Archive of Our Own

“Hey, Hizashi? Can I…ask you a question?”

Hizashi turns his head to look at him from where he’s plopped down on the training room’s floor, water bottle up his lips that tug up into a silly little grin. “You just asked me ooone,” he sing-songs, making Shouta huff out a laugh in response. “But I suppooose I can allow you to ask me another!”

A fond smile crosses Shouta’s face at his boyfriend’s (his boyfriend, something that’s still boggling his mind even a handful of months after he finally got up the courage to tell Hizashi how he felt) antics, but then it drops. “I just… It’s kinda personal,” he says quietly, playing with the cap on his own water bottle nervously. “If you don’t want to answer, that’s fine. I don’t want to pressure you or anything.”

Beside him, Hizashi hums, twisting his torso to face him a little more fully with a curious expression on his face. “Well, I won’t know if I don’t want to answer unless you ask me whatever it is that’s going around in that adorable head of yours.”

With a slow nod, Shouta takes a deep breath. “Why don’t you…ever talk about your family?”

It’s something that he’s noticed over the last couple years of knowing Yamada Hizashi: He will talk about pretty much anything and everything except his personal life. He’ll talk about the latest music to hit the charts. He’ll talk about the newest movie released in theaters. He’ll talk about how cool his classmates are, about the rumors circulating the school, and on and on he’ll wax poetic about Shouta and how much he adores him. It’s often caused him to turn bright pink and hide from others’ eyes, yet it makes him feel warm and loved at the same time.

Despite how much Hizashi clearly loves to talk, though, he’s never once talked about himself. At first it wasn’t odd; Shouta’s not exactly a forthcoming individual, either. But as they grew closer, as their relationship began to change, Shouta opened up to him in a way that he’s done with few others. He’s talked about his family with Hizashi, how they’ve been the backbone for him applying to UA to become a hero, how they kept him from falling apart when he was initially denied getting into the heroics course. He’s even invited Hizashi over to his place, where Hizashi got to get to know his parents himself instead of just through Shouta’s words.

Hizashi, however, hasn’t returned that gesture at all.

Any little hint that Shouta has made to try and get Hizashi to talk about his personal life has been met with swift topic changes. A dark, frightened part of him isn’t sure if Hizashi wants to open up about his family to him, that maybe Hizashi doesn’t trust him enough to share that part of himself with him. At the same time, though, he gets the feeling that may not be it, like there might be something more behind Hizashi’s uncharacteristic silence.

In the here and now, the grin that Hizashi had been wearing falls slowly and his grip on his water bottle tightens. “My…family?”

Shouta nods, swallowing hard. “Yeah.”

Hizashi hums, turning back to face the training room, and brings his knees up to his chest. Both arms go around them in a loose circle, the water bottle resting at Hizashi’s ankles as Hizashi chews on his lower lip.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Shouta says after a few more moments of quiet, feeling bad about even bringing this up. “It’s fine, really — “

“I’ll tell you,” Hizashi interrupts, and he sounds tired. He looks tired all of a sudden, weighed down by something that seems to make him seem older than his seventeen years of age. A weak smile is aimed at his own legs, and Shouta’s heart twists. “I haven’t said anything before because I don’t want to be a Debby Downer.”

The English words fly right over Shouta’s head, but he shifts so that he’s facing Hizashi fully, giving him his full attention. “I’ll listen,” he promises. “No matter what.”

The smile on Hizashi’s face grows a little brighter for just a moment, then he sighs.

“My parents died a long time ago.”

There were a thousand different things that Shouta thought Hizashi might have said, but not for an instant did he think that Hizashi would say this. He’s stunned quiet, only able to stare at his boyfriend with wide eyes and mouth slightly agape as his mind whirls through so many different possibilities. Is that why Hizashi hasn’t talked to him about his family? Does he live with relatives? Does he live in an orphanage or group home? Is he homeless? (That last possibility doesn’t even make sense because surely UA would have noticed one of their students being homeless.)

Hizashi shrugs. “It’s not some big secret,” he says, aiming for nonchalant but not quite getting there. “I just…never bring it up.”

“I’m sorry,” Shouta says awkwardly. “For your loss.”

“Oh, it happened when I was still really little!” Hizashi assures quickly. “Honestly, I barely even remember them. Though I think I got my father’s eyes and hair color…?”

Shouta looks him over, trying to imagine what Hizashi’s parents look like just from what Hizashi himself looks like. A man with blonde hair and green eyes, maybe a woman with a willowy, lanky form kinda like Hizashi’s. Maybe both of them were on the tall side, what with Hizashi being one of the tallest people in their class aside from Oboro.

“So… You don’t talk about your family because they’re…” He trails off, unsure if he can just say it. To his surprise, Hizashi shakes his head.

“Nah, that’s not it. I’m not ashamed of the fact that I don’t have parents, y’know? It’s just part of my complicated backstory,” he jokes half-heartedly.

Shouta frowns. “Then why? You know I wouldn’t care about something like that.”

For a long moment, Hizashi’s quiet again, facing away from him and curling a little more obviously around his knees. It’s strange seeing him so quiet and still like this, in the middle of the training room where everyone else around them is hard at work perfecting how they use their quirks together. Normally he’s the loudest in the room, but now…

“My foster parents, uh,” Hizashi whispers, still not facing him, “they told me how my parents died.

“They said it was my fault.”

Immediately Shouta sucks in a breath, shocked that anyone would say that to a child — to Hizashi. “That’s horrible!”

