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“You're a long way from Yuuei, blondie.” Hitoshi catches the intruder’s attention, shifting up from his contented perch on the fire escape of the random building he’d settled in the shade of, already knowing his plans to relax until the sun went down and he had to go back out and get more food are no longer viable, with this new variable entering the situation.
The Yuuei student jumps, not having noticed Hitoshi before, and whips around, rapidly assembling a mask of a calmer expression and posture.
“Rogue teleportation quirk.” Monoma dismisses, shoulders down and back straight, standing out that much more from his surroundings in his formal clothes and clean white shoes.
“Could've done worse, I guess.” Hitoshi shrugs, landing hard as he drops off the fire escape.
“Could've done a lot better too,” He grimaces at their immediate surroundings. “This place is a dump.” He’s not wrong, it’s a mess of litter and rubble in most places, dilapidated buildings that haven’t been regularly occupied in many years wilting as the maintenance demands aren’t being met.
Nature will fully overtake it eventually, but for now it’s an urban mess, to say the least.
“It’s structurally unsound.'' Hitoshi explains casually, ever succinct, and Monoma stiffens slightly, relaxed expression staling as he looks around.
The strongest earth shaking quirk on record tends to do that. “People aren't supposed to be here.” Hitoshi adds as he lands hard after jumping down to street level.
“Then why are you?” Monoma questions him next, allowing Hitoshi to pull him into the alley enough to be obscured from most of the street as he answers,
“Same reason everyone else is. they're running from the heroes and or, have nowhere else to go.” For some, it’s worth the risk.
“Are you a villain?” That is a valid question to ask, given the circumstance and how he’s dressed, so Hitoshi doesn’t take offense.
“You have no reason to believe whatever answer I give.” Hitoshi points out, seizing control through the connection formed from their exchange thus far and explaining, “But you can trust me, because while I could've taken you for everything you're worth and then sold you back to your rich school,”
When he lets go, Monoma inhales sharply and steps back, shoulders hiked up as he prepares for an attack that isn’t coming. “I haven’t. Though most will, so if you're gonna make it to the edge, you're gonna need help.” It’s a coin toss whether he’ll accept this fact or not, given how much pressure is on heroes to be independently strong.
People have looked down on the Wild Wild Pussycats for staying a team for so long, it’s toxic and exhausting, but Monoma doesn’t outright reject Hitoshi, questioning,
“And you intend to?” Hitoshi dips his head in a nod, and Monoma's gaze narrows in suspicion. “Why? What do you stand to gain from helping me that you couldn't simply take now?” Well, at least he's not a total idiot.
“I get to avoid having your death on my conscience.” Hitoshi admits truthfully, and Monoma scoffs like he's briefly choking on a fly before declaring,
"I'm not going to die here, I can handle myself.” Despite this Hitoshi saw the brief flash of doubt and panic when Hitoshi implied he wouldn’t make it out of here alive, and doesn't get too annoyed about the defensive stance he takes.
It’s not willful naivety, it's a facade.
“Pretty much everything about this place wants you dead, or worse.” Hitoshi informs him gravely. “It was insanely lucky you ran across me before anyone else. Now you can either listen to me, or risk your pride getting you killed if I’m not fast enough to intervene when something inevitably happens as you wander around trying to find the edge.” Ultimatum issued, Hitoshi pockets his hands as Monoma struggles between acting smart or looking competent.
“Very well.” He sighs.
“Good.” Hitoshi nods once. ”Now ditch the jacket and the tie.”
“No.” Comes the immediate rebuttal, and Hitoshi resists the urge to sigh, as it's not worth the pain in his ribs.
“You look too rich.” Hitoshi offers in reasoning with another resisted sigh. “I have sway, but not that much.” The coattails and bright blue of his tie will be too telling, and while grumbling about it Monoma complies, and once he's suitably roughed up to blend in they set off, Hitoshi ignoring the whining about his 'ruined' shoes.
“So, when are you gonna say, ‘We oughta be out of here by sundown or things'll get nasty.’?” Monoma dropping his voice to mimic Hitoshi's almost brings a smile to his face, but then he comprehends the words being said and replies,
“Never? This place is just as dangerous at any time of day, heroes rarely come here anymore.” he explains, and Monoma's eyebrows shift to signal he's frowning under the facemask.
“Don't they know it’s full of criminals?”
“The buildings here are too unreliable to house any villain organizations, any base stands a chance of sinking into the ground and getting flattened by the next building over.” Hitoshi explains patiently. “If they know some kind of deal is going down they’ll show up to intervene, but aside from that they just put up a fence with warnings and let the problem solve itself.”
