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The first time it happens, or rather the first time Hitoshi notices something is in the changing room after PE. A classic. He didn’t mean to peak at anybody too intently, but when he sees the rainbow of colouring on Denki’s shoulder, he can’t help but look a little closer. Luckily Denki is turned away and doesn’t notice, but that’s definetely a bruise, Hitoshi thinks. A huge one too, that’s gotta hurt. How does one get a bruise on the shoulder though?
Hitoshi thinks it’s strange, but Denki is clumsy, so he doesn’t think too much about it. He bumps into tables and chairs all the time, leaving smaller bruises that Hitoshi did notice as well. But this one is huge, that’s why it was so strange.
It’s a one time thing, Hitoshi thinks and moves on.
The second time is pretty much the same as the first, a huge bruise on Denki’s hip. So big that it is visible above the seam of his underwear, and oh gosh, Hitoshi doesn’t mean to look that way, but how can he not with the purplish green coloring of skin? It’s worrying, he doesn’t mean anything weird by looking.
“Oh wow, what happened there, Denki?” Hanta interrupts Hitoshi’s thoughts and lightly pokes Denki’s hip, making him jump away at an instant.
“Hey! Don’t touch it!” He yells and holds his hip with a flat hand, hiding the bruise.
“Sorry!” Hanta yells back and grins.
“Ugh, I just fell, okay?” Denki sighs and pulls on his pants, now hiding his injury for real.
He fell, Hitoshi thinks, a classic excuse for something else. But he doesn’t want to assume. Denki is clumsy and he might heve fallen down the stairs or something. Or someone made him fall—
No. Not everything is a red flag. Hitoshi shouldn’t assume, it’s only the second time after all. A third time though? That would be reason for worry.
The third time comes sooner than Hitoshi would have liked, finally making him worry for real, because it’s not even the locker room that gives Denki’s injury away.
“Why are you so stiff today, Denks?” Mina asks at the lunch table.
“Oh, you know, just following up on Iida’s advice.” Denki says around a mouth full of rice, uncarring of the few corns that spill. Everyone makes faces at that varying in levels of disgust.
“That’s very unlike you, bro. Also, maybe swallow before speaking?”
“Yeah, yeah—” Denki finally swallows. “My booty is a bit sore, so if I move, it won’t be good.”
“Gosh, do you have to call it booty?!”
“What about it?!”
“So you fell again?” Hitoshi asks, because he has to make sure that his worry isn’t unreasonable.
“Ugh, yeah, sucks to be me, huh? Lucky, y’all aren’t me though!” Denki cheers and grins like nothing happened.
But Hitoshi can’t stop thinking about what happened. Did something happen? Of course something happened, but is his mind going places— Hitoshi’s mind is always going the worst places, he’s a pessimist many times, but a realist most times.
The question is, why did Denki fall? It must have been impactful enough to bruise him so badly that he’s stiff all over. Denki is never stiff, he’s always moving about and fidgeting, if not with his hands then with his legs. With his whole body, actually. What can create an impact as big as this one?
Of course the first thing that enters Hitoshi’s mind is Denki getting beat up by a faceless person— He crosses it out immediately. It’s possibility, sure, but far from the only one. There would be other sign if Denki was getting bullied or abused at home, right? This could just be—
The truth is, Hitoshi can’t think of anything else this could be. Because what else could create a bruise like that if not a fall caused by an impactful force? A force from another person? Another person with malicious intent?
Hitoshi then decides, he will find evidence of this crime and then confront Denki about it. He will help Denki.
If the butt incident wasn’t worrying enough, the fourth time surely is. Because there is a bruise on Denki’s face, specifically on his nose and it looks very painful. The bruise spreads down underneath his eyes, coloring the dark purple as well. His whole face looks swollen. It looks horrible.
“Yeah, my nose was broken this weekend, but they fixed it! It looks worse than it is, doesn’t even hurt anymore!” Denki says nonchalantly and very nasally.
Hitoshi doubts that, the way he hides his wince as he grins. It’s not as prominent as it usually is, the smile.
What causes a nose to break? Correct, force! More accuratelly, forse by a fist or foot hitting said nose. Hitoshi knows how that feels like, not fun at all. This is evidence of something being wrong, he’s sure of it. But how does he approach Denki about it?
He doesn’t approach Denki just yet, instead he asks Midoriya for advice. Subtly, of course.
“If you knew someone was being hurt by someone else, what would you do?”
“Hmm, I’d probably ask them to be certain?” Midoriya says, looking up in thought.
“That might scare them though. Maybe they won’t open up with a direct approach like that.” Hitoshi objects, because that’s exactly why he asked Midoriya. He’s better at this communicating thing than Hitoshi.
“Right.” His friend thinks again for a while. “What makes you certain that they are getting hurt by someone else?”
“There is clear evidence of injury caused by another person.”
“Have you seen it happen in action though?”
“No.” Hitoshi grunts. He’s frustrated, why can’t Midoriya just get to the point?
“Then you can’t be certain! Only way to find out is by asking. And I mean, I don’t want to imply that you shouldn’t help if something is really going on, but strange injuries like that happen for many reasons. Take me for example, I always get bruises from falling on the ice and I get asked about them all the time!”
