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Hitoshi distinctly remembered the first time one of the paper flowers appeared on his desk. He’d recently switched middle schools after being discreetly asked to leave by his old principal since his presence was “disrupting the classroom environment”. What utter nonsense. The other kids had been disrupting their own learning by picking on Hitoshi. His new school, Aldera Middle, wasn’t much better. Expecting this, Hitoshi had entered his new classroom with his head down and his hackles up, determined to mind his own business, make it through the year, graduate, and get into UA. He was always the first into the classroom in the morning and the last out, staying out of the way of his classmates and not drawing any unnecessary attention to himself.
A little over a week into his attendance at this new school, Hitoshi arrived at his desk to see something rather odd. A small paper rose rested on the worn wood. Hitoshi glanced around, but the classroom was empty save for himself. Curiosity piqued, Hitoshi set down his backpack and lifted the rose to better examine it. It was fairly well done, with a slender stem and delicate scalloped petals swirling inwards into a tight coil of paper in the center of the blossom. The paper itself, though, had clearly had a rough life. Some parts were brittle with char while others were stained with some sort of mystery liquid or slightly torn.
Hitoshi was unsure what to make of the flower, but he was highly suspicious of its origins and intent, so he tossed it in the trash can before class started and expected that to be the end of it.
Two days later, there was a second paper flower. It was another rose, and this time Hitoshi could see that it was clearly made of old, beat-up notebook paper, with illegible writing flowing through the design. Hitoshi simply sighed and threw it away.
A few days later, yet another flower rested on Hitoshi’s desk. This time, however, there was a message written down the stem: “You’re not alone”. Hitoshi nervously examined the rest of the classroom, but he appeared to be the only person there. Just in case, though, Hitoshi tucked the flower into his backpack. Despite the warning, nothing out of the ordinary occurred that day, just the typical name-calling and the occasional shove from his mean-spirited classmates.
The following day marked the first time the flowers would appear on consecutive mornings. This flower read: “Don’t let their words break you down”. The writing was slightly blotchy and smeared, as if the stem had gotten slightly wet. Hitoshi bit his lip as he read the words. Was this mysterious flower-maker actually trying to support him? Well, even if they weren’t, Hitoshi could still choose to interpret the message that way. He slipped the flower into his backpack, nestling it right next to the one from the previous day.
The flowers just kept on coming, usually two or three times every week. Most of the time, they were blank, but occasionally there would be an encouraging message inscribed on the stem. “Don’t give up”. “You’re so cool”. “I wish I was as strong as you are”. “You’re not a villain”. Hitoshi didn’t throw the paper roses away anymore. He collected them and placed them on the top of his dresser. Over the weeks and months, the surface became inundated with flowers, each one a symbol of kindness and encouragement that helped Hitoshi get up each morning. Someone, somewhere, believed in him.
One afternoon, Hitoshi was walking home from school when a group of his classmates jumped him from behind and dragged him into an alley. Hitoshi restrained himself from using his quirk, knowing that the boys would find a way to use that action against him if he did. He didn’t raise a hand against the other kids, instead curling into a ball to try and protect his face and chest. Hitoshi walked out of that alley with numerous bruises and contusions from the feet and fists of the other boys. He walked into his house, his eyes and nose stinging with shame. Grabbing the First Aid kit, he made his way to his bedroom to address his injuries. Once he was done, Hitoshi picked up a handful of the roses and held them close to his chest. Someone cared for him. Someone saw him for who he was. Someone knew him as more than the kid with the villain quirk.
The next day, when Hitoshi walked into school with a limp and a black eye, a whole bouquet of paper flowers rested on his desk with the note “You’re more than what has happened to you”. Hitoshi smiled and sniffed back tears before lovingly storing the bouquet in his backpack. The bouquet was given prime real estate in the center of his dresser.
A few weeks after that incident, Hitoshi began hearing rumors from his classmates that a quirkless kid in their year had committed suicide. Hitoshi hadn’t known the boy, but the news still dragged painfully at his soul. Any life lost in such a way was a tragedy, quirkless or not. The whole school was invited to the boy’s funeral, so Hitoshi decided that he’d go show his sorrow at the boy’s death. Almost on a whim, Hitoshi grabbed one of the roses from his dresser (labelled “You are valued”) before he left.
To Hitoshi’s disappointment but not his surprise, the funeral was incredibly poorly attended. There were a few adults, including an inconsolable green-haired woman who appeared to be the dead boy’s mother. There was only one family Hitoshi recognized from school: the Bakugous. Hitoshi hadn’t interacted with Bakugou much—Bakugou was one of the kids Hitoshi did his best to steer well clear of—but he hadn’t pegged the explosive Aldera golden boy as the sort of person to attend the funeral of a quirkless classmate.
The funeral was closed-casket, but Hitoshi vaguely recognized the grinning green-haired boy in the photographs around the parlor. When the minister was done with his message and people were welcomed to come up to the casket to say their goodbyes, Hitoshi simply walked up to the casket in silence and laid the paper rose on its polished surface. He got a few strange looks from the rest of the funeral attendees, but Hitoshi wasn’t going to explain himself.
A few days after the funeral, Hitoshi noticed that he hadn’t gotten any paper flowers in almost a week, which was the longest lull in deliveries there had ever been. At first, Hitoshi just assumed his mysterious friend had gotten distracted with something—possibly the funeral of the quirkless boy—but as one week crept into two, Hitoshi began to get more worried. Maybe something worse had happened? Maybe his flower buddy had been the quirkless boy?
