Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Shouto can’t do it. He can’t. 

He’s shaking, he realizes, as he stumbles from the elevator to a nearby seat—his legs feel like jelly. Ha. He tries to breathe. 

He can’t do it. He can’t. Shit. He—

Shouto tries to blink the tears out of his eyes. He doesn’t know how long he sits there, the outside world a dull thrum in his ears. He is distantly aware of the children laughing in the playground a few feet across of him, the low hush of the ladies talking to each other on the seat behind him. The news anchor in the TV hung at the corner of the room. People walking by, carts and chairs being wheeled. People. Just people. Lives, all around him. 

He is here. He is here. He is here. Reality is intoxicating and true, and it’s started to trickle back to him. He’s okay, he—he just … he’s just here. 

And that’s fine. He’ll get up. He’ll go home. He’ll try again next week. And the next. And the next.

His hands hurt, Shouto realizes. They’ve been gripping his pants so tight. He hopes it hasn’t been smoking or something—how messed up it’d be if he accidentally triggers a fire alarm? In a hospital? The thought makes him wince—

Someone sits beside him, heavy, with a thump and a clatter. Shouto starts.

“Oof—sorry,” the person apologizes, seemingly short of breath. “I was in a hurry—woke up late—the train got delayed for some reason—darn—”

Shouto stares, more out of surprise than anything else. The person, he sees, is a guy who can’t be much older than Shouto—maybe even younger. His hair is a mess, dark—glints green under the fluorescent light—and his face is red with exhaustion and scattered with freckles. He is sweating as he slumps on the hospital chair, scrawny underneath the plain hoodie he sports. The heaviness when he sat down must’ve been from…

“Can you,” the person swallows, takes a deep breath, and gestures to the huge, huge duffel bag he’s got with him. “Watch this for a moment, please? I gotta—um, I gotta use the—” more wild gestures. It looks like he is panting too much and can’t be bothered to put effort in vocalization.

Shouto realizes he is still staring. “Okay,” Shouto replies, more out of reflex than anything. 

“Okay,” the person, now breathing more normally, nods. “Cool,” and then he stands up. “Thanks.”

Shouto notes that alongside the humongous duffel bag, he’s got a tote-bag that he slings over his shoulder. On the tote-bag is an illustration of an old anime, a magical long-pigtailed girl with big sparkling eyes and a sailor uniform … Sailor Sun? Sailor Star? Something along that line.

The person—now that Shouto has a better look, does he not seem … somewhat … familiar?—acknowledges Shouto one last time with a look and an awkward gesture that’s between a nod and a finger-gun, and goes away to the direction of the bathroom.

Shouto realizes he is still staring. He averts his eyes to the huge duffel bag, and then to his own hands. His knuckles aren’t so white anymore; his fingers are still splayed over his knees—but more.. relaxed. He takes a breather. His breathing is fine.The sterile scent of the hospital doesn’t register too obnoxiously anymore, either. It’s fine.

He glances at his watch—two thirty. So he’s spent around an hour standing around, trying to gather courage, and failing to gather said courage before deciding that he couldn’t do it. Okay. It’s better than two weeks ago, at least, where he’d chicken-tailed on the train. He hadn't even stepped inside the hospital when he tapped out.

He isn't proud of that one. Nevertheless, his own persistence astounds him.

Maybe Aizawa-sensei is right. He is stubborn.

And it’s not always a bad thing. He thinks. Is that even a bad thing?

Someone sits heavily beside him again. He doesn’t start this time, but when he looks, he can’t help the slight surprise that comes to him.

“Hello again,” the boy from earlier says, “thanks for the assist,” and it would be normal, except that now he’s wearing—wearing a—

It’s not a costume, per se. Perhaps it functions as one. It’s a three-piece-suit—and a rather frayed, old-looking one at that. The dress shirt is dull white and Shouto spots a yellow-ish, suspiciously curry-looking stain right before it disappears underneath a dark green waistcoat, who is missing a button. The pitch black dress-jacket would look fine, if one misses the fact that it is at least two sizes too big on him.

Shouto blinks at the get-up, and then blinks at the boy’s face.

“I tried a top-hat,” the boy says, unprompted, as if it’s a way of explanation. “Trying for the, like, old-fashioned western look, you know? But it just made me look like an asshole,” he pauses. “I mean, I still kinda look like an asshole now, but I gotta commit, am I right?”

Shouto blinks. 

The boy blinks. 

“Alright, good talk,” the apparently-asshole-looking waistcoat-wearing boy says, and that’s when Shouto notices this guy is even wearing a pair of gloves—white gloves, like the ones waiters would wear in fancy restaurants. He slings his big duffel bag (it’s at least half this boy’s height, Shouto notes with faint wonder) and his sailor-something tote-bag, and stands up—and that’s when Shouto notices that underneath the three-piece, this guy is wearing a ripped jeans. Not a styled, bought ripped jeans, it’s just a pair of scruffy jeans that’s ripped in a few places. Naturally ripped, like. And to complete the look, he's got a pair of old looking, local brand red shoes underneath them.

The boy alone, with his wild green hair, is normal looking. Maybe even a bit plain. But now with the amalgamation of—of fashion statements, he just looks … well, not exactly like an asshole, and Shouto is hardly a fashion expert, but. Even Shouto recognizes a mess when he sees one. 

The boy looks at Shouto, and looks down at himself, and then says again unprompted, “I’m trying for business casual.” And then he turns back and leaves.

He disappears around the hallway, after making light talk with the receptionist. The receptionist laughs, the boy finger-guns—the same move he attempted on Shouto earlier—and then there he goes.

Shouto thinks, okay. And then he goes home and forgets about the whole thing.

He tries again the next week.

He refuses to do otherwise. He will try, again, and again, until he succeeds. He doesn’t even know what triggered him. Maybe he’s just gotten sick of shit. Maybe because, who knows, the USJ and his—Endeavor—

Whatever.

Maybe because he’s hitting sixteen soon and it’s time for him to face this. Either way, he is facing it. Today will be the day. 

All he has to do, he knows, is just to enter the building, walk up to the receptionist. Hi, he would say, looking the receptionist straight in the eye and he would try not to notice how the receptionist’s gaze would, inadvertently, focus on his scarred left eye, May I query about the visiting hours of the patient [insert a name that he hasn’t succeeded in saying for years]?

Of course, the receptionist would say. May I ask for your name, Sir, and for your [insert identification method]?

Yes, of course, he would say, and then the receptionist would tell him [insert room number and floor level] and he would thank them politely and be on his merry way. He has simulated this scenario in his head dozens of times. Hundreds. Thousands, really.

Shouto enters the building. Good. Step one. He walks up to the receptionist. His hands are sweating, but they’ve been doing that since he got on the train, so whatever. Step two.

He walks. Five metres to the receptionist. Four. Three.

He never made it this far, before. Inside, he feels a little proud of himself, even if it’s pathetic. Two metres. One. 

He is facing the receptionist. Step three.

Holy shit, he thinks. Holy fucking shit. “Hello,” he says instead.

“Hello,” the receptionist says, and god, fuck, fucking shit, fuck. The receptionist says something, then, and Shouto says, “What?” because he couldn’t hear it over the fire alarm ringing in his stupid fucking head.

“What can I help you with?” 

Right. “Right,” Shouto says. He has simulated this thousands of times. Millions of times. “Right, yes.”

He would enter the building, right? And then he would walk up? To the receptionist? Right? And then he would—he would—

“Yes,” Shouto says, he has a plan. He has planned this. Shouto prides himself in his meticulousness, if anything. Strategy is one of his good points. Shouto would never walk into battle unprepared. He has read Sun Tzu’s The Art of War five times, one of which via the audiobook on Spotify. So he takes a deep breath.

“Yes, may I have a candy?” says Shouto.

God fucking damn it all fucking shit shit fuck fucking shit.

The receptionist stares at him. He stares at anywhere but the receptionist. The receptionist slides the tiny crystal bowl that holds a bunch of fucking candies over the table. Shouto takes one. He thanks the receptionist. And then he goes to sit on one of the benches.

He’ll try again next week, he thinks. Holy shit.

He is a failure. He is an abomination. Shouto eats his candy, and for the first time in his life—and Shouto has hit many, many low points in his life, but for absolutely the first time in his life—Shouto thinks that he does not deserve this candy. Or any candy at all for that matter. 

That’s alright, he thinks, wiping his palms on his jeans. One sweaty-hot, one cold-numb. That’s alright. Next week will be it. He knows it. Next week will be it, he can feel it. It’s fine. His left shoe is tapping quick and arrhythmic on the sterile, squeaky clean tile. 

Who the hell is he kidding? He can’t fucking do this. 

Shouto tries to ignore the ringing in his ears, and that fucking whistle—that high pitch whistle that he knows too well, the heat and the shake of the boiling kettle. He can’t do this. He is trying, he swears, he is trying so hard—and that’s his specialty in life. Shouto is good at trying hard. Shouto is good at working hard. It’s just never good enough, is the problem.

It just never seems like he’ll ever be able to give his all. 

Like his Quirk.

Here it goes, Shouto thinks, and it begins: The Monologue. 

THE MONOLOGUE

What is this? A self-pity fest? You think you’re so sad, so fucking tragic, huh? 

Shouto closes his eyes.

Wants to dwell on your heart-breaking, tear-jerking backstory, again? So what, you have a childhood trauma? Everybody has a childhood trauma you self-serving, egocentric, full-of-yourself, stupid, fu —

Objection. Nasty self-deprecating thoughts do nobody good. It’s essentially non-productive, arguably counter-productive. Now, the right thing to do is—

—cking hell, you are not even that different from him, you know? All you think about is yourself.

That’s not true.

That is true. Why did you want to come here in the first place? 

To—repair relationships. To console. To reach some sort of closure. Somehow. Anyhow. 

That’s right. To feel better about yourself, right?

You just want to feel better about yourself, right?

I want to feel better about myself. 

That’s enough. 

With distant alarm, Shouto realizes that the part of the bench where he’s been clenching his right hand around is frosted all over. That’s enough. The disinfectant smell of the hospital has started to suffocate him, at some point. The stench of failure.

He looks at his watch. The monologue lasted for a full ten minutes. Essentially non-productive, and yes, arguably counter-productive. 

Shouto yanks his hand free, with effort. The ice has made his fingers stick to the metal surface. The ice flakes crumble and clang to the floor like spare changes. An old woman from three rows over looked at him weirdly before looking away. 

He should leave, Shouto concludes.

Or.

Shouto glances, surreptitiously, to the side. To the receptionist counter.

Or I can try again, he thinks, and then he tries to stand, but his legs just won’t fucking move. 

He stares at his knees, hard, and then he tries to stand and fails the second time. His knees, he realizes upon inspection, are shaking way too hard to be able to support his body.

Shouto wonders why nothing in his life is ever easy. 

Shouto knows that he’s afraid. That he’s so, so very afraid. It runs in the flesh. Bites to the bone. He’s afraid of what might come, of what might happen. They haven’t met in so long. Would she even recognize him, he thinks, suddenly hollow with heart-shot fear. Would she—does she even miss him?

He feels his finger bones creak as he curls them into hard fists. He can try again, if he isn’t such a coward. That’s the truth as plain as can be. If only he isn’t so—if only.

Shouto stands up. His knees are shaking. Come on, try. Try again. All he has to do—is just walk up to the counter, says hello, and then. And then. 

Hating himself, and half-way to a mental breakdown, Shouto walks to the exit. And then he pauses, throwing an unsure, over the shoulder look at the counter. He sighs and starts walking out for real.

And then someone crashes into him at high velocity.

“Oh my god, I am so sorry,” Shouto hears a person say when his head stops pounding. He blinks stars out of his eyes. The ceiling is slightly spinning, and he sees a couple of heads hovering above him—which he realizes later, is actually just one head. He just almost got a concussion, is all.

“It’s fine,” Shouto says, and a tiny part of him feels embarrassed. Student of UA, son of a shithead that’s nevertheless the number two Hero—lying on a hospital floor, having the lights nearly knocked out of him.

“It’s not fine—aw, man—”

And then a second voice barks, “Deku-kun, how many times have I told you to—”

Shouto tunes out that voice, because he is not ‘Deku-kun’, and the room is still spinning a bit, and he can't believe that just happened. A further proof of his incompetence. 

“Are you fine?” the second person asks him, and someone helps him to stand. Shouto doesn’t like being touched by strangers—or anyone—so he shrugs off the hands on his shoulders. 

“Had worse,” he replies. Way worse.

“Deku-kun!” the second person is a lady—no, a nurse, middle-aged—and she jabs a scaly finger down to the presumably ‘Deku-kun’. “If I find you running around, again, you do know what would—”

Shouto tunes it out once more, trying to regain his balance. He tunes in when he’s sure his brain is not damaged.

“—do you understand? Please pay attention, too, to your—” she gestures, her hands shaping something in the air, an abstract shape, or whatever “—that!”

“Yes, yes, I understand, I am very sorry—”

“And apologize to this young man!”

With one last concerned look-over at Shouto—apparently, she is head nurse, but he’s fine, really—and another scolding to ‘Deku-kun’, she huffs and leaves. 

Shouto watches her leave, and then turns—to find the perpetrator bows his head deeply in a perfect ninety-degree angle.

“Again, I am very sorry!”

“Uh,” Shouto says. He’s starting to feel this whole idea—this whole visiting idea—is a mistake. Well, he did know that it's a mistake, but the backlash so far has been mental distress, not a physical one. To be fair, though, he thinks, ‘perpetrator’ might be a bit much. “It was also my fault. I wasn’t looking.” 

The guy—boy, he realizes, this boy is shorter than him—straightens himself up, and, ah.

“It’s you,” Shouto says in genuine surprise, his words coming out unfiltered.

The boy blinks, his face momentarily blank. His eyes are huge, and now that he’s up-close, Shouto sees that they are matching green with his hair. Shouto looks down. He must've hit his head pretty hard, because he says, “you’re not wearing the weird get-up."

The blankness disappears, replaced by a devastated look in those eyes, clear and fervent. “Weird get-up?” he echoes, weakly, like he’s hurt. For a moment, Shouto is reminded by his—as described by many of his classmates—bluntness. But it’s true. “Yes,” Shouto says.

They stare at each other for a few moments, and Shouto thinks, maybe this is what people call ‘awkward’, so he says, “well, goodbye,” and then the guy says, “wait!”

At this point, he is annoyed. He is tired, his head hurts, his life sucks, and he wants to hate himself in his room in peace. “What?”

“Do you like curry?”

Shouto blinks. “Huh?”

“Soba, then?”

Shouto doesn’t reply. 

“This hospital’s cafeteria makes mean soba,” the boy says. He gestures a lot when he speaks. Shouto’s eyes flick to the cartoonish All Might printed on his faded hoodie. Underneath the illustration is an English phrase, tacky and grammatically wrong: do with all you might! 

“What?” Shouto says, when he realizes he just missed whatever it was that this guy just said to him.

“Will you let me treat you?” 

He definitely hit his head too hard. Shouto doesn’t know what made him say yes. 

“My name’s Midoriya, by the way,” a bowl of cold soba is placed in front of him, “but people around here call me Deku. You can call me that.”

Midoriya—Deku—whatever, gives him a pair of chopsticks and sits across from him, in front of his own steaming bowl of katsudon. He sits, and then looks at Shouto expectantly.

It takes a second for it to click, and another second for Shouto to get over his hesitance. “I’m Todoroki,” he says.

Like the hero? It’s an inadvertent reply, happens countless times to the point that he’s sick of it. But Deku—or Midoriya, whatever—just smiles and says, “nice to meet you, Todoroki-kun—sorry about the crash, though.” And they dig in.

It is good, he thinks. Even better than school’s cafeteria. He looks at the familiar duffel bag sitting in the third chair between the two of them. The true perpetrator of the crash, it must be. He wonders what the hell is in them, because he’s sure something sharp stabs his hipbone earlier. Several somethings.

He puts down his chopsticks. The boy—Midoriya—looks up, through that unruly mess of bangs, surprised, and a little concerned. “What is it?” He says, “is it not good?”

Shouto wonders, for a second. No one has ever really approached him before. He knows he looks too intimidating. And he sure as hell never let people approach him. “It’s good,” he says. 

Midoriya stares at him, like in consideration. “I feel like even if it’s bad, you would say it in the exact same tone and expression..” 

Shouto doesn’t understand. “What?”

“Nothing. I’m glad it’s good. Hey, Karasuma-san! Psst!” 

There is a window to the kitchen near the counter. A face pops out, a guy in his late twenties. “What, Deku?”

“He says it’s good!” Midoriya says, two thumbs up. 

The guy scoffs, but not unkindly. “Of course it is!” is smugly said, and then the head disappears.

Shouto watches the interaction comes and passes with unblinking eyes. Unsure of how to react, and also mostly bewildered in a curious sort of way. 

“He likes getting complimented,” Midoriya explains, completely unprompted. Shouto is starting to understand that Midoriya just tends to speak, prompted or not. “And sometimes he gives me free leftovers, so, gotta keep the guy happy. You should try the katsudon sometime. Not as good as my mom’s—but damn, it’s close.”

Not as good as my mom’s. Shouto looks at his soba. He picks up his chopsticks and starts to eat again. “Do you live here?” He says. Now that he’s entered U.A, he’s found out that—as Uraraka Ochako puts it—he is rather, ‘straight-forward’. Whatever that means. This is probably what she means.

It doesn’t seem to deter Midoriya, though. He just laughs, quiet, a bit reserved. “Oh, no. I just volunteer here, twice a week or so.”

“Volunteer?” Shouto deadpans. “Wearing the weird get-up?”

This is definitely what she means. Midoriya chokes on a piece of katsu. Before Shouto can decide whether he should perform the heimlich, Midoriya gulps down a glass of water and says, “urgh. Is it really that bad?”

Shouto shrugs. He doesn’t want to trigger another choking frenzy, though, so he says, “hm.”

“I’m just trying to look the part,” Midoriya sighs. “Well, it makes the kids laugh, though, so as long as that works.”

Look the part? “What part?” Shouto frowns. “A con salesman?”

Midoriya chokes again, and downs another gulp of water. “Okay,” he says, when he’s done choking. “I’m starting to feel offended for real, but that is kind of funny..”

Shouto wasn’t actually joking, but he decided not to say that. He stares at Midoriya.

“Not whatever you’re thinking,” Midoriya sighs, almost sulkily. “I’m a—well, I’m a magician.”

Shouto stares.

Midoriya stares back. And then, out of nowhere, his voice full of affected surprise, “wow look, Todoroki-kun, what is that?” he moves to take something from Todoroki’s soba with his chopsticks.

Slightly alarmed, Todoroki looks down, and—between Midoriya’s chopstick, hovering above Todoroki’s soba, is a coin. Precisely, a one hundred yen coin—solid and conspicuous, and its existence entirely inexplicable.

Midoriya puts the coin down on the space between their bowls. It drops to the metal surface of the table with a soft cling. “Tadah,” he says, with blithe fanfare. “Don’t worry, your soba is perfectly clean. It didn’t come from—you know. I just made it look like it. Because it’s magic. I’m a magician. So. I’m not going to use these chopsticks anymore though..”

“Was that your Quirk?” Shouto says, after a long pause. 

Midoriya is in the middle of exchanging a pair of new chopsticks. He laughs, light and easy. Quiet, reserved. “If it’s a Quirk, then I’m not a magician, am I? Wow, look, Todoroki-kun!”

He points at the 100 yen on the table, and with his pointer finger, he carefully slides the coin to the side. And somehow, underneath it, is another 100 yen coin.

Shouto stares at the now multiplied 100 yen coins. And then he stares at Midoriya. Somehow, he feels—

Impressed? Almost … maybe. Maybe not. Slightly annoyed, definitely. The kind of annoyance that mingles with curiosity. Like when he learns a new martial art move and he doesn’t quite get it right. Or when he tries to solve one especially technical physics problem.

“It’s, you know,” Midoriya gestures, smiling amiably, humble. “Sleight of hand, misdirection. A lot of practice. A lot of coins.”

Magicians. An old concept, from one, two centuries ago. “I thought magicians don’t exist anymore.”

“They don’t,” Midoriya nods, jabbing lightly on a piece of katsu with his now-clean chopsticks. “Ran out of business when, well, when Quirk happened. It’s just a niche hobby, I guess. I volunteer, um, to help the kids. Here, I mean. I don’t know if you know, but this hospital also functions as the children’s cancer centre in the prefecture—“ Shouto does not “—and a lot of the kids don’t get lots of chances to go out and stuff, you know? So I just entertain them, I guess. And ‘magic’,” he air-quotes, with a note of humor, like he doesn’t take it seriously, “still works on kids. Quirk or no Quirk.”

Not a Quirk. Interesting. It makes sense. Public Quirk use, especially in a space such as hospitals, usually require complicated licensing. Shouto stares at the coins again. It’s a bit stupid, and definitely childish, but. “How did you do it,” he finally says. 

Midoriya looks at him in surprise, like he didn’t expect him to ask, or to care. His eyes, Shouto notes, are very big. Almost too big on his face, like a child's. The smile on Midoriya's face morphs into a playful grin. “Why,” he says, almost teasingly, “a magician never tells.”

His freckles crinkle when he smiles, dimpled. Shouto frowns. “Have we met before?” Shouto says, seriously, a non-sequitur.

Midoriya—Deku glances at him. A beat passes where his face is suddenly carefully bereft—and then his face breaks into a brilliant grin once more. “That’s one unoriginal pick-up line, Todoroki-kun,” says Deku. “Yeah, when I asked you to watch my duffel bag, remember?” And then seemingly remembering the previous fiasco, his tone takes into concern, “wait, did you get a concussion when—“

“Nevermind.”

“Hello,” Shouto says.

“Hello,” the receptionist says. To Shouto’s relief, it’s a different one from last week. They won’t recognize him, then. One less reminder of his incompetence. 

Here he goes. “I would like to visit Todoroki Rei my name is Todoroki Shouto here is my student card may I know where her room is.”

Shouto realizes he didn’t breathe the whole sentence. He takes a breath to oxygenate his stupid brain.

The receptionist stares at him. “Sorry,” they say, slowly, “could you repeat that?”

God damn it. “Of course,” Shouto says, and what do you know? He repeats it. 

“Level six, Calla Lily, three-one-five.”

“Thank you,” Shouto says, and turns to leave.

“Sir? You left your student card—“

Level six, Calla Lily, three-one-five. Level six. Calla Lily. Three-one-five. Level six. Level six.

Step three, talks to receptionist. Acquire location. Step four—

Shouto enters the lift. An old lady and a couple enters with him. 

“Could you please press four for me, dear?”

Shouto presses four. And then he presses six.

Someone gets in on level two. Shouto doesn’t really pay attention. Level three. Level four. Level five.

Level six. 

The elevator opens. The couple beside him walks out. Shouto is alone in the elevator.

Level six.

His legs won’t fucking move. The elevator closes after a while. His legs won’t fucking—

Shouto steps back, his legs wobbly. His back hits the back of the elevator space. The metal is cool against his head. What the hell is he doing? 

Level six.

Shouto looks at the buttons. Level six, it reads, psychiatry and psychology unit. Level five, children’s cancer centre, etc, level four, neurology, etc, level three...

He can’t bring himself to press the button. 

The elevator dings, and goes down automatically to ground floor. The door opens. A few people and a bunch of kids get in. Shouto tries to breathe. 

He needs to get out of here. Leave. Try again. 

He’s gone this far. Then go further. Plus ultra, et cetera. He can’t.

Coward.

The elevator dings. The bunch of kids go out, giggling. He’s alone again. He needs to go.

He walks out. The elevator closes behind him.

Shouto walks, unsure and unsteady, to the seats nearby, underneath the windows. He feels lost, confused, loathsome, fucked up.

He’s gone this far.

Is this the farthest you can go?

He closes his eyes. Tries to breathe. He doesn’t know how long he does it, trying to regulate his breathing, trying to act like a normal fucking person. Trying to hold himself from freaking out, from setting a fire or a blizzard in a hospital or both. Where the hell is he even—

He looks up, and his eyes find a sign. Level five, it reads. Children’s cancer centre. 

He looks down, to his shoes. His left foot is still tapping, he almost isn’t aware of the constant, anxious motion. He opens his fists, closes them again. Open, close. Breathe in, out. He needs to go. Leave. Try again next week. 

After what feels like an hour, or maybe just five minutes, he stands up. His legs don’t feel like jelly anymore, but his heart is still pumping, more anxiety than anything. It won’t go away for a while. Breathe in, out.

Well. It’s not like he has anything better to do. Shouto glances at the sign again. Nothing better to do at all.

He looks left, to the hall. He doesn’t know why he didn’t notice it the first time. The ceiling, the wall and the floor, are full of paintings. Hand prints. Flowers. Giraffes. He spots one funnily-drawn All Might—oh, there are two. Or five All Mights. Distantly, he thinks he hears children laughing, or maybe it’s just his imagination. 

It’s not like it’s illegal, is it? Shouto takes a step, but he’s still unsure. It should be open to the public though. Maybe he just can’t enter the rooms. Even when he’s still doubting, his legs already move. 

He hadn’t imagined the children’s laughter, it seems. 

