My Father's Son - Chapter 53

“Have you got everything? Water bottles? Notebooks? Pencils?” “Yes, Papa, we have everything,” Yuuto assured him, huffing.

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“Have you got everything? Water bottles? Notebooks? Pencils?”

“Yes, Papa, we have everything,” Yuuto assured him, huffing. “We’ve gotta go!”

“Okay, okay! Have a great first day, I love you all!”

Yuuto slung a leg over his new bicycle, glancing back as Izuku moved to give Hiroki a goodbye hug, holding back his tears even though all three of them could see them anyway.

“You know the way, right?” he asked. “You’re not gonna get lost without Mirio here?”

“We know!” Hiroki assured him, giggling.

“Yuuto is gonna lead the way,” Ryouji told him. “He remembers the best, me and Hiro get distracted.”

“I’ve got it, Papa,” Yuuto insisted.

“Okay, my big boys! I’m so proud! Have an amazing first day, and make lots of new friends!”

Finally, Yuuto began to pedal, grateful to hear the others following along behind as he set off down the street. They stuck to the footpath, but moved to the side whenever someone else headed toward them, just like they’d been taught.

Truth be told, Yuuto was terrified. He was going into a class full of smart, talented people, people who had been learning and practicing for the class for as long as they could remember, while Yuuto had just been shoved into that kind of life at the last minute. He’d worked hard to catch up, with a lot of help from the cram school teachers, not to mention Ryouji’s patience with him over their homework, but a piece of him was still convinced that he wasn’t going to fit in right, he was going to fall behind and be pitied, going to find out he really was just there because of his dad, and not because it was the right place for him.

As he turned down a little path into the park, he glanced back, making sure the pair was still following him. Neither of them seemed to have any concerns about going to school for the first time, despite Ryouji’s claims that he didn’t want to meet new classmates and make new friends, but he supposed that was because they were together. They’d been best friends all their lives, boyfriends for almost as long, and after going to different pre-schools they were finally gonna get to spend every day together, sitting right next to each other. His class was seated by their names, which he didn’t really mind since he didn’t know anyone anyway, but Hiroki had excitedly told him that their teacher had let them pick their own desks, and now they got to sit together. Hiroki would probably be friends with everyone in class by the time homeroom ended, but Ryouji could just stick with Hiroki if he wanted, he didn’t have to go talk to people if he didn’t want to.

But Yuuto was a big boy now, he was six. So he was gonna go and be brave, and meet all his classmates, and learn all their names and maybe their birthdays so he could bake them cookies. The chocolate chip ones he’d made with his Nana the other week had been really good, he was sure people would like them for their birthdays.

When they reached the top of the big hill, Yuuto took his feet off the pedals, enjoying the way the wind whipped through his hair and made his nose go numb as he sped down it. He’d never ridden a bike when he was little, and he loved the speed that came with it, loved pumping his legs and seeing exactly how fast he could make it go, or letting the wheels just spin and spin as he sat back and enjoyed the ride

“Yuuuutoooo!” Hiroki called, his voice paling in comparison to the rush in Yuuto’s ears. “Be caarefuuuuul!”

The ground began to level out, and Yuuto let his bike slow itself down gradually, pausing at the corner to wait for the others to catch up. He was pretty sure Ryouji would have gone super-speed too, given the chance, but he always hung back to take care of Hiroki, using their brakes to slow their trip. Ryouji was the kind of person who drank tea or coffee just to be able to brush his teeth extra quick, there was no way he was scared of a big hill.

“You went so fast!” Hiroki gushed, when he caught back up. “Wow!”

“It’s fun going fast!” Yuuto grinned. “It’s exciting!”

“Have you been on a roller coaster?” Ryouji asked.

“A what?”

“I’ll tell your dad to take you,” Ryouji said simply, rather than explain. “You’ll like it.”

