Learning to Trust
"The real heroes aren't the people doing things; the real heroes are the people noticing things, paying attention. The guy who invented the smallpox vaccine didn't actually invent anything. He just noticed that people with cowpox didn't get smallpox."
-John Green
Chapter 18: Real Heroes
"Excuse me." The voice was so quiet and timid that Toshinori was certain that although it was near him, that it must be directed at someone else. He didn't respond, instead continuing to slowly pick away at the guilty pleasure of the small bowl of Lunch Rush's plain rice he'd ordered for lunch while studying the notes before him. He'd broken the data into different groups: numbers of people missing, ages, locations… He'd have even gone so far as to list quirks if he had that information with him, but his office had still been putting together a report on the quirks to forward to him, and from what he gathered in the short email he'd just received from his office, their information was fairly limited. Since so many of the victims were minors, and several came from questionable families, some parents were understandably hesitant to share information about their children with the police. They didn't know who exactly the first victim was, as everything seemed to have escalated so rapidly. Because of this, they couldn't pinpoint Shifter's true point of origin. They were only guessing Nabu due to the vast number of victims in that area near the beginning. They weren't even certain who he was.
In other words, they had been working on this case for months with nothing to show for it but more victims. Thankfully the public hadn't worked out that the disappearances were related or things could be even worse. The last thing they needed was mass panic.
Toshinori sighed, rubbing his hand over his exhausted eyes. And still people keep going missing with no new leads. This is a nightmare.
"Excuse me," the tentative voice said again, a little louder this time, breaking into his frustrated thoughts over the muted background noise of the crowded cafeteria. "Yagi-san?"
At the sound of his name, Toshinori finally glanced up, startled, to see a young man awkwardly standing nearby holding a lunch tray. Toshinori stared at him blankly for a moment as he tried to place a face with the name. It clicked after watching the boy fidget and refuse eye contact. "Young Tetsuya," Toshi finally greeted with a small smile. "How are you doing, my boy? Any more runaway murderbots?"
The boy flushed at those words, stammering out a quick, "No! Nothing! I promise," and earning an amused chuckle from Toshinori. His wide eyes flicked to meet Toshi's as though he were honestly surprised that the man remembered him at all, let alone sitting here teasing him as if they were friends. "I-I'm fine, Yagi-san," he stammered awkwardly. "I just wanted to…" He glanced away again as though having some sort of internal debate with himself before blurting out, "Can I sit here?"
Toshinori's surprise must have been written all over his face, because Tetsu immediately added, "If you're too busy, it's fine. I don't have to! I just…"
Toshi studied the by a moment before bursting out with a barking laugh, drawing a few curious stares from students nearby, and motioning the boy to sit as he dabbed away with his napkin at the blood he'd inadvertently coughed up. Smiling as the boy pulled out a chair and dropped quickly into the seat, he couldn't help but curiously ask, "What brings you over here? I would have thought you'd want to sit with your friends rather than with some old man visiting campus."
Tetsu's head dropped a bit, his long bangs obscuring most of his expression.
Toshi's smile grew. Sipping some water to clear the metallic taste from his mouth, he couldn't help but remember how often he'd done the same thing when he was in middle school. It was one of the reasons he'd always kept his bangs so long. He'd become a pro at hiding until he'd come here. His brow furrowed at that thought. But he'd not needed that skill so much after arriving at UA and meeting others who had finally accepted him. "Young Tetsuya," he continued gently, "I don't mind the company, but why are you joining me, if you don't mind my asking?"
The boy shrugged and looked up. "I just wanted to thank you. I-I've been meaning to thank you… and talk to you."
Toshi blinked at the boy in confusion. "Thank me for what?"
"You asked Nezu not to punish me," Tetsu replied simply. Then he added, "Why?"
Toshinori took a small bite of his rice, chewing thoughtfully before he answered. The boy waited patiently as he swallowed. "First of all, what makes you think I have any sway with the principal?"
