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Nemuri kicked off her heels the second she stepped through the apartment door, the shoes clattering somewhere near the entryway. With a long sigh, she dropped beside Oboro on the couch, who was resting his eyes after a long night out.
“We need to talk about it,” she said, giving his thigh a soft squeeze.
Oboro didn’t even open his eyes. “Hmm? About what?”
“Do you think they’ll ever actually admit they’re in love with each other?”
That got one eye open. “Shouta and Hizashi?” Oboro snorted. “Absolutely not.”
Nemuri shook her head. “It’s ridiculous at this point.”
“I know, but they’ve been orbiting each other for years,” Oboro said. “If they haven’t said something by now, I don’t think they ever will.”
Nemuri hummed, eyes narrowing just slightly in thought. “What if…” she started slowly, lips curving into a devious smile as she reached for the laptop she had left on the coffee table, and curled one leg under herself, “we do something about it?”
Oboro turned his head toward her, eyebrows raised and already grinning. “Oh? What did you have in mind?”
The screen flickered to life and Oboro scooted closer as Nemuri logged into the rehabilitation program database she helped manage.
She scrolled through the files of the program’s graduates, former villains who had been successfully changed their ways and reintegrated into society.
“Mmm, so many quirks, so many options.” A few more scrolls…then her eyes lit up with mischief the moment one particular quirk came across her screen. “That one sounds fun.”
Oboro glanced down and laughed. “You’re evil.”
“I’m resourceful,” she corrected. Then she typed something into her phone and held it up to her ear as it started to ring.
“Those poor idiots,” Oboro wheezed.
“Oh, they’ll thank us later.”
The first thing Shouta noticed when he stepped into the Rooftop Solutions Agency office the following morning was the smell.
Not smoke or coffee or even disinfectant. No, it was something softer, something sweet with floral notes.
“Nemuri,” he sighed, mind already settled on the culprit before he could confirm it.
The smell wasn’t unpleasant, per se. But it permeated every inch of the office like someone had opened a flower shop in the ventilation system.
But, as if summoned by name alone, she appeared in office attire rather than her hero costume, holding a vintage glass perfume bottle with a delicate little pump, as she exited Mic’s office and closed the door shut behind her.
“Good morning,” she said with a little glimmer in her eyes.
“What are you doing?” Shouta asked, his voice flat with the exhausted patience of a man who didn’t want to deal with this right now.
“This place needs a feminine touch,” she replied as she continued to spritz perfume around the room.
“That’s not—” He cut himself off as she ignored him and waltzed right into his office next.
It was too early for Shouta to fight her on something she had already done to the entire floor. He figured he would open the window once she inevitably left for her own agency next door.
What he did not notice, thanks to Nemuri’s wardrobe of choice for that day, was the second bottle she had been hiding.
It was smaller with a faint pink shimmer in the liquid that looked like suspended glitter.
Glancing over her shoulder to make sure Shouta was still behind her, she switched the bottles with practiced ease, very careful not to inhale as she gave his office a few spritzes.
She quickly slipped the second bottle back into her jacket pocket the moment he walked in. Then, saying nothing, she closed the door behind her and waved wordlessly to Shouta through the glass panel.
He lifted one hand in response.
Finally alone, he inhaled. In the confined space of his office, the scent had settled and he could finally place it—vanilla and roses—but it was too concentrated, cloying even.
He stood and tugged open the window nearest to him, hoping to air out the smell as quickly as possible.
Cool air drifted in almost immediately, but unfortunately for him the damage had already been done.
“How’d it go?” Oboro asked eagerly, far too enthusiastic about meddling in his best friends’ lives.
Nemuri leaned against the wall between agencies, grinning.
“Shouta didn’t suspect a thing. I doubt Hizashi will either when he gets here.” She glanced around to make sure they weren’t being watched, then reached for the smaller bottle, handing it directly to Oboro. “It just takes one inhale to work, but I’m leaving you this in case you need a little extra. Call me the moment something interesting starts to happen.”
Oboro grinned at her. “You got it.”
As luck would have it, Oboro almost missed the first sign the quirk mist was working.
He had just gone to grab a snack from the break room when he turned the corner and heard the crash.
Ceramic hitting tile and liquid splashing everywhere.
Rushing back into his office, Oboro fumbled for his phone as quickly as he could, calling Nemuri and holding the camera up so she could watch in real time.
Shouta stood in the middle of the room, frozen. At his feet lay the shattered remains of his coffee mug and directly in front of him, Hizashi…covered in coffee.
The first sign that this was the quirk’s doing and not Shouta’s genuine fault was that Shouta Aizawa was not clumsy. Far from it, he was highly attuned to his surroundings, an inherent byproduct of patrolling as an underground hero and mastering the capture weapon.
Nemuri answered on the first ring and Oboro whispered, “I think it’s working.”
Another sign was the fact that Shouta did not notice Oboro watching, his hand clasped over his own mouth, desperately training not to laugh.
Instead, he was dealing with the aftermath of the coffee spill.
“Uh, sorry about that,” Shouta said with unusual awkwardness. “I don’t know how that happened…I should’ve been more careful.”