Down the hallway, It looks to be some sort of—recreation area. Playground. There is a closed room, by the corner; a library, judging from the shelves and the seats. Like the hallway, they are colorful, yellows and blues and pinks. Illustrations adorn wherever the eye can see.

Shouto’s childhood wasn’t exactly colorful. Or cute. He could never imagine having a room that looks like this. He doesn’t even remember ever being in a space like this, in his younger days. But compared to the plain, sterile white of the other levels—Shouto thinks, surprising even himself, he thinks that he rather prefers this.

It just looks alive is all. Less depressing. 

“You look weird!”

Shouto looks down.

The kid looks up. She is very small. And then she says, again, with utter conviction: “wow, you look even weirder up close!”

Perhaps, this is what Uraraka would call ‘blunt’. Inexplicably, Shouto feels a sort of kinship to this little girl. He crouches down, so he can look into the girl’s yellow, cat-like eyes. Seriously, he says, “you also look weird.”

She looks at him for a moment. She is wearing a onesie that looks like a reference to some hero. And then, wordlessly, she hands him a paper and marker.

He takes them. The paper isn’t blank. There is a drawing of what looks like either a vengeful ghost, or an imitation of salvador dali’s artwork, or perhaps a cow. It’s hard to tell.

“What do you want me to do.”

“Draw legs. I can’t draw legs.” So this girl is commanding him, now. He looks at her. “Legs?” He repeats, deadpan. 

“Duh,” she says, like he is stupid. He can't really argue the sentiment at the moment. “It’s me in my hero costume,” she explains, pointing at a shape that is perhaps a head, or the Tokyo Tower. Who knows. “Draw my legs.” 

Shouto attempts to. She stands on her tiptoes to peer over it. How old is this kid? Five? Six? She looks at the drawing, nods several times, and then looks up at him. “Awful,” she declares. And then she snatches the paper from Shouto's hands and leaves.

Shouto stares after her. That was positively uncalled for. He respects it.

He glances around the room. The space is big, wide; the wall by the side is lined with windows, pouring sunlight into the room. There are children, less than twenty … no, lesser than that. But more than he’d thought they would be. In the wide room, though, they are sparse; huddling in patches here and there, messing with toys and what not. Most of the floor space is covered in carpets, the ones that look like puzzles with hiragana and english alphabet, the kind that won’t hurt if you fall on it. He believes that 'child-proof' is the term for it.

Surprisingly, most of the adults don’t even spare him a glance. They are nurses, and civilians—parents. He sees the kids that came into the elevator, earlier, at some corner of the room, laughing and messing around. Visiting a friend or a relative, perhaps. 

The stench is still there—the distinctly sterile, disinfectant scent. Hospital smell. The waiting room where he usually comes isn’t quiet, per se, but something about this space—in spite of what it is—is distinctly livelier. More cheerful. And Shouto isn’t even crazy about kids. He never really interacted with kids before.

He stares at his shoes. What is he doing? He should leave.

“Excuse me, sir, may I see your visitor pass?”

Shouto starts. So much for spatial awareness. “Ah.”

The nurse stares at him, unimpressed, but not exactly unkindly. “You need a visitor pass in this space, or I’m afraid you must leave.” 

“Ah,” says Shouto flatly. “I see. I—“

“He’s my assistant!”

It’s him. “It’s you,” Shouto says, surprised.

“Yes, it’s me, your boss. Sorry about that, Fukuda-san, he’s new.”

Fukuda-san raises an eyebrow, rather skeptically, and cursors him up and down. Shouto has never been exactly shy, but at this moment, he squirms in his place under the scrutiny. “You never brought an assistant before, Deku.”

Deku grins. “First time for everything, you know?”

The nurse shrugs. “Now that I think of it, they used to parade pretty girls around, huh?”

Deku laughs. Shouto doesn’t, but that’s because he doesn’t get it. “Well, then,” Deku says pleasantly, “anything I should take note of? Any new kids this week?”

“No, not really. Haru-chan still has an issue assimilating, though, and—“

Again, Shouto tunes it out, consciously stepping back allowing the two to converse. Deku is wearing the three piece suit again. His jeans, this time, aren’t ripped. He still does look like a salesman, but not so much a con salesman. An underage salesman. The big duffel bag is slung on his back.

“—try not to make a mess, this time.”

“Come on, the kids love it.”

“You know who else loves it?” The nurse deadpans. “Kubo-san.”

Deku cringes immediately. He opens his mouth to retort when a ball-like creature in high speed bumps and sticks into his legs.

Deku looks down and his face breaks into a brilliant grin. “Hello, Tocchan!”

The creature is a kid. A very small kid, who is hugging Deku’s legs. “Deku!” The kid says.

“Deku! It’s Deku!”

“Deku’s here! Deku’s here!”

Suddenly, they are surrounded by kids, all barely taller than Shouto’s hip bones. Shouto had thought that there weren’t many kids around, but he is now realizing that he was wrong. He is surrounded in a circle of kids. A swarm. 

Among the chorus of Deku! Deku! Some of them look at him curiously, whispering and pointing to each other. Shouto has a distinct feeling of being trapped.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it, then,” Fukuda sighs, half exasperated and half fond. “Break a leg, new guy.” It takes Shouto a second to realize that she meant him.

It takes another second for Shouto to realize what that means.

“Wait,” Shouto says, awkwardly. He has never been in this sort of situation, or anything remotely close to it. He has never even seen this many kids in real life before. His plea goes unheard, however.

“Everyone, this guy right here is gonna help me out today! Say hello!” 

“Hel-lo.”

“Hewwo!”

“He looks weird!”

"Weird hair! Weird hair!"

“Hello hello hello hello—“

There is a jab to his sides. Shouto looks to Midoriya, a bit at a loss. “Aren’t you going to introduce yourself?” Midoriya grins, like it’s an inside joke.

Shouto looks at the sea of kids, and they look back at him. And then Shouto looks at Midoriya, who is also looking at him. He has never seen eyes so big on faces so small before. He relents, supposing the best strategy at the moment is to surrender.

Shouto bows deeply and formally. “My name is Todoroki Shouto, please take care of me.”

A pause. Beside him, he hears Midoriya snort.

“Boo!”

“So booooring.”

“Shou-to?”

“Todo—todo—“

“Who’s him?”

“Todoroki might be a mouthful, Todoroki-kun,” Deku says, still with that same grin, only now it has even more mirth in it. “Let them call you something easier. What do you want to be called?”

It takes Shouto a moment. “You can call me Shouto,” he tells them all, solemnly. It’s his hero name, after all.

Deku claps his hands. “You heard him! Be nice to him, ‘kay? He’s—“ he glances sideways, humor in the twinkle of his eyes. “New.”

Why, Shouto thinks, distantly bewildered with a dash of helplessness, am I in this situation? 

“Come on, make way, make way,” the kids part messily, providing a path. “Hey, Assistant-kun!”

Shouto looks up to have a duffel bag thrown at him. He catches it, with some effort. It’s big. Deku throws a smile at him. “Catch up, will you?” And then he walks to the end of the room, with a bunch of kids running after him noisily.

He stares after them. What choice does he have? It’s not like he has anything better to do. Not anything that he’s capable of, anyway.

Shouto sighs. Heaving the bag, he follows.

“Come sit! Come on, nicely. In order. You know the rules!”

Shouto never knows kids can be so noisy. He doesn’t remember ever being noisy as a child. But these kids, they stumble with each other just to sit down, giggling and screaming. Their legs are so tiny that Shouto isn't sure how they could possibly support their bodies. The physics of it feel a little wrong.  

Is this, Shouto ponders, what people call ‘cute’? 

“No pushing! No pushing or I won’t start. Miya, I see what you’re doing.”

It takes a few minutes before they are all more or less silent, watching Deku expectantly with those big eyes. “Whoah, that’s quick,” Deku says, with exaggerated surprise. “Did you miss me that much?” 

The kids giggle. Shouto never attended pre-school. He also never went to a—what do they call it? Children’s care, or something. Shouto never attended school before U.A, really, as he was homeschooled until this year. But he reckons, pre-school would look something like this. 

“Let’s see, I usually ask for volunteers, right?” Deku taps a finger on his chin, pretending to be thinking about it. “Mm, since I got myself an assistant, though, I guess I don’t need volunteers anymore?”

Gasps. Horrified, scandalized, revolted. In an instant, Shouto finds diverse, various pairs of eyes glaring at him, vicious and full of vengeance. Shouto blinks. And then he steps back. He finds that he has to fight an urge to raise his hands in surrender—which is a novelty. He has never felt that before in his entire life.

“But he don’t got any stickers!” 

“Yeah!”

“Show us stickers!”

Once again, Shouto is at a loss. He looks to Midoriya, as if for help, and the guy is laughing so hard he throws his head to the back. “Are you sure,” Midoriya says, still choking with laughter, “that he doesn’t have any stickers?”

Hush falls over the room. The kids discuss with each other, though they start to look unsure. Shouto realizes that some of the adults have started to walk in their direction. He tries to ignore the slight self-consciousness that arises with it. 

“Prove it,” one of the kids—the girl from earlier, Shouto realizes, the one that asked him to draw her legs—commands, haughtily.

“Yeah! Show us the stickers!”

“What stickers,” says Shouto.

“Why, the ones in your pocket, of course,” says Deku. He sounds a little too amused. 

He doesn’t know why he’s playing along. Shouto checks his left pocket. “The other one,” Deku says, helpfully. “Um, no, still the other one.”

There is something, Shouto realizes, in his left back pocket, and it’s not just his wallet. He pulls out a—

A ribbon. It’s bright and colorful, pink, yellow and green. A single, long, ribbon. Shouto starts, somewhat alarmed by its existence. He pulls. 

And pulls.

And pulls.

The ribbon is now at least a metre long. Shouto keeps pulling.

The kids has started giggling half a minute ago. By the time he’s done—the ribbon is at least five metres long—the kids are laughing, curling to their bellies. Shouto pulls until the last of the ribbon falls to the floor, and looks at it, more at a loss than before. “How,” he says, as flat as ever, and the room explodes in more snickerings.

Deku shakes his head, as if he’s disappointed, but the corner of his mouth looks like it’s struggling not to twitch. “Your other, other pocket.”

Shouto checks his other pocket. He pulls out a paper with a bunch of golden star stickers on it.

Shouto stares at it for a moment. And then he shows it to the audience like it's a medal.

The laughter dies down to whispers. The haughty girl looks over and nods in solemn acknowledgement. “Is the mass satisfied?” Deku queries.

The kids nod. Deku nods, and Shouto almost flinches when he puts a hand on Shouto’s shoulder. “You have been approved,” Deku says, in all seriousness. Deku's hand leaves his shoulder almost immediately, and Shouto feels the tension in his body uncoils a little.

Shouto doesn’t know what to say, so he says, “Thank you,” because it seems proper. 

“Okay, let’s go do some magic now, yeah?” they cheer in response. Shouto realizes that the room is way fuller now, and not just with kids—teenagers, in hospital gowns. Patients. Even several elderlies. They must’ve entered when Shouto was busy emptying his pockets. 

“Hm, has anyone seen my wand, though? You know, my magic wand?” heads shake. Deku frowns, tapping one shoe and putting one hand on his hip. “Hmm. That’s weird. I’m sure I put it around here somewhere.”

The kids start looking for the wand, chattering to each other. They stand up, checking their seats, underneath the carpets, the chairs. The wand is nowhere to be found. 

“Hey, Tocchan, did you take my wand?”

Tocchan—couldn’t be older than five, or six—giggles, “no!”

Deku raises an eyebrow, obviously skeptic. And then his grin turns mischievous as he lunges and carries Tocchan up high.

The boy’s body is small, a little too-thin even for his age; but the boy laughs uncontrollably as he is raised up, up to the ceiling. “Tocchan, you took my wand, didn’t you? You took it?” Deku teases, while he shakes the boy gently, as if the wand would fall out of the boy’s pockets.

“No, no!” the boy laughs delightedly, while his friends holler on—and suddenly, with a clang! A stick falls into the floor.

The audience cheers. Deku takes his wand, and pretends to inspect it. And with Shouto’s surprise—he doesn’t know why he’s still surprised, at this point—Deku plucks a magnifying glass out of thin air to inspect it. Several gasps are heard in the audience, but Deku looks like he is too focused to notice, concentrating entirely on his ‘magic wand’.

It’s a stick, really, maybe twenty centimetres long, black with a hint of shininess. He seems to nod to himself, as if satisfied. “Okay, it’s in tip-top shape. Shouto,” Shouto’s head whips—startled by the use of his first name. His hero name. Midoriya looks at him, with that same inside-joke sort of smile. “Give Tocchan a sticker, will you?”

Shouto looks down. Tocchan is looking up to him expectantly, so small, he barely reaches Shouto’s thigh. His smile is big, and Shouto can see several teeth missing at the back. His head is bald. Something twists in Shouto's chest, an unexpected pang of pain, and Shouto takes a deep breath as he tries to ignore it.

Shouto takes the stickers that had mysteriously shown up in his pocket, and share one with him. “Thank you for the good work,” Shouto says and bows formally. It is only proper.

Tocchan sits back down, chest puffed, showing off the sticker stuck on his shirt with pride to his friends.

As it turns out, the kids who have stickers are the one who’s got a bigger chance to ‘volunteer’. The stickers are some sort of reward for good behavior, is Shouto’s guess. The rest of the ‘show’ evolves this way, with Deku taking up one kid after another, performing one inexplicable thing after another, and Shouto’s job—as the assistant—is to give them their stickers.

Even if Shouto wants to leave, he thinks, as he gives a sticker to the haughty girl—Miya, apparently—and she shoves one fist to the air, All-Might style—he isn’t sure he can. 

And—and he finds this especially perplexing—he isn’t even sure if he wants to leave.

“Oof,” Deku waves his gloved hand to his face, as if he’s sweating in exhaustion, “I’m beat. These magic tricks are making me tired,” and then he wearily sits down. Except that there is no chair and he is sitting down on empty air.

More laughter. Shouto doesn’t realize his own lips curl until Deku looks at him, and winks, and says, “say, Shouto. You are my apprentice. Why don’t you do my job for me?”

Shouto pauses. He looks to the expecting audience. And then he looks to his hands. Shouto is nothing if not a responsible person. “I’m afraid,” Shouto says, with all the seriousness of someone on a deathbed, “that I cannot do magic.”

“That’s not true!” Suddenly Deku stands up, dramatically. He looks fired up all of a sudden. “Takeshi!” he points abruptly, to a teenager in a wheelchair. He can't be any older than Shouto. Said teenager rolls his eyes, but there is an unmistakable smile on his face. “Takeshi-kun, please tell the class why it’s not true.”

“Because everyone can do magic,” Takeshi drawls, his voice dripping with sarcasm. The smile is still there though.

“That is right. Do you want a sticker?”

“No.”

“Anyway,” Deku ignores the blatant rejection, “everyone can do magic. Come, my apprentice, it appears that you still have much to learn.”

Deku is beckoning him with a hand. The rest of the audience is, to Shouto’s abject, still staring at Shouto expectantly. He is only surrounded by kids, but he might as well be threatened by a gun. Miserably, Shouto walks to his—apparently—magic sensei.

“Shouto-kun, we have known each other for a long time,” Deku announces, dignifiedly.

“Hm,” Shouto says.

“A very long time. Three hundred years, in fact..”

He hears several sniggerings to the side. Shouto says, “hm.”

“I believe that it’s time for us to take our relationship to the next level, Shouto-kun. So please let me ask you a question that I’ve been dying to ask for over two hundred years.”

“Three hundred,” Shouto corrects him.

Deku acts like he didn’t hear it. “What is your favorite color?” he asks instead.

Shouto pauses. “White.” 

“I see. May I please have your hand?”

Not really. But he can feel dozens of eyes on him, and the baited breath of the kids waiting for what the next trick would be. So he reluctantly puts up his right hand.

“Put it into a fist, please, and channel all your concentration into it.”

“This is ridiculous,” Shouto deadpans, but he does it anyway. To his—slight relief, Deku doesn’t touch his hand like he expected. Deku himself is closing his eyes in mock focus, both of his gloved hands several inches above Shouto’s. 

“I’m going to give you all my energy now,” Deku says, eyes still shut, and the room is in total silence for five seconds before those eyes open again, sharp and piercing staring right into Shouto’s own.

The sudden sharpness in Deku’s eyes surprises him, for some reason. Shouto blinks. 

“The magic has transferred,” Deku announces, with all the seriousness of someone on a death row. “Please open your fist, my dear apprentice.”

Shouto sighs, unimpressed. He literally feels nothing. Somewhat unsure, Shouto opens his palm.

A tiny white butterfly flies into the air.

Someone gasps. The room is silent with shock before it erupts. 

Shouto stares at the butterfly, now flying around the room, into the crowd. Some of the kids are standing up, trying to catch it, laughing in absolute joy. Shouto then stares at his own right hand, and realizing that his mouth is still open rather dumbly, he shuts it up. 

He looks up to Deku, who is still staring at him with something unreadable, something intent in his eyes. “Congratulations, Todoroki-kun,” Deku says, and his grin isn’t so sharp anymore, somehow. Less bright edges, and more soft curves. “You just did magic.”

Shouto huffs, somewhere between a laugh, or a scoff; it just comes out of him in his disbelief. “How did you do it?”

Deku’s brows rise, eyes big and glinting. “You tell me.”

Shouto huffs again, that same confused, disbelieving sound. Before he can say anything though, the kids are already crowding them.

“That. Was. Awesome!”

“How d’you do it? How!”

“I want to do it! I want to do it too!”

“Okay, settle down, settle down,” Deku says, though he looks like he is terribly pleased with himself. “Come on, give Shouto some space.”

“I want to do it! Please please please—”

“No, me, me, me!”

“You had your turn, Rin, Tsu,” Deku chastises. “Come on, sit down, sit down.”

After a few moments, the commotion dies down, though they are still chattering at high speed about the trick. A nurse opens the window and they watch as the butterfly flies away, cheering and clapping. 

“Alright, it’s getting pretty late, huh?” Deku says, and immediately the crowd roars in protest.

“Aww, so soon?”

“More! More!”

Someone starts clapping, and the crowd does so in tandem, chanting more, more, more. Deku shakes his head, his mess of hair bounces as he does so. “Geez, fine, fine, fine. Don’t be so loud! The head nurse is going to roast me alive.

“Alright, so who wants to volunteer?”

Hands are raised. Some of the kids stand up in order for their hands to place higher.

Deku shakes his head again, but he is smiling. “One last time, okay? I don’t have the strength to do magic all day, you know.” He walks around, looking over the tiny heads. “Hmm,” he taps a finger to his chin. “Oh, I don’t know. Shouto, why don’t you pick?”

He doesn’t know why he’s surprised. Shouto sighs.

He is taller than Deku, by ten centimetres or so. So when Shouto walks closer to the crowd, his eyes catch this one especially tiny little girl. 

She is thin, like most of them. Her hand is raised, apparently as high as can be, but it is still drowned among her peers. Shouto hesitates, for a while. How does he do this?

You want to be a Pro Hero and you can’t even do something like this?

He pauses. And then he says, in what he hopes a gentle voice, “hello. What is your name?”

The girl looks up, hopeful. Their eyes meet—hers are green, big and watery. “Me?” she says, softly, after a pause.

Shouto tries to smile. It feels awkward on his face, and probably ugly. “Yes,” Shouto says. “My name is Shouto.”

The girl blinks. “Haru,” she says, her voice is as tiny as her body. 

“Okay, Haru-san,” how does he do this? “Could you come with me, please?”

“Um,” Haru says, "okay."

Shouto gives her his hand. She takes it. Her hand is small, so small in Shouto’s grip, soft like a flower petal. For a second, Shouto is afraid that he could crush it. But the girl, instead, grips his hand tighter, and stands up to come with him.

The rest of the kids part and shift, forming a path for the tiny girl. Some of her peers shout some encouragement. Haru ducks her head, seemingly to hide under Shouto, her pale cheeks shining red.

“Hello, Haru-chan,” Deku says, crouching down. He does that to most of the kids. But Haru is so small, even when he’s on one knee, her head still doesn’t reach the top of Deku’s fluff of a hair. “How are you?”

“M'okay,” Haru mumbles, her cheeks grow even redder. Her right hand is still gripping Shouto’s tightly. Shouto awkwardly shifts a little to the side so he doesn’t block the audience’s view.

“That’s great. Now, Haru-chan, can you lend me your hand? You can still hold on to Shouto,” and then Deku puts a hand over the side of his face as he mock-whispers, “he’s going to help you make stronger magic.”

Haru is obviously shy. She nods, face still aflame, and her tiny hand reaches out.

But it shakes, Shouto notices. It shakes, and then it stops mid-air.

“I can’t do it,” she whispers, suddenly.

Shouto tenses. He tries to swallow around his suddenly dry throat. But Deku looks nonplussed, if somewhat curious. “Why not?” he asks.

“Because,” she swallows. For an alarming moment, Shouto thinks she’s going to cry. “Because I don’t have ... I don’t have..” she stops.

Shouto isn’t the most sensitive person—he knows himself to be dense and ego-centric sometimes—but somehow, he knows. 

(A statistic announces itself at the back of his mind. Quirkless people make up twenty per-cent of the world. In Japan, the statistic is—one in every—)

Something about Deku changes, then. His smile. It doesn’t falter, exactly, but it shifts; previously a bright, stage-lit grin, now just … a smile. A soft, gentle curve of his mouth. He bends lower, both knees now on the pristine floor, so he can look at the little girl in the eye. Green eyes meeting green eyes. And then he says, with a dead serious, secretive tone, “everyone has magic.”

The little girl doesn’t look convinced. “Really?” she says, slow—but Shouto recognizes a slight hint of hopefulness in her voice.

“Really,” the magician—Deku—nods, like it’s the surest thing in the world. “Really. Do you believe me?” 

A pause. But then, ever so slightly, Haru nods. 

The smile on the magician’s face grows wider. “Good,” he says. “Because I believe in you,” he offers his gloved hand, and she takes it. He curls her fingers, gently, so her open palm turns into a fist; and then he clasps it with both of his hands. “You should believe in you, too.”

He lets go. She looks at her closed fist, and then at Deku. Deku nods, still with that gentle smile on his face. Shouto feels her other hand, the one in Shouto’s hold, clenches stronger, so slightly, so softly. 

“What’s your favorite color, Haru-chan?”

She hesitates. “Pink.”

When she opens her palm, a group of small, fluttering butterflies fly—soft pink like cherry blossoms, blooming into the air.

The room erupts once more, but Shouto doesn’t care for it—he only has eyes for Haru, who is now smiling so big it splits her face. 

It takes Shouto too long to realize that he, too, is also smiling.

Chapter Text

“I want a rematch,” says Bakugou the moment he steps into class.

Shouto looks up from his copy of Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go.

“Didn’t you hear me, fuckshit?” Bakugou Katsuki snarls. “I said I want a rematch.”

Shouto looks at him like he’s something found on a toilet seat. Bakugou looks like he is going to literally explode. 

Shouto would like to see that, mildly.

“You halfie tit,” Bakugou starts, his fist a loud bang on Shouto’s desk—the scent of something sweet and burnt permeates the air. The smell is a little sickening, like a candy factory on fire. “I’m going to shove your dick so far up your—”

“Bakugou, dude,” says the redhead—Kirishima, was it. The other boy tentatively puts a hand on Bakugou’s shoulder, which the latter roughly shrugs off. From Shouto’s peripheral, the other kids have started to look at the commotion. “Come on, man—not cool.”

“Bakugou-kun,” Yaoyorozu steps in between them—quite literally. She’s standing in front of Shouto’s desk, looking down at Bakugou. It is the first time that Shouto notices that Yaoyorozu has at least a good one centimetre over Bakugou. “I ask you to please get a hold of yourself,” she says coolly. “You are being a disgrace.”

“Shut up you ponytail bitch,” says Bakugou, which is his least creative insult yet. 

Yaoyorozu doesn’t even bristle. “You shut up,” she says with a commendable amount of dignity.

Bakugou sneers, an arrogant and hefty turn of his mouth. He turns to glare at Shouto. Shouto stares back plainly. “You think I would accept that sorry excuse of a match?” It's the first time Shouto hears someone actually growl. “You were fucking half-assing it, asshole. You think I didn’t fucking know that?”

Shouto doesn’t even put his book down. “I don’t think you know much of anything at all,” he says.

“Ooh,” says Jirou in the background.

“Don’t fuck with me,” Bakugou proceeds with his meltdown. “Holding back like that—what a load of cunt. Do you think you’re fucking better than—”

“HEY.” 

All of them turn to look at the new voice who seems to have just arrived: Uraraka. She drops her bag to her chair with a loud thump, her eyes blazing.

Shouto watched her fight with Bakugou. She held her own, and it shows: she has an arm in a sling and multiple bandages on her face. The very face that is now showing the nastiest glare of death at Bakugou.

“You demand a rematch from him?” she roars. “I DEMAND A REMATCH FROM YOU.”

This is the first time, Shouto supposes, that someone ever shocks Bakugou out of a tantrum.

