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As Aizawa’s face is repeatedly slammed into the concrete, he knows this is the end. His consciousness is slowly fading, and he’s pretty certain that once he gives in and lets the darkness take him, he isn’t going to wake up again.
He should be afraid, probably. Maybe relieved that this pain will end. He should consider life beyond death, or something poetic like that, in his final moments.
But all he can think about is sign language, and the man who taught it to him.
Such a stupid thing to think about. He’s dying, and he’s just reminiscing about learning sign language. He remembers it so clearly, those days in UA when he had no friends and plenty of enemies, when teamwork was a weakness for him.
Of course, it makes a little bit of sense that this is what he’s thinking about. They say your life flashes before your eyes when you die, and what is his life if not Hizashi?
-----------------
Sign language was never something Aizawa had cared to learn. After all, what use could it be? He didn’t know anyone deaf, didn’t have any friends in class to communicate with, and so he didn’t consider sign language an important skill, by any means.
That all changed after he won the sports festival and was able to transfer into the hero course at UA.
The training was grueling on a typical day, but one specific exercise that first year became the bane of his existence. It was a recurring form of training meant to help the students overcome their weaknesses, and as such, they were unable to use their quirks or support items. Their greatest weaknesses were determined, and taken advantage of, so that they could overcome them.
Aizawa had two weaknesses. First of all, he was completely useless without his eyesight. Not only that, but losing it was a source of anxiety and panic for him, because without it, he’d have no chance of amounting to the hero he wanted to be. So, naturally, his teacher blindfolded him.
The second weakness was really two weaknesses rolled into one. He wasn’t social--his teamwork skills were poor at best--but he also hated one of his classmates. This was common knowledge, so in addition to needing to work with a teammate for this exercise, he had to work with his greatest enemy, Yamada Hizashi, the loud mouth kid he’d beaten in the final battle of the sports festival.
Yamada’s targeted weaknesses for the exercise included hating Aizawa’s guts and relying on his hearing too much. After all, without knowing how loud he was being, he could severely hurt any nearby allies. So he was given completely noise cancelling earplugs, and made to work with his competition.
The exercise involved being placed in a “villain’s lair” and attempting to find a way out without being detected. So, with one pair of eyes and one pair of ears between them, Aizawa and Yamada entered the vast lair.
After an hour of being completely unable to communicate in any way, they hadn’t even made it out of the first hallway. It was embarrassing.
Afterwards, when their teacher had pitied them enough to call it quits for the day, Aizawa sat on the steps of the school, sulking.
“Are you trying to make me look bad?” Yamada eventually snapped, coming up behind him.
Seeing no reason to respond, Aizawa continued leaning against the steps behind him, eyes shut.
“We’re just going to have to do it over and over until we get out, you know,” Yamada huffed in annoyance.
At that, Aizawa had opened his eyes and reluctantly responded, “Well it’s impossible for us to communicate when you can’t speak or hear, Yamada.”
At that, he gave Aizawa a glare. “Actually, I have an idea. But it’ll take some time, and we’ll have to deal with each other more than usual. Think you can handle that?”
“I’m listening,” Aizawa sighed.
And just like that, Yamada had offered to teach him sign language after school. It sounded like a major pain, but Aizawa wanted to get this training exercise over so that he could stop spending time with Yamada and no longer make a fool out of himself in front of his teacher.
He found himself sitting in the library, where they’d agreed to meet, spending hours each day after school with Yamada, learning the shapes of the letters visually and then through touch alone, since he wouldn’t see anything with his eyes covered.
It started off with a reluctant truce, a pledge to be respectful to each other while they were partnered up. Things got heated a few times when it seemed like Yamada was making fun of Aizawa’s progress, but after a week, things were actually peaceful.
Aizawa hated to even consider it, but maybe he had made a sort of friend. Yamada Hizashi was the last person he expected to fill that role, yet here he was, spending long hours with the boy he thought he hated and actually enjoying it. They started getting takeout for dinner and eating together, having full conversations in sign language. It was slow and tedious, but eventually, Aizawa got the hang of it enough to keep up with Yamada’s excited gesturing. They tried to stick with only letters, since that was the easiest way to communicate when Aizawa would have to rely solely on what he could feel through touching alone, but it wasn’t too tedious.
Once Yamada was confident that Aizawa knew the letter by heart and without much hesitation through sight, they moved on to really focusing on training Aizawa to understand it with only his hands.
