Archive of Our Own

When Shouta was a teenager receiving his classification, UA didn't have a lot of the protections for regressors that it does now. Most of those laws came into effect after Shouta had already graduated and the societal views on littles had shifted dramatically in that time. It's not perfect and there is still an undeniable discrepancy in how caregivers are treated versus littles, but it's better than it was. That much is apparent by the room he sits in now.

Walls painted in muted pastels and an overhead light with brightness and color controls, most of UA's regression rooms are as stylish as they are practical. There's children's murals decorating the spaces where they couldn't fit tall shelves covered in books and toys. There's a padded floor and a couple sleeping spots pressed into the left side of the room with guard rails surrounding them. There's a television with parental controls that every faculty member has access to and a station for radio-censored music. All in all, it's rather impressive.

Shouta has seen regression rooms with the bare minimum– the most basic amount of gear and a place to sleep, only existing as an afterthought and a box to check– and UA's rooms make those ones appear criminal. He doesn't use these rooms as often as he should, as often as Hizashi thinks he should, but they're rather nice when the opportunity does arise.

He's waiting on the floor, sitting in an oversized black hoodie and black sweatpants with his eyes trained on the television. It's a nature documentary about the African savanna; not the most child-friendly, but he's also not feeling particularly small either. Being a flip gives him the excuse to push down his headspace when it's inconvenient, which works out since he doesn't need to regress as often as a little does, anyways. It's an adequate balance and he's never been particularly displeased by his classification because of it.

Flips tend to be overlooked by the vast majority of people. They're too small to be considered good enough caregivers and they're too big to really be affected by a lot of the restrictive laws put in place to “protect” littles. In fact, UA allowed flips into the hero course nearly fifteen years before they even discussed the possibility of allowing regressors. Shouta knows that many despise this aspect of being a flip, but he's grateful to be excluded from the conversation when he can be. He'd much rather work the shadows and help people personally. Action over conversation.

Which is why he's even bothering trying to regress today, a normal day in which his headspace has been fairly absent. Regressors struggle far more with their headspace and they have needs that are often left unfulfilled because no amount of textbook learning can teach you to empathize and adapt to each individual. Shinsou Hitoshi is one of such cases.

He's a late bloomer at sixteen years old and currently experiencing his first regression. It's a scary time for any child, but especially one experiencing it years after they were supposed to. When Shouta first regressed in high school, he remembers how jarring the entire experience was, like being swallowed by a whirlpool and seeing the world for the first time through distorted water. The only reason it became anything remotely enjoyable was because he had Hizashi and Oboro by his side.

He knows the fear that comes with it, and how utterly overwhelming it is to suddenly be swarmed by caregivers that think they know what's best for you. It's even worse when those caregivers are all your peers, suddenly seeing you as something younger, weaker, and less than you are. It's brutal and, if Shouta hates it, he knows that Hitoshi must hate it too.

So, the solution is simple. Instead of forcing him into the arms of a caregiver that will only upset him more, Shouta will lower himself into something less intimidating and regress with him. It’s a bit unorthodox for someone in his position as a teacher– littles tend to regress with other littles that are bodily a similar age as them, while teachers mostly act as stand-in babysitters when required– but it's not uncommon for family members to regress together and, as far as Shouta is aware, Hitoshi doesn't have anyone like that at home.

Which means that he will have to be the suitable replacement. It makes sense; it's a rational choice to make for his student's comfort, and the nerves prickling around his heart like a sparking wire are from the delicacy of the situation. All it takes is Shouta moving a little too quickly and he might undo months of progress with his mentee.

Assuming Hitoshi even shows at all. It's been nearly twenty minutes since Shouta sent him the invitation text and he's been left on read the entire time. Oh well. At worst, Shouta might be able to squeeze in a nap before Hizashi comes to get him.

Of course, just as he tips his head back and shuts his eyes, the door slides open.

Hitoshi stands frozen in the doorway, trapped between Yamada watching him enter from the hallway and Aizawa lazily tilting his gaze to blink slowly at him from inside the room. Any confidence he had in his decision is promptly destroyed and his shoulders hunch inwards, trying to make himself as physically small as possible.

“Sensei…” Hitoshi nods an awkward greeting, trying to find the best way to hug the teddy bear in his arms without making it too obvious.

“You coming in, kid?” Aizawa asks, far too casual for the circumstances.

Despite their arguably close bond, Hitoshi has never seen the man outside of his hero uniform and he certainly hasn't seen him in a regression room surrounded by some plushies, a stack of blocks, and a wooden train set.

Everything about the scene is off, like something out of an insane dream of fan-made movie, but Hitoshi's fuzzy headspace longs for him to stumble forward towards all the fun looking things laid out for him. His fear keeps him planted in the doorway, however, and he glances back into the hall, where Yamada hasn't moved, still leaning casually next to the break room entrance that Hitoshi spent the last hour hiding out inside. 

“Wha– what is this?” Hitoshi’s mouth is filled with cotton, far too dry as he painfully swallows around nothing.

“Did you not get the text I sent?” Aizawa drawls, raising a single eyebrow. “I have some things set up for you. I know you said you ‘weren't regressed’ earlier, but I figured this would be a better place to wait out your… meltdown.”

His tone edges on mocking; they’re both aware what a load of bullshit this entire song and dance is. Hitoshi, however, doesn't contradict that statement. He will always commit to his lies, no matter how insane they might be.

“And… what are you doing?” Hitoshi takes a hesitant step forward, eyeing the rest of the space. He's never actually been inside of a regression room before, even in middle school. It's a lot less imposing than he assumed it would be.

He always imagined these spaces to be stark with bright, overwhelming splashes of color that enrich small children and would most certainly give him a headache. Instead, the room is far less obtrusive. It still looks like a playroom intended for young kids, but the softness of it all isn't painful on his eyes and he's pleased to find that there is stuff for older headspaces too. In particular, he spots a couple of bean bags in front of a bookshelf filled with chapter books and a games console set beneath the wall-mounted television, both of which vaguely pique his interest.

“What’s it look like? I'm regressing.” Aizawa flippantly gestures towards the items haphazardly tossed around him that he has very clearly been ignoring. He couldn’t be more mentally an adult if he tried.

If Hitoshi had the words, he would sputter about how absurd everything is. It’s bad enough that Hitoshi has found himself facing his classification after four years of managing to outrun it, but it’s even worse that things have spiraled into this. The idea that Aizawa would regress in front of him willingly is just insane enough that Hitoshi thinks he might be dreaming.

It's obviously a trick of some kind– a rational deception to calm him down.

“With me here…?” Hitoshi takes another step in, bringing along his, now signature, candy scent. He's always smelled like a little, a byproduct of not actually being a late bloomer, but without an active regression, it’s always been something he could hand wave away. It helped that he's never had much in the way of friends to question him.

But, now, the scent is so stark that even he can't ignore how sickeningly sweet it is.

Hitoshi steps far enough inside that the door automatically slides closed behind him, effectively cutting him off from the rest of the school. He lets out a small sigh of relief, not realizing how tightly wound his shoulders were until he releases them. There's something comforting about being sealed away in this room. With Yamada standing guard meters away from the closed door, there aren't any caregivers close by– only Aizawa, who is very pointedly keeping himself on the ground and keeping his scent on lock down.

AIzawa halfheartedly shrugs. “Why not? It's been a rough day.” His eyes never once leave Hitoshi's figure; calculating and dark.

“Never done it before,” Hitoshi points out, a weak protest. “With me, at least.”

“Extenuating circumstances,” Aizawa deadpans. “Are you just going to continue standing there?”

