Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/11710155.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      僕のヒーローアカデミア_|_Boku_no_Hero_Academia_|_My_Hero_Academia
  Relationship:
      Aizawa_Shouta_|_Eraserhead/Yamada_Hizashi_|_Present_Mic
  Character:
      Aizawa_Shouta_|_Eraserhead, Yamada_Hizashi_|_Present_Mic, Kayama_Nemuri_|
      Midnight, Iida_Tensei_|_Ingenium, Ectoplasm_(My_Hero_Academia), Tsukauchi
      Naomasa
  Additional Tags:
      Teacher-centric, Pre-Canon, Abusive_Relationships, Angst, Hurt/Comfort,
      but_without_the_comfort, so_it’s_really_just_hurt, sorry_Aizawa
  Stats:
      Published: 2017-08-05 Chapters: 1/8 Words: 4004
****** Only Children ******
by ba_r
Summary
     When Yamada butts his way back into Aizawa’s life after nearly a
     decade apart, old memories resurface, some bittersweet, and some
     simply bitter. After all, youth isn’t always so innocent, and Yamada
     was never quite the angel he seems.
Aizawa didn’t pick up the first time Yamada called. Nor the second, nor the
third. The fourth time, he rolled over exasperatedly on his futon and and
plucked his vibrating phone off the hardwood floor. For a second, he thought
about muting it before he slid his thumb across the screen.
“What?” he grunted sleepily.
“Happy birthday!” Yamada exclaimed. Aizawa held the phone a little further away
from his ear. “How’s it feel to be in your latetwenties now?”
“My birthday was four days ago. It’s too late for this—”
“Waitwaitwait, we haven’t talked in, like, two months. Plus, I have a surprise
for you,” Yamada said in his excited lilt. “I’m gonna be in town next week.”
Much to his own displeasure, Aizawa’s interest was piqued.
“What for?”
“An interview. At UA, to be exact.”
Aizawa’s hand tightened around his phone. He listened to Yamada’s bated breath
on the other end, coming through intermingled with static from holding the
transmitter too close to his mouth.
“Shouta?”
“Why?” he blurted out.
“Whaddya mean why? I’m interested in being a teacher like you, and from the
sound of it, UA is interested in having me. And if I get the spot, we’ll be
together again, just like old times.”
A crystal of ice began to form in Aizawa’s stomach.
“So I was wondering if I could crash at your place for a night or three.”
“No.”
“Wha-c’mon, Shouta,” Yamada pleaded. “We haven’t seen each other in years.
Haven’t you missed me, even a little?”
“Book a hotel,” Aizawa said, and hung up.
It only took a few seconds before the phone rang again. This time, Aizawa muted
the phone and lay staring at the lit screen, which read half past three above
Yamada’s name. The brightness made his eyes sting. Briefly, Aizawa wondered
whether Yamada was in Europe or America or somewhere else entirely. Wriggling
back underneath his duvet, he set his phone back down and watched it go to
voicemail, then blink out. Aizawa’s eyes remained tied to the glossy screen.
After a few minutes, the phone lit up again, went to voicemail a second time,
then lay dark.
Aizawa sank deeper into the body-warmed air, the gentle heat comforting in his
bare apartment that was becoming ever-more chill from the imminent winter. His
arm snaked back out from beneath the covers and snatched in his phone. He drew
the blanket over his head before he hit play, pressing the receiver against his
ear in the cocooned darkness.
“Shouta,” Yamada whined, tinny over the speakers. “It’s pretty rude of you to
hang up like that.”
It’s pretty rude to be calling me at three in the morning.
“I thought you’d be happy to see me again, after how long it’s been. I miss
you, y’know that?” It was a phrase Aizawa was familiar with. Yamada laughed
humorlessly, and the knot in Aizawa’s belly began to twist itself tighter. “I
guess it was always wishful thinking, thinking that you’d feel the same.”
Yamada paused, and Aizawa thought he heard a shaky intake of breath. “But, god,
it’s been, what? Nine years?”
The message cut off, and Aizawa played the next one.
“Fuck, Shouta, pick up!” There was a frustrated huff, then a moment of silence
before the message ended.
Aizawa put the phone down and bundled the duvet around himself tighter. He had
the absurd thought that he might answer if the phone rang again, but it didn’t.
It had been two years after graduation on the dot, two years after parting
ways, when Aizawa had gotten the first call from Yamada. He had initially
answered the phone only out of curiosity, or so he told himself. Yamada had
hinted at his yearning feelings on the line, and although Aizawa remained
suspicious, he picked up more often than not thereafter. Sometimes the calls
had come frequently, every night in a week once, and sometimes there was a
lull, like the one Yamada had just interrupted. A certain obstinacy prevented
Aizawa from ever dialing back; he only ever waited, and sometimes with a
desperation he would never admit to himself.
