Work Text:
“Okay, ready?”
The day had started off good.
Great, even.
(Okay, fine, it had been fucking amazing, because – because – ugh, because Hitoshi is a lovestruck fool and any day spent with Midoriya is another day his brain rots into cotton-candy fluff. They haven’t been going out long, but Hitoshi already knows that he’s head over heels and he’s only a little bit concerned about how fast he fell.)
They’d gotten lunch at a creaky old diner where the menus were ripped but the fries were perfectly salted (and tasted even better when swiped off Midoriya’s plate), and grabbed a strawberry milkshake to-go that meant icy condensation dripped down his arm the entire walk back to his place, but he’d happily do it again for Midoriya’s satisfied sigh every time he leaned over to take a sip.
His place had meant video games and cuddles and fighting over the last of the milkshake, and it had been good.
It had been so good.
But had is the operative word here, isn’t it?
Because, well, Hitoshi doesn’t have many secrets. Sure, he knows he’s prickly and not exactly forthcoming, but there isn’t anything he actively hides. Probably. Just like one or two things. That’s normal, right?
But he slipped up, and now Midoriya’s uncovered one.
So sue him for being a little more on edge than the situation warrants, okay?
“Oh, hold on, I gotta put on some music,” Midoriya says as he snaps on a pair of disposable gloves.
“Don’t tell me you already have a specifically curated playlist for this scenario.”
“Unfortunately, I don’t.” Hitoshi honestly cannot tell if Midoriya’s pout is genuine or not. “Maybe I would if I had known about your whole” – here, he waves vaguely at the entirety of Hitoshi – “deal. I could have prepped.”
“My whole deal,” Hitoshi repeats, pursing his lips. The makeshift barber gown (a cut-up old t-shirt) gently shifts around him as he crosses, then uncrosses, his legs. He tugs at the frayed edge of the gown where it falls on his lap.
“Yes,” says Midoriya. He taps around on his phone, All Might keychain jingling merrily from a corner. “As such, we’ll have to make-do with some jellyfish songs.”
“I’m sorry,” Hitoshi says, momentarily too stunned to keep fidgeting. “Some what?”
“You heard me.” Midoriya props his phone up against a pile of books on the table and then presents it with a flourish.. On the screen, dozens of jellyfish float gently in what looks like an aquarium. Music begins sliding from the speakers. “Two hours of lofi hip-hop jellyfish content!”
“Oh?” Hitoshi blinks. He blinks another few times. He’s stalling, he knows. But the smile on Midoriya’s face manages to pull a small one from him too. He crosses his legs again. “Yay?”
“It’s nice for focusing, I think,” Midoriya says, now fussing with one of the many bottles on the table. “And I’m sure you’d want me focused while helping with this.” He laughs, tone teasing, and sticks out his tongue at Hitoshi.
Hitoshi rolls his eyes, like he knows he’s supposed to, and hopes that’s enough to cover the pang of anxiety that strikes his gut at the words. Follows it up with: “You sure you’re up for it, Midoriya? It’s not too late to back out.” Cover, cover, cover.
“I’m not gonna mess up your hair!” Midoriya says, almost offended, and Hitoshi tilts up another small smile, this one more smirk-like, even though that’s not the part he was worried about. Is worried about. The part he’s chewing his lip over.
Midoriya continues, oblivious, “Besides, I’ve helped Kirishima touch up his roots a few times already. And you guys even use the same brand of fancy-schmancy dye! I totally got this.” He holds up the bowl where he’s mixed together the dye and developer. The ceiling light shimmers in the swirling liquid.
“It’s just the one that works specifically for–” Hitoshi pauses, words momentarily stuck in his throat. He flicks his eyes away from the bowl, from Midoriya. Rubs the cotton between his thumb and forefinger. “For naturally black hair.”
“Fancy schmancy,” Midoriya asserts. Then shakes his head. “I still can’t believe I never knew your hair was dyed.”