If Hitoshi were feeling more steady, he'd snap back with a biting remark about how Aizawa doesn't seem very small using big words like that. As it stands, he can only shrug and hold his teddy bear as if it's the only thing keeping him from bursting into tears.

Shouta sighs and scans all the toys in the room. He doesn't know what age range Hitoshi is or what he'd find offensive to be offered. Shouta tends to be older, closer to the eight to ten range, and has thrown his fair share of fits from caregivers trying to bottle feed him. Hitoshi seems younger, closer to the stereotype of littles being around toddler age.

That said, his speech hasn't suffered too much, even when he was crying and distressed. There's been a noticeable lisp to his words, underlined by a whine or two, but he isn't struggling to structure sentences. If Shouta had to guess, based on his, admittedly limited, exposure to teenage littles, he'd say that Hitoshi drifting around the three to six range is a safe bet.

Shouta half-crawls over to a square shelf with cubbies in a three by three pattern. Inside each has a plastic container of lego bricks, some of differing sizes and themes, with a secure, snappable lid. He pulls out one of the bottom ones and slides it across the padded floor, opening it and glancing at Hitoshi questioningly.

Hitoshi shuffles forward like an anxious kitten on the street. Shouta pushes the tub closer to him, creating more space between them. Strays tend to trust you more if you offer them food, and Shouta doesn't think that Hitoshi has eaten since lunch that day, so he pushes himself up and scours the mini-fridge and cabinets pressed against the walls on the right side of the room, a few steps from where the bathroom door is.

He grabs a couple different things, all snacky, finger foods that are probably terrible to combine with something tactile like legos but Shouta can't find himself to care too much. He isn't the one who has to clean the room once they leave.

When he plops back down in his spot, Hitoshi has tentatively kneeled down in front of the bucket of legos with his teddy bear tucked in one arm. They both cringe a bit as he starts scooping out handfuls of legos to dump on the floor and the crackling sound of the bricks knocking into each other scrapes against their eardrums. Hitoshi nervously looks to him for a reaction and, when Shouta only slurps up a jelly packet while evenly maintaining that eye contact, the boy relaxes and starts digging into the decent sized pile of legos he made.

Shouta busies himself with building a small structure, mostly just to give him something to do while he quietly observes. He doesn't think he'll actually be able to regress that far down, if at all, but he can try. He's never been great at being small around people in general and the only thing getting him through how mortifying it is to regress around a student is the rational part of him that knows this is likely the best way to help him.

The documentary he was watching on big cats plays quietly in the background, the narrator's soothing voice only interrupted by the clacking of lego bricks. Shouta distantly wonders if he should change it to something else before his attention is drawn to the way that Hitoshi, instead of playing with them traditionally, has started grouping all of his lego bricks into smaller piles based on size and color.

“What are you doing?” Shouta asks, curiously peering at him.

Hitoshi freezes like a deer in headlights as he anxiously glances between his legos and Shouta.

“Uhm… I'm sortin’ ‘em.” His words come out in a slow mumble, barely decipherable and unsteady. Still regressed, but not comfortable. That means he'll likely start aging up soon, or he'll be triggered into another meltdown. Either option is not ideal, but Shouta can work with it.

“Are you going to build something after?”

“Uh… no?” Hitoshi winces. “Do, um, you want me to?”

His entire body is taut, bracing itself for an impact that Shouta isn't sure is metaphorical. In response, Shouta yawns. “I don't care, kid. Play however you want. I was just curious.”

It really shouldn't have surprised him that the kid who spent over an hour monologuing, without any interjection from Shouta, about the similarities between hero society and the deep sea's ecosystem would find more fun in sorting legos than actually building with them.

Hitoshi cautiously returns to sorting his legos as Shouta pushes some of the snacks towards him. Hitoshi grabs some animal crackers with pink icing on them and nibbles at them, purposefully eating the head first, followed by the limbs.

The awkwardness between them is something that Hitoshi isn't used to. Even in the beginning, Aizawa had been strict and practical, leaving no room for things to become uncomfortable. By the time there was any space for it, the two of them had bonded as mentor and mentee and Hitoshi felt more than comfortable opening up to him.

At the absolute most, things would get tense when Aizawa would drop extremely unsubtle hints about his concern with Hitoshi's homelife and Hitoshi would pretend not to pick any of them up. Then, during the points where Aizawa would outwardly question him, Hitoshi could pretend he didn't know what the man was talking about and the two of them could move on relatively smoothly.

And let it be known that Aizawa Shouta cares very little for smooth transitions and subtlety when the far more efficient approach is staring down his target and cutting straight through the sugar coated eggshells that most would prefer to walk over. It's nice not having the chance to ruminate on things, but it is quite jarring.

As if to prove his point, Aizawa speaks up just as Hitoshi swallows the animal cracker in his mouth.

“You know, you aren't the first student I've had that got their little classification late.”

A second cracker hovers frozen in the air as Hitoshi realizes that they're going to have a talk.

“I told you, I'm not a little,” Hitoshi says because he already started digging that hole and he might as well commit to it if Aizawa is going to keep bringing it up. “I'm not regressed.”

It, at least, is partially true. Compared to how he had been in the kitchen, Hitoshi is lightyears more lucid. He definitely isn't sixteen right now, but he isn't a sniveling baby either. His headspace hovers, a bit uncomfortably, between the two– sitting on the fence and waiting to see what tips him over. It's particularly evident in his scent, which has begun to fade even to his own nose into something more neutral with only the vaguest hints of candy undertones.

“But if you were, you wouldn't have been the first.”

They often talk in theoreticals– hypotheticals, really. It's the only way that Hitoshi can vent about his life without giving Aizawa enough probable cause to ruin everything– because, while Hitoshi knows his life isn't ideal, he also hates change more than the shit he suffers through.

“I know,” Hitoshi says, averting his eyes. “It's fine. I'm fine.”

“We both know that isn't true,” Aizawa responds, no longer giving Hitoshi any wiggle room. “There's nothing wrong with regressing. I do it. Your bizarre choice in friend, Monoma, does it. Hell, even Bakugou does it. It doesn't make you any less of a hero.”

Hitoshi wants to say that he knows, that his validity in spite of his classification was never the issue, but then Aizawa will just ask more questions and he wants this over with. Hitoshi had been born with the odds stacked against him when it came to becoming a hero– born with a scary mental quirk, born with parents that didn't want him, born as a disgusting, useless thing that had to work himself to the bone in order to make it to the very bottom of UA’s barrel. One more thing added to that list isn't going to cause his determination to waver.

“I've never seen anyone react that way to their first time regressing,” Aizawa remarks when it's clear Hitoshi isn't going to say anything. “Crying? Sure. Panicking? Absolutely. Running and hiding away from caregivers that you trust outside of headspace? Gotta admit, kid, that's a first.”

He's digging for something and all Hitoshi’s brain is capable of interpreting from that is ’He totally knows.’

“First time for everything,” Hitoshi mutters with a shrug, attempting to go for nonchalance. He thinks the way he nervously fidgets with his teddy bear gives him away, though.

Aizawa stares at him for a couple seconds, like he's a particularly contradictory puzzle that doesn't make any sense, before he scoots closer and lowers his voice to something far more raw and honest than anything Hitoshi is prepared for.

“Hitoshi, I'm sorry that I haven't made you feel safe enough to trust me with something like this. I really don't want to push you, but I need to know that you're okay.”

