"Mr. Loverman needs to leave," Shouto announces over the crowd. A few of them make noises of disapproval, others annoyance, and even more aggravation. Midoriya had tugged on his sleeve just thirty seconds ago, and Shouto took it as code to cut this session of autographs off.
Mr. Smith has been helpful, too. He's not quite as intimidating, but he's been ushering people out where he can, and Shouto can tell Midoriya is grateful for it. With a few last grumbles and complaints, Shouto convinces the awaiting crowd that he isn't joking, Mr. Loverman is now closed, please shut the door on the way out, thank you. And he turns back to Loverman – Midoriya, he supposes, since the crowd is no longer here. "All set?" he asks, sees the blank bit of worry in Midoriya's face and frowns a little himself.
But Midoriya's straightening under his gaze, and that frown revises itself into a small smile. "Yeah," he chirps. "Just let me change, alright?"
"Sure," Shouto nods. Mr. Smith shows them towards the second story bathroom, and Shouto waits outside while Midoriya changes, guards the door protectively despite the only two people left in this bar being Mr. Smith and his son. And even then, they're doing some cleaning. Shouto wonders if Mr. Smith has even hired any other employees yet.
Midoriya emerges in casual jeans and a sweater that hangs just off his fingertips. "Let's go," he says, grabs for Shouto's sleeve again then pulls back as if he's been burned, and Shouto almost has to wonder for a second if he did burn Midoriya – but Midoriya had been reaching for his right side. Had he been too cold?
"Sure," Shouto says again, and they go back down the arced staircase, meet Mr. Smith at the door. He slips a check into Midoriya's hand, and Midoriya bows in thanks, and they step out into the cool air.
There are a few paparazzi members waiting outside the door. One snaps a photo of Shouto's hand; the other gets a delightful picture of a wall of ice. Midoriya flushes, laughs a little nervously. "You're good at that," he states under his breath as they make their getaway, clambering into Shouto's car.
"I've dealt with a lot of press," he says under his breath. They pull out of their spot and Shouto hopes that the press doesn't follow his car. He takes a sharp turn down an alley that's much too slim for his car to comfortably pass through, but he makes it work, and they end up on a separate side road before the paparazzi can get the ice chipped off their camera lenses.
Midoriya pales in the seat next to him. "Wow," he says, soft, under his breath. Like he simply can't believe what's just happened, and Shouto vaguely registers that Midoriya has likely never had to drive through an alley like this. He's always escorted.
Well, Shouto's his escort now, and Shouto drives through alleys.
"You alright?" he asks as they turn onto the main road once more. Midoriya bobs his head in a furious nod, and Shouto wonders idly if he's knocked a few screws loose somehow with his jarring maneuver. Still, he shrugs, moves past it. "Are you hungry?"
"I—uh," Midoriya frowns beside him. He doesn't look over to see it; he can tell by the way his words spill, tumbling through his downturned lips. He decides with ease that he doesn't like the sound of it. "I'm still Loverman."
"You've got makeup wipes and a case for your wig, don't you?" Shouto asks, and he doesn't know why he's pushing for this – certainly the only place open right now would be twenty-four hour diners and he's not so sure he wants to deal with the types of people visiting those diners at nearly two in the morning. But he's hungry, he hasn't eaten since his early dinner at nearly four o'clock this evening.
"I mean, I do," Midoriya digs through his duffel next to him. "But if anyone sees Loverman—"
"Windows are tinted," Shouto knocks on his driver's side window as if to accentuate this fact. "It's fine if you don't want to, I'm just super hungry."
"I—ah—me, too!" Midoriya sputters, and Shouto peels his eyes away from the road for a moment to give Midoriya a questioning look. He's met with a panicked expression, but there's a smile, and it looks sincere, so Shouto gives up trying to read Midoriya's emotions and instead returns his gaze to the road. He hears Midoriya dig through his bag, then the faint, repetitive plink of bobby pins being placed on the dash.
"Don't lose those in here," Shouto warns through a small smile, and he circles the block of a local diner to give Midoriya extra time to pack away his wig.