“You’re cheating,” Yamada sighed after they’d been practicing for a while.
Aizawa shut his squinted eyes. “Am not.”
“I can see you. We’re gonna need to blindfold you, apparently,” Yamada said dryly, sighing in exaggerated annoyance.
The next day, Yamada had shown up to the library with one of his father’s ties, tying it tightly around Aizawa’s eyes. It was frightening, but what bothered Aizawa the most was how much less scared he was than when they first started the training exercise. He trusted his former enemy with his greatest weakness, and it was a strange revelation.
Aizawa had never really trusted anyone before, relying on himself and himself alone. But hanging out with Yamada like this, like he imagined friends normally would, was much more pleasant than he’d imagined.
He felt like an idiot for letting this strange feeling of camaraderie grow within him. This was only temporary, and growing attached would result in nothing but disappointment. He knew that, and yet he couldn’t quite help the way he felt warm inside when Yamada was smiling at him instead of glaring.
Eventually, Aizawa had gotten pretty good at it. They would no longer be completely unable to communicate during the training exercise, and that was the end goal, but it left him feeling hollow as Yamada packed up his things and said they were done with lessons.
As Yamada turned to leave, Aizawa grabbed his arm. “Wait.”
Yamada turned around, confused. “What’s up?”
Trying to will his face not to heat up, Aizawa cleared his throat. “I’ve been wondering for a while now, why do you know sign language?”
There was a moment of hesitation, where his rival swallowed and looked almost timid, like he was unsure whether to answer the question or not. Finally, he said, “Wanna come to my house for dinner?”
It was a very clear non sequitur, but at the prospect of spending a little more time with Yamada, he was happy to let his question go. After all, they weren’t friends, and it was none of his business why Yamada was so impressively adept at signing.
Then again, an invite to dinner sounded like an exclusively friendly activity, so Aizawa was pretty excited. “Sure, let me call home to tell them to eat without me.”
And so they walked to Yamada’s house together, awkwardly silent for the most part. Finally, Yamada cleared his throat lightly and started to talk.
“My parents aren’t deaf or anything, but we use sign language to communicate a lot of the time,” he explained quietly.
Aizawa blinked at that. “Oh. Why?”
“Well...when my quirk first manifested, I couldn’t control it. You know how it is.”
Aizawa didn’t really, but he stayed silent.
“I couldn’t control my voice,” Yamada explained. “I was often too loud, and you know, my voice can do some serious damage. So my parents and I learned sign language, so we could talk without me blasting their eardrums out. It became kind of a habit, so while we talk when we’ve got company usually or when we’re in separate rooms, it’s just normal for us to sign otherwise.”
Yamada looked at him sideways, like he was waiting for some reaction, so Aizawa nodded.
“Makes sense. I’ll sign around them, then, for more practice. But it’s gotta be letters unless you want to start teaching me more complicated stuff.”
The way Yamada’s face lit up made Aizawa’s heart melt a little. When they arrived at the house, they spent a lot of dinner using sign language, and Aizawa learned a few new signs. He was invited back the next day by Yamada, and it became a ritual, of sorts.
Eventually, Yamada referred to Aizawa as one of his best friends in a casual conversation.
Eventually, Yamada became Hizashi.
They passed the weakness training exercise with flying colors, but they kept signing. After all, knowing sign language could end up being a valuable skill someday.
Eventually, as they signed through touch alone in the dark of Hizashi’s room during sleepovers, Aizawa realized he liked holding Hizashi’s hands. He really liked it.
He wasn’t quite sure when it happened, but eventually, Aizawa realized he had fallen in love with his best friend, and he was okay with that.
-----------------
The darkness eventually takes Aizawa, and he’s pretty happy. He saved his students, protected them to the best of his ability. If that’s his legacy, well, that’s better than nothing. He regrets not telling Hizashi how he felt all these years, though, and that’s disappointing. He loses consciousness with those electric green eyes on his mind.
When he opens his eyes again and sees that gorgeous green color above him, he thinks he’s died and gone to heaven.
“Oh my god, Shouta!” Hizashi cries, and there’s gentle pressure on his hand. It feels warm against his icy skin, but he isn’t sure if that’s because he’s in love with the man holding his hand or because his body is hypothermic from blood loss. Probably both.
