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Toshinori has been feeling watched all day.
Oh, they’ve been careful with it — sticking to moments he’s not alone so it’s harder to pinpoint where the feeling came from, never looking at him for too long… But Toshinori’s been doing this for a long time. He knows when somebody’s watching him.
Or in this case, several somebodies.
Toshinori eyes them back carefully, wondering what they might want. It can’t be the All Might factor, Toshinori’s worked here for months now. Surely the novelty of working with the former number one hero, such as he is now, has to have worn off by now.
It can’t be anything too urgent either. Despite their goofy airs, both Present Mic and Midnight are actually competent, professional heroes.
That leaves Toshinori with a mystery, though, and Toshinori doesn’t like mysteries.
He thinks he might have used to, at some point, but after One for All and All for One, he’s lost his appetite for them.
He can figure out this one, though. He will figure out this one.
Aizawa slides up to him, coffee in one hand, the other hand in his pockets, and leans against his desk.
This position puts him in the perfect position to glare pointedly at Yamada and Kayama, who suddenly seem to find their own desks much more interesting.
Toshinori turns to Aizawa, and frowns. “Not that I don’t appreciate your assistance, but what—”
Aizawa slurps his coffee loudly. “They’re planning to abduct you.”
Toshinori blinks. He opens his mouth, then closes it. “I…”
Aizawa blinks slowly and slurps more coffee. “It’s a thing they do.” He grimaces. “That we do. When someone in our… group has been overworking themselves.”
He stares pointedly down at Toshinori’s desk, which is buried under so many forms and reports Toshinori hasn’t seen the wood in days, and Toshinori blinks again. His cheeks turn hot.
“Ah,” he says. “Yes. I’ve been busy.”
“Yes,” Aizawa replies dryly. “We’ve noticed. Hence the… intervention.”
“The kidnapping, you mean.”
Aizawa shrugs. “Call it what you want. It’s a thing. It’s going to happen. I just thought I should warn you if we didn’t want this to end up in disaster.”
“Why would—”
Aizawa shoots him a droll look that makes Toshinori’s words dry up in his mouth. “Just think about it,” he says, and then pushes himself off Toshinori’s desk to return to his own.
Of course, once Toshinori manages to gather himself up for more than a single second, the ‘why’ becomes evident. He thought it himself earlier: he hates mysteries. And he dislikes surprises.
A surprise kidnapping might not have ended well — for his would-be kidnappers. All Might might be officially retired, but Toshinori can still throw a punch.
This, though…
Unbidden, his eyes drift back to his observers. If they’re truly worried about Toshinori to the point that they’re planning to stage something like this…
Well, maybe Toshinori should humor them.
(elsewhere, ten years ago)
“Shit, was that too strong? I thought you said you’d asked Shu—”
“Oh, stop worrying, he’ll be fine. Worst comes to worst he takes a well-deserved nap and we get to eat all this food ourselves, I really don’t see a drawback here.”
Shouta’s thoughts feel syrupy as he tries to parse out what the voices are saying. They sound familiar, both in cadence and tone, but the details slip through his mental fingers like smoke.
“Ngh,” he groans, and tries to get his arms beneath him.
Instantly, a pair of hands press him down.
“Hey, hey, no, come on, stay down. You were sleeping — sleeping is good, why don’t you go back to that?”
Someone — the feminine voice from earlier, who’d told the other to ‘stop worrying’ — snorts. “Weren’t you just worried he wouldn’t wake up?”
Fingers find their way into his hair, scratching his scalp gently, and Shouta feels himself go boneless. He shouldn’t, probably, but the reason why escapes him.
“Well, yeah,” the first voice says. Shouta feels it — him? — shrug. “But now it’s clear the dosage was fine, so he should just go back to sleep. Heaven only knows how little of it he got recently.”
The voice sounds stressed and unhappy, and his fingers still in Shouta’s hair.
“Ngh,” Shouta protests, and the voice resumes his scritching.
