Chapter Text
The first time Shouta wanted to confess to Oboro was during their second year at UA High together.
Shouta had just started his second year at UA, stone cold with a resting frown that had the other students stray far from him. But the dynamic duo of Oboro and Hizashi had other plans. They wanted- no, needed Shouta to join their messy group of misfits. And Shouta, realizing how much more there was under that bright smile and uncanny blue eyes, had also realized how much he was falling in love with one Shirakumo Oboro.
It was weird, to say the least. Shouta’s never had feelings like these before, bubbly and fluttering under his sternum whenever he was around Oboro, trembly fingers and sweaty palms when Oboro would slink an arm over Shouta’s shoulder, pulling him in, laughing obnoxiously loudly at one of Hizashi’s jokes. Shouta is sure that if it were anyone else, he would’ve despised them. But it was Oboro and Shouta was set.
“You’re acting weird.”
Of course, Shouta didn’t know what to do with these weird, unfamiliar, almost nauseating feelings. First he wanted to pull away from the group and get his thoughts together. Who knows what he would do if he let the pesky heat in his cheeks get the best of him? Oboro, Hizashi, and Nemuri were the closest things he was going to get to real friendship. He couldn’t fuck this up.
“No, I’m not,” Shouta replies aimlessly, pulling chopsticks out of his mouth so he can give Kayama his proper attention. “You’re acting weird.” He mutters that last part like he’s a whiny toddler.
“This is the first time in a full week you’ve joined us for lunch. And by us, I just mean me. Because Shirakumo and Yamada ran off… somewhere.” Bringing the back of her palm to her mouth, Kayama does a terrible job at suffocating a laugh. “Probably swapping spit.”
“They aren’t.” Even Shouta’s taken aback with how swift his own response comes. Before Kayama can question it and pry, Shouta continues, “Oboro still hasn’t finished an essay for English. He dragged Hizashi along to convince the teacher to give them an extension.”
Kayama snorts. “Why Yamada?”
“He’s fluent in English,” Shouta shrugs and relaxes, putting his bento box down in his lap. He sighs as the vivid memory of Oboro panicking during homeroom plays in his head, Hizashi trying to calm him down and Shouta watching them from a distance.
(“You can submit my essay. Take credit for it.”
Hizashi and Oboro whipped their heads towards Shouta, who was certain there was a red flush on his face. He could probably blame the hot weather, he’s sure.
“Shouta!” Oboro burst, a smile climbing high on his face. But his knitted brows told a different story. “I can’t do that. You put the work in. I can’t just take credit for something you did.”
“Yes, you can,” Shouta said with a shrug. He wasn’t entirely sure if he was doing enough for Oboro not to notice the way his hands shook with every word. This was an awful idea and he wasn’t doing the worst in English, but he wasn’t doing great either. His grade would drop, but it would be worth it.
Because Oboro wouldn’t get in trouble and that’s all Shouta could really ask for. Stupid, dumb, seventeen-year-old Shouta.
Oboro exchanged a glance with Hizashi, who pressed his lips together like he’s solemnly sworn to not utter a single word, but then he turned his head back towards Shouta and fuck, Shouta could hear his own heartbeat in his reddened ears. It’s a damn drum in his head, banging against his skull. If Hizashi’s shrieking wasn’t going to deafen him, then the drum in his head definitely will.
“Sho-” A new nickname Oboro gave Shouta a few weeks ago that always makes his heart flutter even harder, god-fucking-dammit. “-I can’t do that. It’s your essay.”
Shouta frowned. “But you’re going to fail the assignment.”
“And so what?” Oboro flashed another smile, this time showing off his sharp canines. “I’ll be fine, don’t you worry about me.”
Even though Shouta knew Oboro wouldn’t be fine, he still smiled. Even though he knew he would probably get scolded and threatened to get kicked out due to his docking grades, slipping below the surface, he still smiled. Like this wasn’t a massive deal to Oboro the way it was to Shouta. He has no idea how Oboro does it.
