Chapter Text
Shouto sleepily opened his eyes.
His eyes snapped open.
This wasn’t his room. It looked like a bedroom similar to his, but things were off.
The floor was of tatami, the walls and ceilings were still their familiar sights. But this room was more cluttered than his own, marking it obvious that it was a personal bedroom and not a guest bedroom.
He looked out the window. It was darkish but the sun’s rays started trickling in, lighting up the sky and the snow in pale pinks and orange hues in the shades of dawn. But the sun was coming from the right side of his window, not the left as he was used to. The view from the window was also different; the koi pond was larger than his home’s koi pond and a forest of orderly trees sat close to the dojo whereas he recalled only a large rock garden being located there.
What was going on?
After being pulled to watch a hero fight off a villain in downtown Musutafa with Izuku, he returned home for the weekends and went to sleep as per usual.
But he didn’t wake up where he went to sleep. More worryingly, he was dressed in a yukata rather than his usual t-shirt and shorts combo for bed.
Not only did someone kidnap him, they also did who knew what to his body. But no one was around to monitor him. He also didn’t feel any muscle pain that would indicate that he was knocked unconscious, drugged, or filled up with quirk suppressed.
He created a small ice cube just to confirm he had his quirk. It appeared faster than he was used to, but everything else looked fine.
Shouto frowned. He padded as silently as possible across the bedroom to the bathroom. He closed the door with the barest click of a doorknob and locked the door. A locked door wouldn’t do anything to stop the most stubborn of people, but it would give him a few seconds warning should anyone attempt to barge through.
He paused, waiting to check if he could hear any footsteps in the hallway. There was none.
Pleased, he turned to face the mirror.
What-
Where was his-
A scarless face stared back at him.
But it wasn’t just the scar that was missing. No, both eyes were blue – two different shades of blue, but blue all the same. His cheeks were sharper, more V-shaped like those actors in Fuyumi’s Korean drama shows, his hair was slightly shorter as it was freshly trimmed, and even his eyes were slightly narrower and more slanted than before.
The bags under his eyes were gone and this face… looked less stress and more carefree than his own.
It was both his and not his face.
He touched his face to confirm what he was seeing wasn’t an illusion. No scar tissue around his eye. It was all real.
He gave himself a pinch on the thigh. Looking down, he found not a single blister on his legs or arms.
What was going on?
So caught up in cataloging all the differences of his appearance, he failed to notice the sound of foostesp walking up to his room.
Knock knock.
Shouto froze.
“Shouto?”
He immediately relaxed at the sound of Fuyumi’s voice, but then tensed up again. Did his kidnappers get Fuyumi as well? The blood in his head rushed and he could feel his heart thumping loudly and violently in his chest.
He rubbed his sweaty palms on one of the towels hanging on the rack.
“Shouto, are you awake?” Fuyumi knocked on the door again. Shouto managed to warble a feeble croak through his dry throat, but it seemed to satisfy Fuyumi.
“It’s time for breakfast. Father and Mother are already downstairs eating, and once everyone is done, the whole family will be heading out to the mountains to relax.”
He listened to Fuyumi’s words, but the words droned out without him hearing everything else she was saying.
Mother was downstairs. Mother wasn’t in the hospital. They were having a family day?
Shouto concluded that this wasn’t a kidnapping event. No, this had to be a dream. An ideal world where Fuyumi was happy, he was never burned by a kettle, and Mother was never driven insane.
Did the abuse and training never happen then either? He could find not a single scar or discolored mark on his skin, but this body was just as fit – no, even more toned than his own.
Fuyumi left after a male voice – obviously Natsuo – called her away. Shouto robotically went through the motions of changing his clothes and washing up.
Walking down the corridor, the house was larger; his room was located in an unfamiliar wing of the building, but he managed to find his way to the dining table.
His mother was no in sight; only an unfamiliar man in a black yukata sat at the table, a document in hand. His breakfast was already finished judging from the empty plate in front of his seat.
Shouto couldn’t help himself. He blurted out the first thing that came to mind as soon as he walked through the entranceway, “Where’s Mother?”
Thankfully he didn’t ask the man who he was; it would have given away that he was not the real inhabitant of this body.
