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Hitoshi surveys his room. Everything he owns is packed up in two duffle bags, and it should be sad how little his time with Aizawa and Yamada seems to matter in case of worldly possessions but then again, this is just his life.
And moving with as little as possible is always best, Hitoshi learned that the hard way long ago, over and over again.
So he has nothing more but his two duffle bags packed and ready to go and he's looking forward to leaving. He overstayed his welcome long enough, took enough time away from them and it's time for him to move on.
And so that's what he does.
He shoulders one duffle bag, grips the other one securely and steps out of his—the room. He wanted to do this yesterday, the moment he turned eighteen, but Aizawa and Yamada had a little celebration planned for him, so there never had been a good moment to leave.
But now the time has come and Hitoshi is absolutely ready to get away from here.
He's itchy all over, knowing that he already stayed way past what is acceptable with just that one day—not even to mention the last two years—and he carefully pats the envelope with all the money he has saved up.
It's not enough, it could never be enough for what they did for him but he needs to repay them somehow and this is better than nothing.
When he steps out of the room, he finds Yamada and Aizawa stretched out on the couch, watching whatever it is they find interesting on the TV and for a moment Hitoshi feels bad about disrupting their evening, but he has to.
He needs to go.
It's Yamada who spots him first, Aizawa forever inattentive at home, and his eyes go wide when he sees the duffle bags Hitoshi is carrying.
"Are you going anywhere?" he asks, effectively snatching Aizawa's attention away from the screen and for a moment Hitoshi fights the urge to flee.
"I wanted to say thank you," Hitoshi forces himself to say because he has to, because they did so much for him, no matter how ungrateful he is and how inconvenient it was for them. "I know it's not enough, it could never be, but I saved up some money," he says and puts the envelop on the living-room table.
Yamada seems almost appalled when he moves away from the envelop as if it could bite him and Hitoshi doesn't even want to begin to decipher the look on Aizawa's face.
"No."
Aizawa doesn't elaborate, doesn't move at all, in fact, and Hitoshi presses his lips together.
"Yes. I could never really repay you, but this is something I can do. I want to."
It's only half a lie. He wants to repay them, wants to show them how grateful he is, but—he doesn't have enough money to spare, and this hurts.
But it's not as if he's going to need any considerable amount of money in the foreseeable future, anyway, and so it will be fine.
It has to be.
"Where are you going?" Aizawa demands to know, his eye falling back onto Hitoshi's duffle bag and Hitoshi tightens his grip on them.
"I'm moving out."
His voice doesn't waver and he's grateful for it, but he wasn't prepared for the pure shock on Yamada's face. He thought they would be absolutely delighted to hear he's finally getting out of their hair, that he's giving them their live back.
"What? Why?" Yamada whispers out and Hitoshi shrugs, uncomfortable under their gazes.
It's not as if they don't know why—all of them do. And it's kind of cruel to make him say it, so he changes gears at the last second.
"You don't have to bother with the adoption anymore, either," Hitoshi forces out and while Yamada simply blinks at him, Aizawa bows his head, his face disappearing behind his hair and it hurts, it hurts but there's really no reason for him to hide how elated he must be about that.
They always said they would adopt him—they even had him fill out forms for it months ago. Hitoshi had almost dared to get his hopes up, to believe that this could be something real, something permanent, but then nothing else happened and they never talked about it again.
Hitoshi has to assume that they still have the forms somewhere, unfinished and unsent, gathering dust in a drawer, and it's fine.
There's no need to bother with that anymore.
Even though it makes Hitoshi feel like throwing up, it makes it feel as if someone stabbed him right in the heart, it makes him feel like—well.
It's fine.
"I signed up with an agency and they are going to train me for a while, so—" Hitoshi awkwardly nods towards the door. "You won't be able to get a hold of me for the foreseeable future."
Yamada is still staring at him in shock, it seems, his mouth opening and closing without a single sound coming out, but Hitoshi startles badly when Aizawa gets up from the couch without warning and simply vanishes into his and Yamada's bedroom.
