Chapter Text
Shouta watches the current and soon to be former No. 23 continue to shove both metaphorical feet in his mouth. The audience is restless and angry and fed up and his ranking is slipping by the second.
It's embarrassing just to watch.
"Shut up before you have to retire," Shouta says, though there's no way it'll make any difference. No-one is going to hear him.
"Yotube will have a field day," a pleasantly raspy voice says behind him, and Shouta whirls, hair lifting, Quirk rising to command, how the fuck did someone sneak up on him -
It's a very tall, thin man with a wild shock of hair and a pleasant air, his hands loose at his sides, drowning in the baggy sleeves of his brown suit. It matches the pinstripe filter mask, the fancy quilted kind for invalids. "What."
"Sorry to startle you," the man says, pushing up his oxygen tube into the tape starting to come loose from his cheek. "Didn't realise I could! Oops." He points his chin at the stage where Number Rock Fucking Bottom is still trying to explain himself and clutching the microphone while the moderator tries to shut him up. "Picture the title. 'Every Time No 23 Fucked Up At HeroCon 2XXX, Ranked'."
Shouta feels his face relax despite himself. He likes that gleam of humour. "Five million views by the end of the week."
The man laughs, deep and raspy and going straight to Shouta's gut, shaking the oxygen tank he's leaning on. "In this crowd? Give them some credit! Fifteen million."
A group effort of fellow panellists and the moderator and very harried black-clad technicians manage to pull the hero off the stage and out the crew door. "He's fucked."
The man hums agreement, a sound just as appealing as his laugh. "Poor bastard missed the last opportunity to spin it in his favour two minutes ago."
Shouta can't help incredulity. This cynicism is how Shouta talks to Nemuri and Hizashi three drinks down at the bar, not sober. Even in the bar Shouta would be careful in case a fan overheard and took offense. This is fucking HeroCon. Who the fuck is this guy? "Who are you?"
"Ah, excuse me," the man says, and holds out his free hand. "Yagi Toshinori. All Might's press secretary." Yagi waggles his fingers. "Quirkless, don't worry."
Shouta takes his hand. It's cool and dry, the fingers long and bony, tendons flexing gently against Shouta's skin. They're sure hands. Big. He swallows hard.
All Might's staff? Derisive commentary? Wait.
"You're the one who runs that controversial account, aren't you?" Controversial, mostly, for unflattering screenshots of All Might caught mid word. But also for their staunch defense of underground heroes and opposition to regulating Quirkless citizens.
"Guilty as charged," Yagi laughs, and Shouta's face feels hot at the reverb of it down their hands. "Opinions do not necessarily reflect that of my employer, etcetera."
"You're not shy about implying they do." Shouta can admire putting All Might in that kind of corner. Either All Might publicly disagrees and pisses everyone off or he agrees and pisses everyone off.
Yagi's eyebrows scrunch and he pulls back his hand, scratches at his cheek under the tube. "Eh, I actually am..."
All Might's copped it for employing someone so vocally critical of the hero industry but his refusal to come down on on Yagi for making such a stink, cornered or not, has made Might Tower something of a last resort in the back of Shouta's mind. "No, you're not."
"If you say so!" Even if no one else employs him, even if he's sacked, even if Shouta loses everything, Might Tower might still take him. Let him do good even as he is, opinions and all.
He doesn't see All Might anywhere. He got here early to avoid having to wait around but it looks like might have to regardless. "All Might's going to be late."
"No," Yagi says with absolute confidence. Shouta has no idea what it's like to have that much faith in his boss and he doesn't want to know. "It will start on time. You should go next door, Eraserhead-san."
How - oh. He looks at his badge hanging at his hip. Right. Yagi's sharp eyed for a civilian. "At least I can't do worse than that guy."
"You'll be fine," Yagi says, with the same weird surety he has about his boss. "You have something to say. You'll have the opportunity to say it."
Strange. But flattering, especially in that voice. "Thanks."
"Ah, take care," Yagi says, glancing at his phone, shutting off the vibrate and kicking at the cart to get it moving. "I should go before I make a liar of myself! Can't let the number one dawdle!"
"Wait -"
"It was a pleasure meeting you, Eraserhead-san!"
