Work Text:
It's been years.
Shouta should be over it by now. Booked a ticket to grieving right and just long enough in the sweet spot for people to stop pointing their noses up at him.
He's tired of sympathy. Of caring when he knows things are temporary. That their pity will inevitably dissolve into malformed loathing when they get their hands on his brain when life catches up to him, chance a shot or two in some bar and slap a hand or four over their dusty knees and make some odd remark on how frustrating of a person he was.
Being Shouta Aizawa is a full-time job he should've handed his 2-weeks notice in for yesterday.
Logic is the only sensible thing to tether him here still. Logic dictates that he remain here, right here, shy away from those who knew him as anything other than Eraserhead, because it is safer. Safer, still, to cling to the membrane that shields him from what others consider woe and he considers inconvenience.
Not make people hand in chrysanthemums he cares not for, their well-wishes and well-disguised abhorrence, not make the people who still consider him a friend call him up, fruitlessly, only to find that the reason he doesn't respond this time is because of something other than simple avoidance.
So off and away to being Eraserhead he goes.
"You should turn in for the night, Eraser."
Deeming answering wholly and entirely unnecessary, Shouta presses himself further into his work, and does not look up to meet the disappointed eyes of Kayama. It's been years since she was his senior; she has no jurisdiction over him, no headway.
A huff.
"Seriously. Catch up on some beauty sleep, close your eyes, whatever."
He doesn't respond.
Hearing her shuffle forward does not alleviate any form of numbness in his chest. She places her hands at the edge of his desk, trimmed and neat nails scuttling to tip tip tap at the hollow wood. Maybe hollow's the word for him. "You clearly need some shut-eye, and being here won't exactly resolve whatever you're dealing with."
"Are you going to make me?" he challenges, finally. Not looking up.
No answer.
Well, there's that.
Most days, trouble spells out an average time traversing the highs and lows of a day.
On days like this one, Shouta's troubles start and end with one vigilante named 'The Cruller', and not for the reasons you think.
"It's The Crawler, Eraser," Cruller corrects. His half-gloved fingers slide through the fur of the tabby cat perched on his lap. She'd jumped ship from Shouta's lap to the kid's shortly after Shouta had dusted himself off to pick up some even more free coffee from the Hotta Brothers. What a nice lot. It's not of his usual taste, preferring something sweeter, but denying anything free would be a bargain he'd find himself making in hell once he got there. "I've corrected you about this a million times, man! I don't--" Crawler cuts himself off. "--mean to be rude, you're actually quite scary, but--"
He really wants to pet that cat.
"What's scary about me?" he prods, tilting his head. Lips curving into that too-wide too-toothed grin he's well aware Yamada shudders at.
Which, as sought after, drags out a nervous laugh out of the kid. Familiar sounding, the way That Guy would've made it sound had he not been so shameless. Shouta does not smile any wider.
Throat bobbing, the 'not-a-vigilante' Crawler rubs at the back of his neck. Associating him with the likes of vigilantes would land him in a hefty amount of... nothing. Trouble wouldn't even inch close to finding its way in Shouta's shores, if he had anything to do with it, because trouble runs away from him. "Yeah, anyway! Could I tell you about something I saw the other day? I think you'd be interested in it and I could use some help dissecting it myself."
"Would 'some help' detail illegal activities such as vigilante-ing?" Shouta deadpans, thoroughly uninterested and interested. He already knows his answer.
The Crawler shakes his head furiously. "No, nothing of the sort, I promise to be perfectly legal and discreet about this."
He takes a second to think on it.
"...Fine, Cruller. I'll hold you to that," he sighs.
Crawler blinks, taken aback. His mouth parts, as if to make a correction, but decides better on it when he looks closer at Shouta.
Decidedly tired of waiting around for an answer, Shouta makes something Kayama would describe as 'grabby-hands', fingers curling into his palms as he beckons his head to the cat. "But hand the kitty over. Only then do you have yourself ... a deal," he says, tentative as he is utterly destroyed by the idea of petting the cat's really soft fur...
He flicks his fingers impatiently when Crawler doesn't move, the kitten's tail thumping against his suit, grey fur scattered on top of his costume. "I won't ask twice."
The Crawler laughs. And laughs. Quite hard, he might add, to the point where Shouta considers enlisting the help of a paramedic just to make sure he hasn't gone mad. "Sure!"
Shouta does not think about how he would get along with That Guy any longer, orange cat replaced by grey. They don't even look similar.
He sighs. At least he'll have something to occupy himself with this week. Whatever the Crawler wants to wrap himself up in now can't be too bad.
Shouta pets the cat.
"You've been busy."
Shouta nearly laughs. Leave it to Yamada to fit something both accusing and prideful in his tone; it's almost claustrophobic, the way he does it.
