as a kid i had one of those “there’s a monster under my bed” moments except real.
every night i would cry about a ghost or something trying to scare me by knocking on my bedroom windows and walls. like, really loudly, every hour or so, every night. only at night. so my dad was like “heh okay kiddo let’s check it out :) ah see? there’s nothing here :)” and left.
until years later he admitted to me that he did in fact hear the unexplainable knocking when he slept in that room one night, and it kept him awake with fear. and suddenly felt awful for not believing little kid me.
imagine your kid being like “daddy there’s a demon in my closet” and you being like ok son lemme just check that for you :). and you open the door and there’s a demon in the closet
you guys don’t understand how much these fictional stories and fictional characters fill me up with joy and make this insane stuff we’re going through bearable
asdflksjdf toshinori deliberately cockblocks torino until torino gives up on dating entirely. on a rough timeline, that’s…
Toshinori (15) finds out about Gran Torino’s (let’s say 32) dating habits. He can’t really do anything to stop this from happening, but he pays more attention to Torino’s patrols and the occasional Exes of Gran Torino member shooting their shot, and Toshinori may be an intern, but he’s not above ruining a moment.
Toshinori (18) is grieving for Nana, and so is Torino (35). As much as Torino would like to forget about his pains for a night, he’s got a kid at home and a son student to devote time to training.
Toshinori (26? 28?) returns from the United States. Torino’s (40s) Exes of Gran Torino club has grown… exponentially. Toshinori figures this out a little after his debut, when he’s investigating cases or something, and interrogations lead to that common thread of, “God, Sorahiko was incredible, I can’t believe he wouldn’t follow me down into a path of sin and debauchery.”
Toshinori, dialing Gran Torino: “TORINO-SENSEI, HOW MANY VILLAINS HAVE YOU DATED IN THE PAST DECADE”
Sorahiko: “Why the hell are you asking” *hangs up*
Toshinori: “… Okay, think. Gran Torino’s dating pool can only be so big. I’ll just sweep through the area regularly, and maybe that will filter through the worst offenders.”
Except Sorahiko’s taste in men leans heavily towards villains, so a few months into this endeavor, Sorahiko can’t find anyone worth his time. So he just gives up altogether, totally unaware that Toshinori’s back on his cockblocking antics. (And then he just gets too old to contemplate dating strangers.)
Gran Torino’s debut into the hero industry was pretty boring. Barely anyone got a picture in, much less an interview. He saw a villain, he Jetted to the scene, and one smack to the head/stomach/kidney later, Gran Torino would skulk back to the roofs. He had the presence of a flashbang, and was as forgettable as one.
Which is why the first dozen or so villains Gran Torino had netted didn’t register a pattern, only complaints over the lack of dramatic flair to their arrests. But Gran Torino worked within a specific ward, and there are only so many detention centers in Japan, so as these villains gossiped and planned (ill-fated) retribution, they came to realize they shared a mutual friend. Mutual boyfriend.
This initially had the result of many nasty insults, directed to each other and to the man they all only knew as Sorahiko (no one puts two and two together about the Torino part of the name). But once Vampire Guy admits, “Gosh, but he was good in bed,” everyone also confesses, “He was really good in the sack.” Momentary pause, and then eyes light up, because the inevitable question to ask was, “Who do you think he liked the best?”
The ensuing squabble led to, believe it or not, a pact. Prison breaks were a-plenty in the times before All Might (it’s convenient for the AU), so the villains were confident in their Quirks and themselves to break out. This time, however, they wouldn’t just be lone wolves, casing bars and clubs for an easy mark - they would be banded under the one name: the Exes of Gran Torino.
Sorahiko hears of this nonsense after Nana very casually asks if she should be concerned about Sorahiko’s dating life. In true Torino fashion, he’s forgotten a majority of these guys’ names. He is faced with several options: to ignore them, to kick their asses straight back to prison, or to foment chaos by encouraging in-fighting. How? By flirting.
