Work Text:
Ding!
Izuku jolted, pulling his sweaty hand away from his cheek as the sound from the register brought him back to life. It had been dead inside the campus bookstore all evening; frankly, who on earth would even consider wasting their Friday evening buying school supplies, let alone on All Hallows’ Eve, no less?
The clerk sighed, wearily rubbing at his eyes. He took a swig of the Redbull hidden beneath the counter while he reset the cash register yet again for the fourth time that night. No one had come in or out of the door since his shift had started. Well, that save for one, lone student tucked away in back corner of the cramped little store behind him. He was seated on a bean bag chair, ankle resting over his knee with a blank expression as he read. He hadn’t seemed the smallest bit phased by the sound- Izuku falling asleep over the register appeared to have become the theme for the evening. The customer had been lounging there since about four p.m., reading a book he’d slipped out from his messenger bag. Strange. If he wanted to study, why didn’t he just go to the library? Why here?
The lean young man was bundled in a wool turtleneck, and he hadn’t budged in the last three hours. The clerk could have sworn that’d he’d felt a pair of eyes follow him every time he was awake- most recently, a few minutes ago when he’d been idlily reorganizing the display of Fall themed erasers on the counter in a futile attempt to pass the time. But each time he’d looked up to investigate, the stranger’s gaze would be hidden beneath his long bangs, focus exclusively upon his book. Perhaps he was just imagining things. Regardless, Izuku secretly envied the guy. While the freckled young man was stuck here until ten p.m., his friends were all out partying in the dorm lobby, making impulsive decisions they’d regret in the morning. Honestly, he wished he’d be among them, free and having been able to forget how utterly boring (and admittedly, lonesome) this shift tonight was turning out to be. But instead, his coworker had called in sick at the very last minute, dumping her shift onto him to deal with that evening.
Izuku sucked on his lower lip, dejectedly glancing over at his yellow bag pack. It was tucked against the wall behind the birchwood counter; it was overstuffed, the white hem of his ghost costume sticking out and pushing the zipper a few inches back. The freckled young man frowned as he looked down at his hands, full of band-aids and scabs from a sewing needle that had vendetta against him all week; sure, he might not have been the best sewer in the world (or barely a competent one, at that). But he still would have liked to make some use out of it, in the end.
He pulled his attention back to the other young man in the room as he shifted in his seat for the first time, slipping away one book, and pulling out another. Well, it seemed that he planned on staying a little while longer.
The guy suddenly paused as he caught the green haired clerk turned in his direction, gawking at him from the opposite end of the store. His narrow gaze briefly meeting Izuku’s.
Three thoughts immediately came to the clerk’s mind. His first impulse was to ask if the getup he’d been donning was part of his costume; his second was the mental self-chiding that ensued when he subsequently realized that no, it was not. And the third was the realization that the stranger’s tapered, heterochromatic eyes were rather stunning in spite of his peculiarly natural appearance. (Though honestly, even including the two-toned hair and scar upon his face, all of him was rather attractive.) But luckily, Izuku bit down on his tongue before any of those thoughts had the chance to fly away upon it, figuring it would be best to say nothing.
“Are you closing soon?” The customer abruptly asked in a monotone, low voice, his flat tone devoid of any particular or distinguishable emotion.
Izuku immediately pulled his gaze away, coughing into his fist and fiddling with the buttons on the register as he attempted to casually play off the fact he’d just been unabashedly staring at him.
“No, you’re good. We’re open until ten.”
The taller young man neglected to respond, instead wordlessly turning his attention back down to his hardcover book and flipping the page. Izuku fiddled about nervously, rattling his brain to try to find a way to salvage the situation. The student opposite of him seemed to have a rather neutral disposition by default, but he still felt a little awkward being caught staring red-handed, nonetheless. The silence of the bookstore- save the low rumble of the radiator in the closet- only made the air between heavier and thicker upon Izuku’s shoulders.
“Would you like some coffee?”
He’d blurted it out before the idea had even come to fruition in his conscious. The clerk grimaced, mentally scolding himself a second time for his lack of impulse control. But in an instant, those concentrated, mismatched pair of eyes were back upon him.
