Chapter Text
Contrary to popular belief, Shouto isn't actually a man of few words (although it is debatable as to whether he's truly a "man" or not). It's just that some—no, a lot—of the words never manage to make their way out. They always hum and buzz and rattle the inside of his skull, but in the end, only a few choice syllables will be the lucky winners of the verbal lottery. And then the words come out too feisty, or too cold; it's usually the latter, but inside he is always a delicate balance of raging fire and hostile ice that no one can ever truly be able to see.
He bends down and brushes a thumb over his knee, feeling the sting of shrapnel that has snagged away both a considerable portion of his jeans and his skin. Perhaps his words—or lack thereof, make people think he is wise. He's not, really. He never helps around the house, yet constantly feels tired. He doesn't understand a thing about trigonometry despite having taken at least four courses involving it. He's not good with words, truthfully, and it's honestly a miracle Yuuei University actually deemed his essay to be respectable enough to allow Shouto to enroll himself in their classes this fall. He eats too many sweets without bothering to brush his teeth.
He is, in short, a mess, about to become a larger, more disastrous mess as the semester nears and the reins ensnaring him are released entirely.
And what better way to celebrate that than scraping your knee on a sharp rock in the dead of the night in the middle of nowhere while solemnly tearing into a bag of stale sour gummies as you watch yourself bleed out? It wouldn't matter, really, for his stomach of steel; if he can tolerate his and Fuyumi's cooking on the nights where they actually risk starting a kitchen fire instead of popping some ramen in the microwave or ordering pizza or buying takoyaki from the burly vendor down the street, then he can surely withstand an expired, lime-flavored bear.
He sinks his teeth into one—it's hard to bite through, so sour it sets him on edge, and pretty much tastes like shit.
It's surprisingly addicting. He's halfway through the bag with his tongue nearly dried out when he realizes once again what he came here for. He almost forgot.
"SHOUTO!"
...One thing he did actually forget, however, is to turn off the read receipts on his phone.
Shouto inhales a good bit of dust from his surroundings and the sour sanding from his bears as he hastily crinkles up the plastic and shoves it into his backpack. Tenya would have a fit if he finds out that Shouto has brought that with him but not one of the several million gaudy neon use-and-throw toothbrushes he makes sure to supply Shouto with on a regular basis. The overwhelming glare of an advancing flashlight illuminates his rocky surroundings, allowing him to see the abundant layers of moss growing on the plum trees and the splinters of wood which were dangerously close to his scraped up knee with much more clarity than any phone light could have provided him. He watches Tenya barrel down the road, in that style of his that Shouto has seen him execute since track in freshman year of high school: his entire upper body jutting forward and piercing the night air while his glasses miraculously manage to stay stuck to his face, fingers glued together, huge arms and huge legs boosting him towards his target at such an alarming rate that if Shouto hadn't known any better, he would suspect that the law of inertia combined with the determination of sheer willpower in Tenya's eyes would result in a head-on collision between the two.
But Shouto does know better; Tenya is all about punctuality and always knows when to stop. Not that it makes Tenya's presence any less imposing.
"Thirty minutes!" he yells at Shouto, without breaking a sweat. Moonlight somehow manages to shine through the cracks of the pollution-dusted sky and render his hair an almost ghostly shade of blue. He huffs, but more from frustration than exhaustion, and Shouto realizes that Tenya, too, has brought a backpack, pristinely white, neatly zipped up, and slung over his shoulders, almost comically tiny compared to his massive figure.
"I started in the inner circle of town," he continues to yell, hands flying over his head, fingers still rigidly glued together. "None of the shops had seen you, the post office was after hours, and I highly doubted the laundromat would be of any use to you but I went there regardless!" He continues to slice the air with his arms, this time in a vertical right to left pattern after every other syllable. "After that, I spiraled outwards and—"
"All this in...thirty minutes?" Shouto interrupts, incredulous.
