Work Text:
Mineta gets a text later in the evening than usual. His pulse beats faster as he checks his phone only for it to be his mom telling him she’ll be home late. She’s been home late a lot in the past few days. He scrolls through his scant list of contacts, staring at the string of numbers that leads him to Tomura Shigaraki. He lets Tomura text him first, usually- half the time it’s just because he can never be sure when he gets a new phone. He’s gone through at least two in the past few weeks they’ve been talking, always due to Tomura getting so excited he forgets to be careful. It’s not exactly the best idea for a villain to keep anything around long enough for it to be tracked, either. Mineta takes a moment to gather his courage to text Tomura.
“hey whatcha up to?” The cursor flashes at the end of his sentence, challenging him to send the message. Fuck if he’s gonna let it taunt him. Tomura replies almost instantly.
“nm, kinda bored (-_-) hbu?”
“Ye me too. Just doin homework, it sucks”
It takes much longer to get a response this time. Mineta keeps looking at his phone every few moments, scrolling through old messages and hoping for a new one. It feels like every minute is filled with hours. When he does finally get one, it’s an address he doesn’t recognize followed by “let’s meet up (^_^).”
As Mineta walks down the street, following the GPS on his phone to the address Tomura sent, not once does he reconsider it. Sure, going anywhere a villain invited him is a bad idea in theory. In practice, who else would willingly give them information? It’s not an entirely rational justification but it’s enough for him. He’s practically desperate to just talk to someone, even if it’s only a villain using him for dirt on an enemy they happen to share. He notices how close he’s coming to the building before he can think much more about what he’s doing. The location with this address is a bar- did Tomura want him to go in? He must know he’s underage, but he’s also not sure how much a villain would care. He’s not sure how much he cares. He inches toward it unsurely before he notices Tomura himself, sitting on a rock outside the entrance.
“Hey Tomura, I'm here,” he announces.
“Mineta- good to see nobody kidnapped you on the way over,” Tomura jokes. He was starting to worry that something happened with how long Mineta was taking. Seeing him lifted his worry and brought his mood up with it. With Kurogiri still in the hospital, he’s been in dire need of company.
“So what’s up, did something happen?” Mineta asks, hopping onto the rock with him.
Tomura shrugs. “Not really. Just thought it’d be nice to see another living human in person for once. Kurogiri’s still in the hospital after what Deku did to him.”
“Oh, that sucks. Sorry…” Mineta trails off awkwardly. “Do you work here?”
“I can’t say anything about this place, let’s leave it at that.”
“Okay, that’s fair. So… What do you do besides villain stuff?”
“Play video games or watch movies, mostly. It’s nothing too interesting. What do you do?” Tomura is genuinely curious about Mineta’s hobbies. They don’t actually know much about each other- which figures, given the fact that they’re essentially natural enemies. There’s no reason not to change that. It’d be a nice change of pace to have a friend with no body count.
“Mostly the same, or studying. Sometimes I read.” Mineta almost regrets listing it as a hobby, but it should be fine so long as Tomura doesn’t ask what he reads. He avoids the question prematurely by launching into his own. He doesn’t have too much to talk about in terms of things he usually does. “Do you like horror movies?”
“Nah, I get tired of seeing gore and shit at work. Romcoms are more my thing.”
“Right, sorry. Romcoms are nice, too. I've watched maybe one in my whole life. Any you’d recommend?” Mineta asks, opening up a floodgate. Tomura launches into a tirade about his favorites. It’s not often he gets to talk about them- at least, not with someone who’s actually interested. He wasn’t expecting Mineta to follow along so eagerly. He accidentally spoils the plot of a couple of them by accident in all his excitement. Mineta doesn’t seem to mind that. He takes out his phone at some point, which makes Tomura’s heart rate spike.
“What’re you doing?” He asks, almost like he’s taken aback. He wouldn’t be surprised if Mineta were using this as an opportunity to send pro heros his location. What is surprising is how much the thought bothers him.
“Making a list. I'm gonna check some of them out later- what was the first one again?” Mineta shows Tomura the notes app he has open, and that’s enough to settle his nerves again. He continues rambling, keeping an eye on Mineta’s phone to make sure he’s still just taking notes. Mineta doesn’t mind that too much. He understands Tomura’s paranoia. Besides, this moment is too nice to ruin. Someone’s actually happy to talk to him. The joy he can see through the hand on Tomura’s face while he’s gushing about his favorite movies is practically contagious. As his rant nears its end, Mineta’s eyes drift to fingers sticking out of Tomura’s pocket. He really keeps those with him all the time? He’d been wondering about those since he first saw Tomura. What better time to clear that up than now?
