"America?" Hitoshi's voice sounded almost incredulous over the phone. "At 3 AM? For work?"
"That's what I said." Izuku hopped onto his bed, tucking his legs underneath him and setting his phone in front of him. "Basically."
"That's just plain ridiculous." Izuku could tell Hitoshi had muttered the words around a mouthful of food, and he could hear the sounds of the crowded cafeteria in the background.
Shoto spoke up then for the first time since they'd called Izuku during their lunch break to ask why he wasn't at school. "Why would he leave so late at night? And without warning you or anything?" He was as straight forward as ever.
Izuku sighed and set his head in his hand. "No clue. That's all mom told me."
Hitoshi scoffed, but didn't say anything. They fell into thoughtful silence after that. Izuku thought back to his conversation with his mom earlier that morning.
He felt so conflicted.
She hadn't elaborated much, but had claimed that dad had been called to America for an urgent emergency involving his job and had to leave as soon as he could. He'd left to catch the five AM flight. He hadn't wanted to wake Izuku and Tenko up with it being so early, but had accidentally woken Tenko.
That made sense. It explained where dad had gone, why he'd left so late, all that. It was a good explanation. He wanted to believe her.
But there was something about the way she'd said it, something about the look in her eyes as she spoke, —something about the fear she was clearly trying to hide— that made him doubt he could trust her word on this.
Something had been obviously off since the moment he'd first seen her anyways. Every ounce of her body was weighed down by exhaustion, her eyes tired, the smell of coffee wafting in the air. Mom never drank coffee. Besides that, he could sense the unease she was trying to hard to bury, the fear, the weariness he didn't understand.
Though he supposed that all could be blamed on what happened last night. Which he hadn't even gotten into yet.
Yes, she'd promised to tell him the rest later. And she'd seemed sincere in the promise. But that didn't cover the fact that they were definitely hiding something from him.
"There is more, actually," he spoke up, finally.
It was a second before he got a response through the phone. It was Hitoshi again. "Oh yeah?"
"Yeah."
Izuku told them exactly what had happened the night before, from his perspective at least. How he'd woken up to Tenko's yelling through the door, and how he'd watched his father drive off, and come across Tenko having a panic attack in the bathroom, before finding his mom crying in her room.
He even told them about hearing Tenko ask mom to talk in the bedroom that morning, and then him walking out a little bit later and stomping right past Izuku without so much as a glare at the mess of eggs on the ground.
"Tenko was really upset about something last night," he continued on, partially to himself at this point. "Like, really upset. And from what I've gathered, I think he's probably upset at mom and dad for something that happened. But I have no idea what."
For a second, he wondered if he should be telling them any of this. If the others would be upset at him for telling them this. But then he brushed it aside.
Hitoshi and Shoto were his best friends, his family knew that. He told them everything, especially when he needed to get his thoughts in order. And he really needed that right now. Plus, it was nice to be able to talk to someone about this.
"And your mom said she would tell you later?" This was Shoto. It didn't sound like either of them were eating anymore.
"Yeah." Izuku spun a pen he'd grabbed from the nightstand between his fingers.
"Sounds like she's stalling," Hitoshi muttered.
It hit Izuku how unsurprised he was by that notion. He'd honestly thought the same thing somewhere in the back of his mind. He just didn't understand why his mom would be lying to him.
"Whatever is going on, Tenko's in on it too," Shoto said thoughtfully.
Why they all were lying to him.
It probably just wasn't his business. This was between mom and dad and Tenko, whatever had happened last night, he wasn't a part of it. Maybe it was sensitive. It's not like that hadn't happened before with Tenko's past and stuff. It was nothing he needed to worry about.
At least, that's what his brain told him. But his gut was telling a different story, and he'd learned by this point that his gut was pretty smart.
Why did he feel like he was missing something big?
"Hey, Izu," Hitoshi called his name, drawing Izuku back to the present. He could hear the bell ringing in the background. "We gotta go, lunch is ending."
"Oh, ok. I'll text you guys later then."
"Yeah."
"Izuku?" This was Shoto.
"Yeah, Sho?"
There was a pause. He could hear the ringing of the bell shut off and the other kids shuffling around.
"If you can't talk to your mom, maybe you can try asking Tenko."
Izuku blinked. But before he could respond, he heard Hitoshi picking up the phone. "Can't be late. I'll text you once class ends."
Izuku blinked again as the screen went dark and he was left in silence. Then, after another minute, he slowly set it down beside him on the bed and leaned back on his arms.
Ask Tenko, huh?
