Chapter Text
This is his last chance to have this conversation with his older brother. He’s going to tell him, he has to tell him. Thinking about it this much stresses him out, and he’s going back to UA tomorrow, he can’t be an adequate class rep if he’s this stressed.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about girls lately. Getting married. All that.” He admits to Tensei.
It isn’t what he should be admitting. How much he’s been thinking about boys is far more relevant than the thoughts about girls he has as a side effect.
“That’s a good thing, right? Anyone you’re thinking about?”
Tenya looks down. “Yes. That’s the problem. The person I’m interested in isn’t exactly… suitable for me to marry.”
Tensei laughs. “That’s fine, Tenya. You don’t have to marry the first girl that you’re into. I think it’s better to date people who you don’t imagine spending your entire life with first. How else are you meant to have any experience?” He shugs. “Relationships are good to have just because you learn something about yourself and become a better person from them.”
He shakes his head. “I could see myself spending my life with this person. It just wouldn’t be what the family needs from me.”
“What does that mean?” He laughs softly.
“I think I might be gay.” The confession fills him with shame, and he ducks his head to avoid seeing his brother’s face in his peripheral vision.
It was a recent revelation. He’d assumed his admiration for his male classmates had been just that: admiration. He admires his female classmates as well. The issue arose when he realized he might hold more than just admiration for one of them in particular. Something he’d certainly felt for boys before, though more fleeting. More disturbingly, he realized it was something he’d never felt for a girl.
For a while he tried to ignore it. He convinced himself he was bisexual–at least then he could simply ignore his attraction to men and still find a woman he loved, he could still be satisfied with a life his family would approve of. But the more he thought about it, the clearer it became.
Tensei hasn’t responded, so Tenya feels the need to fill the heavy silence.
“I know it’s not what’s good for the family. But, I don’t think I can just ignore it. I-” he sighs- “I didn’t notice I’d never been attracted to girls until I realized I was attracted to this boy. And I know it’s wrong, but he doesn’t feel wrong.” He pauses, long enough to be impactful, but too brief for Tensei to get a word in, “I actually think our family would quite like him, if he were a girl.”
It’s true. They would like Shouto if he was a girl. Not how he acts, but him as a concept. The child of Endeavor, his quirk, him being one of the top students in their class, the success he’s predicted to have as a hero.
He nervously turns to face his brother.
He can’t decode what the expression on his face means, but he knows he hasn’t seen it before.
“Tenya, that’s fine.”
Shocked would be too mild a word to describe the way those words hit him. “What?”
“You have this obsession with being perfect, and while it helps you strive to be the best, you also put too much pressure on yourself. You need to chill out sometimes. It’ll probably take mom and dad a bit to accept that they’re not getting grandkids, but they’ll realize that your happiness is infinitely more important.”
Chill out? How is Tenya meant to “chill out” about disappointing his family like this? It’s wrong, he knows it is, Tensei doesn’t have to lie to him. If it weren’t wrong his family wouldn’t be so worried about him getting married. Married to a woman, specifically. Because he’s meant to have children, to pass down their quirk and raise new heroes with the Iida name.
“But the family-” Tenya waves his forearm to emphasize his point.
“You’re part of the family.” He interrupts. “It’s not some entity beyond our control that means you have to do certain things. It’s just us.”
Sometimes it’s hard to think about their family that way. Like a normal family without the crushing weight of several generations of heroes passing down their quirk and instilling their heroism in the next generation. They’re still a family, not an agency.
He looks back away.
No one ever put this pressure on Tensei like they do him. Because it didn’t really matter if he had kids, there was always the expectation that if he didn’t, Tenya would. But now Tensei has confirmed that he won’t, which means Tenya has to. Or that’s it, for their family name, their quirk, everything. He doesn’t want to be responsible for that.
“Who is he?”
“Who is who?”
Tensei laughs, like there’s nothing to be worried about in all this. “The guy. You said you were interested in someone.”
“Oh. Right. He’s my classmate, Todoroki Shouto.”
“Yeah, you talk about him a lot. I guess I should’ve assumed it would be him.”
Tenya wouldn’t admit to the heat that rose to his face at those words.
“Don’t think about what our family expects of you too much at UA, Tenya. The world isn’t gonna end if you’re not married right out of high school. And it’s not ending because you’re gay.”
—
While he’s at school, Tenya does his best to keep his brother’s words in mind. Every time his gaze is set firmly on the ground while Todoroki completes training activities in class, every time he feels like his heart is going to explode because his friend smiled at him, every time their friend group is together and he can’t seem to stop his eyes from drifting to one of them in particular. He keeps those words in mind. The world won’t end because you’re gay, Tenya.
One time he does make the mistake of watching Shouto while he’s training–it’s an activity they’re all doing, he’s not the only one watching, most of them are, but it still feels like he shouldn’t be allowed to–and he catches a glimpse of him, left arm ablaze, trying to keep his sparring partner at a distance. It’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen in his life.
