In the years since he'd graduated high school, Hitoshi didn't think he had ever been as bored as he was right now. He would feel guilty about it—the mission this briefing was for would save the innocent lives that were threatened by the human trafficking operation they were taking down—save that this was the third briefing on the topic he'd been to in as many days, and no new information had been delivered since the first one. He'd showed up because he was one of the heroes key to arranging the sting. However, his patrol the previous night had run long into the morning. He had been keeping his ears to the ground in case the villain organization in question learned what was about to go down. Everything was in the clear, but he was dead tired and had to bite into his cheek to keep himself reasonably awake.

Hitoshi's head nodded down to his chest for the fifth time in as many minutes, and he grunted in annoyance, shifting in his seat in the hopes that it might wake him up. It did not. Hitoshi sighed, looking around the room in the hopes that something would catch his eye and keep him awake.

On his third visual sweep of the room, a flash of oddly familiar dishwater-blonde hair caught his eye. Phantom Thief was draped over an uncomfortable folding chair in the corner of the room, eyeing the presenting detective with interest. Hitoshi blinked. He honestly shouldn't be surprised to see him, after all they were both heroes working in the same prefecture, but he hadn't seen the other man in years. Unless one counted news articles, the last time Hitoshi had seen him was during their graduation.

The man looked pretty much the same as Hitoshi had last seen him. From what he could see in the cracks between people seated in front of him, Hitoshi could make out a few minor changes in his costume, but the general style, haircut, everything else was the same. Still a suck-up, at least, judging by how he was watching the presentation.

By the time Hitoshi had finished studying his former course-mate, the detective was drawing the meeting to a close. Hitoshi stayed in his seat, not willing to brave the rush of people making their way for the door, and found his eyes flicking back to the blonde prick from his past. His eyes met dull grey ones and he quickly looked away. Damn. He was spotted.

Hitoshi picked himself up, hoping to slip away into the crowd, but before he could a voice called out to him. "Shinsou-kun! Hold up!" Hitoshi closed his eyes, bit his lip to contain an aggrieved sigh, and stayed still, waiting for the other to catch up to him.

"Monoma," he greeted when the other reached his row in the emptied crowd of chairs. Looking at him up close, Hitoshi could see that maybe a little more had changed than he first thought. Monoma still wore tails, but now they were on a tapered waistcoat, allowing him to roll the sleeves underneath up to his elbows. The whip he'd adopted their second year still hung at his hip, but it looked weightier, composed of a different material, and worn. A chunky silver chain bracelet wrapped around his wrist, nearly all of the links wrapped in something that looked like hair. He was more wiry than he used to be too, what little fat he'd had eroded away by fieldwork. His face was sharper, but his grin and eyes were as sharp as always.

"Trying to slip away in the crowd, I see. Not up for a reunion between old friends?"

Hitoshi narrowed his eyes at the other, snorting under his breath. "We were anything but friends."

Monoma cried out, clutching a hand to his chest dramatically. "You wound me! I thought we got along so well, until you transferred!" Which, by Hitoshi's estimation, had been all of a few months. He'd transferred into class 2-A a semester after they'd first met during his transfer exam. After that, they had been anything but friends. Monoma had acted like Hitoshi had killed his cat, with how he'd targeted him specifically for all his rants and raves about betrayal and the injustice of the class structure.

Hitoshi took in Monoma's puppy eyes. He huffed. "Look, I'm just here for my job. If you want to hash out some class A, class B rivalry find someone who cares. Oh, wait," he paused dramatically, staring Monoma dead in the eyes, "no one gives a crap anymore."

Monoma huffed at his back as he brushed past, keeping up easily with Hitoshi's shortened strides down the narrow walkway. "I'm not the one who brought up class rivalries, you did. And besides, if all that's behind us then there's no reason why we shouldn't catch up. For old times' sake." Catching up, as if they were simply two friends who had lost track of each other. Class B had to have an intervention to keep Monoma from going after Shinsou in their second year, and after that they'd ignored each other completely except for when it was required for class. Shinsou couldn't think of a single thing they needed to catch up about.

"What old times?" He asked, leveling Monoma with a practiced glare. The one that said 'I don't know you and I don't want to, now leave me alone before I cut you.' Monoma seemed unaffected, his smile just as wide as always.

"We always worked well as a team, Shinsou-kun. We'll be working together tomorrow for the raid, too. I thought it might be a good idea to reacquaint ourselves before then." He gave a small shrug, far too casual to be at all genuine. Hitoshi raised both brows at him.

"I think I'm good."

Hitoshi squeezed through the doorway, ignoring the fact that he cut past several people still trying to get through, and tried to escape through the precinct where the briefing had been held. Behind him, he heard Monoma giving a cursory apology for his rudeness, then rapid footsteps attempting to catch up to him.

