Chapter 4: Sandy
The car ride is blissfully quiet, driven by a female police officer with catlike eyes and a bushy tail that curled around one side of her seat. Fuyumi and Shoto are sleeping, leaned on the window and each other respectively. Hirose is boring his eyes into his own window like he could actually burn through the glass with his eyes.
Riki sure hopes that he can't. His brother's fire powers are enough of an occupational hazard as it is, when combined with how generally irritable he tends to be. He's way too like dad, him and Shoto both.
That means it's up to him to carry the conversation with the nice cop. Which he can. He's good at it. He chatters on about her quirk, makes the stiffness in her shoulders ease out and her smile a little more. This doesn't have to be just a job and it's better if it's not.
Hirose's eyes are on him. They go ignored. It's not like he's doing anything wrong. He just wants to establish good things with these people. They aren't all carbon copies of their parents.
Hirose kicks the back of his chair. It goes ignored. Then he does it again. "What, hothead?" he asks.
"Did you grab any masks?"
For his face. Right. His horribly messed up face that he's ashamed of. "Course I did." Idiot.
"Gimme." Hirose's ten-year-old was showing. Great. How much further did they have to go… again?
"They're in the trunk."
Hirose curses and the driver gasps and Riki feels the past fifteen minutes going down the drain. "Be nice."
"You be nice. We're not making the lady stop the car to make you feel better where we're gonna stay." Riki ignores both the woman's faint chuckle and the second kick to the chair. "Stop kicking, idiot. Your shoes are dirty and this isn't our car."
Hirose makes a face. "Who died and made you king of the castle?"
"No one, but if you wake up Fu-nee, I'll get back there and take out your eye." He doesn't mean it. He can do it, but he doesn't mean it. He won't be like dad. He will be better. When he becomes a hero, he'll be able to use his powers for the right things.
Hirose glowers at him but sits back. He does know the danger of waking up their sister. It will wake up Shoto and though the kid means well, he's five. He's a brat. Five-year-olds are brats, he had been one once upon a time.
And the worst place for a brat is the inside of a vehicle.
"Where are we going anyway?" Hirose crosses his arms, petulance filling his ears.
"A summer camp," the officer replies breezily. She's all smiles again, tail and ears relaxed and flat where they are. "There's a fair few adults trying to form alliances."
Hirose perks, leaning forward in his seat. "For quirks?"
Riki rolls his eyes.
"Anyone," the woman says. "The hero rankings have gotten incredibly out of hand in recent years and there's a lot of unnecessary grudge matches and the like, so they're using the summer vacation to cool off."
"Like us." Hirose's blue eyes are gleaming madly now.
"That's the story," she agreed. Her amber eyes were burning with something Riki didn't understand.
Riki shakes his head and settles back to listen to the conversation.
What the woman doesn't say, and he's grateful, is that that may become their reality rather than a lie.
Shoto wakes up to the sound of honking seagulls and the smell of the beach. He's stiff and his bandage hurts. His fingers creep up to it, Everyone had poked his fingers and told him not to touch it. But no one's looking now and it doesn't really hurt so it can't hurt to give it some air. So he reaches further and further back towards where the bandages are tied and-
Then Shoto can't help but look around. He's all alone in the car with the windows down.
"Oh, there you go."
Hiro-nii is standing by the window. Shoto pouts. So much for taking this stupid gauze out. "Where's everybody?" he asks, trying to sound as grown up as possible like he hadn't been about to do something bad.
"By the sand," Hirose replies while tugging on the door. His voice is muffled. He must have a new mask on. "We're waiting at this beach cabin for a couple of days while they let us into a camp up the way."
"A camp?" That means lots of people will see his face. They'll have quirks and he-
He doesn't. He never will.
(He's too young to know that not having a Quirk may not be the end of the world. He's too young to know anything but what his parents have tried to teach him, what this world enforces upon him.)
"Yeah. For other kids whose families are in a bit of fuss right now over something or other." Hirose sounds bored. He usually does when he's not angry. But Shoto listens a little harder and there's this little happy note in it. He has no idea where it's coming from, how could anyone be happy right now, but it's probably okay. Hirose isn't happy too much.
At least someone likes this whole big thing.
"Come on, kiddo, go outside. There are some kids your age out here. I'm told to let you give your face some sunshine." Hirose gets the door open and a blast of cooler air gets in. Shoto can't help but close his eyes a little. It feels really good.
