Chapter Text
Teruki Hanazawa is eleven when he sees his parents for the last time.
Well, barely eleven – his birthday was one month before that. And two months before that he awakened to his psychic powers, to the surprise of everyone in the Hanazawa family.
At first, his parents were pretty sceptical, unsure if these powers would help or hinder him. After Teruki brought down the intimidating man that was trying to attack them, though...yeah, after that they were sceptical and scared.
A lot has happened since then and things only got weirder.
They moved. To a way, way cheaper home, one with a living room as small as their old entrance hall and a kitchen tinier than the old guest bathroom. In fact, they didn't even have a guest bathroom anymore. Teruki couldn't complain too much though, his room was big enough and most of the old important stuff was taken with them.
(What struck as strange for him, was that his parents never emptied their moving boxes.)
The bedroom his parents slept in was too small to really live in and only their bed fit in there. They never explained to Teruki why they moved. And Teruki knew better than to ask too many questions. He could tell that his parents weren't in a good place right now, both of them looking paler by day, acting too skittish and scared, telling him off for any small reason before apologizing profusely. Their emotions were all over the place, but the most prominent were fear and guilt.
And he wouldn't know why – until the day came that stuck with him forever.
His mother was shaking him awake, a little too harshly for his taste, before resorting to more cruel methods and turning on the lights.
"It's, it's too bright, mom..." he grumbled, hiding his eyes with one hand.
"Teruki, honey, it's important." Her voice is calm and sweet but it's layered with an edge of – something, and Teruki isn't sure if he wants to figure out.
Still mumbling out his annoyance, he sits up and lets his eyes adjust to the light. His mother stands in front of him, fully dressed. Her red high-heels drag themselves over the floor,unable to keep still.
"Where are you going?" he asks groggily.
She laughs nervously. "Teruki, can you promise not to be mad at mommy?"
He giggles. "Mom, you sound like a kid."
"Ha, yeah..." she tries laughing with him but it dies down and she watches him cautiously instead. "Mommy and Daddy...need to do something very important."
"Do you need to go on a business trip again?" he asks. It's always fun when he has the house to himself for a few days, but it's nice seeing his parents come back home.
"Well, more or less. It's, yeah, it's similar to a business trip, I guess." she takes a few breaths. "It's just. You know. It will just – take longer than normally."
"How long?" His mother usually makes enough food for about two weeks, even though they're away for five days at most, so he doesn't have to worry about that.
"Um." Her eyes dart around the room, before she sighs and sits next to Teruki. She puts one arm around his shoulder and pulls him close, the other hand lands on his head, stroking gently through his hair. Her voice is shaky as she speaks. "A long time. Really long time."
"Mom?"
"Teruki, we aren't coming back. We can't."
Panic rises in his chest. "What?" he misheard, right? "What?"
Apparently she saw that as an invitation to explain and the words just flooded out of her mouth.
"A lot has happened these last three months and after a lot of talking and thinking, me and your father decided that we can't do this anymore. All three of us would be in danger if things don't change and we don't want that Teruki."
He's unable to breath. Her fingers in his hair feel like icy claws, boring in his scalp and he's pretty sure that these are tears running down his cheeks.
He tries to break free from his mother's hold, to look her in the eyes. His mother just pulls him closer, spouting unintelligible words and burying her head on his shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Teruki," she sobs, "I'm so, so sorry."
Teruki wants to scream. That'll probably wake him up from this nightmare.
"L-let me go! You're lying!" he yells. He pulls against her firm hold, with no avail. This isn't real. This isn't real.
"You're such a responsible boy… you're so special, Teruki." she whispers, unable to raise her voice.
"I don't want to be special! I don't want to be special if that means that you go away!" he stops thrashing and instead leans into his mother. "D-did I do something wrong? I won't use my power again, I, I promise!"
She's quiet. She stops the stream of tears and regulates her breath before speaking again.
"Honey, you did nothing wrong. Just be responsible and you'll get through this with no problems." her voice is unusually disconnected. Teruki heard his mother use that voice with unreasonable clients. Is he being unreasonable right now?
He allows himself to sob before asking, "When, when will you come back?"
She doesn't answer for a long time. "When everything settled down. When there's no danger anymore."
"Are you really going away?"
"We are."
"I don't want you to."
"Don't be selfish, honey," she tells him shakily, "you don't want mommy and daddy to be in danger, right?" "
N-no, of course not!"
