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Shinsou sleepily rubbed at his eyes as he peered at the selection of drinks in the vending machine close to the teachers’ office, trying to choose between the sweet vanilla latte or simple black coffee. Although he’d fortunately been sleeping decently enough, he would still get sleepy during the day, like his body was trying to make up for all the sleep deprivation during episodes of insomnia. Caffeine would barely help wake him up but at least it was something to do while waiting for Todoroki to finish asking Ectoplasm some questions about their recent math lesson.
Finally deciding on the vanilla latte (on the off chance that he could steal a kiss from Todoroki later, he wanted to taste a little sweeter), he slid the money into the slot and hit the button for the latte. His drink was dispensed with a satisfying clank. Pulling his phone out as he grabbed it, Shinsou went to lean against the wall and somehow managed to one-handedly pop open the tab of his can, since his other was holding his phone. He smiled a little to himself.
“Oh, that’s him!” Whispers in unfamiliar voices drifted towards him from down the corridor, from the direction of the office. From a quick glance, he could see three students looking at him. He didn’t recognize them.
“Did you see that smile? How creepy,” one of the girls said. She wore her brown hair in pigtails that seemed to bounce even though she didn’t move her head.
“Shh!” Her friend, a boy with blue scaley skin and a lizardy hiss, shushed her, flapping his hand at her face, “He might hear you!”
Not like that’ll stop you from shit-talking near me though, Shinsou thought, taking a sip. Because of how he would imitate voices to better implement his Quirk, Shinsou had been training hard to ‘hear’ better, and although he couldn’t actually improve his hearing like he could his body strength or endurance, he was able to pick out vocal features faster and at lower volumes. So even if their whispering might be too quiet for most regular people, he could hear everything they were saying.
They weren’t exactly trying to be quiet, anyway.
“Careful, or he’ll brainwash you too,” said the second girl. She had a pair of neon pink stripes running down her cheeks like she’d drawn them on with a highlighter.
“Did you really see him? With Todoroki-kun?”
“Yeah, I’m telling you, they were on a date,” Lizard Boy said. The girls gasped. “They held hands and everything. It was gross.”
“Ew, I didn’t think you were homophonic,” Peppy Pigtails snickered.
“It’s ‘homophobic’, and you know I’m not. It was just so weird and mushy, not what you’d expect of a guy like Todoroki.”
Shinsou slowly sipped his coffee. It tasted rather sweet, a little too sweet for his liking, more towards Todoroki’s taste.
“This guy is so plain.” Neon Cheeks folded her arms. “And he’s got a weird smile.”
Wait for it. Shinsou scrolled his phone.
“He definitely brainwashed Todoroki-kun into dating him, right?” Peppy Pigtails whispered, hand over her mouth.
There it is. A classic.
Lizard Boy nodded. “He was in the same course as us last year. Now that he got into the hero course, he thinks he can act all high and mighty.”
“He probably brainwashed the teachers too!”
Shinsou nearly couldn’t stop himself from rolling his eyes. Now that one was new.
“I don’t see how the teachers don’t think he’ll abuse his Quirk to do pervy things.”
“They should have kept him in the general course,” Neon Cheeks lamented. “How’d that type of Quirk get approved for the hero course and not ours?”
“I can’t imagine the things he’s made Todoroki do already,” Lizard Boy shuddered.
“With a face like that?” Peppy Pigtails shook her head, her pigtails vigorously springing about, “Nothing good.”
A wintry breeze blew through the corridor and a calm but frigid voice said, “Please don’t talk about my boyfriend like that.”
Shinsou nearly spat out his coffee.
The three students jumped in horror, spinning around to see Todoroki standing right behind them, his face seemingly blank, but his lips were set in a thin, firm line. His eyes were cold.
“T- t- Todoroki!” Lizard Boy gasped. The girls seemed to recover faster; Neon Cheeks openly pointed at Shinsou by the vending machine. “Your boyfriend? That guy?”
Todoroki pinned his icy gaze on her. “His name is Shinsou.”
“He’s brainwashing you!” Peppy Pigtails screeched. “You know that, right?! He’s using you!”
Since they had given up all pretenses, Shinsou approached them, tucking his coffee safely away in his schoolbag’s side pocket, hoping to just pull Todoroki away and forget about the entire thing. “Uh, Todoroki-“
“Stay away!” Lizard Boy yelled, jabbing a finger in his direction. His claws were very pointy.
Shinsou stopped with a sigh. He held his hands up. “Todoroki, let’s just go.”
“Don’t talk to him,” Peppy Pigtails snapped. “Leave him alone, you perv!”
