Chapter Text
It was a couple of days after they had ended the 1-A and 1-B joint training, a week later at the latest...
But Hitoshi couldn't quite remember, honestly.
In his defense, whether or not it was Wednesday or Sunday wasn't really the priority at the time. Sure, he probably should have kept track of the days of the week, but he was but one boy who had a lot on his mind.
He'd been distracted by the high-energy atmosphere, a result of the only vaguely resolved fighting between 1-A and 1-B, and the discussions he'd had with Aizawa about possibly transferring into 1-A.
But it was that afternoon that Kaminari more-or-less forced him on an outing with the self-proclaimed Bakusquad. He seemed to think that Hitoshi should get to know the rest of the ragtag group of hero students, and left no room for argument.
...It took Kaminari half-an-hour and immense attempts to convince him, inevitably using "I'll pay" to persuade him.
Hitoshi may not be a fan of friendship, but that was severely outweighed by his love of free lunch. He got good food, and he got it for free.
Nothing beat that, in his mind. It was a small price to pay, and it wasn't even for the food itself.
They wandered around the nearby mall for a while and, once they reached the food court, Hitoshi found himself sandwiched between an animated and chattering Kaminari and Jirou.
He also found that he related much more to Jirou than the blonde. There was no surprise there. Ashido had already joked that they were “Kaminari’s purple pals” on a couple of occasions, and Jirou and he had somewhat bonded over it.
She had some decent taste in music, too. Besides Jirou's added love of classic rock and Hitoshi's slight lean towards techno, they both agreed on folk punk and indie songs with scratchy vocals and emotional guitars. Hitoshi liked to joke that they made him feel alive, and Jirou seemed to agree.
So she was fine, in his book. Kaminari was a bit much, but he could handle him.
And, hey, at least he hadn't been put next to Bakugou.
He wasn't completely certain how Kirishima hadn't been blasted to bits yet, even with how Bakugou seemed to respect him at least slightly. He was sure that the bubbly "c'mon, Bakubro, lighten up" would have been Kirishima's last words, but it had been nearly an hour and Kirishima was still alive and well.
Somehow.
Hitoshi didn’t think he wanted to ask how, really. It would break the stalemate that the two of them had entered - y’know, cartoon logic and all - and Kirishima would probably immediately become the target of one of Japan’s strongest explosive forces. Hitoshi didn’t exactly want that happening while he was eating.
Maybe afterwards? He wasn't sure just yet.
Setting down his chopsticks, Hitoshi reached forward to retrieve the half-finished Sprite that sat in front of him on the table. But as his arm passed through the boy's peripheral, Kaminari's eyes seemed to light up, and Hitoshi groaned internally.
This was going to be interesting, whether he wanted it to be or not.
Abruptly cutting off what he was saying to Sero, Kaminari twisted to the left and met eyes with Hitoshi. Shining gold met purple, and Hitoshi felt dread in his stomach about what scheming was bound to come.
Kaminari pointed towards him decisively, a finger-gun cocked and ready to shoot, and about to catch Hitoshi in the crossfire of something that was probably chaos.
Why did he pick Kaminari to be his first friend in 1-A again? He should've let Midoriya adopt him as a member of his little group.
"Hey, you'll be joining 1-A soon, right?" he asked, determined for reasons Hitoshi had yet to decipher.
He paused, pulling his drink back towards him gently and raising an eyebrow at the blonde. He took a sip of the Sprite, eyeing Kaminari cautiously and setting it back down again.
Alright, Kaminari wasn't about to do something super chaotic. He would've just jumped the gun and kept talking if it were something of that degree of anarchy.
"Probably," Hitoshi answered slowly, "Aizawa mentioned that he wanted me in 1-A if he could get Mineta out for all the harassment and what-not."
Bakugou grumbled across the table, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like, "serves him right, the grape bastard," as Kirishima nodded to his left. Kaminari grinned, glancing back towards Ashido and Sero.
"That means we should get him in on the Todoroki bet, right?" he asked, almost stage whispering.
Ashido grinned back, elbowing Sero to look up from his phone.
"Do you think we should?" she asked, excited.
This is exactly what Hitoshi feared. There were going to do something that winds up with him dead, weren't they?
"I think that'd be a great idea," Kirishima responded, before turning to Bakugou.
Well, that's even worse. If Bakugou agreed, this was definitely gonna be where Hitoshi died.
"Do you think so, Bakubro?" he asked, looking at him with a soft smile.
