Archive of Our Own

It was too hot to be alive.

Motionless, spread-eagle on the floor of his room, Shoto silently cursed his father, the walls of the house that seemed to suck in heat and trap it, the sun, the month of July, having a physical form, and, once more for good measure, his father. He could have fixed the temperature in his room himself, but it would mean a fight if Endeavor caught him using his quirk for something so trivial. A respite from the summer heat might be worth the trouble. An increased tolerance for heat might be worth the discomfort. An early death might be a relief.

Shoto cycled idly through his options. His thoughts were interrupted by the buzz of his phone— a message. Someone had messaged him.

He only had the phone because his sister had insisted on it, a safety measure for going away to the big city for school, and getting messages on it was still a novelty.

midoriya izuku: what are you doing this weekend?

It was challenging to type a reply one-handed, with the phone held unsteadily above his face, but he managed.

me: nothing
midoriya izuku: do you want to come over?

He read the message, then forced himself to sit upright and read it again. It didn't make any more sense the second time.

me: why?
midoriya izuku: to hang out?
midoriya izuku: I think we'll be working hard at training camp. we should do something fun before we go

"Hang out" and "fun" were words Shoto understood mostly in an intellectual sense, concepts filed under "inappropriate uses of time for aspiring heroes of your caliber" for so long, he wasn't sure how to think of them in any other way. Being around some of his classmates— Midoriya, Iida, Yaoyorozu— was pleasant. Did eating lunch together constitute "hanging out"? Or was it only "hanging out" if you didn't do anything? That seemed boring. And unproductive, but, he thought, with a fresh searing of resentment toward Endeavor, that was hardly the end of the world.

Well, Midoriya was never boring, so hanging out would probably be... fun?

me: sure

Only after he sent the text did he consider whether his father was likely to give permission for such a frivolous outing. He was out of town for work at the moment, but he would surely object whenever he arrived home. It was the weekend, he reasoned, and he could probably count on Fuyumi to back him up where taking sensible breaks from training was concerned.

Maybe he should be training— his aversion to heat was a weakness, one for which no villain or rival would have any sympathy. Guilt clawed at his stomach and warred with his simple desire to not sweat anymore.

I'll train at camp, he told himself firmly. I'll work hard.

He was going to spend the weekend with Midoriya. Maybe his place had air conditioning.

Shoto took the train to the town where Midoriya lived. He was struck by the realization that through all his years growing up in Endeavor's house, Midoriya had been there, less than fifty kilometers away. If he'd ever ventured off the estate, gone to a normal school, had the chance to meet people his own age, they might have crossed paths long ago.

What would Midoriya have been like as a child? Only Bakugou knew, and he certainly wasn't telling. Midoriya didn't talk about his past— or himself, much, at all. He wasn't famous, like Bakugou was, for the Slime Monster incident, but if you went back and watched the news coverage of that day, he was there, running headfirst into danger like he always did. That was the only glimpse Shoto had into Midoriya's life before U.A., and he had watched it again and again, looking for something, an answer, but he didn't know the question.

All Might had been there, that day, which wasn't a coincidence, but Shoto wasn't sure what that meant, either. Midoriya only ever mentioned his mother, no father, but swore up and down his connection with All Might wasn't of that nature, but what else was there?

Fuyumi had scolded him for prying into someone's private business like that, but in a mild way that told him she was gratified to be told anything that was going on in Shoto's own life.

"What difference does it make to you, anyway, how he and All Might are connected?"

"It just doesn't make sense. He's one of the strongest students in the class, I need to understand what's going on with him."

His sister had frowned; she disliked talk of strength and in fact banned it from the dinner table whenever Endeavor was away and she was in charge.

"What's going on is he helped you, and he did himself no favors in the process. I think you just don't know how to view someone as anything but a target."

It was the closest Fuyumi ever came to criticizing their father. Every one of his classmates was either a rival, or they were nothing. A rival was a problem to be solved. All Shoto had ever wanted was not to be what his father had tried to make him, but no matter how hard he tried, he never managed to be anything else.

Well, Midoriya wasn't just a rival. He was something else, too, and maybe figuring out what that was ought to take priority over the mystery of All Might.

Midoriya smiled wide when he greeted Shoto at the gate. Shoto tried to put his questions out of his mind. He was here to have fun, whatever that meant.

"Todoroki-kun! My place isn't too far from here. We can take the bus, or we can walk, since it's a nice day... or we can take the bus, yeah."

