Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tensei met Hizashi on the day of the entrance exam, and they’d hit it off pretty well, both sharing similar goals for wanting to become a hero and interests--both wanted to save people and look cool while doing it, though Tensei was leaning more towards a robotic aesthetic while Hizashi had settled himself quite comfortably in the ‘punk’ niche.

“I’m gonna be big some day,” Hizashi had told him after the exam, panting from continuous use of his Quirk. Tensei had managed to rack fifty points, and Hizashi, thirty-nine. “I’m gonna be a pro hero and a radio star and a teacher and also an actor.”

“That’s pretty ambitious,” Tensei said, amused. “If you actually manage all that, good on you.”

“You’re cool.” Hizashi swept his hair out of his sweaty face, and they wandered away from one another.

Finding out they were placed in the same class was a bonus. Though put in different seats, Hizashi made a point to come by Tensei’s desk to talk, much to the teacher’s annoyance, and even when seated his voice carried across the room to reach Tensei’s ears.

Not that Tensei was complaining about it, or anything. Sure, he’d had a few friends in his previous school, but none had been quite like Hizashi, who seemed to have made it his personal goal to get everyone to like him.

Hizashi also had a thing for pushing all the friendship stuff onto people despite only knowing them for a short time, and within two weeks of knowing each other he asked if they could hang out at one another’s house.

“I mean, only if you wanna,” Hizashi said, adjusting his sunglasses in an attempt to look nonchalant.

“Sure,” Tensei responded, not seeing anything particularly wrong with that. His parents were taking Tenya to a doctor’s appointment, so they’d have the house for themselves.

“My place or yours?” Hizashi blinked. “That sounded more flirty than I intentioned.”

“Mine, nobody’s home,” Tensei offered, and Hizashi agreed to it with a high-five.

They boarded the train together, and after a prolonged discussion about school (read: complaining about homework) Hizashi asked,

“So what’s your place like?”

“Not anything spectacular,” Tensei said, who was still fifteen and not yet fully aware of how rich his family actually was. “I mean, it’s like any other pro hero’s house, I guess.”

“Cool,” Hizashi grinned. The grin, however, fell off his face twenty minutes later when he stood before Tensei’s house. He’d stopped in the middle of his walking to gape, his bag nearly slipping from his grip as he took it all in.

“Okay. First of all. What the fuck.” Hizashi gripped the gate and swung it back and forth, eyes wide. “What. The. Fuck.”

“What?” Tensei frowned, already pushing past so he could cross the yard and unlock the door.

“You’re. You’re loaded.” Hizashi’s wide-eyed gaze seemed to be trying to drink in as much of the place he could at once. “Like a baked potato. Holy shit, you’re a baked potato. Loaded baked potato.”

“Thank you,” Tensei said drily, pushing the door open, “Want to see inside or are you fine with staying out here?”

“Inside,” Hizashi’s response was immediate and he followed Tensei into the house, kicking off his shoes as he did so. Hizashi spun around in circles, trying to look at everything at once, and Tensei snorted when Hizashi tripped backwards right into him.

“Careful,” Tensei said, gripping Hizashi’s shoulders and steadying him from behind. Hizashi whirled around to face him, looking strangely ecstatic. Tensei’s known him for two weeks, and this was the first time he’d seen him this excited about something.

“Dude. You have. A staircase.”

“Yes, I do,” Tensei said slowly. “We kind of need it to get to the second floor. Do you need to lay down?”

“Tensei, you don’t understand. You have a staircase.” Already Hizashi was racing up the steps faster than Tensei could himself, and Tensei decided to follow to make sure Hizashi didn’t destroy anything. However, he’d barely set foot on the bottom step when Hizashi came sliding down on the banister, whooping gleefully. When he hit the bottom, the force caused him to launch about five feet and land on his back.

Panicking, Tensei rushed over to make sure he wasn’t injured, unsure if he had landed hard enough to sustain any, and Hizashi’s peals of laughter weren’t helping. Was this some sort of reaction to pain? Some people laughed at pain, he knew that, and he could only hope that Hizashi hadn’t, like, managed to break his back.

That would suck. A lot.

“Are you okay?” Tensei asked, cradling Hizashi’s head to check for injuries before forcing him to sit up. He looked alright, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t any damage that Tensei couldn’t see.

“I’m fine,” Hizashi laughed, and thankfully his laughter seemed to be subsiding. “Sorry, I’ve just always wanted to do that.”

“You almost gave me a heart attack,” Tensei reprimanded, before pausing. “And it’s much more fun when you’ve got a Quirk like mine. I can go faster.”

“Dude. Shut up.” Hizashi punched Tensei lightly in the shoulder. “You can’t.”

“No, I really can.”

Which was how Tensei found himself sitting on the banister at the top of the stairs, arms in perfect position to use his Quirk and zoom downstairs. They’d inflated an air mattress that Tensei had discovered in the garage, and it was currently at the bottom of the steps to prevent serious injury.

“Ready!” Hizashi shouted, his Quirk activating a bit to enhance his voice like an announcer. “Set! Go!”

What happened next was a blur that left Tensei laughing maniacally about halfway down. However, he’d underestimated how’d far he’d land--the last time he had done this, he had been eleven, and much lighter.

When Tensei blinked his eyes open, Hizashi was hovering over him looking guilty, but trying to mask it with a smile.

“Do you want the good news or the bad news?”

Tensei mumbled something incoherent. Even he didn’t know what he was trying to say.

“The good news is, you’ve sustained no injuries. The bad news is, a vase was knocked over. I’ve seen that one anime. Please don’t tell me I have to work for your family now to repay the debt.”

“Wait, what?!” Tensei cried, sitting up. The vase in question was the one near the door, and though it wasn’t shattered, there was a visible crack down the middle and a bit of the top was chipped off.

“I’m sorry,” Hizashi wrung his hands nervously, eyebrows drawing together as he took in the damage. “I can probably pay for most of it, but not all.”

Tensei staggered to his feet, wincing at the pain blossoming in his ass. That was going to be sore tomorrow and it was going to suck, but right now there were more pressing matters. He picked up the vase, checking to see where all the damage was. Aside from the crack and some of the top, it was relatively okay. In fact...

Tensei set the vase on top of its stand, the cracked side facing the corner. His parents wouldn’t know any better. Hopefully.

“It’s fine,” Tensei tried assuring Hizashi, who was standing stiffly by the door, no longer as excited and hyperactive. “No, really. I did that once upstairs. There’s a hole in the wall that’s been covered by a random picture of All Might for six years. Nobody’s discovered it yet. They just accepted the fact that there’s a picture of All Might on the wall.”

“Are you sure...?” Hizashi trailed off, looking unsure, and Tensei approached Hizashi, trying to show that it was absolutely fine. He’s never had a friend over before, and he wanted Hizashi to be over more, so convincing Hizashi it was okay was something he needed to do.

“I swear. It wasn’t even your fault, it was mine. Let’s deflate the air mattress and then I can show you my workshop, okay?”

Hizashi perked up with interest, the worry leaving his face. “Workshop?”

Aizawa transferred in after kicking the class’s collective ass in the sports festival, winning first place despite being in general studies. Tensei shared third place with someone in 1-B and Hizashi had lost in the second round of one-on-one fighting to Aizawa, so Tensei’s opinion of him wasn’t exactly great. Especially since Tensei had lost to him too.

Aizawa probably wasn’t a bad guy, Tensei had tried reasoning to himself. He was just bitter because he wanted first and Aizawa had beaten him.

So with this in mind, he approached Aizawa to welcome him to the class--and was promptly ignored. So Tensei repeated himself again, but this time Aizawa turned to fix him with a glare, as if he found Tensei’s presence unnecessary. So Tensei gave up and returned to his seat. Okay, fine. He was just unfriendly.

Aizawa had been seated right next to Hizashi, so it was to no one’s surprise when Hizashi tried getting Aizawa to sit with them during lunch, to no avail.

“Seems like a cool guy. I want to get to know him better.” Hizashi tossed a shrimp chip into his mouth. “We’re gonna be great friends!”

“Hizashi,” Tensei said, aggressively pointing a fry. “If he didn’t like me, who’s more mellow, I doubt he’s going to like you, because you’re like a unicorn that drank five energy drinks for breakfast.”

Hizashi batted his eyelashes. “You really think so?”

Tensei didn’t dignify that with an answer.

Hizashi kept trying to push his friendship onto Aizawa with no success, and it was a week later when Tensei was trying to tell Hizashi to give up that Aizawa said “Okay” when Hizashi asked if he wanted to hang out.

“Wait, really?!” Hizashi spluttered. Tensei was dumbstruck, wondering what the hell had made him change his mind.

“Yes,” Aizawa said. He turned his attention to Tensei. “...I’m tired of you guys bugging me about it.”

“I--I don’t bug you about it,” was the only thing Tensei could think to say, still not over the fact he actually agreed. Aizawa snorted before laying his head down in his arms and effectively shutting down the conversation.

During lunch the three of them sat together at the table, two empty chairs in the middle of it separating them from a group of 1-B kids. Hizashi’s lunch was modest--two peanut butter sandwiches, a banana, and a bag of chips. Tensei hasn’t brought a lunch to school in two years ever since he began to become embarrassed by his dad arranging the bentos into cute things. His lunch tray was overloaded with food, considering he needed to eat a lot to support his own muscle mass. Probably too much food, if he was being honest. He’d underestimated how much of the salad he could eat.

Aizawa did not have a lunch at all.

“Did you forget it?” Hizashi asked sympathetically. Aizawa just stared down at the table, not even looking up to acknowledge them. Hizashi offered Aizawa the banana, but he didn’t take it. It was kind of awkward.

“So,” Hizashi said as he ripped off the crusts of his sandwiches. “You kicked our butts in the sports festival. Well done.”

“You’re not going to force me to go through some sort of ‘initiation’, are you?” Aizawa snorted, looking up for the first time. “Ikari already tried that.”

“What’d you do?” Tensei asked, curious. Ikari was a dick, everybody knew that, and he was kind of hoping Aizawa had delivered the ass-kicking he deserved.

“Told him if he ever tried it again, his hair won’t be the only thing that’s red.”

“You.” Tensei pointed his fork at Aizawa. “I like you.”

“Me too,” Hizashi quipped, leaning forward with a grin. “I’ve just gotta know, how long have you been training to do all that?”

Aizawa raised an eyebrow, before answering, “Longer than you, probably.”

“Wha--hey!”

“You’re a noodle.”

Hizashi looked betrayed as Tensei burst into laughter.

The next day, Aizawa and Hizashi were partnered for a training exercise, and Kan was Tensei’s partner. Kan looked a bit sympathetic for Tensei.

“Not with Yamada this time?” He asked. “I know Aizawa’s super stiff. Yamada’s not gonna have fun.”

“Aizawa’s not that bad,” Tensei said, raising his hands above his head to stretch. No hero costumes today, which was good because it was absolutely sweltering. “I like his humor.”

“He has humor?” Kan looked doubtful. Tensei didn’t respond as the exercise began, and he used his Quirk to propel himself over the wall constructed by their teacher, leaving Kan behind.

Aizawa sat with them for the rest of the week, not bringing a lunch once and declining Tensei and Hizashi’s offers of food.

“Why don’t you bring any?” Hizashi frowned, looking concerned.

“...I just don’t,” Aizawa said, an edge to his voice, and Tensei kicked Hizashi under the table to signal to him that he needed to stop talking about it.

At home, Tensei was playing with Tenya in the living room while his dad ate popcorn and watched a movie. Tenya had a large number of toys, though his favorites were blocks, so he and Tensei were both building a fortress--it was nearly a foot high, which was kind of impressive.

However, Tensei was doing most of the actual building. Tenya was more concerned about figuring out if he could fit entire blocks in his mouth.

“No, don’t eat that!” Tensei cried quietly, prying the block from Tenya’s hand. Tenya had a surprisingly strong grip for someone who was barely a year old. Discarding the saliva-covered block into the growing pile of other saliva-covered blocks, Tensei was suddenly struck with an idea. Actually, that was a lie--he’d been pondering it for a few days, but Tenya trying to eat the blocks reignited it.

“Hey, dad?”

Tensei’s father looked over from his spot on the couch.

“Uh, can I start bringing bentos to school again?”

His father grinned, straightening up. “I thought you’d never ask.”

“And can I bring two?” Tensei pressed, not done yet. “I have a friend who doesn’t eat lunch, so I was just wondering...”

“A heroic deed, as expected from an Iida son,” His father chuckled. Tensei was only asking if he could bring Aizawa food, but whatever made the man happy. “Alright, I’ll leave you them tomorrow.”

When Tensei offered Aizawa one of the boxes the next day, he expected it to be turned down. To his surprise, Aizawa accepted it with a muttered ‘thanks’, looking defeated. Hizashi gave Tensei a thumbs-up, grinning.

Unwrapping his own bento, Tensei felt his face redden when he saw his dad had arranged into All Might’s face. He’d forgotten to ask his dad to not do that. Glancing up to see how bad Aizawa’s was, his face reddened even more when he saw it was arranged to look like a cat.

“Sorry about that!” Tensei apologized, wondering if he could die. “My dad does stuff like this all the time and I forgot to tell him not do it and...Sorry.”

“...It’s fine,” Aizawa said, and Tensei realized that he was blushing.

The next day, Aizawa gave Tensei a juicebox. Tensei took this as a sign of friendship.

The first time Hizashi asked if they could all hang out after school, Tensei couldn’t because he had to look after Tenya. He wasn’t sure exactly what the hell happened that first night Hizashi and Aizawa went to the arcade--they came to school the next day calling one another by their given names and he was thoroughly confused.

“What’d you guys do?” Tensei asked, eyebrows scrunching together as they looked over their test grades. “Besides game?”

“Got milkshakes and walked around for a bit,” Hizashi answered, his finger tracing down the list of names on the English score list. “Talked a lot. Maybe he doesn’t like you and that’s why he doesn’t speak much. Or maybe he feels threatened by your hero costume. Planning to add a sword to it, Incursio?”

“Haha,” Tensei grumbled. “Funny. Like you haven’t used that one a hundred times before.”

Hizashi suggested they hang out after finding out Tensei was free for the afternoon, and after a moment’s hesitation Aizawa agreed. Tensei only hoped Aizawa wouldn’t have a reaction like Hizashi when first seeing his house.

“It’s big,” Hizashi warned Aizawa on the train, and Tensei snorted. “His family’s totally rich. Also, don’t slide down the banister. Serious injury and property damage follows.”

“I think he has more sense than you do, Hizashi,” Tensei said, and Hizashi gave an indignant ‘hey!’ as Aizawa laughed.

Aizawa’s reaction was more subtle than Hizashi’s, but it was definitely there. His eyes had widened and he’d hesitated before stepping inside the house, following Hizashi who walked around as if he’d been over a million times.

(Well, he practically has.)

“Not really much to say about all this,” Tensei said sheepishly, gesturing to the living room, which was littered with Tenya’s toys. Noticing Aizawa stiffening, he offered, “Uh, want to see my workshop?”

Tensei dabbled in robotics, interested in how to make things work like they could think on their own. He’d tried explaining it to Hizashi once, who’d been more interested in the end result than the process, so he didn’t quite get it. His workshop was a mess of grease and spare parts, too many to properly take care of because he was trying to build something. Most of the time it was relatively clean, but he’d been frustrated with Monday’s results, so it was in a terrible state right now.

“Sorry for the mess,” Tensei said as he glanced around, wincing at one of his oily shirts that was hanging off the table and only barely concealing his most recent project. It was too big for him and had Princess Peach on it, and as such, was only used for dirty jobs. Aizawa was interested in what was beneath it, but before he could remove the shirt from it Tensei rushed over to brush his hand away.

“Please don’t, it’s totally garbage right now,” he said, and Aizawa withdrew his hand. “I promise everything looks better than this, usually, but I’ve been busy so everything looks bad...”

“It looks dirty,” Aizawa said, but he didn’t sound derisive. “It’s much better than the rest of the house.”

Tensei squinted. “Should I accept that as an insult or a compliment?”

“I’m sure he meant it as a compliment,” Hizashi wrapped his arm around Aizawa’s shoulders, grinning. “Riiiiight?”

“Definitely not,” Aizawa snorted, shaking Hizashi off of him.

Tensei regularly brought Aizawa lunches and Hizashi came over unannounced several times a month, usually to sit on Tensei’s worktable and say things like ‘You should totally build an Iron Man costume’.

“I am not building an Iron Man suit,” Tensei had laughed, sliding his goggles off his face. “Not yet, at least.”

