54
For most of the daytime, he was absolutely seething, livid under a usually thick-skined exterior, Adam's Apple bobbing, mouth dry, no spit, knuckles of laced fingers alabaster from squeezing; too much pressure. His neck was so ridiculously heated it felt sunburnt, red, and the casual uniform's tight, starched collar rubbing that area caused him massive discomfort, much more noticeable than it usually was.
Highly intolerant of even the most mildest of bothers that came with being in the Armed Forces, such as clothing feeling scratchier than a civilian's, heavy boots on feet feeling too hot, like volcanoes about to blow, became a bane to him today.
Perfectly cuffed, two inch sleeves around his lower biceps cut off the circulation more than average; veins radically pumped the blood through, his heart in a marathon with his own head.
Trying to focus on class, just trying to focus.
He had to get through, and act like nothing was bothering him.
Raging him.
'Act like nothing is wrong.'
'Act like nothing is wrong.'
'Act like nothing is wrong.'
This mantra would abruptly begin slamming against his skull's inner edges as he felt himself start to tip over that cliff, into boiling over.
Desperate, teeth-clenching in a closed mouth, he had nothing else to rely on except his own self; falling back on this learned coping mechanism from old Basic Training days, one he'd adopted to hide emotions, to repeat that lying phrase, silent, deep inside.
Over and over and over and over again.
Like a madman.
Admittedly, only to himself, he was slowly losing-out to a horrible temper, one he never knew he possessed.
He was conscious of it, and it was scaring him.
Here, in this classroom, Hisashi felt trapped, completely mixed up, slowly losing his shit, while sitting there quiet.
So much like Kasaya had probably been, before, before everything.
How the tables had turned.
Was this what it felt like?
Was this what his little brother had felt like?
It was shit, total and utter shit.
When his brain swam to thoughts on his kin, like how the younger must of felt months back, how similar he felt to that old version of his little brother now, or more explicitly, on what Sashi had for sure saw in the Pro Hero Bunker kitchen this early morning, was grab his wandering, meandering, jam it in a box, then ensue his inner tirade, rambling that same internal sentence again and again, in order to rashly jolt his concentration back to the professor's scribblings.
To the current.
But, from forcing this method on himself many times over, his round cheeks had become an infuriated color of pink, eyes mildly bloodshot; it was enough of a change from his regular demeanor that two airmen classmates in his homeroom began to notice.
Did the tall military student stay up partying too hard last night?
Of course, it was curiosity on their part.
Where had he spent the night 'bangin' it up'?
What club it was it?
Or was it a dive bar, or just on-base at his apartment?
For nobody knew except Roo, Rox, and Kasaya's small troupe of supporters that he'd abandoned his own abode, 'jumped-ship' so-to-say, and moved in at the famous UA High, where some of Japan's current, best heroes have been trained.
Of course, General Hoga too.
The stately man easily approved the paperwork for him to be off-base most of the week, as long as he still made it to class and retained his duties there.
It had been a hush-hush, clandestine transition, not that it was against base rules now that Satoko Hisashi was a Lance Corporal, but because of what was possibly to come, no, what was going to come.
A struggle on Japan's soil.
An out-pouring of villainous activity.
A fight against All For One like none other before.
A court case with or without his brother dead.
A hitch in his throat just then, a stinging fizz across his eyes, a barely audible choke, lids squeezing shut like cement, a breath, then he shot them wide open to forcibly stare blankly at the chalkboard.
Shivers.
'Act like nothing is wrong.'
'Act like nothing is wrong.'
'Shit!'
The climate was already bad enough, but it was slowly amping up, and it was going to get much worse!
Much, much worse.
The two class pals mistaken, watched the unraveling. Over the course of an hour, the fatherly-figure aside them that always drug their asses back from pubs, that calmed them if making too much racket, who jumped them if they tried to de-clothe for a dance atop a bar, had digressed into a further state of what seemed to them a very present, horrible hangover.
Gearing up to ask of his shenanigans, because that was so unlike the guy, ironic, they kept vigilant watch on the professor to catch a few seconds loop to whisper over.
Sure, Hisashi would indulge, but so much that he appeared how he did today?
This was new!
Did he actually get piss drunk?
Had he become messy somewhere?
Did he dance atop a bar too?
Because that actually did occur once with one of the two that were hovering over Hisashi's current aura, silently sharing a few glances between each other.
Suzuki Ren, had got too lit up on fire shots at a hole-in-the-wall brewery close to their base, and feeling all too toasted in his casual uniform, it started with his camo jacket; unsnapping and tossing it over his head, swirling it in circles like in a rave of dance music, hooting.
Against the ranking blue-haired man's warning not to go much further, he chucked his boots off and clumsily hopped atop the wooden bar to show-off, dancing the dirtiest, sexual dance he could imagine in the moment.
According to others the next morning when his hangover was well into it's peak, it wasn't as provocative as what he'd thought.
Instead, he'd almost fallen twice, the first time over an extremely pretty girl, but worst, he was tossing his limbs around like Bigfoot waking through a forest, ugging and ooging to the music when he thought he'd been singing beautifully!
Dumb his stunt was.
Lance Corporal Satoko had warned him to be more stoic for a reason. He'd spied a 'Staffy' (Staff Sergeant) there in the dimmer lit portion of the establishment, and the Private hadn't known.
If his drunken presence got discovered by this certain higher-up, being a nuisance to civilians, making the local air unit out as baffoons, surely his running for a promotion to Private First Class (PFC), would be ruined!
So, LC Hisashi instantly grabbed him by the ankles after fifteen seconds of madness and tugged. The jostling made Suzuki lose balance, hunker over. Satoko being the bigger man, easily seized him by the waist, yanking him down while apologizing to bartenders and patrons.
People had been trying to get their drinks through the idiot's legs for God's sake!
