Chapter Text
The first time Shouta saw the kid was in the middle of a fight. He was playing support to Hizashi while he took down villains. Shouta would erase their quirks and Hizashi would punch them. They did this quite often; it was one of the ways they could spend time in their busy schedules (and make sure the other wasn’t hurt). They were taking down a mugger in an alley and a few middle schoolers who had been passing by had stopped to watch.
From his position on the roof, Shouta contacted the police, while Hizashi went to talk to the kids. He liked to watch people fan over Hizashi, it was always nice (except when they overstepped). The middle schooler’s were an appropriate distance from a fight, they seemed to be in their second year. Hizashi waved at them and they started to approach. That was when he noticed the kid, unlike his classmates he did not approach Hizashi and was instead writing frantically in a notebook. The kid's gakuran was ripped and muddy, and he was clearly hiding injuries. Oddly unlike the other kids, his shoes were red high tops not the usual black school shoes.
The kid would write quickly, glance at MIc and then the other kids before going back to scribbling. He was also cautious standing quite far away from the group, though he clearly wanted to go up and speak to mic. He wrote quickly, flipping over the pages several times, by the way his hands moved it, it seemed like he did several sketches.
The kid finished writing just before the other kids said goodbye to Hizashi. As the kid closed the notebook, he looked up meeting Shouta’s eye, before smiling like the sun, waving and racing off. Shouta was shocked, a kid had spotted him, hadn’t assumed he was a villain or homeless and had then waved.
He brought up the kid to Hizashi when they had finished patrol and were home. “Did you see that green kid when we took down the mugger on 9th? The one who didn’t come up to say hi?” Shouta asked as he cooked some katsudon.
“Yeah, I did,” Hizashi answered, looking up from his marking, “It was weird he didn't come up, he was clearly excited.”
“I think the other kids were bullying him” Shouta said bluntly, turning towards his husband, “His clothes were torn, he was hiding injuries and he was definitely nervous around the other kids.”
“The other kids acted as if he wasn’t there,” Hizashi sighed, a frown on his lips,“Did you notice the greenie’s shoes?”
“Yeah, they were red unlike the other kids, what about them?” Shouta asked, wearing his usual frown, before it clicked, “They’re the shoes the quirkless wear, right?”
“Yeah” Hizashi said, his voice soft, they both knew the statistics around the quirkless, “Keep an eye out for him?”
“Yeah, its the most logical option with the limited information, '' Shouta replied, letting the silence fall afterwards.
—
The second time Shouta saw the green kid was when he was out getting cat food (Lady smellypoop was extremely fussy). On the way, he had stopped at a villain fight to see if the hero’s on call needed help. The fight appeared to be between Kamui woods and a villain with a water based quirk, Kamui had been one of his students and he would be disappointed of he could not handle this. He continued on, pushing through the crowd, wanting to see how his student was doing. That was when he spotted the kid.
The greenie was at the front by the barriers, and again was making notes on the fight. He seemed to be a lot less on edge this time, hardly paying attention to his surroundings. As he pushed his way through the crowd, he noted several things, the kid's gakuran had been mended several times to degrees of success, his green hair had a slight bit of dirt in it and hadn’t been washed for a few days and his yellow back back had bleach stains.
The kid didn’t notice him as he crept up behind him, nor as he peered over the boy's shoulder to look at his notebook. The kid was writing in weird symbols, made up of circles and dashes, some sort of code. Probably based on morse code but then changed to be more compact and unreadable.
Shouta watched for a few minutes as the kid continued to write, at some point he sketched a quite detailed diagram of Kamui’s hero costume. The kid was clearly intelligent if he had thought up a code and could implement it so seamlessly, the contents of the notebook intrigued him, was he just making notes about the fights, or was he analysing how Kamui fought and acted.
The fight ended when Kamui flipped the villain over his shoulder and slapped quirk cancelling handcuffs on them. After that the crowd started to thin around them and the kid became more aware of his shadow. He looked up over his shoulder and squeaked, eyes going wide. “Eraserhead!?”
