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It had been raining for nearly three days straight. Creeks were overflowing their banks, miniature rivers of water carried soggy leaves down to pile at the ends of ditches, and the old dirt track that Hitoshi was following was practically unusable.
The mud was nearly ankle deep, and it stuck to the bottoms of his flimsy shoes. Twice now, one had been pulled off his foot, and he had had to use the thick staff he had pulled off a tree to fish around until he found it.
Honestly, Hitoshi might as well have left them there for all the good they did him. He had found the shoes in an alleyway two years ago and they had only gotten more worn since. There was a hole in the toe of one. Hitoshi’s big toe stuck out of it whenever he skidded on the slick rocks that were hidden below the mud.
Hitoshi had never been so exhausted in his life. He was soaked through with rain and sweat, his bag and everything in it was drenched and dirty, and he was caked in mud and slime up to his knees. His only saving grace was the fact that it was the middle of summer. If it had been winter, he would have frozen to death in the night. As it was, despite being soaked, he was sweating profusely and swatting at endless swarms of bugs.
He felt like he had been walking for years. In reality, it had only been a couple days, and according to the directions he had been given by a very nice lady at the bakery he had stopped by in the last town, he was almost to his destination. The city of Musutafu was perfect: reasonably large and with a big enough population and enough tourists that Hitoshi could melt away into the crowd. However, it was far enough away from the capital that Hitoshi didn’t need to worry about important visitors coming through the city.
He wanted nothing to do with Lineages. Attracting the attention of the gods rarely ended well, in Hitoshi’s opinion.
He had enough on his plate as it was. He had been planning this trip since he had turned twelve, though he had always pictured it as taking place under better circumstances. His twelve year old brain hadn’t planned for small details like eating or traveling in rainstorms that lasted for days.
He had had plenty of time to plan since then, though. Hitoshi had spent most of his life in the village where he had grown up hiding in the back alleyways between houses and behind shops. He was actively encouraged to spend as little time as possible at his parents’ house.
It was an open secret in his village that he had magic in his family somewhere. Hitoshi’s purple hair, a far cry from his parents’ subdued brown, declared that openly. Even in Lineages, it was rare that people were blessed with the ability to use small amounts of their patron’s power. Unfortunately, Hitoshi wasn’t part of a Lineage. People whispered behind his back in the streets, spreading rumors that he was hiding his real heritage, though they seemed undecided on which evil deity Hitoshi drew his magic from. His father had kindly not thrown him out into the street, but encouraged him to stay out of sight as much as possible.
Hitoshi spent most of his time working odd jobs, doing chores, pulling weeds in people’s gardens, and anything else that would get him a spare coin or two. His grand plan was born of days spent looking at the maps on the walls of the village library and nights trying to coax stray cats out from under bushes. He would move away from this place, from his parents, and open a cat rescue in Musutafu.
It would be the type of small shop that sold fresh pastries and hot drinks in the morning, and people could come in and have a snack while they picked out a cat to take home. It was a childish dream, and Hitoshi knew he would be lucky to even get a steady job.
However, it was his childish dream, and he held on to it with everything he had. He had managed to save a fair amount of money, hidden in a jar behind the trash bin behind his parents' house.
One night, his father had found his money jar and exploded at Hitoshi. After all he had done to keep Hitoshi around, Hitoshi supposed he was probably right to be angry that he hadn’t tried to pay him back. Still, Hitoshi didn’t think it was so wrong to keep most of the money he had earned himself.
He shouldn’t have tried to point that out to his father. Hitoshi had been thrown out on his face, and the essentials he had quickly packed into the biggest bag he owned were thrown out after him. He had set out for Musutafu that night.
Now, he was nearly there and still had no idea what he would do when he got there. He knew how to hide in crowds, knew where to pick up small jobs for quick money, but that wouldn’t help him when he looked like a half-drowned rat. His hair was plastered to his neck, his face and hands looked like he hadn’t washed them in years, and he couldn’t see what color his pants were underneath the mud. People were more likely to cross the street to avoid him than to hire him.
