Chapter Text
When Shouta Aizawa had told Hizashi Yamada that he, himself, was the U.A. traitor, Hizashi’s first instinct was to laugh.
The confession had come out of nowhere. Hizashi had been lounging against Shouta’s desk, chattering idly about new internships while Shouta had preoccupied himself with clearing out the old papers in his desk drawer. Idly chattering away, Hizashi hadn’t noticed the shaking in his hands or the way that Shouta couldn’t seem to take a full, deep breath as he spoke. Or how Shouta had barely heard a single word that Hizashi had to say. Shouta had simply lifted his head the moment Hizashi finished talking and uttered the words with jarring clarity. Blunt and to the point. Hizashi had stared, then laughed, then stared some more when Shouta’s expression hadn’t broken.
“You were right about there being a U.A. traitor,” he had said next. “It was me. I provided the information to allow the League of Villains into the school.”
At that moment, Hizashi noticed details of Shouta’s face that he hadn’t seen before. Details about Shouta that had been there in the background of Hizashi’s mind, but never had been something he felt was worth mentioning; the lines on his face. The bags under his eyes that had grown far, far darker than what was typical, even for Shouta. The way his shoulders seemed to slump, bringing an unnatural curl to his posture.
“I’m sorry, Hizashi,” he said simply. Shouta’s eyes had grown wide, but he didn’t cry or betray any hint of emotion. His eyes were dead, lifeless shells of white that had flickered up to Hizashi with no light reflected inside.
“I don’t understand,” Hizashi said slowly. “You don’t usually joke like this, man.”
“I’m sorry,” he said again. He had taken a step back from Hizashi, then, as though backing away from a threat he was ill-prepared to face on his own.
“Hey... Shouta what are you —? “
Hizashi had reached a hand towards Shouta only for him to step away, quick as a cat.
“Don’t touch me. Please,” he had murmured softly. “The League of Villains knew how to enter this school because of me. I supplied that information.”
Hizashi shook his head, hardly daring to take in a breath.
“Man...if this is a joke, it isn’t funny anymore, okay? There isn’t a single thing you could ever say to me to convince me that you work for the League. Nothing. So don’t even try it.”
Shouta glared at him, finally showing some hint of emotion in his dead eyes.
“Listen to me. I didn’t say I was working for the League, did I? I said I supplied that information.”
He stood, leaving Hizashi to gape at him wordlessly. Struck into silence, Hizashi could only stare at him in numb disbelief. For a long moment, Shouta looked at his feet, struggling with his words before finally looking Hizashi in the eye.
"And...I love you," he said simply. "Figured I should at least...let you know that. I was always too much of a coward to say it before. But yeah. I do."
Hizashi recoiled. Shouta's words — the jarring simplicity of it all, as though Hizashi's entire world hadn't just tumbled off its axis — had frozen him in place. He couldn’t even move to touch him.
Then, Shouta had turned and moved for the door
“Shouta!” Hizashi cried hoarsely. “What the hell are you saying, man?! Shouta?”
He seemed to hesitate, if only for a moment, before opening the classroom door and walking out into the hallway. Hizashi had darted after him, desperate for answers that he knew, deep down, he would not receive. Shouta began to sprint down the empty halls of the school, throwing open the doors and unleashing his capture weapon to propel him up a nearby telephone pole. Much too fast for Hizashi to catch, Hizashi frantically stumbled outside, only to watch him swing away.
This isn’t real, he had thought to himself. This is insanity. It isn’t real.
But Shouta had given him nothing to suggest that this had been a joke. Or a dream. It had happened so quickly, it took Hizashi nearly a full minute before his shaking hands reached into his pocket to pull out his phone.
This isn’t real, he thought to himself again.
Except that it was.
Dumbfounded, he began to dial his phone to call Nezu, then Nemuri Kayama, then the police.
