As a brand new underground hero, Neito quickly found out it was hard to get an income. Shinsou had similar problems, so they decided to rent a cheap apartment together while they tried to establish themselves. The pros they knew were a lot of help with getting them started, as working as sidekicks to heroes who were already established with people knowing who their sidekicks were wouldn't really work for their quirks to stay effective. So, both recent UA graduates had to work on a mission by mission basis, that took them to many places. Shinsou could probably have kept living with his parents, but he wanted to spread his own wings, so to speak. Neito had aged out of foster care by the time he graduated hero school, and as such, had to find somewhere else to live regardless. And since they were both planning on doing practically the same thing, they found it to be an easy decision to live together.

Most of their first jobs they got through recommendations by Eraserhead, Vlad and a few other teachers and former internships, and after that, more of them started to trickle in. They were hired for a lot of them together, and a lot of undercover, spying or interrogation. Quite often they would find themselves sleeping alone in the apartment, as it wasn’t rare for them to be called away on missions further away.

It was on one such night Neito was watching the news on tv, Shinsou’s cat Macaroni (in a pot) on his lap as he brushed his fingers through her long fur. He’d already finished brushing her, but she was still purring at the attention, nose seeking out his hand to rub against it whenever he moved it.

Listening to the news anchor talk about something-something Endeavor that he’d already heard a dozen times by now, he lazily scrolled through instagram, looking at his friends’ photos. He was just about to leave a comment on one of Jirou’s band account’s posts when everything turned into chaos. All at once he was hit with the vibrations and sound of a loud explosion behind him, and instinctively he held on to the cat who had now gone from mostly asleep to terrified. Then he felt the heat.

Without taking a moment to think he held onto the cat who was now clinging tightly to his chest with her claws digging into his thin pajama shirt, and he was thankful that he knew how to drop down heights safely despite carrying others, so with flames already reaching out for him, without hesitation he jumped out of his third floor window, landing with as little damage to himself as possible. Macaroni was unharmed, but shaken up. After putting out the fire had taken to his pajama pants, burning his claves, he stared up at the building, he saw the hole that used to be the apartment next to his and Shinsou’s. It was covered in flames, and he hurriedly pulled out his phone to call the fire department.

It was nerve wracking to wait, not having anyone who could hold on to the poor cat while he helped out to evacuate, so he was stuck outside. He called Shinsou, Mina, then Itsuka, to let them know what had happened, though he didn’t know much himself other than that there had been an explosion. With Macaroni having crawled in under his shirt for safety, he waited, the fire truck arriving quickly, pro hero Backdraft among them. The hero seemed to recognise him, but only gave him a quick nod before dashing in to help. Shinsou was unable to get back right away as he was in Kyoto, but after a lot of reassurance about Macaroni being okay, Neito promised to leave the cat at Shinsou’s parents house when he was able to leave. Mina and Kendou were both on the way, and Neito was sure other pros would arrive shortly as well. Given how often Itsuka spent time with one Hatsume Mei lately, he knew she would be on the scene soon as well.

By the time the flames were contained, Itsuka and Mei had arrived, the redhead about to give him a hug but was stopped by Neito telling her Macaroni probably wouldn’t appreciate that. Mei, with her monster of a car ever filled to the brim with babies, rummaged around until she found the best ones to help with the situation, before she headed for the rescue party. Itsuka made Neito sit in the passenger seat of the car, with a blanket and the heat on. He hadn’t even noticed until then how cold he was, having thrown himself out the window wearing nothing but thin pajamas and bare feet. Macaroni seemed to appreciate the silence inside the well isolated car, and finally popped her head out of the top of his shirt. Neito gently kissed her on the head and scratched behind her ears. “You did a good job. Such a good job. I’ll take you to your grandparents soon.”

It would be a long night.

