This is one of the long ones, I've thought about poor Kaito a lot.
Kaito's world changed in a day. It had been a Tuesday. He hadn't known at the time, only when he looked up the day later on, or when the news channels played their annual remembrance segment.
He had been getting up for school, the elementary was a few streets away from his apartment building. They lived on the sixth floor. It was so high up, he could see all the way to his school when Daddy picked him up and sat him on the windowsill. His mother had woken him up already. He was standing in front of the mirror, bouncing up and down in front of his reflection as he brushed his teeth. Back and forth, like Mama had taught him.
Kaito locked eyes with his reflection as he spit in the sink and washed out his brush, having a unending staring contest with his own deep red eyes on the other side of the glass. He had set the toothbrush in the cup beside the sink when the building started rumbling. The boy let out a yelp, grabbing onto the counter as he stumbled. It must be an earthquake, Mama and Dad had warned him about those before. It would be over soon.
It never did end.
"Kai!" Mama shouted from the other room. Kaito squeezed his eyes shut, imagining the kitchen when she was. When he opened his eyes he was there. He had a split moment of happiness when he recognized that he had successfully used his quirk. He could teleport, like Mama. It wasn't very far yet and he couldn't do it very often or he'd get sick.
The ground continued its rumbling and Kai lost his balance and fell onto the tiled kitchen floor. Mama was underneath the table, she held out her hand and he crawled under with her. She squeezed him to her chest, her brown hair tickling his similarly colored hair.
Daddy stumbled into the room a minute later, calling out with a half shaven face. He and Mama talked for a bit. They said it was an earthquake, but it was lasting a long time. He didn't know how long had passed yet.
Then there was an explosion outside their window and the building beside theirs went up into flames. Kaito felt his stomach drop, like he had used his quirk too many times. This wasn't an earthquake. If he hadn't realized before, the look his parents exchanged told him.
The TV, previously broadcasting the morning news, started blaring an emergency alarm. It ordered them to evacuate to ground levels with urgent, loud words and graphics. The alarm echoed across their living room. There was a villain attack in progress.
As the ground continued shaking, explosions rocked the building. The lights flickered threateningly as Kai was scooped up by his father and they left their apartment, meeting their other evacuating neighbors in the hallway. The stairs blurred together as the people from their floor and the ones above it rushed down to the ground. He was still clutching him to his chest. Over his shoulder, Kaito could see Daddy and Mama holding hands between the people rushing down the stairs.
However long later, they burst into the apartment lobby, among their many neighbors. The workers were telling them to go outside, the lobby was too crowded. It was too loud, over the screaming and shouting and the shaking and the explosions. Kaito just wanted to go back up and finish getting ready for school. He willed himself not to cry, sniffing and wiping his face in Daddy's faded white t-shirt.
Suddenly a body was thrown through their lobby. There were shrieks as a silver skinned hero slid into their lobby. A solid concrete pole from the wall was broken by the hero and probably crushed a few people in the way before he finally halted halfway through the room. Then Kaito heard the sickening sound of an unstable building teetering above them. The world went crazy after that.
The hero jumped up and bolted back out of the hole he had made in their building and back into the fight that sounded louder and closer now. The people around him screamed and shoved, trying to get out the doors or the hole. Someone shattered a window or maybe two because he was showered with glass. Tiny cuts burned on Kaito's skin and he choked on a sob. But Daddy wasn't crying, so Kai would will himself not to as well.
His father still held him close. Their neighbors rushed around any open spot and spilled out like water. Everything was too loud. Kaito pressed his hands to his ears, willing the world to get quieter, just for a moment.
They got out through the hole in the wall and the boy watched another explosion down the street. A car flew up into the air and slammed into the second floor of their building. It shifted to the side more and people on all sides ran faster.
The morning sky was grey with dust and smoke. Kai could hear sirens and talking and screaming and so, so much noise. He watched ash flakes float in the air like snow. Then his dad set him down on the sidewalk across the street from their building. He noticed for the first time that Mama wasn't with them anymore.
"Kai." He said firmly as he kneeled down to his height. "Kaito, I need you to listen to me. I have to go find your mother and I can't take you with me. You have to stay right here. No matter what, do not move. I'll be right back. Promise me you're not going to move."
