Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

It doesn’t take long for them to lie down on that bed that smells like hospital and a little bit like Shouta, after sleeping on it for so long. He takes his time in circling Toshinori with his left arm, pulling him closer, because he isn’t sure he should.

How do you continue the conversation after ‘no, I can’t, you have to do this alone’? How do you even hope to react nicely? Shouta doesn’t, but in the end he can’t help it. Just being there, he guesses, sharing Toshinori’s fear and trying to empathize with his grief, does a lot more than words could.

What would he even say? ‘Sorry I’m not enslaving myself to save a quirk that’s not meant to have survived this long’? The quirk that still lives inside of Toshinori, the quirk he’s almost died on several occasions to protect, the quirk he was ready to give his last shreds of humanity and autonomy for.

So Shouta finds the tiniest of spaces between Toshinori’s arm and his hip and he slips his hand through there, finally coming to rest on his stomach. And Toshinori doesn’t push it away.

To be perfectly honest, he, too, has some trouble deciding what he should do now. Tonight wasn’t supposed to have come to this, but it has. And there is no way around it but to endure it till the last waves of it pass. Unfortunately for him, his soul is an ocean in a storm, and his eyes are sea foam, his chest the solid rock every wave comes to meet, bravely, in the face of their demise. Or, as he likes to see it—as he needs to see it—not their demise, but their transformation.

Toshinori lets Shouta hold him, because he values what that silence of his means. And Shouta pretends his chest doesn’t hurt when he notices Toshinori crying, shaking like a leaf and not even opening his mouth to whimper.

And Shouta feels guilty as hell for not hating himself after the choice he has made.

And Toshinori feels guilty as hell for having assumed so many things when the right thing—that thing for which he always advocates—would have been to ask first. He has asked second right when it mattered the most to do the opposite.

They stay quiet for a while, so long so that Shouta begins to wonder when Hizashi will blast in with a bottle of something Toshinori can drink, and they will have to smooth out their clothes and act like they are okay. Like the sky isn’t crumbling piece after piece, raining ash on them. Like Shouta has managed to pop the question and get an answer.

“I know this hasn’t gone according to plan but…” Toshinori says, voice thick with tears, both the ones he has shed and the ones that were encrusted in his heart years ago. “Can I answer your question now?”

“Which question?”

Toshinori shifts on the bed to look him in the eye.

“The one about us.”

“Oh, that one.” Suddenly, Shouta remembers his apprehension about it, how his heart had been adamant on him being meant to fuck it all up. In reality, it hadn’t depended on him. Now, maybe, it does. He can, after all, still fuck this up. Fuck this up in addition. “It still doesn’t need a name, if you prefer to—”

“I like it,” Toshinori says. “I like dating you.”

And what makes those words memorable is that they are honest. Toshinori isn’t a liar, and if he ever has been, he’s never lied spectacularly well. He lies to protect others, or to keep his own mind free of painful thoughts. He wouldn’t lie about something like this.

“I like it, too,” Shouta says. “I like you.”

I want to know if I do like you, he said, time ago. That, in fact, had been a lie. He knew. He knew or otherwise he wouldn’t have let Toshinori in. Only one person remains that in in his life, and that’s Hizashi. No one else. He never thought there would ever be… someone like Toshinori. He’d never thought he’d even want to find them in the first place.

But now, as Toshinori smiles that gentle smile of his that reminds Shouta of the sun in the fall and unconditional love, he is incapable of imagining a life without this man by his side. He wouldn’t even particularly mind if it were as something else than… this. Right now, Shouta would be happy to dig up his old All Might posters. He would look at them all night, as if there were stars in the eyes of the hero. Eyes he is seeing up close now and falling inside of.

“We like each other?” Toshinori says, as if he didn’t know it already, as if he hadn’t expected it to come up at some point.

Shouta chuckles. “I guess we do, yeah.”

“Have you always or is this my fault for involving you in my crazy life?” Toshinori teases, not entirely just as a joke. He has often wondered when Shouta stopped seeing him as the enemy. No, when Shouta started seeing him… as more than just a coworker with a severe deficiency in teaching experience.

You’re not a nightmare. And you’re not that incompetent either, Shouta had told him. You have a good heart. But he’d said so when they were already close, when all they’d seen at the time was one another.

“Is it too much to ask you to take the blame for luring me in?” Shouta whispers, drifting towards the blue currents of Toshinori’s eyes, and not even noticing where he’s being taken. He will just float.

“Isn’t it your fault? For letting me lure you in?” Toshinori whispers back.

They are so close now, physical and emotionally. He doesn’t dare move, in case he will destroy this precious little moment, like he destroyed the one before. Now, he doesn’t even want to remember One For All, all he wants to pay attention to is Shouta—within reach, dressed as prettily as Toshinori knows he’ll never see him again, and here. Mostly just… here. He hasn’t run away.

Not Toshinori’s imminent death, not the injuries Toshinori’s carelessness cost him, not even Toshinori’s old fading, capricious quirk of his has made Shouta want to run away.

Something which Toshinori can’t understand has moved him closer and closer. In life, in their ways of understanding life, in a bed, in their hearts. If either of them shift, however slightly, their lips will meet.

“Fact is… I don’t really care which is the truth,” Shouta murmurs. “Here we are, anyway. Ready to resume our lives.”

Toshinori flinches without meaning to. “Or as ready as we’ll ever be.”

There it is, he has done it again.

Shouta recoils a little, to leave Toshinori some space. This is tender stuff, difficult to process, and hurtful. He is aware he is the reason why it hurts, he doesn’t want to make it worse by rubbing salt on the wound.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Shouta says, a little at a loss, “except that I’m really sorry. I just… I can’t. I just can’t.”

It’s like knowing at a glance which food you dislike, like finding out which fictional couple you cannot tolerate seeing interact, like feeling something is very wrong even if you cannot pinpoint what. Shouta knows without having to explain it, even to himself, even if he has anyway.

Toshinori stops him right away.

“I understand,” he says, “you don’t need to apologize. You do need to want it, or the process wouldn’t even work.”

Shouta looks at him tenderly. “Even if you could force it on me, you wouldn’t, and you know that.”

Toshinori smiles and lets Shouta slip a finger under his chin.

