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It was the perfect day for a cycle. White clouds, blue skies, light wind. This was what Hitoshi thought the moment that he got up on his fifteenth birthday.
His mother kissed him on the cheek good morning and for breakfast the two drank strong coffee and ate fat donuts from a box. A birthday tradition.
For his gifts, he received a card, a winter coat that had been drastically rolled back to clear stock, a bike saddle with chibi cats printed on the leather, a sheet of cat stickers, pens and highlighters for school, a new bike chain, and a roll of reflective tape.
He thanked her. She hugged him.
Nabu’s chuurinjou went in groups of five. There were a whole two groups empty by the time Hitoshi—late, as per usual—arrived. No “Hey, Shinsou, my guy! Saved you your favourite space! First by the door!” or “Hey, man! Shinsou, good to see ya! Saved you a space! Happy birthday!”. Instead, bikes were overcrowding the other bike stands because they were scared of him.
Hitoshi had cat stickers on his bicycle.
The bike ride to school had been refreshing, if only leaving him a little perspirant from the humidity. It was worse when they had to wear those stupid ties and blazers, despite the colder weather, but even now Hitoshi smelled a little ripe. But who cared? It wasn’t like anyone was going to comment. He had no one to smell pleasant for, no one to impress. Who cared if he smelled bad?
Hitoshi took off his helmet after assuring his bike was locked into place. After changing his shoes and putting his outdoor ones and his helmet in his locker, he made a beeline for the bathrooms.
No one was there on account of classes having already started, so he stayed by the mirrors to spray deodorant under his arms from his bag. After about a minute, it ran out with a dim splutter.
Damnit, he thought to himself. I’m gonna have to pick some up on the way home. I knew there was something I forgot to ask mom for.
He took a photo of the can for later with his phone and tossed it into the purple trash can beside the sinks, next to the wall.
He regarded his reflection with a sigh, seeing as there was no one here. The beauty of coming in late, as he’d accounted for in his head time and time again.
He smoothed any wrinkles in his shirt. He patted his hair, assuring it didn’t look too messy. It stuck up like this naturally, but went down on its own during the day if he didn’t gel it a bit. Heroes had big hair. All Might had his – things, and Present Mic... had all that going on. Even the female heroes like Midnight, she had her hair splayed out either side of her back like a hedgehog.
The eyebags were a problem, though. He pulled at one of his lower lids, groaning. The eyebags were...
Scary, was his final thought before he made his way to class.
Hitoshi either was the last there or was outright late. It depended on the teacher’s punctuality, so it was a mixed bag. Today, he was late, and interrupted registration on the way in.
The teacher went to protest at his tardiness, but stopped short. He hid his face in his clipboard.
Hitoshi’s desk was in the farthest part of the class from the teacher’s desk. It always changed by the semester, by the year, if he would be in the back to go unnoticed or in the front to be kept an eye on, but either way, it was never the middle. Hitoshi had never been in the middle of a classroom’s seating plan before.
The students he passed on the way across and then down the rightmost row all ducked their heads as he went by.
It was better than him getting there early and dealing with them all repelled from him as they wandered around to be with friends, like the classroom was an agar plate, and he was penicillin.
He got out his supplies for the lessons ahead. There were rubber cats on his pens. He carried extra in case anyone needed to borrow one. His rotary sharpener was cat themed, with plastic ears on the top, and a tail for a handle. He had a little cat pen and pencil holder to prevent needing to ask someone to hand it back to him if it rolled his way only to be ignored.
No one asked for a pen.
No one answered their first teacher when he asked for them.
“Really? No one knows?”
Hitoshi, who’d been sitting with his elbow on the desk and hand on his mouth, eyes diverted from the teacher without wholly meaning to, slowly started to lift his hand.
Hastily, the teacher exclaimed, “The answer is forty-six! See these parentheses...”
Hitoshi sighed through his nose. It was a day like any other.
For lunch, Hitoshi went to the roof to eat alone.
About half-way through, a delinquent group he’d only seen in passing and in segments came up to smoke. “Hey, what’s he doing here?” one whispered. “I thought you said this place was all clear.”
