Work Text:
“Where are they?!” Touya growls as he rummages through the cardboard boxes at his feet for the second time. Seriously, there is no way he forgot all his acrylic charms; those always sell at conventions like these, so he’d be a real fool for leaving them behind.
But he can’t find them. His prints, pins, and jewelry are all here and accounted for, but the huge bag of charms he could have sworn he packed this morning are clearly absent.
This just won’t do. Acrylic charms make up a quarter of his profits at regular anime or comic conventions, but this is the annual HPSC sponsored hero convention. He’s worked too hard and put too much effort into making cool charms of everyone but his father (he had to make a couple of those since they’ll sell but made sure they looked ridiculous) for his efforts to fail now.
Plus, Touya barely snagged a spot as one of the artists here this year, and hiccups are simply not allowed is this type of once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. This will help spread his name around more that it already is, he’ll get to sell merch of his father that said father will hate, and he’s debuting his attempt at jewelry this weekend. It’s not great, but Himiko said she thought his stuff was cool and that the steampunk aesthetic worked for his vibe or whatever, so Touya is trusting the high schooler on this one (and if none of it sells, he’ll just give it all to Himiko as a Christmas present or something).
“Hey, Dabi, what do you think about swapping the layout here a bit? I think it might look a bit better if we swapped print one and five—”
“Just do it,” Touya grumbles. He doesn’t bother glancing up from the boxes he’s kneeling next to, he trusts Spinner to know what he’s talking about. The other man is an artist too, after all, and Touya’s best friend. Seeing as Spinner didn’t get his own booth at the hero convention this year, the guy offered to come help Touya out — with the catch that he be allowed to hand out his own business cards alongside Touya’s.
Since Touya isn’t a fool, he gladly agreed. Convention people get weird real fast, so having his best friend around to keep him sane is totally worth helping hand out a few business cards.
“Okay.” A pause, then: “Hey, you good?”
Touya groans and slumps to the ground in defeat. “I forgot the acrylic charms.”
“…Dude.”
Touya looks up and meets his best friend’s gaze. It’s not judgemental, simply exasperated.
“I know!” Touya sighs, standing up and looking around the bustling convention centre. The other artists are finalizing setup and mingling a bit before the convention opens to the public in an hour — what Touya would like to be doing. The other artists here are huge, some of them people Touya follows online and buys art from. It would be incredible to meet them face to face and talk shop.
Unfortunately, he was an idiot and left behind a quarter of his merch.
“So, who are we calling?” Spinner asks. “We’ve got an hour still, it’s all good, Touya. No need to freak out. At least you only forgot one bag of stuff.”
“An important bag,” Touya grumbles.
“Yeah,” Spinner shrugs, “but you’re you. We both knew you’d forget at least one thing.”
Touya glares at his best friend, who shrugs unapologetically. Just because it’s true doesn’t mean Spinner had to go and say it out loud.
“So,” Spinner continues, “I planned for this.” With that, Spinner bends over and grabs his own bag. One green-scaled hand sneaks inside and withdraws the contents, presenting them with a flourish.
“You are amazing.” Touya grins, staring at the sticker sheets Spinner brought along.
“You were dumb for not including these in the first place,” Spinner counters. “Dude, your hero stickers sell like crazy online, I don’t know what you were thinking.”
Touya opens his mouth, realizes he has no good defense, and closes it again. “Thanks, Shuichi. You’re a lifesaver; dinner’s on me later.”
“Sweet. Guess I’m ordering dessert then.”
“Go for it.” They share a quick grin, then Spinner sets to laying out the sticker sheet. He brought along some of Touya’s five most popular: Edgeshot, Eraserhead, Hawks, Miruko, and Shouto (not a hero yet, but shh. People think it’s cute he’s trying to support his baby brother, and the stickers sell, so it all works out).
For his part, Touya digs his phone out of his coat pocket. The stickers are good to fill some table space for now, but they’re only a placeholder and won’t last more than a couple hours. Hopefully that is enough time for Shouto to grab the left-behind bag of acrylic charms and make his way here.
