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It wasn’t supposed to be much of anything. In fact, Izuku originally planned to go alone as he usually did, but he found his thumb hovering over Todoroki’s contact picture and resigned with a small sigh, sending him a text. He was both pleased and surprised to receive a reply just moments later, and he found himself walking down to the beach with a small bounce in his step instead of the heavy feet he had on most other nights.
It was never fun, and he knew that he would get into trouble one of these days, but just about once a week Izuku found himself going down to the beach in the middle of the night, placing his sneakers just at the edge of the waterline, and screaming at the top of his lungs until he felt them start to burn. The first time wasn’t planned, but it felt so good that he couldn’t help beginning his own ritual. It was a way to get rid of everything that built up, and the only way that wasn’t constructive or destructive. It was for those times where he wasn’t motivated enough to pour himself into a fight, but he wasn’t upset enough to take a few punches on purpose or drive his own knuckles into bruises. It was just a way to untie the knot, albeit gracefully.
So what, he went to the beach to scream sometimes. He wasn’t hurting anybody and he wasn’t alarming anybody, either: he could count the number of the hour on the fingers of one hand, and he never went after sunrise for fear of spooking an unlucky runner. But for some reason it always felt embarrassing to say out loud, so he never told anybody. No one knew, and he liked it that way.
But this particular night felt heavier than usual, and something in the way his stomach rolled told him that he did not want to go alone.
The true mystery was why his thumb found its way to Todoroki’s contact picture almost on instinct, when it could’ve gone to anybody he was more friendly with: Kirishima or Kaminari would surely not think any less of him if they knew what he was doing, Iida might fret but he wouldn’t give Izuku too much trouble, and surely Uraraka would be happy to participate alongside him. But as Izuku ran over these options in his head, the one person that really pulled to him was Todoroki. It felt inexplicably right.
And here Izuku was, fifteen minutes later with his phone in his right hand and his left jammed into his sweatshirt pocket, standing on the beach at the ripe hour of 2:34 A.M. His feet dragged their way through the sand to the surf, but for the first time he found himself kicking off his socks and shoes and standing anke-deep in the water, letting the waves wash over him. He closed his eyes, letting his other senses bring him closer to everything going on outside of the cacophony of his own mind. He felt himself getting lost in a stream of consciousness that was not unlike the ocean before him: ups and downs and crests and whitewater doubts and calculations and—
“Hey, you.” A soft voice came from Izuku’s right, just by his shoulder. He felt his body jolt and opened his eyes to a red and white mess of bedhead, and could not help the grin that overtook his face. “Hey, you,” he echoed, feeling the knot in his chest loosen to let him breathe. Todoroki returned the smile, giving Izuku the gift of something warm and tentative, like the other boy had just learned how to express happiness and was currently practicing. It made something in Izuku’s chest jump, and he turned his eyes back to the water.
They stood together for a moment, both watching the dark waves jump over each other, turning and churning like a pot of soup. The ocean seemed on edge today; there were no stars in the sky, so Izuku predicted a coming storm. The chill hanging in the air seemed to confirm his guess with an icy breeze coming off the water, and Izuku shivered and nestled further into his hoodie, already feeling his cheeks beginning to chap.
For a moment the silence was nice, but it became empty just as quickly. Izuku grasped for something to say, finding within his brain about sixty different conversation starters, but instead settling for something that he really did want to say.
“Thank you.” His voice sounded small and he flushed, thankful for the dark to cover it. He felt Todoroki shift and realized that their shoulders were touching. They were closer than he had realized.
The reply he received sounded gentle, like a soft touch. “For what?” Todoroki turned his head to look at Izuku, and Izuku felt the gaze on his cheek but chose to close his eyes instead of matching it. He tilted his head back, feeling the wind and the salty mist from the water rush across his face, his cheeks. It really was chilly tonight.
“For coming. I guess I wasn’t really expecting you to be up, let alone ready to go somewhere,” Izuku said, keeping his eyes closed. He sounded stupid, and he didn’t really want to look stupid, too. Plus he might start rambling if he got too nervous, and he had a feeling looking into Todoroki’s eyes right now would make him nervous. They would be concerned and confused, and Izuku did not like having those emotions directed at him.
“Well, I suppose if it were anybody else I might’ve pretended to be asleep. But it wasn’t. It was you.” The taller boy’s words gave him an unexpected surge of warmth in his chest, and Izuku could hear the smile in his voice. He could almost imagine the way his lips would quirk up in the corner, the way he smiled with his eyes more than anything, the way he looked unsure of himself but still happy to be happy—
Oh, fuck it.
