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Hitoshi wakes up to a splitting headache and a parched throat. He groans, trying to keep his eyes closed because the pulsating pain is making him nauseous but he tries to think past it, tries to take stock of himself so he can figure out what the fuck happened.
"Finally awake, eyebags?" Bakugo's voice rings out, piercing in its volume and Hitoshi groans again. "Gods, don't be such a wimp," Bakugo grumbles, but it's notably more quiet and Hitoshi dares to blink an eye open.
Bakugo is standing next to his bed, the same displeased look on his face Hitoshi knows him with and it doesn't make any sense at all. Bakugo is not supposed to be here, because Hitoshi is very much in his own bed and no one is supposed to be at his apartment.
"What—" Hitoshi tries to say but his throat is so dry the words die on the way out and it's only then that Hitoshi realises how absolute grimy he feels.
"Drink this before you hurt your voice and Aizawa actually has my head," Bakugo says and shoves a bottle of water into Hitoshi's hand.
He has no idea where it came from because that is definitely not from his kitchen and even though he thinks he should worry more about that, every thought is overridden by the promise of cold water.
Hitoshi takes the bottle and almost downs it in one go and once he's done, he feels marginally better. His headache has calmed down a bit, too and so he dares to push himself up because it feels wrong, talking to Bakugo like this.
"What happened? Why are you here?" he wants to know, his voice still coming out rough but at least it's there and Bakugo levels him with a look.
"You don't remember?" he asks, crossing his arms in front of his chest and Hitoshi thinks for a moment before he shakes his head.
"Not really?" he offers, because he's getting some flashes of Bakugo carrying him to bed and tucking him in but surely that must be wrong and Hitoshi is definitely not going to mention that because he quite likes living, thank you very much.
"You fainted like the goddamn idiot you are," Bakugo hisses out and Hitoshi blinks.
"Huh?"
"We were supposed to meet for the presentation next week."
"Yeah? On Tuesday, in the library." Hitoshi frowns. "What day is it?" he then asks because there's a small pit of dread opening in his stomach and Hitoshi learned to listen to that.
"Thursday."
Hitoshi is glad he's sitting down because he thinks his knees would have actually given out at that and he still drops the water bottle as it is.
"It can't be Thursday!" he whispers because last he remembers it was Monday evening and Hitoshi doesn't know how he could be missing two entire days. "What happened?"
"You're a goddamn idiot, is what happened," Bakugo snarks and snatches the water bottle from Hitoshi's bed and hands him a full one.
Still, not one he owns, and now that his thoughts aren't quite so muddled, Hitoshi starts to realize why it's so incredibly fucking bad that Bakugo is in his home.
"What the hell are you doing here?" he asks, tries for stern and annoyed but it comes out shaky and weak and Hitoshi hates the way Bakugo softens a bit around the edges.
"Apparently you didn't come to school on Tuesday, and you also didn't show up to our appointment, so when you didn't answer your phone I came here to yell at you. Except I found you completely feverish," he explains and cold panic grips Hitoshi.
The joint presentation was supposed to be one step for him towards the hero class and Aizawa is going to have his head now that he didn't do it.
Fuck, Aizawa! Hitoshi missed at least one training with him and the panic must show on his face because Bakugo lets out a long sigh.
"Relax, will you?"
"How am I supposed to relax? Fuck, I messed up the presentation and training with Aizawa, I'm so dead. I can kiss the hero course goodbye now."
"That's what you're worried about?" Bakugo asks incredulously. "I'd rather be worried about your living situation!"
At that, Hitoshi goes completely calm. If he manages to play this off, as if all of that is completely normal, then Bakugo will leave and no harm will be done and Hitoshi can go back to his miserable existence without having to worry about CPS sticking their nose in where it doesn't belong.
"Thank you for staying with me, but I'm good now. You can leave."
"Yeah, like shit I can," Bakugo snaps out. "Fuck, troll doll, why is your life so fucked up?"
"That's none of your business," Hitoshi mechanically says and gets out of bed, and prays to all the gods he knows that his shaky legs will carry him at least to the bathroom. "If you could leave now—"
"Fuck off. I promised Aizawa I'd stay."
That makes Hitoshi freeze.
"Aizawa?" he breathes out because Aizawa can't know. He can't know and he can't see and he cannot know but of course nothing in Hitoshi's life ever goes like he wants it to because Bakugo nods.
"Yeah, I called him as soon as I put you to bed on Tuesday," Bakugo says and Hitoshi dares to allow himself a little bit of hope.
"And he told you to stop bothering him, right?"
"Did the fever fry your brain, zombieface? Of course not. He was here like ten minutes later."
And then he left again because Hitoshi is too much of a hassle to look after himself and instead he put Bakugo in charge of it.
