Chapter 2
Shouta wakes up inch by inch. When he finally feels coherent, he stares at his ceiling for a while. He has a feeling that his dreams were bad, but he can’t remember them.
It’s for the better, probably. He’s plagued by too many things while he’s awake to worry about the ones from his sleep.
Hizashi is in the kitchen, humming something with sleep-scratchy vocal chords. He’s cooking again, with ingredients Shouta definitely hadn’t had the night before. Shouta thinks that it helps him feel like he’s doing something.
Hizashi had become a hero to help people, to make things better. But they aren’t in high school anymore. They know that some things do not have easy solutions. So when he can’t do anything else, Hizashi cooks.
There is a blanket draped over half the couch. Shouta has two seconds to think about the hypocrisy of Hizashi sleeping on the couch after berating him for trying the same thing before Hizashi says, “Rise and shine, Eraser! I made breakfast!”
“I’ll set the table,” Shouta says, instead of anything else that comes to mind.
“I hope you’re in the mood for pancakes,” Hizashi says with a grin. Shouta thinks of feeling useless and the ways Hizashi can feel like he’s helping. He doesn’t say that he’d eat it even if he wasn’t, because that feels too much like tipping his hand.
He says, “Thanks.”
Hizashi beams and says, “For sure!”
—
Shouta leaves his key at work the next day. He realizes this as he stands in the hallway, staring at his locked apartment. He contemplates going back to the school to get his key, but he’s seen enough schools and enough children to last him the whole week. He doesn’t want to go back.
He contemplates asking someone for a place to sleep tonight. The options are Hizashi and Nemuri. Hizashi has just gone above and beyond doing things for Shouta. Nemuri will laugh at him for an hour and then say yes, but he’ll be subject to mockery for the rest of time.
He contemplates going around the building and breaking in through his window. He might get the cops called on him, because it’s mid-afternoon and that’s not an inconspicuous time for breaking and entering.
In the middle of these contemplations, the Shiranui-Morino apartment door creaks open and Neji pokes his head out. He looks both ways, catches sight of Shouta, and falters.
Shouta says nothing. He’s pretty sure a dead fish would have more of an expression than he does, at this point.
Neji squints his eerie eyes. “What are you doing?”
Shouta bites back I could ask you the same thing. “Locked myself out,” He says flatly.
Neji gives him a faintly dubious look. “Pick the lock,” He says like it’s obvious.
“With what?” Shouta snaps, and immediately feels bad.
Neji glares at him for a long moment. He dips back into the apartment, but he leaves the door open. He reappears a minute later, squirreling through the gap like he doesn’t want it open any further than it already is.
He slots himself between Shouta and Shouta’s door with only a final suspicious look and starts picking the lock. Against all odds, it takes him about ten seconds.
As he turns to say, “See?” with impressively snooty self-importance for a kid, Shouta catches the edge of a bulging vein fading into the kid’s temple.
Vision-based Quirk? X-Ray, maybe.
“... thanks,” Shouta says, belated. And then, almost against his will, “How’s Kiba?
Neji’s face goes from judgemental to neutral in a blink. “Why?”
Shouta raises his hands a little, frowning. “I haven’t seen him around, is all. Something wrong?”
Neji stares. Assesses him, sweeping a look over him head to toe. He mutters.
“What?”
Now the glare is back. “Kiba’s gone,” Neji says shortly.
Shouta’s eyebrows shoot up. “Gone where?”
Neji shrugs. “He’s staying with a- cousin.” And before Shouta can dig into that, the door Neji had been so careful to open only so far swings out into the hallway.
Genma steps out, clearly just woken up. “Neji,” He says, like he’s barely refraining from sighing. “What are you doing?”
Shouta feels like his brain is trying to kick into overdrive from a standstill.
“Helped him with his door,” Neji says. His hands are suddenly empty of any lock picking tools.
“Oh,” Genma says, evidently still shaking off his nap, because he doesn’t ask any more questions. “Good job. Come back inside, please.”
Neji goes without even a sneer or scoff. The sound of their door closing makes Shouta want to startle out of his skin.
He enters his apartment, mind tying itself in knots.
(The way Neji had peered out of their apartment when Genma had made him say thanks, like he didn’t want to get any closer—Shouta had assumed his reluctance was for the thank you itself. Was it actually wariness of Genma?
