Work Text:
Hizashi Yamada had a secret.
A huge one.
He loves art. Everyone knows this about him, considering his persona and role as a radio host. He loves more than just music, though. Illustrations, poems, novels, animations…
So when he stumbled upon hero fandom culture, he was instantly enamored. Hundreds of thousands, no, millions of people posting their creations to celebrate their favorite public figures, much like how people treated television show characters.
Hizashi knew he had his own fanbase, his own ‘fandom,’ as they called it. He wouldn’t be a good radio host if he didn’t. However, he’d never really interacted with his fans outside of show call-ins and the occasional autograph and photo combo for when he was recognized in the streets.
So when Nemuri had convinced him to make a personal Twitter account outside his corporate one during one of their bar crawls, he set up a plain profile and searched for his name.
Most results were casual discussions about things he’d said over the radio, but after a while, he’d spotted an illustration of himself in his hero costume with the tag ‘#PresentMicFanart.’
And it was beautiful.
He could tell that the person had spent hours on it, zooming in to see every digital brush stroke delicately placed to capture his likeness perfectly. He tapped their profile, finding so many depictions of his own face staring back at him in various outfits and scenarios with other heroes. He was honestly honored that anyone would be willing to spend that much time dedicated to just creating art of him, knowing that there was a one in a billion chance that he’d ever see it.
He’d rambled excitedly to Nemuri about it in a drunken stupor, holding the phone up to her face to let her see art of the two of them sitting on a park bench together in what the artist assumed their casual wear would be. She laughed, patting him on the shoulder, her bracelets jingling audibly with the motion.
"There’s more than just drawings, you know,” She’d said, watching him continue to scroll through the tag and stare with amusement. “People write things, too. On a different website, making up stories of us interacting with other heroes in all kinds of scenarios.”
She took the phone from his hands, opened Chrome, and punched in a long web address. He blinked at her confusedly when she returned the phone to his open hand.
"This is a lot,” He replied, staring at text that read ‘1,889 Works,’ but the words that followed were much more interesting. His eyes practically popped out of his head, staring at the attached tag.
’Aizawa Shota | Eraserhead/Yamada Hizashi | Present Mic’
Now, he and Nemuri were extremely close. She practically knew everything about him and vice versa, so she was privy to the fact that Hizashi had developed a little bit of a crush on their mutual friend over the years. He thanked whatever lord above that it was a school night, meaning Aizawa couldn’t have joined them that night. Otherwise, he’d have seen the way Hizashi sputtered, grasping his phone, his face bright red, glaring at the woman beside him. She thought it was hilarious, clutching her stomach as a stream of giggles erupted from her throat like a geyser.
A million thoughts crossed his mind in an instant.
For starters, he didn’t know there were enough Eraserhead fans in the world to even create a fandom. That, and the fact that people seemed to think the two of them were a good match romantically. After a brief crash course, he was able to understand what all the tags and ratings meant. Some of them were… pretty insane, but others?
They were so sickeningly sweet he almost felt jealous of that idealized version of himself.
"How do you know about this?” He asked accusatorily, starting to flip through the 95 pages of work listings.
"It’s a secret,” She giggled, “But really, it’s not uncommon. I’m pretty sure there’s at least one for every mid-ranking hero in Japan.”
"You’re being cruel, Midnight, you know how much I like him! Knowing about this… It’s like torture! Look,” He stopped on a particular fic, turning his phone to show her again, “Me and him! Married! With two random children and three cats! I would die to live like that right now!” He whined, dropping the phone and burying his head in his hands. He drunkenly sobbed dramatically as she patted his head as if he were a dog.
"You could be, if you’d tell him already,” She reminded him like he didn’t already know that. God, he was a wimp. But it was hard when it was his best friend he was talking about, his constant rock throughout his teenage years, always there for him, no matter what. What if he didn’t like him back? He didn’t want to lose that. He couldn’t. It would be too devastating. “Or just, y’know, live vicariously through… yourself? Maybe it’ll make you feel better.”
She moved the conversation along soon after, watching Hizashi cycle through every stage of grief within seconds with every moment they lingered on the subject.
He’d almost forgotten about it when he woke up the next morning.
It returned to him when he saw that little blue app with several notifications on his home screen.