Hizashi shakes his head. “I’ve been told that for as long as I remember being in the foster system,” he says. “The reason why I ended up there was because I lost control of my quirk and that killed my parents.”

Anger surges through Shouta. “That’s bullshit,” he seethes, suddenly finding himself on his knees and scowling down at Hizashi, hand squeezing his water bottle so hard that water sloshes out of the top and on the floor between them. “You were a kid, hell, you still are one. There’s no way — “

“Accidents happen,” Hizashi replies, and he sounds defeated. “More than half of the calls that Heroes have to respond to in the field are instances where someone, no matter what age, has lost control of their quirk, remember?”

“But that doesn’t mean — “

“It’s fine, Shouta,” Hizashi tells him, and when he looks up at him, Shouta can see his smile cracking on the edges. “Really. It happened a long time ago.”

Shouta falls back to sitting, feeling the wind of his anger rush out of him. “But…”

“I don’t even remember it, so anything could have happened,” Hizashi tells him, and with each word Shouta can see a mask being put back up over his face, covering the hurt he feels and showing the world his usual bright smile. “And, y’know, it’s kinda my motivation for why I decided to become a hero! No one else is going to be hurt by my quirk, and I’m gonna save people with it instead.”

A burning sensation wells up in Shouta’s eyes. “Hizashi, that’s — “

“Ah, I think we talked about that enough,” Hizashi says suddenly, bringing his water back up to his mouth to take a quick sip before standing. “And we’ve got training to get back to! We better get to it, otherwise Sensei will come and yell at us for taking too long of a break — come on!”

He reaches a hand out to him, open and caring and kind, and Shouta takes it with a heavy heart, allowing himself to be pulled back up to his feet again. Together, they start making their way back to training, but like the water he’d accidentally spilled on the floor, his mind stays back in that spot, stuck in the conversation they’d just had.

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

Shouta’s been running off immediately after school for a few weeks now, and Hizashi can’t help but wonder if something’s going on.

Every invitation to hang out, to go to the arcade, to stop by a cat cafe, whatever is turned down, Shouta citing that he has something to do right after school. Each and every time Hizashi tries to catch him, Shouta’s already switched his school shoes out for his street ones and is jogging off towards the gate, his adorable messy hair bouncing with each step until eventually he’s out of sight.

The first time it happened, Hizashi didn’t think anything of it, shrugging and saying that it’s okay. It’s not the first time Shouta’s had something to do after school — sometimes his family has plans, sometimes he’s got his kung fu lessons to go to, sometimes he decides to hit up one of the cram schools to push himself on his studies. He’s not the only person that is sometimes busy after school; UA is filled with students that have extracurricular activities and that take their studies seriously. Heck, Hizashi occasionally has to turn Shouta down himself, what with his podcast and his own studying (sometimes he needs to focus fully on his notes and homework and not on the way that Shouta’s eyes squint when he’s concentrating).

Lately, though, it’s been everyday.

Every single day Shouta’s running off as soon as the bell rings. He doesn’t say what he’s going to be doing, only offers Hizashi a quick squeeze of his hand and a soft look. If it wasn’t for that, Hizashi would think that Shouta’s avoiding him because he doesn’t want to be his boyfriend anymore… Especially because this started the day after Hizashi told him about his parents.

It makes him nervous, anxious that the reason Shouta might be running off might have something to do with opening up to him. Which he knows is irrational! Shouta has always been kind and adoring and has never been bothered by the parts of Hizashi that most others can’t seem to stand: His loud voice, his energy, his inability to shut up about the things he likes, how he breaks into song at any given opportunity.

So finally, sick of letting the uncertainty build up in him, Hizashi takes a deep breath one day and quickly approaches Shouta one morning before class starts.

“What have you been doing after school?” he asks quickly and perhaps a bit too loudly with the way the rest of the students around them go quiet and turn to look at the two of them.

Shouta shoots a tired, annoyed scowl at the rest of the class that has them swiftly going back to their own business (though Oboro snickers before happily going back to chatting with some others). He then slumps over onto his desk with a yawn and buries his head, closing his eyes. “I’ve been looking for something.”

Hizashi perks up. That’s not nearly as bad as he thought it was going to be, not that he had anything particular in mind on how horrible whatever Shouta was doing could be. “Oh?”

“Mhm.” Shouta peeks open one eye and looks up at him through his hair. “I’ve been…looking for a gift. It’s been hard to find.”

“Oh, okay!” Hizashi smiles, relief flooding through him. “Why didn’t you just tell me? I could have helped! Who’s the gift for? One of you sisters? Your mom? Your dad?” He puts his hands down on Shouta’s desk and leans over him with a dramatic gasp. “Is it for me!?”

“Yeah.”

Heat blooms instantly over Hizashi’s ears. “Wait, what?”

He can see pink beginning to dust over Shouta’s ears, so at the very least he’s not the only one feeling some type of way by what Shouta just said. “I said, ‘Yeah.’” Shouta buries his head further, and his next words come out muffled. “I’ve been looking for a gift for you.”

Hizashi flusters. Honestly, he’s pretty sure that his entire face and all of his hair are on fire. “I — that’s — “ He clears his throat. “You know I don’t care about what kind of presents I get, Shouta! I’m, like, perfectly happy getting a packet of gum. You don’t have to search for a gift for me every day just for little ol’ me!”

Shouta huffs, the air blowing his hair up for just a second from where he has his head pillowed. “I wanted to find this for you. I…think you’ll like it.”

