He was everybody.
He didn’t celebrate his twenty-first birthday.
A few weeks passed after his birthday, and the final member of their echelon joined them. Suzuki said his name was Serizawa; he said to play nice.
Serizawa was a head taller than Hatori. He held an umbrella in shaking hands. His eyes seemed glued to the floor at almost all times. He was untrimmed, curly hair resting on his forehead and stubble growing out of his cheeks. He wore black pajamas and a worn orange robe.
Hatori felt himself stare. He felt himself turn red. He felt himself look away. If he felt eyes on him, he ignored it.
For the most part, Hatori ignored Serizawa, until Serizawa came to him.
“Would you mind any company?” He asked. His voice was deep but tense. Hatori shrugged.
“S’pose not.”
His room was dark. Hatori was holed up on his couch surrounded by empty energy drink cans. He’d been trying to beat his time on Super Mobrio Sunshine. It was rough.
Serizawa set himself up next to Hatori on the couch. He looked like glass about to shatter. His demeanor got a little worse since entering Hatori’s room.
They sat together in silence for a few moments.
“So, what’s up?” Hatori asked without looking, eyes glued to the screen. “Why are you here?”
“Oh, u-uh…” Serizawa shifted on the couch. “The president said I should get closer to you and the others, so…”
“Do you want to be here?”
“I-”
“Because if not, you can leave.”
The silence resumed. He could feel a very, very strong power rolling off of Serizawa in waves.
Finally, Serizawa spoke.
“I want to be here.” That wasn’t the reply Hatori was expecting. Even Shimazaki didn’t want to hang out with him.
“Okay, then cool.”
Silence, again.
“Speedrunning?”
“Yeah.” Hatori paused, then words poured out of him. He talked about how speedrunning worked in the context of the game, his best record, and the record he was trying to beat. It felt good to talk; he felt like he hadn’t talked in months.
And judging by Serizawa’s demeanor, he didn’t mind listening.
They hung out often. Sometimes Suzuki would send them on missions together; sometimes they’d train together; sometimes they’d eat in the cafeteria together.
Hatori noticed how tense Serizawa would get in his room, though. Serizawa was always tense, of course, but in Hatori’s room it seemed like one wrong move and he would explode.
“Do you not like being in my room?” Hatori asked one day.
“It’s not that!” Serizawa blurted nervously, grip tightening on the handle of his closed umbrella. Hatori waited for a response. “I-it’s just… it looks a lot like my old room. The darkness and the cans everywhere…”
Hatori hummed in response. The next time Serizawa came over, Hatori’s room was clean, his lights were on, and his blinds were open. Serizawa’s response was immediate; his grip loosened on his umbrella, and the small wrinkle that was usually between his brows smoothed out.
“I-I hope you didn’t feel obligated to do this, Hatori-”
“No, I realized I didn’t like it much either.”
They resumed playing video games.
Serizawa had his own skeletons in his closet. Hatori never asked. Neither did Serizawa.
It was nice hanging out with someone who didn’t ask. It almost made Hatori want to open up- but never, he would never.
Years passed.
Hatori found himself thinking, thinking, overthinking. He thought about Serizawa’s hands, huge and hairy and warm; he thought about Serizawa’s eyes, dark and soft like a duvet; he thought about Serizawa’s mouth, chapped lips smiling gently at him when he talked more than he should; he thought about Serizawa’s voice, his laugh, his hair, his shoulders, his forearms, Serizawa, Serizawa, Serizawa.
He thought about who he grew up playing video games with. He thought about what happened when they were caught. He thought about never seeing Serizawa again.
Hatori rationalized his feelings, just like always; he could fantasize about an idea. He could daydream. He could long, he could pine- but to be loved is to be known, and no one would ever know Hatori enough to love him. He knew Serizawa would grow tired; he knew Serizawa would grow bored; he knew Serizawa would never like him back.
But infatuation was okay, as long as it didn’t get out of hand.
It got out of hand.
It got impossibly out of hand.
Serizawa had started sitting closer to him, acting more comfortable around him. He brought his umbrella to Hatori’s room but would leave it next to the couch, hands free to do something, anything.
Serizawa invited Hatori to come to his room instead, to watch a movie. Serizawa’s room was bright and fairly empty. He had a few knick-knacks on a single bookshelf, and a couch in front of a television. Hatori sat as Serizawa made some popcorn. They sat close enough that their thighs touched, and the movie started.
