Work Text:
Tamaki’s life is a series of comical errors where he often feels like the punchline to a mediocre joke.
Case in point: when he pulls a pre-schooler away from traffic and back onto the sidewalk, he gets hit by the kid’s quirk. It’s not a rare occurrence; little kids with new quirks they can barely control, it’s bound to happen every once in a while. However, because the universe loves to laugh at Tamaki’s expense, this specific quirk is making every single human being in his vicinity gawk at him. At least three different people do a double-take as he walks back to the UA campus.
All he’d wanted was to grab some extra takoyaki before class. Not all the takoyaki in the world was worth this amount of attention.
Once he’d gotten a rundown on the specifics of the quirk from the child’s terrified and grateful mother, Tamaki had frantically texted Hadou, who had been quick to take the initiative in informing their homeroom teacher what happened. Tamaki hoped that their teacher would excuse him from classes for the rest of the day.
And because Tamaki’s life is the worst, Hadou texts back to say that Cementoss expects Tamaki to show up to class anyway.
Great.
-
Despite the fact that homeroom is due to start in four minutes, Hadou is waiting for him at the school’s front gate, holding a snapback that Tamaki recognizes as one she borrowed from Mirio a while ago. She’s bouncing on the balls of her feet as her gaze flickers from person to person, seeking Tamaki out.
Finally, she sees him, her eyes going comically wide as she slaps a hand over her mouth, muffling hysterical giggles. She stares at Tamaki so hard that it makes his very soul wither away.
“Hadou,” Tamaki squeaks. “Please.”
“Wow, okay.” She hands him the snapback, watching with avid interest as he puts it on. Her eyes are practically sparkling. “I know it’s you, but you look exactly like her. And your voice sounds like hers, too. This is so cool!”
“It’s really not.” Tamaki casts furtive glances around him, terrified of who else might be gawking. “Isn’t Ryukyu at least half a head shorter than me?”
Hadou pouts. “You can’t just expose my crush like that, Amajiki!”
“Sorry.” He isn’t. Hadou’s crush is far from subtle.
“But yeah, I know you’re taller, but my brain doesn’t seem to remember that Ryukyu isn’t this tall.” Hadou gives him a slow once-over, which makes Tamaki want to crawl into a hole, but he holds still. “You look like her but you’re wearing our uniform, so maybe it’s just your face…Oh, but you look like you have boobs. Huh. This is such a weird quirk.”
Weird is the understatement of the century. The quirk that hit Tamaki full-force today is the horrifying lovechild between hallucination-inducing and camouflage, with a hefty dose of mindfuck as well. Apparently, everybody who looks at Tamaki is going to see whoever they’re most attracted to. He has become the proverbial mirror of desire; anybody who takes a look at him will see the person they want the most in the world.
“What happens if a person who doesn’t have anybody they’re attracted to looks at you?” Hadou asks. “Are you invisible to them, then?”
Tamaki doesn’t know about that one. “I’m not sure.”
She frowns, clearly very curious, but she lets it go just as the school bell starts to ring. “Okay, well, Cementoss says he’s going to explain to the staff and the class so everybody’s prepared not to freak out when they see you. So we’re gonna go in a couple minutes late.”
“Right, so everybody can pay extra attention to me.” Like a circus attraction.
Hadou hums, shooting him thoughtful glances as they walk side by side. “Hey, hey. Did you tell Toogata? He’s staying at home, right? His place is two hours away, so we could get him to come over! It’d be fun to see how he reacts—”
“No.” Tamaki’s voice is louder than he usually allows it to be. There’s a visceral kind of panic coiling in the pit of his stomach at the very thought of Mirio seeing him and seeing somebody else instead. He doesn’t want to find out who Mirio would see when he looks at Tamaki right now. “I didn’t tell him. And we’re not making him come over all the way here for this.”
Hadou pouts, but she’s not cruel enough to push when Tamaki has already put his foot down. “Okay, we can tell him about it later after the quirk wears off. It’ll totally be a funny story.”
It’s hardly funny to Tamaki, but he’s well aware that Mirio would find it hilarious—he’d worry about Tamaki’s emotional well-being regarding the whole ordeal, but it’d still be funny to him as long as nobody gets hurt—and there’s a certain kind of warmth in knowing that he could give Mirio something to laugh about. He knows Mirio has been powering through the days with admirable positivity and strength with a wide smile, but Tamaki still sees through the cracks of the facade. He catches the slightest twitches at the corners of Mirio’s mouth when he mentions his training and the flickers of self-doubt in his eyes when nobody else is looking.
(Tamaki is looking. Tamaki is always looking. He’s not sure if Mirio is unaware of that fact, or if Mirio has grown so accustomed to Tamaki’s attention that it hardly registers anymore. Regardless of the answer, Tamaki can’t look away. He doesn’t want to.)
If Tamaki’s temporary humiliation can lift Mirio’s spirits, he’s willing to suffer.
“How long does the quirk last, anyway?” Hadou asks.
