Note: Hiiiii! No I have not abandoned this fic!

I'm soooo sorry. I do have a reason for taking so long: College applications suck!
So yeah I couldn't write for a few weeks. But here's a long chapter with some fluff to make up for it!
(Please forgive me. I should be posting regularly again. Hopefully.)

"Show me the most

damaged parts of your soul,

and I will show you how

it still shines like gold"

-Nikita Gill

-x-

That night, after they ate dinner, Hizashi stood up and walked over to where Nemuri was sitting, whispering something in her ear. Her eyes shined as she winked at Hizashi and gave him a not-so-subtle thumbs up.

Aizawa was just glad the tension had dissolved. Something had changed between him and Hizashi, but it wasn't bad.

A new kind of understanding had risen between them, a strengthened bond in their friendship.

After a minute, Nemuri stretched back, comically putting her hands behind her head like an anime character. "Well, it's been fun, boys, but I have a ton of homework that I have to get started on. So tonight, [I bid you adieu]."

"Hey that's my bit!" Hizashi called after her as she left, cackling over her shoulder.

Aizawa stared at Hizashi, his eyes wide as he tried to figure out what was going on.

Hizashi leaned on the table, staring at Aizawa. He folded his hands in front of him and quietly started to speak, his voice quavery and uncertain, "So. I was wondering, if you're up to it, if you would want, uh, come into my room and spend some time with me this evening. We could study some homework… talk… maybe—"

"Sure," Aizawa said, cutting him off. "I'd be up for that." He attempted to give him a soft smile but was afraid it might have come out more as a grimace.

"Great!" Hizashi beamed. He leaped up from his seat and dashed to Aizawa, grabbing his hand and pulling him up from his seat. He grinned as he dragged Aizawa through the hall, despite the students milling about who stopped to stare at them.

When they reached Hizashi's room, he let go of Aizawa's hand, using his ID to open the room and let them inside.

The room looked almost the same as it had that morning, except for the fact that now Hizashi was inside too. Records still lined the walls, photos were pinned above a desk and sat in frames. Books and homework papers were strewn about, and a couple of bookshelves were lined with various books.

"Welcome to my room!" Hizashi announced, spreading his arms wide. "I'm sure that you saw it earlier, but now you can officially look at it!"

Aizawa looked around again and then pulled out the chair at the desk and sat down tentatively. "You have a very nice room."

"Oh, there's no need to be so stiff," Hizashi grinned, waving his arms. "And come sit over here on the bed! It's much more comfortable."

Aizawa stood up, relenting quickly, and moved over to sit next to Hizashi. He had left quite a bit of space for Aizawa to sit so they weren't pressed together.

"So," Hizashi murmured as he sat and rocked on his hands. "Do you have any… questions or do you have anything you want to talk about or do?"

Aizawa shrugged noncommittally.

They sat for a moment in silence before Hizashi shook his head and stood. "Nope. Not going to do this awkward silence. We're best friends and we are not allowed to be awkward together." Aizawa smirked, as Hizashi stood up and grabbed a board game off of the shelf. When he sat on the floor, disregarding his former declaration of the bed, Aizawa was able to see that he had a chess board laying out.

"I hadn't taken you for someone to want to play chess," Aizawa commented. He knew that Hizashi was brilliant in his own way, but he wouldn't have expected him to like such a strategy oriented game.

"What? Really?" Hizashi asked. "I love chess. [It's amazing]."

Aizawa peeled himself off of the bed and slid to the floor. Gently, his actions overtaking his mind, he moved until his hand was resting on Hizashi's stopping him from placing any more of the wooden pieces on the board.

"Hizashi… why do you want me here right now? Don't you have homework? Don't you want to try going to sleep on your own?"

He looked away awkwardly. "Must we have these deep talks everytime? Can't we just have some fun for once?"

He glanced into Aizawa's eyes before looking away again. Maybe he knew that Aizawa didn't mean anything rude by it; he merely wanted to ensure that Hizashi was doing okay.

"Fine. I'll tell you but then I want to have some fun."

