Work Text:
Throughout his life, Shouto had been praised for a lot of things. He had first been praised for his heritage, as though being born in the right family were equivalent to a carefully-honed quirk and not to the result of a random coin toss, as though Endeavor’s miracle child had been crafted for years by his father’s expert hands like a particularly magnificent marble statue (maybe it truly was the case, Shouto had once thought, before he had received the tardy reminder that all he was, he owed to himself). Along came the eulogies about his quirk and the control he had over it, which had been numerous times deemed as “nothing short of incredible for someone so young” -- the pride he was supposed to feel about it sucked away into Endeavor’s vicious thirst for power, dulling and mingling like drops of blood into water, until Shouto ran out of the feeling and started experiencing disgust instead. He had been commended for his looks, once he had grown a little older, once the baby fat in his cheeks had started melting away to leave room for high cheekbones and a thin jaw, the scar under his red fringe making him that much more interesting in the eyes of most of his classmates in middle-school (girls and boys alike, although for different reasons), but in his own a constant remembrance of the loneliness it thrust upon him. Most recently, he had been congratulated on his smarts, both on and off the training field, and while he did admit that he retained information well, he had nothing of Yaoyorozu’s academic talent, Iida’s earnestness, or Midoriya’s keen processing potential (and whatever made Bakugou rank third in grades, although he had absolutely no idea what it could be) -- the A+ currently stamping the corner of his latest exam reiterating the praise Ishiyama-sensei had uttered while dropping the paper on his desk.
One thing Shouto was not often cited for, however, was his attention to detail, and so like all the other things he was not often cited for, he had instead chosen to make it his own job to praise himself for them. That small gift of his he had cultivated with years of careful, remote observation of his surroundings and the people evolving in them, like a cat watching over the street from the tree branch he was perched on, not exactly sure if he wanted to partake in the actual action. He had once wondered when the habit had developed; he at least knew where it came from -- the reasonable, comfortable distance people seemed to keep from him, not as though he was a bomb ready to blow, but more like he was something akin to a statue in a shrine, for which the reverence -- and perhaps the hint of fear -- people felt prevented them for ever straying too close, in case they were spirited away. It had been the case, too, at UA, before someone blew the statue along with the shrine away to the winds and granted him the human warmth he had been denied for so long.
Shouto’s mismatched eyes glanced around the rest of the classroom, reading disappointment or annoyance or elation on his classmates’ faces, until he turned his head and they settled on Midoriya’s, eyebrows drawn in seriousness, green eyes glancing back and forth the paper -- the sheet was hiding the bottom of his face, but Shouto was sure that he was mumbling to himself again. Judging by the furious glances Bakugou threw to the side, he was almost certainly right. Midoriya’s hands turned the paper around, and Shouto gazed down to the scars tearing down the skin like lightning. A wave of guilt tugged at his heart, despite the numerous times Midoriya had assured him it wasn’t his fault, except it kind of was. A part of him found reassurance in these scars, though, as a token of likeness, of understanding between the two of them, an unspoken bond laid bare on their bodies. He had never seen scars on his former classmates.
Midoriya’s eyes glanced up, and the dull sternness in them dissolved into bright cheer. Shouto raised his eyebrows in a silent question, and Midoriya turned his exam to him, thumb half-covering the telltale red A. Shouto had enough time to reply with a smile before he got chided by Ishiyama-sensei for having his back turned away, and he reluctantly faced the dark green of the blackboard instead of that of Midoriya’s hair.
(How did it go for you, Midoriya asked later in that carefully cheerful way, as if Shouto would break from the force of a full expression of his mirth. Shouto showed him his grade with a hint of pride.)
*
For all his attention to detail, Shouto only realized the existence of a library when Midoriya and him had to get shelter from an impromptu storm during one of their now-recurrent sparring sessions. The air was ripe with heavy rain and rolling thunder when they entered the room, floorboards gently creaking under their hushed steps, chairs softly scraping across the wood, rain continuously drumming on the glass windows in a quiet and delicate accompaniment to silence. The only clue to a hypothetical passage of time was the light ticking of a modern clock, hung to the wall near the table Midoriya chose to drop his bag on. They had escaped the weather, thanks to Midoriya’s loyal and trusted umbrella; judging by the wet locks and the drops of water falling to the ground, others had not been so lucky.
They had an assignment to work on anyway, Midoriya said as though their finding their way to a library was the lucky work of fate itself, and rose in order to gather some books about Art History. Shouto’s gaze glided to the windows across the room. The grey rain and greyer sky made everything look like a faded picture, the kind he imagined grandparents kept tucked away in small drawers and smaller albums. The one-two-three of rain and ticking clock and clicking computer keys weaved an odd melody, a hushed anthem of peace where lyrics weren't needed. The soft scent of books old and new brought a small smile to Shouto's face as his thumb absentmindedly caressed a pen. He had loved libraries as long as he could remember. They held their own special brand of comfort in his heart the way only shelves full of stories and wonder could; getting lost in imaginary worlds was one of his favorite hobbies growing up, one of his only reliefs after a hard day of being taught under Endeavor. He still remembered the hushed voice of his sister reading him to sleep after his worst nightmares, and the fact that Midoriya had told him he also loved books, one day, years and years later -- he liked finding common interests between Midoriya and him, and made a mental note of discussing novel recommendations when they had the time.
His fingers metronomed along with the rain while his gaze searched for Midoriya through the maze of shelves. He managed to catch a glimpse of dark green, unruly hair, then of a freckled face as Midoriya picked up an old book with (possibly) yellowing pages. One, two, three, the rain went on and on and on. He seemed to have already picked up quite a few, since he managed to get the book open with some difficulty. His focused fingers flicked through the pages, and for a moment the silent song seemed to follow his lead, but the flutter of leaves came to a sudden stop as Midoriya narrowed his dark eyes in thought -– before looking around in subtle anxiety -– before closing his eyelids as he bent down slightly and breathed in the pages, once, twice, thrice.
It was the cutest thing Shouto had ever seen –- it was, most of all, probably one of the only details he hadn't caught about Midoriya, and as the boy raised his head and looked at Shouto, thunder tore through the sky and smashed Shouto’s heart to smithereens.