Hisashi casually threw the dead weight over his right shoulder, like a rolled-up rug, striding out a side door. Jamming the drunken one in the back of a Humvee caused him to meet his own demise for the night.
For as soon as the Private hit the seat, he instantly blacked out, so quick that Satoko hadn't even been able to offer him a cigarette to cool his head.
Suzuki Ren got a chance as the professor finally turned his back to scratch chalked words on the blackboard. English lessons, he disliked it! Stationed to the neighboring desk on Hisashi's right, a low whisper surfaced. "Yo man, what'd you do last night?" A dumb smirk.
Nothing.
Silence.
It was fine to speak to his superior this way, bro-ish, the blue-eyed man was a cool, relaxed guy when it came to formalities. He only asked and required proper addresses when other superiors were present too. If it was just Satoko alone, he got slack cut.
The second one directly in front of the Lance Corporal, eyed the professor in formal uniform then too and glanced over his shoulder with peripheral vision, following Suzuki's lead. A low snicker, informal also. "Yeh Sushi, have too much fun?"
These ones knew his nickname as well.
"No. Shut up." Snappy. Crackly. Quiet.
Man! He was super pissed!
It caused them both to raise their eyebrows.
Well, that didn't sit well.
A distinct anger was in that simple statement, that was something they'd never quite heard before!
They were startled to hear it.
So, that was exactly what they did: They turned back to face the front of the room, and they shut the fuck up.
Normally Satoko wouldn't take that tone with them, or with anyone.
They didn't question him anymore.
This abnormality wasn't something they wanted to mess with.
Not at all.
Hisashi was doing what his two comrades earlier in the day had suspected: drinking, partying, having a 'killer of a time'.
They'd been wrong then, but they were also so wrong now.
This was no 'playtime', just him, alone, pounding down the alcohol late into the evening, something possibly horrible to do he knew, a true sign that an individual might possess some issues.
How it reminded him so starkly, yet again, of his little brother, just like he'd had reminders of in class.
How the tables had turned.
It was him now.
The Lance Corporal was loading himself up, not Kasaya.
The younger sibling, who wasn't quite like that anymore, was no longer a slave to the substance.
He had grown.
Blossomed.
Sprouted right up out of that vile mud.
Released his addiction.
Kasaya could party if he wanted to, enjoy a cocktail casually, could mix himself just one and sip it slow over half an hour, with dinner, while watching a movie, whatever.
No longer an alcoholic, but a guy with a regular attachment to booze.
He'd seen it.
How the elder had swelled with joy!
One of the screwed up habits he swore he'd rid his long-haired brother of eventually, had been solved.
Without him.
Without his help.
He'd glimpsed it a few times now, Kasaya had consumed a couple on the double weekends when Bakugo and him slept over, and again at night, later on at the Pro Hero Bunker, the one they'd stepped through the threshold of together, accepting fate for what it was in their life: All twisted and fucked.
The airman arose from his borrowed cot in the evening there, after a long slumber, having been mentally drained and decimated. He'd rested as best he could while under so much stress, but nevertheless, as the cots were similar to a military ship's cots, minus the straps, he'd dozed mildly well.
The buckles were a way on-board personnel could pin themselves into a bed if the ocean had high waves, a storm rocking everything about, so they wouldn't fall out in an unconscious state, land onto the metal floor and get injured. Mainly the worry was busting kneecaps, shattering an arm or a hip.
Most accidents were only broken fingers, but those were bad enough; to lose function of a digit slowed their assigned work.
Hisashi admitted it was nice not having to go through that extra precaution.
For as he'd sunk down into the makeshift rack, he automatically began feeling for straps along the rails, with Eraserhead giving him an eyebrow raise.
Then it snapped, he recalled. "Oh, not an aircraft carrier." A few words to himself. The dark headed one nearby simply smirked at the small utterance, likely understanding what the mumble meant.
Quick the hero exited, leaving him alone to rest, but when he'd arose hours later, lumbering into the front entry area, his gaze caught the same four as earlier, and sleepily, groggily, he'd watched Kasaya casually pour himself one drink, just one, and stir it in the kitchen.
That Midoriya was the only person who looked a little twitchy about it, but said nothing. Toshinori and Eraserhead (who Hisashi knew as Professor Aiwaza Shota now also), neither batted a single eyelash.
His younger brother planted himself smoothly on the couch by Izuku, whom was a bit young in appearance for a high school student Sashi figured, a baby face, and began chatting with him, but not until after the emerald eyed one started up conversation first.
It was strange to observe his brother speaking.
It was still coy listening to him use other's names so freely.
Hisashi plunked down, worn out, into a nearby recliner, spying out of the corner of his eye Saya haphazardly pull down his athletic short's edges.
Hisashi knew.
It was to hide the scars from everyone.
But these moments for the military gentleman, it wasn't about baby face accidentally seeing his younger brother's scars, it was about the booze.
Satoko Kasaya luxuriously lipped regular sized sips, tasting the cocktail, the texture of it as it went down the hatch. It wasn't a fucking chugging fest, him shaking, quivering, begging, a mess, downing little 3 oz containers.
He was a man, sitting there enjoying a drink.
A great fucking man.
A god damn hero of all heroes!
He was viewing his lil dipshit bro as a grown up, not just in his choices, but in his demeanor, in his actions, his habits, his speech.
It stirred him, shifted him in his seat.
It was like he didn't know him.
Didn't recognize his own brother, especially with that long layered haircut and side shave he had now.
Soon they all retired, except Midoriya and Kasaya, probably having things to talk about seeing as they were the two most important people for the world right now.
He swore he heard the green-headed dude ask Kasaya about his piercings.
Sure enough, Saya was allowing himself to get closer to yet another person.
Another friend.
A grown-up gathering a posse of people, who'd follow him.
Who'd be there for him, who'd be there for each other.
All heroes working together for a cause that was greater than themselves.
