Archive of Our Own

Hizashi grips his hair tight and does his best to contain his sobs. He knows if anyone in the house hears him that it would only spell trouble for him, especially because he's shut himself in the closet to hide. But what else can he do?

Where else can he go when it seems like the entire world is against him?

(“I - “ Hizashi choked on his words, unable to think of what to say. After a few moments, he finally gathers himself enough to croak out, “Y-you’re telling me that…I might fail out because of potential damage I could cause when I become a hero?”

“...If that’s how you want to look at it,” the school counselor allowed.)

He curls up tight against the boxes and shelves, shaking and trembling, and just does his best to hold himself. Of course he just has to be different. Of course people look at him and think that he couldn’t, shouldn’t. Hizashi wonders if it’s because he ruined his parents' hearing the moment he took his first breath; hurting people as soon as he’s born certainly must make him seem like a bad omen to others.

But he wants to help others. He wants to be a hero. Why can’t people see that?

Why can’t people let him be himself?

(“You’ll forget about wearing that girly shit, Yamada,” his foster father growled lowly at him. “You are a man. Do you understand me?”

“I - “

“Do you understand me?”)

He’s still trying to figure himself out. He doesn’t know if his interest in make-up and skirts are a gender thing, but that’s not… That’s not a bad thing. Right? There shouldn’t be anything wrong with discovering himself - herself - themselves. Whoever he might be. …Right?

Hizashi bites down hard on his own wrist to stifle a whine, uncaring about the pain that lances up and down his arm because of it. Copper bursts on his own tongue, and distantly he thinks that it’s just one more bleeding wound he has.

Though this one is on the outside instead of on his heart.

(“Shouta, I was, uh, thinking,” Hizashi stammered out, smile on his face as he wrapped his hands around his backpack straps to keep them from shaking noticeably, “want to go to the arcade with me today?”

Shouta didn’t even look at him.

“I’m going to the training gym,” he said as he shoved his things in his own bag.

“You always go to the gym, though,” Hizashi argued, trying to keep a cheerful attitude. “Come on, a single day of fun won’t hurt! Besides, I just - I wanted to, um - “

Hizashi cut himself off when Shouta huffed, stood, and swung his bag over his shoulder. “I don’t want to go to the arcade. I’d rather train,” he said, voice final. Then he looked over at Hizashi, finally, and scowled. “And it wouldn’t hurt for you to get some training in yourself, you know.”)

He still remembers the burning embarrassment he’d felt when Shouta simply walked away, the humiliation as his classmates looked at him and whispered, pointing at him and all of them knowing exactly how pathetically his attempt to ask his friend out had gone. Not only had he been turned down before he could get the question out, told that Shouta would rather train than spend time with him (and doesn’t that burn, because hasn’t Shouta been doing that for a long while now), he’d been told that he should focus on his studies - just like his counselor had been telling him.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” Hizashi whispers into his wrist, wrecked and hoarse. “You’ve seen it over and over since - since Oboro - “

God, he misses his friend. Oboro would have kept their group together, unlike Hizashi’s failing attempts.

A sob bursts from his lips, full-bodied and from deep in his chest, and Hizashi hugs himself tight to try to contain it. Grief nearly overwhelms him as he cries, mixed with anxiety and shame and heartbreak and humiliation and too many other things to name that have been piling on top of him lately. He can feel tears dripping hot down his cheeks and to his chin, more and more leaking free from his eyes, and without conscious thought he’s trying to bury himself further into the closet to better hide himself.

It’s his attempts to do this that shake the shelf next to him, and the next thing Hizashi knows there’s something hard knocking down on his head then down onto his lap. He hisses in pain, flinching away from whatever had fallen. In the dim light of the small space he squints at it, vision blurry with tears.

It’s a book.

He sniffles, blinking a few times to clear his vision a bit, and makes out old, yellowed pages and aged ink. There’s hand-drawn images on the page that it’s fallen open to, and for a moment Hizashi wonders if he’s somehow come across one of his foster parents’ journals. He has the anxious thought to close it, to shove it back on the shelf and pretend he’s never seen it, but then the sliver of light coming in from the door jam catches the words at the top of the page.

Heart Cutting Spell

“What…?” Hizashi whispers to himself, looking at the book a little more closely. Spells? What sort of book has his foster family been keeping hidden away in here? He bends a little closer, pushing his glasses further up his nose to read the words on the page a little better.

“‘This spell is one that is used to remove a person’s Heart from their soul,’” he reads slowly, fingers following the words written. “‘To remove a Heart is to remove their emotions entirely, rendering them unable to feel anything. The person will become unable to feel happiness, affection, compassion, disappointment, sadness, fear, anger, pride, disgust, calm, empathy, ect. All emotions, all reactions based on emotions, will be gone.’”

…Gone?

“‘This spell is intended to be used as a last resort method for those that are considered to be lost causes, out of control, or at risk,’” Hizashi continues to read, heart thumping in his chest. “‘This is because the person becomes unable to react to outside stimuli in what is typically considered a normal way; however, due to their Heartless condition, they aren’t able to be hurt by actions or things that might harm those that have Hearts.

“‘A word of warning to those that are considering this spell: Truly only use it if desperate measures must be taken. To render one Heartless is to, essentially, remove a part of their soul. Only in the most extreme cases is this to be used as a punishment as some consider it a fate worse than death.’”

Hizashi stares at the page for a long while after that, contemplating the words he’s just read. There are still tears that drip down his cheeks, slower now, and occasionally a quiet hiccup will shudder his chest. Everything is quiet in the house; his foster parents don’t seem to have realized he’s hidden himself away just yet.

Eventually, his fingers trail over to the directions of the spell itself. It seems simple enough. Concentration. Reciting words. Pressing hands to the chest in question. He can certainly do that.

It doesn’t seem real, sure - who really believes in magic? But every day at school Hizashi sees someone who can breathe fire like a dragon, a girl who can walk through walls, a boy who has wings like an angel and shines just as bright.

Truly only consider it if desperate measures must be taken.

Aren’t his circumstances desperate? His dream is on the cusp of falling apart because of his own quirk. His guardians hate him and are constantly finding new ways to tear into him. The boy he has a crush on doesn’t seem to even want to spend time with him, and he’s still stuck grieving his friend who died a year ago. Everything keeps piling on and on and on, and Hizashi wonders if it’ll ever stop.

He’ll break under it all, be crushed under the weight, and chances are no one will even care.

The thought has him bowing over the book in his lap, sobs starting up anew. He can’t do that. He can’t handle the thought of it, of no one caring, not when it seems like he cares too much about everything. It rips at his heart, digging cold, burning claws in and leaving raw, aching wounds that he’s not sure will ever heal.

Eventually, he pulls himself up, gasping, and presses his hands to his chest. He can barely make out the words on the page through his tears, but he recites them with a shaking voice, putting aching, desperate intent behind every word.

It might not work, might not be real. But Hizashi would rather cut out his heart than keep feeling like this for a single moment more.

When light envelopes him and pain slams through his chest, his entire world turns dark.

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

Things are different after he wakes.

For one, he’s cold all the time. It’s not a problem, not really; all Hizashi has to do is wear an extra layer or two, and he’s fine. He won’t freeze. He does find it…odd that warmth doesn’t seem to stay with him, but it’s nothing that’s concerning to him (nothing concerns him anymore).

For another, he’s much, much quieter in just about every way. He feels no need to make noise, to hum or talk or shout, to tap his pen or jiggle his leg. The desire for sound has been stripped away completely, and Hizashi is…fine. He doesn’t even feel bothered with the fact that he doesn’t want to listen to music anymore. Instead, he takes the music collection he’d gathered and quietly donates it.

They’ll be better off with someone who might…enjoy them.

Then there’s the fact that he simply just can’t use his quirk anymore.

Before, when Hizashi had a heart, this might have distressed him. He might have fallen into an anxious fit, might have panicked, have gone to Recovery Girl and begged for her help, but now he’s simply accepted it. He can’t quirk. It makes sense; he’d had to dig into his mood to yell or shout before.

Without a heart now, how can he do the same?

The logical thing to do once he’s figured out that he no longer is able to use his quirk is to simply drop out of the hero course (it’s practically what the student counselor wanted him to do, anyways). Hizashi quietly inserts himself into the General Education classes, gaining odd looks from the teachers and students alike, but all he does is focus on his studies. There’s little else for him to do, after all.

If, during all of this, he falls out of touch with Shouta…then that’s fine, too. Hizashi has no feelings on the matter either way.

Without a heart, it doesn’t really seem like he has any need for friends, anyways.

A quieter Yamada Hizashi gains less attention from his foster parents, and is able to graduate from UA in peace. He moves out - mostly because he’s aged out of the foster system - and gets a small apartment of his own in a quiet, decent neighborhood. In order to pay for the apartment, Hizashi gets a quiet job as an online translator; he has always had a talent for other languages, and there’s no reason why he can’t use that in order to make sure he has food on his table and his bills paid.

The years go by, and everything is tranquil. Hizashi lives life unbothered, hardly deviating from routine, and almost as if in shades of gray, and he doesn’t mind. He doesn’t care. Nothing matters, after all, and that’s perfectly fine.

He grows his hair out, but only because he can’t be bothered to cut it. Maintaining a short hairstyle and getting it trimmed every few weeks is a waste of time. He only makes sure to shave because someone reminds him that facial hair is a sign of defiance in polite society, and Hizashi - while he doesn’t care - does occasionally have in-person work meetings and cannot get fired if he wants to keep his job.

His wardrobe is monochromatic gray-toned turtlenecks and slacks with the occasional button-up and tie.

(A much younger Hizashi would be appalled. A much younger Hizashi would be asking where the leather is, where the boots and cool club outfits are, where the eyeliner and nail polish is kept.

An older, heartless Hizashi simply doesn’t care.)

For a long, long while, nothing changes.

Then he gets caught up in a villain attack.

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

“Yamada-san, do you know why we’re doing these tests?”

Hizashi blinks slowly at one of the doctors standing by the bed he’s laying on, hands resting lightly on his own stomach. The older man has his brow furrowed, just like the other doctors in the room; every single one of the doctors that Hizashi has seen in the last few hours has had furrowed brows and pensive faces.

“You’re trying to understand why I didn’t react to the villain attack the same way as the others,” Hizashi responds calmly.

For what he understands, his reaction - or non-reaction - to being held as a hostage at knife-point had deeply unnerved several people. For all that he’d been roughed up, threatened, and even sliced on his neck, Hizashi had kept a level of calm that the officers and heroes on scene thought simply wasn’t natural.

When they handed him over to the paramedics, their observations were given over as well. Now Hizashi is being subjected to several different tests so the doctors can figure out what might be wrong with him.

They won’t find anything, of course.

The doctor nods, making a note on his clipboard. “That’s right,” he says, a small, strained smile on his face. “I’m sure we’ll be able to find something once we get this MRI done, so there’s no need to worry.”

“I’m not,” Hizashi tells him. It’s not out of any need to assure the doctor.

“Of course,” one of the other doctors says, nodding along as if to go along with what Hizashi’s saying. “It’s alright to be a little worried, but really, whatever we find, we’re sure we’ll be able to - “

“I don’t feel anything,” Hizashi says.

A silence rings in the room.

Hizashi turns his eyes to the ceiling. “I cut out my heart a long time ago.”

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

The doctors run several more tests, becoming increasingly baffled by the lack of results they get.

There’s nothing in his blood. As far as they can tell, there’s no gland acting out of the ordinary. No organ on the verge of failure. None of his hormones are out of balance, and his white blood cell count is fine. The scans of his brain come back clean - there is one where it looks like there might be a strange glare over his limbic system, but when they take another MRI, the glare is gone.

His medical history is clean. He has no clots, no signs of strokes, no signs of seizures, nothing. By all accounts, Yamada Hizashi is a perfectly healthy adult man.

“I cut out my heart,” he keeps telling them.

The more tests they run, with more and more negative results, the more and more they start to believe him.

The thing about whatever is going on with Hizashi, though, is that he does not react the way that one should to what one considers danger. In the villain attack, when he was held hostage, he should have been scared, and fear is a useful emotion that helps people get to safety. It’s the Fight or Flight response.

For whatever reason, Hizashi does not have that, and that is dangerous.

Hizashi listens as the doctors tell this to him, nodding along, and he wonders idly if, perhaps a younger him might have cared. If a version of him that had a heart would be anxious to hear this information, be upset by what the doctors are saying.

But he simply nods and asks, “So what now?”

They tell him that, as things stand, he cannot live on his own. “Is there someone you can rely on? Someone that you can trust?”

“No,” he tells them. “I live and work alone. Will this be a problem going forward?”

The doctors all look at each other, and Hizashi has the thought that perhaps it might be.

He stays in the hospital for a little while longer, someone being kind enough to go to his home to grab some things for him so that he may work from his hospital room. It’s as he’s quietly typing out the translation to an old book that someone has sent him online that there’s a knock on his door, and Hizashi looks up, calling out a soft, “Come in.”

