Archive of Our Own

The studio is quiet when you creep in that morning. 

You haven’t slept yet. It’s nearing five, and there’s a nervous energy in your fingertips. You should be focused; you should have gotten sleep, but it kept eluding you, like you were Tantalus in the lake hungering for a crisp apple just out of reach. Eventually, you’d decided enough was enough, and took the first train of the morning down to the studio. You needed that energy out of you, as soon as possible. 

Now, your heart calms at the silence, the dark walls, the absence of people. The drum kit with its huge IKIGAI logo, the amps with all the dials turned down, the control room through the window. You slide your gig bag off your shoulder and set to work plugging your electric into an amp. 

Takuma keeps telling you to stop practicing at all hours of the day—something about keeping your fingertips fresh and staying active—but you’ve never really listened to him. You’re at your most clear-headed when there’s electricity in your veins. There’s a lot in this world you don’t know, but you know music, and that keeps you sane when it feels like the world is too much for you. 

Today, the five of you are supposed to meet with the team in charge of directing the music video for IKIGAI’s newest song. You heard from management that they booked some celebrity, but you tend to tune out when they talk about stuff like that. Koan usually takes care of music video planning—putting his film degree to good use, he says. Rio always snipes back that the music videos still aren’t good, though you disagree: you think they’re better than anyone else’s videos for the sole reason that they have the five of you in them. What IKIGAI lacks in funding, the five of you make up for in personality. 

All of that doesn’t matter right now, though. What matters is this: your guitar pick, the purple one you got as a gift from a festival years ago that’s grown a groove where your thumb goes; a loud chord reverberating throughout the room; the only light coming from the recording booth, where you’d flipped the switch for the dim bulbs on. You play the introduction of a song you’ve been listening to recently before transitioning into IKIGAI’s newest single. You practice the set list for next Saturday’s gig, and when you run out of your own songs, you start playing whatever tune comes to mind. 

In this bright, beautiful moment, you are not afraid. 

Your fingers are still sore when you walk into the label’s office hours later. The building is a modernist high-rise, white with huge floor-to-ceiling windows. It’s a huge contrast from the artists they sign; you can only really speak for IKIGAI, but the office doesn’t really scream J-rock. It feels so corporate.  

The rest of the band are waiting for you by the time you get there. The five of you stick out like five sore thumbs: Rio with piercings all the way down her ear and one in her lip, Kazuki’s perpetual scowl and jet-black overcoat, Koan with half of his head dyed bright blue and tiny ear gauges, and Takuma’s bleached-blond permed mullet. No one says a thing about how late you are—they know you well enough at this point. If you’re late, it means you were practicing, and it’s not like they can fault you for that, can they? You’re all the same, really—you just trade places. If Takuma’s very obviously annoyed and glaring at you, well, that’s not your problem. He’ll probably have something to say—but only after the meeting, when his nerves are settled from finding out who the guest Koan booked for the MV is. 

The five of you take the elevator up to the fifth floor, where the doors open on your manager, Uda Tenyo, tapping his foot impatiently and checking his watch. Personally, you think it’s hilarious that his face is all red and his cheeks puffed up like pork buns, but this is not a thought you voice aloud. When he sees you, he sighs, loudly. 

“Late as usual,” Uda says. 

“You should start telling us the meeting time is earlier than it is,” Rio quips, “so we’ll actually be on time.” 

“I shouldn’t have to.” 

He leads the five of you to the conference room, where your team is supposed to meet with the celebrity actor. You and Kazuki had a bet that Uda had booked you that actress Rio likes as a gift for being the nicest member—you, of course, were on the side that there was no way, and Kazuki insisted it was possible—while Takuma was sure it would be some no-name none of you had ever heard of. Koan was so tight-lipped about the whole thing, it made the rest of you speculate even further. Still, when Uda opens the door, none of you expect to see—

Pro Hero Todoroki Shouto. Sitting at the table. Waiting for you.

Your jaw drops. 

“Um,” Takuma says. 

“Are we in the right room?” Rio stage-whispers to you. 

Koan breezes in, pulling Kazuki and Uda along with him. The rest of you are left gaping after them. 

Next to Shouto sits the man who you presume is his agent, an older man with bushy eyebrows and fish scales on the backs of his hands. He clears his throat, loudly, prompting the rest of you to file in and take your seats. 

You end up sitting next to Koan, to whom you hiss, “You didn’t tell me you booked Todoroki fucking Shouto.” Koan’s only response is a shrug. He’s the worst. 

The talks themselves are, in your (objectively correct) opinion, extremely boring. It’s mostly Koan and Uda going over the MV script—the story follows each of you and Shouto, individually, alone and searching different areas, before finding each other, intercut with footage of IKIGAI performances—while Shouto’s agent nitpicks and renegotiates the terms of the contract. For your part, you’re not really listening, too distracted by how annoyingly pretty Shouto’s face is in person. You’ve seen it plastered on magazines and on the Internet—there’s a particular account dedicated to daily Shouto photos that sometimes appears on your feed—but it’s another thing to see him in person. The photos don’t do him justice, honestly. 

If you’re a little starstruck, you try really hard not to show it. 

A couple hours and very little progress later, you’ve taken to kicking Takuma under the table. He’s clenching his teeth so hard you can see a tick in his jaw. Abruptly, he stands, interrupting whatever Shouto’s agent was saying. You weren’t listening. 

“I think we’re all a little tired here,” Takuma says with one of his winning smiles, the ones that make your female fans scream and swoon. It’s so obviously fake. 

Shouto’s agent sighs again and waves his hand. “Sure,” he says. “Whatever. Let’s take a break.” 

You’re all getting up—you’re standing, stretching, propping your elbow up on Koan’s shoulder—when Shouto finally speaks. 

“I will do the video,” he says. 

All of you stare at him. 

“Shouto—” his agent starts, but Shouto holds up a hand. 

“I want to do it.” 

Uda snaps back to his senses, closing his gaping mouth and clapping his hands. “Wonderful! We’ll have our camera crew email you to schedule a shoot day. I trust there are no more concerns?” 

He shoots a glare at the five of you. You all remain quiet. 

Uda and Shouto’s managers stay back to hash out details, but they begrudgingly let the rest of you go. You and your bandmates take to the stairs, racing to the bottom. 

Back in the lobby, all of you still breathing heavily from the five flights you’d just bolted down, Takuma points at you indignantly. 

“You’re such a child,” he says. 

“What!” 

“You were late, you wouldn’t stop fucking kicking, and I know you haven’t slept since yesterday.” 

“What…” 

He points to your eyes. “I can always tell. You have hideous eyebags.” 

“Lay off, Taku-chan,” Rio chirps. Takuma lets out an undignified squawk at the nickname. “We all have our days.” 

Takuma scoffs, but Rio has a point: you are all messes, even Takuma. If the four of you can put up with the days when Takuma snaps at all of you for nothing, spends hours at the gym, and shows up to practice lathered in too many layers of sunscreen, then your overpracticing and late tendencies can also be accepted as one of your many idiosyncrasies. You know Takuma believes if he doesn’t look perfect, IKIGAI will never be successful. He’s wrong, of course, but nothing you’ve said has convinced him of it. You have only all tacitly agreed that your breakdowns will not overlap—it is just your turn today. 

“Let’s take the rest of the day off,” Kazuki suggests. His voice is deep and stands out amid the brightness of the lobby. “I think we could all use some rest.” 

Kazuki’s stoic and rarely speaks, so when he deigns to pitch in, the rest of you tend to agree. It helps that, of all five of you, he’s probably the smartest. Koan suggests you all go out to Gindaco to pick up takoyaki, in no small part so you can celebrate getting the number three Pro Hero on board for your MV. Koan still hasn’t gotten his chance to gloat. You’re about to head out when—

“Hello.” 

The five of you all whirl around in sync. Standing there, once again, is Todoroki Shouto. 

“Um,” Takuma says. 

Rio elbows you. Koan is just standing there, stock-still, like he hadn’t scripted this interaction—which he probably hadn’t. How could he have expected Pro Hero Shouto would follow up after the meeting, alone, with the five of you? 

Time for you to save face for your ragtag group of losers. 

“Hello. Thank you for working with us,” you say. 

“Oh,” he says. “Of course. I like your music.” 

“Thank you,” you say, tamping down the part of you that wants to preen and brag to the whole world that a famous Pro Hero likes your music. “Did you have any other concerns?” 

Takuma scrunches up his nose. You suspect he’d forgotten you can be polite when you want to. 

“No,” he says. “Well, yes. I realized I didn’t know your names.” 

This takes you off guard. You hadn’t expected that a celebrity like Shouto would care at all about what amateur wannabes like you were named. You rattle off all of your names rapid-fire—you’re not sure if he catches them all, but his eyes linger on you when you introduce yourself. Your ears feel hot. What are you supposed to do when people are looking at you? 

“Nice to meet you. I’m Todoroki Shouto,” he says, nodding in a tiny bow. 

“I know,” you blurt. Ah, maybe you shouldn’t have said that, but you’re sure he gets that all the time. Price of fame and whatnot. To make up for that misstep, you say, “We were going to get takoyaki. Want to come with?” 

Rio elbows you again. Koan looks like he may go into shock. You and your big mouth. 

“I would love to,” Shouto says. 

Koan cites a stomach bug to escape the outing, dragging Kazuki along with him. Rio babbles some excuse about how her shoes are on fire and dashes away. This leaves you, Takuma, and Shouto, walking at a snail’s pace to the Gindaco a few blocks from the office. Shouto is quiet, and Takuma keeps mumbling, “You’re crazy,” under his breath over and over again. Yeah, Takuma, you know.  

“We’re not cool enough to hang out with a celebrity,” Takuma hisses to you. 

“I know, Takuma,” you whisper back. 

“Do you? I don’t think you do.” 

“Shut up.” 

Luckily, Shouto seems blissfully unaware of the turmoil going on, walking just a few paces ahead of the two of you. You don’t think he knows where Gindaco is, but it’s straightforward enough, so you let him lead. He’s pulled a face mask on over his mouth and has a yellow Deku cap covering his two-toned hair—he looks properly like a celebrity in hiding. 

Maybe one day you’ll have to dress like that. Maybe. 

The Gindaco has a line that snakes around the corner, so you give up on this plan and decide to hit up a street stall that’s decided to compete just a block down the street by a tiny park crowded with benches. Shouto doesn’t order anything, so when you get your paper boat tray full of steaming takoyaki, you offer him a toothpick. Shouto looks at your hand for a moment, long enough to make you self-conscious—maybe there’s something weird about your fingers?—before he finally takes the toothpick. Takuma watches this whole interaction with wide eyes. 

You perch on a bench just a few paces away. Shouto sits down next to you; you’re in awe of the way he seems relaxed but not, comfortable but not, just a hair shy of belonging. He’s a walking contradiction. The curious parts of you want to tug on his threads and unravel him. He doesn’t take any of your takoyaki, so you hold the boat closer to him as an invitation. 

“I won’t eat all of it,” you say. “Have some.” 

At that, he finally takes one. 

Takuma wanders over with his own boat, and steals a takoyaki ball from yours. You glare half-heartedly at him. He caws like a vulture, eliciting a smile from Shouto. You do your damndest not to stare. 

“You’re a leech,” you tell Takuma. 

“I’m your favorite leech,” he says. He pops the takoyaki ball in his mouth and immediately burns his mouth. 

“You seem close,” Shouto observes. 

“An occupational hazard,” you say. “We spend a lot of time together.” 

“That sounds nice,” he says, and he says it so earnestly your heart melts a little. Like he’s reminiscing, thinking of a simpler time, maybe, or something similar he had. A group. Somewhere to belong. Those things are hard to find. 

You give each other shit, but you’re lucky to have found your bandmates. When you were in school, you’d bonded over quirklessness, the way the world was cruel to you. Music was your escape back then, and the five of you would spend hours after school holed up in some classroom making a racket until a teacher going home for the day had enough and kicked you out. The five of you have earned the right to be terrible to each other. 

“It is,” you say, in a rare moment of sincerity. Takuma looks away. 

Shouto catches your gaze, and you share a smile. He seems to understand what you mean—the difficulty of admitting it, too. 

When you go home that day, you keep that smile on your face. 

Friday night finds IKIGAI on the tiny stage of a little underground music club in Kabukicho. The club is packed, full of sweat and rolling hips. The stench of alcohol is so strong you feel lightheaded just breathing in. That could be nerves, too, but you pretend it isn’t. 

Once you start playing, you can breathe again. 

You’ve been told you look terrifying onstage: that your eyes are full of fire, your spine is straighter, that you tear riffs out into the air like an ancient, feral spirit taking vengeance on all who listen. You make eye contact with Takuma during the bridge of the first song and he winks at you. His voice is silky smooth and complemented by Kazuki’s deep backing vocals. Rio’s fingers dance across her keyboard with practiced ease. Kazuki and Koan are nodding in time. The lights flash and pulse, sending dizzying streams of multicolored lights every which way. 

Your first performance, you’d fucked up this exact bridge. You’d barely been able to see, vision swimming, anxiety prickling all over your skin. You’d felt like a fish out of water, and it had shown. In the video one of your friends had taken of the event, there was no music in your body—you were steel pipe stiff and your rhythm was all off, even though you’d dedicated all of your study time and then some to practicing. You knew the music, but in the moment, you’d choked. 

Rio chewed you out after the performance, as you were getting changed in the green room. It was like being kicked when you were down; Rio never raises her voice, barely ever gets angry. The exception is when it comes to the music, the band, your futures. Your performances. She is as uncompromising as any of you, just as much of a perfectionist. Take this seriously, she’d said, or we’ll find a new guitarist.  

It wouldn’t have been hard. Everyone wants to play guitar. Guys who think it’ll make them look hot, girls who want to understand their own souls, people with too much free time on their hands. A child grieving their mother. You knew that well. You knew how replaceable you were. 

Now, you feel the music in your bones. You have worked, and worked, and bled to move your body, your fingers, to the pulse of the song. The anxiety still comes, it still creeps its insipid trail under your flesh, and you let it—it spurs you on. Now, you are fire. Now, you are ancient. You are not a guitarist—you are the music. 

You’re proud of the show the five of you have come up with. Decked out in all black costumes and sharp eyeliner, drunk on music and tiny sips from a fruity pink cocktail Rio had ordered. The five of you have a tradition of sharing drinks—you always order different ones and pass them around to each other. Before a show, it helps ease your group nerves. 

It’s late in the night, so the crowd is drunk. A couple of your diehard fans are up front jumping along to the music. People are dancing on each other, by themselves, nodding along—the energy in the room, the invisible buzz in the air, makes you feel alive, steel strings digging into the pads of your fingers, drumbeats in your chest. This beautiful, collaborative thing is nothing but yours—IKIGAI’s. 

After IKIGAI’s set, the five of you don’t stick around. Normally, you’d go get drinks to celebrate, maybe milkshakes if you’re feeling dangerous, but you’re all so worn out today—all you want to do is go home. You pack up your instruments and leave through the green room’s external doors. 

Those doors lead you out into a tiny alley, which snakes around the back of the club and lets out at the front doors of the club. It’s late enough that the entry line is empty; the street is populated by people moving between bars, stumbling into streetlight poles, leaning against their friends and singing into their ears. The club itself is small, as far as Shinjuku clubs go, the exterior dark but wrapped in neon purple scrolling LED signs advertising the headlining band. A group of three girls tumble from the club, arms over each others’ shoulders, giggling and swaying. A guy in a black face mask and a black Cellophane hat leans against the outer wall, the tiniest hint of red hair poking out from his disguise. There’s a salaryman passed out on the other side of the street, clutching his briefcase to his chest like a beloved plushie. 

Your bandmates scatter with mumbled goodbyes—Kazuki claps you on the shoulder, and you wave them all off—but you stick around. Because you know that hat, and because your curiosity always wins out in the end. What’s he doing here, and should you even say hi? It’s none of your business what he’s doing here, but that selfish part of you wants to—to—

You’re saved from the humiliation of initiating when the disguised Shouto calls out your name. 

You’re surprised he remembers it. Though you suppose that’s common decency, since he’s agreed to be in the MV, and you get the sense that Shouto is just a nice person to begin with. Maybe too nice. There’s a familiar prick of worry in you that someone like you would just take advantage of that kindness. Nevertheless, you raise a hand in greeting. 

“Hey,” you say. “What brings you here?” 

