Living with Aizawa-sensei and Mic-sensei is nice, even if a bit weird. They all eat together, sharing anecdotes over take-out or home cooked meals, and Hitoshi is even asked for his opinion on new recipes.
But most jarring is how much they show their affection for each other; their wings will extend to cover the other's shoulder while they go through paperwork, Aizawa-sensei will let Mic-sensei hold his hand, and he even saw his mentor braid Mic-sensei's hair. And that's without talking about the preening.
They take the time to sit cross legged on the collapsible sofa, redoing each other's feathers while they talk about everything and anything—or more accurately, Mic-sensei will carry the conversation while Aizawa-sensei interjects with quiet hums and one word sentences.
Hitoshi stays in his room under the pretence of homework, out of the way. There's a silent invitation he pretends he doesn't see, in the form of an empty place where he can sit to close the preening circle and the worried look they give him when they see his wings.
It's just too… too much like an actual family, like the ones shown on TV shows and stock photos. It's too new, too frightening—if he joins them, he's sure they'll both see through him and know how much he's desperate to keep this; the casual hair ruffling, learning about vinyls, receiving 'welcome homes' and 'goodnights'.
It lasts two weeks before Aizawa-sensei invites him to sit on the sofa, the edge he holds when he's at school and training Hitoshi softened by the pink sweatpants and the relaxed way he holds himself at home.
Maybe it's Mic-sensei's absence, or maybe it's the peaceful quiet hugging the apartment. Whatever it is, when Aizawa-sensei asks him if he wants to have his wings done, Hitoshi agrees without thinking about it too much, the tight dread usually handing over his head nowhere to be seen.
He kind of wants to throw up now.
Hitoshi doesn't know what he should be doing, but he's too ashamed to admit it. He's seen it before—who hasn't?—but watching a scene in a movie and looking at his classmates' preening circles does not lend itself to actual allopreening.
A sudden bout of self-consciousness makes him curl his wings. He knows they're ugly—they're barely brown, thin and atrophied from misuse, and although Hitoshi can acknowledge that they aren't as decrepit as when he was younger, when they were more bed sores than feathers, there are still places where his plumage is sparser, where skin shows every time he so much as flare his feathers. They're the farthest thing from Aizawa-sensei's impressive pitch black wings, feathers so thickly layered that Hitoshi's entire hand could disappear in them, or Mic-sensei's bright wings, lustrously shiny even when he dyes them a different colour at every possible occasion.
"Are you sure you're okay with this? I won't be angry if you say no," Aizawa-sensei says.
Hitoshi scowls, annoyed at his own reaction. Years of watching others get integrated in preening circles with envy, and his hesitation might prevent it from happening. "Yes."
"Okay. Tell me as soon as you want to stop."
Hitoshi forces his shoulders and wings to relax. It's only Aizawa-sensei. Hitoshi trusts him. Besides, Aizawa-sensei has occasionally replaced a feather or two before, when they got too ruffled during training. This is just that, but more.
"I'm going to start with your primaries." Aizawa-sensei ghosts his fingers over bone, ignoring the light tremor that runs through. Hitoshi wants to enjoy this, he really does, his next placements—they told him he's here to stay, but what if, what if, what if?—would never willingly touch his wings, but he can't stop overthinking it.
Fingers cards through his grimy feathers to find mature feathers still stuck in their sheaths, gently smoothing them down in the areas where Aizawa-sensei doesn't find any. He starts slowly, rolling off the sheath and lining the new feathers up, rezipping them. Stiffness prevents Aizawa-sensei from unfolding Hitoshi's wings completely, but the rhythmic almost-petting and the monotone narration he keeps of what he's doing helps Hitoshi let go of the tension in his back. It's nothing like the times Hitoshi and some of the boys from his old dorm preened each other, when it was more of an excuse to vent frustration with sudden tugs and too rough stretches. Aizawa-sensei always keeps his touch light.
It feels nice. Like Aizawa-sensei cares about him as much as he says he does. He doesn't know what to do with his hands though. Does he keep them on his knees? Does he hold them together?
"How's your math homework going?"
Hitoshi groans at the question. "If I tell you, are you going to tell Ectoplasm-sensei?"
Aizawa-sensei starts threading oil through his primaries. It's one of those super expensive ones that claims to give feathers the best shine. Hitoshi doesn't understand how a tiny bottle can cost that much, surely it couldn't be much better than those drugstore gallons, but the look Aizawa-sensei gives him keeps him from protesting too much. Mic-sensei and Aizawa-sensei are apparently loaded, but still. Hitoshi doesn't understand how they can live with themselves, wasting the expensive oil on him.