The rest of the class is paying full attention to them now. “Um,” says Asui. “Ochako-chan—”

Ashido and Hagakure have rushed from their seats to hold her down, but Uraraka, who seems to have snapped, is undeterred. “IF YOU CAN GET A REMATCH THEN I DEMAND EQUAL RIGHTS.”

“What the fuck,” Bakugou says, the most confused that anyone has ever heard him.

“Um, someone should call a teacher,” Yaoyorozu says. “Where is Iida-kun? He’s usually the earliest—”

“OH? ARE YOU SCARED? ARE YOU SCARED?”

“FUCK NO I’M NOT SCARED!”

“Can someone record this?” Kaminari says. “I’m recording it, but I want multiple angles.”

“On it,” says Sero.

“Airdrop it later,” says Jirou.

“A banquet of madness,” says Tokoyami.

“Allez putain,” contributes Aoyama.

Shouto doesn’t have much in common with his class other than none of them really give much of a shit at all.

“—OVERCOMPENSATING YOUR TINY PE—”

“—Uraraka you crazy fucking bitch—”

“Oh, wow,” says Yaoyorozu, who seems to be mesmerized by the various vocabularies currently thrown around. And then, “oh, dear.”

“It’s not,” says Aizawa-sensei at the door, “even nine yet.”

4,123 nominations.

“Just as expected, Todoroki-kun,” Yaoyorozu says. “Congratulations.”

“Your field training will be one week long, these are all decent workplaces—”

“I wanna focus on urban counter-vigilantism!”

“I think something disaster-related would be nice..”

“—for those of you who did not receive nominations, there are forty agencies across the country to choose from. You may only choose one. Turn them in by the end of a week.”

“What, we only get two days to pick?”

“I’m sure most of these,” Shouto says, gaze flicking briefly to the various agency names, “are due to Endeavor’s interference.”

Shouto doesn’t expect Yaoyorozu to reply, but she does. “I don’t quite agree, Todoroki-kun,” she says. “You did rank second in the festival out of your own efforts.”

Shouto stops, and turns to look at her. She is smiling at him. Her hand is holding her own list.

“Thank you,” he says. And then he says, “what about you?”

Yaoyorozu looks as surprised as he is. And Shouto has to admit, he sounds strange even to himself. He wonders if this is the first time he strikes a conversation with her. It probably is.

“Oh,” Yaoyorozu says, like she can’t help but voice her shock at Shouto’s willingness to social interaction. “Um. I’m considering—the Snake Hero, Uwabami-san’s agency..”

“Why?” Shouto says.

She pauses. “Why?” she repeats, a little confused. “Well, they ranked top five in the hero popularity poll for a consecutive..”

True. However. “They specialize in commercial work,” Shouto says. “Commercialized stunts and reality shows at best. More often than not, publication.” Which is a nice way to put magazine photoshoots. 

“Oh,” Yaoyorozu says again, this time with a frown. “Now that you say it.”

“I don’t think you’ll receive much field experience there.”

“I see,” she says after a short pause. Her voice sounds a little wan. “You sure know a lot about this, Todoroki-kun.”

Not by choice. But Shouto doesn’t say that.  “There are much better options in your list for someone of your caliber,” he says instead. Yaoyorozu has received over a hundred nominations, after all.

Yaoyorozu purses her lips in thought, and then breaks into a brilliant smile. It’s so sudden and genuine that Shouto feels a little startled by it. “Thank you so much, Todoroki-kun. I’ll give it more thought.”

Shouto doesn’t really think he did much of anything, but. “Sure.” 

Her smile stays. Shouto wonders how she can do that—how she can look so open, and honest. “You know, Todoroki-kun,” she says, with something like curiosity, “you’ve been in a good mood, lately.”

Shouto blinks.

“Oh,” he says. He doesn’t know what to make of that.

“I mean, I guess we’re all in a good mood lately,” Yaoyorozu assents, though she looks like she’s talking to herself more than Shouto. “The Sports Festival has been … a good distraction.”

Shouto might have an acute case of lacking shit to give to be perceptive, but he catches what she doesn’t say: a good distraction from USJ.

The USJ hasn’t been brought up.

Fuyumi-nee and Natsu-nii had both asked about it. 

(And him. But Shouto does not want to remember that conversation.)

After the incident, the school necessitated a round of counseling for the whole class—that, and the police interrogation, had been the only time Shouto had discussed USJ in depth. Discussed what happened. 

Mostly, Shouto has been somewhat surprised by how quickly and effectively UA has suppressed the outcoming news and rumors. He should be unsettled, even; one of the most prodigious hero schools on earth, infiltrated and had an entire class of students attacked? It should’ve been a massive scandal.

And yet—still they managed to clear the Sports Festival. Everything went on … business as usual. The reports that have surfaced were snuffed out, drowned out—as quickly as it had appeared. The only time the USJ was mentioned after the whole incident had passed was when one of the villains were apprehended in the following week—that one had been significant enough due to the odd detail of the occurrence: the criminal was found tied and gagged in front of the Musutafu police force. There was hardly anything else.

None of the news, too, mentioned the third party that had been present at the USJ incident.

Shouto eyes Aizawa-sensei who is currently telling Kaminari that no, Kaminari, you cannot intern at All Might’s agency, not even as a joke. The man is still covered in bandages, even now—even though USJ happened several weeks ago. And Shouto doesn’t miss the way Aizawa-sensei favors his left side. 

“Anyway,” Yaoyorozu says, her smile a little stilted. “Who are you planning to intern with, Todoroki-kun?”

“I’m still considering it,” he replies.

Shouto closes the gate behind him. 

The Todoroki household is located in a private complex, so the area has always been quiet—but even more so at night. Shouto didn’t bother bringing a jacket for him to fare against the night air.

Shouto has only walked three steps out of the house when he spots Natsuo smoking against a streetlamp.

Natsuo startles, dropping his cigarette out of surprise. “Shit!” the ashes off the tip fall, burning his ankles. He does an awkward little dance, cursing, before crushing the cigarette with the heel of his shoes. “Ouch! Damn.”

Fire successfully extinguished, his brother sighs. Shouto spots Natsuo’s Quirk helping him out on that part, judging from the glaze of ice on the cement. And then his brother looks up to stare at Shouto.

Shouto stares back. 

There is a moment where Natsuo seems to consider him. Unlike Shouto who is wearing his pajamas, Natsuo is still in his day look—a dark tee and jeans—he must’ve just gotten back. He isn’t wearing a jacket either. Both of them can always hold well against the cold.

Natsuo says, tentatively, “Don’t tell Fuyumi-nee?” with a question mark at the end.

Shouto stares. “Okay,” he says. And then they both continue to stare at each other.

Right when Shouto begins to wonder if this is what people call ‘awkward’, Natsuo sighs again, dragging a hand across his hair. He says, “Look. Don’t. Don’t smoke, alright?” he gestures to himself, as if he is a disclaimer. “Just because I smoke. Don’t do it. Don’t follow my example.”

“Okay,” Shouto says.

“Yeah,” Natsuo says. “It’ll kill you. And kill, um, babies.”

“Okay.”

“It’s unhealthy,” Natsuo insists. “I’m in med school. I’d know. Smoking isn’t cool.”

“Okay.”

“If Fuyumi-nee caught you smoking she’d bite my head off.”

“Okay.”

Natsuo doesn’t look convinced. If anything, he looks wary, looking at Shouto like he might run and tattle to their sister at any given moment. But then he sighs for the third time—this one longer and comparably more mournful.

“Damn,” he says. “I’m kind of being a bad brother right now, aren’t I.”

Shouto considers this. 

“Yeah,” Shouto replies honestly.

There is a beat where Natsuo’s eyes widen exaggeratedly in surprise before he bursts out laughing.

It’s a loud laugh. Loud enough that Shouto tentatively looks around to make sure no neighbors open their window to yell at them, of any sort—not that they would, but it is quite literally three in the morning.

“Sorry,” Natsuo says, and to Shouto’s astonishment, there are actual legit tears in his eyes. “It’s just. I can’t believe you found me out—at this hour, outside, like—what luck, you know?”

Shouto kinda gets it. They live in the same house—under the same roof for so many years, and yet they never really..

But that isn’t true. That’s not really true, anymore. Sometime before his semester in UA started, Natsu-nii had … Shouto has met him more often. Natsuo is rarely ever home—way more so ever since he got a car—but he’d popped in Shouto’s room once in a while, carrying some store-bought bread pudding. One time—maybe two and a half weeks ago?—he even made some honey toast and had them all three eat together.

It’s a little weird. 

It’s the best.

“Seriously though, don’t tell nee-chan. She doesn’t know I—” Natsu-nii stops, and makes a face. “I mean, I’m not telling you to lie. Just—omitting the—whatever. You know what? You can tell her," he says, with the air of someone accepting their death on the gallows. "I’m a good brother.”

“I won’t tell her.”

Natsuo looks comically relieved. Shouto, not for the first time, is impressed by how expressive his big brother can be. Shouto wonders if he can look like that, too—as open, as bright.

“Really,” Natsuo says gratefully. “That’d be great, man. Thanks.” he pauses. “You’re not gonna ask me for a smoke, are you? Because I won’t. I won’t give you any.”

“Okay.”

“But if you do want to, uh, try, I’d rather you ask me than have one of your hero classmates or something—you know?” Natsuo shuts his mouth for a bit. “Now I sound like I’m selling drugs to my own brother.”

Shouto doesn’t reply.

Natsuo looks a little devastated at himself for a moment. “Can I redo this whole thing?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” Natsuo says, and he slips—Shouto thought it was a pack, but it’s actually a small notebook—a notebook to the back of his jeans and takes a deep breath. He closes his eyes, opens them, and looks at Shouto in faux seriousness. “So, little brother,” he says, hands on his waist. “What the hell are you doing out of the house at this hour?”

Shouto doesn’t even realize that he’s smiling until Natsu-nii smiles back at him, the faux-serious look cracking.

“I was doing an illegal activity that would’ve gotten me decapitated by our dear sister,” Natsuo continues, gesturing to the cigarette butt on the ground, “you, on the other hand, are a growing boy on a school night who should definitely be in bed. What’s your excuse?”

This is new, too. The—the easiness. There used to be some kind of divide, between the two of them—and there still is—but somewhere between the months, something ... shifted. 

Not for Natsu-nii’s lack of effort.

Shouto just wishes he could reciprocate. 

“I can’t sleep,” Shouto replies, which is a lame reply, but it’s all he could manage. It’s the truth, anyway. He can’t sleep.

Natsuo hums, a small sound. He looks at Shouto quietly for a moment, as if looking for something. Natsuo points at a vague area on their left. “Wanna sit on the neighbor’s porch and get our clothes dirty for a bit?” he says. “And also probably got caught on their CCTV like creeps but that’ll probably be fine?” 

Because our neighbor is scared of Endeavor, is unsaid.

“Okay."

Natsuo walks over to the sidewalk and sits down with a grunt, patting a space beside him. Shouto notes that he has a small stub of a pencil slipped behind his left ear. Shouto follows him and sits down obediently. 

Natsuo shifts a little, giving some space between them. “Um, I kinda smell right now,” he says, answering Shouto’s questioning look. Right—the smoke. Shouto can smell it—but not much. He mustn’t have been smoking for long. 

“It’s fine,” Shouto says. “I don’t mind.”

“Okay,” Natsuo says, but he doesn’t really shift back.

It’s a surprise, honestly. Shouto wonders how long he has been doing that—the smoke. It’s not that Natsuo necessarily doesn’t seem like the type who smokes; looking at it that way, he doesn’t seem like the type who doesn’t smoke either. Shouto just … never thinks of that particular possibility. 

He guesses he really doesn’t know much about any of his siblings after all.

“So, tell me,” Natsuo says. “Was Fuyumi-nee the one who taught you how to shut down the alarms?”

The night security system installed in their household. Shouto has had to shut them down before he sneaked out, else he’d wake the whole house—and he has his suspicions, but he guesses the system could notify his agency if triggered. Shouto would very much like to avoid that.

Shouto’s mouth twists. “No,” he admits. “I figured that one out myself.” 

Natsuo shifts in his seat, a rueful smile on his face. “Yeah?” he says. “Since when?”

“Two years ago. I think.”

Natsuo hums again, nodding. “I see. I should’ve just taught you how.”

Shouto doesn’t really know what to say to that. He doesn’t even think they ever really talked two years ago. 

“Anyway,” Natsu-nii glances to the side at him. He has bags under his eyes, Shouto notices. Just like Fuyumi-nee. Their eyes are darker, like this. Under the streetlight, Natsuo’s eyes are like a pair of ink blots. “How’s your hero thingy going on?”

Shouto looks down. “I’m interning soon.”

Natsuo leans forward, his chin on his hand. “That quick? Isn’t this your first semester?”

“Yeah.”

Natsuo frowns, and then some sort of realization colors his expression. “Oh, I get it. So the sports festival thing—that was an exhibition, wasn’t it.”

Something slips to his voice at that, something a little—

Shouto turns to look at his brother, but there was nothing on Natsuo’s face. Maybe Shouto had imagined it—the bitterness. Natsuo smiles at him. “So who’re you interning with?”

“I don’t know,” Shouto says, genuinely, honestly. “Maybe—” he stops.

He doesn’t know how to say it.

There is a long pause, an off-kilter, stunted kind of pause that hasn’t happened between the two of them for some time. Something unspoken, and sharp. 

His brother is the one who breaks it. “You know, Shouto,” Natsuo says, suddenly. “You look happier lately.”

Before Shouto can recover from the non-sequitur, Natsuo continues, “But you didn’t look too happy that you won the festival.”

There is one thing about Natsu-nii that Shouto has never really seen before in anyone else. He turns to look at his brother in the eye. “I didn’t win it,” Shouto says. “I got second place.”

“Is that why you aren’t happy?” Natsuo says. “Because you didn’t rank first?”

No one ever talks to Shouto like that. No hesitation. No second thoughts. No pity, or some sort of veiled dislike or disgust or worse: sympathy. 

Fuyumi-nee has always been gentle with him. Too gentle, more often than not. His classmates—Shouto doesn’t think they even think of him as one of their own. There is always something between Shouto and other people—some kind of screen, some divider. Like no one is able to really look at him in the eye.

But Natsu-nii—Natsu-nii doesn’t bullshit with him. Doesn’t treat him like broken glass or like a time bomb. 

“No,” Shouto says. “I’m not happy because..” 

Shouto doesn’t continue, because the sentence sounds incredibly out of place coming out of his mouth. Phrases like I’m not happy or I’m happy are just so foreign. Articulating what you are feeling sits uncomfortably with him.

So. “You saw the live stream,” Shouto says instead. 

“I did. Fuyumi-nee and I thought you were g—”

“You saw me use it,” Shouto says. “You saw me use his Quirk.”

In the final fight against Bakugou Katsuki, Shouto had used his fire. 

It happened at the last moment. He couldn’t keep up with it—couldn’t bear to keep up with it, but he did it.

It was foolish. It felt powerful. It felt exhilarating. It felt— full, like for the first time, for truly the first time—Shouto was whole.

It was absolutely fucking disgusting.

“I didn’t.”

Shouto blinks, and turns to his brother—uncomprehending. “What?”

His brother shrugs, like he didn’t just defy Shouto’s entire worldview. “I didn’t see you use his Quirk, or anyone’s Quirk,” Natsuo says, leaning backwards, his elbows a leverage to the ground. He looks up to the night sky. “I saw you use your Quirk.”

Shouto looks away. “You know what I’m talking about—”

“I don’t, actually. What are you talking about?”

They stare at each other. His big brother’s eyes are unmoving, and so confident in his stance that it startles Shouto. A pair of ink blots. 

“I didn’t see him, Shouto,” Natsu-nii says, like he’s never been sure of anything else more. “We didn’t. We just saw you.”

Shouto breathes—the air condensing as he does so, a visible cloud between the two of them. “Oh.”

“Congrats on your win,” says his big brother. “I’m not supposed to tell you this, but Fuyumi-nee is kinda planning something to celebrate—she’s asking me to make sure that you have this weekend off, by the way.”

“Oh,” Shouto says again, his head still reeling. He feels a little unhinged, like his world just turned upside down—in the possible best fucking way. “Yeah. Sure.” 

“You aren’t visiting the hospital this Saturday? We can still do it on Sunday.”

“I—” Shouto pauses, realizing what he just said. Hospital. “How do you know..”

“Nee-chan told me,” Natsuo smiles somewhat apologetically. “I know you didn’t tell her either, but, well. You know how she is. She uh, sorta figured it out.”

Of course; it’s Fuyumi-nee, after all. “Of course she did,” Shouto mumbles. He doesn’t know why he ever thought he could do anything behind her back. “Yeah, Sunday is fine.”

Natsuo watches him for a beat. “Hey,” he says. “D’you want me to drive you? On Saturday.”

Shouto hesitates. Natsuo seems to catch that, because he continues, “It’s fine if you don’t, of course—I just wanted to show you my ride. Not that it’s a very impressive ride. At all. But like, you know—I could. Plus there is this ice cream place that you really have got to try.”

“Oh,” seems to be the only vowel he is capable of producing right now. Shouto looks hard at his brother.

Shouto thinks about his hands trembling, his butchered words. He thinks about the coldness, the, holy shit, the shaking. The weeks of trying and failing and absolute cowardice. The numbing shame. Level six, Calla Lily, three-one-five. He thinks about how he can’t even do something so fucking easy.

Natsu-nii is trying. Has been trying, for the past few months. 

Shouto just wishes he could reciprocate.

“I—it’s,” he frowns. Fucking stupid. “I’ll think about it.” 

He’s such a piece of shit.

A part of him was almost stricken to look at his brother’s face—whatever expression that might show there. But Shouto was surprised to see nothing there—no disappointment, or dislike, or anything. Natsuo shrugs.

“Cool,” Natsuo says. “Just hit me up.”

“Okay,” Shouto says, feeling relieved and more than a little awful. 

“Hey.”

Shouto looks up. Natsuo is watching him silently. He does that a lot, Shouto realizes. Watching him, like he’s looking for something. Natsu-nii nods his head to the direction of the house. “You ready to go back yet?”

Shouto doesn’t really know why he went out in the first place. He wanted a change, he guesses. That’s what he’s been doing recently—looking for a change. 

“I know you got school in like, a few hours. But you wanna make some instant ramen before we go to bed?” he adds, with a grin, “I know where Fuyumi-nee keeps her stash.”

He’s trying. Natsu-nii is trying.

Shouto has to try too.

“She’ll kill you,” Shouto says, his mouth twisting.

“She won’t,” Natsuo says, getting up. “Much.”

Shouto has a hand raised to knock on the teacher’s office when the door abruptly opens.

He steps back, staring right at a familiar face.

Shinsou Hitoshi looks as surprised as he is—the surprise quickly morphing into something sour. What’s even more surprising, though, Shinsou nods at him—a quick and somewhat rigid gesture—before brushing past him in a rush. 

Shouto blinks, staring at his disappearing, hunched back as the other boy walks down the hall. The last time Shouto saw him was just last week after the semifinal fight. 

“Todoroki.”

Right. “Yes,” Shouto steps in the office, closing the door behind him. “I brought the forms, Sensei.”

Aizawa-sensei grunts, taking the stack of paper from Shouto. “What happened to Yaoyorozu?”

“She was called to the Supports Department,” Shouto says. He doesn’t think it’s much of a thing, but she had been weirdly grateful that he offered to come in her stead—along with that surprised look that she had. It’s not like he’s doing her a big favor. And anyway, he does mildly feel some sort of curiosity. Shouto shamelessly looks around.

He’s never been to the teachers’ lounge before. It’s definitely lavish, but not Endeavor Agency kind of lavish—it’s less like a congress hall and more like a … a messy hotel room. 

It’s homier than he expected.

Aizawa-sensei flicks a brief, considering glance at him. For a beat, Shouto feels extremely scrutinized—and then the moment is gone. “And Iida?”

Shouto is not incented to know the position of his classmates at any time of the day. Maybe he went home early. Shouto finds it difficult to care. “His form is there,” he says, an offer.

“Is that so,” says Aizawa gruffly. He waves a bandaged hand. “You may leave, Todoroki.” 

Shouto notices that there is a tabby cat sticker on Aizawa-sensei’s coffee mug. “Do you take interns, Sensei?”

Aizawa looks at him. Shouto looks back at him. This goes on for approximately five silent seconds. 

Aizawa-sensei manages to convey the gesture of rolling one’s eye without actually rolling his eyes. “Yes, I do.”

“You didn’t nominate me,” Shouto says. 

“Todoroki,” Aizawa-sensei says flatly, “You might want to work on your tact.”

There is another cat sticker, this one is a calico, on the back of Aizawa-sensei’s laptop. “Is there anything I lack?”

“Respect, for one.”

“I’m sorry,” Shouto says, even though he probably doesn’t sound like it. He isn’t either. “Sir,” he adds, after a moment of consideration.

Aizawa-sensei looks unimpressed, but he puts the forms down and really looks at Shouto for a moment. “What do you think you’ll do as an intern?”

“Garnering first-hand industry experience. Assisting my superiors in their duties.”

“Quite,” Aizawa-sensei says. “I didn’t nominate you because you, as of now, do not possess the skill set needed in my work.”

Weirdly enough, Aizawa-sensei reminds Shouto of Natsu-nii. Just a little. For a beat, a scene flashes into Shouto’s head—a memory from weeks ago. Aizawa-sensei, crumpled on the floor of USJ central plaza. Looking dead to the world.

“Is there anything else you need,” Aizawa-sensei picks up a form—Iida Tenya’s—”or do you wish to take more of my time?”

“No,” Shouto says, turning to leave. “Thanks.”

He probably should’ve added sir or Sensei at the end. Shouto thinks he might have spotted Aizawa-sensei shaking his head when he closes the door. 

There are still a lot of time left for lunch, so Shouto turns to the direction of the cafeteria when—

Someone crashes into him at high velocity.

This again, Shouto thinks, blinking stars out of his eyes, god damn it —

“Oh my god, I am so sorry,” Shouto hears someone say, and for a moment, he actually does think he has a concussion.

Because he is staring at Deku.

“Are you okay, Todoroki-kun?” Deku says, eyes big and green and concerned.

Shouto closes his eyes and opens them again. Yeah, it’s still Deku, crouching above him in full UA student uniform attire. The mess of hair, the tanned skin.

It’s him. “It’s you,” Shouto says. 

His eyes move from the series of freckles to Deku’s collar. “That’s the worst tie knot I have ever seen,” Shouto mumbles. 

“You must’ve hit your head pretty hard,” says the Deku who might or might not be a figment of Shouto’s imagination.

The aforementioned possible figment of imagination pulls Shouto up to his legs. He’s vaguely aware of some people looking at them, what with them being in the middle of the hallway. “Aw damn, what a mess..”

There are various … objects strewn all over the floor. The perpetrator of Shouto’s current headache, he’s sure. Deku is picking an overturned cardboard, babbling, “I’m so sorry, it’s all my fault, I really should’ve taken a better look, but like, you know how the hallway floors are like, weirdly super slippery? It’s so annoying. Like, I know they want to maintain appearances, and you can’t have UA floors looking dirty, but seriously—”

“You’re,” Shouto says, confused, “You’re. A UA student.”

Deku stops and blinks back at him, eyes doe and innocent. “Uh, duh. Didn’t you know?”

Shouto squints at him, uncomprehending. “What.”

“I’m in the gen department,” says Deku as he bends down to pick up the assortment of tools and wires and what not. “We are in the same year, right?”

What.

“You didn’t realize?” Deku laughs. “That’s so funny, Todoroki-kun! I thought you knew when I invited you up and you accepted and everything.”

Have we met before?

That’s one unoriginal pick-up line, Todoroki-kun.

Shouto blinks. He feels like the entire universe is misaligned just a few centimetres to the left.

“Speaking of,” Deku heaves the box in front of him, now filled to the brim with objects; most of which Shouto has not seen in his life. “Let me treat you again as an apology. We still..” Deku strains his neck to check his watch. “Got time, yes. Just let me bring this up to support dept real quick and we can still make it! How about it.”

Shouto, who has just had a literal collision and still hasn’t quite processed things, can’t bring himself to say a word.

“Great!” beams Deku, who takes Shouto’s utter confusion as a confirmation. “Help me out with these, then, will you? It’s kinda heavy. Just like, help me carry that thing over there—no, that’s a rocket launcher, don’t touch that—the other, other thing, Todoroki-kun—”

Holding what appears to be a 20kg laser beam with a nitrogen tube, Shouto is unsure how he got into this situation.

Shouto didn’t even say yes this time around.

“What in the goddamn hell,” says Shinsou Hitoshi. 

“You guys know each other, right?” Deku says.

Shouto and Shinsou stare at each other. 

“Unfortunately,” says Shinsou with a seethe.

Silence.

The last time Shouto saw him was at the Sports Festival. Shouto caught a glimpse of Shinsou Hitoshi being carried away wrapped in shock blankets after Shouto blew him sky high with Gaten Hyōheki. The semifinal fight between the two of them was over within twelve seconds.

In retrospect, Shouto did overdo that.

“Great!” says Deku, putting his tray of katsudon down. He pulls a chair beside Shinsou. “Let’s eat together then.”

