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Ever since taking in Hitoshi, Shouta could attest that the kid was far from complicated. Sure, experiencing trauma at such a young age, coming from your family, the very people supposed to take care of you and make you feel safe, and who instead made you feel less than, like a villain, like something disposable, well, it leaves some marks.
Panic attacks were frequent, and the insomnia the teen had been plagued with, which echoed Shouta’s own sleep problems, was a challenge to deal with. Hitoshi still regularly flinched at sudden movements – although he was doing better with loud noises, living with Present Mic helped a lot in that area – and some days went smoother than others. But overall, he was an easy kid.
He wasn’t a social butterfly, so he rarely went out, preferring to play video games online with his classmates, he was very thorough with his homework, and participated in chores – sometimes more than was expected of him, which was mostly to keep his room tidy-ish and maybe set the table. He was a good kid.
So when, one evening, Shouta passed by hid bedroom door, left slightly open, swearing and grumbling, and sounding both miserable and royally pissed off, that left the pro hero somewhat perplexed.
It was a quiet Friday evening. Hizashi was out at the radio station, Shouta was not on patrol duty and neither he nor Hitoshi had anything planned.
As the swearing kept going, followed by a deep, pained sigh, Shouta decided to knock on the door, not pushing it open any more, respecting the kid’s privacy, but particularly curious to know what was happening.
“Kid? You okay in there?”
He got only silence as an answer, which made him raise an eyebrow, until he heard footsteps, and a flustered looking Hitoshi came to greet him. Shouta’s second eyebrow joined the first one.
“I’m fine.”
He looked fine, at the very least, just irritated, with a light frown on his face, mouth turned downwards. He was in his pjs already, flannel pants with a cozy looking long sleeved shirt, which Shouta recognized as a Put Your Hands Up merch shirt that might’ve been his own once upon a time, or Hizashi’s maybe – the man liked to wear his own merch, as he always got ton for free, and the quality was pretty good.
Shouta waited to see if the teen was going to say anything more, which never happened.
“You sure?” he asked softly, narrowing his eyes. “You look like you’ve eaten a lemon or something.”
Hitoshi looked offended for half a second, before snorting and shaking his head.
“Says the man could constantly looks constipated.”
Shouta huffed, mildly offended himself, but something swelled in him again. Upon arriving in his teacher’s home, who took the role of an actual foster father after realizing how bad Hitoshi’s situation was, it had been hard to make him feel like he belonged, like he was free to speak his mind and voice his opinion, his feelings. Having him freely banter with him like this, feeling safe enough to jokingly insult the adult in front of him. Well, Shouta felt like they did something right, at the very least.
“Rude much.”
“Learned from the best.”
They looked at each other for a second, before deadpanning at the same time.
“Hizashi.”
Shouta laughed a bit and shook his head.
“What were you swearing about? Sounded pretty upsetting.”
The flush on his kid’s cheeks returned, and after a moment of hesitation, he lifted his hands to show the pro hero.
“Ah.”
Hitoshi’s nails were dirty with half removed black nail polish, which looked like it had been sloppily applied, partially removed with acetone, applied again, and so on. He pursed his lips not to smile or laugh, careful not to let the kid think he was making fun of him. Instead, he nodded in understanding.
“The dreaded process of learning to apply nail polish on your own, I see.”
Hitoshi eyed him wearily.
“You sound like you’re familiar with that.”
Shouta smirked.
“While I couldn’t be bothered to put any on, mostly because I dislike the feeling, and mostly because the effort of maintaining it is far too big for me, I have, in fact, tried nail polish before. But I was not referring to myself.”
He finally entered the teen’s room, sitting on his bed, and chuckling at the desk where dirty cotton pads covered in polish and acetone were scattered, he smiled at the memories. Hitoshi went to sit back at his chair, glaring at the little glass bottle like it had personally insulted him. He turned back towards Shouta.
“Mic then?”
