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crying.
crying never did nobody no good, no how.
that's why i don't cry.
that's why i don't cry.
~•~
Purple had always been Hitoshi’s colour.
His hair was purple, fluffy and standing up as if he was constantly styling it that way. Truth be told, the boy didn’t know how it was doing that either, but he didn’t mind it all that much.
His eyes were purple too, white pupils creating the same contrast as his too pale skin did for his hair.
Most importantly though, his hero costume was going to be purple, not fully of course, but black with purple highlights. He had it all planned out for when he could transfer class, something that seemed possible, now that Aizawa had approached him about tutoring after the Sports Festival.
The Sports Festival was also the reason why the newest purple addition had been added, an unwanted one. The bruise right under his eye hurt, stretching uncomfortably over his skin. He’d earned it for using his quirk, nevermind that it was to win a spot in the Hero Course.
Only a villain would use such a quirk, after all.
Sometimes when someone parroted that phrase at him, he wondered how they would act if they had his quirk. Did they not realize that it was a part of him? That it was the only quirk he had and if having a villain quirk was bad, then being quirkless was even worse? Hitoshi knew it well, he had pretended to be quirkless once, in some nondescript school in his past and wow. It had been bad.
The General Education student peered at himself in the mirror. His skin was paler than usual, his eye bags bigger. He hadn’t slept, worried about today because while he’d had the bruise for quite a while, today he was training with Eraserhead. Which wasn’t to say that his other teachers weren’t observant, his homeroom teacher, Present Mic, had definitely seen it, but Eraserhead tended to comment.
Besides, he had only trained with the man twice and Hitoshi already had a fierce desire to impress his mentor and there wasn’t anything remotely impressive about getting beat up for being a villain.
A small part of him whispered that if Eraserhead knew what the bruise was about, he would start to see Hitoshi as a villain as well, but the boy shoved the thought away. Instead, he gingerly touched his cheek, hissing when the pain flared. His eyes were burning suspiciously, but they stayed dry as they always did.
Crying had never helped him, so why start now? It didn’t matter that all he wanted to do was curl up in his bed and pretend that his foster dad hadn’t unmistakably made it clear that he would get worse if they ever realized again that he was using his quirk nor that his muzzle, now a size or two too small for him, was prominently placed on the dinner table.
The message was clear. One step out of line…
The worst thing about it was that Hitoshi had thought for sure that this set of fosters would not use the damned muzzle. The woman had nearly cried when she’d seen it the first time. Yes, she still averted her eyes even now when she walked past the object, but she hadn’t stopped her husband from putting it down on the table in the first place.
She had simply left the room as the man took the scrawny boy’s shirt, half lifting him. “One step, boy,” he’d said, too loudly for their proximity.
Safe to say that Hitoshi had gotten the warning.
The purple-haired boy eyed the concealer of his foster sister longingly, but he knew that it was a terrible idea. She would definitely snitch on him if she caught him and his fosters would kill him for using makeup. He was a boy after all. Besides, he wouldn’t know what to do with it and he felt like hiding it badly would not be a good idea.
After all, he didn’t want Aizawa to know that he had something to hide in the first place.
The boy jerkily pushed himself away from the mirror, averting his eyes from the purple bruise and instead going to dress himself. The UA uniform was a bit too short on him and a bit too wide. He could have gotten it changed to fit him better, he didn’t even think it would cost anything, but he needed a signature.
The Ishimas had said that if he did attend UA like an imposter, he would at least look like it and he had dropped the subject neatly. None of his teachers had said anything, so it was a non-issue.
Still, he wished… whatever. It wasn’t important.
As so often, class dragged on with Hitoshi struggling to pay attention. It was okay, he had great grades and studied hard, didn’t have much else to do after all, but still. Luckily, most of his teachers didn’t call on him. It was nice.
Somehow, the day still passed.
Hitoshi found himself panicking, just a little bit as he pulled on his sports uniform. It was a familiar feeling, his anxiety pushing against his chest, making his air intake harder. He could deal with it.
Aizawa was waiting already, dark eyes latching onto the bruise immediately. He didn’t look surprised at all, but Hitoshi also thought that even if he was surprised, the brainwasher likely wouldn’t have seen it.
