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Itchy itchy. And hot. It’s too bright out to be wearing a hoodie but if he takes it off now Tenko will scratch his skin off until he’s a quivering meat monster. Might be uglier than regular Tenko, might not. The blood would be annoying, though. It’s hard enough to keep hold of his screwdriver when he’s perched on a two-meter wall, even without Dabi heckling him and doing nothing to help.
The sign on UA’s back entrance is slowly coming away from the brick. Dabi throws a twig at Tenko’s shoulder. “Remind me why we’re here instead of stealing konbini ice cream.”
Tenko throws it back. The first screw gets tossed into the grass somewhere and he starts prying the next one loose. “What does this sign say, Dabi?”
“Small gate.”
“And what’s the kanji for gate?”
“Mon.”
“And what’s my dog’s name?”
Dabi pinches the bridge of his nose. “Mon.”
“So you see,” Tenko says like this is obvious. Which it is, to be fair. Dabi’s just an idiot. He has no creativity, no vision beyond setting fire to trashcans and stealing his father’s car to drive around the supermarket parking lot at midnight. “I’m going to take this sign, which says small mon, and put it on my dog’s house, because my dog is a small Mon. Do you understand me, Dabi? Should I write this down?”
“I understand you just fine,” Dabi says scratching the new tattoo on his arm. “But I can also think of three hundred other things worth my time.”
“Did I ask you to be here?”
He throws another twig. This one bounces off Tenko’s head and falls into the hood of his jacket. “You think I’d be hanging out with you if I had a choice? Twice went home and I haven’t seen Toga in three weeks.”
“Go look for her. And stop throwing shit at me or I’m putting my foot in your eye.”
Someone clears their throat. Tenko whips around, barely stopping himself from throwing his screwdriver like a miniature javelin. There’s a guy watching him. Who’s probably a teacher, come to think of it. The homeless-looking one who always wears black and may or may not be dating the screaming banana man. “Shigaraki,” he says, sounding incredibly put-upon. “What on god’s green earth are you doing?”
Dabi’s gone, the asshole. Tenko looks at his screwdriver, then back at the teacher. “Is this a trick question? What does it look like I’m doing?”
The man takes a deep breath. A really deep breath, suggesting a larger lung capacity than should logically be in someone his size. “Give me the screwdriver, Shigaraki. I’m taking you to the principal’s office.”
Tenko stomps after him with bad grace. He tries to escape twice but the teacher actually drags him back by the arm, which just makes Tenko want to chew it off at the elbow. He’s thrust into the office with the briefest explanation and then the door’s slammed shut behind him. The principal, some little rat-faced guy with a fancy bowtie, waves hello. He’s talking to another kid. A first-year, probably, with fluffy flyaway hair and a black eye. Tenko makes a face at him and flops into one of the chairs. The Principal offers him tea. “Lovely to see you again, Mr Shigaraki. Might I ask you why you decided to steal a sign?”
“Murder,” says Tenko. “Blunt force trauma to the back of the skull. I’ve already lined up my targets.”
“Very resourceful,” says the principal. There’s a fancy plaque on his desk that says Nedzu. “Although you really shouldn’t go around taking things off walls that don’t belong to you. Especially not in broad daylight where you can be seen by anyone walking past.”
Tenko scratches his knuckles, wishing for nothing more than to fast forward through the year and finish his time trapped at this prison of a school. “I wanna go home.”
Nedzu ignores him. “I think it’d do you good to learn some responsibility. Give you something productive to do with your time, you understand? Putting you in charge of the school’s private herb garden might be a good start.”
Tenko stares. Really stares, because trying to read Nedzu’s stupid rat face is like looking for meaning in a brick wall. “Why is there a herb garden.”
Nedzu beams. “Our chef enjoys growing his own produce. We have a vegetable garden too but he’s a bit protective over that.”
“We don’t have a chef. I’ve been to the cafeteria three times in my life and I only got slop and chicken feet.”
“I think the staff just dislike you, Mr Shigaraki. You have broken several cafeteria tables.” He stirs the tea, which Tenko has left untouched, and takes a sip in the other kid’s direction. “In fact, I think this could work for you both. This will be your duty for the month, Mr Midoriya. You’ll have to remind Mr Shigaraki to do his gardening, seeing as he has a habit of ignoring punishments unless physically coerced into staying put.”
The boy squeaks. He’s like a gangly green faun, the kind of stupid terrified NPC you’d meet in the tutorial and automatically hate. “Me? Sir, I, uhm, I don’t think I’m the best person to –”
“Nonsense,” says Nedzu pleasantly. “Mr Shigaraki, you’ll be weeding the herbs for the next four weeks. And if he doesn’t, Mr Midoriya, I’ll hold you personally responsible. I’m sure Mr Shigaraki will co-operate so you won’t have to be unnecessarily punished. Isn’t that right?”
“No,” says Tenko.
“Wonderful!” says Nedzu. “I look forward to seeing how you make the place grow. Take care!”
They’re booted out. Tenko’s already halfway down the corridor by the time the kid scrambles up to him, half a head shorter and face red like it embarrasses him just to be alive. Tenko sort of wants to poke him in his big googly eyes. “Uh, uhm, Shigaraki-senpai –”
“No,” Tenko says and trips him.
The kid topples over. Snorting, Tenko leaves him on the floor, hands in his pockets and already planning to spend the day shoplifting another screwdriver.
Shigaraki-senpai doesn’t come to school the next day. Or the next, or the next. Izuku hovers outside the 3B classroom anxiously, clutching his yellow backpack and avoiding the eye of anyone who walks past. He’d run here as soon as the end-of-school bell rang. Students file out, chatting in their cliques, but no shaggy grey head emerges with them.
Someone, a tall blond boy with a friendly face, pauses in front of him. “Need something?”
Izuku shuffles. “I, uhm, I heard this was Shigaraki-senpai’s class, so I came to see if he would come to detention. Principal Nedzu asked me to.”
The boy winces. “Oh, good luck with that, man. We don’t see him much either. You’d have better luck searching somewhere outside. I think he likes to hang around the quad.”
Izuku thanks him and goes to scour the school grounds. He finds Shigaraki-senpai near the entrance, scowling at a sign on the gate that looks like it’s been welded on. Izuku briefly wonders how he planned to steal it without super-strength and a blowtorch. “Shigaraki-senpai!” he squeaks and skids to a stop. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere! It’s me, Midoriya, remember? I was supposed to remind you about the, uhm, you know! Are you ready to go to the herb garden now?”
He’s with a friend, an older boy with tattoos who smells like smoke and cologne. The boy snorts, somehow not dislodging the cigarette in his mouth. “Got a date?”
Shigaraki-senpai kicks him. “Fuck off, Dabi. Also, no. I have better things to do with my time than literally farm for loot I’m not even gonna use.”
Izuku parses this. “I, uh, guess they might let you take home some basil or something if you asked?”
