It's an overheated Wednesday night when you slide into the neighborhood's cramped izakaya. The faded paper of the red lantern outside betrays its age even more than the fraying noren or chipped countertops, but there is still comfort in the squeezed row of chairs lined up along the counter and the repetitive clatter of the staff as they work over the hot iron griddles and pans of every shape. The owner quietly slides a tray laden with a cold towel towards you, and with a close-lipped smile, you accept even though fading dusk heat outside and the continuing broil of the kitchen in your face doesn't bother you. A temperature-resistance quirk has its everyday benefits outside of firefighting, you suppose, even if it comes at the cost of a conventional appearance.
Drinking and dining alone after work is strange, but not too strange - especially not here. This izakaya is tucked away from the main road and flanked by the river. It's only ever crowded on the weekends by locals - then, and sometimes during golden week. The building's tiny size and omnipresent summer heat don't help business much, but it's survived for one hundred and sixty years and you're sure it will continue for at least a few more.
Or at least through today, when you need it most. A warehouse on the other side of the river and half a mile south, right at the edge of your firehouse's jurisdiction, catalyzed a block-wide fire when the palettes of PVC and plastic stored inside mysteriously caught ablaze. Five people died before anyone - firemen, EMT, Heroes - could even reach the scene.
All you want is a place to hear yourself think that isn't your apartment.
There are only two other people hunched over the bar with you - at the far end. A tray of vegetable tempura sits between them, barely touched. One of them, a shorter man with freckles like dirt on his face and a top of messy dark curls, openly stares at you. You pay it no mind. Babies and children often stare at a face like yours, and drunk people have more similarities than differences to small children. A quick nod and huff in his direction should remind him of the etiquette of the social contract.
It doesn't. What tears him away is the sudden snap of his companion's fingers in front of his face followed by an emphatic motion towards the tempura between them. You can only see the back of his head. He's blonde and tall in a black shirt.
You find yourself eyeing the two of them out of a vindictive curiosity. It's only fair to stare if you were stared at first - and besides, it's a distraction.
"Eat," the blonde says, rough. "Or it'll get cold and I'll hafta hear you bitch about it when the next thing comes out and I cram it down your throat to make room."
A mile-wide smile and the sloppy, happy sheen of alcohol and sweat brighten as the freckled man turns his head to meet the eyes of his ash blonde companion. The warm spots of orange-yellow lamps dangling overhead light him up with a gentle glow like he is a living, blushing lantern and the thing outside the izakaya is just a cheap illusion. He pops a fried mushroom in his mouth and starts nattering and chewing with equal parts ferocity and mindlessness as his blonde friend turns in profile to stare absently at the two glasses set in front of him.
One is water and one is beer. Sapporo, probably. The water glass is half-empty. The beer glass is full, and warm, and untouched if the lack of frothing head is anything to judge. Wasteful. Rude.
"Can I have that?"
The freckled man asks suddenly, pointing at his companion's warm beer with no decorum. His glazed eyes rove over the bar back to his companion's face before flashing another gooey, half-formed grin. It's as if his mouth is a half-cooked egg still too runny to hold any kind of meaningful shape.
In answer is a wordless push of the glass towards him. It slides over the thickly lacquered counter with a dull, rolling scrape. The freckled man picks it up giddily and sips - only to pull it away from his lips the next instant like it somehow bit him.
"It's warm," he complains, wrinkling his nose.
"So?"
"Kacchan, it's warm!"
"Fucking so?!" growls his companion, somehow obtuse in the face of the cutesy baby talk slathered loosely in place of whatever his name is supposed to be.
"Didja even drink any of this?"
"Why the fuck're you even asking something like that?"
The freckled man frowns. Deflates.
"What, shitnerd?"
The freckled man hums and sinks lower, his eyes roving to the side like two huge, green marbles rolling into the sides of a glass bowl and sticking there. He earns a sharp bang from the fist of his companion hitting the counter like a gavel. The dishes rattle with a startled clink, but the drunk man moping over them doesn't even notice.
"What?!"