Great. Now his one hundred yen coffee couldn’t even help stop the incoming headache. The three students seemed adamant on keeping Todoroki safe behind them now, despite the shock he’d just given them.
Between Peppy Pigtails and Neon Cheeks, Todoroki stared straight at Shinsou, who shrugged helplessly. Don’t do anything dumb, he tried to telepathically communicate to his boyfriend, who was really smart but also stupidly reckless.
As though a really smart and totally not stupid idea had popped into his head, Todoroki nodded and turned around. Neon Cheeks noticed him moving and reached out to grab him. “Wait, where are you-“
Todoroki sidestepped her swipe without breaking stride. “Since none of you are going to believe either of us, I’m going to get Eraserhead. He can use Erasure on Shinsou in front of you so you can see that he’s not using his Quirk on me.”
“E- Eraserhead?” squeaked Lizard Boy. “Wait, wait wait! Y- you can’t just go get a teacher!”
Todoroki stopped. He turned to stare directly at Lizard Boy. “Why not?”
Lizard Boy stammered and stuttered.
“If you’re worried that I’ll tell him what you were saying, I won’t,” Todoroki said, widening his mismatched eyes earnestly. Shinsou bit his lip to suppress a laugh – seeing him weaponize his pretty face was always a treat. “I’ll just make something up that won’t get you in trouble.”
It wasn’t a lie. Shinsou knew that Todoroki would absolutely march straight back into the office, make a beeline for Aizawa, and drag him back out while having told him nothing about the situation.
But Aizawa would know why he was being asked to use his Quirk on Shinsou, and it seemed like the students knew it too.
“Don’t!” Neon Cheeks squawked. “Don’t get Eraserhead.”
Todoroki blinked innocently. Damn, he was really good at this. “But how else will I prove to you that Shinsou isn’t using his Quirk on me?”
The three exchanged nervous glances. They didn’t know how his Quirk worked or its limits so they obviously didn’t want a demonstration of its effects, but they didn’t want a teacher on their asses, either.
Shinsou felt tired. It was always so easy for people to talk smack about him right to his face, but then lose all swagger the moment they face the consequences of their actions. Which was a very rare occurrence, but still. At least talk smack right under someone’s nose and have the strength to break it.
“Okay, okay,” Peppy Pigtails said meekly. “We get it. We’ll leave you alone.”
Shinsou felt relieved. At least they could just leave –
“No,” Todoroki said.
Damn it.
“Huh?” The trio said in perfect unison.
Todoroki kept his face impassive, but Shinsou could see it, the sadness in his eyes. “I don’t care what you say about me, but I won’t let you keep thinking that Shinsou would abuse his Quirk, and having Erasure used on him is the best proof you can have.”
Shinsou tried saying, “Todoroki-“
“Not now, Shinsou.” His voice was sharp.
Shocked, Shinsou shut his mouth, but then he saw the apology written all over Todoroki’s face. He knew he was only sorry for interrupting him and the tone of his voice, not for defending him, which was, in Shinsou’s opinion, completely pointless. People will believe and say whatever they wanted about him, no matter what; he’d resigned himself to accepting that as a fact soon after discovering his Quirk.
Still, he couldn’t help feeling warm that Todoroki was trying.
The three students looked at each other, then glanced between Todoroki and Shinsou. They seemed taken aback at Todoroki’s behaviour, a far cry from the cool, stoic ice prince image they’d probably imagined him to be, or maybe just not a grateful victim of Shinsou’s brainwashing they seemed to hope they were saving.
He supposed they accepted that ‘talking back to Shinsou’ was a sign that Todoroki wasn’t brainwashed because they finally relented. “Fine,” Neon Cheeks mumbled. “I believe it. Shinsou-kun didn’t brainwash you. Sorry.”
“Sorry,” Peppy Pigtails echoed meekly.
“Yeah,” Lizard Boy muttered. “Todoroki, Shinsou. We’re sorry.”
The door to the teachers’ office opened, and Yamada stuck his head out. “Why is it so cold?” Then upon noticing his students in a strangely tense face-off type situation in the hallway, he slunk out. “Hey hey, what’s going on here?”
The three students were frozen, looking pleadingly at Todoroki.
“Nothing, Mic-sensei,” Shinsou said, before Todoroki could decide on what to do. “They just wanted to talk to Todoroki. We’re done now.”
Yamada narrowed his eyes. But seeing Shinsou’s expression, he said, “Is that so? Clear out, then, don’t gather in the corridors. Except Shinsou, I have something to discuss about your classwork.”