“When will you?” Hizashi picked up a few screws, rolling them in between his fingers. “How about for a Halloween costume?”

“We’ll be the Avengers, right?” Tensei smiled. “I’m Iron Man. You’re...Uh, I think you’d actually suit Iron Man more than me.”

“No way, you’re the robot builder. Shouta’s totally the Winter Soldier.”

In his mind, he compared the way they looked and snickered out loud. They spent the next hour coming up with ridiculous ideas and plans, in case they ever did dress up as the Avengers for whatever reason.

Shouta and Hizashi became integrated into Tensei’s life and were over so often that it wasn’t long before his parents came home while they were over and offered for them to spend the night.

“I’d have to ask my mom,” Hizashi said, and Tensei’s parents nodded in understanding.

“What about your parents?” Tensei asked Aizawa, who was lingering near the door as if wishing to not be seen.

“...I’m sure they wouldn’t mind,” Aizawa said, and Tensei had to stop himself from asking ‘mind or care?’ “I don’t want to intrude, though.”

“You’re not intruding!” Tensei’s mother assured him, and Hizashi finished talking to his own mother before coming over to convince Aizawa to stay as well. After a few minutes, he reluctantly agreed, so his mother asked Tensei to show them the guest rooms.

“Wait, we’ll stay in guest rooms?” Hizashi asked as they walked upstairs, eyebrows raised. “Not in your room?”

“If you want to sleep in mine like an actual sleepover, you can,” Tensei offered. “But we only have the air mattress and that’s experiencing some...issues, after a certain incident.”

Hizashi snickered, and Tensei smiled back. After showing them the guest rooms, Tensei lead them over to his own bedroom, suddenly aware he’d never actually showed them his room. They’d always hung out in the kitchen or his workshop or in the backyard, never his room.

Pushing his door open, he hoped they wouldn’t consider it particularly tacky. Posters of his parents were tacked to the wall, sporting inspirational messages, but they were outnumbered by the sheer amount of pictures printed from the Internet and taped everywhere. Sometimes he’d be doing an image search and come across something cool and he wanted it to hang on his wall, which resulted in him needed to buy ink for the printer at least twice a month. Many of the pictures on the walls were also dogs, which Hizashi appreciated, if his smile was any indication.

Aside from wall decorations, many books were stuffed into his room, in the bookshelves and on his desk and beneath his bed. One of the books on his desk was about preserving dead things, which was an interest he’d been hoping to keep concealed for, like, ever, but it became a moot point when Aizawa picked it up to examine the cover.

“Um...” Tensei glanced around, before settling on his numerous video game consoles. “...Do you guys want to play Mario Kart?”

(This proved to be a terrible idea, because when Tensei’s mother came upstairs to tell them dinner was ready, Aizawa had thrown his controller down in a rare moment of frustration and they had proceeded to stare at each other for several long moments until Aizawa offered to pay for a new one.)

“It’s been almost a whole year,” Hizashi said one morning in February. “A whole year since we met, huh?”

“Yeah,” Tensei responded, trying not to become distracted. He’d managed to rack thousands of points on this pinball machine and wasn’t about to quit. He was a pinball wizard. “Honestly, I’m proud of you. You’ve improved from ‘screaming’ to ‘running and screaming.’”

“Dude, Shouta’s helping me punch and stuff,” Hizashi grinned, flexing his arms showily. “My technique will soon be ‘running, screaming, and punching.’”

“Good luck.” Tensei scowled as he failed to press the button on time and the ball fell back into the hole, resulting in a game over. “Fuck.”

“Language, young man,” Hizashi reprimanded jokingly, pulling out another coin and sliding it into the payment slot. Tensei nodded in appreciation, before realizing what Hizashi had said earlier and saying,

“Wait, Aizawa’s been helping you out?”

“Yeah, after school,” Hizashi said, leaning against the pinball machine, causing it to tilt. When Tensei shot a glare, he stopped leaning against it. “Why?”

“Well...I could’ve helped too, you know,” Tensei frowned, mashing the buttons repeatedly. “For how long?”

“Two or three months,” Hizashi said, suddenly sounding a bit sheepish. “I didn’t think you’d be interested...”

Tensei continued frowning as he played. Recently, Hizashi and Aizawa had been hanging out together much more than with him, so on many days even when he was free and didn’t have to look after Tenya, they’d already made plans without him. He knew he probably shouldn’t feel upset because it’s not like they were obligated to spend time with him, but it kind of hurt.

“You alright?” Hizashi asked when Tensei was quiet even after losing again.

“Yeah. Don’t worry about it,” Tensei said, straightening up. “Want to get pizza?”

“I can’t, I’ve got to go shopping with my mom,” Hizashi said, and Tensei sighed.

Later that night, he laid down on the living room floor while Tenya rolled around and climbed on top of him, apparently finding it highly entertaining to treat his brother like a mountain. Tensei didn’t mind though. How could he when his brother was literally the cutest thing in the world?

“I dunno, Tenya. Do I sound petty?” Tensei asked, staring up at the ceiling. He’d said all of his worries and feelings aloud to Tenya, but it’s not like Tenya could actually answer. It helped Tensei let off steam, though, and it was a lot better than ranting to the detached robot head that’s been sitting on his toolbox for the past month. “I think I’m being petty, but I don’t know. I just kinda wish Aizawa would stop saying ‘yes’ whenever Hizashi asks him if they can hang out.”

Tenya laid his head against Tensei’s stomach and proceeded to somersault onto his chest, effectively knocking the breath out of him.

“You’ve killed me,” Tensei gasped dramatically, and Tenya started to cry. “Wait, no, not really--”

“Hey, Aizawa--”

“Shouta.”

“...What?”

He bristled visibly, but said it again anyways. “I said you can call me Shouta.”

Tensei blinked, having been completely unprepared for that. “Really?”

“Sure,” the other boy said, tapping his fingers on top of the table. “Why not? It’s been almost a  year.”

“Ha. Yeah, it has.”

It was the beginning of break, the interval between their first and second year. They were sitting in an ice cream parlor, waiting for Hizashi to return from the bathroom so they could actually order. Tensei had justed wanted to ask what Shouta was doing this summer, only to be faced with that.

Shouta.

The name sounded weird in his mind, even if he heard Hizashi say it about a hundred times a day. He was just so used to saying ‘Aizawa’ that he’d never really thought about being able to call Shouta his given name until now.

Hizashi reappeared as they descended further into awkward silence, slamming his hands on the table with a loud, “We have to eat the giant brownie fudge ice cream sundae. We have to. All of us. We’re going to share.”

“I don’t like chocolate, remember?” Shouta said, and Hizashi gasped dramatically.

“You monster,” he accused, looking thoroughly scandalized.

“Why don’t we compromise so he can pick the ice cream?” Tensei offered, but this went ignored as Hizashi continued speaking.

“You’re weird, man,” he said, poking Shouta’s cheek. Shouta swatted his hand away as Hizashi used his other one to pick up the menu, listing all the things they could share out loud.

“Parfait?”

“No.”

“Cookie sundae?”

“No.”

Hizashi hesitated, before asking, “...Milkshake?”

“Definitely not. I’m not coming into your yard.”

Hizashi burst into laughter and Tensei chuckled as well.

“Come onnnn, we gotta share somethiiiing,” Hizashi said, nudging Shouta with his elbow. “You pick.”

“Do I have to?”

“Yeah!”

Shouta looked over the menu, scanning everything, before closing it. “Ice cream cake. Strawberry.”

Tensei checked it out on his menu and saw that, pitifully, it could really only serve two people. He wondered if they had forgotten he was there. Hell, even the way they were sitting left him feeling left out--usually Hizashi’s legs were bumping into his as he flailed about everywhere, but with Hizashi so focused on Shouta his legs were no doubt bumping into his instead. And was it him, or was Hizashi touching Shouta a lot more?

The waiter came over to get their order, and Hizashi ordered a strawberry ice cream cake for he and Shouta, and Tensei just ordered a malted milkshake.

With Tensei’s house being so huge and his family rich, he’s never actually been to either Hizashi’s or Shouta’s, the both of them always preferring to hang out at his place--so it comes as a shock when he’s texting Hizashi one night only to learn that Shouta was over at his house.

Tensei: wait he actually comes to your house??

Hizashi: yeah lol

Hizashi: we’re watching kung fury its great

Hizashi: we’re at the part where he’s w/ the viking dinosaurs

Tensei: a masterpiece of a film

Tensei: wish i was watching it.

Hizashi: its on youtube

Tensei: i know

Hizashi: oh

Tensei: you know what forget about it i totally forgot you even had a house

Hizashi: whaaaaat

Hizashi: how

Tensei: you come over to mine so much it failed to connect in my head that you actually lived somewhere else that wasn’t my living room

Hizashi: ok thats fair

Tensei: so what else have you guys been doing

Tensei didn’t receive a response, so he could only hope they weren’t killing each other or anything like that. He turned to look at Tenya, who was watching him with wide eyes.

“You wanna watch a movie?” Tensei asked. Tenya stared, before nodding aggressively. Smiling, Tensei scooped him up and put on Mulan.

Even days after the conversation, it still kind of bugged Tensei that he’d never actually been over to Hizashi’s house, or Shouta’s. He guessed it made sense that they’d prefer his house over their own, but the fact that they apparently visited each other's’ houses frequently was starting to make something nasty stir in his stomach, something he soon realized to be jealousy.

It was starting to show in his projects, so everything he made came out horrible because he was having stupid and petty thoughts that mostly involved him wondering if there was any way he could tell them ‘Not to be rude but can I be fucking included too thanks.’

Cringing at his own line of thought, Tensei pushed the scraps of metal away from him and began to berate himself, thunking his screwdriver against the side of his head.

“I am a horrible, horrible person.” He said to nobody in particular. “Trash, garbage, unburnable trash with--”

“You okay, kiddo?” A voice interrupted him, and Tensei startled in his seat. His mother was standing in the doorway, looking a little amused.

“I’m fine,” Tensei lied, brushing his hair out of his face and smiling. “Just thinking.”

“You sure you’re fine?” His mother asked knowingly, leaning against the doorframe with her arms crossed. “You’ve been locking yourself in here for days. Yamada and Aizawa haven’t been over in a while.”

“...I don’t want them over,” Tensei said, knowing that if he did invite them over they’d manage to find something to do on their own even though he was the one who asked them all to hang out together. His mother pursed her lips, but didn’t pursue the subject, instead leaving him alone to stare at his failed project, all motivation to actually do anything leaving him.

Sometime in June, Hizashi and Shouta started dating.

It came as both a shock and a no-brainer, because Hizashi stared after Shouta long after he’d left and Shouta stuck close to Hizashi whenever they were out in public, but also they’d been dancing around each other for a while now with neither really making a move until recently.

Tensei was happy, at first. Just seeing Hizashi’s ecstatic expression whenever he asked Shouta if he wanted to go out on a date made him feel glad for them, and he wholeheartedly supported their relationship, which he told them when they announced it.

“We’re kinda dating. Totally dating, 100%,” Hizashi had said. Tensei’s face had broken out into a grin so wide his face started to hurt, and had responded,

“That’s great, guys, wow!”

“You’re cool with it?” Shouta asked, and Tensei had nodded.

“Yeah, I support you guys no matter what.”

Hizashi jumped forward to hug Tensei, nearly breaking his ribcage. Hizashi may have skinny noodle arms, but they could be strong when they wanted to.

The thing was, though, if Hizashi and Shouta had spent time with each other a lot without Tensei before, Tensei was practically non-existent to them now. Sure, they still talked during lunch, but even then they were usually talking to one another and sometimes sneaking off to make out in the bathroom. And forget hanging out after school. The last three times Tensei had asked Hizashi if he wanted to hang out he’d been blown off in favor of going on a date with Shouta or helping Shouta with his homework.

Tensei was sitting by himself during lunch for the fourth day in a row when the spot across from him was suddenly taken by a third-year, who he vaguely recognized because she had won second place in the third-years’ sports festival, though her name escaped his mind.

“Afternoon,” she greeted, leaning forward to take his pudding cup. Tensei stared. “What? I’m hungry.”

“Do you need something?” Tensei asked, hoping he didn’t come off as rude.

“Iida, isn’t it?” The girl asked, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “I think we share some common ground. I’m Kayama.”

“What common ground?”

“In which our best friend has left us behind in the dirt for the other’s best friend,” Kayama said,  swiping his spoon from his tray and beginning to eat generous spoonfuls of pudding. Tensei frowned, deciphering her words, before nodding. He didn’t even know Shouta had friends outside of him and Hizashi, but then again, Kayama was a third-year, so it was unlikely they’d know her in the first place.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for them, but I haven’t gotten to ruffle his hair in forever.” Kayama frowned. “Kid’s getting it on with some blond twink and not even inviting me to join.”

Tensei didn’t know if he should laugh because Kayama just called Hizashi a twink or cringe at thought of two people macking on Hizashi at once. He resorted to taking an unnecessarily large bite out of his apple and almost choking.

Kayama filled Hizashi and Shouta’s place during that lunch with numerous jokes and stories, and slinked away right before the bell with a flirty grin that had Tensei’s face heating up. No. He was not going to get the hots for Shouta’s best friend.

(Though that would be a good sort of revenge, the petty part of him thought.)

Kayama sat with him for several weeks after that, promptly surprising Shouta when he and Hizashi actually came to lunch one day. Kayama had given him a shit-eating grin and declared Tensei her new best friend, throwing her arms around his neck and ruffling Tensei’s hair with extreme force. Shouta remained mostly impassive, though his lips were downturned slightly in a small scowl. The monstrous creature that was made up of jealousy and pettiness roared at Shouta from inside his head and Tensei had to smack himself and scream internally that he was being a total douchebag.

It’s not like Tensei doesn’t like Shouta. He likes Shouta well enough, but he doesn’t know him like he knows Hizashi, despite having known them both for about the same amount of time. He just feels a bit miffed by the fact that Hizashi keeps declining Tensei’s offers to hang out so he could be with Shouta even though they were beside each other all the time.

Of course, there was a snide voice inside Tensei’s head telling him that there might be a different reason for not liking Shouta so much, one that’s been plaguing him for a while now--that tiny, tiny part of his brain that was telling him he liked Hizashi as more than a friend and was jealous of Shouta because Shouta was actually together with him.

That’s stupid, Tensei had tried arguing with himself. Hizashi’s just my friend. I don’t want to like, date him or anything.

Or maybe he did. He didn’t know. The more he thought about it, the more he came to realize it. He wanted Hizashi over a lot and he wasn’t really fond of the idea of other people being together with Hizashi, Shouta excluded because Shouta actually managed to make Hizashi happy and when Hizashi was happy Tensei was--

Oh.

Oh, fuck.

He was having an internal crisis over these thoughts while doing his homework when his dad knocked on his door, looking determined.

“You’ve been holed up in here for awhile,” he said, moving to sit on the edge of Tensei’s bed with a grunt. “Something you want to tell me?”

Tensei hesitated, wondering if he should tell him. He didn’t want to sound childish or like he was whining, but this was third time one of his parents had asked him if something was wrong, so he knew his current dilemma must be apparent to everybody else in the house. Even Tenya had tried comforting him by leaving toy cars outside his door like some kind of peace offering.

(It’s cute, but Tensei stepped on one on the way to the bathroom and had yelled so loudly his mother downstairs had dropped her coffee.)

As his father continued fixing him with a stare, though, Tensei decided that there wasn’t any more harm that could be done by talking about it. He’d tell his father some of it, but not all of it.

“It’s Shouta and Hizashi. My friends.” Tensei leaned back in his chair, brushing his hair out of his eyes and blinking blearily. “They’re...Well, they’re dating now, so they keep blowing me off in favor of hanging out with each other, and I’m trying not to get mad about it but...I don’t know. Maybe I’m just being stupid.”

“It’s normal to feel like that,” his dad offered placatingly, a knowing look in his eyes. “You’re not being stupid. Sometimes when someone you like hangs out with someone you don’t like, you feel that way.”

“It’s not like I dislike Shouta!” Tensei countered defensively. “It’s just. I don’t know. I feel left out.”

“Well, they’re not obliged to hang out with you, you must realize that. But if it bothers you this much, try talking to them about it.” His father stood up, placing a hand on Tensei’s shoulder. “And don’t feel like you’re betraying them or anything by making other friends. You’re free to do that, too.”

The next day at school, while Kayama put Shouta in a headlock and rubbed her knuckles against his skull, Tensei considered talking to Hizashi about it, before in the end deciding against it. He didn’t want to sound clingy, and if there was any chance their friendship could be ruined by this, he’d keep these thoughts to himself.