He’s concerned and interested and fuck, he’s in love. He’s in love and harbouring this secret would probably kill him.)
Both Oboro and Hizashi came up with a stupid plan where they’d hunt down their English teacher and pray to whichever God was listening that maybe Oboro would get an extension. Which meant Shouta was alone on the rooftop, but when Kayama found out, she took the opportunity to join him and finish up some overdue homework that’s been rotting at the bottom of her backpack for days now. When Shouta asked why she agreed to join him, she admitted that Shouta was quiet and therefore, easier to finish up work around. He’d keep her on track. He asked if she was using him and alongside her confident demeanour, she gave him a thumbs up and nodded proudly like it was a good thing.
Maybe Shouta enjoyed Kayama’s company. He’d never admit to that, though.
“Our teacher likes him because it’s the only class he isn’t a complete ass in,” Shouta says, and despite the remark getting a giggle out of Kayama, Shouta struggles to see the comedy in it.
“So we’re alone until Shirakumo’s done begging?”
“For the time being, yes.”
“...You wanna tell me something.”
Shouta blinks slowly, not dissimilar to that of a cat. “No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do!” Kayama grins, putting her binder down and stretching her long legs. She wears pink socks that barely reach her calves. “Come on, lay it on me.”
“...I don’t have anything to tell you,” Shouta turns his head and hopes it’s enough to hide his flushed face. Because yeah, he does have something to tell her. But she doesn’t need to know that.
“You are incredibly bad at hiding things,” Kayama remarks, “come on, Shooouta,” she draws out the accented ’o’ sound and Shouta, irritated, rolls his eyes and sets his sights back onto Kayama.
“I don’t have anything to tell you,” Shouta grumbles, averting his gaze to the now extremely interesting concrete floor of the roof.
“I’m, like, your mentor.”
Now, Shouta’s eyes narrow and his brows draw together to express his confusion. Everything about Kayama screams incessant and stubborn. If Shouta were less self-doubtful, maybe he would’ve noticed that yes, he and Kayama have a lot more similarities than he’d like to let on.
“No you’re n– who told you you’re my mentor?” asks Shouta, crossing his arms, slouching.
“I did. Just now. Spill it.”
“No,” grumbles Shouta again, failing to suppress the pout that obscures his mouth. It’s almost adorable.
“Shouchan–”
“Do not call me that.”
“Then tell me what’s on your mind!”
“You’re not going to quit it, are you?” Shouta sighs.
Kayama’s grin only widens like a Cheshire cat’s. “How’d you guess?” The question is obviously hypothetical but still annoying.
“Fine,” Shouta bites down. He straightens his back and puffs his chest out in some attempt to look serious, but he just looks sort of stupid and a little nerdy. Pans out for someone such as himself, honestly. “If you tell anyone, I swear–”
“I promise not to tell anyone.”
“Not even Hizashi or Oboro.”
“Promise!” Kayama gives him a thumbs up. “Now spill it.”
“...And you don’t ever call me Shouchan again.”
“Fine, fine. Now stop stalling.”
Over the months of befriending Oboro and Hizashi since the beginning of their second year together, Shouta has learnt that ripping the bandage off rather than letting it sit on a healed scab is better in the long run. Sure, he can use some slick substance (such as oil) to loosen the stick so it doesn’t hurt when he does inevitably end up ripping the bandage off, but he’s going to rip it off no matter what. It’s going to happen, so why delay the inevitable?
“Whenever I’m around Oboro, my chest does this weird… achy thing.” Oh, Shouta; always the best at putting his thoughts into words. “And I feel super confused. And sweaty. And my face feels tingly and weird. The internet tells me that either I’m having a heart attack or I have a crush.”
Shouta purposely leaves out the part where he started bringing a stick of deodorant to school because of how much he was starting to sweat due to his nerves. Gross teenage boy habits are a stereotype he refuses to rope himself into.
