Chapter Text
Comparisons are not an indulgence Shouta will give away so easily, but when you’re blinded by the smiling equivalent of a sun, his hand will unwrap itself rather easily.
Hizashi Yamada makes it frustratingly clear that nothing will ever be given away rarely again.
“Is my jacket frayin’ already?”
Shouta twists his head around. He eyes said jacket with a grimace. “If by fraying, you mean tacky? Sure.”
By the time they get their own agency, Hizashi’s jacket will be in pieces.
(Why’d the support department even approve of it? From the amount of time’s Hizashi had to wiggle out of his leather pants after a heroics lesson, camp out in Shouta’s flat and wear one of Shouta’s pants that, obviously, don’t fit him much too well, the aesthetic he’s going for is just not worth it.)
His boyfriend holds a hand up, twinkle in his eye as he wags a finger. “No no, none of that, now. You love it.”
Spotting a loose belt clasp, the black-haired teenager steps forward, fingers looping around to adjust the buckle correctly.
He rolls his eyes.
“You highly overestimate your importance,” he mutters, a casual cadence to his voice.
Hizashi huffs before sticking his tongue out tauntingly, probably from knowing there’s more to it than that.
Shouta’s face does not heat up at the sight.
“‘Sides,” Hizashi adds cheerfully, green eyes glancing over his shoulder, making Shouta wonder what exactly is important enough to draw his boyfriend’s attention from him, “Oboro approves!”
Citing Oboro’s eccentric taste is a poor choice. “You mean the guy whose whole hero costume revolves around a piece of lost media from the Pre-Quirk Era? That friend of ours?”
“Oh, come on, you have to hand our third wheel some credit.”
“Considering you’re heading off on patrol to be with ‘our third wheel’ right now, that seems rather insulting,” he deadpans. “Maybe I should call him up? Slander doesn’t seem like the best headline for an aspiring hero like Present Mic.”
The blond beams down at him. “Oh, you’re clever, sweetheart! Flattery’s good on you. Keep doing that. Present Mic's very aspiring.”
Before Shouta can interject, Hizashi frowns. “Wait, no. Don’t tell ‘Ro any of that. He’d be devastated.”
Fighting back a snicker’s not difficult at all.
“I’m devastated at you,” Shouta says, pointedly not devastated at all.
Before Hizashi can prove his humor’s entirely intact, there’s a vibrating in his pocket, the blond already fumbling to reach down for what must be his phone.
Lifting a hand to his mouth, eyeing Shouta warily, Hizashi steps into his usual greeting. “You’re on the line with Present Mic, listener!”
A quiet, breathy chuckle escapes Shouta’s lips. Always the same.
The other’s brow furrows thoughtfully as the voice on the other line continues.
“Hey, I didn’t know, alright?” Hizashi snickers after a moment, “Jeez, pipe down.”
Listening idly as the other whistles, he shifts on his feet.
He makes himself scarce in Hizashi’s space by clasping his hands behind his back, interlacing his fingers together and curling the indexes.
Eventually, Hizashi lifts the phone away from his ear when even Shouta can hear the other side. Familiar.
“Oy,” Hizashi holds the phone up to his face, making his nose crinkle, “Someone wants to speak to you."
His hands reach for the phone lazily. “Gimme,” he drawls.
Once the phone’s pressed into his hands, he nearly opts to take it off speaker phone -- before realizing no, he likely doesn’t have to -- and lifts it up to his ear. “Eraserhead speaking.”
“Shouta!”
Sparing a glance at Hizashi, he sighs. "Hello, Oboro.”
He can almost hear the pout in their friend’s voice. “What’s the hold up?”
“Eh?” Shouta tilts his head.
With one hand, he gestures in confusion to Hizashi, who answers with only a lilt of his head. With that in mind, he shakes his. “D’you want a grand speech or something?”
There’s laughter on the other end.
“Oh, man. No, not like that!” Oboro reassures, voice crackly with static. Hizashi needs to get a new phone. “I’m just saying, Hizashi miiiight wanna get over here. Now. ASAP.”
He does not frown. “You could’ve told him that yourself. He said you wanted to say hi to me.”