As the brilliant white of the bolt faded into color again, Shouto saw Midoriya was now blushing to the root of his hair, freckles disappearing into the red glare of his cheeks, and Shouto muffled a laugh with the back of his hand, crinkling eyes momentarily drawing down -- he didn’t know if he laughed at Midoriya’s embarrassment or at the realization that suddenly dawned upon him but, he knew, had already been there for some time, just waiting to be discovered like a treasure on a pirate map. When he schooled his face into more proper amusement, Midoriya had crossed back to the table, flashing red now bleeding into a calmer pink, expression set both in bashfulness and something else, something Shouto couldn’t quite decipher, a deeper, more wistful feeling.
“You weren’t supposed to see that,” Midoriya stated almost like an order.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Shouto decided to humor him, but it must have been clear from the fond smirk on his face that he definitely did. Midoriya pouted at that, before setting his face into an unreadable smile.
“You laughed, though.”
Shouto’s eyes widened just a bit, enough to convey confusion, pushing Midoriya on.
“You don’t laugh often, so I’m always glad when you do. It suits you.”
He felt his flames wanting to burn bright along with the rush of blood to his face, but managed to restrain both his quirk and his incoming blush, thanking his self-control for small graces.
*
In truth, Shouto had noticed his crush on his friend a long time ago -- how couldn’t he, ever-perceiving as he was? Midoriya’s soft, urgent voice had cheered him on at the Sports Festival, and for a single instant Shouto’s heart had caught on fire along with the rest of him. Shouto had at first elected to ignore it, until somehow Midoriya had found his way in his dreams (Shouto had rarely dreamt before Midoriya; even now, he usually could barely remember anything except for when Midoriya was there, shining with the brilliance of his existence and his providence and the hundred hushed promises he hummed like a song into Shouto’s dream-self’s ears) and then he definitely couldn’t ignore it any longer. A hint of shame and guilt washed over him as he remembered the touch of pride and delight he had felt when he had been the first to come to Midoriya and Iida’s rescue against Stain, as though the mass-text Midoriya had sent was a secret code between just the two of them. He had noticed again when Midoriya had declared his intention to go save Bakugou along with him and Kirishima, and the only thing Shouto had been able to think was that he would follow this boy anywhere should he ask him to.
Yet Shouto had considered his crush to be just that, nothing but a passing infatuation, the result of having made his first true friend, a feeling soon to be diluted into plain friendship and trust, and he had truly thought it had been the case when they had all entered the dorm; he had deemed it as mere background noise, the slight thrumming of his heart against his ribs each time he noticed something more about Midoriya, from the exact way his hair curled when he didn’t brush them in the mornings to the number of freckles on his arms and legs when they trained, from the slight scrunch of his nose when he was focused on something to the way he drank his coffee (drowned under a lot of cream and sugar), from the way his scars snaked up his hand and arm like strokes of paint on a canvas to the very faint beauty spot at the corner of his mouth that he had imagined himself kiss too many times to count. Plus, a real crush was supposed to be utterly debilitating, was it not? (He thought of Yaoyorozu, now incapable of uttering more than two sentences in a conversation with Jirou.)
He walked into the common kitchen, and wondered if the world chose to accommodate itself to his thoughts when he saw Yaoyorozu sitting at the kitchen island.
“Oh, Todoroki.” She smiled with a smile that seemed to say she knew exactly what was on Shouto’s mind and could make very good use of it should she want to. It half-reassured, half-terrified him, if he was being perfectly honest. “What are you doing here?”
“I need coffee,” he answered with a small smile in turn, reaching for a cup in the cupboard overhead. “Do you want some?”
“Only if you’re the one making it.”
“Well, do you see anyone else here?”
“ Touché .” She chuckled good-naturedly.
They fell into a comfortable silence as he busied himself. Frankly, Shouta liked her most than he did most people; apart from the fact that he actually knew her before coming to UA, they seemed to coexist and maneuver in the same kind of world, a world where companionship did not require constant conversation, and while he quite liked the bustling energy most of their classmates possessed, there was a quiet calmness to Yaoyorozu which radiated in waves, like a sole, soundproof room in the middle of a birthday party.
“How many sugars?” He asked once the two steaming mugs were put in front of them.
“Two, please.”
He dropped three. Another smile.
“You know me quite well,” she said, amused.
“Each time people put the exact amount you ask for, you secretly add another. You’re not very discreet, you know.”
She rolled her eyes as she stirred the sugar in, but did not make any other remark.
“Can I ask you something?” Shouto asked after almost burning his tongue (he blew an icy breath over the top of his cup in retaliation). There was no answer but a small hum of acknowledgement. “How… How do you know when you’re in love with someone?”
That seemed to pique her interest -- Shouto saw her eyes widen slightly. “Are you in love, Todoroki?”
“That’s what I want to know.”
She did not push it, and let her gaze drift to the side in thought.
“A lot of people would say that it’s when you cannot stop thinking about what they might be doing, who they might be talking to, what they might be thinking. Some others would tell you that it’s when you want them to be happy, above all else. Not even happy with you, just… happy in general. Sometimes, it’s when you feel like you can’t remember how you used to live before meeting the person.”
Those did not help Shouto in the slightest. He was almost certain, in fact, that he was in love with Midoriya; what he looked for in Yaoyorozu now was confirmation. However, whereas he did wonder about what Midoriya might be doing at this very moment, it was hard to say that he did it often, seeing how they lived in the same dorm and everyone’s schedule was roughly the same as his own. Of course he wanted Midoriya to be happy (he dared not think about how true sadness, true despair would look like on Midoriya’s face, it made him ache too much), but he also wanted Yaoyorozu, or Iida, or Uraraka to be happy -- hell, he even wanted Bakugou to be happy if he could. And he certainly did remember all too well how his life was, before he met Midoriya, and how dramatically it had improved since they had become friends.
“Which one was it for you?” He asked instead.
“None of those,” she immediately replied. “I told you, that’s what people say. What movies teach. The reality’s more complicated,” she said matter-of-factly, and for a moment Shouto was reminded of his sister. She didn’t follow upon her words, however, and after finishing his cup and saying good night, Shouto went to sleep with more questions than answers.
(Ashido cornered him the morning after, knowing smirk on her lips.
“Sooo, I overheard something interesting last night--”
Shouto choked on his morning coffee, under Kirishima’s concerned gaze and Bakugou’s mocking grin.)
