24 Days of MHA 2025 Day 19 - Heart in the casket
When Hitoshi's alarm goes off he continues to stare at his ceiling. His body feels heavy, and his head is completely empty and having to move seems like the worst thing in existence, even though Hitoshi knows what the punishment for laziness is going to be.
But he doesn't want to do this anymore, doesn't want to have to fight for his life every goddamn day and he's tired.
Almost tired enough to stay right where he is, but then an image of a disappointed Aizawa flickers through his mind and just that is enough to get Hitoshi moving even though it feels like the worst thing of all times.
Still, he manages to sit up and for a moment he simply breathes, enjoys how heavy his body feels and revels in the absence of pain—it's going to change soon enough, no matter what he does so he takes this moment to remind himself that things can be okay-ish.
At least for a few seconds and then he hears his foster mother slam the door to her bedroom and then it feels like everything is crumbling under his fingers.
Today is just another day of hell. Today is just another day where his foster mother is going to hurt him, uses her quirk against him in the most malicious way possible all the while accusing him of being a villain and Hitoshi will just have to take it and nod and be quiet, because she quite literally will have his heart in her hands.
And he knows it's so, so easy to squeeze, just a tiny bit, just enough to make it hurt.
Which she will. She always does.
Hitoshi mechanically gets ready, his thoughts distant and fluffy and he doesn't bother to make them more present or to bring them into any kind of order. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters, really, and for a split second he thinks about simply going back to bed, punishment and pain be damned, but again—Aizawa’s face flits through his head and Hitoshi pushes on.
Aizawa is the one adult who hasn't hurt Hitoshi yet, the one adult who seems to have reachable expectations for him, the one adult who laid out clear, concise rules and then stuck to them and just thinking about disappointing him makes Hitoshi sick.
So he goes on, until everything is prepared and then he sits at the edge of his bed and waits for his foster mother.
She comes into the room eight minutes later, the by now so familiar and equally hated casket in her hands and Hitoshi goes cold all over.
This will never get any easier, he's certain of that and yet, he sits still and awaits his punishment.
Punishment for existing, really, because it's not as if he's done anything but his foster mother didn't like it when he mentioned that once and Hitoshi now knows better than to ever mention it again.
Hitoshi still has his shirt unbuttoned because if the process takes too long she'll make it hurt more, so now he just waits for her like this.
It's not right, either, going by the sneer on her face but that could just be due to his general existence and Hitoshi has long ago stopped puzzling over this.
It's not as if he's ever done anything to her, as if he's ever done anything to anyone and yet everyone treats him as if he's the worst villain to ever grace the earth.
Still, he sits and he waits for his punishment and he bites back on the pained noise that threatens to slip out when she removes his heart.
Her quirk could probably be crazy useful in medicine, but instead she chooses to torment Hitoshi with it, who has to watch his beating heart slip out of his chest.
It's a painful process, though Hitoshi thinks that's by her design, and by the time his heart drops into his hands, he's covered in cold sweat.
His heart his warm in his hands, beating strong and steady, but it makes him sick to see it like that. The lingering ache in the space where it's supposed to sit doesn't help at all and Hitoshi knows from experience, from daily repeats that it's only going to get worse, the longer the day drags on.
"Put the heart in the casket," his foster mother demands and Hitoshi handles it carefully and he thinks he should be thankful that she lets him do this today, because if she does it, then she never fails to handle his heart roughly and squeeze it for the fun of it, which makes Hitoshi lock up in pain.
But he's careful with it, even when his foster mother makes an impatient noise and he gets the payback a second later when she slams the lid shut and then rattles the casket, making his heart bounce around.
It hurts and it's the strangest feeling ever but Hitoshi clenches his jaw shut and stays silent because this is nothing.
Once, she pinched a part of his heart and that was a kind of pain Hitoshi never wants to have to experience again, so he's obediently silent, does exactly what she wants and eventually, he's free to go to school.
