Chapter Text
During the exact week that Yamada Hizashi would've taken it upon himself to 'man up' and present his relationship to their students, astonishingly, only clouds and rain come to accompany them. He hadn't exactly been expecting sunshine and rainbows, but by no means did he expect it to land on the other extreme of the weather scale.
Believe it or not, people don't like hail and doom and gloom and all that jazz.
Especially not when you're closed in from all sides by the walls of the Class 1-A dorms.
Rain droplets beat against the boarded-up windows with a vengeance. Hailing down on them are sheets of carefully melded sky-ice, which, only through the blissful help of Nedzu's necessity to always account for the worst via overseeing the blueprints during the production of the dorms; Cementoss' routine and weekly checks to building structure; Power Loader's ever living graces when it comes to keeping that maintenance up-to-date; doesn't power through any of the glass.
Nothing will collapse on them here. They are utterly, entirely, and wholly safe.
"Hey, Midoriya, come on! You've gotta come see this!" Kaminari calls out, footsteps loud as he stomps down the hallway.
...Relatively safe.
Due to the fact that Hizashi is here and not in the teacher's dorm building where he usually resides, because it would be too suspicious for him to roam around here on a regular basis. He has no valid excuse to be present (no pun intended) here beyond simply going 'well, I just wanted to hang out', or even a made up excuse of 'dorm inspection', considering it's a weekend. Even that tidbit of info seems a bit much and too little. Present Mic would talk people's ears off -- Eraserhead's words, not his -- and him going on the down-low in terms of excuses would be wildly out of character.
It's not like he can just pack up and leave either. Flailing his hands to gesture to the storm, he looks to an imaginary audience in the corner of the ceiling and sighs.
"What's up with you now?"
Startling at the sound of the voice, Hizashi's hands fly back to his chest.
A smile flits across his face like a cruise on water. "Jeez, Energy Saver, warn a guy, would you? You gave me a [fright!]"
The boat overstays its welcome as he continues staring and staring.
'Energy Saver' rolls his eyes. "Anything could give you a... ['fright'.]" Hizashi does not rush to his own defence. He's too caught up on Shouta speaking English, for one thing, even if it's only parroting his own words back at him. "You're thinking too loud."
Oh. That too. Accusation out there, now, the man leans against the doorway, droplets pounding against the windows like an orchestra. "Why, exactly, are you talking to yourself?"
Staff excluded, he could be considered talking to himself at the studio while recording for Put Your Hands Up. Shouta's arms are tucked in the same way Hizashi would tuck his head into a pillow. Entirely relaxed. Maybe Hizashi would scream into the same pillow too -- barring Shouta's and the rest of the little listeners' ears bleeding -- if he could.
Sighing, he instead settles up against the cushions of the common room couch and leans his head back, reclining into it, as he mulls over how exactly to answer that particular question. More droplets ring out.
"It's not what it looks like, yo. 'm not talking to myself. Just..." Hizashi leans against his right arm, pinching the lower end of his ear absentmindedly. "...thinking, y'know." Jazz hands flourish the open air. "As one does."
"Do tell," Shouta drawls.
Hizashi seizes on the chance to complain instantly. "We're not going to be able to get away with it this time, Shou, if I'm here." A shudder rams into him. "I know we agreed that we were planning' on telling them this week, but... this whole rain business has messed everything up; can't believe this downpour had to happen today! Of all days too!"
Arching a brow, Shouta treads further into the room. "It was forecasted on the weather report weeks ago."
"Do you take me for someone who analyses the news 24/7?" Hizashi says, almost petulantly as he tinkers with his own nails. With his index finger, he flicks his left thumb. "I like TV as much as the next person, but not that much, man."
"For one, nobody likes TV as much as you," Shouta points out, clearing the distance to deposit himself next to Hizashi. Cozying up further, Hizashi makes room for Shouta by placing himself in the corner. Despite his grandiose, non-verbal offer, Shouta's shoulder still finds itself warming Hizashi's. "Two, you're a radio host, you're practically another version of the news, albeit better. You should be used to this by now-- accounting for the unpredictable. Didn't you have to deal with censoring that caller the other week?"
