Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Not all men are created equal, Midoriya Izuku knew that all too well.

But over the summer between middle school and high school, Midoriya had, in a word, flourished. And no, there was no better term for it.

After years of torment from his classmates, in particular a certain loud mouthed blonde boy, Midoriya was finally able to finish Middle school with his head still screwed on and his feet safely on the ground.

But I’ll spare you from the sad backstory for now (until it becomes more convenient for the plot anyways).

For today was going to be a fresh start. This was going to be his first day of high school after all!

Standing in front of his vanity mirror, Midoriya ran a hand through his emerald shaded hair for what felt like the billionth time as he tried to ensure that it wasn’t going to frizz up like usual. His tongue was peeking out in concentration, which was making his nerdiness show on full display. Finally, he deemed the hair acceptable and took a step back from the mirror to examine himself.

Now don’t get me wrong, Midoriya wasn’t arrogant, far from it, but even he could smile fondly as he took in his complexion. Bright green eyes shone back in admiration as he ran a finger down his acne free skin, grinning in satisfaction as he took in his cleansed pores on his nose and cheeks, grateful that the seaweed mud mask he was having his mother lather on his face each night was so successful.

His teeth were no longer trapped in awfully abhorrent neon green braces and they sparkled in their straightened whiteness. So long as he continued wearing his retainers in the evenings and nights, his orthodontist said he wouldn’t need to go back to wearing braces, to which Midoriya nearly cried in relief in response.

His cheekbones were denser and sharper, though he felt his smile waver slightly as he poked and prodded at his cheeks, watching how they were still slightly rounded.

Nevertheless, they had largely improved from before, in fact, he had lost nearly all of his fat over the summer ever since he started going on daily runs and doing at home workouts, too broke to afford a gym membership but his workouts were still proving successful, he’s positive by the end of the year he’ll have abs.

For now though, he was content with himself as he nodded in satisfaction. And it was all thanks to his hard earned effort and patience. Now no one will have any excuse to bully him..unless his personality is what gives them a reason.

Shaking his head at the thought, he quickly blinked a few times in rapid succession, checking that his new eye contacts were safely secured before grabbing his bulky glasses from atop his desk and shoving them into the far corner of his drawer.

“Izuku! You’re gonna be late for your first day!” Midoriya’s gaze snapped up from beside him as he fumbled for his phone from his pocket.

“8:30 already!? Oh shoot!” Midoriya wasted no time in grabbing his backpack from his desk chair and zoomed down the flight of stairs, and if he missed a few steps and nearly face planted the wall when he reached the landing, well no one except him and Tintin had to know.

Speaking of Tintin, the Midoriya family’s favourite household member, meowed in delight from her position on the sofa, too comfortable in her loafed form to prance over to her third favourite household member.

Midoriya was more than happy to make his way over to her as he easily crossed the distance between himself and the feline before scratching her behind the ears and cooing.

“Honey, I know Tintin is a delight but you really are going to be late.” Midoriya’s mother, Inko called in a tone of what can only be described as classic motherly exasperation as she handed her son his bento box for the day.

“Ah! Thanks mom, you’re the best.” Midoriya said with a sheepish grin as he took the disposable lunch box from his mother and planted a chaste kiss on her cheek before rushing to leave.

“Oh! Don’t forget to take Kota with you—”

“I am not going with that loser!” His little brother, identifiably known at Kota, practically screeched from his room upstairs, earning an unamused shake of her head from mother Inko.

“That boy, it’s like as soon as he started Middle school, a switch went off in his head to be a broody teen. I’m so glad you weren’t like that Izu.” The mention of him in his middle school days caused the boy to falter by the door in panic, even though his mother was smiling sweetly at him, he still had moments where he thought one day she would find out about happened to him back then.

It’s not as if he liked keeping secrets from his mother, but she was a single mom with three kids, wrangling with the debt that his father left them after getting into trouble with the wrong group of people. Thank goodness Emi, his older sister, was still hanging around to support them all with her financially well off job as a talent recruiter.

Coming back to reality, Midoriya wasted no time waiting for his little brother, knowing the kid well enough to understand when he wasn’t needed, and flashed a bright smile towards his mother.

“Uh..yeah! Bye mom!” He strained out, left with the after effects of his anxious nerves, before finally making his leave.

