Chapter Text
Aizawa does his best to keep his expression neutral and open but if the reactions across the table were anything to go by, he was doing a poor job. The lead investigator who had brought him in on this case, Tsukauchi Naomasa, gives him a look of concerned understanding that is carefully crafted and gives nothing to belie the man’s inner thoughts. Aizawa is good at reading people, knows he is good at reading people, but even after the few times he’s worked with Tsukauchi, he finds the detective nigh impossible to figure out. However, the other man with the scraggly blonde hair sitting across the table in the small dingy police headquarters conference room that smelled like stale second-hand smoke and ancient government carpet is another matter entirely.
He was chaotic. A set of strange contradictions bundled up within one man. From the ten second introductive run down he had received upon entering the room he understood that Yagi Toshinori had had a long, enjoyable career within the heroics industry culminating in being appointed secretary to the number one hero, yet his bright tone seemed at odds with the sharp edge that coloured his tongue when he spoke about it. It was like a knife poised, ready to cut.
Intriguing.
It also really didn’t help that he was hot. Aizawa is the first to admit that his criteria for prospective partners was too narrow and specific to actually let him consider most people Hizashi or Nemuri attempted to set him up with. But, strangely enough, the man across from him seemed to tick a lot of boxes, including narrow and specific. He reminded Aizawa of the ancient pines in the mountains, impossibly tall and tapering to a point so slight it was a wonder they didn’t break whenever a breeze swayed through their needles. The tree’s strength was in its flexibility, even as it stands firm and unmoving from the place it began spreading its roots. Despite the fact that it looked like a puff of breath could knock Yagi-san over, Aizawa didn’t doubt for a second that he could dig deep and stand fast.
Again, intriguing.
What wasn’t intriguing, was the mission brief. Because apparently he was now Saito Reiru, had a new job at a posh high school two cities over, and was in the burgeoning stages of a relationship with Yagi-san’s cover name of Terada Hikaru.
“Why me?” he grates out.
Yagi’s cheerful half-smile he’s worn since the beginning of the brief flickers for a moment.
Tsukauchi leans back in his chair. “Five people with what could be considered as powerful quirks have gone missing in Nakano City. There’s a potential six others that could be connected to this case also reported missing in the last two weeks, and the one thing we’ve found that connects all eleven of them is a new quirk-cataloguing and matching app on the market called Synergistic. They all downloaded it and began using it within the last two weeks and we believe that the app developers could be connected to a crime syndicate using it as a hunting tool for powerful quirks. Your quirk, Erasure, has the potential for catastrophic ramifications to heroes if it could be weaponised. Our preliminary investigation leads us to believe that this is exactly what the developers of Synergistic are allegedly doing to their userbase.”
“So I’ll act as a high-priority target,” Aizawa leans forward with his palms on the table. “That still doesn’t explain the relationship.”
“Well,” and here Tsukauchi smiles wolfishly, “it’s a dating app.”
Aizawa fixes him with a stare. “Lead with that next time.”
“That was uncalled for, Naomasa,” Yagi murmurs, his smile has dropped and his deep, sunken eyes are serious. “I will be joining the app development team as a secretary starting Monday. We were hoping to create a believable story for my reasons of being there as well as another potential avenue for uncovering exactly what they’re up to—but I understand this mission has the potential for moments where you may be uncomfortable, so if you choose not to engage, we’ll leave it here.” The edge to his voice is back and it wavers with a hard fragility, like cracked porcelain. “Your highly-regarded recommendation for undercover work was forwarded by Principal Nedzu and All Might has also spoken highly of your heroics in past missions.”
Aizawa’s eyebrows shoot up. All Might has spoken highly of him? He’d met the hero on two separate occasions and both were for about 20 seconds, which meant there was 40 seconds of his life he’d never get back. And, despite the only thing he could remember doing was being covered in rubble and blood before turning his back on the posturing hero and walking away, he’d still made a good impression? Hmm, that was not something he had expected to hear today.
He wonders if Yagi shares All Might’s destructive set of values. From his initial impression Yagi seems like the polar opposite of his boss, which is one of the only reasons he hadn’t just walked out and was considering accepting this mission, but there was no harm in digging a little deeper.
“Why do you think this mission will be uncomfortable for me?” It’s an obvious baited question he already knows the answer to but he wants to gauge Yagi’s reaction.
