Sound of Silence (Aizawa X OC)

Ch. 25: Sanity

-----Shouta's POV-----

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, Shinobu's mother ran up to me and had my hands in a death grip. Her eyes were wide and filled with tears as she began to speak, her voice quiet and rushed.

"My baby... How is she?... How is my sweet little Nobu-chan? Does she hate us?..." At the last question, the frail and clearly a bit unhinged woman broke down into sobs. This earned me a glare from Daichi, Shinobu's father as he cleared his throat to get my attention.

"Do you really know my daughter, or did you just come here to cause more guilt and grief for me and my wife?" he interrogated, chartreuse eyes narrowed in distrust. There was no denying he was quite the intimidating man, but I was a pro hero for god's sake. It would take more than a glare to cause me to abort this mission.

Without hesitation, I reached into my pocket, pulling out my phone and unlocking it before turning it around to face Shinobu's parents. My background picture was an image Shinobu had insisted on taking one day, and to mess with her a bit, I had kissed her cheek right as she snapped the photo causing an adorable blush to spread across her cheeks and a huge smile to light up her face. She thought she looked silly in the photo, but it was honestly my favorite photo of her. As the two adults in front of me looked at the photo, I was shocked to see Shinobu's father look up from it to meet my gaze with tears in his eyes.

"Why are you here? Nobu has made it clear that she wants nothing to do with us," he stated, his voice a bit scratchy from holding back tears. His comment threw me for a loop. This wasn't adding up.

"What do you mean?" I asked, trying to figure out where he would get that idea from. With a sigh, the man reached into the desk drawer and pulled out several letters. At the sight of the letters, Shinobu's mother who had finally begun to calm down once again broke into sobs. Without another word, Shinobu's father handed me the letters and went over to console his wife with a firm a hug.

As I looked through the letters, I was confused by the contents. Sure enough, all the letters were signed with Shinobu's name and claimed that her parents were awful people, blaming them for the whole incident. There were even some letters calling them failures of parents and saying that she hated them for forcing her to take the quirk suppressants. Finally, the last letter ended with Shinobu saying that she never wanted to see them or hear from them again.

To most, the letters would seem pretty damning, but there was something I immediately noticed upon inspecting the letters. This is not Shinobu's handwriting. With that thought, I placed the letters on the desk beside me and faced her parents.

"Yamada-san," I started, getting the attention of her father as he continued to hold his wife, "These letters are fake. This isn't Shinobu's handwriting. She doesn't hate either of you. In fact, she blames herself and was told that she wasn't allowed to visit you both because you both could not mentally handle it." At that, her father raised an eyebrow at me.

"If you were under that impression, why would you risk coming here and bringing her up to us?" he asked, not in a particularly accusatory way, but it was clear he knew that I had a pretty serious reason to take such a risk. I sighed as I ran a hand through my hair and met his eyes with a slightly guilty expression.

"Shinobu was hurt on one of our patrols not long ago. She was infected with a poison from a villain that altered her memories, and it's causing her to struggle with her grip on reality," I admitted earning a concerned furrowing of brows from her father, "Also, your brother has invited her for a dinner, and from what I have been told, he has not been so kind to her in the past regarding the incident. It made me a bit suspicious that the doctors would keep a 15-year-old child away from her parents due to an accident and his actions only made it worse. If there was even a chance at this helping Shinobu, I was ready to take it."

The entire time I spoke, I had kept eye contact with Shinobu's dad. I wanted him to understand that while I had failed to protect her on the patrol, I was willing to risk everything to help her recover completely and potentially even be better than before the attack. To my surprise, instead of scolding me for letting Shinobu get hurt or even abusing my power as a pro hero, her father gritted his teeth, and when he spoke, his angry words were not directed at me.

"My brother did this, didn't he?" his voice was low and angry as he looked at the stack of letters on the desk before looking back at me. I nodded in agreement.

"That's my suspicion, though I don't have any actual proof. I'm hoping to get that at the dinner this Saturday," I answered honestly earning a nod of approval from the man in front of me, "How are you both so alert?" At that, Shinobu's mother looked up at me with a slightly sheepish smile.

"We have been hiding our medications instead of taking them for years now," she admitted, her voice much more steady than when she spoke earlier, "I'm sorry for becoming so unhinged earlier. It's just that the guilt of all of this has been wearing on me for years now." I nodded in understanding and gave her a small comforting smile that I couldn't help. Shinobu had definitely got her demeanor from her mother.

"Shinobu misses you both dearly. I assure you she doesn't hate either of you in the least bit," I told them honestly. To my surprise, as soon as I finished speaking, I was pulled into a tight hug by Shinobu's mother.

"Thank you so much, Aizawa-kun," her mother said softly. Not knowing really how to respond to the hug, I just awkwardly returned her hug.

"Shouta is fine," I stated as she pulled away earning a smile from the smaller woman.

"Then call me Koharu," she requested to which I simply nodded in response. Next was Shinobu's father, who grasped my shoulder firmly with a serious expression on his face.

"Call me Daichi as well. Now I need to know, Shouta. How serious are you about my daughter?" he asked bluntly, and at the mention of the silver-haired heroine, I couldn't help but let a small smirk spread across my lips as I met his chartreuse eyes with my onyx ones.

"Serious enough to risk my entire career as a pro hero by faking an investigation in order to potentially reunite her with her parents," I responded without hesitation. At that, a huge grin spread across Daichi's face.

"Well then, I believe we have a plan to make, Shouta."