Chapter Text
Shigaraki Hisashi slips past the gates of U.A. easily.
To be fair, a flood of parents have arrived for the annual parent-teacher conferences. Most of them are concerned with their children’s performance at last week’s Sports Festival. Overwhelmed teachers posted at the gates ask once for a student’s name, then a guardian’s, and bob their heads whether they hear the correct answer or not.
Hisashi never bothered before to infiltrate the infamous pro-hero production factory, but he disapproves of the lax security. His son attends this school? Ah, but how could he expect them to have security measures to resist a man of his caliber?
He mingles with several other parents, mothers mostly, on the way to 1-A’s classroom. Charmed by a smile, they share gossip with Hisashi without a second thought.
“My son never stops complaining about Gran Torino,” sighs a woman, blue-skinned yet pink-cheeked. “It’s always, ‘Torino-sensei bullied me,’ or, ‘Torino-sensei’s crazy!’”
“I’ve heard he’s quite scary,” another one giggles.
“But didn’t they make such a strong showing at the Festival? My Aoi-kun was so fierce!”
Hisashi hums, intrigued. Tuning into this year’s Sports Festival had only been the start of going down the rabbit hole; within days, Hisashi had his information network scouring the backgrounds of Class 1-A, only to be stopped short at the utterly inane abundance of information over two specific people.
“Is your son in 1-A?” asks Aoi’s mother.
“Oh, yes,” says Hisashi, smiling still. “I’m quite proud of him. His name is Toshinori.”
“I know of him! You have a good son, Yagi-san.”
His smile goes fixed. Yagi. He’s curious as to whether Sorahiko changed his own name to follow suit, or if there are more radical events to be uncovered. In any case, Hisashi keeps track of the time. Gran Torino is keeping the meetings short, ten minutes at most, with an interim of three minutes between. The names run down alphabetically, girls first, then boys.
One by one, the parents enter and leave. No one is particularly overjoyed or cheered at hearing the assessment of their child’s first few months, and some even look like they’re reconsidering their child’s future as a pro-hero.
“My goodness, Sorahiko,” Hisashi murmurs to himself, fascinated. “What are you telling these parents?”
The second-to-last parent, a Mr. Ueda, storms out of the classroom a few minutes earlier than expected. Hisashi catches the door before it clicks shut, and he steps inside. Twenty desks face the chalkboard and a podium; in the corner, Gran Torino sits at his own desk, rubbing the bridge of his nose and looking ruefully down at an opened folder.
Sorahiko closes the folder, shelves it away in a binder, and pulls out another.
Instead of taking the seat across from Sorahiko, Hisashi approaches the desk itself, leans his hip against it, and says, “Hello, dear.”
Sorahiko startles. He jerks away from Hisashi, recoils further when he realizes Hisashi’s foot preemptively anchored the swivel chair.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” says Sorahiko, his expression slackening beneath that silly domino mask. Hisashi tucks his hands into his overcoat’s pockets and relaxes. Clearly, he’ll need the extra time Mr. Ueda’s given him.
“My son attends U.A.,” says Hisashi lightly. “In fact, he’s a student of yours. Second place winner of this year’s Sports Festival? Shigaraki—”
Sorahiko shakes himself. The fear is pushed down, packed away, replaced with fury. He snarls, “I have no student with that name.”
“Darling, don’t be cross.”
Another snarl, wordless and guttural, but Hisashi doesn’t mind. Torino Sorahiko is simply being protective over their son. This constant rebuffing, however, is wearisome. His husband used to be so compliant! Their partnership had been built on Sorahiko’s trust in Hisashi, his willingness to be aimed and fired like a loaded gun.
“Did he dye his hair? That’s surprisingly more delinquent behavior than I expected you to allow.”
“He likes yellow,” Sorahiko snaps.
“Then he takes after his father.”
Teeth bared, Sorahiko withholds the manila folder that certainly contains Toshinori’s information. He’s holding it too tight for Hisashi to yank it towards his side. More's the pity, Hisashi doesn’t think a surprise kiss will win his husband over.
“If you didn’t want to get my attention, you shouldn’t have let him into the one school with a televised Sports Festival.”
“Don’t put the blame on me,” says Sorahiko.