“Right, well,” Hitoshi says, voice carefully as his eyes land on the jellyfish slowly moving across Midoriya’s phone screen. “Never came up, I guess.” He uncrosses his legs again then leans farther back in his seat, slippered feet pushing against the tiled floor. The chair tilts on its back legs. He clears his throat quietly, once, twice, then injects a teasing lilt into his voice. “Plus, you’re too short to have really seen it properly anyway, huh?”
“Shin sou!” Midoriya gasps, one hand flat to his chest. His eyes get bigger and rounder, as if that should be possible, the edges glistening in threat. “How could you say that!”
Hitoshi pulls his mouth into a smirk and shrugs, but his face feels tight and his shoulders don’t go much higher than they were already. He’s lucky that Midoriya is currently too preoccupied to notice, already distracted by rereading the dye instructions. “I didn’t say anything that wasn’t true,” Hitoshi says. “And here I thought you were so observant.”
“You’re so mean,” Midoriya complains, putting down the sheet of paper. But then he picks up the brush instead and turns back to Hitoshi, one gloved hand curled on his hip. “But are you sure you should be talking like that to the guy who’s about to do your hair for you?” He waggles the brush threateningly under Hitoshi’s nose.
It tickles, and Hitoshi fights back the urge to sneeze. But he must have scrunched up his nose, because Midoriya seems to be trying not to laugh, and the sight makes Hitoshi crack a small smile, a real one.
“Okay, okay,” he says. He considers saying something else, considers stalling for more– more what? What is he trying to accomplish?
He lets the chair land back on the floor with a thump. Taps his foot against the floor a few times. “I’m trusting you with this,” he adds instead, almost as an afterthought.
Why had he agreed to let Midoriya re-dye his roots?
No, more importantly – how could he have forgotten to do it himself?
He’d been so good about it for years, and for what?
Whatever.
It’s– it’s not important. It’s not.
It’s just hair dye.
It’s not important.
“Okay, ready?” Midoriya says, now behind Hitoshi. Excitement saturates his voice.
Hitoshi holds his breath, and nods.
The hair dye is cool, almost cold, when it comes into contact with his scalp, and Hitoshi fights the urge to bite down on his lip again. Midoriya lets out a pleased little hum, and Hitoshi can feel the brush pulling the dye through, the strands weighing heavier as it passes. Another dip into the bowl, and then that ticklish-cold is back.
“Your hair is already easier to work with than Kirishima’s,” Midoriya comments, brush swiping gently back and forth in one little section. “His is kinda hard.”
Hitoshi opens his mouth to respond, before realizing that he still hasn’t breathed. He does so now, pushing it into a breathy laugh that burns a little in the back of his throat. “Thanks, I think.”
“You’re welcome!” Midoriya says brightly, fussing over one patch of hair. “Dyeing Kirishima’s took forever because of that.”
“Right.”
Midoriya pauses, brush mid-stroke. “Hey,” he says. He taps Hitoshi’s head with a finger, and the vibration settles through Hitoshi’s head. He pokes his head into the edge of Hitoshi’s vision. “You don’t need to be so worried! I was serious about feeling confident in my abilities here! Your hair is in good hands, trust me.” He punctuates this with a smile, sweet and sincere.
This pulls an actual laugh out of Hitoshi. Of course his boyfriend would be able to sense his apprehension, even if the cause was misunderstood. But even still, Midoriya’s words loosen a knot between his shoulders, and Hitoshi forcibly takes another deep breath.
And the thing is – Midoriya makes it easy. Easy to get lost in the constant stream of his voice, warm and humming, flitting from heroes to homework to holiday plans. Easy to focus on the brushstrokes, slow and methodical, pulling through strands of hair. Easy to trust that this is fine.
Oh, he’s so, so, gone.
It’s still a chore, but Hitoshi allows himself to sink into the chair and fixes his gaze outside the window, where the sun is setting beyond the trees. Old Mrs.Yamamoto is walking her dog again, crossing into view for just a moment before turning. The jellyfish continue their mesmerizing dance, pulsating to some music of their own.