"Then listen to me now Teruki. We have to do this. This is our only option. Do you understand?" "
Y-yeah," he doesn't.
"So be a good boy, okay? You're so responsible, you'll be okay, right? Can you tell mommy that you'll be okay?"
"I'll be okay," he tells her.
"Of course you will be… of course," she plants a shaky kiss on his forehead. "Good night, honey. I love you."
"I love you too, mom."
"Goodbye."
She stands up. Teru feels cold without her arms around him. His mother is facing away from him, staying in the middle of the room. Before Teruki can say anything else, she turns off the lights and mutters a last 'good night'. The door closes.
Teruki sleeps in.
It wasn't a nightmare.
It wasn't a nightmare.
Teruki Hanazawa is twelve years old when he realizes that his parents won't come back.
The thought was always just – the big 'what if'. But that's all it was, a what if. Nothing to consider happening in reality, just hypothetically.
His parents coming back from wherever they are, was always a small light of hope for Teruki, something he remembered when it seemed like he hit rock-bottom.
When the weird organization attacked again, the only thing that kept him going was the thought of his parents coming back, scooping him into their arms and whispering words of love and reassurance.
He doesn't know what exactly made him realize that they were gone forever, but now he knows that his 'hope' is never to come back, no matter how much he wants them to.
There isn't much use crying about it, he found out. There also isn't much use screaming about it. Sitting on his couch at 4 AM and staring at his ceiling can't do much too, but sleepless nights is the one thing he can't stop.
So what will he do now? Things are fairly fine right now, he's not injured or sick, his grades are amazing and there aren't many financial troubles.
Yes, everything's fine right now but even if everything's okay at the moment, the weight of responsibility and expectations on his little shoulders won't be as bearable as they are right now. He doesn't want to admit it but one day it will get too heavy for him to carry and he will break under the pressure.
What happens when he gets attacked again? Will he stand up like he did all these other times or will he just stay slumped against the wall, injured and waiting for the light to fade?
The thoughts seems comforting at first. He can't imagine carrying on for much longer, at least not like this. Thinking about the future only creates a hard lump in his throat and the thought of managing the responsibilities that will come, only makes it worse.
The first one to notice him gone would be his school, and then they'll find him in his apartment – abandoned by his parents and all beat up he would be lying there. Behind his eyes, nothing-
He shivers at the mental image. Yeah, that'll give his parents something to cry about, he thinks bitterly.
What would happen then? Would his parents even come back to Japan or do they not even care enough to do that? Will he be on the news, how he managed to survive on his own for one year but then met a quick end caused by some maniac adults?
Yes, at first the thought of death – of disappearing and never coming back – sounded comforting. But - the more he thinks about it, the more he tries to imagine a realistic outcome of what were to happen after - the more he realizes that he doesn't want to die. He doesn't want to lose against the maniac adult, he doesn't want the people to think that he's not capable of living.
He wants to have dreams like the other kids, he wants to grow up and get a job, get married, adopt a cat and buy a house. He wants to prove to everyone that he's responsible. He wants to live.
At four AM, staring at the turned off TV and a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, Teruki Hanazawa swears to himself to survive. To live life to the advantage to the only person that matters – himself.
And he will succeed, no matter what.
Teruki Hanazawa is thirteen when he sends someone flying into a wall.
It's not the first time something like that happened. He send tons of Claw members flying before.
Well, this time it was a little different. This time it was someone without psychic powers, someone that couldn't stop or know what hit him.
Teruki doesn't feel too bad about it though, nothing was broken and the boy brought it on himself. You can't insult someone and then not expect that person to fight back – especially if you repeatedly insult them. The boy had it coming.
The teacher tried to talk to them after he heard about the fight but no sane person can believe that someone of Teruki's stature could hurl a person older than him across the room. But since the other boy was injured and the bruises were too big to be self-inflicted, they settled on no punishment and instead a long and boring talk about mutual respect and bullying. Teruki didn't absorb a word of it.
There's no need to know about respect when all the boy did was disrespect him. He doubts that there is someone out there able to gain his respect, when everyday just proves how much better he is than the others. The commoners will never be on his level and while the other espers pack a good punch sometimes, they might as well be commoners, weak as they are.
After that day, the boy stops insulting him.
His friends do too.
It's not the first time he used his powers against other people. It won't be the last.
