Chapter Text
Izuku hummed contentedly into his cup of coffee, smiling softly down at the little foam cat that the tired looking barista had unexpectedly added on top. An unforeseen, but certainly not unwelcome surprise on a day like today.
“Gosh, Deku-kun, I’m just so happy for you!” Uraraka sighed, dropping her chin onto her fist and grinning. “You haven’t released a book since One for All ended - and it did so well!”
Iida nodded in agreement, taking a long sip of his jasmine tea before adding, “It’s truly a job well done, Midoriya. We’re both very pleased for you.”
Izuku beamed back at them.
Burn Your Flames was his newest release - a very different flavor of novel than the series of superhero books that had boosted him straight into notoriety. A romance between two young men was certainly not what most of his readers had expected his next release to be following the culmination of One for All, but it had been received with a frankly shocking amount of support.
“And I have to say - the love interest in this book, Deku-kun,” Uraraka started, leaning forward conspiratorially. “He’s a real dreamboat! And such a unique look, the way you describe him. How’d you come up with him?”
Izuku rubbed at the back of his neck, feeling himself flush all the way to the roots of his hair.
“Ah… That’s a- That’s a funny story,” Izuku said without making eye contact, punctuating with a nervous laugh.
Uraraka’s eyes narrowed. “Deku-kun,” she started, more than a bit menacingly. “Do you have a crush on a really hot guy with a crazy facial scar that you didn’t tell us about?”
Izuku let out a little squeak, covering his face with his hands.
“Not- Not technically! Not really!” He protested, but it fell on deaf ears. Uraraka let out an indignant squawk and started batting at the arms covering his face as she chided him in a hissed whisper.
“What did we say about telling me about your crushes!” She scolded. “What did we say, Deku-kun?”
“...To always do it,” Izuku mumbled in reply, shoving his burning face further into the crook of his elbow.
“Exactly!” Uraraka hissed, swatting at his arm a final time. “And what did you do?”
Izuku popped his head up, frowning.
“Technically, I didn’t break the rules!” He protested. “I haven’t seen him since… like, my second year of high school. And I don’t know his name. And we’ve never spoken. And he has no idea I exist!”
Uraraka stared at him. Izuku stared back. After a long moment of tense, heavy silence, Iida awkwardly cleared his throat, pointedly taking a bite from his sandwich. Uraraka averted her gaze to her drink and took a long, loud sip.
Izuku glanced between them. “...So, no rules broken?”
Uraraka eyed him warily from where she peered over the rim of her mug. “I’m gonna need a better explanation, Deku-kun. Actually, scratch that - I need any explanation.”
“It’s not… the most exciting story,” he warned, dropping his chin onto his folded hands. “You might be disappointed.”
Iida waved a hand, as if he could clear Izuku’s words away from the air. “Nonsense, Midoriya! We will listen intently and provide intelligent insight - that’s what friends are for!”
Uraraka nodded, taking another sip of her sugary drink. “What Tenya said. Go on.”
Izuku hummed, scratching his cheek absentmindedly as he considered the best way to explain.
“Well… It started in middle school, I guess. The school I went to, Aldera - where I went with Kacchan, you know? Well, in my second year, they changed the bell schedule and started letting us out an hour earlier because we got to school earlier - I don’t really know why, just that it was a whole big thing with the parents and the board.”
“Is this going anywhere, Deku-kun?” Uraraka asked, earning a light shh from Iida, to which Izuku smiled gratefully.
“Yeah, I swear, it is. As- As I was saying, I was home like an hour before the other schools got out. Ah! I should mention - the house I grew up in had this massive bay window in the living room. It was just a big view of the street outside. So I was maybe halfway through my second year of middle school, doing some homework in the living room and this- this flash of color caught my eye. It was red - bright red. So I glanced out the window and… he was walking by,” Izuku explained, feeling his cheeks turn a little warm at the memory.
Uraraka gasped, dropping her mug back onto the table with a soft thud. “The boy from the book!?”