Unlike their friend, Nemuri Kayama, loud and proud with the title of The R-RATED Hero, his show doesn't share the same rating by any means. Plenty of young listeners tune into the show during its air time from 1-5 AM on Fridays when he plays live, despite the time, as it's the only time he goes live after pre-streaming his voice for the rest of the weekday. Hizashi won't claim to have an entirely clean mouth, either, dropping curses like a sailor every so often, now and then, just enough not to warrant a shut down on live air but also not enough to justify being considered 'children's content' when people review his show without listening to the topics. On the other hand, they'd had an asshole call up the studio the other week to ring into the show and drop a particularly nasty manifesto regarding a certain community in Japan's population, the quirkless.
"Charming observation," he muses, too focused on 'better' to temporise and counter with another frustrating tangent about the caller. He'll get all worked up if he thinks about the comment. Elbows dropping to his lap, palms holding his chin, he stares dreamily at Shouta. "Go on, sing my praises. I'm listening."
As expected, Shouta just rolls his eyes and moves on.
"Three, it's fine. None of my students are worried, and the weather's bound to improve by tomorrow, which means we can just do a rain check on your plan and come back to it later. You said it yourself-- we were planning it for this week, after all. Not today."
He laughs at the irony. "Rain check, huh?"
"We're saving it for later," his husband emphasises, clearly not in the mood for jokes if his resounding glare has anything to say about it. Hizashi would challenge his expressions to a fist fight if he could. To his credit, he does not deflate when faced with them. "I'd rather not set a bomb off while still in the building."
Hizashi tuts. "Your first time this week using a metaphor and it's to say you'd rather ditch your Hell Class the moment you tell 'em?" His head falls away from resting on his chin to prop himself back up. "What, are you leaving me to deal with the destruction? Hightailin' it outta here just so I can pick up the consequences of your actions?
Shouta grins up at him, serial-killer style, charming a shiver through Hizashi. Repercussions be damned. "Ours. And, yes. Exactly my plan. They already ask too many questions about my personal life."
"So you're really leaving it up to me?" Hizashi's arms rise to go behind him, crossing as he leans back into the couch, eyeing Shouta. "What if I tell them all your embarrassin' secrets? What then?"
Pink sweatpants come into his mind before he can think Divorce.
"Then you're sleeping on the couch," Shouta answers instantly, grin crumbling as his eyes narrow. "If you tell them anything about what I wear, you can upgrade that to the balcony."
Hizashi feigns an offended sniffle. "The balcony's warmer than you are anyway." A drawn out sigh rings out, a languid yawn accompanying it. "Such a cruel man, Shouta."
In a rare display of outward affection, Shouta's hand reaches up to cup at his jaw, Hizashi nuzzling into it-- never mind the crushingly volume raising alarms in his head screaming PUBLIC PUBLIC PUBLIC, because PDA? It's not something that Aizawa Shouta digs.
"If I'm cruel, what does that make you?" Shouta's thumb brushes against the bottom of his chin. A faint smile, like stars on a night sky, threatens to pull at Shouta's features. Dim eyes twinkle with a teasing understanding. "Can't speak much if you're the one willing to put up with all this cruelty... You have a ring to prove it, and I don't think our balcony would be able to afford that."
"No," Hizashi chuckles eventually, shaking his head. The ring glints on his finger. "It wouldn't."
Clearing the distance, Shouta leans in, lips tantalising.
Hizashi follows in a dreamy pursuit; ready to be wooed for what must be the thousandth time in their 15 years together. Before his mouth promptly snaps shut, eyes widening when his ears prick up. Footsteps exploding from one room into the next like missiles.
"Aizawa-sensei?!"
It is too late to inform Shouta.
They spring apart from each other in an instant.