Bakugou scoffed, rolling his eyes. He looked away, back to his phone and whatever game he had been playing on it for the past half-hour.
"Go ahead and get that extra in on it," he deadpanned, the true epitome of excitement, "There's no way he'd win anyway."
Hitoshi raised an eyebrow, doing his best to steel his expression away from curiosity. He was intrigued by the prospect of a whole-class bet involving the resident pretty boy, a bet that Bakugou seemed to think that he wouldn't be able to win...
But he couldn't seem too desperate.
"What's the Todoroki bet?" he asked Kaminari, who only chuckled.
"Okay," Kaminari started to explain, his excitement somehow managing to increase even further, "so a couple of months ago, Todoroki's brother and sister dropped by the dorms to give him a present and wish him a happy birthday."
He nodded, still confused as to where this was going. Why was nearly everyone at the table grinning about a simple birthday story?
"Todoroki happened to be busy when they showed up-"
Ashido cut in, "So they hung out for a little bit with all of us while they waited for him to get to the commons."
Kaminari swatted her, gasping in mock offense.
"Let me explain, jerk!" he nearly shouted, "I was just getting to it, let me add dramatic effect."
Hitoshi snorted and rolled his eyes. Sero patted the shoulder Kaminari had smacked in comfort. Ashido flipped him off and called him a bitch, as one half of a true friendship does. Kaminari pointedly ignored her, as the other half of a true friendship does.
"While they waited," Kaminari continued, turning his attention back to Hitoshi, "we struck up a conversation. And Todoroki, ever perfect in his timing, arrived on-scene right as they were introducing themselves to Midoriya."
He paused for a moment, grinning as he seemed to get to the good part of the story.
"Fuyumi, his sister, made an off-hand comment to Midoriya about how Todoroki had talked about him before and that 'her brother picked a good best friend.' And Mina and I had already been looking at Todoroki when she said that," Kaminari continued, seeming very proud of himself and his looking at Todoroki at what was supposedly a good time, "so we noticed that, once she said it, he had blushed a bit and - to our surprise! - he had definitely lit up with some little flames on his left."
Kaminari smacked his hand down on the table, dramatically finishing, "And that's where the bet came from."
Hitoshi chuckled at the idea of Mr. Ever-Stoic himself being embarrassed by his sister, asking simply, "So he lights up like a Christmas tree when he's embarrassed?"
The other three nodded, an action that was almost done completely in sync. To say he was unnerved would be an understatement.
But he recovered swiftly and continued on, asking Kaminari, "What does that have to do with a bet?" in an attempt to clarify the little confusion he still had.
Kaminari blinked once, twice, then seemed to promptly realize that he never actually explained the bet.
Ashido laughed at his confused face, before explaining, "We want to see who can get him to really light up first."
Hitoshi raised an eyebrow.
Bakugou grumbled from where he sat, muttering that, "These extras want to see who can get Icy Hot to activate the fire alarm or some shit."
Hitoshi snorted at Bakugou's obvious annoyance.
"Shouldn't that be easy enough?" he asked, contemplating it and thinking over possible outcomes, "Just flirt with him or something."
He laughed, gesturing in front of him as he continued, "Hell, make a sex joke and I'm sure Mr. Golden Boy would die on the spot."
Hitoshi noticed Bakugou glance at him at the nickname, raising an eyebrow. He ignored it.
Kirishima laughed and Kaminari grinned.
"It's a bit more difficult when you take into account the fact that Todoroki-” Ashido pressed a hand to her chest dramatically, “-bless his soul, is Oblivious with a capital O.”
Hitoshi thought for a moment, before letting out a hum.
"That makes sense," he thought out loud, "he seems that type."
After a moment, he shrugged, reaching to retrieve his bowl of noodles.
"Sheltered rich kid and all," he said, before slurping up a bite.
The group chuckled, nodding in agreement.
Hitoshi chewed slowly, wiping his mouth again and looking back at Kaminari.
"What are the exact details of this whole bet?" he asked, fidgetting with the cap of his Sprite bottle.
Kaminari tipped his head to the side, responding, "What d'ya mean?"
"Who's in on it? How much money do I risk getting in on it? How much money do I get if I win?" Hitoshi listed off questions, counting them on his fingers as he went.
Kaminari turned to Ashido, silently indicating to her that it was her turn to inform Hitoshi of the details. She turned and began to rummage through her school bag, pulling out a piece of paper from the mess that Hitoshi supposed could be considered organized chaos to the girl.
