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It’s Hizashi’s fault.
It all started with him.
Shinsou sighs, rubbing his tired eyes, his brain a little fuzzy from the extended use of his quirk, having gone directly from patrol straight into a long interrogation and he still had a meeting to go to before he could finish up and go home. He could already feel the beginnings of the quirk-induced headache forming behind his eyes and at the base of his skull.
He sighs again, leaning his forehead against the cool wall in an out of the way hallway of the precinct next to the vending machine, and digs through his pocket, hoping he has enough change for at least a coffee to get him through the rest of the night.
He doesn’t.
He’s thinking about kicking the machine out of frustration when a sudden shock of cold is pressed against the nape of his neck, making him gasp and whirl around.
“Yo! Mind Trap!” Hizashi greets him cheerfully, waving a can of iced coffee in front of him before offering it to Shinsou.
“Present Mic,” Shinsou responds, gratefully taking the offered can, “What are you doing here? You have your show tonight.”
“Eraser said you’re working late,” Hizashi lifts a plastic bag, giving it a shake “Told me I should drop this off and make sure you eat it, otherwise you won’t eat anything at all!”
“Rather hypocritical of him,” Shinsou takes the bag, checking it’s contents. Some sort of wrap, two energy bars and a packet of applesauce. Quick, easy and portable. Exactly what Shinsou needs. “Thank you.”
Hizashi gives him a thumbs up, then starts leering at him with a grin. “If you got some time to eat…” he trails off, wagging his eyebrows suggestively.
Shinsou already knows where this is going, “You trying to say you’re a snack?”
“Baby, I am a three course meal!” Hizashi laughs, giving him the finger guns. The Voice Hero quickly looks down both sides of the hallway making sure they’re alone before moving in to slide an arm around Shinsou pulling him close. “You want to start with dessert?”
Shinsou snorts, then swoons dramatically in his hold, “But Mr. Yamada, you’re a married man! What would your husband think?”
He can see Hizashi fighting back a laugh at his terrible acting. “What Shouta doesn’t know, won’t hurt him,” he murmurs, bending down to kiss Shinsou passionately. He allows it for a minute, keeping an eye on the hallway and then gives then man one last peck on the lips before reluctantly pulling back.
“Hmm, unfortunately, dessert has to wait. We could get caught.”
“That’s what makes it fun!”
“Hizashi!” Shinsou protests, as Hizashi moves on mouth hotly at the spot behind his ear. “Mmm! I have a meeting!” Hizashi reaches down to palm his ass. “Ah! Seriously!” Hizashi ignores him, sucking on the skin just below his adam’s apple. Shinsou reaches up, grabbing a hold of Hizashi’s tiny moustache and yanks.
“Ow!”
“You’re not giving me a hickey right before a meeting.”
Hizashi glares pouting, hand massaging his upper lip. His gaze softens after a moment, “But seriously, do you have time to eat?”
“The meeting is in ten minutes but they won’t complain if I eat while I’m there.”
“Good,” Hizashi pauses, bringing his hand up to cup the side of Shinsou’s face, rubbing his thumb along his cheek, “You look tired.”
“I’ll be fine. I have tomorrow off.” Hizashi leers. “That I will be using to sleep.” Hizashi pouts.
Hizashi throws up hands, “Well then, my favourite listener! I’m off! Later!” He smiles brightly at Shinsou and waves as he leaves.
Shinsou waves back, picking the bag of food up off the floor. He hears a noise behind him but when he looks, there’s no one there.
A few days later, Shinsou is just leaving a courtroom after finishing a very long, boring day of testifying. Funny how nobody ever talks about the boring parts of being a hero. Become a hero! Spend six hours sitting on a shitty, uncomfortable wooden bench waiting your turn! Exciting.
At least he has a date with Shouta to look forward to. He picks up his pace, eager to meet up with the other man. The cat café had gotten a new kitten and he hadn’t seen it yet—
“Ah! Shinsou!”