He ends up going around another three times while Midoriya scrubs off his face makeup with a makeup wipe and tucks his contacts into a travel contact case. It amazes him how Midoriya is so easily able to peel them from his eyes and put them away, like he's been taking out and putting in contacts his whole life. Shouto wears a contact in his scarred eye regularly, but each day it's a hassle to put the damn thing in and take it out. He almost wonders if there's a secret technique to it. Midoriya sweeps his hand over the dash and collects the bobby pins into his cupped palm, puts them in a separate plastic container that's nearly overflowing with bobby pins to begin with.
When they finally park and emerge from the car, Midoriya wraps in on himself. It's cold, and Shouto supposes he didn't notice in the short walk from the lounge to the car earlier in the evening. He nearly offers his warm side to Midoriya, but he thinks better of it; the paparazzi around here are relentless and have been pestering about the top ten heroes' love lives since basically the beginning of time. He doesn't need to start any accidental rumors.
They seat themselves at a table near the far corner of the diner. There's only one other table that's occupied, and sitting at it is a younger woman who appears to be pouring over scattered pages of notes. Shouto doesn't miss the way Midoriya's gaze lingers on the table, as if he's trying to determine what class the notes are for and is willing to offer up his wisdom. "So," Shouto says, brings Midoriya's attention to him again, "what are you hungry for?"
"Probably just a stack of pancakes," Midoriya replies with an easy, lighthearted shrug. Like they aren't sitting here, eating dinner together at around two in the morning after a long gig. Like Midoriya's eyelids aren't fluttering with the warning of closing and not opening again until Midoriya has had a full night's sleep. Like Shouto isn't perfectly willing to carry Midoriya back to his car if that happens.
Shouto clears his throat. His thoughts are having a field day with Midoriya sitting in front of him, green hair and subsequent eyes exposed. He wonders, vaguely, why the boy in front of him is suddenly having just as strong of an impact as Mr. Loverman does.
It's because they're the same person. That's it.
"Have you seen Hannah Montana?" Midoriya asks, blunt and a little loud for the quiet atmosphere around them, and a small blush that Shouto hasn't been able to see through Midoriya's makeup coats his cheeks.
"Sorry, what?" Shouto asks. He hasn't bothered to look at the menu yet; his eyes have been tracing the reckless curl pattern of Midoriya's hair.
"It's this American sit-com," Midoriya begins, and Shouto can hear the oncoming of ramblings, "about a teenage girl who like, wants to have a normal life and puts on a wig and calls herself Hannah Montana. And she like, goes out and performs under this fake name but still has a regular life!"
Shouto blinks. Midoriya catches his breath – it's like he forgot how to breathe while he was rambling. "I haven't seen it," Shouto says after a moment, after he realizes Midoriya's wide eyes are on him for a reason, and that reason is that he's forgotten to respond. And he sees Midoriya's shoulders deflate a little. "It sounds like you, though," and Shouto drops his voice, leans across the table so their faces are much closer than before, just with the hopes of not having someone overhear.
That's all it is.
Midoriya's face alights with a bright smile, and Shouto briefly wonders if anyone else has figured out his and Loverman's connection on their own; their smiles are equally blinding. Shouto absorbs it, relishes in the glow of it. "Yeah, yeah!" Midoriya claps his hands together. "It's a funny show, too! It's kind of ah, kind of where I got some of…" he trails off, rubs his neck and Shouto nods, understands where he meant to go with the rest of that sentence.
He clarifies anyway. "Inspiration?" he suggests helpfully, and Midoriya bobs his head.
"Yeah," he breathes, and Shouto pulls back as he sees a waitress approaching.
Midoriya orders a hot cocoa, and Shouto a strawberry milkshake. They exchange looks, as if both of them want to call each other out for ordering such a sweet drink but both fear what repercussions await them because they, also, ordered something sweet. And the looks are interrupted by a cute little laugh from Midoriya, barely more than a hitch of his breath, and Shouto finds himself covering his mouth while he conceals a laugh himself.
"Milkshake, Shouto?" Midoriya asks after he's regained his composure.
"Hot cocoa, Midoriya?" Shouto shoots back, and he's never felt so comfortable being a tease before. He kind of likes it.
"They help me wake up," Midoriya argues with a huff.
"That's what coffee is for," Shouto shoots back.