He probably couldn't judge, based on the condition of his own bag.
She flattened a bend in the corner of the page, placing it on the table with a flourish. Hitoshi raised an eyebrow as she rotated the page to face him, then pushed it forward for him to grab.
Ashido coughed, clearing her throat.
"Currently," she said, "we have me, Denki, Tsu, Uraraka, Aoyama, Hagakure, Hanta, Yaoyorozu, Jirou, and Midoriya in on it."
Hitoshi laughed a little, looking back over to where Kirishima and Bakugou were still sitting in their weird, non-explosive stalemate.
"What," he asked, a bit of teasing behind his words, "Bakugou wasn't interested in a contest? Color me surprised."
Bakugou scoffed again, barely looking up from his phone.
"Shut up, Eyebags," he grumbled, "I have no interest in this stupid contest, I only wanna see Half'n'Half go up in flames."
Ashido chuckled, continuing.
"We've had it going for I don't even know how long-" her tone seemed almost exasperated, if Hitoshi didn't know at least a little bit better. In reality, she was probably exaggerating at least slightly.
"-and no one has even made a dent!" she cried, throwing her hands into the air.
Sero laughed, "We even changed the rules, at one point, to allow flustering him indirectly."
Hitoshi thought for a moment, before humming.
"Like Midoriya did?" he asked.
Kirishima nodded.
"Like Midoriya did, yeah," he clarified, "That's why he got in on it, anyway. After we changed it, he joined in, probably thinking he might be able to pull a similar trick."
Hitoshi pondered it for a moment.
"What about the risk and reward for the sum?"
"Huh?" Kaminari asked, seemingly confused again. Hitoshi couldn't blame him, honestly.
"I don't want to get in on a bet that I can't afford," he replied.
If it were anything higher than 2,000 yen, he would leave the embarrassment up to those already involved. If not, he wouldn't mind putting some money in the betting pool.
"Currently, 9,000 yen, divided between all the losers," Ashido said after looking at her paper again, "But we'll have to add another 1,000 to take into account an 11th better."
Hitoshi nodded.
"1,000 yen each?"
"1,000 yen each," Ashido confirmed, nodding.
He pondered for a second.
On one hand, he would be risking 1,000 yen but, on the other, the possible payout wasn’t exactly small, and he would like some extra spending cash if he could get it.
Plus, he wanted to be able to boast that he had done it. Show that he wasn’t messing around or what-not when it came to friendly competition.
Hitoshi extended a hand across the table, declaring, "Get me in on this. I'd bet more than my fraction of 10,000 yen that I could do it easily."
Kaminari grinned and shook his hand.
"It's a done deal."
Bakugou looked up from his phone, commenting, "good luck with that."
Hitoshi laughed.
"Oh, really?" he chuckled, "I don't think Ice Prince stands a chance."
Ice Prince did stand one hell of a chance, actually.
It’d been weeks since Hitoshi became classmates with Todoroki, and he had not made a dent. They’d started to form what Hitoshi would consider a friendship, but he could not get a single pick-up line to go through to him. Ashido was right when she said he was oblivious, and Hitoshi almost regretted not really believing her until now.
This was going to take a while.
"Shinsou," Aizawa said, raising his hand to stop him. Hitoshi took a few steps backwards, backing away from where he had stood on the threshold out of the classroom.
Turning back to glance at Kaminari, the other boy sent him a smirk that only seemed to croon 'you're in trouble' the same as Hitoshi had heard the little shits he called classmates in grade school say it. He wasn't all that surprised, truly.
He rolled his eyes at him, then turned to face his teacher again.
"Yes, Sensei?"
"I need you to do something before today's 1-on-1 session," he said simply. He always went straight to the point, something Hitoshi much appreciated.
Hitoshi nodded.
"I'm all ears, sir," he responded, rocking on his heels as he walked back to his desk. He sat back down, setting his bag to the side as Aizawa continued to speak.
"Find a classmate or, dare I say, friend-" he raised an eyebrow in Hitoshi's direction, obviously remembering the promise of 'I'm not here to make friends' that he had made and inevitably broken, "-to join us for the session."
"Of course, Sensei," he responded simply, tapping his fingers against the surface of his desk, "but may I ask why?"
Aizawa sighed, "I want to start trying to expand your combat potential to contain your quirk. But, first, you and I need to gauge the capabilities you currently possess, and what does and does not push past your limits."