Shoto forced himself to stop; he'd started following the signs for the bus stop at the first mention of the option. It was so hot. But...

"We can walk."

"No, no, the bus is okay! I should have realized, but you really don't like the heat, do you?" Midoriya must have read the answer on his face, because he laughed. "Come on, the next bus leaves at ten past."

His first impression of Midoriya's apartment was "small", a thought he immediately identified as inappropriate. Possibly unkind. But with his father's sprawling mansion as his only frame of reference, it was hard not to be underwhelmed by the Midoriyas' two bedrooms, living room, and tiny kitchen. Looking at it objectively, it was probably a generous amount of space for a single mother and her child. If Midoriya's mother was single.

He was standing awkwardly in the middle of the living room, he realized, with Midoriya watching him, like he was waiting for something. Was there something he was supposed to say? Maybe he was supposed to have brought something, like food? No, Fuyumi would have told him to do so, if that were the case.

What did "hanging out" entail?

"You can, um, sit," Midoriya said, and a note in his voice struck Shoto as anxious. Shoto went directly to the couch and sat, hoping it would do... something.

He should have just stayed home. This was more trouble than it could possibly be worth.

"Did you eat lunch yet? Are you hungry?"

"I... didn't."

"I'll make something, then!" Midoriya was scrambling around in the kitchen before Shoto could say anything else.

The kitchen seemed like it would be cramped with the two of them in there at the same time, so Shoto stayed where he was. His eyes found a cabinet by the TV with books and framed photos behind a sliding glass door. Curious, Shoto quietly got up from the couch to look.

Most of the pictures showed Midoriya at various ages; his mother appeared in very few, which would make sense if she was the only one available to take the photos. A young Midoriya at the park, an older Midoriya at his junior high school graduation, and no fewer than three pictures of toddler Midoriya wearing what was unmistakably an All Might onesie. The common element across all the pictures was his smile. Of course, most people would smile in photographs, but there was something about the way he did it, with such pure, infectious joy, that Shoto felt the corners of his own mouth quirking upwards in response.

It also left him thinking about how much he had missed out on, with his mother's absence and his father's presence, the exact opposite of Midoriya's experience.

The only clue to the mystery of Midoriya's father was in a slightly faded, professional-looking portrait of a man, a woman, and a baby. This must have been the family, then, before whatever caused the father's absence. Divorce? Death? Was it possible he lived here when there was no sign of him?

Why does it bother you so much?

He just wanted to understand. He needed to know what Midoriya was.

He turned quickly at the sound of Midoriya reentering the room.

"I remembered you like cold foods, and it's really hot today, so I made sandwiches. What are— oh—" He took in where Shoto was standing and his face began to flush. With impressive grace for someone so obviously freaking out, he deposited the plate of food on the table and rushed over to stand between Shoto and the photos.

"You don't need to look at those, I forgot they were out here and they're embarrassing so why don't we just sit down? Or I guess you already looked which is also fine, it's my fault for not thinking about the fact that inviting you over would mean you would see, I mean, I'm not embarrassed, they're just pictures, of me, when I was a kid, you know, why don't we go eat some sandwiches?"

Shoto waited patiently for him to finish. Then, since it seemed like some form of reassurance was needed, he said, "It's cute."

Midoriya didn't reply, mostly because it looked like his face might actually be about to catch fire. It didn't. He returned to the couch and sat, then nudged the plate of sandwiches in Shoto's direction.

Had it been the wrong thing to say? People were so complicated.

He joined Midoriya on the couch and they sat in silence, three feet apart, eating cucumber sandwiches.

"Thanks for the food," Shoto said when the plate was empty, or at least he tried to say it, but Midoriya spoke at the same time.

"How has your summer been so far? Wait, what?"

"Thanks for... the... food."

"Oh!" He smiled his ridiculous smile. "Of course! It's my pleasure."

"You asked about my summer?"

"Yeah. Did you get to visit your mom?"

"I did." He managed a small smile of his own at the memory. Midoriya watched him, eyes shining like he expected more, and Shoto felt his face grow warm. He kind of wanted to say more about his visit with his mother, but everything about his relationship with his mother was new and strange and he didn't really know how to talk about it. "It's been really hot, lately," he said instead, which seemed like a boring and pointless thing to say, but Midoriya took it in stride.