Yuuto nodded slightly, putting his feet back on the pedals when Ryouji passed him by, Hiroki close at his back. They could see the school now, with other people in matching uniforms all funnelling through the gates, so he didn’t need to make sure they paid attention anymore. He followed them, instead, to reach the bike racks, and took a second to stretch his legs when he stepped off the bike. Hiroki held a bike in each hand while Ryouji stepped forward, reaching to pull one into the racks carefully, then going back for the second. Yuuto was about to move forward and join him when he reached back, taking Yuuto’s last, and helping him rack it just like he had for Hiroki.

Even though he was Hiroki’s boyfriend, Yuuto liked that he was always nice to him, too. That was the kind of boyfriend a brother should have.

“Yuuto!”

He turned around to see a taller girl smiling and waving at him, and managed a little smile of his own as she hurried over to meet him. Her name was Uta, he remembered, and she liked playing music. She even played the violin, like Yuuto was learning. He’d told her he was gonna bike to school with the others, and she seemed to have waited for him. That was nice of her.

“How was the ride?” she asked, when she caught up. “Hi Hiroki, hi Ryouji!”

She remembered their names, too. That was pretty cool of her.

“It was fun,” he said. “There’s a big hill I got to zoom down.”

“Oh! That sounds so scary! I’m glad it was fun!”

Uta’s mom was a hero, so a hill being scary seemed strange to Yuuto, but he supposed it wasn’t Uta who was the hero, after all, and maybe she didn’t even want to be, even though everyone else he knew did.

“It wasn’t scary,” he assured her. “It makes the world go blurry and my face go cold and it’s cool.”

“Did you wait here for Yuuto?” Hiroki asked, as he slotted his water bottle into his backpack. “That was nice of you!”

“I only just got here,” she said, smiling. “I was worried you might not know how to get to your class, from here, so I thought I’d wait a little bit and see if you came! And you did!”

“Thank you,” Yuuto said. “That was nice.”

In all honesty, he didn’t know, but he’d just been planning to follow Ryouji – Ryouji always seemed to know, even when he said he didn’t. If he didn’t get distracted teasing Hiroki, that is.

Uta walked them all to the classrooms, chatting the whole way as if she’d known them forever, and Yuuto flashed her a big smile when she excused herself, waving goodbye. There were one or two more buddies hanging around, but most of his classmates were there alone, and he was grateful that he’d gotten one of the nicest ones.

“Good morning, Yuuto!” Norizuki said brightly. “How are you?”

“I’m good,” he said. “How are you?”

“I’m good too! I’m very excited for our first day as a class!”

“Me too,” Yuuto said, smiling nervously.

He shuffled off to his desk, unpacking his things for the day and putting his bags away, just as the bell rang for school to start. It made him jump, he hadn’t expected it to be so loud, but he quickly hid it, hurrying to his desk instead. A boy sat beside him, but neither of them had introduced themselves at the entrance ceremony, so Yuuto just shot him quick glances when he was busy, waiting for the right opportunity to steel himself and say hello.

“Welcome to your first official day of school!” Norizuki said, standing at the front of the room. “Today is all about getting to know each other as a class, so I’ve got some fun games ready for us to play! Who’s feeling excited?”

A few hands shot up in the air, and Yuuto lifted his a little, his nerves warring with his enthusiasm.

“And who’s feeling a bit nervous or scared?”

No one moved, but Yuuto could see people considering it, shooting looks around the room to see if anyone else put their hands up. Squaring his shoulders, Yuuto took a deep breath and held his hand up high, watching a bunch of other hands follow suit as soon as he’d gone first.

“That’s very normal,” Norizuki assured them all, giving a special smile to Yuuto for his bravery. “And I hope you know that we’re all a team, here. If you ever have any questions, even if you think they’re silly, please ask! Usually we find out someone else had the same question, but they were afraid to ask, so if you can be brave about it, they get to learn the answer too!”

“I’m Yuuto,” Yuuto whispered, when Norizuki turned to pick up some papers from her desk. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Tsutomu.”

“Hi, Tsutomu.”

