Chapter Text
It all started with something Denki said, as these things usually do. Sero had been trying not to think much at all about what had happened at the sports tournament all week, and outside of finding amusement in Bakugou’s week-long rage fest he’d been all but managing pretty well.
But then, at an early training session one morning, Denki had yawned, twisted his torso around to stretch out his back and sleepily muttered: “I really wish Todoroki could at least have bedhead or something else like the rest of us mere mortals.”
And for some reason, that sentence, the mental image of Todoroki just waking up looking perfect every day, dropped like lead into the bottom of Sero’s stomach.
He hummed his yes, and turned to follow Denki’s gaze. He’d been right, too—Todoroki, like always, looked totally polished. Like he was some kind of doll.
It made Sero seethe.
He hadn’t really sat with his feelings from the week prior, had laughed it off when Denki had (not the most tactfully, but reassuringly) told him:
“I hate to say it bro, but I’m glad it was you.”—glancing with wide fearful eyes in the direction of Bakugou. He didn’t need to elaborate, but Mina did anyways—
“Seriously Sero, it could’ve been anyone. And if it had been that someone, or someone else, we would probably all currently be charcoal”.
They were right, probably, but despite his self-sacrificial ways it still hadn’t felt good to watch his friends getting recognised on the streets whilst he pretended like he’d been anything more than a test dummy. It was humiliating, and it got him to thinking of minute details—if he’d been stronger, quicker, a smarter strategist. He did the maths in his head: what he’d do if he tried it again, how maybe he’d be fast enough if he’d only known.
Of course that’s the problem. He hadn’t known. No one had, and despite this he’s angry at himself. Isn’t that what being a pro hero is all about? Making it out despite not knowing what you’re facing?
But it didn’t hit him until later that week when he was sitting on the roof, late on a Friday night. It had become a sort of tradition for him – when he was a kid it was a hiding place no one else could find (or reach), and the habit had stuck whenever he needed some time to think.
He thought about what Bakugou might’ve done after all, and realised that Bakugou had already been doing it all along—his whole life, even. As though it had happened to him before.
“He’d be pissed, sure.” Kirishima had said, laughing along with the others about the blonde and his ever-entertaining antics. “But he’d be more motivated, honestly. Probably do something stupid like over-training until he hurt himself”.
And Sero realised: training sounded really good right about now.
--
In retrospect, perhaps Sero should’ve been concerned about his mental state the moment he started looking at Bakugou’s internal motivations and thinking they seemed like a good idea. But maybe that was just the very early morning alarm talking – or rather, painfully yelling into Sero’s poor, sleepy head.
But underneath the sleepy guise of it was a little fire being lit under Sero’s belly – or maybe it was ice, or a certain annoyingly unconcerned student with astonishing levels of control over both. Either way, Sero found himself in gym gear and heading out into the morning chill not five minutes later, his breath feeling warm despite the cool breeze.
That morning, when he arrived at class not half-asleep like usual but bright-eyed and feeling better than he had in weeks, he couldn’t help but spare a glance at Todoroki – perfect, doll-like, no bed hair in sight. Maybe it isn’t so impossible to do after all, he thought.
--
So, that was a lie. Despite feeling great, having copious (read: dangerous) amounts of energy on a daily basis and generally having the ego boost of being a New Man Who Had His Shit Together, Sero still spent 89% of his waking hours looking like shit. He’d now extended to working out nearly as much as the “real” fitness buffs of 1A, and whilst he was slowly but surely seeing a difference, the most palpable difference in his appearance was the fact that he basically spent every waking moment either being sweaty and in gym clothes, or immediately post shower and in the only clothes that still fit him (read: very oversized and vaguely pyjama-like)… or in his uniform, which while not bad by any means was still a school uniform and inherently not the hottest look.
It quickly became routine for Sero – to everyone’s shock, perhaps his own the most. But it felt good: like maybe he was catching up, like he wasn’t going to keep being the scrawniest guy in his class, and whenever he was angry, instead of just grinning through it and letting it pile up on top of all the other shit he hadn’t let himself feel, he could just go out and pump some testosterone through his veins instead. How on earth Bakugou managed to still stay so angry all the time despite his routine was increasingly becoming a mystery to him. But at least it was working for Sero.