Aizawa tries to talk, to say something, anything, but the words don’t come out. His throat feels full of something, and he panics a little. He tries to breathe, but it’s not working, and when he tries to move, everything hurts.
“Calm down, it’s okay,” Hizashi soothes him. “They put in a breathing tube. Don’t fight it, just relax.”
He tries to calm down, but allowing something else to breathe for him is really difficult. After a while, his body seems to melt into the bed he’s on, though, and he feels sleepy.
“You should rest,” Hizashi says, squeezing his hand a little. “The students are safe, everyone is gonna be okay, but you need to recover. You’re in bad shape.”
Aizawa stares at Hizashi, noticing the redness in his eyes, the furrow between his eyebrows, the tear tracks on his face, and wonders how severely he was injured. He didn’t expect to open his eyes ever again, yet here he is, but instead of celebrating, Hizashi seems more concerned.
Really, he could still die. He’s not in as much pain as he expected, but that probably means his body is shutting down. After all, his skin is ice cold, and he clearly wasn’t breathing on his own.
He doesn’t want to die with regrets. He focuses intently on moving his hand, on grabbing Hizashi’s and squeezing it tightly.
And then he remembers that he can communicate without his words.
Making his fingers move the way he wants is difficult, nearly impossible. His body doesn’t want to cooperate, doesn’t want to move. It sends shooting pain up his arm, but eventually, he clumsily signs his confession. Nothing fancy, but it gets the job done.
I love you
Hizashi realizes he’s trying to sign after a few seconds, and Aizawa signs it a few times before things start to get dark again. His heart feels like it’s slowing down, and he’s endlessly thankful that Hizashi gave him the option to be heard in his final moments.
He doesn’t hear Hizashi respond to him, and that’s just fine. He can finally let go.
-----------------
The next time he wakes up, everything hurts, and he decides he’s probably going to live.
His throat feels normal, if a little sore, and he groans. It feels like he was run over by a truck.
“If you try to die on me again, I will be very angry.”
Aizawa glances to the side, and the splitting pain in his head is almost forgotten at the sight of his best friend, who is clearly distraught.
“A-am I okay?” Aizawa asks in a raspy whisper that does his sore throat no favors.
“That might be generous,” Hizashi deadpans. “Your heart stopped twice, your body is a mess of broken bones, you might have permanent vision loss-- I mean I guess you’re not going to die spontaneously again, after telling me you love me, if that’s what you’re asking. But you’re far from what I’d call okay, Shouta.”
Ah, so that’s why his body is practically on fire. “Ah. I see.”
There’s a long, awkward pause, until finally Hizashi fills it with words, like usual. “So is this love a platonic thing, or--”
“No. But you can’t be upset. I thought I was dying, after all. Apparently I was, so...yeah.”
Hizashi scoffs, and Aizawa glances towards him. His friend is smiling, albeit a little sadly.
“It takes a near death experience for you to tell me you love me, and what, I’m supposed to forget it? How is that fair?”
“I don’t want this to impact our friendship. I’ve felt like this for years, and you never noticed, so I hope we can just go back to--”
“How many years?” Hizashi asks, emerald eyes staring into Aizawa’s soul.
He could lie, take it back, whatever, but the sincerity in Hizashi’s eyes begs for honesty. So Aizawa sighs and quietly replies, “Fourteen years, give or take a year.”
When Hizashi gets suddenly closer to his face, for a fleeting second, he thinks maybe he’s going to slap him. Of course that would be ridiculous, even if he wasn’t injured, but he can’t understand the sudden violation of his personal space--
Until Hizashi kisses him, and his thought process stops completely.
He hisses in pain, completely involuntarily, and regrets it as Hizashi backs off immediately.
“Sorry! Oh my god, are you okay?!”
Aizawa lays there in a daze. “Did you just kiss me, or am I actually dead? Is this a dream?”
Hizashi laughs a little breathlessly. “You’re an idiot, Shouta. Such an idiot. I love you, too! I have since, like, graduation. I thought-- I was so obvious, how didn’t you notice?!”
Hizashi takes his hand, and it hurts a little, but Aizawa wouldn’t let go for anything.
“This is probably the best near death experience ever,” he mutters, and he can’t keep the smile from his face.
There are worse ways it could’ve played out, for sure. They can define their relationship later. For now, Aizawa is more than thrilled to fall asleep with Hizashi’s fingers gently running through his hair.