Chapter Text
It’s not unfair to say that Shouto gets confused quite often.
He gets confused during hero briefings and press conferences, when reporters shove their microphones in his face and demand answers to questions he’d never thought about before; when he’s in the car with Momo and Jirou and they’re listening to fast, ugly American pop with a bunch of words Jirou says probably aren’t in the English dictionary quite yet; when his agency orders him a new phone and the power button is on the bottom instead of the top. In the end, he always manages to figure out just enough information to escape the situation with his dignity intact, his reputation as an aloof pretty boy unaffected by his internal stupidity. He fakes it till he makes it, as the saying goes.
He doesn’t think he can fake his way out of this one. At least, not without further context.
“I’m sorry,” Shouto says, brows creased and downturned in concentration as he surveys the arrangement of mugshot-like photos that are spread in a semicircle in front of him. “I still don’t understand what I’m looking at.”
“They’re your fellow Pro Heroes,” manager Rurikawa says, as if Shouto couldn’t figure out that much on his own. “The ones in your same age group, at least, and the ones whose agencies we could reach.”
“We tried to contact mostly those who you’ve had positive or prolonged experiences with in the past,” assistant Nanao jumps in, her eyes darting from face to face. “It’s a strange form of PR, but we figured we could at least make it easy for you to choose.”
“Choose?” Shouto repeats. “Am I… doing a photoshoot with one of them? A joint brand collaboration…?”
Rurikawa slaps his hand against the table hard enough to send a couple of the mugshots fluttering for a couple of inches. Nanao catches them before they can fall off the table completely.
“Weren’t you listening at all?” Rurikawa snaps, leaning close to Shouto menacingly. “We went over this at the last briefing. You nodded, for God’s sake!”
“I usually nod when you look at me,” Shouto admits blankly. He’s pretty sure he’d been thinking of the lyrics to the Cucumber Song, which Jirou had told him was a song for those of high culture in America.
Nanao slides a hand over Rurikawa’s shoulder, pulling him back a few inches before she continues in a much kinder tone. “This is a different kind of collaboration, Todoroki-san,” she says, sliding a couple of the photos closer to Shouto with her free hand. “We’re taking the steps to set up an artificial relationship between you and another Pro Hero in your demographic. All that’s left to do is choose your PR partner.”
Shouto blinks at her blankly. “A fake relationship?” he repeats, wondering if he’d heard them wrong. Is it loud in here? Does he need to get his ears cleaned?
“That’s what we told you last week,” Rurikawa sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Relationships are very pleasing to fans nowadays, and having a partner for a couple of months is sure to shake up your image and thrust the two of you into the spotlight.”
“But what if I don’t want to?”
“Shouto!” Rurikawa snaps. “You agreed to this. It’s too late to back out now--the plan’s already in motion. So would you just choose so we can get out of here and back to work?”
Shouto scrunches up his face, mentally running through his best options. Momo is the perfect person to fill the role--they’ve known each other forever, and there’s no chance of any complicated feelings, what with her opposing sexuality. The only problem is that she’s not on the table.
“Can we contact Yaoyorozu’s agency?” he asks, looking at Nanao rather than Rurikawa in the hopes that she’ll cave. Nanao shakes her head apologetically.
“It’s got to be one of the people on the table,” she tells him, pointing once again at the arrangement of photos. “...And it’s got to be a guy.”
“What? Why?” Not that Shouto is opposed, but he’s not sure where that came from in the first place. He barely thinks about who he wants to date in his own mind, let alone out loud with his management team. If he is gay, or bi, or something else, he’s pretty sure Rurikawa would be the last of his close acquaintences to find out. As intelligent and cunning a manager as he is, he’s a shitty person to go to with personal, non-agency related things.
“Male-male relationships have become very popular over the last ten years,” said intelligent and cunning manager explains with another heavy sigh. “At one point, Pro Heroes were expected to remain single throughout their younger years to keep fans feeling as if they had a chance. But over time, the idea of a celebrity relationship to obsess over became more appealing than the fantasy of having one of your own, and eventually the doujinshi industry shifted the public’s favor from heterosexual couples to those of the same gender, particularly with male heroes.”
“In short,” Nanao chimes in, “you’re doing this for the fanservice.”