After he finally got to leave, Mei and Itsuka gave him a ride to Shinsou’s parents. Shinsou had already talked to them and let him know he was coming, and they insisted he stay the night, considering how late it was. Or, well, early. He politely declined, as he was already spending the coming hours at Itsuka’s pace, but he thanked them for the offer, and they promised to take good care of Macaroni until their son came back.

Waking up in Itsuka’s bed in the afternoon reminded him of high school. There were nights where he’d fallen asleep in her room, and she let him stay the night, and there were weekends he’d spent at her family’s house. It felt comforting in the face of no longer having a home. He stared into the ceiling, thinking about what he now had. He had some stuff at Mina’s apartment that she shared with Sero, and then he had his pajamas and his phone. The most important part was that Macaroni was okay though, in the end. He would have felt terrible if something had happened to her on his watch. He still felt like shit for not having helped out at the scene, but he knew that there wasn’t much he could’ve done at the time. Didn’t stop him from feeling bad about it though.

He was lucky that Itsuka had a phone with the same type of charger, so he at least had a fully charged phone to make it through the day. Climbing out of bed he skipped the ladder leading down the raised bed, though he regretted it instantly. His landing might have been mostly fine last night, but he’d still jumped barefoot from three stories up with bare feet. He’d just jumped down out of habit.

Sitting down on the desk chair under the bed he inspected the bottom of his feet. Early morning he’d just washed them, too tired to bother with them, but now he could see there might be some glass there. Groaning, he made sure not to make it worse by hopping to the bathroom on one leg to get it out. Easily finding the supplies needed he grimaced as he dug the three small pieces of glass and rock that had embedded into his skin. He was lucky it wasn’t worse, he could just as well have landed on an entire glass bottle or fallen on his face and hurt Macaroni. Or broken a bone. All in all, he was lucky to only have some minor wounds in his feet and burns on his legs, that Itsuka had already helped him bandage after he insisted he didn’t need to go to the hospital.

Unlocking his phone he checked up on the information he could find about what happened yesterday. No one had died, and the one with the worst injuries was himself and an older woman who’d been baking in her own kitchen, her own stove having made the situation worse when the flames reached her home, but she seemed to be mostly fine, thanks to living on the first floor. He and Shinsou had talked to her a few times, she liked giving baked goods to her neighbours, and he made a mental note to go see her later.

It had been a gas leak from the apartment next to his. The residents had forgotten to turn off the stove while they were on vacation and the gas had ignited by the faulty wiring in the building. Thank god for his fire insurance or he’d be completely out of options.

Looking through his messages he saw that several people had contacted him while he was sleeping. He decided on getting back to Mina first though, and pressed her contact, putting her on speaker so he could bandage his feet. She picked up after only one signal.

“Hey, you’re finally awake! Are you doing okay?”

“As okay as I can be, I guess. Are you at work?”

“Just doing some paperwork, don’t worry about it.” He could hear Ryukyu on the other end, telling her to say hi and to not talk too long since Mina had patrol in half an hour. The pro was way too lenient sometimes, but right now Neito really appreciated it. She held a special place in both their hearts after she had fostered (and was planning on properly adopting) two of the kids from their former foster home. In Neito’s second year at UA, she had apparently started dating Pixie-Bob, which was kind of funny considering they had the same first name, and they’d decided to start a family together, as Pixie-Bob had dreamed. They were so in love with each other and their children it was blinding to look at.

For a few minutes he let himself get caught up in conversation with Mina, forgetting his current problems as well as he could until his sister had it tumbling down with a single question. “Do you have any idea where you’ll live now?”

He groaned, leaning his forehead against his knees. “No fucking clue. I can’t live with Kendou, her apartment’s too small, and I don’t have the money to live alone. I don’t have parents to go back to like Shinsou does and I can’t exactly ask UA to take me in again.”

Mina hummed for a moment before a loud scraping of chair legs against floor could be heard. Clearly she’d stood up in her excitement at what was no doubt an insane idea. “You should move in with me and Hanta!”

