Archive of Our Own ^beta

Like everyone else on the planet, Amajiki Tamaki was born with a Mark.

Unfortunately, he was also born with his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, while stuck in the back of a car trapped in heavy traffic.

Normally, documenting the Mark was one of the first things the OB staff did, but in this case, Amajiki Fukuyasu’s only concern was unraveling the cord from his son’s neck. The moment Tamaki took his first desperate breath of air, his barely noted Mark disappeared.

And it never came back.

There was rarely a point after when Tamaki wasn’t under some sort of scrutiny from friends, family, or the medical community. He was, as far as anybody knew, the only person whose Mark had just… vanished. No one’s Mark disappeared. Even people whose soulmates had invisibility-type Quirks had Marks that showed up under a blacklight. But Tamaki’s did not. They checked his entire body for a teleporting Mark — there was none to be found. He didn’t even have a flashing geometric Mark that indicated his soulmate was Quirkless. And of course, when someone’s soulmate died their Mark just stopped moving, it didn’t go away.

There was no explanation.

Although his parents were doting, Tamaki’s extended family was enormous and nosy. He was passed from curious person to curious person as a baby, and then as a toddler, and even as a young child. Interest in his situation was so intense that no one outside of his immediate family seemed to notice when he demonstrated a version of his mother’s Manifest Quirk so strong that he very well could be a Pro Hero when he grew up.

The older Tamaki got, the more he withdrew into himself, as though he were trying to escape everyone’s notice. His parents and sister were fiercely protective once it became apparent that he was shy, but the damage had already been done. Some people were born anxious, some people learned anxiety, and, in all likelihood, Amajiki Tamaki was both.

Standing in front of twenty-five curious students and making a self-introduction would be an overwhelming prospect for almost anyone. For Tamaki, it was almost an impossibility.

The first day of third grade was destined to be terrible from the start. He’d spent the entire walk to school practicing what he would say: “I’m Amajiki Tamaki. I like heroes. Nice to meet you.” No extra words to slip up on.

He arrived at school and stood in the hall until his teacher led him into the classroom. The winged waffle iron Mark on the man’s wrist opened and closed as he walked. Tamaki briefly wondered what his teacher’s soulmate’s Quirk could possibly be, then his mind was consumed by the thought of everyone looking at him.

Standing at the front of the class, he found that he couldn’t even say his own name. There was an impossibly long moment when the teacher waited to see if he would finish, then fifty eyes stared as Tamaki made his way to his desk. It was in the middle of the room where he couldn’t hide from anyone. On the way, he kept his eyes on his feet. Then, he kept his head on his desk.

All around him the other students reunited with each other, or made new friends. They pulled back their sleeves and rolled up their pant legs, chattering about their Marks and their Quirks and other things that Tamaki had never had the option of talking with anyone about.

He wasn’t sure if he wanted friends or not. At his last school he hadn’t been able to make any, but that didn’t necessarily mean he didn’t want them. But friends meant more questions, so maybe they were a bad idea.

“What’s your Quirk?” they’d ask, forcing him to stumble through an answer.

Then,“Where’s your Mark?” A question he couldn’t answer at all.

“C’mon,” they’d push, “just show us! We’re all boys!”

Until finally…

“Whaddya mean you don’t have one?”

“Hey, Amajiki!” a voice from the present moment called out to him.

A boy with strange, flat eyes and blonde hair stood in front of his desk. Tamaki lifted his head a little, not quite sure what was happening and mostly wanting it to stop.

“By ‘he—’ could it be you were trying to say ‘hero?!’” the boy punched the air. “Who’s your favorite?!”

Behind him two other boys looked on eagerly.

“A- A- All Might,” Tamaki managed to get out, mostly wishing they would leave him alone. As it happened, the other two boys were immediately distracted and ran across the room.

“Oh man, me too!”

The blonde boy didn’t leave. He jumped and then crouched down so that his face was level with Tamaki’s. “I’m Togata Mirio! Do you wanna eat lunch with me?”

As it turned out, when it came to making friends Tamaki didn’t have much of a say in the matter. One just kind of found him.

They sat on a low wall to eat their lunches. Togata had a bright red All Might bento box, and Tamaki had the same print on his bento wrap. It was windy, and Tamaki’s hair kept blowing into his eyes. Togata was facing into the wind, his hair blowing back in little waves. He kind of looked like a hero himself. A little.

He talked through his onigiri, describing the latest All Might rescue he’d seen on the news. Tamaki had seen it too, but the way Togata described it made it even more exciting. He wasn’t quite sure if Togata wanted him to talk: he seemed happy to fill up the quiet himself with his swinging punches and sound effects. He had a sunny, excited voice, and the blue-black eyes that had appeared to be one-dimensional sparkled the more excited he got.

The wind blew with a particularly violent gust. Tamaki’s bento wrap got caught up in it, fluttering across the sidewalk. Without thinking, he manifested the octopus from last night’s special new-school dinner and caught the cloth with an extended wiggling arm.

“You have… an octopus Quirk?” Togata’s mouth was hanging open.

The sudden attention was too much, and Tamaki could only stutter out, “I… I…”

“You have an octopus Quirk??” Togata asked again, his voice louder and higher. Then something very sudden and strange happened. Togata fell into the wall, sliding down with his legs sticking out. Then he shot forward, ending up face-first on the sidewalk.

Naked.

“Are- are you o-okay?” Tamaki jumped off the wall and ran to Togata’s side. He’d hit the ground really hard, and all of Tamaki’s nervousness had to be pushed aside so he could help.

He put his arm on Togata’s shoulder just as Togata started rolling onto his back. His forehead was scraped up and his nose was bleeding. But he didn’t seem to care, he just grabbed Tamaki’s hand and squeezed it, as his other hand pointed to his chest. There, right in the middle, was his Mark. It was an octopus, complete with writhing arms that danced across his skin.

An octopus that was eating itself.

“Where’s yours?” Togata asked with desperate happiness, still sitting naked in the middle of the sidewalk. “We can go into the bathroom if it’s somewhere private!”

Tamaki took a deep shuddering breath, stood up, and ran away.

He cried in the bathroom, sloppy messy tears that were only silent because he was good at being quiet. As long as he could remember, he’d held his breath when he cried. It made him feel like the tears would go away faster if he could just hold it in for long enough. It made him feel like he had some control over his spiraling panic.

He’d left his bento and wrapper behind, along with a little All Might figurine he’d brought from his backpack, thinking that maybe he could show it to Togata while they ate. They were all lost now, shoved into the bushes, or maybe someone had even taken them.

The bathroom door opened just as he was coming out of the stall. Togata was there, holding all of Tamaki’s things. There were tear tracks on his own face, and blood smears around his nose.

“It’s okay if you don’t wanna be my soulmate,” Togata said, earnest and brave, even though it was obvious he was sad. “My mom and dad weren't soulmates! My mom was even Quirkless, so she had one of those circle kinds? Well, they got divorced anyway, but you don’t gotta—”

“I…… don’t have one!” Tamaki managed to interrupt him.

“What?”

“A M-mark. I never had- never had one. It… went away right after I was born.”

Togata’s eyebrows furrowed and he sat everything he was carrying on the floor. “Where was it?”

Tamaki looked nervously at the door, and Togata walked back to lock it, like he knew exactly what Tamaki needed without him saying it. After taking a few nervous breaths, Tamaki unbuttoned his pants and slipped them down just a little, so that the skin over his left hip was visible.

“Right here,” he pointed.

Togata came closer, looking intently at the spot. “Can I…?”

“Okay,” Tamaki breathed, watching Togata’s fingers reach out and graze his skin.

Nothing happened.

With nervous energy, Tamaki pulled up his pants and buttoned them, feeling overwhelmed and stupid for thinking that maybe if Togata touched the spot where his Mark had been it would come back and everyone would stop thinking he was the freak of the century.

“I don’t think I care about soulmates anymore,” Togata looked at him, his messy face open and honest. “Will you eat lunch with me tomorrow?”

Tamaki nodded.

Togata grinned back, wide and toothy, and in that moment Tamaki realized that no one in the world deserved to meet their soulmate more.

The line in the convenience store was long and Tamaki hated standing in it. Behind him was a shabby salaryman breathing way too loud. In front of him was a mother with a crying baby in her arms and a toddler on the ground who wouldn’t stop staring at him

It made him really nervous. 

Taking turns to buy snacks on the way home was a new thing. Some teenagers had been stealing from the convenience store on a regular basis, so now no one under twenty was allowed to come in together in groups. Mirio had argued good-naturedly with the old lady behind the counter that two loyal fourteen-year-old customers weren’t really a group of teens, and she had almost agreed. But then her son had come in and yelled at them so much that Tamaki couldn’t bear to walk past the storefront for a solid week.

Since the store was on their way home, Mirio had come up with an “exciting detour.” It wasn’t all that exciting, but the way Mirio narrated the new scenery made it a little easier for Tamaki to forget how stupid he felt for being too anxious to walk past a building. Not to mention it made their walk home just a few minutes longer. A few more minutes to hear about the new sitcom Mirio was watching. A few more minutes for Mirio to ask about the new butterfly in Tamaki was mounting on his board. A few more minutes with him.

But Tamaki was trying really hard not to think about things like that.

The line moved slowly. The old lady behind the counter was nice — Tamaki even talked to her sometimes when there was no one else around — but she did things at her own pace. Tamaki was so hungry he was starting to feel sick. To make matters worse, Mirio had been leaning against the glass of the storefront, but now he wasn’t anymore, which was unsettling.

Tamaki’s instincts liked to play games with him and couldn’t be trusted. He didn’t have time to analyze this specific situation because the old lady had finally finished with the woman in front of him. He fumbled with the drinks, bags of chips, and squid jerky as he put them on the counter. They made so much noise and the man behind him was looming at his back. Mirio had offered to go in to get the snacks every time instead of taking turns, but if Tamaki couldn’t do something as little as this, how was he supposed to get into UA?

His sweaty bangs were sticking to his forehead by the time he pushed open the door, bags on his wrists. Nervous sweating was probably where all the pimples on his forehead were coming from. Maybe if he got a different haircut they’d go away, but he was never going to find out.