"He told me that the final decision would be up to you. I was originally banned from all workstations except during class when Power Loader could directly supervise me. But now Principal Nezu told me that I'm allowed to be in the workstations with the other students as long as I make sure that I okay all projects with Power Loader first and don't remove anything without his permission." He slurped some of his soba, thoughtfully tilting his head. "I didn't expect you to stick up for me," he added quietly, wiping his mouth with a napkin where some sauce had splattered. "I mean, I didn't expect you to even talk to me in the hall like you did." He stared down at his food. "You had every right to hate me, but you talked to me instead. Still... you didn't. And even after we talked, I figured I'd still get punished. I mean, what I did was wrong. You three got attacked. And if you hadn't been there, then others could have been..." He locked eyes with Toshinori, who had remained in thoughtful silence during his small speech. "So why didn't you ask him to punish me?"
Toshinori just shrugged. "How are you going to learn if you don't make mistakes? And why would you risk making mistakes if you're going to get punished every time?" Tetsu opened his mouth to respond, but Toshi held up a finger to silence him and continued. "I'm not saying I condone what you did. You need to listen to people who know better. You don't want to learn everything from experience. But in this case, you obviously understand what you did wrong. When we talked, you seemed genuinely sorry about what happened. I had reason to think you would learn from the mistake, and talking to you now, it sounds like I was right. No one was hurt this time. Just don't do it again." He turned away from the boy's unnerving stare to pick away at more of his rice, fully expecting that to be that. He'd answered the question. Now young Tetsuya could go eat with his friends and leave Toshi to his work. He picked up his pen again and began jotting a few more details in the margins of his legal pad. "What does it mean?" he finally scrawled across the top of the paper after another moment of glaring at useless data in frustration.
"You were hurt, though."
Toshi didn't even look up at that. "It was a scratch. I've been hurt worse than that in my day."
"But… but you're already sick. And then I hurt you on top of that." For some reason the boy just wouldn't let it go.
"I'm fine, my boy. Thank you for your concern, but it's nothing to worry about. Just forget about it." He couldn't hide the exasperation in his voice this time. Why couldn't this kid understand that it wasn't a big deal?
"Oh… Okay…" He didn't budge, quietly eating his soba next to Toshinori.
After several minutes of awkward silence, it became obvious that the kid was planning on spending his entire lunch there. Toshi glanced back at him, sighing. He really needed to figure out this Shifter situation, but he was having trouble concentrating with this antsy, overly anxious, unnecessarily guilt-ridden kid sitting beside him. Gently, but with a hint of annoyance still creeping unintentionally into his voice, he asked, "Was there something else you needed, my boy?" He'd already turned absently back to his work before the boy even had a chance to respond.
"No," he muttered. "I guess not." His head hung again, and he moved to pick up his tray. "I'm fine. Sorry to bother you, sir."
At those familiar words and that unmistakable tone, Toshinori froze. I'm fine… There it was again. The lie that Toshi himself told the world every day. He knew what the boy was really saying. He lifted his head again to glance back at Tetsu, and the boy's expression stopped the older man. It's familiarity, something he'd seen in the mirror too many times.
He's lonely. Doesn't he have any friends here?
Tetsu had already stood and was moving to push in the chair, when Toshi made his decision and slid the legal pad away, sighing. Yes, this case was important. But so was this. "Sit down, young Tetsuya. I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to make you leave."
"No. I'm bothering you. Obviously you're trying to get work done. I'm sorry."
"It's important, but it can wait. Now, sit down. Eat." He flashed a small smile at the boy and motioned for him to sit. "Really. I need a break anyway, and I'd like to hear about that device of yours. Have you bounced any new ideas off of Power Loader yet?"
Tetsu visibly brightened and set his tray back down, sitting quickly. "Well, no. Not yet. He made me promise to finish my required work before we remove the blades and reprogram it. But he promised we can work together in a week or two. I just had to agree not to mess with it until then." He glanced curiously up at Toshinori. "He was pretty impressed with your idea for the blanket taser or sound field, by the way. And the fact that you recognized so quickly the potential flaws with the blades. He asked me if you worked in support item development." The boy's eyes widened, and he glanced surreptitiously around, his voice dropping to a hushed whisper as though they were sharing some deeply important secret. "Do you? I mean, I know usually the scouts wait for UA games before they show up, but is that why you're here?"