It was an odd aura that he'd floated in, weird, not used to it, not at all used to pegging Kasaya as a man because he'd only thought of Kasaya as a child until recently.
The younger was latched by Ashley's quirk as a kid, so his early teen years became a slew of vicious, terrible behaviors, which took place outside the Satoko home. Hell, Kasaya was barely present at the family household, almost like he'd moved to another part of Japan for four years, like he'd disappeared into thin air, only to perhaps reappear on that channel that broadcasted lost civilians across the nation.
But that wasn't the case, he was totally ensnared.
The brothers had become disconnected, alienated from one another.
That witch purposely began stealing him from everyone close, a real narcissist!
Then as Hisashi stole him right back by chance, and got a control to release, the loss of DEPRESSION was enough for him to see a wee spark of life inside those grey crystalline orbs he once knew so well, and he'd heard shrieking words.
The shrieking, the bawling.
He could never forget.
As other Emotion Controls vanished with hard work, one by one, all except LOVE, at a slow, grueling pace, his kin came back as a child once again, but as a genuinely, psychologically broken child he felt.
And so, it didn't matter with or without their father's words, Hisashi became a surrogate dad to the child.
Kasaya was still a kid, but with the experiences of a man under his belt, and with experiences of a villain too, unfortunately.
It was why Kasaya hated being called a 'kid'.
Totally and completely jaded.
So, the Lance Corporal seeing Kasaya as an adult, a grown-up, who was not dependent on him?
Not any longer?
And after he'd discovered this bit of recent information about Kasaya's personal 'relations' with a specific blonde?
And the fact that it was a man, and not a woman?
This rang too true: Kasaya really was an adult now.
He'd been against Saya being in a relationship, knowing how messed up he was, thinking he was more-less a child still, unable to stand on his own.
None of those three things were the present, the now, the current.
Truly his brother's past, was his past now, no longer his identity.
His outline wasn't just becoming his own, it was his own.
He was stable.
Hisashi's fury had long gone, and what had replaced it was a wake up call.
A huge personal one.
Like a slap to the face, a horrid punch to the gut, spit and blood coughing out the mouth. It alighted things in the older brother's mind, dredged things to the surface that he didn't know were inside him, lurking in the shadows, that had grown into little monsters of their own.
His own issues, he was beginning to see them clearly, and it wasn't Kasaya's fucking fault.
Hero Disaster, as he was able to call himself going forward, was simply going through the days, making grown, bold decisions while being anchored, sound in mind, that was all.
Sure, Sashi had been so mad earlier, absolutely fuming, so much that he felt if one single more thing went badly wrong he'd blow his nuts and bolts, the engine would explode. He was so wrecked that he could barely concentrate in class, so of course his comrades noticed something was off... but now?
Alone in this small apartment?
He was falling apart.
More a scattered mess than a biting tiger.
How the tables have turned.
He could not keep still, restless, padding to and fro barefoot, a quaking sea of emotion.
His coffee table was a harbor that waves crashed over, the floor was pounded into by heavy footsteps like the pressure at an ocean's bottom, his couch strewn with a myriad of crushed cans akin to how they wash up on a beach after a storm.
He banged into furniture with his toes, his shins, like a creature in an aquarium not used to the glass, stolen from his reef and put hastily into a fake world, one that seemed so strange and so far from where he used to be.
This life that he had been living, with this new development he'd learned of Kasaya, with these new issues he was coming to see of himself, it was faux; all the plants were plastic, all the rocks were styrofoam in his mind.
Was the water even truly water?
He had been fooled by none other than his own self, thinking that that was all that his life was.
Days before, he'd felt trapped in that same miserable existence, in this sorry exhibit of a life with his comrades: Kasaya, Bakugo, maybe Toshinori and Eraser as well.
That was what his life had been!
The net for all of them was not a fine fishing hole filled with tasty treats, it was a device used to capture, to throw them into tanks, under the guise that the scenery was indeed a life worth living, a shithole life, but a life nevertheless.
But now, he felt unlike the others.
Only just yesterday was he shown that he wasn't seeing things entirely as they were, there was more to it, more that was not said, omitted.
Kasaya making his decisions.
His decisions, and only his decisions.
This aquarium of choices Hisashi thought they all lived in together, for him, very personally, it was only a temporary abode, especially now that it had been shattered by the info he'd stumbled across, it's contents spilling all over the old carpet of the marine museum's floor.
The tank only had him in it, no one else.
So when it cracked, liquid roaring all over the place, he ever so suddenly realized that what was outside that tank, it existed also.
It hurt, those issues that existed there, he could barely breathe knowing them now.
This last hidden choice of Kasaya's was the last catalyst needed for Hisashi's mind to bust, for him to be entirely exposed, for what he truly was: Lost.
Utterly lost.
For he hadn't shared a singular tank with them as he'd originally thought, it was shown that he had wandered off into his own a long time ago, and because of it, Hisashi was laying out flopping on the ground, without his water, without his breath, scales were drying.
He was suffocating while he helplessly watched the rest of them in their own tanks swimming, albeit not freely as one could in the ocean, but at least, still swimming.
Their pretty fins, beautiful colors haunting as he laid there turning grey, choking, eyes bulging.
Hisashi, unable to stop aching for himself, chest tight in immense pain, had turned to gut wrenching tears.
His anger had long turned over to sorrow.
It was as if he really were a salt water creature on land, as he tried to desperately fight for air through his stuffed up nose.
For it was he, himself, who knew he had been omitted, left out from something so important in his younger brother's life, and because of that omission, his own enclosure had broken, busted at the seams, and no one had came to pick him up, leaving him out flopping helplessly, and damn it, the pain.
He was suffocating.
What was more terrible was he'd allowed himself to become so infuriated because he wasn't recognizing the real problem!
Himself!
How awful!
