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1.
Eri sighs defeatedly as she walks back to her room, her drawing wrinkling in her tiny fist.
She had shown Katsuki her latest drawing and he had made that face again. It was a mixt of irritation and disgust, his upper lip curling, showing his teeth and frowning. Eri was used to it by now, but it didn’t hurt any less.
He always makes that face. She always sees him putting on that face. Maybe he only does it when she’s around. Maybe that’s why neither her dads nor her other brother are never bothered by it.
She drops the drawing in her paper basket and throws herself at the bed.
The part that always gives her a headache, though, is that his words are never mean. He always says things like that’s a nice one, Eri or wow you’re getting good, you’re way past Eyebags by now or if you keep this up maybe you’ll be as good and famous as me, and always with the ghost of a smile on his face, right before pulling that sneering face again.
She hates it. It’s like he’s giving her hope and right after that he’s crushing it. She wants to be a good sister and have a bond like she does with Hitoshi. But she can’t seem to get Katsuki to like her.
And it’s not fair because Hitoshi does have a bond with Katsuki. And she doesn’t. And she doesn’t want to be selfish, she’s grateful for everything that she already has, but since she’s been in care of Aizawa and Mic these last two weeks, she knows how good it feels to have people like her, and she wants Katsuki to like her.
She sniffs, and tries not to cry when Katsuki makes that face again when she sits to have dinner.
2.
Another thing Katsuki does sometimes is not let her watch tv. He doesn’t do it often, but when he does it really annoys Eri.
Like today.
She’s lying in front of the tv, trying to watch a show about doctors. Trying to, because Katsuki doesn’t stop making noises and saying random words.
She doesn’t know why he does this. Usually he makes some sounds and lets out a word or two when they’re watching tv all together, but today he’s doing a lot more.
He keeps grunting, and clicking his tongue. Every ten or fifteen seconds he says a curse word out loud (sometimes it doesn’t even make sense, because he says random words like salmon or bubbles, and always sighs afterwards).
He’s studying on the table, so maybe it’s a way of concentrating. It makes sense, he takes his studies very seriously.
But today hasn’t been a good day for Eri. Since the moment she woke up everything’s gone wrong. She spilled her milk, she tripped twice going out, and she broke a glass while doing the dishes. So she’s not in a good mood.
And Katsuki not letting her watch the tv is really irritating her. She tried to turn up the volume, but his sounds kept getting louder, and she didn’t want to turn it up all the way and disturb the neighbors.
Huffing and scowling (a scowl Katsuki would be proud of), she gets up and heads to the kitchen to have a glass of water. Dad’s there, sitting at the counter, texting on his phone while he drinks coffee. He’s still wearing the scarf he wears at work, and he looks tired. He looks up when she comes inside.
“Hey Eri, the show’s over already?” He always asks her about the episode with a tiny smile. She loves these moments with him, and it just annoys her even more that she couldn’t make anything out of the show because of her brother. So she huffs again before answering.
“No, it’s not. But I can’t hear anything because Katsuki keeps saying things and making noise.” She tries to sound angry, but it comes out more resigned and shy.
“Have you tried turning up the volume?” He asks, getting up.
“Yes, dad.” She rolls her eyes. “But he gets louder.”
“Okay, don’t worry.” He moves to the door, and steps into the living room. “Katsuki.”
He doesn’t answer, still focused on the book in front of him.
“Oh, he doesn’t have his hearing aids on.”
Right. Katsuki is deaf. Both him and her pops, so she’s learning JSL to be able to communicate with them, but she’s not used to it yet.
Dad walks up to the table, and Eri moves hesitantly next to him. She doesn’t know what he’s about to do. He sees him knock on the table three times and Katsuki looking up.
Dad makes some signs she doesn’t know, but she catches something about Eri and tv and room .
Katsuki looks up at her and frowns. Is he mad at her?
“I’ll head upstairs to study in my room, sorry Eri.” He shrugs and dad smiles at him.
He doesn’t look angry or mad. He looks really calm, actually. What did dad say to him?
As she goes to sit in front of the tv again she thinks. Why did he give up so easily? If he was doing it to annoy her, shouldn’t he want to stay to keep doing it? And if he wasn't doing it to annoy her, why didn't he just stay but stop making the noises? Why was he doing it?