“I did want to say hi to you,” Oboro states, “But I also value my life, and Makoto-sensei will have my head if Hizashi doesn’t get here soon."
“You need a scapegoat,” he muses.
Hizashi snickers next to him, but there’s a hitch underneath the laughter, Shouta having learned the shape of it long ago.
The line goes quiet long enough that Shouta wonders if the signal here was truly that poor.
Or maybe Hizashi’s phone just needs to be thrown out.
Had he hung up?
“Not a scapegoat,” Oboro says, breaking through his thoughts. “I love you both, but I do really need him here."
Another pause.
“Oh, yeah, wait,” their friend chimes in, “Right. I did want to talk to you about something.”
‘Distracts easily,’ he mouths at Hizashi, one hand cupping the other side of his mouth.
Shouta focuses his attention back on the call. “And that is?”
“If you guys aren’t too busy smooching faces tomorrow morning,” and it’s said with mock disgust as Shouta rolls his eyes.
The other continues. “Let’s meet up at your place! We could go back to the arcade. It would just be like old times, right? That could be fun.”
The mention of the arcade makes him pause. They hadn’t been there since before the start of Third Year -- or, hell, since the middle of Second Year. Not since that whole thing happened.
Out of respect, Hizashi hadn’t even breached the topic again, despite his obvious reservations about not being able to spend time with his friends at the place.
Not once had his boyfriend brought it up.
“The arcade?” Hizashi asks, glint in his eyes as he leans in. “We should go.”
Until now, Shouta supposes.
If you had to ask, Shouta would deny any satisfaction in the fact that his boyfriend hasn’t put up his sunglasses yet; his expressions are much more satisfying when not hidden by twin sunsets. The red spirals enclosed with the green have a mind of their own.
Then, remembering that he’s not on speaker, a contemplative look crosses his face.
“Hold,” he mutters to Oboro. A hum of agreement answers him.
Twisting his head, he turns to Hizashi, dropping the raised hand to the side. “Your hearing’s menacing, you know that?” he grumbles.
“It’ll be great for heroics,” Hizashi argues, far too pleased with himself.
Suddenly, he waggles a finger at the phone dangling from Shouta’s hand.
“And,” he drawls, drawing out the n, volume forced out without a hint of his quirk, “It’s great for pinpointing the exact moment your friend’s complaining.”
He lifts the phone back to his ear.
“He’s propagating a false narrative,” Oboro mutters into his skull. “I’m not complaining. I’d thought you’d hung up.”
There’s a rustle as Hizashi goes back to adjusting his hero costume. Shouta huffs a facisimile of a laugh, not one for comedy.
“Big words for a man who nearly failed Home Ec.”
“That was one time,” Oboro complains.
Out of the corner of his eye, Hizashi drops down into a crouch to reach into his bag.
Already knowing what’s in it, he turns away, well aware he’ll be seeing it in action soon enough.
“And,” Shouta says, voice teasing, “One time nearly held you back for the whole year.”
Shouta regrets his words within an instant. ‘Nearly held back’?
He already knows Oboro won’t have the chance to take up his place on the graduating podium beside them both, the principal and his family already having worked out a deal for him to continue another year of heroics at the school -- entirely sponsored -- after what’d happened.
Shouta has half a mind to exorcise himself, lest a rude poltergeist climbed into his body and opened its big mouth. Though, he’s well aware of his own faults-- so maybe there’s no need to.
Oboro doesn’t seem to take it to heart. Not that his obvious stilling on the other end would reveal much of the organ.
“Again,” he mutters, “that was one time!”
Relief floods him. Leave it to Oboro to be such a troop about things.
Maybe they should be concerned about that in the future.
A finger plants itself on his shoulder, tapping away. His eyes turn, greeted by the warm sight of Hizashi, looking up and down.
Then he notices the new addition.
“It looks good on you,” he comments.
Hizashi knocks a palm against his finger twice, clenched fist gentle as he rocks it in motion; one finger reaches to adjust the knob at the bottom. “Right?”
“Oh, oh! Is Hizashi testing out the speaker?”
“Oboro apparently has a secondary mind-reading quirk now,” he adds, deadpanning.
Fixing him with The Look, his boyfriend’s green eyes crinkle fondly. “Oboro can test that new quirk out when we go to the arcade tomorrow.”