Neito squinted at his bandaged feet, thinking. “Would he be okay with that though? I know we’re kinda friends now, but-”

“I’m sure he won’t mind! He’s been complaining about how you eat anyway, I’m sure he’d love getting to tell you to your face to eat healthy instead of on the phone.”

Rolling his eyes, he leaned back against the tank of the toilet. “He and Rin already do enough of that as it is.”

“And they’re right! If you’re down, I’ll ask him.”

Neito stared at the blank ceiling in thought. “...Okay. You can ask him. Just to see if it’s an option.”

“Cool! I gotta go now but I’ll call you later, okay?”

“Sure. Have fun.”

“Will do! Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Turns out the tape hero was perfectly okay with the idea of Neito as a roommate, and in no time he was moving in. He didn’t really have anything to bring, considering all his stuff had burned in the fire. Nothing had been salvageable, so he got most of his stuff second hand or given to him by his friends. The only things he really needed to buy were a computer and clothes. He needed to commission a new hero costume at some point as well, but he had rarely used it anyway. A suit wasn’t exactly suitable (hah) for undercover missions, so it wasn’t a high priority.

The first time living with Mina and Hanta was awkward, mostly for him. Mina was perfectly comfortable with both men, while Hanta lay somewhere in the middle. Neito was away a lot again once he’d healed enough, and after a few weeks they finally found their rhythm.

Hanta was easy going, and took his grumpiness in the mornings with stride. He didn’t look twice the times either sibling came out of each other’s rooms in the mornings when they’d had bad nights, aside from letting Neito know that if he wanted to, he could cuddle him too, if he had a bad night on the days Mina wasn’t home. Flustered, he murmured a thank you before hiding in the bathroom in the guise of taking a shower, terribly embarrassed at how obvious he had gotten with the comfort he needed.

About two months into living with Mina and Hanta, he finally had a terrible night while his sister was away. He’d seen his original life, all the terrible things that had led to his parents abandoning him, in excruciating detail. The taste of his own blood from where he’d bitten his tongue in his sleep filled his mouth with a bitter taste of iron that made the memories even stronger, and the tears rolled down his cheeks where he sat, covering his mouth with his hands in an attempt to stifle is sobs and to keep the blood from spilling out.

After what felt like hours, but in reality was about fifteen minutes, he calmed down enough to sneak into the bathroom. Tears were still running down his face, but at a much slower pace. He didn’t make a sound as he made his way to the sink, rinsing his mouth and washing his face. Washing his mouth with salt solution was never pleasant, but a taste he was accustomed to.

He felt out four of his teeth, feeling one of them move under his touch. So that’s what set off the nightmare this time. It was about time to grow out new ones. With a sigh, he stuck out his tongue to assess the damage. It didn’t look like he’d need stitches, but it was still bleeding sluggishly. He sat down on the edge of the bathtub, weighing his options. On the one hand, Hanta had said it would be okay for him to sleep in his bed if he needed to, on the other, it felt like a big thing to do. So far he’d only felt comfortable sharing beds with Mina, Itsuka and Shinsou when he was seeking out comfort but he knew how things would go if he tried to spend the rest of the night alone after this particular nightmare.

Swallowing his pride (and some of his own blood) he waited another minute in hopes of the bleeding to stop before silently heading toward Hanta’s bedroom door. The door was cracked open, as Hanta liked the air circulation it brought not closing it fully, but it also helped Neito keep his nerve as he pulled the door further open and stepped inside. He could see the outline of Sero’s body where he was sprawled all over the bed in the moonlight. He was sleeping on his stomach, long limbs everywhere.

Neito hesitated, then sat down on the edge of the bed. Hanta stirred at the shifting weight and cracked an eye open. The blond fidgeted, picking at the healing skin on his knuckles from where they’d split in a recent fight during his latest mission. Without a word, Hanta raised the blanket with an arm, and after another moment of hesitation, Neito crawled down into the bed with him, feeling calm when the other man pulled him to his chest, wrapping an arm around him.

He was asleep again within minutes, the rest of the night void of dreams.

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