The room noticeably chills for a moment as the man’s eyes narrow and he crosses his arms, fixing Aizawa with piercing blue eyes. Even Tsukauchi’s unreadable demeanour flickers for a moment, the detective almost flinching at his words. Ah, so there is more to this relationship than simple work colleagues.
Aizawa had been part of a number of Tsukauchi’s investigations, watched his career as a detective grow over the last few years. He liked working with him. It wouldn’t surprise him if Tsukauchi made it to police chief within the next decade, but he didn’t know Tsukauchi much more than that.
“I’ll be the first to admit I don’t exactly meet the criteria for a young, eligible bachelor,” Yagi was saying. It seemed more and more like he was talking through his frozen smile, like it was a barrier he used to deflect the hard questions.
“Says who?” Aizawa interrupts, tilting his head to the side.
“The kind of people who are looking to date,” Yagi says lightly.
Ah, a self-deprecating one then, and not entirely honest. “Are you looking to date?”
Yagi tilts his head to the side, almost a match to his. His smile has finally dropped, but he remains silent.
The silence drag on for a little longer than is comfortable before Aizawa shrugs.
“I’d date you.”
The words just slip out of his mouth before he can stop them and the air feels like it’s been sucked out of the room. The three of them just stare at each other across the table, frozen. The stalemate drags on for a good three seconds before Yagi begins to cough, a great hacking, lung-shredding kind of cough. He hastily shakes out a handkerchief wiping the blood from his hand off into it and continuing to cough up what sounds like a copious amount of various other fluid.
“Well, now we’ve got that out of the way, does that mean you’re going to accept,” Tsukauchi is struggling to keep his mouth in a straight line.
Aizawa raises an eyebrow. “Does he need to go to the hospital?” He directs the question at Tsukauchi but Yagi is already waving his spare hand.
“It’s an injury,” he manages to gasp between coughs. “Been in and out of surgery for a while. I’m fine.”
That was the least reassuring testimony Aizawa had ever received to his face. Not even teenagers attempted to lie to him so blatantly. Tsukauchi rolls his eyes at Yagi. “Trust me, it’s not worth pushing,” he mouths at Aizawa.
“Mm,” Aizawa huffs noncommittally. He wasn’t sure about this. On the one hand, Yagi was hot. On the other, he looked like he had the potential to drop dead at any second.
“Don’t talk about me as if I’m not here,” Yagi finally has his coughing under control. His teeth are red.
Tsukauchi opens his mouth to reply but Aizawa interrupts. “You cleared for a mission like this?”
“I manage it,” Yagi snaps.
“Then it’s not my concern.” Aizawa shrugs at them both, “I’m in. When do we start?”
After that it was a whirlwind mission brief. He’s given a phone specifically for the mission to run his fake life out of and use his personal phone only for mission critical contact. He downloads the app, Synergistic—Quirk synergy is one swipe away, agrees to the T&Cs—which Tsukauchi informed him gave the app permission to monitor pretty much his entire phone—and then receives the rest of his fake identity.
Saito Reiru, 28, high-school teacher. His quirk description has received a slight downgrade to make it just that bit different from his current quirk but still desirable enough that it can be used as potential kidnapping bait.
The teaching job at the posh, private academy high school was going to be a drag and he hopes the mission won’t be prolonged. Though, with five missing people already, it must be reaching priority investigation status. At least his new apartment was within walking distance of the school and by the sounds of the complex it was located in, it was probably bigger than the one he currently lived in—probably had more furniture too.
Aizawa leans over to eye Yagi’s—Terada Hikaru’s—profile. “Why do we live next to each other?”
“I thought it would be a cute romantic story,” Tsukauchi grins, eyes shining, obviously enjoying himself. “You know, you meet through the app, begin a romance and when one of you walks the other home you discover that you live right next to each other.”
“Wait,” Yagi says. “Did you write these profiles?”
The detective shrugs, “Just something fun I do in my spare time.”
Aizawa opens his phone and matches his fake profile with Yagi’s on Synergistic, frowning slightly at the description there. “Quirkless?”
Yagi offers him a tight smile. “Yes, I am. We thought it would ease eyes on me and make Reiru’s quirk that much more desirable the easier it is to take.”
He nods in reply and scrolls through his new, rather small contacts list. “Why do I have ten missed calls from my mother?”