“Let me rephrase that,” Shigaraki-senpai says. He comes closer lean right into Izuku’s space. He’s quite a bit taller when he’s standing up straight, Izuku notes absently, although maybe it doesn’t help that Izuku’s trying to shrink into his own collar like a spooked turtle. “I’m not about to play around in the dirt. You’re new here so I’ll give you a pass, but get it through your fluffy skull that I’m one of the bad guys. I won’t be so nice next time. Understand?”
“Your smile is very, uh, wide,” Izuku says faintly. “I’m sorry. I just, well, I’ll get in trouble if we don’t do what the principal asked.”
The plastic-y, too-big grin somehow gets bigger. “Come around here again and you’ll get in trouble with me.”
Izuku goes home defeated. “It’s not like I want him to get punished,” Izuku grumbles on the way home, very quietly because he’s still half-afraid Shiraraki-senpai will materialise out of nowhere and smile unsettlingly at him again. “It’s just gardening, and anyway he didn’t need to be so mean about it. I can’t believe I have to drag him there. What am I, a prison warden?”
A stray cat meows at him. Izuku stops to pet it morosely, only half-paying attention to the construction workers taking down an old shop across the street. The entrance is sealed off with flimsy white tape. A bright yellow sign catches his eye, leaning against a broken wall with no owner in sight.
Izuku’s eyes go wide. “Hey. It’s not stealing if they were going to throw it away, right?”
“Shigaraki-senpai before you beat me up please listen!”
Tenko sighs. He’d been just about to open his soda. One he actually paid for instead of trying to steal it out of the vending machine, still icy-cold and pleasantly numbing the itchy red eczema on his fingers. The little green kid had ambushed him right after school with something clearly hidden behind his back. “Do you have a death wish, scrub?”
The kid thrusts something forward. It’s one of those fluorescent plastic road signs, except this one says Mon in crisp black kanji and shines in the afternoon sun. Tenko breathes in sharply. “You tried to get one of these on Monday, right, senpai? It’s not exactly the same but I thought you might like it.”
“That’s stupid. It looks stupid,” Tenko says, snatching it from him immediately. It’s huge, bigger than his torso and way more interesting than the metal school one. “You’re stupid. I hate it. Where’d you find it?”
“Someone didn’t want it anymore so I helped myself,” the kid says, looking shifty. He had a name. Tenko’s sure he had a name, something minty-sounding and bouncy. “In exchange I was hoping you’d come to the herb garden with me like we’re supposed to.”
“Bribery,” says Tenko, stuffing his soda can in his hoodie pocket so he can inspect the sign properly. It’s deceptively light. There are hooks on the back; maybe he can nail it to Mon’s house like a swinging door. “You know you should have given it to me after I did what you wanted.”
Minteria smiles. It makes his eyes crinkle at the corners, squashing up that yellow bruise that Tenko’s fingers itch to poke and prod at. “Call it a promise of what’s to come. I have more stuff - more loot for you later if you agree to come to the garden every day until the end of the month. What do you say?”
He doesn’t break eye contact. Tenko has a brief vision of Mon’s house decked out in glorious bounty, a stronghold of style and wealth to make him doggy kingpin of the neighbourhood. He moves the sign under his arm and nods. “If your shit isn’t worth it I’m burning you alive and keeping your bone dust in a jar under my bed.”
Minteria is unperturbed. “So we have a deal?”
“I’ll go to the stupid thing with you on Monday,” Tenko says, already turning to leave. “Now get lost. I have a construction project to start.”
“Senpai, are you… planning on doing any gardening?”
Tenko swings the dead branch he’d pulled off a tree, imagining it cleaving a monster in two. “I promised I’d come with you. I didn’t say I’d do work.”
Minteria chews the inside of his cheek. It’s like he can’t decide whether to be angry or defeated so he just scrunches his face up like a baby biting into a lemon. “We’re supposed to be pulling weeds.”
“Better get to it then.”
“I have a name. It’s Midoriya.”
“Thanks. I’ll put it on your gravestone.”
Midoriya huffs and kneels in the grass. The herb garden’s less of an actual garden and more a patch of soil behind the cafeteria building, boring and overrun with green stuff Tenko has no interest in trying to name. A dandelion thing comes away in Midoriya’s hand. “If I’m dead I can’t give you the other thing I promised.”
“What is it?”
“Not telling.”
Tenko prods him. Midoriya yelps and clutches his side. “Why are you attacking me? We’re supposed to be working together.”
“Some newb on my team? As if.”
“Senpai, you’re kind of a nerd, huh?”
Tenko stabs him, outraged. Midoriya dodges and scrambles away, taking his mutilated dandelion with him. “Sorry, senpai! It’s not a bad thing, I just – you like video games, right? I do too, sometimes. Some of my classmates call me a nerd too.”
“So kill them.”
“I’d really rather not.”
“Why?”
“Because murder is generally frowned upon in modern society?”
He ducks under the next jab. He’s surprisingly quick on his feet. Tenko tries again, this time more curious than anything, aiming to clock him in the back of the skull. If he knocks Midoriya’s head off he can take it home to keep on his bedside table like a reading lamp. Put it lying down and use his mouth as a cup holder or something, that’d be cool. “You’re already halfway there.”
“I am?”
“Black eye. You get in fights. Unless you’re just on the receiving end. You’re very punchable.”
Midoriya’s mouth twitches up. “I’ve been told.”
“Who is it? Jealous ex? Mean parents?”
“Gosh, no. My mom wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
Tenko leers. “You sure? Kids always lie about that kind of thing. Oh, I’m just clumsy, I tripped going down the stairs, until people stop believing you and the bad guys finally figure out they should leave the bruises where nobody can see them. Or is your damage internal, Midoriya? Victim of neglect? Picking fights and acting out so someone’ll finally pay attention to you?”
Midoriya’s face does something complex. “Senpai.”
“What?”
He hesitates. “Uhm. Sorry. Never mind. Will you tell me about the games you like?”
Tenko’s makeshift sword pauses halfway to Midoriya’s belly. “You won’t understand any of it.”
He seems genuine enough. “That’s okay. It’ll still be interesting.”
Doubtful. The second Dabi hears Final Fantasy he’s telling Tenko to shut the fuck up. “There are fifteen of them. That’s not including the spin-offs and sequels.”
Midoriya smiles. “I don’t mind, senpai. I have to pull out these weeds anyway. You can keep me company for a while.”
“Huh. He wasn’t kidding,” Izuku says, disbelieving. “There are ninety-four games in total. There’s no way I’ll be able to afford all the sequels. I thought keeping track of the Marvel-verse was bad.” Unsurprisingly his computer doesn’t respond. Izuku glances around his room and wonders what he might be able to sell to get some kind of collection going beyond the main games. His old books are a start. Some clothes. A kidney, maybe, seeing as he has two of those and his mother always did say a person should never be greedy.