A small part of Shouto’s dignity shrivels and dies as he lets the words sink in. He swallows, looking over the array of faces more closely than he had before, noting a few memorable faces. Aoyama is on there, as is Koda, though he’s pushed more towards the back. But nobody there is someone Shouto would feel comfortable fake dating. Not only would his own acting give away the truth, but his supposed partner’s vibe would probably tip people off as well. The fans would be able to tell right away that something was fishy.
“Can we contact Midoriya?” he asks, a bit desperate. There’s nothing romantic about his relationship with Izuku, but they can at least fake it better than he can with Aoyama. But once again, Nanao shakes her head.
“Deku-san is scheduled to stay in America for a couple months more,” she tells him softly. “And once he returns to Japan he’ll be incredibly busy. There won’t be time for any real promotional stunts while he’s here, and he’ll most likely have to leave before his schedule clears again.”
“What about Shoji?” Shouto asks, because at least Shoji might be able to scare off any nosy fans or press. Plus so little of his face is actually shown, it would be hard to tell how genuine he was being from his body alone.
“Tentacole is doing quite well marketing himself to those who have no interest in dating,” Rurikawa tells him.
“ I have no interest in dating,” Shouto argues.
“No, Todoroki-san,” Nanao says, “Shoji isn’t wishy-washy or indifferent about it. He really has no interest in dating, or any kind of romantic connection for that matter. He’s quite popular amongst smaller identity groups. You, on the other hand, have no such excuse. Unless you actually…”
“No,” Shouto admits, shaking his head once. He wants to get out of this nightmare scenario more than anything, but he wouldn’t fake something like that to do it.
“Well then, I suggest you get to picking,” Rurikawa says, hands on his hips. “And please, for the love of God, pick someone on this table. ”
Shouto refuses to admit that he’s pouting indignantly at his manager, at least out loud. Instead he reviews his options once again, his hope diminishing with every face he sees. It’s not that he doesn’t like these people--it’s that he doesn’t like them. They’re all physically attractive and have a good following in the hero community, and none of them are particularly rude, annoying, or narcissistic. Shouto sees quite a few he’d feel comfortable with arriving at a public event together with a group, or even spending time together at a private party. But he doesn’t want to date any of them. He doesn’t even want to fake date any of them.
“Nanao,” he says strategically, appealing to his assistant manager’s kinder side. “There’s nothing wrong with any of these people, but I don’t think I can pretend to be in a relationship with them, either.”
“Todoroki-san, we’ve scoured the nearby areas for options,” Nanao tells him. “We’ve exhausted practically all of our options. I’m sorry, but you can’t just refuse them all because you ‘don’t want to.’”
“It’s not just that,” Shouto argues, standing and pointing to one of the images. It’s a hero a couple of years older than him--Takahashi Daichi, or Hummingbird, the flutter hero. They’d met briefly, once, and though Shouto had found him relatively well-mannered with a good sense of humor, he can’t imagine a world where their six-minute conversation would lead to them going out as a couple. “Say I choose him,” he continues. “How are you two gonna sell that? Do you think fans would be pleased with a simple explanation like us running into each other at a coffee shop? Or a blind dinner date?”
Rurikawa opens his mouth to protest, but a flicker of doubt appears on his face. Nanao steps forward, a frown creasing her brow, but she doesn’t say anything, either.
“Or what about Koda?” he continues. “The two of us went to school together for three years, and not once since then have we worked together publicly.”
“He… does have a point,” Nanao says, turning to Rurikawa with her hands perched under her chin. She’s considering it, Shouto can tell, crossing his fingers and hoping that he’s argued his way out of the whole situation.
“Well, what are we supposed to do about that?” Rurikawa retorts. “Suddenly make him interesting?”
Shouto fixes Rurikawa with a glare. He doesn’t even notice.
“But interesting romances sell far better than cutesy nothing ships,” Nanao argues. “With heroes like Shouto, it would be hard to sell a fluff piece, anyway. At least not with some solid back-up to the claim.”
“It’s not like he has a romantic history to work off of. Unless we can pull a secret boyfriend or forbidden love from somewhere in his past, we’re basically starting from… ground…”
Rurikawa is staring at Nanao, who’s staring right back just as fervently, and Shouto can practically see the gears turning over their heads. He’s pretty sure he’s missing something. Maybe a villain has broken into the building and paralyzed the two of them with some mind control quirk. He shifts his feet around experimentally, pleased to find that he can still move on his own, but before he can go over his escape/backup/takedown strategy, Rurikawa is snapping his binder shut and motioning for Nanao to clear the table.