For Hizashi, it is a trained art for composure to win in the war between mortification and nervousness, to get his act together. Years of being a star in radio (even if it isn't visual, most of the time, he still has the press and interviews and so many which ways to worry about when it comes to presentation) suffice just enough to aid him in his journey to self preservation.
Shouta just about barely hits the mark, ducking his reddening face into his capture scarf, head snapping like a wind-up toy to meet what must be a student from his hell class.
Not just a student, he thinks, green eyes simmer in a pyre of fear. Careful confidence he usually has on reserve quickly, disturbingly mineralises over by the layer of acid building up in contact with the rain-drops outside. And the sheer irony of all this. A dozen rowdy students -- Jirou, Shoji, Ashido, Bakugo, Kaminari, Midoriya, and many, many others -- had crowded the common room. And Shouta hadn't even noticed.
Really good sneaking around, listeners! He'd give them a gold star on this on their next assignment if he weren't scared so shitless.
Shooting an accusing look at Shouta through his sunglasses with an undertone of 'you're the underground hero, we're both heroes, how did neither of us hear them coming in sooner?' -- he fully twists his body to face the music, and rearranges himself as appropriately far from Aizawa-sensei as possible without demonstrating that they've suddenly become enemies.
"And... who's that?" one of them -- Midoriya -- asks, confused and disgruntled.
Shouta grunts.
Higher brain functions lag behind a bit at the lack of recognition. Before they made like a banana and split, he and Shouta are sitting at an angle where Hizashi is entirely visible for their viewing pleasure. It should come as no surprise that it's him sitting here.
Fingers move to drum along his leather collar; his hero costume wasn't exactly designed to be subtle. Elaborate doesn't even begin to cover the manual that is Present Mic. Technically speaking, they should be able to recognise him within 10 seconds flat. He's their English teacher, and the head of the department at that, and the only one who comes barreling into the room, without guilt, at 7 in the morning with a loud cry of 'WHO'S READY TO UNBOX PRONOUNS?!'. Or, alternatively, with some odd variation of his 'EVERYBODY SAY HEY!' catchphrase, the likes of which he'd coined a few years back and was still rather proud of. Sue him.
So what gives?
Or... they would move to drum along his collar, if he had one. Within that very same instant, it occurs to Hizashi to look down at exactly what he's wearing.
The world should be grateful that no foamed spit guzzles out of his mouth in shock.
It's a whole list of Hizashi Yamada that he's looking at. Maroon v-neck shirt, two respective pairs of turquoise and orange chains, the black flared jeans he'd bought the other week while on his lunch break. His bun itches to be put out of its misery on his scalp, no hair gel coating it.
So, no hero costume, meaning no Present Mic, meaning: no dice. Costume-wise, he's about as equipped as he'd be while going to the beach. Which is to say, having next to nothing beyond his sunglasses. Cause and correlation isn't a thing in his world, but it would explain the 'rose-coloured' (orange, in his case, but as Shouta would say, semantics!) view he's been having this whole time.
Had he really planned to tell them like this, wearing this get-up?
Maybe the downpour is a good thing. At least he can claim he did this by accident. If it's brought up at all, that is.
Clearing his throat, Hizashi pulls out all the stops and dons a wide grin.
"Hey, listeners! How's the party going for you folks?" His voice turns teasing despite the tenseness swelling in Shouta's bones beside him. "Having fun despite all the doom and gloom?"
Even though he knows not everyone listens to his radio show, exceptions like Midoriya who'd outright spoken about it since the first week of classes and Jirou, who pretends not to but still references stuff from it on too daily of a basis not to, his voice is too recognisable not to know. Whispers break out instantly; on how different he looks with his hair; how so different from Present Mic he seems and, oh, they didn't know his hair could look so regal and nice, that hair clip looks expensive, doesn't it, why doesn't he put it up like that more often instead of that silly hairstyle? What does his hair look like when it's really down?
Shouta's expression besides him turns pensive. Hizashi doesn't let any of the talk get to him. Frankly, he's much more hard pressed on how, exactly, he's going to whittle their way out of this one-way tunnel they find themselves backing up in. Vanity is far from something he'll engage in if it isn't what's important! Rocking hairstyle be damned. Mussing up his hair just to prove a point doesn't seem to be word from the wise either.
