The day that Keito-nii goes missing doesn't start off out of the ordinary.

It goes like this:

Hitoshi is walking home from school because Keito-nii is late, but that sometimes happens and Hitoshi isn't complaining when he has semi-consistent food and school. The problem comes when Keito-nii isn't back in the morning.

It goes like this:

Hitoshi ignores it, Keito-nii is probably doing something that makes him really tired, so Histoshi struggles to brush his hair (there are still hard places and ugly patches but Hitoshi decides it's good enough at the moment), puts on his school uniform, and makes himself a bowl of rice. He doesn't know how to make his hair and Keito-nii is usually the one to neaten it up before they walk to school, Keito-nii is out, though, so. Hitoshi walks to school, alone, waving to Saito-san and Himiko-san on the way— They're the only couple on this side of town that doesn't argue about crashing bottles and their kids— because Saito-san is only a boy now which Hitoshi says it's wrong because a butterfly is still a butterfly even when it's a caterpillar. Saito-san says that he's glad Hitoshi agree's and that Hitoshi shouldn't change.

It's not true.

Hitoshi changes all the time, though. He's Shimura-kun to his classmates, and he's quiet and miss-che-vious; he's Toshi-chan to Keito-nii, and that just means he can talk more and he doesn't get hit over the knuckles when someone says he made them do something; and finally, he's Tocchan (only to Akocchan.).

He never really is Hitoshi, only in the dark, when he's the only one around— when it's just him and the mirror that Keito-nii broke. He's only Hitoshi when he's alone and he doesn't really like being alone.

It goes like this:

School goes as well as it always does. Akocchan is waiting for him— he's not allowed to talk, so he just waves, grinning as wide as he can. She spots him and—

"Tocchan!" she screams. Sensei looks at her weirdly, and Shimira Toshi, Tocchan, stares at her, shrugging. Sensei turns away and clears her throat.

"Everyone, this is the last day of school before winter vacation, get your parents and guardians to help you with your homework if you don't understand it. Especially you, Hitako-kun."

It goes like this:

Sensei makes Shiro-kun hand out the packet of homework, it's spelling and math and, worst of all, Hitoshi decides, English. And Shiro-kun wrinkled Hitoshi's paper on purpose which is very mean, but it was bound to get wrinkled anyway.

It goes like this:

When he gets back to the shitty, worn-down apartment that's better than the cold factory he used to live in when — when Keito-nii found him, when he gets back, there's someone there. He's tall, so much taller than Hitoshi and Keito-nii, except— Keito-nii isn't here. So Hitoshi isn't too sure on the height thing. "Hey, yer Fallin's kid-brother, right? Toshi?" Hitoshi narrows his eyes into a glare that he hopes looks like Keito-nii's; he hopes he looks scary.

"Yeah, ya'are, look." He bends down to Hitoshi's level, he's an adult and he takes off his ugly sunglasses and he puts out his cigarette and he sighs out the last bit of smoke. "Look, Toshi, should I call ya that? Toshi?" Hitoshi nods, slowly. "How old are ya, Toshi?"

"'M ten– " he says with narrowed eyebrows.

"Okay, okay, I don't know how to break it easy to ya– the hell," he looks like he's itching for an upper. "Yer brother's MIA."

Something fizzles in the back of his mind, like a ringing, a song big brother left you 'cuz you're a villain, a villain, little villain Hitoshi-chan, not even your brother wants you— "What— what's MIA?"

It goes like this:

The man bends down, lower, so he's looking at Hitoshi directly in the eye, Hitoshi looks away. "It means that your brother is－well, he's missing." The man's hands twitch like Keito-nii when he wants a cigarette, he smells like the smoke that sticks to this part of town, taht makes it's way into Hitoshi's nightmares. "He went out on a job, a big job, and now we can't find him. See, I owe your brother one favor, he said that if he ever ah, disappeared, to take care of you so that you could go to your, what's it called? The school of yer dreams."

Hitoshi focuses on the man's hands. They're crumpled and scarred and the edges are cut horribly; he looks like he's on death's doorstep. He looks like he made a deal to live forever. "What's the point," he says, quietly, so that the man can't answer him. "What's the point of being a hero if I can't save Nii-chan when everythings done?"

He knows he's crying now. He can feel it in the squeeze of his chest and the hurt in his stomach and it does hurt, it burns. Like fire, like Keito-nii in the summer. It was winter when they met but it's summer now, and Hitoshi was waiting so patiently for Keito-nii to come back in the cold. To hold him and make him spiced cocoa from that shitty mix that they get for dirt cheap in the summer.

"What's the point?" He asks, again, louder, cracked. His face burns and he tries to hold back the tears but they keep falling out. "He left me here, he said he wouldn't leave— an' now he— he— he's go-one— Nii-chan is—"

"We're gonna get him, kid. He didn't disappear on purpose, I promise." The man grins so wide his face would split if he went any wider. "Trust me, he's got friends in places too high to go missing out of the blue. For now though, yer gonna be livin' with me." The man puts on his glasses. "I'm your Oji-san Giran, s'a pleasure to meetcha, Toshi. Now," the man, Giran, starts. "where's the last place you saw your brother? When's the last time ya saw him?"