What was still annoying about all his time spent in the gym, however, was the evidence of how much time Todoroki seemed to not spend in the gym – it was practically unfair. Sero felt like he had most other students routines down pat: Midoriya was a morning jogger, as was Bakugou (but only if he could avoid seeing Midoriya at all costs). Kirishima preferred the afternoons: sometimes Bakugou would join him and Sero, and would hiss at anyone who implied they were working out together (despite him always making an excuse to mill about when Kirishima was lifting without a spot). The girls: Ashido, Uraraka, and occasionally Hagakure, typically went together sporadically in the early evenings (Sero suspected it was when Mineta was otherwise preoccupied – and if they’d noticed he’d started asking him to help him ‘find Momo’s gym bag’ or something else to distract the bastard on the days they were typically free, well, they’d been thankfully quiet about it). The kids who lived a little farther from campus seemed to mostly make their own arrangements: Sero knew Denki kept a small set of weights in his room, and did a lot of aggressively hyped-up HIIT circuit workouts on YouTube, whilst Iida would often spend entire afternoons or weekends doing hikes or long-distance trail running. Others were in classes or teams that took up the bulk of their time: Karate, Dance – he’d heard somebody say that Shouji and Tsuyu were on a swim team, too. But despite this, Todoroki didn’t live that far from campus, and Sero never even saw him running in the area. It made his blood boil, for some inexplicable reason, like he couldn’t let his mind dwell on the thought without getting all hot and bothered. I mean, he’d seen the guy shirtless (not to mention often wearing half of a rather charred shirt)… there was no way he didn’t work out to be built like that—right?
In all honesty, however, Sero was finding it hard to remember why he’d been so mad at Todoroki in the first place. It was probably just all the working out: he didn’t get much of a chance to build up steam before letting it out either in class or in his own training, and all the spaces in between were just spent hanging out with his friends doing dumb shit – so what did he care what Todoroki was doing with his spare time? Or frankly, what invisible (and clearly inconsequential) damage he’d supposedly done to Sero’s reputation? Sero had come to realize in the last few months that being as well-known as somebody like Midoriya or Bakugou from the sports festival definitely came with its downsides, and they probably outweighed the good, in Sero’s eyes. So, he wasn’t angry, or annoyed or even bothered per se. But he couldn’t shake the niggling feeling like he needed to know how Todoroki even did it, because it was nowhere near as easy as it looked. He found himself watching him for little clues for the secret behind it all, like maybe if he watched for long enough he’d catch the guy doing steroids in a back-alley somewhere. But he never did.
Despite Sero not really caring, a part of him was still wondering why it didn’t add up: the guy was near solid muscle and Sero had never seen him with so much as a protein shake—he mostly ate Soba or other small servings, as though he never needed more than a snack at any given mealtime. On the rare occasion he was spotted in public outside of uniform (Sero had run into him walking home a couple of times) he’d been dressed almost semi-formally—a far cry from Sero’s personal uniform of workout gear and ratty sweats that were all too short and tight on his limbs now. What really bothered him, Sero realised, is that despite all of this he remained an absolute machine in all aspects of hero study.
It made him curious—desperately so, and it didn’t help that Todoroki had the biggest ‘don’t you dare try to find out my secrets’ vibes that Sero had ever encountered in his life. He’d already found himself trying to psycho-analyse him: how having a powerful quirk and an even-more powerful Dad might’ve affected his self-worth, if he was insecure about his scar, why he even had his scar…
(That was where Sero usually drew the line within his own ponderings. Todoroki’s scar was the biggest elephant-in-a-room situation possibly imaginable for the general dynamic of 1A, and he was not about to disturb the relative peace of blissful ignorance)
“You need to stop staring at him, Sero,” Mina had scolded him, “—it’s creepy,” she sighed. As they milled about the slowly emptying 1A classroom after school, he’d waited for Todoroki to leave the room before getting up from his seat. He’d seemed tired that day, though, and Sero eyed him perhaps with a bit more concern on his face than he’d intended. Following his gaze, Kirishima’s face wore a look of similar concern, though when he turned back to face him Sero realised the concern (exasperation, even?) was directed towards himself. Seeing Denki make a similar, wide-eyed expression made Sero feel especially icky, so he hurriedly got up and scoured his brain for random distraction-fodder. (Thankfully Denki, in all his attention-deficit glory, quickly took the bait).
