Archive of Our Own

“what could i have done differently?”

knives are strapped to thighs. masks tied around necks.

“it’s my fault, isn’t it?”

earpieces slid into place. the volume of the city is nothing more than a distant hum. 

“god, hanta. i’m—i’m so sorry.”

“it’s not your fault. you have to understand—“

“you sure you’re ready for this, kid?” 

hanta sero looks up from his gloved hands to the woman next to him. she calls herself dosei, a tall, muscular woman with a slicked back ponytail. she’s one of the only people hanta’s met in these past few months with a decently level head, even if she did have a knack for violence. 

today is a good day. it has to be. there’s a clear target and a relatively slim chance of disaster. 

“yep,” hanta replies, short and curt. don’t speak out of line, never speak more than necessary, and don’t ever make small talk. 

dosei gives him a nod. “we can’t afford to screw this one up.”

even if hanta wasn’t ready, he'd force himself to be. he’s itching for action, eager for a chance to silence his conscience, let his body go into autopilot. when he first began working alongside dosei’s group, back when hanta had felt more than lost, strung out, he’d been wound tight as a coil. any slightest bit of pressure was enough to make him snap.

he’d taken a dull pair of scissors to his hair. burnt his hero costume to a crisp. demolished his helmet. ignored every phone call until finally he just fell off the face of the planet. 

at least with dosei and her soldiers, hanta had been given an outlet, a sense of direction. 

direction, distraction, and weapons. out here, you fought to protect yourself. yourself and what you believed in, using whatever means necessary. 

he stands up beside her, straightens his back, readjusts the fabric covering the lower half of his face. there were two others working with him and dosei tonight, but they’d already headed off to their posts. 

their jobs are only to act as watchful eyes. 

hanta’s job, however, is to break into this low ranking, much too curious hero’s home. locate the files he’d been building up against dosei’s group to locate and capture them. get out without leaving a trace, without getting caught. 

keep an eye out for suspicious activity. these bright, shining heroes, dosei had said, like to keep their dirty laundry hidden from the public. 

that, of all things, had made hanta shiver. she did not know hanta had also, once upon a time, been one of those bright, shining heroes. it makes him sick to think about. 

dosei would go into the house from one direction, hanta from the other. they’d meet in the middle, one of them hopefully with a hand on the evidence. they’d get out the same way they went in. 

easy. 

do not engage with the hero. do not get caught. 

there’s a buzz from dosei’s earpiece, and hanta watches her face harden. her eyes are sharp, authoritative. the signal. 

“you know what to do,” dosei tells him. then she’s gone.

he’s ready. he needs to be ready. 

hanta heads onward, silent and light on his feet, like he’d been taught and trained. as he’d been trained as a hero, and even retaught as—as whatever he was now. his fingers make quick work of the lock on the window he had been told to enter through. the lockpicking had not been taught to heroes in training, of course, but hanta is a quick learner. dosei mentioned a squeak if this window was opened too quickly, so hanta takes his time. 

he creeps into the house. it’s completely silent, save for the drone of fan running in a nearby room. he knows dosei is likely already in here with him, already headed for the locations they’d been given explaining where they were most likely to find the evidence. she’s a trustworthy-ish woman, hanta thinks. intimidating, dangerous, yes, but a good leader, and an even better teacher. 

she’d kept hanta alive this far, at the very least. he was thankful for that.

do not engage with the hero. 

hanta sneaks through the house quietly, looking for the evidence in drawers, dressers, closets. this particular hero was low ranking, young. he hadn’t been out in the limelight long enough to gain a substantial amount of status, or even wealth for that matter. his house was simple, unprotected. almost… modest. 

hanta almost scoffs out loud at that. a modest hero. attention, money, fame… those things did not make modest people. 

his thoughts betray him as some of his high school classmates and their current rankings flick behind his eyelids, one after the other. they’d all been friends, once upon a time. close and trusting of each other. he wonders if he ever crosses their mind, and then he hates himself for wondering about something so cheap and unimportant. 

what’s worse is that this hero is a fire type, with a quirk dosei’s people weren’t sure the name of. higashi daitan. all they knew was that he was new to the hero scene, had not attended any sort of hero school. he could manipulate flames. hanta didn’t think his quirk was very powerful, nor did he think this guy had much potential to rise through the ranks. manipulating flames was fine, sure, but creating them was better, even if only by a little bit. 

at least he knows how to fight against a fire type. 

at that, hanta really does scoff out loud.

do not engage with the hero. 

he clears his head of everything but a story, or rather, a warning, dosei had given him before his very first mission. she told him about one of her own missions, one of the earliest ones, and how she’d been spotted by the target. 

“what did you do?”

“i killed him. what else could i have done? it was him or me.”

getting caught in action as a—as whatever dosei and her soldiers labeled themselves as was damning. if you were caught, you were probably better off dead. 

dosei told him that getting caught, or getting someone else in your group exposed was like putting a huge, red target on your back. 

“they’ll kill you to protect themselves, kid. you get them caught, you die for your crimes. it’s payback,” she’d explained. then, “business, they’ll say.” 

hanta shakes out his arms, shakes his head too. no time for doubt, worry, distractions. those things will only get him killed. it’s them or me. them or me. them or me. 

pro hero cellophane is dead. this, whoever hanta has become, is someone else entirely. someone who has had to come to terms with chaos, with the possibility of unfair outcomes, with being forced under the negative, skewed label of vigilante, or worse, villain. hanta has become someone who has learned to prioritize his own life over everyone else’s. someone who stopped caring about selflessness. 

someone who recognizes the deep rooted flaws in their heroic society, someone willing to deal justice where he believes it’s due, if no one else will. if these things make me a villain, so be it. 

hanta is certain his younger self would hate who he is now, but the more time he spends thinking about his fifteen year old self, the more he realizes he doesn’t care. hanta sero, hero in training, had been naive, thoughtless. he’d allowed himself to get pushed this way and that, thrown into danger with little warning, even less training. he had allowed himself to be roped into that mindless, never ending cycle of damage and abuse perpetrated by the same people he wanted to work with, wanted to serve for. the same people— heroes —he’d gotten used to depending on.

not anymore. never again.

them or me. 

whoever hanta is now, he’s ready for whatever tonight has in store. he’s ready to get in, steal the evidence, get out. destroy it. he’s ready, if need be, to kill the target if he’s spotted. he’s ready to turn tail and run as far away as fast as he can, if that’s his last resort. 

that’s what he tells himself, anyway. 

them or me. them or me. 

trained hands and eyes seek out hiding spots, locked dressers, unsuspecting closets. silent and deadly, hanta creeps through this hero’s home looking for the very folder that could potentially get hanta killed. he tries not to let himself get sidetracked, distracted. he’s here for one thing and one thing only. all he has to do is find it and get the hell out. it’s simple, really.

even after hanta’s eyes readjust to the darkness, his mind spins, spitting out thought after thought, even as he grinds his teeth, sticks his palms with his dull nails. he climbs the stairs, knowing dosei will finish the bottom floor sweep. the hero’s bedroom is upstairs, but hanta’s steps don’t make a single sound. 

his palms start to sweat. if they couldn’t find this folder… hanta didn’t know what the backup plan could be. if there even was one. for all dosei’s intelligence, prestige, talent, she did not have a backup plan for this mission. it was find the goddamn evidence or say your prayers. 

hanta didn’t feel like praying tonight, and he certainly didn’t feel like begging forgiveness. 

once at the top of the stairs, he heads down a promising hallway. all the doors are shut, but from the layout of the house dosei had provided, hanta knows the first door is a bathroom, the second a bedroom, and the third, an office. 

the most likely place to find a folder full of damning evidence built up against an underground tokyo villain group. 

though, hanta didn’t like the word villain, and it wasn’t because of how he’d been raised. 

vigilante is better. dosei brings justice on her own terms, in her own way. she hands out punishment without legal influence. she does not deal out unwarranted cruelty. she isn’t evil. 

hanta wants to believe he isn't evil either. he wants to believe it more than anything in the world. 

the office door is locked. hanta makes quick work of it, swift and quiet except for a minute little click. he pushes the door open with his forearm, a hand at his thigh, ghosting over the hilt of his knife. just in case. 

do not engage. 

hanta spent his entire childhood idolizing heroes . idolizing the people hired and paid to keep society safe, to uphold fairness, to serve justice when justice was due. over and over again, those heroes had disappointed hanta. they lied, cheated, stole. they put children on the front lines. they paid for marriage, forced women to bear their children, so they could make the ideal human. they did not protect when protection was most needed. they killed when inconvenienced. 

hanta makes a beeline for the desk. there is no lamp, only the overhead light. there’s a candle, with a box of matches next to it. convenient. hanta smirks. in the house of a fire type, and here’s a box of matches. pathetic. 

it’s so quiet hanta can feel his ears start to buzz. his hand shakes when he strikes the match, lights the candle. 

who holds heroes accountable? when a hero is less than heroic in every way except their little title, who will step up to them and tell them they’re in the wrong? who dares hold heroes to their promise, their swear that they will always do the right thing? 

hanta lights the candle, desperate for even just a little bit of illumination as he seeks his prize.

hero, in this age, is nothing more than a watered down title of protection. being a hero meant you were above the law, you did not have to follow the rules, and that you were untouchable, because who is going to dare to point in the face of a high ranking hero and tell them this thing you’ve done, it’s wrong. you need to pay for your crimes. 

hero is a paid occupation. hero is an unworthy pedestal. the definition of hero has long since been skewed, twisted, abandoned. 

heroes do the bare minimum, twist the rules, bask in the limelight. too many times had younger hanta seen other heroes burn bridges, bury bones in their closets, then hold a finger to their lips in silent order. don’t tell a soul. the sheer amount of shame hanta had felt back then, and feels even now, of being one of them, of working alongside them—it made him sick. his fifteen year old self did not want fame, money, power. he had wanted to save people. he wanted to protect people, to keep them safe. 

the table is lit in dim candlelight. he forces his hands to stop shaking and begins digging. his gloved fingers slide through stacks of paper, into drawers and over organizers. 

his throat is dry. outside, thunder rumbles. 

the bottom drawer is the winner. hanta gets through yet another lock with ease. he flicks through more organizers— props to this guy —eyes scanning every folder he touches. finally, finally he gets a hand on what he came for. 