Kai opened his mouth, but then another explosion shook the street and green lightning flashed quickly. "Kaito!" He was jerked back toward his father and saw his face for the first time. There was still shaving cream on his cheek and his hair was dark and messy from his shower. His eyes were a deep red, like Kaito's, and he was the most scared Kai had ever seen him. "Promise me!"
"I promise." The boy breathed. His father paused, but nodded. He hugged him quickly and planted a kiss on his head before turning and bolting toward their apartment building. He didn't know it then, but that was the last time he would see Daddy alive.
Kaito kept his promise. He stood on the sidewalk as the explosions shook and the the buildings rocked all around him. People ran on either side of him, parting like a river. Kaito stood and waited, watching his building tip and creak even further. He didn't cry, he didn't answer the strangers who paused for a moment and wondered what he was doing, standing out here in the middle of a ruined road. He waited, his hands curled into nervous fists, trembling and flinching at the fighting noises. His fingernails were dirty, creating pale crescent moons in his palms.
He kept waiting, his hair turning pale with soot and dust, his legs weak and his patience cracking. The villain fight must have moved away some because the noise was father away now. He didn't know how long had passed. There was the rare person but for the most part, everyone had already escaped. His parents were still nowhere to be seen. Kaito itched to move, use his quirk one more time and teleport a little closer to his building, but he promised.
Another explosion shook the other side of the building and something shot from the smoke into the side of the building. Even from here, Kaito recognized the number two pro-hero, Ground Zero. Kai had a poster in his bedroom of him. The hero collided into the side of the building, shouted something Kai couldn't hear, then used his own explosion to propel himself off of the side of the building and back into the fight. That was it for his apartment building as it began crumble terribly and collapse finally.
But Mama were still in there.
Promise out of mind, Kaito ran toward the building as it started falling. A large piece of concrete slammed into the street to his left and Kaito jolted away from it and accidentally teleported forward. He stumbled from the quick jump and kept running. The glass from the unshattered windows bent and broke under the weight of the falling building and he heard a scream.
"Kai!"
It sounded like Mama, but it came from down the street, not the building in front of him. He stopped in his tracks, looking down the road where his mother ran toward him, a gash on her arm and a torn shirt that was no longer white, but rather a dirty grey.
In an instant she was in front of him. She had teleported next to him, Kaito began to smile, like he always did when she used her quirk in front of him, but the happiness was short lived. Mama shoved him back with all her strength. The boy stumbled back and fell into a broken dip in the asphalt. Then the front frame on the building crushed his mother, just a meter away.
Time slowed down in that moment. The sickening sound of Mama's death rang in his ears as he stared at the concrete in front of him. The crunch, the squish, the blood he now saw, creeping out in a puddle, the same color as Daddy's eyes, his eyes.
He stared. Eyes wide and he stared, frozen in place.
A moment later, Kaito numbly stood up and walked to his spot on the sidewalk across the street. He wasn't supposed to move. He had broken his promise, that was why Mama was underneath the building now. There had been so many people before, so much noise.
Now it was silent and Kaito stood alone on the sidewalk, waiting.
Kaito waited for a long time. The fighting had stopped, but the ash still floated, down and down until it settled on the rubble before him. The street had become eerily muted, every once in a while a siren or a crumble would find him, but other than that, he was alone.
He could hear distant shouts, people asking for help, people searching for friends or family or victims. Kaito didn't answer them.
The boy just stared at the tower of concrete, a twisted figure that used to be his home. Kaito didn't cry, but he stared, in some sort of disoriented consciousness. It seemed like a dream, a nightmare, but surely he would have woken up by now.
"Hey!" Kai flinched at the sudden exclamation behind him. He didn't turn, so the man moved in front of him, squating down to Kaito's height.
His hair was red, his eyes were red. He had little scar above his eye, a crack in his skin, like the cracks in the asphalt they stood on. Kaito couldn't make himself focus on the man's concerned face, instead staring at the rubble behind him. The red puddle had begun seeping out further from underneath the concrete.
