Insecurities [Shota Aizawa x Hizashi Yamada]

Chapter 5

Shota regretted letting them drag him out to hang out and watch a movie.

He enjoyed the movie, but the fact that everyone around him was laughing every time a funny scene happened made it annoying, especially when he couldn't hear the dialogue after.

Not that he was paying attention most of the time. His mind constantly drifted away to what he wanted to do: write. He'd been thinking about the story since he left the comfort of his home. He had a few dialogue ideas in his head that he couldn't write down and he was afraid he'd forget it. He didn't want to seem rude and start typing his ideas down on his phone. It would seem like he was texting.

However, the ideas were inspired from the movie and the conversations with his friends. He wasn't sure if that was a good source of his inspirations, considering the idiots they were.

Friends, nonetheless. Except Hizashi.

When the movie ended, the group was louder than before, talking about how nostalgic the movie was and how it was hilarious even when they had watched it already.

It was late, and soon Nemuri departed at the bus stop. Tensei and Toshinori were going to leave by car.

"See ya, thanks for inviting us," Toshinori said to Tensei. "Let's hang out again some time."

"No problem. It was nice to see you guys after so long." Tensei chuckled. He looked towards Shota and Hizashi. "You should patch things up with each other."

"We'll try," Hizashi said.

Shota doubted they'll see each other again after tonight. He started heading home, dismissing himself.

"Hey," Hizashi called.

"Hm?" Shota glanced back to see Hizashi. "Are you following me?"

"I walk the same way. You live around here?"

Shota prepared himself for an endless stream of questions. "Yeah."

"How come we haven't seen each other often then?"

"I don't go out much."

"I'm sure you have to to buy groceries."

"I'm going to go buy cat food now. I'm running low."

"Cat food? You have cats?"

"No."

"Then what's the cat food for?"

"I have one cat. Singular."

"What about strays?"

"Them too."

"You were always obsessed with cats in high school."

"Hm."

"You don't have more?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Too busy."

"With what?"

"Work."

He could literally sense Hizashi struggling with his lack of conversational skills. It was a silent walk until Shota stopped by the Petco he usually goes to.

"So," Hizashi dragged out. "See you around?"

"Probably not," Shota said bluntly. "Bye."

He walked in, not looking back. He didn't really need cat food; he had plentiful at home for both Boo and the strays and he restocked often. He had passed by his home and he really didn't need Hizashi knowing where he lived.

He bought a small treat bag instead, and headed home.

When he arrived, he heard loud meowing and felt Boo rubbing against his legs, greeting him.

He placed the treats on a nearby table and picked up Boo, enjoying the warmth of her body and softness of her fur. She booped him on the nose with hers.

"Glad to see you're happy." Shota smiled.

When Shota came home, Boo was usually lying on her side on the floor lazily, only gave him a slow blink. Perhaps it was the treats he had in his hand that made her roll on her back wanting both food and her belly rubbed when he set her down.

Shota gave her the few remaining pellets from the older bag and went to do his own thing as she crunched the pellets.

He slumped down in front of his computer, exhausted. He wanted to sleep, but he needed to check something first.

He got his phone and opened up Instagram. Typing in Hizashi's username in the search bar, he quickly found his profile.

His profile icon was of him, drawn in a cartoonish style. He had over 300 posts and almost 100 thousand followers. Shota started biting the nail on his thumb as he read the description.

Present_Pen
<Hizashi Yamada / 31 / July 7>
>crazy loud artist<
<repost with credit>
also on tumblr, twitter, and facebook!

Shota tapped his profile icon and tapped through his story. Something about closing commissions and slowing down.

Shota sighed, impressed. He found his other accounts on different sites, just to look at the stats. He followed most of them with accounts that he barely used and Hizashi wouldn't recognize.

Finally done, he slumped back in his chair further and contemplated whether to sleep or check his own social media account.

He decided on the latter and opened up Wattpad. He had a paid story up for a while as a small source of money. It had about 100 thousand views and 5 thousand votes with 40 chapters published. He had a few unfinished but published stories and hundreds of drafts were on his account.

5 works, a thousand followers.

He was off by thousands. He couldn't help but compare himself with someone with an entirely different profession.

The numbers were similar, Shota knew. He'd scale the stats of other artists and writers he liked and compare them with each other, then to himself.

But Hizashi had started at the same place he did. Hizashi had less posts than other artists and already had so many followers.

It made Shota feel disappointed at himself. There was better people than him. They shouldn't bother with his dumb, money-needing story. He wasn't even making much, and he had taken a teacher job to prove it.

Shota stopped his nail biting. He turned off his phone and set it down as if it were hazardous. He felt like an absolute attention whore, and he didn't even like attention much. Dammit, he thought.

He was doing it again.

Dammit.