*
When Midoriya greeted him good morning, on their five-minute walk to school, he didn’t feel any different. He still looked him in the eye, replied with the same quiet tone he always used, intently listened to his friend animatedly describing the crazy dream he had had ( “A zombie apocalypse, Todoroki! And, like, I rode a bike with a chainsaw on it!!” ). They fell in amiable silence after that, which left Shouto with all the time in the world (two minutes and thirty-six seconds) to let his mind wander. What would someone in love with Midoriya want to do right now? He glanced down at his friend -- he had grown a little taller, he noticed as he took in the determined cheerfulness on his face, from the slight frown of his eyebrows to his content smile. His curls bounced a little as they walked, unbrushed and unruly, and he fought the urge to card his hands through them.
He stopped dead in his tracks.
It actually took Midoriya a couple of steps until he turned back to look at what his friend was doing, before his smile faltered as he saw that Shouto wasn’t tying his shoelaces or anything of the like, and a touch of worry tainted his features.
“Todoroki? Are you okay?”
“Ah. Yeah, I just… I thought I had forgotten something. Sorry, Midoriya.” He caught up with him in two big strides and shut his brain down until he was seated in the classroom and Aizawa-sensei started his lesson.
He had realized that he had never touched Midoriya. Not in casual situations, like Kirishima did with Bakugou, all slings of arms over shoulders and teasing knuckles against cheeks. He had fought Midoriya, of course, he had helped him, too, supported him more than once -- but never had he actually, earnestly touched him. He had never thought much of it before; Shouto wasn’t a person who craved physical contact -- it reminded him too much of something unpleasant, like the hits Endeavor used to land on him during their training sessions. He did not need to, either, not like Uraraka, who had to actually touch people to activate her quirk, or like Hagakure, who saw physical touch as a way to counter her own, a proof of her existence, a confirmation that she was right here. Shouto had been perfectly content and comfortable in his physical loneliness, if not in his emotional one. Yet the sight of Midoriya’s hair -- no, of Midoriya himself, covered in morning light, had hit him in a way he had rarely felt before, an irresistible urge to try and touch deeper and cleaner than he had experienced in the past. He dared himself to watch Midoriya from the corner of his eye, the slightly tanned skin of his neck and arms exposed to the neon lights, small, satisfied smile barely reaching his eyes. He turned back to his task.
Midnight was absent due to heroics stuff, apparently, which meant that they had the whole afternoon to themselves, and Uraraka cheerfully declared that they should have a picnic on the grass in front of the dorms. She recruited Shouto, Iida, and Midoriya to accompany her to the cafeteria in order to ask for permission and sandwich supplies. (They were almost turned down, but she claimed that it was Bakugou’s idea, and no matter how otherworldly the idea seemed, the kitchen staff knew better by then than to anger Katsuki Bakugou, and they came back with enough to make two sandwiches for each of their classmates.) On their way back, they noticed Yaoyorozu and Ashido -- who was still staring at him like she knew the answer to life’s biggest secret -- which she kinda did, really -- had already laid towels and blankets below the trees, with Kaminari and Jirou carrying kitchenware and glasses out from the building. The warmth of late summer noons and a cool breath of wind clashed on their skins, threading invisible fingers into their hair. Shouto relished in the peaceful atmosphere, until everyone sat down and started making their sandwiches, chatting away about everything and nothing, clinking their glasses together as a toast to their second semester. “Todoroki,” Midoriya said as he raised his own glass a little like a question. Shouto’s knuckles ghosted over his as they toasted.
At 3:35pm, only a few of them remained on the blankets. They could hear the sounds of Kirishima, Kaminari, Bakugou and Sero sparring somewhere behind the trees (judging by the number of swear words he yelled by the minute, Bakugou was winning); Uraraka, Asui, and Iida were chatting about classes on one of the blankets fully under the sun; Jirou and Yaoyorozu laid on their backs, eyes closed, listening to music. Shouto, also, laid on his back in the shade of a tree, hands behind his head, watching the clouds drift away while Midoriya, next to him, sat half-propped up against the trunk, working on one of his notebooks, close enough to touch if Shouto were to move a little to the side. He chose to close his eyes, and focused on the sound of pen brushing against paper, slowing down, stopping, restarting again twice as fast. He felt more than he heard Midoriya’s sigh as he closed his notebook, and then it was just the rustling of leaves. He felt Midoriya shift just a bit, and opened his eyes. Midoriya was watching him, the gentleness of his smile reflected in his eyes for half a second, before the air vanished into one of mild surprise. Midoriya’s hand, the scarred one, was hovering above the crown of his head.
Midoriya withdrew it as if he had been stung, red blossoming on his cheeks.
“Ah, sorry, Todoroki! I- I just wanted to c-check if you were awake…”
Shouto huffed. “It’s okay.” He wondered if Midoriya, too, had wanted to touch his hair. A lot of people wanted to, the oddity of the blending colors drawing them in.
Midoriya laid his hand back against his thigh, embarrassment gradually fading away from his cheeks.
“What’s your favorite book?”
Midoriya hummed a smile. “Why the sudden question?”
“I was wondering that last time. In the library.”
Midoriya looked at the sky as he pondered his reply. “Well, it’s an old book, so don’t laugh, okay?”
“Those usually have the best stories, to be honest.”
Midoriya laughed his approbation. “It’s a detective story. Ten people are alone on an island, and they all start dying one by one. And they have to discover who kills them before they die, too.”
“I don’t think I’ve read that.” Although it was no surprise to him that Midoriya would like these kinds of stories. Midoriya was smart, and Midoriya looked for books who made him think.
“I could lend it to you, if you want.” His smile was warm as his eyes when he looked back at Shouto, the green almost brown in the shade. The sun shone through the leaves, drawing starry patterns over his skin and clothes. Shouto’s gaze followed them like one followed droplets of water running down a window, until it rested on the ones on his forearm, stripes of scars bi-colored too in the light and shadow.
“Does it still hurt?” Shouto asked before Midoriya could utter his own question. His friend smiled.
“Yours doesn’t, does it?”
“No. It’s just…”
“... sensitive,” Midoriya finished for him.
“Yeah.”
Shouto wanted to reach out and trace them all with his fingers.
So he did.