"You shouldn't use your powers against other people," he said, "They're just like another trait."
Teruki Hanazawa is fourteen when the guilt comes crashing down.
The guilt was always there – always in the back of his mind, swirling around, making him stop in his tracks. But he was pretty good at shoving it down until it was small enough to be ignored.
But now it was back with all it's force, as he remembers all the things he did wrong.
He pulls his pillow close and takes a deep breath. He could just shove these thoughts back down and go about his life as usual. He could just go back to being the shadow leader and do everything for his own advantage.
But does he want to do that?
He watches as his pencils and papers idly fly around his room, soaked in his yellow aura. Just like any other trait, huh? He lets out a hollow laugh.
A small, persistent, annoying, but weirdly convincing part of him believes in the words the boy with the bowl cut said. And it shouldn't be so hard to just push that part down again but-
So, let's say there's no way he can go back to how he was before? What will he do then? What would - what would that boy want him to do?
Probably not a lot, Teruki thinks, turning onto his back and pressing the pillow closer to his chest. He'd want him to be- Well, first of all, not batshit crazy.
But after that? The one thing he always strived for is greatness. Popularity, fans, a delinquent gang? Yeah, these are all things that come with it. But mainly, he always strived to be the greatest in every territory.
Maybe he should shift that focus onto something else. Maybe…yes, just maybe he should instead strive for kindness. Doesn't mean he has to give up on being great. Doesn't mean he has to give up on always bettering himself.
Hanazawa Teruki is fourteen when he swears to himself to be a good person.
A good person.
A good person.
What the hell defines a 'good person'?
Despite what language suggests, 'good' does not mean 'great'. Striving for goodness, does not mean striving for greatness.
Well, that's what he knew anyway.
That still doesn't help him a lot.
Does it mean that he always has to greet his neighbors? That he always needs to thank the cashier? These are good gestures, right?
But that doesn't automatically make a good person. How big of a part does politeness play in goodness? Someone can be polite without being good but can someone be good without being polite?
But what does define 'polite' and what does define 'basic human courtesy' (something Teruki also neglected).
He groans, annoyed. He only made himself more confused about everything. Why is it so difficult to understand the nature of 'good'? It's such a washed out word, worn and filed over all the years.
He goes over to his bed and screams in his pillow. Frustrating! It is, without a doubt, frustrating. He lets himself scream a few more seconds before picking up his previous train of thought.
Wait no, scratch that.
He throws out everything he thought about today. Let's start again, slow and easy. Simple.
Before he can think about being a good person, he should think about not being a bad person.
Delinquent gangs are bad. Violence is bad. Using people is bad. Hurting people is bad. Stealing is bad.
Hey, now he's getting somewhere!
Being mean is bad. Being disrespectful is bad. Lying is bad. Not taking responsibility for your own mistakes is bad.
That's all pretty solid.
He lets out a prolonged sigh and opens the balcony door. The stars are out already but he can barely see them with all the light pollution going on. But one brave star, one right next to the moon stays strong, shining brighter than any lamp on earth.
"Kageyama Shigeo," he whispers gently. Teruki is still in awe about that boy. How he managed to cast doubt onto his whole lifestyle in just one day, is still unexplainable to Teru.
Not that he's complaining.
"How amazing."
"I would stay away from him. He's dangerous in that state."
The delinquents usher away when they recognize him. Some, though, stay defensively in front of Kageyama.
"I said," he repeats, this time a little sterner, "you should stay away from him."
The resisting delinquents back away at that, too.
Teruki tries to keep his expression neutral when he sees the state Kageyama is in. The broken alley was either his doing, or that of the mysterious esper, whose aura he can still faintly sense.
Cautiously, but still nonchalantly, he approaches the boy. His eyes are hazy, unfocused, and he is unresponsive to Teruki's footsteps. The distance between them seems to stretch longer and longer, the agonizing seconds passing slow as he waits for something to happen.
But nothing happens. Kageyama is merely a meter away and he's not moving to attack. Teru tries to put his hands on Kageyama's shoulders to pull him out of this trance-like state, but instead Kageyama slumps over. If it weren't for Teruki holding him, he would've fallen over but the blonds hands firmly grasp the others boys shoulders, keeping him standing. He looks pretty beat up and he doesn't really need an additional broken nose from falling onto the concrete floor.
He looks over his shoulder. "Do any of you know who did this?"