Oboro’s excited voice pipes up. “We’re going to the arcade? Hizashi agreed?”
“He’s a fraud,” Shouta says amusedly. Continuing, the blond reaches behind himself to interlock one of the clasp mechanisms in place. Likely one of the extras he’d detailed in the blueprint. He has a vague memory of watching Oboro and Hizashi tinker uselessly with the speaker in the lab. “And yes.”
Shouta steps forward. A hand reaches out to tug out Hizashi’s collar, rhinestones shimmering in the limelight. “All good?”
“Askin’ bout this old baby?” the other tuts. “Just peachy. It’s winking at you.”
Oxymorons are terrible in Hizashi’s mouth.
With his other hand he squeezes the phone back to his ear. “Question. Over.”
“Statement,” Oboro answers. “Over.”
“Should I crucify Hizashi,” he murmurs, other finger adjusting to fondle the collar. Then his hold tightens. “Or burn his hideous jacket? Over.”
Hizashi gawks.
“Hey!” he protests, shifting away from him with a hand outstretched to cover his chest. “You nerds! Stop conspiring against me, yo! You’re so mean to me!”
“Hm,” Oboro thinks, on the other end. There’s another crackle of static as he shifts. Maybe he’s wearing his aviator jacket at the moment; there’s a slight rustle of fabric, too. “Save it until after our arcade date. Over.”
His nose scrunches up at the terminology. “Don’t say it like that. You’re making it sound like I’m dating you.”
“Shouta’s very much taken,” Hizashi wheezes out. Like a child, his grin quickly turns mischievous. “But I wouldn’t be opposed to sharing. How do you feel about sharing a king-size bed, buddy?”
Upon spotting Hizashi’s mentor lingering just a ways away, he tips the phone toward Hizashi.
A snort. Louder this time. “No thanks. I love you, Zash, but the sleepovers we’ve had over the years have proven you’re a terrible bedmate.”
Shouta clicks his tongue. “He’s got you there,” he points out, having been privy to it first-hand.
Opening his mouth, Hizashi looks poised to raspberry at them.
“Present Mic!”
Head twisting around, eyes wide, Hizashi groans. Teruki can be seen from behind him in the distance.
The blond hisses apologetically as he whirls around to face him. “Sorry to cut the convo short, but--”
“I know,” he says, waving him off with the phone in hand. “We know. Go flaunt yourself.”
Grinning with all his teeth -- the creepy one that startles Oboro and, shockingly enough, endears Hizashi -- Shouta goes, “Show Mic off.”
And try not to deafen any civilians along the way, he adds. Lawsuits would be a pain.
He lets go of the leather. Like a flashlight, Hizashi flashes a beaming smile at him, hands already in a rock motion as he reaches into his pocket for his sunglasses.
Shouta wonders whether to pry the frames from his hand to scrub at the lenses.
One look at them confirms he shouldn’t.
If there’s anything Hizashi loved more than him and Oboro, it was those pair of sunglasses.
“We’ll see you later, Shou,” Oboro adds, voice filtered.
“I’m hanging up now,” he says dryly.
“Stay safe,” Shouta says quickly. Already faced away, a hand fists at his jumpsuit’s neck; maybe he should’ve brought his capture weapon. Getting back home would be a breeze.
The wind brushing against his face is enough to sway from that thought.
From behind him, there’s a yellow huff. There’s a click as he adjusts the glasses against his headphones. “You know I’ll always come back to you, listener. Safety’s my middle name anyway.”
Hizashi’s smile is, as always, loud enough to paint the bigger picture.
“Besides,” he can hear tacked on, “Oboro will be there.”
Shouta’s face isn’t anything other than a canvas.
4 YEARS LATER
The walk back home from the precinct doesn’t normally take too long. Rounding the corner’s usually the home stretch.
Though, usually, it’s not in him to trudge home instead of using his capture weapon to swing on back to the flat.
However, Shouta knows Oboro’s looming threats about how he ‘shouldn’t act like that American hero’ - Manspider, was it? It doesn’t even make sense -- while nursing an injury ring true. When it came down to it, Oboro would make sure they follow through. Wondering whether one of his friend’s clouds could drown him in rain doesn’t seem much too productive either.