"Quite," he answers, flatly, and does not dare pause in typing something out of Yamada's sight to the detective on the case he's been working on. Just a standard mystery, something to have on standby while his mind toils away, for his fingers to have something to do. "I'm thinking of picking up another patrol this weekend."
Not thinking, already thought. He'd asked for it beforehand, before he'd even received Yamada's text -- demand, really -- to catch up at a cafe nearby.
Yamada sips at his espresso as fast as he talks. Chugging it, almost, if not for Shouta knowing he purposely slows down to 'savour' it. What a waste of time. "Ever think about chilling out, maybe?"
"I'll 'chill out' when the Earth finally has its next Ice Age," Shouta mutters. Laughter, bright and clear, fills the booth as Yamada takes it in. Yamada's expressions have always been rather perplexing to wrap his head around. Or maybe he's just avoiding the question, as he always does. "They need me at the precinct again. I won't act as a PI, but I'd like to at least take down a villain or two before the end of this week."
"You've already taken down a handful," Yamada points out, pensively. Shouta knows his listeners would be dumbfounded by how quiet of a voice he can take. "Naruhata's certainly not envied for its safe streets -- isn't it basically a villain's goldmine? I'm sure you've stumbled on a den or two on those streets, with how little peeps patrol 'em."
Shouta does not drink his latte. At least Yamada can understand the work put into this, even if he doesn't patrol as often or as much as Shouta does, he's still called in for the 'big-time gigs', as he calls them; or as Shouta would call them, the villain take-downs. His friend, alongside Eraserhead, is often looped into the role of a 'tank', or an easy way out for the heroes.
He sighs. "So you're saying you understand why it's necessary."
"I'm saying you could use a break, Aizawa," and Yamada pinches the bridge of his nose with the comment, as if contemplating which side of a burning scale he wants to measure. Perhaps neither. "And you should! You've been working like a dog for a bone ya just can't chew through--"
"Do you even know what you're talking about sometimes?"
"--And I've also had my fair share of work! I've been up to my ears in everythin', you've been up to your ears and everything, so..."
Yamada slams a hand, palm down, on the table excitedly. The wood rattles slightly. Shouta manages to save his latte from the disaster, letting the tissue previously tucked under it float past without a second thought. Yamada already has his coffee in his hands.
"Why don't we forget about it all? Just for a night, eh? I promise I won't sway the ladies-- or gentlemen, ahem -- your way. You do that already."
Seemingly in his general refusal to litter, Yamada bends to the side to reach one hand for the tissue. He rolls it up into a ball before throwing it into one of their empty cups.
Ignoring the obvious thumping in his chest at the gesture, Shouta deigns to glare at Yamada, simultaneously wondering how he's so shit at sports despite being able to do that. He finds that he doesn't really care much. He glares harder. "Your plan to bring me out is by insulting me?"
"Is it working?" Yamada winks. "If it isn't, I could switch gears and start praising you for your hard work, if ya'd like." A scowl passes over Shouta's face, already imagining it. Hizashi -- the boy, not the man -- had been adamant when it came to singing his and... the other guy's praises during training. He knows how effusive and downright fanatical the 16-year old could get; 10 years of knowing him prove that nothing along those lines had changed, either. " I could broadcast it to my listeners, too, not mention your name or anything 'cause I know you'd like to remain in-cog-nito," he singsongs, "and--"
Best not to let him do that. Not at all.
Shouta's nose wrinkles in disgust at the idea. Before fluttering his eyes shut and letting his face relax, because he knows being at home tomorrow night would only make things worse, and because he knows Yamada will push and pull even when there's nothing to pull and push. He knows he's nothing.
Propose it, Eraser. "This Saturday."
The rambling cuts itself off.
"Huh?"
Yamada stares back at him, prefacing Shouta with a quizzical look signed 'really?'
Yes, really.
"This Saturday," he says, slow and steady, knowing his patrol is booked only for the early morning. Had Yamada not suggested the outing, he would've booked afternoon and midnight, too. Good riddance. "And be late. If you come early, I will smother you with one of those stupid pillows you brought as a housewarming gift, and no one will ever be of the wiser. Got it?"
"We didn't even decide on a time--" Yamada's mouth snaps shut, right hand raising up to form a salute. "Aye aye, Eraser! You got it! I'll text you the time, and make sure to be disturbingly late, 'kay?"
Time passes.
He goes on Yamada's rendezvous to the club, to the bookstore, to the wherever. Pays no mind to wherever they go, as long as it's with Yamada, because Yamada, contrary to popular belief and his stupid, fucking listeners who can only listen like mindless zombies and assume whatever they damn want, can heed his request for the quiet.
On his radio show, Mic plays the role of Interested Connoisseur, well-versed in how to lift even the quietest of people up -- not that he's ever managed to dredge Shouta out of his quietness, either, but his feet are firmly stuck in quicksand he's resigned himself to, and just the tug of Yamada's hand around his wrist is enough to discourage him from moving, possibly jostling himself further below.
