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Chapter Text

Yamada Hizashi opened his eyes as the first rays of dawn peeked through his bedroom window and landed on his face. Not that he’d been asleep for the past hour anyway; he’d been trying to get a little more rest, but he was too wound up.

Today was the day. Today he was going to take the UA entrance exam. He brushed his teeth and styled his hair up before putting in his contacts and slipping on his favorite pair of shades. He picked at the breakfast his dad set in front of him, his appetite uncharacteristically absent as he hummed quietly to himself.

“You’re gonna do great,” his mom said, squeezing him in a tight hug that he wriggled free of as he tried to get out the door. His dad didn’t say anything as he caught Hizashi’s eye across the room. He only gave a wink and smile; but that was all the shorthand he needed to say ‘relax, you got this.’ Hizashi grinned back, though it was a little tight at the corners as he stuffed his shaking hands into his pockets and stepped outside.

The walk to the train station helped steady his nerves somewhat; still, his foot bounced relentlessly for the entire journey, and the woman sitting beside him kept shooting irritated glances in his direction. He gave her a bright, if somewhat sheepish, smile and a shrug as she got off the train the stop before his own.

The gates of UA were larger than life as he walked through them with a throng of other 15 year olds, all with dreams of making it into the most elite hero school in the country. His heart was pounding in his chest as he looked around at the other kids in their mix of different middle school uniforms; but as he got a better look at them, his nerves shifted into excitement. Ever since he’d applied to UA, his imagination had conjured images of trying to compete against All Might or Endeavor! Real pro heroes! Seeing a bunch of other kids his age calmed that part of him. He still knew it would be tough, but he could totally do this!

In the huge stadium-like auditorium, the air hummed with hundreds of murmured conversations between friends and rivals as Hizashi found his seat. His eyes flickered around the crowd, pausing here and there as different people caught his attention.

In the row directly in front of him, slightly to his left, a boy with an unruly mop of black hair looked like he was asleep, arms folded on the table in front of him, cushioning his forehead. Behind him and off to his right, Hizashi had to suppress a shiver as he caught sight of a distinctly spidery-looking boy. From almost halfway across the auditorium, a loud, clear laugh drew his attention. He wasn’t sure, but it seemed like it had come from a tall kid with a shock of pale blue hair that swept up even higher than Hizashi’s.

His curious inspection of the others was put on hold as a middle-aged man with a bald head that glinted in the lights stepped up to the podium and began to speak. The buzz of conversation died down, and even the napping kid in front of Hizashi lifted his head to listen.

Hizashi had a hard time focusing on exactly what the man was saying; it didn’t sound too important anyway, just greetings and formalities. Booooriiiing. Things got serious when the exam started.

The written test was first. With a mechanical thump, the tabletop in front of him dropped down, then flipped over and popped back up in place, a touch screen terminal lit up with the exam ready to go.

Hizashi had never been the best student, a little too prone to daydreaming and getting distracted in class to ever make top marks. When he did focus, though, things usually made sense pretty quickly, so his grades were always good enough. And he’d always done really well with languages - more than one of his teachers had said that it made sense given how much he liked to talk. Really it was probably because he listened to a ton of music in other languages.

He’d studied as best he could for today, and he felt confident as he went through each section. He finished pretty quickly compared to a lot of others, at least if the number of kids with their heads still bowed over their terminals was any indication. His screen gave a quiet beep and the desk mechanism flipped back over. He glanced down at the napping boy to see he was still tapping away at his own exam.

Hizashi entertained himself while waiting for everyone else to finish up by jotting down on scrap paper some ideas for his next few webcasts. He’d been recording it weekly for over a year now, but if he got into UA, he might get some real pro heroes to listen! He’d need to start taking it a little more seriously! So he filled the page with topics like different heroes, video games, and classic cars, along with a variety of playlists.

It took foreeeeeverrrrr for time to be up; but when the bald man, apparently the principal of the school, Akahori Taketo, stepped back to the podium, the room fell into a hush thick with tension. Everyone knew what was coming next. This was where they would all really have the opportunity to show what they could do.

“Good job all of you. For those of you who will be taking the practical exam for entry into the hero course, here is how it will work. Each of you has been assigned to one of the test sites at random. When the test begins, you will have ten minutes to get as many points as you can. You need to contain, or neutralize the villains on the field in order to gain points.”

An image of a matte black robot with a vaguely humanoid upper half, and a sturdy, all-terrain vehicle looking bottom half popped up on the giant screen behind the principal. Alongside the robot was the image of a man in a skintight black bodysuit, a menacing look on his face.

“Your opponents will be a mix of these robotic villains, as well as third year hero course students and recent graduates from the past few years. That means either provisionally or fully licensed heroes are going to be out there, so you’d better give it your best if you want to have a chance of holding your own.” A murmur of nervous excitement rippled through the room. Principal Akahori explained the point system, but that was all insignificant details to Hizashi.

“Please note, attacking other examinees is strictly forbidden,” the Principal said, casting a long hard glare around the room. “The villains on the field will all be wearing the same outfit as you see here,” he added with a wave towards the screen behind him, “So there shouldn’t be any confusion as to the appropriate targets.”

Hizashi looked again at the person up on the screen. The otherwise solid black outfit had a huge day-glo yellow X that went from his shoulders across his body down to his hips, and was pretty unmistakable.

“Today will be the first, and for many of you your last, opportunity to embody the Plus Ultra motto of UA. Take this chance and push yourself to your limits, because until you find your limits, you can’t surpass them. Show us that you have what it takes to be the next heroes that Japan and the world needs! Get out there and go beyond!”

Hizashi couldn’t contain his excitement, and his voice echoed in the background murmur of the auditorium as he shouted, “Plus Ultra!” A few heads turned to stare at him, and he felt his face heating up; but he wasn’t gonna let the others’ lack of enthusiasm put a damper on his own energy.

With that, the students were dismissed and directed to their various test sites, and Hizashi flowed along with the crowd, humming to himself and walking in the rhythm of the song. Each test area had a locker room nearby, and Hizashi hastily folded his middle school uniform and pulled on the loose track pants he’d brought for this. He zipped the jacket over his t-shirt and glanced down at himself to make sure he hadn’t put anything on inside-out or backwards.

He was ready to rock and roll.

Looking around, he recognized the shaggy hair of the napping kid from earlier. He was now wearing baggy black sweats, a frown on his face as he stuffed his bag into a locker. By the time Hizashi had gotten his sneakers on and was making his way out, the other boy was also heading towards the exit.

“Good luck out there!” Hizashi said, giving the boy a bright smile and a double thumbs-up. All he got in return was a look of suspicious confusion. Well, that’s kinda what it seemed like, it was admittedly a little hard to tell with the way half the kids’ hair fell forward, covering his face. Still, Hizashi could kinda see his eyes.

He had nice eyes.

“You too,” the kid muttered and picked up his pace, jogging towards the test site where a crowd of other hero hopefuls had already gathered. Hizashi kept walking, bouncing slightly with the steady beat of the song that had resumed playing in his head.

A serious looking hero was standing just outside the gate that would open into the actual testing grounds, keeping an eye on the crowd of nervous teenagers. Hizashi bounced on his toes, ready to run as soon as they got started.

There was no countdown, but everyone fell silent, holding a collective breath as they waited the last few moments. The gates swung open, swiftly and silently, revealing a cityscape within. They took off, ten minutes on the clock.

Ten minutes to make or break their future. Ten minutes to prove they have what it takes.

Hizashi barreled down the main thoroughfare before peeling off to the left and spotting his first target. The robot had spotted him too, and was charging towards him at high speed. Hizashi inhaled deeply, feeling his lungs filling beyond their normal limits. Finally, he was able to let loose.

“Yeeeaaahhhhh!” Adrenaline surged through him as the power of his voice stopped the robot in its tracks, circuits frying and gears shaking loose within its mechanisms. The ruckus drew the attention of several more robots from the surrounding area. They converged on him, and Hizashi gave a wicked grin as he breathed deep to see how many he could take out at once.

This was fun.

After taking out more than a dozen robots, he ran back towards the center of the testing grounds looking for more targets, catching sight of some of his fellow examinees as he went. Right up ahead, in fact, there was a girl with vivid blue hair doing something at the side panel of one of the robots. Hizashi wasn’t sure what to make of it, but a flash of movement at the corner of his eye revealed a villain stepping out of the shadow of a doorway, the girl clearly in her sights.

“Hi there!” Hizashi yelled at the villain, dialing back the intensity of his Quirk a little. He’d never really seen what the full force of his Quirk could do to a living creature, and he didn’t particularly want to. It was also hard for him to aim as precisely as he’d like, so he needed to make sure he didn’t hit the girl. It was still more than enough to send the villain to her knees, and to alert the girl by the robot of the danger at her back. She slammed the panel on the robot shut and the machine roared to life, immediately targeting the kneeling villain, charging forward and pinning her down.

Hizashi and the girl looked at each other and shared a nod and smile, each taking off in separate directions. Hizashi continued deeper into the test site, taking out a bunch of robots and a few villains as he went. He paused briefly a few times to watch a few seriously impressive takedowns by some of his fellow examinees; but mostly he stayed focused on his goal. He rounded a corner and stopped in his tracks, watching in awe as two blocks down, the dark-haired boy from before flipped a full-grown man over his shoulder onto the pavement before yanking a zip-tie off his belt and using it to secure the man’s hands behind his back. Hizashi wondered if the boy had a super strength Quirk.

After a heartbeat, the boy was back on his feet and looking further down the road away from Hizashi, when another figure stepped out of the cross-street that separated Hizashi from the dark-haired boy. A quick glance told Hizashi that it was another examinee, dressed in gray and blue sweats. The kid was gathering up a dark ball of energy that crackled in an ominous and terrifying way, and Hizashi looked around for the unfortunate villain the kid was about to take out with that wicked looking thing. For a moment, he worried that he’d gotten so distracted that he’d missed an approaching danger.

But there were no villains around. Well, except the one already bound on the ground over by-

It all clicked into place in one terrifying second as the kid pivoted and took aim at the dark-haired boy. Hizashi didn’t think there was really any way to mistake the boy’s baggy sweats for the skintight villain costume; but the kid must have, because Hizashi had no doubt he was about to attack.

“No!” he yelled, sprinting forward. He hadn’t intended to put his Quirk into it; but since the short blast whooshed down the street, not doing anything more than creating a strong breeze, he hoped it wouldn’t count as attacking the kid with the swirling ball of darkness gripped between his hands.

It did provide a moment’s distraction, though, and enough time for the dark-haired boy to turn around and see what was happening. A wide-eyed look flicked over the boy’s face as Hizashi reached out to grab the would-be attacker by the arm to stop him - but he was too late. With a sneer, the kid sent the ball of energy hurtling towards its target, and Hizashi’s heart leapt up into his throat. He wanted to yell again, to try and disperse the blast, but at this angle it was too big a risk of hitting the other boy.

Then, suddenly, the wicked ball of blackness evaporated into nothing. Hizashi gawked in disbelief as the dark-haired boy stared down the kid who’d attacked him, eyes glowing red and his hair standing up in complete defiance of gravity. Hizashi knew all too well that a look like that usually took a whole lot of hair product to achieve; but it was clear that this hairstyle had nothing to do with vanity, it was pure power. Hizashi was mesmerized.

With a blink, the boy’s eyes stopped glowing and his hair fell back down to cover his ears and half his face, and a loud, shrill buzzer sounded letting them know that their time was up.

The test was over.

Whatever spell had taken over Hizashi was broken now, and the reality of what had just happened dawned on him. “What the hell was that!” he yelled at the kid next to him, finally able to catch his breath now that the dark-haired boy was safe.

“Not my fault that Aizawa looks like a villain,” the boy sneered, jerking his arm away from Hizashi and running away down the side street he’d come from.

Hizashi had more than half a mind to run after the kid; but the test was over and they were supposed to make their way to the exit, so he jogged to catch up to the dark-haired boy - Aizawa? - who was already heading out.

“Yo man, you ok?” Hizashi asked.

Possibly-Aizawa peered at him out of the corner of his eye. “Fine,” he muttered.

“That was really messed up,” Hizashi growled, irritation at the attacker flaring again, “Your clothes don't look at all like the villain costumes, that kid shoulda known better. He called you Aizawa, is that your name? Do you know him?”

Possibly-Aizawa gave a short nod. “Yeah.” Dark gray eyes flicked over Hizashi’s face again for a long moment, as if looking for something. “Aizawa Shouta,” he finally said. Hizashi wasn’t sure why, but it felt like a victory.

“Yamada Hizashi,” he told Aizawa, offering his hand. Aizawa hunched his shoulders and kept walking, but Hizashi wasn’t put off, giving him a quick pat on the shoulder instead. “I thought for sure that energy ball was gonna get you. How did you stop it? You must have a really strong Quirk, it was wild the way your eyes glowed and your hair stood up like that. Takes me half an hour to get my hair into this sweet up-do,” Hizashi laughed, miming as if he was flipping his hair, even though it was still firmly up in its faux hawk.

By this point, they had made their way to the gates where the examinees were streaming out, mostly under their own power, though a few were limping or cradling their arms gingerly. Hizashi stared as one girl was taken past on a stretcher, clearly bleeding badly from a nasty gash on her leg.

“Aizawa, Yamada!” a sharp voice barked from off to the left as they walked out. “You two, come with me.” The voice belonged to the serious looking hero who’d been stationed out front before they went in. Now he was looking no less serious, but also a lot more scary. He had his hand on the shoulder of the kid from before, who was glowering and glaring at them. Hizashi glanced at Aizawa, who just ducked his head and hunched his shoulders and followed along as the hero turned on his heel and began walking back towards the main building.

Hizashi’s stomach dropped.

Was he going to be disqualified for attacking that kid? Not that he had been trying to attack him, he hadn’t even meant to use his Quirk at all! Then again, he supposed that was just as bad, because Hizashi knew that losing control of his Quirk was super dangerous - but come on, he was still learning! The classes in middle school were barely enough, and it’s not like he could practice at home!

But when it came down to it, he’d just wanted to stop the kid from attacking Aizawa! Had his dream of being a hero just gone up in a flash of creepy dark energy?

Hizashi worried his bottom lip between his teeth as they were led into what the sign on the door said was the Principal’s office. Principal Akahori nodded to the hero who’d escorted them this far.

“Thank you, Nishibori, you can go now.” The hero bowed briefly and left, closing the door behind himself. “Have a seat, boys.” Aizawa slumped into a chair close to the door, while the other kid moved across the room to stand by the windows, arms crossed and a scowl on his face. Hizashi perched on a seat closer to the middle of the room, between Aizawa and the other kid. “Ijima, Aizawa, Yamada. Would any of you care to tell me what happened?”

Hizashi held his breath and waited, but it seemed like neither Aizawa nor Ijima would care to tell the Principal anything, so after a torturous thirty seconds, Hizashi did what he does best and started telling the story.

“So here’s what went down. I came around the corner and saw Aizawa execute this absolutely badass takedown on a villain - fully took the guy to the ground with his bare hands, crazy! Then this guy, Ijima? Came out along the street between me and Aizawa, and right away the dude starts charging up his Quirk - I don’t know what it does, but it looked like it could do some major damage, ya dig? And I was confused, because there weren’t any villains there to take out, but he was gearing up to shoot off at something, and the only thing there was Aizawa. Oh, and the villain that Aizawa had already captured; but he was on the ground and you can’t get points for blasting a villain someone else has already taken out of play, right? And even if that was his target, Aizawa was standing right there with his back turned to us!

“So I yelled for him, Ijima, to stop, and ran towards him to try and explain that Aizawa was another examinee like us, because I wondered if maybe he’d gotten confused by Aizawa’s black sweats, even though they really don’t look anything at all like the villain costumes; but I was too slow and didn’t get there till after Ijima shot off his whatever it was. But then Aizawa did something, I think with his Quirk, and the whole ball of darkness thing just fizzled out and disappeared. Then the buzzer went off, and Ijima said that it wasn’t his fault Aizawa looks like a villain and he ran off because time was up and the test was over - but that’s still weird, because he definitely said Aizawa’s name, and if he knows Aizawa, how could he not realize that he wasn’t one of the villains? Cuz I just met the guy today and I could tell easily, from even farther away.”

Hizashi took a deep breath and looked around the room at the three sets of eyes all staring at him and felt the heat rising up his neck. Principal Akahori raised both of his eyebrows as Hizashi finished up his monologue, and all Hizashi could do was give a nervous smile. He could feel Aizawa’s eyes boring into the side of his face. Ijima was glaring daggers at everyone.

“Do either of you have anything to add to Yamada’s summary?” Principal Akahori asked. Aizawa shook his head, still staring at Hizashi through narrowed eyes. Ijima didn’t move, but he didn’t say anything either. “Very well. The admissions team will take your account into consideration. You’re dismissed.” Aizawa stayed slumped in his seat while Ijima immediately marched out the door. Hizashi stood, glancing at Aizawa before stepping closer to the Principal, head bowed slightly.

There was one bit he’d left out at first, but the squirming in his gut wouldn’t let him leave if he didn’t tell the Principal this detail too. He wasn’t going to risk starting his career as a hero on a lie, even one of omission. To hell with that.

“I, uh,” he stammered, biting his lip hard for a moment before trying again. “I didn’t mean to, but when I yelled at Ijima, my Quirk activated a little. I wasn’t aiming at him, and it didn’t hit anyone. I wasn’t trying to attack at all, I just- I was scared that he wasn’t going to stop, and my control slipped. I know how dangerous that can be, and that I need to do better.” He bowed a little deeper.

Principal Akahori gave a slow nod as he took in this piece of information. “I appreciate your honesty. This will also be taken into consideration by the admissions team.”

Hizashi bowed one last time and left the office as fast as he could, feeling wicked spikes of fear and doubt pressing into his brain and threatening to send him spinning into a panic attack. If he was going to break down, he’d rather not do it where anyone could see.

Of course, that would be when Aizawa would choose to follow him out the door, silent as a shadow as they made their way down the hall and around a corner, searching for the locker room where their things were.

Hizashi sang quietly to himself as they walked, having learned from past experience that his risk of bursting into tears increased in moments like this if he didn’t force his lungs to do something. He wasn’t sure if it was the singing or the brisk pace or the presence of Aizawa by his side, but gradually he felt the threatening panic pull it’s claws back and retreat for now, and he was able to breathe a little easier.

They’d just about reached the locker room when Aizawa finally spoke. “I didn’t ask for your help.” It was hard to read his tone, but it was some mix of disgruntled, sullen, and confused.

Hizashi shrugged. “I didn’t ask my parents for a new mic for my webcast setup; but I got one, and it’s sweet.” He flashed Aizawa a grin. “You’re welcome.”

Finding his things right where he’d left them, Hizashi decided not to change back into his uniform, instead just stuffing everything into his bag to be dealt with at home. His eye caught the paper he’d been writing his ideas on earlier, and without giving it much thought, he tore the bottom corner off and jotted down his phone number on it.

Aizawa had also opted to not change his clothes, and was already shrugging on his ratty gray backpack when Hizashi spun around and held the scrap of paper out to him. Aizawa stared down at it, then up at Hizashi’s face, before looking down at the paper again. He didn’t make any move to take it, so Hizashi folded it and stuck it into one of Aizawa’s oversized pockets.

“That’s my cell number, gimmie a call when you get your acceptance letter, we’ll celebrate!” Hizashi said, shooting double finger guns at Aizawa.

“Don’t you think you’re being a little overconfident?”

“Just putting those good vibes out into the world, buddy!” Hizashi laughed. He didn’t mention that it was one of the only ways he could keep himself from spiraling into endless worry that would tear him into a million little pieces.

“That’s ridiculous,” Aizawa grumbled as he turned to leave. Hizashi was still trying to get all his crap back into his bag, so he just laughed again as the other boy walked away.

“I’ll see you at the start of our first term!” he called out towards Aizawa’s retreating back. Aizawa just hunched his shoulders and kept walking

~*~

Shouta got himself on the train as quickly as he could, hoping Yamada wouldn’t catch up in time to get on the same one. That was assuming he would even take the same train; but Shouta didn’t want to risk it.

He stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out the slip of paper, unfolding it to see the scribbled number - messy, but legible - along with Yamada’s name.

As if Shouta might need to differentiate it from other numbers that other people, like his soon-to-be-former classmates might give him to keep in touch. The idea was laughable, but Shouta only frowned.

Thinking of his middle school classmates, it was hard to tell if Shouta would be more relieved to never see any of them again, or if they would be happier to never see him again. In the case of Ijima, Shouta was pretty sure he knew the answer.

The loud boy, Yamada, was different, though. He wasn’t put off by Shouta, which was annoying in its own right; but also just… different.

He looked down at the slip of paper again.

Either way, it wasn’t like he had a phone of his own.

Stuffing the paper back in his pocket, because he was no litterbug, he shoved aside the thoughts of the loud boy with weird sunglasses and goofy hair and did his best to clear his mind as the rocking of the train along the tracks lulled him into a more relaxed state.

He didn’t quite doze off, still a little too preoccupied by thoughts of the exam and how it had gone. By the time he got off the train and made his way home, he’d turned over the events of the day half a dozen times, trying to figure out the things that went right and the things that went wrong.

“I’m home,” he called as he let himself into the apartment. It was still early, but his dad’s jacket was up on its hook by the door. Shouta wondered if he’d needed to take half a day because the pain was flaring up, or if he’d done it purely to be here when Shouta got home. He suspected the latter.

Sure enough, as soon as he stepped out of his shoes, his dad was right there with a big smile, pulling him in for a tight hug.

“How’d it go?” Dad asked as he finally relaxed his grip.

“Ok, I think. I managed to score more points than I thought I’d be able to, but-” Shouta cut himself off, a sick knot in his gut as he wondered if the whole thing with Ijima would end up disqualifying him.

“But what?”

Shouta frowned as he thought about it. “Ijima was there. He tried to attack me, I needed to use my Quirk to stop him. He broke the rules, but they might decide I did too, which could disqualify me.” He didn’t think it would - he was acting in self-defense, and using his Quirk could hardly be called an attack. If he’d simply jumped away, the ‘villain’ on the ground would have been hit… which would have been Ijima’s fault, not Shouta’s… but still… The worry gnawed at him.

“You worry too much, Shou-chan,” Dad said with a warm smile. “They must record everything, they’re bound to see the truth of things. And Ijima is a jerk, not a heroic bone in his body,” he added, glowering ever so slightly before his ever-present smile brightened his face again. “Come on, let’s make dinner before mom gets home. Go change out of that and meet me in the kitchen.”

Shouta nodded and trudged to his room, dropping his backpack on the floor and taking off his sweats. He was about to toss them on the laundry pile when he remembered the slip of paper in his pocket, and pulled it out.

He didn’t know what Yamada was playing at. He’d called Shouta’s takedown of that villain ‘badass,’ and he’d sounded like he really meant it, which was ridiculous because it was the last word Shouta would ever expect anyone to use to describe him.

He had no illusions about how weak he really was compared to his peers. How much harder he was going to have to work to make it as a hero, especially with his Quirk being practically useless.

Which reminded him, Yamada had seen him use his Quirk, but he hadn’t been bothered by it? Granted, Yamada probably didn’t know exactly what it did, that was usually the part where people started calling him creepy and avoiding him. Shouta sighed and stood over his trash can, staring at the little slip of paper.

He opened his desk drawer and dropped it in there, slamming it firmly shut after.

*

The days dragged past. Seeing Ijima at school wasn’t as bad as Shouta expected it to be; but that was largely because he was very good at expecting the worst. Mostly Ijima just avoided him except to sneer in his direction. Which, for Ijima, was his best behavior.

The rest of Shouta’s classmates ignored him, as usual, which was best for everyone.

The days when he worked at the shop down the street from his apartment were a little better. Ms. Emoto, who ran the shop, was nice; she always gave him a snack and kept him busy cleaning up and stocking shelves and unloading boxes. It helped the time pass faster.

Shouta tried to put UA out of his mind every time he stopped at the mailbox on his way home. He kept telling himself it was way too soon to hear anything.

So when, a week after the exam, a hefty yellow envelope with his name on it was in the pile of mail, Shouta’s hands started to shake as he stuffed it in his backpack and walked quickly to his room. Not that either of his parents were home to see or question it, but he needed a minute to breathe. He sat on his futon and glared at his backpack.

He peeked in his bag, and the cheery piece of stationary stared back at him.

Still there. Still real.

For a wild moment, he thought about grabbing Yamada’s number and calling him from the house line. They could open their envelopes together.

Of course, that’s if Yamada even got his envelope today. And if one of them didn’t get in, well…

Better not to call.

Be rational.

Just open the stupid thing.

Trembling fingers worked open the stiff flap and tugged the folded paper from inside. A small audio disk fell out and immediately began playing. Principal Akahori’s voice came over the speaker.

“Congratulations, Aizawa Shouta! You’ve been accepted into the hero program at…”

There was more. The audio kept playing, but Shouta didn’t register any of the words. He must have heard wrong. There was no way he scored high enough. They were supposed to disqualify him for using his Quirk against another examinee.

He unfolded the paper and forced his eyes to focus on the words, but it looked like they said the same thing.

He’d been accepted.

He was going to UA.

He was going to be a hero.

Shouta grabbed his pillow and clutched it tight to his chest, burying his face against it as he sniffled. He wished his parents were home so he could tell them; but it was fine, they’d be home in a few hours. In the meantime, he just hugged his pillow tight and read the letter over and over as a tiny smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes.

*

The next day at school, Shouta spent less time looking at the floor than he usually did. He and his classmates still avoided each other, but for the first time in a long time, Shouta didn’t feel like he needed to keep his gaze averted from them all.

So when Ijima crowded Shouta up against the wall after the last bell rang, Shouta didn’t hesitate to lock eyes with him.

“You stupid little shit,” Ijima growled, towering over Shouta. “You fucked everything up for me.” Shouta stared blankly at him. He’d long since become an expert at keeping a bored expression on his face when he needed to. Don’t give the bullies the reaction they’re looking for, eventually they move on to other targets. “If it wasn’t for you, I’d be going to UA, but you just had to go and make a mess of things.”

“Are you done?” Shouta drawled. “I’ve got other things to do right now.”

“Why don’t you come meet me around the back of the gym, see how tough you really are.”

“No thanks. Like I said, I’ve other things to do.” Shouta pushed off the wall and managed to shoulder past Ijima. He wished, not for the first time, that he could hit his elusive growth spurt already. It would make getting out of these situations much easier.

“Cowardly little shit,” Ijima shouted after him as Shouta was halfway down the hall. “I don’t even know why you bothered applying to UA, especially with that creepy Quirk of yours. You can’t be a hero with a power like that.”

Shouta spun on his heel to stare back at Ijima. “Watch me.”

Before Ijima could react, Shouta turned again and kept walking, getting around a corner before picking up the pace, keeping it just under a jog in case any teacher was lurking nearby. He made it out the front doors and took off running and didn’t stop until he was back home, leaning back against the door as it closed firmly behind him.

“Shouta?” His head snapped up at the sound of his mother’s voice. She was never home this early, but a glance at the coat hooks showed that both she and his father must be here.

Stumbling out of his shoes, he called out, “Yeah Mom, I’m home. Is everything ok?” Last time she'd been home to meet him after school had been when Dad had been in the accident…

“Everything is wonderful,” Dad said with a grin as Shouta found them sitting on the sofa. “Our son is going to be a hero, after all.”

“We’ve decided that with the longer commute you’ll have going to UA, it was only reasonable for you to have it,” Mom said, nodding at the brown paper bag on the coffee table in front of her. Tentatively, Shouta reached in and pulled out a box that felt heavier than he’d expect for its size. When it finally clicked what he was looking at, he gawked open-mouthed at his parents.

“How can we afford this?” he demanded, brandishing the cell phone at them.

“That’s not for you to worry about,” his mother told him firmly.

“I’m back to work, almost full time again,” Dad said. “If you want spending money, you’ll still need to keep helping out Ms. Emoto; but you don’t need to worry about this. We’re fine.”

Shouta bit his lip, uncertain how to feel about this. It wasn’t as if he had anyone besides his parents to keep in touch with, and Dad had that mostly covered with his Quirk.

“Your father has better things to do than play phone operator,” Mom said, not literally reading his mind, but close enough. For a moment, her expression softened. “I know middle school has been difficult for you. But you’re starting a new chapter now, and I want you to have the tools you need to connect with your peers.” She stood from the couch and wrapped her arms around Shouta. They were almost the same height now. “If you want to be a hero, you need to have people skills.”

“I don’t care about going on TV for interviews and crap,” Shouta grumbled.

“But you do care about soothing a crying child.” Mom pressed a kiss to the side of his head. “About being a calm voice in a crowd about to panic. About clear communication with other heroes so that you can work together to capture a villain that none of you could stop on your own.” She shifted her hands to his shoulders and held him at arm's length to better look at his face.

“I know,” he mumbled.

“Good,” Dad said, “Now go play with your new phone. It’s all set up, Mom and I put in our numbers already, so go do stupid teenage things with whatever horrific social media all the kids are on these days.” His grin grew sly as he added, “And remember to use incognito mode on your browser if you look up stuff you don’t want people seeing in your history.”

“Dad!” Shouta flushed and ducked his head so his hair covered his face as much as possible.

“Manato,” Mom sighed.

“Important life skills, Tomoe,” Dad replied with a wink as Shouta scurried away to hide in his bedroom.

He spent the next hour setting up the controls and security on his phone, downloading some apps for alarm clocks and organizational tools, and otherwise familiarizing himself with his new device. He searched up protective cases for it. He would be able to get one with the money from his job, and it was only rational to protect an expensive item.

He glanced up at his desk drawer.

Reaching up, he slid it open and groped around inside blindly, fingers finding the edge of the paper with Yamada’s number on it. He’d looked at it so many times that he had the number memorized, but somehow he felt like it was important that he actually have the paper in his hands for this. He stared at it for a moment, biting his lip, before he huffed out a breath that blew up the lock of hair that perpetually fell down between his eyes.

“Stop being irrational. It’s logical to have the contact information of a classmate,” Shouta muttered to himself as he created a new entry and typed Yamada’s name and number.

Of course, that was assuming Yamada had gotten in.

He could always call and ask.

Or maybe text.

‘Shouta, dinner,’ Dad’s voice came into Shouta’s head.

“Coming!” he yelled out loud. It was actually easier to reply telepathically once his dad opened communication; but sometimes he didn’t feel like beaming his thoughts directly to his father. He tossed his phone down on his futon and stood up, the scrap of paper fluttering from his lap to the floor. He snatched it up and tossed it on top of his desk to throw away later.

He’d gotten his hand on the doorknob when he spun around and stuffed the slip of paper back in the drawer.

*

The last few weeks of his last term of middle school passed by in a haze of tired mornings and drowsy afternoons. Ijima, thankfully, ignored him. Shouta got his assignments done, passed his tests, and helped out Ms. Emoto most days after school, trying to save up as much as he could before he started his first term at UA.

Every few days, he’d think about texting Yamada, then dismiss the idea. But as March rolled towards April, a kind of jittery anticipation settled into Shouta and he found himself opening the contact at least once a day.

Shouta had only gotten a glimpse of Yamada’s Quirk when he’d shouted at Ijima, but it had been powerful enough to nearly blow him over. Swallowing the familiar bitterness that flared up whenever he was reminded of how weak his own Quirk was, Shouta reasoned that Yamada had to have been accepted if Shouta had made it in, right? He must have scored a ton of points.

Thumbs working over the surface of his phone, Shouta tapped out a text.

<sent> Did you get in?

He immediately turned off the screen and put the phone face down, trying to focus on the manga he was reading instead of waiting for a text back that might not even come.

It was less than a minute before the notification pinged.

<Yamada> Aizawa?

<Yamada> yea, I got in! u?

Shouta kicked himself for forgetting to let Yamada know who was messaging, but at least the other boy seemed to remember him.

<sent> Yes, and yes.

<Yamada> sweeeet! I’m in class 1-A

<sent> Me too

Shouta sat in his room texting with Yamada for a while. Well, Yamada did most of the texting, but Shouta didn’t really mind trying to decipher his messages. When Shouta had to leave for work, they signed off saying that they’d see each other in a few days.

Maybe this year really would be different.

*

The first day of hero school. Shouta was having a hard time believing it was real, even as he walked past the towering gates of UA. His footsteps echoed as he made his way along the hallway in search of his classroom. He’d left lots of extra time this morning, in case he had trouble, but he found classroom 1-A easily enough, and he quickly slipped to the furthest back chair, one seat over from the window. There was only one other kid in the room already; a red haired boy who gave Shouta a friendly smile. Shouta only nodded back; he’d been told his smile was just as creepy as his Quirk, so he figured he’d play it safe.

More and more students trickled in. There was a girl with electric blue hair, a boy with a greenish tint to his skin, and a boy who, even with mostly human-looking features, gave the impression of being a very large spider. More and more students filled in the seats around the room.

The next time the door slid open, a boy with pale blue, nearly white, upswept hair came marching in with a smile on his face almost as loud as Yamada’s. A nose strip stood out bright white against the darker tone of his skin as he glanced around the room and made a beeline for the unoccupied seat to Shouta’s right, dropping his bag and plopping down, flashing his grin at Shouta.

Almost immediately, the door opened again, and Shouta heard Yamada before he saw him. “Goooood morning UA Class 1-A! Are we ready to become heroes!?” Yamada struck a pose up at the front of the room, but was met primarily with stunned silence. “Come on now, you’re gonna need more energy than that to take on heroic tasks, let me hear you!”

“Hell yeah!” the boy next to Shouta hollered back.

Yamada pointed at him with a grin. “That’s more like it! Yo, Aizawa!” Yamada’s voice shifted to something a little more normal as he trotted over to drop his stuff in the seat to Shouta’s left, next to the window. “Are you as excited as I am?”

“I don’t think it’s humanly possible to be as excited as you are, Yamada,” Shouta mumbled, slumping a little lower in his seat.

“Aizawa, was it?” Shouta looked to his right at the blue haired boy and gave a tentative nod. “Shirakumo Oboro, pleased to meetcha!” he said, sticking his hand out. Shouta was frozen for a few seconds too long, but Shirakumo didn’t pull his hand back, so Shouta finally reached over and shook it. “And Yamada?” Shirakumo added, glancing across to not-actually meet Yamada’s eyes through those sunglasses that he was wearing again.

“Yamada Hizashi, that’s me!” Yamada said with his bright grin, pointing at himself with both thumbs.

“You two already know each other?” Shirakumo asked, glancing between them.

“We met at the entrance exam!”

“Alright, settle down,” came a stern voice from the front of the room. Shouta recognized the man as the hero who had brought him, Yamada, and Ijima to the Principal’s office after the practical exam. “I’m Nishibori Aoto, your Homeroom teacher. Let’s get roll call done so we can get going.”

Shouta didn’t pay much attention during roll call. He noticed the name of the one boy who’d gotten to class before him, Sarudo Genki, and the girl with the blue hair was Kobayashi Junko, but everyone else blurred together.

Actually, most of the day passed in a blur. There was so much information coming at him all at once that Shouta had to prioritize what he paid attention to. The rational choice was to focus on the materials Nishibori-Sensei was handing out, but Yamada and Shirakumo both seemed far more interested in learning all about their classmates instead.

Yamada in particular flitted around the classroom every time there was an opportunity, approaching almost everyone to introduce himself before scurrying back to his seat when the next lesson started.

Shirakumo was no less friendly towards everyone, but he chose to stay in his seat and chat with the people who sat nearest to him. Shouta mostly slouched down in his chair or hunched over his desk, but come lunchtime, Yamada slung his arm around Shouta’s shoulders and fell into step beside him.

“Talk about living the dream!” he said, leaning heavily on Shouta. “Our classmates seem pretty cool, huh?”

“I guess,” Shouta mumbled. He hadn’t really spoken to anyone besides Yamada and Shirakumo, except to mutter thanks to the greenish boy in front of him, Niragi, when he passed papers back.

“Yeah, that kid Sarudo, he can shapeshift! And Kobayashi can basically make tech do almost anything she wants! I saw her at the entrance exam, I think she reprogrammed one of those robots! And Ebisui has super-strength, can you believe it? She’s so tiny, but she picked those robots up and smashed them on the ground!”

Shouta stayed quiet as Yamada listed off the fantastic powers their classmates had that would help them become heroes.

“The food here is pretty good, huh?” Shirakumo said as he slid into the seat next to Yamada. Yamada nodded as he shoved his lunch into his mouth, apparently one of the few things that could make him stop talking. Shouta just shrugged and unwrapped the food he’d brought from home and ate it quickly.

“Is that all you’re having?” Yamada asked incredulously.

Shouta ducked his head and frowned. “I’m not very hungry.”

“Me neither,” Shirakumo said around a mouthful of rice. “I think I took too much, but it’s a shame to waste it. You should finish it.” He held on to the bowl in his hand, but slid the rest of his tray over to Shouta without waiting for a response.

“That’s not-”

“Come on, you’re not gonna waste food, are you?” Shirakumo chided.

“Technically, you’d be the one wasting it,” Shouta grumbled… but it did smell pretty good. His stomach growled, and without glancing back up, he wolfed down everything left on the tray. Yamada didn’t say anything, but Shouta didn’t like the way he could feel his eyes lingering on him.

“Hey Yamada, Shirakumo!” Shouta glanced up as the blue-haired girl, Kobayashi, plunked down across from them. “And you’re Aizawa, right?” Shouta nodded. Kobayashi started chatting easily with Yamada and Shirakumo while Shouta sank lower in his seat. When it became clear she wasn’t going to be leaving any time soon, Shouta grabbed the tray in front of him to clear away the trash.

That gave him the opportunity to escape to the bathroom.

He’d only been in there a few minutes, hunched in a corner scrolling through his phone - not that he had much to scroll through - when Shirakumo came in.

“There you are!” Shirakumo laughed. “We were wondering if you got lost!”

Shouta blinked at him in confusion.

“You were looking for me?”

“Of course! Come on, there’s a few minutes left before we gotta head back to class.” Shirakumo stopped at the door and held it open, waiting for Shouta who was still standing frozen in place. “Come on!” Shirakumo repeated with a laugh, “Kobayashi was telling us some of the dirt on the teachers.”

“How does she know any dirt?” Shouta asked as his feet carried him towards Shirakumo and out the door.

“Her older sister graduated from the General Studies course two years ago,” he replied, but then lowered his voice to whisper conspiratorially, “But I’m pretty she might also have hacked into the systems.” He flashed a brilliant grin and bumped his shoulder gently against Shouta’s. “Either way, I wanna hear all the good stuff!”

As Shouta followed along behind Shirakumo, trotting to keep up with the taller boy’s strides, he reminded himself not to get too used to this.

Nobody had really seen his Quirk in action yet. That was usually when everything fell apart.

Chapter Text

Hero school was the Coolest! Thing! Ever! Hizashi was having a blast, and it was only the third day of classes.

So far, the academic subjects were easy enough; but yesterday was when things really started to feel heroic! They’d gotten to try on their costumes and take turns showing Nishibori how well they could use their Quirks. Sarudo’s shapeshifting was seriously impressive, and Shirakumo’s clouds were so cool! Hizashi had kept looking up at the real ones in the sky while his classmate was showing off, then turning to talk to Nakano and Kobayashi. Everything was so exciting, and Hizashi was practically vibrating out of his skin, his attention drawn in every direction at once. Of course, when it was his turn, Hizashi made quite an impression on everyone when he let loose.

Then there was Yakumo Mamoru, and, Hizashi had to admit, the guy gave him the creeps. In his school uniform, his spidery-ness from his Quirk was noticeable, but tolerable. His hero costume, however, really played it up, including giving him extra ‘legs’ on his torso. The whole effect made his scuttling up the walls and doing other spidery things really unnerving.

Hizashi was still confused about what Aizawa’s Quirk was. He watched closely as his classmate stared at their teacher. The way his eyes glowed and his hair stood up like that was intimidating for sure; but even though it didn’t really look like he was doing anything, Nishibori had seemed both surprised and impressed. And for some reason, Aizawa didn’t like talking about it, which was weird, cuz pretty much everyone else in class was really eager to talk about their Quirks and their excitement to become a hero.

Today’s hero lesson was shaping up to be even more exciting, though; a mock battle! Hizashi bounced on his toes as the class stood on the training ground, decked out in their costumes again. He was chatting with Mushimori Jumpei, a boy with a distinctly bat-like head, while Nishibori had them draw lots to be paired up.

“Lookit that!” Hizashi crowed when he drew team G right after Mushimori did. “Ready to smoke our opponents, teammate?”

Mushimori’s lips peeled back in a toothy grin. “Absolutely.”

“Hey Aizawa, what team did you get?” Hizashi asked, spinning around, looking for the other boy.

“Team D,” Aizawa replied, slouching next to Shirakumo, making him look even smaller than usual.

“Team A!” Shirakumo announced, “I’m with Nakano!” he added, as Nakano Mayumi, a girl with ashy blonde hair who sat next to Shirakumo in class, drew her lot.

“Sweet!” Nakano cheered, trotting over to high-five her teammate.

“Looks like I’m with you, Aizawa,” Katasugi Fumiki said with a smile as he approached them. He was a short, stout boy who could stretch his body and limbs out like elastic. Aizawa nodded to acknowledge him.

“The rules are simple enough,” Nishibori said, dragging everyone’s attention back to him. “You’ll have ten minutes. Your goal is to capture your opponents and to not get captured yourself.” He held up a pair of handcuff looking things with a big red button in the middle. Pressing the button opened and closed them. “Once these are on you, you’re captured. They are simple to operate, but you are not allowed to free yourself. If your partner gets captured, you can try and free them. If you both get captured, you lose. Any questions?”

“Yeah, how could those little things possibly contain all this awesomeness!?” Hizashi laughed, gesturing at himself with both hands.

“They’ll just have to manage,” Sensei replied dryly. “Or don’t get captured.”

“No problemo!” Hizashi replied, shooting double finger guns at their teacher.

“I admire your confidence, Yamada. Let’s see who your opponents are.” With that, Sensei began drawing pairs to assign which teams would face off. “Team A vs Team G,” was barely out of his mouth when Hizashi spun to Shirakumo in glee.

“You’re goin down!” he crowed.

“We’ll see about that!” Shirakumo retorted, his wide grin taking on a sharper edge.

“Will you two shut up so the rest of us can hear our matches?” Aizawa grumbled. Hizashi mostly tuned out the other match-ups until Sensei was announcing Aizawa’s team.

“Team D vs Team F.”

“Who’s team F?” Katasugi asked.

“That’s us!” Yakumo said, nodding at Sarudo next to him. Hizashi was quietly thankful he wasn’t squaring up against the spider-boy, at least not yet. He didn’t seem like a bad guy, but Hizashi was just really creeped out by bugs, and he couldn’t quite help being a little uneasy around Yakumo because of that.

When Sensei finished announcing the teams, he told them to take ten minutes to come up with a strategy. Hizashi was glad he and Mushimori got to go in the first round, he was way too jazzed up to sit around waiting.

“Ok, you can make that oil-slick stuff, right?” Hizashi asked, and Mushimori nodded. “Nakano’s Quirk lets her control the ground, so that’s gonna be dangerous. They’ll probably use Shirakumo’s clouds to cover their approach. The area we’re working in isn’t very big,” he said, glancing at the map displayed by Nishibori, “But there’s a few taller buildings. We should probably get up high, especially if you can make the path up behind us a slippery mess so they can’t follow. I can knock them out from a distance, but you’re gonna want to make sure you’re completely behind me and pretty far back, especially if your ears are as sensitive as they look.” Mushimori twitched his huge, delicate ears back and away from Hizashi, a preemptive flinch.

Hizashi scratched his head for a moment, realizing a flaw in his plan. “We just need to make sure we’ve got a safe path back down, so if I knock them down on the ground, we can get there and officially put the cuffs on them.”

“Oh, that’s no problem,” Mushimori said. “I can dissipate the stuff just as fast as I can spread it, if I want. It fades away on its own in about two hours, but we’ll be done long before that.”

“Awesome!” Hizashi looked around to see the rest of the class paired off and huddled together, and he grinned in giddy excitement.

Then time was up, and Nishibori was telling them that they had two minutes to get to their respective start zones and set up. A horn would sound to officially begin the match.

“Let’s goooo!” Hizashi cheered as Sensei sent them off, running hard next to Mushimori, making their way to a three-story building and running up the stairs to the flat rooftop. Mushimori slicked the entryway and stairs behind them.

It was small enough that they could keep eyes on the entrance, high enough that Nakano wouldn’t have an easy time getting to them, low enough that if she collapsed it underneath them - if that was something she could do - they probably wouldn’t die.

“What if they’re holed up somewhere waiting for us to come at them?” Mushimori asked, and uhh, that was a good question.

“They peeled off and went that way,” Hizashi said, pointing, “So if we haven’t seen any movement in two minutes, we’ll go after them.” Mushimori nodded his agreement as a horn sounded through the training grounds and his ears flicked down and back.

For the first minute, nothing happened. Hizashi wasn’t sure he was gonna make it all the way to two minutes before he abandoned the plan and took off after them; but then he thought he heard something. He closed his eyes for a moment, listening, catching a slight rumbling - his hearing was excellent - and then he remembered his teammate prolly had him beat in that area.

“Can you hear anything?” he whispered to Mushimori, who flicked his ears around, cocking his head to the side. Moments later, Mushimori pointed to an area ahead of them and to their left, then held up one finger. Hizashi nodded, fighting to contain his impulse to let loose a yell and knock out their opponent right that second, still out of sight. He was pretty sure if he yelled loud enough, even the surrounding buildings wouldn’t offer enough protection from the blast; but he also wasn’t sure how much damage it would cause, and he didn’t want to collapse anything or seriously injure Nakano or Shirakumo.

“They’re doing something,” Mushimori whispered urgently to Hizashi as a mist began to fill the road in front of their building.

“There’s the cloud cover,” Hizashi whispered, holding his breath.

He saw movement in the fog, stirring eddies as it crept towards their stronghold. He waited as they got closer and closer.

“Get all the way back and cover your ears, I’m gonna yell,” Hizashi whispered, not taking his eyes off the fog below. Mushimori retreated all the way back to the entrance to the roof, and Hizashi grinned.

Show time!

“I seeeee yoooou!” The force of his Quirk blasted away the fog, and he heard someone, probably Nakano, yelp in distress. He had just enough time to see her dashing out from behind a huge mound of earth that had definitely not been there when the fog rolled in, before a shadow fell over him.

“Boo!” Shirakumo dropped down from above, tackling Hizashi to the rooftop.

What the hell, Shirakumo could fly on those clouds!? Hizashi hadn’t seen him do that yesterday!

“Shit!” Hizashi swore as he began grappling with him. Shirakumo was taller and broader than Hizashi; and though it was close, Hizashi could tell his classmate probably had him beat on strength.

That was fine, though. Hizashi could pack one helluva punch in other ways.

Mushimori was scrambling over to help, but Hizashi warned him off. “I got this, Nakano is coming in, go get her!” Mushimori nodded and took off inside. With his teammate’s sensitive ears further away, Hizashi could fight with his Quirk now.

“Off!” Hizashi barked, modulating the power since Shirakumo was right on top of him, struggling to get Hizashi’s wrists into the restraints. The result was effective, as Shirakumo flinched and rolled away, gasping for breath like he’d been punched in the gut. “Oh, yeah!” Hizashi said - half attack, half cheer as he unleashed his Quirk at Shirakumo again, sending him sprawling on the rooftop. Moving fast, Hizashi grabbed his restraints and closed the distance; but Shirakumo rolled away from him, scrambling to his feet and brandishing his bo staff.

Time to get serious and pump up the jam. Hizashi grinned as Shirakumo charged, swinging his bo staff. Hizashi dodged away, pivoting quickly to face him again. The weapon gave Shirakumo good range, but Hizashi’s range was way better. Shirakumo made himself another cloud and perched on it like a surfer as he glided with surprising speed directly at Hizashi.

A solid hit from the bo staff, especially with all that extra speed behind it, would be a big problem. Good thing Shirakumo wasn’t gonna get a chance to swing.

“YEEEEAAAAAHHH!” This time, Hizashi put a lot more oomph into it, and not only blasted Shirakumo’s cloud to vapor, but sent him rolling back across the roof. Hizashi was charging at him before Shirakumo had stopped tumbling, and had fastened the restraints on him before the stunned boy could recover.

One opponent down, one to go… and well over half their time gone as Hizashi trotted over to the door back into the building. The steps down were clear of Mushimori’s oil slick; thankfully he’d left the path for Hizashi to come help. From below, the sounds of a struggle were clear, and Hizashi picked up his pace.

Unfortunately, he picked it up a little too much, realizing too late that the oil was still in place at the last landing, where the wall gave way to a railing, offering a clear view of the open space of the ground floor. Hizashi skidded on the concrete, landing hard on his side, thankfully not tumbling down the last set of stairs to the floor below. Grateful for the leather costume protecting his skin, he managed to squirm across to the edge so he could see what was going on, resting on his forearms as he peeked into the area below.

Nakano was sprawled out on the floor, unable to get her feet under herself. Mushimori was pinned against the far wall by a long tendril of earth that was coming in through the open doorway. Hizashi knew he had to do something to break the stalemate, but his less than graceful entrance onto the scene had alerted Nakano to his presence. By the time he was drawing a breath to shout, a smaller tendril of dirt had broken away from the main one holding Mushimori and was headed directly for Hizashi. He hoped he was low enough to the ground that Nakano would have trouble targeting him…

The shock of dirt hitting his face, covering his jaw and filling his mouth, stunned Hizashi for a moment, and his eyes went wide in panic as he choked. He rolled onto his side, his hands scrambling to try and dig out the dirt and grit as it pressed down on his tongue and he gagged.

“Calm down and breathe through your nose,” Nakano shouted, her eyes not leaving him. Hizashi wanted to growl that it was easier said than done, but he closed his eyes and made himself draw a slow, careful breath in through his nose. He clenched his shaking hands and tried to think of a way out of the situation.

Opening his eyes and keeping his breathing steady, Hizashi watched as Nakano kept trying to get dirt from outside to cover the floor and absorb the oily substance. All she’d managed to do was turn a smooth, slick surface into a gritty, slick surface. Hizashi could see that the wads of dirt continued to slip and slide when she tried to use them for more stable footing.

He tried to use his Quirk to dislodge the dirt from his mouth, humming a low noise to expel it; but all it accomplished was making the dirt vibrate and shift around inside his mouth, and that was even more unpleasant than letting it be still.

Hizashi wasn’t sure how long the three of them were frozen in that stalemate, but it was too long for his liking before the horn sounded. Immediately, Nakano released them, the dirt muzzling Hizashi coming away as he sputtered and coughed, trying to get the taste of it out of his mouth.

Shirakumo came trotting down the stairs, carrying the restraints, but he stopped, eyes wide at the scene before him. “Man, you guys had all the fun without me!” he said, floating himself on a cloud over to Hizashi in order to avoid the oily stairs. “Here, I can carry one more, let’s get you outside,” he said, offering his hand to haul Hizashi up.

“Thanks, man,” Hizashi said, voice ragged from coughing. Mushimori was in the process of clearing the oil so Nakano could stand, and all the invading dirt had returned back outside. After a brief check to see that everyone was uninjured, the four of them made their way to the exit, Shirakumo still floating himself on his cloud.

Hizashi stared in awe at the easy way Shirakumo was just perched there. “I didn’t know those clouds were sturdy enough to support you,” he said. Hizashi had already thought Shirakumo’s Quirk was really cool, but now it was even cooler.

“That’s probably because you spent half of yesterday talking instead of watching everyone’s demonstrations,” Nakano snickered.

“Surprise!” Shirakumo laughed. Hizashi could only shrug and laugh along.

“Hey, no hard feelings, right Yamada?” Nakano asked as they rejoined their class, who’d been watching the whole thing from a small array of monitors set up outside the training ground. “I think you nearly burst my eardrums with that first blast, even with that berm up to shield me. I couldn’t risk that again.”

“Nah, we’re good,” Hizashi said, flashing her a bright smile.

Nishibori sent the next two teams in. Hizashi sorta paid attention to the monitors, but was still far more interested in chatting with his classmates. He migrated through the group before ending up sitting with Katasugi, Aizawa, and Shirakumo.

“Pretty impressive, right?” Hizashi asked, bumping Aizawa with his shoulder.

“Sure,” Aizawa mumbled with a shrug. Shirakumo was resting back on his hands, legs stretched out and crossed in front of him. The horn sounded to end the match-up, and Hizashi glanced up at the screens to see the four kids making their way out. Sensei called up the next teams, and Hizashi tuned back out again, trotting over to chat with the newest escapees from the training exercise.

By the time the horn sounded again, ending the third match-up, Hizashi was once again sitting with Aizawa and the others, watching the battle finish up.

“Teams D and F,” Nishibori called, and Aizawa and Katasugi stood up.

Katasugi gave them a jaunty salute. “Wish us luck!”

“I don’t want luck,” Aizawa grumbled under his breath. Hizashi sat back to watch the monitors as Aizawa and Katasugi took off in one direction while Yakumo and Sarudo went in the other. Hizashi suppressed a shudder at the way Yakumo moved. Even running upright on two legs, there was something about it that made his skin crawl.

The starting horn sounded, and Hizashi watched the screens, tracking the way Aizawa moved through the course, pausing at corners cautiously before running ahead. Katasugi stretched his neck up to scout from a higher vantage point; but Hizashi wasn’t sure how they were going to manage to spot their opponents. Even with cameras tracking them, he’d almost lost sight of Yakumo and Sarudo. Sarudo had transformed himself into a rat, while Yakumo had scuttled up a wall, heading towards Aizawa and Katasugi, ready to drop down on them like Shirakumo had done to Hizashi.

Both teams were coming up to an open space with far less cover, but Sarudo made it there first and shifted into a tall tree. The only thing Hizashi could see giving him away was the way he appeared rooted in the middle of the sidewalk. Yakumo climbed up the wall behind Sarudo, the thick leaves mostly covering him from view.

Moments later, Katasugi and Aizawa peeked out from the cross street, but there wasn’t even a hint of movement to give their opponents away. Aizawa hung back, lips pursed tight as he looked around, seeming at a loss while Katasugi started trotting forward. As Katasugi got closer to Sarudo, Hizashi could see the tree starting to shake. Maybe Sarudo was getting nervous, or excited, or maybe holding the form was hard; but either way, Aizawa must have noticed it too, because he dashed forward, grabbing Katasugi by the arm. Aizawa activated his Quirk, staring at the tree.

Suddenly, the tree was Sarudo again, and Katasugi surged forward to try and grapple the startled looking boy, his limbs stretching to wrap tightly around him. Aizawa’s hair was still standing up as his eyes swept over the wall where Yakumo was crouched. Yakumo was blending in far too well for Hizashi’s comfort, until Aizawa’s gaze focused on him. Suddenly, Yakumo was falling down off the side of the building.

He hadn’t been too far up, but still, Hizashi winced when Yakumo hit the ground with a thud that must have knocked the wind out of him. Aizawa was already on top of him, scrambling to get the restraints on. Yakumo seemed stunned, and didn’t put up much of a fight until one wrist was already locked in place, then he started thrashing around, trying to throw Aizawa off. Hizashi leaned forward, biting his lip and humming low in his throat as Aizawa deftly shifted his weight and twisted Yakumo’s arms back, securing his other wrist.

When Aizawa’s gaze shifted back over to Katasugi, Hizashi’s eyes followed, seeing him struggling with a dog-shaped Sarudo. Sarudo was firmly held in place, but he was snapping and biting, and without wrists that would fit properly in the restraints. Aizawa activated his Quirk, and suddenly it was a human-again Sarudo wrapped tightly in Katasugi’s arms. Aizawa rushed over, grabbing the restraints from Katasugi. With a final click, the restraints were in place, and the match-up was done.

They’d finished in just under five minutes, the fastest result so far.

Hizashi hopped up to meet them as they exited the training area, excited to finally get to talk to Aizawa more about his Quirk. Yakumo and Sarudo came out first, both shooting glances back over their shoulder to where Aizawa was slouching along behind Katasugi, dragging his shoes in the dirt and staring at the ground.

“Yo, dude!” Hizashi shouted as Aizawa caught up to the group. “That was awesome!”

“More like creepy,” Yakumo muttered loud enough that he clearly intended for Aizawa to hear.

“Hey, come on-” Hizashi protested.

“You didn’t feel it, Yamada,” Sarudo said, a little more quietly than Yakumo. “He looked at me, and it was like my Quirk was just- gone. I reached for it, and it wasn’t there.” Hizashi frowned at them.

Aizawa had continued walking past to go sit on the ground a few meters away from everyone else. He didn’t look like he was celebrating, even though his team had just pulled off the most epic win so far. Hizashi trotted over, and by the time he got there, Shirakumo had already floated himself over and was thumping Aizawa on the back.

“Great job! You and Katasugi made a great team! Where is he, anyway?” Shirakumo asked, glancing around. Hizashi peered back over his shoulder to see Katasugi talking with Yakumo and Sarudo.

“You were a badass out there, you should be celebrating!” Hizashi said, turning his attention back to Aizawa, who just shrugged then tucked his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around his legs. Hizashi followed Aizawa’s gaze to see he was looking back at Yakumo and Sarudo again.

“You’re not letting the stuff they said get to you, right?” Hizashi asked. It seemed ridiculous for Yakumo of all people to say anything about someone else’s Quirk being ‘creepy.’ He was probably just feeling bitter cuz they got beat so quickly.

“I’m fine,” Aizawa said, looking up at the monitor where the last teams had already taken to the field while Hizashi hadn’t been paying attention. “I need something else,” Aizawa mumbled, watching the screen where four of their classmates were dancing around each other, Quirks flashing as they fought.

“What do you mean?” Hizashi asked.

“My Quirk alone isn’t enough, I can’t keep more than one person neutralized at once.” Aizawa said, though it seemed he was talking to himself more than he was to Hizashi. “I need something else, some kind of support gear.”

“If you say so, buddy,” Hizashi said, not really buying it. He’d seen Aizawa in action, after all.

“You mean like something to tie people up with when you’ve knocked them down, like how Katasugi was holding onto Sarudo?” Shirakumo asked. Aizawa peered at him out of the corner of his eye and shrugged.

Soon, the last match-up ended, and Sensei brought them all back to the classroom to debrief.

As they discussed what went well and what went badly, Hizashi realized he probably should have paid more attention to the other fights to have gotten a better idea of his classmates' capabilities.

Oh well, he’d figure them out eventually.

Hizashi did pay attention when Nishibori broke down his own match, and called him out on the things he needed to do better with. At the end, Sensei issued a warning to Mushimori and Nakano.

“Remember that just because someone is confident when they say something,” he said, “That doesn’t mean they actually know what they’re talking about.” Hizashi huffed and pouted for a moment, but Shirakumo just laughed.

“Very true!” he said, a bright grin still firmly on his face.

When it was Aizawa and Katasugi’s turn, Hizashi hoped that Nishibori might say something to help Aizawa see what an awesome job he did.

“And you, Aizawa,” Sensei said, “Approaching the situation with caution is good, but you hesitated until your teammate was at risk. You did well once you took action, but if you keep holding back, it will eventually start causing you problems.” Hizashi blinked, since he hadn’t really thought about it that way, but Aizawa just nodded solemnly.

The bell signaled the end of the day, and everyone started gathering their things and cleaning up. Hizashi was heading towards the door when he passed Yakumo and Sarudo talking with each other.

“All I know is, I wanna keep away from him,” Yakumo was saying, casting a glance to where Aizawa was shouldering his backpack.

“Don’t you think you guys are being a little dramatic?” Hizashi said, rolling his eyes. “Nakano stuffed my mouth with dirt, but you don’t see me holding a grudge.”

“Wait till your buddy uses his Quirk on you, then get back to us,” Yakumo said, more than loud enough for Aizawa to hear as he ducked his head and brushed past them all on his way out of the classroom. Shirakumo breezed along behind Aizawa, smiling at them as he passed.

“Last I checked, we’re all here to become heroes,” Hizashi told Yakumo. “Not really feelin’ the ‘heroic’ vibe in the attitude you’ve got going right now, you might wanna adjust it.” With a final glower at Yakumo, Hizashi trotted to catch up with Shirakumo and Aizawa. Shirakumo glanced back at him and smiled.

“So,” Hizashi asked, bumping his shoulder into Aizawa’s, “What do you think we’re gonna do tomorrow?”

~*~

Shouta spent the evening after work thinking about the match-up from earlier, and trying to imagine what kind of support item he could possibly get to help him compensate for his Quirk. Shirakumo’s suggestion of something tie someone up with bounced around in his head; but carrying around some rope or zip-ties would be woefully inadequate for what he needed.

He was going to need to talk to someone who had more experience with this kind of thing.

Before lunch the next day, Shouta approached Nishibori.

“May I go talk to someone in the Support department?”

“Of course,” Sensei said, giving him an appraising look. “Are you planning to ask about a support item to integrate into your costume?” Shouta nodded. “Talk with Power Loader. He just started last year in the Costume Development Studio, but he used to be my student in the hero course. That was ten years ago; but he was damn good even then. He’ll help you figure out something that will suit you.” Shouta gave a brief bow and ducked out of the room.

Everyone else had already headed for the cafeteria, so when he spotted Shirakumo lounging against the wall outside the door, Shouta was confused.

“I heard you’re going to ask about support items,” Shirakumo said as Shouta started down the hallway, “I figured I’d join you!” Shouta shrugged and kept walking. “See, I’ve been thinking, if I had a speaker to hide in my cloud cover, I could throw off opponents about my location. Ya know, put it in one spot while I go to another, and then they couldn’t tell where my voice was coming from!”

“You could just be quieter,” Shouta told him.

“Where’s the fun in that?” Shirakumo laughed, spinning around to walk backwards, facing Shouta.

“Fights aren’t about fun,” Shouta said with a frown. “And your Quirk is Cloud, clouds are supposed to be quiet.”

“Not thunder clouds!” Shirakumo shouted. “I guess I’m just a loud cloud, might as well find a way to turn it into an advantage.”

Shouta didn’t understand Shirakumo. It almost seemed like the other boy kept going out of his way to stay close to Shouta. To talk to him, even though Shouta barely said anything back.

Yamada made a little more sense; he approached everyone. Yamada acted as if he could befriend the whole class, or even the whole school, if he just tried. He seemed to have latched onto Shouta at the entrance exam, but Shouta was confident that Yamada would figure out that Shouta wasn’t ‘friend material’ soon enough.

Shirakumo was just as loud and friendly as Yamada, but he seemed determined to stick close to Shouta instead of floating around. Of course, Shirakumo spoke with the other classmates that sat around him, like Nakano, Kobayashi, and Mushimori; but somehow, every time there was a break or downtime, Shirakumo always seemed to gravitate towards Shouta.

Shouta couldn’t help wondering if it was all some practical joke, and part of him was waiting for Shirakumo, and even Yamada, to burst out laughing at how stupid Shouta must be to think that they’d ever want to actually be…

Shouta exhaled heavily and hunched his shoulders, guarding against his own irrational impulses. Despite all the distrust built up inside Shouta, the years of knowing that he was the creepy reject and it was better to just keep his distance… part of him was starting to hope.

It was a bad idea, and he knew he needed to squash it.

Shirakumo had continued to talk, mostly to himself, given that Shouta had kinda zoned out on him, the whole way to the Support wing. Now, standing outside the door to the Development Studio, Shouta found himself hesitating. After all, aside from just adding a weapon for better offensive capabilities, what kind of support item could possibly work with a Quirk like his?

“C’mon!” Shirakumo said, sliding the door open and walking inside. Shouta quickly followed behind, peering around the huge space.

“Can I help you?” A scrawny kid who looked maybe a year or two older than Shouta approached them. His ginger hair fell down to his shoulders, and his slightly overly-long arms ended in very overly-large hands with fingers tipped by metallic looking bits. In a world of Quirks, that wasn’t unusual; but the fact that he wasn’t wearing a shirt gave Shouta pause. A glance around revealed that the other students working around the studio were both fully clothed and mostly wearing protective safety gear.

“I’m looking for your Sensei, I think,” Shouta said, “Power Loader?”

The boy barked out a laugh. “This always happens when I’ve got my helmet off for repairs,” he muttered. “Anyway, you’ve found him. What can I do for you?” Shouta blinked in disbelief. Hadn’t Nishibori said he’d taught this guy ten years ago?

“Aizawa and I are looking for support gear,” Shirakumo started, immediately explaining about the speaker he wanted.

“That’s easy enough,” Power Loader said with a nod, “I’ll put something together for ya and get the paperwork submitted if you like it. What about you? Aizawa, was it?”

“Yes, Sensei,” Shouta said, his neck still hot with embarrassment at his earlier blunder. But really, how was he supposed to know this man wasn’t a second year!? “I’m probably going to need both offensive and defensive items, to compensate for my Quirk, but I’m not really sure which one to start with or what would work best.” Now Shouta’s embarrassment shifted focus, revolving around how unprepared he sounded. If he didn’t know what he needed, how could anyone make it for him?

Power Loader only nodded though. “Ok, so what are we working with here? What’s your Quirk?” Shouta took a breath. This was fine, the faculty would all know about his Quirk anyway, so it’s not like he could hide it. Power Loader couldn’t help him if Shouta didn’t explain.

“It’s called Erasure,” he said, keeping his voice firm and steady. “When I activate it, I can erase a person’s Quirk by looking at them. The effect ends when I blink.”

“A good Quirk for a hero,” Power Loader said, the same kind of humoring line that Shouta had come to expect from far too many adults.

“But not much help when the person I’m fighting is way bigger and stronger than me,” Shouta muttered.

Power Loader huffed a laugh. “I understand the feeling. Alright, there’s quite a few options I can think of for items that do triple duty for offense, defense, and utility. I want to get a better idea about this Quirk of yours, though. Show me.”

Shouta took a breath and widened his eyes as his Quirk flared to life, hair rising behind him. “Hmm,” Power Loader murmured, looking at his fingers, tipped with those metallic looking claw-like things. “Doesn’t feel any different. Does it work on physical Quirks of a person’s body?” Shouta blinked, and his hair fell.

“Oh, uhm. Not really,” he said, admitting to one more limitation to his already pathetic Quirk. “Sometimes, it can stop someone from using a part of their body if it’s entirely Quirk-based; like if someone has a tail, the tail kinda stops listening to them; but the tail doesn’t go away.”

Power Loader nodded thoughtfully. “Alright. You, Shirakumo, right? With the clouds? Mind if your buddy demonstrates on you?”

“Sure!” Shirakumo said, instantly creating a cloud to perch on, hovering a few centimeters above the floor. “Go ahead!”

“Are you sure?” Shouta asked, suddenly nervous. Things had been going well with Shirakumo so far…

He didn’t want the boy to stop talking to him yet.

“It’s fine!” Shirakumo laughed. “Come on, show me yer scary face!”

“S’not a scary face,” Shouta grumbled, but steeled himself and activated his Quirk again. Instantly, Shirakumo’s cloud lost all structural integrity and dropped him directly on his butt, billowing away in wispy tendrils of fog that evaporated within moments.

“Woah!” Shirakumo said, looking up at Shouta, wide-eyed. Shouta kept staring, willing his eyes not to tear up. This was going to happen eventually anyway, better to get it over with sooner rather than later. Shirakumo held up his hand, clearly trying to summon a cloud, nothing materializing. “That’s so cool!”

At that, Shouta blinked, his Quirk deactivating as Shirakumo sprung up off the ground and popped out a few tiny clouds from the tips of his fingers. “Very weird, but very cool. It’s like that time I fell asleep on my arm and it went completely numb and I couldn't even move it. I could feel it was there, but it was just totally turned off.”

“Interesting,” Power Loader said.

“I was thinking that if he had something to use to tie someone up while their Quirk wasn’t working, that might help,” Shirakumo said.

“Not a bad idea, but I think we might be able to go a little bit beyond that. Your hair always goes up like that when you use your Quirk?” Power Loader asked Shouta.

“Yeah,” Shouta mumbled, “The Quirk counselor figured it was an adaptation to make sure my field of vision wasn’t obstructed.”

“Makes sense. Hmm, I wonder, if it’s a limited form of telekinesis… I may have an idea about something, hang on.” Power Loader retreated to a desk covered in papers and projects in progress and started rummaging through the drawers. “Ah-ha, let's see here,” he said, a wide scrap of green cloth in his hand, holding it up close to Shouta’s face. “This is leftover from someone else’s costume, so this is just an experiment. Activate your Quirk again.”

When Shouta’s Quirk flared back to life, the piece of fabric reacted immediately, almost dancing on Power Loader’s hand, which had Shouta blinking in surprise. As his Quirk cut out, the fabric collapsed back down, limp in Power Loader’s hand.

“Again,” Power Loader told him, this time holding the fabric down closer to Shouta’s knees. Shouta did, but the material stayed still. Power Loader brought his hand slowly up, and once it got to about the level of his shoulders, it began its frantic dance again. “Here, take hold of it,” Power Loader told Shouta, pulling his arm up and putting the fabric in his hand. It tickled his palm as it moved. “Lower your arm, now.” Even as Shouta brought the fabric down till his arm was straight at his side, he could still feel it moving in his grip. Finally, he blinked, and it grew still.

“What was that!?” Shirakumo asked.

“The fabric is interwoven with a special material that reacts to certain kinds of mental Quirks,” Power Loader said with a grin, “Telekinetic types especially. It can help create finer control for the users.”

“I’m not telekinetic, though,” Shouta insisted, still staring in disbelief at the bright green fabric.

“I’ve got an idea,” Power Loader said. “Come back tomorrow, by then I’ll have sketched it out a bit, and we’ll talk about it, see if you like it.”

Shouta nodded slowly, handing the fabric back to Power Loader.

“Thanks so much, Sensei!” Shirakumo said brightly. “Tomorrow at lunchtime?”

“Come after school, in case we need more time to talk the details out.”

“You got it, he’ll be here!” Shirakumo said, slapping his hand down on Shouta’s shoulder. “Come on, Aizawa, we’ve got a few minutes left, let's go eat something quick!”

That finally snapped Shouta out of his trance. “Is food all you think about?” he asked.

“Nope, only most of it!”

*

For some reason, when Shouta went back to see Power Loader the next afternoon, both Shirakumo and Yamada were in step beside him, chattering away to each other.

“That exercise this afternoon was intense!” Shirakumo said.

“Almost a little too intense,” Yamada said, rubbing the back of his neck. “If Shimada didn’t have such good reflexes, I’d have taken out my own teammate.”

“How much louder than that can you go?” Shirakumo asked, eyes wide with curiosity.

Yamada shrugged. “I dunno. When we were showing Nishibori-Sensei our Quirks, that was the first time I ever tried to go even close to all-out. That might be my max, but if I really train a lot, maybe I can pump up the volume even more.” Shouta winced at the thought, pretty sure that Yamada’s first attempt had nearly burst his eardrums, even though he had been facing away from the class.

“You’re gonna be able to knock down a building!” Shirakumo laughed as they arrived at the Development Studio.

Power Loader greeted them and almost immediately tossed a gourd to Shirakumo, who snatched it out of the air easily, turning it over in his hands to inspect it. “What do you think? Goes well with the look of your costume, and not immediately obvious what it is. Opponents shouldn’t be on guard for the kind of tricks you’re thinking of.”

“Perfect! Thanks, Sensei!”

“And who’s this?” Power Loader asked, looking at Yamada.

“Yamada Hizashi. I’ve been thinking, I need something to help me focus the direction of my Quirk. I wanna take down the baddies, not the buildings, ya dig?”

“Ahh, you’re the one with the Voice Quirk. You were impressive at the entrance exam.” Shouta glanced at Yamada to see the other boy grinning, his ears turning red.

“That’s me!”

“Ok, that’ll be pretty simple too. If you can stick around after I chat with Aizawa, I might already have something around here that’ll do the trick.”

“Sweet!” Yamada cheered.

Now Power Loader waved them over to his desk, where he had a few sheets of paper spread out with drawings and diagrams. Shouta’s eyes flicked over the pages, and he felt Shirakumo and Yamada crowding up behind him to look over his shoulders.

“You said you’re looking for offense and defense,” Power Loader said, “And every hero can do with solid utility items.”

“Is that a scarf?” Yamada asked.

“Not quite.” Power Loader looked at Shouta and began to explain. “It’s an idea I thought of a while back, but putting it into practice wasn’t really viable until I realized that material I mentioned last time could be woven into fabrics. So these long cloth strips would all be interwoven with it. It will make them work with your intent. I don’t want to get into too much detail until we actually have the finished product in hand and can get a better idea of how it really reacts to you.”

“What if I can’t make it work?” Shouta asked, looking at the mock-up drawings of long pieces of cloth wrapping up villains, of a figure swinging through the air on a line of fabric that looked far too thin to be strong enough for the task.

“If you find that you don’t like it or it doesn’t suit you, I’ll hold onto it until someone else comes along who might be a good match for it,” Power Loader said, resting his hip against his desk and looking over the drawings again. “But I’ve read your file, you’ve got a really strong martial arts background and excellent mobility. Between that and the way the test fabric reacted to you, I believe this is something you can make your own. So, what do you think?”

Shouta wasn’t sure why he glanced back at Yamada and Shirakumo.

“Dude, that is so slick!” Yamada said, looking back and forth between the pictures and Shouta. “You’re gonna kick so much ass!”

“I don’t know,” Shouta murmured, thinking of all the ways this probably wouldn’t work.

“Why not?” Shirakumo laughed. “What could possibly be the downside?”

“I try using it, get stuck on a tree branch and strangle myself to death?” Shouta offered as the first possibility that sprang to mind.

“We’ll help you train till you get a feel for it!” Shirakumo said.

“And I’m adding a knife at your belt for a safety cutaway system,” Power Loader said, jotting another note down. “This isn’t something I can make on-site, I’ll need to send the specs out to have it manufactured. Just say the word.”

Shouta stared at the drawings. He imagined it, and he couldn’t deny it would be really useful. If he could make it work like Power Loader said. He bit his lip.

“What are you waiting for?” Shirakumo asked.

“Ok,” Shouta said. “Let’s try.”

“Great! I’ll send the specs over before Monday, and it will probably take about two weeks for them to get it completed. I’ll let you know when it’s in.”

Shouta nodded as Power Loader started rummaging around again, talking with Yamada about what kind of gear he was looking for. Shirakumo slung an arm over Shouta’s shoulders and gave him a little squeeze, something akin to a hug, and Shouta froze up. He wasn’t used to that kind of thing, not from his peers anyway. He glanced up at Shirakumo through the curtain of his hair to see the other boy smiling down at him.

“This is gonna be great, just wait and see!”

*

Shouta spent most of the weekend doing his homework and helping out Ms. Emoto. Every now and then, his phone would vibrate in his pocket with a notification that Yamada had texted him something. Mostly it was asking him what he was doing, and Shouta was honestly amazed how many questions his classmate could ask about the details of his job or about his study habits.

He was even more amazed at the fact that Yamada seemed to remember what Shouta told him, often referring back to answers he’d given hours or even a day or two ago. Maybe he was just looking back at the old texts, though.

Sunday night, Shouta was already laying down, half asleep when the text notification went off.

<Yamada> yo, what’s goin on dude?

<sent> Don’t you sleep? It’s almost midnight.

<Yamada> ur up too lmao

<Yamada> sleep is overrated

<sent> no it isn’t. see you in class tomorrow

<Yamada> kk, night Aizawa

Somehow, Yamada was wide awake and his usual loud self when he sauntered into the classroom the next morning, even though Shouta was already feeling the urge to put his head down and nap.

“Good morning, class,” Nishibori greeted them as he put his things down at his desk. “Before we get started, I need to announce that the Sports Festival will be held in two weeks time, so if you all want to make a good impression on the pros scouting for interns and future sidekicks, you’re going to want to make sure you train hard and give it your best effort.”

“Yeeaaahhh!” Yamada whooped, and Sensei glared at him.

“Save some enthusiasm for your training and schoolwork, Yamada.”

“No worries, I’ve got plenty to spare!”

“We’ve noticed,” grumbled Fujimi Riku, a boy whose eel-like appearance made his expression always look a little dour, though the roll of his eyes made his irritation with Yamada clear. The rest of the class giggled, but Yamada’s grin didn’t dim, he just pointed his ‘finger guns’ at Fujimi. Shirakumo glanced from Yamada to Fujimi and back, his brow furrowed for a moment before it smoothed again into his usual cheerful expression.

“Alright, enough,” Sensei sighed. “Get your homework out.”

Shouta did his best to focus on lessons, but the excited tittering of his classmates talking about the Sports Festival was a constant annoyance through the rest of the week. And at lunch, Shirakumo and Yamada would routinely sit next to Shouta. Both had gotten in the habit of giving him the ‘leftovers’ from their meals. Yamada’s mother was apparently prone to sending him to school with two apples instead of just one.

Shouta really wasn’t sure what to make of it all.

And then, other classmates would come over and sit with them. Kobayashi was the most frequent, talking almost endlessly with Yamada about music; but Nakano, Mushimori, and Shimada would also come over often as well. Shouta wasn’t sure why Yamada didn’t just go sit with the others, he had no problem floating around the classroom between lessons to chat with everyone.

Every day brought more training, more exercises, more sparring with each other. Shouta had been studying martial arts since before he could even remember, he could hold his own well enough; but day by day, he’d need to use his Quirk on one classmate after another. Day by day, they’d started keeping a wider berth from him.

So far, Shirakumo had been the only one who hadn’t reacted badly; but he also hadn’t been in a combat situation when Shouta had used his Quirk on him, and he’d both expected and invited it. Shouta couldn’t shake the thought that as soon as he really used his Quirk on Shirakumo, he too would withdraw.

The only upside was that, aside from Yakumo after that first mock battle, none of his classmates were being actively antagonistic to him. Sure, it stung a little bit when Nakano started to avoid him the day after he squared off against her; but she still nodded at him when he walked in the classroom, and she hadn’t said anything nasty.

She just stopped coming to sit by them at lunch.

Shouta wasn’t actually bothered by that, he preferred not being part of a noisy crowd anyway. But Shirakumo pouted when he noticed her bypassing their table to sit with Mori and Hadachi. Shouta ducked his head and bit his lip. “You can just go sit with them,” he said.

“Huh? Why would I wanna do that?” Shirakumo asked, blinking at him in confusion.

“You like sitting with them,” Shouta replied with a shrug.

“I like sitting with you too!” Shirakumo laughed.

“You’re the only one,” Shouta mumbled under his breath.

“Hang on, did I just develop an invisibility Quirk?” Yamada joked. “Shirakumo, you can still see me here, right?” Shouta just rolled his eyes, knowing it was only a matter of time before Kobayashi started avoiding him as well, and then Yamada would go sit with her instead. After all, unlike Shouta, she could hold up her end of a conversation.

At least nobody was avoiding Shirakumo or Yamada because of him. Nakano still chatted with Shirakumo between lessons, and Yamada still wandered the room whenever the opportunity arose. Shouta watched as Yamada approached Fujimi, a grin on his face, talking about a tv show that both of them apparently watched. Despite the contempt Fujimi had shown him earlier in the week, Yamada didn’t let that stop him from reaching out to connect with him, even if the conversation only ever lasted a minute or two.

The following week brought more of the same. Shouta wasn’t sure if he was worried or relieved that Yamada and Shirakumo hadn’t yet figured out that they should stay away from him.

The evening before the Sports Festival, Shouta’s parents asked him about it over dinner.

“Are you excited for tomorrow?” The fact that it was his mom asking the question caught him off guard. He expected that kind of thing more from his dad.

“Not really,” he answered honestly. “It’s all just showing off for cameras, pointless competition. It doesn’t matter. It’ll still be good training, but all the extra crap is stupid.”

“What about your friends, are they excited?” Dad asked.

“You mean my classmates?” Shouta asked. “They’re all into it. Won’t shut up about it, actually.”

“No, I meant your friends,” Dad emphasized. “Yamada and Shirakumo?”

Shouta blinked in surprise. He wasn’t sure what could have given his dad the impression that the other boys were his friends. But… he knew how much it bothered his parents that he never had friends in middle school, how much they didn’t want him to feel lonely. Even his mom, who often preferred to spend time on her own, had always encouraged him to make at least some connections.

They didn’t know that he had tried a few times. He’d let himself talk with a few kids who had tried talking to him first. He’d never told his parents, because it had always ended badly long before there was anything worth telling. Certainly he’d never gotten to the point of being close enough with anyone to call them a friend.

Though, Yamada and Shirakumo had both already outlasted all those previous attempts by peers. In the long run, it probably wouldn’t mean anything; but in the meantime, even though he wondered if he was lying to his parents, he didn’t argue about the label. The fact was, they were probably about as close to friends as he’d ever have anyway, so he might as well let his parents have this.

“They’re excited,” he said, “Although, Yamada got excited about fried chicken for lunch the other day, so it doesn’t take much. Shirakumo is treating it like one big game, which technically it is. I don’t know if he actually takes anything seriously.”

“It’s not bad to have fun with events like these, ya know,” Dad said. “You can still get stronger while you’re having a good time. Like putting on music while you work out. Hell, it can even help improve your performance sometimes! Help you train harder so you get stronger!” Shouta shot him an incredulous look.

“Music doesn’t make you train harder,” he grumbled. “It doesn’t matter anyway, I need to work harder than everyone else just to measure up, so I’ll be giving it my best. I don’t care about rankings or internship placements or any of that, but I need to be good enough to get my license and graduate. That’s all that matters.” His parents shared a look with each other that he knew meant they were worried about him, and he rolled his eyes.

He was fine.

Chapter Text

Shouta blinked against the blinding glare of the sun as Class 1-A poured out onto the field in the middle of the stadium, the white noise of the crowd filling the air around them. Right behind them, Class 1-B trotted out to join them amidst the din. Normally, the only time Shouta saw the other hero course students was in the cafeteria at lunch; but only in passing as they didn’t intermingle much. Besides the entrance exam, this would be the first time Shouta had a chance to go up against any of them, so he quickly tried to size them up.

The first person he noticed was a big, brutish looking boy who was scowling at everyone. Though his hair was swept up and forward like Yamada’s, his entire demeanor was the complete opposite of Shouta's perpetually smiling classmate.

Shouta immediately disliked him.

As Shouta let his eyes slide past un-Yamada, they landed on a tall, well-muscled boy with hair that Shouta thought was black at first, till the sunlight hit it and revealed that it was actually a dark blue. He had a handsome face, and was smiling easily around at the crowd and all the other students. He even met Shouta’s eye, giving him a friendly wave. Shouta felt his neck heat up at being caught staring; but he just let his gaze move past the smiling boy.

He was confused when he saw Mori standing with 1-B, chatting with them as if it was her usual class. His head snapped back around to look at his own classmates, and Mori was right there, talking with Nakano. Glancing between the two Mori’s, it took him far too long to realize that they were twins. By the time he’d figured it out, the opening ceremonies had already started and Yamada and Shirakumo were both elbowing him.

Principal Akahori was talking, explaining the first event, an obstacle race. Shouta paid enough attention to make sure he wouldn’t break any rules that would disqualify him. After all, if he got pulled off the course, he wouldn’t be able to gain the full benefit of the training exercise.

All the first year students moved in a throng towards the start line, with the hero course students at the front of the pack. Yamada and Shirakumo were on either side of Shouta, both eagerly leaning forward, ready for the starting horn. Despite knowing that this was all a ridiculous affair, Shouta felt his pulse rate tick up as an expectant hush fell over everyone.

The blare of the horn sounded, and Shouta took off, trying to keep as close to the front of the pack as he could to avoid being crushed by the crowd. He watched the handsome boy from 1-B make it around the first bend way ahead of everyone - clearly he had a speed Quirk.

Shouta managed to get ahead of Yamada in the chaos; but Shirakumo had decided to bypass the crowd altogether by floating above it. His clouds moved fast, but Shouta could almost keep up… until they approached the first obstacle.

Or, set of obstacles more accurately.

A series of thick concrete walls, each one higher than the last, spaced a few meters apart, blocked the whole wide path with no way around. The tallest one looked to be at least six or seven meters high, and Shouta saw a few people pull up short, hesitant to tackle something so imposing.

Shouta knew he couldn’t afford to lose any of his momentum if he wanted any chance of keeping up with everyone. He hopped up on top of the first wall, just over a meter tall, and leapt across the gap to the top of the next. Each one was thick enough for a good landing pad, but not enough for a running start, so he fought to not slow down. He focused on not losing any of the swing in his arms or bend in his knees as he made each jump.

He’d made it across the first five walls and was getting ready to leap to the top of the tallest one. He was feeling confident as his muscles coiled tight beneath his skin, ready spring across the gap. He pushed off, launching himself into the open air… just as a shockwave rumbled behind him and the solid footing beneath him trembled, throwing off his balance.

For a split second, his heart was in his throat as his foot slipped. Even as his toes left the wall, he knew his jump was going to be too short.

He wasn’t going to make it.

There was only one thing he could do. He reached out, hands making a desperate grab for the top of the wall as he slammed into the unyielding surface, dazed and winded by the force of the impact.

Everything was still.

Shouta gasped, lungs demanding oxygen. His fingers stung as the concrete bit into them, the pain grounding him as he held on. It was a clear signal to his brain that he had a grip, he hadn’t fallen.

He hadn’t fallen. He was safe.

He felt the strength in his fingers already reaching its limit.

He needed to move.

Glancing up at the top of the wall, he heaved a breath and swung his legs side to side, building momentum. His fingers were screaming from the shock of impact and the weight he was demanding they hold, but they had no choice but to hang on a little longer. One more swing and his foot caught the top of the wall. He hauled himself up, letting himself take a second to catch his breath. Shaking out his arms, he glanced back the way he’d come.

The burly boy from 1-B, un-Yamada, was unleashing powerful blasts from his hands, blowing a hole through each wall as he moved forward, the shockwaves rippling outwards from him. Shouta glowered at un-Yamada; but since the boy was still several walls behind him, Shouta decided that the most important thing was to put more space between them.

He got to his feet and saw that the walls continued ahead, stepping down in height. He did his best to ignore the handful of classmates that he could see ahead of him and off to the sides, focusing on getting down. He lightly made his way across the walls one by one, clearing each jump with ease. As soon as he was back on the ground, he took off running again.

Behind him, he heard someone land hard, and then a sound like a car engine revving up. Shouta tried to push, so that whoever it was wouldn’t pass him, only to have the 1-B boy with the speed Quirk zip by, shrinking quickly into the distance.

Shouta knew he could use his Quirk against the others during the Sports Festival. He knew he was expected to make the best use of his skills and abilities. He knew that eventually, he would end up using his Quirk against everyone in classes 1-A and 1-B.

It was irrational to delay the inevitable.

He was pretty sure that his own Quirk would work as long as he could see his target, no matter how far away they were, but he’d never had a chance to test his range.

Now was as good a time as any.

His feet pounded against the dirt and he activated his Quirk, eyes focused on the other boy. Even at this distance, Shouta could see the way he stumbled as his Quirk cut out, pausing to look wildly around before taking off again at a human speed. He was fast, even without his Quirk, but Shouta pushed himself to try and close the gap. He knew it was a losing battle - at most, he had about ten seconds before he’d have to blink, and then the boy would be gone - but Shouta would take every second he could get.

With the wind in his face, it was only six seconds.

He blinked, and the 1-B boy was out of sight before Shouta could reactivate his Quirk. He could hear more footsteps behind him, hard on his heels as others cleared the first obstacle. He could also hear the muffled sounds of explosions as un-Yamada kept blasting away at the walls, undoubtedly clearing a path for others behind him. Shouta didn’t know what the next obstacle would be, but he knew that he had to press his advantage while he had it. If the next obstacle tripped him up, everyone would be past him in a heartbeat.

The course bent sharply up ahead, and he slowed down as he neared it, wary of running headlong into whatever was waiting for them. He could hear something loud, a white noise rushing in his ears, broken suddenly by a thunderous roar.

Rounding the corner, he understood.

If the first obstacle had been an immovable object, this one was an unstoppable force.

The path ahead of him disappeared abruptly into a churning river of water, stretching out for an unnerving distance ahead. A powerful current flowed from one side to the other, creating whitewater eddies around a series of stepping stones that poked up only centimeters above the surface.

Shouta slowed his approach, needing a moment to assess the best way to cross the rapids. When a geyser roared up high into the sky a third of the way across, he jumped, nearly stumbling into the water. He saw the 1-B boy leaping from stone to stone, almost halfway across to the other side. Shouta could erase his Quirk again, but doing so would slow Shouta down too much, since there was no way for him to focus on Erasure while crossing this obstacle.

Focus.

There were many possible paths across, with stepping stones interspersed across and throughout the whole length and width of the obstacle. Shouta moved himself to a starting point ‘upstream’ of the flow of current, so if he lost his footing and fell in, he’d be swept more towards the center of the obstacle. Leaping to the first stone, he could feel a humming vibration through the soles of his shoes, the power of the water rushing against his foothold.

Stay focused.

Heart racing, he leapt again, and again. He was nearly a third of the way across when, just to his right, another geyser burst out of the water and he stumbled his landing. Arms pinwheeling to keep his balance, he held his breath as he steadied himself, his heart pounding in his chest at the near miss.

“Holy crap!”

Shouta cast a glance over his shoulder towards the source of the voice to see a pale-looking Yamada staring at him, open-mouthed, from his own first stepping stone.

No time for that.

Shouta locked his eyes on his next target, leaping again. Another geyser shot off, much further away from him this time. One jump at a time, Shouta made his way forward.

The roar of another geyser sounded behind him; and over it, he heard a wordless, Quirk-loud yell that could only be Yamada. Shouta spun around and saw the other boy clinging desperately to a stepping stone.

Shouta froze. Should he go back and help Yamada up out of the water? Rationally, he should continue on ahead. After all, this wasn’t actually a life-or-death situation, right? Yamada would be fine, even if he lost his grip.

But he was training to be a hero. How could he not help?

“Come on, we’ll do swim lessons another time!” Ebisui was suddenly standing on the stepping stone Yamada was clinging to. Shouta wasn’t sure when she’d gotten there, but she crouched down and effortlessly hauled Yamada out of the water with her super strength. Setting him on his feet, she leapt away to the next stone ahead of her.

Shouta stood still, staring at Yamada. The other boy was drenched from head to toe, eyes so wide that Shouta could see them even behind his sunglasses that had somehow not washed away in the current.

“Move it, Yamada,” Shouta shouted. Yamada shook his head as if coming out of a trance, plastering a wide (though maybe a little shaky) grin back on his face. Shouta watched as he took a breath and made his next jump.

Satisfied that Yamada was fine, Shouta got himself moving again. He wasn’t sure how much time that distraction had cost him, and he kicked himself for making such an irrational decision.

Focus.

He leapt once, twice, three more times until his feet hit the mud on the other side of the river, shoes squelching as he put some distance between himself and the rushing water. He spared a fast glance over his shoulder to see that Yamada was still moving well across the stones before he took off running again.

After all, he’d seen the rest of the crowd behind Yamada closing the distance as well.

Shouta's feet settled into a sure, steady rhythm as he ran; but as he rounded another turn, he stumbled and slowed nearly to a stop as he saw the third, and hopefully last, obstacle looming ahead of him.

A network of pillars, each one easily a meter or two in diameter, all of varying heights, stood close by each other like a stone forest. They hummed with ominous mechanical sounds, promising danger within as each one rotated around on its axis, moving at intermittent intervals.

Just to Shouta’s left, a 1-B girl he didn’t recognize dashed past him. Almost in slow motion, he saw a tripwire spring up out of the dirt, catching her by the ankle and sending her sprawling.

He huffed a determined breath, steeling himself. He wasn’t about to wait for everyone to pass him just so they could spring all the traps, so all he could do was push forward. He took off, jumping over the tripwire - only to immediately duck and roll when the pillar in front of him whirled on its axis, spinning a wicked looking blade directly at him.

Scrambling to his feet, he trotted ahead more carefully, heart pounding more from the adrenaline than exertion. He listened closely for the whirring and clicking that each pillar made as it sprung whatever trap it held in wait. Weaving through, ducking and dodging as he went, he traced what he hoped was as direct a path forward as he could. He passed a few students on the ground, groaning and stirring, getting back to their feet with varying levels of difficulty.

He also saw the shapes of other students off to his left and right passing him as they ran forward with less caution.

Up ahead, Shouta spotted a familiar figure on the ground, disentangling himself from a heavily weighted net. By the time he caught up to Shirakumo and ran past, the other boy had nearly freed himself. From behind, Shouta heard the familiar sound of Yamada, yelling an enthusiastic Quirk-loud shout, probably to disable the traps that lay ahead of him. He also heard explosions, and loud cracking sounds that made him wonder if a pillar was going to fall.

He didn’t want to stick around and find out.

He ran, seeing the open trail that would lead back to the finish line just up ahead. Too eager to get away from the pillars, Shouta missed the sound of a tripwire snapping up.

His stomach swooped as he fell, his hands instinctively moving to cushion his impact. Grunting as he hit the ground hard, he winced as the skin on the heels of his hands scraped against the packed earth.

Stumbling to his feet, he heard Shirakumo’s footsteps closing in on him. For a moment, Shouta wondered why Shirakumo was running instead of floating. He got his answer when Shirakumo shoulder checked him hard as he ran past, sending Shouta sprawling to the side, losing his footing and falling to his knees.

“See ya at the finish line!” Shirakumo whooped, tossing a wave to Shouta as he started floating ahead. By the time Shouta got his feet back under himself, Shirakumo was around the corner and out of sight.

Scowling, Shouta ran. He could still catch up if he pushed. He was keenly aware of the students off to his left and right, but he was still ahead of the crowd.

He heard Yamada yell again behind him. Realizing he must be almost out of the pillars now too, Shouta kept pushing. Yamada was surprisingly fast for someone who didn’t seem to care too much about the more physical aspects of training.

Shouta rounded the next corner and spotted Shirakumo and a few others up ahead. There was no sign of the 1-B boy; he was probably finished already. Well, nothing to be done about that; but he could pay Shirakumo back a little.

After all, if Shirakumo was going to treat it like a game, Shouta could play it just as well.

Quirk flaring to life, Shouta watched as Shirakumo’s fluffy transportation lost all structural integrity, dropping him two meters down to the ground below. Shouta’s lungs and eyes burned as he powered forward, closing the distance between himself and Shirakumo. A loud, clear laugh came from behind him, and he knew Yamada had caught up enough to see what had happened.

Up ahead in the distance, Shouta could see the finish line. Shirakumo was dragging himself to his feet as Shouta pulled even with him, and the race was on. Shouta didn’t let Shirakumo get close enough to bump him again, and Shirakumo didn’t try to use his Quirk to get ahead of Shouta, knowing Shouta would just erase it again.

They drew closer to the finish, while another set of footsteps came up to pull even with them.

Yamada still looked bedraggled from his dunk in the water and whatever the pillars had thrown at him, but he shot them both a brilliant grin and pulled slightly ahead as the finish line loomed right in front of them. Shouta dug deep, legs pumping, chasing Yamada, Shirakumo hot on his heels.

They were nearly side by side as they sprinted through the finish.

Shouta stumbled forward, away from where their classmates were still coming through the finish line. He planted his hands on his knees, panting heavily as his lungs burned in his chest. Shirakumo flopped down, spread eagle on the ground beside him, a broad smile on his face even as his chest heaved and sweat dripped off of him.

Not just sweat, Shouta noticed; sweat and water. Shirakumo’s hair still defied gravity as usual; but now that Shouta looked, he could see Shirakumo was as soaked as Yamada. One of the geysers must have knocked him into the water at the second obstacle.

“How- are you- not- out of breath?” Shirakumo gasped, looking over at Yamada. Yamada was certainly breathing harder than usual, but not nearly as much as anyone else.

“Increased lung capacity, courtesy of my Quirk,” Yamada said, sitting next to Shirakumo. “What I wanna know is when Aizawa here got a grasshopper Quirk!” he added, pointing at Shouta as if he’d been keeping some tremendous secret. “That was some crazy jumping you did! You shoulda seen it, Shirakumo! He went up those walls and across those stones like it was nothing!” Shouta rolled his eyes, since he knew his performance was hardly impressive; but he still felt his neck heat up at the compliment.

Yamada sighed, looking down at his soaked gym clothes. “Unlike me, who needed Ebisui to fish me out of the water.”

“How many times do I gotta tell ya, Yamada! Picking up girls - or getting them to pick you up - isn’t meant to be taken literally!” Shirakumo laughed wildly at his own joke, and Yamada cackled along. Shouta just rolled his eyes again.

He’d never understand the fixation his peers had on girls.

Shouta sat down to wait as, over the next few minutes, people continued to pass over the finish line. An announcement came over the PA system that the first forty-four finishers would be moving on to the second round event. A list of names and rankings popped up on the giant screen.

First place was a boy named Iida Tensei. Shouta had a feeling that was the 1-B student with the speed Quirk. Shimada had come in second, her Cat Quirk apparently more of an advantage than disadvantage, even with the water obstacle. Ebisui had placed sixth, and Nakano eighth. Yamada, Shouta, and Shirakumo had come in twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth, respectively.

Shouta was… satisfied with that.

Principal Akahori came out onto the field again, congratulated everyone for their hard effort, and proceeded to talk about the next event. Again, Shouta mostly tuned out as he sat on the grass, letting his eyes drift shut and his breathing slow and even out. He blinked out of the half-doze he’d fallen into when Shirakumo bumped his shoulder against Shouta’s.

“Hey, Aizawa, no hard feelings about the way I knocked into you before, right?” he asked, big blue eyes searching Shouta’s face, as if he was actually worried Shouta would be upset with him.

“Of course not.” It was a race, and it was a rational tactic, since Shouta could have erased Shirakumo’s Quirk the moment he took off if he’d been able to keep his eyes on him. Just like it was a rational tactic for Shouta to use his Quirk against Shirakumo when he did catch up.

Though, in the moment, Shouta hadn’t been thinking much about tactics. And he hadn’t stopped to think about how Shirakumo might react to his Quirk being erased in a situation where he hadn’t invited it.

Well. It had been bound to happen eventually.

If Shouta was… pleased… that Shirakumo wasn’t behaving any differently towards him in the aftermath, that was simply because it was helpful to have classmates he was on good terms with.

“Ok great!” Shirakumo cheered, “Cuz we definitely gotta be together on a team for the next event!”

“Huh?” Shouta looked around, wondering what he’d missed as he saw everyone clustering together.

Shirakumo laughed. “You really were napping, weren’t you? The next event is teams of four. We gotta all stand back to back, elbows linked, and knock the other teams out of the ring! Like bumper cars or something!”

Shouta looked around, and everybody was already talking amongst themselves, teaming up. Yamada had wandered off and was talking with Ebisui and the Mori twins, so Shouta assumed he’d be teaming up with them.

Sarudo, Fujimi, and Oizuchi trotted over. “Shirakumo, you should join our team!” Sarudo said. “I’m betting Oizuchi’s water Quirk could make your clouds even better!”

Shouta ignored the swoop of disappointment in his gut, already preparing to work as best he could with whatever team wound up with him.

“I’m already on a team with Aizawa,” Shirakumo said, and Shouta couldn’t help the way his jaw dropped in shock, “But that’s a great idea to try out in training next time!”

“Ugh, fine,” Sarudo said before turning back to the other two, “Oh! Let’s see if we can get Niragi!”

Shouta stared up at Shirakumo as the taller boy stood, dusting the dirt and grass off his butt. He held his hand out to help Shouta up.

“Come on, let’s go get Nakano!” Shirakumo said brightly.

Shouta swallowed his nerves as they approached her, Shirakumo’s long legs getting him across the distance much faster than Shouta’s dragging steps. He hoped his presence wouldn’t discourage Nakano from being on Shirakumo’s team.

By the time he drew up next to them, Nakano was smiling and nodding, hopping up and down on her bare feet.

“Oh, great idea!” she was saying. “I’m glad I’ll be on your team rather than up against you, Aizawa!” She glanced around, searching the crowd. “And I know just who we want for our fourth! Hey! Mushimori! C’mere!”

Mushimori’s bat-like ears flicked around, and he glanced back over his shoulder at them, tipping his head. Shirakumo and Nakano both waved him over excitedly, while Shouta stood there with his hands in his pockets. Even from this distance, Shouta could see the way Mushimori’s overly large eyes lit up with excitement at the prospect of joining Shirakumo’s team.

“Ok, so,” Nakano started as soon as Mushimori officially agreed to be their fourth, “We gain three points for knocking other teams out of bounds, and teams lose two points for being knocked out of bounds; but they lose five points if they unlink arms, right?” The boys all nodded. “So Shirakumo, if you can lay down a mist that will make it hard for the other teams to see the boundary lines, and I can make the ground push them around, they won’t even be able to see that they’re out till it’s too late! Aizawa is great for defense, plus he’s strong enough to help us stand our ground if we’re being pushed out of bounds. And Mushimori, you can set up slippery traps around the field. I couldn’t get my feet under me when you used that stuff. If people fall, they’ll definitely have to break formation to get back up.”

Shouta was impressed. He knew Nakano was smart, but she’d come up with plans to increase their points, and both actively and passively decrease the other team’s points so fast!

“How much weight can you carry on your clouds?” Mushimori asked Shirakumo.

“I can carry myself and one more smaller person pretty well,” Shirakumo said, tipping his head as he thought about it. “And, even though I can control the direction I go, I can get pushed around pretty easily. So we wouldn’t want to float ourselves, and I can’t float more than one or two members of another team.”

“I can only erase one person’s Quirk at a time, and only for a few seconds,” Shouta told them. “So if we’re up against a team with a few heavy hitters, we’ll need cloud cover to hide in or earth shields to protect from blasts.” He was thinking of un-Yamada and those explosions of his. Shirakumo and Nakano nodded.

“This is gonna be so much fun!” Shirakumo laughed, slapping Shouta on the back.

Principal Akahori called for their attention again, had them spread out on the playing field and get into formation. Shouta was between Shirakumo and Mushimori, with his back to Nakano. Coordinating their movements like this was going to be challenging.

He looked out over the other ten teams, taking a steadying breath. He could do this. He had what it took to cooperate with other heroes. He refused to be the weak link that let the others down.

The starting horn sounded and chaos erupted as all the teams began moving. There weren’t any points to be gained by knocking other teams down in the middle of the field, so the action immediately moved towards the edges.

“Time to set some traps,” Mushimori said, laying a thin layer of oil down intermittently behind them as they moved. It was awkward, but the four of them quickly fell into a rhythm as they sought out their first target.

“Over there,” Nakano said, and Shouta saw Shirakumo nod his understanding. A thin fog began rolling out from his hands, spreading quickly over the ground towards a team of 1-B kids. A rumbling vibration started up, and Shouta could trace the path of the small rolling wave of solid earth by the eddies it made as moved along beneath the cover of mist.

One of the 1-B girls blew a fiery exhale towards them, and Shouta immediately activated his Quirk, cutting off the gout of flame before it could do more than burn off a little of Shirakumo’s mist. The ground beneath the other team roiled, and they stumbled backwards. Another boy reached out with what looked like a long tendril of yellowish energy, but Shouta shifted his gaze and the tendril vanished.

“Another team is coming up on us!” Mushimori let them know, leaving a slick surprise behind for their pursuers as they shifted to the left. Nakano remained focused on pressing the 1-B team towards the boundary. When a flash of light glowed from under the foot of the energy-tendril boy, illuminating the fog around their knees for just a moment, both teams knew that the boundary had been crossed and points scored.

“Yeah!” Nakano and Shirakumo cheered in unison, and Shouta began to tug at them to move away from the team rapidly approaching them. Shirakumo sent a huge, puffy cloud drifting the other team’s way as Shouta and Mushimori steered them through a course correction. A sudden chorus of shouts from within the cloud was explained when the mist dissipated, revealing the team sprawled on the ground, each of them trying to crawl out of the oil slick Mushimori had left.

“Next target, to the right,” Nakano said, and she and Shirakumo immediately set to work again.

Their tactics worked well, and they scored again and again. Shouta found himself getting pulled into his teammates’ excitement. Only once did they get pushed out of bounds, because Umebara’s Pinball Quirk, which let her control and create her own momentum, along with things she touched, was almost custom designed for a challenge like this. Her teammates knew enough to shield her from Shouta’s line of sight.

Every now and then, there was a loud yelp from somewhere on the field when an unsuspecting team stepped in one of Mushimori’s traps and went tumbling down. Though Shouta’s team didn’t get any points for it, taking points away from other teams could only help their standing.

Time was starting to wind down, with less than a minute left as they closed in on what would probably be their last target of the event: Yamada’s team. They weren’t close to the boundary line, but they were closer to it than Shouta’s team, so they decided to give it a shot. Shirakumo had just started sending out the mist when Shouta felt himself jolted to the side, yanked by his teammates as they all struggled to keep on their feet.

“What was that?” Nakano yelped as she seemed to be yanked closer to the boundary line again.

“I think it’s Mori!” Mushimori said.

“Her Quirk is Push,” Nakano said, “I’m being pulled!”

“Never mind, let me use my Quirk,” Shouta snapped, and the group turned enough that he could see her, hair rising on his scalp as he got his target in sight. Instantly, the group stumbled back further from the other team, as if shoved, though they managed to stay on their feet.

“Oh right, twins!” Nakano said. “Mori’s Quirk is Push, her sister’s is Pull! They’re working together!”

“Not right now they’re not, but we have a bigger problem,” Shouta said as the other team figured out what was going on and spun so that Yamada was facing them. “Nakano!”

Immediately, Nakano drew up a thick wall of earth separating the two teams, acting as a buffer from the shout that Yamada directed at them. Still, they all ducked their heads and clamped their hands over their ears as best they could. Shouta looked up at the display screen counting down the seconds till the end of the match, five, four, three, two-

Yamada stopped yelling and the horn sounded. All eyes now turned to the scoreboard, as the top four teams would be advancing to the final round of competition. Umebara’s team, which she was on with Iida Tensei (definitely the boy with the speed Quirk), Shimada, and another 1-B girl, placed first. A team of 1-B students placed second. Shirakumo’s team placed third. And Yamada’s team was fourth.

An electric buzz hummed under Shouta’s skin as he looked at the standings again, and he did his best to hold back the swell of pride he felt. Third place was hardly exceptional, after all. He had a long way to go.

“Why did you have Nakano put up the wall to block Yamada’s Quirk instead of just using yours?” Mushimori asked, dragging Shouta out of his thoughts.

“My eyes are really dried out,” Shouta mumbled. “I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to keep him in check till time ran out.” It was a half-truth, anyway.

“Do you need eye drops?” Nakano asked, rummaging in her pocket. “I usually keep them on me, cuz sometimes the dust kicks up and irritates my eyes.”

“Uhh-” Shouta was thrown off guard by Nakano’s warm demeanor. He wondered if his usefulness in the event had outweighed the negative impression he’d left when he’d used his Quirk against her.

“Oh, good idea, Nakano!” Shirakumo said, taking the bottle she held out, thrusting it towards Shouta.

“They can be tricky to use at first, do you want me to help?” Nakano offered.

“No, s’fine,” Shouta mumbled, tipping his head back and taking a slow breath. He’d used eye drops before, it wasn’t a big deal. Maybe he should start carrying them with him. He couldn’t rely on other people having things like this to help him out, and he needed to account for his Quirk’s weaknesses and drawbacks in any way he could. “Thanks,” he said, handing them back to her.

Once more, Principal Akahori came out and began to address them, congratulating the top teams and everyone else for their hard effort; the same tired platitudes and encouragement as Shouta heard all the time from adults. Everyone knew what was coming next, anyway. The first two events varied from year to year, but the third was always a tournament of one-on-one matches between the top sixteen competitors.

Somehow, Shouta had managed to make it into the final event.

All eyes went up to the giant screen above them, and Shouta held his breath, waiting to see who he’d be facing off against. The seconds dragged past until finally, the bracket popped up on the display. Shouta was going to be in the first match-up of the first round, and he’d be up against…

Yamada.

Chapter Text

“Looks like it’s me an you, Aizawa!” Hizashi laughed, bouncing eagerly on his toes as the scoreboard changed to display the match-ups. “My chance to finally see for myself what that Quirk of yours can do!” Aizawa just looked away, towards the area at the center of the stadium.

“Guess so,” he said, sounding even more tired than usual. Hizashi wondered if the first two events had really taken that much out of him. If so, he’d be kinda bummed. He wanted to have a good match against the guy.

Shirakumo materialized between them, resting heavy hands on both their shoulders, grinning ear to ear. “Ok you two, don’t wear yourselves out too much, I get to fight the winner!” Hizashi looked back at the board and sure enough, Shirakumo was in the bracket right next to them, fighting Mori Keiko, Mori Azusa’s twin sister, in the first round.

“Don’t let their sweet nature fool you,” Hizashi warned Shirakumo with a laugh. “Neither of them should be taken lightly!”

“Since you two are up first, you should prolly get ready,” Shirakumo said, nudging them inside where the prep rooms were. Aizawa started heading in right away, toes dragging in the dirt as he shuffled away from them.

Hizashi paused, brow furrowing slightly. “Is he ok?” he whispered to Shirakumo.

Shirakumo frowned for a moment. “He was fine before. He’s prolly just gettin in the zone or something,” he replied, expression brightening as he shrugged, though Hizashi could see a hint of worry at the corners of his eyes. “Push each other, it’ll be a good fight.”

“You just want us to get tired out so you’ll have a better chance against the winner,” Hizashi teased.

“As if I need any kind of advantage to take either one of you!” Shirakumo laughed.

“Hmmm, I think I remember our first match-up ending with you in restraints!” Hizashi crowed, but Shirakumo waved off the comment with a grin. Hizashi jogged to his own waiting room, smiling at the easy banter with Shirakumo, while everyone else made their way to the stands to watch.

Hizashi thought about Aizawa again, wondering what had him down when he’d just made it to the top sixteen. Was he put off by the way the crowd would be watching? Cuz Hizashi loved being the center of attention and putting on a show; but Aizawa always seemed to shrink away from the spotlight if he could get away with it.

Well, Hizashi would make sure he kept everyone’s attention, including Aizawa’s! Aizawa couldn’t worry about the crowd if he had to worry about Hizashi! Time to strategize!

He knew Aizawa’s Quirk let him turn off other people’s Quirks, but that the effect wore off when he blinked. He also knew that Aizawa could only keep his eyes open for a handful of seconds at a time, so Hizashi would just need to time his attacks for those moments in between. After all, once Hizashi got in one good attack, most opponents were dazed enough for him to handle pretty easily.

…Then again, Aizawa was really strong and fast. Hizashi remembered the way he’d flipped that ‘villain’ at the entrance exam. His stomach fluttered with a sudden burst of nerves as he thought about it. He knew he couldn’t afford to let his guard down.

He needed one good opening, and he needed to make it count.

Soon enough, it was time. Hizashi strutted out to the center of the arena as his name was announced, arms raised above his head. He waved his hands to encourage the crescendoing applause of the crowd, cupping one hand to his ear while motioning with his other arm for them to get even louder. When the crowd responded with a deepening roar, it sent a thrill through him.

This was where he was meant to be. At the center of it all, hyping everyone up and giving them something to cheer for, lifting people’s spirits. He glanced behind himself, looking for Aizawa.

Aizawa was taking his sweet time as he made his way out, walking steadily with his eyes aimed at the ground ahead of him. Damn, he must really be in the zone! Well, Hizashi wanted to win too, so maybe he’d try and shake Aizawa outta that zone a little!

“Don’t worry, I’ll try not to beat ya too quickly!” Hizashi teased as he and Aizawa finally squared up in their starting positions. Aizawa said nothing as his eyes flicked up to look at Hizashi and the horn sounded.

The match was on.

Rushing forward, Hizashi drew a deep breath, feeling his lungs starting to expand beyond their normal limits. He figured Aizawa would get his own Quirk activated before Hizashi could get out a good shout, but Hizashi wanted to be locked and loaded for the moment Aizawa blinked.

Sure enough, Hizashi saw the red glow and Aizawa’s hair beginning to rise-

That was when his lungs froze up.

Hizashi stumbled, his hand reflexively gripping at the front of his shirt as panic shot through him. He was still trying to inhale, but it was like his lungs had seized and he simply couldn’t. In a blind moment of terror, he tried to gasp out Aizawa’s name- but no sound came out. He tried again to inhale, but it was like he was choking on his own air. The only thing he could do was exhale, his breath escaping him in a wheeze…

And then he could breathe again.

It was the normal breathing of everyday conversation, of sitting and watching tv or doing homework. The panic subsided as he took another breath, feeling the air moving in and out as it was supposed to. He tried to take a deeper breath, the kind where he could really put his Quirk into his voice; but his lungs just wouldn’t do it.

Ok. Ok, that’s cool, no biggie. He could breathe, so he could work with that.

He took a quick, sharp breath, making sure he really could, then got his head back in the game. Only a few seconds had passed, no matter how long they’d felt. He’d only stumbled a little, so he got his feet back on track, running forward. He glanced up, confirming that Aizawa was rushing towards him, closing in.

That was good. Hizashi needed to get in close enough to make Aizawa blink, and then blast him in the same moment.

He shook his head to clear it and drew his fist back, getting ready to take a swing at Aizawa as soon as he was in range. He didn’t think as he opened his mouth to taunt Aizawa a little; but though his lips and tongue moved to form words, all that came out was another breathy exhale.

It was only then that it dawned on Hizashi what it meant to have his Quirk, his Voice, Erased. His Quirk was a powerful weapon, but his Voice was so much more than that. Sure, Hizashi’s mouth got him into trouble sometimes, but it was also what he used to smooth his way forward with people, to connect, to protect himself…

Growling silently in frustration, he aimed his strike, arm swinging as he finally focused his eyes to look Aizawa in the face, and-

Hizashi had seen Aizawa with his Quirk activated plenty of times. It was always pretty cool to watch, and he could see how it would be intimidating; but he figured that knowing what it was and how it worked would kinda dampen the effectiveness.

He was wrong.

Aizawa’s eyes burned at him like a vengeful god, and Hizashi’s breath stuttered in his chest all over again. Aizawa’s face was a mask of stone as he put up an arm to block Hizashi’s punch, then twisted from that point of contact to grab his arm. Aizawa’s other hand reached forward to grab Hizashi’s already crumpled shirt, pivoting to try and wrench Hizashi down to the ground.

A soundless curse pushed past Hizashi’s lips as he gathered his wits, planted his feet, and used every centimeter of his height and reach advantage to create some leverage. He managed to wrench himself free of Aizawa’s grasp, stumbling back, wide-eyed behind his sunglasses.

As Hizashi stared, Aizawa’s stony expression cracked, just a bit, as the corner of his mouth ticked up in a tiny, wicked smirk. Hizashi’s stomach swooped as he suddenly knew he was in serious trouble. Aizawa leaped at him, and Hizashi had just enough time to marvel at how fast he was before Aizawa drove his fist into Hizashi’s gut.

“Oof!” Hizashi grunted, because of course Aizawa would knock the wind out of him in the moment where he had to blink. The pain threatened to send him to his knees; but he forced himself to push through, trying to suck in air before the opening passed-

And once again, his lungs stalled when he tried to push them past their baseline capacity.

Hizashi gave another silent growl, this time far more frustrated with himself. Aizawa had him totally off balance; he was floundering, and he had to get it together if he was gonna stand any kind of chance. He took a moment to put a little distance between himself and Aizawa, knowing they were far enough from the edge of the ring that he wouldn’t put himself out of bounds, and steadied himself.