The teacher opened his mouth. “I thought we’d look at your quirk today.”
The pale boy thought his own surprise must have shown, because the man’s eyes softened, but he didn’t say anything.
In fact, he didn’t comment on the bruise once, not one single time, even if Hitoshi saw his eyes on it a couple more times.
He wasn’t sure if he had wanted him too.
In any case, the burning in his eyes when he hit the showers was unrelated.
~•~
laughing.
laughing sometimes does somebody some good somehow.
that's why i’m laughing now.
that's why i’m laughing now.
~•~
“Ugh, you fucking suck,” Kaminari accused Jirou and Hitoshi smirked at them both.
The three were in Hitoshi’s room, playing Mario Kart. The brainwasher was winning by absolute leagues, courtesy of that one Foster Home and his insomnia about a year ago. The skills had lingered, even if his placement hadn’t been permanent. None of them ever were.
The dormitory situation UA had going on after the absolute disaster that had been the Summer Camp was actually absolutely ideal for Hitoshi. No more coming to school with bruises.
“You’re just jealous of my skill,” the purple-haired girl sniped back from where she was sitting, her legs leisurely draped over Kaminari’s. She had hit the boy with a red shell right before the finishing line, taking second place.
The electricity user stuck out his tongue at his girlfriend like the mature teenager he was.
Hitoshi was still not entirely sure how he had managed to befriend the couple. The rest of their class still stared at him wearily or in Midoriya’s case, in a way that made the brainwasher mildly uncomfortable, even if he couldn’t place the emotion in the green eyes.
“You both are just bad at this game,” he commented drily, starting a new game.
The pillow coming for his face made him tense briefly, but he simply batted it out of the air with glorious, fake, contempt.
Jirou snickered at Kaminari’s face.
Their friendship had started in the first semester when the blonde had approached him about his quirk, asking all kinds of questions with such relentless kindness that Hitoshi had grouchily replied. It had ended with the blonde’s number in his phone.
At first, it had been mostly one sided, with the electricity user rambling about whatever topic came to his mind, but eventually, Hitoshi had started sending memes when he couldn’t sleep.
It devolved from there and Kaminari roped his girlfriend into it once they came together shortly after Summer Camp.
Hitoshi found that he had a very similar humour to the girl.
In fact, Kaminari was the odd one out when the three of them hung out, but he didn’t seem to mind at all.
“How’s training with ‘zawa going?” Jirou asked after a few more rounds and both hero aspirants looked at the General Education student with some kind of expectation that made his skin crawl.
“Fine,” he grunted.
“Wow, if you said anything more, I’d get sensory overload,” Jirou deadpanned.
Despite himself, Hitoshi snorted at the comment, surprising both himself and them. It had been a while since he’d shown any reaction stronger than a subtle quirk of his lips. The hearing-quirked girl looked immensely pleased with herself, exchanging a whip-quick glance with her boyfriend she probably thought Hitoshi wouldn’t catch.
While the purple-haired boy knew that they would ditch him once they got bored of his novelty, he surprisingly enough didn’t often feel like a third wheel around them. It was nice.
They were nice.
Hitoshi was almost content.
Sure, he couldn’t quite turn off the ever-there voice in his head that told him facts about them leaving him, that they hadn’t fully grasped his quirk and that it was the only reason they still let him meet them, but if he tuned it out, there was only warmth.
“Another round?” Kaminari asked, fiddling with his controller.
Hitoshi had realized quickly that the electricity user had an abundance of energy. He was ever moving, either twisting something in his hands or bouncing his leg up and down or lightly swaying. It was endearing and not at all as annoying as Hitoshi had thought it would be.
“I’m tired of beating you losers,” he replied, lowering his own controller.
This time, he dodged the pillow completely, not tensing at all, before smirking at the boy.
“Let’s train then and I’ll kick your ass,” the human pikachu shot back.
Hitoshi knew that the blonde didn’t mean it in a bad way, it was just a fact that he was better at fighting than the brainwasher was, but he still tensed again.
Jirou came to his defense immediately. “Please, I saw you trip on nothing yesterday and fall flat on your face. Stay in your lane.”
