Chapter Text
Shou needs remedial classes. For some reason, living the past five years of his life abroad and doing “internships” for his old man didn’t mean he was getting a good education in the eyes of the government, and middle school is still compulsory in Japan. It's where he is now, actually. He's playing with his pen in one of the afterschool rooms his middle school has, flipping it through his fingers spinning it over his palm. He catches it with his powers whenever it looks like it’s gonna fly off and hit someone, but he’s trying to master the power-less version.
“Shou-kun, please pay attention.”
Shou straightens up and holds his pen still, “Yes, Sensei.”
It’s not that he doesn’t want to be here, he cares. He cares about learning, and “re-integrating into society” like Serizawa would say, but it’s difficult. His study had a lot of gaps, but his dad did hire some tutors, and some of his goons tried to teach him some things. Being in a classroom…it’s hard to focus sometimes, especially when they occasionally cover things he already knows.
He tries to read what is on the board, he’s in the back, at one point content with watching how other kids took notes and asked questions, but now he’s realizing that might be adding to his bad attention-span.
Bing.
His phone has a message. He opens it discreetly, and tries to not feel too relieved at having a real distraction.
It’s from Serizawa.
He frowns at his phone screen. They haven’t really talked much since Claw disbanded. Serizawa had helped him move in with his mom permanently after his dad was taken to jail. They all traded numbers to keep in touch, but his mom was weary of any espers and he didn’t know what to talk to Serizawa about. After dropping all day game-athons, bodyguard training for his dad, and Claw all together, Serizawa probably didn’t know what to talk to him about either.
>> Shou-kun are you available any time soon?
Hmm. He goes through his schedule in his head, school (he really doesn’t hate it, he swears, but ugh school ) ends at about three… he has remedial classes on Tuesday, Friday and tutoring every other Saturday. He can meet up on Thursday, after he gets his homework and remedial work done on Wednesday.
>> I have something to give you.
Actually.
<< I can meet tomorrow.
An impatient sigh, “Shou-kun. Please show me the notes you’ve taken today.”
Serizawa meets him at a McDonalds, after work and after school respectively. He has a plastic bag with him, he can make out something wrapped in blue and orange seeping through the low opacity. He tries to peek into it but a tinge of purple energy pinches the tops closed. “Do you want anything? My treat.”
He and Serizawa have eaten together a lot in the past. “Fries and two eight packs”
Serizawa nods like he expected it, he should, it’s been his go to order the past two years. “Ok. Be right back.” And like someone normal, he goes up to order. It’s unlike anything he’s ever seen before.
He watches Serizawa order, he stutters once but he gets through it. It’s weird. He’s wearing his suit, a blue one he knows he didn’t own when in Claw, his head is shaved, which is jarring enough, but he’s ordering instead of having Shou or any other of the super five order for them. It’s…really different.
Serizawa returns. “I forgot to ask if you wanted a specific drink, I ordered you a McFlurry.” Shou grins.
“Still scared of the 8 layer gas punch?”
Serizawa grins as well, leaning back into his chair, “You know that much syrup isn’t good for you.”
Shou rolls his eyes, “What’s in the bag.”
Serizawa slides it over, “It’s from Shigeo-kun”
Shigeo-kun... “Ritsu’s bro?”
Serizawa stares. If Shou was just anyone he wouldn’t think any more than Serizawa is just confused, or doesn’t know what to say, but he isn’t anyone. He knows Serizawa’s tells after three years of close proximity. His lips are pressed into a straight line, his eyebrows are raised slightly, and his eyes sparkle with amusement. He’s trying not to tease.
Shou forces his own face not to give him away as easily. “You could just say yes.”
He takes out the first thing he can feel, the wrapping isn’t perfect and he can already feel the spiral through it. Taking apart the wrapping he’s greeted by a thick notebook coated in a layer of plastic. “Oh.”
Turning it over in his hands, he admires it. New, and smaller than his regular spirals but thicker. He must have gone to a specialty stationary store out of town because of its high quality, checkered on the front in white and black, he won’t take off the plastic protector yet but he can tell it has velvet finish through it. “Why did he give this to me?”
Serizawa freezes. Shou is about to call him out on it when an employee arrives sliding their orders in front of them.
Serizawa gives his thanks for both of them.
“He said - well he wrote you a letter with what he wanted to tell you, it’s in the bag. But he told me you had helped him when…” he trails off.
Shou can’t think of a single time where he’s helped Ritsu’s brother. Quite the opposite actually. Filing through his memories though, there really is only one event he could be talking about.
“My dad did a lot more than I did.”
“Your dad?”
Shou doesn’t know why his question is weighted as much as it is. He opens his nugget box and sips his mcflurry to buy himself some time to answer. He tries to check Serizawa’s face for anger, or sadness, any sign the mention of his dad is gonna cause an explosion, but Serizawa just looks confused and earnestly interested. Nothing in his hands to give him away either. A shallow bitter feeling hits him in spite of the cookies and creme. Serizawa changed.
Maybe he can’t read him as well anymore.
“The government asked him to help.“
“Oh.”
He eats his nuggets and Serizawa eats his own burger. He’s trying to figure out if telling him the details would do him any good.
“He tried to absorb his powers.” He doesn’t look at Serizawa as he says it, remembering the last time his dad used that particular power infront of Serizawa. “But when he used them to fight they would just get reabsorbed. For it to work… he would have had to sacrifice himself.” He turns back to Serizawa then he’s listening intently, not even touching his burger.
“He didn’t. He chose to leave.”
There’s a lot of context to that statement he doesn’t know how to explain. He hopes Serizawa gets it. He knows his dad is messed up, and he was an idiot with everyone he ever recruited, but he really hopes that Serizawa understands what that means.