Tenya pauses abruptly, putting a hand on his chin. "Hmm. I'd say twenty. I gave you a ten minute buffer before I allowed myself to worry—but—" he shakes his head vigorously. "Regardless! I thought we agreed you'd only go out to relieve yourself of your—ah—situation at home if you promised to let me know what you were doing!"
"Iida-kun," Shouto cuts in, getting up and ignoring the reprimanding gasp he gets when Tenya catches sight of the hole in Shouto's jeans. "I..."
Want more freedom? Need more freedom? Am touched by your concern I never really get at home? Appreciate that you do accept I have some limits even though I wish I really didn't but you still regard that but you still offer help in some sort of way and I do admit sometimes it's nosy but at least you're not scared to be around me and you get the way I talk and maybe I don't really show that enough and—
"...I'm eighteen."
He grimaces at the grating way the words came out but manages to keep it on the inside. Nice going, Shouto.
Tenya just stares back in wonder for a minute before clicking his tongue disapprovingly.
"Then act like it."
He bends down, and—unlike Shouto—scans the ground furtively before deciding where to place his knees. He procures a small, white box from the largest division of his backpack, flashlight still in hand and illuminating both his and Shouto's faces, along with a large rock between them that went up to their shoulders at sitting-level; he places the box on the weather-worn surface, clicks it open, and pulls out a small, green bottle and a tissue he gently soaks the bottle's liquid in before clearing his throat.
"Your knee."
"What?"
"Put this on your knee," Tenya repeats, offering Shouto the tissue that smelled just enough like a hospital to burn his nostrils as he takes it. He refuses to look at Shouto, and so guilt softly slides up his stomach, and he mutters out a "sorry" before inhaling sharply at the sting of cold disinfectant on his knee.
"And don't apologize, either!" Tenya snaps, pulling something else out of his backpack—something small, black, and emanating warmth for some reason. It lands on the rock-table with a precisive clunk and Shouto blinks back in disbelief.
"A...bento box."
Tenya merely responds by shoving up his glasses even though they're already aligned perfectly along the bridge of his nose.
"If you're going to eat at an ungodly hour like this, then at least do it properly." He stares pointedly at the crinkled, colorful plastic poking out of the corner of Shouto's bag as he shines his light on it, making Shouto flush slightly in embarrassment.
No one ever really talks to Shouto—well, they do, of course they do, it's impossible to lead life as a complete social recluse, try as one might—but no one ever really talk talks to him. But he can still hear them, snickering on the sidelines at how Tenya's such a mom. It makes Shouto feel vaguely uncomfortable, harboring a displeasant urge to punch something, but he doesn't know what exactly. But then he sees Tenya, brows furrowed in confusion, his voice unusually low as he glances at Shouto and asks if it's because his binder is out of place—and then Shouto knows exactly what—or who—he wants to punch. Right in the face.
But he always refrains himself, much more than he did in his earlier childhood, because the last thing he wants is for the smartest kid in the entire school to throw away his all his club credentials and recommendations engraved on his report cards and hard-earned amiable relationships with even the most hostile of teachers all for a few lousy punches from the resident problem child.
They had started out as lab partners in freshman year—middle school Shouto had an infamous reputation for mixing the wrong chemicals together not out of carelessness, but purely out of the spirit of teenage rebellion. And it ended up being paperwork worthy. So he ends up in the front row of the classroom, with the glare of the laminated rainbow periodic table right in his eyes and a small metal basin full of baking soda he idly keeps sliding back and forth between his hands until a palm hits the desk with a thunderous clap and his eyes meet the face of someone he would have deemed a teacher at first sight if it weren't for the designated student lanyard dangling from his neck and the small traces of baby fat lining his cheeks.
"TODOROKI SHOUTO! MY NAME IS IIDA TENYA AND I WILL BE YOUR DESIGNATED LABORATORY PARTNER FOR THIS SEMESTER!"
That's when Shouto learns: his voice is loud. And soon he learns that that demonstration isn't even half of the full extent Tenya can reach.