“You’re free to go, Todoroki,” Rurikawa tells him as Nanao scrambles to gather the headshots in her arms. “We’ll meet here tomorrow first thing when you arrive. Don’t be late.”
“What about- Do I not have to do this?” Shouto asks, glancing between his managers as they clear the room of all evidence of the conversation. Not that he’s complaining or anything--it’s just strange how fast they changed their minds. Unless… “Or did you just choose for me?”
“We’ll take care of it,” Rurikawa tells him unhelpfully. “Go home and get some rest. We’ve got a big day of planning tomorrow.”
“But I-”
Nanao sweeps around the table, crumpling the last of the headshots in her fist. “Don’t worry, Todoroki-san,” she assures him. “We won’t do anything you can’t work with. Have some faith in us, okay?”
She doesn’t even give him a chance to answer, wrestling with the door handle and holding it open for Rurikawa, then breezing out after him with her phone halfway to her ear. Shouto is left alone in the empty conference room wondering just how concerned he should be.
Well, it’s not like he can stop them now. His team works quickly and efficiently, and it’s likely that they’d already have put their plan in motion by the time he caught up with them. He might as well take Rurikawa’s advice and head home for the rest of the day.
“Would you like me to send for a taxi?” the receptionist of the day asks as Shouto passes him by. He shakes his head once, kindly. It’s not a long walk, and he’s heading home much earlier than he thought he would be, so it’s not worth bothering a driver.
When he’d first been offered a permanent place as a small-time hero at N3A, he’d been given a few options as to what his start-up package would consist of. He’d opted for the small, company-provided apartment over the personal chauffeur; the suit and armor repair over the personal stylist; and the phone and data plan over the unlimited cafeteria access card. If he were to join a larger or more well-known agency he’d have access to all of the above and more. He could have taken his father’s offer and received a permanent, well-paid, full-package position at Endeavor Agency, but instead he’d chosen to go down a different path with his hero work.
He doesn’t regret it one bit. N3A, or NEW L3ADERS AGENCY in full, is the exact opposite of Endeavor Agency in every way possible. Instead of being led by one big hero with a thirst for fame and power, it was founded the year before Shouto graduated by a collection of retired pros and quirkless strategists with more knowledge and experience than Shouto could ever hope to have. And significantly less funding. Hence the small start-up package, and the small apartment. He really doesn’t mind--N3A may not pay as well as Endeavor Agency or Might Towers, but it’s exactly the kind of place Shouto never dared to dream he’d be able to work at. Their morals, their political stances, the way they treat their employees and heroes alike… He really wouldn’t trade it for the world.
Coming home feels natural to him now, after three years of the same routine. His fingers fly over the number board, punching in his floor’s passcode before the numbers even run through his head. He fumbles for his keys the exact moment he steps out of the elevator--they’re in the left pocket of his jacket, like always. The copy he has only works if he leaves it with one notch sticking out of the door--it won’t turn if it’s all the way in. The door swings open easily and he steps inside.
Okay, so he hasn’t done a ton of personalization over the last three years. He’s a minimalist, sue him. The walls are mostly clear--he hadn’t even bothered to put up the few medals he’d received over the years. The only thing worth noting is the diploma he’d hung in a shadowbox on a blank wall in the kitchen/dining room combo. The diploma itself isn’t actually that important to him; it’s the photo hidden behind it that really matters.
Stuck straight to the wall with a piece of Scotch tape and a little bit of patience is the last photo his class at UA had ever taken together. Like most class photos, it isn’t anything special. Most of them look awkward, some of them aren’t paying attention. Midoriya has a splendid blush on his face for a reason Shouto can’t remember, Iida’s mouth is gaping open mid-yell, and Shinsou and Sero have fallen asleep leaning against each other with Kaminari doing bunny ears behind each of them. It’s not even a very nice photo--Aizawa had taken it on his three-year-old cell phone with the flash on, even though they’d been in broad daylight. It makes Shouto smile nonetheless.
He’d done his best to keep up with everyone from UA. Some had been easier than others, of course--Izuku had pretty much plastered himself to Shouto’s side in the weeks before he’d headed to the US, and then made Shouto promise to call, text, and video chat every one to three days. Momo had pulled Shouto into her intricate social network, making sure he sees Jirou, Kaminari, Shinsou, Uraraka, Tsuyu, and Iida once a month at minimum, oftentimes accompanied by other old classmates depending on availability. Sure, he hasn’t seen Hagakure in a while. (It had been hard to keep up with her after she’d stepped back from the hero world, though he knows she’s doing well with Ojiro and Shoji by her side.) Maybe he could have done more to reach out to Togata, or Sato, or Sero, or Mina… But he still hears from them from time to time, and for now it feels like that’s enough.