CONFIDENTIAL: Dosei in Tokyo

so much for a creative folder title. hanta snatches it out of the drawer, flips it open. to hell with confidentiality; if he could be trusted on this mission, then he’s gonna sneak a peek at the damn folder. 

it’s filled with maps, printed out photos of sightings of dosei’s soldiers. most damning of all are the several pages describing and identifying some of the more well known members of dosei’s group. 

her identification page is first. there’s plenty of info; a photograph of her from, hanta assumes, several years ago. it’s a mugshot. below it, there’s a guess at her hometown, her age. of course, her real, full name isn’t on here. no one but her has that information. in fact, all of them, hanta would be willing to guess, go by some made up code name. there is, however, a list of her aliases, and most hauntingly, her kill count. 

hanta holds the candle close, squinting at the number. 

kill count: 14 and counting. major threat. kill on sight. 

kill on sight was a funny thing to see written in a hero’s informational folder. 

ymir. dosei’s right hand man, second in command. kill count: 19 and counting. major threat. kill on sight. 

nineteen almost sounds humble, but then—

yurei. dosei’s best spy, her best interrogator. kill count: 37 and counting. major threat. kill on sight. 

there are a couple others hanta doesn’t recognize. either he hasn’t met them or they’re dead. at the very back of the folder though, is a page for him. there’s a photo of him around the time he first met dosei. he’s in street clothes, a ball cap, sunglasses. undercover. his first mission. 

hanta’s stomach drops. it shouldn’t, because he was going to incinerate this folder later, but it does anyway. 

yozora. night sky. the name dosei had given hanta the very first day they’d met. she didn’t ask for his real name, where he’d come from. she’d given him a clean slate. 

yozora. age: unknown. hometown: unknown. quirk: tape? 

interesting. no one else’s quirks, if they even had one, had been listed. 

new to the scene. kill count: unknown. 

below that, hanta reads: do not lose him. 

hanta snaps the folder shut. the flame of the candle wavers, and he forces himself to take a deep breath. 

do not lose him. who the hell is looking for him?

he’s going to burn this folder at the next possible opportunity he has. it comforts him to know, though, that it’s in his hands, instead of gathering dust in this ridiculous hero’s desk. pinching the bridge of his nose, hanta prepares himself to make his exit, but when he glances up, he does another sweep of the drawer. 

that’s when he sees it. an unlabeled black binder, tucked in the very back of the drawer, behind everything else. unassuming. modest. 

do not engage. 

hanta tucks his folder under his arm, steals a glance at the still shut office door. what’s a little more digging? these bright, shining heroes, dosei had said, like to keep their dirty laundry hidden from the public. 

he pulls out the binder. flips it open. his heartbeat roars in his ears, louder than the humming silence of this house, louder than the approaching storm. the first page is blank, save for a post-it note with four numbers written on it. 

8025 - don’t forget

hanta frowns. 8025? a year out of order, a time of day? someone’s birthday? a password?

…a combination?

don’t forget?

he flips to the next page. it’s notebook paper, covered in chicken scratch handwriting. hanta squints, holding the candle as close as he dares, trying to make sense of the ink on the page. 

kyojin - hibiki ichiro, yokohama 

pandora - mai suzuki, yokohama 

? - ito akane, nagasaki

? - kaede takahashi, shibuya

? - izumi takahashi, shibuya

the entire page is stacked full of names, cities, and what might be… aliases? worst of all, hanta decides as he sets the candle down on the floor next to him, is that they're all crossed out. in black, red, blue ink. just a thick, straight line cutting through them. the second page, third, and fourth have names as well, but the entire first page and half of the second are the only ones marked out. 

8025 - don’t forget

on some kind of lucky streak, the candlelight helps hanta’s eye catch on to a metallic gleam, underneath the desk, beneath the bottommost drawer he'd just been digging in. 

he recognizes that metallic gleam instantly as a goddamn combination lock. 

this hero was bold to think his secrets would be safe hidden under his desk. 

with both the folder and binder in hand, hanta rushes to stumble back to make room, nearly forgetting to be silent, dips his hand under the desk. when he pulls it back, he’s holding a briefcase. leather, high quality. and sure enough, it has a combination lock. 

8025

hanta enters the numbers with trembling fingers. he clicks the case open, painfully slow. he can feel his heartbeat all the way down to his toes. lightning strikes and grumbling thunder follows. 

four pages of names. a third marked out. 

the briefcase pops open. hanta’s breath catches. it’s full of money. crumpled, sort-of-organized-but-not-really money. 

“yozora?” dosei’s low voice hisses in hanta’s ears. his head tips up, finds her standing in the doorway. “the hell are you doing?”

numbly, hanta stands. sets the folder, the binder on top of the desk. she’s at his side in an instant, the office door clicked back shut. hanta places the candle down next, then the briefcase. full of money. 

so much money. so many goddamn names. 

four pages of names. a third marked out. 

“holy shit,” dosei says eloquently. hanta can hardly see straight.

who is going to dare to point in the face of a high ranking hero and tell them this thing you’ve done, it’s wrong. you need to pay for your crimes. 

“this man…” hanta murmurs, his own voice sounding far away. “is getting paid to—to murder people.”

“yozora,” dosei growls. “we didn’t come for this. put it back. now. ” she snatches the folder they’d come here for, holding it close to her chest like a child would with a favored toy. 

kill on sight. 

four pages of names. 

a third marked out. 

a briefcase full of money. 

there is no other explanation. 

his knees nearly give out beneath him. 

“i can't leave this here—“

“like hell you can’t,” dosei snaps, too loud for the situation they're in. she catches herself though, still coddling that goddamn folder. 

do not lose him. 

“i gave you an order,” she says, a little more calmly. “we need to leave. now, yozora.”

justice. his blood is on fire. justice. his fingers twitch, hanging at his sides, helpless. justice. the room is spinning. more lightning, closer this time. 

hanta’s luck runs clean out as the office door bursts open. both he and dosei look up, instantly on the defensive. 

none other than their hero, higashi daitan, stands at the ready in the entrance. he looks bothered in his night clothes, clearly disheveled and still half asleep. of course he hadn’t been expecting a home invasion, but he should have. he really should have. this higashi is not an intimidating man, doesn’t even look heroic in the slightest. even still, his lips are pulled back in a sneer, mocking almost. 

there’s another crack of thunder, louder this time. 

“who the hell do you think you are?!”

justice. 

hanta knows dosei has a hand on her gun. he’s expecting it when the hero throws up his arm, watching as the candle flame goes exactly where higashi leads. 

hanta moves before he can think twice, all instinct and something close to anger sparking to life beneath his skin. he doesn’t even blink, but one moment there's nothing, and the next moment, there’s a knife—hanta’s knife—buried in the hero’s chest. 

then the world seems to go very still. hanta’s conscience is finally quiet. quiet except for one word, over and over again: justice. 

no one dares to take a single breath. hanta watches with wide, dark eyes as higashi daitan raises a hand to grip the hilt of the knife. he chokes on the blood bubbling up in his throat, and it’s the only sound in the entire house. in the entire world. 

hanta watches his own throwing hand fall with detached awe. he watches the hero crumple to his knees, land face first on the floor with a sickening thud. dark blood pools around him, lit up by another flash of lightning and growing flames. 

justice. 

“what—“ dosei stutters, and hanta is surprised by how afraid she sounds. “what did you do?”

hanta doesn’t have an answer to that. 

the world tries to slam him back into focus. the desk is ablaze. the briefcase, the money. the binder, all those names. four pages. a third crossed out. the fire eats the paper right up, eats through the wooden desk, melts to the floor, roars to the ceiling. it spreads fast. uncomfortably fast. 

of course it hadn't gone out, not when the hero’s knees hit the floor, certainly not when he took his last breath. manipulator, not creator. these flames had a mind of their own. 

slowly, hanta’s eyes drop to his hands, shaking and held out before him like they’re waiting for instruction. justice. 

dosei has a hold on his upper arm. distantly, he hears her calling his name—his fake name—hears her demanding him to wake the hell up, to get a move on, to get the hell out of here. 

the next moment, dosei is standing over higashi daitan’s dead body, flipping him over with her boot like roadkill. with a gloved hand, she yanks the knife gracelessly from his chest before shoving it back in hanta’s direction. 

“fucking take it.”

so he takes it, without a word. the office burns. the money. the names. still, dosei holds on to the folder of evidence. he can hear her shouting through her earpiece, signaling an emergency evacuation. run far and fast , she says. don’t get caught. 

another strange moment passes and dosei bursts through the backdoor, a route they most certainly hadn’t taken upon entering the house. dosei continues to pull hanta, even as she breaks out into a full on sprint, clutching that goddamn folder like her life depends on it. and in truth, it does. 

the world moves past hanta syrupy slow, dull and buzzing. 

hanta, mid-sprint, glances over his shoulder. the entire upper half of the house is ablaze, the flames working their way down to the bottom floor. he can vaguely hear sirens in the distance, can vaguely make out the sound of his and dosei’s footfalls. hanta feels like he’s traveled too far out of his own body. 

they make it to a cramped alleyway, far from the public’s eye but still in view of the burning house. then, and only then, does dosei let go of hanta’s forearm. he hadn’t even realized she was still holding on until the warmth was gone. she leans against a brick building wall to catch her breath and hanta finds he’s not all that winded. 

he turns toward the flames, toward the sirens and blaring red and blue lights. it’s then that he realizes it’s raining. not even just raining, but fully pouring. a storm had come and he hadn’t even really noticed. 

he takes a shaky step outward, closer to the edge of this temporary safe haven. 

“what do you think you're doing?”

justice. four pages of names. a third crossed out.

hanta takes another step, cool droplets of rain working to soak him to the bone almost instantly. a few cling to the choppy ends of his hair, to his lashes. they drip down his cheeks until he’s not sure what's rain and what are his own tears. 

when did he start crying? he doesn’t know. he swipes at his cheeks with the backs of his gloved hands like it’ll actually do something. everything comes back into focus hard and fast. too hard and too fast. the ground beneath him tilts, the buildings looming too tall, the rain too cold. the distant smell of smoke assaults his senses. it’s too loud. it’s too windy. it’s too much. he’s shaking again, and there’s not a damn thing he can do about it. 

“yozora, you need to get it together.” dosei’s voice is too loud, so sharp it makes him flinch. 

i killed him. the knife is still in hanta’s hand, bloody and used and—he drops it, the clatter of metal on concrete enough to make him wince again. the rain washes away some of the blood— hero’s blood —but it’s stuck between the fabric covering his fingers, in the gloved lines of his palm. he can almost feel it seeping through the thin fabric of his gloves, trying to stain his skin. 

“yozora—“

his knees hit the ground. the image of higashi daitan—a name he’ll never forget—flashes behind his eyelids. he squeezes his eyes shut impossibly tight, willing the sight to go away. instead of going away, the whole scene replays in slow motion. 

he'd moved so fast, without even thinking. one second he heard the click of the door, the next, the knife had gone from its strap on his thigh to buried in the hero’s chest. his aim had been nearly perfect. 

justice. justice. 

all those fucking names. hanta keels over, vomits into the street. all those names murdered in secret and swept under the rug. their names would be forgotten, lost to the fire hanta had a hand in starting.  

he’s stuck in a loop. hanta is stuck in a goddamn loop, an endless cycle of violence, of injustice and unfairness. he’d caught a public protector murdering people for money, and killed him without second thought. hanta is no better than the fake hero, no better than all those he wants to tear down. 

there’s no way out, hanta thinks to himself, frantic and on the edge of hysteric. 

his sobs transition too smoothly into manic giggles, unrestrained laughter. dosei’s hand lands on his shoulder, he vomits again. he can’t see straight, can’t get his thoughts in order. he’s not even in his own body. he feels dizzy, strung out, wound up tight. 