Hitoshi thinks back to his minor meltdown in the kitchen and the fear of what could happen when he left that room. He thinks back to the conclusion he came to– the trust he has in Aizawa that led him to take that first step out. He thinks back to how he knows Aizawa would rather drop dead than allow a student that looks up to him see him in as vulnerable of a position as regression forces him to be in.

It's the fact that he hasn't yelled at Hitoshi once since he ran away, even if he deserved it. It's the way that Yamada didn't make him do anything, offering him options that still sucked but were more than most caregivers would give, and hasn't once made an appearance since. It's the earnestness in Aizawa’s voice and the soft orange scents he's letting out– regressor to regressor– to show Hitoshi that he's safe.

Hitoshi sniffles, sending out his own burst of sour candy in an ask of comfort for the scathing fear that’s been consistently spiking through his heart since he regressed.

“I don't like caregivers,” he says; an olive branch.

“Yeah, I got that,” Aizawa chuckles and, much like last time he laughed at Hitoshi's plight, Hitoshi finds his hackles raising a bit at the prospect of being teased.

“It's not funny,” Hitoshi snaps, a frown etched deep into his face. “They're mean and scary and they don't care at all–! They just… don't understand.”

The laugh immediately drops from Aizawa's expression and he tilts his head curiously. “Don't understand what?”

“Everything!” Hitoshi asserts, his shoulders hunched. “They think that just ‘cause they're bigger, they can do whatever they want. They always touch you and make you regress even if you don't wanna and– and they never listen. They're worse than actual adults.” Hitoshi winces at how sloppy his explanation is, a true vomit of words taken from the jumble of his brain.

Still, the point is there. He's said it once and he'll say it again– at least adults aren't biologically hardwired to care about you. When they don't give a shit, it doesn't matter as much.

Aizawa nods along slowly. “It sounds like you have experience with this.” He sounds slightly puzzled, edging on suspicious.

Hitoshi pauses. “Uhm, well…”

Not personal experience. He only knows what he's observed as someone often ignored and able to blend in with the crowds, unremarkable and unlikable. But that isn't the implication coming from the unspoken question in Aizawa's tone. No, that question is far closer to the truth– that this isn't Hitoshi's first time regressing.

Right answer, wrong equation.

Hitoshi fiddles with a red lego brick. During one of their training sessions, Aizawa once told him that, in hero work, there is no lying. You don't hide an injury, you don't withhold information you find, and, as Hitoshi's supervisor, Aizawa needs to be briefed on everything. He can’t help if he doesn't know everything going on. The order had been pointed, filled with implications that Hitoshi chose to pretend he didn't notice.

It's all he can think about now as his wish to confide in someone clashes with his fear of getting hurt.

“I don't like caregivers either,” Aizawa admits, cutting through the drawn out silence.

Hitoshi looks up at him, eyebrows raising in surprise. “You don't?”

“I don't enjoy being around those who assume their own self-importance based purely on something as arbitrary as genetics, or a position of assigned power given to them by someone other than me. It's why I prefer to avoid working with cops when I can, and I'd recommend you do the same.”

Everything's a heroics lesson with this guy.

Hitoshi slowly nods along, leaning closer towards his mentor as small bits of hope bloom in his chest at him actually understanding. “But you have a caregiver…?” He questions, glancing at the door keeping them closed off and safe from Yamada.

“Ha, yeah. Between us, I'm the responsible one. Mic is hardly fit to be an adult, let alone a caregiver. How he got hired to be a high school teacher, I'll never know,” Aizawa scoffs, his lips quirking up in amusement. “He is a decent one, though, when he actually tries.”

Hitoshi doesn't know if that's supposed to be referring to Yamada being a decent adult, caregiver, or teacher. Probably all three.

“He's never pushed me,” Aizawa continues, rubbing a hand across his facial hair as he thinks. Each word is carefully chosen, picked specifically with the intent of relating himself to Hitoshi. “He thinks that I don't regress enough and that I don't do enough to take care of myself, in or out of headspace. Despite that, I can't recall a time where he ever forced me to do anything I didn't want to. He’s never made me feel unsafe.”

Hitoshi finds that hard to believe. Caregivers are given power when someone regresses around them. No one sees the little as capable of thinking for themselves and, therefore, no one cares when the caregiver strong-arms them into following directions. If a little is refusing to regress, the caregiver can push them under and say it was for the sake of their health. If a little is refusing to eat something, the caregiver can just tsk and call them a brat until they do. If a little is acting out, the caregiver is allowed to punish that little however they see fit and no one will bat an eye.

That's how it is. That's what gets taught in school. That's the dynamic forced between classifications. It's no different to people turning a blind eye on parents and how they choose to handle their actual children. It's ’for their own good’ and Hitoshi hates it more than anything.

“The first time I regressed, I was twelve,” Hitoshi mutters, barely audible. Aizawa, of course, listens closely, his eyes widening in slight alarm as his brain recontextualizes everything he thought. “My parents knew, I think, but we never talked about it and, after that first time, I didn't do it again– haven't done it again.”

“You haven't regressed in four years…?” Horror and shock dance across his face, unable to choose which emotion to settle on. It's dangerous to go that long without regressing. Hitoshi knows the stories, knows the psychology behind it. There's too much stress build-up and the impact of denying your headspace is catastrophic at his age, when he has next to no control of it happening.

But he hasn't died yet, so he sees it as fine.

“My mom's a flip and my dad's a caregiver,” Hitoshi tells him, as if Aizawa hadn't said anything at all. He clings to his teddy bear and keeps his gaze firmly on the door keeping them in the room. “In theory, anyway. In practice… neither of them seem to care that much.”

His mother's regression is part of what causes so much animosity between them. It's not uncommon for adult children to care for their regressed parents, but you're not supposed to when you're Hitoshi's age. That responsibility lies in the adults and, with Hitoshi's father never home, his mother is alone and only capable of coping by drinking more wine than water. That, added to her rocky regression, leads to her emotional outbursts against him.

He's expected to calm her down despite not having a bone in his body any older than sixteen, even mentally, and it's exhausting. So much so that he'd be perfectly fine never smelling her sweet grape scent– getting more and more bitter every year– ever again.

And his father? Well, Hitoshi doesn't remember a time where his father was around. Always the workaholic, staying in office for up to sixteen hours a day, if he doesn't just end up sleeping there. The man could hardly raise his own child, let alone caretake for that child and his mother’s headspaces. No, he finds them irritating and thinks that they both should be able to just handle themselves. It should be enough that he pays the bills, he shouldn't have to waste what little free time he has bringing them both down from their childish meltdowns.

“Caregivers don't understand how hard it is,” Hitoshi repeats, a bitter resignation to his tone. “They just see their classification as a power trip.”

“A bold generalization,” Aizawa comments, quickly shaking off his shock.

“A true one,” Hitoshi retorts.

“Is that why you haven't regressed? You don't feel comfortable around caregivers?” Aizawa questions. The unspoken ’around your parents?’ doesn't go over Hitoshi's head.

He only half-shrugs. “I guess. I've gotten close a few times but…” He's never stopped moving.

From the moment Hitoshi was born, he's been a bundle of raw nerves and anxiety. Regression, for all that it is meant to help alleviate stress, doesn't love when you're perpetually living off energy drinks and constantly switching between wanting to fight everyone at school and wanting to run away from home. That fight or flight response is chaos against something that specifically wants you to slow down and turn back time.

“My quirk counselor said that she thought my late blooming was probably related to my quirk– since my psyche and brain chemistry is a little screwed up from it.” The more Hitoshi talks, the more steady he feels. His headspace is still there, but it's more like the beginnings of a high clouding his brain instead of something he's plunged into. He’s older, and Aizawa has probably realized it by now.