Shouta: hey

Shouta: can i come over

Tensei blinked at his phone, wondering if Hizashi had stolen it and changed all his contacts to ‘Shouta’, because Shouta hardly ever texted him, and has not once ever asked if he could come over, always just following Hizashi. Picking up his phone to text back, he saw that Shouta was still typing and decided to wait a second to see what he would say.

Shouta: i’m sorry if this is abrupt but is it okay if i spend the night

Shouta: i’m sorry

Shouta: if not that’s fine

Tensei: why not hizashi’s house?

Shouta: my parents came home 2 days early.

Tensei: ???

Shouta: um. they walked in on me and hizashi.

Tensei: were

Tensei: were you guys,,,,doing anything

Shouta: nothing dirtier than kissing get your mind out of the gutter i see nemuri has already influenced you

Tensei: it was a logical assumption dude but what happened

Shouta: hizashi left and then they kicked me out.

Tensei: what?????

Tensei: dude are you okay?????????

Shouta: i don’t want to tell hizashi because he’s going to be stupid and think it’s his fault.

Tensei: yeah you can come over i need to explain this to my parents though

Shouta: okay.

Shouta: thank you.

Tensei explained to them the whole situation and his father began to cook dinner immediately, despite it being only five in the afternoon. He helped his mother set up the guest bedroom while Tenya waddled around and tugged at the bedsheets as if he was actually helping out.

When Shouta arrived, he stood by the doorway awkwardly, staring at the ground as his dad greeted him and asked if everything was alright. Shouta responded only by nodding or shaking his head or shrugging his shoulders, and when Tensei’s father left Shouta alone to go set the table Tensei approached him.

“Dude, it’s fine, they’re not going to bite you.” Tensei patted Shouta on his back, wondering if there was anything he could say that would comfort him, but he wasn’t exactly sure. “Dinner’s in five minutes. My dad made enough for everybody.”

“...Thank you,” Shouta said quietly, and Tensei smiled.

Dinner was never exactly a quiet affair. They were always talking and they rotated between feeding Tenya every day, and today it was Tensei’s turn, so he was often distracted by trying to get Tenya to not dump his bowl of spaghetti on his head. His parents asked Shouta tons of questions about hero training and school, which Shouta responded to in short sentences, often too quiet for Tensei to even hear. His parents never asked him to repeat anything, though, so for that he was glad.

After dinner, Shouta offered to help clean up, but Tensei’s mother patted his cheek and assured him it was fine. Tensei lead Shouta upstairs with Tenya in his arms, intent on finding Shouta something to wear to bed. Handing his brother to Shouta, Tensei dug around in his closet before pulling out an old shirt he hasn’t worn in a while. It wasn’t terrible, a simplistic design of Batman on it, though it was rather large so Shouta would no doubt look like he was swimming in it.

“I think it’s big enough that you don’t need shorts, but I can find you some if you want,” Tensei said as he set the shirt aside, bending down to search through his drawers, but Shouta said “It’s fine” and Tensei straightened back up.

Tenya had taken to pulling at Shouta’s hair so Tensei rescued him from inevitable hair loss by taking Tenya back into his arms, apologizing as he did so. Shouta disappeared off into the guest room after that, but Tensei couldn’t be upset by it. He’d been kicked out of his house and obviously didn’t want to talk.

“I wish there was something I could say, though,” Tensei told Tenya as he changed him into his pajamas. “I don’t really know how, though. Our parents aren’t like that, and I only know how people deal with these things from, like, TV.”

Tenya only stared at him unblinkingly, so Tensei just sighed and picked him up to put him to bed. He really needed to stop relaying all his problems to Tenya, because with his luck, Tenya was going to remember all of this in ten years and use it against him.

In the morning his mother made them breakfast, which Shouta and Tensei ate at the breakfast table while Tenya ran around beneath the table, tugging at their pants and shrieking.

“He’s usually not this rowdy,” Tensei apologized as he spread butter on his toast, watching Shouta pick at his rice. “It’s probably because we have you over, he gets super excited--”

“It’s fine,” Shouta said, looking up at him. Tensei nodded, and hesitated, before asking,

“Do you need to stay the night again?”

“I can ask Hizashi. I don’t want to bother you.”

“But you want to bother Hizashi?”

Shouta glared. “I know Hizashi better.”

Well, Tensei couldn’t deny that.

They finished breakfast and Tensei gathered his stuff for school, offering Shouta a spare notebook since his stuff was at his house. At the door, Tensei’s mother stopped Shouta by placing a hand on his shoulder and fixing him with a kind smile.

“You’re always welcome here, Shouta,” she said, before pulling him into a hug. Tensei didn’t miss the way Shouta stiffened slightly, but she soon released him a moment later, and they walked to school together.

On their way they met Kayama, who was furious.

“What do you mean your parents kicked you out?!” She seethed, fists clenching as she stomped beside them angrily. “I’ll go to your house and shove my heels so far up their asses they’ll be screaming soprano for the rest of their lives.”

“Don’t,” Shouta said, though there was a slight tinge of amusement in his voice. “It’s fine.”

“Does Hizashi know?”

“Not yet.”

“He’s staying at my place,” Tensei said, and Kayama nodded approvingly. At that moment Hizashi caught up with them, laughing and out of breath.

“Guys,” he said, leaning against Tensei for support and fixing them all with a wild stare. “Holy shit, you won’t believe what just happened to Kan--”

The rest of the day continued quite normally, and during lunch Hizashi and Shouta sat with Tensei and Kayama, who didn’t mention Shouta being kicked out and Shouta never brought it up. They’d all seemed to have reached a silent agreement to not tell Hizashi yet.

Shouta didn’t go home with him, so Tensei assumed he had told Hizashi and he’d be spending the night over at his place. Since he didn’t have anything to do today, he changed when he got home and sat in his workshop for a while, working carefully on wiring everything correctly inside his new project. He’d gotten a fair amount of grease all over his face and clothes, though, and knew he would be in desperate need of a shower by the time this was done.

Tensei was carefully placing a data chip when he felt a sudden tug at his leg and nearly had a heart attack, dropping his tools onto the table and sliding back in his chair to see what the hell was attacking him. To his surprise it was Tenya, even though he was sure he had closed the door so he wouldn’t wander in here. Turning to see if he’d left it open, he was surprised to see Shouta standing in the doorway with an overnight bag.

“I broke into my house and got my clothes and stuff,” he said when Tensei continued staring. Shouta seemed to be focused on looking at anything that wasn’t Tensei, and he was suddenly painfully aware that this shirt was a bit too small and clung to him everywhere. The grease probably wasn’t helping. Fighting back his blush, he said,

“Broke into your own house?”

“Well, they locked me out, you see,” Shouta deadpanned, and his eyes found Tensei’s.

“Yeah...Sorry about that, really.”

“I don’t know why you’re apologizing.” Shouta shrugged. “You’re not my parents.”

There was a long moment of silence, broken only by his brother’s occasional gurgles.

“Uh, can you take him?” Tensei asked, gesturing to Tenya. “My hands are dirty, so...”

Shouta set his bag down and crossed the room to pick Tenya up carefully, and Tensei smiled appreciatively. Now that Shouta was here, he felt it would be rude to just continue working on something while Shouta sat around, so Tensei stood up and told Shouta he was going to hop in the shower and when he got out they could do something like play some video games.

“What’d you tell Hizashi?” Tensei asked half an hour later, turning on Mortal Kombat and handing Shouta a controller.

“That my house has a gas leak and my parents don’t want me at his house because they’ll think it’s inappropriate.” The startup screen appeared, and Shouta pressed ‘A’ before Tensei could, making him player one. “So that’s why I’m staying here.”

“Are you ever going to tell him why you’re really here?...” Tensei selected Kenshi as his player, watching Shouta look over the roster of characters.

“Yeah. Eventually.” Shouta went back and forth between Scorpion and Kitana before eventually selecting the latter. “He knows my parents are utter douchebags, so I don’t have to ease him into that conversation.”

“I’m sorry,” Tensei said, not quite sure how to respond. The match started and he used his favorite combo right off the bat, but Shouta dodged and managed to land a couple of hits on him before he could land some back. “...How bad are they, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“They don’t particularly care about me.” Shouta was kicking his ass, but Tensei could blame it on the fact they were talking and Tensei wasn’t really paying attention. “They leave me alone for months on end and send money sometimes so I don’t starve to death. I don’t even really consider them both my parents. She’s not my real mom, and my dad always seems to come back with new girls, but this one’s been around for about a year now.”

“Where’s your real mom?”

“Dead.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Stop apologizing.”

“Sor--I mean. Yeah.”

Tensei tried using his X-ray attack on Shouta, but it didn’t completely deplete Shouta’s health bar and Tensei still lost the round anyways.

“Your family is kind of weird to me.” Shouta said after a while.

“Why? Because we’re rich or because both my parents are around?”

“Both. I’m just...You’re all so involved with one another.”

“That’s fair, I guess.” Tensei had to bite his lip to keep himself from cussing out Shouta’s parents. He honestly couldn’t imagine living by himself for so long right now, juggling high school and hero training, and a small voice inside his head told him that was likely the reason Shouta never brought lunches, not having enough money to buy any.

“I like your family, though.”

Tensei smiled, using his favorite combo once again and actually being successful. “Everybody’s weak for Tenya.”

“Your parents, too. They’re nice.”

Tensei managed to drive Shouta into the corner, taking off most of his health, but Shouta jumped over his head and use his own X-ray attack, leaving Tensei on the brink of death. “Please don’t use your Fatality. It’s brutal.”

Shouta used his Fatality, and Kitana proceeded to split Kenshi’s head in three pieces.

Tensei accepted losing gracefully and started a new game. It was the weekend, so he didn’t need to worry about going to bed for awhile. They kept track of who won and who lost--Shouta won seven games while Tensei won four, and when they finally got sick of all the blood, Tensei offered popcorn and said they could watch a movie, but Shouta said he was tired and disappeared into the guest bedroom.

The next morning, Hizashi arrived to hang out, and though Tensei was glad he’d shown up, a part of him knew it was only because Shouta was staying over. It was still fun, though, because they all made cookies which mostly involved Tensei doing the actual baking while Hizashi ate the cookie dough out of the bowl and Shouta played with Tenya.

“Don’t eat so much, you can get sick from that,” Tensei told him off, shaking the baking spoon in Hizashi’s face.

“And it’ll be totally worth it,” Hizashi grinned, sucking at his dough-coated fingers and giving Shouta a lecherous grin.

“Really? Right in front of Tenya?” Tensei wrinkled his nose at Hizashi’s lewd action and tried not to think about the fact that he’d kind of thought it was hot. “Seriously?”

Tenya wasn’t even paying attention, too busy trying to stand his figurines on top of his blocks, but Tensei still didn’t want him to do it again for multiple reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with Tensei focusing too much on the way Hizashi’s tongue had rolled over his fingertips.

Fuck.

Shouta stayed at Tensei’s house for a couple more days before telling Hizashi about his parents, so now Shouta was staying over at his house. Hizashi had been as angry as Kayama had been, stalking over to Tensei’s house first to angrily ask why Tensei didn’t tell him the real reason and then hit the punching bag in the workout room because he was angry.

“You okay?” Tensei asked, arching an eyebrow as he watched Hizashi’s knuckles hit the bag and redden even more. It’s not like he’s never seen Hizashi punch before, but this is the first time he’s seen him punch with so much anger.

“No,” Hizashi spat, shaking his hand out before punching again. “I want to kick their asses.”

“Join the club,” Tensei snorted, bending down to pick up his water bottle and offering it to his friend. Hizashi pressed it to his hand, wincing as it made contact with his split knuckles. “I’m sure Kayama’s been planning a revenge plot since August.”

“Excellent.” Hizashi tugged at his shirt, panting, before turning to Tensei. “Want to get lunch?”

“Not hungry,” Tensei said, keeping his eyes on the ground so he couldn’t make eye contact with Hizashi. It felt weird and wrong to look at Hizashi recently, like he was somehow betraying Shouta if he did so, even though he knew that was ridiculous.

“Oh,” Hizashi said, sounding disappointed. “Alright. Want to do something else?”

“I’ve got to take Tenya to his dentist appointment,” Tensei sighed, glad he at least wasn’t lying and he really did have to take Tenya to get his teeth checked. Hizashi nodded and left shortly after.

Tensei’s always been good at coordinating team attacks and working in groups, so later that evening when he and a group of strangers on the street were attacked by two villains with Tenya tight in his arms, he shouted directions at those who hadn’t run away about what to do. The villains were tall and hulking, upper bodies buff as can be, so it would be best to attack their small, thin legs and knock them over.

Part of Tensei wanted to set Tenya down and rush forward to help out, but he couldn’t risk Tenya getting hurt. Tenya was mimicking Tensei and shouting at the others too, but it came as garbled baby language.

He had finally decided to set Tenya down in an alley off to the side and was going to do so when he heard ‘cover your ears!’ and knew instantly what was about to happen. Cradling Tenya to his chest and covering his ears with his hands, Tensei’s head spun as he was forced to listen to Hizashi’s attack, which caused the villains to stumble and one to shriek confusedly. A hero on duty rushed in to help and Hizashi yelled once again, Tensei tightening his hands around Tenya’s head and ducking his own head to muffle the sound between his shoulders as best as he could.

The villains were soon apprehended, but Tensei could barely stand, feeling sick because his head felt like it was being split open and there was liquid coming out of his hears and it was probably his own melted brain. Tenya at least didn’t seem to be hurting and had only started crying when Tensei had tilted his head to the side and blood had dripped out of his ears.

“Hey, Tenya,” Tensei mumbled, but his words weren’t even coherent to him because of the ringing in his ears. “You okay? You hurt?”

A hand was placed on his shoulder--a stranger whose face he couldn’t make out, an elderly woman, but she was soon replaced by Shouta, who bent down to pick up Tenya while another pair of hands helped Tensei stand up.

“It’s alright, it’ll clear away in a minute,” Hizashi’s voice was way too loud and Tensei winced, raising a hand up to his ears to see how much blood was coming out. He’s always covered his ears whenever Hizashi used his Quirk, and at school during training he usually had his speaker to help direct and control his sound output, so Tensei’s never been exposed to the full force of Hizashi’s Quirk until now.

They brought him to a tiny, quiet cafe where he rested his head on top of the table for a few moments, wishing the ringing in his ears would go away. Hizashi looked guilty and rubbed Tensei’s back, ordering him some tea. Across from them, Tenya sat in Shouta’s lap, thankfully silent.

“Sorry,” Hizashi apologized repeatedly, and Tensei just shook his head, though this was more to clear it than anything else. He still had a good half hour until Tenya’s appointment, so he could spare a couple of minutes recovering from the earsplitting shriek Hizashi had let out.

“It’s fine. You were working to help people out.” Tensei rubbed at his head, and this seemed to help a bit, but not much. He’s taken back everything he’s ever said whenever he makes fun of Hizashi’s Quirk. It was lethal as fuck.

“Yeah, but I should’ve been more considerate about the surrounding area,” Hizashi said, and Shouta hummed in agreement. Tenya noticed that they were all starting to talk again, and slammed his hands on the table, gurgling.

“We can take him to the dentist, if you need us to,” Hizashi offered, and Tenya shook his head.

“It’s alright, I got it.”

“Do you really?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, have you been okay recently? You seem to be kind of...Avoiding us.”

Well, he was actually avoiding Hizashi, but small details.

Tensei just shrugged in response to his question and said, “I’m okay man, really.”

Hizashi looked slightly doubtful, and Shouta suddenly kicked Tensei’s shin. Gasping with tears brimming in his eyes, Tensei bit his lip to prevent himself from swearing in front of his brother.

“Sorry, I was aiming for Hizashi.”

“Why were you trying to kick me?!” Hizashi spluttered, drawing his legs up onto the booth to protect himself. The two bickered back and forth for a little bit, and with twenty minutes left until Tenya’s appointment, Tensei got to his feet and paid for the tea Hizashi had ordered for him.

“I’ve got to get going,” Tensei said, taking Tenya from Shouta’s lap, and to his surprise they followed.

The dentist’s office had a little section for kids to play in, but considering he was only barely on time there wasn’t any sense in setting Tenya down. He had to be present in the room with Tenya, so he left Hizashi and Shouta behind to sit with his brother.

His teeth were all coming in fine and his general oral hygiene was excellent, so the appointment was short. Tensei stepped away to call his mother, asking when he should schedule Tenya’s next appointment, and when all was done he came back out with Tenya following behind him. Hizashi and Shouta were seated next to one another, Hizashi with a coloring book in his lap. He’d colored Doraemon, though due to apparent lack of a blue crayon had colored him purple instead.