To put the cherry on top, the welts on his back from his father’s belt were still stinging. They rubbed up against his shirt with every movement, and he was fairly sure one or more was getting infected. There wasn’t even any clean water out here for him to clean them with.
Hitoshi plodded along, sticking his staff into the mud in front of him to make sure he didn’t trip over a hidden rock.
There wasn’t really anything he could do except go forward. He crested another hill and there, in the distance, looking a little like a three year old’s art project from his bird’s eye view, was Musutafu. Hitoshi didn’t know many gods. He had never had a lot of schooling, only knew the most important ones. He thanked all the ones he could remember as he started down the hill. Then he stopped.
A little way down the hill, tucked behind a screen of foliage and nearly invisible in the growing darkness, was a small stone building. It looked dilapidated and unstable, but the roof looked sound. Hitoshi reminded himself to thank the gods more often. Apparently, it got results. He started towards the building. He could sleep there for tonight, wait out the storm, maybe rig a water catcher out of some of his ruined clothes. In the morning, Hitoshi could clean himself off, shake the dried mud off his clothes, and walk into town refreshed and looking reasonably presentable.
He might even be able to make bandages for his back out of strips of fabric cut from his “water catcher” after he had finished cleaning off the dirt that he could feel encrusting his body. Hitoshi squirmed past the foliage and found himself under a sagging, dripping cloth awning that had once shaded the door. Even better. He could use that too-
Wait. Hitoshi squinted at the engraved writing above the door. He wasn’t a very good reader, but that looked awfully familiar. The awning dripped water onto his nose.
He wiped it off and looked at the door with a new resignation. It was a shrine. An old shrine, crumbling and decrepit, but still a shrine. You didn’t mess with shrines, unless you wanted the god attached to it to bring down fury on your head.
Hitoshi took back his earlier kindly thoughts about the gods. He had been right in never wanting their attention at all.
He turned to go. It would not be fun to slog the rest of the way, but it would be doable. Then he paused. Hesitated. Earlier, he had thought that the shrine had appeared in answer to his prayer. Maybe it had. The gods were supposed to be kind at heart, right? And this shrine was so old, it was hardly standing. Surely, surely they wouldn’t mind just one night?
Hitoshi’s mind was made up for him when he glanced back at the road to see just how far the city really was.
He looked back at the engraving, wishing he could read better. If it was unwise to disrespect a god’s shrine, it was downright idiotic to do so without knowing what god you were angering. The letters were old and almost illegible. Hitoshi thought the title started with “E-R-A.” The rest, he gave up on. If he was going in anyway, what did it matter?
He reached out to open the door. Turning the handle, he took a deep breath and pushed. Nothing happened. It took him ten more minutes and backing up to ram his full bodyweight into the door before it flew open and dumped him unceremoniously onto the floor. One of the hinges had splintered. Hitoshi cringed. Damaging the shrine further was probably not a great idea. The room was dark and covered in dust and spiderwebs.
Hoping none of the spiders were venomous, Hitoshi knocked his stick around in a corner until it looked relatively safe. He didn’t dare touch the awning, but he found an old hollow tree stump and stood it upright, wedging his ruined shirt into the cracks at the bottom. Hopefully, it would retain water.
He made himself as comfortable as he could, using his bag as a pillow. He didn’t really want to shove his face into the bag that was covered in all manner of things, but sleeping on his back hurt. It was uncomfortable. Hitoshi doubted he would sleep well, but it was better than nothing. He was out like a light almost immediately.
He awoke to sunlight streaming in through the broken-down door and the taste of his own hair in his mouth. Rubbing the fuzziness from his eyes, he cleaned up as much as he could. He couldn’t do much about the broken hinge, but he wedged the door back into the frame. It sagged oddly, and he had to use a tree limb to hold it up. His collector had not filled with water, but the shirt he had left out was soaked, and he used it to wipe most of the dirt off his skin and hair. He set out for Musutafu looking rumpled and smelling like musty air and old water, but he was passable from a distance.