Hitoshi decides to not let his breaking heart affect him at all and instead he draws himself up to his full height.
"Since he's not here, it's clearly not important enough to look after me and that means you should go as well," he says, as scathingly as he can but Bakugo only blinks at him.
"Fuck, you really are stupid, aren't you," he finally breathes out. "Aizawa has been sleeping here on your shitty couch. He just went out to get you groceries, what the fuck is wrong with you? Of course he wouldn't just leave you like this. Have you seen the state of your apartment?"
"I—"
"That's enough, Bakugo," Aizawa's voice suddenly rings out and every muscle in Hitoshi's body locks up. "I'll take it from here, thank you for staying."
"Sure thing, teach," Bakugo says with a shrug and he really, truly seems to not mind it all that much and Hitoshi's head is spinning.
He blames the lingering headache on it.
Silence settles over the room as Bakugo gets his things and files out, a nod towards Aizawa and one last look at Hitoshi before he leaves around the corner and a moment later they hear the front door.
"Sensei," Hitoshi starts with but Aizawa cuts him off with a look.
"Go back to bed, you're still too sick to move around," he instructs him and then promptly vanishes towards the kitchen.
Hitoshi hears him puttering around in there and he's filled with shame when he thinks about he state of his kitchen; his entire apartment really, and he hates that anyone else had to see it, too, but especially Bakugo and Aizawa.
This is not going to end well, Hitoshi fears, and he already sees his spot at U.A. slipping through his fingers.
Hitoshi darts off to the bathroom real quickly, desperate to wash the grimy feeling at least off his face but when he comes back, Aizawa is already waiting for him and he doesn't look any happier about the situation than he did five minutes ago.
"Sit," he orders and Hitoshi does because what else is he supposed to do.
Aizawa will yell at him, will call him useless and irresponsible and then he'll get CPS involved because he's a hero and he has to and after this Hitoshi will have nothing left at all.
He braces himself.
"Explain to me what I'm seeing here," Aizawa says, sitting down on the floor right in front of Hitoshi's bed and it makes Hitoshi feel so much worse.
"What's there to explain?" he tries to deflect because he's pretty sure the state of his apartment speaks for itself but clearly Aizawa is not appreciating his snark today, because his eyes blaze with anger.
"Maybe why you don't have electricity. Or hot water. Or heating at all. Maybe why your kitchen is completely barren of anything that could even be considered food. Maybe why your parents couldn't be reached even though we've tried to contact them for two days."
Hitoshi stubbornly presses his lips together.
"Are you going to explain any of that?" Aizawa prompts after a moment and Hitoshi crosses his arms in front of his chest.
"No."
"Shinsou—"
"What does it matter to you? How I'm living is none of your goddamn business."
"It kind of really is, because you're barely sixteen and your guardians should be around to take care of you."
"Well, I'm taking care of myself, so what does it matter!"
"A great deal, Shinsou. This—" he makes a motion to encapsulate the entirety of the apartment "—is not taking care of yourself. It's managing to get by and only barely so, if the state of everything is something to go by. It shouldn't be like that."
That actually makes Hitoshi laugh because wow. As if he doesn't know that.
"But it is, for me, and you butting your nose in where it's not wanted is not going to change any of it."
"How are you paying rent?" Aizawa asks instead of rising to Hitoshi's bait and Hitoshi looks to the side.
"I have a job."
Where he barely makes enough to not fall too behind on his rent but his landlord is very lenient and sometimes allows him to pay part of it late. There's not enough for anything but rent but Hitoshi doesn't think that's any of Aizawa's business.
"You're sixteen," Aizawa reiterates as if that would change anything and Hitoshi shrugs.
"So?"
"You should be concerned with classes and boys or girls and not how to make enough to pay rent for this place. Where are your parents?"
"That's none of your business," Hitoshi says and tries to swallow down the bitterness rising up in him.
He couldn't answer that question even if he wanted to because he actually has no fucking clue where his parents are. They just up and left him when he was fourteen and for a while it was fine.
They were never that close to begin with and Hitoshi has always been pretty self-sufficient; plus, they left him some money so for a year or so it was all good. But then the money he had ran out and suddenly things weren't looking so great anymore.
"I'm here to help you," Aizawa says with a sigh and Hitoshi desperately clings to that spark of anger in his chest.
"No, you're here to fuck everything up for me," he hisses out clearly catching Aizawa off guard with it if the surprised look on his face is anything to go by.
"I wouldn't—"
"But that's really not in your hands, now, is it? As soon as you say something, as soon as you do something, CPS will take me off your hands and I refuse to be thrown away like some fucking piece of garbage again!" Hitoshi screams out and then, to his horror, bursts into tears.