“About four or five hours.” At least, that’s what the child’s mother told him. “So it should probably end around lunchtime.”
He hopes it ends before lunch, because he doesn’t want the entire school to gawk at him in the cafeteria. In fact, he’s going to take his bento and eat somewhere nobody can see him, just to be on the safe side.
“Oh, that’s gonna be fun,” Hadou says, which is rather ominous. Before Tamaki can ask what she means by that, they arrive at the door to their classroom, and Hadou opens it with far more force than necessary. “Hi, sensei!”
Cementoss sighs, then glances at Tamaki, and sighs even harder. “Hadou. And…Amajiki. Get to your seats.”
Hadou smiles and goes, pulling Tamaki in by his wrist, and there’s a collective noise of muted shock from their classmates. Everybody is staring at Tamaki. Everybody.
The staring does not go away even after he sits down.
Tamaki has often been told, countless times, that all the scrutiny he senses from everybody around him isn’t real and that he’s putting undue pressure on himself when in reality, very few people are paying him that much attention.
Today, however, the scrutiny is very, very real.
Tamaki wants to die.
-
After first period, Hadou plops herself on Tamaki’s desk and pokes his shoulder. “Hey, hey, Amajiki.”
Tamaki groans incoherently into his desk, where he’s been face-down and wallowing in misery for the past twenty minutes. Ectoplasm hadn’t even bothered calling him out on it, either because Tamaki’s suffering was that palpable, or because Ectoplasm had too much of a soft spot for whoever he saw instead of Tamaki. Either way, Tamaki was grateful.
“You haven’t been snacking much,” Hadou points out. Tamaki is the only one in their class who has permission to eat during lessons for the sake of his quirk. He’s allowed to snack on anything as long as he can do it quietly and without distracting people with the smell of food. “You need to stock up before third period!”
“Third period?” Tamaki parrots blearily, turning his head to the side so he’s not grumbling directly into his desk. “Why?”
He can physically feel Hadou’s stare on his face. “We have that training session, remember? With the first years? At Gym Gamma.”
Tamaki blinks, then thinks of today’s date. Him and Hadou had been requested to join training sessions with the first years this week, so they were going to have a session with Class 1-A first, then 1-B the following day.
Today is the day they’re supposed to work with 1-A.
“Oh no,” Tamaki hisses.
“It’s going to be fun,” Hadou chirps, which explains her cryptic statement from earlier. “So eat up!”
Tamaki hits his forehead against the desk with a thud. He hears some muffled sounds of dismay from his classmates, who are probably witnessing their crush self-destructing out of sheer grief. “Maybe Aizawa will postpone the session to after lunch, so that this quirk wears off first.”
“I don’t think he will.” Hadou pats his head. “I bet he’s gonna think it’s funny.”
-
Fifteen minutes before the training session starts, the two of them head to the staff room to meet Aizawa and formulate a game plan.
Aizawa stares at Tamaki for a solid three seconds, the corner of his mouth twitching only once before his expression turns entirely neutral. “We could use this. I was originally going to split the class so long range fighters would work with Hadou and the rest of them would go with Amajiki, but I think we should change it. I’ll have my students pair up and spar you 2-on-1, with you two alternating every round until all pairs have gone twice. That’s ten rounds each for both of you. Is that okay?”
Hadou rocks on her feet. “That sounds good! Right, Amajiki?”
Tamaki nods reluctantly. He doesn’t mind being a little outnumbered, and ten rounds is tame compared to half the stuff UA has put him through. But…“So everybody’s going to watch each round?”
Aizawa nods. “This could be a good exercise for my students. They need more experience in this kind of thing.”
“This kind of thing?” Tamaki repeats, confused.
Aizawa smiles wide and wicked. It’s terrifying. “Psychological warfare.”
-
Hadou and Tamaki change into their hero costumes before making their way towards Gym Gamma. Per Aizawa’s request, Tamaki is leaving his hood off today, which makes him feel very vulnerable, despite the fact that his hood was never meant to provide any physical protection in the first place.
“This is a terrible idea,” Tamaki intones, dragging his feet even as Hadou pulls him along. He feels like a lamb being led to a slaughterhouse.
“It’ll be fine, Amajiki!” Hadou is merciless with her iron grip around his wrist, even as she glances at him and pouts. “C’mon, don’t look so down while you look like my crush. You’re making me feel bad.”
“You should feel bad. You know how I am with people…looking at me.”
Hadou pouts harder. “Yeah, well. I keep forgetting that it’s you, y’know? Even though I know it’s you, I just don’t see it at all. I don’t see you, so I keep looking at you.” She frowns. “I don’t know if I made sense just now.”
Tamaki processes the words once, then twice. His world realigns itself as the meaning of what Hadou said slowly sinks in. “…Huh.”
“Anyway!” Hadou beams at him, already switching over to a new train of thought. “You know what would be amazing, Amajiki? You should flirt with them.”
“I,” Tamaki starts. “What?”
“Flirt!” Hadou’s eyes are sparkling. “It’ll totally destroy them, right? You look like their crush! Imagine your crush flirting with you!”
