Archive of Our Own

For the life of him, Chuuya has no idea how he got in this situation.

Sure, he understands that Mori made some sort of deal and that for whatever reason the fucking high school was totally okay with hiring the mafia as bodyguards, and, uh. Well. That’s about as much as Chuuya bothered listening to. Which is totally not his fault! Mori always makes his job briefings super dull and boring to bug Dazai, so at this point Chuuya is used to tuning the old man out.

Whatever. It doesn’t matter. If he missed anything important, Dazai will fill him in eventually.

But the mission itself isn’t currently the thing that’s bothering him.

Sure, going undercover at a dumb, prestigious hero school is awful. And it’s even worse considering neither he nor his partner have any experience in the realm of proper education; kind of hard to ‘blend in’ with real students if they don’t know what they’re doing. Never mind the fact that this is a hero school and they are, you know, not exactly heroes.

But for some reason, that alone wasn’t difficult enough for Dazai.

Which leads to Chuuya’s current predicament: he’s standing at Dazai’s side in front of a bunch of starry-eyed kids and Dazai just introduced himself as Nakahara Chuuya.

Dark, amused eyes (it is so weird to see two eyes looking at him instead of one) slide his way.

His partner nudges him. “Come on, Osamu. Introduce yourself to the class!”

Chuuya grits his teeth and clenches his fists, promising vengeance for this at a later date. Dazai grins wider in response.

“Hey everyone,” Chuuya grumbles, forcing back his annoyance to offer the kids before him a half-hearted wave. “I’m Dazai Osamu. Nice to meet you all.”

What an utter nightmare.

“My quirk is Telekinesis!” Dazai boasts proudly, drawing the class’s attention. “I’m not very good yet, but I’ve been practicing really hard!” Sticking his tongue out of the corner of his mouth, Dazai narrows his eyes at the stapler on their new teacher’s desk.

It stays put. Obviously. Dumbass, what was he expecting—

Then it clicks.

Chuuya shoves his hands in his pockets — bastard, no wonder Dazai recently started telling him to practice using his ability without the tell-tale red glow that surrounds his body. If he concentrates hard enough, Chuuya can limit the glow to just his hands — and the stapler Dazai is glaring at glows red and shakily hovers into the air a few inches.

A glance at the class proves that they’re not that impressed.

Well, if Dazai is using his ability, and poorly at that, then clearly…

Chuuya sighs. “I guess it’ll be easier if I just show mine.” Chuuya squeezes his eyes shut and grimaces like in pain. After a moment, he drops his hold on his ability. For The Tainted Sorrow flickers out, causing the stapler to drop. Chuuya gasps and clutches at his chest dramatically, wincing. He peels his eyes open to find more confused looks being shot their way from the students.

“It’s, ah,” he stumbles, leaning onto Dazai for support. “Not very great if I want to stay on my feet.” The mackerel loops an arm under Chuuya’s shoulders to hold him up like he does this every day. As if. It’s always Chuuya carrying Dazai after the idiot gets hurt on missions. Unless Corruption is involved, but that’s a whole other story.

The class greets them with various degrees of enthusiasm. They are quickly shuffled to the back of the class, where two desks have been set up for them. Half the class watches them walk — Chuuya still leaning on Dazai to keep up the act — and they are already getting strange looks. Great. Besides having underwhelming, nerfed abilities (so basically a regular ‘quirk’), what’d they mess up already?

…Whatever it is, Chuuya blames Dazai.

As they take their seats, Chuuya’s eyes narrow. The students have notebooks, pencils, pens, and highlighters on their desks, and bags strewn at their feet. Chuuya and Dazai brought nothing but themselves, their abilities, and, respectively, a healthy dose of anger issues and a splash of suicidal intent.

Chuuya reaches across the space keeping them apart and smacks the back of Dazai’s head.

“Ow!” The menace whines. “Osamu is so mean!”

Chuuya’s eye twitches.

At the front of the class, the teacher’s eye twitches too. As the staff are aware of their presence and real identities (but not their physical appearances, so there is no one to call Dazai out on stealing Chuuya’s name) there is no doubt in Chuuya’s mind that the grumpy dark-haired teacher wants nothing more than to arrest the two of them immediately — and is probably more confused than any of the students about the weak quirks the two of them displayed just now.

“Shut up, Nakahara.” Chuuya spits his own last name out like it is poison, utterly furious that Dazai has decided this to be their cover. He was suspicious when they got no cover story to go with the mission; now it makes sense. The bastard was planning this all along.

“Well, class, pop quiz time.” The whole class groans and Chuuya winces as he spots an evil smile on the teacher’s face. “You have the new transfer students to thank as we’ll be having pop quizzes in every class today to see where they fit in academically.”

This time when the class groans, they also shoot tiny glares towards Dazai and Chuuya. Hey, not his fault. Chuuya has never written a test before in his life, so he is bound to fail them all. Normally he wouldn’t care about failing high school tests at all, but just as the teacher starts handing out papers, Dazai shoots him a small, mocking grin.

“Try not to hurt that small brain of yours by thinking too hard, okay Chibi?”

“I’m not fucking stupid!” Chuuya snaps back, anger fueling his sudden desire to do exceptionally well on this quiz if only to show up Dazai.

Needless to say, it only makes his disappointment worse when the tests are handed back. Chuuya’s forehead plonks down to the desk as he groans.

Dazai leans over to see the score on Chuuya’s paper and tsks.

“Oh dear, Osamu. Looks like someone needs to study more.”

“Shut the fuck up.” They are both well aware that Chuuya has never studied fucking hero laws in his life. It’s a miracle that he got eighteen percent at all. “Like you did any better.”

Dazai clacks his tongue and taps his test paper, flaunting a neat score of ninety-five.

Dazai barely dodges the punch Chuuya aims for his partner’s stupid, smug face.

“Nakahara, Dazai!” Their teacher snaps. “No fighting in class.”

Chuuya blinks. That’s a rule? How is he supposed to deal with Dazai then?

Tentatively, Chuuya raises his hand.

The teacher sighs. “What?”

“Does it count as fighting if I throw him out the window?”

“You are not allowed to throw your classmates out the windows.” The words are automatic and exhausted enough that Chuuya almost feels bad for asking the question.

“Damn,” Chuuya grumbles, leaning back in his seat and crossing his arms.

“No swearing in class either,” the teacher comments, eyes narrowed into a steely glare that clearly shows how much he dislikes having mafia in his class.

“Seriously?” Chuuya groans. “This place sucks. No fighting, no swearing, tests… next you’ll tell me drinking isn’t allowed either.” No way can people do this shit sober every day all week for a whole academic year.

Next to him, Dazai coughs to cover a laugh.

Chuuya’s last hopes flounder and drown.

“Alcohol is not to be consumed until the age of nineteen!” One of the actual students declares loudly, chopping his arm in the air for no reason.

The teacher sighs. “I’m too tired for this. Mic will be here soon for English, so no one leave.” With that, the teacher slumps out of the room, leaving all the kids alone.

Jeez. No wonder their security sucks.

Unfortunately, that causes twenty pairs of eyes to shift their way.

“So, how’d you find the heroics quiz?” A black-haired guy asks, his tone bright and friendly. “I was so lucky I reviewed last night, otherwise I’d have failed for sure!”

Dazai chuckles along with the rest of the class while Chuuya sinks down in his desk chair.

“Don’t worry,” Dazai comments, “you can’t do worse than Osamu!”

“Shut the fuck up! Not everyone can have a stupid photographic memory.”

Dazai grins smugly. “I know, not everyone can be as perfect as me.”

Lightning quick, Chuuya reaches over and smacks the back of Dazai’s head.

“No fighting outside of heroics training! Mr. Aizawa just informed you of that policy!” There’s robot kid again, flapping his arms around.

“This isn’t fighting,” Chuuya scoffs. “This is dealing with fucking Da— Nakahara.”

“Osamu is so mean!” Dazai pouts.

“You guys are weird,” the frog-girl croaks.

“Tsu!” A brown-haired girl gasps. “We’ve only just met, you can’t say that!”

“But it’s true,” frog-girl ribbits.

“She’s not wrong,” Chuuya agrees, shrugging.

A couple students look at him strangely and begin whispering to each other. Eavesdropping is more Dazai’s thing, so Chuuya sets to digging around in his coat pockets — they’ve managed to avoid uniforms today (though Dazai left his black overcoat behind, claiming it was ‘unheroic’) because they only arrived in Musutafu, like, twenty minutes before class started, but he doubts their luck will hold — and withdraws a cigarette from his pack and his lighter. He is not allowed alcohol, so he’ll have to make do with indulging his other vices. Lighting the cigarette, Chuuya gets one inhale of calming tobacco before it is snatched from his fingers.

Dazai tsks at him, putting the cigarette out against the desk and smirking as Chuuya’s lips curl into a snarl.

“Silly Osamu!” Dazai chides. “There’s no smoking in school either.”

“Seriously?! No fighting, cursing, drinking, or smoking, what the fuck are you allowed to do in school?”

“I don’t know,” Dazai shrugs. “Homework?”

“This sucks,” Chuuya groans. Next time he sees Mori, he’s going to… well punching the leader of the Port Mafia won’t go over well, so maybe Chuuya can inconvenience him somehow. Steal one of those fancy cakes he buys for Elise or something.

Before he can ponder it any longer, the door slams open to reveal a tall blond guy clad in a disgusting amount of leather.

“Hey there, Listeners! Who’s ready for quiz time? Say ‘YEAH!’”

At the very back of the room, one boy with oddly split red and white hair gives a tiny, monotone cheer. The rest of the students remain mostly silent, minus some grumbling.

“What class is this again?” Chuuya quietly asks Dazai.

“English.”

“Oh. Shit.” Chuuya slinks down in his school chair. Next to him, Dazai smirks.

When their tests are handed back about a half hour later, Chuuya is not shocked to find a round zero at the top of his red-marked page. Nor is he shocked to see Dazai scored a perfect hundred. Thanks to his… sporadic childhood education, Chuuya is bad enough at Japanese and has been working away at learning how to read and write (with quite a bit of progress), so English is essentially just gibberish to him.

Of course, it also happens to be one of the, like, seven languages Dazai studies. Which is totally not that cool, but Chuuya can speak okayish French and learning just the one extra language was hard, so he can’t imagine studying multiple.

Sighing, Chuuya raises his hand. The leather-clad teacher nods for him to ask his question.

“Is it possible to fail out of school on day one?”

A couple classmates snicker, thinking his question is a joke and not a legitimate concern, so odds are that it’s not possible to fail yet.

“Nope! No worries there, little listener!”

“Ha, he called you little.”

Chuuya shoots Dazai a death glare but doesn’t dare try to throw him out the window after the warning against doing so he got this morning.

The teacher continues talking. “These tests don’t count for your grades! They’re just so we can get a feel for where you are academically and if either of you will need extra assistance catching up to the rest of the class.” The words are kind, but still make Chuuya grit his teeth. He doesn’t want to be here in the first place, and now he might have to take extra lessons? Yeah, no thanks. There’s no way that’s happening.

Needless to say, Chuuya continues failing each of the quizzes they take over the rest of the morning. The only exception was the math test, which he did well on. They listed the equations that might be required on the top of the page, so picking the right one and plugging the numbers in really wasn’t that difficult.

Nevertheless, by the time the tests are done, Chuuya has flopped onto his desk in defeat, forehead glued to the surface.

“It’s okay, Osamu,” Dazai pats Chuuya’s hair. “We both knew you’d fail.”

“Nakahara, I don’t think failing is even close to what I just did.”

One of the braver kids shuffled up to Chuuya’s desk, peers at the scattered tests, and winces.

“Oof. That’s pretty rough, buddy. I feel ya. I didn’t pass a test for, like, the first month.” The blond says, nodding along empathetically.

“Um,” a green haired kid shifts awkwardly when Chuuya lifts his head to glance at the boy, “if you want, I could help you go over the material sometime?”

“Jeez,” another blond kid sneers in Chuuya’s direction, “do they let just anyone transfer in? How’d you make the cut? You’re stupid as fuck and both of you have weak-ass quirks.”

Chuuya’s jaw clenches.

“I was wondering the same about you,” Dazai retorts before Chuuya can, looking down his nose at the snarly blond kid.

“What was that?!” The kid snarls, his fingers curling and his hands popping with sparks.

“Well, just look at yourself,” Dazai grins smugly. “UA is supposed to be a respectable school, only the best of the best. So, how’d a kid that doesn’t even know how to properly knot his tie get in?”

“Just wait,” the blond snarls, “I’ll kick your ass in training after lunch and prove I’m number one!”

Chuuya perks up. “We get to spar in the afternoon?”

Dazai’s lip crinkles in distaste.

“We have regular courses in the mornings then hero courses in the afternoon,” the fluffy green-haired kid chimes in. “I’m not sure what All Might is teaching today, but it’s sure to be good!”

Despite hearing the name of the most annoying hero, Chuuya’s mood is not dampened.

“Nakahara,” he pokes Dazai’s shoulder repeatedly. “We get to spar! You have no excuse to not keep up with your training.”

“But I don’t wanna!” Dazai groans, his head tipping back to glare at the ceiling. “I’m more than happy to do the hard parts and let Chibi do all the physical work.”

“Yeah, well tough luck. You’ll learn some decent defense if it’s the last thing you do.”

“Oh, I hope I die before that,” Dazai sighs. “Osamu is such a mean teacher. His methods are cruel and his manners even worse.”

Chuuya scowls at his partner. “I told you your block sucked once. How are you still held up on that?!”

“It was unbearably rude.”

“It was true!” Chuuya snaps. “Gin agreed with me!”

“They’re biased!” Dazai snaps back. “They think you’re nice because you buy everyone snacks.”

“Oh, so now you’re complaining? I didn’t hear any complaints when I brought those crab chips last week.”

Dazai pauses. “I must’ve had a mental lapse. It’s the only explanation.”

“Yeah, sure.” Chuuya rolls his eyes. Whatever. Not even Dazai can ruin his mood: they get to exercise! Maybe school doesn’t completely suck after all.

Unfortunately, they have to do the whole lunch thing first, which proves more difficult than Chuuya originally thought.

For one, the cafeteria their new classmates show he and Dazai is packed full and is horribly loud. Two, the food is all pre-made and sitting in open metal bins waiting to be distributed. Three, Dazai hasn’t stopped fidgeting with the edges of his bandages since he got here.

Goddammit.

The things he does for his stupid partner.

Chuuya’s eyes flick between their new classmates before landing on the skittish boy fiddling with his thumbs.

“Hey.” Chuuya grabs the green-haired boy’s — Midoriya, he vaguely remembers hearing at some point during introductions this morning — sleeve. He casts his eyes to the floor as if he were embarrassed to be asking and drops his voice to a nervous mumble. “Is there anywhere quieter to eat?”

“Oh! Um, well, I don’t know the exact rules… but it is only your first day and I get that can be super nerve-wracking… Come with me!” Midoriya scampers out of the cafeteria. Chuuya follows the boy, dragging Dazai along behind him to make sure the mackerel doesn’t slip away somewhere and get lost. Chuuya doesn’t know UA’s layout well enough to find the bastard if he disappeared like that.

Midoriya leads them through the maze of a school to a quaint lounge. It has a couple couches, a coffee table, and a counter with a coffee machine and a bowl of wrapped pastries.

Dazai makes a beeline for the coffee machine, humming happily under his breath.

Rolling his eyes, Chuuya plops down on the nearest couch and holds out his hand, waiting. He gets an old look from Midoriya, though the kid’s eyes clear as a wrapped oatmeal muffin flies his way, courtesy of Dazai. Chuuya peels off the plastic wrap and carefully folds it before tucking it in his pocket, then takes a small bite from the bottom of the muffin (Dazai likes the top part better), swallows, and pauses for a moment.

“You’re good,” he declares, holding the muffin back to Dazai as the nuisance sits down on the couch next to him, steaming coffee mug in hand.

“Excellent, good Chibi.” Dazai pats Chuuya’s head mockingly before taking the muffin, so Chuuya scowls at him.

“Um,” Midoriya looks between the two of them, “what?”

Oh, right. Chuuya kind of forget that checking for poison isn’t something kids normally do.

“Nakahara is picky,” Chuuya says instead.

At the exact same time, Dazai says: “Osamu is such a good doggy, checking to make sure his master’s food tastes okay!”

Chuuya smacks him upside the head, making Dazai slosh a drop of coffee onto the previously pristine white couch. Whoops.

“Shut the hell up, bastard. I’m not your damn dog and you know it.”

Predictably, Dazai just sticks his tongue out.

“Um, okay then.” Midoriya fidgets with his fingers, clearly unsure how to handle their dynamic. Fair enough; Chuuya rarely knows how to deal with Dazai either. He operates mainly on instinct.

After the kid helps himself to a bagel from the pastry bowl, Midoriya sits on the couch facing theirs, nibbling on the food.

“So,” the kid starts, “are you not hungry, Dazai?”

It takes Chuuya a long moment to realize that he is now supposed to answer to that name.

“Oh, um, not really. And just call me Osamu, everyone does.”

“Okay! Did you have a large breakfast, Osamu? Diet is very important in heroics, so you should be keeping an eye on your eating habits.”

“Yeah, sure.” Chuuya shrugs. Next to him, Dazai hides a snort and small smile behind the coffee mug he lifts to his mouth. Chuuya’s own lips twitch up in response, but he forces the amusement back before Midoriya notices. It would be rude to laugh at the kid for giving him good advice — even if it is advice that Chuuya does not need. But, hey, it’s not like Midoriya knows that, thanks to the god inhabiting his body, Chuuya hardly needs to eat one meal a day, let alone three.