“It is, it’s just him. Who cares?”
The blond member of the group sent a smile Hitoshi’s way. (Kami... something. He was revered by the teachers for having a strong quirk, but it put him in trouble sometimes—and with that weirdly cropped hair and coloured zig-zag, and those catty yellow eyes, he was hard to forget, visually speaking. He had also chosen U.A. for his next course of education. That meant he was Hitoshi’s direct competitor, if they were anything at all.) “Hey – dude! Do you mind if we—mmph!”
His friend, one of two with crew cuts, clapped a hand over his mouth. “Hey, stupid. Don’t you recognise him? That’s Hitoshi Shinsou from 3-1!” he hissed.
“So?” Kami-something muffled from behind beefy fingers.
“So, don’t talk to him,” hissed another. “Don’t you know what his quirk is?”
“One word to him is all it takes for him to completely erase your mind and give you complete amnesia!”
Hitoshi frowned into the bento he had made the night before. He still had the lunch money his mom had given him. Maybe he could sneak off campus and get that deodorant now, save the confrontation.
“You idiot!” Someone slapped that other guy over the head. “His quirk is Brainwashing! Screw your head back on! If you talk to him, he has you, just like that.”
“Oh. Right!”
Wrong.
“Well, yeah, but...” Kami-something pulled the hand off of his mouth. “He can’t be that bad. He’s so quiet!”
Oh, so now the guy with the heroic quirk is going to be my hero. How sweet. Get lost, asshole.
“Trust us, man. Besides, he’s not exactly a ‘good kid’ either. Super scary. Have you seen how he writes his name? ‘People user, mind manipulator.’ He does it on purpose, he just has to! No parent would be that cruel. Just leave him be, he won’t snitch.”
Regardless, the group got further away from him.
Hitoshi ate the rest of his bento, not snitching.
The lovely weather persisted. Hitoshi was the first to grab his bike from the stands, revelling in the way the cat charms on his spokes clicked and slid as he rode along the path through the park, into town. There were already skaters in the skate park as he rode past. He caught a glimpse of yellow hair.
In the convenience store down the street from the park gates, Hitoshi picked out two new cans of deodorant and a new cat spoke charm (a tuxedo cat in a top hat and bowtie – it was beautiful) as a birthday gift to himself.
Hitoshi regularly bought from this store on his way to or from school, but looking at the cigarette shelves behind the counter made him uneasy. Back when he tried to make and keep friends, he’d been asked “Hey, Shinsou, why don’t you quirk that guy so he can’t ID us for booze and smokes?” which he’d declined out of discomfort. He didn’t like using his quirk in such ways. Didn’t like using it at all, actually. They’d stopped being his friends after that.
The bell over the door chimed as Hitoshi queued to pay. The two patrons ahead of him were two elderly women with rickety hands. He remained patient.
Behind him in the queue was the person that had run in and quickly grabbed several beverages. Hitoshi paid. As he stepped out of the queue to put his items in his backpack, the person with the beverages exclaimed, “What do you mean not enough? Oh, man, did I count wrong..? Such an idiot.”
It was Kami-something.
“Those went up in price recently,” explained the old shopkeeper. “You’re a few yen short.”
Hitoshi tapped him on the shoulder and handed him the spare change from his own purchase. Then he left.
“Hey, hey, wait!”
Not without problems, apparently.
Hitoshi must have been about half way down the park path before being overtaken by that moneyless blond kid again. He did an L-turn on his skateboard ahead of him to force him to a stop. He was panting, holding his hands out.
“Hey.” He stepped off, his backpack lurching forward as he put his hands on his thighs to catch his breath. “Thanks. It’s ‘Shinsou’, right? From school?”
This was how it normally went. Kami-something would ask him to do tricks and when he refused, he’d disown him. No matter how flashy his hair or smile was, he had little substance—just like his dumb, heroic quirk.
Hitoshi rode past him.
“Wh- hey!”
Much like a pest—lightning bug, maybe, just to be incidental—Kami-something caught back up on his skateboard. “I just wanted to thank you! I promise, man, I owe you one!”
Hitoshi sped up.
“Hey! Wait up!”