The ceiling fan whirs hypnotically above him. Shigaraki-senpai had lit up a little while explaining his game, so deep in the lore he’d forgotten to threaten Izuku even once. He’s a terrible teacher, to be honest. He jumps from topics way too quickly but it’d been fun to watch him get heated about fishing mini games. “He’s not as scary as he looks,” Izuku decides, spinning in his desk chair. Acting out, Senpai had said. Humming, Izuku hops off his chair and wanders into the living room. “Hey. Am I nosy?”
His mother looks up from her grocery list. “What do you mean, sweetheart?”
“Do I poke my nose into other people’s business a lot? Like, I dunno. Like a mother hen?”
Mom bites back an obvious smile. “When you were little I had to wait until you were napping to make dinner. If you saw me cry chopping onions you’d interrogate me about who was being mean.”
Izuku sighs and sits next to her. “Yeah, I thought so.”
“Why do you ask?”
“No reason,” Izuku says, patting her hand. “Would you mind teaching me how to bake cookies?”
Shigaraki-senpai is just as unenthused to see him the next day, although he does saunter into the garden after school without needing to be hunted down. Izuku’s already filling a watering can. He’d had the foresight to bring a baseball cap today since it’s getting so hot. “Hi, Senpai! I looked up the thing you told me about yesterday. Do you know some of them are out on PC too?”
Shigaraki-senpai scoffs. Izuku tries to remember if he’s ever not worn his grey hoodie and ripped jeans. “Obviously. But Steam only has the generic, popular ones. Get a Playstation, you filthy casual.”
“They’re so expensive, though,” Izuku says amicably. He shuts off the water and drops the hose to root around in his backpack. “Uhm, here. My mom made these for me but there are so many I thought I should share.”
Shigaraki-senpai scowls at the Tupperware being thrust at him. “The hell is this?”
“Cookies. Some are chocolate chip and some are just plain vanilla. Sorry if they’re a little weird. I mean, my mom did most of the work but I helped out and might have possibly gotten mixed up between baking powder and baking soda and I’m still not sure which I used but I’m pretty sure they’re edible even if some might feel kinda cakey but apparently some people like that but if you don’t I’m sorry also I should’ve lead with this but do you have any allergies cause the chocolate ones have peanut butter?”
Half a cookie’s gone before Izuku’s even got the lid fully open. “There’s not enough chocolate in these.”
“Sorry. I’ll double it next time.”
“If you ever give me raisins I’ll kill you,” Shigaraki-senpai says with his mouth full. “Raisin and oatmeal is a blight upon humanity. Nobody should be eating it under the age of eighty.”
“Okay, senpai.” He’s digging for another cookie despite not having finished the first one. Izuku thinks fondly of the balding stray cat that lives outside the movie theatre. It’s skinny and antisocial but Izuku had given it an onigiri once and now it screams at him for food every time he walks past. “How do you feel about cupcakes?”
Shigaraki-senpai squints. “Trying to bribe me into helping you dig through dirt? It’s not gonna work.”
“It’s not a bribe. Although, technically, Senpai, this is supposed to be your punishment. I’m only supposed to make sure you do it.”
“No. I want red velvet. Extra red. Makes it feel like you’re rending warm flesh off a corpse. Also extra icing.”
There are already crumbs everywhere. Izuku debates whether it would be rude to ask if Shigaraki-senpai gets much food at home; he’s pretty lanky, anyway, so he could probably use some extra snacks here and there. “Will you do something for me in return?”
“No.”
Be my friend, Izuku decides not to say just yet. “They destroyed Sin at the end of FFX, right? After that why did they all act like they didn’t need summoners anymore? Wouldn’t they still need summoners to send restless souls to the afterlife?”
“God, it’s like you didn’t even listen to the drama CDs,” Shigaraki-senpai says through a mouthful of food. “Listen up. I’ll start from the top so pay attention. I won’t go back and explain this again.”
“Okay, senpai,” Izuku hides a grin in his gardening gloves and gets to work.
“So, the green one,” says Dabi, apropos nothing. “Is he yours now or nah?”
Tenko’s spray paint hisses comfortingly in his hand. It’s their weekly art therapy, he’d told his father, which obviously means they spend every Saturday defacing public property and getting high on paint fumes. Tenko’s very carefully drawing a decapitated head. Dabi, the dullard, had just done another dick and called it a day. “I don’t know, Dabi. Are we planning on dabbling in slavery now?”
Twice struggles to open his chips. As usual he’s mostly here to hang out – his mother has expressively forbidden him from touching spray paint because he always manages to stain his clothes. “What green one? Is that a person? Or a bird?”
“Why would it be a bird?” Dabi says, gesturing for the bag. “It’s his new little boyfriend. They’ve spent every day together this week frolicking in the flowers.”
Tenko rolls his eyes. “What is this, elementary school? There are no flowers. All this was Nedzu’s idea of detention. I’m supposed to plant herbs until I learn how to be a functioning member of society or something.”
“Do you usually do detention? You never usually do detention,” says Twice. “Unless your detention is hanging out with us, I guess.”
Dabi hands over the open chip bag and roots around his pockets for a cigarette. “That’s right, Shigaraki. You never usually do detention. What gives?”
“Don’t be obtuse. You saw me make the deal with Midoriya. I do this idiotic punishment with him for a month and he gives me a highly coveted object.”
“What object?”
“That’s a secret.”
Twice hums thoughtfully. “Must be worth a lot for you to suffer through a whole month.”
“Oh, indubitably,” says Dabi. “Something priceless. A kiss, maybe? His hand in marriage? Or something less PG 13?”
“I’ll kill you both.”
Dabi ignores him. “Because if he’s not yours then I might just crash one of your not-dates. He seems fun. It’s the eyes that do it for me, I think. He’s like a sweet little bunny rabbit who wandered too far from home. Makes me want to take him out.”
“On a date or with a hitman?” asks Twice.
“To be decided.”
“Now wait just one fucking second,” Tenko says and slams his aerosol down. His gory art stays unfinished. “What makes you think I want you hanging around me any more than necessary?”
Twice offers him a chip. “You don’t have any other friends.”
“You aren’t my friends. You’re my sidekicks. My goons,” Tenko says and digs in the bag. For one of the whole ones, not the broken-up crumbs at the bottom. “If I see either of you while I do my prison labour I’ll stick a rake down your throat.”
Dabi grins like a shark. “See? Possessive. You want the bunny rabbit for yourself, don’t you? You like that he follows you around and calls you senpai.”
Tenko opens his mouth and then shuts it. “None of your business.”
“I can’t imagine anyone wanting to follow you around,” says Twice, crunching a chip. “Or any of us. On account of us all being nuts.”
“You’re nuts. I’m criminally insane,” Tenko says acidly. “And Dabi’s just an edgy twink with daddy issues.”
“We all have daddy issues, dipshit,” says Dabi.
“Can I have daddy issues if I don’t have a dad?” asks Twice.
