Chapter Text
“I’m Bubaigawara Jin. So you can be uh, Junior.”
“A’m Gou(!) ku-ge-rya, Aya, touu!”
“What was that, Junior? Sorry, I can’t hear you from up here.”
“Ey’mma blouw yar b’ryai-zn aout, jh’itty j’eezer!”
Twice yawned. A paper bag on his head, two holes cut out for eyes, he slouched in the chair, absently watching the little tyke try and crawl up his jeans.
The child was three years old, according to information broker Giran. Twice didn’t know anything else about the kid, and wasn’t too interested at all. Maybe it was because Giran was apparently raising this kid, but he sure had a mouth on him… were toddlers supposed to speak like that?
“Geyt o-ffa may cha’ir!”
“Gay toffee Mary Chen?”
“Ma! CHER!”
“Mon cherie?”
“Yer m’ssin wit mee! Yu’ ahhhs- hoe!!”
Who taught the baby what an asshole was? Or a shitty geezer, that was eloquent. I’ll blow your brains out? Did toddlers even know what a brain was??
Twice waved his leg about, admiring how the toddler just clung onto his pants while making strangled whining sounds, being too physically short to escape.
“He’s trying to tell you you’re in his chair,” Giran helpfully supplied.
Twice perked up at that. “Oh, is that so? No wonder this chair was tiny,” he offered a splendid observation, “alrighty then. Bitch I liked that chair! What are you a baby?!”
He stood up, kid still on his knee as he deposited himself on another chair. The toddler had teeth, apparently, because he was trying to chew on Twice.
His head of overgrown silver hair was pretty unique for a baby of all things, but nothing out of the ordinary in this quirk-filled civilisation. The problem was, silver wasn’t a familiar hair colour
“So, I’ve been meaning to ask for years, Giran, what’s with the kid?” Twice shot the question at the man immediately, “not that I care-- you’re asking because you’re interested -- No I don’t!”
Giran breathed out heavily, shoulder sinking as he takes a drag of his cigarette.
The child set himself free from Twice, clambering onto his chair and settling down like a polite audience, not saying another word as he stared at the two, acting as if he belonged in their conversation.
“Hell if I know,” Giran shrugged, “he’s like you and me, y’know? Just wandered around one day, some day, without a place-- ain’t no place kids like these can belong, so I took him in. Simple as that.”
Twice blinked, “not even an orphanage?”
“He’s out here because the orphanage booted him,” Giran pointed the cigarette in his direction, “he’s an unusually intelligent child. Probably didn’t want to be associated with a bunch of fucking babies anyways.”
Twice simply hummed. In this world of quirks, oddlings came up every once in a while. Maybe this child had something like a knowledge quirk, just like the principal of UA had, something that set him apart from the normality.
And he was only three. What a sad child.
“His name is uh,” Giran rubbed the back of his head, “something-or-the-other, Ayato.”
“It’s AhhhHH-” the child stressed the word so strongly, “gya-tou!”
“Agato?”
“KhhhhaAA-” he erupted into a choking fit when something entered his throat, but the two adults just stared.
“Kayato?” Twice tried, looking at Giran.
“He just can’t pronounce it. Maybe it’s Gayato? Or Nayato,” Giran looked at Twice too, deeming the kid’s vocal chords a lost cause, “Sayato?”
“Hiiiiiii!!!” now the kid was right beside Giran, frustration evident as he tugged at the man’s pant leg, “heeee!!”
“Heeeee?” Giran repeated, confused.
“Ah,” Twice set a fist on his palm, suddenly understanding, “Hayato!”
The kid all but leaped onto Twice’s lap, eyes bright as he furiously nodded, “Ayato! Ayato! Me, nayme, ‘ayato!”
And Twice wrapped him in a hug.
“Can I keep him?”
“The fuck? Hell no.”
-
For Hayato, life has been tough from day one.
Being reincarnated and being conscious of it at the age of one, he decided that life was an utter joke. From the silver hair to the foreign green eyes, everything was the same. His skin was pristine, spotless, clean-- no scars, no wounds, no birthmarks.