Musutafu was…okay. It wasn’t the dream city he had imagined, but he had expected that. Thankfully, the alleys and backstreets weren’t much different from the ones he had known. He threw himself into the familiar rhythm of working, scrounging for food in the trash bins of bakeries and grocery stores, and climbing the roofs of shorter buildings to sleep where it was safe.
When he thought about it, actually being homeless wasn’t really different from when he technically had a home. He didn’t think about it. At the end of the week, he emptied the little bag he kept coins in and counted his earnings. He hadn’t done too badly.
Hitoshi hesitated. He could keep going, earning, saving. But all week, his mind had periodically drifted back to the little old shrine tucked away in the hills. He had taken shelter and hadn’t even said a prayer to the god of the shrine.
He made up his mind. If he really wanted to open his own business, it was common sense to make sure he didn’t have a godly enemy who would crush his chances before he even opened his doors.
The next morning, Hitoshi dropped by a little cafe that he had been able to find fairly regular jobs at. It was run by a tiny old lady who always wore a hat at least twice the size of her head. She gave him a fairly good price to sweep out the front patio, help her carry some heavy bags of flour, and clean the windows of the shop. He left munching on a roll she had shoved at him along with another two to tuck into his bag.
He was grateful. Having something in his stomach would make his next task easier. He made the march back to the shrine with a heavier bag than usual. The tree branch he had used to prop up the door had snapped, and the entrance was a gaping hole in the wall that had let quantities of leaves and several squirrels in.
Hitoshi rolled up his sleeves and attacked. He had pinched small bits of the cleaning products people gave him to hose down their front porches or whatever they needed done. He used a bough he had pulled off a pine tree to sweep out the room, then tackled the offering table, which looked like a family of raccoons had used it as a bed.
He still couldn’t do much about the door, but he lugged it out of the building and laid it down with the longer side flush with the foundation of the shrine. It formed a nice little porch. He had even found a large quantity of concerningly stained striped fabric in a trash bin. He cut it in half and used some to reinforce the awning and some to hang in the doorway.
When he finished, Hitoshi stood back, still pulling splinters from the shattered door out of his hands, and surveyed the effect.
It didn’t look half bad, really. Inside, the scent of pine needles still wafted around the cool room. Several candles (Hitoshi had impulsively splurged when he saw them on sale) stood on the offering table along with the rolls, which were now cold.
Hitoshi had packed up to leave, satisfied with his work, when he hesitated. He should probably thank the god for allowing him in here twice. He awkwardly knelt at the offering table. He didn’t have anything to light the candles with, but nevertheless he bowed his head to the little idol that he had scrubbed bird poop off of.
“Thank you for allowing me to seek sanctuary here. I, uh, I hope you find this acceptable.”
Hitoshi lasted a whole week after that before getting into trouble. The welts that his father had given him had been healing alright. He had been working without too much issue, and after he had cleaned the shrine, they seemed to heal even faster. He thought that was probably due to his overactive imagination.
Then, he’d been stupid. He should have realized that in a bigger city, more people would be looking for jobs. A small gang of street boys had cornered him. They weren’t seriously angry at him, he thought. They were just broke, drunk, and taking it out on the first victim that presented itself.
Still, he should have been more aware. His father had always said that he would come to no good. For the first time, nursing his arm as he ran full tilt through the darkness, Hitoshi wondered if he was right.
He had dodged the tipsy teenagers without too much issue, but as he walked as fast as he could without drawing more attention by running, they had started throwing things. A sizable rock had hit him in the back of the shoulder. What he thought might have been the edge of an open paint can had caught him right in the middle of the back with a jolt of agony as several of his wounds reopened.
He had bolted, the sounds of jeering following him into the night. He didn’t want to go back to any of his roofs. Any that he could get to, as short as he was from malnourishment, almost anyone else could get to as well. In a panic, he had gone for the only safe place he could think of.
It was a stupid idea. He didn’t even get halfway to the shrine before he doubled over, trying to catch his breath. It was nearing midnight, and in the light of the nearly full moon, everything looked eerie. His shoulder and back hurt. Still, there was no sense in going back now. Hitoshi estimated that it was around one in the morning by the time he actually reached the shrine that he had privately begun to think of as his.
