Chapter Text
It wasn’t that UA student Yamada Hizashi actively hid the fact that he lived at a children’s home. He just did his best to sidestep any direct questions about his parentage with jokes and avoided conversations that might raise such questions in the first place.
Okay, maybe he hid it a little.
But that was only because, historically, whenever Hizashi told someone he lived in a children’s home, the next question was inevitably “What happened to your parents?”
The truth—that he cried so loud the day he was born that his mother’s ears bled—never earned him any friends. Just looks of horror, pity, or fear.
Still, Hizashi did his best to never outright lie. He never made up stories about his parents living overseas or being out of town. If someone asked if his parents would let him spend the night at their house or if he thought his parents would sign off on a field trip, Hizashi tried to be honest.
“That shouldn’t be a problem!” he told them.
“I’ll see if I can swing it!” he said.
“I’ll get it signed, no problemo!” he assured them with a grin.
It started during elementary school. Little kids didn’t have a filter when it came to asking about parents, and Hizashi hadn’t yet learned that he needed to mince his words. Quirks and parents’ quirks were a common topic on the playground.
“My mom says my quirk might be making plants grow,” said a little boy with green hair. “Just like my dad!”
“I hope I get my mom’s!” interjected a girl, bouncing on her feet. “She can breathe underwater.”
“What are your parents’ quirks, Yamada?” the boy asked.
“Yeah, could they yell really loud too?”
“I dunno!” Hizashi said, all smiles. “I don’t have a mom or dad yet. But Mako at the Home says he thinks I’ll be adopted soon!”
“What’d you mean?” the girl asked. “What happened to your real mom and dad?”
At the time, Hizashi didn’t know the answer. He just repeated what the staff at the Home told him each time he asked: his parents couldn’t take care of him when he was born, so he was waiting for a nice family to adopt him.
Small children can be blunt to a fault, though, so many of his classmates didn’t hesitate to speak what was on their minds.
“Did they give you up ‘cause you’re so loud?” they’d ask him.
“Maybe you hurt your mom and dad’s ears,” they’d say.
“Was it because of your quirk?” they would ask.
“I bet Yamada’s parents didn’t want him because he’s so annoying,” the mean kids would laugh.
Hizashi always smiled and told them that wasn’t true.
Just like every child who displayed a quirk, Hizashi was in quirk counseling at school. He was born with his quirk (unlike the majority of children who presented their quirks later) so he was in quirk counseling a lot longer than most students. Hizashi didn’t mind. The counselors helped him to learn how to control his quirk so that he could laugh on the playground without knocking the entire class to the ground. They helped Hizashi set up a system with the teachers using basic sign language that let him sign instead of talking when he felt his quirk might slip, like when he was excited or upset. His teachers also learned some basic signs for when Hizashi wasn’t wearing his hearing aids.
The counselors told Hizashi that his quirk was a gift. He just needed to learn how to control it, and one day he would find a way to use his quirk to make the world a better place. He could even be a pro hero.
So even when his quirk caused friends to slip away, Hizashi kept smiling.
“Dad says I shouldn’t play with you anymore because you might break my ears.”
“Teacher, I would like to request that my daughter and Yamada be separated during recess. He’s going to blow someone’s eardrums out one of these days!”
“You’re such a loudmouth, Yamada. Why can’t you ever shut up?”
“Sorry, Hizashi. I could only invite four friends to my birthday party. And you’re so loud, you’re kinda like four people on your own, haha. Maybe next year you can come.”
Hizashi kept smiling because that was what the heroes on TV did.
Middle school came, and Hizashi practically vibrated with excitement. He would be going to a new school with new classmates who hadn’t experienced his quirk slipping on the playground or been warned by their parents to steer clear of him.
He was much better at controlling his quirk by then—not perfect, but he’d learned to shout and laugh and generally be his loud self without making the walls shake.
Hizashi had gotten good at acting first when it came to making friends while in elementary school. He invited kids eating alone at lunch to sit with him. He asked classmates what music they liked, and many were happy to gush about their favorite bands. He stood up if someone was being teased about their quirk or their quirk slipping—after all, he knew that embarrassment all too well. But most importantly, Hizashi wasn’t afraid to walk up to a stranger and introduce himself with a big smile.
“Hey there! My name’s Yamada Hizashi, future totally rockin’ voice hero! It’s nice to meet you!”
Those skills quickly made Hizashi popular in his new school. For the first time, he had lots of friends, and even more people wanted to be friends with him, even from other classes! Being more mature, middle school students weren’t as quick to make fun of or question Hizashi when he mentioned he lived at the Home. When he talked about becoming a pro hero and a radio star all wrapped up in one, kids laughed along with him instead of at him. They said if anyone could do it, he could. Hizashi was on top of the world.
