(A/N) Okay so I swear I meant to get to angst this chapter. Then Hagakure's mom said no and I was like, well, I should probably swap over to Momo soon anyway, so we'll have her pov for the angst. For now, have actually pure fluff.
Once Hitoshi deemed it an appropriate hour to be awake, aka, the sun had been up for like half an hour by his judgement, he carefully slid out of the bed and out into the hallway, vaguely hoping there was something he could clean up or some dishes he could do. Something to help repay them.
Instead, he found Hagakure's mom in the kitchen carefully kneading bread. He coughed lightly to draw her attention, and she turned to him.
"Shinso, right?" She asked, glancing up at him once. "Why don't you wash up your hands and forearms then come help me with this."
Work, something he could do. Hitoshi's shoulders relaxed slightly, and he crossed to the sink to wash his hands and forearms.
Once they were clean and dried, Hagakure's mom gestured to a bowl sitting nearby. "You can just mix that with your hands, and once it's holding together for the most part, pull it out and start kneading it like this." She did the gesture again, slower. Hitoshi committed it to memory.
The bowl had a pile of probably flour and some other unidentifiable things plus liquid. He hesitated, but stuck his hands in, stirring it up hesitantly.
Once it was at a sufficiently sticky sort of consistency, he glanced at Hagakure's mom's flour covered work space. Did he too need flour? He hadn't made bread before.
She solved the problem for him, carefully shifting the dough she had around and using one hand to grab a handful of flour and half throwing it down on the counter in front of Hitoshi. Needless to say, the counter wasn't the only thing that ended up dusted in flour.
She just laughed. "There, now you don't have to worry about getting flour everywhere since it's already everywhere!"
Hitoshi wasn't sure about that, but she'd done it, so he assumed it was alright. He slid the dough onto the counter top, then tried to get everything he could out of the bowl.
She put another bit of flour on his hands and the dough. "You'll want that. Knead it carefully and watch it pull everything off your hands. They'll look pretty clean once you've reached close to the right consistency."
Hitoshi nodded, trying to copy her motions from earlier. It was easier than expected, although was quite the arm work out.
"You're up early," she noted calmly as they both worked the dough. "Was it a nightmare? You can just shake your head if you don't want to talk."
Hitoshi shook his head. It wasn't a nightmare. He just didn't sleep well in new places. Even if he was pretty sure he'd gotten like twenty minutes total in light dozes before being startled awake by a random noise he wasn't used to.
"Insomnia?" She guessed next, and Hitoshi hesitantly nodded his head. "Have you seen a doctor about it?"
Hitoshi shook his head. Why was she asking? What was the motive behind it? There had to be something.
"Well, if you need anything to do while you aren't sleeping, the instructions to make bread are permanently inked onto the fridge, and no one will complain about freshly baked bread when they wake up. Maybe you'd be able to sleep after that. Working the dough is pretty tiring."
Hitoshi shrugged, glancing at the fridge curiously. Sure enough, if he focused and looked for it, there was a recipe for bread written on the fridge in some kind of permanent marker. It looked fairly simple too.
"Plus it doesn't have an inordinate waiting time," she added. "So less time to sit and think."
Hitoshi managed to force a humming noise to sound like he was agreeing.
"You might want to keep kneading for a few more minutes," she advised. "But you're going to need to shift a bit to the left so I have enough room to roll this out."
Hitoshi moved, and she plopped the ball of dough down, and started rolling it out. He continued kneading almost absentmindedly. It was really grounding, maybe there was a reason people made bread so much.
He watched curiously as she brushed the entire thing with melted butter, quickly followed up by copious amounts of sugar and cinnamon. What was she making?
When she started rolling it up, Hitoshi still didn't get it, but continued kneading his dough anyway, not willing to risk asking.
"Oh you probably don't know what we're making," Hagakure's mom said, bending down to ruffle through the drawers she was standing in front of. "They're cinnamon rolls. Very sugary. Wouldn't make them normally, but I feel it's a special occasion. Ah, here we go."
Hitoshi was even more confused when she brought up a small thing of floss.
She seemed to notice his confused look, and explained. "I'm using it to cut the cinnamon rolls. It makes sure they aren't squished or anything."
Hitoshi didn't think he got it, but he nodded anyway.
She slid the floss underneath the role, then brought the two ends up and crossed them, pulling. The end was cut cleanly off, still a very nice circle. Maybe Hitoshi got it now. Kind of.
"Hey Hitoshi, can you grab two mugs from that cupboard there?" She asked, pointing at the one she needed while cutting another piece. "Don't worry about getting the mugs dirty, they'll live."
Hitoshi patted the dough, trying to get as much dough off his hands as he could before opening the cupboard and pulling out the first two mugs he saw, a zoo and an aquarium one.