“Why are you so perfect and romantic?” Hizashi sighs happily, letting his weight drop so that he lands on top of Shouta. There’s an “oof” underneath him as he wraps his arms around Shouta’s head and shoulders, and he nuzzles into that soft hair with his cheek. “Ah, how did I get so lucky to have a boyfriend who searches every day for a gift for meeee!?”

“Hi — Hizashi! Get off!”

“Nooo, I have to give you my love and adoration in retuuuurn!”

By this point, they’ve drawn the room’s attention again, several of the others in class laughing. Oboro, of course, is the loudest, his guffaws echoing off the ceiling and making Hizashi grin.

“Look at Yamada loving on Aizawa again!” Oboro laughs. “He just can’t separate himself from him!”

“Were you expecting anything different from Yamada?” another classmate asks with good humor. “That guy’s been practically falling all over himself since Aizawa first joined the Heroics course!”

“Hear that, Shouta? This is normal for us, you have to accept my loooove for yoooou!”

“Ugh, Hizashi!” Shouta’s hand push at him, but not hard enough that he actually wants Hizashi to move away from him. “You’re such a dork.”

The door to the classroom slides open, allowing their homeroom teacher to step inside with a call to the class to settle down. Hizashi reluctantly pulls himself away from Shouta (not without a ruffle of his hair, anyways), and everyone takes their seats as the school day begins. He’s still grinning as roll is called, already pulling out his notebooks to jot down the latest agenda, when Shouta leans towards him.

“I found what I was looking for, by the way,” Shouta whispers quietly to him, barely heard over their homeroom teacher making morning announcements. “Wanna come with me after school to get it?”

Hizashi’s entire being lights up with excitement. “Yes, I’d love to!”

“Yamada Hizashi, Aizawa Shouta, please stop talking during class,” their teacher calls out to them with mild annoyance. “And keep that quirk under wraps, Yamada.”

A sheepish laugh escapes Hizashi. “Sorry, Sensei!”

Others in the class snicker or giggle as their teacher rolls his eyes before continuing announcements. Hizashi waits a moment, making sure that they’ve lost attention from everyone else, then leans towards Shouta.

“I’d love to,” he whispers, and he watches as Shouta hides a smile behind his hair.

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

Hizashi isn’t sure what he was expecting when it came to Shouta searching for some obscure thing to give to him as a gift, but it’s not a tiny, back-alley shop with crystals and incense in the window.

He squints as he looks up at the building, confused. “This is the place?”

Shouta nods next to him. “Yeah.”

“...You sure?”

“Yes,” Shouta says with a huff, and he gives Hizashi’s hand a squeeze. “Don’t worry, it’s not some New Age something or other, but it is inside.”

As they open the door, the scent of lavender heavy in the air, Hizashi can’t help but ask, “What could possibly be in here that made you think of me?”

Shouta just tugs on his hand and pulls him in with him.

The inside is warm, almost cozy, and the lights are dim, glowing softly from mounted sconces on the walls. There’s shelves with all sorts of things Hizashi would expect to see in a witch’s shop, like different kinds of mortar and pestles, dried herbs, clean stones of all shapes and sizes. Hizashi thinks he even spies a small stack of Ouija boards in a corner, which piques his interest, but Shouta just keeps tugging him further and further into the store until they reach a counter at the back of the shop where a young woman sits reading a book.

“Hey,” Shouta says, catching her attention. “I’m back and here for that reading.”

“Reading?” Hizashi echoes, looking between the woman and Shouta. “Like tarot cards?”

The woman smiles as she puts her book down. “No, we don’t do tarot readings here,” she says, her voice low and sweet. “Though if you are interested in that sort of thing, we do have tarot decks for sale.” She stands, brushing her hands down the long skirt she’s wearing to straighten it out, then starts walking towards a doorway that’s blocked off by just a curtain of beads behind her. “Come on back, you two.”

Shouta follows easily, and Hizashi feels his confusion and curiosity growing when they walk into the back and it’s a mostly empty room that’s even more dimly lit than the front. There’s a few chairs to sit in along the wall, and the woman has walked over to a small table that seems to hold only a timer and an incense set up. He’s dragged towards the chairs, where Shouta simply pulls him down so that they’re sitting next to each other.

“Okay, but what is a reading?” Hizashi whispers, unsure if he should be talking loudly while the woman lights some incense. “Like… Fortune telling? Is she reading us a book? I’m confused.”

Shouta fidgets, which is the first sign of nervousness that Hizashi’s seen from him since the two of them walked out of the school gates after school. “It’s…” He trails off, biting his lip, then takes in a deep breath. “Do you remember a few weeks ago? When you, uh, told me about your parents?”

“Yeah…”

“And you said that you don’t really remember anything?” Hizashi presses his lips together to keep from frowning, but Shouta obviously can read his expression just fine because he hurries to keep talking. “And you said that you were told that you, um… You killed them?”

“Why are you bringing this up?” Hizashi asks, trying not to let his voice go sharp. It’s Shouta, so he trusts him not to be insensitive about what he told him, but at the same time… “What does that have to do with anything?”

“I don’t think your foster parents were telling you the truth,” Shouta tells him, keeping his voice soft, and both of his hands come up to cup Hizashi’s. They’re warm and slightly calloused and perfect in his own, something to focus on instead of the rising hurt that Hizashi can feel.

Hizashi scowls down at their hands instead of meeting Shouta’s eyes. “They’ve been telling me that forever. Why would they lie about that?”

