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At the foolishly hopeful age of twenty-two, already marked by the world but believing so much in the power of love triumphing over evil, Hizashi got down on one knee. He held the ring out with a smile on his face, nervous, but sure that Shouta, the love of his life, would say yes.
“No.”
It took Hizashi a moment to realize what he had said. “What?”
“No, Hizashi.”
As his world began to cave around him, Hizashi scrambled for an explanation. “Shouta, darling, why? Am I⏤? Did I do something wrong? Do you not like the ring? We can get a different ring,” he offered desperately.
Shouta looked at him with something close to pity as he muttered, “I can’t marry you, Hizashi. I’m sorry.”
“Shouta,” Hizashi was still kneeling, his hand holding the ring box hanging limply at his side. “I want to be with you for the rest of my life, married or not married. If you don’t want the ring and ceremony it’s okay. I just want you. I love you.”
Shouta stepped back. “I know you do. But you should stop.”
Hizashi’s heart was ripping in two and he could hardly breathe. How had he missed this? “Are you unhappy?”
The truth slipped out before Shouta could stop it. “No. That’s not it.”
Hizashi blinked, only growing more confused. “If you’re not unhappy, then why?” His voice wavered. “Shō?”
“We’re heroes.”
“Um, I know?”
“Our lives are dangerous⏤”
“And we can look out for each other!”
Shouta was harsh as he stated, “At least one of us is going to die young.”
That was something that Hizashi didn’t like to think about and he winced, forcing himself to continue. “What does that have to do with this?”
“So one of us is going to leave the other behind eventually. That’s what always happens to heroes. We’re only setting ourselves up for heartbreak,” Shouta said. “Better to end it now than get any deeper.”
“Wait,” Hizashi said, panic mounting. “End it?”
“Yes.” Shouta didn’t look at him. “I’ve been thinking so for a long time.”
Hizashi finally got up, rocketing to his feet in protest. “Shouta! We can make it work, just talk to me, please.”
“You haven’t done anything wrong,” Shouta comforted him.
His assurances did nothing to help.
Shouta continued, “This is my problem, so⏤”
“You are not seriously it’s-not-you-it’s-me-ing me right now, are you?”
“Hizashi⏤”
“No, Shouta. You can’t just⏤” Hizashi reached for him desperately but Shouta pulled away, leaving him grasping at air.
“It’s over. I’m sorry, Hizashi. This was… fun, but it’s not logical. We’re not kids anymore, playing pretend that heroes will always win. It’s time to grow up.”
“Fun,” Hizashi repeated in disbelief. “You call our six-year relationship fun. Well, fuck you too, Shouta.”
Shouta winced but made no other response.
“Just,” Hizashi struggled to find the words. “I just don’t understand how you can care so little. Shouta, I love you.”
Shouta didn’t flinch as he stated, “That’s a mistake. Take my advice, Hizashi. Bury that feeling. Close the doors to your heart and keep yourself at arm’s distance from everyone else. That’s what I plan on doing. Look, just protect yourself, Hizashi. Alright? If you keep walking around loving everyone so much, you’re going to burn out before you reach our ten-year reunion.”
Hizashi couldn’t speak. He turned and walked away, stunned and lost and aching. It stung that he could have loved Shouta so much, been prepared to give him his entire life, when Shouta was able to just decide one day that he didn’t love Hizashi anymore and walk away without feeling a thing.
It was only when he was safely out of sight that Shouta allowed himself to crumble.
***
Even with his heart shattered, Hizashi couldn’t hate Shouta. He tried, valiantly, to do so for many months after the rejected proposal, but found himself helpless to do anything but love him. He watched from a distance as Shouta threw himself into hero work, quietly rooting him on. He avoided teaming up with him whenever possible, if only because he was sure that Shouta would hate it but was ready to defend him to any hero that questioned his legitimacy⏤ whenever Shouta wasn’t present of course.
There were a few close calls for both of them over the years, with little exchanged after each brush with death other than perhaps a card if it had managed to make the news and so would be public information, not something gained by secret close observation. It was more difficult for Hizashi to keep track of Shouta than the other way around, as was the nature of underground work. Being in the hero community gave him some sources to keep tabs on Shouta, but it wasn’t enough. Hizashi felt like he held his breath for the entirety of every undercover or overseas mission that took Eraserhead out of his sight for too long, asking any deity that may be listening to bring him home safe.
