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It’s just the two of them tonight in Aizawa’s apartment because neither of them like crowds, but they both needed a night just doing this.
Hitoshi brought food because Aizawa never bothers to go grocery shopping, and the last thing Hitoshi needs is to be around him with a few drinks and nothing but olives in his stomach. Who knows what he might slip up and say.
He sits on his sofa with Aizawa’s cat, Sneaky, asleep by his thigh, stretched along the length of the cushion as far as she can reach. She doesn’t sleep on his lap often, but she likes the warmth of his side and he likes to brush his fingers through her calico fur.
Aizawa walks in from the kitchen with a fresh beer in hand. He’s usually a sake or whiskey kind of guy, depending on what kind of day he’s had, but this must mean he’s in a particularly good mood. Or it just tastes better with karaage, and Hitoshi would have to agree.
It weirdly feels like they’re just two guys hanging out on a Saturday night in the way he usually doesn’t get involved with. He wonders if Aizawa is going to put on a game, and if so, will Hitoshi have to pay attention to avoid killing the vibes since there’s no one else here to take the attention away from him—like there usually is in these situations with other people who aren’t Aizawa. Maybe he could blend in anyway. Fake it until you make it?
“Do you like sports?” Hitoshi asks.
Aizawa raises an eyebrow before taking a sip of his beer. “Do I look like I like sports?”
“No,” he says with a slight smile. “I don’t know, maybe. Some of them.”
Aizawa hums and sits next to him. “Some of them.”
“You probably like soccer enough, but I think you probably like the Olympics more. I mean, they have soccer there too, but I meant the other stuff.”
“And why is that?”
“Individual athleticism, acrobatics, showcasing of personal skills, you know,” he says. “Stuff like that.”
“And what stuff like that do you like?”
“Ice skating,” he says, and Aizawa gives him an amused look. “What?”
“Why ice skating?”
Hitoshi looks off and takes a sip of his drink. “I don’t know.”
Aizawa hums, his silent you’re going to tell me anyway. You can’t keep secrets from me, so don’t bother wasting your time, and just spit it out.
“I mean, I don’t know,” he concedes. “You kind of drilled the whole being light on your feet thing into my head, and I think jumping around on those little blades on ice is probably as nimble as someone can get. They move just like you do, and I don’t know, I don’t get bored watching it.”
“Should I have added ice skating to your training?”
“Maybe,” Hitoshi says. “Maybe I’ll need to learn how to skate to defeat a villain, and now I’m screwed because you didn’t teach me.”
“Try not to let that gap in your education be a problem.”
“Maybe it won’t be,” Hitoshi says, and Aizawa raises an eyebrow. “You did teach me to improvise.”
Aizawa’s mouth twitches in amusement, and his eye flickers over Hitoshi’s face just enough that Hitoshi’s heart jumps. Sneaky purrs.
He then reaches for the remote, and Hitoshi watches as he pulls up a search on his television for ice skating that could either be a recording or could be live, Hitoshi doesn’t know.
“Since you seem adamant,” Aizawa says.
“Oh,” Hitoshi says with a laugh. “No, I mean, yeah, this is great, but I was just thinking.”
He raises his eyebrow again, and Hitoshi blanches.
Fuck.
“You’re going to think it’s stupid,” he says.
“Probably.”
“I was just thinking about how this feels like, I don’t know, being one of the guys. Drinking beer, watching the game, eating takeout. It’s novel, I guess.”
“Interesting,” Aizawa says.
“I don’t really do that. I mean, it’s loud, and leaving is awkward, and I can’t just sit and watch a game for an hour and pretend to care about which team is running in which direction, and half the time my quirk turns into a party trick by the end of it anyway.”
Aizawa makes a surprised face at that. “You say no, don’t you?”
“Sometimes,” he admits. “It depends.”
“On what?”
“Who it is, how drunk everyone is, what I think could happen, and if it’s safe and not gonna blow up in my face later,” Hitoshi says, and Aizawa watches him quietly, waiting for him to elaborate. “Okay, so, Kaminari thinks it’s hilarious when I make him do stuff, so I usually just tell him to do a handstand or something like that, and Midoriya is big on trying to break out of his own head if he gets one too many in him and wants to train, and then Bakugou is so competitive that if he sees Midoriya doing it, he has to do it too, and then if Bakugou goes under, Kirishima doesn’t want to be left out, and, well, it’s harmless, I guess. They all trust me, and they get a good laugh out of seeing their friends do weird shit, and no one gets hurt.”
“And the no’s?”
“No strangers. No bad vibes. No people who don’t know I’m not a bad guy. I don’t wanna give someone a reason not to trust me when they might be looking for one, you know?”
Aizawa nods and takes another sip of his beer.
“What?”
“You’ve learned well.”