Silence hangs in the air, then shock slowly dissolves and melts away into laughter. It erupts somewhere near the back and ended up spreading through the entire room as Shouto sinks even lower into his seat than he already was, softly mumbling, "speak quieter."
"I APOLOGIZE!"
More laughter. It ricochets off the ceiling, the windows, the tables, the chairs. Off of Shouto, off of Tenya.
"Just...a little more," Shouto manages as his fingers dig into the nape of his neck.
"Like—" Tenya hesitates for a moment before he speaks, hands clenching the sides of his polo, complete with a pocket protector and four different pens jammed into the right breast—then lets go and swings his arms from his thighs up into the air and back in a rhythmic, ninety-degree angle.
"Like this?"
Shouto's finally able to let go of his neck, hoping his sigh of relief isn't audible. "That's good."
"Hm!" Tenya gives a swift nod and slides into his designated seat. "I understand you're a trouble child."
Shouto clenches his teeth in response, but doesn't bare them at him. He's only saying the truth, after all. And the living proof of it is right on his face, his left eye a damaged slit encircled in a harsh shade of red.
It's all your fault, son.
"Yes," Shouto agrees, turning back to the basin and sliding it between his palms again until it almost goes flying off the table and Tenya thrusts his whole body across the table even though all he needs to do is simply stretch out one of his giant arms.
"Trouble child."
And that's all he says during the entire class. That's all Tenya says during the entire class—well, to Shouto, anyways. No one ever talks to Shouto; they only ever talk at him.
"Todoroki-kun, would you hand me the pipette?"
"Todoroki-kun, you have to stir the solution much more vigorously than that!"
"Todoroki-kun, plot out a table for this data. Todoroki-ku—"
"Shouto," he says finally, his mouth moving of his own accord, wondering how much longer he can bear that name being uttered again. "Shouto." He watches as Tenya's entire body proceeds to stiffen before he jumps out of his seat.
"WH-what?!" he yells in shock until the teacher sharply asks Tenya if there's something he'd like to share with the class and he vigorously yells back an apology with his hands swinging in neat little semicircles before he hops back into his seat and blinks back at Shouto.
"That's so informal!" he declares in disbelief, shaking his head. "I cannot allow it! Simply giving sheer disrespect to your family name like that—"
"I couldn't care less."
Tenya blinks and his tirade dies out instantly. "...What."
Even Shouto himself freezes, hand hanging halfway in the air in the direction of a calculator.
It's obvious—of course it's obvious. Todoroki has become a name he wants nothing to do with. But saying that out loud—the weight of each syllable released from his tongue didn't set him free. It dragged him under and under and under, and before he knew it, his breathing had become shallow and he wasn't in this world anymore—Shouto had melted away into a hazy void where he couldn't care less, and yet he couldn't care more. At least he thinks it's both of them and not just the latter until he makes the mistake of allowing his hand to touch his left brow ridge at random and meet a hard patch he can feel crosshatched, damaged tissue on instead of actual skin, and then realizes that the only way out of this not involving public humiliation is to ask the teacher to dismiss him to the bathroom to have his breakdown in peace.
Words fly. He doesn't remember what they are. He walks. He doesn't remember the sound of his feet ever hitting the floor. All he remembers is reaching the room, adorned with tiles of blue and white which in turn were adorned with red slashes of illegible graffiti, and he's about to choose the first stall to collapse into when—
"Todoro—er, Shouto-kun!"
When he arrives.
Tenya stands broad-shouldered and stiff-necked in front of him. Shouto sees a hand shoved into his pocket, while another one swings back and forth and slices the air with twice the amount of vigor as if to make up for the former. The air smells of lemon-scented freshener that's too tangy and stings Shouto's nose until a subtle, almost unnoticeable crinkle of metal foil allows something slightly more pleasant to be released into the air. If Tenya notices, he doesn't seem to show it. He remains expressionless and tight-lipped throughout. Shouto can't bring himself to speak, either, and so he stands there, letting the sweat drip downwards to where his heart is, beating itself up inside of his chest.