Once the whispering subsides, several students nod vapidly.
"We're all fine, Mic-Sensei!" Ochako chirps out, pleased. "We're all just hanging out!"
She pauses. "...We didn't think you'd be here."
Present Mic finger guns at her. "Hey, I'd never miss out on all the fun, especially not during this nasty weather! Don't tell 1-B this, but," and he drops the finger gun to cup his mouth, as if revealing something locked away, top secret, "You guys are the real deal when it comes to entertainment."
Way to a person's heart is to carve out the roads toward it by flattering them. He's learned that much from years of dealing with the public.
And himself, Shouta would add.
His favourite -- now reportedly second favourite, not that he has any, because that's wrong and hypocritical and Shouta certainly doesn't have them so why would he -- student, Jirou, doesn't seem to buy it. "What're you doing with Aizawa-sensei then? We were in the hallways, and, if you really thought we were entertaining, you wouldn't exactly not go there..."
Hizashi winces. True. Way to be caught out.
"Plus," she adds almost wistfully, "Aizawa-sensei's not exactly entertaining material."
Some students wince in tandem with Jirou, staring dead-eyed at Shouta, parsing his reaction.
"Jirou," Shouta warns.
That's not too bad of a reaction. Objectively, it could've gone a lot worse -- Hizashi remembers a time Shouta had been pissed off enough at a student to send them into a 'time out corner' after they'd interrupted him mid-lesson. Afterwards, Shouta had crawled into bed, face colliding with Hizashi's lap a numerous amount of times as Hizashi's fingers slid into his hair to laugh and soothe him. There'd been an entire bit of Eraserhead complaining about having to get a certification to teach high schoolers whose brains defaulted to a toddler's at their worst, and a back-and-forth of Present Mic making fun of him for not expecting it.
Something nudges his shoulder, reminding him that he's a human being with vocal cords and someone with a responsibility to reply.
"Oh! That! Well, S-- Eraser can be interesting." Hizashi says, sheepish. Thoughts hit a roadblock as his mind swerves to avoid the incoming cliff. "We were just huggin' it out earlier. I was going to go to you folk after!"
Mentally, Hizashi slaps himself for such a moronic excuse.
For all his smarts, it's rather wasted on efforts like radio shows, grading, analysing and patrols and villains fights and not the Very Steadily Growing Problem of Students Finding Out About His Relationship.
Careful to angle his finger away from the all-seeing, foreboding and watchful gaze of their students, because there's a rose-gold ring with a date inscribed on the inside of it that he hadn't taken off just yet, he adds, "And pals do that a ton, ya'dig? Hugging is a real good way of gettin' all those endorphins and dopamine! Real entertaining!"
The rain goes tip tap outside the walls. Gesturing, he flails a deliberately frantic hand towards the scenery past the windows. "Sheesh, this rain's pouring, isn't it?" Hizashi hits pause. "I think it's picked up, actually. Wowzers. That's... not [great]?"
"I don't see how that's relevant," Shouta comments, not helping.
A pause. "Not that I don't believe you, Mic-sensei, kero, and we'd definitely like you to come study with us, " the little listener, Asui, pipes up, looking utterly disbelieving. Hizashi internally thumbs up at himself for being wanted in the room, then frowns. "But you looked a little close there for friends."
Iida, their stunning, self-imposed nephew, steps in to save the day before Hizashi can open his big mouth.
"We should leave them be!" he says, hands chopping the air rapidly. "There could be any number of reasons why they were so close in proximity to each other. I know my friends and I are very close!"
Proximity? Close? Never mind! Not saving the day, Iida, that's just going to bring up more questions! A textbook way of bringing up discussion is by mentioning plurals, and discussion is far from what they want!
He frowns. Actually, what is it with plurals today? Is there a shortage? What's the antonym for a shortage? An abundance, perhaps?