Hatori couldn’t think. He couldn’t feel anything but his heart hammering in his chest. He begged himself to relax and enjoy time with his friend.
But then his friend bumped their hands together once, twice, and then rested his hand on top of Hatori’s own, and Hatori leaped back as if he had been burnt. The lights flickered in the room. The movie muted itself.
“Nozomu, wait-” Serizawa started, but Hatori was already out the door.
It had just been too much, the hypotheticals becoming real was too much. Hatori couldn’t actually really like another person. He wasn’t made to like others. He was made to watch; he was only made to be an observer, a passive element to life. He never expected that someone would return his gaze.
Hatori avoided Serizawa.
Their world came crumbling down around them, caused by a rowdy group of middle schoolers, one of them being Shou. Hatori saw Serizawa cry over the betrayal and loss of Suzuki, and if Hatori could bring himself to feel anything, he would be angry at Suzuki for taking advantage of someone as caring as Serizawa.
Hatori hit the ground running. He threw himself back into work, getting a small apartment. He worked, and worked, and worked. All he was was his job. All he could do was move forward. He was twenty-four now. He worked for Suzuki for five years, and now all he could do was start over.
He got a call from his mother. It was the first time they had talked in years. She called to say that his father had passed from a heart attack.
The first emotion he felt was surprise. That was quickly pushed down by resentment.
He went to the funeral. He cleaned out and sold his father’s apartment. He could have tried to live there, but one glance at the living room floor made him think better of it.
He brought home a box of his old things, and went through them slowly, calculatingly. A picture of him and his childhood friend together. His first flash drive, full of ideas and designs for a collection of things. A journal he used twice and then forgot about.
Hatori thought about a lot of things. He thought about what he wanted; he thought about who he wanted to be. He looked through his flash drive and found ideas for video games.
He quit his job the next morning.
The remnants of the Super Five started meeting up once a month. They created a group chat to talk to each other. Shimazaki returned from wherever he was after half a year, and the group was finally fully reunited.
Conversations with Serizawa were cautious. Nothing past small talk. Serizawa looked much more clean-cut. Reigen was a good boss. Hatori found himself still admiring Serizawa, but he shoved it down.
When asked what he was doing, he hesitantly said he was working on making video games, earning a surprised look from everyone.
Serizawa gave Hatori a small, genuine smile, and Hatori didn’t speak the rest of the meal.
Hatori went to visit his mother for the first time in years.
The countryside looked different, but her house hadn’t changed.
She had remarried, her wife an old friend from before she married Hatori’s father. Hatori found himself connecting with his mother more than he thought he would. They had more in common than he remembered, it seemed.
They dipped their toes in the creek. Cicadas chirped, just like always.
“Dad hit me once,” Hatori started. His mother listened. “I kissed my childhood best friend and his parents found out and made him switch schools. I’m an esper, and I was working for that terrorist organization before it crumbled.” He paused, digging his toes into the sharp rocks on the bed of the creek. The way the light reflected through his glasses hurt his eyes. “Does that make me a bad person? Am I bad?”
“That’s a loaded question,” his mother replied. She paused, thinking. “We all make mistakes. Recognizing mistakes means you’re growing. The way others treat you isn’t a sign of your morality. Love doesn’t make you a bad person. Recognizing that you’ve done bad things is a sign of moving forward. You’re moving forward.”
Hatori took in her words. He didn’t look at her. “I think I found someone I like talking to, but I got scared and I ruined it.”
She took his hand, resting a head on his shoulder.
“Nozomu, you’re allowed to feel things. You’re allowed to experience love.”
Nozomu, feeling a little like himself for the first time in a decade, decided to take her advice.
Nozomu called Serizawa as soon as he got back into the city. He asked for him to come over, and a few days later Serizawa was shuffling into his apartment. They sat next to each other on Nozomu’s couch. Serizawa’s hair was shorter, and his stubble was gone, but his eyes were still warm, and his lips were still chapped.
“I wanted to apologize, for… for everything. And I’d like to open up to you, if you’d let me.”
Serizawa’s voice had grown more confident, too, it seemed. “Of course, Nozomu.”
Nozomu looked at Serizawa and saw Katsuya. He saw sunlight reflecting off of leaves, and flowers blooming in perfect clarity.
When Katsuya took Nozomu’s hand, he didn’t pull away.
He hoped Katsuya could see him, too.