The cafeteria area is big and crowded. Their table is placed near the exit, where there are less people, but he can see some students have turned to look and pay them some attention. It’s a thing, the attention; Shouto has noticed that for some time ever since the semester started. People look at him. Shouto sits down. 

Shinsou looks like he wants to stand up and leave. He doesn’t. Shinsou splits his chopsticks with unnecessary force and stabs into his rice, fuming.

Shouto, who never really gives a shit about anything at all, takes the first slurp of his soba.

“Soba again, huh,” Deku says, curiously inspecting Shouto’s tray. “You sure like them.”

Shouto chews silently, staring at Deku. It’s incredibly— incredibly strange to see him in anything that’s not a faded hoodie or an oversized tux. Somehow, he looks … strangely prim. Like a proper schoolkid. It’s sort of a dissonance, too, to see him without that gigantic backpack. Something is just ... not quite right.

Have we met before? He had asked Midoriya. They must have, clearly—maybe he passed him in the hallway once, or saw him somewhere in the UA complex. 

But Shouto doesn’t think it went quite like that. 

“The hospital's is better,” Shouto says instead, and Deku grins. 

He claps his hands together. “Oh yeah, the hero kids are going interning soon, right?”

“Yeah,” Shouto says.

“Aw, isn’t that nice,” Shinsou says flatly, stabbing into a piece of katsu.

“Oh! Did you know, Todoroki-kun,” Deku says, excitedly gesturing to Shinsou, “Shinsou-kun here also will be interning with Er—”

“Shut up,” Shinsou snaps forcefully, his cheeks flaming red. Deku laughs—the same quiet, reserved laugh that Shouto has started to become familiar with. 

“You’re a gen kid,” Shouto says.

Shinsou turns to look at him, his face suddenly cold. “Yeah,” he says, somewhat defiantly. “What about it?”

Shouto shrugs, picking up his chopsticks. “Congrats.”

There is a beat where Shinsou stares at him in silence, before he says, warily, “thanks.”

“Don’t you love it when your friend becomes friends with your other friend!” Deku pauses. “Wow, say that three times fast.”

“Acquaintance,” Shinsou corrects, emphasizing. “Your acquaintance becomes acquaintances. With your..” Shinsou flicks an odd glance at Shouto. “Friend, I guess.”

“Shinsou-kun is shy,” Deku tells Shouto, as if informing him.

“We met just last week,” Shinsou says pissily.

“Shinsou-kun met me when I was doing my part-time job,” Deku informs him further, cheerfully.

For some reason, this tidbit seems to surprise Shinsou. Shinsou startles and whips to look at Deku with a strange look on his face. “You—”

Oh. “He knows you’re a magician,” Shouto says, with a small nod, paying attention to his soba.

Shinsou startles once more, and this time, he whips to look at Shouto. Shouto slurps on his soba, unbothered.

“I’m sorry,” Shinsou says after a beat, his voice extremely pinched. “He’s a what?”

Shouto doesn’t bother to swallow, answering between his chews. He raises a brow. “A magician.” Isn’t that obvious?

“Shinsou-kun,” Deku says.

The moment Shinsou turns to look at him, Deku puts down his chopsticks and snaps his fingers. 

Shinsou stares at the card between Deku’s thumb and forefinger: an ace of diamonds. Before he could react verbally, Deku snaps his fingers once more and the card disappears to thin air.

Shouto knows there is a trick. There must be some kind of trick. It’s nothing but quick, practiced movement—a lot of practice. And yet.

He thinks of the butterflies—Haru’s smile. That foreign sense of wonder. How the sensation of surprise can be so delightful.

“Fuck this,” Shinsou says.

“Do it again,” Shouto says.

“As much as I like to show off,” Deku says amiably, “I don’t think playing cards are allowed at UA.”

“Wait, no, do it again,” Shinsou demands, seemingly having recovered from his initial surprise. He adds, accusingly, “since when did you care about rules?”

“That’s rude, Shinsou-kun,” Deku says, sounding mockingly hurt. “We only met last week, you know.”

Shinsou rolls his eyes. “Screw you.”

“Fine. Check your back pocket.”

“You didn’t,” Shinsou says, half a scoff, a hand going to his back pocket. “There is nothing in my—”

“Yeah, there is nothing there. Here,” Deku hands Shinsou a watch out of nowhere. 

“What..” Shinsou stops. And then he looks at the watch like it just killed a baby.

Shouto doesn’t really know what’s wrong for a moment until he realizes that Deku still has his own watch on his wrist. Which means that—

“..That’s my watch,” Shinsou says, very slowly. “When the hell did you even..”

Shouto has long since put his chopsticks down. There is that sensation again. He stares at Deku intently. “I didn’t see your hands move,” he says.

Deku smiles at him. And for a beat, Shouto knows what it is, suddenly, that’s so strange to him—Deku is dimmer, somehow, like this. Proper. Prim. Schoolkid-plain. Even his skin looks a little washed out, under the lights—faded. His smile: bland, a little vague. 

And then the beat passes. Shouto blinks.

“You did,” Deku says. “You just didn’t notice.”

Shinsou snatches his watch back. “Never sit next to me again,” he tells Deku.

Chapter Text

Once again, Shouto doesn’t understand why he is in this situation.

“Why the hell am I in this situation?” Shinsou says.

“Now, now, Shinsou-kun,” Deku says amiably. His height, Shouto notices, is terribly dwarfed as he stands between the both of them. The top tuft of his hair barely reaches above either of their shoulders. “I take my part-time job seriously, you know. We’ll get to meet Nana after that, m’kay?”

Shinsou rolls his eyes. It’s quite something; Shouto has never seen someone roll their eyes in a perfect 360 degree circle before in his life. “Okay, whatever, but why the hell do I gotta come with—” for the first time since they got on the train, Shinsou’s eyes land on Shouto. “With this. Guy.”

“Now, now, Shinsou-kun,” says Deku, explaining nothing.

The carriage sways gently around them. Not too crowded—it’s too late to be lunch time and too early for workers to be going home. There are empty seats scattered all about, and yet the three of them chose to stand in the middle of the train. A few more stations to go. “Who’s Nana.”

Deku beams at him, as if proud of Shouto’s first contribution to the conversation since they got on. “Shinsou-kun’s dog!”

“She isn’t my dog!” Shinsou hisses. That’s how the two of them communicate, Shouto has noticed; Deku would declare a statement and Shinsou would be ready to contradict it twenty-four seven. “You were the one who—” Shinsou abruptly pauses, and then looks away. “Don’t you push this on me.”

“Shinsou-kun misses her very much,” Deku continues, as if Shinsou hadn’t spoken at all—another common occurrence that Shouto has noticed. “He’s been texting me non-stop asking how she’s doing, it’s really very sweet of him—”

Shouto can see Shinsou glaring at Deku heatedly from the other side. “I did not!”

“—so we’re going to check up on her later. The vet says she’s okay, just needs a bit of rest is all,” Deku explains, as if Shouto has even a shred of interest in this Nana’s wellbeing. “Aren’t you glad to hear that, Shinsou-kun?”

“Whatever,” Shinsou says, seemingly having given up in his endeavor of countering everything that Deku says. There is something like suspicion slipping in his voice. “No, actually, what exactly is your part-time thing in the first place?”

“Todoroki-kun knows.”

Shouto blinks, somewhat surprised that the question is suddenly thrown at him. And now that the question is thrown at Shouto, Shinsou seems suddenly less eager in chasing an answer. Not that Shouto notices nor cares. Shouto doesn’t look at him as he answers. “Deku dresses up weird and gives stickers to kids.”

It takes Shinsou a moment to process. “Like,” he says. “Legally?”

Ignoring Shinsou’s question, Shouto looks back at Deku. “Do you get paid for it?” he asks, and belatedly realizes that this might be considered an insensitive question. Not that he really cares.

It appears that Deku doesn’t care either. “Nah,” Deku replies, easy. “It’s a volunteer thing.”

He did mention that, didn’t he. “So it’s not technically a job.”

“Okay, this doesn’t answer my question at fucking all,” Shinsou interrupts. “I still don’t understand what it is that you do. What the hell is a magician?”

Good question, Shouto thinks, looking over at Deku. On the other side, Shinsou is doing the exact same thing. Caught between the two, it takes Deku several seconds before he says in the tone of someone who is currently being mugged, “I trick people into having fun..?”

Huh. Finding that to be a surprisingly rather sufficient answer, Shouto nods understandingly. “I see,” he says seriously.

“I don’t fucking see,” Shinsou says equally seriously. “Aren’t magicians those guys who trap themselves in a water tank and shit? Sawing people in half?”

“Funny you should say that,” Deku says. At the look on Shinsou’s face, he adds calmly, “That was a joke, Shinsou-kun.” Shinsou doesn’t look the least bit convinced. “I never saw anybody in half, Shinsou-kun.”

An image pops uninvited in his mind: Shouto lying on a gurney with a chainsaw-holding Deku standing over him and a bunch of kids cheering and clapping as their spectators. “The nurses wouldn’t allow that,” Shouto says.

Deku snaps his fingers at him. “Exactly. Maybe they would be willing to negotiate for water traps,” Deku amends with a pretty serious tone, as if considering the pros and cons of traumatizing little children with a life or death magic performance. “But water traps are messy. And also super cliche, actually.” he looks back at Shinsou. “So there you have it.”

Shinsou looks at Deku. He is a pretty expressive person, Shouto realizes. Shinsou can somehow convey a feeling that Shouto feels towards everything with just a flat gaze: a sense of being entirely done. “This explains absolutely fuck all, Midoriya.”

“You do weekdays as well,” Shouto says.

Deku looks back at Shouto. Looks up at him, more accurately. “Mm. I come every Wednesday and Saturday. There are other volunteers besides me on the roster as well.”

“Okay, whatever it is that you two are talking about,” Shinsou says, having apparently once again given up on getting an answer. “How long is your thing gonna take again?” 

“Well, let’s see,” Deku looks at his watch. “We should get there by four, so let’s say … we’ll be on our way to Nana at five, five and a half?”

“Huh,” Shinsou says, looking at Deku. And then his gaze lowers to Deku’s hand. “Stop fucking taking my watch, goddamnit, how the hell are you doing this?”

Deku laughs; that soft, quiet laugh. He takes off the watch with just a flick of his wrist—and then the watch is dangling from the tips of his fingers as he gives them back to Shinsou. Quick and deft. 

“You used one hand.”

“Hm?”

“You took his watch with one hand,” Shouto says. Deku’s left hand has stayed firm on the straphanger the whole ride, Shouto is sure. 

There is a soft curve on Deku’s face—a leftover from the laughter. Deku looks less washed out like this, outside of school. Shouto can’t put a finger on what exactly is different about him. “It’s easier with one hand, actually,” it’s amusement, perhaps. That amusement is back on Deku’s face, in his mannerism. “Less chances of getting caught.”

The train station is connected to Fujiya hospital through an underpass. After weeks of trials and errors—mostly consisting of errors—it has grown familiar to him. Shouto would always walk through this very tunnel with his heart beating out of his chest and a fucked up monologue going through his head that goes somewhere along the line of what the fuck are you doing turn around right this fucking second you fucking idiot. 

But he isn’t alone this time. Peculiarly, Shouto has found himself in a group of three. It's peculiar enough that no monologues have the chance to go through his head courtesy to him experiencing this very new sensation of, as one puts it, 'having company'.

The awkwardness of walking in a group of three is a well understood and widely accepted reality, and today is the first time Shouto has ever faced this universal social experience. 

The three of them walk at a different pace, so they aren’t exactly walking side by side; being the only one who has never been here before, Shinsou trails behind with a gait that is distinctly stating his unwillingness to the world. Deku, whose legs are the shortest amongst the three of them, is walking leisurely as he is sandwiched between the two—his shoes, Shouto has come to notice, make absolutely no sound. This is somewhat of a problem, because Shouto finds himself having to slow down copious times having not noticed that he’s leaving Deku—and Shinsou by extension—far behind him.

And so is born the jankiest, most non-synchronized pace Fujiya Hospital has ever seen in its seventy-years of standing. It’s less of walking in a group and more of shuffling uncoordinatedly in a group.

The group trots into the hospital. Some people turn to look at them—at their UA uniform, Shouto realizes. He never received this sort of attention before in his … his trial and errors. By reflex, his gaze slides to the receptionist—the bowl of candies by the desk. By reflex, Shouto’s hands start to sweat, and he—

“I still don’t understand why you’re bringing me along,” Shinsou says. His voice is pinched low to a whisper as if not to disturb the general public. “Like, I swear if you’re getting me into trouble again I will explode and fucking die.”

—right, he realizes distantly. Shouto isn’t alone right now—he has company. He isn’t going to go meet his mom today. 

And this time, he isn’t meeting her on purpose.

It’s a peculiar sensation. Peculiar enough that he doesn’t even have a mental breakdown stepping into the elevator. He supposes it’s harder to have a mental breakdown when there are other people in the room. 

Deku presses the button—level six, Calla Lily, three-one-five—for level five. “This is completely innocent, Shinsou-kun, I promise. Right, Todoroki-kun?”

Shinsou looks at Shouto. Shouto looks at Shinsou. Both of them look away. The elevator opens with a ding. 

And then Shouto feels a hand pushing his back forward.

It’s a pretty hard push. Having its center of gravity disturbed, Shouto’s body compensates by stumbling out of the elevator. Next to him, Shinsou is doing the same thing, nearly losing his balance as he trips. Alarmed, the both of them look back to see Deku standing perfectly still in the elevator. His arms are stretched out. There is a smile fixed on his face. 

“Mm, I need to go and talk to Kubo-san for a moment,” Deku says, his voice lilting in a sing-song as he presses a button. “Todoroki-kun, take care of Shinsou-kun for a bit, m’kay? I’ll meet you with the kids later on!” He waves cheerfully, fingers wiggling.

“Huh?” Shinsou says. And then more aggressively, “Huh? Wait, you can’t just—”

The elevator closes with a ding. 

“I can’t fucking believe that guy!” Shinsou says. “He’s the one who took me here and now he’s leaving me with—” he pauses. And then he looks at Shouto. And then Shouto looks at him right back. 

Both of them look away.

Several beats pass where the both of them stand in silence in front of the elevators. Somewhere far away, Shouto can hear the sounds of children laughing. Next to him, Shinsou is standing completely still.

This, Shouto thinks, might be what people call awkward. Shouto supposes that at times like this one would need to—as they put it—break the ice. But Shouto, who is pretty good at making ices, doesn’t really care much about breaking them. 

He turns on his heels. “This way,” he says, and starts walking down the hallway. Shouto has gotten a few metres far when he finally hears footsteps behind him prefixed by something that sounds like “Goddamnitall.” 

The hallway looks the same as it did last Saturday. Last time he was here, Shouto thinks idly, he was having a hysterical meltdown. Funny how things change.

Shinsou caught up quickly—not really behind him, this time, though they are too far apart to be called walking together. “What is this place?”

Shouto glances at him. “Can’t you read.” The sign is just over there.

“Fuck you, yes I can fucking read, it’s a fucki—” they arrive at the end of the hallway, the floor opening into the familiar span of the recreational room. Shinsou’s voice abruptly pinches low again. “It’s a children’s cancer centre,” he says, suddenly sounding like a respectable person. Shinsou eyes what Shouto suspects is a caricature of All Might’s long lost fraternal twin drawn on a side of the wall. “Why are we in a children’s cancer centre?”

Before Shouto could give an answer, a ball-like creature in high speed bumps and sticks to his legs.

Shouto looks down. The creature looks up at him with eyes that shouldn’t fit such a small face. “Sho’to?” says the creature.

Silence. Next to him, Shinsou freezes. Shouto kneels down. The creature is still holding Shouto’s leg as a hostage, so it’s quite an awkward position. “Tocchan,” Shouto says finally when they meet eye to eye. “Hello.” 

“Where’s Deku?” 

Shouto considers this question. “I don’t know,” he says. At the disappointment entering Tocchan’s face, he rectifies himself. “Deku is. Taking a nap.”

Shinsou turns to look at him. Shouto ignores him. “Oh,” Tocchan says thoughtfully. “Why?”

“..you have to rest well,” Shouto says. “To do magic.”

Shinsou is staring at him harder. Tocchan is staring at him as well. The pressure is getting into Shouto. “That’s why he has to sleep a lot. In a coffin,” he adds. Because that’s what magicians do, right? They sleep in coffins and become bats and stuff … Shouto belatedly realizes that he is probably getting this magician lore all mixed up, but he’s gone too far to take it back. He valiantly pushes through. “In his castle.” 

“Oh. Okey,” Tocchan finally releases Shouto’s leg from its confinement. And then the boy runs off. 

Shouto stands up, feeling he has done a pretty good job of interacting with small creatures. 

“Coffin,” echoes Shinsou next to him flatly. “What, does he suck blood too?”

“Shut up,” Shouto says. 

The two of them stand in silence, just a shy metre from entering the playground. There are slightly more children than usual, Shouto notes, and a good handful of adults scattered about. Unlike last time, the windows are closed this time. The entire room is bathed by the light from the overhead lamp, glinting off lego bricks and an assortment of toys. 

“They call him Deku,” Shinsou says. The name rolls odd on his tongue. “You do too.”

“That’s what he introduced himself as.”

“How’d you meet him?”

This is another universal experience that Shouto is encountering for the very first time in his fifteen years of life: the experience of being left alone with a friend’s friend. A widely known ritual in human society in which the extroverted mutual friend is out of the picture, pushing the two socially awkward people to hit the next important milestone in their relationship—getting to know each other. 

What Shouto says next will crucially determine the dynamic between the two of them for the rest of time. At this point, it is universally known that one should be warm and friendly to encourage the blossom of a new friendship. Shouto, however, wouldn’t know friendly if it’s flinging a friendship bracelet in his eye. 

“How did you?” Shouto says.

Silence. They look at each other, cool. They are nearly the same height—Hitoshi has a scant few centimetres over him, but his build is nothing impressive. He certainly wasn’t doing anything impressive in that stadium back at the festival, Shouto would know. 

“..just to make sure,” Shinsou drawls. “We aren’t friends, are we?”

Shouto considers this. It is not a long period of consideration. “No.”

This answer seems to be satisfactory. Shinsou smiles—it’s the first time Shouto has seen it, a cold, arrogant curve of his mouth. “Cool,” Shinsou says. “I’m not interested in being friends with my competitors.”

“Not that much of a competition.”

Shinsou’s jaw twitches. “Watch it, Todoroki,” he says, something low and rough lacing the way he says Shouto’s name. His eyes flash, and momentarily Shouto remembers the first time they had met each other on that arena—a memory that Shouto had previously deemed unimportant. “One of these days I’ll—”

“Weird hair guy,” a voice says.

Both of them pause. And look down.

A pair of yellow cat eyes look back. Shouto recognizes them instantly. “Miya..” and then, because it feels appropriate, he adds, “..-san.”

“Weird hair guy,” Miya-san’s gaze moves to Shinsou. “You brought a friend huh.”

In the presence of a terrifying creature known as a six year old girl, neither boys have it in in them to refute her statement that has been proven false just a few seconds ago.

“‘S good,” she nods, as if approving Shouto’s apparent ability in having friends. “The nurse said. ‘The bore the perrier’..”

“The more the merrier,” say Shouto and Shinsou at the same time. Both of them look at each other and then promptly look away.

The girl ignores this. “Because it’s Takeshi-nii’s b’day. We’re all makin’ him b’day cards. See.”

She pushes a scrap of paper to Shouto’s face, and he distinctly feels a sense of deja-vu over him. He inspects the paper—birthday card, apparently. On it, written astutely in an avant-garde spelling of the English alphabet, is hApY BIrtdAY. On top of it is some sort of illustration reminiscent of cavemen’s depictions of a herd of llamas of centuries gone past. 

“It’s nice,” Shouto offers, and Miya snatches the paper back. And then, surprising both Shouto and Shinsou, she pushes the paper into Shinsou’s face.

Not exactly Shinsou’s face—she is far too short to reach more than Shinsou’s waist—but it has more or less the same effect; she is pointing the paper at him as if it were a gun. Shinsou looks like he wants to take a step back in face of the pulp-made gun. “Wh—uh...?”

“Draw,” she commands. She hands him a crayon with her other hand; Shinsou is now being threatened by two guns. “Draw the legs. I can’t draw legs. He can’t either,” she sniffs at Shouto. “So you draw it.”

“Uh.” Shinsou raises his hands in front of him. He probably means it to signify refusal, but it makes him look like he’s surrendering instead. “I don’t think I can—”

“Do what Miya-san tells you to do,” Shouto says flatly.

Shinsou glares at him. Shouto looks at him back. Miya-san looks at Shinsou. It seems that the pressure is getting to him, because Shinsou then relents. “Ok. Uh.”

Shinsou takes both the paper and crayon gingerly as if they would blow up any second. “So.. legs..?”

“Yes,” Miya is starting to sound impatient. “Takeshi-nii’s legs. Draw ‘em.”

Both Shinsou and Shouto stare at the illustration. The creature in the illustration does not seem to own any sort of anatomy that would require appendixes. If this is an accurate depiction of this Takeshi-nii person, they must be living one hell of a life. “Like..” Shinsou taps a random corner of the creature where perhaps the waist must be located. “Right here..?”

Miya looks incredulous by the foolish question. “Uh, no,” the no is said so savagely that it’s a wonder Shinsou doesn’t burst into tears immediately. “That’s his chair. He’s sittin’ down. So here, and here. Duh.”

“All right, all right..”

“What is that.” Shouto peers over Shinsou’s shoulder. “Are you giving Takeshi-nii a tail.”

“Shut—” Shinsou cuts himself off. He glances at Miya, and then back again at Shouto. “Be quiet.” 

Shinsou finishes his masterpiece. Takeshi-nii now owns two more scribbles in addition to his entire body, which is also entirely made of scribbles. “Here.”

Miya inspects the drawing thoroughly. “What’s these,” she points at two check marks on the bottom of Takeshi-nii’s ‘legs’.

“Shoes,” Shinsou says. “Uh. I gave him Nike shoes. Thought he’d like that.”

“Perfect,” Miya declares. She takes the paper and crayon off Shinsou’s hands. And then she leaves. 

Shouto frowns. Perfect? It’s uglier than what Shouto came up with the other day. Much uglier. Perfect ... How could that be perfect. That’s just—

“So you can’t draw, huh?” Shinsou says. There is that smile again on his face.

Shouto stares at him, and at this moment, for the first time, Shouto feels something towards Shinsou. Something grating, heated, in the pit of his chest. Something that perhaps can be classified as..

..annoyance.

“Shut up,” Shouto says.

“Bad word.”

Both of them pause. And then for the third—but not the last—time that hour, they look down.

Tocchan points at him, shaking his head. It’s scary how children can sneak up on you like that. “Sho’to said a bad word.”

Shinsou laughs, and Shouto frowns harder. Fu—damn him. Before Shouto can say anything, he realizes in alarm that Tocchan isn’t the only kid in their vicinity—the other children have now come to be interested in their presence. Swarms of them are now approaching and absolutely nothing is stopping them. 

“Who said a bad word?” 

“He said it.”

“Where’s Deku.”

“Deku! Deku!”

“Who’s that?”

“Bad word.”

“Sho’to said a bad word.”

“Where is Deku..” 

“Omygod,” someone in the crowd—one of the older kids—exclaim. “Look at their uniforms! They’re UA students!”

Silence. And then there are gasps. 

“UA!”

“UA! UA! UA!”

“Yueeeeiiiii.”

Next to him, Shinsou is taking a hesitant step back as if preparing to run away. Shouto understands the feeling well, but it’s already too late. They are surrounded. The kids are closing around them like a fence of tiny bumbling short-limbed creatures. There is no exit in sight. It is over. 

“I saw you,” a little boy says suddenly, pointing up at him. Shouto recognizes him—one part of a twin, Rin. “I saw you on tee-vee! You’re. The ice onii-san. ”

All things considered, that’s a way better Hero name than anything Shouto could’ve come up with.

“No,” his twin, Tsu, says. “He can do fire too. Ice-fire onii-san. Ice-fire onii-san, can you burn something up?”

“No, no, ice is way cooler, dummy!” the twin argues. He looks back at Shouto. “Do ice. Do ice!”

“Fire!”

“Ice!”

“Fire!”

“Ice!”

Their argument is starting to sound like Shouto’s warring psyche in one of his hysterical meltdown sessions. Realizing that his mouth is smiling without his consent, Shouto tries his best to tamp it down. “Unlicensed Quirk usage,” he says, pursing his mouth with effort, “is very dangerous without proper supervision and..”

Beside him, he can hear Shinsou snort. Rin is looking at him with disappointment, as if he had lost all respect he previously had towards Shouto—it’s surprisingly a quite hurtful look. “What?”

“So booooring.”

“Boriing.”

“Purple onii-san! I saw you too!”

Purple Onii-san seems troubled by this for a second before his expression smoothes out. “Oh, did you now?”

“Uhuh! Ice-fire onii-san blew you up to the sky, like this!” Tsu moves her hands wildly in what Shouto supposes is an imitation of his Gaten Hyōheki, with added sound effects. “Boooom.”