Hizashi still hadn’t believed that it was real, even two weeks later, when Shouta hadn’t shown up for school to teach for the tenth day in a row. It wasn’t until the school held yet another faculty meeting on the subject of Shouta Aizawa’s betrayal and disappearance that Principal Nezu had announced that Shouta Aizawa had attacked Pro Heros Mt. Lady and Kamui Woods. It had been then that the horrible, cruel reality came crashing down over Hizashi’s shoulders.
The heroes, Nezu had said, were okay. But their injuries had been enough to land them in the hospital.
Attacking Pro Heroes is a crime. Providing information to the League of Villains is also a crime. Putting students in danger, putting his friends and coworkers in danger…
All eyes were on Hizashi, as though waiting for him to provide answers that he didn’t have.
He had already told the police everything he knew several times over. Shouta’s confession had come out of nowhere. Within less than five minutes after, he had disappeared. The consensus seemed to be that something broke in Shouta after the two of them visited Tartarus and confronted the empty, yellow eyes of their once-best friend, now a nomu. Everyone assumed some sort of ugly display of guilt had burst from Aizara in the days following the visit to Tartarus.
But it was all gossip. Nobody knew Shouta Aizawa, Hizashi had thought numbly to himself. Not really.
“Have the police given any word or updates to Aizawa’s location?” Toshinori asked quietly. The question had jarred Hizashi out of his stupor. He looked between the two in silence as Principal Nezu shook his head.
“Nothing. They’ve only told me what I’ve told you - they can’t find any trace of him.”
Nezu sighed. “Several other crimes have been reported in the vicinity attributed to Aizawa; theft. Breaking and entering into a hardware store. Assault of Kamui Woods and Mt. Lady while on parole.”
Hizashi’s ears had begun to run. He had been terrified of saying anything, less his voice broke on the spot. Everything had happened so fast. It didn’t feel real. The eyes on him were suffocating and demanding. But he didn’t have answers. He didn’t know a single thing.
“I know we are all struggling to understand how a teacher of our own could resort to such villainous behavior,” Nezu continued. “But we must continue to focus on the students. Only provide them with information that is public. Do not speculate about Aizawa. Answer their questions, allow them to voice their confusion, but do not allow them to obsess. This is the reality of our world, unfortunately. He would not be the first Pro Hero who has strayed down a dark path.”
Hizashi said nothing at all. The words faded, and so did the day.
The next meeting regarding the status of Shouta Aizawa, far more troubling than the last, had come days later. Even Nezu seemed to struggle with his words - something so unlike him, it has the rest of the faculty on edge.
“What is it, Nezu?” Toshinori asked softly. Nezu placed a paw over his mouth, a rare sign of emotion for the man as he placed a police report down on the table for the rest of the heroes to see.
“Pro Hero Elastica is dead,” he said softly. A series of gasps murmured across the room.
“She was found in three pieces. Her head mounted on a pike outside the downtown police office. Authorities are...are looking at Aizawa as a possible suspect.”
Hizashi’s blood ran ice-cold in his veins. His hands shook so badly, he had to put down his coffee mug less it slipped from his hands and shattered to the floor.
“No,” he croaked weakly. “He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t.”
“Hizashi,” Nemuri said softly. Toshinori, overwhelmed even with all he had seen in his line of work, buried his face in his hands.
“Hizashi, we can’t leave it out of the question...whether or not we think he could be capable, he let the League of Villains into the school…”
Her voice trailed off in a dizzy haze. Hizashi’s head spun. His vision tunneled. Everything seemed to grow black as his name echoed in his ears…
“Hizashi.”
The sound of his name jolts him out of his stupor. He looks up at her. He’s not in the meeting - not anymore. He’s in the faculty lounge, three newspapers scattered across the table where he sits from a half-finished cup of coffee. School ended four hours ago and Hizashi thought that he had been alone in the building, or at least alone in the faculty lounge. Outside, the sun hangs low in the sky. He puts down the paper he’d been paging through with a tired sigh.