Hitoshi didn’t.
At home, after he showered and changed into fresh pyjamas, Hitoshi made vegetable omelettes for himself and his mother, timed for when she came home. As he waited for his own to cool, he cut it into the shape of a cat.
“So,” his mom said, teardrop earrings shining in the low light of their apartment. “Did any of your classmates wish you a happy birthday?”
He chewed the first piece taken from around his ome-cat’s face. He thought about their cowering forms in class, the way he scared even a group of delinquents, Kami-something’s gratitude over the spare change. “I guess.”
“Did you learn anything exciting?”
“Not really.”
“Well, how was your day?”
“I got a new cat for my spokes,” he said. “From the corner store on my way home.”
“Ooh! You’re running a cattery on those wheels, huh?”
Hitoshi kept chewing. “Yeah.”
His mom kept smiling, resting her elbow on the table, knuckle on her cheek. “You look nice with your hair down. Why don’t you keep it down more often? give it a break from all the product?”
Hitoshi didn’t want to go back to the quiet kid hiding behind whatever hair he had. Heroes didn’t do that. Their hair was styled and big. Heroes were confident, flashy.
From his shower and all the conditioner he’d used, his hair was fluffy enough to stay up like it did during the day. The only difference was that it felt a little lighter.
“I’ll think about it,” he replied quietly, as he’d done countless times before when she brought it up. His mother had swept back hair, too. Layered, the longest parts in the back coming down to the nape of her neck and swooping like a duck’s tail. She was just being hypocritical.
The smile on his mom’s face faded. “The omelettes are good,” she said softly. “Thank you for making dinner, even on your special day.”
“I like cooking.”
“I know. My perfect little chef, huh?” She reached over the table and ruffled up his hair.
Hitoshi grinned, if only slightly.
The following day, Hitoshi took the window seat in the school library to study. He tried not to do it too often, but on occasion he’d look up to watch the world go by outside. Other students enjoying the sunshine on their own breaks, mainly. Hitoshi was one of a fair few in the library, on account of the hot weather.
The library was on the ground floor, so it was easy for passersby to recognise they were being looked at.
Yellow eyes met purple through the glass, signalling Hitoshi that it was time to turn back to his notes.
They were cat-themed, of course.
After school, that Kami-something tried to chase after him on his skateboard again. Hitoshi wondered if he’d been waiting for him, or if he raced to find him. Either way, Hitoshi didn’t stop for him to catch up.
If anything, he cycled faster.
The day after was Friday, and with all the humid weather they’d had, by lunch time it was raining. Heavy, bright-skied rain that was cold despite the lukewarm air.
By the time he reached the town on his way home, Hitoshi went under a storefront’s overhang to dry his chain with tissues from his bag before continuing to walk his bike along the sidewalk, not wanting to give his new chain much chance to rust. The concrete was soaked, gutters overflowing from the water and natural debris.
In the alleyway between two stalls was a cardboard box that was on its last legs. Deluged, ready to rip, and with black marker bleeding off of the front that Hitoshi merely glanced at, unable to read it from the damage.
He was about to pass by, until he heard a high pitched shriek. One note, elongated, desperate.
Hitoshi leaned his bike against the wall and inspected the contents of the box. Five kittens, all soaked. Two grey, one white, one orange, and one calico.
He checked the bleeding marker again. Free to a good home.
Hitoshi sat upright on his bike and balanced the box on his thighs, riding slowly.
When his mother came home, he kept the box in his room and fed them the formula he’d gotten on the way home. He rinsed them with warm water and oat milk in the bathroom sink. He lined a wicker laundry basket from their storage closet with a fleece blanket. He put a cloth bandaid over his finger to stimulate grooming their backs.
By mid-afternoon on Saturday, she found them with a sigh.
Later, when they came back from the shelter, the one he spent any spare time he had at doing volunteer work, she assured him with a hand on the shoulder, “They promised to update us for when they’re ready to be adopted. When they do. They’ll be okay.”
Hitoshi had known them for only a day, but missed them already.
“You did a good thing, Hitoshi. I’m proud of you. I bet those kittens feel the same way.”