The way Kiba had said, “my ma lives far away.” The unexplained thuds. The way Genma had closed his eyes and said, “When do you want it?” and how too soon after, Neji had said, “Kiba’s gone.”)
—
“Tell me I’m imagining it,” Shouta says. “Tell me I’m being paranoid.”
Hizashi chuckles nervously. “You’re being paranoid,” He says, but his eyes slide away like he’s thinking about it too.
—
Shouta tries not to stare.
“Aizawa, hey!” Genma says cheerfully. He waves with his free hand, because the other is occupied with the hand of a child. This isn’t so strange, except that it’s not Neji. It’s not Kiba, either.
It’s a little pink-haired girl who looks at him with big green eyes. Genma gently shakes their connected hands. “This is our neighbor, Aizawa Shouta. Say hello, Sakura.”
“Hello,” She says. “I’m Sakura. It’s nice to meet you.”
Polite. A rarity. “Hello,” Shouta says, trying to corral the suspicion to the back of his head.
“Good to see you again,” Genma says. “I’ve been busy with work lately, and sleeping like a log the rest of the time. Oh, but Neji helped you out the other day, right?”
“Right,” Shouta says, and against his better judgment, asks, “How is he?”
Genma smiles, the same easy one he wore when Shouta first met him. “He’s good. Grumpy, but he always is!”
“And Kiba?” Shouta continues, in the same tone.
“Ah, Kiba’s staying with family right now,” Genma says. No hesitation. An indicator of honesty, or a practiced lie?
“I see.”
“Let’s get you settled, huh?” Genma says to Sakura. “See you around, Aizawa!”
“Yeah,” Shouta says, and fails to convince himself that everything is fine and there’s nothing to worry about.
—
“Okay, that is a little weird,” Hizashi admits.
Right?? Aren’t there, like, meetings and stuff before you take responsibility of a whole child?
Hizashi shrugs. “Well, maybe if they had advance warning that Kiba’s cousin was going to be available… or if they originally planned to have three kids in the house at once…”
That’s too many kids. Who has the time?
“Not everyone works two jobs, Shouta. Plus, Morino stays at home, right?”
As far as Shouta can tell, yeah.
“Keep an eye on it,” Hizashi advises. “But remember that it could be nothing.”
Could be nothing. When has Shouta’s luck ever been that kind?
—
Sakura and Neji are playing by the mailboxes. Well, Sakura is pulling Neji along by the wrist, pointing at various things in the dirt, and Neji isn’t stopping her.
Shouta wishes Hizashi was here to deflect their attention. He doesn’t need to collect his mail right now, does he? He can wait.
… what is he doing? He’s a pro-hero, and a teacher besides. They’re, what, seven? This is ridiculous.
He goes to get his mail. Neji notices him first, suspicion written all over his face. Sakura doesn’t look up from whatever she’s doing until Neji says, “What do you want?”
“My mail.”
The kid huffs, like that’s an inconvenience or something. Sakura rises from her crouch, something cradled gently in her tiny hands. She gestures, like she wants him to hold out his own hands.
Shouta, filled with dread, does.
“Here you go,” Sakura says solemnly, and deposits a worm in Shouta’s palm.
“Um.”
“It’s a worm,” She says helpfully. “For you.”
“... you shouldn’t have.”
She gives his hand a little pat. “Don’t worry. I can find more. Keep that one.” Then she grabs Neji by the wrist again and wanders off. Presumably looking for more worms.
The one in Shouta’s palm wiggles. He hates it. He collects his mail with the other hand and tries to keep his face neutral. He puts the worm in the dirt beside the front steps when he’s mostly sure Sakura’s distracted, and then goes back to his apartment as quickly as he can without making it look like he’s running away.
—
Shouta is grading when he hears the crash. It’s sharp, like breaking glass. He considers the papers in front of him, and then the wall that separates him from his troublesome neighbors.
He thinks of Neji, suspicious, and Kiba, missing, and Hizashi saying, remember it could be nothing.
It could be something, though. Shouta doesn’t want to wake up someday wrestling with guilt in the shape of I thought it was nothing. This is the driving force that gets him up from the table and knocking on the Shiranui-Morino apartment door.
Morino answers with a glare that deepens when he sees Shouta.
“Everything alright?” Shouta asks.
Morino grunts. “Vase broke.”