Hizashi's attention is yanked away from that delightful train of thought when Shoji politely raises a hand. Beating Hizashi to the punch of picking him first, Shouta makes an approving sound while pointing at Shoji -- and the little listener just goes for it.
"Is this for an assignment about relationships?"
Hizashi feels cornered. Like prey.
Birds of a feather do not stick together, he thinks, mind drawn to Shoji's many ears and his own affinity for acoustics. "Nah," he laughs airily. Decidedly not struggling to wheeze. "Nothing like that!"
Some students sigh in relief, while others look on, curious at the confirmation.
Scooting as close and as gracefully as one Voice Hero can on a couch with fabric nearly torn to shreds at its corners, he wraps an arm around his 'co-worker' and whistles.
"But if you're thinkin' anything else, well, sorry to burst your bubble, but we're as platonic as can be! Super platonic! Only reason why we were that close is cause Eraser was just comfortin' me a little. I get awfully touchy," and Hizashi prefaces it with jazz hands, then grimaces at the implications of admitting that to a room full of students with loud mouths and even worse teenaged brains who'll take that the wrong way. "And Eraser puts up with it! Don't ya, buddy?"
In the corner of his eye, Hizashi can pinpoint the exact moment Shouta sends a striking look of 'seriously?' his way, before sighing.
"Yes, I do..." Grimacing, Shouta looks like he'd rather crawl into his sleeping bag. Be anywhere else other than here, really, and Hizashi is inclined to agree, even if he does love the listeners. "...put up with it, Mic. "
Considering how dutifully unhelpful Shouta has been for the past few minutes, getting that much out of him is a miracle in of itself. Maybe he really was willing to ditch Hizashi when the time eventually came for them to reveal that there was more to their 'friendship' than meets the eye. Of course, he's the one with the PR team and the wits for it, so perhaps it isn't all too much of a bad thing to conclude.
"And, to add onto Mic's insufficient answer," and Hizashi huffs at that, pouting, because out of all the times Shouta chooses to go out of his way and speak up, it's now? Stellar. "There may be an assignment coming up within the semester regarding the topic of relations. However," Shouta says, boring a hole into his student's nervous faces, "Don't take that to mean any action we take is correlated with it. It's just an upcoming lecture. Nothing more."
"O-oh!" Ochako's eyes go wide. "That sounds... reasonable? I didn't think we'd have a class on it so soon..."
Shouta, stepping into Aizawa-sensei, nods. "Quite."
"I don't buy it," Bakugou mutters, eyes planted right on them, tracking the movement in the room as students shift to make way. Shouta tilts his head in bemusement. In lieu of fight-or-flight, Hizashi chooses the safest option of unwinding himself from Shouta and stepping back. Which is a good decision, with what the kid says next. "Fuckers looked too close for comfort. I'm betting on black that they're already married and just makin' up an excuse."
His husband's breath barely hitches. Some of the students look hesitant.
Midoriya rolls his eyes in a rare moment of snark. "Aizawa-sensei isn't interested in romance, Kacchan. Don't be stupid."
(Thinking of Shouta not being a romantic is a rational conclusion to come to. Hizashi hadn't particularly thought it either at first, even when Shouta and he had been 'dancing around each other' (as Nemuri put it; Hizashi had just viewed it as he'd thought Shouta did; very platonic).
Considering Hizashi had been the one to be confessed to, not the confessor, well. Didn't exactly matter what the general public thought. Or what their students did, given they had no bread crumbs to follow for when it came to his husband's actual demeanour in private.)
Beside the boy, Bakugou huffs, stirring a fleeting look of concern from Ojirou and Sero.
Also, wow. The kid's rather blunt, for one thing. Shouta had reported Midoriya acting off since last week, but hearing about it and seeing it in person were two entirely different things.
"He doesn't wear a ring either, not even on his neck. Like an underground hero probably would."
"And you know this how?" Iida asks. "Not that I don't believe you, Midoriya, but..."