Hitoshi’s mouth tugs into a smile as he just told him he’s proud of him. “I had a good teacher.”
“Who you now drink beer and watch the game with like one of the guys.”
“Well, no,” he says. “I mean, it was just kind of fun to think about for a second. It doesn’t really feel like that.”
“What does it feel like then?”
“I don’t know,” he says honestly. Hopefully. Stupidly. Does it feel like he’s having dinner with his teacher? No. It hasn’t for a long time. “Just something else, I guess.”
Hitoshi moves to take another drink, but he finds that he’s out already. He says a silent apology to the cat.
He gives her a careful transactional pet before he stands up and walks to the kitchen to grab another beer. He opens it and swallows several thick gulps that almost don’t want to go down from the combination of the cold and foam, but he manages from pure determination alone.
He wipes his mouth on the back of his hands, his eyes bulging slightly as he restrains himself from giving himself a good kick. Why is he being such a loser tonight? They hang out all the time, and it’s never weird like this, and yet he’s as jittery as he was the first time he did his homework on Aizawa’s couch at UA because the Class 1 dorms were a shockwave on his nerves.
They were not this close then. Hitoshi admired him so much, but Aizawa kept a professional distance between them that completely evaporated when a newly graduated Hitoshi came to him with a case file as thick as his arm on a smuggling ring Aizawa busted open ten years ago.
So why is he acting weird now? Do you like sports, sensei? Jesus.
He takes another gulp of beer, and that’s when his eyes catch the pile of unwashed dishes left for future Aizawa to deal with in his sink. It’s mostly just old coffee cups, utensils, and a few containers from eating leftovers. Hitoshi happens to know he hates cooking, but UA is good about keeping him fed and Hitoshi brings stuff by every time he comes over, which is usually a few times a week, depending on his schedule.
He sets his beer down on the counter and moves to the sink. It won’t take long to wash them, and then Aizawa won’t have to do them when he realizes he went through all of his coffee cups again. He takes extra care of the one with Sneaky’s paw prints stamped on, and he wonders with a small smile how many mugs they could have printed before she finally got irritated enough to move.
“What are you doing?” Aizawa says as he walks in behind him.
Hitoshi laughs. “I don’t know. I just needed something to do with my hands, I guess.”
“Should I have left some of Sneaky’s toys out for you to play with?”
“No thanks, sensei,” he says with a smile.
Aizawa moves beside him and bumps him out of the way. “Don’t clean my house.”
Hitoshi flushes. “Sorry.”
Aizawa nods wordlessly to a cloth hanging from the side of the cabinet, and Hitoshi grabs it and starts drying off what he washed before he puts them away in their designated spots.
“I’m surprised you know where they go,” he says.
“Why? I’ve been here before,” Hitoshi says.
“That many times?”
A couple of times a week for the last four years, but who’s counting?
“Maybe I’m just good at picking up details,” Hitoshi says casually.
“Oh, you think so, do you,” he says, and it’s not much of a question.
Hitoshi pauses. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing,” he says. “There’s a box of chocolates on the table. I can’t eat them all myself.”
Hitoshi manages a smile as he walks over to the box, the kind of box of chocolates people give each other for certain holidays as a certain type of gesture. “Got a secret admirer?”
“Something like that,” he says.
“Is it okay for me to eat these? They might get mad.”
“If you don’t eat them, I’m throwing them in the trash.”
Hitoshi quietly pulls the lid off and reveals an untouched grid of his favorite caramel filled chocolates, given away by a thin golden trail smooshed out from the box being gripped in the wrong way. His mouth waters, betraying him.
He picks up the broken one and bites into it, and there’s a bitterness there he’s never noticed before. Maybe it’s just not mixing well with the taste of beer still on his tongue, or maybe he just doesn’t like chocolate anymore.
Someone likes Aizawa. They gave him chocolates, and he accepted them.
He eats another, chewing with a scowl that he knows is childish, but he can’t seem to help himself.
Aizawa walks to the table, but instead of picking one of the chocolates for himself, he raises his eyebrow and plucks away a string of caramel off of Hitoshi’s lip, scrapes it off his finger with his teeth, and wanders back towards the living room without a word.
“Are you still watching this?”
“N-no,” Hitoshi stutters.
He licks his mouth to make sure he doesn’t have anymore candy on it before he quickly closes the box. He turns to follow him, but then he remembers his beer and goes back to get it. He wipes the condensation away with his sleeve and then walks into the living room.
All of the lights are off except for the glow from the television, and Hitoshi stops in the doorway, surprised.
“Going to bed, sensei?” Hitoshi says with a laugh.
“Really,” Aizawa says, and that’s fair. It’s an awful joke. If either of them could sleep at night, they probably wouldn’t be here. “I don’t do Saturday nights with the guys. You’re going to have to settle for something else when you’re here.”
