Chapter Text
When he wakes up, there’s a woman with dark hair and bright blue eyes standing over him, looking worried. His first instinct is to put distance between them, but then she asks, voice soft and lilting, “Are you okay?”
“I…think so.” He pushes himself up off of the floor, wincing when his head throbs. He looks around but doesn’t recognize his surroundings. He doesn’t recognize the woman, either. “Where are we? And who are you?”
She goes very still. Her gaze is piercing, almost uncomfortably so. “You don’t remember?”
“No,” He doesn’t really remember anything.
He doesn’t remember anything.
“Do you remember who you are?” The woman asks, and he realizes he doesn’t know that, either. She must see the confusion and shock on his face, because she takes pity on him and explains as she helps him stand up. “Everyone calls you Siren, but your real name is Shinsou Hitoshi. You can call me Aoki. This is the safehouse you brought us to before you passed out. As in, you brought me and Yuri.”
Hitoshi. Yeah, the name sounds familiar. It feels right. His head throbs a little less. “Who’s Yuri?”
“Oh, they’re in the other room,” Aoki tells him, gesturing towards a closed door. “I wanted to make sure you were not going to react badly when you woke up. That was a nasty blow to the head, and I thought you could lash out if you were disoriented.”
His head hurts like a motherfucker. What did he even get hit with? “Um, so. Safehouse. Why are we in a safehouse?”
Aoki’s face darkens. “We’re being pursued. People want Yuri for their quirk, and you were assigned to escort us to safety. But we were ambushed, and we barely managed to shake them off and make it all the way here.”
“For their quirk?” Hitoshi rubs at his temples. “Wait, what do you mean by quirk?”
“Oh dear,” Aoki murmurs. There’s something strangely detached about her tone. “So you seem to be missing some of your semantic memories as well as your episodic ones. Well, Quirks are our superhuman abilities. Like augmented hearing or super strength. Yours is Brainwashing.”
“Brainwashing?” Hitoshi doesn’t like the sound of that.
There’s an odd gleam in Aoki’s eyes as she considers him. “Hmm. You really don’t remember anything. Do you know how your quirk works?”
He shakes his head, and she fills him in.
Asking questions, making people respond, giving orders. It all sounds so simple, but he’s not sure if he’s capable of actually pulling it off. He says as much to Aoki, who seems to have more confidence in him than he does.
“You’re a great hero, after all,” she tells him with a smile that is a little too sharp. “You’ll protect me and Yuri.”
A hero. Logically, Hitoshi knows what a hero is. But for some reason, he can’t remember a single example of one. It’s odd. He looks around at what seems like the living room area of an abandoned cabin, and he remembers what cabins are. He sees a broken TV and knows what its functions are, too. But he can’t recall a single time he’d actually watched anything on a TV.
Hitoshi doesn’t remember what it’s like to be a hero. Doesn’t feel very heroic.
But when Aoki goes to open the door and brings out a young child, he finds himself growing alert and cautious. Yuri is a small child, with pastel blue hair and green eyes, skinny and barely coming up to Aoki’s waist. Hitoshi reckons the kid is maybe seven years old.
“Yuri, Siren is going to take good care of us.” Aoki reaches a hand down to pet Yuri’s hair, and Yuri squirms away. Aoki huffs a small laugh. “Don’t mind Yuri. They don’t like physical touch.”
“That’s okay.” Hitoshi knees down as he mentally maps out the place they’re in, thinking about exit routes and the angle of the sunlight coming through the window. He’s calculating how heavy Yuri could be and how fast Aoki might be able to run in those boots of hers, strategies automatically unfolding in his mind. “I won’t let anybody hurt you, Yuri.”
Yuri bites their lower lip, looking a little like they might cry, and the protectiveness in Hitoshi’s chest grows by tenfold.
“I need to check the terrain around here,” he tells Aoki. This feels familiar. Learn your surroundings, find a way out of danger, protect the civilians. “Do we have any vehicles, or did we get here by foot?”
“We came in the van,” Aoki says, and Hitoshi goes out the door to confirm that there’s a sleek silver van parked out front. He performs a perimeter check while observing their whereabouts—he doesn’t recognize where they are, obviously, but now he knows which way is north and the fastest way out of here—then comes back in to where Aoki is unfolding a map.
She shows him where they are and then shows him the location of a different safehouse they’d been meaning to go to. Hitoshi reads the map and tries to remember anything else that might be helpful.
They’re in the outskirts of Tokyo. Did Hitoshi live in Tokyo? It feels familiar, like a well-worn sweater, but he has a feeling it’s not where he grew up.