“Why not? You’re the one who stole him from the crib and fled.” Waking up to their unexplained absence had been first puzzling, then infuriating. Trust Sorahiko to find a moral backbone when Hisashi least wanted it. He smiles reassuringly at Sorahiko. “Whatever concerns you possessed were unfounded.”
“Were they? The uptick in data theft crimes after said otherwise.”
“How are security systems supposed to be their best if they don’t know their weaknesses?”
A muscle in the square jaw twitches, like Sorahiko finds himself agreeing with Hisashi but deeply, deeply wishes not to. Ah, how Hisashi’s missed him. Before Sorahiko snatches the opportunity to shoo Hisashi off, he fills the silence with a cheerful question.
“How did you choose to become a teacher?”
“Careful planning.”
“Oh? Did you ever harbor dreams of teaching children when we were together? I can call you ‘Torino-sensei,’ if that’s your preference.” He lovingly curls his tongue around the honorific. “Of course, I’d much prefer it to be Shigaraki-sensei.”
Sorahiko is silent. Wrestling with old passions and that adorable urge to blush, no doubt.
“Tell me about our son,” he coaxes. “You must be proud of his accomplishments.”
“We don’t have a son,” Sorahiko says through gritted teeth.
“See, that’s so strange! Because I remember a wonderful, wonderful night where all you could ask for was—” Hisashi sees Sorahiko lunge to silence him, his ears burning pink against the pale silver of his hair, and he indulges the glove slapped over his mouth. Because without further ado, he rips the folder from Sorahiko’s other hand.
“You—!”
Hisashi leans back and props the folder open in his lap. The first thing he checks is the paperclipped school picture. Toshinori’s face is soft with baby fat, and his brilliant blue eyes shine as brightly as his wild fluffy hair. His smile is tight-lipped, and his uniform fits snugly on his bulky frame. It soothes the dragon in his heart to see his son; Hisashi blithely tucks the picture into his pocket.
The second thing Hisashi checks is Toshinori’s grade-point average, which is surprisingly imperfect. In the corner, in the box where the teacher provides comments, Sorahiko has written in neat characters: ‘Needs to understand that not every teacher can follow his mental leaps of connection.’
“He’s smart,” says Hisashi, delighted.
“Of course he is. Give that back.”
“I’m still reading,” he tells Sorahiko, beaming at the seething expression. Ah, there are the characters of Toshinori’s new name. Hisashi saw them on the televised Sports Festival’s subtitles, but he hadn’t been certain of his son’s identity until the announcers started joking about 1-A’s homeroom teacher, Gran Torino. Once the camera had zeroed in on Sorahiko’s figure, Hisashi had found his family again. “Who are the Yagis? Is that you? Not very subtle of a family name, darling.”
“Stop calling me pet names.”
“Husband,” he entreats.
“I’m not that either.”
“I think you’ll find that you still are,” says Hisashi. He refuses to feel discouraged at the vehement denial. Love perseveres! “You neglected to sign divorce papers, and you never forged a death certificate either.”
Sorahiko scowls.
“So? Are you Yagi Sorahiko now?”
“I don’t owe you any information. Not about me, and certainly not about Toshinori.”
“Excuse me,” says Hisashi, “but if I remember correctly, I contributed at least a quarter of the genetic material to the test tube, which means I’m owed at least…” He thinks about birthdays missed, achievements unknown, a whole life Sorahiko cut him out of. “At least three years of custody. The entirety of his highschool career perhaps? And that, my dear, is rounding down.”
“That’s not how custody works,” snaps Sorahiko.
Playfully, Hisashi taps his son’s folder on Sorahiko’s shoulder. Sorahiko nevertheless twitches at the light touch. “Don’t flinch,” he chides, seeing the granite expression crack. “You know I’d never hurt you. Not unless you asked, and even then, I’d take no joy in it.”
Silence settles between them. Hisashi, unconcerned, waits for Sorahiko to collect himself. It takes a keen eye, but fourteen years isn’t enough to erase Hisashi’s knowledge of all his husband’s tells: the racing pulse, the trembling shoulders scarcely hidden by the ridiculous suit, and the unsteady breathing pattern, failing to be muffled.
The eventual turning point starts with Sorahiko saying, “You need to go.”
“Why? Who else is coming in?”
“N—” Sorahiko catches himself, his lips thinning into a tight line.
