Chapter Text
‘Shouto Todoroki.’
‘Even his name looks intimidating…’ thought Mizuki.
The moment their names had been read out, declaring them partners for the first project in Yamada-sensei’s English class, a chill had skated down her spine. Two weeks ago, at the Sports Festival, she’d seen firsthand what his massively-powerful Quirk could do to someone. Mizuki was trying her very best to not let her instinctive shiver morph into something worse, activating the paralyzing agent of her Quirk, so she staunchly refused to look at her new partner even as the list of pairs finished.
She certainly was getting some looks, herself, and could guess why. Despite his icy personality, it was widely agreed upon that Shouto Todoroki— perhaps because of his distinctive appearance or famous family— held a certain mysterious allure. In Mizuki’s case, this made him all the more nerve-inducing to approach, as she preferred a specific level of certainty to her interactions. Besides that, popular boys always made the worst partners. A head-tilt and a smile and they thought they could get her to do the whole project. While she strongly doubted that Todoroki would take that particular approach, she sighed— she really didn’t want to end up doing the brunt of the work.
The screech of the chairs around her finally drew her from her thoughts. It seemed everyone was moving. Quickly, Mizuki shoved her books together into something of an orderly pile, scooping it into her arms and standing, turning on a dime.
“—Oh!”
In her lapse of awareness, Todoroki had taken it upon himself to move. He stood a good four inches taller, staring her down with heterochromatic eyes. For just a moment, he didn’t say anything at all. Mizuki didn’t either, though this was less her fault— the bioelectric component of her Quirk had slightly misfired when she startled, and it always took a moment of focus to break through the static lock of her muscles.
Finally, in a slow, hesitant movement, Todoroki turned to the side and deposited his books on Pony’s vacated desk. He turned back just as she managed to regain feeling in the last of her extremities. This ended up being fortunate, as his very next move was to offer his hand.
“Hello.” he said— his voice was slightly lower than she remembered from the festival, “I’m Shouto.”
First name, first? He didn’t strike her as the type. Still…
“Hello-!” Mizuki’s response came a second too late, as did her hand, grasping his briefly, “I’m Mizuki. Shima Mizuki.”
Todoroki blinked.
“Yes, I know that. Sensei just read it out.” his eyebrows knit, looking over her face, “You’re aware that we’re partners?”
Mizuki hesitated again as she pulled out her chair.
“Uh… yes?”
Where had that come from? He’d introduced himself, so she’d done the same. His tone made it sound as though she’d offended him, somehow. Had she offended him? Oh, it was too early for this kind of spiral, this was why she hated group projects…
Fortunately, Todoroki now seemed more occupied with the project sheets— sigh, of course they were completely in English— Yamada-sensei had just passed out. With a lack of anything else to do, Mizuki took her own, sliding it to her desk and looking it over.
‘Partner Project: Getting to Know You!
‘Ask your partner these ten questions, to get to know them! Write down your answers (IN ENGLISH). These answers will be shared in a creative presentation where you get to introduce your partner on the due date!’
Oh, God. Not only was this a group-project— it was the world’s most prolonged getting-to-know-you exercise, the kind of thing Mizuki had dreaded for years. She scanned over the questions to get a grasp of what they were asking.
‘What is your partner’s name?’ (Reminder: family name is last!)’
‘Their age?’
‘Their Quirk?’
‘Their birth date?’
‘In full— one to two— sentences, describe the following:
- Your partner’s family (father, mother, siblings).
- Your partner’s home.
- Your partner’s likes.
- Your partner’s dislikes.
- Your partner’s goals this year.
- And finally— one thing you were surprised to learn about your partner!’
“It looks like we just need to ask each other these questions?” Mizuki said, “Should I go first, or do you want to?”
It took Todoroki a moment to answer. He seemed lost in thought— she’d probably interrupted his reading and thrown him off, fantastic. Quickly, Mizuki looked back to her own paper, and then enviously over at her friend Itsuka, who was already in a fit of giggles with her partner, Kyouka Jiro. What Mizuki wouldn’t give to trade—
—especially when she turned back to her own table, to find Todoroki swapping their papers around.
“Wait, what are you doing?”
He spared her the briefest of glances, pen already flying down the page.
“It’s easier if we fill out our own papers. We’ll do it in English and then swap again. That way, we already have the information we need for the presentation.”
Mizuki looked around at the class again. At laughing partners, stumbling over their pronunciations, gesturing wildly as they tried to get their point across.
“I don’t think…” Mizuki swallowed, her fingertips buzzing, trying to push though it, “I don’t think that’s what we’re supposed to do. Everyone else is talking—
“—It’s better my way. Just do it.”