“Do we know who’s after us?” Hitoshi asks, and Aoki purses her lips.
“A lot of people. I wouldn’t be surprised if they decided to gang up on us all at once.”
That’s bad news, but also…weirdly vague. It doesn’t explain where these people come from, who they work for, or even what exactly they plan to do with Aoki and Yuri. Hitoshi feels like he’s missing something.
He’s about to ask for more intel when he hears, from the far-off distance, a rumble of a vehicle. Heavy, big, meant to carry several people. Most people wouldn’t be able to hear it, but Hitoshi has spent years honing his skills to move in the dark; his hearing is better than most people’s. Not as good as some other heroes, though.
Wait, where did that knowledge come from?
He doesn’t have time to question it. He grabs his artificial vocal cords and capture weapon, ushering Yuri and Aoki towards the wall right beside the front door. He knows, with unshakeable certainty, that somebody will come through that door any minute.
He’s proven right when someone bursts through the door, splintering it open in a whirl of green lightning, and another person comes rushing in, a whole blur of red.
Hitoshi doesn’t waste time. “You didn’t need to break the whole damn door.”
Both men spin around to look at him, twin expressions of relief on their faces, which is a little out of place. The red-haired one grins with sharp teeth and says, “Dude, I—”
The man freezes. It’s strange, how easy it is for Hitoshi to instantly know how to take over somebody’s mind. It comes to him as naturally as breathing. So does the next command: “Attack the one behind you!”
The man turns to lunge for the man in the green outfit, who blanches. “Um, wait what?! Kirishima, hold on!”
Using that moment, Hitoshi rushes out through the door first, guiding Aoki out as she carries Yuri, and telling her to get in the van. He knows, the very moment he sees two more people in the distance, that things are looking bad.
“Start driving,” Hitoshi instructs. “Head to the other safehouse. I’ll meet you there.”
Aoki revs the engine of the van, and then before she can leave, all the wheels of the van are encased within a block of ice.
“Hitoshi.” A man with red and white hair approaches, frost receding from one of his hands. The other hand reaches for his shoulder. “We were looking for you.”
Hitoshi takes the man by the wrist and flings him over his shoulder in a move that he didn’t know he was capable of. The man lands on his back with a plaintive ow, and Hitoshi is just about to draw his fist back to knock the guy out when he looks straight into heterochromatic eyes and feels something deep in his chest lurch.
Don’t hurt him, a voice deep inside of his mind says, and Hitoshi can’t help but release the guy and turn towards whoever is coming next.
“Dude, what is going on?” A woman asks, appearing around the corner of the truck, speakers fixed to the backs of her hands, and Shinsou knows she will track him down in seconds if he doesn’t take her out.
He throws his binding cloth, wrapping it around the woman’s forearm and yanking her forward to meet her with a fist to the gut. With a gasp, she goes down, and he hears another voice yelling, “Earphone Jack, you okay?”
There’s something comforting about that voice, but Hitoshi can’t dwell on it when there are so many threats and Yuri is in danger.
“I don’t know what’s wrong, but Siren is attacking us!” Someone yells. “Don’t answer him!”
Hitoshi acts fast and copies the voice with his vocal cords instantly. Barring the two people he knocked down, everybody else is on the other side of the van and can’t see him. “And get the kid first!”
“Yeah, don’t worry—”
Somebody’s mind tumbles right into Hitoshi’s hold and he immediately orders, “Take down everybody in your sight!”
The voice he’d just copied said, “Chargebolt, don’t!”
A different voice says, “Holy shit—”
And then a truly staggering amount of electricity is unleashed into the air, enough to make Hitoshi’s hair fill with static and his skin to tingle despite being shielded by the van somewhat. Somehow, he knows that this is still far from the highest voltage he could’ve been hit with.
Behind him, he hears a cry, and he sees Yuri struggling in the grip of the man with the bi-colored hair, and he’s about to snarl and charge when somebody grabs him and flips him backwards, wrapping a long limb around his waist to pin him on his back to the ground. It makes Hitoshi’s head throb. There’s a weird sense of deja vu; he could swear he’s been thrown and pinned like this a dozen times before.
“Siren, you idiot,” the blond man pinning him down hisses, and Hitoshi feels his body automatically go into fight or flight mode. He knows, without a doubt, that this man is dangerous.
He knows that this man will hurt him.
Hitoshi struggles to escape the man’s grip, but he can’t move. Multiple footsteps are approaching this way, now.
“Christ, this is the weirdest kidnapping ever. Ow, my shoulder.”
