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Ever since Rody had graduated from flight school and Deku had graduated U.A., they had started to see each other more often.
They were far from regular meetings, but it was much better than when the only contact they could have was through Rody’s cheap phone that he had bought with his first legitimate pay. But, thanks to Rody’s job, he now found himself in Japan sometimes. Which meant seeing Deku whenever he had the time.
“I’ve started to learn some Japanese,” Rody told Deku over a cup of coffee. Jetlag was something he was starting to get used to, but it still hit him hard whenever he came to Japan because of the huge difference.
“Really?” his friend asked.
Rody nodded. “I figured since I come here more often than to other countries, no specific reason at all” —here, he winked at Deku— “I might as well get some basic grasp of the language.”
Deku giggled. “And how’s that going?”
“Oh, you know, still learning all of the basic phrases. Nice to meet you, how are you doing, goodbye. All of that crap,” he explained.
“Your pronunciation is surprisingly good! Although the last one is more like goodbye ,” his friend corrected him.
“I see, I see.”
That was his golden opportunity to carry on with The Plan. Rody had had feelings for his hero friend for a long time, but it had never been the right time to act on them. First, it was the distance and the near impossibility of seeing each other, and then it was the fact that he couldn’t just leave Roro and Lala alone to travel around or randomly decide to drop by Japan, which was on the literal other side of the world.
Now, though, Rody had his pilot license, and Roro and Lala were old enough to take care of themselves.
Rody did have an ulterior motive to learn Japanese. Yes, he hadn’t been lying when he had said he wanted to learn it because of how often he found himself in the country, but he also had a plan.
If there was something Rody Soul could call himself, it was smooth . No matter how his younger siblings liked to say otherwise.
“Oh yeah?” he said, arming himself with confidence. “How do you pronounce this one correctly then? I really like you1. ”
His friend looked taken aback for a moment, before he smiled at him and just said, “Oh! That one’s easy. It’s just I really like you . You almost got it down!”
He blinked. Had Deku always been this oblivious, or was he being difficult on purpose?
“No, Hero, I’m trying to say that I really like you, ” he said again, repeating the sentence in Japanese.
Deku looked at him weirdly again, before he said the sentence that put a nail in Rody’s coffin. “Aw, I like you too, Rody! You’re a great friend.”
Rody resisted the urge to hit his head against the table of the café. Operation ‘Smoothly declare your feelings to your best friend’ was a failure.
He didn’t give up there, though. Even if the first assault had been a failure, he was going to try again. He had thought he was using the right way to declare his feelings, but maybe he had accidentally expressed friendly or familial love or something of the like. Japanese was a hard language.
Weird, though. He was certain he had looked it up correctly but, then again, you couldn’t always trust what you saw on the internet.
So, for his next plan, he was going to bring out the big guns. The L-word shaped guns.
Now, he wasn’t one to throw that word around. Surely his friend was aware of this and there was no way he would misunderstand it this time. Which meant that the next time they met up Rody was going to carry out his plan for a second time and nothing was going to get in his way.
That turned out to be earlier than later: Rody would be leaving for Otheron soon, so they had planned to meet up once more before he left. The afternoon had been going much like any other of their hangouts, with the added fact that Deku had been in a fight yesterday that had left him with one broken arm.
“I thought Todoroki had been joking when he talked about your bone-breaking habit, but I can see he really wasn’t,” he joked. Over the years, he had seen Deku get into a fair amount of villain-related accidents that had left him with injuries and/or in the hospital. He liked to joke he was the reason he was going to go prematurely grey.
“Honestly, not you too! That stopped happening after my first year of U.A. and you all know it. I get hurt just the average amount of times for someone who works in heroics,” he answered, almost pouting.
Rody raised an eyebrow at him. “Okay, maybe a little bit above the average amount. But not nearly as bad as you all make it seem!”
He laughed. “Riiight,” he teased him. At Deku’s annoyed glance, he raised his hands in surrender. “Come on, Hero, don’t look at me like that.”
Deku smirked and dropped the subject. “I can’t believe you’re leaving again,” he said. “Actually, I’m excited to see how far you’ve come with your Japanese the next time you come here. As soon as you reach some kind of conversational level, we could practice!”
Rody recognized an opportunity when he saw it. “Yeah, sure. But I’ve actually been meaning to tell you something, and I’ve expressly been practising how to say it in Japanese just for you.”
Deku looked at him curiously, and Rody could almost feel his hands starting to sweat. “I tried to tell you the other day, but I don’t think I got the point across. The truth is, uh, well. I love you2. ”
His friend suddenly got really red, redder than Rody had ever seen him, and he looked ready to pass out. “Rody! You can’t say those things just to anyone. I know you’re just starting to learn the language, but that’s a very strong declaration.”