Red hair, red eyes, red puddle, red blood, red hair, red eyes, red puddle, red blood-
"Hey, it's okay now." The man said, softer this time. Kaito's eyes finally slid to him. He seemed familiar somehow. "I'm Red Riot. What's your name?"
The silence echoed. Mama had screamed his name. It replayed in his ears, along with the sound of her being crushed, explosions and collapsing buildings and more screaming.
"Kaito."
Red Riot smiled. "Good. Does anything hurt?"
"No." His head was full of static. He felt like he was watching this all through someone else's eyes.
"Alright, do you know where your parents are?" His questions were hard to process. Kaito answered them all slowly.
"Daddy told me to wait. And Mama-" The boy stopped. He glanced back at the concrete, the puddle.
"Where's your mom?" Red Riot asked, a moment later. Kaito slowly lifted his hand and pointed at the puddle. Was he trembling, or was that his imagination?
The hero glanced behind him, staring at the former building in confusion. His red gaze as he looked back at the boy. "It's okay. I'm going to help you find them. Come with me."
"Daddy told me to wait."
"It's alright now, I can help you find him."
"Last time I moved, bad things happened."
"Nothing is going to happen now. I'll protect you and we'll find your dad."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
Kaito awoke in an unfamiliar place. He was curled up on a couch, a thick blanket on top of him and a plush pillow underneath his head. He sat up, wiping the sleep from his eyes as he looked around the room. There was a TV, but it was off. A few photos sat underneath. He recognized Red Riot in normal clothes, his red eyes, his red hair. There were other out of uniform heroes in the pictures with him.
He could vaguely recognize them, the bicolored hair of Frostfire, the green that was associated with Deku. The electric yellow of Chargebolt and the hot pink associated with Alien Queen.
Voices drifted into the room. The boy remained silent, wanted to hear what they said. He laid back down and hugged the blanket to his chest.
"Have you contacted the police? Maybe they found them." Another man said. He didn't recognize his voice. "Or at least some kind of relative he could stay with."
"I've tried. They said they were still trying to identify a lot of the bodies and they're overrun with missing persons reports." That was Red Riot's voice. "Someone could be looking for him right now and they'd have no idea."
"It'd help if the damn kid would tell us his family name. There's probably thousands of Kaitos in Japan." A different man grumbled.
"He passed out pretty soon after I found him, Kat, plus he was in shock the whole time I was talking to him. I think he saw something pretty brutal, he looked more shaken up than most." Red Riot said.
"That attack was bad. He could've just been scared about that." A woman this time. She sounded calm, in a soothing way that reminded him of his mother.
His mother.
Crunch as the building fell on her.
The red, red puddle, seeping out from underneath.
Getting closer, closer and closer.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
"No, it seemed like more than that."
"The real question is what the hell are we supposed to do with him." Kat, whoever that was, hissed. "Any foster home from here to Beijing is full, police are running around like they've never seen a villain before, and we don't know his name or anything about him."
"We could watch him." The woman suggested.
"No, Shouto, you guys have two kids already." Red Riot answered. "You shouldn't have to worry about another one. I guess Katsuki and I could watch him, until the police can find a family member of some kind who can take him."
"Where the hell are your gremlins anyway? You didn't leave them alone at your house, right?" Kat asked.
Someone snorted and another scoffed. "They're with my mother, of course we wouldn't leave them alone." The woman, Shouto, said monotonously. "We could take him though, I'm heading home to pick up Yuki and Aoki after this."
"You think we can't take care of a little kid, Half and Half?"
"I never said 'we'. I trust Eijirou."
"You know what-"
"Kacchan, shh! You're going to wake him up!" The first man whispered.
"Proving my point already, Katsuki."
"Oh, go fuck off and collect your gremlins, Icyhot."
There was a sigh. "It's settled then, Katsuki and I will watch him"
The other man began. "Are you sure? He's probably really shaken up, you've got to be careful with him, especially you, Kacchan, and especially after what he just went through. It might be better if you call someone who knows how to deal with kids more. Tsuyu has several younger siblings, she might be able to hel-"
"I can handle a kid better than damn Froggy, Deku!" Kat exclaimed. Kaito jolted at the noise. There were three shushes.