Nemuri Kayama stands in the doorway. Consumed by the papers in front of him, he hadn’t even heard her turn the knob to open the door. She takes a hesitant step closer to the table where he sits, smiling a little at the way Hizashi was obviously too engrossed in his work to notice her come in. She raises an eyebrow in a sad smile when she sees Hizashi sitting alone. Her eyes move and linger on the scattered papers for just a moment. Just long enough to make Hizashi stiffen.
“You look awfully lonely in here,” she points out, placing a hand on her hip. Her voice teases, but it’s soft all the same. Much like everybody else at U.A., she knows why the normally boisterous English teacher spends most of his days alone recently, despite her best efforts to keep him alone with his thoughts for too long. He usually appreciates the effort; just not today.
He tries to make himself seem brighter than he feels as he rubs the back of his head sheepishly, giving her his best effort of a wide smile. She merely raises an eyebrow in response.
“Ah, you know. It’s verb conjugation day with the kids,” he lies quickly. “They always forget where the ‘to be’ verb goes and all that…”
She narrows her eyes, a soft smirk stretching across a pitying smile. She shoots a glance at the papers again.
A sudden rustle outside makes him jump. Turning quickly over his shoulder, he grits his teeth when he sees it was only a bird fluttering away from the bushes lining the building outside one of the hazy windows. He turns back to the paper on his desk, then back to Nemuri as her eyes scan the headline of the paper closest to him.
PRO HEROES STILL ON THE HUNT FOR VILLAIN EX-TEACHER.
“So...verb conjugation requires a mountain of newspaper clippings with headlines about Shouta Aizawa?” she asks, her voice dripping with irony.
He swallows wordlessly. It’s enough of an answer for her.
It had been six months, and the headlines still won’t stop coming in about Shouta Aizawa’s betrayal. He knows because he saves them; every single one has been kept stacked by his bedside dresser in the past six months. The attack on Mt. Lady and Kamui Woods and how he escaped and hasn’t only been seen in scarce passing since; a burglary, tied to sightings of a dark-haired man with tired eyes. Theft with eyewitnesses claiming it was the former Pro Hero, Eraserhead.
The brutal, ugly murder of Pro Hero Elastica.
Hizashi knows about all of it; every report, every sighting, every lead. He knows every inch of the investigation, despite strong suggestions to local authorities that he should be kept out of it by all means due to his close relationship with Shouta Aizawa .
He had been interrogated and he had answered truthfully. He knew nothing. He was just in the dark about his true intentions as everyone else.
But then again, nobody really knew much of anything about Aizawa, did they? Not even Hizashi himself. But he should have known. After knowing him fifteen years, he should have known. Yet, he knew nothing at all when he was the very first person that should have seen something . Anything. But he never noticed. No one says this to him, but it’s painfully written across the faces of his coworkers, young and old alike. Even his students, hurt as they are by the betrayal of their beloved, grumpy homeroom teacher, seem to cast Hizashi longing glances when they pass him in the halls. U.A. has never felt so foreign as it had in the last six months. Not even his first week of teaching felt this strange.
Hizashi fights the urge to crumple the paper in his hand and throw it in the garbage. It’s what he should do. It’s likely what Nemuri would tell him to do - the one person who seemed genuinely concerned about him after Aizawa betrayed them. But he doesn’t.
Quite simply, isn’t in the mood to make good decisions, especially not today. Beside him, Hizashi glances over at Aizawa’s empty desk. The empty space once occupied by his dearest friend looms like a shadow in the night. Hizashi forces himself to look away as he grits his teeth. He doesn’t realize it’s almost been a full minute since he or Nemuri said a single word.
“Do you want to walk home with me today?” she says gently. She clasps her hands before her chest; the request is gentle but insistent. “I stayed after to talk to Nezu about work studies. I figured I’d...check in on you. Since you’re usually in here by yourself ‘till late so often.”