“Technically. I mean, the circumstances weren’t the same, of course, but - the hair… the eyes… the scar. It was all… right there.”
Izuku remembered him incredibly clearly. The way the white of his right side caught the sun and glinted it back just a little, the way the red seemed to curl just a bit around his ear and the nape of his neck - how his left eye squinted halfway shut, like the scar had affected his vision somehow.
His eyes.
Izuku remembered his eyes. How beautiful they were - like the contrast between a sea and the storm overhead, piercing blue and slate grey. And sad. So achingly sad, his eyes were. They stared at the ground as he walked, seeming to be looking at nothing and taking everything in at once. It was like he was grieving something, mourning somebody - such beautiful eyes did not deserve to look so sad.
Izuku had been fascinated with him.
“Deku-kun? Are you going to finish the story?”
Izuku blinked, opening his mouth and closing it as he looked up from where he’d zoned out, staring at the half-deformed shape of what was once the foam cat on his coffee.
“S-Sorry!” He apologized, feeling a familiar heat spread through his neck and face. “I-I zoned out for a second! Where- Where was I?”
Uraraka eyed him knowingly as Iida coughed pointedly into his elbow. Izuku flushed even harder.
“The hair… the eyes… the scar…” she repeated, exaggerating a lovesick tone of voice. “All… right there.”
Izuku scowled.
“I don’t sound like that!” He argued indignantly, making her laugh.
“I must side with Uraraka on this one,” Iida chimed in. “You did sound a bit - ah, what’s that word Kaminari likes to use? Whipped?”
Izuku scowled harder. “You always side with Uraraka,” he grumbled. “Is it because she’s your girlfriend - is it like, legally required?”
Uraraka smiled, knocking her shoulder against Iida’s. “Yep!” She agreed brightly as a bit of color spread across Iida’s cheeks underneath his thick glasses. “Now finish the story, Deku-kun!”
Izuku gave them one last indignant huff, shooting her a bristling glare as he took another long sip of his coffee, which was a little bit colder than it had been. Uraraka and Iida were great friends, truly - the first real ones he’d ever made - but they could certainly stand to lose some of the teasing attitude.
Izuku set his mug down carefully. “That’s really all there is to it, I guess. He walked home from school past my house every day until I moved halfway through my second year of high school. My new house wasn’t on his path - and I never saw him again.”
Of course, that doesn’t mean I didn’t stop thinking about him.
Uraraka narrowed her eyes, as if she could see straight through his forehead and into the traitorous thoughts that lay beyond.
“And you just… randomly remembered him? Right in time to start writing Burn Your Flames?” She asked, absentmindedly starting to twirl a piece of hair between her fingers.
“Ahhh.. Kind of?” Izuku replied. “I knew I wanted to write a romance after One for All, sort of a… rebrand, I guess. Kacchan thought it was a good idea - Kirishima, too. But it’s sort of weird, basing the main love interest in a book on one of your friends, you know? So I couldn’t do what I did for the characters in One for All.”
Iida hummed in agreement, taking a bite from the sandwich he’d nearly finished. “I’ll admit, I would have been a bit… how do I put this…”
“Weirded out,” Uraraka chimed in plainly. “I would have been kinda weirded out if you made my boyfriend your fictional boyfriend.” Iida nodded sagely.
“Right! That’s why I didn’t do it,” Izuku agreed. “But everything I was coming up with just felt so… overused. All the characters I drafted were Edward Cullen or Peeta Mellark with a different haircut. It was just all so stale… I couldn't write something that I would be proud of putting out into the world, you know?”
Uraraka hummed in agreement, swirling the dregs of her drink around thoughtfully. “I get that,” she said after a moment. “I remember my parents at the construction company they owned. They always did, like, a thousand quality checks before they opened whatever it was they had built to the public. Well - maybe it just felt like a thousand to a kid. But I totally see where you’re coming from!”
“What I don’t quite understand,” Iida interrupted not unkindly, gesturing with the remaining few bites of sandwich. “Is how you got from point A to point B! I can see your plight in being unable to create a fully fleshed out and unique character, but how did that lead you to where you are?”