A year after the calls had started, Aizawa had relaxed his guard to the point
that they occasionally had great conversation, good enough to make Aizawa smile
even though nobody was there to see. There had been odd moments as well, either
uncanny in and of themselves or somehow warped by the cellular waves they swam
over. A year later, another lull had been broken when Yamada had called and
said in a broken voice, “Don’t hang up,” and they had listened, Aizawa cross-
legged on his futon in the darkness of his room and Yamada god knows where, to
silence and to breathing until the line clicked off. Two years later, Aizawa
had cried on the phone, for the first and last time, bone-weary and frustrated
and lost. Look forward three more years, and Aizawa lay, uneasy and bewildered,
at the thought that Yamada would be before him again in a week’s time, not just
audibly, but tangibly.
The thought made him shiver. There was absolutely a part of Yamada that Aizawa
missed, the part that had held him and whispered words of comfort, the part
that had so briefly shone a floodlight into the murky depths of his adolescent
loneliness. But there was an even larger part of Yamada that Aizawa was wary
of, one whose smiles turned sweetly mocking, one whose voice teased and eyes
glimmered with a sardonic humor. The latter, masked by the static of shaky
signals and concealed by distance, Aizawa had nearly forgotten, or at least
pretended to himself not to remember. It was the suddenness of Yamada’s
announcement that had wrenched the image of him, tall and bright and cruel,
back from the darkened peat of Aizawa’s memories. This Yamada Aizawa missed
unknowingly, perhaps more than the other.
 
From the get-go, Kayama had been overly excited at the prospect of Yamada’s
arrival.
“You two are still my kohai,” she cooed, leaning nosily over the file holder
that stood between her desk and Aizawa’s, “and now that we’re all older,
there’s so much more I can teach you guys when Hizashi gets back.”
Aizawa set his pen down irritably, recognizing that a miracle would be the
minimum requirement if he wanted to get any grading done in the teachers’ room.
“You do realize that I started teaching here before you, right?” he grumbled.
Kayama pouted at him. “What’s gotten into your pants?”
On Monday, three days after Yamada’s phone call, Kayama had caught wind of the
news of his arrival from Ectoplasm. Shortly after Nedzu had told him
offhandedly about Yamada’s plans, Ectoplasm, who had been a fresh teacher
during the time Aizawa and the others were students, had been ecstatic to
circulate that yet another one of his protégés would become faculty at UA. Then
the fever had spread, and not only to Kayama.
For the rest of the week, Aizawa couldn’t turn a corner in the school without
hearing about Present Mic, a hero course alumnus who was supposedly famous
abroad, whether from curious students or gossiping faculty. On Wednesday
morning, Shuuzenji had stopped him as he was walking by the infirmary and told
him how happy she was that such a “handsome and hardworking young man” was
returning to UA. “You were attached at the hip back then,” she had said.
“Yamada-kun was always looking after you. We’ll be lucky to have him back.”
Friday noon, Yamada was somewhere on campus being paraded around on a tour by
Nedzu, and Kayama was starting to grate on Aizawa’s nerves.
“I can’t believe you didn’t even come to say ‘hi’ when he got here this
morning,” Kayama continued berating him.
“The train was late.”
“Okay, Shouta, you might look like a complete slob who has absolutely none of
his shit together, but you’re never late.”
“Thanks.”
Kayama sighed. “Honestly, what is up with you today?” In her head, she chalked
it up to male hormones, probably something akin to performance anxiety, but for
a reunion of friends rather than for a union of bodies.
At two in the afternoon, Yamada followed Nedzu into a hallway lined with
windows overlooking the campus entrance and completely tuned out the petite
headmaster when he saw Aizawa slip out from a classroom, followed by a gaggle
of children. Aizawa barely turned his head, eyes seeming to graze the edge of
Yamada’s body before shifting back forward, the way one might divert an iota of
attention at the motion of a falling leaf. Yamada’s skin prickled.
“Sorry, didn’t catch that,” he said to Nedzu, his eyes still trained on
Aizawa’s back.
At half past five, his patience wearing thin, Yamada caught Aizawa, literally,
as he was headed off the mostly-empty campus. They stood between the school
gates, Yamada’s hand latched onto the crook of Aizawa’s elbow.
“You’re avoiding me,” Yamada said.
“I’m not.”