Dialing the number from memory, Touya brings the phone to his ear and starts talking as soon as the answering click sounds.
“Alright, listen up. We’ve got an hour until the convention kicks off, and you need to get up off that couch and help me out. I’ll buy you a donut or something later. I left my acrylic charms behind, probably on the table at my apartment, so I need you to grab those. Okay, thanks.” He hangs up, not giving Shouto the chance to say no. If the kid is actually busy with something else, then the message will get passed along to Fuyumi, who is also capable of doing this. Touya just didn’t want to call her since she’s more likely to laugh at him for forgetting something.
“Okay.” Touya tucks his phone away and turns to Spinner. “Let’s finish setting up as best we can with what we’ve got and go introduce ourselves to the others.”
Keigo stares down at his phone.
Slowly, he looks around his office from his perch on the plush red couch, wondering if he missed any hidden cameras last time he checked for more of those annoying little gifts the HPSC likes to leave behind.
Finding none, he goes back to staring at his phone, mystified.
“Hawks!” His HPSC-hired secretary bangs on his office door. “You’re five minutes late for a meeting with your PR manager! Open up!”
His eyes flick between the door that’s being barricaded by the desk he shoved in front of it and his phone. Well, one option is annoying, tedious, and will make him want to slam his head into the nearest wall.
The other option, whatever it is, promised him a donut.
“Sorry!” Keigo calls back. “I just got an urgent case that I gotta take care of! See you tomorrow!”
His secretary shrieks, but considering Keigo is already diving out the window, he ignores her words.
Snapping his wings open wide, Keigo catches the nearest current and lets it lift him higher. A few quick flaps carry him to a much smoother air current, letting him spread his feathers and glide at an easy pace while he unlocks his phone and opens Google. He has no idea what an acrylic charm is, but it sounded important in the phone call he got.
“Acrylic… Charm… Convention.” Keigo mutters under his breath as he types into the search bar. There. He goes to hit search—
Keigo and the crow he flies into squawk in unison. Black feathered wings flap in his face, smacking his cheeks, as the crow tries to distance itself. A strong flap of Keigo’s own wings pries them apart (and the gust from that big flap sends the crow spinning away).
Shaking his head almost fondly — Keigo runs into his fair share of birds these days. They’ve gotten used to seeing him in the skies and aren’t afraid anymore — he goes back to his phone—
“Oh dear.” Keigo stares at his empty gloved hands. “Haha. Whoops.”
He tips his gaze down and spies a flicker of light bouncing off some reflective surface. Could be his phone.
Throwing caution to the wind, Keigo tucks his wings in close and dives, aiming straight for his tumbling phone. People notice him and start to shriek, either happily or in fear since they think he’s chasing a villain, but Keigo ignores them. He’s on a mission right now, not up for dealing with fans; there’s a reason his PR manager wanted a meeting today. Keigo doesn’t want to spend hours patrolling the streets on foot to give people the chance to come up and get an autograph or a picture. He’s a hero, he wants to save people, not waste his time playing up the celebrity role he never wanted — even if it’s what the HPSC wants.
Well, too bad. When he signed with them as a kid to become a hero, he promised to be the best hero he could be. Best hero, not best celebrity.
Getting closer now, Keigo stretches out his hand, reaching for his phone. He calculates the gap between his fingers and the device, realizes it won’t be enough, detaches a couple feathers, and his phone shatters on the ground.
Great.
Sighing, Keigo spreads his wings open and swoops to a halt, landing next to the pile of broken phone bits. Well, he can no longer ask Google for help, nor can he go to his call history and call the donut-promising guy back to ask for further instruction.
Toeing, the shattered phone, Keigo looks to the civilians staring at him. They’re closing in around him like a pack of hyenas, their eyes gleaming and teeth sharp. How terrifying.
But, perhaps, in this case, useful.