“I don’t know if I would call this settling since I like it more,” he says, grateful there’s no way he can see the sudden warmth in his cheeks for saying that out loud. “But what did you have in mind?”
Aizawa nods towards two boxes on the table. Hitoshi picks them up and looks at the covers. It’s dark, but he’s used to worse conditions with higher stakes, so reading the titles isn’t much of a problem.
The first is a retro rerelease of Battletoads Double Dragon, and the other is a copy of Scream. He smiles to himself, amused at his former teacher’s taste—or at least the fraction of it he thinks Hitoshi would share.
He holds up the game with a silent question, but Aizawa only shrugs indifferently.
“You any good?”
“No,” Aizawa says.
Liar. He ends up carrying Hitoshi through the whole first fight while Hitoshi hangs off the side of the ship kicking off bad guys because he can’t get a hang of the controls. Sure it’s just kicking and punching, but that’s not the point.
It’s a little ridiculous, but the soundtrack is great, and the bosses have those gritty big and bad vibes that Hitoshi used to feel about villains when he was a kid. Sneaky wanders off to Aizawa’s bedroom, uninterested in the sudden burst of noise.
They have so much in common, and it has nothing to do with their sleep schedules or their careers. Hitoshi can spend hours here folded up on Aizawa’s sofa with his cat, and he never feels overwhelmed or out of place. And although it may seem strange to other people since Aizawa used to be his teacher, they feel… the same.
He’s older, sure, and Hitoshi likes to give him hell for the way his joints sometimes crackle when he moves the wrong way, but other than that, they’re so similar he barely notices it anymore. He just enjoys being his friend like he would anyone else.
No, not anyone else, and the word friend hangs uncomfortably like a hair down the back of his throat. Hitoshi has been nursing a crush on him since he was sixteen years old, and it’s only gotten worse since they started spending so much time together these last few years. Heart wrenchingly worse.
He’s dated, sure, and he’s made a real effort to move on because never in his wildest dreams would Aizawa ever look at him that way, but like this, playing with him, just being together, it’s hard to ignore just how happy he is. Teenage him would have a stroke.
Actually, teenage him, who used to linger when he finished his homework because he didn’t want to leave yet, would fit right in.
They play for hours. Hitoshi doesn’t check the time because he really doesn’t want to know how late it is, but the curtains look slightly brighter from behind as if the dawn light is just beginning to peek through. It won’t be their first through Sunday weekend together, but he hopes this isn’t just him lingering again too.
Sixteen years old and not wanting to go back to his dorm because he enjoys spending time with Aizawa, who doesn’t complain about him being around, not even as a joke. Twenty two, and it’s the same, but it’s different, and better, and he likes it so much he wonders if he’s holding onto it too hard.
And then they both die.
Hitoshi blinks at the screen as hours of powering through just disappears like it was nothing, and Aizawa chuffs a laugh next to him. “Well fuck.”
“Sounds about right,” he says. He sets his controller down on the table and does a full body stretch and yawn back against the couch with an amused curve to his lips.
“I think that took a week off of my life.”
“You did alright,” he says. “For your first time.”
Hitoshi’s mouth quirks into a smile, and he stands up, moving for the empty cans on the table to get rid of them. Don’t clean my apartment, Aizawa’s voice echoes in the back of his mind. His smile widens just a little. He’ll just have to get over it.
He comes back a few minutes later and sits back down, and Aizawa mutes the sound on the television before he turns and lies down on the couch behind him. Hitoshi blinks, unsure of what he should do, and his entire body goes stiff. Is he supposed to leave now? Should he get up and sit on the floor? Some instructions would be nice, delivered gruffly and clearly as Aizawa is known to do.
And those instructions come in the form of Aizawa grabbing Hitoshi by his shirt and pulling him towards him until the two of them are both stretched along the couch face to face.
It’s amazing they can both fit, but of course Aizawa buys furniture for comfort, not style. He probably uses this as a bed most of the time when he’s up all night grading papers.
“It’s late,” he says.
“Early,” Hitoshi says, assuming it’s already morning. Aizawa hums in agreement. “I should probably get going, huh.”
“If you want to,” he says, not a yes or a no. He always lets Hitoshi decide when and if they meet and for how long and why. He never pushes or pulls, but he somehow never goes in the wrong direction or makes Hitoshi feel like whatever he wants is wrong or unwanted.
Truthfully, Hitoshi never felt more like himself and good in his own skin as he does when he’s with Aizawa, and it’s always been this way. He’s probably the best thing to ever happen to him in the long run, and putting words to that is a little terrifying.
“This couch is better than my bed,” he says instead, taking the edge off from the inside.
“You should’ve tossed that piece of shit out years ago.”
“It was on sale,” he says.
“You still got scammed.”