Ok. Treat it like a schoolyard fight, one where he knew he couldn’t use his Quirk. Like the time Wataya started talking about Hizashi’s parents, his mom-

The spike of rage that shot through Hizashi tightened his jaw and sent him barreling forward. It was only a flash of emotion, fading quickly into little more than an ember, the thrill of a good fight. That was enough.

He didn’t need to look for a chance to use his Quirk, he just had to get Aizawa out of the ring. Or knock him out.

He could do that.

Hizashi came back at Aizawa swinging, a wild grin splitting his face and a silent laugh whooshing through the air alongside his fists. Those red eyes didn’t blink, didn’t look away as Aizawa blocked and parried and struck back with a speed that Wataya could only ever have dreamed of. Hizashi pressed forward, pushing Aizawa back, closer to the edge of the ring.

Aizawa must have realized how close they were getting to the edge, because he turned his head to see how much room he had to maneuver. Hizashi wasn’t sure if looking away was enough to nullify Aizawa’s Quirk, or if Aizawa had blinked as he turned; but either way, Hizashi could feel that his voice was back, and he seized the moment.

“Gotcha!” He couldn’t put as much power into it as he’d like - not enough time to inhale properly - but it was still enough to knock Aizawa back onto his ass, just a meter from the edge of the ring. A wince twisted Aizawa’s face as his hair went up and his eyes glowed again; but Hizashi was already moving, ready to be on top of him before he could get to his feet.

There was a rush of adrenaline through him as he closed the distance, eager to end the match and bask in the cheers of the crowd. He was ready for Aizawa when he moved, launching himself up…

Well. He thought he was ready, until Aizawa grabbed both of Hizashi’s arms and yanked him forward and off balance. Suddenly, they were falling, Aizawa landing on his back and Hizashi about to flop down directly on top of him-

Hizashi braced for an impact that didn’t come.

His brain scrambled to catch up with what was happening, which was when he realized - far too late - that Aizawa’s foot was planted against his hip where it met his stomach. Hizashi had just enough time to register that wicked smirk on Aizawa’s face one more time before the world turned upside down and the ground crashed into his back, hard.

Hizashi lay there, dazed, trying to get his brain and body back online. The only sound he could hear was a roaring, rushing white noise. He blinked, needing to reorient himself, willing his eyes to find something to focus on. Everything was too bright, too loud, too much…

And then a shadow moved to shield him from the glare. Hizashi stared up at Aizawa standing over him, eclipsing the sun.

Hizashi’s heart stuttered, unable to look away from the silhouette above him - hair on end, the glow of Aizawa’s eyes the only thing Hizashi could properly see on his shadowed face. Then those glowing eyes blinked, turning dark gray and meeting his own for a moment as Aizawa’s hair fell to obscure his face again. Hizashi felt his breath catch in his chest.

He knew something important had just happened, but his scattered brain couldn’t piece together what.

“Wha-” was all he managed to get out before a booming voice came over the sound system.

“Aizawa Shouta wins!”

Aizawa slowly stepped around to Hizashi’s side while Hizashi was still trying to understand what had happened. Aizawa extended his hand towards him, eyes cast down and away. Hizashi frowned; where was that confident smirk from before?

“You rely on your Quirk too much,” Aizawa muttered so quietly that Hizashi could barely hear it over what he now realized was the noise of the crowd. “You need to improve your hand to hand fighting technique.” Hizashi propped himself up on his elbows and fixed his sunglasses that had been knocked askew. Looking around, things clicked into place as he was finally able to think again.

He’d knocked Aizawa close to the boundary line. He’d charged at him, full speed. Aizawa had used Hizashi’s own inertia to help flip him up and over…

He looked down at his hands, resting on the glowing white light of the boundary line. His whole lower body was totally out of bounds.

Hizashi looked back up, gaping in awe at Aizawa.

He was amazing.

Hizashi must have stared for way too long, though - he’d blame it on the way his brain had been scrambled from the impact - because with a huff, Aizawa withdrew his hand and started walking off the field.

Hizashi shook his head to clear away the last of the haze and scrambled to his feet to chase after Aizawa; but in sharp contrast to the way he’d dawdled on his way out, Aizawa had already managed to get all the way off the field and back inside.

Hizashi frowned for a moment; but he’d catch up with Aizawa in the stands. He took a moment at the center of the ring to bow to the crowd with an exaggerated flourish. Then he gestured with wide arms towards the spot where Aizawa had exited the field, encouraging the crowd to cheer for the victor.

Nobody was gonna call him a sore loser.

When he finally relinquished his stage and spotlight, Hizashi made his way inside, passing Shirakumo before he could head up to the stands with the others.

“Never thought I’d see you stunned speechless!” Shirakumo joked, and Hizashi had to laugh. Now that the moment of panic had passed and his voice was back online, Hizashi could appreciate the humor of the situation; at least coming from someone like Shirakumo who never told Hizashi to shut up.

“I can’t even blame all of it on his Quirk either!” Hizashi said. “He packs one helluva punch! Better watch yourself!” They parted with a wave, and Hizashi joined the rest of the class. He glanced around, looking for Aizawa, but didn’t see the unruly mop of dark hair anywhere. He frowned again for a moment, but shrugged and sat down with Kobayashi. Aizawa was bound to come up soon.

When Shirakumo and Mori entered the ring and the horn sounded, Hizashi sat up tall to watch- only to laugh at how quickly the floor of the arena was filled with a thick mist and puffy clouds that made it all but impossible to see anything at all. The clouds roiled and flowed in swirling currents.

“I wonder how much of that is Shirakumo controlling the clouds and how much is Mori pulling on the mist with her Quirk, trying to clear a path to see,” Hizashi mused.

The arena was quiet, as if everyone was holding their breath to try and hear what was happening below. Hizashi thought he picked up some grunts and the sound of a scuffle; but apparently Shirakumo could actually be quiet when he wanted to.

Long minutes dragged out and Hizashi was on the verge of giving a good scream to clear the fog just to see what the hell was going on. Finally, there was a thump and a flash of light shone through the mist, an indication that someone had crossed the boundary.

As if the sun had risen to chase it away, the cloud cover dissipated, leaving the audience with a clear view of the ring. Shirakumo had Mori pinned, her outstretched arm over the white boundary line.

“Please tell me my fight wasn’t as boring to watch as that one,” Hizashi muttered to Kobayashi, and she laughed.

“No way, you and Aizawa put on a damn good show. You looked like you were enjoying him in action as much as we were!” she teased, nudging Hizashi with her elbow. The image of Aizawa’s face, eyes burning, wild hair up, came back to Hizashi in an instant. He felt his ears heat up as he thought about it.

The next match started, and blissfully, they could actually see the whole thing unfolding. Without really thinking about it, Hizashi started announcing a play-by-play. At first, Fujimi tried to tell him to hush; but Kobayashi and Ebisui and a few others encouraged Hizashi to keep going, and, well, it didn’t exactly take much to egg him on.

Especially since he was really enjoying getting to use his voice.

Getting louder and more enthusiastic through each of the last six round one matches, Hizashi kept up his commentary. He got loud enough that some of the 1-B kids stood up in their seats to peek over the wall and hear him better. Every now and then, Hizashi would glance around to see if Aizawa had made it back up to the stands and was maybe listening too.

He was a little disappointed each time when there was no sign of him.

When the last match was decided and it was announced that there would be a short break before round two, Hizashi went in search of a bottle of water to soothe his throat… and maybe to see if he could find where Aizawa was.

Hizashi hoped Aizawa didn’t think he had any hard feelings about losing. He might have been eliminated, but he was still having a ton of fun and he’d gotten to put on a good show. And at least he’d made it to the top 16, better than Fujimi or Yakumo had done.

Stopping at the vending machine near the prep rooms, he peeked inside. Sure enough, there was Aizawa, head pillowed on his arms as he lay on a bench at the side of the room, apparently taking a nap. Relief washed over him as he entered the room and trotted over to Aizawa’s side.

“Hey Snoozemaster!” Hizashi laughed, shaking Aizawa’s shoulder. “Time to wake up! Round one is over, and you’re up first in round two!” Aizawa blinked bloodshot eyes up at him, shrugging off Hizashi’s hand as he sat up.

Hizashi chucked, shaking his head. “And to think I was wondering why you weren’t in the stands, I shoulda known you were taking a nap!” he teased over his shoulder as he headed for the door. Hizashi had never seen someone who could fall asleep anywhere, any time the way Aizawa could. “Kick his butt!” Hizashi added for good measure, heading back up to the stands.

Aizawa and Shirakumo were announced as they came out onto the field, and Hizashi leaned forward, eager to see how this was gonna go down.

“With Aizawa’s Quirk, maybe we’ll be able to see what’s happening this time,” Kobayashi muttered.

“Maybe. Shirakumo can make those clouds really fast though. It’ll be a race after the buzzer to see who gets the upper hand,” Hizashi said, already slipping back into his narration.

Down below, Shirakumo was waving easily to the crowd while Aizawa stood solemnly facing him. The last few moments felt like they dragged out until the horn sounded and the match was on.

“Damn, Aizawa is fast with his Quirk, but Shirakumo is faster!” Hizashi said, leaning forward in his seat. “He’s got a thick cloud cover on himself and extending out, though he hasn’t covered the whole ring this time, so we can still see Aizawa at least. Of course, Aizawa can’t see Shirakumo, and Shirakumo prolly can’t see Aizawa, so let’s see how they’re gonna play this.”

“You’re enjoying this too much,” Kobayashi said with a smirk, shaking her head. Hizashi ignored her.

“Ok, Aizawa is approaching slowly, clearly cautious about where Shirakumo might attack from- OH! Hah, another cloud just puffed into existence behind Aizawa! And another off to the side! And another, and another! Shirakumo isn’t flooding the ring like last time, he’s turning it into a maze! Woah, did you see that? Shirakumo ran between one cloud and the other, too fast for Aizawa to focus on him, but enough for Aizawa to see! There, he did it again! What’s he up to? Aizawa is looking a little lost, and Shirakumo just keeps cloud hopping. Hide and Seek isn’t exactly an entertaining spectator sport, guys, come on now!” Hizashi couldn’t help but grouse as he tracked Shirakumo around the field. Aizawa was just standing in place, pivoting around to try and spot his opponent.

“The question seems to be, who’s gonna make an offensive move first?” Hizashi asked. “If Aizawa just dives in and starts busting up those clouds, he’d reduce Shirakumo’s hiding spots or at least force him to make more. And what the heck is Shirakumo waiting for? I’m getting antsy and I’m not even down there!”

“I think you might have just answered your own question,” Ebisui said, “Look at Aizawa, he’s getting jumpy. If he can’t focus, he’s gonna end up in trouble.”

“Come on, man, just do something,” Hizashi muttered to himself. He didn’t understand why Aizawa wasn’t moving.

Just when Hizashi thought the stillness was gonna drive him bananas, Shirakumo finally made his move.

“Oh, that’s gotta hurt!” Hizashi said, his hand flying up to smack against his forehead as Shirakumo dove out of his cloud cover and tackled Aizawa’s legs, knocking him to the ground. Hizashi knew how good Aizawa was at hand to hand combat, and getting away from an attack like that should be easy for him.

But maybe the fall had stunned Aizawa, or something, because he wasn’t turning the tables. Shirakumo managed to scramble up enough to grapple Aizawa onto his stomach, arms pinned behind his back, leaning heavily on him with his much bigger frame. Even though they were less than a month into the school year, Shirakumo had already started putting on some noticeable muscle mass, and he was fully using that to his advantage against Aizawa.

“I don’t think he’s getting out of that,” Kobayashi said with a wince, as Aizawa tried to buck Shirakumo off him.

“Don’t count him out, he’s stronger than he looks,” Hizashi told her.

“You’re just saying that cuz he kicked your ass,” Nakano teased. Hizashi felt his ears heating up, and he rolled his head in an exaggerated scoff to try and cover his reaction.

“Shirakumo Oboro wins!”

Down below, the referee was leaving the field after making the official call, and Shirakumo was climbing off Aizawa’s back. As soon as he was on his feet, Shirakumo reached down to place his hand on Aizawa’s elbow, to try and help him up; but Aizawa shoved him away, pushing himself up and gathering his feet beneath him. Aizawa spun away from Shirakumo, took two steps, then paused. Hizashi was pretty sure he could see Aizawa saying something before he slunk off the field.

Hizashi waited for them to come up to join the class, but the next match started and there was no sign of Aizawa or Shirakumo. Hizashi watched as Iida soundly defeated Mori Azusa, though she put up a hell of a fight against someone so fast. Before the third match started, Shirakumo finally made it to the stands, but for once he wasn’t smiling.

“Hey, congrats,” Hizashi said, hopping up and trotting over to him, peering around behind him, looking for-

“Have you seen Aizawa?” Shirakumo asked, stealing the question out of Hizashi’s mouth.

“No, I was hoping you two were talking or something,” Hizashi admitted. “He’s not usually a sore loser. This is weird, right?” Shirakumo gave Hizashi a long look. “Maybe he’s just napping again?” Hizashi suggested. “That’s where I found him before your match.” He bit his lip and made up his mind. “Come on, let’s go.”

They jogged down the corridor and the stairs, peeking in every room they came across. Aizawa wasn’t in any of them. Not in the prep rooms, or the locker rooms, or anywhere else. They were starting to head back to the stands in the hope that he’d gone there after they’d left (though neither of them really believed it) when Hizashi noticed the door to the supply closet.

They’d checked all the rooms, but maybe…

He caught Shirakumo’s eye and jerked his chin towards the closet. Shirakumo’s eyes lit up and he nodded.

When they opened the door, Aizawa blinked up at them, the bright glare of the light behind them making him squint as compared to the darkness where he’d been sitting.

“What’re you doing here?” he grumbled at them, and Hizashi couldn’t help but laugh in relief.

“What’re we doing here? What’re you doing sitting in a dark closet, Mr. Gloomy Pants!” Hizashi retorted.

“I obviously don’t have any more matches,” Aizawa muttered, “I figured I’d take a nap.”

“Well naptime is over!” Shirakumo said, holding his hand out to Aizawa. Aizawa just glared at him, but Shirakumo didn’t budge.

“C’mon Aizawa, let's go watch Shirakumo kick Iida’s butt,” Hizashi joked, wishing there was enough room for him to hold his hand out as well.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Shirakumo laughed.

“You two won’t leave me alone unless I come with you, will you,” Aizawa sighed.

“Nope!” Hizashi and Shirakumo shouted in chorus. With a deep, longsuffering sigh, Aizawa reached up and grabbed Shirakumo’s outstretched hand.

“Alright!” Hizashi crowed. He and Shirakumo started walking on either side of Aizawa as they went to join the rest of their classmates, minimizing his escape routes.

Aizawa glanced between them, clearly catching on to what they were doing. “You two are being ridiculous.”

“All part of our charm!” Shirakumo said with a wink.

When they got back to the stands, the fourth match was just getting ready to start, and Hizashi tugged Aizawa to come sit down in front with him. Aizawa glowered, but allowed himself to be dragged to a seat.

“Look what the cat dragged in!” Kobayashi laughed from the other side of Hizashi. “We haven’t had a chance to thank you yet for finding Yamada’s mute button!” Aizawa ducked his head, and Hizashi puffed up in exaggerated offense.

“Excuse you, my dear listener! You have been enjoying every minute of my commentary here! Don’t you try and dis the sweet, dulcet tones of my voice!” Everyone giggled, reassuring Hizashi that it really was all in good humor. Hizashi turned back to Aizawa with a grin, giddy that everyone was here and laughing together.

Well, Aizawa wasn’t laughing. But Aizawa never really laughed.

As Hizashi settled back in his seat, he turned to face Aizawa. “I gotta admit,” Hizashi said, wanting to give Aizawa the credit he was due, “Feeling the effect of your Quirk is on a whole ‘nother level from just seeing it in action.”

“So I’ve been told,” Aizawa mumbled.

Hizashi’s brow furrowed at how… unhappy Aizawa looked. He remembered the stupid comments that Yakumo and Sarudo had made after their first match-up against Aizawa. Flashing a bright grin at Aizawa, he turned around in his seat so he could holler to their classmates sitting a few rows back. “Hey, Yakumo! Aizawa used his Quirk on me and I still have no desire to be a jerk to him! See how easy it is!” Sure, having his Quirk erased wasn’t the best feeling in the world; but it’s not like people enjoyed it when Hizashi shouted them flat on their asses with his own Quirk.

“Aizawa dropped me square on my butt in the first event! We’re still buddies!” Shirakumo chimed in, giving a thumbs up. Aizawa sank down lower in his seat, arms crossed tightly over his chest.

“Were you really worried about that?” Shirakumo asked Aizawa quietly as Hizashi turned back around to face the field again.

Aizawa just shrugged a shoulder. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Hizashi slapped a hand on Aizawa’s shoulder, stuffing down the spark of anger that flared on Aizawa’s behalf. Better to focus on something else, and something else was starting to unfold on the field below. Hizashi started up his commentary, and if he was a little louder this time, a little more exaggerated, it probably had nothing to do with the way Aizawa’s expression softened a little bit as he glanced between Hizashi and the field.

“Un-Yamada’s attacks are too wild,” Hizashi heard Aizawa mutter, and he did a double take. “He’s strong, but he blasts too randomly. It works, but he’s gonna end up in trouble as soon as he’s up against an opponent who can even somewhat match his power.”

“Do you mean Sensoji?” Hizashi asked.

“Why’d you call him un-Yamada?” Shirakumo giggled.

Aizawa shrugged. “His hair. It’s a lot like how Yamada wears his, but his personality is opposite. Except for the attacking too wildly, that part they’re similar on.”

“Hey!” Hizashi laughed.

“You’re usually more precise when fighting with your Quirk,” Aizawa added, rubbing the back of his neck, “It was just hand-to-hand where you had no idea what you were doing.”

Hizashi made a big show of sniffling loudly. “I don’t know if I’m insulted or not.”

Aizawa just looked down at the field again, where Sensoji had just knocked his opponent out of bounds. “If we don’t know where we’re weak, we can’t get stronger.”

“Thanks for lookin’ out for me, then,” Hizashi said with a chuckle. He caught Aizawa glancing up at him out of the corner of his eye.

“Alright folks, wish me luck!” Shirakumo said as he stood to go get ready for his match against Iida. Hizashi sat back in his seat and sipped from his water bottle, listening to everyone chattering for a moment while they waited for the next match to start.

“Yamada,” Aizawa’s voice startled Hizashi as he turned to face him, “Do you listen to music when you work out?”

Hizashi raised an eyebrow in confusion at the random question. Aizawa never asked anyone about much of anything, certainly not about music. Hizashi felt like was experiencing some rare phenomenon, one he wanted to make sure he didn’t miss out on, so he was quick to answer. “Of course,” he said, “Always need tunes in the gym or on a run, keeps you movin’, keeps the energy pumping, ya dig?”

Aizawa was looking down at his hands in his lap. “Do you think it helps you train more intensely?”

“I dunno.” Hizashi paused to think about it. “Probably. It definitely helps me keep at it longer cuz I don’t get as bored. But the right playlist makes me feel like I can run as fast as All Might, hah!”

When Aizawa spoke up next, he sounded almost… shy. “Do you- could you suggest some songs?”

A thrill of excitement ran through Hizashi as he sat up and leaned forward. “Oh buddy, I could make you a dozen curated playlists! Just tell me what kind of music you usually like!”

“I don’t usually listen to much,” Aizawa admitted. “Just whatever’s on in the background.”

Hizashi’s jaw dropped. Between his mom’s Quirk and his dad’s guitars and collection of vinyl records, he’d been surrounded by music since before he was even born. Hell, he wasn’t sure how he’d have been able to stay sane over the past few years with everything at home if he hadn’t been able to get lost in thumping bass and angry lyrics.

“Man, no wonder you’re so gloomy all the time!” Hizashi blurted. “We gotta fix this tragedy ASAP! I’m gonna make it a top priority!”

Aizawa huffed and rolled his eyes, but then muttered quietly, “I’d appreciate it.” He was quiet for a minute, then mumbled, “If you want to practice your fighting techniques, we could spar sometime.”

“Do my ears deceive me?” Hizashi gasped as a giddy energy fizzed through him. “Is Aizawa voluntarily offering some kind of social interaction? Has there been some kind of disturbance in the Force?”

“Shut up, it’s just training. Never mind,” Aizawa grumbled.

“Nope, no take-backs!” Hizashi crowed, grinning like an idiot. “Now come on, time to watch Shirakumo in action, this oughta be good!”

It was good, but also over a lot faster than Hizashi was expecting. Shirakumo tried to keep out of Iida’s range by staying up in the air, but didn’t take into account how high Iida could jump when powered by those legs of his. Once the fight was on the ground it didn’t take long for Shirakumo to be fully outmatched, Iida all but tossing him out of the ring at lightning speed.

It was only a few minutes later when Shirakumo came back into the stands, a few bandages on his face where it had scuffed against the arena, arms spread wide. “I have returned!” he announced to the tittering laughter of his classmates.

“You certainly have, that was quite an exit you made there,” Nakano said as she stood to leave while he sat back down on the other side of Aizawa.

“It was even more impressive up close!” Shirakumo laughed. “I don’t think I’ve ever caught that much air before without using my Quirk!”

Hizashi laughed along with everyone else - well, almost everyone else. Aizawa was giving Shirakumo one of those looks, like when he was trying to understand a tricky English phrase in class, but it just wasn’t translating.

“Go kick Sensoji’s butt for me, Nakano!” Mushimori called as she trotted down to get ready for her semi-final match. He was still sporting a few burns from his first round defeat.

“This should be a fun one!” Shirakumo said and Hizashi nodded eagerly.

“Nakano is a powerhouse,” Ebisui said, “I really need to come up with better strategies for how to fight people with Quirks like hers.” Hizashi was a little bummed that they’d missed Nakano’s match against Ebisui; but they’d been looking for Aizawa at the time, which had been a lot more pressing at the moment.

Down on the field, Nakano and Sensoji were squaring off, and Hizashi leaned forward eagerly. He could see Sensoji talking and Nakano laughing, but her smile was a lot more wicked than the usual friendly one she wore.

The start horn sounded, and before Hizashi could even blink, a tall wall of earth three meters high and a meter thick had risen up between Nakano and Sensoji, rolling forwards towards him like a wave. He, of course, started blasting away at it. Even in the stands they could see the spray of dirt on both sides of the wall when a blast made it all the way through; but within seconds, Nakano patched the breaches.

The wave pressed on, pushing Sensoji back. His face twisted into a grimace, and he charged at the barrier, which crossed the whole width of the field, as if he could just barrel through it. He blasted away, even as his feet slid back meter by meter, closer to the edge of the ring.

“It’s like he doesn’t know how to do anything except just blast through obstacles,” Aizawa said, rolling his eyes with clear disdain. It was funny to Hizashi that Aizawa had different kinds of eye-rolls, for when he was actually annoyed or when he was hiding the fact that he was amused.

“He sees a simple solution and he goes for it,” Shirakumo chimed in.

“Simple is right,” Hizashi added, eyebrows climbing higher and higher in disbelief as Sensoji still didn’t try any kind of different tactic. He was still blasting away when the buzzer sounded and the boundary line lit up beneath his foot as he crossed it.

“Nakano Mayumi wins!” Class 1-A cheered loudly, and Hizashi was pretty sure he heard cheers coming from 1-B’s section as well. “The final match will be Iida Tensei vs Nakano Mayumi!”

Hizashi turned around and knelt up on his seat to chat with Mushimori two rows back. He could have gotten up to go sit next to him, but it was just as easy to do this, and it meant that when Aizawa elbowed him in the hip to let him know the match was about to start down below, all he had to do was spin around and he still had his seat.

If he felt some kind of warmth at the fact that Aizawa had finally started to return the kind of nudging that Hizashi regularly doled out, it was probably nothing worth thinking about.

Nakano and Iida took the field, and the buzzer sounded beginning the match.

And what a match it was.

As fast as Nakano could build her earthen walls, she wasn’t any match for Iida’s speed; but as fast as Iida was, crashing into a solid wall of dirt at those speeds wasn’t really any different than crashing into concrete. Not even a minute into the match, and both of them were clearly focused and working hard to try and best their opponent.

“She’s trying for a Shirakumo tactic,” Hizashi said as Nakano drew a tall pillar of earth up under her feet, letting her get a birds-eye view of the field so she wasn’t blinded by her own barriers.

“Didn’t work so well for me either,” Shirakumo said with a wince as Iida ran straight up the pillar and Nakano had to leap away, landing on one of the walls she’d previously put up.

It was hard to keep up with Nakano’s moves and maneuvers, and it was impossible to keep up with Iida’s as Hizashi’s commentary stumbled over itself in his rush to try.

“Oh no, it looks like Nakano is in trouble!” he cried as Iida managed to grab her around her waist, charging for the edge of the ring. “This could be the end of- Oh! Holy crap! Iida just went down! Is his foot stuck in the ground!? Nakano went flying, but she’s still in bounds! Come on, Nakano, I know you’re a little shaky from that tumble, but you’ve got this!”

Nakano was struggling to her feet, but Iida had already blasted his foot free from the earthen trap she’d snagged him in and was off. She managed to put up a few more walls to defend her position; but in the end, Iida was too fast.

“Iida Tensei is the winner! Congratulations!”

“Whew! That was intense!” Shirakumo said, flopping back in his seat. “I can’t wait to see what the second years can do!” Aizawa stood up from his seat and Hizashi had to stop himself from reaching out to grab his wrist.

“Where ya goin?”

“I’m going to see if Power Loader is in the Design Studio,” Aizawa replied, scooting towards the aisle.

“Oh cool! I’ll come with you!” Hizashi said, jumping up. Shirakumo followed along behind, smiling broadly.

Chapter Text

Shouta wasn’t sure why his classmates insisted on accompanying him to the Design Studio. With a tiny twist in his gut, he remembered the looks on their faces when they’d found him earlier, getting some peace and quiet away from everyone. For a split second, he could have sworn they were worried about him. Which was irrational, he had been completely fine, he’d only wanted to be alone…

No. He had to admit, only to himself, that that wasn’t true.

He hadn’t wanted to face Yamada. The way the other boy had stared up at him from the ground after Shouta won their match reminded him far too much of the wide-eyed uneasy looks he’d always gotten from classmates after they understood what his Quirk did. Even though he knew the end result was inevitable, Shouta hadn’t wanted to watch as Yamada’s open, cheerful expression closed off to him.

And yet, somehow, the inevitable hadn’t happened. Yamada was still perfectly content to sit next to Shouta, to help him find music to improve his training, to smile at him. Though he’d used his Quirk on both Yamada and Shirakumo, both of them were still…

He thought about his parents, and how they believed that these two boys were his friends.

Shouta was starting to worry they were right.

He hoped he wouldn’t have to explain to Yamada and Shirakumo that, no matter how hard they tried to be his friends, it was simply never going to work. It never did. The whole idea was doomed to disaster, and he hoped they’d figure it out on their own and leave him be. It would be easiest for everyone that way.

Right now, the two of them were chatting with each other as they trailed along behind him, which worked out well, because that way neither of them was trying to get him to say anything. He had no interest in making conversation.

He couldn’t help overhearing, though.

“I’m kinda surprised you’re not staying with the class to commentate!” Shirakumo said, “You’re really good at it.”

“Thanks, man!” Yamada sounded delighted at the compliment. “I’ve got lots of practice, with my webcast and stuff; but I’m excited to see what Power Loader made for Aizawa!”

“I don’t know how you remember so much of what everyone has going on! You know the shows Fujimi watches, the music Kobayashi listens to, and the manga Oizuchi is following. With the way you keep up with it all, it’s kinda amazing Hadachi got picked as class rep instead of you,” Shirakumo mused.

“Nah, that ain’t my scene,” Yamada waved off the idea as if it was ridiculous. “Hadachi is great for it though. She keeps a cool head, is super organized, and everyone likes her.”

“Everyone likes you too!” Shirakumo laughed.

Shouta wasn’t sure why it stung to hear Shirakumo talking like that with Yamada. Maybe because Yamada was always going around talking to everyone, making friends with the whole school; but Shirakumo, as friendly as he was, tended to stick close to Shouta. Sure, Shirakumo was close with Nakano and a few others too, but… maybe some part of Shouta had started to think he was… special, somehow to the other boy.

Stupid.

Not just stupid, but exactly the kind of stupid thinking that Shouta knew he needed to avoid. He wasn’t special to Shirakumo. He wasn’t special to Yamada. He didn’t want to be. Both of them had plenty of other people, and it was better that way.

Yamada huffed. “Eh. I’m the life of the party, and a people-person for sure. I’m good at keeping the mood and humor up, but- I mean, the only people who ever text me back more than once or twice are Aizawa and Kobayashi.”

Shouta almost stumbled over his own feet. How was that possible? Everyone spoke with Yamada in class, everyone laughed when he made jokes! Even when people like Fujimi got annoyed with him, Yamada always turned it around and got on good terms with them.

“Seriously?” Shirakumo sounded just as surprised as Shouta felt. “Wait, hang on, how come you never text me?”

“You never messaged me when I gave you my number!” Yamada laughed, but there was something tense in his voice that Shouta couldn’t place.

“You gave me your number?” Shirakumo asked. Shouta glanced back over his shoulder to see his face scrunched up in confusion, wrinkling his ever-present nose strip.

“Yeah, I gave it to everyone by the second day of classes,” Yamada said with a shrug.

“I must have lost it,” Shirakumo sighed, “My bag is a mess. Here, gimmie your phone.” Shouta could hear them shuffling around and the little pop-pop-pop noises of typing, followed by the ping of an incoming text. “There, now there’s one more person who’ll text you back!”

Shouta rubbed the heel of his hand against the center of his chest. This was for the best. If those two got closer, neither of them would feel like they needed to keep Shouta around as some kind of pet project.

“Hey, Aizawa, gimmie your phone number too!” Shirakumo said, trotting up next to him.

“Just get it from Yamada,” Shouta grumbled, feeling his neck heating up. He didn’t have time for this as they arrived at the Design Studio. Walking into the large space, it wasn’t hard to spot Power Loader over at his desk. “Sensei?” Shouta called to get his attention.

“What’re you three doing here? Shouldn’t you be at the Sports Festival?” Power Loader asked, then waved one of his overly large hands as if to dismiss the question. “Nevermind. I’m gonna be heading up there soon, I’ve got some third years who I think are gonna be impressive; but since you’re here…” he trailed off as he started rummaging around through some boxes next to his desk. “Ah-hah! Here we are!” He stood up, holding what looked like a large coil of thin, white fabric. Striding over to Shouta, he dropped the whole bundle over his head so it rested on his shoulders.

“Let’s take the binding cloth for a quick test drive! Activate your Quirk,” Power Loader said. Shouta took a breath. He thought about those sketches Power Loader had drawn, the things Sensei thought this item would be able to do, and he braced himself for disappointment. After all, what were the chances he’d really be able to make all that happen? His Quirk flared to life-

And so did the white strands, practically dancing in the air around him.

“Woah!” Shirakumo and Yamada yelled together.

Shouta stared at the undulating fabric in shock. How could his Quirk be doing… that?

“Excellent!” Power Loader said with a grin. “Now, don’t drop your Quirk; but with your mind, tell the cloth to go back to its original shape.” Shouta was confused, but he tried holding the image in his head of the scarf as it had looked before. Immediately, the strands stopped moving and coiled back around him as if at rest; but Shouta could feel a humming from them, a readiness to leap into action if he wanted them to.

“Fantastic!” Power Loader said. “Ok, relax, I’ll go over the owner's manual with you.” Shouta blinked and his hair fell back down to frame his face, and the humming from the cloth around his neck dimmed down to almost nothing.

“It’s like I can still feel it, like it’s ready to… do something,” Shouta said, staring down at the coil of fabric. His hand hovered close to the loops that rested around his shoulders without actually touching them, then looked back up at Power Loader, who nodded.

“I was wondering if that might be the case. If I’m right, it won’t work without your Quirk active at first; but the more you use it, not only will it get more responsive to you, but it should respond even when you’re not actively using your Quirk.” Power Loader began to go over a bunch of information and specifications that Shouta tried to pay attention to… but he was enraptured by the way he could feel the strands humming, as if waiting for him to wake them up again.

“You called it a binding cloth?” Shirakumo asked, stepping close to Shouta and running a piece of the fabric between his fingers.

“Yeah, the manufacturer and I went back and forth between that and capture weapon. Neither one really covers the versatility of it,” Power Loader said, looking at the coils with a clear sense of pride, “But either one works well enough. So, what do you think?”

What did he think? Shouta ran his fingers over the material, soft against the pads of his fingers. He gripped a bunch of the strands tightly together in his fist, then let go, watching them spring back to their original shape, not even a little crumpled. He activated his Quirk and the strands leapt to life again. He grabbed hold of one and turned his gaze to the trash can next to Power Loader’s desk. He threw the strand towards it, willing it to wrap around the target.

It did.

“Holy shit!” Yamada shouted next to him, “That was awesome!” Shouta blinked, and the binding cloth stayed firmly around the trash can. It wasn’t as powerful as his classmates’ Quirks, but maybe…

Maybe it might help put him closer to equal footing with them.

“You ok, Yamada?” Shirakumo asked, “You’re looking a little flushed.”

“Yeah, sure, of course!” Yamada said, “S’just warm in here!”

“That’s pretty impressive for your first real try!” Power Loader said to Shouta. “Do you want me to finish up the paperwork and the approval to add it to your costume?”

Shouta nodded slowly. “Yes, please.”

*

Shouta wasn’t prepared for the sudden flurry of alerts from his phone later that afternoon as he was finishing up helping Ms. Emoto. She gave him an indulgent smile as he checked his messages to find that he’d been added to a group text, currently being blown up with random emojis. Actually, knowing Yamada, it was possible that the emojis actually meant something; but Shouta wasn’t in the mood to try and translate them.

<sent> I’m at work, Yamada. I’m assuming the other number is Shirakumo?

<unknown number> See, told u he’d figure it out!

Shouta quickly muted the notifications and, after taking a moment to save Shirakumo’s contact info, he stuck his phone back in his pocket.

After he got home, he finally scrolled back through the messages, which were, indeed, mostly just gibberish. He put his phone away and got started on his homework. After dinner, he was still trying to finish up his English assignment when his phone pinged.

<Yamada> yo, u were srs about wanting workout playlists, yeah?

<sent> Yes, but there’s no rush

Yamada spent so much time talking about music with Kobayashi, Shouta had figured he’d be a good person to ask; but now he was second guessing himself, wondering if it was too much. After all, he hadn’t even been able to tell Yamada a kind of music he liked, and now he couldn’t help feeling slightly embarrassed by how little he knew.

<Yamada> u said ur not sure what music u like, so I wanted to make sure I covered a bunch of genres, but also playlists for running are way different than what I like to use when lifting weights, so I just kinda put together a handful of shorter test lists.

<Yamada> As u go through and try them out, let me know what songs u like, or at least if there’s any u hate, and then I can adjust things and put together somethin for real

That was… too much. Shouta’s head was spinning trying to understand it all. He was on the verge of telling Yamada to forget about it all together when his phone rang. Shouta stared at Yamada’s name on the screen, frozen by indecision until the shrill sound of the ringer had him answering the call just to make it stop.

“Yo! I forgot to ask, what app do you use for music?”

“I don’t have one,” Shouta said, managing to feel even more out of his depth than he had before. This was all far too much, he never should have asked Yamada for anything.

“You don’t-!? Man, when you said you don’t listen to much, I figured you just didn’t pay attention- Ok, no problemo, this is actually great! You can get the same one I use!” Yamada talked Shouta through downloading the app and setting up an account and linking his account to Yamada’s so that Yamada could directly share playlists.

“You really don’t need to go through all this trouble-” Shouta said, and Yamada’s tinny laugh came over the speakerphone.

“Are you kidding? This is fun for me! Any chance I have to expose someone to new music isn’t something I’m gonna pass up!”

Shouta looked at his screen, now popping up with more than half a dozen playlists, all with titles like ‘cardio, punk,’ ‘running, pop,’ ‘lifting, metal,’ ‘high energy workout, rock.’ There was also one that was just called ‘sampler’ which didn’t seem to have a unifying theme. Shouta asked Yamada about it.

“In case you wanna just listen to some stuff, like on the train or at home while you’re chillin’, ya dig? And in this app, cuz our accounts are buddies, if you leave notes on what songs you like or hate, I can see them and make changes! Pretty cool, right?”

“It’s a lot of music,” Shouta mumbled, more to himself than Yamada. “You did all this today?”

“I mean, I kinda cheated a little and pulled together songs from my own similar playlists, so it’s not like I built them from scratch. It’s just a starting point, it’s gonna take you time to test different things out and see what you like. But like I told you, this kinda thing is my jam!”

“Ok. I, uhm, gotta finish my English work now.” Shouta paused as Yamada gave a cheery good bye. “Thanks, Yamada.”

“Any time! See ya tomorrow, Aizawa.”

*

Shouta was up early the next morning to get his usual run in before school. A strange giddiness flowed through him as he opened the music app, queued up one of the playlists that Yamada had labeled with ‘running,’ and put his earbuds in.

His feet knew the route forwards and backwards, and as the drums and guitars pulsed a rhythm in his ears, his legs started to move in time. He only paid a vague kind of attention to the lyrics - so much so that he was halfway through one song before he realized it was in English - but some of them sounded familiar.

As he trotted back up to his door, he checked his time to find that he’d covered the distance almost two minutes faster than usual, without thinking about putting in a harder effort.

Huh.

Maybe there was something to this.

He switched over to a different playlist for his calisthenics.

On the train ride to school, he started listening to a few songs from the sampler playlist. After all, it would help him give Yamada a better idea of what he did or didn’t like.

When he arrived in the classroom that morning, the chaos there banished all thoughts of music from his head as they discussed internships. Shouta was surprised to find out that he’d gotten a few offers, even after his dismal performance at the Sports Festival. He’d frozen up in his match against Shirakumo, not even getting a solid hit in before he was pinned and had to yield. He couldn’t even blame it on his concerns about using his Quirk against Shirakumo, since the other boy had already demonstrated that he wasn’t bothered by it. He had been trying to decide on the best tactic, but none of his ideas had been good enough.

After all, his Quirk was incredibly limited and required support.

So when, that afternoon for heroics training, Shouta’s binding cloth was neatly packed into the case with his costume, a nervous thrill shot through him.

Fortunately they were doing individual exercises that day. He wished he could have a little more privacy to start figuring out how to work with his unique support item; but everyone was pretty spread out, so it could be worse.

For once, Shirakumo was nowhere near Shouta, since Nishibori had pulled him aside to work on his skills with his bo staff. Yamada, however, was nearby. He was actually the only student even further away from the rest of the class than Shouta was. He was working with his handheld speakers, trying to improve his control over the spread of his Quirk, which was loud and distracting; but as Shouta found himself tangled in the binding cloth for the third time that afternoon, he was glad that at least it wasn’t Yakumo. Having Yamada get him freed from his own gear wasn’t as awful as most of the alternatives, no matter how many wiseass jokes he cracked.

Still, Shouta didn’t want to be reliant on anybody. He needed to get better if he wanted to be a hero.

The next day, the class was told they had to come up with hero names, and Shouta sighed. It was such a ridiculous thing, and therefore something he’d never given any serious thought to. In elementary school, the kids on the playground would run around calling themselves foolish names as they played at being heroes. Shouta had never joined in.

After all, lots of heroes used names that referenced their Quirks and powers, and it’s not like Shouta’s Quirk was good for that. Some heroes named themselves after the kind of hero work they did, or the image they wanted to leave in the mind of the public; but Shouta didn’t want to leave any image at all. He didn’t want anyone to notice him, just to make whatever difference he could manage, help who he could, and then go on his way. A name really didn’t matter.

So while his classmates chattered excitedly to each other and submitted their ideas for Nishibori’s approval (“That’s so badass!” “Oh that suits you so well!” “You can’t use that, it’s copyrighted!”), Shouta just put his head down and tuned it all out.

“Hey,” Yamada said, nudging him in the arm, “Check this out!” Shouta lifted his head to watch Yamada swagger up to the front of the classroom. “I am,” he started, then paused, did a spin on his heel, then faced the class, brandishing a finger gun and the sign where he’d written out his hero name towards them. “Present Mic!”

Judging from the sounds of approval around the room, everyone seemed to like it. Shirakumo clapped and cheered loudly. Shouta certainly thought the name fit Yamada. Actually, it sounded familiar, though he couldn’t place it. Either way, before Shouta could put his head back down, Shirakumo went up to take his turn, holding up his placard with big, bold writing on it.

“Loud Cloud!” he announced proudly. Shouta remembered that moment in the hallway a few weeks ago when Shirakumo had used that phrase to describe himself. For some reason, the fact that he was using it as his hero name had a tiny smile tugging up at the corner of Shouta’s mouth.

“Hell yeah, man! That’s perfect!” Yamada shouted. He and Shirakumo were clearly getting to be good friends, and Shouta reminded himself that it was a good thing. They’d get closer and he’d be allowed to fade into the background, as he wanted.

“Aizawa, do you have any ideas yet?” Sensei asked, and Shouta frowned.

“No.”

“What?” Yamada asked incredulously, “You haven’t decided on a hero name? I’ve been using mine for years already on my webcast!”

Oh, that’s why it sounded familiar. “I don’t want to be on the news,” Shouta muttered, “I don’t need one.”

“No way, dude!” Yamada declared. “Hero names aren’t just for the news! You wanna be out of the spotlight and anonymous, yeah? Well, you gotta register yourself as something, unless you’re planning on going around using your real name!”

“Exactly!” Shirakumo chimed in. “It’ll still be like, ‘there goes the dark and mysterious hero,’ but your hero license still needs a name on it!”

“I don’t care about that,” Shouta grumbled, even as he was begrudgingly realizing that they were right. “You think it’s so important, you come up with one.” He didn’t actually mean it, it was just another token protest against the whole idea, and he was resigning himself to the fact that he would need to come up with something. So he was taken aback when, just a few seconds later, Yamada jumped out of his seat and pointed at him with both hands.

“All right, I got it! You’ll be Eraserhead!” Yamada was smiling and energetic, like he always was, while Shouta stared down at his desk, unable to muster that kind of enthusiasm for something so silly… but he didn’t feel the need to push back against the suggestion. It was a simple enough name. To the point. Absurd, but all hero names were. And it’s not like he really cared what anyone called him.

“I’ll go with that, then.” A simple, rational decision. That was all.

“Are you sure, Aizawa?” Sensei asked. “You don’t want to come up with something yourself?”

“Does it make a difference?” Nothing he’d come up with would be any less ridiculous. At least this way it was Yamada’s doing instead of his own.

“No-”

“Then put me down as Eraserhead.”

*

Shouta tried to get himself into a comfortable routine. Exercise in the mornings, shower, school, work, homework, sleep.

He made notes about the songs on Yamada’s playlists, and Yamada changed things up almost before Shouta was done commenting. Quickly the playlists had gone from hit-or-miss to songs that Shouta found himself actually enjoying.

While he exercised, of course. They were a useful tool for helping him train better.

His routine was thrown off during the week that everyone was away on their internships, which wound up being a thoroughly unpleasant ordeal for him in every possible way. All of his time ‘on patrol’ was nothing more than following around a sidekick - which in and of itself wasn’t the problem. But the man, who went by Wipe Out, talked incessantly about his own plans and opportunities for making his big break and getting the popularity he deserved. Useless for Shouta in terms of meaningful experience, and obnoxious to listen to.

The only good part of the whole experience was the workouts. Shouta was given access to the agency’s training gym, and took advantage of the opportunity to spend hours there, lifting the kinds of weights he didn’t have access to at home.

He found himself listening to Yamada’s playlists more during that time. And when he was done, it was just simpler to let the playlists keep playing as he made his way to bed at night rather than bother turning them off.

He got a few texts from Yamada and from Shirakumo each day. They both seemed to be enjoying their internships more than he was. There were a few moments where Shouta considered texting them first, but he always squashed the idea quickly.

On his last evening, Shouta decided to practice working with his capture weapon, which was still more of a decoration than a useful item. Sure, it was a little risky with nobody there to untangle him if he messed up; but he figured he would just keep it to simple maneuvers and short throws.

Somehow, he still managed to tangle the fabric around his fingers, and he growled in frustration as he tried to yank himself free.

That was when he felt something pop, and a bright, sharp pain shot from his fingers up his arm.

Biting his lip, he slunk back to his room and taped his probably-broken finger up. He did his best to hide it the next day as he packed his things and headed back to UA to drop off his costume. He sheepishly peeked into the nurse’s office, and Recovery Girl tutted at him before checking him over. (He tried to insist he didn’t need x-rays. She made him do it just to show him that he’d actually broken two of his fingers.) He glowered at the floor as she kissed the back of his hand and the pain finally subsided.

After internships ended, he slipped back into a relatively comfortable routine. His academics were fine, he was holding his own in most of the practical classes, and his classmates let Shouta have his space.

Mostly.

Not only was Shirakumo still determined to stay close to Shouta whenever he could; but now Yamada - rather than wandering the classroom at every opportunity - had started staying in (or at least near) his seat most of the time. In fact, Yamada and Shirakumo had started doing a thing where they both scooted over to Shouta’s desk in between them to talk with each other. Shouta mostly huffed and ignored them, but sometimes they managed to draw him into their ridiculous conversations. They also tended to stay close to him during practical exercises, and usually dragged him to sit with them at lunch.

And they kept trying to get him to talk with them.

“What’s your favorite tv show?” Shirakumo asked Shouta at the lunch table, leaning around from where he sat on the other side of Yamada. Yamada turned to look at Shouta too, apparently eager for his answer.

“I don’t watch much tv,” Shouta told them. Unsurprisingly, they were disappointed.

“Seriously? You don’t listen to music, you don’t watch tv, you prolly don’t watch movies either!” Yamada pressed his hands to the sides of his head as if it was all some great catastrophe. “What do you even do all day? C’mon man, you gotta like something!”

“I like cats,” Shouta admitted quietly. He knew it wasn’t what Yamada meant, but it was the best answer he had.

“Well that’s something, anyway!” Yamada declared. “Oh wait, do you read any books or manga?”

“Sometimes,” Shouta said, which then somehow spiraled into a fifteen minute interrogation and discussion about Shouta’s preferred reading materials.

Ridiculous.

Still, social irritations aside, Shouta’s biggest problem was that he wasn’t improving nearly fast enough with his binding cloth. Sure, he’d only really had it for a little over three weeks now, but it was still more of an impediment to him when he tried to use it in any kind of fight. Yesterday, Nakano had not only beaten him easily, but she’d had to help him more than once when he’d tripped or tangled himself up. (Then he’d had to go see Recovery Girl after class, and she tutted at him again. At least he’d only broken one finger that time.) He needed to do something, to train with it more; but it wasn’t like he could practice at home.

So after classes were over for the day, Shouta approached Nishibori to ask for permission to do extra training with his binding cloth after school. There were several different gyms around campus, and he hoped that at least one of them might be available.

“That sounds like a good idea,” Nishibori said, and he pulled out his phone, checking a schedule. “It looks like there’s a slot open during the week for the East Gym, I’ll put you in there. However, for safety reasons, you’ll have to have someone with you in case you need emergency assistance.”

“We’ll do it!” Shirakumo hollered from the back of the classroom where he and Yamada were packing up.

“Gotta make sure Aizawa doesn’t tie himself in knots!” Yamada laughed.

Shouta sighed, but led the way to the gym. His permission was valid immediately, and he wanted to get started as soon as possible. They made a brief stop in the locker room so Shouta could change into his gym clothes; but he brought all his things into the gym with him so he could head to work with Ms. Emoto as soon as he was done. “You two can do extra training too, if you want. There’s plenty of space,” he told Yamada and Shirakumo as they all dropped their bags next to the wall. “I don’t need babysitters.”

“And shirk our solemn duty to watch over and protect you?” Shirakumo gasped, as if offended by the notion.

“Wait, does this mean you don’t want my motivational running commentary?” Yamada teased.

Shouta glowered at him. “No.”

“Your loss, man!” Yamada laughed.

As it turned out, Shirakumo and Yamada didn’t use the time in the gym for training; but they also didn’t spend it looking over Shouta’s shoulder as he threw the cloth again and again at a punching bag he’d hauled out to the middle of the floor. What they did do was spend most of the time horsing around.

Shouta was fine with that. It was bad enough that he needed them there (especially since they did end up having to help him get disentangled once or twice… maybe three times…). At least this way they weren’t paying attention to his every miss and failure.

If the occasional thump as Shirakumo crashed into the wall was a little distracting, it was a small price to pay, because the extra effort was paying off. As the days passed, he was better able to get the capture weapon to respond to what he wanted it to do. Even when his Quirk wasn’t activated, he was starting to have some success. It still wasn’t as accurate as he needed to be, but he was working on it.

And he only needed to see Recovery Girl once for a broken finger.

He mostly just ignored Yamada and Shirakumo’s goofing off, and they kept each other entertained. It was fine, it’s not like either of them needed to put in any extra work, not the way Shouta did. They weren’t handicapped with Quirks that were so limited.

Then again… on Friday, Shirakumo was out sick, so it was only Yamada hanging out while Shouta practiced. Shouta thought back to the Sports Festival, and Yamada’s fighting skills. He looked up at the big clock high up on the wall, seeing he had about fifteen minutes left before his time was up and he’d have to pack up and head out so he could get to Ms. Emoto. That should be enough time…

“Yamada,” Shouta called, starting to head over towards him. Yamada tugged his headphones down to rest on his neck and trotted to meet him halfway, brows furrowing more than usual.

“S’up, you ok?”

“Fine,” Shouta said- and that was where his words failed him. For some reason, he wasn’t sure how to say what he wanted to say. “I was just wondering-” He frowned and started again. “I offered to spar with you, if you wanted to work on your hand-to-hand fighting skills. You’ve been giving up pretty much all of your afternoons so I can practice, you should get something out of this too.” He wasn’t sure why he felt embarrassed to be offering this. He’d been taking karate since he could walk, he knew what he was doing; it was perfectly reasonable for him to offer to show Yamada some techniques.

Even more puzzling was the fact that now Yamada was flushing pink… unless- ugh, of course, he was embarrassed that Shouta was bringing back up his poor performance at the Sports Festival. Irrational. Yamada shouldn’t be embarrassed. With his Quirk, he wouldn’t need to rely much on hand-to-hand combat. It made sense that it might not be his strongest skill. But then again, Yamada was often irrational.

“You mean, like, now?” Yamada asked, his face getting even redder.

Shouta shrugged, trying to not make things worse. It really was meant as a simple offer. “I’ve got a few minutes before I need to leave.”

“I’m in my uniform!”

Shouta’s brow furrowed in confusion. “You and Shirakumo have been running around giving each other piggyback rides and throwing each other into the walls every day while wearing your uniforms. How is this so different?”

“I- No, it’s just- uhh-”

“If you don’t want to, it’s fine,” Shouta told him. If Yamada was going to be ridiculous about it, Shouta would just get in another few minutes of his own training. He should have known better than to try and-

“No! I mean, yeah, sure! I just wasn’t expecting it!” Yamada’s grin was back in place, and he pointed at Shouta, as if in challenge. “I’ll show you what I can really do!”

“No Quirks,” Shouta reminded him. “This is about your hand-to-hand technique.”

“Of course!” Yamada scoffed, tossing his stuff, including his uniform jacket and headphones, against the wall next to Shouta’s gear. “I can kick your butt fair and square, don’t you worry!”

Shouta raised his eyebrow. “Alright. Come on, then.” They squared off, and in a blink Yamada was on the attack. He was actually a lot more organized than he had been at the Sports Festival, but Shouta could still easily block and parry each attack.

“Better, but not nearly good enough,” Shouta told him, taking advantage of an opening to go on the attack, forcing Yamada to stumble and shift to defense. Yamada stepped back, blocked a right hook, and tried to counter with a punch of his own; but Shouta caught his wrist and used Yamada’s momentum to spin him around, twisting his arm up behind his back.

“Owww!” Yamada yelped, tapping on his own leg. Shouta released him and stepped back. “One more time, c’mon,” Yamada said with a grin, shaking his arm out and shifting back into a fighting stance.

This time Shouta immediately went on the offensive, but Yamada held his ground rather than let himself get pushed back, blocking and countering Shouta’s strikes and moving in side-steps to try and circle him. Shouta saw the determination in the smile that was pasted across Yamada’s face. He knew Yamada was giving a solid effort.

But it wouldn’t be enough for him to be able to win.

Shouta slid his foot forward, a quick darting motion towards Yamada’s ankles. Yamada tried to dance out of the way, but Shouta was faster, lunging forward while Yamada was off balance, grabbing a hold of him, foot planted, twisting hard until gravity took over. Yamada tried to flail, managing to grab onto Shouta’s wrist where his hand was fisted in Yamada’s shirt; but Shouta was already moving anyway, following Yamada’s path down in a more controlled manner.

“Oof!” The air rushed out of Yamada’s lungs as his back hit the ground hard. Shouta knelt over him, the hand not gripping Yamada’s shirt pinning his other hand down to the mat. Shouta held still, catching his breath, watching to make sure Yamada’s breathing started to level out after he managed to inhale again.

“Oh gods,” came a whiny voice from behind Shouta, “Just when I thought you two couldn’t be any further up each other’s asses.” He looked over his shoulder to see Yakumo leaning against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest.

A quiet, high-pitched noise dragged Shouta’s attention back to Yamada, whose face was an alarming shade of red. There was something frozen about his features; but before Shouta could fully let go and back away, the unnatural stillness broke.

Yamada scrambled back, dumping Shouta over on his side in his haste to put some space between them. There was a wild look of panic in his wide green eyes, and Shouta felt all his stupid, irrational hopes evaporate in an instant.

Something inside him cracked, a hairline fracture on a new and delicate structure as it prepared to shatter.

Over the years, some people had tried. They’d insisted on reaching out to Shouta when nobody else did. Swore they’d be his friends. None of them lasted long once they realized that they’d never be able to make it so Shouta was accepted by everyone else. They could only ever become a pariah alongside him. Given the options, every one of them had backed away from him.

Shouta hadn’t even realized how much he’d let himself start to hope that maybe this time, things were actually different.

Stupid.

He jumped up, grabbed his binding cloth and bag, and ran out of there as fast as he could.

Chapter Text

When Aizawa’s eyes got wide and he jumped up like he’d been burned, it yanked Hizashi out of his panicked spiral. Still, it took a second for his body to unfreeze, and by the time he’d gotten to his feet, Aizawa was nearly out the door.

“Aizawa!” Hizashi yelled after his retreating form as the door slammed shut. “Well that was a fucking disaster,” he growled at himself, “Good job, Yamada.” Hizashi glowered, then turned his ire on another target. “Do you actually need to act like an asshole, Yakumo, or is it just a fun hobby for you?” he snapped.

“I just came to find my notebook, I dropped it when we were in here for training earlier,” Yakumo said, holding it up and waggling it a bit. “Not my fault you two were… doing whatever you were doing.”

“Sparring, dude. Grow up,” Hizashi shot back, but could feel his ears heating up. He tried to cover his flush by huffing and turning his back to go collect his stuff over by the wall.

He’d hooked his headphones over his neck and was shrugging on his jacket when he saw a phone lying on the ground. He checked his jacket pocket, and his phone was in there where it belonged, so that meant the other one was probably Aizawa’s.

Shit.

He scooped up the phone and the rest of his stuff and ran out of the gym, ignoring Yakumo, hoping he’d be able to catch Aizawa before he was off campus. He searched the locker rooms, then ran back to the gym again to see if Aizawa had come back looking for his phone; but after more than twenty minutes, Hizashi accepted that Aizawa was gone.

And they’d be out of school till Monday.

It wasn’t even like Hizashi could call or text him to let him know that he had the phone. Hizashi would have no way of getting in touch with Aizawa till Monday.

No way to apologize.

Hizashi wasn’t really sure what had gotten into him lately, and maybe he’d think about that later (or maybe not); but he wasn’t stupid. He knew that the way he’d freaked out had hurt Aizawa’s feelings. Even though Aizawa always looked bored and tired, Hizashi knew that some things bothered him, even though he didn’t usually show it.

And this time, it had shown.

Glaring down at the phone in his hand, he pressed his mouth into a firm line of determination. He woke the phone up and looked at the lock screen - a stock picture of a cat - and prodded the ‘emergency contacts’ icon. There was only one entry there, labeled ‘Mom.’ Great, not at all intimidating. Hizashi took a deep breath and placed the call.

“Shouta?” The woman on the other end of the line sounded confused.

“Hello-” Hizashi started, but before he could get another word out, her stern voice cut him off.

“Who are you and why do you have my son’s phone?”

“Yamada Hizashi, Mrs. Aizawa!” he yelped. “Aizawa, your son, we were in the gym, training, and he left, but his phone fell out of his bag and he didn’t realize. I just want to return it to him! He- I- I don’t want him to worry that it’s lost. I’d like to drop it off to him, but I can hold on to it till Monday, if you prefer.” He hoped she didn’t prefer that.

“No, I’d rather he have it. You don’t need to drop it off, I can come collect it.”

“It’s no trouble, really,” Hizashi found himself saying quickly. Something in his gut was churning, wanting badly to see Aizawa and apologize. “Please, I don’t mind.” Mrs. Aizawa was quiet on the other end of the line for a moment, and Hizashi held his breath.

“Yamada you said your name was?”

“Yep, the one and only!”

“Very well.” She told him the address and Hizashi hastily typed it into his phone and saved it. “If you change your mind about dropping it off, let me know.”

“Thank you! I won’t, though! Change my mind, I mean! I’ll head right over.”

“Thank you, young man.”

Hizashi ended the call and put Aizawa’s phone into his bag, while he used his own to look up Aizawa’s address on the map to figure out the best route to get there. It took him a few minutes, but then he took off for the train station.

He paced around the platform while he waited for the next train to arrive, checking the time almost every minute. How long had it been since Aizawa had run out of the gym? It had to be nearly an hour now, and Hizashi was itching to fix… whatever it was.

The train finally pulled in, and Hizashi grabbed a seat squished into a corner. As it started moving, his brain finally started really turning over the question that had been tugging at him, demanding attention.

What the hell had just happened?

Over the past few weeks, Hizashi had become about a million times more aware of Aizawa. He always found himself noticing where Aizawa was and what he was up to. He’d been thinking about him a lot, too; wondering about the things he liked, excited to introduce him to new music, looking forward to seeing him in school each day.

The awareness of Aizawa wasn’t exactly new. He had drawn Hizashi’s attention since the first day they met - the guy was pretty awesome, after all; and every new thing he learned made Hizashi like him even more.

But it had gotten more intense ever since the Sports Festival.

Ever since the Sports Festival, Hizashi had been thinking a lot about that match with Aizawa. His mind fed him images of Aizawa charging at Hizashi with his Quirk activated, standing over Hizashi with his hand extended, smirking at Hizashi before pulling a move that threw Hizashi totally off balance, stuff like that.

And since the Sports Festival, Hizashi had been wanting to spend more and more time with Aizawa. It had worked out pretty perfectly that he and Shirakumo got along so well, because from what Hizashi could tell, Shirakumo was the only other person Aizawa had let get close. It had added up to Hizashi being able to hang out with two classmates that were funny and cool a lot of the time, and he was really happy about that.

So what the hell had he just freaked out over? They had just been sparring, why had Hizashi gotten so damn flustered over it? Why had it felt like a big deal, when three weeks ago he’d been fighting Aizawa at the Sports Festival for much bigger stakes? Sure, Yakumo’s comment was rude, but Hizashi knew that he had started freaking out even before Yakumo showed up. It wasn’t like just touching Aizawa was a big deal…

Or was it?

Because Hizashi didn’t get flustered when Shirakumo picked him up for a piggyback ride. But with Aizawa, it was… different? Cuz Hizashi kinda… enjoyed finding excuses to touch Aizawa. Something about it felt… exciting. Even silly things, like a hand on his shoulder, or nudging him with an elbow, or a pat on the back.

Or sparring.

But when Aizawa had pinned him, it was… intense. His heart had started racing, and Aizawa had been a solid weight on top of him and…

It didn’t make sense.

Hizashi had always had… difficulties controlling his emotions. It was part of why he listened to so much music: it helped him ride out the waves of whatever feeling he was feeling without tearing himself apart. It had gotten worse over the past few years (Wataya’s face had been so bloody…), but the worst of it had mostly stayed at home where he could deal with his shit by himself.

(The wide-eyed look of hurt on Aizawa’s face when Hizashi had pushed away from him.)

In that moment, with Aizawa pinning him, Hizashi had felt like he was edging close to something that had scared him. Something dangerous. Something that would overwhelm him. There was something about Aizawa’s flushed and sweaty face hovering just above his own. Not something bad, but a swooping feeling, like the first big drop on a roller coaster - terrifying and dangerous and thrilling… it had scared him and he’d pushed Aizawa away.

And now he’d managed to upset Aizawa, and he needed to fix it.

Hizashi had never been good at controlling his emotions; but if whatever this was made him hurt Aizawa, then he was damn well gonna get this one under control.

The train finally got to the right stop and Hizashi hurried off, checking the map again to see where he needed to go. He had to pause a few times to get his bearings, but at last he came to a block of dull, gray apartment buildings. It wasn’t anything like the neat rows of houses where Hizashi’s family lived, and he couldn’t help but wonder if somehow Aizawa’s gloomy gray mood was related to the gloomy gray buildings with their lines of gloomy gray doorways.

He found the correct door and rang the bell. When he heard the shuffling sounds of someone inside, a sudden burst of nerves had him fidgeting and biting at his lip.

He hoped Aizawa didn’t slam the door in his face.

The door opened to reveal someone who was not Hizashi’s UA classmate. “You must be Yamada,” the man said with a bright smile, “Come in, Shouta will be home soon.” Hizashi bobbed his head and toed his shoes off in the genkan as the man, who must be Aizawa’s dad, closed the door.

“I’m surprised I got here before him,” Hizashi said, looking around. Though the outside of the building was cold and uninviting, the inside of the Aizawa’s apartment was warm and clean and smelled like tea. Definitely not gloomy and gray.

“He works down at Ms. Emoto’s shop most days for a couple of hours after school, though he’s had to cut back since he started doing that extra training after classes,” Mr. Aizawa said as he motioned for Hizashi to sit on a worn but comfortable sofa in the small living area. “I let him know when you got here, so he’s already on his way home.”

“Oh, uhm-” Hizashi started to spiral in a whirlwind of conflicting thoughts. Part of him felt like he should warn Mr. Aizawa that Aizawa might maybe kinda be avoiding him. Most of him very much did not want to explain why Aizawa might be avoiding him. What actually came out of his mouth was, “How did you tell him if he doesn't have his phone?”

Mr. Aizawa tapped his finger to his temple. “I’ve got the free version, always charged and ready to go,” he said with a wink.

“Oh, you’re a telepath? And you can reach him directly?” Hizashi said, stomping down the tiny crumb of resentment that flared up every time he heard about anyone’s parent’s Quirks. “Maybe that’s where the telekinetic part of Aizawa’s Quirk comes from? Mind-related Quirks can have a lot of overlap, right?” He knew he was babbling; but he was nervous, so he just accepted that his mouth was gonna do its thing.

Mr. Aizawa tipped his head and gave Hizashi a curious look. “That certainly sounds plausible,” he said. “Tell me, Yamada. Do you spend much time with Shouta in school?”

“Yeah, of course! Me and him and Shirakumo sit next to each other in class, and we have lunch together, and we’ve been hanging out with him so he can train after school.” Hizashi hoped he’d be able to fix things with Aizawa so all that stuff was still true on Monday.

“You’re training with him? He said it was just for him to practice with his new support item.”

“Oh, we’re just there to help him get untangled if he needs it,” Hizashi explained. “He has the safety knife to cut away if it’s an actual emergency; but it’s better to not chop up the equipment if you don’t need to, ya dig? So that’s where we come in,” Hizashi said, pointing his thumbs at his chest. “He’s getting better and better, so he might not need us there anymore soon, but it’s really awesome watching him, so-”

The front door burst open and a panting, red-faced Aizawa stood framed in the late afternoon sunlight. “Did you say Yamada is here!?” he gasped before his eyes focused on Hizashi and he froze. “Why are you talking to him!?” Hizashi had no idea which of them Aizawa meant.

“Shouta, manners,” Mr. Aizawa said. “It’s not every day I get the chance to chat with one of your friends.” Aizawa’s face was stormy as he shut the door, and he did not seem to be feeling particularly friendly towards Hizashi.

“You dropped your phone,” Hizashi said, quickly rummaging through his bag and crossing the room to thrust the device out in front of him towards Aizawa. He pulled his face into a wide grin, but could feel it wobbling a little at the corners. “I wanted to return it to you. I didn’t want you to worry.”

Aizawa kicked off his shoes and stepped carefully towards Hizashi, looking down at the phone like Hizashi was holding out a ticking bomb. Slowly, gingerly, Aizawa reached out and took it.

“Thanks,” he mumbled, keeping his eyes aimed at the floor.

Hizashi bit his lip, not wanting to have this conversation in front of Aizawa’s dad, not unless he had no choice. “Hey, can we talk for a minute?”

“I doubt we have anything to talk about,” Aizawa said, voice cold, eyes still downcast.

“C’mon,” Hizashi said, dropping his voice. “Let me apologize?” Aizawa’s eyes snapped up, flicking back and forth across Hizashi’s face, then narrowed at him suspiciously. He cast a quick glance over Hizashi’s shoulder at his dad sitting in a chair on the other side of the room, then grabbed Hizashi by the wrist and marched down a short corridor and pulled him into what was, apparently, his bedroom, closing the door behind them.

“What?” Aizawa’s voice was harsh and thick with confusion.

“I’m really sorry, ok?” Hizashi started, hoping he didn’t sound too desperate, but he wanted to get this out before Aizawa kicked him out of his house. “I’m not sure why I freaked out and shoved you away like that, but-”

“Wasn’t it because of Yakumo?” Aizawa asked, cutting him off.

“Huh? No?” Now Hizashi was the confused one. “You mean, because he was being a jerk?”

“No- well, sorta, just- People… people give me crap,” Aizawa said. “If you keep hanging around me, they’re going to give you crap too.”

“That’s definitely not it,” Hizashi laughed at the absurdity of the thought. “I don’t give a rat’s ass what Yakumo says or thinks. Anyone who gives you crap is nobody I want to be around. But everyone else likes you fine anyway.” Aizawa gave him a skeptical look that puzzled Hizashi. Did Aizawa really not know the others liked him? “Seriously, man! Shimada was just saying yesterday that she likes your vibe, how chill you are. Mushimori thinks you’re cool. It goes without saying that Nakano and Kobayashi like you-”

“It does?” Aizawa sounded like it was genuinely news to him. Meeting Aizawa’s eye, Hizashi could practically see the guy thinking, brow furrowed as if Hizashi was telling him completely new information instead of unmistakable stuff that anyone could see.

“Of course! And obviously there’s me and Shirakumo, we’re your friends and we’ve got your back… but that’s not the point, though!” Hizashi blurted, trying to get himself back on track, “The point is, I got weird and acted stupid, and I’m sorry.”

Aizawa stared at him, his expression unreadable. Hizashi fidgeted with a button on his jacket. “Yamada,” Aizawa finally said slowly, a gleam coming back into his eye that reminded Hizashi of his wicked expression during their Sports Festival match, “Don’t worry about it. You’re always doing and saying weird things.” Hizashi’s eyes widened, and as he watched, the corner of Aizawa’s mouth ticked up in a smirk, good humor lifting his features.

Relief flooded through Hizashi as he pressed his hand to his chest, jaw dropping open. “Do my senses deceive me, or did Aizawa Shouta just engage in some good-natured teasing?” he cried, not finding it hard to play up the exaggerated surprise. “I might go so far as to call that ‘making a joke!’ Bantering, even! I think I need to record this date for historic documentation.” Aizawa rolled his eyes and shook his head, but his smirk stayed in place. In fact, Hizashi would swear it got wider.

“You’re ridiculous,” Aizawa said.

“But I’m forgiven?” Hizashi asked, batting his eyelashes with his hands clasped in front of himself.

Aizawa ducked his head, but Hizashi could still hear his mumbled, “Yeah.”

Hizashi’s grin grew so wide that it hurt his face. “Oh yeah! I promise I’ll try not to be that particular brand of weird and stupid in the future.”

“Only the normal kind of idiot.”

“Absolutely!” Hizashi said, laughing easily. “Now then, I kinda didn’t believe you when you said you don’t have any hero merch at all, but now that I’m here and can see the evidence with my own two eyes, I gotta ask: how did you manage that? It’s almost harder to avoid ending up with some thing or another! Not even a bookmark from the library?”

“I just use scraps of paper for bookmarks,” Aizawa replied with a huff. “I don’t need a designated fancy scrap of paper for that. Or I just dog-ear the pages.” Hizashi laughed, and started poking around Aizawa’s stuff, asking questions about the few tiny treasures he found, and Aizawa seemed content enough to tell him about them.

After a while, there was a knock on the door and Mr. Aizawa poked his head in. “Mom’s on her way home, would Yamada like to join us for dinner?”

Aizawa cast a sideways glance at Hizashi. “Uhh-”

“Really? Yeah, that’d be great!” Hizashi said, bouncing on his toes. “It’s cool with you, right?” he asked Aizawa, giving him a wide, hopeful grin.

Aizawa shrugged, glancing up at his dad with a look Hizashi couldn’t decipher, before he mumbled, “Yeah, s’fine.” He sounded almost shy, and Hizashi couldn’t help but think it was kinda cute. “Do you need to ask your parents?”

Whoops, what time was it? “Good point,” Hizashi said, pulling out his phone. Only one text from each of his parents, good, they weren’t freaking out or anything. He opened the group text that went to both of them and let them know he was staying at Aizawa’s for dinner.

If they had any objections, they could let him know.

“Come on, let’s set the table before Mom gets home,” Mr. Aizawa said, ruffling Aizawa’s hair. Aizawa batted his dad’s hand away with a scowl, and Hizashi snickered, ignoring the pang in his chest at the casual family affection. He followed them to the combined kitchen and dining area, small and clean like the rest of the apartment. Aizawa handed him some dishes, and Hizashi set them out on the table.

“I’m home,” Mrs. Aizawa announced from the entryway, and Mr. Aizawa’s face split into a grin as he went to greet his wife. Hizashi could see him give her a hug before bracing his arm behind her back, holding her hand, and dipping her as if they were dancing. When he helped her stand back up, she sighed and shook her head; but gave him a small, soft smile that was more in her eyes than on her lips. The pang he’d felt earlier flared up into something petty and ugly that twisted in Hizashi’s chest. He hated it, and he shoved it away as beside him, he heard Aizawa give a long-suffering sigh.

Hizashi reminded himself that his problems weren’t the Aizawa’s fault, and he wasn’t gonna let them intrude here.

“Mom, this is Yamada Hizashi,” Aizawa said as his parents came over to join them.

“Pleased to meet you,” Hizashi greeted with a bow.

“You’re not what I was expecting,” she said bluntly, looking him up and down. He got the feeling she was sizing him up.

“The reality exceeds the imagination, right?” Hizashi, giving his best smile. He had to admit, he was a little nervous; he didn’t want Aizawa’s mom to dislike him, and she seemed like a very serious lady. She only hummed in response.

“We’ll finish getting dinner on the table while you wash up,” Mr. Aizawa said, giving his wife a quick kiss on the cheek. “Come on, boys.”

Hizashi followed Aizawa back into the kitchen and helped get everything set up neatly and properly. When they all sat down to eat, he was determined to show that he had manners and wasn’t afraid to use them, thankyouverymuch.

“How are you finding the classwork at UA, Yamada?” Mr. Aizawa asked, and Hizashi swallowed his food before answering.

“Pretty good! It’s funny, I’m having an easier time now than I did in middle school. Even the harder subjects are going well! English is always easy, though. And the heroics classes are so cool!”

“Maybe you can help Shou with English,” Mr. Aizawa said with a chuckle, “I’m afraid I’m useless as a language tutor.”

“Dad,” Aizawa grumbled in protest.

“What made you decide to pursue hero work, Yamada?” Mrs. Aizawa asked abruptly, and Hizashi was struck again by how intense being under her scrutiny was. At least this was an easy question to answer, and he made sure his smile didn’t waver.

“Well, there’s the obvious thing, that being a hero is baaaasically the coolest job a person can have,” he said with a laugh. “The fans and the money and getting to meet about a million really cool people are gonna be sweet. Buuuut I coulda just gone to school for media and broadcasting if that was all I wanted. I really wanna stop villains. I wanna protect people, and I want to make sure bad guys pay the price for the harm that they’ve done.”

Mrs. Aizawa arched an eyebrow at him. “It sounds like you’re a very justice-oriented young man.”

Before Hizashi could think of how to respond to that, Mr. Aizawa spoke up. “How did you and Shouta get to be friends?” he asked.

“I told you, we met at the entrance exam and we’re in class together,” Aizawa muttered.

“Yes, but you’ve always had difficulties connecting with your peers,” Mrs. Aizawa said bluntly, though not unkindly. “Your father and I are interested in how Yamada and the other boy, Shirakumo, managed it.”

“Mom!” Hizashi could see Aizawa’s face getting red.

“I don’t think we did anything special,” Hizashi said, wanting to somehow make it easier for Aizawa. “I like talking to everyone, but some people are better to be around than others, ya know? I like being around Aizawa, and he doesn’t tell me to buzz off.”

Aizawa glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “Yes I do.”

“Yeah, but you don’t mean it,” Hizashi countered. Over the years, he had gotten good at getting along with lots of people, because having lots of different people to talk to meant that each person was less likely to get annoyed with him. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked well enough; and it meant that Hizashi had also gotten good at knowing when someone actually wanted him to go away. “Shirakumo likes being around Aizawa too,” he added. He didn’t want to speak for their other friend, but he knew that much was true.

The questions continued throughout dinner, and thankfully it seemed like his answers were good enough - though Mrs. Aizawa’s serious demeanor still made him nervous. Aizawa kept getting flustered, but Hizashi understood that parents were inherently embarrassing.

At least the Aizawas were way better than his own parents.

When dinner was done and the dishes cleared away, Aizawa and Hizashi sequestered themselves in Aizawa’s room again. Sitting on the floor facing each other, Hizashi resumed asking Aizawa about the little details of the items he spied around his room, delighted to have this inside peek into Aizawa’s world.

Abruptly, Aizawa interrupted him to ask, “Why do you keep hanging around me?”

“Cuz I like you, duh,” Hizashi said with a roll of his eyes. “Same reason I hang around with Shirakumo and Kobayashi.”

“But… Why me?”

“Fishing for compliments? Ya need an itemized list, huh?” Hizashi teased. It was such a silly question, because sure Aizawa was a little quiet and awkward at times, but he was still totally cool!

The question felt less silly when Hizashi saw the way Aizawa started to pull back, an echo of the look from earlier this afternoon on his face.

Shit.

No way was Hizashi gonna mess this up again, so he immediately started ticking points off on his fingers. “First of all, you’re a badass, that alone makes you pretty cool. Second of all, you’re really funny. Third, you’re smart, so when you talk about something, you usually know what you’re talking about, and you do a good job explaining things. Fourth, you can try to hide it under that grumpy attitude all you like, but I know that you’re a really nice person. There’s more, but I think those are most of the big ones.”

“I’m… funny?” The uncertainty in Aizawa’s voice made something ache inside Hizashi.

“Dude, you’re hilarious! You get me and Shirakumo cracking up all the time!”

“I’m not usually trying to make jokes, though.”

“Some of the funniest stuff people do isn’t on purpose,” Hizashi said before another thought occurred to him. “Wait, you know we’re not laughing at you, right?”

“Yeah, I know. That’s not what-” Aizawa cut himself off and pulled his knees up to his chest.

“That’s not what what?”

Aizawa’s attention stayed fixed on the floor. “Nothing.”

“C’mon man,” Hizashi prompted. “I know you’re not a social butterfly, but the way you and your parents talk, it’s like you’ve never had friends before.”

Aizawa’s eyes went wide for a moment as he looked up at Hizashi, before they narrowed slightly, then finally slipped closed. Hizashi’s heart clenched in his chest as he watched Aizawa search for the words he needed to say.

“People get… uncomfortable around me, because of my Quirk,” Aizawa finally admitted. “They avoid me. It’s just the way it is.”

“That sucks,” Hizashi said with a frown, thinking about the way Aizawa always kept to himself. He acted like he didn’t want anyone around, but Hizashi could see through it. He also knew how it felt when people kept their distance. Aizawa reacted to it by shutting down and backing away, while Hizashi reacted by getting even louder and pushing forwards. Still, UA must be different for Aizawa than when he was younger. “Hey, maybe the kids at your old school were jerks, but at least nobody at UA is avoiding you.”

Aizawa tipped his head in confusion. “Yes they do.”

“Huh? Who? I mean, Yakumo acts like a jerk, but he’s kinda rude to everyone.” It didn’t help that Yakumo’s Quirk really did make Hizashi uncomfortable, but he wasn’t going to bring that up right now.

“Yeah Yakumo,” Aizawa said slowly, “But also Sarudo, Katasugi, Umebara… Nakano stopped sitting with Shirakumo at lunch after I used my Quirk on her.”

Hizashi was perplexed, since that wasn’t what had happened at all. “Nakano likes sitting with Mori and Hadachi at lunch cuz they’re not near each other in class, and they’re friends,” he pointed out. “She’s next to Shirakumo all day.” Aizawa blinked at him, as if the thought had never occurred to him.

Had Aizawa really thought that Nakano was avoiding him?

“And the others you mentioned, they don’t avoid you. They like hanging out with their own groups.” Maybe it was silly for Hizashi to feel like he should defend the rest of his classmates, but he didn’t want Aizawa thinking they’re the kind of people who would treat him like some kind of social outcast. “Katasugi has partnered up with you a few times!” he added.

“Yeah, so that I don’t use my Quirk on him,” Aizawa grumbled.

Hizashi barked out a laugh before he could stop himself, his mouth running away with him again. “Wow, egotistical much?”

Aizawa gaped at him in shock. “What?”

Kicking himself for possibly fucking things up with Aizawa for the third time today, Hizashi knew he had to make Aizawa understand. “I mean this in the nicest possible way, but it’s not all about you, dude. People are gonna hang out with some people some time and other people other times.” Hizashi sighed. “Don’t get me wrong, I remember Ijima from the entrance exam, I know that people were crappy to you. But things are different now.”

“That’s not something I can just… trust. Not when all the evidence is-” Aizawa bit his lip. “You weren’t there. You didn’t hear- and the way they treated anyone who tried to- ugh.”

Hizashi’s heart ached for the boy sitting across from him. The world had treated Aizawa so badly for so long. Hizashi couldn’t help wondering why someone who people had turned their backs on would go through so much hard work to be allowed to protect them.

The words slipped out of Hizashi softly. “Why do you want to be a hero?”

Aizawa flinched, and Hizashi bit his lip, hoping he hadn’t just messed up. Again. The boys sat silently for a long minute, Hizashi forcing himself to not start rambling to fill the silence. More than wanting to cover up his own discomfort, he wanted to hear Aizawa’s answer.

“I want to help people,” Aizawa finally said, so quietly Hizashi had to strain to hear. “I want to make people feel safe, not- I want to make sure people are safe. I need- I want to prove that I can.”

The past few weeks… hell, maybe since the entrance exam, whenever Hizashi looked at Aizawa, he saw him as this cool badass. Sure, he could see where Aizawa didn’t give himself enough credit, and he knew that the way Aizawa tried to keep away from everyone wasn’t the best habit to have… but now…

Now he felt like he was really seeing Aizawa for the first time, and it was…

Aizawa was a badass, no doubt. But he was also hurt. He was scared of things in a way Hizashi hadn’t seen before, and the ache in his chest grew deeper the more he thought about it. Aizawa was strong and smart and amazing, but he’d been… he’d been fucked over by people who should have had his back, and no way was Hizashi gonna let that go.

He couldn’t undo the hurt that had been done, but he could make sure Aizawa’s future was happier.

Aizawa deserved that.

There were too many words that wanted to pour out of Hizashi. His chest felt too big and too small at the same time, and everything suddenly seemed very important, but he had no idea what to do about it all.

“I know it sounds stupid,” Aizawa mumbled, and Hizashi finally sucked in a breath, realizing he’d been quiet for too long.

“Of course it doesn’t, man! Protecting people is what heroes do, and…” Hizashi paused a beat, biting his lip, “I think a lot of us feel like we’ve got something to prove, or something we’re trying to make right.” Aizawa looked at him through the dark curtain of his hair. For a moment, it seemed like he might have had something to say. Of course, that’s when Hizashi’s phone pinged in his pocket, and Aizawa looked away.

“Is that your parents?”

Hizashi sighed and pulled out his phone to check. Sure enough, his dad was telling him it was time to come home. “Yeah, I gotta go,” he grumbled.

Out in the living room, Hizashi said his good-byes to Aizawa’s parents. “Thanks for having me for dinner, it was delicious!”

“Shouta, why don’t you walk Yamada to the train station,” Mr. Aizawa said.

“It’s not necessary,” Hizashi protested, “I can-”

“Just because it isn’t necessary doesn’t mean we don’t do it,” he said firmly.

“Come on, they’ll just keep harping on it,” Aizawa groaned. “I need a walk anyway.”

Hizashi nodded and grinned, happy that he didn’t actually have to say goodbye to Aizawa quite yet. As they got their shoes on, Mrs. Aizawa came over and gave Hizashi a long look, and he felt his anxiety ticking up under her scrutiny.

“Thank you again, Yamada,” she finally said, “You’re welcome here any time.” Relief washed through Hizashi and he smiled broadly, babbling more thanks and goodbyes as he and Aizawa finally got out the door.

“Man, I was so scared your mom was gonna hate me!” he laughed as they stepped out onto the sidewalk.

“Really?” Aizawa said, turning to give him an incredulous look. “Why?”

“I dunno, she seems so serious about everything, and I’m… me,” he said with a shrug. “Like maybe I wouldn’t be good enough to be your friend or something.”

Aizawa raised an eyebrow at him before fixing his gaze on the path ahead. “That would be literally impossible.”

“Because I’m so awesome?” Hizashi laughed with a wink.

“Because if I brought home a houseplant and introduced it as a friend, they would invite it to stay for dinner.” Aizawa was still looking forward as he walked, but Hizashi caught him casting a sly glance out of the corner of his eye, a ghost of a smirk playing at the edge of his mouth.

“Aww, come on,” Hizashi said, his heart leaping with joy at the teasing, “I’ve gotta exceed the minimum standards for parental approval! At least one step up from a plant!”

“I’d guess two steps above the houseplant,” Aizawa said solemnly. “Maybe even three.”

Hizashi cackled with glee. Aizawa was actually joking around with him, and it felt like victory. The walk to the train station went by far too quickly, and before he knew it, Hizashi had to say goodbye to Aizawa for real. “I’ll talk to ya later, and see ya Monday!”

“See you Monday.”

~*~

Shouta felt lighter as he walked home than he could remember feeling… ever. He’d run out of the gym earlier believing that things with Yamada had finally fallen apart, and now…

The ‘friends’ he’d had in elementary school had been little more than connections of convenience. They were forced to sit at a lunch table with each other, or at the desk next to him. They would loan him a pencil if he forgot his, and he would give them a sheet of paper if they ran out. But even back then, there had always been that underlying uneasiness that made his peers keep him at arms length.

Middle school had been, of course, a complete disaster.

But this? Yamada knew his Quirk, had felt its effect, and was unbothered. Yamada was certain that the rest of their classmates weren’t going to ostracize Shouta, and he’d presented some reasonable evidence to back up his claim.

Yamada said that they were friends.

And Shouta had gone along with it.

He could hardly believe it. All the arguments and risks that had always stood in his way were fading away.

Shirakumo probably thought of them as friends too. Yamada had said as much, and Shouta was sure Shirakumo thought of Yamada as a friend, so it was highly likely…

It was a strange feeling.

It was good.

But…

But by the time Shouta got home, little voices of doubt and worry had started to pick away at his good mood.

He’d basically admitted to Yamada that he had never had any friends. What if Yamada just felt bad for him now that he saw how pathetic Shouta was? He didn’t want to be some pity project.

Dodging his parents' attempts to talk, Shouta went into his room and shut the door. He shook his head, flopping down on his futon, glaring at the spot on the floor where he and Yamada had sat and talked. Where Shouta had opened his mouth and made a fool of himself.

Is that what friendship was? Showing people the stupidest, ugliest bits of yourself and waiting for them to grow disgusted with you? No thank you.

Fortunately there was a simple solution.

He’d always done just fine on his own. He could just go back to that.

So when Yamada texted him later, letting him know he’d gotten home, Shouta only gave a brief reply.

When Yamada mentioned that he’d updated a few of the playlists again, Shouta’s stomach churned uncomfortably. He had come to enjoy the music, and had found that it did make his workouts feel… better. Would it be wrong for him to keep listening to them if he wasn’t going to be Yamada’s friend?

Would Yamada and Shirakumo still be willing to come with Shouta to the training gym after school once he made it clear that he wasn’t interested in being their friend? He had no choice but to have someone there with him, and he had no idea who else he could ask.

For a moment, he had the thought that he could just… not tell them. Pretend to go along… But he dismissed that idea as soon as he realized what he was considering. He might not be their friend, but he wasn’t about to mislead them so he could use them.

Maybe they’d still go to the gym with him anyway. They had fun with each other there, and obviously Shouta’s withdrawal wouldn’t mean that Yamada and Shirakumo wouldn’t still be friends with each other.

Shouta imagined them sitting together at lunch while he tucked himself away in a corner, and his eyes burned as he realized that all their classmates would just sit with them and they would be fine.

It would be fine.

Shouta spent the weekend working at Ms. Emoto’s shop and doing homework and avoiding the texts from Yamada and Shirakumo. He thought about turning his phone off, but decided that he didn’t want to rely on his dad’s Quirk for communication again. So he left it on, and let each text alert harden his heart.

He knew that come Monday, he was going to have to talk to them and let them know where he stood… maybe.

Maybe he could just… avoid them and see if they figured it out?

In the past, he’d always allowed them to pull him in; but now if they tracked him down, he’d just make it clear that he wasn’t going to entertain that stuff anymore. They could be amicable in class- it’s not like he was mad at them or anything; but he would keep to himself whenever he could.

It wasn’t a detailed plan, but it was a plan, and it would have to do. So come Monday, when Yamada sat down next to him before class, Shouta kept his breathing steady and his eyes on his notebook where he was pretending to read over his math work.

“Dude, you ghosted me this weekend! What happened?”

“I was just busy.”

“Yeah, with your packed social calendar I’m sure,” Yamada teased, and Shouta knew it wasn’t meant to be hurtful; but given the circumstances, it struck a nerve.

“I had work,” he snapped.

“Ok, ok! Sorry, man.” Yamada slid his sunglasses down his nose to peek over the rims at Shouta, green eyes brimming with concern.

“Seriously Aizawa, are you ok?” Shirakumo asked as he walked to his desk. Shouta glanced up at him and wondered if he’d actually grown several centimeters over the weekend… or if he just looked bigger because Shouta was feeling smaller.

“I’m fine.” Shouta could see the way Yamada and Shirakumo glanced at each other, but neither of them said anything further.

Class started, but even though neither Yamada nor Shirakumo did or said anything to Shouta, it was as if he was hyper aware of their presence, and it was distracting. He struggled through their morning subjects, and when the bell rang for lunch, he put the next part of his plan into action.

He knew if he waited, they would wait with him, so he grabbed his bag and darted out of the room as fast as he could, hearing Shirakumo call his name as Shouta slipped through the doorway. He couldn’t go to the cafeteria, they’d just come sit with him; so he’d come up with a better solution. One where nobody would find him.

He opened the door that read ROOF ACCESS/NO ENTRY and quickly pulled it shut behind himself, sighing with relief. He took the stairs up to the door at the top, which opened out onto the wide, flat expanse of the UA rooftop. It was a beautiful day, and he took a breath as he sat down to eat his lunch. He definitely didn’t think about the extra apple Yamada probably had in his lunch box.

Shouta wolfed down his food and stuffed the garbage back in his bag, then let himself lean back and take a breath. His stomach twisted uncomfortably, and he knew it wasn’t from eating too fast. He told himself that it would be better in a few days. Things would calm down and it would all be fine.

He was still working on trying to convince himself of that when the door burst open.

“There you are, holy crap dude!” Yamada said as he and Shirakumo stumbled out into the sunlight.

“We’ve been looking for you everywhere!” Shirakumo added.

“What are you doing here?” Shouta asked, scrambling to his feet.

“What are you doing here?” Yamada countered. “I thought we were cool, man! Did I do something else to piss you off? If you’re mad at me, at least tell me why. And don’t be a jerk to Shirakumo because of it, he’s your friend too!”

That threw Shouta off for a moment; he didn’t want Yamada to think he was mad. “No, I’m not- I’m not angry, but… but we’re not friends,” Shouta said, crossing his arms tightly. “I just want to be left alone. Can’t you take a hint? Why did you come find me?”

“Because we are your friends, Shouta,” Shirakumo said, as if it was the most simple thing in the world.

Shouta’s eyes stung. It wasn’t fair! How dare Shirakumo presume to call him by his given name, and why did it make his chest ache so badly? He hated this, he hated it!

“I don’t need friends,” Shouta snarled, “I don’t want friends, I never asked for friends!”

“Well too bad, cuz you’ve got them!” Yamada snapped back.

“You can talk to us,” Shirakumo coaxed.

“There’s nothing to talk about!” Shouta hated the way his voice was wavering. “I’m better off that way, that’s all. It’s not- it’s not personal, it’s just-”

“It’s scary to care about people, right?” Yamada said, cutting Shouta off. “We’re your friends. Whether you asked for it or not, we care about you. We like you! And- I think you care about us too.”

Shouta’s cheeks were wet when he rubbed the heels of his hands against them. He hated this. Why was he so weak, why was he crying in front of his- in front of-

Shouta looked at Shirakumo, only to see he had tears welling up. Eyes wide, he turned towards Yamada, and though his sunglasses covered his eyes, Shouta could see the tracks of wetness down his cheeks. He looked back at Shirakumo to see that the tears had spilled over.

“Why’re you crying?” Shouta asked. It didn’t make sense.

“Cuz my friend is upset,” Shirakumo said.

“See, that’s why it’s bad-”

“Cut the crap,” Yamada said with a shaky grin plastered on even as tears still dripped off his chin. “Cuz we’re not going anywhere. Might as well just accept the inevitable and enjoy having two of the coolest future heroes in the world as your friends.”

“I- I’m- Yamada, I-” Shouta stammered.

“You can call me Hizashi, ya know.”

“Friends are allowed to do that, right Hizashi?” Shirakumo said.

“Absolutely, Oboro,” Yamada laughed, his smile looking a little less wobbly. “Isn’t that right, Shouta?” Shouta was shaking, and the sound of Yamada using his name just made him shake harder. Why was this so hard?

Was he really just… scared?

He swallowed and looked at the two… friends in front of him. Smiling at him through their tears. Shouta wiped his sleeve across his face to try and clean the tears and snot away, humiliated at the mess he’d made of himself.

But they weren’t laughing at him. They were crying with him. Maybe…

“I- I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I didn’t mean… I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“I never know what I’m doing,” Shirakumo laughed, “But we’ll figure it out together, alright?”

“Together?” Shouta asked, still hesitant.

“Together,” Yamada said.

“Come on, bring it in,” Shirakumo said, throwing an arm around Yamada’s shoulders and closing the distance with Shouta. In a moment, Shirakumo’s arm was tight around his shoulders, while Yamada’s wrapped around his waist, hugging him. Shouta stood frozen. “You don’t have to hug back,” Shirakumo told him, “But you can if you want to.”

Slowly, uncertainly, Shouta lifted his arms. He couldn’t reach up to their shoulders at this angle, especially since they were both still so much taller than him (Shirakumo had gotten even taller, dammit), but he could… Yamada had his arm around Shouta’s waist, Shouta could do the same. He wrapped one arm around Yamada, and heard him give a quiet sigh, while the other went around Shirakumo. He could feel Yamada’s arm next to his own around Shirakumo’s waist.

Shouta wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that. He knew it was probably pathetic how long he kept clinging to them, and that it was probably getting awkward… but neither of them were letting go either.

“Lunch is probably almost over,” Shouta mumbled into the shadowy space between their bodies, trying to force his hands to release their grip on his friends’ jackets. He wasn’t sure when he’d gripped the fabric so tightly in his fingers, but they were a little stiff as he tried to straighten them.

“Yeah, prolly,” Yamada said, not moving. Shirakumo tightened his arms around both of them.

Shouta somehow knew that it was both a signal that the moment was ending, and a promise that it wouldn’t be the last.

Chapter Text

Shouta had friends. It was a strange thought for him, and somehow it seemed like things should feel profoundly different now.

But in most ways, everything was the same. Yamada and Shirakumo still hung out with him when he trained after school, laughing and joking with each other. Shouta would occasionally make a sarcastic comment or tease them, and they acted like it was the funniest thing they ever heard.

He didn’t call them by their given names, and aside from that once on the rooftop, Yamada was still calling him Aizawa; but Shirakumo had apparently decided that he was calling them both by their given names at all times now.

Shouta found that he didn’t mind.

Yamada kept updating the playlists for him, and some of the songs were actually starting to sound familiar. He even found himself humming along once or twice.

Still, even if Yamada was his friend, Shouta couldn’t help feeling like he was taking advantage of his kindness. “You know you don’t have to keep changing the playlists, if you don’t want to,” Shouta told him one afternoon after wrapping up his extra training.

Yamada scoffed at the notion. “I told you, I have fun doing that kinda thing! If you don’t want me to change the existing ones, that’s cool, I can make a new one; but it’s good practice for my DJ skills and the webcast.”

“No, it’s fine… I like what you put together,” Shouta admitted quietly. He enjoyed the music Yamada put on there - even the songs in English.

He liked that Yamada spent time thinking about him when they weren’t around each other. Just like the texts his friends sent him, the playlists felt like another reminder that the friendship wasn’t a lie Shouta was telling himself.

“How is the webcast going?” Shirakumo asked.

Yamada shrugged and laughed. “Same as always. Last week I was up to six whole listeners thanks to the fact that you two have been tuning in regularly; but I’m having fun and always trying to think of new things to keep it fresh.”

At first, Shouta had thought it was going to be silly… and to a certain extent it was; but Yamada’s ‘Put Your Hands Up’ show was actually not bad. Yamada was entertaining when he was performing, and that energy came through over the broadcast as well as it did in person. He played some music, but it was mostly him talking about whatever topic he’d picked that week.

Last week, he’d been going on about classic cars, and even with no specific interest or knowledge on the topic, Shouta had found himself really drawn in.

He wondered if Yamada’s Quirk also had some kind of siren song quality that pulled people in; Yamada and Shirakumo had both laughed when Shouta had suggested it. Yamada had also blushed a little.

Shouta hadn’t been sure why, but he’d been pleased by Yamada’s reaction.

“Too bad it can’t be like a real radio show where people call in,” Shirakumo said.

“Yeah,” Yamada sighed despondently. “One of the biggest bummers of pre-recording most of them is that I don’t get any real-time interaction. The comments I get if I livestream are pretty cool, but also not the same as really having a good back-and-forth with someone, ya know? Buuuuut, I could always have special guests make an appearance!” Yamada said, waggling his eyebrows. “My most loyal listeners could reap the rewards of getting in on the ground floor, and gain fame and notoriety!”

“Your only listeners,” Shouta reminded him, “If we went on, there would barely be anyone listening.”

“Details, details!” Yamada dismissed with a wave of his hand.

“Besides, I don’t want fame and notoriety,” Shouta added.

“I do!” Shirakumo shouted.

“It’s decided then,” Yamada said solemnly, “Shirakumo will be my first special guest, and Aizawa will remain my loyal listener.”

Shouta felt the corner of his lips curl up ever so slightly in amusement at his friends’ ridiculousness.

Back in the classroom the next morning, Shouta was faced with another strange side effect of knowing that he had friends - the way it shifted his perception of the rest of his classmates and the way they all interacted. The way Shouta could see now that they weren’t just one single unit that excluded him, but how different people grouped together at different times.

He kicked himself for being so blind to it for so long. How could he ever be an effective hero if he couldn’t understand the patterns and variations in how people behaved?

And somehow it surprised him when their classmates recognized Shouta as part of a group with Yamada and Shirakumo, pulling him into conversations simply as part of the unit that came along with the other two. Sometimes it was almost nice… though most of the time it was annoying.

Friends or no, Shouta did still prefer to mostly keep to himself. Other people were exhausting.

Case in point, Oizuchi had turned around in his seat to talk to Yamada as they waited for Nishibori to arrive and start Homeroom, and was eagerly beckoning Shirakumo and Shouta to join.

“Check out what I found!” Oizuchi said with glee, opening a magazine with the picture of a car on the cover. Shouta saw Yamada looking with interest at the car, but when Oizuchi showed off whatever was inside, Yamada’s face went a concerning shade of red.

“Dude!” Yamada whispered as loudly as he could, glancing around. Yamada’s reaction immediately had Shirakumo curious, and instead of walking around Shouta’s desk, Shirakumo decided it was necessary to nudge Shouta out of his seat so he could clamber across to see what the fuss was about. Shouta stood there, trying to ignore them; but when Shirakumo covered his mouth to smother a fit of giggles, eyes wide, curiosity got the better of him.

Peering around Shirakumo’s shoulder, Shouta saw the spread pages were not of a picture of a car, but a woman.

A naked woman who was touching herself and looking at the camera with a half-lidded gaze. There was writing at the bottom of the page, but it was in English, and Shouta didn’t care enough to try and figure out what it said. He just sighed and went back to his seat. He had seen porn a few times before, and he’d never understood the appeal of naked women in uncomfortable looking positions.

Nishibori entered the room and Oizuchi stuffed the magazine back in his bag while Shirakumo scuttled back to his seat. Shouta rolled his eyes and opened his notebook.

Days and weeks slipped past. Shouta’s academic grades were good (with occasional English tutoring from Yamada), but he was getting frustrated with his practical skills. He wasn’t improving fast enough with his binding cloth, and his Quirk was obviously never going to become fundamentally more powerful, so as he watched his classmates get stronger around him, he felt like he was being left behind.

Classes A and B were in the showers after a particularly hot and sweaty joint training class near the end of June, and Shouta was angrily scrubbing sweat and dirt off himself. Sensoji had knocked him square on his ass at least three times with his damn blasts; and Iida, as always, had run circles around him. He hated feeling so outclassed - especially by Sensoji, who was as dumb as a box of rocks.

Wrapped in a towel, Shouta was on his way to his locker to get dressed, but he turned when a familiar voice called his name.

“Hey, Aizawa!” Iida said as he came out of a shower stall, still wrapping a towel around his waist. Shouta couldn’t help the way his eyes flicked over Iida’s chest and arms, already incredibly muscular as compared to Shouta’s scrawny frame. “You ran off the field before I got a chance to thank you for pushing me so hard today,” he said, flashing a bright smile, “You’re a helluva opponent to go up against.”

Shouta’s jaw dropped slightly in disbelief. “Huh?”

Iida laughed brightly. “D’you know how hard it is to make sure your opponent can’t get a solid look at you? I’m fast, but I had to keep moving, or else you’d have been able to erase my Quirk, right?” Shouta nodded. “And you kept snagging my teammates with that scarf you’ve got, and trying to get them free without slowing down enough for you to be able to use your Quirk pushed me to my limits. Even Sensoji couldn’t keep you down! You’re tough!”

“He flattened me,” Shouta grumbled.

“And you got back up. I’ve been hit with his blasts, they’re intense!”

Shouta was at a loss for what to say, and so he found himself simply staring at the tall, strong guy in front of him. Iida’s hair was still dripping water, and Shouta’s eyes tracked a drop as it rolled from his neck, down across his pectoral, further as it slid down his stomach… When it reached the edge of the towel, Shouta shook his head and sucked in a breath, keeping his face tipped down so his hair curtained him from view as he felt himself start to flush.

“I- gotta get dressed,” Shouta mumbled as he became acutely aware of the warmth suddenly swirling low in his gut. He spun on his heel, mumbled a slightly louder “Thanks,” over his shoulder, and hurried over to his locker.

He managed to get his underwear and pants on quickly, shrugging on his shirt as he started to calm down enough to ask himself what the hell that had been.

That was when Shirakumo materialized at his shoulder. “You ok Shouta? What did Iida want?” Shouta looked up at his friend who had, unfairly, gotten even taller. Shirakumo hadn’t started buttoning up his uniform shirt yet, and as it hung open, Shouta’s eyes were dragged back down, passing over his friend's well-muscled chest and stomach.

“Aizawa?” Yamada chimed in. “You’re looking kinda flushed, do you need to go see Recovery Girl?” Shouta turned his head to look, and of course, Yamada was still just holding his shirt in his hand. He wasn’t as heavily muscled as Iida or Shirakumo, but he was toned, and his shoulders were starting to get broader, and… were those freckles? Did Yamada have freckles across his shoulders?

“I- fuck,” Shouta gasped, hunching forward and running to one of the toilet stalls as his friends voices chorused in concern behind him. Slamming and locking the stall door, a solid barrier between himself and abject humiliation, he drew deep breaths, staring in horror at the way his uniform pants were not hiding his current… problem.

“Aizawa? Come on, you’re scaring us,” Yamada said, gently knocking on the door.

“M’fine,” Shouta mumbled. “I felt like I was gonna throw up, but it’s getting better now. I’ll go see Recovery Girl as soon as my stomach settles a little more.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“No! No, you shouldn’t skip the reviews, finals are coming up.”

“Is he ok?” came Iida’s voice. Wonderful.

“He might have overdone it, said he started feeling nauseous,” Shirakumo told him.

“I can go run and get Recovery Girl-” Iida started to offer, but Shouta was done with all this.

“No, I’m fine! I’m just gonna wait a few minutes and then I’ll go see her.”

Yamada still sounded worried. “Heat stroke is no joke, man-”

“Hizashi, please,” Shouta implored, his voice inching close to a sob as his desperation for everyone to just get out and leave him alone boiled over, “Please just go, I promise I’m ok. I’ll go see Recovery Girl, and I’ll text you if I need help, ok? Please?”

The silence on the other side of the door stretched out until finally Yamada gave a quiet, “Ok, Shouta. We’ll check in with you later, though, got it?”

Relief flooded him and he responded with a heartfelt, “Thank you.” He listened as their steps retreated back towards the lockers, they gathered their stuff, and left. Fortunately, everyone else had already cleared out by now.

He waited in the quiet, listening to a sink drip-drip-dripping as he tried to figure out what the hell that had been. He knew what bodies did, he understood all that. It was something that just happened sometimes. He even woke up like that lots of times, it was no big deal.

But this was different, this was… this was a reaction. This was something inside of him seeing his friends and classmates and responding in a way that Shouta couldn't let himself think about too deeply without it sparking off the beginnings of panic.

By the time he felt calm enough to unlock the door and get his stuff together, his situation had resolved; but he didn’t want his friends catching him in a lie, so he trudged through the halls to go see Recovery Girl.

“Hello?” he called, knocking on the open door of her office.

“Come on in, dearie,” came her voice from within, and he slid through the doorway. “Aizawa, I hope you haven’t broken any fingers today.” Shouta shook his head. “Have a seat, what’s the matter?”

He thought for a wild moment about telling her the truth, hoping that it would help him wrap his head around what the hell had just happened… but no, that was not a conversation he was going to have with anyone.

“After training, I felt sick,” he said, and it’s not like it was a complete lie anyway.

“It’s hot out today, have you been drinking enough water?” she asked as she moved his hair away from his face to peer at his eyes, feeling his forehead and cheeks, pinching lightly at the skin on the back of his hand.

Shouta shrugged. “I think so.”

The nurse huffed as she shuffled over to fill a glass with water. “What symptoms did you have?” she asked, plunking the glass down on the desk next to him, nodding at it in a silent command to drink.

“My stomach, I guess,” Shouta told her after he drained the water. “Felt kinda nauseous.”

Recovery Girl hummed thoughtfully and started tutting as she turned to rummage through her desk. “And how are you feeling now?”

“Better.”

The old woman turned and gave him a very long look, one that felt uncomfortably like when his mom was using her Quirk to understand how something worked. “It must be difficult keeping up with your classmates when many of them are bigger than you right now,” she said, “But you mustn’t overexert yourself.”

Shouta bristled at that, mostly because it was true. He couldn’t keep up and he hated it.

“Don’t look so sullen. Here, have some gummies,” she said, putting a small pouch in his hand. “Now, tell me why you really came to see me.” Shouta glanced at her through his curtain of hair, and she continued. “The school day is over, you could have just as easily gone home if you’re feeling better.”

“I promised my friends I’d come here,” he admitted.

“They were worried about you?”

Shouta felt his neck heating up with embarrassment as he thought back over what had happened, but he nodded.

“You haven’t had a gummy,” Recovery Girl observed, and Shouta blinked at the non sequitur.

“I don’t really care much about sweets,” he told her. “Never understood why everyone makes a big deal about them.”

“Hm. Hold on.” She opened another drawer in her desk and pulled out a crumpled paper bag, rolled over at the top. Opening it, she pulled out a piece of something black, a far cry from the multi-colored sugary blobs in the pouch in his own hand. “Try this.”

Cautiously, he accepted the offering and bit it in half. It had a warm spiciness to it, cut through with the sharp tang of salt and a hint of sweetness. As he chewed, he found himself remembering when he was much younger… In elementary school, a classmate had brought in a bag of jellybeans to share. They’d been handed out, and Shouta had been given a pile of black ones while his classmates’ were all in reds and yellows and greens. They’d giggled at him, but he’d happily eaten his share. He liked it.

“You’re not one for sugar coating things, are you Aizawa?” Recovery Girl said. He shook his head. He might avoid talking about some stuff; but when he did have to say something, it was usually blunt. “You know that I’m not either, so listen carefully. You’re a late bloomer. There’s no shame in that. My guess is, you’re about to start catching up to the other boys. This isn’t a process you can rush. You can’t train your hormones to do their work any faster.”

“I know how it works!” Shouta barked, half frustrated to be getting this talk again, half mortified that she seemed to maybe know what was going on.

“I know you do, dearie. I’m just reminding you to be patient with your body as it does all the things it needs to do. Here, take the licorice,” she said, handing him the bag with a soft smile. “It’s not to most people’s tastes, but I keep it around because some people like different things.”

“Don’t you need the rest of it, then?” Shouta asked, moving to hand the bag back. There were half a dozen pieces still in there.

“I’ll pick some more up, don’t you worry about that. Now, are you feeling well?” Shouta nodded. “Then why don’t you head home and get some rest. Eat the licorice, drink some water, and have a good dinner.”

Shouta stood and gave a brief bow. “Thank you,” he said. “Did you want your gummies back? I won’t eat them.”

She waved him off, already moving back towards her desk. “Give them to your friends, I’ve got plenty more.”

“Oh, ok. Thank you again.”

Shouta slipped out of her office, pausing to text Yamada and Shirakumo that he was fine.

He was fine. It was normal stuff, it had just caught him off guard, that was all. If he just stayed calm, incidents like that would pass with nobody the wiser. After all, the others probably dealt with the same thing sometimes, they just didn’t go running through the locker room like idiots. Shouta just needed to keep his cool. Hopefully it wouldn’t happen again; but if it did, he could handle it.

It was normal. It was fine.

When it happened a few more times in the following weeks, Shouta was able to just go about his business without drawing attention to himself. Sure enough, his body calmed down quickly and nobody seemed to notice.

He was thankful that it only really happened in the locker rooms, around the other boys. At least if any of them did notice, they would understand.

~*~

“So, are you two ready to celebrate the biggest day of the year!?” Hizashi asked as he plopped down on the rooftop with Shirakumo and Aizawa. The three of them had started going up there for lunch on occasion, mostly when Aizawa was feeling a little more antisocial; but Hizashi had to admit, he kinda liked having this place as a special retreat that he got to share with his two best friends.

Right now, though, his two best friends were looking at each other in confusion.

“Uhh, my birthday is this weekend, hello?” he clarified.

“Oh, happy birthday!” Shirakumo said, reaching over to clap him on the shoulder.

“We can go to the arcade on Saturday,” Hizashi told them, and Shirakumo immediately cheered. Aizawa, on the other hand, was looking down at his lunch, eating in slow, tiny bites. Hizashi frowned. “What’s wrong, Aizawa? Don’t tell me you don’t like video games.”

“No, it’s not that,” Aizawa sighed. “I just don’t think I’d be much fun.”

“Why not?” Shirakumo asked, bumping his shoulder against Aizawa’s.

“I don’t have the money for stuff like that,” Aizawa finally said, looking intently down at his shoes.

“I thought you worked like a million hours for Ms. Emoto?” Hizashi asked. Sometimes it seemed like all Aizawa ever did was train and work!

“I need to save that money for emergencies,” Aizawa said. Hizashi shared a confused glance with Shirakumo.

“What kind of emergencies?” Shirakumo asked.

“It doesn't matter,” Aizawa said, wolfing down the rest of his lunch. “It’s just not something I’ve got the money for.”

Well, Hizashi knew a simple solution for that! “Then I’ll get my parents to give me extra, no problemo!” Hizashi declared.

“I’m not a charity case,” Aizawa snapped, then deflated with a sigh. “Just- the two of you should go, that’s all.”

Hizashi didn’t let his smile drop as he fought back the surge of disappointment that threatened to overwhelm him. “Nah, it’s my birthday and I want to spend it with both of my best friends,” he countered, keeping his tone as light as he could. “So you’ve got no choice but to come and spend my money!”

Aizawa just shook his head. “I can’t do that. I’m sorry, I won’t.”

“C’mon, Shouta,” Shirakumo said, his brow furrowing. “At least come with us and hang out?” Aizawa only ducked his head so that his hair covered his face.

Hizashi tugged on his ear as he tried to think of how to handle this. If he and Shirakumo dragged Aizawa along, but he refused to play any games, Hizashi would feel bad. If Aizawa didn’t celebrate with him, Hizashi would be bummed. So, maybe…

“Alright, change of plans!” Hizashi announced. “I’ve got a couple of game systems at home, come over my place and we’ll hang out and play games there!”

“But you wanted to go to the arcade-” Aizawa started to protest, peeking up from where his fringe shaded his eyes.

“I want to hang out with my friends!” Hizashi laughed. It would be fine, they’d stay in his room, maybe take a walk to the konbini nearby to get some food, or he could have his parents pick up some takeout for them. They wouldn’t need to spend more than a few minutes around Hizashi’s folks, no problem. It was worth it to have both of his friends there. “In fact, it’s better this way, cuz none of us will run out of money, so we can just hang out and play for even longer than we could at the arcade!”

“Are you sure?” Aizawa still seemed hesitant, but Shirakumo swooped in to fill in the space with enthusiasm.

“You heard the birthday boy, Shouta!” Shirakumo crowed, “No complaints, gotta party with your friends!” Hizashi grinned broadly at Shirakumo, thrilled that he had a friend who could match his energy. Most people couldn’t keep up with him, or could only deal with him for short periods - honestly, he still worried that Aizawa would start running out of patience for him soon - but Shirakumo could match him beat for beat.

“Hey wait, when’s your birthday, Shirakumo?” Hizashi asked, realizing that he should probably know such a basic piece of info on his best friends.

“Oh, it was before the Sports Festival, May fifth.”

“What!” Hizashi squawked, “We missed it!?” Disappointment swooped through him that he hadn’t had the chance to do something for Shirakumo.

“We were all out of school anyway,” Shirakumo said, “It’s the last day of Golden Week.”

“Fiiiine, duly noted,” Hizashi sighed, irritated with the limitations of linear time. “Next year, you’re getting double the celebration, though.”

“What about you, Shouta, when’s your birthday?” Shirakumo asked.

“Doesn’t matter, I don’t celebrate it,” Aizawa muttered.

“Come ooonnnn,” Hizashi wheedled, “If you don’t tell me, I’ll ask your parents!”

Aizawa glared at him, and Hizashi gave his biggest smile in response. “November eighth,” Aizawa grumbled.

“Awww, he’s the youngest! Our little kouhai!” Shirakumo cooed, reaching out to pinch Aizawa’s cheek, while Aizawa batted his hand away. “Hey now, don’t disrespect your senpai like that!”

“I’m still the least immature,” Aizawa groused, but Hizashi could tell he wasn’t really too bothered. He’d gotten pretty good at decoding most of Aizawa’s eye-rolls, sighs, and grunts, figuring out if he was amused or irritated.

It felt good to be able to do that.

“Ok, back to the important topic, which is me!” Hizashi declared. “Saturday afternoon, my place! No excuses, got it, Aizawa?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Aizawa said, and Hizashi could see the pleased tilt of his mouth, no matter how slight.

He texted his parents on the way home to let them know about the change of plans. He was a little nervous about it - he really didn’t want his friends around his parents; but it would probably be fine. After all, Shirakumo had even seen his mom for a few minutes when he’d come over to record the webcast a few weeks ago, and it had been fine.

Saturday morning, Hizashi was getting his consoles out near the tv in his room, ready to hook up either one depending on which games they decided on, when his mom poked her head in the door.

“What time are your friends coming over, sweetie?”

“This afternoon. I’ll text them in a bit,” he muttered.

“If you have snacks in here, make sure you don’t make a mess.”

“I know.” He didn’t snap at her, but his voice was tight enough that they both knew he was close to it.

He heard his mom sigh - a tiny, sad noise - and he hated it. “Let me know if you need anything,” she said quietly as she withdrew. Hizashi glowered, sent a quick text telling his friends to come over at 1:00 and reminding them of his address, then threw on some shorts and headphones to go for a run. He had plenty of time to get that done and take a shower before they got there.

He picked the angriest playlist and took off down the street.

He hated his parents so much sometimes. He couldn’t help but think about Aizawa’s parents, how much they loved each other, even if Mrs. Aizawa didn’t show it as much as Mr. Aizawa did. He hadn’t met Shirakumo’s family, but his friend talked about them a lot, his parents, his older sister and younger brother, and the way they all laughed together…

Hizashi knew that his friends would be able to see through the bullshit that his parents tried to project if they spent too much time around them.

He’d just make sure that his parents stayed clear.

He wound up running a little longer than he’d planned, but he still got home with enough time to get ready. He’d just finished styling his hair when the doorbell rang.

“I got it!” he yelled as he tore down the stairs, sliding across the floors on socked feet to make sure he was the one to open the door.

Shirakumo had gotten there first, bringing a big bag of chips and a small gift bag. “Happy birthday!” he cheered, greeting Hizashi with a bone-crushing hug that lifted him off his feet.

“Oof! How do you keep getting bigger!?” Hizashi asked when Shirakumo set him down. Oboro laughed and flexed his bicep.

“Not too shabby, right?”

“Hello there,” Dad said as he came around the corner, wide smile across his face. Hizashi’s stomach churned; but if he got this part over with quickly, then hopefully they could escape to his room and not be bothered.

“Dad, this is Shirakumo Oboro,” Hizashi said. “Shirakumo, my dad.”

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Yamada,” Shirakumo said. Hizashi was already trying to lead the way towards his room; but of course Dad was chatting, and Shirakumo could carry on a conversation with a brick wall if he wanted to. Hizashi could only bite his lip and hope that the situation didn’t devolve.

A few minutes later, they were still somehow making small talk, but the doorbell rang and Hizashi leaped to answer it. Aizawa stood on the other side, clutching a plastic shopping bag and looking more uncertain than Hizashi had ever seen him.