Kabukicho doesn’t seem Shouto’s kind of place. The air is permanently tinged with smoke and alcohol, and every street sports a gathering of escorts looking for work. Your impression of Shouto is that he’s a little awkward, a little withdrawn, but nice overall—though you guess you don’t really know him well enough to claim any actual knowledge about what he’s like as a person. Maybe he loves Kabukicho. Maybe he’s here all the time, chatting up anyone who’ll listen. That doesn’t sound right, but you don’t know.

“I came to see your show,” Shouto says. 

Self-consciousness prickles over your skin. He came to see your show? IKIGAI? It should make sense, but something in your brain doesn’t compute. After all, no one you know personally comes to see your shows—in the early days, your college friends came a few times, but decided their support mattered less as the band got bigger over time. Rio has a lot of friends, who you suppose you know by association—they come to the shows, sometimes. It’s not like IKIGAI is a household name: people associate it with psychologists and therapists and Western influence, and those meditation junkies who go on runs every day and drink powder for breakfast. 

“Thanks,” you finally manage, after realizing you’d been blinking at him in stunned silence for too long a moment. 

Shouto adjusts the brim of his hat awkwardly. His eyes dart from you to the surrounding buildings to the office worker passed out in the corner of the street. Without looking at you, he says, “Can I walk you home?” 

“What makes you think I’m going home?” 

He blanches. “Sorry, I just assumed…” 

“Just kidding.” You grin at him. “Sure, you can walk me home.” 

Luckily for the both of you, your apartment in Okubo isn’t too far a walk from Kabukicho. You sling your gig bag over your shoulder and lead the way, Shouto stuffing his hands in his pockets as he walks. You can tell he wants to say something, but he’s quiet, like he’s trying to find the words. So you fill the space for him. 

“Did you like the show?” you ask. 

“I did,” he says. “You have a way with the audience. I couldn’t stop watching.” 

Your face feels hot. It’s a compliment for the band, sure, but it’s also a compliment for you—the asides you and Takuma have for the audience, the ways you introduce each song, the banter you’ve all written for yourselves, memorized, practiced a million times. Your show is a well-oiled machine, the beautiful result of years spent honing your performance—the fact that someone like Shouto liked it makes your stomach feel all fluttery. 

“Thanks,” you say. “I didn’t expect to see you there.” 

Which you didn’t, technically—you saw him outside of there—but who cares about little things like that? 

“Does it not seem like the kind of place I would be?” he asks, and when you glance over at him, there’s a tiny, amused smile on his lips. 

“Not really,” you say. “I guess I just kinda assumed you liked, uh… nicer places. Calmer places.” 

“Does it surprise you?” 

You stop walking and look at him. “What?” 

“Does it surprise you? That I like places like this.”

You think about powerful people with too much money. Shouto doesn’t really strike you as one of them, but again, what do you know? For all you know, Kabukicho is a regular haunt for him. What do you really know about him? Maybe he sees a million bands and goes home with a different girl every night.

…Somehow, you don’t really believe that. 

“I guess so,” you say. “You seem like someone who likes peaceful places.”  

“Doesn’t everyone like peace?” 

“In different ways.” 

He cocks his head then, looking at you with those heterochromatic eyes, his expression placid, but there’s something there—something that burns, that makes you feel turned inside out, like all the words in your throat have jumbled into tangled ropes to block your airways. You think you could learn to read him, one day, if you really tried—if you spent days like this, him walking you home, you learning his tells like your favorite song. It’s not your place, but you want to. You want so viscerally it hurts. You think about a world in which you fall in love with Shouto the way close friends fall in love, slowly, carefully, suddenly. You think about a world in which you fall in love with Shouto right now. You think about a world in which he falls in love with you first. 

His eyes are soft as he looks at you, prying away the hard outer layers you’ve worn like skin. All of your bravado feels useless, now. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?” you breathe. 

“I can’t?” 

You don’t know how to respond to that. Instead, you face forward and continue walking. 

“Why did you start playing music?” he asks, trailing behind you. He asks it so matter-of-fact, like it’s an easy question with a simple answer, even though he has to understand it’s not. 

“It’s a long story,” you say. 

“I have time.” 

You glance over at him. He’s still looking at you with that expression that makes you want to hide. The bright lights of Kabukicho are transitioning into the softer lights of Okubo, and your heart is twisting. 

“When I was younger,” you say, “my mother had this super old record player that she loved. And this specific record that she’d play all the time. I only kind of remember the chorus of one of the songs—she used to sing it all the time. After she died, I wanted to figure out how to play it. Before I knew it, I fell in love with playing.” 

You try very hard to keep your tone steady, like it’s no big deal. Blunt, like it’s not hard to talk about, like you don’t still wonder what might’ve happened if she’d taken that day off from work like she’d wanted to. Like you have not thrashed, a fish against the current, to be here today. If you say it the right way, maybe he’ll believe it was easy—maybe he won’t pity you. 

Shouto nods slowly. “I admire that,” he says carefully. 

“Thanks,” you say, eager to change the subject. “Why’d you decide to become a hero?” 

“A lot of reasons,” he tells you. “First because of my father. Then… because I want to help people. I want to use these powers for the right reasons.” 

You should’ve expected this—he is a Pro Hero, after all—but he’s so good. Your music is for selfish reasons; it’s for you, and the audience enjoying it is an added bonus. You don’t do it to help people. Sometimes you wish you had noble aspirations like that. 

“That’s lovely,” you murmur, so softly you wonder if he even heard you. His eyes soften. 

You’re saved from having to say anything else by arriving at your apartment building. You stop in front of the mailboxes beside the doors and turn to face him, gripping the strap of your gig bag like your life depends on it. 

“This is me,” you say. 

Shouto looks up at the building. The outside is all white, and the steps have been recently swept. As far as apartments go, you’re pretty lucky—your landlady is a nosy older woman who pries a little too far into your dating life but calls in maintenance requests quickly, so you can’t really complain. If she wants to hear about your lack of action, that’s her choice. 

“Thanks for walking me back,” you say. 

“Thank you for letting me walk you,” Shouto responds. 

Again, you don’t know how to respond to that. You nod jerkily and turn to escape into your apartment when Shouto calls out again. 

“What are you doing tomorrow?” he asks. 

“Practicing. Why?” 

“Can I walk you home again?” 

Your skin thrums with nervous energy. That can’t be right. He’s a Pro Hero—he must be busy. He can’t have the time to walk you home for no reason. He can’t want to walk you home for no reason. 

“I don’t have any way to make it up to you,” you say, because you can’t imagine someone choosing that without wanting something in return. 

“I’d like your phone number, then,” he says simply. 

“That’s not a…” you start to protest, but he raises his eyebrows and you trail off. He’s kind of like a steamroller, in a way you’re not really used to. You get the sense you’re missing some key information here to contextualize all this. 

Instead, you hold out your hand. Shouto drops his phone into your palm and you quickly send yourself a text from his number, then hand it back. 

“There.” You can’t look at him. You’re afraid of what you’ll see on his face. The kind of expression he’ll be wearing. The idea that you won’t be able to understand what he’s saying with his eyebrows, his nose, his lips. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says. 

“You will.” 

You blink, and he’s gone. 

Shouto does not just pick you up from practice once. 

He adds you on LINE the next morning and you message back and forth about what your day looks like. He tells you he’s up to nothing big, just a photoshoot in the morning and patrol at night—which makes you feel like you’re going insane, because how is that nothing big? For you, a photoshoot marks a long day of getting dolled up, traipsing around the city or cramming into a tiny studio, and dealing with Koan’s annoying filmbro friends from college. Afterward, you’re always so tired you sleep the rest of the day away. You suppose a photoshoot looks a bit different for someone like Shouto, but you can’t imagine a world in which it’s not exhausting.  

So he picks you up from rehearsal that evening and walks you home, and the two of you talk about your favorite stories growing up, your current obsession with an awful reality TV show, and his friend who breaks into his place just to stock up the fridge. Then the next day, he meets you outside the studio again. 

And the next day. And the next. 

If you didn’t know better, you’d think he was looking for ways to spend time with you, but how would that make any sense? 

On the fourth day, your friends start making fun of you for it. They must be relishing this chance—you give them so much shit, it must be nice for the tables to be turned for once. You understand that, of course, but if you hear one more quip about how you’re starting a cult or trying to take over the world, you might smash your guitar over someone’s head. 

“Careful of your shadow,” Rio tells you during a break, “you might find Shouto there.” 

“That’s stupid,” you deadpan. “That’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever said to me.” 

“I’ve said much stupider.” 

“I second that,” Koan chirps from where he’s kneeling behind his drums, readjusting the pedals. 

“Didn’t ask you,” you say. 

“Don’t speak in my presence then, if you don’t want my input.” 

“Presence? I can’t even see you.” 

“Bro, you forgot object permanence?” 

Rio holds you back from launching yourself into Koan’s drums. He cackles. 

Takuma wanders back in, massaging his cheeks with a face roller, and Kazuki trails behind him like an imposing bodyguard. The lights are on, but dim, and there are indents and calluses all over your fingers and hands from hours and hours of playing. Takuma kept forgetting the words to “12 STEP,” and Kazuki’s thumb was acting up so his basslines were slower than usual. There have been more breaks today than you normally take, but these are forgiven—you all have off days. 

You make it through three more songs before you all give up and decide to jam instead. Koan steps into the booth to hit record and the five of you create a song from nothing, just feeling and a pulse that fizzes between all of you. By the end of it, you’re sweaty, tired, and your fingers are numb from zipping across the fretboard. It’s intoxicating. 

As you’re wrapping up for the night, you throw yourself onto the floor in exhaustion. Everyone else continues around you. Rio jokes that dating Shouto is turning you into a diva. 

“Goodnight, Miss Celebrity.” Takuma’s started calling you that now, in English, which you both kind of hate and kind of find hilarious. English was his worst subject in high school, but he’s gotten passable after watching way too many videos about American drag performers. 

“You wish I was a celebrity,” you snipe back, which makes Takuma kick at you. Yes, your careers would’ve been very different if one of you were already a celebrity. When you think about it, though, you kind of like it this way—that you’re small, struggling, and mean the world to only a few devoted people. 

You pack up and leave the studio, and out there on the street, of course, is Pro Hero Todoroki Shouto. He’s wearing a Dynamight hat this time, and a plain black mask that he pulls down when you approach. 

“Hey,” Rio says to him, seemingly having lost all the respect she had for him, “are you trying to steal our guitarist?” 

Shouto blinks at her. “Excuse me?” 

“You heard me,” Rio says, crossing her arms and puffing her chest out. “You trying to steal our guitarist? They don’t come cheap, you know.” 

“Rio,” Takuma hisses. He won’t look Shouto in the eye, and keeps taking tiny steps backward. If you know Takuma—and you know him better than you know yourself—he loses all bravado in the face of authority. He’s always been like this: he talks big, then cowers in front of people who could make him pay for it. 

“What’s wrong, Miss Celebrity?” you ask him innocently. 

Shouto’s eyes widen, but there’s a glimmer of amusement in his eyes. “Aoki-san, are you a celebrity?” 

Takuma sputters, but nothing he spits out even resembles a real word. The rest of you laugh at him. 

“Well, we should get going,” Koan says, looping his arm through Kazuki’s. “We’ll see you later, Todoroki-san.” 

“Let’s go, Rio,” Takuma says, and Rio lets herself be pulled along with the rest of them, leaving you and Shouto alone on the street. 

“You know,” you say, after a beat of silence, “you don’t have to keep doing this. It must be inconvenient.” 

“It’s not,” Shouto replies simply, leaving no room for argument. “Shall we?” 

“Let’s go,” you say, defeated. You’ve grown tired of trying to convince Shouto he doesn’t want to be around you as much as he is. There’s only so much self-sabotaging one person can do. And, if you’re being completely honest, a part of you is still flabbergasted about how suddenly, this is your life. You’re walking home every day with hero society’s most handsome Pro Hero—the Internet’s words, not yours—and it just kind of happened. That’s insane. You should sell the story to some light novel writer and make a killing off of royalties.

As the two of you walk side by side on the way back to your apartment, you stumble across a cover band playing on the streetside. They’re playing a hit pop song from over a decade ago, one with a guitar solo after the second chorus and a strong drumbeat. On instinct, you stop to listen; Shouto takes a few steps before realizing you’ve stopped, and backtracks to join you. 

Back in the early days of IKIGAI, the five of you had also busked like this—you’d all donned black handwarmers and trekked out onto the frigid streets of Shinjuku City during the early months of winter, kept warm by the pulse of your music and the layers of sweaters you’d stuffed yourselves into. It makes you nostalgic, seeing these newer bands doing their damndest for an audience, to make an impact somehow , fighting against the early evening sun and the disinterest of passersby. 

Their cover is just like any other cover of a beloved song—there’s nothing particularly different or unique about it—but your heart still squeezes like you’re hearing it for the first time. There’s four of them, their eyes focused on each other and on the instruments, the singer barely looking out at the crowd of people—you think she’s afraid of what she’d see, that no one’s stopped, that everyone’s stopped and is staring. They’re all awful possibilities. You know them well; that was you, once, balking at the prickling of eyes all over your skin. 

Next to you, Shouto watches the band with a thoughtful look. You see his eyes dart over to your tapping foot, then back to the band—a tiny smile graces his mouth, then, something you would miss if you weren’t looking, if you weren’t trying so hard to understand him. 

They finish the song and call out a thank you to the scattered people who’ve stopped to listen: you and Shouto, an older couple with matching green bucket hats, a businesswoman with a lost look in her eyes. You shuffle through your wallet and drop what yen you can spare in the open guitar case in front of them before you and Shouto continue on your way. 

You want to get back to practicing again. Already you’ve got a concept in your head, a new song, maybe. Your fingers itch to pluck it out. 

“What are you thinking about?” Shouto asks you. His voice is low and quiet; it makes you dizzy. You pass by a konbini advertising magazines with his face on them. 

“Music,” you say. It’s the same answer anytime someone asks. What are you thinking about? Music. There’s a song in your head. “What about you?” 

Shouto thinks about it for a moment, pressing his lips together. Then he says, “I think it’s amazing how hard people are working toward their dreams.” 

“It is,” you agree. You think of a young Todoroki Shouto and a manufactured dream, an adult Todoroki Shouto with his own. He hasn’t told you much about his father, but you guess as much just by the few hints he’s dropped: the dream, the childhood, being the son of a Pro Hero. You imagine how hard he must’ve worked for this dream of his, and what a fragile thing it must’ve been. When you glance over at him, he’s looking at you. “What?” 

“Nothing,” he says, turning his gaze back to the street. 

You’ve been catching him doing this over the short time you’ve known him: he looks at you a lot, with this indecipherable expression you wish you had answers to. 

You make Shouto stop at the supermarket with you so you can restock on groceries. You’re weighing two mandarins in your hands when Shouto picks up a green onion and tells you it reminds him of you. 

“How?” you ask, baffled. 

“You don’t see it?” 

“Not at all.” 

Shouto twists the green onion like it’s shaking its head, then puts it back. “Because you like green onions. You told me that yesterday.” 

You squint at the rows of vegetables in front of you. Did you tell him that? You must’ve been rambling about something to fill the empty space between you as he walked you home. Vaguely, you remember going on an extensive lecture ranking each and every vegetable you knew of by how much you liked them. You’re surprised he remembers that, but maybe you just live your life carelessly, without remembering small details like that. 

It’s sickeningly domestic, going through the supermarket with him. The assistant at self-checkout stares at the two of you, like she’s trying to place Shouto’s face, but it’s just obscured enough under his hat and mask. The two of you fight over the card reader—Shouto whips out his little black card at lightning speed, and the two of you slam your cards down on the screen with the force of an All Might punch. In the end, Shouto wins, and even insists on carrying the bags for you. You don’t even know how to argue. 

“You can’t just do everything for me,” you gripe as the two of you exit back out onto the street. 

“I’m not doing everything,” he says. “I’m getting you groceries.” 

“I can get my own groceries.” 

“I just wanted to do something nice for you.” 

“You’re already doing something nice for me just by being here.” 

Shouto doesn’t seem to know what to say to that; when you glance over, he can’t seem to meet your gaze. His ears are a faint red. 

This time, when you get to your apartment, you bring Shouto up to your place. You reason that this is solely because you don’t want to deal with the annoyance of trying to find your keys in your messenger bag while holding bags of groceries, but you know that’s just an excuse. The truth is a part of you wants to see Shouto in your living space, to marvel at that impossibility, to see what that looks like. He’ll stick out like a sore thumb next to your secondhand couch and messy counters, you know. 