“That’s just proving my point,” Shouta says, giving his fingers a squeeze. “Adults don’t say shit like that to kids unless they want to hurt them, Hizashi, especially not young kids.”

Hizashi’s first thought is that Shouta’s wrong. His foster parents aren’t a shining example of perfect, loving parents, sure, but they’re not horrible. They don’t do things just to hurt Hizashi. They’ve never hit him, or withheld food from him, or punished him severely for perceived infractions. He has a room he gets to decorate as he pleases, he gets a solid three meals a day (plus snacks!), his school expenses and uniform and his glasses and hearing aids are all paid for without him feeling like he’s a burden on them. So why would Shouta think that his foster parents are lying to him? Why would they do that?

But as he opens his mouth to retort, he thinks of all the times his foster parents have said that to him. The times they bring up Hizashi’s quirk, or tell him that he needs to be careful because he doesn’t “want to cause anyone else to suffer like his parents did”. And sure, it’s the times he’s gotten excited about something or wasn’t paying attention to how loud he’s gotten (which is hard when one has lost more than 50% of their hearing).

…They don’t have to bring it up every time he gets a little loud, though.

“...You think so?” Hizashi finds himself asking after a moment, eyes still stuck on their hands. “You think I didn’t…?”

“You would never,” Shouta says instantly.

Hesitantly, he looks up, and on his boyfriend’s face he only finds conviction.

A small smile grows on his face, something in him easing with the knowledge that Shouta thinks so highly of him even with everything he’s been told. “Okay,” he says, surprised to find his voice a little choked up. Clearing his throat, he asks, “So, uh, what does any of that have to do with why we’re here?”

“For a reading,” the woman — who Hizashi had forgotten about — speaks up from across the room. Her expression is kind when Hizashi looks over at her. “We’re going to see what really happened with your parents based on your own memories.”

“What? How?” Hizashi asks, shocked. “I don’t remember anything, though! How could we possibly ‘see’ anything from my memories when they don’t exist?”

The woman’s smile widens, and she lifts her hands. They begin to glow just a little at the fingertips, a soft blue that looks like star dust or fairy glitter. “Even if you don’t remember, the memories do still exist,” she says. “My quirk is able to find the forgotten ones and bring them up so that they can be remembered.”

Instantly, Hizashi’s mind goes to the various possible uses of a quirk like that. Helping people that were in accidents remember what happened, getting a clearer image of someone’s face during a villain attack, possibly even helping those with dementia remember what things were like before their mind began to deteriorate. He wants to leap into a conversation on the usefulness of her quirk with her, but Shouta’s hands squeezing his has him biting his tongue.

“We don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Shouta suddenly says, a little nervous again. “If we watch and see what really happened, then… Well, you’ll have answers, but you might have to watch…”

That’s true. Hizashi bites his lip as that sinks in, trepidation rising.

The longer Hizashi stays quiet, the more nervous Shouta looks, and he blows out a breath. “It’s fine,” he says. “We can leave. I should have told you about this first instead of assuming…”

“I’ll be able to see my parents, though?” Hizashi asks, cutting his boyfriend off. “Like, really see them?”

“Yes,” the woman answers. “You’ll be able to see and hear everything that happened around you concerning your parents. Memories stay imprinted on a person, they just need to be coaxed out.”

A small spark of hope wells up in him. He’ll be able to see his parents. Not just be told the vaguest of descriptions of them, but actually see them. For years he’s wondered what they actually looked like; Hizashi had gone into the system with barely anything, only the bare essentials, and pictures of his parents certainly weren’t considered essential.

“Okay,” he breathes out. “Yeah. Okay, let’s do this.”

“Are you sure?” Shouta asks him, looking for any hint of hesitation.

He turns to face Shouta, a nervous but so excited smile on his face. “I want to do this.” Hizashi pauses, then squeezes Shouta’s hands tight. “So long as you stay with me.”

“Always,” is Shouta’s immediate answer.

“Then focus on what you know of your parents,” the woman says, pulling their attention back to her as she closes her eyes and the glow around her fingers grows brighter, “and you’ll see what they were like with your own eyes.”

In moments, the room fills with a fog that reminds Hizashi of one of the few times he’s been at the coast in the morning before the sun warmed everything up and caused it all to dissipate. He squints into it, wondering what he’ll see and how he could possibly see it with how visibility has turned to nothing in the room when suddenly the middle of the room lightens up…

And Hizashi can see a hospital room coming into focus.

Sound slowly filters in, slightly echoy and going in and out just like the vision before him, but eventually he can make out a small team of nurses next to the bed that a woman is laying in. She’s covered in sweat, face both flushed and extremely pale, and Hizashi sucks in a sharp breath when he sees the blood staining the sheets. Is this his mother? Did something happen to her? Did he…?

“It’s a boy,” one of the nurses calls, out from a table nearby, doing…something. “Congratulations, Yamada-san.”

The woman smiles, clearly exhausted, and beams tiredly up at a man standing at her bedside, hands clasped tightly around one of hers. With a jolt, Hizashi sees familiar colors on him: bright blonde hair, tanned skin with freckles, green eyes with rings of darker green in them. There’s even a familiar little cowlick at his hairline, causing his bangs to sweep awkwardly to one side much like Hizashi’s does if he leaves his hair down instead of gelling it up.

These are my parents, he thinks in shock.