Back in his days with the Sheep, they rarely had enough food to go around and Chuuya always made sure everyone else ate first. He never felt impacted by the lack of food like they all were. Then, after joining the Port Mafia, Chuuya was astonished to have people trying to convince him to eat at least three times a day, citing stuff about his activity level and age. Even Dazai spouted a few statistics about eating to get the required energy for both physical activity and growth; though said facts were mostly veiled under jokes about Chuuya’s height, they did prove that Dazai, to some degree, cared about Chuuya’s health enough to subtly pry when word got around that Chuuya wasn’t eating much.

Naturally, everyone was confused when, after they forced Chuuya to eat more than a small meal every night like he prefers, he got horribly sick for nearly a week.

After letting Mori run a bunch of tests that Chuuya despised on principal, he was presented with the doctor’s findings: given his lack of nutrition on the streets, Arahabaki stepped in to keep his vessel healthy. Eight years of doing so means that his body has fully adapted to eating a small meal once a day and letting Arahabaki take care of the rest.

All that to say, no, Chuuya does not need to eat lunch.

For all he complains about the god living inside him, Arahabaki can be a useful fucker.

“So, Midoriya,” Dazai starts, piercing the boy with his gaze. “You guys live in dorms now, right? After that whole thingy with the training camp being attacked?”

“Um, yeah,” Midoriya winces. “But maybe don’t bring that up with the others just yet… Kacchan is still sore over it. Um, that’s Bakugou, the blond guy who sits in front of me. And he’s not exactly shy about beating up anyone who upsets him, even if he has been doing better, so…” The kid trails off, rubbing his own arm absentmindedly.

Chuuya snorts. “Wait, are we talking about can’t-do-his-tie dude?” Midoriya bobs his head. “Damn. Doesn’t matter much, then. I could kick his ass any day.” Dazai nods, agreeing, then takes another sip of his coffee.

Midoriya makes an odd squeaking noise. “Um, did you not watch the Sports Festival? Kacchan and Todoroki are the strongest in our class—”

“The fuck is a Sports Festival?” Chuuya blurts, his brow furrowed. Whatever it is, it sounds weird and also a little important.

Next to him, Dazai tsks. “Silly Osamu, did you forget to watch again this year? It’s only the biggest live event of the year: all of UA’s classes, divided by year, duke it out on nation television.”

“Really? That sounds like a waste of time.”

“It’s good experience!” Midoriya squeaks. “And an opportunity to get scouted by hero agencies!”

Chuuya and Dazai exchange a look. A large-scale publicity stunt like that garners just as much attention from villains as it does heroes; proof being that Dazai has clearly taken the time to watch this Sports Festival.

“Right. Well, whatever. I can still kick that brat’s ass no problem.” Despite Chuuya’s confident words, Midoriya does not seem convinced. Ah, maybe the whole ‘quirk’ show earlier lowered their new classmates expectations of them a little too much.

Before their conversation can continue, the door swings open and a tall blond man walks in. Chuuya bristles immediately, shifting in his seat to square up to the man, while Dazai shrinks back and lifts his mug to his face, hiding behind it.

“Ah, Young Midoriya! I was not expecting to see you in here today—” The man cuts off when he spies Chuuya and Dazai sitting there as well.

It is a long, tense moment as the two high-profile wanted criminals stare down the ex-Number One Hero.

All Might’s fingers twitch, so Chuuya readies For The Tainted Sorrow, but the man forces a smile to his lips. It’s far more strained than his usual grin.

“Ah, it is our new transfer students! I hope you are getting used to the campus?”

Given the way Midoriya is looking between them, bewildered, the kid must be bright enough to pick up on the tension.

“All Might,” Midoriya starts, “have you met Nakahara and Osamu before?”

The ex-hero’s eye twitches. “Only by reputation.” Then the teacher freezes, realizing what he said. “Er, they came highly recommended, after all!” A weak laugh. “It’s not often we get transfer students at UA, especially not ones midway through the year, so I’m sure you’ll find your new classmates rather interesting.”

“That is a good point, All Might.” Midoriya smiles up at the hero, then turns the Chuuya and Dazai. “Actually, since we’re alone, do you mind if I ask about your quirks?” The kid smiles bashfully. “I like learning about interesting quirks.”

Dazai takes a small bite from the top of his muffin and nudges Chuuya’s knee with his own. Ugh, fine. If the mackerel is too busy thinking to do social interactions right now, then Chuuya will for them both.

“Yeah, sure. Like he said earlier, Nakahara’s is a simple telekinesis. He can lift things with his mind.”

“That’s so cool!” Midoriya’s eyes shine. “Is there a weight limit? Or perhaps a time limit? Wait, no, if it’s a mental ability, then it would rely more on concentration, wouldn’t it?”

Chuuya blinks. “Uh, yeah. It’s concentration-based, so sometimes it takes him a moment to get it started.” AKA it’s going to take Chuuya a second to notice when Dazai is trying to use ‘telekinesis’ and get that going.

“Interesting!”

Chuuya watches, amused, as Midoriya’s fingers curl like he is holding an invisible pen and his wrist starts twitching.

“And my abi— quirk is, um, nullification.” Chuuya can feel Dazai’s exasperated stare but come on! Between the two of them, Chuuya is not the creative one. “But it’s not that great,” he amends. “I can only cancel things out momentarily, and it’s also concentration-based, so it’s really finicky.” Chuuya leans back and scratches at the base of his neck. “Ah, truth be told, I’m not even sure how it works half the time. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. It’s real helpful when it does work, though, I’ll say that much.”

“It would be an incredibly useful quirk!” Midoriya exclaims. “Just look at Mr. Aizawa and his Erasure!”

Chuuya’s eyebrow raises a fraction and Dazai makes an inquisitive noise. Still standing, All Might winces. It seems UA didn’t see fit to include that particular quirk in the briefing package they sent to Mori.

“But,” Midoriya continues, “how are you so sure you can beat someone like Kacchan if your quirk is so random?”

Chuuya grins. He opens his mouth to reply, only for a bell to ring.

“Well,” Chuuya shrugs and rises to his feet, “I guess you’ll find out. It’s sparring time now, yeah?” Midoriya nods. “Excellent. Nakahara, up.”

Predictably, Dazai whines and sinks further into the couch while taking the last gulp of his coffee. His muffin is only half-eaten, so Chuuya takes the plastic wrap he kept and repackages the leftover muffin, tucking it into his pocket to force upon Dazai later.

That done, he scoops Dazai up out of the couch and flings him over his shoulder, an arm securely clasped over the backs of Dazai’s thighs.

“Chibi!” Dazai whines, hitting his back with weak fists. “I wasn’t done thinking! Bad dog, put me down!” While it is tempting to just drop Dazai, Chuuya refrains.

“Are you actually going to walk back to class?”

Dazai doesn’t respond, probably already adjusted to his new vantage point and back to thinking Big Thoughts, so Chuuya does not put him down. Instead, he follows Midoriya back to their class, carrying the mackerel through the busy halls.

Upon arriving at their class, Midoriya offers them a wave and a smile, then scurries to his seat. Chuuya takes his time weaving through the rows of desks, not wanting to accidentally smack anyone with Dazai.

However, carrying someone else must be a strange thing to do at a school since the whole class watches curiously as Chuuya ferries Dazai to his desk and plonks the bastard down with a huff, then takes his own seat.

“Is everyone here now?” Their gruff teacher, Aizawa, asks. When a chorus of positive affirmation responds, the teacher nods. “Good. Change into your gym uniforms and meet me in the field near the forest. Nakahara, Dazai.” Chuuya’s mood wanes at the sight of ugly, disgusting blue material piled on the teacher’s desk. “We found gym uniforms that matched the sizes you requested for your school uniforms, which you will have by the end of the day. Please let me know if the sizing is off.”

The teacher tosses them each an ugly uniform. Chuuya picks the material up off his desk and scowls at it. How do heroes prance around in such ugly things and think they look cool?

Resigning himself to this horrid fate, Chuuya scoops up both his and Dazai’s uniforms, then, after checking to see if Dazai is planning to move — the mackerel’s eyes are glazed and narrowed — so Chuuya picks him up too. He gets more strange looks for that but ignores them. These teens should count themselves lucky that they don’t have a Dazai to lug around.

However, as Chuuya follows the class, the males and females splitting apart to enter separate changing rooms, he realizes they have another problem: they actually have to get changed. For obvious reasons, neither he nor Dazai is particularly willing to change in front of strangers. The kids around them have no such difficulty and are already shucking their regular uniforms off.

As such, Chuuya sighs and steps up to Midoriya. They’ve already built a little rapport with the anxious teen so hopefully he’ll think that they’re friends and will be willing to help out again.

“Hey, is there somewhere more private to change?” Chuuya asks quietly, not wanting to draw attention.

The boy jumps, then pulls his arms in front of his bare chest. However, instead of covering it, all that does is make Chuuya look. The kid has some scarring, the blaring purple of his right arm being the most obvious, but there are older, faded, white lines scattered all over.

Actually, now that he looks a little closer, most of these kids already bear scars of their own.

That’s… disheartening.

For some reason, Chuuya thought that maybe the kids his age (well, he’s sixteen, and isn’t sure how old first year high-schoolers are, but it’s probably close enough) that were on the other side of things would be living normal lives uninterrupted by injuries deep enough to scar.

“Never mind,” Chuuya mumbles, turning away from Midoriya. If everyone else has scars too, then they’ll just appear suspicious for wanting to hide theirs. A weakness. Chuuya might not be Dazai, but even he knows to not offer such things up on day one.

He finds an empty corner in the locker room and sets Dazai down. The mackerel’s eyes are still a little hazy, but less so than before, so he is almost ready to come out of his big brain and interact like a normal person again.

So, that means Chuuya gets to change first. Great. How delightful.

Shifting Dazai’s form so it will be between Chuuya and most of the class, he makes quick work of stripping out of his clothes and putting on the ugly UA ones, though he leaves his gloves, choker, and hat.

He’s not quick enough.

There’s a small gasp as he pulls his white undershirt off, showing his torn back to his classmates. Corruption might not last beyond Dazai’s touch, but it doesn’t fade without repercussion: his body is covered in swirling white scars — the ones on his face easily covered by high-quality makeup — and his back has two vertical lines slashed through it thanks to the stupid, overdramatic wings Arahabaki thought were a good idea when they fought Verlaine four months ago.

Chuuya doesn’t acknowledge the blatant gaping as he pulls the ugly blue t-shirt on. His grimace grows: the shirts are short-sleeved. That means the curling marks that rest on his forearms are visible.

He swaps his pants, then frowns at his shoes. Maybe he should have invested in, like, sneakers or something. His shiny black shoes do not match the ugliness of the UA gym uniform. Yeah, he’ll order sneakers for tomorrow… and a pair for Dazai. They can wear boring, regular shoes together.

Done changing, Chuuya doesn’t bother looking to any of the kids that are still flicking glances his way.

Instead, he picks up his discarded black coat. He grabs Dazai’s gym clothes and shoves them at his partner, who takes the clothes and blinks at them dazedly for five long blinks before realization hits. Dazai shuffles over to the lockers and Chuuya steps close, holding his coat up as a privacy curtain as Dazai changes. It is not necessarily needed, not with how Dazai wraps himself up in bandages, but he knows his partner would be more comfortable this way.

Given Dazai’s lethargic movements, they are the last ones leaving the locker room. Midoriya waited for them, which is especially nice since Chuuya has no idea where to go.

Midoriya rambles about hero nonsense the whole walk, thankfully trying to be ‘sensitive’ or whatever and not bring up Chuuya’s scars, so Chuuya tunes him out in favor of memorizing their route for future use.

They rejoin the rest of the class in a large clearing at the edge of the forest bordering UA.

They get a few odd looks from the girls and their teachers (All Might seems to have joined Aizawa for the afternoon) for being slow, but none of their male classmates meet Chuuya’s gaze — expect for Bakugou, who glares at him like he has done something to personally offend the kid.

“Now that we are all here,” Aizawa drawls, “we can start. Usual warmup, steady jogging pace to the red marker and back. Go.”

The kids closest to the tree line head in first, in pairs, then, after a moment’s pause, the next pair heads in. Ah, a warmup run. Got it.

Chuuya glances to his side and nudges Dazai with his elbow.

“Hey, Mackerel, you up for this?”

Dazai shrugs. “Dunno.” Verbal confirmation, that’s good. Dazai must have sorted out whatever thought was plaguing his mind from lunch. “Excuse me, teacher!” Dazai sticks his hand straight up and waves it around, drawing Aizawa’s attention. “How long is this run?”

“Three kilometers.”

For Chuuya, that’s nothing.

However, for Dazai…

“Sorry, my trainer says I’m only supposed to run one kilometer as a warmup.” Dazai smiles sweetly, tucking his hands behind his back and rocking heel to toe.

“Then walk the rest of the way,” Aizawa deadpans.

“Ew.” Dazai wrinkles his nose. “Chibi—”

“Yeah, whatever.”

Dazai cheers. “Princess?”

“Fuck off. Fireman or nothing.”

“Meanie,” Dazai grumbles, kicking the ground with a pout forming on his lips.

“What are you two talking about?” The brown-haired girl that migrated over to stand next to Midoriya asks. Chuuya is pretty sure her name is Uraraka — she’s the zero-gravity user, that he remembers.

“Nakahara can’t run that far as a warmup with his current fitness level, so I’m going to carry him the extra kilometers.”

“Why?” The girl asks, puzzled. “Shouldn’t Nakahara run by himself to practice?”

“I’m on a strict fitness schedule that Chibi and I agreed to, so I’m not doing extra work.” Dazai replies with a bright smile.

The frown on her lips says that Uraraka is not convinced.

Sighing, Chuuya rolls his eyes and shakes out his shoulders; they’re getting closer to entering the forest.

“I work out a lot,” Chuuya offers. “I can run three kilometers easily enough that it hardly counts as a warmup for me. Carrying this sack of bones isn’t too much of a hassle.”

“Um, okay then.”

They are the only ones remaining in the clearing, so Chuuya jerks his head for Midoriya and Uraraka to enter first. Once they’re gone, Chuuya waits a minute, then sets in after them, scowling at Dazai when the lazy bastard tries to sneak off.

Grumbling complaints, Dazai does pick up a jogging pace and head into the woods. Chuuya slows down to match his pace to Dazai’s, knowing full well that his partner will just sit down and wait for it to be over if Chuuya leaves him unattended.

They jog in silence for a few minutes, listening to the nature around them being broken by bits of conversation from the teens ahead of them or cracking twigs, then the ground tilts.

Dazai groans. “Chibi, please. Don’t make me run the incline!”

“Come on. You’re fine.”

Dazai makes a pathetic wheezing noise, but it is just for show. After three and a half months of Chuuya coaching Dazai through some basic fitness and self-defense — he was really bored when on bed rest and strict orders to not do anything extraneous after fighting Verlaine, and Dazai was hovering around him anyway, so Chuuya put his get-the-mackerel-working-out plan into motion — Chuuya is well aware of his partner’s limits.

Without any prompting from Chuuya, Dazai keeps a consistent pace despite the change in angle.

However, that sharp mind is always rolling, so, when Dazai abruptly stops and stares at Chuuya expectantly, Chuuya knows they have hit the one-kilometer mark.

“Fine, come here.”

“Ah, ah.” Dazai hops back before Chuuya can throw him over his shoulder. “I propose—”

“I’m not carrying you like a princess.”

“Not now, Chuuya,” Dazai waves his hand flippantly. “I want a piggyback ride!”

Chuuya squints. “A what?”

Dazai blinks, the only sign of his surprise, then explains with a completely straight face that doesn’t reveal if he is serious or fucking around. “It’s a very practical way to carry someone on your back! Surely you know this, Slug.”

“Oh. Huh. Alright, sure.” Whatever. It doesn’t matter much to Chuuya how he does this if it’s not that stupid princess carry Dazai always insists on.

Humming and very pleased with himself, Dazai hops onto Chuuya’s back, arms latching around his throat with too little warning, briefly choking Chuuya.

“Now you grab my legs.”

Doing as instructed, Chuuya slides his hands around Dazai’s thighs, the fiend’s ankles hooking together near Chuuya’s stomach.

Picking up his pace to something that’s more Chuuya’s jogging speed than Dazai’s but still isn’t too fast (he doesn’t know this forest’s layout well and would be forever teased if he tripped), Chuuya has to admit that this kind of carry isn’t that bad. Dazai is humming, tapping his finger absentmindedly against Chuuya’s collarbone, and the mackerel is actually helping hold himself in place with his arms.

It is also now that the teens who entered the forest first start passing them, going back down the incline. Chuuya gets a few odd looks, Dazai waves obnoxiously at the kids that look his way, puzzled, but no one stops to question them, all too absorbed in their own activity to bother.

Only a minute or two later, Dazai taps his shoulder.

“Chibi, this is one-point-five. You can turn around.”

“Really? Huh. I don’t see the red marker the teacher mentioned.”

While he can’t see, Chuuya can feel it when Dazai shrugs. “I don’t see it either, but this is the spot. See, you can tell by the footprints in the ground.” Looking down, Chuuya sees what Dazai noted: footprints pressed into the earth that swap from facing forward to going back the way they came.

“Alright. Let’s go then.” Chuuya picks up his pace a little now that they are going downhill — that and he is looking forward to sparring — so it only takes them a handful of minutes to reach the clearing.

Upon exiting the trees and rejoining their class, they find Aizawa glowering at Bakugou, giving him what seems to be a very stern lecture.

Chuuya’s lip curls as he spies a wide, red band in Bakugou’s hand.

“Ah,” Dazai murmurs, confirming Chuuya’s own thoughts. “Sabotage, how villainous.” The amused whisper is only meant for his ears. Chuuya snorts, not replying as he helps Dazai hop off his back.

Back on his own feet, Dazai saunters over to the angry teacher and pissed teen.