His left eye feels like its burning again.
So does his right.
His entire body is drifting away, not there not there not there, and so he lets Tenya take his palm and press something into it without second thought—without even first thought. It's only when the cool square reaches his warm, sticky hand that he snaps back even partially.
"I..." he croaks, studying the sweet-smelling slab he's now holding before staring back at Tenya, lips parted in confusion. The air reaches the inside of his throat and dries it out a little. "Chocolate?"
To his surprise, Tenya proceeds to turn a generous shade of pink. "I'm probably breaking at least five segments of school protocol right now, but—"
"There's protocol," Shouto repeats in wonder, turning the square over in his hand. It's starting to melt, leaving sticky streaks of sugary brown down his middle and index fingers. "For eating chocolate."
"I—er—no! No." Tenya shakes his arms back and forth in disapproval "I meant for eating in lavatories. And keeping food on your person instead of in your bag. And—" The pink reaches his ears now as he shakes his head. "Besides the point! I simply could not let someone having all the symptoms of a panic attack right in front of me—"
"Panic attack," Shouto echoes. The hand not holding the melting chocolate runs over his collarbone, soft and sticky with sweat. The words seem foreign to him, but his own body is beginning to feel a bit more grounded in reality. "So that's what it was."
Tenya fidgets with a blue ballpoint pen nesting in his breast pocket. "Chocolate triggers the release of serotonin upon consumption, so I figured, Todor—er—Shouto, that..."
Shouto loses himself in an elaborately outlined explanation of endorphins and neurotransmitters as he tears a small bite of chocolate out of his square. It dissolves onto his tongue almost immediately.
He's...really trying, isn't he.
His pleas to go by Shouto always get ignored. Mainly because they never sound like pleas, really. He can't afford for anything to sound like a plea. Pleas lead to curiosity which leads to some secret late-night phone calls which lead to some man in a fancy business suit whisking your mom away to a secluded corner of the city you can never muster up enough courage to look up or go to or even think about, and before you know it all the photographs in the house have her face ripped out of it by a disillusioned old man who glares daggers into the walls and into his children and knocks all the tables over and reduces them to shattered, charred splinters. A man who shares a name with you. A man you never want to become.
And yet he shares his name with you. He shares your eyes. You share his blood, of all things.
Shouto would have thrown up if he hadn't shoved the rest of the slab into his mouth and shoved it up towards the roof with his tongue so he could focus on the writing engraved on it to slowly melt away into nothingness.
"Shouto," Tenya repeats. He doesn't have to transition from Todoroki this time. The syllables come out strong and certain. "I was expecting someone...different."
Shouto doesn't have to ask. He knows what he means. A different sort of problem child. One who is fueled by hatred, contempt for conformity, and the classic spark of teenage rebellion that came simply by being caught in adolescence. He is fueled by all of those, in a way.
But he's also fueled by fear. It seizes him from the chest up whenever he looks in a mirror and sees a broken face worn out by broken glass and boiling water. Tenya doesn't have it, from what Shouto can see, but his eyes are still tired, intense but still softened around the edges, the way his face was more of a rounded rectangle than a square. He was a child playing at adult.
Shouto supposed he knew how that felt.
"Iida," he says back, his voice finally even. "I was expecting someone different, too."
It's why Shouto delicately lifts the bento box off of the rock now, four years later, and tries his best to move the corners of his mouth upwards without having his cheeks push into the red on his face and takes a bite of salmon because words are both incredibly hard and never ever enough. He quietly thanks whatever greater power is up there that Tenya gets it and smiles back with a small noise of satisfaction. And then his smile fades again as Shouto asks if he wants any.
"What are we doing here, exactly? Of all places?"
"Sunvunb—" Shouto pushes down a mouthful of steamed rice and tries again. "Someone's here. Do you want any or not?"
Tenya shakes his head as he crosses his legs down, appearing to resign himself to stay here for the night. Lone Wolf Shouto gives a silent thanks up above once more.