“Sorry for punching you so hard, Red Riot. It’s just really hard to go easy on you when you’re in unbreakable mode.”
“Nah, it’s fine. Earphone Jack, you good?”
“Not good, holy fuck. He’s gotten even stronger—this is your fault for teaching him, Ojiro.”
“Izuku, can you grab the child? I’ve cuffed the villain.”
“Oh, sure thing. Chargebolt, I think we need to knock Siren out until we question the villain and figure out what’s wrong with him.”
“On it.”
A blond head pokes into Hitoshi’s view. “Sorry, Hitoshi, I’ll just zap you a little.”
He places a hand on Hitoshi’s forehead, and before Hitoshi can open his mouth to tell him to stop, because you always make my hair poof out even more than it usually does—
There’s a zap, and he passes out.
-
When Hitoshi wakes up, he’s in a hospital bed. He knows this despite the fact that he can’t exactly remember waking up in one before; he just recognizes it on instinct: the scent of antiseptic, the muted murmur of medical alerts outside, the bland white ceiling. Hitoshi stares up at it for a moment before his memory of Yuri kicks in and he tries to wrench himself out of the bed.
“Woah, easy.” A familiar blond grabs his shoulder and urges him to sit back. Hitoshi refuses to budge an inch. “Dammit. Shouto, help me.”
The guy with the perfectly split bi-colored hair leans in and gently pushes Hitoshi back onto the bed with surprising strength. Hitoshi has half a mind to fight him when the guy called Shouto says, “Yuri is okay, by the way. The doctors are looking them over.”
“I, what?” Hitoshi’s voice is raspy and dry, and one of his wrists is cuffed to the bed’s side railing. Quirk-suppressing handcuffs, he instinctively recognizes.
The blond offers him a cup of water, which Hitoshi mulishly stares at. Raising an eyebrow with a small amused grin, the blond takes a sip of the water, then offers it to Hitoshi once more.
Hitoshi takes it and downs the whole thing.
“We got you the Sparknotes edition of what happened,” the blond says, taking the empty cup. “The villain who kidnapped you had taken Yuri a while ago, and Yuri’s quirk is wiping people’s memories. She forced them to wipe you so she could basically gaslight you into becoming her henchman. Except we tracked you down a lot faster than she anticipated, so boom! We came to rescue you, you kicked some ass, and we had to knock you out.”
“Yuri said that they don’t know how long it might take for your memories to come back, or if they’ll come back at all.” The other man’s face is blank, but somehow, Hitoshi can read concern there. “But considering that your muscle memory is intact and you could use your quirk instinctively, the doctors think there’s a chance they’ll come back naturally over time.”
Hitoshi processes all of that and ponders on who to believe: Aoki or these people.
Strangely, he thinks it’s the people in front of him that he believes. Something in his gut tells them he can trust them. It explains Aoki’s strange demeanor and Hitoshi’s instinctive reluctance to help her, too.
“So…who are you two?” Hitoshi asks.
“Your ride-or-die besties, of course,” the blond says with a wink. “I’m Kaminari Denki.”
Hitoshi frowns. “I…voluntarily became friends with you?”
“Nope!” Kaminari doesn’t look the least bit ashamed of the fact. “I totally wormed my way into your life through sheer willpower and my dazzling charm.”
That sounds more like it. Hitoshi looks at the guy called Shouto, who blinks once and says, “Todoroki Shouto. You became best friends with me by accident, but I’m pretty sure you don’t regret it.”
Hitoshi remembers that moment earlier, when something deep in his chest had vehemently told him he shouldn’t hurt Todoroki. “I…think I recognized you, earlier. I mean, I don’t remember who you are, but I felt like I knew you.”
“Ah, that’s why you didn’t try to knock me out,” Todoroki muses.
“That’s a good thing, right?” Kaminari bounces a little in his seat. Something about his relentlessly upbeat attitude feels soothing. Nostalgic. “He remembers emotional responses and stuff!”
“We should call a doctor over,” Todoroki says, ever the sensible one.
Huh, Hitoshi wonders where that thought came from.
As Todoroki presses a button to summon a doctor, Kaminari clears his throat. “Um, by the way, your mom’s on her way here. Just wanted to give you a heads up.”
It shouldn’t surprise Hitoshi that he has a mother, but it does, if only because he doesn’t remember who she might be. But his semantic memory points out the obvious fact that most people have a second parent. “What about my father?”
Kaminari winces. Todoroki blinks.
“He passed away when you were two years old,” Todoroki says softly. “Your mother raised you by herself.”
Hitoshi blinks. “Okay.”
