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When Shouta woke up that fateful Sunday morning, he found his husband in tears.
Yamada tended to be the more emotional of the two, but this time he sounded different.
Shouta recognized it immediately. The way his body sagged forward and he curled into himself, the way he took in measured breaths and no sounds escaped him— it was grief.
“Th-they just called me from the station,” Hizashi managed to get out.
Shouta held him as the blonde sobbed into his shirt. “Shh, it’s okay. Don’t speak. Focus on your breathing, come on.”
Yamada seemed adamant to continue however as he shook his head and reached out to grip Shouta’s hands with his own. There was a strange desperation in his eyes Shouta had never seen before. “N-no. You don’t understand. We have to go now, we have to—"
“Hizashi, please,” Shouta grabbed onto him before he could walk to the door and the two crumpled to the ground. “You have to calm down.”
“It’s about Oboro.”
Shouta stopped breathing.
“What.”
“They reopened his investigation, Shouta.”
“What do you mean they reopened it?” Shouta asked, but he could barely hear himself over the pounding of his own frantic heartbeat. “Why would they need to reopen it?!”
He didn’t mean to yell and immediately felt bad when Yamada let out a muffled sob. The blonde shook his head. “I–I don’t know. But apparently they have someone new working there who was able to use his quirk and find out why they never found Oboro’s body.”
“I thought it burned up. I thought—“ Shouta cut himself off and glared at the floor to keep his own tears at bay. All of the emotions he had locked away for years threatened to spill out but he didn’t let them. He had to know for sure.
“No, Shouta,” Yamada cried out. “His body was taken.”
『』『』『』
Shouta had never driven so fast in his life. Yamada would have gotten car sick if he had come with, but he ended up passing out right after their talk with the chief. Apparently there was a guy by the name of Hopper working at the station with a quirk that let him jump into photographs. During one of his shifts, he had accidentally mistaken the photo from Shirakumo's file with another one and hopped right in.
That’s when he discovered the truth:
Shirakumo’s body never burned up or became lost in the rubble during the villain attack that killed him when they were second years.
It had been taken.
Shouta swerved into the parking lot and didn’t even bother parking correctly.
Detective Tsukauchi was waiting for him by the entrance, a solemn expression on his face.
“I’ll take care of it,” he said as Shouta wordlessly handed him the keys. “Hopper is in one of the interrogation rooms. Just please—“ Tsukauchi grabbed into his arm and looked him in the eyes. “Be nice.”
Shouta didn’t even register Tsukauchi’s words until he was waiting in the elevator as it sank deeper and deeper into the ground.
Be nice?
Why would Tsukauchi say something like that? He was here to do one thing and one thing only: find out what happened to Shirakumo Oboro. Shouta’s head began to throb when the doors opened and he realized he had missed his morning coffee.
Shit.
Maybe he just wasn’t thinking straight. At least the interrogation room was dark. The single bulb hovering atop the table seemed to have been dimmed a little bit for the occasion. Either that or budget cuts, but it caused Shouta to miss the person in the room altogether until he spoke.
“Hello, Eraserhead-sama. Are you ready to go?”
Shouta jumped and whirled around.
“You’re Hopper?”
He didn’t mean to sound so incredulous about it, but the last thing he expected to see when he walked in was a tiny figure wearing a police uniform and a dark green bunny mask that covered his entire face. The most frustrating part about it too was that Shouta couldn’t figure out how old he was. His voice seemed to be modified by the mask to sound warbled.
“At your service, sir.”
“What’s with the mask?” Shouta inquired.
“Security measure.”
“I see.”
They both seemed to be assessing each other after that. Even though Shouta couldn’t see his eyes, he knew that Hopper was staring right back.
“Now before we begin I have a few questions for you, Eraserhead-sama,” Hopper was the first to break. He moved over to the table where a clipboard, a folder, and a tape recorder sat, pressing play and then turning back to him. “Just to let you know, this part of the session will be recorded for legal purposes but will not be shared with anybody else. Is that alright with you?”
“Just Eraserhead is fine. And yes, that’s okay.”
Hopper clicked his pen and nodded. “Alright, Eraserhead. Do you suffer from migraines or panic attacks?”
“No.”
“Are you currently on withdrawal from any substances or dealing with an illness?”
Shouta raised an eyebrow.
“Sorry,” Hopper’s body seemed to tense up. “My quirk can be hard on certain people. It’s good to know as a precautionary measure, but I understand if you don’t want to tell—“
“No and no.”
