Chapter Text
“Eijirou, your tie is in your coffee.”
Eijirou looked down and sure enough, the black fabric was soaking in hot fluid. He let out an exasperated whine.
“What am I supposed to do?” he cried.
“Take your tie off, dumbass,” his co-worker, Kota said to him, taking a sip of his own untainted-by-tie coffee.
Eijirou undid it and pulled it over his head without thinking, and jumped when he felt a hot, wet slap against his chest. Shit.
He looked down at his white dress shirt, now stained a dark brown all down the front. He heard a snort from Kota.
“Wow, you’re really killing it today,” he said, still trying to stifle a laugh.
“Kirishima!” a deep, familiar voice from behind him said. This day couldn’t get worse.
“Hey, boss!” Eijirou said, turning to him with a smile.
“You know we pride ourselves on looking presentable and professional here,” he started, and Eijirou already knew where this was going.
“Yes, sir!”
“So why are you in with hair still that long and a coffee-stained shirt?” his boss continued.
Eijirou sighed. Couldn’t he tell that it just happened?
“Sorry, had a little accident. And I haven’t had time to get my hair cut yet,” he said. Even though he had no intention of getting a haircut anytime soon.
I work every day, when am I supposed to go?
I have no time.
I’m such a good employee!
All lies.
“Get on it, or your position here will be reevaluated,” his boss said before walking away, not even giving him a chance to defend himself further.
“Dude, you’re so fired. Just cut your hair already,” Kota said. Eijirou turned back to his own computer.
The screen felt especially bright today. His retinas were not adjusting at all.
“I don’t want to cut it. I’m a bold guy, and it’s really not that long,” Eijirou said, toying with the black strands that just barely brushed his shoulders.
“Bold? Dude, you work here. There’s nothing bold about that,” Kota said. Eijirou sighed.
He supposed he was right.
-
Every single day was the exact same. Eijirou’s alarm went off at six in the morning. He’d shower, eat a piece of toast and brush his teeth before getting dressed. He put on a different variation of the same outfit, a dress shirt, a tie and some black pants.
He left his house by seven-thirty, and waited for the train at the station near his house. Once it came, he rode it for only three stops before getting off and walking the rest of the way to the office building.
Eijirou was at work by eight. He was an accountant for the business he worked at. The business sold diet pills. Every day he stared at his computer and entered numbers, tapped away at his calculator. Kota made small-talk, his boss gave him trouble for whatever he could complain about on that particular day.
Most days he left around five, walked to the train station, took the train three stops, and returned home.
Once he was home, he ate dinner. Dinner was whatever he had in the fridge at the time. He’d watch the news, maybe a tv show or two, and then go to bed.
He was on auto-pilot 24/7. Half the time he couldn’t even remember the days he spent at work at all. He felt like he was caught in a time loop, forced to repeat the exact same thing every single day.
He was starting to feel depressed. Life was so uninteresting. It was so mundane and forgettable. He had no one to hang out with besides Kota, his family didn’t even live in the city.
He grew his hair out as some sort of rebellion, some sort of stand to make his life the slightest bit more interesting. But he could already feel himself giving in to the pressure of cutting it. He needed to work to live. Without a job, he’d truly have nothing.
“Eijirou, it’s Friday! Wanna come out for drinks?” Kota said, wrapping an arm around Eijirou’s shoulders.
Eijirou nodded. Even this was routine. They went out every Friday, to the same bar, ordered the same drinks.
He didn’t remember the walk to the bar, or ordering drinks. They were placed in front of him, and he chugged his down without stopping.
“Hey, calm down! I’m not cleaning it up if you throw up,” Kota said, patting him on the shoulder.
Eijirou took a deep breath. He wasn’t in a mood for their usual banter and jokes today.
“Aren’t you bored?” Eijirou asked. Kota shrugged.
“I guess. I’m not really unhappy with that though. I like my life,” he answered. “You’re not?”
Eijirou didn’t answer. At least not directly.
“When I was a kid I wanted to be a hero,” he said. Kota laughed.
“Doesn’t everyone? It’s more exciting than what we do, but you really need to have what it takes to pull it off,” he responded. Eijirou knew that. How could he not?
“I almost applied to UA. Chickened out at the last minute though,” Eijirou said, trying his best to make it seem lighthearted.
Every day he regretted not applying. In middle school he’d wanted to so badly, but it also became apparent that he just wasn’t one of those people who was cut out for it. Kota was right, you need bravery.
Someone who couldn’t even apply to a high school could never be a hero.
“That’s dreaming big, dude. I don’t think it’s so bad to be where we are though. Our lives aren’t on the line every day. We aren’t responsible for the lives of others either. I’m sure that’s really stressful. I like living a stress free life,” Kota said.
