Eventually, they arrive home. It's been a long day full of accomplishments, at least Hitoshi deems so. But… But. There's one, one thing to do, that he really needs to do now, or he'll chicken out and then it will be too late to mention or too stupid to mention it again and… yeah, he needs to do that.

He gives Midoriya-kun a good half hour to get comfortable in his room after the training and then comes to him, knocking on the door before letting himself in when the boy on the other side says 'come in'.

"I uh…" he clicks his tongue in annoyance. He should have prepared his speech firsthand, not just pace in his room without a target. "Well I…"

"If you want to apologise for yesterday, you don't have to," Midoriya-kun says matter-of-factly. Hitoshi purses his lips at that and looks at the boy with wide eyes. Well… he probably should do that too now that he thinks about it. The previous apology could look a bit forced now that he thinks about it. Now that he thinks about it he's a moron.

"While I also wanted to do that," he starts, totally not lying, "I came to say that, well, if you still have any questions about my quirk I will be glad to answer them."

Midoriya-kun lights up. Like, literally, he lights up in the 'let's fuse' way for a second, and then launches himself from the chair he was sitting on and grabs a notebook from a shelf. A pencil seems to materialise itself in his hands.

"Sit down on the bed, I have so many questions." His eyes are shining in a telling way. He really has been waiting for it.

Hitoshi feels a smile crawling onto his face as he takes a seat on Midoriya-kun's bed, sitting down cross-legged. He thought it would be harder to say, and he hopes it won't be harder to endure.

"Okay, let's start with something that's been bugging me," the boy starts, biting the eraserhead part of his pencil. "How do you know that your quirk prompts answers? It's such a… It would be hard to check that, wouldn't it? Because your file also says that if you're prepared for it, you can stop it and just don't answer… I mean, not you, someone— you get me."

"I get you," Hitoshi replies, gathering his thoughts. To tell or not to tell? He's already spilled a bit about his father so… "Well, it was a part of my father's quirk, and I seem to have inherited an exact copy but slightly stronger," he says, grimacing slightly. He doesn't like to talk about his father, duh, but it's kinda important for understanding his quirk, so he takes a deep breath and spills. "His father's quirk was answer prompting, and his mother's manipulation, the genetic result was basically my quirk but with a time limit of three minutes."

"Huh," Midoriya-kun says and bites the eraser a little harder, then notes something down furiously. "Okay, that would explain a lot, but, are you, like, sure it's a part of your quirk?"

Hitoshi sighs, raises his eyes at the ceiling and mentally counts to five. And then he fires off a question: "Since when is Bakugou bullying you?"

"Since I was declared quirkless," Midoriya-kun replies without missing a beat, and then blinks at him startled. "Ah." He blinks some more. "Ah."

"Exactly." Hitoshi smiles apologetically, and Midoriya-kun waves him off, then notes something down again.

"Do tell, have you tested your time limit?"

"Don't have one," Hitoshi shrugs, "Or it's very long, I don't know, I only ever tested it out on my bio father, and he told me to bring him out if nothing happened after ten minutes, but there was no strain so…"

"So ten minutes…" Midoriya-kun said slowly as he scribbled the words down. "That's something to check. Typically one can say their quirk has no time limit if the twenty four hour mark has been passed with no changes, and even then it could be that you can just hold someone for a day." Hitoshi's brows shoot up.

"Are you— Did you just suggest I hold someone down under my quirk for a whole day?" Midoriya-kun nods absentmindedly, still noting things down. "Are you insane? Asking genuinely here."

"I'm just saying that it's a thing you need to get 'limitless' noted down as a time limit of your quirk in official documentation," he says with a tone suggesting he just commented that sky is blue. "But I would be up for testing that if you want to."

"Absolutely not."

"Your choice," Midoriya-kun remarks in a conversational tone. "Okay, we covered that your people capacity needs testing… Have you ever tried to use it on someone through a phone? Through a speaker?"

"No…?"

"Another thing to test then." Midoriya-kun closes his notebook with a soft thump. "I have no more questions at the moment but we have a lot to test, Shinsou-kun!"

"You… actually want me to test my quirk."

"Yes." Midoriya-kun answers without missing a beat. Hitoshi can only stare at him for a moment.

"I… Alright then."

"Cool, let's do the first test!" That makes the smile on Hitoshi's lips strain further than it was before. "Hold me under your control for an hour and see if there's a strain."

"An hour?" Hutoshi can feel cold sweat running on his back already.