He seemed to ponder for a moment, before raising a hand lazily.
"Then," he declared as passionately as his constant monotone could become, "we shatter those limits."
Hitoshi thought for a moment, then grinned.
"I was wondering when you'd want to work with quirks," he admitted sheepishly. He gestured towards the door, moving a bit to stand.
"I'll ask Kaminari or Sero if they could-"
Someone in the room cleared their throat, taking the attention of teacher and student. They looked back, and Todoroki was partially kneeling next to his desk, not exactly in any rush to pack up as he seemed to search for something he had dropped.
"If I may," Todoroki cut in smoothly, standing up fully and brushing his hands over the knees of his pants, "I would be willing to help you."
Aizawa thought for a moment, then shrugged.
"Sure," he said simply, shifting in his sleeping bag, "You'd be a bit of a challenge, in comparison to the two Shinsou suggested."
Hitoshi stifled a laugh.
"They are a lot more..." Aizawa trailed off, scrunching his nose distastefully, "talkative than you are, meaning they'd be a lot easier to use Brainwashing against."
Hitoshi paused, then nodded.
"I get what you mean."
He rubbed the back of his neck, a bit sheepish.
"Maybe those suggestions weren't the best."
“Alright,” Aizawa said, “Let’s start simple.”
They were now stood at Ground Beta, the space empty and silent otherwise. Hitoshi tilted his head, curious, as Todoroki nodded.
“Shinsou-" He stood up a little straighter, almost as if Aizawa were an army sergeant and he was about to be told to drop and give him twenty. He wasn't entirely sure that he wasn't about to be told to drop and give him twenty, if he had to be honest.
"You’re going to brainwash Todoroki, and we’re going to see what you can and cannot make him do," Aizawa said, winding his hands in and out of his capture weapon as he spoke.
"We’ll start with simple commands," he explained, "and then we'll get a bit more complex. Once you can’t get him to obey a command or the connection begins to weaken, we’ll break the link and try again.”
Huh. For someone who didn't have the power himself, Aizawa was surprisingly good at figuring out how to work on Brainwashing. He knew what he was doing when it came to workouts, seemingly.
“Got that?” he asked, looking over the two students.
They nodded.
“But before we start,” he said, turning to face Todoroki specifically, “Are you sure that you consent to do this?"
Todoroki tilted his head, confused.
"You’ll be in a brainwashed state for an undetermined amount of time," Aizawa sighed, "perhaps even multiple times."
He paused, meeting Todoroki's eyes with a serious look.
"Are you alright with giving away control for that long?”
Todoroki shrugged. Hitoshi almost laughed at how nonchalant it was.
“I’ll be alright, sir," he answered with a monotone to rival Aizawa's own.
He paused, before continuing, seeing the doubt in their teacher's eyes and hoping to reassure it.
"It’s nothing I can’t handle," Todoroki said, pulling at the neck of his shirt almost nervously, "and I’ll make sure to ask for a break if I need it.”
Hitoshi was silent, watching the exchange unfold. It wouldn't exactly be polite to interrupt, even if it were to crack a joke about his control not being that bad. He bit back the jokes, waiting for when the conversation turned back to him.
“You make sure to ask for breaks, too,” Aizawa added, glancing back at Hitoshi. Precisely what he had been waiting for.
He nodded, smirking and saying, "I can't believe that Sensei cares about us, Todoroki. He wants us to take breaks? I'm almost concerned that this isn't him."
The corner of Todoroki's mouth quirked up microscopically, the closest Hitoshi had come to getting an actual smile out of him. He would, someday.
Today probably wasn't that day.
Aizawa rolled his eyes.
"Problem child, you're lucky that I have a strong obligation to train you," he sighed, "Because I would not hesitate to leave otherwise."
Hitoshi turned to Todoroki, stage whispering, "He's a liar. He loves both of us."
Todoroki nodded solemnly, something Hitoshi assumed was meant to be humorous. Then he turned back to Aizawa, simply concluding that, “As long as Shinsou is alright with it all, I am a willing participant.”
“Alright,” Aizawa said, moving to stand a few feet away from the two students. He was just damage control for these two, the responsibility for figuring out the training itself was pretty much only up to them.
They stood face-to-face, a solid few feet between them. Hitoshi grinned crookedly, and Todoroki nodded curtly.