The silver-hair man slowly looked up. His eyes were such a penetrating blue… the same shade of blue of his new right eye.
Shouto felt himself freeze like a deer caught by headlights. He was mentally transported back to Hosu in the alleyway standing over the injured Native and paralyzed Iida. Yet, Stain’s bloodthirsty aura couldn’t compare to this man’s presence.
Yet, this man had no weapons on him and was dressed in a causal house yukata intended for sleeping. There was no reason for Shouto to feel so threatened in his own home, as strange as this house may be.
Shouto gasped for air, struggling to remain on his feet. But the pressure increased, forcing his head to face down at the ground into a mock subservient bow, his knees toppling over into a kneeling position.
“Now then.” The man drawled. The chair screeched against the wood. Then Shouto heard the sound of footsteps, light, steady and unhurried like he had all the time in the world. Two feet, clad in white socks, appeared in Shouto’s vision. “Who. Are. You.”
The man infuriatingly rolled up his paper into a roll and used it to tilt Shouto’s head up. The seconds passed agonizingly slow, each motion feeling like it was happening in slow-motion as Shouto continued to struggle against the overwhelming cold force bearing down all over him. He could barely get in enough air to breath much less consider talking.
“You aren’t my son. But you aren’t quite an imposter either. So, I will repeat again. Who are you?”
Shouto wheezed. He could hear his heart pounding frantically, rabbit quick. Even being in Endeavor’s presence or training couldn’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t make him feel like this. Each beat sent a jolt across his body, his heart feeling like it would leap out of his chest any moment.
Was this how a heart attack felt like?
His breath came out faster and faster. The fabric under his palms felt damp and sticky from sweat. He could see the man’s mouth open and close, but he could hear nothing over his thumping heartbeat. Everything started to wobble in fact.
Was that part of the man’s quirk?
The man looked on amusedly, still keeping Shouto’s chin tipped upwards. He didn’t move a muscle but the pressure crushing Shouto lessened.
His world stopped wobbling and breathing came easier, but his other muscles refused to obey the signals from his brain. His arm felt as though it was detached from his body when he tried to twitch a finger to stop the man’s hand from gripping his chin in a death grip.
He let out a shocked exhale at the pain. Unbiddenly, a small piece of advice rose to his mind. Look for the positive side, he thought. At least that gripe wasn’t around his neck instead.
“Ah, can you talk now?”
“I-I-I’m,” He panted. “Shou-to.”
Distantly, he recalled how Midoriya also stuttered like this. Did his classmate feel the same way whenever he stuttered, unable to control his mouth and lungs?
The man drew nearer until they were almost nose to nose. Up close, Shouto could see the individual silver eyelashes flutter up and down. The irises were a mesmerizing blue like a cloudless winter sky, not a hint of gentleness or warmth inside.
“You feel like Shouto but you also aren’t Shouto.” The adult cocked his head to the side. “That could be written off by the fact that you are inhabiting the body of this world’s Shouto. But if your soul feels nearly identical… Did you hop dimensions?”
He finally released his grip on Shoutos’ chin, his hand glowing an ominous shade of green. Shouto wondered if there was going to be a bruise and what the slowing hand meant for him.
“I-I don’t know what happened.” Shouto struggled to string his words into a garbled tangle of words that made sense. The words just flowed out of his mouth as quickly as they popped up in his head like water leaking out of a hole in a container. “Th-there was a villain attack yesterday but it was over with no issues and I went to bed like normal at the UA forms but I woke up in a strange place in a body that’s not mine and it’s no longer summer but winter and-and-”
His mouth was covered by the large hand that was no longer glowing.
“I see. Some bystander’s quirk most likely then.” The man purred like a dangerous predator. “You didn’t recognize me either when you entered the room, so not quite time travel either although our timelines aren’t matching up.”
The stranger hauled Shouto back onto his feel by the back of his shirt and dumped him into a chair. In quick succession, Shouto found a bowl of miso soup, a plate of fish, and a bowl of rice placed in front of him.
“What year of UA?” The man interrogated in quick succession.
“First year.”
“What month?”
“September.”
“So slightly over 6 months displacement.”
