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Hitoshi trembles when his mother pushes the door to his room open. He knows what's coming, knows that she kept a close eye on him all day and tallied up all of his infractions to punish him for them now and he thinks if he could move, he would throw up.
But his muscles are locked up in preparation for the pain he's going to feel in a second and he can't do anything.
He can't even duck his head, which is clearly a new infraction if the way her eyes blaze is anything to go by.
"Being real defiant today, huh?" she mutters as if there's any universe out there where Hitoshi has ever defied her instead of begging at her feet to leave him alone but with his muscles all locked up, he can't even speak.
Which is for the best really, because speaking has only ever gotten him into trouble, too, and he's already in enough of that as it is.
His mother lists all of his infractions of the day, rattling things off that are barely worth batting an eye over but basically mean a criminal offence for him and Hitoshi lets the words wash over him.
Once upon a time he had made it a point to listen attentively, so he could avoid doing the same things over and over again, but it's been years since he understood that there is no learning for him.
The punishment his mother inflicts on him is something he can't ever escape because there isn't anything he can do right. If he behaves properly then it's the way he breathes that upset her and if he kept still and out of the way then the way his existence takes up space is a point against him and sometimes, Hitoshi thinks if his mother had that kind of power, she would have long killed him.
Just to be rid of his intrusive everything and in moments like this he almost wishes she could.
That inflicting a bit too much pain, using her quirk just a second too long would mean sweet relief for him, but it doesn't work that way.
Her pain is eternal and never-ending and Hitoshi will never be rid of it, that's for sure.
And he's too much of a coward to take his own life over it, too, so his only choice is to tough it out until he can move out and leave her behind.
While Hitoshi was lost in thought his mother must have run out of things to berate him for because the silence that rings out in the room is deafening in its intensity and cold sweat breaks out on Hitoshi's skin.
She hasn't even done anything yet and he thinks he can feel the phantom pain taking a hold of him already.
"Give me your hand," his mother says and even though unimaginable pain is in his immediate future, Hitoshi almost slumps with relief because that means today will be short, if nothing else.
Because at one point the pain will be so much that he falls of the bed and then his hand will slip from hers and her quirk doesn't work without physical contact and she feels as if she's too high above him to lean down and touch him again.
The days she makes him lay down first are the worst, because there's nowhere for him to go which means she can inflict her quirk on him for as long as she wants and gods, does she ever want.
Hitoshi's hand is trembling when he raises it up but he places it into hers without hesitation since hesitation will only make it worse and the faster they do this, the faster it will be behind him and yet he still can't stop the tears from spilling over.
"Don't even try to make me pity you, you know exactly what this is for," his mother sneers and tightly grips his hand.
It's already painful, just from how she crushes it and then the real hell starts when her quirk slams into him.
Hitoshi thinks he would scream if he could, but the pain—the very real pain—makes his muscles lock up so hard it feels as if everything is going to rip apart and that's not even to mention the way his arm feels as if it's splintering into pieces.
He doesn't know exactly how she does it, only knows the broadest description of her quirk—she can control the nerves of a person she touches—but she is definitely proficient at using it because one moment it feels as if his bones are breaking inch for inch before the pain shifts into something so burning hot that Hitoshi expects to smell searing flesh.
His flesh is fine, of course, because nothing physical is happening, but the pain is so acute and so real that he's sick with it.
It's all-consuming and white hot and he thinks he's screaming by now, no matter how tightly his jaw is clenched shut but he can't hear himself, the pain overtaking all of his senses and he barely even notices falling off the bed if it wasn't for the acute and instant relief when his hand slips from her grasp.
"Let that be a lesson to you," his mother sneers down at him, her expression akin to something she would give a disgusting insect, before she leaves him right there, panting and writhing on the floor.
Because even though the pain is gone, his body is confused.
Pain like that means a serious injury so his nerves continue to fire off even though nothing is wrong and he knows from experience that it'll take the entire evening to wear off, if not longer.