“come back to me, yozora, my god—“ 

i killed him. he'll never be able to kill anyone else ever again. he was guilty. he had it coming. it was only fair. it was justice, hanta. justice. justice. 

he throws his head back, tears and raindrops streaming down his cheeks, taking smudged eyeliner with it. he laughs, he cries. he clenches his fists in an attempt to settle back in his own physical body. it doesn’t work. of course it doesn’t. 

dosei is in front of him, kneeling and soaked. she grips his shoulders, shakes him violently. “you did the right thing, kid. you did. i’m sorry for how i reacted but, just—snap out it. you need to calm down.”

justice. hanta opens his eyes, stares at the dark, crying sky above him. no stars look down upon him. finally, he says, “i killed him.”

dosei releases him carefully. “yes. you did what had to be done.”

them or me. 

hanta allows himself to look at her then. she’s soaked, but still manages to look deadly, tired as she kneels in front of him, dressed in all black with her hair plastered to her head. behind her, the fire begins to die down as fire trucks arrive at the scene. outlined in flames, with genuine worry etched into the hard lines of her face, dosei looks more human than she ever has. 

he comes back to earth. he can feel his knees grind into the gritty concrete beneath him, can feel the stick of his gloves as he clenches and unclenches his fists. 

hanta grins crookedly at her. it feels wrong, even as she grins back. her grin is weaker, cracked around the edges. 

justice.

he doesn’t get caught, of course. how could he have, when he’d turned all the evidence and the man he murdered to ash?

it’s them or me. 

—

“should be a quiet night. just keep an eye out for dosei’s boys.”

“understood.”

pro hero shouto walks the beginning of his night patrol with ease. internally lamenting how much he hates night shifts in this area, he studies the cracks in the concrete beneath his boots, eyes the stubborn weeds growing through those cracks. he nods at civilians passing him by, waves at a cat hissing at him from a dark alley. 

he can’t see the stars through the light pollution, can’t hear his heartbeat over the sounds of the city. that’s fine by him; shouto isn’t really looking for moments like that anyway. he stopped hoping for a breath of fresh air, stopped dreaming of a moment of peace a long time ago. 

please forgive me.

what he wants is a fight. commotion. action. something to keep his hands busy and his mind occupied. 

it’s not your fault. you have to understand—

that’s why shouto doesn’t like patrolling this area at night. by day, it’s only marginally more entertaining, what with all its suburban mothers and their four kids, rushing to soccer practice, or sleek businessmen sprinting down the sidewalk trying to get to their train. it’s safe, quiet, well protected. he supposes that’s a good thing, but that isn’t going to stop him from lamenting. 

i can’t it anymore, shouto, i can’t—

despite this neighborhood being safe , shouto understands why he’d been stationed here for the next several nights. rumor has it, there’s been a masked person spotted on numerous occasions, faceless and dubbed suspicious by some of the civilians living here. which is stupid, because people wear masks all the time. but then again, shouto hasn’t seen them. doesn't know how suspicious they look. 

at first, shouto didn’t think much of it. no, not until his agency got word of dosei’s boys—originally stationed in tokyo, only working small time jobs, the kind of trouble even a hero trainee could handle—was starting to spread east, in this direction. 

one face recognized in one place, a dead hero in the vicinity a day or two later. 

another face recognized in another place, another dead hero. there was no discernible pattern to the murders, nor had it even been confirmed that the spotted dosei’s boys were responsible. 

all they— they being nearly every hero agency within a fifty mile radius—knew was that the murders sort of happened in an almost straight line, moving further and further east, and all of the murdered heroes were unknown, low ranking. the case files shouto had skimmed through, there was no similarity between the dead men, no connections with one another via friends, family, work, other heroes. nothing they knew of anyway. that didn’t mean there weren’t connections they hadn’t discovered yet.  

but shouto was east of tokyo, and the civilians in this area claimed to see a person in all black, half their face covered by a mask. dubbed them suspicious. so here he was, keeping an eye out. doing his job. 

shouto kicks a pebble and a shadow, a shadow in the dead of night, flies overhead. he sees the shape of it fly over the sidewalk beneath him, illuminated by nothing but a weak street lamp. his head whips up immediately, powerful fists clenched at his sides. 

the timing is impeccable. someone is… flying? right over shouto’s head, level with the tops of these buildings. it’s most certainly a person, all long limbs too distinct to be brushed off as a bird. they move down the alley behind and to shouto’s right, where the hissing cat had been. when the shadow passes, shouto hears the cat hiss again, clearly startled. 

surely not…? 

shouto follows. this is his job, after all. 

maybe it’s just a kid practicing their quirk. even if it is nearing two in the morning. 

when he peeks his head down the alley, shouto watches with narrowed eyes as the person floats further and further down the alley, blending into the shadows, nearly completely silent. he can only see them by the glint of something on their clothes. something metallic catching the light from apartment windows, from more weak lamps. 

except they’re… bobbing. falling, rising again. swinging. not flying at all. 

shouto creeps down the alley, taking light steps at first. then, when the figure gets too small, he breaks out in a sprint. he keeps to the darker half of the alley, protected by a brick wall and his silent boots. he runs fast, but the person is faster, so shouto runs harder. he runs until he can see the shape of the person, the outline. 

no, they’re not flying at all. they rise, thrust out an arm, swing, then do the whole process over again. 

shouto falters. the movement is too smooth, so well practiced. it’s familiar. 

he gets closer still, and the person begins slowing down, either tired or getting close to a destination, a rest spot. their house maybe? 

they’re decked head to toe in black. the only noise they make is when they swing out an arm, some gritty sound, not quite metallic but—sticky? 

that, too, is uncomfortably familiar. 

—

almost but not quite in the sky and unbeknownst to our little hero, hanta sero swings from building to building. 

“headed to the rendezvous point now,” he reports into his ear piece. he launches tape, sticks to building corners, swings from surface to surface and covers as much ground as he can, as quickly as he can to meet with his teammates for the night. 

several months have passed since that night in higashi’s house. the folder he and dosei retrieved is long gone, destroyed, but the higashi daitan’s filthy hero blood is still etched into the creases of hanta’s palms. 

you shake my hand, and yours will never be clean again. 

come to terms with that now, months later and several other kills under his belt. higashi’s murder case went cold—of course it did—and his home burning to the ground had been written off as an accident. hanta held on to the rage he felt when he discovered that briefcase, that list of names. he held the feeling close, coddled it and catered to it instead of letting it eat him alive. 

he’s hunting them. hanta has taken it upon himself to seek out the dirty bastards associated with and working alongside that higashi daitan, in any way, shape, or form. dosei offered him a few of her lower ranking but strong soldiers that hanta had sort of come to trust. he trusted them enough to keep their filthy mouths shut when a mission went awry—or worse, when it turned into a chase. 

this is his revenge. this is how he wants to serve justice. 

he’d killed someone tonight, someone who had hired higashi several times. hanta had killed him swiftly, quietly. made it look like an accident. walked away with his shoulders squared, his back straight. hanta doesn’t bother with tears or guilt anymore. 

he didn’t care if murdering these men made him evil. hanta couldn’t let them get away with what they’d done. someone had to hold them accountable. 

this is justice.

and when someone comes to hold hanta accountable for his own actions? well, he’ll worry about that when the time comes. 

hanta lands at his rendezvous location with a gentle thud of his shoes hitting the cement. it’s dark over here, secluded and just a little on the sketchy side. his backup, his soldiers for this one mission, welcome him with quiet murmurs of acknowledgement and nods of their heads. they’d only been asked to watch hanta’s back, make sure he’s got a safe entrance, guard his weak points. 

“we’re done here, kids,” hanta announces, taking mental note of their physical states. not a drop of blood to be found, not a hair out of place except for when small fry bristles at the title kid. good. 

“no trouble?” one of them asks, a big, beefy man by the name of jion that could squash hanta like a pancake with his bare hands if he really wanted to. quirkless. 

“nope,” hanta replies swiftly. “and you?”

next to jion, his twin brother and equally as strong, yanusu shakes his head. he doesn’t speak. ever. 

the third person is a young woman hanta thinks might actually still be a child, short and round-faced, even with eyes as dull as his own. he’s too afraid to ask and find out that she’s actually sixteen or something, dropped out of high school, traumatized and exhausted and carrying too much weight on her back. 

hanta likes not knowing those things. it’s none of his business anyway. 

her name is kyo, which is unsettling enough for hanta considering it’s a name achingly similar to someone he used to be friends with. her quirk is similar too; she has excellent hearing, better than any human’s, better than any dog, any predator. hanta doesn’t know the name of her quirk, and he’s afraid to ask about that, too. 

he nods toward her, questioning. she nods right back, lips pursed. she’s still listening, still doing her job.

—

shouto sneaks up to the building corner to see where his new target landed. with his back against brick, fists clenched at his sides, shouto takes a deep breath. he hears a voice, though he doesn’t dare look around the corner. not yet, because he has a sneaking suspicion to whom the voice belongs to and he desperately doesn’t want to be right. 

“let’s go home, yeah?” the voice says, crisp and clear. it’s jagged at the edges, laced with barely disguised exhaustion. shouto knows it too well. knows that voice like he knows his own. “mission accomplished. target acquired, or—no, i guess it’d be target… destroyed?”

“just say dead,” someone sighs, their voice deep and mildly irritated. 

someone’s dead. another hero? this person, the swinging shadow, the familiar voice, is most likely responsible. 

shouto steals one single look around the corner. a group of four stands in the center of this box, this secluded corner of the world. washed in faded yellow light, shouto makes out two big men in the back, facing him but not paying attention. a smaller person, small enough shouto does a double take. a child? not facing him either, too busy rolling their eyes at the—

oh. 

the fourth and final person stands with their back to shouto, tall and thin, all limbs. dressed in dark clothes, a t-shirt hanging over broad shoulders, sleeves big and hanging down their arms, nearly down to their wrists. black hair, short and choppy like they’d cut it themselves with craft scissors. 

shouto pulls back around the corner, squeezing his eyes shut. too familiar. too familiar.  

he knows what he’s about to do is a terrible idea. he should turn around and act like he saw nothing, act like his ex lover—or who shouto thinks is his ex lover—is not standing twenty yards away from him. but they killed someone. he shouldn’t even be second guessing this decision.  

and yet. 

into his earpiece, shouto finally mutters, “tell me you have my location.”

the reply is instant. “yessir.”

very quietly, he says, “requesting backup immediately. be silent.”

“you got it, sir.”

all shouto can feel is bitter dread poisoning his veins. the voice behind him very nearly brings tears to his still shut eyes, so close, so known. so goddamn familiar. 

“killed, defeated, destroyed. whatever. all the same,” that voice says, breezy and nonchalant like they aren’t talking about a dead person. “what? why are you looking at me like that?”

another voice cuts in. higher pitched, raspy. young and not familiar at all. “someone’s here.”

two toned eyes fly open. shit. scanning the area, shouto doesn’t see anyone else. just him. he hadn't even moved, had whispered so quietly. there’s no way anyone could’ve heard him unless—unless they have someone with a hearing quirk? this is not how he wanted this to go. this was supposed to be a quiet night, peaceful, only occupied by feral cats and the occasional drunkard. 

“oh?” that voice hums, suddenly interested and taking a sick twist. shouto can feel his heartbeat all the way down to his toes. 

a sleek, metallic sound rings through the air. someone drawing a blade, maybe. do the others have quirks? do they only have a hearing quirk? the two big men looked strong enough to squish shouto in a single instant if he got too close. is it natural? quirk induced? do they have quirk-enhancement drugs? and, oh god, the fourth —shouto doesn’t want to think about the fourth. 

