Work Text:
Shota plays music loud in his ears as his colleagues buzz around him in the teachers’ lounge, trying to input class 1A’s exam grades quickly before lunch period ends. He wanted to squeeze in a nap but the students were insistent on getting their scores as soon as possible. Probably better this way anyway, that way they can actually focus during hero training this afternoon instead of talking over him about how they think they did on the test.
Most of his colleagues know not to bother him while he works, but he wears the earphones anyway as an extra precaution. That, and so he can work without their chatter in the background. He couldn’t care less about their weekend plans or their gossip.
Shota notices the air breeze past him as a blur of black and yellow spins his way on a roller chair, stopping just short of crashing into him.
“ERASER!” Yamada shrieks, snatching one of the devices from his ear, “You comin out with us tonight or what?”
“No.” Shota tries to retrieve the earphone but Yamada holds it just out of reach, scooching away as Shota rolls closer to swipe it.
“HUGH, WHY? It’s been an age since you’ve gone drinking with us!” Yamada folds his arms over the back of the office chair he’s sitting on, completely obstructing the earphone. “You sick of me now or what?”
Not true. Shota actually likes drinking with Yamada when it’s just the two of them, without a crowd of people to share his attention with. But Yamada is a social being. And when he inevitably starts getting chatty with everyone else, Shota has to sit there, kicking back more drinks than he probably should to keep the awkwardness at bay.
Shota only hums in response but the blond doesn’t let up. His volume grows louder, turning a few heads on the other side of the room.
“C’mon man! All your drinks are on me! And you can leave whenever you want. I won’t make any fuss at all!” He swivels Shota’s chair back and forth, preventing his eyes from ever settling back on the computer screen. Yamada’s playfulness rubs off on him a little bit and he has to tighten his mouth to stop from smiling.
“Who’s all going?” Shota mumbles, not wanting the rest of the teachers to know he’s considering just yet.
“Uh, me. Duh! What else matters?” Yamada sing-songs, grinning ear to ear. He knows he’s got Shota hooked. Shota glowers at him.
“But also Kayama, Thirteen, Snipe-”
“All Might?” Shota asks. It had been pretty awkward the last time he and the top hero went drinking together, but he would appreciate another introvert in the group regardless.
Yamada shrugs, “Undecided. I think everyone got a little too rowdy for him last time he came out. But it’ll be more chill this time. Less people, y’know?”
Shota pauses before answering, though his mind is already made up. “Fine, I’ll go.”
“YEAHH! ERASER’S COMIN’ OUT TONIGHT!”
Too fucking loud. He kicks Yamada’s chair, sending him rolling several feet backward.
Kayama pops her head up over Shota’s computer. “Finally! You were beginning to feel like a damn ghost. A mere memory!”
Yamada swaggers back over and lays the stolen earphone down in front of Shota. “I’ll text you the deets later, buddy!” Shota merely grunts in acknowledgement, hooking the music back into his ear before returning to work.
Shota’s alarm startles him from his nap on the couch. He sucks in a sharp breath, silencing the noise and checks for messages from Yamada. There are multiple, one including the place and time to meet at, and two more warning him not to flake.
Fuck, He wants to flake so bad. He chucks the phone across the sofa and pulls the comforter up over his face. So warm. So quiet. He could cancel. No one would really mind, right? Even Yamada? They will probably just keep eachother company anyway. No one’s holding their breath for Shota Aizawa’s arrival.
The idea is so tempting, so inviting that it pulls him back into sleep without even realizing it.
The second time Shota wakes, there’s a knock at the door. Shit! Shota frantically ruffles the blanket for his phone and it falls to the floor with a thud. He opens it to find four missed calls from Yamada and two from Kayama.
“YOOO, PRINCE-OF-SLUMBERLAND!” Yamada’s voice booms from behind the front door, wobbling it on its hinges.
Shota cringes at the nickname, aka P.O.S., but hell if he could argue with it now. Yamada knocks again, as if his fucking voice didn’t just shake the foundation of his apartment and, agitated and somehow still sleep deprived, Shota blurts out, “I’M COMING, RELAX!”
Shota yanks the door open and spits, “You have a key! Do you really need to bring the whole fucking building down just to make a point?”