It goes like this:

Hitoshi tries to talk through tears and it doesn't go very well. He blubbers and sobs and hiccups on his own voice, cracking up a sad, "Two days ago一" before his voice hitches like a bad stereo.

"Two days?" Giran's eyes open wide. "I thought that fuck was with you－said he was doin' sumthin' important."

"Two days ago." Hitoshi continues, rubbing his sore, swollen eyes. "He didn't come home. He goes on jobs a lot and leaves earlier and gets back real late but he takes a lil break to walk me home from school, but一 but then he didn't come home at all and now.. now we're here. My nii-chan is missing and－and－"

"Ya' miss him. I get it." Then, he gets up, his knees crack. "We're gonna get him back, he's got a best friend you know, and that friend a'his? Real possessive."

"Possessive? Wha'zat mean?" His tears are caught on the ends and he's upset but they stopped falling out. His throat is scratchy.

Giran-oji grins, then, and it doesn't reach his eyes at all, it's this angry sort of thing that Hitoshi recognises from Keito-nii in the mirror, "It means he doesn't like people taking what's his." and Hitoshi gets it, then, because there's that cold look in Keito-nii's eyes when the lady that came to take him away saw where they were living and didn't come back. That ugly smile that Keito-nii gave him when he said that this wasn't going to happen again, because Hitoshi knows that Keito-nii isn't a good person but— Keito-nii is his big brother, his hero, his hero. Keito-nii saw him all bruised up in that old place and saved him. " Unfortunately, or fortunately enough, your dearest Nii-chan falls into that category quite nicely. They're friends, see, and well, somebody took your brother, well, that kid doesn't take kindly to people taking his things. "

It goes like this:

Hitoshi packs his bags, his bag, his clothes and one toy and the white feather that Keito-nii always leaves behind. He puts the feather in his messy, unbrushed hair and follows Giran-oji out of the building. It smells like sunflower seeds, Hitoshi thinks when he goes outside. The kind that Keito-nii used to poison the rats with.

He doesn't know why Keito-nii was hiding it. A predator instinct that left the animals weak, Hitoshi would watch him eat the poisoned rats and get sick. Like he was punishing himself for being hungry. Hitoshi knows people get desperate when they're hungry (he dug through the school trash and ate the leftovers when nobody was looking, his stomach aches and he doesn't tell Keito-nii because they can't afford rent and food). "Snap out of it kid, he's not gonna be gone forever, we're gonna find him."

"Are ya with the police? You a hero?"

Hitoshi knows that he wants to be a hero, that some of them are good, he also knows that there were hundreds that did nothing when he was small and his parents meant to hurt and hurt and hurt—

Hitoshi is smart, he has to be to survive.

The man laughed. Takes a full stop and laughs so hard he starts coughing up smoke from what Hitoshi can only assume is the remnants of a cigarette in his throat. "Oh kid," he croons, sounding like Keito-nii on his break the mirror and watch his hand bleed days. Giran-oji's smile looks sharp enough to cut through metal and iron, like a hot knife, "I'm quite the opposite, really."

It goes like this:

"Yer a villain." Hitoshi stops and starts walking backwards to put space between himself and Giran-oji.

"Haa? No, kinda? I sell information to anyone who pays, villain, hero, vigilante, kids, adults— anyone who has the cash for it. I'd sell documents to a cat if it could pay. 'S how us informants, that neutrality is key, see your s'posed to be on okay terms with everyone. Great terms with doctors, don't fuck with doctors Toshi-chan. Okay?"

It goes like this:

Hitoshi glares at Giran-oji again and sticks out his tongue. "You're gonna help find Nii-chan, right?"

"Yeah."

Hitoshi stares at his shoes like they can answer every moral dilemma he has. "Then I don't care," he looks up. "I just want my Nii-chan."

Giran-oji pats his shoulders. "Attaboy."

It goes like this:

Hitoshi stops, because Keito-nii says it like that, when the lights are off and he's hugging Hitoshi and petting HItoshi's hair after a nightmare and Hitoshi stops crying, he says it like that, with that rasp. Attaboy. Hitoshi wants to cry, then, but he can't, Keito-nii says taht tears don't fix anything so Hitoshi's going to save his tears and—

It goes like this:

He's alone now, no Nii-chan to hold him and call him Toshi-otouto, so right now he really is Hitoshi. He wishes he were anyone else.

Keito wakes up in the dark, he can't see and he can't breathe very well because there's something around his throat. There's a bag over his head and his feet and hands are tied in a way so that if he moves he's going to strangle himself. He holds his breath for a second and counts to ten while trying to remain calm as best he can.

He starts.

One, two; he breathes in through his nose and he can smell gasoline and must and blood. It's warm, boiler room warm. Summer with blankets on. He can feel his hair sticking awkwardly to his forehead.

His throat is restricted. He wants to cry but he won't.

Three, four; he has to remember what happened.

