Chapter Text
It’s early when Shouta wraps up his patrol and starts to wander home. That is to say, he’s patrolled overtime as he does every night and so now it’s official early morning, not that he’s going home early.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone home early. He could sleep during his classes, and on week days in the hours between getting home and leaving for homeroom. His schedule was a mess, but he didn’t mind. So long as he got evenings free with his husband before they split for their respective nightly jobs.
Having five jobs between them should’ve really made finding overlap time hard, but somehow they always found a way. Lunch breaks and gaps in their classes at Yuuei, evenings after Hizashi patrolled and before Shouta did, early hours of the morning between getting back from the streets/the radio station and having to be teachers again.
Sundays were nice. Shouta patrolled longer because he could lie in longer after, since Hizashi would be making his own patrols during the morning, and then they’d do something together for the rest of the afternoon. Sundays made the rest of the week bearable.
Sadly, Shouta wasn’t going to get a longer lie in today, since he had a stop to make before he could go home. He picked up his laptop bag from the lockbox he’d paid for before starting his rounds, and nosied his way down the street, looking for a place that was both awake at this time and not a complete shit hole. Given that it was around five in the morning, it wasn’t going well.
Hm. Never mind. Beneath the welcoming awning, an ‘open!’ sign hung in the large window above thriving window boxes. No one seemed to be in the outside seating, unsurprisingly as it the metal of the wrought iron chairs was likely freezing to the touch, but the inside sounded quiet too, so hopefully no other customers were about.
Stuffing his capture weapon into his bag (did it make him look like more or less of a robber? He’d have to ask Hizashi when he got home) and looping his hair into a half bun before he crossed the street, Shouta pushed open the door.
A soft jingle, much more melodic and pleasing than the ones businesses usually used, echoed through the café as he stepped inside. Warm air and the scent of cinnamon and old books wrapped around him, and Shouta couldn’t help the tiny smile that hid itself in the corner of his mouth. The place was just as lovely inside as out, if not more so—soft orange light illuminating the fairly open space, occupied by cushioned booths, slightly abstract landscapes dotting canvas around the walls between bookshelves that contained the visually pleasing sort of clutter between the actual books—souvenirs, framed pictures, pen pots, shiny rocks and plants spilling out of their pots, that sort of thing.
Hizashi would love this place, he mused.
“Hi there! Welcome to Once Upon A Coffee,” someone said brightly, and Shouta looked over at the voice. The kid couldn’t be older than his own brats, wearing a brown apron with the cafe name over the logo printed on it and one of those smiles that are somehow sincere, not just a default customer service expression, the ones that say ‘hi there stranger, I’m so glad you’re here today, want to rest for a while?’ and mean it.
“Hello,” Shouta replied in a levelled tone. He was not so easily won, thank you very much.
The teen kept up the warm expression, unperturbed, and rolled up one of the sleeves of his white shirt that had started coming down a bit as he spoke, “There’s a menu on each of the tables and the chalkboards up there, but it’s quiet right now so if nothing catches your fancy you’re welcome to simply hangout and read or play with the cats.”
What a strange business. It made sense though he supposed, you don’t really open a twenty four hour book cafe expecting to get rich. He got the sense that whoever designed this place went through painstaking lengths to make it feel as—not welcoming, though it was of course, but… soothing? Shouta nodded to himself, that was it. Stepping inside felt like leaning into a hug—that moment where you truly gave in to the comfort. It was somewhere safe, somewhere that would watch your back as you closed your eyes, clean the tears from your cheeks.
“Thank you,” he said, eyes scanning the chalkboard on the wall behind the counter. All the drinks had either pun-based names, or decorative titles. Probably two different people. He saw one called Soul Reading and under it, where the type of drink and ingredients were listed for all the others, was simply ‘varies for every soul’
Shouta arched a brow. “Soul reading, huh?”
The kid beamed, amusement glittering in his eyes, which were as green as his floor of curls. “You sound like a sceptic. I love when sceptics order the soul reading. Basically it’s a mystery choice—I make a drink based off what I think you’ll like, and you have to tell me how close I was. If you don’t like it, I’ll make you another drink for free, but that’s only ever happened like twice and one of those times was because the person had a split personality and I appealed to the wrong side.”
Yeah, Shouta was definitely a sceptic. Unless it was a quirk thing, which was the most likely, but if it was why wouldn’t it be advertised as such? People would love to have the perfect drink handed to them if they knew that’s what it would be, but the soul reading was a gamble.
