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He couldn't stop thinking about the kitten.
Every time he heard, or thought he heard a sweet, insistent, high-pitched mewl from the depths of Oboro's jacket, Shouta had to hold himself still. Not look. All of homeroom. It was a little better, but not much, when they broke into second hour and Shirakumo was hustled off to get a temporary uniform, but Shouta still spent most of the day going over every second of that morning and all of it hurt.
The cardboard box was dissolving. Did he really think an umbrella would help?
He couldn't leave the kitten out in the rain without doing anything, but what had he really offered? And now he couldn't stop thinking about it, hurting about it, so he missed a catch in a team exercise and let everybody down.
All day long, his eyes stung. He wanted to disappear. What kind of a hero does something to selfishly ease his own conscience when there was a tiny life at stake? Shirakumo just swept into the classroom window with the stray like it was nothing, and it was never about his Quirk. He could have used the damn stairs.
What was he lacking, then? There it was again, the fear -- the fear that despite uniforms and classes Shouta was never going to figure out how to be an actual hero in his own right -- but before it could take root and chase him home on the heels of his friends and the watery grey sky, there was a shout.
"Hey! Shouta! Hey-o!"
"I swear, that guy ... He really is too much!" he heard Yamada mumble to himself, too fond, and then catch himself with a gulping noise. He knew how Shouta was feeling about the whole thing, but one of the things he valued about Yamada was his inability to fake as much as a smile. He'd have to get over it, anyway.
Shouta pursed his lips and stared at the ground and the little silvery puddles of rain at his feet as he heard sneakers slap helter-skelter against the pavement.
Shirakumo was too quick, too forward. Made too many assumptions. It would get him in trouble one day, but maybe that was Shouta's jealousy talking. Maybe he couldn't imagine how someone could move so quickly and not get tangled in their own thorny, hateful brain.
"Hey," Shirakumo sighed again when he jogged to a stop, flashing a big smile and a wave.
"Ey, ey, watch it! You're gonna make kitty puke, running like that!” Yamada scolded him theatrically, definitely for Shouta's sake, but Shirakumo shook his head with a laugh, delighted.
"I've already ruined one uniform today, my parents would kill me! Nah, nah, I dropped him off with Miss Chiyo after first hour," he said breezily, then leaned over, tilting his head curiously.
"Did you hear me, Shouta-kun?"
Shouta flinched to be addressed directly. He was still only barely facing him, even as Oboro was boldly leaning into his space. Looking at him. Waiting, expecting.
What could someone like Shirakumo want from someone like him?
"Yeah," he mumbled, flushing terribly. He was hot, and prickly where his collar met his neck. Maybe Sensei was right about not staying in wet clothes.
"Okay, great!" Shirakumo crowed, flashing him a thumbs-up. "I wanted to make sure you knew that he was, y'know, ok ..."
Yeah, all for the praise, Shouta thought miserably, hating him and his own cowardice as the other boy smiled.
"… Because it was your umbrella that let me know he was even in that box. So, thanks!"
He looked up at that, heart giving a sickening throb, but the completely honest, appreciative look on Shirakumo's elfishly handsome face sent his eyes right back to the ground.
"Ah," is all he could manage, low and surly. God, he sucked.
But he was so, so glad the kitten was okay. Shouta could only imagine Yamada and Kayama staring at him, putting together the pieces of the missing umbrella. Maybe what he failed to do, already running a little late to class.
"That was very kind and stupid of you," Kayama drawled from his left, flicking Shirakumo on the head, or trying to.
Her kohai darted away with a laugh, unrivaled in his speed in their class. Shouta knew she was trying to divert attention from him in her own way, but as they bicker over how he could have been expelled that morning -- and many times before today -- Shouta looked up.
Shirakumo, he thought, must be what All Might was like at UA. The next Number One, rising so fast he changed the weather and pulled everyone around him just to watch, to see.
He was handsome, impossibly confident. Talented. He was naturally gifted, with no question as to what he should do with those gifts. Everyone loved him.
Even Shouta.
But it was buried far and away past a lump in his throat and a perpetually racing heart. He was obnoxious, yes, but something about the way Shirakumo swept through the world left Shouta aching with jealousy and something else. Something that made it hard to look directly at him.
So when Shirakumo turned to him and caught him looking, he was nailed to the spot. And Loud Cloud never missed an opportunity on anything.
"Well, y'know, if Shou-chan was really grateful, there's one reward a hero always loves!" he said with a snicker, leaning over and tapping his own cheek.
Shouta's stomach, like a block of ice, dropped clean through the earth.
"That's disgusting," Kayama deadpanned with a blisteringly disappointed look, flipping her long hair. Bringing out the big guns, with littlest kohai threatened. "Extortion. Like acts of heroism are bargaining chips for physical –"
Glaring, Shouta stepped forward into the space between them, grabbed Oboro's tie, yanked him down and kissed him on the cheek. Quickly.
"Thanks," he said, low, and through his teeth. Mostly so his heart won't pop up his throat and escape, maybe into the soft flickering depths of Oboro's pale hair.
He let go of the tie and the look on Oboro's face was priceless. Before he could think whether it was shock or disgust, Shouta turned and hiked his backpack higher and just left. He heard Yamada squawk, and Kayama probably hurrying him along. Because they always walked home together.
What he didn't hear was Oboro's familiar bursting laughter and he ducked his head and walked a lot faster, sneakers slapping the wet ground. His face was burning.
Shit. When Kayama and Yamada caught up to him, the silence was agonizing. It wasn't bad, or worried, just weird. Maybe because they both knew he'd never kissed anyone before.
And he blew it on someone who probably thought nothing of it. Popular kids.
His stomach was withering in weirdness, worry. Shame? He really was grateful for Shirakumo saving the kitten. And maybe, if he thought of the kiss really, actually being for the kitten ... maybe it would settle better.
(It doesn't, because being that close, even for an instant, Oboro smelled like fresh spring rain, the warm healing kind that didn't soak kittens to the bone, and sharp green grass.)
That night, hiding in his room, his small mobile phone was buzzing on his nightstand. He rolled over and picked it up, just to tell his two worry-worts to stop trying to call him, but it was an unknown number. He opened the text.
-HEY SHOUTA
-ITS OBORO
He nearly dropped the phone onto his face. Shouta really didn't want to scramble upright but scramble he did, knocking over the remnants of his dinner and staring at the name and the empty response box for way too long. So long that Shirakumo -- Oboro -- texted again.
- YAMADA GAVE ME YOUR #??? SORRY I DIDNT ASK U :O
Shouta bit his lip. He thought about how everyone should have each others numbers, because of the class directory, but his thumb still hovered above his keys. It shook a little, then a little more when the phone buzzed. Again.
- HOPE UR NOT SLEPING
- SLEEPING*?
Can't sleep, too busy thinking.
Too busy trying to figure out if thinking is the same thing as regretting. What tormented Shouta the most was not knowing how he actually felt about a given thing when he was usually just too worried about being an inconvenience.
To himself? To someone else? Who knew anymore.
- HEY
Annoyance hit him, familiar, and Shouta grasped onto any familiar thing. He began to type TRYING TO SLEEP but didn't finish
- I RLY LIKE U
Shouta stared. He deleted his own text, and then closed his phone. It went on his bedside table, but on silent, where it wouldn't buzz.
He never responded.
The next day, he didn't look at Oboro, even when he felt bright beaming sky-puddle eyes on him.
He doesn't look again, until that Summer, and internships.