It wasn’t that hard to remember because I never really forgot, Izuku’s traitorous mind replied.
He didn’t say that, of course, and just laughed nervously, feeling the tips of his ears turning a bit hotter. He didn’t really want Uraraka and Iida to know just how firmly the boy with the sad but beautiful eyes was ingrained in his psyche - even he could admit that it was a little weird.
But there was just… something about him.
Every day, Izuku would rush down to the living room at five past four o’clock, dropping whatever he was doing - he’d burned a few dinners in the process. He would stare at the boy walking by and imagine just for a moment, walking up to him, talking to him - maybe even putting a smile on his face.
Because as the days and months went by, Izuku realized something.
More than sad… he looked vulnerable. It wasn’t obvious if you weren’t really searching for it, but it was certainly there. In the set of his jaw, the flickering of his eyes, the way he dragged his feet just a little bit. He was sad, yes, but he also seemed extremely vulnerable.
Izuku ached to make him feel even a little bit less achingly sad. He literally dreamed it on multiple occasions, waking up with flashes of red and white and pale skin dancing before his eyes when he woke, leaving him to blush embarrassedly into his pillows.
“He just… popped into my head, I guess,” was the answer Izuku gave instead. Iida nodded and polished off the rest of this lunch, but Uraraka looked unconvinced.
He would never really get one over on her, but at least she knew when to drop it.
Izuku didn’t lie or withhold things often, but when he did, he usually had a damn good reason to. Like his history with Kacchan - Uraraka knew there was something more to the story than what she’d been told, but she respected him enough not to pry.
Besides, his relationship with Bakugou had gotten better by leaps and bounds in the last few years. Bakugou had apologized, he was in a wonderful and loving new relationship, and Izuku was just happy that they could begrudgingly be called friends again for the first time since they were five.
“Well, Deku-kun, you’re really head over heels for this guy you’ve never even met, huh?” Uraraka teased, making Izuku splutter embarrassedly.
Iida covered a booming bark of laughter with his hand, not even bothering to send his usual apologetic look Izuku’s way whenever she usually started teasing him.
Izukui huffed, covering his flush with his mug as he took a long sip of coffee.
They could tease all they wanted to, really. It wasn’t like he was ever actually going to meet the boy again.
No matter how much he wished he could.
—————
Todoroki Shouto was having a pretty shit day.
His cat had been sick for the last week, and he’d woken up to her regurgitated breakfast on the kitchen tile, his coffee spilled on his brand new shoes, and the new client that he’d been trying to finalize a sale with had a real ass for a representative - if he never saw Monoma Neito again in his entire life, it would be far too soon. Top off a day full of meetings with a man so full of himself he probably checked his reflection out in shiny spoons with his father coming down to his office and insisting on a ‘personal inspection’ of his recent workload, and Shouto was really, really ready to finally go home.
Of course, it seemed that life wasn’t quite done with him.
His train broke down not even halfway to his apartment, leaving him stranded in the middle of downtown Tokyo with the next train not coming for another thirty minutes, feeling more than a little bit angry with the way his day was turning out.
He peered around the street corner he’d been dropped off on, weighing his options. If he was going to be waiting for another half hour, he could at least kill some time. He could already feel a few stray drops of rain on his head and shoulders, and as great as playing Candy Crush in the wet and cold sounded, he really wanted to get somewhere dry.
A bookstore caught his eye across the street. It seemed quaint and cozy, with soft, warm lighting spilling out into the street from a window display lined with tea lights.
Burn Your Flames, New Release by Deku, Author of Hit Series One for All - In Stores Today, boasted a sign hanging next to the big red letters spelling out ‘PLUS ULTRA BOOKS’.
Shouto was already crossing the street before he could think twice about it.
He couldn’t help feeling like he owed it to Deku - a nameless, faceless author using a pseudonym that he knew virtually nothing about. But really, he did owe him - Deku had practically saved his life when he was nineteen.