Tamaki sees the logic behind that, but: “I don’t know how to flirt.”
Hadou shrugs. “Just say they have nice eyes, or something like that. You can’t go wrong with that one.”
If it were any other day, Tamaki would blush and flail and reject the very idea (he does, in fact, want to do exactly those three things), but Hadou’s earlier words gnaw at him. Sure, Tamaki couldn’t flirt even if his life depended on it, but, well.
He’s not really Tamaki to anybody right now.
“We’re here!” Hadou manages to pull him through the entrance to the gym, and the entire class is inside, suited up in their hero costumes as they form a semi-circle around Aizawa. “Hey, guys!”
Every head in the gym swivels towards them, and the kids’ chattering grinds to an abrupt halt as they all stare at Tamaki.
After five solid seconds of deadly silence, the first person to respond is Jirou. “I was expecting this, but still. Wow.”
Then it’s Todoroki, who blinks slowly just once. Then, in a deadpan voice with zero change to his facial expression: “Oh. I wasn’t expecting that.”
This is when the entire class explodes. Clearly, they’ve gotten an explanation from Aizawa beforehand, because Bakugou is screaming in furious denial. “There’s no fucking way I have a thing for that piece of—no, absolutely not!”
“Oh god,” Midoriya says weakly. Tamaki can practically see the despair settling over the boy. “I was hoping it was a fluke.”
Some of the kids are blushing so hard they’re the same color as Kirishima’s hair; Kirishima himself is hiding his face in his hands, mumbling intelligible noises. A couple of the kids are blatantly staring in fascination. Then there’s Asui, who tilts her head, index finger resting on her chin as she regards Tamaki with calm curiosity. “Huh, I can’t identify who you are at all. You just have…vague features.”
“Aha!” Hadou spins to grin at Tamaki. “So that’s what happens when you’re not attracted to anybody.”
“Okay, I already told you the rules.” Aizawa redirects everybody’s attention to himself. “Each pair will have one long distance fighter and a close or mid-range one. You’re allowed to discuss tactics while you wait for your turn, but you’ll benefit more from watching your classmates’ matches. I’ll leave the decision up to you. Are we clear?”
Everybody nods.
Aizawa gestures for Tamaki and Hadou to step closer. Some kids make strangled noises. “Okay, first up: Yaoyorozu and Koda. You’re up against Hadou.”
-
All the kids are lined up along one side of the gym while Hadou’s sparring session goes on. Most of the kids are watching, while some are talking quietly as they prepare. Tamaki is standing at the other end of the gym, watching Hadou as he feels an eery kind of calm settle over him. It’s strange; he’s never felt anything like this before in the presence of other people.
It’s that sense of nobody sees me. The freedom from people looking at Amajiki Tamaki and finding him lacking. The safety of knowing that in this moment, he doesn’t have to worry about what people see when they look at him.
When Aizawa blows a whistle to signal the end of the round, Tamaki walks forward with that sense of calm still over him. Hadou grins, looking hardly any worse for wear, and squeezes his elbow as they swap places. Across from Tamaki, Kaminari and Uraraka step up. Kaminari can hardly look Tamaki in the eye, while Uraraka is maintaining eye contact even though her whole face is flushed pink.
Neither of them see Tamaki, right now.
Aizawa blows the whistle to start the match, and Tamaki moves.
He manifests octopus tentacles from his left hand and traps Uraraka before she can evade him, then throws her into Kaminari. The both of them go flying, though Uraraka manages to lessen the impact at the last second by using her quirk on herself. Kaminari picks himself up from the ground, looking a little more ready for a fight, but he still won’t meet Tamaki’s gaze.
Tamaki knows that Kaminari’s lightning is the biggest threat right now, so it’s important to avoid direct contact if possible.
Well, normally, that’s the case.
But this time, Tamaki takes the risk and launches himself forward, changing his feet to talons as he moves fast, lashing out with tentacles to sweep Uraraka away. He grabs hold of Kaminari with one talon and drags him in close, close enough that Tamaki will be defenseless if he gets a full dose of Kaminari’s lightning. But a wild, unfamiliar confidence fuels him, allowing Tamaki to pull Kaminari closer and command, “Say my name.”
Kaminari makes a dying noise and flushes a brilliant red. He doesn’t electrocute Tamaki.
For the first time ever, Tamaki smiles at a battle opponent.
Hadou was right. Nobody sees Tamaki even when they’re looking right at him. And it is such a breathlessly liberating thought that he feels his whole body light up with unabashed delight.
Kaminari whimpers, clearly too affected by the image of his crush smiling at him from up close to actually think of attacking Tamaki. For once, Tamaki feels charitable, and he simply throws Kaminari at Uraraka’s head instead of knocking him out entirely.
Each round is three minutes long, which is not enough time to really tire anybody out, but just enough time to deliver a lot of damage. Both physically and mentally.
Tamaki destroys the kids in his first match.
“I told you,” Hadou says with a mega-watt smile as she swaps places with him again. “It’s fun, right?”