If he had a heart still, he’d be surprised to see none other than Recovery Girl shuffling through the doorway.

“Recovery Girl,” he greets politely, bowing his head. “Hello.”

She smiles at him, moving over to the chair by his bed to take a seat. “Hello dearie,” she greets, reaching out to pat one of his hands. Her fingers are warm on his cold ones. “It’s been a while since I’ve last seen you. I hear that you’ve had an eventful time recently.”

“I suppose you could say that,” Hizashi says.

“The doctors here have filled me in on the reason for your stay here,” Recovery Girl goes on to say. “Something about you not reacting to outside stimuli in a way that is not only healthy but considered safe?”

“They haven’t found anything,” Hizashi tells her. “They have told me that I shouldn’t be living on my own, though I’m not sure who to live with. I don’t have anyone that I am close to.”

Recovery Girl tilts her head a little bit. “Weren’t you close with Aizawa-kun in your high school years?” she asks. “What happened with him?”

“We drifted apart, I suppose.”

“I see…” She’s quiet a moment, then nods. “Well, I will tell you, Yamada-kun, that I have taken an interest in this case of yours. I'd like to help, if you don’t mind. It is, after all, a hero’s duty to help protect those that might be in danger, even if this is a different kind.”

Hizashi blinks at her slowly. “...Does that mean living with you?”

She laughs, full-bodied, with her head tossed back and everything. “Oh, heavens no!” she says after a moment, still chuckling and whipping a tear from her eye. “No, no, Yamada-kun. I doubt either of us will be very happy with suddenly living with another person like that. No, I’d like you to retain some autonomy!

“Though, with your situation, this does require some supervision,” she continues. She points at his computer. “It’s been told to me that you work remotely; do you think you would be alright with a move to somewhere closer to where I work? The area I’m thinking of is extremely safe as well - several heroes work in the area.”

“I don’t mind a move,” Hizashi says, shrugging. “I don’t have much in the way of belongings.”

Recovery Girl shoots him a smile.

That’s how, a few days later, Hizashi ends up moving to an apartment just outside of UA Academy.

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

Things as Recovery Girl’s ward are a mix between Hizashi’s normal and what things were like at the hospital: He does his daily routine of eating and working and going to sleep, and there are some days in which Recovery Girl will ask him if he’d mind do some tests. He always says yes (in which case he goes over to UA, and they use the equipment available there), even if he knows that nothing will come of them. It’s not like the tests have any effect on him regardless.

With each one that comes back inconclusive, baffling Recovery Girl further in her search for what might be going on with him and a possible “cure”, Hizashi repeats what he’d told the doctors. “I cut out my heart.” It, of course, makes her more determined to figure out what might be wrong, and thus the process continues.

One day she asks if she can show the test results to a colleague of hers, and Hizashi gives his consent. It doesn’t bother him.

(Nothing does.)

Only a couple days after that, Nedzu - the principal of UA - invites Hizashi to meet with him.

“So! Yamada-san!” Nedzu chirps from where he’s perched on the opposite couch in the office. Tea has already been poured for the both of them, and Hizashi sips at his only because Nedzu had told him to go ahead and drink. “I’ve reviewed your test results and heard that you’ve been telling Recovery Girl that you cut your heart out.”

Hizashi nods. “Yes.”

The principal laughs. “I have to say, I agree! You are definitely heartless!” He claps his little…hands? Paws? Together. “That puts you at a very distinct disadvantage.”

“I know,” Hizashi replies, but Nedzu shakes his head.

“I don’t think you do,” Nedzu says. He leans forward. “How did you feel when that villain threatened you?”

Hizashi raises a hand to his throat, feeling over the faint scar left behind from where the villain had accidentally dragged the knife along his neck when one of the heroes had startled him. He was told that he was extremely lucky - the doctors had talked about possible quirk loss in the aftermath.

“I think we can all agree that such a thing can’t happen again,” Nedzu says when Hizashi doesn’t speak. He pulls some papers out and slides them across the desk. “That’s why I have a proposition for you.”

Hizashi sets his tea down and picks the papers up, eyes scanning the words, then glances up at the little principal. “You want to hire me.”

Nedzu grins. “UA takes care of their own,” he says, clasping his…paws together over his lap. “You are currently under Recovery Girl’s care, but while you are technically her ward, it doesn’t come with all the same privileges as being her family. And certainly not all the same privileges as being a student - or better yet - an employee.

“It comes with pay that is much better than that translating job that you have, guaranteed access to one of the best legal teams in the entirety of Japan, an offer of upgrades to your personalized equipment - not just hero gear, but things like laptops and phones, too - and we could move you into one of the on-campus living facilities, behind the gates of UA, which has some of the best security in the world,” Nedzu offers a wink. “And with your specific lack of Fight or Flight response, I think adding in escorts to and from places to make sure that you stay safe outside of campus would not be unreasonable.”

Putting the papers down on the coffee table between them, Hizashi is quiet a moment as he thinks over the offer. “...It is a generous offer,” he says slowly. “Though I’m not sure I understand why.”

“Because you intrigue me, Yamada-san,” Nedzu tells him, standing up on the sofa cushions so that they’re of the same eye-height. “Did you know you still hold a record for one of the highest scores on the entrance exams?”

Hizashi blinks. “No.”

“You also were top of your class in the hero course in your first year, your second year, and for the first and second trimester of your third year,” Nedzu continues, pacing slowly on his sofa. “You had a drive that was big, inspirational. Others in your year still remember you, you know. I’ve met and talked with quite a few of them, and they talk about the loud, spunky, blonde boy that wanted so badly to be the Voice Hero.”

Not knowing what to say, Hizashi just stares at him, silent.

Nedzu crosses his little arms over his chest and leans forward, narrowing his eyes at him with clear curiosity in his gaze. “So I have to wonder, Yamada-san,” he says, “what happened to you to make you like this? Where did that boy, so bright and loud and eager, go?”

“I cut out my heart,” is all Hizashi can say in response.

Nedzu smiles. “So you did, Yamada-san,” he says. “So you did.”

Hizashi signs the papers, and within the week he starts as an assistant at UA Academy.

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

There are actually quite a few civilians that work for UA. They’d have you believe that the school is run entirely by heroes, but the truth is that there’s only a handful of heroes that work for the school while the rest of the staff are civilians. The civilians work in a separate office than the heroes - not out of some superiority. The heroes just usually bring some of their other work to the school with them, so in order to keep anything potentially confidential being seen they have separate offices.

They do not, however, have a separate locker room or lounge. Within the first couple of weeks of work Hizashi has become acquainted with Thirteen, Ectoplasm, and Cementoss, the three of them quite friendly and more than willing to approach a new face in the building. They seem a bit confused when Hizashih doesn’t do much more than learn their hero names and give them a polite greeting, but at least they don’t seem offended.

No one really seems to mind him. Hizashi’s quiet, he does his work, and when he’s asked to assist with whatever task, he does it without complaint. Some of the teachers have figured out that he must have some sort of “health problem” from the frequent check-ins with Recovery Girl, but no one pries.

It’s certainly a bit more of a louder life than the one he was living before the villain attack. With the run-ins with the heroes during breaks, lunch, and in the hallways between classes, Hizashi is somewhat reminded of his high school days…

But only somewhat.

(He can’t feel nostalgia.)

“Yamada!” he hears as he’s making copies of a worksheet for the first year English teacher. When he looks up, Tanaka is approaching with an irritated expression on his face.

“Yes?” Hizashi asks.

“It looks like I sent the first year classes the wrong reviews for the upcoming exams,” he explains, holding a stack of folders in his hands. “I’ve got some emails to go through that are important - do you think you could run these to all the homeroom teachers? We need to make sure they get these, fast.”

Hizashi nods, taking the stack of folders. “I’ll do that as soon as these are all done printing.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Tanaka says, waving him off. “That can be done later - the review is way more important!”

Hizashi hesitates, looking between the copy machine still spitting out sheet after sheet and the folders in his hands (he had asked him to get the worksheets copied, after all), then nods, walking towards the office door. He doesn’t hurry; there’s no sense of urgency. He simply walks towards the closest first year classroom.

He knocks on the door when he gets there, hears the hush that takes over the class inside, then hears a gruff voice call out for whoever it is to come in. So he quietly slides the door open, steps in, and slides the door shut behind him.

“Excuse the interruption,” he says with a bow, then walks over to the hero that seems to be teaching. About his height, a dark tracksuit, a scarf around his neck (it looks familiar), and messy dark hair over dark, tired eyes. He holds out one of the folders to him. “Tanaka-sensei gave you the wrong review for the upcoming exams and requested I come give you the right one.”

The hero furrows his brow at him, almost scowling, and slowly takes the folder from him. “...Thanks,” he says, not looking away from his face. “Are you…new?”

Hizashi nods. “I started a few weeks ago, after the start of term. My name is Yamada.” He bows again and turns. “I’ll take my leave now.”

He’s halfway to the door when the hero says, “Yamada… Yamada Hizashi?”

He stops.

Hizashi turns around to look at the hero. “...Do you know me?”

It’s possible. He went to UA, and Nedzu says that there were many that remember who he is. This man could be one of the hero students that remembers him from his time in the hero course, regardless of the fact that he never finished it.

There’s a stricken look on the hero’s face, dark eyes wide and his pale face paler. “I - “ He seems to stumble, not quite forward, not quite back, not quite to the side; an arm reaches out weakly to brace on the podium, and it looks like that’s the only thing that might be keeping him standing all of a sudden.

The hero swallows thickly then tries speaking again.

“It’s me,” he says, voice rough. “Aizawa. Aizawa Shouta.”

Something in Hizashi’s chest thumps hard.

Distantly, he’s aware of the students in the class all whispering to each other, asking each other what’s going on, who’s that, what their connection to each other is. But Hizashi doesn’t care about any of that. Hizashi doesn’t care about anything. He’s focused on the feeling of his chest squeezing tight, of his heart rate picking up, of air suddenly becoming hard to squeeze down into his lungs. Sweat prickles at the back of his neck, and his knees feel weak in a way Hizashi hasn’t felt since he was a teenager.

But that’s impossible.

“...I need to go,” Hizashi says, voice somehow steady despite the way his body is turning on itself.

He doesn’t flee. He doesn’t run. As soon as he’s out of the room, managing to close the door behind him, Hizashi leans against the door for a moment because the thumping is still going. It’s still hard, still making it somewhat hard to breathe, and still making sweat prickle at his skin uncomfortably. He rubs at his chest, closing his eyes as he tries to will the thumping to stop.

The door opens behind him, and Hizashi only doesn't end up on the floor because someone catches him.

He blinks up at Aizawa, who’s standing in the doorway and has caught him in the crook of his arm. “...Aizawa-sensei.”

“Hi - Yamada,” Aizawa says, looking all at once surprised and relieved. He helps him back to his feet, gently nudges him away from the doorway, and steps out of the classroom - where Hizashi can hear a cacophony of noise from the students inside - to shut the door behind him. “I’m glad…I could catch you.”

“I took a moment to…collect myself,” Hizashi says. “My chest hurt.”

Aizawa looks at his chest, concern pinching his features. “Are you alright?” he asks, stepping forward just a little bit with a hand coming up to his arm, as if to help him in case he might fall. “How long have you been having this problem? Do you need to see Recovery Girl?”

Hizashi tilts his head. “I’m alright,” he tells him, because he is. At least, he believes he is. The thumping is still going, and his chest is still tight, but it’s not…it’s not terrible. “I won’t die.

He thought that this would reassure Aizawa, but for some reason this only made the concern deepen. “Perhaps you should go see her now, then,” he says, and the hand at his arm shifts to come around him so that Hizashi is suddenly being helped down the hall. He blinks as they start walking together. “She’ll want to know about your chest hurting again.”

“I’m - fine, though,” Hizashi tries to say, even as that something in his chest gives another thump that nearly has him gasping - and clearly, Aizawa catches it, the way his eyes sharpen and the arm tightens around him. “I am. It’s not a big deal.”

“Maybe leave that for the medical professional to decide,” Aizawa tells him.

When they arrive, Hizashi light headed and leaning against Aizawa’s side for support, it’s Aizawa who calls into the office to say that he needs to be looked at. A flash of…something goes through him, making his chest squeeze again, and he shudders, rubbing hard at his chest.

“What happened?” Recovery Girl asks, calm and professional, and gestures Aizawa over to one of the beds to check Hizashi over.

Hizashi is helped to sit down and explains as best he can; she presses her fingers to pulse points, takes his temperature, checks his ears and lymph nodes, and all the while he can feel his pulse and breathing steadily slow down. Not entirely - his chest still feels oddly tight, and his breath still feels a little short, but it’s…better. His limbs slowly begin to feel like they can hold him up again, and the sweat cools, leaving only his oddly cold skin behind as always and a tiredness that has Hizashi yawning.

