Chapter Text
“Maa… O-san, how about one more… one more beer for the road, neh?”
At the age of twenty-seven, Aizawa Shouta should have known better…
“Ano… sensei? I think you’ve had enough.”
However, considering his life was what it was?
“Tch! Fine but… but I’ll buy that big bottle of sake, okay? Come on, it’s a Friday night isn’t… isn’t it?”
Why shouldn’t he let his hair (which was only long because cutting it was illogical) down a little?
“And you’ll be heading straight home?”
Because, really? He was a joke, everything was…
“You… you got it… o’tou-san~!”
He’d lost his parents when he was eight, endured the joys of foster care, endeavoured to become a teacher (and maybe… maybe one day a parent) to stand up for disenfranchised youths like himself and, after meeting that goal?
Although he loved teaching (he liked to think of himself as firm, but fair; all of his graduating classes had said as much, many having showered him with thanks and sentimental gifts that made up the only clutter in his otherwise spartan, needlessly two-bedroomed apartment), what else did he have?
The only man he’d ever loved was dead…
He only had two friends (and they… well? He didn’t know what he’d done to deserve them; he was such an ornery, sharp-tongued, tsundere bastard all the time, wasn’t he?) outside of his work’s colleagues…
He loved cats but didn’t live in a building that permitted them and he was…
Lonely…
Lonely and stupid and a workaholic and…
“Fuck” he murmured to himself, his body (dressed in his best and only suit) not quite stumbling but not exactly steady as he left the small, quiet bar he frequented (maybe too often) on the approach to a similarly unbusy train-platform, the bottle of Dragon Slayer nihonshu he’d purchased cradled in his arms.
Heh.
Talk about pathetic…
He couldn’t believe that he’d let the last parent’s evening before the start of summer vacation (that he’d booked off for reasons that escaped him; it wasn’t as though he had anything to do or people, aside from Nemuri and Hizashi (who were married, now, and didn’t need him to be a third-wheel no matter how much they loved him) to do things with) rile him so much…
He shouldn’t care that Awata’s father didn’t appreciate the progress she’d made in Art…
Matsumura’s mama overlooking him not having detention for five weeks in a row didn’t mean that they didn’t see him trying his best to put a torrid of juvenile delinquency past behind him…
Watanabe’s mother refusing to praise him for getting passing grades for the first time in his young life wasn’t supposed to make him this angry, but…
But…
He couldn’t help caring about his students.
Children were the future, after all, and he…
He didn’t want any of them ending up like him…
Just some loser on a good wage with essays to grade, training to supervise and nothing but loneliness ahead…
Heh!
Not that he cared, not really…
Only…
That wasn’t quite true, was it?
Grumbling under his breath, the summer breeze toying with his charcoal-blazer and the blue, silk-tie a student had given him as a present a few years back, Shouta regarded the oncoming train (similarly empty aside from the driver and a few weary, home-bound salarymen; shit; how was it 22:47 already?) with a sigh.
It was wrong of him, he supposed, to feel so dejected…
He earned good money…
He was in good health…
Life could have been so much worse for him and he…
He’d beaten the system; he was a respected member of society, he’d never touched drugs (outside of alcohol but he lived in Japan! It wasn’t acceptable not to drink and he didn’t do, well, this all of the time, either; hell! He’d not gotten this drunk since his last birthday in November and it was July!) and despite his current line of thought?
He wasn’t totally miserable…
There were cat-café’s to visit…
He was due a bonus or two in August (well, so long as the Principal didn’t catch wind of him snapping at those parents tonight) and, all in all?
He wasn’t a terrible human being…
Well…
By non-traditional standards, anyway; being gay and single in a country where gay-marriage wasn’t even acknowledged, let alone accepted, wasn’t great but still…
At least he had the right to be gay and that?
That was something, even if Shirakumo Oboro was…
**“Now departing from Naruhata Station… next stop? Gunga Station”**
“Eh?”
Blinking (oh shit… he’d missed his stop and, according to the train’s AI, he wouldn’t be getting off until the last stop that bordered the fucking mountains which loomed over the city he’d called home since he’d been shipped out of Tokyo after his parents had died) Shouta could only blink as the platform he should have walked onto whizzed past him…
Ha…
Hahahaaa~!