There’s a beat of awkward silence, and then a doctor and nurse come bustling in, which provides Hitoshi’s so-called best friends the opportunity to back off and give him some space.
Hitoshi’s head hurts, and he tells the doctor as much, who says that it’s probably a side-effect of the quirk that wiped his memories. “It might be a sign that your memories were simply locked away, rather than wiped entirely. Your headache could mean that your memories are trying to return.”
If Hitoshi had any suspicions about Kaminari and Todoroki having ulterior motives, the sheer relief on their faces prove that there’s no need for him to distrust them.
“So let’s do this,” Kaminari says, clapping his hands together. “We’ll give you a summary of Shinsou Hitoshi, Wikipedia entry style, and maybe some of that will bring your memories back.”
The doctor and nurse have left, having told them that Hitoshi needs to be kept overnight but can leave tomorrow. Hitoshi doesn’t have anything better to do in the meantime. “Sure.”
-
Shinsou Hitoshi, according to Kaminari Denki and Todoroki Shouto:
He turned twenty-two a month ago. He graduated from a prominent superhero school—the name UA rings distant bells in his mind—along with his best friends after two years of being in the hero course. He’s currently an underground hero working under the hero name Siren, and he lives alone in central Tokyo, even though he’s originally from Saitama.
Hitoshi is an only child who was raised by his single mother, who works as a nurse in a pediatric hospital. His father passed away in an accident caused by a villain when Hitoshi was two years old. Hitoshi grew up with very few friends, all whom he lost touch with during high school. However, apparently his entire high school class had decided to befriend him against his will—“You totally said you weren’t here to make friends, and we took that as a challenge,” Kaminari says—and the people who came to retrieve him from the cabin are all their former classmates.
Hitoshi’s favorite things are cats, coffee, indie computer games, and hot showers. His hobbies include cycling and reading murder mystery novels, and while he listens to all kinds of music, he tends to favor bubblegum pop songs when he’s tired, which is about 80 percent of the time.
His sleep cycles tend to get messed up because he works odd hours as an underground hero, and he’s mildly allergic to shellfish. He dislikes watching horror movies alone but he does like putting them on with friends just to criticize or analyze the movies out loud together the entire time. Hitoshi also has an irrational fear of horses, though he’s never encountered one in real life. He apparently doesn’t like even looking at photos of them, as proven by when Todoroki shows him a picture of one on his phone and he flinches from it.
That’s as far as they get before Hitoshi’s mom shows up.
-
“Hitoshi,” a gentle voice says from the doorway, and when he turns to look, there’s a pale woman with worried gray eyes and braided purple hair.
“Mrs. Shinsou.” Both Kaminari and Todoroki stand up to greet her, and Hitoshi mentally notes that she refers to them by their given names as she greets them back. They must be quite close.
“I heard you don’t remember me,” his mother says. She looks weary and sad and very small. Still, the warmth in Hitoshi’s chest insists that he knows her. That seeing her is akin to coming home.
“Sorry.” Hitoshi feels guilty, and maybe he used to apologize to his mother a lot, because it feels very familiar. Looking at her tired eyes, apologizing because he hates making her life harder, her smiling and telling him it’s not his fault.
And just like he expected, she smiles. Weary and faint but kind all the same. “You always apologize for things that aren’t your fault. It’s fine, Hitoshi.”
She doesn’t draw him into a hug, but she puts a hand over his and squeezes.
Something deep in Hitoshi’s chest twists a little. He thinks, determination blooming in the space between his ribs, that he’s going to get his memories back. If only to make her happy again.
-
The next day, the people who were present at the so-called rescue mission drop by. Jirou Kyouka, Kirishima Eijirou, Midoriya Izuku, and Ojiro Mashirao. Hitoshi apologizes for attacking them and they wave him off. Standard occupational hazards and all that, according to Jirou. Kirishima expresses his relief that Hitoshi is unharmed, and Midoriya explains that Yuri is going to be taken into protective custody for the meantime. Ojiro gives him a wan smile and keeps his distance. They leave after a while, but Midoriya stays for the rest of the morning.
Shortly before Hitoshi is discharged, Midoriya says, “So I talked it over with Shouto, and I think you should stay over at our place until you get enough of your memories back.”
Hitoshi blinks. “Your place?”
“Yeah,” Kaminari chimes in. “The place Hanta and I live in is way too small, and Shouto’s place has a whole guest bedroom and everything.”
“Why can’t I go back to my own place?”
“You’re a hero who lost all his memories,” Todoroki points out. “You could be vulnerable to a villain attack.”