“My point is,” Dabi continues, puffing a perfect smoke ring right into Tenko’s face. “You could have beaten up this Midoriya guy and taken your loot like a sensible person, but here you are meeting him in a secret little hideaway every day. And you’re getting antsy about him meeting your wonderful, coolest best friends in the whole world. So which is it, Tenko? Is he the thing that finally sets you on the straight and narrow? Or are you gonna go full serial killer and carve out his eyeballs to wear on a necklace?”
Huh. A set of human eyes would be kind of cool, actually, except the goop would get all coagulated and stick to his hoodie. Maybe if he got them cast in resin or something. “I’m not having a heart to heart with you idiots. What I do in my free time is nobody’s god damned business. Now hand me the red, I have to paint in the blood.”
They don’t bring it up again that weekend. Tenko keeps thinking about it, though. Stares at the wall and imagines Midoriya playing around in the garden, round-eyed and listening to Dabi’s slam poetry about spiders or whatever it is his tattoos say. Dabi’s weirdly popular with the cutesy types. Something about the swaggering, over the top bad boy vibe seems to draw them in, although the high cheekbones and pretty boy features obviously help.
The thought makes Tenko antsy. Bad antsy, like a fucked-up sugar rush, and he has to steal a mug out of the kitchen and go down the street to smash it. Breaking the pieces smaller and smaller slows the buzz. Doesn’t stop it, though, not completely, and on Monday he goes behind the cafeteria on time for once instead of making Midoriya wait for fifteen minutes.
“My mom said I could get a Playstation after finals next year if my grades are good!” Midoriya announces and comes jogging to meet him. He’s all bright and shiny. So very unguarded, like he’s decided for some reason that Tenko’s not a threat. “Also she said no to cupcakes because apparently I eat too many sweets but if I ask again this weekend maybe she’ll say yes. Is there something on my face?”
Tenko grabs his cheeks. They’re remarkably squishy. Midoriya squeaks and goes limp, like a ragdoll. “Senpai? Why are you pinching me?”
It’s like holding a stress ball. Tenko smushes him, thinking of one of those small wrinkly dogs that looks like a lump of happy cookie dough. “Disgusting.”
Midoriya blinks, bewildered. “Why? What did I do?”
“You’re a mascot character. You have fucking doe eyes. And the hair and freckles are overkill, it’s like some character designer had to turn a stuffed animal into a human and slapped some green on there at the last minute.”
Midoriya opens his mouth, and then shuts it. “Senpai. Are you trying to – are you saying I’m, uhm, cute?”
He’s already going pink. A giant overripe strawberry with unruly leaves and stress ball face. Tenko fights the urge to bite it, instead spreading his crusty hands out to take advantage of the sudden body heat radiating off Midoriya’s fluffy, embarrassed head. “Would you enjoy being set on fire?”
“Uh, no?”
“Fuck. I wouldn’t enjoy setting you on fire either.” It’s a weird discovery. So far there’s one person on earth Tenko doesn’t like the thought of committing mild arson onto, and that’s his dog. Midoriya is not his dog. There are some similarities, though, Tenko thinks helplessly. Like the round button eyes and the overall fuzziness. And the way they both seem to light up when they see him, for reasons Tenko will probably die before he understands.
“Senpai, your nails.”
Somewhat maliciously, Tenko squeezes once more before he lets go. Midoriya’s giving him gooey calf eyes that make gross furry caterpillars crawl around in Tenko’s stomach, tickling his insides and climbing up his oesophagus to get stuck in his throat. He tries leering horribly. It clearly doesn’t have its intended effect because Midoriya just gives him a shy little smile back.
Ghastly. Ghastly and bizarrely pleasant, like the gasoline fumes coming off the petrol station near his house that he always imagines blowing up. The soft afternoon sun makes Midoriya look all warm and cherubic. It’s revolting. Tenko wants to grab his face and play with it again, squeeze him like a grape until all the cute comes leaking out of his skull and drips all over the grass.
He doesn’t. Instead he stuffs his hands in his pockets and kicks some dirt half-heartedly onto Midoriya’s shoes. “Stop staring at me,” he demands. “Dabi was right. I should put your eyeballs on a necklace.”
“Senpai.”
“What?”
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me. That you don’t want to set me on fire.”
Fuck. It is. In fact it’s the nicest thing he can remember saying to anyone lately. “Don’t get used to it. I’m fickle. Eventually I’ll change my mind.”
Midoriya laughs and kneels in the basil patch. “Okay, Senpai. I believe you.”
He’s lying. They both know he’s lying. Tenko considers pushing him over but for once keeps his hands to himself, settling for a half-hearted kick to Midoriya’s ankle that barely makes him wobble. “I don’t care. You’re dumb. Now hurry up and plant your weeds or whatever so I can go the fuck home.”
“Okay, Senpai.”
“And stop smiling at me.”
“Okay, Senpai.”
Right. Yeah. So this is both unforeseen and a huge nuisance.
Tenko scabs a lot. He always has, even before his eczema got bad enough that his skin splitting just became a fact of life. And even as a kid, even as a tiny munchkin sitting in his mother’s lap asking for hugs, he’s always picked at them. It annoys his family endlessly. But it’s a compulsion – the second he finds a blood clot he can’t concentrate on anything else, needing to scratch and pull until he sees blood and ooze seeping out of him and into the world. He’s covered in small scars. Hundreds of tiny little blemishes that add up to make him look like a mottled freak, a patchwork of badly-healed injuries to match his badly-healed insides.
No, that’s not the point. The point is he can’t leave well enough alone. He sees a gash and he needs to poke it until it gets worse. And Midoriya is a disease. A brain-worm symbiote lodged in his brain that keeps whispering about baked goods and sunshine. It’s maddening. It’s driving him closer to insanity than he already is and Tenko spends every day looking forward to detention.
He gets jittery. He does what he always does, which is obsess and ponder and get so full of weird energy he’s twitchy all the time. He goes to school for once with the intention of stepping into a classroom. Not his classroom, obviously. Midoriya’s. 1A, full of little baby-faced freshman who squeak as he pushes them aside, and Midoriya keeps smiling even when Tenko snarls at the pointy blond boy who dares ask who he is. Even when he drags Midoriya away from his friends to eat lunch in the basement. Even when he hides stolen konbini ice cream in the pocket of his hoodie and it melts the moment Midoriya tries to unwrap it.
The days blend into weeks. Tenko blows off his friends, half because Dabi’s all smug but mostly because afternoons now mean sweets and grass and listening to Midoriya’s nonsense rambling about whatever Youtube vortex he got sucked into last night. “Izuku,” he says one day out of nowhere. Midoriya pauses in pulling up a weed, going bright red under his baseball cap so fast Tenko thinks he must get dizzy. “Deku…? Hm. No. I don’t like Deku. Izuku’s better.”
Midoriya squirms pleasantly. He scratches his cheek, leaving a smudge of dirt Tenko doesn’t tell him about. “I don’t mind either one. Some of my friends call me Deku.”
Tenko knows. That’s the reason he hates it. Sharing is not his forte. “No. Izuku.”