“Can’t. Have to stop by the store before I head home,” he lies quickly.
“Then I’ll come to the store with you.”
Hizashi looks away. “ Nemuri .”
She sighs and runs an idle hand through her long hair. She stares at him, silently willing him to change his mind. To stop isolating himself. To step willowing in his guilt. But he doesn’t back down. “Okay. Okay,” she huffs. “Whatever you say. I just — “
Hizashi waits for her to finish with a hard press of his lips.
“ —...think you shouldn't spend so much time alone. It’s not good. Especially not for someone like you. You’re...happier around people, aren’t you?”
He shakes his head, even as he knows she’s right. He is happier around other people. Spending so much time alone is bad for him. But he can’t stand everyone’s pitying or judgmental looks. He feels their questions burning behind their eyes; How did he not know? Surely he knew something was up with Aizawa? The pitying stares are worst of all. Everyone at U.A. knew how close the two were. It all wears on him, almost as heavily as his own thoughts when he’s alone.
“Hizashi,” she begins again. “After you two saw Kurogiri at Tartarus —”
“Tartarus was months ago,” he murmurs. His eyes grow wide and vacant, as though staring straight through her. She shakes her head.
“It doesn’t matter. You two didn’t speak about it. Maybe he always knew. Maybe the — the grief was too much for him and that’s why he finally confessed. But trying to figure out why...it won’t help you.” He can hear her voice grow louder; more desperate than before.
“I worry about you.”
“Shirakumo was Aizawa’s friend fifteen years ago. His death didn’t make Aizawa let the League of Villains into the school. Friends die in this line of work, Nemuri. We had that drilled into our heads before we ever got our first sex-ed course.”
She scowls at his attempt at a joke. Hizashi’s shoulders fall.
“He was your friend, too,” he continues. “ Is your friend. I don’t know anymore. I don’t know what he is, and honestly? I don’t want to know. Whatever made Aizawa snap like that wasn’t grief over a long-lost friend. Things like this...the choices he made...they start...earlier than that.”
“So, you don’t think he was faking being a hero this whole time?” she asks gently. “Being a teacher? An ally?” It’s obvious she’s forcing her voice to remain gentle. The strain behind it makes Hizashi want to curl into a tight ball under the table. “Do you don’t think he was using his position at U.A. to gain information?”
Hizashi looks at her with a blank expression. “You don’t understand how much I can’t allow myself to believe that, Nemuri.”
You don’t know how much I can’t allow myself to believe that my best friend might have only ever seen me as a pawn.
“I was the one who turned in his teaching application,” she huffs bitterly. She bites her lip, not meeting Hizashi’s eye. “I thought he needed direction in his life. And...I thought he would be good with kids. I…”
She shakes her head and Hizashi sighs.
“Nem’...it’s not your fault.”
She doesn’t answer for a long moment.
“It doesn’t matter,” she says through her teeth. “We could talk all day long about...whose fault it is and...all that. The point is, we have a situation on our hands that’s difficult for everybody. And we have to deal with it as it comes.”
But even she doesn’t sound convinced.
“Please, Nemuri. Can we talk about something else right now?” he asks softly. He doesn’t want to think about this anymore -- about the horrible situation in front of them, about Hizashi’s confusing feelings. Not to mention Shouta’s I love you, of which Hizashi has told nobody, not even her.
“You said you wanted to see that movie this weekend, right…?” he continues.
She manages a small smile, though her eyes are still worried. Her figure seems to relax, slightly. She doesn’t want this to weigh them down any more than it has to, either. “Yep. I did. You still coming?”
He returns her smile. She can tell he’s tired; be it mentally, physically, or otherwise, and doesn’t press when the smile feels forced. It is the most natural smile Hizashi has given since Aizawa’s betrayal. “Wouldn’t miss it.” He flashes her a quick thumbs up. It seems to satisfy her, at least for the moment.