"Will your answer change if I say yes?" Aizawa-sensei sounds bored, but Hitoshi knows him well enough to understand that his mentor wouldn't even ask him if he wasn't interested in what Hitoshi has to say.
"Of course I totally finished it, I just need to give it another pass over."
"Brat." The nickname makes Hitoshi grin—his back is to Aizawa-sensei, so he doesn't bother hiding it. It's the same tone his mentor uses when he calls Lamp a bastard after she swats a plastic cup of the table. "If you need help, you can always ask me. Or Hizashi, he's a lot better in math than me. I'm moving to your scapulars"
"That's because Mic-sensei's better at everything—" Hitoshi startles at the touch. It's almost too much, almost burns, like his skin isn't used to contact.
The hands immediately let go. "I'm sorry. Did I hurt you?"
"No, it's—I was just surprised." Hitoshi pulls his left wing to his front, ignoring the strain to look for an injury. The base of his wings is a hard to reach place, and he can't see it without a mirror, but maybe if he cranes his head a bit more and tugs his dumb wing this way—
Aizawa-sensei bats his hands away, folds his wing back into a more comfortable position. "Do you want to stop?"
"No!" Hitoshi can't help the way his feathers flare out. "I mean, do you want to stop? It must be boring."
"It's not boring." Aizawa-sensei's eyes glaze slightly. "Allopreening enables necessary touch and bonding between flock members. It strengthens relationships and is mentally beneficial to all parties involved."
"Did you just quote something?" Hitoshi asks incredulously.
"Do you want to stop?" Aizawa-sensei asks instead. "Think of what you really want. If you need a break now, it doesn't mean I can't preen you later."
Hitoshi hesitates, but Aizawa-sensei doesn't rush him, lets him mull his thoughts. "Yeah. But maybe only the primaries?"
Aizawa-sensei hums in approval, probably because Hitoshi 'set clear boundaries' and 'communicated his needs' or something useless like that. His mentor nudges him to turn around again. He sticks to his primaries, just like Hitoshi asks, and soon, the weird burning is easily forgotten.
"Can I—" Hitoshi closes his mouth with a click. He prays Aizawa-sensei didn't hear him, or feigns ignorance, but his mentor turns to him, gesturing at him to go on. The fear of rejection makes him mutter, "Never mind."
Aizawa-sensei stays silent. He's giving Hitoshi the opportunity to decide whether or not he wants to change the subject. Hitoshi knows he won't pressure him, and that allows him to gather enough courage to ask, "Do you want me to preen you too?"
By the time his sentence is finished, Hitoshi's voice has lowered to almost a whisper. Regret and anticipation makes him keep still. He doesn't dare look at Aizawa-sensei's expression now.
It feels like forever before he hears shuffling next to him. "Sure."
A heavy wing drops on his lap, startling him. Aizawa-sensei is half-turned, not facing away from him completely.
Hitoshi glances at Aizawa-sensei's face, to survey his expression when he lowers his hands into the feathers. The absence of reaction reassures him; he's really okay with Hitoshi preening him then.
"Do you know how?" Aizawa-sense voice hold no judgment, but Hitoshi flushes in embarrassment anyways.
"Theoretically." He's read 'how-tos' and watched plenty of instructional videos, but he's never had the occasion to really practice those skills. He tried with his own feathers, but he had quickly fallen back into his usual painful-but-efficient ways.
"That's good. Here, let me show you with a secondary and you can do the rest." Aizawa sensei takes out one feather tip, holding it in between his fingers, easily freeing it from the rest. He twists his fingers and the keratin falls off in one smooth motion. He then sleeks it back with quick practiced movements, rubbing in the remaining oil on his hands. "Don't worry about pulling too hard."
Hitoshi jumps when Aizawa-sensei grabs five feathers in his fist and jerks his arm. He doesn't show any indication of pain at what would have ripped out Hitoshi's feathers.
Hitoshi smoothed out the tugged on feathers. They're easy to slick back into their shape, but when he tries his best to place them back into formation, even his inexperienced eye can tell something is wrong with how he arranged them. He knows he has to 'follow the flow', whatever that means. On himself, it's easy to tell how his feathers have to go, he can feel where they should overlap, but without the sensory input, all he has to rely on is his sight, and right now, nothing is aligned right.
Maybe he should leave them be for now. Thankfully, Hitoshi is able to identify which feathers are ready to be released. He picks up one, careful not to break it.
It takes him longer to roll all of the sheath off. He tries his best to pinch the barbs together with a combination of his nails and the pads of his fingers, just like how Aizawa-sensei demonstrated.
It's…it's not that bad…? He glances at the other feathers and his stomach drops. Nevermind, the feather looks horrible.