Recovery Girl eventually sits back, humming curiously. “It sounds like you suffered through a panic attack.”

“...Impossible,” he says.

“It could have been something else,” she says. “We’ll keep an eye on that chest pain and pulse, but unless your symptoms suddenly worsen, this was a mild chest flare or a panic attack.”

“I don’t get those anymore,” Hizashi tells her firmly. “Not since I...” He trails off, looking sideways over to Aizawa who has moved to stand a ways away, giving the two of them a little bit of privacy, even if he watches with dark, concerned eyes.

“Well, perhaps you’re starting to get them again.” Recovery Girl moves to collect her notes on him - which are quite extensive at this point. “What were you doing when these symptoms came on?”

“I was delivering reviews for Tanaka-sensei,” he says. Then he pauses. “...I still need to deliver the rest of them.”

“I’m sure he’ll understand it was an emergency,” she assures. “Anything else?”

Hizashi looks down at his hands where they are settled in his lap. (Why doesn’t he want to share this with Recovery Girl?) Then, very quietly so that only Recovery Girl can hear, he says, “I had…just delivered a review to Aizawa-san.”

There’s a long pause before Recovery Girl gives a loaded, “Oh.”

“I didn’t realize he taught at this school,” Hizashi says, still looking at his hands. “When we were students, he had complained several times about being terrible with children, so it never crossed my mind that he would…”

He trails off. He doesn’t know why he’s talking about this.

There’s the sounds of scribbling on paper, and then the tapping of Recovery Girl’s cane. “Well, this is an interesting development,” she tells him. “I know you don’t believe you’ve had a reaction, but I do. And we’ll find out if it was with your old friend Aizawa-kun. For now, just rest up - panic attacks or chest flares are no fun on the body. I’m prescribing peace and quiet before you return to your daily activities.”

Hizashi scoots back on the bed he’s sitting on to lay down even as he says, “It wasn’t a panic attack.”

“Of course, dearie.”

As she walks away, Aizawa steps forward, hesitant but concerned. “Are you alright?”

Hizashi nods at him as he settles on the bed. “I just need to rest some,” he tells him. “I’ll be fine after that.”

(He thinks.)

“That’s good. That’s…good.” Aizawa stands there somewhat awkwardly for a moment, looking like he’s unsure of what to do, but then he clears his throat. “I - guess I’ll leave you to do that, then,” he says. He takes a step away from the bed, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “I hope you feel better soon, Yamada - “

Hizashi’s hand snaps out to latch around one of his wrists.

“...Yamada?”

His chest tightens again, a little harder than before, and Hizashi closes his eyes against the pain.

He doesn’t know why he just did that. It’s like his hand acted on its own, reaching out and grabbing onto Shou - Aizawa, to keep him by his side instead of allowing him to leave. Which is (stupid) illogical considering that the man is his own person and they work together and chances are Hizashi will see him again soon anyways.

His fingers, always cold, flex around Sh - Aizawa’s warm, warm wrist, then very slowly let go, one finger at a time.

“Sorry,” he says, toneless and quiet. He can’t open his eyes to look at him. “I don’t know why I did that.”

“It’s fine,” Aizawa says, just as quiet but voice filled with too many emotions that Hizashi can’t place any of them. “I can…stay if you want me to.”

“No,” Hizashi tells him. “You should go back to your students. They have to get that review started before the exams.”

“...Of course.”

Shou - Aizawa leaves, and that something in Hizashi’s chest thump, thump, thumps away.

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

“I know you’ve been helping out Tanaka-san, but how do you feel about helping out the heroes, Yamada-san?” Nedzu asks.

Hizashi blinks at him slowly. “I thought that the civilians weren’t supposed to work in the hero offices,” he says. “I’m a civilian.”

“That’s true,” Nedzu says, picking up his cup of tea and stirring in a cube of sugar. “However, you did use to be in the hero course, and I believe you could be trusted to keep things secret if you saw something you weren’t supposed to. You don’t seem like you would sell secrets for money or break under pressure.”

“I don’t care to make money off of secrets,” Hizashi says easily.

“And you have no sense of danger at all!” Nedzu says with a laugh. “Which makes you perfect to assist with the heroes! They truly can run around in circles sometimes, Yamada-san - they need all the help they can get.”

“You believe that help is me?”

“You are one of the only assistants we have working here at UA,” Nedzu says, pointing his spoon at him.

“You mean the only one,” Hizashi corrects.

“Precisely.”

Hizashi takes a sip of his tea, thinking, then nods. “Alright.”

“Wonderful!” Nedzu cheers, taking a large swig of his own tea before sliding over a new contract for him to sign. “We’ll just fill out these papers, and then you’ll be getting set up at your new desk! I think you’ll love it, Yamada-san.”

He doesn’t think much of it; it’s a minor job change with a minor pay increase (something about an increase in hazards on the job since he’ll be working more one-on-one with the heroes). Aside from that, it’s pretty much the exact same job that he had before: doing the tasks assigned to him by the teachers in the school.

So of course he should have expected it when Nedzu shows him to his desk and it’s the one right next to none other than Aizawa Shouta himself.

Hizashi stares at Aizawa, who stares at him back, then looks down at the grinning Nedzu. “That’s my desk?”

“Recovery Girl mentioned that the two of you were friends!” he chirps, rocking on his little heels. “Besides, the desk has been empty for a while. There’s no reason why you can’t have it.”

“...I see.”

Nedzu goes to walk off, and he’s just at the door when Hizashi hurries after him (but he doesn’t run). “Why did you really put me next to Aizawa?” he asks when he catches up. “What’s the real reason?”

The little principal turns around to look at him, and there’s a grin on his face and a curious gleam in his eyes. “You asking me these questions is exactly why I did that,” he replies. “You wouldn’t have done that staying in the civilian offices, I don’t think. But in here, put next to your childhood friend that you haven’t spoken to in years, you’re doing something that you didn’t even do with a knife to your neck, Yamada-san.”

His grin grows wider.

“Reacting.”

Nedzu leaves the room, and Hizashi raises a hand to his neck to brush against the scar there, wondering if the principal is right.

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

Having Hizashi sitting next to him is strange.

He’s so quiet, for one. He no longer makes all this noise, humming under his breath or tapping his pens or jiggling his legs. Shouta finds it odd, though he wonders if perhaps it’s related to whatever health condition that Hizashi has. The few times he’s brushed hands with him, his skin has always felt startlingly cold, so he might just not have the energy to do those things anymore.

But there’s also no music. Hizashi doesn’t listen to anything; it doesn’t matter if it’s the radio, a podcast, an audiobook, nothing. Shouta distinctly remembers him having music on him at all times when he was a teenager, always ready to pull it out at the drop of a hat, so it’s weird to see him still and silent and at ease without the noise of anything around him.

Even more than that, aside from his long blonde hair (which Shouta didn’t really see coming, but he…kind of likes it) and his green eyes, there’s no color on him. He’s monochromatic, and that color is gray. Gray shirt, gray pants, gray socks, gray shoes. Occasionally Hizashi will wear a jacket over his shirt, perhaps because he’s cold, and that, too, is gray.

Where’s the bright red that Shouta remembers Hizashi loving so much before? The oranges, the yellows, the neon blues and pinks? Sure, the hero costume that Hizashi had worn was black leather, but his glasses were bright yellow and orange. His gloves had trims of red. His belt was red.

But stranger than that, stranger than the color, than the music, than the quiet and stillness, stranger than anything else…

Is the fact that Shouta has yet to see him smile.

Even Nemuri is concerned. Hizashi hadn’t quite recognized her at first either (though to be fair, her hero costume has changed a lot since their high school days), but she’d managed to convince him to start eating lunch with the two of them. He’d been…not quite reluctant; his facial expression doesn’t really seem to change much. There’s sometimes a little furrow to his brow if he’s confused by something, but beyond that not much else.

No surprise, no anger, no annoyance. No happiness.

Nothing.

“What do you think’s going on?” Nemuri asks him as she walks with him to class.

Shouta shakes his head. “Not a clue. It might be related to whatever he’s seeing Recovery Girl for, but he’s not exactly very open about that.” Which is true. The most either of them will get is the occasional, “My chest hurts,” or, “Recovery Girl wants to do a test tomorrow,” and if they try to ask more, Hizashi clams up. It’s gotten to be more than a little frustrating. “He’s so different from the person he used to be.”

“Different enough that you don’t like him anymore?” Nemuri asks, looking at him sideways.

“That’s not what I meant,” Shouta says, scowling off to the side. “I’m just…worried. It’s a drastic change - something must have happened. No one changes personalities that much without some sort of influence.”

“You’re right, but unless he’s willing to share, then we might not get answers.”

“I know,” Shouta says, sighing. “And that’s what’s bothering me.”

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

All Might - it still is odd to Hizashi that the hero is working as a teacher at UA - can’t go to USJ with Aizawa and Thirteen, so Nedzu asks Hizashi to go along just to help keep an eye on the students.

“You won’t be expected to do much more than keep a head count,” Nedzu assures him when he talks to Hizashi before the bus pulls up by the side of the school. “There won’t be any going into the zones, no helping with the exercises they’re doing, no helping to teach the lessons. Just keeping track of the students.”

“Surely one of the other hero teachers would be better suited for USJ, though,” Hizashi says. “I remember how large that place is.”

“And because of your prior experience, you’ll be perfectly fine!” Nedzu tells him with a smile. “Don’t worry so much, Yamada-san.”

“I’m not worried,” Hizashi replies. “I can’t be - “

“Because you cut out your heart, yes, yes, I’m well aware,” Nedzu says, reaching up to pat his hand. “Now, enjoy the trip!”

(If Hizashi wasn’t heartless, he’d probably be annoyed right now.)

Class 1-A is rambunctious but sweet; they’re politely curious about him, wanting to ask him questions about who he is and how he knows their Aizawa-sensei. Hizashi does his best to answer them politely without giving too much information (“My name is Yamada Hizashi,” and, “We knew each other when we went to UA together,” and, “I’m an assistant working at the school,” and, “No, I’m not a hero.”), and of course with each answer the children only get more and more curious about him. The angry blonde student, Bakugou, calls him an annoying Extra, and for some reason the other students laugh at that while the green-haired student with the freckles, Midoriya, panics over the other boy’s potential response.

Their reaction to going inside USJ is a lot like Hizashi remembers his own class reacting - wide eyes, gasps of awe, unable to decide where to look, standing on toes to try to get a better look at the zones further in the back. He watches them as Aizawa talks to them about what the purpose of the place is and what they’re going to be doing, and rubs at his chest when it twinges a little in response to their enthusiasm.

That’s when a portal opens, and dozens upon dozens of villains step through.

Hizashi watches as the students gather together, scared and bewildered and terrified, as they get separated almost immediately, as Aizawa flings himself into combat against several villains at once, and recognizes that he should feel…something. Thirteen is yelling for the kids left next to them to stay close when a portal opens up to keep them from running to the door, using their quirk to keep this Kurogiri character from doing anything too damaging. Ashido and Uraraka are clinging to his arms, shaking and unsure of what to do.

He feels nothing.

And he knows that should scare him. He knows that he should be scared. He knows that there should be a part of him digging into what hero training he has and reaching for his quirk to try to scream the villains into submission. He doesn’t, though. He doesn’t do anything, because he feels nothing, nothing at all, and therefore nothing about the situation he’s found himself in clicks as something he should maybe get out of.

He simply watches as things unfold around him, unmoving and silent.

Then, in the center of the plaza, Shou - Ai - Shouta gets hurt.

That something in Hizashi’s chest thumps so hard that he physically stumbles, and he wonders if maybe he should use his quirk. If he can just reach for it, then he can use it to help. Shouta’s being all but torn to pieces, surely just this once his quirk might work for him? Might go beyond resting in his lungs and vocal cords, silent?

Shouta screams, and that something thumps again.

He tries. He sucks in lungfuls of air, more than he has in years, and attempts to force it out in something loud enough to hurt, to damage, to do something that might help them all in the situation they’re all in. To help Shouta.

All it does is earn him concerned looks from the students closest to him.

“I’m sorry,” he tells them when he catches them looking. “I tried to use my quirk, but I…can’t reach it. It’s not working.”

(The worst thing is.)

All Might shows up shortly after.

(The absolute, worst thing is.)

The villains retreat.

(What Hizashi would hate most if he wasn’t heartless.)

The students are safe, Midoriya and Shouta are taken to a hospital to be taken care of, and everyone gets to take a day off to rest.

(Is that he doesn’t feel a single thing.)

Everyone is safe.

(And though he doesn’t feel anything…that scares him.)

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

In the hospital afterwards, Kayama finds him at Shouta’s bedside.

“Hizashi,” Kayama calls when she enters, and Hizashi looks up to see her stepping into the room, exhaustion on her face but a smile there, too. She looks between him and Shouta and walks around the bed to stand at his side. “I thought you might be here.”

