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“Yo, Aizawa!” Hizashi called with a wave, making a beeline towards Shouta, who sat frowning at his computer. Flopping dramatically into a chair, Hizashi sprawled his upper half across his own desk, next to Shouta’s, and sighed loudly. His perpetually grumpy best friend side-eyed him irritably but didn’t ask what was up. That was okay, though. Hizashi could give him a little nudge. He had long since honed his skills in teasing the correct responses from Shouta.
“Your class, man~!”
“Who do I need to expel?” Shouta grunted, eyes back on his computer screen.
“What ? No. They’re good kids, yo!” Shouta knew this, of course. Hizashi had never seen him so fond of a class before. It was cute! Hizashi really needed to get some tips from them—the way they’d stolen Shouta’s heart when Hizashi had been trying for years, it was more than a little frustrating, yo!
“Then what’s the problem?” Shouta asked. Hizashi rolled his chair a little closer, hoping to tear Shouta’s attention away from the computer screen. He wanted those dark eyes on him , thank you!
“They get distracted easily, is all.”
“So give them detention.”
Hizashi gasped dramatically. “I could never!” He prided himself on being the cool teacher. It took a lot for Hizashi to dish out detentions.
“Then why are you wasting my time?”
“Wasting your time—” Hizashi whined. “Sho, you wound me, man! Don’t you wanna know what the little listeners were up to?”
Shouta didn’t answer straight away, typing an answer to an email instead. Hizashi could have given Eraserhead a run for his money, staring until the stoic man sighed and conceded. “Not really.”
“They gave us a ship name! Can you imagine?!” Hizashi said as if Shouta hadn’t spoken. Unplanting his face from the desk, he gave a too-loud laugh that bordered on nervous, his gaze still fixed on Shouta, scrutinising his face for any reaction.
“…What’s a ship name?” Shouta asked after a painfully long pause.
“I forget how out of touch you are, man! A shipping name! You know, where you think two people would be cute together and you combine their names and—”
“Right,” Shouta interrupted, scowling at his screen. Was it Hizashi’s imagination, or was his hand clutching the mouse a little too tightly?
Weird .
“Chill, man. It’s just harmless fun,” Hizashi said quickly because Shouta seemed pissed . When Hizashi had thought to mention it, he’d hoped for some indication that his long-standing crush was reciprocated, but this? It almost seemed… Surely Shouta wasn’t homophobic? Sure, neither of them had ever really discussed it despite being friends for fifteen years, but Hizashi didn’t think he could have misjudged Shouta that much… could he?
Shouta merely grunted, his eyebrows pinched together harshly in a way that was bound to give him premature wrinkles. Hizashi liked to think he was fairly fluent in Aizawa Shouta, so he knew he wasn’t imagining it: Shouta was annoyed. Hizashi just hoped he was wrong about why. He didn’t think his heart could take it if he learned Shouta was bigoted after all this time. After years of growing unrequited feelings.
“Dude, what’s up?”
“Nothing.” Shouta said through gritted teeth, which couldn’t have been less convincing if he’d tried.
Swallowing the lump that had formed in his throat, Hizashi realised he was going to have to ask. He hated doubting Shouta, but… well, his reaction to a harmless comment wasn’t particularly promising. “Sho. Do you have a problem with—” Shouta twisted his gaze back to Hizashi so quickly that Hizashi cut off with a wobble.
“No,” Shouta said sharply, knowing exactly where Hizashi was going with his question. Hizashi rubbed at his chest in relief, shocked by how he could feel his heart pounding beneath his fingers.
Man, that had been a scary few seconds.
“Then what?” Hizashi hated how quietly the question came out. He was a voice hero, damn it. Being loud was kind of his thing !
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does,” he argued and, ah, that was better, his volume was increasing with the passion of his words. “Tell me what’s bothering you.”
Was it Hizashi’s imagination, or was Shouta blushing?
“It’s nothing.”
“Shouta!”
Shouta scowled at him. His cheeks were definitely flushed, though Hizashi couldn’t be sure it wasn’t due to his anger. “I don’t understand why you would tell me this when you know how I feel,” he finally snapped.