With him, with Shouta, Yamada does not prod, beg or bargain for him to speak on whatever's amiss. Just talks and talks and talks, the way Shouta likes it, and does not speak on what happened before.
(There's an underlying resentment building up in Yamada, he knows.
Shouta cannot run from his mistakes for so long without them hooking a claw around his ankle. Pulling him back with a loud vengeance usually only reserved for villains; he's never been on the other end of Yamada's anger, but he'd also never dodged Hizashi left and right quite as much as he did after they'd received their licenses to begin heroics from UA, and so maybe both things can be true at once. Hell, Shouta hadn't been quite so convinced to talk to him until they'd accidentally crossed paths once more on the street.
Coincidence. Fate. Whatever. At least he's not alone again, to think on it, even though he deserves to be.
Something is coming up ahead on the road, headlights blinding, and Shouta will close his eyes and hope it doesn't swerve.)
Even more time passes.
Whatever fog he'd been going through the motions of life in before only reminds him, when he swats his hand through it, that it could've been caused for any number of reasons, and, again, when the sun falls into the west, that it could've only been caused by one thing, be one thing, for all that makes some form of scientific sense in his head.
It does not get any easier or any worse, living like this. It just is. Goes how it goes.
Waking up. Shedding his old briefs for a new pair, changing his undershirt. Throwing on his hero costume once it's firmly out of the wash. Dried. Making sure it's not still wet, because he hates the wet, hates the moistness of texture seeping into his skin, bleeding into it like watercolour on textured, yellowed paper. It's easy to say it ignites a certain type of fury in him whenever his washing machine just so happens to give up on itself, because he has to wash it himself, by hand, and though he knows the steps and the motions and everything he has to do for it, it's worse touching it, because--
Shouta doesn't quite know, actually. He would like to, very much so. But equivocating it as a good thing instead might be healthier, because addressing it might dig up something he'd much rather remain buried; as it already is, six feet under.
He goes on patrols still. Beats up bad guys, does nothing much else than ambush with a surprise attack, slap quirk-suppressant cuffs around their wrist shortly after his binding cloth makes quick work of them, and bring them into rightful custody, and sign away the paperwork proving the arrest statutory, give out his hero name and nothing more.
Eraserhead as a name is tossed around in the Underground. He patrols by day, night, whenever he must. Passes through a plethora of streets and blocks considered too troublesome for big name heroes to even glance at, something to which Shouta takes to heart with a flood of resentment and disgust, an ample response made known by him traversing these streets in the first place. Doing the dirty work those Media Heroes, as he deems them, turn their nose up at and scoff and muse away at their easier, more populated cities with more easier crowds eager to bow and wave and idolise people who would bump into them on the street and only apologize for the sake for their reputation.
Perhaps he is being too harsh, too reprimanding of the 'genre', Yamada calls it, but the limelight is a scourge and Shouta wants nothing to do with it. Heroes like Present Mic and Midnight, Ingenium and likewise, may be susceptible to the same sort of criticism, also, but there's also the underlying fact that any civilian can simply walk up to them on the street and strike up a conversation. Even disguised or unrecognised they are benevolent.
With heroes in the top ten, on the other hand, you are looked at as an obstacle if you so much as show interest in them beyond their facade. Autographs and photographs and signed merchandise sold for far too much to exploit the overeager, general population swayed by these colourful heroes, it sickens him.
That Guy had vowed not to be one of those heroes either. Though back then, Shouta had never overlooked the clear shine in the teal of his irises at the prospect of cheering up fans with them, those material objects that don't matter quite much to Shouta but, perhaps, had meant the world to That Guy, because all that mattered was the intent behind it. Intent, intent, intent.
"You can do anything you put your mind to, Shouta," he'd said one day, humming as he wiped away the smudges on his goggles. Goggles Shouta would eventually come to accept as his own, then abandon, too, because they weren't as perfect of a fit -- or perhaps he just hadn't wanted to repair it. The one with the broken lenses, not his, still lies in Shouta's go-bag. Only the blood was cleared away. "If you have the means, the intention, there's no way you'll be stopped!"
Eraserhead is well known among villains and the few passerby he introduces himself to. When need be. Introduction-wise, of course. Sticking around for long isn't much of an option, and compromising himself by introducing himself to every sorry crier coming his way isn't logical, so he only does it if entirely necessary.
Yamada would claim it a good way of socialising. Nemuri would call it 'finally getting yourself out there, Eraser, huh?'. Shouta, on the other hand, would just call it plain moronic.
He intends on keeping his life to himself, no one none the wiser to his habits, or the typical routines he finds himself circling. Switching his patrol routes often leaves his schedule fickle and volatile, hard to grab like water spraying out of a hose, because he specialises in surprise attacks and he knows damn well his methods can be shared by even the worst of society's underbelly. He makes his presence scarce and nothing more, jumps from street to block to city even when not asked to, all for the sake of taking care of those treated worse by the stars of this quirk-infested universe; and does not dare think on what him refusing to take residence anywhere might mean.