"Shinsou-kun—"

"Listen," Hitoshi sighed, not looking at the other or slowing down as they made their way through the station, "I don't have anything against you. It's been years and I honestly don't care. But I don't want to hang out and pretend we were ever friends." His eyes flicked to the other hero. Monoma's face was carefully neutral, but the flicker of a frown touched his lips, and his eyes turned dark. Good. Maybe now he'd leave Hitoshi alone. They reached the door to the main entryway. Hitoshi nodded curtly to the other and tugged it open. "I'll see you tomorrow for the mission." Then, he left, the back of his neck tingling with the other's stare.

The heroes made it out of the building without any more incidents, and Hitoshi was swept away in the bustle of medics, reports to the detectives on the scene, and checking in on the civilians they had rescued. Hitoshi made sure to talk to each of their charges individually, this time with his mask off. The full-face black mask, with its beady dark goggles and voice changer/speaker system, worked well to intimidate his enemies. For comforting civilians, he liked to remove it, leaving only a black domino mask to conceal his face. The goal, after all, was to calm the civilians, not scare the crap out of them.

Hitoshi finished speaking with the last person, a girl of about nineteen who was rail-thin, barely clothed, and sobbed when he placed a caring hand atop hers. He left her to the caring attention of the paramedics and forced himself to look for the man he'd been avoiding. A cursory glance over the crowd showed that Monoma was busy talking with the lead detective for the sting, gesturing animatedly at the building.

Damn, he looked pissed. The dark, foreboding aura Hitoshi had grown familiar with during their second year of school wafted off him, but there was no manic grin to accompany it. The detective didn't look at all fazed, so he must have been familiar with Monoma's moods. Hitoshi watched as, with a sharp gesture from the detective, Phantom Thief was dismissed and left to stew, anger wafting off of him.

Hitoshi picked his way over to the other man across the parking lot. The lot was filled now, it looked like the other teams of heroes had finished clearing out the building while he was talking to the civilians. Lines of thugs were being loaded into police transport vehicles, groups of heroes were seeking medical attention or giving their preliminary reports. It took Hitoshi several minutes to cross the gap to Monoma, and by the time he reached him the blonde had seemed to calm down some.

Hitoshi found him with his fingers absently stroking the silver bracelet Hitoshi had noticed the day before, picking at the links and staring at the ground. "Monoma." The other man's head snapped up, eyes narrowing when he saw who had called to him.

"What. Are you here to gloat? Tell me that you were right not to trust me, if I couldn't keep my own team safe?" He drawled, tone poisonous. Hitoshi wondered what the hell the detective had told Monoma, and how the man had made detective if he was such a goddamned idiot.

"If I were, that'd make me the dumbest person here." Hitoshi saw the moment Monoma processed the words, when the acidic gleam in his smirk faded to genuine confusion and the blonde's eyes combed Hitoshi's face for more information. Hitoshi sighed, grip tightening on the straps of his mask, held at his side. He suddenly felt exhausted. "I came to apologize. You did a great job in there, thought fast on your feet. The only person to get injured was Golden Rule, and that's cause that's how her quirk works."

Monoma took a moment to process that and then snorted, crossing his arms over his chest. "What, so you remembered that I'm capable and now you want to be friends all of the sudden? Whatever happened to 'I don't know you and I don't want to'?"

Hitoshi shrugged, looking at the cracked asphalt under Monoma's feet. "Thought I was being a bit of an asshole. If you were trying to not be a dick, figured I could too." He shrugged slightly. He'd never been good at apologies. Growing up, he never really cared about burning bridges, because no one ever stayed around anyway once they found out about his quirk. He hadn't ever bothered to give out apologies, even when they knew they were logical and necessary, until people started sticking around.

In the past eight years, he'd better have learned something about maintaining friendships, with all the obnoxiously insistent friends that had wormed their way into his life. Family, too. After a while, Hitoshi figured out that when he'd wronged someone, he should try to fix it. And maybe he thought the facsimile of trust he had with Monoma was worth fixing.

"So…" Hitoshi shrugged, looking up to meet Monoma's eyes, "how'd you like to get breakfast tomorrow. My treat. As an apology."

It took Monoma a moment, but eventually he nodded, lips twitching into a hint of a smile. "I suppose I could do that." Relieved, Hitoshi felt a smirk grace his lips.

"Then I'll see you later today." He made to turn to leave, but felt thin fingers circle his wrist. He turned, raising his eyebrows over his shoulder at the other hero.

"Why do you care?" Monoma asked, seeming vulnerable in that moment. His eyes were downcast, shoulders tight as he braced for Hitoshi's response.

"...because maybe you're not that bad." Hitoshi took back his hand from the other's slackened grip. "And maybe we've both grown since high school."

Monoma nodded, satisfied with that answer, and this time when Hitoshi turned to leave nothing stopped him.