“Because you never call her, Reiru.” Tsukauchi wears a pained expression and clenches his fist. “It honestly breaks her heart sometimes.”
Aizawa pinches the bridge of his nose. “I regret this already.”
“Why do I only have two texts from the last three weeks and one of them is a promotion for a shopping deal?” Yagi looks entirely unimpressed with his identity.
“Ah, Hikaru,” Tsukauchi puts a hand on Yagi’s shoulder and hangs his head. “Because you’re new to this town, just a little bit lonely, and looking for love. You thought this new job would be a way to discover it.”
Yagi shoots Tsukauchi a look and while Aizawa isn’t quite sure of all of its connotations, he thinks there’s a fair bit of ‘fuck you’ in there.
“When do we move?” Aizawa asks.
“In the next couple of days.” Tsukauchi slaps a folder of case files in front of them both, serious again. “Yagi-san already moved in last week, and you’ll follow to raise less suspicions. Say goodbye to your friends for a little while and try to keep outside contact to a minimum. Let’s find these missing people, gather enough evidence to put them away for life, and end this.”
“Shoutaaaaa,” Hizashi’s wail echoes through the bar and Aizawa buries his head further into his arms. “Why are you leaving me?”
Nemuri elbows Hizashi eliciting a high pitched yelp from him. “Shut up, Hizashi,” she halfway slurs in an exaggerated whisper, “it’s a secret mission. Top secret.”
Not anymore, Aizawa thinks. “It’s only for a couple weeks,” he grumbles into the table. He’d miss three, maybe four of their Friday drinks sessions max.
“How did you even manage to get the leave from Nedzu?” Nemuri asks. “He’s been working you pretty hard with administration ever since you expelled your entire class two weeks into the semester.”
“He was the one who recommended me. Along with All Might.”
Hizashi chokes on his drink. “What? All Might recommended you? Wait, how do you know All Might? Does he know about this?” Hizashi’s eyes blow wide. “Are you working with All Might? No fucking way, Shouta.”
“No.”
“Oh good, cause you hate the guy—
“I don’t hate him. I dislike his methods.” Aizawa takes a long drink. “I’m working with his secretary.”
Nemuri leans forward with a familiar look on her face. She lazily raises an eyebrow at him. “Oh?”
Shit. Aizawa had carefully left the details of the mission vague but Nemuri had a habit of reading his crushes like a book. “He’s good looking, ok?”
Hizashi’s eyes are in danger of falling out of his skull. He slaps the table, making all the drinks hop. “Details, now.”
Aizawa shrugs. “I don’t know anything about him. Seems he’s been All Might’s secretary for a couple of years but I can’t find any record of him before that.”
“Doing your research?” Nemuri’s grin is wolfish.
“I like to know who I’m working with,” he throws back at her.
“Nobody cares about his work history,” Hizashi waves it away like an annoying bug. “What’s he look like?”
He shrugs again, resigning himself to more details than he’d thought he was going to have to admit. This had been a mistake. “Tall, older, thin.”
After a pregnant pause, both Nemuri and Hizashi make the same ‘and?’ gesture.
Aizawa lies his head back on the table. “Blonde,” he mumbles into the wood.
They both cackle like delighted hyenas. “You can’t resist a blonde, can you Shouta?” Nemuri laughs.
“Shut up. I’m only dating him for the mission—
Oh fuck. Aizawa’s alcohol fuzzed brain finally catches up with his mouth and he freezes.
“YOU’RE DOING WHAT FOR THE MISSION?” Hizashi’s yell almost brings down the entire structure of the tiny bar.
Somewhere in his head a voice tells him he shouldn’t drink so much. He agrees with it, but at this point the rest of his mental capacity has gone into calculating how many drinks he needs to consume in order to get alcohol poisoning bad enough to kill him instantly.
Instead, he presses his head further into the wood of the table as Hizashi gets dressed down by the manager of the bar and Nemuri cackles endlessly at his own misfortune. And he thinks that despite being huge pains in his ass, he was going to miss them.
Yagi—or as Reiru knows him, Hikaru—turns out to be easy to talk to. Or at least be talked at, which is Aizawa’s preferred method of conversation through text anyway. He had put a bit of effort in his early messages to Hikaru to cover his story if the app developers decided to take that bait and look deeper into this relationship, but after a few days he’d drifted back into his own habits of leaving messages on read for several hours before replying with short sentences. Not that Yagi seems to care, Aizawa thinks as he receives another paragraph of work drama along with some scathing commentary on the way management meetings are run. It’s a clever way of giving him insider information on the app team, but he does wonder if half of it is due to Yagi being bored at his new job.