Also, if it was a quirk, he wasn’t sure he wanted his soul read by a stranger. He’d rather not receive a maggot infested puddle of black coffee with added dirt.
“Impressive track record, let’s see if it hold up kid,” he eventually gave in, curiosity winning out as he grabbed his wallet to pull out the money.
“Don’t pay yet sir, you gotta see if you like your drink first!”
Shaking his head in bewilderment, he put his wallet away again, and wandered over to a booth in the back corner as the boy scuttled off to go make Shouta’s drink.
He felt exhaustion prickling at the back of his eyes, and he’d like nothing more than to pull out his sleeping bag and have a nap on the floor, but he had work to do. So he pulled out his laptop and hoped his soul had screamed caffeine at the kid.
Shouta was many things, but a tech whiz was not one of them, so for all his very illegal, very sensitive dealings on the dark web, he had nothing but a VPN and a subpar virus blocker protecting his device. He preferred to keep all of his software on USBs, where it’s be untouchable until he plugged it in and therefor nothing was likely to happen while he wasn’t at his screen, right? That’s how it worked?
He should really invest some time in learning how to add better security, but he didn’t have the spare time to invest. And he definitely didn’t know anyone with the right skill set that he trusted enough to set it up for him.
So he did his best to get around the lack of digital security in other ways, like completely wiping the laptop after every use, keeping his laptop powered down at sensitive locations such as his home, and compartmentalising every case and interaction on a different USB.
He’d been hacked a few times, or at least only a few times that he’s been aware of, but since he kept all his data spread out and inaccessible from each other, so he was fairly sure nothing too bad had come of it. Though he bought a new laptop after each one.
Along with his laptop, he pulled out his roll of USBs, grabbing the one he wanted and putting the roll back. Massaging the back of his neck as he waited for the laptop to boot up and the USB to connect, Shouta let his head drop for a minute, focusing himself on each breath he pulled in and out of his lungs.
The soft hissing of a kettle, the low murmur of music, feline claws scratching over a post, the rumble of a car going past, flowers bumping against the window in the breeze, a cat winding around his legs.
Everything was the way it was supposed to be.
He let himself have one more moment of peace, of pretending that this was his life, before he opened his eyes and found his way down the rabbit hole to the darkest sides of the web.
He’d barely gotten caught up on the underground hero forum, checking all the replies to his question about suspicious looking animal transportation in hopes someone would be able to point him in the direction of the people supplying the underground dog fights he was going to put a stop to next week, when he felt his awareness shift just in time to see the boy who’d taken his order come out, carrying a large mug in one hand and a plate in the other.
He eyed both suspiciously as they were set before him. The drink was a warm, rich brown colour, and smelled of spices and late nights, while the plate bore a cheerfully decorated array of rice, vegetables and bread that was arranged into a smiley face.
“You have that feral cat sort of look about you, so I figured food would be the solution for you too—it’s on the house. Sorry if it’s not the nicest, our cook only does days so the food before seven isn’t quite up to standard, but I tried my best!”
Shouta shifted to glare suspiciously up at the boy, but the affect was ruined by the chuckle building in his chest. “Feral cat?”
The boy gave him an unabashed nod, “oh definitely. Also, Castle only likes the rough-around-the-edges type, and he’s all over you,”—he patted the shaggy grey cat that was laying his head on Shouta’s keyboard and making him keyboard smash on the thread—“he didn’t even warm up to Ms. Ishitoka that fast. Hayashi says beneath her prickly exterior Ms. Ishitoka got a heart almost as big as mine, which Kiwata disagrees with, says her heart is a shrivelled lump of coal and she only likes cats because they’re as vindictive as her. I personally think Ms. Ishitoka is lovely—if a little scary—she just isn’t a big people person, so what? Kiwata says my opinion doesn’t count because ‘you’re just about the only person that crazy old bat doesn’t despise, Izuku’, then he told me I’ve got to stop befriending all the evil looking people, but I got offended and went off on a whole spiel so he apologised, and I think he secretly kinda likes Ms. Ishitoka, or at least, enjoys bickering with her.”
Shouta blinked up at the boy in complete bafflement.
Well, this kid sure knew how to talk and had a need to prove it.
“Fascinating,” he replied dryly, taking a sip of his drink, “thank you for the food.” It was hot, warming the back of his throat in a pleasant sort of way, with just enough sweetness to not be bitter, but not enough to be considered sweetened. Cinnamon, nutmeg and cayenne pepper tickled his tastebuds, along with other flavours he couldn’t name off the top of his head but were familiar.