"Won't drink with me," complains freckles, leaning forward like a wilting sunflower on the end of a collapsing stalk. "Won't let me look at anyone else, but won't drink with me. Won't even take a sip! The beer's all warm and I can't even count it as a secondhand kis—"
Across the counter, you choke on your own drink. The blonde does the same on his water - the only difference in poise is how quickly he smacks his freckled companion on the side of the head before he can finish his sentence.
"Fuckin' dumbass! It's water from here on out, y'hear me?" says the blonde. He turns to shout into the kitchen in the same breath: "Hey! Water! Two waters!"
Freckles glowers. Gone is his sunny smile. In its place is a deep, dark stare that, when coupled with the lowered tilt of his chin under the lights, makes him appear as if he has two swirling black holes in his face instead of eyes. You find yourself shrinking closer to the edge of the bar from a pressure you can't explain - like his darkness is expanding through the shadows of the bar in a quiet, inarticulate threat. The texture of the counter is absolutely riveting, suddenly, but your eyes keep darting back to the two men in the corner of the bar in sick curiosity.
"You heard me," freckles says. "Don't pretend like you didn't."
"Three waters!" the blonde amends, terse, holding up three fingers splayed over his open palm in case his words are unclear. "It's three waters for you, you wasted shitnerd, and then we're leaving!"
The blonde takes his water glass - his obviously half-full, half-drunk water glass - and thrusts it into the fumbling hands of his companion.
"That'll be the first. Drink it."
The freckled man looks at it, looks at his companion, looks back at the glass, and grins again - a new egg cracked on his glistening face and somehow more watery than the first. The hint of tears prick at his eyes to catch the bar glow, and just like that he is once again the epitome of honeyed light shining at the end of the counter like a beacon.
"Kacchan," he says, practically spinning on his stool as his ankles twist into the legs.
His companion grunts. "What?"
Freckles is laughing and crying all at once - and then hiccuping when his body can't balance the two. "Kacchan!"
"What?"
"Kacchan!"
"Fuckin' what?! What?! God, what is it?!"
"Kacchan," whispers freckles, leaning towards the blonde with a conspiratorial stage whisper and an absolutely elated gleam in his eye.
His irritable companion's explosive exasperation sends his splayed palms flying from his sides like he isn't sure if he wants to push the walls of the izakaya away from him in a bid to give himself distance, or if he wants to reach out and choke the man smiling next to him. His hair springs up atop his head with the ferocity of the motion in a cloud of pale spikes before settling again. He's like air pressurized so tightly in a can - like he can't help but to seep out through the cracks in short, furious bursts or risk destroying himself from the inside out.
"You not listenin' to me? Huh? You gonna drink the water or just sit there grinning like an idiot?!"
Freckles chooses the latter, still leaning into the other man's space and still with eyes that sparkle like a knife's edge. His teeth peek out from beneath his lips as he edges closer.
His companion reaches for the glass of water.
"Fine! If you're not gonna drink it, give that back, you stupid—!"
Freckles turns away to hold the water glass at the farthest possible point from its original owner, and then downs it in one prolonged chug. A catlike smile curls above the rim beneath his smeared-sharp-star eyes as they watch his sputtering companion with a coy, present amusement deeply at odds with his sloppy beer flush and wobbly balance. Then, he pulls the glass away from his mouth with an exaggerated smack of his lips before holding it out in the loose direction of the izakaya kitchen.
"Kacchan," he names the taste, pulling out the word like it is taffy from his tongue. He's still grinning.
Your cheeks flush in secondhand embarrassment for his companion, whose voice rings across the bar in a furious, humiliated warble.
"Shut up, you stupid freak! Why are you such a freak?! Fucking Deku!"
"Please put my refills in this glass only!" Freckles calls to the kitchen. "I only wanna use this one! Let's save on dirty dishes and be considerate of water waste!"
His blonde companion's shoulders shake like he is a mountain making the transition into a volcano. You cover your face with one hand like a barrier against the blast, but the split between your fingers weakens the effect as the blonde slams his hands into his knees and screams.
Freckles looks at his companion, tilts his head at whatever expression is staring back at him, and then laughs. Really laughs, all the way from his stomach to his face. It's loud, and obnoxious, and utterly fond. The rigid line of his other's shoulders bunches like the ruff of a scruffed cat as he helplessly endures it.