“Don’t try to tell me you didn’t hear me calling your name.” Aizawa made a
feeble attempt to disengage himself from Yamada, who took a half step forward.
“You’re kinda hurting my feelings here. You haven’t answered any of my calls
since last Friday, and now this? You’re being a little childish, don’t you
think?”
He leaned in closer, and Aizawa took a step back. The deep red of Yamada’s
irises glowed in the sunset, the rings circling his pupil turning blood-dark
and eerie. His eyebrows knitted together in a semblance of worry, and he took a
shallow breath for dramatic effect.
“I’m sorry; I didn’t mean that.” Yamada’s voice sounded convincingly contrite.
“Can’t you tell me what’s going on with you? I just want to talk.” This time,
he took a step back, and Aizawa stood straighter.
With an expression of concentration, Aizawa opened his mouth to speak, closed
it again, then forced his words out brokenly. “I don’t know what to even say to
you.” He fumbled again for words. “I just… I still can’t understand why you
left.”
Yamada’s eyebrows furrowed in a mixture of surprise and confusion. “I’ve told
you a thousand times.”
Aizawa shook his head emphatically. “I don’t understand,” he echoed. “Why did
you even come back?”
“I never meant to be away for so long, and I’m sorry for that—”
“Why are you even here?” Aizawa interrupted. “You shouldn’t have come.”
Yamada sighed softly and said, “I never stopped thinking about you, or caring,
but I get it.” The odd color in his eyes, now turned downward, seemed to Aizawa
to take on the effects of sorrow, and regret from his words began to burn in
his cheeks. “If you ask me to, I’ll turn down the offer, just like that. I’ll
go.”
Aizawa shook his head. “I don’t… No, that’s not what I want.” Tentatively,
Yamada raised his eyes. “God, I don’t know,” Aizawa said, his voice querulous
with confusion.
They stood for a moment in silence as dry leaves tumbled between their feet in
the autumn wind.
“Shouta?” Yamada breathed. Aizawa looked up. “Let’s just start over. We can
build it up again, but just the good parts this time.” The words seemed to
tumble from his mouth. “I miss you.”
 
The next evening at nine, Aizawa weaved his way between chair backs and tables
to a slightly flushed Kayama, sitting in a miniscule booth by the window in her
favorite izakaya. As good as the food was there, the room was overly warm, and
all of the furniture in the tiny establishment was exaggeratedly downsized to
accommodate its numerous raucous guests. As it was, the table at which Kayama
sat was already nearly overflowing from a half-finished plate of yakitori and
two steins, one empty and the other halfway there. Aizawa slid onto the bench
across from Kayama, pulling off his threadbare scarf.
“Glad to see you started enjoying yourself without me,” he said, reaching for a
skewer.
“Oh that one’s Hizashi’s,” she said, motioning toward the empty glass. Aizawa’s
chewing halted for a brief moment, but Kayama took no notice. There was a lump
in his throat when he swallowed. “He’s taking a call; he’ll be right back.”
“You didn’t tell me he was going to be here.”
“Would you have come if I did?”
“Yes,” Aizawa lied tersely, pushing his sleeves up to his elbow.
From the back entrance, Yamada made his way to the table and sidled up against
Aizawa in the cramped booth. His flaxen hair was fastened in a loose bun, and
his clubmaster frames dangled from his collar. Although Yamada was dressed
simply in a pullover and jeans, Aizawa could tell at a glance they cost more
than his closet several times over.
“Hey, glad you could make it,” Yamada said, flashing his wide grin at Aizawa.
Their shoulders were pressed together, and underneath the table, he leaned his
leg heavily against Aizawa’s. From the corner of his eye, Aizawa glimpsed the
long, neat row of Yamada’s wet teeth, and a chill ran through him. He busied
himself trying to make eye contact with the waitress, though he had lost his
appetite.
By half past ten, Kayama was becoming rowdy, and Yamada appeared to be drunk.
“Who does Tensei think he is anyways,” Kayama said loudly, “hanging out with
IDATEN instead of us on a Saturday night.”
“They’re not hanging out, they’re working,” Aizawa said. He had consumed just
enough alcohol that he could relax a bit despite Yamada worming his way
continuously deeper into his personal space, shooting him indecipherable
glances, which were becoming less discreet from his copious drinking, all the
while.
“Still,” Kayama whined, drawing out the syllable. She leaned conspiratorially
over the table. “Hey, have you seen his kid brother? He’s sooo cute, and he
wants to come to UA, just like Tensei. I’ll mold him into a real man if he
makes it.”
“Okay, Nemuri, that sounds predatory and weird,” Aizawa said. He was nursing
the last of his beer, and half trying to remember if Yamada had always been
such a broody drunk. “Should you really be drinking so much? I thought you said
you had something after.”
