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Hitoshi was easily bored.
Not bored, per se - but he had a habit of zoning out when someone was talking to him, looking either at his desk or some point out the window and letting his mind wander while some teacher or another droned on.
It might’ve had something to do with the steady exhaustion that made him feel weighted down and foggy for most of the day. It might’ve been because he was ‘creative,’ as the daycare workers had told him when he was three years old and holding up crayon drawings of All Might. It was probably a lot to do with the fact that, sorry Mr Nagisa, but pre-quirk history was mostly just boring.
So Hitoshi spent most of his time in middle school thinking about everything except the classroom he was sat in. His thoughts just ran wild, leaving him imagining a thousand scenarios where he saves the day, receives the recognition he desperately wants from the classmates who’ve ignored him, playing over in his head the victory he’ll feel the day he gets into the UA Hero Course.
He thought about other things, as well, but heroics dominated his mind. Even when he didn’t want it to. Even when he was lying awake at 5am tossing and turning, willing his brain to just shut up already and let me sleep, watching with a sick sense of satisfaction as the sun slowly rose.
He had a sleeping problem. He could admit it.
But it was only when he finally achieved the dreams he’d been imagining for years that the problem starts to catch up with him. Because now that he’s finally made it he has to survive… the dorms.
Before, he’d been completely alone most days - his parents worked up in Miyagi, only returning every few months to check that Hitoshi hadn’t destroyed the place. They didn’t want to risk living with a potential ‘villain’ too closely. Or at least, his step-dad hadn’t, and Hitoshi’s mum was all too willing to be whisked away, no longer having to take responsibility for her son beyond the monthly allowance.
Hitoshi was used to being entirely self-sufficient, buying his own groceries, washing his own clothes, cleaning the dingy apartment to a point where it was liveable. Now his life had been turned upside down.
The groceries were provided by the school, and people tended to make dinner in groups, as they were only allowed to use the stove when Aizawa was conscious enough to supervise them. More often than not, Hitoshi would walk down into the common room and find Midoriya shoving a plate at him with assurance that, “Don’t worry about it - I was just cooking, and I had leftovers, so, you know, haha…”
Iida had set up washing baskets outside each of the boys’ rooms which he collected daily and bundled into a giant wash together. Clearly he’d never had to wash clothes before, because a couple of Hitoshi’s shirts came back slightly pink as though they’d been washed together with red clothes, but the thought was what counted. Or at least it would, if it didn’t make Hitoshi so damn confused as to why Iida was still trying to help when he was terribly out of his depth with housework.
And housework - that was laughable, too. There were cleaners for the common room and the kitchen, and there weren’t any room checks, so there nobody ever tidied their rooms. Except maybe Iida. Hitoshi wouldn’t know, he hadn’t been in his room, but he remembered the moment Midoriya had walked into his room, paused for a second in shock, and claimed, “Woah! Your room’s so tidy, Shinsou!” Hitoshi had just raised an eyebrow at him and asked that they get on with the study session already.
Yeah. The study sessions. The boredom. The sleeping problem. In some stupid way, everything in Hitoshi’s life that he kept fucking up led back to the same principle. His brain just wouldn’t stop thinking.
So while he’d finally achieved all the things he’d wanted in middle school, he just seemed to come up with new goals. Some of which involved kissing the green-haired boy currently sitting on his bed, showing him his notes from Quirk History class.
“We kinda started this topic at the end of last year - in the textbook it starts after the first legally defined ‘heroes,’ did you get to that bit in your class?” Midoriya asked, cocking his head and looking up at Hitoshi expectantly.
But Hitoshi was busy studying the map of freckles across the other boy’s cheeks, imagining. Things. Things that he shouldn’t be imagining.
“Uh, yeah, well, no, just - a little bit.” Way to go. “It was in America, right?”
“Yup! And after that?”
“Well, the vigilantes who didn’t make the definition got arrested and the rest got licenses-“
“Do you remember the name of the judge who made the original ruling?”
Hitoshi stopped, trying to delve deep and find the answer, but Midoriya’s big green eyes were just so distracting. He opened and closed his mouth, still on a futile search to focus on the task at hand, eventually deciding that fuck it, I just want to look at his eyes some more, and shaking his head.
Midoriya cringed and fumbled with the notebook, coming up to the right page of notes. “Ah, that’ll definitely be on the test, youneedtoknowit - sorry!”
“Why are you sorry?” Hitoshi leaned closer to look at Midoriya’s handwriting, “If anything, I should be sorry. I’m giving you more work teaching me.”
“It’s no trouble! All Might told me the other day that teaching other helps you remember things better. So it’s a win-win!”
“Midoriya. You know this stuff off the top of your head. You don’t need to teach anyone.”
“Well - not quite -“
“Also, All Might was probably quoting the book on teaching that Aizawa threw in his face last week, so you should credit him for the idea.”
He huffed. “I want to help you because I want to get to know you better, too.”
