Chapter Text
I looked at you and said, oh-oh-oh Don't hate me,
am I crazy? So tenderly you watch me burn,
you watch me burn, oh So tell me, am I crazy?
He learned the house by sound long before he learned to read its faces. At thirteen, Shouta Aizawa could get around the house by observing the patterns of anger: the staccato bursts of frustration that warned Hisashi had started and the quiet, muffled cries that meant Inko had broken down and was desperately trying to pull herself together.
He sat at his desk with a physics book open and a pencil in his fingers, listening to the dispute through the plaster. He heard muted vowels and the hollow thud of a door slamming and he kept his eyes on the page as if the ink alone could hold him together. Through the window, the city exhaled its usual routine; within the flat, however, permeated a heavy, smoky air that clung to him. He inhaled it, dry and unchanging, until it faded into mere silence.
The fighting had a rhythm, a predictability that was worse than surprise. It moved to the rhythms of overdue payments and unsettling timing, alongside men who did not find it in themselves to say they're sorry. Hisashi’s voice dripped with the confidence of someone who had never felt the need to shrink away; Inko’s was filled with the exhausted tenderness of someone who endured despite it all. Shouta realised exactly when he needed to let go of any hopes for change. He mastered the art of counting syllables, able to figure out from a single strong word whether the argument would burst out like a flood or fade away into tranquillity.
He mastered the art of remaining perfectly still, shrinking himself into a shadow, hoping that the storm outside would pass him by unnoticed. Mastering the art of invisibility turned into a true talent. So, too, did not intervene.
He convinced himself that it didn’t matter. That was the armour he wore for school, the expression fixed in place for teachers and strangers: flat, efficient, impenetrable. It was easier to pretend to be indifferent than to draw the features of his mother’s face after yet another fight, only to discover sorrow lurking where comfort should have been.
His gaze lingered on Inko’s hands rather than her eyes - roughened at the edges from hard work, knuckles occasionally coated with detergent, always shaking slightly when she used her quirk for a mug - and he silently noted the small lies. Every little bruise that went unnoticed in his home life added up until it seemed like a ledger he didn't owe.
As the loud voices echoed into the night and the echoes of children's joy danced through the streets below, Shouta would set his book aside, allowing the city's distant noises to wrap around him like a bitter, detached tune. He found comfort in the usual forms of his room: the precise tilt of the desk lamp, the distinct creak of the chair by the entrance and the specific place where the sunlight would fade away by three in the afternoon. Everything was perfectly organised and quantifiable, but emotions were not.
There was an unsettling weight nestled within him, a lingering warmth from conflicts he didn't intend to engage in. He set them up meticulously, keeping them neat and contained – just enough to serve a purpose, but never enough to evoke a sense of warmth.
There were nights when the sounds wrapped around him, stirring emotions that felt long forgotten and beyond reason. He sat on the edge of his bed, hearing a faint echo of a newborn's wail drifting through the thin walls along with a weak cough, a fragile plea. An unexpected wave of tenderness washed over him, only to be quickly replaced by a growing grip of guilt. Tenderness was a gift for those whose fathers had not left them behind; shame was the burden carried by those unable to forgive their mothers for opting for a life that demanded so much yet gave so little in return.
He tucked those moments away like old, frayed sweaters: acknowledged, then hidden in the depths of the closet where they could no longer be embraced.
Still, even a vow of indifference leaves a shadow. The parts of him that noticed absorbed the details: the way Inko’s voice settled on a gentle tone when she thought she was alone, the subtle, ashamed quiver in Hisashi’s jaw after the forceful smack of a cupboard door. These were not signs of a marriage being rebuilt, but rather a reminder to what it once was
- two individuals who drifted apart and continued to do so until their mistakes became the only way they communicated.
For the moment, Shouta decided that the best option was to observe rather than get involved. He honed his decision into a matter of survival: he would graduate, move on and ensure that the chance of being hurt by them would never come up again.
The shouting never started loud. It started out as a thin conversation at the kitchen table, with words so frail that they slipped on the tongue.
Shouta heard the sound of ceramics scraping against wood, the loud clatter of chopsticks being set down too hard, and then the impending rise: Hisashi's voice booming like smoke and Inko's breaking like glass. They believed the walls would soften the edges, but every word flowed through, staining the flat until Shouta could taste the bitterness in his throat.
"You think you know what this family needs?" Hisashi's remarks hurt deeply and they weren't even meant for her ears alone. He wanted to be heard, even by the son he claimed to ignore.
"You made all the mistakes that made us this way." The weight of his words hung heavy in the air, leaving a silence that felt suffocating.
Shouta stayed still. He didn't open the textbook and rather stared at the lines in his notepad, even though his pen had stopped writing halfway through a word. His chest rose shallowly, as if even air could reveal his presence. He didn't want to see his mother's face, which was twisted in an apology she shouldn't have to make.
He didn't want to see the veins in his father's throat come out. That was the same throat that had held him on its shoulders when he was a child.
He didn't want to see the love that had once been there turn into a shell that neither of them had the courage to bury.
The arguments had a rhythm, and he could tell if they would happen: Hisashi would accuse Inko, Inko would deny it, there would be stillness, and then the explosion. It came now with the sound of a chair sliding across the floor. Shouta felt the tremors in his bones as Hisashi's voice grew louder.
"You've messed up this house. Do you even realise what you did?”
And Inko's answer, which was low and shaky, was worse. “I tried. I tried to keep it together. I did everything I could for you. I tried for him. A pause, shaking. "I tried for Shouta."
