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quinnybee-writes · 4 years

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Title: Fire Meet Gasoline

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia/My Hero Academia

Rating: T+

Part: 4/?

Story Summary: A chance encounter between a villain and vigilante leads to an unwise deal made between unlikely allies; an unwise deal made between unlikely allies ends in a final stand neither would have ever dared to take on alone. Together, though, they just might have a fighting chance.

Part 4 Summary: Purposefully misconstrued dating advice leads to a deal being struck between the villain and the vigilante.

Part 1 on Tumblr / AO3

Part 2 on Tumblr / AO3

Part 3 on Tumblr / AO3

Part 4 on AO3

Three days later and Aizawa had yet to make contact. Hizashi frowned to himself, watching the dark subway walls speed past the train’s window. He kept having to remind himself to not pick at the cork stoppering the bottle of wine in his lap but his hands grew fiddly and nervous when his mind wandered too far back towards the vigilante’s radio silence. What was the reason behind it? Was he trying to force Hizashi into contacting him instead as some kind of lazy entrapment attempt? Hizashi couldn’t bring himself to believe that. Aizawa was a lot of things but half-assed wasn’t one of them. If he wanted to get to Hizashi he would make sure he did so in the middle of something he could use to nail Hizashi to the wall. If he followed that thought to the logical end, however, Aizawa protecting him made even less sense; it would have been the perfect opportunity to drag Hizashi to the cops by the collar like a self-satisfied house cat bringing its owner a dead pigeon. Why would someone so careful in everything otherwise make such a glaring error and then spend three silent days failing to do anything about it? Aizawa was a mystery of motivation; every time Hizashi thought he’d gotten a handle on the type of person he was, something new came along to prove him wrong. Hizashi grimaced and shook himself mentally as the train slowed at his stop, tugging his thumbnail out of the rut he had carved into the top of the cork. He’d been chasing himself in circles all week, and now wasn’t the time to throw himself back into the spiral.

Standing in front of the apartment door, Hizashi took a minute to center himself with a deep breath and fixed his expression into a relaxed-ish smile before knocking. The chatter of conversation on the other side quieted as footsteps approached. There was a short pause, then the door swung wide to reveal his mother’s elated face.

“Hizashi!” she exclaimed. Before he could return the greeting, her expression fell into one of shocked concern. “Oh my god, what happened to you?”

“Mm? Oh, this,” Hizashi said with a forced chuckle. He cleared his throat and tried to sound nonchalant about his half-healed double black eye and two-inch headwound as he rattled off the cover story he’d been practicing for this moment. “I, uh, tripped over a couple of trash bags behind the studio, ended up clocking myself on a dumpster,” he said, scratching the back of his head awkwardly. “Real graceful, huh?”

“Heavens,” his mother said as she ushered him inside. “You went to the ER and got checked out, right? Head injuries like that can turn nasty out of nowhere.”

“Yeah, Ma, I took care of it,” Hizashi said, giving her an appreciative kiss on the cheek. “Didn’t really have a choice, actually, the night delivery guy found me out cold in the alley and called an ambulance. I think I might have traumatized the poor guy.”

“With a face like that how could you not?” Haru teased as Hizashi came into the kitchen to set down the wine. She took the bottle from him before giving him a quick, tight hug. “Good to see you, Zash.”

“You’re heartless but I love you anyway,” Hizashi replied, squeezing her back.

“Whatever, we both know I’m the cute one,” Haru said. She pulled back and gently prodded him in the chest with her ladle. “Now go mingle, I’ve got a curry to keep from burning.”

“Yes’m,” Hizashi said with a salute.

“If it isn’t everyone’s favorite problem child back from the dead!” Hizashi’s sibling Hoshi said in mock surprise as Hizashi dropped into one of the empty living room chairs. “It’s lucky you showed up, Zash, Hitoshi and I were about to ro-sham-bo for who gets your cat.”

Hizashi turned a grin on his nephew, who was perched on the arm of the sofa next to his mothers. “If you can get Ai-chan to leave the apartment with all your limbs intact, you’re welcome to her, Shortstack,” he said.

“Don’t you even think about it, Hitoshi Shinsou,” his mother Mara said, nudging her son in the leg to reclaim his attention from the video he was watching on his phone. “If I wanted a pet chainsaw, I’d live in a hardware store.”

Hitoshi snorted. “Don’t worry, Mama, I’d rather step on a beartrap than make that cat do anything. Baji can have her,” he replied, punctuating with a “have at it” gesture to Hoshi.

“Yes!” Hoshi said, pumping their fist in the air. “Dibs on the attack gremlin maintained!”

“Are we just ignoring the fact that I’m not actually dead, or…?” Hizashi asked, crossing his arms and trying not to smile as he arched an eyebrow at his sibling.

“I mean, at this point we kind of have to,” his sister Hinako said from the other side of her wife. “Mara and I claimed your TV and that fancy toaster oven Mom and Dad got you for Christmas last year, Haruko gets your new laptop and router, and Hiro beat everyone else out in the tournament for your apartment lease. Ai-chan was the last thing we had to divvy up.”