As he walked along the path to his new high school his mind unwillingly went back to his previous train of thought. Okay, so it wasn’t just his mother either, in fact there really wasn’t anyone in his life that knew what he went through in middle school.

But whatever! It was all in the past now, that Midoriya is dead and the new one was here for a fresh start. No point daunting on it now.

Though that didn’t stop the teen from dumping his bento box into the nearest trash bin as he made his way towards the school. He didn’t even comment on doing it, after getting bullied about his previous weight and the food that his mother would make for him being all cutesy and childish, it was a habit to immediately dispose of any food that the teen brought from home, knowing that there was no way he would tell his mom about why he couldn’t have it anymore.

It kept her busy to fuss over her children, she ran a hair and beauty salon in their home, so when she had down time, which was a lot, she immersed herself in making sure her babies were prepared for the day. Despite this, Midoriya very much did not feel ready for the day.

He had to admit despite his confidence in his new found ‘glow up’, the boy was still scared shitless of what his new classmates would be like. The high school he was going to had a joint middle school, so all the kids in his year would already know each other, he was an outsider coming into the school for the first time.

Would they see through the facade? Would he forever stay stuck as a nerdy loser until he graduated!?

He stopped walking for a second to practice one of the breathing exercises his mother had taught him when he was feeling overwhelmed. He couldn’t let his insecurities get to him, not now.

However, the universe had other ways of getting to him, and by that I mean the universe being literally out to get him as from nowhere a motorcyclist was suddenly turning a corner and into the alleyway that Midoriya just happened to be walking past at that exact moment.

The vehicle so very nearly rammed into him and his fight or flight instincts immediately caused him to yelp in shock and stumble backwards onto the ground below him to try and steer clear of the vehicle, not wanting to be hospitalised on his first day, or even worse, get a scratch on his face!

The motorbike screeched to a stop and from the speed he was going at, the driver crashed his bike into the wall beside them to force it to stop.

“A-are you okay!?” Midoriya yelped from where he sat frozen on the ground.

A low curse could be heard from the motorcyclist, causing Midoriya to quickly stand up and race over to where the guy was crouched with his bike seeming to be more concerned for it than himself.

“I literally just got this cleaned as well.” He heard a deep and muffled voice come from the guy, deeper than Izuku had expected.

As if remembering the poor boy he nearly crashed into, the driver quickly turned round and took off his helmet to face Midoriya directly from where he was crouched down. He let out a sigh of relief as his face was no longer mushed into the helmet and his purple hair sprung up slightly.

Midoriya assumed the teen was a bit older than he was, possibly a senior with the mature clothing he wore, the padded leather jacket and dark grey jeans gave a sense of maturity and the motorbike was a huge giveaway too he supposed.

What Midoriya paid the most attention to though was his eyes, he’d never seen purple eyes before, let alone ones with white irises. Skin wise, the boy could use some work, but from the couple scratches that covered the guys face already, he could tell that he didn’t really care for skin care.

…And now he was caught staring.

“Ah! Here, let me help you up.” Midoriya remembering his manners, held out a hand for the guy to grab.

The purpled haired guy didn’t take it however, simply standing on his own and patting himself off with his hands. Now that he was stood up, Midoriya took in how tall he was, he couldn’t possibly be any shorter than 5”11. His own head went to the taller teens shoulders, so he took a step back in embarrassment not wanting to draw too much attention to the height difference. Maybe he would consider putting insoles in his shoes to appear taller.

The guy, who Midoriya had him noted down as mystery boy in his head, took a second to look up and down Midoriya’s figure, examining him just as critically as Midoriya had himself but somehow mystery boy made it seem more like he was sizing him up.

The last thing he expected the teen to do in that instance was address him directly though—

“Be more careful.” His voice sounded clearer now that it wasn’t muffled against his helmet as he gave Midoriya the warning(?) was it a warning or a threat? He couldn’t tell.

Before he could stammer out an apology though, an onslaught of revving noises echoed from the distance.

“There he is!” Someone from the distance yelled out.

A group of motorcyclists were heading their way at an alarming speed.

“Shit!” Mystery boy cursed out before wasting no time in hopping on his own motorbike once again and zooming off in the opposite direction, Midoriya could only watch in terror as the group of what seemed like ten other riders were hot on his tail after him.

As the noises drew further and further away, Midoriya let out a breath he didn’t realise he was holding and started to skittishly make his way back towards the school. Though in doing so he very nearly tripped over something round.