"It has! At first I thought it was such a pain to keep training when it's this hot and humid but then I thought, if I can train in this weather surely I can train in any weather! But you're probably used to it, right? I mean, you've been training a lot longer than I... have..." He looked uncomfortable as he trailed off, maybe because he realized he was referring to Shoto's upbringing and he knew a little of the baggage that came with it.

Reassurance, Shoto thought again, and get it right this time. "I'm used to it, but I still really dislike hot weather."

"That makes sense. Summer is my favorite, actually. We get a vacation to spend time with friends and family, and there's fireworks, and watermelon, and festivals, and the days are really long so you can get lots of stuff done, and the big U.S. hero convention, which, I've never been but I read about it online and there's lots of really cool stuff, and shaved ice, and my birthday, and I think I said fireworks already, and this year we have the training camp and I can't wait to go train and get stronger with everybody..."

Shoto was struck again by the strength of Midoriya's enthusiasm. Never mind that most of that stuff had never been a part of Shoto's summers, the way Midoriya talked about it made him start to reconsider his position on the season as a whole. He didn't want to interrupt, but he caught something that seemed important.

"Your birthday?"

"—and swimming— oh, yeah. My birthday."

"When?"

"...Last week?"

"Not the day you were at the shopping mall?"

"No, but... the day after, actually. It's not a big deal! My mom and I ate katsudon and anyway it's an inconvenient time because it's always right at the end of the school term and now I'm in high school and everything, I don't need to bother people with something so childish and anyway, fair is fair, when's your birthday?"

"January."

"January...?"

"11th."

"Okay." He nodded once, firmly, apparently determined to remember. Shoto didn't really expect him to, but it would hardly be the first time Midoriya surprised him. "So you like winter the best?"

"I guess."

"We should hang out again during winter vacation, too! What could we do? Let's see..."

Allowing Midoriya to ramble at length again, this time about every winter activity he could think of, Shoto focused instead on his mannerisms, watching the way he emphasized certain things with his hands, tilted his head, jittered his legs.

I need to understand.

Understand what?

"—and Kacchan is really funny in the winter, he hates the cold, and now at least he'll think twice about trying to beat me up if I laugh at him, um... yeah. Because... yeah."

Something in there had made him uncomfortable again, because he fell silent, leaving Shoto to try to parse it out. "Are you and Bakugou friends?"

Midoriya shifted in his seat, not meeting Shoto's eyes. "We're not... not friends? I think. I mean, we're not friends like, like—" he glanced at Shoto, then looked down at his knees. "We're not, like, real friends. But I think he hates me less than he did."

"I asked him about it once."

"And you're still alive! That's good."

From someone else, Shoto might have thought that was sarcastic, but he thought he had a pretty good grasp on Midoriya's personality by this point, and it didn't seem like he would joke about something like that. The conversation in question had been a little... explosive, after all.

Midoriya sighed. "Kacchan has a lot of pride. He thinks I look down on him, but I don't. I look up to him, I always have."

It made sense, certainly, that someone as proud as Bakugou might feel insecure faced with Midoriya, such an unassuming figure with a power like All Might's. What didn't really make sense, at least to Shoto, was why someone like Midoriya would admire a guy like that. "He's taller than you," Shoto said, kind of thinking out loud.

Midoriya blinked. Then he laughed, as wholeheartedly as he did everything, until there were actual tears in his eyes. "Todoroki-kun, did you just make a joke?"

Shoto replayed the conversation in his head, and after a moment realized what had been funny. Not on purpose, he thought, but he said, "Maybe."

There was a sound at the door and Midoriya jumped to his feet. "Mom's home!"

Shoto stood and followed Midoriya to the entrance, but slowly, suddenly nervous to meet Midoriya's mother.

His own mother was quiet whenever he went to see her. Happy, at the sight of him, but there was a sadness in her room that seemed to permeate everything. He'd thought hard about it and he could remember her smiling, laughing even, when he was a child, but that was gone now. Was it her medication? The hospital itself? Or something he and his father had caused, that could never be undone? Each time he visited, he felt a little less nervous, but there was still a split second before he opened the door, every time, when he wondered if the woman on the other side would hate him.

Midoriya was taking one of the heavy-looking shopping bags from his mother's shoulders, so Shoto hastened to do the same.

"Todoroki-kun is here," Midoriya said, unnecessarily.

"Yes, welcome. It's nice to finally meet you." She smiled, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. To Midoriya, she said, "I picked up some things for dinner on the way home from work. Could you two put them away in the kitchen?"