“You guys are the absolute worst,” Hizashi said, trying and failing to keep a straight face as he said it. “I take time out of my busy schedule of being attacked by trash bags and getting bullied by my cat and this is the thanks I get?”

“Truly, we aren’t worthy,” Haru said from behind him, ruffling his hair. “Time to set the table, busy boy, Mom said Dad’s almost home.”

Dinner with his family was like finally being allowed to exhale after months of holding his breath. Deep down he’d known having to isolate himself from them to prevent them from getting wrapped up in things had weighed on him, but the full extent of it didn’t hit him until here and now. It took less time than Hizashi had expected to get back into the flow of the family conversation, a chaotic blend of speech, signing, and the kind of sweeping gestures that came from being raised by an opera singer and a very emphatic law professor. The constant sting of edginess that kept him from ever really relaxing melted away to nothing, no match for the rapid-fire retellings of weird life moments and accompanying bouts of breathless laughter from around the table.

“Speaking of tired,” his father said, bouncing off the tail end of a story Hiro had told about a toddler at his daycare center who had somehow gifted three other children and one of his coworkers with a combination of chicken pox and flu, “you’re looking a little wilted, Shortstack. High school applications getting to you?”

“Actually, Hitoshi has some news about that he was going to share tonight,” Hinako said. She beamed over at her son, giving him an encouraging squeeze on the shoulder. Hitoshi cleared his throat, the look of someone who had hoped they weren’t going to have to talk in front of people written plain on his face. Hizashi gave a sympathetic wince; growing up as an introvert in a family full of dramatic hams and public speakers had to be a lot to handle when the spotlight was suddenly on you.

“I decided to take the UA High entrance exam,” Hitoshi said, managing a small smile in spite of himself.

Despite his sympathy a moment earlier, Hizashi couldn’t help joining in the excited uproar from around the table that followed Hitoshi’s announcement. “Hell yeah, dude!” he crowed. “Carrying on the family tradition!”

“Does it really count as a tradition if only one of us made it in?” Hiro asked. He seemed to realize how the question had sounded a moment later as Hoshi elbowed him in the side. A strained flicker of sideways glances at HIzashi followed. Hizashi just grinned despite the sudden jolt the words had sent through the pit of his stomach.

“Don’t be such a wet blanket, Hiro,” Hizashi said, shaking his head. “If people are allowed to call things ‘first annual’ then Haru has every right to be a family tradition all by herself.”

“Aww, thanks, Zash,” Haru said, reaching across the table to pinch his cheek. Hizashi swatted her hand away with a snort.

“You went to UA, Aunt Haru?” Hitoshi asked, sounding surprised. Haru preened.

“Sure did! Three years strong in the A-class Hero Course, graduated seventh in my class. Not high enough to get snapped up by one of the famous agencies, but good enough for some solid sidekick gigs,” Haru said.

“That’s right, you’ve been doing temporary assignments at a bunch of agencies, haven’t you? How’s that going?” their mother asked quickly. Everyone seemed eager to sidestep the pit of discomfort Hiro had accidentally opened up, especially Hiro. As everyone’s attention turned to Haru’s newest temp assignment at Loud Cloud’s agency Hiro caught Hizashi’s eye and mouthed “dude, sorry”, grimacing at himself. Hizashi shook his head and signed “no worries” back. The words still burned in his gut, but Hizashi did his best to ignore it and listen to Haru’s story.

Too soon for his liking, Hizashi hit his soft out time, his middle out time, and finally his hard out before the trains stopped running and he’d have to take an overpriced cab home. He said his goodbyes, promising without much hope that it wouldn’t be this long before he saw them all again. As he was putting on his shoes, Haru threw her coat over her shoulders and offered to walk him to the station to make sure he got there okay. Not about to turn down a lingering moment of normalcy before he had to go back to being himself in the morning, he accepted.

“Hey. You okay?” Haru said as they headed up the sidewalk.

“Mm? Yeah, why?” Hizashi said. Haru gave him a Look and Hizashi relented. “I mean, he wasn’t wrong,” he said grudgingly.

“Being right isn’t the same as not being a dick,” Haru pointed out. Hizashi waved a hand as if wafting away the accusation.

“Honestly, Haru, it’s not a big deal. Some of us grow up to be heroes--” Hizashi said, gesturing to Haru-- “and some of us have to make do being the family disappointment,” he finished, gesturing back at himself. “It’s the circle of life.”

“Don’t say things like that,” Haru snapped, surprising him with the sternness in her voice. “You aren’t a disappointment to anyone. Especially me. All right?”

Hizashi smiled at her, shoulders relaxing back out of the sarcastic hunch they had started to reflexively tighten into. “Yeah. Thanks, Haru.”