Norizuki was speaking again, walking down the aisles to hand out pieces of paper with lots of colourful pictures on them, and Yuuto stared at it for a second, before he turned to look at the teacher again.

“Everyone’s page is a little bit different, so you’ll get to ask lots of questions!” she said. “You can stand up and walk around, so you don’t have to just talk to the people near you – go meet some new people, and find out what you have in common!”

Tsutomu slid his paper closer to Yuuto, and Yuuto smiled as he did the same, comparing their notes.

“Oh, I like natto,” Tsutomu said, stabbing at it with his finger on the page. “People think it’s weird.”

“I don’t like it,” Yuuto admitted. “But I like vegemite, have you tried it?”

“No, what’s that?”

“It’s a sandwich thing from Australia, my Dad’s friend lives in Australia so he brought it for us. No one else likes it, but I do! I’ll bring you some, another day.”

“Okay!”

Yuuto wrote ‘Tsutomu’ in the box in his clearest handwriting, leaning in to take a closer look at Tsutomu’s sheet.

“I have a brother,” he said, pointing at a box about siblings. “He’s in the other class.”

“A twin brother?”

“Kind of,” Yuuto agreed.

“Cool!”

Tsutomu wrote his name down, then they exchanged quick smiles as they stood up, looking around the room for other people to talk to. Tsutomu saw a group of boys nearby and ran off to talk to them, but Yuuto’s eyes landed on a girl in the corner, keeping her head down as she doodled patterns on the side of her page.

“I’m Yuuto,” he said, when he stood beside her desk. “Do you like to draw?”

The girl shook her head, and Yuuto tipped his head slightly, confused.

“Even though you’re drawing now?” he asked. “Why don’t you do something you like better, then?”

She shrugged slightly, and Yuuto immediately understood. He’d been like that on his first day at Hiroki’s pre-school, until Hiroki had taken him by the hand and dragged him around to meet everyone.

“What’s your name?” he asked, sitting down beside her.

She waited a moment, and didn’t lift her head, but finally she spoke: “Aiya.”

“Aiya? Okay, Aiya, if you don’t like to draw, do you play an instrument?”

She shook her head.

“What about a sport? Do you like swimming or dancing or something?”

Another shake.

“Then... Can you tell me about your quirk?”

She froze, and Yuuto blinked at her – he didn’t understand, this time.

“I’m gonna be a hero one day,” he found himself saying. “I have a cool quirk, I make little explosions, kinda like my dad but his are bigger. I can do lots at once though, he can only do one in each hand. I call them my sparks, and they go boom when I tell them to.”

She didn’t speak, but she seemed to be listening, so Yuuto continued.

“My hero name is gonna be Firefly, because when I was little my Papa took me to see fireflies in the park and they looked just like my quirk. Papa hadn’t seen it yet, so I showed him, and he was so surprised, and he cried but because he was happy, not sad. Papa doesn’t have a quirk. Oh, is that why you don’t wanna tell me? It’s okay if you don’t have one.”

“I do,” she whispered.

“You do? Cool! What does it do?”

“I... hear things.”

“Like super hearing?”

She shook her head.

“What kind of hearing?”

“I hear... thoughts.”

“Like a mindreader? Wow! That must be so cool, like if your Papa isn’t telling you something because he thinks it’ll make you worry, you can just find out anyway. You could be a super cool hero who finds out what villains are gonna do!”

Aiya turned her head, looking at Yuuto for the first time, and Yuuto gave her the biggest smile he could – he wasn’t as good at them as Hiroki, but he thought his smiles were pretty good. At least they were better than his dad’s.

“Only when I touch people,” she said softly. “But I can’t... stop it.”

“Oh,” Yuuto said, his smile fading. “So you hear them all the time?”

She nodded.

“That must be hard, it must get super noisy. Well, I won’t touch you if you don’t want me to. I don’t really like hugs and things either, so I don’t mind.”

Aiya nodded slightly, and Yuuto smiled again as he wrote her name on his page carefully. She looked over to see it, so Yuuto turned it a little, letting her read it easier.