Some people he’d randomly followed had followed him back for some reason. And as all good algorithms do, his feed started to push more content about Present Mic toward him.
He didn’t have to do anything for the next few hours, so he began to scroll, learning more and more about fan culture.
He discovered the great, wonderful world of discourse, where people argue about the ethics of using real people as muses for fiction. And that’s when he saw a specific word mentioned repeatedly.
Erasermic.
It felt like a taunt, knowing he was braver in over a thousand different universes.
He thought about it while he was at work.
He thought about it as he walked home.
He thought about it as he lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling to the sweet sound of nothing.
That’s when he made the stupid decision to look, curiosity beating out restraint.
He knew it was a terrible idea, one that would only further his seemingly one-sided attraction to his closest friend.
But when everything you’ve ever wanted was staring you in the face in the form of fanfiction, would you not feel tempted? That’s how Hizashi rationalized it in his head, at least.
He started with the shorter, completed ones. His heart fluttered reading the words on the screen, absorbing how people described how Aizawa would run his fingers through Hizashi’s hair, huddle together on the couch watching terrible movies, and how their fingers would intertwine under the desk during board meetings.
Then, he moved on to the longer ones. The multi-chaptered, plot-heavy ones that captivated him with every sentence. They made up stealth missions, fantasy universes, and pretty much anything anyone could imagine and put them into words.
He wasted an entire night like this, reading every fic that caught his eye, to the point where he was starting to recognize authors. They often left a link to their socials in the author’s notes, and Hizashi figured he should follow them; that’s what he made the account for anyway.
Scrolling through their profiles, he noticed something. A few of them were offering ‘commissions,’ which he learned was basically sponsoring someone to write a work for him in exchange for money.
Guilt gnawed at him for entertaining the idea, but he found it devastatingly appealing. Besides, he was always more than willing to spend money on art, supporting small musicians by purchasing merchandise and attending concerts while incognito. He swallowed hard, unfortunately knowing precisely what he would ask for if he were to do it.
There was this one cafe in Musutafu that he’d always wanted to go to with Aizawa, but never had the courage to ask. It was cat-themed, of course, and he’d daydreamed about ordering those gaudy jelly cats and splitting them with Shota. Then he’d take him to the beach, play some cheesy music from his phone while holding the other’s hands in his own, and confess his love.
He blames what happened next on his sleep-deprived state, having read until four in the morning.
He reached out to one of the authors. Described the general idea, in the third person of course, and said that he wanted it short and sweet. He paid for it upfront.
He got it by the end of the month.
Five thousand words of pure heaven, so specific, so detailed, so emotional. He honestly cried a little after reading it.
That’s how this all started. His new obsession with commissioning fanfiction and illustrations of him and the man he would give the world to hold in his arms for even a single minute.
He patrolled his timeline like he was doing hero work, lurking to find artists who have drawn or written content of them in the past, paying them all handsomely for their work to fulfill that yearning ache in his heart that he felt whenever he set his eyes on Aizawa.
Eventually, his plain account started to spread via word of mouth in the fandom. He was labeled ‘That one guy whose obsessed with Erasermic,’ who’d pay anyone to draw even stick figures that vaguely resembled the two holding hands and tipped generously. He started reposting the works he paid for whenever the authors posted it to their social media, slowly building an archive of every single piece of media he sponsored.
Some people thought he was weird. Others were getting into the ship just to try and catch his attention for some money. It didn’t matter to him, really, all he cared about was the art itself. He never directly spoke to someone online except for the commission requests themselves. People started to talk about him like he was a myth. A strange being that only manifested at the mention of Erasermic, then disappeared into the night as soon as he felt satisfied.
The work count under the tag skyrocketed, much to Hizashi’s delight, his antics inspiring people to write without him even having to say anything.
He stopped being shy about his requests a long time ago. He would describe the layout of Aizawa’s apartment perfectly, down to the miniscule dent near Shota’s bedroom door from him haphazardly swinging it open and slamming it into the wall by accident after a long day of rassling a class of teenagers. Authors just thought he was very passionate. Not that he was there every weekend, stood around the kitchen island with the man in question and Nemuri, shooting the shit about what was going on in their lives.
Sometimes, she’d shoot him knowing glances from across the counter.
He pretended not to see them.