“come out, come out wherever you are,” a deep voice rumbles, deep and threatening. 

“twenty yards. probably around the corner.”

so much for being secretive. 

after a stuttering breath, hands at the ready, shouto finally makes his move. he slips out of hiding to stand right in their line of sight, flicking his right hand out so fast they hardly have time to react. he freezes the big guys first, from the shoulders down so they can’t bust through his ice with their legs or their fists. 

the girl is next, too slow and too weak to fight back as shouto freezes her feet to the ground. 

if they had quirks, they either didn’t want to use them or didn’t have time. same goes for potential weapons. 

“yozora!” the girl screeches, voice uncomfortably loud in shouto’s ears.

the person in black—yozora?—moves fast, faster than shouto can keep up with. a mask covers the entire bottom half of their face, and they’re too far for shouto to make out their eyes, their nose. he can’t see any discernible, recognizable features yet. but as shouto swings out his right arm, blasting ice, the person out-maneuvers him with ease. fast, flexible, and smart. not using any weapons, not using any obvious quirk. 

shouto doesn’t want to use his fire. he really doesn’t. 

the person tries to run, their teammates roaring in pain and outrage. where the hell is my backup? shouto thinks chaotically, out of breath and still on the verge of tears. this person’s fighting pattern is too familiar, just like everything else about them. 

i have to leave, shouto—

“not yet,” the hero hisses, half to himself. shouto throws a thin blade of ice at the person, grazing their calf. that knee collapses and shouto doesn’t even hear them hiss in pain. they place a palm on the building behind them for balance, and shouto takes that as an opportunity to freeze it, to try and hold them in place. he freezes a foot to the ground, too. just one. 

“shouto!” 

backup. finally. 

he doesn’t spare a single glance to see who had been sent to support him. he doesn’t care. they don’t have any real reason to arrest the others—except to bring them in for questioning—none except this one in black, but he needed someone to keep them occupied while he dealt with this… person. shouto can’t bring himself to title them as a vigilante, and certainly not a villain. even if they had admitted to killing someone earlier. 

shouto can deal with specifics and etiquette later. this person is too important. 

the person kneels against the wall, calf bleeding, knee bent, hand frozen to bricks. their empty hand is tucked behind, and shouto has a split second to figure out whether or not they’re reaching for a weapon. 

you have to forget about me. 

perhaps it’s in a childish fit of rage, upset, confusion, but he sends another blade of ice at them and his aim is a little off. it’s unnecessary, really, but all his nerves are shot. shouto flinches as the blade cuts through the hem of their makeshift mask, up their cheek and right by their right eye. he hopes they take it as a threat. they flinch, but again, no hiss in pain, no sound of discomfort at all. 

all background noise fades to a dull hum in shouto’s ears. he takes a cautious step towards the person in black, completely helpless and bleeding from two places. shouto watches their shoulders heave, watches their head hang. they don’t lift their free arm. they hardly move at all.

he feels sick. why did i do that?

“who are you?” shouto asks, swallowing his fear of the possible answer. he keeps his tone level, all professionalism and no curiosity at all. shouto studies them closely, taking in the choppy cut of short, black hair, the knives at their thighs he definitely hadn’t seen before, the difference in their outfit; sleek pants that almost seem like leggings, aerodynamic, but their shirt is baggy, sleeves too big. it all kinda looks handmade. 

abruptly, the person throws their head back, their hair falling away from their face. blood drips past their cheekbone, and shouto sees liner smudged around their eyes, and then—and then shouto sees those eyes. 

dark and magnetic. those eyes are familiar, too. there’s a gleam in them that shouto thinks could be fear, could be daring. could be both. 

“shouto!” backup calls. shouto doesn’t even look at them, too occupied with this person before him. “how many you got over there?” someone asks. 

the person glares right at him, almost through him. those eyes are narrowed, and shouto wishes he could take that mask off. he wishes he could get an answer from them, wishes he could hear their voice just one more time. 

shouto isn’t sure if the truth of their identity is better than the story he’d made up in his head. 

if the person before him is who he thinks he is, then shouto’s ex lover is a murderer. 

if this isn’t who shouto thinks it is, then his ex lover is still long gone, or worse, dead. 

“just one,” shouto replies, glancing over his shoulder at his colleagues. they keep the others shouto had frozen under watch. he’s shaking when he says, “i’m pretty sure they killed someone.”

the person is hitting their free fist against their other frozen wrist when shouto turns back toward them.

“that won’t work, you know,” shouto tells them, because he has nothing else to say. 

the person snaps their head toward him in a flash. it’s then that shouto recognizes the gleam in their eye as nothing short of pure anger . the arm lifted to smack against the ice, fruitless as the action is, allows their big sleeve to fall back. 

two toned eyes follow their fist, to their forearm, up to their elbow. their elbow. large, awkwardly shaped. one of the most identifiable parts about them; of course they’d been hiding them. 

there’s no way. 

shouto meets their eye again. his legs nearly give out, right here beneath him. 

what could i have done differently?

with a brutally dry throat, shouto dares to speak. “h-hanta?”

there’s no mistaking it. this is hanta sero before him, bleeding and trapped and dressed in all black. alive. breathing. right here. 

he doesn’t acknowledge the name at all, doesn’t give any sign of recognition as he continues to struggle. his lack of acknowledgement, in itself, feels like an answer. 

with a warm palm, shouto touches the block of ice encasing his wrist. he’s definitely shaking, definitely spiraling. the last time he’d seen hanta was months ago—probably well over a year now—both of them red in the face, in tears, devastated and conflicted. they’d broken up after years of togetherness, with hanta claiming it had been for the best, that it was for his and shouto’s safety. he’d said he was going away, distractedly mentioning america once or twice. shouto knew that was a lie, hanta knew it too, but there was nothing shouto could do to stop him. to keep him there, to keep them together. 

shouto had to let him go. 

in the weeks after the breakup, shouto tried calling hanta’s phone to check up on him. tried sending him texts. even went by his apartment once—because though they spent nearly every night together, they never moved in together—to see if he was still there. it was like hanta just fell off the face of the earth. shouto couldn’t do anything but take it in stride, because he had a job to do.  

i tried. i tried. i don't know what went wrong. 

shouto melts the ice. hanta stares in disbelief at the melted puddle now at his feet for a moment. 

i wish you'd look at me. just this once, one last time. 

he doesn’t look up. shouto can hear him take a shaky breath. 

“go.”

hanta doesn’t waste time, not when shouto feels tears prick at his eyes once more, not when shouto’s backup is aiming questions at the other captured vigilantes, not even when hanta’s own backup curses each other, curses hanta, curses heroes, curses themselves. 

at least their loud mouths and bad attitudes kept shouto’s backup occupied. they probably hadn’t seen much. 

shouto watches hanta slip down an all too narrow alleyway until he completely disappears, silent like he’d never even been there at all. hanta doesn’t look back, not once. 

“shouto?” backup calls again. “shouto! where did the fourth go?!”

shouto stands with his hands at his sides, staring helplessly into darkness. “i don’t know.”

—

hanta watches the news with wide eyes—well, one wide eye. the other is a little swollen from getting nearly sliced. curled up on his dingy couch in his dingy apartment slash hideout thing, he holds the remote close to his chest, heart thrumming frantically. still high on adrenaline, still reeling. 

the news is reporting his group’s skirmish in the alleyway from just a few hours ago. rumors that they’re dosei’s boys (true), that they’re responsible for a jewelry store getting robbed (false). the string of dead heroes goes unmentioned, and hanta can’t help feeling a little smug. he’d done his job well enough that no one would ever suspect their deaths were murders instead of accidents.

his smug attitude dies as quickly as it came. 

“pro hero shouto claims he saw one of the villains’ faces,” the news reporter says plainly, like he’s talking about the weather. “he describes one to have close cropped black hair and a prominent cut by his right eye. dressed in all black. unfortunately, that was all he was able to provide.”

the details aren’t much really, not enough to amount to anything, but it makes hanta feel sick to his stomach all the same. 

“well, shit.”

—

his hideout is not very well protected. hanta knew this when he got it, when he moved in, and was reminded of it nearly every night. 

he knew they’d come for him. he knew it was just a matter of time. payback, they’ll say. for getting us caught and recognized. because while his description on the news was nothing close to damning, the other guys hadn’t been so lucky. drawings and interpretations of their faces would soon be plastered all over the place. 

jion, yanusu, kyo. hanta wants to feel bad, for leaving them behind as soon as he’d been given the opportunity. he wants to feel bad for getting them caught, even if the worst of it was them getting called in to pro hero shouto’s agency for questioning. 

fuck. hanta thought their spot had been safe. he thought it’d been clear to speak openly, and now—

well, it’s too damn bad the trio of idiots didn’t follow his lead wearing masks or helmets or literally anything else to hide the most identifiable parts of themselves. place the guilt on someone else’s shoulders instead of letting it weigh you down. 

hanta doesn’t even have time to escape, doesn't have anywhere else to do. there’s also the slice on the back of his calf, strategic in it’s placement so it’s hard to walk. 

he could already hear them saying, it’s just business, no hard feelings. dosei’s boys were predictable like that. predictable and dangerous. when it came to snitches, even if it was an accident, you could always depend on the second in command to send the dogs after you. 

no doubt the guys hanta worked with tonight we’re already free to go, already headed back to headquarters or to their own places for a nice shower and a hot meal. they hadn’t done anything wrong. they realy hadn’t, they just happened to be with hanta when fucking shouto todoroki decided to show up and cause a scene. 

hanta doesn’t have time to think about shouto right now, though.

“yozora!” night sky, someone calls. right outside. 

hanta curses. it didn’t take them long at all to decide to hunt him down. they’ll want to know why that damn hero let him go, or how he managed to escape but didn’t bother trying to help his comrades. 

it’s just business. 

“yozora, dear,” they sing again. “we’re past due on a little chat , don’t you think?”

hanta knows what their chats consist of. he knows what happens, knows what’s coming. he knows because on multiple occasions, he’d been asked to do the talking , to track down traitors, backstabbers, spies. track them down and be an aid whilst dosei’s best interrogator pulled answers out of them using whatever means necessary. 

“shit.” 

he could try explaining himself, try convincing them that he knew he didn’t stand a chance against the hero if he’d made an attempt to help his comrades. they wouldn’t buy that, though—no, of course not. no explanation is going to get hanta out of this unscathed. there’s nothing he can do but try to slip free before they can deal him any real damage. even then, he’ll be devastatingly outnumbered and outmatched. hanta had been doing this for months, while the others had been at this for years. some of them, their whole lives. 

he doesn’t even have any decent weapons on him. knives and his cursed tape. he’s doomed.

maybe they’ll kill him swiftly. painlessly. or maybe they’ll send him on his way with a warning. he’s not sure, at this point, which he’d prefer. 

his door is forced open. in walks a train of some of dosei’s biggest threats on legs, one after the other. a tank of a man with a shaved head, a woman with icy eyes and the ability to break your bones without raising a finger. hanta never learned their names. none except for the third unit, the final one to walk in. 