And then he did something stupid.
It was two stupid things really. The first was to join the older kids at the Home one night when they jimmied the lock on the office door. The teenagers were looking for the spare keys to the roof so they could smoke without the adults seeing. Hizashi wasn’t interested in that. He and a few other starry-eyed kids use the opportunity to find their personal files and read everything the Home had on their birth parents. Most left disappointed, only having found a blank space where their mother and father’s names should have been. Afterward, Hizashi would envy them.
At the bottom of his file, Hizashi found a thick police report detailing the day he was born.
Inside the report, there were accounts from patients and staff who had witnessed windows and lightbulbs shattering as an ear-piercing baby’s cry reverberated through the hospital. Next, there were statements from the doctor and nurses who had been in the delivery room, detailing how the loudest sound they’d ever heard in their lives knocked them to the floor along with furniture and medical equipment, rattling their teeth in their skulls and causing their ears to bleed. Then there were grim statements from the emergency room staff who reported that the doctor, one nurse, the new mother, and Hizashi himself suffered from irreparable hearing loss when their eardrums burst. Finally, there were accounts from the shaken maternity ward staff who recounted how Hizashi’s mother had refused to hold him, how she had quickly signed away all rights to him, how she had packed up and left the hospital as soon as she could stand. She’d told the officer writing the report to never contact her again on the matter.
A Home staff member caught the kids in the office, but Hizashi didn’t run like the others who scurried back to their beds to pretend to be asleep. He stood rooted to the office floor, frozen in place by the contents of the file in his shaking hands, tears blurring his vision and staining the pages. What happened next he couldn’t remember. Only that someone tried to gently pry the file from his grip and that, the next morning, a janitor was sweeping up broken glass in the office.
Hizashi didn’t go to school for three days.
He doesn’t recall receiving any punishment for snooping through the office; though, the older kids who broke the lock on the door were assigned kitchen cleaning duty for three whole months. Possibly, the staff realized that no punishment would top the days Hizashi spent curled up in bed, facing the wall with his hands clasped tightly over his mouth, hating himself for every muffled sob that broke out.
His mother had given him up because of his quirk. Because he’d hurt her with his quirk.
He’d always known on some level that his quirk had caused his own hearing loss. But finding out that he’d deafened not only himself but three other people made him want to throw up.
To the Home’s credit, they recognized how earth shattering such a revelation was for a middle schooler. The staff immediately set him up with a therapist. She was nice and told him to call her Hayami. Talking to her made him feel better, but every time she called his quirk a gift, Hizashi felt his skin crawl.
Hizashi did the second stupid thing on the day he returned to school.
He was welcomed back by cheery classmates. They wished him well, saying they hoped he was feeling better after whatever illness had kept him out of school. Many offered to let him copy their notes. Some offered to help him with the homework assignments he needed to make up.
Hizashi smiled at them like he always did. Or at least, he tried to. He’d practiced in the bathroom mirror before riding the train to school, and try as he might, he couldn’t get his usual sunny grin to reach his eyes. People didn’t seem to mind, though. With his unusually messy hair and the dark circles under his eyes, most probably assumed he was still sick.
But his friend Chikao, a boy with rabbit ears and the ability to jump great heights, noticed. He invited Hizashi to eat lunch with him on the roof—just the two of them. Hizashi was so grateful. He wasn’t sure he could handle a crowded lunch table with so many people looking at him, asking if he was feeling better.
Alone on the roof, Chikao asked if something was bothering him. And Hizashi opened his mouth, and the truth poured out. He told his friend everything.
When he was done, Hizashi blinked away tears to see Chikao clutching his long ears, eyes wide. Hizashi didn’t understand at first. He knew there was no way he’d hurt his friend’s ears; he’d been focusing so hard on not letting his quirk slip. Then Chikao spoke.
“Y-you mean,” the boy whispered, low enough that Hizashi had to read his lips. “Your quirk’s actually loud enough to make someone deaf?”
“It was just a bad slip,” Hizashi sniffed, wiping his face on his sleeve. “I didn’t mean to—”
“When I have a slip,” Chikao interrupted, “I might hit the ceiling in gym class. But you could—you might still . . .” The boy gripped his ears protectively.
Hizashi’s heart clenched as he realized his friend was afraid of him.
“I-I can control it better now.” Hizashi’s voice wobbled as he tried to reassure him. “I swear I can! I haven’t had a bad slip since I was little.”
“Hizashi,” Chikao said, voice quavering. He wouldn’t look at Hizashi. “I wanna be a pro hero. And I need my ears for that. So if there’s even a chance that you might . . . I don’t think we should hang out anymore.”