Grinning, his mood suddenly lifted (because he was going on an adventure~! One of his favourite, western books and it’s central, hobbit-character somehow giggling right alongside him), the High School History teacher looked around the vacant train-carriage he occupied before tittering at his large bottle of Junmai, his smile broadening all the more.
Heh~!
It looked as though he’d be sharing his spoils with the bears and youkai (that he didn’t believe in; he was an atheist, after all) he’d encounter on a walk, close to midnight, in an area that was bound to be devoid of people.
Just like the rest of his life, really…
~*~
Ambling through the woods (pitch-black save for the full-moon overhead), the sound of his drunken hiccups echoing amidst the sounds of cicadas, crickets and the like, Aizawa Shouta snickered at the “beware of bears” posters whilst he unscrewed the cap of his sake bottle and attempted to follow what he thought was a path.
“Tch… we should never… never left the forests for… cities” he grumbled to himself after a hefty swig, his free hand gesturing around at the looming, darkened trees where numerous insects and creatures were no doubt watching him; “this… this is where we should be… no pollution… no… stress” he mused. “And that… hick… that sky? You don’t… don’t see stars like that a-anywhere else, do you?” he asked the fresh-aired, person-free place.
“S-so what if there’re b-bears, eh? P-people still h-hunt and eat them, d-don’t they? That and I… I know how to fight you know, so they can… can bring it on~! Maa~! I bet… bet they’re t-tasty, too” he continued, his eyes skimming through the lightning-bug scattered area for any sign of the brown, furred creatures; “umm~! Not as tasty as… as this air, though… ugh! Summers in the city suck” he complained whilst shaking the bottle. “Why’s it so… so damned hot? Why are air-con u-units so… expensive, ah?” he furthered before blundering through a posse of bushes, their twiggy fingers tugging at his blazer and scratching past his leather-satchel, trying to dislodge it from his shoulder.
Tch!
“N-not today… you stupid p-plants… ah?! You… you wanna fight me?!” he growled out, another leafy bough having caught the bobble he’d used to secure his hair in a ponytail (because he’d needed to look professional and kempt for that stupid parents’ evening! Hell, he’d even shaved and he never shaved because it was an irrational thing to do!) and pulled it free.
“F-fine! You win this r-round” he grumbled whilst staggering into what he thought to be just another, empty thicket; “s-shit… at least hair-ties are c-cheap” he continued, the sounds of him stumbling and the sloshing of sake in its bottle the only sounds he could hear now.
Huh…
That was weird…
Where did all of the wildlife go?
Blinking, he made to inelegantly spin around when…
“Ooooofffff~!”
… he collided with something hot and smooth, its mysterious presence sturdy enough that it knocked him to the ground where he sat, his booze and satchel spread out next to him whilst he looked up…
“What are you doing here… human?”
… and up to find a set of huge, neon-blue eyes peering at him out of a gigantic, golden-scaled face.
E-eh?!
“You… you’re” he managed whilst getting back on his feet; “you’re a… a dragon!” he gasped, his hands reaching out to push and press at the snout he’d previously walked into, his pinked-cheeks darkening: “and you… you’re a… a European-n one, too, r-right? I… ooooffffffff~!”
Blinking, his backside once more planted in the lush, currently tramped grass, Shouta huffed out an “oww” before regarding the creature again.
Those eyes…
They were glowing and… gorgeous and…
Wait…
Was… was that a huge, fucking broad-sword sticking out of the beast’s side?
“Begone, insolent human” it warned him through some kind of telepathy, a gush of annoyed steam jetting from its nostrils before that colossal jaw snapped open; “or I’ll eat you!”
Squinting his eyes shut as even more hot air blasted him, the history teacher wiped bewilderedly at his face, the wooziness of his beer-sake-addled brain easily brushing aside any potential danger he could be in (because this? This wasn’t real… he’d likely gotten oFf the train, wandered home and collapsed on his sofa… again) whilst he swayed back onto his feet.
