Touya was pretty good with kids.
He'd kinda had to be, what with three younger siblings. Two of which he'd pretty much solely been in charge of seeing as those two were deemed as pretty much useless with solely ice Quirks.
Dear old mom had been too caught up with her own problems, never mind the post-partum depression that had rendered her barely able to move out of bed after Shoto was born. Of course, dad never helped once.
So when he'd seen the kid in the alleyway climbing into the dumpster, it was as though that forced parental side of him had reappeared.
She was young. Far too young to be homeless and searching in businesses trash for food. She was younger than even he had been when he started roaming the streets.
And so he'd taken it upon himself to keep an eye on her.
She was pretty easy company. She was quiet, not really speaking unless spoken to, quick to do as asked, even if she looked a little uncertain about it at first.
For a ten year old, she was pretty switched on. She behaved herself unlike Touya at her age. She seemed like a perfect kid, which had Touya wondering why she was on the streets in the first place.
Whenever he asked about her parents though, her face would crumple and her eyes would tear up instantly. The reaction was so visceral that even Touya's heart would clench a little at the sight of it. So he hadn't pushed it.
He'd expected her to struggle to get to sleep a bit more. She'd looked nervous when he'd asked her where she wanted him to set her bed down for the night.
She was certainly nervous enough to decide she didn't want to part from him for the evening. She even pulled out some tattered old teddy from her bag for comfort, holding it with a death grip to her chest.
When he'd looked up from his phone to see her breathing had deepened and slowed, he'd placed his jacket over her small, sleeping body. They didn't offer blankets here, but the jacket would do. He didn't need it after all, he had his Quirk to keep him warm if he needed it.
Touya was relieved that she seemed to drop off to sleep so easily. Touya loved sleeping. It was the only time his body didn't ache or throb from the damage his Quirk had done to it. It was cheap relief, a good amount of time where the pain didn't exist for a while.
He'd stayed up for a little while longer after she fell asleep, watching over the others, and shooting people that entered later on a sharp look, warning them silently not to come near him, or the girl.
Luckily for her, he had a fair reputation on the streets for not being someone to mess with, so the second his stony eyes would meet theirs, they'd instantly look away, move along, scram.
He wasn't going to risk it though. That's why he'd put her mat so close to the furthest wall from the door, placing his next to it so he'd be able to jump to her aid within seconds if she needed it.
When he'd been roused awake by the faint sound of sniffling, he hadn't really thought too much about it. It wasn't an uncommon thing to hear in shelters at night.
When he regained enough consciousness to realise that the sniffling was coming from right beside him though, he'd immediately bolted upright, squinting over at the little girl in the dark.
It was definitely her. He could faintly make out the shape of her body moving as she tried to silently sob. The sight was heartbreaking.
It was one he'd seen too often in his childhood home, and he really did not want to revisit those memories and put himself in a bad mood after promising Y/N he'd control his temper.
He reaches out to touch her shoulder, to let her know he's awake, that he's there, before remembering her reaction to being touched before and deciding against it.
"Hey." He whispers instead. "What's the matter, kid?"
There's a short silence as she continues talking shaky breaths and tries to control her sobs.
"It's dumb." She eventually whispers back, her voice cracking even so.
"Try me." He challenges.
More quiet sobs and shaky breaths, a small sigh filling the air.
"...I had a nightmare."
He'd seen so much horror in the world, and knew to always expect the worst that when he heard that sentence, it was the last thing he'd expected her to say.
A nightmare.
Such a simple, innocent and childlike struggle. One he could relate to, too.
He often had nightmares, to this day. Always the same thing, always the same time, and always waking up drenched in sweat, stifling a scream as to not wake anyone up, to not show weakness.
What would he have liked to hear, given the chance someone was there to comfort him during all those times he woke from those dreams of when his body practically melted off his bones?
"Do you wanna talk about it?" He asks quietly, not wanting to push the small child too much.
Instinct was to reach out and grab her like he used to when his siblings crawled into his bed at night complaining of nightmares about their father.
But he knew he couldn't do that. Not with some kid he'd only met earlier on that evening. She was old enough to not be as cuddly as a younger kid would be too.
Never mind her aversion to touch, which would serve her well in the long run if she seriously wanted to stick it out on the streets instead of going home.
She goes quiet for a little while, clearly thinking over Touyas offer. Touya watches her carefully in the dark, she's still holding on tight to that teddy bear, the poor thing's probably soaked from her crying.
"No." She replies eventually.
Touya probably should have expected that, but it kind of left him at a loss for what to do. He couldn't touch her, and he couldn't attempt to soothe her with words, either.
"Ya scared?" He asks softly.