But when you get up there, and Shouto’s standing in your living room, he doesn’t seem as out of place as you’d thought. Sure, he looks a bit like a fish out of water, his ears now cherry red, wide eyes taking in everything: the table crowded with half-written sheet music and lyrics, your acoustic guitar laying on the couch, the victrola on the coffee table. Despite that, there’s something natural about seeing him there, gawking at your life. Something warm that threatens to creep into your chest. 

You toe your shoes off, take your grocery bags from him, and pad over to the fridge. This seems to snap Shouto out of his reverie, and he follows suit. You unpack your groceries as he wanders over to the table, where the wood is barely visible under your mess of notes. He picks up a sheet of paper at random with an awestruck look. 

“Everything okay?” you ask, your head in the fridge. 

“Yes,” he says. 

“You just seem a little freaked out.” 

“No,” he says. “Do you write the lyrics?” 

“Oh.” You shut the fridge and make your way over to him to peer at the page he’s looking at. It’s a haphazard scrawl of lyrics—half of them are written left to right, and half are written top to bottom. You remember you’d lost your train of thought halfway through writing the words, and had written it this way to remind future you that you wanted overlapping melodies. “Sometimes. Kazuki’s better at lyrics. I usually write the music. But we all pitch in to some degree.” 

Shouto picks up another sheet of paper, this one crowded with drawn-in musical staves and cluttered groupings of notes. 

“It’s amazing,” he breathes. “You’re amazing.” 

You flush. “Nah, it’s not that amazing. We’re just another band. There’s hundreds just like us.”

“I don’t think so,” Shouto says. 

You open your mouth to deflect, and come up empty. 

You’ve been thinking this for a while now, but it will never make sense to you how Shouto seems to think you’re something special. Like he’d already known you when you met, and had decided on this back then, without you ever even knowing. 

But that’s impossible, because you would remember if you’d ever met someone like him. 

Now he’s looking at you, his eyes sparkling like you’ve done something he can’t believe, and your heart is skipping over beats like a schoolgirl jumping rope on the playground. For a moment, you wish he’d kiss you. Why would you wish that? That’s not what this is. You haven’t even known him that long. Your head swims. He’s so close. Why is he so close? Why did you bring him into your apartment? Why does he smell like woodsmoke and cold in a way that makes you dizzy? 

“Um, anyway,” you say, shifting your gaze from his face to the table in front of you and clearing your throat, “thanks for… walking home with me.” 

“Of course.” Shouto checks his watch. “I should be off to patrol soon. I’ll see you tomorrow?” 

“Sure,” you breathe. 

You see him out, and can’t help the weird tingly feeling in your fingers when the back of his hand brushes yours. 

Even when your schedule isn’t so regular, Shouto finds time to insert himself into your day-to-day. When you have a show, he’s either in the audience, or outside the venue by the time you’re done. You drag him to restaurants, hole in the wall places where he’s not likely to be recognized, parks with green trees and swing sets like you’re properly in a shoujo anime. In your head, you’ve convinced yourself that this will last only so long as Shouto is working your music video, and that once the work is done there will be no need to linger. And that’s okay. Ikigai—these fleeting things are worthwhile. You’re making your peace with it. 

A part of you knows this is an exit strategy, so it doesn’t hurt when the mystery around you dissipates and he’s disappointed by what he finds underneath. You pretend it isn’t. 

So you keep dragging him around the city. You make him take the train with you to an arcade in Akihabara and spend too much time there at a claw machine trying to snag a plushie of your favorite Pokémon. In doing so, you learn that the extent of his knowledge of Pokémon comes from Dynamight, which comes as a bit of a surprise to you. You bring him to your favorite cafés and he starts to remember your order, which is the same every time. You let him in, bit by bit, dispelling your mystery. You’re waiting for him to decide you’re not as interesting as you act; each time, you watch his eyes sparkle with the knowledge of you, and feel a bit more insane. 

Today you’re at a park—in the spring it’s overrun with cherry blossom viewers, but in the middle of the night and in late summer it’s practically deserted. To your left, the river stretches out, and in the distance you can see the lights of the city continuing on the horizon. You sit on a bench, perching yourself atop the backrest, while Shouto sits normally. The breeze is humid, and you can’t see the stars, but the fresh air is a welcome reprieve from the label’s office, where you and your bandmates had spent most of the afternoon and evening arguing over the next album’s lineup. There had been no consensus, and Uda seemed like he would’ve been five minutes from dropping your group altogether if the contract didn’t dictate another full album and two EPs, so you’d all agreed to break and regroup in a few days. The frustration still sizzles white-hot beneath your skin. 

Now, this—the heat, the dark sky, the boy beside you—calms you. Todoroki’s right side makes the air around him cool, like an air conditioner, and you’re taking full advantage of that. Plus, against all odds, his presence has started to have a relaxing effect on you. Like coming home after a long day (of arguing with Uda). 

“Can I ask you a question?” Shouto says out of the blue. 

“Sure,” you say. 

“Why ikigai?” 

Ikigai. It means: a reason for living. Finding value in the little things. Things that make life worthwhile. It’s impossible to describe in other words—it just is. 

“All of us have gone through a lot of things,” you say. “It’s not—it’s not right to talk about everyone else, but as for me, it’s a concept that’s really important to me. Trying to find things to live for. For me, that’s music. I think all of us agreed on that. Playing music dragged us all out of really dark places. And—and sometimes it made it worse, but…” 

Shouto nods. You’re sure he understands. Maybe that’s why he wanted to be in your music video in the first place; maybe he saw your band’s name and felt that connection. Wishful thinking, maybe, but you believe in it. 

You don’t just get better. You get better, and then you get worse. You all have your days, your episodes. And then you get better again, because there’s no other option. Because you have something to live for. You have each other, you have the music. You have the way the crowd screams during your solos, the electricity of being on stage, the satisfaction of putting together a song that plays in your head nonstop. You have one day at a time, day after day after day. 

Now, you have Shouto, too. For however long you have him. 

That’s kind of scary. 

“Thank you for telling me that,” Shouto murmurs. 

You laugh derisively. “Thanks for listening.” 

“It was easy,” he says. “I like listening to you.” 

Your face flushes. How can he say that with a straight face? You laugh again, this time flustered. “You’re so…” 

“So?” 

“I don’t know. You’re just so.” 

Shouto cranes his neck to look up at you and leans forward. “No, tell me. I’m so what?” 

“Uh-uh. Nope. You can’t make me find answers I don’t have.” 

“I think I can.” 

“Shut up,” you groan, pushing his face away by the forehead. Shouto laughs; the sound of it leaves you even more speechless than before. He doesn’t do it often: usually he has this tiny smile that makes you feel weird, jittery feelings. His laugh is like a stick whacking at your heart. It makes you breathless. 

“Tell me your favorite part about making music,” he says, his eyes glittering like he has a vested personal interest in your answer. 

You have to think about the question, but ultimately you just start talking, and find your answer along the way. Something about the electricity of the music, something about the excitement of the crowds, something about how you feel human when you play. In turn, Shouto tells you about going to U.A., to which you respond by telling him about how you were convinced you’d be an astrophysicist in high school before you met Takuma. He tells you about his friends, other Pro Heroes whose names sound familiar but who you couldn’t pick out of a lineup, and you tell him about your old friends, the ones you haven’t spoken to in years but still think about every so often. He tells you about a TV show his friend made him watch last year, and you tell him about the movie you saw with amazing writing but terrible animation. 

You’re talking and laughing into the hazy Tokyo night, and for that moment, everything is good. 

You’re getting up to leave when a man drops out of the sky in front of you. 

He’s clad in black, yellow, and white, with a huge helmet over his head. You feel like you recognize him from the news or something, but you could be wrong; you don’t pay much attention to Pro Heroes outside of the top three, who seem impossible to avoid. Their faces are plastered on buildings. Well, you assume he’s a Pro Hero, but maybe he’s a really dedicated and talented cosplayer? 

“Hey,” he says, casually. 

“Sero,” Shouto says back. “What?” 

“Oh, is this that girl you were talking about?” The guy in the helmet inclines his head toward you like he’s sizing you up. “Hey. How’s it going? Good? Nice. Cool. I need your help.” 

“My help?” Shouto asks. 

“Yeah. I’m—well, it doesn’t matter. You’re impossible to get in contact with, so I just came myself. Debrief on the way. Let’s go.” 

“Ah—” Shouto turns to you. “Sorry about this.” 

You sit back on the bench. “No, it’s fine. Go, do your thing.” 

“I’ll make it up to you,” he promises—ah, famous last words. You wave goodbye and in the blink of an eye they’re gone, soaring through the sky. You watch until they’re tiny pinpricks of light, indistinguishable from a star, if you could see any in the Tokyo haze. With that, you pull yourself to your feet and, for the first time in a few weeks, walk yourself home. 

Instead of heading home, you beeline to Rio’s apartment. It’s nearing one in the morning, so you know she’ll be awake. 

Of all the people you know—artsy types, the kind of people who don’t function on society’s usual terms—Rio has the most fucked up sleep schedule. During your many times sleeping over at her place, she’d always be awake when you fell asleep and awake when you woke up. Back in high school, you’d thought it was her quirk until you’d seen her a day without coffee. 

So when you get to her place, you punch in the code to the lobby and take the elevator up to her apartment, where you use the spare key she’d given you years ago when she moved in here. 

Rio glances over when you enter, but this is a commonplace enough occurrence that she doesn’t really bat an eye. “Haven’t gotten enough of me yet?” she snarks. 

“I’ve been sick of you since day one,” you reply. 

“Bold words with no bite. Want ramen?” 

“Sure.” 

You leave your shoes by the door and make your way into the living room, where Takuma’s spread out on the couch doing a face mask. You wrinkle your nose. 

“What are you doing here?” he asks, deadpan. He’s watching some car racing competition on TV, lounging like he hasn’t a care in the world and didn’t almost start a fistfight with Uda earlier today. His dark hair is pushed back with a headband, and he looks all melty with the face mask on. 

“What are you doing here?” you shoot back. 

“Hangin’.” 

“Hang out at your own place.” 

“I would, but Koan needed quiet, and I wanted to watch TV.” 

Sometimes it blows your mind how Takuma and Koan live together. They’re too similar in the wrong ways: too exacting and rigid in their habits, and dedicated to their ideals—to a fault. Koan needs everything planned out in advance, and Takuma likes to wing things. On paper, they should be awful roommates, but somehow they make it work. 

You kick Takuma’s legs off the couch and throw yourself onto it. “What’s this?” 

“Uh… Super GT. Or something.” 

You try to watch, but it’s kind of boring. Maybe you’re just not into cars enough. Takuma looks like he’s kind of falling asleep, too. You could change the channel but that would require you to find the remote, which is probably with Takuma or on the coffee table, and that’s just too much effort right now. 

Rio clatters into the living room with a big pot of chili ramen and puts it on the coffee table. “You guys are losers,” she says. “Eat before it gets soggy.” 

“Thanks for the food,” you murmur sleepily, taking a pair of chopsticks from her. 

“This is gonna make me break out,” Takuma complains, but he takes off the face mask and also digs in. 

The room is quiet, then, aside from the commentator on the TV and the slurping of noodles. It’s nice, the animosity of this afternoon forgotten—sitting together because at the end of the day, who else do you have? One time Kazuki said the five of you are like your own self-sufficient ecosystem: you fight, you tear each other down, you bring each other back up, you thrive. 

You have your own life. And as much as you want Shouto to be a part of it, he has his own, too. 

You don’t see Shouto again until the day of the music video shoot, two weeks later. You don’t even hear from him. Honestly, you’re worried out of your mind; you’ve drafted several text messages, and have sent none, your strange sense of pride keeping you from sending a message that you deem sounds too desperate. You’re not even sure if he’ll show up to the shoot. What if you have to reschedule? Or what if he’s suddenly changed his mind and you have to find someone else? 

So for those two weeks, you pour yourself into your music, pretending you don’t care. Rio asks you a few times about it, but you brush her off each time. Everyone else seems to be tiptoeing around your temper—Takuma even apologizes at one point for toying with your guitar pick, which has never happened in all of the times you’ve caught him with your picks—and it makes you feel even more fucked up than you already did. 

Because logically, there’s no reason for you to be upset. Shouto’s off doing Pro Hero things, and maybe in doing that he’s realized that you’re a nobody rockstar wannabe, and he’s infinitely more impressive than you’ll ever be. He has his own life—you know that. And you have yours. It’s just a little dimmer without him. You haven’t even known him that long, just a few weeks. It’s nothing. 

And yet. 

Your heart still twinges when you see those Shouto fan accounts pop up on your social media feeds. You see him on the news and you change the channel. 

But he’s there at the set when you and your bandmates show up your usual fifteen minutes late. And he’s ready to get started. 

The shoot itself is fine. You don’t even have to talk much—the camera team gets shots of you and the band playing the song to intercut throughout the MV, then a shot of Shouto leaping behind you all toward some unseen danger. Then individual shots, which feel like they take forever. You hate shoot days. 

At one point, you sneak away during Shouto’s individual shots, where he’s doing a bunch of cool Pro Hero stunts that make you feel like you’re going to tear up a little bit for completely selfish reasons. You walk a block away and try to collect yourself, so you can stop feeling like all of your skin is a live wire pumped full of electricity and nerves. You’re standing against the side of a building covered in posters advertising Calpis Soda and looking up at the bright blue sky dotted with picturesque clouds like cotton candy. 

There is something deeply wrong with you, that you’ve talked yourself into bad terms with someone who’s only ever been kind to you. 

A hand lands on your head. You look up; Kazuki’s got a hand on your hair and another offering you a canned coffee. Gingerly, you take the can from him and open it with a satisfying pop. You don’t say thank you, and he doesn’t offer any words of reassurance. You stand there sipping at your drink until you hear someone in the crew yelling for you, and Kazuki pats you on the back as you dash back. 

Other than that, the shoot is overall uneventful. It goes well, and you’re all exhausted by the end of it but excited to see the end product—Koan most of all. All day, he wouldn’t stop asking Uda if he could help with editing, but Uda’s still cross with all of you and shut him down every time. Not that he would’ve said yes otherwise, just that Koan was relentless. 

Afterward, you and the rest of IKIGAI plan to go out for drinks to celebrate at a nearby izakaya without the hovering cameras, the requests for quick social media promos, the incessant chatter of business. You extend an invite to Uda as a courtesy like always, and like always he wrinkles his nose, shakes his head, and looks back at his phone. Well, no one will ever say you had no tact, just very little. 

You’re all packed up and ready to meet with the rest of your group at the izakaya when you hear Shouto say your name. You jump, just a little; he walks so quietly, you hadn’t even heard him approach. 

“Sorry, did I startle you?” 

“No, it’s fine.” You shoulder your bag and turn to face him. “What’s up?” 

“You seem…” He pauses, then, and cocks his head, like he’s considering how best to word what he wants to say. “You seem on edge.” 

This sucks. If he’s noticed that you’re an absolute clusterfuck of a human being, then you’re screwed, and it’s all your own fault. Shouto is a nice person, and you’re a walking disaster who pushes good things away. 

“No, I’m good,” you say, because how else do you respond to that? There are people all around you, packing cameras into equipment bags, loading fold-up chairs into the back of a van, wrapping up so they can enjoy the night ahead. “Really. I’m fine. I’m normal.” 

You glance away, because you can see the way Shouto’s face falls and it hurts to look at. Because he knows there’s something up, and you know he knows and you’re shutting him out anyway. Over something so stupid, and he has no idea. 

“Did I do something wrong?” he asks.

“No,” you say. “No, of course not.” 

Of course he didn’t do anything wrong. You were just reminded that this friendship between you is impossible—that he’s an incredible Pro Hero who saves people’s lives and who children want to be just like, and you’re just someone who can play guitar and plays music not to bring joy to other people but because it makes you feel better about yourself. You’re not noble in the slightest, and you could never deserve him. And you’ve let yourself stew in these thoughts for two weeks, so they feel inevitable. You’d prepared yourself for this, hadn’t you? You can never be more than someone he once worked with. 

“I need to get going,” you say. 

“Wait—” he says, and he grabs your wrist as you turn away. You can’t look at him. “I’m sorry. I just—I’m sorry for disappearing. I missed you.” 

