Chapter Text
All men are not created equal. Eijirou knows this as soon as he learns what the word ‘equal’ means. With Quirks developing, the gap seems to be bigger than ever; it’s not just about where you’re born, the amount of money your family has or your mental stability – it’s about those mysterious powers that people are getting left right and center. All of it added up gives a vision of what your future might look like. For Eijirou, his future seemed to be in pretty good hands; he was born in a nice area of Japan, his parents weren’t rich, but they were doing okay for themselves, and his Quirk had at least some potential.
Overall, he was feeling pretty confident in his goals; he wanted to apply to UA, the country’s leading school in Heroics, and he’d graduate as a fully fledged Pro Hero and help people by breaking down walls and beating up villains. It doesn’t matter that his friends don’t believe in his dreams, it doesn’t matter that his parents share that glance when he tells them it’s the only school he’ll be applying for, it doesn’t matter that he can barely move when he hardens his whole body, because he can learn, right? That’s what school is for.
What does matter is the fact that Eijirou turns out to be a coward. He’d never have guessed it, if he were to try. He thought he was pretty manly, like his favourite Hero, Crimson Riot, always said was important, and Eijirou has lived by those beliefs. If you’d have asked him even an hour before what he’d do if a gigantic villain stood looming over a couple of his trembling classmates, tearing his claw-like fingers into the wall above them until they were covered in cold sweat and dust, Eijirou would have proudly said, “Of course I’d save them!” Because that’s what Crimson Riot would do. Because that’s the manly, heroic thing to do.
As it turns out, Eijirou isn’t like Crimson Riot. Eijirou isn’t manly, or heroic. What Eijirou is, is afraid. As he stares at the scene, his blood freezes to ice in his veins, keeping his whole body stuck on the spot as he shakes. He tries to rush forward, tries to harden his skin, tries to be the person he thought he was. But he can’t, and he’s not, and in the end, it’s his classmate, Ashido Mina, that rushes forward, placing herself between their classmates and the imposing villain, shouting directions and pointing down the street until the giant leaves. And when she eventually falls to her knees and cries, it’s not until the villain is out of sight – she stayed brave for as long as she had to, she acted through her fear, and she made sure their classmates were okay.
The whole encounter has Eijirou filled with newfound shame, embarrassment and self-doubt. He talks to his parents about it, and they hold him tight and tell him that it’s going to be alright, that there’s still other options for him, that just because he won’t become a Hero doesn’t mean he won’t become someone. They help him apply to other schools, and they tell him they’re proud of him no matter what he decides to do. He just wishes he could be proud of himself, too.
He ends up in Daishu High School, which has a lot of options. He thinks art might be interesting, so he tries it for a while, but it doesn’t stick. Languages aren’t really his thing either, he soon realises, nor is science or biology. The only place he really feels like he belongs is in PE, and his friend since middle school, Tomo, says he probably won’t amount to being anything more than a gym rat. It’s said with a laugh, and Eijirou knows it’s a joke, but there’s the hint of an idea there, and Eijirou thinks, well, why the hell not?
He focuses all of his attention on math, although he hates the subject, because if he’s going to be a gym rat for the rest of his life, he might as well start his own, and starting his own gym means that he’s essentially going to be running a business, he thinks, and if that’s the case, then he definitely needs to know about numbers. He’s barely passing most of his classes, studying just enough to scrape by, but he pulls his math up to a B+ by the time of graduation, and that’s enough.
It takes a few years of boring office jobs, but finally he has the money to rent a building and buy a few machines. He keeps working the office jobs for another handful of years, spending all his free time to upgrade his gym with the few memberships he has, but then, out of nowhere, Riot Work Outs seems to just take off, and eventually the memberships are enough to buy the rest of the equipment he wants, upgrade the ones he has, build a Quirk-training area and quit his office job to focus on the gym full time. His smile has never been wider than the day he was able to wake up, go to his beloved gym and work over the papers, using the few free equipment on his breaks, and not have to lose any sleep over it.
All in all, he thinks he’s done pretty well for himself. He can almost ignore the occasional itch of what if? that keeps finding him, and life goes on as business blooms.