When the show starts again after a publicitary pause, she lets herself get lost in the plot and forget about it all.
3.
Eri shouldn't be awake, but she is.
It's not her fault, she was reading this super interesting book and she may not have gone to sleep when she should have.
And now she really needs to pee, so she should cross the corridor as silently as she can and get to the bathroom.
She tiptoes slowly in order to make no noise, when she hears her pops' whispered voice and freezes.
"Was it about Kamino?" It doesn't sound like he's talking to her, and only then she realises the voice is coming from Katsuki's room.
"Yeah." Her brother's voice sounds tired and quiet. It doesn't feel right, she doesn't like it.
She doesn’t know why they're awake, she supposes Katsuki had a nightmare and pops is comforting him.
Anyway, she doesn't want them to know she's awake, so she moves quietly next to the door so they don't see her.
"Here." Pops talks again.
She looks inside to see that he's giving him a glass of water. Katsuki grabs it slowly, and as he brings it to his lips, his arm jerks away, spilling all the water on him and the other's clothes.
"Shit. Shit!" She flinches at Katsuki's voice raising, and pops rapidly shushes him. "Sorry. Shit, sorry. I don't know why-"
His voice breaks and the sound settles heavily in Eri's stomach. Still, she doesn't know why Katsuki did that.
Maybe it was an accident. But the glass was almost at Katsuki's mouth and he moved his arm. It didn't look like a normal spill, it was as if he outright threw it. If he did it on purpose why is he apologising now? It doesn't make sense.
As Katsuki falls over to hunch and curl in on himself, pops is quick to grab him and pull him to a tight one-armed embrace.
"Hey, hey, hey. It's okay, don't worry about it. It's just water, I'll change."
"I could have broken your hearing aids." He sounds small, and guilty, and pops squeezes him.
"But you didn't." Pops points to his ears, smiling softly.
Katsuki just breathes heavily, and suddenly his other arm shoots out, holding it perpendicular to his body for a few seconds, before clenching his hand to a fist and hitting his collarbone.
His arm moves again, this time hitting quickly the same spot, and Katsuki's breath hitches. The third time his arm moves, pops grabs his wrist before he can hit again.
"Calm down. Breathe with me." Katsuki does as told, and the pro-hero smiles sadly. "Come on, we'll go downstairs and listen to some music, yeah? How does that sound?"
Katsuki just nods and sniffs. Suddenly he shrugs exaggeratedly and moves his chin up. What?
Didn't he just say yes? Why is he shrugging now? Eri's confused, but before she can get to any conclusion, her brother and father are getting up and walking to the door. So she moves as fast and silently as she can until she's back in her room.
When she closes the door she stands there for a few seconds, just breathing and listening for any signal that she was discovered. Nothing comes.
She sighs and goes to lie back on the bed. The need to pee isn't there anymore, and with the adrenaline wearing out she's really tired, staying up late clearly taking a toll on her body.
Soon she's asleep, and the next morning no one mentions anything about the night before.
4.
Dad and pops are out tonight, which means that it'll only be Hitoshi, Katsuki and her having dinner, as Hitoshi had explained.
Their dads are on a dinner with some other heroes, and she's in the care of her two brothers.
She's on her way to ask Hitoshi what they'll have for dinner when he hears Katsuki yell.
"I said I'm not coming down today! Fuck!"
"Kats, man, Eri won't care. Come on, it's the first time it's only the three of us, give it a chance." Katsuki doesn't want to have dinner with them?
"No, they're bad enough already without all the trouble of dinner. I'm not coming." He answers, followed by a grunt and a tongue clicking.
Is he talking about them? Is it because of her? She doesn't think so, Hitoshi wouldn't let him talk about their family like that, but a small part of Eri sours at the thought.
"I'll tell dad if you don't come down. Or worse, I'll tell pops. You know he'll make us do some family activity if you refuse to eat with us." She can hear the smirk on Hitoshi's face and it makes her chuckle. It's true, pops is always proposing family activities.
"Shit no, please." He huffs. "Okay, but it won't be nice for anyone involved."
"It's okay."
