Chapter Text
Hitoshi hates school. Don’t get him wrong, he loves learning. But school itself? Even though Kakashi tries his best to hide it from him, Hitoshi’s not stupid. Everyone hates him. The teachers, his fellow students, even the janitors. They all hate him.
It’s all because of his stupid quirk. Brainwash, that’s what they’ve named it. Hitoshi wishes he had something cool like an elemental ability, fire, or lightning even. Kakashi talks about lightning powers all the time. Wouldn’t it be great if he could open his hands and let lightning bolts come flying out? Then he’d have friends for sure. Real friends, not just the weird squirrelly ones who only come over to toss the ball with him after Kakashi’s swooped in to have a hushed conversation with them in the corner of the play yard.
He doesn’t like his quirk, but Kakashi does. He says it’s interesting and useful, and then proceeds to run Hitoshi through a bunch of different scenarios where it’s situationally advantageous. It’s the only thing that’s prevented him from avoiding its use entirely.
“Don’t listen to them,” Kakashi instructs, as they walk towards their usual spot nestled in the copse of trees at the very back of the park. “People fear what they can’t understand. You’re not a monster and you’re not a villain, Hitoshi. All you need is practice.”
His brother is always right, so it does make him feel better. Still, he wishes more people could be like Kakashi.
That would be difficult, though. Kakashi is one of a kind. He’s super smart and he knows everything, even more than all the adults he’s ever met. He has a bunch of cool talents, everything from knife handling to lock picking. And he’s also insanely good at fighting.
“Keep your hands up,” Kakashi orders. “And watch your punches. You’re overreaching again.”
Hitoshi obediently shuffles back into position. He shifts his weight and steps into it, throwing another punch. “Like that, Kashi-nii?”
“Exactly like that.” Kakashi smiles at him brightly, eyes crinkling over the edge of his mask. “You’re progressing very quickly. Good job, Hitoshi.”
Hitoshi beams. It’s true. Before, he was only allowed to learn katas on the side and do his runs and stretches, but now he gets to spar! He could practically be a hero already.
They continue for a little bit, until Kakashi tells him to go play on the play structure while he goes on to do weapons practice on his own.
“But I can do weapons too,” Hitoshi protests. “Teach me how to throw knives like you!”
“You have to learn how to properly handle the knife I gave you before you learn how to throw,” Kakashi chides.
Hitoshi immediately pulls out his prized blade, nearly cutting himself in his excitement. Kakashi slams a hand over his, in alarm.
“I’ll practice every day!” Hitoshi promises. “I’ll learn super fast, and then you can teach me, Kashi-nii!” He’s not Kakashi-level good, but if he practices really hard, then he’ll definitely get it in no time.
“Maa, there’s no rush,” Kakashi tells him. He holds his hand and delicately removes the knife from Hitoshi’s lax fingers. The next words are more serious, heterochromatic eyes fixed on his own. “This is your childhood, Hitoshi. You should enjoy it.”
Hitoshi looks at his brother and his solemn eyes, and silently nods.
“Good!” Kakashi rocks back up on his heels brightly. “Off you go, then!” He shoos Hitoshi off towards the play structure. “Why don’t you try out the monkey bars? See how fast you can do them!”
The monkey bars sound fun. He hops up towards the first platform, and stands on the tips of his toes but doesn’t quite manage to reach the first rings. It’s okay though, he knows what to do. Hitoshi wraps his arms around the side of the pole and shimmies up the support, gripping with his hands, then scooching up with his feet just the way Kakashi had shown him. From there, he manages to get his hands on the bars, and completes three circuits, before finally dropping to the ground in exhaustion.
Three times was pretty good. And he was super fast too! He’ll have to show Kakashi. He looks over to where his brother is most likely throwing knives from behind the thick cover of the bushes.
His childhood, huh.
“But what about you?” Hitoshi asks quietly, but his brother isn’t there to respond.
–
Everyone knows that Kakashi is smart. Like, really smart. But it’s perfectly normal, not weird or creepy like everyone else always says. It’s Kakashi. He’s just like that.
Nobody else seems to understand though. Everyone hates Hitoshi, but Kakashi is a whole other story. They hate him too, but more than that, they’re completely creeped out. His brother isn’t even scary! Sure, he could probably kill a man if he tried, but he also gives really good hugs and talks in a funny voice when he wants to be annoying. Hitoshi can’t see how that would ever be scary. Everyone else is probably just jealous! That’s why they make up mean things, like that Kakashi is using his quirk on them or is cheating on his tests.