“That’s…” Again, he leaves you speechless. You missed him too. Of course you did. Why can’t you just say that? Why is it so hard to get out of your own head and let him back in? 

(Well, you know why, though you try your best not to admit it: you are fragile, deep inside, and when your glass breaks you lash out. Just like this.) 

“You missed me?” Your voice sounds so small. You sound so broken. There’s no reason for you to sound like that. You’re an adult; you’re capable of going a few weeks without seeing a friend that you used to see every day. It’s fine. You can deal with that. It’s just been so long since you cared this much, is all. 

“I did,” he says. 

“I’m sorry,” you manage. “But you’re so… you, you’re so good, and I’m not like you.” 

“I don’t want you to be like me,” he says vehemently. “Just be as you are. I don’t want you to be anything else.” 

And what are you doing, making his life harder when he’s been busy the last couple weeks? Shouldn’t you just welcome him back with open arms? Your eyes dart down to the bruises covering his knuckles, just barely covered up by a layer of concealer. This isn’t about you. You’re making it about you. 

“I’m sorry,” you say. 

“Don’t run away,” Shouto says. He sounds like he’s begging; you’ve reduced him to begging. “Please.” 

The fight drains out from your body. You’re tired, and there’s a sinking feeling in your stomach like you’ve royally fucked up something wonderful. Shouto tugs you back toward him and you go, willingly, turning again to face him but keeping your head angled toward the ground. 

“I missed you,” you murmur. The words feel like they’re choking you. You burn with shame just admitting it. 

Shouto brushes your hair away from your face. “I missed you, too. I’m sorry for disappearing.” 

You’re not used to these casual touches from him, but you don’t pull away. “It’s okay,” you say. “It’s not your fault.” 

If you’re still friends with Shouto in the future—if he lets you—this might happen again. He might disappear, and you won’t know if you’ll ever see him again, because that’s the kind of work Pro Heroes deal in. The thought terrifies you. And yet, when Shouto cups your face in the palm of his hand, you think: it’ll have to be worth it. Just to have met him. 

When you finally catch up with your friends, they’re already drunk. Aside from Kazuki, of course, but he’s flushed anyway, like a lightweight college student at their first party. In the dim lighting, everything takes on a dreamy, ethereal quality—the edges of the table are smudged, colors melding into each other like watercolor. You have to blink a few times to adjust from the stark-blue streetlight outside to the warm, amber lighting in here. Cigarette smoke drifts lazily through the room. 

Koan points at you when you slide in next to Rio. “You’re late,” he drawls. 

“What? What are you talking about? I’ve been here the whole time,” you say. “You’re drunk, Koan.” 

“I’m drunk and you’re a liar.” 

“Busted.” 

“What took you so long?” Takuma asks. 

“Shhh,” Rio shushes him, pressing a finger to his mouth. Takuma’s entire face goes red. “Who cares? We’re all here now!” 

You make eye contact with Kazuki, sigh, and call out to the bartender for a cream soda. 

“You guys don’t have to keep tiptoeing around me,”  you say. “I talked to Todoroki today.” 

“Stupid,” Takuma mutters. 

“That’s good,” Koan says, pinching the back of Takuma’s hand. He yelps. 

“Stop silencing me!” 

“I feel like someone’s talking. But I can’t hear them.”

“Asshole!” 

“You’re like a tiny dog, Takuma,” Kazuki says. “Always yapping.” 

“That’s fine, because you know what? Tiny dogs are cute.” 

“And evil!” Rio supplies. 

“How dare you.” 

And so, all your angst from the last few weeks is promptly forgotten in favor of deciding who would be what kind of dog. You only get halfway through talking about that when the conversation derails off into the subject of a guy Rio dated three years ago—none of you liked him, which should’ve been her first red flag, but for some reason she seems to think you all aren’t trustworthy sources when it comes to judging other people. She says you’re all unfairly mean, but you think she only says that to try and convince herself she doesn’t have terrible taste. 

You talk until your throats are dry, 

The night comes to a close when Koan is so drunk he can barely stand, leaning on Kazuki for support. You pay the tab and herd everyone else out of the izakaya, out into the night. The air is crisp and a little cold; it hits you like a slap in the face after the hazy warmth of the izakaya. The others are blinking like they’re just waking up, too. 

Kazuki drags Koan and Takuma off in the direction of their apartment. “See you tomorrow,” Rio calls after them, forgetting that you’ve all scheduled the next two days off. You pull her in the direction of her place. 

You spend that night in the other half of Rio’s bed, facing the wall. Familiar anxiety prickles in your stomach, and you do your best to shut it down. Today, you talked to Shouto. You’ve grown a bit as a person, maybe—you hope. 

Rio, facing the opposite direction, whaps at you. “I can hear your brain. Turn it off,” she gripes. Then: “Water.” 

You roll your eyes affectionately and crawl off the foot of the bed, padding your way over to the kitchen. While you’re filling up a glass for Rio, your phone lights up with a text from Shouto reading: Hope you had a good night.  

You did. You really did. 

Even though you see your bandmates almost every day—playing shows, practicing, writing music—the times where all of you just hang out grow fewer and farther between. Sure, you all hang out with each other in pairs, or in threes, but it’s not always all of you like it was in high school. 

Back then, you’d all been depressed, quirkless kids. You’d stumbled into Takuma trying to find a hiding place during an all-school assembly—you always skipped them if you thought you could get away with it—and the two of you bickered over who’d gotten there first and who could stay. In the end you hid together, and continued doing so for a few weeks before you’d gotten to talking about music. You told him you played guitar; one thing led to another, and by the end of the year the five of you were inseparable, spending every free second together. At cafés after school, holidays, lunch time. 

It had been fun, but you’d put the band on a brief hiatus for college—and those, incidentally, had been the loneliest years of your life—until the fourth year, when you’d all had enough and decided to come back and pursue IKIGAI together. Not just the band—the concept itself, ikigai. Now, you’re all adults, and you’re trying to make music professionally—which means most of your time together is spent in pursuit of that dream. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t miss the days when the stakes were lower, when it felt like the world was your oyster and all you needed was each other. 

But that was then, and there’s no going back. Tonight was a lovely reminder that your reasons for being can extend beyond just the music and incorporate your friends and Shouto, too. 

So you fire back a quick response: I did! Hope you did too <3 and you don’t think too deeply about sending a heart, because you only have this one life and who cares if you send a little text emoji to show that you’re happy and relieved and feeling something? 

Shouto doesn’t respond immediately, so you silence your phone and make your way back to Rio’s room with her glass of water. You fall asleep that night with armor around your heart, keeping your fears at bay, for now. 

You run into Shouto on the way to your favorite café on your second day off. Now, this is odd for several reasons, the most pressing of which is that you have never just run into Shouto before. This means that these are not locations he frequents, or that in all your time living around here you’ve just somehow never run into him. You’re more inclined to believe the former, given how he’s pacing with his phone in his hands. He looks nervous. 

“Fancy running into you here,” you say, stopping just behind him. 

Shouto stops and whips around to see you. His mouth opens and shuts like a fish out of water. Finally, he chokes out, “Hi.” 

“Hi. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” 

“Not a ghost,” he says, his eyes softening minutely. 

You clear your throat. “Well, sure. What brings you here? Surely you weren’t out here waiting for me.” 

Again, Shouto opens and closes his mouth. No way. 

“You didn’t wanna text first?” you tease. “What if I was busy?” 

“Are you?” 

“...Alright, fair enough. Come get coffee with me. But for the love of god, please put on a hat or something. Who knows who’s seen you here.” 

Once Shouto’s properly fitted up in a disguise courtesy of your closet (an old hat from university), you drag him with you to the café. Sure, maybe you had just wanted to get a coffee and rush back to your living room to watch more reruns of garbage reality dating shows. Uda had told you to film more guitar videos for your socials during this brief time off, but honestly, you’re really not feeling it. Instead, you’re dragging a famous Pro Hero along with you, which presumably means you can’t just run home with your coffee back into the warm embrace of your blankets at home. You’re sure Shouto wouldn’t mind accompanying you for that, but would you let him? 

(The answer is yes, probably, if he asked. Or if he just followed you up without saying anything and stood at the door with you while you fumbled putting your key in the lock and then figured it wouldn’t be polite to just turn him away. Now that you think of it, there are a lot of scenarios in which this could happen.) 

Your favorite café is a tiny little place sandwiched between a K-beauty store and a costume rental place. It’s quaint, with upholstered chairs and warm lighting. The menu has a bunch of weird coffee mixtures you’ve never seen anywhere else, and you’ve made it your own personal game to make your way through the menu. 

“What’s up, Nara-chan,” you call out to the bored-looking girl behind the register. 

She perks up when she sees you and calls out your name. “Welcome back. What’s today’s poison?” 

“It really doesn’t sound cool when you say it that way,” you tell her. 

Nara ignores this slight and points to something on the menu. “This hibiscus disaster the boss mixed up is perfect for you. It tastes like if you mixed herbal tea and coffee together and then decided to smush a bunch of corn dogs into it.” 

“Sounds promising,” you say, trying not to retch at the very idea. “I think I’m gonna stick with a comfort drink for today.” 

“Boring.” 

“That’s me.” You order your time-honored favorite drink and get Todoroki a green tea with peppermint without him asking. He told you once that he never knows what to order at restaurants, so you decided to choose for him. 

The two of you take a seat. Immediately, Shouto asks, “Why green tea?” 

You raise your eyebrows. “I don’t know. I thought you’d like it.” 

Shouto laughs quietly to himself. You decide not to press about this and let him enjoy whatever humor he found in what you said. 

“So. Haven’t seen you for a while,” you say. “Was it some kind of mission?” 

“Mm. Yes.” 

“Are you allowed to tell me anything about it?” 

He presses his lips together. You’d figured as much: with a job that involves constantly saving people’s lives, you imagine there’d be a lot of confidential information involved. 

Shouto tells you as much as he’s able, which is mostly just that he got back a few days ago, just in time for the shoot. He tells you again that he missed you while he was away, which makes you feel like either you’re going insane or you’re on a prank show—because how can he be off doing incredible things and thinking of you? Also, what are you supposed to do with that information except read too far into it? 

“What was your life like for the last two weeks?” he asks. 

“Uh—” you start, still reeling from the I missed you. “You know, same old. Rehearsing. We had gigs both weekends, which was cool. We’re still hashing out logistics for a new album.” 

Shouto seems excited about this—more than you would’ve expected, honestly, considering his work with IKIGAI is pretty much done at this point. All that’s left is for everyone to approve the edit, and then both teams presumably go off to do their own things. 

Though, you’re starting to understand that might not be the case with you and Shouto. 

It would’ve been easy for him to just continue ghosting you for the rest of time. If he hadn’t talked to you at the shoot, maybe you’d have never spoken again. But he’d tried—he’d reached out to you when you were playing keep-away, even though he didn’t have to, which makes you think maybe there’s something more to all this. 

That doesn’t help you deal with that annoying feeling that balloons inside you every time you see him, but, well, there’s not much to be done in that department to begin with. Might just be one of those things you have to live with. 

It’s not like you’ve never had a crush before—hell, you’ve had celebrity crushes, too—but never on someone who tried this hard for you. Never someone who seemed to want to be around you as much as you wanted to be around them, if not more. Your specialty is pushing people away, and very few people have been able to push past your defenses. And yet, it was so easy for Shouto. He made it look effortless. 

Nara brings you your drinks with another sales pitch for the awful drink she’d mentioned to you. You spend the rest of the afternoon filling Shouto in on this show you and Rio have been watching about two high school assassins who end up living together. It’s your favorite thing right now. 

Then, when your mouth is dry from both talking too much and the way he keeps looking at you like you’re the most interesting person in the world, you get up. You expect to say goodbye as you leave the café, but Shouto asks if you’ve ever been to the arcade across the street—which you haven’t, and what are you gonna do, make an excuse and leave? When you’re having so much fun? 

So the two of you then spend hours trying out different games. You destroy him at a racing game, he beats you at Dance Dance Revolution, and you both do poorly at a drumming rhythm game. 

(“Aren’t you a musician?” he teases. 

“Oh, yeah, guitar and drums are really similar,” you snipe back.) 

Then Shouto notices you staring at a little black cat plushie in a claw machine, and spends way too long and far too much yen trying to get it for you. After what must be hours, he finally, finally, manages to drop the plushie into the tube and proudly presents it to you like a knight dedicating his spoils to his lady. If your heart flutters, that’s no one’s business. 

You clutch your new prize to your chest as Shouto walks you back to your apartment, always the perfect gentleman. When he glances over at you, you catch the hint of a smile as he quickly looks away again, like he can’t bear to look at you for too long. Like you make him nervous. You feel some type of way about that. How could you make him nervous?

(You’re starting to suspect, because no one just attaches themselves to you like this without reason. And you just can’t understand the way he looks at you. But all your theories feel self-important. Like you’re reading into things too much.) 

Shouto drops you off in front of your apartment. You’re gripping the plushie like it’s a lifeline and you’re on the verge of drowning. You think you might die when he puts his hand on your head and ruffles your hair—every molecule in your body stands on end. 

He takes off his hat and hands it to you. “This is yours, I believe.”

You gingerly take it from him. “Thanks.” 

“I’ll see you again soon?” he asks. 

“Yeah,” you breathe. 

Shouto smiles at you—that tiny smile you’re slowly falling in love with—and looks up at your apartment building. “Go inside,” he says. 

You’re tempted to do that thing they always do in dramas—go inside! no you go—but you’re afraid of seeming too awkward or, god forbid, too interested. So instead you nod jerkily and turn to go into your apartment. 

When you get up there and peer out the window, Shouto is just leaving. 

“You’re drunk,” Rio tells you five drinks in. 

“Am not,” you counter, throwing your arms up and bouncing along to the music. 

“Someone cut her off,” Takuma shouts, equally drunk. 

“I will not be silenced!” you declare.

“No one’s trying to silence you! We just want you to shut up,” Takuma says. 

“Asshole!”

Rio drags the two of you over to the booth in the corner, where Koan and Kazuki have their heads together and are probably talking about some nerd shit. She throws you and Takuma onto the plasticky seat and sighs, long-suffering. You can’t hear it over the music, but you know the telltale rise and fall of her shoulders all too well. 

“What are you two doing?” she yells to Koan and Kazuki. 

“What?” Koan yells back. 

Rio rolls her eyes. Clearly she’s annoyed that she’s the only one taking the networking event Uda signed you up for seriously, and it’s pissing her off—in true IKIGAI fashion. You and Koan are unserious people, Takuma can’t talk to people with a higher status than him without shaking like a leaf in autumn, and Kazuki simply does not care. Rio is the friendliest and most social of all of you, though she hates it. 

“You should be talking to people,” Rio says. 

“But that sucks,” Koan whines.

“Networking.” 

“Ughhhh.” 

“I’ll do it!” you exclaim, raising your hand. 

“No.” Rio thwacks you on the head with her clutch. “You’re going to sober up first.” 

“Boringggg.” 

It’s late enough in the evening that there’s not a lot of chatting up bigwigs to be had, unless you count grinding on a TV star twice your age to a terrible club remix of a beloved pop song as “networking.” You did talk to a few people earlier—the guitarist for a band you’ve been following for a while, an actress who lost her earring in the bathroom, a social media influencer who was falling over herself to talk to Takuma instead. They were lovely, but immensely tiring. You know events like these are good for your career—if people like you, opportunities open—but you can’t bring yourself to love them. Not like you love your band, your people. 

“I think we should just leave,” Koan says. “It’s been hours already.” 

“Hours, and the only person you’ve talked to is Kazuki,” Rio snipes. 

“Not true. I’m talking to you right now, aren’t I?” 

Kazuki gets up and goes to the bar. Rio abruptly goes to follow him—the rest of you don’t begrudge her this, knowing she’s the right person to be there at this exact moment. Just in case. The two of them return promptly with water. 

You wrinkle your nose. “Come on. I’m having so much fun. Let me at that guy—what was his name? Fujio? Let me at Fujio-san again! I’ll show him what kind of music is just noise. ” 

“Absolutely not. And don’t use honorifics just to be rude.” Rio sighs again and grabs you by the elbow. “You’re right, Koan. Let’s go.” 

“Me? I’m right?” Koan looks around at the rest of you. “You heard that, right?” 

“Shut up,” Takuma says, massaging his temples. 

