Chapter Text
Shinsou was exhausted, but of course that was absolutely nothing new. He seemed to spend more time tired than not since being put onto a permanent night shift, working in the agency that he so respected, that he had been hoping for a position in since his move to the hero course all those years before. He’d managed to do what many of his peers hadn’t and been hired straight out of graduation, just not quite into the role that he’d always wanted.
He trusted the legacy of the Nighteye name – of course – to make the decision that was most fitting for his skills for the betterment of all people, but it didn’t mean that he liked it all of the time.
You’re just so good at covert operations. They had said to him. So much like your father that your talent would be wasted in the day. We have a lot that we believe we can achieve working with you, Shinsou
And in so many ways they were right. He was better working alone than with a partner. He had trained to be able to move silently and see better in the dark in ways that traditional heroes had no need for. He thrived in the shadows, using his voice and his sharp mind to manipulate unsuspecting villains before they ever saw his face. It was more money, too, even if he didn’t strictly need it. But it didn’t do his sleep schedule any good at all, and if there was one thing that Shinsou did need more of it was sleep.
Every morning just as the sun started to come up he returned to the agency to complete his paperwork, absolutely exhausted. He trudged down halls, vaguely waving to those who passed him without making eye contact. The fellow night workers knew better than to speak to anyone who’d been awake for an ungodly number of hours but the dayshift guys were annoyingly perky as they came in with their coffee and their normal sleep schedules and their good moods.
And there were none so jolly in his early days at the Agency as Kirishima Eijirou. He seemed all together too pleased to be there, to be anywhere, frankly. With his huge dopey grin and his sunshine smile and his mood that never seemed to dip below gratingly buoyant. Every morning he greeted Shinsou as he walked through the door to the agency with that bright smile and the slightly too loud good morning that set his teeth on edge. He didn’t dislike the guy, after a few hours sleep and a decent coffee he might go so far as to say that he thought he was pleasant, but Shinsou wasn’t a morning person even when he had slept through the night. He certainly wasn’t one when he hadn’t.
“Morning Shinsou!”
“You’re too happy,” he grumbled, knowing that he was being unkind and not really knowing why.
“Have a good break!”
“Please just shut the hell up, Kirishima.”
He stomped away, trying not to think about the paperwork that he had to complete before he was allowed to go to sleep, or the pounding in his head that he knew wouldn't go away until he was in a very dark room with absolutely no sound at all.
Or the falling sunshine smile on the red haired man that he’d just left behind him.
***
Kirishima couldn’t work out what he’d done wrong when it came to his nonexistent friendship with Shinsou. He was likeable! People in the agency invited him to parties and chatted to him in the break room and brought him coffee even when he didn’t know them that well. He wanted that with Shinsou. Wanted to get to know him and let him know that he didn’t think he was less of a hero just because he worked the night shift. His work caught so many villains. It was super manly!
He wanted Shinsou to know that he thought he was super manly. That he respected him as a hero. And as a man.
But it wasn't going well.
For as long as he could remember he’d tried to build some kind of bridge between them, and for weeks Shinsou had snapped at him, barked at him, ignored him and now told him to shut up. To shut up . He was standing, reeling in the hall with tears pricking the corners of his eyes when he heard his name called.
Had he done something to make Shinsou hate him?
It plagued him for day and night, but he couldn't think of a single thing that would have offended Shinsou enough to make him so angry. To make him dislike Kirishima the way he clearly did. Finally, after trying everything that he could think of, and being chewed out a few more times for his efforts, he only had one idea left. Whatever he’d done was bad enough that Shinsou didn’t want anything to do with him, and it wasn’t decent of him not to respect that.
So he resolved, as much as it made his chest ache, to leave the undercover hero alone. No more good mornings, no more congratulating him on a job well done and clapping him on the back when he caught a villain. He didn’t know why Shinsou hated him, but no matter how much he wanted to fix it, he had to learn to live with it. If there was one thing he’d learned as a hero it was that there were a lot of things that he wasn’t allowed to fix. And most of those things weren’t up to him.
Over the next few months he made sure to be out of the way when Shinsou came in, nodding quietly when they had to pass in corridors and otherwise not saying a single word. He left the room when Shinsou entered it, and kept his distance the rest of the time. He put all of his energy into working as hard as he could to catch as many villains as he could without a single glance towards the handsome undercover hero.
He’d been accepted to a very prestigious agency, on the recommendation of several highly ranking pro heroes, and he wasn’t going to let that go to waste.