There is one person Shouto hasn’t heard from, but he’s not sure if it counts as losing touch completely. After all, Bakugou Katsuki was one of the biggest names to come out of their class. He’d quite literally exploded across the hero scene and secured himself a permanent position as a major hero at Best Jeanist’s agency within a week of graduating. Rumor has it that he’s on the fast track to opening his own agency, probably within the next five years. He’s got so many ad campaigns, clothes collaborations, interviews, merch pop-ups, convention appearances, and news appearances that Shouto wonders if he even has time to sleep at night.
He’s everywhere Shouto looks, and yet he hasn’t seen him in person in three years. Not since graduation.
Well, it doesn’t really matter. Bakugou is doing well, and Shouto is doing well, and there’s no reason for them to reconnect anyway. So what if they’d actually struck up a weird, misshapen friendship over the course of their time together at UA? He’s much closer with Momo and Izuku, and at least they don’t try to blow his head off every time he mispronounces a French cooking technique. He’s got better things to worry about than sauteés and marinades. (Saw-tees and mah-ree-nods.)
Like the fake relationship, for example. He should probably be worrying about that.
Rurikawa said that he and Nanao would “take care of it”, which Shouto isn’t sure is a good thing. He’s had the same management team since he’d joined N3A, and he knows that they’ll try their best to respect his wishes and preferences and listen to him if he says no. It’s not an issue of consent. It’s just- Shouto wants to do this for N3A. He wants to help boost their image as a company, and he knows that a PR stunt like this will gain them some good publicity. But wanting to do something, being perfectly willing, isn’t the same as actually doing it.
He’s never dated someone before. There were always better things to do--why go to the movies with someone he barely knows when he could go with Midoriya, Uraraka, Kirishima, and Bakugou? Why spend Valentine’s Day or White Day handing out expensive confession chocolate when he could hang out in the dorm kitchen and bake ugly cookies with Momo? Maybe the thought of holding hands with someone had crossed his mind once or twice, but there was always something more urgent to take his mind off of it.
So no matter his manager chooses to set him up with, it probably won’t end well. Unless Rurikawa finds the money (or the blackmail material) to pay off a successful young actor to play his overbearing counterpart, Shouto is highly doubtful that he’ll be able to sell it to the public. How are they even gonna announce it, anyway? A press conference, or a stilted interview? He’s never been good at PR events and this is surely no exception.
He should call Izuku.
Not just because of the staged relationship thing, though he should definitely bring it up. It’s just been a while since they heard from each other. He’s not sure exactly what Izuku is up to this week, but from what he’d heard a few days ago it sounds like it’s mostly touring, with a few important public endorsements for Melissa’s newest line of hero tech. He’s not sure what time it is in America, but it’s more than likely that Izuku is still awake.
Shouto goes to wash his hands and puts on a pot of water for lunch before he gets around to dialing Izuku’s number. He’s not sure what he’s going to say, or how he should expect Izuku to react, but before he can collect his thoughts, his friend picks up.
“Shouto!” Izuku exclaims, delighted. “I’m glad you called. I’m just about to head to the lab for the fitting, and I’ll be totally swamped for the next couple of days after. I told you about the impromptu photoshoot, right?”
“Ah… no,” Shouto tells him, picking at the skin around his thumbnail with one hand as he presses the phone to his ear with his shoulder. “For Melissa’s line?”
“Yeah!” Izuku says. “She’s got so many great ideas, and we don’t know when I’ll be at I-Island again so I thought we’d just knock them all out of the way before I have to go.”
“Where are you off to next?” Shouto asks, wincing as he peels a strip of skin a couple centimeters too far.
“I’m still finishing my tour of ivy leagues. I think they’re sending me to Brown next, and then either Columbia or Cornell… But after that they might give me a couple weeks off to visit family in Japan. It’d be great to catch up in person!”
“Yeah,” Shouto agrees, his mind latching onto Izuku’s return. “You’re coming back after those two colleges… Do you know how long they’ll take?”