The five of you stumble through the rest of the club and tumble out the door into the warm night. The air is sticky and humid—tastes like it’ll rain soon. Kazuki takes a deep breath in as a light breeze trails by. You lean against his shoulder. 

“Drunkass,” he mutters. 

“Bitch,” you say back, affectionately. “Hey, let’s all go to Rio’s place.” 

“No!” Rio elbows you. “I’m sick of you all for the night. I’m gonna go home and watch TV. No one bother me.”

“I’ll walk you back,” Kazuki says. 

“What, you’re gonna leave three drunk people to get home on their own?” Koan complains. 

“Should’ve thought of that earlier,” Kazuki says. He and Rio head off in the direction of Rio’s apartment, leaving you, Koan, and Takuma stranded in front of the club. 

“Wowww,” Koan says.

“Okay, consider,” you say conspiratorially, “we go get drinks. Just us.” 

Takuma whacks you upside the head. “Dumbass. You need to be cut off.” 

“I’m literally not even that drunk.” 

“Oh yeah? Do a tongue twister.” 

“No thanks.” 

They give in, though, and the three of you make the trek to an izakaya by Koan and Takuma’s place. The lights are dim—classic—and you’re up until near-dawn sharing drinks and making idle conversation. Koan tells you more stories about his college days—you’re always surprised he finds more to tell—and Takuma gives you all the rundown on influencer trends these days. He nags at you to record even more guitar cover videos for social media, to which your only response is “shut the fuck up.” Koan butts in and tells you that actually dance covers might do better, which prompts you to kick him under the table. 

By the time the sun’s starting to rise, you’re dizzily drunk and blissfully happy. Not from the alcohol, but from getting to spend hours with people you love—especially after the exhausting affair of a networking party. You don’t have anything against parties in theory, but you just get exhausted of pretending to enjoy the company of people who have no interest in your art whatsoever. Who create for fame and financial success and in doing so make bland, boring art. You’re terrified of becoming like them one day. 

You tell this to Koan and Takuma, who pause their debate about the best Power Ranger. 

“Yeah,” Takuma says. 

“Yeah,” Koan agrees. 

The three of you look up at the sky together, the Tokyo haze that settles in over miles and miles of city. You could spend your whole life here and still find streets and places you’ve never seen. You could play a different venue every night for a century. There’s so much world in just one city—and you are just a tiny part of it. Insignificant. 

Your phone buzzes. 

“Boyfriend?” Koan asks. They’ve taken to calling Shouto that now that things are back to normal with the two of you. Well, normal-asterisk. Normal adjacent. You’re still not entirely sure what to do about the terrifyingly light feeling in your chest when you see him, or the way he looks at you like you’re the only person in the world worth a damn—so you’re not doing anything. You’re just letting it happen. 

It’s not like you’ve forgotten that you and Shouto are from different worlds. He’s rich and famous; you’re a nobody trying to make something of yourself. But in those roles, the two of you are more similar than sometimes you care to admit. You’ve both lost people you love. You’ve had to fight and claw and tear your way into the life you want to live. You’ve found your people, after a lifetime of struggling, and you’ve held them close and dear. So maybe the differences between you and Shouto aren’t as vast as you and the rest of the world seem to think they are. Maybe the two of you are the same, in so many ways. 

Koan gets impatient with your hesitance and peers over your shoulder at the text message. He wrinkles his nose. “A good morning text? The boyfriend allegations are supposed to be a joke, you know.”

You elbow him in the side. “Shut up,” you hiss.

“You can’t date Shouto,” Takuma says seriously. “Not for real.”

“I didn’t say I was planning to,” you grouch. 

“What about the band? What, you’re gonna abandon us to play housewife to some Pro Hero?” 

“What are you talking about? You know I’d never do that.” 

“He’s too famous for us,” Takuma says. “You know what that means, don’t you? This can’t ever be—” 

“I get it,” you snap. 

Koan glances between the two of you, looking like a deer caught in crosshairs. You and Takuma bicker, but your real fights are rare and destructive. As Takuma’s roommate, Koan knows that better than anybody. He tugs on Takuma’s arm. “Let’s go home,” he says. Then, with a nod to your phone, he says to you: “You’ll be okay?” 

You take a deep breath in and turn back to your phone. “Yeah. I’ll be fine.” Your fingers are already typing out a walking home rn message. 

So late? Shouto messages back. Can I walk you back? 

You pin him your location and wait. 

“What happened to the party?” Shouto asks when he sees you crouched in front of a konbini holding a plastic bag. 

You’d told him all about the event over text this morning—yesterday morning—and the two of you had commiserated over the perpetual annoyance of networking parties. Shouto told you he had to go to several as a Pro Hero: expensive charity galas, birthday parties, social gatherings that masquerade as meetings for the benefit of the country’s future. You’d scoffed aloud when he invited you to tag along with him next time, but who knows? It could be fun. And you’d see him in a suit. Not that Shouto in a suit should be your main motivation for going, but. What were you thinking about again? 

“We left early,” you say. “It was lame. Then Koan, Takuma, and I decided to get drinks ourselves. And then we started arguing. What were you doing?” 

Shouto leans down to take the bag from you. Inside, two canned coffees clink together. He helps you to your feet and loops your arm through his. 

“Patrol. Home?” he asks. You nod jerkily. 

Walking must be so slow to him, you muse. You’ve seen the videos: Shouto leaps meters into the air without breaking a sweat, running faster than you can even blink; and yet, he walks with you, slows down for you. A droplet of sweat trails down the back of your neck. You don’t let go of his warm side. 

“They really work you Pros to the bone,” you chime. 

“It’s good work. Worth it.” His eyes shine as he says that. 

The sky blues, shifting from the vestiges of night into the buds of morning. The walk feels like it takes forever, and is simultaneously over too soon. Neither of you speak, enjoying the early morning quiet. Your arm burns where it’s linked with Shouto’s. 

After an eternity, you arrive back at your apartment. You bring Shouto up to your place and let him idle in the doorway while you drape yourself over the couch, one leg over the arm. Shouto seems to buffer for a moment before stepping out of his shoes and making his way over to the fridge. You hear him bustling about, shuffling through cabinets, before he approaches you with a glass. 

“Water,” he says. 

A lazy smile creeps unbidden onto your face. You have no control over it. All you can do is sit up, take the proffered glass, and gulp down lungfuls of water. Shouto looks away from your face and over to the table, where the mess generated by songwriting has only grown. 

“What are you working on these days?” he asks, as if you haven’t been keeping him updated since the two of you made up. He makes his way over to the table and traces a finger over a sheet with a reverence reserved for devotees at the altar. You swallow thickly. 

“Songs and stuff,” you say, twisting around to keep him in view. “I know, unheard of for me.” 

Shouto laughs a little at that, but doesn’t tear his eyes from the pages in front of him. The room spins, though whether that’s from the alcohol or being in your place with Todoroki Shouto is anyone’s guess. It’s not the first time, but it feels so strange, still, seeing him here—and it makes you uneasy how much you want him to stay and never leave. People always leave. That’s just how it is. 

Maybe it doesn’t have to be, though. 

“What, you thinking of getting into music?” you tease. 

“No,” he says. “I just like yours.” 

You flush. He must have heard your music—he comes to your shows, sometimes, when he’s free, and he was part of the most recent MV, so of course he’s heard it—but it’s another thing entirely that he likes it. You never expect people to like your music, least of all the people you care about. Your father barely tolerates it, puts up with it just for you, and you’re not close enough with your friends from college to know their real opinions on your would-be rock-adjacent lifestyle. But Shouto—Shouto’s so good, and kind, and wonderful, that the idea of your music appealing to him blows your mind. These little tunes you write with your friends about all your ugly feelings that don’t fit neatly into words and so become music—

“Shouto,” you say, and your voice sounds so desperate, even to you. It’s embarrassing. You want to crawl under the couch, but if you do, you’ll never get out. That would be a good thing, except you have a gig next Friday. 

In a blink, he’s at your side. “Yes?” 

“You—” Your mouth opens and closes like a fish out of water. Your tongue is heavy in your mouth and does not want to cooperate. He waits patiently for you—for the leaden anxiety to settle. Finally, you manage, “I just can’t figure you out.” 

His brows furrow. “Figure me out?” 

“I mean, like—” You gesture helplessly around you. “What are we doing here?” 

“Do you want me to leave?” 

“No! No, of course not.” Deep, steadying breaths only end up making you dizzier. You close your eyes and focus, just for a moment, on breathing. “What I’m saying is, why are you doing this?” 

Shouto’s expression doesn’t change. “Because I like you,” he says. 

You stare at him. 

He stares back at you. 

“What?” you ask. 

“I said I like you.” 

“Like as a person?” 

Shouto stares at you like he can’t believe what you’re saying. “Have I not been obvious?” 

“What? No. Maybe. I don’t know. Counterpoint, I have no social awareness. You’re talking about…” 

Instead of responding like a normal person, Shouto ruffles your hair. Despite the fact that you’re making a fool of yourself and he clearly can’t comprehend what you’re on about, he’s so gentle with you. 

“Get some sleep,” he says. 

You scowl at him. “How am I supposed to do that?” 

“Well,” he says, in that deadpan voice of his tinged with affection, “first you get into your bed, and then you close your eyes—” 

You throw a pillow at him. Shouto laughs. Like he’s having so much fun. Like making fun of you is the most fun he’s ever had. He takes the water from you, sets it down on the coffee table, and pulls you to your feet. You let him pull you to your room—which, you’re realizing too late as you watch him open the door, still looks like the wreckage of an earthquake and a cyclone all at once. The cat plushie sits atop the mess of your blankets. He doesn’t seem to care, dragging you along and depositing you neatly onto your unmade bed and throwing the covers over you. Carefully, he tucks the plushie in beside you. 

“Sleep,” he says. “We can talk in the morning.” 

You feel small, and helpless. Also, dizzy. Have you mentioned that one yet? 

“Are you leaving?” 

He pauses. “Do you want me to?” 

The question feels loaded. You should really think more about your answer, but you’re drunk and exhausted, so you say, simply, “No.” 

A smile breaks out across his face. He takes your hand. “Then I won’t.” 

You fall asleep with your fingers intertwined with his. 

When you get to the restaurant Shouto texted you about, you have to do a double take. It’s one of those fancy Shibuya dinner and drinks places, designed for high-rolling execs to take a load off after a long workday. There’s a chill in the air—fall inching in. You look underdressed in your cargo jeans and tiny shirt, but you’re a pro at exuding confidence you don’t have, so you push into the restaurant anyway. 

Immediately, a guy at a long table in the corner waves to you. Next to him, you see Shouto’s bicolored hair, his head in his hands. Wonder what that’s about. 

“Over here!” the guy calls. You slink by the other tables—they’re staring at you, aren’t they?—and stop at the end of the long table. Bottles of sake and half-drunk cups are strewn over the table, and two baskets of crispy karaage emit a delicious, greasy aroma. Shouto peeks up at you through his hands. There are nine people here—you count as you walk up—with Shouto and a guy who looks like Ingenium (holy shit, he probably is Ingenium) at the end. The person sitting next to Shouto, a lanky guy with flat, spiky hair—he’s the one who waved to you—calls out your name. 

“Sit down, sit down,” he says. “So you’re in that band Todoroki likes, huh? Ow. ” 

“Shut up,” says Pro Hero Pinky. You have no evidence, but you can only assume she kicked him under the table. You’ve been on the receiving end of those far too many times. 

Now that you’re closer, you can see everyone at the table is either a Pro Hero you’ve seen on TV, or someone you probably should recognize. There’s a guy wearing a rumpled suit with a shock of green hair who you think looks vaguely familiar, but you can’t place where you would’ve seen him before. You know Uravity and Ingenium, sitting across from Shouto, and in the corner is Pinky—and is that Red Riot across from her? Dizziness hits you like a freight train. Are you even allowed to be here? 

“You’re scaring her,” Uravity admonishes. Slowly, in your head, you start counting to ten. 

“What? We’ve literally met before! Hello ,” the guy says. “You don’t remember?” 

“You had the helmet on,” Shouto groans, head still in his hands. Then, to you, “Sorry about all this.” 

“Ohhhh!” The guy points to himself. “Cellophane!” 

You stare at him. He cocks his head. 

“Doesn’t ring a bell?” 

“I think she’s shutting down,” Shouto says. 

“Tell your friend to either sit down or fuck off,” the aggressive-looking blond guy next to the green-haired guy says. 

“She has ears,” Shouto says. He leans over to you. “Are you okay? Do you want to leave? I’m so sorry.” 

You snap back into your body, false bravado pumping through your veins. “No, no! What? I’m all good. These are your friends?” 

Shouto nods. He points to each of them and gives their names (Iida, Ochako, Izuku, Bakugou, Mina, Kirishima, Kaminari, and Sero), only half of which you’ll probably remember in an hour. The unfortunate part is now you can place hero names to faces, and you want to kick yourself for not being able to recognize some of them. You really should be more in the know about heroes—you’ve left that to Koan up until now, but if you’re going to keep running into them everywhere, you might as well read up. 

You slide into the booth next to Shouto and the entire group resumes chattering. Kaminari and Sero share a look that implies they’re up to no good. 

When Shouto had texted you to come meet up with him and his friends, you suppose you’d forgotten that his friends would, in fact, be famous Pro Heroes. If you’re being honest, you hadn't really thought about it. Of course Shouto would have friends, and of course they would be U.A. Pros. What did you expect? 

Sero pours you a cup of sake and you throw it back immediately. Grinning, he fills your cup again. 

“So you play the guitar?” Ochako—Uravity—asks you. 

“Yep,” you say. 

“Wow!” Her eyes sparkle. “That’s so cool!” 

“Todoroki’s always listening to you guys. He’s always got earbuds in during workouts,” Iida says. He laughs loudly. Next to you, Shouto is motionless. 

“Is that so?” you ask, casting a sidelong glance to him. 

“I don’t think so,” he deadpans. “Maybe. I don’t remember.” 

“So, Miss Guitarist, how did you two meet?” Sero asks, leaning over. He’s got this shit-eating grin on his face like there’s some agenda he’s trying to push. “Can’t have been a coincidence, right?” 

“Under a bridge,” you say. “I have a side hustle as a troll.” If you were with IKIGAI, this joke would immediately be met with a chorus of that’s stupid and who let you speak? Instead, they laugh. It feels weird to have someone laugh at your stupid jokes so earnestly. 

“I never would’ve guessed. You don’t look like a troll at all,” Kaminari says. Shouto glances quickly at him. 

“That supposed to be a compliment?” you ask. 

Kaminari looks at Shouto. “Um. No?” 

They’re all Pros, except for Izuku, who’s a teacher at U.A. He flushes when you ask him about it. 

“I want to teach them that anyone can be a hero,” he says vehemently. “Even people like me.” 

A moment later, you register his meaning. He’s just like you. 

While everyone else laughs boisterously with each other, you say to him, softly, “People like us.” 

His smile is dazzling. 

You wish you and IKIGAI had had a teacher like him, back when you were in high school. Things might have been easier then. But then—maybe you’d never have become IKIGAI. Maybe you would’ve never found each other. 

The night stretches on; after their initial fascination with you, the group turns back to their own conversations. Training schedules, agency managers, memories of things they’d done when they hung out—Izuku tells an unintentionally vicious account of Bakugou turning a game night into a fire hazard, and Mina talks at length about the time she brought Kaminari to a bakery and he’d short-circuited trying to pick a scone. At one point, Kirishima and Bakugou get in a drinking contest even though Ochako and Izuku beg them not to, alcohol sloshing over their cups and onto the sticky table. There’s laughter and the lights are bright, bright, and beautiful, illuminating high flushes and pearly grins. They play a haphazard game of Would You Rather, which is quickly forgotten in favor of arguing over semantics and bringing up old stories.

“You’re fuckin’ stupid,” Bakugou announces to Kaminari over something you can’t even remember. You think it was about how he fumbled some girl forever ago because he’d said he’d rather communicate in emoji than text normally, but you can’t be sure.

“I know, but hey,” Kaminari protests. 

“It’s okay, Denki-chan,” Ochako says, swaying in her seat, “you’ll find someone to text emojis to one day.” 

This does not seem to make him feel any better. 

As you’re beginning to lose count of how many drinks you’ve had, bringing your cup back up to your lips, Shouto pries it from your hands. It looks tiny between his fingers; he downs your drink before you can even protest. 

“Hey,” you say, with absolutely no heat behind it. 