“Yes, he did,” Shinsou says, looking Shouto in the eye. The corner of his mouth is twitching. “It was very cold, very painful, and very very very unnecessary. Isn’t that just cruel of ice-fire onii-san?”

“No, it was awesome,” Tsu says.

“I see,” Shinsou says. He has not broken eye contact. “But he said a bad word. That’s not awesome, isn’t it. That’s just awful, isn’t it.”

The mass is swayed by this reminder of Shouto’s criminal act. “Bad word..”

“Ice-fire onii-san said a bad word.”

“Awful..”

“Maybe,” Shinsou says, fully smiling now that the crowd is on his side. “We should have ice-fire onii-san stand in the corner as punishment.”

How dare he, Shouto thinks. How dare he turn the mass against me. “You..”

“Now, now, folks,” a new and rather familiar voice says. “What do we have here?”

Another round of gasps. And then, nearly in unison, the sound of dozens of kids screaming “DEKU!” in a pitch so high that it must be heard by all bats and dogs and dolphins in one kilometre radius.

The kids immediately leave Shouto and Shinsou to flock to the newcomer like a swarm of bees finding a tastier honeycomb to mine. “My fellow countrypeople!” Deku spreads his arms. He is somehow standing in the middle of the room even though Shouto is one-hundred percent sure he never saw him passing them in the hallway. “How are we feeling today, denizens?” 

The masses cheer like All Might himself has come to the party. Some of the kids are standing up on chairs to flail their hands as high up as possible in an effort to express their enthusiasm. Shinsou says, in a voice that sounds half in awe and half aghast, “What in the goddamn hell is he wearing..”

Shouto shares the same sentiment. Deku was right, he thinks. The top hat does make him look a little like an asshole. 

“My, my, my, what a crowd we have today on our hands!” Deku spins dramatically, doing what can only be described as a twirl. His cape billows behind him, looking so overwhelmingly big compared to Deku’s small stature that it’s a wonder he isn’t drowning in it. The thing is practically mopping the floor every time he walks. “Today is a special day. A very special day indeed..”

“I got a bad feeling about this,” Shinsou mutters.

“..for we have not one, but two UA Heroes with us today!”

The entire room swivels their heads like a perfect domino to look at Shouto and Shinsou. And then the crowd goes wild.

It’s overwhelming. It’s somehow even more overwhelming than the crowd at the sports festival stadium. Shouto finds himself to be standing still like a concussed deer staring at dozens of mini headlights. 

“All right, all right, pipe down,” Deku laughs. “Come on everyone, sit properly, in order ... you know the rules ... aht, aht, no pushing!”

The masses obey, though with not a small amount of giggling and screaming as they sit neatly—a very loose use of the adjective—next to each other, leaving a generous space for Deku to occupy at the end of the room. Deku seems pleased by this. Deku turns—twirls—once again, gesturing to both Shouto and Shinsou across the room. “Can mister Heroes please join me on this humble stage?”

The heads swivel again, but they’re quieter this time, hushing and whispering to each other as Shouto and Shinsou freeze on the spot. “It looks like our Heroes are a bit shy,” Deku says, sounding sympathetic to the Heroes’ apparent stage fright. “Why don’t we call them out together? Hero-niisan, Hero-niisan…?”

The room choruses it back. “Hero-niisan, Hero-niisan!”

He is enjoying this, Shouto realizes with a distant horror. Even from this distance, Deku looks like he’s holding back laughter. “Come and play with us, Hero-niisan!”

“Come and play with us, Hero-niisan..” the crowd echoes, words jumbling with each other between giggles.

“What the hell is he doing..?” Shinsou hisses quietly. As if Shouto knows.

Deku shapes a cone with his hands as a makeshift megaphone. “We love you, Hero-niisan..!”

“We love you, Hero-niisan..!”

“Screw this,” Shinsou says. Shouto shares the same sentiment, but finds himself too mentally unprepared to anything else besides standing in horrified shock. He is experiencing an emotion that he has never felt before in his entire life.

“It looks like our Heroes need a little more encouragement, folks,” Deku says, one hand on the hip and the other tapping his chin as if wondering how they could possibly rectify the Heroes’ lack of self-esteem. The fingers snap. “Oh, I know!” exclaims Deku so brightly that one could practically see a light bulb shining with ideas over his head. “We just need to do a little magic.”

At the mention of magic, the kids hurray viciously.

“Screw this,” Shinsou says, voicing Shouto’s internal thoughts. “Screw this, screw this—"

In one ridiculous swoop, Deku brings his cape to cover his entire body—and then he twirls. “Why don’t we..” 

When Deku finally returns to face the crowd, a ukulele has somehow appeared out of thin air and into his hands. “Sing for them?”

The kids gasp, and Deku strums a playful chord. Shouto is momentarily impressed, despite everything. “Isn’t music the strongest..” another chord is strummed, and his next words are sung in a heartfelt melody. “Magic of them all..?”

“Oh my fucking god,” says Shinsou quietly in the helpless tone of someone who is facing death penalty. 

Deku clears his throat. “Ahem. Unfortunately, esteemed members of the high council, singing is not my greatest forte—so all of you have got to help me, m’kay? Whenever I pause—“ he strums a tune and then stops to demonstrate. “You have to yell, ‘we love heroes!’ m’kay? So for example, oh, Hero-niisan, let us tell you something..”  

He pauses and gestures to the crowd expectantly. The crowd delivers. “We love Heroes!”

“Yes we do, Hero-niisan,” Deku sings, the ukulele accompanying with a series of cheerful chords. “Yes we do, yes we do, don’t you know that..”

“We love Heroes!”

“Oh, you’re so strong, Hero-niisan,” Deku belts. His voice is projecting impressively around the room for such a small figure. “You’re so tall, so cool, so hand~some..”

Shouto looks out to the crowd. And then he looks at Shinsou. Shinsou, he finds, is looking at him right back. Shinsou’s face, he notes with some surprise, looks a little red with a peculiar expression on it. This peculiar expression enlightens Shouto what exactly is the nature of this feeling he is experiencing for the first time. 

This feeling, Shouto realizes suddenly, is called embarrassment.

“What would we do without you, oh handsome Hero-niisan..” Deku continues his attack mercilessly. His ukulele, as far as Shouto is concerned, might very well be a nuclear weapon. “Absolutely nothing, handsome Hero-niisan! Don’t you know that..”

Another pause, and the kids scream in delight. “WE LOVE HEROES!”

Shouto and Shinsou stare at each other. In this very moment, despite their past animosity, an understanding comes between the two: it’s going to get worse and worse the longer they don’t comply.

“Goddamnitall,” Shinsou says under his breath. And then he walks towards the stage with Shouto following closely behind. 

Now that he’s up front, Shouto can recognize some of the faces looking at him. Shouto remembers now; Takeshi-kun—the eldest of them all, the teen sitting in a wheelchair at the corner of the room. Their eyes catch for a second before Takeshi looks away. There is also Haru right on the front—she looks up shyly at him, waving a hand. Shouto waves a hand back, and she ducks down, pale cheeks shining red. 

Shouto’s mouth twists. Something unclenches in his chest.

“Look who finally decided to join us,” says Deku. He is still playing the ukulele as he speaks, some whimsical melody a background music to this torture chamber. “Let’s give it up for our Heroes, shall we?”

There are lots of clapping and cheering. Shouto and Shinsou stand next to each other on the makeshift stage like two very tall lambs about to be slaughtered in cold blood by creatures half their size.

“Now, now,” Deku claps twice, and the crowd dies down. It’s terrifying how much control he has over these children. “Why don’t we get to know our Heroes better?” Deku walks circles around the stage and is now standing between the two of them. “Does everyone still remember this oniisan right here?”

Another round of clapping and cheering and screaming. “Sho’to!”

“Ice man!”

“Fire man!”

“Weird Hair guy!”

“No, Ice man!”

“No, Fire man!”

“Hmm, I’m sure some of our audience hasn’t met him yet, so why don’t we let him introduce himself again?” Deku kindly suggests. He turns to look at Shouto and—yes, he is definitely holding back laughter. “Please, Hero-niisan, kindly tell us your name—your Hero name, to be precise.”

Shouto looks at him. Shouto looks at the crowd. Shouto accepts his fate. He bows down. “Pleased to meet you all once again..” next to him, he can hear both Deku and Shinsou snorting. “My Hero name is Shouto. Please take care of me.”

Silence. And then whispers fill the room. The twins frown. “Shouto..? That’s so..” the twins look at each other. “Boring,” they say in unison. Shouto stares. 

It’s the most hurtful thing he has ever heard in his entire life.

A hand is raised in the crowd. “Yes, Miya?”

Miya stands up. And then she points at Shouto. “Hero Shouto,” Miya says gravely, “said a bad word.”

A hush falls over the crowd.

“Sho’to did ... he said a bad word.”

“He’s got to stand in the corner..”

“No stickers for Ice-fire man.”

“Bad word. How awful.”

“He did?” Deku says, voice effortlessly rising above the crowd. He sounds aghast by the report of Shouto’s immoral act. “What exactly did Pro-Hero Shouto-niisan say, I wonder? Yes, Tocchan?”

Tocchan puts his hand down. “He told Purple Hero onii-san to..” Tocchan can’t seem to bring himself to say it, so he trots over to the front while glancing sadly at Shouto. “He told him to..”

Deku leans down so Tocchan can whisper the words to his ears. After the message is passed, Deku shakes his head gravely. “That is bad, isn’t it.” 

Shouto can’t even say anything. Never in his life has he been tattled on before. Frankly, it’s quite traumatizing.

“As punishment, Hero Shouto will not get any stickers today ... unless!”

The kids lean forward, intrigued, as Deku tiptoes to circle an enthusiastic arm around Shinsou’s shoulders. Shinsou looks too startled to protest this abrupt skin contact. “Unless Hero Shouto apologizes to his Hero friend right here. What is your name, oh mister Purple Hero onii-san?”

Beneath Shouto’s current despair of his unfair predicament, there is some satisfaction in seeing how Shinsou looks like he is having the worst time of his life. “Midoriya,” the boy says under his breath so the crowd wouldn’t hear him. His tone is threatening, although all three of them know that Shinsou has nothing in his arsenal to threaten Deku with. “I swear to god I’ll explode and die and bring you with me..”

“Hm?” Deku puts a hand over his ear. His ukulele has disappeared into thin air while they weren’t looking. “What’s that? Your Hero name is Purple Onii-san?”

“No it’s not!” Shinsou seethes. He clears his throat, stares at the crowd. There is sweat dripping from his forehead. “It’s M—” the blush on his cheeks can rival Shouto’s hair with no problem. “M-Mindjack.”

Deku releases his hold from Shinsou’s shoulders. “Ohh, give it up for Pro-Hero Mindjack, everybody!” 

Shinsou’s face is so red that it really does look like he is about to explode and die. Shouto thinks to himself: serves you right, asshole.

“Now, before we begin,” Deku says. “Can Pro-Hero Shouto please apologize to Pro-Hero Mindjack?”

Fuck.

Shinsou, on the other hand, seems to be momentarily revitalized by this turn of events. “It was quite hurtful, you know,” the asshole says, the blush dissipating from his face ever so slowly. Quite a bravado for someone who looks like he was about to be embarrassed to death a second ago. “I am very sensitive to foul language, you know.”

Asshole, Shouto thinks. And then he realizes that Deku is looking at him expectantly. The children are also looking at him expectantly. 

The pressure is getting into Shouto. 

“..I apologize.”

“As expected from Pro-Hero Shouto!” Deku says. “Man, what a great example you have set for these impressionable young children, Hero-san. I for one think you deserve a reward. Would you like a reward?”

“No thank you.”

“A reward it is!” Deku says. To the fascination of his spectators, Deku starts to take off his cape—unclipping the fabric from the shoulders of his suit. He then proceeds to hold them like how a matador would hold their muleta in a bullfight. “To apologize for your mistakes is a very Heroic-y thing to do. For that I think you deserve..” he billows his cape as if to blow away a fire. “Some magic.”

Bubbles spring forward from the depth of Deku’s cape.

Round and iridescent; the kind of bubbles you get out of soap. A lot of them. Deku swishes his cape a few times more, and soon enough, there are enough bubbles to fill the room. The kids ooh and aah as they stand up and run about, trying to pop as many bubbles as they possibly can. 

Shouto gets it now, that cape. It’s so big because it’s full of secrets. 

Deku straightens up his cape—a few bubbles escaping from the fabric as he does so—and fixes them back to his shoulders. “And now, Pro-Hero Shouto-san..”

Deku pops a bubble floating just above Shouto’s shoulder. And then from it, he plucks out a piece of candy. It’s a chocolate candy—the kind wrapped in gold foil to look like coins. “Your reward, sir.”

Shouto stares at it. How did he do it. He must’ve hidden it in his hand, that’s the logical answer. He just made it look like he popped it out of the bubble. The bubbles too, there must be some kind of hidden mechanism. He couldn’t have done it with magic.

But for a second, a part of Shouto almost believes he could. 

“Thank you,” Shouto says, keeping the candy in his pocket.

“You’re very welcome. And here is one for you too, Pro-Hero Mindjack”—Deku plucks another piece from a stray bubble—”for having such a cool Hero name.”

Shinsou’s cheeks redden again. “Whatever.” He takes the candy.

“Now that we have that settled—huh, where did my audience go? Hello, is anybody there?” Deku puts a hand over his eyes, looking for the children who have mysteriously disappeared from their seats. “Hmm, I guess I should go home if no one’s here..”

As if on cue, the scattered children immediately give up on their bubble-popping endeavor and return to their seats. In less than five seconds. It truly is terrifying, Shouto thinks, the power that Deku holds. It’s like a shepherd with a flock of sheeps, if sheeps are able to conquer the world. “Oh, here you are, my respected earth inhabitants,” Deku claps his hands, pleased once again now that his spectators have returned. “Let’s begin the show, shall we?” Deku trots around the stage with ease, circling both Pro-Heroes like a shark around its prey. “Isn’t it just so fun to have two Heroes in our presence today?”

The crowd hollers. “But why are they here, I wonder?” Deku stops behind both Shouto and Shinsou, tapping his chin. “Don’t tell me … is there a Villain among us today?” The crowd gasps. “Could they possibly be investigating a crime?”

This seems to rile up the kids even more. Their eyes are practically bulging out of their sockets, shining above their gaping mouths. “Oh, perhaps, our Heroes should be looking for clues right now,” Deku continues. And then his voice lowers, enough that no one but Shouto and Shinsou can hear them: “In their pockets, maybe.”

Shouto’s hand automatically goes to his pocket. To the surprise of no one, he finds something in it beside his wallet—a scrap of paper. He opens the paper to read it. Next to him, Shinsou is doing the same thing. Shinsou hisses in a furious whisper, “Midoriya. What the fuck is this.”

“You guys are my set props,” Deku whispers back. “So behave, m’kay?” and then in a much louder voice, “Oh, whatever have you found, Pro-Hero Shouto?”

Shouto stares at the paper. Shouto knows exactly what the fuck it is. 

“‘It seems,’” Shouto reads. “‘That a great theft has occurred in our beloved Musutafu an hour ago.’”

It’s a script. 

“My, a theft!” Deku says, voice affecting surprise. “How awful. Whatever shall we do, oh Pro-Hero Mindjack?”

The script—written with the neatest handwriting Shouto has ever seen—reads:

Shinsou: (SPIRITEDLY) We shall arrest the culprit at once! (CLENCHES FIST OVER HEART) Justice must prevail to preserve order in our beloved Musutafu!

Shouto looks at Shinsou. Shinsou is glaring at his paper so intensely that had Shinsou been born with a fire Quirk, the paper would be a second away from combusting. His jaw twitches and for a second, Shouto is sure that the boy is going to walk away from the stage. But then, in a voice so flat that it can be used to iron clothes: “‘We shall arrest the culprit at once. Justice must prevail to—’”

“Clench fist over heart,” Deku whispers behind them.

“‘Justice,’” Shinsou does not clench his fist over his heart, but there is so much fury in his voice that it could be mistaken as his Heroic endeavor in catching this foul thief. “‘Must. Prevail. To preserve order. In our beloved Musutafu.’”

Todoroki: (SMILING BRIGHTLY) Well said, (SHINSOU’S HERO NAME)!

“‘Well said, Mindjack,’” Todoroki reads. 

“Smile brightly,” the stage director who is holding the both of them hostage whispers. 

Shouto does not smile, brightly or otherwise. When did he prepare for the script? Shouto wonders. Shouto just met Shinsou today. Shouto just found out that Midoriya was in UA today. Had he written this after lunch? He continues. “‘We have evidence that the thief has concealed themself in the best, coolest, most awesome location in all of Musutafu..’” PAUSE MEANINGFULLY (FOR SUSPENSE, THIS PART IS IMPORTANT), the script instructs. Deeming that he has paused meaningfully enough, Todoroki proceeds to reveal the name of this mysterious location. “‘The Fujiya Hospital.’”

“Gasp!” gasps Deku in a fantastic show of his acting prowess. “Fujiya Hospital?! But that’s exactly where we are!”

“‘How could we ever find the thief in such a place,’” Shouto says. “‘This seems impossible.’”

Both Shouto and Deku look at Shinsou. It’s his turn. Shinsou opens his mouth, closes it again. He does this several times, which gives him the impression of being a very tall and purple fish. “‘All—’” Shinsou pauses. He closes his eyes and sighs. “Do I have to say this?” he whispers angrily. “Really?”

“You have to say it,” Deku whispers back cheerfully.

“‘All Might on a stick!’” says Shinsou. He then closes his eyes once again. In a low voice, he mutters, “what the hell even is that, damnit? What the hell even is that?”

“PG-13 cursing,” Deku reply-whispers. “It gives your character, you know, a bit of an oomph..”

“‘All Might on a stick!’” Shinsou repeats, with such ferocity that he might as well have said the F-word. “‘Such evil and cunning plan! However, my … friend..’” —Shinsou’s nose crunches at this word—”’my friend. We must not cower in face of adversity. Nothing is impossible so long as we work together.’”

Shouto returns to his script. “‘Well said, Mindjack..’” he pauses. ADDRESS THE AUDIENCE, the script instructs. DON’T FORGET TO SMILE BRIGHTLY. 

Shouto looks at the audience. The kids seem to be engrossed in their shitty actings, staring up back at him all starry-eyed as if this is the coolest thing that has ever happened to them and not the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to Shouto. Shouto tries to shape his mouth into something that is not a grimace. “‘So, what do you say, most honored citizens?’” Shouto addresses the aforementioned most honored citizens. “‘How do you feel about giving us Heroes a hand?’”

“‘Whoever aids us to find this foul thief,’” Shinsou, too, addresses the mass, “‘Shall receive all the stickers they wish in the world.’”

The following cheer ringing in the room is so loud that at this very second, everyone currently residing on level four of the Fujiya Hospital is convinced that there is an earthquake happening upstairs.

As expositioned by Shinsou’s character after, a bank has apparently been robbed off a precious cargo (“‘A sum of five megatrillion yen,’” Shinsou flatly recites. “‘Five carts of gold and a national treasure. How wretched!’”) and oh, the thief could be just about anyone of them (“‘They must be hiding in plain sight!’” Shouto reads. “‘How insidious!’”). 

“‘All Might on a stick,’” says Shinsou. “‘We aren’t getting anywhere in cracking this case, Shouto. Dagnamight!’”

“‘Don’t lose hope, bro,’” says Shouto. “‘The criminal must have left some trace..’”

Shouto stops. And then he looks at Shinsou. Shinsou looks back at him. 

The script ended. There are no more dialogues.

Both of them look at Deku.

Deku isn’t looking at them. He seems to be in deep thought concerning this dauntingly complicated case. “Hmm, you’re right, Pro-Hero Shouto … a criminal always leaves a trace. What do you think, esteemed residence?”

Aforementioned esteemed residence murmur among one another. And then a hand is raised. “Yes, Miya.”

Some of the kids huddling around the girl whisper some more before Miya emerges from the group. She appears to be the appointed representative by the pack. “We would like to pr’pose a search,” she solemnly states.

Deku’s brows rise. “A search?” 

“This thief,” she says. “They stole lots of stuff, right?”

“Yeah, and..?”

“And, um..” a kid from the crowd whispers something in Miya’s ear. She nods. “Hero Shouto said,” she says, voice more confident, “that the theft happened an hour ago.” another kid whispers in her other ear. Miya nods solemnly once again. “So we think. They gotta be still carryin’ some of the stuff they stole with ‘em.”

“..my, what a fantastic idea,” Deku sounds genuinely impressed. Deku turns to look at the Pro-Heroes who, unlike the children, have contributed zero fantastic ideas. “What incredible deduction skills. Don’t you think so, Heroes?”

Shouto and Shinsou stare blankly at Deku. And then they stare at each other, helpless. 

There are no more scripts to follow. They never thought they would be missing the damned script.

Deku is still staring at them expectantly. So is Miya and the rest of the audience. 

“..yes,” Shouto says finally, feeling pressured to say something, anything at all. “It is. A good idea.”

Shinsou clears his throat. “Right,” he says, his voice uncharacteristically unsure. “Uh. Maybe. We should get in a group of two … to search each other for … suspicious articles..?”

“Well, then,” Deku says, putting his hands together cheerfully. “You heard ‘em, folks!” 

It’s chaos. But a surprisingly organized chaos.

The kids form two lines—a word that is used generously because a line usually does not have so many crooked angles—around the room, each row consisting of two people. They do this with extreme enthusiasm, which means they do it with an incredible amount of noise. Both Shouto and Shinsou are tasked with patrolling the line to check for any suspicious items that have been unearthed. 

This, of course, leads to difficult conflicts.

“Rin has this with ‘im!” Tsu reports her own twin, waving what looks like a half-eaten bar of chocolate. “That’s susvicious!”

“Uh,” Pro-Hero Mindjack says.

“Nothin’ susvicious ‘bout it, dummy!” Rin says, trying to take the snack he has saved for late night munchies away from his twin. “You just wanna eat it, don’t you!”

Tsu refuses to give it away. “Unhand this, foul sief!” she says with an impressive amount of dramatics. Has a talent for theatrics, this one, even if she can’t pronounce her words properly. “This is important pevide—ediven—evizen—”

“Evidence,” Shinsou corrects her. His superior pronunciation is ignored by both children. “Now, come on now, uh, don’t fight—”

“Give it back!” Rin roars. Both of them are holding on to the piece of chocolate in a tug of war with the ferocity of a death duel. “I’ll kill you!”

“I’ll kill you more!”

“I’ll kill you more more!”

Children— Shouto thinks as he witnesses these homicidal intentions declared with such unabashed fervour—are terrifying.

Shinsou is hovering over both children as if trying to figure out a way in prying both of them apart in a safe way that would not hurt both parties and especially himself. “Don’t—don’t say that to your sibling,” Shinsou says, in a tone that clearly shows that he has never talked to children before in his life and is very distressed about breaking that record. “Come on, kids, why don’t you just make up and—”

“This is clearly susvicious particle!”

“You’re susvicious particle!”

“Suspicious article ... hey, no no! That’s dangerous! Hey—” Shinsou looks up and his eyes, desperately, meet Shouto’s. “Oi, Todoroki, help me with these—oi, where are you going? Oi, Todoroki! Come back, Todoroki! Dagnamight, you—”

Shouto is busy escaping from the point of homicide chocolate conflict when he feels someone tugging on his blazer. He looks down. “Hello, Haru-san.”

“Hello,” she says shyly, fidgeting from one foot to the other. Her voice is as soft as Shouto remembers it. “Umm.”

Around the room, fights are breaking out here and there as betrayals unfold one after another. On the other side of the room, he catches Deku mediating two parties accusing one another over a piece of gundam (“This gundam must be the national pressure! The national pressure that got stolen!” “You’re national pressure!” “No, you!” “National treasure ,” Deku corrects the children gently. “Now, why don’t we think about this with a cool head, y’know, like All Might do..”) much better than the way Shinsou is handling the chocolate fight. 

Shouto kneels down so he can talk to Haru eye to eye. “Do you have any suspicious articles to show me?”

She looks better, he notes pleasantly. Healthier. Less pale. “Umm. Not really..” her cheeks shine red. “Just, um. This..” 

From behind her back, she hands him a … a card. A piece of paper folded in two. Shouto takes it in his hands carefully like it’s the stolen national treasure. “Is this for me?” Haru nods. “Can I open it?” pause. And then she nods again, ducking down shyly.

On the cover is a drawing of two butterflies of different sizes. The bigger one is white on one wing and red on the other. The smaller one is colored pink. Shouto opens the card. Inside, carefully written with scrawly hiragana and adorned with colorful illustrations of flowers, is thank you, Shouto-niisan, for the..

Shouto reads it through. And then he rereads it again. Shouto’s thumb swipes over the paper—the texture soft and brittle, before he closes the card gently. He breathes, silent for a few seconds. Evidently a few seconds too long, because Haru then says, “Shouto-nii doesn’t like it?”

His throat hurts. “Shouto-nii loves it.”

“Really?”

Shouto stares at her, silent again. And then, carefully, he places his hand on top of her head. 

Her hair is thin, soft, frail. So small and warm under his hand. Someone did this to him once, Shouto thinks—there was a hand, caressing his hair just like this a long time ago. Someone who is waiting on the floor above, for a son who never came. Someone who might not be waiting at all, for a son she never wanted. 