“We have a coffee machine in the back,” Izuku tried to explain, pulling away the number two pencil that had been tucked behind his ear and balancing it atop his fingers in a futile attempt to keep his nerves preoccupied. Instead, it unceremoniously tipped off the side of his hand, landing on top of the pyramid of maple leaf erasers he’d so meticulously stacked earlier. He watched his pencil teeter into its final resting place before braving himself to look back at the customer- yet another absentminded mistake.
“How much?” The young man asked in a cool tone, the vibrant intensity of his gaze making the temperature rise in Izuku’s features by a fair few degrees.
“O-oh! It’s free,” he blurted, trying to stare in any other direction than the student’s unfairly attractive face.
“Yeah. Sure, then,” the customer responded, his attention gracefully returning to the book nestled in his lap. Izuku exhaled an audible breath that was just out of the other boy’s range of hearing. He found it much easier to speak when he wasn’t drowning in a sea of near-iridescent cyan and earl gray.
He closed his eyes and stretched his arms as he slipped off the wooden stool, the feeling returning to his limbs after being stationed in the same position for so long.
“Do you want anything in it?”
“Black is fine.”
Izuku slipped into the storage room behind to brew a cup, the silence between them returned; it was only broken briefly by the crackle of the water sifting through the machine from the filter and the first few drops of rain pattering on the roof above. The clerk came out of the closet to find the young man in the exact same position he’d been in all evening, only looking up when Izuku placed the mug down over a bamboo coaster on the coffee table beside him. He paused briefly, noticing the title on the book the young man was reading: Catcher in the Rye.
“Huh, I would have suspected Dracula or Frankenstein for the occasion, frankly,” Izuku quipped. An aborted noise died in the back of his throat as the stranger’s alluring gaze met his for a third time that night. Yet this time, he offered the green haired clerk a reaction, his lips twisting to the side.
“Perhaps Frankenstein. But Dracula is completely banal pulp fiction, if you ask me,” he returned, the smallest upturn of his lips visible.
Izuku gawked, distractedly plopping into the beanbag chair across from the young man. His knees spread out wide, his bandaged hands falling in the space between them.
“Pulp fiction?! Are you serious? It’s a classic!”
“Beats me as to why, though,” he casually returned, his gaze flicking down for just a second as he licked his index finger and turned over the next page. “The characters have the depth of cardboard, and the author messed up the sequence of journal dates in the story. It’s anything but high literature.”
“It’s still fun to read,” Izuku replied defensively, leaning his back into his seat as the fabric took shape around his body. The other young man glanced up from his book once again, eyeing Izuku and capturing him under his intense gaze for a solid minute.
“I supposed you’re right, there,” he finally conceded, an amused glint reflecting off his mismatched eyes. Izuku glanced down, ignoring the warmth in his veins as he idly fiddled with the underside of his blunt fingernail. Okay, maybe this night wasn’t completely unsalvageable, after all. He caught the young man’s attention progressively wander from the corner of his eye, eventually falling on his overstuffed backpack by the underside of the counter. He took a deliberate swig of his coffee, setting it down before focusing his attention back on the bumbling clerk before him.
“You have plans tonight?”
Izuku jolted, blinking owlishly back at him. “I- oh. No, not really. Well-” He looked down at his untied sneakers coyly, the toes of his converse tapping together. “Not anymore.”
“Oh,” the boy took another long sip of his drink. When the clerk glanced back up at him, he’d lost his cheerful edge, a dash of remorse having seeped into his subtle mien. The freckled young man sat up, putting on a reassuring smile as he shook off his glum demeanor.
“I would’ve had to stay here tonight, anyways. So honestly, I appreciate the company.”
The young man before him paused, his tapered eyelids widening slightly as Izuku could have sworn he’d almost caught the lightest shade of pink dusted over his pale features. Caught off-guard, the student failed to notice as his book slipping between his knees. Izuku’s eyes shot open, and at the final second, he dashed over the top of the coffee table, his torso pressed against the polished surface as he caught it with his hand. The young man jolted, and Izuku looked up. He gave a sheepish, lopsided smile as he stood there, frozen in his current position with one foot awkwardly hanging in the air behind his back.
Heterochromatic eyes softened, and the young man let out an audible snort into the back of his hand, plucking the book out of the clerk’s grasp.
“Thank you-” His eyes flickered down for a moment, catching the nametag on the clerk’s chest as he fumbled about to recompose himself, slipping back into his chair. “-Izuku?”