The delinquents immediately start talking over each other, everyone trying to be louder than the next one.
"Hey!" he shouts. They all shut up. "One at a time please. The tall one, you go first."
They all look at each other in uncertainty. The tall boy begins to speak, something akin to fear flooding his voice.
"W-we were here to, uh, fight White T Poison and-"
"Unimportant! Who was the other person fighting against Kageyama?" he nods towards another boy to prompt him to speak.
"Um, it was a, a tall man. He was an adult and wore this, uh, hoodie. And, and he had a big scar on his face, yeah!"
"Tell me how he fought." He motions towards another guy.
"It was...really, really weird, the two were flying around and crap! The dude had like, snake-looking things around his arms and... Yeah, I didn't really get it."
That's probably all he could get out of these guys. "Thanks. I'll handle things from here on out."
With that, he puts Kageyama on his back for a piggyback ride, unwilling to use his powers without knowing if there are other espers around to sense his aura.
That means he has to settle on actually carrying him, not that he minds too much. He's been trying to depend less on his powers.
As he walks out of the alley, his sights set to his own apartment, he turns his head slightly.
"Don't worry," he tells the unconscious boy quietly. "I'll handle things."
The bruises look worse than they actually are.
Making sure as to not further hurt him, he put Kageyama out of the torn shirt to tend to the bruises on his torso. He takes in a sharp breath when he sees the damage.
They look worse than they actually are. Teruki knows that.
But still… knowing that Teru couldn't even do as much as scratch him with his powers, it's horrifying thinking who could've done that. An adult esper - yeah, it's safe to assume that it's Claw.
The question is, he thinks as he brings the first aid set into his bedroom, why did the other esper leave? Did Kageyama's state frighten him enough to flee?
He dampens a slab of cotton with disinfectant and applies some on the bruise on his abdomen. A punch in the stomach? He cringes internally. He just hopes that nothing is broken.
He only has himself as example but he always theorized that espers heal faster than normal people. His parents were always so shocked how fast his injuries healed, as were the doctors he visited whenever something happened that he couldn't deal with on his own.
But still, if something's broken, Teru's makeshift aid wouldn't be much help. He wraps a bandage around the injury, always making sure to be careful. It's a little easier to care for someone other than himself, he notes.
He disinfects the small scratches on Kageyama's face puts a few bandaids on it. For a second he contemplates putting the Hello Kitty bandaid on, but he's sure that Kageyama wouldn't appreciate that (and maybe he wanted to save that one for himself. Just maybe.)
Kageyama probably would be shaken up when he wakes up. He could give him the ice cream he keeps in his freezer for particularly bad days. After that he can walk him home and apologize for disrupting his date because of his brother being-
Wait.
Wait wait wait.
His brother. His brother wasn't in the alley. His brother definitely wasn't in the alley. The man fled. Or did he really flee? The brother has psychic powers as well.
Teruki sits down at the edge of his bed, hand over his mouth in a contemplating gesture. The brother, the brother…
He looks over at Kageyama. The boys nose scrunches up.
For Kageyama's sake… the brother has to be okay.
thank you for helping me
Teruki reads over the message again.
i appreciate it. I really do
Again and again and again.
Again and again he basks in this unusual feeling, again and again he tries to make his heart jump. Before Kageyama's master ushered him into a taxi that brought him to his apartment, Shigeo wrote his own phone number onto Teruki's palm. His hand was shaking while he was writing, but that came from the exhaustion after their rescue mission.
Teruki fondly looks at the numbers on top of his skin. There was nothing exceptionally interesting about the phone number, but a feeling of warmth spread through him, everytime he looked at it.
Sadly, it was already a little faded from washing his hands after coming home, but the text he got 20 minutes later made him completely forget about that.
Why does this 'thank you' carry so much weight? People thanked him plenty of times, be it by his delinquent gang for helping them again, or be it his soccer team, thanking him for shooting another impossible goal.
Well maybe, he thinks, it's because he actually deserved it this time.
He shakes his head and leaves the thought alone, his fingers hovering over the keyboard. What should he answer with?
It's no problem, Kageyama! I would do it again!
Does that sound good? Nono, that seems kind of weird. He deletes the message.
You're welcome! Feel free to text me anytime you need help!
What about this one? No… doesn't that imply that Kageyama isn't capable of solving his own problems?