Haru nodded authoritatively. “So. On to other things, namely this dashing, courageous night delivery guy you mentioned,” she went on, a sly smile creeping over her face. Hizashi tried to ignore the way his face immediately heated up at the implication in her tone.

“What about him?” he asked, amused in spite of himself at the word “dashing” being used for the scruffy, monotone Aizawa.

“I mean, he was gallant enough to come swooping in to your rescue to save you from your own klutziness,” Haru said. “Seems like something you’d want to repay with some kind of favor, don’tcha think? Like one that starts with ‘thank you’ and ends with ‘drinks after work, my treat’?”

Hizashi scoffed, about to blurt out that under no circumstances whatsoever was something like that going to be on the table, but the word “favor” sparked off a half-formed idea in his head. Repaying favors with favors was practically his side business, after all. There might be something in that, though far from the path Haru’s mind seemed to be going down. “You might be on to something there,” he conceded. “I’ll let you know if it works.”

“Make me your best man at the wedding and we’ll call it even,” Haru teased, holding the station door open for him. “Text me when you get back to your place, okay? There’s some bad shit going around right now.”

“Will do. Thanks again, Haru.”

“Just doing my job.” Haru gave him another quick hug-and-hair-ruffling before bidding him goodnight.

Hizashi lay in bed with a very disgruntled Ai-chan snoozing on his chest, burning his eyes with the light from his phone screen. The more he considered what Haru had said, the more the idea appealed to him. The only roadblock now was Aizawa and his apparent determination to freeze Hizashi out. Still, there was more than one way to catch a delivery man, Hizashi thought as he double-checked the station’s equipment budget for this quarter and opened their online supplier in a new browser tab.

It seemed like in aside from “multi-platinum criminal mastermind” and “epicenter of most of the trouble in his life right now”, Shouta could add “compulsive online shopper” to the list of traits Hizashi Yamada was using to intrude on his day-to-day life.

Shouta had done his best to put the confused night he’d helped Yamada avoid arrest out of his mind, ignoring the paper bag of Yamada’s belongings where he’d stuffed it into the back of his closet and getting back to his life. At first Shouta had thought Yamada had either been doing the same, or at the very least avoiding stirring things up while the dust was still settling. Yamada hadn’t made any kind of contact and was keeping quiet about his misadventures in his public life as far as Shouta could tell from the bits and pieces of Yamada’s show he’d caught while on patrol. Instead, however, Yamada appeared to have been just saving up energy for the marathon of attention-seeking he had planned. Nearly every day Asahi Radio was one of his scheduled stops with some new item listed as needing delivered to HIzashi Yamada, signature required. Shouta managed to very calmly beg a few of his coworkers to switch routes with him for the day, making sure to ask the ones with longer routes who would be more than willing to switch him for a shorter day for the same pay. After several days of running unfamiliar routes and going through every willing coworker he had, however, he found himself railroaded back into taking his route back by a politely-worded “friendly reminder” from his supervisor about making sure to get his own work done. Shouta checked his delivery manifest, saying a short, silent prayer to not see what he knew he was going to see down at the bottom: Asahi Radio, three kilogram package for Hizashi Yamada, signature required on delivery. He gritted his teeth, throwing himself into the front seat of his truck and slamming the door behind him. Today was going to be a very long week.

As soon as Chiyaki saw Shouta shuffling through the front door with the box tucked under his arm, they were already hitting Yamada’s extension on their phone. “You got another one, boss,” they said, waving Shouta inside.

“On my way,” Yamada’s voice replied. Shouta was darkly pleased to hear that he sounded almost defeated when he said it, like the week of not getting what he wanted was starting to grate on him as much as his pestering was grating on Shouta. Yamada came slouching out from the back room of the studio. He didn’t look much better than the last time Shouta had seen him; the bruising around his eyes had faded from midnight purple to a sickly pond scum grey-yellow-green and the gash on his forehead seemed to be healing well, but he held neck and upper body stiffly like he was trying very hard not to move too quickly and risk wrenching something. Despite this, his whole posture straightened as he saw that it was Shouta making the delivery today. Shouta sighed internally as Yamada swaggered up to him with a suspiciously cheerful grin.

“Haven’t seen too much of you around here lately,” Yamada said, the barest note of challenge to his tone. Shouta gave him the flattest, most disinterested look he could manage in return.

“We’ve been moving people around,” he said, handing Yamada the clipboard. “Sign here, please.”

“Right, right,” Yamada said. He stamped the bottom of the delivery slip and made to claim is carbon copy. As he started pulling the perforation, he paused as if he’d just thought of something. “Are you allowed to pick up something since you’re already here, or do I have to call in for that?” Yamada asked.

“I can take it for processing if it’s properly addressed, but they’ll charge your account after the fact for the delivery costs. And since it’s Friday it probably won’t get delivered until Monday,” Shouta said. It was technically against policy do it things that way, but a little bit of policy finagling was worth cutting this conversation as short as he could.

