Light filtered in streams of marmalade flickers throughout Shouto's bedroom, wrapping like silk over his prancing fingers. Shouto's eyes were tightly shut in frustration, twitching every now and then as he pressed over a note he was displeased with.
A part of him wondered if the dullness of his capacity was a natural outcome of his ageing body (he was not even thirty yet) or if he was just born to die young because it was either that or something truly demonic, out of the occult, must have possessed him when he decided to take an elective in contemporary musical composition. Besides the obscure criterias of every assignment (and contrarily diligent marking), Shouto quickly realised he'd ended up spending more time on the elective than his actual core classes.
Shouto's hands eventually stopped and his eyes peeled open. A blade of light dashed across his face causing his eyes to water and shut sharply. Shouto groaned, looking away before peeking out again.
He wasn't sure when 9AM became 4PM, but it was vividly clear to Shouto now that he had just spent his entire day off trying to write a five minute composition of abstract sounds and, for a lack of better phrasing, interpretive, "jazzy" chords. The coffee in his stomach was running on its last, diluted, millilitre of fluid to keep Shouto from dying.
Shouto's head slammed onto his piano, the sound vibrating and ringing through his entire being crudely. It was much like Katsuki's composition from last semester.
"Didn't know you could play that with your head."
Shouto stiffened where he sat. He hadn't seen the masked man since Wednesday, the day his life went to Hell, and the sigh of absolute fucking relief he breathed out when the weekend rolled around and he was still nowhere in sight was heavenly to Shouto. And, really, someone should've warned Shouto to not count his eggs before they hatched or maybe knock on some wood the next time because, although three days had passed, the smooth grate of his voice, muffled by the mask, was still as memorable as the day he ran away from home.
He took a moment to consider what he should do. He decided nothing and remained stationary on his piano, perhaps without even active breath.
"Are you dead?"
Maybe. Hopefully.
"Shouto?"
Shouto closed his eyes, ready to wager his soul just to get the uninvited presence away from his window - on the twentieth floor, insanely enough.
"Hello?" And then the window slid open.
Shouto's eyes snapped open and immediately he turned his body. "What are you doing?" he pointedly asked, instantly walking towards his window. He tried to pull it shut but the man's hands were already wrapped around the handle.
Shouto could innately feel him smile. "So you weren't dead."
"God, I wish I was," Shouto muttered, unintentionally. He pursed his lips tightly after. His filter seemed to run in parallel with the sheer amount of coffee rushing through his veins at any given moment. Still, he wouldn't let likely the most suspicious entity to exist get into his house. "Get out."
"I admit, I was a little hasty. How about we start with introductions again?" the man suggested in, what Shouto thought was, a string of reasoning devoid of any common sense. Shouto wasn't sure how he could be more apparent that he wanted nothing more to do with the man, and his juvenile but still, potentially, life saving first aid skills should've been enough to repay him for, well, not getting him shot or worse.
That and Shouto had watched enough films to know that once he grew aware of helmet-man's name, he was most assuredly fucked.
"Don't care. Get out."
Helmet man clutched his heart with a gloved hand, feigning an injury. "You wound me, Shouto."
Shouto didn't bother responding, instead he focussed on using his entire body weight to tug on the window.
"And I'd appreciate it if you called me Izuku." Shouto's hands scrambled to shut him up but they uselessly fell on Izuku's helmet as the name filtered through his senses. In that second, Izuku pushed the window open completely, waltzing into Shouto's flat like he owned it. "Nice place."
Shouto looked out his window - hopelessly, somewhat cynically. He did not have enough sleep, food or liquid in him to deal with this. He sighed, locked the window and double-checked it, before turning around. Izuku's legs dangled off his bed from the knee down while the rest of him lay comfortable over his neatly splayed duvet. Shouto took a deep breath. Fine.
"Why are you here?" Shouto levelled with him, remaining motionless otherwise.
Izuku's head tilted in his direction briefly before it fell back onto the bed. He shrugged his left shoulder. "The bandages were coming undone and it hurts."
So what? Shouto must've said that aloud.
"Someone's miffed."
Shouto remained decidedly unresponsive.