The further away he gets from his heart, the more it hurts, the heavier his body feels and the passing time will only exuberate that. Hitoshi obsessively checks the time and does some quick mental math, because he has nine hours.
Nine hours until his foster mother's quirk wears off and when his heart isn't back in his body by the time it does, he's just straight up going to die.
It's a threat that always hangs over him and even though he never had to experience that yet, his foster mother once dragged it out until almost the last second and just the panic was enough to reduce him to a sobbing mess.
Hitoshi is not going to ever live through that again, not if he can help it.
The day drags on, like it always does, the ache in his chest a persistent reminder that he's missing a very integral part of himself and by the time his last two lessons roll around he can barely think past the pain.
It just builds up and builds up and nothing he does alleviates it even a little bit and he wonders if he's going to have a heart condition a few years down, because surely having his heart removed on a regular basis is not a good thing.
Hitoshi doesn't even really understand why his foster mother does it; sure, torturing him is a widely recognised national sport for all of his foster parents but she once said it was to ensure that he always comes back to her and that makes no sense at all.
She clearly hates him so the fact that she forces him to come back over and over again is just illogical but Hitoshi knows better than to ask. He's not going to get an answer and at worst he's going to get more pain out of it and he hardly wants that.
So he sucks it up and he keeps quiet and he suffers through the pain and the panic and everything else and it's fine.
Because he hasn't disappointed Aizawa yet and he made it into the hero course despite his—impairments and that's all that really matters.
And it's all good, it's all great, until Aizawa's eye blazes red during a lesson as he snaps out an annoyed "Silence!" and then everything is just white hot agony as Hitoshi lets out a pained yell, dropping from his chair and barely noticing it because the pain in his chest is so all consuming and then he knows nothing anymore.
~*~*~
"He doesn't have a heartbeat."
Recovery Girl's voice echoes almost eerily in the otherwise silent room and Shouta's own heart drops so fast he needs to sit down.
"He's—dead?" he breathes out, one hand clasping over his mouth because he thinks he's going to be sick right here and seeing Hitoshi so pale and so still on the bed doesn't help at all.
"No," Recovery Girl gives back and Shouta blinks at that.
"Excuse me?"
"He doesn't have a heartbeat but he does have a pulse. He seems perfectly healthy, apart from the, you know, missing heart."
"Missing heart?" Shouta incredulously repeats because how the hell is his kid still alive if he doesn’t have a heart?
"I did a quick ultrasound but—where the heart is supposed to be there's only a hole. I can't say with certainty, but it would look like his arteries are still pumping the blood somehow, and it's definitely not spilling out into the cavity. I would assume he's a medical miracle but given what happened—"
New dread floods through Shouta.
"You think someone did that to him? With a quirk?"
"He seems perfectly fine, otherwise. And from what you said, he was perfectly fine until you used your quirk. I would assume he was perfectly fine again as soon as you stopped using your quirk but since he was already knocked out by then that's hard to verify."
"So—what do we do?" Shouta wants to know, inching closer to take Hitoshi's hand in his.
"You talk to him as soon as he wakes up. Figure out what's going on and then do something about it," Recovery Girl firmly tells him, giving him a look that would make lesser men hide himself away, but Shouta only squares his shoulders.
He's suspected that something with Hitoshi's home is wrong, but he was looking for the typical signs of physical abuse, not this.
He would have never even expected something like this and he still blames himself for not catching it sooner. For not asking, for not pushing, for not making sure that his kid is safe but it's too late now.
Now the only thing Shouta can do is make sure that something like this never happens to him again—he needs to figure out who did this and where Hitoshi's heart is and then he needs to get him out of whatever terrible family he's in.
"I think he's waking up," Recovery Girl says right before she hobbles out of the room and Shouta's gaze snaps to Hitoshi just in time to see his eyes open.
"Hey, kid," he mutters, keeping his grip on Hitoshi's hand loose and soft in case he panics.
"What happened?" Hitoshi asks, clearly groggy and Shouta doesn't like it when he reaches out to rub a hand over his chest as if it's hurting him.