Shoto perks up a little. "Even the burn?" He's starting to accept it. He wants to know if he can see!
"Yep. Apparently, that police lady's been burned a lot. She wants to see how it does."
"... Oh." Shoto tries to even remember. So much has happened. It's all turning into a mess of goop in his head. "The cat lady?"
"Yeah." Shoto starts to crawl out of the car. "She's really cool. She wants to go into politics in a few years. She was at one of those education overhauls rallies a few months ago and she's interning at the police stations."
Shoto plants his feet on the ground, a grin crossing his face. He knows what this is. He's heard his brothers tease his sister. He's seen it on tv even. "Nii-san has a crush," he declares.
His brother's collar and chin turn pink. "You shut it!" he snaps, then he pouts. Shoto can see it in the way it moves the mask. "I do not."
"You do!" Shoto points at him, still beaming. "Is she nice? Will Mama like her?"
Hirose swats at him. "She's sixteen!"
Shoto frowns, dodging as a matter of habit. "So?"
"So everything! I'm ten you loony!"
What does that have to do with anything? Shoto rolls his eyes. "I'm gonna tell them."
He darts away and forgets the bandages are on, forgets that his brother is squawking after him like somebody's old parrot. The sun is warm and everything is not okay, but it will be better. It will be much better soon.
"Nii-san has a girlfriend!" he gasps at Riki when he gets to where he's burying some random boy in the sand.
Riki blinks at him. "I do?" Shoto shakes his head and watches the smile slowly cross Riki's face. "Oh, he does." He glances over to where Fuyumi is dusting sand off her shoes and dumping out a crab. "Fu-nee, you need to go give Hirohiro the talk~"
"No," she says back, going to Shoto instead. "He's got the internet."
"Mom always said you can't just believe everything online." Riki tries to sound solemn and fails, grinning too wide.
Shoto twitches as Fuyumi gently unravels the bandage and removes the pad from in front of his eye.
Everything at once feels cooler. It still feels fragile on his face. Shoto raises his fingers to touch it. Fuyumi looks at him with her solemn stare. "It'll scar," she tells him. Her voice doesn't stutter. It hasn't stuttered this whole time, hasn't wavered. "Can you see?
Her bandages are still visible, thick and dry and obvious and for a moment, Shoto thinks of being angry enough for people to look at him.
Instead, he squares his shoulders. "I'm not a baby," he says with as much strength as he has. "I'll look cool with a scar." He blinks both eyes and nods slowly. "I think so."
She smiles big enough to hurt her cheeks and Shoto wonders just long enough if this is how the others feel every single day.
He doesn't like it. Not at all.
Then the half-buried boy kicks free, something silver bursting from the sand. "Ew," he grumbles, I got sand on it…" He looks up at Shoto. "Can you help me to the water? I gotta wash it or I'll have sand in me for weeks."
Shoto is torn between saying no, because now he's covered in sand, and asking just what it would mean to have sand in you, and if that was bad why he had been buried in it anyway.
Not sure how to say that, he nods and grips the hand offered to him. It's as small as his, but somehow the boy seems a lot older like he's already settled in something. Still, Shoto is stronger. He pulls him up and gets a big, triangular grin.
"Wow." He is so close, too close. "You're tough." He shakes their hands, still holding it. "I'm Sero!"
Shoto hesitates because now he can't just not answer. That's rude. "Shoto…" Not his last name, this person might know his dad and that could make things hard.
"Cool!" Sero takes a step forward and stumbles. "Whoa, my legs are all prickly!"
He's… weird. Super weird. But after everything, Shoto kind of wants weird. So he leans on Sero and moves them forward without a word. He doesn't need a Quirk to help with this.
In the background, he can hear his brothers bickering and his sister sitting back down but the water is louder and warmer from here. His left eye is still fluttery and sore but that's okay for now. He doesn't need to think about it.
Unfortunately, Shoto is not that strong and they end up face first in the water.
It should hurt to hit all that sand. But instead, Shoto finds himself laughing.
Sero laughs too. "Hey," he says. "Wanna see a fish?"
Shoto thinks about his nice shirt. Thinks about his parents. Thinks about everything and it's too much.
He nods and impulsively grabs Sero by the hand for the second time.
Sero's grin gets wider. "Awesome! Let's go!"