"I'm pretty sure her hero name is Froppy." The woman reminded. "And Tsuyu just took that position at Yuuei. I'm sure she's important to security there right now. She probably can't leave."
"We'll be okay, Izuku. We can call you guys if we need anything, and I'll make sure Kat behaves himself." Red Riot answered.
"You don't control me." Kat hissed.
"If you insist. I've got a patrol, so I've got to go."
"I have to go pick up Yuki and Aoki, or as you so lovingly call them, Katsuki, my gremlins."
There were a few more goodbyes, before the door was shut and the room suddenly felt quieter. The two remaining men said several more things to each other, but it was too quiet for Kai to hear. The boy shifted finally, sitting up and wrapping the blanket around himself.
He wasn't familiar with the layout of the house, and he didn't want to accidentally teleport in something, so he opted for pulling the blanket around him like a cape and walking toward the voices.
Kaito lingered in the doorway, looking up at the two men. Red Riot was there, although he was out of his costume. He looked awfully normal, unlike the hero Kaito knew. His red hair was the same, and his red eyes. The other man took a second to register, but he soon realized it was Ground Zero. His pale hair was just as spiky in real life. He even had the same glare, arms crossed over his chest. He was was wearing normal clothes too.
Red Riot has been saying something, but he stopped as he noticed Kai standing there. He smiled suddenly, nudging Ground Zero's arm as he passed him to kneel in front of Kai. His teeth were sharp and pointy.
"Hey kid, you feeling better?" Kaito nodded after a second, hugging the blanket around his shoulder. "Good. Are you hungry?" Another nod. "Great, Katsuki makes a mean tantanmen. He was just about to make some for dinner, do you want some?"
He had just been getting dressed for school and it was already dinner. He had just been watching the morning news with Mama, the alarm and the evacuation. The people and the screaming and the sound of-
Ground Zero's outburst cut off Kaito's thoughts. "Dinner?! It's four-thirt-" Ground Zero stopped when Red Riot turned and glared at him. Kaito smiled barely. It was interesting to see the heroes interact out of the camera's eye.
"Fine, I'll make lunch." Ground Zero grumbled. He shuffled behind the counters in the kitchen and started digging through the fridge.
Red Riot led him back to the couch and plopped down on one side. Kaito sat gently on the other side, staring at the hero. He wasn't usually so quiet, but there were so many things happening at once. His head felt too full.
He was in the home of two of the biggest heroes, one of them was making him dinner, the other was smiling at him. This should be good.
It should be his wildest dream, but he wanted his mother and his father. He wanted the crunch, crunch, crunch to stop playing in his head. It was giving him a headache. He wanted to stop seeing red everywhere, stop thinking of the color when he thought Red Riot's name, when he looked at the hero with his bright red hair and red eyes.
"So, Kaito. Can I call you Kai?" That's what Mama called him.
She said it when she kissed him goodnight, she said it when she was worried and cooking and teleporting around, laughing while he was in her arms. That's what she screamed, when she got crushed.
"I guess." Crunch.
Red Riot gave him a sharp grin. "You can call me Eijirou, if you want to. And you can call Ground Zero Katsuki, or Kacchan if you wanna."
"Okay." Crunch, crunch.
"You're going to be staying with us for a little while, while the police try to find your parents. They got separated from you, during the attack, right?" He asked.
"Yeah." They weren't going to find Mama.
"Do you think you can tell us your last name?"
Kaito was silent. He frowned and looked at his hands, balled up in the heavy blanket, still weighing down on his shoulders, like a cape. It felt better to have it wrapped around him like that. Almost like someone was hugging him.
His last name. The boy could picture the kanji in his head.
"I don't remember right now." He mumbled.
Eijirou nodded. "That's okay, you can think about it for a little while. How old are you, Kai?"
"Six."
"When's your birthday?"
"April."
"Oh, so is Ground Zero's, cool! What about your family? Do you have any aunts and uncles or grandparents?"
Kaito shrugged. Crunch.
"What about friends, do you have any of those?"
Kaito shrugged again. He couldn't remember any of their names. He could barely remember their faces. Crunch, crunch. His throat felt tight.