Over an eve of slamming down canned mixed drinks that he disliked, on sale at the mart just outside base walls, it wasn't the fact that Kasaya had made this choice, not anymore.
It was about the giant hole inside him that Kasaya had archaeologically uncovered, quite randomly, abruptly, and it shook him to his very fibers.
For the people he held closest, those that he poured every extra ounce of his life into, those that he trusted, that he valued, had kept a secret.
Sure, he thought his threesome was tighter knit than that, that they shared the same fate, all roped up in this game of life together, all wrecked due to circumstance, but it was not all as 'together' as it seemed.
In this crazy glass container of choices, he had been the odd fish, because Kasaya had shown him he was rotting from inside out.
Of course, he could ask questions.
The how's and the why's.
He could string up many: Why did his little brother not inform him of 'it'? How long had this been going on? How long had this been hidden from him? Was Saya worried he'd tattle tell on them to father?
But... he couldn't.
He shouldn't.
For he'd held and was still holding Kasaya's secrets in his hands, close to his chest like the best hand of aces, held them in the dark with a poker face, and for much longer than any of the rest, because really it wasn't a deck of aces, it was a hand with jokers.
For quite some time, quiet words between them were for no souls but theirs to know, the most forlorn, scary, inconceivable things, some of them so backwards and fucked up no man would believe they'd actually occurred.
And he was there.
He was always there.
There as best he could be.
Just as a supportive older brother should be.
And he could not divulge even this large secret to anyone else, couldn't.
It was not his to share!
Just like all the other secrets he held onto, he swore, he swore he'd hold it close to his breast!
Their father, nobody even, would find out unless Bakugo and Kasaya wanted them to.
He still wanted to maintain Saya's trust, as much he could, even if he now was beginning to hide certain things.
Satoko Kasaya, the one he loved so purely without question, was finally, fully experiencing adulthood for what it truly was: gaining some and losing some because of one's own choices.
The younger was moving forward, gaining ground, even with the possibility of losing it all to a prison sentence, a death penalty, which was being hung in Japan, made the best decisions he could with the shitty cards he was dealt.
How the fuck could he forget?!
Forget all of this in a blind anger earlier in the day, and not be able to remember all of this?!
How upset at himself he was!
Out of all the terrible things Kasaya had told him, and those he probably didn't know of yet, was this thing so much worse than those things?
So much worse that he couldn't tell him?
Hurting people, stealing shit, breaking the law, and probably much much more than Hisashi's heart could take, had occurred in his younger brother's past.
Was a relationship with a man akin to those things? So much more vile than those heinous acts?
Kasaya should of felt comfortable enough to share, right?
Clearly, he hadn't been, and as Kasaya was no child, he didn't have to.
He didn't have to obligate data anymore.
Not anymore.
"Is it too much?! IS IT DAMN IT?!" He screamed out with a balled fist, swinging in the air at an invisible opponent, kicking a crushed empty can as hard as he could for it to smash against a side table. "Is it so WRONG of me t'want t'know EVERYTHING?!" His lip quivered, drunken, his words mumbly and steamed, distraught and weary. "I can't bear it..." He started sobbing uncontrollably on a whole new set of tears, both hands rushing up to cover his trembling mouth. A choke, muffled. "I... I can't... bear not knowin'."
WRONG.
It rang in his head like a midnight bell.
SO WRONG.
That word, a forlorn epiphany, like a siren's shriek creeping up his spine, shivered the skin. "I'm." He moaned. "I'm the one... who's... who's broken... now."
Kasaya didn't have to tell him shit.
Not anymore.
"I'm startin'... startin'..." He blabbered, a gasp. "I don't... I hav'to... but... I, I can't let you go Saya, I just can't." In battle against his own wound, sky blue irises were on fire, fuzzy, aching intensified. "But, I hav'to."
A can quickly was grabbed up, he chugged and chugged and chugged.
Crushed. Thrown.
"Damn it... I'm so used'to..." His final ounce of pride collapsed, ladder rungs all split, wailing, the strong shield that Satoko Hisashi was collapsed like walls of the ancient city Troy to the couch, his full body plummeted, cans bouncing up and back down from impact, an utter mess. "I'm so use'to takin'care of you." He whimpered, banging his skull into a pillow, cries.
That invisible opponent that he was swinging at, it was himself.
He was lost in a dense fog of dependency, a strong emotional co-dependency that was implanted into him deep, by nobody except him.
As he was accepting, coming along through moanful cries, a thought surfaced.
This second event (that he knew of) of Kasaya withholding information, it hadn't burst his own fishtank.
He was wrong, he'd been wrong!
It was himself.
Only him that broke it.
The hammer was in his hands.
It was his own co-dependency being shown to him for the first time that had made him slam that metal end into the glass!
His little brother was walking towards an independent future self in many more ways than just one, in more ways now than Hisashi knew of.
A true Pro Hero.
"Not a child..." He bawled. "He's... he's not." His stomach jeered, distraught in sheer sickness.
So similar he felt to the night he'd spent on the kitchen floor, after finding out about For One's All, hazed out, blanked, but this time not because of Saya. He was going numb because it hurt too bad, because this was his reality. This was why he cracked his tank, and it exploded, water gushing out like a tsunami.
Kasaya had been his water, and now that there was none and he was crying out, what had he left?
Since when had he been not his own water?
He was broken, and this information he'd accidentally seen, showed him exactly how he was broken.
For so long he had to have Kasaya tell him every little thing, for he was fearful of him running back to Ashley, having a relapse without him there.
This wasn't about his little brother possibly being gay. Instead, it was about his fucked up interior.
He felt lost because he had no clue who he was anymore!
He had attached to Kasaya, bore into him like a fly larvae, right down into his meaty flesh, for his own good at the time, but what had happened?
A clandestine bullet hole on Hisashi's psyche had bustled through.
At some point it turned from being a one-way street, Kasaya to him, to being a two-way street.