She nods. For a moment, she peers at him behind her large glasses before ducking her head with a sigh. “I’ll see you then, loudmouth.”
He waves her goodbye as she leaves, and quickly, but carefully, gathers up his things. He takes more care in packing away the newspapers than his students’ partially graded paper and worksheets. Hizashi can’t even find himself to feel guilty for it. As he hurries out of the lounge, he has to tear his eyes away from Aizawa’s empty desk, less the solitary reminder of his absence keeps Hizashi rooted in that spot for the rest of the day as it had countless times before.
Technically, Hizashi lied to Nemuri. He is going straight home — not to the store — but only for a few moments to change before leaving again. He doesn’t like lying, especially not to her. She’s been nothing but kind to him in the months since Aizawa left. But today, he doesn’t have a choice with what he plans to do, despite how badly it makes him feel.
As soon as he’s certain she’s out of sight, Hizashi all but runs out the doors of U.A. and across the grassy courtyard, thankful no one is around to greet him. He ducks his head down and prays nobody wants to start a conversation; he can’t do it. Not today.
When he hurries down the street and in through the doors of his small flat, the sun is already hanging heavy in the sky above the hazy horizon of the city that seems to envelop Hizashi’s slender form even then. His mind wanders back to their conversation. Back to Tartarus. Back to the dark, endless pit of swirling black that was Kurogiri’s face. Seeing Oboro one, last time before he vanished. He shakes his head, forcing the thought from his mind as he reaches the front door of his flat.
Inside, the interior of the flat is not as neat as it once was before . The fridge is half-empty, his clothing left strewn by his bedroom door when it had always been meticulously folded and tucked away. The sink full of dirty dishes, and even a dish from last night remains at his desk. Half-graded papers still remain by the nightstand. But he pays no attention to any of that now. Instead, he rinses and dries his hair, letting it hang loosely down his shoulders before he pins it up in a loose bun. He peels off his leather jacket and pants to replace them with a plain, black hoodie and a semi-dirty pair of jeans. To an outsider, he looks nothing like Present Mic, or even Mr. Yamada, the sports announcer and English teacher of U.A.The casual outfit is a far cry from the norm from the energetic radio host and occasional DJ; two jobs in which he takes so much pride in doing day after day.
It takes him no more than half an hour to dress completely down before he leaves his flat again and heads towards the outskirts of the city. He’s tense, fidgeting until he hides his hands in his hoodie pocket. The walk is always the worst part; it’s impossible to run from his thoughts when he makes his way through dark streets, alone, to meet up with the man who left everything behind. Who left him behind with only painful memories and a sense of betrayal clinging to him like a cloak.
I love you. Three, simple words that could be nothing but manipulation. A means to throw Hizashi off while he escaped. Words that make Hizashi so much more confused than he already is.
Before, Shouta Aizawa had left his old life behind with nothing but a whisper in the dark. Hizashi had let him leave like a gust of wind and had mourned that departure in anger and confusion at how he could have been so blind to what was staring him right in the face. But Shouta hadn’t disappeared forever — Hizashi wasn’t mourning his physical absence.
That night that Shouta Aizawa renounced his old, hero life for good had not been the last time Hizashi had seen him, though he sometimes wishes it was. He had lied to the police, lied to the U.A. teachers...and lied to Nemuri.
No — instead, five months after Shouta had said his goodbye, Hizashi had run into Shouta again.
That night, Hizashi had been hurrying back from patrol with a broken speaker. When he spotted him, Hizashi initially felt a rush of relief seeing a familiar face before the cold realization raced up his spine. Two people had been following Hizashi without his knowledge - until Shouta Aizawa had swooped in and knocked them out cold before he could so much as blink.
Shouta was an enemy, not a friend. Shouta had seemed surprised to see him, but his blank face was always so hard to read. It was only thanks to fifteen years of knowing him that let Hizashi see the flash of panic quickly hidden behind a meticulous, indifferent expression. Yet, the tightening of his brow and lips gave away his unease and shock before he managed to hide his emotions.