He doesn't slam the door, doesn't even really close it, but the silence he leaves behind is almost suffocating anyway.
"I'll—get going then," Hitoshi mutters, suddenly unable to meet Yamada's eyes as he shuffles past him. "Thank you."
It feels hollow, saying it, because it could never encompass everything they did for him or what they meant to him, even though he clearly didn't mean the same to them, but it's the only thing Hitoshi can think of saying as he flees their home.
He has to go past the bedroom and he feels as if he's burning alive when he hears strange breathing from inside and his stomach basically drops out when he realises that Aizawa must be laughing in there.
The thought that the usually so stoic Aizawa is laughing, is so obviously happy about Hitoshi finally leaving makes him want to fling himself off a bridge somewhere, but it has to be enough that he's never going to see them again.
It just has to be, because otherwise, that dive sounds mighty tempting.
For now though, he simply walks out and carefully closes the door behind him, intent to make something out of his life that maybe, possibly, could have made them proud if they had cared enough.
But they don't and they shouldn't and Hitoshi is right back to where he belongs.
Alone and practically on the streets. Except this time it's his choice more than not and that has to count for something.
~*~*~
Hitoshi almost fumbles his phone when a strange urge to listen to some music on the radio strikes him.
He's not one for music, or sounds in general, but he thought about it and now he can't shake it and it might just be better than what he was thinking about anyway.
Hitoshi's fingers ache as they work to pull up a website that plays radio stations and just for that he almost throws his phone across the room.
If only he could trust that his shoulder would hold with a motion like this and he lets out a bitter laugh.
His last job has fucked him up so badly that his agency basically pulled him out in a body bag and has now put him on indefinite recuperation time. They are providing all the help he could want—and definitely doesn't need—like a therapist and a doctor, and physio therapy and all other kinds of support that Hitoshi is too tired to look into.
It's—fine. It's whatever.
He did his job and he did it well, and he suffered for it like he always does and now he has a few scars, a few nightmares and a few aching joints more than just eight months ago and what does it matter, right?
At least this agency is supporting him instead of dropping him like a hot potato after he comes out fucked up after a mission like his very first one did, even though it was their fault.
They bought him straight off the UA graduation ceremony and then stuffed him into a months long undercover mission with basically no prep and no support and he was stupid enough to think that he could handle it.
Well—he did handle the job, in the end, but the mission certainly handled him, too and not in the good way.
But hindsight is 20/20 as they say, and now Hitoshi knows better. He learned the hard way, like he always does, but now he's in a pretty good spot, current fucked-upness not withstanding, because his new agency is good and great; they pay well, they support him well—before, during and after a mission—and they train him well and that's all Hitoshi can really ask for.
Still, his joints ache, the new scar tissue all over his hand aches, and the phone almost hits him in the face for it.
Only a timely tight grip prevents that and when sound blares from the speaker, Hitoshi realises that he must have clicked on a radio station on random.
Well, he might as well, because it's not as if he even knows what he was looking for in the first place.
Hitoshi almost regrets his decision when Present Mic's unmistakable voice carries over, though it sounds a lot less enthusiastic than the last time Hitoshi heard it almost six years ago.
"Now, this next segment is usually the caller segment but all of you long-term listeners know that this week, things are going to be a little bit different," Yamada's voice rings out and Hitoshi was never really good in deciphering his emotions but he could swear that Yamada sounds close to crying right now.
This voice is definitely not his normal one.
"This week was our son's birthday," Yamada says and his voice definitely cracked there, and Hitoshi's heart definitely stumbled inside of his chest. "So for the next hour, I'll play all the songs I know he loved." There's an almost awkward pause before Yamada's voice rings out once more. "I hope you're safe, wherever you are. We miss you," he mutters and then without fanfare the station switches to music.
Hitoshi feels absolutely frozen and it doesn't help that one of the songs he used to adore starts to play.
Before he really knows what's happening, he can feel tears stream down his face and in his haste to wipe them off he almost hits himself with the phone.