“Huh.” Monoma responds, largely in his own thoughts, which is fine, Hitoshi has been watching his own back for long enough if Monoma stays close enough he can keep them both safe from any projectiles.
A few buildings later the silence is broken again. “Your quirk, what is it?” Which was inevitable, really.
“Brainwashing.” There’s no use in trying to hide it, that would just increase the likelihood Monoma jumped him to try and take it. “And no, you can’t copy it.”
“I most certainly can, it's an emitter.” Hitoshi rolls his eyes at being intentionally misunderstood, clarifying anyway,
“As in, I won't let you.”
“What, you don't trust me?” Monoma protests, reminding him, ”I’m trusting you.”
“You don't have a choice.” Hitoshi reminds him back. “And if you copy it, odds are all you’ll do is accidentally brainwash me and we’ll be stuck until you time out.” He guesses, to which Monoma takes offence, conveying said offense with a noise before smoothing the ruffled metaphorical feathers and saying,
“Still, from what I've experienced, it's a pretty useful quirk.” Hitoshi glances at Monoma to check for sincerity, figuring it's false charm to try and sway Hitoshi into his favor.
Sure enough, “I’d like it in my arsenal.” Follows shortly after, and Hitoshi scowls..
“You share that sentiment with at least half a dozen villain groups and the HPSC itself.” He grumbles, hoping that’ll get him to shut up, and almost believes it does.
Then the blissful silence is broken less than a minute later.
“And yet you’re, here?” Monoma questions, clarifying a moment later, “Unaffiliated?”
“I don't take orders well.” Hitoshi hedges, hoping to drop it, but Monoma suggests as expected,
“Why not give them?”
“Too much effort.” Is the answer he settles on after a bit of pause, and that's the end of that, it seems.
Given Hitoshi now doesn't have to avoid the sight of any passing heroes doing a quick flyover for any easy trespassing prey, he has them walk down the middle of the street, their proximity signalling to any onlookers the stranger is Hitoshi's, and fucking with them will have consequences.
The street is arguably safer, tremor-wise, that being said it's also been walked on much less than other places, and it's not long before the ground unexpectedly shifts under their feet.
“Whats-ah!” One arm wraps around Monoma's waist and the other yanks on the section of scarf that shot out from under Hitoshi's jacket with a hiss of fabric on fabric to anchor on a nearby lamppost he'd mentally registered as viable to use in the potential situation that could, and now is, occuring.
Said lamppost tips over as the ground falls out from under it once they're atop the building beyond it, thankfully no longer in use, and Hitoshi continues to step away across the roof as the capture weapon recedes once more, prepared to make further escape efforts.
The building they're on doesn't go down as well, and he joins Monoma at the far edge as things go silent.
“Good lord.” He pants, eyes wide as he waits tensely for more mayhem to appear.
“I don't know what part of structurally unsound you were lost on,” Hitoshi trails off, morphing his grin into a smirk at the biting look Monoma gives him in response, eyes narrowed and hands on his hips.
Once they’re back on street level their trek continues, Monoma regaling him with tales of his classmates' triumphs and idiosyncrasies, shadows elongating steadily yet imperceptibly.
Though, it's only a matter of time before someone clocks Hitoshi willingly spending time with someone and figuring out it means they need protection, making them valuable.
Potentially valuable enough to risk trying to take.
“Well well, who’s this?” Monoma had smartly fallen silent as the strangers started pouring out of the woodworks.
“Mine.” Hitoshi says, keeping up his stride as Kuroyima approaches.
“Hey now, no need to pull out the claws just yet, I’m just curious.” The brunet claims, hands splayed in faux innocence.
“Be curious from afar, we’ve got places to be.” A flash in his peripheral precedes the slight whistle of an approaching arrow, which Hitoshi catches with little trouble, snapping it in half with his hands once it’s no longer about to slice through his neck.
Hitoshi knows while this will anger the archer, as arrows aren't to be wasted, it will send the message this person is more important to Hitoshi than they're thinking, and the group cuts their losses and backs off, settling back down.
“Yeah, the matching snake logos were kind of a red flag.” Monoma mutters once they're out of earshot. “I thought villains didn't organize here?”
“Those aren't villains, per say. Just people with nowhere else to go seeking asylum or company.” Hitoshi clarifies. “Like a family, but some are more comfortable with murder than most.” Having people to watch your six and be on guard for shifting terrain or approaching heroes is valuable, but Hitoshi is too distrusting to join any of them.