Maybe they had finally stopped believing in Hitoshi?
Just when Hitoshi was sure that the flowers had stopped for good, one was innocently resting on his desk when Hitoshi got to class one morning. Hitoshi ran over to his desk and picked up the flower in excitement. It was clearly made by the same person from the same paper. There was no note on it, no explanation as to where the flowers had been for the past two and a half weeks, but that was okay. The flower fairy was okay and still believed in Hitoshi, and those were the things that mattered.
The flowers appeared each day like clockwork after that, as if in apology for the missed time. None of them bore any message. Hitoshi continued to collect them just like before, not questioning the new pattern in deliveries.
Then, one day, when Hitoshi walked into class, the room wasn’t empty. A blonde boy stood at Hitoshi’s desk, eyes drilling into the floor. In his clasped hands rested a drooping paper rose.
Bakugou Katsuki had been delivering the flowers?
It… didn’t make sense.
“Can I help you?” Hitoshi asked, keeping his tone disinterested and bored to hide just how much he wanted to know what, exactly, was going on. If he was misinterpreting the scene in front of him, Hitoshi didn’t want to land himself on Bakugou’s hit list for being too nosey.
Bakugou slowly extended a hand towards Hitoshi, offering him the sad origami flower. “Here. It’s the last one.”
Hitoshi hesitantly took the flower, slightly sticky and annoyingly warm, from Bakugou, who still hadn’t looked up from the ground.
“I didn’t take you for an origami enthusiast,” Hitoshi remarked, still feeling like things weren’t adding up.
“I’m not!” Bakugou snapped. His hands crackled slightly with his declaration and Hitoshi backed up half a pace in surprise. That was more like the Bakugou Hitoshi had heard about. “The nerd is—was,” Bakugou went on, softer. “He wanted you to have these. This is the last one.”
Hitoshi looked closer at the paper rose dangling from his fingers. Even though the stem had been worried nearly to the point of disintegration, the flower had still been clearly crafted with love. This nerd had gotten better at folding paper flowers over the past months and each one looked like he’d spent a significant amount of time making sure each crease and fold was exactly perfect. From the way Bakugou was talking, he was gone now, though.
Before Hitoshi could ask any questions, Bakugou continued. “He… he left his things behind. On the rooftop. His shoes and backpack were filled with these paper flowers. He used to write in these notebooks all the time, you know.” Hitoshi actually did not know, but appreciated any information about the dead boy who’d continued to encourage Hitoshi from beyond the grave. “I hated those notebooks. They creeped me out. I’d explode them, throw them, tear them, anything to get the idiot nerd to just stop writing in them. Then, one day, he did. I thought he’d gotten rid of them. Turned out he’d been turning the paper into those.” Bakugou pointed at the paper rose. “He left a note in his backpack, along with the flowers. Standard goodbyes and all that nonsense, but at the end, he said… he said he wanted me to keep leaving them for a Shinsou Hitoshi. The stupid Deku didn’t want you to lose your encouragement just because Deku decided to throw in the towel on life. He was a bit like you, actually. Lonely, outcast, and spit on by the rest of us. He was just more inanely cheery about it and, in the end, less willing to go on with it all, I guess. Lazy nerd. Of course the one thing he ever chose to give up on was putting up with everyone else. Idiot. There’s no second chances at things like that.”
Hitoshi had a strong feeling about who this Deku person was at this point, and it crushed him to know that the boy who’d been such a stubborn light in Hitoshi’s life hadn’t had a light of his own, hadn’t had anything to keep him from falling into darkness.
“I almost kept the flowers,” Bakugou went on. “I mean, what right did I have to them, but we were friends at one point, and Deku up and died on us. I mean, the nerve! I was going to hold onto them just to spite him, but… you came to the funeral when you didn’t even know who he was. You put one of those dumb flowers on his casket. And you looked jumpier and jumpier at school. It’s completely stupid, but I couldn’t keep these any longer.”
Bakugou was still staring at the floor, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. Hitoshi regarded the flower in his grasp one more time before extending his arm.
“Here.”
Bakugou finally looked up. His scarlet eyes were filled with anger and pain and loneliness and, on top of it all, confusion at the limp flower being offered to him.
“Your friend would have wanted you to have this,” Hitoshi explained.
Bakugou glowered, but his gaze held more grief than irritation. “Not my friend.”
“Well, he wasn’t exactly mine either. That didn’t stop him from trying to make my arguably miserable life just a little better.” Hitoshi shook the blossom at Bakugou. “Take it. Friend or not, you deserve something to remember him by and remind you that you’re not alone.”
“I don’t deserve anything from that nerd,” Bakugou grumbled.
Hitoshi huffed and rolled his eyes. “Okay. You know what? Screw this. Who cares if you were his best friend or worst bully. Take the freaking flower. It’s what he would have wanted.”
“You didn’t know him.”
“I knew him through these flowers,” Hitoshi refuted, “and that limited contact tells me he would have wanted to hand these flowers out to anyone who was having a cruddy day. That includes you. Take. The. Flower.”
With a grumble of resignation, Bakugou snatched the flower back from Hitoshi and stalked out of the room.
Once again, Hitoshi thought that that was going to be the end of it.
But the next day, resting on his desk, was a clumsily made paper rose with an angrily written note on the stem:
“Thanks. And forget those extras. You’re no villain.”
Hitoshi grinned and tucked the flower away.