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Something was different, but Todoroki couldn't quite put his finger on what. He sat at the table in the 3A Dorm common room, minding his own business, but somehow other people's business seemed to mind him.
He was just trying to read on a quiet Monday evening but he keept getting distracted by people coming into the common room and making an absurd amount of noise.
He glanced up from his book as yet another classmate was milling about. Not that that was unusual - teenagers are notorious millers-about.
No. What was odd was- and here Todoroki took a moment to really look at his surroundings - what's odd was that several large pieces of furniture had disappeared.
“What are you doing?” He asked no one in particular.
“We're doing group yoga! Come on, Todoroki-kun! Join us!” shouted Uraraka as she floated the sofa up and nudged it into the hallway.
“Why are you removing the furniture?”
“To make space!” warbled Aoyama, who twirled on his tiptoes at the center of the carpet.
“I had understood yoga to be a stationary activity that can be done in very little space.” Todoroki said as his chair was lifted under him.
He craned his neck around and found himself facing the dark brown eyes of one Sero Hanta, who - lifting with his knees like a good boy - grasped the support bars of the chair legs and hoisted Todoroki and his chair with what seemed like minimal effort.
Sero deposited Todoroki and chair at the edge of the room by the hallway and grinned at Todoroki as he dusted off his hands.
“We're all doing yoga together, so we'll need more space so that everyone can fit in the room, silly.” Sero ran a long-fingered hand through his hair and returned to grab the more of the chairs.
Todoroki, however, remained seated where he was, transfixed by a sudden intellectual conundrum that hit him without warning.
It was this: Sero Hanta had called him “silly” and Todoroki found himself caught on that fact.
Am I silly? Is it because I don't do yoga? Does Sero think I'm silly when no one else does, or is this a global opinion? Is silly a bad thing? I thought silliness was equated with humor in social settings...
The though process was so involved that it took the other two trips Sero made, holding two chairs in each hand, for another conundrum to muscle its way between Todoroki's two braincells.
The second problem: Sero Hanta himself.
Todoroki noticed for the first time that Sero was wearing what the general public would call “athleisure” clothes, but what he himself would consider very little clothing.
He had on a loose white T-shirt and a pair of black leggings with yellow stripes down the sides that snaked from the waistband then down across the thighs, curving around his calves and then down to the ankles.
Shoes off, hair tied in a loose bun at his nape, dining chairs held effortlessly on his strong arms - Sero looked...something. Todoroki studied his new problem making yet another trip get more furniture.
“MmmmHmm, that's a snack and a half right there,” said Ashido from somewhere to his right. Todoroki turned to look at her. What the...when did she get there?
“A snack?”
“A snack and a HALF. Just wanna chomp chomp chomp on those juicy thighs, doncha?”
Oh. I get it now. Because he looks like something one would want to eat, metaphorically. A snack. Clever.
“Quite.”
“You gonna join the fun, or are you going to just watch the show from here?”
Todoroki considered his classmate, her statement, and the implications of any admission of his desire to participate or to watch.
Ashido waited for his gears to turn, unhurried, amused.
“How about you sit this one out and just watch. Maybe take some notes. Learn how it's done before you throw yourself in?” She suggested.
“To prevent injury, of course.”
“Of course.” Ashido grinned and gave him a wink before flouncing off to the front of the group.
They were arrayed in three rows across the open floor of the common area, facing the windows which doubled as a giant mirror now that it was dark outside.
Todoroki watched his classmates roll out various mats and towels on the carpeted floor, and at the front of the room Midoriya stepped up and started to call everyone's attention. Apparently he would be leading the session.
“Hey, if you wanna join, you can hurry and change now. I'll save you a spot!” Sero said cheerfully from the back row, in full view of where Todoroki sat.
Todoroki almost gaped at Sero, who gestured at the empty space between himself and Shoji. Catching himself, he clicked his mouth shut.
“I'm comfortable where I am, thank you, Sero-kun.”
“Aw, come on, silly - you're sitting on a wooden chair all buttoned up. Let loose a little. Come stretch.”
There it was again. Silly.
Focus, Shouto. Focus. Be reasonable. Logical.
“There are no buttons on my clothes,” he said, gesturing at his turtleneck sweater and belted slacks.
“Ha! You're hilarious, man! Come on. It'll be fun!”
Todoroki felt his face heat at being called hilarious. Humor! He finds my behavior humorous! That's a positive thing!