“Oh, that’s fine, it’s nothing urgent. Just something I owe a colleague of mine,” Yamada said. “It should still be in the outbox, Chii,” he added, turning to Chiyaki and pointing to a pair of mail trays behind their desk. Shouta collected the envelope from Chiyaki and tucked it under his arm, reclaiming the clipboard from Yamada as well.

“Thanks for your patronage,” Shouta said, already turning and heading towards the door. He tossed the envelope into an empty bin in the back of his truck and was mostly successful in putting it out of his mind.

“Aizawa!”

Shouta halted on the threshold of the employee entrance at the sound of a voice behind him. He sighed, wondering what new impediment was about to be added to his day. When he turned around, however, he was surprised to find Takeshiro, one of the night crew in package processing, approaching him with an envelope clipped to a clipboard.

“Something I can help you with?” Aizawa asked warily. Takeshiro held the clipboard out to him.

“Found somethin’ for you in one of the bins,” Takeshiro replied. “Figured you could sign for it now. No point sendin’ someone all the way uptown for someone who works here, y’know?”

He wasn’t wrong, Shouta supposed, though it seemed strange that someone would be sending him something through the company he worked for. If they knew him well enough to send him things he would have assumed they knew to just use the postal service and save themselves the handling fees.. He set his bag down, having to dig through a few different pockets before he found his spare stamp. Takeshiro watched him with disinterest bordering on impatience. Shouta signed for the envelope and barely had time to tear off his copy of the form before Takeshiro reclaimed the clipboard and bid him a perfunctory good night. Shouta watched him go, eyebrow raised, then shrugged. He would have considered himself a man of few words, but Takeshiro was about as talkative as a tree stump.

Turning back to the envelope, Shouta was somewhat unsurprised to recognize it; the envelope Yamada had gotten him to take for processing earlier that day. Shouta grimaced at the thought that Yamada considered him in any way a “colleague”. The envelope itself was heavier than he would have expected for its size and rattled when he turned it over in his hands. The noise was not encouraging. Shouta slid the envelope into his bag, careful not to jostle it too much as he made his way back to his apartment.

Once there, Shouta dug a filtration mask, a pair of thick leather gloves, and a long-handled pair of chemistry tongs out of the jumble of spare parts and unused equipment in his linen cabinet. It would be somewhat out of character for Yamada to resort to some kind of long-distance assassination via courier package but Shouta wasn’t in the business of being careless around villains. He knelt on his entryway floor, envelope in front of him. Using the tongs he grasped the tab of the envelope and pulled it open. Nothing happened, which was equal parts a relief and suspicious. He took the bottom corner of the envelope between two fingers and pulled the edge of the opening wider with the tongs, sliding the contents of the envelope out onto the floor.

A zip-top sandwich bag full of cash clattered out, landing with a metallic splat. Holding the envelope at arms’s length Shouta peeked inside and saw something square and yellow stuck to the inside; pulling it out revealed a pair of yellow sticky notes stapled together at the top corner that appeared to have been shaken off of the sandwich bag in transit. The note on top read “they took a stupid route and overcharged you”. Dumping out the sandwich bag, Shouta found it contained five thousand, one hundred sixty-nine yen in small bills and change; rounded up, the fare from the hospital to Yamada’s apartment building. A roundabout way of deciding to repay him, Shouta thought, but it showed more discretion that he’d honestly expected out of Yamada. Flipping to the second note, he saw it was an address and a small but detailed hand-drawn map from his apartment to the destination and a meeting time of 8:30pm, signed off with Yamada’s stylized M signature. One step forward, two steps back, Shouta thought as he pulled the respirator mask off with a sigh. The invitation wasn’t a binding agreement, but Yamada had already proved he was willing to go utterly over the top to force Shouta into an interaction. Either Shouta bit the bullet and went now, or he had at least another week of near-constant deliveries to look forward to. At least this way he could return Yamada’s things and not have to look at the accusatory paper bag every time he went to get dressed in the morning. One look at the clock told him he was already destined to be late, but Shouta didn’t bother rushing as he collected the bag and kicked on his shoes to head out again. Whether Yamada waited to see if he was coming or stood him up was the other man’s prerogative.

The address was for a small bistro-style cafe with a rooftop veranda that overlooked the sidewalk. Yamada was hovering beside the door with his phone in his hand, pretending to be engrossed in whatever was on the screen but keeping a sharp eye on passersby. He looked like he had come straight from work, still dressed in the same clothes Shouta had seen him in earlier with a leather laptop bag over one shoulder. The smile he gave Shouta as he approached was as close to genuinely friendly as Shouta had ever seen from him.

“I already got us a table,” Yamada said, nodding to one of the tables on the veranda. He motioned for Shouta to follow him into the restaurant and up a claustrophobically narrow set of stairs next to the door to the kitchen. The two of them sat across from one another at the table, a tension settling between them as soon as they did. Shouta ordered a black coffee without looking at the menu and Yamada requested the server come back in a few minutes to give him time to look things over.

“I’ve never actually been here before,” Yamada admitted when the server left. “I saw it when I was walking home the other day and it struck me as a good place to get some privacy, you know?”