Before Toshinori could even answer, Tetsu continued excitedly. "No one really knows what you've been doing here. I mean, the teachers obviously do, but usually it's pretty easy for us to figure stuff out, but no one even knows who you are. I've heard some of the others saying that you might be a new teacher-we know that one of the Hero Course teachers is retiring for sure- but that didn't seem right. You don't really seem like the type."
Toshinori grinned cheekily at that. He raised one of his rail thin arms and mock flexed, teasing, "What? You don't think I'd be perfect to teach Foundational Hero Studies?"
Tetsu laughed softly, choking a bit on the water he'd just begun drinking. "Definitely not. Most of the hero kids wouldn't even listen to you unless you were a licensed Pro. And you just don't act enough like a teacher anyway."
Toshinori lowered his arm, his smile fading somewhat at that. "I don't, do I?" he asked thoughtfully, tugging lightly at one of his bangs.
Tetsu just shrugged. "I mean, I wish you were going to be a teacher. Most of the teachers are pretty strict and they don't always listen. You do." He smiled a little, his eyes again covered by his long bangs. "It's not like you'd be a bad teacher. You just don't act like one. That's all." He glanced up from behind his bangs and asked again, "So... what are you doing here?"
Toshi chuckled gently, relaxing a bit, amused by the attention a single strange skeleton of a man received from kids at this school. He motioned to the boy with his chopsticks, deftly dodging the question. "Don't you and your friends have better things to do with your time than guess what old men do for a living?"
The kid wasn't fazed. "Not really. I'm not really friends with anyone here."
That stopped Toshinori in his tracks. "Aren't you in the same year as that other young man? I thought you two were friends."
Tetsu smiled at that. "Oh, Mirio? No. He's older than I am. And he's in the hero program, so we don't even have classes together. He's just nice to everyone. I'm only a first year support student. Most of the heroes don't really mingle with us unless they need something." He paused, fidgeting a bit, adding in a more subdued voice, "Anyway, I started a little late in the year, so people had pretty much gathered into their friend groups." He slurped more noodles and didn't look up.
Toshinori tugged lightly at his bang as he considered that. Since when did UA allow transfer students partway through the school year? That had always been a huge taboo. It was simply too dangerous to have students be trained in one method and then enter UA and be forced to switch methodologies midway during the course. Even Business and General Studies required students to wait until the end of the semester. Support and Hero Programs didn't allow for it until the end of the year. "Hmph," he grunted thoughtfully.
Violet eyes flickered up at him. "Yagi-San?"
Toshinori pushed his rice aside. "I wasn't aware that UA took transfers," he replied simply. "Back in my day, that was unheard of. Is that new?"
Tetsu's chopsticks clattered to the table as the boy squeaked, "Wait. You used to go to UA?"
Shit. Before he could even answer, Tetsu continued, his eyes shining with excitement.
"What program?" He studied the man critically. "I mean, you look like an office worker, so I would guess Business, except you really seem to know your support items, too. Were you in the Support Program?"
Toshinori coughed awkwardly, amused at how excited the boy suddenly was for being so shy a few moments ago. The kid was like a walking emotional rollercoaster. "Actually I applied to UA as a General Studies student. Nothing too thrilling," he replied quickly, breaking eye contact. "But having gone to UA looks good on any resume." He shrugged noncommittally. It was technically true. He hadn't officially gotten his quirk from Nana until about half way through his first year when she'd felt he was actually ready for it, so General Studies was the only way he had been able to get into UA at all. After she'd passed her quirk on, he'd managed to fine tune One for All enough by the UA games that he'd won first place and had been switched over to the Hero Program. "Anyway," he continued, clearing his throat, "you still haven't answered my question. Are they taking transfers now? Or did you manage to hop programs?"
The boy seemed to almost shrink in on himself. "Neither," he responded in a small voice, picking his chopsticks up and laying them gently on his plate. "I had a family situation that kept me out of school for the first month of classes. I was already accepted on a scholarship, but I couldn't get here."
Something in the boy's tone and the way he began fidgeting and wouldn't make eye contact, set off warning sirens in Toshinori's mind, and old habits kicked in as his bright eyes narrowed and he tightened his right hand instinctively into a fist. His deep voice lowered into a near growl. "Family situation? Are you safe?"