(Level six, Calla Lily, three-one-five.)

Shouto takes off his hand. “Really,” he says, and tries to smile. Not brightly—he doesn’t think he can ever do that—but he tries anyway. “I do. Thank you, Haru-san.”

After another five minutes of ransacking and accusations, the search appears to be fruitless. Deku sighs in exhaustion as he returns to the stage—doing that trick where he sits on an invisible chair. “At this rate,” Deku says sadly, “I think nobody will be getting stickers today.”

Sounds of protest are heard around the room. The mass seems to be upset by this suggestion. “Damn you, Todoroki.”

Shinsou is standing beside him, having apparently returned from his homicide-chocolate conflict. “Pro-Hero Mindjack,” Shouto says flatly. 

“Cut that sh—cut that out,” Shinsou says. “Don’t call me that.”

“Sure, Pro-Hero Mindjack.”

“You—“

“Hero nii-san! Hero nii-san!”

Both of them sigh. And then look down. “Yes, Kenta,” Pro-Hero Mindjack says. “What can I—“ he glares at Shouto. “What can we help you with.”

“Takeshi-nii won’t let us search him!”

The two Heroes are dragged by several children to investigate this Takeshi-nii. Takeshi-nii, the uncooperative civilian in question, stares up at both of them, unimpressed. “Hello, Hero-san #1, Hero-san #2,” he says, deadpan. “How do you do.”

Both Shouto and Shinsou are momentarily silent. For the past half an hour, they have been playing along with Midoriya’s Heroes-Robbers stageplay mental torture for various personal reasons, most of which incomprehensible to themselves. But one single factor plays a big role in their obedience: most of the audience are children ranging from three to eight years old. One always finds it easier to do cringe Hero roleplay in front of an audience who can barely do the multiplication table.

“Well, Hero-san?” Takeshi says flatly when he receives no answer. “Are you gonna search me? Arrest me for obstructing an officer of law? Well,” he eyes them. “Two officers of law.”

Both officers stand in the embarrassed silence of two teenagers who were caught doing cringe Hero roleplay by a fellow teenager.

“He brought you into this, didn’t he.”

Shouto looks up at that, momentarily snapping out of his shame reverie. Takeshi isn’t looking at them—he leans back on his wheelchair, gazing across the room at Deku, who is currently doing a routine where he is making shapes out of soap bubbles to appease the disappointed masses. He has somehow shaped multiple rabbits; the creatures floating and popping the moment they touch the ceilings. 

“Oh yeah,” Shinsou says. “He’s been bringing me into lots of things, lately.”

Something about the way Shinsou says that gives Shouto a pause. It’s said dryly, but without sarcasm.

Takeshi smiles at that—pale lips momentarily quirking to one side, lopsided. It makes him look a little less tired. “Yeah, he does that. You guys his classmates or something.”

“I am,” Shinsou says. “He isn’t.” 

“Huh,” Takeshi eyes Shouto. He’s skinny—skinnier than anyone Shouto has ever met, cheekbones sunken and collarbones protruding beneath his hospital gown. “So he goes to school. UA, even … ha," he scoffs, softly, but not unkindly. "That’s pretty crazy.”

“Midoriya never told you that?” Shinsou says. 

Takeshi shrugs. “He just showed up one day, and then..” Takeshi nods at the crowd. Deku has moved on from rabbit soaps to juggling, now. He is juggling a soccer ball, a ping-pong ball, and an apple. Occasionally, he takes a bite out of said apple. “Well. The kids fell in love with him. And then he keeps showing up. But none of us really know where he came from, y’know?”

Can you watch this for a moment, please? Shouto thinks back to that day—that day where they first met. Showed up one day, and then keeps showing up. Will you let me treat you?

Have we met before?

“I mean,” Takeshi says, gaze settling back to Shinsou. “This is the first time I know his name is Midoriya.”

“Oh,” Shinsou says. Something odd slipping into his voice that Shouto doesn’t really understand. “I see.”

Something that he heard when Shinsou had asked him, how’d you meet him?

“Anyway, you guys are pretty bad at this.”

Shouto and Shinsou look at him. “Huh?”

Takeshi sighs. How old is he, Shouto wonders. Fifteen, sixteen? He somehow looks both older and younger than that. “It’s Deku. He’s actually pretty predictable once you get to know him for a while.”

“Predictable?” Shouto says, the first time he says anything in this conversation.

“Oh, yeah. Here, I’ll give you a tip..” Takeshi smiles—a pale, short-lived thing. “There’s ever only one answer with him.”

With that confusing statement, Takeshi proceeds to raise his hand up high. 

This seems to garner the attention of the practicing magician up front. “Oh!” Deku, who is currently balancing Tocchan, Miya, and three soccer balls on his shoulders exclaims. He sounds delighted by the interruption. “How rare. Yes, Takeshi-kun? Would you like to join us on this magic trick?”

“No,” Takeshi says, sounding bored. “I would like to propose an idea. To catch this thief and stuff.” 

“Ooh, intriguing! Do share with the class, Takeshi-kun.”

“Isn’t there,” Takeshi says, “One person we haven’t searched yet?”

“Is there really?” Deku says, surprised. He puts the giggling luggage on his shoulder carefully down to the floor. “And who might this person be?”

“You,” Takeshi says.

A sweeping silence ripples through the room. And then all heads turn toward Deku.

“Takeshi-kun,” Deku says, slowly and carefully into the silence. “Are you suggesting … that I’m the Villain..?”

“Besides the Heroes, you are the one who holds most information about the crime,” Takeshi says with the air of an experienced sleuth. “Doesn’t that alone make you the number one suspect?”

Whispers hush around the room. The children have started to put a distance between them and Deku, looking at the magician with accusing eyes.

“No way..”

“Takeshi-nii’s right..”

“Deku, it can be Deku..”

“Deku magicked the bank moneys away.”

Sensing that the tide is turning against him, Deku laughs nervously. “My esteemed friends,” the suspect says, holding both hands up in a placating gesture. “Surely a true Hero wouldn’t accuse without proof?”

A criminal always leaves a trace.

And then something clicks. 

Shouto puts a hand inside his pocket, mind racing. He looks up at Shinsou and the other boy must have caught on, because he is doing the exact same thing. Together, the both of them pull out the candy that Deku gave them at the beginning of the show.

No. Not candy.

“Deku,” Shouto says, holding the chocolate high up so that the audience can see it. The foil glints against the light. “Where did you get this gold from?”

The crowd gasps. 

Shinsou advances threateningly forward in a heroic manner. “Yeah, Deku,” Shinsou says, tossing his own gold coin up and down in one hand. “From a bank robbery, maybe?”

The crowd gasps some more.

More nervous laughter is coming from Deku. “Come now, gentlemen..” Deku says, taking a step back from the stage, the soccer and ping-pong balls scattering on the floor. “I’m sure we can talk this ou—”

One of the ping-pong balls gets in the way of Deku’s feet, and the magician slips.

Thankfully, Deku catches himself at the last moment—gaining his balance just before he kisses the ground. However, his hat slips off his head, and as it falls to the ground a large number of chocolate gold coins fall with it.

Silence fills the room. And then, once again, all residents of the Fujiya Hospital believe that there is an earthquake happening on the fifth floor of their building. 

“Get him!”

“Thieeeeefff!”

“Villain! Deku’s the Villain!”

“Sic ‘im!”

Now that both his cover and his hat have been blown, Deku seems to be in a hurry to leave the room, inching far away from the advancing children. “Oh no, everyone, I promise I can explain..” he trips over a soccer ball, and more coins keep falling out of him—dozens of them, as if his cape is an infinite portal to a gold coin universe. Deku scrambles to cover his tracks, his loot scattering everywhere noisily. “I promise I didn’t rob the bank!” Deku proceeds to take out a handkerchief from his pocket, dabbing non-existent sweat on his forehead vigorously. A second later, Shouto realizes it’s not a handkerchief at all, but a five-thousand yen banknote. “I just borrowed from them a little, y’know!”

The kids howl and run after the criminal. Aforementioned criminal scrambles all around the room to escape jail time. There are laughter and gold chocolate coins everywhere. 

It’s absolute mayhem.

“Huh,” Shinsou says, beside Shouto. “I didn’t know you could smile.”

Shouto twists his mouth. “Pro-Hero Mindjack.”

“I said don’t call me that, asshole.”

“Bad word.”

“Screw you,” Shinsou says. And then he says, “We can’t let him escape, can we.”

“..no,” Shouto says. “I don’t think we can.”

“Justice must prevail and all that,” says Shinsou.

“..order must be preserved and so on,” says Shouto.

The children try their best, but the Villain is a slippery one—he has somehow managed to dodge dozens of hands and leaving only dust and soap bubbles in his wake. The criminal, who has done an impressive job of coming this far, is now so close to escaping the scene. He stares down at the hallway leading to the exit, and also at the two mighty heroes standing in his way. Caught between the Pro-Heroes and the pack of rabid children, the outcome of this battle is obvious to everyone watching.

“Handsome Hero-niisan,” the Villain greets them politely. Bubbles and gold coins are coming out of his cape like waterfall. “A wonderful weather today. Oh, did you wear a new cologne?”

“Silence, foul thief,” says Pro-Hero Mindjack flatly. 

“Surrender at once, blasted Villain,” says Pro-Hero Shouto emotionlessly.

“Don’t you see that you have lost,” says Pro-Hero Mindjack. “All Might on a stick!”

“Curse you, Heroes,” says the blasted Villain. He shakes his head sadly. “The plan that I have constructed carefully over the past ten years … my chance to escape my past into a new life to build a nice little cottage by the sea ... you and you..” the foul thief points at Takeshi, who is staring back at him, unimpressed. “Have ruined it all! Curse yooooouuu.”

“Enough!” Pro-Hero Mindjack, who is eager to finish this roleplaying session, says. “You have lost. Now come quietly! Like, ASAP. Like seriously.”

“Come quietly..?” the Villain repeats. And then Deku laughs. 

It’s a long, hard laugh. Very dramatic, just A+ classic Villain-final-monologue laughter all around. The bubbles furiously flying out from his cape is a unique touch to the climax of this scene. “Come quietly, you say..? Nay … NAY!” Deku points at the sky. Except they are indoor, so he’s just pointing at the ceiling. “I SHALL NOT GO GENTLE INTO THE GOOD NIGHT!”

And then, to the astonishment of everyone present, the lights start to flicker all horror movie-like.  The kids scream and gasp. From the corner of his eyes, Shouto can see Kubo-san and a couple of nurses standing at the corner of the room furiously flicking the lamp switch on and off to produce this effect. 

“Muahahahahahaha,” Villain Deku continues his deranged laugh. “You might win this time, Heroes … but I promise you this..” he points at both Heroes with a trembling finger, a manic smile on his face. “When we meet again … I shall have my revenge!”

The light turns off. Everyone gasps. And then it turns on. Everyone gasps.

To the surprise of nobody, Deku is gone. 

Instead of the Villain, where once he stood, there lays a … box. A cardboard box. Taped on top of the box  is a scrap of paper with familiar handwriting on it. The handwriting reads: NATIONAL TREASURE.

The crowd, still reeling from everything that has just happened, is shock silent. Shouto and Shinsou look at each other. And then, together they bend down to inspect the box.

It’s a regular cardboard box—not too small, not too big. There doesn’t seem to be anything irregular about it. Shinsou proceeds to tear off the tape and open it. They stare.

Inside the box is a cake.

A chocolate cake, to be precise. Sitting on the cake is two numerical candles reading 16. And decorated on top of the cake with icing is: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TAKESHI.

Shouto looks at the NATIONAL TREASURE paper still hanging on the cardboard box. Something seems to be written behind it. He takes it off and flips it around. Next to him, Shinsou leans in so he can read better.

There is a small lighter taped behind the paper. There is, also, a set of instructions with the same impossibly neat handwriting.

It says: 

CONGRATS ON CATCHING THE VILLAIN, HEROES! 

NEXT:

1. LIGHT THE CANDLES (THIS IS IMPORTANT)

2. GIVE CAKE TO TAKESHI-KUN (ALSO IMPORTANT!)

3. SING IN THREE, TWO—

“Happy birthday,” a familiar voice sings, “to you.”

Shouto looks up. Sitting in the middle of audience is Deku—without his hat and his cape, and a ukulele in hand. “Happy birthday,” Deku sings, clear tenor voice piercing the silence. “To you. Happy birthday..”

Slowly but surely, the crowd sings along—various pitches of voice joining in, high and low, off-key and otherwise. Deku stands, singing louder, and the kids follow—clapping to the beat. “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you..”

“Light the candles.”

Dumbfounded, Shouto turns to look at Shinsou. Shinsou, who—when Shouto wasn’t looking—has lifted out the cake out of the box and is now holding it in his hands carefully. “Light the candles,” Shinsou repeats. Voice quieter and softer than Shouto has ever heard it. “Hurry up, asshole.”

Shouto looks at the lighter taped on the paper. Still numb with surprise, he pries it off. It takes him several tries to get the candles lit—they are standing right below the air con—the crowd still singing around them as he does so. 

Now properly lit, they carry the cake across the room. Takeshi stares at them, looking frozen in his wheelchair. Behind them the crowd of kids follow, singing, “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday Takeshi-nii..”

Deku strums the final chords of the song. “Happy birthday,” the kids sing, off-key, high, and happy. Very happy. “To you..”

Shinsou hands the cake to Takeshi. And Takeshi, seemingly still speechless in his shock, can do nothing but receive it in his lap wordlessly. The candles are melting, slowly but surely, wax dripping a little on to the chocolate frostings. He stares at the cake like he doesn’t know what to do with it. The fire reflects on his skin, casting the pale span of them in a soft orange glow.

“Now,” Deku’s voice says behind them. Familiar and soft. “Why don’t you make a wish, Takeshi-kun?”

Something flashes across Takeshi’s face—and momentarily, he looks younger, much younger than sixteen. Takeshi closes his eyes. And then he blows on the candles. 

The crowd cheers. For the third time that day, there is an earthquake happening on level five of the Fujiya Hospital.

The kids rush to hug Takeshi, laughing, laughing. Shouto takes a step back to give them way, watching Takeshi looking helpless as the pack of kids crawls all over him. Miya is kissing him on the cheek. Deku is throwing his head back in laughter amidst the crowd, strumming his ukulele once again to a rendition of Happy Birthday that Shouto has never heard before.

“So this is what he does, huh?”

Shouto looks to his side. Shinsou has also stepped back from the crowd, the two of them standing at the corner of the room, watching the kids laugh and bicker. Rin took some of the frostings from the cake and smear it all over his sister’s cheek. Kubo-san has come from across the room to prevent a cake war from happening.

“Yeah,” Shouto says.

I trick people into having fun.

Cake war is happening anyway. Takeshi’s cheeks are now smeared all over with frosting—and he isn’t the only one. He is laughing, though. Haru is sitting on his lap, a blot of chocolate on her nose as she giggles. Deku is running away from Miya and the twins who have somehow taken the cake into their possession and seem to be determined to facepie the magician.

Shouto smiles. 

Not brightly. Shouto doesn’t think he can ever do that. 

But for a second—just for a second—a part of him almost believes he could.

Chapter Text

“Now,” Deku says mildly, “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“Whatever,” Shinsou says. Like Shouto, he’s carrying a plastic bag because there are, apparently, more than just one cake—Kubo-san, the head nurse, had ordered enough cake to feed the entire floor and more. Which is why Shouto and Shinou have received—tentatively—a paper box with a slice each. 

Deku, on the other hand, is much more enthusiastic. He is currently carrying more than a dozen paper boxes in a plastic bag half his height (“Never refuse free food,” he had said wisely when Shouto stared). Shouto can’t imagine him eating that much—but he needs it, Shouto thinks. Deku has changed out of that oversized suit into his UA uniform, but he still looks unmistakably small. “There are more kids on Saturday,” Deku says informatively. “So the show lasts like, half an hour longer on weekends.”

“Huh.”

“Which is why you should come earlier on Saturdays, y’know, for extra prep. Does two o’clock work for you?”

“Two o’clock sounds—” Shinsou cuts himself short abruptly, seething. “Midoriya, I won’t be doing this again on Saturday.”

“Aw,” Deku’s expression is visibly disappointed before quickly brightening again. “Another Wednesday, then? The show is weekly after all.”

“Hell no. I’m not gonna be doing this again—ever. I’m not gonna be dragged again into another one of your—your—” Shinsou seems to struggle at verbally describing whatever it is that Deku conducts (apparently) weekly, and chooses instead to gesture wildly to the air. “No. Just no.”

“So you prefer Saturday, after all?”

“What? I said—”

“It’s a promise,” Deku says, overruling Shinsou’s protests with several finger guns. “I’m going to the bathroom first before we leave, m’kay? I think I got frosting inside my shirt somehow..” 

“Weren’t you listening? I—and he’s gone.”

Deku doesn’t wait for an answer before bolting—presumably for the bathroom—disappearing within a blink of an eye. Shouto blinks. He looks down, staring at the handprint on his UA vest where Miya had wiped some frosting off of. Kubo-san had pulled them aside earlier to scold them on the food-war part of Deku’s show. 

He looks up. Someone had opened the curtains. The sky is already dark, showcasing the glimmering lights of the city. They had mass-cleaned the recreation room earlier, gathering the trash and helping the nurses to clean some stray frostings and bits of chocolate cake. It’s much emptier now—most of the kids have returned to their rooms to rest. Haru had said goodbye to him earlier, having to apparently take her scheduled shot. The space is quieter now without the kids in it. 

“I hate him so much,” Shinsou says. “So much. It’s insane. It’s—”

“Pro-Hero-Mind-ja-ck?”

They both stop. And look down. 

“Yes,” Pro-Hero Mindjack sighs, “Tocchan?”

“Shouldn’t you be in bed, Tocchan-san,” Shouto says. The nurses have been adamant about that.

Tocchan gives a toothy grin in reply. “I snuck out. Shhh,” he puts a single finger in front of his mouth in the universal gesture of keep this a secret, ‘kay! as if neither Shouto nor Shinsou are responsible, mature adults enough that they would let a hospitalized child, who should be in bed, to be out of bed. “I forgot somethin’. Can you sign this please?”

Shinsou takes the scrap paper pushed at him—similar to the one Haru gave Shouto, it’s a drawing paper, one with scrawled crayons on it. “That’s you,” Tocchan says helpfully, pointing at one purple figure. And then he points to the smaller figure next to it. “That’s me.”

“That’s really good,” Shouto says—and almost surprised by himself for saying it out loud, but it is quite good. The figures actually look like people, for one, and there are enough likeness on their features to be identifiable. Namely Pro-Hero’s mindjack spiky purple grass hair and surprisingly detailed UA uniform. “Do you.” he pauses. How do people ask this usually. Isn’t this the sort of thing you ask kids. “Do you want to be an artist.”

Tocchan shakes his head. “Nuh-uh. I want to be a Hero,” Tocchan says. “Like you.”

Shouto stares. He looks at the drawing again, held in Shinsou’s hands. The smaller figure, now he sees, is also wearing a UA uniform. “I see,” he says, and can’t find it in himself for something else to say. Doesn’t matter, though; Tocchan seems to have forgotten about Shouto’s existence entirely. “Pro-Hero-Mind-ja-ck,” Tocchan says, pushing a crayon into the aforementioned Hero’s face. “Sign?”

Pro-Hero Mindjack, Shouto notices suddenly, has been quiet for a while. Pro-Hero Mindjack takes the crayon from Tocchan’s hands, says, “What do you want your Hero name to be?” Pro-Hero Mindjack’s voice sounds a little strange.

“Galactic Smasher Warrior,” says Tocchan readily, clearly having been practicing saying his Hero name in front of the mirror every morning since he knew what Heroes are.

Shinsou’s handwriting is, to Shouto’s mild surprise, both neat and legible. For Galactic Smasher Warrior, and the name Mindjack signed underneath in purple crayon. “There you go. Now, go back to your room, all right?”

“Okey,” Tocchan says, receiving the signed drawing. “Are you comin’ on Sat’rday?” 

Shinsou sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. “No. I don’t know. Probably.” and then he says, “Okay. Yes, all right, I’m coming on Saturday.”

“Okey. See ya on Sat’rday!'' With that farewell the kid bolts out of sight, leaving them both standing in silence. 

After a few seconds, Shouto looks over. Shinsou is still staring at his hands, where the drawing had been. “Are you crying.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Shinsou says.

“Heya,” Deku says, returning from his bathroom excursion. “Ready to leave? Eh, Shinsou-kun, are you crying?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Shinsou says.

Deku opens his arms sympathetically. “Need a hug?”

“Shut up!”

They leave the same way they had come, through the subway station underneath the hospital. “The place’s on the green line,” Deku says, as they pass the turnstile. “We’ll get there in twenty minutes, I think! Is that too late for you, Todoroki-kun? Your place is on the red line, right?”

Shouto stares, and Deku stares back patiently. And then Shouto realizes what Deku means. It’s an offer; Shouto doesn’t have to come if he doesn’t want to. Instead of answering, Shouto says, “How’d you know my place is on the red line?”

Deku smiles airily. “Just a hunch.”

“Oh.”

Deku tilts his head at him. Behind him, Shinsou looks unbothered, one hand in a pocket and the other carrying the cake box. Shouto had seen him tucking Tocchan’s drawing earlier, so carefully, inside his backpack. “I’m not sure if you have a curfew,” Deku says. “Wouldn’t want to get you into trouble with your folks or anything.” 

“And it’s fine if I get into trouble, is it?” Shinsou mutters.

Shouto does have a curfew. “I don’t have a curfew.”

Deku claps delightedly. “Awesome,” Deku says, his smile shifting into something more like a grin. “You wanna come with and see Shinsou-kun’s dog?”

Shinsou rolls his eyes—so he was listening after all. “Not my—you know what, fucking whatever.” And then Shinsou, too, looks at Shouto as if expecting an answer.

Shouto stares back at the two of them. And then glances at Miya’s handprint on his vest. Shouto wonders if detergent works on chocolate. He wonders if he wants to clean it at all. Shouto looks back up at the two boys. “Yes,” Shouto answers.

It’s not yet off-office hours, so it’s still relatively sparse, and they manage to get empty seats on the train. Shouto stares at the mountain of cake boxes Deku has on his lap. “You need help with that.”

“Nope.”

“How are you even gonna finish all of that?” Shinsou says doubtfully. 

“I get hungry,” Deku says, to the disbelief of the other two. “I’m giving some to Kai-san as well. She likes sweet stuff.”

“Who’s Kai-san.”

“The vet,” Deku says cheerfully.

“Real scary lady,” Shinsou says flatly.

“She does a bunch of other stuff too. If you need to get anything fixed, she’s the guy. Charges real cheap.” 

“She looks like she can break me in half with no problem.”

“Okay,” says Shouto, having received zero net information.

They get off at the dirtiest station Shouto has ever been. 

Shouto steps off the train and almost curiously, inspects the gritty floor, the run-down walls and the dim, flickering lamps ahead. The architecture is slightly different from the other stations he’s used to—though admittedly, Shouto has never really explored much of the city before—as if this one hasn’t been renovated for quite a while. “First time in the northern part of the city, huh?”

Shinsou isn’t quite standing next to him, but it’s close. Shouto doesn’t say yes, even though it’s true. The red line is in the south, and there aren’t many places Shouto goes to other than his own house and book stores and, in recent weeks, UA. “None of your business.”

“You’re real shit at conversations, did you know that?”

Shouto is real shit at things he doesn’t give a shit about. “Where’s Deku.”

“Socializing,” Shinsou says, jerking his thumb at what appears to be Deku talking animatedly to a couple of janitors at a corner. The janitors are laughing at something Deku is saying and then, Shouto observes, thanking the boy when Deku gives them each a box of chocolate cake. Shouto didn’t even realize Deku had separated from them after getting off—his footsteps really do make no sound at all. “I can’t believe how he, like,” Shinsou says, “practically fucking knows everybody.”

And he does, Shouto comes to realize, practically fucking knows everybody.

The moment they exit the subway it’s clear that the area is a chinatown—not as big and furnished as the one Shouto has visited in the south but just as crowded, if not more. The station exits directly to streets and streets of wet markets. “Watch your pockets,” Deku warns them lightly, “and your belongings. This isn’t a tourist-friendly area, folks. Oh, hey, Rena-neesan! How have you been? Oh, I’ve been good … how are the kids? Ah, really? No, no, but I heard that—”

“And he told me he wasn’t a social butterfly,” mutters Shinsou, watching Deku chatter to a shopkeeper lady the minute they are outside. And this keeps happening as they walk through the street. People stop him, or Deku would stop people, and they’d talk—about kids, about work, about the latest gossip. He says hi to practically everyone. “This is ridiculous. No one has this many acquaintances.”

Shouto has to agree; it is ridiculous. Every street vendor and every passing pedestrian seems to know him. And more impossibly, he seems to know them —and he knows them well. Shouto is starting to wonder if this is a customary thing for every other person in the world—to be so social—but Shinsou’s aghast expression convinces him that Deku is just a single anomaly. 

Which is an acceptable way to put it. Deku is, Shouto thinks, an anomaly. That alone justifies and explains practically everything.

