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“DON’T MOVE!” Hizashi yelled as the villain tried to make a break for it.
But this wasn’t the finely controlled sound he’d mastered over years of work. This wasn’t him. Everything seemed to move around him, windows rattling while dust shook off the buildings around him.
The metallic taste of blood crawled onto his tongue, and his throat burned. All he could hear was ringing and ringing and ringing.
He only realized he had fallen when his back hit the wall behind him. As he scrambled to his feet, something broke under his foot.
His glasses
He hadn’t even realized they’d fallen off.
Something dripped down his neck, and his eyes fell to a shattered syringe on the ground.
Trigger, he realized.
He could barely make out the panicked villain scrambling back to his feet, and out of his line of sight. Hizashi tried to make chase, but before he could even think of what to do next, he was back on the ground, the world around him spinning.
Damn it
Hizashi pushed himself up until he was sitting. He was barely able to stay upright, much less get to his feet. With every breath, something built in his throat, trying to force its way out. Blood trickled out of his mouth and dripped back down his throat.
He knew very well the threat sound could pose. He had to, lest he completely obliterate the ears of anyone in his vicinity, especially his own.
(Not that he could truly stop himself from destroying them. Only delay the inevitable.)
At 85 decibels, hearing damage can occur.
At 150, eardrums can rupture.
At 185, sound could be fatal.
Could.
It would take 240 decibels before ruptured lungs were a certainty.
There’s no way he could get that loud, right?
Everything was feeling fuzzier, and his lungs felt like they would burst if he didn’t scream.
Breath in- breath out- breath in-
Let it out
He had to let it out.
Hizashi let out a weak, hoarse scream- barely audible over the ringing in his ears.
That wasn’t the devastating scream he’d been holding in.
Two red dots cut through his blurry vision-
Erasure.
The red got closer and closer, and suddenly Shouta was crouched beside him, hand on Hizashi’s back (he hadn’t even realized he’d fallen.)
He tried to speak, to say I’m alive, I’m okay, but all that came out was a weak gasp, wet with blood.
Shouta pulled him to standing, but the world spun around him far too much to make sense of where he was. Hizashi let himself collapse against his rescuer, giving up on keeping himself upright. He couldn’t hear anything Shouta said, but he could feel his chest, and he could tell he was speaking to him.
Shouta. Shouta’s here. I’ll be alright.
Everything went black.
Hizashi woke to the scent of antiseptics and a disturbing absence of almost any other sensation. He forced his eyes open, and the silence shifting from eerie to horrifyingly mundane.
There was plenty of sound. He just couldn’t hear it.
He let his eyes fall shut again. His mouth was painfully dry, his throat even more so.
Before he could try to speak, a hand fell onto his arm.
Warm, rough, Shouta.
He forced his eyes open again, trying to glean anything from the movement of Shouta’s lips. As the drugs kicked back in, all he could focus on was his friend’s hand on his.
I’m ok. I’m not alone.
He was out again before he could finish the thought.
Hizashi couldn’t think of what to say, as he fiddled with his pen, while Shouta sat beside him. It had been a week since he was discharged from the hospital, and he could barely hear, much less speak. He waited while Shouta finished writing out what was surely an inconsequential question.
If I’d practiced signing more, I wouldn’t have to wait through all this, he thought with guilt. Shouta’s done it much more. For my sake.
He knew he needed to really try to learn, anticipate the reality of what his quirk would do to his hearing over time. But he didn’t want to acknowledge it. He’d have more time as he got older- his hearing was still mostly there-
Until now.
Now, he had a pair of ruptured eardrums that may never properly heal. His throat had been completely shredded. While the prognosis was better, it might never be safe to use his quirk, lest he damage his throat beyond repair.
But even worse than his agonizingly sore throat, or the constant migraines, or the persistent vertigo, was the helplessness. He was left unable to hear, unable to use his quirk. He was unable to even walk on his own lest his vestibular system express its displeasure at the disruption and completely throw away his balance.
He felt a light shove from Shouta, breaking him out of his thoughts, and quickly looked towards what Shouta had scribbled out.
How are u feeling?
Yamada continued to fiddle with his pen, eventually scrawling out the word nauseous.
It wasn’t a lie. The world hadn’t truly stopped spinning since his ears had shattered, even when he closed his eyes.
not what i meant. was quickly added by Shouta.
He didn’t respond. Instead, he squeezed his eyes shut, clicking the pen repeatedly, as if he’d be able to hear it if he did it enough.
A hand back on his arm forced him out of his spiraling.
He scribbled out a single word,
helpless.
He paused, crossed it out, and replaced it with another word.
useless.
Shouta didn’t need to respond.
It was an inevitable reality. Heroics was physically intense, and it only took one bad injury to cut one's career short. But after years of training and dedicating one's life to it,
What is he outside of it?
I don’t want to talk abt it, Hizashi scrawled out on a new page, having torn and crumpled up the previous page.
Shouta moved to write a reply, to say something meaningful, but paused,
Instead, he simply wrote, do you need anything?
Hizashi shook his head, writing out a simple response below.
Stay, please.
Another word scribbled out
Thank you.