“Come on in!” Hizashi told him, feeling his smile soften as Aizawa shuffled into the genkan and toed off his shoes. It was odd to see Aizawa in jeans and a t-shirt rather than school clothes; but it was also kinda cool. Like when Hizashi had been over his place and seen inside his room, it was like getting to see a new side of his friend.

“Happy birthday,” Aizawa said, and Hizashi shoved away the flash of disappointment that Aizawa didn’t hug him like Shirakumo had. After all, Aizawa was here, and getting the guy to come out and socialize was already a win. So instead, Hizashi slung his arm around Aizawa’s shoulder and steered him over to where Shirakumo and Dad were standing.

Now, if he could just get through this introduction fast, then maybe-

“Oh hello boys! Nice to see you again, Shirakumo! And you must be Aizawa,” Mom said as she came downstairs. His friends greeted his parents, and nobody commented on the way they stood halfway across the room from each other; but he wouldn’t expect either of his friends to say anything right in front of them.

“Alright, enough of that,” Hizashi announced, “We’ve got shit to go blow up!”

“Language, Hizashi,” his mom called after him with a chuckle as he grabbed Aizawa’s wrist and pulled him up the stairs, Shirakumo thundering along behind them.

“Don’t mind her, they don’t actually care about swearing,” he told them as they piled into his room and he shut the door behind them. “Now, what game do you guys wanna start with?”

The trio settled on the floor at the foot of Hizashi’s bed, with Aizawa to his right and Shirakumo to his left, each armed with their own controller as Hizashi started the game. “Yo, Aizawa, you played this one before?” Aizawa shook his head no, so Hizashi leaned in and ran him through a quick tutorial.

“Where’s my lesson?” Shirakumo asked with a pout.

“You never shut up about this game, you already know how to play,” Hizashi countered, but Shirakumo just pouted harder until Hizashi got the gameplay going in earnest.

Almost immediately, Hizashi and Shirakumo started smack talking when they killed each other and swearing when they died; but Aizawa remained quiet and intense as he tried to get the hang of the controls.

Hizashi hoped Aizawa was having fun, but he tried not to stress about it.

They played on, trading virtual wounds and verbal barbs, until with an impressive shot, Shirakumo knocked Aizawa off a ledge.

“Sonofabitch,” Aizawa blurted, and Hizashi and Shirakumo both whipped their heads over to stare at him, matching looks of surprised delight on their faces. “Shut up, assholes,” Aizawa grumbled; but he was smirking, and he bumped Hizashi with his shoulder.

It was better than a hug, and Hizashi couldn’t contain his smile.

The hours passed in a blur of melee battles and one on one matches where the odd man out ate chips and heckled the players, then got to play the winner.

“Nope, I demand a rematch!” Shirakumo laughed, holding his controller over his head (which was far more of an obstacle than it should be, considering that he was sitting on the floor) while Hizashi leaned practically on top of him to try and get it away. Hizashi was managing to lose the battle when a warm weight lay across his back, stretching all the way across him to try and grab at the controller as well.

“Oof, Shouta!” Shirakumo laughed as Aizawa joined the dogpile. It immediately devolved into a chaotic wrestling match, with each of them trying to pin the others between fits of laughter.

Hizashi was certain he heard Shouta laughing too.

“Alright, I give!” Oboro surrendered from the floor where Hizashi and Shouta had teamed up to hold him down. “Two on one, you guys don’t fight fair!” Hizashi smiled over at Shouta, who met his eyes with a flushed face and a wild grin that made Hizashi’s heart stutter in his chest.

Drawing a quick breath, Hizashi stood and helped Shirakumo sit up. “I’m hungry, are you guys hungry? Want some takeout?”

“I can eat!”

“You can always eat, Shirakumo,” Aizawa huffed.

“Alright, I’ll grab the menu, wait here,” Hizashi told them. He made quick work of it, telling his dad what they were up to. “Ok, pick what you want.” He tossed the menu at Shirakumo to start. When it was Aizawa’s turn, Hizashi headed off the inevitable protest. “Your family fed me, so you better pick out something to eat.” Aizawa glowered at him, but then tentatively made a selection. Hizashi picked out his food and a few extra things for them to share, then brought the menu to his dad so he could add anything he wanted to the order before he placed it.

“Dad’ll be back with the food in a bit,” Hizashi announced as he came back to his room.

“Excellent, time for presents then!” Shirakumo declared, launching himself over to the side of Hizashi’s bed where he’d put the gift that Hizashi had been doing his absolute best to ignore.

“You didn’t need to get me anything,” Hizashi insisted, eyeing the bag Shirakumo was holding out, palms itching to grab it. Hizashi didn’t want Aizawa to feel awkward if he hadn’t gotten Hizashi anything, especially since it seemed like he was so worried about money.

“Of course I did, it’s your birthday! Presents for Present Mic! Come on, me and Shouta spent like, two hours at the shops yesterday, you can’t refuse!” Hizashi’s eyes darted over to Aizawa, who was nervously holding a small, irregularly shaped gift, wrapped in what looked like newspaper held together with a desperate amount of tape.

“Well, if you insist!” Hizashi crowed, snatching the bag. It was heavier than he expected. Reaching in, his fingers touched cool, smooth metal; and when he pulled her out, she was gorgeous. “It’s a 1966 Ford Mustang GT350 Shelby!” He rotated the 1:18 scale, die cast model in his hands, checking her out from every angle. She was a beautiful shade of blue, with two wide, white racing stripes up the middle.

“You really seem to like classic cars, so, I hope you like it!” Oboro said, grinning up from where he sat cross-legged on Hizashi’s bed.

“She’s perfect,” Hizashi breathed, still staring at her.

“She?” Aizawa asked, and Hizashi felt his ears get a little warm.

“It’s a car thing,” he said, leaving it at that.

“Do you two need a moment alone?” Shirakumo teased, and now Hizashi knew he was blushing properly, so he huffed and went over to his desk, placing the Mustang down carefully.

“Mine’s not as nice as Shirakumo’s,” Aizawa mumbled, staring down at the crumpled looking package in his hands.

“Gimmie gimmie gimmie!” Hizashi laughed as Aizawa reluctantly handed it over, then shuffled to sit beside Shirakumo on the bed. “Oh wow, you really don’t want me opening this!” Hizashi teased as he struggled to get the paper off through the layers of tape. He was tempted to grab some scissors, but whatever was inside felt soft, and he didn’t want to risk damaging it.

“I don’t wrap a lot of gifts,” Aizawa mumbled, watching him warily. Hizashi’s chest squeezed a little, thinking about how Aizawa probably hadn’t been to many birthday parties either.

Hizashi got a corner of the paper torn away and spied soft, black fabric inside. Opening a gap big enough to reach in through, he pulled the paper away and looked down at the stuffed cat sitting up in the palm of his hand. Its eyes were huge, staring up at him with a curious expression. Its coat was black, save for one large white patch on its chest in the shape of a music note, and it was soft under his fingertips as Hizashi stared at it, transfixed.

“It’s stupid, I should-” Shouta was saying, reaching out as if to take back the cat from Hizashi. Hizashi clutched the plushie to his chest while Shirakumo laughed and grabbed onto Aizawa to stop him.

“Excuse you, this precious creature is mine now, don’t you dare try and catnap him away!” Hizashi declared.

“See, I told you he’d like it!” Shirakumo said as he grappled with Aizawa, whose face was a distinct shade of red. Hizashi couldn’t tell if it was more about being embarrassed or about the exertion of trying to push Shirakumo off of him; but either way it was adorable and all he could do was cackle at the sight.

“Boys, food’s here!” Mom’s voice called from downstairs.

“Fooooood!” Shirakumo bellowed, releasing Aizawa and tripping over himself to get to the door.

“You really don’t think it’s stupid?” Aizawa asked softly.

“I really think it’s awesome,” Hizashi promised, placing the cat next to the Mustang on his desk. “Now come on, before Shirakumo eats everything.”

Hizashi was hoping he’d be able to just grab their food and retreat back up to his room; but his mom had already spread everything out on the table, and Shirakumo was sitting next to Dad.

With a quiet sigh, Hizashi sat next to Oboro and tugged Shouta to sit so that Hizashi was sandwiched between his friends. At least having the food all spread out like this meant it was easy for him to pile things on to Shouta’s dish.

Even when his mom sat down, things seemed to be ok for now. He couldn’t shake his worry that things were gonna go badly, but he tried to focus on eating and the comforting presence of his friends next to him.

Dad was asking about school, about the hero course, the same old crap he spoke to Hizashi about all the time. Aizawa was pretty quiet, but that was fine because Shirakumo could talk enough for all of them.

“I’m in awe of you boys,” Dad said with a wistful smile.

“I bet you woulda made an impressive hero,” Shirakumo said, and Hizashi nearly choked on his rice.

“Not likely,” Dad laughed, “It's hard for a Quirkless person to become a hero.” Hizashi and Aizawa froze, but Shirakumo didn’t miss a beat.

“Oh wow, yeah, that would make it hard; but I bet there’s still some Quirkless people who could do it!”

“I like the way you think, young man,” Dad said with a grin.

“I’m so glad Hizashi has such kind and thoughtful friends,” Mom added, and Hizashi swallowed down the bile that threatened to erupt out of him.

This was still salvageable, as long as they could finish their food and escape.

Shirakumo kept the conversation flowing, Aizawa answered a few questions that were directly put to him, and soon enough they were clearing off the table. Hizashi was just about to drag his friends back up to his room when his dad went and ruined everything.

“Oh,” he said quietly to Mom as she was scraping the scraps of food into the garbage, “I saw Fumika earlier, she said she’d like to stop by tomorrow.”

Hizashi forgot how to breathe as he stared in wide-eyed horror at how casually they could just fuck everything up.

“Who’s Fumika?” Shirakumo asked, with the same curiosity that fueled his approach to pretty much everything.

It was an innocent question. Hizashi knew it was. But the rage that boiled up inside him didn’t fucking care.

“She’s the reason my parents are getting divorced,” he spat, panic mixing with his anger, a toxic stew churning in his guts as he stormed out of the kitchen and bolted for the front door.

There was no thought, no plan, only his socked feet on the pavement as he ran.

“Yamada!” he heard Aizawa calling from behind him, and he bit back a sob as he stumbled, blurry vision seeking a place he could curl up and hide. He was in front of the Nagatini’s house, only a few doors down from his own, and his feet tangled over each other as he lurched across the grass to crouch down in the shadow of their side yard. He buried his face in his knees as he curled into himself, trying to breathe.

Aizawa was quiet as he trotted up, stopping a few meters away from Hizashi.

“Hizashi?” Shouta sounded so unsure, and it made Hizashi want to snarl and snap again, lash out and shove him away.

But he couldn’t do that to him. Not to Shouta. Not when he’d promised to be his friend. He clenched his jaw, and the only sound that escaped was a high whine that forced its way out of him.

He tried to suck in a breath, hating the shaking, gasping sound he made. He swallowed hard, eyes squeezed tightly shut as he fought to try and calm himself down. He could feel the grinding screech of enamel in his jaw as he grit his teeth together, the sharp pain in his scalp as his fists gripped tightly at his hair.

A hand came to rest lightly on his back as a pair of knees hit the grass next to him. Shouta was still and silent for a heartbeat, then began rubbing long, slow circles on Hizashi’s back. He didn’t say anything, he just knelt beside Hizashi, hand moving in soothing passes up and down his spine.

Hizashi was aware when another pair of feet padded towards them. Of Oboro sitting down beside him. Neither of his friends spoke, they just sat there in silence with him until the waves of rage and fear and despair stopped crashing over him, the tide finally ebbing away.

Slowly, he sat up, back aching from being held so tightly hunched over for so long. He pasted a shaky smile on his face. He knew that they’d see right through it, but he couldn’t face them without it.

“Sorry about that,” he croaked, voice thick with swallowed screams and tears.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Oboro asked, and Hizashi managed a laugh at that thought.

“Not even a little bit.”

“Do you want us to leave?” Shouta asked quietly.

“I’m probably not gonna be good company for a while,” Hizashi sniffed.

“That’s not what Shouta asked.” Oboro nudged him with his shoulder, and Hizashi swallowed around the lump in his throat.

“I don’t want you guys to feel uncomfortable,” he said, “But I probably just fucked that up royally.”

“That’s still not an answer,” Shouta said. “Do you want us to leave?”

“Not really,” Hizashi admitted quietly.

“Ok, that’s settled then. Do you wanna go for a walk, or go back inside?” Oboro asked.

“I, uh, forgot my shoes,” Hizashi said, standing up and looking down at his ruined socks. “Don’t really wanna go walking all over like this.”

“We could grab your shoes,” Shouta offered.

“Nah,” he sniffed, turning to wipe his face as best he could on the short sleeve of his t-shirt. “I’d rather just go back home and sit in my room. But if you guys want to leave, that’s fine, I know I totally ruined the vibe.”

Oboro slung his arm around Hizashi’s shoulders, giving him a solid squeeze before patting him on the back. “Come on, let’s go.”

They walked side by side the three houses back to Hizashi’s home. When he opened the door, he peeled off his socks and stared pointedly at the floor instead of at his parents sitting in the living room, and the three of them went directly up to his room. Shirakumo picked up a controller and waggled it in Hizashi’s direction.

“Wanna play?”

Hizashi’s smile felt a little sturdier. “Sure.”

Chapter Text

Finals were approaching, and though he felt like they should be manageable, Shouta was a little worried. He needed to keep his academic grades up, in case his practical grades fell short; so he was hit with a mix of emotions when Yamada offered to have Shirakumo and Shouta both come over to his house to study. Shouta was pleased, since Yamada actually had turned out to be a helpful English tutor over the course of the term; but he was also surprised, given what had happened on Yamada’s birthday.

“Are you sure?” Shouta asked. He personally thought it was irrational for Yamada to feel like his parents’ divorce was a shameful thing, no matter the circumstances; but he wasn’t so naive that he didn’t understand that there were a lot of people who would treat it as if it was.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Yamada said, though his grin seemed a little less bright than usual. “Cat’s out of the bag now anyway, and my place is closest to school. Unless you’d be uncomfortable-”

“No, it’s not that,” Shouta rushed to say. It had been a little strange, the way the Yamadas had all acted like nothing had happened once Yamada had been back inside after running out. They’d all had cake a few hours later down in the kitchen without anyone mentioning the blow-up earlier, and it had seemed… fine. By the time Shouta and Shirakumo had left that night, things had felt peaceful and at ease.

“We just wanna be sure you’re comfortable with it,” Shirakumo said.

“All good in the hood,” Yamada said with a wink, pointing at his friends.

“That’s a relief,” Shirakumo laughed, “Cuz I really need both of you to help me study!”

Over the next week, they had two study sessions over Yamada’s house without any drama - unless Shouta counted the theatrics Yamada went into when explaining a grammar rule to Shirakumo for the fifth time; but that was amusing, not awkward.

Shouta felt like things were moving along smoothly, until Nishibori made an announcement the day before exams that sent the whole class into chaos.

“This year, we’re planning a training camp to take place for a week over Summer break,” he said, and an excited buzz went through the class. “We don’t always do this, but because we have some students whose Quirks have such a large potential range and need an extensive space to really push their limits, the principal and teachers decided that it would be beneficial. It’s not mandatory, except for a few of you; but it’s still strongly recommended.”

“A week long camp? Like, camping in the woods, with tents and stuff?” Ebisui asked.

“No tents, there are cabins on site that you’ll be sleeping in,” Nishibori said, “But it is located in the woods.”

“Count me out,” Yamada said, sticking out his tongue and giving a thumbs-down to the idea. Shouta wasn’t sure why he suddenly felt so disappointed. “I am not a fan of the not-so-great outdoors.”

“Sorry, Yamada,” Nishibori said, “You’re one of the mandatory attendees. You too, Nakano, and Niragi.”

“Really?!” Niragi exclaimed. It was the most enthusiasm the quiet boy who sat in front of Shouta had expressed all year. With his ability to manipulate plants, it made sense that he would get a lot of benefit from working his Quirk out in the forest.

Yamada’s face fell, brows furrowing into a frown.

“Don’t worry, Hizashi, me and Shouta will come too. It’ll be fun!” Shirakumo said, and Shouta just nodded. Not for the first time, he was thankful that many of the costs of school-related activities and equipment were covered by UA, so he didn’t have to pass up an opportunity like this.

“Yeah, fun,” Yamada huffed, slumping down lower into his seat.

Shouta did his best to put Yamada’s sour mood out of his mind and focus on review.

The written exams wound up being easier than Shouta expected, and he and his friends all did well. In fact, Yamada got the second highest scores in the whole class. Though Shouta had been worried about the practical exams, somehow his marks put him in the upper half of the class.

With all their tests passed, they were waiting to be dismissed from their second-to-last day of class before the start of summer break. Sensei was out in the hallway speaking with Principal Akahori, and he’d been there long enough that some people had started to drift away from their seats.

“I don’t think I’m going to the training camp,” Kobayashi was saying as she leaned on Yamada’s desk. “Big open wilderness without any tech except whatever we bring out there? It’d be pointless for me.”

“Lucky,” Yamada grumbled, “I wish I didn’t have to go.”

“What’s your problem with it?” she asked him.

“I prefer my climate controlled, ya dig? Me and the uncharted wilds don’t mix well,” Yamada said, crossing his arms in an X in front of his chest.

“Never fear, I’ll protect you from the wild boars!” Shirakumo declared.

“S’not the boars I’m worried about,” Yamada mumbled under his breath, picking at his cuticles.

Shouta said quietly, looking determinedly down at the notebook in front of him, where he was drawing lazy spirals across the otherwise blank page.

“Alright, settle down,” Sensei said as he came back into the room, sending everyone who was up and about scuttling back to their seats. “The training camp will be the first full week of August. The paper being passed back has all the details that you’ll need to make your final decisions about if you’re going to attend and what supplies you’ll need. Let me know by tomorrow so we can finalize the head count.”

“Oh crap, we have to meet at the school at six in the morning to get on the bus?” Nakano groaned as she read over the handout.

“It’s a long drive,” Sensei told her.

“Ugh, I’m gonna have to wake up sooooo early,” Shirakumo moaned.

“If you sleep over at my house the night before, you won’t have to get up as early, since I live pretty close to school,” Yamada offered cautiously. “You too, Aizawa.”

“Really? Awesome! Sleepover!” Shirakumo crowed, and Yamada’s expression brightened. Shouta wondered why Yamada sounded so hesitant. His usual pattern was to just tell Shouta and Shirakumo they were doing something and deal with objections as they came up. Shouta decided it probably had to do with his general distaste for having to go on the trip in the first place.

“It’s a rational plan,” Shouta agreed, and Yamada’s smile perked up a bit more.

At home that evening, Shouta was talking with his parents about the trip and the plan to sleep over at Yamada's house.

“What are his parents like?” Dad asked, and Shouta shrugged.

“They seem nice.” He knew Yamada didn’t want anyone knowing that his parents were divorcing, but Shouta did feel weird holding that information back from his own parents. Still, it wasn’t as if he was lying about how the Yamadas were as people - they did both seem very nice - so he’d respect his friend’s wishes. There would come a point where Yamada would be ok with Shouta telling his parents, and they would understand why he’d waited. Shouta did wonder occasionally about the mysterious Fumika who Mr. Yamada had mentioned; but beyond that, he never really thought about the fact that the Yamadas were splitting up.

“We should share contact information with them, in case of an emergency,” Mom said. “The sleepover is very good thinking by Yamada.” Shouta remembered Yamada worrying that Mom wouldn’t like him, and here she was giving him just about her highest praise. He’d have to tell Yamada about that.

“Do we need to go shopping for any of these supplies?” Dad asked, looking over the list.

“I’m going with Yamada and Shirakumo next week,” he said. He was glad Shirakumo had suggested the shopping trip, it was the perfect excuse to ensure his parents didn’t try to tag along and pay for things for him. He’d saved up more than enough money to buy the items that he didn’t already have, so it would be one less thing for his parents to worry about.

“You should invite them both over here soon, we’d like to meet the infamous Shirakumo,” Dad said with a wink and Shouta rolled his eyes.

“Maybe,” he grumbled. The idea of having his friends over to his tiny apartment still felt uncomfortable; but it had gone ok when Yamada had showed up, even if that whole situation had been a mess. And Yamada kept inviting them over to his house, even though he’d been uncomfortable about them finding out about his parents. So really, even if the apartment was small and he didn’t have the kinds of games and stuff Yamada did, it should be fine.

*

Despite the fact that the mall wasn’t very crowded on a Tuesday afternoon, shopping with his friends was loud and chaotic. Shouta managed to drag them both to all the appropriate stores as they made their way around by walking away from them slowly enough that they noticed in time to catch up.

“Why do we need a sleeping bag?” Yamada mumbled, looking at the supply list, “I thought they had cabins?”

“And why are you getting such a warm one, Shouta?” Shirakumo asked, “It’s summer!”

“I can always sleep on top of it for cushioning if it’s too warm, but this way I don’t need another one for colder weather,” Shouta explained. “If I’m going to get a piece of equipment, I want to be able to get the most use out of it as I possibly can.” He ran his hand over the bright yellow shell of the sleeping bag. It was expensive, and would take a big chunk out of his savings; but the reviews he’d read on the quality of it said it would last for years and years.

Yamada and Shirakumo just shrugged at each other and wandered off around the store to look for the things they needed. Both of them apparently already had sleeping bags at home.

They’d probably both had sleepovers with friends before.

Shouta had to admit that he was a little nervous about it. And a little excited.

As they were leaving the mall, Shouta gave his friends a sidelong glance. “We’re not too far from where I live,” he started tentatively, “Do you want to come hang out for a little while? I don’t have any video games or anything, though.” He braced himself for them to decline, especially Yamada who already knew what the apartment was like.

Instead, he was greeted by enthusiastic cheers.

It turned out, his friends could have just as much fun playing cards and board games as they did with video games.

He made a mental note to pack a deck of cards for the training camp.

*

Late on the Saturday afternoon before the trip, Shouta and Shirakumo converged on Yamada’s place with all their bags packed and ready for camp.

“Can you believe that our parents have a group text now?” Shirakumo laughed. “It’s so weird!”

“Never mind that,” Yamada said, grabbing Shouta’s bag, “My parents just dropped off some KFC, and I have restrained myself for as long as possible, so put your stuff in my room and let’s eat!”

“They went back out again?” Shouta asked.

“Yeah, I think they had to go to the shops for something,” Yamada said, leading the way back downstairs where the smell of fried chicken tempted them.

They crowded into the kitchen, where Yamada and Shirakumo were both effectively silenced by the one thing that could reliably manage such a feat: stuffing their faces with food. It was barely a minute later when they heard the front door open and Mr. and Mrs. Yamada came inside, clearly in mid-conversation as they walked into the living room.

“Are you going to see Fumika later?” Mr. Yamada asked.

“As long as you’re still ok being here with the boys,” Mrs. Yamada responded.

Mr. Yamada laughed. “I can handle them.”

Shouta and Shirakumo glanced at each other, then at Yamada, who had gone a little pale, but at least hadn’t bolted out of the house. Shouta grabbed a bowl of chips and a bottle of soda while Shirakumo grabbed the bucket of chicken and linked his elbow around Yamada’s arm, making a beeline for Yamada’s bedroom.

Shouta hadn’t thought much about the situation with Yamada’s parents, but he wasn’t stupid. As Yamada shut the door behind them, questions swam in Shouta’s head. If Mr. Yamada was cheating on his wife with another woman, why would Mrs. Yamada want to spend time with her!? It was… not rational.

“Why is your mom going to see Fumika?” Shirakumo blurted the question that Shouta had no idea how to ask as he set the bucket of chicken down on Yamada’s desk. “And your dad is so chill about it!?” The fact that Shirakumo was also clearly baffled made Shouta feel a little better. At least he wasn’t missing something completely obvious.

“I know, ok?” Yamada groaned. “I know and it’s- ugh.” He flopped face first on his bed and pulled his pillow over his head. Shouta worried that Yamada was going to break down again like he had last time, but finally Yamada tossed the pillow aside and rolled off his bed to glare angrily out his window. “I wish he’d have some self-respect,” he growled, arms crossed tightly over his chest, not looking at Shouta or Shirakumo. “He doesn’t even get mad at her, he just cries when he thinks he’s alone.”

Shirakumo’s brow furrowed the way it did when he was trying to figure out a particularly difficult math problem. “Why would he get mad at her?” Yamada picked at his cuticles, not saying anything, but not telling Shirakumo to shut up either. Shirakumo cocked his head to the side, as if to look at the question from a different angle. “Woah, hang on. Fumika is the other woman, but it’s your mom who’s with her?”

It took Shouta a split second before the penny dropped.

Oh.

“Shh! Keep it down!” Yamada hissed, scrambling across the room to slap his hand over Shirakumo’s mouth. Eyes wide, Shirakumo nodded at Yamada, who then moved his hand away. “I don’t want them to hear us talking,” he mumbled.

“Ok,” Shirakumo said gently. “You know you can talk to us, right?”

“Can we… not?” Yamada asked, sounding exhausted. “I really hate the whole situation.” A tired smile flickered across his face for a moment. Shouta thought it was meant to be reassuring, but it looked so sad at the same time. “I just wanna have a good time with you guys.”

Shouta’s head was spinning as he tried to keep up and make sense of everything, but seeing that expression on Hizashi’s face stopped his whirling thoughts. He had to do something.

Without a conscious decision, he was thrusting one of the video game controllers into Yamada’s hands and another out to Shirakumo. It was similar to Hizashi’s birthday, when Hizashi had been so upset and Shouta hadn’t thought about it, he’d just started rubbing his back; he’d had no idea what he was doing then either.

It must have been the right thing, though, as Hizashi’s smile brightened up.

They played video games and ate chicken and teased and smack-talked each other until nobody was thinking about that stuff from before anymore.

Well. Mostly.

Shouta knew it upset Yamada, so he tried to put the whole thing out of his mind… but he couldn’t seem to forget about it. When he wasn’t taking his turn on the game, he found himself turning over this new information in his head.

He knew that gay people existed, obviously; but they had always been a vague concept. Nameless, faceless people who partnered up, men with men and women with women. TV shows with drag queens and fashionable men with high-pitched voices, or women with short hair dyed wild colors and pierced noses and chains on their pants.

Mrs. Yamada wasn’t like that, though. She was just a normal lady. A normal mom.

Then the controller was shoved into Shouta’s hands again, and he refocused on trying to kick Shirakumo’s butt. Nothing about Yamada’s parents was his business. It wasn’t his problem, as long as Yamada wasn’t upset. No reason to spend his energy thinking about it.

*

“Why’s it so bright out?” Shirakumo whined, “The sun shouldn’t be up so early.”

“Come on, Aizawa, help me with him!” Yamada said with a wicked glint in his eye as he tugged on Shirakumo’s arm to try and force him to sit up. It wasn’t often Shouta saw Yamada without his sunglasses on, and he’d almost forgotten how green his eyes were. “Aizawa!”

“You should really get up, Shirakumo,” Shouta said from where he was finishing packing his toothbrush and pajamas back into his bag. “You don’t want to miss the bus.”

“You two can carry me there,” Shirakumo fussed, pulling free from Yamada’s grip and curling back up on the futon he and Shouta had slept on, clutching his pillow. “You wouldn’t leave me behind.”

“We have to carry our own stuff on the train, we can’t carry you and your stuff too,” Shouta pointed out.

Shirakumo huffed, cracking one eye open to glare at Shouta. “You’re the one who’s always taking naps in class when you can get away with it. How are you so awake now?”

“I always get up early. Why do you think I’m tired in the afternoons?”

“Uuuuugh,” Shirakumo groaned as Yamada scooted around behind him and started trying to lift him by the armpits.

“How are you so heavy?” Yamada grunted. “Aizawa, you gonna help or not?”

“I was helping,” Shouta said wearily before finally relenting and helping Yamada haul Shirakumo upright.

“This is a violation of human rights!” Shirakumo wailed.

“So’s your breath, go brush your teeth, man!” Yamada groused.

It took another fifteen minutes of cajoling, but finally they were ready to leave. “Are you boys sure you want to take the train?” Mr. Yamada asked. “I can drive you.”

“It’s fine, Dad,” Yamada said quickly. “We got this.”

By the time they got to the train station, Shirakumo was still pouting in a way that Shouta had never seen from him before; but at least he wasn’t complaining anymore. The train ride was quieter than Shouta was used to his friends being, and it was nice to sit with them in that relative calm.

They got to UA with plenty of time, and it felt a little surreal to be standing outside in the early morning light milling around with their classmates as the buses got loaded up. Class B was also there, and it seemed like most of the students had elected to come.

Nakano wandered over to them and leaned heavily against Shirakumo. “It’s too early to be awake,” she mumbled.

“That’s what I told them,” Shirakumo agreed, “But they’re cruel and dragged me here anyway.” Shouta rolled his eyes, but at least Shirakumo had someone else to complain to now.

They all piled onto the buses, and Shouta immediately plopped into a seat next to the window. Yamada slid in next to him, casting a glance over his shoulder. “Shirakumo still has his grumpy pants on,” he said as Nakano and Shirakumo sat in the seats behind them.

Shouta dozed off as they rolled away from UA, and he didn’t wake up until Yamada’s bony elbow prodded him in the ribs hours later. “Time to wake up, sleepy head,” Yamada said, nudging him again until Shouta batted his arm away. “We’re here… I think.” The uncertainty in Yamada’s voice had Shouta sitting up and looking around. Sure enough everyone was getting off the bus, and a glance out the window showed him that their gear was all being unloaded.

There was no sign of the promised cabins, though.

“Everyone grab your stuff,” Nishibori told them as the last students trailed off the buses, lifting his own backpack from the pile and settling it on his shoulders. Over by Class B’s bus, Enoki-Sensei was doing the same thing. “The buses stop here, and the hike to the campsite will take a few hours, at least! This is private property and we have permission to use our Quirks. Make sure nobody gets left behind.” Without waiting for his students, Sensei took off at a brisk pace down a wide trail.

“We’ve gotta carry our stuff and hike there?” Yamada asked, looking a little pale as he swatted at a mosquito that buzzed past his face. “In our school uniforms?”

“Don’t worry, Hizashi,” Shirakumo said as he walked up next to them, stretching his limbs after the long ride, “For I am so kind hearted that, even though you didn’t carry me to the train this morning, I will nonetheless help you carry your gear through the woods.” A fluffy cloud poofed into existence next to Yamada. With a grateful smile, Yamada put his smaller duffel bag down on the cottony surface, though he kept his backpack on. Shouta’s gear was all in one large pack, but a few of their classmates asked Shirakumo if they could put an extra bag on the cloud too, and soon it was full.

Some students had taken off down the trail immediately after Sensei, but it was clear that others were going to take a few more minutes to get themselves organized. Iida was zipping between one cluster of kids and the next, prompting them each in turn to get started.

“You’re making sure that each group can see the group ahead of them,” Shouta said when Iida stopped in front of them as the last bag was placed on Shirakumo’s transport cloud.

“Bingo!” Iida said with a bright smile. “You guys should take off now, it’ll be good to have Nakano near the middle of the pack, in case there’s trail problems ahead or someone needs assistance behind; plus Yamada for relaying messages, since cell service here is kinda nonexistent.”

“Bossy,” Yamada grumbled as he, Shouta, Shirakumo, and Nakano set out down the trail. They could see Niragi and Mushimori walking together ahead of them, close enough to call out to, but far enough ahead that Shouta didn’t feel like hurrying to catch up.

“Iida’s smart, he’s got a good grasp of tactics, and he’s a good leader,” Shouta said, not sure why he felt like he needed to defend the other boy to Yamada.

“Why don’t you go walk with him, then,” Yamada snapped, looking around himself warily.

“You really don’t like the woods, do you?” Nakano mused.

“Not all of us are meant to be nature children,” Yamada said, looking pointedly down at Nakano’s bare feet (her shoes were neatly stacked with the rest of the things on Shirakumo’s cloud).

“How about a peace offering?” Nakano said, and she paused for a moment, brow furrowing in concentration. Shouta watched as the trail ahead of them started shifting. It was only a slight change, but the rocks and gnarled roots that constantly threatened to trip them up seemed to melt down into the earth, smoothing the path. “Let’s see how long I can keep doing this for.” She started walking again, and as she moved, the path ahead continued to make itself a little more friendly. Shouta took a quick glance back and saw that the trail behind remained smoother for the rest of the students who were following.

It was a long, hot, sweaty walk to the campground; but at last everyone finally got there. About halfway through the trek, Shirakumo had conjured another cloud for himself and had started floating along; but when Yamada had glared daggers at him, he’d laughed and started walking again.

They spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening getting set up and settled in. The cabins that Sensei had mentioned were little more than thin-walled buildings with tatami mats on the floor and not much else inside. Shouta, Yamada, Shirakumo, and Mushimori wound up in one cabin together along with Iida and three other Class B boys.

Aside from the half-dozen cabins, there was one large main building where there was a dining hall and the offices of the harried-looking people who were running the place. There was also another building with toilets and showers. Other than that, there was just a lot of forest all around them. It was beautiful.

Yamada looked miserable.

“Is it really that bad?” Shouta asked as Yamada peered uncomfortably around the cabin.

“Does it look like there’s gaps by the door? And the windows?” Shouta followed Yamada’s gaze, and furrowed his brow in confusion.

“Nothing that’s going to cause water to be a problem if it rains,” Shouta reassured him.

“S’not the water I’m worried about,” Yamada grumbled, but before Shouta could ask him to explain, Shirakumo burst back into the cabin after delivering the last of the bags he’d helped carry.

“I need a shower!” he declared, rummaging through his bag for a change of clothes. “You all could use one too,” he added, wrinkling his nose. Iida laughed and Shouta huffed a quiet chuckle as Shirakumo opened the three windows in the space. “Gotta let this place air out a little.”

Shouta glanced at Yamada, who was biting his lip and glaring at the open windows. “Come on, Yamada,” Shouta prompted, going through his own stuff for clean clothes. “You’ll feel better after you wash off.”

An hour later, after a shower, they were sitting down to eat in the dining hall. Shouta was glad to see that Yamada did look less unhappy, but it was still disconcerting to see his friend without his usual smile on his face.

“What’s so bad about the woods?” Shouta asked.

“It’s just not my scene, ya dig?” Yamada huffed, and Shouta stared at him, waiting for further explanation. Finally, Yamada rolled his eyes and continued, “I like the houses and trains and music and technology of civilization. The scenery here is pretty on a postcard, but I don’t like having to scrub away a ton of dirt at the end of the day.”

“Oh. Well, it’s only a week,” Shouta said, and was disheartened to see Yamada shrink down in his seat.

“At least you’re here with us,” Shirakumo said, bumping against Yamada’s shoulder, pushing hard enough that Yamada then bumped Shouta’s shoulder.

“And starting tomorrow, you should be able to scream out some of your frustration as you work on your Quirk!” Nakano said from across the table. Ebisui nodded and smiled at Yamada from her spot next to Nakano.

That night as they were getting ready to sleep, Shouta watched Yamada shaking out his sleeping bag over a dozen times before he finally set it down and crawled inside.

“Aren’t you going to be too warm?” Shouta asked, sitting on top of his own sleeping bag in loose shorts and a t-shirt as they prepared to go to sleep.

“I’m fine,” Yamada mumbled. Shouta shared a worried glance with Shirakumo, and even Mushimori and Iida glanced over at Yamada with their brows drawn in concern.

Without any idea of what else to do, and ignoring the boisterous noise from the Class B boys, Shouta laid down to get some sleep.

~*~

Hizashi woke up a miserable, sweaty, overheated mess before the sun could even come up and start baking the cabins.

This officially sucked.

He crawled carefully out of his sleeping bag and rolled it up as tightly as he could, stuffing it back in his backpack and zipping it in. Oughta keep it safe enough. He sat back down on the tatami mat and grabbed his water bottle, taking a long, deep drink. He could feel his hair sticking to his face and neck, and he just wanted to be home in his air conditioned room.

Fuck, he was not going to start crying. Nope. Not happening.

He’d spent too much time yesterday wallowing in his misery, and he couldn’t afford to do it again today. He was gonna be a hero, dammit, and that meant he had to be able to do hard things when he needed to.

He took a breath, grabbed his toiletry kit, and scurried over to the showers to rinse off and clean up as the first pink and orange bands of color began to tinge the sky.

At least he had time to do his hair.

Sensei had told them last night to put on their gym clothes first thing in the morning, because they’d be training basically all day as soon as they had breakfast. When the wakeup call went off at 5:30, Hizashi got the pleasure of prodding everyone in his cabin awake, a bright smile plastered across his face.

“You are a sadist,” Shirakumo groaned as Hizashi shook him relentlessly.

“Yep!” Hizashi kept his Quirk dialed down to a minimum, he didn’t want to knock the cabin down around them; but it was worth the little shower of dust that fell from the ceiling for the way everyone bolted upright. Even Aizawa woke up flailing around, an adorably confused expression on his face as he looked left, right, up, and down, as if he might find some threat hiding in his own lap. “Good morning, future heroes!”

“Glad you’re in a better mood today, Yamada,” Iida said, scratching the back of his head, his normally neat hair all tousled up.

“Carpe diem, gotta make the most of the opportunity,” Hizashi said with enough bravado that he almost felt like he really meant it.

They ate breakfast and then got broken down into training groups. Though only some of them really needed such a remote location to go wild with their Quirks, everyone here was going to be pushing themselves.

Hizashi’s assignment was essentially to yell as loud and as long as he could. He was set up half a kilometer away from everyone else and paired off with Shirakumo, each with a walkie-talkie to keep in touch with the other. Shirakumo, for his part, was going to need to be making big clouds nearly constantly, creating targets for Hizashi to blast away each time, a visual marker of Hizashi’s effective range as well as clear targets to ensure Hizashi didn’t get turned around and start blasting out his classmates eardrums.

At the beginning of the year, when they’d been demonstrating their Quirks to Sensei, Hizashi had gone as loud as he’d ever tried to go… but he’d never really tried to go as loud as he could go. He knew his Quirk could do some serious damage, even to bystanders, so he was always trying to modulate his output.

Not now, though. Now, there was nobody around; and with the first real, full-powered yell, Hizashi finally understood why they’d made him come out here to do this. When he filled his lungs, felt them expand, and then let loose, he was almost knocked back on his ass by the volume and the power of the shockwave.

Shirakumo had set up clouds just above the tops of the trees to a distance of almost two kilometers, and Hizashi had rolled his eyes, thinking it was a ridiculous degree of overkill. Then he effectively blew almost half of them away, nearly to the one kilometer mark. Shirakumo reported over the radio that even at the two kilometer mark where he was waiting, Hizashi had still been loud enough to startle some birds out of the trees.

Hizashi spent the rest of the day yelling over and over. He’d brought his regular noise-canceling headphones, which were basically the same as the ones from his hero costume anyway. This was the first time he’d ever really felt like it was important that he was wearing them. His throat and vocal chords had never really gotten sore before, even after long days of using his Quirk; but this was like cranking everything up to eleven.

The following day, he kept at it, adding in different ways to try and control and direct the blasts. He tried different pitches, he varied how he shaped his mouth, trying to figure out what kind of effect, if any, it made.

It was exhilarating, and exhausting. And isolating, since except for lunch break, he stayed out essentially on his own all day. Just him and his thoughts and occasional radio contact with Shirakumo.

At least he could scream as often as he wanted.

The next few days passed similarly for Hizashi, working on slightly different things each time. As much as he hated being out in the woods, he had to admit that having his friends around during their downtime made the whole thing much more bearable. He was exhausted, but firm in his resolve to just make it through the rest of the week.

Then on the fifth day, Sensei made an announcement at lunchtime.

“You’ve all been working really hard, but all work and no play isn’t any way to spend a whole week at camp, even if it is training camp,” he said, smiling at them. “Tonight after dinner, we’ll have a little competition between Class A and Class B. Let’s call it an exercise in stealth and detection. I think you’ll all enjoy it.”

Hizashi looked at Aizawa - who seemed befuddled more than anything - and Shirakumo, who was clearly excited. “This is gonna be great!” Shirakumo said, grinning ear to ear.

Hizashi wasn’t so sure, but he grinned back, determined not to let this place get to him.

Even if it was crawling with bugs. Everywhere.

He was mostly fine out in the clearing where he was training. The sound of his voice seemed to deter the disgusting things from getting too near him. The cabins were nowhere near secure enough, but tucking himself into his sleeping bag seemed to be working to keep him safe so far.

Sure, he hadn’t been sleeping well, and that was taking a bit of a toll on him; but it was just for a few more days. He was gonna be a hero, and he wasn’t going to let those repulsive creatures stop him.

~*~

Shouta was worried about Yamada. He was smiling and joking around like normal, but something had seemed off ever since they got here. Ever since Sensei had told Yamada he had to come on this trip at all, actually.

He didn’t have too much time to think about it, though, as he and everyone else had been busy training. Shouta hadn’t been allowed to bring his binding cloth to practice with, Sensei telling him that he wanted Shouta to really work on trying to improve his Quirk. Shouta had scoffed at the idea, since his Quirk was pretty useless; but if that’s what he’d been told to do, he was going to try his hardest, even if he thought it would be pointless.

So it came as a surprise to him when, on the second day, he’d been able to split his focus enough to erase the Quirks of two people at the same time. It was hit-or-miss, he couldn’t always do it; but by the end of the day he was managing it more than half the time. On the third and fourth days, he’d managed to get more reliable with it; and even when someone had walked across his path blocking most of his line of sight, Erasure hadn’t failed.

This morning, with his eyes rested, he was able to split his focus about nine times out of ten, and keep Erasure in place even when one target was only in his peripheral vision.

Maybe he’d eventually be able to erase the Quirks of all the targets in his field of view. Maybe someday, he’d be able to keep the effect of his Quirk active even if his line of sight was totally obscured, or his head was turned. That would be…

Well, it wouldn’t be totally useless, anyway.

So most of his time and energy had been consumed by training; but now, with the classes gathering together outside the dining hall, Shouta was better able to notice the dark circles under Yamada’s eyes. Come to think of it, he might only be able to see them because Yamada had swapped out his usual sunglasses for regular clear lenses in the dimming light.

“Good evening everyone,” Sensei said as the last of the stragglers came out of their cabins. “I hope you’re all ready for some fun.” A round of excited chatter came from various corners of the assembled students. “Here’s the rules for the game, it’s a pretty simple one that I’m sure you’ve all played before, though probably not quite like this. One class is going to hide in the woods, and the other is going to try and find them.”

“Wait, we’re literally playing hide-and-seek?” Mushimori asked.

“Yep,” Enoki-Sensei said, “But when you played in elementary school, you probably weren’t in the woods at night, and you probably weren’t allowed to use your Quirks.”

Another excited murmur went through the crowd.

Nishibori waved his hands to quiet everyone down. “I have marked off the outer boundaries of the playing field, so nobody wanders too far and gets lost.” The bright laser-like lines that Sensei could create and leave as solid barriers were impossible to miss. “Going out-of-bounds disqualifies you, and I will know if you pass over the boundary lines. Also,” he added, looking at Shirakumo, “There’s no going any higher than the tops of the trees.” Shirakumo schooled his face into a serious expression long enough to snap a quick salute, which got a round of giggles from their classmates.

“Quirk use is allowed, but remember that these are your friends and classmates,” Enoki added, looking directly at Sensoji.

Shouta didn’t care much about the game aspect - he remembered the kids at recess playing in school but he’d never joined in - but working on stealth, and on his ability to find people hiding in dark spaces? Those were key skills for a hero to have. He turned to Yamada to see how he felt about it, and found him with a distinctly ashen pallor.

“Yamada? Are you ok?” Shouta asked. The question drew Shirakumo’s attention, and his brow furrowed up in concern.

“Hey man, this is just a game, probably not mandatory, you can sit it out if you want,” Shirakumo said to him.

“Yo, what are you talkin’ about, this is gonna be great!” Yamada said, flashing an utterly unconvincing smile at them.

“Seekers, you must tag the hiders in order for them to be out. Hiders, you may move around as much as you like, but you must stay in bounds and if you are tagged, you must exit the playing field. Class A is going to hide first. When all the students have been found or thirty minutes have elapsed, Class B will take their turn hiding. Are there any questions?”

A brief pause, and nobody raised their hands, so Enoki-Sensei dismissed them to their cabins to change and get ready as they saw fit before the game started in an hour, when it would be fully dark.

“Yamada, you’re not looking so great,” Mushimori said as the boys changed into dark clothes.

“Are you sure you don’t want to sit this out?” Shouta asked quietly. He had no idea what was wrong and he was at a loss for how to help Yamada, but it seemed pretty clear that this game was making whatever it was worse.

Yamada just tucked the ends of his pants into the tops of his boots, lacing them up tightly. “Nope, I’m good to go!”

The sun fell lower and lower in the sky as the students all gathered again out in the middle of the campsite. When the teachers decided it was time, they led everyone out to a small clearing not too far from camp, where Shouta could see the telltale glow of the edge of Nishibori’s Quirk that started marking out the boundary for the playing field. From what he could tell, the boundary curved out and around, probably carving out a large circular space for the game.

“Class A, you’re getting a three minute head start. Ready?” A chorus of voices cheered, including Yamada’s. Sensei counted down, and they took off running into the woods.

At first, Shouta kept close to the boundary line, the pale glow it offered helping to light the way and avoid tripping as they all raced to put space between themselves and Class B before they were sent in after them. But when Yamada slowed down, started drifting more towards the center of the field, Shouta decided to stay close to his friend. Soon, the glow of the boundary was gone and the darkness of the woods was only broken where the bright beams of moonlight shone through the gaps in the trees.

A dark shape floated along behind them, and Shouta knew without looking that it was Shirakumo. They hadn't discussed staying together, but he was glad that it had worked out that way.

A loud sound like a horn came from behind them, an alert that time was up and Class B was now on the hunt.

The three of them kept moving deeper into the woods, deep enough that Shouta thought he could just about see the faint glow of the far end of the boundary off in the distance. They made their way into a small clearing, and Shouta looked around for the best positions to hide from their pursuers.

Many of the trees had tall trunks with no good hand or foot holds he could reach; but there was a big, old maple at the edge of the clearing with a few large limbs low enough that Shouta figured he could get up easily. He trotted over to it, leaping to grab onto the lowest limb and scrambling to pull himself up. Ugh, he needed to get stronger, fast. He glanced back to see that Yamada was standing at the base of the tree, staring up.

“Are you coming up?” Shouta asked quietly, his voice feeling out of place in this dark space. “Do you need a hand?”

“I got it,” Yamada said, shaking himself as if out of a daze. Sure enough, he was able to pull himself up with ease, and once again Shouta found himself a little envious of the height and muscle mass his friend had over him. They climbed up higher in the branches, enough to take them up and away from line of sight, but not so high that the branches were too small for them to comfortably sit and rest on.

After all, they’d be trying to keep quiet and hidden for a while.

Yamada sat straddling a limb with his back resting against the main trunk, gripping a branch next to him while his legs dangled down. Shouta perched close next to him, keeping an eye both on the clearing and his friend, who still seemed off. Shirakumo was floating several meters above them, a dark shape in the canopy of leaves.

For long minutes, all was silent. Shouta wasn’t sure he remembered Yamada ever being this still and quiet for so long; but maybe it was just because he really did want to play this game well after all.

Shouta was scanning the clearing again, when he heard a quiet, strangled, whimper from Yamada. Concerned, Shouta turned to see what was wrong.

Yamada’s eyes were wide, and even in the dim light, Shouta could see how deathly pale he was. His mouth was frozen half open, but it didn’t look like he was breathing - his entire body was held stiff and still. Another soft, choked sound escaped him, and Shouta followed his horrified gaze down to where Yamada was staring at his own thigh.

A long, dark shape was frozen, just as still as Yamada, on its perch on his leg. Shouta might have missed it, if not for the bright yellow of its legs along the entire length of its black body.

Mukade, a big one. The wicked giant centipede had to be close to twenty centimeters long, far bigger than the ones Shouta sometimes had to deal with in the apartment. Their venom wasn’t deadly, but painful and dangerous, so Shouta didn’t even think before shifting his weight so he could reach over to knock the creature off of Yamada.

Three things happened at once.

One, the mukade must have sensed Shouta's movement, turning its crimson head towards the potential threat.

Two, Shouta’s swift flick sent the creature sailing out into the air to fall somewhere on the forest floor below.

Three, Yamada screamed.

Shouta had never been in the direct line of fire of Yamada’s Quirk before. As pain lanced through his head, the last thought he had as he felt the sick, stomach-swooping moment of freefall, was that he’d underestimated just how powerful his friend really was.

Chapter Text

Leaves and branches whipped past Shouta as he tumbled off his perch. His limbs flailed out wildly, trying to catch hold of something to stop his freefall, only succeeding in smashing into a few larger branches with bruising force. He barely had time to register the pain before his back slammed into the ground, the impact knocking the air from his lungs.

Mouth gaping open wide, his body screamed for him to breathe. His chest was a vacuum about to collapse in on itself, and icy panic shot through him. His muscles contracted painfully in a vain attempt to do something, anything, to get oxygen back again.

And then, as if his body hadn’t just been struggling to do the thing, he was able to suck in a ragged breath. Then another, a little steadier.

For a moment, all he could do was lay there, stunned, his head aching and fuzzy, his eyes unfocused as his lungs came back online. There was a loud, high pitched ringing in his ears that drowned out the rest of the sounds around him, so he sensed more than heard the frantic scuffling of feet on the ground next to him. He turned his head towards the commotion, movements slow and difficult, like his blood had turned to thick syrup and was gumming up the works.

Hands on his shoulders helped to steady Shouta as he propped himself up on his elbows. His eyes tried to focus on Shirakumo’s face, close to his own, mouth moving; but all Shouta could hear was that damn ringing. He looked around for Yamada and spotted him only a meter or so away, standing with his back pressed against the trunk of the tree. Both of his hands were clasped tightly over his mouth.

Shouta needed to go check on Yamada; but as he tried to get his feet under himself, a wave of nausea rolled over him and he stumbled down to his knee. He felt Shirakumo’s hands on him, stabilizing him until his stomach settled and he tried to stand again.

“Yamada-” Shouta started to say, and his voice sounded strange; distant, but also like it echoed in his head, hiding somewhere behind the incessant ringing.

Shirakumo’s face was in front of him again. This time when his mouth moved, his words were able to make it through the ringing, though only barely. “Shouta,” Shirakumo’s voice was muffled, like he was speaking with an ocean of water between them, “You’re bleeding. We need to get you back to camp to get checked out.”

Shouta was fine with going back to camp. Yamada was looking unwell; he was rubbing his thigh roughly with one hand now, the other still over his mouth. He looked like he really needed rest, so it made sense that they should go back. Shirakumo stepped away from Shouta for a moment to speak with Yamada, but the godsdamned ringing kept him from hearing what they were saying. A wave of dizziness hit, and Shouta decided it would be better to sit back down.

Yamada’s eyes were so wide as he looked at Shouta that Shouta could even make out the green of them from where he sat. It was too bad Yamada usually wore those sunglasses. They hid his eyes, and he had such nice eyes.

Right now, though, his eyes looked scared and sad. That wasn’t nice.

Yamada was still covering his mouth. His mouth should be smiling, not covered. Yamada didn’t seem to be talking to Shirakumo, only nodding or shaking his head while Shirakumo made muffled noises at him. Shouta tried to hear him, but his ear hurt and felt clogged. He tried to raise a sluggish hand to wipe away whatever dirt had gotten in there, but a gentle hand grabbed his wrist and stopped him.

Oh, now Shirakumo was kneeling down in front of Shouta again. “I can only safely carry one more person on my cloud with me,” Shirakumo told him, steering Shouta’s hand down away from his ear, “So I’m gonna get you back to camp as quick as I can, ok?” Shouta glanced past Shirakumo’s shoulder towards Yamada. “Hizashi is gonna head back on foot, he’s gonna meet us there.”

“‘Zashi,” Shouta said, feeling his bleary mouth slurring the word, looking at his friend. It was wrong to split up, they needed to stay together. “Zashi’s gotta stay with us.”

“He’ll be right behind us, Shouta, don’t worry.” Shirakumo sat down next to Shouta, one arm around him to keep him steady as the ground beneath Shouta’s butt grew much softer. “I gotcha, we’ll be outa the woods quick.” Shouta’s arm came up and grabbed onto Shirakumo as everything moved around him.

The cloud beneath them started moving, and Shouta had to close his eyes. Watching the trees glide past him was too much for his senses to take, so he turned his face and leaned heavily against Shirakumo, trying to focus on breathing.

With each slow breath, his head became more clear, the fog gradually lifting. Everything still sounded wrong, and he was finally able to piece together that at least one of his eardrums must have ruptured. Well, that explained the pain, anyway. He started putting more and more things together about the moments between being in the treetop and now, until finally he remembered the most important thing. He opened his eyes, glaring back over Shirakumo’s shoulder into the darkness behind them.

“We have to go back,” he said, forming the words carefully. Shirakumo looked at him for a moment, but shook his head.

“You need to get your head and ears looked at-”

A low noise rolled out of Shouta’s throat, and he repeated, “We need to go back.” He took a slow breath to steady himself before he spoke again. His head was clear, but his tongue still felt thick. “We left Zashi. Go back. Now.”

“Shou-”

There wasn’t time for this. “Now!”

“Ok! Alright, alright, going back!” Shouta felt the cloud slow and change directions, following their path back the way they came. He peered into the darkness, looking for his friend in the shadows. They traced their path further and further back along itself. Gradually, Shirakumo’s posture shifted as he began more intently searching for Hizashi. Shouta’s sense of time wasn’t at its best, but he figured that it had to be a few minutes since he and Shirakumo had left the clearing. They should have come across Hizashi by now if he’d been following as quickly as he could behind them. They traced their path all the way back to the clearing…

And there he was, still standing against the tree.

“Get me on the ground,” Shouta told Shirakumo, not trusting his legs to hop down safely.

“What- Why-” Hizashi’s voice was a million miles away as his hand still rubbed at that same spot on his thigh, but Shouta could hear him well enough as he stumbled closer on wobbly legs. Moreover, he could see Hizashi well enough to make out the tears glistening in his eyes and the wet tracks streaked down his cheeks.

“Come on,” Shouta told him, his own voice still sounding too close and too far in his head, “We’re going back.”

“You shouldn’t be here, why are you here?” Hizashi hiccupped, “You need to get help, you need-” he clamped both his hands over his mouth again like he had earlier. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, pulled his right hand away from his mouth and started motioning with it in a way Shouta didn’t understand. He pinched the air right between his eyebrows with his thumb and forefinger, then moved his hand away from his face with the edge of his palm facing out. He did it over and over, then he put his fist on his chest and rubbed in a circle over his heart, then he went back to the first motion again.

It was like he was stuck, so Shouta reached out and gently grabbed his hand, while Oboro laid a hand on Hizashi’s shoulder. At the touch, Hizashi’s eyes snapped open and he sucked in a sharp breath through his nose. His left hand finally tore away from his mouth as he gripped Shouta’s hands between his own.

“I’m sorry,” Hizashi rasped, the words pouring out over and over. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I’m so sorry…”

“Zashi, it’s ok,” Shouta said, squeezing his hand.

“No it is not ok!” Hizashi was breathing sharp and shallow, and Shouta could feel his hands shaking as they clutched at his own. Hizashi turned towards Oboro. “You needed to get him out, get him safe!” he panted, his breathing getting less steady with each moment. Shouta looked over at Oboro to find that tears were flowing down his cheeks, despite the big smile on his face.

“I needed to get you both out, and I messed that up,” Oboro said quietly, wrapping his arm around Hizashi’s shoulders. “I got scared too, when Shouta fell, so I was only looking at him. That was my mistake, and I’m sorry. He knew you weren’t ok. Even with that fall, he could still tell you weren’t ok, and I missed it. I’m just glad he was paying better attention than I was.”

“We all go back together,” Shouta said, too tired to deal with it all. He just wanted them all to be back at camp. “Now.”

“Shou, sit,” Oboro said, manifesting a cloud in front of him. Cautiously, Shouta did so. “Now you, Zashi.” Hizashi didn’t move, so Oboro gently steered him to sit on the fluffy cushion, so he and Shouta were side by side. “My clouds can only carry two.” He looked at Shouta, and then at Hizashi. “I chose the wrong two before. I’m sorry.”

Oboro set off, walking just ahead of them as the cloud followed behind like a loyal dog. They were all quiet for the first few minutes, until Hizashi broke the silence.

“Zashi?” he asked. Oboro chuckled.

“Shouta started calling you that before,” he said, glancing back at them briefly. “I liked the sound of it.”

“Oh,” Hizashi said. He was quiet for another moment. “Me too,” he added softly. Shouta only huffed. The drunk-sounding slurring of his voice hadn’t felt very nice… but, ‘Zashi’ didn’t sound bad.

He’d never given anybody a nickname before.

His eyes slid shut as Oboro continued leading them through the woods, his aching brain still putting pieces together. Finally, he opened his eyes and looked over at Hizashi. He had to ask.

“It’s about the bugs, right?”

Hizashi’s head snapped over to look at him, expression twisted in fear before he tried to plaster one of his usual smiles over it. It hung on his face like a too-big jacket, ill fitting and about to fall away with one wrong move.

Hizashi’s voice shook as he asked, “What do you mean?”

“You didn’t want to come on this trip at all because it meant being in the woods. You’ve been sealing yourself up in your sleeping bag every night, even though it’s way too hot for that. The way you reacted to the mukade on your leg,” Shouta looked away, guilt rolling through his gut. “I saw the look on your face. I should have known, but I didn’t understand until it was too late. It’s my fault, I should have erased your Quirk when I moved to flick it away.”

Hizashi gawked at Shouta in disbelief. “How is me bursting your eardrums your fault!?” The irritation in Hizashi’s voice chased away some of the shakiness, and Shouta was glad to hear his friend sounding a little less unsteady.

“How about we say that we all had some moments tonight we wish we had handled differently?” Oboro suggested, and Shouta and Hizashi both huffed.

“Hello? Yamada?” a voice in the dark called out. “Is that you?”

“Is that Iida?” Hizashi asked, squinting into the darkness. Shouta’s hearing was too muffled to be sure, but he turned to peer into the shadows of the woods.

“The others must have heard you,” Oboro said. “Hey Iida! It’s us, we’ve had an accident, we’re heading out!” Moments later, Iida came clambering through the brush over to them.

“What happened?” he asked, eyes flicking over each of them in turn, his brow furrowed. “Is anyone injured?”

“Shouta’s going to need medical attention, and Hizashi might also,” Oboro told him. “I don’t want to move them any faster than this-”

“Got it, I’ll run ahead to let the teachers know to expect them. Anything else?”

The three of them shook their heads, though Shouta regretted the movement. He took a breath and stilled himself quickly, waiting for the nauseous dizziness to pass. Iida took back off into the night.

It was another minute of silent walking before Hizashi spoke again. “You’re right,” he croaked. “About the bugs.” Shouta and Oboro were quiet, letting him decide what else to say… or not. “I know it’s stupid. I know it’s- it’s irrational,” he spat. “I can’t help it. Something about them just makes me freak out.” He gave a derisive snort. “I actually thought it was starting to get better. I’d stopped flinching every time a gnat flew too close. I saw a beetle in the showers yesterday and I was able to just walk past it. I thought…” He trailed off, his hand rubbing that same spot on his leg again. The spot where the mukade had been.

“Sounds like you are getting better,” Oboro said. “Mukade are evil lookin’ critters, they’ve scared the crap out of me more than once when I wasn’t expecting to see them.”

“Me too,” Shouta admitted.

“Great,” Hizashi pouted, which to Shouta was a vast improvement over the fake smile from earlier, “So they scare you both too, but neither one of you loses control and injures someone.”

Oboro glanced back over his shoulder at Hizashi, then tipped his head to the side. “Heroes gotta be able to keep our cool, even in scary situations, right?” he asked, but it didn’t really sound like a question.

Hizashi flinched, and his throat bobbed as he swallowed. “Yeah, rub it in. I’ll never be able to be a hero like this,” he grumbled, arms crossed tightly over his chest.

“Nah, that’s not what I’m saying,” Oboro insisted. “I mean, there’s bound to be something that makes me panic; but if I don’t know what it is, I can’t do anything about it. If it turns out I’m deathly afraid of being inside a burning building, what if I end up in that situation in a real emergency? If I don’t know how to calm down, I can’t help, right?” Hizashi nodded slowly. “That’s why they make us practice with so many different scenarios! None of us can know all the things that might make us freak out. But if you can figure out how to keep the bug-panic under control, you’ll probably be able to keep cool in other scary situations too.”

“Maybe,” Hizashi said, “But how the hell do I do that?”

“I have no idea!” Oboro laughed. “But Sensei might have some suggestions.”

“I don’t want to tell Sensei!” Hizashi snapped, “I don’t want to tell anyone!” Shouta and Oboro fell silent while anger and embarrassment radiated so thickly off of Hizashi that Shouta could practically feel it. When Hizashi glanced at Shouta out of the corner of his eye, though, the irritation melted away, revealing a look of shame underneath. “Sorry,” he muttered, glancing away, rubbing his chest with his fist.

That reminded Shouta of earlier, and something vaguely familiar pinged in his head at the movement. “Were you using sign language before?” he asked. Hizashi looked back up at him, puzzled for a moment before the memory seemed to click.

“Oh. Yeah,” he said sheepishly. “I know a little bit. When I was younger, I, uhh, accidentally burst my parents eardrums a few times. My Quirk had already manifested when I was born, so…” Hizashi trailed off with a shrug of his shoulder, but Shouta could imagine how a baby or toddler with that Quirk could cause a lot of damage. “It didn’t have as much power as it does now, but it was still enough. My mom had to use her Quirk a lot, though.”

“What’s her Quirk?” Oboro asked.

“It’s called Lullabye,” Hizashi sighed, scrubbing his sleeve over his face to wipe away the dirt and tears smeared there. “Pretty straightforward, she can sing anyone to sleep. But anyway, I learned some sign language, to use if my parent’s hearing wasn’t doing so great. Sometimes I used it if I was starting to get upset, cuz that was when my control was most likely to slip.” He paused for a beat, looking down at his fingers fidgeting in his lap. “I used it when I couldn’t trust my voice.”

Shouta felt that aching, twisting in his chest again, and his hand twitched with the urge to reach out to Hizashi, to lay on his shoulder or back or knee, something to just connect them. But this was different from that day at Hizashi’s birthday, and Shouta didn’t know how to reach out when Hizashi was sitting up and looking at him, talking almost like things were normal.

It would be weird for Shouta to reach over and grab his hand, right?

He took a breath to try and settle the feeling, and kept his hands to himself.

The sound of someone running up the narrow trail ahead of them drew their attention anyway. Iida slowed to a walk, then fell into step with Oboro as they continued down the trail.

“They’re waiting for you up ahead, it’s probably only another two minutes away,” he told them.

“Thanks, Iida,” Oboro said with a tired smile.

Shouta was feeling a little better, having been able to sit and rest; but he felt badly that Shirakumo had been forced to carry him this whole way, even if it was with his Quirk. If Shouta was going to be a hero, he needed to be tougher than this. He needed to be able to keep moving after getting a little banged up.

When they emerged into the large clearing, the teachers and a handful of students who’d been tagged out in the game were waiting. Shouta and Yamada climbed down off the cloud to go speak with Nishibori. Shouta was relieved to find his legs, head, and stomach all behaving properly. Everything still sounded quiet and muffled, but the ringing had mostly quieted down to a low background hum.

Sensei frowned as he looked them over, especially at Shouta’s right ear. He told them to head back to the main building; there was a nurse on staff who would take a closer look, and that he’d be by shortly to check in with them.

“Shirakumo, would you mind-”

“Going with them? On it, Sensei!” He conjured another cloud, but Shouta waved his hand to dismiss the ride. He remembered not to shake his head this time.

“I’d rather walk.”

“Aizawa-” Yamada started to protest.

Shouta huffed. “I’m fine. If I feel dizzy, I’ll sit.” Shirakumo and Yamada shared a glance and took up positions on either side of Shouta as they started walking down the wide trail towards the main camp. Shouta glowered a little at the overprotective measure, but at least it allowed him to make sure that Yamada was staying with them instead of falling behind.

~*~

Hizashi couldn’t hide his relief when the nurse announced that he’d only burst one of Aizawa’s eardrums, and that his concussion - which he almost definitely had - seemed very mild.

“We’re going to need you to sleep in here tonight, though, to keep an eye on you,” the nurse told a frowning Aizawa.

“Can- my friends stay here too?” he asked, and Hizashi raised his eyebrows. Mr. People Are Exhausting And I Want To Take A Nap In Peace? Asking for company?

“I’m afraid I don’t have a lot of space, but,” she glanced between Shirakumo and Hizashi, “If you want, one of them could stay.”

“Yamada,” Shouta immediately replied, and Hizashi blinked in surprise.

“Are you sure-?” Hizashi started to ask, but Shirakumo immediately chimed in with his agreement.

“That’s a great idea, Shouta! I’ll go run and get both of your stuff from the cabin, I’ll be right back!”

Shortly after Shirakumo returned, Nishibori stopped by to make sure things were ok. He seemed less worried now that Aizawa’s ear had been cleaned of blood. “I’ll let Recovery Girl know to be ready for you when we get back. You’ll have to sit out the last day of training tomorrow, but she should be able to get you back to normal right away.” Aizawa nodded his understanding, very slowly. “How are you, Yamada? We heard you shout. What happened?” Sensei asked, turning his attention to Hizashi.

“I’m fine, Sensei,” Hizashi mumbled, his gut churning. Aizawa and Shirakumo both shot him a look, but didn’t say anything. Nishibori stood there, arms crossed, clearly not willing to leave it at that. Sensei wasn’t stupid, he had to know Aizawa’s injuries were Hizashi’s fault. It would be a miracle if everyone didn’t know.

He had to make sure nothing like this ever happened again.

Hizashi sighed, mouth twisting into a frown as he studied the pattern of the floor in front of his toes. Finally, reluctantly, he spoke. “I… there was a mukade on my leg. Aizawa was trying to help, but I freaked out. I- I really don’t like bugs.”

Sensei tipped his head to the side, giving a thoughtful hum as he looked at Hizashi. “Sounds like something you should try and work on.” Nishibori didn’t sound angry, but it also didn’t sound like a suggestion.

Hizashi ducked his head. “I won’t be able to be a very good hero if I can be defeated by a mukade,” he admitted.

“It would certainly make things a lot more difficult,” Sensei said with a wry smile. “Come see me tomorrow morning. You’re going to have a very different last day of training.”

“Yes, Sensei,” Hizashi said, suddenly feeling too tired to be upset about the situation.

“Come on, Shirakumo. Let’s let them get some rest. You look like you could use some too.”

“Yes, Sensei,” Shirakumo said, and he really did sound tired. “I’ll see you guys in the morning.” Hizashi fiddled with the collar of his t-shirt, pulling it up over his mouth. It was all his fault that his friends were having such a shitty trip.

The nurse shuffled Aizawa and Hizashi over to get settled on some cots in a quiet corner of her office. In minutes, the exhaustion of the whole day was pulling them down towards sleep.

“You don’t need to bundle up in your sleeping bag tonight,” Aizawa mumbled drowsily. “This building is much better sealed than the cabins.” Hizashi froze, staring at his friend in the dim lighting. “You’ll feel better after you get some sleep.”

Warmth spread through Hizashi, coloring his face and filling his chest. Aizawa had asked for him to sleep in here because he knew that Hizashi would be able to rest better without the suffocating heat and fear hanging over him.

Part of him was angry at being treated like a baby, and at the fact that Aizawa believed he was so pathetic… but the bigger part of him was grateful, because he was that pathetic.

A small smile flickered across his face, and for the first time since everything had gone to shit, it was a genuine one. It stayed there as he drifted off to sleep.

*

Hizashi woke up feeling better than he had in days. His eyes focused as best they could without his glasses or contacts on Aizawa, breathing deep and even, on the cot next to him.

Aizawa was ok. Hizashi took a deep breath of his own, then stood and quietly padded over to the nurse, who seemed very tired herself.

“He’s ok, right?” Hizashi asked, eyes darting over to Aizawa, needing confirmation from someone who knew this stuff better than he did. The nurse gave him a kind smile and nodded.

“He’s going to be fine, he just needs to rest. It’s almost breakfast time, why don’t you get dressed and join your classmates. Your friend is probably going to be taking it easy in here most of the day.” Hizashi nodded and grabbed his stuff to bring it back to the cabin and get ready.

Throughout the morning, students from both Class A and B came up to him, asking what had happened last night. He mostly just said that there’d been an accident and tried to leave it at that.

He’d let Aizawa tell the story however he saw fit when he was feeling better.

Shirakumo and Iida stuck close to him until breakfast was over, then they were sent off with everyone else to do their own training. Shirakumo gave him a bright smile and a thumbs-up. Hizashi wished he had the kind of faith in himself that his friend seemed to have.

Hizashi went to Nishibori-Sensei, stomach twisting with nerves, to see what he had in mind for Hizashi. He did want to do something to try and control this fear, but it felt impossible.

Sensei led him outside, to a small clearing behind the main building. “Besides Aizawa and Shirakumo, does anyone else know about your problem with bugs?”

Hizashi shook his head. “Just you,” he mumbled.

Sensei nodded. “That’s what I thought. Ok, wait right here.” He turned around and walked back into the building through a side door. Hizashi’s nerves ramped up as he stood there, knowing that whatever Sensei had in store, he was prrrooobably not gonna like it.

A few minutes later, the door opened again and Nishibori came back out… followed by Aizawa. “You two are training partners today.” Nishibori said it so casually, and Hizashi’s stomach dropped, along with his jaw. Sensei had to be joking. Aizawa needed to rest! Far away from Hizashi! But Nishibori put a hand on each of their shoulders and guided them over to a cardboard box in the middle of the clearing.

Nishibori turned to look at Aizawa. “You sure that you’re feeling up to this?” he asked. Aizawa nodded. Hizashi wanted to tell them both that he wasn’t feeling up to this; but his mouth was suddenly too dry to speak, his voice erased as thoroughly as if Aizawa was using his Quirk. Sensei opened the box, and Hizashi could see it was full of glass jars. He had a very bad feeling about what was inside those jars.

“Sensei, I don’t think Aizawa should be here,” Hizashi croaked, forcing the words out. “What if I- what if I freak out again?”

“You won’t,” Aizawa said.

“But what if I do?” Hizashi insisted. “You shouldn't use your Quirk until you see Recovery Girl-”

“You’ll do fine, Yamada,” Sensei said. “If Aizawa needs to use his Quirk for a moment or two, it shouldn’t harm him at all. But I don’t think he’ll need to.” Sensei turned to Aizawa. “Remember what I told you. Go at his pace, don’t force it.” With that, Sensei turned and left them to it.

“Aizawa,” Hizashi tried one last time, trying desperately to ignore the gentle tinkling, clicking, and buzzing sounds coming from the jars in the box, “I really think you should just go back in and rest, you shouldn’t be here with me in case-”

“You’re not gonna hurt me,” Aizawa said plainly, crouching down to peek in the box.

“You can’t know that!” How the hell could Aizawa be so calm about this?

“Yes I can.” He reached into the box and pulled out a jar that held a few long black beetles with red heads, milling around on a small bunch of leaves. Hizashi shuddered and cringed away, but reminded himself what he was here to do. He looked at Aizawa and thought about the consequences of not getting this under control.

The two of them sat down on the ground and got to work.

Aizawa held on to the jar of beetles, which were way smaller than the one Hizashi had ignored in the showers the other day. Aizawa looked down at the jar, turning it over in his hands, but didn’t move it any closer to Hizashi.

‘Go at his pace,’ Sensei had said. Hizashi grit his teeth and thrust his hand out, silently telling Aizawa to hand the jar over.

He took it in shaking hands while Aizawa sat calmly in front of him, unbothered by both the bugs and by Hizashi’s fraying nerves. Hizashi watched the creatures moving, crawling along the leaves. He held his breath and moved the glass closer to his face, his whole body screaming in protest.

The beetles ignored him, continuing to nibble on their leaves. Their movements were unnerving, and Hizashi definitely did not enjoy having them so close, but…

But nothing bad happened. He moved the jar away from his face, hands still shaking… but not feeling that overwhelming fear that threatened to make him lose control.

Then again, these were pretty small bugs. He handed the jar back to Aizawa, who put it aside and pulled out the next jar.

They went through the process again, with a decently sized stag beetle. Then again with some kind of colorful moth that fluttered around every time the jar jostled. Then again with a dark, shiny millipede and its army of undulating legs.

Over and over, Hizashi took his time with each one. His hands shook and he felt himself sweating from more than just the heat of the day; but he was determined.

And the thing was, he could feel it working. Sure, the millipede was disgusting and he didn’t want it near him; but he didn’t feel like he needed to throw the jar across the clearing.

Sometimes, Aizawa would offer him a jar that he’d already done. Hizashi had glowered about it at first, until he realized that each time he took back a jar with a ‘familiar’ bug, it was less terrible than it had been the time before.

They took breaks for lunch, and just to rest a few times, to let Aizawa get out of the sun and Hizashi’s nerves settle.

Hizashi noticed that, as the hours wore on, the angle of the sun's rays was shifting more to be in Aizawa’s face. Biting his lip, he held out his shades for Aizawa to use. Aizawa gave him a curious look, and Hizashi felt his ears heat up. After what seemed like forever, Aizawa finally took them and slid them on.

It was the rational thing to do. After all, bright sunlight wasn’t good for concussions.

So what if Hizashi thought Aizawa looked good with them on?

His heart was pounding because he was surrounded by jars of bugs, but he could keep his cool.

Aizawa handed him back the moth, fluttering around in its jar. Hizashi felt as if something similar was fluttering around inside him too.

He took a deep breath, and he felt a little steadier. Without his shades on, he could get the jars closer to his face. He kept at it.

It was getting late in the afternoon when Aizawa pulled out one of the last jars in the box, the one that Hizashi had known in his gut had to be coming. The mukade inside scrabbled against the walls of its glass prison, and Hizashi watched it as Aizawa held it in front of himself, never passing a jar to Hizashi before it was requested. This time, though, Aizawa looked down at the jar in his hand and, after a moment, raised it towards his own face, peering in at the creature.

“I’ve never really had a chance to look at one up close,” he said. “It’s always best to sweep them away or kill them as quickly as possible, don’t want to risk getting bitten.” Hizashi watched Aizawa’s throat bob as he swallowed, and he suddenly understood that holding that jar was even unnerving for his friend too.

Some things were just scary.

Hizashi took a breath and held out a shaky hand. “Give it here,” he said. Aizawa didn’t hesitate, showing no sign of fear or doubt about whether Hizashi could handle this. Hizashi could feel the creature in the jar moving, shifting its weight around as it searched for an escape. He could hear the gentle tinkling of its legs tapping on the glass, moving its hard body around. He swallowed and handed the jar back to Aizawa. “Put this one to the side. I’m not done with it yet.” Aizawa complied with a nod. They both stared at the centipede crawling around in the jar for a moment before turning their attention back to the few remaining ones still in the box.

Aizawa reached in and pulled out a jar with a huntsman spider in it. He cocked his head as he looked at it. “Reminds me of Yakumo,” he said.

“Yeah, the resemblance is creepy,” Hizashi muttered as he eyed the spider. Aizawa looked at him, frowning.

“Is that why you don’t like Yakumo?”

“Huh? No, I don’t like him cuz he acts like a jerk, especially to you,” Hizashi said. He kicked himself, remembering the way Aizawa had been called creepy and treated like crap because of his Quirk. “The spider thing doesn’t help,” he admitted, “But if he wasn’t so quick to be rude, I’d be fine with him.” At least, Hizashi was pretty sure that was true. Yakumo was spidery, but he was a person.

“People think spiders are creepy,” Aizawa muttered, more to himself than to Hizashi, or so it seemed.

“They are creepy. Too many legs, too many eyes, the way they move,” Hizashi shuddered, but it was more of an exaggeration than a real reaction to the creature in the jar. He held out his hand and Aizawa passed it over to him. After hours of examining the various bugs and creatures that Sensei must have collected for him overnight, it felt almost easy to bring the jar close to his face and inspect the spider inside. The tinkling sounds from the mukade off to the side distracted him, though.

“Hand me the stupid centipede back,” Hizashi grumbled, offering the spider jar to Aizawa and taking the mukade one in return. He stared at the thing, colored to warn of how dangerous it was, thick armor to protect it… he still hated it. Still wanted nothing to do with it, still felt himself shake as he took the jar and rested it on his knee, close to where its brethren had stood on his leg last night. He could still feel the phantom weight of it there, the prickle of movement.

He took a deep breath, then another. The pounding of his heart slowed, his shaking eased slightly. He looked down at the centipede in the jar, and he hated the thing… but, he imagined being back in the tree again. He imagined seeing the mukade on his leg. He thought about what Aizawa had done, a swift flick that sent the centipede flying. He imagined doing that himself.

The thought was… tolerable.

He thought about wearing thick soled boots and maybe crushing one beneath his heel, and though it made his skin crawl, it was tolerable. He looked at the bugs in their jars in the early evening light, and he felt… good. Not about them, but about himself.

“It’s almost dinner time,” Aizawa said. “We should finish up with them soon.” Hizashi nodded, and before Aizawa could say it, he knew what he needed to do.

“I gotta let them out, don’t I?” he asked.

Aizawa shrugged. “You don’t have to. I can do it, if you prefer.”

“No, this is part of it. I can do it.” Hizashi put down the mukade in its jar and picked up the moth. “Gonna start small, though,” he said with a weak smirk. It would be fine, moths weren’t that bad. He unscrewed the cap, holding the jar well away from his face. The moth was still for a moment, so Hizashi gently jostled the jar, and immediately the moth fluttered out the opening and off into the trees.

He took a breath and picked up a few jars and walked to the tree line, not wanting to release the crawley things right where he was sitting. That was a line he was not ready to cross now, and probably not ever.

His hands didn’t shake as he tapped the jar to get the millipede out. Even the stag beetle, as big as it was, didn’t elicit more than a slight uptick in his pulse as he released it. Jar after jar, he let the assorted bugs go.

When he was down to the huntsman and the mukade, he paused. He thought through how he could do this, what he could handle. He put the jar with the spider down at the edge of the clearing, unscrewed the cap, and backed away.

The spider sat there in the bottom of the jar.

Hizashi huffed, and slowly approached the jar, reaching out to nudge it with the toe of his shoe, knocking it over to face the trees. Startled into action, the spider edged towards the opening. Realizing freedom was before it, it took off into the underbrush. Hizashi sighed with relief and put the cap back on the jar.

One left.

He took a breath and turned to the mukade. He could do this. He felt Aizawa’s eyes on him from back where he was sitting. Like with the huntsman, Hizashi put the jar on the ground. His hand only shook a little as he unscrewed the cap and lifted it away. He didn’t wait, tipping the jar over towards the woods and backing away in a flash. Before he could blink, the mukade had made its escape, scuttling into the lengthening shadows.

“Let’s go wash up for dinner,” Aizawa said, leading the way back inside carrying the cardboard box.

In the dining hall, they found Shirakumo looking tired but cheerful.

“Hey guys!” he called, waving them over. “What’ve you two been up to all day?” Hizashi glanced around; nobody seemed to be paying much attention, so he quietly filled Shirakumo in. “Woah, you’ve made that much progress in one day? That’s amazing!”

“What about you?” Hizashi asked, preferring to change the subject.

Shirakumo grinned broadly. “I realized last night I’d been overlooking a key part of my Quirk that I need to work on. I’ve spent all day working on increasing the load I can safely carry.” His eyes gleamed with determination. “I almost left you behind last night. That was my mistake; but it made me realize, what if I come across three or four injured people who need to be evacuated from a scene? Or even more? I’m gonna make sure I never have to leave anybody behind at all.”

Something of Oboro’s self-assuredness must have been contagious, because a warm sense of confidence settled inside Hizashi. Of course they would all get strong enough to overcome their limitations. It wouldn’t be easy, but they could do it. They were UA hero students, after all!

They ate their dinner and spoke with a few people who came over to say hi. Ebisui came over from her spot with Nakano and Shimada and sat across from Hizashi for a while, her lavender eyes meeting his every so often as they all chatted. She’d been one of the people who had asked him this morning about the accident in the woods. Unlike some of the others, who Hizashi could tell were just looking for gossip, Ebisui had actually seemed genuinely concerned that everyone was ok.

It was a little strange that she still seemed to be casting worried glances at Hizashi, though. He was fine, Aizawa had been the one to get hurt.

After dinner, everyone went back to their cabins to start packing up. They had to hike back to the buses in the morning, and nobody wanted to be scrambling to find their underwear when it was time to leave. Aizawa was going to be allowed to sleep in the cabin with them tonight too, which was a relief, since it meant the nurse didn’t think his condition was concerning. Hizashi hadn't realized how much the thought of that had still been weighing on him until it lifted.

It was starting to get dark outside when Aizawa grabbed him and Shirakumo and told them to come with him. Hizashi was worried for a moment, but Aizawa seemed fine, so it was probably nothing bad. He led them to the clearing behind the dining hall again, where they’d spent most of their day, then pulled a glass jar out of his sweatshirt pocket.

It was the first jar from this morning, with the long black beetles with red heads. Hizashi hadn’t even realized he’d missed one during operation ‘Free Buggy.’

“Lightning bugs!” Shirakumo said excitedly, peering in the jar.

“Those are lighting bugs?” Hizashi asked. He’d seen the glowing lights bobbing around on lazy summer nights plenty of times, but he’d always kept his distance and admired them from afar. He looked at the beetles again, trying to reconcile those magical floating lights with these… well, bugs.

“They’re harmless,” Aizawa said, unscrewing the cap of the jar, taking a step back from Hizashi as he did so. He gingerly reached into the jar and got one of the bugs onto his finger, withdrawing it and offering it to Shirakumo, who eagerly accepted it. Hizashi watched, slightly queasy, as the beetle moved smoothly across Shirakumo’s hand, crawling this way and that as Shirakumo turned his hand over to keep the creature in sight.

“They’re probably a little sluggish, since they’ve been trapped all day,” Aizawa added as he took another beetle out, putting the jar down on the ground and resting the lid lightly on top. “You don’t have to do this, but it would be a good next step.”

“It tickles,” Shirakumo said, moving his other hand to catch the bug before it crawled up his arm.

Hizashi narrowed his eyes, glaring at the little black bugs that wandered so blithely across his friend’s skin. He could do this. Plus Ultra.

He huffed a determined breath, and held out a shaking hand towards Aizawa. Wordlessly, Aizawa reached out and gently held the back of Hizashi’s hand in a warm grip, steadying it while he angled his wrist to steer the wandering beetle onto Hizashi’s palm.

It did tickle. Hizashi felt the instant urge to shake his hand and dispel the creature, but he forced himself to hold still. Well, relatively still, as he couldn’t stop the trembling once Aizawa moved his hands away. He glanced at Aizawa, who was pulling a third beetle out of the jar, a gentle smile on his face as the creature crawled over his thumb. Hizashi watched as Shirakumo and Aizawa used both hands to keep their bugs moving without crawling anywhere they didn’t want them to, and he did his best to copy them.

Neither of them made a snide comment about the way he shook. They just smiled at him, like they were all sharing a special moment together.

Maybe they were.

The lightning bug on Shirakumo’s hand started to spread its wings, and Hizashi almost startled back away; but Shirakumo just cupped his hand over the top of it to keep it from escaping for a little while longer.

“It does feel weird when they’re fluttering around in your hand,” Shirakumo said as he laughed at the sensation. He lifted his hand away to show that the beetle had landed on his palm. He cupped his hands together as it seemed like the beetle was getting ready to take off again, holding it gently for a few more moments before he conceded to the inevitable. He opened his hands, releasing the bug, which flew off in a slow, hovering track away from them.

The beetle on Hizashi flared its wings, and panic fluttered in his chest; but he made himself stay steady as he cupped his hand over it as Shirakumo had. He felt the bug bumping around in his grasp, tapping against his hands as it tried to fly away. When he felt it land, he opened his hand and watched as it moved on tiny, delicate feet across his finger.

It flared its wings again, and this time, Hizashi let it go. As it floated away, it lit up with a brilliant yellow-green glow, not nearly as visible in the fading evening light as it would be once night fell. He looked over to see his friends smiling at him, and he realized that he was smiling too.

Chapter Text

Shouta woke to early morning sunlight streaming into the cabin and found Yamada already showered and dressed and finishing up with the last of his packing.

“How did you sleep?” Shouta asked quietly. Yamada hadn’t bundled himself into his sleeping bag last night, instead laying on top of it like Shouta and most of the others did.

“Not as good as I did in the nurses’ office,” Yamada admitted, “But a hell of a lot better than I did every other night here.” He paused, then added, “Thanks.”

Shouta nodded and hummed in acknowledgement, though he didn’t think he’d done anything that required thanks. Yamada smiled at him, then glanced around at the rest of their sleeping cabin mates, a mischievous glint sparking in his eyes. Shouta felt a wicked, toothy smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as Yamada tossed him his noise-canceling headphones. Once Shouta had them on, he gave Yamada a thumbs-up.

“Goooood morning, happy campers!” Yamada bellowed, loud enough that the next cabin over probably woke up too, even without using his Quirk. “Time to rise and shine so we can finally head back to the comforts of civilization!” Shirakumo groaned, throwing his pillow at Yamada. Yamada laughed and threw it right back.

After a brief breakfast, they got ready for the trek back through the woods.

“Hey, Shouta, gimme your pack,” Shirakumo said, holding on to one of the straps. Shouta tried to pull away from him, but Shirakumo refused to let go.

“I don’t need help,” Shouta grumbled. Sure, his head still hurt, but the nurse had given him some medicine, and he was feeling ok.

“It’s a long way to the bus, so either I carry your pack or I carry you and your pack!” A big, fluffy cloud formed next to Shouta. Shirakumo grinned at him, and it was all teeth.

Shouta huffed and put his bag on the cloud.

“Ok you two, get over here!” Shirakumo said, taking out his phone. Shouta was confused for a moment - they still didn’t have signal, after all - until Shirakumo opened the camera and pulled Shouta and Yamada in close so he could snap a selfie, Shouta squashed between his friends. “Documenting our survival!”

“We’re not actually out of the woods yet,” Yamada pointed out with a snicker, “And Aizawa’s lookin’ like he might wanna kill you right now.”

“Ok, documenting our experience, then!” Shirakumo corrected himself, still grinning broadly.

An hour into the hike, as much as he hated to admit it, Shouta was feeling the exertion. He knew that if he’d been carrying the extra weight of his pack all this time, he probably would have had to stop a while back. As it was, he was walking far more slowly than he should be able to move.

Yamada and Shirakumo were keeping pace on either side of him, and Shouta hated that they were slowing themselves down for him. Then again, he figured that Yamada must still be pretty tired after not sleeping well most of the week, so maybe his slow pace wasn’t entirely because of Shouta. In fact, Yamada wasn’t even talking very much, though Shirakumo kept up a pretty constant level of chatter all by himself.

Shouta wasn’t sure why more than half the class was still behind them on the trail, though. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that Nakano, Ebisui, and Shimada were lagging a ways behind them, moving at a leisurely pace, with several more groups barely visible farther back.

Maybe everyone was just enjoying the walk through the woods?

Shirakumo saw Shouta looking back and followed his gaze.

“Man, never thought I’d see Ebisui actually tired out. Even Shimada’s tail is drooping.”

Shouta blinked and looked again. Sure enough, Shimada’s long black tail, normally up and alert, was swinging low, just above the dirt. Ebisui was dragging her toes as she scuffed along.

Huh.

He looked ahead and kept putting one foot in front of the other. His toes started to scuff in the dirt too.

He felt a soft, cool presence behind him, and he didn’t bother turning his head to look at Shirakumo. “I’m not sitting, cut it out.”

“Just keeping it there in case you fall over!” Shirakumo said brightly.

Shouta grunted his displeasure and drifted slightly to his left, away from Shirakumo. The stupid cloud followed him. Shouta moved further left, until he was walking so close to Yamada that their hands kept brushing past each other. Yamada glanced over at Shouta, drawing a quick breath, but didn’t say anything. Now that Shouta was closer, he could see Yamada’s face was flushed; he hoped Yamada wasn’t over exerting himself.

They made it back to the buses, where Shouta promptly slouched into a seat and fell asleep.

Back at UA, Shirakumo and Yamada followed Shouta to Recovery Girl’s office, even though he tried to wave them off. The nurse gave him a quick check, tutting at him and glancing at Yamada, who looked abashed. After a quick kiss on the forehead, the world recalibrated itself, his right ear popped, and suddenly he could hear things clearly again.

“You boys need to keep yourselves in one piece at least till the term starts again,” she said, handing Yamada and Shirakumo each a bit of candy. “Especially you, Aizawa. We’re only one semester into your first year, and you’re already shaping up to be quite a problem child for me,” she added, pulling out a new bag of salty licorice to give a piece to Shouta. He huffed a little bit - it had been weeks since he’d been to see her for a broken finger, and he’d started building up enough calluses that he didn’t get as many blisters from the binding cloth anymore.

Recovery Girl narrowed her eyes at him, and shoved the piece of licorice up towards his nose. The smile she gave him was more threat than reassurance, so he took the piece of candy and scurried out of the infirmary with a quick bow and mumbled thanks.

The rest of summer break passed in a blur. Shouta was frustrated that Nishibori wouldn’t let him practice with his capture weapon, so he focused on strength and agility. He worked with Ms. Emoto a lot, since he had to build his savings back up after buying the things he’d needed for camping; and he found himself spending time with Yamada and Shirakumo at least once or twice a week. His parents even managed to convince Shouta to have both of them over to the apartment again.

It all felt… surprisingly comfortable.

When classes started up, Shouta fell easily back into routine: studying, training, practicing with his binding cloth. He hoped that Sensei would lift the requirement that he have someone there for ‘safety’ soon… but he realized he wouldn’t mind if his friends continued to join him.

They ate lunch up on the rooftop pretty much every day now, unless it was raining. Even as the weather cooled and September gave way to October, and October through to November. Sometimes they wore their jackets when the wind blew a little too cold, but there was something special about being up there. Something Shouta didn’t want to surrender to the inevitability of winter, and he was glad his friends seemed to agree. Shirakumo most of all was reluctant to skip a day on the roof. Shouta wondered if he liked being closer to the clouds.

It was an unseasonably warm day for the beginning of November, no jackets needed, even on the rooftop. Shouta was dozing off as he leaned back against the sun-warm wall behind him; but he was awake enough to hear his friends talking.

“It’s kinda amazing how he can just nap anytime, anywhere,” Shirakumo observed.

“It’s like pushing the button to go into power-saver mode,” Yamada agreed. “Yo, Power-Saver Shou! Come on, you gotta wake up and help us plan your birthday party, or we’re gonna do it all ourselves!”

Shouta ignored them, wanting no part of anything party-related - or birthday-related for that matter, pretending to sleep until he did actually doze off for the rest of lunch break.

It was Yamada’s shout of, “Oh my god, how did we not think of that before!” that jolted Shouta awake.

“What?” Shouta asked, looking around with bleary eyes. When he finally was able to focus on his friends, they were both grinning at him.

“Nope, it’s gonna be a surprise, since you wanted to sleep through the plans!” Shirakumo laughed. Shouta frowned at them for a moment, then shrugged. It didn’t matter anyway.

Over the next few days, Yamada and Shirakumo became increasingly ridiculous, with exaggerated shows of clandestinely talking to each other about their ‘top secret plans.’

“Psssst! Hey, Shirakumo, I did the thing,” Yamada whispered as loudly as he could. Shouta kept his head down on his desk, pillowed on his crossed arms.

“Which thing?” Shirakumo whispered back.

“I texted the contact. Everything is a go.”

Shouta ignored them.

“Wow, she got back to you really fast!” Shirakumo said.

“She’s a fan of the plan,” Yamada said, and Shouta could hear the grin in his voice.

“Who else are you dragging into this?” Shouta grumbled, more to his desk than to his friends.

“As if I’d ever need to drag anyone into one of my brilliant plans,” Yamada said, “I’m just… coordinating things!”

Coordinating? Who else would already be involved with Shouta’s birthday-

Oh no.

With a sudden surge of… not dread, but something close to it, he tipped his head slightly to glare at Yamada. “Are you texting my mother?”

Yamada’s smile didn’t waver in the slightest. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Aizawa!”

He huffed at Yamada, but it was fine. He knew the simplest way to get his answer. At home that evening, Shouta approached his mom.

“Have my friends been texting you?”

“Yes, I spoke with Yamada earlier today,” she said as she finished packing up the leftovers from dinner.

He couldn’t fully contain the tiny smirk of victory that tugged at the corner of his mouth. “What are they up to?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you,” she said, and Shouta was stunned for a moment. His mom was always so honest about everything! “They’re quite clear they want to keep it a surprise,” she added, and Shouta frowned as he realized that this was his mother being honest with him.

He huffed, knowing that there was no point pressing her, so he shuffled back to his room to finish his homework.

On Friday, Shouta couldn’t help feeling a little apprehensive as he walked up to the classroom. It was his birthday, and he had no idea what his friends had planned. Knowing them, it was going to be loud and obnoxious. Visions of people yelling, noise-makers, and stupid hats had haunted him with each step down the hallway, since Yamada had organized precisely that kind of chaos for Kobayashi’s birthday back in September.

He took a breath, bracing himself as he stepped into the classroom… and nothing happened. He saw Shirakumo and Yamada both sitting at their desks. Shirakumo grinned and waved to greet him; but the ambient chatter from his classmates continued in an unbroken buzz.

He was relieved… and a tiny, irrational piece of him was somehow also disappointed. Not because he wanted everyone singing at him; in fact, he might have turned around and walked out of the room if that had happened. But, after all that build up, he couldn’t help that he’d expected something.

It was ridiculous. He wanted to be able to go through life under the radar, and he hated the spotlight. How stupid was it that part of him would rather have been made to feel uncomfortable than to be unacknowledged?

He looked up as he started walking down the row towards his seat to see Shirakumo and Yamada both aiming dazzling smiles at him, and his disappointment faded away. He relaxed a little, and he glanced at his own desk between them… where what looked like more than a dozen pieces of origami were arranged. He paused midway down the row, staring at the colorful paper figures.

Something soft brushed against the back of his hand, and his head turned to see that he’d stalled next to Shimada’s desk. Her tail brushed against his hand again as it waved lazily in the air behind her.

“Happy birthday, Aizawa,” she said, a small smile on her feline face. He blinked in stunned silence at her until one of her ears flicked back, uncertainty flickering across her features.

“Uhm, thank you,” Shouta mumbled. He looked back up to see Yamada and Shirakumo still grinning broadly at him. Sliding slowly into his chair, he finally got a better look at the origami, and he could see now that they were all cats. He picked up one, turning it over gently in his hands. It was orange, and folded to look as though it was laying on its stomach. There was a white one that looked like it was getting ready to pounce. A black one that had the big ears and exaggerated silhouette of a Halloween cat arching its back. Another one that was clearly folded with white paper, but colored in with orange and black to give it calico markings.

“I did that one,” Nakano said, leaning over towards him and indicating the calico. “Happy birthday, Aizawa!”

“Thank you,” he said, dumbfounded.

“Me and Hizashi did most of them, with Shimada’s help,” Shirakumo said.

“But some of the others wanted to make one too,” Yamada added with a grin. “Happy birthday, man!”

“Happy birthday, Shouta,” Shirakumo said. “You can tell which ones Hizashi did, they’re the weirdest looking.”

“Hey, I’m not the one who had to give up and throw out seven whole sheets of paper!” Yamada countered.

“Practice makes perfect!” Shirakumo laughed. Shouta just stared at the little army of origami cats. He looked again at the calico, and saw Nakano had marked her name in a corner of the paper. Shimada’s name was marked on three of them (the three most elaborate and neatly done ones, he noticed). One was from Kobayashi, one from Hadachi, one from Katasugi, and one from Mushimori. That left eight that were unmarked, but he knew they were from Yamada and Shirakumo.

“Thank you,” Shouta said, nodding to each of them in turn.

“Our pleasure! Happy birthday!” Kobayashi said.

Sixteen cats. Sixteen cats for his sixteenth birthday. Shirakumo handed him an empty plastic snap-top container.

“Here, if you wanna put them in something, this will keep them safe.” Shouta took the bin and began carefully placing each piece of origami in. It was big enough that none of the paper was crushed or crumpled, and Shouta set it aside as Nishibori started class.

The rest of the day passed pretty normally, besides the occasional classmate wishing him a happy birthday. It was strange, but… tolerable. When the last bell rang, Shirakumo and Yamada followed Shouta to the gym, and it felt like any other day… except for his bag being a little bulkier with the presence of the container full of origami.

He was feeling good. His skills with his binding cloth had been improving pretty steadily over the past few weeks. He had even been able to make it respond to him without his Quirk activated here and there, but today he was able to go nearly five minutes at a time between activating his Quirk with the cloth staying almost alive in his hands.

On top of that, more and more it was as if the binding cloth knew what Shouta wanted it to do, even when he still only had a vague notion in his head. He was needing to be less specific in his mental commands, and still it did what he wanted it to.

Well, it tried to; but Shouta missing his throws wasn’t the cloth’s fault.

Because of course, he still missed a lot of throws, and he still tumbled to the mats when the strength in his arms and hands failed him; but that was something he would just have to keep working on.

“Would ya look at the time?” Shirakumo said, far louder than was necessary.

“Oh man, our hour in the gym is up, we’re gonna have to leave now!” Yamada added, dramatically putting his hands on his head, as if in shock at some terrible news.

Shouta checked the time, and sure enough, he needed to pack up if he was going to get to work on time. He got his things together while his friends hovered around him, both certainly knowing exactly how obvious they were being.

After a quick change of clothes in the locker room, Yamada and Shirakumo were still hovering around him, practically vibrating with excitement. Even looking at them was exhausting. “I don’t know what you two think you’re up to, but I have to go to work,” Shouta told them as he shouldered his bag and prepared to leave.

“That’s what you think!” Yamada declared.

“Change of plans!” Shirakumo said, hooking his arm around Shouta’s left arm while Yamada mirrored him on the right.

Shouta halfheartedly tried to shake them off, but they hung on stubbornly. “I can’t just not go, Ms. Emoto is expecting me.”

“Not anymore she isn’t!” Shirakumo cheered, and it took a moment for Shouta to piece things together.

“What- did you have my mom tell my boss that I wasn’t coming in?” Shouta snapped.

“Do you really think we could pressure your mom into anything?” Yamada scoffed, and Shouta glowered as he internally conceded the point. “I told you, our contact is a big fan of our plan! I spoke with her and she volunteered to make sure you had your afternoon clear.”

“Cheer up, you’re gonna like this. Come on, birthday boy!” Shirakumo laughed, tugging Shouta along out the main gates and towards the train station.

Shouta sighed and let himself succumb to the inevitable. “Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise!” Shirakumo reminded him.

“I don’t want to be surprised,” Shouta grumbled.

“Then next time, stay awake when we’re planning.” Yamada teased. The two of them tugged Shouta along, though his feet followed willingly enough. A short train ride later, they disembarked and his friends led the way through the bustling streets not too far from Yamada’s neighborhood.

“Here we are!” Shirakumo announced.

Shouta looked up at the sign above the door. “Catpurrccinos?” Yamada pushed the door open, leading into a small vestibule with another door at the far end. When they got to the interior door, Shirakumo opened it and bade Shouta to enter with a sweep of his arm. Shouta took a few tentative steps inside, aware of Shirakumo and Yamada entering behind him and closing the door.

There were chairs and couches scattered throughout the space, with low tables in front of or next to most of them. It was warm. It smelled of coffee.

And there were cats everywhere.

“When we told your mom our idea,” Yamada said, filling the stunned silence as Shouta processed what he was seeing, “She said that you were really bummed when they told you that you couldn’t have a cat in the apartment. She also said that you’ve never been to a place like this before.”

Shouta walked into the space, vaguely aware of Shirakumo going over to talk to the employee at the counter near the entrance; but his attention was entirely on the tortoiseshell cat lazing on the arm of the sofa nearest him. She blinked up at him with dark amber eyes as he stretched out his fingers towards her. She tipped her head to let him scratch gently under her chin, purring loudly. A soft weight pressed against his shin, and he looked down to see a brown tabby rubbing up against his leg.

He fed the strays around Ms. Emoto’s shop when he could, but they were all feral creatures who only ever let him get close enough to cautiously sniff at an outstretched hand before running to hide in the shadows. This was something else entirely.

“We get to hang out here for two hours,” Shirakumo said, dropping a hand onto Shouta’s shoulder and giving a gentle squeeze.

“We can get some snacks too,” Yamada added. Shouta carefully put his bag down as he sat on the squashy couch, the brown tabby immediately jumping up and walking across his lap. He scratched the top of its head, fur soft against his fingertips, and it pushed up into his hand, as if asking for more.

Shirakumo leaned close to Yamada to stage-whisper, “I think he likes it.” Yamada giggled, a high noise in the back of his throat that had Shouta blinking over at them for a moment. A warm feeling swirled in his chest, and his mouth opened for a moment, then closed again.

“I’ll go get some drinks,” Yamada said while Shirakumo sat down next to Shouta, careful not to disturb the tabby who was pacing back and forth across Shouta’s lap. Shouta looked around again, spying at least a dozen more cats while he petted the tabby, who was now traversing both his lap and Shirakumo’s, back and forth.

“It’s like they know it’s your birthday,” Yamada said as he came over with three cups of tea on a tray. A big orange cat had jumped onto the back of the sofa and was sniffing at Shouta’s hair. “Or you’re just the cat whisperer.” He put the drinks down on the table in front of the sofa and sat next to Shirakumo.

“Thank you,” Shouta murmured, finally realizing he hadn’t actually said anything since they’d stepped inside.

“You’re a tough guy to figure out a birthday gift for,” Yamada teased.

“Wait, how much does this cost?” Shouta asked, snapping out of his catatonic state.

“Uh-uh, it’s your birthday gift, you don’t get to worry about that!” Shirakumo told him. Shouta glowered, but then the tortoiseshell next to him reached out a gentle paw and tapped his arm, a queen demanding her due reverence, and he couldn’t help but soften.

The time slipped away quickly, especially after Yamada and Shirakumo found the cat toys. It didn’t take long for each of them to have two or three eager hunters poised to pounce every time they flicked a lure.

Yamada started putting on a lion-tamer act with the big orange cat, flicking the long tail of the toy up in the air, enticing the cat to leap up. There were a few cat trees around the perimeter of the room, and Yamada had the big cat running up the side of them and leaping off towards the lure.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Yamada said, slipping into the role of ringmaster as well, “Direct your attention to the fabulous feats of extraordinary strength and agility that this mighty beast can perform!”

Once more, Yamada swung the toy, enticing the cat to charge up the tree; but this time, as the cat turned to leap, Yamada must have angled the lure so that instead of jumping into the open space of the floor, the cat was aimed directly at him.

Shouta watched, as if in slow motion.

The cat sailed towards Hizashi, paws outstretched. Recognition of what was about to happen dawned on Hizashi’s face as he dropped the toy and lifted his arms. In the moment of impact, paws landed against Hizashi’s chest while Hizashi’s arms caught the aerialist under his tail and held him close. Hizashi and the cat both froze, the cat's front paws still pressed to Hizashi’s chest so that the pair of them were looking at each other face to face in shock.

Shouta burst out laughing.

Oboro and Hizashi looked over at him while the orange cat jumped down from Hizashi’s arms. Oboro was grinning broadly, while Hizashi still looked stunned for a moment before a warm smile lifted the corners of his mouth. It seemed different from the usual smiles he wore, but Shouta was too busy laughing to give much thought to it.

He really liked this place.

*

Too soon, their time was up and the trio headed back to the train station and towards Shouta’s apartment. Shouta’s parents were waiting there for them with dinner and cake.

It was nice.

Shouta wasn’t sure if he’d ever stop feeling so surprised by things with his friends going well.

They hung out in Shouta’s room for a while, Hizashi and Oboro bantering back and forth while Shouta rolled his eyes at them, hiding his smirks. He pulled out his container of origami cats and set them up on his desk despite the good-natured teasing of his friends as he did so. He looked at the colorful collection (Mushimori had chosen to make a green cat, while Kobayashi’s was the same blue as her hair) and was suddenly overwhelmed by how much time and thought had gone into everything that they had arranged for today.

They had done all this for him. Even though Hizashi had to rearrange his own birthday plans in order to convince Shouta to come. Even though Shouta hadn’t done anything at all for Oboro. He swallowed around a sudden thickness in his throat.

Hizashi and Oboro deserved a friend who was able to do things for them in a way that Shouta knew he just wasn’t wired for. He resolved to try and do better, though he knew it would never measure up to what they did for him.

He couldn’t help but wonder why they had decided to befriend him, of all people.

He wasn’t questioning the authenticity of their friendship, not at this point. He just couldn't understand what drew this pair of loud, outgoing people to him when they both deserved so much better. He remembered asking Hizashi about it, that first time he’d come over; but ‘badass, smart, and funny,’ described a lot of their classmates (and Shouta still didn’t believe that they accurately described him). He couldn’t see anything he brought to the friendship that was any better than what Kobayashi or Nakano or Mushimori could offer to Hizashi and Oboro, so he was baffled.

The question sat at the back of his brain for the rest of the evening, turning over and over. When it was time for his friends to go, Shouta walked with them to the train station, and just before they got to the platform, it slipped out.

“Why me?” he asked, and both of them turned to look at him. “You could be friends with anyone. People like you, they want to be your friends. Why me?”

“Why not you!” Hizashi countered, sounding almost offended on Shouta’s behalf.

“Are you kidding?” Oboro asked. Shouta shook his head. Oboro blew out a breath and furrowed his brow, clearly trying to think of how to answer. “Ok, remember when we were picking out Hizashi’s birthday presents? There were lots of things that would have been fine, yeah?” Shouta nodded. “But you kept looking, until you found the thing that was just right. And when you saw it, you just knew that yep, this is it.”

“I also spent the rest of the day second guessing myself and thinking he’d hate it,” Shouta reminded him.

“That’s besides the point,” Oboro said with a wave of his hand. “The point is, I knew that you were just right, and that we were gonna be friends. That’s why I sat next to you; cuz I just knew.” Oboro glanced at Hizashi for a moment and gave him a sheepish smile. “I didn’t know Hizashi was gonna wanna be my friend, though,” he admitted.

“Wait, what? Why!” Now Hizashi sounded offended on his own behalf.

“Because you’re loud and funny and love the spotlight. I, too, am loud and funny, and not opposed to being the center of attention,” Oboro said, placing a hand over his heart, a proud but silly expression on his face. “I worried you might think I was trying to compete with you, to steal your spotlight. But you and Shouta were already friends, so-”

“We were?” Shouta asked, wondering exactly how long he’d been friends with his friends before he knew that they were friends. Oboro laughed while Hizashi crossed his arms with a huff. “Well, I didn’t know,” Shouta grumbled. He thought he’d kept them at arm’s length; but Shouta’s parents and Oboro both seemed to believe he had friends long before that afternoon on the rooftop.

“Just cuz you don’t know a thing doesn’t mean it’s not true!” Oboro chuckled, “Trust me, I’m an expert on not knowing things! Anyway, I just had to hope for the best! And I got the best!” he declared, hooking an arm around each of their necks, pulling them in close to himself.

As they walked up to the platform to wait for the next train, Oboro’s expression grew more thoughtful. “I really did get the best, ya know. I mean, not only are you guys a ton of fun, but you’re both so smart too. I can be a real airhead, but you both take so much time to help me study and actually understand the material. I’m strong and good with people, but I dunno if that’s enough to be a great hero all by myself. So having super strong, super smart friends is great, cuz then we can back each other up.”

“Heroes don’t have to be friends with the other heroes who back them up,” Shouta pointed out, uncomfortably aware of a warm feeling in his chest, needing to deflect some of the emotion of the moment away from himself.

“Of course not,” Oboro agreed, beaming at Hizashi and Shouta, “But it’s better that way.”

~*~

Autumn colors faded into the grays and browns of winter, but Hizashi’s life was looking brighter than it had in years. Yeah, his parents were still… whatever the hell they were; but he could talk to Shirakumo and Aizawa about it when things got too annoying, and the daily exertion of hero training helped him burn off a lot of his anger before it built up to the boiling point.

December came and went in a blur of studying and tests and training and one very entertaining snowball fight. He muddled through the holidays, thankful for being able to video chat with his friends. Shirakumo had gone away with his family to visit one of his aunts, and Aizawa was, like Hizashi himself, at home with his own parents when he wasn’t working; but they had been able to connect for at least a little while every day.

Hizashi kept up his physical training over the break, but it wasn’t nearly the same as the exercises they did during hero classes, and he felt himself getting antsy and irritable again. It’s not like the break was even very long - less than two weeks - but it was enough. He was glad when school started back up.

The three of them continued eating lunch on the rooftop most days. Even in the snow, Oboro would make clouds for them to sit on so they wouldn’t be soaking wet when they went back inside. The cold, dreary days of January slipped by. Hizashi did his webcast every week, he tutored his friends in English while Shouta helped them with math, and both of them helped Oboro with science.

At the beginning of February, Shouta was finally given permission to do his binding cloth training without a safety spotter for ‘routine exercises.’ Hizashi had seen how thrilled Shouta had been that Sensei recognized how much he’d improved, so he felt a little guilty that part of him was bummed at the news. He’d come to look forward to the time with Shouta and Oboro in the gym after school.

So when Shouta had immediately turned and quietly asked them if they would mind continuing to come, in case he wanted to try out some trickier moves and so he could practice catching moving targets, Hizashi had readily agreed. And after all, the more Hizashi got to run around and burn off his own energy, the better off he was.

So now, here they were, Hizashi and Oboro wearing their gym clothes just like Shouta, taking turns running around while Shouta tried to snare them with his capture weapon.

Shouta was unfairly agile, so it was a good thing that his binding cloth was such a tricky item to use. That was the only thing that gave Hizashi and Oboro any kind of chance of dodging him. Hizashi watched as Shouta darted across the firm rubber gym floor, looking to head Oboro off as he threw a length of the binding cloth to try and catch him. He missed, but the attempt was impressive. His movements were graceful; he made everything look easy as he pivoted and sprinted across the space. He threw another length of cloth, trying to loop around Oboro’s ankles to trip him up. Hizashi wasn’t sure if Shouta was still just a little too slow, or if predicting a living person’s moves while focusing on making the cloth do what he wanted was just that much more difficult.

After another ten minutes of chasing Oboro, Shouta finally succeeded in snaring him. The cloth only caught around one of his legs, but it was enough to send him tumbling to the ground.

“Oof!” Oboro grunted as his shoulder hit the floor. “Ok, I gotta catch my breath. Tag, you’re it, Hizashi.” Shouta gave the capture weapon a shake and it sprang back to its normal coils up around his neck and shoulders. Hizashi and Shouta each held out a hand to help Oboro up.

“Ready?” Shouta asked, face flushed with exertion, but not breathing too hard. Hizashi grinned, confident that Shouta would be huffing and puffing long before Hizashi was out of breath.

“Let’s get this party started!” Hizashi said, turning on his heel and taking off, knowing that Shouta wasn’t about to wait before springing into action. He ran, zigging and zagging around the space at random. He wasn’t nearly as nimble as Shouta, but as a flash of white shot through the air off to his left, he enjoyed the fact that, for this exercise, he didn’t need to be.

He ducked and rolled and dodged and darted around the gym, his bigger lung capacity keeping his endurance and speed from lagging. At one point, he pivoted and lunged back towards Shouta, causing his friend to side-step, eyes wide at the unexpected move. In a split second, though, Shouta’s eyes narrowed again, a wicked smirk on his face that Hizashi knew meant ‘challenge accepted.’ Hizashi could almost feel the breeze on his neck as the capture weapon came closer and closer to finding its mark with each attempt.

It happened in the blink of an eye. Hizashi planted his foot to pivot, turning to see where Shouta was before he committed to a new trajectory. He was still turning when the white cloth came out of nowhere, snapping into a tight spiral around his chest and upper arms. Then, another length of cloth reached out to grab him around both wrists, pulling them together in front of his stomach and wrapping tightly around them.

He stumbled, trying to get his feet under him when another length of cloth zipped out to wrap around his calves, pulling tight and pinning his legs together. Left with no way to stand or balance himself, gravity took over. Well, Shouta helped a little, as Hizashi felt a tug on the cloth binding his legs, pulling them out from under him, and he fell hard.

The way time seemed to slow down when he was falling had always been fascinating to Hizashi. He was aware of the sensation of it as he toppled backwards, a moment of almost-weightlessness, followed by the brutal impact of reality when the ground knocked the wind out of him.

Dazed and dizzied by the abrupt shift from ‘running around’ to ‘tied up on the ground,’ Hizashi needed a moment to try and make his lungs work again. As he blinked up, he saw Shouta standing over him.

Hizashi was reminded of the Sports Festival, that otherworldly look about Shouta, wild and powerful. This time, there was something proud and confident about him too, looking down at Hizashi. The conqueror grinning at the vanquished.

The binding around his chest held him tight, but Hizashi didn’t think that was why he suddenly had trouble catching his breath. His arms and legs pressed against his bonds, more out of reflex than anything else, but he was held fast. Helpless. Secure.

Sensation sparked through him, his eyes wide as he gawked up at Shouta. A sudden rush of heat and pressure converging on his crotch warned him that this was about to get very embarrassing very fast if he didn’t get himself under control… but all he could do was stare.

“I’d say you knocked him senseless,” Oboro’s voice cut through the haze in his brain, snapping him out of the daze he’d been in, “But that would imply that he had any sense to begin with.” Hizashi struggled to sit up, not wanting to keep lying flat if the situation in his pants was going to keep progressing. Unfortunately, the more he struggled in vain to free himself, the faster his body was redirecting blood flow where he did not want it.

“Shaddup and get me untied,” Hizashi grumbled while his friends snickered. “Your turn again, Cloud Boy.”

“Whatever you say, Mouth Man,” Oboro quipped back with a grin as Shouta disentangled Hizashi from the binding cloth with a few flicks of his wrist. Once free, Hizashi quickly went to sit against the wall and watch his friends… and to try and not freak out over whatever the hell had just happened there.

Cuz that had been… intense. Even now, just watching Shouta chase after Oboro, lithe and light-footed, prevented Hizashi from calming down, from being able to get his body to chill out in the spots he needed it to. He closed his eyes and focused on his breathing, hoping it would help. It took a minute, but eventually, it did.

He’d gotten boners in school before, of course. It was just something that came along with the equipment. In the beginning of the year, actually, it had been happening a lot more frequently, but it had tapered off. Come to think of it, the last time he remembered anything even close to this was that time he and Shouta had been sparring and Yakumo had come in, though he hadn’t had much time to really think about it that day. The day Hizashi had brought Shouta’s phone to his house and met his parents.

The day he’d really understood how lonely Shouta had been and how much he’d needed friends. How important it was that Hizashi not fuck things up.

Why did all his thoughts keep swirling around Shouta? Why did it make him think about that first time on the rooftop, and the way his heart had been breaking to hear Shouta trying to insist that he didn’t need or want friends - didn’t need or want Hizashi? The relief and joy when Shouta had wrapped his arm around Hizashi’s waist, hugging him and Oboro.