“Recovery Girl thought it would be good for Shouta,” Hizashi whispers.

Kayama lays a hand on his shoulder. “Oh, so you’re calling him Shouta now, huh?” she teases. “When did this happen?”

“...It just…did,” Hizashi says. He doesn’t know how else to explain it. His hands flex where they rest on his thighs. “I used to call him that.”

“You did,” Kayama agrees. “I’ll admit, I’m a little jealous that you’re moving onto a given name basis with him ahead of me, but that’s alright. You did love him, after all.”

To this Hizashi doesn’t say anything. He did. Before he cut out his heart. There’s the distant memory of himself spending days staring at Shouta during class or training, or doing whatever he could to make him laugh or smile because seeing his face brighten up made him feel like he was on top of the world. Nights spent sighing over things that he’d said to him, every little touch and brush of their hands, blushing over thinking of potentially kissing and burying his face into his pillow to hide even though no one could see him.

Now, though, he doesn’t feel anything about Shouta, nothing at all.

…It doesn’t explain why he’s here. It doesn’t explain why he thought he should try to save him.

“He almost died,” Hizashi finds himself saying. It’s a clear statement of fact - Aizawa Shouta was very close to death by the time All Might arrived, and nearly died a few times on the operating table.

The hand on his shoulder slides down until he’s in a half embrace, held to Kayama’s side. “He’s still here,” she tells him. “Shouta’s not going to leave us yet.”

“I almost lost him,” is what Hizashi says, and - he hadn’t meant to say that. He blinks, but his mouth keeps going as whatever it is in his chest thumps. “He almost died, and I almost lost him.”

“Hizashi…”

He looks up at Kayama, and for some reason his vision is a little blurry despite the glasses he wears. “I already lost someone before.” His voice shakes, he notes. “To lose Shouta, too…”

Kayama moves so that she’s all but sitting in the chair with him, tugging him to her chest to hold him tight. Hizashi lets her, finding that the painful thumping in his chest eases just a little bit with her arms around him. “I know,” she whispers into his hair, her voice choked. “I know, baby boy, I know exactly how you feel. Losing someone is hard, especially when you’re close to them and care for them.”

Hizashi leans into the hold, not saying anything.

“But Shouta’s still here. He held on. He’s fighting,” she continues. “We won’t lose him like we lost Oboro.”

He shakes hearing his name for the first time in years. His arms come up to cling around Kayama, and he closes his eyes as his vision blurs even more, his chest feeling tighter. Something catches in his lungs, once, twice, three times, and when it continues to do so Kayama shushes him, her hands petting over his hair gently as she starts to rock him back and forth.

He doesn’t know what’s happening, only that it is.

Eventually Hizashi pulls away, blinking slowly and finding himself oddly tired. The thumping has eased along with the pain, and he entire body calls for rest.

Kayama smiles at him. “I think maybe you should get some rest in,” she says, echoing his thoughts. “You’ve had a pretty rough day.”

He nods. “Perhaps. Though if I leave now, Shouta won’t wake up and see me here.”

“He’ll understand if you need to sleep, Hizashi,” she says, laughing a little bit. She nudges him up and out of the chair, and he goes, stumbling a bit. “Especially after you just cried like you did.”

He pauses, tilting his head as he looks down at her. “...Cried?”

Kayama rolls her eyes. “If you don’t want me to tell him you cried then I won’t, Hizashi. Jeez, men.”

“I didn’t cry,” Hizashi tells her, feeling his brow furrow a little bit. “I can’t cry.”

Here she looks up at him, a confused frown on her face. “Honey, if this is some ‘Men Don’t Cry’ thing that you’re spewing at me, I hate to break it to you, but you absolutely cried,” she says. One of her hands raises and points to his face. “The evidence is all over your cheeks, baby boy.”

He raises a hand to his cheek, jolting a little when he feels something wet there. “What…?” Pulling his fingers away, he stares at the light reflecting off of the…the tears smeared on the tips. “How did this happen?”

“Hizashi?” Kayama calls, starting to sound concerned. “You okay, honey?”

“I can’t cry,” he repeats, still staring at his fingers. “I am unable to. I haven’t since I was a teenager.”

“Did you damage your tear ducts or something? I don’t understand - “

“I can’t cry because I cut out my heart,” Hizashi says, and Kayama goes silent with shock. “I haven’t felt anything worth crying about - or anything at all - since then.”

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

Shortly after he wakes up, Nemuri tells him what Hizashi had said, and both of them begin their inquisition for information (he’s not allowed to help in the investigation about the League of Villains, so this is an excellent distraction away from that, anyways). Hizashi doesn’t give them much else other than what he’s already said, though he does say that Recovery Girl has been looking after him, so they go talk to her. Then she says that, as a medical professional, she can’t disclose any of his records to them even if they’re asking out of concern. They try asking Nedzu, but he just says to ask Hizashi, and for several, several days, all of them go round and round and round in a useless circle until finally they all sit down to talk things out.

It’s during this conversation that Shouta and Nemuri learn about Hizashi’s “health condition”. He is, in fact, healthy. There’s nothing exactly wrong with him that anyone can see - but for whatever reason, there is a disconnect between his logical side and the parts of him that process emotion.

That by itself isn’t necessarily concerning; there are plenty of neurodivergent individuals that have difficulty connecting the two. But if he were just having difficulty connecting, that wouldn’t be an issue. Hizashi would be able to live a normal life. It’s the fact that he isn’t able to feel things like fear, which activate instinctual responses like Fight or Flight in the brain that can potentially save his life in even everyday situations.

The fact that he’s made it this long without getting into an accident of some sort is a miracle, honestly.

“I follow directions,” Hizashi says, and it would sound like he’s trying to reassure everyone if it weren’t for how there isn’t any sort of tone to his voice. No trace of empathy, no little laugh or trace of a smile on his face. “Directions are what keep people safe.”

“Accidents can still happen,” Shouta says roughly in response.

Hizashi doesn’t have a response.

It’s Nedzu who tells them, though, that over the past weeks Hizashi’s actually been reacting to things. Perhaps not with emotion, but he’s been doing more than quietly following routine and responding when spoken to.

“Recovery Girl brought it to my attention after you brought him to her office, Aizawa-san,” he chirps, smiling at him. “Through her time looking after him as her ward, she’s never seen Yamada-san acting like that!”

Hizashi’s brow furrows, just the smallest bit. “It wasn’t a panic attack,” he says, and though there’s no inflection to his voice he almost sounds stubborn. “I don’t get those anymore.”

“Perhaps it was, perhaps it wasn’t,” Nedzu says, smiling widely. “The point is, you’ve been reacting recently since bumping into your old friends. That chest pain you keep complaining about, the crying you did at your friend’s bedside… Perhaps there’s a hint of the old you buried somewhere in there, and it just needs to be coaxed out.”

Shouta and Nemuri exchange a look.

Obviously the plan from there is to keep Hizashi around for as much as possible, talk to him about things, and do what they can to get him to “react”. Lunch with them becomes all but mandatory; Shouta has Hizashi assist him in going to and from his classroom while he’s still in bandages and help him get paperwork that he might need. Nemuri walks him to and from the on-campus dorm he’s living in before and after work, and occasionally, when all their schedules align, drags them out for dinner.

They aren’t entirely sure if it’s working, but it’s worth a shot.

The Sports Festival comes up, and Hizashi is quiet during it, a complete dichotomy to what he was when they were teens. Back then, Hizashi had been loud and cheering for everyone, no matter what class or course; watching him rally half the stadium with his energy had always been a treat.

Now, Shouta awkwardly tries to talk to him through each of the rounds. He comments on how he thinks his students will do, complains about the heat, talks about how hard the chairs are… Anything that crosses his mind. With Nemuri down in the arena as a referee, it’s hard to keep anything going for long.

(Hizashi was always better at this than he was.)

“He’s not the best announcer for this event,” Hizashi suddenly says.

Shouta pauses in his desperate bid to find something to blurt out to his friend. It takes him a moment to realize that Hizashi’s talking about the guy who’s up in the announcer’s booth, the one whose voice is echoing all around the arena and no doubt in people’s homes from their TVs. “Oh?” He relaxes a little, turning as much as he can to look at him in interest. “What makes you say that?”

Hizashi lifts a hand and gestures to the crowd. “The audience is invested in the matches,” he starts, “but they have little to no reaction to what he’s saying about them. It’s as if his commentary isn’t worth listening to.”

Shouta nods. “You have a point. I haven’t exactly been paying attention to anything that guy’s been saying.”

Hizashi side-eyes him. “...You probably didn’t hear what he said about your student, Bakugou, then.”

He narrows his eyes. “...What did he say?”

There’s a moment of silence from Hizashi, then those green eyes turn back towards the arena. “If I tell you, you might get - angry,” he says, his voice tripping on the last word as if even talking about emotions is difficult for him. “Perhaps I shouldn’t.”

Shouta huffs. “I’ll find out at some point,” he grouses. “So. Anything else about this announcer?”

“Ah. Yes.” Hizashi nods, looking up at the announcer’s booth. “If he truly wanted to create an atmosphere that is engaging and memorable, a DJ would be able to have the audience react to both the event and his commentary.”

“...DJ?”

Hizashi pauses. “I’m - not sure why I said that,” he says, and though it’s subtle there’s a note of confusion in his voice. He looks at Shouta, that little furrow in his brow. “Sorry - I meant to say ‘announcer’. A DJ works with music.”

Shouta hums, watching Hizashi for a moment as he thinks about the strange slip that his friend just made. “You used to be interested in this sort of thing,” he says eventually. “Always listening to music and wanting to throw parties for us and our classmates.”

HIzashi hesitates. “I had - wanted to be a DJ when I was younger,” he admits, fingers not quite fidgeting.

“‘Saving people from boredom when I’m not saving them on the streets,’” Shouta quotes, remembering what Hizashi used to say over and over again about his dream to be a DJ along with being a hero. “I remember. You even had that podcast of yours, which you recorded nearly every Wednesday without fail.”

One of Hizashi’s hands comes up to rub against his chest - not a health condition like the kind that Shouta had been fearing, but some sort of physical reaction to a situation instead of experiencing emotions. “Yes,” Hizashi says, distantly. “I did have a podcast. You and… You and Oboro helped me with it sometimes.”

Shouta’s heart twists hearing their old friend’s name, different than it normally does. Perhaps because it’s the first time he’s heard Hizashi say it in over a decade.

“Yeah, we did,” Shouta says roughly. “I miss doing that.”

“...I don’t like music anymore,” Hizashi whispers, and even though there’s no feeling to it it’s almost like a confession. He’s still rubbing at his chest in slow, deep circles, staring out into the arena with no expression on his face whatsoever. “I don’t like anything anymore. I haven’t in years.”

His heart breaking for him, he places a bandaged hand over one of Hizashi’s. “You’ll like it again,” he promises. “I’ll help you.”

Hizashi turns his head to look at him. “Even though I stopped being your friend?”

Shouta shakes his head. “I never stopped being yours.”

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

For the heroics teachers, the time after the Sports Festival is spent getting the students ready for their internship and then sent off to their internships. Hizashi is busy helping to process the various offers that come through and then sending out the various acceptance letters or requests, hardly having time to think about what Shouta and Kayama might be planning in their attempts to get his heart back.

So by the time things calm down, the students sent off with only the General Education students left to populate the school, he really should have expected to be dragged along on an outing with them.

“We should be working,” Hizashi tells them. “It’s work hours.”

“Lighten up!” Kayama says with a smile. “Everyone is going to be taking it easy while most of the students are away - even the civilian teachers are mostly sticking with some casual review since more than half of their students are out on internships and can’t participate in class. Until reports start coming in from the agencies about our cute little kiddos, we are basically on a mini vacation!”

Shouta rolls his eyes. “I would hardly call Bakugou cute.”

“Oh, he’s the cutest,” Kayama teases. “Like a pomeranian.”

A snort of laughter escapes from Shouta at that half hidden in his capture weapon, and he sends her an amused look. “Don’t ever let him hear you call him that.”

“Where are we going?” Hizashi asks, looking around. It’s not an area that he recognizes off the top of his head - they’ve dragged him a few blocks away from the school into some sort of shopping district, likely somewhere popular with the after-school crowd as it’s not too busy at the moment. “It can’t be for work, since you’ve already said you believe we’re on a ‘mini vacation’.”

“Weeell, Shouta told me about what you two talked about during the Sports Festival,” Kayama says, hugging his arm as she pulls him along. “About music and wanting to be a DJ and stuff.”

“What does that have to do with leaving work?”

She ignores him. “There’s this cute little shop up ahead that’s close to a izakaya Shouta and I like to go to,” she tells him, pointing with a manicured finger, “and I thought maybe, if we went there, it might help you remember how it feels to love those things again.”

Hizashi tilts his head, considering what she said. “You think going to this shop might trigger some sort of reaction.”

“Precisely!”

“There’s no guarantee that this will work,” Hizashi tells her.