“I’m assuming you want to drag me out to do something,” Tensei said, and Hizashi nodded.

“Out to dinner?” He suggested, and Tensei supposed there was no harm in doing so. There can be no weird staring going on if they’re all just eating, right?

They ate at a local restaurant, Tenya seated in a high chair and eating fries while they ate hamburgers and pizza. The conversation had started off simple, but had soon descended into utter hell.

“I’d punch a Nazi,” Hizashi was saying.

“Who wouldn’t?” Tensei had peeled off all the pepperoni so he could eat the pizza first, saving the pepperoni for last. “But the question is, what about Nazi dinosaurs?”

“Those don’t exist.” Shouta turned to Tenya, sliding a small cup of ketchup close to him. “What about Batman?”

“Batman doesn’t exist either!”

“I’d punch Batman,” Hizashi said vehemently. “Hell, I’d punch him twice.”

“Weak.”

“Three times.”

“Better.”

They laughed, and Tensei started eating his pepperoni, giving some to Tenya when he made grabby hands. Hizashi and Shouta were sitting next to each other, but Hizashi’s legs kept brushing up against his and occasionally he’d feel Shouta’s foot nudging his own. It was a small thing, but it kind of made him feel involved with the both of them at the same time for once.

Sitting in the booth long after they had finished eating, Tensei and Hizashi were currently needling Shouta, asking what he wanted for his seventeenth birthday.

“I can buy you a computer,” Tensei offered, knowing his parents would be more than happy to get Shouta anything he wanted.

“No.”

“Car?”

“I don’t want it to be expensive,” Shouta sighed. “Just. I don’t know. Don’t get me anything.”

“But I haaaaaave to get you something!” Hizashi exclaimed, shaking his shoulder. “I’d be a terrible boyfriend if I didn’t get you anything!”

“I wouldn’t measure our relationship by materialistic value.”

“Well, that’s you guys’s relationship, but considering I’m not a part of it, I’m totally buying you a gift.” Tensei leaned forward, making direct eye contact with Shouta. “So. What do you want?”

“Nothing.”

Tensei threw his hands up in the air. “I give up. I’ll figure it out myself.”

Tenya, mimicking Tensei, threw his hands up in the air as well.

“Happy birthday!”

Shouta stared down at the gift Tensei had gotten him, surprise evident on his features. After a while of silence, he looked up to state, “You got me a cat.”

“Yes. I did.”

“An actual live cat.”

“Would you prefer a dead one?”

“No.” Shouta crouched down, laying his palm on top of its head. The cat nuzzled against him, purring, and Shouta smiled, though it quickly disappeared. “I can’t keep it.”

“What?! Why?!” Tensei exclaimed, the pride he’d been feeling vanishing.

“Hizashi’s dad is allergic to cats.”

Tensei kicked himself mentally. He should’ve asked Hizashi about it, god damn it. “Can’t it stay at your house? Aren’t your parents out of town right now?”

“I’m not leaving it there by itself.” Shouta shook his head, and Tensei realized he looked kind of sad. “I can’t take it in.”

They were silent for several minutes as the cat nuzzled and pressed itself against Shouta, meowing. It was tiny and a bluish-gray color, and Tensei hadn’t named it yet so Shouta could, but with that slowly coming to a halt, he supposed it would never actually get a name. Suddenly though, an idea popped into his head, and it sounded extremely stupid, but what if--

“What if I kept it here and you can come over to visit?”

Shouta looked up at him with an unreadable expression on his face, eyebrows drawn together and mouth pressed flat. Tensei stood there, already regretting the idea, but to his surprise, Shouta looked back down at the cat and uttered a soft ‘okay.’

“Great!” Tensei cheered, getting down on his knees so he could pet the cat as well. “You can name it too, I haven't named it yet.”

Shouta was silent as he picked up the cat. The cat wriggled around in his arms for a few moments before settling contently, and Shouta scratched it between its ears. They sat while Shouta thought about it, and Tensei was about to start suggesting a few names when Shouta looked at him to say,

“Neptune.”

“What?”

“Neptune.” Shouta repeated, louder this time. Tensei smiled and said,

“Neptune it is.”

Shouta stayed over for a little more, petting Neptune while Tenya tugged at his hair from behind. Tensei considered asking if he wanted to stay for dinner, but as soon as the thought crossed his mind he shook it away. Nah, Shouta didn’t like staying unless he absolutely had to.

Shouta left shortly thereafter, setting Neptune down gently and stepping outside while Tenya chased after him, still wanting to mess with his hair. Tensei kept the door open only a couple of inches, pressing himself close so the cat or Tenya couldn’t run outside.

“You can come over whenever, just text me,” Tensei said. “I hope your parents let you back in, too.”

“I doubt that will happen any time soon, but thanks,” Shouta snorted, turning to walk away. However, at the edge of the porch he turned around to look at Tensei again, a rare smile on his face. “...Thanks.”

Tensei felt heat rush to his face, and he swallowed heavily before managing a “You’re welcome.”

He didn’t leave the door open long after that, shutting it with a snap while he tried to calm himself, already feeling a crisis overcoming him.

“Oh fuck,” he said out loud, and Neptune brushed up against his legs as if to rub it in his face.

Tensei didn’t just like Hizashi. He liked Shouta, too.

Chapter Text

The sudden realization of the fact that Tensei very much liked both of his friends brought forth waves and waves of panic that he dealt with by playing at least thirty rounds of SpeedRunners with an entire box of crackers in his lap. Video games were probably not the greatest option, but it was a lot better than ranting to poor, poor Tenya for the 100th time.

When he was finally on the verge of passing out around five in the morning, the last thought on his mind was that hopefully he would wake up with amnesia and forget about everything but his own family.

Why did this have to happen to him?! Why couldn’t he have liked someone else, like that cute girl that sat next to him and asked for a pencil on the first day of school, or the tall one from New Zealand that didn’t speak very good Japanese but was still pretty nice.

Despite trying to think of virtually any other person he could have a crush on, Neptune served as a reminder of his newfound feelings, curling up next to him and sometimes looking at him like Yeah, you just bought him an entire cat, you’re totally gay.

On Monday, Tensei slapped himself three times, repeating in his head that he needed to stop and not make eye contact with either Shouta or Hizashi so they can’t tell that he likes the both of them. That should work, right? Then he should be able to avoid them!

Only, it didn’t work. At all.

The first thing Hizashi did when he saw Tensei was approach him and practically hang off his arm, bemoaning the fact that Shouta couldn’t keep Neptune over at his house. He clung close as he stretched his words dramatically, and Tensei found himself shaking out of Hizashi’s grip with a forced laugh. Why did Hizashi have to be such a physically affectionate person? And how did he find Tensei so fast?! He’d taken a different route to school today!

Shouta soon joined them, mumbling something quietly, and Hizashi responded way too loudly, sliding off of Tensei’s arm to bug his boyfriend instead. Tensei picked up his pace, hoping they wouldn’t notice the fact that he was leaving them behind.

Thankfully, they didn’t.

Sitting in class seemed to be a new fresh hell. Tensei sat in the middle row, positioned so he could just barely see Shouta and Hizashi out of the corner of his eye. Too often he found his head turning a little so he could glance at them better, and saw that Hizashi had pushed their desks a little closer together. His stomach plummeted, and he jerked his head away.

He was being stupid! Dumb, stupid, and he needed to stop right now, because normal people don’t think this about their friends or their friends’ boyfriends.

During lunch, Hizashi and Shouta ate with Tensei while Kayama fawned over the fact that Tensei had gotten Shouta a cat.

“That’s adorable!” She squealed, placing her hands on her cheeks and grinning. “What’re you gonna get him for Christmas?! What’re you gonna get me for Christmas?!”

“And me?!” Hizashi chimed in eagerly.

“You get a Christmas card,” Tensei responded, focusing more on Kayama than the others.

“Dude, just a Christmas card? Laaaaame.”

“It’s gonna have Tenya on it.”

“I take it back. Best. Christmas. Gift. Ever. ”

“I wanna meet Tenya one day!” Kayama said, balancing her chin on her fist and pushing her food around with her fork. “You’ll let me come over one day, won’t you?”

“Sure,” Tensei said, and he heard Shouta cough, but didn’t look over at him. If he couldn’t just outright avoid them, not looking at them was the best route.

Nothing was ever easy, though.

December crawled closer and Tensei found it increasingly difficult to avoid Hizashi and Shouta, since they were now actively trying to hang out with him again, which was precisely what he didn’t want. He couldn’t stop his eyes from flitting over to look at Shouta, from taking in every inch of Hizashi as he talked enthusiastically about whatever held his interest at the time.

It got to the point where he began denying every single offer to hang out with some excuse about needing to take care of Tenya, which they bought the first couple of times, but once he’d denied invitation the fifth time in a row, they began to complain.

“Duuuuude, but you’ve been taking care of him so much! Can’t you ask your parents to do it for you?!” Hizashi cried, and Tensei kept his eyes focused on the ground.

“No, they’re super busy with hero work and stuff.”

“Aren’t you rich? Can’t you hire a babysitter?”

Tensei took this time to look offended. “Are you suggesting I leave my beloved baby brother in a complete stranger’s care?”

He narrowly managed to escape them that time, and spent the whole afternoon watching TV with Tenya while his parents moved around in the background and spoke in hushed voices. He knew they were talking about him (they’d been doing that a lot recently) but paid them no mind, just in case he overheard something that would upset him somehow.

While he could manage to avoid them after school, avoiding them in school was next to impossible. He had nowhere to go, not when they were often paired up for assignments and hero exercises. He managed to convince himself that it was just schoolwork, and if he valued their friendship as much as he thought he did, he’d be able to squash his feelings while they did it.

Just before November ended, Hizashi came to school beaming, and it took Tensei all but five seconds to figure out why. The other’s ears were pierced, something he’d been dying to do ever since he was twelve.

“My mom finally said yes!” He announced, bringing his hand up to fiddle with the piercing in his left ear. “They’re just like, normal lobe piercings for now, but I can get different ones on my next birthday! I was thinking, like, an industrial piercing, maybe? Or I might get spider bites--”

“I literally have no idea what you’re talking about,” Tensei responded, pausing to take in the new additions. They were round and about the size of a dime, yellow with smiley faces on each one. They looked kind of stupid, but they worked well on Hizashi, who had a bright look on his face to match his piercings.

“What do you think of them?” Hizashi asked, tugging at his lobe with his fingers. “Not too cheesy, right?”

“Oh, they’re definitely cheesy,” Tensei laughed, before leaning over to gently touch the other’s piercing and get a closer look. They reminded him of button pins more than piercings, and he wondered if they were the only pair Hizashi owned. His eyes flickered back to Hizashi and with a jolt he realized Hizashi was staring at him because he had kind of just started touching his ear. And had gotten really close.

“Sorry,” Tensei said, backing away quickly, and Hizashi laughed, but there was something weird to it.

“It’s fine,” he grinned, and to Tensei’s relief the other spotted Shouta entering the school grounds and dashed over to meet him.

Hizashi didn’t mention what had happened the rest of the day, so Tensei allowed himself to relax and even looked at Hizashi’s earrings again during lunch. Kayama made a lewd comment about where Hizashi could get his next piercing, but thankfully just the mere thought of it sounded so painful there was no way Tensei could find that thought in the least bit attractive.

After school that day, Shouta trailed after him, mumbling something about wanting to see the cat, and Tensei just nodded. He couldn’t keep Shouta from coming over to his house to visit Neptune--it was his cat, after all.

On the train they stood close together, as it was packed full of people getting off of work and other students. Shouta stared down at his phone, texting Hizashi, and Tensei kept his eyes focused on the blur of buildings passing by, trying not to think that if Shouta took a step forward, they’d be pressed up against one another.

Once they got to his house, Tensei pushed the door open and dropped his stuff by the vase Hizashi had cracked in their first year, kicking his shoes off as Shouta followed. Shouta seemed much less awkward about entering Tensei’s house now, moving into the living room instead of hovering in the entryway and waiting for further invitation.

Neptune was curled up on the couch where the sunlight hit best, and opened his eyes groggily as Shouta sat down beside him. Tensei stalked over to the kitchen to see if his parents had left a note--they had, explaining that they were taking Tenya to visit his grandparents and they probably wouldn’t be back until morning. He’d have the house to himself.

“So, how are things over at your house?” Tensei asked as he entered the living room again, trying to start a conversation so they wouldn’t sit in awkward silence.

“My dad’s still gone,” Shouta responded after some time. “I don’t really want to go back. I was thinking of getting my own place.”

Tensei sat down across from him, watching Shouta’s fingers run smoothly across Neptune’s back. “Like, your own apartment? What about Hizashi’s?”

“I’d just like to live on my own.” Shouta looked back at him, eyebrows furrowing. “I’d get to keep the cat, and I’d live closer to the school.”

“I can help you get your own place,” Tensei offered. He knew his parents would definitely want to help out in Shouta’s situation. “We can help you buy it or help pay rent or--”

“No thank you,” Shouta said, but his voice didn’t sound as abrupt or clipped as it had months before when he’d also denied Tensei’s offer of help. In fact, it sounded strangely grateful. “I want to do it myself.”

“Why would you want to?” Tensei asked, and when Shouta pursed his lips he backtracked. “I mean, you don’t have to tell me, but I just want to know.”

Shouta didn’t speak for quite a while, content with playing with Neptune, and Tensei eventually stood up to go get his stuff so he could start on his homework. He bent down to rifle through his bag, yanking out his notebook and searching for a pencil. When he didn’t find any in the usual place he stored them, he frowned, before jogging upstairs to grab one from his desk.

Did he even need a pencil, or were they supposed to be highlighting the most important parts of Quirk law...? Flipping open his notebook to check the most recent assignment, Tensei leafed through a few pages, feeling confused as he realized all his notes were in the wrong places--before realizing they weren’t his notes.

He’d accidentally taken the notebook from Shouta’s  bag, or maybe he had accidentally put Shouta’s notebook in his bag earlier--either way, these were not his notes. He wondered how he’d even confused their notebooks together when he and Shouta’s notebooks looked vastly different--before realizing this was the notebook he had lent to Shouta weeks and weeks ago.

Well, even if it’s not his notebook, he could still flip to the most recent assignment and see if he needed a highlighter or a pencil. With this in mind, Tensei tried locating the most recently used page in Shouta’s notebook, frowning when he saw that he hadn’t actually used that many. Why would Shouta keep it in his backpack if he wasn’t actually going to use it?

Tensei paused on a page, deciding that if he could figure out what the date was on it he could do the math and calculate how many pages the assignment was forwards.

There wasn’t a date on his notes, however. In fact, these weren’t notes at all, but a series of crossed-out letters and scribbles. Tensei knew he shouldn’t pry, knew he shouldn’t read what was Shouta’s private stuff, and was about to shut the notebook when he spotted his own name scribbled low on the page.

Shouta was still downstairs, and if he came upstairs and found Tensei with his notebook he could just say he confused them, right? Tensei glanced towards the door, just to make sure, before leafing through the pages once again at a much slower rate.

It took Tensei a few seconds to piece together what was going on--most of the words on the pages were scribbled over or crossed out, but nearly all of them held the same meaning, just phrased differently.

I just wanted to say thank you....

Thanks for letting me.....

Hey, this is Shouta, just wanted to say....

Tensei, thanks for....

They appeared to be several attempts at writing a thank you letter to Tensei, though Tensei couldn’t figure out what for. For the cat? For giving him the notebook? For letting him stay over at his house?

Tensei closed the notebook, before shaking his head and sighing. He shouldn’t be going through Shouta’s stuff...that was pretty shitty of him! What kind of friend did that? Terrible friends, that’s what.

So he tucked it firmly beneath his arm and made his way downstairs, taking the steps two at a time. He’d slip it back into Shouta’s bag and pretend he never saw it. However, when he peered into the living room, Shouta was nowhere to be found. Checking back into the entryway, he discovered Shouta’s shoes and bag were also gone.

Tensei let out a huff, before setting the notebook on top of his own bag, feeling a little bit upset.

“Well, bye, I guess.”

He’ll just give it to him on Monday.

“Tensei!”

Tensei paused, setting aside his screwdriver and getting to his feet, hearing his mother’s voice calling for him. He exited his workshop and leaned over the banister, calling,

“What?”

“Your friend is here to see you!”

Ah. Maybe it was Shouta, coming to get his notebook back. Tensei slid down the banister, being mindful to not fall off this time, and when he rounded the corner he paused.