He turns to look, surprised to see a smiling Uraraka waving, calling out to him as she rushes up. “Uravity, how have—” TWACK! The meaty sound of her palm hitting his cheek echos in the large foyer, people stopping to look and Shinsou has a few moments to utter a confused “What?” before his stomach flips violently as his feet lift off the ground. Uraraka, still smiling brightly, jumps on his back like he’s a horse and puts him in an arm lock. “What the fu—!!!” He hears a rev of an engine and then Iida is grabbing his ankle, taking off, dragging Shinsou and Uraraka along behind him like an hyperactive toddler with a helium ballon.
A few terrifying and nauseating minutes later he finds himself on the floor in a out of the way hallway of the building, trying desperately not to vomit. “What-what the actual fuck?!” he gasps out, hand over his mouth, looking up at his former classmates. Well, half of them. He notices a few missing but before he can take a proper attendance, Iida starts talking.
“My apologies for the abruptness of this meeting but we needed to talk to you!”
“And you couldn’t have asked? Why can’t we do things like normal people?!”
“Ah, well…sorry, Shinsou! We weren’t sure if you’d come if we just asked,” Midoriya says nervously as he fiddles with the cuffs of his costume, not meeting Shinsou’s eyes. “It’s…well, Hagakure told us…And I didn’t believe her at first! But there’s pictures…so we needed to ask you…’Cause it wouldn’t be fair if we didn’t ask you first! So…yea. We needed to ask you. Needed an answer…”
Shinsou stares at him getting more and more confused as Midoriya’s stuttered explanation rambles on. “Answer to what?”
“Answer to your crimes!” Ashido yells dramatically, jumping to the front of the group.
“Yea! Yea! I saw and heard everything!” Hagakure says waving, Shinsou hadn’t noticed her at first, the only thing visible was a pair gloves and boots. “You should be ashamed!”
“What are you talking about?” Shinsou asks irritably, picking himself off the floor, his stomach finally settling down.
“This!” Hagakure pulls a phone out seemingly nowhere, thrusting it at his face. “What do you have to say about this?”
There’s a picture….of a cat?
Shinsou glances between where he assumes Hagakure’s face is and down at the phone, confused. Did they really kidnap him for him opinion on a cat? Honestly, he wouldn’t put it past them.
“It’s…cute…?” he offers, bewildered.
A chorus of scandalized gasps follow his statement and Shinsou is completely baffled. He has no idea what’s going on.
“How-how could you say that?!” Hagakure shrieks, pulling the phone back.
“That’s terrible, Shinsou!”
“Not cool, dude.”
Tsuyu looks over, or through, Hagakure’s shoulder at the phone. “You showed him the wrong picture, Tooru-chan. That’s a cat, kero.”
“Well, that answer makes a lot more sense now,” he hears Sero whisper to someone.
“Oh, sorry! Hold on!” Shinsou assumes she swiping to the correct picture and he waits patiently, amused by his former classmates antics. “Found it!” The phone is thrust back in face. “What do you have to say about this?” she repeats.
This time there’s a picture of him…and Hizashi. The Voice Hero has his arm around Shinsou waist, pulling him close into an intimate embrace, their faces are close, Hizashi had been laughing and there’s an amused smirk on Shinsou’s face as he leans into the blonde.
Shinsou is not amused right now. He’s horrified. “H-how? When did you-?” Shinsou knows when. He recognizes the background from the precinct a few days ago when Hizashi had brought him food. He feels panic bubble up in his chest. Damn Hizashi and his stupid, overactive libido!
“It was a few days ago!” Hagakure explains, confirming Shinsou suspicions. He hadn’t even know she was there that night. “I saw you!” Shinsou feels nauseous again, and it’s not from Uraraka’s quirk. “Making out with Yamada-sensei!” She sounds like she’s going to cry, “He said it was fine, as long as Aizawa-sensei didn’t find out! How could you do that to Aizawa-sensei?”
Wait. Wait. What?
They thought…they thought Hizashi was cheating on Shouta with Shinsou! He almost wants to laugh. Part of him is angry. Angry she took a photo of him in a private moment, angry that they thought he would betray Shouta, angry that they would think Hizashi would betray Shouta like that.