“Aw,” the woman cooes. A camera clicks. “You two are adorable!”
“You’re sending that to me,” the hair scritch voice replies after a beat, and the woman laughs.
“Deal!” she whisper-shouts.
There is blissful quiet for a few more moments, and Shouta uses it to try to order his thoughts. He can’t understand why it’s so hard — it isn’t, usually. Not even when Shouta’s operating on less sleep and food than he probably should.
(It’s not his fault, though. He just has to — has to push himself, be better, be stronger. He has to.)
Slowly, Shouta manages to parse out what the voice have been saying.
‘Dosage,’ they’d said, and then a worry they’d given him ‘too much’ of something.
The unnatural slowness of his thoughts, the way his body felt so slow too respond…
Shouta’s eyes snap open, adrenaline burning away the last remnants of whatever he’d been given.
He springs up too and Hizashi yelps as he jerks back. His fingers tangle in Shouta’s hair painfully, but Shouta jerks himself free nonetheless.
“You drugged me!”
Hizashi blanches, but Nemuri stares back at him, unrepentant.
“And we wouldn’t have had to if you’d just taken a break at some point in the past month.” Her eyes narrow and she crosses her arms. “We’re not just going to let you run yourself into an early grave.”
“I—”
“Nope,” she interrupts, popping the ‘p’. “It’s not up for discussion. Right, Hizashi?”
Shouta turns toward his blond friend, arching an eyebrow.
He half-expects Hizashi to laugh, or joke it off like he often does, but Hizashi doesn’t. He’s still too pale, and his eyes are shadowed. Shouta swallows past the sudden lump in his throat, and watches as Hizashi does the same.
“I’m sorry,” Hizashi says. “We shouldn’t have drugged you like that, but we made sure it would be harmless — and you wouldn’t have listened anyway.” His mouth falls into a tight line when Shouta starts to open his to protest, and the words die in Shouta’s throat.
Hizashi looks angry, and hurt. He’s never looked like that before. Shouta doesn’t like being the one who put that expression on his friend’s face.
“You never listen,” Hizashi finishes.
“Cake?” Nemuri offers with a flourish, cutting through the tension like a knife.
They both turn to stare at her and she blinks back, grinning. Shouta isn’t sure where the cake came from, or why it’s here, but she’s already holding a plate and eating a slice of it.
Hizashi shrugs. “Sure,” he says. “Can’t hurt. Shouta?”
“I…” He blinks. “What?”
Nemuri chortles, only narrowly avoiding choking on her cake. “I told you he wouldn’t remember!”
Hizashi grimaces, then shakes himself and turns it into a pout. “Yes, well, I didn’t say I didn’t believe you.”
Shouta grits his teeth and repeats, “What?”
They exchange a long look. Nemuri breaks off first, sighing loudly. “Fine!” she says, “But I’m doing this under duress! I want it known.”
If anyone’s here under duress, it’s Shouta, but well… His friends might have the tiniest bit of a point. He is feeling more rested now than he has in… days, weeks maybe, and that’s bringing some clarity to his actions of the previous month. Or rather, to the mess he’d allowed to become.
(His side stings suddenly. It’s just a scrape, really. Hadn’t even needed stitches — just a random goon getting lucky with a knife.
Only two months ago, Shouta would never have let a villain get that close, much less some unskilled thug.
So maybe Hizashi and Nemuri have a little more than a tiny bit of a point.)
“Here, for you,” Nemuri says as she returns, thrusting two plates at them. Hizashi claps his hands before accepting his cheerfully, but Shouta stares at his bemusedly.
“I didn’t ask for—”
And then the words iced on his slice register.
—py Bir—, they say, and a quick glance to the right confirms that Hizashi’s got the thd part of that sentence.
His throat goes tight. “Ah,” he manages to croak out.
Nemuri nods, licking her fork. “Yeah, ‘Ah’.” Her face softens. “Happy Birthday, dumbass. As a gift, I want you to learn to take a break sometimes.”