Aizawa nodded in agreement letting go of Hizashi's hand.

"I… I really want to get better and I want to both settle Nemuri's nerves about me and have fun. Plus… I like you!" Hizashi looked up at him beaming and making a finger guns sign.

Aizawa opened his mouth slightly. His face felt warm. It was weird. Maybe the heat in the dorms had turned on?

"Okay. Maybe you could help me on some homework after our chess game?" he asked, looking down at the pieces and starting to place a couple of pawns.

"But I haven't even started mine…" Hizashi frowned.

"I bet you can help me as we both work on it." Aizawa encouraged.

"Alright. I'll concede," Hizashi said, smirking. "But you had better try your best to beat me at chess."

Aizawa quickly discovered that Hizashi was a freaking chess genius. Comparatively, Aizawa felt proud that he remembered how the pieces moved.

Hizashi still helped him by looking skeptically whenever he made a really stupid move so that Aizawa was prompted to move to a better location.

Suffice to say, he lost almost all of his pieces relatively quickly and moved his king around aimlessly until he was cornered and defeated.

"I said try your best," Hizashi rubbed the back of his head, "and I believe that you did but… are you a little out of practice?"

"Try a lot out of practice. I don't think I have played chess in more than four or five years. And even when I did play. It was fairly rarely."

Hizashi shook his head, putting his hand on Aizawa's shoulder. "Keep staying my friend, and I'll teach you some awesome strategy. But for now… let's do some homework."

"It won't be that bad if we're both working on it, at least."

"Hopefully."

They pulled out their core classes homework and began working.

Aizawa found out that Hizashi wasn't kidding, he was brilliant. With barely a pause to read the questions, he was able to explain them all to Aizawa. As he did, Aizawa prompted him to write the answers down on his own paper so he would actually get credit for them instead of forgetting.

"You know," Aizawa said slowly, "We could do this every night. I'm not stupid, but it always helps to have someone to work on your homework with. Plus, that way you could actually get more of said homework done."

Hizashi nodded. "Yeah. But homework is just so dull and boring."

"And I'm not the most exciting person to do it with." Aizawa stated.

"You know that if we asked Nemuri she would just turn it into some kind of game. One time she convinced a good portion of the class to take off an article of clothing for every three questions they got wrong in a large review session ..." Hizashi laughed while he told the story, remembering the day fondly. "And then of course our teacher came and yelled at us because that wasn't school appropriate. Nothing too bad happened."

"I vote for not doing that," Aizawa replied, his eyes wide with confusion.

"I agree. But… we could come up with a game…" he paused looking around the room. "What about… for ever time I have to be reminded to write down an answer or everytime that you ask for help, we have to answer a question about ourselves?"

"Doesn't that seem childish?" Aizawa asked. "You can ask me whatever."

"But this seems more fun!" Hizashi cheered, pushing his glasses up his nose, causing them to glint in the light.

"Alright. I'll join that one. It seems innocent enough. But what happens when we don't want to answer a question?"

"Hmm I'm not sure. Let's come to that when a question like that is asked. Maybe try not ot mentally scar each other."

Aizawa nodded. "Yeah that would be appreciated."

They continued working but it wasn't long before Aizawa had to ask for clarification. It was just too tempting with Hizashi— the literal genius— sitting next to him.

He helped with the math problem and then smiled devilishly. "Alright! Time for a question: What is your favorite type of music?"

"What?"

"What is your favorite type of music?"

"I was expecting something a lot deeper," Aizawa said as he exhaled. "But that works." He paused to think about it. "Hmm. I haven't listened to much music… I always kind of liked classical music because it put me to sleep and I have trouble sleeping normally. And whenever I woke up, I was greeted with a pleasant sound that wouldn't always make me hate the world."

"So you haven't listened to any other types of music?" Hizashi asked looking disheartened.

"Not really," Aizawa admitted.

"Then you are in luck!" Hizashi spread his arms wide speaking in an announcer-style voice. "Because I have just the music for you!"

He bounded over to his phone and started scrolling through the copious number of songs until he found one to his liking and pressed play, bobbing his head before the song had even started.