“So is this place like, divided up amongst the groups?” He asks, eyes glinting with excitement at the prospect of being in an environment with strict territory claims.
“Some buildings are claimed, but the streets are generally fair game, unless someone is already there.” Hitoshi is pretty sure he’ll get tired of explaining eventually, and decides not to think about how strange it is he hasn’t by now, as chatty kids don't get this level of interaction unless he's actively trying to keep them from crying or panicking. “At the end of the day the top dog is the ground itself.” Hitoshi gives a sweeping gesture to the sinkhole they're coming up on. “Any of this could be swallowed up in seconds, so there’s not really any use in infighting.” That being said, cross the wrong person and you will be put in your place, but most people leave everyone else here alone.
Unless they’re very obviously a vulnerable heroics student, worth a lot to Yuuei and a lot more to some people that are far less nice.
“Just out of curiosity, what was the heroics practical exam for Yuuei like?” He’s always wondered if his guess was right, or if avoiding it was a waste of time entirely.
“Robots.” Hitoshi's strained exhale might be mistaken for a laugh, but he definitely isn’t fighting a rueful grin as he says,
“Glad I chose Shiketsu then.” Immediately regretting sharing that bit of information as the new most interesting fact is latched onto.
“You're a Shiketsu student?” And Hitoshi then has to prompt more questions by not getting trapped in a lie that will be found out eventually, explaining vaguely,
“Not anymore.”
“Cryptic." Monoma notes. "Care to share?”
“No.” Hitoshi would feel bad for being so harsh if he really didn’t want to talk about it.
Thankfully, Monoma picks up on this and doesn’t push further.
“Fine, then I will.”
And he does, with an impressive ability to find endless things to speak about until eventually, it's nearly pitch black outside.
This place doesn't have power, so the streetlamps and such are mostly decoration at this point, but the sliver of moonlight is enough for Hitoshi.
Not Monoma though, he trips and goes down hard halfway through making fun of awase for his continued crush on a refined lesbian from class A.
Again, the urge to laugh rises in Hitoshi's chest, and he doesn't fight it, exhaling a little more harshly as he reaches down and grabs Monoma by the upper arm to pull him back up.
“You good?” Hitoshi chuckles, having guessed this would happen eventually.
“Of course I-.” His scramble to recover his dignity is cut off by a distinctly undignified noise of pain, and Hitoshi's grin drops immediately.
“You fuck something up?” He voices, scanning like it’ll be visually obvious, but Monoma waves him off.
“No, I’m fine.” And yet, his shoulders hike up when he puts weight on his left foot, and Hitoshi sighs, catching him by the sleeve, ordering,
“Sit down, let me see if it's broken.” Though not resorting to his quirk just yet, he will give Monoma a chance to obey willfully.
“It’s fine-.” He tries anyway, much to Hitoshi's chagrin.
“You don't know that, your brain is lying to you.” While he does complain about the impossibility of that due to the fact he is his brain, Monoma complies and sinks to the floor, weight back on his other foot.
Shoe removed and pant leg rolled up, Hitoshi pulls out a pretty old but still functioning keychain light and pokes at the rapidly bruising skin, feeling for what gives and recalling if it should or shouldn’t.
The reactions from Monoma help too, even if everyone;s pain tolerance levels are different, and hitosh decides to air on the side of caution and declares, “Yep, you're fucked. Come on, it's safer to be on a roof.”
“We don't have to stop, we can’t be that far from the edge.” If they were in a normal city, they wouldn’t be, but rerouting around various sinkholes or collapsed buildings doubled their time, and it's still at least an hour and a half of walking, which doing both in the dark and on an already bad leg will only lead to disaster.
Thus, Hitoshi helps Monoma hop up several flights of stairs of a building with a rooftop nobody else would likely use, as even though the weather is nice not many can afford to be so visible to passing heroes.
They're hoping that happens, so Hitoshi wraps Monoma's ankle, feeds him some over the counter painkillers and shows him how the hood of the hoodie he's wearing is padded to make sleeping easier.
“What if the building falls?” Monoma remembers, like he'd forgotten what the occasional far off rumbling meant.
“Then I’ll grab you and jump off before we go down with it.” Hitoshi explains, as that extra few seconds to react before they're underground is why they're on a roof in the first place.
“And then we’ll be meat pancakes instead of buried, cool.” Monoma snarks, probably to cover his newfound panic.