Everything that Hisashi Satoko was before the military was left to dust.
He'd joined the Armed Forces before he'd gotten Saya back, only to appease their father, but after he'd gotten him back, he needed the military more than ever, needed it for Kasaya, the money, the base, everything it offered.
All for him.
All for Kasaya.
Always for Kasaya.
The sacrifice he'd went through was too real.
Kasaya was the reason for him to keep swimming, like he did walking on base, proud, behind a mask of authority. Kasaya was his reason to smile in the faces of the crappy people visiting the aquarium, like he did into everyone's faces daily on and off base with that 'oh so genuine' looking smile of his. He put on this facade that he was a great fish who had it all-together, who was okay with living and doing what he was doing.
But not anymore.
He was not okay with what he'd become, with what he was doing.
What was the military to him?
What was their father's wants of him to him?
What were any of the choices to him that he made now?
What were they to him without Saya as the reason?
The military man was bleeding out in the open, vultures picking at his intestines. He really had been gutted like a fish, but he'd been the one gutting himself.
"I hav'to..." A mumble. "I hav'to let go." A sob.
The stark emotional co-dependency he had with his brother, it needed to be let go.
Because so quickly, all Hisashi's inner emotions that he hid to the outside world, to everyone on base, to his superiors, began revolving around Kasaya, became akin to Kasaya's.
His own shit mattered less and less. His mission, his one and only mission was his little brother.
So fast Kasaya's feelings became Hisashi's feelings.
The younger's emptiness became his emptiness. His sadness, became his sadness. His hollowness, became his hollowness. Then a few smirks, those became his smirks. Some sarcastic jabs, they became his sarcastic jabs. Then recently, his laughs became Hisashi's laughs, his joy was his joy. His utter confidence, became Hisashi's too.
Kasaya's sheer strength of will, he'd found it! And he could use his quirk by his own hand?
It became Hisashi's strength of will quickly as well.
How the tables have turned.
"Who..." He bawled into his pillow. "Who... am I?" He raised his voice, drastic, sudden. "WHO AM I KASAYA?!" He shrieked. "I'm not your father! Not anymore! I'm not your... your provider!" He punched. "I'm not... I'm not even..." Lids swelled, he fell onto the floor, in the thin space between the couch and the coffee table. "I'm not... even..." He choked, face to the tile. "not even your dragon anymore."
A serious identity crisis.
Kasaya was his own savior, had become it.
So... where did he fall in this equation?
Had he already fulfilled his entire role, and no longer was needed?
"Who am I?" Whispers to the floor, a cheek cold. "What is me?"
He'd lost everything he used to be.
Where was Satoko Hisashi?
He had titles, a name, but a hollow core inside was filled with a strong emotional co-dependency to his younger brother.
So unlike the child he once was himself.
Who was he as a little boy?
He only remembered what Kasaya was like, not himself.
It was distant. Too far away to touch.
As a weary and disheveled mess he muttered, drooling drunk on the floor, whispering intangibly, still half clothed in uniform, pieces he had left on were dribbled with lingering booze, streaked down his frontside.
He'd wanted to be left alone, left to his own vices, left to his own mechanisms of dealing with circumstance, to his own coping measures.
And it hadn't worked, it hadn't helped!
Or, or maybe it had?
For it helped reveal to him what was wrong with him.
He weakly crawled, stretching a limp arm to grab at his phone, laying some feet away.
Most usually he told his little brother what was going on, what was taking him so long, or why he couldn't make it to something, keeping in good communication when he was 'land-locked' like he was now, unlike when he was rat-holed up in an aircraft carrier for a few months at a time on a sea mission.
It was comforting to get back 'into the swing of things' especially conversation with his only kin, the younger Satoko, when he got back to mainland, but he hadn't shared where he would be with him this time, and Kasaya's text to him begged an answer.
The phone lit up in his face, a groan, through weary, dreadfully teared eyes he scanned, read.
'What's up?' A blocky font at 11:23 PM, now yesterday. It wasn't necessarily 'begging', but the younger knew the older's habits, and certainly was keen on asking when not outright told.
Now he was just staring at the phone's screen while on the floor, in that twisted up position.
He felt cold.
He knew that was Saya's care of him coming out in a plain, simple fashion, but it was care nevertheless.
Instead of a reply, he'd left it marked as 'read' which was horrible.
He threw an arm over his eyes a few tears escaping. "Sorry. I'm... I'm so sorry."
Seeing as it was a little past 4 AM, and especially with how he was feeling, he'd made a bad judgment call by not answering back earlier. He'd even thrown his phone at the beginning of the evening, and cracked its screen.
Hisashi knew his actions all day had been so stupid.
His stomach turned, lerched. Feeling mild panic as a curdle of nasty spit arose, indicative of a throw-up coming to fill his mouth, he attempted to wobble up, to pace to the bathroom as full speed as he could, grabbing the phone with one hand...
He didn't make it.
While falling towards the toilet, his head missed the bowl, and he puked up the contents of his stomach down the side of the porcelain. It splatted onto the floor, and a bit got on the wall.
Nasty.
No doubt he chucked nothing but the last three cans he'd downed, and made himself ill by drinking on an empty stomach.
Sick from the drinking, sickened from what he'd become, a terrible emotionally co-dependent individual, still sick from Kasaya becoming Disaster and what that meant.
He'd kept it quiet on the outside, when he saw his brother's hand hovering over Bakugo's thigh, as he was good at concealing true emotions, the military made him good at that, too good almost.
'Stand in line. At attention!' The morning commanding officer would yell.
Everyone, including him would snap straight.
No movement. No sound. Just breathing.
No time for personal thought.
Only that he was doing it for him, for his little brother. He would be the fastest, he would gain prestige, he would get a position, and he would make more money to support him.