Hizashi knew that giddy excitement he felt when he made playlists for Shouta was always just a little different than when he made them for Kobayashi or Oboro; and it felt like it mattered more when Shouta enjoyed what Hizashi put together for him. The way Hizashi was always happy for any excuse to bump or nudge or throw an arm around Shouta - little touches that meant nothing and everything, somehow fundamentally different than when he wrestled with Oboro, or leapt on top of his bigger friend for a piggyback ride.

With Shouta, everything was the same, but different. More. Every smile or laugh he managed to draw out of Shouta had always felt precious. At first, he’d figured it was just because of how rare those expressions were from Shouta; but now…

Hizashi sucked in a breath as he registered the warmth blooming in his chest.

Shit.

He curled in on himself as an icy fist gripped his heart, leaching the warmth away.

It didn’t matter. None of it mattered.

Hizashi focused his eyes again on Shouta and Oboro dancing and dodging around the gym, and he let out a long, slow exhale.

Aizawa was one of his best friends. It was fine for Hizashi to get a little swept up in things from time to time, but that’s all it was. Just getting carried away in a moment. Nothing more.

Chapter Text

Never in his life had Shouta paid any attention to Valentine’s Day. He got the jist of it, of course, but it had no bearing on his own life. So when he came into class on Friday, February 14th, he was baffled to see a small box waiting on his desk. He glanced at Yamada and Shirakumo, wondering if they knew what it was, or if they had put it there; only to find each of them engrossed with a parcel of their own.

“What’s that?” Shouta asked, looking at the box in Shirakumo’s hands.

“Mayumi made some chocolates for me!” he replied, a wide grin lighting up his face, and Shouta couldn’t help but give him a small smile back. Nakano was nice, after all. He might not care about Valentine’s Day himself, but he could be glad Shirakumo had a nice girl to give him chocolates.

“I got chocolates from Ebisui!” Yamada announced, not loud enough for the whole class to hear, but certainly enough to convey his excitement. Shouta felt his smile fade a little as he turned it towards Yamada. He wasn’t sure why; Ebisui was just as nice as Nakano, even if she didn’t spend as much time hanging out with the three of them as Nakano did.

Shouta huffed, banishing the irrational comparisons from his mind, and looked at the small box on his own desk. There was a card tucked into the ribbon that held the box closed, so he slid it out and opened it.

Aizawa,

I hope this isn’t too forward, but I’ve admired you since the first day of school. I’ve appreciated your calm mind and energy, and respected your strength and tenacity in a fight. I made these for you with care, I hope you will accept them.

Shimada Sayaka

Shimada.

Shimada had given him Valentine's chocolates? She’d made them for him? That was a thing that girls did for boys they… liked.

He peeked inside the box, and couldn’t help but be impressed by the artistry. He thought about the meticulously folded origami cats that he still had up on his desk at home. Shimada had a lot of talent.

He looked up from the box and saw her partially turned in her seat. With her head tipped the way it was, she could probably see him out of the corner of her eye. Her ears were swiveled towards him. The whole effect made her seem almost… shy. As quiet as she was, Shimada wasn’t usually shy.

Could it be?

Shimada… liked him?

The thought of it was a little heady. The idea that someone, anyone, might actually be interested in him like that was… It was a lot of different things. It was nerve-racking, it was confusing, it was a little exciting… and most of all, it was a distraction.

Shouta knew he should shut it down right now. It was one thing for him to be friends with Hizashi and Oboro, but romance? A girlfriend? That was a ridiculous notion. There was no space for that when he needed to be focused on training.

But… Shimada was nice. He liked her, even though they didn’t speak much. She was quiet, like he was. There had been a few times when she’d just sat silently with him while everyone else was being chaotic around them, and it had been… nice.

What was he supposed to do about this? Some people assumed that because Shouta had a tendency to be bluntly honest, it somehow meant that he didn’t care about hurting others. That wasn’t true at all, though. He told people the truth because he cared. How could anyone hope to work on their weaknesses if they didn’t know what they were?

But this? He couldn’t just tell Shimada that he didn’t like her, that would be hurtful and untrue. Right?

He blinked at her, completely at a loss for what to do.

He was saved for the moment as Nishibori came in to begin Homeroom. He put the box of chocolates carefully aside and focused on his class work. He knew that, come lunchtime, he’d be able to talk this out with Hizashi and Oboro and figure it out.

Eventually, the bell for lunch rang, and Shouta started getting his stuff together.

“Hey, uhh, so I’m gonna go to the cafeteria today. I just need to talk with Ebisui about some stuff,” Hizashi said, rubbing the back of his neck, cheeks tinted pink. Shouta blinked in confusion, not really processing what he’d just heard.

“Okie dokie, see ya later!” Oboro said, giving him a cheerful wave and smile. “C’mon Shou,” he continued, throwing his arm around Shouta’s shoulders, “Let's go eat!” Shouta let Oboro lead him up to the roof in a daze, an uncomfortable pressure building in his chest as they climbed the stairs.

“So, what’re you gonna do about Shimada?” Oboro asked as he conjured some clouds for them to sit on. It wasn’t damp, but they provided some insulation against the cold surface of the roof.

“Yamada went to lunch with Ebisui,” Shouta said, still trying to make sense of it. He thought Oboro gave him an odd look, but then nodded.

“Yeah, I think he’s gonna be asking her on a Valentine’s date tonight.”

“But it’s Friday,” Shouta mumbled. “He puts out his webcast on Fridays.”

“It’s not like he’s doing most of them live, and he puts them out pretty late sometimes. He’s even had to delay till Saturday once or twice,” Oboro said, “But I don’t think he’s gonna be out all night. I mean, I figure I’ll probably be home by eleven, maybe midnight depending on which movie we catch, so maybe Hizashi would be about the same.”

“We’re going to the movies?” Shouta asked, now completely lost. This time he was certain Oboro was giving him a very odd look, drawing a deep breath, brow furrowing up before he responded.

“I asked Mayumi to go to the movies with me tonight,” he said gently, and Shouta hated the careful tone of his voice. He felt himself heating up with irritation and embarrassment as Shirakumo continued, “Friends go on dates with other people sometimes, but it doesn’t mean they’re any less friends.”

“I know that,” Shouta snapped. He wasn’t an idiot, it was just a lot of different information coming in all at once. Shirakumo nodded slowly and unpacked his lunch, eating with some of his usual gusto. “I just-” Shouta started, then frowned, unpacking his own lunch. “I just wanted to ask what you and Yamada thought I should do. About Shimada.”

Shirakumo nodded, talking around a mouthful of food, “What do you want to do about her?”

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be trying to ask my friends,” Shouta snarked.

“Fair enough,” Shirakumo said, taking Shouta’s irritation in stride. “What do you think of her?”

“She’s strong, excellent hand to hand combat skills, smart-” Shouta cut himself off when Oboro looked at him with a puzzled expression. “What?”

“I meant more along the lines of, as a person? What do you think of her that way?”

“She’s… nice,” Shouta said. “She’s calm and quiet. I don’t know a lot about her, except she’s good at origami and making chocolates.”

“Do you think you might enjoy spending time with her?”

Shouta shrugged, trying to picture it. “I dunno. Maybe?”

“Do you think she’s pretty?” Oboro asked. Shouta thought about it. Shimada’s head and face was entirely feline, so it’s not like he could compare her to any of the actresses in the movies Oboro and Hizashi made him watch; but…

“She’s got nice eyes,” Shouta said, thinking of the brilliant green of them, contrasted against the black fur of her face.

“If you think you can have a good time on a date with her, you can always just give it a shot,” Oboro said with a shrug. “She made you chocolates, she’ll say yes if you ask her out.”

“I don’t know what to do, though,” Shouta admitted.

“Bring her to a movie, or maybe go get some tea, or both. That’s the kind of stuff lots of people do.” Oboro patted Shouta’s shoulder heavily. “You’ll be fine.”

Shouta huffed out a heavy exhale. Oboro was right, it would be fine. If she said yes, he could just take her to a movie and some tea, that wasn’t too expensive. He’d done it with Oboro and Hizashi a few times, he could handle it. And if she said no, then he didn’t need to worry about it, so that would be simple…

Ugh, how had he gotten to this point when he’d been so certain earlier that even thinking about this kind of distraction was completely unacceptable?

Well. It’s not like he had anything else to do that evening after work, since Shirakumo and Yamada both had dates.

Assuming Ebisui said yes to Yamada, which obviously she would.

Shouta did his best to ignore the twisting in his guts as he and Shirakumo headed back inside. He figured it was probably just nerves about asking a girl on a date. Or maybe he was a little irritated at Yamada for ditching the rooftop, even if it was just for one day.

Shouta briefly considered asking Shimada right then and there; but there were already other people in the classroom, including Yamada and Ebisui. Shouta didn’t want to draw attention, so he settled for giving Shimada a small nod as he made his way to his seat.

“Guess who’s going on a date tonight?” Yamada crowed. Shouta kept his expression blank.

“Shirakumo,” he said, and Yamada went from grinning to pouting in a blink.

“Well yeah,” Yamada said, “But who else?”

Suddenly, Shouta found he didn’t care about drawing attention. He took a breath and walked back over to Shimada. “Would you like to go to the movies with me tonight?” he asked. His voice was quiet, but he made damn sure he didn’t mumble. “As a date?”

Shimada gave him a wide grin full of sharp teeth, the joy in her eyes unmistakeable. “I’d love to. Text me later with the details?”

“I don’t have your number,” he said, fumbling his phone out of his pocket. She took it softly from his hands once he’d unlocked it and quickly saved her contact information.

“Now you do,” she said, handing the phone back to him. “I look forward to hearing from you.” Shouta gave her a small smile, and she smiled back. After a moment, he ducked his head and returned to his seat. That had been much easier than he’d thought it would be.

Once he was back at his desk, he was reminded of what had spurred him to action as he glanced sidelong at Yamada.

“Me.”

Yamada’s jaw dropped, but before he could say anything, Sensei came into the room and had everyone get to work. Shouta did some quick mental math about how much time he needed for training after school and to work at least an hour or two for Ms. Emoto (he’d need the extra money to make up for whatever he was going to spend tonight), get home, shower, talk to his parents… hmm, he’d need to check movie times… and he’d need to find out where Shimada lived, so he could find a theater that wasn’t too far from either of them. Unless he was expected to pick her up… was he expected to do that?

Ugh, dating was more work than he’d thought; but it was a good exercise in how to organize and manage his time efficiently. By the time the last bell rang to dismiss them, Shouta had figured out that if he only trained for half an hour, he’d be able to catch a train to get him to work in time to make the schedule for the rest of the evening flexible enough that no matter where Shimada lived, it would be fine.

“I’ll see you later, Aizawa,” she said as she headed for the door.

“See you later,” he echoed, getting his bag together so he could get to the gym. He didn’t know if Shirakumo or Yamada would be joining him, but right now, he didn’t much care. He was just fine on his own.

“Yo, Aizawa, wait up!” Yamada called as he scrambled down the hall towards him, papers falling out of his bag. “Come on man, wait up!”

“You know where to find me,” Shouta called over his shoulder, not slowing his pace. By the time Yamada and Shirakumo caught up with him, Shouta was already in his gym clothes and had run through a quick warm up.

“C’mon, man! Why are you giving me an attitude?” Yamada asked when he finally burst through the gym doors.

“Don’t you have a date to get ready for?” Shouta asked coolly, running through his exercises with his capture weapon, tossing it at a heavy bag he’d dragged to the middle of the floor. He could do this easily when he was focused on the task, but this was a good opportunity to practice his accuracy while distracted.

“Don’t you?” Yamada huffed, crossing his arms. “It’s not like all three of us don’t have dates tonight. I don’t see you giving Oboro any grief.” Shouta didn’t bother responding.

Oboro, however, sighed. “Shouta was kinda disappointed that ya ditched us at lunch. I mean, I get why ya did, but it wasn’t the same without you.”

“Look, I know,” Yamada groaned, rubbing the back of his neck. “I just really didn’t want to sit around waiting till the end of the day to ask her out, my brain may have exploded!” Shouta ignored the excuses and continued to throw a length of cloth, capture his target, then shake it loose. Throw. Catch. Shake. “Come on, Shou. I’m sorry, ok? I really didn’t think it would be a big deal.”

Somehow, that just made it worse. Shouta’s chest felt like it was cracking open.

“Maybe it’s not a big deal,” he said calmly. “Maybe we shouldn’t eat lunch on the roof anymore anyway.”

“No!!” Yamada yelped, and the note of actual panic in his voice made Shouta turn and look at him. “I don’t want that to change.” He looked back and forth between Shouta and Oboro, mouth twisted in a frown as he chewed on his bottom lip. “I really am sorry, I should never have ditched you guys like that.”

Shouta sighed at the clear remorse written all over Hizashi’s face, and the ache in his chest changed shape, becoming softer but bigger, crowding his heart. He pinched the bridge of his nose and glowered at his shoes. “It’s fine,” he grumbled, “Just don’t do it again.”

“Psh! Of course not, what kind of friend do you take me for!” Hizashi said, his face brightening as it became clear Shouta wasn’t angry with him anymore. “Also, that was a ballsy move, asking Shimada out just like that, right in the classroom! Less than a minute to get her to say yes!” He gave a sheepish smile as he admitted, “It took me half the lunch period to work up the nerve to say anything to Ebisui, and I think I forgot every language the moment I tried to actually speak to her.”

“It’s not like she was going to say no to you,” Shouta sighed, rolling his eyes at Hizashi’s dramatics before taking aim at his targets again.

“And how would you know that?” Hizashi laughed.

“Anybody would be lucky to date you,” Shouta said. Throw. Catch. Shake. “She’d have to be stupid to say no.” Throw. Catch. Shake. “So what do you have planned to do tonight? I still don’t know what movie to suggest to Shimada.”

And just like that, the conversation slipped into something that felt mostly normal. Hizashi and Oboro gave him some suggestions, and he figured he’d ask Shimada which sounded good to her.

“Leaving already?” Hizashi asked when Shouta started packing up.

“Gotta cut it short if I’m gonna be able to work a few hours before I meet up with Shimada.”

“Oh, right,” Hizashi said. “That makes sense.”

“Anyway, I gotta run. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Have fun tonight, Aizawa!” Hizashi was giving him a big grin, and it made Shouta feel warm inside.

“You too, Yamada,” Shouta replied. “And you, Shirakumo.” He really did want his friends to have a good time. He hoped Shimada would enjoy herself too.

*

By the time Shouta got home from Ms. Emoto’s shop, he’d gotten a pretty good plan nailed down. Shimada didn’t actually live too far from him, so he’d meet her at the train station near her house, then they’d head to the movie theater. She’d seemed interested in one of the movies Hizashi and Oboro had suggested, so hopefully that would go over well.

He got himself showered and dressed, and couldn’t help wondering again why he’d let himself get so caught up in this. It felt like… something that was supposed to be important, like hero rankings were supposed to be important; but he couldn’t shake the feeling that, like the rankings, it was a silly, frivolous thing.

But Shimada was nice, and Shouta wasn’t going to be an asshole to her, and honestly the movie sounded kinda cool, so he kept getting ready. The only thing left was to let his parents know where he was going. He walked out into the living room to find them sitting on the sofa discussing what TV show to watch.

“Mom, Dad, I’m going out,” he told them. “I’ll be home before midnight.”

“What are you boys up to this evening?” Dad asked.

“No, it’s not- I’ve got a Valentine’s date,” Shouta said, suddenly realizing he may have miscalculated how long this conversation would take. Well, he had budgeted extra time. It would be fine.

“A date!?” The gleam in Dad’s eye had Shouta regretting his decision to tell them at all. “With who?”

“Shimada. She’s a classmate, the one who helped Shirakumo and Yamada with all the origami cats for my birthday.”

“She-?” Dad cut himself off, pivoting quickly to, “Oh, that was very nice of her.”

Shouta nodded, relieved that Dad seemed to have eased off on the impending over-the-top reaction. “She’s nice.”

“This is probably a good time for us to have another talk about sex,” Mom said, and Shouta sighed.

“That isn’t necessary,” he grumbled. He understood the mechanics, and everything about being safe; but even though he’d finally been noticing more of the ever-referenced ‘changes’ in his body, he still found no real allure in girls. Maybe it would start kicking in soon, but he doubted it would be tonight.

“Just remember,” Mom said, narrowing her eyes in a piercing look, “That it’s a normal thing to sometimes get caught up in the moment and do things because you think you should be doing them, instead of doing them because you truly want to.”

“I know,” he said, more eager than ever to escape out the door. “I’m not gonna pressure her for anything, you know I’m not like that.”

“Make sure you don’t pressure yourself either,” Dad said.

“Not a problem. I’m leaving now, bye!” he called, slipping his shoes on as fast as he could and bolting out the door. Shouta thought for a moment about ‘don’t pressure yourself,’ and shook his head. His parents could be really strange sometimes.

*

The date went… fine. Shimada had been in good spirits, and the two of them had been able to sit in comfortable silence with each other on the train. The movie was good, and she seemed to enjoy it. It wasn’t as much fun as hanging out with Hizashi and Oboro, and he didn’t quite see what all the fuss around dating was really about, but it was… nice.

Halfway through the movie, Shimada had put the armrest between their seats up, which had confused Shouta… until she reached out and put her hand over his. And that made sense. Holding hands was a thing people did on dates, right? He rearranged their grip so that their fingers were laced together, and he couldn’t help but notice how soft the fine, dark fur was on the back of her hands. Her palms were normal skin, soft in a different way; but he stroked his thumb along the fur every so often.

After the movie, they had gone to get some milk tea, and Shimada had started talking a bit more. She spoke about enjoying drawing and painting in addition to origami. She was very artistic. Shouta asked what kind of music she liked, and she listed off a few artists he didn’t know. He wondered if Hizashi didn’t like those bands, or if he figured that Shouta wouldn’t like them.

They’d taken the train back to Shimada’s neighborhood, and Shouta had walked her to the front of her apartment building. She’d smiled at him, and leaned forward, gently bumping her forehead against his. She had thanked him for a lovely Valentine’s date, and they’d said goodnight.

Now, Shouta was back home in his bedroom, having sent a text to the group chat that his date had gone well and that he was going to bed. He supposed if Hizashi and Oboro had similar nights, they might see the message; but he wasn’t about to stay up waiting to hear from them. He curled up on his side and quickly fell asleep.

*

In the morning, Shouta awoke to see that Oboro had sent a brief message a little after midnight. Hizashi had filled the group text with excited chatter at about 2:30 am, essentially talking to himself since neither Shouta nor Oboro had been awake. It was also about 80% typos, emojis, and Hizashi’s own personal shorthand that Shouta could usually decipher, but was still far too tired to attempt right now.

<sent> You need to call or come over if you want me to be able to understand any of that

<Hizashi> Finally, ur up!

Shouta looked at the clock, it was a little after six.

<sent> I am, why are you? Did you sleep at all?

<Hizashi> Sleep is overrated! Come over my place after ur done with Ms. Emoto!

Shouta got up and went for a run and did his usual morning exercises. He knew they had time before Oboro would be up anyway.

That afternoon, they met up at Hizashi’s house. Despite how uncomfortable Hizashi was around his parents, his place was still the best option to hang out, given how nosey Oboro’s siblings (and sometimes his parents) could be, and how small and cramped Shouta’s space was in the apartment.

“So my date went well, what about you two?” Oboro said, grinning ear to ear, and Shouta smiled at how happy his friend was.

“Dude, I really think Ebisui likes me!” Hizashi said, jumping halfway across the room to land his butt on the bed with a bounce. “Like, a lot!” Shouta’s irritation from yesterday had faded away, so he wasn’t sure why he wasn’t able to summon the same happiness for Hizashi as he could for Oboro; but he did his best to put aside whatever irrational feeling was causing the problem.

“Shimada and I had a nice time,” Shouta said, pulling out Hizashi’s desk chair and sitting cross-legged in it while Oboro plopped down next to Hizashi. “The movie was good… and we held hands,” he added, not sure why he suddenly felt almost shy. In hero training, everyone, boys and girls alike, touched and was touched by their classmates. Everything from full-body tackles, being pinned to the ground, hands grabbing wrists and ankles and clothes. So it was strange to think that a simple touch like holding hands was anything different…

Though, when Oboro or Hizashi put their arm around his shoulders in their strange not-really-a-hug way, it did feel different. More important, maybe? So he guessed that some touches did mean more than others.

And holding a girl’s hand on a date was important, right? It mattered?

Hizashi and Oboro seemed to think it did, because they both immediately pressed for more details. “Who grabbed who’s hand!?” Hizashi demanded, almost at the same moment as Oboro asked, “How much hand holding was there!?”

“She grabbed my hand about halfway through the movie,” Shouta told them, feeling just a little proud that someone liked him enough to want to hold his hand. Irrational, but still true. “We didn’t let go till the end, and then held hands again when I walked her home.” The exuberant response from his friends seemed to indicate they thought that was a big deal.

“Ebisui let me hold her hand,” Hizashi said excitedly. “And when we were leaving the cafe, she kissed my cheek,” he added, blushing. “And then-” he started, cut himself off, took a breath, and continued on, “When I walked her home, I kissed her, and she kissed me back!” Oboro gave a wolf whistle and started cackling when Hizashi responded by smacking him on the arm.

Shouta only rolled his eyes at his friend's antics. “What about you, Oboro?” he asked, not needing any further details about Hizashi kissing Ebisui.

“A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell,” he said, smiling as he tipped his chin in the air and his face away from Shouta.

“Hey, we told you!” Hizashi whined.

“Not my fault you two aren’t gentlemen!” Oboro teased, which Hizashi responded to by pushing him off the bed. Shouta watched as they rolled around on the floor, wrestling. Hizashi still needed to work on his grappling skills.

After a few hours with his friends, Shouta went home a little earlier than usual that evening, to get the homework done that he hadn’t had time for last night.

Sunday was mostly spent on training exercises, working, and doing chores around the apartment. He texted with Hizashi and Oboro a bit; but Hizashi was playing a new video game, and Oboro was doing something with his family, so even that was pretty quiet.

Shouta didn’t mind the quiet, he enjoyed having a few hours of peace for himself.

<Shimada Sayaka> Hey Aizawa, are you busy?

<sent> Not really.

<Shimada Sayaka> Do you mind meeting up with me?

Shouta blinked at his phone in confusion.

<sent> Sure. Where?

Shimada texted him the location of a small park not too far away. Shouta had been there a few times with his parents when he was younger. As he tugged on his shoes to leave the apartment, he couldn’t quite pinpoint why he had the feeling that something was off.

He got to the park before Shimada, mostly empty in the late afternoon of mid-February, and sat on a swing on the little playground area to wait. When he saw her approaching, he hopped down to go meet her.

“Hey,” she said quietly.

“Hey,” he responded, unsure of what to say, or ask. When Shimada reached out and gently took his hand in hers, it wasn’t quite what he was expecting, but her warm skin felt nice against his chilled fingers. She stepped closer to him, drawing a deep breath through her nose before exhaling in a quiet sigh.

Without a word, she leaned in and pressed her forehead against his. His eyes slipped shut as she rubbed against his temple and cheek, and he didn’t even think before nuzzling back. It felt nice. It was kinda like when one of the cats at Catpurrccinos was bold enough to do something much the same.

But Shimada was a person, not a cat, no matter how much she looked like one, or even shared their mannerisms. In his gut, Shouta knew that, even if she wasn’t using her lips, she was kissing him right now. And he was kissing back in kind.

As slowly as she had leaned in, she backed away, drawing in another deep breath through her nose. She gave Shouta a small, sad smile, and immediately he knew he’d done something wrong. He just didn’t know what. Before he could try and figure out how to ask her, she spoke up for the first time since their brief greeting.

“I had fun the other night,” she told him.

“So did I.”

The sad smile got a little wider. “It’s ok that you don’t like me back,” she said quietly. Shouta could only stand there, at a loss for words. He wanted to tell her that he did like her, that she was very nice, she was a good person and would make a great hero. But nothing came out of his mouth. She only looked down to where she gently held his hand between her own. “You don’t have to say it, I can smell it.”

At that, Shouta looked up at her, confused. “Smell what?” He’d taken a shower after training this morning!

“My nose is better than most people’s,” she said, twitching her whiskers. “People get different smells to them when they’re feeling different things. The stronger the feeling, the stronger the smell.” She looked away. “There’s a smell when people like someone. I mean, Like like, not just when you think they’re nice.” Turning to face him again, her green eyes met his. “When you and I are alone together, you don’t smell like that at all. Even when I’m this close to you, there’s not a whiff. I’d hoped… but it’s ok.”

She rubbed her cheek against his temple, and Shouta knew it was a kiss goodbye. Something in his chest ached to see Shimada looking so sad, but now that she’d said it, he knew it was true.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

“Don’t be. I’m glad I got the chance to spend time with you and get to know you a little better. I still admire and respect you. I hope we can still be friends?”

Is that what they could be? Hizashi and Oboro were his friends…

Then again, he supposed that’s why people used the words ‘best friends’ to differentiate the people who mattered most to them. So if Hizashi and Oboro were his best friends, there was no reason he couldn’t think of Shimada as a friend.

“Of course we can be friends.”

*

“Where did you run off to?” Dad asked when Shouta got home.

“Shimada asked to talk.” He was still trying to wrap his head around the whole conversation.

“That’s the girl you went out with on Friday?”

“Yeah.”

“What did she want to talk about?”

Shouta hesitated, unsure if it was even worth talking to his parents about.

“She wanted to talk about the fact that your relationship is better off being platonic, correct?” Mom asked, though it wasn’t really a question. “Was she upset?” Shouta sighed. Mom swore that her Quirk had nothing to do with her uncanny ability to figure out stuff like that, but sometimes Shouta couldn’t help but wonder.

“Yeah, that was basically it,” he said. “She was… sad, but understanding. She said she could smell that I didn’t like her back.” Mom cocked her head and arched an eyebrow, wordlessly requesting more information. “Her Quirk is Cat, she has a really good sense of smell.”

“Ahh, yes,” Mom nodded, “She would be better able to discern emotional pheromones, or the lack thereof, than most people.”

“How are you feeling?” Dad asked, pulling Shouta into a hug. “Are you upset at all?”

“Not really,” Shouta said with a shrug. “The date was nice, but I’m happy to have Shimada as my friend.”

“Good,” Dad said, ruffling Shouta’s hair before he could duck away and glower at him. “Dating and relationships can be tricky, but you’ve got plenty of time to figure that all out.”

Mom came up next to him, taking her own turn hugging him. “Why don’t you go talk with your friends for a while, dinner will be ready soon.” Shouta nodded, gave her a brief hug back, then retreated to his room.

*

He didn’t bother telling Oboro and Hizashi about Shimada, but he was able to text with them for a little bit in the group chat before he got called for dinner. It helped things feel a little bit more normal.

As he walked into class on Monday, it dawned on him that there was a chance things might be awkward for Shimada, but she gave him a smile and a wave as he went to his seat, and he nodded at her in return. The morning went smoothly, and come lunchtime, he, Hizashi, and Oboro all went up to the roof to eat. It all felt perfectly normal, except that Hizashi and Oboro were talking more about girls than about video games again.

“Yo, Shou, are you and Shimada gonna go on another date this weekend?” Hizashi asked, forcing Shouta out of the half-daze that he often fell into when his friends started going on and on about something he had no interest in.

“No.”

“Aww, why not?” Oboro asked.

“We talked on Sunday, we’re just gonna be friends,” Shouta said, not sure why he felt almost guilty saying that to Hizashi and Oboro. Maybe because they’d had to fight so hard to get Shouta to let them be his friends, but now he was willing to give that title to someone else so easily.

“Sorry it didn’t work out,” Oboro said.

“It’s fine.” It’s not like he or Shimada was upset over it. “It was just a Valentine’s date.”

“Alright man, if you say so.” Hizashi didn’t sound convinced. Shouta rolled his eyes and went back to eating his lunch.

After school, Hizashi and Oboro met him at the gym to be his moving targets again. Hizashi was really on his game today, dodging and rolling to evade each attempt Shouta made. For a moment, Shouta worried that he was getting worse with the binding cloth; but no, Hizashi was definitely making some impressive jumps that Shouta had never seen from him before.

“Gotta keep you on your toes, can’t make it too easy for ya!” Hizashi said, not even winded even though Shouta was breathing heavily. “Alright, time for a big, slow target. You’re up, Shirakumo!” Oboro laughed as he took off running, and after a while, Shouta had to wonder if he was actually getting worse, because he was barely able to keep up.

“Uhh, you’re not lookin’ so hot, buddy,” Hizashi said as he and Oboro came over to get a drink.

“Thanks,” Shouta said drily.

“No, you’re looking kinda pale.” Hizashi’s brow furrowed up with concern. “Maybe you should call it a day and head home and rest.”

“Hizashi’s right, Shou,” Oboro added. “I couldn’t see while you were chasing me down, but you look like you might be getting sick.”

“Whatever,” Shouta snapped, and ok fine, maybe he wasn’t feeling great. He’d caught his breath enough to realize that the heat rolling off of him felt a lot more like a fever than regular exertion. His knees and legs were aching in a way that this kind of workout shouldn’t make him feel. “Fine,” he sighed, with a little more resignation.

By the time he got home, he knew he had a fever, so he took a shower, curled up on his futon, and went to sleep. Time passed in a haze, with a few bleary-eyed trips to the bathroom to drink some water and empty his bladder before stumbling back to his room and going back to sleep. When he woke up, it was dark outside, and he was hungry, so he stumbled to the kitchen.

“Back in the land of the living,” Dad greeted him. “We were starting to think we needed to call a necromancer.” Shouta paused in his rummaging through the refrigerator to toss a confused glance over his shoulder. “You’ve been sleeping off that fever for over twenty-four hours.”

“I missed school!?” Shouta said, panic welling up as he scrambled to his room to grab his phone.

‘We called and let them know. Ms. Emoto too. You’re not in trouble,’ Dad told him, the words slipping directly into his brain. ‘Even heroes get sick, Shouta.’ Shouta scrolled through his phone to find a few dozen messages from Oboro and Hizashi, asking if he made it home ok, asking how he was feeling, asking where he was.

He sent them a quick message letting them know he was fine and that he’d be in school tomorrow, and to let him know what homework he’d missed.

He couldn’t afford to fall behind.

*

“Did you get taller?” Oboro asked. Shouta looked down at himself, as if examining his school uniform would give him an answer. Actually, now that he thought about it, the ends of his pant legs seemed to be riding higher than they used to. “Hizashi, did he get taller?”

“Holy shit, dude, did you grow five centimeters in a day?” Hizashi said, scrambling from his seat to stand shoulder to shoulder with Shouta.

“I don’t think that’s possible,” Shouta mumbled; but now that he was paying attention to it, he was much closer to Hizashi’s height than he had been a week or two ago. Standing like this, the backs of their hands brushed against each other, and Shouta felt his neck heating up. He hoped his fever wasn’t coming back.

He sighed and gave Hizashi a little shove to return to his seat while Shouta sat at his own desk. Looking up the row, he saw Shimada looking at them, a strange expression on her face before she gave them a smile and turned back to the front of the classroom.

The rest of the week passed mostly normally. He did his assignments, practiced with his binding cloth, ate lunch on the rooftop, and worked with Ms. Emoto. The texts Hizashi and Oboro sent in the group chat mentioned Ebisui and Nakano a little more than he wanted to hear about them, but that was the only real intrusion of the girls that Shouta noticed. He knew his friends were spending time with them, but it was when Shouta was busy doing his own stuff anyway, so it all worked out just fine. Maybe even a little better than fine, because they didn’t keep texting him dozens of emojis while he was trying to work or study nearly as often now.

As February drew to a close, always so much faster than expected, the reality of finals began to loom. It only made sense for Hizashi to invite Shouta and Oboro over on the first Saturday in March so that they could help each other study. When Shouta arrived at Hizashi’s house, he blinked at the boy who opened the door.

“Zashi?” he asked the shaggy-haired figure, blond strands falling to softly frame his face.

“Well I’m not Sarudo,” Hizashi snorted, “Even if he is getting better at shifting to look like other people.”

“What happened to your hair?” Shouta asked as he toed off his shoes and they headed up to Hizashi’s room.

“I washed it?” Hizashi replied, puzzled at Shouta’s reaction.

“It’s down.”

“That’s what happens when I wash it,” Hizashi said, rolling his eyes.

“I’ve never seen it like that before,” Shouta said, stifling a wild impulse to reach out and touch the longer strands that hung down and brushed Hizashi’s ears.

“You must have!” Hizashi scoffed.

“Even at training camp, you always had it,” Shouta gestured vaguely in the air over his own head, “Up.”

“Well, now you’ve seen it,” Hizashi said, crossing his arms.

“Hizashi,” Mrs. Yamada’s voice called from downstairs. “Shirakumo is here, he’s on his way up.” The thundering footsteps up the stairs announced Oboro’s approach moments later.

“Woah, what happened to your hair!?” Oboro said as soon as he came into the room. Shouta gave Hizashi a ‘so there’ look, vindicated.

“I know my hair is iconic, but that is a testament to my skill and perseverance at maintaining a style,” Hizashi said with an indignant sniff. “Unlike you heathens who forget what a hairbrush is for weeks at a time.” Oboro burst out in peals of laughter, collapsing on Hizashi’s bed cackling. “Shaddup, Cloud Boy.”

“It looks good!” Oboro added, moving to ruffle it while Hizashi ducked away with a scowl.

Shouta shook his head and sat on the corner of Hizashi’s bed, getting out his notebooks. He knew the others would calm down in a minute, and if he didn’t have the study materials ready, they’d probably get distracted again with something else. Sure enough, soon they were all sitting on the bed facing each other, with Hizashi going over their English lessons. Every now and then, Oboro would flip a strand of Hizashi’s hair, and Hizashi would smack his hand away.

For a change of pace, Oboro started flipping Shouta’s hair, which got him the same response.

“Ugh, my brain is full, I need a break,” Oboro groaned after an hour and a half. “How was your date last night, Hizashi?” Shouta glanced up from his notes in time to see Hizashi’s cheeks starting to turn pink.

“It was… good,” Hizashi said evasively, and immediately Oboro went on the hunt.

“How good?” he asked, his smile full of teeth. Shouta watched in silence.

“Really good.” Hizashi was trying so hard to keep himself in check.

“Come on, you can do better than that!” Oboro prodded.

“I thought gentlemen don’t kiss and tell!” Hizashi protested, but Shouta could see he was practically vibrating with how badly he wanted to say whatever he was holding back.

“And I thought you weren’t a gentleman?” Oboro countered, and that was it. The dam broke.

“We were making out, and she grabbed my hand and put it on her boob!” Hizashi said in a loud whisper, not wanting his parents to overhear. “And she had her hand, like, really high up on my leg. She didn’t touch my dick or anything, but I think she could probably tell I was hard.”

Shouta couldn’t help imagining the scene. Hizashi kissing Ebisui. His hand resting on her chest. Her hand spread high on his thigh, her fingers close to his crotch. Hizashi’s dick hard in his pants…

As soon as the image came to him, Shouta tried to banish it from his mind. He flushed, knowing that there was no way it was ok for him to be thinking about one of his best friend’s bodies like that, but- But he couldn’t help wondering… what did it look like? Not soft, they’d all seen each other like that in the locker room. But hard? Aroused? Was it just like Shouta’s? Bigger, smaller? Would it feel any different-?

Shouta ducked forward, face heating with shame as he realized he was getting hard thinking about it.

“You ok, Shouta? You’re not getting sick again, are you?” Oboro asked.

“I’m fine, just need to focus more on math than on groping our classmates,” he grumbled.

“Your grades in math are fine, though?” Hizashi said, tipping his head in confusion, a lock of hair slipping in front of his face. Shouta stared intently down at his notebook. The equations made sense. There were numbers, you performed operations on them, and they gave you the correct answer. Rational. Logical.

“Because I focus on studying it,” Shouta snapped. “Do you two want to pass your finals or not?”

Yamada huffed and pouted for a moment. “I’m not that bad at math, you just explain things better than the teacher does sometimes.”

“I’m terrible at math! Teach me, oh brilliant one!” Shirakumo said, bowing towards Shouta who rolled his eyes at his ridiculous friend.

The distraction had worked and his body was behaving itself again, so he relaxed a little as they picked back up with reviewing.

*

The following Friday, Shouta was in the gym for his usual extra training with Yamada and Shirakumo. He was chasing Shirakumo, only having managed to snare him once so far, while Yamada sat on the sidelines heckling them both. It was distracting, but that was part of the point, since Shouta would need to deal with distractions during real hero work.

He threw a coil of his binding cloth at Shirakumo and missed.

“Too bad, so sad, better luck next time!” Yamada cackled. Shouta frowned and flicked his wrist a few times until his binding cloth was neatly coiled around his neck. Before Shirakumo could take off again, the sound of the door opening echoed through the gym, and all three of them turned to see who was there.

Ebisui’s head poked inside, followed by the rest of her. Yamada scrambled to stand up, and Shouta’s feet carried him over to stand next to his friend. Shirakumo followed a little more slowly behind. Ebisui approached them with a wry smile on her face, shaking her head.

“Figured I’d find you here. Can I talk with you for a minute?” she asked Yamada, and he frowned in confusion.

“Uhh, sure, but can you make it quick?” Yamada said. “We’re in the middle of something.” He followed her over to the far side of the gym, and Shouta watched as his face went from confusion to surprise, to a crestfallen expression that he had never seen on Yamada before. Ebisui stepped close to him and gave him a brief hug, though his arms stayed limp at his sides. Turning from Yamada, she came back over to Shouta and Shirakumo.

“I can’t compete with whatever it is you three idiots have going on together,” she said, her voice calm, even though Shouta could see tears gathering in her eyes, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. “I should have known, honestly.” She glanced back at Yamada, still standing by the wall. “Do me a favor and stay away from me for now,” she said, looking more at Shirakumo, who nodded in apparent understanding.

“I’m sorry,” he told her. Shouta wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for. All he knew was that he was watching something terrible unfolding.

“Yeah, me too.” She took one last glimpse over her shoulder before turning to leave, and Shouta saw tears sliding down her cheeks. The door closing behind her echoed in the silent space.

Shouta looked over at Hizashi, still frozen in place. He trotted towards the far wall to check on his friend.

Even behind his sunglasses, Shouta could see that Hizashi’s eyes were squeezed tightly shut, his bottom lip bitten between clenched teeth, mouth shut tight as he drew in deep, heaving breaths through his nose.

“Zashi?” Shouta asked tentatively. Hizashi only shook his head and tightened his fists. Slowly, carefully, Shouta raised his hand and rested it on Hizashi’s shoulder. He felt Hizashi tense at the touch, but he didn’t pull away. Shouta felt the reassuring presence of Oboro standing just off to his side for a moment before Oboro reached his arms out to wrap them around both Shouta and Hizashi. He pulled them into a hug that half-sandwiched Hizashi between them, forcing Shouta to wrap his arms around his friends as well or be trapped awkwardly pressed chest-to-chest against Hizashi.

“Not in public,” Hizashi muttered, though he made no move to push them away.

“Got’chu covered,” Oboro said, and in a moment, a thick fog filled the air around them.

Hizashi moved his own arms for the first time, reaching up to tug his sunglasses off before burying his face against Shouta’s neck. Shouta’s arm tightened around him.

“I really did like her,” Hizashi whispered wetly.

“I know, buddy,” Oboro murmured soothingly. “I know.”

*

Hizashi spent the weekend being morose, angry, painfully cheerful, and overly dramatic in turns. Shouta wasn’t sure what to make of it, but Oboro reassured him that everyone gets through a broken heart in their own way and their own time.

By Monday, though, he seemed almost back to normal. He was just as loud, and the smile on his face didn’t seem forced; it just wasn’t quite as big as it normally was. Shouta did notice the shift in the flow of how his classmates moved around the room, though. Ebisui was obviously staying away from Hizashi’s corner of the room, but Kobayashi, Shimada, and Yasukawa were all gravitating towards Ebisui’s desk during breaks, when usually they would intermingle a lot more than that. Nakano kept throwing glances between the girls who sat in front of her, and Oboro who sat next to her. Shouta saw Oboro give her a wink and nod towards Ebisui.

At the end of the day, most of the girls left the classroom pretty quickly. Mushimori made eye contact with Shouta as they filed past him on their way out, and shrugged. “Girls are weird,” he said. “No offense, Shimada,” he added, as she was still getting her things together.

“None taken,” she said. “Boys are pretty weird too.”

“The truth hurts,” Mushimori said, pressing his palm over his heart.

Hizashi was bent over in his seat, putting his stuff in his bag before they went to the gym, when suddenly he went rigid, drawing a sharp breath.

“You ok?” Shouta asked him quietly. He didn’t think Hizashi was going to have another emotional breakdown over Ebisui in the middle of the classroom; but then again, Hizashi’s moods could take some unexpected turns. The slow, stiff nod he got as an answer didn’t do much to reassure Shouta either. He scooted over to sit at Oizuchi’s empty desk in front of Hizashi and followed his gaze down to the bookbag on the floor next to his friend. In an instant, he understood.

A round, reddish bug, smaller than his fingernail, was crawling along the edge of Hizashi’s bag, and Hizashi was staring intently at it. Shouta could hear how shaky Hizashi’s breathing was.

“It’s just a lady beetle,” Shouta murmured quietly, “It won’t hurt you.”

“I know,” Hizashi whispered through gritted teeth. “It’s just… on my stuff.”

“Here, I’ll just-” Shouta started to reach out towards the beetle.

“No,” Hizashi said, grabbing Shouta’s wrist in a bruising grip. “I got this. Can you open the window for me?”

Shouta looked at Hizashi for a long moment, then nodded. “Ok.” Hizashi released his hold, and Shouta went over to unlatch the window and prop it open before returning to Oizuchi’s seat.

“Ok, little listener,” Hizashi said as he stared down the lady beetle, which had paused to clean its antennae, “I’m not saying you don’t deserve an education, but this ain’t the right classroom for you. So I’m just gonna get you where you need to be.” He reached down with a trembling hand, placing the side of his fingers in the lady beetle’s path as it walked along the zipper. Shouta watched as its antennae waved around, getting a sense for the new obstruction in its path, before continuing on ahead, crawling up onto Hizashi’s knuckle.

As soon as the lady beetle was on his hand, Hizashi stood up and strode over to the open window, sticking his arm outside. Shouta moved to stand next to him, watching the lady beetle spread its wings as a breeze blew past, hesitating only a moment before taking flight.

Hizashi pulled his hand back inside and closed the window, then turned to Shouta, beaming from ear to ear. Shouta was standing close enough that he could feel the way Hizashi was still shaking; but the look of pride on his face sent a feeling of warmth blooming through Shouta’s chest. He felt his own mouth quirk up into a smile, a pale reflection of Hizashi’s expression.

“You know you could have just flicked it off your bag, right?” Shouta asked. “You didn’t have to do all that.”

“I know,” Hizashi said, still beaming.

“It was good that you did, though,” Shouta added. “It really will be much better off outside now that it's out of hibernation.” He paused for a moment, the warm feeling in his chest still swirling around. “It was good that you showed yourself that you can do it.”

Hizashi gave a shaky laugh. “You showed me I could do it,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck and turning to his now bug-free bookbag to finish packing up. Shouta looked over and saw Shimada staring at him intensely, a strange look on her face. In a moment, she blinked, then gathered up her stuff and walked swiftly to the door of the classroom.

“Shimada?” Shouta called after her, but she kept going into the hallway. “I’ll be right back,” he said to Hizashi as he trotted after Shimada. “Hey, Shimada,” he said as he caught up to her, placing a hand on her arm. She sighed and slowed to a stop, turning to face him. “What was that?” he asked.

“What was what?” she countered.

“That look.” For a moment, Shouta worried she was going to play dumb, but then she ducked her head and looked away.

“It’s nothing. I just- I wish you smelled like that when you looked at me, that’s all.”

“Smelled like-?” Shouta started, but Shimada cut him off.

“I gotta go. See you tomorrow, Aizawa.”

Shouta stared at her retreating form before turning to head back to the classroom and get his stuff. He was trying to make sense of what she meant by that when he remembered their conversation in the park.

“My nose is better than most people’s.”

“There’s a smell when people like someone. I mean, Like like, not just when you think they’re nice.”

Shouta stood frozen in the doorway of the classroom, staring at Hizashi and Oboro getting their things together. Thought about that warm feeling in his chest.

Was that what this was?

Was this Liking someone?

Did… did he Like Hizashi?

Chapter Text

“Hello, Earth to Aizawa! You awake there, buddy, or have you finally mastered sleeping on your feet with your eyes open?” Hizashi’s voice startled Shouta into motion, and he jumped away from where he’d been standing frozen in the classroom doorway. He sucked in a ragged breath, his heart pounding in his chest as the question continued to echo in his head:

Did he Like Hizashi?

…And if he did, what was he supposed to do about it?

He stumbled over to his desk, his limbs not quite cooperating with each other the way they should. He got his stuff together with shaking hands and shouldered his bag, then stuffed his hands into his pockets to try and hide the way they trembled.

“To the gym?” Oboro asked, giving Shouta an odd look.

Could he see? Did he know? Shimada knew… did everyone know?

Did Hizashi know?

All Shouta could do was nod to Oboro, hoping that maybe doing something normal would help get… whatever this was, under control.

Unfortunately, that didn’t work at all. Shouta had never been this distracted in training before. His eyes kept drifting over to Hizashi, even when he was meant to be chasing Oboro. He could barely focus, practically tripping over his own feet and missing throws with the binding cloth that a week ago he could have made with his eyes closed.

And his friends noticed. Of course they did, how could they not? Oboro and Hizashi kept shooting looks at each other, raising their eyebrows, ‘what’s wrong with him?’ written all over their faces.

“You feelin’ ok, Shou? You’re not getting sick again, are you?” Oboro finally asked.

“I’m fine,” Shouta grunted, trying to shove aside the thoughts and feelings that kept demanding his attention, threatening to overwhelm him. “I’m just tired.”

“In a shocking and unforeseen development, Aizawa Shouta is tired!” Hizashi teased, bumping his shoulder against Shouta’s. “Let’s call it a day so the sweet prince of slumberland can go take a much-needed nap.” Shouta glowered at him… but felt his face heating up just from his proximity to Hizashi, from a stupidly casual touch, one that they shared all the time.

“You two head home, I’m gonna take a shower here,” Shouta said, desperately needing some space to think.

“Are you sure?” Hizashi asked, and for a second Shouta was worried he was going to insist on sticking around. He started to fumble through his head for an excuse that would convince them to just go. Thankfully, Oboro swooped in, wrapping an arm around Hizashi’s shoulders and reaching out to ruffle Shouta’s hair.

“Alrighty! We’ll talk with you later!” he said, steering Hizashi out of the gym. Shouta let out a shaky sigh of relief when the door closed behind them.

This was ridiculous. He needed to get himself under control.

He grabbed his stuff and headed for the showers, hoping that it might help him think more clearly.

But even by the time he’d washed up and was getting dressed, he still hadn’t been struck with any greater understanding. He sat on the bench in the locker room, shirt hanging unbuttoned off his frame, head bowed as he watched droplets of water fall from the ends of his hair onto his uniform pants.

“You’re gonna catch a cold if you don’t dry your hair,” a voice said. Shouta’s head snapped up to see Iida coming out of the showers, toweling his own hair dry.

“That’s an old wive’s tale,” Shouta said. “Wet hair doesn’t spontaneously manifest viruses.” Iida chuckled.

“You got me there,” he said, opening his locker further down the row, “But it does make your head colder, which is uncomfortable,” he added as he started to get dressed.

Shouta ducked his head again, the sight of Iida’s muscular legs and toned chest sparking a kind of heat rushing through his gut that he immediately tried to smother. He did notice that it was different from the warmth in his chest that he’d felt earlier with Hizashi, though.

Gods, what the hell was going on with him?

He stared down at his shirt and slowly began to fasten the buttons, fingers moving methodically through the motions. He didn’t realize how zoned out he was until a bump on his shoulder startled him. Iida, now fully dressed, was sitting next to him on the bench.

“Where are Yamada and Shirakumo? You three are practically joined at the hip.”

“I was the only one who needed a shower,” Shouta said, his eyes tracing the grout lines of the tile floor.

“Everything ok?” Iida asked, leaning forward to try and peek around the curtain of Shouta’s hair. “You seem kinda… blah.”

“How is that different from usual?” Shouta asked. ‘Blah’ was basically his standard emotional presentation.

“Ok, you seem extra blah,” Iida pressed. Shouta just sat silently. He didn’t know if he had the words to explain what was wrong; and even if he did, Iida wasn’t someone he was close with. How could he talk with Iida if he hadn’t even talked with his friends about… whatever this was.

Shouta imagined trying to bring this up to Oboro, and it sent a spike of panic through his chest. He couldn’t tell Oboro, not if Shouta himself didn’t understand what was going on. What if this was something that could cause a problem, or tension between them somehow? And talking to Hizashi was obviously completely out of the question. Shimada already seemed to know something; but she also was clearly uncomfortable with the situation, so pressing her would be unfair.

He thought about talking to his parents, but the idea of facing down his mother’s knowing look when he had no idea what was going on inside himself made him want to hide away. No, talking to his parents was also not happening.

Shouta had no idea how long he’d sat there, frozen and silent, but when he blinked and looked up, Iida was still sitting next to him, elbows resting on his thighs as he hunched forward. At Shouta’s movement, Iida glanced over at him out of the corner of his eyes, barely tipping his head, as if Shouta was a wild animal that would get spooked and bolt if Iida moved too suddenly.

Maybe that was accurate.

Shouta examined his shoes, absently noting the scuffs on the toes.

“How do you know if you… like someone?”

He didn’t remember deciding to ask the question. It sounded stupid now that it was out of his mouth, but it was too late to take it back.

There was a beat of silence before Iida hummed thoughtfully. “You mean Like-like?” he asked slowly. “Like you want to hold hands and make heart eyes at them? Like you want to hold on if they hug you, so you can breathe in the way they smell? Like every song on the radio makes you think of them?”

That last one wasn't fair, music made Shouta think of Hizashi.

Shouta didn’t say anything, turning things over in his mind. There had been times where he’d wanted to reach out and take Hizashi’s hand, but did those count? A hug from Hizashi was usually just an arm around his shoulder, or a group hug with Oboro squashing both of them together.

How was Shouta supposed to figure any of this out?

“Anyway, I guess those are some of the ways you might know,” Iida said. “Why? Got someone you like?”

“I-” Shouta started, only to find he had no idea what else to say. The silence stretched out between them, a gap Shouta had no words to bridge. Iida had them, though.

“Come on. I know a nice little tea shop nearby,” Iida said, dropping Shouta’s towel on top of his still dripping hair. “Dry off a little, we’ll get you something warm to drink and make sure you don’t catch a cold.”

“That’s still not how that works,” Shouta grumbled, quickly working the towel over his hair to absorb most of the water.

“Can’t hurt, though!” Iida said with a grin.

It felt strange to be walking off the UA campus with someone other than Hizashi and Oboro. Iida was mostly quiet as they made their way to the tea shop, making a few offhand comments and observations about the weather starting to warm up and about some of the passersby. Small talk.

Shouta didn’t say anything, but Iida didn’t seem put off by his silence.

When they reached their destination, Iida led them to a table in the corner by the front window - not that the place was busy, with only two other people in there besides the gentleman who seemed to be the proprietor. Iida gave the man a cheerful wave, which he returned with a smile.

“Got a friend with you today, Tensei?” the man said as he came over. “What would you boys like?” They gave him their orders, and he walked away, giving Iida a pat on the shoulder.

“You come here a lot?” Shouta asked.

“Yeah, it’s nice. Mr. Aoi always has really good tea.” With that, the conversation ended. Iida gazed out the window while Shouta fiddled with a napkin, staring down at the tabletop. Mr. Aoi came back a few minutes later with their cups. Shouta switched from fiddling with the napkin to tapping his cup, watching the ripples dance across the surface of his tea.

Shouta rarely got uncomfortable with silence the way most people seemed to. Hizashi and Oboro were always filling the space with noise, with chatter and laughter, and it took the burden off of Shouta. He didn’t need to be the awkward one not holding up his end of a conversation. He could just chime in when he wanted, and sit back to watch and listen otherwise. They didn’t demand anything of him in that way.

Iida wasn’t demanding anything of him either, but he was waiting. Shouta could tell. Shimada was quiet in the same way Shouta was, where the two of them could sit in silence without expectation of breaking it; but Iida wasn’t like that. He wasn’t as loud as Hizashi or Oboro, but he was cheerful and outgoing and started and maintained conversations easily. His silence now was giving Shouta the time and space to figure out what he needed to say. Just like before in the locker room.

“What do you do,” Shouta finally asked, the words coming slowly, “If you do… Like someone?”

Iida shrugged. “Tell them?” he suggested. “Ask them out? Spend months staring at them longingly and hope that they do the hard part and ask you out?”

Shouta thought of Shimada. “But what if they don’t like you back?”

“That’s always a risk,” Iida said with a slow nod. “Not gonna lie, it sucks. It can hurt, a lot. But we get over it, eventually.” They sat quietly for a minute, sipping their tea. “And there’s no rule that says you have to do anything at all,” Iida added. “Sometimes, we like someone for a little while, and then it just kinda fades away all on its own.”

“How long does that take?” Shouta asked, hope flaring up. Maybe, if things could just go back to normal, he wouldn’t have to deal with this at all. Just muddle through for a bit until it passed.

“It’s not like there’s a set time frame on it,” Iida said with a wry smile. “I’ve had some crushes that were gone by the end of a week, and some that lasted for over a month before they faded.” He took a long sip of tea. “Some are harder to figure out how to handle than others,” he added quietly, looking out the window.

They both fell silent again, finishing their drinks and then just… sitting.

“Why did you do… this?” Shouta finally asked Iida, waving his hand vaguely around.

“Seemed like you needed to talk,” Iida said. “Actually, here, give me your phone.” Shouta didn’t pause, just unlocked his phone and handed it over. “There,” Iida said, handing it back a minute later, “Now you don’t have to sit around looking morose in the locker room, you can just text or call me if you want to talk.” Shouta glowered at him for a moment, but there was no real anger behind it, just as there was no real meanness in Iida’s teasing.

“Thanks,” Shouta said, pocketing his phone.

“You take the train home, right?” Iida asked. Shouta nodded. “Me too, come on, let’s go.”

*

That night, Shouta responded to the texts from Hizashi and Oboro checking in on him. Frustration churned inside him as he realized the way he was noticing the messages from Hizashi, and he did his best to shove aside the little thrill that he felt when they popped up.

After he’d left Iida earlier, Shouta had continued to think about things, wondering if maybe Shimada had been mistaken. After all, he’d never been so distracted by Hizashi before, maybe he was just getting caught up in his own head? Sure, he thought a lot about Hizashi and wanted to spend time with him; but it was the same with Oboro too!

Then Shouta remembered the way he’d felt happy for Oboro when he had his date with Nakano, but he’d been… less happy for Hizashi dating Ebisui. Was that because he liked Hizashi?

Was he… jealous?

He hated this, he just wanted everything to go back to the way it was! Hopefully Iida was right, and all he had to do was get through this until it faded. Then things could be normal again.

‘Getting through,’ however, was harder than he anticipated. As the days passed, it seemed that now that he had a name for it, now that he knew what he was feeling, he had become hyper aware of Hizashi’s presence in a way he hadn’t been before. Sitting close to him made Shouta’s pulse race. If their arms touched in even the most innocent of ways, Shouta felt himself blush.

At night, he caught himself wondering what it would be like to kiss Hizashi.

It had been less than a week, and Shouta was already desperate for this to just go away.

And also, not.

Because the way Hizashi smiled and laughed made Shouta happy. Because Hizashi was kind and thoughtful, and he made Shouta feel special. Because Hizashi was strong and bright, and Shouta was drawn to him like a moth to a flame.

Shouta tried to use logic to rationalize himself out of it. After all, Oboro smiled and laughed and made Shouta feel special! He was kind and thoughtful and strong! He was so much like Hizashi! And Shouta wanted to talk with him and spend time with him and be friends with him. So clearly, Shouta should be able to make himself feel about Hizashi the same way he felt about Oboro, which involved a lot less blushing, no fantasies about kissing, and fewer inconvenient erections.

Still, the stubborn warmth that swirled around his chest and his stomach continued to respond to Hizashi. Worse, the more Shouta tried to connect the way he felt about both of his friends together, he found that even though he didn’t have the same fluttery feelings for Oboro, he caught himself starting to react to Oboro.

Ok, bad tactic.

Now it was Thursday night, and he’d been in hell for three whole days. How the fuck was he supposed to survive weeks - or maybe even months of this? How was he supposed to go over Hizashi’s house on Saturday to review for finals? Sit on his bed close enough to touch, knees just centimeters away? Shouta had been doing his best to keep Oboro between himself and Hizashi at school, but how much longer was this sustainable?

For a wild moment, Shouta thought about asking Hizashi how he’d gotten over Ebisui so quickly before realizing the abject insanity of that idea. Actually, talking to Hizashi at all right now was a terrible idea…

Which he hated, because he really wanted to talk to Hizashi. A lot. Or, at least listen to Hizashi talk.

He stared at his phone, worrying his lip between his teeth as he opened the text chat with Hizashi, then closed it. Then opened it again. He started to type, Hey, and then immediately deleted it and closed the chat, huffing in frustration.

He tried messaging Oboro, hoping to distract himself… until he remembered that Oboro was hanging out with Nakano, and that was why he wasn’t responding. Shouta rolled onto his side and curled up on his futon, miserable and alone and hating this stupid irrational emotion that had hijacked his body and brain.

He opened his phone contacts again, considering messaging Shimada, just to have someone to talk to, when he saw an entry he didn’t immediately recognize.

“Tensei?” he read aloud to himself, before realizing that Iida had put his information in under his given name.

Biting his lip, Shouta checked the time. It was late; but not too late. Iida would probably still be up, and he’d given Shouta his number specifically so Shouta could reach out if he needed someone to talk to. This probably wasn’t what he meant, but the unending ache in Shouta’s chest had him feeling desperate for anything to help ease it.

He took a breath and tapped out a message.

<sent> Why did you put your name as Tensei?

<Tensei> Because that’s my name? 😄

<Tensei> It’s what I prefer to be called. But it’s fine if you want to stick with Iida.

<Tensei> How are you doing?

<sent> Bored.

<Tensei> Me too. I’ve been studying, but there’s only so much review one person can take before they need a break.

<Tensei> We could be bored together, it might be less boring.

Shouta wasn’t very good at holding up a text conversation, but Iida was almost as good at keeping it going on his own as Hizashi and Oboro could be. It was nice, even if the chatter Iida sent his way was mostly aimless stuff about school and finals. The subject didn’t matter much, but he provided just the distraction Shouta needed. Gradually, the ache eased enough that he thought maybe he could get to sleep.

<sent> I gotta go to bed.

<sent> Thanks

<sent> For talking with me

<Tensei> My pleasure. Good night.

<sent> Good night.

When Shouta woke up Friday morning, he was feeling marginally better, and his morning exercise routine helped a little more. When he walked into the classroom, for the first time since Monday, he felt like he’d be ok around Hizashi. Maybe things were getting back to normal already.

“Dude! Guess what!” Hizashi said excitedly as Shouta sat down. Without waiting for Shouta to guess (not that Shouta was going to guess), Hizashi continued on. “You know Urabe, from Class B? She called me last night, and she asked me out!”

The sharp flare of pain that ripped through Shouta’s chest stole his breath. “Oh,” he managed to grunt. “Ok.”

“Your enthusiastic congratulations are always appreciated,” Hizashi said, sticking his tongue out.

Shouta didn’t say anything, just sat at his desk and pulled out his notebook, trying to breathe through the pain threatening to rip him in half. He’d heard the term ‘broken heart’ plenty of times, but it wasn’t until this moment that he understood that there was an actual pain to it. That something in his chest was being squeezed so tight that he thought he might be crushed into nothing.

It wasn’t until that moment that Shouta realized, in some secret corner of his mind, part of him had been holding onto a tiny, delusional flicker of hope. Hope that had led him to indulge those irrational, giddy feelings when Hizashi messaged him, when Hizashi gave him an apple at lunch, when Hizashi smiled at him. Hope that maybe the person he liked would like him back.

The stark reality of just how fucking stupid that was had just punched him in the chest.

The word that Shouta obviously knew, but hadn’t stopped to think about, finally crashed into his consciousness.

Gay.

Shouta was gay. He’d been so caught up in freaking out over the fact that he liked Hizashi that he had failed to think about the fact that he liked a boy. So it didn’t matter how much he liked Hizashi, or how he wanted to handle his feelings. It didn’t matter, because Hizashi liked girls. Hizashi talked about girls and dated girls and cried over girls.

Hizashi could never like Shouta back any more than Shouta had been able to like Shimada back.

“What’s wrong, Shou?” Oboro asked as he walked down the row to plop down in his seat.

“Nothing,” Shouta said as Nishibori came in to start class. He did his best to ignore the concerned glances from his friends. Fortunately, by lunch he’d gotten himself under control enough that he could eat with them normally and pretend that he was fine.

“You guys wanna go to Catpurrccinos this afternoon?” Oboro asked, glancing back and forth between Hizashi and Shouta.

“Can’t, I’ve gotta get ready for my date with Urabe,” Hizashi said around a mouthful of rice. “We’re going out early cuz her parents don’t want her staying out late. Maybe tomorrow after we study?”

“Maybe,” Oboro said. “We’ll figure something out,” he declared, as if in defiant response to a challenge, rather than going to a cat cafe. Shouta just choked down his lunch, finding it suddenly tasted like ashes in his mouth.

“Oh, Shouta, you forgot your apple,” Hizashi said, holding it out to him. Over the past year, no matter how much Shouta had protested, his friends had continued to shove ‘extra’ food at him almost every day. So he’d given up on protesting.

Now, though, he hesitated.

It was stupid. There was no reason to refuse the offer. Hizashi was his friend. It was just an apple. He brought one for Shouta all the time. Tentatively, Shouta reached out to take it. His fingers brushed against Hizashi’s, and his heart stuttered painfully in his chest, but he kept his expression neutral.

“Thanks,” he mumbled. Hizashi just smiled at him, bright and brilliant, and oh gods Shouta’s chest ached with the weight of the thing he couldn’t have.

He bit into the apple, and it was sweet.

*

Hizashi skipped Shouta’s binding-cloth training that afternoon so he could go home and get ready for his date. Shouta didn’t ask what he could possibly need to do that would take him so long, instead just trying to focus on trying to snare Oboro as he darted around the gym. It went slightly better than it had for the past few days when Hizashi had been with them.

Slightly.

When time was up, Shouta sighed as he got his stuff together.

“What’s got you down, Shouta?” Oboro asked. “You’ve been acting weird the past few days, and this morning-”

“Nothing has me down,” Shouta snapped, not in the mood for this conversation. “I’m just tired, we’ve got finals coming up, and I’m trying to not fall behind everybody else.”

“Fall behind?” Oboro’s brow furrowed in confusion. “You’re putting in more work than any of our classmates-”

“And I can still barely keep up,” Shouta shot back. “I can’t afford to be thinking about dates or romance, it’s all just a distraction.”

“Shouta, you know that me and Hizashi are still your friends, right?” Oboro asked gently. “We’re not gonna ditch you or anything.” Shouta knew that, of course he did. That wasn’t his problem right now… though he couldn’t help looking around the gym, as if searching for Hizashi. Oboro got the drift and snorted a laugh. “You haven’t needed us as your safety crew in months. Missing one afternoon isn’t ditching you, I promise. And,” he added, slinging his arm around Shouta’s shoulders, “You better not ditch us if you decide that dating is interesting enough to be worth a little distraction.”

Shouta snorted at the absurdity of that idea, then shook his head and sighed. “You’re seeing Nakano again tonight, right?” he asked. He missed talking to Oboro when he was busy, but it didn’t sting in the way it did with Hizashi.

“That’s the plan. Unless you wanna hang out,” Oboro added, “Mayumi will understand.”

Shouta shook his head again. “Nah. We’re still studying tomorrow at Yamada’s place. I’ll see you then.”

Oboro nodded and smiled at him, then pulled him into a tight hug. Shouta didn’t hug back, but he closed his eyes and let himself lean into Oboro’s chest for a moment. “Oh, phew!” Oboro laughed when he finally let go and took a step back. “You might wanna rinse off and reapply some deodorant, you’re a little ripe.”

“You stink too,” Shouta told him with a smirk.

“In that case, I’m going home to shower and get ready,” Oboro said, grabbing his stuff and waving to Shouta as he left the gym. Shouta gathered his own things and headed to the locker room. Stowing his stuff for the moment, he washed up quickly and, like Oboro suggested, put on a bit more deodorant. Going back to get his things, once again, Iida was standing by the row of lockers, finishing getting dressed.

“Oh, hi,” Shouta said, scooting past Iida towards his locker. He gave the other boy a curious glance, realizing this wasn’t only the second time he’d seen him in the locker rooms after hours. Shouta had never really paid attention to it before, but now that he thought about it, he realized he’d seen Iida at least a few times a week most of the time. “Are you in here a lot after school?” Shouta knew why he needed to stay late and put in extra training, but Iida was already so strong. Why would he need to?

“Yeah, I like to try and go for a longer run after school,” Iida said. “I can’t exactly use my Quirk for my morning run around the neighborhood, and most of our training exercises don’t give me the opportunity to run all out for more than a few minutes at a time. But doing laps around the UA campus after class is great! What about you, why are you here late so often?”

Shouta held up a strand of his binding cloth before packing it away again. “It’s a really tricky piece of support equipment to use, I’ve been practicing pretty much every day and I’m still only starting to get the hang of the basics.”

“I dunno about basics,” Iida said, raising an eyebrow. “I’ve seen you use that thing in joint training, it’s impressive.” Shouta ducked his head, knowing he didn’t deserve the praise; but part of him enjoyed hearing it anyway. He finished stowing his stuff and got ready to head out.

“I’ll see you around, Iida,” Shouta said.

“Hey, wait,” Iida said, and Shouta paused. “You wanna go get a cup of tea?”

Shouta blinked in confusion. He didn’t think Iida should be able to tell he was still upset from earlier, so… “Why?”

Iida chuckled. “Because tea is nice? And company makes it better.”

“Oh.” Ms. Emoto didn’t need him to come in today, so the alternative was sitting in his room stewing in his own misery. “Ok.”

They made their way off campus and to Mr Aoi’s tea shop. Shouta still didn’t talk much, and Iida seemed content enough with that. Mr. Aoi greeted them cheerfully and they sat at the same table as they had last time.

It was strange, sitting there with Iida. Not bad, but strange. Iida looked out the window and sipped his tea, and Shouta sat quietly, stirring his. It didn’t make sense. He needed to ask. “Why did you ask me to join you?”

Iida smiled and shrugged. “I told you, company makes the tea better.”

Shouta frowned. “I’m not good company.”

“Sure you are,” Iida insisted. “You spend plenty of time with Shirakumo and Yamada, don’t you?”

“I’m mostly just… there, though,” Shouta huffed.

“Yes, well, that is how being in someone’s company works,” Iida laughed. “Just being there can make all the difference.”

Shouta glowered at him. “You’re being difficult on purpose.”

“What, you don’t enjoy a challenge?” Iida said with a wink, and Shouta immediately felt himself flush, heat rising from his neck right up to the top of his head. A swooping sensation swept through his gut, as if he was falling, and he could feel the way his heart rate picked up.

It wasn’t quite like the feeling he had with Hizashi; but for a split second, this new sensation chased away the pain that had been haunting him all day.

“Iida, I-” Shouta started, but cut himself off, mouth twisting into a frown as he slumped down in his chair. Iida just waited quietly, gazing out the window. He shifted in his seat across from Shouta, and suddenly the warm weight of Iida’s muscular calf was pressed next to Shouta’s leg. “What… what?” Shouta stammered, not moving, fixed in place by the heat of the contact.

“Problem?” Iida asked calmly, but there was a glint in his eye.

Shouta took a long moment to try and catch his breath. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but he knew that it wasn’t something he was willing to call a problem. “No.”

“Good.” They sat there, quiet again. Shouta just breathed in the scent of his tea as he sipped, and felt the warmth radiating from Iida’s leg into his own, all his attention focused on that point of contact. After a while, Mr. Aoi approached them to ask if they wanted anything else, and Iida shifted in his chair. When his leg moved away from Shouta’s, Shouta immediately missed it, wanted that connection back.

“Come on, let’s give Mr. Aoi his table back,” Iida said, even though there was only one other person in the shop.

“Do you have to go home?” Shouta asked, finding himself disappointed at the idea.

“Not specifically,” Iida said as they stepped out of the shop into the late afternoon sunlight. “Why, do you?”

“Not specifically,” Shouta replied quietly.

“Wanna take a walk?” Iida asked, glancing down at Shouta from the corner of his eye. “There’s a park between here and the train station.”

“Sure.” They moved slowly through the streets, side by side. Every now and then the backs of their hands would brush past each other and Shouta had to fight the impulse to take hold of Iida’s hand the way he’d held Shimada’s.

Maybe in a different way than he’d held her hand.

“I don’t understand what’s going on,” Shouta said, staring down at his sneakers as they entered the park.

“Does it feel bad?” Iida asked.

“No. I think… I like it,” Shouta admitted.

“I was kinda hoping you’d say that,” Iida said, leading them over to a bench and sitting, putting his bag down beneath the seat. Shouta followed suit.

“Is… whatever this is… the reason you’ve been talking with me?” Shouta asked, staring down at his hands, clasped between his knees.

“The first time we went for tea, no. Not really, anyway. You just seemed like you needed someone to talk to,” Iida said. “Today, though… maybe a little bit. I do enjoy your company, no matter anything else.”

That last bit didn’t escape Shouta’s notice. “What kind of anything else?” he asked. Iida shrugged, for once not seeming to have a response. Sitting this close to him, Shouta could see that Iida’s cheeks were tinted pink. “I-” Shouta paused, suddenly unsure if he was ready to say this thing out loud. “I’ve been figuring some stuff out. About myself,” he hedged, his hands shaking as he picked at a fingernail.

“I wonder if it’s anything like the kind of stuff I’ve been figuring out about myself,” Iida pondered aloud. For the first time in Shouta’s memory, Iida seemed less than one hundred percent confident. Shouta was certain he’d never seen the representative of Class B look nervous. It made him feel a little braver himself. He reached out with tentative fingers and took hold of Iida’s hand. Iida immediately turned his hand so their palms were pressed together, fingers laced.

Shouta had no idea what he was doing. He was pretty sure there was a proper way to go about handling something like this, but he hated this feeling of dancing around what he meant instead of being direct.

That simply wasn’t how Shouta was wired to handle things.

“I’ve figured out that I don’t care about kissing girls,” he said, trying to keep his voice from shaking as he looked down at their hands, “But that I really want to try kissing guys.” He took a breath and looked up at Iida’s face. “Have you ever wanted to kiss another guy?”

“I have,” Iida said, eyes darting down to Shouta’s lips then back up to his eyes. “Very much, actually.”

Iida- Tensei sat there, looking at Shouta, a smile equal parts nervous and excited skittering across his features. He was handsome. Tensei was very handsome, actually. And kind, and strong, and so patient with Shouta. They were barely even friends. They had hardly spoken more than a dozen times when Tensei had decided to just spend most of an afternoon sitting with Shouta in near silence while he tried to figure out basic human emotions.

He didn’t ask for anything. He never did.

A conversation from weeks ago flashed through Shouta’s mind. A reminder to do a thing only if he wanted to do it. Shouta knew that there were some things he would never have, no matter how much he wanted them. He was used to it. But maybe this was different. Maybe this was something that he not only wanted, but that he could also have.

He surged forward and pressed his lips to Tensei’s, eyes tightly shut, blocking out the rest of the world as Tensei kissed him back. It was all Shouta could do to hold on to this moment, this fundamental shift in how he thought of things.

Because this was nothing like what he’d felt with Shimada. This was something he wanted more of. Right now.

He let go of Tensei’s hand, but only so he could reach over and grab Tensei’s arms, their lips parting for just a moment so he could adjust the angle before Shouta closed the distance again. It was so soft and warm. It was so good. In another moment, both of Tensei’s hands were on his shoulders, gently pushing Shouta back but holding on tightly, drawing in a shaky breath as his eyes flicked back and forth, searching Shouta’s face for… something.

“Aizawa-?”

“My name is Shouta,” he breathed as he leaned forward again. Tensei met him halfway as he wrapped his arms around Shouta, holding him close.

*

Saturday morning dawned dreary and overcast, but Shouta was in good spirits as he ran through the drizzle that spit down out of the sky. He could understand better now why people made a big deal about making out.

It felt really good.

Even though he and Tensei hadn’t done more than kiss and hold each other, it had been like nothing he’d ever imagined.

(Except when he’d imagined kissing Hizashi.)

Shouta frowned and tried to push aside that thought; but it was always harder to do that when he was listening to playlists that Hizashi had made him.

Anyway, this would work out well, because Oboro was dating Nakano, and if Hizashi was spending time with Urabe, then Shouta having Tensei meant that he wasn’t the only pathetic one who was entirely dependent on two other people for all his social contact. It was very rational.

He wasn’t going to mention it to Hizashi and Oboro, though.

Not the kissing part, anyway.

Chapter Text

Hizashi was busy stuffing his laundry into the hamper shoved in his closet when Mom let him know Shouta and Oboro were there. He ran a hand through his hair, brushing it away from his face while he glanced around to make sure he hadn’t missed any stray socks. He hadn’t bothered styling his hair after his shower earlier, and he told himself that it was just because he just didn’t feel like it. It definitely had nothing to do with the way Shouta had looked at him the last time his hair was down…

He’d been trying, he really had, to stop thinking about his friend that way. When he and Ebisui had been dating, it had been easier. The excitement of it being on a real, actual date with her had been an effective distraction at first. When he had been able to hold her hand and kiss her, it had been really nice…

And it was something he’d never be able to do with Shouta. That was impossible.

Unfortunately, the distraction hadn’t lasted nearly long enough. At least he could honestly say that he’d never imagined kissing Shouta while he was kissing Ebisui. She’d had a way of commanding his full attention in the moment, so that had been good…

But when he was home, laying in bed trying to sleep? That was a different story. The images popped into his head, whether he wanted them to or not. (Not that he ever wanted them to, of course.) Thoughts of cupping Shouta’s cheek and leaning in to kiss him. Imagining Shouta reaching out to hold his hand. He wanted more time, more touch, just… more.

And it was ridiculous to think about Shouta wanting that from him. It was a unique form of torture, letting himself imagine a Shouta who wanted to kiss him, who wanted to touch him, who wanted Hizashi’s touch as much as Hizashi wanted his…

Ugh, he had to stop this. The whole thing was bad news anyway, destined for disaster. If he didn’t pull himself together, he was only going to make things worse. He needed to cut the crap and let himself be happy with what he had; because what he had was already a lot! He had his friends, he had a pretty girl he was seeing, he should be… happy!

Sure, it was a little harder to manage his time when he wanted to go on a date, since he wasn’t gonna ditch his friends again if he could help it. He was making a real effort to plan any dates for times when he knew his friends were busy. As it was, he had been bummed that he’d had to miss out on helping Shouta train yesterday, even though the date with Urabe had been fun.

He tried to make sure that he set aside time for his friends in other ways; they talked and texted on the phone plenty, and they came over his house both to study and to hang out at least once a week, sometimes more. It was stupid for him to feel like he was missing out on time with his friends.

With Shouta.

Uuuugh, why was this so hard? He could put it out of his mind when he was on a date, but that was pretty much it. And yesterday with Urabe, it had been more difficult to do than it had been with Ebisui. Sure, Urabe was pretty, and she seemed nice, but she wasn’t nearly as cool as Ebisui… and neither of them were as great as Shouta.

For weeks, Hizashi had been doing his best to keep Oboro between himself and Shouta, just as a little bit of a buffer. So he wouldn’t be as tempted to touch him; to flick his hair or bump against his shoulder or sling his arm around him. Hizashi was perfectly able to do all that to Oboro and it was all just friendly contact. But with Shouta, Hizashi couldn’t stop himself from feeling… more.

It was driving him insane.

The door of his room burst open, and Oboro announced, “We are here!” almost as loud as All Might himself. Hizashi laughed as they came in, turning to face them while they dropped their bags on the floor. “So!” Oboro said, clapping his hands together, “Are we studying first, or should we warm up our brains with some video games to start?”

“That hardly warms your brain up, more like turns you into a zombie,” Shouta told him.

“But if I’m zombified, I won’t be able to complain about geometry nearly as much!” Oboro pointed out, and Shouta snorted, giving a half-grin. The expression of mirth on Shouta’s face froze Hizashi in his tracks.

“What’s got you so chipper today?” Hizashi asked Shouta, keeping his tone as light as he could. Cuz Shouta smiled, of course Shouta smiled… but his smiles were always something that had to be earned, not something he gave out so easily. And almost this whole week, Shouta had been… off. Even poutier than usual. The last time Hizashi remembered earning a real smile from him had been on Monday, with the lady beetle.

So what had happened between yesterday afternoon and today to make Shouta’s smile come so easily?

Of course, the moment Hizashi asked, Shouta frowned at him. Not like he was actually angry, just like he was wiping away the lighthearted moment.

“You do something fun yesterday?” Oboro asked Shouta.

“I ran into Iida after training,” Shouta muttered. “We went for tea.”

Jealousy surged through Hizashi. He knew he had no right, that Shouta was allowed to have other friends. He knew that it was good for Shouta to make other friends! But something wild and possessive inside him flared to life, wanting to punch Iida in his perfect, pretty face and lay claim to Shouta as his. Only Oboro was allowed to share Shouta’s attention.

“Ohhh, sounds like a lovely date!” Oboro teased, clearly just goofing around, but gods that did not help the fucking monster writhing in Hizashi’s chest… and then Hizashi saw the horrified expression that flicked over Shouta’s face.

“It wasn’t a date,” Shouta growled, arms crossed.

“Woah, easy there,” Oboro soothed. “I didn’t mean to hit a sore spot.”

“It’s not a sore spot,” Shouta grumbled, the flash of anger flickering out to leave his usual tired pout. “It just wasn’t a date.”

And just like that, Hizashi felt like absolute shit, because of course it was a sore spot. Shouta was the one of them who’d had the worst luck with girls, the only one who didn’t have someone to date right now.

Hizashi had been so busy trying to focus his own attention on girls that he’d been acting like a complete asshole to his friend, practically rubbing it in his face!

(He really tried to not think about how horrified Shouta had looked at the idea of being on a date with another guy.)

“Well none of us are ever gonna get any more dates ever again if we fail out of UA instead of becoming the greatest heroes of all time,” Hizashi said, trying desperately to salvage what he’d already fucked up. Shouta huffed at him and rolled his eyes, but Hizashi recognized it as a ‘more amused that irritated’ eye roll, so he counted that as a win. Oboro pouted and flopped across Hizashi’s bed with a dramatic groan as he took his notebook out of his bag.

Studying went well; much better than Hizashi expected, actually, with Oboro seeming to catch on to things quicker than usual. Whatever the reason, Hizashi was glad to spend most of the afternoon and evening playing video games and horsing around with his friends.

The school week went past in a blur of lessons and review and training. On Thursday, Urabe came hurrying into the Class A classroom as soon as the bell for lunch rang and asked Hizashi to join her; but as nice as she was, Hizashi wasn’t willing to give up the rooftop with his friends.

He’d made that mistake once, he wasn’t gonna do it again.

“Sorry,” he told her while Shouta and Oboro waited for him just outside the door, “I always have lunch with Aizawa and Shirakumo.”

“Oh,” she said, her smile tightening at the corners. “Could I join you then?”

Hizashi shook his head. It’s not like they were allowed to be up on the roof in the first place, no way was he inviting anyone else into that space. “No can do, sorry!”

In the time it took Hizashi to blink, Urabe’s smile had disappeared and she was glowering at him. “Ugh, everyone was right. There’s no use even trying with the three idiots of Class A. Goodbye, Yamada. Don’t call me.” Hizashi’s jaw dropped as she spun on her heel and stalked out of the classroom, brushing past Shouta and Oboro as she did.

“What was that?” Oboro asked as they made their way down the hallway.

“I’m starting to think that Urabe has decided that she doesn’t want to go on our second date tomorrow after all,” Hizashi joked, glancing back over his shoulder.

“Sorry,” Shouta mumbled.

“Nah, it’s fine,” Hizashi said, waving off the condolence. Aside from some adrenaline thrumming through him after the way she’d gotten in his face, Hizashi found he wasn’t really upset. In fact, part of him was kinda… relieved. “I probably shouldn’t be dating right now anyway, not if I wanna do well on finals.”

“Speak for yourself,” Oboro laughed as they went up the stairs to the roof.

“Nakano is different,” Hizashi said. “And you’ll be lucky to pass finals, so doing well isn’t really a concern.”

“Oh ye of little faith! I’ve got the best tutors!” Oboro declared. “So since you don’t have plans tomorrow anymore, wanna go to Catpurrccinos after school?”

“Sounds good to me!” Hizashi said.

“I-” Shouta started, then cut himself off.

“What?”

“I have plans to hang out with Ten- with Iida,” Shouta muttered. “Cuz you were gonna be out with Urabe.”

“Oh,” Hizashi said, feeling that spark of jealousy flare up again.

“We could invite him to join us,” Oboro suggested slowly. Hizashi immediately hated the idea and had to bite his lip to keep himself from shouting his objection.

“No!” Shouta said quickly, and Hizashi sighed in relief. “No. I… I dunno, I like having that place be something for the three of us.”

“Me too,” Hizashi agreed.

“I’d like to go to the cafe, though,” Shouta added quietly. “It’s been a while since we went. I can tell Iida something came up. I just saw him yesterday anyway, it’ll be fine.”

“You saw him yesterday?” Hizashi asked, trying to control the emotions swirling in his chest. “When?”

“After training,” Shouta said, and for some reason, his cheeks flushed a little pink. “He runs around campus after school a lot. Sometimes we bump into each other when we’re leaving.”

“Oh, cool,” Hizashi said, trying to make it sound sincere. “But tomorrow, the three of us, Catpurrccinos, right!? No excuses!” Oboro shot him an odd look, but Shouta just nodded.

~*~

Shouta said goodbye to Oboro and Hizashi after training and headed to the locker rooms. He didn’t really need to wash up today, but he wanted to see Tensei. Sure enough, when Shouta entered the locker room, Tensei was just finishing getting dressed.

“Done already?” Shouta asked.

“I was pushing a little harder today,” Tensei replied, his face lighting up in a smile when he saw Shouta. “I don’t know if I finished faster than usual, or gave up sooner than usual,” he added with a laugh.

“You’re not the type to give up,” Shouta said.

“I do when pushing more isn’t going to be helpful,” Tensei countered. “Gotta know what our limits are so we can go beyond them; but I can’t afford to wear myself out.” Tensei came over and draped his arm around Shouta’s shoulder for a moment, and Shouta felt his face heat up. He knew that if anyone saw them, it wouldn’t look any different than when Oboro did the same thing to him; but Shouta knew it was different.

“I’m not gonna be able to go for tea with you tomorrow,” Shouta said as the pair of them walked out of the locker room and towards the main gate.

“Everything ok?” Tensei’s brow furrowed up in concern.

“Yeah, fine. Something just came up.”

“Does that ‘something’ have to do with the fact that Urabe came into lunch today angry about Yamada and his ‘two conjoined twins,’ as she put it?” Tensei asked with a tight smile.

“Maybe?” Shouta wasn’t actually sure what the answer to that was.

“You’re going to be doing something with them tomorrow now that Yamada doesn’t have plans with Urabe anymore, right?” Tensei clarified.

“Oh.” Shouta ducked his head for a moment. “Yeah.”

Tensei sighed, and Shouta hunched his shoulders, stuffing his hands deeper into his pockets. “The three of you really do have a special kind of connection, don’t you.” Tensei said quietly. It sounded like a question, but Shouta knew it wasn’t actually. “You know I’d never try and intrude or come between you all, right?”

“Of course,” Shouta scoffed at the absurd idea.

“And you know I like them both, right? As far as I know, they get along with me. I’m not sure why it seems so important to you that I stay away when you’re with them.” Tensei paused for a moment. “I understand if you don’t want them to know about us; but I promise I can keep my hands to myself if I need to. Would it be so bad for me to spend time with all of you together as a friend?”

Shouta only scowled. “I need to catch the train, Ms. Emoto needs help unloading a lot of boxes today.”

“Alright,” Tensei said, turning down the road towards the train station. They walked in silence. For the first time that Shouta could remember, the silence with Tensei felt uneasy.

They stood on the platform, waiting.

“I like you, Shouta,” Tensei said quietly, eyes focused on the tracks in front of them.

“I like you too,” Shouta responded without hesitation.

Tensei took a long, slow breath. “Two weeks ago, you were stressed out about having a crush on someone, trying to figure out what to do about it.” A humorless huff of laughter escaped him. “I don’t think that someone was me.” He tipped his face up towards the sky. “I don’t want to be just… filling in for the person you really want. I don’t want to be your rebound.”

A tight, twisting panic swirled in Shouta’s chest. “What do you-”

“I don’t know if it’s Yamada or Shirakumo,” Tensei said, “But if your feelings for him ever change, maybe you and I can try this again.” He finally turned to look at Shouta. For a moment, Shouta thought he saw wetness gathering in Tensei’s eyes; but he wasn’t sure because his own vision had just gotten blurry.

“Ten- I- Iida…” Shouta was at a loss. This was the second time someone was telling him that they couldn’t be together, but the first time he felt like he was losing something. And he knew it was his own fault.

“I was your friend when I gave you my number,” Tensei said softly. “I’m still your friend now. You can still call me Tensei. If you want.”

His chest was an open wound, and he could barely breathe; but he needed to say it, no matter how thick his voice was; “I’m sorry, Tensei.”

“Don’t be, Aizawa.”

No, shit, no, that was- no… Shouta choked down the sob that tried to tear out of him. “My name is Shouta.”

“Ok, Shouta. Don’t worry. It’s gonna be ok.”

*

By the time Shouta got home that evening, all he wanted to do was lock himself in his room and sleep. Ms. Emoto had known something was wrong the moment he’d walked into her shop, and had tried asking him about it. Fortunately, she’d accepted the fact that he wasn’t going to say anything, and instead of hounding him, she’d instead started filling a bag behind the counter with snacks. When he left after a few hours, she’d pressed the bag into his arms and insisted he take it. He hadn’t had the energy to argue.

He dropped the bag in the kitchen and tried to escape before his parents could corner him; but Dad was still fast, even with his bad leg.

“What’s wrong?” It was possibly the most serious he’d ever heard his dad’s voice sound, which just made Shouta more tired.

“Nothing.”

“Did something happen at school? Did you have a fight with your friends?”

“What?” Shouta shook his head. “No. I’m just tired.”

“Shou-chan, I’m not stupid.” Dad stepped close and put his hands on Shouta’s shoulders, holding him fast. “Just tell me if you’re in any trouble, if there’s anything Mom or I can do to help.”

Shouta sighed and shook his head. “It’s nothing like that.”

“Everything is fine with Yamada and Shirakumo?”

“Yes, Dad.” Shouta knew the words sounded hollow. He felt hollow.

Dad gave him a long look. “Ok. Dinner will be ready soon.”

Shouta nodded and Dad stepped aside, clearing the path to his room. Shouta closed the door behind himself and promptly curled up on his futon, burying his face in his pillow to muffle the wet, choked sounds that kept escaping him as the dam holding everything back finally cracked.

He knew Tensei was right. Shouta understood, deep down, that he hadn’t been fair to him. He was a stupid, selfish asshole, and he didn’t deserve to have people in his life who treated him with patience and understanding and kindness.

He pressed his fist hard against his chest, as if that could somehow ease the pain.

He deserved the pain, anyway, since he was a cowardly, pathetic asshole. Pathetic and stupid and broken.

If he was normal, maybe he could just have dated Shimada. Maybe things would have been fine. Why the fuck did he have to be like this?

Why did he have to want someone who could never want him back?

He curled in tighter on himself, unable to stem the flow of tears from his stinging eyes until his thoughts faded into a drowsy haze.

Shouta woke up with a gasp as a heavy weight settled down next to him on the futon, a warm hand threading through his hair.

“Come and eat something,” Dad said gently. Shouta shook his head. He wasn’t hungry. “Then come wash your face. It will help.” Shouta shook his head again, and Dad sighed. Shouta felt him stand up slowly, and he wanted to reach out and grab on to him, to ask him to just sit and stay, but he couldn’t move. Tears welled up fresh in his eyes as he heard Dad leave the room, and his breathing grew ragged.

How was he supposed to survive this misery?

His bedroom door opened again, and for a moment he turned to squint against the glare from the hallway before Dad closed it behind himself. Sitting back down next to him, Dad rested his hand on Shouta’s shoulder as Shouta turned away from him.

“Take your face out of the pillow, Shou-chan,” he murmured, and Shouta couldn’t help but do as he asked. He rolled his head enough that Dad could see him, though he kept his eyes closed, and Dad smoothed his hand across Shouta’s forehead. “Here, this will help,” he said, pressing a cool, damp washcloth over his eyes.

It was a relief.

Shouta wanted to throw it across the room.

“Will you tell me?” Dad asked gently. Shouta shook his head. “Should I go?” he asked. Shouta shrugged. Shouta felt him shift his weight, and thought he was about to leave; but he only rearranged himself to sit more comfortably on the futon. He ran his hand from Shouta’s shoulder down his arm and back up again in slow, soothing movements. Gradually, Shouta’s tears stopped flowing. After a while, Dad began stroking his hair, and Shouta squeezed his eyes more tightly closed to try and prevent the tears from starting again.

“Whatever it is, it won’t hurt like this forever,” Dad told him, breaking the silence that had stretched out between them. “I know it must be important. Only things that matter to us can hurt like this. But, I promise, the way it feels now isn’t how it will feel forever.” He leaned over and pressed a kiss to his temple. “You’ll get through this, Shou-chan.”

If he said anything after that, Shouta didn’t hear it, because he fell asleep.

*

For the first time that Shouta could remember, he chose to skip his morning workout. His eyes felt like sandpaper, a thousand times worse than any time he’d ever overused his Quirk. He grabbed the bottle of eyedrops from his desk drawer. They helped, but not much.

At school, the handful of glances sent his way told him he looked as bad as he felt.

He put some more drops in his eyes.

“Yo, dude, what the hell happened to you?” Hizashi asked the moment he sat down at his desk.

“I didn’t sleep well,” Shouta said. It wasn’t a lie, he’d woken up a dozen times overnight.

“Are you getting sick again?” Oboro asked.

“I’m fine,” Shouta lied as Sensei started the roll call.

By lunchtime, he was feeling a little better. His eyes still ached, but now the dryness was like when he overused his Quirk. He was used to it.

“We’re still going to the cafe later, right?” Hizashi asked. “No excuses, remember?” The question almost made Shouta tear up again; but as much as what had happened yesterday still hurt, the thought of going back to the cat cafe with Hizashi and Oboro was a lifeline Shouta felt himself clinging to. It was tiny and weak, but he made himself smile, to try and put everyone at ease.

“Right.”

*

Catpurrccinos had been a good decision. Shouta was slouched down low on a sofa with a big brown tabby purring on his chest, a gray cat draped across his lap, and a third cat he couldn’t see laying on the arm of the couch behind him, resting it’s paws on top of his head. He was petting the head of the tabby, eyes closed, not asleep but letting himself drift, and he was feeling remarkably better.

He could hear his friends whispering to each other, though.

“Do you know what’s got him so upset?” Hizashi asked Oboro.

“No idea,” Oboro whispered back.

“I’m kinda worried. He’s been acting weird for a while.”

“I know,” Oboro sighed. “Maybe it’s just the stress of finals coming up?”

“He’s got the least to be stressed about,” Hizashi muttered. “His grades are great, and nearly all his practical skills are getting top marks too. He’s got this in the bag.” Shouta felt something familiar twist in his gut. It always seemed to happen when Hizashi overestimated Shouta’s abilities.

“Well, written exams start on Monday, and the practical exam is next Thursday,” Oboro said. “By this time next week, it’ll all be over, and hopefully he’ll be feeling better.”

The weight of the cat on his chest kept him grounded as he realized just how much he’d lost track of what was important. Letting hormones and emotions get the better of him and distract him from why he was at UA in the first place. Dating and kissing, and even friendships weren’t the goal. They weren’t what he was working so hard for. He was going to be a hero, and he couldn’t let himself get sidetracked like this again.

He needed to be rational.

He kept his breathing steady and even as he scratched the cat between its ears. He had the weekend to pull himself together.

*

It had been easier than Shouta had expected, pushing things to the side; he just needed to keep himself constantly busy. When he wasn’t working for Ms. Emoto, he was studying, working out, or sleeping. He only messaged a few times in the group chat with Oboro and Hizashi, though the two of them kept a decent stream of banter in there that Shouta could catch up on when he was waiting for the next task. For the first time in weeks, the conversation was only about music, video games, tv shows, and complaints about English grammar - nothing about relationships.

That helped.

Shouta was focused, and come Monday, it seemed to be paying off. He got through the first half of the week and the written exams without a problem. On Wednesday afternoon, just before they were all dismissed, Nishibori addressed the class.

“As you know, tomorrow is the practical exam,” he said. “The format differs from year to year, and we will go over more detailed instructions in the morning before we begin; but for now I will let you know that this will be a group exam, with everyone participating at the same time. Be prepared for teamwork.”

Hadachi raised her hand. “Does that mean our grades will depend on how well other people do?”

“You will each be getting individual grades, but how well you work with others will be part of that. Any further questions will be answered in the morning. I suggest you all go home and get some rest tonight, you’ll want to be at your best tomorrow.”

“Looks like we’ll be skipping extra training today?” Hizashi said, and Shouta nodded. “Wanna come hang out?” he asked as they left the classroom, eyes flicking between Shouta and Oboro. “I plan on turning my brain to sludge with video games all afternoon, it’s more fun when you’re there for me to kick your ass!”

“I’m in!” Oboro cheered, “But I distinctly remember you needing to cheat to try and beat me last time.”

“That wasn’t cheating!”

“You grabbed my controller!”

“I was just adding some live action to the play!” Hizashi said with a grin, pointing cheekily at Oboro. Shouta couldn’t help but smirk a little at his friends as they bantered back and forth; but he knew he needed to keep his distance, at least for a little longer. Just in case any irrational feelings got stirred back up again.

“I can’t today,” Shouta told them, carefully putting aside his own disappointment at missing out on the fun.

“Awww, come on, you’ve been going nonstop, you need a break too!” Hizashi said, nudging him with his elbow before quickly trotting ahead of them a few steps and turning on his heel to walk backwards, making a show of clasping his hands together and plastering a comically exaggerated pout on his face.

“I promised Ms. Emoto I’d be there after school, and I’m gonna go to bed early,” Shouta told them as they made their way towards the train station. “Have fun though.” He turned to Oboro. “Don’t let him cheat.”

Oboro grinned triumphantly. “See, told you it was cheating!”

*

Class A gathered in their classroom Thursday morning before Sensei sent them off to the locker rooms to change into their hero costumes. Shouta shouldn’t have been surprised to see Class B in there getting ready as well, but it did make him pause for a moment. He spotted Tensei down at the end of the row, getting suited up in his white armor. As if he could feel Shouta’s eyes on him, Tensei looked up, gave Shouta a tiny smile and nod, and went back to getting ready.

Shouta took a breath as Oboro bumped into him, getting him moving again. They got changed quickly and headed out to the large cityscape training grounds where the exam was being held. Shouta managed to be surprised again that Class B was heading to the same place, and Nishibori-Sensei and Enoki-Sensei were waiting there together for them.

“Alright, listen up,” Enoki said. “Here’s the scenario. There’s a villain attack happening, and it’s up to you all to safely capture all the villains. There are also several civilians trapped in there with them. Some of them might be hostages, some of them might be trapped in wreckage from the damage. This is not a scenario that any one hero could ever handle on their own, except for maybe All Might. Incidents like this can happen without warning, and therefore with little to no time to discuss strategies. You will end up in situations where you will need to work effectively and efficiently with other heroes who you don’t know, and who don’t know you. As soon as those doors open, you are all to go in and get to work, no sitting around to try and discuss strategy until you’ve actually seen the situation for yourselves.”

“The test is concluded when all civilians are saved and all villains are captured,” Nishibori told them. “Bring civilians to one of the safety points, you can find them by the green beacons. Villains need to be brought to one of the capture points, which are the red beacons.”

“Do what you need to do, as quickly and smoothly as you can,” Enoki-Sensei said. The two teachers looked at each other, the gates behind them started swinging open, and the start horn sounded.

“Go!” they yelled in unison, and everyone took off running.

Shouta peeled off from Hizashi and Oboro, not wanting to risk being distracted.

It didn’t take long for the chaos of the situation to sink in for Shouta. They didn’t know how many villains there were, what kinds of Quirks they had, not even if there was any definitive way to differentiate between villain and civilian, at least not until they tried to kill you.

And that was assuming that the civilians didn’t panic and attack a hero in self-defense, thinking they were a villain. Shouta thought he recognized some of the school faculty and started to wonder if they were playing the role of villains, like they had at the entrance exam- until he flinched and veered off to the side of the road when an explosion blew a crater in the asphalt ahead of him.

“Focus,” he told himself, looking for the source of the explosion, trying to make sure he pulled his weight enough to pass. He spotted Sensoji furiously blasting away at something, and Shouta dashed over. If nothing else, he figured his skill set could be useful in getting defeated villains to the capture points.

Assuming Sensoji wasn’t blasting an innocent civilian to bits.

Shouta recognized Ogino-Sensei as Sensoji’s target, his arms crossed up in front of himself to protect his head and chest from the brunt of the blasts; but he was looking tired. Shouta wasn’t sure how long Sensoji had already been blasting the man; but he was sure that as soon as Sensoji stopped, Ogino wouldn’t take too long to recover. He readied his capture weapon. “He’s a villain?” he shouted to Sensoji, trying to be heard over the sounds of the explosions.

“Obviously, that’s why I’m blasting him,” Sensoji sneered.

“I’ll neutralize him and get him to the capture point,” Shouta said, glancing at the red beacon lit up only two blocks down the road. His Quirk flared to life as he directed his gaze at Ogino. “You’ll need to hold your fire so I can get my binding cloth on him,” Shouta added, warily eyeing the way the blasts were starting to eat away at the structure of the building that Ogino had backed up against. Sensoji glanced at Shouta out of the corner of his eye.

“I was just gonna knock him out.”

Shouta grit his teeth, knowing that they were wasting time. “That will take longer. If I take over here, you can go find the next villain,” he tried. Sensoji was obnoxious and egotistical, and Shouta despised that about him; but it also made it easy to nudge him in the direction Shouta needed him to go.

“Ok,” Sensoji said with a shrug, abruptly ceasing fire and walking away. “Don’t blame me if he kicks your ass, though,” he called over his shoulder. Shouta glowered, but didn’t have time to even aim the expression at Sensoji since he was busy erasing Ogino’s Quirk and throwing out a length of binding cloth. Fortunately, Ogino seemed stunned from Sensoji’s barrage, and he stumbled forward as Shouta started hauling him as fast as he could towards the beacon.

Shouta was halfway to the capture point when Ogino got some fight back in him. He dug his heels in and started pulling hard against Shouta. Even without being able to use his Quirk, he was a full grown man; and despite all Shouta’s training, he hadn’t packed on nearly enough muscle to just strong-arm Ogino where he needed him to be. Shouta threw another length of binding cloth to secure Ogino’s legs and ankles, yanking hard and sending the man toppling backwards, while keeping enough tension on the length binding his arms and chest that Ogino didn’t smack his head on the ground.

Now, of course, Shouta had to drag him the rest of the way to the capture point. Drawing a deep breath, he locked his eyes on Ogino and started walking backwards towards his goal, heaving on the capture weapon with each step.

It took far too long, but finally, Shouta got Ogino in place and registered as ‘captured.’ Only then was Shouta able to reclaim his binding cloth and head off in search of another way he could try and be useful.

He darted around the battlefield, lending assists to whatever fights were ongoing and guiding a few civilians to safety points. He could hear Hizashi every now and then, and could sometimes feel a rumble beneath his feet that told him Nakano was probably doing something nearby; but mostly he just focused on scrambling around, following sounds of fighting or calls for help.

He ran towards the center of the training grounds, where it seemed a lot of fighting had converged. Running through an intersection, he found himself at the edge of a large open grassy area with a few small stands of trees; an island of green surrounded by tall buildings. Jogging along close to where the grass met the sidewalk, Shouta paused about halfway from one corner to the other to look around and assess the situation.

In towards the middle of the park, ahead of him and a bit off to his right, was a fairly dense stand of trees. Deep in the shadows of the copse, he could see flashes of light that looked like the Quirk of one of Tensei’s classmates. Shouta might be able to help out, but rushing in to an uncertain situation was probably unwise.

Turning his head to look to his left, all the way past the edge of the park and across the roadway beyond, he saw two figures scuffling. It took him a split second to register that it was Oboro grappling with a villain, and that his friend was pinned up against the side of a building.

Pulse kicking up, Shouta pivoted to run towards them, Quirk flaring to life as he stared at the villain-

But the ground wasn’t behaving the way it was supposed to. Shouta hadn’t made it more than two steps when he was knocked off his feet, forced to blink as his shoulder slammed into the grass.

He scrambled to stand up, but he was driven back to his knees. by what he finally realized was the ground shaking violently. He looked wildly around, wondering if Nakano was up to something, or if Sensoji had overdone it and actually knocked down a building.

He was so busy scanning the ground and shadows of the buildings that he somehow didn’t see the thing until it had him locked in its sights.

“Oh, fuck,” Shouta whispered, as his eyes traveled up… and up.

It was a robot, not too different from the ones at the entrance exam… except it was nearly the size of Hizashi’s house. And it was aiming its arm, capped with an energy weapon that looked like it could blast a hole in the side of a building, directly at Shouta.

He needed to run. Now.

If he ducked back towards the buildings across the road behind him, the blast from that gun would send rubble everywhere, possibly even bringing a whole building down. If he tried to run directly at the robot, he’d be in range for it to just stomp him flat. To his right, the thicket of trees was probably too far away to reach in time- and heading that way would take him further from Oboro. He looked to his left, and Oboro was on the ground, the villain poised over him with his fist pulled back to deliver a heavy blow.

If he ran that way, could he help Oboro? Or would he just bring greater danger? Would the robot target a villain? Would it keep locked on Shouta and shoot at him regardless of collateral damage? Could he use it to distract the villain and help Oboro? Or would he just doom them both by bringing those cannons to bear on his friend?

What should he do?

There were vague sounds of yelling around him, but they all faded away into a rushing roar that filled his head. His mind spun in circles, his hand gripped tight on a strand of his capture weapon… but the material hung limp around his shoulders. He stared at the giant gun as it began to glow, a red light building from within, brighter and brighter until it threatened to blind him.

He couldn’t look away.

The roaring in his ears grew louder. Maybe it was the sound of the gun.

It was so loud.

The flash of light came. Shouta was knocked sideways to the ground, the air forced out of his lungs in an instant. A heavy weight landed on top of him, and his chest wouldn’t expand properly as he was pressed down into the ground.

He couldn’t inhale, he couldn't breathe. He twisted around, trying to shift the weight, trying to free himself, trying to understand what was happening.

He heard someone yelling, “Find Radiohead!”

He heard someone else yelling, “Hizashi! Shouta!”

He heard the whine of the gun powering up again.

He tried to breathe, but the ground was so hard beneath him, he was being crushed.

The whine got louder, and Shouta’s eyes finally focused on the weight atop him.

Blond hair and black leather, laying still.

Too still.

He couldn’t breathe.

A voice yelled again, “Hold on!” The ground got softer, and the world started to move past him, sending a sick swoop of queasiness through him.

Or maybe that nauseous feeling of needing to vomit had already been there.

When the weight was lifted off of Shouta and he could finally draw a full breath, reality started to crash in around him. He saw Hizashi, standing, his arm draped around Oboro’s shoulders and leaning heavily on him.

Alive. Breathing. Talking.

“I’m fine,” Hizashi wheezed, wincing when he tried to bear more of his own weight.

“You certainly are,” Oboro quipped, waggling his eyebrows suggestively, “But if you try and run off with that injury, you’re gonna collapse.” Oboro manifested another cloud, and had Hizashi recline in it like a beanbag chair while he turned his attention to Shouta. “Up you get, no more free rides,” he teased, but Shouta didn’t miss the way worry furrowed up between his eyebrows.

A blast of air blew past them, ruffling Shouta’s hair. A flash of white streaked right up to the robot, still in the middle of the grassy area, though Shouta was now in the shadow of the buildings where Oboro had been fighting the villain. The figure in white zipped away from the robot, directly back towards Shouta and his friends while Shouta struggled to get his feet on the ground.

“How bad are the injuries, does anyone need an evac?” came Tensei’s voice from behind the white armor mask he wore. Shouta couldn’t see his eyes, but the tilt of his head made it clear he was looking back and forth between Shouta and Hizashi.

“Mic, help Mic,” Shouta gasped out, finally able to speak, trying to squash down the emotions threatening to overwhelm him as he started to piece together what had happened.

“I don’t need evac, I just need a minute,” Hizashi insisted, trying to stand up from the cloud with minimal success.

“I got Radiohead to the robot, she should have it handled momentarily,” Tensei said. “There are still a few villains causing trouble, and likely still some civilians to evac.”

“Well here’s one less villain causing trouble,” Oboro said, jerking his thumb to point back over his shoulder at the villain he’d been grappling with earlier, currently bleeding slightly from a cut on his forehead, his hands secured behind him with zip ties.

“Yes, indeed.” Tensei said, a note of pride in his voice. “You three stick together and back up Radiohead, I’ll get him to a capture point.” Tensei lifted the man up over his shoulder with an ease that had shame and envy churning in Shouta’s gut before he took off.

“Hey, idiots!” Kobayashi yelled from her perch on the now-still arm of the giant robot. “C’mere!”

Hizashi finally got himself up from the cloud; but his attempt to walk on his own over to Kobayashi was painful and slow enough that he finally relented to lean on Oboro.

Shouta refused to get too close to Hizashi. Something inside him was convinced that if he touched him, he would somehow end up hurting him even more.

“What’s up?” Hizashi called up to Kobayashi when they got closer.

“Up here!” she said. Oboro manifested a cloud that brought all three of them up to where Kobayashi stood. “Check it out.” She showed them a hatch in the ‘ribcage’ of the robot. “I’m going in, you three back me up.” Without waiting for a response, she placed her hand on the hatch, closed her eyes, then moments later pressed on a panel next to it. The hatch popped open with a hiss, and Shouta immediately activated his Quirk, focused on the darkness inside in case anyone was laying in wait to attack - but it seemed empty.

“Be right back!” Kobayashi said, ducking inside. Shouta held his breath until her voice echoed out to them, “Jackpot! Scanner screens in here show lifesigns, labeled friend and foe! There’s two big groups of heroes, each tackling a villain, those should be mopped up soon. Other than that, there’s one civilian left, one villain left running around, and I know where they both are!”

“Where’s the villain?” Hizashi asked, and Kobayashi laughed.

“I’m not telling you that,” she said, flicking her eyes over him as she emerged from the hatch. “You and Loud Cloud go get the civilian to safety, Eraser and I will take care of the villain.”

“I don’t know if that’s-” Hizashi started to say, and it tore into Shouta more deeply than any knife could cut.

Hizashi didn’t think Shouta could handle it. Hizashi knew Shouta couldn’t handle it. Hizashi was worried that Shouta was going to get another friend hurt or killed.

And Hizashi was right to worry.

But they didn’t have a choice. Shouta couldn’t go with Hizashi, and Hizashi couldn’t go after the villain, so Shouta had to go after the villain.

“You’re loud enough to get the attention of a hiding civilian,” Kobayashi said, her tone allowing no argument. “If they’re injured, only Shirakumo can help evac both you and them at the same time. We need to wrap this up fast,” she said, leaping lightly from the arm of the robot to the ground, an impressive jump to make so easily. Oboro brought them back down to ground level and Shouta hopped off the cloud. At least his legs felt steadier now.

“Down three blocks that way,” Kobayashi told Oboro, pointing, “There’s a cluster of buildings, the civilian is in the second from the far end.” Oboro snapped a salute to her and, with his fist holding tight to the collar of Hizashi’s jacket, they sailed off in the direction she’d indicated.

“Our turn,” she said, turning to face Shouta. “The villain seemed to be hunkered down four blocks east of us. I saw two more heroes between us and the target, but I don’t know who. With any luck, we should be able to pick up some backup on the way.” Shouta only nodded. Kobayashi took off jogging, and Shouta fell into step behind her.

Halfway to their target, they spotted Ebisui, and Kobayashi hailed her. “We’ve got the location of the last villain, wanna go finish this up?”

“Hell yeah, let’s go!” Ebisui said, falling into step. “Where’s the other two idiots?” she asked, glancing around.

“Getting the last civilian out,” Kobayashi said. Shouta tried to stay focused on running, keeping his eyes open for dangers in the environment. They didn’t know who the last villain was, they could have set traps.

“Bingo,” Kobayashi said with a wicked grin, jerking her chin towards a lone figure exiting a building. Shouta didn’t recognize him. “Do your thing, Eraser.” Shouta activated his Quirk, and their opponent clearly noticed the effect, looking down at his hands in confusion.

“Let’s get this done,” Ebisui growled, cracking her knuckles. The three of them approached the grinning villain.

“Nice trick,” he laughed, pointing at Shouta. “That’s you, right? Nifty.” Shouta grabbed his binding cloth and threw a length of it. His aim was true, but the villain put up his arm to block, so instead of pinning his arms to his torso, Shouta only had one of his forearms caught. He threw another length as Ebisui closed in on the villain, ready to lay him out with one punch if she got the opening. He snared the man’s leg and yanked, hoping to pull him off balance; but the villain was able to move with it, dodging Ebisui’s punch moments later.

Shouta’s eyes were burning, and he needed to blink. He could only hope that the villain wouldn’t notice. He yanked again on the binding cloth while he let himself blink, activating his Quirk again as soon as his eyes opened; but he was too slow. Vines had already twisted up out of the roadway, wrapping around Ebisui’s legs, holding her fast. Even as Shouta erased the villain’s Quirk, the vines remained.

“She’s the only one who can do any real damage, right?” the villain laughed. “How long till you need to blink again, hm? Wanna have a staring contest?” he taunted Shouta, opening his eyes wide. Kobayashi was trying to help Ebisui yank free, but Shouta knew that if Ebisui’s Quirk couldn’t manage it, whatever help Kobayashi was offering wouldn’t make much difference.

“The knife in my belt,” Shouta said to Kobayashi, and she abandoned the pulling to grab Shouta’s knife and hand it off to Ebisui, who began furiously trying to cut herself free. Shouta was holding one length of cloth in each hand, but if he tried to hold both in one hand, there was a good chance the villain would be able to pull him off balance before he could throw another length. His eyes were already starting to burn, time was running out before this got out of hand.

He knew he shouldn’t have come, he was more of a liability than anything else.

Shouta could only hold out another few seconds, and the villain was just staring at him. Watching, waiting for the moment he blinked.

Which turned out to be a good thing, because it meant he hadn’t been watching as Kobayashi had picked up a fallen branch from a nearby tree, likely knocked down in an earlier skirmish, hefted it up to her shoulder, and swung.

“No,” Kobayashi said as the villain collapsed to the ground. “She is not the only one here who can do some real damage.” Quickly, Shouta readjusted the binding cloth to hold the villain more securely.

“Nice job!” Ebisui said to Kobayashi as she finished freeing herself from the vines. “You too, Eraser,” she added with a nod and a small smile, handing him back his knife. “Let’s get him secured before he comes to his senses.” She scooped up the villain, Shouta keeping a grip on the capture weapon and his Quirk active as much as possible. If the expression on Kobayashi’s face was anything to go by, it was probably comical, seeing Ebisui - who was easily the smallest student in both Class A and B, carrying a full-grown man cradled in her arms. Shouta was too worried about getting the villain secured before he screwed up again to find the amusement in it, though.

They hurried to the capture point, and as they set the villain down, the horn sounded, indicating that the test was over. Shouta took off towards the exit, ignoring the girls calling out for him to wait up. They were fine, he needed to see about Hizashi.

He ran, his mind spinning as he turned over and over what had happened, how badly he’d screwed up. He’d come this far with the basic level of strengths he had, but reality was settling in around him.

What he had could never be enough for the kind of real-world scenarios that heroes actually face. His Quirk was damn near worthless, and the second he had to try and fight more than one person in a nice, controlled setting with teachers and referees around, what good was he? He had technique? Finesse? What the fuck was that going to do against a 200 kilogram heteromorph determined to pound him into paste? Who was he to tell Hizashi that he needed to work on his hand-to-hand fighting when Hizashi could blast away his opponents in a heartbeat, in a way Shouta would never, ever be able to.

And because Shouta was too slow, too weak, too useless, Hizashi had gotten hurt.

He came out of the training grounds to where many members of Class A and B were already milling around. He looked around at his classmates, each of them already so much stronger than they’d been at the start of the year. Each of them leaps and bounds ahead of Shouta, and he had no hope of closing the gap.

He was worthless.

Powerless.

Chapter Text

Hizashi managed to keep a smile plastered on his face the whole time he and Oboro floated around the building Kobayashi had directed them to, focused on finding the last civilian - a woman crouched down under a stairwell, thankfully unhurt. The moment they got her to the safety point, though, Oboro started dragging Hizashi towards the exit, even before the horn sounded almost a minute later.

He knew that it was a lot faster and smoother riding on a cloud than if Oboro needed to help him along on foot; but the fact was, he didn’t want any help at all. He wanted to shove his friend away and walk out on his own.

The problem with that, of course, was that the wound on his side actually hurt really fucking badly, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to make it more than a few steps by himself.

And now that the test was over, the adrenaline that had kept him moving was starting to wear off, and he found himself leaning heavily against Oboro’s side. He tried to keep his smile up, but he could feel it getting tighter, ready to crack.

“Sensei!” Oboro shouted as soon as they caught sight of him.

“We saw what happened, go on, get him to Recovery Girl,” Nishibori said calmly. Oboro nodded sharply and took off, zooming them towards the main school building. Hizashi squeezed his eyes shut and rested his forehead against Oboro’s shoulder, trying not to breathe too deeply as the burning sensation in his side sent pulses of pain rippling through him.

He also tried not to breathe too shallowly, because the fear was already starting to twist inside him as he wondered how bad the damage was. He could feel himself edging towards the realm of panic, and the last fucking thing he needed right now was to have a breakdown in the middle of school.

As focused as he was on his breathing, it took Hizashi a bit before he noticed that the wind in his ears had gotten quieter. He pried his eyes open and saw that they were inside now, Oboro moving them swiftly through the corridors.

“No running in the hallways,” Hizashi joked weakly. His voice came out shaky, and he bit his lip, breathing slowly through his nose.

“We’re flying, not running,” Oboro quipped right back as they slowed to a stop outside the nurse’s office.

“If it isn’t Athos and Porthos,” Recovery Girl said when Oboro finally helped Hizashi down onto his feet. Hizashi hissed through his teeth as the movement jostled his wound, but Recovery Girl only shook her head at him. “Come on, over here, let me take a look at you,” she sighed, heading over to a bed near the back of the room.

Hizashi pulled away from Oboro, determined to walk over on his own.

That, as it turned out, was a poor decision.

As soon as he moved, the burning pain radiating out from his side flared even brighter, and his knees buckled while his body screamed hell fucking no, are you stupid? A strangled whine wheezed out of him as he sagged against the wall, hating how pathetic he was right now.