The other part of him was having a meltdown. How does he explain this? What does he tell them?
He can feel their disappointed stares as he scrambles to come up with something. Anything.
He looks at the photo again. It’s not that bad. Suggestive but Present Mic is known for being flirty and boisterous. He might be able to bluff his way out of this, he just has to convince the others that it was just Mic being his usual clingy self, convince Hagakure that she had misunderstood, delete the picture, go home and punch Hizashi in the dick.
“This is just a misunderstanding. We were just playing around. Joking,” Shinsou tries to reason with them. It’s true, they had been playing. “I would never fool around like that.” Also true, he never even thought about it. Hizashi and Shouta are all he needs. “We weren’t actually—”
Hagakure swipes to the next photo.
Shit.
There’s no explaining this one. Hizashi is licking a hot stripe down Shinsou’s neck, his hand groping, squeezing Shinsou’s ass.
Shinsou heart stops. If the paparazzi ever got hold of that it would destroy Hizashi’s career.
He lunges for the phone but Hagakure dodges out of the way with squeak. Shinsou is so hyper focused on the phone he forgets the rest of the class is there, at least until he’s tackled by three different people, and a dozen different voices start talking all at once.
“Hey! Wait!”
“Calm down, Shinsou!”
“Hagakure, are you okay?”
Hagakure disappears into the crowd of former students and Shinsou wants to scream.
He settles for yelling instead, “Delete that!”
“No way!” she calls back, from somewhere in the mess of heroes. “It’s proof!”
“That’s the problem! Delete it now!” He struggles in the others’ grip but Midoriya steps up and his hand closes around his arm like a steel manacle. He stops fighting, there’s no way Shinsou can break Midoriya’s hold.
His mind races trying to think of an alternative. His mind. If he can brainwash…No. No, he can’t use his quirk against other heroes! He bites his lip, thinking. He can talk his way out of this. He won’t need it.
“You-you have to delete those photos!” Shinsou looks up at Midoriya, pleading, “Tell her! She’ll listen to you!”
Midoriya looks away, uncomfortable.
Shinsou tries again to appeal to them, “You have to delete it. Do any idea what would happen if the press got a hold of something like that?”
“We’re not going to send it to the press,” Jirou says, sounding insulted, “You just don’t want to get in trouble.”
“It’s not me I’m worried about!” Shinsou snaps, frustrated, “I’m underground. A nobody. Present Mic isn’t! It would ruin his career, it might even take Eraserhead down with him! You have to delete it!”
It’s true. Hizashi already takes a lot hits for being married to another man, if it ever got out he was ‘cheating’ with man half his age, and a former student on top of it, it would be a disaster. Shinsou feels his skin prickle as he breaks out in a cold sweat. Shouta would get dragged into it too. Hizashi had been very protective of Shouta’s identity on account of him being a underground hero, he needed to keep a low profile but the press would want his statement, drag him into the spotlight.
“It would be a problem for Aizawa-sensei if it got out, kero,” Tsuyu says, “Maybe we should delete it.”
“Like I said, we’re not going to send it to the press!” Jirou argues.
“That doesn’t mean that they won’t get a hold of it,” Kaminari muses, “Hacking is a concern. Phones aren’t as secure as you’d think.”
“Hmm, I didn’t think of that,” Jirou admits, “We’ll just delete them after we show Aizawa-sensei then.”
Shinsou almost faints with relief. He’d rather Shouta didn’t find out about the pictures, it would just cause him unnecessary worry but he doesn’t know how he’s going to pull that off. He’s just grateful they’re at least listening to him. “I’d rather you deleted them now.”
“Yea. You would say that,” Ashido huffs.
“I told you, this is a misunderstanding,” Shinsou sighs, tired, “It’s not what it looks like.”
“So you weren’t making out with Yamada-sensei?” Ashido frowns, hands on her hips.
“No! Well, yes. But it’s not like that!”
“Then what is it like?”
