Chapter Text
The first thing that Hanta noticed about Shoto Todoroki is that he's quiet. Disturbingly so. Hanta watched someone push past Shoto in a hurry to get to their next class and he didn’t even make a peep. Just kept walking like he hadn’t noticed it at all.
It was something that intrigued him.
He had seen Endeavor on screen before. He wasn’t an incredibly talkative guy, but he wasn’t dead quiet like Shoto was. It made him wonder how a hero with as much of a standing as Endeavor could produce a child so quiet and so hesitant about the spotlight as Shoto was. Did Shoto take more after his mother, maybe? Hanta had never wanted to be so involved in someone’s business, but something about the youngest Todoroki pulled him in. Hanta didn’t even like Endeavor all that much.
But Shoto wasn’t Endeavor.
And he made that very clear.
The second thing Hanta noticed about Shoto Todoroki was how quiet he got whenever someone mentioned his father. Hanta could understand. Being compared to your dad all the time had got to be rough and tiring no matter how good of a hero he was. He could totally see where Shoto was coming from. After all, if his parents were heroes he wouldn’t be wanting to be compared to them all the time. That would be crazy annoying.
So, he did his part and watched his mouth. Not that he had to do it very often. During their first few weeks at UA he didn’t even get a single opportunity to talk to Shoto. Even during sparring they never got paired together.
But that was okay.
It’s not like Hanta knew him. This was some random boy who had spawned into his life, no matter how interested in Shoto he was. At the end of the day he didn’t know Shoto and Shoto didn’t know him. He would move on with his life and focus on being the best hero that he could possibly be. After all, that’s what Hanta came to UA for. He wants to be a hero. A great one. He’s not going to let fascination about some random classmate get in the way of that. If he got a chance to speak with Shoto: cool. If he didn’t: cool. Either way it didn’t really matter.
UA kept them plenty busy between all the training, the homework, the socialness of being a hero student. Hanta trained his quirk and took all the advice he was given to heart. He did homework on the commute home every day. He researched heroes with quirks similar to the type that his was and how they strengthened themselves. He pushed his quirk as hard as he could to become stronger. And it all felt exhilarating.
But of course, he’s still a teenager and he had to leave room for friends.
He kept in contact with friends he had in middle school and made new friends at UA. He gravitated towards Denki Kaminari easily. Then he started hanging out with Eijiro Kirishima, which by extension meant Katsuki Bakugo. And finally, Mina Ashido jumped into their little makeshift group.
And thus, the Bakusquad was born.
Bakugo always seemed to have problems with Midoriya. They obviously came from the same middle school so Hanta assumed there must be some kind of tension there like they feel like they have to compete. Plus, both of them were pretty loud about wanting to be the number one hero, so that probably didn’t help their rivalry. Honestly it was just fun to listen and watch the two of them sometimes.
He liked the way the Bakusquad behaved. They were loud and always doing something new that he could latch onto. It was fun and always kept Hanta on his toes, something he appreciated about them. It kept him busy alongside his school work. By the third week of all of them hanging off Bakugo he called them all “damn extras” and said that if they were going to “waste his precious damn time” they could at least “shut up and study” since their “dumbasses weren’t going to pass any other way”.
He loved every minute of it.
The hustle and bustle of people in the lunchroom. Voices bounced off every surface as Bakugo shoved Denki face-first into his food for being “an annoying fuck”. He got to observe other people as well. Being laid back had its perks. Mina came to him with all the gossip she somehow acquired and Kirishima loved to ask him to train with him after school because he knew he wouldn’t get frustrated with losing and quit.
He spent afternoons that he wasn’t studying or training on buses and in convenience stores with the Bakusquad. He even once went to Mina’s house with Denki and Kirishima and had a spa day that Bakugo vehemently refused to join.
He ate strawberry pocky, soaked his feet, and listened to Mina rattle off about whatever juicy gossip she had picked up that week. He laughed with Denki at stupid videos and watched Mina demolish Kirishima in Mario Kart like there was no tomorrow.
He could only imagine that he would have the perfect high school experience if this is how everything started.
And, still, in the back of his mind, no matter what he did, laid Shoto Todoroki.
-
Shoto always knew he was quiet. Spending a lifetime categorizing the fall of footsteps to find out if it was his father or Natsuo resulted in that. He spent so much time keeping quiet as to not make his father blow up at him that it translated into his normal life.
Going to UA was like someone had dumped a bucket of ice-cold water on him. It was like going to America from Japan without being educated on American customs, money, language, and service fees. Culture shock was putting it lightly.
Everyone chattered happily with each other. Some exclaimed they couldn’t believe they’d gotten in while others lamented about how hard the entrance exams were. Shoto stayed tucked into the corner and adjusted his uniform again. A bad habit.