Aizawa-sensei continues staring straight ahead, oblivious to what Hitoshi is doing. Maybe the fancy oil will help?
He pours some in his palm. Just a drop, barely anything, but it coats the feather completely, making it look greasy and wet. There's still a lot left on his hand.
"Hitoshi, what's wrong?"
Aizawa-sensei has turned around, worry etching lines on the side of his mouth. Hitoshi swallows around the thing stuck in his throat. His knee kind of hurts, and when he unclenches his hand, small crescent marks show where he had inadvertently dug his fingernails in.
Aizawa-sensei's eyes flicker from Hitoshi's wings to his face to his hands, finally noticed the mess Hitoshi made of his feathers. "It's pretty good for a first time."
"You don't have to lie." It comes out angrier than Hitoshi intends.
"I'm not lying. You haven't had a lot of occasions to preen other people, it's logical you wouldn't be perfect at it the first time. It just takes practice."
He shouldn't have gotten mad. Aizawa-sensei let him touch his wings and he ruined it. He shouldn't have gotten mad. He turns his head away, unable to look at Aizawa-sensei. He breathes in, slow and steady, to stave off the easy slide into the mindset where everything is simpler, classified into danger and not-danger. "I'm sorry."
It had looked so easy when Aizawa-sensei did it, and all the tutorials he's seen said it would come to him. It's supposed to be instinct, natural, but he hadn't felt anything like that at all, only fumbling incompetency and slow rising panic. There's something fundamentally wrong with him, he knows it now. It was dumb to think he was anything but broken.
"Hitoshi." A hand, safe-comfort-gentle, waves lightly to get his attention. "Hitoshi, look here, it's fine. It's easy to fix."
Aizawa-sensei works quickly but unhurried. He's right; he barely has to touch his wings and the feathers Hitoshi messed up are back in their place, blending into the rest.
"It can be difficult when you aren't used to a wing type, so it's impressive that you almost got it right." Aizawa-sensei scratches his cheek. "I honestly thought you were going to break a pin feather or two."
The admission snaps Hitoshi's head up. "Why would you let me do that?"
"You're going to break one eventually. Today would have been a good time to show you how to deal with it." Aizawa-sensei shakes out his wing before settling it back on Hitoshi. The weight is reassuring, like it's holding him in his skin. "It's inevitable, and anyone who pretends they never broke someone's blood feather is a liar."
Aizawa-sensei continues when Hitoshi stays silent, "I'm assuming you heard people say it'll 'come to you' or that once you sit in a preening circle, you just have to 'follow your heart', or whatever bullshit they spout nowadays."
He wipes his greasy feather with the surrounding ones, until the oil has been distributed around. "You should have seen Hizashi when he was your age. I think he broke more feathers than he preened, but he was always so apologetic about it that everyone in our class let him in their circles."
It's always destabilizing to hear about Aizawa-sensei and Mic-sensei's younger days. He can't imagine them as unsure teenagers, even though Mic-sensei has shown him pictures. Aizawa-sensei had been so short.
"Do you want to try again? We can also do something else."
Hitoshi lets his hands rest on Aizawa-sensei's wings. He thinks of crushed black feathers squirrelled away in the bottom of his bag. "Are you sure?"
Aizawa-sensei's lips quirk upward for a split second before it falls back to his bored-tired expression. "I wouldn't be asking if I wasn't."
Mic-sensei is waiting for him in the waiting area. He's wearing his hair down today, and his feather dye matches his nail polish, a pastel pink—it's 'lemonade themed', but Hitoshi personally thinks it gives him flamingo vibes.
He puts his phone away when he sees Hitoshi, greeting him with a smile.
"How did it go?"
"Same as usual," he says with a shrug, letting himself fall on a chair next to Mic-sensei. "It's so slow. I'm sure we could have been done last week."
Physio sucked. When Hitoshi had learned he was going to strengthen his wings, he didn't think it would be like this. Aizawa-sensei had explained it like it was training, and Hitoshi had been so excited, but it's just so boring. The physio team always stops him before he can feel that satisfying burn, and he's just left with frustrated energy his wings can't use.
Thankfully, both Pros have their own physio homework to do at home; Hitoshi doesn't have to do his wing stretches alone, always accompanied by Aizawa-sensei working on his elbow and back or Mic-sensei's voice and wing warming exercises.
"I'm not making any progress."
Mic-sensei stares at him for a second, before he says, "It's hard to see it from your perspective, but it's amazing how far you've come. I know it's difficult; I can't tell you the number of times I cried during a physio session." His teacher gets up, pats his shoulder.
(It's something Hitoshi has had to get used to. The casual touches, to steer him in a crowded place, to give him comfort, or even just to welcome him home. He's acknowledged in a way that is slightly scary. Mostly exhilarating.)