"Makin' fun of me! Always makin' fun of me, even now! God dammit!"
Freckles pauses. It's pregnant. You wait - his companion waits, dragging his palms over his pants and then down his face - and don't know what to think when freckles lets loose with another fit of laughter, though it takes a few repetitive intonations to ease its way back to sincerity.
Eventually, nigh-unintelligible ramblings about a series of inane topics break the bubbling, uneven giggles rolling from freckles' lips like rocks interrupting the otherwise smooth flow of a brook. The blonde turns away to fiddle with a bit of paper from their chopsticks wrappers. Every so often, he answers with a noncommittal shrug or grunt like he can actually understand the words being thrown at him like paint flung from a brush.
At some point, the water glass is discreetly refilled. Freckles picks it up without comment and sips at it, one eye on his companion. He abandons it when it fails to earn him so much as a glance from the other man. Another slurred diatribe takes its place on his shiny lips.
Freckles natters unceasingly in babytalk wonder at the world around him and with just as much coordination, though you swear that the timing of his actions was coordinated. He falls off his stool in the middle of an animated tirade about something or another, and his panicked squawk quickly turns into a coo when he looks up into the face of his companion, who catches him before he hits the ground.
"Fuckin' sloppy shithead," the blonde spits out, bristling beneath the uncoordinated pile of limbs draped over his torso.
"Kacchan is so cool," says freckles. The glass-glow sheen over his eyes never stopped sparkling for so much as an instant, including now as they coyly looked up from their shaded nook in his companion's arms. He knew he wasn't really going to fall. "Really, really cool!"
Freckles is dropped. Unceremoniously. He collapses spectacularly in a pile of limbs and miserable complaints. The blonde rises from his stool and stomps to the narrow crevice in the izakaya bar that hides the bathroom door.
"Finish that shit," says the blonde, pausing just long enough outside the bathroom to gesture his head towards the glass of water dripping condensation on the bar.
He turns his head - this time to you. His glare shoots across the room like a pair of thrown knives. Even at this distance, the realization that his eyes are bright red strikes you with a dreadful clarity. It's the single visible detail at the top of a cascading pyramid of missing context buried beneath white-hot, threatening sand.
"Then, we're steppin' out for a sec," he finishes, narrowing his stare into judgemental slits.
You turn away, overcome by your own sense of shame and the pounding of your heart in your chest. You order a beer to drink while you pretend that whatever you saw at the far end of the bar isn't happening and has not happened at all.
But it comes for you.
Freckles sidles up to you with an unnerving quiet that almost sends you into a shrieking fit when you spot him in the corner of your eye. His eyes are wide as he takes in your face - wide and glittering, like he is a child staring at a balloon. It's the same stare he greeted you with when you first walked into the izakaya.
"Hello! I'm Midoriya!" he says, bowing quickly before looking you over with a rapid-fire hailstorm of words. They are more lucid than his stumbling demeanor a moment ago should suggest, but the ends are clipped and smeared together.
"I can see from your skin texture and face shape you have thicker skin than normal - at first I thought your quirk was p'rhaps entirely related to your appearance, but then I saw the barest bits of mist n' fog come from your face as you exhaled—"
You take a breath to steady yourself and ask Midoriya to slow down, but it only serves to encourage him.
"—yes! Exactly like that! Just like that! So I knew your quirk relates to more than your skin and I just hadta know more. Could it be that you filter moisture from the air? Maybe your skin's porous and that's your own moisture from your breath? Oh! If that's the case, it's prob'ly too hot for you to be drinkin' beer an' not water in the enclosed heat of this—"
His companion appears behind him and clamps a hand on his shoulder.
"Ahh! Kacchan!" Midoriya squeaks, seizing like he's a rabbit in fright, but still swallowing his companion up with big eyes and another open-mouthed smile.
"Get away from the extra, Deku."
Midoriya leans into the hand pressed into his shoulder and pops up from the bar with a slow stumble into his companion's side. He is rewarded with a rebalancing shove that steers him towards the door.
