Chapter Text
Denki was in the middle of his 3-mile-run for his cardio day when his phone started ringing. No one in the crowded gym paid him any attention as he picked up the call, assuming it was his mother who had wanted him over for dinner a month ago. Said plans for dinner were ruined when he was called in for work.
Either way, he still powered off the treadmill and spoke in an upbeat voice, “What’s up?”
Instead of the soft but stern tone of his mother, an unfamiliar voice spoke through the phone, “Kaminari? The manager wants you in at the convenience store in thirty minutes for an extra shift, think you can manage?”
Checking his watch for the progress of his workout, Denki sighed, “Yeah sure. Tell boss I’ll be there. How many hours?”
“Forty hours, night shift with a coworker. Bout as easy as selling coffee and liquor.”
Running the casual words through his head, he nodded slowly, “Doesn’t sound too bad. You said the manager wants me in? Not the shift manager?”
“Yep,” the still unfamiliar voice says, “Boss manager, not the shift one.”
“Okay, tell him to take a nap, I need to hop in the shower first.”
“I’ll be sure to inform him of your answer. See you soon Kaminari.”
“Same to you buddy. See ya later.”
Hanging up on the call, Denki wipes the sweat from his forehead with the towel around his neck before treading towards the locker rooms. Spinning the dial on the combination lock, he tugs down after the third number and throws his phone inside before kicking off his shoes. The duffel bag that sat on the bench is unzipped as he unearths a towel and some soap to bring to the showers.
As he stepped under the weak spray of water and started lathering up, he ran the numbers through his head. To anyone else in the gym, it sounded like Denki was called in to work some extra hours at a convenience store for the week. To him, however, it was much more complicated than that. Ten hours actually meant one week so he was due for four weeks or about a month. A “night shift” usually meant an undercover task and “with a coworker” meant he was getting a partner.
The “manager” was the big boss and the “shift manager” was the usual task giver. “Bout as easy as selling coffee and liquor” meant that there wouldn’t be a need to whip out the big guns (both figuratively and literally), but the mention of alcohol made it clear it was no walk in the park either.
Rinsing the last bits of soap from his body, he grabbed the towel and wrapped it around his waist before making his way back to the lockers. A pair of worn jeans fit snugly around his waist along with an oversized cat sweater as he toweled his hair dry.
Throwing everything else in a laundry bag or back in the duffel one, he throws the bag over his shoulder and waves to the lady at the counter as he leaves. The convenience store was only a block away so he traverses there on foot, taking in the sights he won’t be able to enjoy for another month.
The convenience store he arrives at is tucked away by a gas station that was oddly deserted. He pays no attention to the lack of foot traffic as he stepped through the glass doors and nods at the man behind the counter.
“What’s good my dude?” Denki shoots the bored-looking employee some finger guns and a smile. “Kaminari here for my extra shift from the manager!”
The brown-haired man peers at him through his half-rimmed glasses before turning to the cashier register. “How many hours?”
“Forty hours, night shift with a coworker, about as easy as selling coffee and liquor,” he recalls from the phone call earlier.
The employee hums, tapping away on the keyboard at an impressive speed, blank face unchanging. “Alright Kaminari, drop your bags off in the back room. The manager will see you over a cup of coffee.”
“Thanks bro!” he says brightly.
A flat, “mhm,” was all the response he got but he was used to it.
Showing himself to the “employees only” door, he turns the handle and drops his gym bag on one of the benches. The break room was about the size of a broom closet, with a small sink, microwave, and coffee machine dominating one wall while a small, dingy window sat crookedly on the other. The bench he dropped his bag on took up the third wall, even if it was only big enough to fit one grown adult.
Making sure he had his wallet tucked in his pockets, he approached the coffee machine and pressed his thumb on the “start” button. If a stranger walked in on him, they would think that’s a really weird fucking way to make coffee without a cup, but Denki wasn’t really there for coffee so it didn’t matter.
The button under his thumb beeped then glowed blue before it started blinking. The first time he witnessed this sneaky cover-up in action, he was eighteen and practically vibrated with excitement. Seven years later, not so much.
Sighing, he pulled the cabinet door under the coffee machine open and slipped his body into the enclosed space where a trapdoor sat. Thanking the gods he didn’t suffer from claustrophobia, he wrenches it open and climbs down the ladder into an elevator. Straightening his clothes, he hits the only button on the panel: the down arrow.