“-speaking of, do you want to go clothes shopping next Saturday?” Sero zoned back in, to hear Mina cutting Denki off of his rambling. She turned to him, grinning: “You’re kinda running out of clothes that fit.” Sero looked down at his own shirt – the seams were looking a little stretched – and they weren’t even in long sleeves yet, so he couldn’t blame his elbows. He huffed a bit, then turned back to look at a sniggering Kirishima – his shirts weren’t fitting that great, either.
Perhaps they did need to clothes shop.
--
Sero hated wintertime. It was dreary and boring and cold, and getting up to run in the mornings was way harder, and ever since he had bulked up a bit it had become absolutely impossible to find anything long-sleeved that fit his arms and elbows.
Hence Sero’s current predicament: standing awkwardly, arms crossed inside the unfairly cold clothing store that Mina had dragged him to in order to get “some real clothes”. Of course, all of their jackets had stylish, close-tailored sleeves and were at least a few zero’s beyond his budget.
“C’mon Sero, you haven’t even tried one jacket! I thought you needed new clothes?” Mina pleaded from the over side of the rack, her bright pink hair just visible over the swathes of navy, black and grey. He suddenly felt a twang of bitterness at Denki and Kiri for heading to the sports supply store without him – all whilst Mina forbade him from buying any more workout gear. Sero just glanced at her for a moment, before grabbing the first “XL” jacket he saw. Without even unzipping it, he held the sleeve next to his own arm – or rather, his elbows. It was visibly too small.
Mina clamped her mouth shut. “Oh,” she muttered, dejected. “Forgot about that.”
Sero just grinned to himself quietly. Of course she did.
Feeling a little hopeless, Sero figured he’d just keep wearing that one hoodie that was in the wash. It was comfortable, at least. Mina looked as though she’d read his mind, and was disapproving, probably:
“… my current hoodie isn’t that bad.” He tried. Mina just frowned at him, like she was deep in thought.
Seems dangerous. He never liked when she started looking like she was going to meddle in problems that didn’t need solving. After a moment of disapproving silence, Mina just squinted at him.
“Sero, it literally always smells of either sweat or weed. You need to get a real jacket!” she huffed.
That reminded Sero – he needed to get some more incense. Grabbing Mina by the shoulders, he steered her out of the nightmare rich-man store.
“I’ll look into getting something custom, okay?” he offered with a grin. “I’m just strapped for cash right now.”
That seemed to satisfy her, and back into the mall they went, when suddenly Mina halted outside a very pink and sparkly looking— Victoria’s Secret. Right.
Suddenly he was met with black eyes looking up at him apologetically.
“Listen, Sero, I really need new bras okay? I’ve gone up like 2 cup sizes and all of my current sports bras actually constrict my breathing… I’ll only be like, 20 minutes,” Mina rambled, before Sero cut her off with a chuckle.
“Dude, I don’t care,” he shook his head slightly. Like he’d ever set foot in there to wait for her to choose bras. “I’m just gonna head to the place that sells incense, okay? I’ve nearly run out.”
With a quick flash grin and a nod at that, Mina started off towards the visual assault of a lingerie store—God, it even made Mina look plain in contrast… “Alright, I’ll meet you there in like 20 minutes, okay?” she called out, Sero grunting in reply.
Shoving his hands into his pockets, he headed towards the merchant-style store near the end of the mall. It was one of those places that had a bunch of Bob Marley t-shirts and low quality vape juice that you shouldn’t go near with a 10-foot pole: Sero loved it there, but everyone else apart from Denki refused to be seen in there. It didn’t matter, though. He was just buying incense.
A familiar smell wafted in as he walked through the door, hearing the gentle clink of windchimes blowing in the breeze as he passed by. The old man behind the counter – sporting long hair and several, cheap-looking gold chains, met him with a smile and a nod, before turning back to his game of Solitaire on the desktop computer he was standing at. Sero loved places like this. It always helped that everything here was cheap as hell, too. It made him feel baller for being able to technically buy out like half the store, if he really wanted to.
