Chapter Text
He’s on shobadai duty again. Hitoshi hates that he’s back to grunt work after all this time, but his father insisted - with the increased League activity he says he doesn’t want Hitoshi getting caught up in it. Instead, he should focus his time on cultivating ties and meeting the people who pay his family so handsomely.
He steps out of the Ivy, the protective money firmly in the inner pocket of his leather jacket, when he spots the young man on the way to his car. He’s standing in the alley, looking around, and Hitoshi honestly wonders if someone is stupid enough to try to work on their territory, let alone spy. Thankfully he only has one more stop for the night, and figures he’ll still make the appointment if he scares this guy off.
Turning away from his car, he strides down the alley, doing his best to look intimidating. But one good look at the intruder tells Toshi that either the rival syndicates are getting too careless with their choices or that the young man is not a threat. When his footsteps get close enough for the other to realize he’s not an echo from the street, he looks up with a weary smile.
“Oh, hi!”
Yeah, this guy is an idiot. Shinso takes in the well-worn headphones, the look of exhaustion, and the flimsy hoodie too light for the chill in the air, and deduces that this guy doesn’t know what or where he’s wandered into. But the guy is cute, Shinso would give him that
"You know it's not safe to be in this part of town at night. Or ever really. Are you lost or did you try to outrun someone and find yourself a little far from home?"
"I'm not lost," the blonde insists quickly. "I mean, I'll just keep walking until I get somewhere I recognize and go from there. Gotta be honest with you though, I didn't really pay attention to where I was going. I just like to wander sometimes.”
Hitoshi watches as the blonde runs one hand nervously through his hair laughing, clearly hoping to diffuse the situation, while his other hand reaches for his pocket, most likely checking that his phone and wallet are still there.
"I gathered as much that you weren't paying attention. But like I said it isn’t safe, so how about you come with me and I'll get you somewhere less unsavory so you can keep meandering. A guy like you wandering around this part of town looking lost just makes you an easy target, and I really don't need the cops or heroes in the area poking their nose into things."
None of that was a lie. Someone in their line of work goes missing? The world keeps turning. But some young college kid? Well, the media would make a scene and the cops would descend to quell the fleeting moral outrage of crime in their city.
There's a pause. Hitoshi wonders if the other's one cell of self-preservation is kicking some common sense into him, but Toshi half wishes it doesn't. The sort of patrons that walk out of the Ivy tend to make insistent offers.
"Sure, just don't murder me and dump my body somewhere gross"
Hitoshi, one. Self-preservation, zero.
Hitoshi leans down and grins a bit at the blonde. "Aww, I don't dump the bodies. That's not my job. Besides, that's my car right there." He points to the classic American muscle car, a 1967 racer green Shelby Mustang, he restored with his dad. "Do you think I'd want blood on that? No thank you."
Hitoshi knows somewhere this is a bad idea, but he's bored, and the blonde is pretty, so why not have some eye candy for the night? His macabre forwardness earns him a snorting laugh from his soon-to-be passenger that stops as soon as he lays eyes on his car.
"That's your car? That is a real beauty. It'd be a shame to make a mess of her!"
Hitoshi wants to tell him that his car is very much a guy, as he doesn't ride women - he's his fathers' son after all - but thinks that might be too much for just meeting.
"Hell, I wish I had a car like that," the stranger continues. "All I've got is a bike I'm fixing up. But it's going to be awesome when I'm finished! Just need to save up for parts!"
The man must realize he's rambling because he shuts up the moment he registers how long he's been talking.
"Come on. Car's warm. I've got one more errand to run and if you don't hop out of the car before I finish, I'll take you for ramen before I get you home."
The mention of food brightens up the stranger's demeanor again and he bounces for a moment on the balls of his feet.
"I never turn down free food!" He holds out a hand. "Denki Kaminari!"
Hitoshi opens the car door and takes Kaminari's hand. "Good evening Denki Kaminari. I'm Hitoshi Shinso. Should I worry that you never turn down free food? That's not exactly safe."
"Eh, I'm broke and have no self-preservation. If poison's the way I go out, then so be it. It'd at least be a badass way to die."