“Hn,” Shouta replied. The veranda was abandoned other than the two of them, with only the tiny staircase or vaulting the safety rail as viable exits. A quiet laugh from Yamada interrupted Shouta’s train of thought. He looked over to see Yamada trying to hide a smirk behind his hand.

“You do that too?” Yamada asked.

“Do what?”

“Tally up every escape route the second you get into a place,” Yamada said. “Hopping the railing wouldn’t be my first choice, but you seemed to be staring at it pretty hard. Bored with me already?”

Shouta scowled at him, trying to ignore the heat in his cheeks at being called out. Instead of answering, he grabbed the paper bag and set it on the table in front of Yamada. Yamada looked at it, then up at Shouta with his head cocked to the side. “I would have returned it sooner, but things came up,” Shouta said, only lying slightly. Things had come up, they were just mostly intangible things like the unmistakable feeling that he didn’t want to see Yamada. Bemused by the roundabout explanation, Yamada unrolled the top of the bag and looked inside. He paused, seeming taken aback when he saw what the bag held.

“So you’re the one who made off with all of this,” Yamada said, not quite managing to keep the surprise out of his voice. He pawed through the bag’s contents and pulled out the tangle of wires and audio parts Shouta had yanked from around his neck.

“I...may have broken that,” Shouta admitted grudgingly. “Sorry. There wasn’t a lot of time.”

Yamada looked it over, running it through his fingers like a jeweler inspecting a string of pearls, then shook his head. “It doesn’t look like it. I worked some break points into it when I built it, like those elastic loops they put in cat collars so they don’t strangle themselves.” He shrugged. “Might be time for an upgrade anyway.” He seemed to catch himself lapsing into thought and shook out of it, holding the handful of assorted technology up like Shouta was supposed to have any idea what he was looking at. “It’s a vocal directional focus,” Yamada explained. “Depending on the combination of switches I use, it activates the speakers to give me a little boost in sending my voice where I want it to go. The only downside is smaller parts burn out twice as fast, and that’s if you’re using them for what they’re meant to do. You can only fight obsolescence for so long.” He shrugged again, setting the gear aside to continue poking through the bag.

Yamada picked up his mask, making a face at the jagged crack across the brow, then his jacket. He inspected the jacket even more closely than he’d looked at his gear, clicking his tongue in annoyance and running his thumb over some deep scuffs on the lapels and sleeves. “A little polish and she’ll be good as new,” he muttered, more to himself than Shouta. As he moved it to the side, something fell out of the pocket and clattered onto the table. Yamada picked it up. “Is this yours?” Yamada asked, holding up a small matte black USB drive between finger and thumb.

“No,” Shouta said, shaking his head. He had quite a few storage drives, but he kept them in a secure pocket elsewhere in his bag from where he’d stowed Yamada’s things.

“Huh.” Yamada looked it over, but from what Shouta could see there didn’t seem to be any kind of label on it. “Do you mind?” Yamada asked, pulling his laptop case up onto the table. Shouta shrugged. Personally he thought the mystery flash drive could wait until Yamada was done with whatever he had called him here for, but Yamada had already packed away his other belonging and was halfway into booting up his computer heedless of Shouta’s waning patience. Yamada’s eyebrows furrowed closer and closer together and he scrolled through the drive’s contents, occasionally making small “hmm”s or “huh”s.

After one especially scathing noise of curiosity, Shouta lost the last of his composure and half-snapped, “Something interesting?”

Yamada blinked, seeming to come back to himself but not looking away from the computer screen. “Possibly,” he said, sounding like he was more thinking out loud than anything. “Looks like the two you chased off were trying to do a little bit of revisionist evidence-planting. Some of these transcripts are mine, but some of them are definitely not. They are very interesting, though. If the night had gone a little differently those two would’ve had a nice feather in their cap.” Saying that seemed to jog him fully back to the present. “Anyway,” he said, pulling the drive out of his laptop and stowing both back in the case. “That actually brings me to what I actually wanted to talk to you about.”

“Which is?” Shouta asked. He couldn’t help feeling relieved that they had finally gotten to the point of this tiresome meeting.

“I wanted to thank you,” Yamada said. His expression was as close to serious as Shouta had seen from him and his voice lacked any of the attention-seeking cheeriness or slick smarm he usually used. “You stuck your neck out for me when you didn’t have to, and things would have broken pretty bad for me if you hadn’t been there.”

“Er. You’re welcome,” Shouta said. The words felt very awkward in his mouth. The corner of Yamada’s mouth flickered up into an almost-smile but it was gone again a moment later.

“That’s only half of why I asked you to meet me, if I’m honest,” Yamada continued. Shouta frowned, a sinking feeling settling into his gut. Of course there was a catch, he thought irritably. When he didn’t respond, Yamada went on without him. “Since I owe you for saving my skin, I want to offer you a deal. It’s something I think will solve this stalemate we keep finding ourselves in,” Yamada said. He was back in his element, posture too languid and his voice picking up a calculating breeziness. The return to status quo wasn’t completely unexpected but was completely unwelcome.