Oh, that does make sense. “Fine.”
“The guest bedroom needs to be aired out, but it’s clean and you can move right in.” Midoriya gestures at Todoroki and Kaminari. “The three of us adjusted our schedules already, so at least one of us is always going to be sticking around. You can ask us anything any time, okay?”
“Okay.” Actually, Hitoshi has something to ask right now. He understands Todoroki and Kaminari, since they’re supposed to be his best friends and all, but he wonders why Midoriya is being so attentive to him. He’s been addressing Hitoshi by his given name, too. “So are the two of us really close or something?”
“Uh,” Midoriya says, glancing back at Todoroki.
“You guys dated for a while back in second year of high school,” Kaminari says, always willing to be Hitoshi’s personal data source. “But you had a friendly breakup, and Midoriya here started dating Shouto a year after we graduated.”
Ah, that explains why the two of them live together. “So we’re exes, but we’re still friends?”
“Yes.” Shouto‘s tone is placid and just a hint amused. “Also, you were the one who told him to, hmm, what was it?”
“‘Suck it up and ask Shouto out before I brainwash you into serenading him with Taylor Swift,’ was how you worded it.” Midoriya exhales an exasperated chuckle. “You keep talking about how you deserve to be best man for both of us just for that when we get married.”
“Sounds like I do deserve to be best man for that,” Hitoshi says, and the others crack smiles at what seems to be a well-worn joke. Midoriya’s smile in particular is kind and earnest in a way that Hitoshi instinctively understands is the kind of smile he likes. The kind of person he would like. He wonders why they broke up, but it’s probably awkward to ask.
At any rate, he’s not interested anymore, and Midoriya definitely isn’t either, going by the way his eyes soften when he looks towards Todoroki, Watching the way Todoroki smiles a little wider at his boyfriend’s smitten gaze, Hitoshi feels a small sense of satisfaction.
These are people he cares about, he realizes. Even if he doesn’t remember any of the memories he shares with them, this happiness matters to him.
So even though Hitoshi has practically no memories of who he was or anybody around him, he doesn’t feel worried or scared. These people have his back, and he trusts them just as much as they care about him. He’s going to be okay.
-
He moves into Todoroki and Midoriya’s guest room that day, examining his surroundings with avid interest as they take a taxi to an apartment in a rather nice neighborhood a short distance away from central Tokyo. When he walks into their living room, he feels a vague familiarity, the sense of having been here a number of times before.
Midoriya and Todoroki move around each other seamlessly, preparing the guest room, setting aside a new toothbrush in their bathroom, and fetching spare towels like it’s a dance they’ve been through a hundred times before.
“You have guests a lot?” Hitoshi guesses.
Midoriya laughs. “More like our friends come over to crash all the time when they’ve been injured. Usually it’s the ones who live alone.”
“Injured heroes are easy targets.” Todoroki is looking for something on the bookshelf in the living room as he off-handedly adds, “Bakugou comes over sometimes just to get some work done overnight. It’s a bad habit.”
“Kacchan only does that because I made a rule that nobody’s allowed to pull all-nighters in the agency.”
Todoroki makes a soft, unimpressed sound. “Then he comes to pull all-nighters here, and then you stay up all night working with him. Both of you work too much. Kirishima joked that they should just move into our building and I almost froze him.”
“Who’s Kacchan?” The name sounds overly cute for somebody who is supposedly Midoriya’s hero coworker.
“One of our classmates.” Todoroki finally pulls out a book from the shelf and brings it over, revealing it to be a graduation album. Hitoshi must have an identical one, somewhere. “We’ll go over them now. It might help.”
Which is how they end up on the couch, Hitoshi squeezed in between Todoroki and Midoriya as they start with a general summary of their school years—apparently they fought a whole war in their first year, what the fuck—and how Hitoshi started as a general studies student and joined the hero course starting their second year. Then they go through each of their classmates, Midoriya explaining their quirks, hero names, and other terrifyingly detailed trivia, while Todoroki gives a general opinion on their personality.
Just as Hitoshi is learning way too much about Iida Tenya’s engines, Kaminari arrives with a large duffle bag full of Hitoshi’s things that he’d volunteered to go fetch while Hitoshi was settling in. He grins as soon as he sees the album. “Oh my god, is it time to roast our friends?”
“We’re not roasting anybody,” Midoriya says.
“Well, you aren’t. I totally am.” Kaminari dumps the bag on the floor and jumps onto the couch, which is a little tight for four grown men to sit in. Midoriya squirms, sighs, then moves over to sit on Todoroki’s lap instead, allowing Kaminari to scoot in and plaster himself to Hitoshi’s right side. “Okay, whose turn is it?”