He hasn't cried about Yamada and Aizawa, about missing a home, in years now and he thought he was over it. Hitoshi thought he was beyond that, that he left them behind for good, so they could go back to their normal lives that don't involve highly volatile teenagers and that's why he left.
Because they didn't want him. They couldn't want him. They shouldn't want him.
And they didn't, Hitoshi reminds himself, because they never sent those adoption papers off and that, really, says it all in his opinion.
Maybe they are talking about someone else, anyway. Maybe they took in another kid after him, someone they wanted to stay around but a quick glance at the current date makes his stomach sink.
It's July third.
His birthday was this week, not that Hitoshi has noticed or celebrated it in literal years, but it's undeniable that it happened.
Still, he can't quite believe it, even as tears continue to stream down his face, and he forces his fingers to type out a quick search.
Present Mic has revealed he's married, though the spouse is still a secret. That he's the father of a by now adult son. A son who, according to everything the press learned, is missing.
It's been six years. Six years since Hitoshi walked out on them—much longer than he ever spent with them in the first place.
And yet—
"Fuck," Hitoshi sobs out and he is moving before he can consciously decide to do so, he's out of his own apartment, forcing his aching body into a neighbourhood that is so painfully familiar that he avoided it like the plague whenever he so much as had a free day in the city—which was rare to begin with—but now his feet are carrying him to a door he has dreamed about.
Had nightmares about because seeing it over and over again in his dreams left him feeling hurt and raw and wrenched open in a way the door never was.
Or maybe—
He's knocking before he can formulate a clear thought, pain shooting like lightning up his arm because he really shouldn't be using his hand like this yet but before he can shake it off, he hears shuffling on the other side.
There's a split second where Hitoshi thinks he's going to bolt, but his body is moving too slowly, and before he can so much as turn away from the door it opens to reveal Aizawa behind it.
Hitoshi freezes, feeling unreal now that he saw the ever-closed door open, and seeing Aizawa for the first time in six years doesn't help either.
Aizawa seems to freeze too, his eyes wide and his mouth slack before a painfully hopeful "Hitoshi?" breaches the air.
Hitoshi doesn't know what to say, so he simply nods and while this must be the most painful surprise reunion for Aizawa, it's not much better for Hitoshi.
He doesn't know why he's here, doesn't know what he's doing here, or what he wants from this, but before he can figure any of that out, Aizawa starts to cry.
Hitoshi gets maybe a second to realise it before Aizawa pulls him into a hug so rough that Hitoshi's entire body protests against it and yet he still moves into it, instead of away.
"Hi," he weakly manages to get out once the pain receded and let him catch his breath and he feels Aizawa shudder.
"Hitoshi," he says again, and only hugs him tighter.
A sound of pain must escape Hitoshi because Aizawa moves away from him as if he was burned and Hitoshi stumbles on his feet so badly that only a cautious hand from Aizawa steadies him.
"Kid, what happened?" Aizawa asks, tears still streaming down his face, even as he rakes his eye over Hitoshi. "Are you hurt?"
"I heard Yamada," is what Hitoshi blurts out and Aizawa blinks at him. "On the radio. What he said. Did you—he said son," Hitoshi weakly finishes as if any of his words make any sense at all but understanding washes over Aizawa's face.
"Yeah, he did."
"Not me, right? It's not me," Hitoshi says because he needs to hear it, he can't live with that hope in his chest.
It only happened barely an hour ago but it's there, and it's already dug itself so deep and Hitoshi thinks he's going to splinter apart if he has to believe for a second longer.
He worked so hard for six years to even forget that he ever had such foolish hopes and it only takes a single word from Yamada to make it all come crashing down.
"Of course it's you, Hitoshi," Aizawa says, his voice rough and near shaking. "It's always been you. You're our son."
"That's not true," Hitoshi gasps out because he knows it's not. They didn't—"You didn't want me."
"We did. We still do."
"Don't lie to me like that," he snaps out, swaying on the spot because he really shouldn't have moved half-way across the city like that and Aizawa's gaze goes sharp with concern.
