I told Hero I wanted to go back to writing the kinds of stories that I thought were interesting again, so here we are.

There is one teeny, tiny problem with possessing a Quirk that allows the user to never get hurt: band-aids. Mirio had no use for them, meaning he apparently didn't keep any on-hand.

That was ridiculous.

Even a hero with an intangibility Quirk like his own managed to get paper cuts –

He stopped shifting bottles and packages of unopened toothbrushes long enough to think, when was the last time he'd gotten a paper cut? Scraped his knee? Found himself kissing a wall or a lamppost, because he hadn't paid enough attention while walking? His mastery of his Quirk should have left him feeling accomplished. He managed to avoid any and all injuries on reflex now, activating his Quirk requiring as much thought as blinking or yawning did.

Instead, he cursed himself for not owning something as simple as a first aid kit. He didn't have band-aids or those little bottles of anti-bacterial ointment that people normally put on cuts in his bathroom cabinet. He didn't have anything that could help Tamaki, except words.

"Don't worry about it," Tamaki insisted. His voice was the smallest Mirio had ever heard it, and that was saying a lot. They were separated only by one open door and a few feet of space, yet Mirio was struggling to hear him. "It just... happens... and it'd be weird if you – you know?"

Honestly, the fact that Tamaki's cuts were on his legs, not that far from the convergence of his thighs, or that Tamaki might not want him touching them, had barely registered in Mirio's mind. What he saw was a friend who was hurt, a friend who was in need of help.

"You don't need to make a big deal out of it..." With a whisper barely louder than the intake of breath used to say the words, Tamaki added, "I just wanna go home, and pretend this night never happened."

"How can you expect me not to?" Mirio wanted to say. He locked the words in his throat as they threatened to rise up, next to the growing lump that made swallowing more difficult.

Tamaki was...

This was a delicate situation. He didn't want to mess up and say the wrong thing.

"I don't like seeing you hurt," Mirio decided finally. Nice, neutral words, that allowed him to speak his mind, with little fear of Tamaki panicking and trying to retreat from his help. Honest, too.

The marks on Tamaki's arms weren't from fighting. Not with a villain, from sparring, from any of their usual class assignments, at least. Uniformly spaced and almost parallel to one another, if they were the result of any kind of fight, it was most likely a war Tamaki was waging against himself.

Sighing, Tamaki shifted his entire body in the direction of Mirio's bedroom window. "If you'd just let me go back to my house..."

"Absolutely not," Mirio interjected, a bit more forcefully than intended. Tact joined Tamaki's gaze in exiting out the window, his hands suddenly too clammy to try and stop it. Mirio hadn't felt this nervous in years, but right now, he didn't think he could've caught much of anything in his grip. "Even if I can't... I'll find a way to make it better – anyway!"

He thought of the marks he hadn't been meant to see, the puffy, parallel lines lurking beneath the hem of Tamaki's shorts. The way Tamaki had spent all night sitting, drawing his legs in closer to him only to stretch out again, fidgeting with his clothes, his posture, his position, and none of it being all that abnormal for Tamaki. He could've just been trying to find a more comfortable way to sit, he could've just been restless. That was what Mirio had – what anyone would have – assumed.

How Tamaki's eyes had widened in a way that made his irises seem even smaller and darker than normal, when he'd realized that his Mirio could see his thigh, that, oh snap, he'd caught Mirio looking –

Crap.

That had probably been the wrong thing to do, but Mirio had been so surprised, he couldn't have stopped himself.

"And if you get the urge to do it – to hurt yourself – again," Mirio closed the distance between them so quickly that he almost tripped, and this time, he might not have been able to save himself from phasing through the floor like he'd used to, "I'll do this!"

He threw his arms around Tamaki's shoulders, buried his face in the scent of Tamaki's hair, felt the tip of Tamaki's nose bump into his collarbone. Tamaki fidgeted in his grasp, but without looking, Mirio couldn't guess if it was in a good way or a bad one.

"...This feels much better, doesn't it?" Mirio ventured after a moment. A long, drawn out moment filled with silence and uncertainty, and Tamaki trembling like he'd just stepped out of an ice bath against his chest.

Spending time with Tamaki was like watching the world slow down. His presence alone often helped Mirio think, a helpful side benefit of having Tamaki frequently nearby that he hoped went both ways.

But another tic he'd picked up through spending time together was learning how to guess what Tamaki was thinking, and judging by Tamaki's lack of response, the urge wasn't going to go away that easily. Armed only with the knowledge of a bare bones middle school health class, in which the topic of mental health and self-harm had barely been touched upon, Mirio didn't have the slightest idea why a person would do such a thing or what would drive them to do it. There had been no training to prepare him for this situation, no solutions came jumping to mind on how to make Tamaki feel better.

"Let's have a movie night," Mirio suggested. "Text your parents and tell them you're spending the night at my house?"

"I thought you wanted band-aids?" Tamaki answered.

"Yeah, well..."

The cuts he'd seen hadn't been deep, but they had been red.

"I'm missing a lot of things in my house right now. Band-aids, movies, popcorn – we'll just pick some up at the convenience store on our way to get the last two?"

His worst fear was that Tamaki was going to refuse his offer. In fact, Tamaki was probably going to refuse it; he'd fixed his clothes a long time ago, putting everything back in place, like he would've been content to return to Mirio's previous ignorance.

Mirio just had to be brave, to trust that Tamaki could take care of himself. That he wouldn't injure himself beyond repair, even if he refused Mirio's help. So he loosened his arms, drawing back from the hug, although Tamaki himself had made no effort to escape from it.

Waiting for an answer was the hardest part.

"They do kind of itch," Tamaki mumbled after a while. "Band-aids would probably help with that."

"We'll buy the ones with smiley faces on them," Mirio suggested. Anything that might inject a little positivity into Tamaki's life. Crap, if only the solution were that simple – he was trying, okay?

"Fine..." A smile played at the corner of Tamaki's lips, "but I can put them on myself."

For a moment, Mirio held his breath, thinking, please don't apologize, you have nothing to be sorry for. Tamaki didn't say anything. He must have been unaware of his own shaky expression, the same way Mirio was naive to the temptations that a sharp edge and a little bit of self-hatred offered. Tamaki deserved happiness, like anyone else, that he didn't understand – like how Mirio didn't understand why he thought he owed himself pain.

"Will you at least talk to me next time?" Mirio asked, a small offering of reassurance that, regardless of what Tamaki was feeling, he wouldn't have to endure it alone. "Before you...?"
He allowed the words to hang.

Outspoken, easygoing, amiable Mirio. Finally found himself in a situation where he didn't know what to do. Wanted to help, and ended up feeling helpless instead.

Which wasn't even fair, because he wasn't the one who needed help here.

"...Okay."

Normally, if I don't write a story that is shippy to begin with, I try to leave some space that is open for romantic interpretation for the ones who are shippers, but, uh... This didn't really feel like the space to do it. So it gets the platonic tag. ^^;