A college freshman, finally moved away from home - but still trapped under his father’s thumb. A major in business and a minor in finance, just like he insisted on, leaving no time for Shouto himself or the things he wanted to do.
One English Literature class, that was all he had asked for.
But no, he wasn’t allowed to take even one class that wasn’t on his father’s list of approved subjects. Of course, he wasn’t without his tiny rebellions - the most obvious example being reading in his spare time instead of doubling down on his studyload like his father requested. He would check out books at the library under Fuyumi’s name and read them in the dead of night, ignoring the piles of statistics and reports that he should have been looking over.
One of his few forms of quiet revolution in the silence of his empty apartment.
He’d read One for All a week after the first book had been released and finished it in less than a night. An incredible story, full of woe and strife and heartache - impeccably written and terribly heart wrenching, even for someone who prided himself of keeping all of his emotions tucked away where even he couldn’t reach them. Of course, it was funny, too. Clever, light hearted, and joyous in all the right moments.
It had ended on a morose note, with the main character’s beloved mentor revealing that he was nearing the end of being able to fight in his more powerful form after pushing past his limits in order to save the children under his care.
All of the parental figures in One for All were like that; not without their flaws, but generally good and kindhearted - save for one. Endeavor, the Number Two Hero. A terrible hero, and a terrible father.
His son, Takahashi Shiro, was the reason that One for All had gripped Shouto as tightly as it had. A young boy, deeply unhappy and worked to the bone by his bastard of a father, putting out a cold exterior to conceal a deep, raw, aching soul - it hit a little too close to home, if he was being completely honest.
And then Miyashita Isamu had saved Takahashi - both from his father, and from himself. Shouted at him, broken his bones and screamed at him, it’s your power, isn’t it?
While, of course, Shouto hadn't been the ones those words had been yelled at, he’d heard them all the same.
It was his life, wasn’t it?
His career.
His studies.
His power.
Granted, he didn’t have such an immediate manifestation of his father in his life like Takahashi had with his fire, but the sentiment was certainly seen and received.
Shouto had eagerly awaited the next installment of One for All, as he did with every sequel until the series ended in a massive climax in the fifth book. Shouto had nearly grieved the loss of his favorite series when it finally finished. It was almost as if he was losing a friend, in a way.
Not that he didn't have friends. He did.
Two of them.
Yaoyorozu Momo, who’d been his best friend since grade school - but they’d drifted apart when Shouto had started becoming more and more reserved. One for All and Takahashi’s journey had been what had prompted him to reach back out to her after all those years of stilted, awkward conversation and invite her out to coffee.
Of course, coffee with Yaoyorozu meant coffee with Yaoyorozu’s girlfriend, Jirou. She was a nice person - a little punk rock, and more than a bit sassy - but it was clear that they had found a special connection, and Shouto couldn’t be anything but happy for the two of them.
So, there Shouto was. Twenty-six, with all two of his friends.
It was all he needed, though, and quite frankly more than he’d ever had. They got lunch as a trio every Sunday, rain or shine, and made a point to get together to celebrate even the most minute of achievements. Last week, Shouto had managed to fix his sink tap on his own, and he’d been treated to a private dinner with the best sushi chef in town by Yaoyorozu. He wasn’t quite sure he deserved it, frankly, given that the tap had broken again the next morning.
Maybe he’d text them that night - certainly a new book from his favorite author met the celebration criteria.
Shouto pulled the door to Plus Ultra Books open with a stifled sigh of relief, glad to finally be out of the steadily increasing rain. The store was cozy, with tea lights strung along the walls and shiny hardwood floors, along with an interesting but comforting smell of vanilla and old books sitting heavily in the air around him.
Shouto closed the door behind him, shaking his head a little to get a few droplets of rain from his damp hair and wincing a bit at the way his coat dripped a bit on the welcome mat just inside the door.
With a quick scuff of his shoes to dry them off, Shouto stepped further inside, a massive green sign hanging on the far wall catching his eye almost immediately. It declared that Deku’s new release was a ‘big hit’ and that it ‘guaranteed not to disappoint’.