He doesn’t dare get his hopes up. Izuku won’t be able to get back and settle down in time to foster a fake relationship, and even if he were returning within the next three days, Shouto knows he’ll have to pack up and leave after less than a month. (Oh God, he doesn’t even know how long his fake relationship is supposed to last. Rurikawa had said a couple of months--is that a minimum or a maximum? A simple estimate? A median?)
Still, he can’t help but feel disappointed as Izuku answers, “Probably another two weeks at the earliest, including the time for the photoshoot. But I don’t know what other events they have planned for me--it could be closer to a month if they want to drag each visit out.”
Right. So fake dating Izuku isn’t really an option, even if they will get to see each other over the duration of Shouto’s manufactured romance. He sighs out loud before he can catch himself, and Izuku tunes in immediately.
“Oh, what’s wrong?” he asks, concern saturating his voice. “You must have called for a reason. Is everything okay?”
“All’s well,” Shouto says, because it isn’t a lie. “Momo sends her best wishes for your trip.”
“Is she worried about the airplanes still?” Izuku says with a little laugh. “I keep telling her not to be. She knows how they work better than any of us, after all.”
“I think that might be why she’s so afraid of them.”
Izuku chuckles again, before getting back to business. “But what about you?” he prompts. “Are things going alright at work?”
“They’re fine. Rurikawa and Nanao have been trying to push me to do more PR, and I think I may have agreed to something that I don’t want to do.”
“Well, you always have the consent clause in your contract,” Izuku reminds him. “But that might not apply here. What is it they want you to do?”
“It’s a publicity stunt,” Shouto explains, choosing his words carefully. “They think it might be good if my fans saw me- Rather, if they believed I was-”
The background noise on the other end of the phone increases, voices echoing through the speaker. Shouto stops mid-sentence as Izuku listens, responding with a few hushed words of reassurance. “Shouto, I’m so sorry,” he says, accompanied by the rustling and clicking of a man on the move. “They need me to head over to Melissa’s lab now. Can I call you back when the shoot is over? We barely even got to talk!”
“That’s fine,” Shouto tells him, ignoring the disappointment rising within him. “It wasn’t that important, anyway.”
“Anything that’s important to you is important to me,” Izuku says. There’s a telltale click, followed by a soft slam, and the background noise becomes louder again. “I promise I’ll call as soon as I can, okay? Don’t let me forget!”
“I won’t,” Shouto promises. He probably will. It really isn’t that important, and Izuku seems busy.
“I’m sorry, Shou!” Izuku says again, his words almost lost to the noise around him. America seems loud. “But good luck at work, and let me know if there are any emergencies. Okay, I gotta go, bye!”
“Bye,” Shouto says, but the line has already disconnected. He pulls the phone away from his ear and stares at Izuku’s contact photo until the pot of water he’d forgotten starts to boil over. He rushes to take it off the heat. It may be lunchtime, but he really isn’t hungry anymore. He thinks he wants to go lie down.
Okay, so maybe he hadn’t been the best at keeping up his social life. Or keeping up with anything at all, really. He’d known that Izuku was busy in America, just like he knows that Momo is busy with YAO Agencies and Shinsou is busy taking over for Aizawa in the underground world. It’s been building in his mind, but it hadn’t fully hit him until now how behind he is with everything. With everyone.
It’s not that he’s jealous of Izuku’s success, or any of his old classmates’ for that matter. He’s happy for them, and grateful for the work they do. And he likes his job, his agency, his team. Even if Endeavor were to let him re-join Endeavor Agencies, he doesn’t think he’d actually make the switch. But it’s not just hero work he’s behind in.
Last week, Utsushimi announced that she was getting married.
Her fiance seems nice enough, Shouto guesses. He’s not very memorable, but the couple of times they’d met he remembers him being a good match for her. It’s just- the fact that someone he knows, someone within a year of his age, is getting married … It barely registers in his mind as real. He remembers her throwing out Twitter lingo left and right as a silly young high schooler back during their remedial training, and now she’s probably shopping for wedding dresses and arguing with what’s-his-name about color schemes and napkin fabric.
He hadn’t just drifted apart from these people; he’d drifted back from them. Or, more realistically, they’d gone forward without him. They’d grown up, found new interests, changed career paths, triumphed or blossomed or whatever one might call it. And he knows that they’re the same, deep down inside, but it feels… it feels like he barely knows some of them.
And he feels exactly the same as he did the day they left UA.
