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“Kaminari.”
They’re in a nicer neighborhood, straying a ways from the arcade Ueshiba brought them to. The older boy is participating in a gaming tournament, using stolen yen to buy himself access.
If it were up to Shinsou, they’d still be in bed, sleeping away the school break, or maybe preparing for UA. But Suzuki insisted they leave, something about productivity and static minds, and Ueshiba offered to chaperone, so here they are.
Far from their foster brother, wandering the streets of a place that's ten times their worth. It’s early April, the air crisp enough to warrant the black jacket hanging off of Kaminari. The sidewalks are cobbled and uncracked, the space between buildings just a bit bigger. The buildings themselves made with expensive, good quality materials and glass that isn’t grimy. Cherry blossom trees line the streets, littering soft white and pink petals in the wind.
“Kaminari.”
The blonde licks his lips, flashing canines with a sharp point to them. His eyes are still gazing across the street, clocking a pair of daylight heroes on patrol. Heroes that have been watching them since they showed up in this neighborhood, probably waiting for them to cause trouble.
They look like trouble. Unkempt, shoes falling apart at the seams, clothes baggy and over washed. Kaminari has gotten two more piercings since Shinsou met him, both done by a girl with a sewing needle and a bottle of rubbing alcohol.
But Shinsou isn’t paying attention to the heroes, attuned to another, more pressing threat stalking towards them from further down the street.
“Kaminari, we should head back.”
The words are said dully, without inflection. Shinsou’s been accused of being lazy, with his tone and his expression, always looking apathetic. He doesn’t emote very well.
Despite that, when Kaminari’s eyes flick to him, there’s the slightest furrow of concern in his brow, gaze flicking up and down Shinsou as if looking for a problem.
The brilliant little lightning bug that he is, Kaminari figures it out quickly, catching the way Shinsou’s hands clench into fists, and the tense line of his jaw, and then following his stare.
His lips twist into a sneer.
“Kaminari,” Shinsou hisses. “Let’s just go .”
He doesn’t listen, of course. Just squares his shoulders and tilts his chin up, glaring down the group of bullies.
Shinsou grabs him by the arm, jerking him backwards. “Not here.”
A mother bustles past them, one toddler on her hip and another waddling behind her. Kaminari twitches in place, shooting another glance at the heroes, who are fighting traffic to cross the street and get to them.
“Fine.”
He turns sharply, using Shinsou’s grip on his arm to tug the taller boy along, down a more secluded side street.
It’s not hard to keep up with Kaminari, darting between buildings and down alleys. Shinsou knows what he is doing, knows that Kaminari could be going faster than this, and isn't choosing routes that would take them back to Ueshiba. He can hear footsteps behind them, raucous excitement as at least four upperclassmen chase them across the city.
Shit. Kaminari really is going to be the death of him.
The older boy makes another turn, a sadistic little smile brightening his face. They skid to a stop, walled in on all sides by office buildings.
“Oh no,” Kaminari says brightly, eyes glowing in the shadows. Shadows that only grow dimmer when their pursuers block the entrance to the alley. “A dead end.”
“You suck,” Shinsou informs him, words whispered heatedly between them, too soft for the other boys to hear.
Kaminari rolls his shoulders, cracking his knuckles and turning to face the newcomers.
“Running from us, sparky?” The leader, Shoyo, shouts. His face is flat and round, nose crooked from being broken a few too many times, hair buzzed close to his head. “You scared?”
“Are you?” Shinsou calls, stepping in front. If he can end this quickly, they might be able to get back to the arcade before Ueshiba leaves without them.
But as much of an asshole as Shoyo can be, he’s not stupid. He gives Shinsou an icy look, and wordlessly nods to his lackeys.
Lackeys that, after punching their own fists a few times, lunge .
Shinsou is no stranger to street fights, school yard tussling, or just plain old beat-downs. He’s had his fair share of each, made enough enemies, inspired plenty of hatred for his quirk and his general demeanor. People don’t like an asshole with a chip on his shoulder, and Shinsou’s never been the friendly type.
Still, he isn’t the one to lunge back. It’s Kaminari, darting around Shinsou in an impressive show of speed, eyes lighting up with an undeniable excitement.
Kaminari throws the first punch, clocking a guy in the nose and ducking under another blow. He laughs, cocksure, throwing his head back and cackling as the teenager crashes to the ground in front of him.
The other two falter, eyes darting to their fallen friend, who clutches his face and groans. Broken nose, if Shinsou had to guess.
