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Hawks knows he’s attractive. Good looking even. It’s just another part of who he is as ‘Hawks’. People are more willing to accept help from someone who’s appealing to them, that’s just basic psychology. Not to mention how much it impacts your ratings. It’s just one more thing he’s needed to raise up the ranks as fast as he did.
Being efficient at apprehending villains. Saving people. Looking good.
Yet. Despite it all, hawks feels unnerved when people see him as promiscuous. He plays a charming persona sure but he’s never been directly flirtatious, has he?
Sure his gaze lingers on civilians, to make sure they aren't injured and he’s noticed some blushing here and there, but he’s generally chalked that up to embarrassment and how experiencing a villain attack tends to get one’s blood pumping. When he grabs people to protect them, help them up, comfort them or the myriad of ways a hero would need to touch people. He’s noticed the occasional hint of hunger in their eyes. Hell, even when holding down villains ever so often he’s thrown off guard by how they get distracted because of his face out of all things.
Back to his main point, he’s attractive—the word feels strangely bitter—That’s why it makes sense for his actions to be misinterpreted as flirtatious even without any intent on his part. Just how the world works.
People want him.
So of course his regular goodwill will be misconstrued, it’s because he has sex appeal. The word echoes the same way it did when the Commission signed him up for a modelling gig to boost his popularity.
People will see his easy smile and instead of thinking he’s reassuring they’ll blush and giggle because they find him hot. It’s not supposed to be a bad thing, it’s good for PR. It’s good for his career… Still Hawks somehow dislikes the fact that he’s seen as flirtatious.
It’s a wonder why. Hawks not being seen for who he truly is a common occurrence. Nobody knows him. Keigo. He’s used to having no sense of identity. He signed up for it the moment he was willing to give up his name. So that can’t be the problem.
His—everything gets put through a filter of people’s personal biases lenses and he’s never cared before. He’s the one who’s in charge of his hero persona. Arrogant, laid back but gets the job done.
It’s a perfectly curated act that comes easily to Hawks. Like a second skin. It’s not who he is, yet he doubts anyone would find much left if they peeled it off of him.
He’s never acted flirtatious. People see him like that anyways. Simple.
He wonders if they’d still think he was flirting if his face was more asymmetrical or if his jawline was fuller, if the eyes the public goes crazy about weren’t shaped as they are. It all boiled down to his looks in the end. Revulsion poured out of him.
It’s not supposed to be a bad thing and it isn't so he doesn’t understand why he keeps repeating it in his head. What’s wrong with him? It’s not like him to be so redundant. Efficiency is his whole shtick.
So why does it feel so distinctively wrong to him to be viewed under that specific lens? Sure he’s never had a single romantic experience in his whole life—he’s been quite busy to say the least, and his main frame of love was the fucked up relationship his parents had. He isn’t remotely interested despite how many people insist on Hawks having a secret girlfriend for the 27th time. Seriously, where do they think he gets the time?
He should gloss over it like he does with everything else, he’s a quiet guy but Hawks isn't. Hawks speaks out and makes blunt remarks, has this easy going charm that everyone—his fans— find hilarious. He’s adaptable and flexible, changing who he is second nature to him.
He’s used to people making assumptions about him but it’s the belief that they think he’s the one initiating romance that sets him off kilter. That makes him think.
Should he want romance? He's established the fact that he can’t and won’t, but in his 2 decades of living he’s never even once felt the urge to love someone the way his mother did. He was curious maybe. Inquisitive, wanting to figure her out and understand her. Aside from that it just never crossed his mind. Maybe he’s too broken to love like that.
He’s aware of everything about it of course, the HSPC has drilled plentiful psychology books into his head. It’s just he’s never thought about in the context of himself. He’s not oblivious to what love is, you can’t be when you’re as emotionally intelligent as he is.
These things are just so embedded in what he perceives as ‘limited to civilians’ It’s entirely separate from him.
He’s never felt sexual urges either. That’s always been a plus in his own eyes, it's a serious liability for some, he’s seen and heard crazy stories about what people do to satisfy themselves so he’s stayed away thankful that such bothersome sentiments don't tie him down.
That level of intimacy… he thinks it's kind of absurd at the thought of willing to let someone be near you as you're that vulnerable.
He’s distantly aware that his fans want to have sex with him. That they think he’s experienced like a typical young man who’s attractive as he is, would be. They’re wrong but so are they about everything else.
The sharp feather in his hand has been holding onto tingles—something must be going on nearby. He wonders if he mars himself, and cut his face to shreds, they’d no longer want him like that. If he sliced his hands against the broken shards of the mirror and carved away every bit of himself that made him desirable to the public.
What a crazy thought. It’d never work and it’d negatively impact his work. He’d probably have to take a break from heroism if he answered the healers with “I looked too attractive so I decided to ruin it.”
There’s a hazy thought on the innermost corner of Keigo’s mind as he bursts into action, that he never wants to be in a relationship. That he doesn’t even want to be seen as someone willing to engage with one.
In the end, Hawks numbs those thoughts by saving 3 school children, 2 young ladies and a couple of teenage boys.
As long as he saves people, he supposes it doesn’t matter if he's a bit uncomfortable.