Shouta waited for Yamada to keep talking, but Yamada seemed to be waiting for him to make the next move. Gritting his teeth, Shouta asked, “What kind of deal?”

Yamada’s renewed grin widened at the acquiescence. “It’s nothing too complicated,” he said. He held up a hand, long fingers spread. “The deal is ‘first to five wins.’ Each of us gets to ask the other five favors, no strings attached, no questions asked. The first one to use up all five has to willingly turn themself over to the authorities and never breathe a word about what they know about the other.”

Shouta stared at him, taken aback. He’d expected something sneaky that would keep the scales tipped in Yamada’s favor, but turning the situation into some inane rivalry game was a twist he hadn’t seen coming. As far as he could tell, Yamada was completely serious about the suggestion; he seemed proud of both the idea and the reaction it had gotten out of Shouta.

“You said no questions asked. You mean, no matter what the favor is, we’re required to do it because we agreed to the deal?” Shouta asked. Yamada nodded. “So what’s stopping one of us from saying, ‘do me a favor and go turn yourself at the nearest police station and pretend you never met me’?”

Yamada frowned. “Nothing, I guess, other than a sense of fair play,” he said coolly. “Deals like this require a certain level of trust to work.”

Shouta snorted. “What makes you think I trust you?”

“There has to be some reason for a guy like you to lie to the police and withhold evidence, then let the only other person who knows the truth walk away from you,” Yamada said, shrugging one shoulder.

He had a point, much to Shouta’s annoyance. His choice to let Yamada go that night and then do everything he could to not see him until now was more one of exhaustion mixed with avoidance, but not once in the midst of it had it occurred to him that he might have to worry about Yamada turning him in to the police. He must have been silent long enough that Yamada could sense him coming around to the idea, as Yamada’s grin returned in all its toothy, rankling glory.

“So, is that a yes?” Five strikes for each of us. Well,” he corrected himself, “five and four. I’m guessing I’ve probably already burned one free pass at your good will.”

Shouta shook his head. “No,” he said. “If this is to level the playing field, it’s going to be level. Five for each of us, like you said. What happened before was a...lapse in judgement,” he finished, scowling at himself. His moment of ill-advised altruism had officially overstayed its welcome.

“To lapses in judgement,” Yamada said, extending a hand across the table. Shouta shook hands with him, hating the finality of it. With the rules as they were set out, all Shouta had to do to win this ridiculous bet was hold off on asking Yamada for anything other than some peace and quiet and wait for Yamada to burn himself out. It was too simple of a solution for Yamada to have not thought of it before he offered the deal, and Shouta had a sneaking suspicion that they would end up clashing at the finish line anyway. For right now, though, it seemed like playing along might be his best option.

#boku no hero academia #my hero academia #aizawa shouta #yamada hizashi #villain!mic #vigilante!aizawa #shouta aizawa #hizashi yamada #Erasermic #bnha #mha #Fire Meet Gasoline AU #Quinny thinks she's a writer

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raisingsupergirl · 3 years

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A New Age Dawning

I once met a Freemason who said he changed his career ever seven years, a concept he based on the seventh sabbatical year of the Old Testament. And it wasn’t like he moved to a different position within the same career field. He made drastic changes: professor, salesman, laborer, etc. And in different parts of the country, too. At first, I thought he was lying. Then I thought he was running from something. But in the end, I envied him. We only get one life, so why spend it working toward a singular goal, no matter how grand? Why not reinvent yourself? Who wouldn’t jump on the chance to be reborn? And that idea stuck with me in a subtle way until I ran across it again in my Bible reading about a year ago. The year of Jubilee, it’s called. A year in which all debts are forgiven, all land is returned to its original owners, and everyone starts anew. Once every seven years. And do you know what’s a multiple of seven? Thirty five, which is exactly what I was going to be turning the next year. And not a moment too soon. You see, my life has been a series of seven-year “ages” in which I’ve grown and found new exciting experiences, but at the end of each age, I become anxious, bogged down with mundane frustration until I finally burst through into some new adventure. And like any good adventure, mine started with the First Age…

The First Age: Ignorance (0-7)

The first seven years of my life are my mobile home memories. A little trailer home on Dorlac Road. Avoiding cactuses in our dirt basketball court. Digging through overgrown lily pads and cattails to get to our fishing hole. Going to daycare with the lady who played the piano and the man who threw a fake duck to his Golden Retriever. And family. So much family. The four of us boys crammed onto the broke-down couch and drawing funny faces on TV Guide pictures. Mom cooking a four-pound meatloaf to feed us. Watching my older brothers play Zelda and Punch Out and Techmo Superbowl. Going fishing at the Mississippi river with Grandpa Winch. Watching baseball with Grandpa Collins. Playing Ninja Turtles and Dungeons & Dragons with my cousins. Being mad when everyone went to Grandma’s and had chicken pox, but I wasn’t allowed to go and have any for some reason. You see, Grandma was the BEST cook, and I was SURE Chicken Pox were delicious. Because at that time, I didn’t understand it. Any of it. All lights and colors and awe-inspiring mystery. But when I turned eight, my parents began taking us to this other place. A spot in the woods. And we started cutting down those woods, clearing a space big enough for a castle. And men came out and blew up the ground, making a big hole. Walls went up. So many walls. And then mom said I had to start going to school. Away from my family. Away from everything I knew. But there was one thing I knew then: Fear.