By the time Monday rolled around, Hitoshi had sort of forgotten that Kami-something had existed, until he passed the skate park on his way home again.
Someone had dislocated the chain off of his bike and popped the front tire with some thumb tacks, leaving behind only the damage and a note that read VILLAIN SCUM, so he was walking his bike home today. It was a rare occurrence, but far from the first. It was the first time that some of the cats on his spokes were missing, though.
The calico with her sushi. The bamboo-biting orange tom. The grey tabby in a pop-tart costume. The top-hat wearing tuxedo.
Hitoshi didn’t get kids his own age, and that scared him at times.
They were either scared of him or hated him enough to do this. There was no in between and there was no polar opposite.
No affection, no greetings, no friendship. Just fear or hatred. That was all villain scum like him ever got.
It was unfair as hell, but at this rate, he was over it.
“Hey!”
Running towards him from his group in the skate park, board under his arm, was Kami-something.
Oh, right. This kid existed. Hitoshi didn’t get him either.
“I’ve been meaning to give you this!” He thrust out his hand, palm facing up, to show the exact change he owed.
Grumbling, Hitoshi pocketed it, bowed his head, and kept walking.
“Hey, wait up!”
Hitoshi sighed. What the hell does he still want? I took his money, so what else could he possibly want!
“I’m Kaminari! Thanks for the money, by the way. Stick it here.” Ah, that was his name. Kaminari held out his hand. Must have been a handshake. Or a fist bump? Hitoshi, unimpressed but surprised, only glanced at it. “Come on... you know you wanna...”
Hitoshi did not wanna. But he did, to be freed.
Kaminari shocked him. He bent over laughing as Hitoshi glared. It only tingled afterwards, but it was sudden enough to hurt, damnit.
“Sorry, sorry! Aw, man, I just couldn’t help it!” Kaminari eased off when he noticed he was the only one laughing. “You don’t talk much, huh, Shinsou?” he asked with a little frown. “It is Shinsou, right?”
Hitoshi let his eyes flick around awkwardly, preventing eye contact the best he could. Everyone usually looked so scared when they spoke to him, or vengeful. Either was stomach-churning. Eventually, he gave a single, curt nod.
“Ha, right on! Cool name.”
Is this guy serious? Says the guy who literally has the name of a god. Quirk of a hero, name of a god, charming smile. Ugh, he sickens me.
“Hey, what happened to your chain?”
Hitoshi growled, eyes suddenly burning, pulling the bike away from him as he took a step back.
Kaminari inspected Hitoshi’s bike with a curious hum. Hitoshi’s skin prickled. “Are those... cat stickers? And cat charms? Annnd... a cat bracelet?”
Shit, I forgot to take it off this morning! Hitoshi pulled it off hastily and stuffed it in his pocket before Kaminari’s stupid, shocky finger could poke it.
Kaminari stood upright, regarding the things he’d just discovered again before his face split into a sunshine-bright smile. “Oh, man! They told me you were scary! Haha!”
What.
“You’re – like – the cutest! I bet you’re such a dork! Is everything you own cat-themed? Someone I know from your class said you have all these weird cat dolls that hold your things like little minions. Is it really ’cause you just like cats? We all thought it was because you were like this super-crazy supervillain, you know, like in the chair, stroking his cat?”
Hitoshi drew in a sharp, stinging breath. He ducked his head to hide his angry, insulted blush.
“Hey, wait! Shinsou!”
And he was back. Where did he get off to harass someone like this? To stalk them, to laugh in their face? Screw this guy. Why does he, of all people, get the stunning quirk, and the pretty face, and all the friends? Why does anyone get anything Hitoshi doesn’t? What did Hitoshi do to be dealt the cards he was?
It wasn’t fair!
Kaminari’s hand came into contact with Hitoshi’s shoulder. Hitoshi shoved him off.
“What?!” he barked. “What could you possibly want from me now that you’ve repaid your debt? A good laugh? Is that all I am? Well, you’ve had it, so get lost already.”
Kaminari was quiet, holding the shoulder that Hitoshi had pushed against.