As the small cubicle descended, scans were run over his body and face, along with a fingerprint scanner and swab for his saliva (which smelled oddly of lemon-scented cleaning solution, but who was he to say anything?).
When the elevator finally stopped after what could’ve been ten stories down, the doors blinked a blue light before hissing dramatically as it opened. Rolling his eyes at the Mission Impossible theme that started playing, he stepped out of the elevator, walked down the eerily lit hallway, and pushed the hospital looking doors at the end. As soon as the doors swung open, he was slapped in the face with the scent of coffee, instant noodles, and a few hints of tea from people who were still desperately clutching to the last strands of their sanity.
Turning right, he walks directly to the last door on the left of another hallway and invites himself in without knocking. Spotting a yellow sleeping bag slumped over in the office chair, Denki plops himself across from said yellow sleeping bag and hooks his ankles together.
“What’s up Dadzawa?”
The yellow caterpillar slowly shifts in its curled-up form, straightening up as the zipper started undoing itself. A tired pair of black eyes behind unruly raven bangs glance at him, unamused, as the rest of the yellow ensemble is shed to reveal not a butterfly, but something that resembled a weathered bat.
“Kaminari, I’ve already told you not to call me that. We have important matters to discuss today.”
Denki waves his hand in the air, “Yeah, yeah, I got it Dadzawa.”
An exasperated sigh sounds as the office chair squeaks, rolling towards one of the filing cabinets. A folder is placed on the desk in front of him as the computer next to it flashes to life. The familiar tune of the Window’s startup sound fills the dim room, followed by a round of loud keyboard taps.
“Soooo...” he starts, “who are we waiting for?”
Aizawa continues typing away on his computer, eyes unwavering as he speaks in a monotone voice, “Nobody you don’t know. He’s in the same year as you with equal potential.”
“Damn,” the blond whistles, “throwing compliments already? Kinda hard to deny the ‘dad’ title now.”
The typing comes to a stop as the dark eyes of his boss pans to him, “Kaminari-”
Aizawa isn’t able to finish, however, as the door swings open, accompanied by a loud voice and an extra pair of footsteps.
“Shouta!” the loud voice exclaims, “look who I finally managed to detach from the filing cabinets!”
Denki turns around and his blood goes cold faster than the cups of instant coffee sitting on the lunchroom counters (he has weird metaphors, okay?). Not at the sight of the loud blond man standing at the door, but at the quiet purple-haired man next to said the loud blond man. He sits frozen, mouth slightly parted in shock as his eyes widened in horror. But there was no way, was there?
Memories come flashing back and Denki couldn’t help the bitter taste in his mouth as the stupid deep voice sounded in his head.
“I’m not here to make friends,” the cool voice said.
“Oh, come on dude! You’ve got the face of a popular guy, I bet you’re popular with the ladies, huh? Trust me, I can tell,” came his own voice.
Cold amethyst eyes bore into his amber ones as a scowl graced the other’s unfairly sharp features, “I said, I’m not here to make friends. I’ve worked hard to get here and I can’t afford any distractions.”
He had barely recovered from being called a “distraction” before the taller boy brushed past him, bumping his shoulder in the process.
“Damn, rude much?” he felt the words tumbling out of his mouth before he could control it.
He only got a small huff in response along with a mumbled, “should’ve known they’re all assholes,” before the mop of gravity-defying hair disappeared into the tall building built to simulate a corporate office.
Something about that day put Denki on edge with bubbling annoyance. Which was something to behold since he was friends with Bakugou I-fucking-hate-everyone Katsuki, who was constantly insulting anyone within in his eye line.
And maybe that was why. Because Shinsou I’m-not-here-to-make-friends Hitoshi had no problems working with anyone but Denki. The blond’s even seen the purple head having a perfectly civil conversation with Midoriya during lunch breaks back in their training years so it made absolutely no sense to him as to why he was so damn rude around Denki.
All he knew was that he absolutely could not spend more than five minutes in the same room as Shinsou, let alone go through an undercover mission with him.
“I’m going to have to do a mission with him ?” Denki squawks, pointing at the other dark-haired, tired-eyed man in the room.
“Yes,” Aizawa says emotionlessly, “Is there a problem?”
He opened his mouth to respond with a long list of problems but he hadn’t even managed to utter a syllable before another voice sounded.