"How's your pain?" Shouta wants to know in return because he thinks the agonised yell that left Hitoshi's lips will forever haunt him and it seems as if that question is enough to make everything rush back, because Hitoshi sits up in a panic.
"What time is it?" he breathes out, frantically checking his pants for his phone, which Shouta hands to him.
"School just ended," he informs him and watches how Hitoshi goes pale.
"No, I can't be here, I need to go home, I have to—" he rushes out and then almost falls flat on his face when he tries to get up in a rush.
"Hitoshi," Shouta tries but Hitoshi barely seems to hear him, muttering incoherently under his breath and it isn't until Shouta lets out a sharper "Hitoshi!" that the boy falls silent and still.
"Kid, what's going on? Recovery Girl told me you don't have a heart. What is happening?"
"It's nothing, it's fine, I just have to—"
"It's not nothing and it most certainly isn't fine. Hitoshi, what is going on?"
"I have to get home," Hitoshi says, his eyes brimming with tears and barely concealed fear and Shouta pushes himself off the bed as well.
"I'll drive you."
Hitoshi stares at him for a moment as if he can't believe it and Shouta is tempted to make it conditional, to drive him in exchange for Hitoshi telling him what's going on, but the fear on his face is so stark that Shouta doesn't dare.
He's not going to let this go, not again, not when something is so very clearly wrong, but he won't make things harder for Hitoshi, not right now.
The walk to the car is silent but Shouta catches Hitoshi rubbing a hand over his chest over and over again and even though Shouta burns with questions, he bites them all back.
"I do have a heart," Hitoshi says once they are halfway to his home and Shouta hums under his breath to signal that he's listening but Hitoshi falls silent again and this time, Shouta pushes.
"It's just not in your chest."
"Not always," Hitoshi agrees and hunches over, as if he can protect something that's not even with him in the first place.
"Why?"
The question seems to completely disarm Hitoshi, because before he knows it, Shouta hears him crying and he wishes he could hug him right now, but since he's driving it has to be enough that he reaches out and puts a hand to his head.
"Hitoshi, tell me why, so I can help you," Shouta almost begs because he doesn't want to see the kid like that, doesn't want him to have to experience such excruciating pain ever again, and it only makes Hitoshi sob harder.
"My foster mother keeps it as insurance," he finally gets out and Shouta has questions, he has so many questions but the most important one right now comes out first.
"Is there a time limit?"
"Nine hours," is the whispered reply and now Hitoshi’s panic makes more sense.
If he had to leave his heart behind shortly before he left for school then he's already pushing it and so getting him home is the most important thing right now.
"Listen to me, Hitoshi," Shouta seriously says and he waits until Hitoshi nods before he goes on. "When we get there, you'll go in alone. I'm going to give you fifteen minutes. Is that enough for her to undo whatever it is she did?"
"Yes."
"Good. After fifteen minutes, I'll be there and I'll arrest her before taking you with me. Do you understand? You're not going to stay there and you're also not going to get hurt again."
"And—and then what? Where am I going to go?" Hitoshi asks and he sounds so desperate, so broken, that it breaks Shouta's heart.
"You're going home with me. And you're going to stay with me, too. Hizashi has your room already prepared."
He called him as soon as Recovery Girl started to check Hitoshi out and it's all prepared. Hizashi probably has CPS on speed dial already, just waiting to get the ball rolling.
"Really?" Hitoshi cries out, new tears flowing down and Shouta lets out a soft sigh.
"Really, kid. I'll make sure you'll be safe. We just have to get your heart back first and I'll handle everything else."
And he damn well will handle it; using a quirk like this is borderline villainous behaviour and torture at best and Shouta will make sure that Hitoshi's foster mother will get what she deserves and he'll accept nothing less.
But first, the most important thing is to get Hitoshi whole again and so they are going to do that first.
And then Shouta will rain hell down upon everyone who dared to hurt his kid.
Link to the series on AO3
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