Blood had been steadily soaking his shirt, along with paint from the can. The paint had probably gotten into the wounds. Hitoshi didn’t have anything to clean them out with. He would just have to depend on the slim chance that they didn’t get infected.
He flung his bag into the corner with relief. The bouncing of the weight on his back had been too much, and he had carried it with his good arm most of the way. By the end of the journey, Hitoshi was staggering and leaning on his stick for support.
Carefully leaning on the offering table, he stripped off his shirt, wincing as dried blood and paint pulled off his skin. He wished he had a mirror, disinfectant, clean water, anything that would help. Unsticking the shirt had opened a few of the scabs that were forming. Fresh blood dripped down his back. Should he be bleeding that much? Hitoshi didn’t know.
Everything he’d ever learned about wound care had been driven from his head by tiredness. If he didn’t have anything to tend the wounds with, did it matter if he just fell asleep without worrying about it?
Hitoshi sighed, leaning his head on his stick.
“You’re injured.” A voice spoke from behind him. Hitoshi whipped around with energy he didn’t know he had left in his body. There was a man standing a few steps into the room. Hitoshi hadn’t heard him enter. The man was dressed in black with a gray scarf wound around his neck. That was all that Hitoshi registered before, working purely on instinct, he swung his stick as hard as he could into the man’s midriff.
The man doubled over with a surprised grunt. Hitoshi darted around him and out the door. Instead of going for the road, he flew further into the trees, hoping against hope that he could lose the man in the dark woods. For the first time in his life, he willingly reached for his magic, directing it towards his feet and silencing the crackle and snap of leaves and twigs as he raced by.
Despite the adrenaline coursing through him, Hitoshi was still exhausted, and instead of continuing to run, he dodged behind a tree and stood there, quivering.
He listened. There was no sound from behind him. He shut his eyes and tried to direct all his remaining energy to his ears.
“You shouldn’t be running around without a shirt. You’ll get things caught in your injuries.”
Hitoshi nearly died. The man was in front of him again, having appeared without a sound. Hitoshi stood there, not daring to move. The man also stood there, making no move towards the trembling figure huddled against the tree.
“Who are you?” Hitoshi whispered after a minute of silence. “My name is Eraserhead.” Hitoshi’s heart dropped as several dots connected themselves at once. The “E-R-A” stenciled above the door of the shrine, the way the man seemed to move silently and always appear where least expected, the way Hitoshi had literally dropped his bloodied shirt onto the offering table. By the laws of the divine, Hitoshi practically belonged to this god.
He blanked. He was vaguely aware of pressing his forehead against the ground, of being suddenly aware that he had never been taught how to bow properly. He had hit a god with a stick. He had hit a god with a stick while in his own shrine, which he had broken down the door of only two weeks ago.
Then, through the terrified haze surrounding his mind, he caught a new voice arguing with Eraserhead’s.
“For All Might’s sake, Sho, I told you not to scare the kid!” “I only told him my name!”
“Yeah, after chasing him through the forest. Really reassuring, sensei.” “Just because I’m the patron of teachers does not mean I know how to deal with kids.”
The new voice, ignoring Eraserhead, gentled as it approached Hitoshi.
“Hey, kiddo. Sorry about Eraser, he’s a bit scary sometimes, but he doesn’t mean it. You don’t have to bow.”
Hitoshi, wondering who it was who could steamroll over a god like that, peeked up. And got his answer. He wished he hadn’t. He had never learned very much about the gods, but even he could recognize the silhouette of the god of music. He pressed his forehead back to the ground and tried his best to merge with the tree roots.
He heard a thud as Present Mic knelt beside him. “Sweetheart, it’s really okay, we’re not angry, you haven’t done anything wrong. You can sit up.” “Kid, we need to treat your back. You don’t have to bow, that is going to open the wounds more.”