He asks as much and gets an upside down emoji smiley as the answer. That gets a snort out of him.
[Hikaru]: What are you doing now anyway?
Aizawa yawns and almost drops his phone on his face. He eyes the half-packed bag and the appalling state of his apartment from his position on the floor and sighs.
[Reiru]: packing
[Hikaru]: Oh! That’s right your train leaves tonight! I look forward to finally being able to see you!
[Reiru]: same
It is slightly surprising that Aizawa found his reply was just a little bit true. He hadn’t been able to get Yagi’s piercing blue eyes, or scraggly blonde hair, or sharp features, or honest disposition out of his head and it was, quite frankly, setting him on edge. He needed to watch himself. Just because Yagi ticked a lot of his boxes doesn’t mean that he could just ask him out in the middle of a mission. Yagi might not even be into him. And besides, he hardly knew anything about him other than that he was All Might’s secretary. Every message he’s received so far was from ‘Hikaru’ and all of them furthered the mission in some way. It was just acting. There was nothing of the real Yagi contained in them.
Maybe after the mission he could attempt to get to know Yagi, but until then, he needed to keep it professional.
Hikaru and Reiru would have to have some semblance of romance and whatever form that was going to take, he would find out tomorrow evening when they meet for their first date at a bar near Hikaru’s office after their respective work days. Apparently it was frequented often by members of the development team and could be a potential spot to gather intel or lay out some bait. They’d decide on a course of action once they were there.
He sighs and rolls over, gathering the scattered case file papers from the floor where he was studying them. The local police had already conducted interviews with the victims’ families and friends but because of privacy laws hadn’t been able to gain access to the app’s data or messaging systems to find out who the victims had matched to before their disappearance. Finding the victims alive was high priority, but each and every one of them had disappeared without a trace and outside of any CCTV footage or witnesses. Whoever was behind this was dangerous and clearly knew what they were doing. Yagi had the unenviable job of trying to dig for digital information without spooking the developers or blowing his cover.
The current plan they had was to attempt to find out where the victims were and exactly who was behind this without resorting to laying himself out as bait for a potential kidnapping if they could help it. He would instead be running covert patrols in the areas where the last victims went missing and questioning the locals to see if he could glean anything that hadn’t already been mentioned to the police.
His phone buzzes and he himself raising an eyebrow at the sticker of a cute cartoon cat holding a red love heart that Yagi has just sent him in reply to his last message.
[Hikaru]: Have a safe trip!
His mouth twitches up just a little at the sentiment and he spends a moment scrolling his extensive album of cat gifs before picking one without thinking too hard about it and sending it. Then he stuffs his phone in his back pocket, throws the last of his things in his bag and locks his apartment up without looking back.
Teaching at U.A. had not been a job Aizawa had expected, but when he had been given the opportunity and decided to take it, he had given it everything he had and found that by some miracle he actually enjoyed it. Teaching at the ‘elite’ high school Tsukauchi had placed him in now knocks his first year of underground hero work—the year he had his leg broken by an idiot villain, lived in a shared dorm house with six other people, and had to work two other jobs at convenience stores just to stay alive—off the list of worst jobs he’s ever had.
“Are you ok? You look like you need a drink,” Yagi’s soft, deep voice snaps him out of his tired haze.
He blinks up at Yagi and stares. The other man is dressed in a fitted casual suit which accentuates his absurdly tall form, pulling tight around the waist, and causes Aizawa’s brain to promptly and efficiently short-circuit.
“Or several,” Yagi raises an eyebrow at him.
“Yes,” is all Aizawa can manage as he squints up at this strange creature and tries to jump start his synapses. He had thought the man handsome in the dingy police room with his ill-fitted suit and tired eyes, but this was something else entirely. The low neon lights from the bars around them throw shadows over all of his sharp angles while highlighting the edges of his form. His blonde hair has been tamed somewhat, bangs framing his high cheekbones and hollow cheeks. A slight curl begins unfurling his thin lips the longer Aizawa stares.
“It’s nice to finally meet you, Saito-san,” Yagi’s blue eyes glimmer from beneath their pools of darkness.