You know what? If they want a supervillain, I’ll give them a supervillain. “You’re headed to U.A. right? Nabu’s golden boy. Well, you may have the quirk, but with that cocky attitude and barely any passing grades to back it up, I can’t see them ever letting you in. You’re going to make a terrible hero.”
Yellow eyes shone with upset. “Hey, wait a minute—”
And Hitoshi had him. Just like that. It was easy, his own second nature.
That blank stare didn’t make the eye-contact any easier.
“Your friends are on the other end of the skating ramps,” he stated, indicating the frightened onlookers in the distance. Kaminari turned like a zombie. “Go back to them. Take your time. Don’t trip.”
Kaminari obeyed.
With a damp sniff and watery vision, Hitoshi headed home.
His throat hurt from the crying and the Brainwashing. He hadn’t used it in years. He took a spoonful of honey before changing in his room. Then he laid on his bed, staring but not reading the crumpled note from his trouser pockets.
Villain scum. All capitals. VILLAIN SCUM. Like it was screaming. VILLAIN SCUM. Scratched into the paper like a horror film. VILLAIN SCUM.
Hitoshi fell asleep to the words villain scum.
“Hey, Mom?” Hitoshi asked over dinner. “How did you meet dad?”
“Oh, you know...” She never said it outright, but Hitoshi was old enough to infer that it was something fleeting, like a midnight stand or a summer fling, or something. She was single, Hitoshi barely remembered his face. There was child support, and Christmas cards. Birthday and Christmas allowances. A personalised present, if he was lucky.
“I mean, did he know about your quirk?”
They had the same quirk. Or, mostly the same. His father’s quirk commanded that people pay attention to him when he spoke with it activated. His mother’s quirk was Brainwashing, but people felt little more need to answer her than anyone else.
“Not at first,” she answered, cautiously. “Only when I was pregnant, and he asked if I had an idea on what your quirk could be. I suppose if the answer... it doesn’t matter. Why do you ask?”
If the answer had been different, he might have stayed.
Instead of Hitoshi Shinsou, there’d have been Hitoshi Mera. Mera, written as ‘good eye’. My name could have had the kanji for ‘good’.
Instead of being branded as a villain, I’d have had a dad who works at the Hero Public Safety Commission, surrounded by heroes.
“It doesn’t matter. I was just curious.”
It did little to ease Hitoshi’s mind knowing that if he ever wanted a life with a wife and children, he’d have to deceive her first.
The following day at lunch, Hitoshi ate behind the school. He was undisturbed for a total of five whole minutes.
“Hey.” Kaminari.
Hitoshi’s gut twisted up so violently that it made him feel ill, and lose his appetite. He didn’t look at him, kept his head down.
“I’d like to, um, apologise – for yesterday. It wasn’t cool, making fun of your stuff like that. For the record, I thought it was all super cute.”
Hitoshi grimaced.
“Can I sit?” Kaminari gestured to the spot beside him.
“No.”
Kaminari sat anyway. “Well, we’re gonna have to at least pretend to get along. The guys I was hanging out with yesterday went straight to their parents and they went to the principal. If they see us getting on, they’ll figure it’s a misunderstanding and you won’t end up in trouble, ya dig?”
Hitoshi pushed his rice around with his chopsticks. “But – it’s not a misunderstanding,” he said.
“Yeah, but, it was my fault. I upset you, man. I take full accountability.”
“Shouldn’t.”
Kaminari stayed silent for a moment. “Hey!” Before Hitoshi could stop him, he was already grabbing at the forms sticking out of Hitoshi’s open backpack. “Oh! You’re going to U.A.. Same! Oh, your birthday was last week! Mine too. On Monday. And yours... Aw, man, you gave me money to do the drinks-run on your birthday? I feel terrible. Did you get anything nice, at least? From your mom, or your dad?”
Hitoshi didn’t answer.
“Hey, come on! No fair.” Like the nuisance he was, Kaminari bumped their shoulders. “Tell me. What’d you get? Tell me, tell me, tellme, tellmetellmetell—”
“I got a new saddle for my bike. The one with cats on it. And a new chain because the old one was starting to chafe and rust, and I bought myself a new cat charm – for my spokes.”