“Are you taking any medications?”
“Does caffeine count?” Shouta muttered. He could have sworn Hopper chuckled a little, but he continued writing stuff on his clipboard.
“Ah, no. But that might make the experience a bit more unpleasant. It’s nothing you should really worry about though. I do it all the time.”
So Hopper was an avid coffee drinker. That should rule out anyone under sixteen. But still, Shouta had a gut feeling that he was wrong.
“How long will we be in there?” he asked instead.
Hopper hummed. “Thirty minutes at most. It’s never exceeded an hour.”
“The nausea and disorientation usually go away after a few minutes,” he added when Shouta didn’t say anything. “I could always bring a bucket and some meds with me just in case you throw up.”
“No, I’ll be alright.”
Any sort of side effects were worth it. Shouta was determined to see Shirakumo one last time.
“Okay. I’ll begin explaining my quirk now so you can understand how this will work,” the Boy? Adult? Young adult? continued. “Photo Hop does exactly what the name entails. I can jump into any image, virtual or not, with a simple touch. I can also take one person with me at a time as well, as long as they are touching any part of my body. Once inside the image, I am placed thirty minutes prior to when the photo was taken. I, or anyone with me, cannot interact or be affected by the stuff in the photo world. They cannot see us, but we can see and hear them. Any external physical contact I receive from our world will pull me out of the image, otherwise the quirk will eject us naturally once it has run its course. Questions? Concerns? Otherwise we can get started.”
The more he talked, the more Shouta was able to make out the youthful quality of is voice despite the voice modifier. No amount of big words could hide that Hopper was young. How young? Shouta had no idea.
It seemed as if Hopper was aware of Shouta assessing him, his hands gripping the clipboard a little tighter.
“How long did you say you’ve been working here for?” Shouta asked.
“A while,” Hopper answered with little to no emotion in his voice. By that point, his knuckles had gone completely white. His hands were awfully small. And they were… shaking?
Shouta narrowed his gaze at them and then looked back up at the mask. “How old—"
“We should really get going, sir,” Hopper said almost breathlessly. He held a photo in his hands now, the same one Shouta had been shown years ago when they claimed Shirakumo’s body had burned up. “Please.”
Be nice, Tsukauchi's words echoed throughout his head. Is this what he was referring to?
“Of course,” Shouta swallowed, his mouth going dry when he realized it was time to do this. “I’m sorry for all the questions. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“No worries,” Hopper said softly. “I’m used to it.”
Shouta wanted to say more but held his tongue. One mystery at a time.
Instead, he grabbed onto Hopper’s hand. It was even smaller than he expected.
“Hold on tight,” Hopper said as the fingers of his other hand hovered over the photo before pressing down. “And whatever you do, don’t let go until I say so.”
With their hands now connected, Shouta was yanked forward by an invisible force. It happened so quickly he barely managed to take a breath.
“You can let go now.”
Shouta didn’t realize he had closed his eyes until he opened them again and almost fell over.
The world was spinning— no, now it was upside down, or was he upside down?
“Whoa there,” Hopper somehow steadied him and Shouta immediately righted himself up. That small action alone made him want to hurl but he held it in.
“Thanks,” he gasped out, while wiping at his brow where beads of sweat had begun to accumulate.
The effects of Hopper’s quirk were more jarring than he expected. Hopper, on the other hand, seemed to be doing fairly well.
“We made it,” he announced with a hint of relief.
Shouta felt relieved too. He didn’t want to imagine what would have happened if he let go.
As Hopper wandered around, Shouta took the time to analyze the landscape as well. They were in a torn down city near Musutafu, smoke rising in the air and making the skies grey. Fires large and small were being put out by firefighters and heroes alike, all while sirens blared all around them. A crowd of people had gathered behind the yellow tape but the smoke caused them to fade in and out of view. The villain attack must have happened by now.
Shouta’s heart skipped a beat and immediately began to search for Shirakumo.
“Over here,” Hopper’s voice called out to him from somewhere on his left.
But as Shouta stumbled towards him, still disoriented from the quirk, he ended up stepping right through Shirakumo’s corpse.
Hopper’s hand reached out as if to try and stop him, but it was too late.
Shouta opened his mouth to yell but found that he couldn’t breathe. He stumbled backwards and immediately threw up, blinking past the tears that kept appearing every time he turned back towards his best friend’s body.