He didn’t know that Shouta kept just as many tabs on him and sent the same prayers to the universe for his protection.
And so, for several years, they maintained a professionally distant relationship, both of their hearts yearning for the other and convinced that what they once had was forever lost.
When, through a series of complications and coincidences, they both wound up teaching at UA, Hizashi allowed himself to hope again for the first time. Remembering how he once won over the prickly teenage Shouta when he seemed to despise the very idea of friendships, Hizashi resolved that if he did it once, he could do it again. And so Operation Befriend Aizawa 2.0 was born.
Slowly, persistently, he eased his way back into Shouta’s life. He convinced himself that being his friend would be enough, if he could just see him, just be allowed to love him in any way and see some small sliver of affection be returned, it would fill the gaping hole in his chest.
The first time Shouta invited him over for takeout, his heart almost combusted. When he brought Hizashi coffee, unprompted and to his exact order despite never having been told, Hizashi couldn’t stop smiling for a week. When he remembered Hizashi’s birthday, passing him a new pair of sunglasses as if it didn’t matter much to him at all, Hizashi almost cried.
Slowly, achingly so, he was allowed back into Shouta’s life and a tentative friendship was kindled from the ashes of their breakup.
Hizashi told himself that it was enough.
***
The week after Nemuri’s funeral passed not as a blur but as an endless expanse of grey monotony. Hizashi moved through it like a marionette on tangled strings, barely functional and struggling to keep his head above water.
When he came to school with his hair thrown in a sloppy bun and missing most of his usual accessories, the students had openly stared. So had Shouta, though his look had been softened with concern.
“Maybe you should go home,” he’d suggested carefully, murmuring low to Hizashi in the staff room so the other teachers wouldn’t hear.
Hizashi had jerked away from the hand Shouta placed on his shoulder. “I’m fine,” he snapped. He ignored the flicker of hurt that had shown on Shouta’s face before his mask of dull indifference smoothed it over again. “You’re here,” Hizashi continued. “If you can handle it, so can I.”
“It’s not a competition,” Shouta argued gently. “And handling it is a bit of a stretch.”
“Sure,” Hizashi’s skepticism was clear in his biting tone. “You’re affected. ”
“What’s that tone supposed to mean?” Shouta challenged, his voice taking an edge for the first time.
“Nothing,” Hizashi dismissed. “I’m jealous of you actually, Shouta. You keep your distance, always have. Things hurt you less. You get to shut off your emotions whenever you like while the rest of us fall apart over and over again and are left to glue the pieces of ourselves back together while all the while more tiny imperceptible shards go missing so that we will never really be whole again. I wish I could do that. Just choose not to care. Must be nice.”
He began to walk away and was jerked back roughly by Shouta.
“Don’t you dare say that,” he warned, low and angry. “I loved her too.”
“I know you did, Shouta,” Hizashi said, his exhaustion heavy in every word. “Or you did once at least. But you cut yourself off from your feelings until they wither and die and leave you a husk. You compartmentalize until there is nothing left because anything real has been filed under unnecessary and inconvenient. You’re so afraid to let yourself feel that you’re going to lose what makes you human. Maybe you can spend your life as an underground hero, unattached to anything and just keep moving until your body crumbles and you finally end up dead but I can’t. I need more than that.”
“Hizashi—“ Shouta tried to interrupt, an odd expression on his face, but Hizashi didn’t let him.
“Maybe it’s a good thing,” he said. “That you broke my heart. I’ve spent all these years wondering but you were right. I would have only ended badly anyway, if only because I loved you and you just kept me around until you didn’t need me anymore. It was for the best.” Hizashi easily pulled himself out of Shouta's slack grip. “I see that now,” he whispered.
He had walked away, leaving Shouta stunned silent and frozen behind him.