Hisashi processes the slip, the beginning of a name or the beginning of a lie. “My dear Sorahiko, have you made a cuckold of your husband? I can forgive your disloyalty since you’ve obviously redirected it towards our son, but adultery is another crime altogether.”
“You’re being crass.”
“Let me meet them, then.”
“If you haven’t noticed, I hold these meetings in private.”
The door swings open, a cheerful, “Hello, Torino-sensei, sorry I’m late!” preceding the entrance of a tall woman with long black hair, gray eyes, and visibly toned musculature beneath the modest outfit. A beauty mark sits just below and to the right of her friendly smile, a smile that had curved teasingly, flirtatiously, at the address to Sorahiko. She’s beautiful. Hisashi observes her dispassionately, fixing his most disarming grin on his face.
His hand flexes.
Sorahiko shoots to his feet, snatching the folder from Hisashi and snagging a handful of Hisashi’s coat. He breathes, “Don’t.”
The woman pauses, taken aback. Hisashi senses the tension building and wonders if he’s willing to start a fight here, right now, and slaughter the school faculty just to permanently reclaim Sorahiko’s divided attention. Surely Sorahiko would find it in himself to forgive this murder? Just this single murder?
“Are you here for Yagi Toshinori?” he asks the woman, adding a false brightness to his tone. Sorahiko tightens his grip, and Hisashi calmly puts his hand over the offensively-colored, thickly-padded glove.
“A teacher redirected me over here,” she says. “I’m ferrying a private message for Torino-sensei’s ears only.”
“You said you were late.”
“I thought I just missed him,” the woman demurs.
A clever liar, or a genuinely foolish interloper. Hisashi can save dealing with her for later. Maybe never, if he can use the woman’s life as leverage. He just needs a second to check her Quirk...
A second that Sorahiko refuses to grant him. Though shorter, Sorahiko bullies Hisashi to the side and escorts him out, hand in unlovable hand. Hisashi turns his head to the side and bids a happy farewell, finding the silver lining in another possible minute of time alone. He interlocks their fingers.
Back in the hallway, doors shut and privacy assured, he crowds Sorahiko against the door to his own classroom, relishing the stillness. Hisashi delicately peels off the mask and peers down into Sorahiko’s wary, watchful eyes. One more shot. He’d better make it count.
“If I search the school records, will I find Toshinori in her home or yours?”
His husband bares his teeth again, glaring, and Hisashi grins without humor.
“Does Toshinori know I exist? Does he even know his father’s teaching him?”
“He knows enough.”
It’s possible. It’s extremely possible that Sorahiko had been so paranoid about Hisashi’s reach that he’d placed their son in foster care, and only the merest shred of attachment led to Sorahiko retaining not only Toshinori’s given name, but a character of his true family name.
Standing this close to Sorahiko, Hisashi can see dilated pupils swallowing the pale brown irises and the anxiety rising under all that ferocity.
“I can be generous,” he says quietly, intensely. “Finish raising him, Sorahiko. Teach him what you want him to think about me. I’ll stay away. But once he’s out there playing at pro-hero, his education becomes my responsibility. I’ll make sure he’s protected and provided for.”
Sorahiko shoves at Hisashi’s chest, frustration crossing his expression when Hisashi proves immovable. “Your generosity comes at a price. Fourteen years isn’t long enough to forget your court of fools.”
“Clever husband,” Hisashi praises.
“Just tell me what you want.”
One more shot. Hisashi thinks about Sorahiko’s sense of duty, and knows that, at least until he has Toshinori on his side, Sorahiko will never willingly return to Hisashi. Honestly, Hisashi should start avoiding paperwork, in case Sorahiko finds a way to slip divorce papers onto his desk.
And anyway. The other thing Shigaraki Hisashi wants in his possession, under his care and control, is his silly little brother’s Quirk. What would Sorahiko know about One for All?
Family. So troublesome, yet so worth it.
“Give me a kiss, dear.”
Sorahiko swears at him, but when Hisashi swoops down for a swift peck, Sorahiko tilts his head and reaches up to dig his gloved fingers into Hisashi’s hair, wounded and hungry and wanting. It will be a long few years, Hisashi thinks philosophically, but—how wonderful it will be, to have a complete and happy family again.