It hurts to admit. Three years have gone by and everything about him is still the same--he’s working the same position at the same small agency. He’s got the same friends. He lives in the same small, plain apartment. Cooks the same meal every night for dinner, and only cooks enough for one because he knows he’ll be eating alone. Buys the same off-brand cereal from the same grocery store. Actually, his whole shopping routine has been the same for so long that he practically has it down to a science.
The worst part is that under different circumstances he wouldn’t even mind. If he liked his routine, liked his meals, liked his miniscule social life, liked his empty apartment… He wouldn’t mind doing it over and over again every single day. But he doesn’t like it. He just… does it. Unthinkingly. On autopilot.
His life is a TV that’s been switched to the same station for three years, and all it plays is static.
Shouto lies in bed for the rest of the day, but he doesn’t sleep until early in the morning. He thinks about Izuku, overseas, and Utsushimi planning her future with the man she loves, and Bakugou doing… Well, he’s not totally sure.
He falls asleep wondering if he’ll ever get to find out.
One thing that Shouto neglected to remember was to call or message Izuku back.
The other thing he neglected to do was to set his alarm.
“-swear to God, if you aren’t out the door in the next thirty seconds , I’ll drive over to your apartment myself and drag you here by the hair !” Rurikawa is livid, Shouto can tell even in his frenzied state. He focuses less on what his manager is screaming and more on Nanao’s gentle voice trying to de-escalate the situation as he brushes his teeth, runs a hand through his hair helplessly, and grabs his shoulder bag and keys on his way out. Rurikawa has impressive lung strength. Shouto has huge dark circles under his eyes and an empty stomach, save for the bits of toothpaste he’d accidentally swallowed when he’d tried to answer a question with a toothbrush in his mouth.
He sprints to the agency, uncaring of keeping his clothes fresh or his long hair out of his face. (He’s wearing the same shirt and pants from yesterday, anyway. He’d fallen asleep in them and forgotten to lay out his next day’s outfit, and now here he is, slobbish and frantic as he bursts through the doors of N3A.) The receptionist of the day stares at him for a second like she isn’t sure whether she’s supposed to call security or offer him a cup of coffee and send him on his way. Shouto ignores her, flashing his ID at a security guard before taking off towards the elevators.
He waits for approximately five seconds before his nerves get the better of him and send him sprinting up the staircase two steps at a time. Rurikawa is still screaming into his ear, despite the fact that it must have been at least twenty minutes since he called to wake Shouto up, and if Shouto weren’t so completely and totally out of breath he might have the energy to worry about what will happen when he actually shows up .
He bursts through the doors of the conference room before he can think about it.
“Todoroki-san!” Nanao says with a relieved sigh, practically melting into the floor. Shouto’s vision is a bit spotty, so he can only make out vague shapes around the room--it looks as if there are three people there aside from him, as well as a new stack of papers and photos spread across the table. He squeezes his eyes shut and pulls in a few lungfuls of air, trying to calm his racing heart, but Rurikawa is on him before he can even catch his breath.
“What in the hell took so long?” he hisses, furious. “We’ve been waiting for almost half an hour! And jesus, Todoroki, you look like you just walked through a tornado .”
“I overslept,” Shouto wheezes, bracing his hands on his knees. There’s a snort from across the room, but luckily no one makes any further comments. Rurikawa lets out a long-suffering sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers before he composes himself once again.
“Well, you’re here now,” he says matter-of-factly. “I suppose that’s what’s most important right now. Hurry up and recuperate, because we’ve got a lot of paperwork to get through before we can get this fake romance off the ground.”
Shouto’s face must betray his confusion, because Nanao steps in helpfully, settling a hand on his back and pushing him slightly so that he straightens up. “Todoroki-san,” she says with a nervous hum to her voice, “we’ve found you a fake boyfriend.”
Shouto blinks once, hard, allowing his vision to sharpen fully as he finally focuses on the third figure in the room. He makes out the shape of the body first--tall, but not quite as tall as he is, with well-balanced muscles and a few old-looking scars adorning his bare arms. He has a sharp jaw, a familiar stance, and as Shouto lets his gaze trail over the figure’s face, he feels his heart stutter in his chest.
Soft and spiky blonde hair. Sharp red eyes, skin the color of a sunset. A pretty mouth set into a firm, wide line.
“Bakugou,” Shouto chokes out, his heart racing for a whole different reason this time.
“Half n’ Half,” Bakugou replies, crossing his arms over his chest. “Ready to get this show on the road?”