“Ojiro,” Todoroki says.
“Oh.” Kaminari blinks. “Damn, the one person I don’t have anything dumb to say about. Does being ordinary count?”
Todoroki sighs. “Ojiro is nice.”
“Nice?” Hitoshi parrots. That’s the vaguest description from Todoroki yet.
“He really is!” Midoriya’s words are abrupt and loud. His smile looks the slightest bit strained, but he powers through and rapid-fires an explanation of Ojiro Mashirao’s quirk and his hero career.
Hitoshi would ask if something’s wrong, but he doesn’t, because he wants this to be over. There’s a weird ache in his chest when he looks down at the photo of this man—he’s a boy in the photo, a boy with just a tail and nothing else special about him, a terribly familiar mantra—and he’d rather move onto whoever is next.
Back at the cabin, he’d thought of Ojiro Mashirao as dangerous. He doesn’t feel that way anymore, but…Hitoshi has a feeling he doesn’t like the guy at all.
-
It’s only during dinner—where they’ve ordered pizza and are discussing recent events that happened in their lives and careers—that Kaminari mentions how Bakugou and Kirishima got married seven months ago, kickstarting a question in Hitoshi’s brain.
“Do I,” he starts, and hesitates. All three of his friends look at him curiously. “Am I dating somebody? I’m assuming you would’ve told me if I’m married, but is there a secret partner I’ve totally forgotten about?”
Midoriya chokes on his slice of pizza, and Todoroki obligingly thumps his back. Kaminari stares at Hitoshi for a beat too long before he manages to squeak, “No, you’re single. I know for a fact that you are very much single right now.”
Was Hitoshi’s question that weird? Everybody’s reacting rather oddly. Maybe it was a stupid question. Hitoshi doubts he’s good boyfriend material. “Have I dated anybody since high school?”
“Um,” Kaminari says, avoiding eye contact.
Todoroki is the one who calmly answers, “No, you haven’t dated anybody since Izuku.”
Looks like Hitoshi is very much not boyfriend material. He’s not sure why he expected otherwise. He’s seen himself in the mirror. He looks like he hasn’t slept in five years and his posture is shit. That, plus a quirk that a lot of people might find off-putting and a job with weird work hours…
Kaminari snaps his fingers and Hitoshi automatically focuses on him. “It’s not because anybody thinks you’re not hot or anything. You’re the one who was turning people down when they asked you out. No self-deprecation allowed, here!”
“Are you psychic?” Hitoshi asks.
“Nah.” Kaminari grins, mega watt bright and delighted. “I just know you super well. Best buddies, remember?”
His relentlessly cheery attitude must’ve balanced Hitoshi’s cynical one out well. He’s beginning to see how they ended up as best friends after all. “…Thanks.”
“Any time!”
Nibbling on his slice of pizza, Hitoshi feels a small wave of relief. He hasn’t forgotten somebody as important as a significant other, and he’s apparently decently desirable to other people, too. All in all, these are good answers.
He doesn’t know why he feels mildly disappointed, though.
-
The next day, Hitoshi sleeps in until noon and wakes up to Midoriya cooking lunch. Todoroki is apparently on patrol, so Midoriya is currently on babysitting duty for Hitoshi, even if Midoriya balks at the word ‘babysitting.’
After gorging themselves on oyakodon and Midoriya making a few phone calls, they start setting up a plan together. Or rather, Midoriya sets up the plan via non-stop mumbling and Hitoshi occasionally nods or says yes. At any rate, Midoriya seems like the most organized and detail oriented one out of Hitoshi’s current circle of friends, so Hitoshi decides to place his faith in him and follow whatever instructions he’s given.
Which, apparently, includes going on a grocery run.
“What,” Hitoshi says in a flat tone as Midoriya pulls him towards the front door. They’re both dressed casually for a trip to the supermarket, and Hitoshi has no idea why they’re going out to buy things. Midoriya doesn’t even have a grocery list. They’re just going barehanded with only Midoriya’s phone and credit card.
“Think of it as an experiment.” Midoriya has a sunny grin and a terrifyingly firm grip on Hitoshi’s wrist. “You can just go put whatever you want in your shopping cart, and we’ll see what your body remembers about your favorite foods and shopping habits.”
It’s a dumb test, but Hitoshi literally has no other plans and zero alternative suggestions on how to try trigger his memories, so he grumbles and goes along with it.