With that Hitoshi exits the room, coming face to face with her. She's afraid he'll scold her, but he only smiles.
"I guess you heard that. Come down with me, you'll help me make dinner." She nods in agreement, excited to spend some time with him. As they're walking down the stairs he speaks again. "Today's being a bit difficult for Katsuki, so don't mention anything during dinner if you can. You want him to feel comfortable, right?"
"Yes!" She rushes to say. "I don't want to upset him."
"That's good." Hitoshi smiles at her as they reach the kitchen. "He's a bit self-conscious about this, so we have to make him feel safe. Today's being harder than usual, but you don't have to worry about anything, I'll take care of it." He smiles again, reassurance and determination in his features.
She nods and smiles back, choosing not to tell him that she doesn't know what this is. She's a bit ashamed to admit that she doesn't know what's being hard for Katsuki today, but Hitoshi talks about it like she should and she doesn't want to disappoint him.
They make the dinner in less than twenty minutes, all the time her ranting about the last movie she saw. By the end, they've prepared some decent pieces of meat she forgot the name of.
She sets the table as Hitoshi goes to drag Katsuki out of his cave , as he said it.
When they come down, Katsuki looks tired, no, not tired, exhausted . He keeps blinking really hard and lifting his chin at random intervals. Hitoshi whispers something to him, and he tsks, seconds before his head jerks back really hard and Hitoshi winches.
She's confused, but when Katsuki looks at her she looks away and sits down.
They start eating in silence, and after a few minutes of comfortable quiet, a clinking sound erupts in the room. She looks up startled to see Katsuki's scrunched face and his fork nowhere to be seen. He gets up slowly, picks it up from the ground and sits back down again without so much as a word.
Feeling a bit lost, she looks at Hitoshi. He's already looking at her, and he shakes his head slowly. She gets the memo, and keeps her mouth shut.
They go back to eating, but soon enough Katsuki lets out a short but loud sound, like a little shout, and his fork and knife hit the plate repeatedly. When Hitoshi goes to say something the knife flies out of his hand and to the other side of the room.
Eri's shocked. Throwing knives is really dangerous, and he could have hurt Hitoshi! The aforementioned gets up and picks up the thrown cutlery. He gives it back, and they go on as if nothing had happened.
She stays there, frozen for a few seconds before Katsuki does the exact same thing. It happens a few times more, and it goes the same way every time.
She promised Hitoshi she wouldn't say anything, so she doesn't. But she also doesn't understand what's going on with Katsuki.
When Katsuki finally manages, after a few failed attempts, to bring the fork to his mouth again, his head jerks back, and he can't seem to put the piece of meat in his mouth.
He's getting frustrated, both her and Hitoshi can tell. He keeps grunting, and clicking his tongue. He puts the fork down, and turns down any attempts of help Hitoshi offers.
He lifts his fork again, but this time his head jerks forward . The spikes of the fork without any meat on them crash violently against Katsuki's cheek, and she gasps. Why did he do that?!
"Shit, Katsuki!" Hitoshi takes the fork away from his brother's hand, and is quick to wipe his cheek with a paper towel. It comes away stained with blood. There's a scratch deep enough to bleed, going from the corner of his mouth up to mid-cheek. Katsuki just sighs deeply.
"I told you it was a bad idea." He sighs, sounding tired and resigned. And Eri is more confused than she's been all day. What was a bad idea? Why did Katsuki do that? Why would he hurt himself?
Still, she doesn't mention anything.
Katsuki's head jerks again, and Hitoshi takes the fork and knife away, moving Katsuki to the sofa, where he slumps and sniffs.
"Eri, are you done?" She nods at her brother. "Do you mind going to your room already?"
She shakes her head and cleans up the table, leaving Katsuki's unfinished plate at the kitchen counter in case he wants to finish later.
As she leaves she hears Katsuki speak quietly, and she listens in.
"Fuck, 'Toshi. I'm so sorry." Hitoshi tries to brush it off but Katsuki doesn't let him. "No. You wanted a good dinner for the three of us and I had to fucking ruin it."
"You know you can't control it."
"Still."
She decides to leave then, when the conversation starts getting sad. She doesn't like sad conversations.
She goes to sleep with a single thought in mind: I hope Katsuki is ok .