A song in English started playing, Hizashi singing the words to it, his voice a perfect match.

"|Can you feel it? Now it's coming back. We can steal it, if we bridge this gap. I can see ya, through the curtains of the waterfall!|"

Hizashi raised an eyebrow, grinning.

"|When I lost it, yeah, you held my hand. But I tossed it. Didn't understand. You were waiting as I dove into the waterfall….|"

He paused before grabbing Aizawa's hand and jumping up with him. "|So SAY Geronimo! Say Geronimo! Say Geronimo! Say Geronimo!|"

While singing along, Hizashi danced with Aizawa, holding his hands and swinging them lightly, sometimes raising them upwards as though in triumph. He let go once to spin around as the song progressed.

"|So it's here I stand as a broken man, but I've found my friend, at the curtains of the waterfall.|"

As he spoke, Hizashi looked into Aizawa's eyes. His voice was so soft and nice to listen to. It complemented the one singing so well that Aizawa was blown away, captivated by the performance. And if Hizashi's voice wasn't enough, then the shyly hopeful face he kept flashing Aizawa in between broad smiles and overdramatic winks and spins, certainly was.

"|And you rushed to me, and it sets us free, so I fall to my knees (At the curtains of the waterfall)... SAY Geronimo! Say Geronimo!|"

This time, Aizawa gets caught up in the lyrics, singing with the corus, his voice felt scratchy and disharmonious compared to Hizashi's but the grin that Hizashi gave him was well worth it.

As the song was ending, Hizashi moved closer to Aizawa slowly, his lips still singing the words but his voice wasn't as into it as it had been a moment before.

He stared into Aizawa's eyes looking for any sign that what he was doing wasn't okay… But Aizawa didn't stop him.

Hizashi moved closer, wrapping one arm around Aizawa's waist and the other clasping Aizawa's hand tightly. Together, they took quiet steps to the beat. Barely moving but Aizawa was too caught staring into Hizashi's eyes. He had brilliant green eyes that sparkled with curiosity and will.

Aizawa felt drawn by his eyes and his moving lips as he sang the last lyrics of the song, the vocals fading away.

Their chests were almost touching now, Hizashi pulling them closer together as Aizawa leaned forward.

"|Make this leap….. Make this leap….|"

Hizashi's voice solidified, his voice barely a whisper in the last line.

"|Can you feel...my love…|"

There was a beat between them, the song fading into silence. Hizashi stared intently into Aizawa's eyes.

They were maybe inches apart but it felt as though there was no space between them.

And then, as though a spell had been broken, Hizashi coughed lightly, clearing his throat and stepped back, letting go of Aizawa's hand and his waist.

He turned to his phone and slowly flicked the screen up and down mindlessly, pretending to be productive.

"So…. did you like that song?"

"Yes," Aizawa said smiling. "It was really… nice."

Another beat of silence. "What's it called?"

"Geronimo. By Sheppard. It…. it's one of my favorites."

Aizawa nodded, repeating to himself that it sounded nice.

The warmth that had flooded through Aizawa when Hizashi had held him so close was gone, leaving him with a shiver in his bones.

He didn't know why but he missed his touch.

The…. the cold was familiar, just like nightmares in between restless fits of sleep. But the warmth…. He missed the warmth that was so foreign.

Aizawa shook his head to himself. That was ridiculous. He had made it this far without any kind of warmth. He would keep surviving just fine.

Aizawa looked around the room again, forcing all of those weird thoughts in his mind to go to the back of his head where he could procrastinate thinking about them.

"We should probably get back to our homework…" Aizawa said slowly.

"Oh, shoot, you're right," Hizashi moaned flopping backwards overdramatically. "But… since you reminded me, you get to ask me a question."

Aizawa rather wanted to skip that part and just move on to doing work, but he could also see the merit in distracting both of them with a new question. He looked around the room until his eyes fell on the picture that had captivated his attention before, when he was first in Hizashi's room.