"It's too late for coffee!" Midoriya whines, playful and exuberant and god does Shouto wish Loverman sang so he could hear that beautiful voice even more. His breath catches in his throat just thinking about it, and he feels a blush creeping to his cheeks. At least, he hopes that what it is; the feeling is relatively foreign to him. He hopes he hasn't sprouted flames on his cheeks. "And what about you, Mr. Milkshake?"
Shouto downright smiles at the nickname. It feels uncomfortable – like his lips weren't made to stretch that way – but judging by Midoriya's ever-widening smile, it doesn't look so terrible. "It's my comfort drink," Shouto replies simply. "Strawberry milkshakes."
"What do you need to be comforted about?" Midoriya asks, and while the joking tone is still present, it's taken the back seat as actual concern touches his voice.
"Nothing," Shouto replies, "aside from starting a new job or whatever today."
"You did a good job!" Midoriya chirps. Then, afterwards, "Is that comforting?"
Shouto can't help the little laugh that leaves him, short and quiet but present nonetheless, and Midoriya beams like he's just won a gold trophy. A gold trophy for being so damn cute, and the thought catches Shouto so off-guard that he nearly chokes on the breath he's sucking in from laughing. "Y-yes," he stammers, and he hates the way it sounds; he's used to being calm and collected, the 'Cool Hero' as he'd been so elegantly dubbed by his agency. "It is."
Midoriya leans back, and his grin looks smugger now. "Good," he nods, once, stern and not at the same time; stoic and loose and relaxed all at once. It's perfectly Midoriya.
They order their food shortly after the drinks arrive, and while Shouto's stirring his milkshake and Midoriya's blowing on his hot cocoa, Shouto's emergency phone begins to ring. He stops everything, pulls the phone from his pocket and sees Katsuki's name. Hope this is good news, Shouto thinks, then answers with his usual stoic "Shouto."
"Hey," Katsuki says back, and it sounds casual. Shouto wishes Katsuki would call his normal cell phone for casual conversations so he can ignore the call and move on with his life.
"What's up?" Shouto replies, doesn't miss how Midoriya's eyes are trained on him, every minute move he makes like he's trying to listen in on the conversation.
"No luck yet," Katsuki says with a short sigh. "I'm more concerned about Izuku, though. How was the gig tonight?"
"Do you want to talk to him yourself?" Shouto asks bluntly, and Midoriya perks up, a small smile quirking at his lips.
"You're…still with him?"
"We stopped for dinner," Shouto says. "Or…really early breakfast. Pancakes."
Katsuki sighs on the other end. "Didn't mean to interrupt your date. I'll call back in the morning."
"Date?" Shouto questions, and he knows his cheeks are red too otherwise he'd likely poke fun at the cute blush spreading to Midoriya's face. "It's just dinner—"
"Whatever, fuckin' idiot," Katsuki gripes, and yeah, that does sound more like Katsuki. "I'll call you later."
Katsuki hangs up before Shouto can even say a quick goodbye, and so he tucks the phone back into his pocket and rolls his eyes. "Katsuki never calls the right phone for the occasion," he says quietly.
"That your emergency phone?" Midoriya asks, and Shouto can tell his voice has jumped half an octave or so. He wonders if Midoriya is just as embarrassed as he is to be accused of going on a date.
He wonders if Midoriya wishes it was a date.
"Yeah," he replies with a short shrug. "Katsuki calls me there because I don't answer my regular phone when he calls it. Usually he's just whining about Denki, it's irritating."
Midoriya stifles a giggle behind his palm, and Shouto briefly thinks he hates Midoriya for smothering such a gorgeous laugh. He really needs to get his emotions in check, though, because he doesn't want to constantly be thinking these things – about how much he wants to tangle his fingers in the curls of Midoriya's hair, about how he wants to know what his jawline will feel like in his palm, about how much he wants to hear Midoriya play.
That last one, he knows reasonably there's likely not a difference. It's not like Midoriya puts on the wig and becomes a different person, no matter how much he wishes he did. Sure, he played the role. And he did it quite well. But he wasn't a different person. His music wouldn't sound different.
But god, does Shouto want to disprove that theory.