Mere millimeters before he actually touched him, Shouto raised his eyes to Midoriya, the question unspoken but crystal clear. Midoriya was red, like he often was now, but there was no hint of awkwardness in his gaze, and for once Shouto found himself unable to read the emotion on someone’s face.
“Y-you can,” Midoriya breathed, and Shouto’s gaze flicked back down as he laid two fingers on one of the scars.
Touching someone for the first time, Shouto found out, did not draw electricity or any other romanticized chemical reaction described in books and movies. It did, however, make his chest tighten harder than it ever had before, and as he drew the shape of lightning over Midoriya’s skin, his lips parted on an almost inaudible sigh. Shouto touched him the way he had always wanted to be touched, not with pity or atonement, but with caution and kindness and consideration. He touched him like he understood -- he touched him because he understood, and through the thinnest parts of skin he could feel Midoriya’s heartbeat keeping time with his own.
He moved his fingers to the other side of his forearm, where he could see Midoriya’s veins drawing another kind of lightning. His fingers followed them upspring. Midoriya’s breath caught in his throat, and Shouto wanted to catch it in his own mouth.
(He could probably have, if Sero hadn’t been blown next to them by an angry Bakugou.)
*
Ashido called this an intervention. Shouto called this a torture session.
Yaoyorozu shot an apologetic glance his way as Ashido, Jirou, Hagakure, Uraraka, and somehow Iida and Kirishima looked down at him from their spots on the different couches in the common room (whose idea was it to make him sit on the floor, again?), curiosity dancing in their eyes and terrifying smiles on their faces.
“So Class 1A’s pretty boy’s heart has been stolen by someone?” Ashido asked dramatically, one hand on her forehead and the other on her chest as though she was an actress performing a tragic heroine.
“Is it Momo?” Jirou looked at her own nails in fake disinterest, but the hint of threat in her voice he heard clear as day.
“It’s not like that”, he answered with a sigh.
“Let the man talk,” Kirishima boomed, and it would pretty touching how earnest he suddenly was about Shouto’s love life if it wasn’t also a little bit disconcerting.
“I am very happy for you, Todoroki. Who is it?” Iida paid no heed to Kirishima’s words.
Shouto glanced to Uraraka, who looked at him innocently. Uraraka, who, if he had read her details right, also had a crush on Midoriya, and whom he really, really did not wish to hurt in any way.
“It doesn’t matter who it is,” he said, final, definite, and all eyes trained on him again. “I don’t even know if it is love,” he lied.
“Which is the reason why we’re all here,” Hagakure declared, standing up on invisible feet. “If you must know, I knew I was in love with Ojiro when I realized he was the first person I wanted to talk to after anything happened to me.”
Shouto was kind of surprised by the sobriety of her answer, as well as the sincerity with which she could display her feelings. It’s not as though Shouto felt like he had been acting different with Midoriya; if anything, he had never acted more like himself, the one he was when he was with his siblings, the one Yaoyorozu had caught glimpses of in middle school. But he never would have the courage to say it with such resolution, like it was a part of what made him Shouto Todoroki, like it seemed to be for Hagakure. He tried it, in his head. My name is Shouto Todoroki, I’m 16, I’m the son of Number Two-turned-Number One hero Endeavor, and I’m in love with Midoriya Izuku. He felt his flames trying to come out at full force, and willed them down with practiced resignation.
He realized he had missed some of the other answers completely when he caught back what seemed to be the middle of Iida’s rant: “--fteen anyway, we all have plenty of time to discover what love feels like!”
Iida left an awkward silence in his wake. As Jirou seemed about to get up and leave the room, calling it a night, Kirishima spoke.
“I knew when I wanted to say it for the first time.” Pairs of curious eyes turned to him. Kirishima looked at his hands instead. “It almost slipped out, one day. We were studying, and joking around, and I almost said ‘I love you’.” His voice was quieter than usual, laced with melancholy and gentleness; with his hair down in front of his eyes, he looked softer, almost fragile. It suited him, Shouto thought. “I wasn’t even aware of it. My feelings, I mean. So I just got up and left.” A bitter chuckle. “He kept wondering if he had done anything wrong when I avoided him for, like, three days after that. The fact is, I couldn’t even say anything without wanting to say it. Like a punctuation. ‘Good morning, I love you!’ ‘How did you do on the exam? I love you.’ ‘Idiot, I love you.’”
Somehow, Shouto had the feeling everyone knew who he was talking about. “What did you do about it?”
“Nothing. I just got used to it, and he never asked what was wrong, so I never told him. It’s okay, though! I’m okay!” He added with his usual grin. He might have been lying. Then again, he might not have. It wasn’t Shouto’s place to pry.
Almost everyone went their separate ways after that. As Shouto was about to exit the common room, too, someone grabbed his wrist.
“Todoroki.” It wasn’t a question; Uraraka spoke his name like a demand, like an injunction. He waited until no one else was in view in the hallway, and turned around.
“You haven’t said anything all that time.” He had noticed (how could he not have noticed?), but knew better than to ask her if she was okay.
“Is… Is it Deku?”
Shouto’s body stiffened against his will, and Uraraka raised her eyes to his face with bitter triumph.
“How did you know?”
“How do you think I know what a crush on him feels like?” she answered, and it was answer enough. Shouto looked down to her hand, still on his wrist, the hold merely comforting now.
“Yeah, I guessed so. I’m sorry, Uraraka.”
She released him. “Why are you apologizing? It’s not as if you were supposed to know. Don’t say these kinds of things just because it’s convention, Todoroki.”
It dawned on him that Uraraka could probably read him -- read people -- like open books. He almost told her he didn’t want to hurt her, and remembered Bakugou’s faraway words as Shouto was leaving to prepare himself for his fateful fight: “ exactly what part of her is frail? ”
“Are you… going to do anything about it?” She spoke again, avoiding his gaze.
“Probably not. It’s not as if he feels the same, and I don’t want him to be embarrassed around me.”
Her previous sadness turned into an expression akin to annoyance and disbelief, although it would never quite look that way on her too-sweet face if she did not mean it with her whole heart.
“Then you’re stupider than I thought you were, Todoroki.”
The surprise and shame made him frown. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Uraraka seemed to feel the words in her mouth before letting them out, hand on her chin. “For someone so observant, you can be surprisingly near-sighted sometimes,” she teased, the ghost of a smile on her face. She walked out of the room before he could reply, throwing him a wave above her shoulder. “Good night, Todoroki.”