“Aw, was wittle Kacchan worried we might get lost? How thoughtful!” Dazai coos, clasping his hands together and batting his eyelashes. “Fret not, for my impeccable intellect and Chibi’s brute strength got us through the very tough trial of not having a red marker to turn around at!”

To no one’s surprise, Bakugou screeches like a feral banshee and throws a fist Dazai’s way. Aizawa catches it midair, shooting yet another glower Bakugou’s way.

“Bakugou,” the teacher growls.

“Hey,” Chuuya interrupts, “if the kid wants to try to hit Nakahara, let him at it. It’s sparring time now, yeah?” The teacher turns his glower Chuuya’s way, but compared to the likes of Mori and Kouyou, the look is rather unintimidating.

“What? Chibi, no!” Dazai whines. “Lemme spar someone easy, like, uh, him!” Dazai points to the weird blond kid that is too busy fixing his hair to notice Dazai pointing at him.

“Nope, too late. You get Bakugou.”

“No!” Dazai wails, dramatically dropping to his knees and clutching at the grass. “I’ll just die, I know it. It’ll be painful too. Come on, Chibi, be merciful!”

“Hey, just be glad you’re not sparring Gin.”

The grim reminder is enough that Dazai pulls himself to his feet and groans, resigning himself to this. “Fine. You,” he points at Bakugou, “I spar for five minutes, then take a ten-minute walk-around break. Repeat two—”

“Three,” Chuuya interrupts. Might as well bump it up a notch while at hero school when they’re only managing one mission at a time.

“Three?!” Dazai groans. “You’re a horrible person, Slug. Simply the worst. Fine, repeat three times.”

“That’s not exactly—” Aizawa starts, only for Dazai to cut him off.

“Too bad! That is my workout schedule, take it or let me sit down and do nothing. I have so many things I would rather be doing than sweating and exerting myself for no reason. Anyway, Bakugou, will you be able to adapt to my schedule or can I spar someone else?”

Unfortunately for Dazai, Bakugou scoffs and grins menacingly. “Five minutes is more than long enough to beat you dead, asshole.” Bakugou stomps over to a free section of grass and jerks his chin for Dazai to follow him, which the mackerel does with obvious reluctance.

The rest of the class quickly splits into pairs, though Chuuya makes no effort to find a sparring partner just yet; he needs to coach Dazai first.

A weird purple blob slides up next to him.

“Well,” a squeaky voice says, “I guess it’s just you and me. Weird, I figured the girls would totally be fawning over a guy like you—”

Chuuya snorts.

The squeaky purple blob peers up at him (oh man is it nice to be taller than someone for once). “Why’d you laugh? Don’t you want girls to like you?”

“Why would I?” Chuuya replies. “I’m stuck with that one.” He jerks his chin Dazai’s way, and the short kid’s eyes go impossibly wide.

“You’re gay?!” The kid shrieks loud enough to announce it to the whole clearing. Ah, well, can’t hurt to have that known. It would be very awkward to have some teen ask him out considering he’s already stuck with a slimy fish.

Multiple pairs of kids stop their spars to listen in on the new gossip.

Chuuya rolls his eyes. “Sure, whatever. I don’t really care what you want to call it, labels don’t matter to me. Bottom line is that I’m stuck with that guy and he’s stuck with me.”

“Aw, what sweet words, Chibi! I never knew you were so poetic!”

“Pay attention to your footwork, Mackerel,” Chuuya barks back without looking. Dazai always tries to cut out steps he thinks are not necessary and trips himself up.

Purple blob kid is still staring up at Chuuya, jaw agape, so Chuuya raises an eyebrow.

“What? I’m not sparring yet, so find a group to join in with.”

(INSERT SOMETHING HOMOPHOBIC THAT MINETA SAID (Author doesn’t want to write that part out))

Chuuya’s fist slams into the kid’s mouth, promptly cutting him off and shattering his jaw in one go. For good measure, Chuuya’s heel finds a home in the kid’s ribs, cracking a few of those.

The kid soars back a few feet, goes down, and does not get up. He whimpers pathetically in a heap.

“Dazai!” Aizawa snaps a second too late, his eyes glowing and his scarf floating around him. “Step away from my student!”

Scoffing, Chuuya lifts his hands in surrender and takes a step back. Carefully, he scans the rest of the watching class and raises an eyebrow. “Anyone else got a problem?”

Then, instead of them all backing away, scared, like he expects, the tall black-haired girl gasps. “Oh my god. You did it. You hit Mineta.”

Chuuya’s jaw tenses. Is that considered bad? They are in school and no fighting is a rule, he remembers that, but they’re in sparring class right now, so aren’t there different rules—?

Abruptly, the class erupts in cheers.

Chuuya blinks.

Teens are high-fiving, most are grinning, and a few girls are hugging each other and crying.

“Well then,” Aizawa sighs. “Mineta, are you conscious?” There is no response from the blob. “Guess not. I’ll expel him when he wakes up; Shinsou Hitoshi has been wanting a spot in this class for a while anyway.”

One of the blond boys in the class gives an extra loud whooping cheer upon hearing that.

“Uh,” Chuuya looks around uncertainty. “So am I not in trouble for decking him?”

“Not this time,” Aizawa admits under his breath. “I heard his words and, well, my husband would not approve if I hit one of my own students, so, this time, you will not be arrested for this.”

“Ah, got it.” Chuuya offers the man a thumbs-up of solidarity; the hero grimaces.

The teacher clears his throat. “Everyone, get back to work. All Might, you’re in charge while I take Mineta to Recovery Girl.” Scooping up the purple blob, Aizawa sets off at a brisk pace.

It takes a minute or two for the kids to settle down — some come up and clap Chuuya on the back or thank him — but, once they do return to sparring, they do so with much more enthusiasm than before.

Another minute passes, then Dazai sits down on the grass, ducking under yet another of Bakugou’s hits.

“Chibi! My five minutes are up!” Dazai declares.

Chuuya half-expects Bakugou, who is swinging at his unmoving opponent, to continue the strike, but the kid does halt his attack, grumbling something about Dazai being ‘damn slippery’.

“Alright. Take your break, then come right back.”

“Yes, oh greatest of all the chibis.”

“Fuck off,” Chuuya grumbles, swapping places with Dazai.

Bakugou eyes him with sharp eyes. “Your partner was all defense, just kept moving out of the way of my attacks. You the same or are you more interesting?”

“More interesting,” Chuuya replies, rolling his shoulders and shifting his weight to the balls of his feet. “Let’s go.”

Predictably, Bakugou lashes out with the first strike. Instead of ducking, Chuuya deflects and closes the distance.

Not expecting it, Bakugou’s eyes go wide and the kid is not quick enough to escape as Chuuya grabs his outstretched arm and spins around it, using it as leverage to pull the kid to the ground and pin him there.

“Fuck!” Bakugou barks, struggling to find an opening in Chuuya’s pin. There isn’t one. “Bastard, let me up!”

Chuuya obliges the request and lets go, stepping back and lifting his hands, signaling that he is ready to go again.

Eyes narrowed, Bakugou charges in again, keeping his arms closer to himself this time. Good, that’s smart. A fighter that can adapt quickly is someone who can go far in hand-to-hand combat.

“You’re rushing in too quickly,” Chuuya comments, sweeping Bakugou’s legs out from underneath him. The kid goes down with a thump. “You have to combine your offensive tactics with strong defensive ones too; your attack does no good if there are openings for your opponents to hit you first.”

Bakugou growls an agreement as he pushes himself off the grass.

Then he promptly lunges for Chuuya again.

Rolling his eyes, Chuuya deflects and evades the first couple attacks, then manages to grab a wrist and elbow, twisting the kid’s arm into another pin.

“Dammit!” Bakugou hisses. “Your quirk is shit, but you’re not half bad at fighting.” He admits.

“Not half bad?” Chuuya scoffs. “Kid, I’m kicking your ass. You haven’t landed a hit on me.”

“It would be different if this wasn’t quirkless sparring,” Bakugou grumbles, moving to attach again. The kid doesn’t let himself get baited into attacking wildly, but still isn’t able to hit Chuuya in the ten minutes they spar before Dazai interrupts.

“Okay, break time is over.”

“Alright. You evaded last time, so this time work on deflections and pins, like I just showed you.” Even if Dazai’s gaze was mostly on the other teens sparring, getting a sense for their capabilities, Chuuya has no doubt Dazai was still paying attention to him as well. His partner is more than capable of multitasking.

“Ugh, fine. Just please don’t make me—”

“Round three is attacks.”

“Chibi!” Dazai groans. “Hitting stuff makes my hands hurt!”

“Then practice your kicks today.”

“That’s worse!” Dazai grumbles as he approaches Bakugou. He eyes the huffing blond. “Hey, why don’t we both just call it quits here? We can sit down and play chess using the grass as the pieces.”

“That’s fucking stupid! I’m just getting warmed up.” Bakugou grins fiercely, lifting his fists and dropping his weight.

“Unfortunate.” Dazai shifts into his own stance—

“Lower, Mackerel! And bend your knees.”

“But I’m already tired!”

Chuuya rolls his eyes. He knows this ploy well. “You’re fine.”

“Ugh, fine! Let’s spar, Bakugou.”

Time passes quickly, with Dazai doing his best to replicate the holds Chuuya had demonstrated earlier and Bakugou getting increasingly frustrated that he hasn’t hit either one of them yet.

Some minutes later when Dazai is supposed to start his last round of sparring, he drops to the ground like a boneless fish.

“I can’t go on!” He wails loudly enough to draw everyone’s attention. “Oh please, can’t I be done now?”

“No.”

“Mean!” Dazai groans. “Mean, cruel, Chibi! So rude to me even when I’m suffering…”

Chuuya ignores the teens muttering in the background and focuses on the mackerel before him.

“What do you want?”

Dazai sniffles. “Oh, if only there were a kind, strong, man who would carry me like a princess back to the school…”

“This again?” Chuuya pinches the bridge of his nose. “Fine. Finish up this round and I’ll princess carry you back to school.”

“Yay!” Dazai hops to his feet and smiles breezily, like he isn’t exhausted at all anymore. “Okay, let’s go quickly, Bakugou. I want to be done as soon as possible.”

“You’re so fucking weird,” Bakugou grumbles.

Dazai gasps. “Thank you! That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me! I can die happily now!”

“Fucking weird,” Bakugou repeats.

Once Dazai finishes up his last round of sparring and finds a nice patch of grass to sit on, Chuuya lets him be and returns to critiquing Bakugou. He only gets a few minutes of very helpful comments in before Aizawa jogs back into view.

“Alright class. You can begin sparring with your abilities now. Please keep in mind that doing anything stupid,” there is a pointed look towards a blond and redhead who both look sheepish, “is, in fact, stupid. Go ahead.”

“What a speech,” Chuuya huffs. “Alright, Bakugou, how do you guys normally spar with your quirks—”

Instead of an answer, Chuuya gets a feral shriek and an explosion to the face.

Given he wasn’t prepared and doesn’t have For The Tainted Sorrow activated since he’s holding to their cover, Chuuya takes the full force of the blast straight on, stumbling back. It burns, his scorched skin aching as Arahabaki creeps in, healing the injury nearly instantaneously.

Steadying himself, Chuuya lifts his chin and glares at Bakugou.

To his credit, the kid looks concerned.

“Fuck, I didn’t think it would hit…” The kid trails off, red eyes flicking to Chuuya’s cheek and a guilty look flashing across the kid’s face.

Chuuya doesn’t need to check to know that the swirling scars Arahabaki leaves behind are now visible.

Great. Just perfect: Bakugou burnt his makeup off.

So, obviously, Chuuya makes the appropriately rational decision and roundhouse kicks the kid as hard and fast as he can.

Not expecting it, Bakugou wheezes on the impact to his chest and flies back until he hits a tree. The kid groans but climbs back to his feet.

The two of them glare at each other from across the clearing, the rest of the class watching tensely, Aizawa with a hand on that scarf around his next in case he needs to step in, then Bakugou jerks his head in a tiny nod. Chuuya nods back, agreeing that they are even now.

“Such a brute,” Dazai comments from where he is sitting in the dirt, playing chess against himself using identical pieces of grass.

Chuuya ignores his partner’s comment as Bakugou marches back over so they can spar for real now — well, as real as it gets when Chuuya can’t use his ability. In any case, Bakugou with his quirk proves to be much more challenging: it’s clear that the kid is more used to fighting this way. Some of his footwork mistakes from earlier make sense now with the way Bakugou likes to alternate between being in the air and on the ground for his attacks, cutting down the gaps in his defense.

It is still nothing Chuuya can’t handle with his own martial arts, but it makes for a fun spar.

At the end of the school day, after finishing up their sparring and doing some weird strategy game that Dazai opts out of, Chuuya keeps his word and carries Dazai back to the main campus. The bastard is grinning the entire time, babbling nonsense, and poking Chuuya’s cheek every once and a while just because he can.

Chuuya just does his best to ignore the nuisance and firmly resolves to not agree to this again.

“Chiiiibi!” A finger pokes his cheek. “Come on, where’s your smile? You should be happy to carry me like the princess I am inside!”

“Where are we going?” Chuuya asks the kid next to him, who startles as being addressed, not dignifying Dazai’s comment with an acknowledgement.

“Oh! Well, classes are done for the day. So, after changing out of our gym clothes, we’re just heading back to dorms.” The black-haired kid smiles at him. “I’m Sero, by the way. I don’t know if I introduced myself earlier.”

“I don’t know either,” Chuuya admits. “I’m Osamu, this asshole is Nakahara.” Dazai just pokes Chuuya’s cheek again.

“It’s nice to meet you both! I was a little worried you wouldn’t fit into the class, but you seem at least as crazy as us, so you’ll have no trouble! And man, the way you both fought with Bakugou? That was insane!”

A blond kid pokes his head into the conversation. “Yo, are we talking about how Bakubro got his ass whooped? Nice. I’m Denki!” The kid grins brightly at them. “Mina! Kiri! Get over here.”

A pink girl and the redhead scamper over at the call, the redhead dragging Bakugou along by the wrist.

“Hey!” The girl greets cheerfully. “I have to admit, I thought you guys were going to be pushovers with those quirks, but you really made up for it with your combat skills!”

In his arms, Dazai preens. “See, Chibi? I don’t need practice! I’m already amazing.”

“Yeah, yeah. You can stop once you beat Gin.”

“Mean!” Dazai groans, smacking Chuuya’s shoulder.

“If you’re that amazing, then you can handle it.”

Dazai crosses his arms over his chest and pouts.

“You guys are weird! I love it!” The pink girl, Mina, cheers. “It’s going to be so much fun getting to know you— Oh my gosh! Guys!!” Her voice echoes out, drawing the class’s attention. “We need to have game night today to get to know Osamu and Nakahara better!”

Agreements come from the class quickly enough that Chuuya doesn’t have time to ask what counts as a game night for school kids; the games he knows have alcohol, so it would be nice if they played at least one drinking game… though these are hero kids and technically they are underaged and shouldn’t be drinking yet. Ugh, how boring.

The loud and friendly teens around them keep chattering as they walk back to the locker rooms, but Chuuya tunes them out, letting Dazai have a turn of fielding their questions.

They change quickly, Chuuya once again holding his coat up for the mackerel to change behind, then follow the rest of the kids to the huge on-campus dormitory.

Entering the dorm, Chuuya whistles his approval. They certainly had money to blow when they built these.

Contrarily, Dazai’s fingers curl in Chuuya’s sleeve — the bastard got to walk on his own feet to get here from the lockers, which he complained endlessly about. Guess there’s a bit too much open space in here for Dazai’s comfort levels.

“Alright, follow me!” The smiley blond kid, Denki, grins at them. “I can show you guys to your rooms.”

“Sure, thanks.” Tugging Dazai along, the pair of them follow Denki and the redhead, Kirishima, as the two teens give them a quick tour of the building while they head to the rooms. Someone decided to put he and Dazai on different floors; Chuuya doesn’t bother pointing out the ineffectiveness of such a thing. They’re only going to use one room anyway.

“Alright, so, Osamu, this one is yours, Nakahara, yours is on the next floor—”

“No thank you,” Dazai chirps, strolling into Chuuya’s room and poking around, no doubt checking for cameras. “I like Chibi’s room better.”

“Oh, okay. Then I guess we can show you the room upstairs, Osamu,” Denki tries.

Chuuya just rolls his eyes. “Oh please, like I’m letting the bastard get away with stealing my room.” He follows Dazai into the space, his own eyes narrowing as he scans around. He’s sure Dazai would pick out any cameras, if there are any, but it doesn’t hurt to have them both checking.

“Um, okay.” Denki hesitates in the doorway. “Also, before I leave you guys to unpack and settle in, I just want to say thanks.” The guy rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. “I know it’s not heroic, but Mineta was getting on everyone’s last nerve. We had started putting together evidence to get him expelled, so we’re all glad he’s gone, and Shinsou and I kind of have a thing, so I’m glad he’s getting the chance he deserves to be a hero… and I’m rambling. Sorry. Point is thanks for punching him and absolutely no one is mad about that. Okay bye.” The kid shoots Chuuya a blinding grin, then scampers off down the hall.

Knocking the door shut, Chuuya rolls his eyes. “High school is so fucking strange.”

“Mhm.” Dazai has finished his sweep of the room and is perched on the edge of the bed, feet tapping the floor rhythmically. “Chuuya, I don’t think I like school that much.” That sentence alone tells him that they are not being watched or recorded.

Chuuya barks a sharp laugh and sits next to his partner. “No shit, Dazai. Oh, here.” He pulls out the rest of the muffin Dazai didn’t eat for lunch. “I dunno when they usually eat around here, so you can wait till then if you want, but if you’d rather eat with me, you’re eating this muffin now.”

Dazai gripes a bit but takes the muffin and starts nibbling on it.