"When he uses Erasure, his hair floats up, right? There's an anti-gravity aspect to his quirk. If there were something on his neck under his capture weapon, it would rise out from under it too!"
"You should save this type of analysis for class," Shouta grouses.
Midoriya huffs. "Sorry, sensei. But I'll say one more thing," Midoriya pauses, volatile, yet tranquil as he drops yet another earth-shattering bombshell to the rest of his classmates, albeit more true, "Mic-sensei has a ring himself."
Hizashi resists the urge to face palm.
Ashido immediately coos, looking at Hizashi in a new light. "OH-EM-GEE, that's super cool! Mic-sensei's wearing a ring?!" Stalling for breath, she tacks on, "Where?!"
His shoulders deflating, he shrugs at Shouta. Not for approval, exactly, just to parse his reaction, because he's entirely unsure whether or not Shouta's actually going to follow through on his threat and leave him high and dry on the couch. He's left pleasantly surprised when no look of resentment unfurls over his husband's features at being caught out.
Time to face the music, then. The reassurance that Shouta won't, in fact, skin him alive for not being discreet propels him to extricate his ring-hand from where he'd tucked it into his pocket mid-conversation, presenting it to the group of equally-wide eyed listeners.
They coo in OOOs and AAHs of approval.
"That's a pretty ring, Mic-sensei!"
"Wow, and I thought he was a silver guy. His support gear's all silver."
"I need a new prescription, these contacts are terrible... can't even see it, does it have any diamonds on it..."
"Hey, don't sweat it! It doesn't have any diamonds, or anything on it, really... it's actually rather plain for someone like Present Mic-sensei... it's also coloured yellow!"
"Gold, idiot, if you're saying yellow band you're just referring to Coldplay! They have a song all about the colour!"
"Um, what're you--"
"Who're you married to?!"
Hizashi does not grace that last question with a response. Instead he beams at the first response and chances up a mutter of 'thanks!', Shouta staring right at their students appraisingly, because Bakugou and Midoriya seem to still be going at it behind them anyhow.
"Just because the bird teacher has a ring doesn't mean he's not married to the hobo! Aizawa could be wearing it somewhere else, or damn, maybe it's at... wherever he lives that's probably not a bridge." Bakugou mutters. Hizashi does not jump or squawk to his husband's or his defences, brow furrowing thoughtfully. "You're supposed to be the analytic considering all possibilities here, right? Live up to it and shit."
"Hey, Bakubro," Kirishima hisses. "Chill out!"
"Shitty Hair, it's an honest question. I'm just asking. He's supposed to be the nerd here, isn't he?"
Midoriya's face darkens. "Okay. Well. I was also supposed to be a statistic, but we don't bring that up either, do we?"
Unbeknownst to them, Bakugou seems to know exactly what that entails, face blanching.
Shouta and Hizashi exchange a look. Whatever was going on with that would definitely have to be addressed sooner or later. Fiddling with the ring, sunglasses still perched on the bridge of his nose, he lets the glasses descend down to peer over the world in its true colour.
Hizashi peers down at the rose-gold of it, metal thrumming under the pads of his fingers.
Maybe they need a distraction.
Bakugou's face contorts into something painful. "It's been a long damn time since--"
Stepping forward, Hizashi tosses out a hand--
"I was going to kiss him," Shouta interrupts bluntly.
And he quickly steps back.
As expected, the room goes quiet. Apprehensive, questioning looks cross Bakugou and Midoriya's faces, the two stepping away from each other, as Shouta must've intended them to do.
With the same ceremony one might use to announce the weather, he adds, "Because we're married."
Hizashi turns to look at his husband. Turns back to their students. Hears the downpour slam even harder into the windows, the walls, everywhere.
Huh, he thinks, oddly calm. Leave it to Shouta to be charming as always and weaponise his own secrets for the sake of his students. What a softie. With his fingers, he pushes his glasses back up his nose, and waits for the repercussions to ring out.
Which it does, violently. As their crowd of teenaged judges erupt into an orchestra of confusion and noise and 'WHAT?!'s.