Izuku is muttering something while he takes notes on it, though Tenya can’t imagine there’s anything about anyone in their class he hasn’t written down. But there’s something so beautiful about Shouto that he almost wishes he was taking notes on it.
He can’t even actually analyze anything about the activity itself, hell, he can’t even remember what they’re doing. He’s just watching Shouto move like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Like he doesn’t even know he’s moving. And he certainly couldn’t know that the simple fact that he’s so skilled and moves so naturally is the single most attractive thing his classmate, his friend, has seen in his entire life.
It’s the only thing he can think about for the rest of the day.
He can’t fall asleep that night. Because it’s wrong. He shouldn’t feel this way. Shouto is his friend. He’d think he was weird for thinking about him this way. Shouto’s a man. Tenya shouldn’t feel this way about another man. It doesn’t matter if his brother doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with it, there is. He can’t be what his family needs from him if he can’t stop thinking about Shouto like this. Men in general like this. It’s wrong. It’s not worth everything it would cost his family if he lived like this.
This isn’t how third year was supposed to be.
This isn’t how he was supposed to be.
He was supposed to meet some girl and have everything click into place, he’d graduate top of his class and go off and be a hero, and every night he’d come home to a woman he loved, and then they’d get married, and they’d have children, and they’d raise them how his family wanted. It should’ve been so easy. He’s supposed to be a good son. He is a good son. He gets good grades, he’s becoming a hero, he does everything else right.
So why is this what makes things start making sense? Why is Shouto, who’s nothing like him, nothing like the way he should be, making him feel things like this? Like everything is beautiful, and okay, and for just a moment nothing else could ever matter as much as that.
Why couldn’t it have been a girl?
Why Shouto? Why unashamed, free Shouto who’s away from the old expectations of his own family? Why not someone else? Why not a girl?
He always follows the rules so carefully, always does what’s right, so why this? His entire family is relying on him and he can’t keep his mind off of a guy. The blankness of his ceiling stares down at him mockingly.
He sometimes forgets that they’re a family, not an agency. But they are in a way. There’s no lack of love in his house, but there isn’t a lack of pressure either. He’s a cog in the machine that is his family, and so long as he does his job everything will move smoothly.
He closes his eyes and all that’s behind them is Shouto. He looked so determined, it was midday, but the fire on his left side gave his face the warm glow and harsh shadows of someone sitting by a fire at night. His eyes shoot back open. How is he meant to sleep with the source of his troubles staring at him like that? Like those troubles couldn’t possibly matter. Like nothing in the world matters. Like he’s completely untouchable.
—
“Woah Tenya, did you sleep at all last night?” Izuku looks alarmed as soon as he sees him. Of course he does. He knows everything about everyone. How would he not notice?
“Not very well, but I won’t let that get in the way of my academics. There’s nothing to be worried about.”
Shouto looks at him, expression blank as usual. He’s already started eating–he really does have terrible manners… is it bad that Tenya finds that attractive? He’s so free and utterly careless, it’s incredible–and is quickly too distracted by that to continue paying him any mind.
“That’s good! I do hope you sleep better though, it’s important…” He goes on muttering things about Tenya’s specific sleep health that should probably be a little worrying, but Tenya knows him well enough not to be alarmed.
He can’t pay any attention though. His mind is like static, he’s exhausted, and Shouto is right there, completely unaware of how he plagues Tenya’s mind.
—
Days drone by. He still can’t get Shouto out of his head, he feels like he’s going crazy. Days never got muddy like this before. Following his normal routine was easy. But everything is so disrupted every time he sees Shouto that it feels like he isn’t following anything.
He does everything the same, but it feels different. He goes to sleep on time, but sometimes his dreams are haunted by that beautiful face. He wakes up on time, but he goes downstairs to see Shouto everywhere he goes for the rest of the day. He goes to all his classes, but Shouto is sitting behind him the whole time. He goes to lunch, but Shouto talks so much more now than he did in first and second year. He trains, but Shouto does too, and isn’t he just gorgeous while he does?
It’s seriously stressing him out. He needs routine to function, but now everything he does is also something Shouto does, and he can’t think about it any other way.
Days turn into weeks and it only gets mildly easier.
His routine feels normal again. He feels human again. He isn’t constantly on the verge of… he doesn’t really know what. He just always felt like he was one thing going wrong away from blowing up before.
And then Shouto comes up to him after class one day.
“Do you want to study together later?”
He pauses. They’re both great students. They study fine on their own. But maybe he means- “Like all of us? Izuku, Ochako, Tsu and us?” That would make more sense. Izuku loves to study with other people.
“No. Just us.” He still can’t decide if talking to Shouto is harder or easier than talking to other people because of how inexpressive he is. He likes not having to decode anything, but also there’s nothing to decode, it feels wrong, talking to people shouldn’t be this easy.
“Oh. Okay then. Sure.”
He nods. “See you at my dorm at five then?”
“I’ll see you then.” He nods stiffly.
Shouto walks away like he never even stopped.
What on earth just happened?