He couldn’t move. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t do anything. Not when his best friend’s body sat unmoving under a fallen beam, half of it impaled through the middle of his body. It was almost unrecognizable with all the dirt and grime, but Shouta knew.
Shirakumo’s blood had quickly stared seeping underneath Shouta’s knees but it didn’t touch him.
Just like Shouta couldn’t touch his friend.
And yet he tried. He tried so hard and screamed and yelled until he was louder than the world.
“Why, why, why—“ his hands went through for the fifth time and Shouta grit his teeth from the frustration.
Because he should have been here. It should have been him. Shirakumo was too good. He was special. He deserved the world. And Shouta couldn’t give it to him. He couldn’t save him.
Shouta startled when he felt someone touch his back. When he looked up, Hopper was beside him.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Neither of them said anything after that. They just remained as they were. With Shouta on his knees and Hopper’s tiny hand on his back.
Shouta wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but he refused to leave Shirakumo’s side. It wasn’t until Hopper spoke again that Shouta looked back up at the world around them.
“They’re here.”
Out of the rubble, two figures appeared. Both wore gas masks. One was short and plump, the other at least one foot taller. The lab coat gave away the shorter’s occupation, while the taller man’s black suit left Shouta puzzled. Neither fit in in the burning wasteland. And yet they were walking straight towards them.
Towards him.
Shouta stood up immediately and fought the protective urge to step in front of Shirakumo’s bleeding body. It's not like he could actually do anything. It's not like he was actually there. But it still hurt.
“Come along now, doctor. We must check for bodies,” Tall Man said, his voice muffled yet clear.
“How do you always know where to look, master?” The doctor asked. Shouta could hear the smirk in his tone and he felt disgusted. His hands were balled up into fists at his sides but he kept them there because there wasn’t anything he could do. Nothing but watch as they moved closer.
Tall Man chuckled darkly. “I have a knack for these kinds of things. Call it a gut feeling.”
“Who is that?” Shouta asked.
Hopper seemed too hesitate, but answered him nonetheless.
“We’re not exactly sure yet.”
Shouta wanted to question him further but then they spotted Shirakumo and the rage within him intensified.
“Ah, here we are,” Tall Man said as he stopped in front of Shouta. Hopper was watching the pair closely now, as if waiting for something to happen. Shouta forced himself to meet his eyes and felt his entire body grow cold. He knew it was not possible, he knew that there was no way, but it almost seemed as if Tall Man was looking straight at him.
“Poor, poor thing,” Tall Man continued. Shouta’s nostrils flared when he leaned over and touched Shirakumo.
He touched Shirakumo while Shouta could not.
You have no right.
“How tragic indeed,” the doctor appeared next to him.
“Is he alive?” Tall Man asked softly.
Shouta held his breath.
“Barely,” the doctor said as he bent down next to Shirakumo and checked his pulse.
“Will he remember?”
The doctor chuckled.
“Not a thing.”
This time, the urge to take down these two men was stronger than ever and Shouta swung before reason could catch up to him.
And yet his opponents remained unfazed as Shouta passed straight right through them.
Tall Man let out a quiet hum and skimmed the side of Shirakumo’s cheek gently. “Excellent. Take him back to the lab and notify me if there are any changes to his condition.”
No, Shouta thought, stumbling back towards them in a panic.
“I’d like this one changed as soon as possible.”
Don’t take him, his eyes widened as Tall Man snapped his fingers and Shirakumo’s body started rising off the ground.
“There will be a special role for him as soon as T̸̨̧̡̧̡̧̖̥̭̣̪̺̬̪̙̦̞̭̜͖̱̗̗̙͈̪̭̲̺͕͈̹͈̥̖͋͊̔̾͊̓͗̉͆̓̈́͒̿̀̈̽̑̕͝ǫ̷̗̪̺̟͈͎̩̫͎̻͕̟̫̦̼͠m̴̡̡̢̡̺̙̫̦̳͎̯̻͓̤̮͕̺̦̻̜̼̩̠̮̰̰̼̫̦̫̍̈́̐̋͛̀̂͒͗̇́̈́̈̐̍͗̈́̊͂̋͊̋̇̾́͛̓̉̈́͑̆͛̾̀͑̽́̅̈́̑͂̅̚̕̚̚͠͠͠͝͠͝͝ự̸̧̛̠͎̫͇̠͖̰̦̝̦̤̜͎̹̮̭̭͓͖̘͕͇͖̭͉̥͎̱̫͚̬̼͇̘̜̖͉̻̠̗̼̠̻̹̗͈̭̝̩͓̀͊̀͐̎̈́̆̈́͑̑̔̾̌̉̉̉̔͊̓̓̄̀̋͒̀͋̆̂̍͋̇̇̈̒͒̄̈́̎͌̚͠͝͠ͅr̶̨̢̡̡̡̢̡͔͎͕̖͉̝̠͕̬̠͍̳̗̺̮͔͖̳̟̼͙͙̟̀̽͂͛̈́͌̃͊̈́̍̑͘̕͜a̴̡̢͚͉̣̮͖̤̮̲͇̙̱̪͍̲͍͎̠̗̜̟̲̺̲̭̤͇͚̣̫̜̬̰̘̭̮͉̞̙̝̱̠̥̐͑̇̓͌͋́̈́̀͂̅̇̾̍̽͒̽̆̾͆̒͆͊͘͝͝ͅ is old enough.”
