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Initially, it’s Ashido’s idea to host a maid cafe for the cultural festival, but Kaminari whines enough that the class decides as a whole to host a half maid-half butler cafe.
The twist, Hagakure suggests, is that they’ll draw straws to see who gets to dress up as what. This appeases Kaminari for the time being, at least enough so that he stops his complaining and the planning for the festival can continue. Shouto’s contributions are minimal; mostly, he wants to stay uninvolved. (He aspires to be as uninvolved as Aizawa-sensei, rolled up in his yellow sleeping bag on the floor as soon as he muttered the words, “Just get it over with.”)
Kaminari’s complaining is like nothing, though, when compared to the fit he throws when they actually draw straws. To his dismay—and to nobody’s surprise—he draws maid. He’s the first boy in the class to do so, and Shouto wonders if he’s ever before seen somebody as sullen as Kaminari looks in that moment.
Negating Kaminari’s newfound misery, the straw-picking continues without issue; some aren’t thrilled with their assigned roles, but nobody really creates a scene. Shouto breathes a little easier when he draws his straw, butler scrawled on the end.
Though Shouto knows his fate is really sealed as soon as Midoriya steps up to the podium, swishes his hand in the jar of straws, grabs ahold of one, and then flushes deep red as he reads it.
—
Preparations for the cafe go smoothly; Shouto is assigned to baking and it’s exceptionally easy when someone like Satou is working with him. The day of the cultural festival approaches quickly, though, and Shouto hardly has any time to prepare himself for seeing Midoriya in maid getup before it happens.
The curtain is pulled shut in the back of the classroom where they’d sectioned off a makeshift changing stall, and a line is beginning to build up from it. Jirou, already clad in a maid outfit and wearing an embarrassed blush high on her cheeks, points over at the changing stall with one of her earphones and says to Shouto, “Do you know who’s in there? They’re holding up the line.”
Shouto sighs, adjusts the collar of his tuxedo. “I think it’s Midoriya,” he answers her, and she opens her mouth to respond before she closes it again, nodding like that makes sense.
“You wanna check on him?” Jirou asks, then, and Shouto’s mouth goes dry. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if you saw him.”
Shouto’s eyes widen at Jirou’s suggestion, but he steps towards the curtain nonetheless, bottom lip trapped between his teeth.
“Midoriya?” he asks tentatively. “Are you… Is everything going okay in there?” Shouto certainly can’t say that he’s ever had to wear a maid costume, but from observation, there are several complicated ribbons and zippers.
“Everything’s—” Midoriya starts and stops, pausing before he says, “Actually… I can’t get it zipped up. Can you… Can you help me, Todoroki-kun?”
The next person in line, Bakugou, Shouto notes with a wince, gives him an expectant glare. (Bakugou’s holding his clothes hanger with a maid costume hanging off of it so hard Shouto thinks it’s a miracle that it doesn’t snap.)
“What are you looking at, half-and-half bastard?” Bakugou barks, and Shouto, not wanting to cause any more fiery rage than that dress already will, slips into the makeshift dressing room before another moment passes.
Midoriya looks… distressed, almost, stockings falling at the knees and costume open in the back. If Shouto had a few minutes to spare, he might’ve actually allowed a laugh, but he doesn’t have a few minutes, and inconveniently, his heart is stuck in his throat. A bow sits pretty in Midoriya’s green curls, slightly off-kilter.
Shouto coughs suddenly in a fruitless attempt to catch his breath. “I’ll zip it for you,” he manages. It might be easier to maneuver the tights up Midoriya’s thighs if Shouto helps, too, but if he does so, his heart will probably actually ascend onto another plane entirely, so he decides against offering.
Midoriya turns, exposing the open back of the costume. Shouto internally curses himself for being unable to move; Midoriya looks completely out of his element, ridiculous, even, with the frills of the costume and the bow tied in his hair, and Shouto is still infatuated.
Rather than continue to gawk, Shouto zips up the length of Midoriya’s costume over his freckled back, stopping just below his shoulder blades. After a breathy thank-you, Midoriya bends over to fasten his thigh-highs. If Shouto is blushing, if they are both blushing, nobody mentions it as they step out of the changing stall together.
Well, Shouto thinks they’re safe, that nobody will comment, but Hagakure doesn’t spare them.
“Ooh!” she croons, setting a gloved hand on Iida’s shoulder, who stands just outside the changing stall with a clipboard tucked in the crook of his elbow and a pen tucked behind his ear. They match in their tuxedos. “They’re blushing, Iida-kun! Doesn’t that make your heart race a little?”
“Isn’t that slightly inappropriate?” Iida inquires, forehead creasing in concern and one arm swinging out like it does. “Remember, this is a school function.”
Shouto and Midoriya both fluster further, Midoriya opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water as he seemingly struggles for something to say. Shouto clears his throat.