As he helped Midoriya unpack the shopping bags, Shoto realized what he was looking at. Soba noodles, tsuyu sauce... Midoriya's mother was preparing to make zarusoba, the same dish Shoto ordered at the school cafeteria every day.

"Oh," he said, and Midoriya grinned at him. "You didn't have to..."

Midoriya just smiled wider. "Mom asked me what you like. You can't possibly be surprised I noticed. Wanna help make it?"

Shoto hesitated. He'd never had much to do with the cooking at home; Fuyumi had taken over that responsibility once their mother had gone away, and anything like hobbies had always been, in Endeavor's eyes, a waste of time.

"Or not. If you don't want to you don't have to, obviously, it's your call—"

"I'll help," he said quickly. "If it's okay with your mother, I'll help."

Midoriya's mother set them the task of slicing green onions, a job which definitely didn't need two people, but they took turns anyway. Midoriya's onions came out fine and even, and Shoto would have preferred to just watch him do it. His practiced motions had a calming quality to them that was absent when Shoto held the knife, acutely aware of its sharpness and the delicacy of the scallion. He wasn't sure cooking was for him.

The final product, garnished with a mix of Midoriya's neatly sliced onions and Shoto's... best effort, tasted just as good as what he got from Lunch Rush's cafeteria. The dinner table was quiet, which didn't really bother Shoto. He was used to that, after all.

Midoriya broke the silence after a while. "How was work?"

"Oh, you know. It was fine. Did you two do anything fun today?"

"Todoroki-kun had only just got here a little while before you did."

"I see. Did you have to travel far? Izuku said you live here in Shizuoka."

"About two hours."

"That's not too bad. I never realized Endeavor lived so close to us, all this time."

With a glance at Shoto, Midoriya opened his mouth to speak, maybe worried that Shoto didn't want to talk about his father. Shoto didn't, as a rule, want to talk about his father. But he also didn't want Midoriya's mother thinking there was anything wrong with him, and he was used to this kind of attention, anyway.

"His agency office is in Yokohama. He splits his time." More there than here, since Shoto started high school, which made weekends a blessedly Endeavor-free time, usually.

"Ah, that makes sense." She took a bite of noodles and chewed thoughtfully. "And the rest of your family? Do you have brothers or sisters? Izuku, are you alright?"

Midoriya seemed to be swaying slightly from side to side in his seat. He was nervous about this line of questioning, clearly, but Shoto felt it important to show him that he was all right.

And, well, Endeavor was far too important for any of his family's dirty laundry to have made headlines. The authorities certainly wouldn't allow it. "Two brothers, one sister. My sister lives at home. She teaches. Elementary school."

There was a certain pressure to Midoriya's mother's gaze, off-putting in a way different from the way her son usually looked at Shoto. All that brightness was missing, and it made him feel a little unwelcome.

She let them help clean up after dinner, then shooed them away, suggesting, "Izuku, why don't you show Todoroki-kun your room?" in a way that didn't leave much room for argument.

Midoriya seemed nervous about going into his room, but Shoto knew by now what to expect. No one in the class should be surprised by his taste in interior decorating, he thought. Posters, action figures, newspaper clippings. One of the figures on the desk caught his eye and he went to get a closer look.

"I saw this on TV a long time ago," he said.

"It's a special edition. I got it for my birthday when I was six." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I guess all this stuff is a little childish."

Shoto shrugged. There was something to be said, in his opinion, for caring about a thing this much. Even though it was All Might's image surrounding him, it was Midoriya's presence that filled the room to every corner. "I wanted one. Mom wouldn't buy it, though. I think she was scared."

Midoriya blanched at the implication, then blinked. "Todoroki-kun, you were a fan of All Might?"

"I guess. I remember watching him on the news with my mom when I was young. What you said about my power— it reminded me of that. Something about how just because you inherit power, doesn't matter as much as how you use it. How you make it your own."

"'Quirks are inherited,'" Midoriya recited, "'but what it takes to be a hero, that comes from inside yourself, and it is yours alone.'"

"Uh... yeah."

Immediately flustered, Midoriya said, "I mean, you basically remembered it. I didn't mean to correct you, or anything, I just remember that interview because I watched it too and it meant a lot to me as well, but I guess for different reasons, well, everyone has their own reasons, that's kind of what he was talking about, right?"