Please.
“Of course, master.”
And then all three of them disappeared as if they had never been there at all in the first place.
Shouta didn’t realize he had collapsed until Hopper was kneeling down in front of him with his hand on his back like before.
He couldn’t breathe again.
“Eraserhead? Eraser? Are you alright?!”
“They took him. After all these years, he could’ve been alive—“ Shouta stared at where Shirakumo’s body had been. Even the blood on the ground had disappeared with him. His eyes began to burn but he refused to blink. “—but they took him. They took him away.”
“I’m sorry,” Hopper said quietly.
“What else is there to see?” Shouta asked through a hoarse whisper.
“That’s it, sir.”
As soon as Hopper said that, a group of police came out from the same direction as the two men earlier. By sheer coincidence, they ended up taking a photo right where he and Hopper where standing. Where Shirakumo's body had been. As soon as the camera flashed, they were sucked out of the picture.
Shouta finally allowed himself to blink but remained on his hands and knees attempting to process everything.
Shirakumo Oboro could have survived if they had found him. He had been taken somewhere and turned into... what exactly? Shouta felt his stomach turn as he clenched his fists.
It should've been me. It should've been me. It should've been me.
“Thank you,” he said after a while, although Shouta sounded nothing like himself. He could only hear Shirakumo and wondered what his best friend would have sounded like if he got the chance to grow older.
Hopper stood at a distance, watching him. “Are you sure you’re alright, Eraser-sama?” he asked again.
Shouta didn’t have the heart to correct him about the honorifics. He couldn’t even find it in himself to lie either so he said nothing.
“Do you need anything from me before I go? I can bring you a glass of water or something.”
“No, no,” Shouta shook his head, feeling strands of damp hair fall in front of his face. “I just… need time.”
Hopper nodded as he moved towards the door. He seemed to hesitate a little, but Shouta thought nothing of it until Hopper had walked up to him.
“Um.”
Shouta looked up as Hopper approached.
“Do you have to go anywhere after this?”
Shouta barred his teeth. “Other than hunting down the bastard who did this and getting my license revoked when I get my hands on him, no.”
“Why?” he asked with a raised brow. “Wanna come with?”
It was meant to be a joke, one that Shouta would have never made if he hadn't just witnessed his best friend's body get kidnapped.
Hopper made a startled noise and quickly shook his head as if to reject the offer. “I, um, take photographs a lot.” He pulled out his phone. “Of people and random things. All with consent, of course! Places too. Stuff that makes me happy so that I can forget what I’ve seen. Sometimes a session can become too much and I ask people if they want to be somewhere else for a while.”
Shouta blinked at him and then at the photos.
“They're not very good but... it helps.”
Shouta's eyes lingered on the photo he had taken of what looked like UA, but Hopper quickly pocketed the phone before he could see anything else.
“We could also jump into a photo of your own. But your privacy comes first and I understand if you don’t want me to see—“
“You mean I can see him again?” Shouta didn’t mean to interrupt but he couldn’t help himself.
Alive?
“Oboro,” the hero added quickly, desperately. His heart sped up at the possibility and he finally regained the strength to stand up. “Would that be possible?”
Hopper paused a little and then nodded so fervently that a bunch of curls escaped the bun at the nape of his neck. “Y-yes. Yes, of course!”
“Here, take my hand and the photo—“
“Wait,” Shouta mentally cursed himself. He was being selfish again. Letting his emotions win. “Is it safe for you to do this two times in a row?”
“I’ll be okay.”
And then Hopper lifted up his mask a little so that Shouta could see his smile.
“Promise.”