It was ridiculously good. Like, eyeball meltingly tasty.
“Are there drugs in this?” He squinted up at the boy, whose mouth dropped and immediately started spluttering.
“Wha—! No! Why would you ever- I would never- of course not! I hate that stuff, I’d rather- just, just no. I did not put- it’s got caffeine, that’s the closest thing to drugs in your drink! It’s just malasai coffee!”
He couldn’t help the smile that curled one side of his mouth, and lamented not having his capture weapon on to hide it in. “Relax kid, I’m messing with you. It’s good, thank you.”
“O-oh. Okay. You’re welcome mister! I’m glad you like it. On a scale of one to nine point eight, how accurate was the soul reading?” The boy asked, immediately back to being chipper.
“Nine point eight? That’s an odd scoring number.”
“Hayashi confiscated the other point two,” he supplied gravely.
“Hmm, well then, I’d give this an eight point two.” It surprised him actually, that it wasn’t a complete ten out of ten. If this was the boys quirk, surely he’d get it perfect? But maybe his quirk only told him what to make, and he just didn’t have the skills to accompany it? No, this drink was as perfectly made as it was gonna get, it just wasn’t to his tastes enough to hit the full nine point eights, however close it got. Odd.
“Woahh, that’s awesome! I don’t usually get higher than an eight for my first attempt. I’m gonna go add this to the board!- ah, enjoy your food and drink sir.” The boy spun back from where he’d already nearly turned away, dropping himself into a half bow before continuing over to what seemed to be a chart board over near the counter.
What a bizarre kid, he mused as he took another sip of his drink, returning his attention to his laptop. Hm, auction gone wrong, high breed big dogs falling through the cracks, business was one-use front for the auction… sounds promising.
Shouta worked his way through his food—which, while not the best he’d ever had, was definitely delicious—on autopilot as he scoured the internet, though he savoured every drop of his coffee. As time crawled along, the door jingled a few times to signify a customer entering, and one blue skinned, fish-looking guy that ducked into the back who was presumably staff. Shouta only snapped back to himself when sunlight crested the building across the street and stabbed him violently in his eyeballs.
He scowled, blinking as his eyes watered a little, and checked the time. Hizashi would be back home soon, and wonder where he was. Ugh, Shouta hadn’t gotten to catch up on sleep. Fucking computers, making everything so complicated, taking up his precious few hours for sleep.
Fifteen minutes later, he’d wrapped up his work. removed his USB and wiped his laptop. He made his way over to the counter, where the guy he’d seen go into the Staff Only door behind the counter was chatting animatedly to a patiently listening green haired boy, waving his hands and salamander-ish tail as he talked and mimicking sound effects to accompany his story. Shouta was surprised nothing had been knocked over.
He tapped the counter to get their attention, and slid the yen in his hand across the counter. “Thanks. The food was good as well. See you round.” And then turned and left, hearing the boy call a cheery goodbye after him.
~ ~ ~
Being a twenty four hour book cafe, especially one known for letting you stay as long as you liked without even buying anything and being completely anti-discriminatory and welcoming, meant that Izuku saw a lot of strange people at his work.
The scruffy man in a black jump suit who sat quietly on his laptop for a couple of hours definitely wasn’t the strangest, not even close—even his hyper-awareness no matter how distracted, definitely fishy online presence, or excessive paranoia weren’t that out of the ordinary. Once Upon A Coffee saw a wide range of low grade criminals, villains, heroes, vigilantes and the like walk through its doors. Hell even some of the staff gave him a run for his money on the sketchiness scale.
The excessive amount of yen he slid across the counter was definitely irregular, since the rich were not common here, but again, stranger things had happened.
But regardless of all that, he was perhaps the person that had most interested Izuku in a while. He seemed strangely familiar, not in an ordered-here-before kind of way, but Izuku couldn’t place him.
The thing was—and it sounded silly if he really were to say it to anyone else, but Izuku knew his cats so to him it wasn’t—that Castle loved him. Castle barely liked anyone, let alone love. So far as he was aware, Castle didn’t love anyone except Izuku himself, Inoue, and maybe Ms. Ishitoka. Izuku had never seen the grey tom warm up to someone so instantly, not even people with cat or animal based quirks.
So, he decided he was interested in this grumpy looking stranger and, because anyone deserving of Castle’s immediate affection must be nice, Izuku already liked him.
Besides, Izuku had a feeling, and his feeling were never wrong.