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Call it a gut feeling, intuition, statistical likelihood, clairvoyance, or just good ol' fashioned guess work but Hizashi knew his best friend was going to call on him way before the request actually made an appearance.
That sneaking suspicion originated directly after second period when he passed by the heroics classroom and caught sight of Shouta there— not curled up in that atrocious sleeping bag for a nap but face down in the pillow of his own arms. Hizashi was pretty sure right then but confirmed it twice over when the grumpy sack skipped his break, and lunch, quickly disappearing out the nearest window the second the final bell rang.
So Hizashi was waiting for it. Up late running cardio and reading English essays out loud to get a feel for the verbal flow, just waiting for Shouta's text.
It took longer to come than he thought it would but the text came all the same.
Are you busy?
A quick glance at the smart watch on his wrist and Hizashi was off the treadmill and half naked, stepping into the shower while he tapped out a reply.
For u handsome? Never
It was barely a shower. More of a spot clean, really. He'd experienced more thorough pat downs. Didn’t matter. The sweat was circling the drain and his hair was damp and Hizashi was walking out in a robe just a few minutes later.
It was a shorter jaunt than it used to be. He didn't even need car keys to visit Shouta anymore. Barely needed slippers. They were nothing but a long hall, two rights and a left apart these days. Which Hizashi found overly convenient. Enjoyable, really. Worth appreciating. A few long-legged strides, couple turns, a digital code and boom. He was in faster than a hacker in a movie.
Stepping into Shouta's dorm apartment was like spelunking into a cave; feeling meager bits of light fall away, lost entirely the second he closed the door. The lay out was the same as his own, leaving Hizashi to navigate it with ease, but it hardly mattered. He traversed it enough to know every edge and sharp corner like the back of his hand anyway.
Clicking the back of his teeth while he walked, Hizashi didn't have to ask whether Shouta was on the couch or curled in a heap in his bed. He hooked a right and passed underneath a wooden frame, toes finding carpet just before he slipped into his best friend's bed.
Shouta wasn't under the covers so Hizashi didn't bother with them either. He set up shop against the headboard just a little ways away from the curled up lump of especially dark mass, nestled into his plushest robe and waiting for his other half to shuffle on over to him like the grizzled stray cat he'd always been.
Which he did. Eventually.
Flopped onto his side, a creature more caterpillar than man inched up the bed and Shouta's head found its way into his lap, leading Hizashi to roll his calf more firmly into the other man's chest, holding him between both legs. The polished tips of his toes skimmed lightly over the cotton that stood between him and a dark, ticklish happy-trail.
"Bad one today?"
Even his softest tone felt too loud between them, but that's how he'd always been. Too loud. His quieter counterpart never minded, as long as he gave it his best attempt at an inside voice.
The rough sound of his voice made a quiet introduction in the dark. "Not as bad as last month."
That didn't inspire confidence. Hizashi hummed anyway. But that was all. It was his natural inclination to talk, but for Shouta he could do silence. When it really mattered, Hizashi could choose action and say nothing, touching his fingertips to his best friend's face instead.
Like it'd been there all their lives, he found the silken smooth crescent moon and thumbed over it, stroking the perfectly round orbital socket that housed Shouta's tired, tired eyes.
He remembered it in pieces. Before. So misshapen Recovery Girl wasn't sure he'd get to keep both his eyes.
"I'm okay, Hizashi." Shouta whispered knowingly.
The healed up scar tissue beneath his finger proved exactly that but Hizashi thought they'd need to agree to disagree.
Shouta wasn't okay. Not really. He was healed. As recovered as he was likely ever going to get, all things considered, but Hizashi had it on good authority that he wasn't actually okay. Or maybe he was. Okay was basically just mediocre, wasn't it? Not good, not great, just okay? So maybe Shouta was that. Alive, but not thriving. Definitely not back to normal. Not After.
"Bit of a relative term, don'tcha think?" Hizashi answered in direct contradiction to agreeing to disagree. "Suffering horrors unimaginable while an ice pick drives itself into your skull? Doesn't sound all that great, gotta be honest."