"What school do you go to?"
Crunch, crunch, crunch. His eyes felt wet.
"Do you have any sisters or brothers?"
Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch. His face felt hot.
"Who's your favorite hero? It's okay if you don't say me, I don't mind!"
Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch.
He couldn't breathe, his cheeks were wet. Red Riot was getting blurry. He was turning red. It was so red. Everything was so red, even the ash in the air and the sky and the street and the concrete an-
"Kai?" Ejirou was staring at him with a worried expression.
He was sobbing now, hands wiping his face. He was panting, his body trembling. He couldn't stop the noises, the screaming and the crunch. He couldn't stop the red, seeping closer and closer to him. It was so hard to breathe.
A hand touched his shoulder, and Kaito jumped away as if he had been burned. Eijirou was still watching him.
"Hey, it's okay now. Everything's okay."
Kaito kept sobbing, everything was not okay.
"No one is going to hurt you." He was holding out his arms, in an offering.
The boy hiccuped, clutching himself. After a second, he crawled forward and hugged the hero back. He sobbed and didn't remember stopping.
"Yuki is around your age and she's really nice. I'm sure you'll have fun playing with her." Eijirou said with a smile.
Kaito nodded without a word. His breath was visible in the cold air, a cloud mixing with the snowflakes. Ground Zero was walking on the other side of Eijirou, his hands stuffed in his jacket, glaring at his surroundings as if they had done something to offend him. Ground Zero always seemed mad.
They were going to Deku and Frostfire's house to visit. Eijirou said it was because they just hadn't seen them in a while, but Kai knew it was because of him. He was too quiet for them, his nightmares too loud. They were probably trying to get rid of him by giving him to Deku and Frostfire.
They still hadn't found his father and it had been two months. The heroes talked a lot in the kitchen at night, when they thought he was sleeping. He was good at listening without anyone knowing because he could teleport in and out of a room without a sound.
They approached a nice house, not incredibly large, but not small either. Snow had collected on the porch, a few pairs of various sized snowboots lingered by the door. The house seemed awfully normal to be the home of the number one and three heroes.
Ground Zero knocked, then huffed a cloud of air. "I don't even know why we're visiting stupid Deku." He growled, then glanced at the boots in irritation.
"Shush." Eijirou scolded him good-naturedly. The door opened a second later.
Deku was standing there, wearing normal civilian clothes rather than his hero costume. He beamed at them. "Hey! Here, come in, it's cold out there!"
The three shuffled inside, Eijirou helped him take off his boots and his coat and busied himself with hanging it up, then shedding his own. The house was warm inside, he wondered for a moment if it had to with Frostfire's quirk.
"Hi, you must be Kaito. It's nice to meet you!" Deku had leaned down closer to his height.
"Hi, Deku-san." The boy glanced away from the green hero.
Deku seemed a little nervous at that. He glanced at Eijirou and Ground Zero for a second, but Kaito didn't catch their reactions. "Well, Yuki and Aoki are in here. Yuki's six and Aoki just turned four, you're six too, right?"
"Yeah." Kaito followed Deku into the living room.
It was warm inside the house, in more ways than the temperature. There were plenty photos down the halls, depicting various out of uniform heroes as well as other people Kaito didn't reconize, but they looked similar to Frostfire. Several colorfully haired children were in the photos, too. Toys littered the floor every once in a while, it smelled like popcorn. Laughter echoed down the halls, happy and content, some childlike, and some not. This house was nice. It obviously held a family that loved each other.
As soon as they walked in the room, someone rushed into his face. All he really registered was a flash of white and heat before he teleported backward in surprise, falling over Eijirou's legs behind him.
"You can teleport?!" A girl exclaimed, sounding awfully close to him. "Daddy, you didn't tell me he could do that!" She cried.
Kaito opened his eyes again and was met with a girl his age. She was a little shorter than him with shoulder length messy white hair and big green eyes. She grinned like Deku did and she had a splatter of freckles across her skin.
"Yuki! Don't scare him!" Deku yelped, reaching down to pull her out of Kaito's face. He realized the heat was coming from her. It seemed to roll off her in waves.