“We’ll survive the fall with this, like last time.” Hitoshi pulls his jacket open and shifts a loop of scarf out, and Monoma kicks to sit up, which isn’t advised and he winces before he blurts,
“Is that, capture weapon?” Grabbing at it before it can disappear again, and Hitoshi returns with his own question.
“You recognize it?” Hitoshi had assumed he was oblivious to Eraserhead's existence, like most civilians and heroes, though this clearly isn’t true.
“Of course I do, but I thought it was unique to Eraserhead.”
“You didn't say anything last time I used it.” “I was too busy not falling to my death, at the time.” Monoma snarks. “back to how you're doing that?” He points at the capture weapon as it moves back under his jacket, safe from anyone who might come across them and mistake him for the hero or assume alliance with him.
Which happened one too many times, and Hitoshi is smarter now.
“His hair floats. My hair floats.” Hitoshi shrugs, and Monoma stares at him like there’s going to be more.
Hitoshi stares back.
“Yes, that answer was wholly satisfying and needs no further elaboration whatsoever.” The sarcasm is almost literally dripping from his words, yet he still feels the need to add, "I'm kidding- seriously how do you move it like that? How does he move it?” In his inquisition all pretense of superiority and the suave ‘I don't really care’ attitude is dropped, staring intently.
“I don't know.” Hitoshi admits, wishing he had more to share. “All I know is I can, so I do.”
“Maybe he's related to you somehow.” Monoma theorizes, startling himself and barking out a laugh. “God, I sound like Todoroki.” A reference to something Hitoshi wasn’t present for, but he knows that name at least, guessing,
“Endeavors kid?”
“Yeah. I thought he was stuck up but turns out it's because he's just insanely sheltered.” Monoma recites, settling back against the AC unit, injured leg outstretched in front of him carefully.
“Son of a top ten hero,” Hitoshi puts together. “It was that or get kidnapped every other weekend.”
"I'm just glad he's not in my class, his quirk might be powerful but it is not worth the necessary proximity.” Monoma gripes
“You got beef with number one’s kid?” Hitoshi guesses. “What, did he spill juice on your favorite blazer at some random rich person party?” Everything about Monoma had reeked of the brand of rich kid resulting in a young adult terrified to not live up to expectations set for them and combatting that fear with over the top confidence, and yet,
“While I’m flattered you got the impression I come from money, I’m a foster kid, and not one of those ones wealthy people pick up to flex on other rich people.” Despite his status in the hero course, evidently.
“I was too.” Hitoshi shares before thinking, surprising himself, but he wouldn’t take it back, given the slight anxiety of being judged disappears from Monoma’s features.
“You aged out?” Given he recently admitted to being homeless it's not that much of a jump to make, and Hitoshi informs him,
“Being sixteen and not enrolled in a high school, I’m no longer entitled to free housing.”
“That's ass, someone should change that rule.” Monoma huffs, slumping back into his relaxed position against both the useless ac unit behind him and Hitoshi, and despite having an equally nonexistent ability to follow through with that plan, Hitoshi hums in agreement.
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Sleeping in a place like this under normal circumstances isn’t easy, especially not for someone with pre-existing sleeping problems, and Hitoshi is so light of a sleeper he almost never does, dozing lightly when possible, but all it takes is the slightest signal anything is amiss to snap him awake.
Which is good, because even just a few seconds of warning can make or break a fight, and Hitoshi is on his feet when the ambush springs into action.
The group that had figured out Monoma's market value and decided to try their hand at aquiring it are smart enough to be silent but haven't picked up on the fact nonverbal communication works as well, and Hitoshi holds his position fending off their attackers to keep them from dragging Monoma off.
Their rudimentary combat abilities using the advantage of size and numbers aren’t enough to overwhelm Hitoshi normally, but protecting someone else does change things, though Monoma isn’t taking this lying down, on one foot and throwing hands despite not having a quirk at his disposal.
Huh, didn't see that coming.
They aren't successfully separated, Hitoshi shoves the last one standing off a building and hears him bounce almost all the way back up when turning to scan for any stragglers.
It seems they realized pretty quickly it wasn’t a fight they could win once they didn't have the element of surprise and left of their own accord within a minute or two, which leaves the two of them panting slightly and on high alert.
They didn't bail before getting some good licks in though, and while thrumming with adrenaline Hitoshi knows the hits that had landed will leave bruises later.