It's almost forty minutes later before Midoriya's pancakes arrive, and another few minutes following that that Shouto's waffles are brought to the table. The other girl in the diner has long since left, and she's been replaced by a couple of women who definitely appear to have been drinking. They're noisy, but not ridiculously so; just enough that if Shouto isn't focusing on the sound of Midoriya's voice, he can hear them chattering on the other side of the small restaurant.
The conversation never lulls. It flows with ease; they talk about anything, about nothing, about anything some more and nothing some more. It lands eventually on high school, on Midoriya asking Shouto about his past and Shouto asking equally invading questions. It's nearly three now, and Midoriya's side of the conversation is becoming quieter and more sing-songy as he fights bouts of sleepiness in favor of prolonging the conversation. He hums a lot, closes his eyes longer than normal, as if taking mini-naps. And when he opens his eyes it isn't with a snap, but a lazy draw of his eyelids, like delicately parting curtains when the sun rises.
"And your second year, during the sports festival," Midoriya hums. His eyes are open, but they're steadily falling shut. "You went up against Kacchan again."
Shouto nods once. "I won that year," he recalls with a short shrug. "Tenya gave me a run for my money in the first round, though."
"Why didn't he get an offer?" Midoriya asks. That's another thing he does, Shouto notices, when he's tired – he disregards any social sensor that existed before. Which, this isn't to say Midoriya is rude or aggressive, he just asks the questions that Shouto can feel have been on Midoriya's mind for a long while. Such as this one.
"I…thought he did," Shouto says thoughtfully, looks down at his hands folded delicately in front of him. "All Might contacted all of the kids from my class at U.A."
"As he should have," Midoriya comments, and Shouto nods.
"As he should have," he agrees.
"So then how come four of them work at Gran Torino's?" Midoriya asks, arches his brow in a way that somehow makes the boy look even sleepier.
"I don't know," Shouto says honestly, and he's mulling it over when the waitress drops off the bill. Shouto hands her his card and she takes it without a word, before Midoriya can protest that Shouto shouldn't pay.
But, well. What's a date without Shouto taking care of the bill?
Midoriya still huffs about it, then crosses his arms over his chest and puffs out his lip in a pout that really shouldn't look as cute as it does. Shouto's done for, he thinks, he's fallen for the stupid sleepy boy in front of him that's pouting at him for paying for his food, and he thinks that this is it, his newest infatuation is with a boy that looks simultaneously like a puppy and a jock with how ripped he is. "I think I'd rather have Uravity on the streets fighting crime than serving people drinks," Midoriya says, pensive and quiet as he watches Shouto tuck his card back into his wallet once the waitress returns it.
"What I don't understand is how she hasn't gotten picked up by another agency," Shouto replies with a shrug. "Surely if All Might didn't send an offer, even a small company would have. And Froppy."
"And Froppy," Midoriya agrees. "And Ingenium."
Shouto hums, scooches along the booth seat he's in and Midoriya follows. They head back out into the cool night air, now that it's just past three in the morning, and Shouto doesn't see any paparazzi hovering on the block, so he offers his warm side to Midoriya.
It's a week later when Shouto receives a call that Mr. Loverman is here to see him while he's running reports in his office.
They're not dire, but he's been pushing them off, and if it were anyone else he'd have denied them access and told them to come back the following week. But, well, Loverman has always been an exception, and Midoriya is one now, too. It's getting harder for Shouto to distinguish between them, which he supposes is a good thing considering they are the same person, but he worries that somehow he'll let the secret slip – even though he's always been good at keeping secrets.
A minute or two later Loverman is being let into Shouto's office by one of the U.A. interns, Kamiko, who has a Quirk that lets her body regenerate at an overwhelming rate. "Mr. Shouto, sir," she bows after she knocks and opens the door. "Mr. Loverman is here to see you."
"Thank you, Kamiko," Shouto says with a short nod and a smile. Loverman steps inside – he's wearing a sleek white wig with hair long enough that it's been loosely braided down the back. He also wears a flattering blue blazer over a white shirt and black jeans, complete with a pair of bright red combat boots that both don't work at all and work all too well with the ensemble.
Kamiko leaves with one final bow and shuts the door, and Loverman – Midoriya – strides across the room, settles comfortably on the couch. "Are you busy?" he thinks to ask, which is so Midoriya, to burst into Shouto's office completely unannounced while he's on the clock and ask if he's busy.