The girl smiled wider. "Hi! I'm Yuki!"
"Kaito."
"Ah! Come on, I've got a ton of cool toys in my room! We can go play in there!" She grabbed onto his hand without an answer and started pulling him away from the adults.
"Yuki, be nice." Frostfire called from where she sat on the floor with a younger boy. He had messy green curls like Deku, but Yuki pulled him away before he could tell anything else about the boy.
"I will!" The white-haired girl yelled back. He was tugged into a bedroom. It was messy, toys and clothes and blankets thrown around.
Yuki launched into showing him nearly everything she owned. She had figures and dolls of pro heroes, even including old ones from retired heroes. She claimed that Deku had given her those. She had stuffed animals and LEGOs and coloring books and nearly everything else Kaito could think of. It made his head spin.
"So? What do you wanna do now?" Yuki asked after she finished showing him everything. That Deku smile was on her face again. It was weird how similar they smiled, but he guessed it made sense since he was her dad.
"I dunno." Kaito shrugged. He glanced at an Uravity figure on the shelf.
Yuki faltered at that. She remained silent and still for a second before she sprang into action again. She pulled out a few coloring books and a box of crayons. "Wanna color?"
"I guess."
"You're not very talkative, huh?"
"You're loud."
Yuki giggled, passing a book to him, then picking out one for herself. "Lots of people tell me that."
"It's true." He picked out a cartoonish picture of Red Riot and started coloring. He avoided the color red, despite the hero's real coloring.
"Can you tell me about your quirk?" The girl suddenly asked.
"I can teleport."
"But, like how?" She pondered.
"I just think about it, then it happens. I can't do it a lot or I'll get sick." Kaito shrugged. "What about your quirk?"
Yuki was quiet for a moment. "I don't know about mine, yet."
Kai looked up in surprise. Her green eyes were focused on her coloring, not sparing a glance at him. He could see how tense she was though. "But you're six too. Quirks are supposed to show up when you're four."
"I know. Aoki's already showed up. He has our grandma's quirk. He can float stuff around, it's cool."
"But what about you?"
Yuki shrugged. "I dunno." She suddenly looked up, determination sparking in her eyes. "I'm still going to be a hero though!"
Kai blinked at her. "A hero?"
She beamed. "Yep! Like my mom and dad! They protect people all the time, and my dad says that even if I don't end up having a quirk, I can still be hero if I work hard enough!"
"They protect people." Kaito echoed quietly. Yuki blinked in confusion at him.
"Yeah, 'course they do."
It hit him.
It hit him hard. He stared blankly at the half colored Red Riot. "They're protecting me." He whispered. Yuki hummed a puzzled noise.
All the late nights they spent with him, all the comforting from the nightmares, the lunches and dinners and nice words and questions. They had talked to police officers and all their hero friends, Kaito had heard them. He was a good listener. They knew Mama had been crushed. They knew what happened to Daddy too. They knew he was missing. They probably knew he wasn't coming to get him either. They were protecting him.
He was quiet for too long, trying to keep the tears from falling and hitting the paper. He didn't want to ruin it. "Kaito-kun?" Yuki finally asked.
"I want to protect people too!" He blurted out. Kai looked up at her.
Yuki tilted her head, her white waves bouncing as she did. "You wanna be a hero too?" Kaito nodded furiously and Yuki smiled. "Okay! Then we can work on being heroes together!"
He didn't really want to leave yet. Yuki was nice and talkative and maybe they were friends now. They spent the rest of the afternoon chattering about being heroes. Yuki knew a lot, since she had been asking her parents about it for a while.
She told him about Yuuei, this big hero academy, and declared that she was going to go school there. Her parents and Eijirou and Ground Zero had gone there and had all been in same class and everything. They were all amazing heroes, so if they wanted to be the best, then they would have to go there, too.
Eventually, however, it grew late and Frostfire knocked on the doorway and told Kaito that Eijirou and Ground Zero were leaving, so he had to go with them.
"You know, you can just call me Shouto-san." She said, leading them back to the living room. Happy conversation had drifted into Yuki's bedroom all night. Ground Zero was already wearing his coat and shoes.
"Okay." Kai said.