“That’s some serious ‘tude for a dude who hasn’t answered their phone in three hours!” The blond shoulders past him, making a beeline straight to Shota’s fridge.
“I set an alarm,” Shota gruffs, scratching the stubble on his cheek, “I just fell asleep again… while fantasizing about canceling.”
Yamada scoffs from behind the fridge door, “I take it you didn’t see my text? Specifically the ‘don’t flake- or else’ part of it?” He plucks two beers from the fridge and hands one to Shota. Yamada twists the cap off with a hiss and takes a long swig. Shota does the same and takes an equally long sip.
Yamada glances around the apartment, nodding towards the stack of unpacked boxes against the dining room wall. “Love what you’ve done with the place.”
Shota chuckles around the rim of his beer, knowing that Yamada’s apartment looks just as bad, except with maybe triple the amount of boxes to be unpacked. It’s been months since they’ve moved into the UA dorms but no one’s really had the time to make it feel like home yet. And it seems like the longer the boxes sit around, the harder it is to actually sift through and start organizing them.
“We could pay the students to organize our shit,” Yamada says.
Shota tips his head at the suggestion, then half heartedly considers making it their next punishment.
Yamada laughs again, “Punishment? Nah, they’d be so stoked to go through our stuff!” He poses proudly with his half empty beer, “Especially Present Mic’s extremely tasteful collection of home decor and clothing!”
“Half your belongings would end up online and you wouldn’t even notice,” Shota adds, then downs the rest of his beer. “I’m gonna shower real quick.” He grabs another beer from the fridge and takes it with him.
“Shower beer? I dig it!” Yamada calls out behind him. Shota can hear him rummaging around for a second bottle also.
Aware that he’s already horribly late (and hardly sorry), Shota throws his hair into a sloppy bun at the base of his neck before jumping in the shower. Quickly, he scrubs off the grime of his three hour couch nap, then finishes with long swigs of beer as the soap rinses off of him.
With a towel wrapped around his waist, he returns to find Yamada in his bedroom, perched on the edge of his bed holding a bottle of Shota’s cologne up to his nose. He squints like he’s thinking or a moment, then applies a squirt to both wrists and one under his shirt.
Yamada shrugs defensively. “What? I dig the smell.”
“You picked it out for me.”
Yamada smiles, eyes seeming to glaze over Shota’s bare chest and abdomen for a second. Shota shifts self-consciously and, hint taken, the blond springs to his feet and hurries out of the room.
“Well hurry up and get ready. Kayama said that everyone’s already there.”
Shota tosses on a pair of black jeans and a loose shirt, wondering if he somehow made things awkward a moment ago. Maybe he just imagined the look on his friend’s face. Or maybe the beers are just hitting him already.
The walk over to the bar was short. Already feeling warm from the drinks at home, Shota and Yamada bump shoulders and banter back and forth the whole way there.
“My god, you actually got him out of bed.” Kayama taunts them as they take their seats around the low table. All of their colleagues are here already, including All Might.
“Barely. Power-Saver Sho overslept. Can you imagine that?” Yamada jokes back, earning Shota a few teasing remarks from Thirteen and All Might.
Kayama shimmies between them, already flushed and smelling like booze, then gives Yamada’s jacket a quick sniff. She raises an eyebrow like she's about to say something, then shakes the thought off. Yamada scrunches his face at her but doesn’t say anything about it.
Already socially exhausted, Shota orders a pitcher of beer for him and Yamada to split. Once the waiter sets down their pitcher and mugs, Kayama abandons the space between them in search of savory condiments to add to her Frankenstein cocktail. Shota shifts closer to Yamada, elbow to elbow, knocking back their beers with equal haste. Then they refill their glasses and repeat.
“Watching you guys drink the way you do makes me really miss the hard stuff,” All Might chuckles over his non-alcoholic beer.
“Yeah? And how many beers did it take to get All Mighty drunk in his prime?” Yamada snorts, leaning over the table to prick at Thirteen’s pork skewers. “You had to be, what? Six hundred pounds or something?”
Thirteen swats Yamada’s hands away, too slowly before he steals a skewer and tears off half of it in one monstrous chomp.