Hizashi felt the muscles tug in Shouta's face when he smiled. "I'm still alive."
He was. Alive. Hizashi knew he was alive but sometimes dreamed that he wasn't.
The thought stilled his fingers for a moment but he picked back up with the motion and a teasing comment. "Alive and unwell with a dashing facial scar. Very roguish, Shou. It adds to your rugged hero mystique."
Shouta didn't have anything to say to that. Either because his head was killing him enough that none of the words were worth it or because his friend saw through him. Both options seemed equally likely but Hizashi wasn't bothered. It was a comfortable transition, lapsing them back into silence, leaving Hizashi with the passing thought that there was nobody in his life he liked being quiet with more than Shouta.
Wandering fingertips trailed aimlessly over the face beneath his hands while Hizashi gave that understanding a good, solid think.
He'd learned to like that bit. The aimlessness in the dark part that left Hizashi’s hands busy while he wandered through his own thoughts. It was Shouta's face, he knew it as well as he knew his own at this point, but there was still plenty to appreciate. Little things, mostly. Stuff he wouldn't have bothered paying attention to in the day-to-day, like the way Shouta's eyelashes felt against the pad of his thumb or the exact number of long healed breaks in the bridge of his nose. His skin was dry, a little weathered. He could use a face mask or two, that was for sure, but he was soft to the touch. Pokier down at his jaw where fresh stubble was growing in like a shit ton of grass.
He'd meant to think about something but Hizashi unintentionally left the intention in the dust, his head pretty much empty while he rubbed lightly over Shouta's forehead. Petting the migraine away and amusing himself by seeing how wide he had to spread his fingers in order to touch both his eyebrow and the start of his hairline.
It was useless information, but Hizashi catalogued it all the same. Better than focusing on the alternative. Which unfortunately brought up the alternative because Hizashi sucked at leaving things where they belonged.
No real blame to place though. Hard not to remember Shouta almost dying. Tough to hold an empty mind with that on the table. Unpleasantly simple to recall the nightmare, limp-heavy weight of Shouta's busted up frame with perfect clarity, now forever ingrained from when he scooped his friend up off the damn floor to walk out of the disaster zone.
"Can hear you thinking." It came as a pained grunt, Shouta’s awareness like a bloodhound with a scent.
I almost lost you there, Hizashi didn't say. I carried you limp and unresponsive in my arms and almost lost you the same way we lost Oboro.
"That's what happens when you've got a brain that works. Thought. You should try it sometime." Hizashi said instead, brushing over a tiny zit trying to pop up in Shouta's beard.
He started to pick at it, never able to leave well enough alone, and only stopped when the grumpy bear between his legs grumbled and rolled over, pressing Hizashi’s robe firmly against his belly with his own face.
Hizashi let him, because of course he did. He welcomed Shouta into the plush, Turkish cotton of his underbelly and tucked faintly greasy hair behind one ear without complaint.
The flexibility of something so fragile drew him in. He'd never paid much attention to Shouta's ears. Not beyond getting close enough to whisper filth or an inappropriate joke, sometimes to irritate him by chewing next to his ear for some impromptu ASMR. When he wasn't doing that he was teasing the lobe with lips and teeth, because Shouta liked it. It was strange to pay attention to outside of functionality. Subtly attention grabbing. Cartilage covered by soft skin, curling folds and dips, uniquely shaped and unimpeded by metal earrings or jewelry of any kind the way Hizashi's were. It was like circling the drain the closer he got to the cave-like entrance of his ear canal. Only the threat of finding wax or accidently cutting Shouta's ear with the corner of a nail kept him from pressing into it out of meaningless curiosity.
Something was grumbled into Hizashi's stomach while he rubbed the soft lobe between two fingers.
"Say again?"
"Sing something for me." Came the impossible request. One that felt like he'd absolutely heard it wrong but Hizashi knew that he hadn't.