If he asked, asked for his friend to pull a word out of his head and come up with something comprehensible to diagnose it, because Yamada knows the peaks and valleys of dictionaries and encyclopedias and the vast corners of the internet where all the answers lie, and Yamada is much better at deciphering the puzzling architecture of people who specialise in mincing their words and talking around it than he is. However, he won't subject Yamada to it, having walked away from one such internet search already dissatisfied.
NOMAD
Orange paints over the pink of the sky with a blurred smudge, a gradient of something umber overhead as the sun sets. Rays cast themselves across the blue Mustang he finds himself sitting on the hood of, filling out the crevices of his face and making him squint while the moon remains back stage. The skies are entirely clear, save for the much smaller cloud sitting right in front of him.
More inappropriately, the cloud isn't clear either, someone sitting on it with their legs tucked under them. Seiza style, because there's no world in which he sits with his legs not crossed or tucked in some way.
They do not speak, for a time, as Shouta observes his features.
Aware of his own changes, he does not think to point out the facial hair the other would've never been given the opportunity to see grow. Peach fuzz fading into stubble, discomfortingly, his fingers brush against his chin and jaw and itch, trimmed just shortly before he'd found himself soiling the top hood of this car with his bloodied clothes. Pain does not emerge or announce itself when he goes to press his free hand against his waist, his thighs, just to see if he'd been miraculously cut somehow with a weapon he does not remember producing or fighting against, and so he considers it a null effort to try and care.
Shouta also, does not, wonder what he might possibly say to break the ice. They are swimming on a thin lake, and will be well on their way to drowning and wheezing at the water in their lungs by the time Shouta reckons he'll be ready to figure it out.
That Guy never makes it easy to guess. "You sleep well lately?"
Shouta's cheeks redden. He shakes his head. Not as an answer, but to parse the fact that his first words are about Shouta's well being, not himself, or, hell, even questioning this strange trance they find themselves in, because that would be much more reasonable than what he does now.
"I fail to see why that would matter," he says, swallowing.
Floating closer, the cloud quickly envelops the spot right in front of the car. "Of course it matters. Looks like your eye bags have eye bags."
That Guy's head ducks down as he chuckles. "It's a nice look, though, don't get me wrong. Really gives off the whole 'bad boy' look Hizashi wanted ya to go for, doesn't it? Suits you."
"Yamada hates it," Shouta mutters, glancing away. A beach fills his vision as he turns to his right, sun rapidly being swallowed by the orange sea. Flying fish can be spotted jumping from small wave to small wave every so often. Water laps at the shore. Sand submerged, granted mercy when the tide gives out, only to be ambushed once more as the tide gives in to its desire to crush the particles bunched together. "Claims I'd be better off napping away forever."
Shouta does not mention that he would if he could, if only to see him like this, all the time, because dreams he'll forget about are easier to chase than nightmares he'll remember. To recall That Guy's memory like this instead.
"He probably only hates it because he doesn't like seeing you wasting away," That Guy says, as if pointing something out and tacking it onto a board with red string and lined up evidence of Shouta's discrepancies. Thinking he's lost his grip on the hood of the car, Shouta adjusts himself further along it, leaning against the tempered, tinted glass of the front. Slippery from the blood, it takes him a while to earn his grip-- and he finds his boots closed in by a familiar frosted fog.
It pushes him up further along the car, before letting go.
Fists clenching a moon white, Shouta's eyes flutter shut. "I'm not wasting away."
Near green-blue eyes study him. Look through him.
"Right," That Guy comments, shoulders slumping. When Shouta opens his eyes again, That Guy's eyebrows have knitted together. A failed crochet project, a hobby Shouta has never been too good at himself, and so won't judge anyone else for it, even metaphorically. "So you're not seeing me?"
Shouta pauses. "I am," he says, reluctantly. "What else is there to see?"
The beach. The car. The distinct lack of clouds, the sky that eyes him too. Looking into an abyss that refuses to stare back.
That Guy's fingers wriggle, cross over each other just as his arms do, interlocking the palms as he rolls them forward on his lap. The cloud moves closer, and then, envelops the entire front of the car, scraping his legs out from under him and rocking them onto the hood of the car.
His pants skip right next to where Shouta's own legs jut out. Fabric bloodied and smearing the bottom blue of metal in translucent, muddied scarlet.
"Y'know, Hizashi really liked those pop rocks my parents got imported from America," That Guy offers.
Shouta turns to him, arching a brow at the sudden change of topic. Objecting to it doesn't seem like much of an option, and he's grateful for the chance to not think about It. "I brought them over to school just a week after I found 'em stashed away in my pantry. I think my parents hid those for good reason, though, so maybe I shouldn't've... but Hizashi got addicted real fast, and it was such a small thing to do, y'know?"