“You are so fucking rude.” Shota jabs him with his elbow.
“WHADAYA-YEAM?” Yamada whines through a cheek full of food.
“All of it. All of you. Rude.” He snatches the remaining skewer and pulls off a piece of meat for himself.
The attention flips back to All Might. “Hmm, I was never really a big drinker. Too busy to catch a break really. But probably about… thirty shots? To get me feeling loose?”
Yamada’s jaw goes slack. “THIRTY? HOLY HELL! I did twenty on my birthday a few years back and woke up sunburnt on a boat offshore! Couldn’t remember a damn thing about how I got there either.”
“That’s nuts for a pro hero,” Snipe murmurs, shooting Yamada a contemptuous glance.
“Yeah, yeah. Drink your drink, Shooty. If you think that’s bad I better get tight-lipped real soon.”
“You? Tight-lipped? Physically impossible.” The gun hero snips back. Shota raises his glass to that and takes another sip, granting him a comical scowl from Yamada and a laugh from everyone else.
Kayama returns just in time to make a cheap grab at All Might ‘feeling loose’ and Shota decides that’s his cue to run to the bathroom.
The unified gasp behind him as he leaves tells him that either Kayama had taken her joke too far or All Might just said something appalling. Either way, he’s glad to have a moment to piss and check in with himself.
After using the bathroom and washing his hands, Shota stares at himself in the mirror. The drinks had taken the edge off for sure but he worries that he probably drank too fast. He’s been told that he has a habit of forgetting himself when he’s drunk and it always leaves him feeling quite embarrassed, being unsure what he’d said to who or what he’d done the night before. No one’s ever dared to bring it up though, besides Hizashi.
Hizashi. His friend’s given name dances at the top of his chest. He prefers it, though rarely making a point to use it. Using each other's family names is no indication of formality between the two. It’s just that over so many years, it had never been clear when to stop. And why change the way they address each other now?
Except when we drink. He knows that after the amount of drinks his friend has had by now, he’ll probably start calling him ‘Shota’ instead of ‘Aizawa’ before they leave tonight.
The door smacks open and Hizashi spins through it, cheesing at Shota through the mirror.
“Just checkin’ on ya pal. You’ve been gone for a minute.” He claps both hands on Shota’s shoulders, giving him a little jostle before swaying over to the urinal. Shota chuckles a little, feeling giddy from the mix of alcohol and physical contact.
Hizashi finishes his business and washes his hands beside Shota. As Shota watches him through the mirror, his chest tightens with the spontaneous urge to tell Hizashi how handsome he is. Which is stupid, really. Because Hizashi already knows he’s handsome. But something in Shota’s tipsy brain really wants Hizashi to know that he thinks he’s handsome.
Hizashi’s hair is pulled back into a seemingly effortless bun but Shota knows it probably took him three tries to get it just right. And thinking about it now, the way his gold necklace dangles from his chest as he’s bent over the sink looks really cool. Maybe Shota should buy some jewelry. It looks expensive. Hizashi’s expensive.
Hizashi locks eyes with him through the mirror and Shota can feel himself start to blush, embarrassed that he’d been caught staring.
“You’re drunk buddy,” Hizashi giggles, flicking his wet hands at Shota’s face, “But so am I.”
Shota laughs out loud, proof that he is in fact drunk and Hizashi laughs with him, clutching him by the shoulder and forcing him back out to the dining room.
“Time to remerge, Shochan. Can’t hide in the shitter forever!” Hizashi says loud enough for the group to hear as they approach the table.
Clumsily, they collapse into their seats next to each other. Hizashi ordered another pitcher while he was gone and had already filled his own glass. Shota studies the rest of the group, all good and drunk by now aside from All Might, before deciding if it’s safe to pour another drink.
“Hereee Aizawa, I made this for you already!” Kayama slides a sticky glass of brown liquid in front of him. Feeling drunk and somewhat sociable now, he considers the putrid cocktail. Globs of oil float at the top and when he lifts the cup up to the light, he can make out suspicious granules sunken at the bottom of the glass.
“Drink that and you’ll be retiring early!” Hizashi says and, being the better half of his hazy brain, rescues him by placing a frosty mug to his lips.