“He glared at me yesterday,” Hamasaki-chan says from the desk across from him. It’s almost the end of class, and his classmates are slacking off by gossiping instead of finishing their worksheets. “His red eye is so creepy! I thought I was going to die.”
“I know!” Tanaka-kun responds. “And when it starts spinning like that…” He gives an exaggerated shudder.
Why are you making things up? Hitoshi wants to demand, but he’s not allowed to ask questions in class, so he just scowls.
Hamasaki-chan leans forward, eyes brushing past Hitoshi with a mean glint shining through. “Guess what? Sasaki-chan saw him on the teacher’s computer once.”
“What do you think he was doing?”
Hamasaki-chan tosses her hair. “I think he’s changing his grades. He’s a total cheater; that’s the only way he can always get the best grades in class all the time.”
Hitoshi sends an anguished look Kakashi’s way, but his brother either doesn’t hear it, or is just ignoring everything. He usually tells Hitoshi to let things go, but how can he just sit around and listen to this ridiculousness?
The chimes begin to sound.
“You’re wrong!” Hitoshi says loudly, getting to his feet as his classmates start packing their stuff away. “Kakashi’s not a cheater!”
Tanaka-kun huffs. “Well, how come he always gets 100’s when he’s such a slacker, huh?”
“Cuz he’s smart.” Hitoshi huffs. “Smarter than you!”
The boy bristles. “Hey! I’m not dumb, you’re dumb. And you’re both future villains, so there!”
Hitoshi sneers. “And what are you going to be when you grow up, a human trash can?”
“Shinsou-kun!” His teacher snaps. Her heels click against the hardwood floor as she hurries over. “That was unacceptable. You know you’re not allowed to ask questions in class.”
“Class is over,” he protests. He clenches his fists, nails biting into his palms.
Her expression twists. “Stay here. Everyone else is free to leave.”
“They were saying horrible things about Kakashi-nii!”
“Don’t talk to me,” she orders, voice quietly furious. “Just stop talking and wait right there.” She looks at the rest of her students, who all quickly finish packing and scurry out the door.
All except for Kakashi, who lazily throws the last of his folders into his bag and then saunters up next to Hitoshi’s side.
“Is there a problem, Sensei?”
Her lips thin. “Wait outside, Shinsou-kun.”
“If there’s an issue you need to talk to Hitoshi about, you can talk to me as well.” Kakashi shoves his hands into his pockets.
“Your brother behaved inappropriately, and there will be consequences for that,” their teacher snarls. “There are rules, rules that you will follow. Wait outside.”
Hitoshi inhales sharply. Consequences. A sharp frisson of fear travels down his spine.
“Ah.” Kakashi straightens out of his usual slumped posture. “I see. Hm. Hitoshi, I’m going to ask you to wait outside, okay?”
“Wait outside?” He echoes nervously. Is Kakashi telling him to disobey their teacher?
She stares down at them coldly. “I told you to leave. This is your last warning.”
“Hitoshi,” Kakashi says patiently. “You trust me, right? Go wait outside, I’ll take care of this.”
He nods. Of course he trusts his brother. Hitoshi turns to leave, but hesitates at the doorway, giving the two of them one last glance. His teacher’s face is tight and pinched, but Kakashi looks back at him, gaze full of utter confidence. It makes him feel safe. Like everything’s going to be just fine.
He leaves them to it.
The talk is difficult to hear. It’s terse and short, all hushed voices and sharply drawn breaths. When Kakashi comes out, all he gets is a short glimpse of his teacher’s face, completely white as she stares down at numerous slips of paper in her hands. Then the door swings shut, and he can’t see inside any longer.
“Is it… okay?” He asks tentatively.
“Everything’s just fine.” Kakashi says. He takes Hitoshi’s hand. “Just fine. Let’s go home.”
Kakashi says it’s fine, so it must be true. They walk home hand in hand.
–
Kakashi isn’t scary. He isn’t. But what happens the week after their seventh birthday… He can maybe understand why some people might think he is.