“Mine thought the same,” Aizawa offers.

Hitoshi blinks up at him. “Really?”

“I have my reservations about it, but yes,” Aizawa says with a nod. “I think it's difficult gauging whether it's my quirk at fault or the lived experience of having a mental quirk at all. Is it really my brain chemistry that kept me from developing my classification on time, or was it the trauma of living with my quirk in a period where quirk discrimination was– is common against those with mental abilities?”

Hitoshi hangs on to each word like they're the only thing keeping him afloat. Every time Hitoshi learns that he shares something in common with his mentor, it's like every space inside his body collapses in on itself. A poor Gen Ed kid running off of spite against a world that wants to see him fail, only to turn it into something productive when he gets into the Hero Course. It's more than a relief to have someone able to relate to his oddly specific struggles.

“I don't know if it matters,” Hitoshi mutters. “The result is the same either way.”

“Sure, but knowing the reason is important for overcoming it. If it really is your quirk, there are medications you can take to balance things out. If it's an outside factor, however, there's a high likelihood that you'll need more than that.”

Aizawa is gunning for him, a shark in the blood soaked waters of Hitoshi's weakness.

Hitoshi has never been particularly good at fending off Aizawa's more direct questions, and he's even worse at fending off his constant implications. It rattles Hitoshi, forces him to sit there and think about the words cornering him. It's hard when his greatest wish and greatest fear come true and he realizes that Aizawa understanding him might lead to his downfall.

And Hitoshi is nothing if not stubborn. The only thing he hates more than willingly offering himself up to a caregiver is change.

“I don't wanna talk about this anymore,” Hitoshi shifts uncomfortably. “And I don't think I'm small anymore so…”

The way he clings to his teddy bear refutes that very statement, but he's cognizant of the fact that he's more than stable enough to return to the dorms. He'd like to have a few hours of spiraling over this fiasco before he goes to bed.

“You smell unsteady, still. Give it another hour and we'll see about letting you leave,” Aizawa, as per usual, doesn't give him a break. “And we can talk about something else, if you'd like. I'm sorry if I’ve upset you.”

That makes Hitoshi shift again. He hates how genuine Aizawa sounds, as if his apology is not only easy to make but the only possible thing he could say after upsetting him. Everything he does throws Hitoshi off; all of his behaviors are a complete contrast to the only reality Hitoshi has ever known. He doesn't think either of his parents have ever apologized to him for anything, let alone given him the space to switch subjects.

“It's… fine. You didn't upset me,” Hitoshi is lying, but he was overreacting anyway. His headspace has him sensitive, heart hurting at every little thing. “I just– I don't like my classification very much. It's hard to talk about.”

“I've noticed,” Shouta drawls. It isn't an uncommon sentiment, either. The unfortunate reality is that most littles go through a stage of despising their headspace. Whether it's in high school, when that resentment comes from classmates belittling you, or it's in the early years of adulthood, when you’re most impacted by the low employment rates regressors have or the struggle to have anyone take you seriously.

There isn't any real way to comfort someone about how difficult their life will be, so he doesn't bother trying.

“It sucks,” Shouta says, straight to the point. “There's a lot to dislike about your classification, and I don't blame you in the slightest for it. Regression is… extremely draining. It forces you to trust other people and expose yourself in a way that strips you down to your base emotions. To have such vulnerabilities be tied to something biological, essentially making it unavoidable, is nothing more than cruel.”

It's cruel in the same way that being born quirkless is, or being born with a quirk that reaps fear or destruction. From birth, the rest of your life is dictated by how lucky you are in the genetic lottery. Which quirk will you inherit? Which classification will you be trapped in? Which stereotype will you spend the rest of your life outrunning?

There is no rhyme or reason to it, no way to avoid it or pretend as if it doesn't exist. All that remains is a daunting acceptance that you can live with the hand you've been dealt and do the best you can with it– an acceptance that Shouta knows is an uphill climb at best and downright impossible at worst. All he can do is tell it how it is and hope that the kid isn't as similar to Shouta as he fears he is.

“But there are good things about it too, just as there are good people in an otherwise cruel world,” Shouta doesn't believe in optimism and blind hope, but he doesn't believe in nihilism or blind pessimism either. “Your regression doesn't have to be this terrible thing that tortures you. Most people find something enjoyable about their headspace and many people would even say they loved it.”

Hitoshi purses his lips contemplatively, his eyebrows creased and doubt weighing heavy on his features. “Do you love it?”

“No,” Shouta answers honestly. It's the least Hitoshi deserves. “But I don't hate it either.”

It's like training; Shouta doesn't love training, but he knows the practicality of it and he likes what his training allows him to do– be a hero, which he does love. His regression is mostly a tool for him to keep his hormones in check and his head on straight, rather than something he indulges in for fun. That doesn't mean he isn't having the occasional fun with it, but even Hizashi knows and respects that he isn't interested in playing around when he's small.

“How? How do you not hate it?” Hitoshi’s voice brims with self-loathing, cracking on the word ’hate’ with such emphasis that Shouta thinks he might start crying again. He refuses to meet Shouta's eye, gazing off into the distance, as if lost in thought. “Every time I feel small, it’s misery. I’m so much more anxious and– and I just end up spiraling. My first time… I spent it locked in a closet with my hands pressed against the sides of my head because I actually thought my skull was going to split open.”

And Shouta takes pause at that, a question burning at the tip of his tongue. He doesn't want Hitoshi to shut down the conversation again, so he doesn't ask about his parents, where they were or why he was locked away. It does further recontextualize some things, though, and Shouta suddenly wonders if it was the best choice to leave him alone in the break room.

“... Regression is the brain's way of processing,” Shouta says slowly. “The reason why it's so important is that your body can't handle being put under stress– hormone fluctuations, the typical anxiety the average person has, or any other emotional pressure. Regression is your body's way of–”

“Self-regulating, I know. I've taken the classes, Sensei,” Hitoshi rolls his eyes and Shouta gives him a displeased look.

“Then you would also know that the more you regress and stick to a schedule with it, the more your nervous system will balance itself out and the less miserable it'll be to experience.”

Hizashi likens it to turbulence. The less experience you have flying through it, the scarier it is and the more the plane shakes. But the more you fly, the easier it is to avoid and get through. And it certainly helps when you have someone with you to hold your hand and help you breathe.

“The first time is always disorientating and scary. It's like that for everyone, even me, and I'm sure it was even worse for you with such a distinct lack of support,” Shouta says, not leaving any room for Hitoshi's halfhearted protests. “But it gets better if you're with someone you trust, and if you don't wait four years between each time you do it.”

Hitoshi looks unconvinced, but he isn't shutting him down. There's an unhealthy amount of anxiety surrounding this topic and Hitoshi's resistance towards his regression is likely something based more on that immediate fear response than anything he would've determined logically (though, his discomfort towards caregivers is more than rational). Shouta just has to appeal to that fear and validate it.

“It might be better if you willingly choose to regress, too,” Shouta adds. “I hate the lack of control that comes with a drop like that.”

Hitoshi hesitates, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don't know… I don't like being around people when I regress.”

“How can you know that? You've only done it twice, right? And you freaked out both times,” Shouta points out.

Hitoshi's face flushes and he ducks his head, bashful.

“I don't actually think you dislike being around people,” Shouta says, because Hitoshi hates being alone when he isn't regressed and he finds it hard to believe that would change in a state where he lacks inhibitions and his childish instincts are brought to the surface. “I think you dislike being around caregivers– and that's fine.”