Izuku opened his eyes and looked at Todoroki with an eyebrow quirked, and he almost died on the spot. Todoroki’s smile was everything he had imagined and more; his gaze was fixed back on the ocean but even then his eyes seemed to sparkle, his tiny smile making him seem much younger than he usually did (many of their classmates say he is older than his years, but Izuku knew better), and it made him shine so brightly that Izuku wondered briefly if the sun would be jealous. Izuku could not help the word that slipped out of his mouth:
“Me?” he asked, slightly incredulous. What was so special about him that made Todoroki get up and walk down to the beach at nearly 3 in the morning?
Todoroki turned his eyes from the ocean and instead locked them onto Izuku’s, quirking his own eyebrow to mirror Izuku, and his soft gaze turned his eyes into hot chocolate. Izuku realized that his icy blue eye was not really so icy after all, not when he looked at him like that, not when he made Izuku’s stomach feel like a pot of melted butter. What were they talking about again? Todoroki’s voice brought him back, sounding soft and sort of sleepy and very, very warm, the edges tinted with a lightness that Izuku could not completely place.
“Yes, you. It was important, no? You would’t have asked if it wasn’t important.” He smiled again, leaving more butterflies in his trail, and Izuku swallowed.
“I — yeah, no, I wouldn’t’ve. I didn’t want to bother you at all, but . . .”
“But?” Izuku realized that Todoroki had broken their shoulder-to-shoulder stance and was now tilting his body towards Izuku, a universal sign that he was listening, attentive. His eyes were so gentle and understanding that when Izuku picked his own up off the floor to make eye contact, he felt the words tickling the backs of his teeth, threatening to spill over and leave everything right here on this beach for Todoroki to hear. But something was still holding him back: while Todoroki being here felt right, this was not the time to say everything. That could wait. Izuku realized as he looked into a beautiful set of mismatched eyes that he did want to tell Todoroki everything, even if he wasn’t ready now. He took a small breath to bring himself back from his thoughts.
“I just didn’t want to be alone right now, I guess. Hoped you could use the company, too.” Izuku gave him a shy smile, feeling another little flush creep up on his cheeks, and let his eyes drift back to the dark water. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Todoroki stoop down for a moment and pop back up, and he watched him kick his shoes to the side and step his feet into the water beside Izuku. The moon was hidden behind the clouds and the world was so dark that Izuku could almost imagine that him and the boy beside him were the only ones left on the planet, and with a bemused smile he realized that he wouldn’t be all that mad.
“I could always use the company.” Izuku let the reply hang in the air, not sure what to follow up with, and mentally scolded himself for being so awkward. He glanced at Todoroki from under his eyelashes and saw him watching the waves too, looking perfectly comfortable. He realized with a jolt what Todoroki was wearing: his hoodie wasn’t exactly muted, practically yelling in the dark night, proudly showing off red, yellow, and blue. All Might’s colors. Izuku felt his mouth quirk into a grin. He probably had a onesie with the same pattern.
“I like your sweatshirt.”
“I thought you might.”
They shared a grin, and Izuku was once again reminded of how right this felt. His mind was at peace for a moment, the reason behind his beach trip completely pushed to the corner of his mind and nearly forgotten until—
“Not that I mind, but I assume your reason for this visit wasn’t just to look at the waves?” Todoroki said, jamming his hands into his pockets. The temperature was dropping; Izuku wouldn’t be surprised if it started raining. His chest twisted unpleasantly as his stomach did a little flip-flop. He knew he could trust Todoroki, but there was that little part of him that felt vulnerable, something he hated feeling no matter who he was with. He drew a quick breath in through his nose and sunk even deeper into his sweatshirt, borderline hiding. When he finally opened his mouth the words seemed to fall out without any rhyme or reason.
“Sometimes my mind gets really clustered and I don’t really realize until it’s too much and when it gets to be too much I don’t like to fight it out because then the fighting frustrates me more so it just keeps building and building and building and I just want to scream so that’s what I do. I scream. And I come here so nobody else hears it and calls the police because I’m sure that’s exactly what my mom needs: a phone call from the police asking why her son was screaming bloody murder on a beach by himself at ungodly hours in the morning where he should be in bed and then what? I tell her that it’s because I’m a little stressed? I would be grounded for months for sneaking out alone—“
The small laugh from Todoroki brings Izuku back to Earth, and forget blushing — his cheeks flame when he realizes how much he just spoke. “H-hey now, why didn’t you interrupt me?!” he asks Todoroki indignantly, trying to ignore how adorably his face scrunches up when he’s laughing in the windchime way that he is, trying to ignore how it brings a small smile to his own face. “I talked myself a marathon and you didn’t even butt in, what gives?!”
“It sounded like you had a lot to say, to get it off your plate.” The boy’s laughter subsides, leaving a pleasantly contented smile in its wake. “I’m just surprised you got that far without taking a breath.”