Hitoshi’s eyes widened, because the little pout Midoriya was giving was just too cute. And then his brain finally caught up with what he’d just been told, and his eyebrows shot up his forehead.
“Wait, really? Are you sure?”
Midoriya turned his head to face Hitoshi full on, looking somewhere between annoyed and concerned with his eyebrows furrowed.
“Of course I’m sure! You’re actually a pretty cool guy, when we’re not being forced to fight in a tournament.” There was so much passion in Midoriya’s expression that Hitoshi couldn’t help but believe him. And then he realised just how close they were, and then he looked down and saw just how pretty Midoriya’s lips were, and then all the blood in his body rushed up to his face.
“Well. That’s news to me, I guess.” He attempted to sound a monotone as possible.
Hitoshi took his time to study Midoriya’s face up close, because he didn’t know when he’d get this opportunity again. He didn’t dare move in case Midoriya realised how their proximity was making Hitoshi feel and backed off disgusted - or worse, laughed at him for being so pathetic.
“You know, you acted all tough at the sports festival, but I don’t think you’re really like that, Shinsou.”
“You wouldn’t know. I’ve only been here for a week. I could be secretly plotting to kill you all.”
“I doubt it,” Midoriya told him, face shifting into a grin, “You don’t sleep enough to be a villain.”
“Huh?” Hitoshi narrowed his eyes in confusion.
“Yep! In the traditional sense, villains are defined as selfish and uncaring. I doubt someone who helps out stray cats in the middle of the night could be selfish.”
“How do you - of course.” Hitoshi sighed, remembering that his balcony was positioned right beside Midoriya’s. “It’s not a big thing, Jelly just jumped to my balcony from the tree and couldn’t figure out how to get down.”
It’d happened just the other night - he’d been watching HeroTube videos at 3am, and heard the meowing on his balcony. He’d let Jelly in as quickly as possible, trying not to disturb anyone, but it was now clear that it hadn’t worked.
“The cat has a name?”
“I help Aizawa feed the stray cats on campus in the mornings, it’s usually the same lot so I gave a couple of them names.”
“That’s definitely something a villain wouldn’t do!”
Hitoshi rolled his eyes. “I could be fattening them up to eat them.”
“Well, you’re not, so that’s not a good argument.”
“‘You’re not’ is not a good argument, either. Where’s your proof?”
“I wouldn't need proof. I trust you. You’re a good person.”
Hitoshi just kinda short-circuited. He felt like Kaminari looked after a powerful electric shock. And it was a shock, because -
“Nobody’s ever said that to me before.” he breathed, so quietly that if Midoriya hadn’t been just a few inches away - close, too close - he wouldn’t have heard it. But he was that close, and he did hear it, and he responded with a look of shock that mimicked Hitoshi’s own.
“Never?”
He didn’t have to respond, his silence was confirmation enough.
Hitoshi tried to look just about anywhere but Midoriya’s face. He didn’t want to see the disgusting pity he knew he’d find there.
But when Midoriya spoke up after a few moments of torturous quiet, he didn’t sound sympathetic. He sounded angry.
“Whoever you’ve been hanging out with are pretty rude, then.”
Hitoshi looked up again, surprised enough to automatically make eye contact - and once he was locked into those green eyes, he somehow couldn’t look away.
Midoriya didn’t wait for a response, continuing, “I get what that’s like. Feeling like everyone’s judging you for what you were born with, telling you that you’re one thing and you can’t be anything else. I also know how if feels to finally have someone who believes in you and your dreams.”
“But you - you have a great quirk. You could do whatever you want.” Hitoshi brain went through the rounds of confused, amazed, and feeling mercilessly out of his depth. He made an attempt to steel his expression.
“Ah. Well, I, uh,” Midoriya nervously rubbed the back of his neck, leaning back a minute amount that made Hitoshi yearn to have him close again (then mentally slap himself because this really is getting out if hand, damnit). “I was like - a really late bloomer. Some genetic mutation-y stuff and all that.”
“‘And all that?’”
“The point is, for most of my life I was quirkless. I mean, ah, to everyone around me, I was. And - well, a quirkless kid can’t be a hero, apparently. The kids at school weren’t… very nice.” Izuku made a strained smile, brushing it off.
And Hitoshi wouldn’t have understood it at the sports festival last year, when Midoriya had stood tall and proud in every battle, but looking at the nervous guy he’d come to know well over the past week, he could see how some little brats would take advantage of that kindness.
“But, then one day, someone finally said the words I’d wanted to hear - You can be a hero. And you know what, Shinsou?”
The distance he’d fallen back by rubbing his neck was suddenly reclaimed and then some. Hitoshi found that Midoriya’s face was so close, they were practically sharing breaths, and he could feel heat rising in his cheeks whether he wanted it to or not. He stared for a second, then realised that Midoriya was actually wanting a response.
“…What?”
“Let’s be heroes together.”