“I can’t even… touch you, as your… date. So imagine.” Toshinori chuckles softly at how true this is. Shouta is always the one to reach out first, to hold his hand first. Nobody would believe him if he told them, but it is a funny truth to behold. Shouta may be a cat in many aspects of his life, but he won’t beg subtly for contact if he can simply feel his way towards it. Toshinori, on the other hand, has never quite figured out how to initiate it, especially knowing with absolute certainty that eventually Shouta will.

Shouta smiles at him. A gesture rare enough for Toshinori to appreciate every single time he’s witness to it. “Well, just so it’s out there, you can touch me anytime.”

“That’s not a privilege many people have.”

“You’re not many people, Toshinori,” Shouta whispers. He drops his finger underneath Toshinori’s chin and pulls away—never too far, never stiffly. Just… waiting, inviting him in.

And then Toshinori touches him. He holds his hand first, spends some time rubbing circles on his wrist, beneath the fabric of his blazer. He circles his waist as well. Shouta is so small next to him, so delicate in his overwhelming strength and character, that with just one hand Toshinori already reaches his entire side. He could pull Shouta closer, so much closer, and he wouldn’t need to make a big effort in order to. It would be as simple as… moving.

In the end, he doesn’t need to. Shouta smirks at him and leans in to kiss him. 

After that, they head home for the weekend—or they mean to. Toshinori insists on walking Shouta home, and Shouta insists on offering him a drink or something, claiming it’s the least he can do after Toshinori has spent so many nights alongside him when he was bedbound. Hizashi, of course, pops up from behind a wall, hair gelled back, and nods vigorously, so Toshinori stays.

And he doesn’t really leave till Monday.

For some hours, he gets to experience domestic bliss like never before. True, Shouta wakes up the next morning clutching at his eyes, because he still dreams they’re gone even when it’s been weeks, but as the hours advance the three of them just huddle together and forget about everything for a little while, in the measure that they can. Toshinori still has too many thoughts going through his head, and he knows neither Shouta nor Hizashi have exactly turned a new leaf after what happened. It’s going to be a while before any of them can.

He leaves his phone on the living room’s table and doesn’t look at it except to ponder if he should call Gran Torino, at least, to let him know things haven’t gone as expected but quite on the opposite direction. But he never picks the phone up in his hands. Worst case scenario, Gran Torino will find out on his own, some time from now, and by then it will be too late for him to point fingers.

These hours in this bubble shows him the reality of what he already suspected: this life, these people… it’s worth everything he has had to endure to be here to enjoy it. It’s a new step in his trajectory, one that finally distances him from the past he kept looking back to in search for answers.

Now, Toshinori looks forward, and he likes what he sees. Shouta smiling over and over when he thinks no one will see, Hizashi in his bun and shorts, enacting Shakespeare plays at the top of his lungs late at night as Shouta shushes him, invoking angry neighbors and his own intolerance to the noise. Soft food and the best bottled water there is around, movies and jokes, shared time. A small life, the small life he never allowed himself to have.

Toshinori gets lost in it. At night he sleeps on their couch, at day they all sit there and drink and little by little bond over stories and bitter truths and the memories none dare speak of. For one weekend, even Shouta is ready to pretend it all is fine and he doesn’t still harbor fear, doesn’t avidly read the news just in case. They have earned this respite.

It is Saturday and the first glimpse of real life filters through. A quirk, two men, their witness, and many consequences to face.

“Have you told your… friends?” Shouta asks at some point. Toshinori let himself forget for a while, but Monday is coming and when it does the curtain falls on this few moments of bliss. Shouta will have to go to work then, and he will do so with only Erasure to account for—aside from ghosts of battle wounds that no one but them can truly see.

Shouta asked for permission time ago to tell Hizashi about Toshinori’s quirk, but Toshinori hasn’t… caught anyone up to the fullest extent, not outside of his close circle of friends. He simply doesn’t want to. This is the only reward he will ever have, for all he has willingly given up in order to be a symbol. And he doesn’t know for how long he will be able to hold on to the memory of it, so he would rather it remained a quiet, sweet taste of what could have been, if his life wasn’t a ticking clock.

“About One For All and me,” Shouta finishes. “Have you told them?”

Toshinori bites his lip, and he doesn’t notice he’s doing so until he has teeth marks on it.

“I was sort of… hoping they would just assume… things.”

And never ask him again. Toshinori has dwelt on daydreams far too often, since Shouta’s negative. Maybe things don’t have to be the way he has always thought they are. Maybe he gets to be a little selfish now. Just a little, just when no one is looking.

“They would eventually come to me for questions,” Shouta groans, stretching his legs. It is now that Toshinori realizes this isn’t a formal conversation and that he doesn’t have any explanations to give to anyone. He is safe here, he can relax, he can stop squaring his chest and holding his breath. His vulnerability isn’t looked down upon here, but taken care of.

Hizashi starts laughing at the thought of Shouta hiding from Toshinori’s ‘bodyguards’. “Would they even recognize you?” he says. “You were your best mummy self when they were around.”

Shouta ignores him.

“I could bark at them a little for you when they do,” he tells Toshinori. “That should keep them away.”

But Toshinori shakes his head. He has been dreaming, yes, and it has been all very beautiful indeed, beyond his own comprehension, but all it is in the end is just a dream. And dreams end. He needs to speed the sunrise up or his night will last too long and he will let himself go. Some responsibility still rests upon his shoulders, after all. Nana’s legacy. His own. Hope.

He sighs.

“They would eventually find out either way, sooner or later,” he says. “I’ll inform them of it right now.”

So Toshinori texts both Nighteye and Gran Torino the same bulk of text. He didn’t take One For All. I want to keep it for now, he writes. Then he deletes it, because ‘for now’ is a lie. He knows that quirk has no future now. It dies when he does. It stays with him.

After a few more rewrites, he presses send and breathes out at last. Shouta squeezes his shoulder affectionately.

“That’s over now, too,” he says.

Toshinori just nods. It’s not over until they set their foot down and signal him that it is. They carry the white flag of truce. And he knows they won’t give up so easily. They wouldn’t.

Nighteye: oh, that’s… extremely misfortunate, I thought it was already a done deal, I had… drafted some preparations to make it official, meet up with him.