That conversation had been nearly three days prior and the two had not spoken since. Truth be told, Hizashi was feeling somewhat guilty about what he had said. He knew that Shouta could feel things, he simply refused to. It was something that Hizashi had never understood. He burst with the need to feel, to express, to be as alive as he possibly could because the life of a hero was too damn short to do anything else. But if Shouta wanted to cut himself off in an attempt not to be hurt, Hizashi couldn’t stop him.
And looking around at the devastation and the gaping holes left in his life where friends used to be, Hizashi began to think that Shouta may have actually been right. Perhaps he was too cruel in his evaluation of the other. Lost in the expanse of grief, Hizashi would have given anything to just not care anymore.
Resting on Hizashi's bookcase, there was a framed photo of him and his friends in high school, their arms around each other, and all of them, even Shouta, smiling. Of all the young idealistic, naive heroes in the picture, only he and Shouta were still alive. Thirty was too young to have lost so much and it only seemed to hurt more as time went on as wounds barely beginning to scab over were ripped open again with each unbearable loss.
Feeling, keeping his wild, optimistic spirit alive had long been Hizashi’s preferred method of defiance against evil. By getting up each day and laughing and finding joy, he refused to let the darkness that surrounded the life of a hero take the light from his world. But Hizashi was tired. Feeling wasn’t an escape anymore. It was a brutal punishment. His energy and hope were spent and the last tool that he had at his disposal was to attempt to steel himself off from Shouta so that when his best friend (his soulmate, his other half that refused to join with him) inevitably ended up in a body bag, it might not ruin him.
Hizashi stared at the picture for a long time, surrendering himself to the bittersweet flow of memory that was always tinged with loss.
It was the sound of the buzzer that broke him from his trance. In half-aware confusion, Hizashi turned towards his door, taking a moment too long to process what the noise meant. It came again but in three short bursts. Setting his mug of tea which had long grown cold down, Hizashi made his way to the intercom.
“Yes?”
“It’s me,” Shouta said.
His voice was as calm and measured as always, but something in it stiffened Hizashi’s spine. Or maybe it was just that it was Shouta. He’d always had an effect on Hizashi, even when he was angry with him.
“What?” Hizashi asked again, rougher. It was much easier to stop loving Shouta when he wasn’t there. If he would just stay away, maybe Hizashi could finally stop loving him. (He ignored how the years between their breakup and the time they started at UA thoroughly disproved that hypothesis.)
“Can I come up?” Shouta asked.
There was a hesitancy in his voice that Hizashi hadn’t heard in a long time. It reminded him of when they were teenagers and Shouta never seemed to quite believe that people actually cared about him. The instinct to reassure him that that wasn’t the case was so ingrained in Hizashi’s body that his finger moved to buzz Shouta in before he fully processed what he was doing. By but the time he actually thought about it, it was already too late to tell him to leave. So Hizashi moved away from the door and set his kettle on again, finding something to do with his hands so they wouldn’t shake.
The knock came too soon and Hizashi was forced to croak out, “It’s open,” his hands still full with mugs of boiling water sloshing dangerously close to the brim.
Shouta slipped through the door, closing it nearly silently behind him. He hovered in the entrance as if waiting for Hizashi to change his mind and order him out.
If Hizashi’s new plan of feeling nothing was working any better, he would have. Instead, he asked, “Tea?”
“No. But thanks.” Despite his stilted answer, a tiny fraction of the tension seemed to leave Shouta at the offer. He removed his shoes and carefully came into the kitchen, still on edge for the moment when Hizashi would resume his tirade about Shouta’s soullessness.
There was a long silence as they both waited for the other to say something. Finally, Hizashi sighed, setting his mug down with a clink that seemed to echo in the tense air. “What do you want, Shouta ?” he asked, staring down at his tea.
“I’m sorry. You were right.”
Hizashi looked up in surprise.
Shouta was standing awkwardly, his hands deep in his pockets and his chin down, the way he would usually do when he wanted to hide in his weapon. But he was in civilian clothing that did nothing to conceal his expression or the faint blush on his cheeks.
“I was?” Hizashi asked, honestly taken aback.
“I’ve been a coward,” Shouta continued. “I hid behind a wall of aloofness to try and stop myself from hurting and I shut people out to do it because I think it will protect me. But I still feel.”
