A/N: For CaptainReina.
Toshinori didn't remember the last time he visited the local park. There was a breeze that would occasionally brush past him, tugging delicately at his hair as it did so, cold but not unpleasantly so. The trees, swaying ever so gently, glowed a mesmerizing gold in the late afternoon sunlight. Underneath his loafers, the crisp, browned leaves crunched and shattered, and just ahead of him, his mastiff curiously sniffed at each leaf that she crossed.
It wasn't often that he finished grading papers early; after he tucked the last essay away into the folder designated for his final class, he spent a considerable amount of time merely sitting there, staring at his dull computer screen. He wasn't supposed to patrol tonight, but perhaps he would with his excess time. He was at a loss until he found his mastiff curled against his front door, her large, expectant eyes trained directly on his as he paused from his trip to the kitchen. There was guilt that settled in his stomach at the sight.
He called her Fuzzy Might - like a loyal, stupidly adorable sidekick, Nemuri and Hizashi had both gushed when he introduced her to them - and, unlike Sir Nighteye, Fuzzy Might never judged his life decisions. Or maybe she did, but she couldn't talk, so it didn't matter, anyways. Like the rarity of finishing grading his papers early, it especially wasn't often that he spent time with her, let alone took her out on a walk, but there were those occasions where he tried to make it up to her.
He doesn't know how many laps they did around the park, only that the painful urge to burst into another coughing fit was bubbling wetly up the back of his throat the longer he continued. Thankfully, there was a bench nearby, placed underneath a tree off to the side of the walkway, and Toshinori gratefully took a seat. Fuzzy Might settled next to his feet, her lazy pants audible over the gentle rattling of the trees as another breeze whispered through.
A few leaves tumbled past them, varying in shades of orange and yellow that rivaled the dying rays of sunlight that washed over the park. Toshinori took an embarrassingly long time to catch his breath. He settled back against the bench, leash held loosely in his fingers, Fuzzy Might nosing at her front paws, until he decided it was time to continue. Before he got up, however, he met the eye of a man on the bench across from him.
That man immediately glanced back to the leather-bound book in his lap. A pale hand trailed gracefully across the surface, exquisite in its flicks and strokes against the surface of his book, and Toshinori dimly realized that it was a sketchbook. He looked back over to the walkway where another batch of leaves tumbled down from a tree and skittered across the concrete. Gradually, he found his eye wandering back to the man across from him. That's how he caught the man glancing at him over his sketchbook a couple more times, tired eyes lingering on him for the briefest of moments before returning to his sketchbook.
The most embarrassing burn flared up Toshinori's neck and to his cheeks on the third time that he caught the man glancing at him over his sketchbook. He became acutely aware of the baggy T shirt that he drowned in, and when he self-consciously ran a hand through his hair, that he hadn't bothered to even brush his hair before leaving his home. Yet this tired-looking man, drowning in his own scarf and seemingly nonchalant about his own loose and messy ponytail, decided to use him as a focus for his sketch. That in itself was enough to make Toshinori shift in his seat. He wasn't used to such a unique form of flattery.
There was no pretending that he didn't notice. Each time their eyes had met, the man returned with a calmly kept insouciance to his sketchbook, but Toshinori recognized the small, nearly imperceptible jump in his shoulders each time he was caught. But he kept going for quite some time; Toshinori remained where he was, eyes staring blankly off in the distance, and he supposed it wasn't such a bad thing. The fresh air felt nice in his lung. The breeze felt even nicer in his hair. It could be worse.
Fuzzy Might's shoulders shook with a giant, impatient huff. Toshinori didn't know how long he spent merely sitting there, but if Fuzzy Might and the dark shadows that the trees cast across the concrete were anything to go by, he knew it was time to go. He stood from the bench, and in the corner of his eye, the man stilled. Fuzzy Might immediately stood, pulled just a bit on her leash, but Toshinori remained. With another glance at the man, who rubbed tiredly at his eyes, he decided that he might as well investigate. Give his civilian ego the boost it needs, he justified as he walked over.
Fuzzy Might let out another huff. He's glad that she can't talk.
The man's hand remained on the page, the pencil flicking every now and again, but it didn't glide as confidently as it did just a few minutes prior. He didn't look up when Toshinori stopped just in front of him.