Kayama started and glanced inside her purse at her phone. “Oh shoot, thanks,
Shouta.” She pulled the tip of her flogger from her purse and proudly flaunted
it to the men across from her. “I should actually get going. It’s a special
appointment,” she said, giggling.
“Don’t want to know,” Aizawa said.
“You gonna make sure Hizashi gets back to his hotel in once piece?”
“I’m fine,” Yamada slurred.
She shot a meaningful look at Aizawa.
“Yeah,” he said, and Kayama smirked, self-satisfied.
“Thanks for treating me, then,” she sang, slipping out of the booth.
“After all that senpai-kohai talk,” Aizawa muttered, reaching across Yamada for
the check. Yamada caught his hand, and Aizawa went still under the heat of his
grip. Half wanting to call her back, Aizawa glanced at Kayama, who was
strutting out of the building.
“I’ll get it,” Yamada said softly, releasing Aizawa’s hand to dig out his
wallet. He paused. “Sure you don’t want anything more to drink?”
“Yeah. And you’ve definitely had enough.”
Yamada lay neatly folded bills on top of the check. “I’m fine,” he repeated.
And he mostly appeared to be until they were both back onto the street, when he
stumbled and caught himself against a signpost. Aizawa placed his hand on
Yamada’s shoulder, concerned.
“I’ll walk you back,” he said. “Where are you staying?”
Shyly, he slid his right arm around Yamada’s back to steady him, and Yamada
leaned into his side. He turned his head, and Aizawa realized that their faces
were nearly touching. “I could be staying with you,” Yamada said, his voice
buzzing in Aizawa’s ear in a way that sent a shiver down his spine. Aizawa
jerked away, his breathing accelerated. Yamada swayed again, and braced himself
against his knees. “The Millennium,” he said, hunched over.
Warily, Aizawa allowed Yamada to steady himself against him.
“Have you kept in touch with Tensei?” Yamada asked.
“Just when work coincides.”
The hotel was only two blocks south, and they made it there without another
word exchanged. Aizawa was vaguely familiar with the building, as its lavish
decor and service had made it a popular choice for white-collar criminals a few
years back. They found themselves alone in the elevator, a meticulously
gleaming affair.
“It’s not going to move without your card,” Aizawa said, jostling Yamada. He
groaned, his head lolling forward onto Aizawa’s shoulder.
“Shouta, I feel really dizzy,” he mumbled.
Hesitantly, Aizawa reached down into the front pocket of Yamada’s jeans to pull
out his wallet, his cheeks flushing red when he heard Yamada’s breath hitch at
his touch. He quickly slid out the key card and inserted it into the slot in
the elevator panel. The light next to the thirtieth floor blinked on, and a
short moment later, he was dragging Yamada into the moodily lit penthouse
suite.
“Go lie down,” Aizawa instructed, toeing off his loafers in the entryway, which
lead into an open-plan kitchen. He set Yamada’s wallet onto a pretentiously
minimalist console table. Yamada leaned against him too heavily. “Hizashi,
stop—” Aizawa staggered, regaining his balance when his forearm found the
corner of the table. He could feel the bruise forming under his sleeve, and
rubbed at it as he shook Yamada off and made his way into the kitchen to fetch
Yamada a glass of water.
He plucked a glass from the cabinet above the sink and began to fill it when he
heard the creaking of floorboards behind him. “Just lie down if you’re not
feeling well,” he said.
Yamada’s arm reached around Aizawa to shut off the sink, then took the glass
from his hands and set it down onto the countertop. Aizawa bristled at the
contact, and he turned cautiously. Yamada’s red gaze, which had been glassy and
bleary just a moment before, now focused intensely on Aizawa. With a creeping
sense of dread, it dawned on Aizawa that he had never actually seen Yamada
drunk before, no matter how many drinks he had thrown back. The sharp edge of
the granite countertop pressed into the backs of his thighs as Yamada inched
closer against him. Aizawa turned his face away when Yamada leaned in, and he
shivered when he felt Yamada let out a huff against his cheek.
“Shouta,” Yamada said lowly.
Aizawa squeezed his eyes shut and tried to slow his breathing. “Stop it,” he
said. He felt Yamada exhale against his jaw. “Stop.”
Feebly, he pushed at Yamada. He felt wet lips brush against his right ear.
“Hey, don’t be like that,” Yamada murmured, and his voice set off a staticky
ringing of tinnitus that was at once familiar to Aizawa, though he had last
heard it as a student. The noise wracked every nerve in his body, making him
shudder violently against Yamada. “Just a kiss. Don’t play around like this.”
