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As far as Shōta is concerned, roughly seventy percent of his life can be summed up by one phrase:
This could have been an email.
From basically any personal interaction to specifically any staff meeting where Vlad thinks anyone in any room ever needs or wants his input on anything, Shōta despises being forced into things he could have just read a summary of or written a bullet-pointed list for instead.
Which means that he’s already less than pleased about the fact that Nedzu, muzzle pulled up in a grin that normally sends lesser men, i.e. Vlad, running for the hills, had literally cornered him into going to this absolutely worthless meeting.
If given the choice between actual, literal torture and being forced to sit through yet another useless joint HPSC-police conference, Shōta would strap himself to the rack in a heartbeat. These things are always soul-numbingly long, filled with useless back-patting, and result in zero changes to the system even when someone does have a good idea about a policy/procedure change.
Granted, when Nedzu cornered him he could have gone with his first instinct, which was to throw himself headfirst out the nearest window regardless of it being open.
He’s confident he would have actually made it too.
After all these years, Shōta is well aware of Nedzu’s range with his preferred cattle prods despite the rarity of their appearance. So despite Nedzu being unsettlingly fast on his feet when he wants to be, Shōta is relatively sure he could have dodged the initial swing.
Probably.
Hopefully.
And if not, he always has the fact that Nedzu has yet to actually try to kill Shōta in a way that matters to fall back on.
But he also knows that it wouldn’t have been worth it.
Nedzu had wanted Shōta at this meeting bad enough to add a physical element to his intimidation methods, which is rare enough on its own. Nedzu tends to prefer leaving his targets in mental, emotional, and financial shambles over personally moving to violence. That’s normally part of Shōta and Hizashi’s jobs.
Or, if Nedzu is feeling particularly sadistic, he’ll send Nemuri.
Fighting too hard or even managing to successfully avoid attending this meeting would have triggered one of Nedzu’s complicated and effective revenge plots, and Shōta just can’t go through that again this century.
So here Shōta is, sitting in an uncomfortable plastic chair, in a conference room with too many people already crammed in it and still more slowly trickling in, debating the pros and cons of trying to suffocate himself with his capture scarf.
At least Shōta doesn’t have to sit beside anyone.
For some reason, both of the chairs on either side of him and the entire open area behind where he’s sitting have all remained empty, despite that meaning that there are even more people standing crammed together in the opposite corner of the room than there should be.
Whatever.
It works for Shōta.
Right up until it doesn’t.
There’s the sound of quick footsteps loud enough for him to hear over the general noise of the room and then a flurry of movement to his right.
Shōta turns just in time to see what looks like a localized tornado of papers and emerald green hair slam into the chair right beside him.
But before he can focus on that, the meeting is abruptly called to order. The rest of the room shuffles a bit, conversations abruptly cutting off and the last few newcomers shifting to find last-minute places to stand.
Shōta feels the way his eye twitches just a bit in annoyance when his new neighbor’s elbow brushes his own. But he forces himself to turn back toward the front, sink a bit deeper into his capture scarf, and ignore it.
Yokumira Mera, a man who might, in fact, make Shōta seem semi-rested in comparison, steps up to the podium, and Shōta’s desire to be unconscious instantly ratchets up another dozen notches as the man’s dry, monotone voice echoes across the room.
This might not be any of the Hells themselves, but it sure does feel like the waiting room to one or maybe all of them.
Despite the way that Yokumira is still droning on, the sound of low muttering from beside him instantly snags Shōta’s attention.
But when Shōta turns to look, the man who’d taken the seat beside him isn’t looking at Shōta at all.
Instead, he’s pawing through his papers with hands that Shōta can’t help but notice are shaking just a bit. All the while his mouth is moving, voice too low for Shōta to actually make out what he’s saying but the whispering hiss of it loud enough to be noticeable.
Shōta’s eye once again twitches just a bit.
Great.
Now he’s going to have to deal with this the entire time too.