“Do you just note hero’s in that book of your’s greenie?” Shouta asked, hiding his surprise that the kid knew who he was.
“Not um in this one, in my neater ones i do though, Sir” the kid answered nervously, fidgeting with his hands.
“Are they all in code?” Shouta asked.
“All of my newer ones are” the kid replied, before noticing Kamui had started to come over, “but I-I got to go, it was nice to meet you Eraserhead-san.”
Shouta watched as the kid ran through the crowd before he turned to Kamui, “That was an effective take down, you’ve become a good hero Nishiya” he congratulated.
“Thank you sensei. Would I be correct in saying that the child you were talking to recognise you?” Nishiya asked, Shouta nodded, “That’s impressive, it took us until our second year to figure it out”
“Agreed, me and mic ran into him a few weeks back and have been keeping an eye out” Aizawa replied, “I hope Nedzu doesn’t hear of him, it's bad enough when he tutors a student at UA.”
-
“I saw the greenie again” Shouta told Hizashi when he got back with the cat food, “And spoke to Nishiya, he's doing well”
“Oh that's wonderful to hear. Wait, you saw greenie?” Hizashi asked as he did his hair in the hallway.
“Yep, talked to him as well” Shouta said, as he gave bastard and Lady Smellypoop some food, “Kids a genius, he writes in some sort of code”
“Woah seriously?! What did you two talk about?”
“Not a lot, who he took notes on and if all his notebooks were in code”
“Anything else of note” Hizashi said, as he joined them in the kitchenet, hair done up in a high ponytail.
“He had bleach stains on this bag which indicates that he got blood on it, his clothes had been mended several times and there was a distinct smell of soot” Shouta answered as he sat down and stretched “Nedzu would scoop the kid up the second he heard of him.”
“That’ll be chaotic, what about the code?” Hizashi asked as he sat down next to him.
“Circles and dashed, similar to morse code… quite repetitive as well so probably a latin language as well.”
Hizashi raised an eyebrow, “God, Nedzu would love a student like that, let alone a kid.”
–
“You know that sexual abuse campaign I do, the one for schools and stuff.” Nemuri asked as she joined Shouta by the coffee machine, the man nodded as he grabbed her a mug, “There was this absolute cutey of a kid who came up with an interesting questions”
“Hmm”
“He asked about the material of my hero costume and how it was able to sealed after it had been ripped. He even seemed to understand some of the concepts behind it as I explained. ” Nemuri explained, as she took her coffee “Thanks. The other kids definitely didn’t like him, they basically jeered at him when I called on him.”
“What school did you give the speech to?” Shouta asked, cradling his coffee. His hair was tied in a bun and he submerged in his sleeping bag.
“Aldera middle school, it’s kinda a shit show, loads of quirk use in the hallways, principle had me in and out though so i didn’t get a good look but I’m gonna suggest Nedzu has as look into it. Just got a feeling” Nemuri took her glasses off and rubbed her eye, she had a patrol in the red light district after and it hadn't gone as nicely as she would have hoped.
On a whim Shouta asked “The kid, what did he look like?”
“Green curly hair, quite scruffy”
“Did you get a name?”
Nemuri shook her head “Why?” she asked as she took a sip of her coffee.
“I think that's the kid me and Mic have run into a few times, was he writing in a notebook?” Shouta explained, feeling a headache coming on.
“Oh greenie! Yeah, must have been him. And Aldera is quite close to Mic’s patrol route. Yeah I can see Aldera not bothering to stop bullying against a quirkless kid.”
“They might be covering it up, Nedzu would have torn them down otherwise”
“Do you want me to bring him up with Nedzu or are you going to go searching for him yourself?” Nemuri asked as she made her way to the door.
“Might as well come with you, can maybe get Nedzu to share the kid” Shouta said as he made his way outside into the busy hallways, “Anyway I’m leading this case.”