Using a feather, Keigo scoops the broken phone bits up and throws them out.
“Hey,” he waves to the growing crowd. “Anyone know where I can get acrylic charms in under an hour? It’s for a very urgent mission.”
Immediately, dozens of hands fly into the air and excitement bubbles around him. Keigo shrinks back and points to the nearest hand.
“Hero Con is starting soon!” The young woman exclaims, grinning from ear to ear at having been picked by him to answer the question. “All kinds of super great artists are selling there, and lots of them have charms!”
“Cool, cool.” Keigo nods. The crowd is nodding along, hands lowering, so that must be the most common answer. “Thanks.” Then he escapes into the air with a couple quick flaps before anyone can get too brave and start asking for autographs.
Okay, convention—
Keigo screeches to a halt, as best one can while in the air, and lands again. The crowd that had begun dispersing cheers at his return.
“Where is the convention thing?” Keigo blurts.
“Musutafu Convention Centre!” Someone calls out helpfully.
Keigo groans. Great, that’s a forty-minute flight, maybe thirty if he really pushes it.
He takes off immediately. No time to waste, not when it comes to winning that promised donut from his mystery benefactor. Does it matter that this very well could be some sort of prank or trap? No, not really. Anyone smart enough to discover Keigo’s very well-kept secret love of donuts deserves to kidnap him if that’s what they’re going for.
Whatever the situation, they’ve won this round by a landslide and Keigo is not complaining.
A mere five minutes into his flight to Musutafu and Keigo realizes that he forgot a very important section of the phone call: Mystery Donut Benefactor said that the charm things would be at his apartment.
Keigo does not know where Mystery Donut Benefactor’s apartment is.
So, that leaves him with two options. On one hand, he could show up to the convention, ask around for Mystery Donut Benefactor and possibly end up looking like a fool if this is all a prank. On the other hand, he resigns himself to a fate even more humiliating.
With a long sigh, Keigo pulls out his back-up flip phone and taps in one of his few memorized numbers.
As always, Rumi picks up on the second ring.
“Local best friend and carrot-loving fiend who is currently enjoying a lovely day off, how may I help you?”
“Rumi, I got a call—”
“Kei,” she cuts him off, “I swear if you answered another of those ‘your Amazon account has made a purchase of however-much money,’ I will personally hop over there and kick you.”
“I didn’t!” Keigo protests. “That only happened once. And is totally not the point right now.” His best friend hums disbelievingly on the other end. “Look, someone, I’m calling him Mystery Donut Benefactor for simplicity, called and wants me to drop off a bunch of acrylic charms he forgot at his apartment, except I don’t know where his apartment is. What do I do?”
He hears a small thump on the other end, then a not-well-covered snort, and his wings droop.
“You’re laughing at me.”
“No.” Another noise as Rumi’s foot instinctively jerks, wanting to thump loud and fast as it always does when she’s doubled over, cackling at him.
Keigo sighs. “Just get it over with.”
Permission granted, Rumi howls. Her laughter spills in through the receiver of Keigo’s phone, loud and gleeful in that violently unapologetic way Rumi exists. Despite it being directed at him, it’s still a lovely sound.
After a few moments, Keigo clacks his tongue and trills. “Okay, you’ve had your fun. Now help me, please.”
“Keigo, sweet, innocent child of mine—”
“Pretty sure I’d know if you were my mom.”
“—Are you seriously ditching everything else and going on some wild goose chase for the mere promise of a donut?”
Keigo remains silent. Rumi knows well that he can’t answer that without incriminating himself.
“Darling, you’re a mess.”
“A mess that only gets donuts when you buy them and sneak them to me,” Keigo shrugs. “My weakness is being exploited and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“You could just not—”
“There’s nothing I can do about,” Keigo repeats louder. He wants that promised donut and nothing Rumi says will talk him out of it. He’ll walk into the kidnapers arms if they hand over a nice, tasty, ring of golden dough covered in sugary glaze.
Rumi sighs. “Alright, well, I guess you call them back?”