His mother stood in the doorway, looking back at him with her eyebrows raised. Kayama stood just outside, glasses perched on her nose and grinning.

It took all of Tensei’s willpower to not stare at what she was wearing--a skirt that was way too short, a tank top and a jacket that didn’t leave much to the imagination. She must’ve been freezing, but she showed no signs of discomfort.

“Hey there, kid,” Kayama greeted, waggling her fingers, and Tensei shot a look towards his mother, who still had her eyebrows raised behind her glasses.

“Are you going to invite her in?” She asked, and Tensei couldn’t tell what emotion she was putting behind those words, but it sounded off. Tensei hesitated, before nodding, and Kayama stepped inside, kicking off her sneakers.

“Nice to meet you!” Kayama said to Tensei’s mother, and her expression warmed as she gave her a smile.

“You as well. Are you in Tensei’s class?”

“Actually, I’m a year above--in my third year, ma’am.”

“Did I hear that friends are over?” His father’s interested voice sounded, and Tensei turned to see him poking his head from the kitchen.

“Yeah, this is my friend Kayama.” Tensei introduced, and his father got a weird expression on his face.

“What about Aizawa and Yamada?”

Tensei frowned. “What about them?”

There was a beat.

“Nothing, dear,” his mother said, shooing them away. “Kayama, would you like to stay for dinner?”

“Sure!” She said cheerfully, and his mother and father went back into the kitchen. There were a few moments of silence. Tensei had finally grown taller than Kayama over the past months, so they were about eye-to-eye. She stood before him, hands on her hips, and he cleared his throat awkwardly.

“So...Why are you here?”

“Just wanted to see if you’re as rich as they say or if everyone’s been yanking my leg.” Kayama let out a low whistle as she glanced around.

Tensei cracked a smile. “Is that really all you came over for?”

“And I wanted to meet this famous little brother I’ve heard so much about. There, you got me.”

Tensei laughed and lead her upstairs, where she ran her long, red-painted nails against the banister smoothly and paused to inspect the picture of All Might on the wall. Tensei wasn’t sure if he should explain why it was there or not.

Kayama was more interested in his workshop than Hizashi and Shouta had been, actually picking up his tools and examining his projects closely. She knew next to nothing about robotics, but was still eager to listen to him explain what went where and what the planned end result was.

“I’ve waited long enough,” she declared when he finished speaking. “Where’s Tenya?”

“Probably in the living room, but it won’t be long until dinner, you can play with him during or after.” Tensei fixed her with a look, arms crossed. “Once again, why are you really here?”

“There’s no point in beating around the bush anymore, so I guess I’ll put it bluntly.” Whatever easy smile Kayama had had on her face disappeared, and she regarded him with something much colder. “I notice you’ve been avoiding Shouta and Yamada recently.”

“No I haven’t,” Tensei countered at once, perhaps too quickly. “Shouta was just over on Friday--”

“To see the cat.” Kayama pointed out. “Which is technically his, and therefore you can’t deny him permission to come over and see it. Every other time, you have disregarded their offers to hang out.”

Tensei stared into her burning blue eyes, recognizing something deep within them. It was something he often saw in his parent’s faces, and knew that it also reflected onto his when a certain individual was involved--Tenya.

She was concerned. For him, for Shouta, for someone else he didn’t know, but beneath her strangely cold and blank expression there was concern burning. Tensei sighed, running a hand through his hair, before sitting down at his workstation, and Kayama slid onto the table in response, swinging her legs back and forth.

“Did Shouta mention it to you?” He finally asked, trying to figure out the situation.

“Yamada and Shouta have both mentioned it,” she said, taking a moment to examine her nails. “I’ve come over because I decided to finally do something about it.”

“There’s nothing to be concerned about,” Tensei said. “Really, I don’t know why--”

“Oh, come on, Tensei. Have your forgotten who you’re talking to?” Kayama leaned closer, eyes narrowing. “You’re speaking to the very person who last year you complained to about never getting to hang out with Shouta or Yamada anymore, the same person who felt left out and the same person who sat alone too often and mourned the fact that they weren’t there.”

Tensei’s mouth snapped shut as she continued speaking.

“And now all of a sudden, you’re avoiding them! Denying their invitations! You don’t look them in the eyes when they sit with us and you’re being weird and closed-off about something!” Kayama pointed her finger at him, and her voice changed slightly into something softer. “So what happened? What did they do?”

Tensei didn’t want to tell her, not really. She cared for Shouta like he was her brother, and if she thought he was going to be a threat to Shouta and his relationship with Hizashi, she’d probably kick his ass.

But then Tensei argued with himself that she might not see him like that, considering he’d been making effort to avoid them. Maybe she could help him out here. Maybe beat the shit out of him for having a crush on Shouta, which will also beat any and all emotion he’s ever felt in his life, ever. Not having emotions sounded great.

Tensei sighed heavily, staring at the ajar door of his workshop for several long seconds, before turning to look back at Kayama, who was still waiting for an answer.

“I like Hizashi,” he said, and Kayama’s mouth fell open.

“You wha-?”

“And I also like Shouta.” He swallowed. “I like them both.”

“Wait, wait, wait. You--you like them both? What, do you--do you want to bang one but be in an actual relationship with the other, or bang both, or?”

“No, I--I don’t wanna bang anybody! ” Tensei sputtered instantly, which was a complete lie and he knew it and Kayama probably knew it too.

“So you’re crushing on both of them?” Kayama asked softly, sympathetically, and he nodded. A second later, she slapped him.

“You’re an idiot,” she sighed. “Really, avoiding them for something trivial like that?”

“I don’t--I wasn’t--” Tensei was reeling, eyes wide as he placed his hand to his cheek. “What do you mean--”

Kayama allowed him to gather himself and form a coherent sentence, still rubbing his cheek as he exclaimed,

“I don’t want to ruin anything! I like them both, and I don’t want to look like I’m--I’m being weird about it or I don’t want them together or if they find out and think I’m--”

“The only way you can ruin your friendship is if you come onto one of them. You’re not ruining anything just by having a crush you keep to yourself.” Kayama shook her head, clucking her tongue. “God, I can’t believe you. All this avoiding bullshit just because you’ve got a boner for them both.”

Tensei’s face burned. “Would you please stop saying stuff like that?”

“No way.” Kayama said. “Why didn’t I figure it out?! Even your parents know!”

“What? My parents don’t--”

“Yeah, they totally do,” Kayama stared at him, looking quite unimpressed. “Didn’t you hear your dad?”

“He was just asking why they haven’t been over in a while,” Tensei said, though now that he was thinking about it, several conversations they’d had in the past few months started to make sense. Was he that transparent?! God, he wanted to die. He’d stick his screwdriver straight into this circuit board and be electrocuted until his brain fried.

Dinnertime came, and Kayama fed Tenya spoonfuls of applesauce, making funny faces at him, and Tensei almost forgot about his resolve to die as he listened to Tenya giggle. How could he have ever thought about leaving his brother behind?

Afterwards, he and Kayama did the dishes, him washing and her drying. When his parents were out of earshot, he decided to ask her something.

“Do you think I can do anything about it? So I don’t like them anymore?”

“Maybe you should try dating someone else,” Kayama said with a shrug, wiping down a glass and inspecting it for smudges. “Hanazawa’s pretty cute, you should try him.”

“Hanazawa? The guy in your class with the teeth Quirk?”

“Yeah, he’s gay, so I can put in a good word about a dashing young man with large biceps and stupid eyebrows. He’s into the muscular type.”

“I’d prefer it to be someone I actually knew,” Tensei said, ignoring the comment about his eyebrows. “And no offense, but I don’t think I could kiss Hanazawa without getting my face mawed off.”

“Fair point.”

“Besides, I don’t think I could date anyone else,” Tensei sighed, frowning as he scrubbed at a particularly stubborn spot. “It would just feel...weird. I feel like it’d cause even more distance between the three of us.”

“You could always try dating me.” Kayama said with a shrug.

Tensei stared at her, and she raised her eyebrows.

“Date you?”

“I’m not opposed to the idea. If you swing that way, I’m totally up for it. You like boobs too, or are you strictly into dicks?”

“Kayama, my family is nearby!” Tensei hissed, whipping around to see if any of his family members were within earshot. Luckily, they were all the living room, watching TV.

They were silent for a few minutes, and when they finished washing the dishes Kayama announced she was going home and stepped into the entryway to slip her shoes back on.

“Think about my offer,” Kayama said, slinging her bag around her shoulder. “Or just ask those two bozos if you can be included in the relationship too.”

“Thanks, but I don’t think I want to piledrive our friendship into nonexistence,” Tensei responded, slipping his hands into his pockets as she leaned over to wave at Tenya, who giggled and waved back in a way reminiscent of a robot.

“Who knows? Maybe they’ll actually be into it.”

“As if...but thanks, Kayama.”

“Nemuri.”

Tensei frowned. “What?”

“You deaf? I said Nemuri.” Kayama narrowed her eyes, manicured fingernails pushing at the frames of her cat-eye glasses, adjusting them in an almost menacing way. Even though the request of using given names was usually one of friendship and affection, she looked like she was ready to whip him into next Tuesday.

He hadn’t been expecting this--it had come out of nowhere, really, and while he’s heard Shouta call her ‘Nemuri’ countless times it sounded a bit foreign in his head. Tensei felt a particular sense of déjà vu in this situation.

Finally, he glanced down and chuckled, scuffing the floor with his feet as he tested the name in his head--Nemuri, Nemuri, Nemuri. He looked back up to see her waiting expectantly, and when she turned around to open the door, he said,

“Alright. Goodbye, Nemuri.”

Nemuri’s grin was wolfish as she waggled her fingers and disappeared out the door.

On Monday, Tensei arrived on campus with Shouta’s notebook in hand, intent on giving it to the other as soon as he saw him. He’d tried not thinking of its contents, but his endless curiosity was gnawing at him, so he’d decided he would ask Shouta about it when he handed it over.

Luckily, he managed to find both Shouta and Hizashi sitting against a tree, arguing over something, though they stopped talking when they noticed him approaching.

“Hey,” Tensei said, and Hizashi grinned and waved. He turned his attention to Shouta, who looked tired as always. He didn’t say anything to Tensei, so he figured the other hadn’t even noticed his notebook had been missing.

“You forgot this at my house,” Tensei said, avoiding the truth as he held it out to Shouta. “Or maybe it fell out of your bag, but I thought it was mine, ‘cause it looks the same as mine, doesn’t it?”

“It’s the notebook you gave me when I stayed over,” Shouta said, leaning over to take the notebook from him. Even though his movements were slow, relaxed, the manner in which he took it from Tensei--almost like he was trying to snatch it without appearing too urgent--let Tensei know that perhaps he didn’t want the contents of the notebook to be known to him.

But since Tensei had been wondering about this for a few days (and the contents had to do with him, after all!) he decided to ask anyways.

“What were you trying to write in there?” Tensei asked, not even beating around the bush, because Shouta liked getting straight to the point. Hizashi perked up with interest, looking between the two, and to their shock Shouta’s face turned very red.

“It was nothing,” he said, voice steady and flat despite his flushed face. “I was just trying to write you something--it was weeks ago, alright?”

“Oh, was it the thank-you letter that you wanted hel--” Hizashi began and Shouta instantly rounded on him, eyes flashing red and hair lifting from his shoulders briefly. The blond’s mouth snapped shut, but Tensei had already gleaned what was going on and began to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Shouta grumbled, sounding just a bit embarrassed, and Tensei laughed even harder.

“I’m sorry--I appreciate that, it’s sweet, but were you trying to write a thank-you letter for me? Like, a whole letter? An entire letter saying thank-you?”

“Is that not what a thank-you letter is,” Shouta said coolly, but his red face ruined the effect he was going for. Tensei felt a bubble of affection well in his chest, and man, he really should’ve put it together before now, but the realization only hit him when Hizashi had started talking. Just the thought of a flustered Shouta asking Hizashi for help to write Tensei a thank-you letter was adorably endearing.

“It’s not funny!” Shouta finally burst out when Tensei had laughed for quite a while, and he tried to silence himself, but he kept hiccuping. “I really--fuck, Tensei, I really appreciated it, okay? You let me stay at your house, and then you got me a cat, and I just feel bad, okay?”

“Whoa,” Tensei hiccuped, holding a fist to his chest as another one came. “Slow down for a minute, you don’t need to get mad.”

“Should I leave?” Hizashi offered, pointing towards the door. “I can leave, if you want.”

“I don’t know how to tell you that it--it meant a lot, or--it was important, somehow, and--” Shouta dropped the notebook into his lap in order to grab fistfuls of his hair, groaning as he visibly struggled to think of how to word what he wanted to say. “ This was why I wanted to write you the letter.”

Tensei had never seen the other so visibly stressed, and was beginning to wonder if asking him what the contents meant was a bad idea.

“A thank-you letter isn’t needed,” he said in a placating tone, similar to the one he used on Tenya. He shuffled around until his back was to the tree and flopped down next to Shouta, resting his elbows on his knees. “Just a ‘thanks’ was good enough. I know you’re not good with words, man. It’s fine.”

“I’m going to leave, this is getting personal,” Hizashi said, but the two of them ignored him.

“...It was important to me.” Shouta said after a moment, fingers tapping against the cover of the notebook. “You let me stay with you, and ‘thanks’ just isn’t enough. I feel really strongly about these kinds of things.”

“I understand,” Tensei said, patting his arm. Shouta’s gaze slid over to him.

“Do you?”

“‘Course I do!” Tensei’s voice raised. “I know how you feel! I could never thank you and Hizashi and Nemuri enough for being my friends!”

“That’s different,” Shouta argued, before his tone changed. “Nemuri?”

“Yeah, she told me I could call her that now,” Tensei said, leaning his back against the tree’s trunk. “She came over to my place.”

“What for?”

“...Stuff. She mostly just wanted to meet Tenya.”

“Of course,” Shouta said, and Tensei was almost sure there was a tiny smile on his face. “That’s what everyone’s in it for, right? Tenya?”

“I’m wounded that you’d only befriend me for my baby brother benefits.”

“Like you didn’t already know that.”

“You’re right,” Tensei moaned dramatically, before grinning and getting to his feet. Shouta did the same, sliding his book into his backpack, before turning to Tensei and bowing.

“Thank you,” Shouta said, quietly, but sincerely. Tensei felt his face heat up, and he scratched at the back of his head, trying to laugh it off.

“I said it’s fine, dude. No more thank-yous.”

Shouta straightened back up, eyes trained over Tensei’s shoulder, towards the entrance of the school building. “Hizashi’s waiting for us.”

“Yeah,” Tensei said, but Shouta was already walking past. He watched the other approach their friend, shoulders slumped as usual. He watched Hizashi slide his arm around Shouta, tugging him close, the teasing look on his face visible even at this distance.

Maybe you should try dating someone else, Nemuri’s words echoed in his head. Tensei sighed.

He didn’t think he could.

“That honestly looks gross,” Tensei commented, staring at the monstrosity that was Hizashi’s strawberry cheesecake, which was pretty much 90% strawberry syrup and whipped cream. Hizashi stuck his tongue out at him, stabbing his spoon into it and proceeding to take a colossal bite out of the sugary disaster. Hizashi chewed and swallowed it without breaking eye contact with Tensei once.

“Easy as pie.”

“You’re a monster,” Tensei said.

Hizashi took another bite out of his cheesecake, this time rolling his tongue around the spoon to gather as much whipped cream from it as possible, and Tensei quickly averted his eyes down to his own cake, trying to ignore the burning feeling on the back of his neck.

“So anyways,” Hizashi said around a mouthful of cake. “How are you?”

“Fine. Just like I was when you asked me that ten minutes ago.”

“Alright, fine! What have you gotten Shouta for Christmas?”

Tensei looked up to see the other staring at him, a bit of strawberry syrup at the corner of his mouth. Setting down his own spoon, Tensei admitted,

“I actually haven’t gotten him anything.”

“What about me?”

Tensei was silent.

“Oh, come on, dude!”

“I’m sorry!” Tensei said, trying not to feel guilty. “I don’t know what to get you guys, and my mom said I should like, build you something, but all my projects have been shit lately, and--”

“It’s fine, you don’t have to get us anything,” Hizashi said quickly, waving his hands to silence Tensei. “I was just joking!”

“Well, now I feel bad!” Tensei cried. “I have to get you guys something now!”

“No, Tensei, seriously--”

“I got Shouta a birthday present, but I haven’t gotten you anything this year, I’m sorry!”

“It’s fine! Dude, it’s fine!”