“Don’t worry about it! Happens to the best of us.” Then, without any hesitation, Hizashi peeled off his leather jacket.
Followed by his coffee-stained shirt.
Then his coffee-stained pants.
“Uh,” Shouta said from the floor, where he was picking up the pieces of broken ceramic, “What are you doing?”
Hizashi glanced down at himself, completely unfazed. “There’s coffee on it.”
“So you’re taking it all off?”
“Yeah?”
Shouta rubbed the back of his neck. “That feels like a page out of Oboro’s book.”
From his office, Oboro made a strangled sound that he quickly hid with a cough.
Grinning far too widely, Nemuri said, absolutely delighted, “Oh, this is going beautifully.”
Hizashi, now only in his underpants, walked over to pour Shouta a new cup of coffee with complete nonchalance. Meanwhile, Shouta was doing everything he could to look anywhere except directly at Hizashi.
There was something else in the air now, something charged.
But Shouta grabbed the new cup of coffee with a quick, “Thanks” and retreated back into his office…which meant no confession of love.
Oboro sighed and muttered into the phone. “Alright. Looks like we need another dose.”
The rest of the day was fairly uneventful.
Until the train ride back.
The four friends stood packed into the same train cabin, swaying gently with the rhythm of the tracks, when a sudden jolt threw everyone off-balance.
Oboro reacted first, catching himself on one of the overhead bars with practiced ease. Beside him, Nemuri steadied herself just as quickly, one heel skidding slightly against the floor before she regained her balance.
Caught off guard, Shouta stumbled backward and dropped into the nearest priority seat, the one a pregnant woman had vacated just one stop earlier.
And then there was Hizashi.
He had reached for a handhold, but missed entirely, leading him to stumble forward with enough momentum that he fell…right into Shouta’s lap.
The impact knocked the breath out of both of them and for one long, suspended second, both men said nothing.
Until Hizashi started laughing. “Wow. Sorry, Shouta. Guess we're both clumsy today.”
“Get up.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Hizashi said, not moving immediately.
Behind them, Oboro’s entire body shook with silent laughter and Nemuri slapped both hands over her mouth to keep from cackling out loud.
More and more bizarre things kept happening to Shouta and Hizashi as the days progressed.
There was the time they both ran into each other outside of usual work hours at the store, their hands touching as they both reached for the same cereal. Then again at a coffee shop a few blocks from their agency, their hands touching when they reached for the same coffee order. A third time when they reached for the same book in the library.
But then there was the time with the agency’s elevator.
The music had cut out mid-ride, lights flickering as the car jolted to a stop between floors.
Shouta sighed, “Of course” because it was the exact type of inconvenient thing that would happen to the two of them especially when they were about to leave work. He fished his phone out of his pocket. “I’ll call Oboro. We can get us out of here with his clouds.”
Oboro answered after a few rings. “Hey, Shouta. What’s up?”
“Hizashi and I are stuck in the elevator. How far away are you? Can you get us out?”
Oboro quickly muted the call for a couple of seconds, nearly vibrating with excitement as he hissed to Nemuri, “Holy shit. The quirk trapped them in an elevator.”
Nemuri let out a delighted gasp. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m not. They’re literally stuck together right now.”
Then Oboro cleared his throat, composing himself before unmuting. “Sorry, man,” he said, adding just the right amount of fake sympathy to his voice. “We’re already pretty far away.” They were, in fact, less than five minutes from the building. Even less if they hopped onto one of Oboro’s clouds and flew back. “Want me to call maintenance?”
Shouta groaned. “No, I’ll handle it.” Then he hung up, turned to Hizashi and said, “We’re on our own. I’ll get this thing running as soon as I can.”
“Aren’t we supposed to wait for actual maintenance people?” Hizashi protested as Shouta reached upwards and pushed open the maintenance hatch above them, causing dust to drift down from the ceiling tiles.
“Who knows how long that will take,” Shouta countered, before pulling himself up into the elevator shaft with the help of his capture weapon.
He was crouched above the immobilized elevator when Hizashi let out a little yelp.
Shouta sighed, wanting nothing more than to go home and take a nap. “What now?”
Slowly, dramatically, Hizashi lifted one finger and pointed toward the corner of the elevator where a spider sat motionless against the wall.
Hizashi paled behind his sunglasses. “Shouta,” he semi-whispered. “There’s a spider.”
Shouta lowered his head, glancing over to the spider in question.
Tiny. Harmless. Possibly already dead. “Okay? It’s just sitting there.”
“But what if it stops sitting there?”
“Then you squash it.”
Hizashi recoiled at the suggestion. “I don’t want to go anywhere near it.”
Shouta pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t have time for this. I’ll go reset the brake manually. Stay put.”
A horrified look crossed Hizashi’s face. “You’re not going to leave me here alone, are you? With that thing?” He jutted his finger towards the spider that, notably, had still not moved. “What if it comes closer?”
“It won’t.”
“But what if it does?”
