Chapter Text
Neito Monoma had a problem. An adorable, emo problem with purple-hair. He’s not entirely sure why or how it happened, and he couldn’t pinpoint an exact moment that it had happened either. All he knew was that he had fallen head over heels in love with his best friend.
Shinsou and Neito had an unusual friendship. At first, none of the rest of their class understood why Neito was friendly with Shinsou at all, especially since he openly mocked the entirety of class 1A on an almost daily basis. It had become like a daily ritual at this point for Neito to stick his head in the door to class 1A and shout “You guys suck!”.
And though it had taken a while for Neito to completely forgive Shinsou for being transferred to class 1A (despite the fact that Shinsou had not had anything to do with that decision). Now, it was commonplace for Neito to add an addendum to his daily ritual of “--except you Shinsou. You’re cool.”
Itsuka gave him shit for it all the time.
But it was fine. He could handle having a silly little crush on his best friend. (His crush was neither silly nor little). Whatever. He was managing.
And most of the time it was easy. Things were good. They were good. They might not have been close in the way that Neito would have preferred, but he was just happy to have Shinsou by his side in whatever way he could.
But that was probably all ruined now. Because Neito had fucked up. Badly.
It all started with a routine training exercise.
Class 1B and 1A were set to do a group exercise and for some reason (probably to even the playing field since class B is obviously superior) Vlad-sensei and Aizawa-sensei decided to mix the teams randomly between the classes. Which is how Neito ended up on a team with Honenuki, Jirou, Sero, and, blessedly, Shinsou. At least Jirou and Sero were some of the less obnoxious students from class 1A. Their team, team 8, was set to face off against team 4 which consisted of Tsunotori, Awase, Uraraka, Kaminari, and Bakugo.
The training exercise was fairly straightforward. Teams of five would work together to attempt to capture members of the team they faced off against and the first team to capture four out of the five members of the other team wins. Neito smirked when the teachers announced this last rule. He knew Bakugo would most likely refuse to work as a team and would try to win the match all by himself. But since they only had to capture four out of five to win, Neito and his team could emerge victorious without having to capture Bakugo, or better yet without having to fight him at all. Plus, it would be absolutely hilarious to see the inevitable tantrum that Bakugo would throw when he lost the match because of his inability to work on a team.
Which is exactly what happened.
Team 8 had already captured Tsunotori, Kaminari, and Awase while Sero and Jirou had managed to get themselves captured by team 4 (typical class A losers). Now Neito and Shinsou were distracting Bakugo while Honenuki was capturing Uraraka. All they had to do was distract Bakugo until…
DING!
Present Mic’s voice carried across the training grounds, “LOOKS LIKE TEAM 8 HAS MANAGED TO CAPTURE A FOURTH MEMBER FROM TEAM 4! WITH FOUR SUCCESSFUL CAPTURES, TEAM 8 SECURES A VICTORY, CONGRATULATIONS! THE MATCH IS FINISHED!”
And Bakugo’s temper tantrum was almost immediate.
“HAAAAH?!” he yelled, “Ain’t no way old man.”
Neito locked eyes with Shinsou, both of them full of adrenaline from the win.
“YES!” Neito cheered, “WE DID IT!” He threw himself at Shinsou in celebration, momentarily so excited and distracted by winning the training exercise that he forgot himself and kissed Shinsou full on the mouth. What’s worse is Neito had been so caught up in the moment that he hadn’t even realized what he’d done until about a minute and a half into his speech gloating over beating the other team. And by the time he did realize his mistake (and recovered from the near heart-attack it had caused him) Shinsou was nowhere to be found.
So yeah. Basically, Neito was fucked.
*****
Two days later and Neito still hadn’t spoken to Shinsou since.. erm.. The Incident. Two full days of stewing in his own anxiety and Neito felt like he was going insane. He had to talk to him. Maybe there was a chance he could fix it and Shinsou wouldn’t be mad at him? Ugh. Neito actually would have preferred avoiding talking to Shinsou about it forever but Itsuka had apparently gotten tired of listening to Neito whining about it because she’d literally kicked him out of their dorms and told him he wasn’t allowed back inside until he could shut up about it.
Which meant he had to talk to Shinsou.
Fuck.
Convieniently (horribly, terribly) Neito saw a Shinsou-shaped shadow walking around the corner of a building nearby. (Ignore how easily he recognized the sillouhette. Please.) Here goes nothing I guess… Shit.
“Hey, uh, Shinsou,” Neito called out, hating how uncertain his own voice sounded. He reached out and grabbed Shinsou’s arm which was his second mistake because he was briefly distracted by the muscles hiding under Shinsou’s sleeve. When he finally refocused, Shinsou was staring at him looking confused. Right. Focus Neito.
“Can we um, can we talk?” he asked
“Uh, sure…” Shinsou replied hesitantly.
“Sooo,” Neito started, “About the other day…”
Shinsou’s eyes darted away from Neito’s as his cheeks flushed slightly pink. “Yeah…”
Right, okay. So now all Neito had to do was… wait. He still hadn’t figured out how he was going to explain what had happened. “Look I just got carried away,” he started stammering, “heat of the moment and all. I’m really so–”
“It’s okay,” Shinsou cut him off.
