Chapter Text
His eyes were again directed towards that seat. The seat right next to the door, an entire room away from himself. The seat occupied by those stunningly green eyes. And their owner, of course.
The sight of him had been burned into Yuji's mind months ago. A clear picture of the man showing every time he closed his eyes, tried to sleep. Those emerald eyes framed by long lashes occupying his mind restlessly. He couldn't get him out of his head, no matter what he tried.
Any attempts at distraction were futile when it came to this man. With his pretty eyes and his pretty hands and his pretty hair and his pretty everything. Sure, there were moments in which Yuji thought of different things and had something else to do. But eventually, his thoughts would always, without exception, loop back around to him. And really, he didn't mind. If there had to be something constantly lingering in the corners of his mind, Yuji figured a pretty guy wasn't the worst option.
Despite the picture haunting him night and day alike, he kept looking. Because even if he could recall it effortlessly by now, the image was of no comparison to the real deal.
So he watched. Watched black hair sway along to his head as it moved up and down. Watched slender fingers copy the words on the board onto paper. Watched beautiful eyes be obstructed by long lashes as the man looked down.
Yuji watched, waited for green eyes to appear beneath the black strands again, wishing every second to drown within those deep irises, get lost to never find his way back out.
He knew he probably looked embarrassing right now, staring at his crush like they had just come straight out of a teenage romance movie. But he couldn't help himself. How was a guy supposed to act normal when faced with such a handsome man? He could only wonder why no one else was looking at him. A man looking like he just came out of a dream. A very wonderful, beautiful dream that Yuji wished would never end. As long as he could stare at those stunning eyes and the lashes framing them, he didn't want to wake up. As long as he could analyze the movements of his hands as he wrote. As long as he could sit here and watch, Yuji would be aright.
Even now, after having stared at him forever, there was something captivating about Fushiguro Megumi.
He could have been nobody. Just another one of Yuji's classmates, one among a hundred other people. A person he sort of but not quite met and didn't remember the name of a few years after graduation. If he had ever learned his name at all. Another person he passed without ever speaking or knowing each other.
But he wasn't. Far from it. And not only thanks to the crush Yuji had developed on him.
There was something different about that man. Yuji couldn't pinpoint what exactly, but it was there. Undeniably. Yuji had even asked Nobara about it for confirmation and she had agreed. She wasn't interested in that man even in the slightest, but she had said it herself. Something about him was off. And Yuji would figure out what. Some day, at least.
He wanted to talk to him so badly it ached. And yet, he could never build up the courage. He didn't consider himself a coward, but it had turned out that he could turn into one within a heartbeat if it was for one particular set of emerald eyes. Nobara had harassed him enough times for him to actually start a few tries at talking to him. But every time so far, as he had approached Fushiguro, the man had looked up. He had turned his head as though he had noticed Yuji coming closer and given him that look. That look that said he knew what Yuji wanted.
Faced with it, Yuji had turned right back around. Every time, he had turned back around when actually faced with the eyes he was once again staring at.
"Have you seen the Spiderman video from last night?", Nobara's voice pulled Yuji out of his thoughts.
"Last night?", he asked, his mind taking a hot minute to catch up.
Nobara made a gagging sound back at him. "You need to stop that."
"Stop what?"
She rolled her eyes at him. "Don't play dumber than you are with me. I know you know what I'm talking about. You're staring at him with little heart eyes again." She gestured toward Yuji's eyes to emphasize her point.
He knew it was no good denying it. Nobara's eyes were sharp, like her mind. And even if it weren't for that, she was well aware of the one thing that could have Yuji so out of focus to not notice anything else going on around him.
"Look, loverboy, either you gotta get over yourself or over that little crush of yours. Or whatever else it is that it takes to make you stop with whatever you're doing now, because I'm not watching this for much longer", she told him.
But since she had been saying the same thing even back when Yuji's crush had developed, he knew it was an empty threat.
He changed the topic. "You were saying something about Spiderman?"
Nobara flipped her hair, obviously still having something more to say about the whole Fushiguro ordeal, but indulged him anyway. "He was seen again last night. An hour or so after you left to go to bed." She pulled out her phone, typing away on it rapidly, red nails clicking against the screen.
The phone was shoved into Yuji's face, forcing him to lean back until the letters unblurred. Nobara wiggled the phone, inviting him to take it as he read through the short text. It was nothing note-worthy, just a small blog post. It mentioned a place and time and that Spiderman had been spotted. Nothing more. A video was attached at the end. He made sure the sound was off before clicking play.
