Chapter Text
Neito knew something was off the moment he winked at Shinsou and he didn't roll his eyes back at him. In the split second where their eyes could meet, Shinsou instead chose to keep swinging to the next building. Kendo would tell him he was overreacting, that Shinsou hadn’t really noticed at all, or that a robbery was hardly any place for that kind of attention anyway, but Kendo also hadn’t dated Shinsou for years, so what did she know?
Maybe her relationship with Tetsutetsu had grown stale. She didn’t understand that a single glance between himself and Shinsou could carry so much weight. Hadn’t she ever locked eyes and felt at ease, reassured that there was someone who had her back if she needed it? Hadn’t she ever called Tetsu’s name a certain way and had full confidence that he’d fall into perfect formation?
“Phantom Thief!” Kodai’s warning reached Neito just before the nail could.
Neito doubled back, narrowly avoiding a hit aimed straight at his skull. Seeking cover, he ducked by the roof’s edge and peeked over it. As he suspected, the troublesome one was no longer among the small gang of villains running down the alley. The real menace was somewhere up there with him, and all without him noticing a thing.
Neito chewed on the inside of his cheek. Didn’t Shinsou realize how distracting his behavior would be? How inconsiderate of him. If he didn’t have a job to finish, Neito would have chewed him out for it.
“Rule, you should join Emily in blocking off the rest before they get too far,” Neito said into his earpiece. “Mindjack and I can handle the villain up here.”
“Are you sure you’ve got enough juice on you?” Kodai asked.
“Don’t overdo it,” Shinsou added, which made Neito grin. Even if Shinsou was willing to brush him off earlier, it was good to know he still cared.
“I should have enough to take this guy down,” Neito assured. Even if he didn’t, he’d figure it out. Even if he didn’t, he had Shinsou, so what was there to worry about? Their compatibility wouldn’t disappear just because Shinsou was being a little cold.
And he was right. While Kodai and Yanagi dealt with the stragglers, Neito and Shinsou made quick work of the gang’s leader, a man with a quirk that shot construction nails out of his human ones. Just as soon as Neito managed to get the villain to answer his provocations with Shinsou’s quirk, it was easy enough to lure him into the narrow alley where Shinsou laid in wait.
“See? No need to worry,” Neito said as Shinsou finished tying his binding cloth around the villain.
Shinsou grunted in response. No matter how little of a talker Shinsou was, Neito expected at least a sly remark about how the battle had messed up his hair or how he should have maintained a better battle stance. Instead, he leaned against the wall and loosened his mask so it fell around his neck. It would be a while until the police caught up with them to take the villain away. If not for the cicadas’ summer song and the sound of a distant siren, they would have stood there in complete silence.
“What were you thinking for dinner tonight?” Neito attempted to break the ice.
Shinsou shrugged. His gaze remained on his boots, no doubt intentionally ignoring Neito’s glaring.
The urge to make a scene rose in Neito’s chest. As a sign of peace, Neito raised his hand for a high-five. Shinsou gave in to his request, albeit half heartedly and without their customary hand clasp at the end. On particularly hardfought missions, he’d pull Neito’s hand close and kiss the top of their fists.
As revenge for this blatant neglect, Neito planted a kiss on his boyfriend’s cheek. Neito Monoma was a petty bastard, sure, but he was a simp first and foremost. “Good job, as always,” he congratulated.
“Hey, we talked about this,” Shinsou snapped as he rubbed at his cheek with his sleeve.
“Do we really have to worry about this dude?” Neito frowned and pointed behind them where the villain was still staring blankly at the wall.
“Well…”
Neito noticed the faintest blush dusting Shinsou’s cheeks and smiled. “Relax, I made sure it was before the cameras showed up.”
“Still, maybe we–”
“Oh, and just in time too,” Neito interrupted as he noticed a camera crew power-walking towards them from the end of the alley.
Shinsou groaned. “Do we really have to stick around for this?”
Neito had turned down interviews before when Shinsou felt particularly uncomfortable, but the sight of Shinsou rubbing his cheek still stung, so he put on his winning smile for the incoming camera. “We can’t diminish our own accomplishments. It’ll be good for the agency!”
“But–”
Before Shinsou could get another word in, the reporter reached them with a wide grin on her face. “Phantom Thief, could you tell us a little more about tonight’s events?” she asked as she urged the cameraman closer. “How did you manage to take down such a vile villain in such a pinch?”
