Running on Empty

The marks of a muzzle Pt3: Scars

"Well," Hizashi started, "it was a long time ago... before I learnt to control my quirk. I kept accidentally hurting people and instead of getting me more intensive quirk therapy, my school decided it would be easier to just keep me quiet."

He paused for a moment, looking over Hitoshi's shoulder, the memories replaying in his mind. It was a long time ago, but he still remember how it felt, how dehumanising it was. Hitoshi was hanging onto his every word, this must be the first time he's ever heard about someone else's experience being muzzled.

"They didn't always use a muzzle," he continued. "Sometimes they'd use tape, which was less painful, but more humiliating. I got into the habit of braiding my hair to make sure it wouldn't get stuck or obstruct the muzzle, whichever they decided to go with that day."

"What about your parents?" Hitoshi signed.

"They were furious when they found out." He smiled fondly at the memory. "Even though I had permanently damaged their hearing with my quirk they still loved me so much. They reported the school but the administration claimed that it was necessary for the safety of the other students and nothing was done, so they had to pull me out instead."

"We tried a bunch of different schools in the area but none of them could handle my quirk, so in the end I went to a specialist school for the last year of elementary. They were used to dealing with difficult quirks and did intensive quirk training on the side so they helped a lot, and by the time I was heading off to middle school I had a better grasp of it."

"That didn't mean everyone in middle school was okay with it though. The staff must have been informed of the damage I'd done to my parents in the past, I guess it was in my file. Anyway, most of them accepted that I was older now and had almost complete control, but there was an incident in English class one time, I got too excited and accidentally smashed all the windows with my voice. After that the teacher made me wear a muzzle in his class."

"I didn't tell my parents, cuz I knew how upset they'd been in elementary, and my mum was sick at the time, I didn't want to make her worse."

"Then one day he put it on too tight and my face got all sliced up. I couldn't hide that like I could irritation or bruises, so my parents found out straight away. I ended up being homeschooled for the last year of middle school, and then I went to UA where things were different."

"Did your mum get better?" Hitoshi asked nervously and Hizashi smiled sadly.

"Not really, but she didn't get worse for a long time after that. And she was the one who taught me at home so I got to spend a lot of time with her before she died."

Hitoshi hugged him tightly and Hizashi rubbed his back gently, "It's okay kiddo, it was a long time ago, I'm alright now."

He felt the kid nod against his chest.

"I just want you to know that you can talk to us anytime. We might not be able to empathise with everything you've gone through, but it's not as far from our own experiences as you'd think. I mean, I was muzzled, and Sho was bullied because people thought his quirk was villainous too. So we get it."

"And both of us made it as heroes, so you can too. I even ended up as an English teacher just to spite my middle school one. I'm a better teacher now than he ever was, and I make sure kids have fun in my lessons."

"Things really do get better as you get older, I promise. You've just got to stick it out."

Hitoshi pulled back and smiled up at him with tears in his eyes. "You don't have to tell me that," he signed, "you've already shown me."

Hizashi was going to die.

How can he be that precious what the hell?!

He ignored his internal screeching and squeezed the kids shoulder, "I'm glad." He didn't know what else to say, how to express the swirl of emotions inside of him, so he just left it at that and hoped that he understood.

"We need to get some sleep, we can talk about this more in the morning if you want."

Hitoshi nodded and they readjusted the covers to get comfy.

A minute passed and then Hizashi felt a tap on his cheek. He opened his eyes to see Hitoshi looking at him.

"Thank you, for telling me."

"Anytime." He responded. And he meant it, he'd tell the kid anything he wanted to know if it would make him feel less alone.