"I wouldn't exactly call it small," he comments. "Yamada ran out of the classroom at one point because he reported the insides of his mouth 'exploding' and nearly scared..." Shouta combs through his memory for what Hizashi had used to describe it as before. He's much better at descriptors than either of them. "...the socks out of Class 2-B when he rushed into their class for a spare carton of milk. To soothe his tastebuds."
Not one to gesture too articulately, he throws a thumbs down, and hopes That Guy gets the point.
"Hey, our buddy's just resourceful," the other argues.
"He shouldn't have had to be, why'd you even give it to him?"
"You know!" A wild gesture pops out. "Have you seen his puppy eyes? Beneath those sunglasses he's a danger, man! I couldn't exactly deprive him!"
"How wise," Shouta muses, eyes glinting; well aware of said eyes. "We've run through this before. I recall there being a war over such a thing before... does Opium Crisis ring a bell? You know, supply, demand?"
That Guy laughs. "You know I've never paid attention in that class, is that a pre-quirk era thing?"
"Date?"
"Huh? Say, hey, speaking of dates, did you and Hizashi finally get your act together and--"
Shouta does not grace that loaded comment with a pleasant interruption. "Date. As in, Gregorian calendar. I'm testing you, since you clearly already know it's the pre-quirk era." He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose, then backtracks. "Do you remember what time it's from?"
"Uh... 20th century?" The other guesses, lips jutting out into a pout. "Is it?"
Shouta shakes his head. "Bad luck. 18th to 19th, at least."
"Well," That Guy says, almost protestingly, "I'm not the history nerd out of the two of us here. Cut me some slack." He pauses. That Guy scratches at his cheek, a faint touch of amusement evident to burst out and infect him if he doesn't put a stop to it. "Are you calling Hizashi a--"
"Nevermind," Shouta cuts in. Adjusting again, over the hood, he props himself against the windshield. "Just..."
He looks toward the sky, again.
The orange's all but faded into a navy.
"This is nice," he hums, eyes closing shut once more.
He dreams often.
Paradoxically, he also dreams very few. Forgetting is easy in the face of everything else in front of you, waving obnoxiously into your face and scrubbing away, lamentably slow, at what's left of you. Theseus' myth; when the warrior, sailing back from Crete after defeating the Minotaur, overlooked his father's request to change the black sails to white if he lived.
He'd forgotten, ever so easily. Just a simple thing. Leaving his father overcome with such grief that he'd thrown himself into the sea, believing his son dead -- and Theseus had returned home with a victory and a loss.
In this analogy, Shouta tiptoes the line between being Theseus or the father. Neither of them are winners, and neither is he, and perhaps they share that in its entirety and nothing more, but wouldn't he like to forget too? Unwise as it is. To forget something, so easily, even if it comes with dire consequences, and to have it rebound back on him and drive him further up the wall.
Quicksand still remains swallowed around his boots. He could kick them off, start anew. Which would mean abandoning the boots that have stayed with him this long, this far, been through thick and thin and so much more than he could substantially name and count, and so he won't. They have been through each and every one of his victories, and through the losses that teeter closer to victories than losses, because losing would mean death, and as much as he wants to lose, no one who knows him wants to.
So he slams the alarm down every time he abandons dreaming come the morning, and sails for waters that will be less welcoming.
"Kayama, I swear to all things PG-13, did you or did you not falsify and send in a resume to Nedzu, your boss?"
The R-Rated hero's face gleams in delight.
"So you saw the email?"
"No, I read it in the cover of a magazine." He scowls. "Yes, I saw the email. Better question is, how the hell did you get it through? Why would he accept me?"
She hums. "That's for our principal to know, and for you to find out. When you get to UA."
"Despicable," he mutters, lips pursing thoughtfully. Unsure as he is about Nedzu, for as intelligent as he is with that High Specs quirk of his, choosing Shouta through Kayama's deceptions, there's also the question of how he'll be able to juggle patrols with classes. That, and the pyramid scheme he now finds himself roped into, isn't something he can exactly climb out of. "That's what you are. Annoying. A nuisance. A dark spot on my life."
No time like the present to dig into what would usually be Hizashi's dramatics.
"Oh, come on, Energy Saver," Kayama sighs. Shouta startles at having the name Hizashi coined for him turned on him now, but, no matter. Being used to Kayama's antics has acclimated him towards the expected and unexpected. "You'll be great at this! We already know you're great with kids--"
(His heart pulses. That Guy had said the exact same thing. He would be enamoured with her, surely.
Or perhaps be persuaded by the 'ravishing looks' That Guy had raved on and on about; Shouta had never been able to brush past the flustered look on his face when all of them had met Kayama, Kayama-Senpai, back then, for the first time.