Ignoring Present Mic’s hiss of “Gentle, Sho,” Eraserhead tapped lightly at the back of Hitoshi’s hand. “You are the one who cleaned out my old shrine, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question. Hitoshi mumbled an affirmative as politely as he could.
Eraserhead grunted. “You have my gratitude. In return, you will let me heal your wounds.” “With your permission.” Present Mic put in, giving Eraserhead a look. “We won’t do anything without permission.”
“But I did that in return for staying the night in the shrine, you don’t, don’t…” Hitoshi trailed off, realizing he had sat up a bit. Present Mic’s hand stopped him from slamming himself back down. “No, no, that’s alright, sweetheart. It’s alright to get up.” Eraserhead, apparently displeased with Hitoshi’s excuse, sighed, pinching his nose. “Kid, you didn’t have to do that in return for sleeping on the floor of a stone shack that hasn’t been touched since All Might took his last champion. That means I owe you a favor, which you obviously need.”
Hitoshi blinked up at him with watery eyes.
The god wanted to return the favor, to be rid of any obligation to a mortal. That was understandable.
“I-I accept your favor.” Hitoshi mumbled, quickly adding a “please.”
Present Mic helped him up, careful not to press on his back. Hitoshi couldn’t hold back a wince when Present Mic pulled on his sore arm. “Is your shoulder alright, kiddo?” Present Mic asked, leaning around him to get a better look and grimacing as he saw Hitoshi’s back. “I’m fine.” Hitoshi mumbled.
Eraserhead gave him a sceptical look. Present Mic shepherded him into a huddle with Eraserhead and gently wrapped an arm around him. Hitoshi just let it happen. If the gods wanted to toy with him, he’d already done enough to deserve it.
In the blink of an eye, the three were gone.
—-------------------
To Hitoshi, it looked like the forest blurred, smearing away like an oil painting that someone had poured water on. The effect only lasted a few seconds, replaced by something that looked like shiny wood. Hitoshi blinked and realized that it was wood. He was standing with his face to a wall that definitely had not been there before.
“Sorry! I swear I’m normally better at aiming than that, kiddo.” Present Mic, who still had his arm around Hitoshi’s shoulders, pulled lightly at Hitoshi’s good arm to turn him around. They were standing on the second floor of an enormous house panelled in the dark wood that Hitoshi had been able to study so closely.
It was the fanciest house Hitoshi had ever seen. It seemed exactly like the kind of house that gods would live in. Hitoshi was kind of scared to touch anything.
He felt more out of place than he had ever done before, standing half naked at the top of the stairs and trying not to leave dirty footprints on the carpet.
Eraserhead and Present Mic had been whispering to each other while Hitoshi had been trying to take the house in. Now, Eraser headed down the stairs while Present Mic tugged Hitoshi gently along into a truly gigantic bathroom a few doors down the hall. “We need to clean off your back before we can heal it. If you think you can do it yourself, that’s fine, but it might be easier if you let me rinse it off.”
Hitoshi considered. Present Mic was looking at him, waiting for a response. His hands hung by his sides, nonthreatening, open to whatever Hitoshi decided. His back really hurt. He thought about trying to rinse off his back with his shoulder.
“You can do it.” Better to go along with whatever the gods suggested.
Present Mic directed him into the swimming pool sized bathtub and looked politely away while Hitoshi awkwardly wriggled out of his pants and shoes. Hitoshi watched his face carefully while he folded the clothing on the side of the tub and settled down in his underwear. Present Mic’s eyes didn’t stray below his chest. He didn’t leer like some of the men on the street did. Hitoshi couldn’t say he felt comfortable, he was mostly naked in front of one of the most important gods in the entire pantheon, but he didn’t feel unsafe.
The only thing Present Mic did was make a face at Hitoshi’s shoes, which now resembled blobs of mud and rags more than footwear.
Despite himself, Hitoshi flinched badly when the warm water hit his back. It stung, and the water he could see running down the drain was tinted a yellowy-red with flecks of white paint. Present Mic murmured reassurances as he carefully scrubbed patches of paint off his upper back. When the cuts had been washed out, Present Mic gave Hitoshi the soap and left him to get the dirt off the rest of his body as quickly as possible.