Maybe that’s the meds talking.
Shouta somehow makes it to their building without much of a hitch. Just in time for the sun to shine its teeth.
Had the night patrol really dragged out that long? Or had Tsukauchi’s incessant, perfectionist need for paperwork kept him that late?
What matters more is Oboro will be righteously pissed.
Gritting his teeth, he tries to make his way up the stairs to his inevitable doom. He ignores the concerned look that the receptionist at the door shoots his back, streaks of light already trailing into the room.
Despite her obvious youth; the eyes in her light hadn’t died out yet, still lit aflame.
So she’s clearly old enough to discern right from wrong. Staring after a stranger seemed to definitely fall into the latter.
“Sir, are you--?”
He can already envision her hand on the dial to 119. “I’m just peachy,” he grumbles, clutching his side.
“But you’re…”
His hand doesn’t stutter as it reaches into his pocket for his hero license, not bothering to look back as he rolls back his rotator cuff to present it.
“Heroics,” he mutters.
The silence that ensues is word for ‘get-the-hell-out-there’. Shouta’s never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth if it means ditching uncomfortable conversations.
Tucking the license back into his pocket, fingers briefly catching against the apartment keys, metal cold against his skin, he whirls back up the stairs and starts climbing.
Despite his many years in underground heroics, despite the athletic prowess built up from constant training and the acrobatics demanded by active duty and various take-downs, trekking up a simple flight of stairs has never felt worse.
It feels like only a few seconds when the keys are jangling in the lock.
The door creaks open with a faint click, the egregious sound they’d originally always been met with long gone from Oboro whining to the landlord. Gratitude is not something he’ll offer up on a silver platter.
If anyone connects the dots, what with Shouta purposefully going out of his way to avoid getting hurt for a few weeks after that, Oboro will still be none the wiser.
Slipping one of his boots off, he tosses it to the side with hardly a glance. The genkan’s not lit up, so for all he knows, Oboro’s either tinkering away in his room, asleep, or has finally absolved his god forsaken habit of keeping the lights on.
The lights quickly turning on tells him that’s not all there is to it, though.
“Hey,” he hears. “You look like shit.”
Shouta nearly barks out a laugh once his eyes land on the source. “You’re one to talk.”
Mauve and bruising, the eyebags under Oboro’s blue eyes are flirting with him. Shouta’s own pair aren’t faring anything better themselves, attention veering curtly to his yellow sleeping bag tucked away in the corner behind the couch -- in the living room that the genkan trails off to, but at least it proves Shouta's making somewhat of a token effort at sleep.
With Oboro’s scheduling, you’d think he was dive bombing out of the way of sleep, like a stunt actor on his last leg.
He's dressed in a button down top, orange muted with the faint patterns of cats. Their friend Nemuri had bought it as a gift on a whim a few years back. With how tall Oboro is now, having outgrown that hero-hopeful long ago, it's a wonder it's only exploding at the connection between his shoulder and arms, biceps tight.
His hair's grown longer at certain edges, shaping out into foggy drapes on particular strands, but other than that, his friend's maintained a rather well-kept look thus far. The length itself has remained mostly untouched by time. Colour not so much, pale baby blue fading out into a stormcloud gray at the ends; but the cloudy bangs drape over the scar alluringly in their pastel, the glaze over his bad eye barely even noticeable, so that evens it out.
Unlike him. His own hair is mangey, unkempt. Shouta had never bothered much to take care of his, only trimming it down every few years once the feeling got too grating. Even Oboro's stubble is pristine, peach fuzz prominent on his face, but only to the point where it makes him look handsome. If Shouta had to be objective.
God knows his own ability to grow stubble at a bullet's pace is concerning.
At least one of them's doing something right. His hair in general is more of a nest for the stray cats he's come across, or the ones at the shelter.
Now that he thinks on it, the thought suddenly occurring to him, they could head out to that cat cafe sometime. Tomorrow, even.
Knowing Oboro, he’ll likely cheer up at the sight of that orange tabby he keeps pretending he doesn’t have his eye on.
Sushi’s doing well with Nemuri nowadays -- they’d all collectively agreed that after Hizashi, neither he or Oboro were in any state of mind to take care of anyone else, let alone a cat -- but, who knows.