“Okay,” Izuku says meekly. He futzes around with a pebble, trowel still in one hand. “Do you, uhm. I think the seedlings are ready. Do you want to help me plant them? Shig–” He pauses, looks at the ground. “Uhm, Tenko-senpai?”
Tenko nods. His name sounds nice in Izuku’s mouth. Better without the honorific, he’s sure, but this is good enough, for now. “I’m gonna end up killing them.”
“I don’t think you will,” Izuku says and pats the ground next to him. “But even if you do it’s okay. I know we can figure it out.”
“What, he lets you walk home alone? How very unlike him.”
Izuku looks around. Nobody seems to be on the street with him, aside from someone’s pet dog whom Izuku thinks is probably not fluent in Japanese. Something moves in the alley behind him. He turns to say hi but instead of a face he’s greeted with a lungful of cigarette smoke. He coughs and tries not to wince too obviously. “Ah, hello. Dabi-senpai, right?”
He’s with another boy Izuku doesn’t recognise. This one has very short hair and a scar on his forehead but he seems friendly enough. “Hi. I’m Jin. Or Twice. Actually I don’t know why people call me Twice but they do. I think it’s because I repeat myself. But that’s what people call me. You can call me that too if you want.”
Izuku’s endeared despite himself. “Which would you prefer?”
“Either. Neither. Both are fine.”
Dabi snaps his fingers. He’s got a new piercing since the last time Izuku saw him, one right across the bridge of his nose so it looks like he’s frowning. “I asked you a question, little bunny. Where’s Shigaraki?”
Izuku tries not to look visibly embarrassed at being called a bunny, especially by an older boy who seems not to understand personal space and insists on leaning over him like a gargoyle. “I’m not sure. I said goodbye to him about twenty minutes ago. I suppose he must be home by now.”
“So he came to school.”
“Yes?” Izuku tries. “Did you not see him today? I thought he spent most of his time hanging out with you guys.”
“Not anymore,” says Twice. “Nowadays he spends all his time with you or brooding by himself. Or poking around behind the cafeteria.”
Dabi glares at him, but Twice is too busy looking at the neighbour’s dog to notice. “What Twice means is that Shigaraki seems real keen on seeing you every day. Which is weird. I don’t know if you noticed but he’s not a people person. He’s barely a person.”
“Of course he’s a person,” Izuku says, bewildered. “I, uhm. I’m not forcing him into doing detention with me, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“No, I know. That’s the part that’s bothering me,” Dabi says, taking a drag of his cigarette. “Shigaraki doesn’t do anything he doesn’t want to. Whatever that thing is you promised him, he would have beaten you up and taken it if he really needed it. So what gives?”
“What?”
“I’m asking why you keep him around,” Dabi leers. It’s a bit less pleasant than when Tenko-senpai does it, mainly because Izuku feels like Dabi might actually put out his cigarette on Izuku’s forehead. “Shigaraki’s a freak. An outcast. He’s got a bad attitude and a few hundred screws loose and the only reason he’s not in juvie is because he keeps getting lucky. He’s no Adonis, either. Nobody in their right mind would be interested in him. So what is it? Charity? Or do you just like the idea of taming the rabid wolf?”
Izuku frowns. Dabi’s a full head taller than him but Izuku stares him down anyway, hands on his hips and not even caring that he has to crane his neck to make eye contact. “Those are some awful things to say about a friend.”
Dabi barks a laugh. “He’s not my friend. We just exist in the same space.”
“Well, you’re his friend, and it would crush him to hear you talk about him like that. And for your information,” Izuku says, supremely unimpressed, “he is not a freak. He’s a bit of a loner but there’s nothing wrong with that. He’s funny and smart and honestly pretty nice if you ignore all the gore talk, and I’ll have you know he looks just fine. I like spending time with him. I like that he’s comfortable enough around me to hang out every day.”
Dabi narrows his eyes. Izuku glares back, eyes almost watering with the effort of not blinking, but all Dabi does is take another drag and step back abruptly. It’s like he just flips a switch; the attitude disappears and he’s back to being slouchy and blasé. “Little firecracker. No wonder he likes you.”
Twice starts giggling. “Aw, Dabi, you got scolded by a freshman.”
“Shut up.”
Izuku blinks. The emotional whiplash makes his righteous indignation fizzle out before it can get above even a simmer. It feels like he’s just past a test he never studied for and didn’t know he had. “Oh! Oh my gosh, I’m sorry. This is a shovel talk, isn’t it?”
Dabi does a double take. “What the hell gave you that idea?”
He wasn’t being mean. That’s just how they talk about themselves – Tenko-senpai had called himself a bad guy within ten minutes of Izuku knowing him. He still does that. Most of what he says is normal enough, just distorted through a heavy filter of self-deprecation. “I’m sorry for getting upset. You haven’t seen Tenko-senpai in ages, of course you’d want to know how he’s doing. Especially since he maybe seems a little distant nowadays.”
Dabi’s face scrunches up like he bit into a lemon. “You’re out of your mind.”
“I promise I’m not stringing him along or – or thinking this is charity or making fun of him or anything like that. I really do just think he’s cool. Please don’t worry about him. And I, uhm, I’ll remind him that you miss him. But I won’t tell him you said anything since I feel like you guys don’t like to talk about that kind of stuff out loud?”
Twice’s giggling turns into a full-on belly laugh. “Oh my god, Dabi, he sees right through you.”
Dabi sucks his cigarette so hard it burns all the way to the filter. “Shut up. This is fucking stupid. You’re stupid. This was a waste of time.”
Izuku smiles in a way he hopes is placating. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be rude.”
“We’re not friends,” Dabi says and throws his butt on the ground, clearly doing his absolute best to look insulted. “Come on, Twice. Let’s go vandalise some public property.”
“Have fun,” Izuku says. “Although maybe it would be nice to practice some positive self-talk sometimes? Or not. Whatever you’re comfortable with.”
Dabi makes an audible noise of disgust and walks off. Twice puts both hands on Izuku’s shoulders, smile so wide he looks like the top of his face might come off. “Listen. I will buy you snacks for the rest of the year if you come hang out with us and embarrass Dabi more often.”
A twig bounces off his head but Twice doesn’t flinch. Twice cackles and runs after Dabi, taking off down the street to no doubt cause havoc somewhere downtown. Izuku cups his hands around his mouth to call after them. “For what it’s worth, it’s really nice that he has friends like you!”
Dabi flips him off without looking back. Izuku laughs, already best planning how to ask his mother to bake enough cupcakes to feed Tenko-senpai’s whole gang.
“Ah,” he says to the neighbour’s dog. “I should have asked what they preferred.”
The dog yips. Izuku hums and reaches over the fence to give it a pat. “You’re right. I’ll just have to keep experimenting. I’m bound to get something right.”