“I’ll take that off yerr handsh Erasher,” Thirteen slurs, reaching across the table for Kayama’s mystery concoction. The space hero splits the drink so that the oily half pours into one glass and the dirt half stays in the original. They pass one half to Kayama and after a quick cheers to nothing in particular, the two of them knock it back like a shot. Neither one of them so much as gags. Disgusting.
Hizashi pulls the mug away from Shota’s mouth, but only to take a swig from it himself. Shota can feel All Might’s curious eyes on both of them, and the mechanical murmur of Snipe whispering something in his ear. Shota narrows his eyes at them as he wipes the beer off from his lip.
“Soooo, how about the students this year, guys? Who do you think is gonna couple up with who?” Kayama sighs, resting her chin in both palms.
Shota glares at her. “You shouldn’t gossip about the kids. It’s inappropriate.”
“Awww Shota Aizawa’s Grumpy Gus routine, here we go!” Hizashi teases, “Loosen up a little, pal!” Making his point, the blond refills Shota’s glass.
“I kinda agree with Aizawa.” All Might mutters, earning a satisfactory nod from Shota and a harmonious ‘boo’ from everyone else.
“Oh, puh-lease , we spend every waking minute watching over those kids. Hell, it’s like reality TV if you ask me!” Kayama snarks, and then sighs dreamily, “I say Kyoka Jiro and Denji Kaminari have a fun dynamic!”
Hizashi bobs his head in agreement. “Ooh, I like those two! They got good music taste and toootally took after me with their hero costumes!”
Snipe scoffs, “You are so full of yourself!”
Shota glares at the gun hero. The kids’ costumes definitely resemble an earlier version of Hizashi’s.
“With all that the students have been through this year, and the curriculum only getting harder, they don’t have time to date. Not like when we were kids, anyway,” Shota notes, then almost regrets it, worried he’s put a damper on the lighthearted mood.
Thankfully Kayama steers the conversation into a lighter direction, at his expense of course. “Like when you were a kid? Please! When was your first kiss? Your twenties?”
Shota scowls, “I was sixteen.”
Hizashi tenses up beside him.
Fuck. Why did he say that? Why did he take the bait? Maybe the alcohol has Shota more loose-lipped than he thought.
Kayama’s face contorts into something sinful. To Shota she looks like a snake. He braces himself for the next inevitable question.
“Oh yeah? With who?”
His own pulse floods against his eardrums and he stares into his beer, as if it’ll lie for him, or come up with a witty diversion. He had never spoken about his first kiss with anyone since that day.
Hizashi nudges him and they lock eyes, a moment of unspoken permission passing between them.
Hizashi shrugs. “Me.”
Shota stops breathing.
Kayama giggles briefly, and then registers the weight of what was just said. “Wait, really? Oh shit…”
The room stills and Shota takes a long sip of his beer, eyes unfocused straight ahead.
Kayama, suddenly much more sober now, darts her eyes back and forth between the two men. “C-can we maybe get a reenactment?” She laughs but it feels forced.
No one else says anything. All Might coughs. Hizashi sucks in through his teeth, loud enough to cut through the thick atmosphere. He waves off their shocked expressions, though his own face is about as red as the daruma doll behind him.
“Gah! Don’t act so surprised, you guys. We were young. Neither of us had kissed anyone up until then and we just wanted to try it. It was a one time thing! No big deal.”
Shota doesn’t look at him. ‘A one time thing’ is an understatement. Yes they kissed. Once, then twice. Then three or four or ten more times after that. Maybe twenty.
They were in Hizashi’s bedroom during their second year at UA. It had been Hizashi’s idea officially, though Shota had imagined it for months prior. What had started as an experimental peck on the lips quickly turned into a continuous clashing of mouth and tongue that seemingly went on for hours. They kissed like they knew it would be their last. Like they knew that after they went to sleep that night, neither of them would dare to bring it up again the next day.
And they didn’t. They never spoke about it again. They went about their friendship as they always had, though it was clear that the kiss had created a pit between them. This thick void of curiosity and shame that they both danced around for months afterward.