They arrive at the local supermarket and Midoriya sets him loose with a shopping cart. Midoriya himself will wait at the checkout area, since he doesn’t want to influence any of Hitoshi’s decisions, so Hitoshi is on his own.
Thankfully he remembers how supermarkets work, and he basically browses through the aisles and grabs whatever feels the most familiar or catches his eye more than the other things. Some things, he immediately remembers that he likes. A certain brand of instant coffee, wasabi flavored chips, and blueberry yogurt. He also remembers at first sight that he loathes bananas, so he gives those a wide berth.
After what feels like a small eternity but is actually closer to forty minutes, Hitoshi shoves his half-full shopping cart towards the checkout area, where Midoriya has been making casual conversation with the cashier.
“Oh, you’re done!” Midoriya peers into the cart and pauses. “What’s with all the apples?”
There’s a dozen apples in the cart, taking up a solid third of the the cart’s space. Hitoshi can’t explain why he picked up so many, either. He’d done it practically on auto-pilot. “I don’t know. I just…did it. Muscle memory or whatever.”
“Huh,” Midoriya says. The corner of his mouth twitches, though, and Hitoshi has a sneaking suspicion that Midoriya knows why there are so many apples in the cart. He doesn’t explain, though, and starts unloading the items onto the counter for the cashier to scan, and Hitoshi wordlessly helps. Some of the items make Midoriya smile, and Hitoshi is determined to get some answers out of Midoriya when they get back to the apartment.
Back in Midoriya and Todoroki’s apartment, they place all the items Hitoshi bought on the dining table and Midoriya takes a picture of them on his phone. He seems to be sending the photo to somebody, though Hitoshi doesn’t bother to ask who. He has more pressing questions.
“Why did you laugh over the sour gummy worms?” He demands.
Midoriya grins. “You hate those.”
What? “Then why did I buy two whole packs of them?”
“Because,” Midoriya says, starting to giggle, “Shouto and Kaminari love them.”
Hitoshi stares.
Midoriya points at the strawberry flavored bubblegum. “That’s Kaminari’s favorite. He chews on those whenever he’s bored.” Then he points at the box of green tea flavored biscuits and the strawberry cheesecake ice cream. “Those are Shouto’s comfort snacks. Kacchan bought him that ice cream flavor as a joke about his hair ages ago and accidentally got him hooked, so now we always have some in the fridge in case Shouto gets upset.”
Hitoshi stares at the things he bought for a long moment, then says, “Do you guys like apples?”
“We like them,” Midoriya says with a smile full of secrets, “but none of us like them enough to eat this many.”
Hitoshi is about to ask why he’s apparently bought a ton of apples if it’s not even for his closest friends when Midoriya’s phone dings with the alert of a message. Midoriya checks it and smiles wide, looking up at Hitoshi like he’s proud of him, which feels weird but also familiar.
“Kaminari is going to come over and cook dinner for us. You bought all the ingredients.”
“For what?”
Midoriya smiles. “Curry!”
-
Apparently, Midoriya doesn’t know the recipe to this special curry, but Kaminari does. Todoroki technically knows it too, but apparently he’s a disaster in the kitchen and not allowed to cook unless it’s to peel vegetables under somebody else’s supervision.
“How did he even survive until he moved in with you?” Hitoshi asks. Midoriya is dutifully chopping carrots while Kaminari messes about with the sauce at the stove.
“You lived with him after graduation,” Midoriya informs him.
“Correction: how did I survive until he moved in with you?” Hitoshi asks, and Kaminari cackles with unbridled laughter as Midoriya stifles his giggles. “I bet he almost set the place on fire.”
“Four times,” Kaminari sing-songs.
Hitoshi very bravely does not ask whether that means Todoroki almost set their place on fire four times or he actually set a fire four times. He doesn’t want to know the answer.
Todoroki comes back right on time for dinner to be served, and the curry smells heavenly. There’s something so familiar about it, the memory ever slightly out of reach. Hitoshi wonders if it’s his favorite food, if he cooks this all the time for himself. He wonders if it’s his own secret recipe, and that’s why only Kaminari and Todoroki know it.
They sit at the dining table and all three of his friends wait for Hitoshi to take a spoonful. Everybody is silent, like a breath held in anticipation.
Hitoshi takes his first mouthful. He chews for a long time and swallows.
Then he starts crying.
