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It started in middle school.
At the time, it makes sense to Hitoshi. Ever since his quirk made itself known, he’s been attracting too much bad attention– the kind that pulls in bullies and abusers and all similar types. He thought that by doing this, it might save him from some of the torment that comes along with a typical day. That with this, he’ll blend into the crowd more easily than a head of lavender hair would ever allow him to.
He stands in a beauty store at age 14 with the money he had been scrounging up the past few weeks– just enough to pay for the cheapest brand of black hair dye he could find. He grabs the small box off of the shelf, wondering if it’s really worth it. It’s not that expensive. 750 yen for one box. But this money could be used for something else, like a premade meal from the konbini down the street. The thought of food shoots an ache of hunger straight through his stomach.
He can deal with hunger. Buying this hair dye is a long term investment that might just prevent a few beatings from the demons that share the same class as him. It’s worth it.
With a finality, he decides to head to the register with the box. Before he can even get out of the aisle though, something else catches his eye. An entire shelf of colored contacts. And at the very end, there’s a selection of black ones. Some that even cover the pupil. For people like Hitoshi.
He would consider it, if only he had the additional money.
He pays and leaves. Then he puts into play the next part of his plan. He’s too paranoid to dye his hair in the bathroom of his current set of foster parents. It’s a really nice bathroom that’s kept intensely clean. If Hitoshi were to accidentally stain the porcelain counter, he’d either be dead, or shipped off to yet another home. And for the first time ever, he can say that he really doesn’t want to be moved to another placement. Not when his current one is in the same neighborhood as UA, the high school that might just help Hitoshi kickstart his life as a hero.
And so, he plans to get things done in a much less risky way. He throws the hair dye into his backpack and makes his way to school. Luckily, the day passes without too much torment. After class, he finds himself in one of the school’s bathrooms that isn’t frequently used. Unlike at home, it doesn’t matter if anything gets stained here. The place is already rundown enough that it wouldn’t be noticed anyway.
Hitoshi strips away his button up, leaving him in a white undershirt. It’s definitely going to get stained with black dye, but luckily Hitoshi is an expert at bleaching his school shirts by now. The instructions on the box are pretty clear, so he follows them and waits around while his hair fills up with unnatural chemicals.
There’s only one other visitor to the bathroom in this time. A roughed up student enters while Hitoshi is waiting, sitting on the windowsill. The other student sits a few feet from Hitoshi, then lights a cigarette. For a few moments, Hitoshi’s presence is ignored, and they sit in silence.
“What’s with the hair dye?” The student eventually asks.
Hitoshi shrugs. “My classmates keep beating the shit out of me. Thought it would be easier to blend in with dark hair.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah.”
Some more time passes in silence. The student puts out his cigarette and leaves before Hitoshi rinses the dye from his scalp. It’s uncomfortable to run water through his hair in the sink, but he tries his best. Once he deems it good enough, he rings the water from his hair, and ganders a look in the mirror.
It worked. And he finds himself grinning like crazy, because it even looks cool. He attempts to dry his hair with the hand dryers, another uncomfortable feat. 10 minutes later, it’s good enough. Though he spends another 15 just staring in the mirror in awe. It’s at this point that he notices something else.
His eyes stand out a lot more than they did before. A pastel purple with strange white pupils in the middle. He doesn’t usually look in the mirror. Anything to avoid the reminder of how unsettling eyes are. But now they’re unavoidable. Too noticeable. He frowns at his reflection. The hair dye is practically useless with his eyes looking like this.
He thinks back to the contacts from the store, and he barely needs time to consider it. From that moment on, Hitoshi starts saving up again. It takes a lot longer this time. Colored contacts are more expensive than hair dye– valued at multiple meals that Hitoshi could potentially buy instead. But he’d rather be hungry than uncomfortable in his own skin.
A month later, he ends up back in that very same bathroom. He reapplies some dye at the roots. Then he takes out his newly purchased lenses. And of course, he bought the kind more suited for him. Instead of the center of the contact being clear, it’s covered in a dark translucent layer. This way, his white pupils will be completely hidden from the world.
With some struggle, he gets them in. Before even looking at his reflection, his eyes are wandering all over the bathroom. It’s stupid on his part, that he hadn’t considered that with lenses like these ones, seeing color isn’t an option. Everything in his vision is in greyscale.
Hitoshi frowns as that question comes back again to his mind. Is it worth it? Should he really be giving up half his vision for the sake of blending in with the rest? He finally looks up into the mirror. His eyes look normal, for once in his life. It’s definitely worth it. And besides, he only needs to be wearing these things when he’s in school. Once he gets home, there’s nothing stopping him from taking them out and enjoying the privilege of seeing colors once again.