He immediately returned to his paper afterwards, leaving absolutely no room for dissent. For almost two minutes, Mizuki sat there, the area all the way up to her elbows numb to the touch. She was lucky she’d managed to stem it there. To avoid overanalyzing the fact that her partner
clearly hated her and thought she was some kind of nitpicking drag, Mizuki turned her attention to the questions, coming up with the translations.
She took her time writing out her letters— the very least she could do for her pride was to give Todoroki nothing else to snap at her for. She’d have neat handwriting and good grammar and surely even he wouldn’t be able to find much of anything to critique about that.
By the end of the period, she’d gotten to question four. She finished a sentence about her little sister, Hoshi, just as the bell rang. Mizuki’s head popped up, wondering if she and Todoroki would trade papers back— she was at least tangentially curious about his answers— only to catch the tail end of his bag as he disappeared out the door. For an instant, it made her feel even worse. But, life had to go on. Sighing in exhaustion, she tucked her paper into her English binder, stood— and was nearly bowled over by Pony.
“Didja see?! Didja see?!” she was practically shrieking, grabbing Mizuki by the shoulders, before sense caught up to her and she switched back to Japanese, “Todoroki! In my seat! This is the best day!”
“Calm down.” Itsuka scoffed, swiping her books down into her backpack with a practiced ease and a slightly-enlarged hand, “It’s just a seat, and he’s just a guy— c’mon, we’ll be late to lunch.”
“—What’s he really like, Mizuki? C’mon, you gotta tell me!” Poni continued to cling on their way out the door, her large blue eyes staring imploringly up at Mizuki.
In the face of such blatant enthusiasm, she didn’t want to disappoint her. So, Mizuki wracked her brain for something she could say, something that didn’t divulge too much of the truth.
“He’s, uh… he’s… quiet.”
Kendo snorted, turning over her shoulder.
“Yeah— I saw you guys writing pretty much the whole time. What’s the deal?”
“Oh, he said it would be easier that way.” Mizuki replied, “It’ll help us put together the presentation faster, I suppose.”
“But isn’t half the reason we have this project to speak in English, too?” Pony asked.
“Maybe his English is really bad.” Kendo shrugged.
“I’m sure we’ll work on pronunciation and stuff later…”
Itsuka finally slowed her battle-march to the cafeteria— the girl was a fiend for her teriyaki udon— to walk alongside them. A moment later, and a warm palm clapped down against her shoulder.
“Don’t take it too hard, Mizuki.” she smiled, “I asked Kyouka, and she said Todoroki’s always been like that.”
“Hey, do you wanna trade partners? I will!” Pony spoke up, her voice brightening, “I’m with that Tokoyami guy and he is such a drag. He said he liked writing poetry as his interest! Poetry!”
Mizuki laughed, if and only at how scandalized the other girl sounded by what was, objectively, a perfectly-normal interest. It made her heart warm, knowing that she had friends that cared enough to ask, friends willing to trade partners at the slightest sign of her discomfort. But, in truth, this partner project wasn’t awful by any means, just awkward. She shook her head.
“Thanks, guys. But I’ll be alright.”
“If you say so.” Itsuka hummed, as they finally entered the cafeteria, the enticing scent of Lunch Rush’s daily feast quickly moving to envelop them as they moved towards the fast-growing line. Mizuki scanned the menu as her friend went on, wondering what she would order.
“Now, you listen here. You listening, Mizuki?”
“Hm?”
“I said listen! If he’s ever being mean to you, come get me. I’ll throw a horn where the sun doesn’t shine—“
“—Pony!” Itsuka snapped, quite suddenly.
It was enough to snap Mizuki’s eyes in her direction. She caught Itsuka’s worried gaze, Pony’s incredulous eyebrow— and there, fifteen feet away, blue-grey eyes locked with hers for just an instant.
In that moment, Mizuki was suddenly hyper aware of her position in line, half-crushed by the impatient second-years behind them, Itsuka’s hand on her shoulder, Pony coiled around her left arm.
Todoroki was at the far end of a table, a good three seats away from anyone else. Mizuki could pick out Midoriya Izuku and Uraraka Ochako seated further down, alongside Tenya Iida, who had a chopping hand pointing incredulously at something on Uraraka’s plate. That group fell into laughter quickly thereafter— and just like that, Todoroki turned away from them, as if he’d never been looking at all.
“Do you think he heard us?” Pony asked, as they stepped forwards.
“I hope not.” said Mizuki, “I really hope not.”
“There’s no way.” soothed Itsuka, “It’s louder than a screamo concert in here on a daily basis, anyway.”
Mizuki reconciled with this information throughout the process of gathering and paying for her lunch. But still, she thought, sneaking another glance at the table as she walked past— there had been something in Todoroki’s gaze, as he looked over at her and her friends. Something she hadn’t gotten a sense of, in over an hour of sitting next to him.