Mystery boy, in his hurry, had forsaken his helmet.

‘This has got to be some kind of bad omen’ Midoriya whined internally as he dusted himself off with a huff before continuing on his journey, wondering where he was going to find a place for this massive helmet.

He kept up his brisk walking pace as he headed inside the grounds of his new high school. Ducking and weaving past unfamiliar faces as he walked up the steps to the entrance.

He shoved the helmet into his bag before making it just in time for homeroom, which was a huge relief. It would have been super embarrassing to walk into class late on his first day, he was trying to make a good first impression after all which was especially important given he was on a new slate.

After locating the right classroom, he took a deep breath to calm his jittery nerves from leaving a pit in the bottom of his stomach.

“Count to 4, exhale till 8. You got this, it’s a new slate.” He whispered the little pep talk to himself before walking on in.

What greeted him was a bunch of roady teens. A few, maybe one or two at most, were sat in their chairs amicably as they waited for class to start. The rest however were causing a riot with shouting and running around and even minor rough housing. Meanwhile to his left where his teacher was supposed to be, he saw an empty desk with what looked to be a sleeping bag hiding behind it.

Wait that sleeping bag has a person in it.

‘Eh!? My teacher is seriously napping before home room? How can he even sleep through this racket.’ He gaped in disbelief as he stood frozen by the door in shock.

Surprisingly, as if sensing a new disturbance to his class, his teacher rose from his sleeping position and removed himself out of his sleeping bag.

“You’re the new student I presume.” His teacher stated more so than questioned as he addressed him from where he stood by the desk. This caused the whole class to immediately stop chattering which Midoriya was sure his new teacher intended to cause in order to shock them all into silence.

Realising that they were all now waiting on him to speak, he quickly nodded in agreement.

“T-that’s me!” He squeaked out, clearing his throat when his voice came out slightly higher pitched than expected.

His teacher didn’t seem to notice though if his monotone expression was anything to go off of as he simply nodded back.

“My name is Mr Aizawa, I will be your homeroom teacher for the foreseeable future.” He said matter of factly, not even bothering to appear excited to welcome a new student to the class. Though from a first impression of how his classmates were, Midoriya couldn’t say he blamed him.

“Class, this is Midoriya Izuku, please treat him as you would like to be treated.” His teacher said in an almost bored tone to the rest of his students as he jerked his head at Midoriya, gesturing him to come inside.

Midoriya gave a small wave, relieved to see so many of the students were looking at him with warm smiles and awed expressions, they were probably not used to seeing a new kid at their school so it must be exciting. Midoriya put on the bravest smile he could muster and addressed his peers.

“Hello everyone! As sir said my name is Midoriya Izuku, I look forward to getting to know you all!”

“Wooo! You’re awesome dude!” One of the kids that Midoriya recalled was roughhousing earlier called from his seat, he had very eccentric looking hair that he was sure violated some dress code as it was a bright yellow with a cool looking black bolt through the middle.

Like a chain reaction, nearly all the others joined in, clapping and whooping at the arrival of the new student. He could’ve burst into tears in happiness right then and there, this was totally different from his old school. Maybe here he could actually make a friend—

“Quiet!”

..or not.

The class fell into a silent hush once again as their teacher snapped at them. With a huff he glanced at Midoriya rather impatiently.

“Go ahead and take a seat problem child.”

‘Problem child?! Just my luck, I hadn’t even done anything yet and I’m already getting scolded.’ Midoriya grumbled in his head dejectedly as he faced his teacher.

He nodded meekly before quickly taking a seat in front of a girl with mousey brown hair.

Said girl quickly tapped him on the shoulder as soon as he sat down and grinned before extending her hand out for him to shake.

“Hi! My name is Uraraka Ochaco! We should be friends, us cuties gotta stick together yeah?” She teased before flashing a cute wink as a joke.

Midoriya practically felt his face flushing pink as he nervously shook her hand, hoping she didn’t comment on how clammy his palms were. He noticed how he could feel callouses on the pads of Uraraka’s fingers.

“F-for sure! Thank you for being so welcoming!” He smiled back which only made her coo even more in response.

Before she could say anything else he quickly added on,

“By the way what instrument do you play? Or is it a handheld sport like basketball or baseball.” He said absentmindedly before clamping his mouth shut as she stared at him in surprise.