“Yep. I had to be the witness of Hizashi’s first terrible attempts at doing it himself. He was always doing okay on his left hand, but his right one, done with his none-dominant hand” he winced at the memories. “Chaos.”
Hitoshi was smiling a bit, the tension completely gone from his face.
“He’d get frustrated as hell, try over and over, because he’s nothing if a perfectionist. And he’d come to me whining about it.”
“How’d he managed?”
Shouta actually grimaced at this.
“He used me as his guinea pig.”
That earned him an actual laugh from Hitoshi.
“He’d practice on me, again and again, and then would do his own. That, or he’d asked me to do it for him.”
“You did Hizashi’s nails when you were kids?”
Shouta stared at him for a few seconds, and Hitoshi shot him a confused look.
“What?”
“I still do. I did it for him often during college, and honestly got quite good at it. And I still do it now, from time to time. It’s good bonding time, Hizashi doesn’t have to try and make it perfect on his own, and it’s relaxing. Even sometimes, if he’s injured or just unable to and doesn’t want to give up on parts of his Present Mic paraphernalia, he’d ask me.”
Hitoshi was staring at him as he spoke, head slightly tilted to the side, looking thoughtful. Those little displays of love and affection between Shouta and Hizashi sometimes left him at loss, like now. Shouta knew it came from witnessing a very unhealthy relationship between his biological parents, and he hoped that the kid would come to learn that this is what actual love is supposed to look like. Not distance, coldness and violence.
The room fell silent for a few minutes, Hitoshi processing and Shouta letting him.
“Would you do mine?”
Hitoshi wasn’t looking directly at Shouta, but somewhere at his bedcover, looking a bit embarrassed, but also hesitant. That was also something that they’d be working on. Having Hitoshi ask for things. They knew he was anxious about his quirk, about slipping up and accidentally brainwashing them – it had happened, once. Not very long after Hitoshi had moved in with them.
The day had been stressful, for everyone, and the kid had faced multiple triggers that had altered his control on his quirk. He’d wanted to speak to Shouta about it, had say his name, and between the moment he realized that he'd activated his quirk and Shouta’s answer, there hadn’t been time. He’d helplessly watch Shouta’s face become completely blank, his eyes empty, and his posture slumped. While the man wasn’t usually the most expressive person, there was always something in his eyes that betrayed his feelings, especially at home. Seeing his fake stoic composure lose all trace of willpower and personality had sent Hitoshi is absolute panic and fear.
Thankfully, Hizashi had been in the room and had witnessed the entire thing. The change in his husband’s demeanor was terrifying to him too, the way he stood there without moving, waiting never coming orders, had set something deeply upsetting in his chest. But he had focused on the scared teenager that was staring, hands wrung in his hair and breathing completely out of control.
It taken a few minutes to calm him down enough to break the control he had over Shouta, and about fifteen more minutes until he was calm enough to breathe and realize that no one was mad, no one was angry, no one was blaming him for this, and no one was going to hurt him or kick him out. Shouta had been a little confused and disoriented, and quite unsettled at what he had experienced, but he had quickly jumped in to reassure Hitoshi. All was well, no one was hurt.
Since then, having Hitoshi ask for things had been a challenge. But somehow, that slip up had allowed him to see that his foster parents weren’t lying when they said that he was staying no matter what, that him slipping up was okay, that they would forgive him just about anything. And things been easier.
So yeah. Having the kid ask something as trivial as helping with nail polish made Shouta happy.
“Sure. No problem.”
He stood up and walked over to Hitoshi’s desk. The polish looked like some dollar store brand, probably shitty and not at all helping Hitoshi’s experience. He tsked, and gestured for the teen to follow him. He went straight to his and Hizashi’s shared bathroom, where he knew they kept Hizashi’s nail stuff. Truth to be told, the voice hero probably should be the one to deal with this, as he was still far more experienced than him when it came to nails, cuticles and other barbarian concepts Shouta was unfamiliar with.