Nighteye would have ignored his request from day dot, wouldn’t he? Is truly a One For All successor all that interesting to him? All Might was only ever the eighth one, which means there were seven other people before him who the public never thought compelling enough or charismatic enough. Nana was a hero, just like him, and Nighteye never knew of her.

Nighteye: would you come for tea on Monday? I’d like to discuss your options with you.

Although grateful for the lack of insistence, Toshinori doesn’t reply to that one message. Options? Which options? One For All wants Shouta, not a plan B. It wants a good man’s heart to curl around. And besides, Toshinori doesn’t feel it would be moral to give it to someone who somebody else got to pick out of a crowd. He has his own backups, if he happened to need them: Mirio, Hizashi, Kirishima…. At this point, anyone would do… if only this wasn’t such a life-changing power he could just give out willy-nilly.

Gran Torino: [call incoming]

Today, even the hilarious ringtone he has doesn’t manage to make him smile. It’s as if a meteorological cataclysm itself was calling just to lay down a useless warning before disaster strikes.

“If… if you’ll excuse me for a second…” Toshinori mumbles as he struggles to stand up, clutching his phone in his hands. Do you even hope to hide who it is from them, Toshinori? They already know. Everybody knows…

Hizashi is currently tugging at Shouta’s hair to get a bigger patch of couch to sit on, while Shouta fends him off with his knees, and they both stop at once to watch Toshinori step out of the living room into the dim-lit corridor.

Toshinori’s fingers shake when he takes the call.

“Is this a fucking joke?” Gran Torino explodes first thing when Toshinori slides his thumb over the screen. He hopes that neither Hizashi nor Shouta have heard. “You’ve lost your mind. You have, in the end, lost it! HOW COULD YOU LET THIS PASS YOU BY?”

And Toshinori has no defense. Just a truth Gran Torino won’t tolerating hearing from him.

“He doesn’t want it.”

“You had finally found him! This was your chance to finally take a fucking break,! Who the fuck cares what he wants????” Gran Torino bellows. “Who cares?”

“I do,” Toshinori snaps back.

Just because he forgot about Shouta’s say in this doesn’t mean he ever will again about the importance of him having it. Toshinori took on the mantle because he’d wanted it, he won’t make someone follow him if they don’t want to. What kind of a hero would he be if he did it? What kind of a person?

Gran Torino takes a hollow breath and sniffs. Toshinori thinks he’s crying. His voice is suddenly thicker when he speaks again.

“How could you let her die like this? How could you?”

Toshinori licks his lower lip. He hasn’t let her die. Nana is there, Nana has always been there, in his veins and in his mind and in his heart, the heart that has stayed alive out of spite because that’s what she would have wanted to, the heart that now wants something better, a taste of the sunlight when it’s still dark out.

Once more, Toshinori only draws the truth as his only winning card:

“Nana is dead,” he says slowly. “She has been dead for twenty-two years.”

Deep within him, she sends him her approval. Tell it to him straight, Toshinori. He knows it’s you he should fight to keep alive, not me. I made him promise it, the little bastard…

She fades away as swiftly as she’s come, but it brings Toshinori comfort to know he’s not delusional in wanting what he wants and defending what he thinks is fair.

“Let her go. Please,” he continues. “Her quirk in me isn’t just a remnant of her.” She is there, just as a shadow, a memory. My own nostalgia made palpable in the power that once was hers. “And I won’t force it all down someone’s throat.”

“All For One is coming, you foolish wimp. If you can’t fight him and guarantee that you’ll win, your quirk needs to find a holder who can do it!” Gran Torino yells over the phone.

If Toshinori closes his eyes, he can see himself where his mentor is, in that old flat where once there were three instead of two. Those long hours sweating and holding back tears in the name of heroes, in the name of his heroes.

He is the hero now. He is the adult. He is the one who can’t afford to raise his voice. What for? He is tired. He just wants to go back to the bubble that he fears has already burst.

“I won’t argue with you. Not again. Not about this,” he calmly interrupts Gran Torino.

“THEN YOU WILL DIE LIKE SHE DID, YOU IDIOT BOY!”

It is time to stand up for himself. To fight for himself. It’s time to face this beast, to love him as best he can without failing to love himself.

“If that’s how you decide to react, I can’t take that away from you. But I will remove myself from your presence while it lasts,” Toshinori says slowly. “It is still my quirk. I won’t hand it over to Shouta unless he wants it.”

“It’s Nana’s quirk!” Gran Torino keeps shouting. At this point, Toshinori can’t even judge him. Right now, Gran Torino is nothing but an old man with many painful memories he never knew how to address, and he is blind with rage and grief. “It’s the only thing that can defeat him. Will you die for nothing!? Will you, Toshinori? Because you will be dying for nothing!”

I was always going to die anyway, he thinks. And he always thought he would die alone and exhausted and broken. Broken by the people who didn’t know how to support him and broken by the circumstances he was born into. He always thought his death would be pitiful yet made heroic by the press. And he always thought he would die, still anchored to the past that Nighteye and Gran Torino personified day after day.

No more.

“Please don’t contact me again in this manner,” Toshinori says finally, and it hurts him, but it’s for the best. He arose anew from the ashes, he will walk back into the earth that, however temporarily, belongs to him as well, and he will do it on his own terms. “Goodbye.”

The last he hears of Gran Torino, mentor and father and friend, is more yelling, but Toshinori finishes the call regardless and throws the phone back into his pocket.

Times are changing. Times have changed. He would be a fool not to acknowledge it with his actions as well as his words.

When he comes out of the corridor, Shouta and Hizashi have stopped quarreling and they’re both waiting demurely for him, their eyes looking at him in worry.

“What happened?” Shouta asks in low voice.

Toshinori shakes his head and before he even reaches the couch, Shouta gets up to pull him into a hug. Now, finally and truthfully safe, Toshinori closes his eyes and feels the tears falling down his cheekbones.

He doesn’t say anything and neither does Shouta. There is no need for them to.

Another pair of arms suddenly wraps around them both, which can only mean Hizashi has joined the hug.

Shouta hisses: “Hizashi…”

“No,” Toshinori says, “let him.”