Eijirou supposed he was right. He should be happy that he has a job that isn’t stressful. Nobody’s life was on the line when he was doing expense reports.
But he felt so empty.
He tried to fill the emptiness with alcohol.
The drinks disappeared quickly, and the next thing Eijirou remembered was being on the train. No one else was on the car, so that meant it must have been extremely late. He somehow got lucky enough to catch the last train.
He looked out the window, and realized that he did not in fact catch the last train. He was in a part of the city he didn’t even recognize, going what seemed to be the opposite direction of his own apartment.
He screeched to himself, looking around for someone to tell him where he was. But, no one was there.
Eijirou got off at the next stop without thinking, and his drunken mind told him to walk home. He had absolutely no idea how far away he was from his place, or if he was going the right way, but he walked anyway.
It was so dark, and colder than he remembered it being. He wondered what time it was.
He felt around in his pockets for his phone, and eventually found it on the fourth try.
“Two,” he said to himself.
He decided he wouldn’t make it home. He dropped to his knees, and then laid down on the pavement. It was even colder than when he was standing, but it was bedtime.
He couldn’t help but feel happy. At least this wasn’t routine. At least it was something different.
Then, he felt a boot hit him in the stomach. It winded him, the perp not giving him enough time to harden. He coughed as he rolled over to his back and looked up at his attacker.
It was someone he recognized. But not because he knew him personally.
“You’re Ground Zero,” Eijirou said, in speech that sounded slurred even to him.
“Are you fucking drunk? Get the fuck up. Being drunk outside like this is illegal, and so is sleeping on the fucking ground,” the hero said to him.
The vulgarity surprised him, even though it was something Ground Zero was well known for.
Ground Zero. Completely uncooperative, vulgar, cold. Voted the least personable hero, despite making it into the top ten so quickly after debut.
“Don’ know where I am,” Eijirou said, looking around. “Let me go back to bed.”
Ground Zero yanked him up to his feet by his coffee stained shirt.
Up close, he was kind of pretty. His hair was softer looking than it looked on tv. He reached out to touch it, but his hand was smacked away by a heavy gauntlet.
Ground Zero was on patrol right now. And Eijirou was doing illegal things.
“Don’ arrest me, man. I’m lost,” he mumbled.
“I can’t even fucking arrest you if I wanted. Heroes can’t do that, dumbass,” Ground Zero snapped back.
“You’re so famous. Can I have an autograph?”
“No.”
“Will you take me home?”
“No!”
“Will you at least give me directions?”
Ground Zero sighed loudly.
“Where do you live?”
“Like… near Dagoba beach kinda,” Eijirou said.
“What?! That’s on the other side of town!” Ground Zero shouted.
“Ah, shoot. I got on the wrong train and got here. Please, take me home Mr. Ground Zero,” Eijirou said, bending over in a ninety degree bow. The motion made him dizzy, and he kind of felt like throwing up.
“This is a horrible part of town, you know. I’m here because there’s rumoured gang activity. I can’t afford to leave to escort some fucking drunkard home,” Ground Zero said. “I’d think you were some sort of trap but you honestly seem too fucking stupid.”
Eijirou pouted. Ground Zero was mean. He really should have expected this.
“I’ll walk then. Goodbye,” Eijirou said, and he continued to walk on his path that he was starting to think wasn’t the way home.
“Wait, what’s on your shirt?” Ground Zero said.
“I put coffee on it!” he shouted, even though he wasn’t even that far away yet.
“Not that! I’m talking about the-”
He didn’t hear Ground Zero finish the sentence, because suddenly he wasn’t outside anymore. Before he could register his surroundings, he was pushed into a chair and restrained, duct tape slapped over his mouth.
There were two guys standing around him, at least. They were talking, and Eijirou couldn’t make out any of the words over the sound of his blood pumping through his ears. His heart rate was out of control.
He was being held captive, and he had no idea how far away he had been transported from Ground Zero, or if the hero had even stayed in the same place. He couldn’t move his arms to reach his phone in his pocket, and his legs were tied together as well.
The men were wearing masks, probably so he couldn’t identify them if he escaped. He managed to catch one of them telling him not to make a peep, so he didn’t.
They were talking in hushed voices about Ground Zero, and how unlucky they were that he was the one they sent.
“Hey, how do you know Ground Zero? Old friends?” one of the guys asked, as if he would be able to answer with his mouth covered. He shook his head instead.
Was he being used as a hostage because they thought he was acquainted with Ground Zero?
He wanted to tell them that he didn’t know him at all, that he just met him about a minute before they abducted him. But he also didn’t know if they would kill him if they found out he was completely valueless.
One of them pulled out a knife and pointed it at Eijirou.
“Sorry kiddo. Gonna need to cut you up a bit so they know we’re serious,” the man said.