“Uraraka, wait.”
She stopped, barely turning her head in acknowledgement.
“... Are you going to do anything about it?”
She fully turned around, this time, surprise making her round eyes rounder still. She seemed to ponder, for a moment, before smiling again, a little more dejected and a lot more tender.
“I can’t afford to do something like that. It doesn’t matter whether Deku returns my feelings or not -- which he doesn’t, by the way. But, um. If I want to become a hero, a true hero, I cannot afford any distractions.” She turned back around. “I… have to push down those feelings.” She said the word as if it burned her, with carefulness and bitterness and perhaps a hint of respect. “Todoroki,” she called as she threw him one last glance. “It’s okay if you don’t know how it happened. The important thing is that you know it did.” She smiled again, small, warm. “And if you ever need to talk about it… I’ll understand.”
He whispered a thank you as he watched her fade like a shadow in the dark hallway. If she had heard, she made no sign of it.
*
Had he not grown up foreordained to be a hero, Shouto would have loved becoming a photographer. So he was ecstatic when, on the weekend, one of the school staff dropped a box to his door and it turned out to be a polaroid camera.
He opened the small letter that came with it even before he touched the camera. It was a picture of Fuyumi and her fiancé in front of a cute, small house. Her sister seemed to be laughing, while his future brother-in-law smiled shyly. They were, in his eyes, the epitome of a healthy, happy couple, the kind he had never seen but in movies. Fuyumi had first started dating Aki as an act of rebellion against Endeavor, who wanted her to marry the son of another hero (“with an actually powerful quirk”, Endeavor had said, and for a few months Fuyumi had pretended Aki was quirkless just to rile him up even more), but they had quickly fallen in love, and Endeavor had either started getting over it or stopped caring. He turned the photo around.
Dear Shouto,
I found this while packing my things at home. It won’t be of any use to me, so I thought you should have it. There’s a pack of films, too. Use them well! Don’t forget to come visit us sometimes, Aki likes you a lot.
Fuyumi
He only noticed the post-scriptum once he had already typed a thank-you text, and almost didn’t send it out of spite ( PS: you’ve got 10 months to find yourself a date for the wedding! ). As he saw the “delivered” receipt under his text, he wondered what Endeavor would say if Shouto were to show up with Midoriya at his sister’s wedding. Shouto would find it hilarious. Midoriya would probably think it terrifying instead.
He got the little camera out of the box, and, sure enough, two packs of films were tucked underneath. Her sister had apparently cleaned the camera as best as she could before sending it to him, because there was barely any speck of dust. He opened the packet of films, and tried to remember how his sister used to refill the camera when they were younger. He tentatively slided a switch on the side, and a slot opened, in which he slid the white squares of shiny paper. He was surprised to find that the old thing still had some batteries left in it, and wondered where he should test it as he wandered out of his room.
He made his way to the kitchen, where some of the boys were taking a late breakfast. He half-concealed himself in the doorway, and watched, intently, like he was so used to now. Tokoyami, Shoji, and Ojiro were chatting idly, and when Shoji made a joke which prompted Ojiro to laugh out loud, Shouto’s camera shutter snapped, filling the room with artificial light. The three boys turned to him, both surprised and maybe a little annoyed, until they say the white film come out of the camera securely into Shouto’s hand, and the feelings vanished in favor of interest.
“What’s that camera, Todoroki?” Tokoyami asked.
“It’s a polaroid camera,” he answered with a touch of pride as the picture developed.
“Oh, I know those!” Ojiro said. “The picture comes out right away and thirty seconds after, it appears.”
“Can we see it?” Shoji inquired.
Todoroki made his way to the kitchen island, and he saw wonder glimmer in their eyes as the colors bled into the film, leaving the shape of them in their wake. The picture was a little off-center, but Shouto was proud of it all the same -- the detail of Ojiro’s laugh was there, as he wished.
“It’s awesome!” Ojiro cheered. “Can we keep it?”
Shouto did not have the heart to say no.
The news travelled fast, and soon everyone in his dorm was pestering him to take a picture of them. Jirou actually got one alone with Yaoyorozu, hand around her waist and blush flaring over both her faces, which made Shouto laugh as it developed. Aoyama kept trying to photobomb each of the pictures, stylishly managing to do so most of the time, and Kirishima had coerced Bakugou into a group photo with Kaminari and Sero with a whispered promise in his ear, taming him like only he knew how. Even Iida had his picture taken with Uraraka and Midoriya, after twenty minutes spent looking for the latter only to find him training (“On a sunday?!”, Uraraka had said, “I won’t allow it,” Iida had said, “Fucking Deku,” Bakugou had said). Shouto had to come back to his room in order to fetch the second pack of films, which got used just as fast, until everyone had gotten a picture as a souvenir and there were only two films left in the device. So much for small details, Shouto thought, but then again, seeing his classmates’ different happy expressions were details in and of itself. Midoriya had disappeared again, Shouto noticed, and left his classmates alone to go look for him.
He found him sitting alone in the common room, deserted at this time of day, on the floor, back propped up against the couch, arms loosely hugging his knees. Shouto instinctively rose the camera to his eyes, but then thought better of it, and observed Midoriya’s figure with his own two eyes: the childlike naivety he wore on his face when they had first entered UA had all but melted away, leaving in its wake the telltale features of maturity -- a thinner face, a more chiseled jaw, a deeper gaze. Shouto found him handsome where he had found him cute before, and his fire side gave the slightest of shivers. Midoriya’s gaze was drawn to one of his hands, scars curling around fingers like lovers, and Shouto saw his freckles drowned in the faintest hue of pink.
He entered the room silent as a cat, but Midoriya heard him anyway, and there was no surprise in his gaze or his smile, as if a silent voice had told him of Shouto’s arrival and had turned him expectant.
“You okay?” Shouto asked.
“Yeah. I just… wanted to be alone, for a bit.”
“Oh.” He willed away the disappointment in his voice. “Do you want me to go?”
Midoriya hummed his disapproval. “You can stay,” he said, and if Shouto didn’t know better, he would have deemed it a request.
Shouto sat by his side, and he let Midoriya think, for a while, choosing to count the freckles on his face instead. He was at 23 when Midoriya spoke again.
“You’re not on any of the pictures, right?”
He laughed. “That’s kind of the result, yeah.”