"Hey."
The man looked up, the bags that weighed under his eyes frighteningly apparent this close up. Okay. Toshinori let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. All right. He had to remain calm. He can't make a fool of himself in front of Fuzzy Might.
"I noticed you were drawing something." Those tired eyes remained terribly enigmatic, enough so that Toshinori awkwardly pressed, "You mind if I - ?"
The man finally glanced down to the sketchbook, and with a heavy sigh, he turned it around. Whatever remained of Toshinori's stomach immediately sank in shame.
"I was drawing the dog, not you."
On the page, fabricated beautifully with short, intricate pencil strokes was a mastiff laying on its side, muzzle cradled between its front paws, the beginnings of a leash disappearing off towards the top of the page. Without a sketchbook to hide behind, Toshinori could clearly see the man's face. The stubble on his cheeks and the slight droop in his eyes, whether from disinterest or lethargy, was actually quite flattering in its own unique, unconventional way. Gradually, he noticed the slightest shade of pink that rose high on the man's cheekbones, and with that came the realization that he stared longer at this man's face than he did on the sketch he asked to see.
Toshinori is so, so glad Fuzzy Might can't talk.
"It's breathtaking," he admitted. "Why don't you draw me next?"
"A ton of people have asked me that exact same question. And you know how many people I've told to shove it?" The man abruptly snapped his sketchbook shut and set it aside. "Every single one of them." He leaned forward in his seat just a bit and asked lowly, "So what makes you any different?"
Toshinori would squirm under this man's piercing glare, but he managed to stand as tall and proud as he had when he first walked up to him. Perhaps it was his tone - droning, of course, but just underneath that, imperceptible if Toshinori wasn't so observant, was the undeniable lilt of a challenge. His gaze was expectant, but not hostile, and Toshinori took him up on it.
He shrugged. "What can I say? I'm cute."
He considered the slight twitch at the corners of the man's lips to be a victory. The hilarity that hung in the air was replaced with something keenly different when the man's gaze left his in order to trail down his body. The man gave him a slow once-over, blatant enough to elicit a strong burn in Toshinori's cheeks, until his gaze eventually trailed back up to Toshinori's.
"Cute doesn't cut it," the man pointed out. The purr in his voice made Toshinori's head spin. "But you make a compelling argument, I guess."
He grabbed his sketchbook and stood. He had to crane his neck upwards to regard Toshinori. A hint of his slender neck was just visible from his thick scarf, and Toshinori found himself swallowing thickly over the knot in his throat, his mouth inexplicably dry.
It took him a moment to register what the man said: "So who's the attractive idiot that I'm supposed to draw?"
Toshinori felt his heart jump in his chest. "Oh, uh -" He weakly cleared his throat. "I'm - I'm Toshinori. Yagi. Toshinori Yagi."
The complete lack of eloquence brought a gleam in the man's eye. He answered, "Shouta Aizawa." Aizawa glanced down towards his feet. "And the dog?"
The fluttery stutter in Toshinori's chest from the blatant, yet welcome flirting was replaced with a brief, surging panic. How the hell was he supposed to explain to a civilian that he just gave his dog a cute version of his hero name? Then Aizawa looked back up at him, breathtaking with the expectant quirk in his brow, and Toshinori blurted out, "Nana."
"Well, it's nice to meet you, Yagi. And Nana," Aizawa added, voice just a tad bit softer, and Toshinori wanted to die. "It's getting late. You live nearby here? I'll walk you home."
The dark orange and red hues of the sunset had slowly became dull and splotchy with the beginnings of a navy blue. With the end of the sunset came the start of a vicious chill that Toshinori despised, but at that moment, he couldn't find it in himself to care. He also couldn't find it in himself to turn Aizawa down.
"I, uh. Yeah," he spluttered. He pointed over his shoulder. "Not too far from here, actually."
The guilt he felt for allowing Aizawa to go out of his way was smothered when he returned home much later that night than initially intended with an invitation to a gallery show.
A/N: "like toshi is a dumbass so don't tell me he wouldnt name his dog like a sidekick" - CaptainReina, thoroughly convincing me to name the dog Fuzzy Might when they gave me this prompt