“It's not,” Hitoshi asserts, suddenly looking a hundred times more exhausted. “I… would rather not be alone, but I'd rather die than let someone else…” He sighs and drags a hand down his face. “There isn't any other option for me. If I can't regress alone and I can't regress with a caregiver, what am I supposed to do? This is how it works, Sensei. From the beginning, they teach you that you're supposed to pair up for this exact purpose.”

That's true. Schools tend to teach the basics about classification without bothering to go into detail about it. They assume you'll either know or that your parents will teach you, a stance wildly uncaring for the student body that's been consistently left behind. Instead of giving a detailed explanation about what classification is and how it interacts with these kids’ bodies and brains, they simply handwave it away by saying that all of their troubles will be solved as long as they pair up in a little/caregiver dynamic.

Once again, a conversation that ignores flips and their need to express both sides of their headspace all together.

Shouta despises such a system and is grateful that UA goes out of its way to give a far more in-depth lesson on the nuances. Unfortunately, due to pushback on regressors being able to attend UA at all, that lesson is only given to the Hero Course during their first year– which Hitoshi was notably not a part of.

Evidently, it’s up to Shouta to be the only adult willing to teach these kids the reality.

“That is not how this works, actually,” Shouta says, leveling Hitoshi with a firm look that tells him to settle down. The boy immediately wilts and hugs his teddy bear. “Regression is for your benefit, kid. It wouldn't be rational to put yourself in a box just because it works for other people or because it's something dictated by the opinions of people who have no stakes in your life. If you need to do something different, that's fine.”

“But–”

“It's fine,” Shouta insists. “If having regression gear with all the bells and whistles doesn't help you, then don't get any. If trying to put yourself in a certain cutesy age range doesn't help, stop doing that. If regressing around a caregiver makes you uncomfortable, don't do it. Pushing yourself to fit within a status quo built to fit a very specific standard of person is stupid, doubly so when it actively hurts you.”

Hitoshi snaps his jaw shut, eyes widening. “You can just… do that?”

“Why not? You can do whatever you want. It's your body and your brain, you should do what works for you.”

Shouta has walked the beaten path of solitude too much to give a shit about whether or not he's handling something correctly in the eyes of society. There’s no such thing as a perfect person and the ideals pushed onto the masses are only there to promote in-fighting between the lower classes. Anyone who cares that much about what other people do to help themselves is a puppet for the privileged– and he says that as a Pro Hero.

“Mic used to make fun of me because I’d never ’properly regress,’” Shouta puts up finger quotes around it. “I don't go that young– never have– and if I wore my patches more consistently, you would almost never be able to tell when I’m regressed. It's gotten more noticeable as I've gotten older but there wasn't much of a difference between being physically fifteen and mentally ten, so not even my closest friends could tell. Most people I say that to will respond with how awful they feel for me because I must not be ’really regressed’–” More finger quotes, “or that it must be hard finding a caregiver since most want to take care of an adorable baby.” Shouta’s face twists in disgust. “Obviously, I'm doing just fine.”

“Listen to your instincts before you listen to others,” Hitoshi mumbles; a quote from a lesson that Shouta has been trying to hammer into him recently.

“Very good,” Shouta nods, the wisp of a proud smile on his face. Hitoshi hides behind his teddy bear. “You know your body best, so trust your judgment and do whatever you need to do to feel okay. As far as you're concerned, every single person is an idiot that has no idea what they're talking about.”

Which, honestly, is probably true even outside of this discussion.

“But I don't…” Hitoshi trails off, the gears grinding in his head. “Who am I supposed to regress with then? I don't want to do it by myself–”

Shouta lazily lifts his arm and gestures to the room around them. “Look around, kid. I already told you earlier that I was planning on regressing here. What did you think that meant?”

Hitoshi’s scent twinges with something sour, not quite upset but not very pleasant either, as confusion falls over him. “I thought… I thought you were just trying to get me to come out? That you assumed I'd be more comfortable riding out my regression with a– a flip instead of an outright caregiver.”

Shouta nods his approval at the boy's conclusion. At the very least, he's observant, even while distracted by emotions. It's a good quality to have. Unfortunately, he’s still lacking in a lot of areas and, in this one, he certainly isn't the brightest.

“Yes, and you riding out your regression around a flip that now knows you don't like caregivers implies what?”

“Oh…”

“What did you think was happening earlier when we were playing with legos?” Shouta snorts.

Hitoshi's cheeks brighten as he straightens his spine, affronted. “I thought you were just watching over me! And it's not like you were actually regressed either. I thought you were just telling me that to find common ground or some shit!”

Hitoshi thinks he has every right to doubt his mentor when the man throws half-hearted lies at him every other day. They're never that important, and Hitoshi trusts him to be honest when it matters, but for the sake of his students, there is very little Aizawa won't do. And, again, he's a flip but that still makes him more of a caregiver than Hitoshi would be truly comfortable believing.

“Language,” Aizawa snarks. “No naughty words in the regression room.”

He says it as a joke, like he's mocking someone (probably Yamada) with a small smirk on his face, but Hitoshi has never heard him use that word before– naughty. Other teachers use it a lot, wagging their fingers at Hitoshi's littler classmates while shaking their heads fondly. Hitoshi has only ever been on the receiving end once or twice (again, Yamada) and each time, he had to shake off the way his brain stuttered to a halt.

Aizawa, at most, calls them his brats. He doesn't really change his tone when talking to a little, preferring to simply soften his voice a bit and regard them as regular people. Hitoshi has been subject to that voice, but it never hit as hard as it does now. Hitoshi fidgets with his teddy bear, recalling all the times he sat off to the side and watched Aizawa baby the regressors in 2-A in his own way.

“Sorry,” he squeaks, averting his eyes.

“It's fine,” Aizawa says evenly, observing him curiously. He pulls himself to sit a little closer to Hitoshi and places a heavy hand on top of his head, ruffling the wild expanse of Hitoshi's hair. “Are you alright? I didn't mean to–”

“I'm not upset!” Hitoshi jerks his head to look up at him, nearly losing Aizawa's gentle touch in the process. “I'm just–” He falters.

“Small?” Aizawa makes a point to sniff the subtle sweetness in the air.

Hitoshi halfheartedly shrugs. “Maybe… I don't know. I don't know how to regress or what it feels like when it's not shit– terrible! When it's not terrible. How am I supposed to do it willingly, let alone enjoy it?”

Aizawa picks up the small package of animal crackers that Hitoshi was eating from earlier, takes one, and passes the rest over.

“It's okay if you don't know,” he says casually, biting off the head of an elephant. “There's no wrong way to do it. If it helps, I can show you what I do and we can go from there.”

Hitoshi bites into a cracker of his own to give him some time to think. The idea of actually regressing together, now that he knows it's real, is terrifying. What if it doesn't work? What if it does work and he makes an even bigger fool of himself? Didn't Aizawa say he regressed to an older age? What if he finds Hitoshi annoying if he's younger? What if– what if someone else comes in and sees him?

That last thought is scary enough that Hitoshi is already shaking his head before he's finished thinking it.

“Is Yamada or– or anyone coming back?” Hitoshi anxiously eyes the door again– still just as shut as it was earlier. This time, not knowing what's on the other side has his heart racing.

“It'll be just us, kid,” Aizawa promises. “And we can stop if you ever feel uncomfortable. I'm fine with waiting it out until your headspace passes.”