Shōta gives a brief thought to getting up and changing seats, but honestly it’s not worth the effort even sliding into the empty seat to his left would require.
So Shōta just does his best to ignore it.
It works for roughly ten minutes before Shōta shifts his weight. The way he tips just a bit to his right, added to the way the man beside him also shifts to sit back just a bit in his chair instead of hunching forward, means that Shōta can actually hear what his neighbor is saying.
“Whoever thought this was a good idea needs to be beaten with coin-filled socks.”
This bit of muttering, far clearer than before, instantly has Shōta’s attention locking in, freezing him in place for a split second before he slowly turns his head to look at his neighbor.
Because while he absolutely agrees, that’s not the kind of thing most people would say out loud at an official, technically high-profile and important, meeting like this. No matter how miserable it actually is.
But, despite the way that Shōta’s own attention has now focused in on him, his neighbor still isn’t actually talking to Shōta.
Instead, the man, with his curly green hair falling forward and shielding the majority of his profile from Shōta’s view, is still staring down at the notebook and stack of papers he’s balancing in his lap.
Honestly, with how focused he’s been on them, Shōta’s not sure the man is aware that Shōta is actually beside him at all.
“I am technically still awake and unfortunately still alive,” the man mutters again, tone absent and attention locked on his papers, “but at what cost? But since they got fucking Mera to open this waste of time, both of those could change at any time. Being dead would be a better use of my time. Not that it’d matter; they’d keep going with my corpse in the room, and then ghost-me would probably still have to deal with all this too, and that just wouldn’t be fair to the best and happiest version of me.”
Shōta bites back a snort as he ducks his chin deeper into his capture weapon, because yeah, that’s honestly in line with how he feels about this entire situation.
Yokumira finally wraps up whatever it was he was talking about, and hands off his place at the podium to yet another HPSC goon Shōta has never bothered to learn the name of.
But as soon as the man opens his mouth and speaks, Shōta’s neighbor locks up like he’s been electrocuted.
His shaking hands immediately clench around his papers, and his head jerks up so quickly it looks painful so he can stare toward the front of the room.
From this angle, Shōta can actually see the majority of his face and can’t help the way he perks up just a bit in interest.
Wide emerald eyes, sweet freckled cheeks, and slightly chapped but plush lips.
And from what Shōta can see obviously exhausted.
Cute.
“Asano,” the man hisses, nose wrinkling in obvious disgust. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me. They really let that scum-sucking, child-abusing, psychopathic waste of carbon get up there and talk about anything?”
Shōta goes still.
Cuts his attention toward the red-haired man currently speaking.
Then he slowly shifts to pull his phone out of his pocket, thumb open his notes application, and taps out a reminder.
It could be nothing of course, might just be the irritable mutterings of a man that Shōta doesn’t know. But most people don’t slip a tag like child abuser into an insult without a reason. So even if it is nothing, even if it goes nowhere, Shōta has been a hero too long not to at least look into it.
Plus, considering Asano is an HPSC goon, he can always pass the name off to Nedzu, who is always willing and eager to find skeletons in any closet the HPSC might own.
And, much to Shōta’s surprise, his muttering neighbor doesn’t stop there.
Instead, Shōta is able to clock the way his attention moves to the next person on the stage, the one sitting in the chair beside Asano’s currently empty seat, obviously next in line to take over the podium and bore them all one step closer to death.
“What kind of lineup of speakers is this?” Comes the mutter, the tone practically dripping with the kind of scathing disdain that Shōta instantly appreciates. “Is this a joke? You should be fired, and you should be fired, and you’re actually kind of decent, which is honestly almost suspicious on its own. Am I being pranked? Did I finally break with reality and now I exist in a world where these are the only people available to do this?”
Shōta’s earlier grin creeps back across his face as his neighbor picks at the people on stage.
“This must be what being in Hell feels like,” comes the muttered conclusion, followed by a low whine that itches at the back of Shōta’s brain.
