MINIMAL [s.hitoshi & k.denki]

fourteen

It takes a while for the both of them to get fully used to each other's company, Shinsou and Kaminari growing closer just a bit.

No matter though, because the blonde is joyous that he no longer hears nervous mutters and soft cries from Shinsou's room.

He was an offensive hero in the competitive system of heroics, so Denki wasn't stupid. He knew weaknesses and how to hit a target, he knew how to overpower an enemy.

It was like Shinsou knew Denki had an idea, but it was taboo.

How else could the other man explain that the scars and bruises were the responsibility of someone else?

This morning however, Denki learned that the popular underground enigma MindWash was his roommate! How he figured it out?

"I tossed your hero weapon into the washer, all the blood and dirt was a bit nasty." Denki said aloud, tossing the dried tool beside Shinsou, who relaxed into the couch as if he wasn't doing secret hero patrols.

"I-I was gonna tell you soon—" the blonde brushed it off, gentle curl of the lips to reassure the other man.

"I don't mind that you didn't tell me," Denki hummed. "It's an honorable job, especially with the lack of a hero name."

"Ah?" It's like Shinsou didn't expect the praise, watching Denki plop onto the carpeted floor and begin folding the warmly dried laundry. "W..what do you mean?"

"Doesn't MindWash take after that one hero... what was his name.." the insomniac stares at the lightly freckled cheeks scrunch up in thought.

"Eraserhead?"

Denki doesn't remember the reason why he learned Eraserhead out of all heroes, but many of his Shiketsu teachers encouraged the idea. At one point, even Denki considered becoming an underground hero.

"Yes him!" The blonde remembers meeting the Yuuei teacher through the hero exams, the man aquatinted with other advisors of the exam. "I can understand why you went under his wing, he is definitely strong and I assume he's a good teacher."

"He's literally my dad."

Shinsou apologizes almost instantly when Denki chokes on his breath and spits dramatically, eyes whiting out in surprise as he drops the shirt he was about to fold.

"O-oh my god I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry—"

"N-no Shinsou— it's fine!"

"I'll get water!"

One flaw of Denki's hidden care for Shinsou was that the man was still extremely timid, afraid of opening up and relying of sudden adrenaline just to explain his emotions. Denki is slightly afraid to confront him about his moments before moving in with the blonde, especially that event within the dark streets of a neighborhood and reuniting at a dirty payphone.

His hero intuition begs for the blonde to grab Shinsou Hitoshi by the jaw and demand answers; but Denki isn't blind to the way Shinsou flinches at loud sounds, how the man feigns ignorance after staring at a kitchen knife unsettlingly long.

He thinks about the cuts and bruises on Shinsou, the amount of bandaids left over from Denki's medical session.

There were none left, because the entire span of Shinsou's chest took a majority of his tools.

Denki takes the cold water happily, Shinsou looking at the blonde with displeasure; though worry was evident in those bagged eyes.

"Thanks Shinsou!"

".. don't mention it."

Denki will demand answers soon, but the jagged scar beneath Shinsou's ear irks worry.

Soon, soon he'll ask. Soon, after Shinsou's eyes don't look like amethysts ready to crack, after he learns to talk all by himself, after he treads over the barbed wire that is his past.

"Are you okay, Kaminari?"

The blonde looks over at the purple-haired man, finished with laundry only to just sit on the fluffy rug staring into nothing. He makes a welcoming expression, smiling softly.

No. "Yep!"