But applying polish was something he could do, and was all Hitoshi was asking of him tonight. He’d send him to Hizashi later if he had any interrogations.
He grabbed the box full of the little bottles from a shelf on the wall and brought it out, as well as some fresh cotton pads and nail polish remover.
He brought everything to the living room, Hitoshi trailing behind him.
“You… you don’t mind, do you?”
“Nah, I told you, I do Hizashi’s nails often enough, it’s fine.”
“No I mean…”
Shouta turned around from where he was laying everything on the coffee table, looking up at Hitoshi in confusion. The teen looking away, frowning again.
“You don’t mind that I bought nail polish? That I wanna wear it?”
Oh. That, was something else.
Shouta took a minute to collect his thoughts, before answering.
“Why would I mind, exactly?”
Hitoshi’s frown deepened a bit.
“W-Well, I-“
He stammered and stopped, sighing in frustration, like he didn’t know what to say, or how to say it. He didn’t need to; Shouta had understood right away. With a little sigh of his own, he decided to put the kid out of his misery.
“You think I mind you buying nail polish with your own money without asking us and wanting to wear it. Right?”
Hitoshi pursed his lips, looking at him, that frown still there, though tinted with confusion at Shouta’s kind of blasé tone. The pro hero shrugged at him.
“I mean, sure, it feels like a waste of money, going out of your way to buy cheap polish when Hizashi has enough of the good stuff to do the nails of a small army…” Hitoshi huffed a bit at that, “That would’ve saved you quite the time and trouble, honestly.”
He patted the seat on the couch next to him, and Hitoshi barely hesitated before sitting down. Shouta had laid out everything he needed, and gestured for Hitoshi’s hands, a cotton pad wet with polish remover in his other hand. When Hitoshi extended his arm, Shouta set to work on the leftover black polish that was stuck in the boy’s cuticles.
“As for the other aspect that seems to be bothering you,” he kept talking, while focusing on his work, “if it’s about you being a boy and wearing polish, I think, or hope, that you know that makeup and polish and, hell, clothes have no gender, and who cares about the color of your nails, really. It’s color, get over it. If it’s about you being in the hero course and wearing polish, once again, no one cares. When you get people with all kinds of looks and bodies and skin colors and quirks, who cares about that.”
He was done with Hitoshi’s left hand, and took the right one in his, not looking up once.
“To weigh in my opinion in both cases, I have one argument. Present Mic. Definitely a man, absolutely a hero, particularly picky when it comes to fashion, and always sporting a perfect manicure because he’s extra like that.”
He looked up then and met Hitoshi’s stare dead on.
“And if anyone gives you shit about something like this, send to me- you know what, no, send them to Mic. He’ll be overjoyed to blast their ears off.”
The teenager bit his lips, and his face broke in a lopsided smile. Shouta had started working on getting his nails clean again, confident that his message had been heard.
“Yeah. I think I knew that. Thanks for reminding me, though.”
“No problem, kid.”
He finally got the last of the offensive polish out of his son’s nails, and turned towards the myriad of little bottles, a complete rainbow of nail polish. He eyed the neon orange and bright pink, and looked at the teenager.
“Still wanting black, or are you feeling a little more colorful?”
He gestured to the brighter side of the colors, and chuckled as he saw Hitoshi’s grimace.
“Black’s fine. I like black.”
Shouta laughed and grabbed the black polish, as well as a base coat and a top coat – he wasn’t a complete ignorant, he knew how you’re supposed to apply polish properly. Truthfully, it was Hizashi’s go-to color, most of the time. He said it matched his leather jacket, he generally liked the contrast, but Shouta also knew that he knew that black was the only color he could get talked into wearing himself, and black was generally Shouta’s color code. Hizashi liked having that little bit of his husband with him. That, and it complimented their black wedding rings.
Shouta set to paint Hitoshi’s nails, patiently. They chatted about random things during the process, from training to classes to a bunch of other topics, and Shouta was almost done with the second coat of black when Hizashi came home. He’d been in the middle of shouting his return to the habitants of the flat, loud enough for everyone to wince, when the scene of the living room had him frozen on the spot and silent, almost as efficiently as Erasure could.