The hell of it is, Yagi sounds like he means it. The shock of being smiled at so warmly, all to do with the crinkle of those electric eyes, glues his tongue to the roof of his mouth and he decides that if Yagi wants to run around like a headless chicken while sucking down oxygen it's none of his damn business. "You too," he manages about ten seconds too late.
"Eraserhead-san! This way!" Technicians with bags and clipboards surround him, mikes bouncing on their cheeks as they chatter. "How do you want your touchup?"
Yagi's gone. Shouta decides to focus on getting through this panel alive. If he has to put up with All Might being the number one media darling right in his face, the least he can do is give out Yagi's number.
He wouldn't bother facing down the prospect of bullying All Might a little, but that touch of his hand. His laugh. The sensation, rippling pleasantly over the back of his neck, of being understood.
Worth it.
***
The panel is nowhere near as bad as Shouta expected at first. Sure, there's the usual ripple of who the fuck is this guy, which is the point, really, but there's also an edge of we're here for All Might, not nobodies that makes him bristle.
"I value all heroic contributions to the health and welfare of our communities!" All Might booms, enormous in the reinforced chair they gave him, voice just as enormous even without a mike. The technicians didn't bother giving him one.
That makes them shut up.
And then All Might introduces himself like he might actually need to, and it's so exasperating Shouta's eyes itch out of pure aggravation.
The moderator has blue hair and a gap in their teeth on the right side, Quirkless like most of the Be Social With All These Fucking Nerds And Heroes frontline staff hired after the employment initiative a few years back. Apparently being Quirkless teaches patience in the face of overwhelming bullshit by default.
"Given this panel is about heroes and society, I wanted to ask you first, All Might, what you think about the argument that heroes weaken society. In particular the argument that because heroes are so often working alone, they set a bad example for our culture."
"Haha, this is not a good question for me!" All Might puts his thumb to his chin, scratching idly at a wrinkle formed by the everpresent smile. This close the shine to his teeth is definitely fake, probably petroleum jelly. "Teamwork is very important for a hero, but heroes must avoid collateral damage!"
"Your Quirk is too dangerous to anyone you work with and especially at a distance," Shouta says. "That's why you're a close-range brawler."
"Yes! Eraserhead is correct. Very good, hero! You are a hero who works alone, yes?"
All Might is punting him the question. Shouta grits his teeth. "For the most part. I don't deal with large-scale attacks like you."
"It's all important, Eraserhead! Your work is invaluable!"
Being agreed with has never been this fucking annoying. "Yeah..."
"Ah, Washer!" still fucking irritating as All Might swings his head around. "You work with your agency, yes?"
Washer jumps like they didn't expect to be spoken to. "Oh! Yes. Er, yes!"
The moderator catches on when All Might simply beams and doesn't say anything else, jumping in hastily. "Do you think you set a good example of teamwork, Washer-san?"
Shouta somehow makes it through the panel, no thanks to All Might cheerfully accepting the vast majority of the questions and punting them left and right with casual, characteristic, teeth-grinding abruptness. He's focusing the hard ones on Shouta for some reason, complimenting him relentlessly when he answers, which is even worse.
The moderator is sweating heavily by the end, flustered around the eyes while the audience demand a piece of All Might's flesh like they haven't just had a good mouthful of Shouta's, what the fuck was throwing him all the hard questions even about? Who did Shouta piss off to make this happen.
"I don't even know why they hired me, you could do this yourself perfectly," she says to All Might, composed like she doesn't have her back to a pack of rabid fans.
"Not at all!" All Might says, stooping to look her in the eye. He puts out a hand to the audience to wave but fundamentally, he's ignoring them, and Shouta doesn't understand how they don't pick up on that. People. "I appreciated your presence very much!"
She flushes, shoulders slumping, and bows. "Oh, well, thank you!"
"Thank you!" All Might says, very genial, and pats her shoulder. "Think I should clear out this room for you! Excellent work!"
Shouta thinks about the cute blond secretary, grits his teeth, and pushes in. "Wait. A moment, All Might?"
He looks over, shoos the moderator away, and puts his hamhock hands on his enormous hips with a pause to wave to the crowd again, riling them up for no fucking reason. "How can I help, Eraserhead?"
