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For once, Hizashi hadn’t meant to get himself into trouble. Ok, so there were times he actually made mistakes and caused problems, but this, the result of a tiny action he thought little about, was ridiculous! He chewed on his lip. Shouta was going to castrate him. His sleepy husband had every right to, honestly. There was a lot he could pull off and get away with, but he couldn’t even begin to imagine how he was going to get out of this alive. It was possible for him to find something in the police station he was trapped in to disguise himself. With how the officers were eyeing him up, he’d never have the chance. They were almost terrified at the sea of people protesting at their doors. It was only a matter of time before the officers threw him to the wolves.
All of this because he, on a rare day off, stumbled across a lost little girl. Even off duty, what kind of person would he be if he didn’t stop to try to help her? He set his grocery bag of snacks and jelly pouches down. Even as goofy as he appeared to be, Hizashi knew his height could be a little intimidating. So, as with most children, he knelt down, sent her a gentle smile, and said hello. There was fear in her eyes when she momentarily paused her crying when he had spoken. It wasn’t surprising to know that a kid was scared of a stranger coming up to them, but there was a hint of confusion.
He tapped his chin and put on his most exaggerated ‘thinking’ face he could. As if he had a brilliant idea, he brightened up and pulled out his hero license. There weren’t many people that caught on to who he was out of costume, but he wasn’t worried. It soothed most people when they saw a hero’s license, often even transcending language barriers. She stared at it with watery eyes for a long while.
When she finally spoke, it wasn’t in Japanese. Her words rushed out almost as fast as Midoriya’s when he went on a tangent. Hizashi was grateful that he was the one to stumble upon her. While he did teach English, it wasn’t the only language he knew. When he’d been younger, he wanted to help everyone, even if it was only through words. In order to do that, he picked up multiple languages and continued to learn as much as he could.
“We’ll find your family.” Was all he said in her native tongue. The little girl had cried even harder, but he was confident that it was more from relief than anything else. There were a lot of things to watch out for when helping children. Quirks were varied, allergies were unknown, and there were always underlying trauma to watch out for. However, he had a secret weapon, his voice.
It wasn’t often that he sang, but it had been a good source of practice when learning more about his quirk. Hizashi was happy he had picked up on the skill, as it helped calm all sorts of people down. Music, after all, was its own language that people could feel. Yes. People can feel music and Shouta can fight him on it. Could the sad animal song bring tears to his husband’s eyes? Yes. Would he ever admit to it? No.
The song was a wordless melody he could almost recall from his own childhood. He always found lullabies and the like comforting, but equally sad. People that sang the songs for him entered and left his life, just like he would with this little girl. Something shared, but easily forgotten, no matter how much one enjoyed it.
Once the child settled down, Hizashi slowed his singing to a stop. She gave him these big eyes as if seeing something otherworldly. Before she even spoke, Hizashi knew there was about to be a wave of questions he didn’t really have answers for. That was where he made the grave error of telling the girl a white lie.
“Hey, hey, can you keep a secret for me?” He gave her a smile and held a finger to his mouth. She nodded rapidly, and he chuckled at how much she reminded him of his kids. “My singing has powers because I’m really a merman.” There was a cute gasp and her eyes sparkled. She stretched out her shirt to show him the cartoon mermaid on it. Hizashi just nodded. “Yeah, just like your shirt! Good job!” She hopped up and down a few times. “How about I tell you how I ended up so far away from the ocean while we head over to the police station? I bet they can help us find your family.” The little girl nodded and held out her hand, likely taught to hold an adult’s hand so she didn’t get lost.
It was during this short trip that he told her a fantastical tale of how he left the ocean to find friends. He spoke of two good friends he had made while on land, but also talked about how he missed the ocean sometimes. Hizashi told her about the little fish that would swim alongside him and the whales he would sing with. Said how he liked to pick out shiny rocks for the birds or make jewelry out of them. How the sunrise and sunset glimmered off the water, or how he would just float so he could stare at the stars. She ate up every last word he said.
He knew she wouldn’t keep it a secret. Kids weren’t very good at keeping secrets. When they entered the station and nearly ran into her parents, there was a heartfelt reunion. Hizashi had stepped to the side to ask for the right paperwork to file a report. Distantly, he could hear the little girl telling her parents in a ‘whisper’ how the hero who helped her was actually a mermaid. Her parents simply smiled and listened to their child as they exited the station.