“I’m gonna fuck you up,” Shoyo snarls, squaring up his own fists. Kaminari grins, tilting his head and falling into a loose defensive stance.
Shinsou takes a step back, and another, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at his brother.
They can’t afford to be pulling shit like this. Not with UA so close. A smudge on their permanent record could disqualify them both from the hero course, and while Kaminari could probably get off easy with a ditzy look and an innocent smile, Shinsou doesn’t have the same cards to play. Shinsou’s been cast as the delinquent his whole life, no one’s going to take pity on him.
So he can’t help but feel a little irritated with Kaminari. A little ungenerous, waiting a few crucial moments instead of stepping in.
Kaminari has Shoyo on his back in seconds, raining down blow after blow to his face, but it leaves his back open to the other two thugs.
They kick him off their leader, and don’t stop, one climbing on top of Kaminari to keep him pinned and the other kicking at his stomach.
Kaminari is still laughing, still punching and spitting insults with a smile, but there’s tension in his face now, and Shinsou will never be able to sit by and watch him in pain. He uncrosses his arms, stalking up to the writhing ball of teenage boys and flailing limbs, grabs the first patch of dark hair he sees, and tugs .
Shinsou punches the boy in the kidney, then drops him with a kick to the groin. Kaminari just laughs harder when his brother joins the fight.
His black eyes are a little more demonic in this light, the ring of gold more pronounced. There’s a reason why everyone who knows Kaminari refers to him as a psychopath.
They walk away two hundred yen richer, with superficial bruises and split lips. Kaminari buys street food to celebrate.
“And of course.” Present Mic says. Yamada-Sensei, the 1C homeroom teacher and year one English instructor. Shinsou’s only been in his class for five full days. “We have the upcoming annual sports festival in two weeks! I know you’ll all do your best. Plus Ultra!”
1C is staring at him. The class is full of hero rejects and nerds who couldn’t fit into a specialty class. Enthusiasm, especially about a sports festival of all things, will not be found here.
Sensei only deflates a little. “Ten points extra credit to anyone who listens to the English translation of tonight’s episode of Put Your Hands Up! Radio and writes about their favorite part. Due on Monday.”
That gets a murmur of excitement. Even Shinsou brightens a bit at the prospect of improving his English grade, if only by a few points.
The room devolves into chatter as the students of 1C pack up their things. Already a few friend groups have formed, and the outcasts have been identified and ostracized accordingly. Shinsou’s own exclusion is by design. He doesn’t plan to stay in this class for much longer, not if Rat-Principal was serious about transferring him after the sports festival. There’s no use setting down roots somewhere he has no business being.
“Ah, Shinsou!”
He glances up from his stack of homework, shoulders hunching at the fast-approaching teacher.
Yamada grins at him, but it’s nothing personal. Shinsou has yet to see him not grinning, and he doubts it’s possible to be that consistently happy, so he must be faking. Lying.
The man’s a very good liar, though.
“Can I have a word, lil listener?”
He shrugs, picking up his blazer from the back of his chair and tossing it over one shoulder, tucking the papers under his arm. He knows he looks ruffled, low-class and unkempt. It’s a persistent sleepless appearance, between his hair and the constant bags under his eyes. He’s been told he pulls off “hot zombie” well.
Kaminari says he just looks like the physical embodiment of a 300 calorie microwaved burrito. Shinsou chose to take that as, “delicious, but inherently hedonistic”, and not “unhealthy and lacking a soul”.
To most teachers, that gets him instant delinquent status.
It’s good. It means he gets graded a bit more harshly, means there are more eyes on him, but it also means that, once they figure out that he’s not going to start causing trouble, they mostly leave him alone. Already Ectoplasm and Midnight have gotten with the program, their eyes skimming over his seat in the back, going glazed as if willfully ignoring his presence. It’s comforting to know that some things never change.
Yamada, on the other hand, seems oddly persistent in building a rapport with every member of his low-energy, unenthusiastic class, especially the ones who don’t want his time or attention.
It’s annoying, it’s manipulative, and Shinsou’s going to find the catch one of these days, but for now he just accepts the hand on his shoulder guiding him to the front of the room with great tolerance, and resists the urge to roll his eyes at the immediate, “How is everything, Shinsou-kun?”
“Great,” He says, with as much eagerness as he can muster, voice never straying from its toneless deadpan.
Yamada just beams at him, more than vivacious enough to make up for his lackluster response. “That’s great! Anyways, Recovery Girl texted me earlier. Kaminari ended up in the nurse's office— nothing serious, don’t worry!— but he’s going to have to stick around for a little bit. You’re his brother, right?”