Neito pulled the mic closer to himself. Last interview, he’d sounded like background noise. “It was no trouble at all! When Mindjack and I work together, we’re unstoppable.”
“It’s true that you two work remarkably well together. Is there a secret to your chemistry?”
“Secret? Please, it’s pretty obvious we were just made for each other,” Neito answered with a wink.
Neito heard Shinsou click his tongue, but kept going. There was no point in him acting coy about their work. Making it big in the hero business required consistent self-publicity, so Neito intended on taking every inch of what he was offered.
“As partners in both your personal and professional lives, do you ever find yourself in a conflict you can’t solve?” the reporter asked.
At this point, Neito couldn’t tell whether they were being aired on the local news or some gossip channel. Eh, not like it mattered anyway.
“Oh, not at all.” Neito shook his head and slung his arm over Shinsou’s shoulder. “Tell them, Mindjack. There’s nothing we can’t beat.”
Shinsou, who had yet to say anything, crossed his arms over his chest. Neito had known something was off between them, but he hadn’t realized that Shinsou was seething until he finally spoke.
“Well, you never know,” Shinsou replied just before the camera cut.
Neito figured out what was wrong the moment he reached for Shinsou’s hand and he pretended not to notice. This wasn’t new; Shinsou hated holding hands in public, at least since they graduated from UA and began taking on professional hero work. Sometimes, though, he’d hide their hands in his coat pocket, or snatch Neito’s hand in an empty alleyway, or at least apologize.
Neito pretended not to care. He didn’t force conversation on their silent walk home or offer to fetch them a coffee at the late night stand around the corner. Shinsou wouldn’t argue with him in public either, so Neito braced himself for the fight that awaited therm. Admittedly, he didn’t know if he had any new defenses left.
As expected, Shinsou began arguing as soon as Neito locked the door to their shared apartment behind them. “Care to explain what that was?”
“You’re angry at me.” Shinsou’s back was turned to him, but his taut shoulders would have given it all away if it weren’t so obvious already.
Shinsou pressed on, even as Miko, his cat, greeted them with rubs between their legs. “You said you would cut it out.”
Neito rolled his eyes and threw himself onto the couch. This would be a while. “Not this again.”
“I only bring it up because you keep doing it,” Shinsou insisted.
“Doing what, exactly?” Neito scoffed. “You were the one acting cold. I was just trying to lighten things up.”
Neito heard Shinsou huff. Under different circumstances, Neito would have found it adorable. “Well, that interview didn’t help your case,” Shinsou deflected.
“What? I thought it would promote us as a team. Free publicity, and all.” Their hero team was by no means unheard of, but definitely a far cry from a household name. If they wanted to branch out and run a proper hero business, they couldn’t pass up on a little bragging. Shinsou should’ve known there was a bragging clause when he agreed to date. “Besides, I said I would cut down on flirting in front of the cameras, and I did.”
Neito could hear Shinsou pace back and forth behind the couch. “So what if you weren’t flirting? You missed the whole point! Not to entwine our relationship with our hero personas. It’s the fact you specifically highlighted our relationship that bothers me.”
Neito peeked his head over the top of the couch. “We’re a great team! We owe a lot of that to our relationship, it’d be a shame not to mention it. It’s not like it’s a secret; any internet search would tell you as much. I’m sorry if sharing that with the world is a little embarrassing, but I think it’s important.”
“I’m not embarrassed,” Shinsou objected. The hair on the back of his neck was standing on edge. And he insisted he and Miko weren’t related.
Neito didn’t manage to bite his tongue early enough. This was beginning to get on his nerves. “Oh, really? Even if I’m not around, you dodge cameras and tabloids like nothing else. You’re a stellar hero, you know. You deserve the spotlight as much as anyone else.”
“That’s unrelated,” Shinsou insisted.
“Then what?” Neito asked. “Are you ashamed of me or something?”
Shinsou slammed his palm onto the wall. At this point, Neito’s heart began to race. It took a lot to rile him up to this extent. “Shame has nothing to do with it! I’m trying to keep us safe!”
“Safe from what? We can take care of ourselves.”
Shinsou marched over to the couch and got all up in Neito’s face. “That information can be easily exploited. All it takes is one villain with a vendetta. What if they target one of us to get to the other?”