And Shouta shuts up, because deep down Hizashi is doing nothing but being kind. That stupid kind heart of his, as quiet now as the rest of him isn’t, is damn good at knowing when to be in total silence.

After a couple of minutes, Hizashi clears his throat, smiles stupidly and says: “So, I’m gonna make some pancakes. Who wants pancakes?”

Shouta rolls his eyes, still pressed against Toshinori.

“I hate him,” he tells Toshinori.

Toshinori laughs, wipes the last of his tears away, and unwraps his arms from around Shouta. “No, you don’t.”

He’s home now, and the nightmare’s over. He has waken up.

But he doesn’t hide from this now either, Shouta doesn’t want to and Toshinori is tired of faking till he makes it. The fact remains the same, there is a quirk rotting inside him, his body will never be able to wield it ever again, and Shouta won’t take it.

They talk, between meals, lying in bed as Hizashi hums in the shower. It’s all whispers and fear and a very clear image of a future that’s strange for Toshinori to be working to.

Shouta has many ideas that Toshinori has spent years thinking about. Giving it to a kid is a recurrent one they keep going back to because a kid is still malleable and still has an optimistic outlook on life, to which Hizashi comments from the kitchen that he, too, has a very optimistic way of seeing life until Shouta shuts him up because this isn’t a conversation he can eavesdrop on.

“Listen, Toshinori,” Shouta tells him in the end, “if you’re so worried… then just, I don’t know. You’re surrounded by children, someone could take it. You could bring it up on Monday during class and they would get in line to apply to be your successor, I can promise you that.”

What was worse about it was that it’s true. On Monday, he could have twenty or more candidates ready to go, fearless and confident they were bigger than life. Again, Monday has become yet again the end of his line. Shouta’s going back to work and Toshinori still hasn’t decided if he’s going to follow in his footsteps. He’s not sure he has what he needs to be a teacher, after so long. The only thing he was good at was being an icon, and now that icon is dead as well.

In his answer, of course, it becomes clear to everybody else listening how he is a very acceptable man to teach the future heroes of Japan:

“I can’t. You know I can’t. This burden isn’t fit for a child, Shouta. They’re too young, they have too much hope in their future as heroes—their self-made future. I can’t just… talk to one at random and impose this on them. It’s not fair,” Toshinori says. “I have thought it over many times, I have tried to choose one many times, and… it’s just not fair.” He doesn’t know how else to say it. Then he mumbles: “I would’ve done it already if I didn’t think it so unfair…”

“And it is fair to impose it on me?” Shouta asks calmly, as if he only wanted to explore the possibility of it, a version of reality in which Toshinori had forced him to inherit an ancient quirk.

Toshinori looks at him, hurt at this deliberate question that goes nowhere. “I’m not.”

“It’s not just your responsibility anymore,” Shouta reminds him. “We can take whatever the evils of this world will throw at us. We’ve never really needed you, we just learned to depend on you.”

Ah, there it is, his utter faith and belief in the pro heroes taking care of these cities, this country. They are certainly needed these days, and they have always been there, even in the shadows, saving the world without need for a superhero to look up to.

Toshinori looks away from Shouta, who turns on his side to cup his face and make him look him in the eye.

“Quit that,” Shouta orders him, gently. “You did your job, and you did it well. It’s not just your fault.” He sighs, tucking a stray lock of blond hair behind Toshinori’s ear. “I’m thankful for your services to the community. We all are. And that’s not going to change. But… you said it yourself, maybe it’s not fit for anyone else. Maybe it should die with you.”

Toshinori is quiet. He knows this isn’t a reprimand but he can’t help feeling like he has done something wrong, and yet he can’t pinpoint exactly what. This is just… old guilt, washing over his shores once again. It means nothing except that he’s lived long enough and intensely enough to have regrets and to admit when he has no idea what to do, like right now.

“I know you get this a lot,” Shouta continues, “but… regardless of your quirk’s fate, isn’t it time, you stubborn man? Isn’t it time you retired? Isn’t it time you lived?”

At this, Toshinori smiles. Only Shouta could word it like that, like a wakeup call. And that’s more or less what he is, as a whole, to Toshinori; the realization that it’s now or never, and that he’s always wanted to do something he now has the chance to.

“I suppose it is time.”      

“These kids, they’re next. They’re training to be. They will handle it, if we can’t. It’s not just your responsibility,” Shouta repeats.

“I know…” Toshinori sighs. “I know what I have to do. I just… too many loose ends. I’m leaving too many things behind. My jobs, my reputation.” He eyes Shouta guiltily. “My quirk.”

“How dead is that quirk in you? You could still work for a little while, if it’s important for you to … remain involved to some extent.”

“It’s not dead. But it is dying. It wants… out.” That’s the best way he has found of describing what it feels like. “And if I can’t provide that way out, then it will just… begin to decompose slowly as I—as I do.” Another sigh. “I can’t hold the form long enough now, my body literally can’t keep up with my quirk anymore. Could I still be a hero? Chiyo might chase me with a machete, but technically… yes, I could.”

Shouta gives a small smile, leaning back on the bed.

“And if you want to, then why don’t you?”

“Because in my physical condition I would be a bomb. And…” To be honest, that’s not just the whole of it. Toshinori isn’t sure that’s how it ever was. “I’m tired, Shouta. I’m so, so tired. I just… want to do the right thing, warn you all properly so you will be able to defeat my enemy when the time comes.” When you watch me die trying and you have to step in to save the day.

Because Toshinori will fight that last battle, just like he fought against Nomu in the belief that it was over from there. Weak, almost quirkless, and however retired he is by then, Toshinori will stand up and fight. He owes it to Nana, he owes it to those children he still feels he has failed to protect, he owes to Shouta. He owes it to Shouta to die honorably, so the memory of his death won’t be associated just with dying. He wants that death to be accompanied by victory, victory that someone else’s hands will carry for once, as his corpse is removed from the battlefield. He wants that death to be the beginning of something, not just the end of All Might and the man named Yagi Toshinori.

Shouta puts a warm hand on his chest now, the pads of his fingers on Toshinori’s sternum. During some seconds, it’s the most intimate moment of their lives.

“It’s up to you. Now, for once, you get to choose what you want to do.”

For once… and for the first time.

