It took Hitoshi a week to break. Midoriya-kun was relentless.

Thankfully not at school or in public. It would be a nightmare if anyone overheard them. They would both be in so much trouble.

Anyways that brought them to a standstill on where they should fuse. Their house was a no-go, because if Midoriya-san overheard something and figured out what they were doing Hitoshi's chance would be over. Any public place was a no-go for obvious reasons. Which left them with…

"There's a beach."

"A beach? Did you fry your brain, that's a public space!" Hitoshi hissed out, trying to solve his maths homework. Why did geometry have to be… like that.

"Not Dagobah beach." Midoriya-kun explained patiently. "It's cluttered with trash, we wouldn't be seen."

"How cluttered?"

"That cluttered." Midoriya-kun sounded proud of himself. Hitoshi could only gape with mild horror. There were mountains of trash, walls of trash, heaps of trash, everywhere. "No one comes here anymore."

"I… Okay."

They walked through the maze of trash and found a place where they were shielded from all sides. Hitoshi just hoped that the structure was stable enough to not fall on them… and he was nervous. Very nervous. He was about to purposely force-fuse someone. It felt… wrong. Even if Midoriya-kun consented to it thoroughly.

Still he knew that he had to do it. He had to seize control over this ability to make sure he never used it again without his explicit want.

Besides, once he became a hero he might need to use it in rescue operations. Right. He just had to think about it like that, as a rescue operation.

"Are you ready?" Midoriya-kun asked him with a small smile on his face.

"Ready as I'll ever be I suppose…" Hitoshi mumbled and took a deep breath.

And then he realised something.

"Wait." He felt a red-hot blush creep on his face in embarrassment. "I have… no clue how to do it."

"But you did it once…?" Midoriya-kun tilted his head.

"I don't know how!" He threw his hands in the air. "It was a spur of the moment thing! I just got so angry, I wanted him to be… gone." He realised what he said and his eyes went wide with fear. Okay, that was definitely the moment where Midoriya-kun called him out on his weirdness and creepiness.

"Okay, now replicate that feeling," Midoria said simply. Hitoshi couldn't believe it, he wasn't going to comment on his freaky thoughts? "Come on, just do it."

"O…kay…" He closed his eyes and focused, trying to imagine what he thought about before. Bakugou holding Midoriya-kun to the wall flashed before his eyes and he remembered the anger, but no, there was more, there was this feeling of wanting to make him small, insignificant—

His hands grew hot, like he was handling burning coal, and he realised, that was it, he was going to perform a forced-fusion on Midoriya-kun.

Without opening his eyes he reached forward and grabbed. His hands collided with something, but closed around nothing.

He opened his eyes to see… nothing. Just trash. Midoriya was gone.

"Oh, it worked," he said to nothing in particular.

"Yay, it worked!" Midoriya-kun replie— wait a minute.

"Wha—" There was an unmistakable presence of Midoriya-kun near him. No. In him. "How… You… You're… We're…" It was a weird feeling. It was like Midoriya-kun was standing right beside him, except touching his very soul. He was inside him, he was in his mind. Hitoshi kinda wanted to start hyperventilating.

"This is so cool! I can see from your perspective!" Midoriya-kun said with unmistakable wonder in his voice. "I knew you were taller but I didn't think it would make such a difference and wow not having a body is so weird…" he continued rambling on as Hitoshi focused on just trying to breathe.

"I'm gonna… I'm gonna let go now," he murmured and mentally yanked Midoriya from that weird headspace he was existing in at that moment. His hands glowed and Midoriya-kun reappeared in an equally white glow that diminished after a second.

"That was great!" Midoriya-kun threw his hands in the air and whooped.

"Yeah…" Hitoshi turned around, knelt down and threw up.

Obviously that was the end of training for that day. They went home quickly and in silence, then went to their separate rooms, still not speaking to each other.

It was mostly Hitoshi's fault. He was still reeling from the fact that he felt Midoriya-kun so close to his very being. It was… It was weird. It wasn't a bad feeling. It was just… like, like he was playing a song and someone joined in on a violin playing something classy, except both songs harmonised perfectly and helped each other sound better. Just, one was significantly louder.

He wondered, how would it feel if they fused for real, would his heart sing the same way? Or would it be so much better?

While he was deep in thought, there was a knock on his door. He mumbled 'Come in' absentmindedly, thinking it might be Midoriya-san wanting something, but instead the familiar head of Midoriya-kun poked in, his lips sealed in a shadow of a nervous smile. His eyes were red, as if he was crying. Uh-oh.

"Can we talk?" he asked gently. "I, uh, have something to say."

"I guess so…" he shuffled on his bed and patted the spot next to him. Midoriya-kun's smile grew wider and he bounced over to sit next to him. "So what's up?"

"I got my fusion mark!" he whispered really excitedly, unshed tears appearing in his eyes. Ah. Wait…

"You didn't have it before?" he asked bewildered. "How were you so sure we could fuse then?"

"I was, uh, gambling on luck?" Midoriya-kun laughed awkwardly, rubbing his hands together. "Besides, about half of the non-fusers can still be force-fused with, I checked the statistics. It's rare to not be able to be force-fused with, you'd have to have a special condition preventing you from becoming a part of a fusion altogether or be a very special case of non-fuser… aaaaand I am rambling." He sighed and massaged his forehead. "Point is. I know I can fuse now. Wanna try fusing for real?"

Hitoshi felt a smile creep on his face.

Midoriya-kun was not only not creeped out by the whole force-fusing thing but wanted to fuse with him for real. It was like a dream come true.

"Of course."

"Yay!" Midoriya-kun then did something that startled Hitoshi to his very core. He hugged him briefly, then got up, told him goodnight and got out of his room.

Hitoshi's eyes watered. That was… his first hug in a while.

He went to sleep with a huge grin on his face.