The reports can wait. "Not at all," he leans his head casually on his elbow. "Something wrong?"
"Oh! Ah," Midoriya wrings his hands, looks down at them and smiles a little sheepishly. "I actually, um…I was wondering if you wanted to grab lunch?"
Shouto quirks a brow at this. "Lunch?" he questions, because he's almost certain he just sat down to start his morning shift an hour ago – but he glances at the clock, and it's nearing one in the afternoon, and his stomach growls as if to accentuate the fact that Shouto has completely gotten lost in his work. Again.
"It's fine if you already ate," Midoriya says quickly, "I just—"
"Sure," Shouto rises from the desk and stretches his legs and arms. "I've been sitting in the same spot for four hours. I could use a break."
Midoriya audibly exhales his relief, and Shouto fights a smile when Midoriya hits him with that beautifully blinding grin of his. "I owe you from last week," he says cheekily.
"Oh yeah?" Shouto retorts, already heading over to his closet – door still ajar, displaying several hero costumes in need of tailoring – and grabbing for his jacket. "Are you driving, too?"
Midoriya gives a short laugh. "No, but I thought we could walk."
In the week between their twenty-four hour diner 'date' and now, they haven't spent much time together. Midoriya has been busy following sets, exhausted and apologetic and he's been promising to make it up to Shouto. Shouto had begun to wonder if maybe he'd overstepped somewhere in there aside from paying for their food (because even though he didn't know Midoriya well, he knew Midoriya wasn't one to grow distant over Shouto paying for a meal of his), but now as they walk out of the agency, shoulders brushing casually as they go, he realizes he's being silly.
Paparazzi is relentless, as always. There's a hero with some sort of supersonic hearing Quirk that picks up Shouto's voice from across the street, and only when she gets a closer look does she exclaim, "Is that Loverman?!" Which, of course, spurs a whole crowd of people nearby to not only gawk over Shouto, the number four hero, but Mr. Loverman, who has in the chaos latched himself onto Shouto's right elbow.
A photo is snapped and Shouto doesn't have time to freeze over the lens, nor the mobility with Midoriya unknowingly hindering him from stopping the press. He sighs; he'll be getting calls from his PR agent this afternoon. He wonders if the same can be said for Mr. Loverman.
They manage to break free of the crowd with a decent amount of struggle; Loverman signs a few items frantically shoved his way, Shouto gives one-word answers to the people crowding them. But, when there are fans there only come more, so Shouto scans for an opening and abruptly yanks Midoriya – who's luckily still clinging to Shouto – through a gap and into an alleyway. Before Midoriya can ask what they're doing in an alley, Shouto is lifting his watch to his lips, and he's whispering, "Fumikage? Mind gathering some attention?"
"On it," Fumikage replies, and somewhere on the other side of the street Shouto sees Dark Shadow emerge out of the corner of his eyes, and he smiles.
"You work with Fumikage, too?" Midoriya asks excitedly, and Shouto has to remind himself before he asks how Midoriya knows him that he went to U.A., too. He nods as they head back out onto the main road and manage to sneak away. Shouto pulls a hat from his pocket and throws it over his head, just in case.
They settle into a table just a bit later at the local deli, which Shouto frequents because it is, after all, right down the road from the agency. He has his order ready on the tip of his tongue, and he opens his mouth to say it but it comes out in Midoriya's voice – word for word, actually, including the 'no pickles' – and he has to stop and gawk for a minute. Again he's reminded that Midoriya is probably pulling his leg and can just read minds and that's his Quirk, he's got the entire goddamn world fooled and he's got Shouto fooled times two. But he flushes under Shouto's gaze, rubs his neck in that sheepish way that, when Denki does it, is starting to remind Shouto of Midoriya instead. "Strange order, I know," he says with a hint of a laugh.
"I'll have what he's having," Shouto says to the waiter, then turns back to Midoriya. "Okay, what the hell tabloids are you reading that give out my sandwich order," he deadpans.
"I—" Midoriya tenses, and for a moment his eyes flicker towards the door like he's thinking about running, but then a look of realization dawns on him and his eyes widen. "That's…my order. Is that your order, too?"