But the years went by, and their friendship had flourished so abundantly around that void that it had nearly been forgotten about. It never needed to be discussed again because they had so much more behind them now. So much more between them. After a decade and a half of friendship, that pit became insignificant.
The air seems to move again, if only a little. Kayama breaks it up further, “I mean, I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t experimented when I was young too.”
Snipe speaks cautiously, “Um…I think we were all kind of curious about… the nature of your guys’ relationship honestly.”
Thirteen hums around their cup, an easy smile playing across their lips, “I guesh we know nowww.”
Hizashi laughs now, though still tense, “Nah, Aizawa and I are just friends. Always have been, right buddy?”
Shota drags his gaze over to him, lips still glued to the rim of his empty beer mug. He feels nauseous, and his cheeks are still hot. “I wanna go home.”
Kayama and All Might protest kindly, probably trying to glaze over any remaining awkwardness on the table but Shota is already standing, wobbly on his feet.
Hizashi gets up to steady him. Then pulls out a wad of cash from his wallet and drops it on the table to cover their drinks and a generous tip.
“Well guys, I did promise Power-Saver that we’d hop outta here whenever he wanted so we’ll see you ‘round, I guess.”
Kayama shoots them both an apologetic look as Hizashi slings his jacket back on and hooks an arm over Shota’s shoulders, guiding them out. Shota doesn’t know if the contact makes him feel better or worse.
The two walk in silence for a while, the bar now long behind them. It’s late, close to midnight and the only sounds between them are their footsteps, the wind, and the gentle buzz of power lines above them. Hizashi slows down as they approach a small convenience store.
“I’m gonna get a pack of smokes and another case of beer,” he says, “You comin in?”
Shota considers. But the cool wind feels good on his face, sobering him and calming his nerves. Before he can answer, the door is already jingling shut behind Hizashi.
Shota leans against the concrete wall outside of the convenience store. He listens to the whir of the building’s heat system and the buzz of the neon sign above him. Being outside, with the bar far behind him, makes his shame feel smaller. He’s glad that Hizashi left with him, though he doubts that the blond would want to stay anyway after the bomb they just dropped.
The door jingles again and Hizashi approaches with a brown bag and a pack of cigs. Wordlessly, he hands the bag to Shota and smacks the pack of cigarettes against his palm, loosening them up. He pulls one out and places it to his lips, blocking the wind with one hand and lighting it with the other.
Shota doesn’t like that Hizashi smokes, even if it’s only after he drinks. Hizashi drinks a lot these days. But still, backlit by the neon sign and illuminated by the warm glow of the match, he can’t help but think that Hizashi looks incredibly cool. He waves the match out and takes a long drag from the cig, pulling it away from his lips with a light pop.
Hizashi holds the smoke in his lungs, then exhales a large, bitter cloud and passes the cigarette to Shota. Shota doesn’t smoke, but he takes it anyway. He tries to mimic Hizashi’s habitual movement, holding it in extra long until the urge to cough goes away before breathing it out. He passes it back to Hizashi, who finally smiles.
Another beat of silence passes between them. Then Hizashi asks, “Should I have lied?”
Shota thinks before he responds, glancing down at his shoes and then back out at the road. “No.” He motions for the cigarette, unsure if it’s the smoke he craves or the act of sharing that makes him take another hit. “Not like it didn’t happen.”
Hizashi nods without looking at him. Shota passes the cigarette back, then starts walking in the direction of home. Hizashi keeps pace right beside him.
The two get back to Shota’s apartment a short while later. To Shota’s surprise, Hizashi follows him inside. Really, after how quiet he'd been on the way home, Shota expected him to go straight to his own apartment down the hall. Hizashi toes his shoes off at the door and Shota sets the new six pack on the coffee table.
Shota knows he shouldn’t keep drinking, but he’s not sure what else to do now. Hizashi turns the TV on but keeps the volume down low, taking a seat next to him on the couch. Shota sips his drink and Hizashi watches, his own bottle still unopened.
Hizashi fumbles around with the cap, pressing little grooves into the pad of his thumb. Shota can feel Hizashi's words in his own chest before he even speaks them out loud.
“I’m sorry we never talked about it.”
