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Hitoshi shuffles on his feet in the hallway. He's nervous, almost feels sick with it and even though he's been living with Shouta and Hizashi for long enough that his previous mistreatment is nothing more than a distant memory, the worry sits deep.
Especially since he's been lying to them, still, again, always, and he doesn't know how this is going to go over.
But he has to do this, because it matters more to him what he did to Katsuki than what might happen to him and so he steps into the living-room where Shouta is curled up on the couch, papers he still needs to grade spread out in front of him and he looks relaxed enough that Hitoshi almost flees right then and there.
Shouta is going to be angry when he hears what Hitoshi has to say and he loathes to ruin this evening for him but Hitoshi has been sitting on this for too long now.
He needs to make sure that Katsuki is alright and so he steps closer to the couch.
Shouta looks up at him and just like that Hitoshi starts to shake.
"I have something to tell you," he gets out, his voice just as shaky as his hands and Shouta immediately puts his papers away and gives him his full attention.
Which might just make everything worse, in Hitoshi's opinion, but at least like this he can no longer chicken out.
"I'm all ears," Shouta says and Hitoshi knows that he is, but the words still get stuck in his throat.
"Start with something easy," Shouta says after a while and Hitoshi nods, because sometimes it's easier for him to work his way around the actual thing he wants to talk about instead of tackling it head-on.
"I really love Katsuki," Hitoshi says and knows how stupid it must sound, how immature, but Shouta doesn't make him feel like any of that because he nods.
"Yeah, I could tell when you brought him over for dinner."
There's a bit of a question to his voice, which is valid, Hitoshi supposes, because his statement doesn't explain why he's so nervous.
"Come, sit," Shouta says when Hitoshi fails to find the words and pats the space next to him.
Hitoshi immediately goes and curls into Shouta's side, even though he's far too big and gangly for it by now but Shouta doesn't seem to mind it much because he puts his arm around him. It's easier like that, somehow, when Hitoshi doesn't have to look at Shouta and can instead concentrate on his warmth and so the words come out much easier now.
"I don't think I've ever loved someone this much before," Hitoshi goes on and shrugs before Shouta can even say something. "I know it's stupid because I’m only sixteen and Katsuki is my first boyfriend but it definitely feels like that."
"Hizashi was my first boyfriend, too," Shouta quietly says and squeezes Hitoshi. "So I don't think it's all that stupid."
"Really?"
"Really. We met in our first year. It took us a while to get our heads out of our asses though, so you have us beat by a solid year. Don't tell Hizashi I told you this because I think he'll actually have my head if you follow along in our footsteps, but we married straight out of school, just the two of us."
"He'll—have your head if I marry Katsuki?" Hitoshi whispers and Shouta immediately shakes his head.
"He'll have my head if you have a shotgun wedding with only the two of you. He's planning a whole grand thing for your marriage, no matter who it is with, but at the very least we'd want to be there."
"Why weren't your families there?"
"I'm not talking much to mine and that wasn't different back then. Hizashi's simply wasn't close by and we didn't want to wait for them to arrive. They would have, we know that, but it was more important to us to get married as fast as possible."
"Why?"
"Because we never loved someone this much before, either and we just knew it was right. Why waste time?"
Hitoshi hums because Shouta is right, especially with their professions. Something can always go wrong so quickly, so it makes sense.
"But like I said: you'll at least wait until we're there. Otherwise you're going to break Hizashi's heart."
"And yours?"
"Mine, too, kid, but we can only have one overly dramatic parent in this house."
It makes Hitoshi laugh, makes him forget about his worries for a moment before Shouta nudges him slightly.
"Now tell me what's really bothering you," he softly says because of course it could never be this easy, and Hitoshi fiddles with his fingers.
"I lied to you," he finally gets out, ducking his head because even though he's never known pain and terror in this household, the memory of it sits deep, especially with an admission like this.
"About what?" Shouta asks and his voice is perfectly pleasant, which almost makes this worse.
"My quirk," Hitoshi mumbles, almost inaudible and for a moment he wishes Shouta just didn't hear him but of course he's not that lucky.
"Kid," Shouta sighs out and lightly rasps his knuckles against Hitoshi's head. "I thought we were over this."
He doesn't sound angry and he doesn't sound disappointed which was Hitoshi's greatest fear. Shouta just sounds mildly exasperated, which Hitoshi thinks is fair.