As Hitoshi drained the dirty water from the tub, a quiet knock announced Eraserhead, who stuck a pile of clean clothes around the door without looking in. “When you’re finished, I’ll wrap your back.”
Hitoshi put on the fresh underwear and pants, careful not to get blood on the fluffy towel Present Mic had left on the counter for him. When he opened the bathroom door, Eraserhead was leaning against the opposite wall. He had a first aid kit dangling from one hand. He sat Hitoshi down on the edge of the bathtub and crouched behind him. Hitoshi was unsure of what to feel. He couldn’t see the god, but his hands on Hitoshi’s back were gentle and cautious. He had literally hit this divine being with a stick less than thirty minutes earlier, and now he was being bathed and cared for?
Present Mic poked his head into the room. “Food’s ready whenever you’re done here! By the way, kiddo, do your hands hurt?” Hitoshi blinked. His hands? He looked down, and realized for the first time that there were long splinters embedded in his palms. He vaguely remembered that his stick (the stick that he had hit a god with) had cracked in his hands as he ran through the forest. He thought he had tossed it down somewhere. Hitting Eraserhead had felt like swinging the stick into a stone wall. He was lucky he hadn’t punched him.
Present Mic sat down on the tub next to Hitoshi with a pair of tweezers that he had pulled from somewhere. Hitoshi slowly placed his hand in Present Mic’s outstretched one.
How was this his life? He was a homeless, mostly illiterate, sixteen year old who normally smelled like garbage. He was a nobody. Yet, here he was, sitting in the house of two gods, with one taping strips of bandage over his back and the other carefully picking splinters out of his hands with his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth as he concentrated.
Before he knew it, Hitoshi was wrapped in an oversized sweater that slid over his back without irritating it and bundled downstairs. Eraserhead plopped him down at the table in a surprisingly cozy kitchen and a plate of food was put in front of him.
When Present Mic had said the food was ready, Hitoshi had assumed he was talking to Eraserhead.
Should he eat it? Was he supposed to wait until they gave him permission? Unsurely, Hitoshi glanced at the other two, who were already eating. Eraserhead jerked his chin at Hitoshi’s plate. “If we’re going to heal you, you need enough energy that you won’t pass out.” That made sense to Hitoshi. The delectable scent rising from the food probably helped it make sense.
Hitoshi practically inhaled the food. When he had finished, Eraserhead filled his plate again without a word.
After they’d finished, Present Mic started picking up dishes. Hitoshi moved to help. Eraserhead might just want to repay the favor, but they hadn’t had to feed him. He wasn’t sure if he would dare go back into the shrine after this, even to leave offerings of thanks. It would be better to appease them now, then if he was lucky, he could snag his bag from the shrine without angering Eraserhead by overstaying his welcome in his sacred space.
Eraserhead stopped him. “No chores with open wounds.” He led Hitoshi into a room with large couches and shelves filled with books. Hitoshi wished he could read. Eraserhead sat on one of the couches, beckoning for Hitoshi to sit next to him.
Hitoshi didn’t really want to turn his back on the god, but he obediently pulled off the sweater so Eraserhead could undo the bandages.
A second later, wonderful warmth spread from the hands on his back. Hitoshi melted into it without realizing what he was doing. His back hadn’t felt this good for weeks. The hands even brushed over his bruised shoulder, taking away most of the bone-deep ache that he had been trying not to think about.
Present Mic leaned over the back of the couch. “That looks pretty good. We’ll have to take you to Recovery Girl tomorrow so she can heal the last bit.” Hitoshi stared. They were going to come back for him again? Why would they need to do that? They’d already healed him most of the way, judging by the lack of pain in his back.
Eraserhead had let him put the sweater back on, and the two gods were moving around the room, collecting blankets and reorganizing pillows. They looked very domestic, and not at all like terrifying beings who could kill him in an instant. Hitoshi wanted to cry. They kept being nice to him, and he was stuck between relaxing into the warmth and running in terror. There was absolutely no reason why they needed to keep him around. There were several reasons why they should dump him as soon as they owed him nothing. He wondered what “owing a favor” meant to a god, that it kept him here so long.