Nothing he can’t handle though, and Hitoshi steps to Monoma, breaking the tense silence after a long pause of waiting for the sounds of a second attack to ask,
“You alright?” The pause suggests he's assessing, or about to lie.
Maybe both.
“Depends on how much this is bleeding.” He settles on after a moment, pulling up his sleeve with a grimace.
The shirt under his ridiculous coat had been full sleeved, and Hitoshi doesn't need extra light to see the white staining red on his forearm.
Settling back down, Hitoshi produces further first aid supplies, moving gingerly about the wound as he goes through the process of assessing to determine what course of action needs to be taken again, this time instead of just watching him do it Monoma holds the light and scans for approaching figures in the dark.
“This probably needs stitches, but not direly, so we’ll leave it up to a medical professional for now.” Hitoshi relays after a bit more getting blood everywhere. “Also this will sting, but don't move."
“I’m not a child.” Monoma huffs, and Hitoshi pretends not to see how the muscles in his arm and hand tense with each swipe of the disinfectant, or hear the occasional sharp inhales.
Wrapping it in gauze, taping that down, Hitoshi puts more protection on it in the form of a handkerchief, and they settle down again, as moving locations would be more effort than it's worth and the likelihood of a second attack now that they're more on guard is much lower.
Monoma doesn’t try to go back to sleep, which is for the best, going from high stress to unconsciousness isnt easy and its best to gradually come down from the natural high.
“I know more than I ever thought I would about class B, but not much on class A.” Hitoshi prompts, figuring talking will tire him out and he’s carried their conversations thus far, and gets a lackluster but still strongly opinionated response of,
“Because they’re bastards.” Which is unexpected, because Hitoshi thought it was just a matter of lack of interaction.
“Hm.” Hitoshi stalls slightly, being a bit more elaborate than he usually is in continuing. “As a rule I try not to judge based on such an arbitrary classification as class placement, so I’m gonna need more than that if you want me on your side in this.” Fully prepared to start guessing, but Monoma inhales deeply, focus largely on the ratty cuff of the dark green hoodie covering his pristine white button up as he begins.
“They just, they were the ones attacked at the USJ, and they all got so much attention from that. They have an additional heroics teacher on top of the one they already got, All Might himself, for some fucking reason, so then they fucking swept the sports festival, and none of my class made it into the third round and we barely got any offers for internships while bakugou got to act like a child and still have half the agencies in the city ready to let him cause property damage in their name and ugh!” Listening to his rapidly increasing frustration as he elaborates is mildly entertaining, reading between the lines isn’t too difficult either.
A classic competition driven jealousy covering the underlying building stress of being in heroics situation. “And then their, main character-ness almost got a lot of us killed because villains came and kidnapped Bakugou, but he wasn't even gone for two full fucking days before all might barged in to go save him and pretty much died in the process, which means him and the idiots who went and tried to do better than the professionals in rescuing him got even more popular in everyone's eyes. Like, look, it's those Yuuei kids that are basically already heroes, aren’t they so great? Its like they think their actions won't have consequences, like it’s not incredibly easy to get someone killed.” Monoma’s words are accompanied by wild gesticulation from his arms, which isn’t the best thing to do while trying to heal a serious knife wound, so Hitoshi takes the opportunity to grab Monoma’s injured arm by the hand, keeping it captive in his gloved ones.
“To be fair, they probably haven’t gotten someone killed yet so the fact they even can hasn’t registered yet.” Hitoshi counters, though not totally against him in this argument.
Childish naivety is only charming for so long.
“Well I don't feel like dying for their character development, and if it has to be one of my friends, they’re going with them.” Monoma seethes, and Hitoshi figures he’s got a point. “The worst part is, it doesn’t even matter to them. They almost got murdered by actual villains, and a week later they’re duking it out on live television like nothing happened.” Ah, so there’s an element of personal insecurity as well.
It's not like the media likes to talk about the mental health consequences of working as a hero, a lot of newer heroes are oblivious to those consequences and convince themselves they're the only ones with those issues, and that they shouldn't be having them at all, that they're a sign of weakness.
“I doubt you have the full picture.” Monoma picks his head up to stare questioningly at Hitoshi. “They might just be really good at holding face. Or maybe the second shoe hasn’t dropped yet, and their panic spiral is scheduled for later.” He elaborates, pausing to gather his thoughts and avoid coming off in a way he doesn’t intend. “Also, attention from the media is a double edged sword. I guarantee you a lot of them wish they weren’t in the spotlight so early on.”