“Set up the hold," he said, and neither of them bothered to look back at him for absolute confirmation. It was just the two of them, up until Hitoshi took control and had to look back at their teacher only for guidance.
“What’s your favorite food?” Hitoshi asked simply, and Todoroki opened his mouth to reply almost immediately.
“Cold soba, I don’t like it-”
Boom. That's all he needed.
“-hot,” he left unsaid as Hitoshi set up the hold.
In a snap, Todoroki’s eyes glazed over and Hitoshi winced, tightly squeezing his eyes shut for a second. Damn, that one actually hurt a little.
He wasn't used to that.
Hitoshi had always imagined his quirk as something like an Internet browser, especially since he’d worked up to being able to control more than one target. His mind and train of thought were their own window, one that was pinned or locked to this hypothetical workspace.
Every person he controlled had their own train of thought, which opened another window on Hitoshi’s self-named Laptop of the Mind. Some windows were a one-tab business, easy to load onto the device Hitoshi has. They were like a single file folder or a game of desktop solitaire, relatively unobtrusive and unlikely to crash anything.
But others were disruptive, and could easily slow everything down if he tried to do too much with them at once. It was like the Steam or Spotify pop-ups that show up during power-up and fuck with your device until they load in completely and you can actually close them.
To put it simply, some minds ran more tabs than others, and the stronger the mind, the more tabs and the larger applications it’d try and run. Through training, Hitoshi hoped to upgrade his quote-on-quote mental processor, allowing him to control more minds and stronger ones more efficiently.
It was a goal, and he even had a metaphor to get it all done. Absolutely foolproof, if he had to be honest.
But Todoroki’s mind felt like the equivalent of opening all of the Doom franchise on Windows ‘94, and to say Hitoshi was surprised was a bit of an understatement.
A strong will means a strong mind and a strong mind means it’s difficult to hold. He could now confirm for certain that Todoroki's will was not weak in any sense of the word.
Aizawa, still observing from a distance, hummed curiously, coughing to get Hitoshi's attention. He looked back, and Aizawa tilted his head to the side.
"Are you alright?" he asked, seeming to look over Hitoshi in search of possible injuries.
Hitoshi nodded, wincing again as he shifted his neck. He rubbed his temples and muttered, “He’s a lot harder to hold than what I’m used to dealing with.”
Aizawa nodded.
“I’ll give you a minute to adjust.”
It ended up taking ten, something Hitoshi would have liked to not admit.
But he managed to maintain the hold for all ten, so he wasn't completely embarrassing himself in front of his mentor. He'd have to thank Todoroki later for not fighting it at all.
“Alright, let’s start it off simple," Aizawa said as he settled back into position in front of Todoroki, "Ask him to make a simple movement."
Hitoshi opened his mouth to ask for clarification, but his teacher beat him to the chase.
"Make him take a step forward or something,” he elaborated, and Hitoshi could almost hear the shrug in his voice.
If it weren't for his knowledge of the man, Hitoshi would almost think that he didn't care about the whole matter. He seemed to constantly give off that vibe, even in moments such as this one where he's obviously planned a solid couple of steps ahead.
Such was the Aizawa way, and who was Hitoshi to argue with it?
“Todoroki,” Hitoshi addressed the boy under his control, settling comfortably into the hold as they were standing closer to each other, “please take two steps towards me.”
He obliged.
“Turn around and walk towards Aizawa-sensei," he tried, curious as to what vague instructions would make Todoroki do.
The other boy paused, before turning to the right and approaching his teacher.
“Stop.”
He obliged, this time without hesitation.
Hitoshi glanced quizzically towards his mentor, asking a silent question.
“Hmm...” Aizawa thought for a moment, trailing off.
As he seemed to think over a few possibilities, Hitoshi took the chance to look over Todoroki. He hadn't expressed any of the side effects Hitoshi had sometimes seen prior in those he brainwashed, which was exactly what all three of them wanted.
They wouldn't have a repeat of the incident where someone passed out while being controlled and was concussed on a nearby sidewalk after the bond was broken.
Hitoshi saw that as a massive win.
“Activate his quirk.”
He raised an eyebrow, turning back to face his teacher directly. That was sudden.
He'd never tried anything along those lines for a command, not entirely sure what would happen if he did and unwilling to take the risk.
“Sorry to ask, sir, but would that be a good idea? Couldn’t it get out of...”
He trailed off, suddenly remembering who he was talking to. That was embarrassing.