Shota picks at the label of his bottle. “Mhm.”
Hizashi sets his own unopened beer down on the table and turns his body towards him. His weight pulls Shota closer to him on the couch so that their arms are touching.
Hizashi fixes his gaze on the bottle in Shota’s hands, then carefully asks, “What would you have said if we did talk about it?”
Shota’s face warms. And somewhere deep in his gut, a quiet and forgotten hurt creeps its way up his throat and stings in the back of his eyes. He sips his beer and swallows, waiting for the lump in his throat to wash down with it before answering.
“I would’ve said that I wanted to do it again.”
For the first time since they left the bar, Hizashi looks him in the eye. Silence stretches for minutes between them, a quiet yearning for the possibility that never got a chance to be explored. Shota feels the pull in his chest, the ache, the curiosity. He knows that if he leans in, Hizashi will too. The energy between them is palpable enough to make his hair stand up.
Hizashi’s eyes flicker to his lips and it only makes the ache worse. Another beat passes by and Shota realizes that his lungs are completely empty. Finally, Hizashi breathes for both of them, a long, painful, shuddering breath before plucking the bottle from Shota’s hands.
Hizashi brings the bottle to his lips, and Shota swears that he can see his tongue graze the edge of the rim, tasting him before tipping his head back and finishing what’s left inside.
Shota almost whines just watching him drink, completely turned on and absolutely pissed off by the energy between them. Hastily, he snatches the second beer off the table and twists the cap off, chugging it twice as fast and half as gracefully as Hizashi did a moment ago.
He wipes his mouth off on his sleeve and picks up the TV remote, turning the volume up on whatever bullshit Hizashi put on earlier. They sit with their shoulders still touching, neither one of them moving or speaking until finally, Hizashi starts to giggle beside him.
Shota glares at him, and the second Hizashi makes eye contact his giggling picks up into full blown, uncontrollable laughter.
Shota tries to stay angry, to stay frustrated but soon enough the tension in him finally snaps and he starts laughing too. They laugh like they haven’t laughed in years, like they just heard the funniest joke anyone’s ever said in their entire lives on Earth. Then, still short of breath and wheezing, he remembers this joke that he’s living in now. This fucking joke that is his life and how it took fifteen years to finally make it to the punch line and he somehow laughs even harder, until there’s no more air in his lungs, and no more noise to escape his mouth.
Hizashi calms down first, still giggling between desperate gulps of air. There are tears streaming down his face and he wipes them away with the palm of his hand. Shota quiets down a minute later, feeling lighter than he ever remembers feeling and his face muscles burn from smiling. Hizashi takes an enormous heave of air and deflates into the couch completely, head lolled back and legs falling open until he’s knee to knee with Shota.
Shota copies him, and the touch of their knees yanks a few more giggles out of him before he finally settles into the cushions as well. He rolls his head to face Hizashi, who’s already looking at him with the biggest, laziest grin he’s ever seen. Perfect. His best friend looks so perfect and so spread open, fully taking up his place next to Shota.
He loves this man, in so many ways that can’t be defined, that he doesn’t care to ever define.
Hizashi claps a hand right above Shota’s knee and squeezes hard. Shota spreads himself out more so that his leg is fully pressed against Hizashi’s.
Hizashi’s mouth is still turned up into his lazy smile, but there is tension in his face, between his eyebrows and around his eyes. Shota understands. The want is not worth the risk. He loves him enough as is. And he knows that Hizashi knows this too, that he feels the same.
Hizashi sighs again with his whole body, “I gotta go home, buddy.” His voice is mixed with relief and sadness. But Shota knows he’s right because the want is still rampant.
Shota feels love and warmth throughout his entire body, and yet part of him is now exhausted and an even smaller part of him wants to cry.
“G’night, Hizashi.”
Hizashi gives Shota’s leg one last squeeze, then pushes himself to his feet, grabbing two more beers from the six pack he bought before plodding over to the door.
As soon as the door closes behind him, the tears finally fall. Shota doesn’t try to dry them. He knows he is still fortunate to have a love in his life that many people never get to have and he is so grateful for it. But tonight, he grieves a loss he hasn’t allowed himself to feel since he was sixteen.