Shinsou drags his hand through his hair, “We’re together but we’re not cheating.”
Skeptical looks.
“That sounds like bullshit,” Bakugou states.
Murmurs of agreement.
“It’s complicated,” Shinsou doesn’t know how to describe their relationship, they never needed to, it was just complicated but worked. “Can’t you guys just leave it at that?”
“No!” Several voices shout at the same time.
“We just can’t let something like this go! What about Aizawa-sensei?” Uraraka says, “He deserves to know Yamada-sensei is cheating on him!”
“He’s not cheating on him!”
“Well, unless that’s a different Present Mic in that photo, then I’d call that cheating.”
Suddenly Kaminari exclaims, “Wait! What if it is a different Yamada-sensei?”
Shinsou looks at him confused, so does everyone else.
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard you say, and you say some dumb shit,” Bakugou says.
“Think about it, Shinsou says Yamada-sensei isn’t cheating but he clearly is in that photo so the only way for both to be true if it isn’t Yamada-sensei in the photo. Shinsou is just really into extreme cosplay!” Kaminari explains, looking proud.
Shinsou pinches the bridge of his nose, he’s too tired for this bullshit. He just wants to go to the cat café with Shouta and not deal with this mess anymore.
“So someone with a transformation quirk?” Midoriya muses.
“Izuku, no,” Todoroki has pained expression on his face.
Nooooo. Midoriya, how can you take that seriously?
“So like Himiko?” Uraraka thinks, cocking her head to the side.
You too?!
Suddenly Kaminari exclaims, alarmed, “Wait! It’s not Himiko, is it? Has she escaped from prison? Are you helping her?” He grabs a confused Shinsou by the shoulders, shaking him. “Are you a villain now?!” Shinsou can’t help flinching at that, even years later it still stings a little.
Instantly the hallway is echoing with a clamour of shouted protests.
“Moron!”
“Too far, dude!”
“That doesn’t even make sense.”
Bakugou grabs the Electric Hero by the back of his collar, yanking him back, barking angrily, “Idiot! Have you used to much electricity today?! There’s no way Shinsou would turn villain!”
“Sorry, sorry! I got a little carried away,” Kaminari apologies, rubbing the back of neck, “Shinsou is definitely not a villain.”
“That’s right!” Mina pumps her arm, “He’s not a villain…” She suddenly grabs Shinsou by the collar. “He’s just a home wrecker!” She shrieks dramatically, picking him up one handed, “It’s not cheating if they broke up, is that it?! How could you do that to Aizawa-sensei, you bastard!” She starts shaking him too, terrifyingly strong.
The hallway is filled with yelling again as they all start jumping on each other, either trying to pull Mina off him or, going to by the dangerous glint in Jirou’s eyes, maybe help her.
“You broke them up? That’s terrible!”
“How could you?!”
“W-wait! We haven’t given him a chance—”
“No chances! Only death!”
“What? No—!”
“Death! Death!” The woman are starting to chant. This is why he’s gay, women are scary.
“Guys, I think this is getting a little out of hand.”
“You think?!”
Shinsou is abruptly hoisted into the air out of Mina’s grasp from behind. “We should hear him out first!” Midoriya cries, effortlessly hefting Shinsou weight above the grasping hands of his attackers.
“Oh! He looks like Simba!”
“He’s right,” Todoroki agrees.
“He does look like Simba?”
“No. Hearing him out.”
“That’s right!” Iida cuts in, gesturing wildly, “It wouldn’t be fair just to hear one side of the story! He has a right to defend himself.”
They all stare up at him expectantly.
Shinsou waits a few long moments but Midoriya doesn’t make any move to drop him.
“Can you put me down first?”
“Oh! Right, sorry!” He let’s go.
Shinsou lands lightly on his feet, making show of straightening out his clothes, trying to buy time for himself to think.
“Oi! We’re waiting, eye bags!” Bakugou growls out, impatient, his palms sparking ominously. “You better have a damn good explanation if you want those photos deleted.”
“I don’t really know where to start…”
“The beginning is usually a good place.”
