Chapter 51
"Move In, and Move out."
Hizashi did not stay in the room much longer than that. Jonathan didn't seem quite too pleased with him for avoiding telling Alarice, and the new daughter seemed... mostly bewildered. There was also the not-so-small fact that this utterance of the new reality was an upsetting reinforcement of Jonathan's mortality.
Leaving the room created its own conundrum, what would he do afterwards in regards to Alarice? She was his kid, now, too. Shouldn't he do something about these feelings? Or was he going to need to support her emotionally more, now, AND financially? Hadn't he already been doing enough?. Jonathan was dying... he was going to have to deal with that, one way or another, he realized. That brought memories of helping his mom with her parents, back in the states, the second time going to help put grandma to rest. Then, his grandad's funeral, and that had been a trial, all of its own... The train of thought continued on to darker thoughts that he had to shake out of his head. Instead, walking away down the hallway to get something to drink.
When he came back, tears had mostly dried up. Mostly, Alarice was still occasionally rubbing at her eyes. Jonathan's ice blue eyes had red around them, he'd been crying, himself. The tablet was out, though, and they had the information out about the Support Department on it.
"Mr Hizashi if you'd come explain some more details of things to us, so Alarice can make her decision." Jonathan patted Alarice's shoulder and she looked up, at that. Her claws had come out, once again, but that was starting to become so normal that they didn't notice. If it stayed at that, well, that wasn't a problem.
"Oh sure, yeah." Hizashi responded, giving a thumbs up to the pair, before quietly settling into his spot again, to show and explain to both. He noticed that Jonathan was making a lot of effort to make Hizashi take part in, what he realized was, a very normal thing for FAMILIES to do: talk about their kid's future.
They went over Alarice's options, discussed it with her as best they could, with limited means, though Alarice was getting better with the sign language. As the conversation came to an end, and she was still on the fence, there was a weird placid calm in the room. It was welcome given all the drama. There would be more drama, probably, but... he felt... confident about the future in regards to taking care of this new baby.
New baby, who wasn't at all a baby, and was a nearly fully grown young woman who needed support.
Though, he had left out that he was going to be her new Homeroom teacher. Sure, he was part of the Hero department, but he also home-roomed for the Support Class she was going to. He was, after all, a Hero who really needed his support gear, and had worked with his designers when it was made for him.
000
"I do not see why I need to help with this." Aizawa stated blandly, while Hizashi came in behind him, with Jonathan wheeling himself in, right behind. Hizashi gently laying the folded cardboard boxes down, to be put together, while Jonathan wheeled all the way in, and set himself to locating the suitcases he'd need to pack up her clothes for her. Aizawa stood there semi-awkwardly in the room, it was only a few steps away from being as bad as Midoriya's room.
"More hands is always helpful!" Hizashi responded, trying to be cheerful about it. "Besides, I mean, she's part of my family now..." His cheeks flush and he looked away from Aizawa, still upset with himself for not talking to him about adopting Alarice. Aizawa, himself, let out a big sigh, finally.
"I'm sorry I called Alarice a Puppy, the other night." Hizashi finally admitted, rubbing his arm nervously, while the door shut gently behind him. He grabbed his own box to open up, so he could put some of the toiletries into it. The stuff she hadn't gotten moved to the hospital, anyway. It wasn't much, so it was easy to do. He could also, more importantly, hide himself in the bathroom for a brief moment, while he apologized.
"You've already been forgiven for that." Aizawa stated sleepily as he took the embarrassing task of taking down two Mic figurines, and engaging, with a dead glare, at the ugly Mic plush, on her bed.
"What are you two talkin' about?" Jonathan asked them, a tone of sarcasm in his voice.
"Hizashi called Alarice a puppy. It was in poor taste." Aizawa stated, placing the plush into the box face down. Only to jump at Jonathan's boisterous laughter at the statement. Hizashi poking his head out of the bathroom, and putting the now full-ish box of stuff to the side. He faintly said 'what?'
"That's not that bad, I call her a puppy all the time, cuz she's still a little pup." Jonathan wiped a tear from his laughter out of his eye.
"Little?" Hizashi offered from the door way, while Aizawa just continued to pack miscellaneous items away, while he listened.
"Haha, she is," Jonathan wiped his hand over his nose, while he, with some interesting dexterity for a wheelchair-bound man, dropped open the suitcase for her clothes. "Compared to my younger brother, she's a little thing!" His statement ended with more laughter.
"How big is your brother, then?" Hizashi asked, sweating just a little. He'd gotten involved in this family, and he was learning something terrifying and new every day.
"Carl's a Giant too, of course, so, pretty big. Bigger than me, really and I'm a bit bigger than a horse." Jonathan started carefully managing clothes into the suitcase. "I haven't seen my brother in a long time, lost contact with him right before the pack was disbanded, but he'd been M.I.A. for awhile. He's probably still alive, I can feel it. Point is, Carl is the biggest Hell-hound to ever live, so far, anyway." Jonathan's voice became melancholic, while he continued to empty the drawer. Aizawa and Hizashi briefly shared a quiet glance at each other, in question on how big Alarice's Uncle Carl was. Alarice was still young, still growing, Her form was already, pretty intimidatingly, large in height. Aizawa had told him about Parasus's big, bulky and frankly terrifying size and appearance. As well as the uncomfortable description of her scorpion tail and the size of it's stinger.