“yurei,” hanta breathes. behind the first two stands a twig of a person, thin and sickly looking, narrowed eyes and a gleaming sneer that isn’t dripping blood but might as well be. 

ghost. 

“you made it too easy to find you, yozora,” they drawl, their voice sickly sweet and almost harmonic. hanta stands up straight to look them in the face, into their cool, slate gray eyes. 

yurei clicks their tongue. “sit down, yeah? get comfy! we just wanna talk.”

—

“no hard feelings, okay, bub?” yurei sings with one final quick kick to hanta’s side. they begin to march off with their two soldiers in tow, hardly a scratch on any one of them. as the group disappears down the alley, yurei adds, “this is just business.”

predictable, just as hanta had guessed. 

then they’re gone, leaving hanta in the alleyway, just outside his shitty hideout. just out of reach from daylight, moonlight, streetlight. just out of reach from heroes, from civilians, from anyone who might see him and offer a helping hand. 

like he'd accept it anyway. 

i’m alive. they left me alive. 

hanta plants his palms flat on the concrete, makes a feeble attempt to push himself up. he’s dizzy, bloody, feels a little like he might vomit. if he starts coughing up blood, he’s not sure what he’ll do. it’s not like he can waltz into the nearest hospital, can’t risk being seen, recognized, caught. he certainly doesn’t have the strength for a disguise or any bullshit like that. hanta just needs to get the fuck up off the ground. he needs to pack his shit and get out of here as fast as he can manage. 

but hanta has nowhere else to go. the reminder takes his arms out from beneath him. 

pro hero shouto claims he saw one of the villains’ faces…

laying in the dark, flat against concrete, an acidic and bitter feeling bubbles up in hanta’s stomach. rage and heartache acts as kindling for the fire that blazes to life in his ribcage. it burns and smokes and crawls up his throat. the world grows darker, impossibly so, and that feeling grabs onto his heart, tight like a vice. 

he welcomes the fire with open arms, even as it burns his heart to cinders. 

weakly, hanta hits his bruised fist against the ground, eyes fluttering shut on their own accord. “that son of a bitch.”

—

hanta’s knuckles rasp on an all too familiar door, hard and repetitive so the person inside can’t possibly ignore him. 

it takes a moment, but eventually someone comes to the door, probably to tell hanta to go the fuck home, assuming he’s some teenaged irritant, but—but. the door opens and hanta blames his bruised ribs on the way his breath catches. 

“do you even know what time—“ the man in the doorway startles, heterochromic eyes blowing wide when he realizes who exactly is knocking on his door at this unholy hour. his hand falls away from the doorknob, hanta watches it clench at the man’s side, watches his chest rise with a sharp inhale, then hanta tears his eyes away, refusing to examine him any further. 

then his voice —god. hanta gets dizzy all over again. dizzy with misguided anger and longing. earlier in the alleyway, shouto had been all professionalism, all heroics and trained nonchalance, but this—this is the rawer, realer version of shouto todoroki. the side hardly anyone gets to see. the tone hardly anyone gets to hear. 

hanta feels like he’s trespassing. hell, legally, he probably is. 

shouto todoroki in all his glory stands on the other side of this entrance, shock evident across his face. hanta guesses he can’t blame him for that. eloquently, he says, “w-wha—you—hanta? what the hell are you—where did you—hanta?”

hanta supposes this is the first time shouto has seen him in a year and a half aside from earlier today. but he’d been masked, half hidden in the dark, and shouto had looked a little like he couldn’t quite believe his eyes. 

he kinda looks that way now, standing before hanta, unblinking and stuttering around his tongue. 

hanta had come to a little while before, unsure of how long he’d been out. he didn’t waste time, though. couldn’t afford to, not when that nasty, acidic feeling began to burn through him, from the inside out. he could hardly stand on his own two feet but he didn’t let it stop him. 

no, hanta had marched himself half way across town, just to prove a point, to be petty. to spit in the face of the cause of his current problem. 

(or what he wanted to convince himself was the cause.)

“you bastard,” hanta chooses to hiss. dizzy again, he stabilizes himself against the doorframe with his arm, unable to see out of one eye and hardly able to talk correctly around his busted lip. this is arguably one of the worst ideas he’s ever had, but hanta wants a fight. he wants a fight he knows he can win. even if he has to fight with his words instead of his fists. 

shouto misses the insult, instead opting to stare at him with an expression of pure dumbfoundment after taking a cautious step back. he looks stupidly soft in his pajamas. even his fucking hair is a mess. god only knows what time it is. god only knows what the hell is going on in hanta’s head, because he himself wasn’t even sure at this point.  

“hanta,” shouto says again, like it’s a miracle, and it makes hanta’s ears ring. he doesn’t move to come closer, though. doesn’t move to let hanta in. not yet. good . “it’s you. it’s really you… how did you—where—“

“you knew…” hanta mutters quietly, gripping the door frame with white knuckles. don’t you dare ask me where i’ve been. 

then shouto really does move, swings his door open wide. before hanta can even protest, shouto’s pulling him inside, shutting the door and locking it back. all in one smooth motion. 

well. that’s not what hanta had in mind, but fine. fine. 

“knew what?” shouto asks, his voice sickly sweet. he leans too close, stares too much. intruding hanta’s space, he even dares to try and ghost a warm hand over hanta’s wrist, just like he’d done before. before. when this—when they had something. 

on instinct, hanta swings his arm back to smack the hand away. 

instinct? with shouto, that was never instinct. not when they first met, not while they were together, not even after hanta broke his heart. it had never been instinct to smack his hand away, never , but—it had become that, from these last few months. it became instinct so hanta could protect himself. it’s fine. he’s safer this way. 

hanta has no intention of breaking a habit like this one. not for anyone, and certainly not for shouto todoroki. no, he didn’t want shouto touching him at all. 

clearly stung, shouto pulls back. good. hanta can see tears start to swim in his eyes. his voice comes out weak, cracked when he starts, “hanta, please—“

“you knew it was me,” hanta says quietly, dragging his eyes up off the floor to glare at shouto. “you knew they’d come for me.”

shouto, pinned beneath those onyx eyes, takes to wringing his hands. something hanta can’t remember him doing before . something he must’ve picked up recently, a nervous tic formed to compensate for the absence of a distraction. he opens his mouth, works around the words hanta probably really doesn’t want to hear. 

this is… a lot. hanta doesn’t allow himself even the slightest chance to think about how long it's been since he’s seen shouto this close, this vulnerable. he doesn’t think about what happened last time they spoke, the tears in shouto’s eyes then too, the clench of his own fists. 

eventually, shouto earnestly states, “i didn’t.” 

always so earnest. 

that bitter blaze in hanta’s chest flares up. there’s no time to recall the past. the hanta shouto had been in love with, even the one that broke shouto’s heart, was so far from the man who stood before him now, beaten and exhausted and ready to spit blood.  “you did . that little reporter you spoke to—“

“i was doing my job, hanta,” shouto tries to insist, frowning like a disappointed parental figure. hanta can see the edges of his calm disposition beginning to crack around the corners. 

hanta feels his own composure slipping. there’s a fondness laced in the way shouto says hanta—like he’s praying, like he’s begging. “don’t—don't call me that.”

eyes narrowed, shouto sighs. another crack, hanta sees. “fine, sero. i’m a hero,” he says, like hanta needs that kind of thing to be explained. “it’s my job to handle people like—“

“like me?” hanta raises a single bloody brow. 

“i didn't know it was you,” shouto chooses to stand firm, trying to keep his tone level and cool. “not until the end.”

hanta, desperate to stay on his own two feet, dares to tip his chin up. “tell me.” he keeps pushing. “why did you let me go? why not just keep me stuck to the wall, huh? turn me in like the others?”

shouto falters—hanta catches it—just a little. “i couldn't—i can't do that to you.”

“why not, hero?” hanta takes a staggering step forward. “why not? it’s your job, isn't it?”

“hanta—“ shouto nearly presses forward to meet him halfway, and that, more than anything, makes hanta want to scream. 

“i said don't call me that,” he snaps, and it actually causes shouto to flinch. aside from that, he doesn’t move. 

instead, of course, he tries saying, “just—let me help you, please.”

“you think i came here looking for shelter? for sympathy?” venom drips off his tongue. he’s dizzy on his feet. he’s already furious that shouto dragged him in here in the first place. maybe hanta wanted to hash this out on the front porch but no.

being in this apartment, standing right here in the doorway where so many memories had been etched into the floorboards, into the walls and windows and picture frames… all of it gives hanta a headache. a heart ache. 

so he spits,  “give me a break.”

shouto tries to steel himself, crossing his arms across his chest. good, maybe he’ll stop reaching out. “what did you come here for then?”

hanta stiffens, makes a feeble attempt at straightening his posture. everything hurts. “so you’d know what they did to me, shouto. so you’d know it’s your fault.” his bloody bottom lip trembles. there’s blood dripping over his eye. he can’t see, can’t feel his fingertips. “you think—you think i wanted this?” he starts his next tangent before he can think twice, voice ragged. “you think—“

“you’re about to pass out, sero.” the way shouto says his last name now is much different, much more unsettling. so flat, cold, makes hanta’s blood boil more than it probably should. he sort of wishes shouto would just stop saying his goddamn name all together. he doesn’t, of course, and then shouto says, “let me help you.”

“always so heroic, huh, shouto?” hanta raises his voice, something he’s never done before with shouto. he leans into the wall for support. “why should i let you help me? because it’s your job?”

“because i care about you,” he states plainly, like it’s the most obviously fucking thing in the world. and maybe it is.

he’s all composure and poise but hanta sees through it. he sees his rough edges and hears the hitch of his voice. shouto dares to look him straight in the face, brows pinched, eyes narrowed and stained red with unshed tears. he nearly says more, hanta can see that too, but he cuts himself off with a bite to the inside of his cheek.

this renders hanta completely speechless. his knees start to give out beneath him, brain going muddy. 

“you…” he starts again as he falls, as shouto rushes forward to grab him, to dip his hands beneath hanta’s armpits and drag him up off the floor. he hadn't even hesitated. 

the world goes dark again and all hanta can think about is how stupid this fucking idea was. 

