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Hitoshi was used to pain. He was abused from the moment he came into this world, practically. His parents didn’t have the best relationship, and they took it out on him. It only got worse when his quirk developed. But, after nearly 17 years of it, he was used to it. Sure, his classmates weren’t so bad about it anymore, but he still had to deal with verbal and psychological abuse at home. And, occasionally, the physical kind.
In short, he was used to it.
Things hit the breaking point one Thursday night. For some reason, they were particularly violent that night. They assigned him to take care of the kitchen, clean it, have it practically spotless, in an unreasonable amount of time. Normally, it wouldn’t be a problem, but he was sore that day from training with Aizawa-sensei. So, when he still had a couple of dishes to wash and the counter to wipe down by the time he was supposed to be done, the Old Man got mad. He was furious with Hitoshi.
“We let you stay here, under our roof, give you food, clothes, an education, and this is how you repay us? By slacking off?”
There was a sharp slap to his cheek, so hard it brought tears to Hitoshi’s eyes. The Old Man didn’t like that.
“You’re such a wimp. I barely even touched you and you start bawling. I’ll give you something to cry about.”
Hitoshi didn’t remember a lot of what happened after that, but when he came too, his parents were being led away by the police, and there was a teacher next to him. His teacher. Aizawa-sensei had been called in to help. There was a worried look in his eyes, and Hitoshi couldn’t figure out why. He didn’t register the pain until he tried to sit up, and the sharp pain from his sides made him choke.
“Whoa, kid, don’t try and sit up yet. You’ve got a lot of injuries.” “You’ve got several broken ribs, plus a couple hairline fractures in your legs. You’ve also got innumerable bruises, old and new. How are you still awake?”
Hitoshi shook his head. “I’m used to it, Sensei, I’m fine.”
His teacher’s eyes widened. “You’ve got several broken ribs, plus a couple hairline fractures in your legs, not to mention the very likely concussion. You’ve also got innumerable bruises, old and new. How are you still awake?”
Hitoshi didn’t know how to answer that, and so just sat there, propped against a wall with his teacher.
When the ambulance got there to take him to the hospital, Hitoshi was on the verge of falling asleep again. He sat upright at the sound of the sirens, and stood up, with the help of Aizawa, to walk over to the ambulance.
As he was set into the ambulance, he caught sight of the media there, and dimly heard one of the officers explain it was a domestic abuse case. He was too out of it to really register what that meant though, and laid down in the back of the ambulance gratefully.
___________
Hours later, he was in a hospital bed, resting. He was almost asleep when he heard his family name from the TV.
“...Mr. and Mrs. Shinso have both been arrested on account of child abuse and neglect. Their son, a member of the second year hero course at UA High School, is currently in the hospital recovering. He is expected to make a full recovery with time and rest. Luckily, the police got there just in time to save the kid. A statement from one of the officers on the scene claims the kid would’ve likely died if they’d gotten there any later.”
Hitoshi tuned it out and stared at the bedsheets in shock. Killed? No, he would’ve been fine. They were just mad at him, they wouldn’t have killed him. He was fine!
But was he?
___________
When he got out a few days later, he was informed that Aizawa had used his rights as a hero to temporarily take custody of Hitoshi. As they were walking home, he got a lot of sympathetic glances from people. Guess his picture had been in that news report.
Eventually, someone made a snide comment.
“Enjoy your new fame, kid. It won’t last.”
Normally, Hitoshi would’ve walked right past him, but something in him was just done. Done with people making assumptions, done with people assuming they knew who he was, just because his parents hit him. He turned to the man.
“You really think I wanted this? You think I asked for my parents to hit me? You’re dumber than you look if that’s true. Spoiler, no one wants to be abused. So stop making assumptions based on something small.”
As he turned to leave, he heard the man mutter, “Geez. Some people get five seconds of fame, and they think they own the world.”
Something in Hitoshi snapped at that. “Five seconds?!? How could I, in just five seconds, tell a story of seventeen years of pain?! You really think I asked for my parents, the people who were supposed to love and care for me, to call me useless, worthless, a villain, for seventeen frickin years ?!? You really are an idiot. Leave. Me. ALONE.”
He turned around and wiped away his tears as he raced to catch up with his teacher.
___________
A couple weeks later, he realized that, eventually, he would have to go somewhere else. His teachers wouldn’t take care of him forever, after all. They had 5 cats for goodness sake. He spent the days expecting for them to tell him to pack up his stuff, that he was leaving, and his anxieties only got worse every day they didn’t.
However, his fears were proven wrong when one day, close to the start of summer break, they slid him a stack of papers at breakfast. When he saw what was on them, he was confused.
They were adoption papers.
Surely they didn’t really want to, right? He looked up at them in confusion.
“We want you to have a family. Besides, Sho’s already gotten attached to you.”
It took a bit of convincing, but Hitoshi became part of the family. And he was pretty happy.