"Sorry."
"Don't be sorry. Tell me what you lied about."
"I just—I didn't really lie, I just—omitted something?" Hitoshi tries and can practically feel Shouta roll his eyes.
"Then tell me what you omitted," he says, a small smile on his face and Hitoshi presses himself closer in gratitude as he steals himself.
He's never said this out loud before and he was prepared to never do it, too, but he thinks if there are people who he can tell then it's definitely Shouta and Hizashi.
"I—I can give sleeper commands," Hitoshi forces out and waits for the hate and anger that's surely coming his way with baited breath but nothing actually happens.
"Sleeper commands, how? You're going to have to explain that one to me, Hitoshi," Shouta finally says and Hitoshi lets out a long breath.
"Let's say I brainwashed someone, right," he starts with a shaky voice and feels Shouta nod along to it. "And then during that I tell them to always do a squat when they hear thunder and I infuse that with—I don't know how to explain this, it's like—there's a special muscle I have to flex to make that happen—but when I do, they'd do that for the rest of their life, because I didn't tell them to stop eventually."
Hitoshi feels Shouta freeze at that and he braces himself but instead of the fist and the pain he's expecting Shouta turns him so he has to look at him.
"That is absolutely amazing, Hitoshi," Shouta says and there's honest to god wonder on his face and Hitoshi doesn't know what's going on anymore. "This is going to be such a huge game-changer if you go underground or undercover. They would just have to do it over and over again?"
"Y—yeah?" Hitoshi stutters out because this is the absolute last reaction he would have expected. "I didn't put a time-limit on it, so yes. They'd have to do it until they died."
"And if you told them to, I don't know, freeze up where they stand when someone says a specific word, or an action happens they'd do that, too?"
"Yes."
"And can you reverse it, too?"
"Yes. I need to brainwash them again and tell them to stop or to ignore my previous order. I can undo it, I promise."
"That's incredible," Shouta says and Hizashi can practically see his eyes glaze over with all the possibilities he's going through and it makes zero sense that he's not freaking the fuck out.
"Why are you so—so excited about this?" Hitoshi breathes out because he doesn't understand what's going on and Shouta blinks at him.
"Hitoshi, this is such a good thing to have should you go undercover. Do the people remember what you tell them?"
"No. It's not exactly like my brainwashing. If I give an order like that, they won't remember it once they come out of it."
"So that means you could make sure they'd keep you safe; you could make sure that when shit goes down, no one fights. You could make it so that when the time is right and you say the right word, everyone would walk straight over to a police station and confess their crimes. That is an absolute game-changer, Hitoshi. People will come for your voice, if things go wrong; they'll try to strangle you, to silence you any way they can. With this you could implant safety measures early on." Shouta thinks for a moment. "How many sleeper commands can you hold at once?"
"I—I'm not sure? No one really volunteered to be experimented on? But the sleeper command doesn't actually strain me, so I'd guess, infinite? If I had to give the same one to multiple people at the same time, then I'd guess however many I can brainwash at once?"
They are working on expanding his limit on that; Hitoshi is already up to eleven people and he can hold them for close to five minutes before the strain sets in. Shouta is convinced they can go far beyond that, but so far they didn't have time to test that.
Hitoshi's class has already volunteered themselves, which was a very strange and novel experience and—
"Stop!" Hitoshi rushes out because he's here, exposing his secret, because he's worried about something. He doesn't need Shouta to geek out over this, at least not right now.
"'Toshi?"
"I didn't tell you this because I wanted more training," Hitoshi helplessly says and immediately Shouta gets serious again.
"Right, you were worried about something and I'm guessing this is not the entire reason. Though, thank you for telling me."
"You're welcome?" Hitoshi weakly gives back, as always completely taken off guard by Shouta's sincerity and then he shakes his head, yet again lost for words.
"You mentioned Bakugo. Does it have something to do with him? Did he find out and judged you for it?"
Shouta's voice is suddenly hard and cutting and Hitoshi melts against him because he still isn't used to this protectiveness.
"No, he didn't find out," Hitoshi whispers and draws his knees up close. "I'm just—" Hitoshi buries his face in his knees. "What if I made him?"
"Made him?"
"Love me," Hitoshi mumbles so quietly because he's so very deathly afraid that he did, that he made Katsuki love him, that he told him to love him back and that Katsuki had no say in the matter.