He didn’t show off, he didn’t wear his last name loudly, he just existed.
He drifted along with the other kids. Where the rush took him is where he went. He gave when someone pushed past him in the hall; shrunk when someone needed more space; stayed quiet when it was loud; grounded when everyone else was on a high.
Every move he made was light and controlled.
He never did anything out of the ordinary. His existence relied solely on a routine. Wake up, eat, train. Go to school, learn, eat, train. Come home, train. Train. Train until he was worked to the bone. Go to bed, rinse and repeat.
He watched the others laugh at their friends’ antics, something Shoto didn’t have. He never really felt lonely. Was it possible to get lonely when you had never known connection? Could connection and human presence be craved if it was never understood or offered in the first place? Was that possible? Shoto wouldn’t know. It wasn’t his job to know. It was his job to become the number one hero.
He listened as Endeavor rattled off everything he had to do. He nodded politely and shook hands even as it made his skin crawl. He sat through meetings and hero galas on weekends when he wasn’t training. He sat and was quiet and respectful. He didn’t make noise. He didn’t fidget. He didn’t blink.
He did solely as he was expected to. Never more, never less.
He practiced and perfected his moves until he ran like a machine. He made sure his uniform covered fresh bruises and ate foods that supported skin healing. He didn’t flinch when someone shouted too closely or pushed a little too hard. He was quiet.
Good. Quiet. Respectful.
He repeated those words like a mantra.
He clung to them in the dead of night when he couldn’t cry but wanted to tear his own hair out. He clung to them when he looked in the mirror and saw black and blue. He clung to them when a hair out of place sent him spiraling. He clung to them when noise weighed into his bones. He clung to them when someone compared him to Endeavor.
He clung.
Somewhere in the back of his mind his brain screamed. The clock was ticking too fast, someone’s chair was squeaking at a different frequency than all of the others. His brain had always picked up small little differences in the air, in people, in noise, in environment. He pushed through and counted lockers as he walked in the halls when there were too many people to pick up on one voice. He pulled and prodded at the fabric of his jacket rather than his skin or his hair.
That was the first time he noticed Hanta Sero.
It wasn’t big. It was small. Calculated like everything Shoto does. He pulled at the loose strings in his jacket as he walked down the hall behind everyone else on the way to lunch. Somehow, in the string of adolescent voices he hears it. A clear laughter unlike anything else he had heard. It wasn’t fake like Endeavor’s often was at galas, it wasn’t filled with energy like the girls’ giggles often were, it wasn’t rumbly like the teachers. It was clear and confident.
Shoto’s eyes wandered around the bright hallway. He scanned face after face. The bright laughs too loud, the non laughs too prickly and familiar, the smiles too sickly sweet. Everyone around him seemed to be hiding something in their expression. Something they wanted to keep tucked close to their chests. Shoto knew that feeling all too well and recognized his own expressions in many people’s faces.
His eyes laid on Hanta Sero and he was immediately curious.
Hanta wasn’t being loud on purpose or (sometimes worse) not realizing how loud he was. He laughed like he had always laughed like that. He laughed like he had nothing at all to worry about, and that made Shoto want to pick him apart and understand him.
Hanta’s posture was relaxed and he walked with a confidence and will like he knew exactly where he was going and also knew that it didn’t matter where he ended up.
Shoto continued to watch quietly.
Hanta didn’t fold his hands, he moved them around with him when he talked. But he didn’t gesture wildly, he gestured with purpose. His eyes didn’t wander; they concentrated gently on whoever was talking at the moment. His posture never tensed. It stayed relaxed even as Bakugo yelled and everyone got loud. He moved his hair behind his ear when it fell in front of his face but otherwise didn’t fidget with it. He tapped his feet happily every once-in-a-while and hummed to the beat of whatever played through the singular headphone housed in his left ear. He contributed evenly to conversations but didn’t force himself to talk.
He fascinated Shoto like nothing else.
How could someone so relaxed all the time exist? Did he never feel the weight of people’s eyes boring into his head? Did he never feel the clawing at his chest or the expectations people placed on him weighing heavy on his mind?
Did he really just walk around unbothered all day?
Shoto couldn’t fathom something like that.
His fascination with Hanta lived on, but his attention was quickly pulled away and placed elsewhere. Training, school work, hero galas, interviews, modeling jobs. His schedule was packed full and he had little time for anything that wasn’t necessary. He’d already cut his sleep down, there wasn’t much else he could compress to give himself time.
But somewhere deep in his mind he always wondered about Hanta Sero.
Could he really be carefree? Unburdened by the world?
And surprisingly, even as he watched Hanta interact with his friends and live the life Shoto accepted he would never get, he didn’t feel envy. He felt weird, but not green.
A problem for another time, he supposes.
Hanta Sero will have to continue to be a mystery for the time being.