With a grin, Sero headed towards the shelf with all the candles and incense. Squinting a bit at the slightly jumbled Japanese on each box, he picked out a few of his favourite scents. Lavender… there’s dragon’s blood, though I hope it’s the real stuff… I wonder if this place has coconut?
His thoughts were interrupted when he spotted a painfully recognisable head of red-and-white hair out of the corner of his eye.
Why the hell was Todoroki here, of all people?
--
Todoroki did not like crowds. Why, for this reason, Uraraka and Iida had decided to drag him to the mall on a Saturday and promptly abandon him was beyond his understanding.
(Sure, they were just in the next store over looking at paintbrushes, but Todoroki didn’t know anything about painting and he was starting to feel a lot like he was intruding, so he politely excused himself to go look at posters.)
Truth is, Todoroki did not need posters. He doubted his father would even let him hang one in the room – all of the art pieces in the house were investments he’d once said. Endeavor didn’t see any inherent value in a useless object that wouldn’t increase in value. But posters seemed a safer excuse than something like clothes which would probably result in Todoroki being shoved into lots of changing rooms with stacks of itchy, trendy clothing whilst Uraraka cooed over him.
So there he found himself, inside a weird-smelling trinket store, looking at badly reproduced posters of traditional Japanese prints. He supposed they were sort of charming, if you look at them right. Craning his head slightly to get a better look at one near the top of the wall, Todoroki startled when he heard a clear voice calling out his name.
“Hey, Todoroki!” the voice said, cheerily. Suddenly he turned to look—Sero? Of course it’s him—in the eyes. “Fancy seeing you here,” He grinned, clearly amused—“I wouldn’t peg this as being somewhere you might shop.”
Todoroki felt his tongue turn to lead in his mouth. He felt a compulsion to check his hair in the nearest reflective surface.
For the last few months, Sero had been a problem. Not only because of the overwhelming guilt Todoroki felt any time someone mentioned the sports festival, or whenever Sero dropped his ever-present smile for even a moment, but also because he’d changed. In a good way, Todoroki thought.
First of all, he was now almost half a head taller than Todoroki – was one of the tallest in their class, and Todoroki had to admit that having to lift his chin slightly to look up at the other boy had made him feel things.
But Sero was generally bigger now, too—broader shouldered, at least—so he’d clearly been putting in a lot of quirk training and time at the gym. His build was starting to resemble other heroes of his fighting style: an acrobatic gymnast’s physique, with a tapered waist and a broad, strong back.
Needless to say, Todoroki had been ditching the coats, even as the weather got cooler. He was having more problems staying not on fire than he had staying warm.
To make matters worse, however, Sero had also seemed to have gotten into the habit of watching Shouto.
Like, a lot.
It wasn’t an unusual experience for Todoroki to be stared at, mostly in public. He had somewhat noticeable features: big scar, weird hair, taller and broader than average and he was somewhat of a celebrity even before the sports festival broadcast. At the beginning, he’d probably expected Sero to be shooting him death-glares or woeful glances for a few weeks or so—he’d deserved that much, he thought—but recently Sero hadn’t looked anything but quietly observant as he glanced over to Todoroki in classes and training.
It made Shouto nervous, mostly. Like he was being analysed and picked apart, and also because he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to fawn or hide under the other boy’s quiet gaze.
It seemed out of character for Sero, too, though he supposed a lot about Sero had changed since he built up his initial mental idea of what the guy was like. He was definitely more than just the class-clown Todoroki had originally thought he might be.
And here he was, grinning at Todoroki in a merchant store in the mall, quiet gaze fixed on Todoroki up close rather than from a distance, being friendlier than he had any right to be given the circumstances. Wearing a t-shirt that looked as though he’d owned it, well,
since he’d been a lot smaller.
When Todoroki eventually got his brain working again, he realized he hadn’t yet responded to what Sero said to him before. The other boy quirked a brow, quickly, corners of his mouth curling seemingly impossibly upward.