So he stays down, he stays on the ground where he belongs and he tries to breathe and breathe and breathe and not for the first time he falls asleep curled around a limb that's not even injured with tears crusting on his face.
~*~*~
"Are you injured?" Aizawa asks him, frowning as he watches Hitoshi gingerly use his arm and immediately, Hitoshi freezes up.
"No," he says, and it's not even a lie because there is not a trace of a wound on him, even though his body still thinks there is.
He can still feel his bones breaking and it makes him cautious and hesitant, and no amount of concentrating can change it because his body thinks the injuries happened.
Even though they didn't.
"Show me your arm," Aizawa says, clearly expecting Hitoshi to be a liar, but Hitoshi readily shoves up his sleeve, showing unblemished skin and intact bone off. "Why are you moving as if you are, then?" Aizawa wants to know, clearly more confused than before and Hitoshi bites back on the instinctual "Because I am".
It's not going to help. No one is going to believe him and nothing is going to change and since his mother is not leaving any visible marks there's not even something to be done anyway.
"I just slept wrong and I feel all stiff," Hitoshi lies straight through his teeth but Aizawa isn't fooled.
He has been catching on to the fact that something is wrong for a while now and Hitoshi dreads the day he's going to outright ask Hitoshi.
Hitoshi wants nothing more to tell the truth, to tell someone what his mother is doing, but there's no proof and with his quirk—the one time he did ask for help backfired spectacularly and Hitoshi is in no rush to repeat that experience.
Having her touch him for an entire night certainly had been a lesson.
But it seems as if Aizawa is over Hitoshi's excuses and lies, because he fixes him with a hard look and crosses his arms in front of his chest.
"I don't believe you. Something is up. This is not the first time you move like that and to be frank, I don't think you even sleep enough for this to be a recurring problem. And it's been hours since school started. How stiff can you still be?"
"Very," Hitoshi tonelessly gives back, dread pooling in his gut even as a traitorous part of himself dares to hope.
Maybe Aizawa will be different. Maybe he will listen to him and won't look at him as if he's the worst person in the world for making up stories about a woman who is doing her best with a villainous son.
Maybe.
"I'm not injured," Hitoshi finally says when Aizawa continues to stare him down.
"You're apparently not," Aizawa agrees and that bit of hope almost dies a silent death in Hitoshi's chest before Aizawa goes on. "But you act as if you are. Hitoshi, is someone hurting you?"
He sounds genuinely concerned and this, this simple question paired with that look, is enough to make Hitoshi burst into tears.
Because gods, is someone ever hurting him.
For a moment Aizawa looks at him as if he doesn't know what to do with him anymore, before he moves in and takes him into his arms and Hitoshi can't help it, he tenses up for a second because touch always means pain, always, but Aizawa's arms are gentle and warm around him and no pain follows and Hitoshi's knees buckle under him in relief.
Aizawa goes down with him, never once breaking the hug and Hitoshi clings to him as if he's five again and in desperate need of some comfort.
"Tell me about it. Tell me and I will help you," Aizawa says once Hitoshi's sobs have died down to pathetic sniffles.
"You can't. It's not—it's not physical and there's no proof," he gets out, his voice all clogged up and Aizawa only holds him tighter for it.
"I can. You just have to trust me."
And even though Hitoshi learned that he can't, that he shouldn't, he somehow does.
~*~*~
Hitoshi finds himself sitting in front of a detective, Aizawa at his side and his mother in another chair and he thinks he'll just die.
His mother will lie through her teeth like she always does and everyone will believe her and even Aizawa won't find any offence with her words and views and then Hitoshi will get punished so badly he might just die yet and he shouldn't have said anything at all.
He should have never spoken up, never said anything, never trusted anyway but—
"You keep saying I hurt you, but you can't even tell me how," his mother says, nothing but disappointment and sadness in her voice, before she turns to the detective. "I don't know what he told you but he's been trying to pin something on me for years even though I'm not doing anything."
"Before you continue to talk I have to legally inform you that my quirk is called Lie Detector. You can chose to stay quiet of course, but given the accusations here, that's not going to be a good look, either," the detective—Tsukauchi, his nameplate says—tells them and Hitoshi turns to look at Aizawa.