The video was bad quality, barely anything visible in the dark night it was recorded in. You saw more just a silhouette than an entire person. The subject was unmistakable regardless. Not many people went around Tokyo by swinging from building to building, after all. The camera was switched around as the silhouette disappeared from view. The recorder of the video was illuminated by the street lamp above their head. Their lips moved, but Yuji couldn't listen right now anyway. There were no subtitles available, so he closed the video.
"Do you think Spiderman has some sort of job? Besides being Spiderman, of course. I mean, he's out at basically all sorts of times. That would be hard to juggle with a job, no?", Yuji asked.
"Probably. Unless maybe his boss knows he's Spiderman and they have a sort of special agreement about it so he can go out to save the city when he needs to", Nobara threw in. She took the phone back, closing the tab she had showed Yuji. She was sitting sideways on the desk by now, chair turned, fully facing Yuji.
He moved to mirror her position, stretching out his legs to be on each side of hers. It was a bit of a habit for him, invading other people's physical spaces when he was close to them. At first, Nobara had told him to keep his hands to himself. But it hadn't taken long for her to adjust.
"You think somebody would do that? I was gonna say he's still a high school or college student, like us", Yuji explained.
Nobara made a disgruntled sound, obviously not happy with his argument. "What? You think he could just skip class like every second day without anybody thinking it's strange? Somebody would have noticed by now. Surely, his classmates would have to know. And there is no way that there is an entire class somewhere knowing Spiderman's real identity without anybody having spilled the beans yet. It's more likely he's unemployed."
"But that would mean he has barely any money! That's no life for a superhero", Yuji pouted.
Spiderman was such a cool guy, always helping people out wherever he could and saving the city so many times, all without ever wanting anything back. Somebody as amazing as that did not deserve having to live off of the bare minimum.
"Ugh, I'm sure he has some sort of rich parents or whatever to supply for him." Yuji had a strange feeling Nobara was just talking to make him feel better. She knew very well how much he admired the hero, even having teased him forever about his "crush" on some guy he doesn't even know. He had only been spared from those comments after developing a very real crush on Fushiguro.
Even if she was not so personally interested in Spiderman and was helping Yuji hunt for the hero for her own reasons, she knew how upset the thought of Spiderman having a bad life would make him. As though she was reading his thoughts (which, at times, Yuji thought to be possible, with how well she responded to what was happening inside his head), she said: "You know, that suit and all those gadgets he has certainly aren't coming from nothing, I'm sure of that much."
And, Yuji really could not argue with such flawless logic. Spiderman had to have good supplies coming from somewhere, and even though Yuji didn't understand a whole lot about al the machines he had seen Spiderman use, they sure as hell were not cheap, that much he knew.
"Wait, maybe that's what we should be looking for. Do you know any rich people in Tokyo with young sons?", Nobara asked.
Before Yuji could even reply, Nobara was back on her phone, opening her browser to search for "rich men in Tokyo with young sons". Yuji grimaced a little at how such a search could be misinterpreted by somebody who didn't know what it was supposed to be about.
With Nobara busy, he took a look at the board, noticing that the lecture was only about halfway through. Noticing how he had missed almost all of that timespan so far, he got to scribbling down some notes from the board, so he would take at least something out of it. He knew he should pay more attention if he wanted to have any hopes of passing his courses, but that was easier said than done with not only his chatty best friend sitting right beside him, but also his crush being in the same room. Focusing had not been easy, lately.
He held up for around seven minutes before his eyes drifted back towards the clock. This lecture was so damn boring. The only reason he was even taking the course was the need to fill his schedule. He wondered why Fushiguro was in the course. Did he need it for his major? Was it fun for him? Or was he just trying to fill his schedule as well? As his mind drifted to the man, so did his eyes, catching onto that black blob of hair again. He had his head leaned onto one hand, the other one holding the pen that was scribbling down something onto the paper. Yuji almost thought that he was just as disinterested in what was happening in the front of the room as himself, but the little furrow in his brow was telling him that he was concentrated. His eyes briefly flickered up to the board, letting Yuji catch the deep green of his irises before they disappeared beneath long lashes again.
He felt a kick beneath the table. He flinched, reaching down to rub his shin, muttering a quiet complaint.
"You're being disgusting again", Nobara told him, the pen in her hand pointedly directed at Yuji. She flicked it between her fingers before setting it back down onto the paper. Something told Yuji she was not taking notes from the class. Perhaps it was the phone lying beside her, still displaying the search she had entered a few minutes prior. He knew there would be investigative work coming up after classes.
He huffed out in response to her, allowing his vision to drift across the room again. But the only thing he still saw was Fushiguro's back as he slipped out of the door.