Tensei shut up when Hizashi finally noticed the syrup, and instead of licking it or wiping at it with a napkin like a normal fucking human being--swiped his index finger at the corner of his mouth, before licking it. Tensei didn’t even understand the point of getting his fingers involved unless it was to torture him.

Tensei distracted himself by drinking half of his drink in two sips, a feat that should be impossible with a straw, but he managed it through sheer power of will, fighting against the blush on his cheeks. The frosty weather had called for a hat and jacket today, which were currently discarded on the booth, the inside of the cafe being warm and filled with a distinctly chocolatey-chip smell.

It was two weeks before Christmas, and Hizashi had dragged Tensei over to a cafe after requesting they hang out today. Shouta had volunteered to look after Tenya (and Neptune) for Tensei at Hizashi’s insistence so they could spend some ‘bro time’, but Tensei didn’t really understand why they couldn’t have bro time with Shouta present.

With fondness, he remembered the outfit he’d managed to squeeze Tenya into this morning--large mittens, a hat with a little fuzzball on top, and a heavy jacket. He’d been very excited to see the snow, and Tensei pictured Shouta with powder dusting his hair and cheeks as the little toddler raced about, slipping and sliding.

He was going to die from pure sweetness, and it wasn’t going to be from just looking at Hizashi’s strawberry hellcake.

The reason for getting dragged out with Hizashi became apparent when the other dragged him to his house and jammed a pair of headphones onto his ears.

“Ow--hey!”

“Dude, I need you to listen to this music I’ve been putting together for Shouta!” Hizashi said, scrolling through his computer through a series of playlists that Tensei couldn’t even begin to understand. Some were labelled normally, like ‘roadtrip’ or ‘sad time :(‘, but others were labelled differently--’wesjjsjwjd’, ‘NO’, and ‘fuck u dad’, just to name a few. Tensei was honestly a little scared when Hizashi clicked on one named ‘qmwcnednnkefn(3)’, because that implied that more than one ‘qmwcnednnkefn’ existed.

His fears were soon alleviated, however, when some soft rock started playing, a foreign band he didn’t recognize, and despite the fact that Hizashi wasn’t even wearing headphones, he was singing along to the song.

“Is this what you’re going to give him for Christmas?” Tensei asked a bit loudly, and Hizashi nodded.

“I know it’s not as fancy as getting him a cat, but these are some of the songs he asks me to sing or play. I’ve been keeping note of them,” Hizashi explained. There were about seven songs on the playlist, and Tensei only recognized one, mostly because Hizashi played it often on his guitar.

“I’ve been putting a lot of thought into it!” Hizashi beamed proudly. “I’ve been working on it for months, originally I had over thirty songs here, but I’ve sorted through them and picked the ones that flow best, that have a right feel to them. Something that will put Shouta at ease.”

“Not everyone uses music to relax,” Tensei said, recalling the one time Hizashi had decided to blast music while Tensei was tinkering with his hero costume--he’d nearly broken his chest piece from the sudden guitar rift. And Shouta wasn’t really the type to relax with noise.

“I know, but Shouta likes these songs, so...” Hizashi merely shrugged instead of finishing his sentence, fingers tapping along to the beat playing in Tensei’s ears. Tensei wondered how many times he’d heard the song to be able to tap out the beat in time without even hearing it.

They sat at Hizashi’s mixtable for a while, Tensei listening to Hizashi go on and on excitedly about some other songs he was thinking of adding, the volume turned down just enough that he could hear both the song and Hizashi’s voice at the same time. He managed to follow the flow of Hizashi’s words all the way up until he delved into music theory, which left him feeling a little lost, but he listened anyways.

It was a relaxing sort of drone, even if Hizshi’s voice was excitable and accompanied by exaggerated movements of his hands. Oddly relaxing, even more so than the music Hizashi had compiled for this precise purpose. He leaned back in the chair, nodding his head along to the very last song on the playlist as it petered out, and when there was silence, he slid the headphones off.

“I like it,” Tensei said honestly. “And I think Shouta will like it too.”

“You really think so?” Hizashi’s smile was wide, dimples on display, and he leaned closer into Tensei’s personal space to move his computer mouse around. He shifted through his countless playlists as he babbled on about something-or-other, and Tensei hummed in response as he took a moment to glance around Hizashi’s room.

His bed was neatly made, but there was so much stuff piled on top that he didn’t even see the point in making it in the first place. Countless CDs, cassette tapes, and iPods were scattered around, many tangled pairs of headphones. A skateboard magazine was thrown haphazardly over a pile of papers that looked suspiciously like crumpled drawings.

The snow outside had frosted Hizashi’s windows, white and blank and filling the room with an odd light, a light that made the movie posters on Hizashi’s walls seem a little surreal. There was the sound of the headphones being unplugged, and then some uppity Christmas music began playing quietly through the speakers.

“Oh, hey, want to see my new piercings?” Hizashi suddenly asked, and Tensei was brought out of his temporary stupor, nodding as the other boy got to his feet and shuffled around his room. Tensei glanced over to where the other had paused in front of his mirror, fiddling with the earrings currently in place, and he diverted his attention back to the screen of Hizashi’s computer.

The Christmas music was on a playlist entitled ‘faves(23)’, and he smiled, because Hizashi having 23 (maybe even more) playlists filled with his favorite music was just a very Hizashi-thing to do.

“Okay, check it out,” Hizashi said, returning to his seat and facing Tensei with wide, intense eyes, looking at him seriously. “Thoughts?”

They looked a bit like emeralds, darker in hue than Hizashi’s eyes, though he was pretty sure they were plastic. They glittered against Hizashi’s skin in the white light streaming in.

“I saw ‘em last week and I dunno why, but I thought you’d like them. You said you liked them when we passed by, didn’t you? Or was it the ones that looked like screws? I couldn’t remember.” Hizashi reached up to fiddle with his lobe, tugging, and Tensei found himself at a loss for words. What Hizashi had said didn’t quite register for a moment, and when it finally did, he sputtered out,

“Y-you bought them because you thought I-?”

“Would like them,” Hizashi finished his sentence for him, rocking back and forth in his swivel chair. “Yep!”

Tensei suddenly realized just how close Hizashi was to him, and that Hizashi’s eyes were bright and pretty and intense and excited all at once. Hizashi was smiling wide, eyebrows raised, glittering earrings nothing in comparison to his own bright expression, and Tensei recalled moment weeks ago when he’d looked over at Shouta petting his cat, suddenly overwhelmed by just how pretty he was. Just how pretty they both were.

Stupidly pretty.

He was pretty sure Hizashi was wearing lipgloss today.

Tensei got to his feet abruptly, grabbing his hat, glad he hadn’t bothered taking off his jacket. “I’ve got to, I’ve got to go home, I just remembered-”

Hizashi frowned in concern, standing as well. “Dude, you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, I promise, totally fine.” Tensei cleared his throat, pushing out of Hizashi’s room and waving a goodbye to Hizashi’s mom, who was sitting on the couch. Hizashi chased after him, calling his name, but Tensei pushed his way through the snow, mind racing at a million miles a second.

For the briefest moment, he’d felt the stupidly strong and ridiculous urge to kiss Hizashi, no matter how dumb and not cool that action would have been. He wanted to be a hero because heroes were cool, and the kind of person who kissed their friend's boyfriend was definitely not cool.

Tensei found himself at the train station, his legs having carried him there without him really thinking about it. He tried to keep close to himself on the train as it rode back to his prefecture, and nearly an hour later he was stumbling into his house, shaking the cold out of his limbs and tossing his jacket aside.

He felt as if he was going to cry, or panic, or yell, or do all of them at once. That was close. That was stupidly close, and he was stupid, and--

“Everything okay?” Came a flat voice, and Tensei froze.

He’d forgotten that Shouta was here.

He turned slowly where he stood, as if he were in a horror movie, to gaze at the sight awaiting him--Shouta sitting on the floor in front of the couch while Tenya sat above him, his tiny hands fisted in the other’s hair as Shouta pet Neptune in his lap. The TV was on, some documentary film about penguins, and they both looked comfortable and content where they sat.

Tensei felt guilt well up inside him as he made eye contact with Shouta, knowing that he’d considered kissing Hizashi earlier, had been so close to becoming the biggest dick known to mankind. He averted his gaze, focusing hard on the bottom of the stairs, and said,

“I’ve got Tenya now. You can go.”

“Oh.” There was a disgruntled mew from Neptune, the sound of Shouta standing up and Tenya letting out an indignant cry that he’d lost Shouta’s hair from his grip. Footsteps, and Shouta’s voice, soft and quiet.

“Are you okay? You’re-”

“You can go,” Tensei stressed, feeling as if Shouta were to stay here a moment longer he’d guiltily confess that he liked both of his best friends and he was a weirdo and a terrible person. Why couldn’t he have just gotten a crush on Nemuri instead? That would have been a lot easier, a lot more manageable, than this.

“....Tensei.”

“Shouta, seriously, leave! ” Tensei cried out with a lot more force behind his words than he meant to, finally looking up at the other, and for a moment Shouta’s eyes widened by a fraction--before his gaze turned steely and his mouth set into a firm line. He turned, grabbing his jacket, and didn’t even take the time to put it on before storming out into the snow, door slamming behind him.

Tensei miserably glanced to where Tenya sat, staring up at him with big eyes, Neptune meowing irritably at having lost his napping place. Oh, Neptune, the cat he’d bought for Shouta--and Tenya, who seemed to be in love with Shouta’s hair, and also shiny things, just like Hizashi’s stupid earrings, and--

He might have just upset both of his friends and himself. Tensei let out a long sigh, feeling as if all his emotions were being drained from him as he did so. He walked over to the couch, sitting down, and Tenya crawled closer to him before flopping into his lap, mimicking Neptune’s meows. Tensei didn’t even smile at that. He just felt too tired and drained, all of a sudden.

“Oh, Tenya,” he sighed quietly to a room where the only other living beings in it couldn’t even understand his words, “What am I going to do?”

Chapter Text

“I’m running away to Brazil,” Tensei told Tenya, throwing his clothes into a pile, pacing his room and plucking random things from his desk to toss into his suitcase. “I’m going to become a farmer, and I’m going to live a lonely life, and maybe do some vigilante work, and then one day I’ll become a rich farmer and move to America to join the robotics industry and--”

“Dog!” Tenya shrieked when Tensei picked up one of his old stuffed toys. It was a stuffed husky named Astro that his parents had gotten him when he was eleven that he was still a bit attached to. Tenya clearly wanted Astro.

“Sorry, Tenya,” Tensei said, hugging Astro to his chest. “This one’s mine.”

“Dog!”

“No. Mine.”

“My dog!”

“No, no. Tensei’s dog. Say it with me--Tensei’s dog. ”

“Tenya’s dog!”

Tensei gave a huff as Tenya got to his feet and stood on his tiptoes, reaching up for Astro. They were both momentarily distracted from packing--Tensei walked around the room, holding Astro high above his head as Tenya waddled after him as quickly as he could on his tiny toddler feet. Tensei was successful for two minutes, until tripping over his own pile of clothes and falling backwards into it. Tenya clambered onto Tensei, his hands gripping Astro’s ears as he yanked him mercilessly from Tensei’s loose grip.

Tensei lay, defeated, staring up at his ceiling as he contemplated all the ways he had majorly screwed up. He’d gotten angry at Shouta--well, not angry, exactly, but he’d been harsh with his words. He’d kicked Shouta out of his house, and yeah, it was Tensei’s house, but he still felt every bit as bad as Shouta’s asshole father was even though the situations were like, completely different.

Turning to bury his face in a discarded sweater, Tensei wondered why he had to go and catch feelings. He was training to be a hero, not the next star of The Bachelor, but even then if he was the next star of The Bachelor all he’d be able to think about was freaking Hizashi and Shouta.

What was even the appeal of them anyways?! They’re teen boys! Teen boys are like, sweaty, and gross. Girls are better. Girls are slightly less sweaty and gross.

But Tensei couldn’t think of a single girl who’s habit of licking her long fingers drove him crazy. He couldn’t think of a single girl who looked cute in overlarge, ratty old clothes.

Tensei couldn’t think of a single girl that had so much energy she could barely sit still. He couldn’t think of a single girl that had a dry wit and humor that was a little hard to pick out from the rest of her everyday speech.

Tensei couldn’t think of a single girl that was like Hizashi and Shouta, and for that matter he couldn’t think of a single guy either. And even if he could think of another person like either of them, he didn’t think he’d like them as much. Hizashi and Shouta were special to him. They were his friends.

Friends who he might have pissed off.

So he continued smothering himself with his sweater, wondering why he was so goddamn stupid, as Tenya made cooing noises and smushed Astro’s soft nose into his brother’s cheek.

“He’s kissing you,” Tenya whispered, and Tensei snorted.

“Thanks, Tenya.”

Tensei hardly ate dinner and rushed off to go sit in his room and think of pretty much every thing he’d done to majorly screw up, compiled a list that consisted of a grand total of fifty-seven things, and then crumpled it up and flushed it in the toilet. He would start the next day as a new man, and put all of that behind him.

He could do it! Friendship was important!

So he fell asleep with determination, woke up with an equal amount of determination, and by the time he was five minutes of Yuuei, had no determination left and was considering just running home like a coward. Nemuri caught up to him at the gate, slinging her arm around his shoulders with a hyena-like laugh, which he couldn’t tell was good or not. Was she planning to kill him for what he’d done yesterday? She did know, right? Shouta told her everything, to the point that it was actually kind of scary how fast he told her.

But then Nemuri went on about the physical exam she had to take later, and he relaxed a bit. He was safe, for now.

Entering his classroom proved to be a bit more difficult.

As he approached the door, he spotted Hizashi and Shouta sitting at the back, Hizashi telling some dramatic story, if his wild hand movements were anything to go by. He slowed in his walking, but just as he did so, Kan, who had been walking behind him, huffed and pushed him.

“Why’d you stop?” He grumbled, forcing Tensei through the doorway. He wanted to die.

He walked over as slow as he could to his desk, hoping that Hizashi and Shouta wouldn’t notice him. They didn’t. In fact, they never looked his direction once, but Hizashi did stop to say hello to a few of their other classmates. Tensei then wondered if they really hadn’t seen him, or were just choosing to ignore him. That was fair. That was completely fair.

So he sighed, got out his notebook and pencil, and sat waiting for the lesson to begin.

Class passed by agonizingly slow, and he wasn’t even all that excited when a group exercise was announced. He didn’t have to worry about pairing with Hizashi or Shouta, because the groups were assigned by class rank, and Tensei (4th) would be with Kenya, who was 3rd. Hizashi and Shouta, 2nd and 7th respectively, wouldn’t be partners either.

Too many times in the middle of the problem he was supposed to be solving, Tensei stared off into the distance, eyes blank and mind moving at a million miles a minute. He wasn’t even sure what he was thinking about, but he did know it was anything but Hizashi and Shouta.

Kenya was a little annoyed by him spacing out so much, snapping her fingers beneath his nose whenever his gaze travelled to stare blankly at Hizashi’s obnoxiously colored high-tops.

“Look, I know you’re a rank behind me, but there can’t be that much difference between us!” Kenya huffed, and Tensei bowed his head in apology, clearing his throat and staring down at their paper in an attempt to focus.

By the time lunch came, Tensei just wanted to go home.

Shouta and Hizashi were sitting at the lunch table, and for the first time in what felt like years, Nemuri wasn’t there. He spotted her out of the corner of his eye, flirting with a whole table of second-year support students. He snickered a bit, but his amusement turned to dread when he realized that she wasn’t there.

Had Shouta and Hizashi told her not to be there?! Were they planning on talking to him?!

He couldn’t handle that. Not in the middle of lunch, at least.

So Tensei turned on his heel and walked in the opposite direction, ducking into the nearest restroom and camping out in a stall for half an hour. He at least had his phone, and played the dumb Animal Crossing app that he absolutely did not love.

(Apollo was his favorite.)

After lunch he worked with Kenya again, this time being able to focus completely, because Shouta was out of his sight and Hizashi’s group had chosen to study in the hallway.

“That’s better,” Kenya said approvingly, circling one of his answers. “Yeah, you’ve got it.”

“Sorry for earlier,” Tensei mumbled. “I’m not feeling that great today.”

“Have you seen Recovery Girl?”

“Well, it’s not like, a sickness or anything. It’s something else.”

Kenya hummed. “Does it have to do with your mates?”

Tensei’s head snapped up, and his eyes widened. “What?”

“Your mates. Aizawa and Yamada.”

“Yeah, what about them?”