Hitoshi looks at his mentor– really looks at him. It feels like Aizawa is an older cat, exposing his stomach and slowly blinking at the new half-feral kitten that's far too nervous for its own good. He's opened himself up, given Hitoshi more information about his personal life in the last hour than anything he's said in the last year. He's reaching out, trusting Hitoshi with a part of himself that is off limits for practically everyone else and all he's asking for in return is for Hitoshi to trust him– to continue trusting him.

And Hitoshi feels like he owes it to Aizawa and to himself to at least try.

“What kind of things do you do? To regress I mean,” Hitoshi asks shyly.

Aizawa bites his inner cheek in thought. “For the most part, I just let Mic or Midnight talk me down. It's far less effort with far better results. Without either of them here, however… I find reading age appropriate books or watching kids films helps a lot. There are also a variety of games at our disposal, as well as toys to play with. Sometimes, I have to accompany Mic to his radio show if I'm too small to stay home alone and, in those instances, he lets me play games on his phone, all specifically targeted towards my age range.”

As amusing as that mental picture is (Hitoshi can see it now– his mentor locked in on Yamada's phone screen, playing Tetris or Peggle or maybe some kind of neko collection game while curled up in an uncomfortable looking chair), Hitoshi scrunches his nose in distaste.

“You're so clinical about it. I feel like I'm at my counselor's office,” Hitoshi says. Quirk counseling often overlaps with classification counseling, less because of any real connection between the two (though, there is a theory that certain quirk types are predisposed to certain classifications) and more because one's classification can have a direct impact on how they use their quirk.

For Hitoshi, it was mostly just his doctor trying to trigger a classification, pushing him towards different activities to see what he was attuned with. It never worked, of course.

Aizawa shrugs. “Doesn't make it any less effective. Look around and see what catches your eye. Did you like playing with legos earlier?”

Hitoshi glances at his small piles of color sorted legos. He starts scooping them up and putting them back into the bin as his answer. He did like them, but he doesn't think he wants to spend however long he'll be in here organizing toy bricks. Instead, he pulls himself towards those gaming consoles he saw earlier.

As expected, the games stashed away in the shelves beneath the television aren't the most exciting– nothing like the first person shooters he sometimes plays with Kaminari on the weekends, mic muted and computer screen as the only light in his room– but they aren't bad either. They range from classic baby games, small puzzles based on cartoons, to Nintendo games meant for older kids. In particular, he migrates towards the newest Pokémon Neon– a cyberpunk themed game split off into cyan and magenta.

It's notably not a multiplayer game, not really anyways, but Hitoshi can't keep his eyes off it. He used to have some Pokémon games when he was younger, gifts from his father during holidays mostly, but he stopped getting anything except a pitiful few hundred yen and some socks a long time ago. He most certainly never got the chance to try the newest one out, nor did he think he'd ever get the money for it before he went Pro.

“That one?” Aizawa appears beside him and slides the case off the shelf. He scans over the cover with a neutral expression.

“Uh, we don't have to–” Hitoshi starts, only to be interrupted by Aizawa cracking open the case and taking the disc out.

“I don't care either way, kid. It's your regression,” Aizawa waves a dismissive hand and pops the disc into the console. He connects the TV to the system as Hitoshi tentatively grabs a controller, glancing at Aizawa every couple of seconds to see if he's changed his mind.

Aizawa never says anything about it, though. As the game boots up, he puts away the bin of legos and drags over one of the large bean bags away from the shelves it sat next to.

“Do you know if you like being touched when you're regressed?” Aizawa inquires, bringing the bean bag right up to Hitoshi. “Most littles enjoy some form of contact– usually cuddles. I enjoy having my hair braided.”

Hearing someone of Aizawa's character unironically say the word cuddles has Hitoshi giggling a bit before he actually registers the question. It's honestly hard to say considering he's never been one for touch even when he was an actual child. His parents weren't the tactile type and he never found himself included in any friend groups prior to UA.

“Sometimes I stick around when Monoma regresses and he's very… touchy-feely,” Hitoshi says, nearly shuddering at the word. Too many hours has he spent with a toddler squeezing him as hard as he can. “I don't hate it. Usually.”

Aizawa nods along sympathetically. “We'll try it, then, and see how you like it.”

Before Hitoshi can question that, Aizawa plops down in the bean bag, spreads his legs to give Hitoshi some room to sit between them, and gestures for him to join. Hitoshi can only blankly stare up at the man.

“Seriously?”

“Physical affection is often linked to regression,” Aizawa informs, as if he wouldn't already know that. “You don't seem to mind more casual forms of it– head pats, side-hugs, or hand holding– so I figure this is the logical next step.”

Hitoshi bristles. “I held Yamada's hand one time!”

“And yet, you enjoyed it enough to stare at him like a needy puppy for weeks afterwards,” Aizawa deadpans. The asshole, then, holds up his hand for Hitoshi to take.

Hitoshi ducks his head to hide the way he physically feels himself blushing. As a cat person, he despises the way being called a puppy has his brain fogging over. It’s not even being used as a pet name! Aizawa is making fun of him!

To take back some control over the situation, he lifts up each of his hands, showing the controller in one and the teddy bear in the other, and sticks his tongue out at Aizawa, who chuckles and drops the hand.

“Yes, very mature. Are you coming up or not?”

Despite Hitoshi's strongest convictions, he does want a cuddle from Aizawa. The man is stingy when it comes to physical affection, preferring to keep a professional amount of distance between himself and everyone around him. Even with Yamada, it’d be nearly impossible to tell that they were even friends if you didn't know them personally.

It's probably a good thing for everyone's sake. Hitoshi can't imagine how devastating it would be on either end if he constantly had children imprinting on him and then could never see any of them again. But Hitoshi isn't just any student, and he longs for an adult to care for him more than anything, so the distance is particularly brutal. It's nothing he's not used to, but it does hurt.

What happens if Aizawa decides to reject him? He notoriously doesn't like physical affection and it would be shitty of Hitoshi to force that on someone he respects so much just because he's needy and selfish. What if Aizawa doesn't reject him and Hitoshi gets too used to the affection? What if Aizawa will only let him have it when he regresses? What if–

What if…

Hitoshi lets go of his teddy bear and runs a hand through his hair, trying to roll the stress out of his shoulders. His chest aches, not quite painful but extremely distracting. It's a heavy weight pulling him down, taking the feeble amount of strength he has and spitting on it.

He trusts Aizawa. That is an undeniable fact. He trusted him enough to regress around him for the first time in four years, trusted him enough to come into a regression room– a completely unknown space to him, and he trusted enough to admit things he's never voiced out loud.

So why?

Why is he still so scared?

“Hitoshi?”

It's not exactly rare that Aizawa uses his given name, but it's a rather new development; one that knocks Hitoshi on his ass every time he hears it. No one ever says his name so gently. His own parents spit it out in scorn and Monoma only ever uses it to tease him. It's nice, hearing it be used as something kind.

“Hypothetically,” Hitoshi starts, returning to their old habits despite its redundancy. He swallows around the lump in his throat and clutches the controller tightly. “If I were to regress with you, that would be proof of a little classification, right?”

“I suppose, yes.” Aizawa furrows his eyebrows, staring holes into Hitoshi’s head as if trying to read the scattered thoughts plaguing his mind.

“What would happen afterwards?” What would happen to me?

“Well… I'd update your paperwork and let the school know that you've received a classification. More than likely, you'll be pulled aside by Hound Dog next week to discuss your options– how you want teachers to approach you, how you want to handle your headspace, what kind of accommodations you’ll need for classwork and training, things like that.”

Right, right, he knew all that.

“Because of the nature of how this came to be, I'd likely recommend you see Recovery Girl to check on your hormones and development. Not regressing for four years can be very serious and we'd want to know what we're dealing with and why it happened.”