"Don't really think that will do much for you, Shou. Singing isn't exactly quiet." Hizashi reminded him gently without saying no. "Plus, I'm pretty sure my singing is overly obnoxious to you anyway."
Shouta pressed himself more insistently into the plush cotton wrapped round him but Hizashi still heard it when he murmured, "I like it."
"Excuse me, you like my singing?" Hizashi demanded louder than intended.
Shouta winced but still confirmed it with a silent nod.
Hizashi didn't usually doubt Shouta at his word, but he was having a hard time wrapping his head around it. Especially because—
"I very distinctly remember you calling my voice a fillingless pie once."
"...you butchered that ABBA song and you know it."
(He did. He does know it.)
Hizashi knew he was going to do it, obviously. There was very little he wasn't willing to do for Shouta when he asked, especially at this point. Singing for him in the pitch black emptiness for no other purpose than the reassurance of voice and skin-against-skin; Hizashi would.
"Any requests for the DJ on air tonight?" He asked rather than teasing, running the pad of his finger over harsh prickles on a jaw cut from the mountain side.
"Dealers Choice."
It could've been taken as callous. Shouta not caring what he sang, all of it the same in his eyes— errr, ears, but that wasn't how Hizashi took it. The open ended invitation felt like trust. Shouta putting himself in Hizashi's hands, the way he so often did. The way he was already in Hizashi's hands now.
Looking down towards his own lap, Hizashi saw nothing. A hint of a hint of nothing. Something but nothing. Darkness his eyes tried to fight through but gave up on. Hizashi hardly needed it anyway. He could see without seeing if he wanted to. Could easily click his tongue against his teeth a few times for a better picture if he felt like it, but he didn't. He didn't need it. Shouta's head was in his lap and Hizashi could feel the look on his face. Knew his eyes were closed. Knew his forehead was scrunched even though he was trying to relax. Hizashi knew... He had for more years than Shouta had suffered from migraines.
Still, he looked down at his lap anyway. “Seeing” Shouta in the darkness. Trying not to imagine him with tacky streaks of red on his forehead, or how his dark hair clung to it... Wet, but otherwise no different than when it was soaked with sweat.
A gentle fingertip trailed over the phase of the moon forever bashed into Shouta's cheek and Hizashi told himself it was only a phase for them too.
"I was a quick... wet... boy... Diving too deep fooor coins... all of your streetlight eyes wide on my pla-stic toys..."
"Then when the cops… clooosed the faaair, I cut my looong baaaby hair, stole me a dog-eared map and called for you everywhere..."
"Have I found yoooou...? Flightless bird…"
"Jeaaalous, weepin’"
"Or lost you... American-mouth…"
"Big pill…. looming."
He hadn't intended it. Hardly knew where it came from or why it'd come to mind so readily, but the song was there. In his heart and on his tongue, English thick with far more than Hizashi meant to pour into it.
It wasn't until he got past the part about the fat house cat that Hizashi realized he didn't actually remember the rest. He was better at that, usually, but it didn't matter much. That sweet, vocal instrumental end felt like the heart of the track anyway in Hizashi's not-so-humble opinion. No-longer-remembered lyrics sung in the back of his throat through a heartfelt hum, thick with all the feeling he was heavy with already, and that seemed like enough.
From the time they were young heroes, Hizashi always knew there would be an After.
He accepted that young. Accepted it after Oboro died and Shouta threw himself into the underground like a demon hunting its own. He didn't know when, or where, but he knew one day there would be an Almost— a call so close that the fallout would be inescapable… and then an After.
The only thing that surprised him at all was that it took over ten years to happen.
Even in the midst of his thoughts, the shared dark was rich with the harmony of his musical, heartfelt hum. Alive with the vibrant livelihood of his quirk, vibrations enough to fill the space around them. It was beautiful, in his ears. Cradled in his heart like a babe and offered back just the way he remembered hearing it played; comforting and wistfully melancholy.