“Yeah well, it’s easier to indiscriminately hate them.” Monoma grumbles in his way of admitting Hitoshi is right.
“Easier doesn’t always equal better.” Hitoshi chastises anyway. “Some level of rivalry is good, but it’s good to know where the lines are and which ones not to cross, before someone introduces you to the age old adage of, talk shit get hit.” Saying this and holding the sage-like tone brings a laugh from Monoma, who shakes against Hitoshi as he badly muffles it.
Hitoshi finds himself wishing he wouldn’t, it’s a nice laugh, much better than the exaggerated forced one he’s heard before.
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Despite needing to take most of Monoma’s weight for the last leg on their journey to the edge, they manage to do without further threats on their lives, and eventually they arrive at the chain link fence riddled with warnings to stay out.
Hitoshi reaches through the fence to pull the already bent section further open, gesturing to it and saying,
“Ladies first.” Monoma audibly groans with an exaggerated eye roll as he lowers to wiggle through, commenting,
“Truly, the pinnacle of comedy.” And Hitoshi grins, hoping it doesn’t come out too fucked up still.
He hasn’t been muzzled in a long time, but it’ll take a while to undo the years of learning to not be expressive lest he break skin on the rough plastic or metal holding his jaw shut.
Monoma makes it through with little trouble and pulls himself back up with the help of the chain link, huffing as he dusts off the dirt uselessly.
“Good luck with heroics.” Hitoshi says in parting, ignoring how his stomach sinks as he turns away, probably for the last time,
“Wait,” And how he immediately stops, entirely dismissing the rational part of him telling him to not get further involved with this guy. “You're not coming with me?” He watches Monoma realize that was particularly openly sentimental but doesn't leave him time to backtrack, pointing out,
“The ground isn’t going to swallow you anymore.” Probably. “You’ll be fine.” Hitoshi does say this more for himself than anything, knowing the longer he spends with this loveable asshole of a heroics student the harder it will be to walk away.
“Fine?” Monoma challenges, bravado back in full force. “I’m still at risk of villain attacks, how could you in good conscience abandon an innocent civilian in their time of need?” Contrary to what he’d like to believe, Hitoshi’s hesitance is not talking himself into helping despite largely not wanting to, it's failing to do the opposite.
“You're lucky you're cute.” The blush that appears on Monoma's face is worth it, in his book, and Hitoshi scales the fence at a normal speed, thank you very much.
Being among steadily more people as the city wakes up puts Hitoshi on edge, as he's just as likely to be jumped but it's not as easy to see it coming with all the red herring sounds.
But looking visibly nervous makes him more suspicious so Hitoshi tries not to as he navigates them to the nearest police station, taking a good portion of Monoma's weight as he is still rocking the fucked up ankle.
“Wait, that train line is the one that leads to Yuuei.” Monoma clocks after they get into the subway by using the emergency exit that has had it's alarm long since deactivated. “My stop is literally like, two streets from school.”
“That's a two hour train ride to cut a block off your walk.” Hitoshi outlines, but Monoma is insistent.
“Yes but it's sitting down.” He points out, and Hitoshi can be aware of the fact saying no to Monoma is worryingly difficult, and also semi-contentedly ignore it.
“Have fun then.” Again, Hitoshi offers a clean break, and again, Monoma doesn’t take it.
“Obviously you're coming with me.” He declares, and a tension Hitoshi hadn’t noticed until it was gone disappears, but he still drawls,
“And why am I doing that?” Just as confident Monoma will continue his coercion attempts as Monoma is that Hitoshi is going to agree.
“Firstly, to keep me company on this train ride, and secondly, I plan to repay you for your kindness. I can’t stand being indebted.” Hitoshi has no idea what Monoma has in mind for repayment, and doesn’t really care.
“I’d say don't worry about it, but I doubt that will accomplish much.” Hitoshi sighs, and Monoma grins, standing a bit taller in viewing his success.
“And you’d be right.” It's not like he had any plans anyway, surely nothing bad will come from indulging Monoma just a bit more.
They settle a train car that won’t have a lot of traffic once the train headed in the right direction arrives, and due to the hour they're entirely alone, aside from another raggedly dressed person who’s dead to the world, if not just dead.
They’d smell worse if they were dead, so probably not.
Now that he’s going to be here and they’re prolonging his arrival at a hospital, Hitoshi deigns to check the slice Monoma is rocking right now, as while he doesn't look like he has an infected cut, he may still be actively dying without Hitoshi noticing.