Play it cool. Cool down.
“I'm preventing injury. Yoga is not a familiar activity for me. I think it best for me to observe first, before trying it.”
“OK, observe, then. I'll make sure to have good form today, so you can see how it's done.” The group had begun their stretching, and Sero raised his arms straight above his head. His shirt rode up, exposing a toned midriff above the tight waistband of those damned leggings.
Todoroki attempted to turn back to his book as if the cutest boy in class 3A were not standing in front of him in nothing but leggings and a -
Good Gods how is he bending like that?
The book sat neglected on Todoroki's lap as he sat with eyes glued to those glutes as Sero bent at the waist, exhaling, pressing his forehead to his shins.
Todoroki was enchanted.
Midoriya proceeded to lead the group in what looked to be a repetition of several connected poses, with measured breathing occurring during the shift from one to another.
Sero moved fluidly, with evident practice and possessing - unbeknownst to Todoroki until just now - considerable grace.
Midoriya called them all bad dogs for some reason and they bent forward again, creating triangles of varying geometric accuracy. Sero's was - obviously - a perfect equilateral triangle.
Sero's shirt fell forward and Todoroki espied the trim waist, washboard abs and pert pectorals that somehow had escaped all notice until this very moment.
Brown nipples and just a smattering of chest hair were visible as he held the pose. Sero's line of vision was obscured by the shirt and he tugged it back up with one hand while still maintaining his balance.
Todoroki was halfway through cursing this change of scenery when Sero grew frustrated and simply removed the shirt altogether, dragging it down over his head and, lifting each hand in turn, leaving the shirt in a cotton puddle at the foot of his yoga mat.
The curse became a prayer of thanks.
With each changing pose, Todoroki was fascinated in new ways by the flexibility and quiet strength of Sero's body.
The turn of his calves on display when he stood on one leg with the other heel tucked over the straightened knee - something about a tree?
The ripple of the now-bare muscles of his back as he lowered himself into a perfect plank.
The thick solidness of his thighs as he bent one leg and stretched out the other - Midoriya called this a warrior shape.
At one point Sero lay down on his back and, bending double again, pressed his knees to the floor next to his ears. Todoroki thought he would combust at the way his leggings stretched impossibly tighter across the toned mounds of his backside. Midoriya said something about ploughing and Todoroki choked on a cough, blushing to the roots of his hair.
I want a snack. Just a little one. Just a tiny nom nom, one of Todoroki's remaining braincells said. Me, too. One lil' bitty bite, said the other braincell.
It's too much. This is too much.
Todoroki stood and went to sit on the sofa in the hallway, reopening his book and willing his mind back into his body and out of the gutter.
He stared at his book, reading the same sentence over and over again, retaining none of it, until he was disturbed by the feeling of floating.
Uraraka had started putting the furniture back.
It appears they've finished. Finally.
He let himself be floated out of the hallway and back into the common room. When the sofa failed to return to the ground and began floating up toward the ceiling, he glanced down and noted that Uraraka had gotten a bit distracted by something - or someone - and had neglected to cancel her quirk.
When the sofa dipped slightly in midair, Todoroki gripped the arms in panic until he realized someone had sat down on it with him. In midair.
It was Sero. He'd swung up on some tape and now was lounging, all legs and leggings, shirt draped over one shoulder, as if this were the most normal thing to do.
I suppose it isn't the most strange or extraordinary thing anyone in our class has seen.
Still, it made him blush to look at Sero stretched out on the floating sofa, so close that his toes could brush Todoroki's side if he just leaned a little closer.
“Found you!” Sero said cheerily, his head resting on the opposite arm of the sofa. He crossed his ankles, Todoroki refused to let his eyes wander up past the shapely bones of his feet.
“Indeed. I didn't know I was lost.”
“I turned around and you disappeared, so I thought I'd lost you there.”
“Oh.” came the eloquent, charming reply.
“I figured you probably wandered off. You do that, you know. Wander off. Even sitting here right now it's like you've just...gone somewhere else.”
“I am still present, Sero-kun.”
“I know that, silly. I mean, your mind is elsewhere. Like you're trying to get away from wherever you are to wherever you'd rather be.”
“I'm exactly where I want to be,” Todoroki said before he could stop himself.
Sero beamed and nudged Todoroki in the side with his long, high-arched foot.
“It's kinda nice up here, actually. Never really gave much thought to how high the ceilings are in here. Maybe we should build a loft or something...What?”
