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Iida Tensei loves his friends, he really does, but also, he’s going to murder them both one day.
Being their best friend is suffering. It’s like he’s the third wheel of every class activity, every outing, despite Yamada’s best efforts to keep him as involved in the activity as possible--but this failed spectacularly, because in the end Yamada and Aizawa ended up being unfairly close to each other without doing anything.
Come on guys, Tensei would think silently to himself when their arms brushed against each other, and then he’d feel his heart skip a beat for about .421983 seconds when Aizawa moved his arm, only to cry internally when Aizawa just moved away.
Yamada would be telling Aizawa about any one thing, and Tensei would be waiting for it to happen. The moment of truth.
“Man I’m super glad that you came over and listened to these tracks with me because I love--”
Yes!
“--your opinion!”
Noooo!
When he wasn’t tragically over-immersing himself in his best friends’ love lives, he was doing his school work and hanging out with baby brother (who, by the way, was the Cutest Thing In The World, patent-pending.) and just generally being a great guy. So he liked to think.
“I dunno, Tenya,” Tensei said aloud as he connected a few bricks together to form a bridge. Their Lego Barbie Dreamhouse was looking super wicked. “It’s like...am I overstepping my boundaries if I help one of them realize how utterly stupid they’re being? Is that bad? Would it help at all? Are you listening? Do you want apple sauce?”
“Yes!” Tenya said unhelpfully. Gosh darn him for being the Purest Being In Existence. No patent-pending on that one. He just was.
It was in the middle of a training exercise that Tensei came up with a brilliant plan. He’s the third wheel, no doubt, but he can offer his Third Wheel Services to Aizawa and Yamada and then he can manage to push them in the right direction after he’s privy to some extra knowledge. He’s a goddamn genius. Such a goddamn genius, in fact, that while he was congratulating his own genius-ness he ended up accidentally tripping and knocking into Kan. That was cool. He meant to do that.
During lunch, Aizawa was in the bathroom, so Tensei decided to pitch his sale to Yamada.
“Man, you’re my best friend, you know that right?” Tensei started off with. Yamada nodded vigorously, still staring down at his phone. Great. He had his full attention. “And you know you can tell me stuff, right?”
“Of course, dude,” Yamada said, tossing a few chips into his mouth. “I’ve always known that.”
“And I mean anything. Like. Whatever you want. If you’ve killed a man--if you’re actually a girl--if you have a secret crush for your other best friend--like, whatever you want.”
Yamada just kept nodding. He paused to take a selfie. Tensei thought he managed to get his point across as well as he could, to be honest.
Offering himself to Aizawa was much harder.
(God, that sounded wrong.)
“I just think, you know...I just wanted to make myself more approachable!” Tensei had rambled on for quite some time now. Aizawa kept sucking his juice pouch. This might actually be a different juice pouch, and he’d gone through several without Tensei even noticing. Tensei could honestly never tell.
“Just wanted to tell you that.” Tensei watched Aizawa for any sort of reaction. When he received none, he just sighed and turned in the opposite direction.
“Iida.”
“Yeah?” Tensei spun around eagerly, only to see Aizawa holding out his flat juice pouch.
“Can you throw this in a trashcan for me?”
Tensei was disappointed, but he said yes, because Ingenium is an environment-friendly hero.
Tensei’s always been interested in robotics (I mean, duh, have you seen his costume?) and was fiddling around with a few spare parts when his phone started vibrating hard enough to rock the foundation of the house. Iida phones were just built that way.
When he answered it, he was met with two sounds, one pleasant and one unpleasant:
The smooth, screaming vocals of Linkin Park, and the completely shrieky voice of Yamada. Yamada was wailing, and though his suffering sounded equivalent to Linkin Park’s Numb and was even wailed in-tune, it was clear Yamada was not singing the song.
“OH MY GOOOOOOOD IIDA I’M---CAN YOU RUN TO MY HOUSE? PLEASE? USE YOUR ZOOMY-ZOOM QUIRK TO MCZOOM YOUR ASS OVER HERE.”
Yamada better be dead or dying. If not, Tensei was running immediately home.
When he got to Yamada’s house, the door was unlocked. Not very safe, but convenient for him. He burst through the door, checking immediately for any signs of blood, weapons, villains--only to find Yamada staring down at his phone, looking as if his entire life was coming crashing down.
“Yamada--?! Are you okay?” Tensei rushed over, immediately checking his friend for any sort of wounds. Yamada only held up his phone, showing Tensei a message sent from Aizawa: a very blurry selfie of Aizawa in a cat sweater two sizes too big and looking vaguely grumpy. It was captioned with a reluctant ‘fine’ that Tensei didn’t understand the context of.
“Iida,” Yamada whispered dramatically. “I’m a disaster.”
Tensei stared down at him. “Yes. You are.”
“I’m.” Yamada tapped weakly at his phone. “So. So very gay. And he is so, so very cute.”
Tensei placed his hand on Yamada’s shoulder comfortingly. “Yes, you are, and yes, he is.”
Tenya is honestly a blessing unto humanity itself, which is why Tensei was carrying him around at the mall with absolutely no complaints, even if Tenya would randomly and aggressively point at things and yell.