“Will you lean on me, or do I need to float you over there?” Oboro asked him. For once, there was no teasing note of humor to mask the worry.

Stubbornness flared up inside Hizashi, as hot as his wound, and he found enough breath to growl, “Keep your fog to yourself, Cloud Boy.”

“As long as you don’t collapse, Mouth Man.” At least Oboro was bantering back, but there was still enough of an edge to his voice that Hizashi knew he must look as shitty as he felt. Reluctantly, he grabbed onto Oboro with his left arm, his right still held stiffly as a barrier between the world and the wound on his side. Slowly but steadily, Oboro helped him over to where Recovery Girl was fiddling with something next to one of the cots.

“Here, take this,” she said, thrusting some pills and a cup of water at Hizashi. “It will help with the pain.”

Hizashi winced as he took the pills and swallowed them… and then he paused to wonder why the magic healer needed him to take pain killers. Worry started to creep up the back of his throat.

“Aren’t you gonna… heal me?” he asked. The panicky feeling from earlier was kicking up again as he began to question if this was a lot worse than he realized. What if she couldn’t heal him? What if he was never gonna heal properly? What if he had to drop out of the hero course and-

“Of course I am,” the nurse said, her firm voice cutting through Hizashi’s spiraling thoughts, “But we’re going to have to get that burnt fabric off of you before I can safely do so.” Oboro grabbed for the zipper of Hizashi’s jacket and tried to pull it down, but Hizashi flinched and batted his hand away.

Of course, the movement only made a fresh wave of pain wash through him, and Hizashi gasped, squeezing his eyes shut. He couldn’t keep doing this, something inside him was gonna snap; shit, he just needed this over.

Fuuuuuck, this sucked.

The sound of footsteps pounding down the hall outside dragged Hizashi’s attention away from wallowing in his misery and back towards the doorway. He pried his eyes open just in time to watch Shouta burst in, red faced and out of breath. Wide, dark eyes looked wildly around until his gaze fell on Hizashi and Oboro, an expression first of relief and then horror flicking across his face.

A fragment of the tension in Hizashi eased. It wasn’t much, but he could breathe a little easier.

“Ohohoho, there’s Aramis, I was wondering where the third Musketeer was,” Recovery Girl chuckled. “You’re just in time, I think Yamada could do with a bit more help.”

Hizashi bristled at that, gritting out, “I don’t need help,” between clenched teeth. Unfortunately, his obstinate bravado was immediately undermined when he yelped in pain as Oboro moved to stand at his right side and accidentally brushed against his jacket.

Recovery Girl dropped her smile as she looked up at him. “Listen carefully, Yamada,” she said, holding his gaze. “You are going to be fine, but you’ve got a nasty burn. Even if I didn’t need to see the damage to know the extent of what I was dealing with, we would still need to get these clothes away from the wound. You don’t want me to heal you, only to find some piece of your outfit fused into your new skin.”

Blanching at the thought, Hizashi barely suppressed a shudder as he imagined it in vivid detail. “That is a deeply disturbing image,” he groaned, still trying to keep Oboro from tugging at his jacket in his quest to unzip it. “Why would you say that!?”

Recovery Girl’s serious expression gave way to a tiny, wicked smirk… and in that moment, Hizashi understood. She would continue to tell him every single ugly complication that could arise if he kept fighting against the help they were trying to give him.

The problem was, fighting was the only way he knew how to keep himself together.

“You are a cruel woman,” he moaned.

“You gotta be cruel to be kind,” she said with a shrug, still smirking.

Hizashi blinked and froze in shock, giving Oboro the opportunity to finally get his jacket unzipped. “Are you quoting 1970s English pop music to try to distract me?” he sputtered.

“It’s working, isn’t it?”

Hizashi pouted. “Yes.” It grated against every impulse inside him, but he took a breath and let the fight drain out of him. It was hard, but at least he knew that, no matter how scared and hurt he was, he was safe here with Oboro and Shouta.

Recovery Girl gave him a softer smile. “Good. Aizawa, help Yamada get his boots off.”

Shouta’s initial momentum through the doorway had carried him a few steps towards them, but he’d stalled to a stop halfway across the room… and he still hadn’t spoken a single word. Hizashi was used to Shouta being quiet, but there was something unnerving about it now. At least he started moving again at Recovery Girl’s command, immediately coming over to kneel down in front of Hizashi, shoulders hunched and bowing his head low. Far lower than he needed to, more than halfway to the floor.

Even as scattered as Hizashi felt right now, he couldn’t mistake the posture as anything other than a silent apology… He just had no idea what to do about it. He could only stare down as Shouta carefully pulled off one boot, then the other, while Oboro helped Hizashi keep his balance.

Which was necessary, because Hizashi felt very off-balance right now, in more than one way.

“Jacket next,” Recovery Girl said, pulling the privacy curtain closed the rest of the way. The rattle as it moved along its track snapped Hizashi out of his daze and dragged his eyes away from Shouta. “The medicine should be kicking in soon, so if you want to wait another few minutes, you may.”

He glanced quickly back down at Shouta, flinching as another spike of pain stabbed through him. “Gotta say, I’m not the biggest fan of dragging this out any longer than necessary,” Hizashi muttered, then sighed. “Let’s just get it done.”

“Sit,” Recovery Girl commanded, shoving a low, sturdy plastic stool towards him. “No arguments.” Shouta stood to get out of the way, moving to Hizashi’s side. His eyes were still downcast while Oboro positioned the stool and Hizashi focused on carefully lowering himself onto it. At Recovery Girl’s direction, Hizashi kept his arms down at his sides while Shouta eased the jacket down his left arm as Oboro did the same on his right.

“Slow and steady,” Hizashi mumbled, trying to control his breathing as the heavy fabric came away from him, “Don’t hit the buzzer.”

“Might be funny to see your nose light up. I think my brother still has our ‘Operation’ game stashed in the closet somewhere. We’ll play the next time you come over,” Oboro said, blowing out a relieved breath and holding Hizashi’s jacket up in triumph. “I got the funny bone!”

“Too bad I need spare ribs,” Hizashi grumbled. The injury was actually lower than his ribs, down on the softer skin of his waist close to his hip. He glanced down briefly at the burnt and bloodied fabric of his t-shirt, wincing at the sight as much as the pain that rippled through him at the movement.

“Hey, how did you end up so burnt while your jacket is fine? Didn’t you have your costume made of leather because it’s a good layer of protection?” Oboro asked, examining the jacket. “I mean, besides the fact that it looks cool, obviously,” he added.

Hizashi frowned, thinking about those seconds when everything had gone to shit.

He remembered looking over to see that giant fucking robot come out of nowhere. Remembered seeing Shouta standing there in the line of fire as that hugeass gun charged up. The moment he realized that Shouta wasn’t fucking moving and was about to be blasted to ash. Running towards him, heart in his throat, screaming at the robot while having to make sure he didn’t blast Shouta too. Reaching out, arms stretched towards Shouta, tackling him to the ground while the whine of the gun grew louder until everything went white…

He sucked in a breath, heart pounding as he shook his head to banish the memories, at least for now. “It must have gotten rucked up at a weird angle when I was moving or something,” he finally said, shrugging his left shoulder. He hoped nobody else noticed the waver in his voice.

When he looked at Recovery Girl, she was inspecting his wound and frowning at it in a way he didn’t like. She turned away for a moment, and when she turned back, she was holding a pair of angled scissors.

“Uhhh, what’re those for?” he squeaked, suddenly feeling a little dizzy as an icy chill slid through his veins.

“I have to cut that t-shirt off of you so I can get it away from the wound,” she said. The dizziness got worse as he realized that this part was really going to suck.

For better or for worse, Recovery Girl didn’t give him much time to dwell on it, moving with practiced ease, grabbing the bottom hem of the shirt and starting to snip, careful not to pull the fabric that was stuck to the wound. The scissors were cold, though, and the chilly touch of them bit into the sensitive skin of his stomach. He knew the blades weren’t cutting him; but the sensation joined forces with the ice beneath his skin and made him want to jerk away.

“Easy, man, yer ok.” Oboro’s hand was warm and heavy on his back, holding him steady, and he was thankful for it. Hizashi’s left arm reached out, almost reflexively, as the scissors brushed against his sternum, grabbing blindly for Shouta, catching his wrist and holding on. After a beat, he felt Shouta’s free hand press over his own.

Recovery Girl finished cutting his shirt right up to the collar, but didn’t go through the last few centimeters of fabric yet. Then she cut most of the way from the hems of the sleeves up to his collar, leaving the same bit of fabric keeping things together.

“Aizawa, Shirakumo, hold his shirt up while I make the last cuts,” she told them. Hizashi hated losing the pressure of Shouta’s hand on his, but it was immediately replaced by a firm grip on his shoulder. He and Oboro each held on tightly, keeping his shirt up as Recovery Girl snipped the last bits, with Hizashi acutely aware of how close the blades were to his rabbiting pulse. His mind ever-so-helpfully provided him with a vivid image of what it might look like if her shaky old hands slipped and cut an artery-

The click of the scissors being put down on a tray off to the side interrupted that particular thought, and Hizashi sucked a sharp breath in through his nose. He was fine. This was fine. His hand tightened on Shouta’s wrist and he felt the steady thrum of his pulse beneath his fingers.

“Take a knee, you two,” Recovery Girl said, nodding at Oboro and Shouta. “Yamada, arms on your friend’s shoulders and hold on,” she told him, collecting the cut ends of his sleeves beneath his arms so that lifting them wouldn’t pull on the fabric.

Hizashi took a breath and forced himself to release his grip on Shouta’s wrist, moving to rest his arm along the back of his neck as his friends each knelt up tall and shifted closer beside him. He hesitated a moment before moving his right arm to hold on to Oboro, hissing through his teeth as the wound stretched and pulled.

“Aizawa,” Recovery Girl said firmly, “Use your Quirk, just in case.” Hizashi turned to look at Shouta, who was even paler than before.

“Is that ok?” Shouta whispered, the first words he’d spoken since he’d gotten there. They sounded hoarse and small, but Hizashi found he could breathe a little easier hearing them. He nodded; his control was good, but far from perfect, and bursting Recovery Girl’s eardrums was a surefire way to make this whole ordeal a lot worse for everyone.

Shouta’s eyes glowed, his hair lifting, and despite the situation, Hizashi couldn’t help but stare, entranced. There really was something fundamentally different between watching Shouta use his Quirk and being the target of it himself. Something hypnotic that Hizashi didn’t think he’d ever quite get used to.

For a moment, everything was still and silent.

The moment splintered when Recovery Girl peeled his shirt off of him in a smooth, skillful motion and pain tore through Hizashi again. His mouth fell open in a silent shout before he was able to suck in a breath and bite down on his lip, muffling his mute whimpers. The only sound he was aware of was the air passing through his nose in sharp staccato breaths. He was vaguely conscious of the fact that Recovery Girl was talking, but none of what she said registered at all. His fists were clenched tightly, jaw tense and aching as he tried to hold himself together.

It took a few moments, but finally the agony subsided. It still hurt like hell, but he could bear it. He took a shaky breath, then another, sniffling once before sighing.

“Easy Yamada,” Recovery Girl was saying as he was finally able to focus on her words again. “Got your breath back?” she asked him, and Hizashi nodded, blinking away some of the blurriness around the edges of his vision. “Good. Stand up, there we go,” she said, and Oboro and Shouta each stood, helping Hizashi haul himself to his feet. Leaning heavily on his friends, he swayed in place for a moment before steadying himself. “Shirakumo, get his belt off,” she ordered. “The worst of it is on his waist, but the blisters look like they’ve spread to his hip, and I need to know how far the damage goes. Yamada, lean on Aizawa.”

“You’re gonna need to relax your hand, buddy,” Oboro said gently. Hizashi blinked, looking at him in confusion, until he realized his fist was clenched tightly in the hair at the back of Oboro’s head.

“Sorry,” Hizashi gasped, loosening his stiff fingers so Oboro could move. A glance to his left told him that his other hand was tangled in Shouta’s hair. “Sorry,” he repeated.

“‘S fine,” Shouta mumbled as Hizashi forced himself to relax his grip.

“And now, I have the honor of being the first person to get into Hizashi’s pants,” Oboro said, solemnly and with great reverence as he carefully unbuckled Hizashi’s belt.

Hizashi managed to gasp out a laugh. “What makes you think you’re the first?” he challenged.

“Cuz there’s no way you’d wouldn't have told me if anyone else had gotten here already,” Oboro pointed out as he gingerly pulled the belt out through the loops. It was unpleasant, but nothing compared to getting his shirt off.

“I need to look at that hip, so those pants need to be unfastened,” Recovery Girl said, looking up at Hizashi. For a moment, Hizashi considered trying to do it himself, but he could feel how shaky he still was. He turned to glance sheepishly at Oboro, who only smiled at him.

“I got you. Need to complete my conquest, after all,” Oboro teased, gingerly unbuttoning and unzipping Hizashi’s pants, carefully working them down, just enough that the last of the injured skin was visible. Hizashi leaned heavily on Shouta, sighing in relief that the worst of it had to be over. Shouta’s hand gripped Hizashi’s forearm where he was leaning against him, and the pressure of it was grounding.

“That should be sufficient,” Recovery Girl said, gently rolling the side of the waistbands of Hizashi’s pants and briefs down together, so that everything was tucked in on itself and well clear of the wound. Hizashi took a slow breath, then turned his head to glance down, inspecting the injury for himself.

Blackened and burnt in the center where the worst damage was, there was an area a little bigger than his hand that was slowly oozing blood and weeping fluid. Blisters sprouted around the angry red edges and further away, down his hip and onto his stomach. With a slight wave of nausea, Hizashi looked away again, burying his face against Shouta’s shoulder. He took a slow breath, then another.

It was funny. Though Shouta had worked up quite a sweat, there was something about the way he smelled that made Hizashi feel better. He kept breathing.

Recovery Girl started bustling around on the far side of the cot behind him, but Hizashi couldn’t muster the energy to look and see what she was up to. He just tried to focus on the comforting presence of his friends on either side of him, leaning on Shouta while Oboro kept a steady hand high on his back.

He wasn’t sure how long it was before Recovery Girl’s voice broke through the bubble of calm he was trying to build around himself. “Lay on the cot, I need to wash that off,” she said, and Hizashi groaned.

“Come on, seriously?” He just wanted it to stop hurting.

“My Quirk doesn’t kill bacteria, young man,” she chided, “And your system is going to be dealing with enough already. Come along.” Accepting the inevitable, he let Shouta and Oboro help him up onto the cot, though he tried to adjust his position himself, holding on to Shouta for stability as he scooted himself over and onto his left side.

Oboro shifted down a little and rested his hand on Hizashi’s leg, giving a brief squeeze. Shouta stayed up near the head of the bed, and Hizashi closed his eyes and reached out to grab Shouta’s hands with his own. He could feel Shouta holding on to him just as tightly.

“Ahhhh, shit!” Hizashi hissed as the nurse started rinsing his wound with warm, soapy water, squeezing his eyes shut to try and stem the tears from sliding down his face. He just wanted this done, he needed it over, gods, could she please just hurry the fuck up? His breath was tight in his chest, and he could feel the tension in his arms spreading, his muscles coiling, wanting to just escape the pain.

“Almost done,” Oboro’s voice reassured him.

“You’re gonna be ok, Zashi.” Shouta’s voice was little more than a whisper, and Hizashi tried to focus on the gentle sweep of Shouta’s thumb across the inside of his wrist.

Finally, after what felt like hours (though was probably closer to a minute), Recovery Girl put her supplies aside and walked around to stand between Oboro and Shouta. She looked Hizashi in the eye, her mouth a firm line. "Even with my Quirk,” she said, “Burns are tricky. This might end up leaving a bit of scarring, do you understand?”

“Yes,” Hizashi gritted out. He could live with a scar, he just wanted it to stop hurting. Besides, “It’s not like I’ve got much choice anyway.”

“Too right,” Recovery Girl said as she somehow managed to plant a kiss up by Hizashi’s right shoulder.

It was the weirdest sensation - it didn’t hurt, but it was like the whole wound started itching. Every nerve ending was lighting up with a spark of sensation that it didn’t know what to do with, and Hizashi had to fight the urge to squirm. The feeling washed down his side, and finally, finally the pain receded, leaving him with a sense of cool air on over-sensitive skin.

With a shiver, it was over, and Hizashi’s forehead sagged against the back of Shouta’s hand in relief.

“Good lad,” Recovery Girl said, patting him on the arm. “Lay there and rest, I’ll get you some juice.” She walked away, and Hizashi breathed, very much enjoying the whole ‘not being in pain’ thing.

After a moment’s silence, Shouta murmured, “Why did you do that?” His voice was even smaller and quieter than before.

“Huh?” Hizashi wasn’t sure if it was the exhaustion from getting healed, or if there was something else he was missing, but his brain was currently not up to the task of figuring out what Shouta meant.

“The robot. Why did you jump in like that?”

Oh. Yeah.

The whole fucking shitshow that had culminated in Hizashi’s fun-filled journey to Recovery Girl’s domain.

And Shouta was asking him why he’d jumped in!?

He forced himself to release his grip on Shouta and sit up, fueled by irritation that his friend could even ask such a stupid question. Immediately Shouta pulled his own hands away, taking half a step back from the bed.

“I dunno, maybe cuz you were about to be blasted into smithereens,” Hizashi snarked, “I guess I figured, nah, not the way I want to see things play out today.”

“What happened out there?” Oboro asked, moving to sit on the abandoned stool next to where Shouta stood. “I was grappling with that villain, and the next thing I knew, all hell was breaking loose.”

“That’s just the question I was going to ask,” a new voice said, and the three of them looked over to see Nishibori stepping into the nurse’s office. “What happened out there, Aizawa?”

Shouta’s mouth opened, then closed, then pressed into a thin line as he cast his eyes down towards the floor. “I froze.” He took a breath, then another. Recovery Girl came back with some apple juice for Hizashi. He took a slow sip, but nobody said anything.

“Come on, Aizawa, we can go talk about this privately-” Sensei started to say, but Shouta finally looked up from the floor.

“No, I don’t-” Shouta cut himself off, and when he spoke up again, his voice was eerily calm. “I couldn’t think of how to handle that robot, or where I could safely move to dodge, and I froze up.” His eyes darted over to Hizashi. “I understand if I’ve failed, or if I need to be expelled-”

“What!?” Hizashi yelped, irritation washed away in a wave of panic. “No way, you better not expel him, Sensei!”

“You got hurt,” Shouta said, voice still unnaturally calm, refusing to meet Hizashi’s eyes. “My inaction caused you to put yourself in danger and to be seriously injured.”

“Yeah, not the highlight of my day,” Hizashi snapped, “But that thing was huge! You freaked out-”

“Heroes can’t afford to freak out,” Shouta replied, still totally unruffled.

“Good thing we’re still students,” Hizashi countered. “I ruptured your eardrum and knocked you out of a damn tree just a few months ago because there was a bug on me!”

Shouta paused at that for a moment, but continued again in that too-calm voice,“Unexpected things happen in the real world. If I freeze every time-”

“But you don’t,” Oboro cut in. “I’ve never seen you freeze like that before.”

“Enough, boys,” Sensei said, and they all quieted down. “First of all, nobody is getting expelled.” Hizashi heaved a sigh of relief. “Second of all, even pro heroes out in the real world sometimes freeze. That’s part of why we’re trying to bring in bigger challenges, like that robot, to expose you as students to more extreme situations to try and help minimize it happening after graduation.” Shouta blinked at that, but otherwise didn’t react.

“Third,” Nishibori continued, “Aizawa’s performance throughout the rest of the exam, including his recovery after he froze up, might be enough to earn a pass on this test; but it will be a close thing. The other teachers and I are going to be assessing everyone’s performance later.

“Aizawa,” At Nishibori’s tone, Shouta dragged his eyes up to meet their teacher’s gaze. “You seem to understand the gravity of the situation. You know the danger you and others faced, and how important it is that it not happen again.” Shouta nodded. “You have a tendency to hesitate and overthink; but Shirakumo is right, you’ve never frozen like that before. Take this opportunity to learn and understand what happened, to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”

Shouta bowed his head. “Yes, Sensei,” he said, but Hizashi didn’t like how flat his voice still was.

“Come on you two,” Sensei said to Oboro and Shouta, “Get changed and head back to the rest of the class. Let Yamada rest.” He turned and walked out of the office, Oboro following not far behind, giving Hizashi a jaunty wave as he left.

“See ya in a bit!” he called.

Shouta stood frozen in place for a moment, his hands drifting up towards the capture weapon still looped around his neck, fingers tracing the line of the fabric absently. He shuffled forward a few steps, then paused, one hand falling slightly away from the binding cloth, the heel of his hand rubbing over his sternum. He was staring at the doorway, but Hizashi was positive that Shouta’s attention was focused on him, even if he refused to meet his eye.

“I’m sorry,” he said. His voice was too flat. Too quiet. From anyone else, it would have sounded like insincere bullshit. But Hizashi remembered the way Shouta had been bowed over earlier when he helped him with his boots. He knew he meant it.

“You can make it up to me later,” Hizashi teased with a tired smile, hoping to shake Shouta out of whatever weird mood had gotten into him. “Just don’t do that again.” Shouta nodded, then followed Oboro and Sensei out of the office.

*

Hizashi dozed for a while before Recovery Girl shook him awake. Aside from some lingering exhaustion, he was feeling much better. A quick glance at his side showed that there was, indeed, a small patch of skin that twisted and puckered ever so slightly.

“That doesn’t seem too bad,” he said to himself, smoothing his hand over it. He could barely feel the difference under his palm, and the skin itself felt the warmth and touch of his hand. It was almost like nothing had happened in the first place.

Well, not really, since the memories were seared into his brain; but he was determined to spend all his time very much not thinking about that.

“I did a damn good job, if I do say so,” Recovery Girl noted. “That scar may fade over time, but not for years. Let it be a reminder to be more careful. Now, as I understand it, your classmates have been going over the results from all the written exams earlier this week. You can stop by the classroom and speak to Nishibori if you want to know yours,” she said as she handed him his uniform to change into.

“Thanks,” Hizashi said as he closed the curtain to get changed. When he was done, Hizashi made his way to the front of the office and bowed to Recovery Girl. “Thanks again, for everything.” It had sucked, sure; but he was feeling much better now.

“Don’t make a habit out of it,” she told him, handing him a lollipop.

By the time Hizashi got to the classroom, dismissal had already come and gone, but Sensei and about half the class were still there, including Oboro and Shouta.

“Welcome back, Yamada,” Sensei said.

“Glad to be back,” Hizashi laughed.

“Results from the practical will be posted tomorrow; but in the meantime, here.” Nishibori handed Hizashi a printout with a breakdown of his final exam grades, his final academic grades for the semester, and the current class rankings.

Sketching a quick bow, Hizashi scooted over to where Shouta and Oboro were packing up. He plopped down in Niragi’s empty seat in front of Shouta and started to read over the exam results.

He’d done well.

He’d done really well, actually. He wasn’t expecting to see a few perfect scores in there! He glanced down the page to look at the class rankings. Then he blinked and read them again.

“I’m second in the class?” he asked, not believing it. It was one thing for him to manage that for one semester, but the whole year? He wondered if there was some mistake with his printout, but Hadachi was first, which was definitely correct. Shouta was seventh, which seemed about right… and Oboro was seventeenth, which also seemed about right. It had to be accurate. “Oh yeah! Who’s ready to go celebrate!” Hizashi said, waving around his grade report.

Oboro whooped, but Shouta shot him a look like he’d lost his mind.

“I nearly got you killed today,” he snapped, and at least that creepy calmness was finally gone. “That’s not exactly something I want to celebrate.”

“Then you can celebrate me heroically saving your ass,” Hizashi said, turning it around with a pair of finger guns aimed with deadly accuracy. “Come on, we’re all in one piece, we all passed, and we’ve got the next few weeks off. I wanna go out!” Shouta was still frowning, so Hizashi tried a different tactic. “Consider it your first installment of making it up to me.”

Hizashi didn’t really think Shouta owed him anything; but he remembered how he’d felt when he’d knocked Shouta out of that tree during training camp. Part of why he’d worked so hard with the bugs the next day was to make it up to Shouta, to show him he was gonna do better. It had even kinda been the same thing with the lady beetle. Hizashi wasn’t sure he’d ever really be done trying to make up for the way he’d hurt Shouta.

From the look on Shouta’s face, Hizashi guessed that he might feel similarly.

“Catpurrccinos!” Oboro declared, “Let’s go!”

“Not the arcade?” Shouta asked quietly.

Hizashi’s jaw dropped. Shouta almost never wanted to go to the arcade; between the cost and the noise, it was a lot for him. He must really want to make things up to Hizashi. Still, Shouta was having a rough day too, and Hizashi wanted to do something they’d all enjoy.

“Nah, not today,” Hizashi said. “I’m still kinda wiped out from Recovery Girl’s magic touch, but the cat cafe sounds purrrrrfect,” he said with a smirk.

“Hey, Idiots,” Kobayashi said, coming over to them. “Everyone intact?”

“Good to go,” Hizashi said with a double thumbs up and a wink.

“Why do you keep calling us idiots?” Shouta asked, and Kobayashi chuckled.

“Ebisui started it,” she said, casting a quick glance at Hizashi. Something in his chest still ached about how all that had gone down; but for the most part, he and Ebisui were good with each other now, no hard feelings. They’d even spoken a few times outside of class stuff. Kobayashi gave him a little smile before she continued.

“Me and Nakano were talking with her a lot right after the breakup, and she just started saying ‘the three idiots’ as shorthand instead of saying your names over and over. It kinda stuck. For what it’s worth, I say it with equal parts affection and exasperation.” She gave them a sheepish grin. “I think it’s also spread to Class B, sorry about that,” she said with a shrug that didn’t actually seem very sorry.

“Ya know what? I’ve been called much worse things, by much worse people,” Hizashi laughed, finding he didn’t mind the moniker.

“If the shoe fits,” Oboro said with a grin.

Shouta just blinked in confusion between the two of them. “I guess we deserve it at this point,” he muttered.

“Anyway, I’m glad you guys are all in one piece,” she said as she headed towards the door. “Enjoy your break!”

“You too!” Hizashi called after her. “Alright,” he said, turning back to his friends. “Catpurrccinos!”

*

The cat cafe had been a good idea. Even though Shouta had insisted on paying for Hizashi, it was clear that being able to sit and snuggle with the fur-balls had a profound positive impact on Shouta’s mood. By the time they all left, Shouta was acting much more like himself. He was still more quiet than usual, but Hizashi understood that it had been a stressful day all around. Even he wasn’t able to muster his usual levels of enthusiasm. He was thankful that Oboro’s cheerful energy was there to keep them all going.

Unfortunately, it didn’t carry over once Hizashi got home, and the exhaustion of the day hit him all over again. He flopped down on his bed and dozed off.

When Dad woke him up for dinner later, Hizashi discovered another unfortunate turn of events: the school had called and let his parents know what had happened. Which meant a meal full of questions he didn’t want to answer. ‘Are you ok?’ ‘How did it happen?’ ‘Is Aizawa alright?’ ‘Why didn’t you tell us sooner?’

Honestly, he hadn’t planned on telling them about it at all; but since they’d heard part of it, he was forced to fill in some of the blanks. Not the way he’d wanted to start his break, but whatever. At least he was able to get them off the topic by showing them his grade report and class ranking, which seemed to distract them pretty well.

Now, though, Hizashi was laying in his bed, staring at the ceiling, and he was fresh out of effective distractions for himself.

Now, he couldn’t stop turning things over and over in his head.

He couldn’t shake the image of the giant robot leveling its gun at Shouta, and Shouta just… standing there like a statue. For a wild second, as Hizashi had charged across the grass, he’d thought that Shouta had been hit accidentally by Hadachi’s Freeze Tag Quirk. Looking back on it, it had been a really stupid thought. Hadachi was their class rep, and had much better control over her Quirk than that, not to mention the fact that she hadn’t even been nearby.

But in the moment, Hizashi didn’t even stop to consider that Shouta might have frozen up on his own. It was such a strange idea. Shouta had always been so strong, so smart. Sure, he underestimated himself a lot, and sometimes he hesitated; but the idea that Shouta could get so freaked out that he would panic and freeze like that was…

Hizashi wasn’t sure what it was.

When he’d seen everything unfolding, Hizashi hadn’t even thought about it, he’d just leaped into action. His feet had taken off running until he’d barreled into Shouta. In hindsight, he should have known that the robot would use a lower power output during a test; the school didn’t actually want to murder its students. In the moment, though, getting to Shouta had been the only thing that mattered.

In the real world, it could have gone so very wrong in so many ways.

An image of Shouta with a hole blasted clean through his chest popped into Hizashi’s head, and a wave of nausea rolled through him at the idea that it could have happened.

Hizashi knew that, even if the gun had been on full blast, taking the hit he’d taken was worth it to avoid the other outcome.

He curled up on his side and tried to sleep. He could still feel the echoes of the weariness from Recovery Girl’s Quirk tugging at him… but the images in his brain wouldn’t stop playing over and over.

Even when he finally drifted off, his restless dreams were plagued by Shouta’s deathly pale face staring at him with unseeing eyes.

Chapter Text

Hizashi was antsy. Nothing seemed to calm his nerves. Recording and editing his podcast, messing around with the mixing board that had been gathering dust for months, making new playlists for his friends, watching tv or reading or even going out for a run - none of it helped.

No matter what he did, images of Shouta with a hole through his chest kept invading his brain. Nightmares haunted him, waking him up night after night.

Talking to his friends helped somewhat, but it wasn’t enough. He was able to hang out with Oboro for a while on Saturday, which had been much better; but Shouta kept saying he was busy with work or chores any time Hizashi tried to suggest they all hang out together. He had been tempted to play the ‘you said you’d make it up to me’ card; but once had already been more than enough. Hizashi didn’t want Shouta to think he actually believed he owed him anything.

And then, over the weekend, even Oboro had gotten way quieter than usual in the group chat. By the time Tuesday afternoon rolled around, Hizashi couldn’t take it anymore and opted for the direct approach. He wasn’t entirely sure why he’d been so hesitant before; but he’d reached his limit.

A few text messages later, he started a video call with his friends.

“I’m bored. You two are gonna come and sleep over tonight,” he announced.

“Only if you promise not to wake me up at the asscrack of dawn,” Oboro said. “I’m on break, I get to sleep in!”

“I need to-” Shouta started to say, but Hizashi cut him off.

“You don’t need to work, I know you’ve already unpacked every box and cleaned every shelf at Ms. Emoto’s shop,” he said, having been on speakerphone with Shouta half the time while he’d done said tasks. “You don’t need to study because classes haven’t started yet. And you don’t need to train; but if you’re so desperate to not skip a workout, me and you can run in the morning while Shirakumo gets his beauty sleep.” Shouta pouted at him, and Hizashi had to stifle a smirk at how cute he looked.

“I was just gonna say I need to ask my parents,” Shouta grumbled.

“Liar!” Hizashi and Oboro chorused. “Besides,” Hizashi continued, the smirk finally escaping containment, “Your parents never say ‘no’ to you spending time in my magnificent presence. Pack your bag!”

Shouta hesitated several beats longer than Hizashi would have expected, but at last he nodded and got off the call to get ready.

“He’s still acting weird, isn’t he,” Hizashi asked Oboro.

“Yeah,” Oboro said, frowning. “I think everything that happened during the final really messed with his head.”

“He’s gotta build his confidence back,” Hizashi said, picking up a pen from his desk and rolling it between his fingers. “He works so hard, I don’t understand how he doesn’t see how strong he is.” He needed Shouta to see how strong he was, because then Shouta wouldn’t freak out and freeze and be laying on the ground with a hole blasted through-

“It’s… irrational,” Oboro interrupted his thoughts in his best imitation of Shouta - which wasn’t very good, but it was funny, and just what Hizashi needed.

“Whatever, pack your stuff and get over here, I’m boooorrrred!”

Within the hour, both of his friends were at his house… and suddenly Hizashi could breathe a little easier, seeing them both whole and intact. A shakiness that he hadn’t even noticed he was feeling, stopped.

They spent the rest of the day goofing off. Hizashi and Oboro wrestled as much as they ever did; but today, Hizashi also let himself horse around with Shouta too.

Ever since that day months ago, when Shouta had snared him with his binding cloth, Hizashi had been… Well, he hadn’t been keeping his distance or anything, but he’d been careful not to wrestle with Shouta the way he did with Oboro, at least not outside hero training. But now… now Hizashi wrapped Shouta up in a bear hug, lifting him up off the floor. He shoved Shouta over onto the bed and jumped on top of him, the same as he did with Oboro.

Hizashi needed to keep touching him, needed to keep reassuring himself that he was here, he was fine.

That there was no hole in his chest.

The problem was, Shouta kept flinching away.

Not every time. Most of the time, he was just… Shouta. He either rolled his eyes, dodged away, or grappled back.

But once, when Hizashi slung his right arm over Shouta’s shoulder and pulled him in close - something that they did all the time, even in school - Shouta shied away from the contact. And another time, they were both pushing each other around, and Shouta shoved Hizashi, knocking him onto the bed. It wasn’t a problem at all, but Shouta had gone pale and sat down off to the side, refusing to even take his next turn on the video game.

Hizashi worried he was clinging too much, that maybe Shouta really didn’t want to be touched…

But then there was the fact that all day, Shouta had been leaning up against Hizashi way more than usual too. Even when Hizashi had just been sitting, taking his turn in the game against Oboro, Shouta would sit next to him, far closer than usual. Leaning into him in a way that Hizashi was acutely aware of.

It didn’t make sense.

Oboro noticed it too. Hizashi knew, because every now and then Oboro would look at Shouta and then at Hizashi and raise an eyebrow or cock his head to the side like he was trying to figure something out.

A while after dinner, they all got changed into their pajamas; but it wasn’t even ten-thirty when Shouta started nodding off, his head lolling on Hizashi’s shoulder while a movie played on the tv. When Hizashi registered the warm weight and the steady rhythm of Shouta’s breathing, his heart stuttered in his chest at the closeness of it. He did his best to hold as still as he could, to not jostle Shouta and wake him.

The sound of Oboro’s camera startled Hizashi so badly that he almost flailed out to try and smack the phone away from him; instead he twisted up his face and stuck his tongue out as his friend smothered a snicker behind his hand. Moments later, he heard the ping of a notification in the group chat and knew that Oboro had sent the pic.

He managed to restrain himself from taking out his phone to look at it immediately, because doing so would certainly wake up Shouta.

Hizashi couldn’t see Shouta’s face from where he was sitting; but every now and then, he felt Shouta twitch a bit. Sometimes it was tiny little motions of his fingers that Hizashi only caught out of the corner of his eye, sometimes it was bigger movements of his arms and shoulders.

It was unfairly adorable.

Hizashi knew he was digging himself into deeper trouble with his whole… situation… but he was weak. He’d been fighting it so hard and nothing was changing, and right now part of him needed this. So, for the moment, he was content to just feel what he was feeling.

It helped that he wasn’t having any… awkward physical reactions… that he needed to hide. The warmth that filled him stayed firmly centered in his chest as he watched Shouta resting.

A quiet little whimper slipped out of Shouta, and at first Hizashi just registered it as another adorable moment… but then another one followed right after, and it sounded… strained. Oboro looked over from where he sat on the other side of Hizashi, worry creasing his brow. Shouta twitched again and made another tiny, pained noise.

“Is he having a bad dream?” Oboro asked quietly.

“I think so,” Hizashi replied, shifting to try and gently wake Shouta. Another noise escaped him at the movement, one that sounded dangerously close to a sob, and his arms and legs twitched. “Hey, Shou,” Hizashi said, turning onto his knees while trying to hold Shouta up by the shoulders, “Wake up, man, you’re having a nightmare.”

Shouta’s eyes flew open wide, and he grew rigid in Hizashi’s grip as he sucked in a shuddering breath. “Zashi!” he gasped, arms flailing around, knocking Hizashi’s hands away.

“I’m right here!” Hizashi yelped, holding his hands up in front of his chest. “It’s me!” Shouta’s flailing only lasted another moment, until he seemed to realize that it was, in fact, Hizashi in front of him. That’s when Shouta’s hands landed on Hizashi’s shoulders, fisting tightly in his sleeves as his eyes flicked over Hizashi’s face, his chest, his stomach, then back up to his face again.

Hizashi wanted to reach out, to hug Shouta tightly; but he was frozen in place, pinned by the look of terror on his friend’s face.

“Easy, Shou,” Oboro said, scooting around them to kneel on the other side of Shouta. “Zashi’s right here, safe and sound.” One of Shouta’s hands let go of its grip on Hizashi’s sleeve to reach over and grab on to Oboro’s forearm.

“Oboro,” Shouta said, his eyes repeating their frantic search, looking over Oboro’s face, arms, and chest.

In a blink, the tension holding Shouta upright snapped, and he collapsed back to slump against the foot of the bed, eyes screwed tight against whatever nightmare images were playing in his head.

Hizashi’s heart was pounding in his chest as he watched Shouta try and get control of his breathing. “Are you ok?” He winced at how stupid the question sounded once he’d asked it, but Shouta only nodded.

“Talk to us,” Oboro said gently, resting his hand on Shouta’s shoulder.

“‘S just a dream,” Shouta grunted, eyes flickering open to look at Oboro. “You’re ok.” He turned his gaze towards Hizashi, his hand reaching out to hover over the healed wound on his side, fluttering nervously in the air before pulling away.

“Have you been having that nightmare a lot?” Oboro asked. Shouta shrugged a shoulder, then gave a small, reluctant nod.

“I’ve been having bad dreams too,” Hizashi admitted. He wasn’t about to go into the details, but he couldn’t let Shouta think he was the only one.

“Me too,” Oboro said. “You both scared the shit outta me.” There was a shakiness in his friend’s voice, something he didn’t even try to cover up with his usual lighthearted tone, and it suddenly solidified for Hizashi just how deeply everything had affected Oboro too.

His friends were upset, scared, and hurting, and Hizashi wasn’t sure how to handle it. Shouta was always so strong, and Oboro was always so steady. Hizashi was the unstable mess, what the hell could he do to help them both?

Of course, the answer was stupidly simple, even if Hizashi wasn’t the one to figure it out. Oboro heaved a deep breath as he leaned forward to put one arm around each of their shoulders, pulling them in until their heads were pressed together. Hizashi closed his eyes and wrapped his own arms around his friends, thankful that Oboro was always there to bridge the gap when Hizashi didn’t know how to.

“I’m sorry,” Shouta whispered into the still space between them. Oboro’s arms tightened briefly, a silent reassurance that they were all here. All fine.

For the first time in days, it felt real. The relief that they were all really safe. That the danger had passed - a shitty memory, but just a memory. Instead of trying to shove it aside, he was allowed to hold his friends and know that they were ok.

Hizashi’s eyes stung. Suddenly, all he wanted to do was curl up and go to sleep, the accumulated exhaustion of days crashing down on him…

But he didn’t want to move away from Shouta and Oboro. He couldn’t stand the thought of not being near them, not when this was what he needed. He sat back, just a bit, and Oboro let his arm slide down to rest low on his back, no longer holding them in place but still very much keeping them connected.

That was what he needed.

He was pretty sure Shouta needed it too.

Hizashi didn’t think, he just grabbed Oboro’s and Shouta’s hands and stood up, tugging them both to do the same.

Oboro stood smoothly, though not before moving to take Shouta’s other hand in his own. Shouta didn’t move at first, his head still bowed, his hand lax in Hizashi’s grip. Hizashi and Oboro both tugged gently at him, making it clear that they weren’t gonna let him stay on the ground. Shouta stood with slow, syrupy movements, gaze still fixed on the floor, and Hizashi caught Oboro’s eye. There was a sadness on Oboro’s face that made Hizashi’s heart ache even more than it already was.

He wondered if Oboro needed this as much as he did.

Hizashi was really good at cheering people up; but he wasn’t nearly as good at the kind of easy reassurance that Oboro always managed. It wasn’t fair that Oboro gave that to others so effortlessly, but that Hizashi couldn’t return it when Oboro needed it…

Or maybe he could. Maybe he could do for Oboro exactly what Oboro did for them. He dropped Oboro’s hand, then reached up and gripped the back of his neck firmly. It was something Oboro sometimes did to them, and it always somehow made Hizashi feel better. In a moment, Oboro blinked, and the expression lifted a little, a small smile lifting the corners of his mouth.

When Hizashi turned to look back at Shouta, Shouta was still staring at the floor.

Hizashi slid his other hand up to rest at the nape of Shouta’s neck, sweeping his thumb across the warm skin there. Shouta glanced up from under his fringe, confusion in his bloodshot eyes as they met Hizashi’s.

“Come on, I’m tired,” Hizashi said, nudging Shouta to sit on the foot of the bed. “Let’s go to sleep.” Shouta looked over at the futon on the floor, where his yellow sleeping bag was set up next to some blankets for Oboro. “My bed is big enough for all of us,” Hizashi said, “And more comfortable.”

Shouta didn’t speak, but his eyes narrowed in a way that always meant ‘are you being serious?’ Hizashi just poked him in the shoulder until he started moving, finally laying down with his head on Hizashi’s pillows. Hizashi gave Oboro a shove to lay down next to Shouta, while Hizashi laid on Shouta’s other side after putting his glasses on his bedside table.

For a moment, it was awkward, the three of them lying stiffly side by side on their backs, until Oboro let out a heavy, shaky sigh. He rolled over onto his side to face Shouta, throwing his long arm across to land on Hizashi’s stomach. As if the touch granted him permission to move, Hizashi also turned on his side facing Shouta, and Oboro’s hand on his ribs tugged at him to move closer.

“I think you overestimated the size of your bed,” Shouta muttered, still laying on his back; but there was no real irritation there, even as he was squashed between his friends.

“It’s big enough for tonight,” Oboro said.

Shouta was quiet for a long moment, but then he nodded and rolled onto his side to face Oboro. Hizashi felt an irrational pang of hurt and jealousy shoot through him, until Shouta’s arm reached back behind himself to grab blindly at Hizashi, tugging him to move in closer. Hizashi shuffled around until he was spooned up against Shouta’s back, Oboro’s hand draped over his waist.

There was an overwhelming sense of relief to it, the way they were tangled together. It was so powerful that not even any of his dangerous thoughts about Shouta, the ones that had been bouncing around Hizashi’s head for ages, were able to come to the surface through it. This was something else altogether, something that Hizashi hadn’t realized just how badly he needed until he had it.

He could feel the steady rhythm of Shouta’s breathing against his chest, the warm weight of Oboro’s arm over him. He thought about the shakiness in Oboro’s voice earlier, and he stretched his own arm over Shouta until his hand was pressed against Oboro’s chest. Shouta’s hand was right next to his.

Soon enough, they all fell asleep.

*

Hizashi woke up slowly, feeling chilly at his back, but almost too warm along his front. He tried to move forward, to snuggle into the warmth; but instead of a nest of blankets to cocoon himself in, there was something solid in front of him. He squinted his eyes open, but could only see darkness.

When the warmth in front of him heaved a deep breath and shifted slightly, the memory came rushing back. Hizashi froze, holding his breath as he realized that not only had he woken up hard in his pants, which was a pretty normal way for him to wake up; but that his hips were pressed against Shouta’s butt, which was not a normal way for him to wake up.

Slowly, carefully, feeling more than a little shaky, he disentangled himself and rolled out of bed, hurrying to the bathroom and closing the door. He took deep breaths, trying to calm his racing heart. It took way longer for his erection to go down than it normally did, but after brushing his teeth and fixing his hair, he was calm enough to go back to his room.

When the door clicked shut, Shouta stirred on the bed and blinked blearily up at him.

His face was so much softer when he woke up, and it made Hizashi’s chest ache with fondness looking at him. He couldn’t hold back the gentle curl of his mouth as Shouta’s brain slowly came online.

“Good mornin’, sleepy head,” Hizashi said quietly. “Wanna go for a run before we drag Sleeping Beauty out of bed?” Shouta glanced at Oboro, then back at Hizashi before he nodded and scooted off the bed. He went to his bag and rummaged around, keeping his back to Hizashi as he pulled off his t-shirt and shucked the loose sweats he’d slept in before pulling on underwear and shorts.

Hizashi tried not to peek, he really did. It was easier to resist temptation in the locker rooms, where he knew he might get caught staring… but even still, the itch in his brain that whispered about Shouta’s naked ass right over there won out from time to time and he found himself risking it.

For now, he managed to keep it to a few brief glances. He knew it wasn’t cool, but the urge to look had been getting harder to ignore, and Hizashi was ashamed of how often he caved to it.

“Ready?” Shouta asked, and Hizashi nodded.

Running with Shouta was grounding. It was harder for his thoughts to wander off into places they shouldn’t go when he was focused on the reality of steady footfalls in the dim light of the early morning. By the time they got back, Hizashi was feeling steady again.

As much as his feelings for Shouta were a problem, Hizashi would still take this over what he’d been going through over the past few days.

It took them another hour to get Oboro up and moving, but once he’d eaten some breakfast, he was as alert and energetic as ever.

“Let’s go over to the park,” he said. “You two went for a run, I wanna stretch my legs too.”

“S’not our fault your legs are freakishly long,” Hizashi grumbled, still not exactly the biggest fan of outdoor activities. He might have gotten most of the panic around bugs mostly under control, but he still hated them.

“Too bad, shorty!” Oboro laughed.

“Who are you callin’ short?!”

“You are shorter than him,” Shouta pointed out.

“And you’re shorter than me,” Hizashi groused, “Don’t see me rubbing it in.” Shouta raised his eyebrow, but Hizashi could see the ghost of a smirk on his face.

“Maybe I won’t be for much longer. Pretty sure I’ve been catching up to you.”

Hizashi huffed, but this was the best mood Shouta had been in since the final exam, so he’d put up with the teasing, the outdoors, and perhaps even the bugs if it meant his friends were happy.

There were actually a few parks not too far from his house, so once they were outside, they just picked a direction and started walking. They were quieter than usual for the first few minutes, until Oboro caught sight of the park.

“I call dibs on the swing!” Oboro shouted as he took off jogging towards the still-empty playground. It would be swarmed with kids in an hour or two when the weather warmed up a little more; but until then, the teenagers took their turn.

“There’s four swings,” Shouta said as they got closer and Oboro hopped on to one of the swings.

“We’ll let him have that one,” Hizashi shrugged.

Shouta narrowed his eyes. “For now,” he said, and Hizashi burst out laughing.

“I didn’t know you took playground equipment so seriously.”

“If he wants to claim it, he better be able to defend it.” They each sat on one of the swings to either side of Oboro. Hizashi pumped his legs, and soon he and Oboro were swinging in counterpoint to each other, soaring high, enjoying that moment of weightlessness at the top of the arc before gravity took back over and pulled them back down.

Shouta was mostly just scuffing his toes in the dirt.

“Come on, Shouta, you can do better than that!” Oboro taunted.

“Don’t tell me you’re scared of heights!” Hizashi chimed in. Shouta huffed at them and shook his head, but took the bait anyway and shifted his weight to start himself swinging in earnest. Soon, all of them were swinging high, the wind fluttering their hair.

Oboro was the first one to jump from the seat, timing it so his momentum propelled him up and forward, landing neatly in the grass. Hizashi cackled in glee, leaping immediately after, trying to land a little further, but falling short. Shouta landed on the grass moments after, a few centimeters further than Oboro. The three of them looked at each other, and even Shouta was grinning. They glanced back at the still-moving swings, then back at each other, then charged back towards the swings to start again.

After the first few jumps, Hizashi stopped caring about getting the furthest (and only partially because Shouta was clearly going to keep winning that particular contest) and just enjoyed that feeling of flying before it became falling.

When Oboro leaped and formed a cloud to send himself sliding down and away, getting a little more distance, Hizashi couldn’t help scowling, hopping off his swing to stand over his friend.

“Come on, man, we’re not supposed to use our Quirks in public.”

Oboro raised an eyebrow, and even Shouta, sitting still on his swing, cocked his head.

“I’m not hurting anyone, Zashi,” Oboro said, though thankfully he waved a hand, dissipating the cloud. “Honestly, I don’t even know if my Quirk can hurt anyone.”

Hizashi huffed. “That’s not the point. Rules are rules, dude. We’re hero students, we’re supposed to set a good example. We’re supposed to do the right thing.”

Oboro frowned up at him in confusion. “People use their Quirks in public all the time; as long as they’re not hurting anyone, it’s never a problem.” It wasn’t an argument, it was a simple statement of fact. “Why’s this such a big deal to you?” Not a challenge, not a fight. Just curiosity.

A simple question that probably deserved an answer… the problem being that when he tried to find the words to explain, the answer was never as simple as Hizashi felt it was. Cuz there’s right and there’s wrong, and breaking the rules is wrong, because that’s how people get hurt. Breaking rules, doing the things they’re not supposed to do, breaking promises, breaking vows-

“Can you just… not?” Hizashi just really didn’t wanna think about it. He held his hand out, an offer to help Oboro up from the grass.

Oboro blinked, shrugged, and took Hizashi’s hand, smiling as he hauled himself to his feet. “Ok, bud.” As simple as that, Oboro sat back down and started swinging. Hizashi hesitated a beat, then hopped back on his own swing.

Just like that, they were flying again.

Shouta was the first to tire of the swings, heading over to the giant metal jungle gym in the middle of the playground. He started climbing up on top of the rungs, then dropped down below them and started going across the monkey bars. Hizashi stilled on his swing to watch as Shouta moved around the apparatus, shifting his weight back and forth to ensure he had enough momentum to cover the distance between the larger gaps when he skipped a rung. The muscles of his arms weren’t nearly as big as Oboro’s; but they were strong and toned, and flexed as he worked.

Hizashi shook his head to clear away the distracting thoughts. Next to him, Oboro jumped off the swing again, and Hizashi hopped off his own, flopping himself over Oboro’s back before he could stand back up. After that moment of tension earlier, Hizashi felt the need to make sure things were actually fine… and what simpler way to test that then by demanding a piggy-back ride?

“How exactly have I become your personal transportation service?” Oboro laughed as he pushed himself up, hooking his arms under Hizashi’s knees.

“I dunno, you’re not very good at it. You only ever run around in circles,” Hizashi told him, relieved to fall easily back into their usual banter.

“How about this, then?” Oboro took off over to the jungle gym where Shouta’s legs were dangling down. Shouta saw them coming, and immediately pulled himself up, but not fast enough. Hizashi was able to reach up and snatch his shoe, crowing in victory as Oboro ran off.

“Ut-oh,” Oboro muttered as he turned enough to see Shouta drop to the ground and charge after them. He hurriedly tried to put Hizashi down, but they were still getting their footing back when Shouta was on them, tackling Hizashi and taking all three of them to the ground in a tangle of limbs as he wrestled his sneaker back.

Hizashi and Oboro started giggling in the middle of the melee, and Hizashi was sure he heard Shouta laughing along as well.

He wanted to hear that sound again.

By the time they’d disentangled from each other and Shouta had his sneaker back on, a few children had made their way to the playground and were happily swinging and climbing and spinning around. In unspoken agreement, the three teens left the park to the kids and walked on.

They wandered aimlessly around the neighborhood, eventually drifting out more into town where the roads were bigger and they could poke around in the shops. At some point late in the afternoon, they picked up something to eat at a konbini. After that, their wandering started to head back in the direction of Hizashi’s house; but along the way, they came to the entrance of another park. This one was more of a shady, wooded area with a few little trails that wound through it.

Hizashi paused for a moment. He’d never explored this park himself, since it posed too big a risk of dealing with bugs. He glanced over at Shouta and Oboro as they looked up at the tree branches in various stages of budding and bursting with leaves and flowers. Making a decision, he led the way in through the gate.

The trail they started down wasn’t really wide enough for them to walk next to each other, so Oboro took the lead as they wandered single file along the packed trail.

“No Nakano to smooth the way this time,” Hizashi observed, kicking a pebble from the path off into the brush.

“I think you’ll be fine,” Shouta said from behind him.

“How is Nakano doing, anyway?” Hizashi asked Oboro. Between studying and then the shitshow of finals, Hizashi hadn’t heard as much about Oboro’s love life as he was used to.

Oboro shrugged. “She was doin’ ok when I spoke to her on Monday.”

“Monday?” Shouta sounded as puzzled as Hizashi felt.

“That was days ago, dude,” Hizashi said, “You two talk every day.”

“We broke up on Sunday,” Oboro said, stepping over a root in the path, “We figured it was better to give each other a little space.”

“Wait, what?” Hizashi stumbled forward to grab Oboro by the shoulder, spinning him around. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” Oboro said, his smile a little dimmer than usual. “We talked about it and we decided that we’re better off as friends.”

“But… don’t you Like her?” Shouta asked, brow furrowed.

“I do.” Oboro rubbed the back of his neck, turning his head to look further down the trail.

“And she likes you!” Hizashi protested, unsure why he felt like he was arguing about something.

“Mayumi isn’t a jealous person, and neither am I,” Oboro said, leaning back against a tree, “But…” he trailed off, staring at the ground.

“But what?” Hizashi asked.

“It’s not fair to hold on to something with her when I know that what I feel isn’t… enough? I guess?” Oboro didn’t sound very sure himself. “Hearing what Ebisui and Urabe said, I could understand their point.” He blew out a slow breath. “Until I meet a girl who matters to me as much as you guys do, who I want to talk with as much as you two, who I’d want to be able to hang out with us all together… then it’s not fair to keep dragging it out.”

Silence hung over them for a moment, broken only by muffled traffic sounds from the roadway somewhere beyond the trees.

“I’m sorry,” Shouta mumbled; which was ridiculous, it’s not like he’d done anything wrong… but Hizashi himself couldn’t shake the twisting feeling that somehow he’d caused Oboro pain.

“Don’t be sorry,” Oboro said, his smile brightening a bit. “I had a good time with her! She’s a great person, a good friend, and I’m glad she was my first real girlfriend. Now come on, it’s starting to get dark, and I have no idea where we are,” he added with a laugh.

Giving a quick sniff, Hizashi blinked as he realized that the light really was starting to fade fast. “Ok, yeah, let’s not be lost in the woods at night.”

“This isn’t the woods, it’s a park with some trails,” Shouta muttered. “If we just keep following the path, we’ll come to the exit eventually.”

The trio headed off, the light growing more and more dim as they followed the twists and turns along the way. Oboro was the first to stumble over a root, though he laughed it off and kept moving. Then Shouta and Hizashi each stumbled a few times.

They slowed their pace, but even still, Hizashi’s toes seemed to catch on every root and rock. “This is getting ridiculous,” he groused. “Look over there,” he pointed off to their left through the trees. “I can see the streetlights! The road is right there, but there’s no path through!”

“There’s no path yet!” Oboro corrected.

“It’s gotta be at least fifty meters away,” Shouta said, looking at Hizashi, “That’s a lot of brush to get through.”

“Seems like it’s a choice between trampling the underbrush or using my harmless Quirk to float us over it-” Oboro started, eyeing Hizashi.

“It is still breaking the rules,” Hizashi cut him off, his gut twisting uncomfortably at the idea.

But… there were bound to be lots of bugs once they stepped off the trail, and he really would rather just float out of there…

And trampling the underbrush would do damage to the ecosystem or something, right? And it really wasn’t like Oboro’s Quirk was harmful or dangerous…

“Do you see anyone around who’s gonna report us?” Oboro asked. Hizashi squashed down the twisting in his gut, and the three of them shared a look in the moonlight, silent agreement reached. Oboro manifested a cloud, and in a moment they were off. They floated just above the brush, weaving carefully between the trees until they reached the edge of the park, the sidewalk next to the roadway just a meter away…

On the other side of a four meter tall chain link fence.

“No more cloud,” Hizashi said, much as he hated to. “There’s people and cars, the last thing we need is to get reported.”

“Seriously, dude?” Oboro asked, and Hizashi gave him a firm look. “Fine, party-pooper,” Oboro sighed as the cloud dissipated, leaving them all standing at the base of the fence. “We can climb this easily enough anyway.” He didn’t hesitate before hopping up.

Shouta grabbed on as well, beginning his climb, and the rattling of the fence resonated with the rattling of Hizashi’s nerves. He felt like they were crossing a line, doing something wrong… which was ridiculous, because getting out of the public park so that they could go home was clearly nothing bad.

He huffed a breath, irritated with himself, and started climbing. By the time he was halfway up, Shouta had already started his descent down the other side, while Oboro was perched with one leg over the top bar.

Of course, it would be that moment when a police car came rolling slowly up the road towards them. Hizashi was suddenly struck by the image of how bad this might look; a group of teenage troublemakers out to make mischief. He froze in place.

He heard a muffled thud as Shouta hit the ground, but none of the rattling that would mean that Oboro was moving. The three of them held still as the car continued its leisurely approach.

“I’m a tree,” came Oboro’s voice from above him, calm and serene. “I’m just a tree here. Just a tree.”

“I’m a bush,” Hizashi muttered, “Nothing to see, I’m just a bush.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Shouta said quietly, though his eyes tracked the car too.

“No, I’m a tree,” Oboro said.

“I’m a bush.”

The police car rolled past without slowing, seeing nothing of interest amid the trees and bushes.

With a hysterical giggle of relief, Hizashi resumed climbing while Oboro began heading down the other side, and soon enough the three of them were walking down the sidewalk towards Hizashi’s house, unremarkable pedestrians again instead of shrubbery. Hizashi couldn’t hold back the waves of laughter that washed over him every few minutes.

“I’m a bush,” he giggled.

“I’m a tree!” Oboro cackled.

As they made it to Hizashi’s street, he realized how late it had gotten. “You two should sleep over again tonight.” Oboro agreed easily enough, shooting off a quick text to his parents; but when Shouta also immediately said ‘sure’ and messaged his mother, Hizashi was a little stunned.

“No protests about needing to go to work?” Oboro teased. Shouta only shrugged.

“Come on, let’s get him inside before he changes his mind,” Hizashi laughed.

“How would being inside make any difference?” Shouta asked. “My stuff is in there, I’d need to get it if I was gonna leave.” Hizashi and Oboro burst into giggles again as they walked back in the door.

“Did you boys have fun?” Mom asked.

“Yeah. They’re gonna stay again tonight, can we get another futon?” Hizashi said, trying to keep his mood up.

“Of course, there’s another one in the guest room. Is there a problem with the first one?”

“No, Shirakumo is just a giant,” Hizashi said quickly. “Thanks, we’ll get it set up!” With that, he led the way upstairs and the three of them brought the second futon from the guest room into Hizashi’s.

“Why do we actually need the second futon?” Oboro asked once they’d rearranged things to create one extra-large sleep space on the floor by the window. “Shouta’s plenty small enough that I won’t crowd him off.”

“I’m not actually short,” Shouta groused.

Hizashi felt his neck heat up a little as he was forced to put his reasoning into words. “Last night- I liked that, with us all on my bed. But you were right,” he said, glancing at Shouta, “It really is a little too small. But with the two futons, we have more space…” he trailed off, realizing he missed a step in his planning. “That is, if you’re both ok with all of us sharing.”

“I- I’m ok with it,” Shouta said quietly.

“You sure you’re willing to give up that comfy mattress to slum it on the floor with us?” Oboro asked, and Hizashi was sure there was something hopeful in his voice.

“I survived the cabin at training camp. A futon in my own room is a piece of cake,” Hizashi said.

Mom called them for dinner not long after that, and then they spent most of the evening lazing around watching tv and goofing off in Hizashi’s room. He still tried to keep them away from his parents as much as he could, though he had to admit, neither of his friends seemed to care about the… situation.

Ever since they’d found out about it, Oboro would occasionally ask him how he was doing; but that was as much as it ever got brought up, and Hizashi was always able to wave away any concerns.

Either way, the only failed relationship that Hizashi gave a damn about tonight was the one that Oboro had apparently just gotten out of. Hizashi found himself watching his friend a little more closely, and now that he knew what he was looking for, he was pretty sure he could see the hints of sadness and strain around the edges of his smile, and up by his eyes.

Determined to help Oboro feel better, Hizashi kept the jokes coming. He found a sitcom to put on tv, and added his own commentary, which even had Shouta chuckling a few times.

It was a good evening.

By eleven, Shouta had stretched out on the futon, not sleeping, but halfway there as he scrolled through his phone. Hizashi felt a yawn coming on and he tried to stifle it, but it made its way out anyway.

“Me too,” Oboro said, also yawning. “You two get up way too early, I don’t know how you do it.”

“Sleep is overrated,” Hizashi said, feeling the pull to lie down as he turned off the tv. It really was strange for him, most nights he didn’t get to sleep until way after midnight, and now two nights in a row, he was turning in earlier.

Shouta looked up at them, and for a moment, an awkward uncertainty hovered in the air. Last night, with Shouta’s bad dream and the immediate need to keep comforting him - to comfort each other - it had been easy to lay down together.

Now, Hizashi didn’t know how to get from where he was to where he wanted them to be. It wasn’t even about his own troublesome feelings for Shouta, though those were still bubbling up inside him. No, this was more like trying to make a path through the underbrush - he could see where he wanted to be, but the way seemed full of nettles… until once again, Oboro managed to simply float them over it.

“You don’t actually need to give up your bed, Hizashi,” Oboro said, his smile still firmly on his face. “Or if you’re determined to rough it on the floor with Shouta, I can take the be-doof!” Hizashi didn’t know if he or Shouta had moved first, all he knew was that Shouta had grabbed Oboro’s arm, pulling him back onto the futon while Hizashi had lunged forward to knock him down.

“Shut up and go to sleep,” Shouta mumbled, stretching out to lay on his stomach, shifting his pillow closer to Oboro, one outstretched hand resting casually on Oboro’s shoulder. Hizashi laid down on the other side of Oboro and curled onto his side facing him.

Oboro was, like Hizashi, someone who was almost always smiling. Hizashi could tell, though, that unlike him, Oboro’s smiles weren’t usually a mask for anything else. He was just always a basically happy guy. Hizashi knew, because he’d seen Oboro’s smiles slip plenty of times when he was worried about something.

His smiles today had seemed different. Not forced; but they were missing something important. Maybe it was about Nakano. Maybe it was about everything that had happened during the final. Maybe a mix of both. But either way, Hizashi didn’t like it.

In the dim light that filtered through the window, he could barely make out the expressions passing across Oboro’s face. The flicker of his eyelids as he blinked, and the slight hitch in his breathing had Hizashi’s hand reaching out to rest on Oboro’s arm. He heard Oboro give a slow, shaky exhale. He scooted a little closer, shifting his hand until he could feel Oboro’s heart beating beneath his palm.

They lay in silence for a long time until, eventually, sleep claimed each of them.

Chapter Text

Shouta winced as Recovery Girl examined his fingers, broken again after their most recent practical training class. Though the fingerless gloves he wore helped to protect his skin from being too abraded by his capture weapon most of the time, he still seemed to be the only student to regularly injure himself with his own support item.

The first few days back to school for their second year had been a harsh reality check for him. After the disastrous final exam and the nightmares that had haunted him, he’d allowed himself to get distracted over their brief break. He’d been so desperate to believe that things were ok that he let himself pretend that, as the nightmares started to fade, becoming less frequent and less intense, it meant the underlying problem might also be resolved.

Now, however, there was no escaping the fact that every one of their classmates had gotten even stronger, while Shouta himself was falling further and further behind.

He was weak.

Useless.

At least his binding cloth hadn’t ‘forgotten’ him after not using it for a while, but that was just about the only thing Shouta had going for him. Everything else was feeling… pointless.

What kind of hero could he hope to be?

Recovery Girl finished healing him, and as the newest wave of exhaustion crashed over him, he trudged out of her office.

He tried to keep his doubts to himself, to not let Hizashi and Oboro see. They would only smile and try to feed him bullshit lines about how strong he was, about how he needed to have faith in himself, the same crap they always said.

He knew they meant well, but trying to sugar-coat things didn’t make the truth any less true.

They had been surprised when Shouta told them he wasn’t going to be doing his extra binding cloth training after school. He told them that he wasn’t getting as much out of it as he had at first, so it wasn’t worth the time anymore.

He didn’t tell them that he just didn’t see the point in it. It’s not like he’d ever close the gap between himself and their classmates. He’d never even bothered asking Kamata-Sensei, their new homeroom teacher, for permission.

(He also didn’t tell them that he didn’t want to bump into Tensei in the locker rooms.)

When Golden Week rolled around, Shouta did his best to not drag down the mood at Oboro’s birthday party. It was only fair, given how special his friends had made his birthday; he at least had to try and return the favor, no matter how bad at it he might be. When Hizashi suggested they bring Oboro to the arcade, Shouta agreed.

At least, in that chaotic environment, his friends knew him well enough to not expect much conversation out of him. Hizashi gave him a concerned look when he refused to play DDR, though. It was usually the one thing they could reliably get him to do; but Shouta’s heart just wasn’t in it.

When Shouta and Hizashi were invited over to the Shirakumo household to celebrate with him and his family, Shouta almost said no. He knew how much harder it would be for him to pretend that everything was fine surrounded by Oboro’s family. Standing quietly in the middle of a noisy arcade was one thing; but keeping his sullen silence when Oboro’s mom or sister was trying to ask him a question was something else altogether. Something much harder to mask.

Still, Oboro was one of his best (only) friends. Shouta wasn’t going to let him down. Not about this. Not after they’d already missed his birthday last year. So Shouta went and muddled through, and was quietly thankful that Hizashi and Oboro’s talkative natures covered up so well exactly how awful Shouta was at basic human interactions.

The whole thing was ridiculous and irrational; but still, when Shouta got home afterwards, he promised himself that for Oboro’s birthday next year, he would do better. Be better. Shouta may not deserve friends like Hizashi and Oboro, but they deserved to have a friend who was truly present. Oboro deserved to have a friend who celebrated with him. Especially after everything he’d done for Shouta.

A few days after Oboro’s birthday came the Sports Festival, and Shouta just… couldn’t make himself care about it. He participated, but he hadn’t filed the paperwork to use his binding cloth, so he was wildly outmatched on the first event, barely squeaking through into the top forty finishers. He refused to team up with Hizashi and Oboro on the second event. He told them he was feeling ill, and that he might not even participate at all.

He did end up joining in, on a team with a few others who weren’t in the mood to make it to the final head to head brackets. (Niragi and Mushimori had both gotten injured in class the day before, and though Recovery Girl had healed them, they were still feeling the exhaustion. Ajiki from Class B refused to say why she wasn’t feeling well, and none of the boys were going to push for an answer.)

Shouta was just so fucking tired.

During the head to head match-ups, he allowed himself to be dragged into the stands, where he dozed off while Hizashi once again offered a thrilling commentary for every match he wasn’t competing in. Oboro got knocked out in the first round against Shimada after putting up an impressive fight. Hizashi competed in three rounds, but was knocked out in the semi-finals by Nakano. Even as disconnected from everything as Shouta was, he still watched those matches. He still felt a sense of awe and pride at how strong his friends really were, even if it did remind him of how weak he himself was.

Tensei won again, and watching his match against Nakano left Shouta feeling even more exhausted. He slept through almost the entirety of the third-years competition, except when Oboro started elbowing him repeatedly, trying to draw his attention to a dark-haired girl who seemed to have a tendency to take her clothes off. Oboro chatted excitedly to Hizashi about her performance.

The day after the Sports Festival, Sensei told the class that in the beginning of June, they would be taking the provisional license exam, which would allow them to begin doing proper work studies over their summer break.

Something twisted in Shouta’s gut at the thought of it. He’d been able to get by at UA so far because his academics were fine and because of dumb luck or good team-ups he had during practical exercises; but the license exam was something else entirely.

For the first time, Shouta felt the sick, swooping fear that his journey towards trying to become a hero might actually be facing a truly insurmountable hurdle. That this might actually be it.

Without a license, he could never be a pro, and there was no way he could ever pass that test. Half the students who took it failed, what chance did he have?

~*~

Something was wrong with Shouta. Hizashi knew it, but he didn’t know what. It had been weeks since the Sports Festival, and Shouta seemed to care less and less about… everything. He replied to questions with shrugs and grunts, if he bothered to reply at all.

All Hizashi did know was that it was getting harder and harder to fight against the impulse to grab Shouta by the shoulders and…

Shake him?

Pull him into a tight hug and not let go?

Kiss him until that haunted look was replaced by something much, much better…

He huffed a harsh breath out through his nose and rubbed at his eyes under his sunglasses. Though his bad dreams after the final exam had faded pretty fast after that sleepover with his friends, his impulses to touch Shouta hadn’t… and not just in the normal, casual, friendly ways that they already did.

It was becoming a problem.

The other day, Hizashi had his arm slung around Shouta’s neck, their heads close enough together that he could smell the shampoo Shouta had used. Hizashi had turned to face him, and the urge to kiss his cheek had almost overwhelmed him. He’d immediately backed away, laughing and giving Shouta a playful shove; but it had been a close call.

And it was stupid, on about a thousand different levels! Because Oboro had planted a big, sloppy kiss on Shouta’s cheek a few days before that, and it had been fine! They were allowed to do that! But not only had Hizashi been wildly jealous of Oboro in that moment, he had also been fucking terrified.

It was all getting out of hand.

And with Shouta being even more quiet and reluctant to come hang out than usual, Hizashi was worried, and he missed him a lot; but also he was kinda relieved that he didn’t have to worry about accidentally trying to make out with him.

He wished he knew what to do to just… fix everything.

Today, though, Hizashi’s worry about Shouta was stronger than his need to keep a safe distance. Shouta had barely said three words to them all day, and not only had he napped all through lunch, but he’d clearly been dozing off during their classes too, which was something he’d never done before.

“Come on, buddy,” Hizashi cajoled, nudging him with his elbow. “Ms. Emoto’s gotta be sick of your face, you’ve been there every day for hours. She can’t possibly have anything else for you to help with, there’s only one register in the whole shop!”

Shouta ignored him as they walked up the stairs to the train platform.

“Seriously, Shouta, the games aren’t as much fun without you; there’s only so many times I can kick Hizashi’s ass,” Oboro chimed in, “You need to come over and give me a real challenge!”

“I’m not coming over to play video games,” Shouta said, the first words out of his mouth since they’d left campus.

“Then come over and we’ll go for a walk!” Hizashi tried.

“Or to the playground, we can go show off for the little kids!” Oboro offered as they boarded the train.

“I have to work,” Shouta said, the millionth time he’d repeated this mantra over the past few weeks. “I have to study. I have to sleep.”

“Are you mad at us?” Hizashi barely managed to say ‘us’ instead of ‘me’ at the last moment.

Shouta blinked at him in confusion, probably the most emotion Hizashi had seen from him in days as something of the tired haze in his eyes cleared up a little bit. “Of course not,” he said. “I just- I have things I need to do.”

The train pulled in to Hizashi’s stop, but he didn’t want to get off without Shouta; he wanted to grab his arm and pull him along with them.

There was something tense in the air that hung between the three of them; but then Shouta gave them the tiniest smile, one that Hizashi was pretty sure was meant to be reassuring. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Shouta told them. Reluctantly, Hizashi and Oboro slowly stepped off the train. They stood on the platform as the doors slid shut, and watched as it carried their friend away.

After the train was out of sight, Oboro and Hizashi glanced at each other and made their way quickly to the Yamada’s empty house.

“There’s definitely something weird going on with him,” Oboro finally said as they closed the door to Hizashi’s room behind them and sat cross-legged on his bed facing each other.

“He’s been off since the school year started,” Hizashi said.

“Maybe even before that,” Oboro added. “Do you think it’s still about what happened at the final?”

Hizashi shrugged. “Maybe, I dunno. But something is definitely wrong.”

Oboro paused for a minute. “And what about you?” he finally asked.

“Huh? What about me?” Hizashi’s pulse kicked up. He didn’t think he’d been letting anything show. At least, not enough that anyone should have noticed.

Then again, Oboro spent more time with him and Shouta than anyone else.

“Shouta’s been off, but you’ve been weird around him too.” Oboro took a quick breath, then continued, “Did… did something happen between you two?”

“What!? No, of course not!” Hizashi yelped, and his instinct was to double down and insist that everything was fine, no problemo, totally a-ok! He didn’t wanna talk about what he’d been feeling…

But oh gods he really wanted to talk about it. He’d been running around in circles, driving himself nuts about it, and it just kept getting worse. He was starting to think he might explode if he didn’t do something. Maybe Oboro could help him figure it out?

“So why are you being weird around him?” Oboro asked, and whatever it was inside Hizashi that had been holding things back just… snapped.

“I like girls.” The words fell out of his mouth in a rush. Oboro blinked at the apparent non-sequitur, and Hizashi scrambled to make it make sense. “I mean, I know I like girls. When me and Ebisui went out and we fooled around, it was really nice. I know I liked it.” Hizashi bit his lip. “You like girls too, right? I mean, obviously, Nakano is a girl, so-”

“Yeah, of course,” Oboro cut off Hizashi’s rambling and shrugged. “What’s not to like?”

“Ok, so-” Hizashi racked his brain to try and figure out how he was gonna explain. “Don’t tell anyone, I’m only telling you cuz… ugh, just don’t. But… Kobayashi likes girls too. She doesn’t like boys at all.”

Oboro gave him a puzzled look, clearly not getting the point. “Right, ok? You know gay people exist, Hizashi. Your mom-”

“Ok but that’s the problem!” Hizashi cut Oboro off, anger and fear flashing hot inside him. “My mom and dad got married and had me, and now my mom is divorcing my dad because she fell in love with a woman instead.”

“I’m still not really following, Zashi.” Oboro sounded way too gentle, and Hizashi hated it; but apparently he had to bite the bullet and just fuckin say it.

“I think… I like guys too.” He rushed to keep explaining, to try and make Oboro understand the problem. “If I like girls and guys- I don’t wanna do what my mom did. I don’t wanna build a life with someone only to break their heart and hurt my family!”

Oboro blinked and cocked his head. “I… don’t think that’s how that works.”

Gods, why wasn’t he getting it? Rage welled up inside Hizashi too fast to rein in. “Yeah, well your parents aren’t the ones splitting up,” he snapped. “I hear my dad crying sometimes, d’you know how much that sucks? Cuz he still loves her so much, even after… And I love my mom, and I hate her for what she’s doing to us, and I’m fuckin’ pissed off at her for finding someone else she loves more than my dad, because she’s still so fucking nice to him! She still cares about him, so why can’t she be in love with him?”

Hizashi was distantly aware that his cheeks were wet, but even squeezing his eyes shut tightly couldn’t stop the tears from falling. All he could do was clamp his hands over his mouth and try not to scream as he took deep, ragged breaths through his nose.

Oboro didn’t say anything for a long minute, he only scooted closer to sit with his knees pressed against Hizashi’s. It took a bit, but finally his breathing evened out, and Hizashi dropped his hands to his lap with a sigh.

Oboro seemed to take that as permission to speak. “I’m really sorry, Zashi.”

Hizashi shook his head, sniffing and wiping his face with his sleeve, “I shouldn’t have gone off like that.”

Oboro looked over at Hizashi’s nightstand, where the model Mustang and stuffed cat sat side by side, then back at Hizashi. “What does all this have to do with Shouta?”

Hizashi’s face burned. “Come on, man. Do I really need to spell it out?”

“Probably not,” Oboro conceded, “But… I really don’t wanna make a wrong assumption. Not about this.”

Shit. He was really gonna have to say it. “I- Swear you’re not gonna tell anyone.”

Oboro held up his hand as if taking an oath. “Scout’s honor,” he said solemnly.

“You weren’t a Scout,” Hizashi grumbled.

“No, but I’ve got honor. I promise, I’m not gonna say anything.”

Hizashi bit his lip, staring down at his fingers as he picked at his cuticles. This would be fine. Oboro had probably figured it out anyway. If anyone could understand, it would be Oboro. Still, Hizashi couldn’t bring himself to look up as he started talking. “I- I like Shouta. I think… I think I like him a lot. But-” Oboro sat quietly again, waiting for Hizashi to find the words. “When me and Ebisui broke up, she and I didn’t wanna be around each other for a while. Even now, even though it doesn't hurt like it did and I don’t think either of us is upset anymore, I don’t feel like hanging out with her. If I’m always gonna break up with someone… I don’t wanna- I can’t risk that with Shouta.”

“Why would you always break up with someone?” Oboro asked. “I mean, what if he likes you back and things are great between you?”

“Look, it doesn’t matter,” Hizashi said, because Oboro was still not fucking getting it; but it was all besides the point anyway. “Aizawa barely likes people at all anyway, and he went on that date with Shimada, so he probably doesn't like guys, so saying anything to him would be stupid.” He sighed heavily. “I just don’t know what to do with all these feelings.”

“Well it sounds like you think that they’ll fade away eventually,” Oboro said slowly, and ok, maybe he did kinda get it? “So if that’s the case then just… I dunno, deal with it? Till they do?”

“Easy for you to say,” Hizashi grumbled, “You’re not thinking about kissing one of your best friends all the time.”

“Just one of us?” Oboro teased, waggling his eyebrows, and Hizashi rolled his eyes… and then Oboro pitched his voice to something low and sultry and added, “Just kissing?”

Hizashi felt the heat immediately rise from his face right up to his scalp, because ok maybe he had thought about more than kissing. He punched Oboro in the shoulder, hard. “Shut up,” Hizashi growled.

“Ow, alright! Ok, ok, I’m sorry.” Oboro laughed, but he did actually sound contrite for once. They sat quietly for a minute. “Either way, you want things to stay the same between us all, right?” Oboro finally asked.

“Obviously,” Hizashi snorted. “You and Aizawa are my best friends.”

“Then we gotta try and figure out what’s wrong with Shouta,” Oboro said, bringing the conversation full circle, “Or get him to tell us, cuz something is definitely up with him.”

“Yeah.” Hizashi wished he had an answer and knew how to fix it… and he hoped he hadn’t just made anything any worse by telling Oboro all of that.

*

Days later, and still nothing seemed to have helped with Shouta, not really. Hizashi and Oboro had managed to convince him to come do a little extra training on their ‘ultimate moves’ as they prepared for their provisional licensing exam the following week, but it was clear his heart wasn’t in it.

“It’s stupid for me to try and call anything I do an ‘ultimate move,’” Shouta groused. “Nothing I do is unique to me, training my Quirk is basically just trying to not blink for longer.”

“Hold up there my too-modest friend, I’ve never seen another hero pull off the kind of stuff that you do with your binding cloth,” Hizashi said. “‘Not unique’ my ass!”

“And don’t forget that it only works for you the way it does because of your Quirk!” Oboro added. “Like Kobayashi and her drone disks, it’s a support item that only you can use.”

“I’ve still got a lot to learn, I know I need to be better with it.” Shouta frowned, looking at the coiled cloth around his neck.

“You’ll get there!” Oboro said, thumping him on the back. Hizashi wondered, not for the first time, why Shouta hadn’t been doing his extra training if he was so worried about his skills.

“Not if I fail the licensing exam,” Shouta muttered under his breath.

He clearly hadn’t intended for them to hear him, but he had underestimated how sharp Hizashi’s hearing really was. Hizashi turned, slack-jawed, to stare at Shouta. In his peripheral vision, he saw Oboro with a similar expression on his own face, so he must have heard it too.

Well. If Shouta was going to be ridiculous, Hizashi was gonna be too. “Do my ears deceive me?” Hizashi gasped, laying it on thick. “Did you hear that, Shirakumo? Is Aizawa Shouta suggesting that a UA student strong enough to get into the hero program, who is passing all his courses with flying colors, is somehow at risk of failing the licensing exam?”

“That’s what I thought I heard too, Hizashi!” Oboro said, sounding similarly scandalized.

“Shut up,” Shouta grumbled, “You both have useful Quirks.”

“It is astounding how far you’ve gotten with such a useless Quirk.” Hizashi was trying to bait Shouta into pushing back; but there was an edge of real irritation sharpening his voice.

“Would it make you feel better to kick Hizashi’s ass again like you did at last year’s Sports Festival?” Oboro asked. “I can referee!”

“I got lucky, that’s all,” Shouta sighed.

“Am I insulted by that, Shirakumo? I think I’m insulted by that!” Hizashi scoffed, irritation mixing with indignation and sliding towards anger. “He thinks all it takes to beat me is a little bit of luck!?”

Shouta’s frown deepened, but he seemed more sad than angry. “I get what you’re doing, but my luck is bound to run out sooner or later, and this is probably it.”

“So why haven’t you just given up already?” Hizashi snapped. Maybe it was over the line, but Shouta had been acting like he’d given up, and frankly, Hizashi was sick of it.

“What?” The look of shock on Shouta’s face was almost a relief. For all his self-doubt, it seemed that the idea of quitting had never even occurred to Shouta. “I’m not giving up.”

“Coulda fooled me, with the way you’re talking,” Hizashi retorted, crossing his arms.

“You haven’t sounded very ‘Plus Ultra’ lately,” Oboro added.

“I hate the stupid Plus Ultra thing.” Shouta pouted, but Hizashi could practically see something stubborn flaring up inside him. “And I’m not quitting. I’m being realistic, but I’m not giving up without a fight.”

“That’s the spirit!” Oboro cheered.

Hizashi huffed, but was glad to have finally found something that broke through that gloom that clung to Shouta so thickly lately, even just a little. It wasn’t enough, but it was a start.

~*~

After the conversation with his friends, Shouta found himself feeling more determined. He found himself better able to push through the exhaustion that hung over him almost all the time lately. He still wasn’t particularly optimistic, but he wasn’t going to quit.

He wasn’t going to let them see him just give up.

The day of the licensing exam dawned overcast, matching Shouta’s mood. By the time Class A got to their test site, the dark clouds overhead had grown only more threatening.

“I hope it doesn’t rain,” Kobayashi said, eyeing the sky warily.

“I hope it does!” Oizuchi piped up, shooting a thin stream of water at her from his index finger, which only made her glower at him.

“The storm isn’t forecast to hit until later,” Sensei said, “But heroes need to work in all kinds of conditions, so the test is unlikely to be postponed.”

They filed into a large building, and for a moment Shouta was taken aback at how many people were here to take the test. UA was so competitive, and he sometimes forgot that there were so many other schools with hero courses across Japan. And this was only half of the students testing today; Class B was at another location with another crowd probably just as big as this.

“Good morning, hero hopefuls,” a voice came over the loudspeaker system. “I’m sure you’re all eager to get going, so I will make this as brief as I can.” The noisy crowd almost immediately fell into a hush.

“I’m sure most of you are familiar with the statistic that less than half of examinees pass this exam. That is true, by the nature of how the test is structured. The rules for the first part of the test are simple. It is a free-for-all melee, and for every pass, there’s at least one fail.” A murmur ran through the crowd.

“Each of you will begin the test wearing a sensor,” the announcer continued. “If you are knocked unconscious by another examinee, you fail. If you are forced to yield by another examinee, you fail. If you knock out another examinee, you pass. If you force another examinee to yield, you pass.

“Some of you have Quirks that allow you to do damage or incapacitate opponents from afar or by proxy. The sensors are capable of assessing not just when someone has been defeated, but also who defeated them. The sensor will light green to indicate pass, red for fail. Once you have passed or failed, you are to remove yourselves, or be removed from the field and into the waiting area.

“If one examinee knocks several others unconscious with one attack, all defeated examinees fail. If you continue to attack other examinees after you have passed, this will be grounds to review your performance and potentially disqualify you. If you continue to attack other examinees after you have failed, this will be considered unlawful use of your Quirk and could carry serious consequences.”

“This sounds brutal,” Hizashi muttered.

“How do we attach these?” Oboro asked, fiddling with the sensor he’d just been handed. Shouta looked down at the one that had been passed to him. It looked very much like a watch, so he slid the band around his wrist.

The band tightened itself with a quiet beep, and the sensor display lit up white, showing Shouta’s name in glowing kanji.

“Like that, I guess,” Hizashi said, slipping his own sensor on his wrist. Oboro shrugged and followed suit. Throughout the building, the tiny little beeps as each sensor activated moved like a wave, following the trail as the devices were handed out.

“Good luck, examinees,” the invisible announcer said as a deep rumble ran through the building and the walls began to move, folding down to release them all out into the testing arena. “You have five minutes to disperse. When the buzzer sounds, the exam begins.”

Everyone took off running, Shouta trotting alongside Hizashi and Oboro, with much of Class A all heading off in the same direction. Within a few minutes, they’d slowed, and Shouta looked around again at their surroundings. They were standing in the middle of a wide expanse of packed reddish dirt, dotted with large rocks that looked like they’d sprouted from the ground.

“Uhhh, d’you guys get the feeling that everyone is staring at us?” Hizashi asked. Sure enough, Shouta felt the weight of too many eyes on them.

“We’re UA students,” Kobayashi said with a grim smile, pulling out one of the wicked disks she kept in a pouch at her hip, ready to activate them and send them on the attack. “Everyone wants to say they took down someone from UA. They think that we think that we’re better than them.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Oboro said, surveying the crowd through narrowed eyes.

“Damn right it is,” Kobayashi said. “We know we’re better.”

“None of our classmates are over that way, right?” Hizashi asked, adjusting his sunglasses.

“Nope, either behind us or took off in another direction,” Kobayashi smirked.

“Good.” Hizashi swaggered forward a few steps, arms splayed open wide, confidence rolling off of him. His presence drew in and commanded the attention of everyone around, and Shouta was no exception. “If you all are looking for a first hand demonstration of what UA students are capable of,” Hizashi shouted, and Shouta could practically hear his cocky smile, “Please! Feel free to step. Right. Up!”

The buzzer sounded, and all hell broke loose.

“Yeeeaaahhhhh!” Hizashi screamed as a wall of adversaries came at them, and right away more than half of them peeled off in search of less dangerous targets.

Of course, that meant the ones still coming were tougher and more determined foes.

“Damn, not even one of them?” Hizashi groused, his sensor still showing white. “I guess that would have been too easy.”

“Here they come,” Kobayashi said.

“I know the forecast said the rain was gonna hold off, but I think a little cloud cover is called for!” Oboro said, and a thin mist began to obscure them from sight. Of course, that meant that they couldn’t see their opponents either. “Let’s move!”

In the scramble, Shouta got separated from his friends; but he figured it was for the best anyway. He was going to fight till the end; but if he failed, he didn’t want his friends to see it happen. He dodged around the side of a rocky protrusion sticking up out of the ground, and pulled up short when he saw a pair of examinees grappling with each other a few dozen meters away.

One of them was large, with leathery gray skin, and an electric aura crackling around his body.

The other was Yakumo.

Gray Guy was holding Yakumo up by his collar, and it was clear Yakumo was hurting. Shouta had to guess that the arcing pops of electricity were also running though his classmate.

No way was Shouta going to stand by and let a UA student fail, not even Yakumo. Not if he could help it.

He activated his Quirk, and immediately the crackling electric field disappeared. Gray Guy looked around in confusion, which was a mistake because it meant he took his eyes off Yakumo. The spidery boy immediately attacked, and though Shouta was too far away to make out the details, he was pretty sure he saw Yakumo bite Gray Guy. Shouta kept his eyes open as long as he could, but by the time he had to blink, it seemed Yakumo had the situation handled.

Which was good, because a different kind of energy seemed to be gathering, setting the hair on Shouta’s arms and neck up on end. He turned to look for the source; but by the time he spotted the dark, wicked looking mass of crackling power, it was too late. He threw up his arm to block as he ducked away from the burst of energy, the edge of it grazing past his forearm-

Fire. Burning, fiery agony lanced down his arm, lighting up his nerves and punching a pathetic yelp of pain out of him as he flinched and stumbled sideways. The awful, numb, tingling, burning sensation traveled down his arm and to his ribs, making him lose his breath. He fought the urge to squeeze his eyes shut as he cradled his arm to his chest, hoping that the pain would subside quickly as he searched for his attacker.

“You haven’t failed out yet, Aizawa?” a familiar voice taunted, and his head snapped over to the side to see Ijima approaching him.

“You found a school desperate enough to accept you?” Shouta shot back, wishing it sounded less shaky. He tried moving his left arm, clenching his fist-

Which turned out to be a bad idea as it sent another wave of pain through him. Even worse, he could tell that his movements were slow and weak - even if he pushed through the pain, his arm was useless for combat right now. He probably couldn’t even grip his capture weapon with his left hand.

For all the times Ijima had tormented Shouta in middle school, he’d never actually succeeded in hitting him with his Quirk before. If this was the result of an indirect hit, Shouta knew he couldn’t afford to take a full blast. The pain alone could risk knocking him out, never mind the fact that he’d be a sitting duck even if he stayed conscious.

So when Ijima began to gather up energy for another blast, Shouta activated his Quirk, fizzling the attack to nothing.

“Same old stupid tricks,” Ijima snarled, then sneered at the binding cloth which had come to life around Shouta’s neck. “What’s that, now you’ve got a dancing scarf too? Is that to distract people from how pathetic you are? Because we both know I don’t need to use my Quirk to beat the shit out of you.”

Shouta shoved aside the old reflex of looking for an escape route, of trying to avoid the fight. This wasn’t a schoolyard brawl.

This time he was allowed to fight back.

Ijima charged, clearly intending to just tackle Shouta. Normally, he’d be able to deal with a move like that easily; but the state of his left arm complicated things. He grabbed a strand of his capture weapon with his right hand, and as Ijima’s charge brought him into range, Shouta made his throw. He knew he had to end this quickly, and the cloth practically leaped out of his hand, snapping precisely around his target.

His first strand pinned Ijima’s arms to his sides, and Shouta wrapped the cloth around his still mostly useless left arm. He gritted his teeth against the pain, but was able to use the limb as an anchor, holding the cloth taut while throwing another length with his right, this time snaring Ijima around both his ankles.

Shouta yanked on the cloth. Hard.

Ijima’s eyes went wide with shock as he toppled over forward towards the ground, and Shouta took the opportunity to blink. His Quirk was already active again before Ijima landed face first in the dirt with a grunt. Shouta walked over, using his right hand to keep the tension on both strands of his capture weapon as he knelt and placed one knee heavily on Ijima’s back.

“I may be pathetic,” Shouta said, a feeling of calm settling over him as he leaned down to address Ijima, “But if I’ve kicked your ass, what does that make you?”

“Fuck you, Aizawa,” Ijima said, struggling against his bonds. “This isn’t over, you’ll need to blink eventually.”

“I could knock you out right now,” Shouta told him, entirely matter of fact. “But you’re going to yield.”

“Like hell I’m gonna yield to a fucking weirdo creep like you!” Ijima continued to writhe, and Shouta leaned more heavily on him.

A commotion off to Shouta’s left drew his attention. He was careful not to make the same mistake as Gray Guy, only glancing away from Ijima for a second, and making sure to keep him in his peripheral vision so his Quirk didn’t drop. There hadn’t been many examinees over here before; but now there was another pair who were eyeing Shouta up. He wondered if they were Ijima’s classmates, or maybe just two opportunistic examinees looking to each take on an already tired-out opponent.

Either way, he should wrap this up. Knock Ijima out and get off the field.

But he wanted Ijima to yield.

It was stupid. Irrational. Risky. Ultimately pointless.

He wanted it anyway.

He heard a shrill whistle over by where the other two examinees had been standing. He knew there was a chance they were calling in backup, but he didn’t risk looking over again. Ijima tried to wriggle out from under him, but no way was Shouta letting that happen. Shifting his position, Shouta leaned forward and slipped his right arm around the front of Ijima’s neck, applying pressure. His left arm was still painful and mostly useless, but he ignored it.

“It’s not good for the brain to be deprived of blood and oxygen for any extended period,” he said, as if making idle conversation. “Sometimes, there can even be lasting health effects. Really, it’s not entirely responsible for this test to make it necessary for us to render an opponent unconscious.” Ijima was stretching his neck, trying to twist away, but Shouta only held on tighter. He could hear the sounds of a scuffle not too far away from him, painfully aware that the other examinees might be closing in. “You really should yield.”

“Too fucking weak to actually beat me, Aizawa,” Ijima choked out; but Shouta could feel the way his thrashing was getting more desperate. Something about it started to splinter his calm, anger seeping up through the cracks.

He’d show Ijima how ‘weak’ he was.

“Say it,” Shouta growled, “Or don’t. Maybe you want me to drag your unconscious body off the field. Or you can yield and walk out of here on your own two feet. Either way, you’re not getting up until I let you up.” He tightened his grip again, listening to the sounds of fighting getting closer, but not tearing his eyes away from Ijima as he struggled. A few desperate curses scraped out of Ijima, quiet and garbled, but clear enough to know that he had enough air to speak.

All at once, Ijima went lax under him… but Shouta didn’t ease up. His sensor still showed white.

His pulse pounded in his ears as seconds ticked away.

Then. Choked off and almost too quiet for Shouta to hear. There it was.

“I yield.”

Shouta’s sensor flashed green, and Shouta released his grip on Ijima’s neck and slid off of him, tugging until his capture weapon came free, first off Ijima’s legs, then rolling him until he could sit up and Shouta reclaimed the rest. He shook out his left arm, which was finally starting to feel a little more normal.

Looking over to where the sounds of fighting had been coming from, Shouta saw Sarudo and Fujimi each standing triumphantly over a defeated opponent, Yakumo smirking behind them.

“Come on,” Sarudo called out as he finished shifting back to his normal form. “Let’s clear off the field.” Shouta offered his hand to help Ijima up, unsurprised when Ijima ignored him and rolled onto his knees to push himself to his feet.

“Don’t think any of this means you’re better than me, Aizawa,” he spat. Shouta ignored him, turning to see if his classmates needed any help. Fujimi’s opponent was getting shakily to his feet, but Sarudo’s was clearly only just regaining consciousness. He was a big guy dressed in bright blue, and he clearly wasn’t in any position to get himself off the field under his own power. With a quick glance at each other, Sarudo and Shouta each grabbed one of the guy’s arms and hauled him up, each slinging an arm over their shoulder. Fujimi fell back to help Yakumo with Gray Guy, who was also still woozy.

They walked across the field, past dozens of skirmishes going on, towards the waiting area off to the side of the arena. Once or twice, Shouta felt the urge to activate his Quirk to help someone who was clearly being outnumbered; but those weren’t his fights, and since he had officially passed, he wasn’t allowed to intervene. Which reminded him.

“Thanks,” he said to Sarudo. “I’m lucky you and Fujimi were nearby.”

“We’d gotten separated from everyone when we all scattered,” Sarudo said, “Yakumo called us over, actually. Said we needed to even the odds.” He paused. “Given how easily these two went down, you could have handled the situation yourself; but hey, we needed to pass too.”

Shouta blinked at Sarudo in surprise. It was a little backhanded, but any kind of compliment from one of Yakumo’s friends was strange for Shouta to hear.

The waiting area was a large space with only a few dozen people milling around. There was a first aid station set up near the entrance, which is where Shouta and Sarudo stopped first to deposit their passenger. The next order of business was getting their sensors removed. There were two lines running parallel to each other, one for those who had passed, one for those who had failed.

For a moment, Shouta wondered why the ‘fail’ line was so much shorter than the ‘pass’ line then he realized it was because a lot of the ‘fails’ were having their sensors removed at the first aid station.

“Yeeeaaahhhhh! Here he comes, in glorious, triumphant green!” Hizashi’s unmistakable voice rang out as he trotted over. “UA, continuing with a strong showing, counting more and more victories to its name!” he said, grinning broadly as he clapped his hands on Shouta’s and Sarudo’s shoulders.

“Is Shirakumo here too?” Shouta asked, looking around for Oboro.

“Yep, slowpoke is at the front of the line getting his sensor off right now.”

“How many others from UA are here?” Sarudo asked.

“More than half the class, now that you two are here,” Hizashi said, glancing around.

“Congrats, Shouta!” Oboro said, coming up behind him and thumping him on the back. “Sarudo! Where’s Yakumo?”

Sarudo jerked his head towards the door. “He and Fujimi are helping the guy he took down, he was a big bastard. It worked out well that Fujimi’s opponent and Aizawa’s were both able to walk themselves in.”

A loud scoff drew their attention over to the line of failures. Shouta sighed while Ijima sneered at him. Better to just ignore him; after all, he’d be out the door soon.

Hizashi, however, sized up the situation and decided to take a different approach. A hint of something sly began seeping into his smile. Part of Shouta told him he should try and convince Hizashi to not do whatever he was about to do…

But…

Who was he to deny his friend a chance to put on a show?

So Shouta didn’t say anything, instead choosing to watch the performance unfold.

“Well now, here’s a blast from the past! Ijima, right? Easy there, buddy, your face might freeze like that,” Hizashi quipped in his best Present Mic voice. “And if I remember correctly, you’re not gonna be winning any hearts with your personality, so you might wanna try and smile a little more!” Hizashi demonstrated by directing his grin at Ijima, pointing at the corners of his mouth. Shouta was pretty sure Hizashi also winked, but the sunglasses made it hard to tell.

“I gotta say, though,” Hizashi continued, waving his arms around in wide gestures as he spoke, “I’m a little surprised to see ya here, given that the last time I saw you it was after you’d failed the UA entrance exam and tried to attack my buddy, even though that was strictly a no-no.”

Ijima glowered, but Hizashi wasn’t done.

“But look at you now! Found a school willing to tolerate some seriously un-heroic behaviors to give you a shot at being a pro, anyway,” Hizashi said, sauntering over to sling an arm around Ijima’s shoulders, which Ijima immediately shoved off. Hizashi used the momentum to spin on his heel with a flourish. “Aww, come on now, don’t be like that! Hasn’t anyone ever told you that you catch more flies with honey than-”

“Do you ever shut the fuck up?” Ijima snapped.

“Nope!” Hizashi said.

“No way,” Oboro chimed in.

“He really doesn’t,” Shouta sighed.

“Never,” Sarudo added with a smirk.

“But don’t you worry, listener, we’re just about to the front of the line, so you’ll probably never have to hear from me ever again if ya don’t dig what I’ve got to say,” Hizashi prattled as he strutted away from Ijima, eyes darting around the room and back to the door where Shouta could see a few more of their classmates had trickled in, sensors glowing green. “I’ll just leave you with this parting thought: it’s been less than ten minutes since the start of the exam, and every single UA student has already passed. Do you know why that is?” Hizashi strode over to stand between Shouta and Oboro, putting one arm around each of their shoulders. “I’ll tell you why, listener. It’s because UA only accepts the best.”

“Next,” the bored looking woman at the desk in front of Ijima said. With one last glare, Ijima turned to have his sensor removed and receive his instructions for exiting the arena.

“So!” Hizashi said, turning to look at Shouta with bright, excited eyes.

“Tell us all about kicking that guy’s ass!” Oboro crowed.

Shouta huffed and shook his head, shuffling to the front of the line to get his own sensor removed. Soon enough, he was sitting with his friends to wait for the rest of the examinees to finish, telling them what had happened and listening as they told him about their own victories.

It took almost an hour and a half for the last examinees to trickle into the waiting area; and as the adrenaline from earlier faded from his system, all Shouta wanted to do was take a nap. Everything felt distant and numb as he dozed off with his head tipped back against the wall.

His friends woke him up for the second segment of the exam, some kind of mock rescue effort. Shouta forced himself to do what had to be done, and in the end it went by pretty smoothly. He lost some points for not being a ‘reassuring presence;’ but he’d done well enough to pass.

It took most of the bus ride home for reality to sink in.

He’d passed.

He sat up from where he’d been leaning against the window, the tired haze in his mind clearing enough for him to think. He glanced at Oboro sitting next to him, and craned his neck to look for Hizashi… but Hizashi was sitting halfway across the bus, having an animated conversation with Kobayashi.

Shouta frowned, but by now Oboro was looking at him, his smile somehow wider than usual. It felt… odd.

“There you are,” Oboro chuckled. “What’cha thinkin?”

Shouta’s frown deepened, though he wasn’t sure what exactly was bothering him about Oboro’s demeanor. He huffed and decided to just answer the more immediate question. “I shouldn’t have passed,” he admitted. “It feels like luck, or like I cheated. Ijima is an asshole; but I knew him and his Quirk, so I had an unfair advantage.”

“Over him?” Oboro asked, brow furrowed in confusion. Shouta nodded. “Didn’t he also know you, and your Quirk though?”

“Yeah?” What did that matter?

“So how would that be an advantage for you, but not for him?” Shouta wasn’t sure what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything. Oboro shrugged. “Sounds like you beat him fair and square to me.”

“It was too easy, though,” Shouta protested. “A regular training match with any of our classmates is harder than that was.”

“I think the training matches are harder because all of us are really strong in our own ways. We all got into UA, right? Ijima didn’t get in because he’s not nearly as strong as you,” Oboro said with another shrug, like it was just that simple. Shouta frowned. It made sense, but it felt wrong to believe it.

“Either way,” Oboro added, “Do you honestly think that guy would make a good hero?”

Shouta didn’t even need to think about that. “Not a chance.”

“Me neither,” Oboro agreed. “So even if it was too easy, you made sure that unqualified jerk isn’t gonna be out there calling himself a hero.”

Shouta looked around again for Hizashi. It felt… weird, that he was sitting so far away. Oboro followed his gaze, then smiled extra brightly at Shouta.

“Kobayashi totally kidnapped him as soon as we got on the bus, something about a new album that just got released,” Oboro explained, his eyes squinting closed as his grin took over his whole face. “Don’t worry, he’s not abandoning us!”

“I didn’t think he was,” Shouta mumbled. He knew that he’d been pulling away from his friends lately, not the other way around. If Hizashi hadn’t been calling him as much, it was probably because Shouta had been ignoring a lot more calls. Whenever Shouta called him, which wasn’t much but did happen sometimes, Hizashi always answered.

So why did Oboro’s smile look so… odd?

Was Oboro worried about something? Was that why he’d been hovering even closer to Shouta than usual? He was texting Shouta all the time lately, even though Shouta rarely replied much. He’d even started showing up at Ms. Emoto’s shop while Shouta was working, just to hang around. It was annoying, but Shouta was too tired to fight about it most of the time. Too tired to think about it.

Shouta was too tired to think about much of anything, really, especially his friends being a little extra weird.

The only thing he could think about right now was the exam. He had to wonder. How many others like Ijima had managed to pass the exam? What value did his own pass hold?

He sighed and looked out the window. He’d passed the exam, but what did that really mean? He still felt just as lost as before, left behind in the dust as all his classmates surpassed him, with no clear idea of what kind of path he could possibly make for himself.

The days and weeks that followed didn’t change that at all. He was useless.

He couldn’t even save a tiny, soaking wet kitten on the side of the road.

Chapter Text

When a tiny kitten had come mewing into their lives one rainy morning, Hizashi would never have believed that the little orange furball could have such a profound impact.

He and Oboro had been struggling to try and pull Shouta out of the funk he was in. Even after passing the provisional license exam, Shouta was still perpetually down on himself. They couldn’t even convince him to go to Catpurrccinos, which was always something that lifted his spirits.

Maybe that was why Oboro decided to keep bringing the kitten to school every day since he’d first picked him up on the side of the road: If Shouta wouldn’t go to the cats, bring the cat to him.

Then again, maybe not; it wasn’t like Oboro had discussed it with Hizashi.

Because, in addition to Shouta being so gloomy and withdrawn for months, Oboro seemed to be getting more distant from Hizashi over the past few weeks. The two of them always hung out a lot when Shouta was working or whatever; but lately it seemed like Oboro had been declining more invitations and had way less time to talk.

Hizashi tried to ask him about it, and Oboro just laughed it off and said he was busy - which Hizashi had to admit was true, they were all pretty busy. Oboro kept insisting that everything was fine, and they laughed and joked and horsed around like usual when they were hanging out…

But either way, the result was that Hizashi was left feeling more lonely than he’d been in years. There was only so much he could chat with Kobayashi, and the idea of calling or going to hang out one-on-one with Shouta outside of school made Hizashi’s stomach twist up with anxiety because of his stupid feelings.

Everything felt off balance, like it was all gonna topple over and shatter… But somehow, that little kitten seemed to help tip the scales back towards where they belonged. Hizashi could see the positive effect it was having, like the way Shouta would scoop the kitten up to care for him, grumbling about it in a way that Hizashi knew was a mask to cover up the fact that he was pleased to have the critter in his arms. Hizashi even saw Shouta’s mouth curling up in tiny, soft smiles a few times, and it was unfairly adorable; but Hizashi would deal with the way his heart was doing strange dances in his chest if it meant Shouta was maybe starting to feel better.

Something seemed to finally be shifting a little bit, and the Shouta that Hizashi knew and- wanted to see back again, was starting to peek through.

It was a relief. If Shouta got back to normal, then maybe Oboro would get back to normal, and then Hizashi would be able to keep his own crap under control and things would stop spiraling.

Because, to top it all off, Hizashi had been so frazzled by everything with his friends that he’d kinda kept forgetting to figure out the whole ‘work study placement’ thing. They had their provisional licenses, and now they really needed to go out there and get a taste of what real hero work was like. Kamata-Sensei had reminded them at least three times already to get their paperwork done, but Hizashi just… couldn’t.

There were so many different agencies out there with different specializations, and when Hizashi sat down to look at the list of them, it was all just too much to try and wrap his brain around. His eyes wouldn’t stay focused on the page in a way that he hadn’t struggled with since middle school.

He didn’t want to have to think about it. He would rather Shouta or Oboro just pick a placement, and he’d piggyback along with them just to avoid trying to sort through this headache of a list.

Better yet, maybe all three of them could go somewhere together.

Unfortunately, Oboro didn’t seem to feel any urgency about finding a placement; and Shouta was, despite the improvements, still too focused on all the negatives to even look at his options. So when Hizashi tried to ask them about it at lunch near the end of June, Shouta just pouted and shrugged.

“All my Quirk can do is trip people up a little,” Shouta said, sullenly scuffing the heel of his sneaker against the rooftop as they sat back against the bulkhead, eating their lunches. “I can barely do anything on my own. Everyone keeps talking about how to best use their Quirks, what path they wanna take as heroes… I don’t see any that work for me.”

“How about tripping up villains?” Oboro asked around a mouthful of rice. Hizashi gave him a sidelong glance, worry pooling his gut.

“Going the battler route? I dunno,” Hizashi said. With the way Shouta had been so out of it lately, going to a battle-oriented work study seemed like a recipe for disaster. Sure, Shouta was strong and capable, and he’d taken Ijima down easily at the license exam, but…

The image of Shouta, frozen in place during the final exam back in March, surfaced again in Hizashi’s mind after months of lying dormant. He fought back the twist of fear it brought with it and forced himself to keep eating his lunch.

It was just a memory. Shouta was fine.

“Quirk matchups can make or break a fight, y’know,” Oboro was saying when Hizashi tuned back in to the conversation, “You can force a villain to fight on even terms, Shouta. It’s a real talent.”

“I’m not much of a fighter, though,” Shouta said, glancing away from them.

Hizashi could hardly believe his ears. Wasn’t this the same guy who’d helped Hizashi improve his own hand-to-hand combat techniques? Was he really doubting himself that much? Hizashi had seen Sensoji pushing Shouta around during training earlier, was that where this was coming from?

“And what would I do against some big brawler…?” Shouta was starting to spiral, so Oboro did the one thing that seemed to have the power to stop Shouta before he got himself in too deep.

He drew Shouta’s attention to the kitten. Picking up a piece of fish in his chopsticks, he held it out towards the orange fluff-ball, who stuck out his nose to eagerly sniff at it

“Hey, don’t give that to him,” Shouta said, blocking Oboro’s offering. “He’s too young for it.”

Hizashi watched as Shouta lifted the kitten up and cradled it close, giving it some formula that he’d just happened to bring to school. Shouta would barely spend money on food for himself; but here he was, looking out for the kitten. The sight made Hizashi’s chest ache with a soft warmth, wishing he could cuddle Shouta to himself as close as Shouta was holding the kitten, keeping them both safe.

He knew he should try and squash those feelings, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not when Shouta’s eyes got so soft as he looked at the fuzzy little creature in his arms. Ugh, his emotions were giving him whiplash, going from one extreme to the other. What he really needed was a distraction-

“My, my!” a voice called from above them, and Hizashi nearly jumped out of his skin. “What’re you three doing up here?” He looked up to see a very, very scantily clad young woman perched over them, sitting on top of the bulkhead. A trenchcoat, an oversized utility belt, and some strategically placed utility pouches valiantly trying to cover at least part of her boobs seemed to be the entirety of her outfit.

Well. That was certainly distracting.

“Holy shit,” Oboro said, his eyes lighting up as he elbowed Hizashi in the ribs, “It’s Kayama! From the Sports Festival!”

A little thrum of excitement ran through Hizashi. He vividly remembered the performance Kayama had given, with emphasis on performance. She had exuded a charisma, and she had a stage presence that drew everyone in (except maybe Shouta, who had been napping most of the time). Hizashi had been impressed by how effortlessly she seemed to be able to work the crowd. She’d defeated her first two opponents in the finals, while exposing a lot of skin; but it was her third match that had actually been the most impressive. Her Quirk hadn’t seemed to have much effect on the girl she was up against that round, so she’d had to rely on other tactics, and she was a tenacious fighter. While ultimately she’d lost, it had been one hell of a match.

Oboro had watched all of Kayama’s matches very closely, and had spoken about her to Hizashi at length in the weeks immediately after the Sports Festival. About how unapologetically authentic she was. About how she had walked on and off the field as if she owned it, even after she’d lost. Her beauty, her spirit, her confidence, all of it. Now, she nodded at them as Oboro whispered a giddy “She’s so cool!” under his breath.

“The roof is off limits to students,” Kayama all but purred, “But you snuck up here anyway?” She paused for dramatic effect, posing with the sun shining down from behind her. Hizashi couldn’t help but be impressed with the imagery. “That sort of violation is what youth is all about! I love it!”

“What’re you doing up here?” Oboro asked, the grin on his face looking a little dopier than usual as he stood up.

“I’m on lunch break from my work study,” she said, hopping down to talk face-to-face. “I had some paperwork to do here at school, though, so I stopped up here cuz it’s one of my favorite spots.”

Hizashi could understand why Oboro was so captivated by her; she totally had a cool vibe… but something in him was ruffled by her being up on the roof like this. This was their space. There were reasons why none of them had ever invited anyone up here, and now she was standing there as if she just… belonged? As great as she seemed, he felt like he should push back, just on principle. Let her know she couldn’t just waltz in. Because even if Hizashi thought she was cool, and Oboro clearly really liked her, there was still Shouta to consider-

“Are you wearing anything under that coat?” Shouta’s voice broke through Hizashi’s spinning thoughts, pulling his attention away from Kayama as he turned to look at his friend. Any irritation swirling around inside Hizashi was washed away by the adorably confused expression on Shouta’s face. He seemed more baffled than uncomfortable about both Kayama’s presence and near-nudity.

“This is my costume!” Kayama said proudly, twirling in place, her coat flaring out dangerously high around her until she stopped, hands on her hips and chin tipped up at a cocky angle.

“Some high-tech material that’s invisible to idiots?” Shouta grumbled, and gods, he sounded so much like himself that it made Hizashi giddy.

“Oh, self-burn!” Hizashi snickered while Shouta rolled his eyes.

“Hooray for being an idiot!” Oboro cheered, and Hizashi tried to smother his giggles.

“Alright, never mind me,” Kayama said, waving her hand. “The important question is, what’s with the kitty cat?”

“Oh, that…” Shouta said, looking down at the mewing creature in his arms.

“Me and Shouta are taking care of him,” Oboro announced proudly, throwing his arm around Shouta’s shoulders. Hizashi huffed, pouting for a moment; but he couldn’t exactly argue the point. He’d barely done more than scratch the kitten behind the ears a few times, making sure Shouta was able to get as much kitty-cuddle-time as possible.

“You really shouldn’t bring an animal to school,” Kayama said, stalking closer to Shouta. “Now, give it here.” She lifted the kitten out of Shouta’s arms and immediately began snuggling and cooing at it, unleashing a litany of baby talk that Hizashi hadn’t honestly thought even a girl was capable of.

Oboro stared as if it was the single most glorious sight he had ever beheld in his life.

Hizashi kept smiling broadly, but something twisted in his chest.

It was one thing for Oboro to be focused on Shouta while their friend was so clearly in need of support; but this was the first time any of them had ever even spoken to Kayama, and Oboro was paying her more attention than he’d given to Hizashi all week.

Oboro let Kayama name the kitten Sushi. Oboro stared at her like she was the coolest person ever. Oboro basically convinced Kayama to adopt the kitten (even though she claimed it would only be temporary), possibly taking away the one thing that had been keeping the three of them from falling apart completely.

Hizashi glanced at Shouta, catching the ghost of a sad smile falling away from his face as he watched Kayama scurry away, clutching Sushi to her chest.

Hizashi knew that what they’d been doing with the kitten wasn’t sustainable. After all, Oboro couldn’t keep hiding him in his bedroom at home forever (especially since his little brother shared the room); but Hizashi’s gut twisted with worry that now things were gonna get worse again.

Oboro didn’t seem worried, though, as he smiled over at Shouta. “She’s gonna keep him,” he said, hands on his hips. “I bet she’ll send us pictures of him every day,” he added, nudging Shouta with an elbow. Hizashi didn’t miss the way Shouta perked up slightly at the idea of pictures.

“But that would require her having our phone numbers,” Shouta pointed out, his mouth twisting into a little frown.

Oboro’s grin widened. “Hmm, so it would!”

*

“Yamada,” Kamata-Sensei called him up as they were packing their stuff to head to lunch the next day. “You still haven’t signed up for a work study.”

“I know, I’m-” Hizashi started, but Kamata preemptively waved away his excuses.

“Buster Union has expressed interest in having you take a placement with them. I’m strongly recommending that you accept it.”

“Wait, really? What about-” Hizashi looked around for his friends, but they’d apparently already made their way out of the classroom.

“Just get your own placement secured, and then I can focus on making sure your friends get theirs,” Kamata told him wearily.

Well… when he put it like that, and since it meant one less thing to worry about, Hizashi was glad to sign on the dotted line… even if it meant he had to miss lunch with his friends on the roof. He sighed and texted them to let them know where he’d be.

It took the whole lunch break, but Hizashi was glad that it was done. He walked back into the classroom to find his friends already there.

“Me and Shouta got work studies at Purple Revolution Agency!” Oboro announced.

“Wait, what? During lunch?” Hizashi was baffled. An hour ago, they still hadn’t put in application paperwork for any placement.

“Yeah!” Oboro was bouncing on his toes in excitement. “Kayama called His Purple Highness while we ate and he agreed to take us on, right then and there!”

Oh. “So you’ll be with Kayama?”

“Pretty cool, right!” Oboro looked happy. Shouta looked happy - or at least, less down. Hizashi understood the relief at having a placement squared away, so he hoped Shouta was feeling some of that too.

If his friends were happy, he wasn’t gonna bring them down.

“Hell yeah!” Hizashi cheered, hoping it didn’t sound as forced as it felt. He hated that he couldn’t muster up genuine enthusiasm for them; but that feeling like the axis of his world was tilting in an unfamiliar way was back. He didn’t like it.

It felt like his friends were shifting away from him.

It didn’t help that they were all super busy getting ready for finals and work studies when Hizashi’s birthday rolled around. Shouta and Oboro did both come over to his place for the afternoon; they played games and had cake with him and his parents… but things felt weird. They kept talking about the hero who ran their work study placement, His Purple Highness. They’d only met the guy twice for paperwork stuff, but apparently he made a hell of an impression. Oboro mentioned several times how cool and smart Kayama was, and Shouta kept showing Hizashi pictures of Sushi that their senpai had sent.

Hizashi wondered if they had finally reached their limit with him.