Greedily, he drinks them both in, taking in what they look like for the first time that he can remember. He really does have his father’s coloring, and when he looks his mother over, he can see dimples that look just like his own when he smiles in a mirror. Her long neck is just like his, and he sees a mole on one arm that’s right below the inner elbow that is an exact match to the one that he has.

“I look just like them,” he croaks out. “I really do look just like them.”

He can hear them whispering to each other, but the words are kind of hard to make out. Maybe he had trouble hearing from birth, and that’s why? He also doesn’t really know the range of sound that the memories should have, so maybe it’s normal that he can’t hear them based on where his baby self is being checked over at a small table at the side of the room —

A piercing cry rings sharp through the room, and everyone screams, hands clapping over their ears, as the lights, equipment, and various tools either break or outright shatter.

Hizashi watches in horror as the nurse that was tending him collapses, blinking dizzily at nothing as blood trickles from her ears and out of one nostril and as his parents cling to each other, groaning. The door slams open, allowing light to spill into the room again as a few nurses come in to see what that sound was, and quickly things get moving to clean things up and get the patients to another room.

It’s not until one of Shouta’s arms come around his shoulders that he realizes that he’s shaking, and he gulps in a desperate breath. “I did hurt them,” he whispers. “Shou, I hurt them. I hurt them as soon as I was born, maybe I did — “

Shouta shushes him gently, a calm presence at his side. “It’s okay,” he whispers back. “They’re okay. They were taken care of immediately, right? Look, the doctors are looking them over right now.”

They were. His father has been sat down in a new room at his mother’s bedside as a doctor carefully looks his ears over, his mother holding out her arms as a nurse carefully passes a small, wrinkly baby into her arms. Hizashi can see that they’re alive functioning, that they’re not as bad off as that one nurse, but as he watches his mother settle his tiny baby self into her arms he can’t help but wonder if he’ll be treated with disdain. Surely no one wants a baby that attempts to kill them with their first breath.

Instead, he watches as his mother gently begins to rock him in her arms, a warm little smile on her face. “I know, I know,” she coos down at him. “The world is so biiig and scaaary, isn’t it? Everything is so new. Is that why you’re crying, sweety? It’s okay, mama’s here. I’ve got you, sweet thing.”

Slowly, the cries coming from baby him soften to little whines and whimpers, and his tiny face scrunches up but is no longer red from the distress of being born. His mother quietly laughs, one of her hands coming up to brush the backs of her fingers so gently down his cheek, and carefully presses their foreheads together.

“Alright, come on, get yourself checked over,” his father pipes up as soon as the doctor says that he’s done, a teasing grin on his face. “You’re still bleeding, Anata.”

A familiar pout — one Hizashi loves to point at Shouta — forms on his mother’s face, but she hands baby him over to his father and allows (with poor grace) the doctor to give her ears a look. Hizashi’s father moves around to the other side of the bed to sit down next to her still, rocking Hizashi in his arms. He watches as a kiss is laid to his forehead, as his father looks at him like he’s the single most precious bundle in the universe.

“You’ve got quite the set of lungs on you,” his father tells his baby self quietly, sounding so fond and adoring that it couldn’t be mistaken for anything else. “Good, strong ones. I can tell you’re gonna do great, amazing things with those lungs of yours, and I can’t wait to watch it happen.”

“We should name him appropriately, something to match the person he’s going to be,” his mother says, getting an annoyed huff when she turns to look at her husband instead of staying still. “Maybe… Akito?”

“Like ‘radiance’? I dunno, plus if we use the character for ‘sound’ it’s a bit too on the nose. We don’t want to be the type of parents who name their kids after their quirk.” His father hums, thinking for a moment. “Buuut I do like the idea of radiance. Perhaps something close to that, like bright? Hikaru?”

“Too common,” his mother dismisses. “Haruhi?”

“We’re not naming our kid after an anime character,” his father deadpans, startling a laugh out of Hizashi. They both think for a moment, long enough that the doctor finally finishes up looking over his mother’s ears and putting bandages on one of them, before his father’s eyes light up. “Sun…bright… What if we named him after the sunlight? Hizashi. We can name him Hizashi.”

A smile splits across his mother’s face, and she raises her arms to take his baby self back. “Our very own beam of sunshine,” she says, eyes glimmering happily as she looks at baby him, baby Hizashi. “Lighting up our lives with excitement from the moment he was born.

“It’s perfect.”

From there, the vision shifts. It shows the inside of an apartment filled with what looks like second hand furniture and belongings yet filled so obviously with love in every corner, him getting a small room painted with sunflowers and giraffes. The little detail sticks out to him, that his nursery was decorated with bright, happy colors and that his parents went with a giraffe of all animals for him to bond with as a baby. There’s even a stuffed one in the crib, and he giggles wetly at the giraffe print onesie that his parents have apparently dressed him in.

The visions moves quickly, showing his parents tending to him with patient dedication, breastfeeding him and weening him to bottles, checking on him every time he cried, soothing him with ease and smiles. After some time, when it looks like he was able to lift his head up on his own, he sees his parents both with hearing aides in.

Clearly the scream he let out at birth had done some damage, but not once do his parents treat him like it was his fault.

As baby him grows up, as he moves from a newborn crib to a larger one fit for toddlers, as his room fills with more and more toys and books and blankets, he sees what his life with his parents was like. Everyday he’s smiling — at first gummy until his teeth start coming in — and giggling, eyes bright and inquisitive and entirely curious, and his parents shower him with affection and adoration.