“No go, I dropped that phone.”
“Kei.”
“It’s only the second this week!” Keigo protests. “And a crow flew right into me this time, so it’s not even my fault.”
“We’ve talked about flying and phoning at the same time, bud.” Sensing a warning, Keigo quickly finds an empty rooftop and lands.
“Uhuh. Which is why I am standing very still, not flying into things, currently.”
“Kei, I heard your boots scuff as you landed just now.”
“Anyway!” Keigo declares a little too loudly. “Phone broke, can’t call Mystery Donut Benefactor back. All I know is that he wants the acrylic charms he left at his apartment. Where do I go from here?”
“Break into every apartment you pass on your way to Hero Con and hope you pick the right one?” Rumi’s tone is dry and clearly meant as a jest, but…
“Hey, that could just work.”
Rumi groans. “No. Keigo, darling, no. Please do not break into anyone’s apartment. Look, I took today off so I could go to Hero Con; I like buying the funnier or really good merch of all my friends.” Keigo nods knowingly. There is a particularly awful magnet of him faceplanting into a window on Rumi’s fridge. “So why don’t you join me there, incognito, and we’ll see if we can find the person who was dumb enough to forget their acrylic charms at home.”
“Hm, sounds good. See you in like an hour?”
“Sure. Later, Kei.” Rumi hangs up, leaving Keigo to his own devices, which is a risky move on the best of days.
His gaze is drawn to the apartment buildings not that far away. Well, breaking and entering requires one’s body to cross the threshold… if, say, a feather were to accidentally slip inside, that would count as something more similar to a bug or mouse getting in.
Keigo takes to the sky, continuing the path to Musutafu. It sounded like Mystery Donut Benefactor’s apartment was near the convention, which is presumably the Hero Con one, so there’s no point wasting time by letting feathers check out these apartments.
However, the ones that are in Musutafu proper are far more likely suspects and would totally warrant a little investigation. Just a little.
It’s worth it for the promised donut.
Touya paces anxiously behind his booth. At his side, Spinner keeps fidgeting with the set up, shifting things a fraction of a centimeter, then back the other way.
“Seriously, when is Shouto going to— Shouto!” Touya calls out, waving to his baby brother. The kid trots over, a happy pep to his step.
“Hey, Touya.” Shouto waves, then spies Spinner and inclines his head. “Shuichi. Your haircut looks cool.”
Spinner perks up. “Yeah, you think so?” He reaches up to play with the shorter-than-they-were-last-week strands of pink hair, combing them back with his claws.
“Very. Much better than Touya’s.”
“Can it, Squirt.” Touya grumbles. Yeah, he knows he has to re-dye his hair soon, but he’s been a little busy getting ready for this convention and panicking, so it had to wait.
But, for today, he’ll let Shouto get away with making fun of his hair.
“Did you bring them?” Touya asks, a little suspicious at the lack of bag in Shouto’s hands.
The teen blinks at him slowly. “Bring what?”
“My acrylic charms?” Touya tries, wilting when no recognition sparks in Shouto’s eyes. “The ones I called you about?”
“Oh.” Shouto nods and Touya’s hopes are lifted. “Yeah, I didn’t get any phone call from you today. Maybe you called Natsu?”
Touya’s hopes aren’t just crushed, they’re shattered, shredded, and trampled over by a stampede of monster trucks until the shards are unrecognizable, leaving him with nothing but woe.
…Maybe Fuyumi is onto something when she talks about Touya’s dramatics.
Anyway.
“No,” Touya protests, “I called your number. Natsu has a test today and said he’ll swing by to say hi tomorrow. Fuyumi is teaching class and Mom usually makes lunch plans for Fridays, so I called you.”
“Glad to know I was your last choice,” Shouto comments in that idle, monotone style of his.
Touya rolls his eyes. “You’re not the last choice, you just happened to be the most free today.”