“Uh, likewise…Terada-san,” Aizawa closes his eyes for a brief second in an attempt to make his stupid brain start processing again. Honestly, they were meant to be working. He needed to pull it together, this was no time to have a horny crisis.
“Please, call me Hikaru.”
Yagi seems to be ready to go through the motions which, thankfully, makes him roll his eyes hard enough to snap out of this haze. “Reiru,” he replies dryly before striding off abruptly down a dingy laneway to a big red door and a small wooden sign that just said ‘bar’.
“You sure this is the place?”
Yagi looks slightly doubtful but pushes open the door, holding it for Aizawa. “They said big red door, so I suppose this is it.”
The bar is a lot classier inside than the outside alleyway entrance would have it seem. The polished floor isn’t sticky at all and the bar is stacked with whiskey from all over the world, beautiful bottles of every shape and size imaginable shelved to the top of the high ceiling. The new smoking laws apparently don’t seem to apply here as there is a low haze of cigarette smoke hanging over the room that makes Aizawa’s old habit rear its ugly head again, and sets Yagi off in a coughing fit that he tries to smother into his handkerchief as quietly as he can.
“This going to be a problem for you?” Aizawa glances up at Yagi.
But the other man is already wiping his mouth and putting the handkerchief away, shaking his head lightly. “I’ll get used to it.”
There’s a fleck of blood left on his chin. Aizawa reaches up to wipe it off with his thumb, ignoring Yagi’s look of surprise as he freezes in place like a rabbit caught in a trap, and instead uses the opportunity to scope out the bar.
The bartender is a skinny woman in an exquisite suit with a shaved head and extremely long arms. She barely glances at them as they enter but Aizawa can almost feel the back of his neck prickle and he knows she’s one to watch. There’s quite a few patrons in the bar at this time of evening, mostly office workers three beers deep, but he does spot a couple of other figures wearing suits—the kind of suits that scream ‘illegal activity’ rather than ‘white collar paper pusher’. There’s three of them chain-smoking at a back table, half-empty beers in front of them and eyes flitting around the room.
“I thought this bar might have some allusion to syndicate activity but I didn’t expect it to be quite so…blatant,” Yagi mutters, his eyes looking everywhere but Aizawa.
“Your app team might be involved in more than a eugenics inspired kidnapping operation,” Aizawa quietly replies as he casually leads him over to an empty booth with a good view of the room and its entrances and exits. Three of them. The main alleyway, a door behind the bar, and one that leads to a corridor that contains the bathrooms.
“The way work is done in that office,” Yagi mutters as they settle in, “I’m surprised any of them have the organisational capabilities to be involved in anything, let alone a successful dating app. I’d thought I’d walked into the wrong building on my first day.”
“Maybe they’re just good at misdirection.”
Yagi pauses and fixes him with a stare. “Look me in the eyes and tell me Hara-san from Accounting isn’t the biggest idiot on this planet. You can’t misdirect a lack of intelligence of that magnitude.”
The utter disdain that drips from his words almost makes him snort. “This is the Director’s partner?”
“She’s someone to the Director, but the exact nature of their relationship is unclear. There’s no way she got the job on merit.”
He sits there pondering for a moment and Aizawa feels himself fading as fast as their conversation. He leans back in his chair and it’s all he can do not to fall asleep. He hadn’t been able to nap in the staff room during lunch since, unlike U.A., this high school has tiresome and useless syllabus requirements and the principal had spent twenty minutes of his precious break giving him a lecture on how he must treat every student of the school as if they were the next Prime Minister because that was what their parents were paying for. If the majority of the class he was given had had any kind of potential to begin with, this mentality would surely stamp it out.
He’s brought back to the present when a beer is placed in front of him by a chagrined Yagi.
“Not a very good date, am I? Admittedly, I’m a bit out of practice these last couple of years.” The other man settles back into the booth, albeit a fraction closer to himself now.
“You? Surely not.” He realises how disingenuous the comment sounds as soon as the words leave his mouth, but he lets it stand because the words are true from his point of view.
Yagi narrows his eyes the slightest bit but then says lightly, “I’ve been kept busy at work these last couple of years.”
“Your boss never gave you time off?”
“More like I refused to take it,” Yagi replies wryly. “There was always so much to do and he needed my help.” He trails off on that last part and grimaces as he goes into another, milder coughing fit.