He opened the squid jerky and gobbled down a few pieces to drive away the terrible collapsed feeling in his stomach that came with not eating for awhile. Looking down the street, he scanned the area for Mirio’s familiar blond ponytail. But instead of petting a dog, or starting conversation with some strangers, Mirio was gone.

The unsettled feeling got worse.

He found Mirio behind the store, where he’d been pushed into the wall by two terrifying-looking high schoolers. One of them had enormous ears, and the other had sky blue skin with long white hair tied back in a ponytail. It wasn’t very obvious what either of their Quirks were for, but maybe it would have been easier to tell if Tamaki hadn’t been cowering uselessly behind a dumpster.

“We know you can get that wallet out of the grate, kid,” the blue one said. “Not gonna ask a second time.”

Even pushed against the bricks, Mirio stood straight. “Wasn’t your wallet! You didn’t even know who was on those charms! I’m not getting it for you.”

“Okay then,” the blue one said, just before he punched Mirio in the stomach.

Tamaki covered his face with his hands and leaned his back against the dumpster, breathing heavily. Mirio sounded like he was puking, but there was no splatter of vomit against the pavement. Just more coughing, the laughs of the high schoolers echoing down the alley, and then another punch. Tamaki had to do something, but he hadn’t eaten since lunch, and even then it hadn’t been something he could use. Wrenching his hands from his eyes, he turned back to peer around the dumpster.

“You must think you’re pretty heroic, kid,” the ear kid scoffed, “can’t even use your stupid Quirk to keep from getting beat up, though.”

“’S harder than it looks,” Mirio took a deep shuddering breath and held it as blood trickled out of his nose. Slowly, carefully, Tamaki slid his hand into the open bag of squid jerky. He grabbed an enormous fistful and shoved it in his mouth.

Seeing a punch on TV was a lot different than seeing a punch in real life. The kid with big ears pulled his hand back, then swung forward at Mirio’s stomach, just to catch Mirio’s uniform jacket and undershirt as they fluttered to the ground.

“FUCK!” the ear kid screamed, cradling the hand that had punched a brick wall. Tamaki took another enormous bite of the squid jerky as the blue kid tried to elbow Mirio in the face, only to punch himself in the jaw when Mirio’s head wasn’t there to stop his momentum.

Recovering before Mirio could run away, the blue kid drew back his leg, probably to knee him in the balls. But he never got a chance.

Squid tentacles didn’t work the same way as octopus arms. Squids had both, first of all. Tamaki didn’t know how to tell the difference until he’d manifested one long arm and one savagely hooked tentacle, and they were reaching to grab the blue boy by the leg and drag him across the alley. In the moment of chaos, Mirio kneed the other boy in the stomach, then swept his legs out from under him. Or tried: he ended up falling himself into a tangled pile.

The ear kid sat up and scrambled backwards, trying to get as far away from Mirio as possible now that he was fighting back. They sat on either side of the alley, breathing heavily and staring at each other.

“Guess you needed your little soulmate to come and save you,” the kid wheezed, staring at Mirio’s bare chest.

Tamaki’s control over what he had manifested disappeared. The squid arm and tentacle hung limp, though the hooks were still caught in the blue kid’s jeans. He scrambled to his feet, rushing to his friend and dragging him up after him. They ran down the alley, and disappeared around the corner, leaving Mirio, Tamaki, and the bags of snacks.

Tamaki ran to Mirio’s side, grasping his head to check for… he really didn’t know what exactly, maybe cuts? They’d never been in a fight before, he just needed to make sure he wasn’t hurt badly.

“S’okay,” Mirio’s lips moved against the palm of Tamaki’s hand, and the feeling was so much, but Tamaki was in no place to pay attention to it. “They only hit me twice. Gotta practice holding my breath better. Things were kinda tense, it was hard to phase! Hey, Tamaki… you’re shaking. It’s okay, though. We made it thanks to you!”

Thick fingers were squeezing Tamaki’s shoulder, and he was alright, but Mirio was so close, and those guys had said that thing about soulmates, and why had they said that? Tamaki would have much rather they’d punched him in the face. It was too much, and Tamaki didn’t know how to deal with it without thinking about the one thing he should think about the very least. But he had to think about it. He wasn’t Mirio’s soulmate, nothing he could ever do would make him Mirio’s soulmate, and Mirio deserved his soulmate and no one less.

Mirio probably thought he was scared. Which he was, but it was more than that. If Mirio had realized, he wouldn’t have said what he ended up saying.

But he didn’t, so.

“We make a pretty great team, eh?”

The first thing Tamaki noticed in the restaurant was that their server had octopus arms instead of hair. She held her pen and notepad with them, taking down their orders while simultaneously handing out glasses of water with her human arms.

The second thing he noticed was just how little Mirio cared.

It was a week from graduation. On Hadou’s enthusiastic suggestion, they’d decided to take their kouhais out for a farewell dinner. Although, based on how many things Kirishima was ordering for Tamaki, you’d think the first years were the ones taking out the Big Three. They were in one of those curved booths, Midoriya and Tamaki sitting on the open ends of the table. Kirishima was on Tamaki’s left, Mirio on Midoriya’s right, and the three girls in the middle. Everyone but Tamaki was talking all at once. He didn’t mind so much. He wasn’t stuck in the middle, and no one was paying attention to him. He could just watch.

Tamaki liked watching Asui in particular. He’d manifested frog parts before, but she understood how to use a frog’s body in a way he couldn’t ever come close to. It was natural, a part of her, not a power she had to borrow. Even if he had the guts to talk to her about it, it was probably not very appropriate to do so. He wasn’t sure how much affinity she had for the creatures her Quirk emulated, but he’d eaten a bucket full of frog’s legs in order to manifest a tongue a few weeks ago. That was about twelve dead frogs too many to talk to a frog girl about frog things.

She noticed he was watching her and waved a little. It was possibly a friendly wave, but he wanted to die anyway. He was breathing heavily and staring at the table when the server came back, carrying plates with her hair. Or arms. She sat them down in front of everyone with the sort of flawless control that Tamaki could only dream of. She probably used them constantly, and they never weakened or went away if she didn’t eat the right things.

Mirio still wasn’t paying attention to her. He was talking to her, but he wasn’t paying the sort of attention that was necessary. Tamaki didn’t know how these kinds of interactions were supposed to go, but on television the person who noticed the Quirk of their soulmate always initiated a conversation about it. And Mirio wasn’t great at everything in the world, but he was certainly good at initiating conversation.

Tamaki looked at him across the table, over the plates of food they had all decided to share. Mirio knew exactly what he wanted the instant their eyes met and he stared back at Tamaki innocently.

“Agh! Who’s running their foot up my leg?” Kirishima jumped high enough to rattle the table.

Mirio choked, then coughed, then cleared his throat, “Ah, sorry Red, that was me. Just needed a good stretch.”

“Ah, that’s fine, man. No big deal,” Kirishima went back to eating with a focus that would have made Fatgum proud. Hadou and Midoriya were having a rapid-fire discussion about the Quirks of pretty much… everyone. Tamaki couldn’t even keep track of what they were talking about, but Midoriya was the only person he’d ever met who could keep up with Hadou’s endless questioning. Asui and Uraraka were talking quietly to each other. No one was paying attention to him.

He looked at Mirio again. Halfway through chewing on a piece of fried chicken, Mirio grinned. Tamaki did not, but this time Mirio’s foot found its target. He’d phased out of his boot and sock and his toe slid against Tamaki’s ankle. He’d done this before, mostly pressing his cold toes against Tamaki’s skin to make him yelp, but right now his toes were warm. Even though they weren’t exactly soft they were still just there and…

Tamaki’s chopsticks clattered to his plate as he stood up.

“Senpai?” Kirishima asked through a mouthful of food.

“I’m… going to the bathroom,” Tamaki muttered.

He wasn’t, but he hid in an alcove on the way there so it looked like it. He had to make this quick — Mirio would follow him if he was gone too long. Pressing his forehead against the cool wall, he thought about what he was going to say.

“Hi. My name is Amajiki and I was wondering if I could see your Mark?”

“Hi. Is your Mark something going through walls?”

“Hi. Have you found your soulmate yet?”

“Can I help you sir?” the voice of their server echoed behind him.

Tamaki whirled around, somehow managing to hit the wall with both of his hands when he did so. He manifested a handful of octopus arms on his right hand and his left arm was covered with fish scales. The last time he’d lost control like that his voice had still been cracking.

“I… I… uh…” he looked at the floor desperately, trying to pull himself together. Mirio was not going to ask, but someone had to ask. And that was more important than Tamaki’s fear.

Setting the tray she was carrying on a nearby counter, the server ushered him behind a curtain.

“I’m sorry, but my Mark isn’t anything like your Quirk,” she said kindly. “It is neat though, both of us having octopus-type things.”

He shook his head, looking at her shoes. “It… it’s not me,” he exhaled. “It’s my friend. The blonde one… at the table.”

He looked up just in time to see her blush. “Oh! Well, then… I best just show you.” She turned around and pulled her shirt up in the back. Her Mark was under the clasp of her bra, and Tamaki could feel the heat sizzling off of his ears. He’d never noticed a girl before, never really noticed anyone before, except for the one person he wasn’t supposed to notice, but the line of her spine was indisputably gorgeous and her muscles moved fluidly as she unhooked the clasp.

Tamaki couldn’t focus enough to tell what her Mark was exactly but there was flickering fire, and some kind of… ferret running around it?

“So?” the server asked, trying to look over her shoulder.

“No it’s… not his Quirk,” Tamaki sighed, still looking at her back. Relief streamed down his body into a deep pool of guilt.

A gust of air from the curtain opening was all that signaled Mirio’s arrival.

“Tamaki!” he grinned just a little bit too wide. Their server fumbled with her bra and pulled down her shirt. “You weren’t in the bathroom.”

“Sorry,” their server turned around, her cheeks pink, “you and I aren’t soulmates. Nice to meet you, though. You don’t need to be shy about someone’s Mark — you can always just ask!”