Tetsu's head snapped up in surprise at the change in the normally even-tempered man's voice. "I-" He looked puzzled, but then seemed to process the problem. "Oh… oh!" His hands flew in the air in front of him, and he waved them frantically as though trying to dispel any false notions with physical force alone. "No, no, no! I didn't mean it like that! I'm fine. My dad and I don't get along the best, but it's nothing like that!"
Toshinori's eyes narrowed further as he studied the boy. He seemed earnest though. Finally Toshi's tight shoulders relaxed and he sighed. "All right, then." His blue eyes flashed back up at the boy. "I'm sorry for jumping to conclusions."
Tetsu just stared in bafflement at the man. "It's okay," he replied. "I wasn't very clear…" He hesitated a moment before adding suddenly in wide-eyed wonder, "Were you really worried about me?"
"Of course."
"Why?"
"Why wouldn't I be?" At the boy's silence, Toshinori gathered his thoughts, trying to think of the best way to tactfully clarify his answer. "Look, you seem like a good kid," he replied quietly. "But you've been here for at least part of the year and claim to have no friends. You're jumpy around authority figures. And you're latching onto a random, questionable adult, whom you've admitted you know nothing about, just because he talks to you." He motioned to himself at that, his brow furrowed. "I'd rather assume the worst and be wrong than find out later that I should have reported something." His eyes narrowed again, as he scanned the boy carefully. "You're sure there's nothing that the teachers should know about?"
Tetsu shook his head. "No… but thank you." He smiled a little, and began picking at his soba. "The principal knows my situation. My dad isn't a huge fan of UA. He didn't want me to come here. He works for a hero agency himself, but he doesn't really trust many heroes since…" The boy trailed off and glanced away.
"Since…?"
"My mom went missing a few months ago. No one found her. He kept me home for the first month of school, because he was worried something would happen to me next." Tetsu swallowed hard. "When nothing new developed, I thought he'd let me come, but he kept making excuses. There's too much crime. The police aren't doing their jobs. The heroes aren't helping anyone…" Tetsu swallowed hard. "We finally had a big blow up. He already hadn't wanted me to go away for high school. It was my mom who really believed in me, so when she was gone…" He cleared his throat. "Anyway, I had a scholarship for UA, so it wasn't like I was getting financial support from home in the first place. I told him I was leaving, and he told me if I did that I shouldn't bother coming back." The boy seemed to shrink in on himself. "So here I am. There are some dorms on campus for those of us who are kind of far from our families and can't afford off-campus housing. The principal makes me check in with him weekly, too. I don't think he likes that I'm here when my dad opposes it, but he's letting me do it as long as I do as I'm told. Otherwise, I have to go home." He looked helpless. "And I can't really do that either now that I left."
Suddenly everything made sense. "That's why you were so worried when Cementoss was going to tell the principal about the support item." It wasn't a question.
"Yeah," Tetsu whispered. "So, thanks again for talking to the principal for me. It… it really means a lot."
Toshinori sighed, rubbing tiredly at his eyes. "What happened to your mother?"
"We don't know. They didn't find her. No one even knows where she is. She was on her way home from work, and she never made it back. Dad filed a missing person report with the police force, but nothing happened."
"You said he works for a hero agency, though. Didn't he try working with the agency?"
Tetsu sighed. "He's only a janitor. No one really cares what he thinks. He tried getting in to talk with someone, but everyone's always busy. The best he could do was leave information about the case and put in a request." He shrugged.
Toshinori grunted at that, his expression darkening. He balled his hand into an angry fist. What kind of heroes don't even help their own employees? "What agency does your father work for?" he bit out tightly.
"Might Tower," Tetsu murmured, flushing. "I'm sure All Might had way more important things to worry about than some random missing person. It happened when he was on that vacation a month ago, so he probably had a lot to catch up on when he got back…"
It was as though a knife had twisted in his heart at those words, and he scowled, angry with the entire situation, but especially angry with himself. Why had his body failed him when this kid obviously had needed his help? And how had he not known about this? He hadn't actually been on a vacation. He'd just been recuperating from an illness. He should have received that request and had plenty of time to look into it. "No," he bit out firmly with such ferocity that Tetsu's head snapped up and he locked eyes with Toshinori. "Every random missing person is important to someone. I agree with your father. That's not acceptable behavior for a hero. For any hero, including All Might." He tightened his fists. "And I know for a fact All Might would agree with me on that. Someone below him decided it wasn't important, not him."