Then, “finally!” Kayama cheers, pumping the air with her fists. “You finally admit it!”
Shouta scowls. “Admit what?”
“Aizawa, sweetheart-” Shouta cringes at the pet name, “-you are so painfully obvious. I don’t mean to be that person, but we’ve all been fairly aware of your schoolgirl crush on Shirakumo for a while now.”
The most tense silence ensues between the two, Kayama pushing her bottom lip out in a pout, trying to fight back the smile that threatens to ruin Shouta’s day, while Shouta is struggling to wrap his head around Kayama’s confession.
“...How long?”
“How long what?”
“How long have you known about my stupid crush on him?”
“Oh, like, a month, probably?”
Shouta groans into the palms of his hands, face surely burning up. Judging by the way his ears also feel hot, he’s sure the blush is reaching to the tips of the cartilage and down to his chest. He’s always hated how easily he blushes.
“How obvious?” He asks through the gaps in between his fingers.
“I had to ask Hizashi if you two were dating when first I started joining you guys during lunch."
Shouta groans louder.
“Hey, it’s not all bad,” Kayama tries to reassure, but knowing Shouta, it’s going to fall on deaf ears. He’s never been an idealist, anyway. “Shirakumo is dense. You’ll be fine.”
Mean, but true, Shouta thinks to himself as he presses his lips together in a straight line. Hizashi always called it his thinking face. If he was especially focused, he'd stick his tongue out a little and adjust in his seat until he was comfortable enough, then continue to do whatever it was he was doing.
“I don’t want anyone to know,” Shouta complains. His bones are made of jelly, bouncy and malleable. He doesn’t want to move, but at the same time, he wants to pace around the roof and get all of his energy out until he’s not thinking about Oboro anymore.
It’s funny. Shouta knows he won't stop thinking about Oboro, no matter how hard he tries.
“No one’s going to know, you’ll be fine,” Kayama quips easily.
That should be the end of the conversation. Shouta reaches for his bento box and chopsticks to stuff his mouth with food, which will hopefully give him a good enough excuse to get away from Kayama before she pesters him with more questions.
That’s quickly interrupted when the doors to the roof slam open and Shouta puts a hand over his mouth to prevent a girly scream from escaping him, and in turn, tips his bento box over his lap.
“You fuckin’-! Hizashi!”
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
A body comes tumbling past the door, Hizashi barely making it to his feet before he’s scrambling towards Shouta and Kayama. Shouta doesn’t have time to process the bento box he prepared for himself this morning, now flipped onto the floor, or what Hizashi’s saying, because arms are wrapping around him and hands are shoving him forward.
Hizashi wedges himself in between the railing and behind Shouta. His hands clutch onto the smaller boy’s shoulders as he shakes, heavy breaths slipping past his lips and hitting Shouta directly against the nape of his neck.
From the door, tall and brooding, is Oboro, whose blue eyes lock onto Hizashi. The blonde ducks his head behind Shouta as if he’s a human shield.
“Shouta! Save me!” Hizashi warbles, the clutch on Shouta’s shoulders growing ever so slightly. He winches and swats Hizashi’s fingers away.
“Knock it off,” Shouta grumbles. “You’re hurting me.”
“Sorry!”
“Shouta isn’t going to save you, ‘Zashi.”
Hizashi ducks again as Oboro stalks closer and closer. Shouta turns to Kayama, who meets his gaze and shrugs her shoulders and hides her smile behind her opened binder, watching in silence. Oboro grabs Hizashi by his biceps and pulls him to his feet, nearly knocking into Shouta in the process.
“Watch where you’re going!” Shouta complains, rubbing his hand over the phantom pain of where Hizashi could have hit him. His eyes trail down to the bento box and he scowls even deeper. “Are you kidding me?” he mutters to himself.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Shouta hears Hizashi wail. He’s quickly pulled away from the tragedy of his discarded lunch when Hizashi lets out a high pitched shriek, probably enough to attract the attention of everyone down below.