He took a second to take in the scene, Hitoshi’s kind of embarrassed face, Shouta’s raised eyebrow, still holding Hitoshi’s hand in his left, the little paint brush in his right. He blinked, before his face split in a giant, excited grin.
“Oh my god, yes ! You’re painting your nails ! Shou, babe, you gotta do mine, it’s cracking everywhere, and oh my god, black, yes ! Great choice kiddo, I swear by black polish, it’s a stapple, such a great choice, it suits you so well ! and good thinking getting your dad to do your nails, he’s so good at it, I always end up making a mess, but he’d so neat, and quick ! I’m excited, this is important, this is-“
He kept rambling excitedly for a good minute, struggling to speak ten words per second while simultaneously taking off his boots, his jacket, his headphones, his sunglasses, and attempting to walk over to them, without falling on his face.
Hitoshi was staring at him with a deranged fascination, while Shouta had resumed applying the polish to the boy’s nails, unphased by his husband behavior.
Finally, the voice hero plopped down in front of them, on the coffee table, knocking a few items over. His grin was still as big, but his rambling had died down. Shouta looked up at him, and smiled softly. Hitoshi was smiling a bit, his face flushed.
“I was trying, failing to do it on my own, with shitty polish, and well…”
“Pro Hero Eraserhead to the rescue, I bet!” Hizashi was still smiling, though it looked fonder now. “Cheap polish suck ass, no wonder why you were struggling. It takes some practice, I’m sure you’ll manage soon!”
Mic started babbling about a good polish and application methods and products and such, just like Shouta had predicted. Hitoshi was listening and nodding along, clearly interested, while Shouta finished applying the top coat on his now pristine black nails. Uh, he was still good enough at this.
“You’re all set.” He announced.
Hitoshi looked down at his still drying nails and grinned, looking up at Shouta with a grateful expression.
“Thank you” he said simply, although there was nothing else to be said.
Shouta just smiled.
“Any time, kid.”
Hitoshi kept smiling to himself as he let his nails dry patiently, and Hizashi started talking again, happily talking something he loved. Naturally, in a seemingly practiced manner, Shouta took both of his hands in his, and started removing the, indeed, cracked polish from his husband’s nails.
That’s how they spent the rest of the evening. Shouta redid Mic’s entire manicure – Hitoshi helped choosing the color, they settled for a dark purple color, with a black accent nail, on his ring fingers – while they all chatted about nails at first, then about hero fashion and a bunch of other unrelated subjects. When they brought up Hitoshi’s worries about him wearing polish, Hizashi had, predictably launched himself into a long tirade about gender and make up and hero and so called “professionalism”, which had Shouta laughing quietly to himself. He’d heard that one quite a few times before, live and on Hizashi’s radio show. Hitoshi had looked more confident though, and in the end, it was all that mattered. They even managed to convince Shouta to get his own nails painted, by Hitoshi, for practice. All black, as well, and with minimum complaining. The teen did a pretty solid job at it, and had looked proud and happy at that moment.
Maybe it was this, or the very nice memory of that evening full of laughter and reassurance and bonding, or the off-handed comment Hizashi had made about how he loved when Shouta wore polish, and how it could only help with Hitoshi’s confidence to see his foster father do the thing he was hesitant to do himself. Maybe it was a combination of all that that, when Hizashi presented him acetone and cotton pads on Sunday evening, right before school were to start again, that made him hesitate, and finally decline. He’d keep the nails. He didn’t mind the sensation so much anymore, and seeing the giant smile on his husband’s face right before his kissed him, as well as the smiles from his students on Monday morning, the proud little face Hitoshi made when Kirishima exclaimed about how manly it looked on him, and even Toshinori’s compliment in the teacher’s lounge at lunch, well, it all made it worth the hassle, in the end.