“There’s no guarantee that it won’t,” Shouta chimes in, pulling Hizashi’s attention to him. “What’s the harm in trying?”

“...I suppose.”

The shop in question is a little hole in the wall place filled with antiques, the front windows holding old tables and chairs in good condition to get people’s attention. Kayama assures him that they aren’t there to look at furniture - though if he’d like some to spruce up his place a bit, then they can shop around a little - and drags him towards the back corner of the store towards some shelves. He follows because what else can he do?

Kayama takes him by the shoulders and pushes him to face the shelves once they’re in front of them with a smile. “Tada~!” she says. “So, what do you think? You used to rave about these when you were younger!”

Hizashi blinks, long and slow, to take in what he’s seeing.

Records.

Hundreds of them, neatly lined up on the shelves with just enough space between them for someone to gently tip them to the side to get a look at their covers. As he stands there, eyes scanning the colorful rows, memory stirs; he remembers a younger him excitedly talking about how records had mostly fallen out of favor in the late 1900’s, but there were still some bands that release a small number of their new albums as records as a collector’s edition. It’s a trend that some bands still carry on to this day, and Hizashi had gushed about how cool it was to be able to even own one of those select few albums.

He doesn’t say anything in reply to Kayama’s question, but he does walk forward to look over what is on the shelves. A lot of repeat albums, likely donated to the shop, but there are some that stand out. Some music by L'Arc-en-Ciel, some by Kung-Fu Generation. There’s quite a few albums from English speaking bands, like Depeche Mode, Journey, or even Ke$ha (he hadn’t thought she released an album as a record, but he’s proven wrong by the physical evidence in his hands).

“Hizashi,” he hears Shouta call from somewhere behind him, and he turns. Shouta’s standing by a slightly worn record player, the speaker horn in need of a polish and the corners chipping, but clearly still in good condition. His friend taps it, a brow quirked questioningly. “Anything catch your interest?”

They coax him into choosing something to listen to. He tries to explain to them that he hasn’t listened to music in years, but both of them insist that he should just give it a try. “You used to love it,” they say, “there’s no reason you can’t love it again.” So Hizashi picks something out, a vaguely familiar band name from his high school days, and they carefully lay it down, start up the player, and place down the needle.

It sounds just like he remembers.

The music is upbeat and cheerful, fast-paced and rushing, and Hizashi remembers happily singing along. Memories of dancing to the songs, of laughing as he pulls up Oboro and Shouta to dance with him, surface, and Hizashi closes his eyes. He’d even played his favorite songs during class meetings to get everyone pumped, didn’t he? Some had thought him annoying for it, but a lot of his classmates enjoyed it, singing along in chorus - out of tune and loud, but having fun together, just like he’d wanted.

(A younger Hizashi finds he misses music.)

Hizashi’s finger twitch, almost like he’s trying to tap along to the beat.

(An older, heartless Hizash finds he…might miss it, too.)

They leave after listening to the whole album with the promise that they can come back and listen to some more records. “Did you enjoy yourself?” Kayama asks, looking up at him expectantly. “At least a little?”

Hizashi looks at the ground as he walks. “I don’t feel things like joy.”

“If you had to describe how your time at the shop went, then,” Shouta tries, nudging him.

“Then I would say it was…” Hizashi thinks about it for a moment. “Memorable.”

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

They keep taking him to the shop. It becomes something they do often, going to listen to music on an old record player, and Hizashi…doesn’t feel anything about it, but he does find himself rubbing at his chest a lot when they go, tapping his fingers, and once Shouta told him that he was humming along. Hizashi hadn’t realized, and of course he stopped as soon as it was pointed out, but the fact that he had at all is something of note.

The students come back (after a Nomu attack somewhere in Hosu, and after three of Shouta’s students are nearly expelled for recklessly endangering themselves by running after a villain alone), and when they do they don’t get to go quite as often. To combat that, Nemuri produces a memory chip to plug into his phone along with a pair of quality headphones, and she tells him that he should spend his breaks picking some music that she’s downloaded onto it and just listening.

There’s a lot more on the tiny chip than there is in the shop - mostly newer music, things that Hizashi has heard in passing over the years - so he takes his time going through it. He starts at the beginning, at the very top of the list where the song titles begin with asterisks of all things, and slowly works his way down.

It’s how he finds his breaks passing in more than the monotone they had before. There’s…a bit of color, he notes, breaking through while he listens to old and new songs. Coworkers, hero and civilian, go about their own business around him, and Hizashi starts seeing them beyond just the people he works with, too. He starts seeing them in the music he listens to, in the lyrics that ring in his ears.

He watches Snipe lean against a counter or desk, tipping his hat, and sees him in the songs about distance and longing.

He watches Ectoplasm pass through, cloak fluttering around them, and sees him in every note of perseverance.

He watches Thirteen be kind with everyone, always putting others first, and see them in the flutes that play during songs of peace.

(Hizashi shies away from looking at Shouta when he listens to music.)

Exams come, and after them comes the plan to take the heroics students to their training camp. It’s not something that Hizashi remembers doing when he was in school, but he supposes that with the villain attack at USJ and the Nomus, they want to make sure the students are prepared. There’s even been talk about getting them their provisional licenses early.

“I’d like you to accompany them,” Nedzu tells him after a meeting to finalize some of the details about the camp. “It’ll be forty students and only two teachers - while they’re going to be the homeroom teachers, it would be preferable to have at least one more teacher along with them.”

“...I’m not a hero,” Hizashi points out. “I don’t see how I’ll be of much use.”

“You certainly won’t be assisting with the training itself!” Nedzu laughs, eyes squinting shut as he smiles. “No, no - both Aizawa-san and Blood King will be watching over their students full-time as opposed to only a couple hours a day like a normal school day has them. They likely won’t have much time to handle other duties that they need to attend to, such as keeping up with the daily reports, grading any homework from the remedial classes, and other minor things.”

Hizashi nods. “Reasonable.”

“So you’ll go?”

“Recovery Girl might not like me going somewhere where children will be practicing using their quirks to the highest power,” Hizashi tells him. “She had…words the last time I went anywhere near the training grounds here.”

“I’ll be sure to talk to her,” Nedzu says, patting his hand. “You’ll likely stay close to the cabin, Yamada-san, so there shouldn’t be anything for her to worry about - since you can’t worry about anything!”

Nedzu walks away laughing, and Hizashi watches him, thinking that perhaps the small principal finds his heartless condition to be amusing. The way he likes to laugh when it’s brought up around him certainly makes it seem so.

Permission is somehow granted, and a few days later Hizashi finds himself sitting on the bus that Class 1-A is on, scrolling through his phone as he figures out which song to listen to next. The students are all idly chatting behind him, all about different things. Some are talking about an anime some had been watching, some are talking about how much they’re going to be missing their pets in the next couple of weeks. A few of the boys are giggling over what they think the ideal date would be (without actually saying what that would be).

He’s just decided to perhaps put on an album that will last the rest of the busride when he hears Ashido cheer, and the back of his seat jostles from her moving around in her excitement. “Oh my god! I did bring it!”

“You did!?” Hagakure gasps.

“I did, I did!” Ashido confirms. There’s a rustling, then a collective gasp from a few of the girls. “Tada~! My gold crackle nail polish! I thought I left it behind, but it’s here!”

“You said you like to pair it with black, right?” Jirou pipes up, a curious note to her voice. “I can see why you would like it - with your eyes, that’d look really cool.”

“Right?”

“Can you do mine?” Hagakure asks, eager. “Please, please, please? I would murder someone to have that on my nails.”

Hizashi turns his head to look back at the girls behind him, watching as Ashido bravely digs into her bag to pull out her selection of polish to have her invisible friend pick out the other color to go with the gold crackle. They giggle and laugh as they get started - Hizashi is positive that Hagakure knows that her being invisible is making things a trial for her friend - but they’re all having fun, it looks like. Jirou and Yaoyorozu even pick out some polish, and they pull Asui and Uraraka over from where they’d been sitting to get them into the nail-painting circle.

It’s been a long time since he’s really thought about nail polish. He’s noticed, of course, that Kayama wears it, her nails long and well taken care of, but beyond that… It’s polish. Something that’s on other people’s nails sometimes.

The headphones go on, and Hizashi faces back to the front of the bus, considering the entire thing forgotten.

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

It isn’t.

In the next couple of days, during meal times, he sees the polish on the girls’ fingers. That’s not a problem. He knows they painted them - had smelled it prominently, and had watched Shouta tell them to not do it for too long on the bus due to it being a small, enclosed space.

It’s the fact that he also sees some polish on a few of the boys’ nails as well.

Hizashi can’t help staring. Why, he’s not sure - it might be the colors, the green on Midoriya’s, the yellow and blue on Aoyama’s, the white on Todoroki’s. Kaminari even paints his nails black with stripes of vivid rainbow, a bold choice, and Hizashi sees during the remedial classes at night that Monoma rants and raves about how Class 1-A “must be falling behind” if they have time to paint their nails, but the very next day has metallics making his own nails glimmer, too.

Seeing all these students start to pop up with nail polish on is…distracting in a way that Hizashi isn’t quite sure how to handle.

Shouta clearly notices, calling out to him one night when he’s supposed to be helping to grade homework while Shouta works on a report on his students’ progress but can only stare at the correction sheet blankly.

“Hizashi?”

He sits up, looking towards his friend. “Yes?”

“Are you alright?” Shouta asks. “You’ve been staring into space for a little while.”

“Ah. Sorry,” Hizashi apologizes, taking his glasses off to rub at his eyes. Now that Shouta mentions it, his eyes do feel a little dry. When he slips his glasses back on he gives his friend a little nod of thanks. “I was lost in thought. I’ll get back to work now.”

He’s about to go back to grading, but then there’s a shuffling beside him, Shouta moving to sit beside him on the tatami mat. “You don’t…normally get lost in thought,” he says, somewhat awkwardly. “You did when we were teens, but - not so much anymore.”

Hizashi looks at him. “What are you saying?”

“...What’s going on?” Shouta asks. “Maybe I can help you - I don’t know. Get you un-lost.”

(A younger Hizashi, the one that had fallen in l-

The one that adores Shouta as a friend wants to laugh delightedly at Shouta’s attempts to get him to talk. It’s sweet.)

After a moment, Hizashi puts down the pen he’d been using to grade with, clasping his hands together in his lap. “It’s just something that has been on my mind for the past few days,” he starts. “I’m not…even sure why. Truthfully, it’s a small thing that had never stuck out to me before.”

“And now it has?”

Hizashi nods.

“What is it?”

He hesitates. Really, it’s such a small thing, and Shouta might even find it - silly. Though why that thought crosses his mind at all is strange in and of itself. “It’s - quite a few of the students have taken to wearing nail polish since the start of the trip.”

A frown grows on Shouta’s face. “Is the smell bothering you when they put it on?”

“No,” Hizashi says honestly. “Nothing bothers me. It’s just a smell like any other, no matter how unpleasant it might be. It’s just…”

His hands grip each other just a hair tighter.

“Nail polish and things like that - it’s for girls.”

(“You’ll forget about wearing that girly shit, Yamada,” his foster father growled lowly at him. “You are a man. Do you understand me?”)

There’s a long, long silence from Shouta, and Hizashi doesn’t say anything. He lets his friend think over what he’s said, soak it in at his own pace; he knows that there’s something about the words he’s said that are…different from views that most people tend to hold, but he doesn’t quite know why. Doesn’t quite know what they are.

Maybe Shouta can help him understand why what he’s seeing and what his logic is telling him are at odds with one another.

Shouta eventually leans back, a hand rubbing hard at his chin and brow furrowed tight. “Do you think the boy students who are wearing nail polish are less boys because of that?”

Hizashi shakes his head. “No.”

“Would you think less of them for wearing things like make-up?” Shouta asks.

Again, he shakes his head. “No.”

“What if they were wearing more traditionally female clothing,” Shouta continues, “like skirts or dresses?”

Hizashi opens his mouth, pauses, then says, “I would probably ask them if the clothes were comfortable.”

A huff of amusement escapes Shouta at that, and the furrow in his brow eases just a bit. “Alright, so you don’t think they’re less for wearing those things,” he says, nodding to himself. He hums, a question in his eyes. “So I have to wonder where the idea that nail polish is only for girls comes from.”

“It was said to me once,” Hizashi tells him. “A long time ago.”

“...Was it before you ‘cut out your heart’?” Shouta asks quietly.

(“You’ll forget about wearing that girly shit, Yamada - “)

Hizashi’s chest tightens painfully. “He - was not happy to find my - things,” he says haltingly raising a hand to press to his chest. He’d never talked about that day before, when his foster parents had found his small collection of “girly things” and his foster father had lost it on him, more so than he ever had before. Even before he cut his heart out thinking about it had made his breathing stutter, so it’s strange that it does the same thing now when he’s without one. “I - wasn’t allowed…”

He trails off, unable to continue with how tight his chest is getting. There’s a bit of sweat gathering at his temples now, and he breathes as slowly as he can through how small his lungs suddenly feel.