Shouta stared at Hizashi for a long moment then said, “Fine. Then climb out.” He lowered some of the capture weapon back into the elevator like a rope. “Pull yourself up.”
Hizashi eyed the fabric-like material over his sunglasses. “You know I don’t have as much upper body strength as you.”
Shouta stared at him from where he was crouched inside the elevator shaft. “What are you saying?”
“You know what I’m saying.”
Shouta’s eyes narrowed immediately. “No, I want to hear you say it.”
Hizashi crossed his arms stubbornly. “If I try to pull myself up there with my noodle arms, I’m going to fall, break my neck, and you’ll have to explain to everyone that Present Mic died because of a spider.”
Shouta closed his eyes and muttered some curses under his breath before climbing back down into the elevator.
Hizashi brightened. “You’re the best, Sho.”
“Don’t call me that.” The elevator dipped slightly as Shouta landed back inside. He shook his head one more time then turned around and crouched slightly. “Get on.”
Meanwhile, having taken the stairs, Oboro and Nemuri were back inside the agency, cackling, wheezing, and wiping away tears while they watched and listened to everything unfold from the security cameras above.
“We’re enjoying this too much,” Oboro said, clutching at his stomach.
“Oh, absolutely,” Nemuri agreed.
They watched as Shouta hooked an arm beneath Hizashi’s knees and complained, “You’re heavier than you look.”
“Hey,” Hizashi protested. “I am not.”
“You’re literally all hair and leather,” Shouta continued, adjusting his grip slightly and added with a small groan, “It doesn’t make sense.”
He fired his capture weapon upward again and with one powerful pull, he hauled both of them upward.
But then, Hizashi made the catastrophic mistake of glancing back downwards just in time to notice that the spider had started descending down along a string of web.
“IT’S MOVING!”
“What are you—”
In his panic, Hizashi scrambled to get a better grip of Shouta, throwing his friend off balance, tipping him sideways…
And causing both of them to crash back down into the center of the elevator car, now a tangled mess of limbs, capture weapon, and hair.
Hizashi was quiet for a long moment and, beneath him, Shouta grumbled, “I should’ve left you with the spider.”
When Shouta and Hizashi finally made it out of the elevator shaft, they were met with the sight of Oboro and Nemuri cackling in Oboro’s office.
That’s when all the bizarre moments and strange interactions (including Nemuri's insistence on spraying their individual offices with that too-sweet perfume) finally made sense to Shouta and, eyes flashing red, he burst into the room and asked with an edge of anger and accusation.“What did you do?”
“What needed to be done,” Nemuri exhaled, wiping away a tear and finally starting to calm down. “It’s obvious you two idiots are in love with each other! We just decided to give you a little push.”
Shouta bristled, face growing red. “We’re not—I’m not—”
Now it was Oboro’s turn. “Is that why you constantly stare at Hizashi when you think no one is looking?”
“I don’t do that,” Shouta said, suddenly avoiding eye contact.
“And you! Hizashi!” Oboro pointed right at his other friend. “You literally admitted it to me and Nemuri last week when the three of us went drinking and Shouta decided to stay home! It's the reason we finally decided to intervene!”
Hizashi paled a little. “What exactly did I admit?”
Nemuri sighed, lifted her phone, and started to play a video. In it, Hizashi was so very drunk, so much that he didn’t notice or seem to care about the phone right in his face. Instead, drunk Hizashi was focused on rambling endlessly about how handsome Shouta was, how he just got more handsome with time, how there was no one else he wanted to be with, and how Shouta was his favorite person in the entire world, no offense to Oboro and Nemuri.
From behind the screen, a tipsy Nemuri had just laughed and replied with, “None taken.”
Mercifully, Nemuri pressed pause and lowered the phone, but current Hizashi was already cringing.
He stood to leave, his normally enthusiastic voice now serious and dull. "It's getting late."
A beat of silence, then...
“You’re my favorite person, too.”
Hizashi whipped back around. “What?”
Shouta groaned, still avoiding eye contact and said, “Everything you said in the video…same.”
“Same?” Hizashi echoed.
“Yeah,” Shouta said awkwardly, his usual stoic demeanor crumbling and his face now completely red.
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Nemuri cooed, but Shouta rolled his eyes.
In one swift motion, he wrapped Nemuri and Oboro with his capture weapon. “You two. Out.”
And just like that, he shoved both of them out of Oboro’s office, closing the door behind him and leaving only himself and Hizashi to finally speak openly, just the two of them.
Oboro pouted, pressing his ear against the door. “But I want to hear!”
A minute or so passed and when the door opened back up again, Shouta and Hizashi exited, holding hands.
Both Nemuri and Oboro lit up.
“Are you finally together?” Nemuri asked.
“None of your business,” Shouta replied.
But, behind him, Hizashi held a thumbs up paired with a wide triumphant grin, and quietly mouthed, “Thank you.”
Oboro and Nemuri watched them leave.
Then the moment the stairwell door swung shut behind Shouta and Hizashi, Nemuri turned to Oboro wearing her own triumphant grin.
“See?” she said with a smug little wink as she nudged his shoulder. “I told you they’d thank us.”