Perhaps a new face to the household could wash away their collective insomnia.
“You ditched the medics,” Oboro accuses.
He shrugs the other boot off. “Who’s to say they didn’t ditch me."
Paramedics are always so nosy anyway.
“You smell like Tsukauchi’s coffee,” his friend comments, and Shouta wants to slap himself for not remembering Oboro’s distinct talent for distinguishing smells. The nosestrip planted on the bridge of his nose is a red herring. “So you did paperwork. But you skipped the medics afterwards, didn’t you?”
Not gracing that with a response, he strides off after hanging up his capture weapon, foot snagging onto a rug before he grumbles and snaps it out, Oboro’s chiding remark of ‘deserved’ ignored as he rushes to his room. Footsteps trail after him.
“I always knew you were shameless,” Shouta drawls, not looking back as he reaches up to pull the zipper of his jumpsuit down from his neck, the sound ringing out, “But I didn’t think you a voyeur.”
The Erasure hero’s face blanches with something unrecognizable when a hand reaches from behind him to cradle the front of his neck, feeling for the zipper. Within a matter of moments his body stiffens.
“Let this voyeur help you, then.”
“Let me help you with that, listener.”
He shudders the feeling out. This is Oboro, he reminds himself.
“Do what you want,” he mutters.
The hand stops pulling at the zipper. “Yes or no answer, Shou.”
Sighing, he resists the urge to palm his temple.
“Tick-tock,” Oboro says unhelpfully, not beating around the bush.
He deigns to wrap his friend up in his capture weapon someday. “Help me,” he bites out.
“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it? Piece of cake.”
Oboro’s other hand lands on his shoulder, grounding, before it slips away as Oboro steps forward to switch up their positions, and continue pulling the jumpsuit down.
Within a flash, Shouta’s left in his briefs, and wondering if he should be ashamed.
His friend quickly departs before he can dwell on that cesspool, though, steps tittering out of the room. Even out of his sight, Shouta can imagine him beelining for the washing machine in the laundry room, throwing the jumpsuit in carelessly. Good thing he went over the detergent when they first moved in.
The first time Oboro’s Gi was coloured an orange was the last time he trusted Oboro with anything remotely sound before debriefing. Blue shouldn’t switch over to the opposite side of the colour wheel within the span of just a few hours tumbling in a washing machine.
“Taa-daa!”
Shouta looks up.
A bundle of what he presumes to be Oboro’s nightwear are cozied up in the other's arms. He's sure he'd seen a similar image on the way here, a mother cradling her infant, the baby swaddled in a baby blue blanket.
He has the dignity to at least ask about the elephant in the room. “Where’s my clothing.”
“You barely have anything besides your hero costume,” Oboro remarks, not pouting.
He nudges the clothes closer as he marches in, plopping on the bed Shouta had pointedly been avoiding since he’d come in here, lest he fall asleep. “So I figured these would do.”
A set of navy blue shorts and a long-sleeved satin shirt make their way onto Shouta’s lap with a thump.
“So. Change," Oboro says, oddly smug, crossing his arms.
Shouta eyes them like a cat eyes catnip, weary. “Those look like they’d make me fall asleep.”
Blue eyes follow the traces of his face. “Isn’t that the fun of it? You could use it. God, Shou, your eyes are bloodshot. I'm sure I've stored some of the bottles for your eyedrops in the bathroom somewhere... "
Whose fault is that, he wonders, staring at the eyebags on the other's face waving hello.
Unfortunately, those same blue eyes trail downwards. Oboro's eyebrows pull together. There’s a strained demeanour to his expression that Shouta recognizes. “But I should probably get our medkit before that, huh?"
“Don’t,” he tries to say, but there’s a hiss as one of Oboro’s hands automatically reach to caress a particular spot on his exposed waist, which grants him no leeway in the conversation any longer.
“God, you’re even worse than Recovery Girl,” he splutters. "I'm fine."
Oboro stills.
“If I have to be worse,” he jokes, though the persistent look in his eyes suggests otherwise, “Then so be it.”
Something tells him this conversation will be brought up again.
"My saviour," he decides to snark, knowing better.
He puts the clothes on.