The freckled young man couldn’t control the ever-rising warmth in his face and transparent smile betraying his attempts at composure as he heard his name dance off of the stranger’s pretty, thin lips.
“Y-yeah,” he confirmed, pretending to cough into his fist as he yet again attempted to hide his telling expression. The other young man somehow had seemed to bypass it. For when he looked up, he’d extended a hand towards Izuku.
“Shouto.”
Izuku awkwardly shook it, giving him a bright smile. “Nice to meet you, Shouto.”
The young man returned the clerk with a faint grin of his own, his calm yet penetrating eyes gleaming in the florescent light. Izuku scooted a little farther back in his chair, index finger tapping to his chin as an idea suddenly sparked in his mind.
“Well, if you’re up to staying a little longer, Shouto, would you like to play a game?”
The lithe young man blinked blankly, pausing for a second as he processed Izuku’s proposal. Finally, he set his book aside on the coffee table, downing the rest of his mug.
“What did you have in mind?”
“I’ll see what we have in the back.”
After a few minutes of fumbling about in the storage room, Izuku found what he was looking for. The box of checkers was well-worn and probably at least a decade and a half old, with a thick layer of dust over the cover and hanging together by haphazard patches of duct tape. But it was perfectly themed- black and orange pieces with little ghost and vampire impressions on the plastic pieces.
He could see Shouto smirking out of his peripheral vision as he opened the game up and set up the board over the coffee table, the taller young man noting the kitschy theme.
“Something tells me you’re a fan of Halloween,” he pondered with amusement, taking one of the black, vampiric themed pieces and laying claim to it. Izuku chuckled.
“What gave it away?”
“A few things,” Shouto admitted jokingly, stacking his pieces into their starting positions.
“Something tells me you’re not a Halloween fan,” Izuku jested back. He paused to eye him enquiringly.
“Always had more of an appreciation for Winter. The weather is beautiful to look at, and you can’t go wrong with a peppermint mocha.”
Izuku scrunched his nose at the young man, who returned with a bemused look.
“Always preferred pumpkin spice lattes myself.”
“Ah,” Shouto’s grin grew a little more apparent. “We must be fated rivals, then.”
Both in his preference for seasonal drinks and on the gaming board, Shouto proved himself to be a cunning and formidable opponent. The first game went by in the blink of an eye. Izuku had been caught off-guard, losing spectacularly. But, it only sought to fan the flame of his competitive spirit, and he challenged the young man to another round. This time, Izuku won- more aware of the tricks up the dual-haired boy’s rolled up sleeves. They’d been so caught up in the game, the freckled clerk couldn’t recall when he’d done so. But his porcelain and surprisingly toned forearms were a fickle distraction, to say the least. The second time around, it was Shouto who’d challenged Izuku in an instant, his naturally indifferent and calm mien melting away as he sought to reclaim his crown. And so, their charade continued round and round, until the two had settled their score at three on three.
Izuku finally caught the time on the clock hanging upon the wall above his opponent.
10:23 p.m.
Shocked by how they’d let the time slip away from them so effortlessly, Shouto helped him fold the board back up and set it away.
“My apologies. I didn’t mean to cause you to have to stay overtime.”
Izuku giggled unabashedly, waving his hand off casually as he shut the closet door behind him.
“It’s fine. I had a good time.”
This time, the freckled young man was able to catch the warm blush over his face, the rosy color only accentuating his soft features even more. Shouto caught him blatantly staring- again- though, this time Izuku was braver in letting it show. The air between them may have been mutual, it seemed. The taller young man abruptly glanced away for just a moment, noticing the rain trickling down from the gutter and over the edge of the tin roof onto the pavement below.
He pulled back on the strap of his messenger bag, fumbling about until he found a green umbrella stashed away beneath his books. He looked back at Izuku hopefully, a foreign deliberation and shyness speckled in his gaze.
“It’s raining pretty heavily out there.”
“Yeah,” Izuku returned, the pitch in his voice raising a few notes when he recognized his insinuation. Shouto’s voice fell lower than its typically quiet tone, his eyes escaping to the carpet in the space between them.
“Can I walk you back?”
The cozy blush that had been simmering on and off all evening upon Izuku’s cheeks blazed to a definite heat, his heart skipping a beat.
“S-sure! I live in the North tower, third floor.” He’d blurted it back before he’d even had time to process the young man’s proposal. The two awkwardly stood there for a long moment, staring owlishly back at one another in their innocence. Shouto abruptly spoke again after a lengthy reprieve.