Mirio grabbed Tamaki by the arm and pulled him close. “Yeah, you’re right. I just have some hangups when it comes to soulmates, I guess. Well. See you back at the table!” He waved and laughed, leading Tamaki straight past the bathroom and out the door.

They ended up behind the restaurant, right next to a dumpster. Mirio wasn’t laughing anymore. Although he didn’t look mad he didn’t exactly look happy, either.

“Tamaki, ah… can you not ever do that again?”

A frozen spike of mortification pierced Tamaki’s heart, but this was more important than his feelings.

“You needed to ask her… and you wouldn’t,” he lifted his chin a little, looking Mirio in the eyes.

Mirio shrugged, “I’m not really interested in girls.”

“You’re not interested in anyone!” the words sounded a lot harsher than Tamaki wanted them to, but it had taken a lot of work to force them out of his chest.

“Neither are you,” Mirio tipped his head. “There are plenty of people who don’t care about soulmates. Don’t think I don’t know that a few of them have asked you out.”

“I care, Mirio.”

There was a long moment when Mirio didn’t say anything, then he started to scale the side of the dumpster with a frenetic energy that Tamaki was very familiar with.

“It’s funny, Midoriya’s known his soulmate since they were in Pre-K,” Mirio laughed. “They fight all the time, it’s the craziest thing. They’re not together, they’re barely even friends. And maybe in some other world they could be, but not this one. They’d tear each other to pieces. Right now Midoriya’s got a crush on Endeavor’s kid and Ura—”

“They’re not you, Mirio.”

Mirio launched himself from the side of the dumpster and landed right in front of Tamaki. Their faces were centimeters apart.

“Tamaki. Do you know how much I don’t care that we’re not soulmates?” he asked.

Tamaki’s face flushed and he looked at his feet.

“About… as much as I do care,” he muttered to the ground.

“Tamaki, I’d really appreciate it if you stayed off of those message boards,” Mirio said from his shower stall.

“I’m taking a shower, I’m not on a message board,” Tamaki replied flatly, trying for the third time to wash the mud, slime, and who knew what else out of his thick hair. He hated public showers about as much as he hated taking extra ones, but here he was anyway.

The only reason he was here at all was because Sir Nighteye’s office (probably Mirio specifically) had requested his encyclopedic knowledge of animals for an investigation involving a network of wildlife traffickers. Fatgum had insisted Tamaki leave right away so he could take his annual three-day compulsory leave beforehand, in the company of his friends. After six years, Tamaki was less his sidekick and more his partner, but he still went where Fatgum told him.

This afternoon was the first time he and Mirio had ever worked side-by-side as pro heroes and the situation had been little more than crowd control. With the excuse of getting him re-acquainted with the city, Mirio insisted Tamaki come a day early. They had been on patrol when a fire hydrant had exploded in a fountain of mud, and a drain started spewing ooze into the middle of traffic. The mess, the result of a disgruntled salaryman, had taken hours to contain. By the time it had ended, Tamaki was covered in so much grime he could barely move. Their mandatory leave started the next day and he found himself a lot more grateful for it than he had been a few hours previous.

Well, that was if he could somehow avoid the conversation that was happening at that very moment.

In the next stall, Mirio laughed at his words, the sound echoing against the tile walls, “Fair enough! But I saw your laptop opened up to one before we left my place this morning. I told you already, I don’t care who my soulmate is. I want to be with—”

“I care,” Tamaki insisted a little louder than was necessary. “You deserve someone who’s going to fully understand you and… AGH!”

“That’s you,” Mirio’s voice was level and serious. “You understand me. You’re my best friend! I want to be with you, Tamaki.”

“Mirio, there is not enough room in this stall for two people.”

Phasing the back half of his body, Mirio took a step into the wall. “Better?”

“We’re… still naked,” Tamaki said to his feet, hoping the hot water was disguising his blush.

“Well I’m pretty certain you could draw this,” Tamaki peeked up to see Mirio flexing, the octopus on his chest still eternally devouring itself, “from memory.” His voice softened a little, “And I’m only looking at your face.” 

“We are in a police station. People could… come in at any time. The gossip alone…”

“Let ‘em talk!” Mirio lifted up his chin and grinned down at him. After a brief moment, his smile faltered into something much smaller. “Okay, I’m sorry. You’ve just never really answered me… and I don’t mean to pressure you into it, but just don’t look up that stuff for me, okay? We can agree to disagree, but I’m not looking for my soulmate, wherever they are. We both know what I want, and I don’t need you to try and change my mind.”

“But Mirio…”

“Tamaki, please. I won’t try to change your mind either, okay? A friendly impasse!”

“Okay, but… only if you let me wash my hair in peace.”

With an exaggerated jump backwards, Mirio phased back into his own shower and started singing some pop idol’s song at the top of his lungs.

Their showers finished almost simultaneously and they stepped out of the curtains at nearly the same moment. Mirio had phased the water off his body, leaving himself completely dry, hair in a fluffy cloud over his head. Tamaki’s own hair dragged over his neck like a sodden cat, just as unmanageable. Even after wringing it out, it dripped in long streams down his back. He needed to wrap it up, but he only had the one small towel and he needed that to try to dry his body.

A soft weight landed on top of his head, and then Mirio was crossing behind him to redress in his completely clean hero costume. He was right, Tamaki didn’t even bat an eye at his nudity when they weren’t face to face in a small enclosed space, but there were other forms of intimacy to be wary of. Tamaki squeezed the fabric of the towel, remembering dozens of other towels Mirio had draped over him when the sun was hot and his hair was wet and he didn’t want to be seen.

He rubbed the terrycloth through the mass of his hair, trying to focus on the terrible yellow jumpsuit the police had provided for him while his hero costume was taken to a specialized laundromat. He was going to look like a criminal that Lemillion was escorting somewhere, and everyone was going to watch. He’d grown more accustomed to being seen in public as Suneater, but Amajiki Tamaki still didn’t particularly enjoy people staring at him. 

“I’m gonna need to grow out my hair for a new costume. Or at least new boots,” Mirio grumbled next to him. “These ones barely fit over my calves anymore.”

“Are you honestly complaining about the size of your calves?” Tamaki pulled on the cheap boxers left for him that had, thankfully, come brand new out of the package.

“No! My calves are magnificent! But growing out my hair so quick makes my head feel weird.”

The boxers were several sizes too small. The band dug into Tamaki’s skin and infinitesimal ego. Behind him, he could hear Mirio choking back his laughter.

“Just laugh,” Tamaki turned around, leaving the towel hanging over his face. “I have… a muffin top.” 

Mirio guffawed, falling backwards off of the bench. And Tamaki couldn’t help it, he laughed too. Because the boxers were ridiculous and Mirio was filling the locker room with infectious energy. When it came down to it, Tamaki couldn’t help but laugh easily, even at himself, when they were together.

His heart clenched with the realization that the job wouldn’t be forever. He’d have to go back to Osaka. They’d be back to exhausted video calls and stolen weekends in the middle of the week. To sending each other dumb presents in the mail, and planning holidays so they could see their families at the same time.

To long distance.

Friendship.

Long distance friendship. 

“Did you know? It’s really lucky the three of us got put on mandatory leave at the same time!”

Hadou leaned forward on the table, swirling the small bit of beer that remained in her glass. “I’ve only drank once or twice, and that was wine with Ryukyu at fancy events.” She smiled to herself a little and her cheeks turned pink before she shook her head and went on. “I’ve never really let loose before! I’ve always been worried because of my Quirk, y’know?”

“I know!” Mirio leaned forward, his own beer in hand. He’d only had three, but his face was red as an apple. “What if I end up in somebody’s house by accident? I’d be naked, and probably asleep, and I don’t think anybody’d be happy with that.” He laughed so loudly the glasses rattled. Then he scooted over on the bench and bumped into Tamaki as he put his arm around his shoulders, “Guess we’ll have to trust seasoned drinker Suneater over here to keep us in line!”

“Wait, just… look at this,” Tamaki held up his hand, trying to divert their attention. For once he wasn’t that embarrassed by Mirio’s ridiculous praise, but deflecting it was a habit that was difficult to break.

Admittedly, he was feeling pretty good. And he had, also admittedly, drunk twice as much as either of them. But his body processed alcohol very quickly, and he’d spent enough time at the izakaya with Fat and Kirishima that it wasn’t even close to his first time. He wasn’t drunk, definitely not drunk. A drunk person absolutely could not do what he was doing.

But he was feeling good. 

“Hey! Amajiki, what’s that?” Hadou’s eyes crossed as she poked the long green vine growing out of Tamaki’s hand. It twined artfully around the beer bottles in the center of the table. Small puffy flowers that looked vaguely like pale green pinecones sprouted underneath the dark green leaves to dangle heavily from the vine.

Mirio was sitting closer than he usually sat. Tamaki could feel the heat from his body at the points where they touched. The weight from Mirio’s arm was heavy on his shoulders, but it was okay. They could sit close. All the reasons why they couldn’t do this seemed kind of stupid, now that Tamaki considered them. It was very nice when Mirio was sitting close like this. Tamaki couldn’t think of anything he’d rather be doing.

“I’ve never seen you manifest this one before, Tamaki!” Mirio poked at the little flower. “What is it?”

“Hops. From the beer,” Tamaki broke off the vine at his skin and let the stump fade away. He might have leaned into Mirio, just a little.

Mirio might have leaned back.

“Wait, Amajiki, are you…?” Hadou started giggling. Mirio couldn’t know what she was giggling about — Tamaki definitely didn’t — but despite that, he started giggling too. His arm around Tamaki’s shoulders fell down around his waist. In very little time, the two incredibly lightweight heroes sloshed their refilled drinks and laid their heads on the table, cracking up.

“Oh!” Hadou eventually shot back up. “You’re showing off, Amajiki! Did you know, I’ve never seen you show off before ever? Sometimes you don’t even manifest things that would make stuff easier cause you don’t want people to see.”

There was a part of Tamaki who knew he should probably be embarrassed. But that part was sleepy, and really, he was grateful that it was getting some rest.  