He watches as they play with him, showing him how to build things with toy blocks and how to build pillow forts.

As they read him stories in exaggerated voices and different, silly accents.

As they tickle him until he’s red in the face from laughing, tossing him into the air again and again as he shrieks happily in joy.

As they tuck him into bed and sing lullabies to him softly.

And then, out of nowhere, the apartment building they’re in collapses.

It comes as a shock to Hizashi, watching as he’s a chubby, giggly toddler being found by his parents in a game of hide and seek suddenly crying out in fear as the ground beneath them all caves in. His stomach swoops at the shift, watching as clouds of dust plume out around them so much that for a moment he can’t even see anything.

Distantly, he can hear screaming and water rushing from burst pipes, can hear the sound of beams and concrete tumbling down, though it’s hard to hear over his own young cries. The dust begins to settle, and Hizashi squints, sitting on the edge of his seat to try and see anything in the darkness that surrounds them. Slowly, like his eye sight is coming into focus, he’s able to make out little details in the vision.

There’s flickering light that hangs awkwardly from a wire far above them. In the dim light that gives, Hizashi can just make out his parents and himself under the rubble that used to be their living room, his plush giraffe ripped at the shoulder of one leg. His younger self lays there staring blankly at nothing until his father jolts and calls out for him, and then he’s wailing, voice bouncing harshly off the small space they’ve found themselves in.

“H-hey, buddy, it’s gonna be okay,” his father says, voice light even with the wobble to it. One of his large hands reaches out awkwardly for where child Hizashi is stuck to run dust covered fingers through messy hair. “It’s okay.”

“Are you hurt, sweety?” his mother slurs out, turning as much as she can to squint at where Hizashi is.

“M-my knees,” child Hizashi cries, scrubbing at his face with one hand as the other clutches at his plush. “St-stings…!”

His mother coos softly at him. “Shh, it’s alright,” she says. “Does it sting like the time you fell down at the park? Or is it different?”

Child Hizashi sniffles. “Like — like at the park.”

“Okay,” his father soothes. “That’s okay, that’s not too bad! We can deal with that just as soon as we’re out of here.”

“But we — we’re stuck!”

“We’ll be alright, buddy.” His father smiles brightly, showing off a hint of blood in his teeth. “Remember, heroes always come to the r-rescue. We just need to be patient.”

The wait for help to arrive is agony. Hizashi finds himself bouncing a leg as he watches his parents talk gently with his younger self for what seems like hours, asking him questions and telling him stories and even dueting a children’s song for him, all so that he’s distracted from the situation they’re in. It works on and off, child Hizashi giggling nervously as his parents continue to be silly for his sake.

Eventually, though, there comes shouting from above them; after spending some time in hero training himself, Hizashi can make out the standard announcement of rescue services on site of a disaster zone. He bites his lip, feeling so anxious for something to happen, for things to get better, and caught in a dread for something he knows has already come to pass.

His father hears the calls above them and starts shouting for help. His voice is raspy from how long he’s been talking in the dust, throat clearly hurting from the way he coughs after a few yells, but he keeps at it until it sounds like there’s someone climbing carefully on the rubble above them.

Light suddenly breaks through in a beam that stings his eyes, and in it Hizashi can make out the fuzzy outline of a hero standing in the small space that’s been created above. “I hear you!” the hero yells down. “How many of you are down there?”

“Three of us!” his father shouts, coughing again. “Two adults, one toddler!”

“Please get our son out first!” his mother yells. “We’re all stuck, but he’s injured!”

Hizashi looks at his parents, confused, looking over how tired and pale they are and sees the blood in his father’s teeth more clearly in better lighting. “They’re lying,” he whispers. “Why would they…?”

Shouta’s arm tightens around him. “Sometimes people lie to hurt others, and sometimes they lie to protect others,” he whispers back. “I think your parents were trying to protect you.”

The space is tight even for a pro hero. Hizashi clings to Shouta as he watches the pro squeeze down to where they are, watches as that masked face looks over where they’re all individually stuck. There’s a hint of suspicion on his face as he looks over the parents, but they both adamantly insist that child Hizashi gets out first. With a firm order to stay still to them, the hero shuffles and carefully pries Hizashi loose, shushing him gently when his knees scrape open again from how he’s dragged free of where he’d been stuck.

“I got ya,” the hero tells him, strapping him to his front. “We’re gonna go on a little climb, okay? And when we’re up at the top, they’re gonna have juice and blankets for you. How’s that sound, kiddo?”

Child Hizashi’s lip wobbles, and his wide, watery green eyes look down at his parents. “Mama and Dada have some, too?”

“Yeah,” the hero tells him. “When I come back for them to get them out, they’ll get juice and blankets, too.”

“...’Kay.”

About halfway through the climb up there’s a rumble around them, causing the hero to pause as the walls of the tight space around them shiver ominously. It startles child Hizashi, the noise and the sudden movement, causing him to clutch to the hero desperately — and drop his plush in the process.

“My gwaff!” child Hizashi cries out, looking down at where it’s tumbled back to rest in front of his parents.

Far below, his father claws the plush towards himself to press it into the crook of his arm. “I’ve got him, Hizashi!” he calls up to him. “I’ll keep him safe for you, alright?”

They manage to get up to the top of the hole, Child Hizashi peering down at his parents until her can no longer see them as the hero starts making his way through what’s left standing of the apartment building his family lived in. He’s carried swiftly off to where some medics have set up relief tents, and the hero passes him off to one of the medics with a quick ruffle of his dirty hair. Then he’s turning around, jogging back over to the mess of rubble.