“Doesn’t it feel weird to have those hands stuck on you?” he asks.
“Nah, they’re comfortable,” Tomura replies, pulling one out. “Wanna see what it feels like?” Mineta stares at it for a solid minute before sticking his arm out and letting Tomura gently clasp the hand onto it. The hand is cold and clammy, but Tomura has always found the pressure soothing. Mineta finds the feeling of being grabbed constantly a bit unsettling, but it does look cool.
“That’s so weird… Whose hand is this?”
“I'm not sure whose it used to be, but it's mine now. Father is the only one whose body I knew, I don’t really remember where I got the rest from.”
Mineta doesn’t reply, mostly because he doesn’t know how to. A surprisingly comfortable silence falls between them as Tomura watches Mineta fidget with the hand, bending its fingers and watching it clasp and unclasp from his wrist. There’s something cute about how focused he is.
“They just stay like this? They don’t rot?” he asks, turning it over like he’s looking for any sign of decay.
“Nope, it won’t unless you puncture it. Keep it in the freezer overnight and it should be fine. You can keep that one if you want. I have more in case anything happens to them.”
“Cool, thanks.” Severed hands make strange gifts, but Mineta appreciates the gesture. He was really enjoying talking to Tomura. Tomura’s a decent guy when he puts aside all the crime and the fact that he personally almost melted his face off a few months ago. If he has a crush on Deku, there’s a lot he can look past. “So can I find you here if I wanna hang out again?”
“It’s best not to meet in person too much,” Tomura sighs. He hates the way Mineta’s hopeful expression fades into a somber one.
“Yeah, I get it. I should probably get home before my mom does.”
“Yeah. Text me when you get home, alright?”
Mineta nods and takes a moment to pull up his GPS again to find the way home. He can’t help but get caught on the fact that Tomura wanted to make sure he gets home safe. It was a small gesture, but one that’s never been offered to him before. He could be murdered and have his intestines hung up in the classroom like streamers and most would probably ignore it. Alright, that’s an exaggeration, but it captures the spirit of how little he means to everyone he knows.
He eventually realizes that he still has Tomura’s hand holding his wrist. It might not be the best idea to openly carry an identifying feature from an incredibly dangerous villain. He hides the hand under his shirt, making sure it doesn’t look too conspicuous before continuing home.
The first thing he sees is his mom passed out on the couch when he walks through the door. He was hoping to get home first, but that turned out to be pointless. She probably didn’t even notice he wasn’t there. He creeps past her, slips the hand into the freezer, and goes up to his room. He almost forgets to text Tomura- there are a couple messages he missed, both Tomura asking if he’s okay. Reading them makes him tear up, overwhelmed with happiness as he recounts their conversation. He has a friend.
Tomura settles down once Mineta finally tells him he got home. He spends most of that night reading over old messages on that phone. It’s a shame he can only keep them for a few days, but at least they can have more conversations. As far as friends go, the most he has are people that aren’t actively trying to kill him. Mineta didn’t have to care about anything he said, he didn’t have to talk about anything except for what he can tell them about UA. Loneliness is a shared affliction between them, he’s gathered. Tomura can’t complain about having things in common.
Mineta starts carrying the hand to school with him in his bag. Nobody notices. He holds it when he gets home- in a strange way, it makes him feel less lonely. It’s a reminder of Tomura. Not a villain, but someone who cares about him enough to worry, who thinks he's actually useful. Someone just as lonely as he is. Luckily, they can fix that together. He starts to understand how the hands are comforting when he keeps it on him, making sure to hide it well enough under his clothes. It’s not that hard to find, but nobody would actually care to look. Tomura would probably notice, though.
Tomura gradually spends more time thinking about Mineta. He sends him more and more texts that don’t pertain to just their work. Occasional raving about movies he’s watching or wants to watch, complaining about bosses in whatever games he’s playing, things that happened to make him think of Mineta. His heart flutters every time Mineta replies. It’s confusing at first, but he starts to understand why.
He might be in love.