“Stop it,” he said halfheartedly, pouring himself another drink. This was the last one. Hadou had someone meeting her and Tamaki had to get Mirio back to his apartment. Mirio was heavy and not always easy to hold onto, so Tamaki had to have most of his senses intact.

Hadou didn’t stop. She chattered on about what Tamaki had been like at UA, and how Twitter described him now, and how he really was quite the heartthrob in certain circles and a lot of other things that the sleepy part of Tamaki was ready to die over. But the rest of Tamaki was okay with just ignoring her.

“Tamaki.”

He turned to find Mirio leaning his cheek on his hand, smiling at him. His other arm was still wrapped around Tamaki’s waist, fingers tapping against the fabric of his cardigan.

“Yeah?”

“You—”

“Oh!” Hadou jumped to her feet, holding her phone and dancing excitedly. “She’s outside! Oh! How do I look? Is my makeup, okay? She’s so pretty and she doesn’t care about soulma— well, anyway, I really like her, I really like her a lot!”

Hadou really liked a lot of people. It was very endearing.

“Hadou, you are the most beautiful woman I know!” Mirio phased his arm through Tamaki and the table in order to brandish it at her.

“Your lipstick’s worn off,” Tamaki said, then stood up. “Here, I’ll… uh… put it on so you can go right away.” 

She stood on her tiptoes as Tamaki carefully swept the bubblegum pink over her lips. As soon as he was done, she blotted on a napkin, then gathered her bag and left, yelling her goodbyes over her shoulder.

“Tamaki.”

Mirio’s voice was so close, almost in Tamaki’s neck. Instead of jarring, it was just kind of funny. Tamaki felt soft, malleable. He curved into the sound, waiting for whatever else it was that Mirio had to say.

“I didn’t know you knew how to do makeup.”

Tamaki turned around just a bit too fast, so he grabbed onto Mirio to hold himself upright.

“Thought I knew everything about you, Tamaki, but you just keep on surprising me.”

Mirio was the perfect height. Tamaki had definitely had this thought before, but he hadn’t really allowed himself to entertain the whole thing until now. Mirio was tall enough that Tamaki would have to reach to put his arms over his shoulders, but not so tall that it would be a stretch.

Perfect.

“I have a sister,” Tamaki said, their faces close. “Don’t you remember makeover nights? I just got good at them.”

They both took a breath of the same air.

“Let’s pay the bill.”

“Remember that time when we were twelve and we went to see your aunt in the country?”

Mirio’s head was thrown back and he was staring at the sky. Tamaki was holding onto his elbow to keep him from walking into a building or off the sidewalk. They’d been laughing and jostling each other the entire walk back from the izakaya, but now Mirio’s building was just a few doors away.

“Yeah,” Tamaki bumped into him, and when he stepped away they were closer than they had been before. “Why though?”

“I just…” Mirio stopped walking completely and pointed at the sky, “if you look real hard you can see a star up there. And I remember, there were a million of em, and we were lying on that hill and it felt like it was just us… and… just, we were in space, but just us. Together.”

Tamaki felt warm all over, and he bumped into Mirio again. When he pulled away, the distance between them was completely gone.  

“I remember,” he said, noticing just how plump Mirio’s lips were before he met his eyes. “A spider bit you four times.”

“Actually,” Mirio started to laugh, putting his forehead on Tamaki’s shoulder, “I’d forgotten about that part!”

His words had a glowing haze around them, and they tickled Tamaki’s ears. He couldn’t help but laugh too. The ever-present voices saying, “Everyone is watching,” and “You are going to make a mistake,” were asleep. Without them, his head was blessedly clear. Being with Mirio was playing tag in a familiar park on a summer day, his head buzzing with excitement, sun on the back of his neck, the sound of cicadas everywhere. It wasn’t something to avoid.

Mirio lifted his head, still chuckling. They were centimeters apart. His breath ghosted across Tamaki’s cheek. Tamaki looked at his lips just as Mirio bit them.

“You know, I’ve never kissed anybody before,” Mirio said softly, still laughing a little.

“Me either,” Tamaki said.

And then he kissed him. 

Mirio didn’t even reach into his pocket for his keys, he just phased his hand through the door and then turned the knob from the inside.

His other hand was in Tamaki’s, fingers laced, sweaty palms sliding together. They hadn’t held hands in about fourteen years. Back then it had only been when Tamaki was panicking too much to see where he was going.

Tonight he hadn’t needed that kind of guidance to go up the stairs to Mirio’s apartment, but he still hadn’t let go. And now here they were.

Mirio pulled Tamaki in behind him, their bodies bumping together when they met halfway. The door closed itself loudly. They took off their shoes much too far into each other’s personal space to be able to pretend something wasn’t about to happen.

“Do you really want to?” Mirio asked quietly, taking Tamaki’s hand and worrying the skin with his broad thumb. His breath smelled sweetly of beer, and a curl of his hair had fallen down on his forehead.

And there had been reasons, but they were ridiculous, and Tamaki didn’t care about them anymore. Not as long as Mirio was here. Not as long as…

“Do you?” he dodged the question.

Mirio chuckled lowly, and clumsily reached out to brush a strand of Tamaki’s bangs out of his eye. “Yeah,” he licked his lips as his voice cracked. “You could say that.”

“Then…” Tamaki squeezed Mirio’s hand, “yes… yeah, I… I do.”

He looked up just in time to see Mirio smile wide enough to break the world apart. He pulled Tamaki to his chest in a tight hug, then pushed him back by the shoulders so they could look at each other.

“You should know, I’m pretty inexperienced for a twenty-four-year-old.”

“Mirio,” Tamaki leaned forward, pressing their bodies together, “depending on the day, you’re the top pro hero in the country.” 

Their lips were so close Tamaki could feel Mirio’s words before they left his mouth.

“Don’t tell Endeavor, but I don’t ever save anybody like this.”

Tamaki wrapped his arms around Mirio’s neck as their lips met for the second time. His second kiss, ever. He didn’t know what he was doing, but the alcohol made it easy to try. Their lips moved against each other’s slowly, then Mirio’s tongue was sliding along his bottom lip and Tamaki’s mouth opened. Something loosened in his mind and he pulled their faces tightly together, lacing his fingers through Mirio’s hair.

They stumbled through the apartment as they kissed, bouncing against walls until they found their way into the kitchen. Mirio pinned him against the cabinets, attacking his neck with sloppy open-mouthed kisses as he lifted Tamaki up and sat him on the countertop. Their lips met again, noses squashing against each other as Mirio slid Tamaki’s cardigan down his arms, then pulled his shirt over his head. In the process he knocked a few dirty cups off the counter, but Tamaki caught them with octopus arms and dropped them in the sink.

“Tamaki,” Mirio sighed against his neck, “you’re amazing.”

He pulled back, and tilted his head as he looked at Tamaki, shirtless and blushing on the counter. “Will you let me tell you how gorgeous you are?” he asked hopefully, running his fingers back through his own hair.

Tamaki crossed his arms and slid down to his feet. There was no amount of alcohol on earth that could make that not embarrassing.

“No no! Tamaki!” Mirio reached for him. “I just… I’ve tried really hard not to look for a really long time and—”

Tamaki tried to kiss him to shut him up, but ended up just kissing his jaw. Mirio started to laugh and Tamaki felt even more embarrassed, but it came with a strange, dizzy sort of softness. He buried his head in Mirio’s chest but then somehow he was laughing too.

“I’m still thinking it, you know!” Mirio wrapped his hands around Tamaki’s waist. His fingertips were rough, and the way they grazed against Tamaki’s skin made the back of his head tingle. Mirio dragged his hands up the line of Tamaki’s spine until his fingers slid past his neck and buried in his hair. Tamaki tilted his head back, and then they were kissing again, slowly fumbling their way into Mirio’s bedroom. 

Mirio tripped over the carpet and they tumbled backwards onto the floor. Tamaki tried to catch them, but they ended up on the ground in a heap of limbs and suckered arms.

“Welcome to my room!” Mirio moved his leg out of Tamaki’s armpit and unstuck his elbow from an octopus arm. He was laughing again at his own dumb half-joke. Tamaki was laughing too, even though it was only a little bit funny. They couldn’t seem to stop laughing for more than a minute at a time. 

Sitting up on Mirio’s hips, Tamaki began unbuttoning Mirio’s shirt from both the top and bottom with the octopus arms he’d grown on one hand.

“You’re so beautiful, Tamaki,” Mirio watched him, fascinated. “Your face, it’s just perfect.”

Tamaki tucked his head into his shoulder in embarrassment while he tried to slide the shirt down Mirio’s arms. As soon as Mirio’s arms were liberated, he wrapped his hands around Tamaki’s back and reversed their positions. He went too far and rolled off of Tamaki and bumped into his bed. Chuckling, he rose back up into an unsteady crouch, then slid his arms under Tamaki’s knees and back to lift him as he stood.

Their eyes met, the room spinning around them. Mirio’s gaze was soft and his lips parted invitingly with every breath he took. Everything Tamaki hadn't let himself want, captured in a single hazy moment.

He landed on the bed, Mirio on top of him before he could even catch his breath. Tamaki scrabbled at his back as they kissed, digging at the fabric of Mirio’s undershirt. He kept trying to pull it up and over, but he couldn’t manage it, so he slid his hands underneath instead, feeling the broad expanse of Mirio’s skin.

“You’re warm,” he said as Mirio pulled back to kiss down his neck, then to his chest, clumsily fumbling with his nipples. It didn’t matter how clumsy, his touch sent a jolt to Tamaki’s dick and he gasped. Looking up, Mirio gave a thrilled smile as he thumbed Tamaki’s nipple again. Then he kissed it. Tamaki squirmed underneath him and succeeded in rubbing his crotch against Mirio’s thigh.

Mirio bit down and Tamaki’s back arched off the bed.

“Please,” he mumbled, head spinning with want, “Mirio, please.” He wasn’t even certain what he was asking for. Every kiss was new, every touch foreign territory. The gasps Mirio was pulling from him were sounds that had never existed before.

