Chapter Text
Shouto looked out his window, watching Natsuo and Fuyumi play around the pond. Said playing consisted of Fuyumi shoving Natsuo into the mud, facefirst and then dumping him into the pond with a great big splash. This was the third time Shouto counted Natsuo clambering back out of the pond today.
Shouto watched Natsuo continually get muddier and wetter. Natsuo even slipped as he dodged another one of Fuyumi’s daggers.
It looked fun.
“Todoroki, please look at your screen. Class isn’t over yet” The video of Aizawa-sensei on Shouto’s laptop screen just let out a deep breath.
“Yes, sensei.” Shouto turned back to face his laptop again. His phone continued vibrating with new incoming texts - a quick glance showed that it was the class group chat.
Shouto didn’t understand why the group chat was still discussing Touya’s brief appearance in class today.
Shouto paused and shuffled to the side of the hallway to let his parents through. Father was carrying Mother in the direction of their wing - Mother looked terribly flushed, red faced and breathing heavily like he was ill. Shouto hoped that his Mother didn’t catch COVID while out on the patrol…
One would think that heroes would be considered essential workers, but even most villains were isolating and quarantining somewhere, so most heroes found themselves with a much lighter workload, tackling fewer cases of petty villainy and diving into more cold cases. The police and pro-heroes were utilizing CCTV’s more often in lieu of patrolling, but the top 10 - top 25, to be honest - still remained on active patrol. It was more of a symbolic activity - and a marketing tactic as Midnight-sensei explained - to allow the public to feel reassured that heroes were still active and protecting society.
Twitter kept going wild at every hero sighting and there were more than a few people who rushed out of their homes (against curfew rules and quarantining guidelines) for autographs and signatures. Shouto had to mute the Class 1-A group chat as his classmates kept tagging him with links to the latest Endeavor sightings in Japan, the most recent one being a woman who threw some lingerie at the Flame Hero this morning…
Was the red lace underwear infected with something? Until Mother’s COVID test results came out, Shouto resolved to avoid his parents.
Thus, instead of going to ask Mother for help with the internet, he veered off to where he last saw his big brother napping.
He might had opened the door with more force than intended, but both of his hands were full, juggling an open laptop and his smartphone that was surviving with only a couple percent left of battery.
“I- What? What are you- No. I don’t want to ask.” Enji spun on his heel and pivoted right out of the kitchen, pretending he never saw his husband hunched over a simmering pot of bubbling… liquid, holding a single bullion cube over the liquid like it was a poisonous object.
“For Science!” Gin hollered out at his retreating back.
The protective gear he wore made the words very muffled and nearly unintelligible, but Enji could still hear the capitalized letters in that science.
One of the worst things to come out of this pandemic was Gin’s desire to join in the cooking and baking trend. The results were… interesting in how uninteresting the flavors turned out to be.
24 hour stewed soup with only one bullion cube. Burnt black plantains. Eggs boiled so long the yolk turned green.
Or as Natsuo put it, “The 13th century English peasantry called, they want their flavorless serf food back.”
*
(“It is a cube. You can never underestimate the power of a cube - it is infinitely powerful. Even if it’s only for cooking,” Gin protested, waving his arms in frustration that his message wasn’t getting across to his audience, “cubes are dangerous. DANGEROUS! Just one can turn a man into a butterfly and a butterfly into a soul king-”
“I think that’s enough homemade persimmon wine for you,” Enji interrupted and wrestled the sloshing cup out of Gin’s hand. Gin was so drunk on his own brew that his attempt to dodge left him a sprawled mess on the alcohol-stained tatami mat. He couldn't believe that he was actually wishing for drunk amorous Gin to appear in this instance instead.)
“It would have been nice if your newfound appetite also extended to persimmons,” Father pouted. He sat across the room in the corner furthest away from Mother. Shouto was unsure of the precise reason for this seating arrangement.
Mother levied a glare but kept eating the pickled radishes at a rapid pace, not unlike how Kirishima scarfed down food during lunchtime before the pandemic.
“More rice?” Fuyumi offered, bringing over the second rice cooker. The first one contained the usual white rice, but lately, his family had been using a second rice cooker for cooking brown rice as well. Shouto wasn’t a fan of the brown rice; only Mother appeared to eat the brown rice with gusto.
Previously, Shouto would have attributed such a thing to Mother’s health oriented mindset, but if his eyes weren’t deceiving him… Mother appeared a little softer? His face was rounder and he was wearing sweatpants around the house nearly everyday now.
It wouldn’t only be due to the fact that Mother was no longer doing patrols. Mother had also been sleeping more and generally was less active around the house.
Shouto paused and blinked. “Oh,” Shouto breathed out, eyes widening in surprise. “Oh!”
Four heads swiveled in his direction.
(Father still only had eyes for Mother but that was the norm.)
“Mother is pregnant,” Shouto concluded. That also explained the way that Father hovered around Mother all day, refusing to let Mother do anything too strenuous, including walking up and down any stairs. “Is it a boy or girl?” Shouto inquired. No, wait-
“Or is it too early to tell?” When was the earliest a baby’s gender could be detected? Shouto suddenly found his own knowledge about babies, pregnancy, and all the above to be severely lacking. UA’s sex education never covered any of this either. He would promptly inform Aizawa-sensei of this gap and then do more research in preparation for his younger sibling’s arrival.
His tumblr friends would point him in a good direction to start, yes. That was a good starting point.
*
“Ah, Shouto…” Fuyumi fruitlessly tried to catch her youngest sibling’s attention. “Shouto?” She called again. She snapped her finger for good measure.
“Yes?” Shouto finally looked up and cocked his head to the side.
Fuyumi tried. “It’s not-”
“Mother sprained his hip.” Natsuo interrupted. “It’s Father’s fault.” He jerked his head to glare in the direction of Father’s corner, resembling Enji very much.
Shouto nodded but looked very doubtful.
(Shouto felt very vindicated at his conclusion when, a couple months later, Father arrived home with the family’s youngest child, a girl named Eri with Father’s silver hair and Mother’s quiet demeanor, bundled up in one arm and a much fitter looking Mother in a skin-tight tracksuit highlighting no pregnancy bumps in the other.
So Mother was pregnant after all.
Shouto nodded proudly, failing to understand that Eri, in no way, looked anything like a newborn baby.)
“Sorry, sensei. Father was playing around with my settings yesterday,” Shouto explained at the beginning of class. On screen, a cat showed up in the box labeled as “Todoroki Shouto”.
“Just- whatever.” Aizawa pinched his nose. “Contact UA Tech Support during lunch to remove the cat filter.”
“I don’t have Father’s password.” Shouto said apologetically.
“You- Don’t tell me you still have parental controls locked on your computer?”
Shouto nodded. He could do that.
Aizawa heaved a big tired sigh. “Stay online after class and we’ll figure it out.” He mumbled something else under his breath that Shouto couldn’t hear via Zoom
(Shouto failed to explain that it was Touya that set up said parental controls on his computer a few months ago, around the time of Mother’s birthday, actually. He found it to be quite the impediment when he tried to look up information on Mother’s pregnancy.)