But before he gives into its surly guidance, Midoriya resists for one more second. He clasps your hand, pumps, and reluctantly releases you in a flurried exchange. The pink, drunk flush over his cheeks might have something to do with it - or you've just shaken hands with the friendliest man you've ever met.
"Thank you for your hard work," says Midoriya, cryptically, with a gravity at odds with his earlier demeanor.
His companion grimaces. His hard eyes telegraph mean signals towards you like a set of warning lights flashing at you, and your answer to Midoriya dies in your throat. You watch, stunned, as he finally leads Midoriya outside the izakaya with a final push down the walkway and through the threadbare noren. They reappear on the other side of the window just to the right of the doorway. Slowly, they morph into distant semi-silhouettes as they lumber away from the izakaya and closer to the riverbank piled high with summer-green grass.
The izakaya owner wanders to the edge of the bar opposite the counter from you, likewise watching.
"You responded to the fire a few hours ago?" he asks, still eyeing the figures through the window.
You nod, split between looking at the owner and trailing Midoriya as he leans against his companion like a cane.
"You recognize them?"
You don't.
The owner nods thoughtfully. "They'll be back in a minute. They always get like this when somebody dies."
A sudden muffled scream pulls you back to the window. It's a cross between the keen of a strangled animal and the wail of a tearful child, and it cuts through you like a jagged bolt of lightning.
Outside, Midoriya's fist connects with the jaw of his companion with a brutal crack that you can feel more than hear at this distance. His companion hits the dirt, but rolls at the landing, ready to get back to his feet. Midoriya screams again and sends a kick to his abdomen before he can, and then another, and another. He beats the shit out of the blonde until the man grabs him by the leg, pulls him down, and sends a merciless elbow directly into his stomach.
"You fucking asshole!" the blonde screams, now crushing Midoriya's chest with his knees as he shoves his knuckles into his face in alternating sets of five-five-five. "Think you can do whatever you want 'cause you think you're the only one whose feelings matter, huh?!"
He delivers another set of punches. "Think I'll do whatever you want just 'cause you're sad?! Because you're fucking sad?! Think you can hide it in goddamn alcohol?! You fucking coward! You fucking coward!"
Midoriya hollers mindlessly, an animal more than a person, as he shoots an arm past the punches and around his companion's throat. Their positions switch as Midoriya shoves him into the grass and returns the punches like a promise.
Eventually, you can make out more words through the distance, the fury, and the glass.
"You will! You will!" screams Midoriya, raspy and strained. "You will, Kacchan! You will or else you'll run away n' hate me!"
"Fuck you!"
The blonde kicks him off. At least, you think it's the blonde. You aren't sure, as one of them ends up standing, and then both of them are standing together, and then falling together, and then it repeats in alternate motions as one of them kicks the other like a hated dog just as they had in the beginning before the situation changes again. You can make out pieces of an argument floating through the still summer air from whoever has the advantage at any given moment.
"You don't decide shit for me and what I'll do!"
"Yes, I do! I know you! Yes, I do!"
"You don't know shi—!"
"Yes I do! You're mine! Kacchan, you're mine!"
"Shut up, you creepy fucker! You creepy, useless piece of shit!"
"You're mine if you don't run away! You're mine if you never say no!"
"Shut up!"
"If I don't tell you, you can't say no!"
"Shut up! Shut th' fuck up!
"You're not ready to hear it!"
"I told you to shut up!"
"YOU CAN LOSE ME, BUT I'M NOT GONNA LOSE YOU!"
"SHUT UP!"
There's an explosion. A small one. It lights up where a hand makes contact with Midoriya's chest, and the stomach-drop bang of noise thrusts you from the stuffy izakaya back into the late afternoon's tragedy on the other side of the river. Suddenly, you realize exactly who - and what - you are watching.
Deku and Dynamight - that's the blonde, Dynamight - break apart, panting beneath an invisible weight pressed down across their backs. They were the first at the explosion site before anyone else. Deku moved debris with mindless, possessed tenacity beneath his green hood while Dynamight's dark mask did nothing to hide his look of flinty disgust at the irony of someone such as himself directing civilians away from the ground zero of this sort of tragedy.