Toshinori smiles sadly. “I actually am more afraid of that than of anything else. I’ve never known which choices were purely mine and which were… influenced by someone else.” Toshinori exhales. “Nighteye has… asked me to come over for tea tomorrow. He is disappointed as well that I… well, that I haven’t, you know… He says he has options for me.”

“So? Go see him,” Shouta says, nonchalantly, hands under his neck. “And then do the opposite thing he tells you to. That’ll be you, making your choice.”

Toshinori laughs. “That would be you making the choice for me, dear.”

Shouta sighs and looks him in the eye, inquisitive instead of insistent. “What do you want, Toshinori? What do you want to do with your own quirk?”

“I—I don’t know,” he stammers out. It’s too forward of a question to answer without giving it a great deal of thought. It is the question, the one he never knew how to get to the bottom of. And it’s the aspect of his own will in all of this that terrifies him. He learned from a very young age to shut that instinct down because his life was the one that stood proud in order to save others. Now he has to shut down the hero protocols and just be a person, and it’s one of the hardest moments in his life.

What do I want? he asks himself. It can’t be that hard, people always want one thing or another, either this or that, or to be left alone. But that’s not even it for him. He doesn’t want to be left alone, he just… wants to get it right. One final time.

“Don’t think. Just answer.” Shouta says. “What do you want to do about you career? About your life?”

Toshinori sighs, looking down. Monday, it is all about Monday. Does he want to come back as a teacher? Does he want to still be All Might until he can’t stay upright anymore? Does he want to separate himself from this at last, to let everyone be an active participant of All Might’s secret?

When he looks back up at Shouta, he knows what he will do. It is what he wants, and it is the right thing, and… he thinks it might bring him happiness, in the end. It’s not just his responsibility anymore, Shouta is right in saying that. He’s not alone either in dealing with the remaining part of that responsibility he still responds to, even if he’s had some casualties among his support circle. He smiles, nonetheless, and sits on the mattress to fumble for the flip-flops Hizashi and Shouta have lent him.

He has calls to make, and his phone is still on that table in the living room, untouched. He tells Shouta why he needs to go get it, and Shouta kisses him. Because he can, because it feels nice, and because it is time.

It is time for Toshinori to rest at last. It is about damn time that he lived. 

He leaves Shouta’s and Hizashi’s home early in the morning. He admires the colors of the sky, the light breeze on his skin, and the memories that come with it. Memories of before, of that humongous climb every morning in order to do his job, despite convention and fear and a fate he couldn’t elude.

The subway is crammed with commuters just like he was, all silent faces whose eyes stare at blank screens, trying not to succumb to sleep. Today, though, Toshinori feels as if he no longer belongs with them. His quest is a different one.

The neighborhood he emerges into is one he hardly recognizes, despite having been there not that long ago. Toshinori has never spent much time here if he could help it, every business he might have had to conduct he preferred to take home or to his own agency.

He climbs the stairs to the office where he’s expected and he does it slowly. Doctor’s orders he, for once, doesn’t mind following.

He doesn’t even need to knock on the door because Nighteye has already opened it for him.

“Right on time!” Nighteye says, moving to the side to let him get in. “Care for some tea?”

Toshinori enters the office where, not that long ago, he’d thought he would be sealing a deal that would change his life for the better.

“No, thank you,” he says.

Nighteye closes the door and prepares a kettle anyway.

“Thank you for coming,” he says, “I was sorry to hear things haven’t worked out.”

As Toshinori takes a seat in front of Nighteye’s desk, rubbing his thighs, he allows himself a brief smile. Nighteye’s words sound honest, but he is certainly not used to them. He expected a 180 degree change from his reaction via text yesterday, in fact. Something abrasive and debilitating, not actual understanding.

Nighteye finishes with the kettle and sits down.

“I’m not going to lie to you, I had hoped things would be different by now. We could already have a new Golden Boy in our midst, if all those plans had worked out,” he says. “But this unfortunate turn of events has got me thinking about you, All Might.”

Toshinori sighs.

“I haven’t always been the best of friends to you,” Nighteye continues. “But I did think, always, that I was doing the best for All Might.” Nighteye breathes in too. “Yet… I was forgetting I didn’t just admire this world’s greatest hero but the man who had become that hero.”

Toshinori looks up at him, mouth slightly open. “You mean…?”

“I mean I’m ready to be something more than just the boss of you.”

Toshinori laughs again.

“You’re not the boss of me.”

“Then, the man who for a moment thought himself the boss of you.”

“That, I can take.”

Nighteye smiles as well, conceding. This is weird for the both of them, to be talking about this, to be acknowledging things.

“Why am I here?” Toshinori asks him.

Nighteye takes a deep breath and looks him in the eye.

“Because of your options, Toshinori,” he says. “Ever since you woke up in the hospital, I have sort of been … wondering if you would agree to me using Foresight on you again, my friend.”

This, Toshinori did not see coming. How many years has it been since the last—and only—prophecy? That prophecy that had ruined Toshinori’s life and that he’d kept tightly close to his heart, to hold him to the mark. That prophecy had been his anchor, all this time.

“You want to see my future again?” Toshinori asks, tentative. It never was the brightest of futures. When Nighteye had seen it for the first time, he’d been unbearably attentive, stubborn on his obsession to shift the winds and help Toshinori in all he could.

Nighteye nodded energetically.

“If you’re not against it.”

Toshinori laughs again. “Why would I be? I could tell it to you in excruciating detail, and I suspect you could do the same, but if you insist… ”

Nighyete clears his throat and nods at Toshinori so he’ll extend an arm for Nighteye to touch and hence zoom in on his future. That dark future Toshinori will dream about till the day it becomes his present.

“It’ll just be a moment, I assure you,” Nighteye says, and Toshinori reaches out, holds his hand and looks Nighteye in the eye.

Immediately after, Nighteye closes his eyes firmly, clasps another hand on top of Toshinori’s, and visibly relaxes. It always was the only moment in his highly-stressing life that Nighteye would cease to be unstoppable and let his true age show in his face, a man slightly younger than Toshinori who seemed intent on being a parental figure to him.