"I can't exactly go to a hospital. And I'd much rather amputate my arm than let any of the others deal with an open wound," his head turned again, and Shouto could tell eerily that they were making eye-contact, "You were my only option."
Shouto didn't bother thinking too deeply about the "others." He figured the less he knew the better, even though he wondered if that was really even relevant anymore. "How have you dealt with injuries before?" Shouto pressed, still unconvinced.
The man shrugged, and then choked a little. At least he wasn't lying about it hurting. "I've never been shot before."
Shouto raised a disbelieving brow at Spiderman's stunt double.
"I know what I come off as," Izuku explained, a little bashfully, "but there's no way I've got enough lives to make getting shot a common occurrence."
Shouto still wasn't entirely convinced because, for someone who'd been shot for the first time, he sure carried Shouto, a proper 5 '11 male, about like he was nothing more than a feather pillow, but he supposed there was some truth to what he was saying. He was probably alive because he, for the most part, tended to avoid gunshots.
Shouto dubiously eyed his frame, clad in black from head to toe save for his helmet that had dashes of green. He was taller than Shouto. He was more muscular. But he was shot in his shoulder and Shouto had a black belt in taekwondo. Not that it mattered much since it didn't look like Izuku had any intention to spar Shouto, but just in case, Shouto was weighing his odds.
Now, call him Laplace, but he was pretty sure the probability of him coming out on top was NIL in every universe.
Sighing, Shouto walked out his room and into his kitchen to grab his first aid kit. When he walked back, Izuku was sitting up.
"I thought you left."
"Get on the floor," Shouto ordered, taking a seat on the floor himself and opening the kit.
Izuku looked like he was in physical pain as he kept his lips tightly shut and silently took a seat beside Shouto. At least he knew Shouto was not to be tested.
"Take your shirt off."
"So bossy," Izuku murmured, and Shouto pushed the new bandages in his direction. Izuku mumbled a quick apology which Shouto decided to accept.
Shouto sent a glare at him when he chucked his shirt in some corner of his pristine room, watching his back as Izuku stood up and retrieved it. The night they had first met, Shouto had taken his compulsory glance at a seasoned criminal's washboard abs, but, honestly, even now, it was just as impressive. Arbitrary scars from mostly knife wounds lined his torso, arms, back, really, any span of open skin, but they folded and rippled over hardened muscle so rigidly Shouto wondered if he should go back to therapy for more than just his daddy issues.
In a desperate attempt to steer himself away from Izuku's body, he focussed on a more grisly alternative.
Shouto looked at his left shoulder, grimacing privately. "Is that what I think it is?"
"What do you think it is?"
"A massive piece of cotton duct taped to your shoulder," Shouto all but spat incredulously.
Izuku breathed out succinctly like he found his mangled shoulder funny. "Bingo!"
Shouto felt ill. Very ill.
"Don't look so worried," Izuku made a lost attempt at reassuring Shouto, "It's not as bad as it looks."
"Trust me, it's worse," Shouto rectified, shuddering as he began peeling the tape off. Some of the cotton was stuck to his wound so Shouto had to use his tweezers to carefully pick at it.
It was silent for a few moments as Shouto went between cringing at the wound and growing mad at himself for agreeing to this. Izuku was holding out pretty well as Shouto checked his stitches and cleaned around the wound. It was when the anti-bacterial cream directly touched the tender flesh of the pierced skin that Izuku finally made a half whimper behind his mask. Shouto could only smile in self-satisfaction.
Izuku grumbled. "Is this what you meant by half doctor?"
Shouto didn't bother stopping as he replied, although he knew that was what Izuku was going for. "Exactly what I said," Shouto responded vaguely.
Izuku didn't look away from him and then suddenly gasped. "Did you get your licence revoked after killing someone?"
Shouto didn't want Izuku to know any more than he already did about himself, but he'd rather Izuku not think they were, in any way, similar.
"I didn't finish my degree," Shouto corrected, putting the cotton swab down and picking up a roll of bandages.
"Why?"
"Why do you care?" Shouto retaliated, shifting Izuku's arm so he could get the bandages under.
"You're operating on my arm."