"I... think so." Shoto had come to realize that despite his tendency to stutter, talk too fast, and apologize excessively, Midoriya's ramblings were rarely meaningless. But if there was a trick to consistently understanding them, Shoto didn't know what it was.

Midoriya abruptly picked up the special edition figure and pressed it into Shoto's hands. "You can look at it. If you want."

He took it, although he didn't know what he was supposed to do with it. He wasn't sure what use it would even have been to him ten years ago. It didn't do much besides grin and be muscular, not unlike the genuine article.

And yet to hold in his hands something so utterly useless, that his father would have thrown out of the house, that he might have punished Shoto for wanting... he felt something.

"Your mother doesn't like me much," he commented, voice low so as not to carry outside the room.

"What? No!" Midoriya shook his head and waved his hands frantically. "No, no, she likes you fine, she's just... tired! From work. You know, from her job. Working. And shopping, and cooking, which she does every day so it's nothing personal against you, definitely. Why wouldn't she like you? You're... you! Ha... Todoroki-kun... don't be silly..." He trailed off, with an unconvincing facsimile of his usual smile plastered across his face.

"Is it because I hurt you in the sports festival?" He'd considered the possibilities, the elder Midoriya's attitude, everything about himself that could have offended, and this seemed like the most likely explanation. Midoriya would bear scars from their encounter for the rest of his life.

Midoriya's face resolved into an entirely different expression; his mouth was suddenly steady and his chin jutted out. "I know how much of that was my own fault, even if she doesn't see it. And she understands that it's part of the training, part of me being at U.A. So yeah, she was nervous when I said I wanted to invite you over but I told her she just needs to get to know you! Only, you're a little..."

They stood in silence as Shoto waited for Midoriya to say what he was, and Midoriya hesitated, likely not wanting to say anything negative.

I wouldn't want to bring someone like me to meet my mother.

"She'll understand. Eventually. She just worries. I mean, I stayed friends with Kacchan all those years even though he's the way that he is, and she really didn't like that. So now she asks me stuff like what about the nice girl from your team in the cavalry battle, and, like, Uraraka-san and Iida-kun are my friends, too, but I wanted to see you."

"Friends?" Shoto repeated, and his voice came out small. Friends?

You don't know how to approach someone except as a target.

Midoriya, true to form, put his hands up apologetically started backtracking. "Only— only if you want to be! I mean after Hosu I thought maybe we were friends, like, the three of us, we went through all that together and now it's, you know—" he lowered his voice, "—a secret. But it's your call, I know you've got your, like, lone wolf thing going on—" He stopped to stare at his hands, because Shoto had reached out to grab them.

He seemed startled, so Shoto let go right away, but it gave him the chance to get a word in. "I want to. Be friends. I don't—" —have any, he started to say, but that seemed pathetic even if it was pretty obviously true. He didn't know how to make friends, or what to do once he had them. His father didn't have any, as far as he could tell, just colleagues who valued his success rate and a daughter who had decided a long time ago that hating him wasn't worth the energy. Shoto had said, aloud, that he wanted it; did that make it true? Did that change anything between him and Midoriya?

Midoriya's expression cleared, like clouds parting for the sun. "Okay," he said, "friends, then." Like that settled everything.

If that's what Shoto got for agreeing to be friends, then he must have made the right call.

Midoriya laid out a spare futon for Shoto on the floor of his room.

He seemed to fall asleep right away. Shoto lay awake, contemplating his first night in years spent neither in his father's house nor in a hospital. Even in the dark, the sounds and smells were all wrong. Food and sweat and air freshener instead of tatami and the scent of burning wood that permeated the whole house. Cars passing outside, but also people in the other apartments, a dog barking somewhere, and Midoriya, breathing, just a few feet away.

I just want to understand.

Midoriya's mother had stopped in to say good night a little while earlier, and appeared thoughtful at the sight of Shoto and her son sitting together on the floor, looking at his old hero research. Shoto probably didn't need five-years-outdated stats on B-listers like Firefall and Wolf Girl, but you never know. And Midoriya seemed to like talking about it.

See? he had wanted to tell Midoriya's mother. I'm not dangerous. I'm not dangerous to him.

His father had worked hard for a long time to make him dangerous, and Shoto couldn't remember the last time he'd wanted to be anything else.

No, that was wrong. He remembered. It was the week he'd spent with a bandage over his left eye.

He would have given anything to be someone else, something else, something his mother could love. Maybe if he looked more like Fuyumi or Natsuo. Maybe if he became a hero without ever using his left side.