"Wait here, lil' listener. I want to show you something."
Mic-sensei gives him finger guns before moving to the secretary desk. Hitoshi slumps down on his chair, ignoring the way his muscles pull from the awkward position his wings stretch up. There are motivational posters all over the wall, with the occasional educational sign. At least, Mic-sensei promised him a visit to the cat cafe afterward.
His teacher comes back with a folder. "This is how your wings looked the first time you came here." Mic-sensei shuffles through the various notes until he gets to one with a stapled picture. It's him from the back, naked from the waist up. He's surprised to see the extent to which they were atrophied, and he remembers how much it had hurt to unfold them. "And this is you last week."
The difference is stark; although they're still thin, they're held higher, and they stretch almost to their entire span, with muscles bulking his scapulas up.
"Oh." Hitoshi picks up the two photos, holding them side by side. He doesn't feel like he's changed that much, but the pictures don't lie.
Mic-sensei stays silent, allows him some time to digest the information, until Hitoshi places the pictures back in the folder.
"You've worked really hard, and we're all really proud of you, Hitoshi." Mic-sensei rearranges a few stray marginal coverts from his wings so he can pretend not to see Hitoshi wipe his eyes. "Say what, once they give the okay, I'll bring you to a flight sim at my workplace. Don't tell Shouta, but I know wayyy cooler flight tricks than him."
He holds out a stretched out pinky to make it into a promise. He does it so easily, says it without hesitation, as if it isn't another comment that hammers the fact that Hitoshi's here to stay, reassurance that when Mic-sensei looks into the future, Hitoshi will still be there.
"I don't know, Aizawa-sensei is pretty cool when he flies." Hitoshi hooks his own pinky with a wobblier-than-usual grin.
Mic-sensei fiddles with his music note earrings. "So, we wanted to give you something."
Hitoshi tries to shake the bag inconspicuously. It doesn't rattle, doesn't weigh much either. Aizawa-sensei face stays impassive, and Yamada-sensei just looks nervous.
It's contagious, starting to affect Hitoshi too. He takes a deep breath. Like a band-aid, right?
He pulls away the thin gauze, dropping it on the table to peers inside the bag. Shock runs through his spine, making him instinctively puff out his feathers.
"You don't have to accept, of course. It won't change anything if you do or don't, yeah? You'll still be our kid."
Hitoshi ignores Yamada-sensei's rambling to reach inside the bag with trembling hands.
It's a black cat plushy, with a yellow bow. The synthetic fur is soft between his fingers, its buttons eyes gleaming at him.
"It's a bit childish, but I remember really wanting one when I was your age." Yamada-sensei laughs, a bit high-pitched. "That doesn't mean you have to feel the same way, we bought molt keychains too—not that you necessarily want those either—but I just thought—"
Yamada-sensei cuts himself off when Hitoshi squeezes the cat tentatively, before bringing it to his chest. It smells like Aizawa-sensei and Yamada-sensei, like someone captured the distinct smell of their apartment and packed it in the plushy.
When he was younger, he had been so jealous of his classmates when they would bring their down-stuffed plushies. Knowing that he was one of the only boys in the establishment without one had been another thing to hold over him.
The mocking had worsened when he had brought synthetic feathers to school, coloured crayola-brown to match his own in what he thought was a clever trick. He hadn't known they had a recognizable smell at the time.
Aizawa-sensei pulls out a small pouch with black and white feathers tied at the stem. It's the same type the two Pros have fastened to their bags and wallets.
The leather pouch fits perfectly in the palm of his hand, the feathers tickling his fingers where they flutter under his breath. His eyes prickle. "Thank you so much."
Aizawa-sensei pats his shoulder with a gentle smile, and Yamada-sensei envelops him in a tight hug, warm and encompassing.
It feels like a dream, too good to be true. Hitoshi knows, logically, that they like him, want him here; if they didn't, they wouldn't have opened their home so readily, wouldn't have fast-forwarded the necessary paperwork.
Having the molt-keychain decoration his bag, the down-stuffed plushy to rest in his nest, declaring him under a flock's care and protection, it's everything he used to long for; it's reassurance and you-belong and there's-nothing-you-can-do-to-make-us-leave-you, all packaged neatly in leather and plastic fur. The cat is well filled, and it isn't small either. It must have taken a lot of time to stuff it.
Aizawa-sensei's smile turns into a grin, 'I told you so' written all over his face. Yamada-sensei rolls his eyes in his direction, signing something too fast for Hitoshi to understand, before he says, "Just tell us if you need us to restuff it."
Hitoshi can only manage another 'Thank you', wings fluttering in happiness.