“-uh yeah, I guess I was just looking at some of the posters,” Shouto muttered, hand reaching up to awkward scratch at the back of his neck.
Sero chuckled at this.
“Can’t your dad afford real prints? Why bother with these ones?” He exhaled softly as he pointed to the wall with his thumb, before moving his pinkie around to scratch at a black ring—a nose ring?—on his left nostril. Todoroki hadn’t realized he had piercings, before.
Perhaps he isn’t allowed to wear the jewellery in them at UA?
Shaking himself out of it slightly, Todoroki shrugged, humming.
“I was just killing time looking, honestly.”
Sero hummed his agreement.
“Fair enough, dude. Mina’s currently bra shopping right now, so naturally I had to pull boys code and go as far from there as possible.” His eyes widened with humour, as he shook his head slightly. “Scary stuff, I tell you.”
Todoroki rolled his eyes at this, mouth moving before he could think about it.
“Why didn’t you join her? Haven’t you gone up a couple bra sizes, too?” he muttered, absently turning to look at some knick-knacks on a shelf behind them.
Sero scoffed, taken by surprise.
“I’m not sure whether I should be more surprised because that was actually funny, or because you apparently notice the growth patterns of both mine and Mina’s tits. Kinda weird, dude.”
Todoroki blanched at that.
“I wasn’t like, noticing.” Hers, at least. Sero raised an eyebrow, looking amused (and unconvinced). “Girls our age just tend to only buy new bras when they change size, right?” He coughed slightly, shifting his weight uncomfortably. Sero seemed to query this with a look:
“I just, uh, well—I have an older sister.”
Sero just shook his head, grinning.
“Dude, I really don’t care. She’s just my friend, you can look at her tits so long as you’re not a dick about it.” There was something lurking underneath his words, but Todoroki couldn’t place it.
“Anyways, my tits have grown way more than hers have,” his grin widened then, as he elbowed into Todoroki’s ribs lightly, eyebrows waggling – it was noticeably gentle, which Todoroki appreciated. Those elbows looked like they could be painful.
Todoroki pushed the air out of his nose, thankful for Sero’s… well, Sero. That general demeanour that made everything feel a little less nerve-wracking. He grinned a little, too.
“I’m surprised you don’t get black eyes when you swing yourself around like that. With your massive tits, and all.”
Sero actually snorted at that.
“Fucking hell dude, since when were you so hilarious?” He breathed, bringing his hand up to scratch at his forehead. He looked genuinely in disbelief.
Todoroki shrugged again, feeling a little bubble of warmth and pride in his belly, before he put on his best deadpan expression again.
“I get it from my dad, I suppose.”
It seemed like Sero was actually swallowing his laughter there, desperate to maintain his composure.
“Shit, dude. Damn.” He wheezed, eyes widening.
Todoroki said nothing, just smirked a little more, as he started absent-mindedly flicking through clothing racks of cheap harem pants and woven hoodies.
Sero took a moment longer to recover, before smoothly transitioning back to normal small-talk.
“So I guess you don’t really have to dress for the winter or anything, huh?”
Todoroki glanced up at him from across the clothing rack, confused, before Sero just nodded down, gesturing to Todoroki’s plain dark t-shirt.
“Yeah, I guess I don’t really. You’re not exactly bundled up either, though.” Todoroki just nodded in the direction of Sero’s own t-shirt, pale yellow. His forearms had goosebumps on them.
Sero chuckled, then sighed at that.
“Yeah you’re not wrong – it can be kind of hard to find long sleeves that fit my arms.”
Todoroki’s mind suddenly put two-and-two together, and he hummed in understanding, looking apologetic.
“I see.”
Sero just nodded, toned arm reaching up to scratch at the back of his neck.
“Yeah,” he said, drawn out in simultaneous amusement and frustration. “It’s not too bad though. I don’t feel the cold as much anymore.”
“Because you’ve gotten a lot more muscular than you were before, right?” Todoroki said, almost dazedly.
Oh fuck. There is literally not a single non-weird way of interpreting that.