But when he entered his mother's hospital room, she told him the hospital staff had shown her the newspaper articles about the sports festival, and she wasn't upset, or frightened. She said she was proud. Of him, of all of him.

What about Midoriya's power? Was his mother ever afraid of him, or just for him? Where was his father? How did he catch All Might's eye?

What difference does it make to you?

Midoriya didn't make sense. All that power, in a boy like that. And he should have been Shoto's rival, but instead they were friends. Maybe they could be both, but at the moment, Shoto didn't feel any burning desire to fight him again, to compete, to be better.

Maybe he was just sleepy, but he was content with this.

Shoto woke up early and used the bathroom, and in the dim pre-dawn light he was almost back at Midoriya's door before he heard the rumble of the washing machine and realized he must not be the only one up. He was still tired, and he could have gone back to sleep, but he wanted to know if he could do this without Midoriya's help. He stepped quietly out into the living room.

Midoriya's mother— Inko, he'd seen her name on an old photo in Midoriya's room— was there on the sofa, folding kitchen towels. She glanced up and saw him, and her mouth made a small 'o'.

"Todoroki-kun," she said softly, "I hope I didn't wake you."

"No," he said truthfully, then lied, "I couldn't sleep."

She gestured for him to sit, and he took one of the chairs at the table. "Izuku will probably be up in an hour or so, especially if he's going for a run this morning. Used to be he'd sleep 'til noon if I didn't drag him out of bed, but I suppose... things change, don't they?" She regarded Shoto with another of her penetrating stares, and he wondered how he could have ever thought that she and her son were not alike. "Can I get you anything?"

"No. No, thank you." He thought a silent apology to the Fuyumi he heard in his head, berating him about manners. Ordinarily he didn't bother, but this was important.

"I'm glad, you know." She set another folded towel on the stack beside her, and her eyes wandered to the photos on the bookshelf. "I'm glad he's making friends. And I know it's not his friends' fault he keeps winding up in the hospital. I know that." She said "his friends", but Shoto understood that she meant "you." "That school... it's a different world than what he grew up in. It's what he wants. But can you blame me for worrying?"

Shoto cast a glance at the closed door to Midoriya's room— complete with an All Might sign reading IZUKU— before replying carefully, "Everyone who cares about him worries about him."

"He's troublesome like that, isn't he?" She finished folding the last of her laundry and sat with her hands clasped in her lap, thumbs twitching in a gesture he recognized— Izuku did the same thing sometimes, when he was lost in a memory. "I suppose I've worried about him ever since he was a baby, even when it seemed like he was just going to live an ordinary life. Izuku's father went to work abroad, and I had to look after him alone. But he always surprises me with what he can do, how much he's overcome." She blinked, and her hands stilled. "Oh dear, I started babbling there, didn't I?"

"It's all right."

"Todoroki-kun, I want to say..." she began.

"Shoto," he said, reluctance to interrupt overtaken by a sudden desire to keep his family name— his father's name— out of this house. "Shoto is fine."

She smiled. "Shoto-kun. I just want you to know, you're always welcome here."

Shoto was not in the habit of crying. He had seen Midoriya cry at least a dozen times over the past four months, but he had learned a long time ago to take that trembling pain and the heat behind his eyes and turn it into fire. One didn't cry where Endeavor could see it or hear it. He hadn't cried when he went to see his mother for the first time; he had only felt the dull ache of anger at his father grow just the slightest bit lighter. Only now he felt this, for the first time in a long time, as a true emotion and not the fury he'd been taught. He blinked once, twice, slowly, against the sudden threat of tears.

When he trusted his voice again, he replied, "Thank you."

He heard the click of a door handle behind him and turned to see Midoriya emerge from his bedroom and pad over to squint sleepily at them.

"You guys are up early."

Inko packed the folded clothes back into the laundry basket and stood up. "We had a nice talk. Are you going to take Shoto-kun running with you?"

Midoriya seemed to wake up the rest of the way at that. "Oh, yeah— do you want to come?"

His expression was far too bright for five in the morning, and Shoto wondered if anyone knew how to say no to Midoriya when he looked at them like that.

"Sure."

Midoriya grinned. "Hope you can keep up."

Inko cut in before Shoto could respond to the challenge— "Don't overdo it, now— it's already thirty degrees outside."

Yes, Shoto thought, and I'm already feeling lightheaded. His smile matched Midoriya's as he followed him out into the hot summer morning.