But now, through the window of the izakaya and on the other side of the river, they are still for a long moment - bereft even of cicada song. Then, Midoriya screams and charges again like they'd never stopped.
You look away and into the bottom of your glass. This is not for you. This was never for you. You run a hand down your face and ask if you can cover their tab, but the owner shakes his head from where he wipes the counter after bringing you a fresh glass. You hadn't asked, but you drink from it anyway.
"Bad idea. The blonde would hunt you down and kill you if he knew. Besides, he paid before they got up to take a walk. Just keep it to yourself. Bear witness and keep it all to yourself - that's what you can do."
You cover your mouth. The stifling heat of the izakaya is somehow getting to you, of all people - even though you walk through fire like it's nothing but a spring stream both on and off the job.
Midoriya and his companion return to the izakaya without a word. Midoriya's lip is split in multiple places and his right eye is beginning to swell. His blonde Kacchan has a bloody nose, cuts on his forehead, and an obviously bruised jaw. Their clothes are in tatters, but you can't help but fixate on the single singed hole near the shoulder of Midoriya's shirt. It's on his left side, just above his heart.
The two of them file in quietly, Midoriya second, and reclaim their spots at the end of the bar. Neither of them say anything for a long moment as Midoriya stares at the bowl of Katsudon.
"I don't feel like—"
"Eat it," commands his companion. "Eat it or so help me God I'll kill you here and now."
"And eat by myself? What about Kacchan?"
"Fuck Kacchan."
"Yeah," admits Midoriya, pushing bits of pork around with his chopsticks. His voice is barely a croak.
Suddenly, the blonde growls and rips the bowl from Midoriya's hands. He takes the chopsticks an instant later, and then shoves a piece of pork into his mouth before thrusting both bowl and utensil back into Midoriya's shocked palms.
"There," he spits, mouth full. "You stupid fucker!"
Midoriya eats. He eats, and he drinks from his water glass - the same glass as before he'd left the restaurant, as requested. It's discreetly refilled as he finishes the now-cold tempura still on the counter from earlier in the evening.
Midoriya also cries in snotty rivers down his swollen face. It's disgusting, altogether, but it's almost as if you can feel his sobs in your chest as you lower your head against the counter in a poor replication of inebriated slumping.
"I'm going to kill you," you hear a raspy voice whisper very, very seriously in Midoriya's direction. "I'm seriously gonna kill you."
"You won't," says Midoriya. "You won't. I wish. You wish. But you won't."
There's the sounds of another scuffle, this one shorter than the last, and your heart leaps in your throat as you jolt upright just in time to see Midoriya's glass of water overturned on his head by his wired-eyed friend. The tension drains from the room in tandem with the sparkling drops catching and falling from Midoriya's bewildered curls. His mouth hangs open in stupefied silence beneath the deluge.
Then, the blonde gets up and rolls out the izakaya door like a thunderhead - this time with finality.
"Kacchan!" sputters Midoriya belatedly, comically sober as he springs from his seat and after his companion, dripping with every step. He halts in place and half-turns, half-bows to shout, "Thank you for the food!" to the owner before darting out the door.
Seconds after he crosses the threshold and disappears beneath the red and blue noren, a muffled "Get the hell away, you fucking stalker!" comes muffled through the walls before an awkward, distant laughter and then, even quieter, an offended "ow!"
And then, there's nothing. They are gone, and you are alone with your half-empty glass, the empty izakaya, and a feeling in the pit of your stomach that you cannot begin to name.
The owner sets a bowl down in front of you. It's katsudon. You think you might have preferred a stiff drink, or maybe even a slap to the face.
"I made two thinking they might both get eaten this time," says the owner with an ineffable, complicated, knowing smile. "Don't let it go to waste."
—
Author's Note: Hello everyone! I hope this story sucked you in with schmoopy sweetness and then hit you like a truck before leaving you as the tinnitus set in. I hope I made you all feel the jarring internal noise of a bomb, made you not know how to feel. and gave you (in the words of Phoebe Bridgers) emotional motion sickness :)
Thank you so much for reading, and thank you even more to those who review!