Child Hizashi watches, barely paying attention as the medics ask his questions and check him over for more serious injuries than the scrapes on his knees, and Hizashi presses a hand to his mouth, eyes also stuck on the building. Maybe this isn’t it, he thinks, hopes. Maybe they’ll climb out with that hero, and they live for at least a couple more years…

As soon as the thought crosses his mind, another hero in the vision shouts as the building gives an ominous groan, “Sinkhole’s widening! It’s going down! Get out, get out!”

And the next thing that happens is Child Hizashi watching with wide eyes as the building collapses the rest of the way, crashing with a thunderous noise that is louder than the sudden screams and cries of people around him.

Hizashi shuts his eyes then, turning completely into Shouta’s hold and burying his face in his shoulder. Arms pull him in almost roughly, and it’s not until he feels wetness on his own shoulder that he realizes that Shouta’s crying just as much as he is, the both of them shaking as they cling and sob quietly together. The sounds of the visions end, leaving Hizashi to hear just the two of them breathing wetly in each other’s ears; part of Hizashi is upset that it’s over, that he can’t see his parents anymore with the reading over. Another part of himself is so very glad for it.

He’s tired, emotionally drained. Watching any more at this point would simply be too much.

“I’ll give you both some time,” Hizashi distantly hears the woman say. “Feel free to leave whenever you’re ready.”

“Thank you,” Shouta replies, voice rough.

“Not at all.” There’s footsteps walking away, and then they pause. “I hope this gives him some closure.”

One of Shouta’s hands curls into the back of Hizashi’s school jacket. “...Me, too.”

The two of them sit there for a long, long time before Hizashi finally pulls away, breath still shuddering but at the very least not sobbing out of him. He scrubs at his face, wrinkling his nose when all he does is smear wetness all over his cheeks; to his surprise, a handkerchief appears under his nose, a plain yellow that Hizashi recognizes as Shouta’s.

“Here,” Shouta whispers. Hizashi offers him a small smile as he takes it and cleans himself up. He presses it to his eyes for a moment, trying to soak up any tears that might still be leaking, and simply breathes.

Neither of them speak to each other as they gather themselves up and leave. Shouta offers a soft goodbye to the woman in the shop, who offers a warm good rest of their day, and then they’re back out in the alley in front of the shop, the two of them holding hands tightly and not letting go.

Somehow the air feels different as they walk to the station. It could be because it’s evening now, the temperature cooler than it was before. It could be because Hizashi himself feels so heavy with emotion. He’s not sure. All he really knows is that his head and heart are too full of things he can’t really make sense of at the moment.

Shouta squeezes his palm, and Hizashi smiles, feeling the tiniest bit of that weight lifting.

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

Normally, Shouta isn’t the type of person to wait at the school gates for his boyfriend like some lovesick fool. He prefers to go inside and settle at his desk; it’s simpler, he thinks, especially since he and Hizashi sit next to each other in class. If they both just go to the classroom, they can both relax next to each other before class begins. No fighting through the throngs of other students instead of focusing on each other.

Today, though, Shouta nervously stands to the side at the gates, trying not to fidget in place as he watches other students walk by him. Most ignore him, caught up in waking up the rest of the way or talking with their friends. Some look at him, possibly wondering why he’s just standing there.

Others glance down at the neatly wrapped package he’s holding in his hands.

After Hizashi got on a different train than his in order to go home, it was radio silent from him for the rest of the weekend. Which of course is entirely unusual for him — normally he can’t get him to stop sending him memes or pictures that he’s taken. He’s worse than Oboro about messaging him on most days (though Shouta doesn’t mind when it’s Hizashi).

It made him worry that perhaps he pushed Hizashi too much in trying to get him answers about what really happened with his parents. It’s one thing to find out the truth, it’s another entirely to make him witness it. The fact that he didn’t really understand how fucked up it was until the last second — when they were watching the younger version of Hizashi be stuck in that hole with his parents — is like a rock sitting in his chest.

Shouta’s praying that Hizashi doesn’t want to break up with him over this, or worse, stop talking to him entirely. He has had to remind himself that before they parted ways, Hizashi smiled at him, so that has to be a good sign… Right? Hopefully? Maybe?

Before he can worry himself into yet another spiral of anxiety, he hears a familiar (and very, very welcome) voice call out to him. “Oh my god, Shouta! What are you doing standing out here?”

Shouta breathes out a sigh of relief on hearing how cheerful Hizashi sounds, and he turns to gives Hizashi a small wave as he approaches. “Waiting for you,” he says, looking him over. He doesn’t look any different from usual, perky and smiling and happy. That’s good. “Good morning, Zashi.”

Hizashi beams at him, leaning forward to press a quick kiss to his cheek. “Goood morning, Shouta!” he says. His eyes fall to the package in Shouta’s hands, eyes curious. “What’s that? Is it someone’s birthday?”

Shouta clears his throat and holds it out.

“It’s, uh… It’s for you.”

Hizashi blinks in surprise, looking between Shouta’s eyes and then down at the package, then bursts out laughing. “Oh, you can’t be serious!”

That wasn’t exactly the reaction Shouta was hoping for. Heart sinking, he asks, “Why?”

“Don’t look so upset, Shou,” Hizashi all but giggles, pulling his backpack around to dig though one of the side pockets. After a moment, he lets out a cheerful little “aha!” before pulling out what looks like a small gift bag. “I’m surprised because I got something for you, too!”