“What?” Hizashi’s voice cracked. “But we’re friends. We’re gonna be heroes together.”
Silence.
“. . . but we’re friends.”
Chikao rose to his feet. “I’m sorry, Hizashi. I just can’t.”
His friend scooped up his lunch and ran. The door to the roof slammed behind him, leaving Hizashi alone.
Hizashi squeezed his eyes shut, causing the tears brimming there to spill down his cheeks. He buried his face in his knees, hands pressed to his mouth. He could feel a wail rising in his throat, but he bit his tongue to keep it from escaping until blood trickled between his fingers.
Gossip traveled fast in middle school. Juicy gossip about the popular kid with a voice quirk making three people deaf, including his own mother, traveled at the speed of light.
The next day, usually friendly classmates avoided him in the hall. People whispered when he walked by and covered their mouths so he couldn’t read their lips.
“Is it true?” A brave soul asked him during homeroom.
“Is what true?” Hizashi asked dully, knowing the answer.
“You blew your mom’s eardrums out with your quirk. That’s why you’re at the Home.”
Hizashi didn’t see any point in lying.
“My quirk slipped,” he said quietly, eyes on his desk, “when I was born.”
“Damn,” said the kid, already edging away from him like Hizashi was a stray dog that might bite. “That sucks, man.”
Hizashi had to agree.
This continued for the rest of the day. When he raised his voice to answer during the roll call, people shot him fearful looks. Friends “forgot” to save him a seat at lunch.
“Sorry, Hizashi,” they said, “We’ll remember tomorrow.”
They didn’t.
The whispers and gossip followed him all through his middle school years.
“Did you hear what Yamada did? Yeah, to his own parents.”
“Stay away from the voice freak. He’ll burst your eardrums.”
“Yikes, I always thought he was obnoxious. Didn’t know he was dangerous.”
“He’ll make your ears bleed just by talking.”
“I heard the entire hospital went deaf when he was born.”
“I can’t believe someone with such a dangerous quirk is just walking around.”
A few friends stuck by Hizashi, doing their best to stand up for him. Still, Hizashi sometimes found himself wondering if they hung out with him because they had no better options. After all, who would want to be friends with the voice freak who could make you go deaf with one slip of his quirk?
Over time, when six months or so had passed and Hizashi still hadn’t deafened any of his classmates, people stopped treating him like a bomb that was about to go off and more like an annoyance.
“Geez, Yamada never shuts up.”
“Someone should glue his mouth shut.”
“You’re too loud. Like all the time.”
“His laugh is totally obnoxious.”
“Gonna make my ears bleed.”
“Talks too much.”
“So annoying.”
“Obnoxious.”
“Too loud.”
“Voice freak.”
Hizashi smiled, glad that they’d stopped calling him dangerous.
Attending UA, Hizashi thought, was a dream come true. He was learning from the best pro heroes in the industry and training with the top up-and-coming heroes, all of whom had amazing quirks and were destined to become pros themselves. He was finally learning not just to control his quirk but use it. Use it to stop villains and save people.
The first time a UA classmate asked him if his parents would let him go on an upcoming field trip, Hizashi made finger guns and said, “Don’t you worry! I’ll definitely be making an appearance!”
Then a friend asked if Hizashi’s parents gave him a curfew on weekends. Hizashi flashed his trademark smile and replied, “My schedule’s wide open!”
At lunch one day, someone asked Hizashi if his parents were worried about him becoming a pro hero. He pretended not to hear them over the din of the cafeteria. Instead, he loudly asked the group which of their teachers would win in a fight—a topic that he knew would devolve into a heated debate, which it did. The original question was forgotten.
He didn’t exactly plan on hiding from his UA classmates that he lived at a children’s home. It just sort of happened. At least, that was what he told himself.
It was just such a relief to go from being “that voice freak who deafens people” to “Yamada from Class 2-A, hero in training with a voice quirk.” He didn’t want to go back.
Some nights he lay awake in bed, imagining conversations with his close friends in which he could casually mention that he lived at the Home. He thought about telling them, just to alleviate the gnawing guilt in his stomach over his lie by omission. But then his thoughts spiraled. If he told them about the Home, they’d ask about his parents. And even if Hizashi didn’t tell them the truth about his birth, they’d eventually put two and two together.
After all, he was an annoying kid with a difficult to control, dangerous quirk. Was it any wonder why he didn’t have a real family?
Soon, everyone at UA would find out, and all of his nice classmates and friends would hate him. They’d tell him he couldn’t be a hero because heroes didn’t make people deaf by accident.
So, he kept it a secret.