Shouta had stood before him, then, for a long moment, silent. His stubble was worse than normal, dark circles a little worse. With a flash of red eyes and levitation of a tangle, black mop, an illegal capture weapon—his hero grade gear having been long-discarded, found by the police at the scene of a crime that offered no leads. The two other villains in the back alley were unconscious within moments.
A familiar smirk. A shared glance. A dropped note. Then he was gone. Hizashi had picked up the small piece of paper and kept it in the same pocket of his hoodie he is wearing now without having read a single word. Promising he’d never read it. But within days he read the note, an address, and a time. Against better thought, he went. And continued to go every week since.
He checks his watch; five minutes to eight o’clock. He takes long strides down the street, feeling the familiar pangs of doubt worry through his stomach as he knows exactly what he’s supposed to do, and what he’s doing instead. He should be alerting the authorities. He should be utilizing his Pro Hero license to stop the man he’s so desperate to see and bring him in to be arrested. He should be at home.
That dreaded night hadn’t been the last time Hizashi had seen him and tonight shouldn’t be the fourth time Hizashi is choosing to break the law and betray all that he knows of being a Pro Hero. Each time he makes this achingly familiar walk to their secret meeting place, he justifies it to himself again and again and again; he asks Shouta what he’s been doing. He all but threatens him to stay away from the school and forces him to swear that he wouldn’t come within five blocks of a U.A. student at any time. Each time, Hizashi tells Shouta to give him intel on criminal hideouts, and Shouta gives it willingly. And through it all, Hizashi is able to pretend that he is doing this for information. Undercover meetings that he keeps entirely secret from the other heroes and the police. He’s merely being a hero, right? Shouta has been willfully supplying information so that Hizashi doesn’t turn him in. And in return, Hizashi knows where to look on patrol. He knows to stay on his route a little longer to catch criminal activity and turn them in.
He tells himself that this is why when he knows that seeing Shouta each month is more than enough of a reason why.
Sometimes, in the dark, their eyes meet, and Hizashi slips; sometimes he catches himself cracking an old joke under his breath like in the old days. And then, sometimes, Hizashi sees him smile and all at once, Shouta isn’t a villain anymore. He’s a man. He’s Hizashi’s friend, and sometimes Shouta’s smile lights up Hizashi’s face like only he ever could.
Coming back to reality, Hizashi blinks, shaking his head with a shudder as he forces the thought to stop before it can make him spiral with grief. His thoughts, when left to linger, feel disconnected and blurry, like trying to force himself through thick molasses. He knows why he goes to see Shouta — the real reason. Hizashi has always been able to lie to himself with far more ease than he lies to Nemuri.
Hizashi has his hands jammed in his pockets as he checks every shadow and every whisper of paper drifting down the street in the nighttime air.
Shouta had missed last week’s meeting, and now, every nerve in Hizashi’s body is on edge. He doesn’t know what he fears more; that Shouta would miss this meeting, too, or that he would be there after all. Hizashi wants him to be there. And it’s the wanting Hizashi fears — and hates himself for — the most.
Keeping his hands shoved into his pockets, Hizashi rounds the corner and a wide alley opening greets him like the opening of a dark tomb, just beneath the last, dusty streetlight on the block. Settled near the back, a dark figure leans against the alley wall. In the night, the silhouette of the figure is cat-like and writhe, though only the dark outline of them can be seen from where Hizashi stands. All but invisible, the identity of the figure is clear to Hizashi, even now — even in the dark, he knows who that man could be. With the number of times he’s dreamed of Shouta Aizawa, he would recognize that shape in a total absence of light.
When Shouta Aizawa turns to face Hizashi, his eyes are worn, but their catlike gleam draws Hizashi closer; like a ghost, returning home to an old tomb.