#narrator's voice: though sorahiko had; in fact; reached rock-bottom; he had unknowingly taken hold of a pickaxe.

[shih-coulda-had-it]

sorahiko and his shigaraki adoptees!au snippet, mostly fluff and domesticity despite the horrors. sorahiko has still not named the boys. wc: ~1.1k.

//

Sorahiko glanced over at the stationery aisle, largely untouched, even though the school year had definitely restarted. Economic downturns and inexplicable powers hadn’t permanently disrupted that aspect of society. He considered the bags of groceries, sighed, and shoved a few notebooks and packages of pre-sharpened pencils wherever there was room. He also swiped a manual sharpener; he suspected Chibi-AFO would be prone to snapping the lead.

When he got back to the studio, he was surprised to see the boys flipping through the large children’s anthology of fairy tales instead of, say, destroying the premises or having fled the location. Even the wireless camping light was intact. Maybe Chibi-AFO had finally gotten it in his head that Sorahiko was a guaranteed source of luxuries.

Or, he reflected as he kicked the door shut and jostled the lock in place, Chibi-AFO finally realized that Sorahiko could track a pair of preschoolers even on a rainy, miserable night.

“You’re back!” the smaller boy cheered.

Automatically, Sorahiko said, “I’m home,” and his heart winced. Chibi-AFO glared at him, as per usual, but they both got to their feet and toddled to him at the door. He knelt down to their level and let them dig through the groceries while he loosened his boots’ laces.

“Safe?” the smaller boy asked. He linked his tiny spindly fingers around the handle of the half-gallon of bottled water; Sorahiko swiftly moved that aside. Chibi-AFO was industriously sifting through the dry goods to find the snacks, and had apparently ignored the stationery. 

“Eh,” Sorahiko answered. The apartment complex he’d stashed himself and the boys in was largely abandoned—condemned, really—which meant that the surrounding area was antsy and looking to uproot communities to find safer enclaves. Sorahiko had left the convenience store a hefty payment for the stolen goods, but he couldn’t kid himself. A neighborhood being haunted by a thief who could break in and out of businesses without a trace would eventually try to drum up a Meta X squad.

“No blood,” said Chibi-AFO dismissively. “Tou-san’s fine.”

“It’s Torino.”

He collected everything too heavy for stick-thin limbs to carry and navigated around the children to the kitchen. It didn’t take long to shelve them away, though; Sorahiko left the dry goods at the genkan and retrieved the notebooks, pencils, and precocious brats. Ignoring the shrieks (one indignant, one delighted), Sorahiko set them at the low coffee table and sat, crosslegged.

The boys took it as an invitation to climb onto his lap, perching one to a leg. They still hardly weighed anything, and they paid attention like starving baby chicks.

“What’s that?” the smaller boy asked, pawing for the pencil blister pack Sorahiko had just tore open. Sorahiko tucked it to the side and withdrew a pencil for himself. “What’s this?”

“This is a notebook,” Sorahiko said, tired beyond belief. Why was he in charge of raising two street kids? Why did he sign up for this? He flipped the thin cardboard cover to reveal lined pages, and because he wasn’t immune to wanting to look cool, Sorahiko twirled the pencil around his fingers. “This is a pencil.”

“Notebook,” the smaller boy echoed. “Pencil. What for?”

Chibi-AFO grasped for a pencil of his own, clearly wanting to copy Sorahiko’s trick. “Gimme.”

“Watch first,” he said, jostling the terror until Chibi-AFO grouchily settled. Sorahiko put the pencil to paper, then hesitated. Reading and writing was pointless for their age. His handwriting, while not as garbage as Shuuzenji’s, wouldn’t be legible to a pair of preschoolers anyway. 

He was also a shitty artist. Grimly, Sorahiko persevered. He drew a misshapen circle for a body, and a smaller circle within it. Two notches for eyes and two more for the nostrils. Small triangles for the ears, rectangles for the legs, and a squiggly line for the tail.

The smaller boy brightened and slapped an enthusiastic hand over the doodle. “Pig!”

Sorahiko said, “Yeah. Good job. Want to draw me one?”

“No,” said Chibi-AFO, but he lunged for Sorahiko’s pencil first, quicker to react than his brother, who cringed back against Sorahiko’s chest. The sour tone struck Sorahiko as something he should deal with, but honestly… He gave the gremlin the pencil, and then picked a new one for the other boy.

“You too,” the other boy insisted. He held the drawing tool like a hammer, but he seemed wary of putting pressure on the paper. Chibi-AFO, on the other hand, had the confidence of a master calligrapher and the ego of his future self. The second pig was… large. “Tou-san, you too!”

“It’s Torino,” Sorahiko grumbled for the thousandth time.

Chibi-AFO’s heavy hand broke the lead, as predicted. “No!” He thrust the pencil backwards, and Sorahiko jerked from the jagged point with a bitten-off curse. “Tou-san, help.”

He’d been cursed with brats. Sorahiko took Chibi-AFO’s offering and reached for the manual sharpener, and since there was hardly any space with the two boys sitting on his legs, he lowered himself to lay flat on the floor and twisted the pencil into the sharpener above his head. The transparent yellow plastic cylinder filled with shavings as he sought to get a blunter point on the lead itself.

“One pig, two pig, three pig, four,” the smaller boy sang, and Chibi-AFO miraculously did not move to shut his brother up. Instead, he twisted round, pointy elbows and knees digging into Sorahiko’s soft spots, and sprawled on top of Sorahiko’s chest.

“Mama said thank you,” Chibi-AFO reported. His sour tone went acrid. “She said to thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Sorahiko managed, dryly.

“You’re welcome!” the smaller boy parroted. “What’s welcome?”

He inspected the pencil and studiously ignored the eerie white eyes pointed at his face. “It’s what you say when people thank you. And people say thank you when someone’s done something for them. Understand?”

“Mm!” There was a whole future of ‘why’ and ‘what does that mean’ ahead of Sorahiko, and he dreaded the entire thing. Weren’t kids supposed to magically pick this shit up? He didn’t remember anybody teaching him manners. 

Then again, Sorahiko mused. Shimura had made it an annual tradition to haul him into the workshops regarding courtesy and PR handling. Apparently, a pro-hero wasn’t ever supposed to express a genuine opinion about shitty regulations and the existence of government red tape.

“Always?” Chibi-AFO probed.

“No,” said Sorahiko. “But it’s polite.” He brushed the white fuzz of Chibi-AFO’s hair with the pencil until Chibi-AFO growled and grabbed it. Pointedly, Sorahiko asked, “What do we say…?”

“Thank you,” the kid said, sulky. 

“Is tou-san drawing?”

“I’m drawing,” Chibi-AFO insisted, and he turned back around with his toothpick limbs, and he practically bristled when he saw whatever his brother had wrought upon the page. “You!! What’s that?”

Sorahiko gazed at the ceiling and prayed for an untapped well of patience to be found. It was somewhere in him. Shimura would have bet on it, and Lucky Number Seven tended to win against the odds. As the children’s bickering grew louder because the smaller boy had become bolder with the safety Sorahiko provided, he heaved himself upright to survey the scene.

[Sorahiko's pig, top left. Chibi-AFO's pig, top right. Yoichi's four little pigs, bottom row plus the small pig top center (mama pig who went to heaven).]