“Shouta,” Hizashi interrupted quickly. “Stop. You don’t need to⏤ I was wrong. I shouldn’t have said those things. I know that you’re grieving N-Nemuri,” her name choked him to say. “You’re not heartless.”
“I know I’m not. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I⏤ ”
“You don’t have to,” Hizashi insisted. “I know. And I know you don’t like to talk about your feelings so it’s okay we can just⏤”
“Damn it, Hizashi, I’m trying to tell you I love you so would shut up for once and let me talk?” Shouta snapped. Immediately his eyes widened in surprise and regret as he realized what he’d said.
Hizashi was pretty sure his heart had stopped working as he stared at Shouta. “What?”
“Fuck,” Shouta muttered, burying his face in his hand for a moment. “That was supposed to sound better.”
Hizashi was still trying to wrap his head around what was happening and did nothing but blink at Shouta like a goldfish.
“Look,” Shouta said, finally making eye contact with Hizashi as he recovered from the slip of his tongue. “You were right. I cut myself off because I thought it would hurt less but I was wrong. No matter what I try I still feel things. I still love you. I love your stupid tall hair and your obnoxious radio personality that makes people happy and I love that when it’s just the two of us you get softer and quieter. But not because I don’t like you when you’re loud. I love when you get excited or happy and you can’t control your quirk because you’re filled with too much joy. I like how you get quiet because it means you trust me enough to be yourself without the face you put on for everyone else. I love it because I get to see the real you and I love the real you more than Present Mic. I love Hizashi.
“I love how hard you work and how much you care about your art and your students and every random innocent person. I love how you can talk to a victim and make them feel safe because we both know I’m kinda shit at talking to people. That’s why I make a good underground hero. Or part of why at least. But that’s not important.
“I love how smart you are. Smarter than me for sure. But you never make me feel dumb. I love how you slip English into conversations because you insist that sometimes Japanese doesn’t have the exact right word to mean what you want to mean because you’re good at words and emotions and even though I’m shit at language and talking I always know what you mean. I love that when I don’t know what you mean you explain it without laughing at me.
“I love the way that you take care of me after I get hurt. How you are so gentle when you clean and bandage wounds. How you do small things for me when my injuries make it difficult. How you don’t make me feel like an invalid when you do because I know you don’t pity me and you don’t do things that I actually can do.
“I love how you love fearlessly. You’re so much braver than me and kinder than me. When I was a dumb, lost, hurting kid who didn’t think that I would ever be loved, you showed up and loved me so hard and so persistently that I had to believe it. You changed my world. You’re the reason I have a heart. I love you with every part of my soul, Hizashi.
“And that scared me. I looked around at the heroes that died too soon and too young and I knew what the chances were for us.” He took a deep breath. “I looked at Oboro.”
And that name sent a flash of pain tearing through Hizashi’s heart that was already buzzing with so much emotion he couldn’t make sense of it. Oboro.
Shouta continued, “In my life, I’ve had so few people I loved and even fewer who loved me back. Losing one of those people, it tore me in two. And I know you loved him too, ‘Zachi, and I’m not saying that it was harder for me but I’m not as strong as you. I couldn’t stand the idea of that pain again. When I looked at you that night, the night you proposed⏤” his voice broke with years of regret. “I knew that I loved you too much. I was a coward, Hizashi. Every bone in my body wanted to say yes. To love you and let you love me too. But I knew in that moment that if I lost you, I wouldn’t be able to go on. My heart is so weak. I said no because I thought that if I tried hard enough, I might be able to stop loving you.
“But I was wrong. Holy fucking shit was I wrong, Hizashi. Because whatever I do, I cannot stop loving you. I love you more every day. I can hardly breathe without you. And I know it’s a weakness. I know if any villain found out it would lead us to ruin. But I’m selfish too. I want you. I want to be with you.
“Nemuri knew how much I loved you. How could she not? She knew everything and I was hardly subtle.”
Hizashi nearly choked on that. He was currently blindsided.