“Never mind it," he muttered, "let’s see if we can do this.”
Hitoshi looked back towards the other student, taking an ever-so-slight step closer and eyeing him carefully as he lightly commanded, “Activate the right side of your quirk, and only the right side, to make small amounts of ice.”
The temperature dropped in an instant, the familiar feeling of Todoroki's quirk activating spreading throughout the area around them. He had felt it a few times during what little training he had done with 1-A so far, and Hitoshi would admit that he had yet to adjust to it.
Ice was scattered across the ground, a light frost dusting the grass and the skin of Todoroki’s palm.
Hitoshi smiled, letting himself stare shamelessly at the way the light refracted and bent around the ice shards, the way Todoroki’s blank eyes still seemed to light up, the sharp blue and steely gray softening. It was icy in the ways that winter was, but only the good parts of winter: snowmen and angels, hot chocolate and warm mittens. He had only known the boy for a few weeks, but the sight was somehow nostalgic, in the same way Hitoshi imagined a warm fireplace and the smell of ash would be.
It was beautiful, wasn't it?
And suddenly, Todoroki jolted, the hold on him loosened just enough for the scales to tip and control to be regained.
He breathed deeply for a moment, swallowing heavily and shutting his eyes tightly.
Hitoshi watched for a moment and opened his mouth to speak, thoroughly confused. Then he recoiled, the smack of a headache suddenly hitting him full force. The slight pressure in his head released, a sudden head rush making him blink away spots in his vision as he felt a slight trickle run down his upper lip. He reached up, still disoriented as his fingers came back scarlet.
“Holy fuck,” he said, chuckling nervously and looking up to meet Todoroki's eyes, which were no longer glazed and instead blown wide in slight shock, “I didn’t realize that could happen.”
They both stood still for a moment, and Hitoshi watched as Todoroki licked his lips nervously. Neither seemed willing to be the first to break the eye contact they made, fearful of breaking the spell they still felt like they were under.
Finally, Todoroki opened his mouth to speak.
“Is it me,” he asked, “or do you have a massive headache?”
Hitoshi laughed, smiling a bit as he responded, “Same here."
“Come on, problem children,” Aizawa sighed, and the two looked back at their teacher as he gestured for them to follow behind him, “Let’s get you two some pain meds.”
They obliged, and Hitoshi knocked his shoulder against the other boy's as they walked.
"I'll be getting you back for the bloody nose, you dick," he said, no real hate behind it.
The corners of Todoroki's lips quirked up again, a single step closer to an actual smile.
"I'm counting on it."
And Hitoshi felt his heart swell with something he couldn't quite identify as they continued on, the silence and the occasional knock of their shoulders against the other's the only thing to accompany them back to the dorms.
"Why are you down here?"
Hitoshi startled, hand jerking and almost knocking over the open jam jar that sat to his right. But that would've been a tragedy, and he was not interested in becoming a martyr anytime soon, so he recovered swiftly. He spun on his heel to face the entrance to the dining room.
He grinned as he met Todoroki's eyes, the other boy glancing around him to look at the table.
"I could ask the same of you," he responded smoothly, setting down the butter knife he had almost flung across the room moments before.
"I'm coming to get food for Midoriya and the others," the other boy shrugged, "We're watching movies and they were hungry, so I volunteered to go grab something."
Hitoshi hummed, picking up the jar and fidgeting with its lid, screwing and unscrewing it as he ignored the jam smearing off of his knife onto the table.
"Now, what are you doing down here?" Todoroki asked, eyes focused on the jar in Hitoshi's hands.
"Hmm?"
"You never answered about why you're down here," Todoroki said, as if Hitoshi hadn't heard him the first time. He almost hadn't, so he did appreciate the clarification.
He grinned, setting the jam jar onto the table. He reached to lift up his plate of toast and responded simply, "Got hungry, so I made toast."
Todoroki paused, looking at the plate as if he had never seen toast before.
...He'd had toast before, right?
"Is that grape jam?" the other boy questioned, a query Hitoshi had not been expecting. It wasn't exactly difficult to deduce based on the state of the dining room table, but Hitoshi supposed he may just be tired.
"It is," he said, satisfied with himself.
"...Why is there so much of it?"
Hitoshi gasped.
"Excuse you," he exclaimed, "Grape jam is one of the best things to exist, and it is only doing it justice by putting this much on toast. If anything, this could be considered not enough."
Todoroki blinked once, twice.