Quietly, Hizashi was thankful she wasn't going to be bothering anyone else, ever again.
When Hizashi looked up again, to find the next thing he should help pack-up, he let out a yell of a normal human volume, and pointed aggressively at the poster on the wall.
The old, worn poster, clearly was occasionally rolled and currently framed on the wall to preserve it. He glared back at the visage of himself, bad hair-do, and about a million more studs than necessary, on his person. "How THE HELL did you get her THAT poster!? They were a LIMITED RUN! And aVISUAL TRAGEDY! "
Hizashi only stopped when Aizawa hit him in the back of the head with a small black throw pillow. "Stop yelling."
Jonathan just started laughing at Hizashi's expression and reaction. "She loves that poster, she told me, when I managed to get it, that you didn't wear that uniform anymore, and that it was old. She still got so excited about it. Don't worry Hero, not everyone can age with grace."
Hizashi made a face, Jonathan's blue eyes glittered back with teasing maliciousness and Aizawa let out a snort. Following up his nasal expression with actual words; "The benefits of forgoing showy Hero stuff."
Their little commentary and discussion of the poster had distracted the two Heros, and one hell-hound father, from the door opening to the horrified expression of two teenagers. Uraraka and Midoriya standing there, with their already adorably big eyes, even more big, and worried.
"Alarice isn't coming back?" was Uraraka's soft question, when Aizawa saw them staring into Alarice's room. All of the adults were now looking at the intruding teens, though Hizashi was doing it from the angle of quickly getting the poster down, and covering it up with a blanket.
"She's not." Aizawa responded simply, Hizashi jumping-in before he could finish, with an explanation.
"She's not leaving the school! She'll still be here!"
"So, she's leaving the Hero course." Midoriya put together, looking still pretty sad about it, but not too surprised. After all, the conversation at the hospital, hadn't been that happy before they got her back to the group. "If she's still going to be at the school, she'll be at another dorm... can we help move her in?"
"That's fine by me!" Hizashi stated, before Aizawa could answer, and Jonathan looked curious about the kids. Hizashi waved them over quickly. "Uraraka, Midoriya, this is Alarice's dad, Mr. Stone."
The two kids politely greeted him back, giving their names in their best English, which made Hizashi practically beam with pride. So much so, he almost forgot about the picture frame with the blanket on it. Remembering just in time, to move it, himself, so no one else had to see it.
"Are we putting her room back together in the other dorm room, or … ?" Uraraka asked, helping get some of the clothes into the suitcase. Aizawa felt his eyes roll up into his head, then finally let out a sigh. He did not sign up for this...
"I think we're just putting stuff there, and letting her handle the rest.." Hizashi answered, ignoring the way Midoriya was mumbling, and mentioning all the bits of memorabilia Alarice had of Present Mic. Occasionally, he was clearly speaking some English, and Jonathan was having a good time telling the teen about when Alarice obtained some of them. Though, it was unclear how much either understood the other without listening in hard.
"What if we set it back up, too? That way she doesn't have to worry about it." Uraraka suggested, while making a side-eye to the still out-on-the desk bits of dj-esque sound equipment one would use to make remixes. Not terribly cheap, either, and kept in almost pristine condition, despite clearly being used. Other items including a few thumb drives and an external CD-drive were close by. CD's neatly labeled and stacked and the little thumb drives had some labeling on them. Hizashi had admittedly been avoiding looking at that, mostly out of how sad it looked. Her work station was just there, sitting, waiting for her to come back and do her thing, and it just wasn't going to be happening.
"What did she say?" Jonathan asked, Hizashi nearly sticking his own thumb with the removed thumbtack from the wall.
"She was saying we could set up her room for her, in the new dorm room."
"oooh that sounds like a good idea, I bet she'd appreciate it." Jonathan responded, though there was a hint of fatherly concern in his voice. Hizashi translated it over anyway for Uraraka just in case.
Aizawa rolled his eyes into the ceiling and completed, gently, stashing away the miscellaneous objects into the box.
The movements of packing up all of Alarice's room and things attracted the attention of more and more of 1-A to the second floor of the girls wing. Kyoka came in almost as if she had run up there. She had positioned herself to packing up the electronics, with delicate care and pointed out that one stack of CD's was hers.
Momo, Iida, Kaminari and Kirishima were quick to follow as soon as they weren't busy with something. By the end, there was almost like a little ant train of students carrying boxes, or in the case of Kirishima and Iida, caring an entire book shelf, all the way to the new Dorm building. The students of 1-G were watching this, and definitely talking about how it looked like an army of ants.
Once into the room, Kyoka had taken point on getting her room set back up alongside Alarice's Dad. Meanwhile, a steady stream of items came out of 1-A's dorm and into the new room in the other dorm building. Everything was going smoothly. Though Hizashi had taken control over the blanket-draped framed poster that none of the students had seen. Waiting even till the room was completely done to hang it up.