He makes sure to smile at them after that. Twice beams back, but Dabi always scoffs and turns away with a clear indication he doesn’t want to chat. Not that Izuku would really get the chance, to be fair, because nowadays Tenko-senpai whisks him away whenever Izuku has a spare moment. He’s asked Izuku to skip class with him more than once. Izuku gently declines, but he’d be lying if he said the thought of goofing off in town together doesn’t sound tempting.
Uraraka asks him about it once during homeroom, whispering like they’re trading secrets. “Deku-kun, are you and that senior exclusive?”
Izuku hums. He’s watching Todoroki stare out a window. Tenko-senpai had mentioned Dabi’s younger brother being in 1A; Todoroki’s not outwardly a rebel but he does give off the same vibe of being angry at life. Izuku should ask him to hang out sometime. “Sorry? Exclusive to what?”
“You know,” she says, offering him a Pocky. “Are you two dating? He seems to like you. He’s always barging in here to drag you away to goodness knows where.”
Izuku feels himself go pink. “We’re not, like, together. Do you really think he likes me?”
She raises one eyebrow. “Deku-kun. He’s like your shadow. And he won’t let anyone even come near you. Which is really unfair, by the way, because I saw you give him brownies even though I was making sad eyes at you all day hoping you’d share.”
He laughs. “Sorry. I’ll ask my mom to bake extra next time. Also, do you think he likes me, or do you think he like-likes me?”
She gives him another Pocky. “I think you should ask him and see.”
Huh. He ponders this all through class, still lost in thought when Tenko-senpai shows up at the lunch bell to grab his wrist and pull him away to some lonely corner. They sit in a stairwell and unwrap konbini onigiri that Izuku’s pretty sure were stolen. “Tenko-senpai.”
“What?”
“Are you busy this weekend?”
“I have nefarious plans.”
Izuku fidgets. “Do you want to go to somewhere together? After your nefarious plans.”
Tenko-senpai blinks at him. Izuku twiddles his thumbs, embarrassed but hopeful, and patiently waits for an answer. “Arcade.”
Izuku grins into his onigiri like a giddy idiot. “Okay! Arcade it is.”
“Mom, what’s the definition of a date?”
Mom drops her laundry and zeroes in on him immediately. “Who are you going on a date with?”
“A senior. And I don’t know if it’s a date. I just asked if he wanted to hang out,” Izuku says, shuffling his feet. “He’s nice. Uhm. Kind of nice, anyway. Incidentally can I go out today and also how do I look?”
“You look great, honey,” she says and comes over to smooth down his hair. “Are those the new jeans I got you? Make sure to come home by nine, okay? And no hanky-panky, and if you’re ever uncomfortable you should say no and insist he respects your boundaries because a no is a no and if he doesn’t understand that then he’s not worth your time and if that happens you come straight home and tell me so I can –”
Izuku hugs her and scrambles out the door. “Alright sure gotcha I have to go right now immediately bye!”
Tenko-senpai’s waiting outside the arcade, loitering in a corner and scaring away children by leering at them. Izuku runs up to him, feeling weird and shy and bubbly. “Hi! Is that a new hoodie?”
“I stole it.” He might or might not be joking. One day Izuku will be able to tell. “I have the high score in Street Fighter. You can watch me defend it.”
It’s nice, for a date that neither of them is sure is a date. If anything it’s Izuku who keeps pushing boundaries; Tenko-senpai keeps his hands to himself, hidden in his pockets when he’s not playing games or swearing at the claw machine. Izuku follows him around feeling like a puppy. He chatters constantly, mostly from nerves, but Tenko-senpai doesn’t tell him to be quiet. He wins Izuku a tiny stuffed piglet. Izuku clutches it in one hand and marvels at its springy tail.
Dusk falls, that hour of golden sunlight when Musutafu seems like it’s getting ready for bed. Tenko-senpai picks at his skin. He’s going to make himself bleed. Slowly, carefully, Izuku reaches out to hold his hand.
Tenko-senpai freezes up. It seems like he pulls back on instinct but stops himself halfway. “You were getting scratchy,” Izuku says, as if that’s a normal excuse. Tenko-senpai’s hand is dry and papery but Izuku doesn’t mind. “Can we, uhm. Can we go get ice cream?”
Tenko-senpai says nothing. Hesitantly, though, he lets his hand relax in Izuku’s.
Izuku smiles so hard his face hurts. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
Grass and dirt. Bright sun and bugs. Basil has a smell, Tenko notices idly, a herby nose-tickle that makes him crave pasta. Izuku’s playing with a ladybug. It’s cute enough to almost distract from the breeze on Tenko’s skin – he’s taken his hoodie off for the first time because the weather is boiling, but Izuku hasn’t commented on the scars up and down his arms or Tenko’s wiry stealth-build body. He might not even have noticed. Tenko buries his fingers in the dirt, feeling like a raw exposed nerve. Soil collects under his nails as he digs out a weed. Less to help the plants grow and more because Izuku’d scolded him for tearing up herbs; some plants are fine to destroy but not others. And worms are off limits. No pulling the legs off of bugs or Izuku’ll get upset.
The ladybug flies off. Izuku pouts after it. Tenko has the brief urge to catch it for him but stays where he is. The sun’s still beating down. Like being in a desert without gear so he’s taking heat damage every few seconds, except instead of being sensible and fucking off indoors he’s sitting still sitting here because that’s where Izuku is. They should hold hands. But Tenko’s sweaty and covered in dirt, and anyway his skin’s been acting up so he’s just going to gross Izuku out.
Something brushes against his knuckles. Izuku’s watching him, chin in one hand and silly baseball cap casting a shadow over his eyes. “Is everything alright?”
Tenko breaks up a small chunk of soil. “It’s the fifth.”
“Yes?”
“No more detention.”
Izuku blinks, and then smiles. “Oh! Has it been a month already? I didn’t even notice. I bet Principal Nedzu’ll be really happy you stuck this one out.”
“Who cares.”
“He will, I’m sure.” Izuku doesn’t stand up. He doesn’t declare their arrangement over and high-tail it home, and Tenko’s afraid to bring it up in case the spell breaks. “I think gardening was actually growing on me, although I won’t miss the heat. I think I’m a little tanned.”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe it’ll be nice to go shopping or something. You know, to celebrate. Do you want to take the train to Tokyo? I bet it won’t be too crowded if we run there right after school.”
Tenko stares at him. “My sentence is up.”
“I know.”
“You don’t have to be my jailer anymore.”
Izuku touches his hand again. “I know.”
Tenko lets him lace their fingers together. He’s being gentle even though Tenko sort of wants him to grab the raw patches on his hands and pull. “There never was any rare loot, was there?”
Izuku looks sheepish. “Sorry.”
“You tried to trick me into hanging out with you.”
“Sorry.”
“I knew. You’re not a good liar.”
“Yeah. My mom says so too. But you still hung out with me even though you knew I was lying?”
Tenko chews the inside of his cheek. “Maybe.”
“Senpai.”
“What.”
“I like you.”