It takes time, but he gets used to it. The very first day in class, he realizes that his folders and notebooks are color coordinated. He makes sure to label them during his lunch period, and makes sure he can differentiate red pens from black ones. Time passes, and Hitoshi realizes he can no longer tell what color tie his teacher wears from day to day. But it’s insignificant. More time passes, and he forgets the hair colors of the students around him. Still insignificant. Because even if his classmates are harder to identify like this, none of them speak to Hitoshi anyway.
He returns home on school days, takes out the lenses, and becomes distracted by the abundance of color all around him. Everything is so much more saturated than he is used to seeing. He always spends a good amount of time just looking around at random things, taking it all in. The emerald leaves on the trees. The blue sky, and the clouds that turn pink at sunset. The soft yellow of the comforter on his bed. The sunlight pouring onto his bedroom desk. The pale teal tiles on the floor of the pristine bathroom, reflected onto the steel nobs of the sink.
His lavender eyes with the creepy white pupils. His disgusting eyes, jumping out at him abruptly. He looks away from the bathroom mirror quickly. It was just an accidental glance, but it throws off his whole mood for the rest of the day.
Over time, once he starts attending UA, he wears the contacts more often. Things change at 16, when there’s training to be had after school with his mentor. It adds a few hours of usage. And only a few weeks later, he’s being moved into a dorm on campus. Twenty four hours a day, on campus. Surrounded by classmates, tormentors waiting to jump out from the shadows.
He doesn’t see his eyes for months, yet he can never forget what they look like.
It’s not a problem until it is. He’s training with Aizawa one autumn afternoon when things start to go south. The man realizes that Hitoshi struggles to identify objects by color. It starts with a simple mistake– “You were supposed to secure the blue tracker. Not the yellow one. You know that attention to detail can save lives.”
In the moment, Hitoshi doesn’t have the courage to just admit it– that he’s wearing contacts, that he can’t differentiate the colors. If Aizawa were to find out, he would likely force Hitoshi to take them out. And doing so would basically be social suicide.
The very next day, Hitoshi is running out of options.
“There’s 9 trackers. Secure the blue, red, green, and orange ones in 5 minutes.”
Hitoshi decides not to make an ass out of himself this time. In simple words, he says it. “Sensei… I can’t see any colors.”
Aizawa pauses, slightly taken aback. “You’re colorblind? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Colorblind, huh. It would be an easy out, wouldn’t it? Hitoshi takes pride in his ability to lie to people. But for some reason, lying to his mentor feels worse than death. “I’m not colorblind,” he admits. “I… I wear contacts. They’re colored contacts, so… everything I see is in black and white.”
“Colored contacts shouldn’t make you unable to see color, Hitoshi.”
“That’s because…” Here’s the worst part– “It goes over my pupil.” His freakish pupils, terrifying voids into his soul.
Aizawa is lost for words for some moments. No doubt confused. “Do you need them for a medical reason related to your quirk? Or is it… an aesthetic purpose?”
“... It’s aesthetic, I guess.” Hitoshi hates to call it that though. He’s not doing this because it looks cool. He’s doing it because he has friends now, and doesn’t want to scare them all away the second they look into his eyes.
“If that’s the case, then it’s important you take them out during training.”
Hitoshi’s stomach drops.
“Let’s take ten. Go do what you need to take them out and come back after.”
Then it drops further. There’s no choice in the matter.
Hitoshi uses up more than ten minutes. Taking them out is the easy part. Leaving the locker room to face Aizawa is what’s difficult. Along with the ticking clock in the corner of his mind, the knowledge that he’s taking too long, that he’s wasting Aizawa’s time like this. He powers through anyway. Makes his way outside, keeps his head down the whole way there.
Aizawa doesn’t mention the time. Hitoshi won’t look him in the eyes. It works for a bit, as they continue the tracker exercise. But after, there’s combat. And not facing your opponent is impossible.
“Your pupils are white,” Aizawa comments. It doesn’t sound judgemental, yet it still puts Hitoshi on edge.
“They are,” Hitoshi confirms.
“From your quirk?”
“I don’t think so?” It’s not something Hitoshi ever considered.
“Use it on me.”
“... My quirk?”
“Yes–”
Hitoshi does so. And he can feel the difference immediately. He’s never had this much control before. He breaks it quickly, concerned by the sudden change in power.