“idiot,” shouto mumbles, pulling the man down the hall as best as he can. 

with hanta out like a light, shouto keeps mumbling, calling him idiot over and over again. his hands shake, eyes still stinging as he chokes back tears. hanta fucking sero is passed out, beaten and bloody, and he’d come to shouto’s doorstep. after a year and a half of not seeing him, genuinely thinking he might be dead—

well, it’s all just short of too much. shouto drags hanta to his bathroom, stabilizes him against the wall. dares to tilt his chin up, dares the brush hair away from his forehead. beyond too much. he’s still so beautiful. 

hanta comes to a few minutes later, groaning until he decides that too makes his head hurt. this is the second time he’s passed out within the last hour. he’s pretty sure he needs to go to the hospital. pretty sure his brain is about to melt out of his head through his ears. 

carefully, he opens his eyes one at a time. the fluorescence of the bathroom is nearly enough to blind him completely. “christ—“

shouto is kneeled beside him. in one hand is a wet washcloth stained with, presumably, hanta’s blood, and his other hand—his… other hand…

“don’t touch me—“ hanta tries to tip his face up, out and away from the ghost of shouto’s fingertips. he’s just holding him still, hanta knows, but it’s cold, too cold, and it feels wrong. the movement makes his head spin. shouto has no business touching him anymore and—

“relax,” shouto instructs him with his usual flat tone, his grip tightening. he pulls hanta’s face back toward him, cleaning around his busted lip. 

hanta absolutely hisses. “i told you not to—“ he tries to plant a hand on the floor, to steady himself so he can stand, hopefully to put some space between them. it doesn’t work. his bones feel like jelly, his muscles aching. he’s not strong enough to pull away. not strong enough to support his own weight, let alone escape shouto todoroki’s touch. “don’t touch me, dammit—“

“just—“ shouto sighs, heavy and irritated. he drops his hands for a single, relieving moment. looking at hanta square in the face, he says, “shut up, alright?”

hanta squints, grinds his teeth. a muscle in his jaw jumps, but still, he shuts up. he… gives up. gives in. god knows he can’t fucking take care of himself, can’t do this on his own. without shouto, he’d likely be dead or halfway there, still in that goddamn alleyway. 

hanta refuses to be thankful though. he doesn’t know why exactly he can’t find it in him to be thankful. 

shouto cleans around his eye, left one first, and the rag comes away smeared with black eyeliner. shouto frowns like he wants to say something about it, but hanta watches him bite it down. good. 

the right eye comes next. hanta winces when shouto presses too hard, waits for shouto to apologize. he doesn’t; he won’t. in that, hanta finds comfort. good. there is no room for sympathy here. no room for comfort. he welcomes the pinches of pain with open arms. anything to get his mind to focus on soemthing that isnt fucking pro hero shouto, son of endeavor, his ex-goddamn-boyfriend, kneeling beside him with nothing but crystal clear concern in his eyes, even if he tries to mask it.

hanta sees right through that mask. he’d learned how to all those years ago, and he never unlearned it. it makes hanta dizzy all over again. 

after a moment, shouto seems to stiffen. his finger—warm side—rises, touches the side of hanta’s eye. over the cut there. it’s thin, perfectly straight. it starts at the bottom of his cheek, crawls up to the corner of his eye and peels nearly all the way to his hairline. 

“how did you get this?” shouto asks quietly. 

at first, hanta thinks he’s just fucking with him, but this is no place for jokes, either. hanta waits, though. waits for an explanation, a moment of clarity. it doesn’t come. 

“are you serious?” hanta sneers then. he watches as shouto’s brows pinch in the middle. he used to flatten the pinch with his thumb, back when they stayed up late into the night exploring every piece of each other, back when things made sense, when hanta—when hanta loved him. 

he kicks that memory to the curb, lets shouto’s brows stay pinched. “you did it, idiot. you gave me this cut.”

shouto doesn’t seem to want to believe him at first. perhaps his mind had been in a completely different place back in the alley, before shouto had fully realized who he’d caught. but after a few maddeningly quiet moments, his expression turns stormy. he drops his curious finger. “i… i did.”

“yes,” hanta bites out, furious and shaking and still so goddamn dizzy. “you sliced me with one of those ice daggers.”

“i—“ shouto’s shoulders heave with a deep inhale. “i apologize.” 

hanta wants to refuse his apology, wants to rattle off about how he shouldn’t be aiming for the head, about how they were always taught to disarm instead of injure but—but. he purses his lips, bites down on his tongue, makes an irritated tch sound. hanta refuses to say anything else on the topic.

let him think about that on his own. let it bounce around in that pretty little head of his until he’s nearly drowning in guilt. 

and that thought of that, more than anything else, makes hanta feel sick. like he might actually keel over and vomit on shouto todoroki’s fancy bathroom rug. 

what have i become?

silently, shouto goes back to cleaning hanta up, with minimum complaints from the latter. not much hanta can do to stop him anyway, not when he can hardly move without wanting to collapse right back to the floor. when shouto has him as fixed up as he can be without going to a hospital, he stands and watches, arms crossed, from his side of the bathroom as hanta struggles to pull himself up off the floor. 

he watches for nearly an entire minute as hanta goes warm, pink with embarrassment, until extending that goddamn helpful, heroic hand of his. the same hand hanta used to kiss in the dark, used to hold beneath the sun. 

fuck. 

all adrenaline, fear and rage has left him. 

“do you feel any better?” shouto asks, his back to the bathroom counter. 

not even a little bit. 

“totally,” hanta deadpans, pressing his fingers into his temples and rubbing as hard as he can stand it. he sends a glance in shouto’s direction, sighs when he finds the hero is still staring at him. “it’s rude to stare, you know.”

then, shouto opens his mouth again. hanta contemplates taping it shut. “you can’t go back out there.”

at that, hanta groans, loud and dramatic. “don’t have much choice now, do i, hero?”

he has to get the hell away from this place. as far as he can, before yurei finds him again. before yurei puts him six goddamn feet under. they’d let him off the hook tonight, for reasons hanta doesn’t understand, and frankly, he’s too afraid to wonder, and he’s definitely not going to ask. 

everything has gone to shit so quickly. he has no place now, no role to play, no job. that meant no direction, no distraction. that meant—hell, hanta already feels taught as a wire, coiled and ready to snap at any given moment. he’d come here itching for a fight, itching for someone to yell at, to place the blame on. someone that wasn't himself. 

hanta hates that, even after all this time, after every single thing he’s done, after what he’s become… he still found a way back to shouto todoroki. because even though he’s a murderer, a man unhinged and faithless, shouto is still a constant. shouto is always right there. as embarrassing as it is to admit, shouto’s a comforting figure, too. of course he is. 

hanta burnt every bridge except the one leading back to shouto. some twisted part of him deep down inside had always know he’d come back to shouto, some way, somehow. 

hanta… he’s tired. he wishes for a reset button. he wishes he couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment his life turned upside down, the exact moment he lost control of himself and, in turn, lost everything he cared for, everything he loved. but he can, and he knows, in the grand scheme of things, he only has himself to blame for getting to this point. 

the world is rotten, foul, demolished. it was nearly past the point of redemption. everything hanta had been raised to believe in had been wrong , but when he’d set out to find his own truth, this—this is where he ended up. 

bruised, bloody, beaten, hardly able to stand on his own two feet in the bathroom of shouto todoroki’s apartment. bruised as a criminal. bloody in a hero’s home. beaten with nowhere left to go. 

lost. again. 

“could i convince you to stay?”

hanta’s focus recenters on shouto’s face, shadowed in this awkward lighting, but open. completely serious, and worst of all, sincere. 

shouto wants hanta to stay. he desperately wants hanta to stay, wants him safe above all else, even if he’s miserable. even if all he’ll do during his stay is whine and complain, spit blood and speak harshly. shouto really, really doesn’t want to lose him again. 

i thought i’d lost him. i thought the world lost him.

weakly, hanta replies, “you—what?”

shouto will gladly accept that harsh, snappy version of hanta if it meant he would just stay. if it meant he’d let himself be protected. if it meant shouto could just be near him again, even if this nearness was nothing even close to what they used to have. 

shouto swallows his fear. fear has no place here. “stay here,” he murmurs, and hanta’s face looks like it’s close to crumbling. “just until you’re better. so—so you’ll be safe.”

hanta is so tired. his shoulders slump, and for all the time shouto has missed with him, he can still pinpoint the moment hanta gives up, gives in. he sighs, heavy and defeated, and the sound kinda breaks shouto’s already broken heart. 

“fine,” hanta says, voice breaking involuntarily. “fine, todoroki.”

small victory, even if it makes him sick to hear hanta spit out his last name instead of his given like that. 

shouto will do whatever is necessary to keep hanta safe. whole and alive. it didn’t matter if he was not the same man shouto once knew, the same man who used to dream of being a hero. it didn’t matter if hanta had reduced his hero costume to ash, turned his back on all that he was taught. didn't matter that his first instinct was to pull away, to lash out, to fight back. 

it didn’t matter what he’d done to land himself in this position. shouto would protect him, at all costs. because even after all this time, even after everything hanta has done, shouto has done, he still loves him. 

he’s pretty sure he always will, too. 

—

flames erupt all around him, searing and roaring and threatening to eat him whole. the floorboards beneath his feet creak, groan, crack under the pressure. he clutches a briefcase close to his chest, even as the metallic edges and handle succumb to the heat. 

hanta looks up from the floor to find higashi daitan standing before him. his eyes are dull, hanta’s knife sticking out of his chest, where his heart should be. blood pours past the blade, staining his pajama shirt that damning shade of red. 

he catches flame, too. he smiles. the suitcase melts in hanta’s arms. lightning bursts outside. 

hanta wakes up with a startled gasp. he leans up so quickly it leaves him feeling a little nauseated. 

“god,” he sighs, dragging his hands down the sides of his face. “dammit.”

he hasn’t dreamt about that night in weeks. 

another voice startles him all over again, cautious and low. “nightmare?”

hanta, stretched across shouto todoroki’s couch, follows the voice and looks to his left. the man himself is sitting on the chair opposite him, leaned forward with his forearms resting on his knees. he’s clutching a cup, presumably brimming with hot tea, as steam curls up around his face. the only light source comes from a lamp next to him. 

hanta narrows his eyes. “no.”

shouto’s lips purse. “liar.”

after living in a safe house the size of a broom closet completely on his own for at least a year, hanta feels a little disoriented waking up in someone else’s home. their actual home , with more furniture than a twin size bed that doesn’t hold his entire height and a coffee table with crooked legs. shouto’s couch houses all of hanta, even his legs, and it’s fucking soft —different from the one shouto used to have before . there’s a thin blanket stretched across his waist, and hanta comes back to earth after a shaking inhale. 

“what are you doing awake?” hanta asks. “how long you been starin’ at me?” 

there’s a pause, and hanta watches as shouto takes a loud, purposeful slurp of his drink. the action is too familiar. the space, the lighting, shouto’s sleepy face—hanta shakes it all off. 

“can’t sleep,” shouto answers plainly. “nightmare, like you.”

“i didn’t—“ he tries to argue, but he doesn’t have the energy. “whatever.”

it’s bizarre waking up in your ex-boyfriend's house after breaking his heart and then not seeing him for a year and a half, after he sliced your calf and your face with an ice dagger, after you stumbled to his house to cuss him out but instead ended up coddled and taken care of. 

shouto tucks a leg under him, a move that signifies he’s not moving anytime soon. hanta hates that he can still read all of shouto’s movements and understand exactly what they mean. “i wasn’t staring either. you were thrashing around, and—“ he stumbles over his words. “freaked me out. that’s all.”

hanta curls his lip. “whatever you say.”

on shouto’s end, he can’t fight the rush of fondness that washes over him when hanta runs a hand around his hair. it’s much shorter than shouto had ever seen it—a tactical decision, probably. so hanta didn’t have to spent so much time putting it up, fighting the strands that fell into his eyes while he worked. he looks devastatingly soft here, in shouto’s extra clothes, smelling faintly of shouto’s body wash, barely lit up by shouto’s dim lamplight. half asleep on shouto’s couch, in shouto’s apartment. alive.

even if he has a bit of an attitude. 

it’s nearing two in the morning. hanta is healing every day. shouto’s surprised he hasn’t tried to make his escape yet, honestly (he doesn’t know that hanta’s thought about it, on three out of the four nights he’s been here so far). he's still reeling over hanta even agreeing to staying, but shouto doesn’t allow himself much time to dwell on that. 

instead, he busies himself with coming to terms with the fact that this will be over soon. hanta will heal and he’ll leave again, likely going so far shouto will never be able to find him, will never be able to see him again. 

for hanta’s own safety. and for shouto’s sanity, he has to accept this. quickly. 

he drains the last of his tea, stealing a glance at hanta. the man digs the palm of his heel into his eye, the one without the giant slice beside it. he yawns, stretches an arm behind his head. the shirt he’s wearing—shouto’s shirt—lifts and exposes a tan sliver of skin at his belly, above his waistband. 

shouto looks away. hanta will be gone soon. 