Hizashi frowned, his sunglasses slipping down his nose as he blinked owlishly at him. He was completely lost now, as if Shouta had started speaking one of the few languages Hizashi couldn’t speak a word of. Maybe it was Alien? It sure sounded like Alien. “Sorry, what?”
“I told you how I felt, and you rejected me, so why are you telling me this like it’s no big deal?”
What?
What?!
Hizashi opened and closed his mouth, suddenly feeling remarkably like a fish out of water. Was he understanding this correctly? He couldn’t be, because Shouta was making literally no sense.
Not even a smidgen of it.
Zero.
Zilch.
“What… What are you talking about?” There was his voice being barely above a whisper again. It cracked around the edges, betraying the confident persona he tried so hard to always maintain.
Shouta looked at him like he was an idiot, but there was hurt there too, masked by his irritation.
“Just drop it,” Shouta said coldly, but how could he? Hizashi had been in love with Shouta for so many years, but he’d never thought there was a chance. Now it sounded like there was , and Shouta was telling him to drop it?
Absolutely not.
“I will not,” he said, his gaze defiantly locked with Shouta’s. “What do you mean I rejected you?”
“You know what I mean,” Shouta said, glaring back. Both men had forgotten they were in the staff room, with a high probability of another staff member invading their private conversation. Right now, only the two of them existed in the entire universe, their eyes locked in some kind of heated staring contest that neither wanted to lose.
“I absolutely do not. I can assure you, buddy, that if you’d ever confessed to me, it would be my number one story to repeat over and over to our grandchildren.” Maybe that was a little much, but Hizashi was nothing if not intense.
And, man, did he want to have grandchildren with Shouta one day…
There was a beat.
“…What?” It was Shouta’s turn to look confused, effectively ending their contest by blinking slowly.
Hizashi was too riled up to be embarrassed. He went straight for it, diving in headfirst.
“Dude, I have been in love with you from the minute I locked eyes on you,” he said, his confidence and intensity growing with every passing second. “Even before you joined the hero course. I remember glimpsing you in the corridor near the Gen Ed classrooms, and that was it for me. I was gone. Deceased . R.I.P Present Mic and all that!”
“But—”
“Shouta.” Hizashi was leaning forward now, his hands braced on his knees. “When did you confess?”
“Years ago,” Shouta mumbled.
Years.
Fucking years.
The blush on Shouta’s cheeks was far too cute; Hizashi was struggling to keep it together. Despite the frustration surrounding the situation, it was still a dream come true—the man he’d been pining after literally forever liked him back? Not even just for a few weeks, but for years? What were the chances?!
Still—
“When exactly?”
“About eight years ago. After we’d been out drinking.”
Ah.
Ah.
“Eight years ago?” Shouta nodded. “And when you confessed, what did I say?”
“…Nothing. You rolled over and ignored me.”
Hizashi rubbed his face, his hands covering his lips as he internally screamed. Internally died. It took him a minute to regain his composure enough to speak again. When he did, there was a hysterical edge to his voice.
“Sho. Shouta, buddy … Do you happen to remember what a lightweight I was back then?” Shouta would probably argue that Hizashi was still a lightweight, but that was neither here nor there. When he nodded uncomfortably, Hizashi pressed forward. “Do you also remember how alcohol sent me straight to sleep?”
Shouta nodded again, but he still didn’t seem to be getting it.
“Shouta,” Hizashi said slowly and clearly, enunciating his words. “Please tell me you didn’t confess to me when I was drunk and asleep.”
To most people, it would look like Shouta didn’t react, but Hizashi saw his eyes widen just a tiny, minuscule amount. Enough to suggest he’d just realised something.
Could he really be that stupid?
“Sho?” Hizashi asked after the silence stretched out.
“…You told me not to say it,” Shouta mumbled, avoiding eye contact and ducking his face into his capture weapon.
Yes. Yes, apparently, Shouta really could be that stupid.
