BNHA
Eijiro lay still in the silence of his dorm room, slowly counting his breaths. For the first time that day his mind was quiet. His flame curtains cast the light of the setting sun into a rosy glow. His clock flexed and informed him that it was time for dinner but Eijiro wasn't hungry.
Sighing Eijiro fumbled around across his covers, a number of scattered notebooks, textbooks and pencils from his brief attempt to study littered the space. His hand curled around a well nibbled pencil, unthinkingly Eijiro brought the led to his mouth and started to worry it between his teeth. Small wood chips and splinters fell unnoticed against thick skinned gums.
Eijiro replayed the fight with Midoriya in his head for the millionth time. Horror had waned to confusion long ago. Why had he done that? He had never felt the urge to bite anyone before. True, he had been cranky, the constant irritation of the last week buzzing through his veins, but that didn't explain anything. He'd been annoyed and tired plenty of times before. Sharing school and personal life with 19 other sweaty, noisy, inconsiderate teenage housemates would make anyone cranky at times.
This time had been different. This hadn't been brought on by dirty dishes and noisy game nights. This incident could only be blamed on Eijiro's own inexplicable foul mood.
Well, not that inexplicable. There was one glaring reason for his recent drop in patience and rise in assholery and it was spread clear as day across his face. Dark bags, enough to start rivaling Aizawa's hung beneath his dulled red eyes. Evidence of his recent lack of sleep.
He couldn't help it! He had done everything he could think of to try and sleep through the night. Going to bed early, no phone or video games after 6 pm, wearing himself out with double his normal evening exercise routine, drinking some of Yaoyorozu's fancy chamomile tea. Reading his math textbook!
Nothing had worked. It wasn't stress or nightmares keeping him awake, his normal cause of insomnia. No, the cause of his sleepless nights was something all together different. Eijiro pressed down on the pencil, neck tensing. His teeth snapped together with a satisfying clack, shattering the thin piece of wood. For a moment the ache in his jaw lessened, but then the itch was back.
He could feel the tick in his jaw start up. The constant twang of a pulled muscle, the rolling impatience and stinging pain in his gums. Eijiro sat up, spluttering out the splinters of lead and sighing at the mess across his lab. He rubbed his face with a calloused palm.
The thing keeping him awake at night, the new bane of his life and the reason for his constant bad mood, jaw ache. It would be embarrassing if anyone knew. Heck, it was embarrassing full stop. He should be tougher than this, harder than this. It wasn't manly to be taking his lack of sleep out on his fiends. It fact, it was distinctly un-manly and Eijiro found himself wincing in disgust just thinking about it.
The ache he could deal with, sort off, but this urge to bite was new. This absolute need to chew on something. The insistent inescapable urge to just sink his maw into something and rip it apart. Teeth itching, gums burning, jaw aching. It was almost like that time when he…
Eijiro froze, hand still clasped to his face and blinked through the faint gloom of his room at his lap. The splintered pencil stared back at him accusingly. Slowly, he rolled the thought over in his head, completing it.
This ache in his jaw, this need to bite, it was just like that time in elementary school when he. Lost. His. Teeth.
And grew them back again.
It had been a horrifying experience for both him and his Mums. Eijiro snapping and snarling and looking for anything to get his teeth into. There were deep grooves notched in their living room table, a testament to his desperation. If the constant need to bite something and feel the pressure against his gums wasn't bad enough, the actual removal of his teeth was painful and messy. Each tooth came out bloody with the roots still attached. His Ma had screamed when she came down that morning to find blood splattered across the table and all over his grinning face. Eijiro remembered being too overwhelmed with the buzz of relief to care.
It had taken two frustrating, worrying weeks for Eijiro to loose his full set of teeth. Fortunately, loosing them was the hard part. The moment they were out new replacements were pushing through his gums. They had itched something fierce at first and had been way too sensitive but a new tooth would only take a handful of days to find its place. Bigger and sharper than before.
Now he seemed to be going through the whole messy process again. Only this time he was far from home, surrounded by 19 teenage busybodies and in need of supplies he couldn't easily get his hands on if he wanted to make the experience even slightly bearable.
Eijiro groaned, falling back on the bed and rolling around. Annoyed at his weird biology and his own stupidity. He couldn't believe he hadn't noticed the similarities sooner.
After a good few minuets of cursing his obliviousness Eijiro forced himself to calm down. Blowing out a long breath, he dug his phone out of pants pocket.
'Hello, Ma?'
'Eijiro? Honey! What is it? Its not Wednesday is it? How are you sweetie?'
'I'm fine Ma. Well, kind of. Its just…my teeth are coming in.'
'Your teeth? Honey, you mean their falling out again?' Eijiro could hear the clear surprise in his Ma's voice. They had all, perhaps naively, thought what happened before was a one off.
'Yeah. I-it feels the same. The pain. I kind of…almost bit someone today.'
'Eijiro!'
'It was in training!' he defended himself, ashamed enough to not need a scolding from his Ma as well. 'Just, can you ask Mum to get the stuff she got last time? And post it to me?'
His Ma hummed thoughtfully. 'I'm not really sure that kind of thing posts well but we'll see what we can do. Perhaps you should come home this weekend? We can get you an appointment at the dentist. Make sure it's another set of teeth and nothing else. A full check up wouldn't go amiss.'
Eijiro sighed, a weekend at home sounded nice. Getting fussed over and cuddled by his Mums started a fuzzy longing within him. 'I, yeah. That sounds good. I'll talk to Mr Aizawa, ask for permission.'
'We miss you, love' said his Ma, hearing the weariness in his voice. 'I'll talk to Mum. We'll figure something out. Was there anything else? Nothing else new? Unusual?'
'I…I don't think so' said Eijiro, suddenly aware of his whole body and trying to tell if there was anything new. Other than the teeth thing he didn't think anything else was different.
'Best not to worry then. See you soon baby. Love you.'
'Love you too Ma. Give Mum a hug for me.'
'Of course baby. Try to get some sleep. Hero's need sleep you know. We'll get this all sorted out.'
A knot in Eijiro's chest released. Childish relief washing through him. Everything would be alright, his Ma said so.
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