His friend faced him, earnest and open. “Do you wanna take one? Like, a selfie, or something. With me.”
Anything you want , he wanted to yell, and schooled himself in a “um, sure.”
They had to get closer as they angled the camera, both their hands struggling to find balance, and they almost let the polaroid drop to the floor a couple times before they managed to find a way to take the picture. Midoriya’s hair tickled his face, and he could smell the clean, fresh scent of his lemon shampoo.
“Are you sure you don’t want to call anyone?” Shouto said amusedly.
“It’ll be okay,” Midoriya dismissed. “Okay. Smile, Todoroki!”
His friend counted to three, and the shutter clicked.
“I think I’m blind for the next three years,” Midoriya laughed as he kept the camera in his hands, while Shouto waited for the picture to develop. “Aren’t you supposed to shake it?”
“Misconception,” Shouto answered. “It doesn’t actually make it develop faster.”
Midoriya went back to turning the camera in his hands, and the hues began to paint the small white square. The picture was a close-up, and Shouto’s arm could still be seen holding onto the camera, but other than that, it was pretty well taken. Midoriya’s dark green hair appeared almost black with contrast, while Shouto’s red hair blazed on the left side of his face, barely tangling with Midoriya’s. His friend’s smile was blinding, all white teeth over slightly red lips, eyes narrowed and wrinkled in joy, freckles faded away. Shouto’s own face, he knew, radiated happiness, through the small-but-bigger-than-usual smile drawn close, fully reaching his eyes.
“Look.” He handed Midoriya the picture, and for a minute he did not say a thing.
“Can I keep it?” He finally asked, but his eyes met the one of the Shouto on the picture, not his.
“Sure.”
He stared and stared and stared at the polaroid, and Shouto stared and stared and stared at him in turn.
“Todoroki.”
“Yeah?”
“Laugh.”
The request was so outlandish that Shouto burst out laughing on the spot, all open-mouthed and closed eyes, and a second later he drew the back of his hand to his lips, shoulders shaking, and his eyes opened to look at Midoriya.
Light filled the room.
“Oh my god,” Shouto managed through confused laughs, watching Midoriya’s evil, evil grin cutting open his face, “you did not just do that.”
His sole answer was the last film whirring out innocently out of the camera. Midoriya’s fingers snatched it as he put down the polaroid.
“Oops?” He tried, but the false innocence in his laugh betrayed him.
“Give it to me.”
Midoriya slided a couple inches away in daring, in provocation -- in beckoning.
“You little shit,” Shouto laughed as he threw himself at Midoriya, who tried and failed to scramble away and now struggled to get the picture out of his grasp, laughing, laughing, laughing, and Shouto grabbed his wrists instead and pinned him in place to the floor, Midoriya’s feet kicking away, both their laughs blending in one another until they realized exactly what position they were in, and suddenly none of them were laughing any more.
Shouto almost straddled Midoriya, who laid on the floor, now unmoving, face-down picture of Shouto discarded next to his hand. His shirt had ridden up a bit up his stomach, and Shouto could decipher as he glanced down the dozens of hidden freckles like constellations on his abs, the faint trail of hair leading down, down, down-- Shouto forced his gaze up, up, up, until he was staring right at him, and now even his right side felt too warm for comfort. As he lay under him, Shouto suddenly found himself hyper-aware of every little detail of Midoriya he had compiled into his brain since they’d first met, and the sheer number of them overwhelmed him so, he thought he might-- he released his grip on Midoriya’s wrists, leaving him a window to escape, but Midoriya did not take it -- did not move an inch, kept staring at him intently through dark eyelashes and darker eyes, and Shouto’s eyes dropped to the faint beauty spot at the corner of his mouth. Midoriya licked his lips, and he could feel the control everyone praised him for slip away, slowly but surely.
“Izuku--” he started to warn, but--
“You can,” Midoriya -- Izuku said, with none of the hesitation of that last time, but expression as unreadable, and Shouto did not need to be asked twice.
He wanted to kiss him like a mere confession, like a disclosure of his aspiration, a simple press of lips, but Izuku’s hands flew out of his grip and onto his shoulders, into his hair, and Shouto’s fingers carded through Izuku’s curls as their mouths crashed together then parted seconds later, only to connect again in more open-mouthed kisses, Izuku’s warm sighs grazing Shouto’s lips each time like a promise, like a vow. Izuku’s hands slid from his hair slowly to his waist. He pulled Shouto’s lower lip between his own, and Shouto’s exhale turned into half a moan. They pulled apart a little longer this time, Shouto taking in Izuku’s unsmiling, red lips and the sheer want in his eyes, and he was about to kiss him again when Iida called their names.
They rang down the hallway like an alarm clock in the morning, and both Shouto and Izuku snapped off from their daze, pulling away from each other, Izuku’s blush drowning his face in red, Shouto probably not better off. He wordlessly gripped the camera, and fled the room, climbing the steps up to the fifth floor two by two.
*
They needed to talk. Shouto knew it, Izuku knew it, everyone knew it even though no one knew what happened but them -- well, Uraraka probably knew, judging from the sad, knowing smile she threw at him each time their eyes met. They had been avoiding each other for three days now, and if there was one thing they couldn’t afford right now, it was avoidance. Still, it didn’t make it any easier, for Shouto did not exactly know what he should say, really. A half-forgotten feeling of dread tugged at him -- dread that Izuku wouldn’t return his too-strong feelings, dread that he had realized he did not want Shouto like that after all, dread at the fact that he had already started to think of Midoriya as Izuku , as though he had any right to say a name which did not belong to him -- most of all, dread of change, he realized; because looking at it all with rationality, he clearly had not imagined the hands roaming down his back, the fingers burying in his hair, the fact that Izuku had kissed back -- hell, if he were entirely truthful, Izuku had kissed him, for all he knew. (He knew he had not imagined it because he felt it, seeping deep into his bones through his skin, searing, every night when he went to sleep, every morning when he woke up, like a burnt brand struggling to scar.)
And that was the most fearsome part of it all, because nothing would ever bring them back to how they used to be, because no amount of friendship could ever muddle that declaration of dependence, could ever blind them to the need they felt for each other. Shouto was deadly afraid of change and every implication it would bring, for him, for them, for their classmates, for their school, for their careers -- and yet he found himself craving for the taste it had been leaving on his tongue ever since that discussion of theirs in a shadowed hallway, every time Shouto had been certain of his existence and his purpose and Izuku had been turning these fated certitudes into intangible possibilities -- for really, nothing had changed Shouto quite like him.
