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The night was quiet.
Just Hitoshi and the stars—exactly how he preferred it. No demands, no chatter, just the city's distant murmur and the occasional breeze tousling his perpetually messy hair. The rooftop had become his favourite place, the place where his insomnia felt more like a choice rather than a curse.
He leaned back against the concrete ledge, fingers tapping an absent rhythm against his thigh. The sky stretched endlessly above him, constellations he didn’t bother learning. He didn’t need their names to appreciate the way they flickered.
Then, the door creaked open.
Hitoshi didn’t startle. He’d heard the footsteps climbing the stairs. They were too light to be Aizawa’s, yet too hesitant to be Kendo coming to drag him back inside. Still, his shoulders tensed on instinct.
You hovered in the doorway, silhouetted by the dim hallway light behind you. Your pajamas wrinkled from tossing and turning, hair messy.
“Hey,” you said softly, “Couldn’t sleep?”
Hitoshi glanced at you, one eyebrow arching in mild amusement.
“Great guess,” he replied dryly.
You snorted and let the door swing shut behind you.
You and Shinsou had exchanged glances in the hallway a few times—shared small talk during parties, exchanged smiles that never quite reached deeper than surface familiarity. Never anything more. That’s why he was a bit surprised when you settled down beside him on the rooftop’s edge.
“Just making conversation,” you offered casually.
“Don’t,” Hitoshi replied without turning to look at you.
Hitoshi kept his gaze fixed on the horizon, waiting for you to say something inane about the weather or the view or how cool it was that he hung out up here alone like some brooding protagonist.
But you didn’t.
You just sat there, quiet, your knees pulled up to your chest as you stared at the same patch of sky he’d been lost in moments before.
From that night onward, you started coming up here every evening.
First came the metallic whine of the door hinge—a sound Hitoshi had memorized like his own heartbeat. Then came your hesitant footsteps, always pausing at the threshold as if reconsidering whether this was worth intruding on his solitude. Finally, came the quiet rustle of fabric as you settled into what had become “your spot”—precisely 1.3 meters to his left near an old rusted ventilation panel. Not that he cared, of course.
On the fourth night, however, a blanket was draped over him. Shinsou turned toward you with a faint frown of confusion.
“It’s getting chilly,” you said simply, shrugging as you pulled your own blanket tighter around your shoulders.
The next night a thermos appeared between you with a dull clink. You blinked at the steaming cup, then at Shinsou—he wasn't even looking at you, just staring straight ahead at the skyline as if the offering had materialized on its own (He'd prepared for this, rehearsed the casual delivery in his head three times while waiting on the rooftop's eastern ledge).
"Chamomile," he muttered, so quiet you almost missed it. "Supposed to help with sleep."
You wrapped your fingers around the warm cup, hiding your smile in the rising steam. "Thought you didn't want conversation."
He didn’t reply, but his lips betrayed him, quirking upward at the corner. Hitoshi turned his face toward the city lights before you could witness the mutiny.
The dam broke after that.
By the seventh night, you'd learned three things about Shinsou Hitoshi:
-His insomnia stemmed from nightmares he wouldn't name.
-He took his coffee black with two sugars.
-He remembered everything you ever mentioned in passing (like how you'd casually complained about cold hands last Tuesday, and this week a pair of gloves were placed right beside your spot.)
"You're staring," he said on night ten—not unkindly but with gentle teasing undertones.
You didn’t deny it. Instead, your eyes lingered on him as you murmured softly: "You're interesting."
Your pinky brushed against his—the contact lingering just long enough for both of you to notice—and neither moved away.
"You're persistent," there was a brief pause before he finally asked, “Why are you really here?”
You hesitated before answering: “Couldn’t sleep.” you offered, like he hadn’t watched you yawn through training that morning.
“Mm.” He flicked a pebble off the ledge. “Try counting sheep.”
“Tried. Got bored.” You leaned back, arms braced against the concrete. “They all looked like Aizawa.”
A snort escaped him before he could stop it—a rare sound that made your smile deepen just slightly.
"You don't even try to sleep anymore," he said gruffly, "You just come here."
You exhaled through your nose, breath fogging in the cold air. The lie tasted bitter even before you spoke it. "I—the fresh air helps."
"Liar," Shinsou said simply but pointedly.
A pause. The wind carried the scent of rain from the west, though the sky remained clear for now.
"...Dunno," you admitted quietly after a moment. "Just feel like it."
Shinsou’s chuckle was dry, echoing softly into the night air—"You don't just 'feel like' sitting on a rooftop at two in the morning."
"You do," you countered, pressing your shoulder more firmly against his.
"Yeah but I'm me."
"And I'm me." A shrug that felt heavier than it looked. "Guess we're both here now."
Shinsou looked at you then—his mind swirling with unspoken thoughts: how he waited for you every night, how your presence had become the only thing that quieted the static in his skull, how he'd started timing his breaths to match yours.
It was the twelfth night when Shinsou felt the weight of your head on his shoulder.
One moment you were blinking too slowly, the next Shinsou’s hand was hovering near your head, torn between shaking you awake and wrapping it around your shoulder.
And after a whole minute of contemplation he decided on the latter.
That was the night when Hitoshi whispered softly into the darkness,
“I love you,”
The words were barely audible yet too fast to take back. His lips brushed your temple, feather-light and gone before your eyelashes could so much as flutter.
Somewhere between Night One and Now, the rooftop had become your spot too.