There could have been something there, once, had he not...)
"Comparing your inadequacy with them to me isn't a very good way of scaling things. One might call it irrational," he points out.
"And," she says, rolling her eyes, ignoring his comment. Shouta turns his attention back to her. "Yamada will be there teaching English."
He blinks. "Teaching English?"
Not surprising. That had always been Hizashi's best subject.
Still, he pauses. Briefly. Resigned to his fate as he is, he might as well go along with it and joke around. "What, was tomfoolery not available? Volume 101: Loudmouthed Retellings? Does he teach with a textbook called Dummy's Guide to Never Shutting Up, perhaps?"
Well aware that Hizashi goes above and beyond when it comes to intelligence, fluent in languages Shouta can barely parse even the basic greetings of hello and goodbye of, stellar grades in everything the sun touches, memory even better, well, he can make the comment.
However, poking fun at him is, in fact, funny.
Hizashi splutters as Kayama bursts into an uproar of laughter.
"Wow," he sniffles. "Y'know, I kinda find it insulting that the first funny comment ya make since I've walked into this room is to defile my honour. Look, you've done it now, I have an arrow in my heart and it ain't Cupid's any...."
His eyes widen, but of course, Hizashi's never been one to not finish a sentence. "...longer."
He breaks off.
Everyone freezes.
"Shouta?"
His eyes blink open. Rugged, a lowly sound leaving his mouth as he yawns, despairing at the loss of sleep. However, Hizashi's leaning over him, eyes wide, devoid of his glasses. "What."
"Oh, thank god." Hizashi reclines, resting on his elbows. "Whew. Thought I lost you there for a sec."
"Why would you lose me?" he asks, confused.
Hizashi shifts to sit again. "You were twitching in your sleep."
"Oh."
He did that often, when he was alone. Probably.
Shouta had never thought to question it, or when he woke up in a tizzy after already standing whilst still with his foot in the door between consciousness and, frankly, what he'd describe as a coma, but he'd assumed he moved a lot while sleeping. Not so much in his sleeping bag -- the lack of space in it, the simultaneous, pure claustrophobia and utter relief it provided him doing much to soothe that ache of movement and stop it in its track, good enough not to alarm his students by jostling in his 'sleep'.
Or, restful blips of time, he'd call it, rather. Contrary to popular belief, he doesn't tend to sleep as often as students like to whisper and claim he does, nor the colleagues that pretend not to talk about it but obviously do. Getting a job at UA just a semester after Hizashi joined up was a nightmare already.
Not the kind he worried too often about though. If he worried at all.
Nowadays, he 'worries' much more for Hizashi, for his students, for anyone but himself. That Guy would be proud of him. Somewhat. He's thinking of things bigger than him, now. Not letting it stop him from prevailing, getting ahead on his dreams.
Sighing, Hizashi moves back beside him, leaning against the headboard. It's cushioned.
This is Hizashi's place he's sleeping at, after all. Not his; of course the bed, with its memory foam and comfortable sheets and comfortable pillows and comfortable, well, everything, suits him too. Hizashi is a comfort he can't believe he has the honour of calling his partner.
It'd taken them a while to breach past using their last names to refer to each other. It'd only been a month since he'd found himself comfortable enough to use nicknames. As much as he disliked them on him, he wouldn't mind doing it to Hizashi, whose face flushes like the sun, ever so bright as it is amusing to watch his face contort into a blushing face of a man.
Shouta's glad Hizashi's job requires him mostly working auditory-wise. He's in the eyes of the public, sure, goes to red carpets to be scrutinised (as positively as one can be, by something as vile as the media) and overseen, get his opinions out there in a way Shouta admires; but his radio show, Shouta thinks, does make for a good excuse not to have people see him all the time.
"You ever get that checked out?" Hizashi says, tilting his head in such a way that his blonde bangs fall forward.
Shouta's brow arches. "Why would I? It's illogical, it's--" For the first time in a while, Shouta cuts himself off mid-sentence. "Does it bother you?"
If that's the case, he could, then. Better not to be a burden. Whatever the case, Hizashi reacts immediately, shaking his head frantically.
"What? No!" Hizashi breathes in. "I'm just askin' cause you kick a lot in your sleep--"
"So I am bothering you," he frowns.
"--Shouta, let me finish," the other says, huffing. It is only then that he slumps forward, a puppet cut from its strings. "Like I was saying, you kick a whole ton in your sleep. " He pauses just long enough for Shouta to parse whether excusing himself from the bed for the night and jumping out the nearest window he has -- the bedroom window, obviously, he thinks, eyes briefly flitting across to face it before turning back to Hizashi -- would be socially acceptable. "You also happen to babble a bit, too."
His blood goes cold.
He hadn't known that.