He knew he was loud and intense in a way that always wound up being too much for everyone. He knew his snarky sense of humor and his temper put a lot of people off if they were around him for very long. He’d honestly thought Shouta and Oboro were different; but maybe it had just taken them longer to be done with him?

Dark doubts began to poke at the back of his mind. The idea of losing them made something nasty bubble up in his gut. But with all his messy feelings about Shouta still churning inside him, Hizashi was hesitant to reach out and ask to spend more time together. Having the space was safer for him; but it was fucking miserable, and he didn’t know what to do about it.

And then, adding insult to injury, he found out on the first day of his work study that he was at the same place as Sensoji. Not exactly the person he wanted to be spending so many of his precious hours of summer with. Between the guy’s belligerence and his stupidity, Hizashi had little patience for his classmate.

Unfortunately, it didn’t matter how much patience Hizashi did or didn’t have. He could be angry, laughing, or ignoring the guy, and it made no difference whatsoever to the way Sensoji approached him. Reality started and ended within the confines of Sensoji’s thick skull, and everyone else was an NPC as far as the self-centered oaf was concerned. Like when he decided to start wearing sunglasses, then acted like Hizashi had stolen the idea from him, damn near picking a fight over it.

It was infuriating; but with a temper as short as Hizashi’s, being angry at Sensoji quickly got exhausting. It didn’t take long for Hizashi to just kinda… give up on giving a shit. It simply wasn’t worth the energy. And, he figured that working with people like Sensoji was gonna be part of the deal of being a hero anyway, so that he might as well start getting used to it now.

So he pushed himself through each day, his smile firmly in place and being as loud as he could. It was a balance he’d figured out a long time ago that kept people comfortable enough around him, but stopped them from trying to get too close.

Sometimes it was easier that way.

At least he got the chance to video chat with his friends most days. Sure, it stung when the two of them were sitting together at their agency while Hizashi was by himself, but he’d just have to suck it up. It’s not like they were purposely excluding him or anything, they were just at different placements.

They hadn’t actually abandoned him.

When they told him about their encounter with a villain that spewed some kind of nasty smoke and who’d managed to escape capture that day, Hizashi hated the defeated look on Shouta's face. He wished he could be there, sitting close to Shouta so he could lean against Hizashi the way he was leaning against Oboro. He wished that any of the things he said could make Shouta feel better.

Not that he could think of much to say, at least not without completely giving away his feelings. ‘You’re so strong and smart, you’ll figure it out.’ ‘You’ll be a great hero, just wait and see.’ ‘You’re amazing, Shouta.’ Not exactly subtle, even if it was all true. Mostly he just cracked jokes and tried to lighten the mood, even as his attempts seemed to fall flat.

Later that evening, he sent Shouta some cat memes, and he got back a cat emoji. That was about as close to a smile from Shouta as he could hope for.

Ugh, he was so sick and tired of his stupid fucking feelings messing with him! He just wanted to be able to be normal with his friend; with both of his friends! But he still kept caving in to the thoughts and daydreams. He kept imagining Shouta coming to him for comfort. He imagined holding Shouta in his arms. He imagined Shouta laughing and smiling because Hizashi said something clever. He imagined kissing Shouta.

He imagined Shouta kissing back.

(At night, in bed, he wondered if Shouta’s hand on him would feel any different than his own. What it would be like to touch Shouta.)

Being away from Shouta didn’t make it any better. In some ways, it was making it worse, because Hizashi missed him so much that absence of him was an ache that made it impossible to not think about him.

When Shouta and Oboro told him a few days later that they’d been able to work together to take down the smoke villain, he was happy for them, and so proud of Shouta. He’d probably missed half the conversation because he was so busy staring at how much happier and confident Shouta seemed…

He was also painfully jealous and scared, with something miserable in his chest telling him that his friends were figuring out that they didn’t need him. That soon they would realize they could ditch his annoying ass.

He did his best to shove those thoughts aside, hoping that once things got back to normal with the start of the new semester, all this crap could just fade away.

~*~

The Purple Revolution Agency was an… interesting place. Shouta was grateful for the opportunity; but even after successfully dealing with the smoke villain, and finally starting to feel like he was making real strides towards becoming a hero who could actually do something, he was still feeling like he didn’t fit… no, more like something was missing.

The hero mentoring them, His Purple Highness, was just as loud and somehow even more of a showboat than Hizashi was; which was a lot to deal with from a relative stranger.

It also made Shouta miss Hizashi a lot.

At least he had Oboro here, and he was getting to know Kayama pretty well. He found that, besides being nearly as loud and pushy and nosy as his friends, she was also smart and kind and supportive.

He found that he didn’t dislike her.

It helped that she sent him pictures of Sushi every day.

“You two are really starting to get the hang of things,” Kayama said as the three of them sat in the break room at the agency. Their day was basically over, and they’d be heading home shortly. After a little over a month of spending most days at work study, they’d soon be starting back at school, only coming in two or three days a week for much shorter shifts. “It’s impressive how far you’ve come so quickly.”

“It helps that we’ve had such talented people to teach us,” Oboro said, gazing dreamily at Kayama. Shouta rolled his eyes, but only a little.

Shouta understood why he didn’t react to Kayama’s costume the way most men did. Being gay meant he could be pretty unaffected, even as he observed the way others looked at her when they were out on patrol. Kayama wasn’t bothered by the leers, and she didn’t preen under the gaze of the men who looked at her like a piece of meat. She walked past them all with a confidence that left no room for doubt that she was wearing (or not wearing) what she wanted.

The way Oboro looked at her was different.

Shouta wasn’t stupid, he could recognize that Oboro had a huge crush on their senpai.

Ok, maybe it had taken Shouta a little longer than it should have to figure out why Oboro was always instantly distracted as soon as Kayama came in the room. Even when she was wearing her street clothes or UA uniform, Oboro’s eyes were drawn to her every time. And maybe it had taken a while for Shouta to understand that the way Oboro was always talking about her didn’t entirely have to do with how thankful he was for the work study recommendation, or for her taking care of Sushi.

In Shouta’s defense, Oboro was always a very tactile person. He was constantly reaching out to rest his hand on someone’s shoulder, or give them a hug. Oboro had kissed both Shouta and Hizashi on the cheek at least a few times that Shouta could remember in the past few months, because that’s just how Oboro was.

But even for someone as tactile as Oboro, the amount of excuses he found to touch Kayama bordered on ridiculous. When she was in costume, he only ever touched her shoulders or arms; though sometimes if they were sitting near enough to each other, he’d let his leg stretch out so his foot could nudge against hers.

When she was wearing normal clothes, though, Oboro would put his hand against her back (to help ‘guide her in a gentlemanly manner’ around a coffee table that had been in the break room since before Shouta and Oboro had started at the agency), or sit pressed against her (to show her something on his phone, which usually took about ten to fifteen minutes… sometimes longer), or offer her neck massages (after a long, hard day of hero work).

It took until Oboro was very carefully removing nonexistent pieces of lint from the collar and lapel of her jacket that it really clicked. Shouta had gone home that night and called Hizashi to lament exactly how ridiculous it was; but Hizashi had mostly just cackled like a hyena. (It had been nice to hear his laugh again, and reminded Shouta how much he missed it.)

Currently, Oboro wasn’t touching Kayama, he was just smiling the dopiest grin that Shouta had ever seen - which was a high bar for Oboro to clear - and Shouta gave a heavy sigh.

“Something wrong, Shou-chan?” Kayama asked, teasing him with the diminutive nickname, and Shouta huffed.

“Are you really gonna keep calling me that?”

“It suits you, Shou!” Oboro said.

“It does not,” Shouta growled.

“Shou-chan and Occhan, my lovely kouhai!” Kayama cooed.

“You know you’re only two months older than Shirakumo,” Shouta grumbled at her.

“Shouta! How dare you discuss a lady’s age!” Oboro exclaimed, putting on quite the performance of being outraged while Shouta leveled a deadpan stare at him.

“Don’t worry about it, Occhan. Aizawa will mind his manners. He wants more cat pics,” Kayama said with a bright smile. Shouta huffed again and slouched down in his seat. He didn’t think that she would actually withhold pics of Sushi; but he also knew that she was correct and he wasn’t about to risk it. “Anyway, I gotta head out. You two behave yourselves,” she said, tossing a wink over her shoulder as she left the room.

“Always!” Oboro said, then gave a happy sigh. “So, you ready for school to start back up?”

“Yeah,” Shouta said, stretching his legs out in front of him. “It’ll be nice to deal with simple things again, like quadratic equations.” Oboro snorted in amusement. “It’s been weird not seeing Hizashi,” he added quietly.

“He’s just been busy, like us!” Oboro said a little too cheerfully. He’d still been acting strange whenever Shouta would talk about Hizashi, and it was starting to get under Shouta’s skin. “The important thing is that we’re all shaping up to be top-notch heroes. You’ve been kicking some serious butt!”

Shirakumo had also been a little too supportive over the past few months. Shouta looked down at the goggles in his hand, the spare pair that his friend had given to Shouta to protect his eyes. It had been a good idea, helping Shouta overcome one of the inherent weaknesses of his Quirk; but all the accompanying praise and encouragement were starting to get overwhelming. It didn’t feel forced or fake; Oboro was clearly sincere; and had always been encouraging to everyone… but the fact that Oboro seemed to think Shouta needed to hear it constantly was starting to make him feel self-conscious.

And normally, Hizashi would be around to bust Oboro’s chops for being ridiculous, or at least to be someone else that Oboro could turn his attention to; but they barely saw each other lately. Even when they all managed to spend some actual time together, Hizashi had been… quieter than usual.

Which was still pretty loud, but… It was weird.

It kinda felt like everyone had been acting weird, and Shouta was tired of it. He just wanted things to be back to normal.

~*~

For a few glorious hours at the start of the semester, it felt like things between Hizashi and his friends really were totally back to normal. ‘Normal’ of course being Oboro barreling in to class just before the bell to give Hizashi a huge hug, and Shouta being awoken from a nap on his desk by the commotion to lift his head and give Hizashi a tiny, tired smile that Hizashi knew meant ‘I’m glad to see you.’

‘Normal’ lasted through lunch, eating up on the rooftop, bantering in an easy rhythm. If Oboro mentioned Kayama a lot, that was fine, because he was there and Hizashi could reach out and shove him playfully whenever he wanted to. It was ok that Shouta was talking about the things they did during their work study, because he wanted Hizashi to know the stories and to feel like he was part of it all.

Shouta even seemed to enjoy listening to Hizashi talk about his own work study. The dark, squirmy things in his gut that had been making him feel sick for months faded away. They were replaced by his heart doing somersaults in his chest - which was probably not medically advisable, but still infinitely better.

He’d really missed this.

When they were getting ready for joint training with Class B in the afternoon, it all went to shit.

“Yo, yo, yo, what’s up with the new gear, Aizawa?” Hizashi asked, laying the enthusiasm on extra thick to cover up the queasiness that started roiling back through him. “Those goggles look the same as Shirakumo’s!” That feeling like his friends were getting closer to each other, and that he was getting shut out from them, flared back up and he swallowed hard to try and keep himself steady.

“Yep!” Oboro said with a wide grin, hooking his arm around Shouta’s neck, leaning in to him. “We’re marketing ourselves as a team!”

Hizashi thought he might vomit.

“No, you said these were to protect my eyes, for my Quirk’s sake,” Shouta said, clearly puzzled by Oboro’s comment, and for a moment, Hizashi could breathe. Maybe it was all just a misunderstanding…

And then Sensoji lumbered over and immediately started acting like an utter asshole. Part of Hizashi was actually momentarily thankful to have somewhere to direct all the ugly feelings trying to tear him apart as he glowered at the brutish boy.

Sensoji got into Shouta and Oboro’s space, doing what he does best and making up whatever deluded story suits him at the moment.

“What’s all this talk about eye protection? Goggles? Hah, I see, you’re trying to be like me!” Sensoji blustered. “Wearing these shades keeps my own blasts from blinding me, which gives me a major accuracy boost! Since I’m so generous, I’ll let scum like you take a hint from my brilliant idea,” he sneered at Oboro and Shouta, “But you better not cross the line and just straight up copy me.”

‘Scum.’

Hizashi saw red. All the built up hurt and frustration and resentment that had been simmering inside him boiled over at a deserving target, and it was only years of practice diverting his rage into snark that saved Sensoji from burst eardrums right then and there.

“Dude, you copied my sunglasses!” Hizashi snapped. “And Shirakumo has had those goggles since we started as first years!”

No matter what weirdness was between them, no way was he gonna stand quietly by when someone was giving his friends shit.

Hizashi could see the storm clouds gathering behind Oboro’s eyes as he stared Sensoji down. “That’s a pretty bold statement,” Oboro said as he stared up at one of the few students taller than him, mouth twisted into a dangerous smirk.

“He’s just picking a fight,” Shouta said, turning to head out to the training grounds. “C’mon, ignore him.”

Hizashi tried to tell himself that things were fine, but out on the field, shit just kept getting worse. When Oboro asked Sensei if he and Shouta could pair up for the partner battle training, the sick feeling in Hizashi’s gut came back full force. Then, Sensei said everyone should work with a partner from their agency if they had one; which meant Hizashi had to team up with Sensoji. He tried to convince Sensei to let him work with someone else, but no dice.

Uuuugh, he needed to punch something. Which, you’d think wouldn’t be a problem, since they were doing a combat exercise; but nooooo. Because the worst part was, working with Sensoji made most battles almost too easy. Sensoji lacked finesse, manners, and basic logic and reasoning skills; but he had a lot of firepower. With Hizashi there to apply even a tiny bit of intelligence, and adding in his own attacks, they knocked a lot of classmates flat on their asses.

So when Sensoji barreled up to Shouta, bellowing “Fight me, Aizawa!” Hizashi felt panic sparking in his chest. He knew Shouta could hold his own, but Sensoji was in a mood, and Hizashi had a bad feeling about the whole thing-

“When I win, you lose the goggles! They’re pissing me off,” Sensoji added. Hizashi wondered if he would get expelled for attacking his own teammate. The whole situation was spiraling out of control, and Hizashi could see Shouta wasn’t having any of Sensoji’s bullshit… but Shouta didn’t really understand just how dogged Sensoji could get about things-

“Challenge accepted!” Oboro hollered. “We’ll wager our goggles, and you two ante up your shades!”

What-

What?

Hizashi’s jaw dropped, and it took him a second to find his voice. “Why me?!” he shouted, trying not to fall apart. Was this really it? Was he just not welcome with the two of them anymore? How could Oboro lump him in with Sensoji? So casually wager away Hizashi’s sunglasses? Act like Hizashi was an actual adversary instead of their friend doing some training exercises? And do it all with a grin on his face, like he was having the greatest time in the world?

“What, exactly, is fun about this, Shirakumo?” Shouta frowned, giving Hizashi a moment of hope that a voice of rationality would ring true and Oboro would just… stop this.

“These goggles symbolize our friendship! We gotta defend them, bud!” Oboro declared.

Something in Hizashi’s chest cracked. His mouth hung open, but no sounds came out. Distantly, he was glad he couldn’t find any words, cuz he had a feeling that if he did, he was gonna say a lot of things there was no taking back. His throat was tight and he was half numb. There was no way he was going to be able to fight like this. Fuck, he couldn’t even breathe.

“Stand back, Yamada! I’m enough for these two clowns!” Sensoji shoved Hizashi back, and it was all he could do to not fall on his ass as the brawl started.

Despite everything hurt and broken and angry swirling inside him, Hizashi couldn’t help but be proud of his friends as he watched them work together to drop Sensoji like a ton of bricks.

A horrible realization wormed its way out of the churning mess in his guts, creeping through him until it finally reached his brain.

Maybe… Maybe it was better this way. Maybe it was better that Hizashi just stay away from Shouta and Oboro. His feelings had already been fucking things up, and it was probably just a matter of time before he made some catastrophically dumbass mistake and blew everything to shit. Maybe it was better that things end simply and quietly like this, rather than with a big fight and bad blood and everyone hurt.

Maybe, as long as they didn’t hate him…

The rest of training passed in a blur.

Hizashi was slow getting changed in the locker room afterwards. He needed to pause over and over to catch his breath and choke down the thick lump that kept blocking his throat. Oboro was chattering away to Shouta, who was mostly giving short replies and casting glances at Hizashi that Hizashi had no idea how to interpret.

“What’s wrong?” Shouta finally asked, and Hizashi looked up from where he was methodically tying his shoes, snapping a smile back in place.

“Nothing!” Hizashi laughed, not wanting to make a big deal out of it. If this was how it was gonna be, he wasn’t gonna try and force them to be his friends.

He was pathetic, but not that pathetic.

“Something’s wrong,” Shouta said, refusing to let it drop… and now Oboro was staring at Hizashi too, his head cocked to the side like it did when he wanted to look at things from a different angle. (Hizashi had made that joke one time, and Oboro had latched on to it, and somehow the fact that he was doing it right now felt like one more punch to the gut.)

“As if anything could bother me, the coolest cat around!” Hizashi scoffed, tipping his face up and away, as if insulted by the very notion (totally not trying to hide his expression from them in case it betrayed him). “Come on, we’re gonna be late to class,” he said, grabbing his bag and hurrying out the door.

The end of the day dragged; but was also over far too quickly for Hizashi’s comfort once he realized that Shouta and Oboro were walking with him to the train station, flanking him. A tense silence hung over them, and each step left Hizashi feeling like he was a condemned man being walked to the gallows.

Maybe this was his punishment for letting his emotions make things weird with his friends; for needing to keep his distance from Shouta, and for telling Oboro about it all.

Maybe he didn’t deserve to have them as friends.

They got on the train, and at Hizashi’s stop, both of them stood up with him.

“Guys, come on!” Hizashi said, laughing a little hysterically as he tried to figure out their angle. Shouta grabbed his wrist and pulled him off the train, Oboro trailing behind. Oboro’s silence was probably the most unnerving part - he was just about the only person who could talk nearly as much as Hizashi… But he hadn’t spoken a word since before they’d even gotten off campus, his expression clouded over and unreadable.

Abruptly, Shouta dropped his wrist and turned to face him. “Are your parents home?”

“N- no,” Hizashi stammered. “They won’t be home for another two or three hours.”

“Good,” Shouta said, grabbing his wrist again and marching them at a brisk pace towards Hizashi’s house. With their constant movement, Hizashi couldn’t be sure, but he thought he felt Shouta’s hand trembling as it gripped him. There was no way Oboro had told Shouta… Was there? No, he wouldn’t. So what the hell was going on?

Something was wrong.

In his house, Hizashi found himself seated on his bed with Shouta and Oboro standing over him, faces pinched in expressions Hizashi couldn’t make sense of.

This had to be it. They were gonna tell him to fuck off and leave them alone. He wanted to be mad at them for it, to lash out and tear into them for everything… but panic fluttered up in his throat, and suddenly he had to try anything to stave off the inevitable.

“Guys, I don’t know what’s going on,” he said, fighting to keep the hysterical note out of his voice, “But if you’re pissed at me for something-”

“What?” Shouta cut him off, sounding offended. “You’re the one who’s acting weird!” Hizashi winced, knowing Shouta wasn’t wrong; but that was different.

Maybe.

Either way, it hit too close to something Hizashi needed to keep buried and protected, so he did the only thing he could think of: deflect and attack.

“Both of you have been acting weird for way longer!” Hizashi snapped, crossing his arms tightly over his chest. “So sooooorrry if I got a little fed up with feeling like yesterday’s bad news.”

Shouta’s brow knitted up in confusion. “What?”

Such a tiny word. One stupid little question from Shouta, and Hizashi was powerless to stop the flood that came pouring out of him, ichor from his festering wounds.

“‘What?’” He barked out a bitter laugh. “How about the way that taking care of Sushi was something the two of you were doing,” he sneered, standing up to face them both, puffing up his chest to look fierce, hoping they wouldn’t notice the way he trembled as his arms flailed around. “The way I’ve barely heard from either of you outside of school in months. You two doing your work study together and the way you’ve got your teamwork down so smooth now that there’s no need for-” he cut himself off, sucking in a breath; but he wasn’t done.

“And of course, we can’t forget having matching goggles so you can market yourselves as a team, the-” Hizashi swallowed thickly, but there was no stopping the words, no stopping the tears he could feel slipping down his cheeks, “The symbol of your friendship that you needed to defend against Sensoji and me. I don’t wanna be where I’m not wanted, so-”

Hizashi was cut off as his friends collided with him.

Shouta darted in faster than Hizashi could see, wrapping his arms around him with such force that it nearly knocked the wind out of him. Oboro was only a beat behind, long arms reaching to embrace both Shouta and Hizashi, squeezing the three of them together.

For a moment, Hizashi was frozen, torn between terror and hope about what this might mean. Was this a signal that everything was going to be ok, or were they saying goodbye to him?

“You’re an idiot,” Shouta mumbled into Hizashi’s shoulder, his voice thick, and relief washed over Hizashi.

It was gonna be ok.

He choked out a wet laugh. “Yeah, usually,” he sniffed as tears continued to drip off his chin and the end of his nose. His arms were pinned to his sides by his friends, so he couldn’t hug them back, but he let himself sag into their embrace. “I missed you guys.”

“Missed you too,” Shouta said quietly, while Oboro just held on tighter. They held on until Hizashi’s breathing mostly got back to normal.

“I’m sorry.” Oboro’s voice was hoarse as he croaked out the first words Hizashi had heard from him since they’d left school. Oboro steered the three of them to sit on the edge of the bed, his warm hand still resting on Hizashi’s back. “I’m so, so sorry, Hizashi. This is all my fault. I swear, I didn’t mean any of that stuff like it sounded.” Guilt haunted Oboro’s eyes as they met Hizashi’s, flicking briefly to Shouta before looking steadily at Hizashi again. “I never meant to exclude you. But I fucked that up big time.”

Hizashi was a little mollified by the genuine apology, and part of him wanted nothing more than to brush all this away, like sleep from his eye after a bad dream…

But he was still hurting too much. He was too raw with the way one thing after the other had just kept tearing him up all these months. Especially cuz he still didn’t understand. “Why?” he whispered.

Oboro bit his lip, glancing at Shouta again quickly before he started talking. “I know you’ve been dealing with your own… stuff.” Hizashi’s heart stuttered with panic that Oboro might let something slip; but the words that flooded out next were hard enough for Hizashi himself to follow, so there was no way Shouta should be able to piece together Hizashi’s secret.

“You and I were both really worried about Shouta, so at first I thought I’d make it easier on you by making sure that he was ok so that you could focus on your stuff! I was only trying to help! And then we all started talking with Kayama, and it was really awesome; but now I realize that once that happened, nearly all my attention was on Shouta and Kayama, and I was basically leaving you high and dry!” Oboro’s eyes were wide and watery, but he didn’t look away from Hizashi.

“And then I think everything I was doing to get Shouta to see how great he is got squashed together with me feeling like I needed to make sure he knows that I really, really value our friendship… cuz I think maybe I got worried that even though we don’t want anything to change, it might change anyway, because there might be more stuff than you know about.”

Hizashi blinked at that, wondering what the hell Oboro meant by ‘more stuff;’ but there was no time to think or ask about it as his friend was still barreling ahead with his explanation.

“And then we were around Kayama so much, and I was even more distracted cuz gods I can’t help how much I really like her and-”

“Hang on!” Shouta said sharply, reminding Hizashi that he might not be the only one hearing all this for the first time. Shouta sat back and narrowed his gaze at Oboro. “What are you talking about? What stuff? Why are you worried about me? What do you think is going to change? What do you mean, ‘making me see how great I am’?”

“Nothing's gonna change, because none of us is getting shut out,” Oboro said with a shake of his head. “I was being an idiot, and I’m sorry.” He took a breath and his mouth pressed into a firm line, glancing at Hizashi before continuing. “But you’ve been out of sorts for ages, Shou. We did try talking to you about it.”

Hizashi was hesitant to stir up another conflict just as this one seemed to be resolving; but changing the subject was probably the best way to make sure that Shouta didn’t try and figure out what ‘stuff’ Hizashi had been dealing with. “Shirakumo is right,” he said. “You’ve been off since the beginning of the term. Maybe longer.”

Now Shouta turned his glare on him. “What the hell are you talking about?” Despite the clear irritation in his voice, Shouta didn’t put any more distance between himself and Hizashi, his leg folded up on the bed still pressed against Hizashi’s hip. Hizashi couldn’t help but be grateful for that.

“It was like you’d given up,” Oboro said. “You were barely trying, acting like you were doomed to fail. You keep doubting yourself, and you won’t talk to us-”

“I froze!” Now Shouta did back away. Not far, just enough so that he wasn’t touching them as he glared at Oboro. “What more is there to say? I saw that villain about to knock you out, and I couldn’t figure out how to dodge the robot without losing my opportunity to help you, so I fucking froze. I couldn’t help you, I couldn’t help myself; and because I was too slow and too weak, I nearly got Hizashi killed! I could have gotten all three of us killed!” He turned his head away from them, staring vaguely towards the Queen poster on Hizashi’s wall. “What kind of useless excuse for a hero does that make me?” Freddie Mercury didn’t have any answers to offer, standing silently over them with his fist raised.

Hizashi and Oboro shared a glance.

“Shou?” Oboro prompted, waiting until he had Shouta’s full attention. Finally, Shouta turned to face him, and Oboro very gently said, “You are also an idiot.”

“Wha-?”

“We are all in the hero course,” Hizashi said, cutting off Shouta’s indignant protest. “Yeah, we all need backup sometimes; but you’re talking like it’s your responsibility to single handedly have everyone covered at all times!”

“It’s not like that.” Shouta insisted. “It’s my fault you got hurt!”

“I made my own choice, and I don’t regret it,” Hizashi told him firmly. Shouta’s mouth twisted into a frown, and he looked away from them again.

“Can we back up a second to the part where you said you froze because you couldn’t decide between dodging away from that behemoth to get yourself safe, and somehow coming to save me?” Oboro asked. “Ignoring the fact that I didn’t need saving, I don’t like what I’m hearing there. You need to save yourself before you can save anyone else.”

Shouta sat in sullen silence for a long minute before he said, “Heroes need to protect people.”

“Yeah, but it’s kiiiinda hard to protect anyone if you’re squashed flat or vaporized,” Oboro told him. “Have a little more faith in us so you can focus on what you need to be doing. When your head is in the game, there’s nothing that you can’t do.”

“I-” Shouta swallowed, staring down at his fingers, picking at a half-healed blister from his binding cloth.

“Just promise that you’re not gonna try and figure out how to do everything all by yourself again,” Oboro said. “Do the job in front of you, then move on to the next thing, right? We gotta have each other’s backs, so we all gotta keep ourselves alive to do that, right?”

“I guess,” Shouta said quietly.

“I agree,” Hizashi piped up. “We all need to keep our heads in the game.” He glanced over at Oboro. Since it seemed like his friendships were not actually about to evaporate, he felt a little bolder about addressing another thing. “Since you mentioned it already, I wanna make sure you’re not overly distracted by a certain scantily clad third-year,” he said, arching an eyebrow.

Oboro actually blushed. “Uh, define ‘overly?” he said with a sheepish grin. “I’m not gonna stop being distracted by her any time soon, but it’s not a problem in the field. And I’m sorry I got so muddled up that I forgot to make sure you know how much I really value your friendship,” he added, pinching Hizashi’s cheeks until Hizashi laughed and batted his hands away. “I promise I’m gonna be better about paying attention to both of you.”

“A very different kind of attention than Kayama will be getting, I’m guessing,” Hizashi snickered. Oboro swatted him on the arm, laughing along. Shouta rolled his eyes, but Hizashi heard him huff quietly through his nose, which was pretty much the same as a laugh from him.

“We really are the Three Idiots, huh?” Oboro said with a grin.

“Apparently,” Shouta grumbled, looking at the blisters on his hands again. “I guess I was… off, for a while. I’ve been… kinda starting to feel more normal lately. I’m… working on it.” He looked up and met Oboro’s eyes. “But I need you to stop the weird way you’ve been acting with me. I don’t need you praising me for tying my shoelaces.”

“You got it,” Oboro said, snapping a salute. “Back to normal levels of weirdness, effective immediately.”

Shouta sighed, leaning forward to rest heavily against Hizashi. Hizashi closed his eyes and let himself just be happy that his friends were here, weren’t angry with him, weren’t abandoning him, and were all gonna stop being extra weird around each other.

Which meant Hizashi would need to stop being weird around Shouta too. If he was gonna do that, he needed to shove down the nervous twist of anxious excitement that settled low in his gut as Shouta stayed pressed against him.

He hoped that he’d be able to manage it.

*

Oboro had a surprise for Hizashi the next day at lunch, thrust towards him with an eager smile. “Just in case you had any doubts,” he said with a wink as Hizashi took the pair of goggles from him. He didn’t actually doubt Oboro, especially cuz he’d stayed over for a few more hours after Shouta had to leave for work the night before, making up for some of the time he’d been putting Hizashi on the back burner to keep an eye on Shouta… but something tight in his chest unspooled as he took off his sunglasses and pulled the goggles on.

“What a shame,” Hizashi laughed, feeling about twenty kilos lighter. “I hate to give up my trademark shades, but the sacrifices I make for my friends!”

Shouta looked up from his lunch and glanced at Oboro. “How many pairs of goggles do you have?”

“We’ll work as a trio!” Oboro declared, hooking his arm around Hizashi’s neck and pulling him close.

“Is he coming to Purple Revolution?” Shouta asked, clearly befuddled. “Wouldn’t he need to fill out the paperwork-?”

“Nah, I mean after!” Oboro said. “The three of us should start our own agency. I think we work well together. We each have different strengths and weaknesses, but we balance each other out. Hizashi is a wrecking ball with his Quirk, but doesn’t have a lot of finesse.”

“Hey!” Hizashi laughed, “I’m getting better at fine tuning things!”

“While me and Shouta have Quirks that help us be more subtle and stealthy!” Oboro continued.

“You literally named yourself ‘Loud Cloud,’ and you’re going to list stealth as a strength?” Shouta asked, incredulous.

“Me and Hizashi have great people skills, and Shouta is super organized and can keep on top of the paperwork that me and Hizashi will totally forget to do!” Oboro’s enthusiasm only seemed to grow as he went on, and Hizashi found himself starting to get swept up in it.

“Great, so I’m the bookkeeper,” Shouta grumbled.

“Would you rather be making phone calls and going to meetings?” Hizashi asked, cackling when Shouta’s face twisted up in disgust. “This may be the best idea Kumo has ever had! But no fighting about money!”

“Agreed! We can make this team work! We just need to come up with a name!” Oboro declared.

“I never agreed to anything,” Shouta huffed.

“Got something against us?” Oboro teased.

“He’s gotta keep up the broody act,” Hizashi laughed, seeing clearly that the pout Shouta wore wasn’t his ‘actually irritated’ one, but his ‘pretending to be above the need for human connections’ one.

“Cut it out,” Shouta said

“Mmm, the flavor of youth,” came a familiar voice from behind them. “The banter, the bargaining, the bullshit,” Kayama continued, almost as much of a performer as Hizashi was. “I love it all!”

“Hiya Kayama!” Oboro called.

“I’m serious,” Shouta groused, pouting harder.

“Oh, I’ve got some new pics of Sushi!” Kayama said sweetly, holding up her phone, and Shouta immediately looked up at her, drawn in by the promise of kitten content.

“Kayama, we were actually just talking about starting an agency - all four of us,” Oboro said brightly. Shouta paused his scrolling through the images in Kayama’s gallery and looked over at Hizashi. Hizashi only shrugged.

“Sorry,” Kayama said, not actually sounding terribly sorry, “But once I go independent, I plan to have young men waiting on me hand and foot in my palace.”

“I wouldn’t mind waiting on you…” Oboro said, waggling his eyebrows, though his ears tinted a distinct shade of pink.

“When you’re done with your patrols,” Hizashi teased.

“I thought you said no arguing about money?” Oboro pouted, giving the widest puppy-dog eyes Hizashi had ever seen, and Hizashi couldn’t control his giggles, still riding high on the energy of joking around with his friends.

“You all need to sort yourselves out,” Shouta mumbled, handing Kayama back her phone and wandering away from the group.

Oboro handed his goggles to Kayama, who tried them on with a wink. Hizashi couldn’t help but laugh as the pink of Oboro’s ears spread to his cheeks.

“They look good on you, Kayama,” Hizashi said.

“Everything looks good on me, Hicchan,” Kayama said with a grin. Hizashi blinked at the nickname.

“She’s claimed you now too,” Oboro said, giggling. Hizashi only furrowed his brow in confusion before shrugging.

He looked around for Shouta and saw him standing at the railing around the edge of the roof, staring off into the distance. He felt his smile soften as he watched the wind blowing Shouta’s hair around, breathing a tiny sigh.

Shouta was so beautiful, and Hizashi had to close his eyes and look away.

~*~

For the first time in months, things were actually starting to feel right again. For a few weeks, Shouta’s mood had been slowly improving; but since the conversation at Hizashi’s house the other day, it was like a thick fog had lifted, letting him see and hear and breathe again.

It was letting him feel again, too.

It wasn’t that he’d forgotten about his feelings for Hizashi. It was more like all his feelings had been… muffled. He’d been able to ignore his crush; but now it was back, in full force.

On top of that, after spending so much time around Oboro thanks to the work study, Shouta found himself picking up some of his friend’s tactile habits.

At least, that was the justification Shouta was using as he kept finding more and more excuses to touch Hizashi.

Some things were already pretty normal for them. Bumping shoulders, playful shoves, that kind of thing. Some things were quiet, stolen moments. The brush of fingers when he passed a pencil, or the backs of their hands ghosting past each other as they walked close, side by side.

Some things were probably painfully transparent, though. Like on Thursday, when they were finishing up lunch and Hizashi stood up and winced as he stretched his back.

“Something wrong?” Oboro asked.

“Nah,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Something in my back just needs to crack, I can feel it.”

“I can crack your back for you,” Shouta offered, trying to ignore the stupid moths that fluttered in his stomach.

“You sure about that, short-stack?” Oboro teased, and Shouta glowered at him.

“I’m almost as tall as he is,” Shouta said, standing quickly before he could chicken out, “I can do it just fine.”

“Sounds good to me,” Hizashi said. Shouta stood in front of him, sliding his arms under Hizashi’s and around his back, gasping his own wrist. He took a moment to plant his feet properly - and if he also used that time to appreciate how it felt to hold Hizashi in his arms, to breathe in the smell of his shampoo and something that was just uniquely Hizashi, well, nobody else had to know about that.

He tightened his grip and lifted Hizashi up with ease, hearing the crackle of vertebrae popping back where they belonged. He held Hizashi up for another second, just to be thorough, nothing at all to do with the way they were pressed together from their chests down to their thighs, then slowly lowered him back down.

“Did that help?” Shouta asked, loosening his grip, but not letting go yet. Not wanting to back away.

“Uh, yeah, definitely, for sure, thanks!” Hizashi babbled. Reluctantly, Shouta let go and stepped back… then noticed that Hizashi’s face was flushed pink.

“I didn’t squeeze too hard, did I?” Shouta asked, worried for a moment that he'd actually been compressing Hizashi’s lungs too much.

“Nah, nope, all good!” Hizashi said, flashing a double thumbs up. “Come on, we don’t wanna be late for class!” Shouta caught Oboro giving him an odd look, and he felt his ears heat up; but fortunately, Oboro only gave him a quick one-armed hug and followed Hizashi through the door back into the building.

~*~

If Oboro hadn’t brought that kitten to school, Hizashi wondered, would Kayama have paused to talk with them so long on the rooftop that day? Would she have arranged for Shouta and Oboro to do their work studies with the Purple Revolution Agency?

How different would things be?

The villain - Garvey, Hizashi heard someone call him - was down for the count. He’d been over twenty meters tall, and the chatter over the radio was saying that Shouta had taken that giant down all by himself.

Hizashi and the rest of Buster Union were already en route to Shouta’s location before the last rumbles of Garvey’s collapse to the ground had faded away. They arrived on the scene just as the flashing lights of emergency services were pulling up; cops cars and ambulances rolling to a stop outside the perimeter of the worst of the damage as the rain continued to spit down on all of them.

Hizashi ignored Sensoji calling his name as he took off running to find his friends. He could see a dark figure on his knees not too far away, next to a pile of debris.

It had to be Shouta.

Hizashi couldn’t make out what he was doing, but something deep inside him was screaming that something was very, very wrong as his feet pounded against the pavement, splashing through the puddles that had already collected.

He skidded to a stop next to Shouta, who looked up at him with wide, wild eyes.

Looking at the pile of rubble, Hizashi understood. His vision narrowed down till all he could see was white-blue hair matted down to the pavement, the dark stain of blood creeping up to consume that lightness bit by bit.

“You gotta get help,” Shouta rasped, voice rough and ragged, “I can’t find his pulse.”

Chapter Text

“MEDIC!”

Hizashi wasn’t sure where he found the air to yell, but his voice carried over the commotion, Quirk-loud and panicky as the EMTs were unloading equipment from the backs of their ambulances. Shouta had already returned to his task of pulling chunks of debris off of Oboro, and Hizashi dropped to his knees to help. Piece by piece, gray concrete stained red was shoved aside.

He tried to not look at the deep, bloody gouge running down the right side of Oboro’s face; tried not to think about how still Oboro was.

Despite hearing the splashing of footfalls on the wet pavement, he was still startled when an emergency team was by their sides moments later. They moved swiftly and efficiently; but none of them understood how important this was, how important Oboro was, so how could Hizashi trust them to get this done right?

Hands grabbed his shoulders, and he bit back a snarl as he and Shouta were shuffled away to let the adults take over. He wanted to punch them, bite them as they pulled him from Oboro’s side; but he let himself be led back, gripping on to Shouta’s arm with bruising force as he went.

He told himself that it was to make sure that Shouta stayed with him, that they didn’t get separated. He tried to ignore that he felt like if he let go, he might spiral and start screaming.

“Zashi, we gotta help him,” Shouta was saying, his face pale where it wasn’t streaked with blood and dirt. He looked dazed; a little scared, but more like he didn’t quite understand what was going on around him.

Hizashi took a breath. There was nothing else he could do for Shirakumo right this second; but he could help Shouta. He loosened his grip on Shouta’s arm and put a careful smile on his face.

“They’re gonna get him out and to the hospital as fast as they can,” Hizashi said, sliding his hand to Shouta’s back and steering him towards one of the waiting ambulances, glancing over his shoulder at where the crew was still working. “Let’s get you patched up real quick, so when they get him out, the ambulance will be ready to go.”

“I’m fine,” Shouta said, though thankfully he was letting Hizashi guide him without putting up a fight. “His face, though- his head, Zashi, his head-”

“I know,” Hizashi said, swallowing, wishing he could get the image out of his mind. “I know, Shou, but they’re helping him right now.” He forced his smile to stay steady, even as his hands shook. He glanced down at the hand not on Shouta’s back to see his fingers stained red where his gloves stopped and his skin began. He took another breath and urged Shouta towards the ambulance. One of the medics hustled over to meet them, which Hizashi was thankful for. He wasn’t sure how much longer he was going to be able to keep himself together.

He couldn’t fall apart in front of Shouta. Not right now, not like this.

“Aizawa!” Kayama’s voice cut through the noise, and Hizashi looked up to see her walking over to them, her coat tied closed against the rain. She didn’t run, but took long strides; her expression serious but calm. She met them as the medic was starting to check Shouta over. Hizashi saw Shouta tense up, making an aborted little move to try and stand from where he sat in the open rear door of the ambulance; but the medic put a hand on his shoulder to keep him still as he checked his vitals.

“Kayama- Shirakumo- he- I-” Shouta stammered, his eyes searching Kayama’s face.

“I was over at the other ambulance where they were loading up His Purple Highness,” Kayama said, “I heard over the radio.” She swallowed, but gave Shouta a smile as she gently rested her hand on his shoulder. “You did so good, Shou-chan. Don’t doubt it for a second. No matter what happens, you did more than anybody else was able to.”

“I could hear his voice, the whole time,” Shouta said quietly, staring down at the goggles clutched in his hand. Hizashi could see one of the lenses was shattered, and Shouta’s thumb kept drifting close to the jagged edge. Hizashi’s hands itched to snatch it away from him. “I guess I thought it was coming from his speaker. He kept telling me that I could do it.”

“Sounds like exactly what he would say,” Kayama said.

“And he was right,” Hizashi added. It didn’t matter whether Oboro had actually said the words or if it had just been the echo of them from Shouta’s own mind.

“He can’t be dead,” Shouta said. “He can’t. We have to watch each other’s backs, and we need to keep ourselves alive to do that.” He didn’t flinch as the medic cleaned and bandaged a nasty looking cut on his left arm. “He promised.”

Hizashi looked over to where the emergency crew was still working diligently. The debris had been cleared away from Oboro, and they were quickly bringing over a gurney. Surely they wouldn’t be doing that if there was no hope at all?

“You did your part, man,” Hizashi told him. “If you hadn’t stopped that villain, then a lot of people would have been hurt or killed, and there would have been no way for the medics to get to Shirakumo. Any chance he’s got of pulling through, it’s because you gave it to him.”

“What if he doesn’t?”

The question hung heavily in the silence that stretched out between them. Hizashi’s mouth opened, but he couldn’t find any words to fill the void. Empty promises and fears too awful to say aloud danced around in his head, keeping him trapped in the silence until finally Kayama broke it.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.” She crouched down so she could meet Shouta’s eye as he gazed vaguely downwards. Hizashi couldn’t remember her ever looking so serious. “In the meantime, you need to pull yourself together, Eraserhead. We need to talk to the cops and get the paperwork taken care of, because that’s our job. Once that’s done, we’ll all go to the hospital together.”

There were the steps, all laid out. Do the thing in front of you, and then move on to the next. Everything inside Hizashi screamed that all that crap was the wrong priority; but it was literally the only thing that they could do. Everything else was just watching from the sidelines, feeling useless and frustrated.

“You’re a good hero, Midnight,” Hizashi said softly, and Kayama looked up at him with a tired smile.

“Plus Ultra,” she said, and he could see the shakiness at the edge of her expression. She kept smiling though.

Shouta was all patched up for the moment, though the medic said that he should be sure to get checked out more thoroughly later. They stepped away from the ambulance as the stretcher with Oboro on it came hurrying up. Hizashi tried not to look, he didn’t want to add new images of his friend’s bloody face to the slideshow already playing in his head…

But he couldn’t help it. He needed to see.

It was funny. Oboro’s hair was normally such a light blue, almost white, that seeing it matted down with dark blood almost tricked him into thinking that the person being loaded into the ambulance wasn’t actually his friend.

Almost.

“Mic,” Shouta’s voice broke through the haze that had started to gather as he watched the medics secure Shirakumo’s gurney into place, “You need to go back over to your Buster Union teammates,” Shouta said. Which was true, but wrong, because he needed to get in the ambulance and go with Oboro to the hospital… except that wasn’t procedure. He wasn’t family, he wasn’t the emergency contact, he wasn’t even from the same agency…

He heard Kayama telling the driver Oboro’s name and that he was with Purple Revolution as the doors slammed shut, blocking Oboro from view. Hizashi was reluctant to leave Shouta’s side; but when he turned to meet his eye, he could see that the wild panic and far-away lost look from before were both gone. He didn’t look like he was ok, not by a longshot; but Hizashi figured none of them were actually ok, so they’d have to muddle through.

Which meant checking in with his team.

“You got it, Eraser.” The ambulance pulled away, siren blaring. Hizashi let himself stay by Shouta and Kayama long enough to watch it turn the corner, then the three of them split up to take care of the things that needed to be taken care of.

Hizashi wasn’t sure if he was thankful that, once he checked in with the boss-man, he was told that he was good to go. He needed something useful to do, but Shouta and Kayama were still talking to the cops. He found himself walking around the perimeter of the damage zone, checking on civilians. When he spotted a harried looking young woman trying to make phone calls while keeping an eye on about a dozen little kids, he trotted over.

“Heya little listeners!” he said, grinning brightly. “I’m Present Mic! I bet you all have had a wild day! How’re ya doin?”

“Sayo was crying,” one of the little boys said.

“So were you, Koki!” a little girl shot back. “It was scary!”

Hizashi squatted down and let the kids tell him all about it, trying to get them to take turns talking and failing miserably; but he caught their teacher’s eye and she gave him a grateful smile as she placed another phone call. From what he heard of her conversations, she was busy calling all the parents, so Hizashi gladly kept the kiddos occupied as best he could.

“Is Loud Cloud ok?” one of the little girls finally asked, and Hizashi had to fight to keep his smile from falling. Before he could think of what to say, another kid chimed in.

“He saved us,” the little boy called Koki said, “His cloud poofed right over our heads when everything was falling.”

“Come along everyone,” the teacher said, pocketing her phone. “Your parents are going to start arriving soon to pick you up. Say good-bye and thank you to Present Mic.” A chaotic chorus of little voices echoed their teacher’s words.

“Tell Eraserhead and Loud Cloud thank you too!” Koki called out as their teacher led them away.

“Will do, little listeners!” Hizashi called, feeling his throat tighten up around the words.

Nope, not now. He wasn’t gonna fall apart.

He scanned the area till he spotted Shouta, still talking with an officer, and headed over. He hung back enough to not listen in, but as soon as the cop walked away, Hizashi moved to stand at Shouta’s side.

“Where’s Kayama at?” Hizashi asked, glancing around.

“Went back to the office to do paperwork,” Shouta said. He took a breath. “Someone has to call his parents.”

Hizashi’s blood ran cold.

“Who…?” Normally that would be His Purple Highness’ responsibility, but the hero was unconscious and on his own way to the hospital.

“We should ask Kayama. If she already called them, I don’t…” Shouta trailed off, but Hizashi understood.

“How far is the agency from here?” Hizashi asked.

“Not far,” Shouta said as he started walking, Hizashi falling into step beside him. The further they got from the scene, the more surreal everything felt. How were there people just wandering around, going about their day?

“There was a bunch of kids, like a daycare or something,” Hizashi said as they walked, because if he was talking, then his brain had less of a chance of spiraling down paths it shouldn’t go. “They said thank you. To Eraserhead and Loud Cloud.”

Shouta didn’t slow down, but cast a quick look at Hizashi out of the corner of his eye.

“He’s gonna pull through,” Hizashi said. Right now, he didn’t care if it was an empty promise; his Quirk was Voice, his voice had power, so maybe if he said it out loud, he could make it so. He knew it was bullshit, but it was the only thing he could do right now, and he needed to do something.

When Shouta spoke next, Hizashi could barely hear it. Even still, he knew what he’d said. The same as before.

“What if he doesn’t?”

“I don’t know,” Hizashi admitted. “So that’s why he’s gotta.”

Shouta didn’t say anything else, and not much further down the road, he pulled open the door to Purple Revolution Agency.

They found Kayama sitting at a desk in the back office. Her eyes were red and her face was streaked with black, her eye makeup smudged in a way that made it look like she hadn’t slept in a month.

Her voice was steady when she spoke, though. “Everything taken care of at the scene?” Shouta nodded.

“Did the hospital call?” Hizashi asked.

“Not yet,” Kayama said, grabbing a tissue and trying to wipe away the worst of the black smudges from her face. “Rain ruined my makeup,” she said. Nobody argued. “Whatever hospital, or hospitals, they end up at should call here to let us know when they’re admitted and their status,” she said. “Then we can reach out to emergency contacts.”

“So we need to wait?” Hizashi asked, the need to do something bubbling up under his skin again. “Shirakumo’s family is going about their day right now with no idea that he’s- How can we wait!?”

“What exactly would you tell them right this second, Yamada?” Kayama asked firmly. “Do you know the extent of his injuries? What condition he’s in? Do you even know what hospital he’s heading to, or if he’s arrived there?” Hizashi shrunk in on himself a little more with each question he couldn’t answer. “If we call them now, we’re going to leave them feeling just as awful and powerless as we do. That’s not going to help anyone.”

She sighed and rubbed her eyes, apparently giving up on fixing her makeup.

“If you two can sit here and mind the phone for a few minutes, I wanna wash my face and change my clothes really quick,” she said. “When I get back, you can both hit the showers.”

Shouta looked a little pale, staring at the phone as if it might attack him, but he nodded. Kayama stood and hurried off to the locker room.

“There’s no way they’ll call right this second,” Hizashi said with a nervous laugh, staring at the phone.

It took another two minutes for the phone to ring, startling a yelp out of Hizashi. Shouta reached out a shaky hand and pushed the button to answer the call on speaker phone.

“Hello?” Shouta said.

“Purple Revolution Agency,” Hizashi added.

“Hello, I’m calling from East Side Hospital in reference to Nakaoji Tenma,” the voice on the other end of the line said. Hizashi and Shouta looked at each other in confusion for a moment before it clicked.

“His Purple Highness, yes!” Hizashi said, fumbling to find a paper and pen to take down whatever information they were about to give and shoved it towards Shouta. “Be right back,” he said, scrambling down the hall where Kayama had gone, closing his eyes before sticking his head into the locker room. “Yo, Kayama, hospital is on the line about your boss-man!” he hollered before running back to the office where Shouta was jotting down the information the person on the phone was relaying.

“Thank you,” Shouta said. “Uh, can you tell me if a second ambulance came in from the same scene? Another hero was badly injured.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know for sure. We’ve been busy, and depending on how severe the case was, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were sent over to Riverview. They’re much better equipped for serious traumas.”

“Ok, thanks,” Hizashi mumbled as Shouta finished up the call. Kayama was standing in the doorway wearing jeans and a t-shirt.

“Good job, boys. I’ll call his partner,” Kayama said, glancing down at the notes Shouta had taken. “You two go wash up.”

“That can wait,” Shouta said, staring at the phone.

“No, it cannot,” Kayama told him sternly. “Because once they call, and we inform Shirakumo’s family, I want to be able to head over to the hospital immediately, and you are not going in there looking like that.”

Shouta scowled, but looked down at his hands, still covered in drying blood. “Don’t call them until we get back,” he said quietly. Kayama nodded.

Hizashi followed Shouta to the locker room, and while Shouta went over to the shower, Hizashi stood at the sink and started washing his hands and - as best he could - his gloves. He watched as the water turned red with Oboro’s blood before it swirled down the drain.

If Oboro died, what if that blood was the last bit of him… What if Hizashi was washing the last of him away?

His chest felt too small for his lungs, and he squeezed his eyes shut, feeling a tear trickle down his cheek. He looked up at his face in the mirror and was filled with rage at how fucking useless he had been. Garvey had absorbed his attack and unleashed it against innocent people…

What if…

What if it had been Hizashi’s Quirk that toppled that section of building that had collapsed on Oboro?

Hizashi grit his teeth and forced a smile onto his face. He wanted to punch his reflection and shatter it into a million pieces; but he settled for splashing some water on his face to hide the evidence of tears.

Hizashi heard Shouta rummaging around over by the lockers and went to join him before his brain could start spiraling again.

“I don’t have any spare changes of clothes,” Shouta said as he finished buttoning his school uniform pants and pulled a t-shirt over his head, hair still wet from the shower. Hizashi could see his uniform shirt and jacket stuffed into his backpack. “If you want to change, maybe you could borrow… uhh…” He trailed off, looking at the locker a few spaces over from his, where Hizashi immediately knew Oboro’s things were.

“Nah, my fit is fine,” Hizashi said. “I didn’t even get a chance to work up a sweat before you took that bastard down.” They stood in awkward silence for a moment; and in the quiet, from the other room, they could hear Kayama talking to someone.

Sharing a wide-eyed glance, they both took off running back to the office.

“...Ok, thank you very much,” Kayama was saying as they barreled through the door. She hung up the phone, face turned down towards the desk in front of her as she finished whatever note she was writing. Hizashi’s heart pounded wildly with panic, and he was gripped by the urge to run away.

If he didn’t hear whatever Kayama had to say next, then it wouldn’t be real. It couldn’t touch him.

But his feet were frozen to the floor.

She looked up at them. Her face was wet with tears.

And she was smiling.

“He’s alive.”

Hizashi inhaled, dizzy at the rush of oxygen, wondering how long it had been since he’d last managed to breathe. He felt a heavy weight against his side as Shouta sagged and swayed into him. Hizashi quickly wrapped his arm around Shouta’s waist and helped him over to a chair next to the desk. Leaning his butt against the desk behind him, Hizashi squeezed Shouta’s shoulder, holding on tight.

“He’s in critical condition,” Kayama continued, “And they’re still working on him, but he’s alive.”

“We gotta…” Shouta trailed off. There were a lot of things they had to do.

“I’ll call his parents, why don’t you two go get his stuff together. We’ll bring it to the hospital.”

“No,” Shouta said. Kayama raised her eyebrow.

“What my loquacious friend here means is that we’re not leaving the room while you call them,” Hizashi said, smile firmly in place as he made it clear this wasn’t up for debate. “Put it on speaker.” Kayama paused only a moment before nodding and placing the call.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Mrs. Shirakumo? This is Kayama Nemuri from Purple Revolution Agency.”

“Oh hello Kayama! Oboro has told us so much about you! I hope he’s not causing any trouble over there,” Mrs. Shirakumo said brightly.

Suddenly, Hizashi wanted to run again. To reach over and hang up the call. To let her stay happy and cheerful for another minute. Another hour. They should be doing this in person, anyway. Face-to-face.

Not that Hizashi would be able to look her in the eye, not with how blue they were, not with the way her hair was the same pale color as Oboro’s, though it floated down by her shoulders instead of defying gravity.

He was just looking for another excuse to escape this moment.

He could. He could walk out of the room.

But he couldn’t. He couldn’t leave Shouta like that. He couldn’t leave Kayama like that either.

“Heya Mrs. S,” Hizashi said.

“Is that Yamada? I thought Aizawa was working there, but you were at another agency?”

“That’s correct,” Shouta said.

“Hello Aizawa!”

“They both wanted to be here when I called you,” Kayama said. “I’m afraid I have some bad news. Your son was seriously injured in a villain attack this afternoon.”

“What?” When her voice finally came through, it was as flat and quiet as Hizashi had ever heard it.

“He’s currently being treated at Riverview Hospital,” Kayama continued. Her voice was steady, but Hizashi could see the way her hand was trembling where she still gripped the pen between her fingers. He reached out with the hand not holding on to Shouta and grabbed her forearm. He wasn’t sure if he was doing it more for them, or for himself; but ether way, as Kayama gave the details to Oboro’s mom, the three of them sat in the office together and knew they weren’t trying to get through this alone.

~*~

They were one train stop away from their destination when Shouta thought to send a quick text to his mother that he was fine and that they were going to the hospital to wait for news on Shirakumo. He didn’t want to talk about it, and she would understand that. Knowing his parents, Dad would contact him more directly if they were going to demand further information; but they probably wouldn’t for now.

After another moment, he texted Tensei as well. He wasn’t sure why, it’s not like he was the representative for Class A.

Message sent, Shouta silenced his phone and stuck it in his pocket, having to lean heavily into Hizashi as he did so. It was simply a result of the fact that Kayama and Hizashi had squashed in to the narrow seat on either side of him; but despite the close quarters, he was quietly thankful to have them both right there. The two of them had chattered at each other about nothing of any importance the whole time, and he’d been listening just enough to keep from falling into his own head. Between that and the reassuring pressure of them against him, it had kept him from feeling as lost as he had earlier.

They entered the hospital and were directed to a waiting room that they reached through a maze of hallways. The seating there was uncomfortable; but it was at least padded instead of the hard, molded plastic chairs that even Shouta sometimes had a hard time falling asleep in.

Not that he was falling asleep now.

They sat, and they waited, and the minutes ticked by. Hizashi’s foot bounced as he leaned forward, staring vaguely at the ground, unnervingly quiet for once. Kayama was tapping away on her phone. Shouta watched the hallway to see if anyone was approaching.

The sound of footsteps getting closer had him sitting up taller, and suddenly, Oboro’s parents entered the waiting room.

He’d known that they were coming. He’d been watching and waiting for them as much as he’d been keeping an eye out for the doctors. But now they were here, and he realized that there was no way he could look them in the eye.

He stood up, vaguely aware of Hizashi getting to his feet by his side. Kayama might have stood as well, but Shouta wasn’t sure, since he was having a hard time focusing on anything besides the Shirakumos.

Oboro’s mom had clearly been crying, and Shouta suddenly found it hard to breathe. He bowed his head, wishing he could think of something to say, anything; but his mouth was too dry to form words, even if he could think of them. The wave of guilt that he’d been somehow managing to hold at bay crashed over him; no matter how much he tried to believe that he’d done all he could, how could he face her when he was standing here while Oboro was-

Strong arms wrapped around him, pulling him into a tight hug squished together with Hizashi, as Mrs. Shirakumo held them close. Shouta closed his eyes tight as he felt them start to sting.

“Thank you,” she said quietly. “At the front desk, one of the emergency workers from the scene was there when we got here. She said that two boys were already working to dig him out, even before the medics could respond.” She squeezed them tighter. “Thank you.” She loosened her hold and took a step back. “Hopefully that hard head of his will come in handy, just this once,” she added with a shaky smile. Hizashi barked out a laugh before slapping his hand over his mouth.

“You must be Kayama,” Mr. Shirakumo said. “Oboro has told us a lot about you.”

“Shirakumo has been shaping up to be a wonderful hero,” Kayama said, bowing, “I know that His Purple Highness has been so impressed with him. He’d be here to tell you so himself, but he was also injured and is in a hospital across town right now.”

“Let’s all sit,” Mr. Shirakumo said, and the five of them moved towards the corner of the otherwise empty waiting room. Shouta sat at the end of the short row of connected chairs, with Hizashi between himself and Kayama. He wanted a clear view of the entryway.

(He also didn’t want to face the Shirakumos as Kayama relayed the events of the battle as best she knew them.)

Time passed, the hollow echo of a ticking clock pulsing away in Shouta’s chest as everyone around him talked and he waited. Eventually he slumped over, too tired to keep sitting upright, his head resting on Hizashi’s shoulder. His eyes slipped closed and he let the clock in his chest keep counting out the seconds.

He lost count of the minutes that passed, until footsteps hurrying down the hallway had his eyes snapping open as everyone’s head turned to see who was approaching.

It was a figure dressed in white, but not the kind Shouta was expecting to see.

“Iida?” Hizashi asked in confusion.

“Hey!” Tensei said, helmet tucked under his arm as he approached the group with a bow towards the Shirakumos. “I heard on the news,” he said, turning to Shouta and Hizashi, laying his hand on Shouta’s shoulder. Shouta felt a little twist of guilt and wondered how many unnoticed texts were probably on his phone right now. “I’m sorry to intrude,” he said to Oboro’s parents, “I happened to be close by, and when I found out- sorry, where are my manners, I’m Iida Tensei, I’m a classmate at UA.”

“Iida… Oh! You beat out Oboro at the Sports Festival last year!” Mrs. Shirakumo said with a shaky smile. Tensei flushed.

“Hah, he made me work for it,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.

“We haven’t gotten any real news about Shirakumo,” Hizashi said, standing up and crossing his arms. “He’s alive, but in critical condition, that’s all we know.” Tensei nodded.

“Has the school been informed yet?” Tensei asked, looking between Kayama and Mrs. Shirakumo. They both shook their heads.

“Not unless the hospital did it,” Kayama said.

“Probably not,” Tensei said, “They let the agencies handle contact. Do you have the number handy?”

Kayama frowned and shook her head. “It’s a special line, right? I don’t have it, it’s in the paperwork back at the agency.”

Tensei nodded and looked at the Shirakumos. “If you’d allow me to, I can have my agency inform them, and they’ll have Recovery Girl coordinate with the hospital.”

“Thank you, Iida,” Mr. Shirakumo said. “We’ve been so frazzled, we didn’t even think to contact the school. If it’s not too much to ask-?”

“Not at all,” Tensei said. Still in his costume, he must be on duty for his own work study. “Being fast means I’m allowed to be the messenger for lots of things. I’ll put the school and Recovery Girl in contact with the hospital.” He glanced at Shouta. “I’ll make sure she knows to check on you as well.” Shouta glowered, but as the adrenaline continued to crash, he was feeling more and more of the pain from the day.

“Are you the Shirakumo family?”

Shouta stood up quickly, dislodging Tensei’s hand from his shoulder and bumping into Hizashi and Iida as he tried to get a look at the newcomer.

“Yes, that’s us,” Mrs. Shirakumo said, standing up to address the very tired-looking doctor standing a few meters away, her husband and Kayama rising alongside her. “How is he?”

“He’s still hanging in there,” the doctor said, and Shouta’s hand reached out to grab on to Hizashi’s arm. “He’s not out of the woods; the head trauma is severe, and if he wakes up, we don’t know what kind of long term effects it will have on him. For the moment, though, he’s in the ICU and we’re keeping a close eye on him.”

Shouta ignored the ‘if’ part. Nobody else commented on it either.

“Can we see him?” Mrs. Shirakumo asked.

The doctor nodded. “It’s supposed to be only one visitor at a time, but both of you can come up. Only for a few minutes, though.” He motioned for them to follow him and Shouta swallowed his disappointment. Though he had rationally known there was no way he and Hizashi would be able to go see him tonight, it still stung.

The three adults walked away, and Kayama spoke up. “I can’t believe I forgot to call the school before we left Purple Revolution. It’s the agency’s job to reach out to all parties.”

“You’re still a student,” Tensei reminded her. “From what I gathered, you’ve had a pretty bad day. Give yourself credit for keeping things together as well as you have.”

“How do you know so much about what happened? And how did you know where to find us?” Hizashi asked, stepping in a little closer to Tensei. Vaguely, Shouta noted he was still holding on to Hizashi’s arm, but suddenly it felt like he was steading his friend instead of himself.

“Oh, uhh…” Tensei actually looked a little sheepish. “When I heard about the incident, I may have used some of my agency’s resources to find out more information.” Hizashi huffed, but Kayama gave Tensei a tired smile.

“I’m sorry for making my underclassmen pick up my slack.”

“Nonsense,” Tensei said, “None of this is supposed to be your responsibility, it’s supposed to be your mentor’s job. It’s just bad luck that he was injured and it fell on you. I grew up in a hero household, so I’ve been learning all this stuff since I was little.”

Tensei’s hand found its way back to Shouta’s shoulder, and he gave him a gentle squeeze.

“I’m gonna head back to IdaTen HQ right now and get everything in motion for Recovery Girl to get over here.”

“Can’t you just call them?” Shouta asked. It was stupid to want Tensei to stay here; but he was always calm and steady, and right now, Shouta was desperate to cling to that.

“It’ll be easier to convince them to bend protocol if I can explain in person,” Tensei said. “They’ll do it, though.” Tensei let his hand slide away from Shouta, and he immediately missed the contact. He kept his hold on Hizashi.

“Bending protocol,” Hizashi grumbled. Shouta glanced over at him, confused at the frown that weighed so heavily on his face.

“Well yeah,” Tensei said with a shrug. “Unless Aizawa or Kayama wants to come with me, it would be bending protocol, since IdaTen isn’t Purple Revolution. But considering the circumstances, it won’t be a problem.” He turned to face Shouta directly. “I’ll keep you updated. Make sure you check your texts, ok?”

“Ok,” Shouta said, shame twisting in his gut again as Tensei said his goodbyes and left. Finally letting go of Hizashi, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and set his alerts to vibrate as he flopped back down onto his seat.

<sent> on the way to the hospital. shirakumo in critical condition.

<Tensei> what?

<Tensei> what happened?

<Tensei> are you ok?

<Tensei> what hospital?

<Tensei> come on, you gotta let me know what’s going on.

<Tensei> WAIT, THAT WAS YOU?

<Tensei> THAT WAS YOUR TEAM?

<Tensei> Shirakumo is in critical condition?

<Tensei> I sincerely hope you’re just really distracted and not badly injured yourself, but either way, I see that Shirakumo is at Riverview, so I’m gonna head over there and see if I can get some answers that way.

<Tensei> I’ll see you soon

<Tensei> You better be in one piece.

Shouta bit his lip and typed out a far too-little, too-late response.

<sent> sorry

<sent> didn’t mean to worry you

“Iida is fast, but I don’t think he’s got any answers yet,” Hizashi mumbled as he sprawled back into his own seat, legs splaying out wide, his calf pressing against Shouta’s. Shouta heaved a deep breath and put his phone back in his pocket. Closing his eyes, he tipped his head back against the wall behind him, wishing he could doze off, knowing that it was impossible right now.

Even if it wasn’t for all the feelings he couldn’t quite shut down inside himself, Hizashi alone would have made it impossible with the way he was radiating nervous energy.

Though after a minute, Hizashi pulled himself in, no longer trying to take up all the space with his starfish impersonation, that only concentrated the fidgeting. His friend’s foot was bouncing incessantly, with enough force that Shouta could feel it shaking the whole row of seats. On top of that, he could hear Hizashi humming intermittently; it was quiet, but noticeable.

It wasn’t even that Shouta was particularly bothered by it all, but it was keeping him wound tighter than he’d otherwise be.

“When did you and Iida get so chummy?” Hizashi finally asked, catching Shouta off guard.

“What?” Hizashi knew that Shouta was friends with Tensei. Tensei was friendly with almost everyone, including Hizashi.

“Uuuuugh, never mind,” Hizashi said, scrubbing his hands over his face, then scratching at his head, only slightly mussing his hair. “I just hate feeling like there’s nothing I can do, ya know? Makes me wanna scream.”

“Please don’t,” Shouta said, the corner of his mouth pulling up in the ghost of a smile as he teased his friend.

“Excuse you, I do have self control,” Hizashi grumbled as he turned to look at him. Shouta could see the moment it registered on Hizashi’s face that Shouta had been joking, and Hizashi snorted a tiny laugh. It was a good sound, however small and tired and scared it was. Hizashi was always laughing, so even a little one made Shouta feel a bit more normal for a moment.

He wished Oboro were here. Oboro would pull them all into a hug. He knew how to do that in a way Shouta was just hopeless at. He looked at the space between Hizashi and Kayama on the padded row of seats, knowing that was the spot where Oboro should be sitting.

Hizashi was staring at the floor, and his foot was starting to bounce again. He was biting his lip and picking at his fingernails. Kayama was staring down at her phone, but from what Shouta could see, the screen wasn’t even on.

How could they do this without Oboro? They needed him there. Things just didn’t work right without him. Shouta swallowed the fear that tried to crawl up his throat.

If they fell apart, then how would they be able to help Oboro through his recovery?

Because he had to recover.

One thing at a time. Do the thing in front of you.

Shouta’s legs ached as he stood up from his perch at the end of the row and shuffled over to situate himself in the too-wide space between Hizashi and Kayama. Both of them were leaning forward, elbows resting on their knees, and both turned their heads to face him as he took a breath.

This is what Oboro would do. And it would make Shouta feel better if Oboro did it. Maybe it would still work if he was the one that did it. Maybe it would make Hizashi and Kayama feel better. Maybe it would help him feel better. He could almost hear Oboro’s voice encouraging him. He reached out his arms and wrapped them around Hizashi and Kayama’s shoulders, pulling them both in towards himself.

He wasn’t expecting both of them to immediately turn to face him, each lifting their arms and shifting in their seats so that all three of them were tangled in a tight embrace.

They sat together, clinging tightly to one another. Shouta heard someone sniffle, but it was hard to tell who. He felt himself sniffle, and hoped the others couldn’t tell.

He didn’t know how much time passed, but eventually he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, the slight buzz of noise loud enough in the quiet space that the others heard it too. With a long last breath, they disentangled, sitting back enough that Shouta could get his phone out and check it.

“Recovery Girl is on her way- wait, already?” Shouta said, brow furrowing in confusion as he read Tensei’s message.

“Maybe she wants to talk to the doctors in person?” Kayama suggested. Shouta shrugged. He thanked Tensei and stuck his phone back in his pocket as Shirakumo’s parents came back into the waiting room. It was clear they’d both been crying again.

“Have you kids eaten anything?” Mr. Shirakumo asked, his arm not leaving its spot around his wife’s waist.

“The cafeteria is closed, but I’ve got some snacks in my bag,” Mrs Shirakumo said, sitting down and starting to rummage through her purse.

“It’s ok, I’m not very hungry-” Hizashi started, but Mrs. Shirakumo cut him off.

“No arguments, you need to eat something,” she said, holding out what looked like a granola bar to him with a tight smile. “You too, Aizawa, Kayama.” The three of them nodded and accepted her offerings, compelled by some parental power (and maybe a tiny bit by the fact that, now that his attention had been drawn to it, Shouta realized that his stomach was painfully empty).

As empty as his stomach insisted it was, though, Shouta had a hard time eating more than a bite. Glancing at Hizashi and Kayama, he saw that even after they’d been sitting and picking at their snacks for a while, their food was also mostly intact.

All of them kept glancing at the Shirakumos. Shouta was desperate to know more about Oboro’s condition, but was terrified to ask.

“Ohohoho!” A laugh startled them all, and when Shouta looked up, he was surprised to see Recovery Girl standing there next to the doctor from earlier. “Porthos and Aramis, and is this now d’Artagnan?” she said, sizing up the three UA students. “I can’t say I expected you to fall in with this lot, Kayama; but now that I think about it, it makes sense.” She sighed, then turned her focus on the Shirakumos, her tone shifting to something more serious. “You must be Shirakumo’s parents. I’ve just been up to see him and make my own assessment. The doctors and I agree that if he stays stable enough through the night, I’ll use my Quirk tomorrow, so long as you agree to it.”

“Yes, of course,” Oboro’s mom said, clasping her husband’s hand tightly.

Recovery Girl bowed her head. “Very good. In the meantime, I’ve been overdue for a visit to Riverview,” she said with a sigh, looking up at the doctor by her side. “I’ll spend the overnight shift here.”

“It would be deeply appreciated,” he said with a bow.

“You won’t be too tired out to help Shirakumo, though, right?” Hizashi asked.

“Young man,” she said, facing him with a hardened expression on her face that was a far cry from her usual reassuring smile, “I am very much aware of how much sleep I need and how much I can use my Quirk. Speaking of which, my first patient of the evening is right here.” She took a step towards Shouta.

“I’m fine,” he mumbled.

“Yes, yes, I’m sure you are,” she chuckled, her smile back in place as she managed to plant a kiss directly on his forehead. Almost immediately, he could feel the effects as his pain receded and was replaced by a bone-deep weariness.

“Now then, all of you, go home. Get some rest.” She looked directly at the Shirakumos. “You’ll do your son no good by wearing yourselves out.” She turned her gaze back to Shouta and the others. “I am certain that you will all be kept up to date if there are any changes. Now, shoo!”

The five of them made their way out of the hospital, and Shouta wondered when night had fallen. He found himself starting to lean more and more heavily on Hizashi as they walked.

“Man, she whammied you pretty good,” Hizashi said, slipping his arm around Shouta to help keep him propped up.

“Do you three need a ride home? We drove here,” said Mr. Shirakumo.

“Nah, I’ll make sure Sleeping Beauty here gets home in one piece, and the train ride isn’t bad,” Hizashi said.

“I’ll keep an eye on them,” Kayama said. “I wish I had been able to meet you under better circumstances,” she added, bowing one more time.

Mrs. Shirakumo hugged her. “Thank you for watching out for them.” Kayama’s smile wobbled, but she didn’t say anything. Mrs. Shirakumo turned to hug Shouta and Hizashi tightly. “He’s gonna need you when he wakes up. Take care of yourselves.”

They went their separate ways, Shouta walking with Hizashi and Kayama to the train station.

“I’m almost jealous of how well you’re gonna sleep,” Hizashi said, a tight smile on his face. Then, so quietly Shouta almost didn’t hear it, he added, “Shit, tonight is gonna suck.”

Shouta wasn’t sure if it was his own exhaustion, his need to not be alone, or his desire to make sure Hizashi wasn’t left alone, but the words were out of his mouth before he really thought about them. “Sleep over at my place.”

Hizashi blinked at him in confusion. “Really?”

Shouta huffed, feeling himself flush a little. Why make a big deal out of it? It wasn’t like they didn’t sleep over at Hizashi’s house plenty of times. “If you don’t want to-”

“No! No, I just- You never seem too keen to have us over.”

Shouta shrugged. “It’s small. And I don’t have… stuff like you and Shirakumo do.” No video game systems at the Aizawa household; they didn’t have the money for that.

“Do you need to check with your parents?”

“It’ll be fine,” he said, but slipped his phone out to text his mom anyway.

<sent> Yamada is sleeping over

<sent> we don’t want to talk about today

<Mom> Understood.

<Mom> You will have to give us more information. But not tonight.

Shouta put his phone away. “Mom says fine.” He blinked. “Have you talked to your parents at all?”

“Uhh,” Hizashi said, ducking his head. “I told them things were hectic and I was gonna be out late.” He swiped his thumb over his phone screen and started tapping out a message. “I don’t have a change of clothes or anything. Would, uhh, it be ok if I borrowed some?” he asked, his ears turning pink.

“Of course,” Shouta said. He knew his clothes weren’t stylish or top quality, and it didn’t bother him in the slightest… but the idea of Hizashi being embarrassed to borrow them somehow stung.

“Thanks.” The way Hizashi said it, softly, almost shy, was so different from the loud, brash, laughing person Shouta knew that for a moment he wondered if he’d heard him properly. Then Shouta remembered that Hizashi was probably exhausted too, so he was allowed to be quieter than usual.

“Alright you two, text me when you get to Aizawa’s,” Kayama said, giving them an odd look as the train pulled into their stop.

“Will do. See ya later, Kayama,” Hizashi said, practically hauling Shouta up off his seat. Shouta wasn’t sure when his legs had turned to lead, but it must have been a recent development. It made walking very difficult.

Fortunately, Hizashi was there. He stooped down, ducking to pull Shouta’s arm across his shoulders before standing back up and wrapping his closer arm around Shouta’s waist, tucking the two of them close together as they started down the road towards Shouta’s apartment.

“Come on, Sleepy Head,” Hizashi said, “Keep moving those feet, ‘kay? I dunno if I can actually carry you all the way, and I don’t think your parents would appreciate me knocking on the door with you unconscious in my arms.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Shouta mumbled, trying to keep up with the words that fell far too fast out of Hizashi’s mouth. “You can’t knock on the door if you’re holding me. You’d have to kick. With your foot.” He gave a half hearted swing with his own foot to demonstrate. He was too tired to do it properly.

But Hizashi would figure it out if he needed to. Hizashi was smart like that.

“Fair point,” Hizashi chuckled softly.

It was only a blink of an eye… or maybe several long, slow blinks of his eyes, before they were at Shouta’s door. Just to prove the point, Shouta kicked the door with his foot, twice. Sure, he had his key in his pocket, but it seemed like far too much effort to dig it out.

Mom opened the door, her mouth set into its usual firm line, but her eyes seemed a little bigger and softer than usual as she beckoned them inside. Hizashi helped him sit down before he started unzipping his boots, still in his hero costume from earlier. Shouta tried to untie his sneakers with clumsy fingers, but gave up quickly, just trying to pull them off.

“Hang on, lemmie help,” Hizashi said, batting Shouta’s hands away, untying his shoes and pulling them off.

“You should take a shower, Yamada,” Mom said. “I understand you boys have had a long day.”

“It’s ok, that’s not necessary,” Hizashi said, trying to help haul Shouta up off the floor. Shouta didn’t really want to get off the floor, though. Standing was a lot of effort.

“It’s not necessary, but it is strongly recommended,” Mom said sternly.

“Uhh, do I really smell that bad?” Hizashi asked sheepishly.

“Yes, but that’s not the point,” Mom said, as blunt as ever. “Wash the day off yourself, Yamada. You’ll feel better. You need it.”

“Oh. Uhhh. Ok,” Hizashi stammered. “I gotta borrow some of Aizawa’s clothes, though.”

“Go on, get what you need from his room, the shower is right across the hall.”

“Thank you,” Hizashi said as Shouta stumbled down the hall, leaning heavily on him.

“Sweatpants are in that drawer,” Shouta said, pointing without looking as he flopped down on his futon. “T-shirts are in that one.” He heard Hizashi rummaging around.

“Thanks, Shou,” he said quietly. “I’ll be right back, but you’ll prolly be passed out by then anyway.” Shouta blew out an exasperated breath.

He must have dozed off, because the next thing he knew, he heard his bedroom door closing quietly and Hizashi padding around in the dark.

“You asleep?” Hizashi whispered.

“That’s a stupid question to ask,” Shouta grumbled.

“Got me an answer, though,” Hizashi said, and Shouta could hear the smile on his face. “I texted Kayama. She’s home now too.” He paused for a beat, and Shouta started to doze back off. “You sure you’re ok with me sharing the futon? It’s smaller than what we use at my place.”

“S’fine,” Shouta slurred. “Sorry s’not bigger.”

“No, I just- I didn’t want to crowd you.” Shouta cracked an eye open, and the way Hizashi’s hair fell softly around his face, so different from how he normally looked, so far removed from the chaos and noise and blood of their day… it made his chest ache.

Shouta squeezed his eyes closed. He didn’t want to admit how much he needed Hizashi near him right now. How badly he needed to not be alone.

How badly he needed to be sure that at least one of his friends was safe and sound.

“S’fine. Lay down. Go to sleep.”

Hizashi lay down next to Shouta, but then sat back up again.

“Dude, are you still wearing your uniform pants?”

“Yeah?” It was way too much effort to take them off.

“I’ll get you some sweats, take those off.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because! Come on, man, how can you even- never mind, you can sleep standing up in line at the cafeteria; but come on, you’re home in your own room, put some pajamas on!”

“Too tired,” Shouta grumbled. “Not moving.”

“Shouta, seriously!” Hizashi wheedled.

Shouta flopped onto his back. “I’m not moving. If you wanna take them off me, go ahead. Otherwise, let me sleep.”

“You- what- but-” Hizashi stammered before huffing a frustrated breath. “Ok, fine then.” Shouta wondered if Hizashi was actually more tired than he let on, it almost sounded like his voice was shaking.

It wasn’t until he felt Hizashi’s hands on the button and zip of his pants that Shouta realized that there was a very big difference between having his pants off around his friends (which was something that happened all the time) and Hizashi taking his pants off, which was something that had happened only in Shouta’s dreams - both sleeping and awake.

Panic spiked through him as he quickly pushed Hizashi’s hands away. “Ok, ok!” he snapped, hoping he sounded more irritated than alarmed. “Grab some pajamas from the bottom drawer.” Shouta pushed his pants down over his hips while Hizashi got up and rummaged through his drawer, tossing a pair of soft flannel pajamas at his face. Shouta quickly pulled them on and tossed his pants to the corner of the room. “Happy now?” he huffed as Hizashi laid back down next to him.

“I…”

When it became clear Hizashi wasn’t going to finish that thought, Shouta turned on his side, his back to Hizashi, and curled up, just wanting to finally get some sleep. Exhaustion pulled at him, and his eyes closed, and he let himself relax…

And the image of Oboro, buried in rubble, covered in blood, pressed its way into his mind’s eye.

He took a deep breath, eyes snapping open, trying to banish the vision before letting his eyelids fall shut again.

There was so much blood. Oboro had been so still beneath his fingers when Shouta had fumbled at his neck to try and find a pulse. He could almost feel it now. His fingers twitched and he clenched his fist, trying to command the phantom sensations to dissipate.

He took another breath. He just needed to keep breathing.

A warm hand came to rest on his shoulder. He felt Hizashi shift closer on the futon behind him, till there was hardly any space between them.

“Is this ok?” Hizashi whispered, his voice thin and wet in the darkness as he sniffled. Shouta nodded. The point of contact was a relief, something solid that proved that he was here and not there. Oboro was alive. In the hospital, in danger, but alive.

He shifted himself back, only slightly. Only just so that his back came to rest against Hizashi’s chest, so that he could feel Hizashi’s heart beating. Hizashi slid his hand from Shouta’s shoulder so that it came to rest on his chest, over his heart. He knew that Hizashi needed the same thing as he did right now.

“Still ok?” Hizashi asked, his voice smaller even though he was closer to Shouta now. Shouta nodded again and moved his own arm to hold Hizashi’s firmly against himself.

They were here. They were alive.

Shouta finally fell asleep.

Chapter Text

When Hizashi first woke up in a darkened room, his head aching and his arms and shoulders sore, it took him a moment to remember where he was and why he was holding on so tightly to Shouta.

Then the memories crashed over him.

He took a deep, hitching breath and buried his face in the tangled mess of Shouta’s hair for a moment before he half turned to grope behind himself for his phone, checking for any updates on Oboro. He tried not to be disappointed that there were none, reminding himself that at four am, there was still probably nothing new to know anyway. He closed his eyes, pulled Shouta close against his chest again, and fell back to sleep.

The next time Hizashi woke up, it was to Shouta gently shaking him.

“Come on, Dad made breakfast,” Shouta said, his voice rough and tired. Hizashi had never seen Shouta’s eyes as bloodshot as they were right now; but rubbing his own gritty eyes reminded him that he might not look much better.

The four of them sat at the Aizawa’s table, both Shouta and Hizashi pushing their food around more than eating it. Hizashi felt bad; but after choking down a few bites, he couldn’t make himself try to eat more. He was glad Mrs. Aizawa had only put a little on his plate to start with.

“Tell us what happened,” Mrs. Aizawa said when it was clear that Shouta wasn’t going to eat any more. She was calm and collected, without the nervous energy that buzzed around Mr. Aizawa as he cleared the dishes, cleaned up the leftovers, and wiped down the table and counter. He paused to ruffle Shouta’s hair and clap a hand on Hizashi’s shoulder whenever his meandering path took him in range to do so.

Shouta did most of the talking, since Hizashi hadn’t been there to see what had actually happened. It tore Hizashi up all over again, knowing that Shouta had been forced to do it all on his own… and it stoked something proud inside him that Shouta had done it all on his own.

Oboro’s phantom voice notwithstanding.

Shouta didn’t mention that part to his parents, though.

After the Aizawas were satisfied with the recounting of events, Shouta and Hizashi went back into Shouta’s room, where Hizashi opened Shouta’s desk drawer to grab the pack of cards he knew was in there. They sat down on the floor across from each other while Hizashi started mindlessly shuffling the deck.

Something was still nagging at the back of his brain… another detail that Shouta hadn’t mentioned as he recounted things to his parents. A detail Hizashi wasn’t sure he wanted to ask about.

Scratch that, he was sure he didn’t want to ask about it, for his own sake and for the sake of not making Shouta think about it…

But he had to know.

“Hey…” He hesitated as Shouta looked up at him; but the voice in the back of his head wouldn’t shut up until he asked. “I know everything with the fight was really chaotic, but…” he bit his lip and put down the cards, picking at his nails.

There was no blood there, definitely no blood…

“What?” Shouta prompted, letting Hizashi know he’d been quiet for too long.

“The villain, Garvey- he was so big, and I knew it would take a lot to take him down, so I didn’t hold back when I blasted him with my Quirk, but I had no idea what he could do - absorbing our attacks I mean,” Hizashi babbled, and shit, the words just kept falling out of him, he shouldn’t have said anything, “So I know he got one of mine and he was able to take that energy and use it against- I mean, did he- the building- Shirakumo-”

“Zashi!”

Hizashi’s mouth snapped shut. Shouta took a slow breath, but didn’t say anything, looking down at the now-healed wound on his arm.

Hizashi knew he was asking for too much, but… “Please,” he finally whispered. “I need to know.”

Shouta was calm. Cool. Methodical as he spoke. “Garvey used your Quirk to blast His Purple Highness into the wall. It did some damage. It wasn’t until he used Sensoji’s Blast, along with some others, that the collapse happened.” Hizashi closed his eyes, but Shouta wasn’t done talking. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault. We all chose the best course of action at the time, given the information we had.”

Nausea rolled through Hizashi. He was partially responsible. Though he knew it could have been worse, here it was, all laid out that his Quirk had contributed to what happened to Oboro. It would be easy to try and blame Sensoji and let himself off the hook, but he felt like he deserved to stew in his guilt for the role he’d played in Oboro’s fate… until Shouta’s voice wavered.

“Right?” Shouta asked. “We did the right thing?”

Shit.

Shit, if Hizashi was second-guessing himself, how bad must it be for Aizawa ‘King of Overthinking’ Shouta? Fuck, he and Oboro had just helped Shouta to dig himself out of that hole, and Hizashi didn’t think he could manage it again, especially if Oboro wasn’t… wasn’t fully recovered enough to help.

“You’re right, we did. I mean, what was I gonna do, stand there and watch the guy go on a rampage? I know that I was doing my part, and what he did with my Quirk wasn’t my fault… Sorry I asked, it’s just that not knowing was gonna eat me alive, so thanks for telling me.” A humorless smile pulled on the corner of his mouth. “I know it’s irrational-”

“It is,” Shouta said quietly, “But… I get it.”

Before Hizashi could think of anything else to say, his phone pinged and he scrambled to check it. Unfortunately, instead of news on Oboro, it was just another message from his parents. The frequency of their texts had been increasing as the morning had worn on into the afternoon, and he knew he couldn’t put them off much longer. He sighed, resigning himself to finally seeing what they had to say.

It wasn’t exactly surprising.

“They want me to come home,” he said sullenly as he read over their texts. Shouta only nodded slowly. Hizashi was about to put his phone down, unable to bring himself to respond to them, when a new alert pinged in.

From Mrs. Shirakumo.

Hizashi sucked in a breath, his heart in his throat as he opened the message. It was a long one, and he summarized it for Shouta, who was looking at him rather than at his own phone where the text was waiting for him as well.

“He’s still stable after Recovery Girl’s treatment,” Hizashi read, sighing with relief as he did so, “So that’s a good thing. She’s gonna keep using her Quirk to help him every day or two, when it’s safe to. He’s still unconscious, no visitors allowed yet.”

Shouta closed his eyes and nodded, heaving a deep breath. Hizashi watched the tension drain out of him; but instead of looking relaxed, he looked more like a puppet whose strings had been cut. After a beat, he lifted his head slowly and blinked at Hizashi. He looked like he wanted to say something, but finally just pulled his knees to his chest and folded his arms on top of them, resting his cheek there and closing his eyes again.

“You should call your parents,” Shouta said quietly, eyes still closed.

Hizashi sighed, but knew Shouta was right. He called his dad, who answered on the first ring.

“Hey, kiddo! Are you ok? How’s Aizawa?”

“I’m fine, Dad,” Hizashi grumbled.

“Do a video call,” Mom’s voice came from the background. Hizashi heard them shuffling around and the call disconnected. The screen had barely cleared when the incoming video call popped up. Hizashi glowered at it.

“Just answer it,” Shouta said softly, shifting to sit close beside Hizashi. “They probably need to hear the whole thing too.”

Hizashi gave him a worried look. “Are you sure, man? You’ve already been talking about it all day.”

“It’ll be fine.”

Frowning, Hizashi accepted the call as Shouta leaned in to him a little more.

The conversation went… fine. Shouta again told most of the story as Mom and Dad crowded close together on the screen to peer nervously at them. As much as he’d rather not have to have this conversation at all, Hizashi knew it was inevitable, and was glad to be able to do it over the phone. He didn’t think he could face the overwhelming emotions from his parents in person, not when he was barely hanging on to his own composure by a thread.

By the end of the call, his parents had agreed that he could stay with Shouta for the rest of the afternoon, but that he had to come home before dinner time. He didn’t have the energy to argue with them. As the hours slipped past, Hizashi felt the dread starting to curl in his gut.

“I don’t wanna deal with them,” Hizashi groaned, flopped out on Shouta’s futon while Shouta sat next to him, leaning back against the wall. “You go instead.”

“You’re being irrational. You’re not in trouble, they just want to see you in person,” Shouta said, his gaze sliding off to the side away from Hizashi. “It’ll probably make them feel better.”

“Won’t help me feel better,” Hizashi muttered.

After a long pause, Shouta asked, “What would help you feel better?”

“Shirakumo being fine.” Hizashi said it without thinking, and he only realized it came out sharper than he meant it when he saw the way Shouta flinched. He kicked himself, hurrying to explain, “I just mean, they don’t really get it, ya know? They weren’t there, they didn’t see-” he cut himself off, not wanting to summon the images.

“I get it.” Shouta’s voice was so quiet that Hizashi could barely hear it.

“Wish you could come with me,” Hizashi mumbled. Shouta looked down at him.

“Could I?” Shouta asked quickly, and Hizashi swore he heard an edge of desperation in his voice before his mouth twisted into a frown. “No, I probably can’t, your parents would-”

“My parents only said I needed to come home,” Hizashi said, scrambling to sit up, latching onto a pale ray of hope. “I just figured you would rather stay home, or your parents wouldn’t want you to leave.”

“I- I mean, you’re borrowing my clothes right now,” Shouta pointed out, ducking his head so his hair fell forward to obscure his face, “It would be more efficient if I went with you and stayed overnight, and then I could just bring the clothes back in my own bag rather than figuring out how to return them.”

“Yeah,” Hizashi said slowly. “That would be a very rational plan. Let me check with my parents, you check with yours?”

And that was how, on Saturday night, Hizashi and Shouta wound up curled together on Hizashi’s bed. This time, it was Shouta who had pulled Hizashi back against his chest as the pair of them drifted off into fitful sleep.

Without the profound exhaustion that had overwhelmed him the night before, Hizashi found himself waking up several times during the night. Dreams of blood and destruction flitted away to hide in the corners of his mind like ghosts in the dark when he felt the warmth of Shouta at his back, the weight of his arm draped over him.

There were times that Shouta woke him, twisting or thrashing in his sleep until Hizashi shook him out of his nightmare. Once, he was awoken when Shouta pulled him over onto his back, leaning over to stare down at him, eyes wild as they flicked over his face, searching for whatever nightmare image Shouta’s brain had foisted upon him.

Even with all the interruptions, Hizashi knew without a doubt that he’d still slept better than if Shouta hadn’t been there. They both wound up sleeping late into the morning, when the sunlight outside the window seemed to help keep the nightmares at bay.

Sunday evening, Shouta had to go home. They did have school the next day, after all.

Hizashi wasn’t sure how he was supposed to deal with that.

His more immediate problem, though, was getting to sleep. Maybe it was the fact that he’d already slept more in the past two days than he normally did in an entire school week; but even though he was still feeling wiped out, he just couldn’t fall asleep.

He tossed and turned. He put his music on to try and keep the silence from getting too thick around him. He breathed. He turned his face down into the pillow and let himself cry as images crowded into his brain in an unrelenting procession of blood and fear, the evidence absorbed and then flipped to face the mattress once he’d calmed down.

He supposed he must have drifted off at some point, because the ringing of his phone suddenly woke him. The incoming video call from Shouta lit up the screen, and he accepted it without pausing to think.

“Zashi?” Shouta was nearly invisible in the dark of his room, illuminated only by the glow of his phone over the video.

“‘M here,” Hizashi mumbled. “‘S there news about Kumo?”

“Huh? Oh, no,” Shouta said, suddenly sounding embarrassed. “I just- I shouldn’t have called.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I had a nightmare,” he mumbled. “And when I woke up and you weren’t here, I- Sorry, it was stupid.”

“S’not stupid,” Hizashi said. “I’m here. Go back to sleep.”

“Ok. Night,” Shouta said, moving to end the call.

“Do- uh, would you wanna maybe keep the call on?” The words came out of him a little too fast, a little too needy, and Hizashi hoped Shouta wouldn’t notice. “Just, ya know, so if you wake up again, I’m here?”

“You don’t need to-”

“No, I know,” Hizashi said. “I just- It seems more efficient, that’s all.” Shouta didn’t need to know how badly Hizashi was sleeping too, he had enough to deal with.

Shouta paused for a beat. “Yeah. Ok. Good idea. Night.”

“Night.” Hizashi fell asleep pretty quickly after that, in the dim glow of the phone propped up next to him.

*

The next few days passed in a blur. Hizashi did his best to focus on lessons, but he was always tired or distracted. Not so distracted that he didn’t notice that Sensei was keeping a close eye on him and Shouta, especially during practical exercises, though.

Hizashi also noticed that those exercises were currently focused more on rescue and less on battle.

It wasn’t as if they hadn’t done plenty of rescue training before, it was kiiiiinda an important part of hero work; but for once, nobody seemed to be trying to play catch with the heavy rescue dummies.

At lunch, he and Shouta couldn’t bring themselves to go up to the roof. They sat in a corner of the cafeteria, where Kobayashi immediately homed in on them, sitting down on the other side of Hizashi without a word. Nakano and Mushimori came over shortly thereafter, sitting across from them. Hizashi spotted Kayama sitting with a cluster of her own classmates.

For a moment, it looked like Iida might come over to join them; but though he smiled and nodded in their direction, he didn’t approach. Hizashi wasn’t sure if he was more irked on Shouta’s behalf that his friend wasn’t offering support, or relieved for himself to not have to deal with Mr. Perfect right now.

He wasn’t sure what had gotten under his skin about Iida. He was a genuinely good guy. All Hizashi knew was that, right now, he didn’t wanna be around him.

Class and training and working on his webcast kept Hizashi busy enough during the day; but nighttime was something else. He had always seemed to need less sleep than his peers; but he did need more than he was getting. Monday night was another restless one, unable to fall asleep. He texted Shouta, half to see if he was also awake, and half because he wanted reassurance that he was alive and well.

He sent a text to Oboro too, telling him he missed him and that he’d better heal up soon.

Neither of them texted back.

Hizashi didn’t get much sleep.

On Tuesday afternoon, Oboro’s mom texted to let them know that the doctors said that Oboro was showing signs of improvement; but he still wasn’t awake. They said it wasn’t a bad thing, that Oboro’s brain was still doing the important work of healing while he was unconscious.

Hizashi believed them, but it didn’t do much to put him at ease.

Tuesday night, Hizashi was finally able to fall asleep, but was plagued by dreams of blue hair stained red, a smiling face mangled by concrete, a giant lumbering forward to crush everything that mattered under its feet as it screamed with Hizashi’s voice. Every time he woke drenched in sweat, he’d bite his lip and try to calm his pounding heart; but as soon as he fell back to sleep, it started all over again.

By 4 am, he gave up and started working on his webcast script for next week.

He thought about calling Shouta, but he didn’t want to risk waking him. Every day, the dark circles under his eyes had been looking worse, and it worried Hizashi.

On the way home from school on Wednesday, as the train pulled into Hizashi’s stop, Shouta silently stood and followed Hizashi off. Confused, but relieved that it seemed like he wouldn’t be alone for at least a little while, Hizashi asked, “What’s up? You wanna review the English lesson?” Shouta always had a reason if he went over Hizashi’s house during the school week.

“I…” Shouta kept staring down at the ground as they walked. “Can I sleep over?”

Hizashi wanted to drop his bag and hug Shouta right then and there, gods, he did not want to face another night like the past few on his own. But… “On a school night?” He didn’t want to get his hopes up just to have it all go to shit.

“Does it make a difference?” Shouta mumbled.

“No, no! It’s fine by me,” Hizashi said quickly, “I just mean, are your parents ok with it? And don’t you need a change of clothes or whatever?”

“I’ve got my things,” Shouta said quietly.

Hizashi blinked. “You brought your stuff to school?”

Shouta was quiet as they continued down the road. “I’m not sleeping well,” he finally admitted.

Hizashi blew out a heavy breath. “Yeah, me neither.”

By the time they were laying down in his bed that night, Hizashi could already tell that he was less anxious than he’d been the past few nights. Despite the fact that they both woke up a few times overnight, Hizashi woke up in the morning feeling more rested than he had in days.

They took the train together Thursday morning, and Hizashi was at least mostly able to pay attention in class, especially after lunch when he and Shouta got a text from Oboro’s mom saying he was showing even more signs of improvement.

They still didn’t eat lunch on the roof, though.

That night, Shouta didn’t sleep over, and Hizashi struggled with the dreams again.

Friday afternoon, both of their phones vibrated with an incoming text right before class was dismissed for the day.

“Shirakumo’s mom said that we should call her,” Shouta read aloud as the classroom was emptying around them. Hizashi saw the way Nakano and Kobayashi’s heads perked up to look over at Shouta. A quick murmur went through the remaining students, and a handful of their classmates stopped packing up, hanging back to see if there was any news. Hizashi just nodded at Shouta.

Shouta looked nervous as he placed the call, holding the phone tightly to his ear. Hizashi wished he’d put it on speaker; but if it was bad news, he didn’t want everyone just… hearing. Shouta didn’t say much when the call connected, and Hizashi couldn’t hear more than a vague buzz of the voice on the other end of the line. When Shouta sagged back down into his seat, his expression indecipherable and arm going slack, Hizashi immediately snatched the phone out of his hand.

“Heya Mrs. S,” he said, “It’s me.”

“Oh good, Yamada!” she said, her voice far too cheerful for it to be bad news. He hoped. “I was hoping you two would be together.”

“We’re still in the classroom, there’s a bunch of Shirakumo’s friends here too,” Hizashi said.

“Maybe you should just put me on speaker,” she said, and he could hear the laughter in her voice.

He did so and put the phone down on Shouta’s desk. “You’re on speaker now, Mrs. S.”

“Oboro’s awake!” she said, and Hizashi saw Shouta duck his head down, his hair falling in front of his face. There was a burst of cheers from Mushimori and Kobayashi, while Shimada hugged Nakano.

“He’s going to be out of the ICU soon,” she continued, “And he’s been asking to see you two.”

“Can we? See him, I mean?” Hizashi asked.

“Not the whole class,” she chuckled, apparently able to hear the commotion well enough, “But you and Aizawa can come by this afternoon.”

“We’ll be there!”

“See you soon, boys.”

She ended the call and Hizashi handed the phone back to Shouta, who took it slowly and slipped it back into his pocket. Kobayashi practically vaulted over the desks to wrap Hizashi up in a tight hug, then reached over and ruffled Shouta’s hair.

“Tell him that we miss his stupid face and that he better heal up fast,” she said, grinning widely.

“Will do,” Hizashi laughed. Shouta was finally up and moving again, and the group of them all exited the classroom together, chatting excitedly.

“We need to tell Kayama,” Shouta said, pulling his phone out again.

“Oh shit, good call!” Hizashi said, slapping himself in the forehead. Shouta was already putting his phone away, though, and Hizashi realized, “Did you just text her?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh my god, dude,” Hizashi laughed, having a good idea what was coming even before he heard the shriek come from down the long hallway where the third-year classrooms were.

“Aizawa Shouta, you better explain this!” Kayama came sprinting down the hallway. The rest of their classmates scattered with the sound of upbeat giggles that had been missing for nearly a week.

“What more can I explain? That’s all the information we have,” Shouta said as Kayama skidded to a stop, hands on her hips and glaring at him.

“His mom just called,” Hizashi said. “He’s awake but he can’t have a lot of visitors yet. I think me and Aizawa are the only ones with permission. We’re gonna head over to the hospital now.”

Kayama took a deep breath and blew it out, fluttering her bangs gently. “Ok fine. But I’m going with you. I’ll wait outside the room.”

Shouta cocked his head in confusion, and for a moment, Hizashi thought he was going to point out how irrational that would be. Then he blinked, nodded, and the three of them made their way off campus and to the train station.

They chatted for part of the way, and were quiet at times; but every few minutes, one of them would simply say, “He’s awake.”

Hizashi fiddled with the strap of his bag.

At the hospital, Hizashi and Shouta were directed to the third floor. Kayama agreed to wait downstairs and watch their bags, though she had a stern frown on her face as she sent them on their way.

Hizashi bounced on his toes as the elevator doors closed. He was elated to be getting to see Oboro; but as the floors ticked past and they got closer to their friend, a nervous twisting in his chest and stomach began. The last time he’d seen Oboro, he’d looked… bad. Hizashi knew there was no way he’d ever be exactly the same as he was before, but… how bad was it gonna be?

The ding of the elevator interrupted his spiral. Stepping out onto the floor, catching only a passing glance from a harried looking nurse, they looked around for which way to go. “3033, 3033,” Hizashi muttered to himself, repeating the room number over and over as they walked in the direction the signs pointed, “3033…”

Halfway down the hall, a tiny figure stepped out from behind a nurse’s station.

“Ohohoho, look who it is,” Recovery Girl said with a cheeky grin that Hizashi felt himself mirroring. It was a relief to see her here and smiling, a reminder that Oboro’s recuperation was being sped along as much as possible. “Here to see Athos, eh? Walk with me.”

Hizashi and Shouta shared a glance as Recovery Girl started shuffling forward at a painfully slow pace. It’s not that they were in a hurry, but they really wanted to see Oboro! Still, they both knew better than to piss off the school nurse.

“Before I let you in there, there’s a few things you need to know,” she said as they inched their way along. Though her tone was as genial as usual, there was a hard edge to it that Hizashi knew meant he better pay attention. “First of all, you’re not to stay long. He needs to rest, so no more than a few minutes.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Hizashi said. “No problemo.”

“Secondly,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at Shouta, “He doesn’t remember what happened. He may never remember it. Don’t try to talk to him about it, at least not yet. If he asks, which he probably won’t, let him know that you’ll tell him all about it when he’s doing better.”

“Ok,” Shouta said.

“Thirdly, and most importantly, he is still not recovered. He is awake, and he keeps asking for you two, so we’re willing to see how this little meeting goes; but brace yourselves for him to not be back to himself. Most of his memories and thought processes aren’t working quite right, and that is to be expected. The fact that he’s improved this much this fast is a minor miracle unto itself, but he still has a lot of healing to do.”

“Thank you again for doing so much to help him, RG,” Hizashi said.

Recovery Girl hummed, then stopped in her tracks and turned to look at them. “He shouldn’t be alive, you know,” she said. Hizashi swallowed around the nauseous feeling that came up with the reminder of how close they’d come to losing Oboro. “The pictures I saw of the scene… that collapse should have killed him. The only thing I can think of was that he managed to use his Quirk to protect himself just enough at the last moment. Without that, I fear no amount of medical attention would have saved him.”

She turned to shuffle the last few steps down the hall until they stood outside room 3033, looking up at the door. “He saved himself. You boys need to trust that he’ll continue to come the rest of the way through this.”

Hizashi nodded at her, biting his lip as she knocked gently on the door, cracking it open a bit. “The boys are here,” she said to Oboro’s mom, “Why don’t you come take a walk with me, I’d like a cup of tea.”

Hizashi and Shouta stepped into the room while Mrs. Shirakumo left, giving them a nod and a smile as she moved past them. Hizashi’s eyes were drawn directly to the bed over by the big window on the other side of the room. The head of it was raised so that the occupant was sitting mostly upright, his face turned to gaze out the window.

Making his way across the room on shaky legs, Hizashi took a breath to steady himself. “Hey buddy, how ya feeling?” he asked, mindful to keep his voice low. Oboro turned to look at them, and Hizashi’s heart clenched in his chest.

Almost the entire right half of Shirakumo’s face was covered in bandages, the dressings wrapping entirely around his head from his eyebrows to his hairline and dipping down to cover his right eye and cheek. Half of his hair, still tinged pink with the last stains of blood, stood up from the left side of his head, while more bandages covered all of the right. Hizashi knew it made sense that they’d had to shave that part of his head, but seeing it like this was jarring.

He also had some exposed stitches that extended further down, beyond the borders of the gauze. A trail of black thread, tracing a line down his cheek, over both of his lips near the corner of his mouth, and then down his chin…

And he wasn’t smiling.

It would probably hurt him to smile.

Hizashi plastered a grin on to his own face, reminding himself that his friend was alive and that he was still healing and he had a long way to go and-

“Have you… seen my friends?” Shirakumo asked slowly, and Hizashi blinked away tears, because until that moment he hadn’t realized just how badly he’d needed to hear that voice again. It was flat, lacking the emotion and energy that belonged in it; but it was Shirakumo. “I need to tell them…” he trailed off, losing focus.

Next to Hizashi, Shouta made a quiet strangled noise, and Hizashi reached over to grab his forearm, squeezing firmly.

“It’s us,” Hizashi said gently, making himself think again about everything Recovery Girl had said.

“Oh.” Shirakumo paused for a beat. “I need to tell you…” he trailed off again, eyes drifting away from them to look at the wall; as if he'd wandered into his own head and forgotten the outside world existed.

“You’ve got plenty of time to tell us all sorts of things, dude. No rush,” Hizashi tried to reassure him with a smile.

“I’ve still got their back,” Oboro said, still staring at the wall. “Tell them I still…” Hizashi’s breath caught in his chest.

‘We gotta have each other’s backs, so we all gotta keep ourselves alive to do that, right?’

The conversation in his bedroom felt like years ago - how had it only been a little more than two weeks?

“We know,” Shouta rasped out. “We’ve still got yours too.”

Oboro blinked and focused on them again. “You seem nice,” he said in that same slow, flat voice. “I bet you’d like my friends. They’re the best.” He tipped his head ever so slightly, as if remembering something. Hizashi held his breath. “They’re stupid, too.”

Hizashi clapped his hand over his mouth to smother the hysterical giggles that erupted out of him. “Yeah,” he said when he’d calmed down, “That’s fair to say.”

“Kayama says hi,” Shouta said. “So do Kobayashi and Nakano and the rest of the class. They miss you.”

“Kayama…” Oboro murmured. It didn’t seem like recognition, more like a hazy repetition of what Shouta had said, but it was still something.

“Hey,” Hizashi said, as an idea struck him, “Would it be ok if we took a picture together? Just a quick one.”

Oboro tipped his head again, neither agreeing nor arguing, but Hizashi took it as permission enough. He wasn’t sure why he wanted the picture, maybe just as proof that Oboro really had come this far already? But he knew he wanted it.

“C’mon, dude, get in here,” Hizashi said, tugging Shouta along as they walked around to the window side of the bed where Oboro had started gazing outside again. It wasn’t much of a view, just the parking lot, but Oboro wasn’t complaining. Hizashi lined up the selfie as best he could, smiling widely while Shouta gave his usual deadpan expression and Oboro stared with his one unbandaged eye out into the distance.

After snapping a few shots in rapid succession to try and make sure at least one of them came out good, he scrolled through to the one that had come out the best - not blurry and nobody blinking.

“Not too bad, huh?” Hizashi said, showing Oboro.

“That’s Shouta and Hizashi,” Oboro said as he looked down at the picture, “Do you know them? They’re my friends.” Hizashi swallowed hard around the lump in his throat and reminded himself that Oboro had almost died, that it was a miracle he was alive and talking and remembered their names at all.

“Here, I’ll send the picture to you,” Hizashi said, putting it in the group chat that he and Shouta shared with Oboro. “When you’re feeling better, you’ll have it right there, ok?”

“Ok,” Oboro said, going back to staring out the window.

A knock on the door alerted them that Recovery Girl and Mrs. Shirakumo had returned, so Hizashi and Shouta muttered their goodbyes to Oboro, who didn’t say anything back.

“You should sleep over my place tonight,” Shouta said as they made their way down to the main lobby where Kayama was waiting. “It’s closer to the hospital, it’s a very rational decision.”

“Yeah,” Hizashi whispered, thinking of how Oboro was there but not, “The most rational.”

~*~

Just like the previous week, Hizashi’s impromptu sleepover on Friday night meant that he had to borrow some of Shouta’s clothes to wear, so obviously it only made sense for Shouta to sleep over Hizashi’s house on Saturday night.

Shouta had felt a little bad about making Hizashi be the one to tell Kayama about Oboro; after all, Shouta was the other work study student with Purple Revolution, he should be the one to handle that conversation…

But he couldn’t handle it. Not after seeing Oboro… like that.

Hizashi kept reminding him about what Recovery Girl had said; how far Oboro had come so fast. But all Shouta could see were the stitches and scars and bloody flashbacks of a body buried in rubble.

Shirakumo had almost died.

It wasn’t a near miss, like dodging a bullet. It wasn’t even like in the final exam, where Hizashi had been burned by a laser that had been tuned down to be not-actually-lethal, if the teachers were to be believed.

This was real. This was what life-or-death looked like.

He pulled up the selfie that Hizashi had sent from the hospital.

This was what lifelong consequences looked like.

Even if Oboro managed to fully recover, mentally and physically, there was no changing the fact that his face was clearly going to be permanently scarred.

His smile would never be the same.

Shouta knew what he had to do.

Starting Monday, he renewed his permission for extra training after school. Hizashi came, even without Shouta mentioning it, though he sat on the sidelines and watched, doing his homework instead of doing target practice with Shouta.

That was fine, Shouta had other things he needed to focus on.

He needed to be stronger. He needed to be faster.

If he could stop a villain sooner, then they had less time to do damage, less opportunity to hurt people.

Now that he knew he could do it, even against the wildest of odds, he needed to make sure that he could do it effectively, efficiently, and dependably.

As he hauled himself up a long strand of his capture weapon secured up at the ceiling, his arms and hands protesting the strain, he held on to the knowledge that this was how he’d always be able to have his friends’ backs.

*

It was three more weeks from that first visit to Oboro in the hospital, four weeks from the day he was injured, when Sensei announced to the class that Shirakumo was well enough to have visitors.

Shouta and Hizashi had been visiting Oboro once a week, with his parent’s permission. Last week, Kayama had been allowed to join them too. The improvements had been noticeable each time, though never fast enough for Shouta’s comfort.

Oboro’s face and voice were still nearly emotionless.

Last week, Shouta had seen a hint of a smile when Hizashi had cracked a stupid joke… and it had somehow made Shouta feel worse. It was a pale ghost of the expression that Oboro usually wore, a reminder of something that was missing.

It made Shouta wonder if, when his friend was truly back - as much himself again as he ever would be - if he would be able to cope with the limitations that his injury had left him with.

Because right now, he still had so many limitations.

Oboro could barely hold objects with his hands. He couldn’t feed himself. He wasn’t able to walk on his own, and the gods only knew if he’d still be able to use his Quirk.

And he couldn’t seem to smile.

Since they’d started at UA together, Shouta had watched Oboro face every challenge with a positive attitude - to a degree that had sometimes been downright irritating, if Shouta was honest about it. But this injury had seemingly stolen away all that good humor and cheer, leaving him impassive whenever they saw him.

Shouta was afraid that losing that positivity would make the recovery from this injury too much for him. He wasn’t sure he could bear to watch Oboro crumple and fall apart; and he was sure that he couldn’t watch it happen in front of their classmates. What if seeing everyone wound up being too much for Oboro? What if it was just a reminder of a dream he might no longer be able to achieve?

So when most of the class was chattering excitedly about all going to see him together after school, Shouta desperately wanted to make an excuse to not go with them; but he felt like he needed to. He needed to make sure that Oboro was ok.

“You comin?” Hizashi asked, shouldering his bag and heading out the door with the crowd.

“I’ll be right there,” Shouta replied, texting Kayama to let her know what was going on. She messaged back saying she’d be stopping by to see Oboro later that evening. Throwing the last of his stuff into his bag, he grabbed it and took off after the others.

“Lookie who’s gracing us with his presence!” Kobayashi cheered as Shouta caught up to everyone, bumping into him playfully. “Ow! When did you stop being a string bean and start bulking up?” she asked, rubbing her shoulder even though there was no rational way for her to actually have been hurt, given the force with which she bumped him.

“Dude has been training hardcore for weeks,” Hizashi said, blushing a little. Shouta wondered if he was feeling embarrassed that he hadn’t been putting in enough work.

“Makin’ gains!” Ebisui teased, flexing her bicep at him.

“It’s mostly just extra calisthenics,” Shouta grumbled, hating when the attention of the group focused on him. He missed the way that Oboro had always managed to divert so much of it, along with Hizashi.

Of course, Hizashi was good at getting the attention all on himself even without Oboro’s help when he wanted to.

“Aaaanyhoo,” Hizashi said, trotting to the front of the group, then turning on his heel to walk backwards, facing everyone, “RG says that we still won’t have too much time to visit, especially being - what did she call us? An ‘ill-mannered horde of troublemakers,’ I believe is the quote,” he said with a flourish, causing most of the class to giggle. “We’re just going to show Shirakumo what he’s missing out on so he can hurry up and get his butt back in gear.”

There were more than a dozen of them crowded into the train car together, laughing and joking. Hizashi was standing towards the front of the car, once again facing everyone, while Shouta positioned himself behind him, doing his best to hide from as much of the interaction as he could.

He focused on the reassuring closeness of his friend. The warmth where his shoulder leaned - just a bit - against Hizashi’s back. The smell of the shampoo and whatever strange product Hizashi put in his hair to style it. His eyes were drawn to trace the line of Hizashi’s neck, studying the fine, pale hairs that sprouted at his nape.

The urge to dip his head and kiss that delicate skin welled up inside him, and he quickly looked away.

As he did, Shimada caught his eye from across the train, and she tipped her head and gave him a knowing look. Suddenly, he was acutely conscious of the whole mess of complicated feelings and desires inside of him for the friend he was currently leaning against in the crowded train car.

He had been sleeping in the same room, the same bed, as Hizashi for almost half the nights out of the week lately. With all the terror and worry and upheaval around Oboro, those nights had simply been about making the terror less overwhelming. They both slept better and calmed down more easily after their nightmares when the other was nearby.

But Oboro was getting better. The nightmares were starting to come less frequently. And Shouta felt the irrational urge to keep up the habit of sharing a bed with Hizashi as long as he could.

He was feeling other irrational urges too. Like wanting to reach out and take Hizashi’s hand. Like wanting to press his lips to Hizashi’s neck. Like, on Wednesday night when they had been curled up on Hizashi’s bed, wanting to pull him close and kiss him on the lips.

He thought about his conversation with Tensei, which felt like it was a million years ago. About waiting for the feelings to fade. He thought about how his feelings for Tensei had changed and faded, so that now they were good friends.

He didn’t understand why his feelings for Hizashi weren’t fading. Why they just kept getting stronger. Why they kept pushing him to want more irrational things.

Shouta sighed with relief when the train reached their stop and they all filed out. Oboro had been moved a few days ago to a different room in a different area of the hospital, since he now needed less assistance than he previously had. The receptionist at the desk when Hadachi asked for directions gave the mob of teenagers a look, but pointed them where they needed to go.

At some point as they made their way through the halls of the hospital, Shouta found himself at the front of the group with Hizashi. He wasn’t sure if he’d pushed himself to the front, or if the others had fallen back.

Stopping in front of the door of Oboro’s room, Hizashi stepped forward to knock. Shouta braced himself for the deadpan response.

“Come in!” called a cheerful voice that Shouta had feared he’d never truly hear again. Hizashi opened the door and Shouta pushed past him to stride into the room before freezing in place after only a few steps.

Oboro was smiling.

He was sitting up and smiling as his classmates poured into the room, flowing around Shouta where he stood like a rock in the middle of a river. Everyone was chattering all at once, but all Shouta could do was stare.

The stitches on the lower half of Oboro’s face had long since been removed; but now most of the bandages that had wrapped his head and face were finally gone too. There was a strip of bandage up near his hairline where his head was shaved, and a bit still wrapped higher up on top of his head, but his face was wholly visible for the first time.

He was… changed.

A deep scar ran all the way down the right side of his face; a bright red line that reshaped his smile into something twisted, pulling in a way that warped the whole side of it.

And… he was the same.

He was Oboro, in a way he hadn’t been since before the injury. His eyes sparkled with humor, and though his smile was twisted, it was still so blindingly brilliant.

“Hey everybody,” he greeted, “Please don’t be upset if I can’t remember you right now, I promise it’s the head trauma and not a secret grudge I’m holding,” he said with a chuckle.

“How are you feeling?” Kobayashi asked.

“Pretty weird, actually,” he said. “Not everything makes sense, but I know that seeing all of you makes me happy.”

“We miss you,” Nakano said. “Do you know when you’ll be getting out of here?”

“No idea,” he laughed. “I’m pretty sure that it’s not gonna happen before I can go take a piss by myself, though, so definitely not today.”

“Uhh, the doctors and nurses warned us that he might not have his normal filter in place, and he might say weird things,” Hizashi quickly reminded everyone. Fortunately the girls weren’t looking too scandalized.