He can’t even remember how the villain had gotten in. It was all crumbling walls and panicked screams, Hitoshi holding his breath tight in order to prevent choked sobs from tumbling out. Calm, one second, and pure terror the next, Hitoshi hadn’t known what to do as the villain had shoved through the door, light glinting off his deadly talons.
Kakashi had. Kakashi always knows what to do.
His brother pushes him back towards the rest of his classmates. “Don’t worry, Hitoshi, just stay calm,” he orders. He stalks forward, grabbing the metal leg of a chair, and his hands are perfectly steady. His eyes gleam, cool and collected, and he plants his feet against the floor. Calm breaths, centred weight – he looks like he’s back in the park, about to gracefully dance through yet another kata.
But this isn’t practice.
His desk is broken. It’s shattered now, cracked in two from the force of Kakashi’s rough landing. Hitoshi distantly wonders if they’ll be forced to pay for the damage. The villain’s kneeling, forced to grip onto the end of the pole protruding from his chest. And then it’s ripped out, and he has no more support. The man slumps to the ground.
And at the front of the classroom…
Kakashi. Always Kakashi. There is blood coating his hands. There is blood soaking through his uniform. There is blood pooling on the floor.
There is just so much blood.
His brother’s hands are still raised, even as he drops the chair leg, letting it fall to the ground with a crash. His nose twitches and his eyebrows are furrowed, but his eyes are completely blank. No horror, no regret.
For a single second, Hitoshi looks at his brother and wonders if he truly knows him at all.
And then Kakashi turns to him; the light re-enters his eyes, and even with the bleeding corpse on the floor, it’s like everything is alright with the world once more.
“See? I told you not to worry.”
–
Everyone is still crying when the heroes burst inside. Hamasaki-chan is wailing, loud, messy sobs that send gobs of mucus streaming down her chin. Hitoshi isn’t exactly sure how he feels himself. On one hand, it was terrifying. That villain had looked at them all without a speck of mercy in his eyes, and Hitoshi had known he wouldn’t have been able to do a thing. He could be dead right now, dead and bleeding out on the floor as everyone carefully tried their best to ignore his fallen corpse.
But he’s not. Dead, that is. And while his eyes are a bit teary, it’s just from that initial burst of heart-stopping fear and adrenaline. He’s not scared scared anymore. Kakashi’s here. Kakashi’s safe and whole, and protected him like he always does. Sure, he killed someone, and Hitoshi’s kind of upset about it, but they’re okay. Everyone’s still okay.
One of the heroes rushes up to his brother, face a mask of frantic concern. “It’s going to be okay,” she says, desperation coating her voice as she pats him down, tugging at his shirt.
It’s true that Kakashi hadn’t gotten stabbed or anything, but he was thrown back into that desk. Is he really hurt? “Kashi-nii?” Hitoshi asks anxiously, approaching his brother. He nearly stumbles over the splintered debris in his haste, too worried to care about desk slivers and viscous crimson staining his sneakers.
It’s their teacher that sets his fears to rest.
“He’s not hurt,” she says, usual pinched rage transformed into something else. Her eyes are glazed and her whole body is trembling. “That’s not his blood, it’s the villain’s. The boy– he- he killed him.”
The hero draws back, arms automatically coming up in alarm. “What? No…”
She looks at Hitoshi’s brother like he’s something to fear. She looks at him like he’s the villain.
And so do the police when they come to take Kakashi away to the station. Hitoshi clings desperately to his brother’s side until they’re forced to part when Kakashi is dragged into a solo interrogation. They can’t honestly be accusing Kakashi of murder, can they? It’s nonsense and completely ridiculous. The chair rattles with Hitoshi’s jiggling leg, as he sits sullenly in the dimly lit hallway.
“This won’t take too long,” Tamakawa says. His face is a cat head, soft and fluffy. “Don’t worry.”
It isn’t Kakashi saying it, gaze certain and reassuring. No, it’s a stranger in a stuffy suit, with Kakashi locked away down the hall while Hitoshi has to sit here all by himself on this crooked and uncomfortable chair. He turns away.
The man sighs. “You aren’t in trouble, Shinsou-kun.”
“What about Kakashi?” It’s his first time speaking since they’ve arrived at the station.
“Kakashi?”
“Shinsou Shiro,” he amends. “My brother.”
It’s hard to read cat expressions, but it looks like he’s grimacing. “That’s a little more complicated.”