“Yes,” Shinsou says, “we can’t work together.”
The raven-haired manager sighs again, “And why is that?”
“We just can’t,” Denki blurts out before the other got a chance to say anything.
“That’s not a real good reason, little listener,” Yamada chimes from the door, “I thought U.A.’s education system provided decent enough mentors for the both of you to know that ‘we just can’t’ is a pretty weak argument here.”
He feels a glare directed his way as the voice associated with said glare spoke, “I was going to say we can’t work together because Kaminari and I are not compatible, but I didn’t quite get a chance to.”
“So then why aren’t you two compatible?” Yamada asks.
“Well,” the irritatingly calm voice continues smoothly, but Denki decided against letting the other finish.
“Well,” he cuts in, “Shinsou here, doesn’t like to communicate with me the same way he would with our other peers. I, unfortunately, cannot read minds so every time we’re paired off, he’ll just leave and I’m left to figure out what the hell his plan is.”
A snort comes from the purple head, “And Kaminari here, often cuts me off, like now for example, before I can finish explaining my plans to him, leaving him confused and me without a partner.”
“I’m so fucking sorry you take forever to get words out of your mouth,” Denki shot back, “don’t know if you noticed or not buddy, but our exercises only lasted fifteen minutes and I couldn’t spend fourteen of them listening to you mumble your plans.”
“And I’m terribly sorry you have the attention span of a five-year-old child at a candy store.”
“Did you just call me childish?”
“No, I’m referring to your attention span as childish,” Shinsou explained slowly the same way a parent would explain to their child that having ice cream for breakfast was a bad idea.
“Don’t get all formal and fancy with your insults,” Denki seethed with unexplainable rage, “if you want to say something, spit it out. Don’t beat around the fucking bush.”
“I’ll say it then,” the purple-haired man said, “I can’t work with you because you’re like all the other stuck-up assholes who got into the ‘gifted’ classes on their first try.”
He scoffed, “So you’re just jealous because I scored better than you on the entrance exam? Grow the fuck up Shinsou, I’m not the only childish one here.”
“I’ll have you know-”
“Enough,” a stern voice says quietly, turning everyone silent.
Again, Denki could feel all the blood in his veins turn cold as he turned around. Aizawa stood up, chair squeaking again as it rolled a couple inches back from the movement. “I’ve had enough of the two of you squabbling like a pair of teenagers,” the tired man’s voice rose. “You’re both twenty-five , if something as small as a cold demeanor stops the two of you from working with someone, then walk yourselves out of this office and hand your badges to Hatsume on your way out. Otherwise, sit yourself down, shut up, and act like a pair of grown adults for the next fifteen minutes.”
Clamping his mouth shut and swallowing down hard on his words, he turned to look at the file sitting on the desk, doing everything within his power to avoid looking at the other. It also seemed that in the midst of their little outburst, Yamada had left and now returned with two mugs of coffee; one for Aizawa and one for himself. Under normal circumstances, Denki would’ve joked about where his cup of coffee was, but this wasn’t really normal circumstances.
After a long slurp of coffee, the black-haired man started speaking. “As you both should know, the fashion industry has been seeking help from us in the recent couple of years as the online market has started surging,” a pause.
Denki nods and from his peripheral vision, he sees Shinsou doing the same.
“And Creati, one of the biggest fashion brands, are asking for our help. I’m sure you’ve at least heard of last year’s incident when Yaoyorozu-san's jewel piece of her collection was stolen. She reached out to us a little while ago, asking if we could help her figure out who helped with the crime.”
“Why didn’t she ask directly after the incident?” Denki asked impulsively.
“Because she was sure that it was just a common criminal so she decided to upgrade her security for this year’s collection release.”
“What changed her mind?” Shinsou asks.
Aizawa opens a drawer and pulls out a small scrap of slightly crumpled paper, “This was found in one of the scrap buckets in her workshop. They were supposed to empty the scrap buckets the day after the dress was stolen but the whole fiasco led her employees to forget. One of the seamstresses found it when they dropped their cellphone into the bucket whilst bringing it out to recycle.
“What does it say?” he asked.
The paper was smoothed out for him to read the crooked pencil letters:
Meet us at the bar. Bring the dress.
The letters had definitely faded over time, but Denki could still make out the characters that contrasted on the paper like day and night. But something about it wasn’t right. Furrowing his brows, he frowned, “When was the paper found?”