He withdrew just enough so that their noses brushed. In the dim light, Aizawa
could make out the glistening, Cheshire grin spread across his face.
“Stop it,” Aizawa said firmly, and he shoved at Yamada more forcefully this
time. Yamada’s grin widened, and he pinned Aizawa harshly against the
countertop. A strand of his golden hair fell loose from his hairband, obscuring
an eye, and it tickled against Aizawa’s cheek.
“You really haven’t changed since high school,” Yamada said, his fingers
reaching up to creep along Aizawa’s stubble. “You don’t take care of yourself
at all—” He tugged at the frayed ends of Aizawa’s unruly locks. “—you have no
regard for your appearance whatsoever—” His fingers traced along Aizawa’s
tattered scarf, then slid down to pick at the ratty hem of his shirt. “—and you
still put on this stupid little show, even though we both know you’re not
really gonna fight back.” He lay his hand flat against Aizawa’s groin, causing
him to flinch.
His grip tightened around Aizawa, whose heaving breath came out coarsely.
Gritting his teeth, Aizawa struck his palm sharply against the side of Yamada’s
jaw. Yamada grunted in surprise and stumbled backward, enough for Aizawa to
slip past him and out of the kitchen.
“I’m not a child anymore,” Aizawa said shakily, clumsily retreating back into
the entryway. Yamada had stopped smiling and was watching him intently. Feeling
tears forming, Aizawa wiped angrily at the corners of his eyes as he stepped
into his shoes. “You’re a fucking liar,” he spat heatedly, yanking open the
door with trembling hands. “You-you’re a fucking psychopath. You’re the one who
hasn’t changed.”
He slammed the door shut behind him, made his way hastily across the foyer to
the elevator, and jammed his finger against the button. He pinched at the
bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger and pressed his palm against
his mouth to muffle a sob. Half expectantly, he listened for Yamada’s door to
swing open again, but it didn’t.
The streets were mostly empty by the time Aizawa made his way out of the
Millennium, and the night had turned bitingly cold. The chill reddened Aizawa’s
cheeks and nose and crept past his thin garments to envelop his limbs as he
slipped into an alleyway. He walked for a little over a mile before turning
back onto a main street to hail a cab back to his apartment complex.
Midnight was drawing close when Aizawa swung open the door to his studio. His
legs still felt shaky, and after he made his way inside, he leaned his back
against the wall and slid bonelessly down onto the frigid wooden floor. He drew
in deep breaths as he waited for his teeth to stop chattering. When the room
was finally silent, he pulled out his phone, thumbed to Yamada’s voicemail and
pressed the phone to his ear.
“Shouta, It’s pretty rude of you to hang up like that,” Yamada said
reproachfully. “I thought you’d be happy to see me again, after how long it’s
been.”
Three years ago, after four years of phone calls, Aizawa had realized what
Yamada was up to, and he had somehow still found himself unable to ignore
Yamada’s calls from then onward. The call had occurred in the early hours of
the morning, interrupting Aizawa’s walk home from the police station. He had
taken the backstreets, still damp from night showers, and picked up almost
mindlessly, every bone in his body aching and hollow when he answered. He had
sunk down onto a dirty stoop to listen to Yamada’s obnoxiously cheery greeting,
then to haltingly confess how he had just killed a criminal he had meant to
capture, then to break down into tears.
“I miss you, y’know that?” Then a laugh. Aizawa’s left hand fumbled at the
button of his pants. “I guess it was always wishful thinking, thinking that
you’d feel the same.” A shaky intake of breath. “But, god, it’s been, what?
Nine years?”
He replayed the message.
“Shouta, It’s pretty rude of you to hang up like that,” Yamada chided again.
A week before his twenty-fourth birthday, he had sat sobbing feebly in the
glimmering wet darkness, listening to the steady drip of old rainwater from
rusted gutters, when he heard Yamada’s breath catch on the other end of the
line. The unmistakable sound had made Aizawa go silent and still. Yamada had
sputtered out his name once, hoarsely, before Aizawa gathered himself enough to
hang up.
“I thought you’d be happy to see me again, after how long it’s been,” Yamada
drawled. Aizawa stroked himself faster. “I miss you, y’know that?” A laugh. “I
guess it was always wishful thinking, thinking that you’d feel the same.” The
subtle but distinct inhalation. Aizawa bit into his lip, whimpering, and let
the phone clatter to the ground to cup his hand over himself as he came.
“But, god, it’s been, what? Nine years?” Yamada asked distantly from the floor.
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