"You think you made Bakugo love you," Shouta slowly repeats. "Just for clarification, you don't mean that by being yourself. You mean by using your quirk on him."
"Yes, dad!" Hitoshi explodes because Shouta sounds as if he's listening to the stupidest shit imaginable and Hitoshi is out of his mind with worry. "What if I just—forced him to say it back. What if I told him to—I don't know, always say it when I say it? It could be!"
"You're so stupid, Toshi, you would never do that," Shouta sighs out and before his words can really sting he reaches out and pulls Hitoshi back into his side. "Okay. Let's just say you did, somehow, despite you being the best person I have ever known. What do we do?"
"Papa is the best person you know," Hitoshi grumbles and Shouta huffs out a laugh.
"Hizashi is a menace and the goddamn devil incarnate. There is nothing good about him. Now, planning. Focus. What do we do?"
"I—thought," Hitoshi stutters out because even suggesting it feels outrageous but he knows it's the only option he has. "We have to see if you can cancel out a sleeper command."
"Okay. So you give one of those to Hizashi and I cancel that out by either looking at you or Hizashi? Sounds logical to me."
"It's not—why can't you be goddamn normal? Nothing about this is logical!"
"How would you have me react?" Shouta asks and he sounds genuinely curious.
"I don't know, I just—I lied to you for all these years and I didn't tell you about what I can do and I just told you I might have permanently brainwashed one of your best students! Why are you not freaking out?"
"Hitoshi," Shouta says and makes sure Hitoshi is looking at him again. "I am not freaking out because you didn't lie to us out of malice. You did it to protect yourself, because you learned that your quirk gets you hurt. I'm slightly disappointed in myself for not being able to make you trust us before this but I'm not mad and I'm not going to freak out. You're a good kid, Hitoshi, and no matter what you can do with your quirk, I'll never be worried about that because you're good. You would never hurt us with it. I mean look at you."
Shouta takes Hitoshi's shaking hands in his.
"Just thinking that you maybe did something to Bakugo has you all messed up. Of course I'm not worried about anything."
"You—you're so—" Hitoshi's words get unintelligible when he dissolves into sobs but Shouta is right there, pulling him into his arms. "Thank you," Hitoshi eventually manages to get out because yeah, he might have been worried about Katsuki but having to come clean to Shouta and Hizashi is not easy either and to know that at least Shouta doesn't care at all means so much to him.
"Of course, kid," Shouta mutters and drops a kiss to the top of his head. "Now, we're going to use—"
"I'm hooooooome!" Hizashi calls out in that moment and Shouta snickers.
"Him," he finishes his sentence and Hitoshi peaks out to see Hizashi enter the room only to immediately come over to them, sitting down on Hitoshi's other side and hugging him, too.
"What's going on?"
Hitoshi doesn't think he's strong enough to repeat everything again, despite how well Shouta reacted to it and Shouta seems to understand that because he gives Hizashi a brief run down of everything.
"Thank you for telling us, kiddo," Hizashi says, prompting some new tears before he claps his hands. "Alright. Gimme one of those sleeper commands and let's see how it works," he then says, almost excitedly and Hitoshi fears he's never ever going to understand these two and the trust they have in him.
"What should it be?" Hitoshi asks, unsure all of a sudden because it's going to be invasive no matter what and he doesn't want to upset Hizashi.
"Ah, I probably shouldn't be hearing this," Hizashi says and puts his hands over his ears, expectantly looking at Hitoshi, clearly expecting him to brainwash him right this instant.
Hitoshi looks over at Shouta who nods and so Hitoshi takes a deep, fortifying breath.
"You sure you're still on board?" he asks and Hizashi nods so vigorously his hair flies around before he remembers himself and lets out an enthusiastic "Hell yeah!"
His eyes cloud over almost immediately when Hitoshi seizes control of him and Hizashi goes still. It's always unnerving to have him under his quirk, because Hizashi is such an expressive person, always moving, and to see him be so still is just wrong.
"What should I have him do?"
"We need something with a condition and something that won't hurt either him or his pride," Shouta muses and Hitoshi nods as Shouta thinks it over. "Have him do one squat when you snap your fingers," he finally says and Hitoshi thinks that might be okay.