And then, just like that, and much to his delight, Shōta’s neighbor is off.
Green eyes wide, his hands clenched around his papers and his knee jiggling just a bit manically, the man’s attention bounces around the room while his mouth and brain move at what feels like lightspeed.
Observation after complaint after comment comes pouring out of him while Shōta’s fingers fly across his phone’s screen as he attempts to keep up with the notes he’s taking.
“Oh my god ew,” comes one whisper, “did they actually let Prototype into this room with other living, breathing people? What cereal box did he even get his hero license out of and how do I get it recalled?”
Shōta, who has had the immense displeasure of working exactly half of a case with Prototype in the past, could not agree more.
“Hate you, and you, and I really hate you,” he’s moved on to a small cluster of officers. “And you’re an asshole who doesn’t understand why basic procedure protocol is important, so I don’t think you should have been let into this building, let alone this room.”
It’s honestly refreshing to find someone who shares so many of Shōta’s own opinions.
“I know you’re corrupt,” comes another scathing hiss, “and I’m six hours and a Redbull from proving it.”
Shōta takes note of Officer Goro, another less-than-stellar cop he’s also worked with in the past.
Shōta is honestly interested in seeing if his neighbor would be willing to turn this accidental info-dump into an actual conversation. Which honestly isn’t something Shōta normally hopes for.
Normally he’s eager to avoid people who talk too much. Having one set of constantly chattering teeth, aka Hizashi, in his life is generally more than enough for him.
But this …
This feels different somehow.
His cute little green neighbor has a biting, vicious sort of wit to him, seems whip-smart and observant enough to make even Nedzu interested.
Shōta likes it.
He wants to see and hear more of it.
Preferably directed toward him.
But then …
Then his neighbor seems to shift his focus from just complaining about the people in the room with them.
Instead, he locks back in on the cluster of heroes seated just across the room.
And then he starts muttering about their quirks.
This time his muttering is … structured somehow.
Hero name and then quirk name, current standing in the charts if applicable, and then …
Information.
A fountain of information.
Quirk weaknesses and strengths, costume critiques, fighting styles.
On and on and on it goes.
Shōta stops trying to take notes unless something concerning is mentioned.
Instead, he settles back in his seat a bit more, careful to do so softly to not risk breaking his neighbor's concentration, and just listens.
Shōta was already interested in his neighbor’s brain, but by the second brutal breakdown of one of the other heroes in the room, he’s fascinated.
But by the sixth breakdown that includes a hissed “that’s not what heroics are about you glory-chasing moron”?
Shōta is pretty sure he’s in love.
~~~
Izuku is pretty sure he’s dying.
He’s been awake for closer to forty-eight hours than is healthy, he doesn’t remember the last time he had anything to eat that wasn’t hopes and dreams, and his left shoe is wet from where he’d been shoulder-checked off the sidewalk earlier and directly into a puddle.
All of that combined with the too bright lights of this gods-forsaken conference room, the fact that the collective IQ of the room is far far too low for a meeting that contains so many heroes, police officers, and government officials, and the way that the chair he’d collapsed into earlier is the single most uncomfortable thing he’s ever sat in, means that Izuku is in a special sort of sensory hell.
But that’s okay.
Izuku is an adult.
He can do the mature and level-headed thing here. He can get through this meeting that he never wanted to attend but was forced to come to without either bursting into tears, throwing this chair directly through the nearest window, or saying to hell with it all and just sliding down and out of his seat so he can curl up on the floor and go to sleep.
He can wait to do at least two of those things once he’s finally able to go back to his own apartment. If that ever actually happens, of course.
So, to keep his mind off his misery after the rage-baiting jump scare that was hearing Asano’s voice, Izuku lets his eyes drift around the stage and the room.
It’s not like he’s going to be able to focus on his papers now, so he might as well sit here quietly and observe the room.
~~~
The meeting drags on for two torturous hours.
