Chapter Text
Hizashi Yamada was not an insecure man.
He never had been one, he never would be one.
Naturally, there were the occasional muttered remarks that rubbed him the wrong way, and maybe there were a few instances of people not biting their tongues around him, accidentally or intentionally, saying things that hit a bit too close to home for his liking--small yet sharp sentiments that lingered in the back of his mind during the day and reared their ugly heads during the night--but that was fine.
It was normal.
It didn’t bother him.
The cruel commentary, the snide remarks, the offensive sentiments… that was normal. It happened to everyone.
It didn’t mean anything.
The words weighed nothing, did nothing, had no affect on him.
He knew he mattered. He knew he was good at what he did. He knew that Shouta was his friend.
So why, Hizashi thought, staring at his tired reflection in the bathroom mirror, did the conversation he briefly overheard weigh so heavily on him?
It wasn’t anything new--there was no unique or special observation that made the conversation an outlier, something for his mind to grab a hold of due to its novelty--in fact, it was a question that had been thrown his way numerous times before.
How does someone like Aizawa deal with someone like him?
Someone like him, Hizashi repeated in his head as his fingers tightened around the sink.
Someone loud.
Someone tactile.
Someone who most saw as the complete opposite of Aizawa.
He’s too much for me some days! And I’m way friendlier than Aizawa!
Someone like him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him.
Someone who was always too much yet somehow, also, never enough.
He watched the water continue to run, falling into the drain with no barrier of entry. The conversation played on loop in his mind, it rattled around stuck in his head like a bad soundbite trapped in his ear.
Maybe they were right, he mentally conceded.
Maybe he was too much.
Fuck, Hizashi thought as he splashed some of the water onto his face, he knew they were right.
He was a lot; he always had been.
But Shouta-
Shouta-
He wouldn’t-
He wasn’t the type of person to pretend to be someone’s friend. He was blunt, to the point, too honest for his own good, but-
Maybe-
No.
Hizashi bit his lower lip. Thoughts raced through his mind a thousand miles per second. They clashed into one another becoming messy connections of half-baked, half-thought out, reasons.
It wouldn’t be impossible to imagine that maybe-
Was it-
No.
But maybe- was it an obligation? Some twisted moral promise made following Oboro’s-
A soft knock jolted Hizashi away from the thought.
“‘Zashi, I’m going out for a bit,” Shouta said, his quiet voice barely carried through the door and over the sound of the running sink water, but Hizashi caught every word, “Don’t wait up for me.”
Hizashi slowly turned off the sink water, not bothering with a reply, as he felt water drip from his face. He pulled the hand towel away from its place on the metal bar and gently patted his face dry.
The two of them had been living together since they started working at U.A., and it was nice. It was really nice, Hizashi thought as he hung back up the towel.
Oddly enough, it had been Shouta who proposed the idea, adamant that the two of them not take up room and board at the school despite the benefits it offered.
Work life and personal life should have some degree of separation, ‘Zashi.
It hadn’t taken much, any, convincing for Hizashi to agree. Shouta could have asked that Hizashi move out to the middle of nowhere, to a dilapidated house four hours away from the school, with him and he would have agreed.
He would like to think that he would have fought back a bit on the idea, but he knew, if Shouta had made up his mind and extended an offer of companionship, Hizashi would have followed him wherever the other man’s heart desired.
Maybe he was stupid-
The door swung open. Hizashi turned. His eyes moved from the sink to the man in front of him.
“Shouta-”
Shouta’s eyes narrowed slightly. A small frown graced his lips.
“You didn’t say anything,” Shouta said, eyes locked on Hizashi.
Hizashi let out a gentle laugh, half-genuine, half-forced, as he leaned back against the bathroom sink. He crossed his arms in front of his chest, half trying to act cool, half trying to self-soothe.
“If I recall correctly, little listener,” Hizashi started, raising an eyebrow slightly, “you didn’t ask a question.”
His tone was jovial. Shouta saw through it.
“Are you okay?”
He forced out another laugh, this one completely an act to appease the concerns of the other man, pushing himself away from the sink. He knew he had to move, if he stayed where he was, Shouta would trap him and no amount of his Present Mic persona would be able to save him from such a situation.
He slid past Shouta--the man moved ever so slightly out of the way, letting him pass without issue, though their bodies still made contact, if only briefly.
“Just tired,” Hizashi offered, heading in the direction of their shared living space. “It’s a lot of work, being this handsome and intelligent-”
“Yamada.”
Hizashi froze. He scolded his face and turned his head, looking back at Shouta. The man was near the door of the bathroom, arms crossed against his chest, head tilted to the side ever so slightly.
“Are you okay?” he repeated.
“Yeah,” Hizashi said without missing a beat. “Sho, I’m fine.”
The other man didn’t seem convinced, but it was clear that was the end of the conversation. The air settled around them like a wet blanket covered in dust.
“Listen,” Shouta said coming closer to Hizashi, “I’ll be back before midnight-”
“You always say that-”
“I have never said that before-”
“You say it with your eyes, handsome,” Hizashi hit back, winking at Shouta as the man came to a stop beside him.
For a brief second, Hizashi swore a pink dusting covered Shouta’s face before he lost visibility as Shouta made his way to the door.
He knew it must have been his imagination or a trick of the lighting around them.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Shouta muttered. He stopped in front of the door, back still facing Hizashi. “Just- call me if you need me.”
“Always,” Hizashi lied.
The air was tense.
He was waiting for Shouta to call his bluff.
But no remark calling him out ever came. Shouta opened the door and left without looking back.
Tension bled from Hizashi’s body the moment the door latched back in place.
He had worried Shouta, something he had tried to avoid doing by hiding in the bathroom until his nerves calmed down.
Hizashi pushed the palms of his hands into his tired eyes. It was clear Shouta didn’t believe that he was just tired.
But he was.
Hizashi was tired.
Ridiculously tired.
He wasn’t sure the last time he hadn’t felt tired.
Shouta was a good man. A complicated, quiet, caring, man who deserved… better. He deserved a friend that he liked, not one that he merely tolerated.
He had a friend like that once.
Hizashi pushed harder against his eyes before dropping his hands.
Fuck, he thought.
Could he-
He had no choice. Not really.
He could--no, he would become better.
He would take the comments in stride. He would use them to grow; he would use them as guidance on what to change.
Not because of any insecurity.
He wasn’t-
He knew-
He wasn’t insecure.
He knew he mattered to some.
He knew he was okay at his jobs.
He knew that Shouta would let him stick around.
He could be a little less.
It wouldn’t kill him to be a little less theatrical, a little less loud, a little less- well, everything.
He wasn’t changing who he was. The comments didn’t even bother him. He was simply adapting--that’s what humans did. They adapted.
It was a good thing, Hizashi thought, after all, a beaten old radio that only played the one song would be exasperating after a while.
He’d be the same old radio, just playing a different tune.
Yeah, he thought, it was a good thing.
The comments didn’t bother him one bit.