Shinsou returned to an empty house. He hadn't expected anything else. Still, some part of him felt a little hollow as the silence greeted him, and he lingered in the hallway for a moment, as if hoping that for once there might be something more if he only waited...
But there was not, so Shinsou shook the idea away and bent to take off his shoes. Padding to his room he tossed his backpack in the corner and collapsed onto his bed.
The ceiling was blank. The house was quiet. He was alone. He stared upward, trying to let that emptiness wash over him, to ground himself in the calmness of it, to empty his own head just like his home, but his thoughts would not settle...
Failure hurt.
The sports festival had been... it had been the cold dose of water he probably needed, the reminder of the reality of the world. Things were never that easy. Certainly not for him. Surely he had known deep down just how it would end, how everyone else seemed to know it would? And yet... and yet he hadn't wanted to believe it. He'd wanted to believe he could do it and finally prove where he belonged, that he had what it took...
But he didn't. Not yet, anyway. Shinsou had failed and his goal seemed further away than ever.
He sighed, clenching his eyes shut and trying to will away the feeling that was building in his chest.
Feelings weren't going to help him. He'd meant what he'd said to Midoriya. He wasn't giving up, he'd still do it, he'd still become a hero, a better one than all of them. He simply had further to climb. Getting angry or upset would only hinder him. He'd do it though, one step at a time.
Opening his eyes and pulling himself up, Shinsou allowed himself to fall into routine, showering and changing out of his uniform before running through his chores, finishing off the dishes and laundry and cleaning up the lounge. When that was done he set up at his desk amidst his books and meticulous notes, tired eyes skimming across the words as he tried to commit them to memory.
Technically there was no work to catch up on but he intended to get a head start on the material they would be covering in the following weeks, he needed to stay at the top of the class if he ever still entertained hopes of a transfer.
And he did, very much, intend to make that happen. No matter the encouraging words of his classmates, nor the thoughtful murmuring of the crowd, they were enough to satisfy him. He'd promised himself a lofty goal and settling for less was not an option.
Shinsou clenched his pen a little tighter, his notes scratched hard enough to leave an imprint on the pages below. No, his feelings didn't matter. He needed to focus.
At nine o'clock he turned to making dinner. Half of it he filled his own bowl with, the rest he covered and left on the stove.
He settled on the couch, eating as he watched TV with only a passing interest, his notebook within reach. There wasn't much on but he found a speculative piece on the role of underground heroes in the fight against crime, and that at least had something worth listening to.
Time ticked by and he sunk deeper into the cushions, empty bowl abandoned on the coffee table and his notebook settled on his knee as his attention drifted between his study notes and the distant drone of the voiceover listing key cases over the years.
At half-ten a rattle finally sounded, and a click as the door opened, and Shinsou's head jerked up at the sound.
"Hitoshi, I'm home!"
A moment later his mother bustled into the room, sparing him a smile. Her purple hair was slipping loose from its bun in wayward strands, and there were dark circles under her eyes - she looked tired, but she often did. Her work at the factory was tough, and the hours near inhuman as far as Shinsou was concerned, but it was the only job she could find.
His teeth clenched just thinking about it.
Technically there were laws, rules against quirk discrimination in the workforce, laws in place to make sure people had an equal and fair opportunity at being hired. And yet, regardless of that, with every job his mother had ever applied to, they always seemed to have some half-assed reason to turn her away and he knew it wasn't just coincidence. His mother was always upfront about her quirk, she never lied about it, never hid it. And no one wanted to hire someone with a quirk like that, or have to work alongside them... they were afraid of her, of her quirk... of their quirk... a villainous quirk... it didn't matter that his mother never even used it, they didn't seem to care.
And so she worked a shitty low paid job with shitty hours and she was grateful that she even had that, all because people were so stupid. Sometimes the world just wasn't fair.
"I'm sorry I didn't catch it, how was the sports festival?"
Shinsou shook himself from his thoughts and turned back to the TV. "I failed."
"Hitoshi..."
He didn't want to look at her, to see the pity in her eyes, to see her so ready to console him when this was all his own fault and she had enough to deal with in her own life. He hadn't been good enough. He had failed. He only had himself to blame.
He sighed, deciding to elaborate a little. "I made it through the preliminaries to the final event, but got knocked out in the first round."
"You made it that far? That's great, I'm so proud of you!"
"It wasn't enough though," he said flatly. "I didn't win."
"No one was expecting you to win, the fact that you did so well is more than enough," she assured him, stepping in front of the TV so he couldn't avoid looking at her this time.
It wasn't though. The fact that no one was expecting him to win was why he had to do it. He needed to prove a point. And he'd thought that he could, yet despite all his bravado in the end it had been them that had been right, and him who had been wrong.
"I wanted to win. I... declared war on class 1-A."
"Hitoshi." His mother tone took on a light scolding note.
Shinsou shrugged. "I couldn't help it. They were just so full of it, you know?"
"That's no reason to go declaring war on anyone. Still," she said, stalking closer and embracing him in a tight hug despite his awkward squirming, "I'm so very proud of you, I don't care if you don't have a shiny medal, you're still my number one boy!"
"Mum," he groaned, and she planted a clumsy kiss on his forehead before releasing him and letting him sink further into the couch cushions in embarrassment.
"Dinner's on the stove," he mumbled, trying to save face.
Thankfully that was enough to distract her and she went to investigate, cooing in appreciation before she set to reheating it.
Shinsou tried to focus on the TV again. A few minutes later his mother came to join him with her own bowl of dinner, sitting beside him as they watched in comfortable silence. He didn't ask her about work. He knew she didn't like it when he did. And she said nothing more about the sports festival, and that seemed to be the way they both wanted it, a quiet agreement to leave it be and stare at the glowing box in front of them even though neither of them care much about what it had to show.
It was peaceful, he supposed, and it was times like these between them that soothed him. They were both too tired for much more, too busy, but at least they had this and he always stayed up to make sure he wouldn't miss her.
Sometimes if the week had been rough he fell asleep on the couch, and he'd wake up in the morning with a blanket tossed over him and at least he knew she'd been there. It was enough.
It was late by the time his mother spoke in a soft voice, passed eleven he would guess. "You should get to bed, Hitoshi. You need your rest."
"Yeah," he responded listlessly, heaving himself to his feet, "night."
"Goodnight," she said, blowing him a kiss as he traipsed off to his room. "Sleep well."
But Shinsou did not sleep well.
As hard as he tried, he could not shake that moment from his mind, when his back had hit the ground and the air had left him in a gasp... staring upward as the crowd roared and the sickening reality of the situation sunk in. Failure.
He had been overconfident, he'd wanted to put class 1-A in their place and yet that was exactly what they had done to him.
Failure.
That word kept seeming to want to roll around in his head.
He tossed onto his side, glaring at the dark. He had failed.
But he would not fail again.
He needed to get stronger, train harder, make himself better in every conceivable way and then he would earn his transfer. He would do it, he would become a hero, the best one...
But right now he wasn't doing enough. If he wanted it, really wanted it, he had to push himself. That was the only way forward.
He needed to improve.
Leaning over to flick on the nightlight Shinsou swiped his notebook from his bedside, turning to the next blank page. He started at it for a moment, pen held hesitantly above its surface.
He needed a plan, a solid strategy to get where he wanted to go. Well, at least he knew where to start. He'd relied too heavily on his quirk during the sports festival, and when it had failed him Midoriya had won through superior physical strength and training.
Training wasn't something he was likely to receive in Gen ed, but his fitness at least was something he could work on for the time being while he thought up a way to address that.
He set the pen to paper and this time there was no hesitation as he began to write.