Midoriya is right, Hitoshi doesn’t actually have clear evidence. Just a strong suspicion. He needs to think about this some more.
The fifth time happens before Hitoshi collected enough courage to confront Denki, who is now icing a very purple and painful looking knee. He literally just asked Yamada if he could run by the nurse and got back with an ice pack. And Hitoshi, who sits some rows behind him in class, watches it all happen.
He can’t ask right this instant of course, but he will ask Denki at lunch. Hitoshi won’t hesitate this time.
“What’s the matter, Hitoshi? I could feel your eyes on my back the whole morning!” Of course it’s Denki who speaks first because that’s very Denki-like. Hitoshi collects his thoughts and decides to be direct at last. He’s not one for flowery language and he likes getting to the point. Surely he’ll be able to handle it, if Denki should be upset about his question.
“Denki, are you getting bet at home?” Hitoshi asks.
“Am I getting— What? What do you mean, Toshi?” He looks confused, just like in math class and it would be cute it the situation weren’t so dire.
“I mean, if someone is using force against you. Hurting you. Your parents or someone else?” Hitoshi elaborates.
“Huh, what makes you think that?” Denki still doesn’t answer, this should be a red flag on its own.
“You always have these bruises lately—”
“Oh! Those! Yeah… You know what, come with me after school and I’ll show you! No one is hurting me but myself, I promise!” That sounds horrifying. Denki is doing this by himself? Oh no, this might be worse than Hitoshi thought—
But he doesn’t know what else to say, so he doesn’t say anything and lets the day pass until the last bell rings and Denki calls him to follow. He keeps conversation about miscellaneous things afloat during the train ride with Hitoshi only adding little bits here and there, too much in thought of what exactly Denki wants to show him. They arrive at his house and Denki tells him to wait for a bit and Hitoshi’s heart nearly falls through the ground while he does—
Then Denki returns, changed into ripped jeans and an oversized yellow shirt, carrying a helmet and… rollerblades. Rollerblades?!
“Common, lets go!” He says and Hitoshi follows because he doesn’t know what else to do. Did he read this whole thing wrong? If so, then he might have been off by a lot. Very much off.
They reach a skate park. It has bowls and ramps and everything a skate park should have. Some people are skating on the ramps already and Denki pulls on the rollerblades and the helmet, but no other protective gear. Well, at least he wears a helmet, Hitoshi thinks, still not knowing what exactly his friend plans to do.
Until he rolls down into the bowl and jumps up on the other side in a backflip, then again on another side and Hitoshi doesn’t have the words to describe the other stuff Denki does on those rollerblades. It’s impressive and he looks effortless while doing it all.
“Well, that’s the trick I was trying to learn the past week and I nailed it yesterday, after a couple more mishaps!” Denki yells from the other side. “What do you think?”
"It's pretty cool."
"Thanks!"
He rolls down again and does something— Hitoshi doesn’t know what exactly because the aftermath is Denki crashing, hard. It looks very painful and yet he gets up again and complains loudly about the fall. That clears up the mystery of the bruises. Hitoshi feels a bit stupid for having assumed the worst now.
"Toshi, come look here." Denki yells from across the skate park again and Hitoshi walks up to him. "Look, this is the reason why my face was all messed up the other week, there's even a bit of my blood left. Oh no, someone might steal my DNA—"
Hitoshi looks at the ramp that Denki is pointing at and indeed, there are a few blood drops. But it's really not the kind of thing he expected before, this isn't some malicious person trying to best Denki.
"You look like you wanna teach this guy a lesson, but trust me, he's stronger. You'll just end up hurting your own fists if you fight him." Denki says all serious. Before Hitoshi can answer he's up on some ramp again, doing some tricks that Hitoshi can't even name. But it's fascinating to watch how Denki is just up there, defying gravity and everything. He wonders how long he's been doing this for, it must take years, right?
“So, have you ever skated before?” Suddenly Denki rolls up next to him again, after another crazy looking backflip. He does a little spin and his footwork looks so magnificent, Hitoshi can’t look away. It must have shown on his face, because Denki does some more pirouettes with a smile that could rival the sun.
“No.” He shakes his head and blushes at how close Denki is after the spins. With the added height of the rollerblades he’s as tall as Hitoshi, looking directly into his eyes.
“You wanna try?”
“No way.”
“How about a date though?” Denki says it so nonchalantly again that Hitoshi’s brain shuts down for a second. Did he hear right? He must have taken too long to answer though, because Denki adds. “Hey, it’s allright if you don’t. I’ll get over it, no biggie.”
“No— I mean, yes. I’d like a date, please.” Hitoshi stumbles on his words and blushes more.
“Great! Then lets go!”
“Right now?!”
“Sure, why not?”
“Okay, yeah, why not, I guess. Lets go.”
So they go back to Denki's house for his shoes and spend the rest of the day strolling through the city. At the end of the day, not only were Hitoshi's worries cleared up, but he acquired a boyfriend as well. Someone who gets hurt constantly by doing crazy things, but he always gets up again to do more. Yeah, Hitoshi might just be in love already.