“It’s strange to think that he had a filter on before,” Hadachi said, but the way she was smiling took any potential sting out of the comment. Oboro laughed again.

“I made this for you,” Shimada said, putting an origami animal down on the tray table next to Oboro’s bed. Shouta stepped close to look at it.

“It’s a dog,” Hizashi said, grinning at Shimada.

“It’s a Samoyed,” Shouta corrected, awed at the level of detail that Shimada had managed to shape into her paper creation. “How did you do that?” Shimada shrugged and ducked her head shyly.

Oboro leaned in to get a better look. “It’s me,” he said with a smile, “Thank you.” He turned to look at Shimada. “I better not try and pick it up, though. My hands still don’t wanna do exactly what I tell them, and I don’t wanna squash it.”

He just… kept smiling. As he talked about every roadblock and struggle that he still faced. Every thing he couldn’t do. He just smiled. Even without a filter, even without his ability to fully regulate himself and his emotions… even without knowing if he’d ever be able to use his Quirk again.

Oboro just kept smiling.

Shouta couldn’t have stopped the way the corners of his mouth pulled up, not even if he’d tried.

Chapter Text

The cafeteria was loud and chaotic as Hizashi slid into the seat next to Shouta, his tray laden with an extra helping of rice and a bowl of soup he had no intention of eating, not when he also had a plate full of karaage to gorge himself on.

Of course, there was a pair of apples in his bag too, but he’d take those out later.

He eyed Shouta’s lunch bag warily, then groaned as Shouta pulled out one of those jelly pouches he’d started bringing instead of real food. In the time it took Hizashi to lift a piece of chicken to his mouth and start to chew, Shouta’s ‘lunch’ was already almost fully consumed.

“I can’t believe you try and pretend that is a meal,” Hizashi groused as he swallowed his food.

Shouta put aside the empty, crumpled pouch and raised an eyebrow at Hizashi. “They’re good,” he said, then paused for a beat before adding, “Don’t be jelly.”

Hizashi froze for a moment as his brain tried to reconcile Shouta’s deadpan voice saying… that… before he burst out into raucous laughter, adding to the general din of the lunch room. A tiny, pleased, stupidly cute smile curled up the corners of Shouta’s mouth, and Hizashi felt his heart tap dancing in his chest.

“Oh my god, dude, shut up and have some rice, no way am I gonna finish it all.” Hizashi was still laughing as he shoved the extra bowl at Shouta, taking the opportunity to move the soup off his tray as well. Shouta rolled his eyes but started digging in anyway.

Hizashi had a problem.

Well, he’d had a problem for a while now, but it had taken a back seat when Oboro had gotten hurt. The worry and fear had pretty well drowned out the rest of Hizashi’s noisy emotions.

But now, Oboro was doing better, which was great news! He was doing physical therapy at the hospital, and he was getting stronger by the day. He was allowed to have his phone back - who knew that brain injuries meant that looking at screens was basically a no-go? (Well, apparently the doctors knew that, but Hizashi hadn't.) So now, Oboro could keep in touch with him and Shouta, mostly via video calls because his texting dexterity still sucked (though he occasionally sent them indecipherable messages followed by rows of emojis, just because he thought it was hilarious).

The thing was, though, as the worry about Oboro got quieter, all of Hizashi’s feelings for Shouta were getting louder again.

It didn’t help that, in all the places where Oboro had acted as a buffer, keeping some space between Hizashi and Shouta, it had been just the two of them for weeks.

They’d stopped sleeping over each other’s houses after Oboro had finally broken through that flat, vacant shell and began acting more like himself; but that still left all the hours at school, helping each other study, and of course training. It all added up, and without Oboro there to help crack jokes and make everything a little safer, it was all becoming way too much for Hizashi to defend himself against.

And then, just to make things even more dangerous, Shouta had started cracking jokes.

Well, it wasn’t like Shouta had never made jokes before. He’d just been out of sorts for so long, between what happened with Oboro and the funk he was in since last year’s disastrous final exam, that it had been a while since Hizashi had properly been treated to that dry, sarcastic humor. Now that Shouta seemed to be getting back to himself, though, it had been happening more and more, and he was cracking Hizashi up.

And every time Hizashi laughed at his jokes, Shouta got that same stupidly cute smile on his face, like he was proud of himself, and it filled Hizashi with this glorious fuzzy warmth…

It was killing him.

Because these feelings weren’t safe.

Every time Ebisui gave him a smile that was just a little tighter at the corners than it should be, he was reminded why it wasn’t safe.

*

“Hey sweetie,” Mom greeted Hizashi when he got home on a dreary Tuesday afternoon in late October. “How are you doing? It feels like it’s been forever since I’ve seen you.”

“Why are you home?” Hizashi asked, both to dodge her question and because he was genuinely surprised that she was here. Dad usually got home first.

“I just got in. I had a meeting away from the office today, and it ended late enough that going back would have been silly, so I told my boss I was heading home instead,” she said. “See, you asked a question, and then I answered it. That’s how conversations work,” she teased not-so-subtly.

“I’m doing fine,” Hizashi huffed, “Things are just busy since work studies started back up again.”

“That still makes me nervous,” Mom sighed.

“We’re fine, Mom,” Hizashi said, rolling his eyes. “They’ve taken like a thousand extra precautions since everything happened.” They really had, too. Pretty much all their classmates reported that they were spending a lot more time learning about paperwork and office responsibilities than going out in the field. Even when they did get to go on patrols, there was now tons of extra supervision.

“You’re all shaping up to be amazing heroes,” Mom said with a smile, “But it’s always gonna be my job to worry about you.”

“Maybe you should worry more about Dad,” Hizashi grumbled under his breath. Of course, she heard him anyway.

“Hizashi,” she said sternly, “I’ve told you, my relationship with your father is between him and I. It’s nothing you need to concern yourself with.”

“Yeah, ok, whatever,” Hizashi said, shouldering past her to hurry up to his room. He didn’t want to be having this conversation anymore.

Not now, not ever.

*

Hizashi did his best to focus on day to day things as October slipped past, trying to keep himself from getting swept up in his daydreams about Shouta. Fortunately, his webcast was always a good distraction.

As Halloween approached, he buried himself in preparation for his favorite special installment of ‘Put Your Hands Up’ of the year: the one where he told spooky stories. He got to put his voice and Quirk on display, exercising his vocal control to make creepy sound effects and to do different voices for different characters, and he always had a blast with the whole thing.

Even after doing his webcast week after week for so many years, Hizashi was still having a ton of fun with it. Sure, sometimes he had to miss a week and share an older episode; but - especially now that his audience was growing - the performer in him never got tired of making new ones.

At this point, Hizashi had most of 2-A and a good chunk of 2-B regularly tuning in. He knew there were a pretty big handful of kids from the other courses, underclassmen, and even some of Kayama’s classmates listening, and Hizashi was thrilled to finally be getting a bigger audience…

But somehow, there was only one listener that really mattered.

When Shouta messaged him late on Halloween night after he’d put out the episode and said it had been ‘really good,’ Hizashi was glad it was just a text and not a video call. He could feel himself blushing, giddiness bubbling up inside of him as his thoughts spiraled along an endless path of ‘Shouta listened to it,’ ‘Shouta liked it,’ ‘Shouta, Shouta, Shouta…’

The whole thing was getting ridiculous.

He’d been doing his best to ignore the butterflies that fluttered around his guts whenever he brushed against Shouta. He’d promised that he was gonna stop acting weird, and he’d been managing it so far; but Shouta just kept upping the difficulty level on him.

How was Hizashi supposed to just handle it when he spent nearly every day after school watching Shouta working out so intensely, getting stronger and more toned, more graceful as he strengthened his core and gained better control over his body…

It wasn’t even about the fact that Hizashi couldn't trust himself to actually train with him, terrified that Shouta might pin him or bind him in his capture weapon again, because he knew that if that happened, he would be getting an immediate boner, and there’d be no way to hide it. Hell, he got hard just watching Shouta sometimes.

But no, that wasn’t it.

It was the fact that when Shouta was moving like that… he was just… beautiful.

He was so beautiful that it made Hizashi’s heart ache with longing that was getting harder and harder to ignore.

Rubbing his chest as he sat over against the wall, Hizashi was thankful that Shouta was so focused on training that he seldom looked over, because he absolutely would have caught Hizashi staring at him.

…Of course, that was the moment that Shouta did turn to face him. Hizashi sucked in a quick breath and blinked, shaking his head and schooling his features back to his normal grin, hoping Shouta hadn’t noticed anything… else there.

Anything weird.

“You ready to go?” Shouta asked as he walked over, apparently already finished for the day. Hizashi checked the time, wondering if he’d really just spent an hour staring at his friend.

Well, shit. He, in fact, had.

“Yep! All good!” he chirped, hopping up from the ground. “You heading to work now?” Even with the busy schedule of training and work studies, Shouta was still helping at Ms. Emoto’s shop whenever he could.

“Not today,” Shouta said, getting his things together and heading towards the locker room. “Actually,” he said slowly, casting a sidelong glance over at Hizashi, “I was wondering if I could come over for a bit. To go over the English assignment.”

“Oh, yea, cool, sure, no problem!” Hizashi babbled. He knew he sounded like an idiot, but it was hard to care when Shouta’s eyes softened at him in that not-really-a-smile-but-basically-a-smile-from-Shouta way.

“Great. Lemmie shower quick.”

Hizashi waited in the locker room while Shouta washed up, leaning against the wall and trying very hard not to think about the fact that Shouta was naked, right that second, just around the corner.

Of course, it became impossible to not think about it when Shouta came padding around said corner towards him with only a towel wrapped around his waist, his face and chest flushed pink from the heat of the shower.

Shit, he looked good.

Dark hair hung down in inky locks to frame his face, dripping water onto his toned shoulders, droplets sliding down strong arms. There was the beginnings of a dark trail of hair leading down from his navel, and the low-slung towel showed off the top jut of his hip bones and the way his ab muscles created a defined v-shape, all leading down towards-

Hizashi tore his eyes away, feeling his whole face heat up as his pulse thundered in his ears.

Fortunately, Shouta didn’t seem to have noticed him gawking.

Unfortunately, that meant that Shouta saw no reason that he shouldn’t drop his towel down on the bench as he pulled on his clothes. After all, it was no big deal, they all got changed together in the locker rooms all the time.

Hizashi tipped his head up towards the ceiling, certain that his face was bright red. He breathed slowly through his nose, trying to make sure that his traitorous body didn’t do anything that Shouta might notice through his uniform pants.

“You ok?” Shouta’s voice cut through the static in his short-circuiting brain, startling Hizashi and making him jump away from the wall.

“Yep!” Hizashi winced as his voice squeaked out at a much higher pitch than he intended. He cleared his throat. “Faaaantastic! Peachy keen and copacetic! You ready?” he asked, relieved to see Shouta was fully dressed now. Shouta nodded, and they made their way off campus.

The train was a little crowded, but Shouta found a pair of seats available. Of course, it was only as Hizashi plopped down next to his friend that he really noticed just how cramped the space was. Shouta was pressed against his side, hip to hip, and all of Hizashi’s awareness narrowed down to all the points of contact between them.

And it was so stupid, because they’d sat like this about a million times in the past! And sure, maybe Hizashi had always noticed the firm heat of Shouta’s thigh pressed against his own, but he’d always been able to deal with it before! Why was it so much more distracting now? How was it possible for his feelings to be getting worse instead of better?

Yeah, he could stand up, say he needed to stretch his legs or give his seat to someone else just to be a gentleman or whatever… But he didn’t. Shouta lolled lazily against him, slumping further into his space, and Hizashi stayed just like that, soaking up the warmth, etching the sensation into his brain until the train rolled into his stop.

The walk back to his house cleared his head somewhat, but by the time they were up in his room, sitting on his bed with their books and notes spread out around them, Hizashi was having a hard time staying focused on English grammar and vocabulary. He picked up a sheet of notes and was about to pass it to his friend when Shouta shifted to sit directly next to him, leaning into his space to look at the page, and Hizashi’s brain froze up.

Like on the train, he was hyper-aware of every point of contact where Shouta touched him; and now, with Shouta leaning in like this, Hizashi was hit by a warm, clean smell that rolled off him and made him want to bury his nose into Shouta’s hair and neck and just breathe him in. Hysterically, he wondered how soft Shouta’s hair would be if he ran his fingers through it.

He wanted to grab on to Shouta, wrap him in his arms and kiss him until both of them were breathless and clinging tightly to each other…

Shouta straightened up and pointed to the page, asking a question that Hizashi barely heard over the rushing in his ears as Shouta’s wrist brushed against Hizashi’s hand.

He swallowed hard, and took a shaky breath that he hoped Shouta wouldn’t notice. He thought about Ebisui, about Urabe.

About his parents.

He reminded himself that the risk wasn’t worth it, and he focused on answering his friend’s question.

He had to focus on what was important.

*

Shouta’s birthday was coming up on Sunday, and Hizashi was determined to make sure that when they saw Oboro on Friday, he’d be able to really celebrate with them. All week, he’d been messaging Mrs. Shirakumo, and she’d been willing to relay his plan for approval from Oboro’s doctors and physical therapists.

When the message came through on Thursday night that not only had everyone okayed, but actually encouraged his idea, Hizashi began scrambling around his room to get together the stuff he needed to make it happen.

He tried to play it cool at school on Friday; but there must have been something giving him away, as Shouta kept shooting him strange looks. All day long, it was like Shouta was waiting for him to say something; but there was no way he could know about Hizashi’s plan! No way Oboro’s mom spilled the beans! It was hard enough to keep the surprise a secret when Shouta wasn’t looking at him expectantly; but those sad, tired eyes kept seeking him out and it was driving Hizashi nuts with the urge to blurt it all out.

“I know it’s a little early, but happy birthday, Aizawa,” Shimada said as they stood at their desks, getting ready to leave the classroom at the end of the day. She handed something to Shouta, then gave Hizashi a nod and a smile as she turned and left.

Hizashi craned his neck to try and see what Shouta was holding. “What’s that?” He hopped over his seat to get a closer look, but Shouta’s gently curled fingers obscured his view. Hizashi wasn’t jealous or worried about Shimada or anything; but a petty piece of him had wanted to be the first person to wish Shouta a happy birthday and give him a present.

“A birthday gift, I guess,” Shouta mumbled.

“Duh, I meant, what did she give you?” Hizashi laughed, hooking his chin over Shouta’s shoulder to peer down at what he now saw was a piece of origami in his hand. “Is that a bird? It looks like a cockatoo.”

“A cockatiel, specifically,” Shouta said, holding the intricately folded creature carefully. He turned his head towards Hizashi.

Heat flashed through Hizashi as he suddenly became acutely aware of the fact that their faces were close enough that they could kiss. All he had to do was turn his head and lean just a bit…

“Woah, that’s really cool!” Hizashi squawked, losing all control of his tone and volume as he scrambled off to the side. He hoped he was able to play off the move as trying to get a better look at the origami rather than panic at having his lips so close to Shouta’s that he might cave in to the growing urge to close the gap.

“She’s very talented,” Shouta said, opening his backpack and digging out his pencil box to put the paper bird in so it wouldn’t get crushed.

“Why a bird, though?” Hizashi asked, “She knows you like cats.” Shouta just shrugged.

Well, the origami was nice, but Hizashi’s plan was way better, and it was finally time! “Whatever, come on birthday boy, let’s go put in our visitation hours with our captive compatriot!”

They arrived at the hospital to find Oboro in good spirits. “Happy birthday, Shouta!” he cheered, standing from the chair next to his bed to give Shouta a hug. Hizashi smiled softly at the way Shouta hesitantly lifted his arms to hug Oboro back. They were both still getting used to the idea that Oboro wouldn’t break at the slightest thing, and Shouta seemed to be struggling with it even more than Hizashi.

It was part of why Hizashi had thought of this idea in the first place.

“Alright, are you two ready to party?” Hizashi asked, clapping a hand on each of their shoulders as they stepped back from each other. They shot him twin looks of confusion.

“I’m down to get as wild and crazy as the nurses here will let me,” Oboro laughed. “Usually they start glaring at me when I laugh too loud and disturb the other patients, though.”

“Good thing we’ll be getting away from them for a little bit,” Hizashi countered, waggling his eyebrows and grinning more broadly.

For a moment, Oboro looked almost disappointed. “Mentally, I’m up for a jailbreak, but-”

“We’re not going far, and I already got clearance,” Hizashi reassured him, beckoning them over to the door. “Shouta, if you would be so kind as to escort our wobbly friend, I’ll lead the way.”

Shouta and Oboro glanced at each other, then Oboro’s face split back into that twisted grin as he hooked his elbow through Shouta’s. “Let’s go!” he cheered.

Hizashi hurried out and quickly checked in with the nurse at the station to let her know where they were going… and to make sure that he knew how to get where they were going. The nurse offered Oboro a wheelchair, but he waved her off.

Though Hizashi teased Oboro about being wobbly, and though Shouta was keeping his elbow firmly linked through Oboro’s, the fact was that Oboro was actually pretty steady on his feet now. He could walk, and even jog, pretty well at this point.

However, the quick footwork of something as complicated as dancing was another matter entirely. So Hizashi had asked about the idea of holding a ‘dance party’ in one of the empty PT rooms to help Oboro practice.

“Right this way, gentlemen!” Hizashi said, opening the door and ushering them inside with a sweep of his arm. He scurried in after them, plopping down his bag and pulling out the little portable speaker he’d brought. He ran around with a roll of bright yellow paper streamer, taping it to the walls to make things a little less drab. He cued up the playlist he’d put together for this, then pulled out a few bottles of water and some sodas and juices that had been weighing his bag down all day. The extra load was totally worth it as he watched the realization dawning on his friends’ faces that he’d planned this out.

“Club Brain Damage is ready for business!” Hizashi announced, pushing play and pumping up the volume till the room was full of the pulsing beat. “Complete with medical clearance for dancing, it’s hosting its first - and hopefully only - event, a birthday bash!” Grabbing each of their free hands, Hizashi pulled them to the open space in the middle of the floor and began to dance.

Shouta and Oboro stared at him for a moment, and though he didn’t stop moving, he held his breath, hoping he hadn’t miscalculated the whole thing that badly.

So when Oboro cheered, “Hell yeah!” and started bopping along with the beat, even hopping in place, Hizashi let out a relieved laugh.

His eyes lingered on Shouta, though.

Hizashi knew dancing wasn’t exactly Shouta’s preferred activity; but he was hoping that seeing Oboro really moving around again instead of just sitting in the same sterile hospital room would lift his spirits more and shake some of his lingering fear. He knew it wasn’t enough of a gift for Shouta all on it’s own, which is why he also had a few volumes of Shouta’s favorite manga wrapped in the bottom of his bag.

He watched as Shouta’s expression slowly shifted from a worried frown, to something more hopeful, and then to a tiny smile as he watched Oboro moving to the music. It was just what he’d hoped for, and Hizashi felt his heart throwing a rave of its own in his chest.

It was still a dangerous feeling, though, so he shifted his focus back to Oboro, who needed some help anyway as his feet weren’t fully cooperating with his attempts to move them. It was chaotic and ridiculous, with Hizashi gripping Oboro’s hand, an arm wrapped firmly around his waist to keep him steady as they bopped to the upbeat music. Shouta mostly stood there and watched them, his smile growing with each silly move they made.

After a few minutes, Oboro needed a break, and they all grabbed a drink. Then the next track started, and Oboro’s eyes lit up all over again. “I love this song!” he shouted. “Shouta, your turn! Dance with me!” Shouta turned a half-panicked look at Hizashi, and Hizashi cackled while Oboro grabbed Shouta’s wrist, tugging him to stand up.

Hizashi only laughed louder as, instead of the graceful moves that he had grown accustomed to watching Shouta demonstrate during training, his friend was half frozen, holding awkwardly onto Oboro.

“Dude, we gotta teach you how to dance!” Oboro howled with laughter as he shuffled his feet, half dragging Shouta.

“I can do Dance Dance Revolution,” Shouta grumbled, staring down towards his feet as he tried to make them move to the beat.

“Buddy, DDR isn’t the same as dancing!” Hizashi cackled.

“Close enough,” Shouta groused as the song ended and he handed Oboro back off to Hizashi.

They took turns dancing, Shouta getting a little more relaxed each time. Both of them wound up having to help steady Oboro a few times; but all three of them were smiling and laughing.

When Oboro sat down again, his face flushed and breathing heavily, he was smiling as brightly as he ever had. “I’m pooped,” he said, waving off Shouta’s concerned look. “You two take a turn and let me catch my breath!”

Immediately, Hizashi felt his face heat up, and he hoped it would just be mistaken for exertion. He was about to make an excuse when he felt Shouta’s hand - warm and calloused - take hold of his own. Hizashi looked up at him with wide eyes, and Shouta was giving him a sly smile - half shy and half challenge, and holy shit, Hizashi was certain he was gonna explode.

He pulled his hand away quickly, scratching at his temple to try and disguise the movement… but then Shouta’s smile began to fall, which was completely unacceptable.

Fuuuuck.

It had to be weirder to refuse to dance with him at a dance party than to just do it, right?

Hizashi grabbed Shouta’s arm and tugged him out to the middle of the floor, moving to the upbeat music. Shouta hesitated for a second, but then his smile was back and he began dancing to the rhythm. They were both being more silly than anything, and Hizashi turned his attention to making Oboro laugh by being as ridiculous as possible. When Shouta caught on to the game, he joined in, and it devolved into a competition to see who could make Oboro laugh more.

It was much safer when Hizashi wasn’t as focused on Shouta.

By the time they walked Oboro back to his hospital room, all three of them were flushed and sweaty and giggling. If it weren’t for the half of Oboro’s hair that was only just starting to grow back in, and the giant scar down the right side of his face, it might have almost felt normal.

Shouta didn’t say it, but Hizashi was pretty sure it was the best birthday party his friend could have had.

“Do you know when they’re going to release you?” Shouta asked as Oboro flopped onto his hospital bed. “Even if you’re not physically at 100% yet, you can’t afford to miss too much more in the way of academics.”

“Hah, thanks,” Oboro said, sticking his tongue out. “I think that I heard them saying I might actually be out of here in another week or two, and cleared to go back to school not too long after that.”

It felt like it had been forever since Oboro had been injured; but Hizashi knew that for him to be this far along in recovery after only two months was incredible. He made a mental note to try and figure out something extra nice to do for Recovery Girl for the holidays.

Nothing would ever be enough, but he needed to do something.

~*~

Shouta felt… strange, being back on patrol again.

His Purple Highness had been back at work within two weeks of the initial attack, and Shouta and Kayama had started their work studies up again a few weeks after that. At first, despite all the intensive physical training Shouta was doing, he was still apprehensive about getting back out on the street. Of course, he grumbled about the fact that most of his time at the agency was being spent in the office; but the fact was, the idea of going back outside filled him with a twisting, churning anxiety that he hated.

So when the day came, two weeks ago, that His Purple Highness had clapped him and Kayama on their shoulders and told them to ‘get their party shoes on,’ Shouta had been hit by a wave of nausea.

That first patrol had been subdued. Shouta had slunk along behind Midnight and His Purple Highness, hands drifting up to his binding cloth every minute or two, ready to act. Midnight had walked with her head held high and confident, as if she owned the street; but Kayama had been quiet and serious as they moved along, and Shouta knew it was her own nerves showing. Shouta had seen His Purple Highness out on patrol a few times before the work study shift started, smiling and singing and dancing his way down the street… but with his charges by his side, he was strutting a little more slowly.

Of course, nothing had happened. Lots of patrols were pretty quiet.

On their second patrol back, they had broken up a fight. It wasn’t a big one, and the Quirks involved were far from life-threatening; but the adrenaline spike that had surged through Shouta as he and Midnight worked together to subdue the combatants had his hands shaking afterwards.

After he’d calmed down, though, he’d felt the confidence creeping back in. The knowledge that he really could handle it.

Now, it still felt strange; but the uneasiness that had haunted him at first had faded into little more than background static as he made his way down the street.

Shouta quickly checked his phone as it pinged with a message from Hizashi. His friend had developed a habit of coming across town after his own shift with Buster Union was over to hang out as Shouta finished his patrol. There wasn’t really any point to it; it wasn’t as if Hizashi was technically allowed to do any hero work without his own mentors around anyway. It wasn’t useful for him to be there, and Shouta really wanted to develop his independence more…

But part of Shouta felt better; not just having another set of eyes nearby, but being able to keep an eye on Hizashi, knowing he was safe.

And maybe also just… having Hizashi around.

Shouta felt himself smile slightly as he pocketed his phone, knowing that Hizashi was on his way.

When they’d celebrated Shouta’s birthday with Oboro a little over a week ago, Shouta hadn’t been able to stop staring at Hizashi whenever he was sure his friend wasn’t looking. Especially while he was dancing. Sure, most of his ‘moves’ were over the top, silly, and utterly ridiculous; but Shouta just couldn’t stop watching him.

Something about Hizashi kept drawing him in. Sparking foolish, irrational impulses in him.

He hated how much he wanted, knowing that he could never have it. He wished he could rationalize away the feelings; but they seemed to be dug in stubbornly, filling his chest with warmth and affection and an overwhelming urge to reach out and touch Hizashi whenever he was near…

Urges and impulses that he’d been giving in to more and more… because as much as he knew that it was all an exercise in futility to hope for something he couldn’t have, in the moment, it felt so… good.

And not just the warmth of contact, not just the way it felt to be close to Hizashi, to touch him… there was something more.

Something about the way Hizashi reacted.

Maybe it was wishful thinking. Maybe Shouta was imagining things. After all, Hizashi was straight… but just like Shouta felt himself get flustered whenever Hizashi caught him off guard with a casual touch, Shouta had started to notice Hizashi getting flustered sometimes too.

It was a strange dance. Hizashi would do something like throw an arm over Shouta’s shoulders and pull him close, and Shouta would feel his heart start to race while excitement zipped through his veins at lightning speed, making him jittery. So Shouta would back away, throw Hizashi’s arm off him with a huff to try and cover up his reaction…

But Shouta could never keep his distance for very long. So later on, he’d slump against Hizashi while they sat in his room playing video games… and Hizashi would start babbling even more than usual while suddenly seeming to forget how to play the game.

Maybe it didn’t mean anything at all; but there was something intoxicating about seeing Hizashi like that…

No, there was something intoxicating about the idea that maybe it was him that could make Hizashi get like that. Even if it wasn’t for the reasons Shouta wanted it to be for, it sent a thrill through him every time, leaving him greedy for more.

That had probably been why Shouta had grabbed Hizashi’s hand to dance with him the other day. It was stupid and reckless, and he’d worried for a moment that he’d pushed too far when Hizashi pulled away…

But then he’d come back.

Of course, Shouta knew it had probably been because Oboro had asked them to take a turn dancing, and Hizashi was just doing his part to keep the party going… but he couldn’t help but wonder if maybe…

Maybe Hizashi was starting to Like him back?

Then again, maybe all those flustered reactions just meant that Shouta was making Hizashi uncomfortable, and that sooner or later, his friend would tell him to stop acting so weird.

The thought made his heart twist painfully in his chest.

Either way, Shouta needed to focus on the task in front of him. Hizashi would probably be there in about half an hour, and being out on patrol was not the time or place to let himself get distracted.

The Sunday evening foot traffic in this area was never too heavy, just a few people making their way to or from their nearby apartments. A quick glance around told him Kayama was still a few blocks behind him, and His Purple Highness was a bit further than that ahead of him. All three of them were working to try and find a good balance between the students learning to be independent while also having backup nearby for safety.

The route they were walking took them past the train station where Hizashi would be arriving, and when Shouta checked the time, there were only a few minutes till the train came in. He thought briefly about waiting, but kept walking. Hizashi would be able to catch up easily, and Shouta didn’t want to fall too far behind by standing around.

He made it a few blocks past the train station when everything went to hell.

Heavy footsteps on the pavement were the only warning before Shouta lurched forward, stumbling to the side and crashing into the brick building that stretched up high along the edge of the sidewalk. At first, all he registered was pressure for a moment as a heavy weight pressed into his back…

Then the pain hit as the side of his face scraped across the facade, his skin grating along the brick.

There was no time to curse himself for being caught off guard, he’d deal with that later. Right now, he had a situation to get under control. His assailant was still leaning against him, keeping Shouta pressed against the wall, his left eye uncomfortably close to the rough surface. He pulled in his arms and pushed hard while sliding his foot back to where - he hoped - it would be positioned between his attacker’s feet. Acting blindly, the move was a calculated risk; but if he didn’t do something fast, he was bound to take a solid hit to his unprotected back.

Sweeping his foot and finding his target, Shouta hooked his toes around the attacker’s ankle and jerked the assailant off balance. Twisting fast, Shouta drove his elbow up and back, feeling something crunch under the impact as the hit connected. He used his inertia to follow through, spinning to face the man as he stumbled back, clutching his face with both hands. He was big, taller and heavier than Shouta by a decent margin, with bright red hair and a wild look in his eye. Blood poured out of his nose, smearing across his face and staining his red shirt even darker.

Everything about him was red.

“Agh, fuck, you little bastard!” Red growled as Shouta was able to put some space between them, finally getting himself away from the wall. He pulled up the new metal goggles that Power Loader had made for him as he assessed his opponent, even though the adrenaline that hummed under his skin screamed for him to punch, hit, lunge, now!

Red had to be hurting from that broken nose, which was an advantage Shouta needed to press by acting fast. No obvious mutation, so hopefully he had a Quirk that Erasure would work on, tripping him up enough to make a difference.

Shouta activated his Quirk and grabbed a length of his capture weapon, throwing it towards Red to try and snare him and end this quickly. Unfortunately, though Red was big, he was still nimble enough to dodge, side-stepping before darting in to close the distance between them.

“See how you like this, you little shit!” Red sneered, pulling back his fist for a powerful blow.

Shouta kept his eyes fixed, knowing there was a good chance that Red expected his Quirk to do something extra. There was no way he could let himself blink before Red threw that punch. He ducked and dodged, and the villain only managed to graze his shoulder as he barreled past.

“What the fuck?” Red pivoted, glancing between his fist and Shouta, bewildered. Shouta took that moment to blink, then reactivated his Quirk and tried again to snare the man with his binding cloth. Distantly, he was aware of a commotion not too far down the road from him, where Kayama should be…

He had to do the job in front of him first.

He’d go check on her after he’d dealt with this guy.

Again, the villain dodged his binding cloth; but this time Shouta expected him to try and get in close and planned his own move accordingly. As Red charged, Shouta side-stepped and darted forward, getting in under his guard to punch the villain in the gut. A low, pained wheeze slipped out of Red as he stumbled and staggered, carried forward more by his inertia than intent.

One step past the man, Shouta planted his foot and pivoted, making sure he never lost sight of him, and threw his capture weapon again.

This time, it found its mark, wrapping around Red’s chest, pinning his arms to his sides. One more throw to bind his legs, and Shouta yanked hard on the cloth, sending Red crashing to the ground with a thud and a thump as his head struck the pavement.

For a moment, everything was still, and Shouta pulled his goggles down to rest around his neck as he started to catch his breath. He wasn’t sure when he’d gotten so winded. He used another length of his capture weapon to finish making sure Red was thoroughly bound; he needed to secure the guy and then check on Midnight.

He glanced quickly down the street to see if he could get an idea of what was happening; but his eyes wouldn’t focus properly. He stared down at his hands, still fisted around the strands of his capture weapon, and closed first one eye, then the other. The vision was a little blurry in his left eye. He wiped the back of his wrist across his eyebrow, and it came away red with blood. Feeling a little higher, he hissed through his teeth as his fingers brushed against what must be a nasty scrape up by his hairline.

Ah, that explained it.

He glared down at the villain on the ground in front of him, but aside from the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, the man wasn’t moving at all. Knocked out cold.

Shouta needed to go help Kayama; but even unconscious, he couldn’t just leave Red here unattended. He needed to call the police and His Purple Highness-

The sound of pounding feet approaching had Shouta whipping his head up and shifting his stance, activating his Quirk and bracing himself to fend off another attacker.

He wouldn’t be caught off guard again.

It took him a moment to recognize Hizashi as his friend skidded to a stop about two meters in front of him.

Still in his hero costume, Hizashi’s hair was a wild mess, streaked with blood and dirt that continued in long smudges down his face. Shouta couldn’t tell if the blood was his or someone else’s, and his heart raced as his eyes raked over his friend, looking for obvious injuries. Both of them were still for a long moment, staring at each other.

Then Shouta blinked, and as his Quirk dropped, a strangled sound slipped out of Hizashi.

Before Shouta could pull together his scattered thoughts enough to ask what had happened, Hizashi’s twin megaphones slipped from his limp hands, clattering to the ground. Shouta could see how wide his green eyes were behind his sunglasses; and the way he looked - wild and lost and desperate - made Shouta’s chest ache.

It all happened in the blink of an eye.

Hizashi stepped forward, his eyes locked on Shouta’s face, his hands lifting from his sides, reaching out. Cupping Shouta’s jaw. Pulling him closer, just half a step, because Hizashi had already closed the rest of the distance.

Hizashi’s lips on his.

There were no thoughts in Shouta’s head as his whole world narrowed down to the warm pressure of Hizashi kissing him. There was only the need to grab on to him and never let go. The binding cloth fell from his hands as he gripped Hizashi’s arms, kissing him back as a tiny, desperate moan pushed its way out of his chest.

There was only the need for this moment to be real. For it to never end.

For Hizashi to want Shouta in the same way Shouta wanted him.

With a gasp, Hizashi broke the kiss and took a step back, eyes flicking back and forth over Shouta’s face. Shouta had no idea what he must look like, jaw slack, fingers still clinging to the leather of Hizashi’s jacket… and he didn’t care, as long as Hizashi would just kiss him again.

Hizashi didn’t kiss him again.

Hizashi stumbled backwards, tearing himself away from Shouta’s grasp. His face went pale as he slapped one hand over his mouth, pressing his other fist to his chest.

He was still close enough that his sunglasses couldn’t hide the look of horror in his eyes.

Without a word, Hizashi spun on his heel and ran back down the road from the way he’d come.

Chapter Text

Everything was still. Shouta stood there, numb, staring down the road after Hizashi. He stayed frozen there until Hizashi was long out of sight. At some point, he remembered to breathe; only to find that the air was full of razor blades, slicing him open from the inside out.

He wasn’t sure how much time passed before His Purple Highness came hurrying up beside him, looking disheveled and carrying a dazed-looking man over his shoulder. The hero took quick stock of the scene, then focused his attention on Shouta.

“I heard all the ruckus, what happened here, boy?”

Shouta blinked, not letting the tears stinging in his eyes fall. There was no time for that.

His Purple Highness bumped Shouta with his hip. “I’d have been here sooner, but first I had to deal with this troublemaker, but I knew you could handle yourself. Come on now, Eraserhead, how are you still all frowns when you took care of this no-good scoundrel so fast?” Shouta’s head turned slowly, until he was looking up to see his mentor was smiling down at him; but he could see the worry in his eyes.

He had to pull himself together.

He wasn’t sure how to do that.

“Midnight,” Shouta croaked out, his voice not wanting to cooperate. “I think she was attacked at the same time I was. I heard something, but couldn’t see- I was too busy with him.”

“Alright, the police are already on their way. You keep an eye on these naughty boys,” His Purple Highness said, putting down the man he was carrying, the villain’s arms and legs already secured, “I’ll go check on her.” The villains on the ground moaned, but neither was about to start putting up a fight anytime soon.

Shouta could only nod as His Purple Highness took off running down the street in the same direction Hizashi had come from.

Hizashi had looked like he’d been in a fight. He’d probably been helping Kayama out, so she was bound to be fine.

Shouta’s eyes were drawn back to the megaphones still laying on the street. Proof that he hadn’t imagined it.

He wished he’d imagined it.

He wished he could forget it.

(He never wanted to forget it. It was already playing on a loop in his head; Hizashi striding towards him, his hands on Shouta’s face as he pulled him in, the warmth of Hizashi’s lips pressed against his own… The problem was that the loop kept getting stuck at the look of horrified panic on Hizashi’s face before he ran away.)

Once Midnight and His Purple Highness came back, carrying another unhappy villain, Shouta took a deep breath and tried to steady himself. He couldn’t fall apart, not here, not like this.

“Where’s Mic?” Midnight asked, stooping to pick up the megaphones. Shouta shrugged, and was saved from any further questions by the arrival of the police.

Hero work was also a lot of paperwork.

Generally, Shouta didn’t like it; but right now it gave him something to focus on. He managed to pause his spiraling thoughts as he went through the motions of all the things he needed to do - reports, documentation, showering, changing his clothes - until he got home.

Once he got home, though, there was no stopping them.

He made it to his room, shutting the door behind himself, before he collapsed to the floor. His arms wrapped around his stomach as he tried desperately to breathe. It was hard, since his lungs and heart were still in tattered shreds. All he could do was heave shuddering, gasping sobs that he tried to muffle with his hand pressed to his mouth.

What had happened?

…What had he done wrong?

Had it been a joke? Had Hizashi thought it would be a funny thing to do? Kiss him and… what? Wait for Shouta to recoil and be grossed out?

It didn’t seem like the kind of prank Hizashi would play, and it would have been poor timing for any kind of prank… But what if kissing back had been a mistake? Was Hizashi disgusted by him? Had the horror in his eyes been revulsion?

Pulling out his phone with a shaking hand, Shouta stared at it. No messages or calls, except a picture from Kayama into the ‘Rooftop Gang’ group chat, of Hizashi’s megaphones. She’d made a note that Shouta had forgotten to grab them, so she would bring them to school tomorrow.

Shouta hadn’t forgotten. He’d just had no idea what to do.

Hizashi wasn’t sending any messages. No explanations, no attempts to laugh it off as a joke, no angry accusations, nothing.

Radio silence from Hizashi was unnerving by itself, but now? About this?

Shota wondered if he should say something…

What the hell could he even say? What could he ask?

‘Why did you kiss me?’ Shouta didn’t think it was a prank; but if it wasn’t a joke, then… did Hizashi like him? But if that was the case, why would he run away like that?

Maybe that’s what he could ask? ‘Why did you run away?’ Hizashi had to have realized the way Shouta was kissing back, the way Shouta was holding on to him, that Shouta wanted it…

What if Hizashi had been testing it out and realized he didn’t want it? What if Hizashi just wanted to pretend it had never happened? What if asking somehow made things worse? What if Shouta tried asking and sounded too eager, or too hurt?

What if Hizashi figured out that Shouta really liked him and got weirded out?

…Or worse, started pitying him?

Shouta squeezed his eyes shut tight, as if that could somehow block out the noisy thoughts in his head. He heaved another deep, ragged breath. If Hizashi wanted to tell him anything, that was up to him. But there was no way Shouta could just… text, or call, and pretend everything was normal, not when everything inside him was a writhing mess of fear and pain.

And he couldn’t ask such risky questions.

The only logical thing to do was wait and see what Hizashi said, how he handled it.

He blew out a shaky breath and wiped his face. His hand came away wet with tears. He blinked against the ache and sting, but it didn’t help. All he could do was crawl over to his bed and curl tightly into himself.

How did this hurt worse than when Tensei had broken up with him?

How was he supposed to face Hizashi in school tomorrow?

Silent tears continued to fall as he cried himself to sleep.

*

“I’m staying home from school today,” Shouta told his parents in the morning, his voice rough and eyes undoubtedly bloodshot.

“What’s wrong, Shou-chan?” Dad asked.

“I think the fight last night took more out of me than I realized,” Shouta lied, rubbing at the gauze that covered the scrape on his head and cheek. Mom only leveled a cool gaze at him as she finished her breakfast.

“Get some rest,” she said, and Shouta felt an uncomfortable tingle that had nothing to do with her Quirk and everything to do with the fact that she could always see through him. “You’ll be going in tomorrow, though.” He nodded and hoped that one day would be enough. (It couldn’t be enough. He would never get over this.)

He went to his room and curled up and fell back to sleep.

When he woke up later that afternoon, he had texts from Kayama, Shimada, Hadachi, and Tensei checking in on him.

Nothing from Hizashi.

He gave the others the same excuse he’d given his parents, and they seemed to buy it.

<Kayama> What’s up with Yamada?

<sent> ?

<Kayama> He wasn’t himself today.

What the hell was that supposed to mean? Was he sad? Grouchy? Quiet? And why wasn’t he acting like himself? Was he angry with Shouta? Was he upset that Shouta wasn’t in school? Did he want to talk in person? Was he bothered that Shouta wasn’t pretending nothing had happened and that everything was fine?

<sent> I wasn’t there. Ask him.

<Kayama> I did. He wasn’t very forthcoming.

<Kayama> What happened yesterday?

<Kayama> You’ve been acting weird too, Shou-chan. It’s not like you to miss school.

<sent> I’ll be in tomorrow.

He put his phone down and started doing the reading he needed to catch up on before class. When his phone pinged again some time later, his hands shook as he checked to see who it was from.

Not Hizashi.

<Oboro> how’s it going out in the real world?

Shouta swallowed. As bad as things were, he couldn’t ignore Oboro, certainly not while he was still stuck in the hospital.

<sent> Busy.

<Oboro> so I hear! Nemuri told me u guys got attacked last night!

<sent> It wasn’t a big deal, we handled it pretty quickly.

He really didn’t want to talk about it. Fortunately, he had his wits about him enough to see an escape route.

<sent> You’re on a first name basis with Kayama now?

<Oboro> uhhhh, maaaaybe

<sent> Are you two dating?

Oddly, even with all the pain swirling inside him, the thought of Oboro and Kayama being happy with each other didn’t make him feel jealous. Oboro clearly liked her, and Kayama visited Oboro almost as often as Shouta and Hizashi did, so Shouta figured there was a chance she liked him too.

<Oboro> Aizawa Eraserhead Shouta! I am shocked and scandalized that you would ask such a personal and private question!

<Oboro> not yet, but I think there’s a chance that when I get out of the hospital, maybe she’ll say yes

<sent> So you’ve already asked her out?

<Oboro> CRAP

<Oboro> I ADMITTED NO SUCH THING

<Oboro> ok yeah I did lol

<Oboro> I think it’ll help if you and Hizashi confirm that I liked her before I had brain damage too

Shouta couldn’t help but huff something that was sort of like a laugh.

<sent> If I was able to figure out you liked her, there’s no way she didn’t know too.

He let himself get distracted by the conversation with his friend. If all went well, Oboro might be out of the hospital by this time next week, so at least that was one good thing on the horizon for Shouta to cling to.

He just had to make it through till then.

*

There was no way he was going to make it through the week. Monday had been bad enough, stewing at home in his misery; but he hadn’t thought it could get any worse.

He had been wrong.

Because having Hizashi basically ignore him, even when they were sitting next to each other? That hurt him in a way he hadn’t understood he could be hurt. There had never been a time when Hizashi hadn’t spoken to Shouta, even when Shouta was trying to get him to leave him alone. Despite the lack of texts or calls since Sunday, Shouta hadn’t even imagined that Hizashi could be right there and still not talk to him at all.

Yet, on Tuesday morning, though Shouta had nodded and mumbled hello to him, Hizashi had barely acknowledged his existence beyond a fleeting glance in his direction.

At lunch, Hizashi sat across the cafeteria with Kobayashi, as far from Shouta as he could manage.

Nakano and Shimada had crossed the lunch room to sit with Shouta that first day. Though he didn’t have much to say to them, they chatted easily with each other, and he appreciated their presence.

Then on Wednesday and Thursday, Tensei also joined him. It was pathetic, but Shouta had almost cried when Tensei sat silently next to him. He hadn’t asked questions, he hadn’t filled the quiet with mindless chatter, even only talking to the girls when they spoke to him. He simply sat there, just like he had in the locker room that first time; a solid, real presence, just existing, just letting Shouta know he wasn’t alone.

So on Friday, after the girls said their goodbyes and left, Shouta was surprised when Tensei finally spoke.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” he said quietly, “But even though that poker face of yours is scarily convincing, I know you must be upset if you and Yamada aren’t talking. You’re pretty good at looking like you don’t care, but I know you better than that.” Tensei took a breath and blew it out slowly. “If Yamada did something wrong, talk to him about it. I believe you two can work it out, whatever it is.”

Shouta blinked in confusion and actually looked over at Tensei for the first time in days. He looked sad.

“He didn’t- I don’t-” Shouta huffed out a breath and stared down at the table.

“Do you want to talk about-?”

“No!” Shouta yelped, then swallowed and got his voice back under control. “No. I can’t.”

Tensei sighed. “If you change your mind, I’m always here for you. You should talk to someone, though. And you should definitely talk to Yamada.”

“I… can’t.” He was pathetic.

“You’re in the hero course at UA. You are capable of more things than you give yourself credit for,” Tensei said, resting a warm hand on Shouta’s shoulder. “Even sorting things out with one of your best friends.”

All Shouta could do was nod.

Tensei didn’t understand. It wasn’t Shouta who had run away. It wasn’t Shouta who was ignoring and avoiding Hizashi. If Hizashi didn’t want to talk to Shouta, how were they supposed to fix things?

One thing Tensei had said, though, caught Shouta’s attention. It niggled at him until he had to ask. “Why would you think Yamada did anything wrong?”

“He’s been looking… guilty, I guess,” Tensei said, scratching the back of his head. “He’s almost as good at hiding his moods as you are, but I’ve seen the facade crack when you’re facing away from him.”

Shouta wasn’t sure what to do with that information. He cleared his garbage and went back to the classroom, realizing that it didn’t actually make any difference right now. The fact was, something had shifted between himself and Hizashi. The balance was off, and Shouta had no idea how to get his feet back under himself again.

There was one thing, though. One thing that Hizashi shouldn’t be willing to completely ignore.

When the last bell rang, Shouta steeled himself and stood in front of Hizashi’s desk before he could escape out of the classroom.

“It’s Friday,” Shouta said. Hizashi didn’t look at him. “We always go visit Shirakumo on Fridays.”

“You should go,” Hizashi said, methodically packing his books in his bag. “He should hopefully be out this weekend anyway, so I’ll just see him then.”

Shouta wanted to scream at him. Grab him by the jacket and shake him. Demand to know why he was being such a fucking asshole…

And he wanted to beg forgiveness for whatever he’d done wrong that had made Hizashi pull away from him, swear he’d never do it again if Hizashi would just… come back.

Instead, he looked away, turned around, gathered his things, and left.

~*~

Hizashi made it home before he broke down. Barely.

He wasn’t sure how he’d managed to get through the whole week before it came to this; but skipping the visit to Oboro had snapped the last thread that had been stopping him from spiraling out of control.

He’d fucked things up so badly, and he just kept fucking them up.

The whole point of not telling Shouta that he liked him, of never even trying to see if Shouta would be interested, was because Hizashi knew that he would end up blowing up the relationship at some point. The whole godsdamned point was that he could never ever risk losing Shouta as his friend, and now-

Now he’d fucked it all up.

Now he’d just skipped right to ‘losing his friend’ because he was a stupid fucking idiot who couldn’t control himself.

Now… Shouta had kissed him back.

Now Hizashi knew that if he had asked, Shouta might have said yes; and Hizashi had panicked, because how could he stop himself now that he knew? How could he stop himself when everything inside him kept screaming that he wanted to go to Shouta, kiss him, hold him, tell him he-

The only outcomes now were disaster and disaster, and it was all his own fault.

And if he’d destroyed his friendship with Shouta… what about Oboro? Hizashi didn’t think Shouta would ever tell Oboro he had to choose a side, but there would be no way the three of them could hang out together anymore. Shit, even the thought of that had tears welling up in his eyes, his throat growing tight as he struggled to breathe. And since Hizashi was the one who’d fucked everything up, it stood to reason that he should be the one to back away.

Which meant, in essence, he’d lost Oboro too.

He’d lost everyone who mattered, because he couldn’t fucking control himself.

So as he stumbled into his room, his bag dropping to the floor with a heavy thud, he grabbed a pillow off his bed and buried his face in it, screaming an inarticulate wail of grief and pain. He felt it in his arms when his Quirk started slipping in, carrying through the soft stuffing far too easily.

Enraged that he wasn’t even allowed this measure of relief from the storm of emotions boiling inside him, Hizashi shouted and flung the pillow across his room, knocking over some books from his shelf.

It wasn’t enough.

He grabbed a mug full of pens and pencils from his desk and, with a yell that rattled the windows, hurled it against the wall, shattering it and sending the contents scattering. Next was his desk lamp. Then a heavy textbook. One thing after the next flew and slammed and broke into a million pieces as he shouted himself hoarse in the empty house.

When his hand landed on the cool metallic surface of the model 1966 Ford Mustang GT350 Shelby, he picked it up carefully and looked at it through eyes blurred with tears.

Carefully, he put it back, right next to the stuffed cat.

He had to fix this.

How could he fix this, though? There was no way. There was no way to pretend that the kiss hadn’t happened, no way to pretend that Shouta hadn’t kissed him back. He’d changed things, he knew it.

He’d broken things.

He sank to his knees next to his bed, leaning his shoulder against it, trying to think, failing to do so. He heard his phone ringing, but he couldn’t make himself move to answer it.

Why did he have to be so broken?

He knelt there for a long time, trying to think of how he could start to fix things, jagged shards of hope cutting him open every time he tried to reach for them.

“Hizashi? Hizashi!?” Mom’s voice carried through the house, increasingly worried each time she called his name. He couldn’t bring himself to respond. He heard her footsteps coming up the stairs, her voice outside his room.

“Hizashi, baby, what happened,” she gasped when she opened the door and took in the state of, well, everything. He shrugged, and Mom stepped closer to kneel next to him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and holding him close.

“I messed things up,” he whispered. “I didn’t even think, it just happened, and now I’ve messed up everything.”

“Is there a problem at school?” Mom asked gently. Hizashi sighed and shook his head. Ugh, why was he even talking to her, she wasn’t going to be able to help.

She was the root of the problem anyway. It was her fault that he was like this, it was her fault that he would never be able to-

He bit his lip, trying to hold in all the words that burned in his throat; but he’d used up all his restraint this week at school. He had nothing left. Mom pressed a kiss to his temple, and he broke.

“It’s your fault,” he croaked, voice cracking as he pushed her away and turned his head to glare at her. “You made me like this, and it’s not fair! I tried so hard to not- But I’m just as weak as you, so even though I knew I shouldn’t, I knew- I went and messed everything up anyway!” He watched his mother’s eyes glisten with wetness. She didn’t let the tears fall, though.

“Hizashi,” she said gently. “Talk to me. You need to help me understand.”

For a moment, his rage cut out, leaving only his fear and a nameless heartache. All he could do was lean against his mom as one of the broken pieces inside him that had been rattling around for years finally snapped loose, and the words came pouring out.

“I don’t want to do what you did to Dad,” he whispered, giving form to his fears. “If I like girls and boys, I- I don’t want to just fall in love with one person and then another and another and keep losing them all… I don’t wanna hurt everyone I love the way you hurt Dad and me.”

It was the first time he’d ever said it out loud, and the words hung in the air between them, raw and ugly.

He drew a shaky breath, but he wasn’t done yet. There was so much more to say that he’d spent so much time not saying, words finally forced out as the anger inside him began seeping back up.

“Ya know what’s funny? I’ve never even been mad at Fumika for falling in love with you. She only likes women, she never had a husband or kids! But you!” His growing anger drove his voice louder and louder… but his thoughts started to escape him, the threads unraveling as he tried to put them into words, and it all started to fall apart. “If I- when you just- aaaargh, I hate this!” His hands slid up over his face, fingers burrowing into his hair, grabbing fistfuls and gripping it tight.

Gods, it hurt. It hurt so badly.

Mom stayed quiet for a long time while Hizashi bit his lip and glared at the floor, tears sliding down his face as he tried to steady his breathing.

“There’s a lot to unpack there,” she finally said, so quietly he had to strain to hear her. He untangled his hands from his hair, but didn’t look at her. “I’m not sure where the right place to start is, but- sweetie, I think there’s a few things you might have the wrong idea about.”

“Oh yeah? Like what?” Hizashi snapped, glad to cover over his pain with anger again.

“When I met your dad,” she said slowly, “We were both very young. I was in school, surrounded by friends who talked endlessly about how handsome the boys were, how strong, how much they wanted a boyfriend, how much they wanted to kiss a boy. My parents would talk about my future, the kind of husband and children I would have. Your dad was- he is one of the kindest and sweetest people I’ve ever known. He fell in love with me, he made me feel cared for and special. I thought that the things I felt for him must be love, because love was what young women were supposed to feel for young men.” Mom fell silent and pursed her lips.

“I didn’t understand,” she continued, “That the flutters in my stomach when I looked at my friend Yuika were the things the other girls felt for the boys. I didn’t understand the reason I wanted to hold hands with my friend, to be close to her. Your father was the only man who ever came close to making me feel those things; but even back then, it was never the same. I just thought that was how everyone felt.

“Then I got pregnant with you, and your dad and I got married. You are the brightest and best love of my life. Being your mom became the center of my world for a very long time.

“Then I met Fumika, and all those feelings that I’d thought of as ‘love’ with your father simply paled in comparison. I do love him, Hizashi, but I was never in love with him; and as soon as I realized that, I sat down with him and we talked. I wish I had understood when I was your age what it was that I was feeling… but even now, I can’t regret the life that your father and I had together, and the fact that we have you as our son. I hope he finds someone else, someone that loves him back as dearly as I know he is capable of loving.

“I am so sorry that I’ve hurt you. I am so sorry for the hurt I’ve caused your dad. I don’t know if it makes things better or worse, but the truth is that Fumika is the only person I’ve ever truly fallen in love with.”

Hizashi pulled his knees up to his chest, his anger now only simmering instead of ready to boil over as he tried to understand what his mom was telling him.

It made sense. He still didn’t like it, he still hated it; but it made sense.

Not that it fixed the years of hurt.

Not that it changed what was broken in him.

“Please talk to me, Hizashi. Help me understand your heart. What is it that has you so afraid?”

He didn’t want to talk about it. He wanted to crawl under his bed and disappear into the floor. He wanted to never have to face anyone ever again. He wanted all the pain and fear and rage to stop…

But more than that, he wanted to fix things with Shouta. He needed to. He needed to know how to fix himself, and then maybe he could fix things with him.

“I… I don’t think my heart works right,” Hizashi mumbled. “I know I like girls. I- I really liked Ebisui, when we were dating. I liked Urabe, and there’s been a few others too… But I also- there’s a guy that I think I might- that I really like.”

Mom furrowed her brow. “And… you’ve been worried that, because your heart is capable of loving both girls and other boys, you’ll never stay in love with just one person?”

Hizashi shrugged. “Yeah.”

“Oh baby,” Mom said, pulling him tightly against her, “I understand why you’re scared, but I promise, that’s not the way it works.” Hizashi let himself sag against her, too exhausted to argue right now. Not that he could just believe it, simple as that; after all, what kind of reasoning was ‘that’s not how it works?’ That doesn’t explain anything!

But what if…

What if she was right? Oboro had sorta said the same thing…

What if there was a chance things didn’t have to end in disaster?

…A chance that he’d now destroyed by being a complete asshole to Shouta…

“I really did mess things up, though,” he whispered. “I don’t know what to do.”

Mom pressed a kiss to his temple. “How about we start with getting some dinner, and take it from there?”

Hizashi blinked and looked at the clock. “Wait, why are you home so early?”

“The neighbors heard quite a commotion, they called me. I tried calling you while I was on my way home, but-”

“Oh, yeah,” Hizashi mumbled, remembering the ringing phone. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll get things cleaned up. Pick out what you want to eat, I’ll call your dad and have him come home and we can all eat together. Then maybe he and I can help you figure out what to do next.”

Hizashi looked at his phone, a sinking feeling of dread threatening to overwhelm him as he thought again about how it was probably too late.

“Yeah, ok.”

Dinner was thankfully subdued. Before they sat down, he heard Mom filling Dad in on the basics of the earlier discussion, which was fine. He didn’t really want to have to talk about it again. As they ate, he could tell Dad wanted to say something, but was holding back.

“Me and Hizashi will clean up, Miyuna,” Dad said as Hizashi started collecting the dishes from the table. He looked up to see Mom tipping her head in a silent question at Dad, while Dad smiled gently at her and waved his hand in a ‘go on, get out of here,’ motion. Hizashi just sighed.

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” he said quietly once Mom had left the room.

“I gathered that,” Dad chuckled. “Are you upset that Mom told me?”

“No.”

“Good.” Dad finished with the dishes and packed away the leftovers. “You know that I love you, and the fact that you’re bisexual won’t change that in the slightest, right?”

Hizashi dropped the container he was putting in the fridge. “What!?” He kept his Quirk in check, but only just barely.

“I know plenty of people still worry about coming out to their parents,” Dad said, not fully hiding his tiny smirk as Hizashi picked up the dropped container and quickly shoved it in the fridge. “But you’ve got nothing to worry about here.”

“That wasn’t exactly what I thought I was doing,” Hizashi muttered.

“What did you think?”

Hizashi was quiet, debating if he was going to answer at all. Dad just leaned against the counter, arms crossed in a relaxed pose, ready to wait as long as he needed.

“I was worried… Mom said-” He cut himself off with a huff. Fuck, why was this so hard? Gritting his teeth, he looked away, forcing the words out all in a rush. “She said that just because someone likes both guys and girls doesn’t mean that they’re always gonna keep falling out of love and leaving people.”

“She’s right.”

“But how do you know that?” Hizashi asked, desperate for someone to give him an actual explanation.

Dad paused, brow furrowing in thought for a moment. “If I’m someone who can only fall in love with women, how many people are there in the world that I can fall in love with?”

“Uhhh… a lot?” Hizashi said, hoping that was a good enough answer.

Dad nodded solemnly. “Yep. There’s a lot of women I could potentially fall in love with, right now. Just in Japan. Just in our neighborhood, even. But even though I’ve known for years now that it would be better for me to find someone new, I haven’t managed to do it yet. My heart is a little stuck on your mom; but I’m working on it.

“Now, if I could fall in love with men also, do you think that would make it any easier for me to shift my heart? After all, it would mean more people I could potentially fall in love with.”

Hizashi blinked. “I… I dunno.” He’d never thought of it that way.

“Yes you do,” Dad said with a wink and a smile that was a little too tight. Then his eyebrow quirked up with mischief. “You know the Nagatini family a few houses down?”

Hizashi furrowed his brow, thrown off by the change of subject. “Yeah?”

“Well, I hate to be a neighborhood gossip…” Dad said slowly, as if he was genuinely debating telling Hizashi whatever it was he was thinking; which of course made Hizashi genuinely curious to know what it was.

“What?”

Dad leaned in close and whispered, “I know for a fact that Mr. Nagatini has cheated on his wife with no less than three other women.” As if it was an afterthought, he added, “And as far as I know, he only likes women.”

“Wait, seriously?” Hizashi wasn’t stupid, he knew the point his dad was making; but his neighbors had always seemed like a happy household.

“Seriously,” Dad said solemnly. “Relationships can be hard, kiddo. They’re bound to be at least a little bit complicated and messy, no matter who you fall in love with. But you have a good heart. Trust it.”

~*~

Oboro was sitting in the uncomfortable hospital chair, scrolling on his phone as he waited for Hizashi and Shouta to stop by, checking the clock for the fifth time in the past ten minutes. He always looked forward to their visits; but Nemuri had mentioned that something was off with his friends, and Hizashi’s silence in the group chat all week had Oboro a little worried. He’d texted Oboro directly a few times, but there was usually a pretty steady stream of banter in the group chat, and now Oboro felt like he was talking to himself there.

Finally, the door to his hospital room opened and Shouta skulked inside, shoulders hunched and hair falling forward to conceal his face.

“Heya Shouta! What’s with the gloomy cloud over your head? Are you trying to steal my schtick?” Oboro laughed, conjuring a small cloud and sending it to drift over to his friend. When Shouta didn’t even bother to wave his hand to dissipate it, Oboro quirked an eyebrow. Nemuri hadn’t been exaggerating. The quiet in the group chat was one thing, but seeing Shouta like this hammered home that something was wrong. “Where’s Hizashi?” Oboro asked, glancing behind Shouta to see if he was just lagging behind.

“Not coming,” Shouta mumbled.

A cold knot started to form in Oboro’s stomach as he stood up to face Shouta properly. “Why not? Is he ok?” He had never been one to assume the worst, but recent events had led him to give it a little more consideration.

Shouta shrugged, which wasn’t reassuring, then sighed. “He’s not injured or sick or anything,” he clarified, which took the edge off the gathering dread in Oboro’s gut. Only the edge, though.

“Then what’s wrong?” The blank look on Shouta’s face was setting off all kinds of warning bells.

Shouta just shrugged again.

“Come on, man,” Oboro cajoled with a smile, padding over to Shouta to sling his arm around his shoulders, tugging him further into the room, “I’m still trapped in here till tomorrow or Sunday at least, it’s not like I can go check on him. Fill me in!” It was strange, feeling so out of the loop with his friends, and he didn’t like it; but he tried to keep a reassuring smile on his face.

“You could call him later,” Shouta suggested.

“Or, you could tell me now.” Oboro climbed up onto his bed and sat cross-legged, then patted the mattress in front of him in invitation. Shouta sighed, but climbed up and sat facing Oboro, still hunched in on himself.

“He’s avoiding me,” Shouta admitted. “He has been since the villain attack on Sunday.”

“What, why?” Oboro asked, no longer able to keep his grin up. That wasn’t like Hizashi at all!

“He… I… It’s complicated.” Shouta refused to meet his eye.

“Well, I’ve got nothing but time on my hands here. I bet we can figure it out. What happened?”

Shouta bit his lip. He was quiet long enough that Oboro prompted him again, more gently than before, “Shou, what happened?”

“He kissed me.” Shouta’s voice was small. Oboro’s eyes widened for a moment before he schooled his features into something neutral. He was sure he remembered Hizashi telling him that he liked Shouta. Though the memory of that conversation was kinda muddled and confusing, he was certain that it had happened and that it was true. And Oboro had wondered for a while if Shouta had a crush on Hizashi; but it was kinda hard to tell cuz Shouta had never really shown much interest in romance at all. So, shouldn’t this be good news? Why were both of them miserable?

Maybe Shouta didn’t actually like Hizashi? Maybe he’d rejected him, and it had gone badly?

“What happened after that?” How the hell had things gone wrong?

Shouta took a breath. “I kissed him back.” His voice was stronger and steadier, and Oboro was relieved that it had not been a rejection, so that wasn’t the problem; but why did Shouta also sound so flat-? “And then he turned and ran away, and he’s been avoiding me ever since.”

Oh.

“I see,” Oboro said, trying not to start spilling secrets that weren’t his to spill. “Have you tried talking to him?”

“Sorta,” Shouta said, but glanced away. “Maybe not,” he admitted, worrying a fold of the white hospital sheets between his fingers. “Not really, anyway. He doesn’t want to talk about it, so I’m not gonna force it.” His expression was blank, but the fidgeting gave away his feelings.

Oboro shifted closer and reached out to wrap his arms around Shouta’s shoulders. He held on until Shouta finally let go of some of the tension holding him rigid and leaned forward, burying his face against Oboro’s shoulder. “Listen up, short-stack,” Oboro ordered, and Shouta huffed indignantly at the teasing, “I promise that we’re gonna get this sorted out, ok?” He felt Shouta nod, and he smiled as the path forward started to come into view. “But it’s going to involve you and Hizashi talking with each other, got it?”

Shouta pulled away from Oboro and curled into himself. “I don’t want to,” he said.

“Too bad!” Oboro laughed, resting his hand on Shouta’s shoulder. “You really think I’m gonna let my besties fall apart when I’m finally busting out of this place? I’ve got your back, remember? So you just need to keep yourself from spiraling into that doom cloud inside your head for a few more days, and then we’ll handle it together. Unless you two spontaneously decide to talk to each other beforehand, of course. I give you full permission to solve this problem without me, if you want.”

“Pretty sure that’s impossible,” Shouta grumbled.

“Pretty sure you’re underestimating yourself,” Oboro countered. “Speaking of which, tell me all about the villain attack last week, Nemuri told me you kicked some serious ass!”

Oboro could tell Shouta was relieved at the change of subject, and he spent the rest of the visit filling Oboro in on what had happened. Oboro was thoroughly impressed at what a badass his friend was.

When Shouta left, Oboro pulled out his phone and called Nemuri.

“Hey Occhan,” she greeted him.

“Hey Nemuri, I think my friends may be idiots.”

“And you’re just realizing this?” she asked, incredulous.

“No, but it’s an actual problem this time. I think I’m gonna need your help…”

~*~

After he escaped the conversation with his dad, Hizashi found all his energy washed away. Mom tried to convince him to talk with them about what had happened, that they’d work together to figure out how to handle things…

But he couldn’t tell them about the situation between him and Shouta without telling them about kissing Shouta, and there was no way he was telling them about that. Not yet, anyway. So he’d excused himself, telling a half truth, that he was exhausted and really just needed to lay down.

He couldn’t exactly rest, though. Not with the way everything kept turning over and over in his head. A dozen times, he almost sent a message to Shouta; but he had no idea what to say. ‘I’m sorry’ wasn’t nearly enough, and ‘Let’s talk’ sounded fucking ominous. Plus, he didn’t really want to talk, he just wanted things fixed. So, instead of saying anything, he spent the evening cleaning up the scattered, shattered debris from his freak-out earlier.

It was getting late when his phone rang, and he fumbled to find it in the mess of his blankets. He didn’t even look at the name before accepting the call, answering with a half-panicked, “Hello?”

“Hey there, Mouth Man, I missed you today!” Oboro’s cheery voice came over the line. Hizashi wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed. Maybe both. Either way, there was definitely an undercurrent of guilt twisting in his guts at the way he’d ditched his friend earlier.

“Yeah, sorry about that. Things have been…” Hizashi sighed. “Not good,” he finished, flopping face-down onto his bed.

“Is that so?” Oboro asked, and even though he sounded just as upbeat as ever, there was something in his voice that gave it away. Something careful that said he already knew.

“Aizawa told you.” It wasn’t a question.

“Shouta told me lots of things, which part do you mean?”

Hizashi’s mouth opened and closed as he tried to say something. Anything.

“I’m an asshole,” he finally managed, squeezing his eyes shut. He wished he could block out the look of disappointment that he was imagining on Oboro’s face.

“Hmm, nope. That’s not something Shouta said.”

“He should have,” Hizashi retorted, curling up on his side, the words leaving a bitter taste in his mouth that he knew he deserved. “It’s true.”

“Maybe so, but it’s still not something Shouta told me. So, what do you think he did say?”

“I kissed him.” It was less an answer to Oboro’s question and more of a confession.

“That does sound familiar,” Oboro confirmed.

Hizashi curled up tighter, telling himself to stay calm, to not panic… and of-fucking-course he immediately failed, with everything he’d been holding back spewing out of him.

“I kissed him, man; I saw him there and I couldn’t stop myself and I kissed him and he kissed me back, and then I freaked out and ran away and I’ve been dodging him for a week now and I think I’ve fucked everything up beyond repair because how the hell can I fix this-”

“Hizashi!” Oboro snapped, not angry but firm enough to startle Hizashi out of his spiral. “Are you sure I’m the one with brain damage here? Nothing is broken that can’t be fixed.”

He wished it was true, but, “How?”

“Talk to Shouta.”

A bitter laugh punched out of him. “I can’t! I don’t know what to say that won’t end up making him hate me even more. I deserve it anyway, so-”

“Oh gods, how am I the one with the functioning brain cell?” Oboro’s laugh on the other end of the line held genuine humor in it, and Hizashi wasn’t sure if he found that comforting or enraging. “Listen, just do me a favor and try not to have a complete meltdown before I get out of this place.”

“No promises,” Hizashi muttered under his breath, but talking to Oboro about it did seem to have helped him feel a tiny bit less like he was gonna lose it.

“The nurse is giving me the stink-eye, I gotta go; but I mean it, Zashi. We’ll fix this. Trust me.”

Hizashi took a breath to try and steady himself. “Ok. Bye, Kumo. And, I really am sorry I didn’t come see you today.”

“See! I knew you knew how to apologize! Keep that energy up, buddy! I’ll see you soon.”

Oboro ended the call, and Hizashi stared blankly at his phone for a long time, lost in his thoughts.

Oboro had spoken with Shouta, and he seemed to think that things could be fixed, so maybe Shouta didn’t hate him? But what would ‘fixing things’ even look like?

Obviously he had to apologize, but what then?

Could he try and pretend it never happened, so that they could go back to how they were before? Maybe, but he’d already lost control of himself once, how long before he fucked up again?

Could he risk telling Shouta how he feels? Not that he hadn’t already made it painfully obvious by kissing him in the middle of the street; but that wasn’t quite the same as telling Shouta outright and then having to face him afterwards. If Shouta didn’t like him back, Hizashi was sure that the rejection would kill him…

But Shouta had kissed him back…

The conversations with his parents earlier swam around in his mind. He was still wrapping his head around the idea that just because he could fall in love with different kinds of people, it didn’t mean that he was just going to keep falling in love with someone different and leaving behind a trail of broken hearts…

Of course, even if Shouta did have any interest in maybe dating him before he’d run away like an asshole, he’d prolly fucked that part up beyond repair now anyway, so the question was probably moot. It’s not like Hizashi could just say ‘oops, sorry about that’ and somehow it magically made things all better. Fuck, he couldn’t even look Shouta in the eye right now, much less say anything to him…

Wait.

Maybe there was a way he could start apologizing without having to look at Shouta, or even actually say anything?

He sat up, opened the music app on his phone, and started putting together a new playlist. It was hard to keep himself from adding tracks that were just melancholy heartbroken songs; but after two and a half hours, he figured it was at least a good place to start.

Assuming Shouta even bothered to listen.

His hands shook as he added the playlist to Shouta’s account, and then it was done. It was something, at least.

He flopped down on his bed, burying his face in his pillows, chest aching horribly. He had no idea how this could possibly work out, but Oboro had asked Hizashi to trust him. A tiny flicker of hope had ignited inside him, holding off the darkness just enough for Hizashi to finally fall asleep.

Chapter Text

When Hizashi woke up, his bleary eyes immediately checked his phone for messages from Shouta.

Nothing.

He tried not to let the disappointment overwhelm him. After all, Shouta might not have even seen the playlist. So he opened the app… and about three quarters of the songs showed that they’d been played.

Shouta had seen. He’d listened.

But he hadn’t said anything.

Was that it? Was he rejecting Hizashi’s apology already? Maybe he didn’t care, maybe he just wanted to be done with Hizashi, to just never see him again… Hizashi never would have believed it, but Shouta was sometimes hard to read, he had a helluva poker face… But Oboro had seemed so sure that Shouta would want to fix things between them…

Oboro had said to trust him.

Maybe Shouta was just waiting to call or message until he was sure Hizashi would be awake? He took a fast shower, keeping his ear out for any notifications as he scrubbed himself and brushed his teeth, trying to wash away the stale, crusty feeling that clung to him like salt on his skin.

Still, even after he was back in his room and wearing clean sweats, the sensation remained. He flopped down on his bed and stuck his headphones on, fidgeting with his phone as he waited for an incoming message.

By the early afternoon, it was pretty clear that Shouta wasn’t just waiting for Hizashi to be awake.

His hands twitching with anxious energy, Hizashi finally caved in and sent a text, nausea churning in his stomach.

<sent> Shouta hates me

<Cloud Boy> what happened now?

<sent> i can’t believe i messed everything up so badly and now i can’t even try and make it right

<sent> he’s just gonna hate me forever

<Cloud Boy> what happened???

<sent> it doesn’t matter

<Cloud Boy> I’m bustin outta this place in like an hour buddy, can you hold off on the meltdown a little longer?

What could Oboro do to help with this, though? He’d sent an apology, Shouta had seen it, but he wasn’t saying anything. There was no way that was good news.

Hizashi curled up in his bed, hugging his pillow to his chest, headphones on as sad music prodded at all the wounded pieces of his heart.

He kept his phone in his hand, watching and waiting for a message notification that never came.

~*~

Oboro was wearing real clothes. He looked down at himself, with pants and a t-shirt and a zip-up hoodie and a jacket and socks and shoes with laces that he had tied all by himself, and he smiled. The nurses had insisted he leave the building in a wheelchair, but he was officially outside the hospital now, so he stood up and took a few steps away from it. His parent’s car was waiting at the curb, but he paused for a moment to bask in the warmth of the late autumn sunlight. He had been itching to get out of the hospital for weeks now, and his eagerness to get to work on Operation Idiots added a sense of urgency; but he needed to take a second to just breathe in the fact that he was outside, walking, living in such a beautiful world.

His mom hugged him again (she’d been doing it all day throughout the discharge process), and he hugged her back.

Taking one last deep breath, he climbed into the car, scooting over when it became clear that Mom was getting in next to him rather than riding up front with Dad. As soon as they were buckled, Dad pulled away from the curb and Oboro turned to watch the hospital shrink into the distance behind them.

Finished with one thing, he moved on to the next.

“I need to have Shouta and Hizashi over tonight.”

Dad glanced up, looking at him in the reflection of the rearview mirror. “I know they’re your best friends, but don’t you think you should spend your first night home with your family?”

“I was planning on it,” Oboro said, “But I found out yesterday about some stuff that happened, and now it’s kinda turned into an emergency.”

“What kind of emergency?” Mom reached over to grab his hand, the fear in her voice not nearly as hidden as he knew she tried to keep it.

“Nothing dangerous,” Oboro clarified, squeezing her fingers gently. “It is a little… personal, though. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t really important.” He spent the rest of the car ride home explaining his plan to his parents.

“What exactly are they so upset with each other about?” Dad was still half in disbelief that it could be as bad as Oboro had told them. “You three are all as thick as thieves!”

“Like I said, it’s kinda personal,” Oboro said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Thanks for being so understanding,” he added, since it hadn’t actually taken much to convince them to go along with it. It was clear to them, even though Oboro hadn’t given them all the details, that his friends needed some help ASAP.

“Just make sure that you spend some time with your brother and sister,” Mom told him as they got out of the car, giving him the hundredth hug of the day.

“Shouta and Hizashi won’t be over for another two hours, Yu and Ota will be sick of me long before then!” he laughed. Mom had barely backed away from him when the front door crashed open and a shriek of joy split the air.

“Bobo!” His older sister came barreling across the lawn to fling her arms around him, knocking him back a step, which he smoothly turned into a tiny spin as he hugged her back. When she finally took half a step away from him, she looked up and wrinkled her nose. “Oh gods, how does your hair look worse now than when they first shaved it?” She ruffled the few centimeters of growth that stuck out in odd directions.

“I’m still prettier than you,” he teased, tipping the scarred side of his face upwards for admiration as Ota stuck out her tongue.

“You need to be the pretty one,” she retorted, “You were dumb enough even before you went and got brain damage.”

Mom sighed at them. “Can you two possibly be nice to each other for five minutes?”

“We are being nice!” they declared in unison, and giddiness bubbled up inside Oboro at how natural it felt.

“You’re going to set a bad example for Yu.”

“Oh please,” Ota said, rolling her eyes at their mom, “Yu’s the smart one, he knows not to act like Bobo.”

“Rude!” Oboro laughed. “Where is he, anyway?”

“In his room, sulking that he’s going to have to share it with you again.”

Oboro gave his sister a wide grin. For a split second he had to blink away happy tears that welled up as things finally felt right again. When his family had visited him in the hospital, their interactions had felt stiff and uncomfortable, like the crunchy white sheets on the hospital bed. Everyone had been so careful in that sterile environment, and even though he understood why, it had felt wrong.

But now he was home.

Roaring with laughter, Oboro charged into the house and thundered up the stairs to the bedroom he shared with his younger brother. “Don’t you want to come say hi-?” Oboro shouted as he flung open the door, only to freeze, mouth open, at the sight that greeted him.

“Come on, Ota, you couldn’t keep him busy another two minutes!?” Yu chided their sister who stood giggling behind Oboro as Yu finished taping up the banner that hung across the room. It read, in huge bold letters, ‘WELCOME HOME, BLOCKHEAD!’

It was perfect.

Oboro crossed the room to where Yu stood on a folding chair and grabbed him around the hips, spinning him around.

“Oboro!” Yu squawked indignantly, though it wasn’t enough to cover his laughter, “You’re gonna send one of us back to the hospital, put me down!”

“As if I wouldn’t give you a nice, soft landing,” Oboro said, manifesting a cloud and sitting his brother down on it.

“Your Quirk is finally back to full strength?” Yu asked, patting the cloud before hopping down off it to the floor.

“Not a hundred percent,” Oboro admitted, “But plenty enough for your scrawny ass. I think once I start back to school, it’ll come back even stronger.”

Yu gave a small smile, but glanced away. “Do you really need to go back?”

Oboro’s smile fell, just a little, and he rested his hand on Yu’s shoulder, giving what he hoped was a reassuring squeeze.

“We almost lost you, Bobo,” Ota said, stepping close and gathering both of her brothers into a hug. “It’s a miracle that you’ve recovered. Hero work is dangerous-”

“Lots of work is dangerous,” Oboro said gently, stepping back from his siblings just enough that they could see him smile. “But hero work is what’s right for me; being out there, protecting people… it’s what I’m meant to do, and I’ve been given a second chance at it. I’m gonna make sure I don’t waste it. Which reminds me!” he added, “I’ve gotta save my friends from themselves in a little while. Try to not be jerks to them until after they’ve sorted out the mess they’ve gotten themselves into?”

“Aizawa and Yamada?” Ota asked, and Oboro nodded.

“It’s a long story,” Oboro told them, “But they won’t be here for another few hours. Let’s go bug mom and dad for now.” The three of them filed out of the room, with Oboro leaving last. As he closed the door, he cast a glance back over his shoulder at the banner and smiled to himself.

It was good to be home.

~*~

Someone was knocking on Hizashi’s door. It sounded like Dad.

He ignored it.

Dad kept knocking. Hizashi hoped he’d give up and go away soon. He got half his wish, as Dad only knocked once more; but instead of leaving Hizashi alone, he just opened the door. Hizashi kept his eyes closed, pretending he was asleep. He had no interest in trying to talk about any of this with either of his parents again.

“Hey kiddo, you’ve got a visitor.”

A visitor? Was Shouta here?

With a gasp, Hizashi scrambled upright, his headphones falling off while he grabbed his phone, checking to see if he’d somehow missed any messages.

He stumbled out of bed, dodging past Dad and dashing downstairs, crashing into the walls as his socked feet skidded on the floors.

Over by the genkan, Mom was standing there, chatting with-

Kayama?

“Hey there!” Kayama greeted him cheerfully. “Come on, slow-poke, it’s time to go!”

“What?” He pushed his hair away from his face and looked at his phone again, his confusion deepening as he wondered what he’d missed; but no new messages had appeared.

“If we’re gonna be at Shirakumo’s by six, we gotta leave now,” she said with a half-exasperated huff, looking at an imaginary watch on her wrist.

“Shirakumo?”

“Is that really what you’re wearing? What am I gonna do with you,” she sighed, and Hizashi glanced down at his sweatpants and t-shirt. “No matter, it’ll do. Shoes on, we’ve got a train to catch.”

Hizashi was lost, and he turned to his mom with wide eyes, hoping she’d help him understand.

“Kayama was telling me Shirakumo is home from the hospital,” Mom said with a soft smile, “It’ll be good for you to see him. Go on, you’ve got your phone, right?” He glanced down at it, still gripped in his hand. When had Oboro gotten home? Why hadn’t he said anything to Hizashi?

He was trying to piece everything together, but Mom had her hands on his shoulders and was gently steering him into the genkan. He tugged on his sneakers and jacket as much by reflex as anything else. Then Kayama was looping her arm through his and saying a chipper farewell to his parents and leading him out the door.

What the hell was going on?

“What the hell is going on?” he asked as he stumbled over his feet, Kayama half-pulling him along towards the train station.

“I told you, we’re going to Occhan’s place.”

He frowned, but hurried to keep up with her brisk pace. Questions kept swirling in his head as they boarded the train; but every time he opened his mouth to try and ask one, nothing came out.

Kayama kept her arm looped through his elbow as they walked through Oboro’s neighborhood, right up to the front door of his house. “Here we are!” She knocked, and Ota was there in moments, grinning widely at them.

“‘Bout time,” she said, tugging Hizashi inside while Kayama kept her hand on his back to propel him forward. “Shoes off, you heathen,” she added. Hizashi blinked before toeing his sneakers off while Kayama helped him out of his jacket. That done, Ota took over escorting him further into the house with a hand on his shoulder while Kayama kicked off her own shoes.

Hizashi was dragged towards the living room, where he could hear the sounds of laughter and conversation. As Kayama came up behind him and nudged him fully into the room, Oboro’s booming voice suddenly filled the space.

“Long time, no see, Hizashi!”

As Hizashi’s eyes landed on his friend, for the first time in months, he looked… real.

For a split second, Hizashi was able to stop thinking about everything with Shouta as he got a good look at Oboro, no longer wearing a hospital get-up, but now back in his own clothes. It was such a simple thing, but it turned Oboro from a patient back into Hizashi’s friend; the person with whom he’d spent hours playing video games, studying for classes, chasing around their neighborhoods, or sitting in the cat cafe. The scar on his face wasn’t any better, and it probably would stay about the same for the rest of his life; but the guy in front of him now was Oboro in a way that the guy in the hospital hadn’t been.

Hizashi took a step forward, ready to reach out and hug his friend, when he noticed the dark shape sulking in the corner of the room.

He froze.

Shouta was here.

Shit.

Of course Shouta was here. Why wouldn’t he be? He was a better friend to Oboro than Hizashi was. He was the one who belonged here; but he was hiding himself away against the wall, his eyes wide and fixed on Hizashi.

Less than an hour ago, Hizashi had dashed out of his room in the hopes of seeing Shouta, of being able to talk to him. Now, here he was, just meters away, and Hizashi suddenly needed to be anywhere else. His feet tried to pivot, to run right out the door and never stop running. He didn’t deserve to be in the same room as Shouta… the same prefecture. The same country.

Hizashi hadn’t managed to do more than shift his weight and start to turn away before strong hands grabbed onto him.

“Holy shit, you weren’t kidding,” Ota said as she held on to one of Hizashi’s arms. Kayama stood just behind him, hugging him tight.

“Breathe, Hicchan,” Kayama whispered in his ear. Hizashi sucked in a shaky breath. “Come with me.” She waved Ota off, but continued to keep her own arm wrapped around Hizashi’s shoulders as she led him to another room just down the hall, as if still afraid he might bolt.

It was pathetic that she was right to be worried.

Entering the room that Hizashi vaguely remembered as being Mr. Shirakumo’s office, Kayama turned him around to face her. She gripped his shoulders and held him at arms length, and he wished he had his sunglasses instead of his regular clear lenses as she looked him in the eye. Still, he saw a calm certainty in her face that soothed him just enough that he felt the need to escape receding… a little.

“Breathe.” It was a command, and Hizashi obeyed. He closed his eyes, blocking everything out for a minute while he just focused on trying to make his lungs do what they were supposed to do.

“Look at me, Hicchan.” Kayama’s voice broke through the white noise in his head, and Hizashi opened his eyes. “Do you want to fix things with Shou-chan?” He swallowed hard and nodded. Now that his panic was fading, shame crept in to fill the void as he realized that he’d been about to make everything even worse.

He kept fucking everything up. His eyes slid shut again, and his thoughts began to spiral-

Kayama squeezed his shoulders, and he looked at her. “Do you want help?” Her voice was warm, but held an edge that demanded an answer right now. There was only one answer he could give anyway, since there was no way he could do this on his own.

He nodded.

“Good, cuz we’re helping whether you like it or not,” Oboro said brightly as he steered Shouta into the room, pushing him gently from behind. Shouta didn’t seem to be resisting at all, but his eyes were glued to the floor. “Operation Idiots, phase 2, let’s go!”

Oboro guided Shouta over to the open door of the closet on the side of the room, and Kayama was just a step behind, nudging Hizashi into the cramped space. Before his brain could catch up to what was happening, the door latched shut behind him.

He and Shouta were stuck in the dark space, not quite pressed together, but without a whole lot of room to maneuver.

“There’s a pull-chain for the light if you reach up above your head,” Oboro’s voice was muffled by the wood that separated them, but only a bit. Hizashi heard something sliding down the door, and realized Oboro must now be leaning back against it, sitting on the floor right outside.

With a click, light filled the space. Hizashi blinked and saw Shouta’s hand still raised, holding the pull-chain.

“I’m gonna put my headphones and some music on,” Oboro said. “I’ll check in on ya every now and then. You can come out once you get everything sorted.”

Hizashi’s heart thudded in his chest. This was not the kind of help that he’d been hoping for.

The two of them stood in silence, Hizashi racking his brain for the right thing to say, wishing that Shouta would say something first. Shouta stayed quiet, though. He had pressed himself as far back as he could from Hizashi, squashing himself into a shelf that ran around the perimeter of the closet at waist height.

Even still, Hizashi could hear the quaver in the long breaths Shouta was taking. He wondered if Shouta could see how badly Hizashi’s hands were trembling.

There was no way he could think like this, no way he could talk. Everything was too close.

He glanced down to see the floor was mostly clear, just a few shoe boxes he was able to nudge to the side with his foot and make some space. Slowly, he lowered himself down and tucked his legs under himself, sitting back on his heels. Shouta stared down at him for a moment, then sat cross-legged across from him, pressed back against the opposite wall. With the shelf now over their heads, they could get a little breathing room; but Hizashi still felt like there simply wasn’t enough air.

The silence was thick between them. Hizashi saw the irony that he, of all people, couldn’t make himself say anything, despite how badly he wanted to. He could feel the pressure of the unspoken words aching inside him, but he just didn’t know how to get them out.

He rubbed the heel of his hand against his aching chest, opened his mouth to try and say something… then whined in frustration when there was nothing. It was infuriating. If there was one thing he could do, it was talk; so why couldn’t he do it now, when it was basically the most important thing ever?

It was Shouta’s quiet, steady voice that finally broke the silence. “What are you sorry for?” Hizashi drew a breath, because Shouta had listened to the songs and understood.

“Being an asshole,” Hizashi replied, the spell binding his tongue broken by Shouta’s question. “I messed up and hurt you and I’m so, so sorry.” He bit his lip, staring down at his fingers as he picked at his cuticles, nausea swirling inside him as he waited for Shouta’s judgement.

“Which part are you sorry for, though,” Shouta asked, a hint of emotion creeping into his voice, and Hizashi looked up at him in confusion.

“All of it, man. I never-”

“Oh.” Shouta curled in on himself, and the rest of Hizashi’s words turned to ash in his mouth. “Shirakumo, you can open the door.” Shouta’s voice was flat as he called out to their friend, the words lancing through Hizashi’s chest as Shouta’s tone made it clear he was giving up on… this.

“I don’t hear the joyful sounds of friends who have made amends,” Oboro called right back.

“Hang on, wait, what did I say wrong now,” Hizashi pleaded, more than half-panicked as Shouta pulled his knees up to his chest. Hizashi’s hands made an aborted movement to reach towards him before he pulled them back, knowing he had no right. “Shit, I knew I’d even mess up the apology; come on, man, please, I dunno where I’m going wrong.”

Shouta closed his eyes and took a slow, deep breath before opening them again to level his gaze at Hizashi. “Are you sorry you avoided me all week?”

“Yes, I really am,” Hizashi said desperately. “You didn’t deserve that! I was being a miserable coward and I didn’t know what to say- I mean, I still don’t know what to say; but avoiding you was a shitty thing to do and I’m really sorry.”

“So… You’re not mad at me?” Shouta’s voice wavered for a moment, and Hizashi felt a fresh wave of guilt, wondering how he’d fucked things up badly enough that Shouta could ever think that.

“What? No! Of course not, I’m the one who fucked things up, not you!”

Shouta took another breath, and his voice grew steady again, though his knees were still pulled in tight to his chest. “Are you sorry you ran away that day?” Even after a week of running away from Shouta, there was no question about which time he meant.

“Yeah,” Hizashi said quietly. “I- I freaked out and I didn’t know what to do, so I ran. I’m sorry.” Hizashi swallowed in the quiet that followed his answer, waiting for Shouta to say something. Anything.

“Why did you freak out?”

Hizashi chewed on his lip as he tried to figure out how to say it. “I was afraid that I’d ruined everything. That I’d doomed us to disaster. I can’t lose you.”

Shouta’s voice was little more than a whisper in the stillness of the closet. “Are you sorry you kissed me?”

“I-” Hizashi started before he fully processed what Shouta had asked, then paused. He thought back to that moment, seeing Shouta standing there like some kind of ancient god of battle, eyes glowing, covered in dirt and blood…

Hizashi always liked the way Shouta looked. He always wanted to be close to him, to touch him. For the first time since it had happened, he let himself really think about what it had been like to kiss Shouta, to press his lips and body up against him. If he was only ever going to get one chance to kiss him, if there was only ever going to be one moment for Hizashi, then he was glad it had been that one.

And he let himself be greedy as he remembered the way that Shouta had kissed him back. In that moment, Shouta hadn’t pushed him away; he had met him with what seemed like equal hunger. Hizashi had done a lot of things that hurt and upset Shouta over the past week, but the kiss didn’t seem to be one of them. So, was he sorry for it?

“No,” he admitted, feeling his face heat up. “I’m not sorry for that.”

Shouta inhaled sharply, but when he spoke, his voice was calm and measured. “Oh… So… Are you gay too?”

“Huh? No?” Hizashi thought Shouta would have figured that out, considering the girls Hizashi had dated. “But being gay isn’t a problem!” he added quickly, as his brain processed the ‘too’ part.

Shouta was gay.

Shouta liked guys, and Shouta had kissed him back.

“But- Then-” Shouta frowned, and Hizashi could practically see his brain working behind those dark eyes. “Why did you kiss me?” There was an edge in Shouta’s voice now, like Kayama’s earlier; a demand for an answer, not a request. And underneath it, Hizashi thought he heard something else; something that he wanted so badly to believe was hope.

Shouta had kissed him back, Hizashi reminded himself. And even if he hadn’t, the kiss had happened, and Shouta deserved the truth. If Shouta didn’t like him back, they would work through it. Oboro said to trust him, that things would be ok if he and Shouta talked.

And if Shouta did like him back…

Everyone kept saying that it didn’t have to end in disaster. If Shouta was willing to give him a chance, even after a fuck-up like this, maybe it was a risk worth taking…

He rubbed his shaking hands against his thighs.

“I’ve been wanting to kiss you for a long time,” he said, the words tumbling out of him in a rush. “I really like you a lot. I never said anything because I was afraid that if I told you how I felt that it would end up ruining our friendship and I didn’t want to lose you, I can’t lose you, I- mmff!”

Shouta’s mouth was pressed against his.

Shouta’s hand was fisted in Hizashi’s shirt, holding him steady while he knelt up and leaned across the space between them, his other hand planted on the wall behind Hizashi as he kissed him, a demanding pressure firm against his lips.

It took Hizashi a moment to realize that he was kissing Shouta back. When he did, a whimper pushed its way out of his chest, and his hands drifted up to gently rest on Shouta’s shoulders, afraid to grab on too tight and risk shattering something delicate.

The seconds stretched out as Shouta’s lips moved against Hizashi’s, warm and real; and he felt himself melting as the tension of weeks and months of worry began to fall away. All the reasons that had always made so much sense in his head stopped mattering. He’d been losing control of himself for ages, and there was no way to fight it now. Nothing else could matter, because Shouta was kissing him.

Barely breaking the kiss, Shouta murmured, “I like you,” close enough that Hizashi could feel his lips moving as he spoke. “We should be boyfriends.”

There was no argument he could make. Shouta never asked for anything, there was no way Hizashi could deny him this. Not when he wanted it so badly too. “Yeah,” Hizashi breathed. “Yeah, ok. Boyfriends.” Simple as that. Neither one of them moved for a long moment.

“I think I’m still mad at you for avoiding me all week,” Shouta said, leaning in to rest his forehead against Hizashi’s.

“I’ll make it up to you,” Hizashi promised. “Whatever it takes.”

Shouta sat back, just enough to look Hizashi in the eye. “We have to be able to talk to each other.” Hizashi gave a tiny, eager nod. He could do that, he could totally do that for Shouta.

“Yeah, definitely. So, uh, just to be clear; if we’re boyfriends, that means I get to kiss you again, right?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

This time it was soft and careful as they both closed the distance between them. Hizashi moved his hands to push Shouta’s hair away from his face as they kissed, burying his fingers in the soft strands as he tipped his face slightly to get a better angle. Shouta hummed a quiet noise, and it sent a thrill through Hizashi as their lips moved against each other.

The next noise out of Shouta was more of a disgruntled huff. Hizashi’s heart stuttered in his chest as he wondered if he’d done something wrong again, until Shouta started shuffling closer. He broke the kiss just long enough to kneel up and straddle Hizashi’s lap before settling down to sit on his thighs.

“Oh,” Hizashi gasped as they started kissing again, wrapping an arm around Shouta to hold him close. When Shouta tangled his fingers in Hizashi’s hair, a soft moan escaped him, and he felt himself flush. Time got a little fuzzy as they sat together, holding on tight and kissing each other over and over. Hizashi was still reeling at how quickly everything had gone from a complete disaster to having Shouta - his boyfriend - sitting on his lap kissing him senseless.

“Is this real?” he asked as they broke apart to catch their breath.

“It better be.” Shouta sounded almost as dazed as Hizashi felt.

“Are you two done making out yet?” Oboro called through the door, and Hizashi felt his ears burn as he was reminded that their friends were right outside… but when he looked at Shouta, there wasn't a hint of shame anywhere on his face. There was only a familiar wicked glint in his eye, and a tiny hint of a smirk, and it had Hizashi bursting into a fit of excited giggles.

“That’s a sound I like to hear!” came Kayama’s voice, “That sounds like young romance to me!”

Shouta sighed and stood up, though the smirk still lingered on his face, softening slightly. He held out his hand to Hizashi. It shouldn’t have made him feel so giddy - Shouta had given him a hand up off the ground tons of times, after all. But this was different.

This was holding hands with his boyfriend as he clasped Shouta’s hand and they worked together to haul Hizashi up off the floor, still giggling. Shouta knocked on the door, and Oboro opened it, beaming at them.

“All better?”

“Yeah,” Shouta said, his eyes flicking down to where he and Hizashi were still holding hands.

Oboro nodded and managed to school his face into a solemn expression for a whole two seconds. “You may now come out of the closet,” he announced, beckoning them with a sweep of his arm.

“Did- did you orchestrate things this way just to make that joke!?” Hizashi squawked as Shouta led them back out into the room.

“It would have been a crime to pass up the opportunity, it had to be done,” Oboro laughed.

“What would we do without you?” Shouta asked drily.

“Probably stare longingly at each other, pining away like idiots for years instead of actually saying anything,” Oboro snorted. Hizashi glanced over at Shouta, who was blushing slightly, and squeezed his hand. Shouta met his eye and squeezed back. Oboro put one hand on each of their shoulders and pulled the three of them together in a tight hug. “I told ya you could fix it.”

“Thanks, man,” Hizashi said, one arm tight around Oboro, dropping Shouta’s hand only so he could immediately wrap his other arm around his waist as Shouta did the same. The warmth of Shouta’s arm holding him close had Hizashi’s heart doing somersaults in his chest.

When the three of them finally stepped back from each other, Hizashi’s hand found Shouta’s right away. He looked over at Kayama leaning against the wall, arms crossed, smiling fondly at them. “Thank you, Senpai,” he said, bowing his head. “If you hadn’t dragged me out-”

“Oh nonsense,” Kayama said, waving her hands as if to dismiss her role. “I need to look out for my boys.”

“Is it so bad if your boys appreciate that?” Oboro asked, sauntering over and waggling his eyebrows. Kayama huffed and drew herself up to her full height, somehow looking down her nose at him even though he was several centimeters taller than her.

“Then they can show their appreciation in the ways I deem fit,” she said, her voice shifting to a tone and timbre that Hizashi had never heard her use before. “Yamada, you will be bringing me lunch to the rooftop for the foreseeable future.”

“Gonna be joining us every day now?” Hizashi asked, finding himself pleased at the idea; which was strange, since the thought of anyone else coming into that space usually felt wrong.

“Of course. Aizawa, you can take over the paperwork at the office for the rest of the month.”

“How did I get involved in this?” he grumbled under his breath. If Kayama heard him, she ignored him.

“As for you, Shirakumo,” she said, meeting his wide grin with a cool, steady gaze, “We will discuss that in private.”

“The private room is currently available,” Shouta deadpanned, pointing at the open door of the closet with his free hand.

Oboro burst out into raucous laughter, doubling over with the force of it.

It all hit Hizashi at once - Oboro was home and healthy and laughing; Shouta was at his side, holding his hand, his boyfriend. Everything was good. In part because Oboro’s laughter was contagious, but more so because Hizashi couldn’t contain his joy, he started cracking up too. Then Kayama’s bright laughter joined in the noise, and when Hizashi looked over at Shouta, even he was giggling quietly.

Gods, he was beautiful.

When Oboro finally straightened up, he had to pause to wipe away tears from his eyes.

“It’s really, really good to finally be home. Come on, let’s go celebrate.”

~*~

Shouta somewhat reluctantly let go of Hizashi’s hand before they left the office. It was one thing for Oboro and Kayama to know what was going on between them, but Shouta figured they shouldn’t be too obvious about it in front of Oboro’s parents, at least not until he told his own parents.

He tried to keep a respectable distance between himself and Hizashi… but if he kept drifting, standing closer and closer to him, well… the Shirakumo’s probably wouldn’t notice that, right? He was allowed to stand close to his friend.

His boyfriend.

Hizashi liked him. Kind, funny, brilliant, gorgeous Hizashi liked him and was his boyfriend.

Sure, maybe they’d taken a less-than-optimal path to get to this point, and Shouta begrudgingly had to admit that the whole ‘talk to each other’ thing had actually been key; but the important thing was that they were here now.

The corners of Shouta’s mouth kept creeping upwards.

Hizashi liked him. Hizashi had made the most wonderful noises while they’d kissed in the closet. He’d made those noises because Shouta was kissing him. He wanted to kiss Shouta.

He wanted to keep kissing Shouta.

Hizashi liked him.

Ota raised her eyebrow at them, smirking, but she didn’t say anything.

The evening passed in a blur of laughter and noise - which was a pretty standard evening in the Shirakumo household. Eventually, though, it was clear that Oboro was starting to get tired, and he said he was gonna call it a night. He walked his three friends to the door, stepping out to the front stoop to give one last round of good-bye hugs before they headed for the train.

“Why don’t you two go on ahead,” Kayama said to Shouta and Hizashi, “I just wanna chat with Occhan for a minute.”

“Mmmhmm,” Hizashi hummed in a teasing tone, “Gotta work out how he’s gonna show his appreciation, after all.”

“Shoo!” She laughed and waved her hand as if to banish them. Shouta glanced at Hizashi and extended his hand. Hizashi looked back at him, and without hesitation, laced his fingers between Shouta’s.

Shouta ducked his head to try and cover how ridiculously wide his smile was.

Maybe to try and hide the way he was blushing, too. It was irrational, but he’d never felt anything quite like it, and his heart was practically fluttering in his chest.

“I still kinda can’t believe this,” Hizashi said as they walked hand in hand to the train station.

“Me neither,” Shouta confessed.

At the station, there were a handful of people milling around on the platform, and Hizashi let go of his hand as they waited in the lamplight for the train to arrive. Shouta felt disappointment twist in his chest, even though rationally, he knew that they couldn’t actually hold hands every second of every day. That would be impractical.

But he couldn’t help wondering…

On the train they sat side by side, pressed close together, hip to hip and thigh to thigh. Hizashi’s hands were clasped together in his lap, but he leaned against Shouta as the train started moving. Shouta glanced over at his face, and caught Hizashi looking back at him. He felt his neck heat up as a giddy feeling bubbled up inside him, and he fought to control the ridiculous grin as it tried to take over his whole face again.

Hizashi was grinning broadly enough for the both of them anyway.

They rode in silence for a few minutes, trading glances until Shouta’s resolve broke and he pressed a quick kiss to Hizashi’s lips. Hizashi flushed bright red, and looked around the train to see if anyone had noticed… but he didn’t put any distance between himself and Shouta.

“Prolly shouldn’t do that in public too much,” Hizashi mumbled, still blushing furiously. “People might talk.”

“Why does that matter?” Shouta asked, his hand itching to grab Hizashi’s, the question from earlier hovering in the back of his brain. He reminded himself that he’d just told Hizashi that it was important that they communicate with each other… so he took a breath and asked.

“Are you bothered that I’m a guy?”

Hizashi blinked, genuine surprise splashed across his features. “What? No, that’s not it!” he said, reaching over to grab Shouta’s hand between his own, and Shouta could feel his brain short circuit a little bit at the touch. “I guess I’m still getting used to this, ok? Especially since a few hours ago I was seriously worried about- well, everything. I need some time to adjust before the rumor mill starts turning.”

“Oh. Ok.” It made sense.. Shouta was feeling the whiplash himself; maybe it had hit Hizashi a little harder. “Does that mean you don’t want to tell anyone yet?”

“I, uhh, hadn’t thought about it, really.” Hizashi gave him a bashful look. “Maybe not yet.”

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to hide it from my parents,” Shouta warned. “My mom picks up on things. She swears it’s not her Quirk, but-”

“Oh, no, you can tell your parents if you want! Just, uhm, let them know not to tell my parents?” Hizashi pulled one hand away to rub the back of his neck, glancing away. His other hand still held on to Shouta’s, though.

“Of course,” Shouta said, squeezing Hizashi’s hand. “Oh,” he added as something occurred to him, “I don’t think she’ll tell anyone, but once we see Shimada at school, she’s probably gonna know.”

“Huh?”

Shouta felt his face heat up. “She can… smell stuff. When people like people. She knew I liked you before I knew I liked you, so she might be able to smell… this.”

Hizashi straightened up, acute interest written all over his face and posture. “Ok, one, that’s weird and cool and unnerving all at once; she can smell that? And two, how long ago did she figure out you liked me?”

“She told me about it back in… uhm, March? It was that afternoon, with the lady beetle,” Shouta admitted. “But I think she knew back by Valentine’s Day. It was why she said we shouldn’t keep dating.”

Hizashi stared at him in disbelief before a huge smile slowly spread across his face. “Wait, seriously? You’ve liked me for that long?”

“Shaddup,” Shouta grumbled, but there was no heat to it. “The point is, she’ll probably figure it out, and I’d feel weird lying to her if she asks. Though, she prolly won’t ask.” He paused, thinking about it for a moment. “Actually, I don’t know if I’m ok lying to anyone about it,” he said, rubbing his thumb over Hizashi’s hand.

“When you put it like that, I don’t want to lie about it either.” Hizashi bit his lip, thinking. “How about for right now, we’re not telling anyone unless they ask, but if they ask, we don’t lie.”

“What about your parents?” Shouta didn’t fully understand Hizashi’s relationship with them, but he knew there was a lot of tension there.

“Can they be the exception?” Hizashi asked. “Just for now!” he added hastily, “Just until I’m ready to tell them on my own terms?”

Shouta didn’t like the idea, but he knew it was a hard situation for Hizashi. He nodded. “Of course.”

Huh. This whole ‘talking and communicating’ thing seemed to work pretty well. He was definitely not going to communicate that to Oboro or Tensei, though.

The train was approaching his stop, but he didn’t want to go. “Do you think we can see each other tomorrow?” he asked.

“Prolly,” Hizashi said with a grin. “I don’t see why not.”

“Good,” Shouta said, standing up and giving Hizashi’s hand one last squeeze before reluctantly letting go. “Cuz if you’re my boyfriend, that means I get to take you on a date.” He gave Hizashi a sly smirk as his jaw dropped.

“You- Not if I take you on one first!” Hizashi called after him as Shouta stepped off the train.

Shouta practically flew home, jogging along familiar roadways on feet that had never felt so light. The apartment wasn’t even dark by the time he got there, his parents still sitting on the sofa watching a show.

“You’re back earlier than I expected,” Dad said.

“Shirakumo still needs his rest,” Shouta said as his mom muted the TV.

“I hope you and Yamada didn’t wear him out with the interpersonal drama you’ve been struggling with,” Mom said, “Though I’m glad to see you seem to have resolved it.”

“Mom!” Shouta protested, but he couldn’t actually bring himself to be annoyed. He hadn’t told them about anything that had happened; he’d been too wrapped up in trying to just muddle through, and they had given him space. Up until now, the only mention of it had been Dad asking once a day if Shouta wanted to talk.

“Shouta, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smiling quite like this,” Dad laughed.

“I could just be happy that Shirakumo is finally home,” he groused, but he could feel his treacherous face giving him away as the grin took over again.

“Mmmhmm,” Dad hummed. Mom stood from the couch and pulled Shouta close for a tight hug.

“What’s that for?” Shouta asked.

“I’m glad to see you happy,” she said. “But if you don’t tell your father some details soon, he’s going to be insufferable.”

“Does that mean I haven’t been insufferable yet?” Dad teased as Mom walked around to the side of the couch and perched on the arm nearest him.

“You’ve been worried. Now that things are clearly better, you’ll be insufferable,” she said, kissing him on top of his head.

“Sorry for worrying you,” Shouta mumbled, a flicker of guilt cutting through his good mood, but it was gone as fast as it came as his parents both waved the apology away.

“Make it up to me by telling me the good news already!” Dad laughed as he reached over and grabbed Shouta’s wrist, hauling him to sit on the couch next to him.

Suddenly feeling shy in a way he didn’t remember ever feeling around his parents before, Shouta’s smile grew smaller, more private… but no less happy. “Yamada is my boyfriend now.” In a blink, Dad had him wrapped in a warm hug, chuckling happily.

“Congratulations, Shou-chan,” Dad said, ruffling his hair when he finally let Shouta sit back.

“Thanks,” he murmured. Remembering Hizashi’s request, he quickly added, “Please don’t say anything to his parents, though.” Mom and Dad shared a quick glance before looking back at him.

“Of course not,” Mom said. “Coming out is something that Yamada will need to do in his own time with his family.”

Shouta blinked. Despite Oboro’s joke earlier, he hadn’t stopped to think about what it really meant, both for Hizashi and himself. He remembered how realizing that he liked Hizashi had been a separate thing from realizing he was gay.

Then he realized he’d never actually mentioned it to his parents.

“Oh,” he said as an afterthought, “I’m gay.”

Dad burst into uproarious laughter, and Mom swatted him on the shoulder.

“Quiet down before the neighbors complain,” Mom said, flicking Dad’s ear as he kept chuckling. “We appreciate the clarification, Shouta.”

“Hmmm, does this mean we’re gonna have to make you boys keep the door open next time you want a sleepover?” Dad asked, winking, and Shouta felt his neck heat up.

“Manato,” Mom chided.

“I’m going to bed now,” Shouta announced, though he was more eager to talk with Hizashi than to escape Dad’s teasing. Mom rose from her seat as Shouta stood, giving him another hug.

“You are a very smart, very determined young man,” she said, stepping back. “You are so very much like me. But you’ve got your father’s heart.” She glanced over at Dad. “He had to convince me that pursuing love was a worthwhile undertaking.” She looked back at Shouta. “It was one of the few things he’s appropriately corrected me on in our lives.” Dad snorted. “I’m glad he’s passed that heart on to you,” she said, smoothing her hand over Shouta’s cheek.

This time, Shouta hugged her.

He was several centimeters taller than her now. He wasn’t sure when that had happened.

He heard Dad grunt as he pushed himself up from the couch, and moments later he’d wrapped his arms around both Shouta and Mom. “We love you so much, Shou-chan. And we’re so happy for you,” he said. “Now,” he added, releasing them and clapping his hand heavily on Shouta’s shoulder. “Go on and talk to your boyfriend.”

Shouta huffed, but still couldn’t stop smiling.

<sent> You’ve made my face hurt

<Hizashi> huh? like, from kissing?

<sent> Sorta. I can’t stop smiling.

<sent> It hurts my face.

<Hizashi> sorry? 😂😂

<sent> I’m taking you to the arcade tomorrow

<Hizashi> but u hate the arcade?

<sent> No, I hate spending money

<sent> The arcade is fun. And being with you is better.

<Hizashi> when did u learn to flirt? 😍😘

<sent> ?

<Hizashi> never mind.

<Hizashi> I made u a new playlist

<sent> when? Are you even home yet?

<Hizashi> I mean, it’s not perfect, I’m gonna add to it

<Hizashi> but I had to share it

<Hizashi> and yeah, I got home a little while ago

<sent> thank you

<Hizashi> u haven’t even listened to it yet 😝😂

<sent> So?

<sent> I like every playlist you’ve ever made for me.

<sent> I’ll listen to it now

<sent> and I’ll see you tomorrow

<Hizashi> c u tomorrow 😘😘😘

Shouta changed into his pajamas and lay down in his darkened room and pulled up the new playlist. He listened to songs about forgiveness and thankfulness and romance for a long time until he finally fell asleep, happier than he could ever remember feeling.

~*~

Being on a date with Shouta was the Best! Thing! Ever! They chased each other through the arcade, pretty much the same way they normally did, except that they’d hold hands every chance they got, and they even snuck in a few kisses when they found a tucked-away corner.

The banter and teasing weren’t much different than normal either… including the way that every time Shouta would casually say something flirty without seeming to realize it, Hizashi found himself getting incredibly flustered. What was new was that Shouta had started to catch on and began saying flirty things on purpose, which made Hizashi blush even more.

And then there was the touching.

Hizashi was used to touching Shouta. He wasn’t used to Shouta touching him. But now that they were boyfriends, Shouta’s hands were constantly landing on his shoulders, his arms, his back… Every time they were close enough to touch, Shouta was reaching out to do it.

Not that Hizashi was complaining.

After the arcade and enough DDR that Hizashi suspected his legs might actually be sore tomorrow, they wandered down the street to a little cafe and sat at a quiet table off in the corner.

“It still doesn’t feel real,” Shouta said, smiling down into his bubble tea. “I spent so long convinced that it was impossible for you to like me back.”

“Sorry it took me so long to get over my stupid hang-ups,” Hizashi said. “If it wasn’t for that crap, we might have been dating months ago.”

Shouta tipped his head, his smile getting a tiny bit smaller. “I still don’t understand exactly what those were. Are you sure you’re… ok now? With this?”

“Yes!” Hizashi reassured him quickly, grabbing his hand across the table. His brow furrowed up as he tried to think of how to explain it. “It’s hard to put into words,” he sighed, “Partially cuz it sounds really stupid when I say it out loud,” he admitted, scratching at the back of his head with one hand. “But it made sense in my head for a long time.” He stared down at where he held Shouta’s hand. “The main thing was, I was scared that if we got together and then broke up, it would ruin everything, so I thought it was better to not even try.”

“What about now?” Shouta asked, tightening his fingers around Hizashi’s hand.

“Now it’s too late,” Hizashi laughed, “We’re already dating, so you’re not allowed to break up with me.”

A gentle smile spread across Shouta’s face. “Never.”

Hizashi felt himself get warm all over. How could Shouta just casually say stuff like that, with complete confidence? It tugged at a feeling inside of Hizashi, one that he’d been working so hard to put aside for so long…

But he shouldn’t do that anymore, should he? Now it was running rampant inside him, ping-ponging around his chest, making his heart beat funny and his breathing a little weird. It was demanding attention, acknowledgement after being ignored for so long. Biting his lip, Hizashi looked Shouta in the eye.

“I gotta say something out loud before I explode, ‘kay?” The words started spilling out, and there was no closing the floodgates. “And it’s totally cool if you don’t wanna say it back or anything cuz, this is our first date and it’s probably way too soon for this; but I’ve been feeling this for so long and it’s just kept getting stronger and stronger, so I really hope it doesn’t make you uncomfortable or anything, but I really really love you a lot, Shouta.”

The short, quiet inhale and the tightening of Shouta’s hand on his were the only signs that he’d heard and understood.

“Oh,” Shouta whispered to himself, staring into the middle distance between them, “Obviously.” In a heartbeat, his eyes refocused on Hizashi’s face. “I love you, too.”

Hizashi’s breath caught in his chest. Not that he’d spent a whole lot of time thinking any of this through, but he’d definitely not given any serious consideration to the idea that Shouta would say it back. “Wait, really?”

“Of course.”

“Are you sure?”

“Do you want me to take it back?” Shouta asked, smirking enough that Hizashi knew he was teasing. Still.

“No! I just wasn’t expecting it, that’s all.”

Shouta’s brow furrowed slightly. “Why not?”

“I dunno,” Hizashi shrugged, “I guess just cuz it feels kinda fast, even though it’s actually been months, hasn’t it? I mean, since we both started feeling something, anyway.” Shouta only nodded thoughtfully, then cast a glance at Hizashi that was almost shy, and Hizashi’s heart flipped around inside him. It really was so unfair how cute Shouta could be.

“How long has it been? For you, I mean,” Shouta asked, and now his cheeks were tinted pink, and how the hell was Hizashi supposed to think with his brain doing nothing but processing every piece of new evidence that Shouta really, actually, genuinely loved him back?

But Shouta had answered that question yesterday when Hizashi had asked, so Hizashi took a breath and tried to pin down the answer.

“I always thought you were cool, pretty much from the first time we met,” he said, gazing softly at their joined hands. “But, uhh, I think it started to be something more than that at the Sports Festival. You were so amazing that day.” Hizashi wasn’t sure what reaction he expected his confession to get; but he wasn’t expecting to look up and see confusion written across Shouta’s face.

“I barely participated in the Sports Festival this year, nothing I did there was particularly amazing.”

Hizashi felt his ears heat up as it hit him just how long he’d been carrying these feelings. “Not this year,” he clarified. “Our first year, when you and I went head to head for the first time.” He watched as Shouta did the math, and a whole range of emotions flickered across his face too fast for Hizashi to catch them all. Finally, it settled on a smirk.

“You mean when I kicked your ass?”

There was no stopping Hizashi’s grin at that. “What can I say, you made one hell of an impression."

Shouta’s smile grew softer, more thoughtful. “That was the first time I used my Quirk on you, and you came out of that match liking me more…”

“Got a problem with that?” Hizashi teased.

“No… I just wasn’t expecting it, that’s all.”

They stayed out together until it started to get dark.

“We’ve got school tomorrow,” Shouta grumbled as they walked down a quiet road in the vague direction of the train station. “I should probably get home.”

“Yeah,” Hizashi sighed, “Me too.” He pulled Shouta in close and kissed him. “I can’t believe I’m gonna have to not kiss you all day at school,” he pouted.

“There’s always lunch,” Shouta pointed out.

“Kayama will be there,” Hizashi reminded him.

“So?”

“Good point.” Hizashi kissed Shouta again, slow and deep. It took them a while to make it to the train station.

Chapter Text

On the way to school Monday morning, Hizashi’s phone started pinging with messages in the group chat.

<Cloud Boy> gooood morning!

<Cloud Boy> I have woken up at this ungodly hour to ask you a very important question…

<Cloud Boy> how did the date go!?

Hizashi blinked. He’d gotten in so late last night, and had still been kinda wiped out after the emotional roller coaster of the past few days, that he’d passed out pretty much right away. He double checked his messages to Oboro, but didn’t see a mention of the fact that he and Shouta were going on a date.

<sent> Shou, did u tell him?

<Cloud Boy> Nobody needed to tell me anything! If the two of you DIDN’T go on a date after all that, I’d be pissed!

<Shouta> It went well.

<Shouta> How are you feeling?

<Cloud Boy> better now that my besties are doing better.