Standing up, he walked over to the picture of Hizashi and his mom making some kind of gang sign together. Aizawa pointed at the picture. "What are you doing in this picture?"

Hizashi's brow creased in confusion. "What… you mean this?" he held up his hand in the same sign on the picture, his index and pinky finger raised high, his palm facing Aizawa with his middle and ring fingers curled down and his thumb spread out away from his palm.

"Yeah," Aizawa tried to replicate the symbol and then looked back at the picture. "What does it mean?"

"|I love you|."

"What?" Aizawa was taken aback by the phrase.

"This symbol? It's abbreviated sign language or I love you in English. Because 'I' is this:" he raised just his pinky. "'L' for '|Love|' is this:" he raised his thumb and index in an L shape. "And 'Y' for '|you|" is this:" he raised his thumb and pinky. So together, it's a symbol for I love you."

"So you and your mom and telling each other you love each other, right?"

"Exactly," Hizashi murmured as he stepped over towards the picture and plucked it off of the wall caringly. "It's the only way I tell her I love her… my mom is deaf… because of my quirk."

Aizawa stared not sure what to say. Is this the time that he should offer condolences?

Hizashi turned away from him, still speaking. "I was always loud as a kid but when my quirk came in… my family didn't know what to do. I slowly broke their hearing without even knowing it." A soft laugh escaped his lips. "I broke my own hearing, too." he tapped his hearing aids lightly. "But you already knew that."

His voice was so quiet. He wasn't looking at Aizawa at all but Aizawa could still see the soft trickle of a tear down the side of Hizashi's face.

He sniffed and wiped at his face, turning to Aizawa with a smile. "So, yeah, I know sign language in both English and Japanese... to help my mom adjust…"

"That's pretty amazing," Aizawa whispered. "Because you're amazing at English, of course you're good with Japanese, but then you know both Japanese sign language and English sign language?"

"Well my mom knew a lot of english since she was raised on it so it kind of helped her to know both…" Hizashi mumbled.

"Either way it's amazing," Aizawa told him trying to bring back the old excited Hizashi he was used to. "Now, let's continue on our homework."

-x-

Between the dance and the question about his mom, Hizashi felt overly subdued and apparently he was showing it. Aizawa was acting too excitable for this to be a normal mood.

But Hizashi couldn't get his mind to snap out of it.

He had picked Geronimo because it's a good song and he thought Aizawa would like it but then, without thinking about it, Hizashi had started dancing with him, playfully acting like they were ballroom dancing.

He had done it with Nemuri a number of times and never felt anything weird about it.

But he also hadn't leaned close to Nemuri, singing to the best of his ability and started thinking about—-.

No. Everything he was thinking about was ridiculous.

Nemuri's teasing about him liking Aizawa came dashing back into his head. Sure he had thought about it before but…

But he valued Aizawa's friendship so much more than the want for a relationship.

So they would stay friends.

Hizashi looked up into Aizawa's messy hair and dark eyes. Even if it kills me, he thought to himself.

They stayed fairly focused on work for the next hour, not speaking too much and letting each other go easy on the questions.

Or at least Hizashi thought that was the plan.

"Hizashi? You need to stop staring off into space and get back to work," Aizawa reminded him, a glint in his eye. "After answering a question."

"Ah, you caught me," Hizashi groaned, forcing enthusiasm into his voice.

Aizawa leaned back, his hair falling into his eyes in a way that made Hizashi desperate to try to brush it away or put his hair up in some kind of pony tail.

"I don't know what to ask you…" Aizawa trailed off, sighing lightly.

"Well that's okay! We can just skip this question… or something."

"No, I need a question to get you back into cheerfulness." Aizawa's eyes narrowed until he sat up staring directly at Hizashi.

"What?" he asked, feeling more uncertain than he really should. This was Aizawa after all.

"I know. When and how did you and Nemuri become friends?"

Hizashi had to hold back his sigh of relief. Of course Aizawa wouldn't ask something so strange as the question that was burning inside of Hizashi's mind.

He had probably never even thought of dating.

Let alone of dating a guy.

