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Aizawa Shouta stood with all his worldly belongings inside one roller suitcase and a backpack. That was in contrast to his husband’s possessions which took up an entire matching set of high-end luggage in an exclusive fabric print. Their shared household goods fit in a few small boxes labeled kitchen, bedroom, and office.
The entire lot sat on the steps outside the faculty dorms of UA. Hizashi sat there too, scrolling through his social media pages and planning responses to go live during his next radio shift. Shouta stopped pacing to collapse onto the stairs and lean against his husband.
“Handing out our keys one at a time is highly inefficient,” he complained under his breath.
Hizashi stopped reading to pat Shouta’s head. “You know they just want to make sure each of the teachers’ apartments meets specifications. Nezu needs built-in stairs and low cabinets, Kayama needs sealed doorframes for her quirk, we’re getting a double …”
Shouta leaned further against Hizashi until his head slid down to rest in his lap. He sighed and rubbed his cheek against denim. “I guess we should just be glad it’s not a repeat of our first apartment.”
Hizashi put his phone down and laughed. “You mean that place in Aldera?”
Shouta thought back on their youth. “Aldera was after you started Put Your Hands Up. I mean right after UA.”
“We lived with my parents because yours kicked you out.” Hizashi lay flat on his back and pet Shouta’s hair.
Living with your then-boyfriend’s parents did not count as a first apartment. Hizashi had not won the right to pet him to sleep with that argument.
“That was for two weeks! I meant the place three blocks from my agency.”
Hizashi stopped and raised his hand to hover in midair, shaking with terror. “You mean the place with the …”
“Yeah.” Shouta grinned smugly. Revenge.
Hizashi let out a high pitched keen and kicked his legs until Shouta rolled off him. “Why!? Why would you remind me of that place? With the … Eugh!” He continued to squirm on the porch, making noises of disgust while Shouta laughed.
Their first apartment together had been quite the disaster.
Back then Shouta just had a backpack. Hizashi had one suitcase. They both held the grimy old key to their brand-new apartment in a very old complex.
“Let’s unlock it together!” Hizashi cheered. “Our own place, Shou’! One. Two. Three!”
Shouta turned the key with his boyfriend, then the doorknob. The hinges groaned as the door opened with an ominous creak to reveal dirty curling linoleum in the genkan and splintery wood floors with peeling varnish beyond. The walls were stained varying shades of green and gray which made the original dull beige paint look even more dingy in the flickering light from a faulty fixture.
“You picked this place?” Shouta asked and stepped inside. He almost didn’t want to take off his shoes.
“You set the budget!” Hizashi protested while kicking off his boots. “And the neighborhood!”
“It’s only logical given our starting pay and this area’s right between both our agencies …” Shouta was about to admit he may have miscalculated.
Hizashi screamed.
Shouta jumped and glared at him. His hair billowed as his quirk activated. Banging from downstairs, upstairs, and from their neighbors on either side rattled the walls and ceiling. That was when Shouta saw the reason for Hizashi’s distress.
The vibrations knocked the roach from its perch on the wall to land on its back between them. Six legs flailed in the air.
Hizashi’s voiceless screaming went up in pitch and he frantically backed further into the house.
“Calm down, ‘Zashi. It’s just a bug.”
“Roach! It’s a cockroach!” Hizashi rasped once Shouta returned his quirk. “It’s a cockroach!” he squeaked in an octave that could nearly shatter glass.
Shouta picked up his shoe from the genkan and squashed the bug. He winced at the mess left behind on the floor and his sole. They’d need to go buy paper towels. He put his shoe away and went to comfort his boyfriend.
“It’s one cockroach. You’re fine.”
Hizashi was shivering and looking out the living room window at the city skyline. “Is it dead?” he whispered in a shaking voice like some traumatized widow in a noir thriller.
“He won’t bother you anymore.” Shouta leaned into the metaphor and Hizashi’s shoulder. He wrapped him in a hug. “We’ll get some glue traps and bug spray. Old buildings have bugs. We’ll be fine.”
“Yeah,” Hizashi melted back into his touch, “totally fine.”
‘Totally fine’ lasted until the moment they’d finished buying cleaning supplies and groceries at the convenience store.
“Uh, Shou’? I think the fridge is broken.” Hizashi pulled an empty ice cube tray out of the freezer compartment and tossed it in the sink.
Shouta winced at the forest of white fuzzy mold clinging to cheap plastic. He reached his hand inside the warm fridge and frowned. “I guess we have to call the landlord?”
Hizashi sprawled backwards to sit on his ass. “Was that a question or a decision?”
“I’ll call him.” Shouta glared at his phone and punched in the number from the property management business card they’d been left. Wow, moved in together for less than a day and they were already having their first passive aggressive couple’s fight.
Five hours and a new minifridge later they’d made the acquaintance of the apartment complex’s maintenance man. They’d also given him a large container of soup to take home to his kids because the frozen udon and fish balls would have gone to waste if not cooked after thawing.
“Not bad for our first meal in our new place.” Hizashi hummed contentedly and patted his stomach.
Shouta covered the pot of leftover soup and put it into their new working fridge. It wasn’t bad, but today had been one long list of disaster after disaster. He returned to the combined living and bedroom and collapsed down onto the bare tatami next to Hizashi. He sat for a moment, staring at the blank spot on the wall Hizashi said would be perfect for a TV, then flopped backwards. The AC could only blow warm air and the maintenance man wouldn’t be able to get the new replacement parts in for two more days.