Aizawa is just as receptive on his end. “Your quirk is related to your vision.”
Major news to Hitoshi. And a life-shattering realization comes with it. “I lost control of my quirk during the sports festival.” It starts as a statement. His mouth is moving before his brain is even processing. “Maybe I lost it because of the contacts.”
It’s fascinating to find out, that there’s a reason his eyes are the way they are, and that reason actually benefits him. It’s good to know now, but he can’t help but silently berate himself for not having known earlier.
“Forget the trackers,” Aizawa says. “Let's work with your quirk for today.”
Outside of training with Aizawa, Hitoshi still wears the contacts. Maybe it’s stupid, now that he understands the effect it has on his quirk. But it still comforts him to hide away. And he’s not supposed to use his quirk outside of training anyway.
And it works out that way, up to a certain point. Time passes again, and Hitoshi finally gets accepted into the Hero Course. But with that comes class training. He knows the contacts affect his quirk. But the thought alone of being perceived as more terrifying than he already is almost breaks him. His classmates are nice despite his quirk. The eyes would change that, real quick. So he decides to keep the contacts in.
Training goes fine. It’s less comfortable with the contacts, with the knowledge that he’s less powerful this way. But it’s good enough. He can still use his quirk, and that’s all that matters.
Aizawa pulls him aside after training. And once again, Hitoshi feels his gut sinking.
“I’m not trying to sound harsh, Hitoshi. But what do you expect is going to happen when you become a hero, and you go out into the real world not at your full strength?”
“...I could get hurt,” Hitoshi answers honestly, and ashamed. “Or killed,” he adds.
“Then why do you think that training shouldn’t be taken seriously?” “I take it seriously.”
“Not with those contacts in you don’t.”
Hitoshi wants him to understand. Unfortunately, the only way to do that is to be honest. “Sensei… I have friends now. For the first time in a long time. If they saw my real eyes… I think I’d scare them away.”
Aizawa’s expression softens just the slightest. “You’re insecure.”
In an instant, Hitoshi is catching Aizawa’s gaze again. He feels embarrassed, being called out like this.
“I’m not saying that as a criticism of you. But it’s something you can overcome, and this is the perfect environment for you to do so. Your classmates aren’t going to judge you.”
It keeps Hitoshi up that night, the uncertainty. Yet the next day, Hitoshi exits the locker room with bare eyes and a pounding heart. Aizawa left the decision up to Hitoshi. But Hitoshi believes that Aizawa is trying to help him, even if it’s painful to get past.
He hates class training. He does feel insecure– like everyone’s eyes are glued to him. Yet he loves class training, because for the first time, he sees his passionate classmates in their varied, colorful glory. It’s only during training, though. The second training ends, he’s putting them back in. As much as no one makes negative comments about his eyes, it’s still draining to feel so put on display after a while.
Nothing changes for a few more weeks. Until he’s on cleaning duty with a fellow student after class one day. Until– “Why do you wear those stupid contacts all the time?”
Hitoshi frowns at the chalkboard, all while continuing to clean it. “They’re not stupid.”
An exaggerated sigh. “What’s the point of going around looking all– lifeless and shit? Your eyes are cool as fuck, yet you decide to cover them up? Makes no sense.”
Hitoshi freezes. Completely still. His gaze shifts to Bakugou, who’s sitting on top of a desk with crossed arms rather than working. “You… like my eyes?”
Bakugou pauses just the same, but suddenly finds the floor to be his central focus. “l don’t dislike them.” And coming from Bakugou, it’s basically a compliment.
“They don’t creep you out?”
Bakugou looks back to Hitoshi. Something more passionate behind his expression. “Why the fuck would I feel that way?” he asks, as if he’s angry at Hitoshi for even suggesting it.
“The white part, in the center.” Hitoshi uselessly squishes the sponge into the chalkboard, anything to make this conversation easier. “It’s gross.”
“It’s not. It’s cool… Or whatever.”
“... Thanks,” Hitoshi says. Turning back to the chalkboard in hopes of hiding the small smile that forms.
The interaction leaves Hitoshi deep in thought for the remaining time. And long after that, before he falls asleep. He doesn’t put them in the next morning. Stepping into the classroom is a bit of a trip, seeing some colors he wasn’t expecting. What’s most important though, is that his classmates still don’t treat him differently.
He wonders if maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if he let his natural hair color grow back in too. But then he remembers that he simply likes his dyed hair, that it’s grown on him over time. And maybe he comes to the realization that he should start doing more of what he likes, no matter what other people think of him.