“Do you like school?” Dazai’s eyes slide his way.

“Fuck no,” Chuuya shakes his head.

“Seemed like you were having fun.” There’s an odd note to Dazai’s voice. Chuuya’s eyes narrow.

“Dazai, I like working out. Don’t care where or why. So, yeah, I’m going to enjoy sparring with the brats in the afternoon. But academics? Tests? Making friends and caring about high school drama? Fuck no. That’s just not who we are.”

Dazai hums and takes another bite of his muffin to save himself from having to reply. But he does bump his knee into Chuuya’s, so hopefully whatever worries his partner was having have been refuted.

Around six, after Chuuya has finished moving the bed from the extra room down to this one and squishing the two together to create bigger surface, and reapplied makeup to cover the scars on his face, they get a knock on the door, telling them it’s time for dinner.

Chuuya would rather stay in the room, and he can tell Dazai would like that too, but they both decide that being social on their first day can’t be a bad thing. Get to know the brats they’re babysitting and whatever.

So, Chuuya and Dazai find themselves sitting at a very long and very crowded table full of kids chowing down on the food Bakugou and Midoriya made. Apparently, there is a chore list that rotates through everyone that, much to Dazai’s horror, they’ve been added to— though only a handful of the class are cleared for cooking duty.

Problems arise when, curious hero kids that they are, the teens notice and start worrying when neither Chuuya nor Dazai eat anything.

“Osamu,” Midoriya starts, his green eyes wide with worry, “you didn’t eat lunch either.” The people nearest him start shoving serving bowls his way, which Chuuya pushes back to them with an easy smile.

Damn, is this going to be an everyday thing?

“I eat later.” Chuuya supplies to get the worrywarts off his back. “Nine at night is my preferred mealtime.”

“And I like eating the food Chibi makes,” Dazai tags on. “Plus, he gets lonely if I don’t eat with him.”

“I do not,” Chuuya grumbles back, rolling his eyes.

“Aw, Chibi!” Dazai flops onto Chuuya’s arm, clinging like a leech and resting his chin on Chuuya’s shoulder. “I knew you cared!”

“Fuck off, bastard,” Chuuya growls. He doesn’t bother trying to pry Dazai off; such things are impossible.

“You two are an odd pair,” the frog girl, Tsuyu, croaks.

“Yeah,” Chuuya agrees. “Hey, any chance we’re playing a drinking game later?” He figures not, but also really wants a drink. The looks he gets are scandalized; Chuuya clicks his tongue, disappointed.

Still clinging to his arm, Dazai hums softly and presses his lips to Chuuya’s ear to whisper: “And you claim you’re not an alcoholic.”

“I’m not a fucking alcoholic,” Chuuya growls back, much louder. “If anyone is the alcoholic here, it’s you.”

“So,” Dazai continues in a whisper, “does that mean the slug doesn’t want to order wine later and get drunk with me?”

Chuuya pauses. That’s an answer in itself, so Dazai pulls back, snickering.

After one more attempt to get them to eat, the kids finish up their meal. Clean up goes quick with twenty pairs of helping hands — Chuuya carries some stacked dishes into the kitchen; Dazai sits on the floor of the common room and stares at the blank TV — so, before long they are all gathered in the common room.

Considering Dazai does not look like he wants to move from his spot on the floor, Chuuya flops down next to his partner, forgoing the spot on one of the sofas Midoriya offers him.

“So, guys,” Mina starts, “I propose we start off with a nice easy round of Never Have I Ever.” With only minor grumbling, the rest of the class agrees, so clearly Chuuya and Dazai are the only ones who do not know this game.

“Uh, can you explain the rules?” Chuuya asks before the teens can hop into it.

“Sure thing!” Mina replies. “So, how it works is we go around in a circle, taking turns saying something that we have not personally done. Everyone has five ‘lives’, which are represented by holding up five fingers, and every time you have done something that someone else hasn’t, then you put a finger down. Last person with any lives left wins!”

Sounds like a stupid game, especially when playing sober, since the boring-est person wins, but at least it’s not hard.

“Alright.”

“I’ll go first!” Mina continues. “Never have I ever gotten eggs stuck on the ceiling!”

To Chuuya’s horror, half of the class groans and drops one of the five fingers they are holding up.

“You are all fucking disgraces,” Bakugou spits, shaking his head. “Oi, newbies, if you can’t cook worth a damn either, just stay outta my kitchen.”

“I can cook— Nakahara, really?”

Next to him, Dazai avoids his gaze while sheepishly lowering his thumb.

“When?” Chuuya asks, already done with this game.

“You weren’t there,” Dazai replies. “But at your place. I hired a cleaning service to get rid of the evidence.”

It clicks. “Nakahara, that was two weeks ago.” Then Chuuya’s scowl deepens. “Dammit I knew there was a reason one of my frying pans looked too new!”

Dazai shrugs. “That’s what I get for trying to cook you dinner. I’ll stick to my role as the eye-candy and let you do the housework, Chibi.”

“Please do,” Chuuya grumbles. “Don’t fuck up my kitchen or this one.”

“You got it!”

Some of the other teens are teasing each other, so once they get that out of the way, the game continues with Denki, who is next to Mina, giving the next statement.

“Never have I ever scored full marks on a test!”

“Denki, that’s not something to say so proudly, Dude.”

Maybe not, but, after this morning, Chuuya has also never scored full marks, so he gets to keep all five of his fingers up; only two rounds in and he’s already one of the few with all lives left. Damn, apparently he’s good at this.

…Is that a good thing? He didn’t think he was boring or ‘normal’ but so far these teens have proven to be weird.

The next question comes from Midoriya, who takes a long deep breath. “Sorry, Iida, but you shouldn’t have thrown out my All Might poster last week.”

“It was ripped!”

“Fixable! It was limited edition and fixable,” Midoriya shrieks. “Anyway, never have I ever hunted down a serial killer with the intent to revenge kill them.”

With a wince, Chuuya and Dazai join Iida in each lowering a finger.

The whole class snaps their attention onto the pair.

“Ha,” Chuuya tries. “Don’t worry about it?”

Clearly that is the wrong thing to say since everyone immediately begins shouting questions at the same time.

“I’ve got this,” Dazai murmurs softly enough only Chuuya can hear. Then, louder: “Everyone, calm down please. It’s not a pleasant tale, but if you need to hear it, I suppose that’s fine.” When the teens stare at him expectantly, Dazai sighs. “Look, first thing you should know is that we’re from Yokohama.” A few jaws drop and some kids twist to whisper to each other, no doubt shocked that they are talking to two people from the reclusive city.

“Have you met ability users?” Midoriya blurts, his eyes wide.

“Yes,” Dazai admits. “That does have some relation to my story.” Shooting a look at the kids to make sure they aren’t going to interrupt, Dazai continues. “Chibi and I were minding our own business one day when this guy comes up to us, claiming to be Osamu’s brother.”

Chuuya’s fists clench. Seriously? This is the story he wants to go with? Great.

“We talk for a few minutes, then realize the guy is insane: he wants to convince Osamu to go on a murder spree with him, and the way he tries to do that is by killing Osamu’s friends so that he won’t have a reason to stay in Yokohama any longer.”

“Fucking asshole.” Chuuya adds on, scowling as he pictures Verlaine’s stupid, smirking face.

“So, we tried to revenge murder this guy, but got our butts kicked when it turned out he had a gravity manipulation ability.”

There are gasps, then Uraraka’s hand flies into the air. “Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt, but how was his ability different from my quirk? I mean, I know abilities are stronger, but what could he do?”

“Anything,” Dazai replies in a grave tone. “He could bend gravity to his will however he so pleased. He was practically unstoppable. Thankfully, Osamu’s quirk kicked in at just the right time and we were able to get out of that fight alive. We later heard on the news that the gravity man attracted the attention of some larger criminals in the area, and they killed him for us.” Dazai shrugs, signaling the end of the story. “It sucked though.”

Chuuya barks a laugh. “That’s an understatement.” Knowing that Dazai picked Verlaine for this reason, Chuuya continues. “That fucker is how I got my scars. Barely made it out of there alive.” There. Their curiosities have been quelled, so no one will pry any further. Clever Mackerel.

“Um,” Iida raises his hand, “I went after the Hero Killer Stain after he paralyzed my brother, and I took permanent nerve damage to my hand. I would have died if Todoroki and Midoriya hadn’t come for me.” The class does not seem shocked by that story, so Iida must have told it for Chuuya and Dazai’s benefit.

There’s a pause of silence where no one is quite sure what to say, so Dazai clears his throat. “So, I just say a thing I haven’t done, right?” When he gets a nod from Mina, encouraging the continuation of the game to move past the awkward moment, Dazai continues. “Never have I ever gotten blackout drunk and danced on the bar wearing a mini skirt and a bikini top.”

It takes Chuuya a second to gape, but then: “You fucking bastard! You swore that you wouldn’t tell!” He takes a swipe, but the slippery fish dodges.

“Aha, sorry Slug. You were so cute that I had to share eventually. Hey, I think I have pictures—!”

Chuuya screeches and tackles Dazai to the floor when the nuisance makes to get up.

“Don’t you fucking dare!”

Dazai wheezes, pawing at Chuuya, so he shifts his weight so he doesn’t crush his partner, but also doesn’t get up. His street cred will be forever ruined if those pictures that he didn’t know Dazai had got out.

“Anyway,” Chuuya speaks loudly, ignoring everyone trying to pester him into admitting that said event actually happened and Iida loudly going on about underage drinking, “never have I ever, um, gone to school before today?” He could probably come up with something better, but also just wants the attention off Dazai’s reveal as soon as possible.

“What?!” The class shrieks as they all lower a finger.

“Grew up in Yokohama,” Chuuya supplies as his excuse. Thankfully, they accept it; Yokohama isn’t known for being a great place education-wise.

The game continues for far too long in Chuuya’s opinion, and he still believes that it would be a lot more fun if they were drunk, but when it does come to an end, with, somehow, Dazai as the victor (Chuuya isn’t sure how he cheated, but he must have), it is just about nine.

“Alright, come on.” Chuuya stands from the floor and patters his way to the kitchen.

“Ooh, can I help today?” Dazai is right at his heels, hopping from foot to foot with too much energy. All that sitting around ‘bonding’ isn’t productive to tiring out a Dazai, so he probably won’t sleep tonight.

“Fuck no. You can pass me ingredients like normal and that’s it.” That’s the max level of Dazai’s culinary skills — and that’s only when the bastard doesn’t try to poison them.

“Okay!”

“Wait, are you coming back?” Mina calls after them.

“Sure,” Chuuya agrees. It’s already nine; surely school kids don’t stay up that late. They can waste another hour then head up to their rooms and get a break.

“Oh good! Okay, let Bakugou— wait, he went to bed. Let Midoriya know if you can’t find something in the kitchen, he knows where all the appliances are.”

Nodding, Chuuya sets to digging around the cupboards, seeing what’s available, and hums approvingly as he finds a kettle. He doesn’t want to give Dazai any type of caffeine now, but tea will be good for the mornings.

It doesn’t take him long to figure out what is available and to start throwing ingredients together. Dazai sits on the counter, swings his legs, and happily hands stuff to him one at a time.

Neither he nor Dazai talk. There isn’t much they can say right now that the teens in the other room couldn’t hear, proof being that they can hear every word the kids are exchanging right now. Chuuya leaves the eavesdropping to Dazai and focuses on their food.

Once it’s ready, Chuuya divides it into two portions and slides the one with slightly more food Dazai’s way. He gets a glare for that, but Dazai takes the bowl anyway.

Not bothering to go sit at the table, the two of them eat as they are, Dazai sitting on the counter and Chuuya leaning his hip against it. Chuuya eats quickly and gets to work cleaning the dishes they used while Dazai finishes his meal at a slower pace.

When done, they return to join the other teens in the common room.

“Okay, sit!” Mina exclaims, gesturing at a love seat that happens to be void. Chuuya is almost certain someone was sitting there earlier.

Raising an eyebrow, Chuuya sits on the chair.

Being an annoyance, Dazai plops himself down on Chuuya’s lap; Chuuya shoves Dazai off into the empty space at his side.

“Very important question,” Jirou declares. “No leaving till you answer.”

“Is this an interrogation?” Chuuya asks. “If so, it’s not a very good one.”

“No, silly!” The invisible girl — cause yeah, an entire student is just fucking invisible all the time — giggles. “You’ve got to tell us all about how you two met and got together! Some of us are dating too, so we’ll share our stories after, but we’re all dying to know!”

“Ew,” Chuuya grumbles, slouching down on the comfy seat.

“Ah, it was so romantic!” Dazai says at the same time, clutching his hands over his heart and batting his eyelashes dramatically. “Chibi kicked me in the face!”

They get eighteen blank stares.

“Um, why is that so amazing?” Denki asks.

“It was spectacular!” Dazai reminisces. “He kicked me in the face, then saw my stunning good looks and feel to my feet, apologizing and swearing to serve as my dog—”

“Shut the fuck up, that never happened,” Chuuya snaps. “I kicked you and you wouldn’t leave me alone afterwards.”

“I stuck around through thick and thin!” Dazai cries. “Even when all his other friends left—”

“Because you manipulated them into betraying and stabbing me with rat poison, bastard.”

“—I stayed by his side! So, naturally, Chibi fell for me and confessed his love—”

“In your fucking dreams.”

“—and now we’re partners till the end of our days!” Dazai beams as if every word he just spouted wasn’t complete bullshit.

The teens look between them, Dazai grinning brightly and Chuuya scowling at the floor, and are about as confused as they should be.

“So, are you together or not?” Tsuyu croaks.

Knowing they want Chuuya to answer, Dazai starts poking him in the thigh, over and over.

Once it gets annoying, Chuuya groans and smacks Dazai’s hand aside.

“Unfortunately. Don’t think about it too hard.”

“Aw! Chibi does care!” Just to be obnoxious, Dazai leans in and presses a loud, wet kiss to Chuuya’s cheek. Scowl growing, Chuuya dabs — not wipes, because wiping would take his makeup off — his cheek with the back of his hand to get rid of the mackerel germs.

“Fuck off.” Turning his attention to the teens, Chuuya jerks his head. “You talk.”

The kids are glad to do so, each of the many couples in the class (most are queer relationships, which really makes Chuuya wonder how that homophobic jerk he decked hadn’t been punched before today) are glad to go into all the boring details of how they got together.

When a glance at his phone tells him it is past eleven thirty, Chuuya sighs.

“Alright, when do you go to bed?”

The kids are still hanging around the common room, though now there is a movie playing in the background and a few people have left.

“Doesn’t matter!” Mina, who is sitting on the floor near the loveseat neither Dazai nor Chuuya have bothered to move from, cheers. “It’s Friday!”

She gets two blank stares from the teens that are not educated on the importance of Friday to the life of a student.

“Friday…?” She continues uncertainly. “Cause we don’t have classes tomorrow or Sunday, since it’s the weekend, so we can stay up late?”

“That’s why it’s called weekend?” Dazai mumbles. “Huh. Weird.”

“Yeah,” Chuuya agrees. Then a thought strikes. “Wait a damn minute. If there aren’t classes tomorrow, what the fuck are we supposed to do? And why would they let us transfer in at the end of the week, isn’t that weird?”

“I mean, yeah,” Mina shrugs. “But transfer students are an oddity for UA in general, so— Oh! I don’t think anyone asked earlier, but why did you guys transfer to UA?”

Since he did not listen to the briefing, Chuuya tips his head Dazai’s way and waits for the explanation.

Only to find Dazai looking at him equally as expectantly.

They stare at each other blankly.

“You didn’t listen to the briefing?!” Chuuya snarls, swapping to French so that their current classmates cannot listen in.

“I thought you did!”

“I never listen to Mori’s briefings! They’re boring and long!” Chuuya groans, dragging a hand down his face.

“I normally do, but I figured you did too, so I was kind of a little high on some mushrooms and don’t remember a thing Mori said,” Dazai admits, averting his gaze.

“Oh. Well, fuck. Alright then. Are we—”

“We’re not calling Mori,” Dazai shuts the thought down immediately. “I refuse. He would never let me live it down.”

“Okay, that’s fine. Well, we know that we’re babysitting, yeah? So we just stick to the kids and keep them alive until we get new orders,” Chuuya suggests. That’s what the header in the email Mori sent out boiled down to, so they won’t be doing anything that’s necessarily wrong, they just might not get to all the tiny side projects Mori undoubtably wanted done while they were here too.

“That will work for now,” Dazai nods his agreement. “I’ll change the plan as we get more information—”

“Oh! You speak French too?”

Chuuya and Dazai both jolt as the blond kid neither of them bothered paying attention to smiles warmly and sits on the arm of their chair.

“Um,” Chuuya swaps back to Japanese with a cough, “just a little. It’s for, uh, a play.” Dazai, despite the twitch in his jaw that says he thinks this is a stupid cover, nods along.

“Oh.” The kid’s shoulders slump. “Well, if you ever want to practice your lines, let me know!” Blondie hops off the arm of the chair and strolls away, leaving Chuuya and Dazai to exchange befuddled looks.

“How did that work?” Chuuya mouths, knowing Dazai can read his lips. His partner offers a shrug.

“Um,” Mina waves, “so, yeah, I didn’t catch a word of that. Why did you guys transfer to UA?”

Dazai leans forward, signaling that he’ll take this one. “Well, as you probably know, Yokohama doesn’t exactly have pro heroes running around. Considering the amount of crime that happens there on a day-to-day basis, the chibi and I thought it would be prudent to become heroes ourselves and see to making Yokohama a safer place!”

Chuuya nods along. Honestly, it’s not that bad a cover. Yokohama could use some good guys with decent heads on their shoulders managing things. As it stands, far too many kids fall into the underground far too early. Hell, Chuuya was literally in a street gang for kids. He knows well that they could use a few hands offering some light into the city.