"I don't need any. You're the one who's never had a proper meal in his life."
Shouto opens his mouth to protest before he realizes Tenya is right.
"You burnt your cereal."
"Fuyumi burnt it," Shouto argues. "I burnt the toast."
"And I walked past your house and ended up calling the fire department."
Shouto snorts a little at that without warning, recalling the chaos that ensued as Tenya frowns with a hand planted on his right glasses lense. "You could have gotten hurt."
"It's fine," Shouto says, chugging down water and vowing to never eat an entire bag of stale sour bears in one sitting ever again. "I never ate bread after that."
"You're not allowed to eat candy anymore, either," Tenya says, unzipping his bag to procure another gaudy, plastic toothbrush as Shouto looks on in wonder.
"Where do you get those?"
He leans in towards Shouto, presses both of his palms together in front of him, and inhales.
"My cousin is a dentist," Tenya replies with such grave, genuine solemnity while the wind blows through his hair and the flashlight set vertically in between them illuminates his face severely that Shouto has to shove all of his salmon into his mouth to prevent himself from feeling his scar. He takes the toothbrush to appease Tenya, but Tenya still looks like he requires some sort of clarification.
"You said someone's here...?"
Oh. Shouto sets the box down, half of the rice and a handful of pickled vegetables left untouched despite Tenya's vigorous head shaking and several ninety degrees rotations in Shouto's direction indicating that, no, it was for him. He ignores them and digs his phone out from his backpack, sliding through his camera roll until he finds the set of videos he's looking for. He plays the first one and sets it between them.
"See, I caught them on camera."
Tenya frowns as he watches small rocks and withered plum blossoms whirlwind through the air. He rests his chin between a thumb and index finger. "There's no one there."
"You can't see them," Shouto clips in hastily. "But they're there." He fumbles through the rest of his camera roll, displaying photos of a floating piece of wood from the nearby run-down abandoned cabin, a video of his sleeve, which he had snagged in a tree branch being gently lifted and set free with far more dexterity than a simple gust of wind could have provided, and stops right at the picture that haunts him the most, increasing his screen brightness all the way so that the humanoid blur amidst the dying plum trees can be seen reflected off of Tenya's glasses—until he takes them off, that is, and lets out a sigh, rubbing his temples.
"Shouto...don't tell me you believe in ghosts."
Shouto shrugs. "I don't know what I believe in. I just know that you can't deny what's—what's here," he replies, a finger tracing over the glowing, hazy, green figure and carving it out of the background so gently that the touchscreen doesn't even register him.
Tenya stares at the screen, at Shouto's fingers, until he's finally forced to grunt in resigned agreement. "But even so, this is a job for the authorities!"
A gust of wind blows along in their direction, and suddenly Shouto is keenly perceptive of every hair rooted in his scalp flowing along in the breeze. He looks at the screen one last time, wondering if maybe, he can make out a face for the ghost that's been haunting him for a good month now.
"I need to know."
"I—" Tenya sputters. "You—" He waves his arms in a huge X in the air. "It's not imperative! We have much more important things to worry about!" He yanks the phone from the table between them, dropping it into his polo's breast pocket—come to think of it, Shouto's never seen him in anything but a polo or his sleepwear—and grabs both his and Shouto's bags from the ground and dusts them off, slinging one over each of his shoulders in one motion. "We can notify the police. I'm warning you, Shouto, this isn't business we should be sticking our noses into—"
He stops in confusion when Shouto merely looks back at him with a finger to his lips, leaning against a mossy plum tree. The wind chills him to the bone despite the fact that it's the middle of July, and he inhales slowly, hoping tonight would finally be the night he'd be able to gain clarity of some sort and end this month full of stale snack-induced stomachaches and grasping at vague, translucent nothingness.
"It doesn't matter if you think it's our business or not," he tells Tenya, eyes turning back to the star and smog-dusted sky. "Can't you feel it? They're already here."