The trio hastily bowed and scampered off past Shinsou; at least they actually looked at him apologetically instead of giving him nasty looks that foretold of future unfortunate run-ins before fleeing out of sight.
“So,” Yamada said, hands on his hips, “you little listeners wanna tell me what actually happened?”
“Yes,” Todoroki said immediately, even as Shinsou said, “No.”
Yamada’s eye twitched.
“Shinsou,” Todoroki began, now turning his puppy-dog eyes on him. Oh, God. Stay strong, Hitoshi.
“Todoroki,” Shinsou said back, mimicking his tone. They stared at each other. Unfortunately, Shinsou couldn’t pull off Todoroki’s (seemingly patented) puppy-left-out-in-the-rain look.
Yamada held up a hand. “Cut it out, you two. I’m gonna guess. They were bullying Shinsou about his Quirk.”
“They weren’t bullying me,” Shinsou objected, as Todoroki nodded vigorously, “They were, Mic-sensei.”
Yamada looked like he wanted to click his tongue but was refraining from doing so.
“Todoroki,” Shinsou protested. “It’s fine. I can deal with it, I’m used to it.”
“It’s not fine,” Todoroki said. “I don’t want you to deal with it. Not anymore.”
Shinsou swallowed down the bitter taste rising in his throat. He knew Todoroki meant well, truly. But this time they were lucky that these students seemed to actually accept that they were wrong. Other people weren’t always so kind and would often seek revenge for being told upon.
It’s not something he’d understand, with his type of Quirk.
Shinsou hated himself for thinking that. He should be grateful that Todoroki didn’t have to experience such a thing. After all, the struggles Todoroki had gone through made his own pale in comparison.
“Yo,” Yamada said. “Shinsou. I can hear you thinking. If it’s bad thoughts, cut them out and talk to me.”
He nodded, avoiding eye contact with both his teacher and Todoroki.
“You said you were ‘used to it’. Has this been happening since you came to UA?”
“Not really,” he muttered. “UA has been completely different to so much of my life. My classmates have been really nice, especially in my first year... I didn’t care about what anyone thought of me once I was accepted into UA, but I did appreciate their support.” He could never put into words just how grateful he was for his 1-C classmates; he had never experienced so much encouragement and kindness towards him before and, as such, never knew just how he should react.
He noticed Todoroki clenching his fist beside him; he was probably blaming himself since the students had been gossiping about their relationship.
Yamada was frowning, but he simply said. “And you, Todoroki?”
“I didn’t hear all of it, but they were saying things about Shinsou, that he would abuse his Quirk and also making fun of him.”
“I mean, I do have a weird smile, Todoroki.”
“It’s not weird,” Todoroki said, confused. “Your smile is cute.”
Shinsou blushed. Yamada threw his head back and let out a loud laugh, but thankfully didn’t comment on it. From the twinkle in his eyes behind the tinted lens of his sunglasses, however, Shinsou had a feeling that he would definitely be telling Aizawa about this. “Well, I’m glad you have good friends around you now, Shinsou. Remember that you don’t have to struggle all by yourself anymore. Plus, we have a really good guidance counselor in Hound Dog, so try making the most of the school’s resources and pay him a visit if you haven’t already, ya hear? It doesn’t have to be for a full-on session, but even a little chat could be helpful.”
Oh, he was pretty cruel, saying this in front of Todoroki. Aizawa had tried from the beginning of his mentorship to gently prod him into seeing Hound Dog, but Shinsou had always resisted, thinking to himself that he just didn’t have it as bad as other people, especially his friends who had been traumatized by the many villain-related incidents of their first year. And sure, his teachers couldn’t make him go… but it seemed like they knew just who could.
“Hound Dog-sensei is very nice,” Todoroki agreed, just to drive the point in.
Shinsou sighed. “I wouldn’t know what to talk about, Mic-sensei.”
“That’s a common reason students give for not wanting to see him, but you really don’t have to worry about it. He’ll ask some questions to start off with, and you don’t have to answer ones you’re not comfortable with. Just give it a shot, okay? It’s fine if it doesn’t work out for you, but you won’t know until you try it out.”
Ugh. Aizawa absolutely had something to do with this.
“Okay,” Shinsou mumbled, pouting slightly. Then he caught Todoroki’s eye and quickly looked away again, biting his lip to stop his stupid pout, because that fond little smile made him so weak in the knees.