He meant about the nightmare, he knew all too well the lingering fear that stayed long after you woke and realised you were safe. But he supposed that the question was stupid, really. Of course she was scared. She was a kid on the streets, trying to navigate the world on her own. She was also currently in a room full of sleeping men, which she seemed to be nervous of.
Unfortunately, shelters tended to be separated by gender, so there wasn't too much Touya could do about that. He'd made sure that no-one would be able to get to her without waking him first, but that was the best he could do in their current situation.
And in honesty, he didn't mind her being wary. It was safe. Näivety would only get her hurt.
"...Yeah." She admits quietly. The sniffling resumes, too.
Touya feels his chest clench at her words, the small sniffles igniting a feeling inside him to protect and to soothe.
To comfort her like he never had been.
"Wanna move closer?" He asks, trying to make his ruined voice sound as soothing as possible and relaxing his position, folding his arms over his knees as he looks over at her in the dark room.
"You won't touch me?" She asks, her voice the faintest it had been. Touya almost doesn't even hear it, he has to take a second to figure out what she'd whispered.
He frowns.
"Of course not. Not if ya don't want me to, kid." Touya replies with a small scoff, as if he was a little surprised she even needed to check.
There's a short silence between them both before she turns over, facing him finally. He can't see her face too well in the dark, but he can feel the weight of her gaze.
"Rule number two for you," She says, her voice firmer and a little above a whisper. "No touching me without asking first."
"Deal." Touya replies instantly, unable to help the proud smile that pulls at the corners of his lips, the staples either side of his mouth stopping it from growing too wide.
She holds his eye contact in the dark, clearly learning to be fearless of the way he looked considering her first reaction to seeing him.
She begins to move on the mat, clearly readying herself to move the mat.
"Ah, ah, ah." Touya says quietly, stopping her.
"What?" She asks, still sniffling a little.
"Lie back down. It'll be quieter if I pull it closer." He explains, motioning in the dark for her to lie back down. He's unsure if she can even see it, but after a brief moment she does seem to lie back down.
Slowly, Touya drags her mat more towards his, leaving a little gap between them so that they weren't pressed too close together.
She's surprisingly light atop the thin mat that the shelter provided, him being able to move her closer without any real effort.
Beyond moving her closer to him, to try and get her to feel a little more secure and a little less scared, he's not really too sure how to comfort the small girl, and so he searches the memory banks that he often times tried to avoid, trying to remember something, anything comforting that he had done for his siblings when they'd had nightmares.
Slowly, he lies himself back down, folding his arms behind his head as he lays on his back.
"Yaknow, when my little sis had nightmares, somethin' that used to help her is re-imagining the nightmare. Ya get what I mean?"
"No." Y/N's little voice responds quietly.
"Alright. So when she used to have nightmares about da- a big scary man comin' for her, she'd calm down a little, 'n then she'd imagine somethin' silly happenin', right?" Touya tries, patiently. "Like, instead of the scary man landin' the hit, she'd pretend he tripped and fell. Somethin' silly that'd make her laugh, yaknow?"
The little girl goes quiet, seemingly thinking over the tip Touya had given her.
"Okay." She whispers eventually. "I'll try."
"Attagirl." Touya says with a small grin. "Keep your teddy close, yeah? He'll keep you safe, 'n I'll keep you both safe failing that."
"I'm not a baby." She says a little defensively.
Touya smirks. There it is, there's the sassy attitude of a ten year old that thinks when you reach double digits you have to be treated like an adult too.
He doesn't respond, having heard someone stir nearby. He didn't wanna have to get into a conflict in front of her. Not yet.
She scoots a little closer to him, laying on the edge of her mat. Touya stays still, staring at the ceiling in silence, listening to the sounds of her sniffling slow down to an eventual stop.
From the sounds of her breathing, she stayed awake for a little while, and Touya almost wished he could climb inside her head to see what she was imagining to help herself calm down enough to sleep. He'd never really got to have much of a childhood thanks to the relentless training with his old man, and then babysitting for his mom whenever he had some down time.
His only experiences with a childs imagination were Natsuo's and Fuyumi's tall tales, the telling of their dreams, the make believe situations he'd see them act out as they played.
Once her breathing evened out and got a little heavier again, he felt his body relax. She'd conked out again.
He hadn't even realised how tense his body had been during that whole time, and he can't help but scoff a little at himself.
He'd had an on and off again relationship with homelessness for years now, and had never allowed himself to get attached to anyone. He had always stuck to himself.
And all it had taken was one little ten year old girl that reminded him far too much of himself when he'd made himself homeless at the ripe old age of sixteen, to change all of that for him within mere hours.
Relaxed now she was finally asleep, Touya allowed his eyes to close.