That would account for the noise, yes. “Need any help with cleanup?”
“No,” Morino says, and shuts the door.
Shouta returns to his apartment, feeling vaguely uneasy. He shouldn’t. Things break all the time. Even more so with children around. What are the chances it was something out of the ordinary?
Negligible, really.
—
Next time, the knock is on Shouta's door. He opens it, expecting Nemuri to some degree—Hizashi doesn't knock and he doesn't know who else would be visiting—and it definitely isn't. His head tips down to look at Sakura, who is looking back at him with a very serious expression on her very small face.
“Hi,” She says. “Do you have any sugar?”
Shouta blinks. Processes, blinks again. “Sugar,” He repeats.
“Yes, please,” Sakura says. “Just a little. A fourth of a cup.”
… right. “I have sugar,” Shouta says. “Why do you need some?”
Sakura keeps looking up at him. Shouta notes, again, that her eyes are big and green. “Because we don’t have any.”
Yeah, alright, smartass. Shouta steps back slightly, thinking both on the merits of giving her sugar and shooing her away, or bringing the sugar over himself to snoop. Snoop feels like an undignified word, but also the one Hizashi would use.
“Sure,” Shouta says finally. “I’ll grab you some.” He moves away from the door and into the kitchen. Little feet tap-tap-tap after him, so he takes the opportunity to ask, “Baking with Morino?” Because he’s reasonably sure Genma is working at this time, and hopefully Morino is not the type to let small children operate the oven by themselves.
For a long moment, Sakura doesn’t answer. When Shouta turns, sugar in hand, she has a funny expression on her face. “No,” She says. “Ibiki-san doesn’t bake. He cooks.”
Shouta gestures toward the door, and then follows when Sakura leads the way back out of his apartment. “Is Genma helping, then?”
Sakura shakes her head, pink hair brushing her shoulders. She opens the Shiranui-Morino door and- well, Shouta isn’t sure what he was expecting. It’s an apartment. The layout is the same as his; the only differences are in the decorating.
Shouta hovers a bit, unsure if Sakura is going to announce his presence or not. She doesn’t, heading towards the kitchen. Shouta wonders for a second if he should announce himself.
“Are you coming?” Sakura says from the kitchen. “Genma-san’s gonna be home soon and this is gonna be a surprise.”
Shouta stays where he is. He feels caught, somehow. “Is Morino home?” He asks. The whole apartment seems too quiet. Empty, almost.
“He stepped out,” Sakura says primly, like she’s parroting someone.
Shouta doesn’t ask how long ago. The apartment door is open behind him, but he doesn’t move to close it. He doesn’t think he’ll be here long, anyway. He does continue into the kitchen, because he really, really hopes Sakura isn’t trying to cut or bake anything by herself.
She is not, it turns out. There’s just a small bowl on the counter, full of brown powder.
“I’m not baking,” She adds like an afterthought. “I’m making hot cocoa. I wanted some but we didn’t have any mix. So I looked up a recipe and it’s just cocoa powder and sugar. And I measured out the cocoa powder before I knew we didn’t have any sugar.” She holds out a hand, expectant.
“How much do you need?” Shouta says, rather than trust a six or very small seven-year-old with a whole bag of sugar.
She frowns at him, but it ends up looking like a pout. “I can measure it myself.”
“Right,” Shouta says, and decides after a moment that he doesn’t care if her mix turns out badly, just whether or not she’s playing with fire.
She proves her claim by delicately and precisely measuring out what she needs, and then handing him the sugar back. “Okay,” She says. “Thank you for your help and goodbye.”
“Yeah,” Shouta says, slightly puzzled. “Bye.” On his way out the door, he pauses. Caught, again, by how empty the apartment seems, even though there’s no lack of furniture or anything. “Do they leave you home alone a lot?”
Sakura treats this idea as absurd. “I’m not alone. Neji is here. And Genma can keep track of us from work.”
Shouta’s response to the first half of that—something dry, like oh of course you’re not alone if another child is with you—dies on his lips. His knee-jerk reaction is to ask questions. Is it a Quirk? A monitor of some kind?
He doesn’t. “Good,” He says, even though he’s not reassured at all, and leaves. Sakura is, after all, not his problem.
Or so he keeps telling himself. For some reason, he gets the feeling that his neighbors are going to become his problem sooner or later.