However, that will never happen. Not with Mori ruling Yokohama with an iron thumb, not with Dazai at Mori’s side and Chuuya at Dazai’s. If any hero were stupid enough to try setting up shop in Yokohama, the Port Mafia would run them out of town in hours.

But, for the purpose of being a cover, that story works well.

“That’s a great idea!” Mina smiles at them warmly. “I’m sure you guys will be great heroes one day.”

Chuuya fights the urge to laugh.

“Thanks, Mina. You too,” he says instead, doing his best to convey sincerity.

Checking his phone and finding that it is nearly midnight, Chuuya rises from his seat. “I think we’re going to head to bed now. Goodnight, everyone.”

They receive multiple ‘goodnight’s as Chuuya drags Dazai by the wrist up to their dorm room. The moment the door is shut, Chuuya collapses against it and groans.

“Yeah,” Dazai agrees. He patters over to their bed and flops onto it like a starfish. “Oh,” Dazai mumbles into the sheets, “can you order energy bars?”

“Sure.” Chuuya is actually rather proud of Dazai for mentioning that. They both know he won’t eat anything from the cafeteria, and Chuuya was planning to buy some snacks for his partner regardless, but it’s nice to hear Dazai mention something that shows care about his own health.

Moving to sit at the edge of their bed, Chuuya pulls out his phone and starts shopping. Once he has a new online account set up and a driver that promises to pick up all his groceries and deliver them by noon the next day, he gets to work. Sneakers for both he and Dazai, multiple boxes of energy and protein bars for Dazai, a pair of black compression sleeves for himself, toiletries for them both, a bunch of extra rolls of bandages, and some more of his makeup in case the bit he brought along runs out. Oh, and a couple bottles of very necessary wine.

Reading aloud his list of purchases, Chuuya tips his head to peer down at Dazai’s starfish-ed form.

“Want anything else?”

“Mm, those crab chips you got were good.”

Chuuya snorts, but he still adds a few bags of the chips to his list. “Fine. Anything else I’m forgetting?”

“Probably,” Dazai mumbles into the sheets. “Chuuya often forgets things.”

In retaliation, Chuuya reaches over and lightly pinches the back of Dazai’s thigh. The mackerel squeaks, flinching, but it’s just for show; Chuuya knows he only hit bandages.

“Chuuya!” Dazai gasps as if scandalized and twists his neck to face Chuuya, his eyes twinkling with his own amusement. “We are in a building full of children! Hands to yourself, pervert.”

Scoffing, Chuuya rolls his eyes. “Oh please. Between the two of us, you’re the pervert.”

“Lies and slander,” Dazai denies immediately. “Chuuya is always the ones carrying me around, like a good doggy should, but he does seem to have quite the fascination with my thighs if the way he keeps holding them is any indication.”

“You’re insufferable,” Chuuya deadpans. “You know full well I need to hold your legs to keep you up; unless you want me dragging you along by the ankle next time?”

“No thank you,” Dazai replies quickly.

“Good. Now, scootch over so I can lie down too.”

“Mm? Is the chibi tired?”

“Not really, but I figure I might as well lie down and pretend to sleep.” Maybe, with the help of being in contact with Dazai, Arahabaki will be quiet enough that Chuuya can sleep through the night. He doesn’t ever feel tired thanks to the god supplying him with energy, but it does help his mental state to rest at night when he can.

With minimal complaint, Dazai shuffles onto the right side of the bed, the side closer to the wall, leaving the more vulnerable side to Chuuya. It works well considering that if an assassin were to somehow sneak up on them both, it’s really damn hard to kill him, so Chuuya would have time to get stabbed, wake up, and murder their assailant right back.

That safeguard in place, they can both sleep without too much worry.

About to finalize his online order, Chuuya pauses. “Pajamas.” He nods to himself. “We’re both getting pajamas.”

“Eh? But why?” Dazai has sat up and is taking off his layers, continuing until he’s left in his boxer shorts and bandages, his normal sleepwear.

Personally, Chuuya prefers to sleep in nothing at all, but switched to leaving his own underwear on after more than one subordinate walked in on him sleeping nude and was too embarrassed to look him in the eye afterwards.

“Because I’m pretty sure regular teens usually have pajamas, even if they’re just to wear around the house and not to sleep in.” Chuuya quickly finds a set of black silk pajamas for himself, then offers the device to Dazai so he can pick out his own clothes. Dazai passes the phone back after a moment, so, after checking to make sure Dazai didn’t pick something embarrassing on principal, Chuuya places his shopping order. So long as his delivery person doesn’t screw it up, they should be set for a few days.

Removing his own clothes and brushing his fingers through his hair, Chuuya climbs under the sheet and settles into bed. Next to him, Dazai tosses his discarded clothes onto the floor, then lies down too.

Predictably, clingy arms quickly seek Chuuya out, latching onto him and dragging him into Dazai’s space. Knowing better than to try to escape, Chuuya resigns himself to his fate and lets Dazai loop around him like an octopus.

A few minutes pass where they both try to even out their breathing and fall asleep, then Dazai breaks it with a whisper: “Chuuya, I’m not going to be able to fall asleep today.”

“Me neither,” Chuuya admits. There is too much energy in his veins. Compared to a normal day in the mafia, they hardly did anything today. Not to mention they are in a whole new space with many unknowns who could be potential threats.

“Stories?” Dazai whispers. It’s a game they play when neither plans to sleep: a nighttime sharing of memories just for the two of them. They take turns sharing a story the other hasn’t yet heard, so usually something for their childhoods, but sometimes recent solo missions sneak in too.

“Yeah, sure. I can start.” Chuuya clears his throat and tries to think up something fun that he hasn’t already shared. “Ah, I got one. So, when I was eleven, Yuan convinced me that it was customary to say ‘see you later alligator’ when leaving an enemy’s territory…”

Come morning, neither Chuuya nor Dazai slept a wink.

They stay in their room, Dazai sprawled over Chuuya while playing a math game on his phone and Chuuya playing with his partner’s fluffy hair, until noise coming from the hall alerts them that the kids are awake.

“Time to get up,” Chuuya murmurs, pressing a quick kiss to the side of Dazai’s head.

“I don’t want to,” Dazai admits quietly.

“Yeah,” Chuuya agrees. “But at least there’s no classes today? And our stuff should be arriving in a couple hours.”

“Hm. I feel like we shouldn’t day drink on day two of this mission, but it sounds awful tempting today,” Dazai grumbles. “I don’t want to spend a day surrounded by too-nice hero kids.”

“Yeah,” Chuuya agrees again, lightly running his palm up and down Dazai’s side. “But we are kind of stuck here until we complete whatever it is Mori wants. Hiding away in our room won’t do much good.”

Dazai grunts an agreement, beats the level he was playing on his phone, then tosses the device aside and twists to curl into Chuuya’s arms. Given it’s the morning and this is either day two or three of Dazai not sleeping — it’s hard to tell if his partner is actually asleep or faking it with how he can control his heartrate — Chuuya obliges the demand for snuggles.

A few minutes pass, then Dazai sighs.

“I think their teacher with the nullification might be a problem.”

Chuuya blinks. Considering how used to Dazai hopping from topic to topic he is, Chuuya quickly adjusts to the new information.

“Oh. Right, I forget about that.”

“Mine should cancel his out,” Dazai continues, “abilities are generally stronger. But I don’t want to rely on that in case it doesn’t work as I expect. Plus, if he ever uses it on either of us while we’re using our ‘quirks’ then we might run into further issues.”

“How so?” Chuuya asks. “I can’t do shit considering I’m not you and don’t actually have any nullification, so his quirk won’t— oh, I see. If he uses it on you and I don’t cut my ability, we’ll blow our cover.”

Dazai hums, confirming Chuuya’s thoughts.

“It will be in our best interest if I don’t use my ‘telekinesis’ very often,” Dazai murmurs. “Less risk of either of us making a mistake.”

“Yeah, that’s smart.”

“I know I am.”

Chuuya huffs, rolling his eyes. “Alright, if you’re awake enough to be making cocky jokes, you’re awake enough to go eat breakfast.”

“Nooo!” Dazai whines, burrowing into Chuuya’s chest. “Don’t make me, Chibi! Leave me here, away from the hero brats, and let me play games all day.”

“I’ll make you tea.”

Dazai pauses.

“And some biscuits.”

“…I want a scone.”

“Fine,” Chuuya agrees, sitting up and pulling Dazai with him. “I’ll make you scones.”

“Okay!” Dazai agrees, a happy hum in his tone.

They dress quickly in their same clothes as yesterday — damn, Chuuya should have ordered them each an extra set of causal clothes — and head downstairs.

About half of the class is milling around the kitchen and table, either eating or making food. They are greeted with multiple ‘good morning’s that Chuuya returns. Dazai has taken to clinging to Chuuya’s sleeve, face shoved in Chuuya’s hair. It’s fine. Chuuya knows not to expect any help managing social activities of any kind today. He lets Dazai stay where he is, ignoring the amused looks this earns them from the other teenagers, while Chuuya sets to making Dazai’s tea.

“Table,” Chuuya orders once the kettle starts screeching at him. He takes it off the burner and pours it into a mug — he looked for teacups and couldn’t find them. They must be around somewhere since Yaoyorozu has one, but he doesn’t really care to look that hard.

With mild grumbling, Dazai does slink over to the table and sit down, hunching his back so his forehead can rest on the tabletop.

Chuuya sets the mug near Dazai’s elbow, a teabag he found in a cupboard perched inside to steep, and leaves his partner there to get started on the scones he promised.

Most of the kids are only in the kitchen for quick moments at a time, grabbing something pre-made or a bowl for cereal, further proving that they are banned from actually cooking, so no one gets in Chuuya’s way as he bakes, which is nice. Chuuya can zone out a little and try to forget that they are in hostile territory, pretend that they are back home in their apartment and Chuuya is making breakfast like normal.

It’s only when there’s a small gasp behind him that Chuuya realizes he’s been using his ability to pass himself the ingredients he collected on the counter.

Freezing, Chuuya snaps around and finds Midoriya gazing at him with wide eyes. The green-haired boy is wearing workout clothes and has a line of sweat covering his skin, but that doesn’t seem to bother him in the least.

“Oh wow!” Midoriya exclaims. “I didn’t realize Nakahara had this much control over his quirk! He’s not looking!”

Chuuya follows Midoriya’s gaze over to Dazai and finds that his partner is still face-down on the table.

“Um. Yeah,” Chuuya winces, regretting his slip-up. He didn’t even notice! It’s second nature to use his ability for menial things like cooking, especially since cooking quickly means that there is less chance for Dazai to throw poison in when he isn’t looking.

“Is he even awake?” A black-haired kid, Sero, if Chuuya is remembering correctly, reaches out to poke Dazai.

“Don’t touch him,” Chuuya snaps darkly. The kid flinches at Chuuya’s tone and quickly yanks his hand back, eyes wide. Great.

“Sorry,” Chuuya sighs, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “He’s, uh, not awake nor asleep right now. He’s floating in the middle of unconsciousness, which is why he’s able to connect to his quirk better.” Yeah, that’s it. This bullshit totally makes sense. “If you startle him awake, he’ll panic.”

“Oh, my bad, dude.” Sero raises his hands in apology and sits back in his own seat, leaving Dazai alone.

Chuuya’s shoulders relax. He goes back to making the scones, this time being careful not to use his ability, and fields Midoriya’s questions as best he can until the boy leaves to go shower.

Once the scones are prepared, shaped into perfect triangles, and cooked until golden brown, Chuuya carefully chooses the biggest one and sets it on a plate, carrying it over to the table. Dazai doesn’t look like he has moved, but the tea bag is out of the mug and some of the tea has disappeared.

“Here,” Chuuya mutters, nudging Dazai’s shoulder as he sets the plate on the table. “Eat your scone.”

Dazai mumbles what sounds like nonsense, but Chuuya knows it means thank you. He grunts in return and heads back to clean up after himself.

He finds plastic wrap and wraps up two of the scones for Dazai to eat later, then carries the tray with the rest of them out to the table. Curious, hungry teenage eyes follow his movement.

“Have at it,” Chuuya nods towards the tray once he sets it down. He blinks and the scones disappear into hungry hands, so Chuuya picks the tray up again and brings it back to the kitchen to wash with the rest of the dishes.

His pride glows upon hearing the teenagers gush over how good the pastries taste.

Chuuya’s mood is ruined when Midoriya walks into the kitchen again.

“Hey, Osamu, did you eat this morning?” The boy fiddles with scarred fingers. “I noticed you made food for Nakahara and shared the leftovers, but did you eat too?” Wide green eyes stare at him with worry.

Chuuya bites his tongue, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. This is getting old.

“Look, you don’t need to worry about me eating, okay Midoriya?” Chuuya sighs. “Nakahara’s father is a doctor, so I am on a diet plan. It’s just different from everyone else’s.”

“O-oh. Well, as long as you’re keeping healthy,” Midoriya trails off, glancing away. “Um.” The kid’s cheeks flush red. Chuuya braces himself. “I was about to get started on some homework… Did— er, would you like to go over some of the questions with me?”

Chuuya’s first instinct is to scream and break something. His second is to launch Midoriya across the room for the insult.

His third, calmer, response is the rational one that recalls they are at a school and Chuuya failed horribly in most of the school subjects yesterday. Midoriya is just trying to be nice, no matter how it grates on Chuuya’s nerves.

“No thank you,” Chuuya grits out.

“Oh. If you’re sure… I’ll be in my room if you change your mind. Todoroki may be there too, he gets stuck on English sometimes. Strange how that goes, really, he knows some words one day and will forget them the next…” Midoriya hesitates a moment longer, then gives a small wave and dashes off.

Chuuya rolls his eyes and goes back to washing his dishes, scrubbing them more harshly than before.

The morning does not get better: every time the teens try to engage him in conversation, Chuuya is filled with the urge to level this entire place and just go home — this is the problem with mission that don’t involve enough action. He’s antsy. The adrenaline that always comes when on missions is flooding his veins, but he doesn’t need it. They’re just sitting around, babysitting a bunch of hero brats.

Dazai doesn’t seem to be faring any better. He ate his scone and finished his tea but is still face down on the table. Lucky bastard doesn’t have anyone bothering him since they all think he’s doing some kind of meditation quirk training thanks to Chuuya’s bogus explanation earlier.

Right around eleven, Chuuya snaps.

“Hey man, can you pass me those scissors?” Kirishima smiles politely, pointing to the blue scissors on the side table near the spot Chuuya has chosen on the sofa. He’s been reading a textbook someone left behind, Chuuya suspects Midoriya, and it is really fucking boring. All hero laws and shit.

Chuuya’s eye twitches.

He closes his eyes and tries to take a deep breath, but it sounds like an excellent idea to grab those scissors and throw them as hard as he can at the kid’s eye, drawing the blood he’s craving to the surface—

Oh. Fuck.

“Da— Nakahara,” Chuuya chokes, knocking the textbook to the floor and pulling his knees to his chest. His fingers curl in his hair and pull tight enough that it brings tears to the corners of his eyes, grounding himself with the dull pain.

Recognizing the situation, Dazai quickly slinks over. The moment Dazai’s bare hands grab Chuuya’s wrist, the overwhelming urge for violence is shoved aside. Thin arms shift him, Dazai grunting a little at Chuuya’s weight, but soon they settle with Chuuya curled in Dazai’s lap, Dazai’s arms wrapping around him. One hand is still curled around Chuuya’s wrist, the other is on the back of his neck, driving Arahabaki away.

“Um. Is Osamu okay?” Kirishima asks.

“It’s his quirk,” Dazai murmurs softly, the strain of social interaction clear in those few words. Chuuya will have to apologize for making Dazai interact once this murderous mood passes. “It hurts him when it acts up.”

“Oh. That really sucks, man. Is there anything we can do to help?”

“No.” Dazai’s tone is firm, denying assistance and telling the hero kids to leave the two of them alone, which they thankfully do.

Fifteen minutes later, after doing all the deep-breathing exercises Kouyou says will help but Chuuya doesn’t really find do anything, he no longer feels like murdering everyone.

“Thanks,” Chuuya whispers, tapping Dazai’s collarbone so his partner knows he’s back to normal.

“S’okay,” Dazai mumbles back. “Chu— Osamu is cute when he’s cuddly.”

“Fuck off,” Chuuya grumbles, wriggling in Dazai’s grip. His fiend of a partner grins and holds tighter, those nasty octopus arms not letting him go despite his struggling.

“Let me up!” Chuuya snaps, getting a hand free from where it was trapped between his shoulder and Dazai’s chest. He plants his palm on Dazai’s face and shoves, trying to pry the leech off.

Mischief curls in Dazai’s eyes, and the bastard licks Chuuya’s palm.

Chuuya gapes, but before he can do anything to retaliate, Yaoyorozu’s voice draws his attention.

“Um, Nakahara, Mr. Aizawa says there is a man at the front gate waiting for you?”

“Oh, fuck yeah.” Chuuya shoves at Dazai’s shoulders and this time he’s set free. He makes it two steps across the living room before remembering that he used his real name and therefore needs Dazai to sign for the package. Ugh.

“Come on, Mackerel.” Chuuya grabs Dazai’s wrist and tugs him to his feet, ignoring the pout on his partner’s lips. “It’s not that far, you could stand to walk around a little. We’ll call it a warmup.”

Understanding Chuuya’s intentions, Dazai groans. “But Chibi, I don’t want to spar today!”

“Too fucking bad. I do.” There is way too much energy flooding his twitchy muscles for him to not go workout for a good few hours.

Draping himself over Chuuya’s back, his partner wails and whines into his ear as they exit the dormitory and head over to the front gates. No one follows them to the gates, and though they get a suspicious look from their grumpy teacher, Chuuya pays for their packages with little hassle, thanking the delivery guy and leaving a suitable tip for the express service.