It’s actually… kind of nice, he thinks, as Midoriya’s fingers scratch ever so slightly through his hair. Better than doing it himself, probably. Better than staring himself down in the mirror, hating the way the dark roots are growing in.
He focuses on one body part at a time, forcibly tensing it and then relaxing it. Left foot, then right. Left leg, then right. Arms, then hands, then shoulders. Leans his head back ever-so-slightly into Midoriya’s touch.
Yeah. It’s nice.
“So why’d you pick purple?”
How long had he stood in the hair care aisle, all those years ago?
How long had he spent, staring at all those hues, at all those smiling models with their glossy eyes and perfect teeth?
Hitoshi is a re-strung wire ready to snap.
Maybe just a second. Maybe just an hour.
“Shinsou? Everything okay?”
Well, shit.
Hitoshi takes the air once again trapped in his lungs and breathes it into a lie.
“Yeah,” he says. “All good.”
It’s acid on his tongue.
His words hang in the air, suspended in near-silence, and Hitoshi can feel it pulling him into the ground. He imagines it happening: the hole opening beneath his feet, his chair stumbling in, his t-shirt-gown fluttering in the updraft. His heart beats double-time in his ears.
“Okay,” Midoriya says, finally. It’s clear that he’s not buying it and Hitoshi’s heart antes up, but then the brush slides across his head again in practiced motions. Midoriya starts chattering again, simple and easy, a one-sided stream steered back to safer waters.
And Hitoshi is…grateful, really, as he lets it wash over him. Midoriya won’t push, he knows. But the guilt sets in anyway, faster than he’d like, creeping beneath his skin and growing with every gentle tousle of his hair.
“It’s…stupid,” he mumbles, against his better judgment. His worse judgment? He can’t tell yet.
But he can’t help it; it feels… bad to let Midoriya act like everything’s fine when they both know it’s not. Like he’s lying by omission.
Midoriya’s hands don’t falter for a second. “I doubt it.”
Hitoshi scoffs, but there’s no force behind it, no backing. It’s hollow like the sound of his knuckles rapping against his chair as he thinks. His ankles cross. He traces the tiles on the floor slowly (left, right, left, right; a zig-zag perfectly-cut geometry of grout), and rolls words over his tongue like grenades.
He wonders what it would be like to say it out loud.
He pulls the pin.
His quirk made him many things, or so he was told.
Two-faced. A liar. A manipulator.
Hitoshi doesn’t want to prove them right.
“So,” Hitoshi says, drawing out the syllable into a full sentence. Pull the band-aid off. “Elementary and middle school fucking sucked. But you knew that part already.”
Midoriya exhales.
“...yeah,” he says, soft.
Hitoshi focuses his gaze on the phone screen, on the water’s uncanny shade of blue. Tries to detach from the memories now bobbing up to the surface. “Kids are assholes. No surprise there. And yeah it sucked, but I could deal with most of it. Did deal, but” – a deep breath here, a flash of memory there – “the way they looked at me, Midoriya. Like I was worthless. And I just…
“I just hated looking in the mirror, you know?” He lets out a small chuckle at that, because really, he had been – was still – so weak. “I hated seeing what they saw.” He lifts a hand and waves it vaguely in the air in front of him. “Some loser villain waiting to happen.”
Midoriya hasn’t stopped working on his hair, albeit doing so at a slower pace, but he’s forced to lift the brush away as Hitoshi shifts forward to swipe at the now-empty box of dye on the table.
Hitoshi leans back in his chair. The box’s model stares back at him with their silky lavender curls and smiling face, all empty kindness. Midoriya says nothing, only dips the brush back into the bowl of dye. Hitoshi’s heart swells with quiet appreciation, before another glance at the box wrangles it back down.