Is he really going to do this? Fuck. He's really going to do this. "Your secretary, Yagi," Shouta says instead of I don't need your fucking help. "Could I have his number?"
All Might lights up for some reason. It's obnoxious. Shouta's eyes are screaming for mercy. "Oh, do you want to have din--"
"Privately," Shouta cuts in, watching All Might's smile strain for half a second as someone hits an earsplitting pitch. "How do I contact him privately?"
"Ahah! Well, as you know, I believe in the privacy of all my staff! Though I am glad he made a good impression!" All Might holds the grin. He's a brick wall.
"How do I contact him," Shouta repeats, refusing to back down.
All Might scratches his chin, the same posed gesture as during the panel. Everything the man does is a pose. It's like a model for a bulk junk site, flashing through entire sets in seconds. "He does answer my phones..."
"Then give me whatever number that is," Shouta says, forcing patience. He isn't Quirkless, he hasn't learned tolerance with his morning tea, but he's learned to wait.
"Hmm. Say, shall we do a deal?" Those enormous hands clap together and Shouta prepares to flinch at the noise, but it's at an ordinary volume, only the fingertips touching together, and the room quiets briefly. "Please make your way to the exit! There are many other panels full of upstanding heroes who deserve your attention! Perhaps Miss Hikari can help us all out!"
The moderator flinches to attention and grabs for a microphone. "Ah, yes! So in Hallway C we have..."
All Might waves obstinately. "It was a pleasure to see you, my beloved fans!" The crowd groans but begins to file out. All Might turns back to Shouta, the abrupt drop of volume and bombastic personality almost making Shouta's ears pop, though the smile stays on. "This is the contact of my personal office!" All Might flourishes a card. It looks like a tiny scrap in his blunt, square-tipped fingers.
"Good enough," Shouta says, taking the card. All Might has the hands of a labourer. Shouta never noticed that before. "Thanks." He puts the card away, pauses. "You should guard his privacy better."
All Might's grin gleams as he scratches the back of his neck. Definitely some kind of jelly. There's a tiny blob on one canine. Shouta's not about to point it out. "But you are trustworthy, and we made a deal!"
"I could be anyone," Shouta says, irked at the idea of Yagi being harassed just because All Might folds like a card table under social pressure. "You shouldn't even give me this number."
"Haha! Excellent advice, Eraserhead!" One hand thumps onto Shouta's shoulder, and again it's pulled back, barely touching, and yet just the implied force of it rocks through Shouta like standing too close to a speaker. "I will keep that in mind for the future! But now I must go!" He flashes a thumbs up. "Take good care, Eraserhead!"
He's gone before Shouta can answer, the little card a perfect fit in Shouta's grip. Personal Office of All Might, it says, with three numbers listed as DAY, NIGHT, and EMERGENCY, the last printed in heavy red. There's a little smiley face drawn in blue ink, bleeding into the cardstock. It has yellow bunny ears in highlighter.
All Might. Honestly.
How fucking punchable can one man even be.
***
Shouta calls the day after HeroCon ends. He's never believed in wasting time.
Two rings and it picks up. "All Might Tower, Yagi speaking." The voice is hoarse. He got it, didn't he?
"Hello. This is Eraserhead. We met at the convention." Does Yagi even remember? All Might's secretary would've met the entire staff and half the attendees, maybe Shouta was just another face and that spark was onesided --
His thoughts are interrupted by a gasping series of sneezes. "Oh dear." A wet rattle of a breath. "I'm sorry, Eraserhead-san. Picked up something at the con, I think. I hope you're well? I was thinking about you."
Shouta manages not to sputter. "And you call yourself shy?"
"Ah, eh. Well. Eh!" Yagi says, so inappropriately breezy and uninformative that Shouta cracks a reluctant smile because this is definitely the right man but also, what the fuck. "But you are well? I mean, is this a professional call?"
"No," Shouta says. "I escaped the con plague. Actually I was going to ask if you want dinner, but it sounds like you could use a ride home. I'm not that far from the tower right now, so, I mean..." He stalls into awkwardness. "You shouldn't be answering the phones."
