#and YES sorahiko is cast as holly

[shih-coulda-had-it]

37. NanaHiko, please

37. “Because I love you goddammit!”

Consider this my sourdough starter for a Nanahiko Die Hard AU. If it ever comes into a fully-realized oneshot spectacular, well. Maybe for Christmas. Anyways, this is, believe or not, a break-up scene.

//

Fighting with Sorahiko is never pretty.

To clarify, Nana doesn’t mean physical fighting. They’ve honed that particular aspect of their partnership to near-perfection (always room for improvement), and when Nana has extricated herself from a fight, sometimes she has enough time to watch Sorahiko work his brutally efficient magic on loose ends.

That kind of fighting is pretty from a professional point of view.

Anyway, what Nana means is—having an argument with Sorahiko. It’s not the first time they’ve engaged in a war of cold shoulders and barbed words, digging up old insults and humiliating stories, resolved to leave reconciliation to the other party.

Nana has always thought it boded well that it never took a mortal injury to get either her or Sorahiko to apologize. 

She is, however, very close to inflicting a mortal injury.

Sorahiko also looks close to committing partner-cide. They are spending a break from patrol by cooling their heels on a rooftop no employee bothers to spend a cigarette break at, and for the past ten minutes, have been politely exchanging words like, “Please do this,” and, “Fuck doing that.”

A full month has passed since Nana digested the whole conspiracy theory about a supervillain controlling Japan’s underground. En’s transferral of One for All had been traumatic for all parties involved, even if Sorahiko didn’t have to witness the horror that was the shoulder socket gushing blood and the half-buried body. Why? Because the first time Nana tested out her new Quirk, she had broken her notoriously hardy partner’s arm.

… It’s been a scary month all around.

“I’m not,” her partner grits out, “going to just quit being a pro-hero.”

“I didn’t say you should ditch the license,” Nana says reasonably.

“You might as well have!”

She rolls her eyes. “Splitting up for a solo career would probably mean better pay for you,” she reiterates. “Better pay, more taiyaki. You’d be a treat by yourself, Gran Torino. Any high-profile agency would want you on the payroll.”

“The salary isn’t the point,” Sorahiko snaps. 

“And you shouldn’t conflate your position as a pro-hero with your position at the Eyrie! Don’t let the agency limit your ambitions!”

“What ambitions?”

“You know,” says Nana, gesturing aimlessly. She’s trapped herself with that useless encouragement. Sorahiko is so thoroughly unambitious, he would let a pet rock win an election to Prime Minister. “Whatever made you get into heroics.”

He stares at her.

“Get out there,” she adds. “Chase your dreams.”

“You’re being stupid,” he says.

“Don’t start.”

Sorahiko starts. His mouth twists into a snarl, eyebrows drawing together under the mask, frustration creeping into his posture. He is madder than she’s ever seen him, and Nana once witnessed Sorahiko yell bloody murder at his landlord. The landlord had been reduced to tears, and furthermore, had reduced the rent for the entire complex.

Nana does not intend to yield.

“First you inherit a transferable strength Quirk that knocks you out of commission for a week,” he says, “then you get all weird about tanking hits you know I can take, and now you’re advising I leave the Eyrie by myself? For my own good?”

“Yes,” she says, already feeling miserable.

“Are you on some kind of power trip?”

“No!”

His gloved hands curl into fists, mirroring Nana’s, or maybe she is mirroring him. Another side-effect of being friends for so long; she can’t imagine what kind of pro-hero she is without Gran Torino next to her. 

A pro-hero that won’t drag their best friend into the worst conspiracy theory to come true. 

“I won’t quit until you do,” Sorahiko swears. “Are we partners or not?”

“Partnerships dissolve.”

He flinches back for once. “You don’t mean that.”

“People sometimes grow in different ways. It doesn’t mean they’re abandoning their partner, it’s just… You don’t have any obligation to hold my hand for my entire career. If there’s a roadblock ahead, and you see it, you should be able to jump out of the car, right?” 

“Shimura. Shut up.”

“I really mean it,” Nana continues doggedly. “One for All attracts way more attention than we agreed we should aim for, so if we split paths now, you don’t have to suffer all the cameras tracking and recording your moveset. Did I say cameras? I meant henchmen of some evil bastard. You didn’t sign up for this.”

“Don’t tell me what I did or didn’t sign up for,” he hisses.

“Well, I have to guess,” she says, “considering I never saw your origin story, haha!”

His face goes a blotchy pink, starting with his ears. Sorahiko’s jaw visibly clenches. Nana, however, is one-hundred percent serious. Despite being friends with Sorahiko from primary school up till now (excusing the few years of junior high), Nana still has no idea what drives Sorahiko to be Gran Torino.

Reuniting in Class 1-A of U.A. High had felt a bit like fate. 

“You have to guess?” he grits out, sounding slightly incredulous.