“You’re all acting off, and it’s weird,” she sighed dramatically. “You’re all attached at the hip. What, did you get in a fight? Wait, no, did Aizawa and Yamada break up?!”

“No, they didn’t!” Tensei said back, and he glanced to make sure Shouta wasn’t close enough to hear them. “I was just stupid. And I think they’re mad at me.”

“Nice.”

“No, it’s not nice!”

“Well, if you’re so bothered by it,” Kenya shrugged, holding her hands up, “and I’m just spitballin’ here, but why don’t you apologize?”

“It’s not that simple,” Tensei argued, because no way he could apologize and say out loud that he was sorry for being in love with his best friends and also for being so, so utterly stupid.

“Explain it to me.” Kenya encouraged.

“No, it’s private.”

“Then apologize.”

“I can’t!”

“Oh, boohoo, number four,” she drawled out. “Quit your crying and go talk to them.”

And with that, she kicked his shin.

Tensei only stood up because he feared more foot assault, and when everyone glanced up at him he felt his face burn. Right, he was not going to apologize to Shouta first, because everyone would be watching and he couldn’t do that. No way. And he was pretty sure Shouta wouldn’t appreciate it either.

So he slipped out the door, peering down the hallway and searching for Hizashi’s group, hoping they had moved far away and he wouldn’t find them and then he’d have an excuse as to why he didn’t apologize.

Only Hizashi’s group was right there, he and the highest ranked member of their class. They didn’t seem to be getting along that well, because Suzuya looked like the snobby, I’m-always-right type and kept pointing at different answers on his assignment, making tiny corrections that overall didn’t matter. Tensei could feel Hizashi’s silent frustration from where he stood, despite Hizashi’s bright smile. He was sure that behind his sunglasses, he was rolling his eyes.

“Hey, um.” Tensei cleared his throat awkwardly, and Hizashi stood up at once before Tensei could even say anything, allowing his sunglasses to slip down to show his wide, pleading eyes. “Uh, I wanted to talk to you..?”

“Great!” Hizashi laughed, placing his hands on Tensei’s forearms and steering him down the hall, clearly glad for an excuse to leave his partner behind. “Let’s talk, then!”

They found themselves in an empty hallway, a couple of feet from each other as they glanced around awkwardly. Tensei actually wasn’t sure what to say, and he suddenly wished they weren’t totally alone. Hizashi too seemed to be regretting his hasty decision, rocking back and forth on his feet and occasionally reaching up to fiddle with an earring. It seemed to be his new nervous habit, Tensei noted. Previously it had been tugging at his cuffs, because he just couldn’t stop moving, but now one hand rolled an earring between two fingers and his other hand slid into his pocket.

He was so caught up noticing all this that when Hizashi finally said something, he jumped a little.

“So...you wanted to talk?”

“Yeah, I, uh,” Tensei responded, voice coming out a bit too fast, and he slid his hands into his pockets, trying to appear nonchalant. “I just...wanted to talk to you about yesterday.”

“Oh,” Hizashi said, voice small. “Okay then.”

This was awkward. Tensei wanted to die.

“About yesterday...I, uh, when I left, when I just got up and left, really fast, I, uh, well, um....” Tensei couldn’t seem to find his words or think of a good enough excuse, stuttering despite trying his hardest not to. “The, uh. My mother.”

“Your mom?” Hizashi asked when Tensei didn’t speak for a while after that.

“Yes! My mom. She um. I remembered I had to do something for her yesterday. So I left. I forgot to do it and I thought I was going to get in trouble if I didn’t do it. So. Yep. That’s that.”

“Oh,” Hizashi said again, but he didn’t sound entirely sure. “If you say so.”

Tensei’s eyebrows knit together, turning into a sort of pleading look against his will. “You don’t believe me?”

“I believe you, sure,” Hizashi said, eyes quite not meeting his. “It was. Um. Just Shouta, and stuff. Said you yelled at him to get out. And um. You slammed my door when you left.”

Tensei waited for him to speak, and cursed the fact that they were both awkward at times like these and conversation took hours to progress.

“I just...I dunno, man. Are you mad at us?” Hizashi finally breathed out, shoulders slumping, as if he’d finally gotten some sort of weight off his chest. Tensei blinked.

“What?”

“It was just, yesterday you left in a hurry and slammed my door and then you got home and kicked Shouta out and you didn’t say anything about that and you didn’t talk to us today and--” Hizashi took a deep breath, as if remembering to breathe, before continuing, “I just can’t help but think you’re mad somehow because we’re dating and we’re not inviting you out and I tried inviting you out yesterday but you got mad and I don’t know what I did wrong.”

Tensei wanted to scream that it was absolutely not Hizashi’s fault at all, and it was just because he was really stupid and didn’t know how to deal with his own equally as stupid feelings. But he could not scream all that, because then he’d be admitting to Hizashi’s face that he has feelings, and feelings are bothersome.

“It’s not your fault,” Tensei said in as reassuring a voice he could manage, though it was still weak. “It’s mine. I’m just going through some things right now, okay?”

“Oh?” Hizashi frowned, lips pouting, and concern crept into his voice. “Really? What’s going on, is there any way I can help?”

Yes, you could marry me, Tensei thought. Or perhaps saw my head in half.

What he said was, “No, but thank you for offering. I appreciate it.”

“Ah. Yep.” Hizashi ducked his head, staring down at his feet. Tensei looked up at the ceiling, wondering if he could crawl into the walls and become a cryptid that only came out to feast off leftovers from the cafeteria. That sounded really appealing. Unfortunately, he had a duty as an aspiring hero to fulfill, and now was not the time for that. Maybe later.

They made their way back to the classroom, and thankfully, the more steps they took, the less awkward it became. Hizashi even started chattering again, and Tensei smiled. They hadn’t really solved much back there, but they’d solved enough to sort of go on like everything was normal.

Hizashi sat back down next to Suzuya with clear reluctance, and Tensei slid into his seat across from Kenya, who was asleep with a book covering half her face. They’d finished the assignment anyways, so no need to wake her up.

(He would regret this decision fifteen minutes later, when the bell rang and her hand shot out to chop his face in half. She said it was done purely out of reflex. Kenya was a scary person.)

While Tensei may have sort of solved an issue with Hizashi, he had not solved any issues with Shouta.

Tensei and Hizashi’s shoulders bumped together as they filed out the door, being caught in the swarming crowd of students. Hizashi pointed something out on his phone to Tensei while Shouta trailed behind even further than usual. The air turned awkward when they stepped aside once they were outside of the school and no longer surrounded by so many students--it became more apparent then that Shouta was keeping his distance.

“Well...” Hizashi hummed, peering to look at his boyfriend with an expression that Tensei couldn’t read. “I think. I’m gonna go. Bye.”

And then he took off in the direction of his home, sprinting.

Stay with me, you coward, Tensei cursed silently after him.

It was now just Tensei and Shouta.

“Do you...want to go see Neptune?” Tensei offered, uncertain, and though Shouta’s eyes stayed on the ground, he let out an affirmative hum.

The train ride to Tensei’s place was tense and uncomfortable, and he felt like ditching Shouta right then and there and hiding in a bathroom until the world ended.

This was the first time in years Tensei had felt so wrong, and it was bugging him immensely. He didn’t really know how to act in this situation. He’d never had friends as close as Hizashi and Shouta, much less ever gotten them upset like this. Sure, he, Hizashi and Shouta’s friendship wasn’t completely smooth, and they’d had a few minor bumps before, but somehow, this felt suffocating. Maybe it was because of the reason behind all this?

By the way, I think I’m in love with the both of you, I don’t know how to handle that, and now I want to run away to South America and live as a lonely farmer for the rest of my days.

Right. Yeah. Because they’d take that well.

He just didn’t want them to think it was their fault, because it wasn’t. It was his fault, and he was an awful friend.

They were standing at his front door before he realized it, and he blinked out of his stupor long enough to dig into his pocket and withdraw his key. His father was home today, but was nowhere to be found when they stepped inside. After a careful moment of listening, he heard a giggle of laughter from outside and realized he and Tenya were playing on the swing.

Neptune was also nowhere to be found.

Tensei peeked around corners and under the table, but it was Shouta who was on his hands and knees, looking into small spaces and making a little cooing noise. It was cute. Adorable. Tensei pinched his arm and told himself to stop.

Neptune was found eventually, lured in by Shouta’s little noises and barrelling down the stairs with a curious mmrrmph. He head-butted against Shouta’s leg and allowed the other to scratch his chin.

After a few silent moments of cat petting, Shouta looked up at Tensei, and said flatly, “So.”

Tensei cleared his throat. “So.”

More silence.

“About yesterday..?” Tensei started, and Shouta closed his eyes, returning to his petting of Neptune. Neptune flopped onto his back, exposing his soft belly, but Shouta didn’t stroke at it, instead just continuing to pet his chin. Watching them, Tensei stringed together a few sentences in his mind, trying to think of something to say. When he finally did, he took a breath, and let it out:

“I just wanted to say sorry for yesterday. I didn’t mean to sound like I was mad, or to kick you out, or anything. And I’m not mad at Hizashi, either. Some stuff came up yesterday and I got kind of frantic.”

Shouta just continued petting Neptune, hair falling into his face so Tensei couldn’t see his expression. Tensei wondered if he should grow out his hair as well, because the whole ‘concealing your face’ part seemed to be a great aspect of it.

Finally, Shouta spoke an entire sentence:

“I’m not mad.”

Tensei deflated.

“Or upset, really...I just feel weird.”

“Why?” Tensei asked instantly, straightening up. “None of this is you guys’ fault, did Hizashi tell you I said that? Because it’s true, it’s not your fault, it’s just some stuff’s been going on!”

“I know that,” Shouta snapped, and even though his voice was still mostly monotone, Tensei caught the irritation. “But what’s the matter?”

“It’s nothing really important,” Tensei said.

“Tensei,” Shouta sighed. “Please.”

“Please what?”

“Tell me!” Shouta let out a grunt of frustration, hand curling into Neptune’s fur. Neptune let out a noise of discomfort and scampered away, leaving them behind as he rounded the corner. Tensei stared at Shouta, eyebrows raised, as the other boy got to his feet.

“I feel useless,” Shouta said quietly. “You’ve helped me before, when I was in--a rough spot, and you put up with me. I just want to do the same to you. I want you to be able to feel like you can do the same with me.”

Tensei stared at him, eyes wide. Well. That was a surprise.

And now the more he thought about it, the more Tensei realized he was sort of...emotionally distant. Not in the way that people would assume when they heard the term, but in the way that when he was experiencing emotional turmoil, he tended to lock himself in his room. Tensei couldn’t remember a single time in which he’d shared one of his actually serious issues with his friends, preferring to squash it down and keep it hidden from sight.

Of course, these days a good third of his issues was the fact that he was in love with his friends, and he’d only even admitted it because Nemuri was a terrifying force who wouldn’t have left him alone unless he’d said it out loud.

“I mean.” Shouta looked down at his hands, messing with his fingers and unable to keep still. Tensei suddenly realized he was embarrassed. “It kind of feels like you don’t really like me all that much sometimes.”

He was shocked for another moment as his brain processed the words. Then Tensei snorted, and when Shouta looked up, it turned into a full-blown laugh.

“What?” Shouta snapped again, face red, and Tensei kept laughing.

“I’m sorry, dude, but you are the last person I ever expected to be bothered by the fact that someone might not like you,” Tensei giggled, and Shouta’s face just got even more red.

“I’m not bothered!” Shouta’s voice rose, his hands curling into fists. “Not with most people, anyways. Just people I think are my friends.”

“We are friends,” Tensei said, blinking, and trying to cough his laugh away. “For real. I like you, I promise. Initially, I didn’t--but I do now, man. I really do.”

Shouta was silent, staring down at his feet, and Tensei suddenly became aware of the height difference between them, and how it was growing smaller as time went on. Tensei had  finally surpassed Nemuri in height, but Shouta had a little ways to go--he was getting there, though. He wasn’t as tiny anymore.

And because he was taller, that meant it would be that much easier to just kiss him if he wanted to. If he could.

Bad Tensei. Stupid Tensei. You are not a good person, Tensei.

“So, why didn’t you like me before?” Shouta asked, very obviously attempting to squash out his curiosity with more monotony, but Tensei heard it and grinned.

“Just an issue of you possibly stealing my best friend.”

Shouta snorted. “Yeah, sure. I always thought you and Hizashi were closer.”

“What?” Tensei’s voice came out a little shocked. “You think Hizashi and I are closer than you and him?!”

Shouta was silent again, head still bowed. He couldn’t see his expression, but he could see that his ears were red, and still, presumably, his face. He felt the sudden urge to laugh maniacally again, but kept a lid on it, not sure that the other boy would take it well.

“We’re all a mess,” Tensei sighed instead. “Disasters.”

Shouta nodded, before looking back up. His face had mostly turned back into its usual pale color, but there was still a bit of pink.

“So.” Shouta said flatly once again, and Tensei arched an eyebrow. “What’s your deal, then?”

“What?”

“What’s wrong. What kind of stuff do you have going on?”

“Oh, it’s...nothing, really,” Tensei lied, moving to rub at the back of his neck and averting his gaze. “Nothing to do with you...”

“Hey,” Shouta said seriously. “Stop lying.”

“Really, it’s alright.”

“No, it’s not.” Shouta crossed his arms, and though they weren’t making eye contact, he knew Tensei was staring hard at him.

“I can’t tell you,” Tensei tried arguing.

“Yeah, you can,” Shouta said back, stubborn. “I won’t tell Hizashi or anybody else if that matters.”

Tensei didn’t like the fact that Shouta was boring holes into him, almost as if he were attempting to interrogate him silently. It made him uncomfortable, especially the more he lied. Guilt gnawed at his conscience as he continued lying, but there wasn’t any other option than this.

“I promise,” Shouta tacked onto his earlier statement.

“Just stop asking about it!” Tensei suddenly snapped, feeling a brief surge of anger as he finally looked Shouta directly in the eyes. “Why do you keep asking, what does it matter?”

“I already told you,” Shouta said slowly. “You helped me back then and I want to help now.”

“This is a completely different matter.”

“And?”

“And? And the thing is that I don’t want to tell you, Shouta!” Tensei half-shouted, getting even angrier by the moment. Literally, why did he have to such bothersome, stubborn, and caring friends? He could deal with this emotional turmoil just fine, but at the same time he couldn’t because who the hell falls in love with both their best friends? What is wrong with him?

Shouta flinched away, subtly, but it was there. Tensei could feel his face getting redder, though not from embarrassment, like Shouta’s had, but rather with anger.

“I’m fine,” Tensei stressed the word. “And I don’t need either of you trying to ask about it.”

Because he was going to end up admitting it one of these days. It was only a matter of time.

“This is why I want to know,” Shouta said quietly, inflection still level. “You’re not the type to get angry like this.”

“You are being unusually stubborn,” Tensei groaned, and Shouta’s eyebrows drew together. It was a subtle change in expression, but Tensei knew the other was angry now too.

“I bet if I was Hizashi, you’d tell me,” Shouta mumbled, crossing his arms in a weak and petty attempt to get Tensei to speak.

“Wow,” he huffed. “That was low.”

“Maybe. Doesn’t mean it’s not true, though.”

“I wouldn’t tell Hizashi, either.”

Concern in Shouta’s voice--”Not even him?”

Tensei squinted at the other, wondering if this whole thing was actually some tactic of his--trying to draw out information in this way. He considered not answer for a moment, before deciding that Shouta would just keep on asking even if he didn’t.

“No. Not even him.”

“What’s so bad that you wouldn’t even tell Hizashi about it?”

“Shouta...”

“Why can’t you tell him?”

That was Tensei’s breaking point.

“Because I like Hizashi, Shouta!” Tensei’s voice rose even more, and he noted distantly in the back of his mind that Tenya’s giggles had disappeared and that Shouta was flinching away from him again. “God, do you see why I didn’t want to tell you jack shit? I don’t want to tell either of you anything, I don’t want either of you to know because I like our friendship and I don’t want anything to happen to it! So shut up!”

Silence. The entire world had seemed to have lost all its noise. Shouta’s eyes were wide, though his head was bowed, lessening the effect of his perceived shock. Tensei tried to calm himself down, tried to realize what he had said and tried to piece together another sentence to take back what he’d said, but he couldn’t speak. His throat had closed up and it was suddenly a thousand times harder to breathe.

Oh god. Oh god.

He’d done it.

He’d done it.

Shouta was the first one to speak:

“Okay.”

And him speaking suddenly seemed to enable Tensei’s own will to speak as well.