And fuck, either Oboro is getting impressively strong or Hizashi is impressively weightless. Somehow, the taller boy has heaved the blonde over his shoulder, both arms holding the small of his back to keep him stable and upright.
“Put me down!” Hizashi cries out. If Shouta squinted, he’s sure there'd be tears in Hizashi’s eyes. “Please, Oboro, I’m sorry!”
“No, you’re not!” Oboro shouted. He edged closer and closer to the railing, Kayama on their right. Shouta hears something of a chime and glances over to find the source: the charm on her phone case, device pulled out with the camera application open and pointed directly towards Hizashi and Oboro’s idiocy. “Just choose!”
“Let Shouta choose!”
“I asked you!”
“Why doesn’t it-! Fuck, Oboro, let me down! Shit, you’re gonna drop me!”
“Don’t you have a little trust in me?”
“No,” Shouta, Kayama and Hizashi all say in unison. Though, Hizashi’s voice is the loudest, considering his hoarse throat and his nerves fried from the panic that radiates through him, trembling harshly in Oboro’s tight grip.
To show his so-called trustworthy nature, a familiar grin spreads across Oboro’s face. He only smiles like that, fully with his teeth and his nose scrunched and his eyebrows arched, when he has an idea he’s not yet aware is awful. It’s the same smile that painted his face when he thought it’d be a good idea to sneak into their homeroom classroom (which was on the second floor of the building) through the window in the pelting rain. He may have had a massive gnash on his ankle that ripped right through his pants, but he managed to make it inside with Shouta’s umbrella and a kitten he snuck into UA.
Oboro tips closer to the railing, Hizashi fully facing UA’s front yard. He’s looking directly at the floors of the yard, and suddenly everything feels so much further. If he were to fall, he’d splat, and that sends another round of fear through his body.
“Oboro, stop!” Hizashi shrieks. “Fuck, you’re gonna drop me! Put me down, put me down!”
Oboro vibrates with laughter. “I’m not going to drop you!”
Shouta watches intently as he adjusts Hizashi on his shoulder, and he notices how much larger his friend’s arms have gotten. From under the white button up Oboro wears with the red tie, his shoulders have definitely gotten bigger. His trips to the gym a few times a week have really been paying off and Shouta luckily gets front row tickets to watch.
For a moment, he catches himself wishing it were him in Hizashi’s position. He wishes it were him that Oboro would throw over his shoulder. Shouta’s definitely the lightest between the three as the shortest and probably the skinniest, so it’d be much easier. He probably wouldn’t squirm. He’d be able to take it, but he’s not sure he’d be able to handle Oboro being in such close proximity. He’d probably smell like that cinnamon deodorant Kayama made him get, since the body spray he kept using smelled ‘rancid’ according to her.
Would Shouta get close enough?
The boy is quickly knocked out of his thoughts when something buzzes and flies right past Hizashi, who shrieks and squirms in response in an attempt to get away from the supposed bug, and they both go crashing back to the floor. Hizashi scrambles to his feet quicker than Oboro and now hides behind Kayama, who’s laughing so hard she isn’t sure if her phone was able to pick up on everything that had just happened.
“Is it gone?” Hizashi asks, the shake in his tone noticeable. Shouta suddenly realizes his lack of orange glasses.
“It’s a bee, Hizashi!” Oboro laughs loud, barely able to catch his breath. He’s clutching his stomach, tears in his eyes as he climbs to his wobbly knees. Shouta’s still a little transfixed on his arms. “It’s not going to sting you!”
“All bugs are evil, actually,” Hizashi replies shamelessly. Her book binder abandoned by her feet, Kayama has resorted to laughing into her palm with her free hand.
“Oh, Shouta-” Oboro’s smile drops when he realizes the abandoned bento box sitting at Shouta's knees. “Fuck, sorry.”