“Still, I didn’t get any call and don’t have your charms.” Shouto shrugs and comes around to stand between Touya and Spinner. “I can help sell stuff, though. I need some money to buy Midoriya the new All Might figure.” Shouto stares at Touya expectantly.
“You couldn’t steal our father’s credit card?”
“I could.” Shouto doesn’t elaborate past that, but Touya nods. Seems Sho has finally gotten to the age where doing anything related to Endeavor, even stealing his money, is not preferable.
“Yeah, that’s fine. Help us out this weekend and I’ll give you the money to buy that figure for your little boyfriend.”
“Excellent.” Shouto hums, pleased with himself for getting what he wanted.
“So,” Touya continues, “it would be a great help if you ran to my apartment and got the bag of acrylic charms I forgot on the table.”
Shouto shrugs. “Okay. Do you still have those popsicles in the freezer?”
“The cherry ones?”
“No, the caramel ones.”
“Oh, I think so. Feel free to check, just please hurry back with the merch. The convention kicks off in, like, ten minutes.”
Shouto nods, gives Touya an official and very serious salute, then scampers off with a burst of hero-in-training speed.
Spinner claps Touya on the shoulder. “It’ll be fine, dude. We’ll hold down the fort and Shouto will be back with the charms in twenty or so and set them up to be sold.”
“Yeah.” Touya exhales sharply, his gaze flicking over to the doors, where eager nerds are peering in through the tiny windows to get a glimpse of the goods beyond. “It’s all going to work out just fine.”
It does.
The doors are thrown open some minutes later and shoppers eager to get their hands on merch of their favourite heroes swarm into the artists’ hall of the convention centre.
Given this is neither of their first time, Touya and Spinner have no issue dealing with the customers, selling prints, stickers (guess it was a good thing Spinner brought some of those along), pins, and even some jewelry. He even gets a couple compliments on the way the silver metal and blue stones partner with more classic steampunk jewelry components. Guess Himiko was onto something with that.
Then Shouto comes jogging back, a half-eaten caramel popsicle in hand and a worried look on his face.
“Touya, the charms are not at your apartment.”
The words register, but Touya doesn’t believe them. He stands still, gaping at his baby brother, for a long moment.
“What?”
“They aren’t there,” Shouto repeats. “I searched everywhere — even in your closet, which you really need to clean, cause blah — and didn’t find them.”
“What?” Touya repeats dumbly. “They can’t possibly be anywhere else!” Not unless he left them on the train he took to get here or dreamt picking them up when they were finished. There just isn’t anywhere else they could be.
“It’s okay, man.” Spinner pats his shoulder. “We’ll have another look for them tonight and they’ll turn up, so we’ll sell them tomorrow. And any extras can just go on your online shop, yeah?”
Touya nods. That is all very reasonable and rational. Jeez is he ever glad to have Spinner around; if it were just Touya, he’d have panicked and burnt down his booth by now.
“Okay. Yeah. It’s all fine.”
Shouto finishes his popsicle, tosses the stick, then joins them behind the booth. The kid has done his fair share of helping Touya out at conventions to make quick money, as he’s doing this weekend, and thus is able to seamlessly join in the flow Touya and Spinner already had going on.
A woman saunters up to their table. “Hey, I absolutely need to buy one of each sticker sheet, those are just amazing. Oh, and that Uwabami print too, please. Wow, that is gorgeous.” The woman pulls out her wallet as she talks, red eyes gleaming as they take in all the merch displayed on Touya’s booth.
Her gaze stops when she spies his business card. “Oh, hey! You’re Dabi. Cool, I follow you on, uh, something. I dunno what, but your short comics are hilarious. The one of Endeavor falling down the stairs was killer!”
“Thanks.” Touya’s lips quirk up. “It’s one of my personal favourites.” Is he glad that a silly drawing of his father’s pants falling down and thus sending the hero tumbling down the stairs gained so much attention? Absolutely. Anything that makes Endeavor look bad is a win in Touya’s books and makes his father furious.