Yuki took one look at Ground Zero, then looked back at Kaito and gasped. "Hey! I should call you Kaichan!"
Deku smiled from the couch and Ground Zero scowled. "Why?" Kaito blinked at the white-haired girl.
"'Cause my dad calls him Kacchan 'cause they were friends when they were little like us! And it sounds cool!" She bounced on her heels while she waited for his answer.
"Okay. You can call me Kaichan."
She grinned like Deku again. "Yay! Bye, Kaichan!"
Kaito almost smiled back, leaving the warm house beside Eijirou and Ground Zero.
When he turned seven, Eijirou asked him if he wanted to be adopted.
He had lived with them for over half a year. Eijirou had told him eventally about how they found his dad dead, a few blocks from his apartment and Kaito had confessed about what happened to Mama. He had cried a lot that night and Ground Zero and Eijrou had sat with him the whole time.
A few months into his stay, they moved into a house twenty minutes from Yuki's house, rather than the apartment they had been living in before. It was closer to Yuuei as well, since Ground Zero just took a teaching job there. He claimed he had to make sure the next heroes weren't stupid, but Kaito thought it was because he had said he wanted to go there one day. Ground Zero wasn't always angry, he was just very grumpy.
He visited Yuki a lot. Her school wasn't far from his, so sometimes he would go and hang out after school when Eijirou was Red Riot and busy working.
"So what should I tell them?" He asked.
Yuki sat across from him on the floor, eating pocky. Deku was home today doing paperwork in the kitchen. He had turned on the TV for them and given them the pocky box, then disappear to go do his work.
"What'd you say when he asked?"
"I said I didn't know what that meant."
Yuki giggled and Kaito scowled. "Well, I dunno, it's a good thing, right?"
"Eijirou-san would become my dad. That's kinda weird."
"I think it's weird how you call him Eijirou-san."
Kaito grabbed a pocky stick. "I don't know. I like living with them and I don't have anywhere else to go, if I say no."
"I wonder, what do you call Kacchan if Eijirou is your dad? Is he dad too?" Yuki asked, humming.
"You're not even listening to me!"
"You should ask my dad what to do!"
"Wait-"
"Daddy!"
"Yu-"
Deku peeked his head into the room. "Yu-chan? What's wrong?"
"Should Kaichan be adopted?" Kaito blushed and buried his face in his hands. He wanted to teleport into a whole different dimension. One thing he had learned about Yuki was that she was both the best and worst listener in the world.
Deku's eyes widen. "What?"
Kai huffed. He glared at Yuki as he explained. "Eijirou-san asked me if I wanted to be adopted. We knew that my mom and my dad didn't- they didn't make it. And I don't have any other family, and I'm already living with them, so he asked me if I wanted to do that. I'd have to change my name and stuff. But I dunno. Do you think they'd be mad if I said no?"
Deku looked thoughtful. He walked over and sat beside Yuki. She smiled and leaned against his side. "First of all, no, of course they wouldn't be mad. If they're asking you, then obviously they care about your opinion. Adoption wouldn't be incredibly different then what's going on now. You'd still live with them and stuff, but it would just mean they would have more legal responsibility over you. You understand that, right?"
Kaito nodded. Yuki snapped another pocky stick in half.
"You could change your name, but you don't have to, and you don't have to if you don't want to. And you don't have to call them anything different if you didn't want to either. Everything about this is purely your decision. You could even wait until you're older if you wanted to." Deku explained.
That all made sense. "But what would you do?" Kai asked. The green hero smiled and brushed a few pieces of hair out of Yuki's face.
"Well, I actually was adopted." He said.
The boy blinked. "What?"
"Have you ever heard of All Might?" Kaito nodded. He was an old retired hero. Yuki had several figurines of him in her room. She said they all used to be Deku's.
"He's my grandpa!" Yuki cheered.
Deku nodded. "Right after I graduated high school, All Might married my mom. About a year later, he asked me if I wanted him to adopt me. I was already an adult and I didn't live with them or anything, but it was more of an emotional thing. He did a lot for me in high school and I already kind of thought of him as a father figure. So I said yes."
"Hm." Kaito said, absentmindedly staring at the table.