“You mean your bike wheels?”
“The wires, yeah.”
“So you’re a big bike-buff, huh?” Kaminari grinned. He sat cross-legged, an elbow on each knee, holding his face.
“I guess.”
“Bikes and cats. What else do you like?”
Hitoshi thought for a moment. He shrugged.
“You know, for someone whose quirk relies on them using their voice, you sure don’t talk a lot.”
Hitoshi dipped some rice into his pot of soy sauce and ate it to preoccupy himself. Kaminari only waited. “No one to talk to, I guess.”
“Well that’s a lie, ’cause I’m here, and you’re just not answering!”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Kaminari put the forms back in the main part of Hitoshi’s bag. He had to put his bento box down to file it away correctly in the back envelope with the rest of his school books.
Kaminari said, “You should totally show me that new cat charm, sometime! I mean, they’re your special interest, right? Cute cat things? So, show me! I’d love to hear all the names you have for ’em.”
Hitoshi grunted through another mouthful of rice and soy sauce. “Can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Someone took the one I bought when they broke my chain yesterday.”
“Wait, what? Man, that’s not cool. Do you know who did it?”
Hitoshi didn’t answer right away. He sat back against the wall, kept his eyes off of bright yellow hair and pitiful eyes. “No.”
“Well, did they leave – like – a note?”
“Yeah.”
“With their name on it? Maybe you could take it to a teacher.”
“No.”
Kaminari made a strained noise. “Then – what did it say?”
Hitoshi kept quiet.
“Shinsou, what did it say?” His hand came down on Hitoshi’s wrist. Hand, maybe. Either way, it made him flinch. He’s never been touched by someone who wasn’t his own mother before, unless it was a ruffle on the head from his dad or when kids on the schoolyard used to hit him in elementary school for accidentally quirking one of their friends. A teacher had smacked him once for it, too, demanding that he lifted it at once. He hadn’t known how, at the time.
Hitoshi furrowed his brow. “‘Villain scum’.”
Silence.
Hitoshi closed his eyes. He expected Kaminari to run.
“Man, that’s the biggest lie I think I’ve ever heard. What bogus!”
Huh?
When Hitoshi looked at Kaminari, he found his usually cheery face twisted into something irate. “Shinsou, from what I’ve seen, you have a total heart of gold, man, don’t listen to them.”
He was stunned. His heart was hammering in his chest. “From what... you’ve seen?”
“Yeah! When I was following you around, tryna give you back your money. You like cute cat things, you like to bike, you study hard—I mean, you’re in the smartest class in our year—you gave money to someone you didn’t know just so they could pay for something, and you totally saved those cats from dying of, like, pneumonia or something!”
“What the hell? Are you some creepy stalker or something?”
“What? No. The term you’re looking for is ‘a man of my word’!” Kaminari exclaimed, pointing to himself proudly with his thumb. “Plus,” he added, “you’re headed straight for U.A.. All the greatest heroes go there. I bet they’d be real fools not to let someone like you in, my guy. You’re totally a hero. In fact, you know what I’d also bet? I’d bet my life on it. You, Shinsou, are a hero!”
Hitoshi gaped. “You’re insane.”
“Nope! Just honest!”
“B-But...”
“Annnd...” Oh, jeez, was there really more? Hitoshi didn’t think his heart could take it. “I bet you’d get all the ladies’ votes once you go pro, right? With a face like that, they’re sure to eat you up!”
Hitoshi felt his cheeks going red. He put a hand to his hair, trying to pat it into shape in case there was a stray. “Whatever.”
Kaminari laughed, butting their shoulders together. “Hey, you know what I also bet?”
“...What?”
“That you and I are gonna make pretty good friends by the time we head off to U.A. together, Shinsou.”
“U.A. – together?”
“Yeah. I like you, Shinsou. And I intend on keeping you around for a pretty long time.”
Hitoshi scoffed. “Get lost.”
“I didn’t hear a ‘no’...”
“No.”
“Aw, come on! You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”
“Oh, yeah, you wanna bet?”
Kaminari laughed, putting his head on Hitoshi’s shoulder to do so.
Hitoshi didn’t push him away.