He’s gone all endearingly pink, pleased and bashful with dirt on his face and his freckles stark in the light. He feels like late summer. Doesn’t even seem to want an answer, just happy to say what’s on his mind while they sit on the ground with nameless plants growing between them. A bee drones loudly past. Tenko feels like he’s staring into the sun, burning his retinas for no reason other than the light looks nice.
Izuku squeezes his fingers. Tenko lowers his gaze at their muddy knuckles locked carefully together. “Gross,” he says, but conspicuously doesn’t let go of Izuku’s hand.
Hot again. A Sunday. Figures on his desk from Akihabara with Izuku. Tenko’s only at home because he’d realised, somewhere in the back of his mind, the danger of scaring Izuku away by demanding his time too often. Dabi’s Sundays are off-limits. Busy visiting his sick mother, and Twice has a job at the ramen joint near his house because his father walked out and they’re poor. Frankly Tenko envies him. He’d take the shitty one bedroom apartment and nice mom over his personal hell-hole any day. Maybe he should officially become a runaway, he thinks distantly. “I could fit in an air vent. I bet Twice wouldn’t mind me crawling around in the walls.”
Mon wags his stubby little tail. Tenko pats his cheek, absently admiring the plush softness of his fur. It’s like touching a sentient carpet. Must have just come back from the groomer’s – Kotaro takes better care of the dog than he does his children, which Tenko supposes he can understand. Mon’s a better person than anyone else in the family. “Should I get you a spiked collar? Something to make you look real tough? Do you want a sword?”
“Will you stop talking to the dog?” The sliding door squeaks open. Kotaro frowns at him from the living room, still in his work clothes and tie balled up in his fist. “Don’t you have homework to finish? Did you even go to school this week?”
Tenko bares his teeth. Kotaro makes him twitchy, makes him want to grow his nails out and pick at his own skin. “I go to school every day, dad. You made it clear what you’d do if I didn’t.”
“You’re wasting your education. I send you to school so you can learn to become a functional adult who doesn’t play video games alone all day.”
Eh. Overrated. School’s main appeal is that it isn’t here, and anyway Tenko’s life plan involves permanently squatting in an abandoned building with his group of misfits, assuming the air vent thing doesn’t work out. He’s got a packed suitcase hidden under his bed. He’s just waiting to turn eighteen. “You don’t like my video games? Want to spend more time as a family? Shame. We could’ve had board game nights if we still had a Monopoly set. But you cracked that over my head a few years ago, didn’t you? I might still have a scar shaped like a hotel. Wanna see?”
Kotaro scowls. Tenko forces himself not to flinch when he raises his hand but all he does is shut the door. “Go put on your eczema cream. Your face is peeling off, you look terrible.”
Tenko leers at his retreating back. “My outside matches my inside, don’t you think?” he asks Mon. Mon licks his hand. “Oh, do I taste good? When I die you can eat me so I don’t have to be buried next to him. How about that?”
Mon snuffles and waddles off. His steps are wonky; the arthritis in his back legs must be getting worse, just like the vet said. Old man problems. It makes Tenko’s insides feel heavy. Droopy, somehow, like his skin’s going to liquefy and fall off his skeleton in thick gloops. Maybe he should have an early funeral for himself when Mon kicks the bucket. A little dog-sized coffin for Tenko to use as a pillow while he hangs out in the dirt alone. Dabi would enjoy burying him. Twice would have to do the eulogy, since Kotaro probably wouldn’t show up.
He sways to his feet. Scratches his neck all the way through the yard and out of the front gate, humming under his breath as a young mother drags her toddler across the street to avoid him. He skirts around the park and into a little apartment block with cracked walls. Nobody stops him. Up the stairs, one by one, until he gets to a blue door with a cute round bell.
Izuku answers in a yukata and one earbud still in. “Tenko-senpai! What are you doing here?”
Tenko shrugs. Izuku’s smiling, which is pleasant for reasons he will not be examining anytime soon. “Bored. Came to read manga.”
“Of course, let me just tell my mom.” The door swings open fully. The inside is cramped full of knick-knacks and homey. Tenko wanders in. “How did you know where I live?”
“You told me. You said you lived in the apartments around the corner from the park with the yellow slide.”
“And checked the nameplate out front?”
“No. I looked in every window until I saw comic book posters.”
Izuku’s smile widens. “Senpai, I’m pretty sure you can get arrested for that. You know next time if you want to meet up you can just call me.”
His ears are red, Tenko notes, fascinated. There’s a lady on the couch who looks up when he comes in. She does an admirable job not being visibly creeped out when he grins, instead waving hello and telling him to help himself to anything in the kitchen. Tenko decides instead to explore Izuku’s room. He barges in and starts pawing through drawers with rude curiosity, not even trying to look contrite when Izuku comes in with a tray of snacks and some iced drinks.
“Senpai,” he says, forever long-suffering. “I don’t mind you looking at my things but are you planning to put everything back?”
“No.”
“Senpai.”
“Maybe,” Tenko concedes. Something catches his eye. He pulls it out of the bookshelf; it’s a hardcover with an illustration of a familiar blond boy on the front. Material Ultimania. It’s a little scuffed around the edges – not brand new, then, and seems to have been flipped through many times. “Izuku.”
“Yes, senpai?”
“You have the FFVII remake art book. The official one.”
“Yes, senpai.”
Tenko puts it down, betrayed. “You said you were a newb.”
“Yes.”
“I explained the plots to you. All of them.”
“It’s Final Fantasy, senpai. I think everyone and their mothers have played those games,” Izuku says kindly and set the tea tray on his messy desk. “But you seemed eager to tell me about them, and anyway I like hearing you talk.”
Lies upon lies. First the fake present and now this. If Tenko were a lesser man he’d be embarrassed but he comforts himself by waiting until Izuku sits down and then pushing him over into the pillows. “Filthy PC gamer. Disgusting.”
“I told you I’d get a Playstation eventually.”
“Scrub.”
“Bring yours over and we can play together sometime.”
He’s still half-lying down on his mountain of pillows. Tenko gives into impulse and flops over onto him, revelling in the little breathless oof he gets in response. Izuku’s warm and ridiculously comfortable. Like one of those character body pillows but with a few more bones.
Izuku swats at him half-heartedly. “I can’t breathe.”
“Die, then.”
“Senpai, please.”
Tenko rolls off. Allows Izuku to curl up into his side, head on Tenko’s shoulder and fingers hesitantly tangling themselves in the fabric of his hoodie. His hair tickles Tenko’s nose. Soft and fluffy and smelling of lemon-ginger shampoo, like a fizzy drink with too much sugar made to frustrate parents and delight little kids. Izuku’s probably great with kids. Loved by kids and animals and Tenkos, despite being a little liar who plays games on a beat-up laptop with a keyboard and mouse.
The ceiling fan whirs lazily above them. “You know I’m a bad influence.”
“I know.”
“And a weirdo.”
“Yeah.”
“And a delinquent.”
“That’s fine.”
“This is your last chance. I’ll take over the world and install you on the throne as my evil bride.”