Eijirou couldn’t help but squirm in his chair and let out small whimpering noises, as if someone could hear actually hear him and come save him.
The man held the knife to his chest and dug it in before dragging it across the skin. Luckily, Eijirou reflexively hardened his skin, saving him from any real damage, and breaking the knife.
The man whistled.
“Nice quirk,” he said. He walked over and gripped Eijirou’s hair tightly, forcing him to look up at him. “You wanna work for us?”
He didn’t get to answer.
The door was suddenly blown off its hinges. The two guys jumped to defend themselves against the threat but they were taken down in a matter of seconds. Ground Zero stood over their limp bodies, pulled out his phone and called someone as calmly as if he just took out the garbage.
He locked eyes with Eijirou while he waited for whoever he called to pick up. His eyes were red, the same as Eijirou’s. But they had a completely different intensity. Eijirou felt the need to hold his breath.
“I got them. Hostage is here too,” Ground Zero said into the phone. Whoever was on the other line said something that made him click his tongue before he hung up.
He approached Eijirou and slowly peeled the tape off his mouth. Eijirou hardened his skin underneath so he wouldn’t lose his lips, Ground Zero wasn’t particularly gentle.
“Did they hurt you?” he asked, but it seemed more like he was asking because someone made him rather than because he actually gave a shit.
“No. They tried but-”
“Great,” he said, cutting him off. He undid Eijirou’s restraints and turned him around, pulling off something that was stuck to his back. “You shouldn’t let people stick you with their quirks, dumbass.”
Ground Zero held a tag in front of Eijirou’s face. He didn’t recognize it, but he assumed this was how he arrived in this building all of a sudden.
“Oh…” was all he could muster.
“You’re lucky he had a distance limit or you might be dead,” Ground Zero continued. He was clearly pissed off, but that was his reputation. Eijirou couldn’t really pin it on himself.
Eijirou couldn’t think of anything to say. He felt like any words that left his mouth would just piss off this guy more, and somehow that was scarier than the villains.
Shortly after he was saved, the police and ambulances showed up. They took away the villains, and one woman took Eijirou aside and examined him. He watched Ground Zero talk to a couple of guys, not seeming any happier than he did earlier.
“You’re clear! However, your blood-alcohol level is very high. I’ll make someone take you home,” she said.
She waved over the group that Ground Zero was standing with, and all three guys approached.
“Someone please take this young man home. It’s not safe for him to walk alone,” she ordered. The two other men snickered.
“Ground Zero will do it! He’s such a sweet guy after all!” one of the guys said, slapping Ground Zero in the back.
Eijirou thought the guy might have dug his own grave, but Ground Zero just glared at them and then sighed.
“Fine. Come on, idiot,” he said.
Eijirou quickly thanked the woman and followed Ground Zero, keeping enough distance so he wouldn’t annoy him anymore than he already had.
They walked in silence until they got to a building that Eijirou didn’t recognize. He followed Ground Zero into a parking lot and to his what he assumed was Ground Zero’s car.
As he got in, he thought about how many fangirls would be jealous if he told them that he knew what the inside of Ground Zero’s car looked like, and smelled like.
He thought it would smell something like cigarettes, but it smelled a lot more welcoming. Like cinnamon.
Ground Zero had taken off his gauntlets and his head pieces and thrown them in the back of the car before sitting in the driver’s seat.
“Your car smells nice. Do you have air freshener?” Eijirou asked, unable to keep his mouth shut any longer.
“No,” Ground Zero answered.
“I was so scared, dude. The one guy had a knife and he cut my shirt. It’s a good thing this shirt has coffee all over it or I might be really upset,” he continued rambling.
He was definitely still drunk. He thought the adrenaline sobered him up but apparently there was still quite a bit of alcohol in his system. He didn’t realize it until he sat down and he felt like he was still moving.
Ground Zero mumbled something under his breath that Eijirou didn’t catch, but it didn’t deter him from talking.
“When you came in, you were so cool. I thought I was gonna die but then! Bam! You showed up and took them out like it was nothing. I’ve never met a hero in the top ten before, you’re really no joke,” Eijirou said. Ground Zero scoffed.
“Yeah, whatever. Just shut up, you’re giving me a headache,” he responded.
“Okay. Yes, sir.”
Suddenly, Eijirou felt dizzy. He couldn’t tell if it was from exhaustion, or maybe shock. Maybe he was just wasted.
Either way, he leaned forward, pressing his forehead against the glove box. He registered a click from the handle, and Ground Zero yelling something at him. He couldn’t make out any of the words though.
His vision was fuzzy. He could no longer see his own feet.
The last thing he remembered before he blacked out was emptying his stomach in Ground Zero’s car.