Tetsu smiled a little at that. "You're an All Might fan, too, huh?"
Toshinori blinked at him in surprise. "No. I… What makes you think…?"
"You're jumping to defend him." He smiled a little at Toshinori's flustered blustering. "It's okay. I don't blame him or anything. He can't save everyone all the time. My dad doesn't get that, but I see how hard the heroes work here, and I know they can't do everything."
"But they should do something. You're right that heroes can't save everyone-not even All Might." He huffed angrily, dark eyes flashing, and muttering more to himself than anything, "But I didn't even know about this. The request never even made it to me."
Tetsu stared blankly at Toshinori. "What do you mean?"
It took a solid moment for Toshi to process what the boy was asking. To realize that he'd spoken that aloud.
Shit.
He took a breath. "I… work for Might Tower, too," he responded slowly. As the boy's eyes widened, he added quickly. "I'm part of the clerical team. I manage All Might's affairs. All official requests for him go through me first." He shook his head. "I never got word of your mother's disappearance. I know that with absolute certainty." His eyes narrowed. "But I'm going to be making some calls to find out what happened. I promise. This isn't acceptable. We'll figure out what happened to your mother."
When the boy didn't immediately respond, Toshinori glanced back down at him. Tetsu was staring down at his soba, the hand holding his chopsticks trembling slightly. "I… Why are you doing this for me? I almost killed you. You don't even know me," the boy stammered. "And you work for All Might? I mean… my device was designed to target…" He swallowed hard, his hands shaking worse.
Toshinori gently rested his large hand on the boy's shoulder, causing Tetsu to start and glance up in surprise, his eyes red and glassy. Toshi smiled down at him. "First of all, don't worry that I work for All Might." His grin grew. "I won't tell anyone about your device. Second, I don't have to know you to see that you're hurting. And I know what it's like to lose a mother." He cleared his throat, adding, "Anyway, it's just a few phone calls. Don't worry about it." He turned to look at the clock more to break eye contact than anything. "You'd better run now, young Tetsuya. If I'm not mistaken, lunch is over and classes will be starting soon."
Sniffling and wiping his eyes as inconspicuously as he could with his napkin, the boy looked at his watch. "Oh, right!" He leapt to his feet, grabbing his tray, and offering to take Toshinori's as well.
"I'm still picking away at the rice. It's fine. Thank you though, my boy."
Tetsu nodded, and smiled shyly. He pushed in his chair and moved to walk away, then stopped and turned back. "Yagi-san?"
Toshinori had already been pulling his legal pad toward him again, brow furrowed as he studied the numbers.
"Thank you. You're more like a hero than most of the Pros, you know."
Toshi's mouth opened slightly as he was struck speechless.
"Here," Tetsu continued, reaching over Toshi's notes to pick up napkins and wrappers. "I can at least throw out your garbage for you." He glanced curiously at the yellow legal pad just then, reading Toshi's frustrated note across the top of the page: "What does it mean?" His violet eyes flitted briefly to the man as he straightened, Toshinori's garbage now piled on his own tray. Tetsu tapped the numbers on the paper. "The Fibonacci sequence."
Toshinori's head jerked up to stare at the boy in surprise. "What was that?"
Tetsu tilted his head to the side as he studied the numbers, eyes narrowed. "Well, almost. Your first number should be twenty-one, not twenty, but other than that, it's the Fibonacci sequence. That's what those numbers are." He made eye contact with Toshi and smiled a little. I don't know if that helps with anything, but that's what your numbers mean."
He looked over at the clock again and winced. "Crap! I'm gonna be really late if I don't get moving. Thank you, Yagi-san." He scurried away to throw the remains of his lunch out as Toshi waved absently at the boy, his eyes fixed on the numbers.
"No, my boy," he murmured, eyes narrowing. "Thank you..."
Authors Note: Thank you so much lolo popoki for your lovely beta work once again. Also a huge thank you to all of the readers still following this story. Thanks for reading (and reviewing).
Have a lovely week. I hope you enjoy this!
Sincerely,
Sirius:)