“Three weeks after the incident, after Yaoyorozu-san's friend bid the dress back for her.”
“Then why does she contact you now?” he asks, trying to hold the puzzle pieces up together.
Aizawa sighs, “She contacted the police after they had discovered this slip of paper. The police didn’t quite want to take the case so they stuck around for a couple days, declared the thief untraceable, then closed the case.”
Denki could’ve sworn the purple head next to him mutter something about police incompetency and as much as he’d hate to admit it, he would agree.
“She told me over the phone that she decided to test her theory of a traitor among her staff and model members,” the black-haired man continued, “she was smart enough to show her team members old blouses and shirts she had designed years ago. Sure enough, those pieces showed up on the internet for extremely low prices a few days later. Yaoyorozu-san has more specific information with her when you take on the case and meet her so I won’t linger on that.”
Shinsou nods, “Is there anything else we need to know?”
Aizawa flips through the folder and shakes his head, “This is all the information that I have. If there’s more, then that will be your job to figure out. Can I trust the two of you to take on this case?”
Denki gripped the sides of his seat as the mission ran through his head along with numbers he never liked adding up. But if he could set his temper aside for the month and bite his tongue before insults could come rolling out, this would be his easiest mission yet. After all, a stolen dress would be tamer than underground drug dealers in any universe.
Reluctantly, he looks up from his fidgeting Converse sneakered feet to look at the other young spy. To his surprise, the cold amethyst eyes had also turned to meet his as the purple gravity-defying locks bobbed in the air in a nod.
Inhaling sharply, Denki turns to Aizawa and nods his head as well, “Yes, you can trust us to take the case.”
The tension in the room that he wasn’t aware of until now disperses as the words leave his mouth. The black-haired man behind the desk turns around once again towards a different filing cabinet and pulls out two other folders. They’re dropped on the desk to join the first one and Denki recognizes them immediately.
“These are your new identities,” Aizawa says, flipping both folders open, “You can memorize the details in your own time but to summarize the important points, Kaminari is now Fujimori Akio, Yaoyorozu-san's high school classmate who excelled in fine arts like painting and illustration. Shinsou is Fujimori Hayato, a small architect who collects estate internationally to rent out and sell.”
“Uh, why are we going to Yaoyorozu-san's runway and how is Shinsou relevant in this situation?” Denki asks, scanning the documents and fake I.D.s.
“You’re attending Yaoyorozu-san's collection release because she reached out to you to help her create promotional art for her website and likewise. Our team will create the art for you so that’s not for you to worry about. Shinsou is relevant in this situation because if you hadn’t noticed, both of your identities share the same last name.”
“So... we’re siblings?” the purple head next to him asks, “That’d be kind of hard to pull off, seeing that we look nothing alike.”
Yamada, who’d stayed awfully quiet for the past ten minutes huffed, clearly irritated, “No, little listeners. Of course, the two of you wouldn’t be siblings! Even a blind man could tell you two aren’t even close to second cousins! Your identities share a last name because you two are married ! ”
“What?” Denki screeched at the same time Shinsou offered an uncharacteristically loud “Excuse me?”
Aizawa shoots Yamada a dirty look, “I told you they wouldn’t take it well.”
The blond man shrugs, “Someone has to rip the bandage off for them; might as well do it sooner rather than later.”
The black-haired man pinches the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes and scooting the files towards the two of them. “Take the files, read them over, and drop by the workshop to pick up your customized accessories from Hatsume. If you have any questions, go talk to Bakugou, I’ve done my job, now do yours.”
Wordlessly, Denki picks up the file with “Fujimori Akio” on it while Shinsou grabbed the file titled “Fujimori Hayato.” They both reach out to grab the case file but awkwardly meet at the same time on the paper folder. Pulling his hand away, he nods for the other to take it and they do.
Once they make it out of the office, the door closes behind them and he lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Staring at the folder in his hands, Denki’s not sure if he’s ever been this shocked by a case before. Assassinations and the takedown of underground empires were walks in the park for him, but pretending to be married to the single human that hates you for no apparent reason? That was a whole other story.
Denki looks up to ask Shinsou about the case file, but of course, to no one’s surprise, the purple-haired prick was gone and he’s left yet again, to figure out what the fuck the other’s planning.