“You know what purple represents?” he continues, finally, tapping a nail against the side of the box. “It’s divinity. Nobility. Even in the West, it means royalty. Royalty, Midoriya.” He’s not sure if he’s really addressing Midoriya or himself, anymore. It’s getting harder to feel detached. The words are coming out too bitter and too quickly, he knows, but god, he’s never had to say this out loud before and he knows he can’t stop to think about the way it sounds or the way it must paint him, because if he does he’ll never get it out at all. He grits his teeth. “And isn’t that just what I wanted! I just– I don't know, thought that maybe if I could do that, be that, look the part of someone who mattered, then – then it’d be true. I could throw back every shitty thing they ever said to me and every shitty look, because they’d be the ones lying. If I could believe that, if I could just believe that, then I could look in the mirror and see someone worth something.
“Worth…worth caring about and fighting for and worth being.”
Hitoshi is suddenly all too aware of the pinpricks at the corners of his eyes. His hands twitch, but he doesn’t bring them near his face. The box in his hand has been crumpled, the cardboard sides giving in easily; the model’s face is caved in under his thumb.
“What about now?”
Hitoshi starts. He’d forgotten about Midoriya. “Huh?”
“What about now?” Midoriya repeats. “Do you still feel like you need this? This reminder?”
“Yes,” Hitoshi says, the word escaping in a rush of anxiety. Then he pauses. Dyeing his hair had become a constant, but it was dumb, so–
“No.”
Another pause. The anxiety swirls in his gut.
“Maybe?”
He growls, frustrated, and starts to shake his head, but the weight of his dye-laden hair stops him. “I told you, it’s stupid.”
“No, it’s not,” Midoriya says simply, easily, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “You were hurting, and you found a way to make it stop hurting, or at least hurt a little less. What’s stupid about that?”
Hitoshi scoffs and slowly releases his vice grip on the dye box. “You think too highly of me.”
“Nah,” Midoriya says, accenting the syllable with a tap of the brush to Hitoshi’s head. “I’ve heard you say plenty of stupid things. This just isn’t one of those times.”
Hitoshi snorts. “Oh, thanks. Now I feel better.”
“Hey, that’s my job, right? As your official boyfriend.”
The corner of Hitoshi’s lip tugs up – then back down.
“I mean…it is kinda stupid though, isn’t it? It’s just hair. It’s just a color. It’s not like it actually did anything, or got me bullied any less." He barks a laugh. "It shouldn’t even matter.”
“Shinsou…” Midoriya’s thumb rubs a gentle arc across his scalp. “You know it’s okay to care about things, right?”
Hitoshi pulls a face on instinct. “Ugh, caring? Sounds gross.”
Midoriya laughs and taps him on the head again before retracting the hand in his hair and returning with the brush. He’s at the nape of Hitoshi’s neck now, the bristles of the brush sending a tingle down his spine with every stroke.
“It helped you,” Midoriya says, suddenly, voice oddly somber. “The purple made your life better. So it matters, and it’s important.” Before Hitoshi can think of a way to respond, Midoriya continues, voice now soft. “It got hard, right? Some part of you starts to believe what everyone else is telling you. ‘Cause for every step you make towards convincing yourself it’s possible…”
“...they push you right back,” Hitoshi finishes, quietly.
“Yeah.” Midoriya gives a small, sad laugh. His breath tickles against Hitoshi’s skin. “They do.”
And they had.
He’d thought he’d be laughed at, if he ever told anyone why he’d decided to dye his hair. Even with friends, even if well-intended. He hadn’t thought anyone would get it.
But Midoriya…
Something clicks, and: “It was the journals, for you,” Hitoshi says, more statement than question – then he ducks his head, flush creeping up his face because wow that was the opposite of tact–
Midoriya just chuckles.
“Yeah,” he says. “But it wasn’t really a conscious decision like yours, I think. It really did start as a fun hobby – still is! – but it also became like…how do I put this…my own little book of affirmations, I guess?” Midoriya taps his foot lightly, shifting his weight to and fro as he thinks. “Concrete, physical proof of something I could do, something I could strive for. All these pieces of data and ideas that I could leverage. It was me being useful. It’s…probably a big part of why I always wanted to be a hero – to be useful,” Midoriya admits; the plastic of his gloves rustle against Hitoshi’s ear. “Sounds pretty corny when I say it out loud, though.”
