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This was stupid.
Everything about this was stupid.
It was a stupid idea to begin with, pitched by a stupid man from Enji’s handpicked stupid board of directors - and now Shouto was stuck on this stupid island with a stupid stuffy wardrobe and a bunch of stupid women.
That wasn’t fair. The women weren’t stupid - they were actually quite lovely, all of them. Yaoyorozu was refined and graceful, Jirou was spunky and interesting, Uraraka was cheerful and bubbly, Ashido was lively and upbeat - the list could go on.
Twenty perfectly lovely women. Twenty women, ready to bend over backwards to please him. Twenty women, willing to be filmed at their highest and lowest, given virtually no privacy, just for a chance to be with Shouto.
The stupid part was that Shouto was gay.
Stupidly gay, stupidly single, and stupidly uninterested in any of those women.
They were all technically perfect. They were kind and beautiful and the exact type of woman that Enji had always dreamed Shouto would have on his arm.
Marry well, that was what Shouto had always been told. Marry well, marry for money, for looks, for power.
Shouto had always known that marrying for love was out of the question for the heir to Endeavor Corps, but having to look his bleak, loveless future straight in the face like this, day after day was…
It was indescribably miserable.
The night had been long and exhausting, but Shouto still couldn’t find sleep. His tailored suit had been exchanged for a loose hoodie and a pair of loose shorts, but the feeling of a shirt collar so tight it felt like he might choke and pants he couldn’t quite sit down in lingered.
The sun was already peeking over the horizon, warming the shores of Enji’s damned island. Shouto could see it all from where he sat on the roof of his gimmicky villa. The white beaches, the lush jungle, the sprawling estate that spread like spiderweb cracks across the luxurious isle.
It was a private island, of course. No one but Shouto, Enji, the contestants, and the crew got to live there.
And as the weeks dragged on, the numbers dwindled.
Sending any of the contestants packing was always hard - and it was only getting worse the longer they stayed. The more he knew them, the more real they became, and the more painful it was to make them cry and storm off in front of a dozen merciless cameras.
Tonight was especially hard.
Shouto had been half-waiting for the day that Enji would start to force his hand and pick which women had to be sent home and which would stay, but Shouto had assumed he’d have a few more weeks.
Apparently not. Five weeks in, only ten women remained - and Utsushimi Camie was not one of them.
According to Enji, she was “far too ditzy to stand by the side of my greatest creation,” and “was never meant to be a real option, Shouto.”
It was a blow, certainly. Camie might have been an air-head, and intellectual conversation with her was a bit of a no-go, but she was kind-hearted and genuine. Shouto would have been able to stomach marrying her if he’d had to. He may not have felt any attraction to her, but he’d felt as though they might have been becoming friends.
And yet, the night ended without a rose for Utsushimi Camie.
Ten women left.
Seven weeks, at most - and that was if Shouto managed to drag things out and send one woman home a week until the final three.
Seven weeks until he had to pick a wife. How bleak.
“Todoroki-kun? Are you up here?”
A tingle ran up Shouto’s spine at the sound of that voice, making his stomach flip in a way that wasn’t quite unpleasant. He gave a grunt in response, lifting a hand without turning back.
The quiet patter of feet sounded, and then there was someone kneeling down to sit beside him.
“Midoriya,” Shouto greeted, relishing the way the name felt on his tongue. “Is there something else you need to film before you get to bed?”
“To film—? Ah, no!” Midoriya assured from beside him, bringing his knees up to his chest. “Nothing to film. I just couldn’t sleep, and Shinsou said he saw you come up here. And- And I just thought you might appreciate some company.”
Shouto hummed noncommittally, glancing at him from out of the corner of his eye. Midoriya’s gaze was fixed ahead on the sprawling beach, his thin t-shirt blowing in the morning breeze. His tan skin seemed to glow in the rays of dawn’s light, each freckle drawing Shouto’s eye one after another.
Midoriya Izuku was, without a doubt, the most beautiful person on the island.
“The view up here is so nice,” Midoriya whispered, drawing Shouto’s gaze back to the island in front of them.
“When I’m up here, I like to pretend I’m just on vacation,” Shouto admitted quietly, watching the path of an iguana scampering across the next roof over. “I can imagine that I don't actually have to follow through with all this.”
Midoriya sucked a little gasp in between his teeth. Shouto could see him turn to study him out of the corner of his eye, but he kept his gaze trained on the view.
“You… You really don’t want to be here, do you, Todoroki-kun?” He asked, his voice light and tentative.
Shouto leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees and resting his chin on one hand. “I would have thought you knew the answer to that.”
Midoriya let out a breath, and Shouto saw him lean forward, too. “Yeah. I guess I do.”
“Some things are good,” Shouto acquiesced, watching a bird loop lazily through the air. “Not everything is terrible.”
I met you, after all.
Midoriya clicked his tongue. “The food is incredible,” he agreed teasingly, making Shouto huff a rare laugh.
“Only because I sneak you pastries from the break table,” Shouto replied easily, bumping one of Midoriya’s broad shoulders.
“That’s because they’re all gone by the time I get there! It’s not my fault I have to do errands until lunch,” he argued back, making Shouto smile.
“Whatever will my father do without his coffee with three creams, no sugar,” he deadpanned, relishing in the way Midoriya tipped his head back in laughter.
All Shouto could do was watch - watch the way his green eyes crinkled, the way his cheeks pinkend, the way his lips curled up into a full laugh.