He wished they would stop. It would be so much worse to go back to his roofs and backstreets with this tantalizing bit of kindness still lingering.
“Shinsou? What’s the matter, kiddo?” Present Mic peered at him from across the room. Hitoshi felt like cold water had been poured down his spine. He hadn’t told them his name. They hadn’t asked. He couldn’t forget that these were still gods, no matter how warm the sweater draped around his skinny form was.
“Nothing, sir. If-If you don’t mind, I would like to get my bag before someone else finds it.” It was a flimsy excuse. No one was likely to find the shrine anytime soon.
Present Mic didn’t call him out. “I snagged your bag on our way here! It’s up in your room with the clothes you were wearing. We’ll have to give everything a wash, but I didn’t want to throw anything away without your say-so.”
“My room?” “Well, we’re not going to make you sleep on the couch! This house is really much bigger than we need.”
Hitoshi’s head was spinning. His room? Were they joking? Eraserhead didn’t seem like the joking type. Was there another reason why he was here? He felt stupid for not considering the gods’ possible other motives before. Were they going to chop him into pieces in the night? Was the meal they had just eaten a kid like him?
Hitoshi slammed down on his racing thoughts. He was working himself into a panic attack over nothing. If the gods had wanted to chop him up, there was no need to waste medical supplies on him. The meat he had just eaten had tasted like beef. He was fine. He was-
“Hey, hey, sweetheart, look at me.” Present Mic was crouching in front of him. Eraserhead was a few paces behind him. Both looked concerned. This time, Hitoshi did cry.
Present Mic, looking heartbroken, moved to hug him, but froze when Hitoshi flinched. “Why?” Hitoshi choked out. “Why am I here? What do you want?”
This time, it was Eraserhead who answered. “You’re here because we’re not going to leave a good kid on the streets. We don’t want anything from you.”
“We just want you to be safe, kiddo.” Present Mic interjected before Hitoshi could spiral into memories of stories he had been told when he was little about people who had taken too much from gods. “No ulterior motives, I swear. You are welcome here as long as you want to be. If you don’t trust us, we can find you a good home somewhere with a mortal family.”
“But I’m not a good kid. I-I’m a street rat, and probably descended from a villain. I hit you with a stick. I can’t even read.” Hitoshi whispered. “You’re- I’m not worth it.”
He was staring at his lap, and only looked up when a weight dropped onto the couch next to him. Eraserhead was looking him dead in the eye. “Whoever told you that you weren’t “worth it” was wrong. You aren’t descended from anyone except an offshoot of an old Lineage belonging to Hawks. That’s why you can use minor physical enhancements like speed. You are a good kid, and anyone who has told you differently was also wrong. Besides, it isn’t the first time I’ve been socked in the stomach and it won’t be the last. I’m more impressed that you managed to wind me.” “Who else would have put so much energy into that shrine?” Present Mic added. “And Aizawa here happens to be the patron of teachers. If you want to learn how to read, there’s no one better to teach you.”
Hitoshi sobbed. Somehow, he ended up curled most of the way onto Eraserhead’s (Aizawa’s, they’d given him his name) lap, crying into his shoulder. Present Mic (who he later learned was Yamada) rubbed his back, cooing random nonsense in his ear. At some point, Yamada got up, and Hitoshi raised his head with a whine. “He’s not leaving.” Aizawa quietly reassured him. A second later, Yamada was back with a purple cat stuffed animal which he tucked into Hitoshi’s arms.
Hitoshi had never had a stuffed animal before. Yamada and Aizawa hold him tighter when he shyly tells them this. Holding it makes him feel safer than anything other than his parents can. When his parents teach him how to reach out with his magic, he brushes over the cat and realizes that it’s enchanted. He cries again when he feels the love the enchantment was placed with.
Nearly seven months later, Hitoshi hides his tears in the cat’s fur when he realizes that this isn’t “his parents’ house,” but “home.”