When a wandering tangent on Kasaya's horrid past would surface in his head, or about his own feelings on how he didn't quite like doing these drills, he'd force it out, doing his best to focus on the here and now.
'Act like nothing is wrong'.
'Act like nothing is wrong.'
'Act like nothing is wrong.'
The learned mechanism.
On the outside he was perfect, calm, the pinnacle of military brawn and image, easy-going, and on the eyes, one who was eager to talking when talking suited him, and it suited him quite a bit, but this current demeanor didn't fit.
Because that pristine image, it wasn't really who he was.
It had been created in order to deal with the military, to look good to them, created to deal with his personal emotions.
In reality, it was the co-dependency that was real.
That was the only thing that was real about him, that and a few personality quirks, like cussing and picking the boys up, throwing them over his shoulders and smacking their asses for giggles.
Those things were genuinely him.
But, who was he in total then?
In entirety?
He didn't know himself.
How the tables have turned.
He threw up again, this one more so because it was a recoil to the last.
This was another piece to the puzzle, his emotional co-dependency was influenced by how he'd made himself be for the military, how they wanted him to be, shutting up his own emotions.
He was sick with himself!
He'd even been able to conceal a stark, white-hot burning shock on the inside, such a terrible anger he'd easily wiped from his face, served breakfast with the most precious smile, to keep 'looking good', 'looking sharp', looking 'put together', as the military wanted him to be.
It was so bad, that even something as strong as his earlier anger could be controlled!
That was how far he'd fucked his own self up, how he'd allowed the military to infect his brain.
He wanted to turn it around!
Maybe in doing so his co-dependency would lessen, because he'd be allowing himself to actually 'feel' his own emotions, and not suffer from numbing shut-downs like he did.
Hisashi wanted positive attachments to his own emotions!
Even the bad ones.
Good relationships with them all.
"It's not'better t'just bottle it..." His eyes squeezed shut. "Not anymore." A whisper.
Swallow it up, just like the Armed Forces always had him do.
Swallow everything away.
He banged a fist on the toilet seat.
Soon he reached out and ripped at some toilet paper, toiling a lot of it roughly off the roll. Hisashi dabbed his face, sweating, coughing. Rough hacks came out, as he sat along the threshold to the bathroom feeling the cool tile on his back, cleaning up the floor of his own bile.
He didn't know who to turn to help him get better.
Someone, someone, somewhere.
All he knew in certainty, for now, is that he wasn't saying shit to their father!
If Kasaya didn't already have a sign on his back pasted there that said 'scourge of the Satoko name', this surely would tattoo it into his skin... permanently.
And their father was not a man to just dismiss something of this regard.
He would not see it that way, not the way Sashi came to, as a wake up call to his own problems.
Their father had anger issues, always took people at face value only, and nothing compared to his fury.
All the talks when they were little amped them up for a straight version of what life was supposed to be for them: Hisashi was supposed to be the best man in his little brother's wedding, to wish the eventual couple well-off, to give them an amazing gift, give a speech with a toast, and be friends with the lovely girl and help make her feel welcome to the Satoko name, to be an uncle to the children, to be there for each other no matter what. Kasaya in turn, was supposed to do the same for him.
That was his father's vision of them for the family, the pathway in life they both were supposed to walk.
Straight-laced, old school thinking, conservative.
Hisashi may realize he was messed up now, but he was certainly not stupid. His common sense was there.
What sucked was it was like Hisashi was already keeping secrets from their dad, for he'd shipped out on mission on a battleship maneuver, and wasn't due back for another two months or so still. Hell, he might even file for an extension while out-to-sea, who the fuck knew?
A lot has happened, and he couldn't update him with Kasaya's progress. Not that it mattered to their father it seemed, any mention of his little brother set father's rigid face into a hard line, voice starkly different, dark. It was like he'd lost not only all care for Saya, but all of his respect, and worst... all of his love.
Hisashi for awhile now, wasn't sure if their father still loved Kasaya at all.
But this, this new knowledge, if told to the head of the Satoko family, would be a death wish. Kasaya would live in their father's own personal hell, the one inside their father's head that controlled their images.
Hisashi shivered.
Controlled both of their images.
Both.
Both.
Both.
The elder brother squirmed, wiping his palm across a sweaty brow. He knew it was true.
Too true.
For too long he'd been living up to the image that father wanted, being the only 'Golden Child' of the family!
He smirked, for the first time the whole evening. "I'm not made of gold." He shook his head, a small, tiny laugh. "I'm nuthin' but a man... only a man. I did everythin' y'wanted dad." The Lance Corporal didn't hold back a defiant laugh, instead his whole mouth opened wide and let it practically yell out. "Hope your happy, cuz'now I'm FUCKED! HOW THE TABLES HAVE TURNED!" He closed his eyes and held his convulsing stomach from the comedy, absolutely taken away. "I'll keep your secrets Saya! Even if it means through hell n'back!"
Multiple hells, through and back!
Even if they don't return from one of them!
Them deciding to just stay, burning alive.
The first hell, Kasaya getting smacked with a glove by their disapproving dad, and pretending like he didn't exist anymore.
The second hell having been forced to come to terms with being Disaster, and what that meant for him, for them, and for the world. At least the second was very noble hell. This the Lance Corporal could put his honor behind, he could stand in that line with his brother and fight to his wits end, until he was battered and broken down, just the same as any respectable Pro Hero would do.
Certainly much like Eraserhead and All Might (who he knew as Toshinori Yagi now also).
The third hell, would be again, designed by father, because he'll have to eventually get told, Kasaya would eventually have to divulge something.
Having to go though this garbage hellfire even more, having it turned up by a thousand degrees, watching his little brother he loves so much, so dearly, continue to be treated like a despicable, piece of shit by their father was absolutely miserable. Not even all this effort and hopeful eventual court case, that might clear the younger's name, would win their father over if this relationship with Bakugo gets revealed!
The hells would never end for him, for Saya!