The Second Age: Innocence (7-14)

I remember my first night in the new house. How could anyone keep from getting lost in such a place. It was so dark, quiet, and cavernous. I got a cat soon after that, and he felt the same way. Skittish, hidden, afraid. I named him Kitty. Kitty was my first real pet, and he was one of my closest friends through that Second Age. But slowly, something started to happen within me. I started to realize that the new house wasn’t scary. The new house was warm, solid, enduring, safe. Even the woods around us were peaceful and inviting. Our pond didn’t have any lily pads or cattails. But it did have catfish. Huge ones. And they bit best at night on doughballs. The deepest parts of the woods had caves and bluffs and creeks. And I could wander as long as I wanted without a watch or a compass, and somehow I’d always end up back at home just before dark.

School wasn’t so bad, either. I was nice to the kids, and they were nice back. I even made some friends who lived within bike-riding distance. I think Greg and Zach were the first. They were older, but they lived on the same gravel road. And they liked cards. Not the boring ones that my brothers liked—the ones about sports. No, these new cards had superheroes on them. And some of them were games that let you BE a superhero and fight against your friends’ superheroes. They brought my Saturday morning cartoons to life, and my love for fantasy and imagination started to blossom. I met Brandon next. He was a new kid on the bus, and he had a cool toy. He became my best friend for many years. Together we explored the wilderness, conquered the FIRST Warcraft game, and discovered girls. And as I approached the end of the Second Age, a dark, hormonal shadow spread over my life of innocence.

The Third Age: Independence (14-25)

Middle school. I shouldn’t have to explain further, but I will. My friends grew armpit hair, and I didn’t. My friends made the basketball team, and I didn’t. My friends paired up with girlfriends, and I didn’t (except that one time when Elizabeth Stroble let me cut in the lunch line by her). I found purpose in football, and I found God at Bates Creek church camp. A girl said she liked me in high school, so I started dating her. Then she cheated on me with my previously-mentioned best friend. It was then, at the peak of puberty’s angst, that I first felt heartbreak. I forgave them both and remained friends with them. I then met some more lifelong friends of the most interesting kind—skaters. There was something about them that I identified with. Not the skating (I lived on a gravel road, remember?). But they were honest, raw, adventurous, unafraid. A little broken, but also honest and loyal. And they all had the best senses of humor. I was friendly toward everyone in high school (even nominated for “most congenial”), but it was with those skaters that I learned to really push the boundaries of my reality.

This epic Age, extending through college to a couple years beyond, was the most adventurous and transformative of my life. There’s so much to tell. My first drink of alcohol (a “hey, mister” bottle of Jack Daniels in the back of my friend’s van). Wild parties that ALWAYS ended with deep conversations. Cruising the strip in my red 1995 Camaro. A heart-wrenching breakup with my second girlfriend, which left both mental and physical scars. Finding true peace in my empty college bedroom with a cup of tea, a candle, and my first copy of The Fellowship of the Ring. And then finding my love of reading, writing, and LEARNING. Education was a concept that had been forced down my throat throughout school, so I never realized I actually LOVED learning new things until it became an option. But it wasn’t long into my college career when I started devouring philosophy, history, religion, and fantasy of all kinds. And then I met my future wife in a bowling alley, and everything changed. She wasn’t from my hometown. She didn’t know any of my family or my childhood friends. She had no interest in fantasy books or emo music. She was an enigma and an emotional mess. And she was perfect. From that point on, I plowed through the middle of the Third Age. My future wife graduated from college, I graduated the following year, and that summer, I passed my Boards, married the love of my life, went on my first vacation outside of the country (a blissful honeymoon to Cancun), and moved from Missouri to Virginia Beach to start my first “adult” job as a physical therapist. And just like that, I found myself sitting on a beach next to my wife, 1,000 miles from home.

It’s odd that it would take getting married to feel true independence. But college was just an evolution of high school. And in Virginia, the only person I knew was my wife, and I barely knew her. So as you can imagine, the next couple of years were hard. I had no big brothers or parents to show me how things were done. No friends to vent to. No familiar pets or woods to feel perfectly at home. No, this was an entirely new adventure for my new wife and me. We fought, we cried, we kissed, we fought some more, and we didn’t think we were going to make it. And then, one night after my shift at Busch Gardens Howl-o-Scream (yes, I moonlighted as a 6’5” axe-wielding zombie), I received a call. Well several calls, actually. And all of them said I needed to call home. Dad had been in a car accident. He was dead.