He doesn’t say anything out loud, but going by the sound of Hadou’s giggles, she hears his agreement anyway.
-
As soon as Tamaki’s next match starts, Bakugou launches himself at Tamaki in a bid to strike first. Tamaki narrowly manages to dodge him. Bakugou is fast, on par with some of the stronger third years at their school, but Tamaki used to spar with a full-powered Mirio on a regular basis. Tamaki clawed his way to the Big Three despite all the challenges and competitors UA threw at him.
Bakugou is good, but Tamaki is better.
He manages to sling wet seaweed around one of Bakugou’s wrists and swing him into the ground, then pivots to grab the line of tape Sero flung at him with a crab’s claw. His other hand transforms into tentacles once more, pinning Bakugou’s hands so he can’t explode his way out from beneath Tamaki.
“Oi, tape face!” Bakugou snaps. “You call that an attack?!”
Sero winces and yelps, “Sorry, it’s just so weird to see Snipe sensei use that quirk!”
Everybody stares at Sero. Tamaki’s grip on Bakugou inadvertently slackens, but Bakugou has gone still, as if he’s forgotten that he needs to escape Tamaki’s hold.
Sero pauses. He stares up at the ceiling. “…Fuck me.”
Then he walks away without another word, going to the far edge of the gym so that he can sit down far away from his peers and put his head between his knees. Aizawa doesn’t even stop him. The psychological damage is too great.
Tamaki has a split second to feel bad for Sero before Bakugou manages to explode his way out from where Tamaki was pinning him.
“I’m gonna kill you,” Bakugou growls. He does look murderous, except for the fact that his cheeks are a little red. “Gonna blast you into the ground so hard that you become part of the concrete, then I’m gonna laugh over your dead body.”
For a brief moment, Tamaki wonders if Bakugou is a tsundere. He’s so bewildered by the idea that he talks on autopilot. “I’d prefer to have you under me instead.”
Bakugou chokes on thin air.
Taking advantage of the distraction, Tamaki uses that moment to throw Bakugou across the gym.
From the sidelines, Tamaki registers varying sounds of shrieking and whimpering. He mentally rewinds and examines what he said just earlier, then groans and flushes red.
The shrieking from the sidelines intensifies.
Tamaki glances at Aizawa to check if he’d crossed a line, but the teacher simply nods with a smug look on his face.
Psychological warfare indeed.
-
Tamaki manages to soundly defeat Aoyama and Hagakure without breaking a sweat. They do have an interesting combo attack that keeps Tamaki on his toes for a bit, but they can’t keep it up indefinitely, so they go down soon enough.
The weirdly notable part of their match, though, is that Aoyama starts speaking in French halfway through. His eyes are sparkling to a degree that is near-blinding. His voice is lilting.
It’s only when the match is over that Hadou laughs and tells him that Aoyama was reciting love poems.
“I wish you hadn’t told me that,” Tamaki says. She laughs harder.
-
Tokoyami and Ojiro are a solid pair to work against. The addition of Dark Shadow makes it feel like Tamaki’s fighting three people instead of two. It reminds him a little of fighting the three so-called “bullets” that worked for Overhaul, and the memory alone grates on Tamaki’s nerves. His irritation must show on his face, because Dark Shadow pauses mid-attack, slowly inching back.
“Um, Dark Shadow?” Ojiro is dangling mid-air, courtesy of a combination of duck wings on Tamaki’s back and tentacles wrapped around Ojiro’s squirming tail and waist. Tamaki has to give the kid some credit; he’s struggling to keep Ojiro in his grip. “A little help?”
The noticeably cowed quirk whines. “Nooo, we don’t wanna hurt—”
“Dark Shadow,” Tokoyami says with deadly calm, “if you say that name out loud, I will sleep with all the lights on for a month.”
“Mean!”
“Can we please focus,” Ojiro begs.
Dark Shadow grumbles. “But you know it’s scary when you-know-who looks at us like that.”
Tokoyami scowls. Rather, Tamaki thinks Tokoyami is scowling. It’s hard to tell with the beak. “Please stop talking. If you give any context clues, I’m going to start looking into ways to exorcise you.”
“So mean,” Dark Shadow whines, retreating into Tokoyami. Which is a strangely defeatist action to take. Tamaki didn’t take Tokoyami for a quitter—until black wings sprout out from under the cloak and Tokoyami launches himself into the air. Tamaki is taken off-guard enough to drop Ojiro as he rapidly flaps backwards to avoid a collision.
It’s Dark Shadow acting as a set of wings, carrying his human through the air, Tamaki realizes. And Dark Shadow is much faster and versatile than Tamaki is with his duck wings, so he makes the tactical decision to retreat to the ground once more, where Ojiro is waiting for him. Tamaki lands with his talons stretched, warding Ojiro off as he lands, and he narrowly avoids getting dive-bombed by Tokoyami.