A hand lays gently on his shoulder, and Hizashi blinks over at Shouta. “I understand,” his friend says quietly. There’s another furrow in his brow - but it’s different now; instead of being tight with confusion, it looks tight with some sort of pain, like he’s feeling the same squeeze in his chest that Hizashi is. “I didn’t know…”

“Didn’t know what?” Hizashi asks, a little breathless.

“...Nothing,” Shouta says, shaking his head. “But I know what we can do to help you with this, if you’re open to it.”

The next day during breakfast, Shouta goes up to the girls and talks to them for a moment. Hizashi doesn’t know as he isn’t close enough to hear the conversation. But he watches as they all smile, some of them turning to look at him from across the picnic area, and nod to whatever it is that Shouta has said.

That night they approach him with smiles on their faces and nail polish in their hands.

“Aizawa-sensei asked us if we could do your nails,” Ashido says brightly, shaking one of the little bottles. “Something about how it’s been a long time?”

Hizashi blinks at them, sees Shouta duck his head into his capture weapon from where he’s watching a little bit away. “...It - has been,” he says, turning his attention back to the girls. “Since I was about your age.”

Hagakure makes a distraught noise. “Yamada-sensei, that’s horrible! How can you live a life without a little bit of color?”

“It’s actually quite easy - “

“What colors do you like, Yamada-sensei?” Asui asks, holding up her handful of bottles. As soon as she does, the other girls are shoving the bottles they’re holding close to Hizashi’s face, eager for him to see what options he has to choose from.

“I…don’t have a favorite,” he tells them, eyes darting over the vibrant colors.

Jirou pulls back a bit, looking him up and down. “Well, you normally wear grays…”

“Bzzt! We’re not putting him in more boring gray!” Ashido says heatedly. “No way! Color, Kyoka, color!”

“P-perhaps we could do an ombre from a dark gray to a green?” Yaoyorozu pipes up, and everyone looks at her curiously. She flushes under the attention, shuffling. “Oh, well, it’s just - Yamada-sensei’s eyes are green, and since he normally wears tones of gray, if we do something like that it would match whatever outfits he’s wearing while also matching his eyes…”

The girls beam. “Momo-chan, that’s genius!” Hagakure squeals, hugging her tightly. “And that’s why you’re the smartest in our class!”

Somehow, Yaoyorozu goes even more red under the attention.

“So? How about it, Yamada-sensei?” Uraraka asks as she digs out the colors in question. “Gray to green on your nails?”

“It’ll look so cool! I promise, I’m practically a pro!” Ashido says, holding up a three-finger scout salute. “Come on, what do you say?”

Hizashi looks at each of them, at their excitement and eagerness to put some color on his nails, and then down at the bottles that Jirou is holding. They aren’t telling him that he’s weird or that it’s only for girls. The other students around them only watch curiously, not seeming to care that one of the adults with them is going to get his nails done by the girls in their class. And still sitting just a little bit away, Shouta watches, face ducked in his capture weapon, completely at ease.

“...Alright,” he says, holding out his hands, and the girls all cheer.

There’s something…almost relaxing about it. The girls fawn over his long fingers, calling them pretty and beautiful and pianist’s hands (though they do comment about how cold they are), and they carefully buff and prep his nails to be painted. They joke with each other as they do so, arguing about the best shades to use and even holding up various bottles of green polish to the sides of his face before settling on “just the right one”.

He’d never done this before - gotten his nails painted by someone else. Hizashi remembers buying his own cheap polish at the store with spare coins he’d collected off the street and in the wash, and he remembers the way he’d taught himself in the lamp-light of his room in the late hours of the night, half afraid of his foster parents waking up and finding him. The joy of seeing the shimmering colors, though, even if he quickly took it all off so he wasn’t discovered, was a lot like finding a puzzle piece to himself and fitting it into place.

It was the same with the make-up he bought - just some eyeliner and gloss - and the single skirt he’d found in a thrift store on super clearance. Though he hadn't known what wearing any of it meant to him yet, he knew he enjoyed it. He knew it brought him a measure of happiness that simply wearing traditionally boy things didn’t.

When the girls are done, some of the boys come over to see, finally indulging the curiosity that’s been eating at them from watching the girl crowd around Hizashi. “What’s going on?” they ask, and it’s Ashido who proudly holds up Hizasih’s hands for them to see.

“Look!” she all but shrieks, delighted by her job well done, shaking his hands in their faces. “Look! Aren’t his nails so pretty now!?”

“Mina, easy, you don’t need to grab him like that,” Uraraka scolds with a laugh. “Sorry, Yamada-sensei.”

“I’m alright,” Hizashi assures. He has his eyes on the boys, who are staring with wide eyes at his nails and haven’t said anything just yet.

(“You’ll forget about wearing - “)

His chest tightens.

“Yamada-sensei,” Tokoyami suddenly says, one hand to the bottom of his beak, “your nails look quite good. That might be a style I try out for myself in the future.”

Hizashi blinks, slow.

“Yeah, I agree!” Sero says with a grin. He’s leaning closer to get a better look. “Damn, Ashido, you killed it with the blend.”

“It’s ombre,” Yaoyorozu mumbles.

“Well, whatever it is, it’s manly!” Kirishima says heartily. He’s got a winning smile on his face as he looks past Hizashi’s hands to his face, eyes sparkling. “Excellent choice, Sensei! These look awesome!”

That something in Hizashi’s chest thumps - not quite as hard as it usually does, but enough that he notices. His hands twitch just a bit, and Ashido drops them immediately, for which he’s grateful because he has the sudden urge to look at his nails himself. Looking at them, he has to admit they are rather good looking. The students did a fantastic job making sure that the polish didn't spread over his cuticles or onto his fingers, and the shine is even and smooth.

“Thank you,” he says, and he means it.

Not too far away, he thinks he sees Shouta smile.

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

It isn’t until after the training camp (which had been found, somehow, by the League of Villains, attacked, Bakugou had been kidnapped, and through a long and wild string of events led to All Might stepping down as the Number One hero), Hizashi realizes that he’s starting to hold onto heat.

The realization comes when he’s trying to pick out something to wear that won’t leave him sweating for the nth day in a row, and he sees that everything in his wardrobe is nothing but long-sleeved shirts, most of them of the turtle-neck, sweater variety. It makes him pause, hand outstretched and resting on a hanger, and then he’s stepping away to pick up his phone.

“Recovery Girl,” he says when she picks up the call, “I’m warm.”

“I should hope so, Yamada-san,” she replies. “It is the middle of a heat wave in the middle of summer.”

“I’ve been warmer these last couple of weeks than I have been in years,” he goes on. “My entire wardrobe is based around that, yet wearing what I normally do, I’ve been sweating.”

She hums, and he can hear tapping over the phone. “You do typically not hold onto heat very well,” she comments to herself. “And you say this is recent?”

“Yes.”

“...It’s also strange that you would tell me this on your own,” she says further, sounding intrigued. “Normally I have to ask you about your health in order to get you to talk to me about it.”

“It’s unusual,” Hizashi says, unsure if he’s defending himself or not. “And I…don’t have anything else to wear.”

A giggle comes over the line. “Oh, you do love those turtlenecks of yours, don’t you?”

“I don’t love anything.”

“Whatever you say,” Recovery Girl says teasingly. There’s a bit more tapping, and then she says, “Well, it doesn’t sound like an emergency. You don’t feel dizzy, short of breath, or any chest pain, do you?”

“No.”

“Then for now, an exam can wait. How about we get you some clothes to wear for today and then get some shopping done later? We certainly can’t have you showing up for work in nothing but your underwear! Ohohoho!”

“...I’m thinking perhaps you might be enjoying this.”

What he is given to wear at least until the work day is done is a simple t-shirt and pair of jeans. They don’t quite fit, both being a little large on him, but a belt does wonders in keeping the pants on and a shirt just needs to cover him. After a moment of thought, Hizashi grabs a spare pen he has and uses it to put his hair into a bun - hair ties will have to be added to the shopping list for later.

Odd looks are shot at him as he comes into UA proper from both the civilian and heroes alike. He doesn’t pay them any mind - it’s more than likely because he’s dressed unprofessionally. The oddest looks, he thinks, are from Shouta, who either stares at him as if stupefied or peeks at him from under his hair like he’s trying to hide that he’s looking in the first place. Kayama teases him obviously, commenting on Hizashi’s dressed-down appearance and new hairstyle, and Hizashi watches as again and again Shouta shakes her off and calls her a menace to society.

Meetings go well; the student dorms are being implemented, and most of the teachers have been going around gathering permission from the parents personally throughout the afternoons. It means that Hizashi is usually left to handle basic tasks in the office, seeing as he’s an assistant and not a teacher himself, and he finds himself listening to music as he quietly does his work.

That’s how Shouta and Kayama find him in the late afternoon: filing some paperwork and humming along to one of the many songs on his phone.

“Recovery Girl told us that you had something of a wardrobe malfunction,” Kayama says after they catch his attention, “and that you need to go out and get some new clothes.”

Hizashi nods. “I do. All of my current clothes are no longer suitable for this weather.”

“Well, you were wearing turtleneck sweaters in the middle of summer…”

“She asked if we could go with you,” Shouta says, scrubbing a hand through his hair and not looking at him directly. Why isn’t clear to Hizashi. “Since…we’re your friends…”

A snicker escapes Kayama - Hizashi looks at her, then at Shouta. “That sounds fine,” he says, nodding. “Thank you.”

They don’t go too far from UA, finding a shop that isn’t crowded but is versatile in what they have available. Hizashi simply goes through and begins grabbing clothes that look like they might be in his size in the grays that he’s used to. Why would he deviate from the shades that have worked for him so far?

Except that he’s got half an armful when suddenly Kayama grabs everything he has and tells him, “No.”

“...Pardon?”

“You need some color,” she says, retracing his steps and putting everything back exactly where he’d found it. “That nail polish you’ve been wearing - which I think could do with a touch up soon - is a great start, but baby for the love of all that is holy, color. Blues. Reds. Greens, for sure. Purples. Yellows! Anything, just no more gray.”

Hizashi looks at her, blinking quickly, then turns to look at Shouta who stands there unhelpfully.. “...It’s what’s in my wardrobe,” he says. “It’s what I have.”

“Maybe it’s…time for something different,” Shouta says slowly, shrugging. “You’ll never know until you try. How long have you been wearing gray, Hizashi?”

He fidgets with his own hands. “Since - since I…”

Shouta steps closer. “Since you ‘cut out your heart’.”

His chest feels tight. He nods.

“You used to wear bright orange sunglasses,” N - Kayama says, walking back over to him. There’s a gentle look on her face. “And the reading glasses you had were this fire-hydrant red.”

Hizashi nods again. “I remember.”

“Do you remember the bracelets and wristbands you used to wear?” Shouta asks, and with a tight throat Hizashi nods once more. “The green wristband with the gold studs, and the pastel-rainbow beaded bracelet that was beat up to hell and back and falling apart?”

“You won it in a crane game,” Hizashi whispers. “I wasn’t going to throw it away.”

Something deeply complicated crosses Shouta’s face when he says that, and his friend nods, blinking quickly. “That’s - that’s right,” he says, and his voice is suddenly very hoarse. “I did, didn’t I?”

“You also colored your converse,” Nem - Kayama says, and she grabs one of Hizashi’s hands to hold in her own. She lets out something of a wet laugh, and when Hizashi looks at her eyes, they look suspiciously bright. “Oboro - Oboro had told you that it was tacky, but you didn’t care. You loved doodling on them just so you could wash them clean and color them all over again.”

Hizashi takes in a shuddered breath, though he doesn’t know why. “He was tacky,” he finds himself saying. “He wore crocs with socks.”

Both Shouta and Nemuri - Kayama burst into laughter, and Hizashi doesn’t know why. He wasn’t trying to be funny. He was just telling them the truth - crocs with socks are a terrible fashion choice, everyone knows that.

(A younger Hizashi giggles, delighted at making his friends laugh.)

He stumbles when both of them suddenly wrap their arms around him in a hug, catching him off guard. “What’s this about?” he asks, not knowing if he should bring his arms up to hug them back or not.

“It’s nice to see you peeking out,” Nemuri says in his ear, sounding amused and relieved and grateful. “That’s all.”

Slowly, Hizashi brings his arms up to wrap around them. “I’m still here.”

“We know,” Shouta says in his other ear, soft and filled with an emotion that Hizashi isn’t able to identify. It makes his chest feel tighter. “That’s why we’re fighting for you.”

That something thumps, and instead of pressing a hand to his chest to ease the pain, Hizashi hugs his friends closer to himself..