His name sounded like a knife. It held him in place, as if his life was a weapon in a war he never intended on engaging in. He stared at the page until the letters started to blur, his jaw tightened and the moisture started to build up in the back of his eyes.
He hated that he was the reason, hated that his father's love for him was turned into a weapon and hated that his mother used it to show how weak she was. He felt less like a son and more like trash every time they said his name like that.
Something was banged shut. A glass broke and the pieces flew across the kitchen floor. He pictured his mother kneeling down to pick up the pieces with shaky hands, which made her cut herself. He thought about how his dad would step over the debris without glancing down. Neither vision shocked him. Neither vision changed the persistent feeling in his chest that this was not a house but a stage for two people who were unwilling to leave and too exhausted to stay.
He wanted to be anywhere except here. He wanted to be out in the city streets, where strangers' voices carried amusement instead of anger or back at school, where stillness represented respect and not defeat.
He wanted walls that were thick enough to keep fights from waking him up. He wanted a place where his name was just a name, not something that hurt him every time.
But he stayed at his desk because he had learnt how to be a quiet listener and a cautious witness. He wrote things that he wouldn't remember on the paper again, as if writing could drown out the sound of his family falling apart. The words outside rose and fell, like a storm he had previously seen coming, a storm that never ceased hitting the same weak walls.
The fight in the kitchen faded into a memory of a different, long-past battle. The voices changed in his mind, not increasing in volume, but becoming more sharp like blades honing against one another.
At fifteen, he understood the gravity of the situation, yet he clung to the fragile hope that perhaps, just perhaps, they would find a way to put an end their demise before they shattered one another entirely.
He recalled Hisashi’s voice, a deep growl that resonated throughout the living room. “Do you really think I’ll buy into this?” That this child - this mistake - may have anything to do to me?”
Inko stood with her back against the counter, her hands pressed flat against her stomach, as if trying to shield her unborn child from the storm of his wrath. “Your beliefs hold no weight. He is real. I won't act like it's any different."
Shouta stood frozen in the hallway, clutching his notebook filled with half-finished thoughts, his heart racing as he teetered on the edge of retreat and the unknown. He ached to intervene, to utter a word - any word - but his voice betrayed him, caught in a silent struggle.
The air was dense and filled with unspoken tension and he felt deep down that his voice would fall on deaf ears. The air rumbled with his father's rage and his mother's despair, enveloping him like a thick fog; he felt utterly invisible in their storm.
The weeks that came after were quiet, yet not in the manner he craved. The stillness filled the house, transforming it into a realm where whispers lingered in the air. Hisashi went away for what felt like a lifetime, returning with the heavy scent of alcohol and a lingering bitterness that wrapped around him like a shroud.
Inko slipped through the rooms, a ghostly presence, her fingers swiftly folding laundry while soft lullabies escaped her lips, serenading a belly that swelled with expectation. Shouta's bitterness deepened during those long months. Every curve of her stomach carried the weight of a decision that drove them all to deeper misery. He understood it was unfair, yet the concept of justice had faded away in their home long ago.
In the hospital, soaking in the cold, sterile light of fluorescent lights, he found himself at the foot of the bed, watching as Inko held the baby in her arms. She glowed brightly, even through the tiredness, her cheeks glowing and her eyes shimmering with an emotion that was not despair for a change.
She gazed at the newborn, her expression softening as if her memories of past arguments and the sound of doors slamming had faded into nothingness. Shouta found himself utterly puzzled by that.
Hisashi was absent. His absence appeared in the space like an unfillable void and Shouta felt the heavy weight of it weighing down on him. A nurse lightly asked if he wished to cradle his brother in his arms. He shook his head with such force that it likely came off as impolite, but he was far from caring. The idea of holding out to him - the thought of allowing that fragile warmth to fill his heart - filled him with a fear greater than any of his father's terrifying words.
Connection was vulnerability. Love was a burden he could no longer bear.
As the night grew darker and Inko succumbed to slumber, the shadows in the room seemed to whisper secrets and Shouta found himself getting nearer. The baby moved in the cradle, delicate hands fluttering, lips parting with a gentle whimper.
He lingered there, longer than intended, his fingers clutching the edge of the cot with a mix of wonder and uncertainty.
He reassured himself that his only concern was to keep the noise from disturbing his mother’s slumber. He reassured himself it was small as he drew nearer, captivated by those large green eyes that gazed up at him with pure awe.
Yet anger gripped his insides, a feeling he suppressed swiftly and with force. That stare - that unwavering, innocent faith - was too much to bear. It filled him with a sense of responsibility and in this context, responsibility was merely a synonym for sorrow.
He withdrew, slumping into the chair in the corner, observing from afar until the baby's breaths became steady and calm.
In that moment, a sudden realisation washed over him, sharp and undeniable: he would keep his distance forever. He would endure this home, this family by keeping himself at a distance.
The baby would be cherished by their mother, overlooked by their father, while Shouta remained a constant presence, yet always out of reach.
He refused to give in to a bond that could be manipulated into a tool of destruction. He would be unbending, a force of nature, not merely a being of skin and bone.
And yet - he could still hear the haunting whisper of that delicate wail in the stillness of the night, the way his own hand had lingered above the crib before retreating into the shadows. He kept that sound in the depths of his mind, ensuring it could never find him again. At least that’s what he kept convincing himself.
"Izuku dear, can you see your brother here?
I think he was exhausted with all the hero stuff he had at school." Inko chuckled weakly as the little baby cries.
"Soon, he will be our hero dear."