He doesn’t argue with you or respond, just sets your cup back down and does not refill it. Warmth burrows under your skin and stays there, soft and boneless. You reach for the cup again, and he takes your hand, twining your fingers with his. Everyone else, at this point, is too far gone to notice, which makes your entire body feel like fraying electrical wires—this, your little secret, your hand in his. 

It doesn’t take too much longer for everyone to realize it’s far too late, and maybe they should start heading home. Mina and Sero both whine about how fun should last forever—

“Hey Bakugou, can I come over to your place?” Sero asks. 

“Huh? Fuck no.” 

—while Ochako and Iida are hanging off of each other, giggling about flying home. When you squint, you notice Ochako’s hovering an inch above the ground. That’s fun. To your left, Shouto watches his friends with that smile you’ve come to associate with him—a little satisfied quirk of his lips, warm, soft, impossibly him. You imagine the version of Shouto that his friends got to know—hot-tempered, withdrawn, angry. Alone. You ache for this version of him—and you wish you had gotten to know that Shouto, too. That you had a quirk, that you went to U.A., that you understood their jokes. That he only looked at you like that—but that’s awful, isn’t it? You know that. 

It’s a nice night. It’s a nice night. And you’ve been so good recently. Trying to be kind. 

Izuku’s face pops into your field of view. He’s a bit taller than you, but not by much, and his suit is definitely a bit too big for him. He says your name cheerfully. “What’re you thinking about?” 

“Nothing,” you say, forcing a smile. Your heart rate spikes. 

“Your band’s called IKIGAI, right?” 

You nod. 

“Some of my students are big fans,” he says. “What made you want to be in a band?” 

You get this question every time you do an interview, every time you meet someone, every time someone sees you with your gig bag. Rarely, if ever, are you able to give the full answer. Your mother. The music. How it’s a compulsion but also a love, at the same time—those two aren’t mutually exclusive, feed into each other in a cycle of self-destruction. You will live and breathe music until you can’t anymore, and then you will spend the rest of your time missing it. You could probably talk for hours about it, ramble on and on about what it means to perform, to string fifths and arpeggios into something that sounds vaguely like how you feel, the electric energy of steel strings and calloused fingers; but really, it’s impossible to put into any words other than—

“I love music,” you say, simply. 

This seems to be a satisfactory answer, because he grins. His eyes shine like he believes you’re some saint trying to get kids to love music like you do. Like you care about putting good into the world the way that you should. 

“That’s great,” he says. He’s so intense, with those bright eyes and that mess of hair, the way he says everything like it means something. Looking at him is like looking into the sun. You carefully keep your gaze fixed on his cheek, not his eyes, which might burn you alive. 

“Thanks,” you say. It’s nice that he cares so much about things like that. You suppose all of them have to—being Heroes and all. They have to fight for a higher cause than themselves. It’s beautiful, from a distance. Maybe you’ve gotten too close—maybe it’s only a matter of time before your wax melts. 

“Do you—this might be out of line, but do you do autographs?” 

You blink at him, surprised. “Uh, sure. Do you have something…” 

Out of nowhere, he materializes a little blue spiral-bound notebook and a pen. It’s the kind students might practice vocab with. There’s an autograph per page—you notice Shouto’s, elegant and flowy. You flip to a blank page, write a little message about enriching the minds of the youth, sign your name with a little heart, and hand the notebook back to him.

“You just carry that around, huh?” you tease. 

“Yeah,” he says, not seeming to catch your sarcasm. “I get to meet such amazing people. I wanna keep a record of it. And, I mean, photos are cool—but I don’t know, I think there’s something so personal about an autograph, you know?”

“What are you talking about?” Shouto interjects. His eyes are narrowed, just a bit, in an expression you think you’ve seen from him in passing but have never thought too deeply about. His cheeks are flushed—he must be a lightweight, since all he had tonight was the one drink he pilfered from you. 

“Just the band,” you tell him. 

“Isn’t it cool?” Izuku gushes. 

“It’s very cool,” Shouto agrees, looking at you. “It’s getting late. Wanna head home?” 

“You gonna take the train with me?” you ask, amused. 

Instead of responding, he scoops you up in his arms. “Bye, everyone,” he says. Then he jumps. 

“Todoroki, wait—” Izuku starts, but anything he might have tried to say gets drowned out by the rush of air and your own screaming.

The world spins when Shouto finally sets you down in front of your apartment building. He has to catch you when you almost keel over. The lights inside the building are bright, the streetlamps even more so. Shouto’s arms are warm, and make you remember your vertigo even more acutely. 

“Sorry,” he says. He sounds like he means it. 

“It’s fine,” you choke, heaving in lungfuls of air. Slowly, you start to feel a bit more like yourself. Which isn’t saying much, but still. After a long moment of silence punctuated by you catching your breath, you say, “That surprised me.” 

“Sorry,” Shouto says again. 

“Like the world’s most dangerous rollercoaster.” 

“It’s not dangerous. I would never let you fall.” He says this softly, resolutely. The expression on his face makes you avert your gaze quickly. Tender, open, loving. Your skin prickles. 

“Well,”  you say, looking up at the sky instead, “it definitely was faster than taking the train.” 

You want him to back you up against the wall and kiss you. You want him to leap off into the night and leave you alone to your terrible, terrible thoughts. 

Shouto stuffs his hands into his pockets. “Did you have fun?” 

“It was nice to meet your friends.” 

“That’s all?” He takes a step toward you. Finally, you look at him, take a step back. There’s something else in his expression, something raw and desperate. You can’t read it—you’re afraid to. 

“That’s all.” 

He takes another step toward you. “Are you sure?” 

You take another step back. “Yes? What’s wrong?” 

Shouto scuffs a hand through his hair. He presses his lips together in an expression you’ve never seen before on him, but if you had to wager a guess, you’d say it looks close to anxiety, or nervousness. What does Shouto have to be nervous about? 

“Am I…” He takes another step forward. “Am I special to you?” 

You take a final step back; your back hits the wall. “What are you asking?” 

“Am I?” 

Of course you are, you want to say, but your mouth feels too big for your face, immovably foreign and unfamiliar. You swallow thickly and angle your face up to him. Without your permission, your eyes dart down to his mouth. He takes another step forward, so that he’s just a breath away. You desperately search for a wisecrack or a joke, but you come up empty. Shouto searches your face, but his gaze pauses, stops at your lips. 

“Todoroki—” you start, unsure where you’re going. 

He cuts you off. “Shouto.” 

“Huh?” 

“Call me by my given name. Shouto.” 

Somehow, even after how close you’ve gotten, this feels impossible. A bridge you can’t uncross, a barrier you can’t unbreak. Your pulse drums in your ears. Once you call him that, you can never pretend you haven’t wanted to. You can never go back to who you were before him. Not that you could—that’s an illusion you’ve been desperately holding close, the possibility that if he leaves you, if he disappears, you will be fine. This—This is an acknowledgement that there is something more between you two, that inexplicable feeling you’ve been dodging all this time. Maybe it’s not the same for him, but you, holding the world at an arm’s length—

But you want to say it. You want to call him by his given name. You want so badly it hurts. 

He looks at you so expectantly. Patient, too. Waiting for you. 

“Okay,” you breathe. Your skin feels electric. “Shouto.” 

He smiles, a wider one than usual—less restrained, incandescent, eyes crinkling at the corners. Has he always been this tall? There is no air in your lungs; you can only stare at him, wide-eyed, falling in love. 

He’s breathtaking. 

Your eyes flit back down to his mouth. 

“Yes?” he prompts. 

“Um.” Your voice comes out as nothing more than a whisper. Your brain is mush, caged in by your skull. You can’t stop looking at his mouth. “I don’t… um. I should… get upstairs.” 

“Okay,” he breathes. He doesn’t step away from you. 

“You’re, uh, really close,” you say. 

“Does it bother you?” 

“No, just… I have to…” 

“Have to what?” 

He’s baiting you, isn’t he? There’s no way he doesn’t know. Is he toying with you? In that moment, you’re terrified that you seem easy, that you’re overly invested in someone who doesn’t want you that much, that you’re an attraction to pass the time and nothing else. You’ve seen it happen too many times—you don’t want that to be you, not with Shouto. You couldn’t stomach that, if all this time you were just—a toy to him, entertainment. And logically you know that’s not true, but fear clogs your arteries and you just—

You put your hand to his chest and push him back. 

“Good night,” you murmur. You dart inside before you have to hear his response. 

Stupid, stupid, stupid. You always find a way to ruin the things you want, don’t you? Because you have to always be fighting to want someone; you have to be afraid that they will leave. 

The next week, you have back-to-back gigs, so you don’t see Shouto much. 

He texts you the morning after you’d run from him, because he’s a gentleman like that: sleep well? You don’t respond until that evening, when you’ve finally put your thoughts in order, rather than continuing to try and suppress the heat that settles into your belly every time you think of him. You respond with something lackluster, and he seems to be okay with your low energy responses. You’re spending all day in different venues doing prep, sound checks, final dresses, and performances—even if you knew the best way to talk to him after that day, you wouldn’t have the energy for it. 

You make a mean jab at Takuma, as per usual, who can only respond with an exhausted, half-hearted glare. He’s on vocal rest, so the rest of you are free to pay back all the grief he doles out; but your payback is minimal, given the fact that all five of you are exhausted out of your minds. You watch Kazuki, normally so careful and observant, walk into a wall. Rio passes out on every green room couch for exactly fifteen minutes, and each time she argues to the pillows that power naps are integral to living a healthy life. Koan—well, Koan’s about the same as usual, if a little strained, and constantly using a massage gun on his shoulders and arms. 

The others are probably noticing the ways in which your little mannerisms are off, too, but you’re not in the right headspace to see them yourself. You can only focus on stumbling around before the show to make sure everything’s in order, tuning your guitar, and plucking out chord progressions in the time before you’re up. 

When you’re on stage, it’s wonderful. There’s an electric feeling coursing through your veins—adrenaline, probably—and the lights flash and circle around you. The audience screams their approval each time an IKIGAI set finishes, and you’ve seen quite a few fans waiting by the side door to get autographs. It’s great for the band’s growth, but you’re glad your typical weeks aren’t usually like this. You’re saving some strong words for Uda, to be delivered when you see him next. He might be hiding from you. Of all five of you, you might have been the most aggressive at the last meeting—the one where he’d told you about the schedule for this week, the networking party and then the constant shows. He must know he’s working you all to the bone.

By the last show of the week, that Friday night, you’re sweaty and exhausted, and your entire body feels like a limp sack. You can’t get off the stage fast enough. 

In the green room, Koan tackles Kazuki, who tumbles onto one of the couches. 

“We made it! ” Koan shrieks. 

Rio reaches up to cover her ears. Takuma leans against the wall and slides down like a sad girl in an emo music video. He still doesn’t speak, just reaches for his water bottle, which is too far for him, sitting pretty on the table. Taking pity on him, you retrieve it for him. Your limbs still feel gelatinous, like they’ll wobble with even the slightest force. Takuma greedily gulps down mouthfuls of water. 

“We should go out and celebrate,” Koan says. 

“Now you wanna party?” you grouse. “Fuck no.” 

Koan pouts. “You’re no fun.” 

You throw yourself onto one of the couches. “Good. I thank god every day for that.” 

Rio snorts. You throw a pillow at her. 

“Let’s go home and regroup tomorrow,” Kazuki says, always the voice of reason. The rest of you agree. 

When the five of you spill out into the night air from the stage door, there is only one person there to greet you—a guy in a bright Cellophane hat and a black sweatshirt. You’d know that terrible disguise anywhere. 

“You guys go ahead,” you tell your friends. Takuma raises an eyebrow at you. 

“Are you sure?” Kazuki asks. 

“Yeah, I’m good. It’s Todoroki.” 

They all look over at him. Shouto turns to look back—the shadow of his cap doesn’t completely cover the scar over his eye. With a sigh, Koan herds everyone else off into the night, to get to their respective homes. 

“What are you doing here?” you ask Shouto, in lieu of any pleasantries. He looks taken aback. 

“Sorry. Am I intruding?” 

Already, you want to roll over and beg him to walk home with you, maybe come up to your apartment. You’d make him tea—an herbal one, so he’s not up too late, because it’s already ass o’clock at night and you’re sure he needs a human sleep schedule to keep up with saving lives every day. You don’t say any of that. 

“No, it’s just—why aren’t you sleeping?” 

“I had a late patrol,” he says. “Thought I’d stop by. I can’t?” 

He asks so sweetly, he has to know what he’s doing to you. Defeated, you grouch, “Of course you can.” 

“I’ll walk you home?” 

“Sure. As long as we’re not jumping.” 

“I think I said walk. Did I not say that?” 

You laugh despite yourself. “Shut up.” 

The walk isn’t long, thankfully, but it’s quiet. You pass by an alleyway full of stray cats who peer up at you with big eyes, shops with darkened windows and bread in display cases, abandoned bikes propped up against sides of buildings. This late at night, these quieter areas of Shinjuku are practically deserted: families are off to bed, dishwashers running through the night, children snoring away. You and Shouto trek through these abandoned streets, the streetlamps overhead casting a warm glow over the pale concrete. 

Finally, as you’re almost home, just a few turns away, Shouto says, “Have you been avoiding me?” 

The answer is complicated, but you say, truthfully, “No. I’ve been busy.” 

“Okay.” He nods. You think he believes you. 

“You’ve been busy, too,” you say. “I’ve been seeing you on the news.” 

Shouto doesn’t meet your eyes. You’re made acutely aware, again, as always, how different your worlds are. How you want him in yours, but you’re just not sure if he can stay. You want him to, though. Even just a week without him was miserable. All the time you’ve spent away with him has been punctuated with wishing he was there. 

“I’m just me,” he says. 

“Yeah.” 

You’re just a few steps away from your apartment building when Shouto gets a call. 

“Sorry, let me—” He picks up the phone. You hear shouting on the line—sounds like Dynamight, yelling about how someone’s missing a payment on something. What is he, a mob boss? Shouto says into the phone, “Okay, I’ll tell him. I’m busy right now. …Shut up.” 

He hangs up. 

“What was that?” you ask. 

“Nothing really,” Shouto says. “Just a nuisance.” 

You hum in acknowledgement. Then, you remember last week, and say, “I didn’t know you were a fan.”

“Huh?” 

“A fan. Of my band.” 

Shouto looks away quickly. “I don’t know where you got that idea.”

You grin. “Oh, come on! You were a fan of my band?”

He looks up at the sky; you follow his gaze and trace the uneven clouds blocking out the night sky. “Not just the band,” he says, softly. “You.”

Heat floods to your face, pools in your ears. Can he just say things like that? Is that allowed? There should be some rule that says Todoroki Shouto has to take it easy on your heart sometimes, just a little bit—or maybe never, because the way your pulse thrums under your skin makes you want to keep chasing the feeling. Makes you want to stop running. 

“Me?” you ask.

“Yeah.” He smiles. “You.”

You want to ask him more about that, but you’re sure you wouldn’t be able to handle the answer. There’s no way that Todoroki Shouto—one of the top Pro Heroes in the country—was your fan. You can almost stretch your imagination to believe he liked the band, but you? Just you? He’s actually famous, and liked a tiny emerging indie band with no accolades to their name but a message and a dream?

“How long?”

“Years,” he says.

“Why? ”

Your eyes meet; he searches your face for something he doesn’t seem to find. “Because you shine when you play. Because in a radio interview four years ago you said it doesn’t matter where someone comes from, only where they go, and that you do not have to forgive your past. And that found me when—when I needed it. Because you stand for something—and I felt like I could understand you, through the music you played. And the more I kept watching you, the more I…”

He doesn’t seem about to finish that thought. What do you say to that? How do you respond? It’s so easy when it’s people you don’t know—you can thank them for listening, express your gratitude in the fact that because of them you have a career, and move on. You never have to see them again. Not Shouto. What do you do when it’s someone you know?

Shouto shakes his head, unable to finish the thought. 

“So you… this whole time, you’ve liked me because you’re my fan?” 

It’s awful of you, but betrayal sticks in your gut like lead. You should be happy that he was your fan, but now you just—so everything you were reading into, all of your interactions, are all because he was a fan, not because he actually liked you or anything. How could you just assume? It was all because of—

“No,” Shouto says vehemently. “No, that’s not it. I was just thankful to get to know you. And then—it became—” He cuts himself off, like he doesn’t want to finish the thought. 