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

Going clothes shopping with Hizashi was an experience that Shouta certainly will never forget. And, sure, yes, Shouta can admit that Hizashi’s hair being pulled back and away from his neck and seeing him in more form-fitting clothes and actually getting to see the long limbs he was always hiding - it was nice. Yes. Very nice. But the colors. Oh, the colors.

It was like seeing the sunrise for the first time in his life.

Which admittedly is a very corny thing to think, but after years of no contact, of wondering what had happened to Hizashi, of wondering why his friend has dropped out of the hero course with no word to him and seemed to just drop off the face of the planet? Seeing him - and not just the quiet, pale shell of him that appeared out of the blue one day in tones of gray, but him - is everything for Shouta.

Nemuri teased him through every change of outfit, poking fun at the pink in his cheeks and how he could barely look Hizashi in the eyes, but Shouta suffered through it happily.

Hizashi was starting to finally peek through.

With the dorms implemented, Shouta moves on campus to keep a better eyes on his students - which also, conveniently, means that he’s able to spend more time with Hizashi, too. Due to Hizashi’s unique situation, he’s not allowed to help in actually watching the students, but he’s been given clearance to pass through the first floor of each of the dorms as needed in case of work-related reasons. Shouta’s fine with asking him to help with some grading in the corner of the common area after they get dinner with Nemuri as an excuse, and Hizashi almost always says yes.

It’s one of those evenings that Shouta’s sitting with him, quietly admiring the short-sleeved, business casual shirt that Hizashi’s wearing in a light shade of pink, which he’s paired with a nice pair of jeans for the day. The outfit is one that Hizashi had picked out himself after some coaxing from Nemuri, and it looks…good on him. Unfairly good, especially with the bright orange scrunchy he’s used to pull his hair back with and the new, fire-hydrant red glasses he has perched on his nose.

He also looks more relaxed. Hizashi leans sideways in his seat a little more than he has been, and under the table Shouta knows he’s crossed his legs. His nails are painted again, fresh paint this time in gold and purple, and there’s an ease to his expression that says that he’s comfortable instead of just present, just there.

It’s not quite content, and perhaps quite a ways from happy, but it’s more than it was before.

A shriek comes from the middle of the common room before yelling starts up, several of his students all trying to be heard over one another as they argue over something that’s likely very, very stupid. When he looks over, he sees Kaminari and Uraraka both smiling off to the side, so it can’t be too serious of an issue, thus he shakes his head and lets them sort it out. For now.

“They’re loud,” Hizashi says, eyes still on the papers in front of him.

Shouta’s lips quirk up. “They are,” he agrees. “Probably one of my loudest classes to date. Though I am surprised to hear you of all people talking about someone being loud.”

Green eyes look up at him over the rim of red glasses. “Why?”

“You really have to ask?” Shouta snorts. “If I remember correctly, it was your surprise parties that got noise complaints from some of the other classes,” he says, grinning. “And you were always encouraging other people to match you, volume for volume - you were good at it, too.”

“I…preferred to be loud in ways that everyone enjoyed,” Hizashi says, resting his chin in his hand. He’s stopped grading, instead idly twirling his pen in his other hand on the table. “If they were also loud, then that, too, made it harder for people to tell me to be quiet.”

He can feel the frown forming on his face. “There weren’t that many people telling you to be quiet,” he tells him, soft but firm. “A lot of people liked you, loudness and all.”

Hizashi shrugs. “Perhaps.” He looks out at the students still bickering. “It is - odd to be considered the quiet one now.”

“You could still be loud,” Shouta points out. “Louder than everyone else in the school combined. Just need to intake a good breath of air first.” He leans in over the table with a grin that shows off too many teeth. “It might be good for the students to see someone unexpected able to blast them away.”

“I can’t.”

“If it’s about the use of quirks outside of hero use or emergencies, I’m sure Nedzu won’t mind.”

“Shouta,” Hizashi says, looking back at him, “I can’t use my quirk anymore.”

He stares at Hizashi, the light feeling he’d been carrying suddenly so very, very heavy.

“When - did this happen?” he asks, keeping his voice quiet. This isn’t something his students need to know about - he doesn’t need them prying. His eyes drop down to the barely visible scar on Hizashi’s neck. “Was it the villain attack you were caught up in last year?”

“No,” Hizashi tells him, matching his volume. “It was…when I cut out my heart.”

Not for the first time Shouta wants to know what Hizashi means by that. He keeps saying it, but the words don’t make any sense; it’s almost like Hizashi’s speaking in metaphor, but a metaphor for what? Why would he use words like that instead of speaking plainly, like he does for everything else?

“Screaming is an…emotional act,” Hizashi says. He’s stopping twirling his pen now, instead simply resting the tip on the table, unmoving. “Without emotion, I am unable to scream. I’m not able to be loud. And since I’m not able to be loud, I can’t use my quirk.”

“I’m…” Shouta’s fingers bite into his palms as he curls them into fists. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s why I dropped out of the heroics course,” Hizashi admits, barely above a whisper. “It was the logical thing to do once I figured it out - and it made my counselor happy, too. She had been talking to me about how…dangerous my quirk was and that I would likely fail the heroics course.”

“Hizashi, I - that’s awful,” Shouta says, gut churning. He’d never known. Sure, back in their UA days he remembers Hizashi going to talk to the counselors often about his schooling, perhaps more than the other kids in their class, but he always thought it was about him being top of their year, not this. Every time Hizashi came back from a session he’d been all smiles and laughs, eager to joke around and have fun with his friends.

…Perhaps the cruelty of his sessions were why he was always eager to joke around and have fun with his friends.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, and he means it. He reaches out across the small table to grip Hizashi’s hand, holding the thin, warm palm tight in his own. Hizashi looks at their joined hands with a slight widening of his eyes, as if startled. “I had no idea. I - I know you probably didn’t want to tell me, and you had your reasons, and nothing can change the past - “

He knows that all too well.

“ - but you have to know, if you had told me, I would have been there for you. I’m sorry I…wasn’t.”

Hizashi just stares at their hands, eyes glued to them. “...You had your own issues,” he eventually says slowly. “You were still…dealing with Oboro’s death.”

Shouta huffs in frustration, squeezing Hizashi’s hand tighter. “Hizashi, we were all still dealing with his death,” he tells him, and even now, years later, thinking about their friend hurts. It’s a wound that never quite healed right. “And I - yeah, I wasn’t handling it well. But just because I wasn’t doesn’t mean you had to deal with that along with being silenced all by yourself."

Green eyes flicker up to meet his own. “You would have wanted to know?”

There’s an uncertainty there - clear through the blank, emotionless shell that Hizashi is trapped in - that rips right through Shouta’s heart.

“Yes,” he tells him. “You’re my friend. You’ve always been my friend. I - I care about you, Hizashi. I would have wanted to know.”

Green eyes flicker back down, and Hizashi’s hand twitches in his own. It doesn’t seem like he wants to pull away, so Shouta simply holds on, firm and solid, intent on letting Hizashi know that he’s not going anywhere. He watches as his friend’s other hand comes up to press against his chest, watches him stutter on his breathing a couple times.

“...Oh.”

Hizashi’s hand rubs in little circles at his chest, and Shouta relaxes bit by bit, knowing that some measure of what he’s said has gotten through to him.

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

Since then, Hizashi’s noticed that Shouta’s been reaching out for him more and more.

He’ll reach out to put an arm around his shoulder if they’re sitting side by side, or he’ll put a hand on his shoulder. If they’re walking together, sometimes Hizashi will feel a hand on his back, a gentle pressure that doesn’t push or guide but lets him know that Shouta is there. Occasionally some of Hizashi’s hair will fall loose from his hair tie, falling in his face, and a work-rough hand will reach out to carefully tuck it back behind his ear.

More than all of those combined, Shouta reaches for his hand to just hold in his own.

Each and every time, Hizashi feels that something in his chest thump, almost hiccup, and his chest feels tight and light and shivery all at once. It’s different from how it’s been reacting since running into Shouta again, but for some reason he doesn’t dare tell Recovery Girl about the new development.

Each time Shouta reaches out reminds him of their last…serious talk they had, so more and more it’s been on Hizashi’s mind lately - that Shouta would have wanted to know. It’s an idea that he has been having some difficulty wrapping his head around, but not because he thinks that Shouta might have been lying.

(A younger Hizashi wonders, confused and uncertain, if maybe he’d been so caught up in his head that he was looking at everything all wrong.)

So when Shouta’s off helping his homeroom class with something and Nemuri has some freetime, Hizashi approaches her, thinking perhaps she might be able to help him sort out his thoughts on the matter. She’s more than happy to listen, steals a couple of Shouta’s jelly pouches, and takes him to one of the many gardens that UA has so that they have some privacy. “Alright, Hizashi, spill the beans,” she says, plopping down onto a bench and patting the spot next to her. “Tell me what’s going on.”

He sits down a little more calmly than her, untwisting the cap on the jelly pouch. “I know you had already graduated,” he starts slowly, eyes on the flower bushes around them (the botany club, small that it is due to the size of the General Education course, seems to take good care of the plant life here), “but you still kept in touch with both Shouta and I during our third year.”

“I did my best, yeah,” Nemuri says, nodding. “At least, I tried.”

Hizashi keeps twisting the cap on the jelly pouch. “How did Shouta…seem to you?” he asks. “As your friend, from…your perspective.”

Nemuri twists the cap off of her jelly pouch as she thinks and takes a drink. There’s no reply for a few moments, then she finally shrugs. “Well, he was obsessed with training,” she starts, and Hizsahi turns to look at her properly. “Remember when he made his hands bleed trying to master climbing his capture weapon? We both thought he was crazy - turns out it’s a pretty useful skill now, by the way, so hey, kudos to him for thinking ahead at least.”

“I…remember,” Hizashi says.

(Then he looked over at Hizashi, finally, and scowled. “And it wouldn’t hurt for you to get some training in yourself, you know.”)

(A younger Hizashi still shies away from that memory.)

“Also pretty snappy,” Nemuri keeps going. “A bit more than…well, before we lost Oboro.” She smiles, a touch of sadness in the corners of it. “But hey, who doesn’t change a little bit after losing someone close to us?”

He nods.

“Shouta was a lot more driven,” Nemuri says. “Each time I saw him during your third year, it was like he’d grown in some new way. He lost a friend, and he was…” She nudges him with her elbow. “He was doing everything he could that he knew how to do to hold onto the friends that he had left.”

(What?)

“I don’t understand,” Hizashi says, and he can feel his brows furrowing. “In what way? He was always so busy.”

“Hizaaashiii, come on,” Nemuri laughs, leaning over to drape an arm over his shoulder. “He was busy training because he wanted to get stronger - to protect people. Most importantly,” she pokes him in the chest with her jelly pouch, “to protect the people important to him.”

“How do you know?” he asks, fingers twisting and twisting the cap. “It didn’t seem like he thought I was important to him.”

She hums, eyes sparkling. “Maybe because I was the ‘outside observer’,” she says. “He didn’t let you see, but I got to see the way he looked at you when you weren’t looking.”

Hizashi twists the cap off, though he hadn’t meant to.

“So,” he starts, halting (and uncertain, a younger Hizashi wringing his hands), “if Shouta had said he’d rather train than go out, and told me to train too…”

Nemuri raises a brow. “A bit specific,” she says suspiciously, “but that sounds like a dumb, teenage Shouta trying to tell someone he cares about that he’s trying to protect them in his weird, roundabout way, and maybe,” she pokes Hizashi in the chest again, “telling this someone that he’s worried about them, too. You know how almost half of the things he’d said would be taken wrong or out of context.”

Hizashi nods slowly. That’s…true. Shouta had always been so prickly and horrible at talking to people that he usually just relied on his friends to do the talking for him; he had a reputation for pissing off just about everyone around him because he’d accidentally say the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time. Famously he’d nearly ruined one of his internships because he’d made what he thought was a nice comment about the hero running the agency, but it had been taken completely the wrong way and somehow led to a free-for-all brawl in the streets with the sidekicks. They had laughed about it for weeks.

“He did tell me recently that he cared for me,” Hizashi tells her.

“It’s true,” she says, squeezing close. “He cares for you, too, you know.”

“He said that, too.”

“Good,” Nemuri says. “It’s about time he’s been open about his feelings with you.”

(A younger Hizashi flusters, but after talking things out with his friend, feels hope.)

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

A lot happens.

His students get involved with the Yakuza, of all things, one of UA’s top third years loses his quirk while saving a little girl, and a hero - someone he could even call a friend - died. Midoriya, of course, is caught up in the middle of all of it. Things…calm, after, and Shouta directs some of his attention to helping the girl they rescued recover.

With the school festival coming up, a chance to showcase each of the classes in ways beyond just quirks and heroism, Shouta takes it as the chance to breathe that it is. Everyone is busy making sure that it’s going to be safe, contacting agencies to draw in support for the days they’re going to have the gates open to the public, but paperwork and phone calls are significantly less stressful than fast-paced combat on the streets with a potential Nomu around the corner. Is it more enjoyable?