This…
This was incredible…
“E-eh?”
He’d always enjoyed reading about the lore of his country and those of others (this, of course, had further pushed him into the realms of teaching) but to see a real dragon (huge-pointed teeth, leathery-wings composed of navy-blue and an outline of crimson with a tail that could potentially flatten a building!), was…
“Tch… well, either way… I’m going to die, too…”
Incredible~! Although…
“Heh… how pathetic to think that the last being I meet is a lowly, drunken ningen, I…”
“Oi” he cut in, the grumpier persona he was famous for across Yuuei High School coming in to play; “where d’you get off… talking like that, ah?” he challenged, the behemoth actually baulking at him.
Heh!
That was how the majority of his kids reacted to that tone, too!
Good.
“W-what?”
“You heard me” he huffed, his legs (still a little wobbly) walking him a little closer to the (absolutely stunning; it was like the mythical monster had carved his scales out of actual, literal gold) beast he’d stumbled across; “that’s… quitin’ talk, you know? You can’t… can’t just give in to it” he reminded gruffly, his tone souring because, well?
His life had been shit, hadn’t it?
He’d lost his parents in a car accident, the pair of them taken out by a runaway truck as they drove back from his grandmother’s funeral of all things…
Then, no foster family keeping him for long (because he was broken, angry and too sullen for many peoples’ tastes), he thought things were finally looking up when he met Hizashi, Nemuri and Oboro at High School, his feelings for the blue-eyed boy allowing him to feel joy and happiness for the first time in years…
Only for him to die, too…
Only for his life to end at seventeen in a freak-accident when masonry fell from an old building some fancy corporation was knocking down…
His partner, the boy he’d hoped to spend the rest of his life with, hadn’t stood a chance as he’d been walking off to school that morning and hell, he’d be damned if anyone else he knew died, even if that someone was a gigantic, dream-lizard…
“Kisama! Don’t talk as if…”
“You need that thing p-pulled out, right-t?” he asked, his head cocking at the (admittedly huge; it had to be thirteen feet tall or more and, considering all of the black-blood marring those otherwise flawless scales, it’d done some considerable damage… not that a dragon, a magical creature should be able to heal such things, right?) double-edged sword.
“W-well, yes, but… hey! Wait! What are you doing?!”
Humming (heh; he knew that his years of gymnastics and rock-climbing would come in handy one day, take that middle-school bullies!), he was soon scaling (hah~! Pun totally intended) the creature’s flank, his slightly bleary gaze zeroed in on the silvery-metal.
“Y-you… you fool! You can’t touch that! It’s the divine sword of the death God, Shigaraki! You’ll crumble into ash! The only reason why I haven’t is because my mana levels are so high and— eh?!”
Then, once he’d gotten his footing, he grabbed at the ridge running down the blade’s centre, the gap’s edge providing a perfect ridge for his fingers to grasp whilst he bent his knees and began to pull the blasted thing out.
“D-death God, huh?” he sneered, the incredulity of his tone caustic and biting; “tch! Well, not that I… I believe in such stuff but if… if such a thing does exist, then he owes me a fucking favour… or… two!” he snarled, the sword slowly but surely easing up and away: “I’m… not… losing… anyone… else… you hear me?!” he roared as, with one, final heave?
“H-how?!”
“There!”
The stupid thing (that was either lighter than he expected because it was magic or because the beer he’d been drinking and his two slugs of sake) came free, the ornate, bejewelled handle anchoring it towards the grassy floor, the whole thing sparkling majestically under the full-moon light as it fell.
Huh…
“Y-you… you did it…”
Smiling, his good mood returning full blast, the teacher veritably whooped as he slid down the stupefied dragon’s side (away from the sticky, tar-like blood), his fancy, leather shoes (that Hizashi had bought him for his birthday last year; he was wearing the blue, silk tie Nemuri had bought him, too) skidding slightly on the crushed grass.
“Yes, I did” he veritably tittered after another hiccup, his long legs now striding him to where his satchel and drink were waiting; “so? Let’s celebrate~!” he announced whilst slumping into the fragrant ground, Dragon Slayer bottle in hand.