It’s the rustling of papers and the sight of people standing that snaps Izuku out of the daze he’d fallen into.
“Oh thank all the gods,” Izuku can’t help but mutter as he surges to his feet, vision blackening just a bit at the edges at the move.
Izuku shakes it off and lurches out into the aisle, every single bit of his attention focused on getting out of the meeting room doors before anyone can stop him.
By the grace of all the gods, he actually manages to do it.
Izuku ducks down one of the less crowded hallways, determined to take the back exit out of the building instead of fighting the foot traffic to get to the front.
Izuku’s a few feet away from the back exit, and has only swayed to the side far enough to bump into the hallway wall three times, when a hand lands lightly on his shoulder.
Izuku does the rational thing.
He shrieks.
“Calm down, it’s just me,” a low, rough voice rumbles behind him as the hand is lifted off his shoulder.
Which doesn’t actually help Izuku at all because he very firmly does not recognize that voice.
Izuku turns slowly, heart pounding from the sudden, unexpected jolt of now fast fading adrenalin.
There, looming above him like a shadow, is Eraserhead.
Izuku blinks.
Blinks again.
“Where did you come from?” He asks.
“I was sitting beside you in the meeting,” Eraserhead answers, hands reaching out to pry the notebook and papers Izuku’s been clutching from his hands.
Izuku, devastatingly exhausted and twice as confused, lets him.
“Absolutely not,” Izuku announces. “I'd have noticed if Eraserhead was beside me.”
Because he would have.
He absolutely would have.
And then he probably would have switched seats because spending two hours sitting quietly beside Eraserhead without being able to talk to him or ask so many questions would have been the kind of stressful thing that might have actually killed Izuku in his current condition.
“Honestly, I was surprised you never did,” Eraserhead says as he coaxes Izuku’s messenger bag down off his shoulder.
“I sat in an empty row,” Izuku insists. Because he had, he knows he had. Even if he’d been seeing black spots from the way he’d had to run to make the meeting time, there’s no way he would have overlooked Eraserhead.
“Empty except for me,” Eraserhead replies.
“No,” Izuku denies.
“Yes,” Eraserhead disagrees.
“What is happening right now?” Izuku asks Eraserhead and the universe at large.
“I’ve listened to you ramble and rip apart everyone in that meeting for the past two hours, so I was going to ask you to dinner,” Eraserhead says, stepping further into Izuku’s space and nudging him to turn back toward the exit Izuku had been heading for. “But you’re exhausted and probably going to crash the moment you sit back down anywhere. So I think I’ll just take you home and make you breakfast in the morning instead.”
Izuku blinks.
Lets Eraserhead steer him out of the building and into the alley.
“Am I hallucinating?” Izuku asks.
He’s pretty sure he has to be.
There’s no way Eraserhead is here right now. Or has listened to him ramble and still wants to go to dinner with him. Or is apparently taking him home like a stray cat he picked up out of an alleyway somewhere.
Most of Izuku’s dreams don’t even start out this unrealistically.
“Probably not,” Eraserhead tells him. “But once you’ve had some sleep and told me your name, I can probably get you there if you’re willing to give me a few hours.”
Huh, some part of Izuku’s brain thinks, well alright then.
To which his body decides that the best logical response is to immediately shut down in self defense.
~~~
Shōta catches his little neighbor in one arm just as his knees buckle.
Absently transferring the papers and notebook he’s been holding into the clutches of his capture weapon, Shōta finds himself standing in an empty alleyway, arms full of a softly snoring body.
After a split-second debate, he fishes his phone back out of his pocket and thumbs open his UA app.
It’s quick work to request a car and to submit his notes document to his and Nedzu’s private message chain with a note that he’ll explain later.
For now, Shōta plans on taking his cute little armful back to his apartment where they can curl up together to get some real sleep in Shōta’s criminally comfortable bed.
Besides, now that Shōta’s thinking about it, a shared nap time sounds like one of the best first date ideas he’s ever heard.