“Now I have two!” he said proudly. “Tsutomu likes natto, and you have an exciting quirk! I’m gonna go find someone who likes to draw, do you wanna come too?”

She shook her head, but her bright blue eyes met his for the first time, and Yuuto felt like he’d won.

“Okay,” he said, nodding as he stood up. “Later, then. We can eat lunch together, if you want. I don’t have friends here yet, so you can be my friend.”

Aiya stared at him for a second, then nodded, and Yuuto grinned in return – yep, he’d definitely won.

“Okay! I’ll see you later!”

It didn’t take long for him to fill up his piece of paper – he met Wataru, who played soccer, and Ikari who liked to draw, and then Miko, who played the piano just like Hiroki! They talked for a long time, since they were both last on each other’s page, and Yuuto promised to play the violin for her when he got better, as long as she played the piano for him, too. Miko could be his friend too, he thought, and Tsutomu seemed nice.

Now he just had to find out if they liked heroes.

–––

Hiroki slid in beside Ryouji, smiling at Kitarou when he joined them, then at Kouichi on Ryouji’s other side. Their classmates had all formed a big circle, people from both classes all mixing together, and Hiroki silently lamented that he didn’t know any of their names – he probably should have made friends, but so far he’d just hung out with Ryouji. It was just so exciting to be in his class, was all! He had plenty of time to make friends, still!

“Alright, students, we’re gonna have a bit of a competition!” Terada announced. “We’re gonna go around the circle, and one at a time, we’re gonna tell the group something about ourselves. But here’s the tricky part! You want to tell us something unique about you, something that could be true about someone else in the group, but you think it’s just you. If it’s true about someone else, too, then you sit down!”

Hiroki wasn’t sure there was anything about himself that was unique, other than his whole family-thing, but he wasn’t sure exactly how to explain that in a single statement about himself. He'd heard his dads do it, but he still didn't understand exactly what their words meant, when they said them.

“I’ll start, and we’ll go around the circle this way,” Terada said, pointing toward Hiroki’s little section of the circle. “I’m an only child, I have no brothers or sisters.”

“Me too!” one of the kids said excitedly. “Just me and my Mommy and Daddy!”

“Oh dear, I guess I’m out!” Terada said, sitting down cross-legged on the floor. “Alright, your turn, Komiya!”

The girl next to him grinned, holding up four fingers.

“I have four cats!”

There was silence, and Terada grinned up at her.

“Does anyone else have four cats?”

No one spoke.

“Great, you get to stay standing!”

One by one they went around the circle, and Hiroki’s fingers tangled in the hem of his shirt nervously. He wanted to lean over and ask Ryouji to give him a suggestion, but he knew with everyone in a circle, they’d all be able to see him whispering.

“I speak four languages,” Kouichi said, when his turn came.

“Four?” Kitarou asked. “I thought it was five.”

“Four and a half,” Kouichi amended, though no one contested him either way. “Ryouji?”

“I have two dads.”

It was such a Ryouji choice to make, Hiroki thought. Something that sounded plausibly like he might think it was unique, while knowing full-well that the person standing next to him did, too. Thankfully, someone across the circle spoke up first, proudly announcing “me too!” before Hiroki had to say it himself.

Ryouji had always hated icebreaker games.

“Hiroki?” Kitarou prompted, when he didn’t offer anything right away.

“Uh...”

He glanced down at Ryouji, and Ryouji looked up at him curiously – Hiroki wasn’t surprised, it wasn’t often that Hiroki was lost for words. Ryouji gestured with his hand, wiggling his fingers, and Hiroki frowned slightly.

“My quirk?” he asked. “Lots of people have quirks.”

Ryouji sighed, all but rolling his eyes.

“Hiroki once helped stop a house fire,” Ryouji offered, for him.

“Oh!” Hiroki said, his cheeks a little warm. “Uh-huh, a few weeks ago.”

“Woah!” Kitarou said from beside him. “You didn’t tell me that!”