Hizashi couldn’t help it. He broke out into hysterical laughter. “I don’t know whether to punch or kiss you right now,” he gasped.
Shouta had spent the last eight years thinking he’d been rejected because he’d drunkenly confessed and received no answer. Somehow it had never occurred to him that it was because Hizashi hadn’t heard.
If Hizashi didn’t laugh, he would cry.
“You can do both if you want,” Shouta mumbled, face so flushed Hizashi couldn’t help but wonder if it would burn his lips should he kiss it.
“I—” Hizashi may have short-circuited a little. Shouta—Aizawa Shouta, his longtime crush—had just given him permission to kiss him. That in itself was enough to fuel Hizashi for years to come. He suddenly felt sixteen again, hopelessly crushing on the cute transfer student but unable to say anything as Oboro quickly adopted him into their friendship group, and Hizashi became too scared of ruining their friendship. Instead, he’d just acted like a moron and pined and hoped Shouta wouldn’t get fed up with his bumbling. It was enough, he’d told himself.
But it had never been enough.
All Hizashi had ever wanted was to be allowed to hold Shouta’s hand. Free to kiss his soft cheeks. Able to sleepily snuggle and take frequent naps together.
And now, after fifteen long, torturous years—
“Oh man, there’s so much I want to do with you!” Hizashi said, instead of acting on the given permission. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to kiss Shouta—God, he wanted to kiss him so badly—but he was a little overwhelmed right now. His brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders. He felt a little like he was a computer trapped on the wheel of death, and a kiss would be what shut him down completely. “Um, like… like, holding your hand!”
Yeah. He was a clueless sixteen-year-old again for sure.
Shouta arched an eyebrow. “Holding my hand?”
Hizashi shifted defensively, trying to pretend he wasn’t embarrassed. He was the epitome of cool, yo! Nobody cooler had ever walked the halls of U.A.. “Yeah, so? They look soft!”
“They’re not.”
“Well, I still wanna hold them!”
Shouta snorted in a failed attempt to hide his smile. “You’re such a sap. I can’t believe that’s what you want to do with me.”
Oh, if only he knew.
“I want to do everything with you!” Hizashi assured, far too enthusiastically. His heart was hammering in his chest. His neck felt sweaty. A little part of him wanted to die. In a good way. “But handholding seems like a good place to start, yo!”
“You’re an idiot,” Shouta said.
Hizashi bristled. “I think I’ll take you up on that punch now.” Jokingly, he aimed one at Shouta’s chest. They were both sitting down, so it would have fallen short, but Shouta still caught his fist before it could land. He was right. His hands were calloused and rough and big—bigger than Hizashi’s own despite Shouta being shorter—and suddenly all Hizashi wanted was to feel those hands all over his body and—
His thoughts were suddenly way less innocent than they had been at sixteen.
Shouta pulled him closer, the wheels of their chairs bashing together.
“You punched me,” Shouta accused, and Hizashi opened his mouth to argue that no, he didn’t, because Shouta had stopped him, but then Shouta was speaking again, and Hizashi’s brain was properly shutting down. “Now, you owe me a kiss.”
They weren’t in the staff room, not really. They were still in that private little bubble that only existed between the two of them. The idea that someone might walk in on them was preposterous and barely even occurred to them.
It was just them and fifteen years of pent-up emotions crashing and burning down around them.
Hizashi lunged forward, his chair spinning out and away from beneath him, and kissed Shouta with the passion of a man who’d pined for one hundred years instead of just fifteen. Not that fifteen years wasn’t a fucking long time when you’re in love with someone you mistakenly believe doesn’t love you back or anything.
“Oh, hell yeah! About fucking time. Get it, boys!”
At the sound of Nemuri’s amused voice, Hizashi started to pull away, but Shouta had other plans. The tired hero simultaneously flipped off Midnight and pulled Hizashi back towards him, reclaiming his lips and, you know what? Hizashi didn’t give a fuck if they had an audience. They had years to make up for, and if Shouta didn’t mind the catcalling in the background, then neither did he.
Damn straight, he was gonna get it.
Audience and all.