There’s a bit of skepticism there, Shinsou can admit, and he doesn’t blame him. They certainly don’t look like brothers.
“Foster brother, yeah.” He clears his throat. “Thanks for telling me, Sensei. I’ll go see him now, then.”
“Do you know the way?” Yamada asks, and Shinsou would give anything to be able to say yes.
His stomach is already twisting, an aggrieved groan building up in his chest, because he knows exactly where this is going.
Of course Shinsou doesn’t know the way to the nurse’s office. It’s been barely a full week of school, UA is a fucking four story maze, and absolutely no one keeps those campus maps for longer than a few days before they get too crumpled at the bottom of their bags and promptly thrown in the trash.
“I can figure it out,” He says weakly, hoping against hope that Yamada will nod and go back to doing whatever important teacher things need to be done. Instead, the man flashes him another dazzling smile, throwing an arm around his shoulder.
He smells like leather and hair gel, Shinsou notes. And he’s also stupidly tall.
“Nonsense! I can take you, man!”
It’s just yet another cruel machination of the universe. Shinsou’s always the underdog, the last picked and least deserving. It’s only fitting that he’s made to suffer the likes of his chatty, effervescent teacher for who knows how long until they find the infirmary, that he’s forced to compare the blonde to his own brother, and play connect the dots until he realizes just how much they are alike.
Only Yamada doesn’t have a scar on the right side of his upper lip, and he doesn’t hide himself in ill-fitting clothes to mask the skinniness or the bruises. He probably doesn't smile when he knocks a man's teeth out, and hasn't ever gone looking for a fistfight. Yamada-Sensei wears a black, studded leather jacket and music-note earrings, and is exactly what Kaminari could be if Shinsou were just a little better at protecting him.
He’s also obnoxious and overwhelming after a day full of obnoxious and overwhelming things, but at least he's a familiar brand of irritating.
Shinsou, admittedly, finds himself getting used to this kind, attentive version of a teacher too quickly.
“So how are your classes so far?” Yamada says, and Shinsou is a little gratified to see the flood of students parting for them like the red sea, kids ducking out of their way even as Yamada almost purposefully walks against the grain of traffic.
Even with his height, Shinsou would probably have had to fight through this crowd.
Which means it’s a Yamada-thing, not a tall person thing. Yamada is the one inciting the respectful glances. Yamada receives waved greetings and distracted smiles from the year threes.
It says something about him. Soon, Shinsou’s going to figure out what.
“Fine,” Shinsous says, a beat too late. He glances up, a slight tingling on the back of his neck, and meets venomous green eyes hidden behind tinted glasses.
Yamada is still smiling. Fondly. “Are you excited for the sports festival?”
Shinsou shrugs immediately, determined to keep up with a conversation he has no real investment in, just to wipe away the slight furrow in Yamada’s brow.
“Any strategies that you’ve been thinking about?”
Hundreds off the top of his head. Shinsou’s been obsessing over the sports festival since he got his acceptance letter, forcing the boys in the group home to watch reruns of prior festivals again and again until Hinata threatened to shove the remote up his ass.
But he can’t say that, can’t admit how absolutely desperate he is to win this, so he shrugs again, glad for the persistent bored expression that wipes away any other emotion.
“I’m sure you’ll do awesome, lil listener. I believe in you!”
Admittedly, that’s a little comforting.
“The nurse’s office is right next to the hero wing,” Yamada says, gesturing to a set of double doors at the end of the hall. “For obvious reasons. So if you ever need a little TLC just hop on over here and RG will getcha fixed right up!”
“Thank you, Sensei.” Shinsou shrugs the arm off his shoulder, stepping away and expecting Yamada to do the same.
Instead, the man waves off the gratitude, holds the door open for Shinsou, and follows him inside.
Shinsou isn’t sure what he did to deserve the overbearing attention of his homeroom teacher, but he’s very, very sorry for it.
Stiffly, Shinsou scans the rows of hospital-grade cots and curtains, inching his way through the empty room with Yamada hot on his heels.
He seems to take the hint finally, sensing Shinsou’s discomfort and patting him on the shoulder before saying, “I’ll go get Recovery Girl from her office. Kaminari will probably be sleeping.”
Shinsou watches him go without moving, one hand keeping his blazer in place and the other drumming a tuneless rhythm on his thigh.
He waits until Yamada is out of sight, before hurrying down the row of cots, glancing past privacy curtains in hopes of catching a glimpse of Kaminari. He finds the boy lying limp and pale, alone in a bed that’s made to be small and uncomfortable and still manages to dwarf him.