“I didn’t really stop it,” Hiroki mumbled. “I just didn’t let it go to the house next to it.”

“That’s super cool!”

The circle moved on, Kitarou taking his turn, and Hiroki breathed a sigh of relief. He had a little while to go before it came back to him, hopefully he’d be able to think something up in the meantime. If nothing else, he could still play the “switched at birth” card, but he kind of wanted to avoid that one, if he could.

He also could have just taken a leaf out of Ryouji’s book and gotten himself out, but Hiroki had always been told he was too competitive. He was working on it, he swore! Besides, being a little bit competitive was a good thing for a hero, right?

The circle started getting close again, but Hiroki was still drawing a blank. There were a lot of people who played piano or knew how to swim, what was there about him that was special?

Ryouji caught his eye, flexing his arms, and it took Hiroki a moment to understand.

“I can’t ride a bike,” Kouichi admitted, when his turn came again.

“Me neither!”

Kouichi sat down, and Hiroki couldn’t help but smile to himself. A few months ago, Yuuto could have me tooed that one, but Hiroki and his dad had fixed that!

“I can do thirty pull-ups without stopping,” Hiroki said.

“Thirty?” someone asked. “I can do two.”

Sure enough, no one me tooed him, and Hiroki smiled a little wider as the circle continued once again. The group was dwindling, already down to six people by the time Hiroki continued on with “I have a figure of every single hero in the top ten.”

With only one more person left in the game, Hiroki felt his stubbornness kick in. He didn’t like being second to anyone – Bakugous were never second. He was gonna win the damn game if his life depended on it.

Well, okay, maybe not his life. But it was important!

“I can read upside-down.”

Hiroki wasn’t sure he’d ever tried, to be honest, but he was gonna have to learn that one for next time.

“I have a boyfriend!” he blurted out, when everyone looked at him.

A few classmates tittered, but no one spoke up, and despite Hiroki’s flushed face, the game continued.

“I went to France on holiday.”

Damn it, Hiroki had never been overseas. He was gonna have to talk his dad into letting him visit Uncle Spooner in Australia.

“I went camping in a treehouse that was made out of the tree,” he said – he was pretty sure that one was safe, but he wasn’t sure if he’d been clear enough to make sure, so he quickly added: “The bed and toilet were inside the trunk.”

“I can do a backflip!”

“Show us!” someone insisted, and Hiroki felt immediately guilty for hoping he failed. But sure enough, he did it, and while everyone else applauded, he balled his hands into fists.

“I was switched at birth!”

The room fell silent for a second, before someone piped up: “what does that mean?”

Hiroki saw Terada grimace, preparing himself to explain, but Hiroki had done it a thousand times, and he no longer cared about keeping it to himself. Not when winning was on the line.

“The nurse changed me with another baby in the hospital,” he said. “So I grew up with a different Dad and now we all live together and I have a papa now and a brother who doesn’t have the same blood as me.”

“It was on TV once,” Ryouji offered, when the class just stared at him. “You can look it up.”

“That’s... definitely a unique one,” Terada agreed. “Showa, have you got another one?”

“I... I...” He paused, swallowing hard. “I’m related to Downfall!”

The class gasped, but Hiroki was too busy yelling over them to notice.

“You’re lying!”

“Ooooo,” the class chorused, every pair of eyes wide and waiting.

“Hiroki,” Terada said calmly. “Take a deep breath, it’s just a game.”

“I’m not lying!” the boy insisted, huffing.

“Yes you are!”

“You’re just jealous!” One of Showa’s friends backed him up smugly. “He’s not lying!”

“Yeah he is,” Ryouji said calmly.

“Hiroki, Ryouji,” Terada said softly. “Why would you accuse him of lying?”

“Because he is!” Hiroki insisted, tears forming in his eyes.

“He’s my Uncle,” Showa doubled down, folding his arms.

“No he’s not,” Ryouji said, standing up to take Hiroki’s hand. “Sensei, he really is lying, that’s not a fair game.”