"Ah, shit," Aizawa mutters and Hitoshi hears him move but he still startles when Aizawa sits down next to him on the bed and pulls him into his arms. "It's okay, kid, we're going to figure it out."
Hitoshi shakes his head because there is nothing to figure out about this; there's no way around CPS if Aizawa says something and by now Hitoshi knows Aizawa well enough to know that he's not going to let this slide.
He might have a reputation as a hard-ass teacher but he actually cares about his students as Hitoshi came to learn over the course of their training sessions and that means it's all over now.
Aizawa might think he's doing it to help and he might even try to keep an eye on Hitoshi for as long as he'll be allowed to stay at U.A. but once his place there is forsaken, Aizawa will no longer be his teacher and that means he no longer has to care.
"Listen, Hitoshi," Aizawa says once Hitoshi has calmed down and the change of name makes Hitoshi brace for the coming hit. "I'd have to talk to my husband about it, but what if you stay with me? With us?"
Hitoshi needs a second to digest that Aizawa is married before he lets out a helpless little laugh.
"Sensei, you forget what my quirk is. No one wants me around and you can't cancel me out twenty-four/seven. He's not going to say yes."
"Ah, I think you underestimate him," Aizawa says with a shrug. "He already deals with you at least once a week without me present."
Now that makes Hitoshi frown.
"Huh?"
The otherwise quiet room is interrupted by the ringing of his phone, and his call is picked up mere seconds later.
"How's the little listener doing?" a voice rings out and Hitoshi whispers a confused 'Present Mic?' to himself, just barely catching Aizawa's little smirk.
"Better. He's at least awake again. We have a code red though, because apparently this is just how he's living," Aizawa says and Yamada sucks in a scandalised breath.
"Unacceptable. Get the kiddo home, I already prepared the guest room because I could feel that some of the beats were just off."
Hitoshi frowns, because there is no way in hell that it's actually that easy, that Yamada just accepts this, that Aizawa would want this and the confusion must be clear on his face because Aizawa speaks up again.
"Hizashi, for how long can he stay with us?"
"Are you stupid, Shou? For as long as he wants to. I know you're attached to him and CPS can't do shit to me with how much I usually advocate for them, so I'd like to see them try. Plus, our foster license is still valid, so there's nothing that they could do anyway. Why are you even asking something like that? Did you catch the bug the kiddo had? Are you running a fever?"
"No, he's just sitting right here and didn't seem to believe what you said," Aizawa drily says and Yamada lets out a little screech at the other end.
"You're so mean, Shou, you could have led with that. Hitoshi, kiddo, I meant everything I said. Shouta will bring you home and then we'll figure everything else out but just know that you're not going to leave us if you don't want to."
Yamada sounds completely sincere which is just insane because he barely knows Hitoshi outside of their English classes and Hitoshi turns to Aizawa, a helpless look on his face because he doesn't know what he's supposed to do.
"Hizashi, we'll be home soon," Aizawa says and then simply hangs up on him and he turns fully towards Hitoshi.
"You seem confused."
"You're—attached to me?" Hitoshi whispers out, the most pressing thing in his mind and Aizawa huffs out a little laugh.
"I don't take personal students. Ever. But there was just something about you, about your drive and determination that made me reconsider that. And then during training—yeah, I got attached. You think I try to feed all my students?"
"I'm not a stray cat," Hitoshi huffs, his mind spinning and Aizawa laughs again.
"Could have fooled me."
"Attached enough to take me to your home?" Hitoshi dares to ask next and Aizawa's face softens.
"Attached enough to apply to be your permanent foster family," he says without hesitation and that is just so confusing, so surprising that Hitoshi can only blink at him.
"If you want that," Aizawa awkwardly says when Hitoshi stays quiet for too long and Hitoshi nods so hard he fears his head is going to fall off his shoulders.
"Okay, alright, take it easy, kid, you're still recuperating," Aizawa rushes out and stops him with a hand on his cheek. "I got it the first time."
"It's just—you're not going to get rid of me when I'm being too difficult, right?"
"Hitoshi, I haven't expelled my class yet even though they end up in the news for fighting full on villains every other week. I'm certainly not going to get rid of the one kid I'm actually attached to," Aizawa says as if it means nothing to him and Hitoshi's eyes burn.
"Okay," he whispers out, his voice all choked up and Aizawa pulls him into a hug again.
"Okay."
They sit like that for a while longer, until Hitoshi feels stable enough to get up and pack his meagre belongings and when they leave the apartment it doesn't even feel as if he's leaving home.
And he isn't, Hitoshi realises, because he's leaving this place to actually go home and Aizawa must know exactly where his thoughts are going to because he reaches out and ruffles Hitoshi's hair.
He leans into the contact—like the stray cat he claimed he definitely isn't—and then follows Aizawa home.