Mirio sat back, rising to his knees and leaning forward, phasing out of his pants while catching his boxers just at the right moment so they didn’t fall. He wobbled a little and had to prop himself against the wall. He was hard, and there was a spot of wet on his boxers that made the pink of his skin visible in the light from the street. He was still wearing his tank top, and Tamaki wanted it off. But then Mirio was attacking the button and zipper of Tamaki’s jeans and he couldn’t think about anything but the almost painful friction of his dick against his pants as Mirio got him out of them.

Throwing his jeans off the bed, Mirio sat up as though he was just realizing what they were about to do.

“Tamaki, are you sure—?”

Tamaki sat up, grabbed Mirio around the neck, then pulled him down into a desperate kiss.

They rolled back and forth across the bed, grinding into each other, hands roaming. Mirio accidentally pulled on Tamaki’s hair, and the feeling was so overwhelmingly good that Tamaki broke their kiss to cry out.

“Mirio. Mirio. Mirio. Please,” Tamaki’s hands scrabbled at the sheets. He tried to pull Mirio into another kiss, but Mirio was climbing across him to his messy bedside table, opening the drawer, and knocking several things out of it before he found what he wanted.

It was lube.

Tamaki grabbed Mirio by the neck of his tank top and pulled him into another kiss. Mirio struggled a little bit, then rose up to his knees. His eyebrows were furrowed and his chest was heaving as he reached for the band of Tamaki’s underwear and slid it down his legs. Then he lowered himself to Tamaki’s side, cradling his jaw in his hand as he kissed him. There was too much teeth, and Mirio’s elbow was jabbing Tamaki’s ribs, but it didn’t matter. He wanted to dissolve into vapor, so Mirio could breathe him in.

Finally letting go, Mirio opened the bottle and poured it into his palm, then reached down and wrapped his hand around Tamaki’s dick. The lube was cold, and Tamaki jumped, but the temperature evened out quickly. Then Mirio’s hand was moving and Tamaki was thrusting into it without even realizing.

He looked up to find Mirio watching him with the softest expression he had ever seen.

And it was too much, so Tamaki grabbed him and pulled him down. Manifesting octopus arms, he felt for the lube, while tugging down Mirio’s boxers with the other hand. He rolled them both on their sides, then poured lube into his own palm and reached out to take Mirio in his hand. Mirio was thicker, and he didn’t curve the same way, and the angle was backwards, but Tamaki did his best, holding onto Mirio’s tank top to keep them both on their sides.

“Oh god, oh Tamaki,” Mirio whimpered into his mouth. He reached his hand out, fingers stuttering across Tamaki’s hip as he pressed their bodies together. He covered Tamaki’s hand with his own, sloppily jerking them at the same time. The room was spinning in time with their feverish kisses. Tamaki’s hand in Mirio’s shirt was the only thing keeping him from flying apart.

Mirio stiffened first, making a choked sound into Tamaki’s mouth. Without a moment’s hesitation, he kept his hand moving and focused only on Tamaki, hazy eyes staring down as Tamaki fell on his back and arched off the bed, the world exploding into a hot, white supernova. 

He woke up in Mirio’s arms.

Between the two of them, Tamaki was the heavier sleeper, but after drinking he always woke with the sun. Mirio was still fast asleep, snoring into Tamaki’s neck, thick arms wrapped around Tamaki’s waist. And they were both naked, except for the tank top Mirio had somehow managed to keep on.

The one covering up his Mark.

Tamaki wanted to puke. His skin was clammy, and his heart wasn’t beating evenly. Every part of him that Mirio’s body touched was burning. He had to break free. If he didn’t now, he never would.

Taking shallow hushed breaths to keep from disturbing Mirio more than he already needed to, Tamaki slowly wiggled himself loose. Without a shoulder to rest his head on, Mirio cuddled into the pillow, murmuring something that a masochistic part of Tamaki thought sounded like his name.

His underwear were in a pile on the floor, and he found his jeans at the bottom of the bed, his wallet and phone somehow still in the pockets. As he struggled into his clothes, he recalled a fuzzy memory of his shirt ending up in the kitchen. He then realized with a bit more clarity that Mirio had stripped it off on the countertop.

All of the embarrassment he hadn’t felt the previous evening slammed into him at once. They’d… the two of them… they’d… Tamaki wasn’t even supposed to think about things like that, and they’d… they’d more than just thought about it.

They’d done it.

His shirt was in the sink and his cardigan was in the garbage. With shaking hands, he put them both in a plastic bag to wash later. The shaking got worse as he scrounged through his luggage to find something else to wear. There was a note on the suitcase reminding him to pick up his cleaned hero costume at some point in time during the day.

He’d have to do that after he found a hotel room.

In the bathroom mirror, the bright white light brought out the bags under his eyes. Nothing about him looked any different. There wasn’t anything to indicate that he had just done the worst thing he’d ever done in his life. That he’d betrayed his best friend. That he’d stolen something irreplaceable from him.

Somehow he managed to keep from throwing up.

Mirio’s couch was comfortable, but he wished it wasn’t. He couldn’t, shouldn’t be comfortable while he waited. He frantically refreshed the Twitter that he didn’t even use, trying to burn up some time. He dreaded the moment when Mirio would wake up, while simultaneously hoping it would come more quickly.

At some point in time, Hadou had sent him several messages on Line, mostly semi-inappropriate recollections of her date the night before. In a fit of madness, he sent her a message in response. 

>>can we get lunch today?

<<Yes! But why? Weren’t you and Mirio spending the day together? And why are you up so early? Amajiki, did you know this seems really suspicious.

>>please hadou.

<<Okay but you have to explain and also help me look at locations for our agency. Also!!! I’m really worried!!!!

“Good morning!”

Tamaki looked up from his phone at the sound, expecting the world to fall apart when he did. Everything stayed firmly in place, it was just his head that was spinning. Mirio was standing right outside of his bedroom door. His hair was sticking out on one side, his eyes sticky with sleep. And he was smiling. Smiling so wide.

“Just gimme a sec,” he ran towards the bathroom. “Then I’m gonna make you breakfast!”

It really was just a second. There was only a moment for Tamaki’s choking panic to escalate, before Mirio was out of the bathroom and behind the counter of his kitchen, rummaging around in the cabinets for a frying pan. He was giving Tamaki a wide berth, like he was waiting for him to come to him on his own terms. But it was impossible to ignore the manic nervous energy that filled the space between them.

“I usually only make eggs,” Mirio started to babble. “I’m not a great cook like you! But I can make em pretty good. Is that okay? I think I have some natto, maybe. Or we could go out if you want! Anything you want!”

He opened the refrigerator, pulling out a carton of eggs, then cracked at least seven in a bowl. After that, he seemed confused, as though he’d forgotten what to do next. He picked up the frying pan and started to flip it, handle spinning in his calloused palm.

“Oh! This is pretty cool: so dad sent me this thing that—”

“Mirio,” Tamaki’s voice was raspy.

Mirio’s fingers phased through the frying pan handle and it flew across the kitchen, crashing into the refrigerator.

“Sorry,” he laughed sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “I guess I don’t really know how to do… this…”

There were so many different ways to start this conversation, and all of them were slamming into each other in Tamaki’s head. He was Mirio’s best friend. He had hurt him, and he was about to hurt him even more deeply. He couldn’t escape those things. But, even if he was a terrible one, he was still a hero, and heroes didn’t falter when it was their responsibility to act.

“This… shouldn’t have happened.”

Mirio’s head tipped, and his chin tucked into his neck, much the same way he would have moved if he were taking a punch to the face.

“Oh.”

His voice was terrifyingly light. After a long moment, he exhaled into a strangled high-pitched laugh. And then, as though he were struck with a terrifying realization, his face dropped.

“Tamaki, I am so sorry. I took advantage, I…”

Tamaki stood up, crossing half the distance to the kitchen.

“N-no! I knew exactly… exactly what I was doing. I just shouldn’t… shouldn’t have done it.” This was the point where he was supposed to sit down, and explain for the fortieth time why things would never work. But he couldn’t. He didn’t have the strength.

“I’m sorry, but I’ve got to, Mirio… I can’t stay. I’ve got to go.”

“But Tamaki…”

He gathered his suitcase, and threw on his shoes. Everything was blurry, and the floor was shifting underneath his feet. Mirio was behind him somewhere. Was he arguing? Was he silent? Tamaki’s ears weren’t working.

A dizzy haze overwhelmed him as he stumbled out of the apartment, a caricature of the way he’d come in.

The world was flat, the warmth of the sun’s light drained away. Tamaki should have just called a cab, but even on a good day the prospect of doing so was daunting. Today it was impossible. The entire world was hovering over his shoulders, leering at him. People on the street all knew who he was, and worse they knew what he had done. It was written all over his face. He should have worn his hoodie, but it was summer and he’d probably stick out that way even more.

As he made his way to the train station, the sound of the wheels of his suitcase echoed loudly behind him. He wasn’t too far away from downtown, and he knew that he could easily get a room at the first hotel he saw, but what was he supposed to say at the desk? They’d know, they’d just know and somehow Mirio would be dragged into the spotlight.

He was being paranoid. Biting hard on the inside of his cheek, he tried to focus on the moment.

But the moment was almost beyond what he had the capacity to bear.

Mirio had wanted him to stay. And Tamaki had wanted to, wanted to desperately. To eat breakfast together, to talk, to feel their knees bump against each other underneath the table, for their hands to touch… for… so much. Now that he’d felt those things, now that he’d let himself feel them, his desire for more intimacy roared.

Immediate distance was the only solution.

Because Mirio deserved better. His soulmate. Somewhere out there was a person who could understand him better than anyone else. Someone who wasn’t a coward despite years of therapy and pro hero career. Someone talented and attractive. A person who could love Mirio the way he deserved to be loved.

The way Tamaki would never be able to.

“You chicken-hearted idiot!” Hadou pounded her small fist on the table.

Too far gone to feel further embarrassment, Tamaki buried his head into his arms.

The booth they were seated at was in a far corner of the restaurant. It was secluded, but that didn’t mean people couldn’t overhear the fifth and seventh top heroes in the country having an explosive argument. An argument because number seven had slept with number one. Or two. It was difficult to keep track from day to day, especially with Deku creeping up from the number three position.