He was hellbound, now and always!
But when it came down to it, did Kasaya even care?
Did it bother him?
Frankly, Kasaya had long detached himself away from the thought that he'd have any chance regaining their father's good graces, but not for Hisashi. He still had hope, and that was why this discovery overwhelmed all his senses.
Because he still cared what their father thought.
For as much a disaster as Kasaya had been, and as much of a familial disaster he was bringing on himself in the future with this, for as much as he called himself the hero, Disaster, Kasaya truly was a demon in hell dancing.
Dancing, dancing the night away.
The elder knew that.
By being with a man, it was like Kasaya declaring that this was him, his true self, and it was like Kasaya saying his final peace to him. 'Fuck you, send me to hell again old man!', with a complimentary middle finger in the air. A large shove-it up your ass!
For he had already been there!
Hisashi laughed absolutely hysterically.
The elder brother had never been in his father's hell before, but by keeping this from him (like he felt he already was), he was going to be in the flames just the same as them!
Oh, oh, oh how the tables have turned!
"Looks like we're both gunna jus'burn then!" The elder brother quaked, a rocket of crazed shouts. "All of'us! Burn! BURN!"
He'd never so out-rightly defied their father, and, and it felt liberating!
It felt... good.
"I'll fix my shit... I will! I'll keep all your cards! ALL YOUR CARDS SAYA!" He wiped the last tear away.
The last thread of hope he hung onto with their dad, he cut it.
He was walking that same path as his brother now. His footsteps inside his younger brother's.
How could he not?
He always chose Kasaya!
He always had been choosing Kasaya!
He was so done with having his image controlled, whether it be by their father, or by the military. He'd grown co-dependent and weak because of it, unable to express his own emotions, so bad that he had these 'numbing' situations.
Time to be more like his younger brother, to regain what he'd lost!
Hisashi wanted himself back.
He wanted to do what Saya had done.
His find who he was!
"What'd he'do if I told him... I wanted t'quit! Quit this shit?!" Sashi contemplated, after four years of service to just be done, utterly and completely out of the military! To find himself again, to be able to let go of hiding and bottling emotions, to give himself a chance? "I'm... I'm so done! I'm choosing Kasaya! YOU HEAR THAT!" He screamed out to no one, but if their father was right there, he'd be in his face yelling, making a scene, that Hisashi knew their dad never had seen him make before. "I'M CHOOSING KASAYA!"
His father, hopping mad, surface level for him, only all about appearances, might actually smack him across a face with a glove!
How liberating! Thrilling!
To be smacked just like Kasaya was smacked!
Hisashi thanked the military for what it provided for him and Kasaya, for his current career, but not for its tendencies to limit and snip away at someone's own personal feelings, to hide them in a box, so that you can be a cookie cutter version of another, and of another, and of another.
LC Satoko seen now! How he seen!
He wasn't quite the cookie that the military wanted him to be, that his father wanted him to be!
He was the cookie that was molded in the shape of everyone else, but when it got put in the oven, it had baked up to be oblong, bulging at the sides, not quite the right shape, only at a glance he was. Neither was Kasaya, he once fit the mold as a child, then when he got thrown into the oven, his form became unrecognizable, a cookie that baked to be a shapeless blob.
If they were both still kids, it didn't matter!
Cookies were cookies, they'd eat 'em!
But their Navy elite dad would throw the outliers into the bin. That silver lid would lift and he'd pick up the badly baked sweets with a napkin, as if he didn't want their ugliness to touch him, and toss them in.
"Hell might be a bit warm!" Hisashi laughed, rubbing his fingers through his hair, hysterics. "FUCK!"
He wouldn't tell their father, wouldn't do it!
He'd lie if they wanted until the day they spoke out, spoke up about it!
It was their truth to tell!
A damning truth!
He might be the odd fish out again, because of his issues, but he'd follow them anyway.
He'd get some fucking help, he'd figure it out!
They were well on their way to hell already anyway, with the state of Japan, with the world!
What's another hell to overcome?
Hell, hell, hell everywhere!
Just another punch on the bus pass.
His mouth fully open, his stomach sore, he couldn't stop laughing!
'Hello, I'm back again.' Hisashi could imagine Kasaya saying, with two people in tow to the driver. Two extra demons he'd whisked away with him to go back to where they'd always, and truly belonged, being welcoming by the other Pro Heroes already sitting on that bus.
A homecoming!
Him and Bakugo were those two others, they'd just sit down have some drinks and play cards until they got there.
If Kasaya welcomed hell, then they'd welcome it too!
"FUCK YOU old man!" Hisashi yelled out to nobody in that apartment bathroom. He said it! For the first time he said it! His true and real emotions, ones of his own! "YOU DIDN'T EVEN BELIEVE KASAYA! When he told you wha'happened, you jus'... jus' smacked him! YOU FUCK! Fuck you!" He spit. "I OWE YOU NOTHING! NOTHINGGGG!" He balled a fist and swung at air. "AFTER FOUR YEARS, I'M OUT OF HERE! OUT OF HERE! I HATE THIS! I HATE DOING THIS! THIS IS NOT ME!" He laughed in utter freeing chaos. "I'm out of here... out of here damn it! I'm findin' who I am! NO MORE WITH THIS FAKE SHIT!"
He was on Kasaya's side, no one else's!
"I'M FOLLOWIN' KASAYA! I WANT TO BE ME! FUCK!"
He turned his phone over in his other hand, and began tapping on the now busted screen.
'We need to talk about something. Bring Bakugo. See you tomorrow.' He sent it, a smile on his face. It was all he could think of to send. He knew it'd both bother and unsettle Kasaya to say it like that, to word it like that, but how else was he supposed to say it?
He owed it to Kasaya as a brother, to speak to him in person, and he wouldn't let his brother's 'relationship choices' be a reason why he loved him or not. That was a toxic manipulation that others used to play and con people into doing what they wanted. He wasn't narcissistic like that damn Ashley, and he certainly wasn't like their father! NEVER!