"When I snap my fingers, you'll do one squat," he says, tugging on that special muscle and infusing his words with the power to hold the sleeper command in place.
He releases Hizashi from his control a second later and Hizashi blinks confusedly at them.
"Did you do it?"
"Yeah, didn't you hear?" Shouta asks, damn well knowing that no one can hear anything while under Hitoshi's brainwashing, except Hitoshi's very own commands and even those the people mostly feel instead of hearing them.
"Haha, real funny, Shou," Hizashi huffs out before he turns to Hitoshi. "Alright, do it then."
Hitoshi steels himself and then snaps his finger, which has Hizashi immediately moving to do a squat.
"What the fuck," Hizashi mutters when he stands again. "That is so freaky, I have no idea why I just did what I did."
Hitoshi shrinks in on himself, even though Hizashi sounds mostly perplexed instead of angry, but old habits die hard it seems and he startles badly when Shouta puts a hand to his shoulder.
"Okay, let's note down that the influenced person knows it's not their own action," Shouta says with a meaningful look at Hitoshi, who ducks his head because he knows where Shouta is going with this.
If Hitoshi made Katsuki say he loves him, then Katsuki would know and not be quiet about it. So either he doesn't care that Hitoshi made him say it or it was his own free will.
"Still—" Hitoshi weakly says and Shouta nods.
"We'll still see if I can cancel this out, but it's already good to know, isn't it?"
"Sure," Hitoshi says and snaps his finger again, making Hizashi do another squad before Shouta's eyes turn red, completely fixed on Hitoshi before he releases his quirk again.
"See if it still works," Shouta says and Hitoshi snaps his fingers.
This time Hizashi doesn't move and relief crashes over Hitoshi. As long as Shouta can cancel out his quirk, Katsuki will be safe.
"So that works," Hizashi muses. "Which means that even if you had Bakugo under your control, it would be nullified now."
"Can we still—" Hitoshi trails off because he knows using his quirk is draining on Shouta but Hitoshi needs to know if it works when he looks at Hizashi as well and Shouta immediately nods.
"Of course, kid," he says and ruffles Hitoshi's hair before he prompts him to put Hizashi under again.
"Do something different this time," he says and Hitoshi thinks for a moment.
"Every time I clap, you'll meow," he then says, which makes Shouta snigger and then he releases his control over Hizashi.
"You better not have me do physical labour again," Hizashi huffs out and Hitoshi claps in answer. "Meow," Hizashi says and then glares at Hitoshi. "That's really not better," he says but there's a small smile on his face.
"One more time to see if it took and then I'll erase it," Shouta says, clearly just aiming to hear Hizashi meow again and Hitoshi claps again.
"Meow!"
Shouta laughs, but also activates his quirk, this time looking straight at Hizashi and after a moment he blinks.
Hitoshi claps but nothing happens.
"Alright, that settles that then," Hizashi calls out. "Shouta can erase your command on all different levels, and given that he already looked at you, every lingering command on Bakugo should be gone. That's good news, right?"
It should be, but the worry still sits deep. Shouta must notice, because he sighs.
"You want me to use Erasure on Bakugo, too," he guesses and Hitoshi shrugs helplessly.
"What if it doesn't work somehow when you look at me? What if it just cancels out the commands of people in the same room?"
It's probably irrational as all hell, because why would it work that selectively, but Hitoshi can't help it. He needs to be sure; he needs to see Shouta use his quirk on Katsuki to really believe that Katsuki is saying it out of his own free will.
"Kid," Shouta sighs out but he doesn't sound angry, just vaguely sad. "Invite him for dinner again and I'll do it, but!" Shouta stops Hitoshi from pouncing on him with a hug. "You'll have to come clean to Bakugo."
"You want me to tell him that I coerced him to love me?"
"I want you to tell him that you're afraid of that. I'm pretty certain that you didn't do anything, but still, Bakugo deserves to know, don't you think?"
Hitoshi knows that Shouta is right, but it's still so scary, so scary to even imagine how that conversation is going to go over but he shakily nods.
"Okay," he whispers out and then promptly gets smothered in a hug from Hizashi.
"Kiddo, there's nothing you have to be afraid of, I am absolutely sure that you didn't do anything to Bakugo."
It's nice, the amount of trust they have in him; it would be even nicer if Hitoshi could have that same trust in himself, but he guesses that's what his parents are for.
And he definitely trusts them.