“You’re right, it’s not fair if he’s lying. Why do you think he is?”

“Because Downfall is my Dad!”

The room fell dead silent, and Showa’s face turned bright red, his lips trembling as he stumbled over words for a moment.

“He’s lying!” Showa tried, his voice shaky. “He would’ve said it!”

Silently, Ryouji pulled his phone out of his pocket. It wasn’t meant to be there in the first place, and they all knew it, but no one dared to say so when he held it up to show his lock screen. Hiroki didn’t have to look to know what was on it, it had been there ever since Ryouji had first gotten a phone – his favourite old photo of the two of them together, with Hiroki’s dad playing with them, in full costume. Hiroki didn’t remember the day, he was too little, but Ryouji’s dad had told them he’d come home from a big fight, and instead of going to shower or change or take a nap, he’d gone straight to Ryouji and Hiroki, sitting down to wiggle a toy at them and watch them giggle. The toy was blurry, Mirio had snapped the photo on his phone in a hurry just to capture the sweet moment, but between the Downfall costume, the green-haired baby, and the purple-haired one, the image was unmistakable.

“He came to our entrance day,” Ryouji offered. “People saw him.”

“My name is Bakugou Hiroki,” Hiroki said, a little proud of how stern and sure his voice came out. “My Daddy is the number one hero, Downfall, and you are a liar.”

“Hiroki, that’s enough,” Terada said, sighing. “Showa, tell us the truth.”

Showa hesitated, but with every eye in the room on him and his friend, he slowly deflated.

“I lied,” he mumbled. “I got carried away about winning.”

“I hope we’ve learned a lesson today,” Terada said, climbing to his feet slowly. “Showa?”

“Mm-hm. I’m sorry.”

“Good. Hiroki?”

“I accept your apology.”

He knew it probably wasn’t exactly what Terada wanted, that he’d probably hoped for an apology for yelling, but Terada didn’t call him out, and Ryouji looked proud of him for it, so he felt like he’d made the right choice anyway.

“It’s just about time for our lunchbreak,” Terada said. “Kouichi, Kitarou, can you show Ryouji and Hiroki how we get our lunches at school? They can have the first turn fetching them.”

To some people it might have looked like a punishment, Hiroki thought, but growing up with his dad who got angry sometimes, he knew better. After a fight, even with an apology, sometimes you needed a moment to cool down, before you said something you might regret. Hiroki took the opportunity to just focus on breathing, as they walked, letting Ryouji field the excited questions from their buddies.

“You did good,” Ryouji assured him, when their eyes met. “I’m proud of you.”

“For what? Getting mad?”

“For standing up for yourself!” Ryouji said, smiling softly. “You’re too polite, most of the time, instead.”

“He’s my Dad.”

“I know that,” Ryouji assured him. “But you could have just pretended and let them get away with it, and I’m glad you didn’t.”

He was right, Hiroki knew. There’d been plenty of times at pre-school that he’d just let things slide even if he knew they were lies, because he didn’t want to argue about it and get upset. There was just something different about it, when it was his dad, though. He was proud of his dad, he didn’t want anyone else taking credit for him.

“I was proud too,” Kitarou offered, grinning. “Just don’t tell my teacher I said that, she’ll say you should have taken a deep breath and talked about it calmly, or something. Borrrrring. Your way was way cooler.”

“Yeah,” Kouichi agreed reluctantly. “If she asks, we told you to take deep breaths next time!”

“You want me to lie?”

The boys paused, and Hiroki cracked a smile, making them both laugh, looking relieved.

“If it were me,” Ryouji said slowly. “When he said ‘I’m related to Downfall’ I would have just said ‘me too’.”

Hiroki blinked at him, his jaw dropping as it dawned on him.

“You’re right!” he gasped. “I could have just made him sit down!”

“Maybe your way wasn’t the best one, then,” Kitarou laughed. “But it was probably second!”

“Nuh-uh,” Hiroki grimaced, screwing up his face. “Bakugous are never second.”


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