“…so do I. First floor.”
Eventually, after that small revelation, the young men miraculously pulled themselves back together, and they found themselves outside beneath the awning of the shoppe as Izuku locked up the door. The temperate wind was harsher than usual, the rain coupled with the night, making it a fair few degrees cooler than normal for this time of year. The umbrella they shared was clearly meant for one person; Shouto had sacrificed his left shoulder to keep Izuku completely covered as they began their trek across campus. As the soles of their converse and boots made ripples in the puddles lining about the sidewalk, Izuku frowned as he looked up and noticed the taller student shivering, the goosebumps visible on his pale forearms- even in the dim light of the streetlamps. Shouto tried to ignore it, but as their eyes met briefly in the silence between them, Izuku gave him a flat look, pulling the young man into the enclaved entrance to the library. Shouto may have had a penchant for the cold weather, but it didn’t mean he was completely impervious to it.
Shouto blinked wordlessly, watching Izuku curiously as he leaned against the brick wall. He balanced himself on one knee, resting his backpack atop of it as he pulled out his unused costume and properly zipped it up. It was a white poncho with a hood, handsewn from a sheet he’d gotten in a bogo sale that summer before school had started. It was drawn into the vague shape of a ghost. The poncho was covered in patches made from various old clothing he’d sacrificed back in his dorm room, hiding the plethora of mistakes on the fabric beneath them like the band-aids on his hands. The seam to the hood was hidden by a ragged, green bow. The hood itself was slightly oversized, a smile stitched in thread below two large, black buttons. It was all topped off with a miniature witch’s hat on top- which Izuku was now sorely regretting upon realizing how silly it all looked.
He glanced up, noticing Shouto had turned his head adjacent to him. He was silent, but the way his shoulders vibrated with the back of his hand glued to his mouth gave it away; he was laughing at it. Izuku pouted dejectedly, shifting on his feet as he shoved it into the taller young man’s arms.
“Here,” he blurted, eager to get the costume away from him as he wallowed in the depths of his mortification. “It’ll help keep you warm, if you want it.”
Shouto’s inaudible laughter died down as he took his handiwork into his hands, pulling it away to get a clearer view.
“I like the freckles. They’re cute.”
Izuku wrapped his arms over himself, opening his mouth to defend it when abruptly he paused, catching the soft, unexpectedly admirable look in his mismatched eyes. Oh. He was being serious. He abruptly looked back at Izuku, bluntly glancing at the scrapes over his callused hands.
“You did all of this by hand? Impressive,” he remarked before casually tossing the costume over his lithe shoulders and pulling up the hood.
This time, Izuku had to stifle a giggle as they made their way back into the rain. The costume was clearly meant for someone of Izuku’s shorter frame, the ragged edges of the fabric hiked up nearly to Shouto’s knees. But he’d be lying to himself if he didn’t acknowledge how simply cute he was in it, the cheery and tacky demeanor juxtaposing his cool and composed mien rather humorously.
The freckled young man couldn’t help but beam up at him as Shouto caught him snickering.
“I have to say. Even if you aren’t a big fan of it, Halloween sure does look good on you.”
“Maybe it’s just you that looks good on me,” Shouto returned without of the beat. The water from the half-formed puddle below splashed up on their ankles as the boys both halted, faces red and warm against the frigid wind as they both realized what had been said. The taller young man cleared his throat, his eyes wide with panic beneath the rest of his indifferent exterior as he scurried to save his self-imposed dignity.
“My apologies. I- that came out differently than I meant it to.”
“You’re fine,” Izuku chuckled, trying to hold himself together. Despite both their fumbling about, he felt emboldened, positive now that his little crush had been reciprocated. “Maybe we should meet up again before Christmas. Because I’m curious to see if you look good on me, too.”
Shouto gaped at him for a good few seconds over that little comment, completely at a loss. Izuku bit down coyly on his lip as he bravely leaned over, taking Shouto's long, shivering fingers and lacing them between his own as he gently pulled him along. Shouto did not protest, not in the slightest. If anything, Izuku could just catch that brimming smile as he held down his head, peaking out from beneath his dual-colored bangs and the edge of his hood.
Maybe Izuku would actually remember Halloween clearly this year. And maybe- just maybe- he was more than okay with that, after all.