“Look!” Tensei told him, shuffling close to a display of cookies. “Want some?”
“Ten-nii,” Tensei said, tugging at his hair. He wasn’t even looking at the cookies. “There!”
“What?”
“There!”
Tensei turned to see what Tenya was pointing out. Aizawa was sitting on a bench, eating a slice of pizza and staring at the spot next to him. He looked lost and out of place.
Tensei approached before setting Tenya down on the bench next to Aizawa.
“Afternoon!” Tensei greeted brightly.
“You’re not Hizashi,” Aizawa stated matter-of-factly.
“Indeed, I’m not. What’re you waiting around here for?”
“Well, he was supposed to show up...a half hour ago.” Aizawa looked at the spot that Tenya now occupied. “Guess he’s not coming.”
Tenya stared up at Aizawa, before leaning forward and pressing his fingers to Aizawa’s nose.
“Boop.”
Tensei needed a moment to recover from being hit by a deathray of his baby brother’s own purity. When he did recover, he sat down on the other side of Aizawa, and said,
“I don’t think he meant to. Maybe he had some stuff that came up?”
And now, he’s going to subtly drop hints that Yamada’s in love with Aizawa.
“Also, he’s totally in love with you, and there’s no way he’d stand you up like this.”
Aizawa stared. “What?”
“You heard me.”
Tenya threw his hands up in the air, imitating an explosion noise. Not very helpful, not needed, but still cute.
“...I’ve got stuff to do. Bye.” Aizawa stood up and left without saying much else. Tensei couldn’t help but think he might’ve made things supremely bad.
They’ve been dancing around each other for, like, a year and a half now. Tensei’s just waiting for them to actually stop being chickens and go on a fucking date already. It’s suffering, being in this position. How much worse was it going to be if he just accidentally pushed them into the wrong direction?
Kayama was of the same opinion.
“You fucked up,” Kayama said bluntly.
“I know.”
“Major. Royally. Fucked all the way to Fuckville. Like, if All Might released a sextape, that’s how fucked you’d be.”
“I get it.”
She was an upperclassman, but was Aizawa’s only other friend besides Tensei himself. Did Yamada even count as a friend to Aizawa, or had he transgressed the boundaries of friendship and situated himself in the unknown and terrible void of being a hopeless crush?
These were deep questions he’d need to ask Tenya later.
Tensei spent the entirety of class doing his studies like the absolutely excellent student he was, and also not staring at Aizawa and Yamada for a sign that any change might’ve passed between them.
During lunch, Tensei sat at their usual table. Yamada sat across from him, scrolling through his phone. Aizawa was in the bathroom.
This situation felt familiar, somehow.
“So, uh...How’s it going?” Tensei asked, opening a bag of chips.
Yamada glanced up from his screen. Shit, this was too much attention. Tensei had done something wrong.
“I don’t know, Iida,” Yamada said coldly. “Have you told any other people their friend is in love with them and betrayed their trust?”
Tensei felt his heart drop, and also his potato chips. “What?”
Yamada snickered. “Naaah, just messing with you. I’m feeling great.”
Rest in peace, Tensei’s potato chips, and also his heart, which is slightly more important.
“What happened?!” Tensei cried, leaning forward. “Tell me!”
“We’re dating now!” Yamada yelled cheerfully, only to shrink in on himself when everyone stared. “And...it was supposed to be a secret. Nobody’s supposed to know. We’re keeping it secret until--”
“Hey, you and Aizawa are finally dating? Congrats, man,” Kan called. This was met with a chorus of other ‘finally’s and a few statements of ‘you owe me money.’
“Okay. It’s not a secret anymore, I guess.”
“You never would’ve been able to conceal it, and you know this,” Tensei pointed out.
Aizawa returned to the table, looking a bit miffed. “Why did Suzuki tell me ‘congratulations’ and proceed to ask me if Hizashi’s nipples are really pierced?”
“Haha, funny story,” Yamada began, “They’re actually not.”
“The whole school knows, don’t they,” Aizawa deadpanned.
“Yeah. Sorry.”
Aizawa sighed, turning away. “Fine.”
Yamada smiled so wide Tensei feared it would rip his face in half. “Is it really? I l--.”
“It’s too soon to use the ‘L’ word,” Shouta interrupted abruptly.
“...Lesbian?”
“Hizashi.”
“Okay, I’m sorry. How about I really really like you?”
“Do I need to get another table?” Tensei hated to interrupt, but they looked dangerously close to making out. “Because I can do that. I can leave right now. And you can kiss. And I will not be taking pictures for Kayama.”
“...Actually, Tensei you can stay. Hey, let’s all go to the arcade together!” Yamada said. Tensei smiled. “We can do the photobooth today!”
“Sounds like a great idea!” Tensei said cheerfully. Aizawa agreed to go.
They walked to the arcade together after school, Tensei behind Aizawa and Yamada. Their arms brushed together for a second, and Tensei felt his heart skip a beat.
Yes!
Aizawa linked his fingers with Yamada’s tentatively.
Yessssss!
Tensei is officially the best third wheel, ever.