“W-what?” the beast blinked, those enchanting eyes all aglow as fucking sparkles skittered and shimmered across those beautiful scales to light-up and close the wound; “but I… I threatened your life I… I mocked your ability to help me…”
“Um-hm, but I helped you anyway, didn’t I? Tch… it’s illogical to focus on the past” he huffed, the lid swiftly de-capped from his bottle so he could take a hefty swig; “ahh~! So, *hick*, come on! You’re going to live now!” he told the bewildered beast bluntly. “Maa~! You might be a f-gment of my… *hick* imagination but I’m not being my usual… usual tsundere-self right now, am I?!”
“Ah… forgive me” the other managed through that same, weird telepathy that was ringing around his buzz-fuzzed head; “I… I’m grateful to you truly, I… I hadn’t thought I could be saved” it reasoned whilst, oddly, the massive weapon fizzled out of existence.
Heh…
“I can only think that your lack of faith is what enabled you to do such a thing, I… Shigaraki has been pursuing and trying to slay me for years and I, well” it managed, its newly repaired body moving and shifting to test out the validity of his healing-spell, or whatever; “I escaped to this world so I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me perish, I—”
“Who gives a damn about all that, huh?!” he cut in, his eyes rolling whilst he waved the green-glassed vessel at the shock-jerked lizard; “come on! Come on! Drink with me already!” he urged, his dark eyes flashing: “I saved your life, didn’t I? The least you can do is drink with me! That’s what we Japanese people do!” he snapped. “You’re in my debt, right? So come on! I want someone to drink with me because I… I…” he tried, the melancholy he’d been giving in to earlier suddenly returning.
“I… I’m just so fucking sick and tired of… of being alone, you know?”
“A-ah… I see, well, hold on.”
Blinking, he watched as a strange, turquoise circle of light (containing strange characters he’d never seen before, and ancient languages was one of the things he enjoyed exploring most when it came to history) sprung to life before the dragon’s snout and?
With a flicking of diamond shape pupils…
A slight nod and the whisper of words he didn’t know?
“W-whoa…”
The dragon disappeared into flashes and streaks of golden light which tossed, turned and bunched together into a sphere that, with another blinding pulse, solidified into the naked silhouette of a man who looked as though he’d just walked out of a Sports Illustrated photo-shoot, his tanned flesh barely covered by a blue-cloak whilst, from the top of his head, twin-gold horns protruded.
Huh…
“So” he breathed, his pupils dilating (because… wow) at the sight, his consciousness now registering a golden tail slinking down, its tip flicking at the grass whilst they regarded each other; “you… you’re a male-dragon…”
“Um” the other nodded, his six-foot-six form (which was… umm), slacked with muscles and an outline that Olympic swimmers and body-builders alike would envy (‘don’t look at his crotch… don’t look at his crotch… don’t look at his crotch!’) moving towards him and kneeling only a foot or so away; “I… do not like having to use this spell, though.”
Damn…
Well that was a shame, wasn’t it?
But still, while the creature was in it, there was nothing wrong with enjoying the view was there and so, his blush darkening further despite himself, he passed the man his nihonshu bottle and watched, whilst swallowing thickly himself, as he took a long, deep swig.
“Ha~! There you go!” he congratulated when the other finished with a wistful, satisfied sigh; “you’re already drinking like a pro, see?” he grinned: “so… so! Let’s drink together, j-just us guys!” he offered.
“Eh?” the sunny-blond blinked, those eyes (no longer neon blue but close enough) widening in surprise; “you… you’re a man?!”
Wait…
What?!
“OI!” he snapped, his right hand snagging the bottle whilst he glared; “t-the hell is that s’pposed to mean, huh?!” he added hotly whilst the dragon rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, his tail swishing behind him.
“Ah-hahahaa~! Sorry, I meant no offence!” he tried to back-track; “it… it’s just… your hair is so long and your face is so… pretty and I… well? I’ve not ever seen a human that’s quite like you” he continued oafishly.
Tch!
Like that was supposed to be a compliment, or something!
Shit!