Neito shrugged. “Even if, somehow, there’s anyone who hates us that much, we’d defeat them, just like we do everyone else. Must I remind you we fought the biggest bads of the century and lived to tell the tale?”
Neito had the scars to prove it. He’d never attempted a staring contest since.
Shinsou ran a hand through his hair and gave a long sigh. “God, Neito, don’t you get it? Look, I don’t care about the spotlight, but I do care about ensuring our safety. I’d gladly become the most underground hero known to man if it meant we handled this appropriately.”
“What do you propose then?” Neito asked, utterly exasperated. It seemed that no matter what he did or how he changed, it was never enough for Shinsou. There was only so much he could do before he ceased being Neito Monoma at all.
A silence grew between them as Shinsou stared off into the distance, lost in thought. Neito had gained lots of patience since they’d started dating, so he focused on the feeling of his toes wiggling within his socks to keep his mind busy.
“What if we stage a breakup?” Shinsou suddenly said.
Neito swore his heart stopped beating. His eyes grew wide in horror. “What?”
“We leak information that we’re no longer together,” Shinsou said as if the answer was so clear, as if he wasn’t tearing Neito’s heart to shreds with each word. “That way, you can keep promoting yourself however you see fit, and leave me out of it. It doesn’t completely eliminate the danger, but it does diminish it considerably.”
“You’re kidding, right? You’re really that embarrassed of me?” Tears fell onto Neito’s hands, but he could hardly feel them falling down his face.
Once Shinsou noticed, he took Neito’s hands in his. “Of course not. We’re not ending things for real, just in the eyes of the public.”
“What’s the difference?!” Neito yanked his hands away and retreated to the door. For the first time, Shinsou’s touch felt repulsive. The tears had evolved to full on sobbing. Neito struggled to breathe, letting the sobs rack his entire body. “I don’t want to keep secrets just to keep you!”
“Hey, hey,” Shinsou chased after him. For the first time since the argument began, Neito noticed fear in Shinsou’s eyes. “This has nothing to do with how much I love you, please understand that.”
That was easier said than done. All Neito heard was I don’t want you. “Do you mean it? About the breakup?” he asked, hoping above anything else that Shinsou would take the out. Neito could forgive this if Shinsou just told him it was a stupid idea, an impulse he’d let loose in the heat of the moment.
Shinsou’s hesitation told Neito everything he needed before he nodded. “I just think it would be good for us, in the long run.”
Neito let the sadness inside him warp into something uglier. Suddenly, the pettiness was winning out. He turned towards the door without another glance at Shinsou. As he clasped the doorknob, he announced, “Fine. But if it’s a breakup you want, I refuse to play pretend. I’ll be back later for my things.”
“Babe, you know that’s not–” was all Neito heard before he stepped out and slammed the door shut. As he walked down the apartment steps and out into the humid air, it was all he could do not to look back. If he did and saw Shinsou waiting there, he wasn’t sure if he had the fortitude to follow through. He couldn’t allow himself to acquiesce; no one would snuff out Phantom Thief’s light, not even Shinsou.
“And just like that, he kicks me out!” Neito cried out. The top half of his drink splashed onto the counter, mixing in with the drool that’d accumulated. It was hard to keep his head up after all the drinks, and his head was already beginning to throb from all the water his cells ached for. He didn’t like to make it a habit to drink whenever he was upset, but this breakup went beyond that. His entire future had shattered before his very eyes, so if he wanted to drown his sorrows, then what of it? Besides, it’s not like he had a concerned boyfriend to tell him off anymore…
The bartender rolled his eyes as he wiped it up. “I thought you said earlier that you walked out on his sorry ass,” he said.
“He does have a nice ass, doesn’t he?” Neito wailed.
“I need to stop letting heroes in here…”
A bell sound coming from the front door signaled a new customer. Good, maybe this new person could lend a better helping ear than the lousy bartender. All the bartender knew to do was criticize him and point out all the ways he sucked. Huh. Sounded kind of familiar…
As if reading his thoughts, the stranger took a seat right next to him. Neito dragged his head up to take a good look at him, though the stranger’s wide-brimmed hat and long trench coat made it hard to make out anything specific.
“Who are you?” Neito slurred, sober enough to know he was being rude, but not enough to apologize.
The figure greeted him with a wide grin. “Phantom Thief, right? I’m a big fan of yours.”