Tokoyami and Ojiro are coordinating a good offense at this point, and Tamaki decides to throw them off their rhythm a bit. He’s noticed that Ojiro apparently has no qualms about attacking his crush, whoever it may be, but Tamaki hasn’t missed the fact that Ojiro’s tail doesn’t quite move at full force when Tamaki is close enough.
So Tamaki times a well-landed smack across Tokoyami’s shoulder at the next dive-bomb, sending him spinning, then dashes into Ojiro’s personal space, sending another group of tentacles to wrap around the base of the boy’s tail and pulling him close for a blow to the solar plexus. Tamaki’s using a cow’s hoof to deliver the blow, but Ojiro blocks it with his arms, and Tamaki hears the crack of a bone fracture.
Injuries like these are common in UA, and Tamaki’s sent plenty of his peers to Recovery Girl’s office before, but there’s a sliver of guilt that only pops up because this is a first year student. But still, the fact that this kid blocked the blow—without even a flinch, for that matter—is fairly remarkable.
“That was impressive,” Tamaki says, honest in a way he’s recently learned to be, if only because he’s been practicing his encouragement skills for Mirio’s sake. “Nice job.”
Ojiro’s jaw drops. Then he blushes a vibrant red, all the way down his neck. “Oh god. This is—this is illegal.”
Tamaki doesn’t get to ask what that statement means, because he hears Tokoyami behind him. Tamaki moves on pure instinct, side-stepping Dark Shadow’s attack and throwing Ojiro right into Tokoyami. The blow sends both underclassmen sprawling, and then before they can get up again, the shrill sound of a whistle ends the round.
“Not bad,” Aizawa says. Tokoyami and Ojiro both look heartened by the feedback.
Dark Shadow peeks out, looking at Tamaki with blatant fascination even as Tokoyami tugs him away. On a whim, Tamaki pets the quirk, eliciting a purring sound, and he can’t help but say, “Oh, that’s cute.”
Tokoyami stumbles mid-step, nearly tripping over his feet as he makes his way back to his classmates. Dark Shadow makes a delighted noise, bobbing his head at Tamaki in a mimicry of a bow before he goes to retreat into his very flustered human.
“Damn, that was a devastating final blow,” Kaminari comments in a low voice. Half the class silently nods. Tokoyami pointedly meets nobody’s gaze until the next round starts.
-
Shouji and Ashido are a fairly strong duo. Ashido is an excellent physical combatant, flexible and solid, while Shouji provides ample support with his ever-replicating limbs.
Unfortunately, Tamaki decides this is the moment to try out Hadou’s advice, so when Ashido moves in to land a kick on him, he grabs and pulls her in, just shy of hitting Tamaki’s limits to physical proximity. Then he says in a completely deadpan voice, “You have nice eyes.”
Ashido shrieks, loud enough to hurt Tamaki’s ears, and throws herself backward. Her pink skin flushes dark as she whimpers from the mental blow Tamaki just dealt her.
She doesn’t recover until the round ends.
“I don’t blame you,” Hagakure whispers, patting her friend’s shoulder consolingly. “I’d react the same way.”
Beside her, Sato points out, “Hagakure, he can’t even see your eyes.”
“Damn,” she says, like she just realized that she’s lived her entire life as an invisible girl, too distracted by fantasy to remember reality. “You’re right.”
-
Yaoyorozu and Koda put up a good fight. Their strategy mainly consists of Koda calling in a bunch of passing pigeons to obstruct Tamaki’s sight while Yaoyorozu whips out tools to keep Tamaki at bay.
Unfortunately, the very moment Tamaki’s cheek gets a rather deep scratch from one of the pigeons, Koda freaks out and Yaoyorozu pales like she’s committed an unspeakable sin. It’s a very stark contrast to their spirited attack against Hadou from earlier. Tamaki is starting to see why Aizawa said his students need more practice in this sort of thing.
-
Jirou and Midoriya present an interesting challenge. As much as Tamaki has trained to go up against a variety of opponents, he knows that he doesn’t really stand much of a chance against brute force. If he had the right environment with obstacles and a terrain to his advantage, he could devise a plan, but all Tamaki has is himself in an open space. And Midoriya is strong. He’s the one who defeated Overhaul through sheer power, after all.
Tamaki figures he might actually need to lean more on psychological manipulation to keep Midoriya off-balance, rather than go for a full brawl.
It’s hard to gauge Midoriya’s responses to whoever he sees in Tamaki, though. There’s a pink tint to his cheeks, but otherwise his determination shines through. Jirou seems similarly ready to give a good fight, but there’s a nervous air to her as she chews on her lower lip.
Maybe Tamaki can go for her first. Put her between him and Midoriya. It’d be hard if Midoriya moves faster than Tamaki, though. Could Tamaki compliment Midoriya’s eyes, too? Or would that be too predictable? Compliment his hair instead?
Aizawa blows the whistle and Jirou wastes no time, unleashing a hard wall of sound against Tamaki. It’s another kind of attack that’s hard for him to defend against out in the open. He could encase himself in a clam shell, but then Midoriya would break through it. Tamaki is rapidly running out of options.