It was like a dream come true, to not have to walk around with bandages anymore. It was like a miracle, to have both arms made of flesh again.
(His death wasn’t pretty, nor was it quick. But it was over and here they were again--)
He had his memories. Very clearly, he remembered everything, from his name to his oath to the very moment he decided it was his time to die.
Being born into an orphanage as some guy’s illegitimate then discarded child, he didn’t have a name beyond silver-child , Ginro. It was a small place full of love and care, but Hayato could care less about those things. He never really had them in his first life-- he can go his second without.
As soon as he was weaned and capable of walking more than three steps without crying, he ran off.
The wild was a hard place for a baby. In fact, he probably didn’t think twice about that impulsive decision before he regretted it. He was incredibly lucky that Giran found him when he did.
“Yes, I was drunk when I found the kid,” Giran grumbled to Twice, who was teasingly interrogating him about illegitimate children and kidnapping. “But could you blame me? He even got me a glass of water! A two year old!”
“That’s because you’re a good boy, aren’t you, Hayato?” Twice cooed in an obnoxious tone, and Hayato had the gall to look smug on his lap.
“Don’t worry, I did my proper research and everything,” Giran waved him off, “the orphanage was some sketchy place anyways. They marked him off as dead once they couldn’t find him. They probably had other children to worry about.”
“What?!” Twice exclaimed, nearly kicking Hayato off his lap, “what poor excuse of a human are they? I’ve heard rumours about the deteriorating foster systems and orphanage chains, but this is ridiculous.”
“Like you can talk,” Giran growled, wordlessly reminding Twice that they were, in fact, not upstanding members of society. “Anyways, I’m raising the kid properly-- hell, the kid can raise himself-- so I really don’t see the problem.”
Maybe it was ironic that Hayato was, of all things, picked up by the underground. It was a stark difference to his noble Mafia line of the past, but this was kinda fresh and fun. Giran cared less about matters and tact, smoking and drinking in his presence.
(Yay, Hayato now has a reason to pick up smoking when he gets a little older… his fingers are itching for them already.)
“There is a problem!’ Twice suddenly sounded serious, “what about his identification? Are you going to get him registered properly? What’s his quirk?
“Kwerth?” Hayato spoke up before he realized, curiosity spiking, “wuz’s a… kwer-k?”
-
The peak of Hayato’s second life was finding out that UMAs exist.
“Yuuma! Yumma!” he pointed at the guest, who had a lizard’s head, who looked back at him like he wasn’t sure what this little thing was.
“Not a yuuma or whatever you were trying to say, Hayato,” Giran chastised him gently, “don’t point at people, that’s rude, and go to the back with the guy in the creepy paper bag,” he pointed at Twice.
“Mistu’r, are y’a yuuuma?!” Hayato was promptly ignoring him to cling onto the lizard guy, admiring his scales, “you’re like a reezaard-man! Yer green! Das so coool!”
And the lizardman flustered, carefully crouching down like the little human was precious. He flushed, then said in a sort of awed voice, “you think I’m cool ?”
Hayato’s eyes were sparkling with pure interest.
“Sorry about him, this is like, the first time he’s seen a mutant quirk,” Giran told him, apologizing half-heartedly, “I’ll address your issue in a sec, let me just get him… out of the way… or not.”
The lizardman was making obnoxiously cool poses while Hayato squealed at every one. They were laughing and he was lifting the kid up with an arm, showing off his reptilian strength--
Giran facepalmed.
“Oh, found it,” Twice was flipping through the kid’s notebook, which was half full of incoherent nonsense so he didn’t read, but there was this one page with a huge UMA written on top. “So apparently a yuuma is an Unidentified Mysterious Animal.”
“How in the hell does this kid know that word and not know what a quirk is?” Giran turned to him, flabbergasted, “is he a young genius or a fucking idiot?”
“And news flash, he knows how to write in fluent Japanese,” Twice flipped to another page, noting the intricately gothic skulls drawn on the edge, “so uh, what language is amico ?”
“That’s italian for friend,” Giran raised an eyebrow, “you’re not telling me…”
“Woah, so half of this book was written in Italian!” Twice realized brightly.
“You’re kidding me!”