He didn’t know how much more he could take. Maybe they could call it a loss and move back in with Hizashi’s parents. Being constantly nagged by Mrs. Yamada about when he’d “make an honest man of her son” was rapidly becoming more and more tolerable. He could put what they saved in rent towards a nicer ring.
Nicer , because he already had his eye on a simple, wide, silver band that matched Hizashi’s style and wouldn’t immediately get him flagged as ‘off the market’ by tabloids.
“Maybe we should—”
“Oh no you don’t!” Hizashi interrupted, “I call dibs on first shower!”
Shouta smiled and nodded at his boyfriend.
Hizashi stripped as he walked the few steps to their bathroom and tossed his clothes into the small hamper by the door. The prospect of rinsing sweat off had improved his mood and he hummed some cheery tune. Shouta hummed along as well and rolled out the futon for later.
It smelled a bit stale. They’d need to air it out in the morning … then talk about if they wanted to stick with it or buy an actual bed. Shouta searched up mattress prices on his phone and winced. Who knew renting a cheap apartment could be so expensive? He unpacked his bag to get some sheets when he noticed his bath towel rolled neatly near the bottom.
Hizashi hadn’t brought his to the bathroom with him.
Shouta opened Hizashi’s suitcase and grabbed the black towel with yellow music notes to bring to his boyfriend. He knocked twice before entering, and waded through the wall of steam that billowed out. At least the hot water was working normally.
“Shou’? Is that you?” Hizashi called over the sound of rushing water.
He rolled his eyes. Only the two of them lived here, who else would it be? “Yeah. Just brought your towel, love.” Hizashi could be so cute sometimes that Shouta couldn’t help but use pet names.
“I think the drain’s a little slow.”
With those seven words Shouta’s fleeting good mood vanished like water should from the bottom of a shower basin. What. The. Fuck.
The pipes creaked ominously when Hizashi turned the water off. Shouta heard the ripples and quiet splashing as he stepped to the raised lip of the shower stall to take his towel. The standing water was so deep it almost overflowed!
Shouta groaned in resignation. “I’ll check the drain.”
With a butter knife he’d found behind the fridge when they replaced it, he pried the drain cover off and looked down the hole with his phone’s flashlight.
He couldn’t see a thing.
Alright Shouta, think. He went to the kitchen and grabbed a pair of the cheapest, oldest, most expendable chopsticks they had and returned to try and fish whatever was clogging the drain out. He shuddered and hoped a thousand roaches didn’t spew up like some horror movie. He’d definitely cry, Hizashi would probably die of a heart attack.
What Shouta drew up from the drain was far, far, worse.
“Hizashi! What did you do?!” Shouta’s voice echoed loudly through the mostly empty apartment. He was surprised the neighbors didn’t bang on the walls again for them to quiet down.
Hizashi ran to the door so fast his feet nearly slid out from under him, but he caught himself against the doorframe. “Shou’? What’s wrong?”
“This,” Shouta gagged as he said it. The thick mat of dripping blond hair reeked like it’d been down there for years.
Hizashi’s eyes widened in horror. “I brushed my hair before showering. I’ve only showered here once . That is not from me.” His voice pitched so high it broke on some of the words.
Shouta dropped the mat of someone else’s hair like it bit him. It possibly—probably—had been down there for literal years. Cold sweat ran down his neck. At least the drain was clear now.
The shower was the last issue with the apartment they discovered that night.
That night , because the next issue arose after midnight.
Shouta was sound asleep with Hizashi sprawled atop him. Blond hair tickled his bare chest with every breath and the sounds of the city from a new location kept him up. Perhaps that was why he was hyperaware of every sensation.
Something like hair brushed tentatively against his neck. How Hizashi’s hair got all the way over there Shouta would never know, but he reached to brush it away. His fingertips brushed something hard … and moving.
He sat bolt upright and Hizashi slumped to the side with a sleepy protestation.
The centipede, because it had been a fucking centipede crawling over his hair to reach his neck, waggled its antenna curiously.
With a choked scream that came out as an angry grunt, Shouta slammed his pillow down atop the centipede.
His soft pillow …
Which did absolutely nothing to the tiny chitinous creature.
Shouta swatted at it until it rolled far enough away that Hizashi wouldn’t bring the walls down screaming if he woke up. Then he went and grabbed his shoe … again. Hizashi woke at the sound of stomping, because centipedes were apparently quite resilient.
“Shouta, what are you doing at”—he glanced at his phone’s clock—“three AM?”
“Nothing, Hizashi. Go to sleep.”
Hizashi rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “Was it another roach? Maybe we should get an elevated bed. It’s such a relief those things can’t …” Hizashi stopped and stared at a point somewhere above and behind Shouta’s shoulder.
Shouta heard a faint fluttering buzz. Oh no.
“… fly.” Hizashi, for once, spoke so softly Shouta could barely hear him. He was pale with terror.
Shouta turned just in time to see the flying roach alight gently on the floor. He heard Hizashi’s unconscious body hit the floor with a heavy thud.
Hizashi shivered despite the summer heat outside the UA faculty dorms. “There won’t be roaches. It’s a brand-new building,” he declared mostly to comfort himself.
“If it helps, I told Nezu to make sure all the drains have one-way valves so bugs can’t get in that way.” Shouta put a hand on his husband’s shoulder.
Hizashi covered it with his own and squeezed; the cool metal of his wedding band dung into Shouta’s knuckles. “It does help. Thank you.”
Nezu cleared his throat behind them. “Gentlemen, I believe your new apartment is ready.”