It looks like an image out of a medical drama, his pale face twisted to the side, features slack, the only sign of life is the slow rise and fall of his chest. The only thing missing is the mess of wires and tubes and the beeping of an EKG machine.
Kaminari is fine though, not a sickly, terminal patient. Just roughed up in hero training.
Shinsou tells himself that, even as he sets his stuff down on the waiting chair next to the bed, finding his brother’s hand and pressing two fingers to the pulse point on his wrist.
A steady hum of life. His uniform is folded neatly on the bedside table, bookbag resting on the ground next to it. Kaminari’s fine.
Shinsou taps him, once on the arm, grimacing when he doesn’t so much as stir.
“He’s just sleeping, dearie.”
The teenager whips around, eyes flying wide at the silent approach of Recovery Girl and Yamada, both smiling at him a little sadly.
“I used my quirk to heal him,” The old lady says. “He’ll be quite exhausted for a while. He should rest and eat well tonight.”
That’s unlikely to happen. By the time they get out of here, they’ll have missed their train, and will have to get a later one home. Dinner’s going to be done and the fridge will be locked by time they get there.
“What happened?”
“They were practicing for the sports festival today and got a little excited. Kaminari broke one of his arms, but I’m sure it was an accident.” Recovery Girl smiles like she didn’t just admit to a group of violent fourteen-year-olds breaking each other for funsies.
Shinsou stares at her and tries not to care too much. Reminds himself that he wants to transfer to that class, and apathy to bodily harm seems to be one of the prerequisites.
“Have a seat,” Recovery Girl says, patting his arm, her wrinkled hands soft with age. “He’ll wake up soon and then you can leave. For now, Yamada, would you mind taking a look at something for me?”
Recovery Girl rounds the side of the bed, and Shinsou watches as she peels away the blanket, revealing the hospital gown and Kaminari's bare arms and legs.
Instinct has Shinou opening his mouth before he can think better of it, indignant at the lack of privacy, automatically wanting to shield Kaminari from their sharp eyes. He catches himself, though, biting his tongue and crossing his arms over his chest so it won’t look like he’s holding himself back.
Shinsou waits for the gasp. Waits for Yamada to frown and splutter, for confusion, and maybe even horror to cross their faces. They are heroes, after all.
But neither of them so much as flinch at the pale white lines that branch up and down his limbs, repeated points of impact, repeated abuse.
Yamada takes a deep breath, his smile gone. And maybe that’s enough of a reaction, because the sight sends chills down Shinsou’s spine. “Could it be part of his quirk?”
“Anything is possible,” Recovery Girl says. “But it’s not on his file in the quirk registry.”
They both look at Shinsou then, expectantly, breath bated. But this is not Shinsou’s story to tell. He shouldn’t betray Kaminari’s trust like that, not when it took so long to learn the origin of the scarring himself. Months of sitting with the boy after nightmares, ignoring the way he’d trace those lines whenever it stormed.
“Quirks are genetically inherited,” Shinsou says dully. “Kaminari is in foster care.”
Realization crosses Yamada’s face, followed quickly by a grimace of understanding. He rests a hand on Kaminari’s forehead, smoothing back the fringe of hair while Recovery Girl replaces the blanket. “I see.”
Shinsou swallows down a swell of emotion, nodding at his teacher. He drags his knees up into the chair, letting his head fall back, and closing his eyes so he won’t have to look at the identical looks of pity on both of their faces.
Kaminari is not pitiable. He’s the strongest person he knows. He’s ten times the person that Shinsou is, and he is not weak.
Recovery girl pats the railing of the cot, leaning heavily on her cane. “I’ll be in my office if you need me, dear boy. Kaminari is free to leave when he wakes up.”
“Thank you,” Shinsou rasps, not opening his eyes. He listens to the soft, near silent, patter of her footsteps, and grimaces when it’s not joined by another set.
Instead, the cool infirmary air shifts around him, and Shinsou cracks an eye open to see Yamada crouching next to the cheap plastic chair.
“Shinsou.”
“It’s fine,” Shinsou rasps, because he’s had this conversation with every nice teacher since elementary school. “We’re fine.”
“Okay,” Yamada says soothingly, bracing himself on the arm rests. “But you’ll tell me if that changes? If you need help?”
No.
“Yes.”
“Okay, kiddo,” The smile comes back, and it’s a little crooked. “Cool with you if I hang here a bit? At least until your brother wakes up.”
Shinsou doesn’t realize he’s said yes until Yamada pulls up a chair.