"Yes?" Shouto shoots back. "Did you not know it was my order, or—"
"No, no," Midoriya waves his hands in front of him and chuckles a little sheepishly. "No, I'm not a stalker. I didn't search your favorite deli order, promise."
Their sandwiches are ready relatively quickly – one of the women in the kitchen has an extra limbs Quirk that Shouto can see from here – and Midoriya puts his wallet on the table as if warning Shouto that he's paying, whether Shouto likes it or not. They're at the tail end of lunch rush, and it seems the staff is finally catching a break with the way they lean against the counters in the back and take time to chat idly with each other. Shouto glances around; there are several occupied tables, but it's not nearly as full as it usually is at noon. Shouto's grateful for that, at least.
"So, is there another reason you wanted to grab lunch?" Shouto inquires as he lifts his sandwich to his lips and bites down. Midoriya, who's already taken a few bites, sets his own sandwich down and finishes chewing before speaking again.
"Well," he says, "I, um. I wanted to invite you…somewhere."
"You're being really vague," Shouto warns, but still he sets his sandwich down and folds his hands together to create a cushion for his chin. Midoriya takes it as a sign to continue.
"Well," he scoots his plate out of the way and brings his own elbows to the table to mimic Shouto's gesture, "my friends – ah, Ochaco and Tenya and Tsuyu – are having game night tonight. I was wondering if you wanted to come with."
Shouto quirks a brow, and it disappears beyond the hem of his hat and the disheveled hair scattered around it. "Like, for protection?" he asks dumbly.
"No, ah," he can see Midoriya beginning to fidget, "as friends? They kind of want to see you again, you know. And I…wouldn't mind, if you were there."
Shouto tilts his head this way and that, as if letting the idea roll around in his head before he comes to a conclusion. "When?" he asks finally.
"Around seven."
Shouto exhales and pulls his phone from his pocket, checks his work calendar – which he's adapted to also suit Loverman's calendar, now that word has spread successfully through the entire agency that he is Mr. Loverman's bodyguard. He's had to fend off several coworkers asking invading questions; their favorite tends to be "Who is Mr. Loverman?" Of course, he's yet to answer any of them.
This is his first evening off all week. Loverman has had four gigs already, and when he didn't have a gig the night before Shouto was on patrol. Tonight, though, he's free; he's not even on call. He can relax, if only a little. "I may have to leave if something happens," he warns, and Midoriya's smile rivals the goddamn sun shining through the deli window and splaying onto the table in front of them.
"That's okay!" Midoriya says with a quick nod, and another, and another. He really is adorable. "I just thought since you have the night off, and everything."
Shouto's brow furrows into an almost-frown. "Who told you I have the night off?" he asks, curious and a little skeptical. Maybe Midoriya's just made an educated guess here, but that doesn't quite add up, because Midoriya typically isn't one to make guesses on things like this. Even though they've only been working together a week and a half or so, he gets that feeling.
"W-well," Midoriya rubs his neck, sheepish and adorable still, "All Might kind of…gave me your schedule because he said I could use it please don't be mad!"
Shouto blinks, takes a moment to dissect what Midoriya's said because he was speaking so fast. Then he groans and finally returns his attention to his lunch, digging into his sandwich and taking a few bites before he replies again. "All Might is such a big Loverman fan, I think he'd do anything for you."
Midoriya's blush is unfortunately covered by foundation – Shouto can't get over how much he hates when Midoriya covers his freckles – but still Shouto catches the faintest hint of pink. "H-he is?!" Midoriya squeaks, and Shouto refrains from laughing remembering how many times he's accidentally walked in on All Might dancing in his office or humming along to Loverman's music.
"Yes," Shouto coos, actually does let a laugh slip by his lips before he can catch it. His expression is melted, it's warm, it's nothing like the cold atmosphere he lets hover around him – and he likes it. He likes carelessly smiling over stupid things; he likes being subject to Midoriya's bright smiles. He likes being broken down, melted from the core, at the hands of this pianist who really shouldn't be as popular as he is in this day and age but is, and Shouto's beginning to understand that it's not just the music. It was never just the music. It's the warm atmosphere, the smiles, the friendly, outgoing stage presence.
It's Midoriya who's made Loverman so famous.