“You’re a very private person. Ah, don’t tell me I’ve somehow forgot it.” Nana puts her hands at her hips, trying to drag this fight back into friendly banter. “Not for the applause. Not for the legacy, assuming the Commission ever gets their memorial site set up. Are you sure it wasn’t for the money?”

“Shimura.”

“C’mon,” she says coaxingly. “What’s the dream-goal, Gran Torino? Why heroics?”

“Shimura.”

“Don’t worry about harming my feelings! Oh! It’s for your namesake, huh? Ah, Sorahiko, you really gotta let that one go, I don’t think you’d have any fun driving around these streets. You’ll just scare all the pedestrians into throwing tomatoes at your precious baby—”

“Because I love you goddammit!” Sorahiko shouts, barking it loud enough to frighten some voyeuristic pigeons. 

“What,” Nana says. She has to process his words even though they ring in her ears. His confession is a curse. Typical Sorahiko, Nana thinks hysterically, except this is not typical at all. Torino Sorahiko, admitting to love? 

Torino Sorahiko, not being done yet, rails on. “Because you’re my best friend, and I like myself when I’m with you, so stop trying to cut me out of your life! If you—if you hate me, then just say it! Say I’m annoying! Clingy! Useless! Don’t just tell me to step out the front door and leave you behind!”

Oh, he’s properly mad now.

Thing is, Nana’s mad too.

“Don’t you use that against me,” she says, fury seeping in, because how dare he? Like confessing to loving her settles this argument, some deus ex-machina device that will defuse Nana’s very sincere attempt to prevent Sorahiko from being murdered. She can’t believe the nerve of her partner, trying to manipulate the part of her that’s a hopeless romantic. “Don’t lie.”

“Lie?” Sorahiko echoes, enraged. “You think—?”

“I think you would do a lot of things to win a fight,” Nana seethes.

“You’re impossible.”

She wants to punch his stupid face so badly, but Sorahiko’s hands are already scrabbling at his domino mask, ripping it off. After blinking several times to reorient his senses, he refocuses his glare at her.

“What part of that confession sounded fake?” he demands, crumpling the black silk-composite in one fist.

“The timing. The whole concept. Everything!”

“You don’t think I’m capable of it?”

“I didn’t say that,” Nana objects, but her immediate gut reaction had been to say, I’m not worthy of it. She has a name for Gran Torino’s behavior now—his loyalty, devotion, affection—he tied himself to her so long ago, and Nana never even knew she was holding a leash. How unfair to him, how stupid and shortsighted of her.

Sorahiko takes a step into Nana’s personal bubble. He persists. “Say you hate me.”

She can see where Sorahiko wants to take this.

“Do you hate me, Shimura?”

Nana bites her tongue from its reflexive denial; when she tries to lie, it sticks in her throat.

“Do you really want me to go?” Sorahiko asks, and without his mask, he looks vulnerable. Pale brown eyes catching the sunset, gleaming gold. How much of Sorahiko’s life has been deferring his dreams to follow hers? What has he given up that Nana’s never asked about? Does he have any commitments outside of heroics? 

“I think,” Nana finally forces out, “we need some time apart.”

One beat of silence. Two.

“You’re not joking.”

“No.”

Sorahiko breathes, a steady and barely audible sound, and Nana finds herself mirroring it. She crosses her arms and looks to the horizon. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Sorahiko slowly uncrumpling his mask, smoothing out wrinkles with his forefinger and thumb. Methodical for a nervous tic.

“It’s not that you’ve done something wrong.”

“Spare me the bullshit,” he says. The bitter tone sends a chill through Nana’s heart, but she steels herself. “How long?”

“Long as we need,” she deflects.

“What’s the goal here?”

Nana glances at Gran Torino, notes the grim set of his expression, and restrains herself from poking at the down-turned twist to his frown. Instead, she says, “You said you like who you are when you’re with me. I don’t think you’ve ever really been without me, so… Figure yourself out, Gran Torino.”

“And Sky High?”

“We’ll shelve the idea for a later time,” says Nana weakly, as though running an agency together hasn’t been their—her?—dream since high school.

He grunts in acknowledgment.

Together, they survey the cityscape. They will finish the day’s patrol. Gran Torino will, for the first time, clock out early and storm home.

And Nana will quietly file her two-week notice.

There’s an international pro-hero exchange program being organized with the United States, and Nana intends to join. The probation period is a year; if Nana can make it through that, then she can apply to be a mentor to aspiring pro-heroes, all the while cultivating One for All on the side.

(She doesn’t mean to forget the confession. But then again, who knows if that’s really what Sorahiko felt for her?)

#bnha #nanahiko #shimura nana #torino sorahiko #gran torino #shih.txt #asks #anon #diehard!au #and YES sorahiko is cast as holly #and nana will show up in a few years #wearing a cool leather jacket #to the HPSC's Holiday Party #toshinori will also be present but he will unfortunately be made to stay in the car