“Thank you,” Yamada said, cheeks minutely twitching like he was suppressing a bigger grin at the sight before him. “I’ll need to have a talk with those students’ homeroom teacher to keep an eye on them, so let someone know if they cause you any more trouble. Plus we’re really long overdue on ramping up those anti-discrimination campaigns… Oh, but don’t worry, I won’t mention you by name.” He started to wave them off, then paused like he’d just remembered something. “And just so I wasn’t lying, Shinsou, your classwork is completely fine, keep it up!”
“Thanks, Mic-sensei.”
“Thank you, Mic-sensei,” Todoroki said, polite as ever.
“Ha! Just doing my job, my good listeners. Now off you go.”
They headed down the hallway, walking towards the school’s main entrance to wait for a bus to town, where they would be meeting their classmates for dinner. Not many students were left in the school since last period ended well over an hour ago, and while things were quiet and there would be little attention on the both of them, Shinsou self-consciously kept a small distance from Todoroki, who appeared to be deep in thought himself.
They’d gone down some stairs and arrived at the ground floor in silence and Shinsou couldn’t bear it any longer. “Hey, Todoroki.”
He looked up absently. “What is it?”
Rubbing the back of his neck, he tried desperately not to turn his gaze away. “Thanks.”
Todoroki blinked as though he couldn’t fathom why.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Shinsou continued, feeling increasingly flustered under those steady, mismatched eyes, “but you even got them to apologise to me. So, uh, thank you.”
“Oh. You don’t need to thank me for that.”
“Yes I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
They were at the shoe locker at the entryway of the school, changing into their own regular shoes and putting on their winter coats; Shinsou had seen a few students in the area as they walked in, but he was losing patience, so he said out loud anyway, “Thank you, Todoroki, for chasing away those clowns who were making fun of me, with your pretty-boy charm.” And ignored the curious faces peeking around some lockers and the accompanying giggles, adding softly, “Just let me thank you for sticking up for me. Please?”
Todoroki rubbed at his nose; his cheeks were lightly flushed. “It’s – you’re welcome.”
Triumphant, Shinsou pulled him by the hand and they exited the building, bracing themselves against the cold winter air. Todoroki drew him closer to his warmer side.
“You’ll see Hound Dog-sensei, right?”
“I guess.”
“I can go with you, if you want,” Todoroki offered, “but I’ll wait outside, of course.”
“What, you can’t be there as my emotional support boyfriend?”
“You have non-emotional support boyfriends?”
“Does Bakugou count?” Shinsou joked. Todoroki just looked at him. “Wait, are you jealous?”
“If you need a fireball-throwing boyfriend, I can do that too.”
“Oh? What if I need a fast boyfriend like Iida?”
“I can go fast.”
“Someone to wrap things up in tape?”
“I’ll use my ice.”
“An animal whisperer?”
“I can talk to cats pretty well.”
“A boyfriend who can’t stop twinkling?”
“Fire reflecting on ice can twinkle.”
“A boyfriend who will break his arm three times over when beating the shit out of a horrible villain?”
They were halfway down the path through the trees that led to a bus stop by the road, but Todoroki stopped, stared Shinsou straight in the eyes, and said completely seriously, “I’ll break my arm ten times over to beat the shit out of anyone for you.”
“That’s pretty hot,” Shinsou said before he could stop himself.
Todoroki smiled, a smug little thing, like he’d won some grand prize.
“But please don’t do that. I don’t want you hurting yourself like that, especially not because of me.”
“I won’t, I can just freeze…” Todoroki paused. “Oh.”
Shinsou suddenly felt concerned at the strange look on his face. “What?”
“I broke my promise,” Todoroki said mournfully.
“What promise?”
“That I’ll Heaven-Piercing Ice Wall anyone who thinks you’ll abuse your Quirk. But I didn’t, earlier.”
A deep fondness washed over Shinsou. “Todoroki, we both know you can’t actually go around doing that, especially not in school. You’ll get in trouble. Probably expelled.”
“I could have tried.” There was a sulky note to his voice. Incredible.
Shinsou dragged him off the path, moving them out of sight behind some trees, and pushed Todoroki up against one. “You’re amazing,” he said fondly, sliding his arms around Todoroki’s waist. “I like you so much.” And then Shinsou kissed him, feeling his soft noise of surprise against his lips; Todoroki kissed back with a sigh, pulling Shinsou closer with one hand on the nape of his neck and the other running up into his hair.
When Shinsou pulled away just enough for them to breathe, Todoroki licked his bottom lip and murmured, “Tastes sweet.”
Shinsou grinned. “I had some sweet coffee,” he whispered, leaning in for another kiss. “But you’re sweeter.”
Wrapped up in each other and the calm silence of the snow, neither spoke for a long while.