Hitoshi reaches out to return the handshake and feels small sparks between their palms. Ah, that’s cute.
"I don't know if that's your way of telling me what you can do or that you're willing to do it. But believe me, you do not want to pull your quirk on me unprompted. I'm very nice until I'm not."
"I don't know what you're talking about, maybe that was just the spark you felt between you and me" he winks and slides into the car.
Hitoshi closes the door on him and gets in on the driver’s side. "For the record, you never want to die by poison. It's not quick and it's not badass. There are more body fluids involved than you can imagine," he states, before cranking the engine.
If Hitoshi thought the poison comment would throw the blonde into silence, he was wrong.
"Mmh, good to know. So if I get poisoned and know I'm about to die, should I just stab myself to get it over with before that happens?"
"I'd say a gun would be more effective, but something tells me to never trust you with one.”
"No, probably a good call.”
The sensation on his hand lingers, and Hitoshi should know sooner rather than later if he just picked up an off-duty hero.
“So is it just sparks you can make, or can you do more?”
"Oh yeah! I can do way more than sparks if I want to. My quirk got me into UA. That is until they decided I was a lost cause and kicked me out," he scoffs.
“Well UA never knows talent when it sees it, nor do they know how to foster their students. They let trauma eat their students alive and then spits them out when they're not of use." Hitoshi doesn't mean to sound so jaded, but he's been at the receiving end of too many 'hero establishment' lectures at home.
"Sorry, that was a bit dark, but I have to know if you went to UA, why did you get into a car with someone you suspect is about to run less than legal errands?"
"No, you're not wrong about UA. And as for my decision to joyride with you, I told you - no sense of self-preservation. Plus, you're pretty. And I'm not a hero, I'm just a guy now. I don't care if what you're doing is against the law or not, you're still being nice to me."
He thinks I’m pretty? All he can do is hum in response as he approaches the stoplight and turns to look at Kaminari. "I have my own thoughts about you, but just so I'm not breaking too many laws tonight, tell me - how old are you?"
Hitoshi is twenty-five, and while it’s not that old, he's not about to pick up someone barely legal - he had standards and he's sticking to them, no matter how cute the blonde in his passenger seat is.
"Oh, don't ask me that! Just makes me think I'm wasting my life away. Everyone I grew up with has their life together and I’m still job-hopping at twenty-four!”
Even though his guest is clearly distressed over his age, Hitoshi breathes a sigh of relief. “Then I'm pleased to inform you that you are, uh, very cute. Which is why I had to get you out of there. If you stood around the Ivy any longer, at least a few guys would be asking you how much you charged for the pleasure of your company - and some assholes don't tend to take no for an answer. Which is where I come in after - to get rid of the assholes. But I like to prevent the clean-up if I can.”
"Aw, thanks! But I would've fried anyone who tried to do anything I didn't want to, but it's sweet that you care!"
Hitoshi blushed. It wasn’t that he cared about this strange boy he just met, but there was something about the way he looked and acted that made Hitoshi want to find out more, and that required Kaminari being alive.
“Who says you're wasting your life away?” Hitoshi replies, not wanting to focus on his emotions. “I wasn't aware there was a deadline on knowing what you wanted to do with your life." It wasn’t as if Hitoshi knew what he was doing beyond family obligation.
"Oh, you know. I watch the news and there's, like, Red Riot saving a bunch of people. And I remember he's the guy I tried to make ramen in the water kettle with. And he has his life together now, but I still don't. Still live with my shitty mom in our shitty home, work shitty jobs and eat shitty food."
Between the quirk, the attitude, and the desire to break out of his life, Hitoshi wonders if he inadvertently found his syndicate another recruit. Kaminari is youthful enough to pass under a lot of radar and well, his fathers do love strays. He himself was one of the first they found.
"Hero work does not automatically mean having your life together. But how about we change the subject. Mainly because we are about to pull up to my next errand, but also because a frown doesn't suit your face.”
Hitoshi parks and kills the engine, before patting down his jacket to make sure he has everything he needs.
“Are you going to wait in the car or do you want to come down?” Hitoshi figures that if something goes sideways he can use his quirk to make Denki forget that this night ever happened.
"No, I'll come. I want to see what you do."