"Hitoshi, what—"
"Shou?" A new voice rings out behind them and Hitoshi deflates where he stands.
Of course Yamada would make it home eventually. He doesn't know what he was even thinking in the first place.
"Hitoshi?" Yamada adds, his voice barely more than a hopeful tremble and Hitoshi looks over his shoulder.
Apparently seeing him is enough to make Yamada burst into tears as well and a second later Hitoshi finds himself in another hug so painful that it makes his bones creaks.
It masks the pain in his heart well, at the very least.
"Careful, he's hurt," Aizawa's voice rings out and Yamada lets go of him so abruptly, Hitoshi feels bereft for a moment.
"Kiddo, where have you been?" Yamada asks but falls silent when Aizawa puts a hand to his arm.
"Hitoshi. We did file for adoption. We sent it in months before you—"
The rest of that sentence hangs unsaid over all of them until Hitoshi shakes his head.
"You didn't. You didn't, you didn't," he chants, because they never mentioned it, it never got approved, it never happened.
"Processing adoption requests takes time," Yamada chokes out. "The papers came in two months after—"
He, too, cuts himself off before he can finish the sentence and instead of saying anything else, he carefully pulls Hitoshi into the apartment, leading him straight to the kitchen, towards the fridge.
Where a copy of the official adoption hangs front and center and that's it.
Hitoshi is on his knees a moment later, crying like he never did in all those years and it only gets worse when Aizawa and Yamada are right there.
"You're our son," Aizawa says with vehemence. "There just wasn't a way for us to let you know."
"I'm sorry," Hitoshi gasps out, cursing his body when it spasm in pain and Aizawa and Yamada immediately move away.
"What happened to you?" Yamada whispers out, carefully capturing Hitoshi's cheek in his hand, his eyes roaming over Hitoshi's face and all the scars he accumulated.
For a second, Hitoshi feels self-conscious in a way he never has before because he generally doesn't give a fuck about what he looks like, but now, with Aizawa and Yamada staring at him like that he feels lacking, as if the scars and the bruises under his eyes diminish his worth somehow.
He doesn't know what to do with the fact that there's only concern on Aizawa's and Yamada's faces.
"Work," Hitoshi gets out and looks down at the floor. "Work's been—rough," he admits because he feels fifteen again, on the cusp of trusting adults for the first time in his life, and it feels like it did when he admitted to being abused at home.
"Oh, kiddo," Yamada sobs out, just like he did all those years ago and Aizawa catches his eyes.
"Are you out now?"
"I'm on break," Hitoshi mutters, unable to stand the urgency behind Aizawa's question. "My agency is good, it's just—the mission was—"
"Rough," Yamada finishes for him and Hitoshi finds himself nodding.
"Are you going to stay—" Aizawa bites his tongue before the word slips out but the frantic way his eye darts around the room paints a pretty clear picture.
They want him to stay here.
"I shouldn't," Hitoshi whispers out, because he shouldn't.
He wants to though, just like he wanted to back then.
"You should," Yamada says, almost viciously, his voice snapping in the space between them. "You should stay. You should stay with us. We didn't get to say anything back then because we were just too caught off guard, but you should stay here, with us, for a long, long time. Because you're our son, Hitoshi, and families stay together."
"We never wanted you to leave," Aizawa adds, his face still wet and his breath ragged and his hand twitching as if he wants to reach out for Hitoshi and never let him go again.
Hitoshi's eyes fall back to the official document that names him their son, that proves that they wanted this, that they still want this, and before he can think about it, his own hand creeps towards Aizawa.
He seems to understand immediately, because he takes Hitoshi's hand in his, noticeably more careful than before even as he squeezes it lightly and Hitoshi starts to cry all over again when Aizawa gives him a shaky smile.
"Welcome home, son," he says and Yamada's crying almost drowns out the words, but they still wrap themselves around Hitoshi's heart, mending what cracked so long ago.
"I'm back."