“--rry. Wait, really?”
Shinsou was still blushing, cheeks adorably pink as he continued, “Yeah, I mean– it’s fine. I didn’t- I don’t mind.” He rubbed at the back of his neck awkwardly, shoulders tense.
“You… don’t?”
“Nah,” Shinsou shrugged, “I mean. I get it.”
“You–” This was not at all how Neito expected this to go. “Really?” he asked again.
Shinsou just shrugged again, still blushing and not quite meeting Neito’s eyes. Almost like he was nervous. Like maybe he felt the same way Neito did.
Oh.
OH.
Holy shit.
“Wait, so– this– us–” Neito gestured to himself and Shinsou. He just had to be sure. “You’re okay with it? We’re okay?”
Shinsou finally smiled that rare, shy smile of his and said, “Of course we’re okay.”
“Okay!” Neito cheered. He couldn’t believe his luck. Would he be pressing it to ask Shinsou on a date already? Surely not, right? Since they had already agreed that they like each other.
“So, um. There’s this cat cafe opening next week? I figured it may be to your taste… Would you maybe wanna go with me, or…?”
Shinsou looked away nervously again and Neito quickly found himself enamoured by how cute he was when he was nervous like this. “Yeah, alright,” Shinsou said, “Sounds cool.”
“Great!” Neito almost squealed with excitement. “It’s a date then!”
“Sure,” Shinsou said, smiling softly as he finally met Neito’s eyes. Neito could hardly believe his luck.
*****
The date was perfect. They walked to the cafe together talking about classes and training and nothing in particular. That was one of the things Neito had always loved about Shinsou, even before he’d realized he’d fallen for him, Shinsou was just easy to talk to.
When they got to the cafe, Neito ordered a coffee and Shinsou ordered tea. Neito thought there was something poetic about that but maybe he was just a hopeless romantic looking for signs where there weren’t any. Maybe both of those things could be true at the same time. Neito paid for both of their drinks despite Shinsou protesting that he could pay for his own. But Neito insisted. He was a gentleman after all.
They found a table near a window to sit at and almost immediately one of the cats jumped up into Shinsou’s lap. Neito wasn’t surprised, Shinsou had always been good with animals. Plus he was wearing a hoodie and he looked very cozy.
“Awww,” Neito cooed, taking a picture of Shinsou as the little grey and white cat pressed her face into Shinsou’s hand. He made a mental note to set the picture as the home screen on his phone later.
Shinsou just chucked softly and smiled as the cat sat down and settled in on his lap, clearly deciding this is where she would stay for the foreseeable future. Neito couldn’t blame her. He sighed wistfully, resting his chin on his hand as he stared openly at his date.
“You’re so handsome, Shinsou,” he thought aloud, barely even realizing he’d spoken the thought. He only really noticed when Shinsou’s cheeks went pink.
Shinsou cleared his throat. “Thanks…?” he said, “I’m just wearing a hoodie though?”
“True,” Monoma said, then winked. “Still handsome though.” Shinsou blushed even harder.
~~~
“This was nice. I had a really great time, Hitoshi,” Neito said as they made their way back to the UA dorms. He had kept stretching his pinky finger out as they walked side by side, so that their hands brushed. Shinsou had been pretending not to notice, but Neito was unabashedly staring at his face and as such was able to see the gentle blush creeping up Shinsou’s cheeks each time he did it.
“That’s okay, right? If I call you Hitoshi?” Neito asked, leaning forward, his eyes darting to Hitoshi’s lips. “You can call me Neito, if you want.” He could remember how soft those lips were. He wanted to feel them pressed to his own again.
“Sure, that’s fine…” Hitoshi said, slowly, voice trailing off like he was distracted. Then, “…Neito.” Neito’s heart went all soft and gooey at the sound of his first name spoken in Hitoshi’s low voice.
Hitoshi was mirroring Neito’s body language, leaning in towards him, their faces centimeters apart. Neito could smell the tea Hitoshi had been drinking at the cafe on his breath. He wanted to taste it. All he had to do to close the gap between them was tilt his head up slightly and…
Suddenly Hitoshi’s whole body went tense. He stood back up abruptly, a deep blush rising up to face. “So. Um,” he started stammering, “like, I have a lot of homework, and so do you, actually. And it’s gonna be curfew soon, too, so. I’m– yeah I’m gonna go now. But yeah, it was fun! We should– we should do this again! So, um, yeah, see you!” and he ran off into the dorms without giving Neito a chance to respond.
Huh. That was weird. Neito stood in the cold watching Hitoshi literally run away and slam the door shut behind him. He hadn’t thought Hitoshi was that shy. It was actually kind of adorable. Neito smiled. Don’t worry Hitoshi, he thought to himself valiantly, I can be patient.
*****
Their next few dates are also amazing.
Most recently, Neito invited Hitoshi over to watch a movie in his room. After Hitoshi had mentioned offhandedly that he’d never seen twilight before, Neito simply had to remedy that immediately. Also, as a bonus, he got to cuddle up with Hitoshi for a couple of hours while they watched it.
The only less than perfect thing about their dates so far is that Neito still hadn’t been able to get Hitoshi to kiss him, even with his absolute best flirting skills.
But it’s fine! He’s being patient.