"Your previous record is ten minutes so I think an hour is reasonable, unless you want to do the twenty four hour test immediately, but then we'd have to wait for the weekend and tell mom so…" Hitoshi, once again, realises that he and Midoriya-kun are living in two very different worlds. But… His old therapist once said something about comfort zones, he doesn't really remember everything but like through fog he remembers her saying that as important it is to have a comfort zone, sometimes you need to step out of it.

He takes in a breath. He releases it.

"Okay. When?" he asks, and Midoriya-kun beams at him.

"How about now?"

"Now?" He… Oh, he wants to chicken out so badly. But no, he needs to be strong, he needs to step out of his comfort zone. "Okay. Do you consent?"

"Yeah—" Midoriya-kun's eyes glaze over. It looks a little eerie.

"Give me your notebook," Hitoshi says, trying to desperately not focus on the weirdness of the situation. He takes out his phone and sets up a timer for an hour, then takes the notebook from Midoriya-kun's waiting arms.

'This is weird,' he hears Midoriya-kun think and startles so hard he lets go of the notebook. 'You okay?'

"Didn't expect you to be able to speak is all," he answers aloud and picks up the notebook, carding through it. "How is it weird?"

'I can't move at all unless you say something,' Midoriya-kun points out, 'But my mind is clear. It's like you cut off the connection to my limbs. Weird.' Yeah, that would be weird wouldn't it.

"Is it… bad weird?"

'Just weird.'

"Fair enough."

Hitoshi looks down on the notebook in his hands and finds the section dedicated to him. It's… well… messy. Differently from other sections it's written in pencil not pen, and it's more of a word cloud than anything, but there are some interesting bits. Like a note to check if distance had any influence on the strength of brainwashing. Or a question about his good looks and deep voice being connected to his quirk… wait. What? Back up. Good looks?

He sends Midoriya-kun a glance, and hears a sharp 'What?' in his brain.

"Nothing… nothing at all." He covers his face with the notebook as he feels himself blush.

A bit passes and he calms down, exhaling softly.

'This is more boring than I thought,' Midoriya-kun remarks.

"Yeah… Want me to put up a video for you to watch?"

'Please.'

"Take out your phone," he commands, and Midoriya-kun follows his word. "Open HeroTube. Click the search button. Type in 'Quirk Conspiracy' and press search." He waits a few seconds for the boy to complete his orders, then looks at the screen and picks the video himself. It's something about a guy being able to give and take quirks, he doesn't pay attention. A true conspiracy, such quirk wouldn't be possible.

He himself busies himself with his phone too, looking through the immortal page of Tumblr in search of cute cats. He finds plenty.

And then he finds himself in a pickle. Because there's a knock on the door and one Midoriya Inko enters after a second.

SHIT. FUCK. WORST TIMING POSSIBLE.

'What do I do?' he asks Midoriya-kun immediately, and the boy hums thoughtfully.

"Izuku, Hitoshi, could you come to the living room for a moment? I want to ask you something." She has a small smile on her face. She suspects nothing.

Hitoshi is about to release his hold on Midoriya-kun, when the boy makes a decision. 'Tell mom what's happening.'

'What? No!'

"Um…" he vocalises aloud, and watches as Midoriya-san's face morphs into bafflement. "I—" Comfort zone. He should step out of his comfort zone. And Midoriya-kun is right, Midoriya-san isn't like his other parents. "We're… conducting an experiment at the moment," he eventually says.

"Oh? What kind of experiment?" Midoriya-san asks, not a single worry in her voice.

"A quirk experiment," he clarifies, waiting for the other shoe to drop. It doesn't. She still looks at him expectantly. "Midoriya-kun was wondering how long I can keep someone under my quirk and we're testing it for an hour," he clarifies further, expecting it to be what breaks the trust he's been so carefully building up. But no such thing happens.

"Oh!" Midoriya-san exclaims. "When will you be done?" she asks simply.

Hitoshi forces himself to check the time on his phone through the haze of his brain screaming WHAT THE FUCK on repeat. "There's seventeen minutes left."

"Can you boys come out at that time then? I'll be waiting."

"Of course," he says, and Midoriya-san smiles at him, nods, and steps out of the room.

He only then registers how hard his heart is beating in his ribcage, and how ragged his breathing has become. Kami. He told her. And she did nothing.

'See? I was right,' Midoriya-kun thinks at him. 'Now change the video for me, the previous one just ended.'

Hitoshi absentmindedly does just that. Kami, this family really is something.