“Hypocrite.”
Midoriya laughs again, but this time it sounds more real. “Yeah, okay, fair.”
Hitoshi smiles at that, and it’s a small, fragile thing, but that’s real too.
“I don’t think I can imagine you doing anything except being a hero, anyway,” Hitoshi says. “That’s just…you.”
Midoriya’s movements stutter, for just a moment. “Shinsou…”
“Honestly, you scare me sometimes,” Hitoshi continues. “The world knocks you down and you just get back up with a smile.”
He sees Midoriya shrug from the corner of his vision. “I’ve had practice,” he says, and Hitoshi’s not sure if he imagines the slight wobble in his boyfriend’s voice, and oh what Hitoshi wouldn’t give for a world where Midoriya never knew what it was like to get brought low.
He almost misses it when Midoriya keeps going: “But I’ve also had help.”
Hitoshi blinks.
Midoriya’s fingers rake through his hair, looking for missed spots; even then he seems to have caught Hitoshi’s confusion. “The journals didn’t always help,” he says. “Sometimes convincing yourself just…isn’t enough. Sometimes you need just one person to believe in you.”
Hitoshi blinks again. Then: “You’re talking about All Might.”
“Yeah,” Midoriya says, and Hitoshi can hear the growing smile in his voice. “But not just him – I mean, yeah, he was the first, and I’ll forever be grateful for that, but – now I have others, too. To help. To remind me that I want to save people and can . Aizawa-sensei, and Uraraka, and Iida, and Todoroki, and Tsuyu, and…I can’t even list them all now. Not to mention you.”
Midoriya aims a soft smile at him at that last part, and Hitoshi can’t even look away because Midoriya has walked around to check the hair near the front of his head. He opts for looking at the tiles again instead. Thinks about the hero that Midoriya will make one day. The hero that Hitoshi will make.
“Hey, hold on, I know that look.” Midoriya props his hands on his hips, never mind that it smears dye on his pants. “You’re thinking something self-deprecating. What’s up?”
Hitoshi sticks out his tongue, feeling like a scolded child. He leans forward to gently pry Midoriya’s hands away, but thankfully the damage seems minimal. “I was just thinking about why you want to be a hero. To be useful was part of it, you said, but it’s mostly to save people.”
“Yes,” Midoriya says, tilting his head to the side.
“Well, it’s just, for me… Look, I know myself, okay? I’m selfish.” He holds up a hand at whatever protest Midoriya is about to make. He almost runs a hand through his hair before remembering what a bad idea that would be; he sighs and drops it in his lap instead.
“I want to help people, sure, but…if I was a hero…” He shifts his jaw left and right. “It’s just like dyeing my hair but dialed up a hundred times, isn’t it? The ultimate fuck you. The ultimate proof” – jazz hands – “that they were wrong? That I” – voice crack – “matter?”
“Hey,” Midoriya says. “Look at me.”
Hitoshi does. Midoriya is kneeling in front of Hitoshi’s chair now, gloves off as he reaches over to clasp Hitoshi’s hands in his own. His face is deadly serious, mouth set and eyes firm. “First of all, you matter. I know you don’t always believe it, but it’s important to me that you hear me say it. Secondly, your reasons for being a hero – they’re fine. I promise. I mean, I know Uraraka has told you about why she’s doing it, right? Do you think any less of her for caring about the money?”
“Of course not,” Hitoshi frowns, easily sliding around the first half of Midoriya’s spiel. “She’s doing it for her parents–”
“What if it wasn’t for her parents?” Midoriya cuts in. “What if it was for herself?”
“She deserves a comfortable life–”
“Don’t you?”
Hitoshi’s frown deepens. “That’s not the same thing. I’m doing it for my ego.”
“It’d make you happy, right?”
“Hap – huh?”
“If you could prove them wrong, like that? By being a hero?”
“I…yes?”
“Then why is that bad?” Midoriya insists, hands tightening around Hitoshi’s own. “It doesn’t hurt anyone, and it makes you happy.”