Flashes of him on the bathroom floor, writhing and gasping for air, entered his mind then. Tenko yelling in the middle of the night, then darkly asking mom to talk. Him stomping past Izuku and his mess that morning, barely acknowledging him all day, seemingly lost in his own mess of a mind.
Izuku grimaced. Asking him right now seemed like a horrible idea. Mom was a mess, sure, but Tenko was a whole other level of unpredictable. Asking him sounded like twisting the timer to go faster on an already ticking time bomb.
No, he'd just have to wait or try to get answers on his own. Mom had already said she would talk to him later anyways. And if she didn't, so what? It wasn't his business.
He looked up as he heard footsteps approaching the closed bedroom door, and a second later it opened. Tenko stepped inside and looked right at him for very possibly the first time that day.
His red eyes looked tired, but otherwise nothing looked out of the ordinary as he spoke. "Can I borrow some of your notebooks to look through?"
Izuku blinked, surprised, then cocked his head. "Uh, why?"
Tenko leaned against the doorframe and glanced away quickly. "School project. Supposed to write a report on three different heroes, or something, figured I could get information fastest from your analysis."
Izuku shrugged. "Sure. But anything happens to them, you're dead." He said it with a playful grin.
Tenko gave a smirk back and stepped further in the room.
Izuku's grin faltered slightly. There was something off about that smirk. It wasn't as light hearted as usual. It was more forced, fake almost.
Izuku watched quietly as Tenko moved to the far wall, over to the bookcase that dad had a built around a year ago once Izuku had reached the nightstand's limit and needed a new spot to keep his notebooks. So far he had a stack of six completed notebooks on one of the shelves, the rest was being used for their other books and things. Tenko started looking through the numbered spines, but after a minute of him staring, Izuku spoke up.
"What heroes are you wanting to do?"
Tenko hesitated a long minute, but eventually he answered. "Not sure, but at least, probably, Eraserhead."
Izuku immediately perked up, ears having locked onto the name despite it having been mumbled. "You wanna learn about Eraserhead?"
Another pause, then, "Yeah."
Izuku was jumping on the bed now, grinning. "I can teach you about Eraserhead! At least, what I've found out. It's not much, but, I can teach you everything I know! Like, I don't know entirely how his quirk works but I've figured out the gist of what it does. And I know he works at UA, he's a teacher there! Isn't that cool? He only patrols at night and teaches during the day. I've also studied his fighting style, since he fights quirkless and that's like so cool! I'm also pretty sure I figured out what material that scarf thing he uses is made out of but that's still really hard to know for sure-"
"Hold on." Tenko spun around to face him, eyes wide and almost smiling. "Did you just say you could teach me about his quirkless fighting style?"
Izuku's grin widened impossibly, his eyes had to be sparkling by now. All thoughts of asking Tenko about last night were gone. "Oh, can I!?"
—-
Inko finally received her first text from Hisashi a little after one, and she'd never felt so relieved.
Unknown: Hey. This is the burner. Sorry it took so long to text you, something went wrong with the protection, but we should be good now :)
Inko: Hey! Good, I'm so glad you're ok! You had me worried for a minute.
Unknown: Ah sorry
Inko: it's ok, I'm just glad you got there fine and everything. How is it going so far?
Unknown: fine so far. We're trying to get everything packed up, hoping to move locations since this one's been compromised. And I'm trying to find the leak.
Inko: leak?
Unknown: leak.
Inko: ok.
Inko: I know you're probably busy and I should let you go, but I need to ask you something.
Unknown: what is it?
Inko: do you think it's time to tell Izuku?
Inko bit her lip as there was no response for a minute. She tried to reason farther, typing so fast she had to go back and correct several mistakes.
Inko: I know we've talked about this before, but he's as old as Tenko was. And I'm so tired of lying. Plus he's too smart and I'm running out of excuses. He woke up that night and saw you leave, heard Tenko yelling, even walked in on Tenko having an incident while we were outside.
Inko: He knows there's more going on than what I've told him. I'm not even sure he believes me at all.
Inko: He's our son. I think we should trust him.
Inko waited. It was a long, impatient moment of nothing but a typing sign indicating Hisashi was even still there before she finally got a response.
Unknown: ok. But can we please at least wait till I get back and we solve things with Tenko? This doesn't seem like a good time to add that on top of everything else.
Inko: and if you don't come back?
It hurt, far more than she could've prepared for, for her to even voice those words over text. For her to voice in any way the fear that had been boiling in her stomach like acid ready to come up her throat since he left. And it hurt even more to wait for his response.
Unknown: you won't have to keep lying either way.