Shouta never claimed to like paperwork or phone calls.

Hizashi is a boon, easily completing tasks that drain the others in the office, and he also takes the time to make new pots of coffee when it gets low or cold. Snipe half-jokingly says that he’s their hero, and the others laugh, saying that they should get Hizashi a license that says “Pro Office Hero”. To everyone’s delight, Power Loader shows up one morning and sets down a little card on Hizashi’s desk that says exactly that.

He might not emote, but Shouta could swear that Hizashi is happy to receive the gift.

As they get closer to the festival and more of their work to make sure things are safe is completed, there’s less and less for everyone to do (the same can’t be said for the students, who become more frantic with each passing day to complete their projects in time). It means that a couple days before the festival, Shouta thinks it might be one of the few chances he might get to have some time together with Hizashi.

Nemuri hadn’t gone into many details, but she had said that Hizashi had come to her to talk about him (the fact that he’d approached anyone at all to talk about anything is surprising in and of itself since normally all he does is respond). What had stuck out to her - and what she’d wanted to share - was that Hizashi was stuck on trying to figure out, years after the fact, why Shouta would rather train than spend time with him.

“Of course I wanted - “ Shouta had cut himself off before he said something incriminating, turning his face away from Nemuri’s grin to scowl at a wall. “I just… If I stopped training, then I couldn’t get stronger. Which meant that I wouldn’t be able to…”

“That’s what I figured,” Nemuri told him, patting him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. Hizashi and I had a good talk. He’s not stuck on that anymore.”

The thing is, now Shouta’s stuck on it. He thinks about all the missed opportunities, the years of no contact, of missing his friend like a limb, of wishing he’d been able to at least tell Hizashi how he’d felt before he disappeared, and wants. So he makes sure that there’s someone to cover 1-A’s dorms, gets out of his hero costume for a change, and tracks Hizashi down to ask him to spend the evening with him.

“Is there something going on?” Hizashi asks, tilting his head as he looks Shouta up and down. “You’re out of your costume. That’s unusual.”

Shouta flushes under the attention but doesn’t duck his head (it’s not like he’s wearing his capture weapons to hide in, anyway). “Nothing special,” he says. “Just…wanted to see if you wanted to go out with me.”

His ears burn at his own wording.

HIzashi stares at him for a long moment, then slowly, very slowly, nods. “Alright,” he says, stepping down from where he’d been about to walk up into the dorm building he lives in. “That is…agreeable.”

Shouta huffs a laugh, relaxing. “That’s practically you saying that you really want to go,” he teases, holding out a hand for Hizashi to take. “Must be excited.”

“I could stay,” Hizashi says, but he slips his hand into Shouta’s.

“You don’t want to,” Shouta says as they start walking to the school gates.

Hizashi hums and squeezes Shouta’s hand gently. “No,” he says. “I…don’t believe I do.”

He takes them to a place that Shouta rarely visits but always enjoys the times he does go. It doesn’t have an official name, the people simply calling it The Street, but several different carts and stalls set up down it to sell their wares, a lot like a bazaar. It’s attracted a lot of people, and because of that food carts have taken to setting up there, which led to someone putting in some picnic tables and benches. The places to sit and rest attracted musicians since people could sit and eat while listening to them play, and someone else decided to install string lights criss-crossing up and down above the walkways.

When he found the place years ago, a fledgling Pro just out of UA and very, very green, he’d thought that Hizashi would have loved this place. Now he finally gets the chance to show it to him.

While it’s not quite the reaction he’d always imagined Hizashi to have - a large, bright smile, wide eyes, and practically vibrating to go check everything out, pulling on his arm to go, go, go - he still gets the joy of watching him take everything in. Hizashi’s head turns this way and that as they make their way slowly through, and occasionally his hand will twitch, a subtle sign that Shouta’s figured out to mean that he wants to do something but his strange, heartless condition is holding him back.

So he keeps an eye out for the things Hizashi’s eyes linger on, for the subtle twitches, and when he sees them Shouta steers them towards the stalls that hold them. It amuses him that even emotionless Hizashi still is drawn to the brightly colored and sparkly things. There’s some bracelets that Shouta encourages Hizashi to try on, a little pin that he can stick to whatever he’s wearing that looks like a parakeet. A pair of bright, glittery shoelaces, and Shouta helps him re-lace the pair of boots he’s currently wearing once he’s bought them for him.

When he sees Hizashi looking at a pair of earrings, some silver studs with matching clasps, he says that he should buy them. “My ears aren’t pierced,” Hizaish tells him. “They would just go to waste.”

“Then we can pierce them,” Shouta says, nodding across the way to the couple running a little piercing booth. “You’d always wanted to do it. So why not?”

“...Why not,” Hizashi echoes.

A few minutes later, Hizashi’s walking away from the booth with his ears a little red from the needle and studded in the lobes with silver.

There’s a light to his eyes - barely there, but there - that Shouta hasn’t seen in years.

Hizashi begins to point things out on his own after that. The pink scarf with the little kitty paw prints is draped around Shouta’s neck, Hizashi stating that he knows that he likes cats and the color pink. He finds scrunchies in yellow and black stripes, and says that they should get them and wear them so that they could match, and what else is Shouta supposed to do but obey? A bell, of all things, is held up, and Hizashi says with the straightest face that he’s heard around the office that several of the teachers and the other heroes think they should put a bell on Shouta so they can hear him coming.

It earns him an arm around his neck and knuckles rubbing into his head, but Shouta laughs and laughs as Hizashi only asks why he’s offended.

He’s in there.

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

Hizashi bites into his karaage, eyes closing to savor the flavor. It’s just the right amount of crunchy, it’s juicy, there’s a delicate spice to the breading, and the heat lingers in his mouth after he swallows. How long has it been since he’s allowed himself to indulge in what he once considered his favorite food?

(A younger Hizashi reminds him that he’d forgotten how.)

“It’s good,” he says, eyes opening so he can pick out his next piece of karaage. “The food cart owner must have trained for a long time to get the recipe just right.”

Shouta’s lips curve up into a small smile, seen just above the pink cat paw scarf that Hizashi had wound around his neck earlier. “Probably. I’m sure he’d be pleased to hear you say that.” He leans forward on the table, half relaxing and half trying to meet Hizashi’s eyes better. “I take it you’re enjoying yourself so far?”

Hizashi fiddles with the wrapper the karaage came in, a strange heat going over his ears. His chest feels that strange combination of tight and light and shivery all at once, and once again he doesn’t know what to make of it. “Perhaps as…close to that as I can be.”

“Good.”

Not too far away, a cheer goes up from a crowd of people, and they both turn to look, drawn by the sound. It becomes apparent what the excitement is about only a moment later when the sounds of a guitar starts strumming along with a keyboard and drums, and after a handful of beats a voice joins in, too.

“It’s a street band,” Hizashi comments.

“A lot of them perform around here,” Shouta says, popping another piece of karaage into his mouth. Once he’s chewed, he continues, “It’s a good spot for them to get some visibility, or to just get out and play. It’s just sort of…part of The Street experience.”

“How often do you come here?” Hizashi asks.

Shouta shrugs, ducking his head into his scarf. “Not…often.” He looks off to the side awkwardly for a second, the back to Hizashi. “Perhaps a couple times a year at most, though I tried to keep my visits to once a year or once every other year.”

Hizashi tilts his head. “Why?” he asks. “You seem to like this place.”

“I…do,” he admits. “But I - “ He huffs, and a dusting of pink spreads across his face. “When I found The Street, I wanted to share this place with you. So coming here without you didn’t seem…right.” He rubs a hand over his face as if to scrub away how red he’s turning. “I really only came as often as I did to make sure this place was still around in case I ever - did run into you again.”

The tight and light and shivering feeling in his chest grows and Hizashi struggles not to tremble around it, raising a hand to his chest to just press and attempt to hold it in as he stares at Shouta. He hadn’t been expecting that. He hadn’t been expecting anything, but for Shouta to say that he wanted to share something with him, to say he hoped to run into him again…

“I know this song,” Hizashi says suddenly, a little bit weakly.

Shouta frowns at him. “O...kay?”

He stands, tries not to stumble around the picnic table, and tugs on Shouta’s arm. “Dance with me?”

(A younger Hizashi wants to pull, pull, to drag Shouta to the middle of The Street and spin and spin and spin, delirious with emotion.)

Shouta’s eyes go wide, then he nods, dumbstruck. “Y-yeah,” he stammers, almost tripping to his feet. “Yeah, I’ll - I’ll dance with you.”

They don’t move far, just a little ways away from the table so they aren’t bumping into it, and then Hizashi is stepping into Shouta’s space, putting one hand on his shoulder and grabbing his other, and trying to rock them to the beat. Shouta fumbles, doing his best to follow along, and there’s a smile on his face as they step on each other’s toes. One of them tries to swing one way while the other tries to swing the opposite, and they wind up bumping shoulders. Hizashi nearly trips over Shouta’s knee, and Shouta attempts to spin them but nearly topples both of them over.

He laughs, the smile growing, and Hizashi…

(He’s having fun.)

They spin again, barely getting it right, and clasp hands when they manage to just right themselves. There’s a triumphant grin on Shouta’s face.

(Hizashi never thought he could have this.)

Shouta wraps an arm more securely around his waist, and their stumbling eases. Both of them are able to twist and turn better, and the corner’s of Shouta’s eyes crinkle with joy.

(It’s been years. Over a decade. He’d given up on being happy or anyone wanting him to be happy.)

Hizashi, wildly, unwinds the scarf from Shouta’s neck and instead draws in around them both. Shouta goes wide-eyed for a moment, then laughs, grabbing an end and giving one to him so they both can keep it wound around the two of them. “You caught me,” he jokes, grinning with all his teeth.

“I have,” Hizashi says back, eyes stinging.

(How strange it is that he finds, years after cutting out his heart, that he can not only be happy but with someone that wants him? Someone that…)

His other hand goes up to the back of Shouta’s neck.

(A younger Hizashi smiles at him. “Someone that you love.”

An older, not as heartless as he thought, Hizashi smiles back for the first time. “Someone that I love.”)

He kisses him, and his heart thumps, thumps, and keeps thumping in his chest as love and happiness and joy fill him from the inside out.

It's everything he's ever imagined and more, going beyond the dreams of his bumbling teenage self and beyond anything his heartless adult self could possibly even believe. Shouta wraps him in his arms immediately, surrounding him, and his lips move both soft and rough against his own with emotions that Hizashi can feel through every touch, every hot breath breathed into his mouth. Hizashi shivers and whines, pressing closer; he needs to be as close as possible, to show Shouta what he feels and that he’s there, that he’s feeling it just as much as Shouta is. By the hand smoothing up and down his back, he thinks maybe that Shouta knows and understands.

As he clings with everything he has to Shouta, pouring everything into the slide of their lips and the way they press together from head to toe, he can feel himself… Not changing, not exactly, but returning. It’s like he’s only been halfway home for the past several years, only vaguely aware of the things going on around him, all at once everything - everything comes rushing in.

Hizashi doesn’t want to let go, but when he starts shaking, hands trembling where they try to grip at Shouta's back and hair, Shouta gently pulls away, hands coming up to cup his cheeks to look at him in concern.

“I love you,” Hizashi sobs, helpless. He raises his hands to Shouta’s wrists and holds on tight, vision going blurry - which is unacceptable, he wants to see Shouta’s face clearly for the first time in years. “I love you, Shouta, I love you, I-I always have, I-I’ve missed you so much, I’m here, I love you - “

“Okay,” Shouta says quietly, walking them back over to the picnic table to sit down. He has Hizashi sit next to him, and he grabs up some of the napkins they were given to carefully start wiping at Hizashi’s face. “Okay, it’s okay. I love you, too.”

That just makes Hizashi cry harder.

He buries himself in Shouta’s arms, needing to be held, wanting to be held. Wants and desires, things he hasn’t had since he stupidly cut his own heart out when he was a teenager, finally are his again, making themselves known in both little and big ways. He wants to tell Shouta he loves him. He wants Shouta to hold him. He wants Shouta to kiss him. He wants more karaage. He wants to keep dancing. He wants to cry. He wants to stop crying.

He wants…so many things.

It’s overwhelming, but at the same time so relieving. When was the last time he truly wanted anything? Everything he’d ever done for himself in the last several years was only done out of necessity instead of any sort of desire; it was an empty life. Unfulfilling.

Eventually the sobs trickle into giggles, the tears stopping, and Hizashi sniffles, pulling back (only a little) to look Shouta in the eye. “Thank you for not giving up on me,” he says. Then, just because he can, just because he wants to, “I love you.”

Shouta looks a little overwhelmed himself, but he gives him a small, heartfelt smile back, one of his hands coming up to brush some of the tears away from under Hizashi’s eye. “I love you, too,” he replies. “And I never gave up on you - I just finally found you again.”

A smile spreads bright and wide on Hizashi’s face.

It feels good to have it there.