Running on Empty

A build up of courage

"I'm ready to make my statement."

Shouta almost choked on his coffee, that came out of seemingly nowhere; they were just sat around playing a lazy game of Uno. Hitoshi had seemed a little distracted, but he'd said it was his first time playing so Shouta had just pinned it on that. It seemed his mind really was elsewhere though.

"Are you sure kiddo? We can wait a little longer if you want."

"No... I'm sure. I just want to get it over and done with."

Hizashi caught his eye from across the table and inclined his head slightly, a gesture Shouta knew to interpret as a shrug. He'd never appreciated their ability to communicate non-verbally quite so much before they got a kid, but it had become invaluable over the past couple of weeks.

It had been a couple of days since his first therapy session, and neither of them had brought the statement up. He'd just conquered one fear, they wanted to give him as much time as they could before pushing him towards the next one, it seemed however, that he didn't want it.

"Alright then, I'll let Tsukauchi know."

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An hour later they were entering the police station, Hitoshi had his hands stuffed in his pockets and his head down, but there was grim determination on his face.

This needed to be done, and he was adamant that he was ready to do it, but Shouta had a sinking feeling in his gut. There was a lot of potential for damage here.

Tsukauchi was waiting for them at the front desk, and he escorted them to his office with a friendly smile and casual small talk. The moment the door shut behind them though... everyone felt the atmosphere shift.

"Okay Hitoshi, please take a seat. I thought we'd do this in here since it's more comfortable."

Hitoshi sat on the sofa between Shouta and Hizashi whilst Tsukauchi placed himself opposite them.

"What's going to be easiest here, is for me to ask a series of questions and you to answer them. This way I can make sure we cover everything that needs to be covered. However, if there's something that I don't ask about that you think is relevant, please include it. Any questions?"

Hitoshi shook his head.

"Okay, I'm going to start recording in a second but first, I think Eraserhead has already informed you of my quirk?"

Hitoshi nodded.

"Well just to reiterate then, my quirk is called Lie-Detector, it's pretty self-explanatory — I can tell when a person is lying. However, it only works on verbal statements, so from now on, I'm going to have to ask you to respond verbally please."

Hitoshi nodded again, and then coughed, realising his mistake. "Okay."

"Alright then, are you ready?"

"Yeah." Hitoshi said quietly, tense in his seat.

"Don't worry kiddo, we're gonna be with you the whole time." Hizashi soothed. "And you don't have to answer any questions you really don't want to."

"That's correct," the detective assured. "Whilst it would be best if you could answer everything, I understand that this is going to be difficult. Any questions you're not comfortable answering, just say 'pass' and I'll move on."

Hitoshi relaxed a little and the detective took that as his cue, he placed a small voice recorder on the table between them and switched it on, stating his name, rank and quirk. He then asked Hitoshi to identify himself.

"Shinsou Hitoshi."

"Also present in the room are his two guardians, please identify yourselves."

"Aizawa Shouta, Pro Hero Eraserhead."

"Yamada Hizashi, Pro Hero Present Mic."

"The date is March 11th and the time of commencement is 15:06. This interview is taking place in Musutafu Police Station."

"Okay Hitoshi, like I mentioned before, I'm going to run through a series of questions with you. To start with the questions are screening questions, that means that no one's necessarily been accused of the things I'm asking about, but I need to ask anyway so we can rule certain things out."

"Okay." Hitoshi whispered, probably only just loud enough for the recorder to pick up. His earlier determination was somewhat overshadowed by anxiety, and Shouta noticed his hands balling into tight fists in his pockets.

Silently he reach over and pulled his left hand out, wrapping it in his own. One glance at Hizashi had his husband doing the same on the other side and Hitoshi squeezed them both tightly.

This was gonna be rough.