There is no way to tell what he is seeing, Nighteye’s face remains as calm for the entire duration of his vision. It’s the moment where he opens his eyes that truly shows the impact it has had on him. Toshinori isn’t nervous about it now, he knows what there is to see, he knows what to expect now. Five or six years, Nighteye had said all those years ago. It is time now—for Toshinori to begin saying his goodbyes. He can’t have a circled date on a calendar, but he knows it will be soon. He knows he can’t ever escape it. He can only hope his death will be the first and the last among everyone who stands up to All For One.

True to his word, Nighteye doesn’t take very long.

His eyes do open, the lines returning to his face, because … and Toshinori can’t believe his eyes, Nighteye is grinning like a child, the ghost of a tear in the corner of his eye, and he is refusing to let go on Toshinori’s hand.

Nighteye might smile from time to time as a way to soften a particular hard blow, but he never grins. Toshinori used to be convinced he literally could not.

But now he is grinning indeed and the tears finally come out of his eyes and stream down his cheeks.

“You have…” Nighteye says, positively crying in joy now, “you have plenty of time, old friend.”

It isn’t immediate, but Toshinori feels it in his bones and in his soul, the meaning those words have. An impossible meaning that somehow isn’t anymore. His fate really has changed, the future is no longer what Toshinori was taught to fear and work towards. It really shifted.

He never even thought that the future he’d written down into the core of him could change with time. Have his actions all along been paramount in the creation of a different future? This could change everything—this could change the world.

He begins crying softly now, too. This… this means I won’t die.

Nana rises from within himself; his own tears belong to her as well, to her untouchable eyes that will never cry again.

I’m… not going to die? he wonders. He can’t believe it.

“You have plenty of time,” Nighteye repeats in a sob.

Toshinori takes his hands in his own.

“Thank you,” he mutters. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you…”

They remain in this very position for some time, hands held together, crying as one, two men separated by difference and now rejoined in glee. The impossible was never that far away, not truly, just some steep steps farther.

On his way out, Toshinori doesn’t even think about it and he immediately calls Shouta to share the news.  Shouta’s joy is as rare and sweet as Nighteye’s acceptance, and Toshinori forgets that they are dating and straight up moves past that into grounds with no name and no labels.

“I love you so, so much,” he says. “And now I…” He giggles, still crying, “now I will be able to love you for so much longer than I thought possible, Shouta.”

Shouta, of course, does not hesitate in saying it back. His voice is that of a kid, young and careless and for once unburdened of everything that has taken him on the dark road his life once used to be. He tells Toshinori to come home so he can properly kiss him, and Toshinori does.

He doesn’t really cease to cry, and he doesn’t want to. These are tears that make up for all those words he’ll never find to tell this story. He is alive, he is alive and somewhat ill but he isn’t dying anymore! He doesn’t have to write a will or prepare to say his goodbyes! He doesn’t have to keep living in the past anymore, he has a future to look forward to, a future to build with whom he chooses and how he chooses.

That is the greatest gift of life, having a future—an uncertain, unapologetic existence of a future where everything can be as long as he makes it possible.

Not much later, Toshinori arrives to the building he now associates with home and kindness and a family. He wonders if Shouta’s happiness will rub off on him and they will both scream excitedly at each other for minutes, only to hug later and kiss and be the idiots they weren’t in their youths.

And Hizashi, Toshinori thinks as he reaches their door, will squeal for sure, all energy and all affection for Toshinori and for Shouta and for joy itself.

Toshinori smiles at that image. He can have all of this now, indefinitely. Forever. Or the closest definition to it there is for a mortal life. A long, fruitful mortal life.

He giggles alone in front of the door. I get to live now.

Something in him hurries him, urges him to live well. But he brushes that away. He will live life his way. It will be an arduous road of uncertainty and emotion, but he is already on it, and he will learn like he learned to live his old life.

The door opens, apparently on its own, and there’s a ruckus as Toshinori comes in and sees Hizashi, literally panting, standing under a huge slapdash banner that reads ‘he lives!’ and a bunch of red, blue, and white balloons.

“Surpriiiiise!” Hizashi squeals, a beautiful smile on his face.

Toshinori stands there, unable to process anything.

“What—?”

Then Shouta emerges from the corridor with Nemuri and Tensei. He runs to Toshinori and puts two strong arms around him, burying his face in Toshinori’s chest.

“You live, you live, you live,” Shouta whispers against the fabric of his shirt.

When he moves away, the t-shirt is slightly wet, and Toshinori begins to understand what is happening here.

Unable to wait anymore, Hizashi drags him to the little table in the living room, which is covered in bowls with food, adorned with tiny Present Mic flags. There is a magnificent chocolate cake in the center of the table, a few differently colored candles on them.

Hizashi squeals bits of information out and Toshinori is able to decipher from that that he and Shouta have prepared this in the same amount of time it’s taken Toshinori to get back here. They have called Nemuri and Tensei to … celebrate? They have put all of this up to… celebrate, too? He wants to tear up again, in solidarity, at how beautiful this is.

They all sit down on the couch, Shouta physically unable to leave space between him and Toshinori, as if he still feared a little that the taller man would disappear otherwise.

At some point, Nemuri fishes a little notebook out from the depths of her bag, and gives it to Toshinori.

“I promised my little niece an autograph from her favorite hero,” she tells him, her eyes looking straight at him for the first time, and he is sure there is no hostility in her gaze anymore, as there might have been once, months ago.

“Me?” Toshinori says.

“No, Eraserhead,” Nemuri says, laughing. “The dude that’s barely even recognizable in plain daylight.”

Toshinori opens the first page of the notebook with shaky hands, and accepts the pen Tensei hands over to him. He signs his first autograph as just a man, never only a hero.

Tensei pulls him into a hug when he’s done, like they’ve been friends all their lives. Toshinori breaks into tears once again. Iida’s older brother, Ingenium, a hero of his own caliber looks up to him too? And still does, after his failures? Ingenium is happy he isn’t dying, too?

“Hizashi told us all the news,” Tensei says. “Congrats, you are now dating the Sleeping Prince of Relaxation.” There is a great chorus of laughter from Nemuri and Hizashi. “The man of naps, the hero who, ironically, never sleeps.”

“Tensei, I will shut you up with my fist,” Shouta says, very calmly.

But Tensei just laughs for a little and doesn’t drag him for too long.