When they get back to the dorms, their new purchases safely stored away in their room, Chuuya is once again hit by the fact that they are living with twenty hero brats who see the world only in black and white.

The TV is on, the kids crowded around it, cheering as the hero on screen slams the supposed villain into the wall hard enough the bricks crumble. The villain collapses, their eyes rolling back in their head, and the hero raises their arms in some kind of pathetic victory pose. The kids cheer alongside the victorious hero, gushing to each other about the moves the hero used to take down the villain.

All Chuuya can pay attention to is the fact that the ‘villain’ on screen can’t be much older than him. He knows the look of desperation in that kid’s eyes too well: he saw it every day when he was with the Sheep.

His fingers clench into fists, the leather of his gloves creaking.

The person they’re labeling a villain is just a damn kid who got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. And they’re celebrating the hero, as if beating a kid up is something worthy of praise.

“Osamu,” Dazai gently takes hold of his elbow. “Come on, let’s go spar.” His tone is flat and leaves no room for questioning. It’s not a suggestion, it’s an order from an executive of the Port Mafia to his partner.

Falling into the familiar routine of trusting Dazai’s orders, Chuuya lets his brain go numb and trails along as Dazai tugs him outside.

If Dazai spars with him for six minutes rather than five, neither of them mentions it.

Come night, Chuuya is thoroughly done with this day. Everything about it sucked.

So, naturally, when he and Dazai retreat to their room (around nine-thirty, so earlier than last night by a landslide), Chuuya digs out one of the bottles of wine he bought and raises it with a questioning eyebrow.

“I usually don’t like wine, but for once the chibi has an excellent idea.” Dazai grins, flopping onto their bed and wriggling around till he’s sitting up against the headboard comfortably.

“I have great ideas,” Chuuya grumbles back, popping out the cork and taking the first swig of wine. It hits his tongue with a tang and sends a pleasant tingle down his throat.

Climbing into bed next to Dazai, Chuuya passes the bottle over to his partner. Dazai sniffs it, rolls his eyes, and takes a small sip anyway. His nose crinkles at the taste.

“Next time you should get us some good whisky,” Dazai sighs, passing the bottle back. “At least that tastes decent.”

“Oh please,” Chuuya rolls his eyes. “Wine tastes a thousand times better than that shit you like.”

“Mine’s cheaper.”

“Exactly!” Chuuya takes another long sip of his precious nectar, humming contently as a nice buzz starts to hit. “That bottom shelf shit is horrible!”

“Sure, Chuuya. Whatever you say, dear.”

Normally, Chuuya would scowl at Dazai for the term of endearment and probably smack him.

However, when hugging a good bottle of wine to his chest, his cheeks already flushed from the drink, Chuuya can only find it in himself to blush further and look away.

“Shut up,” he mumbles, shooting Dazai an annoyed look when his partner snickers.

“Mhm. Drunk Chibi is so cute!” Dazai flings his arms around Chuuya, smushing his cheek into Chuuya’s matted (jeez, he should probably shower soon… if only there weren’t communal bathrooms) hair.

“Fuck off,” Chuuya scowls, bringing the bottle to his lips yet again.

“Chuuya shouldn’t drink too much,” Dazai mumbles into his hair. “He gets drunk easy.”

“Fuck you,” Chuuya retorts immediately. “No, I don’t.” To prove it, he takes another long gulp of his wine.

Dazai sighs.

Chuuya doesn’t remember much of Sunday.

Come Monday, Chuuya wakes up to the beeping of an alarm with a horrible headache and, given the empty bottles on the floor, the realization that he’s out of wine again.

“Dammit,” Chuuya groans. His head pulses, reminding him why drinking so much is a bad idea. Even with sped-up healing thanks to Arahabaki, bad hangovers are a bitch.

“Ohho? Is the drooling chibi slug awake?” Dazai croons, a note of glee in his words that never bodes well for Chuuya.

“What’d you do?” Chuuya sits up, his stomach lurching, to glare at his partner.

“Well,” Dazai drawls, spinning in the desk chair he’s clearly been in for a while given the number of documents spread around the desk, “it’s more a question of what didn’t you do, dear Chuuya.”

“Fuck.” Chuuya flops back to bed. “Just rip off the band aid. Tell me.”

Dazai cackles. “Ah, it was delightful! See, Chibi stopped drinking late Saturday night and we slept, then morning came around and there was nothing I could do to stop the alcoholic slug! Poof went the wine and Chuuya started talking to walls and doors, tried to fight his own reflection, almost drowned me when I made him take a shower — not that I minded much — and made seven of the teenagers cry.”

“Fuck, really? Who? I should apologize—”

“Eh, I’m just kidding.”

A vein in Chuuya’s forehead twitches. “Dazai.”

“Sorry,” Dazai shrugs, not sounding sorry at all. “I had to have a little fun. I told the teenagers you were sick and, save for shower time, kept you in here all day, so no one but me got to witness silly drunk Chuuya talking to inanimate objects.”

“Thank fuck,” Chuuya groans, pressing against his temples with his palms as if that will drive his remaining headache away.

“I did take a few videos.”

Chuuya sits up slowly, glowering at his smirking bastard of a partner. “You didn’t.”

“I did!” Dazai crows. “Only two. But don’t worry, Chibi, these are for my eyes only. Drunk Chuuya is cuddly, rather adorable, and says the cutest things.”

Averting his gaze, Chuuya fights back a blush. “Fuck off, asshole! I’m not adorable or cute.”

“Mhm,” Dazai hums disbelievingly. “Well, we both know I’ll win this argument, so how about Chuuya gets ready for school? We have uniforms today, aren’t you excited?” It’s only then that Chuuya realizes Dazai is wearing the ugly grey thing, tie knotted perfectly at his throat, and is wearing the new black sneakers Chuuya got him.

Chuuya flops to bed yet again and groans. He forgot about those hideous uniforms.

After the challenging task of forcing Dazai to eat an energy bar, and the even more challenging task of convincing himself to wear the damned school uniform, Chuuya and Dazai arrive to class thirty-five minutes late. Not bad for their second day of school.

“Nakahara. Dazai. You’re late.” Aizawa states in a flat tone, his eyes still on the whiteboard he’s writing on as they shuffle into class and take their seats.

“Osamu slept in!” Dazai replies cheerfully. “He was sick yesterday, you know.”

“Are you feeling better?” Mina asks.

“I have throat lozenges if you want,” Yaoyorozu chimes in.

“I’m fine, thanks,” Chuuya answers as politely as he can. His headache has mostly abated by now.

“Well,” the teacher continues, “you’re just in time. We’re talking about the gaps in hero law, and Yokohama happens to play a large part in that. Considering the two of you are natives, perhaps you’ll have some thoughts to share with the class.”

“Fuck this,” Chuuya grumbles, “I should’ve stayed in bed.”

Dazai laughs at him, but Chuuya knows his partner well enough to be able to see the tension bordering the other’s expression: Dazai doesn’t want to listen to some hero talk about their city, as if they have any idea of what it’s really like, either.

Aizawa picks up his lecture:

“As I’m sure you all know, Yokohama is a major security gap regarding heroics. The Hero Public Safety Commission has offered grants and tried to set up agencies in Yokohama multiple times, yet each effort has failed. Can anyone tell me why?”

A few hands shoot up in the air. Aizawa gives Yaoyorozu a nod, prompting her to speak.

“Well, it is only logical to conclude that what sets Yokohama apart from the rest of Japan are their ability users. I did a project on them a couple years ago and the statistics of an ability user’s ability compared to a regular person’s quirk were fascinating. Everyone knows that quirks are genetic and therefore are influenced by our ancestor’s quirks, but abilities are not passed down in the same manner. Scientists are not sure how they manifest, despite having run tests to try to manufacture abilities themselves.”

Chuuya flinches.

“Thank you, Yaoyorozu.” Aizawa continues, “Yes, Yokohama holds the largest concentration of ability users in Japan, as well as the largest crime rate. Because of this, all efforts by quirked heroes to set up in Yokohama have been a waste of time: the ability users drive them out of the city. While not all ability users are criminals, enough are that they do not want law-abiding heroes in their city.”

“But why not?” Sero asks. “Wouldn’t it be safer to have heroes around?”

Chuuya scoffs.

Their teacher catches the noise and looks directly at him. “Something to add, Dazai?”

It takes Chuuya a second to remember to reply. “Yeah, sure. Why not.”

“Osamu,” Dazai mutters in warning. Chuuya jerks his chin, signaling he heard and isn’t planning to do anything stupid.

“I can’t speak for all Yokohama citizens, but I certainly wouldn’t want to let a bunch of costumed idiots run around beating the shit out of kids.” The class gapes at him, so Chuuya rolls his eyes and explains. “On the TV the other day. That hero was knocking a kid around for stealing or something, right? Well, we,” he gestures to Dazai, “grew up on the streets. We’ve both done our fair share of minor crimes just to get by. Throw a popularity-hungry hero into the mix and half the struggling kids in Yokohama are beat black and blue and throw in prison.”

“Would you like to elaborate on those crimes?” Aizawa asks flatly, a hand grabbing that scarf that hangs around his neck.

Chuuya sneers back. “In your fucking dreams.” Like hell he’s admitting to murder or whatever else and giving this hero incentive to arrest him. Given he didn’t listen when Mori explained everything, Chuuya has no idea what agreements are in place for he and Dazai’s current immunity from the law.

Teacher and fake student glare at each other until one of the real students pipes in.

“Um, Mr. Aizawa, if ability users are stronger than those with quirks, and most are criminal, then why haven’t the criminals of Yokohama expanded? We studied the criminal patterns a couple weeks ago and one of the things you mentioned was that villains tend to expand the domain in which they have control over to be as large as possible.” Midoriya’s words are rushed and jumbled, but just slow enough they are audible.

“A good question,” Aizawa says. “That would be thanks to the combined efforts of the HPSC and the Yokohama government, specifically the branch known as the Special Abilities Department. They grant Yokohama ability users special permits to be able to use their abilities, similar to your provisional licenses, but those are only active in Yokohama. As such, most ability users are content to stay where they are.”

Chuuya and Dazai exchange a look. This is the first either of them have heard of an ability permit. Though that may have something to do with the fact that they’re in the mafia. Criminals don’t need permission to use assets others would deem dangerous.

“Mr. Aizawa,” stuck-up Iida raises his hand as he speaks, “may we return to the point Yaoyorozu brought up about government scientists trying to manufacture abilities?”

Chuuya’s fingers curl up tight, his nails digging into the palm of his hands despite the gloves in the way.

“It’s simply that, while I understand why scientists would be interested in examining abilities closer, I do not understand how they would conduct such experiments. Abilities, like quirks, are typically attached to a human host… unless there are animals with abilities? Like how Principal Nezu is a quirked animal?”

“There are no animals with abilities that we know of,” Aizawa confirms.

“Then,” Iida continues, “we have to assume that studies were conducted on ability users themselves. Even if they consented, the morality of such practices must be considered—”

The entire classroom — desks, walls, floor, ceiling, people — gives a huge shake before being abruptly cut off.

The kids yelp, looking around at each other in confusion.

“Was that an earthquake?” Denki asks, confused.

No one offers an answer.

Aizawa narrows his eyes at the two transfers sitting in the back.

Dazai’s hand is clamped tight around Chuuya’s bare wrist, preventing any further accidental ability use.

Chuuya, hunched over his desk and breathing heavily, ignores the curious students and the burning gaze from the teacher. His gut is twisting violently, bile climbing up his throat only for him to swallow it back down. Flashes of pain, of needles jabbing him full of random substances, of heavy liquid pressing in around him, keeping him trapped in a too-small cage, of a scientist’s dead voice calling him by a number and expecting him to comply—

He clamps a hand over his mouth, willing himself not to throw up.

He is not successful.

Chuuya scrambles out of his chair, clipping his hip on the desk in his haste, and rushes to the nearest garbage bin. He drops to his knees, ignoring the way the bones clank against the unforgiving flooring of the classroom, and vomits into the bin. He hasn’t eaten lately — probably was too drunk to eat yesterday at all — so only bile, warm and acidic and disgusting, comes up.

“Sorry,” he rasps once the last shudder has shaken his body. “I, uh, I guess I’m still sick. I’m going back to dorms.”

He scurries out of the classroom without looking back.

–––––

Dazai is… irritated.

On paper, this is not the worst mission Mori has assigned to him and Chuuya.

However, in practicality, things are different.

They are on day four of who-knows-how-many and it’s already a pain to continue this façade. Dazai can see the way all the lying wears on Chuuya. His chibi isn’t meant for such things. Chuuya is honest to a fault, harshly so most of the time, so lying and playing the role of a school kid is not easy for him. It’s not easy for Dazai either, but he has more experience putting on an act — though it does help that Chuuya distracts the kids and doesn’t force him to interact with the brats too much. Being social is exhausting at any time, let alone with hero kids.

However, Chuuya just bailed from the class, so Dazai doesn’t have that buffer today.

While Dazai would love to slink off and check in on his partner — make sure Chuuya isn’t bringing any buildings down — it would be awfully suspicious of him to only go where Chuuya does. Or, if not suspicious, then an obvious weakness.

So, Dazai bites his tongue, looks out the window and contemplates if it would be worth it (it’s not high enough, he’d either break bones then suffer through healing up or have some idiot hero catch him before he hits the ground and that might be worse), then turns his attention to the front of the class. He can pretend to listen. He’s good at that.

He spends his morning worrying about Chuuya, ignoring the lectures happening at the front of the class, and thinking. Well, brainstorming might be a more accurate term. Considering neither he nor Chuuya listened to Mori’s debriefing, they’re left to guess what their mission is supposed to be. While it probably is something as simple as an exchange between Mori and the HPSC bartering for undercover agents to act as protection for their precious UA students, there is no good reason for Mori to assign them. Dazai is an executive and Chuuya will surely be one soon too. They’re Soukoku, the strongest team in the entire Port Mafia. Mori wouldn’t assign them on a mission like this, where they are away from the mafia for an undetermined amount of time, without a very good reason. They have lots of other operatives that are close enough in age to do this. So, why pick them?

There is either something here that is going to be a big enough threat that having them in place is necessary, or there is a payoff at the end that is worth displacing two of the mafia’s biggest assets. Or both. Knowing Mori, it’s probably both.

Dazai purses his lips. He doesn’t like not knowing things… maybe he ought not to try new, interesting mushrooms before debriefings.

However, if it’s only information he’s lacking, he is in the perfect place to acquire it.

The lunch bell rings, signaling an end to morning classes. Dazai stands from his desk and patters up to Bakugou’s, smiling sweetly at the scowling boy.

“Kacchan, my good friend!”

“The hell do you want, fucker?” Red eyes glower at him as the blond’s lips curl into a sneer. How predictable.

“Well, my chibi abandoned me, so I want someone to eat lunch with! I can join you, can’t I?” He rocks back and forth on his heels, hands clasped together in front of him.

“Hah?! Who the hell said you could do that?!”

“Nakahara—” Ah, borrowing Chuuya’s last name really was the best idea he’s had in a long time “—you want to eat with us? Sure thing, man! We’d be glad to have you!” Kirishima smiles warmly, knocking his knuckles against Dazai’s shoulder.

“Oh,” Dazai fights back a smirk, “I wouldn’t want to impose… Kacchan said no.”

“Pfft!” Denki swoops in, hopping up to sit on Bakugou’s desk and swing his legs. “We don’t listen to Bakugou when it comes to social things. He’s dumb like that. Of course you’re welcome to have lunch with us!”

Mina and Sero join the small group, adding their own words of welcome. Bakugou’s scowl grows. Dazai’s smile turns sly. He skips out of the classroom in the middle of the pack, content with the outcome he predicted.

Only… he kind of forgot about the cafeteria.

Dazai halts abruptly as the crew turns to enter, making Sero bump into him.

“Sorry, dude! I didn’t— hey man, are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Dazai wills his hands to stop shaking. This is fine. It’s just a school cafeteria. A hero school, even. These are the last people that will suddenly try to murder him.

It doesn’t help that Chuuya isn’t here covering his blind side.

“Oi, Raccoon Eyes, Dunce Face, get us food. We’re sitting on the roof today.” Bakugou barks his orders then immediately switches direction.

Dazai follows wordlessly. He doesn’t want to thank the boy, nor does he think Bakugou would be overly accepting of thanks, but he is immensely content with this change.

When the group is all settled on the roof — Dazai keeps away from the edge so it won’t be tempting; one of the idiots sitting up here would probably try to catch him and it would inevitably make Chuuya worry — with a selection of food piled up in the middle of their circle, Dazai gets questioned.

“Hey, man,” Sero nudges his elbow, “do you want to talk about it?”

Dazai pauses, thinking it over. He is planning to ask them a bunch of question that are probably considered ‘personal,’ so offering up something in exchange is fair. Of course, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to tell the truth and thus reveal an actual weakness, but as long as they think he’s sharing something important then it doesn’t matter.

“Um, I guess.” Dazai fidgets with the bandages around his wrist and averts his eyes. “I know we haven’t known each other for long, but I trust you guys.” He glances up and offers a small smile that is returned by most of the group, Bakugou excluded.

Now, which lie to use? It has to be impactful enough that they’ll trust him with the information he wants, but not so much that it can be used to hurt him— Ah, yes. That’s it.

“I really don’t like large, open spaces,” Dazai admits in a quiet voice. “And it’s even worse when it’s a large, open space that’s full of people. I know I shouldn’t be worried, everyone here is a future hero, but I don’t know any of them, so they all feel like threats. Side effect of growing up in Yokohama, I guess.” He offers a nervous chuckle.