Yagi's quiet for a moment. "I'd forgotten what this was like. Thank you, Eraserhead-san. Don't make that face. Even like this I'm not allowed?"
Shouta doesn't follow. "What?"
"Just this once." Oh. He's talking to someone else in the room with him. "I know. I know what you think. But your opinion doesn't count for much lately, does it?"
Ouch. That vicious tone gotta hurt. Is it All Might Yagi's talking to? Shouta can't quite see the No. 1 Hero letting his employees speak to him like that. But that leaves a subordinate and Shouta doesn't want to get involved with that kind of person.
"Thank you for your permission," so acrid Shouta feels the backwash of all that politeness in his sinuses. "Eraserhead-san?"
"Er, yeah?"
"I'll take you up on that offer if it's still open."
Shouta debates the best approach. Yagi has a mean streak, that was obvious even at the con, but this is something else. "Not if you'll speak to me like that."
There's a telling pause. "You are hearing a partnership gone sour. He did something to me that he promised never to do, and he keeps bringing it up."
If Yagi tried to promise Shouta he would never speak to him that way as if that made it okay, Shouta would've hung up and changed his burner phone. But he didn't, so Shouta's fine staying on the line. "You don't forgive easily," Shouta guesses.
"I want to." Yagi sounds terribly, achingly weary, too much for just a work relationship but about right for being betrayed by a friend.
A friend who thinks Yagi shouldn't be talking to Shouta, implied to be related to his condition.
Shouta's only met him once but a man so determined he hauls his oxygen tank on a cart in the middle of the busiest convention of the year is a man completely unable to give a fuck about anyone's should. Does this friend just not realise that?
"If you changed your mind, I understand."
Right, Shouta's just been breathing down the line like a creep. "No, I haven't. Which side street should I wait on?"
Yagi asks him to idle on a street around the back of the tower and assures Shouta through worrisome coughs that he won't die of a short walk.
He still looks half dead when he knocks on the window and introduces himself like Shouta could have forgotten. His tank is smaller today and his fabric mask is patterned with cherry blossoms but his eyes are swollen red and teary and he can't speak much without coughing and pulling up the mask to change a bloodsoaked absorbency patch for another one. His breath smells of vomit, his upper lip crusted with snot.
"I appreciate this," Yagi says. "I am grateful for your kindness, Eraserhead-san."
"Shut up and tell me where you live," Shouta says, pulling out of the spot. He doesn't need a ticket on top of everything else. "And it's Aizawa."
"Aizawa," Yagi says. Shouta can hear how pleased he is even through the phlegm. "Thank you very much!"
His ears heat. Hizashi would tease him if he saw this. Earnest with a steel backbone is what got him to be friends with Hizashi and it got him into that hot water of a year with Ms Joke. "Tell me where you live."
Yagi lives in a place so nondescript and average Shouta stifles the urge to ask him if he's a spy trying to blend in and further stifles the urge to ask if he needs help up the stairs.
He catches Shouta hovering anyway. "You may carry my bag," grudging, grumpy concession, and Yagi swings the much heavier tank on his back while Shouta bites his tongue.
He doesn't let Shouta inside and definitely doesn't let him see his keypad or which key he uses, those large hands swallowing the view. Not that Shouta was really looking but there's really nothing else to see in this hilariously average hallway.
Yagi's living in a place like this when Shouta knows for a fact All Might pays even the custodial staff well above market? It's such a deliberate, precise manoeuvre to tell all the groupies and haters to fuck off if they think they can get at All Might through any obvious weaknesses like financial struggle or a taste for gilded shit. The entire thing is one giant flip of the bird.
Sweet, steely, and prideful. His libido for the next week has picked its target and Shouta is screwed.
"Thank you for the ride," Yagi says, firmly inside his flat and holding the door, Shouta just as firmly outside of it and glad to be. It smells sickly and musty in there. Not a man expecting guests. Or able to clean up for them. "I really am thankful!"
"Have dinner with me when you're well enough to slurp. I know a good soup place," Shouta says. He knows not to say when you're better. Yagi's medical conditions are clearly not that forgiving. He might not be better for months, if ever.