Plus, Mom laughed at that short comic when Touya showed it to her.
Handing the merch the woman wants over and accepting her cash, Touya gives her a pleasant smile and a wave. It’s always nice to meet a fan—
“MSTERY DONUT BENEFACTOR! I FOUND THE STUFF!”
Touya whips his head towards the entrance, just as befuddled as the rest of the convention. Everyone has gone quiet, staring in astonishment as Hawks — like, the actual hero with real, trembling wings, not a cosplayer — pants and holds up a bag of charms—
“Hey!” Touya snaps. “Those are mine!”
A good half of the convention’s eyes lock on him. Touya holds his spine straight and scowls at the hero… who is grinning and scampering over to present the bag full of Touya’s acrylic charms to him proudly.
“It took me more than an hour, sorry.” Hawks apologizes as Touya accepts the bag of charms and passes them over to Shouto so the boy can get started on the display. “I didn’t know which apartment was yours and had to fly here, but hey, I’m only, like half an hour late?” Hawks gives a small shrug, his feathers twitching.
“I.” Touya stares blankly at the hero. “What? I am so confused right now.”
Hawks cocks his head to the side like the bird he is. “Well, you called and I was confused first, but you know what? It’s all good. So,” the hero claps his hands together and grins broadly. “Where’s my donut?”
“What?” Touya repeats. “I called you?” The hero nods and color drains from Touya’s face. “Oh gosh, I am so sorry. I meant to call my little brother, I have no idea how I dialed you instead. Uh, sorry for bothering you, I’m sure you had other things to do.” Touya hesitates, feeling like he forgot something. “Oh, thanks for bringing the charms.”
“Uhuh.” Hawks is poking around the booth, visor shoved up to rest in his hair and nostril flaring. “Where are you hiding my promised donut? I’d like it now, please.”
“…What?” Touya says for a third time.
The woman who just bought merch facepalms. “Kei, you are ridiculous.”
“It’s not my fault, Rumi!” Hawks whines. “He’s tempting me with donuts! You know I don’t think rationally when donuts are on the line!”
“You and your stomach,” The woman sighs, rolling her sharp red eyes fondly. “Look, Kei, I think it was just a wrong number, so how about we go for donuts and leave this very busy artist alone.”
Hawks whines, his glimmering red wings drooping towards the filthy convention floor.
“But Rumi! It’s not the same.”
“Don’t you pout at me, mister.” The woman warns. “We’re blocking sales for this guy,” a thumb is jerked Touya’s way, “and we don’t wanna do that. He drew the Stair-deavor comic.”
“Really? Cool. That one was really funny.”
Touya sighs. This is so out of hand.
“Okay, look. The convention is still going and I have merch to sell. Either leave or stand back here so you aren’t in the way…” Touya trails off as he spies the crowd that is slowly growing around Hawks. “Actually, new plan. Hawks.” The hero perks up, straightening to attention at his hero name. “If you stand back here with us and help me sell merch this afternoon, I’ll buy you a box— two boxes of donuts later. Deal?”
“Deal!” Hawks agrees happily, hopping around the edge of the booth to join them. Feathers swiftly detach from his huge wings, flying into the hero’s pockets, until only small wings are left. Well, that’s certainly one way to make maneuvering in this tiny space easier to deal with.
“Alright!” Hawks claps his hands together. “I have no idea what to do, but I’ll do my best!”
The woman sighs. “Well, have fun, Kei. Try not to break anything, I’ll check in on you in an hour or so once I’ve finished doing my lap around all the booths.”
“Sure, bye Rumi!” Hawks waves to the woman and she shuffles off, quickly swallowed up by the crowd that is waiting for the chance to speak to Hawks. The hero spots the crowd and his bushy eyebrows wrinkle just the slightest. “Oh, hi everyone. Are you here to buy, uh,” a quick glance at Touya’s business cards, “Dabi’s stuff? It’s pretty cool, so I don’t blame you, but maybe we should form a line so it’s easier?”