“Hmm,” is all Aizawa has to say to that and they both fall into silence again. He wonders if Yagi’s health is poorer for having worked so much or if it is simply a result of the injury he says he sustained. The man looks anaemic to the point of collapse and the worrying amount of blood he coughs up doesn’t help his case.
He lifts his beer and eyes the room again, noting one of the groups leaving and one of the three suits in the corner lighting up another cigarette off the butt of the first. They look bored.
“So… how was your day?”
Aizawa lazily sweeps his eyes back to Yagi and lowers his drink.
“I broke my record for number of teenagers I made cry on the first day.” Spoiled elitists, the lot of them. He’d lost another precious half hour of his life dealing with the principal’s blustering afterward too.
Yagi, who had just lifted his own glass, chokes on his sip of water and proceeds to spend the next two minutes coughing half a lung up into his handkerchief.
“Is this a common enough occurrence that you keep count?”
He just shrugs. “Not particularly. But the difference in potential from my old job to this is staggering.” At least U.A. only took students who actually wanted to be there. Who actively fought for their own futures. The ones he had found himself in front of today just expected to be handed their future on a silver platter. It had been a rude awakening for them when he had told them that wasn’t the way it was going to work in his classroom.
“Perhaps your expectations of them are too high?” Yagi says it gently but it strikes him the wrong way.
Aizawa fixes the other man with narrowed eyes. He’s not sure of Yagi’s relationship with All Might but surely he can’t be ignorant of the world that his boss has created and will eventually leave to this next generation. “It’s not my expectations that are too high. I am preparing them for a world that will chew them up and spit them out again. I’ve seen it happen.” Someday it was all going to fall. He just needs to know that he did the best he could to prepare these children for that world. If that means telling them the truth about the coming reality before everyone else thinks them ready, well, it was better to crush dreams than support a doomed future.
“You make it sound like there’s a war going on.”
“Maybe not now, but there’s one certainly coming.” It was only logical. Eventually the Symbol of Peace would either retire, or fall. Either way, when a primary support beam is knocked out from a structure, it becomes unstable. And if the blow is big enough, then the entire building is in danger of collapsing.
They both sit in silence for a moment before Yagi leans in close, and says, “Are all your first date conversations this intense?”
It’s so unexpected that Aizawa snorts and makes a motion as if to duck into his capture weapon before remembering that he doesn’t have it. He has to settle instead with hiding behind his curtain of hair. Yagi got him there. “No, I can’t say they are. But then, I haven’t exactly been on one in a while.”
“You? Surely not,” Yagi says. His own words are not lost on Aizawa as Yagi throws him a lazy smile that almost contradicts the sly look in his eyes. He leans in close and raises his eyebrows, opening his mouth to speak before all the colour suddenly drains from his cheeks. His eyes widen just the slightest bit at something behind Aizawa’s shoulder.
“What?” Aizawa breathes, leaning in closer to Yagi and twisting his head so Yagi’s mouth is hidden behind his head. All of a sudden, he’s close enough to hear the tiny hitch in his breath and smell the fading scent of his cologne. Close enough to see his thin neck stretched across his pulse, adams apple bobbing as he swallows.
To Yagi’s credit, he takes this in stride with a casual coolness and leans in to whisper in Aizawa’s ear. “The director of Synergistic and two other unknowns just walked in. I don’t think they’ve seen us yet.”
Well, here was an opportunity for intel delivered on a silver platter.
“Does the director know you well?”
A huff of air is blown out onto his neck and Aizawa fights the urge to shiver and leans in closer.
“I’m a bit difficult to miss,” Yagi’s low rumble makes his stomach do a somersault. He wants to reach up and smother this man, make him beg and plead for more, make him so irrevocably his that he can’t escape—
Pull yourself together, the rational part of his brain screams, this is a mission! The other, less rational and far hornier part of his brain screams back, exactly! Do it for the mission!
There is barely an inch of space between them now and Aizawa makes a snap decision to commit to this course of action and prays that the manager and whoever he was with had a strong sense of propriety since it would be the only thing to save them now.
He moves even closer to Yagi, angling his body so his knee slips between Yagi’s thighs, one hand holding him in place, the other cupping Yagi’s neck. He moves his head in front of Yagi’s, blocking him from view of the rest of the bar. The other man isn’t breathing, his lips parted just so with surprise.