Shouta snorts. “Isn’t that a gift to you?”
Nemuri shrugs. “It can be both.”
Hizashi laughs and leans in to knock their shoulders together. Shouta shivers, and then glowers, protecting his plate.
“Don’t worry,” he mock-whispers, “she’s got an actual gift for you. She just doesn’t want to give it to you until you promise to try to take better care of yourself.”
Hizashi’s eyes twinkle with mirth as he speaks, but he’s serious about this. Shouta can tell. He swallows.
“And you?”
Hizashi’s grin falters then stretches. He heaves a long sigh and clicks his fork against his plate. “Ah~, I’ll give you your gift either way, really. The promise would be nice, though.”
Shouta grimaces. He doesn’t want to, but… His friends are worried. They shouldn’t be — it’s inefficient and illogical — and a promise sounds like an easy solution.
“Fine.” He sighs. “I promise.”
(elsewhere, five years ago)
“Was the bag truly necessary?” Hizashi whines as soon as he’s freed of it. He shudders — he could swear he can still taste that fabric, and he doesn’t want to know what it must have done to his poor hair.
Shouta shrugs, tossing the bag away. “Yes,” he says.
He’s grinning too, and it shows all of his teeth, which is always, always a bad sign. Hizashi tries to recall the past days, trying to track down what he might have done to offend his friend enough to warrant this, but he comes up blank. He pushes to the past weeks, and draws the same.
In fact, all Hizashi can really recall is an endless churn of work, work, work, and he swallows.
Never let it be said he isn’t smart.
“Ah,” he says. And then, “I see.”
Nemuri chooses that moment to burst in with a mad cackle. She’s carrying whips and chains, as well as several knives Hizashi doesn’t want to know the provenance of — there are just some things one does not want to know about one’s friends — and Hizashi freezes.
A moment later, Nemuri spots him, and does as well.
“Shouta!” she protests, letting her things drop. “You told me you were going to wait for me! I wanted to do this properly, too!”
Shouta snorts, shooting her a droll look. “And I told you we didn’t need the whip. Nor the—” his eyes flash and his cheeks dust pink “— handcuffs.”
Nemuri pouts. She’s picked up said handcuffs at some point, and twirls them around her index. “Shouta, come on — you always need handcuffs.”
“Right,” Hizashi says with a drawl. “Well, then if that’s all, I think I should—”
“Sit back down,” Nemuri and Shouta snap in uncanny unison.
Meekly, Hizashi sinks back down into his chair.
“Now,” Nemuri starts, “Hizashi, we know that you’ve been busy, what with your three jobs, but you’ve been running yourself a little bit ragged. Which is why we decided that you needed a little bit of our help. An… intervention, if you will.” She grins and snaps the whip she must have picked up to replace the handcuffs she’d tucked away in her pocket.
“A kidnapping,” Shouta interjects. “We kidnapped you. Because we care.”
He sounds like he’s reading from a script, and at Nemuri’s dark answering glare, Hizashi can’t help but let out a laugh.
It builds up in his stomach and his lungs until Hizashi can barely breathe around it, and Shouta’s betrayed look doesn’t help.
“What?” Shouta continues, glaring back at Nemuri. “You kidnapped me, remember? That’s why you thought this would be a good idea.”
Nemuri heaves a long sigh through her teeth. “Fine.” She snaps her whip again, cutting off Shouta’s further protests, and turns back to Hizashi. “Whatever. You were kidnapped. You know why. Now promise you will do better so we can start drinking.”
Shouta’s grin falters. “Why are you going so easy on him?”
Read: you didn’t when it was me.
Nemuri shoots him back a pitying look. Oh, sweetie, it says. Out loud, she replies, “Hizashi’s smarter than you. He doesn’t need bribes to behave. So, Hizashi, what’ll it be?”
Hizashi chuckles, but puts a hand over his heart. “I promise I’ll do better,” he says, mind already at work in figuring out how to rearrange his schedule to balance everything properly.