Oboro had used to tease him about his boyish good looks all of the time when they…
When he’d been…
“A-ano…”
“Forget it” he said, his head shaking before he took a deep-hit off of the bottle and offered it back; “I’m through with being s-sad and… and angry all the time” he explained when the other accepted the booze, his unsure, angular, ridiculously gorgeous (which… was so not fair!) features softening into a genuine smile.
“So… so let’s drink and you, you can tell me all about where you… you come from, alright-t?”
~*~
In what felt like hours later (the moon had moved, he was sure of it, and it seemed to be getting… lighter), Aizawa Shouta, a history teacher both respected and feared by staff and students alike, slammed the now very much empty bottle of Dragon Slayer Junmai down onto the much-abused grass…
“I’m out there working… working so hard for what?!”
“Y-yeah! That’s right! You t-tell ‘em! You’re b-busting your back an’… and doing alla that marking and they… those… those brats d-don’t even read w-what you w-write, do they?! You just… just show me where this… this place of l-learning is and I’ll… I’ll make sure they… they listen to ya~!”
… whilst he and his new friend put the world, and everything else, to rights…
“A-and why… why the fuck should I… should I be g-given all of the… the problem children, huh? J-just because I… I can scare ‘em into workin and don’t take… take none of their shit suddenly I’m in charge of… in charge of all the detentions… how… how is THAT fair, ah?!”
“S’not fair! They… they’re all t-taking advantage of… of you! And I… I should know~! J-just cus my… my master was the… the strongest and she… she gave me her powers instead of… of her son suddenly I’m the dragon to beat! I get this big… BIG target on m-my back and… and for what?! Just cus I… I don’t destroy villages and… and demand virgin sacrifices I’m so weird and dangerous?! How the hell does that… does that work?!”
… it wasn’t funny, not really but, as the dragon roped a warm, brawny arm around his shoulder and brought him in close? He couldn’t help his hysterical, verging on manic laughter because, well?
He…
He’d not felt this good in… years, really and that?
That was… really, fucking sad, wasn’t it?
“Why am I all alone?” he breathed quietly, his head (suddenly so heavy) bumping onto the tanned male’s meaty shoulder, his eyes staring up at the wide, star-sprinkled sky.
“I…” the taller, broader male began, his own laughter dying out; “I… I’ve often asked that myself” he murmured, the body he didn’t like using shifting, that long, wide, warm tail of his carefully coiling about his waist, the tip of it snaking into his lap like a napping cat. “I… I’ve had followers before, sure, but I… I know what loneliness is… ever since my master died, I’ve struggled to live and form attachments and, now? Now I’m here, in a world you say sees my kind as myth… in a place where there is no magic… no monsters” he sighed.
“I’m… I’m more lost now than I… I’ve ever been…”
Tilting his head up, his drink-widened pupils trying to narrow, the teacher knew what he had to do.
“Then… then why not s-stay with me?”
Watching as the other baulked slightly, he found those amazing, other-worldly eyes locking with his own.
“You… you’ve given me… me my life back” he breathed, the tail that’s slinked about him tightening its hold as long, dark lashes started to bead with tears; “I… I couldn’t possibly ask any… any more of you” he furthered, his tone…
Hopeful…
“C-could I?”
Chuckling, he left his left-hand rising to somehow cup that gorgeous face; “you’re not asking, baka” he grinned: “I’m offering and… besides” he shrugged: “I… I get a good wage… I rent a… an apartment with two bedrooms just cus I’m s’pposed to” he snickered, his eyes rolling. “W-which means I… I have room for you, you know, if you can… can slum-it as a… a human for a while” he grinned.
“R-really?”
“Um-hm!” he nodded, his right hand extending towards the other’s shocked form; “I’m Aizawa Shouta, by the way!” he laughed: “ha! We… we should pro’bly know each-others’ names if… if we’re gonna be roomies, right?”
Then, a smile more glorious than the sun pulling that handsome countenance, the dragon reached out to shake his offered hand.
“I… I’m Toshinori” he murmured; “it… it’s a pleasure to know you… Aizawa-sensei~!”