“I know…” Tamaki managed to pull words out of the freezing hollow of his chest. “I was weak. I shouldn’t have… I just let it happen. I never even thought to stop. I didn’t want to stop…”

“Are you kidding me?” Hadou slammed her hands down again, the table vibrating from the slight activation of her Quirk. “Amajiki, you’re so…”

“Terrible.”

Her hand scrabbled under his chin, lifting his head to briefly hold eye contact. “Do you know, I’m not sure! But if you are, it’s not for the reasons you think.” 

Tamaki sat up and stared at his hands. “I told you, I ruined the most important thing in my life. I did the one thing I… swore I’d never do. Mirio deserves so much… so much better, and I…”

“Hey! Amajiki! I don’t know what you’re thinking, but Togata is in love with you!”

The whole room seemed to fall silent, the sound of her voice reverberating against the sides of the booth until it filled Tamaki’s ears. A cacophony of the last thing on earth he wanted to hear.

“Oh my,” her jaw dropped. “Amajiki, how can this be news to you?”

“I’m not… the person he should be with.”

He angry face softened into a more neutral expression, then she took a deep breath, exhaling into a long sigh. She reached across the table and took his hand, cradling it in her much smaller one. They sat like that for a long moment. 

“Don’t you get it?” she rubbed her thumb across his palm. “I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about him. I’m talking about what he wants.”

Pulling his hand away, Tamaki shook his head. “Somewhere… somewhere out there, is someone who can love him the way he deserves to be loved.”

Hadou’s expression was unreadable. She sat with her hands palm up on the table, as though she were waiting for Tamaki to give her something. Then, without a word, she turned to her side and lifted the hem of her shirt until her ribs were visible. She hitched the fabric of her shirt in her hand and positioned herself so Tamaki could easily see. No one in the restaurant seemed to notice or care what was going on.

Tamaki had never seen her Mark. None of the girls at UA had ever mentioned it. That wasn’t overly strange. Some people were very private about what they had, though Hadou had never really struck him as one of those people. He’d never asked about it, though. It seemed impolite, especially since he didn’t want anyone to ever ask about his.

Laying his trembling hands on the table, he looked up at the colors splashed across her pale skin.

It was a book, old and leather bound. From its open pages, beautiful, vibrant flowers were in various stages of bloom.

They weren’t moving.

“Did you know?” she dropped her shirt and turned to face him. “You’re not the only one who doesn’t have a soulmate?”

“I…”

“The flowers used to bloom and wither when the pages turned. I think she could grow things if she read about them? Or something? Well, actually I don’t know if my soulmate was a girl or not, but I used to imagine she was because I really like girls! I was fourteen when my Mark stopped moving. I don’t know when it actually happened, I just noticed after my shower one day. Do you know, I used to go to the shrine and pray that her death was easy? I don’t even think you can pray for things that have already happened, but I did.” 

“Hadou, I’m… so sorry.”

“Hey, do you think I’ll never find anyone else who can love me?”

The coldness that had gathered in Tamaki’s chest spread through his entire body until he could feel the chill in his ankles. Her words slammed into his previous thoughts, and the two ideas repelled each other like magnets. Mirio deserved the most amazing person in the world, the person who would suit him more than anyone else. But Hadou deserved happiness. She could find it, if anyone could. She had to be right, but Tamaki was also right. They couldn’t both be right but they were.

“This isn’t about what Togata needs,” Hadou took Tamaki’s hand again. “You know it definitely isn’t about what he wants. I’m pretty certain it’s about who you think you are.”

He spent nearly all of the next three days in his hotel room.

It would have been preferable to not leave at all, but he had responsibilities. He still needed to work out, even if he was theoretically on “compulsory leave to support mental resilience in young heroes.” Hadou had also ended up dragging him to a few potential rental locations for her and Uraraka’s hero agency. He fought hard to stay in but in the end having something to do helped with the hollow freezing he felt in his chest whenever he thought about Mirio. As it turned out, his outsider perspective helped in negotiations, since Hadou wanted to know about every single bizarre building scenario known to man, and Uraraka only cared about the price.

Mirio texted him just once, to let him know the location of the task force’s first meeting on Thursday. It hadn’t been overly formal, there was even a smiley face, but it managed to be both too much and not enough. It came bright and early on the second day, and after reading it Tamaki didn’t even bother to shower. Or leave the room. Or eat more than the bare minimum required to keep from getting sick.

In a moment of either great strength or great weakness, he texted his therapist in Osaka. That led to a video call, even though Tamaki smelled bad and the room was darkened, curtains drawn. She was surprised when he brought up soulmates, since he had avoided discussing them at all costs before. He still didn’t want to talk about them, but as it turned out, he couldn’t help it this time.

Close to the end, she leaned on her hand and asked him if he thought he was turning his lack of a Mark into more of a problem than it was. She asked if maybe he was catastophizing, number four on a list of cognitive distortions he had stuck to his refrigerator. He didn’t know what to say.

Then she asked him to list three good things about himself.

She spent the rest of the session talking him down from a panic attack.

Once the call ended, he turned on the television. Finding a stupid game show, he mindlessly focused on it, pushing down the hollow feeling in his chest until he finally fell asleep.

He spent the last night alone, finding himself at a seafood buffet that was surprisingly good and terrifyingly cheap. Afterwards, he walked through a district peppered with food vendors. Unlike Osaka, no one knew who he was, or noticed that he hadn’t showered in two days. They also didn’t care when he ordered enough takoyaki for three people.

Mirio had planned on taking him here during this trip. They’d visited together before. It was easy to remember what Mirio had been saying as they walked the last time. Too easy. No matter how hard he tried, Tamaki couldn’t stop thinking about the smile on Mirio’s face, the warmth of his hand as it had rested on Tamaki’s shoulder.

How happy he’d been. How happy they’d both been.

Throwing his uneaten takoyaki in the trash, he pulled his hood over his head and returned to his hotel room. Once there, he stood in the shower until the temperature of the water matched the freezing in his heart.

“For the sake of familiarity, I’d like us all to go around the table and briefly describe the mechanics of our Quirks,” Sir Nighteye steepled his fingers and swung his gaze sharply across the room. “As I understand, none of us are undercover, so that information is probably already on trading cards somewhere. For convenience, I’ll begin…”

Tamaki had never made a better decision than the choice to include a deep, billowing hood in his hero costume. It hid his face from cameras, crowds, and right now, Mirio, who was sitting straight and proud on Nighteye’s right side. Next to him, Bubble Girl listened intently to the hero’s words, while Centipeder took rapid notes on Nighteye’s left.

The other inhabitants of the room were heroes Tamaki was somewhat familiar with. Mirio and Hadou had talked about them more than enough times. Tamaki tried to pay attention to their self-introductions anyway, but it was hard when his thoughts were sandwiched between the pressure of Mirio’s presence and the terror of Tamaki’s own looming introduction.

In no time at all, the hero in the next seat was launching into a long-winded explanation of his Quirk, and Tamaki was left frantically pulling his thoughts together.

Suneater. I become… no… I can manifest the foods that I… no, the things that I eat. Suneater I am… no, not that… I…

Next to him, the man had finally finished, and everyone was staring. Tamaki wanted to look at Mirio, but instead he focused on a small piece of fluff on the conference table and said:

“Suneater. I… uh…mani…”

He took a deep breath and started again, desperate for words that made sense together.

“I… am what I eat.” 

The whole room burst into laughter. Tamaki’s stomach was going to jump out of his throat from sheer mortification, but no one else seemed to notice. The long-winded hero next to him slapped him on the back as though they were suddenly friends. The entire room thought he was making a joke. The first public joke he’d ever made and it was a complete accident.

Sir Nighteye even seemed affected, straightening his glasses and muttering something that could have been, “clever.” Next to him, Mirio looked worried, but Tamaki only glanced at him for a second before focusing on the table again.

After the room calmed down, the introductions continued until they finally stopped at a young man with a rocklike head. He was sitting across the table from Tamaki and seemed vaguely familiar. He looked just about as nervous as Tamaki felt, although his costume didn’t afford him a place to hide.

“Anima,” his voice was high, and made him seem even younger. “I t-talk to animals. And they listen.” 

Tamaki, who almost exclusively consumed animals to manifest their physical characteristics, wondered who exactly had thought it was a good idea to bring them both together.

The van they drove to the raid location smelled like axel grease.

Tamaki had only been on one real raid before: the one where Mirio had saved a little girl while Nejire and Ryukyu had taken out a yakuza boss. Tamaki hadn’t gotten that far. He’d ended up in the hospital after fighting three henchmen to buy everyone else time.

At least he’d won.

Since this raid was taking place at night, he’d eaten cuttlefish for the use of their strange eyes. There were only so many animals who could see in the dark. Tamaki wasn’t yet to the point where he was willing to eat a cat, though cuttlefish and octopus were arguably more intelligent.

Next to him on one side of the van, Anima was murmuring to what looked to be rats. Tamaki had never eaten a rat before, though they could probably see in the dark. But he’d looked at them too long and Anima was definitely going to realize he was thinking about eating them.

Pulling his gaze away, it accidentally fell on Mirio. Or… Lemillion. Maybe this would be easier if he thought about him as a hero. Lemillion was untouchable, both literally and figuratively. He wasn’t someone who Suneater could consume.

The van turned, then slowed as it drove over uneven ground, before coming to a stop. Inside, the eight heroes looked at each other. There were two teams, each with a focus on a different floor. Six of them were set to secure the ground floor. It was the base of the enormous operation, and where Anima’s rat scouts had indicated the bulk of the animals and villains were located.

The basement was much smaller, with only a few older animals that were likely to see death before they were sold. But the rats had been overcome with a nebulous fear over the smell of blood, of death. Anima hadn’t been able to coax more out of them.

That was where Mirio and Tamaki were assigned.

It made sense. Mirio was at his most powerful when there was solid ground beneath him. Tamaki was versatile, if nothing else. None of the other heroes in their group even stood in the top twenty. Together they could easily infiltrate whatever dangerous situation the basement contained. 