Yagi's eyes crinkle. The cherry blossom mask was a good choice, the blood seeping through looking just part of the pattern at first glance. "I could manage a straw by Friday night. A red one, to match your eyes." He winces and scratches the back of his head. "Ahah."
His eyes? Oh. Fuck, Yagi's a dork, isn't he? Shouta is so, so fucked. "Okay," smiling back as much as he wants to groan inside. Why is that attractive. Why. "Friday. When's good?"
"Seven thirty, same street?"
"You work late," Shouta notes.
Yagi's eyes harden just a little, his spine straightening a fraction. "Don't you?"
Right. Right, the friend who tries to coddle him. "What are you hearing me say?" sharper than he means it to come out.
"Things you haven't earned yet," Yagi concedes. "I'm sorry, Aizawa-san."
"It's fine," Shouta says. Yagi just keeps making himself more likeable, how the fuck. "See you then. If you don't show, do I...?" He leaves it open. The phone number of All Might's most controversial secretary really is one of the most closely guarded secrets in Japan, easy as All Might was to crack. Shouta won't ask for it.
Yagi hums and coughs, clawing for the door handle and the frame and wheezing like his soul is being sucked out. "I'll send someone," he grunts out, and bends double, pulling down the mask just in time to vomit into a white pail placed in just the right spot. Shouta can see more of them scattered around past Yagi's bent back and an airdrier covered with stained washcloths and towels.
The vomit splatters a little on Yagi's shirt, fresh blood clotted with coffee grounds. Multiple sources of gastrointestinal bleeding. Probably an eosophageal tear. Fuck. Yagi's really not in good shape.
"It's not nice to leave people hanging!" Yagi says, straightening to his usual stoop, and Shouta takes a moment to marvel at the strength of ordinary people. Quirkless, sick with con plague, probably suffering at least two types of cancer, but he's still carrying a goddamn conversation.
All Might had one attack of good taste in his life when he hired Yagi, and that's one more than Shouta knew about before. "I'll be fine," Shouta says. "Any calls I can make before I go? Or I'm good at folding laundry." Open ended offers of help are probably beyond Yagi at the moment.
Yagi's abandoned the mask around his neck and it smears pink on his throat. "I can't ask you to --"
"My best friend is a pro hero and she trusts me to wash her bras," Shouta says with all the seriousness that trust entails.
"Does she," Yagi says. His lips twitch, his shoulders relaxing. "It's not pretty in here."
"I can smell that," Shouta says, unapologetic. "If I can smell it, I can fix it. I know none of this is to do with your boss, okay? This is you going down hard with the fucking plague."
Yagi's pride bends just enough and he steps aside. "The plague? Is that what they call it?"
"Everyone's sick right now. Sit down with a bucket and tell me how you want these folded," Shouta orders. It's a test to be allowed to handle these gruesome stains and he's going to fucking pass it with fucking flying colours and be allowed to open a window.
He passes the test. Yagi lets him open windows. Shouta asks for gloves and is blunt about not wanting to handle biohazard with his bare skin, and that gets him Yagi letting him wash out the buckets in the shower.
It's not difficult to get Yagi's approval to pick up the bags full of discarded medical waste after that, or permission to scrub down the blender's blades caked with old food. Shouta just has to tell the truth that he almost tripped over one of the bags, that appliances won't work properly if they jam.
He's still telling the truth when Yagi gets sick of Shouta touching his stuff and politely kicks him out and Shouta tells him he's looking forward to Friday.
"Still?" His eyebrows are high. He's changed clothes and maybe scrubbed and it helps his appearance a bit, but Shouta knows what Yagi means. All this is a tenth or a hundredth of Yagi's life and while Shouta will never be his carer and never wants to be, some of the load will be unavoidable if Shouta gets even a little involved with Yagi.
He wasn't hiding it at the con. It was unapologetic the way he handled his oxygen, fiddled with the tape, shifted his mask around. Yagi's an interesting person reliant on support gear. Far from the first Shouta's met. "Yeah. Just remember the red straws. I won't settle for anything else."
"All right!" Yagi cracks a hoarse laugh. There's a certain pleasure in making a person as sick, frail and proud as Yagi smile. "All right."