“It became what?” you press. You need to know—you need to find out if your feelings, if this thing between you two that you’ve been running away from and learning to rely on day in and day out is nothing more than—

“It became more,” he says. He takes a deep breath in and says, “Because I like you.” 

You stare at him. 

It’s one thing to think it. To imagine what it might be like if Todoroki Shouto liked you. You could protect yourself by saying it was only a dream, that despite the many hints, you were just imagining it, and it could never happen. After all, he’s famous. He could pick anyone. Why would he pick you? What would it look like if he chose you, anyway? You could pretend it was nothing more than wishful thinking, and continue on with your day, lost in your own delusions.

It’s an entirely different thing to hear him say it. Your entire body goes hot; you can barely think. You’re hyper-aware of the few steps separating you, the flutter of his eyelashes as he blinks, the way the light from the streetlamp slants across his face and seems to make him glow. All you can think about is how much you’d like to kiss him. 

Shouto looks up at your apartment building, then back to you. 

“Well,” he says, “I should—” 

In a moment of bravery, you say, “Do you want to come up?” Because you want him, you have always wanted him with you, but you have never been able to imagine a world in which he is yours. But you’re trying, now. You hated the downturn of his mouth when you pushed him away, you hated how sad and alone he looked waiting for you. And if your fear keeps hurting him, then you have to let it go, or try to, at least. He keeps chasing you, and you keep pushing him away, running, hurting. It’s your turn to take the first step. 

He turns back to you, mouth agape just slightly. 

“Well? Do you?” 

“It’s late,” he says, but he’s already stepping towards you. You grin and loop your arm through his. 

You don’t even get to turn the lights on in your apartment. You blink and reach out, and in a moment your mouth is on Shouto’s. His lips are warm, and soft—you wonder idly if he uses chapstick. He takes a deep breath in through his nose, cupping your face in his hands, pressing you back against the door, now shut. You pull at his bottom lip with your teeth and he groans, like he’s in pain, like he’s being consumed. He pulls your body flush to his. 

It feels like forever before you break away—not far, resting your forehead against his. 

“You’re not going to run away again, are you?” he asks, breath hot against your lips. 

“No.” 

He smiles. “Good. I’d just go find you if you did.” 

You kiss him again. 

The studio is quiet when you creep in that morning. 

It’s nearing five, and there’s a nervous energy in your fingertips. You’ve got a gig tomorrow, and should be resting up—not to mention the meetings you have lined up all day today about album release logistics, mixing, editing, all that other crap you tend to leave to the others. Just like they leave the brunt of composition to you. You’re all perfectionists who excel in your own specific fields.

“You really practice this early?” Shouto whispers to you. For his sake, you flip on the lights, illuminating both the recording booth and the practice room. Your pick case is open—Takuma must’ve been going through them again. What a nuisance. A pair of Koan’s drumsticks are laying on the keyboard seat, and there are wires trailing from amps across the patterned floor. Shouto delicately steps over a wire and follows you toward your electric. 

“Sometimes,” you say, “when I’ve got stuff on my mind. Or if I’m just really itching for it.” 

“Mm.” Shouto traces a finger over the mic stand, keeping his eyes on you. You pick up your favorite electric and plug it into the amp, setting the volume quieter than usual out of respect for the early hour. Typically, you’d plug in your headset, too, but today you’re not just practicing—you’re performing.  

You know Shouto’s heard you play before, but this is different—he’s seen you on stage, clad in a costume, working in tandem with four other musicians. This is for him: just you and your guitar. You select your favorite pick and start playing a guitar cover of an IKIGAI song, moving seamlessly from your backing instrumentals part to a cover of the vocals. 

You’ve had to do guitar-only covers for social media promo sometimes. Takuma always gets after you about them—he’s the one who takes charge of promotion and the socials. His media savviness has had him in Uda’s good graces all this time. You’d never accuse Uda of having favorites to his face, but he makes it so obvious. The point is—you’re picky about the music, so rather than settle for just playing Takuma’s vocal part or your guitar part, you made separate guitar arrangements of each song that incorporate elements of all parts. It’s exhausting, and not worth the work you put into it at all—except for the fact that you think it’s fun, too, and now you have something real to play for Shouto on this beautiful early morning when he’d found you awake in the living room staring at the ceiling and had asked you to play something for him. Because you’re a perfectionist, because you love the way his eyes light up at IKIGAI shows, because you can’t get enough of your own music—you brought him here. 

You come alive as the music courses through your veins, pulsating under your skin, seeping into the ground through your feet. When you play, you are part of something larger than yourself—you understand the beat as a fact of life. There’s a particularly tricky riff that you can only play with your fingers, so you hold the pick between your teeth as you pluck the notes out with your fingers. Moments like that, the way your body becomes one with a tune, the inevitability of it—they’re why you could never give this up, even if you wanted to. 

Shouto claps when you finish and your neck flushes. His clapping resounds through the otherwise quiet studio, joining the reverb of your last note. 

“You should join a band,” Shouto says. 

“Dummy,” you bite back, affectionately. 

“Kiss me about it.” 

You do.

“I still don’t think this is right,” Takuma whispers harshly into your ear, as he does the few times you’ve brought Shouto to hang out with the band. 

Today, you’re all getting pastries from a bright, airy café in Nakano before a photoshoot for Tokyo Wave, a music magazine well-known for highlighting local emerging artists with potential. It’s a huge opportunity—as Uda keeps reminding you, probably to make sure you’re all on your best behavior. Takuma’s primly picking at a croissant, while Rio’s tearing into a giant slice of cheesecake topped with sugar and strawberries. Koan and Kazuki have split a katsu sandwich, which smells incredible and looks crunchy enough to make your mouth water. 

Your only response to Takuma is to elbow him, hard. 

You know Takuma doesn’t approve of you dating Shouto. He thinks you’re dating above your station, and that this will only end badly not only for you, but for the band. Once Shouto’s fans find you, IKIGAI might blow up—but that kind of fame, so quickly, might be more than the five of you can take. You’re all disasters already—sudden stardom might destroy all of you, the ways things are now. To a degree, he’s right; Shouto’s fame can be too much for you. He’s always in disguise when the two of you go out, and it’s hard to even just go on a walk together without being paranoid. You have to accept that you might never get to experience being a “normal” couple with him—no matter what that means. 

But you love him. That’s what matters, for now. The rest of it—you can prepare yourself for it, try to delay it until you’re all just a little bit more ready to skyrocket into the public eye. 

It’s a risk you’re taking, but you talked it over Rio and Kazuki, and the they’d agreed on this: the five of you are a team, and nothing will change that. You sacrifice your happiness for each other, sure, but the band should be a wonderful thing—and if there’s something you really, really want, you should do it. Everyone deserves a shot at happiness, don’t they? 

(“And if Rio can keep seeing all those shitty guys—” Kazuki started. 

“Don’t finish that sentence,” Rio warned.) 

That’s why right now, Shouto’s wearing that Cellophane hat he loves—you maintain it’s the ugliest thing you’ve ever seen, which is only mostly a diss at Sero—and a pair of sunglasses that can maybe be excused as a fashion statement. No one’s seemed to recognize him yet, but if you start seeing whispers, you’ll tell him to book it. 

Rio grabs your hand, ignoring Takuma. You’re sure everyone knows why Takuma always zeroes in on you anytime Shouto’s around, and Rio’s intent on dispelling the awkwardness. “You were practicing this morning, weren’t you?” she demands. “You’re going to do the photoshoot with string-fingers?” 

“Chill,” you say. “It’s not like they’ll be doing close-ups of my hands. I always have string-fingers, anyway.” 

She sighs, but begrudgingly accepts this. 

“Why don’t you care about my fingers that way?” Kazuki deadpans. 

“I care,” Koan says sarcastically. 

“That’s gross,” says Kazuki. 

“What?! Why? I was kidding!” 

“No you weren’t,” Rio piles on. 

“It was a joke! A joke! ” 

“I don’t believe him,” Rio stage-whispers to you. The two of you snicker behind your hands. 

“I don’t like this bit,” Koan whines. “Can Takuma hurry up and be normal again so you guys can go back to making fun of him?” 

“No,” Takuma says, but he’s obviously suppressing a smile. 

Soon, Shouto will have to leave for a meeting, and then the rest of you will be off to the shoot, to get dressed up and posed in different ways for a magazine industry professionals put a lot of stock in. And you’ll argue with Takuma, probably, and maybe a little bit with the rest of them, too, but then when you all leave you’ll congregate at Rio’s to play Mario Kart and scream at each other. Things will be normal—well, maybe not normal, but just about, because there is no world in which the five of you are not together. 

Shouto is acting weird. 

You’ve been dating for a few weeks, at this point—it’s been going well, though it’s uneventful. To be honest, not a lot has changed, aside from the fact that instead of going home after he walks you home, he spends the night. You’ve asked him why he doesn’t spend any time at his own apartment—or why the two of you never go over there—but he looks around at your cluttered table, your lumpy couch, the weird magnets on your fridge, and he tells you he likes it better here. 

Knowing Shouto, he probably hasn’t ever used his place as anything more than a place to eat and sleep, but you don’t call him out on that. 

Oh yeah, there’s also more kissing. You forgot to mention that part. 

You’ve had to block him from PDA—you never would’ve guessed that Shouto was the type to try and kiss you in public, but you’ve had to stopper his lips with your hand a few times already. He always pouts in response. 

He’d seemed so cool and distant all this time. Who knew he was like a puppy? 

In the privacy of your apartment, he’s always touching you in some way. While you’re bent over sheet music, scribbling furiously, he loops his arm through your free one. When you’re laying on the couch plucking out a melody, he’s leaning his head on your calves and watching. When you’re making dinner, he twines his arms around your torso and rests his chin on your shoulder. 

It’s only been three weeks, but you’re the happiest you’ve ever been. 

Sometimes you still want to run—that urge doesn’t disappear just because you’re happy. You want to run and make yourself so unhappy, because sometimes you don’t know any other way of being. You want to ruin all these good things because you don’t deserve them, because you’re terrible and snarky and ungrateful, and because these things are all finite, anyway. 

But you don’t—as much as your brain sets off alarms. Instead, you lean into Shouto’s touch, left side when you’re cold, right side when you’re hot. You teach him how to bake banana bread, and laugh at how misshapen the final loaf is. You poke your face into view when Dynamight video calls him. A few nights, Shouto comes back exhausted, covered in bruises and tiny scratches—those nights you hold him close and hum your mother’s song in his ear, the way she did when you were younger after you got in a particularly bad fight at school. 

And now, three weeks later, you can tell: he’s hiding something from you. 

Shouto has to fly out to the US for a few days on a mission. He looks upset when he tells you, and you spend the rest of the day curled up on the couch together eating takeout and half-watching an old show you loved when you were younger. You see him off the next morning. 

And now, for some reason, you can not for the fucking life of you shake Cellophane off your tail. 

“You stalking me or something?” you snipe at him, a few hours after you noticed him following you. 

“You wish,” he shoots back. 

“Doesn’t look like I need to.” 

“You’ve got a sharp mouth on you, huh?” 

You sigh, deeply, and turn around to face Sero head-on. He’s doing a terrible job of hiding, crouched behind a lamppost that doesn’t conceal him at all. He’s even in his hero costume, which means that people passing by sometimes stop to stare at him or take pictures, whispering to each other. A duo of girls on their way home from school whisper to each other behind cupped hands as they pass. Sero pretends not to notice them. 

“What do you want?” you gripe. “At least stop acting like you’re hiding.” 

“It’s cooler this way,” he says. 

“It’s really not.” 

Sero stands and dusts off his knees. The latex of his suit shines under the glare of the sun; you have to squint to look at it. You kind of wish he’d go back to “hiding.” 

“Since you insisted,” he says in response to your unimpressed stare. 

“I insist on not getting any tabloid stories written about me, but it looks like I’m too late on that one.”

“Is it better if I say I didn’t mean to?”

You whirl around and go back to ignoring him. Instead of continuing his hiding charade, Sero catches up and falls into step beside you. 

“Are you still not going to tell me what you’re doing here?” you ask.

“I promised Todoroki I wouldn’t.” 

Your eyes narrow. “He’s not even in town right now.” 

“You’re a smart cookie, I’m sure you can put two and two together.” 

Words cannot explain how much he pisses you off right now, so you don’t dignify that with a response. The most likely explanation is that Shouto put him up to this—maybe this is what he was hiding from you? You smile at the thought; he’s more protective of you than he lets on. You see it in little things, like the way he always walks between you and the street when you’re out, how he picks you up and tucks you into bed when you’re up too late, how he glares at anyone on the street who dares look at you twice. 

Shouto wouldn’t tell you, because he’d know how you’d balk at the idea of being followed. You bet he also didn’t expect Sero to be so shit at stalking. 

Or maybe he did? Sometimes you can’t tell with him. 

Sero’s started yammering on about something you don’t care about—some game he says he’s trying to get Kirishima and Kaminari to play with him. He says it’s a really manly, difficult game with a lot of combat and engrossing game mechanics, but then accidentally lets it slip that he’s named all of his farm animals after actresses. 

You’re not one to judge; in high school, you and your friends would all congregate at Kazuki’s house under the pretext of gaming. (Of course, back then, it was because Kazuki was in the worst shape of all of you—but that’s not your story to divulge.) For a year, all you played was a farming simulator, where Rio and Koan tended to the farm, Takuma named all of the animals after celebrities he liked, and you and Kazuki went out gathering. There had been a bit where you thought the group would fracture over Rio and Takuma’s rivalry in romancing the same character, but in an uncharacteristic display of grace, Takuma had conceded to Rio. 

This little commonality endears you to Sero, but not enough to ease the furrow of your brow entirely.

Eventually, Sero tires himself out—perfect timing, too, because you’ve finally reached Rio’s, where you’ve decided you’re staying until Shouto gets back. Your apartment feels empty without him, the walls closing in around you while restlessness tears you apart. You put on a strong front, but you miss him already. 

“You can leave now,” you say to Sero. 

“That’s not how this works,” he says. “I made a promise.” 

“What, my boyfriend got some blackmail material on you?” 

“Like you wouldn’t believe.” 

Just based on what you know about him, you theorize it wouldn’t be hard to accumulate embarrassing Sero moments. You stare at him, expressionless. 

“Don’t look at me. Go inside.” He makes a little shooing motion with his hands.  

“You’re just gonna be out here. Doing what?” 

“Don’t worry about it, princess.” 

“Ew. Gross. Don’t ever call me that.” 

“Todoroki doesn’t call you that?” He makes a disgusting kissy face at you. “Princess. Muffin. Pookie bear.” 

“No. What? No. Shut the fuck up. I’m leaving. Go home, asshole.” 

“Have fun~” Sero calls after you as you punch in the code to Rio’s apartment building. 

When Rio sees your face, she asks, “Who did you kill?” 

“No one,” you groan, throwing your sweater onto the couch with a little too much force. 

“Don’t take it out on my furniture,” Rio calls out mildly. 

Shouto’s away a few days longer than planned, which means you have to spend a full business week in the company of Cellophane, Japan’s most aggravating hero. You say that, but by day three, without even noticing, your jabs have started to take an almost affectionate nature. He’s like a chihuahua that follows you around and barks the whole time.

A chihuahua in latex with tape-dispenser arms. Sure, what else is new? 

He tails you to a record store, where you flip through records and point out albums you know. You tear through the bargain bin, advertising old records for two hundred yen, and leave with an armful by people you’ve never heard of but are excited to listen to. On your way home, Sero teases that you probably have more records than you know what to do with, to which you don’t have a good comeback. 

Takuma’s just getting in as you and Sero approach the studio on the fourth day. He glares pointedly at you. 

“What?” you challenge. 

“Nothing,” he says passive-aggressively. “Live your life.” 

“You’re infuriating,” you inform him. 

“I’m aware.” 

Sero stays outside; you’ve noticed he doesn’t usually follow you into buildings unless you’re just shopping, in which case he peers over your shoulder and offers his deeply unwelcome commentary. So you and Takuma stew in your awkwardness as the two of you make your way up the stairs to the studio. 

“Are you not going to get over this?” you ask. 

“You make it so hard,” he says. “It’s always something new with you. Are you cheating on Todoroki with Cellophane?” 

“God, Takuma, what exactly do you think of me?” 

“I don’t know anymore.” 