“didn't i tell you it’s rude to stare?” hanta asks, voice less bitter and more teasing than he intended. shouto doesn’t meet his eye, doesn’t even dare looking at him again. 

he stands abruptly, leaves his cup on the coffee table. flicks the lamp off. “go back to sleep. you’ll need all the rest you can get.”

hanta, for all his complaining, all his anger and frustration, is sorry to see him go, which feels like a betrayal against himself. he watches the two toned man start down the hall, a hall hanta knows too well, and—and he fucking calls out to him. 

“sho—uh, todoroki?” his voice, body, mind, and heart all turn their backs on him at the same time. 

shouto freezes. he used to drag hanta down that hall when they’d had too much to drink, when they’d been carrying too much weight, when they wanted to hide away from the rest of the world. he turns carefully, fixes hanta with an absurdly gentle look that hanta absolutely does not deserve. 

“what?”

hanta swallows his pride. “thanks.” the word comes out choppy, thick. a little forced. but he says it. and he doesn’t feel like shit when he says it, either. that’s something. 

shouto’s heart sinks. it hurts. all of it hurts, like an old wound torn all the way open again. “of course,” he whispers. “sleep, sero.”

—

it’s late. 

shouto is a hero—hanta knows that sometimes they have to work overtime. 

but it’s really fucking late and hanta’s starting to get antsy. caught between thinking this is his chance to slip away without a trace and absolutely refusing to go until shouto makes it back safe, hanta paces shouto’s living room floor. 

it’s been a weird week, alright? he’s on edge. 

“i can’t just—i can't just leave…” hanta mutters. “but i can! i have to—need to, even! how could i have just—“ he tugs at his short hair. “god, i’m losing it. i really fucking am. just completely—“

the front door opens. hanta stops pacing, pulls his hands out of his hair. turning on his heel, he catches sight of shouto in his civilian clothes, dark wash jeans and a hoodie, hunched over to remove his shoes. 

“you bastard!” hanta points a stressed, accusatory finger at him. 

“this again?” weakly, shouto sighs. when his shoes are off, he slowly straightens his posture, and hanta nearly catches him wince. “hello to you too.”

he also nearly jolts forward to check on him, but his feet stay planted in place for now. “what’s wrong with you?”

shouto’s pale in the face. his reassuring ghost of a smile is wobbly, hands shaking at his sides. “nothing, just tired. what’s—“

hanta sees right through his bullshit. “don’t lie to me, dammit.” 

“wh—i’m not.” 

and then hanta sees it: a light sheen of sweat across shouto’s forehead. he marches forward before he can think about the consequences, before he can even consider the context . placing the back of his hand against shouto’s forehead, hanta ignores his weak protests and complaints. he’s warm, and it’s chilly outside. broke out in a cold sweat, looking every bit like he’s about to pass out. 

“did you catch a cold or something?” hanta demands.

and then shouto collapses right at the knees, folds into hanta faster than he can react to catch him. they fall to the floor together, shouto groaning miserably all the way down. without a word, hanta turns him over onto his back, settles his two toned head in his lap. 

“shouto, what happened? talk to me,” he demands again, finally noticing the tiny specks of blood on shouto’s inner lip. 

with feeble hands, shouto takes the hem of his hoodie and slowly but surely pulls it up. his fucking undershirt is soaked in blood.

“sorry,” shouto mumbles—as if he needs to apologize —trying in vain to keep his hoodie from sticking to the bloody disaster of his shirt. “got attacked. bullet wound. think it was one of—“ his head slips back into hanta’s open hands, coughs roughly and spatters blood across his chin. “one of dosei’s boys.”

“fuck—“ hanta starts. yurei. striking a second time, twice as hard. a warning. they’ve probably had an eye on hanta, still in their territory, for days now. how could i have been so careless? “fucking hell.” his hands are shaking. he can’t stop shaking. “we have to—i need to get this hoodie off you. you need—god, fuck.”

“hanta,” shouto starts, but he’s interrupted. 

“don’t,” he snaps, already making a move to staunch the blood flow coming from shouto’s stomach. what kind of weapon did this to him? who dared to touch him? was it yurei? jion? dosei herself, maybe? “don’t say any sentimental bullshit. you’re not fucking dying on me, you understand?”

curse yurei. curse heroes. curse hanta’s endless shitty luck and his lack of a fucking phone. his hands shake but he presses them into the wound, even when shouto hisses in pain. so much guilt. 

this is my fault. all my fault. 

he can’t possibly call anyone for help, not when his very identity is what got shouto hurt in the first place. 

“are you hurting anywhere else?” hanta scans his body for other wounds. “i can’t believe you, god—how did you even—how did you get here?” he mutters, not really looking for an answer. “where’s your phone? how’d you get this hoodie on? did you fucking walk? jesus. jesus, shouto—“

he had to have been running on pure adrenaline. it’s draining out of him now. 

“hanta,” shouto interrupts this time with a clammy hand on hanta’s wrist. it’s electrifying. “breathe.”

shouto, on the floor of his entryway, pale and bleeding profusely, has the audacity to tell hanta to breathe . he’s fucking dying right here in hanta’s arms and he just—

“gonna be fine,” shouto continues, lips sprinkled with blood, eyes fluttering shut.

“no,” hanta bites out. “no. open your eyes, dammit.” he taps his cheek lightly, grips his chin to look shouto square in the face. “eyes on me, okay? shouto, do you hear me?”

shouto doesn’t let go of hanta’s wrist, instead letting his mind slip. the world grows very dark indeed. 

—

“someone help! anyone! he’s—he’s bleeding out and i—“

to hell with being angry, to fucking hell with protecting his goddamn identity. hanta had scooped shouto right up off the floor and marched him to the nearest emergency room (thankfully not far). it’s ass-o’-clock in the morning, and he startled the nurses with his forceful entry. to hell with that, too. 

shouto swims in and out of consciousness, keeping a vice-like grip on hanta’s shirt like he really will die if he lets go. he mumbles things too, though hanta can’t tell if any of it’s actually directed at him. he’s just glad he’s alive. fucking—somehow. 

hanta’s shirt is soaked. his hands. covered in shouto’s blood. 

the nurses swarm hanta and shouto both in an instant, asking him questions, biting out instructions and demands over intercoms and phones. 

“sir, can you tell me what happened?”

bullet wound?

“what’s your name, sir?”

none of your damn business. 

“sir, can you stand—“

“of course he can’t stand!” hanta snaps involuntarily. electric like a live wire, taught like a bowstring, hanta feels all his composure and control slipping. 

“we’ll take him. he’s lost a lot of blood, though…”

“we’ve gotta get this hoodie off, gotta stop the blood flow.”

he’s so angry with himself, so delirious with guilt—he hardly notices when more nurses storm him with a stretcher and take shouto from him. they are not gentle, either. 

he’s flat on a stretcher with hands pressed into his stomach, being pushed with urgency down the hall. hanta follows even when they tell him to go, when they tell him he can come no further. 

“sir, we can take him from here—“

“h-hanta,” shouto latches onto hanta’s hand, his skin uncomfortably cold. “han, wait—“

hanta races alongside the stretcher as long as he can, never taking his eyes off shouto, who’s so pale now it looks like he’s never seen the sun a day in his life. “right here, shou. you’re gonna be fine, you hear me?”

“please let go, sir—“

shouto’s eyes widen. “don’t—don’t go, hanta,” he gasps, squeezing hanta’s hand too hard. excruciating pain is written all over his face. “please. han, don’t leave. don’t leave me.”

they cut into his hoodie and still shouto doesn’t look away from hanta. a nurse says, “we’re going to do everything we can, i promise,” but she sounds unsure. 

he’s wheeled away. a nurse has her forearm on hanta’s chest to keep him from following. slowly, shouto’s hand is wrenched from hanta’s own against his will. “you can’t follow, sir, i’m sorry.”

“wait, please—“

“hanta—“ shouto’s reaching for him, and hanta really can’t help it when tears well up in his eyes. 

after a sharp breath, hanta calls down the hall, “don’t you dare die on me, hero!” a few unmistakeable tears roll down his cheeks. 

shouto disappears in a flurry of nurses and raised voices and slamming hospital doors. when he’s out of sight, it’s quiet. the nurse steps away from hanta, premature grief etched into her face. the silence settles like a massive, almost unbearable weight on hanta’s shoulders. regret like he’s never, ever experienced before rips through him like a bolt of unforgiving lightning, sudden and so shocking hanta very nearly falls to the floor. 

one of dosei’s boys. 

rage follows regret like a loud clap of violent thunder. 

“are you alright, sir? i can get you some water or something if you need it,” the nurse offers, her voice sounding far off. 

if hanta’s good at anything, it’s picking a fight. he’s going to find the bastards that dared to place a hand on shouto and make them beg, pray, weep for forgiveness.

“no thanks.” and with that, hanta turns to go. 

he can’t stay here, because he’s so dizzy with that familiar bitter, acidic feeling that he can hardly think straight. he can’t risk further exposure, can’t risk drawing dosei’s boys here and hurting someone else. he needs to find them before they find him.

he can’t stay here, because shouto was hurt because of him. shouto could very well die within the next five fucking minutes, and it would be one hundred percent hanta’s fault. the world would lose pro hero shouto, a legend and a force of nature. the world would lose shouto todoroki and all his teasing smiles and dry jokes. 

he can’t stay here, because the bastards who hurt shouto need to pay. because even after all this time, after everything hanta has done and endured, after who he’s become—there is still a part of his heart that belongs to shouto. it’ll never belong to anyone else. 

—

hours later, when the sun is high in the sky and nurses are running their regular rounds, shouto wakes up in a hospital bed. the room is ice cold, but he’s so disoriented he can barely use his quirk to warm himself up. 

he’s alone. where…?

shouto looks down to see his torso is bandaged. he’s hooked up to all kinds of machines and wires and dripping iv’s. he’s exhausted. 

“mr. shouto, sir!” a nurse comes in unannounced, promptly bowing at the end of shouto’s bed. “you’re finally awake. how do you feel?”

like death. 