Midoriya was always so beautiful when he laughed.
Letting out a slow breath, Midoriya quieted, leaning back on his hands as Shouto forced himself to look away. A long, but not uncomfortable moment of silence stretched between them, broken only by the distant lull of crashing waves and the chirp of the morning birds.
After what felt like an eternity, Midoriya spoke again.
“I had a feeling. On the first day,” he said quietly, not taking his eyes off of the view.
Shouto raised an eyebrow, undeniably curious. “A feeling? About what?”
Midoriya sighed softly, tilting his head to the side. The hand nearest to Shouto started tracing a senseless pattern on the roof beneath them, the movement inexplicably captivating. Even the most trivial things Midoriya did were like a drug to Shouto - he was undeniably addicted to them. To him.
“Standing behind the camera that day… no one else really noticed. They were all watching the girls, placing bets on who would win and who would get sent home first - don't tell anyone I told you that, though,” Midoriya interjected, glancing over at Shouto with a coy smile.
Shouto mimed zipping his lips shut, relishing in the way Midoriya chuckled before continuing.
“No one else seemed to notice how… unhappy you looked,” he said, his hand pausing and twitching slightly, before continuing to trace meaningless lines on the roof. “You just looked like you wanted to be somewhere else. Anywhere else. And no one else seemed to notice.”
Shouto stared at his shoes.
“And then I was the youngest person here, so I got put on all the worst jobs - which were mostly your solitary shots. Iida is big on seniority with the filming schedule, and apparently filming you walking down the beach is grunt work for the new guy,” he continued. “And you just seemed so… lonely. You’d spend all day with those girls and you’d barely even smile, then you’d sit by yourself and you’d look so miserable.
“And I know Monoma wants to play it all up for drama, that you’re some kind of ice prince - but I don’t think that’s it. The way you are with those women… it’s not that you don’t like them, not really. You just seem… lonely.”
Midoriya sucked in a little gasp, whipping his head around to look at Shouto. “N-Not that I’m trying to p-presume anything! I know that you don’t actually want to be here, but it was still insensitive of me to say- or think, rather, but-”
“You’re right,” Shouto interrupted. “I was. Lonely, that is. I didn’t come to this island to make any friends - let alone find a wife. That’s all my father.”
“I thought you hated me,” Midoriya admitted, sounding a bit breathless. “You didn’t notice me at first, and then when you did - gah! I was so nervous that I’d done something wrong!”
Shouto grimaced at the memory, his brow furrowing. He’d been so in his head for the first couple of weeks, there hadn’t been any room to care about someone like a camera crewman. They’d all been the enemy - people under his father’s thumb, forcing Shouto’s every move to be broadcast to the world.
And then Midoriya Izuku had knocked on his dressing room door, asking to refilm a shot of him looking broodily at the pile of roses.
And Shouto had been furious - furious that someone as charming and perfect as Midoriya existed, that he was on the island, that he was just out of reach.
He was right there, close enough to reach out and touch, hold - but he wasn’t an option.
Enji would never let him be an option.
“I didn't hate you,” was all Shouto said. “I could never hate you.”
Midoriya let out a little squeak, tucking his face into his hands in a way that made Shouto’s stomach twist giddly. Flustering Midoriya was something that would never get old.
“I-It’s a shame Camie went home, isn’t it?” Midoriya stammered from behind his hands, an obvious attempt to change the subject. “I thought she was really nice.”
“Me too,” Shouto agreed, his smile souring a tad.
“Well, even if Camie is gone,” Midoriya started, pulling his red face out of hiding. “I’m sure you’ll find someone! Someone... perfect. Everyone left is so wonderful! Any of them would be - they’d all be nice to have by your side.”
Shouto just hummed.
He didn’t want them by his side.
“You’re a catch, Todoroki-kun,” Midoriya said, sounding almost… resigned. “They’d all be lucky to have you.”
In a way, Midoriya was right.
The chances of Shouto finding someone to fall in love with on this damn island were infinitely higher than he could have ever possibly imagined.
He let out a slow breath, reaching a hand into his sweatshirt pocket. He twitched his fingers, brushing against the soft velvet of a rose petal. He’d snuck it out the night before, pulling it from the painstakingly-kept garden in the back of the villa.
Just one rose.
It wasn’t perfect, not like the ones they gave him for the ceremonies, with their petals preened to perfection, halfway to plastic. The stem was too short and one of the leaves was splitting, and the flower itself wasn’t quite unfurled enough to meet Kayama’s standards of a perfect blossom.
It wasn’t perfect - and usually, Shouto would want Izuku to have nothing but perfection. Nothing but the best meals and the best clothes and the best house. He wanted Izuku to be happy.
But he didn’t want to give Izuku a perfect rose. A fake rose.
He wanted it to be real - to be a gift from Shouto, not from the production team.
Shouto wanted to give Izuku a rose because Izuku deserved one, not because Enji wanted him to.
Izuku deserved better than that.
So Shouto would find a way.
He’d find a way to drag the competition out for as long as he needed to plan, to get people on his side, to orchestrate the right circumstances. To figure out exactly what had to be done to create a world in which Shouto could give Izuku a rose, not as the star of a reality TV series, but as a normal man, who wanted to kiss Izuku goodnight on his doorstep and punch the air in victory after he’d gone inside.
He wanted to sweep Izuku off of his feet without a dozen cameras tracking his every move.
And he would find a way.
Eventually.