“But it’s–” Hitoshi feels like he’s missing something. “Selfish.”
“It’s okay to be selfish! God knows you’ve told me that enough times,” Midoriya says. “And no, don’t try to tell me that’s different either, asshole. It’s okay to care about things! And we’re talking about being a hero here! If your selfishness leads you to be a hero and save people and help make the world a better place, then shouldn’t that be okay?”
Hitoshi opens his mouth, then closes it. Tries it again, and thinks about how he looks like a dumb fish. Thinks about the aquarium music still playing in the background. Thinks about the fierce glint in Midoriya’s eyes, thinks about Midoriya being scary because he gets up every time. “When did you get so good with words?” Hitoshi finally settles on. “That’s supposed to be my thing.”
Midoriya huffs. “Around the time you stopped knowing what they meant.”
“Hey,” Hitoshi says half-heartedly.
“Come on,” Midoriya says, pressing a quick kiss against Hitoshi’s nose as he rises. He keeps hold of Hitoshi’s hands and tugs him out of the chair. “You smell like chemicals.”
The first time had been messy, he remembers.
Some streaks of black still showed beneath the purple, the color applied unevenly with unpracticed hands. He’d forgotten to get gloves and his fingers were stained with crushed lavender petals.
He had felt…not quite happy, he thinks, but better. Looser.
The mud sink by the garden entrance is stained with his mom’s acrylics and smears of soil, but the basin is wide and deep and strong. Midoriya fiddles with the handles until he’s satisfied with the temperature, before motioning for Hitoshi to bend over. Hitoshi obliges; he sticks his head almost directly under the lukewarm water and closes his eyes as the water runs in rivulets down his face.
Sound gets a little funny; everything is a little garbled and farther away, pockets of clarity as the stream opens and closes over his ears. Midoriya’s fingers work through his hair gently, tugging at each clump and massaging with careful pressure. His nails scratch lightly against Hitoshi’s scalp and Hitoshi finds himself leaning in a little, a sigh escaping his lips.
Midoriya turns off the faucet and taps him on the shoulder when he’s done; Hitoshi cocks Midoriya a grin and a wink when he resurfaces, slicking back his now-soaked hair.
“Lookin’ good?”
“Oh, shut up.” Midoriya laughs and shoves a towel at him, though Hitoshi notices he turns a bit pink.
Hitoshi dials up the grin even more (rewarded by Midoriya’s rolled eyes), but takes the proffered towel to give his hair a quick, rough tousle before draping it around his neck.
“Hey…” Hitoshi says, grin softening to a smile as he watches Midoriya start cleaning up. “Thanks. For all this.”
Midoriya waves a hand absentmindedly. “It’s nothing–”
“No, really,” Hitoshi cuts him off. “Not for the – or, well, yes for the hair help, but also for the…” Now it’s Hitoshi’s turn to wave a hand in the air. He looks away. “Everything,” he finishes lamely.
Hitoshi doesn’t specify, doesn’t know how. How to say thanks for listening, for sharing, for understanding. That hangs in the air instead, squirrels into the silence, but the corners of Midoriya’s eyes crinkle with warmth as he turns around.
“Yeah?” Midoriya comes closer until his arms circle around Hitoshi’s middle. “You’re welcome,” he says, still smiling, and Hitoshi can hear the underlying thank you too.
Hitoshi wraps his arms around Midoriya’s shoulders and rests his chin on his boyfriend’s nest of hair. The curls tickle his chin and cheek. They stay like that for a few moments, Hitoshi listening to the drip, drip, drip of the faucet and trying to figure out what’s still wriggling uncomfortably in his chest.
“I,” Hitoshi starts, before pursing his lips and cutting himself off. He drags a canine across the surface of his tongue. “I’m sorry I never told you any of this before.”
Midoriya pulls away with a frown, but he keeps his hands on Hitoshi’s waist as he looks up. “Why is that something to apologize for?”
“I dunno. Kinda feels like…lying about who I am, I guess? Since the whole point of the hair dye was to…y’know.” He raises one shoulder noncommittally. “Pretend to be better than I am.”