He had started looking around nervously, and he looked ready to run away. “I mean it, though, I love you Izuku Midoriya,” he said, this time in English.
“I know! And I already said you’re a great friend, but you shouldn’t be throwing that sentence around in Japanese,” he repeated, still red as a tomato.
That’s when Rody understood. He was being rejected, and his friend was just trying to spare his feelings. He smiled bitterly. “Oh, I see! Sorry, I guess I messed that up, uh?” he said. “I should be leaving, anyway, I need to catch on some sleep if I want to fly the plane properly. See ya, Hero!”
With that said, he left before Deku could say anything else. He did his best to ignore the ache in his chest.
Izuku was still red when he saw Rody disappear into the crowd of people. He knew his friend only had the best intentions, having seen first-hand how openly affectionate Europeans were with their friends, but he’d seriously have to make sure that he understood both times he had tried to do so with him in Japanese he had used romantic love confessions.
He felt bad that he hadn’t gotten to bid Rody goodbye properly, but he had been too embarrassed to properly react.
He had especially been embarrassed by the things those words coming from Rody’s mouth did to his heart. For a few seconds, he had even dared to hope Rody knew what he was saying.
He opened the door to his apartment and immediately found himself face-to-face with Katsuki.
“Oh, hey! I didn’t know you were home,” he said to his friend and current roommate.
“Tsk. I got sent home early because, apparently, I needed a break or something,” he complained. Izuku giggled, even though he’d been through the same thing before. “You okay, nerd? You look as red as that one time I made you my special spicy ramen.”
“Yeah! I just, uh, had an interesting afternoon, to say the least,” he replied. Then he proceeded to explain both misunderstandings he had had with Rody recently to his friend.
When he finished, instead of the amusement he expected to find on Katsuki’s face he found him with an incredulous expression. He raised an eyebrow before he said, “Are you stupid?”
“Uh?”
“Bird shit was clearly trying to confess, you fucking dunce,” he explained.
Izuku froze as he went through the events of that afternoon, and of the one before that one. “Oh, shit,” he said. “Sorry, Katsuki, I know it’s my turn to cook dinner but I have somewhere urgent to be.”
He heard his roommate faintly say something that sounded like of course you fucking do as he ran out the door on his way to the airport. He almost felt like he was in one of those cliché American romances, as he sped his way to the airport. If he was lucky enough, he’d be able to catch Rody before he left.
Luck seemed to be on his side because, after what felt like an impossibly long trip to the airport, he was able to spot Rody in the crowd after asking around for him.
“Rody!” he yelled. His friend spun around and, upon seeing him, made a pained expression.
Of course, Izuku thought, he probably thinks I rejected him.
“What are you doing here? Missed me already?” he asked, smirking. Despite the confidence in his expression, one look at Pino confirmed that he was still feeling down.
“There was a huge misunderstanding,” he said. “I thought you were just being all… European.”
Rody only looked even more confused. “What I mean is… I thought you were just being affectionate in the, you know, friendly way. I didn’t even dare hope you were trying to confess. In my mind, you just didn’t know what those words in Japanese actually meant! Because, you know, I love you in Japanese is reserved to your most important person , to your romantic partner and even then it’s not even that frequent. And I just didn’t want to dare think you could feel the same as me, ever, so I opted to think you were just being friendly and oh my god I’m rambling again aren’t I ? ”
When he looked up at his friend, he found him with a blank expression, completely speechless. “Uh, please tell me I didn’t misinterpret everything again and you were actually trying to confess.”
For one second, he was afraid he had messed everything up again, but then he saw how Pino was blushing and had started to preen. His heart fluttered.
“Earth calling to Rody? Did I break you?” he asked.
Rody finally seemed to snap out of it, giving him the biggest smile he had ever seen on his face. Instead of saying anything, he grabbed Izuku’s face and pressed their lips together.
The kiss lasted only a few seconds, but everything around Izuku seemed to stop. For those few seconds, the loud noise of the airport quieted and the people around them disappeared. He barely even noticed Rody looking at him after breaking their kiss.
“Did I break you?” he asked, teasing him.
Izuku blushed. “I’m just not used to that,” he said, avoiding Rody’s gaze.
“We’ll just have to do that more often, then,” he said. When he finally looked at him, Rody winked.
In the end, Rody had to go back to Otheron, but he did so with a promise to take Izuku on a date the next time he found himself in Japan.