It reminded him of the Before. The last Before. Way before the horror at USJ. Before... Well. Before. Before Oboro. Just three smiling teens sharing lunch and far-reaching dreams under the warm sun, breeze in their hair, wind carrying a trio of laughter far and wide until it wasn't so loud anymore. It was a softer Before than the one that existed now.
Hizashi's heartful hum started to draw to a close and for some reason that hurt. Stroking the planes of Shouta's face, feeling the years gone by, it hurt to bring them back to silence. To another After.
The return to quiet darkness sat around them for a long while but Hizashi had a feeling they were both thinking about something of their own. He wanted to break it but he let the emptiness be.
"M'english is kinda shit but that song made no sense." Shouta eventually voiced into the dark.
It pulled an unexpected laugh out of him. Reminded him of a different time a couple years back when that Seal song had Shouta confused and irritated about it.
"Ha! Yeah... Yeah, it didn’t, really. Did it?" Hizashi said, thinking of then, and now.
"...still nice. When you sing it."
They were both savoring that fleeting moment of sweetness like a cotton candy melting on the tongue when Shouta added to it and said, "Lyrics made no sense... But it feels like I understand what it was saying anyway. Kind of."
"...it's about a childhood gone by, I think." Hizashi said, not really knowing what, exactly, that Iron & Wine song was about either.
Whether it was or wasn’t, that was a concept they both knew plenty about.
It was a silently acknowledged thought between them; that their childhood ended when Oboro was killed. They'd talked about it plenty in the years since then. Nobody was killed this time but Hizashi wondered if all the childhoods in 1-A had ended in that moment. With the simulation that wasn't a simulation at all and their Sensei bloody and limp on the ground.
It was a buzzkill to a mood not all that lively to begin with but Hizashi felt it needed to be said when he said, “Something is coming."
Shouta hummed.
"Something big." Hizashi added.
Shouta hummed again, this time lower. There were no words spoken by him, but Hizashi heard the thought anyway.
No taking it back.
And there wasn't. Hizashi tried not to ponder unpleasant futures when he could avoid it but he wasn't stupid. Far from it, unfortunately. They'd come for All Might, who was already injured. There was no telling what their world would look like the day someone succeeded. When the illusion of the Symbol of Peace was shattered.
The air was heavy. Hizashi could physically feel the frown sitting heavier still on Shouta's face and he wished it wasn't there.
"Don't frown." He chastised gently. "It will give you wrinkles."
Shouta frowned harder. If he wasn't suffering a migraine, Hizashi would have playfully pushed his lips up at their deep set corners.
"You think there's a traitor." He voiced knowingly.
"I’m sure there is, yeah."
Shouta didn't ask him how he knew. He rarely ever asked how Hizashi's big brain made the jumps and connections that it did.
"Think they'll slip up?"
"Probably. Just a question of when, I guess. They'll make a mistake or we'll bust everything wide open and it'll come out that way."
Shouta sat up and Hizashi felt the loss immediately. Unmoored in the oppressive dark.
A knee-jerk click to the back of his teeth told him Shouta hadn't gone far when the sound bounced back. Hizashi knew he hadn't. The bed barely moved, there were still two people on it, but the for sure knowledge that Shouta was right there beside him still made it easier to wait in the yawning abyss.
"We'll catch them. I can rely on you. All I really need most days."
Shouta sounded certain and that touched him. Pretty damn deep, if he was honest. Unfortunately he could never resist throwing a fun little wrench in the gears.
"Unless I'm the traitor." Hizashi pointed out.
Shouta didn't bite. "You're not."
"How do you know? I could be."
He still didn't bite. Didn't even pretend to consider it. "No you couldn't. I'd know if you were."
Pouting needlessly in the dark, Hizashi decided his best friend's confidence about him was both flattering and offensive. A relief, too, actually, since he really wasn't the traitor and being a suspect would be hurtful and also ass.
Hizashi flopped over onto the bed with a grumble, stretching out across the messied surface of it near Shouta without touching him.
"Yeah okay you're right. I'm not the traitor. But I'm only being not offended by your confidence because I'd do a way better job if I was a villainous mole."