Hitoshi's throat constricts. That might lead to an investigation, which he also expected. Hearing it said out loud makes it feel so much more real, though.

“And that's probably it,” Aizawa leans forward to more properly address him, forearms resting on his knees. “You'll be given unlimited access to the regression rooms scattered across campus and UA will cover any necessary costs to gear or supplies you might need.”

“It'll be on my ID then,” Hitoshi guesses. “My classification.”

Aizawa shifts to pull out his teacher's ID from his pocket, showing it off to Hitoshi. All it has is the year, his legal name, hero name, and a picture of his face. “Some high schools do, ours doesn't. It'll be in the system so the teachers and faculty will have access to it, but that's all.”

But people will still know.

He wouldn't be surprised if his entire class found out by next Monday and tried to coerce him into a cuddle pile so they could scent him or pet him like a dog. He knows the littles have their own groupchat too. Would he be invited? Would it shatter what little connections he has to his peers if he declines? He already finds it difficult to be around Monoma when the guy regresses, he doesn't think he could be around people that aren't even his friends.

And that doesn't address the elephant in the room– the new eyes that will be constantly on him, checking in on him and making sure he's okay. It's bad enough that Yamada and Aizawa will never see him the same, but now he'll have to deal with the caregivers of 2-A treating him differently. Cold, uncaring Shinsou will turn into poor little Shinsou. Independent, abrasive Shinsou will turn into misbehaving, naughty Shinsou. He's never cared much for maintaining his reputation, but he'd rather people avoid him than baby him.

Hitoshi's free hand wraps around his bicep and squeezes, digging his nails into his skin. How is he supposed to regress here, to enjoy regressing here, when he knows the aftermath will destroy the rest of his time at UA? His plan had always been to keep his little classification a secret until he graduated, and then he'd go stealth for the rest of his life. He'd live off of patches and well practiced excuses. He could survive just fine on his own. He always has.

“It isn't going to be as bad as you fear, Hitoshi,” Aizawa assures him gruffly. “No one will make you get a caregiver or force you into anything you don't want. All of this is to help you.”

Hitoshi blinks back tears. “But I don't want any of it. I don't–”

Things are going to change and he doesn't want that. Even the most well meaning caregivers will be too much. Training with Aizawa is going to be hell, solely because now Hitoshi will know that any time his mentor pulls back or goes easy on him, it'll be for one reason only.

“There are many heroes with a little classification,” Aizawa reminds him. “Most of them got it during their time here. Don't forget, kid, I'm in the same boat too. It's scary, but you're not alone.”

“You're a flip,” Hitoshi can't stop the bite from his tone. “You can– you can pretend. People don't just see you as a–”

Worthless brat, his mother once called him. A drain on our finances, his father once said. A villain in the making.

It's pathetic. He's pathetic.

“Hitoshi,” Shouta says firmly. “You may not believe it, but I know exactly what you're going through.”

He remembers being fifteen and lashing out at even the idea of regressing. Both Hizashi and Oboro had been caregivers and they, like everyone else, assumed that Shouta would be one too. When he wasn't, and they tried to dote on him like they would any other little, he nearly burned both bridges and left the group entirely.

They hadn't meant to upset him– they just didn't understand. Virtually nothing changes when you're a caregiver. The headspace you're given is so much less intrusive and, as real as it is, the instincts it brings don't actually change the mindset you're given. Flips, more than anyone, understand the differences between the two headspaces and a caregiver can do little more than empathize with their struggles.

For littles, a classification is earth shattering, even to the most secure, well adjusted kids. It changes the dynamics you have with your friends, your family, and even your time. Caregivers get antsy if they aren't given a little to play with, but littles have breakdowns if they aren't maintaining their mental health which means they have to allocate time to their headspaces– time that could've been used for other things. It's ruthless and, for a teenager, it quite literally is the end of the world.

Shouta eventually came around and found that he didn't mind the shifting dynamics in his life. Hizashi and Oboro promised not to treat him any differently and while they didn't always succeed, he liked regressing around them and he didn't hate the systems the two of them put in place to make sure he was always safe. It worked and Shouta saw the practicality of it.

But, despite their similarities, Hitoshi isn't him. He doesn't have a couple well meaning idiots on his level willing to work through his hesitations with him. All he has right now is Shouta, looking to him as a figure to relate to and someone to guide him through this troublesome period.

(A father.)

“Even if I didn't, if I truly had no idea what was going through your head, I'm still here for you,” Shouta states, very aware that what he says to these kids matters more than most and, to Hitoshi specifically, this moment is critical. “If it starts overwhelming you, tell me and we'll take a break. If someone is giving you shit for it, tell me and I'll sort it out. If you need anything, tell me and I'll be there. I know Mic would say the same, but it's fine if you aren't ready for him yet.”

Hitoshi’s glassy eyes go wide and his ears flush pink. Shouta takes it as a sign to close the gap and places a hand on Hitoshi's shoulder. Hitoshi tenses under the touch for half a second before he slowly starts relaxing.

“I don't just mean right now, either,” Shouta finishes. “I’ll still regress with you if it helps, but this all applies to next week, next month, next year. Me saying you aren't alone isn't placative bullshit. I mean what I say and that most certainly doesn't change just because you're my kid. If anything, it's more true.”

Hitoshi goes over the words in his head, gnawing on the tip of his thumb. Shouta has half a mind to grab him a teether but he stays where he is and lets the boy sort through his own feelings. Eventually, after a few long seconds of only his Pokémon game's theme music playing in the background, Hitoshi speaks.

“... I don't want a caregiver,” he mumbles around his thumb, eyeing Shouta wearily. “I'm not anyone's kid.”

Shouta prides himself on being able to compartmentalize and separate his feelings from his actions. Hizashi pretends his feelings don't exist, but Shouta lets them fester and rot within the crevices of his mind. He doesn't take things personally and he prefers going through life focused on the reality of it, something the illogicality of emotions is not suited for.

That said, he can't ignore how much that hurts to hear, despite everything he's always known about Hitoshi and everything he's recently learned about him.

“I know,” Shouta responds with a deep breath, trying to settle the angst inside him. The implication that the boy doesn't even see himself as his parents’ child is equally as devastating as the knowledge that, after everything, Hitoshi doesn't see Shouta as a trusted adult figure. “And that's okay.”

“Is it?” Hitoshi sniffles, sounding miserable.

“Yes, because you don't have to see me as your caregiver. I'm not and I'd never push that on you,” Shouta says. “But that doesn't make you any less my boy. It doesn't matter what headspace you're in, I care very deeply for your wellbeing and I promise that I'll do everything in my power to help you through this, okay? I'll–”

A quiet sob erupts from Hitoshi's mouth as he drops his controller and slams face first into Shouta's middle, knocking some of the wind out of him. He wraps his arms around the man, his knees digging into the padded flooring as he cries into Shouta's lap. There's a pause before hands run through Hitoshi's hair, gently scratching the back of his head.

The position doesn't allow for Shouta to hug him back, though, so he taps Hitoshi with a quiet, “C'mon, kid.” and maneuvers the boy to sit up with him. Hitoshi burrows his face into Shouta's neck, clinging to him like a koala.

Shouta returns the hug, shielding Hitoshi from the rest of the world and pressing a faint kiss to the side of his head. “It's alright, I got you. I'm here, Hitoshi. You aren't alone.”