<Shouta> How’s Kayama?

<Cloud Boy> she’s doing… well 😇

<sent> have u 2 had an official date yet?

<Cloud Boy> I have no idea what u mean, Hizashi

<Cloud Boy> we’re going out on Saturday 😇😍

<sent> congrats, man!

<Shouta> When will you be back to school?

<Cloud Boy> as long as the dr and RG clear it, next Monday

Hizashi was excited for Oboro to finally get back to school. Because Hizashi loved Shouta, was in love with Shouta; but without Oboro there, something had been missing. Hizashi wanted to be able to finally see both of them basically every day again. It felt like forever since life hadn’t been one endless waiting game, of holding his breath to see what might go wrong next.

The terror of the first few days ‘post-Garvey,’ when they had no idea if Oboro was even gonna live, had shifted into the endless uncertainty of the first few weeks when they didn’t know if he’d ever get back to being himself. Even after that, everything had been a shitty in-between of more waiting. Waiting to see if he’d be able to walk unassisted, to use his hands properly, to use his Quirk. One thing after the next, always something new to wait for with no idea how long it would take.

Hizashi imagined being stuck in a hospital for months, barely seeing the people who mattered to him, and he kinda thought he might go insane.

Then again, maybe that was part of why Oboro had been so gung-ho about all the physical therapy and Quirk therapy that the hospital had offered him, even when Hizashi could tell it sometimes got frustrating for him. It gave him his way out.

Once Oboro was back at school, though, things could be normal again.

Well, a new normal. Some things were gonna be at least a little different.

Because first thing that morning, just like Shouta had said might happen, Shimada turned and gave both of them a look when they sat down. She didn’t say anything, just smiled at them and turned back to her notebook. Hizashi and Shouta shared a glance, and Hizashi hadn’t been able to control his giggles.

At lunch, as promised, Kayama joined them on the rooftop; and as promised, Hizashi had brought some for her.

“And how is this fresh young romance doing?” she asked with a grin as she sat against the bulkhead wall with them.

“Fine,” Shouta said, leaning slightly into Hizashi.

“Just ‘fine,’ hm?” she probed.

“Gentlemen don’t kiss and tell,” Hizashi teased.

“I’m glad there’s at least some kissing going on. I hope he’s good at it,” Kayama said to Shouta with a nod towards Hizashi.

“Yo! Rude!”

“He’s very good at it,” Shouta said, and immediately Hizashi felt himself flush with a mix of pride and embarrassment.

“Not like you’ve got anything to compare to, though, Shou-chan,” Kayama pointed out, tapping her finger on her chin, “He might be mediocre and you just don’t know any better.”

Hizashi stuck his tongue out at her, pouting a little as he begrudgingly admitted to himself that she had a point. Well, who cared about that! He’d practice and be the best at kissing Shouta, no comparisons necessary…

Except Shouta, apparently, cared. “Actually, I do; so I know that he’s excellent,” he said, glaring at Kayama through narrowed eyes. Hizashi felt something warm in his chest at the way Shouta was defending him. Still…

“Eh,” Hizashi said, rubbing the back of his neck, “I know you and Shimada kinda did that head rubbing stuff, but it’s not quite the same-”

“Shimada? No, that’s not-” Shouta started then suddenly clamped his mouth shut. Kayama’s eyes went wide.

“Oh my god, Shou-chan!” she squealed, “You little rascal! Who was it!?”

“Huh?” Hizashi was suddenly lost.

“That’s not your business,” Shouta grumbled at Kayama.

“Shouta was locking lips with someone, and if it wasn’t that pretty little kitty, then who?” Kayama said, batting her eyelashes. Hizashi blinked.

Shouta had kissed someone before?

“Still not your business,” Shouta said.

“I thought Shimada was your first date,” Hizashi asked.

“She was,” Shouta confirmed, but the way his eyes slid to the side made it clear he was hiding something. Jealousy stirred to life, squirming in Hizashi’s gut as he imagined Shouta kissing someone else, and suddenly he needed to know who it had been.

“So who did you kiss?” He tried to keep the question light and teasing, but the expression on Shouta’s face made him think he’d missed the mark.

“Does it matter?”

“I dunno, does it?” Hizashi countered.

Shouta frowned at him. “You kissed Ebisui, and Urabe too.”

“And you know about both of them,” Hizashi pointed out, completely and totally rationally, not at all getting worked up, definitely not. “I’m just saying, you were the one who insisted that you wouldn’t lie about us if someone asked; so why won’t you tell me who you kissed?”

“I won’t lie about us because you’re… you!” Shouta huffed. “What happened before, with the person I kissed, that was… different. And I’m not lying about it anyway!”

“Different how? Oooh, was someone cheating on someone else?” Kayama asked, reminding Hizashi of her presence.

“Do you mind?” he snapped.

She just smiled. “Nope! Not at all!” she chirped. “Come on, Shou, were you a home-wrecker?”

Hizashi flinched.

“Of course not!” Shouta said, exasperated. “It was just a different situation!”

“Who would you even like enough to-” Hizashi broke off as a thought occurred to him. “Wait, did you and Shirakumo-”

“What?” Shouta squawked. “No!”

Hizashi wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or relieved at that. “Then who…?” A memory came to him, of a hospital waiting room and a white knight running in to check on them. To check on Shouta.

“It was Iida,” Hizashi said, more to himself than to Shouta. It wasn’t really a question, something in his gut knew it was true. Probably the same something that had gotten Hizashi so irritated at Iida that night when he’d been doing everything in his power to help them.

“Fine, yes,” Shouta huffed, “It was. Are you happy now?”

“Wait, Iida Tensei? The two-time champion of the Sports Festival, Class Rep for 2-B, and voted one of the dreamiest boys in the school? That Iida Tensei?” Kayama asked, sitting up to gawk at Shouta.

“Yes that Iida, and you better not go running your mouth about things!” Shouta threatened, though gods knew that Kayama would say what she wanted to who she wanted, if she wanted to.

“When was this?” Hizashi asked, focusing on the important topic at hand, his lunch all but forgotten beside him.

Shouta sighed as he turned his attention back to Hizashi. “It was a few weeks before finals, in March.”

“Oh.” Hizashi thought back about their conversation last night. “I thought- I thought that you liked me at that point, though.”

“I did, which is part of why the situation with him was different,” Shouta grumbled. “It was… It was just different, ok? I thought you could never like me back. And the thing with Iida didn’t last long anyway.”

“Hicchan, you better put that jealousy away,” Kayama said smoothly, smirking at them. “Shouta here pulled one of the single hottest guys in all of UA, and he walked away from that because he wanted you.”

Oh. Well. When she put it that way.

He looked at Shouta. Shouta was glowering, but was blushing as he glanced back at Hizashi out of the corner of his eye.

The squirming in his gut didn’t completely disappear, but it definitely calmed down.

“Anyway, the point is,” Shouta growled, “That I know what I’m talking about when I say that you’re a good kisser.”

“Actually,” Hizashi said, leaning in towards Shouta, “I think you said I was an excellent kisser.”

“Idiot,” Shouta grumbled affectionately as he finished closing the distance between them.

~*~

Most days after school, Shouta was once again back in the gym, practicing with his binding cloth. He was getting better and better at climbing it and using it to help him get around, swinging from one tall pile of mats to another.

Hizashi was helping him with target practice again, too, which was good; except Hizashi’s face got red and his breathing got weird almost every time Shouta snared him. When the cloth wound tight around Hizashi’s chest and arms, maybe it restricted his breathing a little? Shouta made a mental note to ask him about it.

On Wednesday after they finished up, even Hizashi was looking a little sweaty in his gym clothes despite the cool autumn air outside.

“I’m gonna shower,” Shouta said.

Hizashi sniffed at his own armpit. “Ugh, me too,” he said, wrinkling his nose.

It was nothing new. Changing in the same locker room, being naked around each other. Even the way Shouta found himself noticing Hizashi’s body wasn’t new… though, when Shouta glanced up and caught Hizashi seeming to notice his body, that was new. They each hurried off to the showers to wash away the sweat, a little more red in the face than they had been moments before.

After cleaning himself quickly and efficiently, Shouta paused as he stood in the spray, watching the soap trail down his skin. He couldn’t help but wonder…

Did Hizashi really like what he saw when he looked at Shouta? Shouta was still shorter than both Hizashi and Oboro, but not by much anymore. All the extra training meant that he was starting to put on some muscle in his legs and chest, though he wasn’t nearly as built as Tensei or Oboro were. Hell, even after months in the hospital, Oboro still had more muscle on him than Shouta did.

Hizashi had always been lanky, but Shouta had been noticing more tone to his muscles lately. It looked good on him… but Hizashi also always looked good no matter what.

Shouta found himself hoping that Hizashi liked what he saw when he looked at him.

Huffing at himself and the useless spiral of his thoughts, Shouta turned off the water and toweled himself dry, wandering out to the lockers to get dressed. Hizashi always took longer washing up, but it was barely a minute later when the sounds of running water grew quieter.

Shouta had already gotten his pants on and was rubbing his hair dry with a towel before it could drip all over his shirt when Tensei came out of the showers.

“Hey! I thought I heard voices before,” Tensei said, glancing around. “Is Yamada here? I’m glad that you guys seem to have worked things out.”

“Yeah, we did.” Shouta jerked his chin towards the showers. “His hair takes a while, or so he says.”

“I heard that!” Hizashi’s voice echoed through the locker room, and Shouta smirked.

Tensei started getting dressed as Hizashi came scrambling out of the showers, towel clutched around his waist and his hair hanging loose around his face.

“Hey, Yamada!” Tensei greeted him. “Ya know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen your hair down. It looks good.”

Hizashi paused for a moment, then muttered, “I- Uhh, thanks,” before hurrying to his locker. Shouta watched as Hizashi hopped around, trying to pull his boxers and pants up over still-damp skin.

“I heard that Shirakumo is out of the hospital,” Tensei said as he pulled his t-shirt on over his head. Shouta thought about what Kayama had said about Tensei being one of the ‘single hottest guys’ in UA, and he could understand it. Tensei was definitely attractive, which was part of what had drawn Shouta to him all those months ago.

But one glance over at Hizashi, still shaking his legs as he tried to adjust his pants, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he zipped his fly with hurried fingers, and the warmth that started in Shouta’s chest spiraled outward till it filled him completely, from his head to his toes.

Tensei was a genuinely great guy; but he wasn’t Hizashi.

“Yeah, hopefully he’ll be back at school next week,” Shouta said as he finished getting dressed.

“Speakin’ of Shirakumo, hurry up, we’re supposed to meet up with him in less than an hour!” Hizashi said, tugging his shirt on.

“We’ve got plenty of time, and you’re the one still not dressed,” Shouta pointed out.

“Yeah, no, I’m just saying, we’ve got plans, that’s all, so you don’t need to be chit-chatting so much,” Hizashi said as he started doing up the buttons on his shirt.

Tensei glanced back and forth between Shouta and Hizashi, head tipped slightly to the side as he tried to work out what exactly was going on. Hizashi hastily tugged on his jacket and shoved his feet into his sneakers before sidling up to Shouta and throwing his arm around his shoulders. He didn’t pull or tug, but Shouta could feel the tension in him, the way he wanted to turn them and head out of the locker room. Rolling his eyes and shaking his head, Shouta pivoted to face Hizashi, taking half a step back.

“You forgot your tie,” Shouta told him. He began slowly unbuttoning and rebuttoning Hizashi’s shirt where he’d misaligned the two sides, taking his time with the task. “And your sunglasses.”

“Oh. Uhh, yeah. Lemmie just…” Hizashi trailed off, not moving, just watching Shouta’s fingers as they moved. When he finished, Hizashi stayed frozen for a moment before scurrying back over to collect the rest of his stuff.

Shouta looked over at Tensei, who had one eyebrow raised practically to his hairline in a silent question. Shouta ducked his head and shrugged, then glanced at Hizashi, wondering if Tensei’s nonverbal question counted enough to justify coming out and telling him that he and Hizashi were dating now.

“Good thing Aizawa’s watching out for ya, Yamada,” Tensei said, his words sounding much more measured than usual.

“Yea, I’m lucky to have such an awesome boyfriend,” Hizashi said, drawing himself up to his full height and staring Tensei in the eye as he strode back over and stood next to Shouta again.

“Oh thank god!” Tensei said, laughing with relief. “I was worried for a second that you guys were just gonna keep escalating whatever it is you’ve got going on without, ya know, addressing it.” He shook his head, then looked at Shouta. “Yamada, then?” Shouta remembered Tensei’s comment months ago, that he wasn’t sure if Shouta liked Hizashi or Oboro, but that he figured it was one of them, and he nodded. “I’m really happy for you two.”

“Thanks,” Shouta said, bumping his shoulder against Hizashi.

“Yeah, thanks,” Hizashi said, sounding more than a little smug.

Tensei’s smile softened. “Alright, I’m heading home. You two have fun with Shirakumo and tell him I said hi. I’ll see ya around!” He shouldered his bag and left.

Shouta turned and glowered at Hizashi, but there wasn’t any real heat behind it. “He’s my friend,” Shouta said, poking Hizashi in the ribs, “You don’t need to be jealous.”

“Psshh, who’s jealous? Not me!” Hizashi said, squirming away from Shouta’s prodding before stepping in close to hug him around the waist. “After all, I’ve got an awesome boyfriend.” He kissed Shouta, a quick peck on the lips before he pulled away, cheeks pink, as he turned to get his bag.

Shouta couldn’t even pretend to be irritated, snickering as Hizashi led the way out of the locker room. “I thought you didn’t want to tell anyone,” he teased.

“Yeah, well, he was practically begging to be told, so I figured it counted under the ‘not lying about it’ rule.” Hizashi sniffed, then froze in place. “Wait, you’re not actually upset, are you? Cuz I didn’t think you minded if people knew-”

“If you didn’t tell him, I probably would have,” Shouta admitted, “He was basically asking.” He took hold of Hizashi’s hand and squeezed it. “Come on, let’s go.”

The trip to Catpurrccinos was smooth, and by the time they got there, Oboro was standing outside waiting for them.

There was nothing quite like this place; Shouta always felt happier the moment he stepped inside. In the time they’d been coming to the cafe, many of the cats had been adopted and new ones had come in; but a few of the cats appeared to be permanent residents, and they seemed to remember Shouta.

He certainly remembered them.

“Feels like it’s been forever since we’ve been here,” Hizashi said, sinking onto their favorite couch with a sigh.

“Time flies when you’re having fun,” Oboro laughed, scooping up one of the big orange cats who always gravitated towards him. He made Shouta think of what Sushi might look like when he was all grown up.

“It felt wrong to come here without you,” Shouta said, “So we decided to wait till you were able to come with us.” Oboro looked up at them and blinked.

“Hang on, really?”

Shouta shrugged, and Hizashi gave Oboro a lopsided grin. “Yeah, of course, man,” Hizashi said.

Oboro sat down gingerly on the couch next to Hizashi, petting the cat in his lap quietly for a minute. Shouta stood from where he’d been crouched, trying to tempt a shy black and white cat out from under a chair, and sat on the other side of Oboro, scratching the orange cat under the chin.

“Ya know,” Oboro finally said, “It’s not that being in the hospital was bad. Everyone was really kind and helpful. The part I hated was that I was missing out on all the things that everyone else was doing.” He paused, looking down at the cat in his lap. “But- I dunno, just now when you said that, I realized that as much as I wanna be part of it all, I don’t like the idea of you guys not doing something just because I’m not there.”

“Well, don’t get injured anymore, and we won’t have to worry about that ever again,” Hizashi teased.

“Hah, you got it, Mouth Man,” Oboro said, his twisted smile lifting his expression.

“We missed you a ton, ya know. If we could have visited more, we would have,” Hizashi said, bending down to pet a gray cat who had been rubbing against his leg.

“I know, but you had to share me with my family, tough break,” Oboro chuckled.

“We’re all here now,” Shouta said quietly. “That’s what matters.” He caught Hizashi’s eye and the two of them smiled. It was good to have their friend back.

“Oh wait, how did I end up in between the lovebirds? Whoopsie!” Oboro started to stand up, but Hizashi put a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m petting the cat, you can’t move,” Shouta told him, scratching the orange cat between the ears, and Oboro laughed.

Actually, it was kinda funny. At school or out and about, ever since he and Hizashi started dating, Shouta constantly felt the draw to sit or stand as close as possible to him, and woe to anyone who put themselves between them. In all honesty, that pull towards Hizashi had been there for a long time, he’d just had reasons to resist it before.

But it was different with Oboro. He wasn’t between Shouta and Hizashi, that just happened to be the space he was occupying. It was irrational, but Shouta found that he didn’t care. Just one more irrational truth about the three of them.

Shouta was quite content with that.

~*~

It was the strangest mix of feelings Oboro could remember experiencing as he paused outside classroom 2-A on Monday morning. He was psyched to be back, of course. Excited to see his friends and classmates. Relieved to feel like he was getting back on track…

But he was worried too.

Everyone, from the doctors to the therapists who worked with him, were amazed by his progress. He’d come so far in his recovery, and his mind, body and Quirk all seemed to be back to normal. He could walk and run and jump, and even dance…

But he hadn’t exactly been able to practice sparring with the physical therapist.

Hero work was way more intense than the kinds of everyday activities the doctors were measuring his progress on. There was no way of knowing for certain if the damage that had been done to him would be too much to overcome when he was really put to the test.

Well, there was no way of knowing except to really put himself to the test and hoping he could pass.

He’d never questioned himself like this before. Oboro had always trusted that things would work out fine in the end. Even if they took a different path than what he expected, even if he wound up at a different destination than he’d thought, it would still be fine. He still knew that everything would be fine, no matter what path his life took, because he was alive!

He also knew that it had almost been a very different story. It had almost been the end of his story. They’d told him their theory, that he’d managed to activate his Quirk at the last second, cushioned the blow to his head just enough that it saved his life. He couldn’t remember it, and he likely never would, so he had decided that he’d need to take it on faith that he was capable of that kind of quick reaction. Second-guessing it wouldn’t help.

But knowing that if he failed, if he fell short, that it could mean the end of so many things… Well, it made him understand why Shouta had fallen into the trap of overthinking things so much last year. Not that going to that extreme would help; but Oboro figured there would be times when ‘think first’ would be better than ‘jump first.’ Shouta was getting better at taking action, so Oboro had to get better at thinking.

Because if he had died, what would have happened to his family? To Shouta and Hizashi? They would have had each other, but they both sucked at talking about important things.

…Nemuri probably would have felt responsible.

The stakes felt real now.

He walked through the door of the classroom, not certain of the path his future would take, but happy he got to make one and determined to make it count. The scar on his face still ached when he smiled; but muscles got stronger the more you worked them out, right? So he kept smiling. Especially when it hurt.

And it was impossible to not smile when Hizashi hopped up, one foot on his chair, the other on his desk, crowing, “Back from his extended vacation and ready to prove that he’s got what it takes to be a hero, here’s Shirakumo Oboro!” Shouta shook his head, lips ticked up just slightly at the corner while everyone already in the room started clapping and cheering. Several of his classmates, besides Shouta and Hizashi, had visited him during his stay in the hospital; but, back in his school uniform, this was the first time he felt like he was really one of them again.

“Thank you, thank you, I’ll be here all week!” Oboro laughed, sketching a small bow before he headed to his seat.

When lessons began, he was thankful again that he had such great friends. Weeks ago, Shouta and Hizashi had started spending some time studying in Oboro’s hospital room, or on calls with him, so that he wasn’t completely left behind on months worth of material. Shimada and Nakano had done something similar a handful of times as well. He hadn’t retained most of the information, what with the brain damage and all; but at least some things sounded familiar to him. Now that he was back in class, the teachers had also arranged for him to get extra lessons three times a week after school, to get him up to speed before finals.

With so many people going out of their way to help him, he was definitely gonna give it his best…

By lunchtime, though, his brain was full and he was ready for a break.

“Look who’s back!” Nemuri squealed happily, flinging her arms around Oboro’s neck while he caught her around the waist and spun her around. Just a week ago, he would have been a little wobbly doing that, but today his arms felt strong and his feet were steady.

“Well, well, well! Looks like we’re not the only ones who had a successful date, Shou!” Hizashi said, and Oboro spun Nemuri around again just to hear her shriek with laughter.

“I know, I heard about it for about eight hours yesterday,” Shouta grumbled, giving Nemuri an exhausted look.

“That’s longer than the date itself lasted,” Oboro said, and her cheeks tinted a pretty pink as he put her down gently.

“Shou-chan is exaggerating, he’s just grumpy that he still had to do paperwork last night,” she said, sticking her tongue out at Shouta.

“It’s officially December tomorrow, I’m not doing your paperwork anymore,” Shouta said.

“I can’t believe you got them to do that.” Oboro laughed as Hizashi bowed and presented Nemuri with a packed lunch.

“I didn’t even have to twist their arms,” she said smugly. “I do believe they were both happy showing their appreciation to the senpai they owe so much to. But you, too, have now paid your debt, Hicchan,” she added solemnly.

“We should lock them in a closet more often!”

“First you try and get me out, now you wanna put me back in?” Hizashi gasped in mock offense as the four of them sat down to eat, cushioned from the chill of the roof by small clouds perfect for sitting on. Oboro was embracing every opportunity to work his Quirk back up to full strength.

“Speakin’ of which, have you spoken to your parents yet?” Oboro asked Hizashi around a mouthful of rice.

“Not quite yet,” Hizashi said, flushing red as he rubbed the back of his neck.

“Why not?” Nemuri asked.

“It’s complicated,” Hizashi said.

“It’s not that complicated,” Shouta pointed out, “You just don’t like talking to them very much.”

“For complicated reasons!” Hizashi huffed, crossing his arms. Shouta raised an eyebrow and cocked his head.

“I’m not bothered that you haven’t told them,” Shouta said. “It’s just not complicated, that’s all.” He blinked. “Unless there’s more you haven’t told us?”

The comment poked at something in Oboro’s scrambled memories. In that confusing conversation with Hizashi months ago, Oboro knew Hizashi had told him that he liked Shouta; but there’d been something about his parents too… but Oboro couldn’t remember, he could only remember promising to not tell Shouta. Hizashi never really wanted to talk about his parents, and though Oboro wanted his friends to get better at talking about important things, it was the middle of the school day and his brain was already maxed out.

“Maybe Hizashi is just really easily confused,” Oboro joked, diffusing the tension. Now wasn’t the time for this conversation, and he always had his friends’ backs.

“Says the guy with brain damage,” Nemuri teased.

“At least I’ve got a medical excuse now!”

Lunch settled down into their usual banter, punctuated by excitement fluttering in his stomach every time Nemuri rested her hand on his knee or wrist. She kept offering him small touches; but even though their date had gone really well, they hadn’t so much as kissed yet. It was so different from how it had been with Mayumi, who’d been quite happy to give him a quick good-night kiss after their first date. Oboro had been happy with Mayumi’s company… But Nemuri was something else entirely.

Nemuri wasn’t shy, and certainly not prudish. At first when he’d started getting to know her, Oboro had been kinda surprised at how Nemuri thought about sex: she was fascinated by it.

She researched it - actually researched, not just trying to find interesting porn to get off to - determined to understand all she could. She approached it with passion and curiosity and not an ounce of shame. She’d once explained to him and Shouta while on patrol that her own sex appeal was a weapon that she could wield; and it worked so well, in part, because so many people were so uncomfortable with their own urges. She was determined to make use of that, while never falling victim to it.

She’d also once confided in Oboro that part of why she worried about finding a partner who would build a life with her was because she didn’t want to have to stifle her own sexuality to appease someone else.

Oboro couldn’t understand how anyone could look at someone so unapologetically committed to being herself as Nemuri was, and then try to demand she be less than that.

Maybe it was in spite of how she thought about sex, or maybe it was because of it, that Nemuri had made it clear she had no intention of jumping into bed with Oboro right away. He knew she had way more practical experience with sex than he did; but if she wanted him to be patient, he could do that.

Oboro was a pretty simple guy. It didn’t take much to keep him happy, so there wasn’t a whole lot that he found himself wanting.

Nemuri made him want, and that was fine.

She was worth waiting for.

It wasn’t as if she left him with nothing, after all. Those simple, chaste brushes of skin against skin weren’t nothing. She wasn’t doing that to tease him, at least not entirely. Every touch was a promise that something more was coming; but that this was all he was getting for now, so he’d better appreciate it.

He appreciated every single moment.

They finished lunch and left the rooftop, cheeks and noses all tinted pink with the chill. It was the best meal that Oboro had had in months.

As the afternoon wore on, the class changed into their hero costumes and went to one of the training grounds for Quirk training and sparring. It was the first time Oboro had been back in his hero costume since the injury. It wasn’t the exact same one - his original had been destroyed by blood and rubble - but a replacement made to match the old one.

The jacket was a little loose on him.

He figured it would be a good excuse to join Shouta for some of his workouts after school, to rebuild muscle.

He hefted his bo staff as they waited for Kanata Sensei to give them their instructions, feeling the weight of it, passing it idly from one hand to the other. There was something soothing about the smooth grain beneath his fingertips.

The door of the gym opened, and Oboro was surprised to see Nishibori Sensei enter holding a quarterstaff. He was even more surprised when their first-year teacher walked directly over to him.

“Shirakumo, you’re with me.”

“Ok, cool!” Oboro was happy to work with Nishibori, trusting that he would push him hard. As they headed over to a far corner of the gym to get a little more space from his classmates, Oboro only tossed one look back over his shoulder at Hizashi and Shouta, shooting them a smile, trying not to think about the worry he saw in their eyes.

Nishibori had been the one to help Oboro improve his bo fighting techniques a ton last year, so it felt familiar and comfortable to square up against him.

…But that flutter of worry was back in his gut. Fear that he might not be able to do this anymore, not in the way he could before. Not in the way he needed to be able to. Oboro was so happy to be alive, and he knew that things would work out, no matter what path his life took…

There weren’t too many things that Oboro wanted.

But he wanted to be a hero.

Nishibori came at him.

The muscle Oboro had left still remembered what to do.

His bo staff came to life in his hands - not as literally as Shouta’s binding cloth, but in a way that gave Oboro a new appreciation for what it must be like for his friend’s weapon to obey him, even when he didn’t fully understand how he was making it happen.

He felt sluggish to start. The movements came to him, but at a fraction of the speed he used to have. At first, Sensei mostly just parried and dodged the blows that were far weaker than they needed to be; but as Oboro started to speed up, his hands and feet feeling more sure in what they were doing, Sensei started to fight back properly. Nishibori struck with his staff, kicked, and shot bolts of laser-like light that, even powered down, hurt like a bitch if they tagged you.

As the attacks came at him faster, Oboro knew he had to dodge and get some space. A shot zinged past him too close for comfort, sending him stumbling back. Using his momentum rather than fighting it, Oboro rolled back and to the side, hopping back to his feet… to see that Sensei was facing the wrong way.

Nishibori should have been squared up to him again with a quick pivot, but instead he was half turned away, back exposed, leaving Oboro with an opportunity to take a swing with his bo. Sensei figured out his mistake quickly and dodged away; but in that moment, Oboro realized what had happened:

As he’d rolled, he’d used his Quirk to create a thin cloud cover extending off to both sides from his starting point. Sensei had to guess at which direction Oboro had dodged, and he’d guessed wrong.

It was a trick Oboro had gotten good at before, but he hadn’t attempted yet since the injury.

And he’d just done it without even thinking.

He could do this.

Oboro and Nishibori kept going until Oboro was sore and sweating and out of breath, which didn’t take very long. He really did need to get back into fighting shape.

Oboro’s face was also hurting a lot, as he was completely unable to stop smiling; but he didn’t mind that at all.

~*~

Hizashi was as happy as he could ever remember being.

He and Shouta were dating. Oboro was back at school. Everything was awesome!

Well… almost everything. Cuz even though Hizashi knew that Oboro was absolutely thrilled for him and Shouta to be together and happy, he couldn’t help thinking about how Oboro had kinda… overcompensated with Shouta earlier in the year. He wondered if maybe Oboro still worried about the way things might change between the three of them now that two of them were dating each other.

And sure, Oboro had Kayama, so it’s not like he was the only one without someone to date; but there had always been something special between the three of them, and Hizashi didn’t want to risk anything happening to that. He wanted things to feel as normal as possible when all of them were together.

So that meant that he kinda avoided kissing Shouta while Oboro was with them. Hizashi was a big-picture kinda guy, and in the big picture, it was hardly a huge sacrifice if it helped ensure the three of them were all hunky-dory.

Thursday after school, though, Oboro was busy with extra lessons in the afternoon, and then he had what would hopefully be his last physical therapy appointment in the evening. So that meant it was only Hizashi and Shouta heading back to Hizashi’s place to start studying for finals coming up in a few weeks.

Hizashi was maaaaybe a little less focused on thoughts of quadratic equations than he was on other things he wanted to study as they made their way up to his bedroom. He tossed his bag to the floor with a thud, shrugging off his uniform blazer and taking off his tie. All totally normal stuff he did when he got home every day, nothing to think too hard about.

Still, his fingers trembled a little as he undid the top button of his shirt and rolled his neck, stretching tense muscles as he took a steadying breath, then glanced over at Shouta. Like Hizashi, he’d taken off his blazer, but he’d only loosened his tie enough to undo the top button instead of taking it off.

They sat down side by side on Hizashi’s bed, shoulder to shoulder and hip to hip. “Soooo,” Hizashi said, butterflies fluttering away in his stomach, “My parents won’t be home for at least another hour or two… Did you wanna study now, or-”

Shouta turned, tucking one leg up under himself on the bed so that he could face Hizashi fully, his dark eyes locked on to Hizashi’s mouth. Lifting his hand to Hizashi’s cheek, Shouta tipped his face closer and leaned in to press their lips together, cutting off the rest of Hizashi’s question.

It was the answer Hizashi had been hoping for, anyway.

He breathed a tiny, happy hum as his eyes slid shut, all his attention focused on Shouta’s lips against his own. He really loved kissing Shouta; it always sent a thrill through him, and it was no different now as Shouta slid one hand up to thread through the hair at the back of his head, the other moving to rest on his shoulder, tender touches that left Hizashi feeling giddy. He sighed happily, putting one hand on Shouta’s waist, the other on his knee, reveling in the warm, solid feel of him under his palms. He still could barely believe he was allowed to touch Shouta like this now, and he never wanted to stop.

It was so simple to get lost in the easy movements of their mouths against each other and the soft sounds of their lips meeting and parting in a gentle rhythm.

But this was the most privacy they’d had in a while, and something greedy stirred inside Hizashi. It didn’t take long for the tender connection to shift towards something a little more… eager. His lips parted slightly, letting his tongue brush against Shouta’s mouth, getting a warm puff of air across his cheek in return before Shouta’s tongue gently pushed back, a careful exploration deepening the kiss.

Excitement hummed through Hizashi, and he broke the kiss just enough to turn and face Shouta, wrapping his leg around Shouta’s butt where he sat on the mattress. It was a little awkward, each with one leg still on the floor as they faced each other; but Hizashi didn’t really care, far too distracted by the giddy energy fizzing through him that he got to do this as he leaned back in and resumed trading long, deep kisses.

Shouta’s hand on his shoulder gripped a little tighter as he pulled him closer, not letting him back away again - not that Hizashi was trying to. If anything, he wanted to be closer, to touch more of Shouta. Hizashi could feel the heat of him through the layers of fabric, and it was sending a different kind of heat rushing through his veins.

Hizashi had gotten hard because of Shouta way more times than he would ever admit, and he’d imagined things a lot more… intimate than this; but the reality of his hands and lips on Shouta beat out every fantasy.

He felt his face heating up, and he tried to ignore the growing pressure in his pants, not sure how far Shouta was willing to take things yet; but the want thrumming in his pulse just kept getting more demanding. He slid his hand from Shouta’s waist up into his hair, pulling him closer as he licked a little deeper into his mouth, earning a muffled moan from his boyfriend.

There was something exciting about the soft, breathy noises that slipped from Shouta as they made out. Shouta was so calm and unbothered by most things, so hearing him hum and sigh as he leaned in towards Hizashi sent a thrill swooping through him. The way Shouta wanted to kiss him filled Hizashi with a tingly warmth.

It made Hizashi want more.

When Hizashi broke their kiss, Shouta whined a noise of complaint, fingers tightening in his hair, and Hizashi groaned in response; but it wasn’t as if he had plans to go very far. Drifting away from Shouta’s mouth, Hizashi began to press kisses to Shouta’s cheek and jaw. At first Shouta tried to turn his head and chase his lips; but when Hizashi ducked his head, nudging Shouta’s jaw to the side so he could kiss his neck, Shouta’s breath hitched, and he tipped his head to give Hizashi better access. His hand in Hizashi’s hair twitched, not actually pulling Hizashi closer but pretty damn close, and Hizashi shivered at the sensation.

“‘S this good?” Hizashi murmured against Shouta’s neck as he traced his lips and tongue over the delicate skin.

“Yeah.” Shouta’s voice came out breathy, and the sound of it had Hizashi squeezing his knee a little tighter.

Worried about leaving marks that parents might see, Hizashi was careful as he pressed open-mouthed kisses against Shouta’s pulse point, feeling the steady throb beating in time with his own racing heart. Shouta shifted an arm down to hug Hizashi closer, his fist grabbing hold of the back of Hizashi’s shirt while the other stayed tangled in his hair. Excitement zipped through Hizashi as rational, reasonable, composed Shouta started to shift and squirm in his arms.

“Hnn…” Now that Shouta’s mouth wasn’t occupied by kissing, more wordless sounds started escaping him, and Hizashi felt himself getting harder in his pants. He explored further up Shouta’s neck, hungry for the noises it drew out of him. When he brushed Shouta’s hair out of the way and nibbled on his earlobe, Shouta tensed and pulled him closer, a sharp breath stuttering out of him.

Shit, Hizashi wanted to make him do that again.

One hand still tangled in Shouta’s hair and his heart pounding in his chest, Hizashi slid his other hand up from Shouta’s knee to the middle of his thigh. He gripped the muscle there firmly, and Shouta whimpered at the touch, muscles tensing as his hips jerked.

“Zashi,” Shouta gasped, still clutching at him, tugging him closer as he shifted, and Hizashi’s dick twitched where it was confined in his pants.

“Is this ok?” Hizashi asked, a quaver in his voice that he wasn’t expecting as he stroked his thumb slowly along Shouta’s inseam. He backed away just long enough to get a look at Shouta’s face, his eyes dark and hazy and his cheeks flushed red.

Shouta gave a shaky nod. “Yeah.”

Hizashi groaned and leaned in to kiss his mouth again, Shouta meeting him with a desperation that Hizashi could taste. Hizashi continued to move his thumb back and forth along Shouta’s inner thigh, slow, sweeping motions that had Shouta gripping him tighter each time his finger moved up towards his crotch.

As they kissed, the little sounds that kept slipping out of Shouta were muffled by the press of their mouths, but Hizashi wanted to hear them properly. He shifted back to kissing Shouta’s neck, and slowly, he began sliding his hand on Shouta’s leg up higher. He moved in fractions of a centimeter, and Shouta began squirming more and more, tiny movements becoming bigger, trying to move closer.

It was so hot, and Hizashi was achingly hard, but he didn’t dare take his hands off Shouta to touch himself and risk ruining the moment.

“Hi- Hizashi…” Shouta stuttered, pulling him closer, tighter against his neck.

Feeling bolder, Hizashi moved his hand even higher, and, fuck, he could tell that Shouta was hard too. The fabric of his pants was pulled taut as his dick strained against it, angled towards Hizashi’s exploring touch. Hizashi thought he could even feel the heat of him as his fingers twitched against Shouta’s leg.

“Hnnn, Zashi,” Shouta gasped, his voice shaking as Hizashi mouthed his way down to where Shouta’s loosened tie and unbuttoned collar allowed him access to the delicate skin closer to his collarbone. “I, ahh, I-” Shouta stammered, and Hizashi wanted more, more of those noises, more of Shouta losing control, getting worked up because of him.

Pulling away from Shouta’s neck, Hizashi kissed him again, and Shouta’s mouth opened in a gasp. Hizashi took advantage of the moment to tease the tip of his tongue against Shouta’s as he stroked his thumb up right next to where he could feel Shouta’s dick. His touch only barely grazed the ridge of his shaft through the fabric, but still Shouta whimpered through his nose, his hips jerking.

Hizashi wanted more.

Shifting his hand just a little bit, Hizashi wasn’t sure if he was trembling with excitement or nerves as he stroked his thumb firmly up the length of Shouta’s dick.

Shouta tensed up, moaning into his mouth before tearing away from the kiss to bury his face in Hizashi’s neck, clinging tightly to him as his body jerked in his grip. “Fuck!” Shouta half sobbed into Hizashi’s shoulder, and Hizashi felt him twitching beneath his thumb.

Hizashi stilled, frozen in shock and awe. Had… had he just made Shouta come? The thought alone made him groan, his own hips wanting to move in a desperate search for friction.

Shouta kept his face pressed against Hizashi, still holding on, panting humid breaths against his skin. Slowly, Hizashi moved his hand away from Shouta’s dick and started rubbing what he hoped were soothing motions along his thigh. “You ok?” Hizashi asked, half laughing and half breathless.

“I didn’t mean to do that,” Shouta said, still not moving.

“It was the hottest thing ever,” Hizashi told him. Shouta only mumbled something indecipherable. Riding high on whatever endorphins were flowing through him right now, Hizashi felt bold enough to ask, “Want proof?” He moved his hand off Shouta’s thigh and took hold of Shouta’s wrist where his hand had, at some point, fisted in Hizashi’s collar. He waited until he felt Shouta nod against him before he started moving.

Suddenly nervous, Hizashi slowly guided Shouta’s hand down his chest and stomach, until his palm was pressed against where Hizashi was hard in his pants. When Shouta’s fingers twitched against him, Hizashi gave a shaky exhale as the reality of the fact that Shouta was touching him settled in, making real about a million fantasies and immediately outshining every single one of them.

Shouta didn’t lift his head, but he shifted enough that Hizashi could tell he was peeking down at where his hand rested against Hizashi. After a beat, he briefly squeezed, and the sensation zinged through Hizashi.

“Ahh, shit,” Hizashi gasped, and Shouta squeezed him again, then pressed against him firmly with the heel of his hand, slowly dragging upwards, and oh fuck, that felt really good. Hizashi gripped at his shoulders, trying to hold on as Shouta stroked him slowly through his pants. “Sshhhh- Shou-” he panted, already close to the edge.

Abruptly, Shouta lifted his head from Hizashi’s shoulder, still staring down while both of his hands started fumbling with Hizashi’s belt and popping the button on his pants. He paused with his fingers gripping the zip, finally looking up with a wild expression on his face.

“I wanna see, wanna touch you.” There was an urgency in Shouta’s voice that had Hizashi making a high-pitched noise of want and embarrassment. “Can I? Please?”

“Yeah, ok,” he squeaked out as Shouta unzipped his pants and pushed the elastic band of his boxers down so most of the shaft of his dick was out. Hizashi’s heart thundered in his chest as Shouta paused for a moment, staring. He swallowed thickly, words tumbling out of him to cover his nerves; “I hope it lives up to your expectaaaa-aayy-hay, oh fuck!”

Shouta’s fingers were wrapped carefully around him, and there was no way he was gonna hold out more than a minute, how did it feel so much better than his own hand?

“I’ve imagined this so many times,” Shouta said, giving an experimentally slow stroke, swiping his thumb over the slit where Hizashi was leaking a stupid amount of pre-come. Between the feel of Shouta’s hand and the sound of his voice, it was almost enough to tip Hizashi over the edge right then and there.

“Me too,” Hizashi gasped, “Oh shit, please, Shou.” He stammered out broken swears as his hands clung on tightly to Shouta’s shoulders while he stroked him steadily. It felt so good, and Hizashi bit his lip as his breathing got heavier, unable to look away from the sight of Shouta’s hand on his dick.

“Are you gonna come?” Shouta asked, speeding his movements, a mix of eagerness and curiosity in his voice.

Shouta wanted him to come, wanted to see it, fuck.

“Uh-huh,” Hizashi grunted as Shouta stroked him once more, just a little harder, and that was all it took. Pleasure washed through him as the tension snapped. “Haaaaahhhhh,” Hizashi’s mouth fell open, but only a breathy gasp escaped as he came all over his shirt and Shouta’s hand. As the aftershocks sent shivers through him, Shouta slowed and stopped his stroking, but didn’t move his hand away yet, just staring at the mess Hizashi had made.

It didn’t take long for Hizashi to start feeling a little sticky and a lot self-conscious.

“I’m just gonna grab some tissues,” Hizash mumbled, and Shouta nodded, finally moving his hand away from Hizashi’s softening dick. He gave a few tissues to Shouta for his hand while he cleaned himself up as best he could and tucked himself away in his boxers.

Shouta still hadn’t looked him in the eye, though, and it was starting to make Hizashi nervous. He just kept looking at the mess on his hand.

“Was that ok? I mean, I definitely liked it, and it seemed like you did,” Hizashi could feel himself starting to babble, “But I don’t wanna weird you out or make you feel- oh, what- ok then!”

Shouta still hadn’t looked at him, but had raised his hand to his mouth and tentatively licked at a bit of Hizashi’s come splattered there. He tipped his head thoughtfully, then finally looked at Hizashi, his face turning pink as he wiped his hand with the tissue.

“I wondered what it was like,” he said. “Yours, I mean.”

“You- Oh, uhm. Ok,” Hizashi stammered, feeling himself blush. He wondered if Shouta wanted to know because he might be willing to try going down on him, and he could feel the heat rising from his neck all the way to the top of his head. “What’d you think?” he asked before his brain could catch up with his mouth.

“Salty,” Shouta said, then sighed. “I need to take my underwear off.” With that, he shuffled out of Hizashi’s room, presumably to the bathroom to deal with his own mess. Hizashi changed his shirt and flopped back on his bed, his mind already replaying the events of the past half hour over and over.

Then he started imagining other things they might do together, but he had to make himself stop thinking when he realized he was starting to get hard again. Even if Shouta was totally cool with what just happened, Hizashi didn’t want to risk his parents getting home while they were doing stuff, so this was not the time!

Shouta came back in the room, holding his wadded up underwear, and Hizashi’s brain kinda screeched to a stop when he had the thought that Shouta was naked under his pants… which was ridiculous, cuz everyone was always naked under their clothes; but it was Shouta, and there was one less layer of clothes!

“We should start studying,” Shouta said as he stuffed his underwear in his bag and pulled out his notebook.

“Yeah, sure, totally!” Hizashi said, scrambling to get his own notebook out. “Just, uhh, wanna be sure though-”

Shouta leaned over and kissed him briefly, and when he sat back his cheeks were tinted pink. “I liked that a lot.”

“‘Kay,” Hizashi mumbled, feeling almost dizzy with all of it. “Cool. That’s cool. Really cool. We should totally do that again sometime soon. If you want. Cuz I’d like to.” He knew he was babbling, but he couldn’t really stop himself

“Yeah. We should.”

“I didn’t know it could feel that good,” Hizashi said, realizing too late that his mouth was still going without checking in with his brain.

Shouta blinked at him. “You’ve never done that before?” Why did Shouta sound so surprised?

Suddenly Hizashi was picturing Shouta kissing Iida, Mr. Perfect, and his stomach dropped as he wondered if those two had done more than kiss, and “No, why, have you?” was spilling out of his stupid fucking mouth because what if the answer was ‘yes,’ shit, Hizashi didn’t think he wanted to know-

“No, I haven’t,” Shouta said, his cheeks redder than they were before. “I guess I just thought… You talked about that time when Ebisui had you touch her breast, and I wasn’t sure if you’d done other stuff too.”

Oh.

“Oh. No, that was as far as that ever went,” Hizashi admitted.

“So… I’m the only one who’s ever gotten to touch you like that?” Shouta’s eyes were dark again as they glanced down at Hizashi’s crotch.

Hizashi’s mouth was suddenly a little dry. “Yeah.”

Shouta didn’t say anything else, but he tipped his chin up in this smug little self-satisfied way that Hizashi decided looked very sexy on him.

With that, they pulled out their books and started studying.

When Hizashi’s parents came home later that evening and invited Shouta to join them for dinner, Hizashi felt a pang of guilt as he let Shouta know that he still hadn’t told them about being boyfriends. Shouta only nodded, and he didn’t seem bothered at all… but the Aizawas had already embraced Hizashi and said how happy they were for him and Shouta… and it had felt really good.

He wanted Shouta to have that feeling too, to know that Hizashi’s parents were happy for them.

Because the thing was, Hizashi knew that they would be happy. He knew that they would be thrilled. They loved Shouta, everything would be fantastic.

Except Hizashi just… didn’t want to tell them.

He didn’t want them to know.

Maybe it was spite, but he felt like they didn’t deserve it. They didn’t deserve to be part of his happiness, not after they’d hurt him so much with their stupid bullshit.

He didn’t want to hear them gush, he didn’t want their hugs.

He wished they’d stop being so damn nice all the time. It burned him up inside when he thought about it for too long.

But he knew he couldn’t put it off forever. Shouta deserved better than that.

And Hizashi wanted to be able to kiss his boyfriend goodbye when he walked out the door.

Chapter Text

Shouta was starting to feel like things were coming together. He was gradually getting stronger and faster, and his skill with his binding cloth was improving. Oboro was back in school and catching back up to everyone pretty quickly. Hizashi was his boyfriend. His work study was going well.

Moreover, for the first time in his life, Shouta felt like he was working towards a future that was genuinely attainable. The vague, formless idea of ‘being a hero,’ whatever that meant, was starting to take shape into something tangible.

Oboro hadn’t mentioned the idea of the three of them starting their own agency since before he was injured, so Shouta wasn’t going to pin his plans on that; but he knew now that he could do things all on his own, if he needed to. First with Garvey, then that villain back in November, he had been able to get the job done.

He knew he couldn’t get overconfident, because even though he’d been successful, Garvey had done a ton of damage and nearly killed Shirakumo. He needed to keep getting faster and stronger… and he also realized that having backup that he could work well with might make a real difference.

He thought about having Oboro and Hizashi as his backup, and about being theirs.

He thought again about last year’s final exam, where he’d frozen up because of Oboro, and Hizashi had gotten hurt.

What would he do, now that he and Hizashi were more than friends? He didn’t think he’d freeze up again; but would he make a bad call if it meant trying to keep Hizashi safe? What would he do if Hizashi got badly hurt?

Shouta tried to imagine for a moment that it had been Hizashi buried under all that rubble, Hizashi with his skull broken and drenched in blood…

A wave of nausea rolled through him, and he banished the image from his mind.

Still, despite the horror of that situation, Shouta knew how he’d handled it when he’d faced it with Oboro; and it’s not like he could have done much of anything differently.

The fact was, Hizashi was going to be a hero, just like Shouta, so they were both going to have to accept the risks.

They were all going to have to accept the risks.

Because Shouta knew now that losing either Oboro or Hizashi would break something in him. Maybe he’d been right all along, that he was better off not letting himself get close to anyone…

But there was no disentangling himself from them now. They were too much a part of him, even though he wasn’t sure how that had happened. The only rational course of action left was to become the best hero he possibly could, so he could keep himself and everyone else safe.

That, and to make sure that they both became the best heroes they could, for the same reason.

“How’d you get half your rice in your hair, dude!?” Hizashi howled, doubling over with laughter as Oboro sat, carefully trying to pick said rice out of his hair.

“I was just a little overenthusiastic!” Oboro laughed, waving his now-empty chopsticks around in the air to demonstrate.

Shouta sighed.

He had his work cut out for him.

He caught Kayama’s eye as she sat back, watching the shenanigans with a smirk on her face.

“Do you come up here for the company or the entertainment?” Shouta asked her as Oboro stood up and shook his head like a dog, sending grains of rice scattering around, and likely getting most of it further tangled into his hair.

“Both,” she said happily. “Sit still,” she told Oboro sternly, her eyes glinting with mirth as he plopped down on his butt, looking up at her. “Cloud,” she commanded, and immediately Oboro manifested one for her. She perched on it, kneeling on tucked legs in front of Oboro and began picking rice out of his hair while Oboro sat there grinning happily.

Shouta and Hizashi shared a glance and a smirk. Oboro had told them about the most recent date he’d had with Kayama, about how they were taking it slow; but Kayama never passed up a chance to touch Oboro, and every day those touches got a little bit… more.

Shouta was happy for them, though he refused to say much about it. He knew it would only encourage their ridiculous behavior.

Hizashi scooted over to sit next to Shouta, and Shouta leaned his head against his shoulder. That something so small sent such a thrill through him was completely irrational; but being close to Hizashi seemed to have that effect on him.

“You’ll need to shower the rest of this out later,” Kayama finally sighed, hopping down from the cloud. Shouta checked the time and saw lunch was nearly over.

“Or you could do it for me,” Oboro said, giving her a grin and waggling his eyebrows. Kayama arched her own eyebrow back at him, staring him down until he started giggling. Shouta sighed at their antics and stood up, brushing off his legs before offering his hand to Hizashi, which his boyfriend accepted with a grin.

Hauling Hizashi to his feet was only step one of Shouta’s plan, though. For step two, Shouta tugged him close and aimed a kiss at his lips.

He blinked his eyes open when the kiss didn’t connect. Instead, Hizashi’s chin was hooked over Shouta’s shoulder as he hugged him tightly. Shouta stepped back slightly, giving Hizashi a quizzical look. Hizashi just rubbed the back of his neck and scooted over to open the door for everyone to head back inside.

Shouta would have been tempted to write it off as just a weird moment; but thinking about it, it was the third time this week that he could remember Hizashi dodging a kiss.

He hadn’t dodged all the kisses, of course. They’d kissed a few times while Shouta did his capture-weapon training, and when they were holed up in Hizashi’s room studying (actually studying, aside from a handful of kisses; finals were coming up). But now Shouta was starting to wonder if something was wrong.

*

After school, Oboro had more of his make-up classes to take, so Shouta and Hizashi went to the gym without him again. Oboro was only able to make it once or twice a week for now, but he was a surprisingly enthusiastic participant when he was there. Not that he didn’t goof off at all, but Shouta had noticed that he was much more focused on the training parts than he used to be.

Today, though, it was just Shouta and Hizashi, which was nice in its own way. It was serious training, and Shouta took it seriously… but it was a lot easier to steal a kiss from Hizashi when he was wrapped up in Shouta’s binding cloth. And Shouta was pleased that Hizashi wasn’t trying to avoid any kisses now either.

Still, Shouta tried not to do it too often, because Hizashi always got flustered right after, and then he was way too easy to catch for the next few minutes.

After half an hour, they sat down for a quick water break.

“D’you ever feel weird kissing in front of Shirakumo?” Hizashi asked, looking at his toes as they leaned back against the wall.

“Why would I?” Shouta asked with a shrug. “He’s the one who shoved us in a closet till we started dating.”

“Yeah, no, I just mean… d’you think he feels weird about it? Seeing it? Cuz the three of us were all friends, and now me and you are dating.”

“We’re all still friends, though,” Shouta said, puzzled as to what irrational leap of Hizashi’s mind was behind this.

“But me and you are doing stuff without him.”

“Because he’s doing stuff without us. He’s got extra lessons-”

“Yeah, but, like, when we go out on a date, he’s not gonna come with us,” Hizashi said, starting to get agitated. “What if he starts feeling left out, and what if we’re just… I dunno, rubbing it in when we kiss in front of him?”

“He’s going on dates with Kayama-”

“But what if-”

“Zashi, if you’re that worried, why not just ask him?” Shouta suggested. As absurd as it was, at least this conversation was shedding light on why Hizashi had been acting so strange this week, answering the questions Shouta hadn’t had a chance to ask yet.

“Because he’ll just say everything is fine!” Hizashi flailed his arms around, and Shouta swayed back to avoid getting smacked in the face. “He won’t want us to feel weird, even if he feels weird, because that’s the kind of friend he is!”

Shouta arched an eyebrow. “You’re being ridiculous.” Of the three of them, Oboro was the least bad at communicating.

“What, so worrying about our friend is ridiculous?” Hizashi huffed.

“No, whatever it is that you’re doing is ridiculous. Come on,” Shouta said, standing and pulling at Hizashi’s arm, “Let’s get back to work.”

Hizashi glowered at him, but stood up and started running.

It was only a minute until Shouta caught him, reeled him in, and kissed him hard. He had some dodged kisses to make up for, after all.

“Come on, Shou,” Hizashi gasped as Shouta broke the kiss, squirming to get free of the binding cloth and Shouta’s hold.

“Shirakumo isn’t here,” Shouta pointed out, “I’m just taking the opportunity to kiss you now, while it’s safe,” he teased before releasing Hizashi. Just like before, Hizashi was flustered and Shouta almost immediately caught him again… and kissed him again.

He leaned into it, using the binding cloth to hold Hizashi close, and Hizashi couldn’t muffle the high whine that escaped the back of his throat as he kissed back.

“Aren’t you supposed to be doing serious training,” Hizashi sputtered when Shouta finally backed away, smirking. The flushed and flustered look on Hizashi’s face was incredibly satisfying.

“I am taking every moment in here very seriously,” Shouta told him before freeing him from the binding cloth. By the time he was done, Hizashi was still flushed bright red, and Shouta could have sworn Hizashi’s hands were shaking slightly by his sides. Before Shouta had a chance to check in on him, though, Hizashi took off running again, and Shouta gave chase.

This time, Shouta herded Hizashi over towards the far corner of the gym, a spot hidden by shadows and a tall pile of crash mats, before snaring him again around his arms and chest. Hizashi stumbled over his own feet as Shouta crowded him back, not stopping until he was pressed into the corner. Shouta leaned hard up against him, and he could feel the pounding of Hizashi’s heart against his chest. This time, when Shouta kissed him, Hizashi whimpered into his mouth; and this time Shouta was certain he could feel him trembling. He stepped back just enough to shake the binding cloth loose before getting in close again, keeping Hizashi backed up against the wall.

For a long moment, both of them were still, Shouta’s heart thundering wildly.

Hizashi drew a shaky breath, then ducked his head forward with an eager noise, kissing Shouta hard. His hands landed gently on Shouta’s hips, a featherlight touch compared to the intensity of the kiss. Hizashi’s tongue pushed at the seam of Shouta’s lips, begging for entrance. Shouta hummed as he opened his mouth, his tongue sliding against Hizashi’s as he wrapped his arms around his waist, pulling himself close while still keeping Hizashi backed into the corner.

Kissing didn’t make sense. There was no logical reason it should feel so good, why it should ignite desire low in his gut and make him want more; but rationality went out the window when Hizashi’s lips were pressed against his own.

“We, hnnn, we should prolly stop,” Hizashi stammered, breaking the kiss and resting his forehead against Shouta’s.

“Do you want to stop?” Shouta asked him, his hands starting to slide lower on Hizashi’s back, his fingers itching to go even further and grab Hizashi’s ass, to pull their bodies tightly together. Shouta was aware that he was rapidly getting harder, and every sound Hizashi made only heightened his arousal.

“Hell no,” Hizashi gasped as Shouta’s hands moved down, bit by bit, “But what if someone comes in?”

“Nobody ever comes in,” Shouta reminded him, ducking his head to press a kiss to Hizashi’s neck, licking at the sweat-salty skin.

“Except when they do- oh, haaah-” Hizashi broke off as Shouta finally gave in to the urge to grab his ass, pulling Hizashi’s hips flush against his own, and-

Oh, that was-

Shouta’s breath stuttered out of him as their erections pressed up against each other through the layers of fabric between them. It felt better than it had any right to, having Hizashi’s cock slotted up against his own.

He wanted to rut up against Hizashi, he wanted to make him gasp and moan. He wanted to watch him come apart, he wanted to make him come apart.

Shouta wanted to touch Hizashi again.

He’d thought about it a lot since last week, how Hizashi had felt in his hand, what it had been like to jerk him off. Between school and training and work studies and Shouta’s job with Ms. Emoto, the two of them didn’t have a lot of opportunities for private moments, and Shouta refused to pass this one up; not now that they were here, touching, kissing.

He slid one hand from Hizashi’s butt and traced the elastic waistband of his sweatpants around to the front, tugging gently. He slipped just the tips of his fingers beneath it, his index finger brushing against the head of Hizashi’s erection, and Hizashi shuddered against him.

“Can I?” he asked against Hizashi’s lips.

“Oh fuck, I- hnnn, yeah, yes, please,” Hizashi babbled, and Shouta didn’t hesitate, backing up just enough to reach down into Hizashi’s pants and boxers to grip him. “Fffffuck, Shou, I, uh, don’t think it’s gonna take much,” he said, his hands on Shouta’s waist gripping tightly. Hizashi was shaking, and Shouta didn’t know if it was from nerves, excitement, a mix of both, or something else; but everything about it was thrilling.

The angle was awkward, even as Shouta shifted his grip so he could stroke Hizashi, but he didn’t care. All he cared about was mapping the feel of Hizashi, hard in his hand, the velvet soft skin, the breathy little moans and whines that slipped out of him, the way his hips thrust up into Shouta’s grip.

It all made Shouta achingly hard.

It really didn’t take much, either. Shouta only pumped his hand a few times before Hizashi’s head tipped back, lower lip held tight between his teeth as his hips jerked and his cock twitched in Shouta’s grip.

He was gorgeous.

“That was faster than last time,” Shouta observed in awe, wondering what had made such a difference. Was it the position? Shouta doubted his own handjob skills were any better yet. Maybe Hizashi had just already been more worked up?

Whatever the reason, Shouta knew he wanted to watch Hizashi come as many times as he could.

“Shaddup,” Hizashi groaned, thumping his head back against the wall as he caught his breath.

“It wasn’t a complaint,” Shouta clarified as he eased his hand out of Hizashi’s sweats, leaving as much of the mess behind as he could. No point spreading it.

Hizashi lifted his head off the wall, looking down to where his hands were drifting towards the erection tenting Shouta’s pants. “I didn’t really get to touch much last time,” he said, an eager excitement in his voice that made Shouta’s breath hitch. “And, uh, I didn’t get to see either.”

Shouta swallowed hard. “Go ahead. If you want.” A flutter of nerves swirled in his gut while Hizashi slowly pushed Shouta’s pants and underwear down in the front until he was exposed to the cool air of the gym. Shouta hooked his thumb into the waistband by his hip, keeping the fabric down and out of the way. At least this time, Shouta wasn’t already so overwhelmed that he’d finish before anything started.

“Oh, wow,” Hizashi breathed, wrapping his fingers around him. Heat rushed to Shouta’s face as sensation zinged through his body. “That’s… you’re…”

“I’m about the same as you,” Shouta mumbled as Hizashi slid his hand along the length of him.

“But you’re you.”

Shouta could feel the tremor in Hizashi’s hand as he stroked him, but he couldn’t focus on that as his own muscles tensed up in pleasure. The urge to chase the feeling was already on him, telling him to thrust into Hizashi’s hand, hard and fast.

Instead he put his free arm around Hizashi’s neck and pulled him close, muffling his moan against Hizashi’s lips.

It wasn’t rational. The sensations themselves weren’t much different than when he masturbated. In some ways, they weren’t as good, since Hizashi was working without that instant internal feedback that let Shouta do to himself exactly what felt best in the moment; but knowing that it was Hizashi touching him, knowing that Hizashi wanted to touch him, made everything a thousand times more intense, pushing him right to the edge of orgasm.

“Zashi,” he gasped, finally giving in to the urge to thrust. Hizashi tightened his fist around Shouta’s cock and cupped his other hand over so every time Shouta thrust up, he bumped into it, another layer of pressure, sensation. “I’m gonna-”

“You’re so hot, holy shit,” Hizashi breathed.

Shouta came hard, fucking into Hizashi’s hands and gripping the hair on the back of his head tight in his fist as he pressed a sloppy kiss to Hizashi’s mouth, riding out the waves of his orgasm. He was pretty sure he was making strange, breathy noises; but he couldn’t give a damn about that right now, not with Hizashi gently stroking him as he slowed and stilled his own movements.

“I think,” Shouta gasped as he caught his breath and pressed a final, brief, hard kiss to Hizashi’s mouth, “That I’m done training for today.”

~*~

Hizashi was kinda bummed. After that afternoon in the gym, days slipped by and Shouta insisted on focusing on actual training and studying more than fooling around. Stupid finals. They still made out, of course, but it didn’t spiral into the kinds of activities that left them both very distracted for quite a while.

And Hizashi knew it was his own fault that they didn’t even get to kiss as much as he wanted to. Most of the time when they got together to study, Oboro was there with them, and Hizashi couldn’t shake the worry that somehow, the fact that he and Shouta were dating now would end up hurting Oboro.

And then, Hizashi worried that his worry about hurting Oboro meant that he was prioritizing Oboro over Shouta, and that would make him a pretty terrible boyfriend.

And then he worried that if Shouta broke up with him for being a terrible boyfriend, he’d have messed up his relationship and all his friendships in one go.

He groaned and buried his face in his hands.

“Uhhh, you ok there buddy?” Oboro asked. “You don’t usually have this much trouble with math when Shouta explains it.”

“No, it’s not the math,” Hizashi grumbled. He wondered if Shouta was right; every time Hizashi brought it up, Shouta insisted that if he was that worried, he should just ask Oboro about it. But even if Shouta was right, how the hell was Hizashi supposed to start that conversation?

“Is this about you worrying that Shirakumo is bothered when we kiss?” Shouta asked, not looking up from his notebook.

Uh. Well, that was one way.

“How did you-” Hizashi started to ask before realizing that maaaaaaybe he’d been bringing it up to Shouta more often than he’d thought.

“What?” Oboro laughed. “Why would I be bothered by that?”

Hizashi gaped at him.

It was one thing for Oboro to say he was ok with it, Hizashi pretty much expected that. It was something else entirely for Oboro to sit there and laugh like Hizashi was pulling his concerns out of his ass. Irritation bubbled up inside him, and he shoved his notebook to the side so he could lean in towards Oboro

“Dude, do you not remember the wholeass fucktastrophy that happened-”

Oh.

The fucktastrophy that had happened a week before Oboro got his head smashed in by a fucking building.

He probably didn’t remember it. Or, if he did, then probably not well.

“Look, things are different now!” Hizashi said, throwing his arms in the air. Since the conversation was started, he’d have it, even though apparently Oboro couldn’t remember why it was necessary. Hizashi would show his friends that they didn’t actually need to stuff him in a closet to get him to communicate! “It used to be the three of us as best friends, and now me and Shouta are in love, and I don’t want you to feel left out!”

At that, a tiny furrow appeared in Oboro’s brow. “Why would I feel left out?” At least this time, he sounded like he was taking Hizashi seriously instead of laughing it off.

Hizashi swallowed and glanced at Shouta, who’d never really gotten the whole story behind how the fucktastrophy had built up in the first place. Well, it’s not like there were any secrets left to keep about anything at this point. “When I first told you that I liked Shouta, you kinda wound up going overboard trying to be super close with him, cuz you got worried that things between the three of us might change if me and him started dating.”

“Is that what that ‘stuff’ stuff was about?” Shouta asked. Hizashi nodded, feeling a little sheepish; but at least Shouta didn’t seem angry or anything.

“After everything blew up, we pretty much got it all sorted out… but… things are different now, and I don’t…” Hizashi’s mouth stalled out on him as he tried to find the end of that sentence.

I don’t want you to feel the way I felt…

I don’t want to make the mistake you made…

I don’t want to hurt you…

I don’t want you to decide you don’t want to be around us…

“I just don’t want you to feel left out.” Hizashi crossed his arms over his chest and looked at Oboro, trying to read his expression.

“Now that you’re talking about it, all of that does sound familiar,” Oboro said slowly. “It’s a little fuzzy, but I remember that conversation… But… I dunno, sitting here now, it doesn’t feel like it makes sense. Sure, you two are in love with each other; but it’s not like I don’t love you both, and I know you both love me too, so-”

“Wait, what?” Hizashi blurted. That was nowhere on his bingo card for this conversation. He glanced over at Shouta, who didn’t seem nearly as alarmed as Hizashi suddenly felt.

“Dude, chill, I don’t wanna date either of you, sorry,” Oboro said with a laugh. “I mean, have you met Nemuri? That’s the woman for me! But friends can love each other too, ya know.”

“Ok, ok, hang on,” Hizashi said, because obviously he knew that friends could love each other, but- “That doesn’t fix the problem. Cuz even if we say that we all love each other, it still feels- I mean, aren’t I supposed to love Shouta more? But, I feel like I shouldn’t!”

“I dunno what you should feel,” Oboro said, scratching his head where his hair was still growing out, “What do you feel?”

Hizashi cast a guilty glance over at Shouta. “I- I dunno,” he mumbled. Shouldn’t he know?

“It’s different,” Shouta said, staring down at his own fingers, brow furrowed in thought. “It’s not more or less, just different. Once Kayama and Oboro start making out constantly in front of us, I might tell them to get a room; but I don’t think I’ll be bothered or worried that he’s somehow going to care about us any less. If Kayama tried to kiss you, though,” he added, looking at Hizashi, “I’d be bothered.”

“What if I tried to kiss Zashi?” Oboro teased, waggling his eyebrows.

Shouta rolled his eyes. “You wouldn’t kiss either of us,” he said, “So that’s-”

“And why not?” Oboro huffed, sounding almost insulted. “I’d kiss both of you!”

“I meant on the lips,” Shouta countered.

“So did I!”

“Ok, back up,” Hizashi said, not sure how exactly this train had gotten so off-track or what the hell it was heading towards. “You just said you don’t wanna date us, but you wanna kiss us?”

“S’not like that,” Oboro laughed. “With Nemuri, I want to kiss her. Like, all the time. I don’t feel that with you guys; but that’s not the same as saying I wouldn’t kiss you!”

“Like… the way you kiss us on the cheek?” Hizashi asked, trying to wrap his head around what Oboro was saying. Cuz Oboro just did that kinda thing… not a lot, but often enough that Hizashi had come to accept it as normal from his friend.

“Yeah, like that! Like a hug or a kiss on the cheek, it’s just another kind of affection as far as I’m concerned,” Oboro explained. “It’s not a big deal; but it’s not like I’d go around kissing everyone, only people I really care about.”

“So you wouldn’t be willing to kiss Sensoji?” Hizashi teased. Oboro’s face twisted up and he stuck his tongue out, making his distaste of the idea clear.

“Hard pass on that one. But really, Shouta, how would you feel if I planted a big smackeroo on Hizashi? Not to try and steal your man, but just cuz I love him the same way I love you?”

Shouta’s face scrunched up as he thought, and despite the push and pull on all of Hizashi’s emotional resources right now, he couldn’t help but feel his heart squeeze at how adorable Shouta was. Hizashi was always delighted when his normally stoic boyfriend’s face crinkled up into various expressions. It made him want to take pictures, to document each one. (Try as he might, he’d only managed it a few times; he was usually so busy staring that by the time he remembered to reach for his phone, the moment was over).

That wasn’t what he felt with Oboro. He didn’t usually think of Oboro as ‘cute,’ more like funny or maybe… endearing? He made Hizashi laugh and feel kinda… fond. But that difference didn’t make it feel like he cared less for Oboro.

Huh.

“I’d be less bothered than if Kayama tried to kiss him,” Shouta said, dragging Hizashi’s mind back to Oboro’s hypothetical question. “I’d be jealous, though.” His eyes flicked over to Hizashi. “Mostly I’d be bothered if he kissed you back.”

“No offence, Kumo, but Shouta is the only one I have any interest in kissing. I mean, wouldn’t you be jealous if Kayama kissed one of us? Or if we kissed her?”

“I dunno,” Oboro said, looking thoughtful, “Either way, I can say for a fact that I’m not bothered by seeing you two kiss each other. Please, feel free to make out as much as you want in my presence.”

“Now you’re making it sound weird,” Shouta sighed.

“Maybe the three of us are a little weird,” Oboro mused. “Something… different.”

“What are we then?” Hizashi asked.

“Idiots!” Oboro declared, and Hizashi couldn’t help burst into giggles as a fragment of his worry faded away.

*

After that very weird, but also kinda relieving conversation, Hizashi found the rest of his worries dissipating bit by bit. He and Shouta dating wouldn’t hurt Oboro, because the three of them already had something between them that was different.

When Shouta and Oboro left that evening, Hizashi spent a long time thinking about things. He thought about the whole idea of Oboro kissing him, or kissing Shouta. Just for a comparison, he imagined kissing Mushimori, or Kobayashi, and the idea was totally weird. They were cool classmates, and he was really good friends with Kobayashi; but kissing her would be super uncomfortable. Even like Oboro described it, in a ‘friendly’ way as part of a hug.

He thought about kissing Oboro, and it was… weird? He didn’t feel the urge to, not like how he always wanted to kiss Shouta; but it didn’t feel uncomfortable like the idea of kissing Kobayashi. He thought about the way Oboro would hug them, showing affection as easily as breathing, the way he already sometimes kissed them on the cheek…

Still, neither he nor Shouta would be giving or accepting any kisses like that from Shirakumo. He imagined Oboro kissing Shouta while Shouta rolled his eyes like he so often did when Oboro swept him up in a hug. The idea didn’t make Hizashi as jealous as the whole thing with Iida had, but the jealousy was still there.

It didn’t make him angry, though. Hm. Another thing that was different. And confusing. Hizashi decided he needed to stop trying to make sense of it all.

The three of them were undeniably a trio still, but Shouta was Hizashi’s boyfriend, and Hizashi was his. That was all that mattered.

Hizashi sighed as his thoughts started to spiral down another path that he’d been avoiding: telling his parents that Shouta was his boyfriend.

He put on his headphones, turned on his music, opened his notebook, and proceeded to continue avoiding it.

*

To Hizashi’s surprise, finals were actually pretty easy. Despite all the stress and chaos that had happened this semester - maybe even because of it, given that he’d focused on school work to avoid thinking about worse things - Hizashi had kept up with everything and done well, even getting top marks in a few subjects. Tutoring Shouta and Oboro helped him too, so that had worked in his favor.

So now, here he was. School was over for the semester, both Oboro and Shouta were home with their families for the evening, and there were only so many times he could tweak his script for his webcast. So he was thinking about things.

He really needed to tell his parents about Shouta.

It had been a month since he and Shouta started dating. Shouta never pressed him about it, but every time he saw the Aizawas, Hizashi felt a pang of guilt.

Maybe he could be super nonchalant about it? Just tell his parents ‘by the way, Aizawa and I are dating now,’ and they would go ‘oh, that’s nice,’ and that would be the end of it?

It was as good a plan as any.

He waited till dinner was over, though he spent as much time pushing his food around as he did eating any of it. He could feel his hands shaking. He didn’t know why he was so nervous, he was sure it would be fine.

Right?

He heaved a deep breath as he helped clear the table. “Just F.Y.I., me and Aizawa are dating,” he said as he finished with his dish and tried to leave the kitchen.

“Finally!” Dad zipped over to cut off his escape, wrapping him in a tight hug. “Congratulations!”

“I’m so happy for you boys! We were starting to worry that you two weren’t going to figure it out,” Mom added with a smile. “The way you’ve been looking at each other for weeks, it’s been pretty clear you’re both smitten.”

Guilt and irritation roiled in Hizashi’s gut as he realized he needed to give them a little more info. It had been one thing to ask Shouta to keep the secret at first; but he wasn’t gonna ask Shouta to maintain a lie about when they’d started dating.

“Yeah, uhh, we actually figured it out a little while ago,” Hizashi admitted, pushing away from his dad to get a little more space. “We’ve been dating since the weekend Shirakumo came home.” He hated conceding that his parents had any idea what was going on between him and Shouta, but it was better to just get this conversation over as quick as he could so he could escape.

“Wasn’t that when you were so upset?” Mom asked.

Ugh, of course it was gonna turn into Twenty Questions. “Yeah. Things were… complicated; but Shirakumo helped us sort it out.”

“I’m glad you boys have each other,” Dad said.

“That does explain why you were so worried about-”

“Mom, enough,” Hizashi snapped, not wanting to rehash all that old stuff. Yeah, he’d had some weird notions before about being bisexual; but he totally understood it now! Maybe his parents had helped a little with that, but the last thing he needed from either of them was any kind of input on his relationship.

Neither of them was qualified to talk about relationships.

“Hey,” Dad said sternly, “How about you calm down. There’s no reason to be getting snippy with your mom.”

Anger flashed hot through Hizashi as he glared at his dad. Snippy?

His jaw clenched, lip curling as his shoulders got tight. His parents were still standing between him and the door out of the kitchen.

Fine. He could show them ‘snippy.’

“How about you shut your mouth,” he snarled, his voice a low and dangerous rumble. “Gods, why do you still defend her, you’re so pathetic!” His parents stood there in stunned silence, and somehow that just made Hizashi angrier. “She’s made her choice, and guess what? It’s not you.”

Something insidious and cruel that had been growing inside him for years finally broke free, and shit, it felt good to spit the venom out at them. “Why do you keep doing this same stupid song and dance over and over again? Do you enjoy keeping yourself so fucking miserable?”

Gods, he hated them. He hated them both so much. Stupid and miserable, and he just wanted to scream at them. After everything, how dare they!

“I want a chance at something happy with Shouta,” he choked out, ignoring the hot tears streaming down his face, “How the hell am I supposed to do that when I’ve got you as my parents!?” He shoved past them, finally getting free of the kitchen, barely pausing at the genkan to shove his feet into his sneakers and grab his jacket before running outside and slamming the door behind him.

He shoved his hands in his pockets and started walking.

His mind was churning over and over, powering his legs as they took him further away from that fucking house. He’d been walking for a while before his rage cooled enough for him to reach for his phone to text Shouta and Oboro, to vent off some steam…

His phone wasn’t in his pocket.

It was up in his room. Plugged in and charging.

Well.

He wasn’t going back home for it. Not now anyway.

He looked up to see his feet had carried him to the train station. He didn’t have his wallet on him either, though, so he just kept walking.

The chilly air had felt like relief when he’d left the house so heated up; but now the cold December evening was getting colder as the meager warmth of the day continued to fade. He paused long enough to zip his jacket, then kept walking. He passed the park where he, Shouta, and Oboro had gotten stuck and had to climb the fence.

He kept walking.

Time ticked by in footfalls on the pavement. Hizashi calmed down, then got angry again.

Yeah, sure, Mom had explained things, about how she’d wound up married to someone she wasn’t in love with, but so fucking what? Hizashi couldn’t forgive her. He understood it, but he couldn’t forgive her for hurting him and Dad…

And he couldn’t forgive Dad for not being enough to keep her.

Because despite all his anger, Hizashi loved his mom. He hated the fact that she was going to build a new life with someone else.

He loved his dad and he hated seeing him so miserable because the person he loved couldn’t love him back the way he wanted her to.

He was so angry at them both, for hurting each other, for hurting him, and he hated it.

He hated his parents, he loved his parents. He wanted to run away from everyone, he wanted to collapse into a warm embrace and know he wasn’t alone. A tidal ebb and flow of emotions kept pulling him farther adrift.

Time passed. He kept walking.

There were fewer cars and less foot traffic now. The moon was bright in the clear sky, and the streetlights illuminated the sidewalk. He slowed as he approached a brick ledge on the side of a building; not exactly meant to be a bench, but Hizashi paused and sat on it anyway. The cold brick immediately started greedily draining away the heat from him. A trickle of sweat ran down his spine, and he wondered how long he’d been walking. It had been around seven when he’d stormed out. Maybe he should start heading home.

The thought of going back there only left him feeling empty and twisted up inside, though. Maybe he was better off staying out here a bit longer.

Come to think of it, he wondered where ‘here’ actually was. He looked around and nothing was familiar. He wasn’t worried - he was a provisionally licensed hero course student, after all; but without his phone or wallet, it was gonna make things difficult.

He wasn’t sure if he’d even paid enough attention to where he was going in the first place to properly retrace his steps, but he sighed and decided he should at least get himself back to his own neighborhood.

He stood up, wincing slightly at the chill that had seeped into his legs, and started walking back the way he’d come.

Chapter Text

It was nearly midnight when Shouta’s mom knocked on his door. Normally, he’d have been asleep by then; but he’d gotten caught up in the book he was reading.

“What is it?” he asked, a ripple of concern washing through him when he realized what time it was. She almost never checked in like this, and certainly not this late.

“Have you heard from Yamada recently?”

The ripple grew to a wave. “No. He texted me a few hours ago that he was going to tell his parents about us dating, but nothing since then.” He’d been trying not to think too much about why Hizashi hadn’t gotten back to him to let him know how it had gone. He’d figured there must be a rational reason, so he’d chosen to distract himself rather than focus on something he had no control over.

Now he wondered if that had been a mistake…

“His mother is on the phone with your father right now. He stormed out of the house several hours ago after a fight.”

Shouta didn’t bother asking his mom for more information, he wanted it directly from the source. He hurried out of his room, Mom stepping aside smoothly to clear the way as he followed the sound of his dad’s voice.

“I’m sure he’s fine, the boys are more than halfway to heroes already,” Dad was reassuring Hizashi’s mom when Shouta grabbed the phone and put it on speaker.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Oh hello, I’m so sorry to bother you this late,” Mrs. Yamada said, clearly upset, “But in all the times Hizashi has stormed off like this, he’s never stayed away for so long, not so late. I was hoping he’d showed up there, or that you’d heard from him? He left his phone here, but maybe he borrowed someone’s phone to get in touch?”

“No, what happened?” Shouta repeated. “Did you guys get mad at him?” He wasn’t going to risk asking a more specific question.

“Get mad at him…?” she paused, piecing together what Shouta meant. “Oh! Of course not! We were thrilled! I’m not even sure what happened to set him off! We were happy one moment, and then the next he was… Hizashi is such a good, caring boy, but sometimes he gets so angry.”

“Dad, can you reach him?” Shouta didn’t think it would work; Dad needed line of sight to communicate with most people, although close proximity alone could work with people he knew relatively well. Shouta and his mother were the only two people Dad could reach at an extended distance, but it was worth a try.

Dad’s brow furrowed in concentration before he sighed and shook his head.

Shouta frowned, then pulled out his own phone to text Oboro.

<sent> u seen Zashi?

<Oboro> no, y?

<sent> heard from him?

<Oboro> also no. u’r worrying me

<sent> can u meet me at the station by his house?

<Oboro> yeah

“Me and Shirakumo are gonna go look for him,” Shouta said to Mrs. Yamada, locking eyes with his dad briefly. “If he shows up, text us, my dad will give you our numbers.”

“You don’t have to do that-”

“We’re gonna do it anyway,” Shouta said, “Let us know if he comes home.” Handing the phone back to his dad, he ran and grabbed a hoodie from his room before tugging on his coat and pulling his shoes on. He sent a quick text to Hizashi’s phone, just in case, telling him to call right away; but he knew it was just covering his bases. If Hizashi had his phone, he would have been angrily texting him or Oboro about what had happened.

“Send them my number and Shirakumo’s. And send me theirs too, in case we find him first,” he called to his parents.

“Take care, Shou-chan,” Dad said, and Shouta heard his phone ping with incoming texts as Dad sent the Yamada’s contact info.

On the train, Shouta tried to keep calm, but he kept thinking of all the times he’d seen Hizashi run away from situations; like that first time, on his birthday, when he hadn’t even remembered his shoes. When he got upset like this, Hizashi didn’t think, he just bolted; and now he’d done so without any way of getting in touch with anyone.

Which, technically, shouldn’t be a big deal. Like Dad had said, they were more than halfway to heroes. Hizashi could take care of himself.

But there was something else about it; something itching the back of his brain, saying that he needed to find Hizashi, needed to talk to him.

When he got to the station, he sent a text to Hizashi’s mom, asking if there was any updates, and she replied that there wasn’t, but Mr. Yamada was out driving around looking for Hizashi.

Shouta quietly hoped that Mr. Yamada didn’t find him; he had a feeling that might make things worse.

It was only another few minutes until Oboro got there, but Shouta was pacing up and down the sidewalk by the platform, and he didn’t waste any time before filling him in.

“I get that you’re worried,” Oboro said when Shouta finished, “But Hizashi is a big boy. He’s not a lost little kid who needs help getting home.”

Shouta shook his head. “I know. It’s not about that,” he said, leading him away from the train station. “He needs us, though. Like when you had to shove us in the closet.”

“I don’t think he’s secretly in love with anyone besides you,” Oboro teased, though he tipped his head in confusion.

“Obviously,” Shouta deadpanned. “Let’s just find him.”

The pair split up, each heading off in a different direction, agreeing to check in with each other every fifteen minutes or so.

Shouta walked, his feet following the path that he, Hizashi, and Oboro sometimes took when they needed to stretch their legs after too long playing video games. He checked in with Oboro. He kept walking, following the same road.

He checked in.

He kept walking.

Every time he saw someone else on the sidewalk - which wasn’t often, being nearly one in the morning on a weeknight - his heart leapt in hope. Every time, it wasn’t Hizashi.

He was getting ready to check in again when he spied another figure walking slowly down the sidewalk towards him. Shoulders hunched, hands stuffed into jacket pockets, head tipped down to stare at the ground, there was nothing readily visible to identify the person; but Shouta knew.

He knew it was Hizashi.

<sent> I think I see him, gimmie a sec to confirm

Gripping his phone tightly, he hurried forward. The sounds of his footsteps in the still winter air were loud enough to draw the figure’s attention, and as he raised his head, there was no doubt. That hair, that face. That was Hizashi.

<sent> confirmed, we’ll head back, meet us

Shouta sent his location to Oboro, sent a quick ‘found him’ to Mrs. Yamada, then stuffed his phone back in his pocket and closed the distance with Hizashi, his walk shifting to a jog.

Hizashi stood frozen in place.

“Shouta?” Hizashi seemed understandably confused. “What are you doing here?”

Shouta grabbed on to Hizashi in a rough embrace, as much about holding on to make sure he didn’t run as it was about relief at finding him. “What are you doing here,” he countered, muttering next to Hizashi’s ear.

Hizashi sighed. “Did my parents send you after me?”

“No. They called to see if you were at my place,” Shouta said, taking a half step back from Hizashi so he could look him in the eye. “I decided to come find you when it was clear you didn’t have your phone.”

“I’m fine,” Hizashi grumbled, more tired and despondent than angry, which Shouta hoped was a good sign.

“Come on, let’s go find Shirakumo.” Shouta knew that he was going to need backup for this conversation.

“You dragged him out too?”

“No. Come on.” Shouta grabbed Hizashi’s hand and they started heading back the way Shouta had come. They had a long way to go, and they walked quietly side by side.

“Did you tell them where I am?” Hizashi asked, breaking the silence.

“Who, your parents?” Shouta asked, and Hizashi nodded. “No, I let them know that I found you, but that’s all.”

“They really called you?”

“They called my dad, but yeah,” Shouta said. “I think they were worried cuz of how late it was getting.”

“What time is it?”

Shouta glanced at his phone. “One-o-clock.”

“I didn’t realize,” Hizashi said, squeezing Shouta’s hand in a wordless apology. “I just had to be away from them.”

Shouta’s phone pinged, and he checked it one-handed, unwilling to let go of Hizashi. “Shirakumo is on his way to meet us.”

“Ok,” Hizashi mumbled.

There was another notification waiting to be read; it had probably come in while Shouta was hugging Hizashi earlier. A message of thanks and relief from Mrs. Yamada; Shouta chose not to mention it to Hizashi yet. They walked quietly for another few minutes, and even though Shouta knew he should probably wait for Oboro, the urge to get more information was too strong.

“What happened?” The way they were pressed so close together, Shouta felt Hizashi shrug instead of seeing it.

“I told them we’re dating. They were happy. And then… I dunno, they were acting like they knew anything about relationships. About what you and I feel. Like they know anything about what I feel. And I got pissed.”

Shouta glanced up and, to his relief, he saw the shape of Oboro hurrying towards them. Less than a minute later, the three of them were hugging each other tightly.

“Don’t do that again, man!” Oboro chided with a gentle smile as he stepped back, his hand holding Hizashi’s shoulder tightly. “Bring your phone so you can keep us updated on all the drama, come on!”

“Yeah, I know. I didn’t exactly plan it this way,” Hizashi said with a sheepish, lopsided grin as they started walking slowly in the direction of Hizashi’s home, Hizashi sandwiched between Shouta and Oboro. “I just needed to get out of there.”

“Zashi,” Shouta started carefully, “Why do you get so mad at them so easily?”

“Cuz they deserve it,” Hizashi grumbled.

“Is there something going on that we don’t know about?” Oboro asked, “Cuz I kinda feel like I’m missing something.”

“Like what?” Hizashi asked, seeming resigned. “You know about the divorce, you know my mom cheated on my dad, you know he’s still all nicey-nice with her; what else is there?”

Shouta looked at Hizashi’s face, and caught Oboro's eye as he did the same.

“It’s all about the divorce?” Shouta asked.

“Is that not enough?” Hizashi growled, and Shouta knew he had to tread carefully. Once again, he was thankful for Oboro’s presence.

“I mean, divorce can be a big deal,” Oboro said, “Did the kids in middle school find out and give you shit?”

“Only one. Wataya,” Hizashi grumbled, deflating a little, “And he only tried that crap with me once. It’s not about that, though.”

“Then what?” Shouta asked.

“She cheated, isn’t that enough?” Hizashi seemed irritated by the fact that they weren’t as angry as he was. “She’s a cheater, and people keep acting like it’s not a big deal! Why am I the only one who cares how fucked up that is?” Shouta swallowed and tightened his grip on Hizashi’s hand as Hizashi started to get louder.

“How can I forgive them!? How can I forgive my mom for cheating on my dad! There’s right and wrong in the world, and what she did was wrong! And it’s not like they’re gonna get back together, she’s leaving him! She’s been moving her stuff out for months. How can I forgive her when she’s going off to make her own happy life without me!” Hizashi stopped in his tracks and stared at the ground, scuffing his toe against the sidewalk. “I mean, without Dad.”

Oh.

“Have you talked to them about how you feel?” Oboro asked gently; but no matter how carefully they tread, they were in the middle of a minefield.

Just like that, the anger was back as Hizashi glared at Oboro. “Hell no! What good would that do?”

“Didn’t it help when you and Shouta talked and cleared things up?”

Hizashi’s hand tightened around Shouta’s for a moment. “That was different,” he insisted. “My mom did something really wrong. She hurt Dad. She hurt me. And Dad hasn’t done shit about any of it. They’re both just… ugh!”

“People can do wrong things, that doesn’t make them bad people,” Oboro said. “I mean, you hurt Shouta, but he forgave you, right? And it’s not like your mom is actually leaving you; she’s still your mom and loves you and tries to be there for you, right? And your dad does the same? I get that they hurt you; but it seems like they’re trying to make things right for you. I guess I just don’t understand why you’re holding on so tight to the anger.”

Something awful suddenly clicked in Shouta’s mind. “What are you going to do when I mess up and do something wrong? Are you gonna be mad at me forever?” he asked, swallowing around a lump in his throat. He didn’t really think Hizashi would do that… but sometimes Hizashi acted very irrationally.

“C’mon, Shou, you’re not gonna mess up like-” Hizashi started, but that was the wrong thing to say, and now it was Shouta’s turn for anger to flare up bright inside him.

“Of course I am!” Shouta snapped, pivoting to stand in front of Hizashi, glaring at him. He’d always felt the weight of needing to not fail, to not falter even a little, to never fall a step behind. It was a pressure he put on himself to make sure he didn’t lose his chance at being who he wanted to be…

But he couldn’t deal with it if Hizashi expected that from him. Not in this.

“I’m not gonna cheat on you, but I’m gonna do something!” Shouta said, still gripping Hizashi’s hand. “Everyone screws up! I hear my parents fight about stuff sometimes!” Fear and anger mingled together in him, filling him with this incessant pressure to just make Hizashi understand. “The whole reason my dad has a bad leg and we had to move out of Tokyo and only have enough money to live in that crappy apartment is because he fell asleep behind the wheel and totaled his car, which is a pretty big screw-up. Even though my mom warned him that he was too tired, he went and did it anyway!”

He wanted to shake Hizashi, but wasn’t willing to let go of his hand, so his grip just got tighter.

“My dad screwed up and it fucked with all of our lives,” Shouta said, “But he’s doing everything he can to make up for it, and my mom says that even if the place isn’t great, it’s all we need. I could be angry at my dad. I could resent him for the way his actions hurt me. But what the hell does that get me?”

Hizashi blinked at him in stunned silence. “Yeah, but… you love your dad,” Hizashi said, a look of uncertainty skittering across his face.

“And you love your parents!” Shouta shot back. Hizashi glowered at him, but didn’t deny it.

“So what,” he sneered, pulling his hand from Shouta’s to fold his arms across his chest, “I just pretend nothing bad happened?”

“Are you being an idiot on purpose?” Shouta shouted in exasperation. “No, you need to talk to them!”

“Fat chance,” Hizashi laughed.

“You can’t keep running away from every hard conversation! Why do you always run like this?” Something scared and desperate crawled around inside Shouta’s chest. What if Hizashi kept doing this forever? What if he ran from Shouta and didn’t come back? Why wouldn’t he just talk-

“Cuz I don’t wanna start yelling!”

“You’re yelling now!” Shouta countered, throwing his arms in the air in frustration.

“Yeah, and when my Quirk slips and I burst your eardrums again, maybe then you’ll stop trying to get me to talk about my fucking feelings!” Hizashi roared.

All three of them froze. Shouta’s pulse beat out a handful of seconds until he remembered to breathe.

“Zashi…”

Hizashi’s anger sputtered out as fast as it had flared up, and he bit his lip, staring down at his toes. “Never mind.”

“Is that something that used to happen?” Oboro asked gently. Hizashi flinched anyway.

“Why the fuck do you think I know sign language,” Hizashi muttered. “I was born with my Quirk activated. Half the tantrums I ever had as a kid ended with one or both of my parents bleeding from the ears. Mom could use her Quirk to sing me to sleep, but Dad’s got some permanent hearing loss because of me.”

Oh.

That… that did explain some things.

“You’re not a little kid anymore, though,” Oboro said. “You can control your Quirk now.”

“Not always,” Hizashi admitted, nudging at a pebble with his toe. He frowned, and Shouta’s hands itched to reach out for him; but he waited, watching as Hizashi’s mouth twisted up at the corner like it did sometimes when he was trying to figure out what to say.

“What if-” Hizashi started, then cut himself off, clearly still trying to organize his thoughts. “Do you really think talking with them will help?” he finally asked quietly.

“I think it’s worth a try,” Oboro told him, and Shouta nodded his agreement.

“Would you stay? If I talk to them, I mean, would you guys stay in the house?” Hizashi looked up at them, rubbing the back of his neck.

“You don’t want privacy?” Shouta asked.

“You guys are already in on all the dirty details,” Hizashi said, “And…” he looked directly at Shouta, “If you’re there, you can stop my Quirk if I lose control.”

For a moment, Shouta felt like his voice had been erased. Objectively, he knew that his Quirk wasn’t inherently dangerous, and that what Hizashi was suggesting was perfectly rational.

But it still felt like it meant something that Hizashi would ask him to do that. That Hizashi would trust him to effectively steal his voice away, even if just for a moment or two.

“Of course,” Shouta said, finally letting himself take Hizashi’s hand again as they resumed walking towards the Yamada household.

He held on tightly.

Shouta’s phone pinged again, and he checked it to see a message from his dad asking how things were going. He probably should have messaged them earlier, he knew his dad was bound to worry; but better late than never. He sent off a quick text, then saw more messages from Hizashi’s mom. Nothing major, just her being glad they’d found Hizashi.

He let her know they were getting close, and she thanked him.

As they walked up to the house, Hizashi’s grip on Shouta’s hand got tighter.

“Hey, uhh… You spoke to them earlier right? When they called your dad? You’re sure they’re chill?” Hizashi asked. “They didn’t seem pissed when you talked to them, I mean? I… kinda said some harsh shit to them before.”

Shouta nodded. “Your mom was worried when she called, and relieved to know that you were on your way back when I texted.”

Hizashi gave him a weak smile. He stood in front of the door, staring at it. “I don’t want to do this.”

“Why not? They’ll be happy you’re home.”

“I know.” Hizashi’s voice sounded thick. “What if… What if talking with them goes badly?”

“Why would it?” Everything Shouta knew of Hizashi’s parents indicated that it should go smoothly.

“It’ll be fine,” Oboro’s voice was strong and sure behind them as he wrapped his arms around their shoulders, squashing them together.

“But what if it’s not?” Hizashi insisted, still staring at the door.

Shouta huffed. “If it’s not, then you’ll come sleep at my place tonight and we’ll figure the rest out in the morning.” That seemed to satisfy Hizashi, who nodded and reached for the doorknob. As he opened the door, Shouta added, “But Shirakumo is right. It’ll be fine.”

The three of them stepped inside, kicking off their shoes, and Shouta could see the tension building in Hizashi’s shoulders as his parents approached.

“Oh, thank goodness!” Mrs. Yamada said, her eyes red and puffy, her hands clutched tightly together in front of her chest. Mr. Yamada’s hair was sticking out in odd directions, like he’d been running his fingers through it all night.

“I, uh,” Hizashi stammered, facing his parents and scratching the back of his head, “I think I need to talk to you both.”

“Of course,” Mrs. Yamada said. “Tomorrow-”

“No, I don’t think I can wait that long,” Hizashi cut her off. “I gotta- ugh, If I don’t do it now, I might not-”

“It’s already late,” Mr. Yamada said, touching Mrs. Yamada on the arm, “We should both probably call out of work tomorrow anyway, Miyuna. Staying up later won’t make much difference.” Mrs Yamada nodded.

“Ok, Hizashi, let’s talk,” she said gently, then turned her attention to Shouta and Oboro standing behind Hizashi. “You boys should head home before it gets any later-”

“Actually, I asked them to stay,” Hizashi said, sounding a little steadier now.

“Hizashi-” Mr. Yamada started, but Hizashi cut him off.

“Look, I gotta talk, and I need them here to do that, so let’s get this thing rolling before I change my mind.” Hizashi marched past his parents towards the kitchen. “Shou, can you and Kumo hang out here?” he asked, indicating the sofa in the living room right next to the kitchen. “You’ll be able to react fast enough, right?” Hizashi looked nervous, and Shouta reached out to squeeze his hand briefly.

“Of course.”

Hizashi nodded and led his parents into the kitchen. Shouta and Oboro sat side by side on the couch, each texting their parents to update them, while a long overdue conversation started in the room next to them.

Shouta didn’t really think he’d need to intervene with his Quirk, but he was glad to be able to help Hizashi feel safe enough to say what he needed to say, even if he yelled.

And Hizashi did yell. Sometimes he spoke at a normal volume. Sometimes the conversation seemed to actually be pleasant. But he yelled a lot. When he started to get really loud, Shouta would stand at the doorway to the kitchen, a silent figure reminding Hizashi that he was safe. Shouta wasn’t going to let him accidentally hurt anyone.

Hizashi told his mom how angry he was at her betrayal. How hurt he was to feel like she was leaving him behind.

He told his dad he was angry at him for not being angry at his mom for cheating, for doing something so wrong that hurt them all. How much he hated that it felt like dad hadn’t fought for his family.

He told them, and they listened, even when he yelled.

And they spoke to him. They explained some things, apologized for others. But mostly they let him talk. Yell. Rage at them out loud, with every rational and irrational scrap of hurt and fear and anger that had been consuming him from the inside out for years. He yelled as tears streamed down his face, and he yelled even after the tears had run dry and his eyes were red and bloodshot behind his dark-rimmed glasses.

He yelled until at last his mom got up from the table and walked over to where he stood next to the countertop. She opened her arms to him, and he collapsed into her, burying his face in her shoulder as his dad stood and wrapped his arms around both of them.

Shouta sat back on the sofa next to Oboro, who had somehow managed to doze off and was snoring gently.

He hadn’t needed to use his Quirk once.

~*~

Eventually, drained from the epic shit-show that the night had turned into, Hizashi led Shouta and Oboro up to his room where they collapsed together on his bed in a heap. Hizashi couldn’t remember ever feeling so exhausted, not even when Recovery Girl had healed him after that disastrous final last year.

His eyes ached. His chest ached. His throat was raw. But he felt… better.

The anger that had taken root in him, that had been slowly starting to take over different pieces of his life… it wasn’t gone, but he felt like a huge chunk of it had been scooped out of him, leaving something kinda hollow and achy behind. But the ache he felt now was still a relief from the hurt that had built up so gradually that he hadn’t recognized it for what it was.

For the first time in years, he felt like maybe, somehow, he and his parents would be able to be ok.

Eventually.

For now, Shouta and Oboro were sandwiching him tightly between them, and the exhaustion was pulling him down into sleep; but there was still one more thing that needed saying.

“Thanks,” he whispered, voice hoarse and raspy.

“Our pleasure,” Oboro said around a yawn. Shouta didn’t say anything, he only kissed Hizashi briefly on the lips before tangling their fingers together, holding onto Hizashi’s hand and giving it a squeeze.

In minutes, they were all fast asleep.

Hizashi’s rest didn’t last nearly long enough though. He woke up after what had to be just a few hours, and he groaned at the sandpaper-gritty feeling on the inside of his eyelids. He tried to lay still, to relax in the dim light of early morning; but his body insisted it was time to get up, and his head wasn’t making it any easier to relax.

He kept turning everything from last night over and over in his mind. The longer he lay there thinking about it, the more he was just spinning himself in circles.

Reluctantly, he disentangled himself from the knot of limbs his bed had become and went to the bathroom. Splashing cold water on his eyes seemed to help a bit, but when he looked in the mirror, it was jarring to see just how red they really were. Even Shouta after the most intense Quirk training didn’t look this bad.

Hm, maybe Shouta would have some eyedrops he could use.

Not that Shouta had most of his usual stuff for a sleepover with him. They’d all passed out in their street clothes, even Hizashi; but as he thought about it, the guilt started to trickle in that neither of his friends had come over to his house expecting to get dragged into his family drama and needing to crash there for the night.

The least he could do for them was make some breakfast.

Between getting together the supplies he needed and then actually starting to cook, it was about an hour before the meal started to come together; and by that time, his parents had come downstairs to check on the commotion.

“How are you feeling this morning?” Mom asked, hovering around the periphery of the kitchen. It was part of her pattern; whenever Hizashi would blow up like he did last night, she’d stay close by in the aftermath, walking the line between far enough away to not set him off again, and close enough to check in on him.

Hizashi bit his lip, so used to shutting her out that it was reflex at this point; but something had shifted last night.

He hadn’t forgiven her… but he was willing to work towards it.

That meant talking with her.

“Tired. And my eyes hurt,” he said, “But… I think I feel better.”

She came over and stood next to him, leaning back against the counter. “I know I said it last night, but I’m glad you finally told us what you’ve been thinking and feeling.”

“Now you need to keep doing that,” Dad said, padding over and ruffling Hizashi’s hair.

“Yeah, yeah,” Hizashi grumbled, ducking away to finish getting the food ready.

“Lemmie finish up,” Dad said, “You go check on your friends. Shirakumo isn’t a morning person, Aizawa might need help getting him moving if they’re gonna get down here and eat this spectacular meal.”

Hizashi huffed, not quite a laugh, but not in irritation either. He stepped away from the counter and let Dad step in.

“Thanks,” he mumbled. His dad was still way too nice, and it twisted something in Hizashi’s gut. “Why aren’t you mad?”

Dad blinked up at him in surprise. “I told you last night, kiddo, it’s not that I never got mad with your mom, it’s just a complicated situation-”

“No,” Hizashi rushed to cut him off, way too tired to start that conversation again right now. “I mean, with me. For the shit I said last night before I ran out.”

“Who says I’m not angry?” Dad said, arching his eyebrow. “But I know that you were lashing out because you were hurting, and I can tell that you’re sorry about it, and I know you need time to cool down before you apologize. Though,” Dad added, brandishing a spatula at Hizashi, “You need to get better at using your words to apologize too, besides cooking meals and cleaning messes.”

“Yeah, ok,” Hizashi said. Shit, he hated that Dad was right. He wasn’t in the right headspace to even think about trying to say ‘sorry’ to his parents right now; but it was one more thing he was gonna need to work on. Ugh, he was too tired for this.

“Go get your friends,” Mom said, “We’ll get the table ready.”

Hizashi trotted up the stairs and opened the door to see both Shouta and Oboro still sleeping; but it was starting to get late in the morning, so as much as he hated to wake them, this wasn’t a normal sleepover where they could just laze around half the day. “Hey guys, I made breakfast,” he said, starting to shake Oboro awake.

“Fooooooooood?” came the zombified response from where his face was smushed into the pillow. Shouta blinked slowly awake and their eyes met while Hizashi flicked at Oboro’s ear.

“How are you feeling?” Shouta asked, stretching like a cat before sitting up and rubbing a hand over his face.

“Better. Come on, let’s eat.”

Breakfast was… pleasant. All the stress and tension Hizashi usually felt when his friends were around his parents for more than a few minutes had faded into almost nothing. After all, nothing worse could happen in front of them than what had already happened.

“By the way, we just wanted to say our official congratulations to you two,” Mom said, looking at Shouta and Hizashi.

“Thanks,” Shouta said, ducking his head, but not before Hizashi saw the shy smile ticking up the corner of his mouth.

“This does mean no more keeping the door closed during sleepovers,” Dad said with a mischievous glint in his eye.

“Dad!” Hizashi said, nudging his father in the shin under the table as he felt himself blush.

After they finished eating and cleaned up, Shouta and Oboro had to leave, which kinda bummed Hizashi out; but their parents wanted them home since it was apparently Christmas Eve somehow.

At the door, Hizashi hugged Oboro good-bye, then hugged Shouta tightly, kissing him once before burying his face in Shouta’s neck.

“Thank you again. For everything. I love you.”

“I love you too, Zashi.”

~*~

Christmas came and went. In the days after, Shouta spent a lot of hours helping Ms. Emoto in her shop while Oboro was away visiting family, and Hizashi sent them countless texts and pictures in the group chat from whatever corner of town he’d been wandering in that day.

Then work studies started back up again, and they’d be back to the normal school schedule soon.

The break was slipping past, and though Shouta did his best to stay focused on his responsibilities, he missed seeing Hizashi. At least he saw Oboro and Kayama during their work study; but he had to admit, part of him wanted to spend an afternoon just sitting in Hizashi’s room, playing video games and horsing around with his friends. He didn’t even get to see Hizashi properly for New Year’s Eve, as Shouta was back in Tokyo visiting his grandparents who he hadn’t seen in ages. He had to settle for a video call with his boyfriend, where he tried his best to stay awake until midnight.

So when it was just past the new year, the last Saturday of work study, and none of them had anything scheduled for Sunday, Shouta jumped at Hizashi’s invitation to sleep over that night. School started back up on Monday, there was no telling when the next opportunity would come up.

He and Oboro brought their packed overnight bags to Purple Revolution Agency and stashed them in the locker room. Oboro had been stuck mostly in the office, learning paperwork and procedure, and he took every opportunity to flirt with Kayama while he was cooped up behind a desk. Shouta would never admit that he found it amusing to watch.

Yesterday and today, though, Oboro had been allowed out on patrol, with the stipulation that Shouta and Kayama both stick with him, while His Purple Highness trailed along, not too far behind.

It had only been for a few hours each time, but when they made their way back to the agency, Oboro was grinning ear to ear.

They settled down in the office to finish up the paperwork for the day, Oboro leaning in close to Kayama while Shouta rolled his eyes at them.

“Hey, sweet lovebirds,” His Purple Highness sang at them from his desk as Oboro whispered something in Kayama’s ear that had her smirking at him, “I love your love, I feel your love, but you best not be doin that when you’re out on patrol!” Kayama giggled and Oboro gave her a dopey grin.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Oboro said, his eyes never leaving Kayama’s face.

“You’re a damn liar, boy,” His Purple Highness laughed, “But you can dream all you like, just make sure you keep it in your dreams.”

His Purple Highness didn’t need to worry, though. Both Oboro and Kayama were surprisingly focused when they were out on the streets.

Well, maybe it shouldn’t be surprising, considering everything that had happened.

Shouta could tell how alert and attentive Oboro was as they patrolled. His smile never faltered as he walked along next to Shouta and Kayama, and he still exuded the same confidence that he always had; and to anyone who didn’t know him, he probably seemed completely laid back as he made his way along. But Shouta could see the difference in him. The way he floated his cloud just a little higher to get a better view above everyone, and the way he never took his eyes off the bustle around them, even if he was talking to Shouta or Kayama.

Finishing the last of the paperwork, they got changed into their street clothes. As Shouta and Oboro were getting ready to head over to Hizashi’s, Kayama cupped Oboro’s cheek and pressed a gentle kiss to the corner of his mouth.

“I’ll see you boys Monday at lunch,” she said, ruffling Shouta’s hair. “Send Yamada my love.”

“Should I be jealous?” Oboro asked, waggling his eyebrows.

“Hmmm, do you want to be?” Kayama purred.

“Not over my boyfriend,” Shouta deadpanned and the pair of them laughed.

The train ride to Hizashi’s house was nice. Even with the amount of time Shouta spent with Oboro at their work study, it wasn’t the same as hanging out. It felt like it had been forever since he’d spent any time relaxing with Oboro when there wasn’t some crisis brewing. And he hadn’t seen Hizashi in person at all in over a week, so once the train pulled into the station, Shouta set a brisk pace for them towards the Yamada household.

“Hey boys, good to see you,” Mr. Yamada said when he opened the door and ushered them inside. “Hizashi is upstairs.”

The evening passed in a blur of laughter and games and stolen controllers. When they took a break for dinner, they sat down and ate with Hizashi’s parents again, and it was pleasantly uneventful.

As the evening wore on, they hauled the two futons out and laid them on Hizashi’s floor.

“Were you guys serious about needing to keep my door open?” Hizashi asked, arms crossed and pouting at his dad.

“If it’s just you and Aizawa, yes,” Dad laughed, “But with Shirakumo here too, it’s fine if you’d rather keep the door closed.”

“Fine,” Hizashi huffed.

The three of them changed into their pajamas, but it was still far too early for Hizashi or Oboro to sleep. Shouta, on the other hand, found himself passing off his turns on the game, watching them play with increasingly heavy eyelids. He leaned against Hizashi, his head drooping down to rest on his shoulder.

He wasn’t quite asleep, and he wasn’t quite awake. It was nice.

He wasn’t sure how much time passed, but when the music of the game stopped playing and Hizashi shifted position, Shouta sat up blearily.

“Time to wake up and go to bed,” Hizashi teased.

“Sounds good,” Shouta yawned. “Where’s Shirakumo?”

“Brushing his teeth.”

Shouta hummed, then leaned in to kiss Hizashi. He didn’t think he’d ever get tired of kissing Hizashi.

“My pure, innocent eyes!” Oboro laughed as he came back into the room, shielding his face with his hand. Shouta was glad that Hizashi ignored Shirakumo’s teasing, not breaking the kiss; it seemed he’d moved past his worry about that particular topic. Oboro flopped down onto the futon, spreading his arms and legs out like a starfish. “At least I’ll get all this space for myself.”

“Your limbs are too long,” Shouta said, finally backing away from Hizashi just enough to look over at Oboro. “Even if Hizashi slept on top of me, you’d still be in our space like that.” He couldn't help but notice the way Hizashi turned a little pink at that comment. Even though Shouta hadn’t meant it in a sexual way, any time he got Hizashi a little flustered, it was always a bit of a thrill.

Oboro looked surprised for a moment, before heaving a huge, dramatic sigh. “Fiiiiine,” he said, feigning disgruntled acceptance as he pulled his arms and legs back in till he covered a more reasonable percentage of the bedding. Shouta lay down as Hizashi closed the door and turned off the lights before crawling onto the futons between Shouta and Oboro, stretching out on his back, one arm tucked behind his head.

Shouta immediately turned on his side and snuggled close, wanting to spend the night wrapped up with Hizashi. For a moment, he felt Hizashi tense up against him; but before Shouta could back away and ask what was wrong, he relaxed in Shouta’s arms.

The three of them chatted quietly for a few minutes; jokes and stray thoughts muttered into the darkness of the room, with occasional bursts of giggles from Oboro or Hizashi for no apparent reason that would set all three of them off snickering. After a bit, though, the talking tapered off and their breathing evened out until they were all still and quiet.

Shouta wasn’t asleep, though. The faint light from the streetlamp outside glinted off Hizashi’s green eyes as they blinked at Shouta, his hair hanging loosely by his face and where his head rested on his pillow.

He was so beautiful.

Quietly, Shouta propped himself up on his elbow and kissed him. It was slow and leisurely, a gentle give and take between them, and Shouta could get lost in it so easily. Hizashi’s hand drifted up to card through Shouta’s hair, holding the dark strands back so Shouta could lean in further without it getting in the way.

Hizashi brushed his tongue against Shouta’s lips, then against Shouta’s tongue when Shouta met his gentle exploration with his own. Everything was soft, the muffled sounds they made hardly audible, even in the silence of the room.

Shouta knew they should probably stop and get some sleep; but he wanted to keep going forever. He couldn’t get enough.

So, instead of backing away, he kissed harder. He was starving for Hizashi, which was ridiculous because they’d been together for half the day; but this was something else. This was something greedy - even more than the arousal that was starting to gather, sending heat low in his gut. The want that stirred in him was strong; but even stronger was his need to claim every moment he could with Hizashi, to be as close to him as possible at every opportunity since they felt so few and far between.

He licked deeper into Hizashi’s mouth, and Hizashi huffed a tiny, breathy noise, then rolled onto his side. Just like that, the two of them were pressed together from head to toe, and feeling Hizashi’s erection pressing against his hip sent a shiver down Shouta’s spine. He couldn’t help but give a tiny roll of his hips to grind himself against Hizashi.

“We can’t,” Hizashi whispered, though his arms still held Shouta close, his hips not backing away from where they were pressed together. “We’ll wake him.”

Because Oboro was sleeping barely an arm’s length away, laying on his side facing them. It was a miracle he hadn’t stirred already.

Shouta allowed himself a tiny groan, little more than a breathy hum. Hizashi was right, they couldn’t just dry hump each other right next to their best friend…

But maybe there was another option; one that wouldn’t involve as much jostling…

“Lay on your back,” Shouta whispered, scooting away just a bit, to make a little more space. He could only just make out the confused look Hizashi gave him; but after a beat, he rolled onto his back, one arm still wrapped around Shouta’s shoulders, holding him tight.

Once Hizashi settled, Shouta moved close again, pressing tight against Hizahsi’s side, resting his hand on Hizashi’s chest, feeling the pounding of his heart beneath his palm. Slowly, he began to slide his hand down over the soft material of Hizashi’s t-shirt. He traced the dip where Hizashi’s ribs gave way to the more yielding expanse of his stomach. He marveled at the way he could feel the hitch in Hizashi’s breathing.

His hand continued its path down, till his fingers teased the soft strip of skin just above the waistband of his pajama pants. He looked up, watching Hizashi’s expression for any sign that he wanted Shouta to stop; but Hizashi’s wide eyes were fixed on Shouta’s hand, eager.

Shouta lifted his hand to press his palm firmly down where Hizashi’s cock was tenting his pants. Even through the layers of fabric, Shouta could feel the heat of him as he twitched against his hand, and it made his own cock throb as well. He wanted to reach underneath Hizashi’s clothes and feel the velvety skin under his fingertips; but he knew he was already pushing things with this.

He held his breath and waited.

“Shou,” Hizashi whispered hoarsely, his hand fisting hard in the back of Shouta’s t-shirt. Shouta didn’t move; not pulling away, not stroking, just a steady press, waiting for what Hizashi would say next. “Please.”

It was all Shouta needed to begin moving his hand. Gentle fingers tracing the ridge of Hizashi’s shaft through his clothes. A firm grind with the heel of his hand in a steady stroke down, then back up. He kept his movements slower than he wanted to, trying to stay as silent in the darkness as he could so they wouldn’t wake Oboro. He pressed his own erection against the side of Hizashi’s hip and sighed at the sensation.

A sudden movement next to them startled Shouta into stillness, frozen with his hand still pressed against Hizashi’s cock while Hizashi gasped, tensing, as Oboro shifted in his sleep. Shouta held his breath, but Oboro didn’t stir any more.

“We should stop,” Hizashi whispered; but his hips squirmed, nudging up into Shouta’s hand while also rubbing against where Shouta’s cock was still pressed against him.

“We should,” Shouta agreed. They should stop.

So he needed to hurry up and get them off, so that they could stop.

He kept his movements smooth and steady as he stroked Hizashi over his pants, grinding his own hips in tiny thrusts against him.

If there had been any kind of ambient noise, the sounds they made would have been inaudible. As it was, though, the friction of fabric on fabric, the sharp breaths, desperate panting, it all seemed to echo in the stillness; but there was no stopping. Not now, not this close.

Hizashi made a soft, muffled noise as he stiffened next to Shouta, cock twitching beneath Shouta’s palm. Shouta gasped, rocking his hips - just a little more, he just needed just a little more…

He came with a shudder, clinging to Hizashi, trying to control his breathing. The cooling, sticky mess in his boxer briefs was unpleasant, but he wasn’t about to go wash it up in the Yamada’s bathroom in the middle of the night.

He kissed Hizashi’s cheek. When Hizashi turned to face him, he kissed him properly.

They probably shouldn’t have done that, but he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. Mess and all.

~*~

Hizashi slunk into the shower as soon as he woke up, wincing at the dried come he had to clean off himself.

He felt kinda weird about what had happened. Cuz kissing in front of Oboro was one thing, and they’d all agreed that it was fine… but it had to be weird to do that right next to him, didn’t it? Even if he was asleep?

It wasn’t as if they’d planned it, it had just happened, but still… The whole time, Hizashi’s mind had kept drifting to the idea of what would happen if Oboro woke up and saw them.

And the worst part was, the idea of it had been kinda… exciting? Dangerous, but dangerous in a good way, like how Shouta looked dangerous when he was all badass with his Quirk and binding cloth in the middle of a fight. The thought of Oboro catching them, seeing them, watching them… it made his breathing hitch. Hizashi was pretty sure that it wasn’t a good thing; but as long as he and Shouta didn’t do that again, it should be fine.

Right?

Oboro was quieter than usual at breakfast, and Hizashi started worrying that maybe he had woken up and now he was uncomfortable with them, and what if it made their friendship super weird now and he wouldn’t want to be around them and-

Oboro gave a very loud yawn.

Hmm.

Maybe he was just tired.

The three of them lazed around for a few hours and things seemed fine. Then at eleven, Oboro checked his phone and nodded at it.

“I gotta head out,” he said.

“Already?” Shouta asked.

“Yeah, apparently there’s family stuff this afternoon. I’ll see you in school tomorrow, though!”

“Ok. Didja want us to walk with you to the train?” Hizashi offered, unable to shake the feeling that something was wrong, needing to try and make sure that Oboro knew they wanted him around, even though he already knew that. He knew that, right? He had to.

“Nah, I’m good,” Oboro said, stuffing his clothes into his bag and shouldering it. “See ya tomorrow!” He gave them a cheerful wave before he headed out.

“Was that weird? That seemed weird,” Hizashi said.

“He’s got a big extended family, they come in to town sometimes,” Shouta said.

“Yeah, but what if it’s about last night?”

Shouta arched an eyebrow at him in confusion. “What about it?”

“What if he knows?” Hizashi said, looking out the window to watch Oboro walking down the street towards the train station.

“He was asleep.”

“But what if he wasn’t?” The worry gnawed at Hizashi.

“Why would he have pretended to be asleep if he knew what we were doing and wanted us to stop?” Shouta asked, very rationally.

Hizashi chewed his lip. Shouta had a point.

He was probably overthinking things.