“Get out of the fuckin’ way, nerds.” Bakugou shakes his head as he pushes his way past them and swings the curtain violently closed behind him. Shouto’s at least glad for the diversion, and he takes the opportunity to slip away and back towards the food he’s meant to be preparing.
As Shouto escapes, leaving Midoriya to his own devices, he can hear Uraraka fawning over Midoriya’s outfit with exclamations such as, “Deku-kun, you look adorable!” Shouto casts a glance backwards to see that Midoriya’s blush has deepened at the extra attention. He can’t help but agree with Uraraka, despite how oddly the outfit suits him.
Within the next hour, visitors begin to stream into the classroom: people’s parents, students from other classes and departments, and even some curious heroes. The Class 1-A students are on shifts, and for now Shouto’s not required to be working.
He sits off in a corner with Yaoyorozu and Jirou where a couple extra desks had been pushed, leaning on the desk with his elbow and resting his chin in his hand. A little ways away, Midoriya rushes around, his dress skirt flaring. Shouto’s Adam’s apple bobs.
Jirou snorts, hiding her laughter behind her hand when Shouto rips his gaze from Midoriya to shoot her a glare.
“He looks ridiculously out of place,” Yaoyorozu comments, hands crossed over each other on the desk before her. “Not that anyone really looks in place…” she trails off, her eyes landing on Aoyama in a maid outfit, graciously accepting compliments from the visitors. “Except Aoyama-san.”
“I don’t know why you say that,” Shouto says dryly, his gaze flittering away from Midoriya and over to Bakugou, who is all but foaming at the mouth. Kirishima beside him in a tuxedo wears a brash smile, and he hits Bakugou on the shoulder as he laughs. “Bakugou looks ready to kill a man.”
Jirou’s head tilts, and she presses her index finger to her cheek. “Doesn’t he always look like that, though…?”
Shouto hums his agreement, letting his attention fall back to Midoriya, who balances a tray of delicate glassware in his right hand.
Yaoyorozu is, of course, completely correct in her earlier statement, and yet, Shouto finds himself completely enamored. Midoriya is not built to work in a maid cafe—he is built to knock down buildings with a single punch. Still, watching him fumble around in fancy dress is endearing, to say the least.
“Your ogling is making me sick,” Jirou says, faking a gag. Yaoyorozu playfully hits Jirou on the shoulder, her laughter bubbly as she tells Jirou to knock it off.
“Yeah,” Shouto mumbles, and for some unknown reason to him, Yaoyorozu and Jirou burst into a fit of laughter. It’s mere background noise—or, it may as well be, because Shouto can’t tear even a fraction of a percentage of his attention away from Midoriya.
Suddenly, though, Midoriya staggers and Shouto winces at the sound of a glass shattering against tile, skittering in each and every direction. Shouto’s ripped out of his trance, and he doesn’t hesitate to stand from his desk and head in Midoriya’s direction to offer help. Ashido exclaims that she’ll go get a broom, and Midoriya, flushing deep red, starts to pick up the larger pieces of glass.
Shouto kneels on the floor beside Midoriya, and Midoriya offers him a weary smile as he begins to gather shards carefully in his hands.
Before long, Iida fetches a trash bag, and the both of them pour the glass they’d picked up from their hands and into it. Ashido skitters back into the room with a broom and quickly sweeps up the finer pieces of glass before leaving Shouto and Midoriya still kneeling on the ground.
“I didn’t think this could get any worse,” Midoriya chuckles, shuffling so that he kneels in front of Shouto. “But, being on my knees in a student-run maid cafe might be the lowest point of my life.”
“I don’t think it’s that bad,” Shouto replies and Midoriya blinks at him.
“You’re not the one dressed up as a maid, Todoroki-kun.”
Exactly, Shouto thinks, and fleetingly, he has an urge to just lean a slight distance forward to meet Midoriya’s mouth with his own. But, no—no, no, no. This is a school function.
“Yeah,” he says instead, and, just as Yaoyorozu and Jirou had, Midoriya laughs. And while Shouto can’t be certain whether it’s with him or at him, he’s mesmerized watching the way Midoriya’s laugh travels up to his eyes, which crinkle at the corners.
Midoriya’s opening his mouth to speak again when Shouto feels a thwack to the back of his head, and he turns to see Jirou standing behind him. “Hey, lovebirds, it’s shift change. Get up.”
When Shouto pushes up to a standing position, he offers an apologetic shrug, extending a gloved hand to Midoriya, who gratefully takes it. He stumbles slightly forward into Shouto’s chest when he’s pulled upwards, and Shouto shakes his head.
“You’re like a bull in a china shop,” says Shouto.
Midoriya’s blush today seems almost permanent, and Jirou rolls her eyes before she walks away.
As Shouto turns on his heel to follow her, Midoriya says, “Hey, Todoroki-kun? Do you want to… uh, do you want to come to my room after this?”
Shouto looks back over his shoulder, at how oddly Midoriya’s frilly dress fits his muscular form, at how somehow, the bow suits him, and he says, “Yeah, I’d like that.”