Hitoshi shudders, crying like he had in the break room. The words soothe him, a warm contrast to the cold tiles of the empty kitchenette. There's something soothed within Shouta too, a crack smoothed over from when Hitoshi practically begged him to go away. He isn't begging to be left alone now, he's leaning into the fact that he's not.

“I– I wanna regress with you!” Hitoshi hiccups, a plea that edges on distressed as he emits a sour candy smell– a call for help. He's been so scared for so long and, with his mentor, he feels safe. Safe enough to be as little as he really is.

“Then that's what we’ll do,” Shouta hums, a deep rumble in his chest, as he drags his wrist up and down Hitoshi's back, scenting him with his own sweet orange pheromone. It's an instinctual behavior, a claim of familial bonds, and Hitoshi responds by pressing against the scent gland in Shouta neck with a small whine.

Shouta rocks them side to side as Hitoshi cries himself out, soaking in the affection like a dying star– explosive and spiraling into a black hole. It takes him another ten minutes to calm down and, in that time, he never once lets go of his desperate iron grip on Shouta, clinging to him in fear that he'd disappear if he lets go.

Shouta uses the time to float, closing his eyes and getting lost in the motions of rocking. It's yet another thing he did instinctually, but, this time, it was more out of habit. Hizashi likes to rock him when he's small and upset and all Shouta did was mimic it, reminded of how it’s comforted him so many times. He still isn't small– he's far too ramped up for that and his need to care for Hitoshi beats it out every time– but he's closer than he had been earlier.

Finally, at the end of that ten minutes, Hitoshi has relaxed entirely in his hold and his crying fizzles out, leaving them to just enjoy the closeness. Shouta is almost positive that, if Hizashi could see him now, he'd be squealing and taking a thousand pictures. Hitoshi is curled up against him, nuzzling him graciously like a sleepy kitten. Shouta thinks that if he moves or otherwise disturbs him, they'll both die on the spot.

Hitoshi feels tranquil. Everyone always says that they feel better after crying and, until now, Hitoshi has never understood that. Crying always left him shaken and numb, aching at the hollowness carved inside of him. This time, he feels pleasantly worn, like all the anxiety and fear from today has melted away with his fallen tears.

His head is still filled with cotton, cloudy with a dull throbbing, but he’s satisfied in a way that he's never been before. For once, he feels something vaguely in line with content, maybe even content enough to be bored.

He mumbles something unintelligible against Shouta's neck.

“Hm? What was that?”

Hitoshi lifts his head up just enough to be audible. “Wanna play Pokémon now.”

Shouta’s laugh starts as a snort and turns into something earnist that shakes them both and disrupts Hitoshi, who groans and paws at him to stop moving. Shouta, for some reason, takes that to mean move more and adjusts his hold on Hitoshi so he isn't jostled too much as he reaches down to grab the controller and Hitoshi's teddy bear.

At the sight of them, Hitoshi forgets to be disgruntled and shifts around in Shouta's lap until he's facing the television, which has been patiently waiting for them on the starting screen. He pulls the teddy bear into his own arms as Shouta leans back and has them all half-laying on the bean bag, looking up at the TV.

Hitoshi sniffles, getting comfortable, and grimaces as Shouta uses his sleeve to wipe away the residual tears.

“You okay?” Shouta asks, clearing his throat when it comes out a little too creaky.

“Mhm,” Hitoshi lets his head fall onto Shouta's shoulder and looks up at him with shiny eyes. “You okay?” He parrots.

Shouta nods with a small yawn, blinking slowly at the screen and reaching to grab a juice box from the small pile of snacks he dragged over with the bean bag. He pokes the straw in and offers it to Hitoshi, who politely declines. Shouta shrugs and takes a sip for himself.

Hitoshi clicks through the beginning, making his character a boy named Mute– a character he's played since he was young and selectively mute, just like the main characters in Pokémon. He reads out the text prompts for them, only struggling on occasion with bigger words or the names of newer Pokémon. Each time he wavers, Shouta speaks up to help, a thickness to his voice that Hitoshi would normally attribute to exhaustion if not for the sugary orange meringue scent filtering through the air.

He doesn't know if Shouta ever fully regresses. It's hard for him to tell on scent alone and he never bothers to ask. Instead, he cuddles up to him and tries to involve him in the game as much as he can, asking which starter they should pick (the grass type, even though Hitoshi only ever uses water starters) and what they should name it–

“We can't name it Grass!” Hitoshi whines, only for Shouta to roll his eyes.

“Why not?” He asks, absentmindedly chewing on the straw of his juice box. “It's efficient.”

“It's boring.”

So, they end up naming it Grass, which turns into the rest of the party being named after their elements, despite how much Hitoshi wants to make weed jokes with the rest of them. Even hovering around the age of fourteen or fifteen, Shouta firmly shuts that down. Boring.

It's around the second gym that Shouta shuts his eyes and doesn't open them again, his breathing evening out in soft puffs. When Hitoshi notices, some of his fear around being alone returns and he curls up around Shouta even more to tune it out. He focuses on his game, quietly humming along to the music and rubbing his cheek against Shouta's sweatshirt as he thinks through his battle strategy.

Partway through, there's a quiet knock at the door that has Hitoshi freezing. Shouta doesn't wake up, but he does mumble something that sounds like ’I'm here’ and slightly tightens his hold on Hitoshi, who hides as much as he can in the bean bag while peering over it at the door as it slides open.

Yamada pokes his head in, having changed out of his hero costume into something far more casual, and smiles at him.

“Hey there, squirt,” he greets in a whisper, regarding the scene with a fond look. “I wanted to come check in on ya both! Everything still runnin’ smoothly?”

Hitoshi slowly nods his head, clamping down on his scent to keep it from souring the orange candy marking the room. Yamada's minty chocolate pairs strangely with it, reminding Hitoshi of the gross orange juice/coffee mixture that Shouta sometimes drinks during their rare morning training sessions.

“Okay,” Yamada's smile falters a bit. “Have you two eaten? I brought dinner.” He steps to the side to push in a small dining cart with a few helpings of food, all very clearly served on colorful baby plates with dividers, and a couple of sippy cups filled to the brim. Hitoshi immediately spots a cup and a regular sized tray among them. “I was wantin’ to see if you'd let me join in on the party, but I can just leave it here and skedaddle if that works better for y'all.”

Hitoshi glances at Shouta, jerking in surprise when he's greeted with his mentor's tired eyes cracked open and watching him. The ball is back in his court and, once again, it's up to him to decide. Shouta’s hand rubs comfortingly at Hitoshi’s arm, a silent show of support that has Hitoshi wearily looking back to Yamada, who waits patiently at the door.

Worthless brat, his mother once called him. A drain on our finances, his father once said. It doesn't make you any less my boy, his mentor says.

When Hitoshi was twelve, he sat alone in a closet for hours, locked away from the rest of the household, as he experienced his first regression. He cried and screamed himself hoarse, rocking back and forth in a failing attempt to self-soothe. He couldn't meet his parents’ eye the next morning, nor could he shake the dread and exhaustion that lingered for weeks afterward. It was horrible and he's been perfectly fine with his body's natural aversion to regressing again.

Now, Hitoshi is sixteen and he's sitting beside someone he trusts, protected from how overwhelmingly scary the outside world is, as he regresses for the first time since. When he cried, he had someone to hold him. When he needed someone with him, he was rocked and reassured. When he felt the chill of being alone, there came a knock at the door. He's still scared of what will change once he leaves this room, but he knows it's safe here and he trusts Shouta to keep it that way.

So, when Yamada tentatively asks him again if he can stay, Hitoshi doesn't shake or panic. He simply lifts his arm out and asks if they can hold hands.