The two of you stop in front of the door to the studio. Your relationship with Takuma has always been up and down, to a degree, but you’ve always known, at the end of the day, that you are each others’ ride or die. This time—it’s different, this time. Maybe he’s taking it more personally; maybe he’s taking it as a threat. 

“Listen, man,” you say. “I don’t know why this is taking you so long to get over, but I’m dating Shouto. So you’re gonna have to learn to live with that.” 

Takuma stares pointedly at the doorknob. 

“Fucking look at me,” you snap. 

He does. His face is morphed into that expression he always has when he’s terrified: open, eyes wide, eyebrows tense and drawn together. 

“You’re going to leave us,” he says. “You’ve got all these new celebrity friends. But the rest of us—we’re still just here. So I’m sorry that I can’t—” 

“You don’t know that,” you say, quietly. “Wake up, idiot. In what world would I pick anyone over you?” 

“How do I know that?” 

“You don’t trust me?” 

“You know better than anyone how hard it is.” 

You sigh, card a hand through your hair. “I know. But I need you to be able to trust that I’m not going anywhere. Things might get hard for us, but it’s not like we expect things to be easy, right? So I just need… I need you to believe in me. This has gone on for long enough.”

“I’ll try,” he says. “I swear I’ll try, I just—I don’t know how. It’s been you and me since the beginning. How am I supposed to accept that you have someone closer to you now?” 

Words fail you. How are you supposed to respond to that? He’s right—IKIGAI started because of you and Takuma, and the rest joined you on the way. Because the two of you were always hiding away together. 

But you can’t just keep hiding. Someday, you have to step out into the sun, chin up. 

“I’m not replacing you, or anyone else,” you say, quietly, “and when you’re ready to accept that, I’ll be here.”  

“Okay,” Takuma whispers. You push the door to the studio open, leaving him out in the hallway. 

He doesn’t join you immediately. The rest of you run through a few pieces before he finally enters, eyes rimmed with red. Things don’t change much—he still doesn’t address you directly, and talks less than usual—but by the end of practice, he’s looking you in the eyes again, and doesn’t say anything when you look at your phone to respond to a text from Shouto. 

Finally, Shouto gets back from his trip. 

You decide not to mention how he’d been acting a little weird before he left—it wasn’t even really a big deal, right? And he’s been gone long enough that you don’t really care anymore: you just want to attach yourself to him and never let go. 

Who would’ve thought love would make you so sappy? It feels unnatural, but at the same time, it feels like a side of you that had always existed—you hadn’t thought much about before. 

He texted you every day that he was gone, but when you get home on the evening of the sixth day, you find him waiting in front of your apartment. Your brain doesn’t even register consciously that it’s him: you see the Dynamight sweater, the dark cap, the heterochromatic eyes just barely visible under the brim of his hat, and you throw yourself at him. 

Shouto lets out a little oof when you make contact, but his arms are around you in a moment, and he’s laughing into your hair. Maybe it’s dramatic of you to miss him so much after only a week apart, but you had felt so weird without him nearby—like there was a part of you missing. Now he’s back, and you feel like everything’s okay again, dragging him upstairs to regale you with the whole story.

He can’t tell you much about the mission itself, but he does tell you what he can: about the Pro Hero office in New York, the bustling streets, a small-fry villain that tried to rob a convenience store while he was there, not realizing that he was in the presence of one of Japan’s top heroes. He unpacks his bag (never mind how your apartment has basically become his, too) and tells you about standing on top of the buildings and feeling the wind blowing through his hair, and thinking of you. 

“Of me?” You pretend this does not make your heart skip a beat. “You were thinking of me in New York?” 

“Of course I was,” he says, with that gentle smile he reserves for you and you only. He says it so straightforwardly, so earnestly, that you can’t help the dumb grin that tugs at your lips. “Who else would I be thinking of?” 

You can think of a few answers to tease him, but you decide against them in favor of attaching yourself to him, wrapping your arms around his midsection. You’re standing in the living room, leaning into him—he buries his face in your hair and takes a deep breath, like he’s a man deprived of air and you’re the lungful he’s been chasing. 

For a long moment, you just hold each other. A week shouldn’t feel like years, but it did; you missed him more than you want to admit. 

Finally, Shouto says, “I have something for you.” 

You pull back enough to look up at him. “What?” 

Shouto lets go of you—for the most part. He keeps a hold of your hand and tugs you along over to your room, where his travel bag lays open on your bed. He sifts through it before producing a big, square record jacket. The front of the jacket displays a close-up of a woman’s face, her eyes striking, lips painted a bright red. She wears a large black hat and a fluffy white coat, visible at the top and bottom edges, respectively. At a glance, you think she looks vaguely familiar; have you seen her somewhere? Shouto gingerly hands it to you like it’s a precious treasure. 

“What’s this?” you say, which is a stupid question, because obviously it’s a record. 

“Listen to it,” he urges, nudging you back toward the living room. “Try side A, track four.” 

You look at him dubiously, but dutifully trudge to the living room, where your victrola sits on the coffee table. Although most people listen to music over streaming these days, there’s a big market of analog fans who prefer the crackly sounds of records. Of course, nothing beats live music, but you think there’s a charm to records that you just can’t get through your headphones. Every mode of listening to music is different, and you find beauty in all of them. 

You hold up the record to the light and squint at the grooves to try and find where the tracks start. It takes you a minute, but you eventually find the fourth track on side A; keeping a hovering finger over the spot, you gently place it on the victrola and ever so carefully lower the tonearm over where you’ve decided the fourth track starts. 

The first few notes play. Your eyes well up with tears. 

Piano dances out of the speakers. The song is completely different than you remember, and somehow, exactly the same. A woman’s deep voice follows, intimate, like the stylus reads the grooves from your bones. She sings in a jazzy style—that’s when the trombone comes in, and the drums, and there’s this light feeling in your chest that makes you think you’re floating. Like you’re untethered from the world. 

You’re humming along to the chorus. It sounds so different compared to the one in your memories, but the tear tracks on your cheeks remember the notes intimately, the minor chords, the alto voice. In the corner of your eye, you see Shouto approach the open doorway and lean a shoulder against the doorframe, his arms crossed over his chest. You look up at him; distantly, you’re aware how you must look, crying where you sit on the floor, making blurry eye contact. Like a grief-stricken child all over again, like a disaster on the verge of spilling over into new territories. He doesn’t say anything, just kneels next to you, puts an arm around your shoulders. You lean into him, nestling into the crook of his arm, aware that you’re going to get his shirt wet with tears—he doesn’t seem to care about that, though, holding you tightly. 

“Where did you find it?” you ask him, later, after you’ve washed your face and your eyes are still puffy from crying. “How did you know what it sounded like?” 

“You have a habit,” he says. “You always hum something when you’re doing things, like when we’re making food, or going to bed.” 

Your ears feel hot when he says that. You’ve been dating this long already, and you still get embarrassed when he talks about going to bed together? You’re incorrigible. 

 “It didn’t sound like one of your songs,” he continues, “and I thought I heard something similar at the agency the other day. One of the interns—I think he thought he was wearing headphones, but he wasn’t, and the melody sounded kind of familiar… so he told me it was an American song and showed me the artist.” 

“You must’ve scared him,” you deadpan. 

“Why would I scare him?” 

“Never mind.” 

“Anyway, I did some looking into it, and found that there was a collector in America who suddenly changed interests from records to cassettes. So—why are you laughing? So I went and bought it from him.” 

You shudder, thinking how much it must’ve cost him. Collectors, even when they’ve outgrown interests, never part with their treasures for cheap. You can never ask Shouto how much it was, you decide. 

“So basically,” you say, “you found it through total coincidence, and then you were also coincidentally sent to America on a mission, so you decided to buy it then.” 

“Well. The mission wasn’t as much of a coincidence. We get to choose them sometimes.” 

You make a face, trying to squish down the horrible grin that tugs at your lips. The expression you make must be a sight to behold, because laughter bubbles out of Shouto like a dam breaking—just a little bit at first, a quick exhale of air, followed by the rest flooding out. 

“Don’t laugh at me,” you say, your face all scrunched up. 

“Sorry, sorry,” he says, taking your face in his hands and smoothing his thumbs over your cheeks. Slowly, you let your face muscles relax, if only to see his open, happy expression. You want to memorize the intricacies of it, so even in the dark, you can know it without looking. You want the day in the future where you can see him without eyes, where you’ll know all these little idiosyncrasies like they’re your own. One day, that will be you: you’re sure of it. 

For now, Shouto presses a chaste kiss to your lips, then to your forehead. The two of you listen to the rest of the record, curled up together on the floor. 

You’re ready. Your pulse pounds in your ears. 

Rio shoots you a look from the other side of the stage, her face clouded in shadow. Last night, you’d dragged yourself over to her place as you so often do, but instead of spending the night, you left around one in the morning when Shouto called to ask if you were at home. She nods to you. Koan hits the cymbals. Your gaze shifts over to Kazuki, who lifts his head in acknowledgement before starting the bassline. Takuma’s looking at Koan; he turns to the audience and belts the opening words. Halfway through the first verse, you come in. 

Your fingers tear across the guitar, catching steel strings between fleshy fingertip and rosewood fingerboard. The music pours out of you, unrestrainable. It’s Friday night, your boyfriend is somewhere in the back of the crowd watching, and you’re on top of the world. You’re in platform boots and a short-sleeved button up—all five of you are matching, white over black over black. When you four instrumentalists jab at Takuma between songs, just as scripted, his reactions have no bite in them—his voice is light, buoyant. The audience picks up on the energy and responds in kind, shrieking and howling in delight. 

What feels even better: this is an IKIGAI concert. Just for you guys, to perform the set you’ve been rehearsing all this time. You’re not crowded in a tiny backstage room alongside several other shows, all clamoring for the spotlight, and you know that all the people in the crowd are here to see your show. They’re here for IKIGAI. 

Rio had found a smaller band to open, an up-and-coming trio of girls called D3SIRE. They’re sweet: they came up to you and bowed in greeting before sound check, thanked you (again) for the opportunity, and promised to do their very best to get the crowd excited. In return, you pulled them into the pre-show ritual, bought them a glass of the same drink Rio had chosen for today and told them to share. Rio gave you a knowing look at that—one you ignored. She’s always trying to catch you doing nice things. 

Now, onstage, enacting the set you and your friends have poured all of your energy into writing, rehearsing, editing—you feel alive. 

Music tangles around you  and the lights are blinding, flashing in arcs and rays, an ethereal blanket. Your limbs feel like jelly and sweat makes your hair stick to your forehead. There is nowhere else you’d rather be. 

After the show, the girls from D3SIRE crowd Takuma, their eyes sparkling, firing off questions and praise. Takuma looks helplessly over at you; in response, you laugh at him. The rest of you pack up quickly—you have plans to go to an American-style twenty-four hour diner with Shouto and the rest of the band after the show, and now that the crowd is slowly filtering out, you’re all in a rush to get cleaned up and out of here. Security in the venue is ushering out the stragglers; by now, there’ll be a small crowd around the stage door, too, hoping to catch the band and get autographs. No doubt Shouto will be there. 

It feels like forever, but your gear is finally packed up and ready to go. You bum a couple bags onto Kazuki, who takes them without complaining. In the time it takes for Takuma to extricate himself from the girls of D3SIRE, the rest of you have, with the help of the venue crew, broken down the set and packed up all your gear. You’re waiting impatiently for Takuma by the stage door; he runs to greet you. 

“You took sooo long,” Rio whines. 

“Not my fault,” Takuma grumbles. “You know I can’t say no to a fan.” 

“You could at least help pack up.”

Takuma swipes a hand through his bangs, doing what he likes to call his “ikemen face.” It’s the one where sparkles pop up around him and his jaw gets even more chiseled—or so he says. You’ve never seen it happen; from your perspective, he looks vaguely constipated. 

“Stop doing that,” Koan says. “You look like the Kool-Aid Man.” 

“That’s not true,” Takuma says, glancing between the rest of you for agreement. It does not come. “It’s not true, right? ” 

“So, we should get going?” Kazuki says. 

“Rude.” 

Shouto waits for you outside the stage door, but in front of him is a crowd of fans with gifts and little booklets for you all to sign. Slowly but surely, you make your way through all of them. 

“Man!” Koan leans back in his chair, playing with the straw in his milkshake. “What a rush!” 

“That’s the only thing you’ve been saying for the last thirty minutes. Is the shake that good?” 

“No, it’s average.” 

Shouto laughs into his hand. His other one squeezes your fingers under the table. Takuma looks at the two of you, his eyes dropping to the angle of yours and Shouto’s arms that indicate you’re probably holding hands, but he doesn’t say anything insufferable. Instead, he catches your eye, mouths shut up even though you haven’t said anything, and turns back to the waffles he’s drowned in syrup. 

This is the happiest you’ve ever been. Every day, waking up next to Shouto, you think: this has to be the last day. Something will go wrong today. Someone will die, or leave, and you’ll have to figure everything out alone again, like you did all those years ago when it was just you and your grief-wracked father. 

But that’s okay. Shouto’s hand is big and warm and he holds you like you’re precious, like he’s afraid of breaking you. Your own shake is melty and soft, and the basket of fries you’d ordered for the table has that fried-food smell that makes your stomach growl. Rio’s laughing at Takuma, as always, and Koan and Kazuki are building a tower out of napkins and plastic spoons. 

Shouto leans in to whisper to you, his breath ghosting the shell of your ear. “Are you tired?”

“Exhausted,” you confirm. You can’t help but grin at him. Shouto presses his lips to your temple and turns back to your friends, who are chattering away about a guy Koan met at the bar you performed at last week who, when Rio approached, asked her to name four rock bands. Koan’s gesturing animatedly, his hands half of the story, when—

You all watch in horror as Koan and Kazuki’s palace of utensils falls. The spoons and chopsticks clatter onto the table and the napkins scatter like snowflakes, like a disaster in slow motion. Koan leans back in his chair too far, and starts to topple—Kazuki reaches for him, and is pulled along. Rio, sitting on your other side, takes a sip of her coffee and pointedly does not look at them, and Takuma stares, agape. The napkins rain down, landing on the tabletop, fluttering down to the ground. 

Shouto’s jaw drops. You try to stifle a laugh and nearly choke on it. 

Koan starts blustering out apologies, while he and Kazuki spend the rest of the time you’re there searching for napkins under the table. 

In this bright, beautiful moment, you are not afraid. 

When you get home, Shouto wraps an arm around you and pulls you down to the couch. You’re just barely seated in his lap when he kisses you, open-mouthed and hot. Your skin prickles with warmth and gooseflesh; Shouto runs his searing fingers up your arm with a featherlight touch. 

“Mmh—Shouto—” you start, but he silences you with his mouth. 

“I’ve been waiting all day for this,” he murmurs against your lips. He’s greedy, and you both know it: stealing kisses backstage, twining his fingers with yours under the table, staring at you with those intense eyes from across the room. Now, his eyes are half-lidded as you pull back from him, your hands digging into his shoulders. “Hm?” 

“I just have something to tell you,” you say. 

“What?” 

You clear your throat. Your lipstick’s smeared around his mouth, which the sight of does indescribable things to you, twisting knots into your lower belly. He’s looking at you like you’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen—to you, it’s still surreal to see him here, the same face you would stare at fan edits and pictures of on the internet, the same person you’d see interviewed on the news. And he’s yours. 

You take in a deep breath and press your palms to his cheeks. 

“I love you,” you say. 

A slow smile spreads across his face. “I know,” Shouto says. 

You scowl. “This should be huge news to you.” 

“It is. Am I not acting adequately shocked?” 

“I pour my heart to you, and this is what I get?”  

Shouto presses a peck to your mouth. “I didn’t hear it. You should say it again.” 

“You just want me to say it again.” 

“I don’t think I said that.” 

You roll your eyes, but you say, “I love you.” 

Shouto presses another quick kiss to your lips. “Again?” 

“Oh, come on.” 

“Again?” 

You huff, but you never can say no to him, really. “I love you.” 

He hums against your lips, content. “I love you, too.” 

When you collapse into bed together hours later, having lost track of time and giggling, you think: you could stay like this forever. You have always been ready to run, looking for exit strategies, but—you could stay like this. You want to stay like this.

Is that enough? 

Yeah. It is. 

You fall asleep with Shouto that night, and the night after that, and the night after that. Here, you are safe. Here, you love and are loved, too. 

You rest your hand over Shouto’s heart, and hope he can feel how knowing him—loving him—has changed you. And how you wouldn’t trade it for anything.