“It’s easier when Osamu is around,” Dazai continues, “I know he’s got my back if a fight breaks out and we’re suddenly in danger. I mean, you all saw how good he is at fighting.” And what a perfect segway into his questioning. “Though I guess you know what it’s like to trust your friends to protect you when in danger.”

The teens around him nod.

“Yeah,” Denki sighs. “That League of Villains, dude. They’re wild. No idea why they keep targeting our class… hopefully they don’t attack again. I’d feel awful if you and Osamu got caught up in it.”

“It wouldn’t be your fault if they did attack,” Dazai counters. “So please don’t worry about that. They’re villains: fighting and hurting others is what they do.”

Bakugou scoffs. “Oh please. Half those fuckers couldn’t fight their way out of a paper bag.”

Dazai raises a curious eyebrow. “Oh? What do you mean by that?”

“They’re all idiots.” Bakugou rolls his eyes. “The fuckers kidnapped me thinking they could convince me to turn villain. As if. All their arguments were fucking stupid and none of them had two braincells they could rub together. Hell, they let me out of the quirk-canceling handcuffs and were surprised I attacked!”

“Hmm, yes they do not sound very intelligent at all.”

“Exactly!” Bakugou snarls, leaning over to grab some food from the pile. “The heroes took out their leader, the ugly potato head guy, so I have no idea how they let the League get away! The rest of them have no planning skills whatsoever!”

“They’re still villains, Bakubro,” Kirishima chimes in. “It’s only natural that they’re retreating after their boss got taken out.”

“Whatever,” Bakugou grumbles, chomping into his food and turning his gaze away, indicating that he’s done talking.

That’s alright. Dazai has already gotten some good information: The League of Villains are incompetent. Given the ruckus they’ve caused this year, Dazai has heard of the group. He doesn’t know much since they’re all from outside of Yokohama so he didn’t bother wasting his time on a small-time gang that the heroes would eventually take care of.

However, if someone who was kidnapped by them was able to tell their lack of capability, then they cannot be very strong. Therefore, it isn’t the League of Villains that Mori wants Chuuya and he in place to take care of. There must be something else, something more going on. Either another villain, one that is actually dangerous, or, well, there’s always the possibility Mori is fucking with him and nothing else is going on. It is entirely plausible that Mori simply wants Dazai out of the mafia for a little while to pull pieces together unobstructed.

How annoying. This job truly is the worst.

“Hey, Nakahara, did you get anything to eat yet? Better grab something before Kirishima eats it all.”

“Hey! I don’t eat that much!”

“Dude. I tried to throw out the crust of my sandwich and you ate that.”

“Sandwich crusts are good!”

Dazai lets his gaze linger on the edge of the roof longingly before forcing a smile to his lips and jumping into the conversation.

“Chibi!” Dazai cheers, darting across the open living room area and leaping onto Chuuya.

“Fucking—! Get off! I’m trying to read!”

Pff, yeah right. If Chuuya didn’t want Dazai to jump on him, he shouldn’t have sat on a common room sofa.

Dazai just winds his arms tighter around Chuuya’s torso, humming happily as he smushes his cheek into his partner’s stomach.

Chuuya huffs and grouches, but his legs shift to accommodate Dazai’s limp form and a hand briefly pats his hair, so Dazai knows he’s allowed to stay put. Good. He requires Chibi snuggles after having to interact with the brats all day by himself. He could feel his IQ lowering the longer he sat around those high schoolers.

“Are you feeling better, Osamu?” Yaoyorozu patters over to ask. “I could make you some tea if you’d like.”

“Oh, no thanks. I’m feeling much better now.”

“Alright. Let me know if you change your mind.”

Dazai tips his head to watch Yaoyorozu leave, only to accidentally meet Jirou’s, the purple-haired girl, gaze. She is often near Yaoyorozu, but this is the first time Dazai has noted her. They stare at each other for a long moment, then Jirou rips her eyes away and follows her girlfriend to the kitchen, presumably for teatime.

His eyes narrow, following her retreating form. What was her quirk again—?

“What are you thinking?” Chuuya nudges his shoulder with a knuckle.

“I’m not sure yet,” Dazai replies. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”

“Okay.”

“But,” Dazai continues, “I’ll have you know that I sparred with Midoriya today, so I’ve already done my workout.”

“Really?”

Dazai pouts at the disbelieving tone, even if it is a lie. He sat on the grass and thought some more. But Chuuya doesn’t need to know that.

“Don’t you trust me, Baby?”

As expected, Chuuya immediately flushes red, forgets what they’re talking about, and shoves Dazai off the couch.

“Don’t fucking call me that!”

Dazai cackles. Works every time.

–––––

The days quickly draw together into an indistinguishable mesh of nothing. Boredom reigns supreme. During this time Chuuya comes to realize a few things:

One, he hates school. He’s failing every class other than math, doesn’t care to try that hard to learn the hero things that are being taught, and stupid fucking Dazai is absolutely no help. Someone gets to be a genius with a near photographic memory, but that doesn’t help at all when Dazai just sticks his tongue out and calls Chuuya something ridiculous and refuses to help him with their homework. Obviously Chuuya does not turn in much for homework. Why bother when the pages are three-quarters blank? He also does not go to the remedial lessons the teachers try to force him into. No way is he wasting more of his time on shit he doesn’t care about — none of it is useful in the real world! He doesn’t need art history to kick the crap out of the Port Mafia’s enemies.

Two, sparring for an afternoon every day is not nearly enough of a workout. He’s been aching to let loose and get a good fight in for days. Something where he can slam ability-powered fists into flesh and feel the bones crack under his knuckles. Something truly violent and free that will calm Arahabaki’s ever-growing rage. A real fight, a real challenge, none of this toning down of his own hand-to-hand skills since the UA brats will get hurt if he goes all out and Aizawa keeps glaring at him in warning.

Three, he is sick and tired of being around teenagers. One would think it wouldn’t be that different from when he spent his days living with the Sheep, but it is. These brats are hero kids. If he has to listen to one more fangirling spiel over All Might or Hawks or whoever the fuck else, he is going to… well, do nothing. Cause that would ruin their mission. But he won’t enjoy listening.

Add those all up, and the fact that Dazai hasn’t let him buy more wine since that first time (something about Chuuya not being trusted to drink responsibly while on the job, which is so ridiculous), Chuuya is antsy and aching for something interesting to happen.

Thankfully, an opportunity presents itself on a Friday evening exactly two weeks since they first came to this stupid school.

The kids are all back from their hero internship thing — Chuuya and Dazai get to stay on campus with Aizawa and the purple-haired kid that joined their class — and a select few got tugged upstairs by Midoriya immediately after they got home.

Dazai and Chuuya exchange a glance, then make a quick excuse and retreat to their room. Given that Chuuya isn’t the only one bored, Dazai has had more than enough free time to go around and plant audio bugs in all the most popular places, and in the kid’s rooms. Chuuya had originally protested this, but Dazai won the argument by doing it anyway the second Chuuya wasn’t looking.

“Turn it on,” Chuuya urges. He’s hovering behind Dazai as his partner clicks buttons and plays with dials from his command center — the desk in their room. Not the greatest set up, but they’re working with what they have.

“There we go,” Dazai murmurs as voices come through. They both go quiet and listen, equally eager for something interesting to happen.

“—so because of the pro hero you guys are with for work studies, you’ll be joining us on this mission. But we won’t be in charge of fighting the Shie Hassaikai, we’re there to rescue Eri, the little girl that they’re experimenting on—”

Dazai flicks a switch, cutting off Midoriya’s voice.

“Hey!” Chuuya snaps. “Turn it back on, bastard!”

“Eh, do I need to?” Dazai drawls, standing from the desk chair and wandering away.

“Yes! Yes, you do! Did you not hear him? They’re experimenting on—” Chuuya cuts himself off when he realizes Dazai is getting changed into the black combat gear that they are both very familiar with that Mori mailed over about a week after they arrived. There was a note attached that Chuuya did not get to read before Dazai burnt it.

“We’re going?” He needs to hear it said aloud.

“Obviously, Shrimp. I know you’re desperate to hit things, and I’m bored too. I’ve familiarized myself with the local gangs and this one is nothing special. Soukoku shouldn’t have any trouble with the Shie Hassaikai.”

“Oh. Good.” Chuuya sets the changing into his own combat gear. The full-black outfit is light but made of sturdy fabric. His has enough armor built in to slow down a knife if someone is lucky enough to get close, while—

“Ugh, Chuuya, it’s so heavy!” Dazai whines, poking at his chest where a bullet-proof plate resides.

—Chuuya may have had words with the designers about adding additional armor to Dazai’s outfit.

“Too bad. It keeps you alive, dumbass.”

“I know. How awful.”

Chuuya shoots his partner a withering glare. Dazai grins back, then tugs his mask up to cover his mouth and nose, and lowers his hood to hide his hair and obscure his eyes. Chuuya does the same and they’re ready to go.

It’s pathetically easy to sneak out of the window and dash across the campus, using the shadows of evening as cover. It’s not full night yet, so the heroes that patrol the ground have not begun their rounds.

Reaching the wall, all it takes is Chuuya grabbing Dazai and, thanks to the clothes keeping their skin apart, activating his ability to carry them over smoothly. The school’s alarms don’t go off, not registering For The Tainted Sorrow as a quirk it needs to defend against. Or the principal let them leave. Whichever. Chuuya doesn’t care.

They don’t talk as Dazai quickly leads them to the side streets and alleyways, keeping out of the places with a denser civilian population. Chuuya doesn’t need to ask where they’re going, he trusts that Dazai won’t get them lost.

Well, he knows Dazai would absolutely get them lost on purpose if he felt like it, but given the fact that they’re both bored to tears and want to do this mission, he knows Dazai won’t mess it up like that.

They arrive at a rather inconspicuous house.

Chuuya raises an eyebrow, and when he remembers that Dazai can’t see his face thanks to both his partner’s bad eyesight and the hood hiding Chuuya’s features, he grunts.

“Yes, this is the right place,” Dazai mutters back. “It wasn’t that well-hidden.”

“Roof?” Chuuya suggests.

“Nah, front door will be fine. These guys are not Yokohamans.”

It might be a strange sentiment, but Chuuya knows exactly what Dazai means: this mission won’t be as difficult as they are used to. Quirked villains who are used to dealing with flashy, pompous heroes don’t have a chance against black-blooded mafia.

“Alright. Don’t get shot.”

“Ohho? Is the chibi admitting he isn’t good enough to take down all the bad guys before one can shoot me?”

“Fuck off,” Chuuya snaps back. Behind his mask, his lips are curled into a fierce grin.

They don’t need a countdown or anything like that. Instead, Chuuya dashes forward, red outlining his frame, and kicks the door in hard enough it flies off the hinges and hits the far wall. There are grunts inside, but they go down easy. One little push of gravity and they won’t get up again.

Chuuya stares at the corpses and huffs. They barely looked up from their card game. Pathetic.

“This way, Red!” Dazai’s voice calls.

Snapping his neck around, Chuuya quickly locates his partner, who is skipping down the hall like an idiot.

“Hey! Are you asking to get shot, dipshit? Let me go first!”

“But you were taking too lo— ouch!”

Chuuya glowers at his idiot partner as he grabs Dazai by the collar and wrenches him back, behind him, who, between the two of them, is far more bulletproof.

“Where too?”

“See, if you let me lead, then—” Dazai cuts off when Chuuya flicks his nose. “Rude. But fine, take that next left. We’ll get the child first, then bring this place down around them.”

Chuuya nods his agreement and sets off at a brisk jog, knowing Dazai can keep up and tuning out the bastard’s complaints about having to do so.

They only come across low level grunts on their way to the kid, and Chuuya has no difficulty dispatching them within seconds. For The Tainted Sorrow sings in his veins, gleeful to be used after all this time of having to hold back and hide it. Arahabaki cackles too, delighted at the death, at the blood spilling into the hall thanks to the crushed corpses, but Chuuya shoves the god aside. Today is about kicking ass and saving a kid from being an experiment, not letting the destructive god out for a spin.

“Here.” Dazai halts and presses his bare palm to a panel that doesn’t look any different from the walls around them.

Just as Chuuya is about to point out that Dazai is touching a wall, the wall moves, letting them into a secret room. Inside the barren room is a tiny girl with long white hair sitting in a bed. She’s awake and clutching her knees to her chest, her red eyes wide and terrified. A small horn pokes out from her hair and bandages wrap around her thin limbs. She’s dressed in only a thin hospital gown, her bare feet filthy.

“Hey,” Chuuya says when it’s clear that Dazai isn’t going to speak first. His partner seems busy inspecting the room and eyeing the medical equipment lining the wall.

“Hi,” The little girl whispers. “You should go. He’ll get mad if he finds people in here.”

“Nah,” Chuuya shrugs. “I think I’d rather get you out of here.”

But the girl shakes her head. “You can’t. He’ll hurt you really bad, mister.”

“I’ll be okay,” Chuuya promises. “I’m really strong, and I’ve got my partner here too. We can get you out of here. So, will you come with us?”

The girl bites her lip and shrinks away when Chuuya offers a gloved hand, but her eyes flash with hope.

A new tactic then.

“You know, Black, I think she’s got you beat for the most fashionable bandages award.”

“What?! So rude… But alas, I guess I can’t be upset about losing to such a pretty lady!” Dazai sways over and plonks down on the edge of the girl’s bed. He yanks his sleeve up, showing off an arm wrapped tight in pristine bandages, and holds his near the girl’s as if comparing them.

The girl’s eyes go wider.

“Hm, ah, yes, I can see it: your bandages are a much better quality! I knew Red was skimping when I told him to buy the most expensive ones for me, what a cruel partner he is—”

“You’re like me,” the girl whispers. Her fingers stretch out and brush Dazai’s bandages, then she jerks her hand back. “Sorry, I shouldn’t touch. I’m cursed, I could hurt you more.”

“He’ll be fine,” Chuuya scoffs. “He’s like a damned cockroach.”

“Rude!” Dazai whines. “What my partner should be saying is that my quirk stops other quirks from working. Curses too. So, even if you touch me, you wouldn’t hurt me.”

“…Really?”

“Yep!” Dazai holds his arms out. “Mind if I carry you out of here? We only have a few minutes before those meanies keeping you in here show up, and I’d rather Red’s arms be free so he can do all the work of beating them up.”

Apparently telling her about Dazai’s ‘quirk’ did it, since the girl quickly leaps into his arms, clinging tight around his neck, as Dazai does his best to carry her on his hip.

Chuuya meets his partner’s eyes, silent agreement passing through them, then they set off in a sprint and head back the way they came: they don’t need to be in the building for Chuuya to bring it down.

They do not make it outside. Instead, they find a nice large crowd surrounding the exit, including the weirdos in beak masks that Chuuya assumes are the leaders of this gang.

His grin widens and he plants himself in front of Dazai and the girl, cracking his knuckles.

“You vermin!” Beak Guy One hisses. “You dare intrude and steal what is mine?”

Chuuya blinks, then follows Beak Guy’s gaze to the little girl that is shaking in Dazai’s arms.

His vision flickers red.

He sucks in a deep breath, trying to calm the calamity thrashing in his veins.

“She is not yours,” he growls back instead of unleashing Corruption. “She is a person and does not belong to you.”

“Kill them,” Beak Guy orders.

The grunts leap forward first, so Chuuya deals with them. A few of them have skill, have trained with their own quirks and know how to handle themselves, but what’s a puny shield or some fighting ability against gravity?

They all fall one after another.

Chuuya’s grin widens as his fists, encased in gleaming red, grow wet with blood. Those that fall at his feet do not get up.

Beak Guy clues in pretty quick that he’s losing and whips out a gun, firing it at Chuuya without hesitation. It’s almost tempting to let the bullet hit, then pick it out of his skull and laugh when the guy is shocked it didn’t work, but that’s too dramatic, even for him. Instead, Chuuya gets to bathe in the glorious look of shock on Beak Guy’s face when the bullet stops inches from Chuuya’s forehead, caught in the red glow of his ability.

It hardly takes a thought to send the bullet flying back the way it came. The bullet creates a nice, bloody home in Beak Guy’s forehead, then the guy slumps to the ground, lifeless.

The last few that are still standing grow panicked as their leader falls and try to run. Chuuya picks up a couple small rocks and uses his ability to ensure they don’t make it far.

“Well,” Chuuya sighs. “That was fucking boring. Let’s get out of here.” Dazai was right: these guys wouldn’t stand a chance against a Yokohaman grocery store robber.

Shoving his way through the corpses, kicking them aside to clear a path for Dazai, who would otherwise complain about ‘being too dainty to walk through corpses’ and ‘Chibi should princess carry me!’ or whatever. Again. The number of times Chuuya has heard that spiel is alarming.

Once they step outside, Dazai takes a couple quick steps away from Chuuya, distancing himself and the child from the building.

“Want to?”

“Obviously.” Chuuya hardly got a fight out of those losers, he’s got enough energy left to bring down their hideout.

Taking a deep breath, Chuuya closes his eyes and concentrates on the building before him. He focuses on imagining the structure, the supports hidden under the walls, under the floor, the shingles of the roof, the tiles of the floor, and lets his ability seep into all of them.

When he blinks his eyes open, the house is glowing bright red.

All it takes is one tug, and the whole building shudders. Another tug, harder this time, and everything collapses in on itself like it were a house made of cards, not steel and cement.

Exhaling, Chuuya turns to Dazai and gives a single nod.

“I think we’re done here,” Dazai says.

Well, that’s almost true:

“What about her?” Chuuya juts his chin to the girl still clinging to Dazai’s neck.

“Oh, isn’t that one obvious, Red?” Chuuya keeps his mouth shut and waits, because no, it is not obvious. “We’ll get our good friends at UA to take her! Girl,” Dazai pokes the girl’s shoulder, “my big brother works at UA. His quirk is like mine, he can stop someone else’s quirk, or curse, from working. Would you mind staying with him?”