Shouto doesn't expect to be welcomed as he is, but the second he and Midoriya pass the threshold of Ochaco and Tenya's apartment, he's enveloped in a warm hug, with Midoriya pressed into his side.
Shouto is carrying a deck of Uno cards, held together by a rubber band. It's always been a favorite when he visits Momo and Kyouka downstairs, and occasionally after late-night patrols that leave himself and his partners restless they return to the office with fast food and play Uno until their nerves are quelled enough to sleep. The cards are a little battered – some scorched, others bent from extraneous Quirks activating and either setting cards on fire or encasing them in ice. (Shouto's temper really shows when he plays Uno.)
Midoriya, on the other hand, carries a plate of cookies. They're relatively simple, Shouto's already had one (that Midoriya knows about; he snuck another in the car while Midoriya wasn't looking) and while Midoriya insists they aren't quite amazing, just a simple sugar cookie recipe, they're baked with enough love that Shouto almost thinks Midoriya put drugs in them, or something. He keeps insisting that he put flour in them and not cocaine. Shouto doesn't believe him.
Ochaco and Tenya must know of the cookies, too, because they're squealing and clapping when they see the tray and soon enough it's ripped from Midoriya's hands and taken over to the small kitchen. "They're not that good," Midoriya's insisting again, but Tsuyu, setting up Clue in the living room, rolls her eyes and mutters a soft "Yes, they are."
Ochaco and Tenya finally draw back far enough for Shouto and Midoriya to properly enter the apartment, and together they crash onto the floor in front of the coffee table, Ochaco and Tenya landing across from Midoriya and Shouto. Tsuyu sits at the end, and she has to reach just a bit further than everyone else, but she doesn't seem to mind.
Game night goes surprisingly well, considering it is Shouto's first time attending a game night. He seems to meld right in, like they never left high school; Ochaco and Tenya and he weren't necessarily close in high school, but he supposes thinking back on it they were his closest friends. Midoriya is amazing at Clue – he wins nearly every round after just one rotation around the table – and Shouto really, really is convinced now that Midoriya has a mind-reading Quirk. To test his theory, he looks at Midoriya and thinks, if you can hear me, I have the wrench card in my hands, and in response Midoriya declares that it's Miss Scarlet in the Ballroom with the Wrench. He can't always be right, and Shouto exhales his relief, but the cheeky grin Midoriya shoots his way almost makes him take it right back.
They move on from Clue after that, shift gears instead to Monopoly, which really isn't a good idea if they're trying to build and maintain friendships here. Surprisingly, it comes down to Midoriya and Tenya after only an hour or so of playing; Tsuyu's forfeited and Shouto and Ochaco have gone bankrupt. Midoriya owns all the railways and has hotels on most of the blue block, but Tenya makes up for it with houses and hotels lining the other roads. In the end, Tenya and Midoriya have to be held back from each other and Shouto's sure he's never heard Midoriya get angry like he is. Something about it is kind of attractive, if it weren't literally over a board game.
The cookies are gone and two full pizzas have been devoured by the time Shouto and Midoriya bid their farewells for the evening; it's nearly midnight when they're heading back to Shouto's car downstairs, Midoriya bubbly and giddy and Shouto smiling more than normal. "I'm so glad you came," Midoriya blurts, and while his cheeks are flushed and he looks embarrassed it doesn't feel fake; nothing about him feels fake.
"Me too," Shouto hums back, and for once it's completely genuine. He's never cared so much for a single person, he thinks. Never found someone beautiful even after seeing nearly every angle of them – the fright of nearly being killed, the happiness of a well-played set, the anger of landing on the wrong tile at the wrong time in Monopoly. He's never felt like he knew what love was before, but now he feels like if this isn't it, if he isn't in love with Midoriya, he's simply drowning in him; he's drowning in the need to cup this boy's cheek and whisper I'll never let you be hurt again. But he refrains, instead draws open the passenger door for Midoriya to hop into his car.
The ride home is quiet, and Shouto realizes why when he stops at the first stoplight and glances over at Midoriya – the boy is passed out, head lolled against the side window of the car. His lips are parted slightly, his breath is smooth and even, and his lips are quirked in the upturn of a smile. And, even like this, even tired and sullied by sleep, it's blinding.