It’s selfish and he understands if he hated him and never wanted to talk to him again, but he hopes Serizawa doesn’t hate his dad. This new version of him.
Serizawa nods, and smiles, weakly or softly? Shou can’t tell, “I’m glad he did, that was a smart choice.”
He turns away and keeps eating his burger. It looks like he’s thinking hard about something, remembering something with new eyes. Whatever it is he doesn’t tell him the entirety of it, “I’m also glad you’re okay Shou, I should have checked in then, I didn’t know you’d be involved.”
Shou scoffs as he shoves fries into his mouth, a lot more relaxed now that the conversation has moved past his dad. “I didn’t even get hurt.” He empties out his first box of nuggets, with a full mouth he continues, ”And I knew you were involved, I didn’t check in either.”
Serizawa startles, “You knew I was there?”
Shou rolls his eyes, “You and your boss were on the news.”
He stares at Shou, just when he thinks he’s gonna move on from the topic it clicks for him. “When we jumped the police tape.”
Shou nods.
Serizawa melts into his booth chair. “Reigen-San insisted we go help. We were so focused on getting to the center of the tornado that we barely paid attention to what was going on around us.”
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what happened there. Serizawa isn’t nearly as strong as his dad, even without ten years of stored energy, and his boss – although powerless, managed to completely stop Ritsu’s brother’s second explosion at the 7th division.
“I can’t believe he stopped that without powers.”
Serizawa sighs into his fries.”Yeah.” A ridiculous smile on his face, “Reigen-san is really amazing.”
Shou doesn’t even try to hide the flat look on his face.
After some less tense talking Shou and Serizawa say goodbye. Serizawa suggests they study together sometime after he learns that Shou is almost caught up to Serizawa’s grade level. Shou doesn’t think his brain can handle any more scheduled learning, but he does miss him. They promised to text about it later, sometime after Serizawa’s upcoming exam.
Serizawa heads for the train station but Shou likes to fly. The air on his face feels good in the evening heat and it's easier to find his way home like this, if he's being honest. He only looks back once to make sure he didn’t leave a contrail, then drops from the sky a block away from the address he’s known as his mom’s for the past three years. His mom only questioned how he could visit her while in his dad’s custody once. The look on her face told him he never had to tell her again.
When he arrives at his house, his mom isn’t there. He tries not to think about why she keeps putting in long hours at work as he pulls out hamster feed and refills their water. Once done, he crashes in his bed exhausted with the day.
He pulls out the plastic bag, rummaging through the contents. He only looked at the book at the restaurant, but now that he has the time to look at the note Ritsu’s brother wrote to him, he’s curious.
It’s written kind of sloppily on a regular sheet of printer paper, stuffed in one of those average envelopes every office has.
Hello Suzuki-kun,
I wanted to thank you for trying to help me when I lost control a few months ago. I didn’t have your number and I don’t know where you go to school so I hope Serizawa-san can give this to you soon.
My therapist told me to write my feelings out to help sort through them better. I think it's been working well. It's a lot easier to get through my feelings about what happened when I remember that no-one was gravely injured, you're one of those people I have to thank for that. I don’t remember what happened too well, but I think you got your dad to leave the area before I did something I could really regret. I appreciate that.
I hope this book can help you like mine helped me.
- Kageyama Shigeo
Shou turns around his new book. Ritsu’s bro is too nice. He’s not annoyed like he kinda was with him back when they met, but he doesn’t really know what to do with that information now. He opens the book, flipping through the pages. They’re smooth but thicker than his class notebooks. The pages are surprisingly blank.
Actually, he changed his mind. Ritsu’s brother is kinda weird. Writing down his feelings? Not only is that silly, but if anyone finds it they could blackmail him. Or use his words for their own purpose. It depends.
He tosses the bag on the floor and it lands with a rubber sound. There’s more? He reaches over and finds a red rubber eraser with a blue mechanical pencil. He tests them both, the mechanical pencil is the same as every other one he’s used but when he brushes the eraser shavings away his nose twitches with the smell of something artificial. Cherry.
Interesting.. . While he draws lines and fills in circles he considers what Ritsu’s brother suggested again. If anyone found it… but he's just living with his mom. And his dad, well, he's in jail. Claw is over, there’s no one left that could find his things, or want to use him for evil. He takes a deep breath as his chest starts to feel a bit tight. Claw is over. Ritsu and his brother and Serizawa's new boss helped take it down.
Maybe… he will use this book.
He catches himself drawing the messy hair he's been thinking of on and off the past month and stops himself.
Embarrassing , echoes in his head as he roughly erases it. Cherry scents and eraser shavings brush onto his bed.
He sighs.
Okay. I can meet you halfway Ritsu’s bro. He thinks as he finishes his border doodles. I'll use this book you've generously given me, but I'll use it as a sketchbook instead of a journal or whatever you were hinting at.
He writes at the bottom.
Suzuki Shou May 1st
He sits up in bed as he thinks about what his first drawing should be. Not a person, his favorite manga characters? That might be too hard. Something that’s really him… He looks around his room before it clicks, his hamsters!
He scuttles over to the hamster cage on his nightstand. His two hamsters whom he loves dearly - who better to give the first page honor?
He stares into their stump shaped sleeping spot, they woke up when he changed the water, and now they’re staring right back at him sniffing through the bars. He takes them out of the cage, sitting with them on the floor, and simultaneously pulls up a small barrier with his powers so they don’t wander off. They’re gonna be moving a bit but he’s always up for a challenge. He resolves to try to fill up the first page, then move on to his never-ending pile of remedial work.
He gets comfy leaning on his bed frame, and puts pencil to paper.