The next year was a blur. The darkest of my life. Gray. That’s all I remember. Grayness, confusion, doubt, hopelessness. I felt overworked and underqualified at a miserable job surrounded by immaturity, manipulation, and spite. I let the unresolved depression from losing my father destroy my relationship with my wife. And finally, at my wits end, I dragged said wife back home to Farmington (not my WIFE’s home, mind you. And that fact plagued our relationship for many years). Thus ended our time at Virginia Beach and the longest Age of my life.

The Fourth Age: Interlude (25-28?)

If the Third was the longest age, the Fourth was the shortest. From twenty-five to twenty-eight, in the wake of tragedy and what felt like betrayal, I slipped back into the comfort of things I knew. I found healing in writing—transforming memories and ideas into worlds and adventures that couldn’t harm me the way the real world had—and I was actually good at it! I also started work at my hometown clinic with my physical therapy mentor, which meant I was suddenly surrounded by people who knew everything about me. They UNDERSTOOD me. They comforted and uplifted me. For that I am forever grateful. But my dependance on the past also nearly broke the bond my wife and I had begun to forge in Virginia. She was jealous that I was home. I was jealous that she still had both parents. But slowly, after a lot of tears and a few broken pieces of furniture, we found each other again. There was no single epiphanous moment, but the defining word between us was commitment. Commitment to God and commitment to each other. Life started regaining some of its color, and I started trusting again. And then, after coming home from a hunting trip with my brothers one weekend, my wife told me she was pregnant.

The Fifth Age: Inquisition (28-35)

Gosh, what a whirlwind. My daughters’ stories are written in detail on this blog, so I won’t rehash them, but talk about nonstop adventure! In some ways, this has been the best Age of my life, but as I neared its end, the horizon again grew dark.

You see, through earlier tragedy and hardship, I had developed an, “If it is to be, it’s up to me,” mentality. Mostly because there were some unfortunate things that I couldn’t control but there were so many that I could. And it seemed like anything I really set my mind to was attainable. I’d landed my dream job. I’d also written novels, and those novels were getting closer and closer to publication. But slowly, my dream job became a monotonous chore, and my fledgling writing career started hitting one dead end after another. To the point where my literary agent finally broke ties, and after writing five novels, I didn’t have the strength to write another one. And tragically, I let those facts define me.

Of course, it’s such a tragedy because I was finally living a fruitful life with my wife and two super girls! On top of that, I’d become a freemason and met more lifelong friends, and toward the end of the Age, I’d embarked on a nearly year-long introspective journey with five other Christian men. But none of that mattered because I didn’t know who I was. I’d failed at writing, my “day job” became a drain on my spirit, and no matter how much I tried, there didn’t seem to be an end in sight.

And here we are. On the cusp of a new age. Last week, I finished my last meeting with those five amazing Christian men, and they have saved me. Truly. Well, they have helped me back to God’s purpose in my life: Achieving Adventure. Before that, I was dying inside, and I didn’t know why. I HAD to achieve something. ANYTHING (as if a wife, kids, and a successful career weren’t enough). But the ruts were so deep that finding a new path felt impossible. Too late in the game. Another has-been who had come so close but ultimately wasted all of his God-given potential. Talk about a classic mid-life crisis. And then came those 6 a.m. meetings. The conversations will likely fade into distant memory, but the effects will stay with me forever. Those men helped me realize what I’ve been chasing my whole life: adventure, exploration, the unknown. I LOVE learning, remember? I love growing. Not achieving, just growing. And the energy that burst from that realization has pushed me out of my ruts. It’s renewed my passion for physical therapy to the point where I’ve landed a promotion that promises new adventures. And my passion for writing, though still not quite renewed, is starting to flicker in my soul again. I have my strongest manuscript back in my hands, professionally edited and full of potential. Even if it’s never published, I will soon dive back into that adventure of my own creation. And that’s not all.

Next week I will attend my final meeting as Master of Farmington Masonic Lodge #132, and I will thank those Freemason brothers for an amazing five-year adventure that I will forever be grateful for. On that same day, I will celebrate the ribbon cutting of a new physical therapy clinic, and I will act as it’s clinic coordinator. Soon, my family and I will move to a new home—a place with explorable woods and a blank canvas of possibility.

The Sixth Age: Untitled

I have no clue what this Sixty Age will bring. I don’t know how many more Ages I’ll get to experience after that. But as I write this, I find myself smiling. The mystery fuels me, and my anxiety finally feels more like excitement again. I’m on a new adventure, and I get to take it with my three best friends: my wife is more of a trusted and true co-pilot than ever, my nearly four-year-old is in the midst of her blissful Age of Ignorance, and my seven-year-old is on the cusp of her own Second Age! What a time to be alive.

I’m about to enter the Sixth Age, friends. Another chapter of my life. And I can’t wait to share the adventure with you.

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