The comment startled a laugh out of the pale Gen Ed student and the two hero students slowly turned to look at him, looking in equal measures surprised and delighted by the development.
“The famously impassive Shinso Hitoshi laughing?” Jirou asked, pressing her hands to her chest in a transparently fake show of dramatics. “That I live to see the day.”
Hitoshi rolled his eyes, grabbed one of the pillows near him and chucked it at her.
She retaliated and rapidly, they were locked in a heated pillow fight, everyone fighting everyone.
Hitoshi learned that day that one could ache from laughing too much.
~•~
loving.
loving, never did me no good, no how, no how.
that's why can’t love you now.
that's why can’t love you now.
~•~
Hitoshi had joined a training exercise of the two classes. His transfer would be soon, Aizawa had promised and the brainwasher was patient, he was, but with every day in the General Education course something small in him broke apart.
Now, he was once again in his room with Denki and Kyouka, the three rarely hung out in the 1A dorms because of the glares Hitoshi still got.
“Hitoshi,” Denki said softly, surprisingly hesitant. As always, Hitoshi got hung up on the first name, the development relatively new. The brainwasher had never had friends close enough for first name basis.
They had already talked about the training exercise, it had gone reasonably well even if Hitoshi was pretty sure that he’d join 1-B, not 1-A. He didn’t mind much, it wouldn’t change anything about his arrangements with his friends right now and maybe it was better, the class was less biased against his quirk.
Which… Ojiro had apologized for his extreme reaction to being brainwashed and promptly spreading his requirment, but also Hitoshi had kind of thought his reaction at least was normal, so he didn’t know what to do with that.
“Hitoshi,” Denki repeated and the purple-haired boy realized that he’d been silent for too long.
The couple was staring at him with such intent that for another moment, Hitoshi couldn’t quite find the words to reply.
“Yes?”
They shared a glance full of a past conversation Toshi hadn’t been privy to and he fought his jealousy.
“We like you,” Kyouka blurted out and Hitoshi couldn’t help his eyes furrowing in confusion.
“Well, I sure hope so considering how often you hang out with me.” The biting sarcasm was softened by confusion and insecurity.
Was this them cutting him loose? Was there a ‘but’ following?
It would hurt, because Hitoshi liked them too. A lot.
He also thought about them constantly.
He thought about Denki’s sunlight hair and the way the lightning bolt danced when he spoke, always spirited, always animated.
He thought about the crinkles next to Kyouka’s eyes when she talked about her favourite band or one of her siblings or her pet fish Kasper, always so full of adoration.
He thought about Denki’s laugh, not polished at all but raw, a bark more like a genuine laughing sound. It only happened when he found something hilarious enough to forget to hide it and it was one of Hitoshi’s favourite sounds.
He thought about Kyouka’s hands when she moved them over an instrument, making all of them sound beautiful. It didn’t matter what she was playing, she managed to make any instrument Hitoshi’s favourite on the spot, be it her beloved E-guitar, the piano or the violin or the flute or the drums.
He thought about Denki’s eyes and Kyouka’s jawline, his open optimism and her sarcastic pessimism.
Yeah, he thought about them a lot, which consequently meant that if they cut him off, his thoughts would have to find different things to occupy themselves with.
It was tragic.
“We like like you,” Denki clarified awkwardly.
Hitoshi’s thoughts screeched to a halt.
“Like that,” Kyouka added and then she leaned forward and kissed him.
It was a slow movement, giving him enough time to draw back but Hitoshi simply never did. He blamed the shock.
She tasted like the blueberry chewing gum she was so fond of.
Sparks shot over his lips and down into his chest.
Kyouka pulled back and Hitoshi barely managed to suck in a desperate breath before Denki was leaning in too, just as tantalizingly slow as his girlfriend.
Hitoshi met him halfway.
He blamed the shock.
Denki tasted like protein bars and funnily enough, faintly like Kyou’s bubblegum as well.
Hitoshi almost laughed against his best friend’s soft lips.
He had never felt more full, more alive, had never been happier.
He’d never been more bitter, more conflicted, had never been angrier at himself.
Denki pulled away and Kyouka leaned into him and they both stared at Hitoshi with intent eyes, his own flickering between theirs.