"Oh those are good picks," she praised. "We got those a couple years ago, Toru got them for her birthday."
Hitoshi nodded, setting them on the counter near her and going back to kneading his dough.
She finished cutting up the cinnamon roll loaf and pulled out a glass pan to start arranging them in. She had to get a second pan to hold them all. She left two out, then put the pans aside. "We'll make the other roll then put them all in the oven together," she explained, pulling out two more pans.
Hitoshi glanced at the two that had been left out curiously, and she followed his line of sight to the rolls.
She picked them up and plopped one in each mug. "We'll eat those in a bit," she explained, although it explained nothing to Hitoshi. "Can I have your bread?"
He wordlessly handed over the dough.
"Wash your hands for me, alright?"
Hitoshi nodded, and quickly washed his hands, although it took a bit longer to get all the flour and dough off his hands. He was pretty sure he still had some under his nails. He returned to his previous position to watch her roll out the dough.
"Alright so, if you crouch down, you can open that cupboard down there. It's our spice cupboard, so can you find Nutmeg, All Spice, and Cardamom?"
Hitoshi opened the right cupboard and was immediately hit in the face with the smell of the spice cupboard. He liked it quite a bit. It smelled nice. He started sorting through the spices, looking for nutmeg and allspice and cardamom. He found them and reluctantly shut the cupboard. He wondered if all spice cupboards smelled that good.
He offered the spices to Hagakure's mom, and she accepted them, opening them one at a time and shaking some into the bowl she had.
"I'm mixing them together in here so that the distribution of the spices is more even," she explained calmly. "Then I'll spread this out across the surface of the dough after putting down melted butter."
Hitoshi nodded, more in acknowledgement than anything else.
"Y'know, I knew someone with a quirk similar to yours," she said as she spread the melted butter, then spread the mixture across the dough.
Hitoshi tilted his head to show he was listening.
"She was at my school for maybe a year at most, maybe a year and a half, then I never saw her again. Ningyomi, if I remember correctly. Hmm, although now that I think about it, I believe she had the same last name as you. Shinso."
Hitoshi wasn't aware of any random relatives, so he kept quiet.
"She substitute taught for a teacher that had gotten into an accident," Hagakure's mom explained. "A good teacher, although the whole school was afraid of her."
Hitoshi spotted the notepad he'd used earlier. He really wanted to ask this, so he pulled it towards him and wrote it down. 'Because quirk?'
"Do know you won't be punished for speaking," Hagakure's mom said quietly before moving on. "Partially maybe. She only needed eye contact for a few seconds to brainwash someone, although it never lasted all that long."
She finished cutting up that roll and slid both into the oven, putting the mugs in the microwave. "I don't think that was entirely it though. She was just scary in a sort of… intimidating way. She wasn't that tall, but it felt like she could see right through you, or maybe kill you in under two seconds."
Hitoshi tilted his head slightly.
"I only learned later that she was actually a known super villain." Hagakure's mom laughed quietly. "Who knows why she'd been at the school, but trust me when I say, I haven't been scared of someone since. Being in her class for a year and a half gave me quite the resistance to anyone even slightly scary to other people."
Hitoshi stared into the oven, barely able to see the pans inside. Hagakure's mom pressed a button and the inside of the oven lit up.
"Similarly, I, and perhaps a good section of the rest of the class, got the quirkist attitude worked out of us." She chuckled quietly. "She may have been a villain, but she was a good person. I admired her a lot, and kind of still do."
Hitoshi flinched as the microwave beeped loudly. Hagakure's mom carefully took the two mugs out, setting one in front of Hitoshi and handing him a spoon. "There's a stool a bit to your left and under the counter. You can sit on that."
Hitoshi found the stool in question and settled on it gratefully. He eyed the cup cautiously.
"It's a cinnamon roll in a cup," Hagakure's mom explained. "I figured you could use the extra sugar before the day is in full swing. Eat it, and remember you can eat more later if that's not enough. I'd suggest at least trying to eat some when the others do wake up or they'll worry."
Hitoshi just nodded, taking the spoon and poking at the cinnamon roll.
"It's good," Hagakure's mom prompted, eating a second bite.
Hitoshi tried a spoonful hesitantly, and while it was very hot, it was very good. He gave a timid thumbs up to Hagakure's mom, who beamed.
"I'm glad you like it kid," she said, smiling at him gently.
Hitoshi made a vague attempt to smile back, and she just smiled wider.
For the first time in a long while, Hitoshi wondered if maybe, just maybe, some adults weren't that bad.
(A/N) Awww, my poor dear. At least Hagakure's mom got some more food in him. That's always a plus. Momo's POV next time and with any luck, the proper angst. Kind of. We'll see. Come join the discord server to see the tiny isopods I'm making! Code is pnQAF39.