Shouta's huff of laughter was a welcome interruption to the stretch of nothing and Hizashi grinned.
"I’m sure you’d do better." Shouta conceded with amusement.
"Damn right I would! I'd be a super sick villain.”
"You think so?" Shouta's voice sounded closer, despite not having felt the bed shift.
"I know so.” The smug insistence came without an ounce of shame. "Japan is supremely lucky that I dig being a hero and not chaos incarnate."
There was a beat of silence and when Shouta spoke again there was a ton of pre-disappointment in his voice, but still enough amusement to let him know Shouta wasn't actually disappointed. Mostly just playing at it, he thought.
“You've already picked out a villain name, haven't you?”
“Well yeah. Hasn't everyone? I picked out yours too."
"What?" Hizashi couldn't tell if the flat delivery was good or not.
It didn't change anything. He still shrugged, even if Shouta couldn't see it (or maybe he could, Shouta worked best in the dark afterall) and said, "I figured if I went rogue, you'd go rogue with me. Better to have both our new names all lined up. Plus, I picked out your hero name! It's only fitting that I'd pick out your villain one too. I mean, I did a pretty bang up job with Eraserhead, if I do say so myself. Especially for coming up with that on the fly when we were 15! Genius, honestly."
Hizashi would've bet money on Shouta rolling his eyes.
"What makes you think I'd defect if you did? When the hell did you even come up with that idea anyway?"
Hizashi hummed. "When we met Hawks."
The room felt especially still after he said that. The air warm but underlyingly frosty.
Icicles could've formed off Shouta's next words. "They would've deserved it."
"Yeah, they still would. The HPSC is shady as hell. I'm not going dark side anytime soon but there are plenty of days I'd like to scream the building into rubble."
A quiet grunt of agreement sounded beside him.
Hizashi thought the silence would return, Shouta's bangin' headache probably none too pleased by all the chatting they'd been doing, but his best friend surprised him.
"What was it?"
"What was what?"
"My villain name. What'd you pick out."
Hizashi didn't beat around the bush. “I thought Null would be pretty rad. Apt too. Like uhhh, null and void? Or annulment? Short and sweet, super to the point. Bit dull. People would probably underestimate you because of it."
“And yours?”
“Hysteria is more on my wave length. Maybe Radical Hysteria. Null and Hysteria sounds pretty rad though, don'tcha think?”
Hizashi was waiting for the verdict on his villain naming abilities when his friend apparently decided that it was time for actions rather than words because suddenly Shouta was all up in his space. Nudging and nesting himself in close like a cat that insisted it wasn't trying to cuddle.
Hizashi welcomed him in anyway, and it felt like a testament to all their years together that he didn't bat an eye when Shouta's face gravitated toward the crook of his neck.
"It's a good pick." He admitted quietly, one leg over his own, laid up against Hizashi's side like they were post-coital rather than, uhhhh... Post... Whatever they were doing.
"Of course... I take my duties very seriously." He said quietly.
"I'd hope so. Y've'got three jobs."
Four jobs, actually, if he considered Eraserhead Tracking as a job. Which Hizashi did.
A warm nose pressed just outside of his discomfort zone and Hizashi knew that it was intentional. Shouta more aware of where the war lines were drawn than even Hizashi at that point.
"Hum for me some more? It was helping."
Six languages, fluent in nearly all of them, and Hizashi didn't have the words to describe how it made him feel to know there was something he could do to help Shouta when he got like this.
There was plenty left unspoken. Problems for tomorrow, consequences abound, more fears, more migraines, all of it floating aimlessly around in the darkness. Hizashi let it be. For now, he let it go and savored the moment; soft even if it wasn’t painless.
Silence one moment, and music the next. No song this time, just… tune. Wandering notes in the dark while Shouta laid quiet in his grasp. Still but not limp. Alive. Blessedly fucking alive.
It may not have been a Before, but as long as Shouta was in it, Hizashi decided the present was all right by him.
Tomorrow and the next After could wait.