"What," he says languidly, as if discussing dinner options; as casual as he does with Hizashi, because even if the man can't cook for shit, neither can he, and Hizashi has out-right refused to let him only indulge in jelly pouches like he so wishes, "Pray tell, do I 'babble' about?"
Hizashi's bottom lip vanishes under his teeth. Since he'd been 'de-banded', as he liked calling the milestone of having his braces from his teenage years taken off as, he'd worn retainers ever since. Shouta wonders why he's thinking about it.
A short exhale, then an awfully long, disturbingly inappropriate length of time passes for the inhale that follows. Considering Hizashi's general lung capacity, vastly overshadowing the rest of the population due to it being adapted to his quirk and highly trained, rivalling swimmers and mountain-climbers, it's almost an offence how much effort he puts into sucking all the air out of the room.
At the very least, if he has to do so, he could take Shouta's hearing out with him, too -- not via his quirk. That would be a permanent solution to a temporary problem, he thinks amusedly, deliberately misusing the term from those pamphlets Kayama had tossed his way; it's certainly more comedic than what it'd originally entailed.
Ms Joke would be proud.
Suddenly, Hizashi goes very still. Which means Shouta goes still, too, not breathing.
It's only a matter of a time before Hizashi jumps out from the bed, kicking off the sheets as he does so, and makes his way to the balcony door after he retrieves his glasses from the nightstand. Window covered by muted orange curtains, they're quickly rustled to the side; either side clipped away by one of Hizashi's hair clips.
Resourceful, Shouta thinks.
A thought quickly abandoned once Hizashi indicates he wants to be followed, disappearing as he goes through the doorway outside. Resigned, Shouta pads in pursuit, trudging along like a boat on its last oar, exhaustion accrued.
Subconsciously, something in him might wish to avoid the conversation. Taking the everlasting silence as a means of rejection. Just a small portion before the real scene kicks off, where Hizashi inevitably tells him it's over, that they're done, how he can't stand someone who talks in his sleep about what has to be people no longer present as he is, be as hypocritical to the topic of talking as Shouta is to the idea of not accepting the quiet.
Hizashi has been receptive enough to who he is. What he is. What he can and cannot be, all the things he never wants to be. Things he's resigned himself to never getting to be; he's seen enough rubble in his daydreams and manifested delusions that it's become commonplace to wonder whether he can be anything else but this, a mess of someone who should've been discarded long ago, had he not been useful enough to remain.
If Erasure weren't as rare of a quirk as it is, applicable to anything beyond heteromorphs, would he still endure the brass, the brick and the brawn?
Arms settling across the copper railings, Shouta allows himself to feel past what his own chest cannot, wind sweeping into his hair and ears and face at a howl.
Vision obscured briefly by his bangs, his fingers automatically reach to push it out of sight, but he's beaten to the punch when Hizashi reaches over and tucks it behind his ear.
He can already see Hizashi's Mustang parked below when he chances a look over the railing.
Hizashi probes the question like he does with his students. Shouta's unsure of whether to be frustrated at being treated like someone delicate, or relieved that Hizashi isn't going horns-first, questioning later. "D'you already know what you talk about?"
Shouta shakes his head. "No," he confirms. "I wouldn't have asked what I was 'babbling' about if I did."
He admonishes it by staring off into the distance.
It's pitch black. No noise beyond the simple movement of passerby and drunken shouts here and there from beyond the gate, despite living in a relatively safe, closed-off apartment block. Nothing beside the walls of Hizashi's apartment, 403, is soundproof.
"Right, uh... uh-huh."
He remembers Hizashi telling him about the renovations, how his landlord had accommodated immediately upon accidentally stumbling upon Hizashi using his quirk out in public during a villain attack, in his civilian get-up. Initially, Hizashi had refused, stated that he didn't have to, that staying here would be temporary regardless, but both his landlord and Shouta had agreed, separately, that it was likely best.
"I'll cut to the chase, since you prefer it that way, Shou." Hizashi doesn't laugh like Shouta expects him to. Doesn't confirm or deny anything at all. "It's just that you mentioned S̨̜͇̹͖͇̲͈̋ͪͪ͒̎̑͛̃ͥ̀͋̚̚͟͞ḧ̷̖̗̌̎ͨ̚iͯ_̨̱̻̼̖̘̙ͦ͂͌̽͞͞ră̷̠̭̞̳̜̽͑ͩ̾ͧͪͨ̊k̸̭̲̹̇̽̚͜u̸̼̤̰̹͉ͧ̂̔m͕̻̙̝̣̫̪̥̼ͩ͋̀́o̡̩̯̪̺̤͚͓ͥͮ̒̒̉̍ͬͩ̆̚, and I thought, well--"
Shouta freezes.
Useless, blurry vision ahead, his eyes quickly account for it and snap shut. Ever useful, a more conscious, less sympathetic part of him emphasises with a snark.