How could it ever go wrong? Why was this white lie such a big mistake? What happened that caused a hoard of people to try to rush the police station? Apparently mermaids were still rather popular and with all the weird quirks in the world it seemed possible that a mermaid was in the police station. Most of the people were protesting the capture of the mermaid because apparently he was being held captive in the police station. There were a few people demanding that for the benefit of society he should be observed. Some whispered about selling mermaid tears and scales. A few officers were even questioning if he was actually human, knowing that Present Mic’s ‘quirk’ was Voice. Imagining the man could be a siren seemed logical to them.
Hizashi just wanted to go home, snuggle up to his husband’s well toned chest, and ask for cleverly hidden muscular arms to squeeze him. It wasn’t going to happen, though. The blond stared at the contact for his husband on his phone. What would he say? That Hizashi was an idiot and could figure it out himself? No… Shouta wouldn’t do that to him… Probably. He didn’t need to bother his husband for this. Hizashi had an idea to get himself out of this situation.
He had a smile plastered on his face, but Hizashi was having a crisis. All he had to do was prove to a large mass of people that he wasn’t a merman. Simple. He had used U.A.’s pools often enough to help increase his lung capacity and exercise. Hizashi liked swimming. Where was the problem? The problem was that the civilians were in such an uproar that several other heroes were now on scene. Cementos just so happened to be one of them and Manual was another. Together they could make him a pool large enough to satisfy the people and clean it up after Hizashi was proven to be human!
The voice hero wasn’t exactly body shy, but he also didn’t really like stripping down to his boxers in front of so many people. Did all of these people, some in which he worked with, need to know that he had his nipples pierced? No. Did they know now? Yes. He was actually starting to feel bad for his PR team right about now. Usually he liked to keep them on their toes, but this was getting excessive even for him. Maybe these people wouldn’t connect Yamada Hizashi with Present Mic?
If he weren’t the target of the accusations Hizashi would’ve been giving people a play by play of the situation. The blond let out a heavy sigh and stepped to the edge of the in ground pool made just for him… in the middle of a road. It was no where near deep enough for him to jump or dive into it, but it would still work for what they needed it for. Without any dramatics, the voice hero hopped into the pool. He was a little startled when his head dipped below the surface of the water. There was no reason he should be under the water. He was more than tall enough to stand in the water and…
Hizashi couldn’t stand. Flailing around in the water he tried to get his legs under him, but he could’t. They were stuck together and- what the fuck? His feet! He sucked in a breath of air, but that wasn’t right. He was underwater. Hizashi was underwater, couldn’t feel his feet, his legs weren’t working right, and he wasn’t choking on water despite taking a deep breath in. After what felt like an eternity, Hizashi broke the surface of the water and clung to the edge of the makeshift pool.
Noise. There was so much noise. He brushed the long strands of hair out of his face and looked around frantically for the familiar heroes, but without his glasses everything was blurry. Blobs of colors were dancing around, he couldn’t focus on it though. Hizashi needed out of the water. Needed to figure out why it felt like Shouta trapped his legs in his capture weapon. With both hands firmly grasping the edge of the pool he hoisted himself up and slid his upper body onto the cement. Hizashi’s legs were dragged behind him as he crawled away from the water.
All he had wanted to do was help a child. He rested his forehead on the warm pavement. Maybe he could just sneak away why the other heroes took care of the crowds? Yeah he could do that. Twisting his body he rolled onto his back, pulled himself up, and his knees toward his chest. Except… those weren’t his knees. Beautiful gold scales tinged with red were where his knees should be. His bony knees… Curious he pressed his palm to the smooth scales. They were oddly warm and the muscles flexing under his touch felt strong. Flexing his toes felt odd, but as he did Hizashi’s eyes caught on to a large fin. A large fin attached to the end of the scales. Scales that ran up to his hips… oh.
It had taken years worth of self-control to not scream as panic bubbled up in his chest. No wonder, he couldn’t feel his toes and his legs felt weird! He needed to get home. If Hizashi was honest with himself, it didn’t matter how or why his legs changed. No, he needed to get home before all of this got even more out of control and Shouta had to get involved. How could he make it home, though? They lived nowhere near here and currently his legs were out of order. If there weren’t so many people, maybe he could crawl or roll himself home, but… that wasn’t really an option at the moment.
Before he had gotten in the water, he had stripped. After a quick glance around, Hizashi wanted to whine when he couldn’t find his belongings. Ok, so… maybe he could ask one of the heroes. Sure, Manual and Cementos were busy, but they had to have called for back up! Then he could ask one of those heroes to help him home, and there he could figure out how he was going to break this to Shouta. If he was really lucky maybe whatever happened to him would wear off and his husband would never have to know about it!