“Oh okay, sensei, the next time I buy a bed, I’ll be sure to get your approval first,” he says, and then he sees Aizawa’s face shift, even in the low light. “What?”
“Sensei,” he says. “I haven’t been your teacher in a long time, Shinsou.”
“I know that,” he says. “It’s just a habit, I guess.”
“You can drop it if you want to,” he says. “Unless you still see me as your teacher.”
“I only do when you try to teach me things,” Hitoshi says.
“It’s just a habit, I guess,” Aizawa says, and Hitoshi smiles slightly at that.
“I guess if you want me to call you Eraserhead that much, I can, but that feels a little hero worshippy to me.”
“I do not want you to call me Eraserhead,” he says. “Ever.”
Hitoshi grins. “Even on the job?”
“Especially on the job,” he says. “Don’t even think about it.”
“That’s probably not going to bite either of us in the ass one day,” he says.
“We’ll get over it,” Aizawa says. “I know as surprising as this must be for you, I do have a name.”
“I know, but–,” he starts before he says something stupid like that it’s weird for him to just start using it all of the sudden. But maybe hearing Hitoshi call him sensei feels weird for him now too. “Aiza…wa?”
Aizawa’s eyebrows raise. “Are you guessing?”
“No, I’m just not used to saying it,” he says. “Aizawa, Aizawa, Aizawa.”
“Are you practicing?”
“A little bit,” Hitoshi says.
“Maybe you should go back to using sensei,” he says, and Hitoshi grimaces at his own defeat. “Try Shouta.”
“Your given name?” Hitoshi says with a flush.
“Mhm.”
Now this really is too much. If Aizawa expects him to look him in the eye and call him Shouta without flushing miserably or looking like the most disrespectful asshole in the world, he’s got another thing coming.
“It’s not a curse,” Aizawa says.
“I know, but–,” he says before gathering his resolve. “Fine, yeah, you’re right. I can call you by your name if you want me to, it’s fine. It’s easy. Shouta.”
He hums his approval.
“Shouta,” he says again, his heart rate rising from the unexpected thrill of using his name.
Aizawa nods. “Better.”
“Shouta,” Hitoshi says, suddenly out of breath, and just like the culmination of the pressure building rapidly in his chest, Aizawa, of all the people in the world, kisses him like it was the magic word to get him to.
Shouta.
Shouta.
Shouta.
Leaping off of buildings never makes his heart race like this. It takes barely a moment for Hitoshi’s brain to catch up with the surge against his lips, and he’s just as surprised as he is eager to return it.
Rough stubble brushes against him as their heads angle to move closer, and the cool touch of Aizawa’s prosthetic brushes against his ankle.
He lets himself run his fingers through Aizawa’s long black hair, now streaked with gray, just to throw both teenage and adult Hitoshi a little bone. It feels just as good as he imagined it would.
Aizawa’s hand is firm on his lower back, keeping him from rolling off the couch, and as he pulls him closer so he doesn’t, the two of them shift, putting Hitoshi practically on top of him.
Hitoshi braces himself on the couch as the two of them kiss like teenagers who don’t seem to care that the dorms aren’t private, but Aizawa’s apartment is. They’re completely alone with no risk of being stopped or disturbed.
Nerves twist in his stomach like it’s his first kiss, and maybe it’s because it’s the one he’s wanted the most for years.
Dinner, drinks, just the two of them, a game or a movie, ending the night on Aizawa’s couch, making out and not much else.
Oh.
That explains some things.
“I think I got the vibe wrong,” Hitoshi says.
“Mhm,” he hums against his mouth, parting it expertly with his lips.
Oh, he’s good at this.
He’s really good at this.
Hitoshi hums, feeling lighter than air as Aizawa’s hands move over his back. Neither of them get in a hurry, and it never turns frantic, but it’s so good, Hitoshi may never want to stop.
He freezes in place as four tiny knife-like paws jump onto his back, and he holds very still as a chubby, immovable Sneaky curls up into a ball between his shoulder blades.
“What is it,” Aizawa says with a frown.
“Sneaky,” Hitoshi says, and Aizawa cranes his neck to look over Hitoshi’s shoulder before breaking into the brightest smile that, frankly, Hitoshi didn’t know he could make. “I’m stuck.”
“Yes, you are.”
He groans and drops his head down on Aizawa’s shoulder, and Sneaky shifts her weight to keep from sliding off. She purrs loudly, and Aizawa chuckles beneath him next to Hitoshi’s ear like this is the most amused he’s ever been at Hitoshi’s expense.
Aizawa’s arm moves, and it takes a second for Hitoshi to realize that he’s petting the cat.
Hitoshi squeezes his eyes shut and wonders just how exactly did he get here, and what will it take to not get ejected out of it.
This is pretty nice.
He could use a hundred more Saturdays like this, and he will not be bringing in the guys.