“Shit,” He blurts, and Todoroki settles a steady hand on his shoulder while Kaminari knocks a foot gently against his own. Midoriya offers him tissues and Hitoshi gratefully accepts, even though he’s always hated people seeing him cry—he knows this on instinct—he thinks it’s okay with these three. They’ve probably seen him have meltdowns before. “I need to call, uh, I need—”
“Here,” Todoroki says, handing over Hitoshi’s phone, which Hitoshi barely touched at all since he woke up without his memories. Hitoshi takes it and stands up, hastily excusing himself to go into the guest bedroom while his friends nod at him encouragingly.
In the privacy of the guest room, Hitoshi makes a phone call and then curls into himself when the other side picks up. “Mom, I remember now, I’m so sorry I forgot you. I’m really sorry.”
His mom, who taught him her secret curry recipe when he was fourteen and cried when she sent him to the dorms when he was sixteen and always forgives him with a smile says, “Oh, honey, you really need to stop apologizing for things that aren’t your fault.”
Hitoshi bites down on the instinctive apology on the tip of his tongue and instead says, “I remember you.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” his mom says, her voice choked with tears, and Hitoshi still hears the smile anyway. “I missed you, Hitoshi.”
-
After Hitoshi returns for dinner and the four of them celebrate the the return of some of Hitoshi’s memories, the others quiz him on what he remembers and what he doesn’t.
Hitoshi remembers a fair chunk of his childhood, mostly memories centered around his mom. He doesn’t remember half the people he knew back then, but there’s a couple of them that he remembers. He also remembers his mom welcoming him back home after the first year sports festival, even though he doesn’t remember the festival itself. He remembers bits and pieces of his life, like why he has a small scar on his thumb after an incident back in fourth grade, and his own chip on his shoulder regarding his quirk, but he doesn’t remember most of his acquaintances and his recent years. His head hurts just from trying to think of what their high school was like, and there's a stab of anxiety that this is all he'll get back.
But the taste of curry soothes his worries, and the earnest looks on the three faces looking at him calms him down. Recovery won't be easy, but he has plenty of help.
With renewed determination to make more progress the next day, which is when Hitoshi is scheduled for a little trip down memory lane, Kaminari returns home and the three of them turn in for the night.
-
“You’re a proper hero hopeful like the rest of us!” A bright voice says, with a mega watt grin and sincere, golden eyes that hide a mind more cunning than what everybody assumes.
A messy dorm room, a warm hand around his wrist. White tape securing his sprained finger. A normally bubbly voice tempered by concern and kindness. “You don’t have to hide this stuff or tough it out, y’know. Being a hero doesn’t mean you’re invincible and all. I mean, at least you’re not as bad as Midoriya, but still. Take care of yourself, man, and let us know if something doesn’t feel right.”
Strawberry bubblegum blown and popped. Complaints about upcoming exams and neatly organized English notes. Incessant fingers tapping against a desk that is oddly soothing, a rhythm learnt from hours on the guitar. A whiny grumble and a suggestion that they crash somebody else’s study group instead.
A warm body hugging him tight at graduation. Bravely muffled sniffles and exuberant shouting for group photos. A constant presence by his side, more trustworthy than most people will ever know.
“Holy shit, I have a fanclub.” A wavering voice full of emotion, wide eyes meeting his. The recognition is well-deserved, because there is loyalty in that heart and lightning in that blood and bravery in that soul of this man who finds his strength for the sake of his friends.
And Hitoshi is so fucking proud of him. “Congratulations, Chargebolt—”
-
Hitoshi nearly falls off the bed when he jolts awake, grabbing for his phone in the dark. It hardly registers that it’s still only five in the morning; he presses the call button and waits for the other side to pick up.
“Hello?” A sleepy voice slurs into his ear. It grows alert immediately, presumably after checking the caller ID. “Hitoshi, everything okay?”
“You lost to Ibara in the first year sports festival,” Hitoshi says in a shaky voice, “but we won against her in joint training later on, and you sucked at every subject in school except English, and you send me the stupidest memes every fucking day, and you’re the best friend that I never wanted but I can’t imagine ever not being your friend anymore. This friendship is all your fault and you’re stuck with me for the rest of your life. Got it, Denki?”
There’s a beat of silence before Denki, his best fucking friend in the world, says, “Holy shit, Hitoshi, oh my god, this is the only time in my life I’ve been happy to wake up before six in the morning. And wow, I cannot believe you brought up the first sports festival when I totally kicked ass in our third year!”
“You lost to, uh, somebody with a mushroom quirk back then.”
“Yeah, Komori.” Denki sounds ecstatic, regardless of the memories of his defeat. “Fuck, okay, so you remember me now. And you totally just said I’m stuck with you, which is wrong. You are stuck with me, got it?”
“Yeah.” Hitoshi laughs into his pillow. “I got it.”