Sero peered at him with an almost disbelieving grin. Cocking his head, he opened his mouth wordlessly for a moment, before answering:
“I was going to say because nothing seems quite as cold anymore once you’ve been frozen in a giant wall of ice,” he eyed Todoroki with a quiet intensity, as though he was gauging his reaction.
Todoroki felt his heart skip a beat, and his checks reddened a bit. He tried to cool them down with his quirk, but he also really didn’t want to accidentally make steam right about now.
“But I’ll take a compliment when it’s offered – so, thanks dude.” Sero finished, quirking a brow as his smirk stretched outwards into his signature Sero-grin, again. He shook his head slightly, almost just to himself. Todoroki could feel himself reeling.
“I’m sorry, you know. About that” Todoroki found himself blurting. He’d been wanting to say it – properly say it, since they’d come back to school that next day after the festival and he’d been forced to pretend not to see the look in Sero’s eyes. His smile never faltered, sure, but his eyes weren’t in it: even back then Todoroki had been able to tell that much.
In all honesty, Todoroki probably did a lot more looking at Sero than was justifiable even before the sports festival – he convinced himself he was just checking for Sero’s own gaze looking back at him, but it was a feeble excuse. Sero just had some kind of magnetism in his mannerisms, his smile, his looks in general, that Todoroki couldn’t help but envy.
(God, little had he known… that wasn’t even his final form.)
Everything he did was so easy and self-assured. He didn’t hold himself to impossible standards like Iida, or trip over himself trying to please everybody like Midoriya, but he still managed to be almost universally liked in class 1A – even Bakugou tolerated him, as much as he refused to admit it. Sure, he was no Kirishima: he lacked that intensity, but he did seem undoubtedly safe. Todoroki felt like he’d probably trust him way more than he should for someone he’d technically barely spoken to.
So naturally, in response to Todoroki’s clumsy apology, Sero just shook his head, good-naturedly.
“Seriously dude, don’t even worry about it. Being actually kinda famous from the sports festival seems like it lowkey sucks.”
Todoroki didn’t mention anything about how he hadn’t really had a choice about the sort-of actually famous thing, anyways.
“And besides, it kinda got me all riled up to actually work on my training. So, I guess I should be thanking you,” Sero looked up and grinned even wider at that, head tilting to the side slightly. Cute.
“You kinda did me a real solid – in the long-run.” He finished, looking genuinely grateful (and a tiny bit mischievous—perhaps competitive, even?)
Todoroki almost felt like the wind had been blown out of him. Sero was thanking him? For freezing him in a massive unnecessary wall of ice, in front of thousands of people and on live-broadcast?
He could only nod and hum in an attempt at agreement, before changing the subject.
“You’re feeling the cold right now, though, right?” he observed quietly, before mentally hitting himself.
That was fucking weird.
Sero just eyed him for a moment, expression unreadable. He narrowed his eyes.
“Why do you say that?” it almost rang out as a challenge.
Todoroki suddenly found the concrete flooring of the shop to be very interesting indeed.
He coughed, and tried to answer as normally as possible.
“You’ve got goosebumps,” he said it like it was a question. It wasn’t – he could see them clearly.
Sero laughed suddenly, taken by surprise. He gasped for air.
“Well, shit, yeah dude, it’s like 10 degrees right now, if you didn’t notice.” Sero looked at him questioningly, and then spoke again:
“Can you seriously not tell that it’s cold? Like at all?”
Todoroki shrugged. “I notice extremes. Like when it’s cold enough to be snowing, or I’m standing next to a fire of some kind. But otherwise I mostly have to guess based on what other people are doing, or check online. It all just blends into one neutral.”
At that, Sero reached his hand out as if to grab onto Todoroki’s left shoulder, but instead left it hovering just above it. He visibly relaxed a bit.
“Dude you are like radiating heat. Like you’ve been warming the air around you subconsciously this entire time. Can’t you share?” he laughed at that, bringing his other hand up to Todoroki like he was holding his hands up to a fireplace or a candle.
Todoroki just shrugged again, grabbing a gentle hold of Sero’s wrist.
“Sure.”
Sero just blinked at him with wide eyes, like he was expecting it to be a joke. Or maybe was expecting Todoroki to accidentally set him on fire.