“Midoriya,” Tamaki tries when the boy charges at him, green lightning crackling in the air as he jumps. His plaintive call doesn’t make Midoriya even waver. He lands a downwards kick that Tamaki barely defends against by manifesting one of his most solid crab legs to block the blow. He isn’t fast enough to grab Midoriya with his pincers, so he can’t do much else but watch Midoriya bounce back, allowing for Jirou to send another blow of sound straight at him.
If Tamaki were a more conniving person, or even a better actor, he could perhaps fake some kind of, well, emotional appeal. Pretend his feelings are hurt. Feign some fear. Or maybe even say I love you, which he’s fairly certain would deal a great amount of damage.
But that last option isn’t something he’s willing to use, even if nobody sees him as Amajiki Tamaki right now. Regardless of what people perceive of him right now, regardless of how empty those words may be, Tamaki refuses to say them unless he means them. He wouldn’t forgive himself for saying it to somebody else when he hasn’t even told Mirio.
(If he ever tells Mirio. He’d rather swallow those words forever than risk their friendship.)
Just as he’s about to resign himself to a taxing fight, a flash of inspiration strikes as Midoriya rushes him once more.
Half a second before impact, Tamaki says, “Wait, Izuku.”
Midoriya misses his target by half a mile, promptly fumbles his landing, then ends up rolling a few times until he hits the wall. His face is beet red and he’s lost all sense of coherency.
“He’s too powerful,” somebody hisses from the sidelines. From the corner of his eye, Tamaki catches most of the class nodding frantically.
With Midoriya out of the way, Tamaki makes short work of Jirou.
-
Asui puts up a good fight. She’s fast, she thinks quickly, and she adapts to Tamaki’s attacks and counters accordingly. It helps that she has an advantage compared to the rest of her classmates.
Unfortunately, her partner proves himself absolutely useless by charging at Tamaki—and then veering off-course to crash straight into one of the gym walls.
“Wow,” Uraraka mutters. “I’ve never seen Iida fail so spectacularly before.”
“I have,” Todoroki says in a placid tone. “Multiple times. In front of the same person. So I guess that’s who Iida likes.”
Everybody whips around to stare at Todoroki.
“I’ll tell anybody who tells me who they see instead of Amajiki senpai,” Todoroki tells them, and everybody promptly looks away.
-
Sato starts the round by throwing his much smaller teammate straight towards Tamaki’s head. Tamaki bats the kid aside, then lunges towards Sato for a close quarters fight. He’s used up a lot of his food quota, and he needs to conserve as much of it as he can for his upcoming round against Todoroki. So Tamaki opts for minimal manifestation, even though Sato’s strength is nothing to sneeze at.
It soon becomes obvious that Sato is pulling his punches, though. It’s definitely good news for Tamaki, but he can only imagine how badly Aizawa will rip into the boy for this blatant weakness.
It’s less of a big deal in school, obviously, but Tamaki hopes none of these kids’ crushes turn into villains. That would not go well.
In the end, Tamaki manages to trip Sato up and pin him down. Tamaki’s bruised up a fair bit, but it’s nothing substantial. He’s taken far worse from Mirio in sparring and villains he’s had to go up against while patrolling with Fat Gum.
Aizawa rolls his eyes and blows the whistle.
-
The last match of the day is Tamaki versus Todoroki and Kirishima. The two of them had given Hadou plenty of trouble, especially by cornering her with Todoroki’s ice and flames, then sending in Kirishima for combat. It was unfortunate that Hadou’s long range attacks were superior, keeping her in the air as she warded them off and eventually wore them down in a matter of minutes.
Tamaki doesn’t have as much of an advantage over Todoroki’s quirk, and going by Todoroki’s blank expression, he doesn’t think a psychological diversion will work, either. Tamaki’s best bet is to use Kirishima’s profoundly emotional reactions and perhaps distract Todoroki with his partner instead.
It’s actually a fairly good plan, because Tamaki has an excellent advantage: he knows who Kirishima’s crush is.
He also knows, from Kirishima’s naturally talkative nature and incredibly clumsy attempts to not spill the beans about who he’s been pining after, that Kirishima is terrified of being rejected. Hence the pining.
This is knowledge that Tamaki has been entrusted with, and he’s not cruel enough to blackmail Kirishima just for the sake of a three-minute sparring session.
That said, psychological warfare is part of the lesson, and Tamaki would rather not be completely destroyed by two first years.
So when the match starts and Todoroki predictably sends a blast of ice, Tamaki takes to the air once more, just long enough to land safely near Kirishima. He has a very narrow window to make this work. He’s definitely running out of duck in his system, and he’s also running low on crab and chicken as well.
“Kirishima,” Tamaki says, mentally apologizing for the absolute devastation he’s about to rain down on his poor fellow intern, “I don’t like you that way.”
Somewhere from the sidelines, someone gasps and then slaps a hand over their mouth. Somebody else whistles lowly. Another person hisses in sympathy and says, “Brutal.”
Kirishima stares at Tamaki for a second, long enough for Tamaki to wonder if it didn’t work after all—
Then Kirishima starts crying.