If Shouto was one to smile freely, he would have done so. Of course Deku wouldn’t disappoint.
His display was big and eye-catching - a total contrast to the copy of One for All that Shouto had found solitarily tucked on the shelf all those years ago. Deku was a big author now, Shouto supposed. He should be happy for the man - writing must be his dream, and here he was, with a big display boasting his name like he was the next Charles Dickens.
But Shouto couldn’t help but feel just a little bit miffed - as if he was almost possessive over Deku. He was happy for the man, sure, of course he was. But there was an intimate sort of connection, reading One for All when it had first come out, being a part of such a tiny fanbase. Now, Deku had fans all over the globe, who gushed over sentences and scenes that Shouto had swooned over years ago.
To put it in embarrassingly childish terms; Shouto had found him first.
But he would put it aside. He would be happy for Deku and his massive following and his new book - which actually seemed quite interesting at first glance. A dark cover adorned with a lit match, sparking red and orange around the words Burn Your Flames, written in white.
Shouto hummed to himself as he strode over, picking up one of the books propped up near the center. It was heavy and thick, not as long as the final novel of One for All, but certainly longer than Deku’s usual style. It looked different, too - this design was very sleek and minimalistic, as opposed to the grinning young boy that had been the star of every cover of One for All.
Shouto didn’t even bother to skim through the pages or check the summary on the back before he was walking up to the counter, placing the book down in front of a man who looked to be about his own age with a shock of purple hair and heavy eye bags.
The cashier looked at the book, then up at Shouto. He narrowed his eyes, gaze flitting over Shouto’s features like a pawn shop owner appraising a potential sale, then back down at the book.
“Have you read it yet?” The cashier asked, finally moving to scan the barcode.
“No,” Shouto replied coldly. Just because he’d gotten used to people staring at him, didn't mean he had to like it.
The man chuckled, a breathy sort of scoff, like something about Shouto’s answer was amusing to him.
“Deku works in mysterious ways,” was all he said as he typed a few things into his computer with one finger. “You want a bag?”
Shouto stared at him. When the cashier said nothing else, Shouto just shook his head, prompting the man to hand the book over with a shrug.
“Enjoy your reading, I guess,” he said, before a Cheshire cat smile crept across his face, looking for all the world like he knew some secret that Shouto wasn’t yet privy to.
Creepy.
Shouto didn't deign his strange antics with a response, nodding curtly before he strode back out of Plus Ultra Books.
Stupid cashiers with stupid staring problems.
As if the universe was deciding to apologize, the rain that had chased him inside had cleared, leaving the ground wet and the smell of damp pavement lingering in the air, but the skies blissfully dry. Shouto glanced at the bus stop, then down the street that would take him home.
Well, at the very least, he could get a head start on the next bus and walk to the next stop along the line. If it wasn’t raining, he didn’t really have a problem walking home. It was nice exercise, and he liked the fresh air.
Walking it was, then.
As he set off down the road towards his apartment, Shouto flipped open his new purchase. Five hundred and twenty three was the final page count, it seemed. Shouto let out a low whistle, flipping through the book absentmindedly. The font wasn’t big, and the pages weren’t small - this would probably be a longer read than he was used to.
He shut the book, flipping it around to the back to read the summary. A young boy, home for the summer from university in the big city, runs into another young man from his high school. A mysterious loner, the boy had been, and a bit of a delinquent - but now he seemed to be holding down a job at the library.
Shouto hummed interestedly. It seemed like a romance - and between two men, nonetheless. A bold choice, but not unheard of from Deku. After all, rumor was that Deku had fought tooth and nail to get his publishers to let him keep Miyashita’s rival character’s romance subplot in One for All, a relationship between two men that had rocked the waters of quite a few One for All discussion boards.
Perhaps his publisher assumed that all the homophobes had been scared off by that, and that the current audience would be more welcoming.
Deku had gotten some backlash for that decision, sure, but it was mostly a warm reception for some welcome representation in a popular young adult series. In one of the few articles Deku had let himself be interviewed for, he’d admitted that he was bisexual, and wanted to write the relationships he’d never gotten to see as a child.
