Glass Heart

Glass Heart - Chapter Eighty-Three

Hitoshi stood by the vending machine on his own, inserting a couple quarters into the open slot for coins, and clicking the right buttons to make his favourite drink and chocolate bar fall down the chute. He quickly grabbed them and sat down near the machine to eat them, absentmindedly tapping his fingers on the wooden table in front of him, thoughts of his future unable to escape his head. He was surrounded by friends... and yet he felt so... alone.

"Hey... are you okay?"

"Huh?"

Hitoshi turned his head away from his junk-food meal (Hizashi would be so disappointed), to look over at the worried expression of Izuku's support class friend: Melissa Shield. She smiled softly as he looked at her, and she quietly sat down next to him.

"Aizawa, is something wrong...?"

Looking at him with such a concerned expression, made Hitoshi not want to turn her away. But... he also didn't want to talk about it.

"... call me Hitoshi..." he simply muttered under his breath, looking away from her, towards his food. They sat together in silence for another minute, before he spoke up again, continuing to look away from her. "... and I'm fine... just... dealing with some things."

"... I see..." She reached over to put a hand on his shoulder, but hesitated, and quickly retracted it. Hitoshi watched her do this out of the corner of his eye, and while he found the motion endearing, he made no attempt to show that he appreciated it, keeping himself slightly closed off.

Noticing this, Melissa tried again.

"I... can sympathise with you, a little. I mean, I don't know what you're going through, or how you're feeling... but I know the feeling of having the world turn against me." It was now her turn to look away from Hitoshi's questioning eyes, as she looked down at the table she had recently sat down at. "I..."

She took a deep breath and looked up.

"I'm quirkless."

Hitoshi couldn't believe it. Just last school year, while researching UA, he knew that no quirkless person had ever been accepted into the courses there – and he assumed Izuku was the only one to get in this year – the first quirkless student to ever get in. And yet... Melissa made it in too?? He was partially shocked, but also in awe. Most quirkless children... don't last very long in society.

"That... must be hard for you..."

Melissa saw Hitoshi's wide eyes and smiled again. "Must be shocked, huh? My father pulled a few strings to get me here. He's an amazing inventor..." She pulled out a picture from her purse of her and her dad together in a lab of some sort. She looked a lot younger, and the heartwarming sight made Hitoshi smile. She smiled too as she put it back in her purse. "I learned everything from him..."

"Why didn't you stay with him?" He asked, curiously tilting his head. "Wouldn't you learn better with a famous inventor?"

"Hmm... probably." She responded, clearly pondering the question. "That's why father always wanted me to stay with him, and why I didn't really go to any schools after I started getting bullied. But I'm not fragile! I'm strong! And I wanna learn more about the world." Her eyes were shining, sparkling in a way that almost took Hitoshi aback. He's never seen someone as determined as Melissa before...

No, there's one person that Melissa reminds him of – Izuku. His determined-ness, it was something Hitoshi has always admired about him – and now he can see it in Melissa too.

He smiled back at her. "I'm sure you will."

There's a moment of silence between the two of them, before Melissa speaks up again, looking at Hitoshi both curiously and apprehensively. "Your brother... Izuku... he's quirkless too, right...? He never outright told us, but..."