Chapter Text
“There are only patterns, patterns on top of patterns, patterns that affect other patterns. Patterns hidden by patterns. Patterns within patterns. If you watch close, history does nothing but repeat itself. What we call chaos is just patterns we haven't recognized. What we call random is just patterns we can't decipher. What we can't understand we call nonsense. What we can't read we call gibberish. There is no free will. There are no variables.”
-Chuck Palahniuk, Survivor
Hisoka didn’t expect to get a phone call at two in the morning, when he was having trouble falling asleep, and he certainly didn’t expect it to be a call from his dad.
“Okay, we’re going to have a talk about why you’re up at this time but it’s actually good that you are-”
“Spit it out, dad.” Hisoka deadpanned, sighing internally as he sat up in his bed.
“Right, um, I’m on my way to the hospital-” Hisoka’s eyes widened as his foggy mind suddenly cleared. “because your mother is currently in labor.”
Hisoka blinked as he slowly sat up in his bed. “She’s what now. Isn’t it a little too…”
“Soon? Yes. Three months too soon, but here we are and she’s in labor.”
“Yeah, hold that thought.”
Hisoka tossed his phone to the side after putting the call on speaker, and began to go through his drawers to find a shirt and pants. “Right, you can continue!” He said loudly towards the phone, yet not so loudly as to be mindful of his sleeping classmates next door.
“Oh, yes, um, we’re on our way to the hospital- NO!- sorry, that was your mother, she still refuses to believe she’s in labor even though she knows she is! Anyway, Mitsuo and his guardian are on their way to pick you up, we already called the school and you should really talk to your teacher about having a good sleep schedule. I honestly don’t know why you Yuuei people are up at this time maybe we should have a talk-”
Hisoka eyed his phone whilst pulling a shirt on. “At least now I know where I get the word vomiting from.” He muttered, putting an arm inside the sleeve of his leather jacket.
As ready as he could be at this time of day, or night, Hisoka plugged one earbud into his ear after connecting it to his phone. This way, his classmates shouldn’t be able to hear the phone call and he should be able to make less noise as he leaves the building.
He took the elevator, wincing at the loud ding in the silence of the building, and was in front of the dorm building within five minutes. Mr. Aizawa, eye bags showing clearly in the night as they do in the day, meets him and escorts him to the gate.
“Your absence will be excused, considering the circumstances,” He said to him, “So don’t worry about morning classes.”
“Thanks.” Hisoka replied quietly, and stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jacket.
Mituso’s car pulled in shortly after they arrived at the gate, and Mitsuo pulled him into the car after giving a lazy thumbs up to his homeroom teacher.
“We’re on our way.” He informed his dad, buckling his seatbelt, and closed the door as the car took off.
“That’s great, see you in two hours. We’re pulling into the emergency entrance so I’m going to hang up.”
“That’s fine…” Hisoka paused thoughtfully, and said in a softer tone, “Take care of mom.”
“Will do, kiddo.”
The call ended, and Mitsuo patted his arm to comfort him. Hisoka gave the slightest of a nod to his friend as his hands began to sweat.
“They’ll both be fine, dear.” Mitsuo’s foster mom smiled at him through the rearview mirror.
“Thank you, Mrs. Ishikawa.” Hisoka forced himself to smile back, and Mitsuo took Hisoka’s hand in his own to give it a squeeze.
They arrive at the hospital two hours and half later, due to traffic, and Hisoka is the first one out of the car and inside the hospital. He makes a straight line for the reception desk, and already has his mother’s room by the time Mitsuo and his guardian catch up.
Unfortunately, “I can’t go up.” Hisoka muttered as he took a seat in the waiting area, with Mitsuo following after him. “She’s still in labor.”
Mitsuo squeezed his shoulder in silent support, taking the seat next to him.
“Don’t you have school tomorrow?” Hisoka inquired after a minute or so of silence. “What are you even doing here?”
“Couldn’t let my best friend go without some emotional support.” Mitsuo replied honestly, and bumped his shoulder with Hisoka playfully. “Besides, I’m not the one with a two to three hour drive back to their school.”
Hisoka smiled, and thanked his friend quietly as he laid his head back.
Hisoka Nakahara has been attending Yuuei High since the spring, taking part in their famous hero course that everyone strived to get into when they were kids. It hasn’t been easy, far from it, and the world outside of the school hasn't gone out of its way to make it any easier for them.
Since the beginning of the school year, Hisoka’s class had been attacked by villains twice already and that wasn’t counting the encounters a few of his classmates had gone through alone. More often than not, one of his classmates was often at the center of those events.