Shouto had read that article more times than he’d like to admit.
He wasn’t exactly sure when he’d started thinking of Deku as a friend (lucky number three) rather than an anonymous author, but he wouldn’t be surprised if that statement had been the turning point. Shouto had known he was gay for a long, long time, and to see someone fighting so hard to bring that kind of representation to the table - needless to say, it was more than welcome in Shouto’s book.
So, if Deku’s new book was a gay summer romance, then by God, Shouto was going to enjoy it.
He’d never been in love himself, and didn’t exactly expect to fall in love anytime soon - or ever, really - but he trusted Deku. He knew that Deku would make it… accessible. He’d surely write it in that perfectly succinct way of his, so that even someone as emotionally fraught as Shouto could understand what it felt like for your heart to beat out of your chest.
Shouto tucked the book under his arm.
He trusted Deku.
The rest of the walk passed quickly, and the rain showed no signs of coming back to haunt him. By the time he was jamming his key into the lock of his apartment, Shouto’s fingers were practically itching to start flipping the pages of Burn Your Flames - the more he thought about it, the more eager he got. Who was the main character? Was he nervous, but determined, like Miyashita Isamu had been in One for All? What had turned the love interest from a lone wolf bad boy into a librarian, of all things? Would there be another character that pulled at Shouto’s heartstrings like Takahashi Shiro?
The door slammed shut behind him and he practically leapt onto the couch, barely managing to slip his shoes off at the door as he tossed his bag onto the counter with his keys, quickly followed by his still-damp coat.
The second his ass hit the couch, he was already flipping Burn Your Flames open to the first page, taking a moment to glance at the dedication at the beginning of the book.
Thank you to my mentor, my mother, and my best friends.
I couldn’t have written this without you.
Thank you to my wonderful readers. You all mean the world to me.
And thank you to the one who inspired this story.
I hope you read it some day.
Shouto traced a finger on the last dedication, furrowing his brow.
The one who inspired this story.
Did that mean…?
Shouto shook his head, flipping the page before he could get too far into strange, inexplicable jealousies over a man he’d never even seen.
He’d start at the beginning.
He’d start with chapter one.
Shouto read in silence, as he always did, flipping the pages eagerly as he worked his bottom lip between his teeth absentmindedly. The story opened with a young man hauling boxes from a truck into his childhood home, greeted by his loving mother, a woman who reminded Shouto vaguely of the mother from One for All. Perhaps she was a constant - maybe even based on Deku’s own mother.
The protagonist described how small the town was, how much tinier it seemed now that he’d been in the big city for such a long time. Like he was trapped by the confines of the suburbs. Shouto barely blinked as he followed the man through his traversing to all his old haunts, meeting more than a few old friends along the way.
Then, the protagonist stopped at the library.
Shouto shifted into a seated position, feeling a fluttering sense of anticipation in his gut as the protagonist brushed a hand along the spines on the shelf, noting the lack of dust.
He bit down on his lip when a deep voice sounded from behind the protagonist, startling him.
He leaned forward when the protagonist turned around, meeting a heterochromatic gaze, one ocean blue eye surrounded by an angry scar and framed with hair as red as a rose, while snow white hair fell into an eye like grey slate.
Shouto blinked.
Heterochromatic gaze, ocean blue eye, angry scar, red as a rose hair, snow white hair, eye like grey slate.
He blinked again.
Heterochromia, blue eye, scar, red hair, white hair, grey eye.
Another blink.
Blue eye, grey eye, red hair, white hair, scar.
Shouto had barely processed the fact that he’d pulled his phone out of his pocket before a dull ring sounded in his ear, followed by a click, and then the sound of Yaoyorozu’s concerned voice.
“Shouto? Are you alright? You never call me out of the blue like this,” Yaoyorozu’s voice sounded from the other end of the line.
“Momo,” Shouto replied, sounding as faint as he felt.
“I think I might be the love interest in this book.”