A shadow being cast over him had Hizashi looking up into dark, tired eyes. The blond opened his mouth, but he couldn’t find any suitable words to spit out. Instead, he drew a big smile onto his lips and shot his husband finger guns. There. A completely normal greeting during a completely normal situation that wouldn’t result in death. At least it would be a way to go… Would Shouta wrap his capture weapon around his neck and suffocate him to death? No… it’d be too quick. Hang him upside down like a big catch, slice open his stomach, and let the birds pick him apart?
“Do I even want to know how you did this?” The underground hero asked with a sigh.
“Would you believe me if I said I have no idea?”
Shouta stared at his half fish of a husband. Hizashi shifted nervously and dug his nails into the cement. “Unfortunately, yes.” The dark haired man pinched the bridge of his nose and muttered something under his breath. If the blond had to take a guess at what he said, he’d bet that it was along the lines of ‘problem husband’ or ‘the students cause less trouble’.
“So uh…” Hizashi wiggled his tail, looked down, and shifted side to side. “Can you help me get home? I don’t mind being the life of the party, but right now I don’t have two feet to stand on. Plus, Shouta, these people are crazy enough!” He gestured over to the people barely being held back by their coworker. Then he looked up to his husband, who was on his phone. The blond froze momentarily and then frowned. He didn’t need Shouta’s full attention, but he was kinda having a crisis here! “Sho… please… can we-”
Explosions erupted around them. The voice hero closed his eyes and released a heavy sigh. Screams followed as all hell broke loose. Fire, explosions, electricity, wind, ice, acid, sparkly beams, and a cloud of birds created chaos. Hizashi loved their kids, but… did Shouta really have to get them involved? No. Looking up at his husband revealed his ‘creepy’ smile as he took joy in the pain he brought the blond. Little Tenya was speeding around yelling at people while Yaoyorozu and Shoji stepped up to him. She created a heavy towel, dipped it in the water, and then gently wrapped it around Hizashi. Shoji then picked him up and looked over to his homeroom teacher.
The journey back to U.A. was awful. Nineteen kids formed a protective ring around him, which normally wouldn’t be too bad, but… Bakugou and Midoriya were growling at people, Koda was asking rats to scare people out of their way, and Hitoshi was smirking at him. Worst of all, they had to stop fairly often to soak Hizashi’s towel and all of them insisted on crowding in wherever they were getting water. Water, which, made the voice hero want to vomit as it wasn’t nearly clean enough. Never again did he want to experience being in a small bathroom with twenty students as they waited for the water to drain through the purifier Yaoyorozu kindly made for him. If the proximity and heat of the room wasn’t bad enough, the echoes of Bakugo’s yells and Kirishima’s ‘manly’ statements were enough to make Hizashi wish he never became a teacher.
Once they arrived on campus, they ran into another issue. The teens, as Shouta left Hizashi’s life in their hands as he took off somewhere, tried to toss him in the school’s pool. Hizashi had clung to Shoji like his life depended on it as his tail fin grazed the water. “Chlorine! Chlorine!” His voice sounded like a shrill violin, but he couldn’t think past the chemicals burning his fins. Thankfully, he was pulled far from the water. Hizashi took in deep breaths of air as he attempted to recover from seeing his eyes flash in front of his eyes. The kids were bickering, but he ignored the words and sat in the rumble of voices. He just wanted to crawl into bed, which was saying a lot coming from him.
Hizashi’s eyes must’ve slipped close as he waited for the children to settle, as the next thing he knew, he was settled into warm water. A sigh escaped his lips as he sank lower into the water, it felt heavenly. It was as if he was wrapped in a warm blanket fresh from the dryer.
Shouta thanked Shoji for delivering Hizashi to their apartment. He had left the kids earlier to prepare their bathroom for Hizashi. He’d been confident that as a grown adult, his husband would be able to keep their kids from accidentally killing him. Seeing how exhausted Hizashi was made him wonder if he should’ve just brought the kids into their bathroom. Actually. No. Just the thought of two adults and twenty kids piled into a small bathroom was enough to make him shiver. He was waiting on the detective to get back to him, however, it was a safe bet that his husband was a victim of a quirk accident. They’d just have to wait it out, but until then it looked like Shouta was stuck with a merman in his bathtub.