“Kiss me,” Aizawa’s lips barely move, but Yagi’s deep, electric eyes blow wide at the words.
There’s the barest of hesitations as Yagi breathes, “Wh—”
Too slow, he thinks and closes the space between them, brushing Yagi’s lips as the director and his two companions walk by. It’s chaste and Aizawa has a moment of brief panic wash over him as he thinks this was the wrong course of action and Yagi isn’t going to go for it. But then, there’s a light touch at his lower back that pulls him in with a surprising strength and the kiss deepens. A lot. Aizawa leans even further into him finding Yagi’s body warm, his sharp frame surprisingly muscled beneath his suit. His slightly chapped lips move with a softness and a tenderness that Aizawa didn’t expect but leaves him wanting more.
He takes a chance and whips his tongue across Yagi’s bottom lip, feels the moment they part in shock and the little huff of air on his cheek as the other man finally goes for it and almost fights to part Aizawa’s lips. He lets the other man and holy shit his tongue. He’s kissed some experienced people in his life, but Yagi reads him like an open book, moving just the way he wants, an almost-perfect piece to his puzzle. It’s not all perfect, there’s the sharp, metallic taste of remnant blood mixed in with the rest of him but it’s not something that’s particularly worried him—
“Reiru,” Yagi’s lips are moving on his. “They’re gone.”
“Mm,” Aizawa’s brain-to-mouth function has clearly shut down because the ‘mm’ that was supposed to be a moody affirmation comes out sounding like a very quiet moan. His eyes snap open and, as casually as he can manage, he moves back from Yagi’s face, eyes flicking to check that the director and his companions were, in fact, gone.
Damn.
Yagi is staring at him, breathing hard, a deep blush slowly climbing his neck that even the dim light of the bar can’t hide. Aizawa looks up at him and fights a very insane urge to grin. Yagi looks wrecked. Hmm, delicious. It’s not like his own heart isn’t trying to leap out of his chest either, but he plays it off with a sigh as he leans over Yagi’s arm to pick up his drink, disguising his look around the bar with the action. The director has settled into the booth next to them and started a low conversation.
“Can you hear them?” he leans back into Yagi.
“Uh,” Yagi clears his throat, “a little.”
“Good,” he says and, regrettably, untangles himself from Yagi. “I’m going to the bathroom.”
“Wait!”
Aizawa pauses and raises his eyebrows as Yagi reaches over and tucks back some of his hair that had become stuck to his cheek. The other man clears his throat again and mutters something too low for even him to hear before taking a huge gulp of water and looking anywhere but at Aizawa.
His lips twitch. Hero missions aren’t meant to be this fun.
Aizawa doesn’t look at the director’s booth as he passes it by, instead taking out his phone and casually glancing around the bar. One of the three chain-smoking suits in the back is staring at him with narrowed eyes but he just lets his gaze move over him without meeting the stare.
The door to the bathrooms leads to a short hallway that does contain the aforementioned bathrooms and another door at the end marked ‘private’. He spends enough time as is appropriate in the bathroom—barely glancing at his reflection in the mirror since it just makes him want to rip off this stupid tie he’s wearing—before leaving again. He keeps his phone out, pretending to look at the screen while he videos the bar, catching a brief shot of the director and his colleagues before sliding back into his booth with Yagi.
“They say they’re investors, but there’s mention of a meeting three days from now regarding payment. No location yet.” Yagi says this as he curls around Aizawa, playing his part extremely convincingly.
“I have a picture of them all,” Aizawa mutters into Yagi’s neck, admiring its curve and the way his breath causes goosebumps to ride along the skin there. “We should probably go before they notice us. We’ve attracted other attention from the back of the room.”
“The suits?”
“Yes, the one with the long plaits won’t stop staring.” Aizawa, regrettably, leans back again.
Yagi takes the cue and slides out of the booth, hunching over more than usual as if that would help his seven-foot stature be any less noticeable. At least if the director did spot him and cared enough about Yagi to question why he was at the bar they had already laid the foundations for the bait plan.
They both casually walk out of the bar, Yagi doing the talking while Aizawa made the bare minimum replies necessary to keep the conversation going. He gives the room one last glance, pretending he was interested in the aesthetic of the place and notes the bartender’s eyes on them both while she polishes a scotch glass and then the door swings shut behind them, cutting her from view.