“For me?” Shouta asks, eyes going wide as his ears go warm.

“Yep!” Hizashi takes the package from Shouta to swap it with the small bag. “It’s a little thank you for what you did for me,” he explains, his smile going soft. “Y’know, finding a way for me to see my parents and what they were like.”

Shouta shakes his head. “My gift is an apology for that,” he mumbles, looking down at the gift bag. “I should have thought it through better. You had to watch how your parents…”

A fist lightly knocks on the top of his head. “Hey, I agreed to it, remember?” Hizashi scolds. “You even told me that we didn’t have to, and I said I wanted to. I was prepared for what we might see, okay?”

“You were crying, though.”

“So?” Hizashi shrugs. “So were you!”

Shouta’s ears heat up more. “Because you were!”

“And that’s why I love you!” Hizashi says with a smile.

Now Shouta’s cheeks feel warm. “You’re impossible,” he mutters, ducking his head.

“Impossibly yoooours!” Hizashi sing-songs, then laughs. “Alright, enough arguing with me! Open up your present!”

“You have to open yours, too,” Shouta grumbles, but his hands are working on the ribbon tying the bag closed. When it falls loose, he reaches into the tissue paper inside to dig out a small, hard object.

To his surprise, it’s a keychain of a cat. The cat is posed in a polite little perch, tail curled around its front feet, and its eyes are wide above a smiling face. It’s honestly adorable, tugging at his cat-loving heart, but the part that makes his heart absolutely melt is the fact that it has bright green eyes and has blonde fur with brown spots.

“Like a giraffe,” he says, voice soft.

Hizashi shuffles forward and cups a hand underneath the one holding the keychain. “I wanted something to give you that would be a reminder of what you gave back to me,” he says quietly. “Yeah, sure, the part my parents dying kinda…sucked. But I got so much more than that — I found out that I had nothing to do with how they died. It wasn’t even quirk related at all, apparently.” Hizashi smiles, wide and a little wet. “Do you have any idea how relieved I feel, knowing that what I believed for years was just a lie? That it wasn’t my fault?”

“I did tell you,” Shouta chokes out. “There was no way you hurt your parents.”

“You did,” Hizashi says. “And not only that, but I know what my parents look like now. I know how I got my name. I know that the time I had with them was happy and fun, and that they loved me, Shouta.” The hand squeezes the back of Shouta’s. “Thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.”

Shouta bites his lip to keep from crying, and even then it’s a bare thing. “You’re, uh, you’re welcome, and thank you,” he says, and he fumbles into his pocket to pull out his key ring, putting the little giraffe-printed cat on it. He admires it for a moment, where it hangs brightly colored in the middle of other miscellaneous keychains that Hizashi has given him over the last months (all precious, though this one might be the most precious of all), then nods at the package in Hizashi’s hands. “Now you.”

Hizashi rolls his eyes, but lets go of Shouta’s hand to start tearing into the wrapping to reveal a plain box. “You didn’t have to,” he says as he balls up the paper and stuffs it into his pocket. “Really, I’m perfectly okay!”

“Just open it, dork.”

Hizashi laughs, pulling the lid of the box open. His laughter dies as his eyes go wide and his mouth drops into a surprised “o”, and then he’s looking up sharply at Shouta. “I’m gonna cry,” he states, already sounding choked. “You asshole, school doesn’t start for another twenty minutes and you’re already gonna make me cry!”

He reaches inside and pulls out a small plush giraffe to clutch desperately to his chest.

“I love it!” Hizashi all but wails, pressing his face down into the fur and nearly knocking his glasses off his nose. “Oh my god, I didn’t know I needed one of these until right now! Shoutaaaa!”

Shouta clutches his hand around his keychain and scruffs a shoes against the ground, feeling embarrassed yet so very pleased. “You lost the one you had as a kid,” he says, looking away. “I wanted to replace it. Figured it was the least I could do.”

Hizashi barrels into him, arms squeezing around him tightly. “It’s perfect!” he shouts as he rocks the both of them side to side. “You’re perfect! I love it and I love you! You’re stuck with me forever now, oh my god!”

Shouta hides a smile in Hizashi’s jacket for just a moment before gently pushing him away (but not before grabbing one of his hands). “Come on,” he says, tugging him towards the gates so they can walk through together. “We need to get to class.”

“Who cares about class when I have a plush giraffe now?” Hizashi says, beaming as he falls into step beside him. “Man, I don’t even care about being a hero now, I just wanna cuddle with this all day!”

“Are giraffes your favorite animal now?”

“Pfft, you know cats are my number one — but I think giraffes have definitely moved up there, y’know?” Hizashi tilts his head to the side. “Though why giraffes of all animals? I had that thought the other day during the reading when I saw my parents had them in my nursery. Like, they’re cool and all, but why giraffes?”

Shouta shrugs. “Maybe they knew you were gonna look like one someday.”

Hizashi sputters. “What!?”

“You got your dad’s hair and his freckles,” Shouta says, starting to grin. “It’s kinda like giraffe coloring.”

“I — no — “

“And you are freakishly tall — “

“Both my parents were tall!” Hizashi yelps. “And I’m not as tall as Oboro!”

“And your neck is looong — “

“I thought you liked my neck!”

Shouta bursts out laughing. He teases Hizashi all the way into the school and to their seats, heart warm and light.

Beside him, Hizashi is warm and bright and confident in the knowledge that he was — and still is — surrounded by love.