He might have to cut back on one of his jobs, but maybe it’s time to.
(now)
Since Aizawa warned him, Toshinori sees it coming. As far as kidnapping attempts go, this one is pretty nice too.
Toshinori would rate it 7/10: it gains some points for how smoothly Kayama redirects him toward the destination of her choice (by shamelessly flashing her cleavage at the taxi driver meant to get Toshinori home) but loses others for the lack of threats to his life.
Kayama actually hisses when Toshinori idly remarks on that.
“I told you I should have brought back the whips!” She glares, before perking up. “Hey, maybe it’s not too late — I can still go get them!”
Aizawa chortles — a sound Toshinori’s never heard from his colleague before — while Yamada just looks plain horrified.
“Ah, maybe that won’t be necessary?” Toshinori offers.
Kayama pouts. “Are you sure?”
Behind her, Yamada nods eagerly, and Toshinori bites down on a grin of his own. “I’m sure,” he replies. “Now, Aizawa-san you wanted to talk to me about something?”
As if on cue, both Yamada and Kayama turn unimpressed looks on Aizawa.
“You told him?” Yamada whines.
Aizawa snorts, looking down at his nails. “He knew you were up to something. You two aren’t discreet. I had to tell him something.”
“It’s true,” Toshinori admits, shrugging sheepishly. “And I appreciate your concern, but I’m really fine.”
“You’re overworked,” Aizawa corrects dryly.
Toshinori laughs. “Ah, well, yes. It comes with the territory, I’d wager.”
Kayama clears her throat, and she and Yamada exchange a look.
“With due respect, Yagi, but you aren’t the number one hero anymore. You shouldn’t have to do this much work anymore. Just… Take a break — a small one,” he hastens to add.
Toshinori’s first instinct is to bristle. To protest. He’d spent so long pretending he didn’t have any weaknesses, that he didn’t need any leeway, that for someone to imply that he should feels like an attack against him.
It isn’t, though. Toshinori knows that. It just is what it is: his fellow teachers concerned one of them was burning the candle at both ends, as it were.
“We’ve all been there,” Yamada continues.
“Speak for yourselves,” Kayama interrupts with a cough. “I know how to relax and take a break.”
“We’ve all been there except for Nemuri,” Yamada corrects without blinking an eye. “And it’s okay. You don’t need to do everything by yourself.”
Aizawa stares back at him, his eyes daring Toshinori to contradict, while Kayama looks half-smug half-anxious. Yamada’s smiling, but it looks less fabricated than usual. Kinder, more knowing.
This man still works three different jobs and is successful at all three, Toshinori remembers belatedly. He probably knows a lot about overworking yourself.
… And Aizawa had gone back to work more bandages than man after the USJ.
Toshinori swallows. “I’m afraid it’s been a while since I last had...” friends “help.”
He doesn’t say he doesn’t quite know how to handle it anymore, but they must hear it anyway, because all three of them exchange another look.
“Yeah, well, get used to it,” Aizawa states gruffly.
“And now, you’ve got to promise,” Kayamaadds, grinning dangerously.
Toshinori blinks. “Promise… what, exactly?”
She rolls her eyes. “Do I really gotta do everything myself here?” Toshinori thinks he hears her grumble.
“You promise to work on yourself and do better next time,” she says out loud.
Toshinori lets out an amused snort. “Is that all?”
She shrugs and nods to her friends. “It’s worked every time before,” she says.
Aizawa, in particular, doesn’t look particularly happy at that confession — but neither does he look ashamed.
“Well, if it works,” Toshinori replies, rolling his shoulders a little. He feels his age these days — less so, somehow, than when he’d still been able to switch back and forth into All Might, but enough for him to be starkly aware he isn’t twenty and invincible anymore. Not that he has been in a long time, but it had been easier to forget before.
“I… Promise?”
Kayama’s face breaks into a grin. “Great. Awesome. And now, for the fun part — drinks, anyone?”