"Ultimately, it's your decision and no one will be mad at any decision you make." Deku concluded.
Kaito nodded, glancing back at Yuki and Deku. "I gotta think some more. Thanks."
Kai jerked awake, sweating and nearly activating his quirk in his panic. He felt hot, too hot. He threw off the blankets, trembling at the flood of images.
Scream, crunch, crash, over and over.
A loud sob escaped from him and he clasped his hands over his mouth. Dad was out of town on business, so only Ground Zero was home with him. He didn't want to wake the fiery hero.
His body didn't listen though and sobs continued to shake him. When he shut his eyes, the images replayed again. He could finally use the red crayon again at school, but this made him want to throw up at the thought of the color.
Kaito wasn't sure when he had removed his hands from his mouth to wipe his eyes. He had given up on trying to stop and going back to sleep. Instead, he curled up and cried.
A warm hand suddenly touched his shoulder. Kaito jerked away, twisting around to see a pair of red eyes. They were a bright crimson, instead of the dark red of his own.
Ground Zero was frowning at him, obviously tired. His pale hair was even more spiky than usual. It wasn't stark white like Yuki's hair, but instead more of an ashy blond. He was going to yell at him now. Kaito wiped furiously at his face. "S-Sorry." He choked out.
Ground Zero stared at him in silence for a moment. Then he finally turned and sat on the edge of the bed, it creaked under the hero's weight. "You..." He trailed off, lost for words.
Kaito felt so tense that he might snap, but he felt so weak that he might collapse. His tears were making it too hard to see. His head was pounding, he couldn't get enough air in. He couldn't figure out if that wheezing was him or if it was in his head along with all the other sounds.
Ground Zero twisted around, sitting in front of him. "Breath with me." He offered, softer then he had ever heard him. Kaito blinked a few times. His hair was just a messy pale blob. "Come on, uh, slowly. In..."
Kaito sucked in, but he let it out before Ground Zero said out. He choked on his tears.
"No, it's okay." He said. "Just- Again, in...out." Kai managed to copy him a few times in a row, listening to the strangely calm words of the hero.
His crying eventually subsided to something simpler. Just a few tears fell from his eyes now. "That was good." Ground Zero said awkwardly. Kaito focused on breathing, rather than the hero. "Was it a nightmare?"
"Ye-ah." His voice broke when he spoke.
Ground Zero nodded. He leaned against the wall and Kaito noticed he was wearing Red Riot socks. He smiled weakly and sniffed.
"Do you want to, tell me, about it?" The hero asked. Kai hesitated. He shook his head slowly. "That's fine, you don't have to. If you ever want to... you know or whatever, I'll listen to you."
"Th-Thanks, G-Ground Ze-r-ro."
The hero glanced at him. He looked so intense. "You're my kid. You can call me Katsuki." He paused. "Or Kacchan if you really, really want to."
Katsuki sounded wrong. Kacchan was Yuki and Deku's thing, it seemed wrong to steal it.
"Can I-" Kaito hesitated. He played with his fingers. "Can I c-call you Dad?"
The hero was silent and Kai was worried he had said the wrong thing. Eijrou was Dad now, but maybe Ground Zero didn't want that.
"Y-Yeah, kid." Kaito blinked a few times and looked at the man. He almost sounded choked up when he said that.
The boy smiled and after a second, he crawled over and hugged him.
"Thank you."
Bakugou is an awkward but amazing dad, you can't change my mind.
Also if you're curious about Yuki's quirk, I have this idea that Shouto and Izuku thought she was quirkless until she was six because she wasn't showing any signs of a quirk (and since Izuku couldn't genetically pass on a quirk there was a chance she was quirkless) but then one day she just set herself on fire and Izuku freaked out. The summary of all that is basically she developed a warmer body temperature (which made them all think she just had a fever for like a year) and a resistance to fire because of her quirk but couldn't actually produce flames for a little while. Maybe I'll do another one-shot about that whole deal later.
If you're confused about who the heck Yuki is and why Shouto's a girl, go check out my other one-shot in this AU, Midoriya Yuki: Origin! If you liked this, please leave a comment below! Thanks for reading!