No need to thank me Kageyama, I didn't do much. I'm just glad that everything turned out okay!
And this one? But… did everything turn out okay? He groans internally. He's overthinking this, right? With a forlorn sigh, he sends the message. They're all too tired anyway to read too deep into things.
He turns off his phone and slips into his pajamas. He sleeps in right as his head hits the pillow, missing the text that will make him smile softly the next morning when he reads it.
me too. sleep well, hanazawa :-)
So apparently, 'bad' isn't really a black and white term either.
If you punch an evil person, is it still bad? Or, to be more specific, is it bad if you enter an evil psychic organization hideout and beat up a bunch of people because they kidnapped your new friends brother and you need to save him because you really owe your new friend but you don't do it only because of that but also because you don't want him to lose his brother because then he'd be sad and-
Where was he going with this? Oh right. Did he do something bad.
He personally would say, 'no'. But his sense of right and wrong became a little crooked over the years, a little off-center, so his own opinion doesn't have much weight in that.
So what he needs is a second opinion. But who would be able to help him?
He can't ask Kageyama of course. For him, saving his brother is always right, no matter how. And his brother is taboo, too. Who would say that saving them is evil?
Well, and then there's Kageyama's master. He's probably biased too, but he's also the one who likes to spout bits of wisdom, and also the one who defeated Scar with words only. So if there is one person he can go to, to figure out how to be a good person, it's him.
He isn't too excited about asking other people for help, but if becoming a good person means getting over his own pride, he can do that.
Well, he won't get over his pride that fast.
"I'm here to give you back the money from the taxi," he quickly thinks up, after staring at each other for a solid thirty seconds.
Reigen blinks. "What are you talking about."
"The taxi. When we left the Scar hideout you paid for my taxi."
"That was two weeks ago."
"Yeah."
They stare at each other a little longer. Reigen sighs.
"You don't have to give me back the money, I'm not that poor."
Teruki looks at the money in his hand. He could probably use it for something else. "If you say so." he shrugs.
"So," Reigen leans back in his office chair. "what brings you here?"
"Uh. The money."
"No it doesn't. Sit down, I'll help you. I still owe you for treating Mob's injuries when he got hurt."
"He, he told you about that?" No, more importantly, he remembered that?
He makes a dismissive gesture. "Yeah, he did. Now what did you wanna talk about, uh-" he stares blankly at Teruki. "sorry, what was your name again?"
Teru represses the urge to click his tongue in annoyance. "Teruki Hanazawa. You can call me Teru though. Everyone does."
"Alright Teru, what's on your mind?"
"Well," he fiddles with his fingers, uncertainty over washing him. The sole reason he woke up early to catch the train was to ask Reigen this one question. If he asks any later, that'd be weird.
Now or never.
He steps towards Reigen's table and sits down at the provided chair. "Well I wanted to ask if. You know, if-" no, this whole thing is so stupid. He shouldn't have come here in the first place.
"Go on, I'm listening. Take your time."
Teru takes a deep breath. And another one.
"Was what we did bad?"
"Huh?"
"I, I mean back at the division base. When I was, I was fighting against the Scar members. Mob has a rule not to fight anyone so - was what I did bad?"
"That's - that's not what I expected." Reigen shakes his head. "What you're asking is if you did something bad, yeah…" he scratches his head. "Well, first of all, no, what you did wasn't inherently bad. But if I were you, I wouldn't do it again."
"Why?"
"Simple, because you shouldn't. It was an adults job in the first place to make sure that Ritsu and the other kids came home safely, if something like that happens again, you should just tell an adult instead of taking things into your own hands."
"So...it wasn't bad but it wasn't good either?" he furrows his eyebrows.
"Um well. It certainly was selfless of you and stuff but I would just avoid it in the future."
"I don't get it."
"You're like, twelve years old, right? You shouldn't be responsible for something an adult should do." he lazily waves around with his hand.
"I'm fourteen. And I'm plenty responsible."
"Whether or not you're responsible doesn't play a role in this."
"Hm. Okay," Teruki says. He still doesn't really get it. He doesn't get it and he really has to understand it but-
Reigen eyes him weirdly. "Anything else? Want to talk about your grades? Love life? Family?"
"You have a lot of spare time, I think."
"Hey, I am using my precious time to help you out!" he whines.
Teruki chuckles quietly. "Sorry, then."
He has plenty of time to figure things out.