“I-...” he started, choking on all his emotions. “I can’t.”
Because he couldn’t.
Love wasn’t for people like him who were scarred and jagged and broken.
Love was for people like Kyouka and Denki who were pure and they belonged together like a puzzle piece. Hitoshi couldn’t pull them into the downward spiral that was his life.
Besides, it wasn’t like loving anyone had ever done him any good.
In the end, it would still be Denki and Kyouka and only then Hitoshi and perhaps thoughts like that already showed why the brainwasher should most definitely not in a polyamorous relationship. He’d put them first too, if he was them.
“Hitoshi,” Kyouka started. “There’s no pressure. If you want to, we’ll wait for you and if not, nothing has to change.”
“We can stay friends,” Denki agreed.
Lies.
Liars.
Nobody could stay friends after that, not when Hitoshi didn’t give them what they clearly wanted. They only said so because they didn’t want to hurt him and by doing that they were hurting themselves.
Hitoshi wouldn’t, couldn’t, stand for it.
“No,” he snapped, harsher than he’d wanted to. “Get out.”
The two stood with another shared glance and Hitoshi wasn’t sure if he could breathe properly.
He followed them to the door like a lost puppy.
Once they were outside, Kyouka turned again.
“We care about you a lot, Hitoshi. We’ll wait, be it for you to he ready to be friends or more or nothing at all. We’ll be here.”
Hitoshi closed the door in their face.
Then, he sank to the ground, deep, silent aftershocks of sobs that never quite left him shaking his body.
He was not crying, but he was shuddering so hard that he might as well have been.
~•~
lying.
lying, never did nobody no good, no how, no how.
so why am i lying now?
so why am i lying now?
~•~
Hitoshi was absolutely miserable.
He had not spoken to the couple in two weeks and was already missing them dearly.
On top of that, he had been summoned home. Apparently, Aizawa had formerly requested that he be transferred to the hero course, 1-B as he’d predicted, and that involved his ‘parents’’ signature. Which just sucked majorly.
The brainwasher did not need Sir Nighteye’s quirk to know that this weekend would be a catastrophy.
Perhaps it would have gone better, if he’d just taken the verbal abuse, agreed not to enter the hero course and then asked Aizawa for help convincing them. But Hitoshi was tired and stressed, his nerves strung so high that he simply could not stop his words from spilling out.
“You say I’m a villain but you prevent me from quite literally becoming the narrative. Don’t you hear how fucking stupid you sound?”
Safe to say, it had not been appreciated.
Even worse than the words was the fact that he had asked a question.
Hitoshi was not allowed to ask questions.
He knew that.
They knew that.
“You are not entering the hero course, villain,” his foster father said with certainty after he was done with Hitoshi. The boy’s whole body ached, the muzzle so tightly strapped to his face that he could feel it draw blood across the bride of his nose and alongside his jawline.
The marks were all still visible when he stumbled back into UA after the weekend was over, determined to just collapse into his bed and ignore this had happened.
He wasn’t even sure why they’d allowed him to come back to 1-C and it never dawned on him that even they were aware that they couldn’t go much further than they’d already gone.
To him, the abuse was normal, after all, so why would they be careful?
“Shinsou,” a gruff voice said, halting him his tracks.
Did the universe hate him?
He couldn’t bring himself to answer his teacher politely, so he simply turned his head to show that he was listening.
“What happened?” Did Aizawa sound… worried?
A spark of irritation shot through the pale boy. So now he was asking? Now? Really?
“I fell down the stairs,” he deadpanned and he could more feel than hear his teacher sigh.
“Shinsou, injuries like that don’t come from falling down the stairs.”
Hitoshi wanted to tell him the truth so badly.
He wanted so many things he never got.
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you, ‘cus it’s the truth,” he snapped instead, finally looking at the man.
The Underground hero’s eyes were almost sad, but there was no pity much to Hitoshi’s relief.
Gathering all his courage, the brainwasher told the hardest lie of his life.
“I don’t want to transfer to the hero course anymore.”
Averting his eyes, Hitoshi pushed past his mentor and disappeared into 1-C’s dorms.
His whole being ached.