The girl’s fingers wind tighter in Dazai’s collar, her knuckles going white. “You’re leaving?”

“We’d stay if we could,” Chuuya lies. “But we have other people to rescue, so it would be best if you stayed with Black’s brother.”

“Oh. You’re heroes? What’s your hero name?” The girl lets her grip loosen slightly. “Is he nice?” She peeks up at Dazai. “Your big brother?”

“We’re called Soukoku, and he’s very nice.” Dazai replies so confidently that for a moment Chuuya forgets that Dazai does not, in fact, have a brother. Nor are they heroes.

“Okay,” The girl nods. “I’ll go there, please.”

Dazai flicks his fingers twice, signaling for Chuuya to lead the way. Because he can, Chuuya sets off at a jog rather than a walking pace, forcing Dazai to keep up. He hears a few mumbled complaints in French — chosen from Dazai’s arsenal of languages specifically so Chuuya can understand him, of course — but Dazai does not let himself fall behind.

In what feels like no time they are arriving at UA’s gates. Dazai is wheezing and has long since passed the little girl over to Chuuya to carry. There were some complaints on the girl’s part, she didn’t want to let go of Dazai, but a couple well-placed lies convinced her to do so.

“We can’t go in with you,” Chuuya says, setting the little girl down on her own feet. “Click this button here to ring the bell—”

She pokes the bell.

“—Once we’re out of sight,” Chuuya finishes.

The girl immediately looks guilty, shrinking back into herself. Great.

“It’s okay.” Chuuya slings Dazai over his shoulder, his partner going limp the moment Chuuya grabs him. “See you later, kid.”

Without giving the girl a chance to reply, Chuuya dashes off. Technically they could just walk through the doors with the kid and head back to their dorm, but this way there are less annoying questions.

Once on a decent rooftop, Chuuya sets Dazai down.

“You sure they’ll take her?” He asks. It would be rather pointless if they went through all the trouble of rescuing the kid from being an experiment only for her to get tossed over to the government to be someone else’s test subject.

“I made sure of it,” Dazai replies. His gaze slides Chuuya’s way, and there’s a smirk resting there. Arrogant bastard. “I told her Soukoku rescued her, so she’ll pass that along. Nezu knows our moniker.”

“Oh.” He doesn’t bother saying that doing something like that is smart, Dazai already has a big enough head as is. “We heading back?”

“Are you ready to go back?” Dazai counters. “It’s not late, the interesting criminals haven’t come out yet…”

Chuuya plants his hands on his hips. “Dazai, we can’t spend the night running around playing hero just because we’re bored.” No matter how tempting it is to do literally anything but go back to the dorm and sit there.

“Why not? I’m not tired, you’re definitely not tired, so let’s go beat some idiots up and show them how lame they are. Who knows, maybe we can cause some chaos along the way.”

Chuuya hesitates.

“Yay! Chuuya agrees. He should carry me since walking is hard.”

“Fuck off. You’ve got legs of your own you can use.”

“So mean!”

Come morning, Chuuya is humming a soft tune under his breath and is far more ready to face the day than he was the past two weeks’ worth of mornings. They were out all night and only got back a couple hours ago, so he got a good night’s workout in and finally got that constant itch of mission-adrenaline soothed.

“Chibi!” Dazai whines loudly, clinging to Chuuya’s left arm as Chuuya drags them to the kitchen to get Dazai his morning tea. “I wanna sleep! You’re so cruel, keeping me awake all night like that!”

Nearby kids who care enough to listen perk up.

“It’s your own fault, Mackerel,” Chuuya returns. “You’re the one that insisted on staying up.” Sure, Chuuya also did not want to return to campus once he got a taste of running around playing at being a vigilante — Dazai called what they did ‘scouting outside of Yokohama for the mafia to see how weak everyone is’ — but it was mostly Dazai who kept directing Chuuya to in-progress crimes they (he) could interrupt. It was really funny to swoop in over some loser hero’s head, subdue the criminal quickly, then dash off before anyone could question them. Obviously there were not heroes at all the crimes, but the ones that were there made the most offended faces when Chuuya ‘stole’ their arrest.

“But it’s Chibi’s fault that my ass hurts—”

Chuuya smacks a palm over Dazai’s mouth, scowling at the amused glint in his partner’s eyes, but isn’t fast enough. There’s a collective, scandalized gasp from the eavesdropping students.

Chuuya’s eyes narrow. Dazai’s amusement grows. They both know it was Dazai’s own fault that he slipped on that fire escape. Chuuya had to carry him up to the rooftop after his partner wouldn’t stop complaining.

“You get cereal for breakfast,” Chuuya declares. He deposits Dazai at the table and continues into the kitchen.

“What?! So mean! Make me something fancy, Slug!”

Chuuya feels far too much vindictive glee at the pout he gets when he places a single bowl of boring bran flakes in front of Dazai.

Before his partner can do anything to retaliate, Midoriya races into the room with green lightning buzzing around him, a huge grin on his face and his phone held high in the air.

“Guys! You’ll never guess what happened last night: a new hero team debuted!” Midoriya’s form flickers and the teen is suddenly in front of the TV, turning it to the correct news channel and excitedly waving everyone over.

Dazai immediately abandons the bowl of cereal in favor of joining the students as they crowd around the TV. Rolling his eyes, Chuuya follows. While he doesn’t care about heroes, it would be awful suspicious for a supposed hero student to not want to see what the latest hero news is.

“—footage from last night, in which this new hero duo reportedly stopped seventeen in-progress crimes.” The image on screen shifts from the reporter dude to a clear image of two figures clad entirely in black, one in midair delivering a solid kick to a mugger’s face while the other waves at the camera.

Chuuya scoffs. Idiots. He and Dazai stopped way more than seventeen crimes. They stopped counting at twenty-five and took down a whole crime syndicate.

“The HPSC has yet to deliver any official statement regarding this new hero team, leaving fans in suspense. One lady, who was saved from being kidnapped, has this to say.” The footage shifts from that image of them to a lady with a fox mutation that Chuuya vaguely remembers shoving out of the way of a bullet last night.

“They saved my life,” the lady gushes to the camera. “They were so fast too. One second I’m being pushed into a van, the next the van is glowing red and is chucked into the harbor. The people the villains already had inside were covered in that same red glow and were just floating in the air! The villains were just as shocked as I was. Then all I hear is this maniacal cackling and the villains are on the ground, unconscious. One of the heroes, the really short one—”

Dazai snorts. Chuuya glares at the TV screen.

“—helped all the victims down while the other one went around and tied all the villains’ hands together using their shoelaces. They kept yelling at each other, which was kind of weird, but it was obvious that they were professionals first and knew how to work together seamlessly. I felt as safe as if All Might were there.”

Ha, take that, ex-Number One.

“Well, there you have it, folks.” The news person is back. “We might have the new up and coming Number One!”

“HAH?!” Bakugou screeches, glowering at the TV. “What, so these ninja fuckers get to show up, save someone, and suddenly they have what it takes to be Number One? Yeah right! Ain’t no way I’m letting them beat me!”

“Yeah, me neither!” Midoriya agrees. “On another note, I’ve found a forum talking about them, what do you guys think about the theory that they’re paying homage to Edgeshot with their costumes?”

“Oh,” Mina nods, “I can totally see it! They do look ninja-ish!”

“I know right?! And their quirks are so interesting! It’s hard to tell exactly what their quirks are from the footage that’s been shown, but some of the people they rescued last night are on this forum and have been discussing it. From the sounds of things, they have nearly the same quirk but it’s slightly different: one of them can add momentum to things, like that van being thrown, while the other can cut momentum, like making those people hover in midair! With similar quirks like that, my bet is that they’re twins! Wow, this is seriously so cool! Twin hero duos are so rare these days—”

Chuuya stops listening.

Instead, he turns to Dazai and raises an eyebrow. Dazai grins back.

“Wow, twins. Cool, huh?”

“Shut the fuck up.” Chuuya isn’t sure what Dazai did to get that theory rolling around, but he’s sure it’s somehow the bastard’s fault.

“I barely said anything!” Dazai whines.

“Exactly, keep it that way.” Chuuya sighs and glares at the TV, where the newscaster is still talking about them. He really should have known Dazai would not care to keep them off the news. Showing up like this in the media tells Mori that they’re doing something. It is a bit of a gamble given that they don’t actually know the other reasons Mori wants them in place here but could easily pay off.

Well, whatever. He had fun and enjoyed beating people up. Plus, they rescued a kid, and saving kids is always nice. Kind of makes up for all the innocents that he knows have gotten caught in the collateral of Port Mafia affairs— and Corruption. He never did ask Dazai for the death toll from the fight against Verlaine.

“Anyway, what are we doing today?” It is a Saturday, so that means no classes. The students seem to do whatever they want on weekends, which means he and Dazai don’t really have much to do other than follow the kids around and keep an eye on them.

Then the purple-haired kid comes downstairs and answers that question for him.

“Hey, Dazai, Nakahara.” Shinsou wanders up to them, yawning. “Dad— Aizawa wants to see you. Said something about it being ‘serious’ and ‘urgent’. Got the text an hour ago but I fell back asleep, my bad.”

“That’s fine. Did he say where to meet him?” Chuuya asks.

“His office.” Shinsou heads over to flop onto the couch, ignoring the people who are sitting there, and starts snoring almost instantly, ignorant of the knees jabbing into him. Chuuya is kind of jealous.

“Well, we might as well—”

“Oh no you’re not.” Chuuya grabs the back of Dazai’s shirt. “Whatever it is can wait five minutes. Go eat your cereal.”

“But Chibi! It’s gonna be all soggy now!”

“Too bad.”

“But—”

Luckily for Dazai, he escapes having to eat breakfast because the wall explodes.

Chuuya squints through the rubble and sees a swirling portal. People who look like the League of Villains emerge, but they’re quickly shrouded by small-fry villains who rush into the building and— well, they run right at him, actually. That’s interesting.

“Dazai is the nullifier! Take him out first!” Some shrieks in a manic tone.

“Osamu, get back!” Midoriya cries, trying to grab Chuuya’s arm to pull him back and ‘protect’ him.

Yeah right. This is the moment Chuuya’s been waiting for, and likely the moment Dazai planned for. Until now, no one outside of Yokohama knew what they looked like. So while no one could call Dazai out on his choice to swap their names, no one knows that it’s a trick. Already Dazai has drawn back to the corner, a gun at the ready and his eyes gleaming the way they do when his ploy worked.

Chuuya cracks his knuckles.

“Oh no,” he says, “all these villains are rushing at poor, defenseless me! What ever shall I do?”

Those closest grin and sneer at him. Too confident. They wouldn’t last ten minutes in Yokohama.

Chuuya lets them get close, catalogues where the hero kids have run off to and which villains they’re engaging with, then lets Arahabaki’s power flood to the surface. Red outlines his form. The kids nearest to him gasp. The villains falter. But it’s too late.

For The Tainted Sorrow crushes the closest villains in an instant. Before anyone realizes what’s happened, Chuuya dashes into the fray and leaps into the air. His first kick takes a villain’s poorly guarded head off.

“Too slow, Chuuya! Can you pick up the pace a little?” Dazai’s words are teasing, but Chuuya knows what his partner really wants: to be done with this. And maybe to watch Chuuya show off a little. They’ve both gotten sick and tired of hearing the hero kids’ express slight pity for their “weak quirks”.

“Just try not to fall too far behind, Dazai.” Luckily, the wall exploding gave Chuuya all kinds of material to work with. After a moment’s thought, the rubble glows red and lifts into the sky. Chuuya jumps onto one of the blocks, giving himself easy high ground, and sends smaller pieces of rubble to crush the villains. He leaves those fighting the hero kids alone, not wanting to crush a kid by accident.

Just like that, the rabble is out of the way. Chuuya grins, tucks his hands in his pockets, and flies over to land in front of the main members of the League of Villains, who’re staring at him with wide eyes.

“What?” Chuuya scoffs. “Never seem an ability user before?”

Their pasty leader gapes. “Get him! He can’t take us all—”

Chuuya rolls his eyes and increases gravity on the lot of them. They crash to the dirt, wheezing as his ability threatens to shatter their bones. He could let up and keep them pinned, but a little pain helps prevent them from rallying enough concentration to attack with their quirks.

“Oi, Mackerel. Do we need these ones alive?”

“Probably. I suspect the HPSC wants to make their arrest public knowledge to prove they’ve finally caught the infamous League of Villains.” Dazai appears at his side, examining the pinned villains with a flat gaze. “But I doubt we need them all. Kill a couple if they act up.”

“You got it.”

Chuuya hears someone rushing towards them and glances over to see Aizawa and several other teachers hustling their way.

“Dazai, Nakahara! The League is planning to attack…” Aizawa trails off when he gets close enough to realizes who, exactly, is on the ground. “Ah. You protected the students?”

“Yeah. Wasn’t hard.” Chuuya knows that the kids handled the small-fry they engaged with, but if any problems came up, Dazai would’ve intervened. “Where do you want them?” He nods to the trapped League.

“Nezu called the HPSC. They’ll handle the arrest.” Aizawa looks between Chuuya and Dazai. “Why did you lie about your quirks when you first arrived here?”

Dazai grins. “Cause it was fun.”

“It really wasn’t that fun.”

“I had fun. I liked going by Chuuya’s name. He should give it to me so I can use it more.”

Chuuya blinks. Then blinks again. “What the fuck, Dazai. Did you just ask me to marry you?”

Dazai freezes. It’s only a slight moment, not long enough for anyone other than Chuuya to catch. “Relax, Chibi. I’m just joking.”

“Really?” Chuuya sighs. “I already have everyone at work calling me ‘Chuuya.’ It won’t be that confusing if you did take my name.”

“Well I suppose that is true. But—”

“Osamu.”

Dazai shuts up.

“Do you want to get married?” A small, shy nod. “Okay. Then we’ll get married. I think Kouyou can officiate, and we’ll invite Ango, Oda, Gin, and Ryuunosuke. Mori will probably show up regardless of invitation, but whatever.”

“Okay.” Dazai grins. “This way Chuuya will be stuck with me legally! No takebacks.”

“Whatever.” Chuuya rolls his eyes but is also smiling.

Aizawa sighs. “I’m too tired for this. Congrats on your engagement. I’m going to check on the students.” His departure signals to the other teachers to also stop staring at the newly-engaged mafia teenagers, so they hustle off to help with wrap-up too.

Naturally, once they release the captured villains into HPSC control and are alone with the hero kids, they’re bombarded with questions.

Chuuya raises a hand. Everyone goes quiet. “Okay, I’m not sure how much to say, so—”

“Chuuya and I are executive members in the Port Mafia, the most powerful organization of ability users,” Dazai says breezily.

“Dazai, I’m not an executive.”

“You are now, silly! You’re marrying me and obviously Mori will promote you for that. Plus I said if he didn’t promote you and let us get married that we’d quit and become heroes. So he really had no choice.”

Chuuya sighs. He should’ve known marrying Dazai was only going to give him more headaches. “Whatever. We can sort that out later.” He addresses the kids again. “Look, the point is that Dazai and I swapped identities when we arrived to throw off any assailants, and were hired to protect you all. Sorry for lying and everything, but it’s done now and as long as you don’t venture into Yokohama, then you’ll never have to see us again.”

“And you shouldn’t go to Yokohama,” Dazai adds. “We have a very strict ‘no heroes’ policy.”

Just as Chuuya is about to open the floor for questions, he spots a small squad of HPSC officers heading their way. Armed officers. Who do not look friendly.

Dazai spots them too. “Okay, time to go. Princess?”

Chuuya rolls his eyes but does oblige, scooping Dazai into his arms in a princess carry. Dazai cheers, careful to keep his skin to himself, as Chuuya activates his ability and dashes up the side of the UA dorm building, giving them some height to jump.

Once they’re off the UA campus, it doesn’t take long to get home. They steal an unlocked car and drive smoothly (as smoothly as one can with Dazai driving; Chuuya should know by now to not let him drive) back to Yokohama. They ditch the car outside the border and head in on foot. A black car waits for them on a side street. They get in and are back at Port Mafia HQ in no time.

“I take it you completed the mission?” Mori asks when they enter his office.

“Sure did,” Dazai says. Chuuya only hopes that’s true. They never did figure out what they were supposed to be doing. “Also, Chuuya and I are getting married. He wants a promotion and a new motorcycle. I want Ango fired and Oda to have his office and salary.”

Chuuya frowns. “Why are you firing Ango?”

“Oh, he’s a government spy. It was fine till now, but I get the sense that the government won’t be happy about us leaving to do things outside of Yokohama, so it’s really just safer to kick him out now. Plus Oda wants to adopt a bunch of kids and needs a better salary, so this works well.”

Mori hums thoughtfully. “And if I refuse?”

“Chuuya and I already ‘debuted’ as heroes. We can just go back—”

“Never mind,” Mori says quickly. His lips purse. “I can’t imagine you two as heroes. That would surely end in disaster. Fine, I’ll allow your conditions as long as Elise and I can attend the wedding and you don’t refuse whatever wedding gift I deem appropriate.”

“Ugh.” Dazai sighs. “Fine. Just don’t make it anything too obnoxious.”

“Oh I won’t go too over the top… but surely you’ll let me pay for the wedding?”

“Kouyou already offered,” Chuuya says, pointing to his phone. He called Kouyou on the drive.

“Damn her,” Mori mutters. “I should’ve known she’d swoop in like that. Do you need a house? I’ll buy you two a house. Surely you need one of those. And a vacation home. Somewhere nice…” Mori trails off and starts looking up house listing on his phone.

Dazai and Chuuya exchange a look, roll their eyes, and leave. Mori will be busy for a while, and they have a wedding to plan.