He started actively focusing on warming Sero’s arm, and then his torso. He leaned into the familiar process, thankful for something to do with himself.
Sero let out a little gasp, before relaxing into a loud sigh.
“Dude, how can you even control your quirk that well? You’re like, insane, man.” Sero trailed off, as though he was getting sleepy, or just too relaxed to keep talking.
Todoroki smiled softly to himself.
“My sister and brother both just have ice quirks. Sometimes they would need some help keeping them under control.”
“So you’ve got siblings? Jesus, Todoroki, are you going to have a younger sibling come to UA in like two years and knock us all out of the water again?” Sero teased.
“They’re both older than me, so you don’t have to worry.” Todoroki muttered off-handedly.
Sero’s grin faltered a bit at that, but if he was thinking something he didn’t say it. Todoroki was grateful for that much.
After an uncomfortable few seconds of extended eye-contact, complete with Todoroki still gripping Sero’s wrist in a manner that felt a little too intimate, Todoroki finally dropped his wrist and deactivated his quirk.
Sero just scoffed and shook his head. Spinning on his heel, so he’d positioned himself to press flush against Todoroki’s left side, his bare arm pressing up against Todoroki’s own, he slid his forearm under Todoroki’s to link arms with the other boy. With a joyous cackle, he chided:
“Sorry, Todoroki, but I will be dragging you around the store like this to use as a portable heater from now on.” He turned to look Todoroki in his face, mouth distractingly close to Todoroki’s own as he held him in place. “It’s only fair, really,” he added, eyes sparkling with mischief.
Todoroki tried to act unbothered, though he activated his quirk again anyways, if only to hear Sero’s pleased little sigh.
“Sure,” he muttered. “What were you here to look for?”
Sero turned back to the rack in front of him, looking victorious.
“Mainly just incense, but Mina keeps on bothering me to buy some more clothes, so maybe I’ll get some from here just to annoy her.” He grinned, as he started sifting through the clothes hanging in front of him, pondering harem pants and painfully bright Hawaiian shirts. Todoroki tried not to laugh as he pretended to look as well – somewhat powerless to do much else.
Soon, he stumbled upon a thicker piece of woven fabric. It was felted on one side – like maybe brushed cotton, or even alpaca wool, and was a mess of colours and geometric patterns. It had two long strings and a hood, tassels lining the bottom. It looked like it would probably smell of a certain variety of herb, in any context beyond hanging on a sale rack.
Todoroki grabbed it by the hanger, holding it up to the light.
He had been right: no sleeves. It was a full-fledged Baja-style poncho. Sero’s eyes lit up.
“Dude. That’s like, perfect.”
Todoroki tried not to snort. But the look in Sero’s eyes ended up making him want to smile instead.
“Man, I’ve gotta tell Shoji about this place – did you know he’s never worn a hoodie? Like, ever?”
That made Todoroki snort. Loudly. Embarrassingly.
“Perhaps because he has six webbed arms, yeah. It’s not that hard to believe.”
Sero just looked at him, unoffended.
“Okay, but like you know how comfortable hoodies are. Everybody deserves to feel that, at least once.”
Todoroki shook his head.
“I don’t own any hoodies. It’s not exactly a tragedy.”
Sero just looked at him in disbelief.
“You’re kidding.”
Todoroki shrugged.
“Don’t really need winter clothes, remember? It’s just more fabric to accidentally set fire to.”
Sero shook his head at that, clicking his teeth.
“Nah-uh man, I won’t have it. You can have one of my old ones. I don’t care if you singe it.”
Todoroki frowned at that. “I can buy my own hoodies, I just don’t need one-”
Sero cut him off loudly—“You can’t get out of this, man,” he laughed, gently ramming the elbow that was linked with Todoroki’s into his ribs. “It’s not like I can wear most of my old ones any more anyways. And once I buy this bad boy,” he gestured to the poncho still in Todoroki’s hand, “I’ll be sorted for winter-appropriate hooded apparel.”
Todoroki just shrugged, aggressively ignoring the fluttering feeling from within his stomach.
“Okay, fine I guess,” he muttered, letting himself be pulled by Sero through the store.
He was so screwed.