The cut isn’t visibly infected, but it bled way more than expected, and Hitoshi winds up putting in a few stitches with butterfly bandages before wrapping it with the last of his first aid kit.
“I know you said you didn't want to talk about it, but I am still curious about what happened with Shiketsu.” In all their time together, most of it has been Monoma infodumping about his classmates with the occasional hint of the less lighthearted details about his life; Hitoshi participating while skillfully dodging revealing anything about himself or the topic staying on him for very long.
It’s only fair he gives up some details, given how much he knows about Monoma and class B at this point.
“I noticed Yuuei’s heroics graduates having primarily strong physical quirks to try and guess what kind of entrance exam they used, and instead of applying to gen ed and trying to win the sports festival to transfer in, I looked for a school with an entrance exam I could pass.” Hitoshi begins, knowing he won't get away with a rapid summary of the important parts, doubing he'll be able to handle questions, being forced to recognize the fact he's saying this to another person and not a stray cat.
“The festival would put a spotlight on you, that you couldn't afford.” Monoma guesses when Hitoshi doesn’t immediately continue, again showing he picks up more than most would think. “Your quirk is conditional to a verbal response right?” They hadn’t spoken much of quirks, and yet he's right on the money.
As expected from someone who needs to be able to understand other quirks on the fly to use his with any amount of success.
“Verbal is easier, a facial reaction can let me hold them in place, but not give commands.” He'd rather spill secrets about his quirk than his past to a borderline stranger, but Monoma reroutes them right after anyway.
“So you chose Shiketsu?” Accepting his fate, Hitoshi nods.
“I had to go big if I wanted an agency to take a chance on me. I figured if I could muscle my way into a top school via acing their exam, their name alone would get me where I needed to to succeed in my hero career.” Granted he wasn’t mysteriously murdered or unjustly expelled before graduation, but neither of those had the chance to happen.
After a slight pause to quell the rise in bitterness, tongue running along his teeth, Hitoshi says, “I got in. Top score in the practical and written exam, even if they made me retake the written for suspicion of cheating.” It’ll be in their records forever that the villain kid out-performed everyone else in his year, unless someone went in and changed it to scrub their database clean of any trace of him.
Which is probably what happened, but it's not like it matters either way. “My classmates didn't like me, but I expected that.
Some we’re more aggressive about it, most avoided me at all costs, and that I could handle. Shiketsu is monitored well enough that they couldn't get away with any false claims I’d tried to use my quirk on them, so despite my teacher wanting me gone they couldn't do so unless I gave them good reason.” And Hitoshi is the king of looking nonthreatening, keeping his mouth shut and staying in proximity of adults or cameras that can’t lie about his actions.
Not to mention, at that level errant quirk use would warrant the involvement of police before expulsion, and they couldn't risk being found out as liars. “I could've handled all that. I never needed friends before, I would've gotten what I needed and graduated eventually, things would've gotten better.” He could choose who he spent time with, who knew about his quirk, forge real relationships without the looming stress of his capabilities tingeing everything with an edge of threat.
He’d be licensed, recognized as a hero, public or underground would’ve had it's pros and cons but he'd be able to roll with whatever came.
It could’ve been so great.
“But?” Monoma's gentle questioning brings him out of the horrid spiral of reminiscing on just what was taken from him, and Hitoshi sighs slowly, sitting back into the seat before reciting,
“I got arrested over an assumption, kidnapped from holding, but I couldn’t prove it since I escaped on my own and when I sent them to my former prison nothing was left in the way of proof I hadn’t just run off willingly.” Monoma falters visibly, mouth parted in surprise. “I was expelled for truancy, regardless of my reputation or criminal status; blacklisted from pretty much any other school.” Hitoshi wraps up, speeding through the worst of the story before it can tank his mental state despite that increasing the likelihood it will get circled back to.
“Holy shit.” Is an apt response, and Hitoshi snorts bitterly. “I can’t believe someone like you was still filtered out like that.”
Usually when people say ‘someone like you’ it's derogatory and makes Hitoshi angry that they're still generalizing in such a bigoted way.
But now the context is very clearly much different, and brings a foreign heat to Hitoshi's face that spurs him into moving the conversation along before he’s caught in not being able to handle compliments normally.
“It was a whole shitshow, but it's in the past and I cant change it, so now I make the best of what I've got.” He handily wraps up the topic, inhaling in hopes to quell the blush and ignoring the twinge of pain from his ribs.
“Living in an unstable dump with people who want to kill you?” Monoma clarifies, and while he's thankful they're back to something less sappy, his lifestyle decisions are still being insulted.
