Chapter Text
p>Hitoshi was walking home from school. He couldn't decide where he hated more. At school the kids did unfathomable things to him. At home he doesn't speak or see the light.
Hitoshi opens the door to his foster home, and is ambushed. Or that's what it’d be called if he wasn't 100% expecting the thick, worn leather to wrap around his face and dig deep into the sensitive flesh. he didn't flinch as he felt the familiar feeling of the code lock snapping in place, effectively extinguishing Hitoshi's ability to speak.
Hitoshi follows as his foster dad drags him by the back of the muzzle to the basement hatch, yes hatch cause Hitoshi's foster home has a hatch basement that they keep locked. Hitoshi's foster dad opens it and kicks him into the hole.
Hitoshi falls and bangs his head. It hurt, but he'd get an ice pack when he snuck out in 3 hours when his shift started.
Until then, he went and worked on homework, the gross yet familiar metallic feeling in his mouth evident, but not bothersome.
8pm came around and he goes over to the large crate in the corner and moves it to the other side of the room, climbs onto a shelf, then climbs through a tunnel, until he was in his neighbors basement, where the hatch wasn't locked, climbs out, and leaves his neighbors house unnoticed, on his way to work.
He worked on the floor, since he couldn't talk due to the muzzle, and if someone ever asked for assistance he'd fake deafness, so he’d either have to sign or have someone else assist the customer. It worked pretty well. Today was no different.
His manager has tried to get the lock off but it wasn't in his range of skills to pick a code lock, and Hitoshi always insisted not to call someone skilled enough to do so. So he stayed silent, wearing a mask to cover the thick muzzle pushing on his teeth.
He remembered how he used to cry when he was younger, when strings of the leather got caught on his teeth. Now it gave him something to fidget with in his mouth as he worked, stocking shelves, wiping down counters, filling coffee machines, dating every item in the store, running on auto pilot.
Until he bumps into someone. He immediately turns around, signing sorry as he helps the customer pick up the shitty sunflower seeds and chip bags, the ones that only cost .50€ each, and gives it to the boy. He was around Hitoshi's age, with these beautiful eyes and hair so yellow it was unbearably bright even if the black lightning bolt clashed nicely.
“Dont worry man! I was spaced out!” The smiley boy said, his eyes sparkling as he took the items back gratefully.
Hitoshi nods and goes back to work. He watches through the shelves as the boy runs towards a green haired freckled boy, small and built like a twig, holding some all might crackers. The other teenage boy who works this night shift, Neito Monoma, rings them up, and Hitoshi decides to finish his backstock, and go behind the counter, to cook stuff for their hot trays, and to gossip about whatever is going on around the small-ish town he lives in.
It's small enough that he doesn't usually have many people to talk about, like he knows the freckled boy from earlier goes to Aldera high, and the yellow haired one isn't in public school, but rather homeschooled by his mother. He doesn't know anyone's names though, only Neitos, and a few other coworkers, but otherwise code names exclusively. FanBoy for freckles kid and zigzag for the yellowed hair boy, and more Hitoshi was too sober to ever remember.
Hitoshi worked the grueling shift of the small gas station, until 4 am rolled around, and he and Neito headed to their respective homes.
Hitoshi snuck back into his neighbors house, back to his basement and changed into his school uniform, hiding his work one, just in enough time for his foster dad to open the hatch and pull Hitoshi up by his muzzle, like he was grabbing a misbehaving dog by his collar, until he was standing in the kitchen. His dad unlocked the muzzle, club in hand for if Hitoshi dared speak, if he dared to attempt hypnosis and Hitoshi decided to get out of there as soon as possible.
The walk to school was terrible. He was scared. But he kept walking, like on auto pilot. He went through his classes, kids throwing things at him, teachers not calling on him, and more just plain discrimination. But when gym rolled around, getting changed in a locker room, where thankfully there were stalls, he got anxious, like always. Too many times have coaches purposefully walked in, expecting a prepubescent boy, but was met with a young girl, trying to strap a binder over their chest.
Coaches never did mind the unexpected gender dilemma.
Hitoshi does his exercise. Yes in the binder. Which isn't really a binder, just a sports bra wrapped up with ace bandages. It was hard to breathe, but he made it, and he nearly sprinted to the locker room to claim a stall. He made it and took everything off, breathing the non-constricted air deeply. After some minutes he rewraps and puts his uniform on to continue with classes.
And this was Hitoshi's life, 5 days a week for what he thought would be forever.
That's not what happened though. Cause a few months later, he was starved to the brim. Summer break had started, so no school lunches for him to survive off of, and the muzzle was always on. He was at work. Neito was trying his 14,000th attempt at guessing the code for his muzzle with no avail, when people walked into the store, unnoticed by Hitoshi and Neito. Today had been a bad day for them both. Bad days lead to bruised or bleeding teenage boys. Hitoshi was stabbed 4 times by his foster mother, who hallucinated him as a melting monster, and Neitos siblings kept tasing him with his police officer parents' taser sticks, and his parents had beaten him with their batons. So two beaten, bleeding teenagers trying to get a muzzle off one of them, was quite concerning to the pair of pro heroes walking into the store during a night patrol.
Aizawa just watched for a minute. As the blonde kid tries combination after combination of numbers on the strip of leather. He does a silent signal to his partner, Midnight, that there are kids in danger.
The purple haired one wasn't crying despite the FUCKING STAB WOUNDS on his arm?! He relaxed when he realized they weren't bleeding anymore. He watched as the blonde kid kept twisting, the crop top he was wearing -does this place not have a decent uniform?- not covering the sharp burns and bruises on his hips and ribs.
“Hey.. need some help?” Aizawa spoke, softer than usual, and crouched slightly. He saw the purple haired boy's eyes widen and sign the blonde one his hero name, Eraserhead, probably assuming he didn't understand it, and the blonde's eyes widened.