What happened? What's the last thing he remembers? It was dark— and there was a woman. She had gold eyes and dull red hair and this sweet smile, he was holding his cash for the day in his backpack. She asked him which way— he doesn't remember, he turned his back and—

Five, six; he breathes out. Burnt plastic chokes his lungs but he isn't doing the burning. There was a woman, he remembers clearly, and she put a hand over his mouth, the hand let out a smoke and he was panicked enough to breathe in sharply and then there was nothing—

Seven, eight; and then he woke up here. He's here now, he needs to focus. He breathes in again. He should be quiet, pay attention. He should. There are voices, murmuring outside the bag on his head; he focuses on that, they aren't talking in Japanese, they're saying things more harshly. Like the words are supposed to hurt people on their own without any knives or guns. Keito doesn't understand at all. He squirmed and little— it hurt, closing his throat up and someone slapped him on the back of his head and told him something harshly in that cutting language, "I don't under-understand—" his throat was closing as he tries to thrash his way out of the binds. The people outside were yelling at each other. "He-help, pl-please, I can't breathe– he-elp–"

"Shut up." says a voice in accented Japanese, it was harsh and they almost sounded it wrong but Keito got the gist, he stayed quiet, suffocating slowly as the air thins. He tries to relax. It doesn't work well.

Keito wants to go home , his throat burns and his mouth tastes like blood and salted water and bile. He wants to cry but crying won't get him anywhere right now. He tries to make himself smaller but it just makes it harder to breathe too. He tries to go back to sleep, into that haze he was in before but it's too hot. Too stuffy. He feels like his head is going to explode, he's so thirsty. Keito's head aches horribly; like someone set a bomb off, his eyes burn like he set them on fire, pulsating like an infection. He isn't sick.

He's got a marigold memory, eating flowers in the summer to stop that awful ache from bleeding into Toshi's portion of food because there isn't enough to go around and Toshi needs it more than he does anyhow. Toshi is younger and there isn't enough for both of them. There never is. Poverty is that bitter sting in his bones, he's never going to be able to live like people do in America, with those big buildings and bright, never ending smiles. He wants to — be the best.

He doesn't have the time, though. Because time is money and he can't afford to waste any. It doesn't matter right now—except, except— his head hurts.

It's hot and stuffy and so, so hard to breathe and he doesn't know where he is—

He wants a cigarette, to feel that calm burn in his stomach, the craving for something awful; that high, that calm. Keito wants a cigarette, but his hands are tied, his throat is closed and he's pretty sure he'll die from the fumes of a melted plastic bag if he somehow manages to get a cigarette at all.

Keito aches and he wonders if he's homesick already or if it's just hunger. It's probably hunger, he's always hungry, it's always clawing at his stomach, begging for something, anything to fill the empty place; bubbling with acid and rotten animals.

(It's why he did that thing, when he was new and Toshi was half-starved and he could go a few days without food at a time, crawling into that alley in a daze, he was so, so hungry—

He closes his eyes and breathes harshly to dispel the memory but he can still see the blood around his mouth, he can still taste it, he can still feel it, it was the best thing he'd ever eaten and it was—)

Breathe, he thinks to himself quietly, soothingly, in that fake croon he imagines something familial would speak in, c'mon Keito breathe, for Toshi.

Nine, ten; he tries to take a deep breath and the air is so, so hot and damp and his head is so, so dizzy— he can barely do anything and when his eyes close he can't see anything and all he can think is don't fall asleep, but he's so, so tired and hot and nauseous that when he relaxes the world fades out completely.

It would have been funny . I didn't even get to meet... Eraser.. head.

Tomura is waiting by the door when Kurogiri gives him the news and the first thought he has is how dare Keito-kun leave— and then Kurogiri says it was likely a kidnapping, but Tomura doesn't care why Keito-kun is gone, just that he is, and he isn't allowed to be.

Who's going to play video games and lose horribly to Tomura, who's going to hold Tomura's hand during scary movies without that fear of becoming the remains of rot. Mulch and ash, wet and bloody, Keito-kun is the only one who did that and so he isn't allowed to leave—

Keito-kun isn't some NPC, he's important, he's a vital character, he's basically Tomura'sbrother, he can hear the mock older brother by a couple'a months in his head and he's angry, he's angry because Keito-kun isn't here to say it and Tomura can't say that they're playing one of the games that Keito-kun hates in retaliation. Because Keito-kun is gone.

Tomura doesn't scream. He doesn't cry, he glares at the place where Keito-kun sits at the bar when he comes over and says, "He doesn't get to leave, bring him back, Kurogiri."

Kurogiri says, "Shigaraki Tomura, we don't know where he went."

"I don't care, " Tomura spits, fingers clenched hard enough to carve little moons into his palms, something burning the corner of his eyes. "bring him back, Kurogiri."

He doesn't wait for Kurogiri to respond, he walks upstairs loudly, stomping his feet sharply on the ground and he goes to his room— he never got to show Keito-kun his room, but when he comes back, he's going to show it. Keito-kun is coming back.

He has to.

Right?