“just fine,” shouto replies mildly, shocked to find his voice dry and worn. “am i…? where—uh, do i have anyone… waiting for me?”

the nurse’s eyes go wide. “no sir, but you can call visitors anytime you like. if you want.”

that makes shouto’s stomach do a sick twist. “i see.”

who would he call? his agency? he’d have to explain how he got the devastating bullet wound in his stomach. midoriya? no doubt he’s got his own shit to deal with, and likely doesn’t have time to keep shouto company in the hospital. bakugo? probably wouldn’t even answer his phone. 

he could call his mother, but the situation might send her into cardiac arrest. he’d rather actually die than call endeavor. and then there’s natsuo, fuyumi too, but—the last thing shouto wants is to worry anyone. he doesn’t want to guilt them into coming to see him. he doesn’t want anyone to feel guilty at all, doesn’t want anyone to feel sorry on his behalf. 

he just wishes—

“the, uh—“ the nurse begins again. “the man who brought you in last night—he left shortly after they wheeled you into the emergency room.”

hanta. shouto misses him like a goddamn lung. and though he supposes he shouldn’t feel so disappointed, shouto carries his absence like atlas carried the world. it’s too heavy, too much, and shouto—god, shouto couldn’t put it down even if he tried. lord knows he has tried. 

so he’s all alone. half dead and pale as a ghost, hardly beginning to heal from nearly bleeding to death. 

“how long until i can go home?” 

“you suffered a great deal of blood loss, sir,” the nurse explains politely. “we want to make sure you can walk on your own before we send you home.”

shouto suspects another part of that is from the simple fact that this woman knows there’s no one to help him when he gets home, no one to look after him. they want to send him home when he’s capable of independently caring for himself again. 

he’s a goddamn hero, and he’s alone. 

shouto sighs heavily, defeated and ready to fall back asleep. he’s alone—really and truly alone. shouto’s spent a lot of time alone in his life, but this time feels different. makes him feel icky—bitter. 

“thanks,” he breathes, leaning back into his flimsy pillow. “and—will you keep this a secret, please?”

shouto means his identity, his being here. he doesn’t want any nosy news reporter sniffing him out and demanding answers on how pro hero shouto landed in the hospital. he didn’t want anyone to ask any questions at all, especially when shouto knew questions could get hanta discovered and exposed. 

the nurse’s cheeks turn pink. “yes, sir.”

when she leaves, shouto lets his eyes fall closed. he dreams of hanta, back when they were young and stupid. he thinks of hanta’s hand in his own, the squeeze of his fingers, the taste of his favorite orange chapstick. he wonders, sleepily, if hanta still uses it after all these years. 

the last image that passes behind shouto’s eyelids is the fear on hanta’s face, just a few hours earlier, clear as day even as he tried to cover it to make shouto feel better. 

hanta, hanta, hanta. 

—

it’s been weeks since the accident, weeks since hanta carried shouto in his arms to the emergency room. weeks since shouto begged him to stay, weeks since guilt swallowed hanta sero whole and very nearly refused to spit him back out. 

yurei is dead. their blood is on hanta’s hands now.

it’s been weeks, and here hanta is—on shouto todoroki’s doorstep once again. the sun just recently set, clouds filling up the darkening sky with an impending storm. he can hear thunder rolling in the distance. 

shouto’s home, hanta knows he is. healed up, able to walk and eat properly. 

hanta shouldn’t be here. he doesn’t belong here, doesn’t deserve the right. it’s his fault shouto nearly died, after all—and he’d left him all alone in the hospital. he wonders, distantly, if shouto told his mother about the incident. it wouldn’t be the first hospital visit shouto todoroki hid from his family. 

he wants to go in. he wants to waltz into shouto’s home, get on his knees, and beg for the forgiveness he knows he doesn’t deserve. he wants to turn tail and run until his legs give out, until his lungs burst and refuse to let him run any further. 

i should go. he doesn’t deserve this. it'd be like ripping open his wound, making it worse, possibly giving it an infection. 

raindrops begin to sprinkle across the sidewalk, across hanta’s bunched up shoulders. shame hits him like a freight train, so fast and so hard that his body moves before he can second guess it. he turns on his heel, makes his move to leave once more. 

he gets about four steps out when a voice says, “hanta?”

the rain picks up pace when hanta turns around again. droplets try to soak his shirt, his hair, drip down his nose and past his chin. 

“shouto,” hanta says breathlessly. 

shouto todoroki stands in the entryway. the same entryway he used to hang mistletoe over, the same entryway where he’d kiss hanta like a treasured thing. where they’d bump shoulders and remove shoes, laughing or yawning. where hanta passed out, beaten and bruised. where shouto nearly died, shot and bleeding. 

his face is unreadable. before hanta knew him, really knew him, he never could guess at what was going on in the boy’s head. the closer they got, the more he learned. looks like he’s back at square one. 

ah—no, shouto’s eyes soften as they land on hanta. ten yards away, separated by nothing but fear, hanta watches as the legendary shouto todoroki softens at the mere sight of him. 

“hanta.“ he opens the door a little wider. shouto doesn’t ask—he tells him, “come inside.” 

hanta goes inside. he’s a weak man, after all. 

when hanta crosses the threshold, shouto has a hold of his shirt sleeve immediately. he leads hanta further inside, making him sit on the same couch he’d slept on all those weeks ago. his eyes are alight with worry, with something close to wonder. maybe even nostalgia. his cheeks are a little pink, hair soft and still wet, likely from a shower. shouto smells fresh—like home—and he’s moving smoothly. healed, whole, alive. 

hanta forgets where he’s been the last few weeks. he forgets what he’s done, who he is. forgets his own name. 

“we have to stop meeting like this,” shouto murmurs. with the door shut, the sound of rain turns to a distant hum. he sits beside hanta, with just enough space between them that hanta can still see straight.

it’s hanging in the air, they both know it. so shouto asks, “what are you doing here?”

with his hands clamped in his lap, hanta stares unblinking at the space between his and shouto’s socked feet. he’s not really sure how to answer that question, not really sure what made him come back here at all. he left shouto, after the man had begged him not to. he had been selfish, leaving for his own sanity, leaving for his own revenge. even if the revenge had been on shouto’s behalf, hanta still felt gross for it. 

shouto hadn’t asked him to get revenge; he’d asked him to stay. 

hanta tells himself the reason he came back is because he just wanted to make sure shouto was doing alright, even after hanta himself swore in the hospital he couldn’t be around for the sake of shouto’s safety. 

he’s lying to himself. he knows it, shouto probably knows it too, with that look in his eye. hanta came back because he felt like he needed to apologize. because he can’t keep running from the only person he’s ever felt truly safe with and loved by. 

“i’m sorry,” is what comes out of his mouth. it’s a start. 

shouto straightens up a bit, and hanta sees his brows furrow out of the corner of his eye. “hanta—“

“no,” he interrupts, his knuckles white as he clasps his hands together. “it’s my fault. all of it—it’s all my fault. i had to—“ his voice cracks involuntarily. “i wanted you to know that i—“ that i never meant for this to happen. that i only ever wanted to keep you safe. that i still care about you, just as much as i did when we were kids, when i believed there was justice in this world. “that i’m sorry.”

higashi daitan flashes behind hanta’s eyes, with that sick smile from his nightmares and the knife in his chest. the list of names. the burning house. dosei’s stories. a connection to higashi, a puzzle piece. another man with that same knife buried in his chest, asking hanta why. a tip under a bar table, another list of names. a woman shot down before she knew hanta was even there. their blood washing down the sink drain, their blood etched into the creases of hanta’s palm, haunting his every step. 

the slip up. the ice dagger. the news reporter. yurei. shouto. a shared cup of tea in the darkness. another slip up. the blood on shouto’s shirt. the blood on hanta’s hands—again, again—darker, starker this time. violent and damning and devastating. 

the hospital. the vow. the chase. the hunter being hunted. prey becoming predator, predator becoming prey. a clean cut across yurei’s neck, another splash of red. 

hanta left the path of heroism to do what he thought was right in his own way, but when it came down to it, he hasn’t been able to do that at all. he is no hero, no righteous vigilante. if hanta is anything, he has become the villain he’d always been afraid of. 

“i’m not asking forgiveness,” he continues, staring but unseeing at the floor, hoping it’ll swallow him whole. “i just wanted to—“

a warm hand lands on hanta’s own. shouto leans forward, more and more until he knows hanta can see him, all of him. all of him, including the softness of his eyes, the wobbly purse of his lips, the sway of two toned hair. 

“i forgive you,” shouto says, like it’s the easiest admission he’s ever had to make. 

hanta turns to him, his heartbeat pounding in his ears. “shouto—“

“a thousand times over,” he continues, giving hanta’s hand a light squeeze. “a thousand times over, i forgive you.”

tears prick hanta’s eyes before he has time to register them. shouto’s voice, his touch, it all floods hanta’s senses so quickly he nearly gets dizzy from it.

“but—shouto, i don’t deserve it. i don’t—“

i don't deserve you. 

the look on shouto’s sleepy face—god, it’s priceless. he looks so sincere, so profoundly earnest with the most minute upward tilt of his lips. “you do, hanta. you do.”

and then he’s moving, carefully like he’s trying not to spook a wild animal. he watches in slow motion as shouto’s hands rise and come to rest on either side of hanta’s face. involuntarily, hanta finds himself dipping into the touch. it feels like another admission. it feels like crawling into bed after a long day. it feels like coming home. 

a few stray tears shed down hanta’s face. shouto is there to swipe them away with his thumbs, callused and familiar. 

“oh, hanta,” he whispers, so close. “you must be so tired.”

it’s those five words that break the dam. after a sharp intake of stuttering breath, a year and a half worth of pent up tears come pouring out, warm as they track down his cheeks, through shouto’s fingers. hanta’s body moves on its own when he takes hold of shouto’s forearms. to stabilize, he lies to himself, while his heart says there he is. grab on and don't you dare ever let go. 

“my hands,” hanta gasps. shouto’s leans in closer, so close hanta can feel that lulling heat radiate off him. “my hands, shouto. they—they’ll never be clean.” his hands. his head. his heart. “you don’t know what i’ve done, who i’ve hurt—“

shouto tilts hanta’s head up, so he has no choice but to make eye contact with him. steely blue and gray track his tears, trace back to the source. hanta couldn’t look away even if he wanted to. “listen to me.”

after a hiccup, hanta stills completely. 

“are you listening?” 

it’s then that hanta spots the wetness in shouto’s eyes too. he nods. 

carefully, shouto starts with this, “you can start over.” he says every word slowly, taking the time to enunciate perfectly so not a word is misunderstood in hanta’s head. “you and i, hanta. we can start a new life.”

it takes a few seconds for hanta’s brain to compute those words, and more than a few seconds for him to try and figure out how to respond. the very idea of starting over sounded as impossible as a fairytale just two minutes ago, but shouto says it with reverence, with the kind of conviction only shouto todoroki possesses. he says it like it’s already in motion, like it’s a simple, irrefutable fact. 

“we… we can?”

you and i. me and you. us. together again. 

with a nod, shouto leans forward. hanta’s been here before, feeling that familiar press of skin as shouto uses his left hand to push hanta’s hair back. he’s been here before, and his body knows the pattern. instinctively, hanta’s eyes flutter shut as shouto closes the gap between them 

we can start over. 

shouto seals his promise with the gentlest of kisses pressed to hanta’s forehead.