Shouta didn’t appear to notice his shock, plowing on with his speech. “She always wanted me to tell you. Insisted that I was being an idiot. She was right, of course. I’ve spent so many years trying not to love you and thinking that it would protect me. Protect us. But if Nemuri’s death has proven anything to me, it’s that she was right. It doesn’t matter how much the end hurts, Hizashi. I know that one or both of us is almost sure to meet an early painful end and even though I selfishly hope I go first, I know that, no matter how short the time we have left is, or how painful the end is, the life that I could have with you would be beautiful enough to make it worth it.
“We fight villains to make the world a better place where people can live their lives in peace. I know that we will never have peace, but I think that we can have happiness too. Our lives will probably be short, but that is all the more reason to squeeze out every bit of love and joy that we can while we are here. I know now that there is no protecting my heart, not where you are involved, Hizashi, so I might as well give in. I want to give in. Because there is no one on this planet who I would rather spend my flash of a lifetime with than you.” Shouta raised his chin, looking at Hizashi as if bracing himself. “If you would still have me after all I’ve done.”
It took Hizashi a long moment to gather himself, still reeling at what had to be the most words he’d ever heard Shouta speak at once and certainly the most emotional speech he’d ever given. He broke the nervous silence in the room with a wet gasp as he blinked back tears of a dozen different emotions.
“Shouta,” he rasped. “What a question. Would I have you? You have had me since you beat me at the sports festival when we were fifteen. I have loved you for half my life and I will love you until the end of it, whether that is next week or in fifty years.”
Shouta sniffed harshly and looked at the ceiling for a moment, trying to control the flood of emotion washing over him. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “For hurting you and keeping you away for so long.”
“I’m sorry I accused you of being heartless,” Hizashi responded. “I said horrible things, Shouta. I didn’t even believe them when I said them and now you’ve given me the most romantic speech I’ve ever heard. I know you care. You wear yourself to nothing caring. I know how much you love. You love your friends. You love your students.”
“I love you.”
Hizashi wasn’t sure he would ever be able to handle those words without his whole body lighting up with happiness. “You love me,” he echoed, hardly able to believe it. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “For doubting you. I should have known you better. Is there anything that I can do to make it up to you?”
“You could kiss me.” Even Shouta seemed surprised to hear himself say that. “I mean, if you want, you⏤”
He didn’t have time to finish what he was going to say because Hizashi had already crossed the room.
They melted together and it was as if no time had passed and at the same time, they felt the weight of all their years apart and the grief and love that had built around them in that time.
Until the day he died, Hizashi would maintain that it was the best kiss of his life.
Even after the kiss ended, they stayed pressed together for a long time, their foreheads touching. Hizashi looked into Shouta’s eyes, rimmed as they always were with red irritation and deep, bruised bags. If any part of him still doubted, it was washed away the pure adoration he saw there.
“My only regret,” Shouta whispered, his breath brushing Hizashi’s cheek. “Is how much time I wasted when we could have been together.”
“If I had to wait until my last day, you would still be worth it,” Hizashi told him.
Shouta shifted to hug him more soundly, pressing his entire body into Hizashi and burying his face in his shoulder.
Hizashi pressed his cheek into Shouta’s soft nest of hair, clinging to him so tightly he was almost afraid of leaving bruises. “Shouta?” he asked.
“Hmm?”
“Would you marry me?”
Shouta’s head snapped up, nearly hitting Hizashi’s nose in the process. “What?”
“Marry me, Shouta. Please. I, uh, I still have the ring and everything. I couldn’t stand to get rid of it, even when I thought there was no chance. I can’t explain it but it was just yours. Selling it was impossible. I mean, if you like the ring. If you don’t that’s fine.” He blushed deeply.
Shouta was still shocked. “After everything, you’re ready to ask me again so soon? I haven’t, I don’t deserve⏤”
Hizashi wouldn’t stand for anyone speaking ill of Shouta, not even Shouta. “You deserve everything, Shouta. I’ve waited long enough and I can’t stand to do it for one moment more. I love you and I want to be with you for the rest of our lives, that is, if you would have me.”
For once, Shouta’s eyes were damp. “Yes,” was all he managed to say.
Even with the incredible speech Shouta had just given, to Hizashi, that word was the most beautiful thing he had ever heard.