"I'm not there twenty four seven, it’s just, quiet.” Hitoshi corrects, backtracking when Monoma gives him a pointed look, “quieter than anywhere else I’m allowed to be.” and the indignation fades from his frame.
“Homeless shelters aren't all that great.” Monoma agrees, like he's speaking from experience, and he probably is, and instead of questioning that Hitoshi just adds,
“Especially with a quirk like mine.” They have access to the quirk registry after all, pretty much anyone does if they ask the right person.
“If you had the chance, would you still try to become a hero?”
“It’s too late for me.” Maybe that's been true his entire life. He probably stood a better chance becoming a hero without a quirk than with such a villainous one.
“If it wasn’t though?” He prompts further. “If you had the chance, would you take it?”
“Of course.” But it doesn't matter what he would do, there’s no situation in which he'd be issued a hero license to use freely, the only way he’ll be able to use his quirk for heroics, legally, would be as a commission attack dog, and Hitoshi is terrible at following orders.
Eventually, their stop is arrived at, and given it's mid-morning now the car beyond them is fairly full, so Hitoshi full on picks up Monoma, one hand on his bicep and the other curling under his thigh until his lifted off the seat, yelping slightly before getting with the program and clinging on.
They manage to exit the train before the doors close, and instead of putting Monoma down and trying to leave, Hitoshi rationalizes it's terrible to make someone walk on an injury and navigates toward the stairs, ignoring the soft exhales he can feel on his neck as Monoma settles in.
He’s directed through the largely unfamiliar streets, only getting a few second looks, and soon enough they're at a grand set of gates that trundle open once Hitoshi stops and Monoma lifts his head.
“You know, my ankle still hurts.” Hitoshi immediately knows where this is going from his tone, knows full well he’ll wind up agreeing, but if he doesn't put up any fight he’ll expose himself.
“It’s broken.” He reminds Monoma tartly, but the faux innocent tone continues as he points out,
“Walking all the way to the med wing would just be, so painful.” Unashamed at the blatant subterfuge attempt to get what he wants without outright asking. “It’ll be faster if I just stay here, I won’t hurt myself further.” It’s not even subtle.
“You're manipulating me.” Hitoshi declares, and Monoma doesn't even try to deny it, chirping,
“Is it working?” No doubt also absolutely sure he's got Hitoshi wrapped around his finger.
Hitoshi lets out a clipped sigh before stepping forward, hoping his blush at Monoma's exhaustion subdued cheer isn’t visible and obvious to give him away.
He needs further direction to get through the halls, which are sparsely populated and anyone that does pass them doesn't blink twice. “If I changed locations instantaneously, it’ll be Monday, and they’ll be in class right now.” Monoma guesses, bangs tickling Hitoshi's neck as a yawn shakes his frame.
His sleep the previous night had been pretty terrible, it's understandable, and Hitoshi represses another smile when he sags into the cot Hitoshi dumps him on once they make it to the correct wing of the school building.
“What do we have here?” An unfamiliar old lady dressed like a medical professional questions, having emerged from another door in the health office. “Oh, I don't believe I've met you yet.”
“You have not.” He confirms, getting to the more important information next. “Monoma probably broke his ankle, it's definitely
not intact, and his left forearm has a pretty serious cut on it, not infected but may need proper stitches.” She can probably do better than Hitoshi can.
“Ew.” Monoma comments from his place on the bed, half asleep.
“Monoma Neito?” The doctor says, her redirected path towards the cabinets paused as she turns to Hitoshi once more.
“That's me.” Monoma hums, and she grabs a phone, dialing a number and telling the person who picks up,
“Your student turned up injured but breathing.” Then immediately hanging up and smiling sweetly at the pair. “Now, about that cut.”
The door is yanked open just as Monoma's arm is rewrapped, Hitoshi's stitches deemed to be passable, and the large man in red and white that enters has Hitoshi tensing on instinct, but then the cot creaks behind him and Monoma gasps.
“Dad king!” Hitoshi consciously relaxes his body, knowing now that this is a pro to be trusted.
"I'm so glad you're not dead, what happened?” said pro responds, and Hitoshi gets out of the way of the reunion as Monoma waves off the concern.
“They teleported me, don't worry about it, I’m back and I’m fine-.”
“You are not fine.” The doctor looking at his ankle declares, but Monoma ignores this.
“I’ll live, and we have more important things to talk about, like that Shinsou here should take class A’s empty seat.“