'Kasaya, I love you.' Sent.
"Thank you... thank you Kasaya." He leaned against the wall, swallowing, looking to the ceiling trying not to laugh too loud as to disturb his neighbors. "I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU... so, so much!"
His little brother certainly wasn't a saint, but he was a real man, a better man than many, especially after accepting what he had to do with his power.
He'd even showed him what was wrong with himself!
A graceful, fantastic, wonderous man.
His one and his only younger brother.
How he loved him!
The Lance Corporal reeled his head back down to look at a few photos on his phone of the three of them together.
"Apollo. You just had to choose that name, hm?" He ran his thumb over Bakugo's face on his phone in a caring way. "Haha, you little shit!" He laughed out loud again.
Obviously, Kasaya had told the biker cut blonde about the book, which was why he had a copy now. He had to of chosen that hero name because of that book and because of what the dragon did for the boy inside those pages.
The dragon saved that child!
Kasaya had said that the dragon was his favorite character. He'd said he wished he could have a dragon of his own someday!
How true that had become!
Bakugo Katsuki was that scaly monstrosity.
Hisashi had once looked at himself as that dragon, as Apollo in that book when he'd saved him from that witch's claws!
But he knew, he was wrong!
Instead, he was another character in there... for he remembered them all.
In certainty, he was no Apollo, he was the phoenix rising.
The dragon, Apollo, needing assistance, had asked the lone creature for help, and the phoenix, understanding the dragon's love of the boy, complied easily. The mystical bird was the one that assisted in cutting the boy's chains, releasing him from shackles.
The two creatures fought alongside each other against the ogre army for the child's freedom.
Satoko Hisashi would find himself, and he would rise!
He would rise!
Just like that phoenix, with beautiful red-gold feathery wings, he'd stick his head up out of that vile mud and blossom as Kasaya had, and he'd come to their aid. He'd light himself afire once again, and he'd take that namesake.
Helios, the name of the phoenix.
He'd take it.
He'd own up to it.
Hisashi knew deeply, with the blonde taking the dragon's name, Apollo, it was not just 'a fling'.
It was more serious than that.
Love was there.
So present it was.
Hisashi would do the same. He'd take the name Helios, and vow his ultimate kinship.
Vow his allegiance, his utter and sheer loyalty to Satoko Kasaya.
To everyone at UA, to everyone in the world.
For he was there, just as he always had been.
As a brother should be, lifting the heavy burden of Kasaya's choices while lifting his own as well.
Hisashi knew his path.
The military was not for him. Their father was not for him. His co-dependency was not him. These numbing shut-downs were not who he was.
But being a hero?
Alongside them?
That, that he could do.
And he'd find himself in the process.
He was not in this world to drive planes, to be a 'fly-boy'. He was not this straight-laced pinnacle of the Armed Forces. In stepping through that threshold at the Pro Hero Bunker, he was no longer Satoko Hisashi, Lance Corporal of the 2nd Japanese Air Unit.
He was Helios.
That was him.
That was who he was.
It was who he'd always been before he'd given in and let the military have him, before he gave into his father and did wanted he wanted him to do.
It was who he'd shut out for some many years.
The best part- This was a Satoko Hisashi choice.
It was equal parts, both for Kasaya and for himself.
But it was wholly his own choice.
The elder sibling smiled the most genuine, real smile he'd had in such a long, long time. It was ear to ear, toothy, eyes bright, unlike those controlled half-lipped false ones he'd had on his jaw for years, he could feel it across his entire face, inside his heart!
He felt... alive.
He hadn't filed for a military extension just yet for after he graduated, but only declared a future path with General Hoga.
After graduating the academy, he was out of there!
Sure, he couldn't be a student at UA, as he'd already be graduated from an Armed Forces high school, but he'd find a way.
He'd find a way to become Helios on paper.
With much haste, with much vigor and velocity he would!
His quirk was not as strong as his brother's quirk, but it was useful.
He'd find a way to make it that much better!
Maybe their father discarding both blobby cookies to the trash can was best thing that could ever happen to both young Satoko men.
If the bottom of the bin was father's hell, then so be it!
It's better to be discarded by those who want you to fit inside a mold than to be someone you're not!
Hisashi was beginning to figure this out for himself as well, for he was screwed up now instead!
How the tables had turned! How they had!
The elder Satoko knew one hundred percent, with how messed up Kasaya once was, he would understand and accept him for how broken he was now.
That was something Hisashi could never get from their father.
The bottom of the trash can had his brother's acceptance and love in it.
And there, in the darkness, wading through the slime, through the garbage, in that total shithole was where the Pro Heroes operated, the real ones like Eraserhead, Apollo, All Might, Deku, and Disaster.
They'll be the best damn broken cookies in the bottom of the trash!
"Hell might be a bit warm!" He repeated, just wanting to hear it again, a loud eruption of laughter spurted out, so stupidly kiddish.
A confirmation of his choice.
He hadn't laughed like that... in a long time.
So much that his entire gut hurt!
Better bring an ice pack, might as well bring a fully packed lunch, hotel reservations for three!
Just like at The Golden, the trio of them! Hell, the rest of 'em too!
Burning and not caring. Dancing and not caring!
Dancing like they couldn't before!
Dancing in hell, round and round.
Hisashi was ready to find himself again, in this new development as Helios.
He knew where he was going, where they all were going.
His stuff was already packed. He was on-board.
Kasaya was his choice, always had been his choice.
But most importantly, Bakugo was also his choice.
The Pro Heroes were his choice.
Screw their father's expectations!
Screw the military!
Hisashi just wanted to dance again.
He wanted to find his breath!
Wanted to be his own breath again, and forever.
Just as Saya found his own, so would he!
So would he.