While it was a little reassuring that Sir Nighteye hadn’t used his brilliant mind to figure out what had happened earlier that week, Tamaki had no idea how he and Mirio were supposed to work together. It had been years since they’d gone a day without talking, let alone four nights of tense silence. Now he found himself drawn into Mirio’s gravity, despite himself. He could feel Mirio looking at him as he stared at his feet.

But he clearly wasn’t that aware of what Mirio was doing, because his gentle touch on Tamaki’s shoulder made Tamaki jump, hitting his head against the side of the van. He was the last person there, still sitting while everyone else had climbed out.

“You okay?” Mirio withdrew his hand quickly. His eyes were black pools in the dim light of the van.

“Y-yeah,” Tamaki rose out of his seat for the awkward half-crawl out of the space.

“Alright,” Mirio nodded, jaw set. “Let’s go.”

Seeing through cuttlefish pupils was by far the strangest sensory experience Tamaki had ever had. They detected the polarization of the light, which made surfaces glow with a strange aura beyond shadow or color. He could see dust motes floating in the air of the dark hallway as well as he could if they were dancing in the sunlight. 

“What do you see?” Mirio asked softly.

He’d blinked in surprise when Tamaki’s pupils had shifted into wiggly slits in the red light from the exit sign. His shock had only lasted for a moment, then he’d nodded and phased his head through the stairwell door. His own strange eyes saw in the dark very well, which made him quite stealthy if he wanted to be. When he saw that the coast was clear, he stepped through the door completely. Tamaki pushed the door open gently as he followed, then manifested cuttlefish tentacles to ease it shut without a sound.

“Not much,” he responded.

The basement hallway, other than being very dusty, was dark, with a sliver of light hitting the far wall where the hallway appeared to take a sharp turn. The floor was scattered with the sort of detritus that probably came with moving crates of animals back and forth to the freight elevator.

It was completely silent. The tiny tap of Mirio’s boots against the ground seemed to echo loudly against the walls. Tamaki walked carefully, trying to avoid the broken bits of wood on the ground. His calluses were tough, but a bad enough splinter could put him out of commission completely. Talons were out of the question when they were trying to be quiet.

Flipping back his hood, Tamaki let the manifested ears of a fruit bat take the place of his own. They were enormous, and immediately the sounds of the animals caged ahead became clear. Tamaki put his hand on Mirio’s shoulder to stop him from walking, then stopped his own breathing in order to listen freely, ears flicking forward to catch all the noise.

The humming of machines. They sounded vaguely like the freezers in a grocery store. There was a whir of a few large computers. The fidgeting of several animals, but not many.

No sound of human activity at all.

Opening one of his pouches, he precisely counted out a number of moths. They did not taste very good, were mildly poisonous, and he hated eating Lepidoptera in general, but no olfactory organs could compare. He gathered enough spit in his mouth to swallow them without chewing, then threw his head back and downed them like pills.

As he waited for the moths to make their way to his stomach, he turned to Mirio, who was focused on the end of the hallway.

“I don’t think anyone’s there,” Tamaki said softly, his own voice raucously loud in his ears. “But, I think I smell something.”

The antennae unfurled from the sides of his forehead, then bounced heavily against his hair. Mirio blinked, and then smiled widely. Tamaki had practiced with them before, but never around him, and the sudden warmth at Mirio’s delight was something he couldn’t avoid. But it was quickly forgotten. The overwhelming rush of scents was worse than tasting with octopus suckers. He had practiced sorting them out in the much feebler olfactory center of his brain, but the first wave was almost enough to make him vomit.

Then he smelled it. Blood. Pheromones of fear. Of pain. Of dying. 

“Something terrible is happening up there,” he murmured. Mirio’s eyebrows furrowed.

“And there’s no one there?” he asked.

“Not right now. We should go.”

They rushed forward, rounding the corner to another hallway, this one flush with light. Tamaki could see the angles of the light as it hit every surface in the hallway, and as they glowed against Mirio’s face. It was breathtaking, but he blinked back to his normal eyes so as not to be distracted. They followed the wall, then Mirio slid into it, using the angle to look into the room ahead.

Coast clear, he waved his arm for Tamaki to follow.

The smell that assaulted him when he passed through the doors was unbearable. He unmanifested his antennae immediately, but the smell was still in his throat from his own nose. He gagged. In front of him, Mirio was clenching a wall, taking shallow shuddering breaths with his mouth. Forcing himself upwards, Tamaki looked across the wide room.

There were animals caged on one side. They looked sick and terrified and, with the exception of some puppies and kittens, were all very old. In the center of the room was a long exam table covered with dirty clinical instruments. On the far end were three computers, and behind them were a series of freezers.

“They’re doing experiments,” Mirio whispered, horrified.

Tamaki could barely hear him. The room roared in his ears, the sound of the freezers and computers unbearably loud.

“They’re not going to do any more,” Tamaki dropped his ears, feeling the sound of the room ease back into something bearable.

Just in time to hear, “Is that so?”

As Tamaki spun around, the small metal trashcan that had stood near the entrance rocketed at him with concussive force. He crouched down and caught it easily in his tentacles, though the impact ripped three of them off. Throwing himself upright and slamming the can to the floor, he felt a touch on his arm. There was an enormous weight on his side and then he fell to the ground.

“Nice catch, octopus,” a woman with a pink and white striped face grinned down at him. She reached out and touched Tamaki’s leg, which immediately was so heavy he could barely lift it.

“Sorry fellas, but you’re not gonna get very far throwing things at me,” Mirio said casually, his voice moving steadily toward the hall. “You okay back there, Suneater?”

“Yeah… I’m fine,” Tamaki called back from the ground. The striped woman, whose Quirk seemed to involve weight or gravity, grinned down at him and shook her head. She reached out to touch Tamaki’s hair.

But not quickly enough. In a fluid double manifestation Tamaki’s arm became a tentacle and his leg became an enormous chicken leg. It ripped apart his leotard and sliced away his skirt. But the weight lifted. He rolled away just in time, avoiding what would have doubtlessly been an agonizing way to lose most of his hair. He kicked out his legs, manifesting back his human one as he spun, and flipped up into a standing position.

Somehow the woman was behind him. She touched his shoulders and Tamaki fell to his knees, as though someone had forced him to squat more weight than he could handle. In front of him, he could see Mirio having a conversation with two more villains: a rather nondescript man in black, and a warped looking man with an enormous piston instead of an arm.

“Wait and see what happens,” the woman whispered into his ear.

Mirio was staring directly in the man’s eyes, no doubt trying to gather information before he completely obliterated him. Some villains did like to talk, after all.

But then the man smiled, and the minute movements of Mirio’s body stopped altogether. The woman behind Tamaki touched his back, and he struggled to hold himself up. The piston armed man ran forward and hit Mirio straight in the chest, sending him rocketing across the room and slamming into the wall.

Tamaki manifested wings. Full duck wings, the kind that began at his spine and replaced his shoulders and arms. The kind he could fly with. He slammed the woman in the face with one as it unfurled, then as quickly as they had come, replaced them with tentacles. He bound her hands behind her back and then bound her arms to her side, releasing the two tentacles to free himself. With the ones that were left, he slammed her against the table, knocking her unconscious.

He whirled around to see Mirio slumped, unmoving against the wall where he’d been thrown.

A cage shot across the room, and Tamaki dodged it instead of wasting the energy to stop it. He strode forward, eyes locked on the man who Mirio had been talking to. The piston armed man seemed to have run out of things to throw at him, and he didn’t want to give him the opportunity to run and find something else. 

“What did you do to him?” Tamaki snarled.

The man in black crossed his arms and rocked back on his heels, “Let’s be reasonable. I’d be happy to release him, if you let me get to our data and leave. Please, look at my face, believe me, I’m an honest man.”

Tamaki didn’t look in people’s faces unless they were Mirio, or he had to.

He certainly didn’t have to now.

It took only an instant to wrap them both in tentacles and throw them across the room, the impact of their bodies against the wall instantly knocking them out. Then, spinning out of the shreds of his cloak and skirt, Tamaki ran to Mirio’s side.

Whatever immobilization Quirk the man in black possessed faded as soon as he was knocked unconscious. That meant that by the time Tamaki reached him, Mirio was already unsteadily lifting himself up to lean back against the wall.

His breathing was shallow and quick as he clutched at his chest. His face was white, the skin blue around his lips.

“Never though I’d get a punctured lung,” he coughed as Tamaki knelt down beside him. “Pretty sure I did though.” He shifted and hissed, “Yeah, my rib’s definitely broken. Bubble broke it once, did I ever tell you about that?” 

Tamaki put his hand on his shoulders, trying to keep him still as he rummaged in one of his pouches. “Yes. Stop moving. I’m going to set off the beacon. Someone will be here as soon as they’ve cleared upstairs.”

Mirio smiled hazily at him, “Your costume’s all ripped up. It’s kinda sexy.”

“You’re delirious,” Tamaki tried to hide his blushing face in a hood that was, unfortunately, in a shredded pile across the room.

“With pain, maybe,” Mirio coughed again, then grinned. “You know, I got really hurt in that raid back in high school, but this hurts worse. Maybe it’s because I’m not bleeding to death.”

“You’re going to be fine,” Tamaki awkwardly petted his shoulder.

“Well, it looks like we’ve got some time to talk, at least,” Mirio grabbed his wrist before Tamaki could stop him. “I’m kinda mad you left like that. After everything, you know, we’ve been… well, I guess I just deserved a little explanation? Even if I already kinda knew.”

There was a long, heavy silence filled only by the hum of the freezers.

“Mirio, the fact that… the fact that you love me is stupid,” Tamaki sighed. He should have said it quickly and angrily to make it sound real. But he couldn’t.

“Well, no one’s ever called me the world’s smartest guy,” Mirio threw back his head and laughed. If the weak coughing fit that immediately followed was any indication, he regretted it. Tamaki held his shoulders steady, feeling the strings that remained of his own shredded leotard cutting into his exposed hips.

Another long silence crowded the room. And it was Tamaki’s turn to say something, but he didn’t know what to say. Other than the truth.

“I just wish… you didn’t. I’d make this so much easier.”