“Shinsou…” Midoriya lifts a hand to Hitoshi’s cheek, one calloused thumb running over his skin. ”It’s not your fault you felt you had to pretend. Things like my journals, your hair, they’re our ways of…dealing. Of processing. You…we don’t owe anyone an explanation.”
Midoriya pauses, and his voice is earnest, insistent, when he continues. “You are worth something though, Shinsou. And more than just something. And I’ll be here until you believe it yourself.”
Hitoshi blinks.
“That was…” Hitoshi says, voice catching on a swallow, “the cheesiest thing anyone has ever said to me.” He thinks that if he were to dwell on those words for more than a second he might just combust. He clears his throat. “Seriously, when did you get so smart?”
Midoriya smiles. “I’m…still working on it. And like I said, I’ve had help.”
And Hitoshi — Hitoshi reaches up a hand to clasp at the hand on his cheek; he intertwines their fingers with sudden fervor. “So you know it too, right?” Hitoshi says, maybe a little too sharply. “That you’re not– that you’re the farthest thing from useless?”
Midoriya looks caught off guard, and Hitoshi has to look away, even as he keeps talking. “I know you already said earlier– you counted me as one of the people you could count on, so I know you know, but I need you to know.” He cuts his eyes back. “It’s important to me that you hear me say this.”
Midoriya’s eyes widen, but he’s smiling, a wobbly thing, so Hitoshi plows on before his resolve crumbles away.
“You, Midoriya, are incredible. Incredible, and terrifying, and already a better hero than most people can ever dream of being, and I am beyond lucky to know you.” He squeezes their hands. “And if you ever even begin to forget that, I’ll be here for you too.”
“I can’t believe,” Midoriya says, eyes welling up with tears, “you called me cheesy.”
“Yeah, well,” Hitoshi says, heart beating as his abrupt courage deserts him, “couldn’t let you have all the thunder. Crybaby.”
Midoriya laughs wetly, and Hitoshi lets him have his hand back so that he can wipe the tears from under his eyes. “Asshole.”
Hitoshi winks, and Midoriya slaps him gently on the chest, still sniffling. After a few moments, Midoriya reaches up to lightly rub a lock of still-damp hair between his fingers.
“I do like the purple, though,” he says, mouth curled up. “It looks good on you.”
“Yeah?” Hitoshi says, gratefully accepting the offer to slide back into more lighthearted tones. “Think I look like royalty?”
“Oh certainly, your highness,” Midoriya laughs. “Though, honestly, I think you’d look good in any color.”
“O-oh,” Hitoshi says, an abrupt flush creeping up his neck. “I–”
“Except green,” Midoriya says, with a glint in his eye. “That’s my color, so step off.”
For a second, Hitoshi can’t do anything except stare back at him with jaw agape and eyes wide. Then he gives a snort, a chuckle, and now he’s nearly choking with laughter – the floodgates have opened; the warmth is spilling out of him in laughs and hiccups and maybe a tear or two, tumbling and crashing over itself in endless waves and contained only by two strong, scarred arms belonging to a boy that Hitoshi loves so, so much.
And like a snap, he can see it – a future – his future. And it’s not crisp or new, hasn’t just sprung into existence; it feels like looking through what used to be a frost-covered window, but the ice has since melted and the pane wiped clean.
Midoriya had asked him a question earlier. Had answered it himself, already.
Do you still need this?
Hitoshi had said yes near immediately. No one had ever believed in him before, so he’d had to do it himself. But...keyword: before..
Maybe…
Now Midoriya is a bundle of laughter, his entire body shaking with the effort. Hitoshi catches his breath long enough to stare, to drink in every freckle and line and scar on Midoriya’s face. He tugs Midoriya closer.
Just maybe…
Midoriya blinks, surprised, stray laughter still on his lips. But then he sees Hitoshi’s smile and answers it with one of his own, pulling even closer until they’re flush against each other. He stretches up, leans in. Hitoshi bends to meet him halfway.
…he already doesn’t.