“It’s not complicated,” a gruff voice interrupts. There’s another man striding down the corridor, expression sharp and severe. “The boy broke the quirk usage law and murdered someone.”
“Matsuda…” Tamakawa says softly.
Matsuda turns towards Hitoshi. “Your brother will be going to a child guidance centre for unauthorized quirk use. It’s for his own safety.”
What? Hitoshi narrows his eyes. “Kakashi didn’t even use his quirk!”
“There was an eyewitness.”
“I’m an eyewitness,” Hitoshi retorts, “and I know he didn’t use it.”
The man crosses his arms. “You’re hardly an unbiased witness.”
Hitoshi wants to tear his hair out. He struggles to keep his voice calm, but it starts picking up despite his best efforts. “When he’s using his quirk his eye starts spinning, which didn’t happen, and the villain wasn’t even acting like he was under genjutsu. And nobody likes us anyways, so of course–”
“That’s enough,” Matsuda snaps. “Shinsou Shiro is going to the child guidance centre, and you are going home. Your parents are here to pick you up.”
“He did it to protect us, and he wasn’t using his quirk!” Hitoshi’s standing up now, hands clenched into tight fists. “Why can’t you just go do an actual investigation and find out the real truth?”
“Your brother was wrong,” Matsuda says sharply, “and it would do you well not to follow in his footsteps–”
“Shut up.”
–
“They told me not to be like you,” Hitoshi says quietly. They sit side by side in a dull grey room, bars stretched across the only window. “They said you were wrong to do what you did.”
Kakashi isn’t even looking at him. He’s turned towards the window, eyes shuttered.
“Kakashi,” Hitoshi says.
His brother sighs. “It’s true that this society thinks what I did was murder. But Hitoshi – you’ve done all my thought exercises. Tell me, what would have happened if I had done nothing?”
The blanket is thin and linty. Hitoshi picks at the ragged edges. “They said the heroes would have saved us without any deaths.” His voice is small and uncertain.
“They arrived approximately two minutes after the incident. That’s two extra minutes for the villain to have freely acted. Try again. What would have happened?”
He’s only ever heard this tone of voice a few times before. A small hole grows in the side of the blanket as Hitoshi’s fingernails rip the threads apart.
He’s done thought exercises like this before. Battle and tactics and strategy – Kakashi had always made it fun. This isn’t fun.
“He would have really hurt or killed us.” Hitoshi whispers. “If you had done nothing – I could be dead. We could both be dead.”
Hitoshi’s mind drifts back to the classroom, but this time it’s not his own body staining the dusty floors. Bright silver hair, tired heterochromatic eyes, no, this is his brother, lifeless and still. Hitoshi’s gut is churning. With a sudden flash of insight, he knows now that he’d do absolutely anything to prevent this vision from coming true.
“That’s right,” Kakashi nods. “That villain would not have been talked down. He saw us all as targets, and taking him out as quickly and efficiently as possible was the only way to minimize casualties.”
Hitoshi nods silently, eyes back on the greying fabric.
“Hitoshi,” Kakashi says, and Hitoshi looks up. His brother is looking at him now, eyes fierce, and protective, and so, so warm. “You don’t stand by and let people die. Even more than that, when the people you love are in danger, you protect them. You protect them with everything you have.”
People you love. You protect them. Hitoshi engraves these words into his soul.
Kakashi’s body loosens, and even though they’re the same height, he drops a heavy hand on Hitoshi’s head. “Ah, good.”
They lapse back into silence, but it’s a more comfortable one, this time. A few more minutes pass by before his brother speaks up once more.
“You didn’t have to come with me, you know.”
Hitoshi had been drifting off. He blinks sleepily and tries to sit back up. “What?”
“You didn’t have to use your quirk. This isn’t a good place to be, and now illegal quirk use is on your record.”
He blinks again. Did Kakashi even have to ask? Did he not understand?
“You’re my brother,” Hitoshi says simply. “I love you.”
“Oh, Hitoshi,” his brother sighs longsufferingly. He sounds tired and achy, but still somehow content. “Whatever am I going to do with you?”
Hitoshi doesn’t say anything back, he just curls in closer. The room is hard and cold, and the mere rags posing as sheets do nothing to ward off the chill, but Kakashi is as warm as ever.