“I don’t,” Mirio took his hand. His fingers were cold, or maybe Tamaki’s were just hot.  “Tamaki, I don’t think you get it. I’d love you every time, in every world that could ever happen. But it’s okay. It’s okay that you don’t feel the same.”

Of all the unintentionally cruel things Mirio could possibly say, this was the worst. Tamaki was cut up and bruised, but he wasn’t hurt enough to pretend that his crying was anything other than a complete emotional breakdown. He shuddered, trying to hold his breath to keep in the tears, but he couldn’t.

“That’s not it,” he muttered, somehow trying to breathe and stop at the same time. This was the last thing in the world he wanted to say, the last thing in the world Mirio needed to hear, but he was going to say it. He couldn’t keep it inside for a second longer. 

“I do. I love you, and I shouldn’t. I’ve loved you for ten years… and… every time I see you it gets harder and harder because… I’m not the person you should be with. I don’t deserve you, and you just, can’t see that!”

Mirio shot forward and grabbed Tamaki’s shoulder, unsteadily holding himself up.

“Don’t say that!” his fingers squeezed just a little too hard. Tamaki tried to hold his breath again, to make the tears stop. “Tamaki, you don’t get to decide what I deserve… you…… I………”

Blinking away his tears, Tamaki finally exhaled, trying to follow Mirio’s line of sight. He was looking at the ground, or at Tamaki’s hip? It had to be the lack of oxygen, because whatever he had been staring at, there was nothing there.

Taking a struggling breath, Mirio made intense eye contact.

“Tamaki, you don’t get to tell me what I’m allowed to want. I want you. I’m always gonna want you. And I’ll wait for you until the day when you realize that you deserve happiness. All the happiness in the world, and I don’t even care if it’s with someone other than me. Just… you need to know that you’re worth… everything.”

Somewhere, there were words to argue that Mirio needed to realize that he was better than that, but Tamaki couldn’t find them.

“I don’t care about soulmates, because if you aren’t mine, they don’t mean anything. I love you, Tamaki.”

Tamaki’s thoughts were a car crash. His hands gripped the fabric of his destroyed leotard as he trembled. He didn’t know how to say no anymore. It was hard to remember why he had started. But there was a fragment of him, a desperate, terrified piece, clinging to the roots of his very existence.

It screamed “not enough!”

But perhaps, just for once, it was time to stop listening.

He looked up into Mirio’s eyes. They were soft and vulnerable and Tamaki could see fifteen years of inseparable friendship scattered in their depths. And, maybe the two of them weren’t soulmates, but they were, and always had been, everything to each other. Mirio deserved the world not because he had asked, but because Tamaki wanted it for him. Because he loved him.

“Mirio…” he breathed. “I…”

And that was when the paramedics arrived.

They packed Mirio onto a stretcher, hooking him up to portable oxygen as they made their way out of the room and down the hall towards the elevators. Mirio talked to them a little, but his eyes were constantly searching for Tamaki, until he was taken around the corner and the wheels of the stretcher rattled down the hall.

While animal control removed the cages of animals, a cheerful paramedic sat Tamaki down on a chair to do first aid. He had a few cuts that he hadn’t noticed, but they were bleeding so badly he probably shouldn’t try to walk until they were dealt with. The woman talked as she worked, saying how she appreciated everything heroes did, and her cousin was even one, but Tamaki was in so much turmoil it wasn’t even a challenge to listen. The woman’s words just washed over him.

As the alcohol swab swiped over the cut on Tamaki’s side, he held his breath and bit his lip, focusing on the feeling of control. He exhaled, and then held his breath again, counting the seconds to take the next one. 

The paramedic lightly slapped his leg, bringing his attention back to the present.

“Hey… Suneater, is it?” she grinned up at him. “Wow! I’ve seen a lot of Marks, but I’ve never seen one that only comes out when you hold your breath! How’s your soulmate’s Quirk work, eh? They gotta hold their breath to activate it? And what’s on it? Somebody coming out of a wall? Lucky! What a nifty Quirk!”

Tamaki stood up from the chair, the mostly unattached bandage dangling from his skin.

Falling back a little, the paramedic grinned up at him even wider. “Waaaait… isn’t that what Lemillion…?”

The entire world moved four inches to the right.

“Oi! Wait! Buddy! Suneater! You can’t run off like that! I’m not done with you!”

He ran down the hall, bare feet scuffing against the shattered slats of wood that covered the floor. He manifested chicken feet, doubling his speed as he rounded the first corner and made his way to the stairs. Leaping up three at a time, blood coursed through his ears. His costume shredded with every step he took, until he could feel the chilly night air against his ribs as he threw himself against the door and ran into the parking lot.

Anima was in front of him, surrounded by a crowd of animals so large Tamaki couldn’t make his way through it. But the ambulance was on the other side. Taking a deep breath, Tamaki manifested wings and leapt into the air, flapping awkwardly, then gliding over the young hero’s head, and the animals, who scattered on the other side when he landed.

Everyone was looking, and he was wearing next to nothing, but he didn’t care.

One of the doors to the ambulance was open, the paramedics talking softly outside. Through the closed door’s window, Tamaki could see Mirio lying on his back, staring at the ceiling as he breathed into a mask. The noise of animals was everywhere, and he hadn’t noticed Tamaki land.  

Tamaki took a deep breath, and looked down at his hip. A wall rose to his skin, then a miniature man stepped through it. It was unmistakable. They were soulmates.

And he was terrified. He’d hid behind the wall of “not good enough” his entire life. Now he couldn’t be not good enough anymore.

He’d worked his entire life to bring Mirio’s soulmate to him.

Now it was time to do it.

“Hey, hey! You can’t just— sir!” the paramedic called at him as he stepped into the ambulance. He closed the door shut behind him, locking it from the inside so they couldn’t get in until he wanted them to.

“Tamaki,” Mirio blinked and sat up, wincing as he did so. He lowered the mask until it dangled around his neck.

“Why… didn’t you tell me?” Tamaki demanded. He was shaking so badly he clasped his hands around each other to hold himself together.

Mirio smiled softly. “Well, I did only just find out.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Tamaki held onto the lip of the the stretcher. “Right then??”

“I think you know why,” Mirio chuckled, then coughed because he still had a punctured lung.

“But… but I’d decided… I’d decided…”

Mirio sat up and swung around, dangling his legs over the edge of the stretcher. His breaths were shallow, and maybe that was his injury, but his whole body was taut in anticipation. He reached out and took Tamaki’s hands. His fingers were still cold. But maybe Tamaki’s were just warm.

“What? What did you decide?”

He looked up, and Mirio was smiling and his lips were still blue and Tamaki had loved him for fifteen years and he was going to love him for a hundred more. With shaking hands, he took Mirio’s jaw, then leaned forward, gently kissing him the way he probably should have the first time.

“Hey, Tamaki,” Mirio wheezed a little as they broke apart. His eyes were twinkling. “You know, I think we’re soulmates.”

“I don’t care,” Tamaki told him.

Because he didn’t.

Wearing civilian clothes wrapped Tamaki in a blanket of anonymity that was as just as much of a cover as the billowing white fabric of his cloak. It didn’t make standing in the crowded Shin-Osaka train station any more pleasant, though.

The Nozomi was running on time.

Tamaki’s stomach was full of butterflies.

He didn’t know how to do this. It wasn’t like meeting the train was a new activity, it had happened dozens of times before. But never like this. So much had changed in just three weeks, and now he didn’t know how to behave, didn’t know what to do with himself.

At his feet was a bag and in it was a very embarrassing thing that he had awkwardly bought from a nearby stand. He already regretted the purchase, it was the sort of thing he didn’t even need to buy. He was going to just keep the bag closed and out of sight until he found a garbage bin large enough to throw it away.

For now he was standing uncomfortably in the middle of the station. There was nowhere to lean, no walls to put his back against, so he just stood there, waiting for the train to arrive so he could pick out one person out of dozens.

The butterflies in his stomach were reproducing.

The train pulled in somewhere in-between his worries over how to smile, and if he should rush forward or stay where he was. Around him, eager grandmas jockeyed for position to be the first to greet their grandchildren, or whoever it was that they were meeting. Tamaki towered over them, but he gathered himself into the smallest space possible, squeezing his feet around his unwanted bag.

He wasn’t prepared for the shrill screams that started as the passengers began to disembark. They weren’t screams of terror, but of excitement. Young women who had previously been calmly waiting, began pushing and shoving each other to get closer to someone who was getting off the train.

Someone.

Oh.

Sunglasses uselessly covering his eyes, Mirio waved as he walked through the turnstiles, pulling his bag behind him. On the other side he was met by a circling crowd full of young women, salarymen, some of the grandmas, and old men who’d seem to come from nowhere.

“LEMILLION!”

Propping his sunglasses on the top of his head, Mirio grinned and signed autographs, kissed grandmas on the cheek, and messed up the hair of the little kids jumping for his attention. Some of the girls asked him to sign their arms, and he laughed because it was crazy, but he did it anyway.

As the crowd slowly dispersed, Tamaki stood over his bag and anxiously bit at his cuticles. If they didn’t leave soon, the next train would arrive, and then Mirio would never get to leave. He wanted to hide, it was almost unbearable standing out in the open like this.

But he didn’t leave.

Finally, after listening to the advice of the last old man, Mirio closed the distance between him and Tamaki much more quickly than was entirely necessary.

They stood a meter apart, just staring at each other. Apparently Mirio didn’t know what to do either, because he wasn’t moving. Ready to get out of the station more than he’d been ready for anything in his life, Tamaki leaned over to get his bag. He missed one of the handles, and it flew open as he lifted it.

Mirio’s jaw dropped.

“Tamaki, you brought me flowers!”

With no choice left to him but the most embarrassing one, Tamaki grabbed the stems of the bunch of daisies and lifted them out of the bag.

They were immediately crushed in Mirio’s tight hug.

“I missed you,” he said into Tamaki’s neck, ignoring the large number of people in the station who were taking pictures. It was mortifying, they were going to end up online, people were going to start writing porn about them.

But Tamaki freed his arms anyway, and wrapped them around Mirio’s broad back, the petals of the daisies catching in his golden hair.

“So did I.”