“My mom says I have to wait until I’m at least twenty before I think about marriage.”
“Fine. Also why are you so warm? You’re like a space heater. This is unbearable.”
“You’re welcome to move.”
Tenko doesn’t. Izuku’s fingers are cautiously walking up and down Tenko’s chest, pausing to toy with the strings on his hoodie and wind them loosely around his knuckles. He’s surprisingly heavy for his size. Tenko skates his fingers across Izuku’s ribs, enjoying the little huff of laughter that puffs across the bare skin of his neck. Izuku tucks his face under Tenko’s jaw. It feels like he’s smiling, and Tenko considers, for a moment, putting his hand under Izuku’s yukata and tickling him until he’s a giggling mess. He’s already pleasantly squirmy. Tenko bets he can get Izuku scream-laughing in under five minutes, but that would mean peeling him off Tenko’s side and that’s unacceptable at the moment.
“You never said why you got detention,” he says suddenly. “You had a black eye.”
Izuku goes still. When he speaks his voice is embarrassed. “I may have gotten in a fight.”
Well then. The sweetness surrounding Izuku abruptly changes colour around the edges, mixing some hints of spice that Tenko wants to pick apart and explore. “Why?”
“It was just some stupid upperclassmen. They were picking on a younger girl and I, uhm. I can’t leave well enough alone so I might have got in between them.”
“And gotten your ass kicked.”
Izuku’s quiet for a very long time. “So, this guy in my class, Kacchan. He used to pick on me, and he does Muay Thai and stuff, except last year I finally got sick of it and we fought and I sort of got used to hitting back really hard cause we still scuffle sometimes and long story short I might have completely misjudged my opponents and broken one guy’s arm?”
Tenko can’t help it. He starts laughing, a frankly ugly noise that wheezes like a raspy door hinge in the wind. Izuku whines but Tenko cackles harder. Hugs him close, feeling like there’s a bubble filling up his chest, bouncing around between his ribs and sending sparks of tingly static up his throat and to the tips of his fingers. He can feel how red Izuku’s getting. The heat radiates off his face and Tenko takes it all greedily, burying himself in green feathery hair and wrapping himself around Izuku’s torso like an affectionate squid. Izuku squeezes him back. Presses close like he’s trying to climb into Tenko’s skin, and for once Tenko quite likes the idea of opening up and letting someone poke around in his insides. He thinks he’d do it now if Izuku asked. Crack open his own ribs and show off the shrivelled up thing beating in there, or maybe pull Izuku in so they can meld into some awful many-limbed monstrosity. Or they can just stay like this. Tangled up in a single bed too small for two people, slightly sweaty in the August heat but too comfy to move. Izuku pulls away just long enough to gaze up at him. All starry and wide-eyed as he plants a kiss to the corner of Tenko’s mouth.
“I like your laugh,” he says shyly. Tenko doesn’t believe him but decides not to argue, more interested in rolling them both over so they can kiss again. Soft and curious. Clumsy, and Tenko’s sure he’s sorely in need of a Chapstick but the way Izuku winds his fingers in Tenko’s hair makes him think he doesn’t mind. “Senpai,” Izuku says against his cheek. “I really, really like you.”
Tenko swallows. I like you too is on the tip of his tongue but the words won’t make it past his teeth, swimming around and tickling his gums and filling his mouth with gloopy syrup. He swallows it back down. Changes the phrase around a little so it’s easier to say and he can let it loose without needing to try. “I’m keeping you.”
Izuku seems to understand. He pulls Tenko close to kiss him some more, soft and warm and smelling like shampoo. “Okay, senpai. You can keep me. I’d like that.”
Dabi fiddles with his Gameboy. Shouto gave it to him; he’s been doing that a lot lately. Giving him things without saying a word, seeking him out for no reason despite their father expressly forbidding the golden boy from corrupting himself with Dabi’s influence. Dabi’s sure the Midoriya kid has something to do with it. He’d say something but Twice would try to give him a hug, and anyway Dabi supposes the situation is weird but not really unpleasant enough to complain about. Also Shigaraki’d get mad at him. He and Midoriya are still attached at the hip and Shigaraki gets twitchy when anyone talks to his boyfriend for too long.
Speaking of which. There’s a horrible four-legged abomination crab-walking towards them wearing a hoodie and two pairs of jeans. A grey mop of hair’s sticking out of it. Dabi eyeballs it, and a second green head pops out of the collar.
“Sorry,” Midoriya says, having the decency to look shame-faced. “It’s getting cold out and he insisted.”
Disgusting. Twice, the sentimental fool, is giggling at them as if two people wearing the same hoodie isn’t both stupid and hideously impractical. For his own sanity Dabi ignores them. “I found a statue of some old rich guy outside the new mall.”
Shigaraki covers Midoriya’s ears. “We’re gonna deface it, right?”
“Obviously we’re gonna deface it.”
“Good.” He allows Midoriya, with some reluctance, to wiggle out of their shared hoodie and regain his personhood. “We’re getting dinner after?”
Midoriya pats down his windswept hair. “Yes, Senpai.”
“If you don’t show up I’ll hunt you down and drag you there.”
“Yes, Senpai.”
Shigaraki turns to Dabi. “We’re going to say goodbye in an extremely graphic fashion.”
“It is now time for me to leave,” Dabi announces and pulls Twice along with him. He shuts his eyes for good measure. Twice follows him around the corner of the library building, humming some sappy love song under his breath and looking inordinately happy about the whole thing. “Nauseating. I give them another week before they break up or he kills Midoriya in his sleep.”
“I don’t think he’ll kill him,” Twice says amicably. “I think Midoriya’s a good influence on him, in fact. Shigaraki’s been a little nicer these days.”
“I know. I hate it.”
Twice grins. “Bet Shigaraki’s trying to convince Midoriya to ditch us right now.”
“The fuck he is,” Dabi says and shoves Twice aside to poke his head around the corner. The idiot lovers are doing something awful. Cuddling, insofar as two people can cuddle while standing up, foreheads pressed together and hands intertwined while they say goodbye. Dabi almost gags. Almost, because he’s also trying to eavesdrop and doesn’t want them to hear him.
“We can leave,” Shigaraki whispers, clutching Midoriya’s fingers. “They won’t notice until we’re halfway down the street.”
Gently, Midoriya bumps their noses together. “They’re your friends. You should spend time with them too sometimes. They’d be bored without you.”
“Ugh.”
“They’re important to you, aren’t they, Senpai? You like spending time with them.”
Shigaraki scowls. “I suppose.”
“Then you should treasure them. Go have fun. I’ll see you right after.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Shigaraki gives him a kiss. It’s revolting. The kind of gooey innocent smooch that makes Dabi roll his eyes, saccharine sweet and exactly the kind of thing they make fun of him for every time he lets his squishy side slip.
But he’s smiling. Soft and small and ridiculous, but happy.
This time, for once, Dabi decides he’ll let it slide.