He didn’t expect the knock at his door that evening to be Bakugou. The blond boy looked at him as though his very existence was the most annoying thing he had ever faced, and entered his room without a word, sitting on his futon like he owned the place.
“What the fuck’s your problem?” He spat as though he wasn’t the one who just rudely intruded another person’s bedroom.
“I should be the one saying that. What do you want?”
“Your shit with Deku.”
“What of it?”
Angry red eyes glared at him before focusing on anything but Shouto. “Fix it.”
“Wow.” Shouto let sarcasm bleed into his voice. “Thank you for the wonderful advice. Tell me something I don’t know and explain what the hell I should do, then.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to know?!”
“Well, you seem to have experience, what with Kirishima and all.”
Shouto knew the moment it left his mouth that it was the wrong thing to say, for if Bakugou was angry before, he now was downright furious.
“Half-n-Half,” he warned, surprisingly soberly. “Don’t.”
Shouto ran a hand on his face. This was going nowhere.
“Bakugou, why are you here?”
He watched him for a few seconds before answering. “Angel Face asked me. I’m not doing this for me. You two can both fucking die in a ditch somewhere for all I care.”
“... You and Kirishima--”
“I fucking told you, didn’t I--”
“How did it happen?” Shouto had forced himself to speak louder than Bakugou’s threats, and for once, he snapped his mouth shut, expression guarded still but not completely closed off, and Shouto blessed whatever gods for small victories.
“I kissed him,” he answered after a while, as though he had been weighing the pros and cons of disclosing this information. “Once, after you all came to... get me.” He had avoided the word “save” carefully. Shouto did not correct him.
“Why?”
“Because I fucking wanted to?” He replied immediately, like it was the most obvious thing in the world and Shouto was stupid to even ask. “It was… cool, for a while. We were cool. But then that stupid fucker imagined things and I had to actually tell him. Like, a few days ago.”
After he didn’t start talking again, Shouto knew it was his turn. “I kissed him.”
“I’m not here to listen to your shitty sob story,” Bakugou cut him. “I fucking told you, I couldn’t care less about you and that asswipe.”
“But you could care less about Uraraka.” He took Bakugou’s silence as confirmation. “And Uraraka is sad because…”
“... Because Deku is. Because you’re fucking ignoring him. Frankly,” he added with a disinterested glance that he still somehow kept relatively angry, “you’re lucky it wasn’t me, because if anyone had kissed me and then had fucking run away, they’d be fucking dead. That’s what people get for being shitty cowards.”
Shouto suppressed a laugh, because he couldn’t imagine a world in which he would ever willingly kiss Katsuki Bakugou.
“And yet Kirishima’s here, living as always.”
“I SWEAR TO GOD--”
“You can go now, your job is done.”
“Don’t fucking tell me what to do,” he retorted, but there was less bite to it now.
Bakugou made his way out of the room. As he was about to close the door behind him, he called out.
“Todoroki.”
“Yeah?”
“I’ve known Deku for fucking forever, and the one thing I know about him is that he’s a stupid fuck. He needs people to spell things out for him.”
The walls shook as he slammed the door, and Shouto released a breath he didn’t know he had been holding. He grabbed his phone.
>>> To: Uraraka - 7:19pm
Thank you.
<<< From: Uraraka - 7:20pm
ull thank me once uve talked to him ;)))
>>> To: Uraraka - 7:22pm
Are you okay?
<<< From: Uraraka - 7:22pm
once u talk to deku, i’ll be, dw
>>> To: Uraraka - 7:23pm
I don’t mean that.
<<< From: Uraraka - 7:25pm
My point still stands. I will be. :)
<<< From: Uraraka - 7:25pm
also, last time wasnt a one-time offer jsyk.
if u ever need to talk just hmu. :)
>>> To: Uraraka - 7:26pm
I’ll remember that.
>>> To: Uraraka - 7:28pm
Same here. I’ll understand.
*
It was 9pm when he stood in front of Izuku’s door. It was 9:01pm when he realized that he had not exactly planned what he wanted to say, but he knew that if he turned back now, he would never dare to ever try again. As he rose his knuckles to knock, the door opened.
Izuku looked at him with absolutely no surprise and a whole lot of apprehension, and Shouto didn’t know if Izuku wasn’t able to hold his gaze or if it was the other way around.
“Hey, Todoroki.” His voice had a fake lightness to it, a strain barely audible.
“H-Hey. How did you know I was here?”
Izuku huffed a laugh at that. “Tokoyami texted me you’d been waiting in front of my door for a full minute.” As Shouto turned his head, he heard more than he saw the closing of a door down the hallway. Well, that sure was embarrassing. Shouto opened his mouth to say something.
“I was about to watch a movie,” Izuku interrupted airily, looking at all his All Might memorabilia with fake disinterest and bashfulness. “Do you… wanna watch it with me?”
This was going much better than Shouto had anticipated, so he had no reason to refuse, really, although it still was too much grounded in their former, friendly relationship to his liking.
“Sure,” he replied once he had already entered Izuku’s room. “What is it about?”
“It’s called Inception. It’s very hard to explain, apparently.” He gestured to his bed for Shouto to sit, and Shouto sank in the soft mattress as he propped his back against the wall. This was practiced, the sole known territory on the uncharted map of their new ( new? ) relationship. It occurred to him that Izuku probably wanted to bring them back to the way they were before, then, and the now-familiar pool of dread settled in his stomach like an anchor. “Tsuyu lent it to me a week ago, but I didn’t have the time to watch it until now,” Izuku explained as he put the USB key in his laptop and pressed play. He seemed to consider whether or not to turn off the lights, and elected to do so before sitting also, close yet far, crossed-legged and upright, knee barely grazing Shouto’s thigh. Music filled the room. Shouto had watched movies with Izuku before, just the two of them, and if it wasn’t for the fact that Izuku did not dare touch him, did not dare let any part of himself touch him, it would have looked as though nothing had ever happened. Shouto kept his hands loosely linked on his stomach, and tried to focus on the film.