Immediately, people start pushing their way into a somewhat decent line. Huh. That’s handy.
Two hours later, all the merch Touya had for the whole weekend line-up is gone.
“Wow.” He stares at his bare booth, wondering just how that happened, and lets his gaze flick to Hawks, who is leaning his elbows on the empty table and chatting with some guy. Well, maybe it’s not that shocking after all. Hawks is a very popular hero and, despite what people think, doesn’t make that many public appearances. This is a rare occasion, so buying some of Touya’s merch for the chance to speak to the hero is a worthy trade in the eyes of the people.
Sure, some were probably there more for his art than the chance to speak to the hero, but Touya won’t complain one way or the other. He sold all his stuff and thus made more in a couple hours than he figured he would over the whole weekend.
“Well,” Touya sighs, drawing Hawks’s attention. “A deal is a deal. Where do you want to go for donuts? There are a couple good places nearby, or, since you helped so much, I can make them.”
Hawks’s golden eyes go wide. “You can make donuts?”
“I, yeah?” Touya snorts, amused. “What, did you think you had to buy them? Someone had to make them to get them to the stores, Birdie.”
“You can make them?” Hawks repeats, the feathers that make up his currently small wings twitching happily. “Can you show me?”
“Sure.” Touya agrees. “I’ll make you the best batch of donuts you’ve ever eaten.” Hawks nods eagerly and, once they pack up as best they can, trails along at Touya’s side as they make their way to his apartment.
The hero chatters almost the whole time, talking about just about everything his gleaming eyes land on, and Touya finds himself not minding the chatter. Most of it is stuff he can listen to and nod every once and a while to prove that he is listening, which makes it easy to deal with after a long morning of loud, pushy convention-goers.
When they reach Touya’s apartment, Hawks bounds in first, a tiny red feather swooping out of the keyhole and answering Touya’s confusion. He should probably be more worried about the fact that a hero picked the lock on his apartment door, but it’s hard to be concerned when said hero is busy bounding around the room and babbling happily about donuts like an energetic puppy awaiting its treat.
And when Touya starts baking the donuts? Oh boy. He’s never seen anyone sit so still or stare at him so intensely. Yet, despite the intense gaze, Touya doesn’t feel judged. He explains his way through the steps to baking homemade donuts and can see Hawks bobbing his head along, staring transfixed all the while.
When he first presents Hawks with a powered ring of golden dough, the hero makes some sort of happy chirping noise and devours it. And the rest of the batch Touya makes.
Then, Hawks just doesn’t leave. They chat all night, and it’s enjoyable company. Touya learns that Hawks’s name is Keigo, that he loves donuts but rarely gets to eat them, that he likes to fly and text at the same time and that doing so leads to collisions with the other birds because ‘the other birds are dumb and don’t watch where they’re going,’ and that Keigo has a wicked sense of humor.
Before either of them realizes it, it’s late enough that Touya offers his couch to Keigo. The hero agrees happily and flops into the space, falling asleep almost instantly. It’s kind of adorable.
In the morning, Keigo asks if Touya can make more donuts. He says yes, but on the condition that Keigo only eat one. Having a strict no-sugar diet then overflowing it with sugars cannot be healthy.
Reluctantly, Keigo agrees.
Touya doesn’t realize until the next day that Keigo is intent on eating all the donuts again, just this time only one per day. Keigo shows up every day that week, spending the evening chatting with Touya after eating his donut of the day.
Then one day Keigo stops leaving at night after their chats and claims the couch. Another day, Touya decides there’s no point forcing the guy to sleep on the couch when there’s a perfectly available space next to him in bed. Keigo is more than happy to swap sleeping locations, and Touya learns that waking up with arms and legs and wings clinging to him like a koala is one of the best feelings in the world.
Later, after Touya realizes that Keigo has, in fact, moved in, he finds himself content with that realization; it just feels right.
Even if it’s all thanks to forgetfulness, calling the wrong number, and a batch of hastily made donuts.