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When Hitoshi was younger, he’d tried desperately to solve an equation with an impossible answer. In every book, every movie, every story there was a lesson to be learned; and once it was learned things got better.
Logically, he was still just trying to learn his lesson. This was the before part of the story, and then he’d learn what the world was waiting on him to know, and then things would get better. The problem was just figuring out what that lesson was supposed to be.
Hitoshi tried to be good. In the most honest way, he tried. But the good deeds didn’t hit the quota and the best behavior was only ever mediocre and the quiet acquiescence was more trouble than it was worth, sometimes.
Sometimes it felt like Hitoshi was the only one in the whole world who was trying to figure any of it out. Other times he saw himself in his foster siblings like a mirror, or caught the moments between rage and indifference in his foster parents where they just looked dull.
Often he’d thought it might have all been easier if there was a soft place to land, some memory of a house that smelled like baking cookies and a kitchen bathed in organza and sunshine, a mother who’d held him close and a father who’d loved them both just as dearly.
Sometimes it was worse to know that he was alone.
When Hitoshi was much younger, he’d sat on the top steps of his childhood home and watched his father, the angriest man he’d known yet, crying on the first floor below and it had changed the way he saw the anger forever. Understanding the why only made Hitoshi hate him more, and then he’d died, and Hitoshi never forgave him for being neither the worst memory nor a fond one to look back on.
Sometimes it was worse to know that he was not alone.
Hitoshi fell asleep on the couch, pen slipping out of his grip and onto the living room floor. In another lifetime, this would have been an annoyance at best and a crime at worst. But in this lifetime, someone had draped a soft blanket over him and turned the television down to let him sleep.
He kept his eyes shut, intent on pulling the warm blanket up tighter and going back to sleep. The sound of soft laughter caught him as he teetered on the edge of awareness and sleep. It was quiet and fond and familiar.
Hitoshi cracked his eyes open just enough to locate the source of the noise.
It was Yamada, sitting next to his husband on the living room floor where they were grading papers.
Together.
Aizawa, although unamused at first glance, had a soft uptick to the corner of his mouth, eyes wrinkled like it could have been a grimace if you didn’t know him better. He softly knocked an arm against the other man’s, scolding him quietly to let Hitoshi sleep.
The news was turned down quietly enough that it was only a soft hum in the background. It wouldn’t matter if it was turned all the way off; the captions were always turned on. The point was not that anyone was or was not inconvenienced, though. It was that someone had seen him falling asleep doing his homework and went through the trouble of procuring a soft blanket and turning down the television and settling his notebook and pencil on the coffee table for when he woke up.
Even with no known audience, Hitoshi’s foster parents still chose to spend time in each others company and filled it with conversation. Something was cooking in the kitchen, Hitoshi could smell it while it baked.
Love across the room, love blanketed across him.
Hitoshi imagined often that this was the after, that the story was over and everything would be alright now. But he still couldn’t fathom what lesson he’d learned to get here.
Hitoshi hid the destruction when he was young.
It was ironic, really, because he was hiding damage from the people who inflicted even more of it. They didn’t care if Hitoshi didn’t eat or didn’t sleep, but they would care if he made them look bad.
Something about a foster kid curled up in the bathtub crying and bleeding did not tend to go well with social services, surprisingly. So they tended not to like that particular activity. Not because of the crying and the bleeding and the loneliness, but because it made them look unfit to foster to have a child turn into a wormhole of self-hatred under their care.
Some of them were easier to please by not eating and not sleeping and not letting them know he was an unstable amalgamation of emotion. They liked to save money on food, they liked him too tired to fight back, they liked not having to deal with dragging Hitoshi to mandated therapy sessions where he could never really talk about what was wrong.
Just like they liked him silent, silent, silent.
Hitoshi was a little mouse, tail snagged in the claws of a cat who kept him dangling right between its teeth.
Hitoshi caved in on himself. He imploded, devouring himself whole in ways scientists would be amazed at.
“You’re okay,” Aizawa said, voice a little muffled against Hitoshi’s fluffy head of hair. His arms were wrapped tightly around Hitoshi, holding him close and swaying slowly back and forth, like he could rock the bad thoughts out of Hitoshi’s head.
And Hitoshi could only cry.
He waited for the other shoe to drop all the time.
When Yamada sat with him for as long as it took for him to choke down half a meal, chattering endlessly to distract Hitoshi from the task at hand.
When Aizawa went through all the trouble of working with Hitoshi for weeks to find a sleep routine that worked, night light in the hall and soft music playing.
When Yamada used the little free time he got to sit with Hitoshi and teach him to sign, wanting to include Hitoshi in all of their conversations and offer him a voice when he felt voiceless.
When Aizawa sat with him on the ground in the middle of the night while Hitoshi cried and cried, wanting badly to curl up on the hard ground and go back to bleeding alone in the dark, because he’d rather stay awake all night than let Hitoshi be upset alone after a nightmare.
Most of the time, Hitoshi didn’t know what lesson he was supposed to have learned. He didn’t know if he’d learned it and truly not realized, or if everything had been for nothing.
The thought hit him halfway through the school day: there was no deeper meaning.
Hitoshi had not suffered because he’d done anything wrong. He had not suffered because there were uncompleted tasks he needed to fulfill to earn happiness. He was not special. He was just a kid who’d been dealt bad luck, and so he’d suffered for no deeper reason at all other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It was not a relief.
Sometimes when Hitoshi really, really could not eat in a way there was no arguing with, Aizawa brought him a cat.
Hitoshi was curled up in his bed, feeling wholly sorry for himself, when her little paws landed softly on his back. Hitoshi pulled the covers down from his face just enough to squint at Aizawa, who stared blankly back and said nothing in response.
When Jelly settled next to Hitoshi’s face and began to purr, Aizawa gave a stoic, approving nod and let them be.
And an hour later, he returned with another cat. That cat, too, curled up and purred sweetly at Hitoshi’s feet. Slowly, Hitoshi began to unfurl.
A head appeared, blinking until the world focused back into place around him. Then two arms, all the better to pet a cat with. And Jelly purred and purred and purred as her cheeks were scratched and a soft kiss was pressed between her ears. She did not mind that Hitoshi stayed in bed for hours, she was only glad to be included. The cat at his feet was not glad to be included, but was happy to have someone’s warmth to lay on, and so he stayed too.
An hour after that, the door creaked open a third time.
By now, the world felt a little less impossible and grim and Hitoshi felt present enough to groan in protest as a third cat was added to the collection. This one was also not content only to be included and loved—Ghost was only glad to be fed and played with, and Hitoshi was doing neither.
The cat set to work with his very important job, yowling and pawing at Hitoshi’s face until he’d been gently exiled to the floor so that Hitoshi could clamber out of bed and down the stairs at long last, feeling human once more.
In the kitchen, Hitoshi fed the cats their dinner.
In the living room, Hitoshi found his parents sitting and grading papers.
He moved to his spot on the couch, a soft blanket draped across the back in anticipation of his arrival, and stayed until his eyes grew heavy once more.