*
“Wait, what?” Shouto said for maybe the fifteenth time that night, both in surprise and confusion. “So, the limbo was a place he had built all along?”
He felt Izuku’s hum against his arm, and only now realized that they had gone back to their habitual positions -- both backs against the wall, Izuku leaning into him, ribs against arm. “This would be such a good quirk for special agents,” Izuku ignored as he voice dropped low. “Like the special agents in the information branch of the Tokyo Organization, they would be able to prevent so many villains from ever appearing if they could put any single determinant idea into their minds--”
“Midoriya.”
“--but then again it could be dangerous for the user too, what if they don’t manage to differentiate dreams from reality, look at what’s happening to Cobb, and how useful would it be against a known villain in the first place--”
“Midoriya.”
“--after all it would necessitate a whole operation in order to make a villain fall asleep and introduce an idea into their minds, plus what if the operation fails, even with physical training it’ll be complicated to win against a more battle-oriented quirk--”
“Izuku.”
Izuku’s eyes flew to Shouto’s face, wide and surprised, and Shouto failed to decipher whether Izuku or him was the one out of breath.
“A-ah, sorry, Todoroki! I did it again, didn’t I?” Izuku’s eyes darted back to the screen, voice quiet.
“You don’t have to apologize. It’s part of you.” Please never apologize for who you are , Shouto wanted to add, you’re the one who showed me that, but the words remained on the tip of his tongue. He felt a relieved sigh leave Izuku’s lungs, and if Izuku wanted to move away, he chose not to do so.
*
“That was awesome,” Izuku said with wonder as the credits rolled, white against black, sole beacon of light.
“Do you think the top fell?” Shouto found himself incredibly invested in the movie and its ending, in a way he would not have guessed; it left him with questions he would never have the answers to, and Shouto had gotten used to the taste of uncertainties.
“Maybe the top wasn’t even his totem in the first place. I mean, it was his wife’s, so what if it was another thing? Oh my god I have to watch it again.”
Shouto huffed in laughter. “Tell me when you do, I’m not sure I quite got everything the movie was trying to say.”
Izuku’s smile was soft as he looked away. “That’s not really like you.”
“Hm?”
“... Not getting what people are trying to say.”
Izuku seemed to wait for an answer that never came, so he went on.
“You’re one of the most perceptive people I know. Like that time you noticed I wasn’t eating and you gave me some of your food.”
Shouto smiled, soft. “That did happen quite a number of times.”
“Or when you came to help against Stain.”
The credits music faded away, and soon the room was plunged in total darkness. Izuku shifted and laid down best as he could on the twin-sized mattress, and the loss of warmth tore through Shouto’s side, raw and clean like ripping paper. He found himself unconsciously (consciously?) following the gesture, lying in turn, propped against his side, and even in the total darkness he could decipher Izuku’s dark freckles against his skin.
“What I’m saying,” Izuku went on, flawlessly, as though he expected Shouto to do exactly what he’d done, “is that you’re extremely observant. Of details, mostly. The small things.” The small form of his friend shifted, turning to face him, to look at him properly, and he was closer than friends were supposed to. Shouto shifted, too, a mere pulling-back of his arm, a wordless invitation, and Izuku curled in closer and rested his head below his other arm, half-nestled into his chest. Shouto dared lay back his arm over Izuku’s figure, and he felt a shivering breath against his heart.
“You’re very good at it,” Izuku continued, slowly stroking his fingertips over Shouto’s hand in the ghost of a graze, climbing up his forearm, arm, to his shoulder, half-resting against his collarbone for a while until Shouto returned the favor, his own movements skittish and jittery, matching the rhythm of his restless breathing fever-hot in Izuku’s hair. “It’s part of what makes you a good hero. You should be proud of it.”
“I am,” he exhaled, breath catching in his lungs, burning.
“But since you’re so focused on the details, you tend to miss the most important things.” Izuku’s fingers, too, seemed to burn cold scars along his throat, brushing the small strands of hair at the nape of his neck.
“Like what?”
Shouto’s hand mimicked the other like a mirror, tangling into green curls as the other tangled into Izuku’s, fingers pushing up against each other before fitting and undoing and fitting again, just like knowing the last puzzle piece will fit in the last space but trying anyway just to be sure, like Shouto searched for confirmation more than acknowledgement. Izuku breathed a laugh as he raised his head, half-guided by Shouto’s hand.
“Well,” he said with a smile, wistful and infinitely tender, “you have a hard time noticing when people have feelings for you.”
Their noses brushed, not closing the distance just yet, and Shouto wondered if fate itself had chosen each of his experiences in life in order to lead him to this very moment, or if it had been the mere result of a lucky coin toss; he took some peaceful seconds to take it all in, as though nothing had ever felt so right either way, and no, definitely nothing ever did.
“I don’t know if I agree.”
No butterflies appeared to fizz and fly in Shouto’s stomach when Izuku closed his eyes and brushed their lips together, but the sigh that he breathed as he pulled Izuku in felt like peace and relief and the calm after rolling thunder, and Shouto knew he was right where life intended for him to be.
The first kiss was slow, gentle, full of the tenderness they didn’t get to show each other the last time, while Izuku’s fingers pulled lightly on Shouto’s hair, soft enough to make him shiver, and his own hand barely ghosted over Izuku’s waist, so faint that he was positive it tickled, just like Izuku’s breath tickled Shouto’s open lips. They parted for a moment which felt like hours, content, the shade of a smile on both their faces, until Shouto’s long legs entwined with Izuku’s and they were pulled deep into each other again like tide pulls sand deep under. Their second kiss was firmer, as Izuku’s fingers curled into Shouto’s shirt and and Shouto’s arms trapped him flush against his chest, tongues grazing languidly, mouths more insistent, hands more assertive, senses more acute. Shouto's skin was blazing as though he was ill, and he could see the hazy, dark hue of a blush over Izuku's freckled nose and cheekbones, a physical display of their feelings like the sweetest incurable disease, a blend of apprehension and relief, of eagerness and forbearance, of lust and love, and they kissed and touched and felt until they were raw, until they were clean, until they were pure.
(When Aizawa-sensei overheard from Ashido that they both came out of Izuku’s room together that morning, he put them on house arrest and cleaning duty for three weekends in a row. Shouto wondered if he knew how counterproductive it would be. The shadow of the smile he caught on his teacher’s features told him he exactly did.)