Sero trailed off as he noticed Todoroki studying him with a particular intensity that was reserved for difficult math questions or thorny strategy problems.
“Why are you wearing leggings, Sero-kun?”
“Why? Um, for yoga...which we were all just doing...you saw...”
“No, I mean, why do you do yoga in leggings? They seem...impractical.”
“They're comfortable.”
“Are they?” Todoroki wasn't sure why his voice squeaked on that question.
“Are yours?”
They're a little tight right now, but you don't need to know that.
“I suppose they are.”
“Don't you ever just...lounge? You're always so Put Together. Polished. Do you even own a pair of sweatpants? Don't you ever cut loose?”
“What, like you? Parading around practically nude?”
Sero blushed and sat up, crossing his legs, retreating inward at the remark, which Todoroki instantly regretted.
“Wait. Don't go. I'm sorry. It's just...there's a lot of...you...going on here.”
“Oh?” Sero leaned forward, hands and knees on the couch, his face much closer to Todoroki than when he was reclining.
He's very long.
“You're very long.”
Another blush, but no retreat.
“One second you're all the way over there, then you fold in half like a paradox or a cat, and then you're over here. It's because you're...very long.”
“You're not so short yourself, silly.”
“Am I? Silly? You keep saying that. Is that bad?”
Sero laughed aloud at that. “Yes, you're silly. And I like that about you.”
“You like things about me?”
“Of course, silly.”
“Like what?”
“I like the way you take things so literally but you're still so self-aware. I like that you pretend to read when you're staring at my ass. I like that you're actually really funny and silly, even if you don't admit it to everyone.”
“Oh.”
“And I like how you've always got the nicest things to say to me...”
“Humor at my expense. I see. Effective.”
Sero somehow had inched even closer. “Exactly! So. Nice things. About me. Go.”
Todoroki gulped and willed his body temperature to lower. “Well, there are things I like about you...I mean, your leggings. I mean your legs. Shit.”
Sero was practically crouching in Todoroki's lap - a difficult feat of logistics considering both boys were over 190cm tall now, and filling out their frames with hero training. And also on a floating couch.
“What about me and my legs do you like, Shouto? May I call you Shouto? I feel like if we're exchanging compliments we can exchange names, too.”
Todoroki gulped. “Um. Well. Hanta. Yes. Your legs. They are, as I've said, quite long.”
“And that's a good thing?”
“That's a good thing.”
“And that's all you like about me?”
“I suppose not.”
“You suppose?”
“Maybe, instead, I could...show you?”
Sero nodded minutely, and Todoroki leaned forward. Sero leaned forward, too, eyes drooping closed, lips parting slightly, their bodies drawing closer.
Instead of kissing him, Todoroki placed a hand firmly on Sero's right ass cheek and squeezed.
Sero yelped and sprang forward, knocking their heads together and sending Todoroki, who was already scrambling backwards in embarrassment, flying off the floating sofa.
He plummeted downwards but before he could create an ice slope to catch his fall, he felt himself caught around the waist and swung upwards as Sero - heroically, dashingly, literally - swooped in to save him.
Todoroki's arms went around Sero's neck as they swung like a very tall and adolescent pendulum, suspended from the ceiling by a strip of Sero's tape.
Depositing them both soundly on the ground, Sero looked sheepish for a moment, then instead looked Todoroki right in the eyes and leaned forward again.
“Your butt is nice.” Todoroki said before their lips could meet. “I tried to show you. That I think your butt is nice.”
Sero closed his eyes and pressed his fingertips to the bridge of his nose.
“And your leggings do not look comfortable because they seem to be very tight. It is nice to see your butt, but I do not believe that you are actually comfortable in this state of undress.”
“Todoroki. Shouto. Please. Can I kiss you now or are you going to try to keep me away by saying nice things about my butt and weird things about my leggings?”
“I've been led to believe that compliments are desirable.”
“I think I'd prefer a kiss over a compliment.”
“That seems rather forward of you to say.”
“You just grabbed my butt and threw yourself off the sofa.”
“Very well. Kiss me and then divest yourself of those leggings.”
“Well that's very forward of you to say.”
Todoroki blushed a deep red.
“I meant, go change.”
“I think I might need some help getting them off. They are tight, aren't they? Maybe I can help you get a little more comfortable, too?”
“Shut up and kiss me.”