"As per your demand." Shouto tugged the bandages tightly. "You don't have any right to judge my merit."
Izuku shifted slightly. "I don't mean to judge you."
"Good. Then stay quiet." Shouto could only dream of that.
Izuku's eyes drifted over to the piano. "How long have you been playing?"
Shouto responded succinctly. "Longer than you."
Izuku sounded like he found that amusing. "I'm not going to be able to frame you for murder with such information."
Shouto scowled softly. "I could frame you for so much more than that with everything I've got on you."
Izuku leaned closer, and this time Shouto could hear his soft laugh. "Who said you'd be framing me?"
Shouto paused briefly. Did he just get a verbal confession to a potential open murder case? He decided he did not and resumed his bandaging. "I'm almost done."
"Go slower then."
Shouto tied off the bandage. "Too late." He gave a pat over the bandages, relishing when Izuku winced. He pulled out a biohazard bag and began throwing the tissues and old bandages in."
"What's that you're working on?" Izuku asked, jutting his head towards Shouto's composition against his piano.
"Nothing," Shouto petulantly replied.
"Looks fancy."
Shouto wanted to roll his eyes. "Sure."
"Have you been working on it long?"
"Why do you care?"
Izuku pressed. "It looks well-thought."
"I guess."
"Except for the second bar."
"Exactly," Shouto eagerly agreed, and then immediately shut his lips. Shit.
He instinctively looked over at Izuku who now leaned back against his bed, lax in his victory. Shouto didn't want to include him in any more of his life or thoughts than he already had, but Izuku couldn't give a rat's ass about that because why should he?
Shouto pretended he didn't just agree with a criminal. "Get out now that I'm done."
"Aren't you going to ask me how I know?"
Shouto fixed him a glare. "I don't care if you're proficient in music or not."
"I'm not."
"What?"
"I don't know the first thing about music," Izuku elaborated.
Shouto raised a brow. "Then how do you know the chord pattern was weird?"
Izuku stood up, his head tilted slightly which Shouto concluded he did when he was smiling behind the mask. "I don't know, maybe it was the," Izuku counted on his fingers, "seven question marks over it?"
Shouto's eyes ran to his music, and, indeed, there were seven question marks over it. "Why did you bother mentioning it then?" Shouto said, distantly realising that the sun had fully set now.
Izuku remained in place for another second before falling back against Shouto's bed, again. "Well, it got you interested enough, and" he tilted his head towards Shouto, "now I know you're much more expressive on paper than in person."
Shouto was at a loss for words. Well, not really, there was a lot he wanted to say, moreso things that were socially condemned, but the mental gymnastics it took to just pick one was complex enough that Shouto just chose to remain silent.
"Are you dating anyone?"
Shouto was utterly baffled. Too baffled to speak, not that he was doing much of that anyways, but still.
"I'll take it as a no if you remain silent like that," Izuku, in a way Shouto did not need to understand, threatened.
Shouto always knew he was quick on his feet. While his lack of expression often caused people to understand that he was slow, he himself knew he was anything but that. Therefore, in a bout of quick judgement that had, more often than not, helped him make it this far in life, he lied confidently to Izuku. "Yes."
"What?"
"I am. I am dating someone," Shouto added, just for extra precautions, "with the intention of marriage."
"I don't see a ring."
Shouto shrugged, continuing with his now deeper lie. "With the intention," he repeated. "We are not engaged yet."
Izuku mumbled something Shouto didn't quite catch before jumping to his feet. "I'm sorry for taking up your private time then," he apologised, something Shouto didn't believe he could do earnestly. He walked back towards the window, pulling his t-shirt on as he did. Shouto certainly did not watch the way the muscles on Izuku's back shifted as he did.
He picked up his jacket before turning around and waving at Shouto. "I'll be back."
Before Shouto could argue, Izuku fell out of his balcony. Shouto rushed out entirely out of a primal concern most humans are born with as he watched Izuku land safely and drive off on his, similarly, unnecessarily noisy bike.
Shouto recalled Izuku's earlier claim about his lack of lives and decisively concluded that it was, in fact, a lie.
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Merry Christmas and an early Happy New Year (2024???)!