"I do not understand you sometimes," he muttered.
Then promptly turned and walked back the way he came.
Damn, he didn't even bother grabbing the snacks like he came down to.
Hitoshi - 1, Candy Cane - 0.
Hitoshi leaned across the kitchen counter to jab Todoroki in the shoulder with the eraser of a pencil he had stolen only seconds before. The other completely ignored him.
Now, Hitoshi was offended. He continued to poke him.
Todoroki continued to ignore him.
Damn prick, focusing on homework instead of him. It might be reasonable, but Hitoshi was still gonna be annoyed by it.
Todoroki was the most interesting person in the dorms, and he was bored, okay?
“Y’know,” he mused, dropping the pencil to tap a light beat against the table and then to point at the other boy, “I’ve never heard you laugh before.”
Todoroki didn’t even look up as he deadpanned a response of, “I’ve never heard you say anything funny.”
Hitoshi gasped, jabbing him a bit harder just to retaliate.
“That remark actually kinda hurt, asshole," he muttered, setting down the pencil somewhere near where he had picked it up.
Basically, he rolled it back into Todoroki's general vicinity.
Flipping a page in his textbook idly, the other boy looked up and raised an eyebrow.
“That is the point, you know?” he said dryly, rolling his eyes as Hitoshi pouted.
Hitoshi could tell that he wasn't actually annoyed, so he was going to do everything in his power to either get him to that point or get him to pay attention to him.
“Now let me study, please.”
Perhaps it would have to be the first. In his defense, his hand was being forced. He had no other option, truly.
Hitoshi reached across the counter to flick him in the forehead, muttering, “Buzz-kill.”
Todoroki rolled his eyes, looking at Hitoshi scrutinizingly
“I don’t want to fail Present Mic’s English test-" he paused, lips quirking into the ghost of a smirk. He was about to be called the fuck out, wasn't he?
"-and I don’t think you do, either.”
Hitoshi groaned. Speak of the Devil.
“Don’t remind me," he grumbled, bapping at the other boy's hand to hinder his ability to write. It was revenge, one could say.
“It’s hard not to,” Todoroki said, flipping another page in his book and taking down a note in the margin with the few seconds he had before Hitoshi began his sabotaging again, “When I’m trying to study.”
Goddamn it. He wasn't getting out of this, was he?
Jabbing him in the shoulder again, Hitoshi moved to join Todoroki on his side of the counter.
“Move over, golden boy," he declared, poking him in the shoulder again when he did not immediately oblige, "I’m taking your notes.”
“Thief," Todoroki said, shifting to do as Hitoshi asked.
Hitoshi settled into the stool next to him, looking over his shoulder to take in the notes he had written.
He smirked as Todoroki looked back, exasperated in a way that Hitoshi would consider almost fond. The other boy pushed the notes closer to him, turning back to his book as Hitoshi continued to scrutinize them.
“It's called being resourceful," he said, before jabbing his finger against one of the bullet points on the paper in front of him.
"Now what the hell does this mean?"
"I'm gonna blow your ass sky-high, Mindfuck!"
There were large, angry steps that echoed from the common room, approaching the kitchen with intensely-focused rage. Hitoshi could only think back to the near cup of lemon juice that he had dumped into one person's morning protein shake a few hours earlier.
He regretted nothing.
Pointedly ignoring Bakugou as he smacked the kitchen counter in front of the English book, Hitoshi turned to directly face Todoroki, who was still sitting to his left and likely doing the same.
"You hear something, 'Roki?" he asked, holding back a laugh as Bakugou's yells only got louder.
"I don't think so," Todoroki replied, shaking his head.
He stopped for a moment, a small, almost unnoticeable smirk spreading across his features.
"Maybe the barking of a small, angry dog," he continued, teasing underlying his typical deadpan, "But I think I might be hearing things."
"No, no," Hitoshi replied, raising a hand as if to still himself. He faked listening for a moment, ignoring the profanities that Bakugou was screeching a few feet away.
"I think I hear it, too."
A boom rang out in his ears. He regretted nothing.
He thinks that Todoroki would agree.
Hitoshi stopped as the kitchen light flicked on, a deer in headlights. He blinked, willing away the spots that flashed in front of his eyes.
"Good evening, Shinsou."
Todoroki? Of all the people he would've expected to get caught in the kitchen at 3:00 AM by, Todoroki wasn't exactly who he would've thought of first.