When they begin eating everything they have prepared, Toshinori notices Hizashi is bouncing in his seat, looking to the door often. Toshinori chalks it down to Mic being always a little like this, until the doorbell rings and he sees the truth for himself.

Hizashi leaps from the couch almost as if he was an animated character when it’s time to open the door, posing seductively on the door frame.

“Hey babe,” he says, as… Naomasa comes in! Carrying a bouquet of flowers!

Toshinori turns to Shouta, eyes open wide, and Shouta just shrugs.

Naomasa comes into the apartment, blushing very intensely. This is the man who will not display fear during the most complicated of operations, yet he can’t deal with a reunion like this one without having outward emotions.

There are cheers from Nemuri and Tensei when Naomasa stands in front of Hizashi and offers the flowers he bought for him. Hizashi, of course, screams so high it’s barely audible, then rants incoherently for some seconds as he pulls Naomasa into a big bear hug.

When the moment is done and Hizashi is wiping tears off his face, he winks at Toshinori.

“Now, a drink to the matchmaker!”

They all raise their cups and take a sip in honor of Toshinori, the man of the hour; who worked for twenty long years as a hero of legend; who found love in the heart of Eraserhead, his once most fervent opponent; and who has helped a relationship bloom.

“Okay, now that we’re all here,” Hizashi says, “who wants to blow out the candles?” He grins like the Cheshire cat.

Shouta rolls his eyes. “You want to, don’t you?”

“Hell yeaaaaaah!” Hizashi yells, then stops himself, looking like a kid after getting caught red-handed doing something he’s been repeatedly told he shouldn’t. “But I won’t. We bought the cake for Toshinori,” he recites as if Shouta had made him memorize it.

“Exactly,” Shouta tells him.

“Should—should I, really?” Toshinori asks.

They all smile as an answer and he leans closer to the cake, hands sweating a little, and closes his eyes.

As he blows the candles, the western way, Toshinori can’t help but remember the tradition to make a wish in this moment, and he realizes, too, that he doesn’t need to make any wish.

This, already, is worth a thousand wishes and better than the fantasy of any of them.

When he opens his eyes again, back to earth, they’ve all started clapping and singing happy birthday in English to him. To no one’s surprise, Shouta’s accent is terrible and Mic sings like he’s putting out a fire, and Toshinori feels… like he is made of light, translucent, incorporeal happy light. He leans back on the couch, the smoke of the candles dissipating into the air, and Shouta squeezes gently at his hand.

He is celebrating the rest of his life this evening with his friends. Friends he earned, friends he doesn’t deserve, friends he will move earth and heaven for if need be, just like they have done for him today. The tears come to his eyes once more on this blessed day, and he squeezes back at Shouta’s hand as in the general bliss of the moment Naomasa and Hizashi share a kiss.

There’s more cheers for the happy couple of the day, and Toshinori is sure he has never been this happy. Naomasa deserves someone like Hizashi, without a doubt.

When they break apart, a little breathless, Hizashi emerges with a wonderful proposition:

“GROUP HUUUUUG!”

Immediately, Shouta tries to run away but Hizashi pins him to the couch so he won’t be able to move an inch, and they all huddle together to put their arms around Toshinori. It’s uncomfortable and awkward because some are sitting down and some are semi-standing up for this one hug, but Toshinori can’t help but smile anyway and keep on smiling through tears and emotions alike.

Shouta, Hizashi, Naomasa, Tensei, Nemuri.

This is his future.

And he couldn’t ask for a better one.

Slippery like an eel, Hizashi untangles himself from the group hug to go fetch his bright yellow selfie stick.

“Now I want y’all to say cheeeeese!” he says.

Everybody turns to face the camera and smiles at his command, among arms and heads and shoulders.

The hug slowly breaks into individual tiny human pieces, and Hizashi toys with his phone a little, back on the couch, as Toshinori tries to stop the crying now. It is so silly to be crying when the shock should have already worn thin by now. Not that it has. Not that it ever will feel like it can be worn thin. But he is under the impression that he’s mostly just tears of joy right now and that he’s embarrassing himself.

The shock of a life, however, is forever.

In the end, Hizashi disappears into the corridor and comes back holding a printed version of their hug. A memory made tangible.

He gives it to Toshinori.

“Here,” he says with a giant smile on his face. “So you’ll always have something to remember us by.”

“You have one of those modern printing gadgets?” Toshinori is only capable of saying as he takes this homemade gift in his hands to look at, at all their faces in a frozen instant that will last longer than all of them.

“It’s Hizashi, what did you expect?” Shouta says to his ear.

And even if it is like Hizashi to do something like this, even if it is the kind of thing that he does effortlessly, Toshinori can’t help but pull Hizashi into another hug. Today there are tears as there are hugs, and the love filters between both, pure and calming like the sunrise.

“Thank you,” he tells Hizashi.

Hizashi pats his back and cries. “Thank you,” he says. “Thank you for you, Toshinori. You’re every bit a friend to me, I hope you know that.”

After Toshinori assures him that he is to him too and the hug runs its course, Toshinori sees the tears in Hizashi’s eyes too. He is glad, deep inside, to not be the only one crying. It means his emotions are so much realer than he thought.

He laughs the tears away, loud and strong and sincere.

“Sorry, Naomasa,” he tells his friend. “I borrowed you boyfriend just for a little while, I promise. ”

Another chorus of laughter takes over the room as Naomasa replies:

“Oi, you have a boyfriend of your own. Go hug him.”

And he does! Toshinori really does have a boyfriend.

And he realizes… just how hard it will be now that he has all the time in the world to ever take his eyes off of Shouta’s round face again. In that face he has seen more humanity and beauty that the entire world would know what to do with.

Shouta…

This, too, is his future. Earned, deserved, and finally made possible. 

Toshinori twiddles his thumbs. Everyone is already here. The press has been here for hours, trying to catch a glimpse of Japan’s greatest hero before this press conference he called a few days ago. Nobody knows, of course, that the scrawny man in a fitting blue suit is that hero, and no one will know for a little while longer.

Nezu agreed to host this side by side with him, to tell the story properly. The story of a man who has been lying for society’s sake for as long as he has existed to the public eye, and who risked his own wellbeing in an extraordinary manner a few weeks ago on the USJ incident that the police is still investigating.