“Her place is just right around this block,” Deku says after he finishes bantering with yet another vendor and the vendor’s three other vendor neighbors and also a cat, whom Deku summoned a piece of cat treat out of nowhere and also whom is currently being petted vigorously by Shinsou. “Her place is just around—oh, assalamualaikum, Fajar-jisan!”

“Waalaikumsalam! Hah, Deku, you little twerp!” Fajar-jisan, a smiling man in his forties with a booming voice, greets them out of a small restaurant. His skin has a green tinge on it. The man then proceeds to hug and lift Deku into the air like he’s done it a thousand times before. It’s startling to watch; Deku might be small, but the man lifted him like he weighs nothing. “ Ya ampun, look at you, boy! You’ve gotten even skinnier than the last time I saw you. What happened, ah?”

“Hit a growth spurt, uncle,” Deku says, after he’s returned to the ground. “Don’t I seem taller?” An ironic thing to say when Deku looks like a lilliput in Fajar’s embrace. Fajar-jisan clicks his tongue disapprovingly; his voice is hearty when he speaks, booming above the busy street. “Nonsense! You kids these days eat too little. Especially you, don’t try to deny it now...”

“Oh, come on, uncle…”

“And who is this, ah? Your friends, is it?” Fajar finally takes notice of the two sidelined boys standing awkwardly on the street. The man is, Shouto realizes with surprise as he approaches them, a giant —bigger than anyone Shouto has ever seen, so much that it must be a manifestation of his Quirk. Next to him, Shouto sees that both Shinsou and the cat are as startled as he is by the man’s size—the cat has darted away with an offended meow. “Have you boys eaten? It’s dinnertime already!”

Shouto blinks. Fajar-jisan’s smile is blinding, and his voice is overwhelmingly genuine and also just … overwhelming in general. He looks at Shinsou without even thinking about it, only to find Shinsou looking back at him with an expression Shouto realizes must be reflected on his own face: slight fear, uncertainty, and a hell lot of confusion. “Uh..”

“Ya ampun, look at you both, so skinny as well, ah?” The man shakes his head, and Shouto fights the urge to step back in case Fajar will lift him into the air as well. Next to him, Shinsou is actually taking a step back. “You boys, you are still growing, you know? Not good, not good at all. You three wait here.”

“Ah, uncle, there is no need—”

Fajar waves Deku’s pleas away with a gigantic hand. “Halah, you sit tight right here.”

“..should’ve expected that,” Deku says, watching the man—needing to duck to enter the doorframe—walk back into his restaurant. He turns to Shouto and Shinsou. “You guys are real lucky, though. You’re about to eat the best food you’ve ever had in your lives.”

The—apparently—best food they’ll ever eat in their lives are packed in brown, greaseproof paper wraps and plastic bags in an amount so generous that they are struggling to carry it as they walk further to the vet’s house. The street is crowded still, people loitering and looking for dinner, and the stars in the sky are outshone by the neon lights glittering the shops. The air is humid, almost hot, rich with scent—mostly food and spices, but also something that is smokey. And a little … unpleasant, like trash, perhaps, or human sweat. It smells something distinctly city. And people. 

And it’s loud. So loud. Deku leads them deeper into chinatown and the street is filled with the noise of people chatting—none of the words discernable, everything just meshing into a low, buzzing hum. The street is too narrow and crowded for cars by now, but the occasional motorcycles still pass, the backseat tied with a basket of veggies, or furniture, or things that Shouto doesn’t know the name of. 

Woks hiss and utensils click in Shouto’s ears as they pass the countless restaurants, interspersed with laughter, and the occasional arguments. The crinkles of plastic bags, the roll of fruits and vegetables on wooden tables into copper scales. Customers and sellers bargaining for a bag of peaches, of persimmons, of shisos. Shouto is walking with plastic bags in hand and his backpack on his back, listening idly to the world and to Deku chattering which place sells the best this and that, and which shop owner is feuding with which. Shinsou replies, saying something about something, and Deku laughs. It washes over Shouto—warm, white noise.

It’s a strange sensation. 

Shouto has never experienced this before. This crowd. He didn’t know the night could be this colorful—could be this much. And Shouto is just there. And that’s the strangest thing of all, the fact that he is experiencing this.

He isn’t even sure if he’s been outside like this, before; on an actual street, at night, surrounded by actual … people. He met, he realizes, so many people today. He has talked to so many people today.

He has never known this many people before in his life. 

It’s strange. 

He accidentally steps on a puddle—the water splashes to the fabric of his pants, wetting his socks and his shoes. Dirtying them. Shouto feels his phone vibrating in his pocket for the nth time in the past minute. 

Shouto ignores it. His hands are full anyway.

“This way,” Deku says, leading them into an alley. “Watch your step.”

The sounds of the market place fades, replaced by the crackle of neon street lights and buzzing insects and the distinctly sharp, shrieking noise of metal being sawed. Cables snake on the walls along with AC units, humming low. They pass a vending machine, the only thing lighting up the alley other than the flickering street lights; most of the shops appear closed, metal blinds rolled down and lights shut out. The only shop that appears open is one at the end of the alley, lit a pulsing orange. Its front is scattered with bicycles and motorcycles alike and some … machinations that Shouto doesn’t recognize—all fighting each other for space in the narrow space of the alley. It’s the source of the shrieking noise, Shouto reckons, judging from the pulsing orange light emanating from the shop.

Deku walks towards the nameless shop with ease, dragging his load of food along the way. Behind him Shinsou follows with his perpetually sour face. Both boys are talking to each other—arguing one-sidedly on Shinsou’s part (“It compliments the sourness perfectly—” “No, no, no, what the hell are you saying, nobody eats sushi with ketchup—”) —another background noise in the back of Shouto’s brain. It must be six, Shouto thinks, looking up at the dark, empty sky. Maybe even seven? He’s never been out this late before. Moreover, he’s never been out this late with company. Shouto’s steps pause.

He considers his situation.

He is with two boys who he doesn’t know that well—one of which he technically just knew today. He is in a run-down alley in a strange place he has never been before, about to meet a “vet” (slash mechanic slash “scary lady”) who is a stranger and, for all Shouto knows, could be a maniac serial killer of some sort. He considers all of this, and then comes to a conclusion that is less of a conclusion and more of another questioning consideration.

Is this, Shouto ponders, what people call ‘shady’?

Shouto looks at the food he is currently carrying. And then he looks back at the entrance to the alleyway. He could, he supposes, drop all this stuff and just go home. Shouto is the kind of person that does what he wants, after all. So he could. If he wants to. 

Does he want to?

“Todoroki-kun?” 

Shouto looks back. Deku and Shinsou have stopped talking and are now staring at him from afar. Deku looks questioning. Shinsou looks uncaringly questioning. Deku calls out to him. “What’s the matter?” 

Does he?

“Nothing,” Shouto says, and walks after them.

The shop has no signboards, and it looks more like a garage than a shop, now that Shouto has gotten a closer look. It isn’t particularly big. There are tires assorted on the wall along with varying types of tools Shouto doesn’t know the names of. There is a motorcycle in the middle of the open room—a big one, sleek and black. And underneath it—lying on what looks like a board with wheels—is a mechanic.

She looks like a mechanic, anyway. Her face is obscured with a welding helmet, its rusty surface reflected by the sparks flying out of the electric saw in her hands. She seems to be fixing the motorcycle. Or perhaps taking it apart. 

“Heya,” Deku says. He is closer to the mechanic than the rest of them—almost uncomfortably so. He doesn’t seem to be scared of the flying sparks or the grinding blade of the saw as he crouches down on the floor. “Busy night?”

Shouto thinks the mechanic doesn’t hear him, but then abruptly, the machine stops. “Shop’s closed,” she says into the sudden silence, her voice distorted under the mask. And then the screeching continues again. 

“That’s too bad,” Deku says, his voice nearly inaudible under all the noise. “Guess all this food’s gonna go to waste, then.”

The screeching stops. “Fajar’s?”

“Fajar-jisan’s,” Deku confirms. 

With a whir, she slides out of—it is a board with wheels—underneath the motorcycle. She has grease all over her overall. She doesn’t take off her welding mask as she turns to look at Deku, Shinsou, and then finally Shouto. Shouto stares back at the black lens gazing at him. Her saw is still in her hand. “I have no interest in babysitting,” that distorted voice says.

“Not even for chocolate?” Deku says. He is no longer crouching, now circling the motorcycle like it’s an exhibit. “Ooh, you’ve made a lot of progress. Have you gotten it to work yet?”

“What do you want.”

“Just checking in,” Deku says amiably. His hands are clasped behind his back as he skips to his designated spot between Shinsou and Shouto. “And Shinsou-kun misses his dog very much.”

“It’s not my—” Shinsou cuts himself off the moment that welding mask turns to look at him. “Uh. Hi. K—Kai-san.” Was that a stutter. 

The mechanic—Kai-san, apparently—acknowledges the greeting with a tilt of her head. Her gaze moves back to Shouto. Shouto stares back at her. There is a sudden silence in the air. Shouto notices, blandly, that both Shinsou and Deku are also looking at him. As if he is expected to do something or whatever. 

“What,” Shouto says. 

Shinsou looks exasperated, but Deku smiles. He has slotted himself in between Shouto and the mechanic. “Todoroki-kun, Todoroki-kun,” Deku says, gesturing here here, as if beckoning Shouto to come closer. Shouto obeys. “This is Kai-san, our resident mechanic slash vet slash … hm … jack of all trades, I suppose! And Kai-san, this is..?”

Oh. They want introduction. Then why didn’t just say so. “Todoroki,” Shouto says. A bow is expected here, he thinks belatedly. He does not bow. “Todoroki Shouto.”

Shouto finds his back slapped heartily—for the second time today, he realizes. When had Deku even moved behind him. “There we have it. Todoroki-kun is my classm—oops, my school mate, I mean. So. May we come in?” Another silence. He raises another plastic bag. “We have cake too, by the way.”

Silence again. And then. “What flavor.”

“Told you already, it’s choco—”

Before Deku finishes saying chocolate, the mechanic puts her saw to the nearby desk and walks forward. It takes Shouto a second to understand what she intends to do before she drags the roller shutter to the ground, effectively closing up her shop. Before she turns back to look at them, she takes off her mask with her gloved hand.

The mechanic-slash-vet is tall, but not taller than him. There is something striking in her stance, however—and her overall doesn’t hide her broad shoulders, or her stature. Shouto thinks of Natsuo. Natsu-nii is aware of his imposing figure—it’s apparent in his manner, in how he carries himself, friendly and open like he wants to make sure people know that he isn’t a threat.

This person, too, is aware of her figure. Shouto is sure of that, because she carries herself like she wants people to know she is a threat. And she somehow looks more threatening without the mask obscuring her face.

Perhaps it’s the scar. Shouto wonders if he has the same effect on people, and if he utilizes it as effectively as she does.

“Don’t touch anything,” she tells them, her voice a low alto. And then she disappears inside the only door leading to what presumably is the entrance to her house, or her veterinary clinic, or a place where she’ll kill Shouto and dispose of his body. That probably won’t happen. Shouto could probably kill her if he tries really hard. He could probably kill her and Shinsou and Deku altogether—assuming the two of them are in it from the beginning, but also regardless of that assumption—if he tries really really hard.

So it’s probably fine that he’s locked in a room with three people he doesn’t really know. Shouto is most of the time with people he doesn’t really know anyway because Shouto really knows, like, only two people in total. And that’s counting in Natsu-nii, who he probably doesn’t really really know that well.

So it’s probably fine.

“I’m sooo hungry,” Deku says, skipping to enter the door as Shinsou and Shouto follow obediently behind. “Kai-san, can we borrow some utensils? The plastic spoons are gonna be useless..”

“Oi.”

“What.”

“Your phone,” Shinsou says. “It’s been ringing for a while.”

Shouto’s phone buzzes again in his pocket. “So.”

Shinsou scrunches his nose. “Ugh, whatever,” Shinsou says. “Talking to you is like talking to a piece of—” he makes a vague gesture. “A piece of. Cardboard.”

“Do you talk to pieces of cardboard often,” Shouto says.

“Fuck you,” Shinsou says.

“Girls, girls, please,” Deku says.

“We should do a rematch one of these days, Todoroki,” Shinsou says. “How ‘bout that, huh?”

“I don’t encourage self-endangering behavior,” Shouto says.

“Ladies!” Deku says. “Not on the dinner table, please.”

It’s not exactly a dinner table. It counts as a kitchen counter, he supposes. Shouto shifts on his seat, one of the three high, battered wooden stools lined up next to the counter. It’s quite uncomfortable. He glances around. Deku has led them to a nook that approximates as a kitchen, with cupboards and a stove and an oven and a fridge, which Deku opens to store in the cakes. He looks comfortable here, that careless, easy-going gait persistent as he traverses the space. As if he’s been here often, or as if it's his own place. 

It could probably be. Shouto hasn’t thought much about that—about where Deku might live. Or where he came from. It never really crosses his mind, to be honest. Deku is just … there. It’s difficult to imagine that Deku might have come from somewhere, as if Deku had not simply burst into existence one day with a top hat and a cape full of secrets and presumably a shitload of coins kept up his sleeves. Shouto has just always assumed that that was Deku’s factory setting.

Shouto looks around at the place that could or could not be Deku’s place. Shouto has never gone to other people’s houses before. The only house he has ever been, he realizes for the first time, is only his own. And this doesn’t look anything like his house. 

The ceiling is low and the space is … small. Not cramped, but definitely small. It functions, perhaps, as a living room that doubles as a working space. Judging from the desk on the other corner, which is also the messiest spot in the room. There are various mechanical looking stuff scattered on it, with a single desk lamp shining on them. Gadgets and wrenches and what not. And what looks like perhaps a blueprint. 

Other than that, there isn’t really much else. The room is smaller than Shouto’s bedroom. The light is dim and the floor is pure concrete, without flooring—following Deku and the mechanic-slash-vet’s example, Shouto hadn’t taken his shoes off. The walls aren’t even painted, a dull gray. Likewise, the ceilings are exposed; the lights are tube fluorescent lamps hanging on cables and metal fixtures. Aside from that, all the furniture looks old. Not old in design, but in age. It is clean, though—clean and dry, and somewhat colorless. The single spot of color in the room is a potted plant, a few paces away from the window. The flowers are pink, but the limp, sad shade of pink. Shouto doesn’t know the name of that particular limp, sad shade of pink.

“Here you go,” Deku has, while Shouto isn’t looking, pulled out a couple of plates from the cabinets. Shouto stares at the metal spoon and fork placed inside his plate. “You can’t eat this stuff with chopsticks,” Deku explains. “They use a different kind of rice—it doesn’t really stick together like Japanese rice does. Traditionally you eat nasi padang with hands anyway.”

Shinsou looks unsure. “Is it all right to eat without her..?” He is staring at a door on the other side of the room, where the Vet/Mechanic/Kai-san has gone into when Shouto isn’t looking. It’s just the three of them huddling in the corner.

Deku looks unbothered as he deftly unwraps the greasepapers. “She won’t mind,” he says lightly.

“Do you live here,” Shouto says.

Deku looks amused by this, glancing at Shouto with a smile as if Shouto just told an inside joke. “Now that she will definitely mind,” he says. “No, I don’t. Ooh, you should come to my place though, Todoroki-kun. We can, dunno, do math homeworks and stuff.”

Shouto stares. He tries to imagine Deku doing mundane things like math homeworks. It’s an impossible visual. 

“Not sure if gen kids and hero kids have the exact same curriculum though,” Deku turns to Shinsou. “Do we?”’ 

“How should I know?” Shinsou glances at Shouto, flat. “Maybe they have something special like, battle combat math course or something. Don’t you, Pro-Hero Shouto?”

“Do gen kids have a stand-up comedy course,” Shouto says. “Pro-Hero Mindjack.”

“What did I say about fighting at the dinner table,” Deku says.

Once the food is unwrapped, the scent of spice hits his nose; shockingly rich, weirdly foreign, and somewhat—Shouto curiously notes—spicy. “What’s these.”

“That’s beef,” Deku helpfully points out. “That’s chicken, those are eggplants, and … are you a picky eater, Todoroki-kun?”

Shouto picks a piece of beef with his fork. “Not really,” he says, putting it in his mouth. He chews. Swallows. And then he picks another piece. Deku stares at him curiously, a hand underneath his chin. “This is the first time I see you eat something that is not soba,” he notes. “How’s it?”

“It’s good.” It’s amazing, actually. He tries the chicken. “What is this called again.”

“Nasi padang. I think the beef is called rendang, but not sure if I pronounced that right. Aren’t you gonna try, Shinsou-kun?”

“Is it spicy?” Shinsou says, staring dubiously at his plate. He nudges at a piece of eggplant. “It smells spicy. Eggplants, you say?”

“Ah,” Deku nods sagely. He has pulled the chair to the other side of the counter, sitting snugly on it. Shouto wonders if his feet touch the ground. “You’re a picky eater.”

“A little,” Shinsou admits. “Is it spicy?”

“Mm, not so much, actually … oh,” Deku’s brows rise the moment Shinsou tentatively puts a piece of eggplant in his mouth. “How is it?”

It did smell good, even back at Fajar’s restaurant—good, if a little strong. But this is—

“This is so fucking good,” Shinsou says. “Fuck.”

Deku looks especially pleased, as if he had been the one who had personally cooked the dish. “This one is Kai-san’s portion,” he says, tidily putting stuff into tupperwares he has somehow procured somewhere in the kitchen. “She’s not gonna eat with us. She thinks eating with others is like, a show of emotional vulnerability or something.”

“She thinks,” an alto voice says. “That you need to watch what you say.”

The Vet/Mechanic/Kai-san is standing in front of the now-opened door. She closes it immediately, but Shouto catches a glimpse of what looks like a dark hallway. 

“Kai-san!” Deku turns to greet her with a bright smile as if he had not just been talking about her one millisecond ago. “Come sit with us!”

Kai-san has changed out of greasy mechanic’s overall into a long-sleeved shirt and a pair of jeans. She is still, however, wearing gloves—the leather of it reflecting the lamp. She does not respond to Deku’s invitation. Her eyes are even piercing in the low light, yellow dots shining in the dark. Shouto wonders if it’s a manifestation of her Quirk or something else entirely. “Come in after you’re done,” she says, monotone. Her voice is gravelly, like she doesn’t use it often. “And. Wash the dishes.” 

“Sure thing,” says Deku, though she has gone back inside the mysterious room before Deku reaches the end of his sentence.

They wash the dishes within a System in which Deku assigns each of them to do a task—Deku is cleaning the counter, Shouto washing the dishes, and Shinsou drying them. The system lasts for approximately five seconds long.  “You—” Shinsou looks at him, speechless. “What the hell? What are you doing?”

Shouto looks back at him. “Washing the dishes.”

Shinsou is looking at him strangely. “Why on earth are you washing the dishes using the drying cloth?”

Shouto stares wordlessly at Shinsou until the latter takes a square thing sitting at the edge of the sink. “You’re supposed to use this, asshole.”

“What is that.”

“What is—it’s a sponge…” Shinsou’s jaw drops as realization dawns on him. “You don’t know what a sponge is..?”

“Wait, hold on,” Deku comes between the both of them. He sounds fascinated. “Hold on. Todoroki-kun. Have you ever washed dishes before?”

Shouto looks at him. “No,” he answers plainly.

Both Deku and Shinsou stare at him. And then Deku starts laughing. Shinsou looks incredulous. “What..” something flashes across his face—disbelief, awe, and something close to disgust. “Never?” he says. 

“No.”

“Not even once?”

“No.” 

Shinsou stares at him. And then he says, with some kinda horrified realization: “You’re rich..”

Shouto considers the validity of that statement. “Yes,” he says plainly.

Deku is still laughing. “Ohmygod. Okay, okay,” he wipes the corners of his eyes. “Um.” Deku bursts out laughing again. “Um. Okay. Uhh. Todoroki-kun. So … Dishwashing 101..”

“Not even once,” Shinsou repeats to himself, still astonished.

“You put soap into—soap into the sponge,” Deku is still giggling as he directs Shouto on what to do. “The soap is over there—yeah—wait, no, that’s too much! Okay, that’s all right. And then you wet the sponge with some water, like so—”

Dishwashing 101 over, the three of them end up having their uniform wet because Shouto had not known previously that there is in fact a way to wash spoons that would not spray water into your face. “Not too bad,” Deku kindly says. “You can do with more practice, of course.”

“Okay.”

“Not too bad?” Shinsou repeats. He’s wiping his face with a tissue. Shouto had—by complete accident—faced the spoon in Shinsou's direction. By complete accident. One-hundred percent complete accident. “He should not be touching dishes ever again.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Deku says. “I believe in your future as a person capable of dishwashing, Todoroki-kun.”

“Okay.”

“And now,” Deku says, prancing to the door of the other room like the tour leader of the showroom. “We enter the number one pet shelter in all of Chinatown. Are you guys ready?”

“Whatever, man.”

“Okay.”

The door opens to a dark, sparse, narrow hallway that Shouto thinks would be aptly described as ‘dingy’. The hallway has several unmarked doors, and Deku leads them to one right at the end. He knocks—three rhythmical taps—and then swings the door open.

Shouto blinks. The door opens to a bright, spacious room that’s a drastic change from the previous rooms they were in; and unlike them, this room is air conditioned. The cool air is a surprise. The walls are painted baby blue—a contrast to the unpainted walls of the living room—and the room smells like air freshener and, well, dogs and cats. Because there are at least a dozen of them here, each inside their own crates and kennels. 

Mostly cats, though. Shouto stops in front of one. Inside is a small cat—maybe a kitten—licking its paw. It pays Shouto no mind. It’s missing an eye and half an ear. 

“Oh, this one is new,” Deku says, somehow already standing beside Shouto without Shouto noticing it. His feet really are silent. Or maybe he’s just that light. “Cute.”

Shouto watches the cat licks itself for a few more seconds. And then he says, “Is this place licensed.”

He looks at Deku to find him looking right back at him. Deku’s face is neutral, because it always is, as they stare at each other. And then Deku smiles that inside joke smile. 

“No,” Deku says.

Shouto averts his gaze from that smile, looking back at the cat. “I see.” 

“You don’t sound surprised,” Deku says, curious and neutral.

“It’s obvious.” 

“Mm. I suppose it is, isn’t it?” Deku says, still with that bland amusement. “Most of the animals here are rejects from … ah, how did you put it? Licensed pet shelters. Kai-san takes them over before they get euthanized.”

That makes sense. Shouto glances at the end of the room where Kai-san sits on a desk, unperturbed by her guests. “Is she a licensed vet.”

“Mm,” There is a smile in Deku’s voice. “The answer to that question is quite obvious, isn’t it, Todoroki-kun?”

Shouto supposes it is. He says, “Which one’s Nana?”

Nana, apparently, is the one in the crate that Shinsou has been standing silently in front of for the past five minutes. It’s a skinny, ashen pitbull curling itself inside its cage. It’s big—or at least it would be, if it weren’t so bony. There are a lot of patches in its fur, showing pink skin here and there.

Shouto looks at Shinsou. The boy does nothing but stand there, staring at it with an unreadable look on his face. 

“Don’t stand too close.”

It’s the Kai-san person. She is standing behind all of them without Shouto noticing. Shouto blinks. He could swear he just saw her at the end of the room. “She needs space,” she says.

“Sorry,” murmurs Shinsou, taking a step back. “Her leg..”

“It was severely infected,” she says. Her voice is without tone. “It had to be amputated.”

“..Oh,” Shinsou says. “Will she be okay?”

Shouto looks back at the dog. He didn’t notice it due to its position, but it’s missing one of its hind legs. The dog isn’t looking at any of them, instead staring at the base of its crate. 

“It’s possible that she may make full recovery eventually with the right care.” She says it all succinctly and matter-of-factly. She turns to look at Shinsou. “You want to take care of her.”

“No, I never—” Shinsou cuts himself short. That unreadable look returns to his face. “I don’t know. I mean, I can’t. My … place doesn’t allow pets.”

She doesn’t look bothered by Shinsou’s answer. “It’s difficult to take care of abused pets,” she says flatly. “You may not be capable of it.” 

Shouto looks at Shinsou, who is looking at the dog. The expression on Shinsou’s face is still unreadable. If what she said bothers him, it doesn’t really show. “Will she stay here?” Shinsou says. “Until someone adopts her?”

She has started walking back to her desk at the corner. Her steps are silent. “Yes.”

“Can I visit her until then?” Shinsou says. 

She stops. She turns to look at Shinsou silently. Her scar is much more visible now in the bright lighting, skin jagged and raised around her eyes, the color a slick pink. Her scar, Shouto idly thinks, gives the impression that someone had dragged a knife across her face to gouge her eyes out.

Shouto idly wonders if they’d succeeded.

“Of course you can! Duh,” Deku says cheerfully, answering for her. “We’re making a prosthetic leg for Nana, so you can come and help if you want. Right, Kai-san?”

Kai-san does not answer. She looks at Shinsou for a few more seconds before continuing to walk to her desk. There is something familiar about the way she walks, but he isn’t sure what. He thinks Kai isn’t going to respond at all, but then he realizes that she’s at her desk to write something down on a scrap of paper. 