The next morning Katsuki looks fine, nothing like yesterday, and he comes up to her at breakfast. The gash on his cheek looks red and angry, and kind of like a half smile. She feels a bit bad for him, even though she doesn't get why he did it.
"Hey Eri. Uh… I wanted to- tsk. I wanted to apologize for- Shit. For yesterday." He looks embarrassed and he's avoiding her gaze.
She wants to ask what all that was about, she wants to really bad, but Hitoshi's words echo in her head.
He's a bit self-conscious about this, so we have to make him feel safe.
Instead, she smiles and shakes off his worries, choosing to follow her brother's advise and not mention anything.
Katsuki seems to be grateful for that.
+1.
Today's Friday, which means movie night.
Eri loves movie nights, most times she gets to pick the movie, and she gets to spend time with her new family.
So here she is, sitting next to pops while Katsuki sits between Hitoshi and dad at the other couch. The movie started barely five minutes ago, and today Hitoshi chose. It's a weird movie about a family that dresses all black or something. She thinks she's going to like it.
Katsuki makes some noises and moves a bit, but until they're half into the movie everything goes well.
When the girl (Wednesday, Eri remembers her name because she likes her, it reminds her of a mix between Katsuki’s and Hitoshi’s personality, an in-between of Hitoshi’s passiveness and uncaring for the world, and Katsuki’s desire of everyone to die) is in the summer camp everything starts to go south.
Katsuki’s noises start to get louder, and the movements stronger. What is he trying to do? It reminds her a bit of when he won’t let her watch tv, but he never does it this much when they’re all together, specially when they watch a movie.
His head starts jerking the same way it happened a few days ago at dinner, and she starts to worry, but nobody does anything, so she doesn’t either. If their dads don’t say anything, she guesses it’s nothing important.
Ten minutes pass, and he starts moving his arms also, but only small spasmodic movements. It looks like he’s trying to retain himself from something, from what, she doesn’t know.
Dad seems to have noticed, because he looks at Katsuki’s hands and back to his face. He’s blinking repeatedly, and his face is scrunching up every few seconds. Finally, it looks like he’s going to do something.
Her stomach sinks in disappointment when the only thing he does is grab the cat that had jumped into Katsuki’s lap and put it back on the ground.
Well, if they aren't doing anything it must mean it's not that bad. So she lets it go. Tries to ignore the pressure in her chest telling her that something is wrong whenever Katsuki moves jerkily or clicks his tongue repeatedly. Maybe it'll pass.
Ten minutes more pass and he's not stopping. By now she is almost completely ignoring the movie and focused on her brother. He shrugs and blinks and grips his thighs but occasionally an arm will fly out, or his whole body will topple forward but he'll get up quickly.
When he does that the first time, pops seems to notice, and she's hopeful that he'll do something. He frowns, and grabs the remote. She thinks he'll stop the movie and address the issue but the only thing he does is turn the volume up.
Her blood starts to boil inside her for some reason. All she knows is that something is happening to her brother and no-one's doing anything.
A few more minutes later, Katsuki starts to whimper and sniff, and she can feel tears prickling in her eyes. It looks kind of painful. Her brother's arm starts doing that weird movement he did that night with pops, hitting his collarbone. Maybe now someone will do something.
Hitoshi does, and she awaits. Without even looking away from the screen he grabs Katsuki's wrist and holds it so he stops hitting himself.
Katsuki's crying by now, and Eri's too.
Another whimper comes out of the boy with a sharp jerk of his head and she explodes.
"Why is nobody doing anything?!" She cries, getting up.
Three sets of eyes settle on her, but she stands her ground.
"Eri? What-"
"Why are you all acting like this is not happening? Something's wrong with him, he's in pain!" Now pops turns the movie off, she appreciates it.
"Is this about Katsuki?" Dad asks calmly.
"Yes! Do something! What's happening to him?" She cries again.
"Eri, calm down, he's just-"
"No! He's just what? You have to help him!" She feels impotent, tears falling down her cheeks.
She's too busy trying to get someone to do something to notice that Katsuki's calmed down reasonably and has stopped crying. When he speaks up, everyone turns to him.