For now, it is still a secret, but Toshinori can’t help but feel anxious about it. It’s his unmasking, the final step in the climb. Will he like the sights from there, after?

Nighteye is somewhere in the audience for today’s press conference, and he imagines the teachers will, too. Earlier this morning, Shouta and Hizashi left home to go to the school. Toshinori can only suppose that they’re still with the kids. He does not want to think about the impact this will have on the children, to watch their idol walk away from the world he inspired some of them to want to join.

He sighs. There’s little more he can do about this now. It’s time to face the truth, and to allow everyone the choice to face it as well.

Suddenly, he feels a tug on his jacket. He looks down to find the face of Gran Torino staring up at him.

“Can we talk?” Gran Torino says.

Toshinori blinks a couple of times, confused. He’d thought Gran Torino had decided to accept his ultimatum and disappear from his life. But this is the closest from disappearing. Today, at least, coming here is a declaration of intentions.

“S—sure, yes,” Toshinori says. “I’m… glad you’re here.”

Gran Torino may be many things, and he may have made Toshinori’s life a little more complicated than it had to be sometimes, but he’s still the only family he has left. The only family he had after Nana died, after his own parents were killed. Gran Torino was everything to him once, it isn’t hard for him to wish he could still be… something.

“She … she would be proud of you, kid,” Gran Torino just says, solemnly. “Nana would be proud of you, son.”

Toshinori’s eyes fill with tears when he hears his mentor saying Nana’s name after so long. It seems that is all he’s able to do, these days, crying for all those times he has swallowed his emotions in order to save the world and keep saving it without fault.

“I…” he stutters. “Thank you, … dad.”

Toshinori kneels. There’s an awkward hug between them. Gran Torino was never a fan of physical contact unless it involved punishment. This hug is the beginning of the end, and a new beginning altogether.

This day is truly changing fate, not just Toshinori’s but that of everyone around him.

“I never understood how that brain of you works, to be honest,” Gran Torino continues, “but I almost lost you that day. Like we lost her. I won’t let that happen again. You got me here to kick your as back into life, are we clear?” he grumbles that last part, and Toshinori smiles.

He smiles even though Gran Torino couldn’t really ever do anything to stop his fate from happening. Now, no one needs to stop time, because Toshinori has no fate to run faster than.

“Yes, sir,” Toshinori mumbles.

“Get that ‘sir’ back into your mouth. I’m not that old…” Gran Torino grumbles.

Toshinori stands back up and begins to leave. When he is walking away, Gran Torino speaks again, loudly:

“I’m proud of you too, kid.”

And Toshinori thanks him for those words. They are the final boost he needed to do this. Within him, Nana caresses his face gently. He feels her pride. He feels her joy inside his own. And then she leaves, because she was always leaving, because One For All is leaving him too. She will never really leave him as long as he remembers her, though. And Toshinori can’t ever forget what and who made him who he is. Nana, Gran Torino, Shouta.

It is time.

Mother, will you… will you come back, before it leaves me? he asks her when he thinks she’s no longer listening.

Her voice, soft and bright like a cloud, reaches him nonetheless.

I’ll never be truly gone, Toshinori. It’s not just the quirk that keeps me alive in you. And then she winks and disappears into the light. Perhaps she will be back, one day. He hopes he will see her again, one day. Before One For All’s last minutes.

Nezu calls his name now—his full name, his given name. The name of the man, the name of the invisible hero.

And Toshinori pushes the curtain aside and takes a seat in front of all the journalists and cameras.

The rest of his life begins now in the eyes of everyone else.

It is time. 

After, he steps outside for a breath of clean air as the press is ushered out of UA. It is warm and soothing against his skin. He wonders if he can take his jacket off while in such a formal setting. He feels… strangely normal, as if nothing that big had changed. How quaint, that his body hasn’t caught up yet with it. With the immensity of this change.

He spots Shouta, leaving the children behind for a second to come to him.

His face is serious, used to being his most alert self around the students. Toshinori is sure he is not having the easiest of times being back after the incident. They might need to talk it out later. It’s Shouta’s time to get help during his healing process.

Now, though, Shouta just puts a hand on his shoulder. Toshinori has done it, he has officially announced his retirement from the hero world as well as his reappearance as a teacher in UA, and Shouta is at ease now that his boyfriend has made his choice for himself. He still finds it exciting to think of him as his boyfriend, even in the midst of all this.

“We’re next,” he reminds Toshinori.

All Might’s job is done. It’s time for the pro heroes and their students to take over. And Toshinori knows, but Shouta knows it will still be hard for him. It would, for almost everyone he knows.

Toshinori puts his arms around Shouta until Shouta’s head is on his chest.

“Do you truly think them ready for what’s coming?” His voice carries much more melancholy than he’d meant it to. All For One is still out there, and he will come for the dying quirk inside him. But… none of that will take place the way he’d always believed it would. These children will need to be ready for it, just in case. That’s what weighs on him, that the fate of all heroes rests on the shoulders of such young people.

“No,” Shouta says, honestly. “Not today, anyway. But that’s what we will be here for, you and me. They’re our future, and we’re theirs.”

As if they’d heard, the kids finallycome swarming at him with praise and questions and everything they’ve held in since the incident, because neither Shouta nor him have been at the school since then. Toshinori forgets all the evil he feels he still should anticipate to and just smiles, ruffles hairs, pats everyone on the shoulder, and looks at Shouta in the eye, meaningfully, as if agreeing with that ‘we’re next’, and Shouta’s dark eyes seem to reply ‘let us be, then, we will make All Might proud’.

You have plenty of time, Nighteye had said to him a day before. They have time, to train the next generation and warn the current one against the evil out there. He has time, he always has had time. 

On the way to the summit, Toshinori found himself climbing down rather than up, going in circles around the same mountain. And at last, when he thought he’d never get to the top on foot, when he’d accepted it was over, he found a network of caves beneath the mythical size of the mountain and realized that if he couldn’t climb to the final peak anymore, he’d find alternative ways to conquer what he’d come here to conquer.

The ascension, he has found, is life, not death. And reaching the peak, just plain old survival. And he is so happy now, living on the slopes.