“Wait,” Tensei huffed, still trying to calm down, trying to be rational and calm and composed, but it wasn’t working. “Shouta, I d-didn’t, I didn’t mean to--I don’t want to...like...I don’t...”

His mind was blank. Shouta was inching away.

He’d fucked up, exactly like he feared he would.

“I understand,” Shouta said, voice reverting back into its usual complete disinterest, and he turned on his heel and made his way towards the front door as fast as he could without running. Tensei’s own feet followed after him, even though he didn’t want to, because he was going to do something stupid again.

“Wait, Shouta--”

“I understand,” Shouta said, still not looking back at him, wrenching the door open and continuing his walk to the gate.

“Please, Shouta!” Tensei called out desperately, knowing where Shouta was going and who he was going to. In one final and desperate attempt at trying to fix something in this whole mess, to make one thing clear and somehow less worse, he continued calling out: “I like you too!”

Shouta didn’t look back or acknowledge him. Tensei was left on his porch, eyes wide, breathing rapid and irregular. His entire body felt numb and long after Shouta was out of sight, he realized he was crying.

He’d fucked up.

Majorly.

Royally.

There was no recovering from this. None at all.

But the least he could do was go back inside, so the neighbors would stop staring.

Closing the door behind him, Tensei brought a hand up in a weak attempt to wipe the wetness away from his face, chest burning in its efforts to try and force more tears and perhaps a few sobs out of him, but he fought it back. He didn’t want to cry right now. Maybe later. But not right now.

A voice suddenly sounded, and his head snapped up as soon as he heard it.

“Ten-nii?”

His father and Tenya stood in the kitchen, watching. Tenya was feeding himself applesauce on the counter while his father supervised, keeping his hands on his son’s waist to make sure he didn’t topple over and hurt himself. They were both staring at him, Tenya with wide-eyed curiosity and his father with his brows furrowed in concern. His father knew what had happened. He’d seen it happen.

He could feel the questions coming--the ‘Are you all right’’s and the ‘Do you want to talk about it’’s. And he didn’t want to deal with them, just like he didn’t want to deal with the knowledge that his father just heard him admit out loud to his crush that he had a crush on him and his boyfriend.

Oh god.

Oh god, he’d really just done that.

The burning in his chest intensified, and Tensei tore his gaze away from his family, instead stomping up the stairs two steps at a time before locking his door behind him and throwing himself onto his bed.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

I am so fucking stupid and I am such a bad friend. I am the worst person alive. His fingernails dug into his face as he pressed his palms against his eyelids, grunting as he tried to force back his sobs. I’m shit. I’m fucking shit.

He wasn’t sure he could face either of his best friends ever again, and he wasn’t even sure he wanted to.

 When it was dinner time he heard his father call his name twice, but neither of his parents went upstairs to force him to eat with them, and for that he was thankful. He ate some of the candy he had hidden in his sock draw while watching a badly-subbed version of some Liam Neeson movie, despite not even liking Liam Neeson. After that he tried suffocating himself with his pillow, but his pillow smelled really bad and he decided that he’d rather die in a less smelly way, and also that he needed to wash his pillow case.

He watched the hours tick by agonizingly slow--seven, eight, nine. Just before ten, there was a knock on his door, and he attempted to say something, but his throat felt thick and what came out was little more than a gargle.

“I’m coming in, kiddo,” he heard his mother say, and he sat up in bed as she opened the door and invited herself inside. She maneuvered around his things carefully with practiced ease, giving him a slight disapproving look at the state of the mess, which he ignored.

“So,” she sighed, sitting on the edge of his bed and curling her fingers together thoughtfully. “Your dad told me what happened today.”

With that, Tensei groaned, and dropped back onto his side.

“Hey, I’m not done. I just thought we could talk about it, you know?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Tensei mumbled, voice cracking. He didn’t, because if there was something worse than your crush(es) knowing that you have a crush on them, it was your parents knowing and trying to talk to you about the whole thing. It sounded like an awkward situation, and he was still too horrified from earlier events to feel like dealing with that trauma-inducing experience.

“It’s totally normal and fine,” she plowed on, as if she hadn’t even heard him speak. “Having a crush on your best friend--that’s to be expected sometimes, isn’t it? That’s the person you’re closest to. It would make sense that you’d also form romantic feelings.”

“Mooooom.”

“And being jealous of your friend’s boyfriend isn’t all that weird either. I would say it’s a bit unusual to hear about having a crush on the friend and the boyfriend, but that’s probably normal too. The boyfriend probably makes your friend happy, and thusly, you as well.”

“Mom.”

“Tensei.”

He peeled open his eyes to stare at her, his own vision foggy. “This isn’t helping at all.”

“I’m just trying to tell you that’s it all normal,” she said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “And that you should work this out before you lose people important to you.”

“It’s too late for that,” Tensei groaned, flipping onto his stomach so he wouldn’t have to see her expression. “I meant to keep it all a secret. Hizashi’s totally head-over-heels for Shouta and Shouta doesn’t even process human emotion most of the time. Me liking either of them messes that up.”

“Son,” his mother began, but he kept talking.

“And they’re just perfect for eachother, alright? Like, they’re opposites, but they’re compatible. They understand each other without even needing to speak. Me? I cause all the communication issues, all the complications. It’s me. I’m the bad friend.”

“Tensei,” she tried again. “Firstly, you aren’t a bad friend. You’re just going through things. It’s normal. You’re seventeen. And secondly...haven’t you ever considered it a possibility that you can be involved in their relationship too?”

Tensei paused, before flipping over onto his back to squint at his mother.

“That’s not a thing,” he said, his voice full of doubt.

“It is. It’s not common, but it’s normal.” When there was too long a pause, she stood up, back straightening as a sort of business-like tone overcame her voice. “You’re seventeen. This love stuff might seem really important right now, but it’s not. Later on down the line, you’ll realize it wasn’t as big a deal as you thought it was.”

“Easy for you to say,” Tensei mumbled, half-glaring. “You and dad have been married for, like, three hundred years.”

His mother laughed and waved goodnight, closing the door behind her as she exited. As soon as he couldn’t hear her footsteps down the hall anymore he turned over and sighed, staring hard at his wall.

“Haven’t I ever considered the possibility..?” He half-echoed to himself, before closing his eyes. “Please. As if that could happen.”

At least, on that lighter note, he managed to fall asleep easier, and didn’t even feel guilty or hurried when he woke up three hours after school had started. He didn’t really want to see anyone today anyways.

Downstairs he found a note from his parents, who were out working today. They told him it was fine if he stayed home today (like they had somehow already known he’d accidentally sleep in) so long as he took care of Tenya.

Tensei sighed, making a breakfast of oatmeal as he waited for the baby monitor to light up as it usually did whenever Tenya woke up. Usually, the moment he woke up, he ended up making some sort of noise, whether it be crying or screaming or weird baby gurgling. One weekend, all had been silent until he’d heard a quiet voice utter “prison”, which had nearly given him a heart attack before remembering that one, Tenya’s baby monitor was on, and two, since having learned an abundance of new words at daycare, he had the habit of repeating them.

Just as Tensei was sprinkling cinnamon into his brother’s serving of breakfast he heard a quiet, sleepy mumble sound from the baby monitor, followed by a call of “Maaaa?”

Breakfast was a quiet affair. Tenya ate his oatmeal without much complaint, though he sometimes held his spoon out in front of Tensei’s face in an attempt to feed his older brother. The first two times Tensei had humored him and allowed himself small bites of the other’s food, but every other time he told his brother that he needed to eat it in order to become big and strong one day.

“Big? Strong?” Tenya repeated, eyes wide, and Tensei smiled, gesturing to himself.

“Like me.”

“Ten-nii,” Tenya gasped. “Big and strong?”

“Yep!”

Tenya continued gasping, before his mouth closed into a smile and he let out a cheerful, “No!”

Tensei deflated. He told himself not to have a toddler’s opinion get to him like that. He failed.

The day passed by somewhat quickly and yet slowly. He didn’t think about the others once, instead giving his full attention to Tenya and occasionally diverting it to Neptune, who enjoyed batting at Tenya playfully with his paw whenever they were building blocks on the floor.

“Let’s build a house,” Tensei said as Neptune sniffed a wooden block before hitting it across the floor.

“No,” Tenya said.

“No?”

“Prison.”

“Why would you want to build a prison, Tenya?!”

“Because villains!” Tenya shrieked determinedly, slamming his hands down on his building blocks. “Heroes!”

Tensei laughed, reaching over to ruffle the other’s hair. “That’s the spirit.”

They eventually migrated outside, where Tenya made an almost robotic hand movement towards the swing and said, “Push me.”

“Ask politely?”

“Please.”

They did that for an hour before going back inside. All in all, Tensei had a somewhat enjoyable day, and as late afternoon passed by he allowed himself to just joke around with Tenya and be carefree. After all, tomorrow was the weekend, and he wouldn’t have to deal with any of this mess for three whole days.

It was with this attitude that he approached the front door when it was knocked on, leaving Tenya behind in the living room as he payed apt attention to a children’s film about a giant cat. He opened it, not really sure what he was expecting, but it certainly hadn’t been...Hizashi.

And just like that, a pit of dread opened up in his stomach.

Oh god. He wasn’t prepared for this. He was not fucking prepared for this.

He was not prepared for Hizashi, in his five-foot-seven glory (with an additional four inches due to his hair) to be standing there still in school uniform and waiting patiently for him to open the door. He hadn’t been expecting it, and as a result, when he saw it, felt like he’d been suddenly hit by a bus.

“Hey,” Hizashi said, sounding considerably less angry or frantic or nervous or awkward than Tensei would have expected. “Missed you at school today.”

Tensei stared back, eyes wide and wild as a million thoughts crash-coursed around his head like a racetrack. He wanted to say something, and yet he wanted to say nothing. He also wanted to slam his door in Hizashi’s face, but he was frozen. And most of all, he wanted to get onto his hands and knees and beg for forgiveness.

“Are you home alone?” Hizashi asked curiously, trying to peek into Tensei’s house, and he just nodded his head wordlessly. “Alright. Cool.”

Silence.

“Can I come in?”

More silence. Tensei unconsciously shifted the door so it drifted shut a couple of inches, but not enough to obscure his face or anything from Hizashi’s view. Hizashi was wearing those stupid smiley-face earrings again, which was dumb, and also Tensei was dumb. Everything was dumb. But especially Tensei.

“Okay,” Hizashi sighed, glancing down at his feet. “Guess I’ll just--”

"Did Shouta tell you?” Tensei finally blurted out, and Hizashi stilled, before nodding.

“Yep. He did.”

Tensei felt his heart skip an entire beat, but he forced himself to speak again.

“I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?” Hizashi asked, grinning up at him with his eyebrows raised. “A lot of things suddenly make sense now.”

He could feel his face burning and turned his head a different way so Hizashi wouldn’t see it. There was a ton of wind today, making it a little harder for him to hear Hizashi’s next words:

“We don’t really have a problem with it, dude.”

“I’m sorry,” Tensei breathed out again, turning back to face the other boy. “I’m really sorry. I never wanted either of you to find out. I just got mad at Shouta because he kept pushing.”

“No, yeah, that’s totally understandable!” Hizashi nodded quickly, before looking back down at his feet. “But. Uh. I came here to talk.”

“No,” Tensei mumbled quietly, instantly on his guard. Even though Hizashi wasn’t actually a threat, his brain was registering his discomfort as some form of hostility. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine, though,” Hizashi argued back, though his voice was gentle. “I wanted to talk about something with you.”

“Can’t it wait until Monday?”

“It could, but I’m here now.”

“I said I was sorry, man,” Tensei stressed, feeling even more weary as the seconds dragged on. “Can we leave it at that until--”

And Hizashi snapped out a “God damn it, Tensei” before surging forward and grabbing his wrist with one hand. It took Tensei a second longer to register the warm pressure around his wrist than it did to register the warm pressure on his lips. It happened for maybe a grand total of two seconds, but when Hizashi pulled away it had seemed like an eternity and now the entire world was dead because meteors were falling from the sky. Tensei wished he was dead. God, he wanted to die, and yet he was alive. On like, fifty different levels.

“Let me in,” Hizashi commanded, and Tensei stepped aside wordlessly, allowing the other through. His mind was trying to catch up with what had just happened, screaming ten different variations of ‘holy shit’ at him. Because holy shit.

Tensei turned to face Hizashi, who wasted no time in stepping forward and kissing Tensei again, hand sliding across the back of his neck to grip at Tensei’s hair. His mind was still experiencing a severe lag, but he somehow registered that yes, Hizashi was kissing him and it felt nice. Way nicer than he ever thought it would be, because Hizashi’s lips were weirdly soft from the amount of lotion and chapstick he used daily.

When it finally managed to compute solidly in his head that Hizashi was kissing him, his mind went into overdrive, flashing a huge ‘RED ALERT’. Because Hizashi was kissing him. Hizashi, who was totally, one hundred percent in love with Shouta, and also dating him right now.

Tensei pushed Hizashi away, eyes wide and breathing coming out rapidly as he tried to form words.

“What the--what was that, Hizashi, I don’t--the fuck--”

“Shit," Hizashi laughed breathlessly, a nervous edge to his voice. “Shit, you’re such a fucking idiot. We’re all fucking idiots.”

Tensei’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion as he repeated the other’s words in his head, but no matter how much he tried it just didn’t make sense. “I’m sorry--? What does that mean..?”

“It means,” Hizashi said, voice lowering as he stepped forward and pushed against Tensei’s chest,  pressing him against the door, “that we like you too, you idiot. You fucking idiot.”

And then there was more kissing.

Tensei wanted to find it enjoyable. He really did, because dream come true, and yada yada yada. But he was not at all caught up with what was happening, and trudging through seven different layers of confusion, so the next time that Hizashi drew away to catch his breath Tensei pressed his hands flat against his chest and shoved him gently.

“I’m still confused,” Tensei said slowly, trying to catch his breath once again. “Like, a lot.”

Even though Hizashi had been pushed away from kissing him, his hand still resided at the base of Tensei’s neck, and for a moment he felt long fingers glide smoothly into his hair in an almost soothing manner.

“I understand,” Hizashi sighed out. “Just...fuck. There’s a lot of explaining to be done. And talking, too.”

Tensei blinked. “Yeah.”

“I’m sorry for just kissing you out of nowhere. And Shouta’s totally fine with it, by the way. The kissing, I mean.”

“Yeah. Right.” Tensei repeated, frowning. “What?”

“Explaining. We have explaining to do.” Hizashi laughed, almost maniacal, almost nervous. “Shit ton of explaining. And so do you, dude.”

“Okay,” Tensei nodded, though his mind was still going way too fast. “Yeah, um, when?”

Hizashi paused, before glancing at him. “Are you free right now?”

“I’m babysitting Tenya.”

And speak of the devil, there he was, somehow having wedged his way between their legs in an attempt to grab at Tensei’s attention.

“Prison,” Tenya said, holding up a poorly constructed wooden fortress that was falling apart in his hands.

“It looks great,” Tensei said.

“Bring him along,” Hizashi said, moving his hand from Tensei’s neck to swipe at his bottom lip with his thumb playfully. “Do you mind if I...?”

And even though he was still confused, he was also still one hundred percent in love with Hizashi, and the words ‘Shouta’s fine with it’ echoed in his head. So he nodded, and allowed the other to press against him in a slightly more PG version of their earlier kiss. He drew away when he felt Tenya tug at his pants leg, and he asked,

“Yeah, what is it?”

“He’s kissing you,” Tenya said, voice full of awe as he pointed at Hizashi. Tensei stared at his younger brother, before all of his emotions and thoughts finally caught up with him, landing in a crash of waves as a weird feeling tore through his chest. At first it manifested through a slight tingle in his lungs, before it pushed into his throat, and the next thing he knew, he was laughing hysterically against the wall, confused and shocked and surprised and dumb all at once.

“Yeah,” Tensei cried out through his laughter, and Hizashi was laughing too, equally as manic, though a little more nervous. “Yeah, he is, Tenya. He is.”

Laughter. More laughter. God, his chest hurt. And god, he was so fucking confused.

“Okay,” Hizashi said through his giggles, and Tensei tried to focus on his words through his own hiccups. “Okay. We need to meet Shouta at the cat cafe. You good to come?”

Tensei closed his eyes, already feeling a headache coming on. He thought about it for several seconds, debating whether he should take Tenya or not, debating if he should leave a note for his parents or not, debating if he should believe what Hizashi had said or not. When he finally came to a decision, he nodded slowly, and said,

“Yeah. Let me grab Tenya and I’s coats. Then we’ll get going.”