"Eri, hey, don't worry. I was just having a tic attack." His voice tries to be soft, but it comes out rough. He blinks with force, shrugging again.
"A what?" Seeing that her brother is fine, she relaxes, the rage and worry in her chest lessening, but she's still confused.
"A tic attack." He smacks his lips and jerks his head.
"What's a tic tac?" She asks, looking at their parents for some kind of answer. Katsuki laughs, and seeing him smile because something she said makes her feel something happy in her stomach.
"Tic attack. Is when he has a lot of tics simultaneously and he can't stop them." Dad speaks up and she sniffs, brushing her tears off with her sleeve.
"Tics?"
"Yeah, 'cause of my Tourette's." Katsuki answers.
"Your…?" She's really confused by now. She can't understand anything they're saying.
Suddenly Katsuki's eyes widen and he turns to the adult next to him.
"You told them I have Tourette's right?" When both parents look at him with slightly guilty expressions and stay silent he frowns. "Right?!"
"We thought you would tell her! It's your thing!" Pops is quick to defend their honor.
"My thing?! What the fuck is that supposed to mean?! You are our parents! You were supposed to tell her that her new brother was going to have tics!" He screams, more annoyed than angry.
"We thought you had told her! She never said anything to us!"
She stares dumbfounded at her family, and Hitoshi puts a hand on her shoulder.
"Don't mind them." He smiles, the other three parties still arguing. "Kats has a condición that makes him have tics." She stares at him silently, and he explains himself. "Tics are involuntary movements or sounds. Like when he moves his arms or keeps grunting or clicking his tongue. He'll say words too. Or that disgusted face he makes so often-"
"That's a tic?" She asks, hope flooding in her again. Maybe Katsuki doesn’t hate her after all.
"Yeah." Hitoshi's smile is kind, and it calms her down considerably.
Everything starts to make sense then, like puzzle pieces finally piecing together for the first time. All the unexplained faces, movements and noises.
"Okay! Enough!" Pops' voice echoes in the room, and everyone falls quiet. Only then does she realize Katsuki and dad were fighting. "It doesn't matter whose fault it was, now Eri knows, right baby?"
She smiles wider and nods enthusiastically. She loves when pops calls her baby, it makes her feel loved.
"Yeah, you say that 'cause it is your fault." Katsuki mutters before clicking his tongue and winking with his mouth open. It's a silly face (one that she now recognises is probably a tic), and along with the words it makes her chuckle.
"Katsuki." Dad says warningly and he huffs.
Soon they put the movie on again, Katsuki ticking more lightly, and everything looks like it's going to be ok.
Afterwards, before they go to bed, Katsuki approaches her and kneels in front of her so they’re at the same eye level. He's wearing his pyjamas, which consist of shorts and a tank top. The tank top shows a forming bruise on his left collarbone.
"Well, now you know." He clears his throat. "Uh… thanks for worrying before, when you didn't know I was having an attack."
She smiles and he blushes, looking away. Suddenly her smile drops when a question appears in her brain.
"Why did nobody help you? When you were having… you know." She makes a movement with her hand, and he understands.
"When that happens there's nothing that can be done to stop it. Maybe help distract me. Like before, you started crying and freaking out and my attention instantly focused on you, which made me stop thinking about it and gradually stop the attack." He sighs, resigned.
"And when are you gonna get better?" She asks, hopeful. She wants to see his brother fine and happy.
He laughs sadly, and she frowns.
"There's no cure, Eri. I will have to live with this forever." He shrugs, but now she doesn't know if it’s a tic or not.
"Oh." In that moment the ground seems very interesting, and she feels sad and ashamed about her question.
"It's okay, I'm learning to live with it." Suddenly he hugs her, and she stays shocked for a second before returning the hug. She feels his arms tighten around her and tears start forming in her eyes. "And with the amazing family I have now, I'm sure it will be easier." The words are whispered, and full of emotion, but he sounds like he's smiling.
Katsuki gets up soon and says his goodnights, going to his room. She does the same.
She's exhausted, too many emotions and discoveries for today, so she goes immediately to sleep, hoping tomorrow will be a good day.
She falls asleep with a smile on her lips and a tight feeling in her chest that she starts to recognize as love.