And yet here he was, in all his glory. Standing in front of Hitoshi all nonchalantly as if he hadn’t blinded him mere moments before.
“Hey, Ice Prince,” he responded, voice cracking from disuse.
Todoroki nodded, shuffling away to search the kitchen cabinets. Hitoshi watched as he seemed to find what he was looking for, grabbing a bag of what looked like shrimp chips and shutting the cabinet. He turned back to face Hitoshi, nodding again in acknowledgment and shuffling away, shutting off the light as he went.
Now surrounded by darkness, Hitoshi listened as his footsteps retreated back to and up the stairs without fault.
A moment passed, and Hitoshi sipped at his coffee as if nothing had happened.
What the hell was that?
"No wonder the sky is gray," Hitoshi chuckled, leaning across Todoroki's desk as smoothly as possible, "all the blue is in that ocean eye of yours."
Todoroki blinked at him almost like a confused cat, asking, “But my other eye is gray?”
Wait, shit, he had a point. He may not have thought that one through fully.
"No wonder the sky is empty today," he backpedaled, giving another, weaker set of finger guns, "it's all in your eyes."
Todoroki seemed to suppress a chuckle, something that Hitoshi cheered about internally.
"That's worse than usual," he heard someone say nearby, and Hitoshi's near-victorious cheering stopped. Damn it.
"Shut up, Denki."
Hitoshi was drawn towards the kitchen by the sounds of cookware clicking and the smell of something burning.
Last that he knew, he was the only one still in the dorms. The rest of Class 1-A had gone off to the mall, taking one of the few opportunities they got to have a weekend trip as a class. Hitoshi had declined, distinctly remembering that the last he went to a mall he was encouraged to gamble the money he used to buy cup noodles and ice cream to hide in his room. Needless to say, he was not willing to get pulled into another possible bet.
He already had 1,000 yen on the line, he wouldn't be betting anymore.
He took the turn into the kitchen and promptly made eye contact with one Shouto Todoroki, who was staring blankly down into a pan of what looked like they were formerly noodles.
Hitoshi couldn't really tell, since they were about the same shade as charcoal.
Stifling laughter, he asked, "What's for dinner?"
Todoroki didn't even look up at him, sadly muttering, "Regret."
Hitoshi promptly burst into laughter, stumbling to lean against the counter.
Supposedly, Todoroki had been trying to cook cold soba for himself and Hitoshi, who he somehow knew was also still at the dorms. The keyword there is trying; he'd put the stovetop on the wrong heat and, while he was looking for the bottle of sauce Bakugou kept stocked in the fridge, had managed to sear his noodles a bit too much.
Todoroki had practically lamented the tale, speaking which what was probably the most emotion Hitoshi had ever heard him use.
Seemingly, he took his cold soba very seriously.
Hitoshi had sighed, asking if they had any more noodles to cook for a second try. Todoroki shook his head no.
So Hitoshi trotted back upstairs, grabbed two cup noodles, and took to serving one to Todoroki.
Nissin a la Shinsou, he had joked. Todoroki just barely smiled, taking them gratefully and eating.
They sat side-by-side at the dining table, silent other than the slurping of noodles.
So far, it was one of the best dinners Hitoshi had in the dorms.
Aizawa kept them working together, whether that be during those after-school training sessions or otherwise.
And by that, Hitoshi meant that he’d been forced to work with Todoroki a few too many times for it to truly be considered coincidental anymore.
He wanted answers.
And so he stayed after class one day, rocking on his heels as his classmates rushed out of the doors to make it back to the dorms. He asked Todoroki if he wanted to study for a test later that night, then told him to go ahead after getting an affirmation.
Aware of his presence, Aizawa looked up from his desk, a blank expression prompting an explanation.
"Sensei, could I ask you something?"
Aizawa hummed lowly, shrugging. Hitoshi rubbed the back of his neck nervously, stumbling a little as he asked, "Why do you keep putting me with Todoroki?"
"Do you have an issue with it?"
"Huh?" he paused, surprised. He wasn't exactly expecting to get another question in response to his own.
"No, I don't have an issue with it at all," he explained, "I was just curious about why-"
Aizawa raised a hand, shushing him.
He smiled gently, a toothy grin that Hitoshi felt somewhat scared by.
"You two seem like you need a push in the right direction."
"A push in the right direction?" he repeated, incredulous.
Aizawa only nodded, promptly turning around and walking away without another word.
"What's that supposed to mean?"