“Oh my god,” Tamaki says, forgetting that they’re in the middle of a sparring session. “Oh my god, Kirishima, I’m so sorry. Please don’t cry. You know I’m not, uh. I’m not the person you like.”
“Senpai,” Kirishima sobs, wiping at his face as tears roll down his cheeks. Tamaki wishes the earth would swallow him up right now. He can’t face anybody in this gym ever again. Or anybody in UA. He’s the guy who made a first year cry. God, what would Fat Gum think? Tamaki needs to quit his internship right now. “That was so unmanly of you.”
From behind Kirishima, Todoroki looks torn. Probably trying to figure out if he should comfort Kirishima or if he should resume the match and attack Tamaki. To be honest, Tamaki deserves to be attacked for this.
“You do still have over two minutes left on the clock,” Aizawa reminds them.
“I think Kirishima isn’t well enough for this,” Todoroki says, sounding a little concerned. “Kirishima, do you need to sit down?”
Kirishima shakes his head with one last sniffle. “No, it’s fine. It’d be super unmanly to give up just from this.”
The match resumes from there, and neither Todoroki nor Kirishima hold back. It’s honestly a relief. Tamaki falls back to using only his own quirk, since he’s caused enough emotional damage already, and the match ends with Kirishima sprawled across the ground and Todoroki exhausted. Tamaki’s winded, too, and a little singed.
“Well then,” Aizawa intones in a flat voice. “Looks like most of you need to work on controlling your emotions during a fight. I’ll see about adding that to the curriculum.”
The whole class looks a little traumatized. Tamaki feels bad. He feels even worse when Hadou bumps up against him and whispers, “I didn’t know you had it in you.”
Tamaki really wants to die.
Aizawa turns to them. “Thank you for your time, Hadou and Amajiki. I’ll let Cementoss know you did well.”
With that dismissal, Tamaki follows Hadou out of the gym, dragging his feet once more.
-
Right after fourth period, as everybody heads to the cafeteria, Kirishima catches up to Tamaki. “Uh, Amajiki senpai? It’s you, right?”
Tamaki blinks, bento box in hand. “I, yeah. It’s me. Kirishima, I’m so sorry for earlier. Are you okay?”
“It was part of the lesson! It’s fine, you don’t need to apologize,” Kirishima says, scratching the back of his head. “Actually, I kinda wanted to thank you?”
Bewildered, Tamaki blinks. “Thank me?”
“Well, uh, see. After that whole thing where I cried in front of everybody—”
Tamaki winces.
“—on our way to class for fourth period, I got asked out.” Kirishima grins, shy and gleeful all at once. “By, y’know…”
For a long moment, Tamaki stares and processes the words. Then: “Oh, by your—”
“Yeah! Apparently the whole deal of watching me have a breakdown was some kind of catalyst? For this whole emotional revelation? So, uh, yeah. It’s still a secret, but I wanted to tell you. We’re dating thanks to you.”
“That’s…great.” It’s fortunate that something good came out of him emotionally destroying his poor underclassman. At the very least, it makes Tamaki feel a little less guilty of making Kirishima cry. “I’m glad I helped, I guess…?”
Kirishima beams. “Yeah, so thank you! Have a great lunch, senpai!”
With an energetic wave, Kirishima dashes off, presumably off to a lunch date. Tamaki watches him go, a gentle ache echoing in his chest. It’s nice that the ridiculous quirk turned out to be helpful for once. And it’s a little touching that Kirishima’s distress was enough to motivate a confession of love. Still, though.
Even when Mirio was at his lowest, Tamaki hadn’t had the courage to tell him anything. Obviously, Kirishima’s heartbreak from theoretical romantic rejection is a very different flavor of pain from the losses that Mirio experienced, but…Tamaki wishes he were braver.
He wishes the universe would be generous enough to give him a catalyst, too.
-
“Hey, hey.” Hadou pokes Tamaki until he allows her to take a piece of tempura from his bento. “The quirk is supposed to wear off now, right?”
Tamaki checks his watch. “Yeah, any minute now.”
They’re sitting on the grassy knoll right behind the main academic building, in a particularly secluded spot so that they can avoid people from paying too much attention to Tamaki. They eat here sometimes when Hadou’s feeling a little too overstimulated or Tamaki is being crushed by even more anxiety than usual.
“It was fun while it lasted.” Hadou takes a long sip from her water bottle, then frowns. “Oh, I’m out of water.”
Tamaki picks up his thermos and shakes it gently. Judging my the minimal sloshing, there’s not much tea left in it. “Yeah, I’m mostly out, too. Sorry.”
Hadou jumps to her feet. “It’s fine! I’ll go grab some more from the water fountain. Do you need anything?”
Tamaki shakes his head, and soon Hadou is jogging back inside through the building’s back door. Sitting there in the silence and warm under the sunlight, Tamaki relaxes and enjoys the moment. As much as wants the quirk to wear off and return to his normal life, he’s going to mourn that little veil of illusion. The ability to hide himself under the guise of somebody else. He’s going to miss having nobody see him as himself, just a little bit.