Shinsou sighs, looking down. “I guess it started at the reunion—”
“The one where you were having the gay crisis?” Kirishima interrupts him.
Shinsou blinks, taken back. “I was not having a gay crisis.”
“It looked like you were.”
“Well, I wasn’t.”
“Dude, I know what a gay crisis looks like and that was one! You were banging your head against the wall.”
“I wasn’t—”
“You were. Move on,” Bakugou snaps, his eye twitching.
Shinsou clears his throat, “Anyway. After a…conversation with Yamada-sensei. I went with him, met him outside…Aizawa-sensei was at the car—”
“Oh! I remember that!” Sero says, “I thought it was weird that Aizawa-sensei got in the back of the car…with…you…” he trails off, eyes widening as he realizes.
Shinsou can feel his face burning, the blush spreading down his neck as it takes everyone an extra minute to figure it out.
“Oh my god. He’s fucking both of them,” someone whispers.
Then there’s pandemonium.
Everyone is screaming. Somebody is patting him on the back.
“No way!”
“That was option? I didn’t know that was option!”
“That can’t be true!”
“I’m kinda jealous…”
Kirishima yells out “Living the dream!” as he slings his arm around Shinsou shoulders, congratulating him.
“It is true, kero?” Tsuyu asks, cocking her head to the side.
Everyone goes silent.
Shouta is going to kill him.
Shinsou doesn’t think his face can get any redder, “…yea…”
Everyone is talking again.
“Wah! I’m so relived!” Uraraka sighs, clasping a hand to her chest, “I was worried that they were breaking up or something…”
“Me too!” Mina cheers, then punches Shinsou in the shoulder, “Sorry about calling you homewrecker! My bad! Ahahaha!”
Shinsou rubs his shoulder absentmindedly, “It’s fine.”
“It’s certainly not fine! We should have never pried into the personal lives of out coworkers!” Iida lectures, his left arm chopping robotically in his zeal, “And we should have respected Shinsou’s privacy—”
Iida is shoved out the way by Kaminari, “Yea, yea. Trust, privacy, something something, whatever! Where’s the deets, man!”
Everyone is quiet again.
“No.”
There’s some disappointed grumbles.
“Awww! Come on, man! I have to know!” Kaminari leans and whispers, “…Is-is Aizawa-sensei into bondage?” There’s a chorus of protests. “Don’t boo me, I’m right! We were all thinking it!”
“I kinda want to know too.”
“I know, right? Pretty sure Bakugou got his bondage kink from—”
“Sh-shut up!”
“…school girl cosplay…?”
“Yamada-sensei seems like the kinda guy to be into some really weird shit…”
Shinsou curses himself. This is so much worse. He should have just pretended he was having an affair with Hizashi. Let them show Shouta the pictures, watch him rip their heads off.
“What are you all yelling about?”
Silence.
Shouta is standing at the end of the hall, hands in his pockets, frowning at them. He must have coming looking for Shinsou when he didn’t show up at their meeting place.
More silence.
Shouta eyes narrow in suspicion, his teacher’s instincts going off. “What’s going on?”
“N-nothing!” Mina says.
Shinsou swears internally. That is the most suspicious thing you could say to a teacher!
Shouta must think so too, as he’s now stalking towards them, and everyone panics, running into each other as they try to scatter. Shinsou grabs Hagakure’s phone as she tries to flee, there’s a brief struggle over it but she eventually decides she’d rather get a new phone then face her former teacher’s wrath. A dozen hastily yelled goodbyes later, and then the hallway is all but deserted, the group of pro-heroes abandoning Shinsou to face Shouta alone.
“What was that about?”
“Nothing.” Shinsou finds the ceiling fascinating.
“What are you hiding?”
“Really, it’s nothing. Forget about it.”
“Why do you have Hagakure’s phone?”
“Uhhh…”
“Give it to me.” There’s no arguing with that.
Shinsou reluctantly hands over the phone, and the pictures. “Okay, but in my defence. This is all Hizashi fault.”