Class 1-A’s resident problem child, Izuku Midoriya. Hisoka didn’t have any problems with Midoriya, exactly, but he did wish that the teen would stop stressing out him and their homeroom teacher with his self-sacrificing tendencies.
Moving on from Hisoka’s classmate, Hisoka has been working on improving both his control over his Quirk and his techniques. His Quirk is Vapor Manipulation and, well, gives him the power to manipulate the vapor in the air. To a certain degree, he can even control outside sources of liquid water.
Though his Quirk is an important factor in his life, as any Quirk is to the person who has it, Hisoka has his fair share of troubles within his small family. A family that was growing in number currently.
It’s now the month of December and, while his bond with his dad has been getting better after a heart-to-heart they had a few months ago, the bond with his mother hasn’t exactly worsened or gotten better. At the moment, it’s stagnant as neither side is willing to make a move to help the situation.
Hisoka is waiting for his mother to make a move, and doesn’t exactly want to be the one to reach out first. It wasn’t like he had anything to apologize for, and he wasn’t going to beg his mother to talk to him again.
Hisoka doesn’t know when he had finally drifted off into the realm of sleep, but he was soon being shook awake by Mitsuo who had a wide grin on his face.
“Guess what? You’re officially part of the older brother club, Hisoka.”
And so, when it was nearly eight in the morning that day, Hisoka Nakahara became the older brother to one Shunsui Nakahara.
His dad appeared to his right, looking tired with dark circles under his eyes.
Hisoka blinked his eyes harshly, stood up from his seat, and approached his dad. “Is she… are they?” He swallowed. “Are they both okay?”
Hisoka’s dad sighed, running a stressed hand through his messy hair. “The delivery was the easy part, the doctors told us.” He answered, voice speaking of his exhaustion. Hisoka wondered if his dad had slept since his wife had gone into labor. He figured the answer was no. “No one can see the baby, unfortunately, and the baby will have to be moved to the NICU.”
Hisoka nodded to show he was taking everything his father said in, and he tried not to show how scared he was for the baby… and his mother. His dad didn’t need his fear along with his own.
His dad slumped into a seat, and hung his head between his knees. Hisoka tentatively took the seat next to his dad, and barely heard Mitsuo telling him he was going to find a vending machine to get some food and drinks.
“The baby wasn’t breathing, Hisoka.” His dad muttered quietly, and Hisoka nearly missed what he said. “He wasn’t breathing when he was born.”
Hisoka was back at school by lunch time, but ended up going back to the dorms to change into his uniform. Then, instead of joining the other students in the cafeteria, he decided to eat in the dorms.
By the time he was finished getting ready, had eaten and gotten himself a cup of coffee, it was time for his foundational hero studies class.
The plan was to rejoin his class, unnoticed, and hope that they wouldn’t ambush him with questions about why he missed half the day. He wasn’t, so to speak, ashamed or scared of telling them why he missed their morning classes. He just wanted some peace.
Of course, he shouldn’t have hoped to go unnoticed by his excitable classmates.
“Nakahara!”
“Hey, he’s here? Where have you been, man?”
“Yeah, Mr. Aizawa said you had a family emergency! Is everything okay?”
Hisoka sighed to himself as he took his seat, and waited for the flow of questions from his classmates to cease. “Yes, it was a family emergency. No, nobody died.” Is what he would have left them with, if not for their dead stares. “Someone was born,” He continued finally, and averted his eyes. “My little brother, to be exact.”
“No way! You never told us your mom was expecting!”
“You never asked.”
“Congrats, man!”
“Do you have pictures?”
Hisoka glanced at the clock, noted that they had around five minutes before class was due to start, and sighed. “Yeah, I do.” He took out his phone, and started showing them the pictures his dad had taken. Hisoka had sent them to Aya and Mitsuo.
“He’s so small!”
“Babies are literally the cutest thing!”
“Hey, um, not to be mean or anything, but is he supposed to be that small?” Someone noted hesitantly, and the others began to take notice of the small nature of the newborn. No one mentioned the obvious medical equipment that was attached to the newborn.
Hisoka was handed back his phone as he bit the inside of his cheek. “Um, no… he was born premature. Extremely premature… he was supposed to be due in March, actually.” He admitted, looking at his desk. “It’s why it was a family emergency…”
The room went quiet, and Hisoka sent everyone to their seats after they gave him their sympathies. Premature babies don’t exactly have the highest survival rate, after all.
Mr. Aizawa walked into the room not a second after the bell rang, and nodded at Hisoka. “We’re having a special class today,” The class tensed. “so go change. The changes to your costume for the winter have been made, and are ready. When you’re done changing, meet me at Ground Gamma.”