Though for all his effort to hide the embarrassing old image, and even an attempt to remove it eternally, blocked by Aizawa, he was not successful in hiding it forever. True, Jonathan and Kyoka had seen it already, but now a few more eyes saw it. Midoriya saw it and Kaminari saw it when the blanket came off too early. The latter unable to hold in his laughter. "I guess that's why they tell us our hero costumes are gonna change!"
"Shut it! Have some respect!" Hizashi howled back at the blond, who only laughed harder. Midoriya stood there red in the face, and said nothing, though, he was a little envious of the poster.
With the help of 14 teenagers and the three adults, Alarice's new room was ready for her. Though some new items were alongside the old, and some remained in their boxes, like the headphones and sound equipment.
Jonathan, Hizashi, and Aizawa and the 14 teenagers were now imbibing in earned pizza. Hizashi was buying and Aizawa was just eating the free food presented to him. The three adults were settled off to the side privately, while the teenagers were eating and having their own gab-fest about something unrelated.
"Jonathan, I wanted to ask... um... do you have any advice for me?" Hizashi asked, anxiously, between bites.
Jonathan smiled broadly and his blue eyes glinted; "Not got much for ya, Mr Mic. Be patient with 'em?" He continued to smile and let out a few happy chuckles. "Just do what comes naturally to you, You're a Hero and a teacher, you'll figure it out."
Hizashi glared at him, almost, that was not the advice he wanted. Aizawa tuned-out this conversation. He had already been accused so often of being Eri's dad that he didn't feel like he needed to ask these kinds of questions. Nevermind that Alarice was nearly full grown and Hizashi was just over-thinking it. Probably.
"Is that really all you have?" Hizashi grumbled out, trying not to look let down.
"Yup." Responded the old hound. "From the looks of things you'll be fine."
"Yeah but, I,..." Hizashi screwed up his face in thought. "You know, you talked me into this and all you have is 'I'll figure it out'?!" He winced at the elbow he got from Aizawa. 1-A didn't need to know the new awkward situation that Hizashi was now Alarice's Dad, Legally anyway.
Jonathan didn't seem to feel the same about the other kids knowing, or Hizashi's frustration, instead smiling more.
"I did! And I picked well!" Jonathan's teeth showed in full and it looked a little animalistic, but it subsided quickly, to a more peaceful look. Old memories surfacing as he calmed down. "I'll tell ya something then, it might have seemed like I have more experience, because of my having two daughters. But I don't. I didn't want Parasus, and I did very little with her, until she was forced into my house with Miranda and Alarice. Alarice was an accident, the product of an impatient Hero, a turncoat villain."
Hizashi went a little quiet, he hadn't expected to so forwardly hear that.
"Alarice was a happy accident, don't get me wrong. An' I asked that same question to Miranda's dad, since my own would have ripped my leg off for tryin' to keep such a valuable pup out of the pack. He gave me the same answer, though a bit more roughly. You do, figure it out on your own, its just the anxiety of the thing getting you." Jonathan stated, then started to laugh again. "At least, you're getting' her as a teen! Hah! You don't have to deal with a small puppy-child trying to gnaw your leg off and being a genuine little pain in the ass. Once, she got stuck in a tree when she was three. Couldn't figure out how to get down, Miranda had to calm the neighbors, since I went full form to coax the little pup down where I could reach her. Freaked them the hell out. Had to move, after that."
Aizawa made an expression off to the side, thinking of the puppies he'd spent time baby-sitting. They had all gone some where now, by a stroke of good luck all of them had made it to someone, happy and willing to take care of them. He wished those families luck and he hoped they had a lot of patience.
Hizashi just looked some mix of confused and somehow relieved. "Wait, your dad would rip your leg off? Alarice was valuable?"
"All puppies are valuable." Jonathan stated, almost defensively, or perhaps protectively. "Or kids, but yes, to a degree, Hell-hound Giants aren't carried particularly well by their non-hell-hound mothers, as it turns out. Parasus's birth-mother died in childbirth, my Father's mother died delivering him. It works out better if the mother is a hell-hound, or seems to, we're kind of big babies when we're born.. 'cept my brother Carl. Tiny when he came out."
Jonathan seemed lost in thought for a second and Hizashi considered that thought, for a bit. Then Jonathan went right back into it without even stopping to see if Hizashi was listening, scratching at his chin.
"Miranda was a special, strong woman. Had hardly an issue, but perhaps that was her own quirk protecting her. Who knows. I'm proud Alarice carries her eyes and her quirk, even if she never directly has kids of her own." He let out a soft sigh, and rubbed at his eyes for a moment. "Sorry I'm an old guy getting lost in his own thoughts again."
"Er.. uh.. don't worry about it... I guess thanks for the puny advice." Hizashi muttered back before Kirishima walked over, and asked almost overtly politely if he could know more about Hell-hounds from Jonathan, which was easily given, though Hizashi noted Jonathan easily gave a more PR friendly amount of detailed info. He was incredibly practiced, in fact. Hizashi only helped-out with some of the conversation as translator.
Aizawa, next to him, relaxed into a light sleep. Things would be fine, he was at least mostly sure of that.