In what would be an impressive display of social skill if Aizawa had been friends with anyone but Hizashi, Yagi manages to continue his rambling, one-sided conversation two blocks from the bar before he eventually trails off and sighs. Aizawa takes the moment to loosen his tie and run his hands through his hair, untangling the bits that had become mussed during the passionate, fake make-out session. He really needed to get a hold of his feelings. And now that he knew how good Yagi was at kissing, it was going to make it horribly difficult to sweep them under the too-hard carpet and maintain logical consistency in his actions. He had thought his insensible crush days were behind him but the last few hours have made a fool of him in that respect.
They walk in silence for a while as the cool mid-autumn night wraps around them. Not quite cold enough for frosted breath yet but getting close.
“Do you think we should have just let the director see us?” Yagi breaks the silence.
“Not particularly,” Aizawa replies. “It doesn’t matter either way in the end. He either saw us both making out and now knows you have a partner and we’ve put the bait out for the rats, or he didn’t and we’ve managed to pick up some valuable intel that could lead to these missing people. Either way, it’s in our favour.”
“Why… uuhhh,” Yagi unconvincingly clears his throat. “Why kiss at all then?”
“Because,” Aizawa drags out the word as if he’s talking with a simpleton, when, in fact his brain cycles through several honest answers that include: life is short and you are hot; It looked like it would be a good time and I was right; and I’m usually not this impulsive but you’re making it very difficult to do my job. He eventually settles on, “it was a much more convincing way to simultaneously lay the bait and make sure he wouldn’t be on his guard about any eavesdroppers. It’s a win-win situation that called for it.”
Yagi frowns ever so slightly before nodding and drops the subject. It’s at this moment that Aizawa realises they are almost back at their shared apartment complex. They climb the front stairs together and Yagi swipes his pass, letting them into the lobby. This place was ten times fancier than his actual apartment which makes him wonder how much of the police budget was being allocated to this sting and for what reason. Perhaps Tsukauchi wasn’t entirely honest about the scope of the operation. But Aizawa dismisses that thought almost as soon as he has it—what would be the point of keeping him in the dark?
They both wait for the elevator in companionable silence. Aizawa watches the other man out of the corner of his eye as Yagi takes a breath, opens his mouth, seems to think better of it and glances away.
“What?” He almost rolls his eyes.
“Well,” Yagi’s mouth curls up. “Tongue on the first date?”
Aizawa just raises and eyebrow. “I recall it was you who stuck your tongue in my mouth first.”
Yagi laughs, it’s a quick burst of genuine happiness that’s almost immediately cut off by another coughing fit.
“Touché,” Yagi eventually manages with a wry smile on his face. “You know, you’re not at all what I expected,” Yagi says it as though he’s trying to make a joke, but it comes out sounding more sincere than he must realise.
Aizawa shrugs, “what were you expecting?”
Yagi blinks. “I’m not sure now, but to be entirely honest, it was not that,” Yagi coughs and then turns away as it turns into a fit of great hacking breaths that almost make Aizawa wince with their ferocity.
“Was it too much?” he asks as the elevator opens out onto the floor of their apartments. Yagi had seemed pretty into it at the time, but he didn’t want to misread the situation.
Yagi hesitates before slowly answering, “No. Like you said, it was what the situation called for.” He turns the key to his apartment as Aizawa walks to the next door in the hallway.
On a whim, he turns back to Yagi and catches him staring. There was a lot more going on behind those blue eyes than Yagi let on and he had a feeling it might land him in hot water. But hesitation had never been a good thing in his experience, and he might as well take a gamble now before he got too far down this rabbit hole.
“We could continue to let this play out inside my apartment?” He makes the offer as bluntly as he can.
There’s a pregnant pause from Yagi as he stares back at him with those piercing blue eyes and his hand on the door handle.
“I appreciate your effort, but we’re alone now,” he eventually says. “You don’t have to pretend.” Yagi turns away from him. “Good night, Aizawa.” he says the words so quietly that he almost misses it before Yagi steps into his apartment and the door clicks softly shut behind him.
Fuck.
Aizawa tries not to let the sting of rejection get to him. This was work. It was a job. He sighs, rubbing his neck as he pushes through his own apartment door in a tired haze. He still had several hours of patrol and reconnaissance work to do and it wasn’t like he was going to be able to sleep now, no matter how tired he felt.
Yagi wants to just pretend? Fine. He’ll just pretend.