She returns to their spot, with that quick, familiar movement. Her face is unflappable—stony. She doesn’t blink, Shouto observes. Maybe she has no need to. Her sclera is matte black, like some kind of metal. “Call before you come,” she says with that toneless voice when she hands the paper to Shinsou. Shouto looks. On the paper—scrawled with surprisingly tidy and feminine handwriting—is a series of numbers.

Shinsou receives it awkwardly. “Oh. Okay. Uh … thanks?”

“This shelter accepts volunteers too, so you can do that if you want!” Deku chirps. “Bath days are so fun. Speaking of, do you need any help right now, Kai-san?”

The place (house? Residence? Work place?) is much bigger than how it looks outside. After washing several of what they told him were ‘litter trays’ (“You’re getting better, Todoroki-kun!” “Better?! Look at me, dammit! I’m all soaked! He did that on purpose!”) they enter another room. This one is smaller than the other, and it’s full of … structures.

“This is a playpen for the cats, basically,” Deku explains. “We bring the dogs outside for their daily activities but not the cats. We have more cats than dogs because they’re less likely to get adopted, so Kai-san made this room specifically for them to play in.”

“She made..” Shinsou says, looking up. “All of this?”

Shouto looks up too. There are at least five—oh, six cats in the room. All of them are spread all around the space, prancing and climbing and walking in that particular way cat walks where it’s less of walking and more like tiptoeing their way through time and space like they own time and space. And there are a lot of spaces for them to tiptoe through, because the room looks like…

“This is like,” Shinsou sounds awed. “Like an entire cat city complex corn maze or some shit.”

The structures are winding and elaborately architectured. Spiraling walkway around a pole in the middle of the room. Stairs, a lot of stairs adorning the walls with bridges connecting them from one corner of the room to the other. Shouto touches the nearest one, a zig-zagging, climbing series of blocks with holes in them. It’s wooden—unpainted, like the rest of the structures. Shouto supposes paint would be unnecessary—cats are nearly colorblind by nature.

“Isn’t it amazing? Kai-san is a very handy mechanic. Oh, I helped too!” Deku announces. Proudly, he skips around the room to point at a structure in the corner. “I made this.”

What he points to is a … some sort of a gate located on one of the walkways. The gate is a wooden piece—the only one that’s painted—crudely shaped into … Shouto tilts his head. “Is that All Might.”

Deku beams. “It is All Might!”

It is All Might, Shouto thinks, if All Might is a piece of plywood horrifically drawn and painted by someone who has zero talent for portrait illustration in their body. At least Shouto now knows that there is in fact something Deku is bad at. “What happened to his teeth.” 

“The cats love the teeth! They’re to scratch their backs on. See? Pita adores it.”

As if on cue, an orange cat tiptoes its way to the walkway, slipping effortlessly through All Might’s gaping mouth. It does seem to enjoy the effects of All Might’s great white shark teeth on its backs. “You like Heroes.”

“Like? No, no,” Deku solemnly puts a hand over his heart. “I love Heroes. My favo—”

Shinsou coughs loudly. Deku turns, blinking at him. “You good, Shinsou-kun?”

“Yeah,” Shinsou coughs. “Just choked on my spit. No problem.”

“M’kay. Anyway,” Deku continues cheerfully, scratching the underside of a purring kitten’s chin—Aspen is its name, apparently. “My favorite is All Might!” As if it’s not obvious enough. “I like Crimson Riot, I like the Wild Wild Pussycats, I love Miruko … ooh, I’m also a big fan of Eraserhead.”

“Aizawa-sensei?”

“Yep! He’s your homeroom teacher, right? I’m soo jealous,” Deku sighs dreamily. “I think he’s, like, so cool. I would so love to have his autograph, y’know. Think you can ask him for me?”

Shouto imagines going up to Aizawa-sensei and asking him for his autograph. He wonders what Aizawa-sensei would say. He can hear Aizawa-sensei’s voice saying flatly: Todoroki, what is this for. Todoroki, don’t you have better things to do. Todoroki, you might want to work on your sense of priority. “Maybe,” Shouto says.

“Nice. Make sure he writes ‘For my biggest fan, Midoriya Izuku’, okay? Oh, by the way, Shinsou-kun is also a huge fan of Aizawa-sensei—”

“Oi,” Shinsou says.

“—so you should ask for two autographs. I think Shinsou-kun is too shy—”

“Oi.”

“—to ask for himself. Make sure he writes ‘For my second biggest fan—’”

The cats look generally unbothered by their presence, despite Deku and—huh—Shinsou’s attempts. Shinsou is especially, surprisingly enthusiastic. “Damn, I didn’t bring my cat treats with me,” Shinsou mutters. He is currently trying his best to coax a white cat with his hands. He is making a strange pss pss sound with his mouth. Shouto had not known that making pss pss sound with your mouth increase the chances of having a cat come up to you.  “Hey girl. Hey girl. Pss pss.” Shinsou’s pss pss strategy, Shouto notices, is not working.

“Chawal doesn’t like people much,” Deku says sympathetically. “Chawal-san? Chawal-san? Aw, see, she hates me too.”

Cats are quiet, Shouto notices, unlike the dogs. Some of the dogs were barking back then as they passed through, but these cats are content to just lounge about as if humans didn’t exist. One catches Shouto’s eye—so black that it looks like a shadow, lounging gracefully at the corner of the room. It doesn’t seem to care about Shouto's existence either.

“That one’s Cat.”

Shouto pauses. “They’re all cats.”

Deku snorts. “I mean, her name is Cat.”

“The cat’s name,” Shouto repeats flatly. “Is Cat.”

Deku laughs. “Take it up with Kai-san’s. Cat’s hers,” he says. “You have to talk to her before you pet her, by the way. She’s blind.”

Shouto looks back at the cat. Its eyes are muddy white, stark against its black fur. “Hello,” Shouto says. Its ear twitches, a little, but it might just be Shouto’s imagination. Something about the cat looks mature. Old, even. How does cat years work again. “Can I pet you.”

Cat does not respond. It blinks slowly. 

“She isn’t hostile,” Deku says, once again already standing beside Shouto without him noticing. How does he do that. “You can try.”

Shouto does. Its fur is soft, and it closes its eyes as Shouto scratches its chin, mirroring what Deku did with that other cat. It makes a purring sound. Shouto pauses. He scratches the cat again. It purrs again.

Huh.

Unlike Deku, Shinsou makes noise when he ambles to pet the cat, like how normal people do. “She’s pretty,” Shinsou murmurs, petting the spot behind the cat’s ears. “Cat, Cat. Good girl, aren’t you? So pretty. Cat, Cat.” 

Cat purrs. Shouto stares. Something about the expression on Shinsou’s face surprises him. Something pleased. But more than that, it looks open. Like the way Natsuo-nii looks when he laughs. 

Like the way Shouto isn’t capable of. 

“Are you a cat person or a dog person, Todoroki-kun?”

Shouto looks away from Shinsou, turning to look at Deku. “What’s that.”

Deku blinks. And then he and Shinsou look at each other before looking back at Shouto. After a pause, Shinsou says, slowly. “..A cat person is someone who likes cats. Dog person—and this might surprise you—is someone who likes dogs.”

“Shinsou-kun right here is a textbook example of a cat person,” Deku says. Shinsou rolls his eyes but does not make an argument. “So, yeah. Which one are you?”

Shouto thinks about it. He never had a pet. He thinks there was a time where he wanted to, a long time ago. “They’re both okay.” He never interacted much with either. This is the first time he ever touched a cat, he thinks. It’s quite pleasant. Maybe Shouto could be a cat person. “What about you.”

Deku blinks. “Me? Well..” Deku taps his chin thoughtfully as if he never considered the question for himself before. “Both too, I guess? I think I like people more, though..” Deku pauses the moment he realizes Shouto and Shinsou are staring at him. “What?”

“Did you just compare people to pets,” Shinsou says flatly.

Deku laughs. “People are more interesting..? Don’t get me wrong, I like animals,” he amends. “But they’re so … mm … predictable?”

“What?” Shinsou makes a face. He’s taken Cat into his arms now, holding it like a baby. The Cat does not complain. “And you like … people more because they aren’t? And anyway, who the hell likes people. What kinda creepy ass psychopathic answer is that.”

This is the first time Shouto has ever seen Deku look offended. It’s a curious expression to see on his face. Just like every other expression that has ever crossed Deku’s face, however, it somehow still looks playful. “Hey, I’m an ENFJ, y’know! You introverts wouldn’t be able to empathize with how I feel..”

“You’re not an extrovert,” Shinsou accuses. “You’re more than an extrovert. You’re like, a socializing machine or something. How do you even know this many people? It’s weird as hell.”

“Oh, I get around,” Deku says with an easy wave of his hands. He talks animatedly, Shouto realizes, even without a crowd to perform for. “You can’t go anywhere these days without social networking, y’know? That’s important especially for you Heroes-to-be,” the last bit sounds like a scold. “You two might have su-per cool Quirks but if you don’t start brushing up on your people skills, you’ll get in trouble in the future, y’know?”

He is definitely scolding them now. Shouto blinks. Shinsou flusters. “Super—” Shinsou’s cheeks redden. “Oh, shut up.”

“Hey, you know I’m right. Nowadays it’s all about publicity, publicity!” Deku has his hands on his hips authoritatively as he looks up sternly at them, like a very small and disappointed teacher. “You’ve got to be sociable, or it’s no good! And I can hear you thinking,” he points at Shinsou. “‘Midoriya, don’t you know Underground Heroes need to stay away from the spotlight!’”

To Shouto’s amusement and—judging from Shinsou’s expression—Shinsou’s horror, Deku somehow manages to sound like Shinsou perfectly. His high tenor has dropped into Shinsou’s baritone and on top of that, his voice somehow adopts Shinsou’s slight, northern Musutafu drawl. The grumpy expression Shinsou always wears is apparent on Deku’s face. “What the hell was that—”

Deku doesn’t seem impressed by his own impression, however, instead marching through his argument like he didn’t somehow manage to imitate Shinsou’s mannerism perfectly. “Well, Pro-Hero Mindjack-san, where do you think Underground Heroes got their information from, hm? From their allies. And to make allies, you’ve got to have a mean skill in networking. Capisce?”

Shouto and Shinsou stare at him.

Deku snaps his fingers suddenly. “Ooh!” The stern expression disappears as Deku beams at them. The change is almost disorienting. “Speaking of networking, check this out.” 

Deku leans forward as if to pet Cat in Shinsou’s arms, hand disappearing behind the cat’s ears. When he takes his hand back, a card has magically appeared itself in his hand.

“Ta-dah!” Deku proudly announces. “A name card. Isn’t this the coolest thing ever?”

Written on the white laminated card is Deku’s Magic Show!!! written in the English alphabet complete with the exclamation marks. Underneath is a series of numbers—Deku’s phone number, Shouto assumes. There is also a testimony written in a smaller font: “Pretty good show.” - Miya (6). On the center of the card is a drawing whose style Shouto recognizes immediately. 

Shinsou does too, apparently. “Did Tocchan draw that?”

“He did!” Deku sounds so proud as if he was the one who drew it himself. “Isn’t it so good? So talented that kid, I swear.”

It’s a drawing of Deku’s grinning face, complete with freckles. There are bunny ears sprouting from his top hat.

“He made me look like All Might.”

Shouto looks up at that. Deku is still looking down at his own name card. “With the ears and the smile. He made me look like All Might.”

There is that smile again on Deku’s face—the one he saw Deku wore when he talked to a Quirkless little girl with butterflies in her hands. A gentle curve. This one smile, Shouto realizes, doesn’t have amusement in it. Just warmth.

And then the smile is gone. “Miya did draw another version, though,” Deku says, “but I fear her vision was too avant garde to share with the general public.” With a twhip of his fingers, the card disappears.

“How do you do that.”

“What, this?” The card reappears again between his fingers, but it’s a different card—this one is a joker. The amusement is back on Deku’s face. “Oh, you know. Magic.” He snaps his fingers again, and it turns back to the name card. Snap, back to joker. “Nifty little trick, huh?” Snap, snap, snap—the card keeps changing.

“The back of the card is a joker, isn’t it,” Shinsou says drily.

Deku pouts. “Boo,” he says, turning the back of the card to show that it is, in fact, a joker card on the back. “We have a name for people like you, Shinsou-kun—heckler! You are the enemy of all magicians out there.”

“Goodness, I’m terrified. Whatever shall I do.”

“Where did you learn all these things,” Shouto asks him.

“Mm … honestly? 360p videos on Youtube. Haha!”

“Really,” Shouto says.

Deku pauses, looks at Shouto. The other smile is back on his face—the one that has an inside joke with the rest of the world. “You wanna know how, Assistant-kun?” he says, though it's more like a coo. To Shouto’s surprise, Deku leans into Shouto’s space, eyes big with mirth. “Wanna learn … magic?”

Shouto starts when Deku makes a move as if to take something from behind Shouto’s ear—but the skin contact never happens. Deku leans back in a quick gesture and in his hand, between his fingers, is a piece of cat treat.

Deku hands the piece to Cat. It eats it and purrs. “Oops, I think I still got some more,” Deku says. “One moment, please.” With fascination, Shouto watches as Deku taps the side of his own ear, as if he has some water stuck inside. “Ah, there we go.” Pieces of cat food somehow fall out of Deku’s other ear. With one fluid moment, he catches them mid-air and proceeds to feed them to the Cat, who eats it eagerly. “Whew.”

“..I would be impressed if you weren’t so annoying,” says Shinsou, who sounds like he is trying hard not to sound impressed.

“Would you be impressed if I do thi—thi—thi—AH-CHOO!” Deku sneezes theatrically. To the delight of all the cats in the room, pieces of cat food fall all over the floor in a rattle. Deku sighs, kneeling down to pat all the cats who have come for his sneezed up cat treats. “Ugh. I think my spring allergy is acting up.”

Shinsou has stopped trying to not sound impressed. “You’re just showing off at this point, damn it.”

“A little, yeah,” Deku admits with a shameless grin. He plucks another piece of cat treat from thin air. “This is my favorite trick. It’s called Miser’s Dream,” he hands the treat over to Aspen. “It’s traditionally performed with coins, though, hence the name. Anyway! Magic 101.”

Shouto stares questioningly at Deku, who has stood up. “Open up your palm, Todoroki-kun.”

Shouto obeys. Deku puts a piece of cat treat inside his palm. “Okay,” Deku says. “Now you have to convince me that your hand is empty.”

Shouto looks at the cat treat. And then looks at Deku. And then looks at the cat treat again. And then he looks at Deku again. Deku rolls his eyes playfully. “Oh, come on, Todoroki-kun. It’s so simple. It’s like, taking a toy from a baby,” Deku says. “Or taking a phone from a guy.”

Shouto opens his mouth, and then immediately closes it again. He turns, putting his hand into his back pocket—

“Looking for this?” says Deku, waving Shouto’s phone in front of his face. Deku laughs as he hands it over to Shouto, who is still staring dumbfoundedly at him. “You have a lot of notifications, by the way.”

“Are you fucking kidding me,” Shinsou says, vocalizing Shouto’s feelings perfectly. “When did you even—you were there the whole time, I didn’t even see you—”

“Of course you didn’t,” Deku says. “I didn’t tell you to.”

“What?”

“What.”

“I didn’t, did I?” Deku tilts his head at them. “I told you to look at Shouto’s hands to make sure his hands are empty. And by doing so, I convinced you that my hands are empty,” he claps his hands together. “Simple, isn’t it?”

It is. “Distraction.”

Deku snaps his fingers to Shouto’s direction. He looks pleased, like a teacher whose students manage to come up with an excellent answer. “Very close. You’re getting it, Todoroki-kun! We might make a magician out of you yet, ” he says. He spreads his arms as if he were on a stage and bows. “And that, my beloved spectators, is Magic 101. Thank you, thank you—oof!” Deku makes a move as if catching something mid-air and somehow, there are flower stalks in his hands as if he is receiving them from his non-existent audience. “Oh! You’re so kind. Thank you.”

“..Do you really keep those flowers on you,” Shinsou says after a silent pause. “All the time. Just in case you can use them for a bit.”

Deku stops bowing. “One never knows when one might need a fake rose,” Deku says wisely, slipping the fake roses back inside his UA vest. “Or a playing card. Or a shitload of coins. Or—”

“So it’s really not your Quirk.”

Deku pauses. He looks over at Shouto, looking amused. But then again, when isn’t he? “I’ve told you. If it’s a Quirk, then I’m not a magician, am I?”

“What’s your Quirk, then.”

Deku bursts into laughter. 

Next to Shouto, Shinsou shakes his head. “Man. If you think asking him his Quirk will help you understand whatever the fuck is going on with him,” Shinsou says sourly, “take it from me. It fucking won’t.” 

“You wanna know what my Quirk is, Todoroki-kun?” Deku says, a coo. “Sure, I’ll tell you.” 

And then Deku tells him.

Shouto stares. And then stares some more.

“What’d I tell you?” Shinsou says, flat, to Shouto’s speechlessness. “Doesn’t fucking help, does it?”

The three of them separate at the train station. 

Shinsou and Deku are apparently going in the same direction (“Shinsou-kun and I live nearby each other, so if you’re visiting, it’s a two in one deal!” “Do you just say things out of your mouth?”) so Shouto enters his train alone.

He glances at his phone. Eight fifty-five in the PM. Ten missed calls and twenty unread text messages.

He returns his phone to his pocket. 

It is quite far. When he gets back to his complex, it’s already nine thirty. Shouto flashes his ID card to the residential security guard before they let them in.

The Todoroki household is the biggest house in the complex. 

The residence itself is located south of Musutafu, where property prices are skyrocketing every year as Musutafu’s Heroics industry thrives. Shouto walks in an unhurried pace, tracing his familiar steps to his house. He hadn’t been allowed to go outside his house by himself until he was twelve. Before that he always had to be accompanied by someone, like his sister, or an employee from the agency. It wasn’t often, those outings. But Shouto vaguely remembers the first time Fuyumi-nee took him to a bubble tea shop. Shouto has always ordered the same thing ever since: taro milk tea with fifty percent sugar and thirty percent ice.

His steps stop. He glances at his phone. Nine thirty-five in the PM. fourteen missed calls and thirty-three unread text messages.

He opens his phone. Ignores all the missed notifications and instead goes into the group chat Deku had made for the three of them. Text me when you get home, m’kay, he’d said.

I’m home, Shouto types in. Sent. 

He pockets his phone back. And then he pushes the bell.

The gate opens almost immediately and Shouto looks into his sister’s face. His sister’s panicked, angry face. “Shouto,” she says, voice tight. “What were you thinking?”

Fuyumi-nee is rarely ever angry. Shouto doesn’t really remember any instances of her even raising her voice, unless in the instances where he had seen her cry. “Sis,” Shouto says.

Her throat bobs. Shouto had hit his growth spurt abruptly just last summer. It’s still strange to be looking down at her like this. Stranger even that it doesn’t make Shouto feel bigger than her. “Where have you been?”

Where has Shouto been?

It’s a little complicated to explain, he realizes. He had been at the hospital, and then at Chinatown, and then at an illegal pet shelter. He doesn’t answer, because he knows if he answers it’ll probably be a lie. And Shouto never lies to Fuyumi-nee. Lying to Fuyumi-nee is like trying to keep your eyes open when you sneeze. “Out.”

“Out?” she echoes.

“Yes.”

Oh, she is angry. The expression looks strange on Fuyumi-nee’s face. Shouto is far more accustomed to seeing that expression in the mirror, or on Todoroki Enji’s face.

Her jaw clenches. “Do you know,” she starts. “How worried I’ve been? Shouto. Why haven’t you been answering your phone?”

Shouto doesn’t really have an answer. “I don’t know,” he says, because it’s the truth.

“Were you going to the hospital?”

Shouto pauses. Blinks. Looks at her. 

“Were you,” no, she isn’t angry. Anger is not all there is, on her face. “Were you seeing mom?”

Shouto doesn’t lie to her. “No,” he says, and ignores the way it makes the fire alarm rings in his stupid fucking head just to say it. “I was out with.” Shouto doesn’t lie, so he doesn’t say friends, because he isn’t sure if saying friends would be a lie. “Schoolmates.”

Her expression doesn’t soften so much as it breaks. “Oh, Shouto.” And then she says, “He’s looking for you.”

Shouto looks past her. The front door is half-opened. “I know.”

“Shouto. He’s—” her jaw clenches again. “Shouto. He isn’t happy.”

He still has his cake, he remembers. He has to put it in the fridge later on so it’ll still be good to eat tomorrow. “Okay.”

“Shouto.”

Shouto stops walking. He turns back to look at her. That expression is more familiar on her, he thinks. That fear. “Yes, nee-san.”

She is still wearing her work clothes—a button-up and jeans. Her makeup is a little smudged. She must’ve been waiting for him the moment she got off from work, not even bothering to shower or change her clothes. Shouto should’ve answered her text, at least. 

This shouldn’t be her job. Not anymore. This is, what, her second year teaching? She has a full time job now. And Shouto is in high school. She shouldn’t be babysitting him anymore. She shouldn’t be waiting for Shouto just to tell him that his father might beat the shit out of him. Not anymore. 

But it is, because Shouto is the way that Shouto is.

He’s such a piece of shit.

“Shouto,” she says. “If he—if he—” It’s been a while since he’s seen her like that. Uncomposed. Unsure. Fearful. She stops, looks down. And then looks back at him. “Have you eaten,” she says, softly.

“I have.”

“Okay,” she says. “Okay. I’ll go inside with you.”

“Okay,” Shouto says, because it never makes any difference.

She closes the front gate. Shouto takes off his shoes and exchanges them for his house slippers. Does he have homework for tomorrow, he idly thinks. He doesn’t remember. Doesn’t matter. He can just do it in the morning. He always goes to class early. 

He wonders if Natsuo-nii has gone home. Probably not. 

“He’s in the dojo,” Fuyumi-nee says beside him. “He was—he was checking in on your training. But you weren’t there.”

Shouto’s curfew is five-thirty in the PM. His training starts at six-thirty every night on the dot. “Okay.”

“Shouto—where are you going..?”

The dojo is located on the first floor, in the east compound of the house. Shouto, however, is walking to the kitchen. He puts his bag on the kitchen table and brings out the cake box carefully out of it. “What’s that?”

Shouto opens the fridge. “Cake,” he answers.

“Your schoolmates … gave it to you?”

“Yes.” They return to walk towards the dojo. 

“It’s great,” she says softly beside him, “that you have friends.”

Shouto doesn’t want to lie to her, so he says nothing. 

The dojo is a familiar sight. Shouto remembers when the door used to feel so tall to him as a child. Now, he can touch the ceiling if he stretches his hand. 

Before Shouto slides the door open, Fuyumi-nee stops him. “Let me,” she tells him lowly just before she opens the door. “Dad? Shouto’s here. He—”

“Fuyumi, leave.”

It’s immediate. It’s funny. Just his voice is enough, Shouto thinks. Just his voice is enough for something in Shouto to burn. Like matchstick to gasoline. Shouto wonders when was the last time he felt like this—so angry and so hateful he could just torch the place down. So hateful he could just kill someone. When was it?

Maybe yesterday?

“Dad,” Fuyumi-nee says, using the voice she always uses at times like this. A voice that’s too calm and too old for someone her age. “Shouto was just—”

“Were you the one who taught him to talk back, Fuyumi?”

He’s sitting on the wooden floor, back turned to them. He never looks at Fuyumi-nee even when he’s talking to her.

“..No,” Fuyumi-nee says. “No, sir. I just—”

“Then why are you,” Endeavor says. “Talking back to me?”

She swallows. Her eyes flicker from Endeavor and then to Shouto, where they stay. “I’ll stay outside, dad,” she says. I’ll stay right here, Shouto, she says. The shoji closes.

Endeavor stands up.

A figure cut hard in the shadow of the unlit dojo. Even after Shouto’s growth spurt, he’s still far taller than Shouto is. Far bigger. 

It used to scare him, Shouto thinks—this. This used to scare him. But now what Shouto’s afraid of isn’t bruises or burns or even boiling hot water. No. What Shouto’s scared of is—

(The number six on an elevator button. Calla Lily, three-one-five. She wouldn’t even remember him, he thinks. Or worse, she does. And maybe she’ll scream when she sees him—if he ever had the bravery to see her, that is..)

—That’s what Shouto’s afraid of.

But this? 

Gas flame eyes. Towering above Shouto. Fists clenched at the side. Shouto’s eyes, by reflex, move to watch those fists. An old, tedious reflex. Boring. 

He hasn’t hit Shouto in a while. At some point it has bored the both of them, the hitting. He hates when Shouto talks back to him but fighting back is encouraged because that’s the entire point of it all. 

Boring. But Shouto has to admit—it’s a pretty effective lesson plan. Shouto doesn’t think he would still be training every day if not for the chance to hurt his father one day.

Nah. Shouto isn’t afraid of this. It used to make him scared, but not anymore. Hate trumps fear. That’s the personal lesson plan Shouto has taught himself.

Quite effective, if you ask him.

“Where have you been?” Endeavor says.

“None of your fucking business,” Shouto says.