But, come their next English class, there was no mention of the cafeteria incident.
Following precedent, Todoroki made no mention of anything, at all. They were back to radio silence, papers in front of them, scrawling down the answers as the class’ chatter rose up around them, a ceaseless wave of sound. They’d been questioned early in the lesson. Yamada-sensei had finally stopped by to ask about their process— but Todoroki had beaten Mizuki to the punch of explaining it.
Mizuki hadn’t missed the flicker of dissent that passed over their teacher’s face when he heard that “their” non-conversational method was ‘’more efficient”. But, he’d only let them off with a gentle warning about the pronunciation requirement before moving on to the next group— where, it seemed, Tetsutetsu and Kirishima Ejirou had devolved into creating dueling swords out of dry-erase markers.
Midway through, the inevitable occurred: Mizuki ran out of questions. She waited in silence, adjusting her lettering until the scratch of the pencil at her side faded to nothing. She waited an extra minute after that, just to be safe, before finally chancing a glance at her partner— who was already looking back at her. Instantly, Mizuki’s eyes hit the floor, embarrassment flaring in her chest. How long had he been watching? Why hadn’t he said anything? Still avoiding eye contact, she asked neither of those questions.
“Should we trade back, now?”
“Fine.”
Anticlimactically, the papers were handed back to each other. However, Mizuki’s interest was piqued— she wondered what Todoroki had chosen to write his answers about. As it turned out, most were exceedingly brief. A good swatch of the first half of the paper read something like:
‘Your partner’s home -
Traditional.
Your partner’s likes —
Soba (Cold).
Your partner’s dislikes. —
Soba (Hot).
Your partner’s goals this year. —
To become a hero.
And finally— one thing you were surprised to learn about your partner!’ — All of the above.
Mizuki snorted at the last one. She couldn’t help it— especially when it lined up almost-perfectly with the sentiment she’d felt, seconds before reading it.
“What?”
Mizuki’s fingertips went numb. She glanced over, finding Todoroki looking at her again. This time, she willed herself to keep looking.
“Huh?”
“You laughed. Is something funny?”
“Oh— no, not really! I mean, it’s just, your last answer… it’s true, y’know?”
He blinked.
“Does that make it funny?”
A lot could be said about vocal inflections. Mizuki might’ve expected this one to point towards sarcasm, or even blatant offense if she’d crossed a line— but… it didn’t. Todoroki genuinely sounded as if he was asking a question. And so, hedging her bets, Mizuki offered a small smile.
“Well, I thought it was funny.”
“Okay.”
Just like that, he went back to looking at her paper.
Bemused, Mizuki sat there another moment before sense caught back up with her and she returned her attentions to his handwriting.
She’d skipped an item of note at the top of the page. Where it asked to describe your partner’s family, Todoroki appeared to have laid a strip of white-out specifically over the space where ‘father’ was listed. In this space, in small, neat lettering he’d substituted another English word. Mizuki looked at it for a while, mouthing the syllables slowly to herself, but she couldn’t get a sense of what it meant.
After a moment, she reached for her bag and slid out her phone, balancing it carefully in her lap. Todoroki was still engrossed with her own answers, as Mizuki typed the unknown word into an English-to-Japanese site and tapped ‘Translate’
’ Bastard! ’
her phone chirped, at a frankly egregious volume— ‘Noun— Derogatory— an unpleasant or despicable person!
Mizuki was so startled that she dropped her phone halfway into that horrific definition— and it’s crash to the floor coincided with Hanta Sero’s burst of laughter, which was quickly echoed by a fair majority of the class. Mizuki knocked her head on the bottom of the desk as she slid out of her seat to snatch her phone and forcibly power it down— though, clearly, the damage was already done. Her face burning, she inched back into her seat. Across the room, Awase was laughing so hard he’d actually started pounding his desk with his fist, much to the concern of his partner, the shy Kouji Koda.
Yamada-sensei, as one of their more relaxed teachers, handled the situation with his usual humor.
“Well, I sure hope nobody’s using that word in presentations! That’d have to be points off! And you guys know the rules about phones in here— I don’t need to bust out phone-jail again, do I?”
“No, sir!” they chorused, as Mizuki fought the growing redness spreading down her neck.
Funny, because, as she glanced over towards Todoroki, she’d almost swear he was smiling.
Mizuki sighed, defeatedly, as the noise level was restored, “Do I even want to ask about that?”
“You probably don’t.”
“Right...”
By the end of that class period, there was really only one thing Mizuki was certain of, concerning her partner— that he was the clearly the most complicated person to ever walk UA’s halls.