“Hey, no need to tease. I have wonderful lungs, I’ll let you know.” Izuku nudges Todoroki gently, and he feels a swoop of delight when he hears another small laugh come from the taller boy beside him.
“I don’t doubt it for a second.” The waves continued to crash themselves onto the shore with energy, the mist leaving cold spots on their cheeks. Izuku felt warmth from where their shoulders were pressed together, and he flushed again.
“So . . . would you like to begin, or should I?” Todoroki said, his eyes looking out at the water.
Izuku looked at Todoroki, confused. The other boy sounded amused, but the tiniest bit hesitant. “What?”
“The, ah, yelling. The reason why you came. Would you like to start, or should I?” Izuku found his friend’s eyes in the dark and after a brief moment it clicked, and he audibly exclaimed, “Oh!” before once again realizing how stupid he sounded. He thought it over for a moment, weighing his options before proposing a third: “What if we go together?”
Todoroki blinked before letting a slow smile take over his lips once again. Izuku briefly wondered if it was just the lateness of the hour that was causing this many smiles to light up the other boy’s face, and if so, how he could barter another late-night meeting. It was nothing short of a blessing, really. “I think that sounds wonderful.”
“Same time, then.” Izuku rocked onto his tiptoes, feeling the ocean spray on his face. “On three?”
“On three.”
“Okay, one, two —!”
Izuku was sure it was going to be awkward and weird with somebody else around, especially someone he admired and respected as much as Todoroki, but instead he found it to be one of the most natural things in the world. He started with his eyes scrunched up as he always did, but taken over by curiosity he peeked at Todoroki and felt his heart jam to a stop at the sight. The other boy’s face was scrunched up just as Izuku’s own was just moments before, and he looked so young and vulnerable that Izuku could not help the laugh of delight that filtered into his yell, the pure elation that swept over him in a moment of adrenaline. He knew that Todoroki felt it too, for Izuku felt him gripping onto his sweatshirt sleeve where it covered his hand and he didn’t flinch away when Izuku slipped his hand out of his sleeve and grabbed onto Todoroki’s instead; he was warm and alive and all the things Izuku knew he would feel like but charged to ten because they were both still screaming, something so unnatural and yet something so easy, and it made Izuku feel like he was standing right at the edge of the world and he would never come down.
But he felt the back of this throat begin to burn, his vocals chords beginning to strain, his breath running out. He let his voice fade out and heard Todoroki do the same, and for a long moment afterward they just stood there with their hands held tight like landlines, staring out at the angry sea before them. Izuku felt like a million bucks, and he turned to look at Todoroki, pleased to find a flush high on his cheeks and his eyes open wide, tearing his gaze away from the ocean to look right back into Izuku’s, flashing him a grin that Izuku would never forget.
“I think I understand why you do this, Midoriya.”
Izuku gave another delighted laugh and, while thoroughly caught up in the moment did something just a tiny bit reckless: “Call me Izuku.”
He saw a small little something dance across Todoroki’s features, making his smile fall into a look of awe tinged with uncertainty, that made Izuku almost regret his words. But when he saw the warmth and light that was still bright in Todoroki’s wonderfully unique eyes, he felt alright.
“Are you sure?”
“Not a doubt.”
Todoroki’s smile was a work of art: equal parts shy and pure joy, uncertainty and excitement all wrapped up in a neat little package. “Alright then. Shouto.”
Izuku’s mouth quirked into a grin. “That’s not my name.”
“Oh, hush. You know what I mean, Izuku.”
“Fine then. Shouto.”
They grinned at each other, the giddiness contagious. At some point their hands had disconnected, leaving Izuku both relieved (he would’ve exploded if Todoroki’s hand had been in his when he said his first name) and also a little cold, as the temperature had definitely dropped since they had gotten there. But with the way Todoroki (Shouto, Izuku corrected himself) was looking at him with that smile of his, and the way Izuku’s name sounded coming from his mouth, he couldn’t find a single bone in his body to care about anything other than the boy in front of him.
As they slipped their shoes back on they joked around, lightly shoving each other back and forth. Izuku had seen more of Shouto’s smile and heard more of his laugh in one sitting than he had in his entire life, and he could only imagine how many gods he had to thank for that. Or maybe he just had to thank the boy right next to him for making his spirits soar, making his face hurt from all the grinning, for making his heart race in his chest. And as they walked back up the beach side by side, Izuku clinging to Shouto’s All Might hoodie, he couldn’t help the tiny explosion of golden hope that burst open in his chest, watching Shouto speak and wondering with every breath of the other boy’s how he got so lucky to find a friend that feels so right.