The Hope Barely Found

Three Times Trapped

All three boys turned towards the voice. They were kidding, right? Did the police seriously just now notice them? It's been over an hour.

"What... what exactly do you mean, 'what are three boys doing here?" Todoroki testily asked.

"Why we're having a picnic. What else?!" Shinsou snapped.

The officer at least had the decency to look embarrassed. "Tsukauchi! We need you over here!"

The boys watched as a stranger walked over to the officer. "What Gunhead? Can't you see I'm busy?"

"Uh,- kids," Gunhead motioned towards Izuku and the others.

Tsukauchi raised an eyebrow. "Did you just now notice them? They've been here a while, we just determined a while ago they weren't going anywhere, and therefore weren't high priority".

Guess it's nice to know we weren't totally ignored, Izuku testily signed, and Todoroki snickered before repeating it to Shinsou.

Tsukauchi crosses his arms. "You can relax. We all know your here." The man turned towards Gunhead. "Well, now we all know your here".

Gunhead looked at the ground, embarrassed. "Sorry".

You know sign? Izuku was surprised. Now their were two people here who knew sign.

Yeah, Tsukauchi signed back, instead of responding.

Shinsou was starting to feel bad. "Hey Todoroki, teach me a bit of sign?"

"Why should I?" He coolly responded.

"Cause it seems like we're gonna be here a while," Shinsou shrugged.

The three boys turned towards Gunhead and Tsukauchi. "You are," Tsukauchi agreed, before walking off to go work with someone else.

"I'll find you guys some food. You must be hungry," Gunhead instead responded, walking off as well.

Todoroki turned back towards Shinsou. "Let's get started".

           ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At least two hours have passed, Izuku decided.

Gunhead had, true to his word, brought them some sandwiches earlier, with a bottle of water.

They had all eaten it up, and Todoroki had been teaching Shinsou simple phrases the entire time. It was a good combo. Todoroki was surprisingly good at teaching, and Shinsou was a fast learner, with a slightly photographic memory that helped.

But now all the others had been arrested, and it was the three boys turn. Except the police didn't know what to do with them. They had finally decided to question them, so were working on trying to open the cage.

Izuku was worried to say the least. Hisashi would know by now that he was captured, and he was worried sick about Eri. It got so bad, even the police started to notice something was wrong with him.

"Hey, check on your friend, would ya?" Gunhead finally asked Todoroki.

Todoroki sighed. "He's not my friend," but still turned to Izuku expectantly.

When Izuku didn't sign anything, Todoroki signed. Are you all right?

Izuku lifted his hands to sign 'fine', but couldn't get himself to, and instead, just started shaking all over again.

"Uh, he's fine," Todoroki called back, watching Izuku carefully.

Gunhead didn't look convinced, but left it be. Shinsou wasn't fooled. "Hey seriously, what's wrong with you?"