If Shouta were being honest, he had completely forgotten about the bento box. Definitely not because he was too fixated on Oboro’s large arms. Definitely not. “Oh, it’s fine,” Shouta shrugs, trailing his gaze back to his lunch. He picks it up and does an awful job at hiding the grimace making itself home on his expression. “I wasn’t hungry anyway.”
“I left my lunch back in the classroom in my bag,” Oboro pulls himself up to his feet and stretches his arms. He puts a hand out for Shouta to take. “Come on, we’ll fill you in on everything that happened afterwards.”
Shouta blinks hard again. He stares at Oboro’s hand, confusion crossing his face like a wobbly suspended bridge he would never trust enough because of its instability. “What?”
“Come on, let’s go get my lunch. Unless you wanna stay with these two.”
When Shouta turns his attention back to Kayama, she’s completely abandoned the homework she was seemingly so determined to finish. She’s scrolling through her phone with Hizashi (who’s finally wearing his glasses again) hooked over her shoulder, and they’re laughing and Hizashi is wincing and chugging water from her water bottle, and they seem closer than they have ever been.
With one final nod, Shouta takes Oboro’s hand, who pulls him up from the floor with little to no struggle. He doesn’t expect it, nearly tumbling into his friend when he’s on his feet.
“Wow, you’re light,” Oboro remarks, eyebrows raised in pleasant surprise.
“You’re just getting strong,” Shouta murmurs, walking ahead of Oboro to hide the flush on his cheeks.
“Aww, you noticed?”
“You nearly threw Hizashi over the railing. Of course I noticed.”
Whether there’s a blush on Shouta’s face doesn’t matter, because they’re walking through the empty halls of UA, and Shouta’s heart can be compared to a feral animal trapped in a cage. Except the cage are his ribs and his heart is hammering so hard that blood is rushing to his face, his ears, down to his chest-
It’s all so much. And yet everything feels weightless when Oboro’s around.
Their shoulders brush against each other and they laugh like they’re children playing in the sandbox, building castles, sharing supplies. Shouta laughs with his fingers over his mouth and his shoulders hunched up like he’s embarrassed the red is creeping up to his ears. Oboro laughs loud, he’s strong, intentional and unabashed. There’s sand in their hair and under their nails and in their shoes, and they’re probably going to find the grains in their clothes for days afterwards.
But Shouta doesn’t mind it. Shouta never minds it.
They fetch Oboro’s bag from their homeroom classroom and he informs Shouta of their plan. Oboro managed to convince their English teacher to give him an extension of a week, though he is definitely getting some points docked for handing it in this late. Then Shouta learns of their collective stupidity; Oboro gives Hizashi three options as to where they could go to plan and execute Oboro’s English essay. Hizashi doesn’t choose and they start to banter, which turns into an argument, which then turns into Hizashi booking it for the roof because in the unrealistic universe the blonde lives in, Shouta would’ve protected him from Oboro. Obviously that didn’t happen and Hizashi’s fight or flight instincts kicked in the moment he heard the buzz of an insect in his ear, and how beautiful that timing was, when he was hung over the railing with only Oboro to hold him up.
By the time they get back to the roof, Kayama and Hizashi are chatting quieter. Everything’s calmer. The chaos isn’t around all the time, but it’s enough for Shouta to notice the vast difference between his wants and his needs. He needs quiet from time to time, but he doesn’t mind the brash loudness and contagious laughter of his friends.
He wouldn’t trade it for the world.
While Oboro and Shouta were gone, Kayama somehow alluded to Shouta’s crush on Oboro and when Hizashi confronts him about it, he wants to smack her across the back of her head.
Still, he confesses his feelings and Hizashi, now utterly pumped up and way too excited for his own good, starts to draft plans in order to get Shouta together with Oboro.
The third plan Hizashi intends to execute quickly falls apart when Shouta is sitting in a hospital’s waiting room, hands trembling violently and his grip on the chair’s armrest so tight, his fingers are turning white.