"I know," he interjects quickly, much too quickly for someone like him, because he can see in the corner of his vision the visible, almost audible alarm that struts across Hizashi's eyes, red flaring up in the sea of green. His mouth parts, as if to continue on his tirade of tormenting Shouta, of perhaps not being willing to stand by and be rejected, as he is. Shouta would rather reject than be rejected. "I know."
It could only be him.
After all, there's no one else's grave in the list of people he considers dead that he never visits.
"Shouta-"
"I know," he repeats, not for the second and not for the last time. "Don't say it. Please."
Hizashi regards him with an air of astonishment. Presumably, it is at being met with the equivalent of Shouta grovelling, pleading for his case in a court where even the jury do not feel a lick of empathy, because they are not as much of an ignorant crowd as he is.
He condemns himself to a life of roaming a building breaking every code in the book, trailing past the walls containing fingerprints taken by mistaken and skimming, running his fingers over it like oil and water. Patrols, cleans himself up, does not step out of line when it comes to himself and not others because that's how it's supposed to be-- if he steps out of line, someone else like Hizashi will find themselves in the building, and there is no stopping the construction workers with their cranes and heavy machinery to toil in after him.
Much better things remain to worry about. Students to teach, to expel, to worry after and to expel and reinstate again, let them experience a death so that they do not meet their second without many years passing.
Shouta wants heroes to live long, good long lives.
Expulsion is temporary. Ephemeral.
It makes the most logical, rational sense, to trick and deceive and to lie and not lie to ensure that they follow his guidelines by the book, to eventually trust themselves, so that they do not falter when it matters most.
Shouta wants heroes to live long, good long lives, and he wants them to be nothing and everything That Guy was.
"...Okay," Hizashi says, looking away.
A relieved sigh leaves Shouta.
"But," and to this Shouta finds himself involuntarily looking back at his partner, if only to glimpse his reaction. Goosebumps tingle on his skin when he sees a fire burning in the green, sea turned into a forest with its trees readily burning. "I'm here if you ever want to talk about it, Shouta. You're not the only one who lost something. I-- I miss him too, okay?"
He'd known that back then, knows it now, and still, he'd jumped and abandoned ship and left them all to pursue a life of... something, on his own.
"So whenever you want to talk, I'll be here."
Hizashi cannot be so accepting of this.
Nodding, he lets a faint smile cross his face. "Yeah. Alright," Shouta relents. "Soon. I'll... talk to you soon about it."
Bright, Hizashi smiles at him, and Shouta quickly averts his gaze to gaze into the glare of wind, shivering as he picks uselessly at his fingernails. In want of anything better to do.
Because his eyes are his only saving grace, and being blinded by the person he considers the sun while lying to him seems a fate even he doesn't want to risk.
He hopes, desperately, in vain, that Hizashi will soon forget, and they can go back to the way things were.
THAT GUY: "I hope you know that Hizashi loves you."
ERASURE: "Do you seriously think I don't know that, Guy? (Laughter is mimicked.) There's no other reason he would stick with me if he didn't feel some sense of love. Or pity. One of the two."
THAT GUY: "Look, we'll address that pity thing later, but-- why do you keep calling me that? Why can't you say my name? After this long, you can't have forgotten it, surely."
ERASURE: "Of course not."
THAT GUY: "Then say it."
ERASURE: "..."
THAT GUY: "What? I'm sorry, Shouta, but you've gotta put pedal to the medal. If it's so easy, be my guest, and say my name."
ERASURE: "Guy, you can't--"
THAT GUY: "My actual one, not the one you've concocted in your head."
ERASURE: "Ever think about how much of a dick you are? No? Me neither, because if I'd known, I wouldn't be-- (The subject's mouth snaps shut.)
THAT GUY: "Wouldn't be... huh. Guess you can't say it, either. I love your absolute affinity for words, (Sarcasm), but this really isn't the time to be rolling around in the dirt, Shouta. I've said your name how many times now? One, two, three? Just in one conversation. Surely you can host some of that respect of yours and direct it my way, right?"
ERASURE: "...You're a prick. You're not him, so why the hell would you care, huh? Why would you want me to say a name you know isn't yours?"
THAT GUY: "Does it really matter what I think if you see me like that? Isn't this all for your benefit, for your sake? I care about you. I want you to be happy, with Hizashi, and moving on will go down easier if you can just work out how to say it."
ERASURE: "I can't. You know why I can't."
THAT GUY: "You can. I know you can. (A sigh.) Like 'I' said, Shouta, you can do anything you put your mind to, can't you?"
ERASURE: (Silence.)
THAT GUY: "So? What's the diagnosis, doc? You going to say it or not?"
ERASURE: (Silence.)
SUBJECT 'ERASURE' EXITS THE ROOM WITHOUT A WORD. NO BLINKING OCCURS UNTIL HE MAKES HIS WAY OUT OF THE 'DOORWAY'.
Shouta wakes up with a headache.