The pressure was also gone.
Shouto felt like he got hit with whiplash in how fast the man’s treatment changed. He tried to raise his hand again and was relieved that his hand obeyed. He pressed the area around his chin and neck that was strangled earlier, feeling the blood rushing in those areas.
“Eat,” the man ordered. His eyes no longer threatened to eviscerate Shouto for the wrong step; he closed his eyes. He unfurled his paper and resumed his earlier causal posture on the chair looking as though the last few moments never happened. The throbbing pain in his knees told him otherwise.
Shouto cautiously nudged the fish in front of him with his uncoordinated clammy limbs. What for, he wasn’t sure. It was highly unlikely the food was poisoned or drugged, and he had no way of checking. He took a tiny nibble.
The fish was just the right amount of salty, sour and sweet, just hot enough to not burn his tongue but hot enough to warm him up from the chill that overtaken him from earlier. Frankly, it was the best fish he could recall tasting.
As he took another bite of the fish, Shouto’s ears picked up the sound of footsteps coming closer to the dining room. The dining room suddenly emerged into a orchestra of sound: the sound of paper rustling, utensils clinking against dish, and the man straightening out of a slouch to look attentively at whoever was entering the room.
“Enji, darling~” The man sang in delight, looking carefree as his mouth stretched into a large grin that should had been friendly, but to Shouto, limbs still trembling and numb, it looked like a giant snake ready to devour a carcass whole. “Oh, dear heart, you picked such a lovely kimono today. How am I supposed to keep my hands off of you? Touya will have a lot of things to complain about now.”
Shouto did a double take at the mention of Touya still being alive.
The man rose from his chair and reached out to take Endeavor’s hand, guiding the latter to a chair where all the food was already set out in an orderly manner. The food was piping hot, steam still emerging. It also looked far fancier than Shouto’s more basic set with a dozen little plates of side dishes to go with the fish, rice, and soup.
It was far too much for one person to eat but seeing how the man moved his seat to sit closer to Endeavor’s, perhaps it wasn’t for one person to eat.
The Endeavor of this world looked completely different from the Endeavor in Shouto’s memory. He wrapped his arm into the silver-hair man’s elbow like a dainty maiden, practically burrowing into the man’s arms and going limp once he’s settled into a comfortable position. He was dressed in a black kimono adorned with white and red cranes, his kimono melting into the shorter male’s black kimono and hakama set like one.
It was a good thing that these dining chairs had no armrest, Shouto thought.
The Endeavor of this world was essentially a dainty maiden in comparison to what he was familiar with. He lacked the large muscular build – he still was muscular, make no mistake, but he didn’t look to be competing with All Might in size anymore. His face was dramatically different, clear of wrinkles, stress lines, and eyebags. Most shockingly, he had no facial hair, looking more like a man in his 20s even though Shouto’s new body was clearly that of a teenager attending UA high school’s heroics course as he found a first year UA uniform in the closet earlier.
From what he could see, Shouto concluded that timewise, this world was about the same as his. Mother still hadn’t made her appearance in the dining room; instead, there was a man with silver-white hair. And this man had a cold aura surrounding him.
His brain started whirling with possibilities.
Could it be-
No, perhaps-
If Touya was still alive and Fuyumi was still happy and content in this house, and since the home shown clear signs of a family still together as a family based on all the family photos lining the living room, he passed on his way to the dining room, and Mother always emphasized on her wishes for a happy family not torn apart by harsh demands and expectations of training…
If Mother was home and not in a hospital room and the boiling tea kettle incident never happened because Mother was never driven insane by physical abuse…
…And since the man was so strong with his domineering atmosphere before he did a 180 and acted so lovingly with Endeavor…
He also had the same hairstyle Shouto had – their bangs forming the letter “M” to cover the center of their foreheads but exposing their eyebrows…
The only logical conclusion he could come up then…
Yes. His parents flipped genders. In this world, Mother was a male and Endeavor the wife.
Yes. The stranger was Todoroki Rei but male, and as the man of the family, he was able to assert his wishes above Endeavor’s.
The next logical conclusion was that all his suffering was the result of patriarchy.
Fuck patriarchy.