“Tamaki!”
Startled, Tamaki turns his head to see Mirio jogging up to him. He’s wearing a bomber jacket over a shirt and his favorite pair of jeans, a tiny little reminder that Mirio is technically taking a break from his studies at UA.
It doesn’t explain why he’s here, though.
“I thought you were staying at home until Thursday.” Tamaki blinks as Mirio slows down and then drops onto the grass right beside Tamaki. “Is everything okay?”
Mirio laughs. It’s a genuine, bright sound that never fails to make warmth bloom in Tamaki’s chest. “Well, Haya actually texted me earlier. Said something about you getting hit with a super funny quirk? She wouldn’t tell me what it was, though, so I was super curious—”
“Toogata?” Hadou’s surprised voice carries over as she walks up to them, her refilled water bottle clutched in one hand. The surprise melts into delight in no time. “How did you end up here? How did you find us? Are you staying for the rest of the week?”
“I’m staying, yeah. And you guys weren’t at our usual lunch spot, so I figured you were here.” Mirio beams at Hadou. “Haya told me that Tamaki got hit by a fun quirk and I wanted to see what it was! What was it, by the way?”
“Oh, well,” Tamaki starts, but Hadou interrupts him.
“Toogata.” She’s not smiling. “You don’t know what quirk Tamaki got hit with?”
Mirio blinks. “No? Haya wouldn’t tell me.”
Hadou stares for a while, her gaze flickering between Mirio and Tamaki. Hadou is rarely this quiet. Tamaki feels a cold dread start to creep up his spine.
“The quirk hasn’t worn off yet,” Hadou finally says. “Amajiki still looks like Ryukyu to me.”
“Huh?” Mirio blinks and looks at Tamaki again. “What are you talking about? He just looks like Tamaki to me.”
Tamaki stares at Mirio.
The quirk hasn’t worn off yet. Everybody who looks at Tamaki is supposed to see the person they’re most attracted to.
Mirio sees Tamaki.
“Amajiki got hit by a quirk that makes him look like the person you’re attracted to,” Hadou blurts. “Whoever you see right now is supposed to be your crush.”
There’s a long moment of silence. Tamaki can’t look away from Mirio.
Mirio, who regularly loses his clothes and is absolutely shameless, starts turning very, very red. “I, um. Tamaki, the thing is. Well.”
Watching Mirio flail, Tamaki feels an odd sort of calm wash over him. Mirio has always been the one to keep Tamaki steady when he was at his weakest. And Tamaki has taught himself over the years to return the favor.
The universe has given him his catalyst, and it’s now Tamaki’s job to see the whole thing through.
So he says, “I’d see you.”
“What?” Mirio responds, still blushing and disoriented.
“If anybody else got hit with this quirk—if you were hit with this quirk,” Tamaki says, his heart pounding and his throat dry, “I’d still see you.”
Mirio blinks, the panic fading from his eyes as something much softer bleeds in. He huffs a small chuckle, then starts laughing hard enough for his chest to heave. “Oh my god, Tamaki. I can’t believe it! I was still trying to work up the nerve to make a grand gesture and you just outdid me by being so cool! Man, I can’t top that.”
“Oh wow,” Hadou says, and even though Tamaki still can’t look away from Mirio at all, he can hear her grin. “Hey, does this mean you guys are dating now?”
Tamaki’s brain stutters. “Uh.”
“I sure hope so,” Mirio answers brightly for the both of them, pulling Tamaki into a tight hug. As Hadou squeals in glee behind Tamaki, Mirio murmurs into Tamaki’s shoulder, “I see you, Tamaki. I see you.”
-
After the quirk completely wears off and classes end for the day, the two of them end up sitting side by side on Tamaki’s bed, shoulders pressed against each other as Tamaki tries to explain how liberating it was to not be seen as himself for once. To be free from all the pressure he always felt as Amajiki Tamaki.
“Well, did you ever consider that someone else might have a crush on you?” Mirio turns over his hand that’s holding Tamaki’s, his thumb brushing over Tamaki’s knuckles in a way that makes his insides tingle. “I might not have been the only one to see you, y’know.”
Tamaki huffs a self-deprecating laugh. “I doubt anybody saw me.”
Mirio tugs Tamaki so that they’re facing each other. For once, Mirio’s smile isn’t jubilant. It’s solemn and soft and full of exasperated affection all at once. “Tamaki, you deserve to be seen.”
You deserve to be loved, Mirio doesn’t say, but Tamaki hears it anyway.
“As long as I’m the one who gets to keep you,” Mirio adds, his smile turning a little bashful, like he feels embarrassed about how much he wants Tamaki all to himself. As if Tamaki hasn’t wanted this since he was old enough to realize the difference between loving a friend and loving Mirio.
“There was never anyone else for me since you said my name for the first time,” Tamaki tells him.
With a breathless, choked laugh full of delight, Mirio pulls him in for a kiss.