Hizashi laughed, rubbing the back of his head. "It's not actually that eventful of a story. Nemuri is one of those people who's just nice to everyone on principal. But I think someone else dared her to spend a whole day with me? I'm not actually sure because she won't confirm or deny this, but why else would anyone want to talk to the loud kid?

"So then we spent the afternoon, after classes, hanging out and we were practicing sparring a bit not 'technically' using our quirks but," Hizashi shrugged, getting the point across. "It was fun. And I think the biggest reason she stayed my friend was that I didn't spend every second flirting with her like most of the other guys… and honestly some of the girls, too, did. I mean, sure I threw a few jokes at her ever now and again but they were never serious and I think she knew that."

"So…" Aizawa pitched in after Hizashi was done talking. "Essentially she felt bad for you and befriended you because she knew that you had no chance in dating her?"

"Yeah," Hizashi nodded. "Not that I'd want to date her. She's my friend." He stopped abruptly realizing that he may have just made a mistake. "Not that I'm against dating friends! I like dating friends just not Nemuri friends. But you know me, I have all of those friends just lining up to give me a kiss…" he trailed off knowing that he was just making everything so much worse.

Aizawa started laughing. "I don't really care who you date, Hizashi."

Hizashi's face fell internally. He kind of wanted Aizawa to care.

"Well… I'm just saying. I don't have any eyes set towards Nemuri." Hizashi looked back down at his math, feeling sullen.

"Okay. Good," Aizawa murmured as he wrote down the last answer and put his homework back in his bag.

Quickly, Hizashi finished up the last couple, not really thinking about the answers. He was too busy thinking about Aizawa and what he had said.

Why couldn't he ever get Aizawa out of his head?

"Okay! We're done with homework! Right?" Hizashi paused. "You're not going to uncover another assignment I don't know about, are you?"

"No," Aizawa smiled, yawning and stretching.

Hizashi glanced at the clock on the edge of his bedside table. Between all that had happened that evening and homework, it was already 9:00 at night.

"Do you want to stay in here tonight?" Hizashi asked tentatively. "You could try to actually sleep and keep a watch on me… and we could talk more and—"

"Sure," Aizawa replied simply, shrugging.

Hizashi grinned. "Fantastic! I'll help you grab a mat and anything else you need so that we can be settled before curfew.

Together, excitedly, they collected and made a bed for Aizawa. At one point, Hizashi noticed Nemuri hiding in the kitchen, grinning.

She quickly signed something before disappearing, but it took a minute for him to realize what it was.

Why do you need another bed?

Hizashi flushed bright red and decided to ignore her tomorrow for that comment.

He dashed back into his room after Aizawa and began setting up the bed. They chatted about the kinds of beds that Aizawa had slept on when he was younger and the times that they had both fallen asleep in uncomfortable places.

"I think the worst one was when I decided it was a good idea to sleep on the stairs of my house," Hizashi laughed. "I don't know that my neck or hip has ever forgiven me for that experience."

"I don't know, at least you were home. Once I fell asleep in some bushes next to my school… but it started raining while I slept."

"Did you go find some cover?"

Aizawa shook his head. "Nope. I slept through it. I woke up wet and with one of the worst colds of my entire life."

"Aizawa! Why would you fall asleep outside?"

"Because I had done it a million times before?" Aizawa shrugged.

"Alright well I know what I'm getting you for your birthday… or the holidays. Whichever comes first. When is your birthday?"

"November 8th."

"Oh, wow, that's soon. I had better get shopping," Hizashi grinned.

"You don't need to get me anything…." Aizawa trailed off and then mumbled something softly to himself.

"What was that?" Hizashi asked.

"I… well, I don't really have the money to get anything for you…."

"Presents don't have to be tangible objects. You could give me a day we spend together or you could sing a song, or you could give me a hug…"

Aizawa rolled his eyes. "But then what will you cherish?"

"The time we spend together," Hizashi said, seriously. "Time is everything."

Aizawa nodded, not saying anything. After a moment in silence, he spoke softly. "This time is a gift for me, too."

Hizashi smiled. "I'm glad."