He didn't tell him about that before but with this—there's a chance his mother won't get out of this. There's a chance someone will believe Hitoshi, simply because it won't register as a lie to Tsukauchi.
"Told you it'll be alright," Aizawa mutters even as Hitoshi's mother scoffs.
"Now, your previous statement wasn't the truth. You are doing something," Tsukauchi states and Hitoshi watches how his mother's eyes flash with hate.
"I'm not hitting him."
"That is the truth," Tsukauchi nods. "But you are doing something to him. Are you hurting him?"
"No," Hitoshi's mother says and Hitoshi's stomach drops out when Tsukauchi frowns in confusion.
"Hitoshi, why don't you tell him what you told me?" Aizawa gently prompts him and Aizawa has relayed all the information to Tsukauchi already when he called him for this meeting but Hitoshi should probably speak up for himself, too.
"She's using her quirk on me. Making me think that I'm in pain."
"What is your quirk?" Tsukauchi asks Hitoshi's mother who scoffs.
"I can control the nerves of a person I'm touching, meaning I can make them move how I want as long as there's physical contact."
"True."
"There are also nerves for pain," Aizawa chimes in and Hitoshi's mother goes pale. "Can you control those, too?"
"Can you?" Tsukauchi repeats, clearly needing to be talked to directly and Hitoshi watches his mother's fingers twitch.
He instinctively moves closer to Aizawa, because it would be easy for her to reach out and touch him and make him think his arm is being ripped apart again and both Aizawa and Tsukauchi notice the movement with a frown.
"Answer the question. Can you control pain nerves as well?" Tsukauchi repeats and his mother sneers at him before she darts up, her hand outstretched and clearly aiming for Hitoshi's face.
Before she can make contact, Aizawa's hand wraps around her wrist, hard enough to audible make the bones creak and a quick glance to the side reveals red eyes and floating hair.
"Answer the question," Aizawa growls out and Hitoshi's mother practically wails.
"Of course I can! And it's nothing he doesn't deserve! It doesn't even leave any lasting damage, it's just a tool to remind him to be good!"
And it's so ridiculous, so incredibly fucking insane, that Hitoshi breaks.
"But I can't!" he screams back, for once not silenced by terror. "I can't be good, because in your eyes my very existence is wrong! So you make me hurt over and over again, make me think my arms, my legs, my chest are being torn apart, splintered open, burned to a crisp and then you act as if that should make me learn my lesson when all I did was breathe in the apartment!"
"And you shouldn't!" his mother screeches back. "You shouldn't even be alive and I'll learn how to overload your system to the point where it simply gives out one of these days and I'll do everyone a favour with it!"
Her words echo strangely in the room before Tsukauchi finally breaks the silence.
"True. I think we've heard enough. Aizawa, if you would?"
"Sure," Aizawa spits out and drops her hand as if she disgusts him and then he's ushering Hitoshi out of the room.
Everything feels a bit floaty, distant and muted, and Hitoshi's mind is stuck on one thought.
His mother did try to kill him.
She used him to practice her quirk all with the goal to eventually kill him with so much pain that it's unfathomable and before he knows it, tears are streaming down his face.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," Aizawa says, cupping Hitoshi's cheek in a hand. "But you're safe now, she won't get to do that, she won't get to touch you ever again, and you'll be just fine."
"I'm alone," Hitoshi gives back, feeling completely empty, because what the hell is he even going to do now, but Aizawa shakes his head.
"You're not. You've got me and Hizashi and you're not alone, kid, I promise you that."
It should be ridiculous, because how will that even matter once Hitoshi is dropped into the system, seeing how he's never even known his dad, but Aizawa sounds certain and sure and like he means it, and for a moment, Hitoshi can't help but to believe the lie.
And for a moment it almost feels okay.
(Once he figures out that Aizawa did mean it, and that he'll stay with him and Yamada, that he'll be loved and know touch that doesn't hurt, it will even feel more than okay.)