“Oh! Sorry! That was so nosey of me you don’t have to answer!” He exclaimed in embarrassment as he quickly removed his hand from hers.

She all but giggled in response after getting over her initial surprise and quickly patted him on his shoulder in reassurance.

“No! You’re fine Midoriya! I was just really surprised is all, I’m actually really into playing baseball it’s my favourite thing to do! I wanna go pro one day and join the national woman’s team.” She said proudly with a grin to which Midoriya nodded in amazement, quickly getting over his embarrassment as he was too fascinated by her ambitions.

“Oh wow! That’s super impressive, I’m sure you’re great at it. A-and I just noticed because of your callouses, no one gets those without a lot of hard work.” He also knew because his older sister used to be really into playing the guitar when she was in her teens.

But there was another reason why Midoriya was well versed on this matter. When he graduates, he wants to become a dermatologist! After spending so long looking after his skin and researching so much about the effects and causes of skin damage and how to protect it, he became passionate on the subject. It is something he really wants to dedicate his time to, and help others who struggled with their skin issues just like he did.

Uraraka cut him off from his train of thoughts as she responded enthusiastically.

“Awee thank you Midoriya, you’re super smart you know! I bet you wanna go into something really advance when you finish high school huh.” She said with a chuckle causing him to stammer again.

“Oh! Yeah I really wanna—” he cut himself off just as he was about to say anything socially suicidal. He can’t tell a girl that he just met that he wants to be some skin guru! His own mother laughed it off when he finally worked up the courage to confess his dream career to her and told him that he wasn’t being ambitious enough, that he should leave that type of work to the women.

Whilst Midoriya’s sure his mother wasn’t trying to be demeaning, it still hurt to hear that come from his own mother’s mouth. So if his own mother couldn’t support his dream then there’s no way some random classmate could either.

“…I actually don’t know yet.” He trailed off lamely, hoping she didn’t pry too much into his strange shift in tone.

He winced as he saw Uraraka frown in what looked to be disappointment before cheering back up again.

“Oh well! You’ve still got a while to decide haven’t you, and in the meantime you can come watch my matches! Maybe that’ll give you some inspiration yeah? And you can cheer me on so it’s a win-win.” She teased and Midoriya internally let out a small sigh of relief that he hadn’t scared her off just yet.

“Of course I’ll come to your matches Uraraka! Like I said I’m sure you’re just amazing.” He said genuinely, and was she tearing up at that?

She fanned her face with her hands slightly before letting out a small sniff.

“You really are adorable Midoriya, I just wanna squeeze your cheeks.” She said with no hesitation causing him to gawk at the sudden forwardness.

Before he could protest to that claim however she turned to the boy across from him and nudged his shoulder back and forth.

“See? Even Todoroki thinks so, look at how he’s staring! You like the new kid too right? Right?” She kept asking excitedly which seemed to knock the teen out of whatever thought he was having before slowly raising his brows in shock.

“It’s you.”

‘Wait. Was that aimed at me?’ Midoriya thought with a confused frown as he finally took his eyes off of his new friend Uraraka to turn his gaze upon the boy sat beside him.

You would think what stood out the most features wise were the boys heterochromatic eyes, one blue one grey, or it would be his dual coloured hair with one side a snowy white and the other a dark red.

However, and maybe this was the dermatologist in Midoriya being biased, for him the one feature that stood out to him the most was the blotchy scar that was plastered on the left side of his face, despite it being a scar and a travesty to his beautifully soft looking skin, Midoriya felt that it only made the teen look even more ethereal. He tried not to let his awe show too much on his face as he quickly snapped his mouth shut.

But wait, didn’t this boy seem to recognise him? Todoroki, as he learnt, was still staring at him in muted surprise as he seemingly examined his face.

“You look different.” Was all he had to say to edge Midoriya’s mind to a sudden realisation.

This boy was none other than Shouto Todoroki, kid of the famous movie star Enji Todoroki AKA his stage name Endeavour. But Midoriya knew this boy on a deeper level.

For he was the boy that saved Midoriya from killing himself.

———————————————

“Did you not stop to think about the guilt you would leave behind if you killed yourself?

…

You cannot save a dead man, so please, don’t do it.”

…

The words rotated over and over again in Midoriya’s head, words that he had almost forgotten. Words left behind by none other than the Todoroki Shouto. He still remembers how he didn’t even recognise him till weeks later when he saw him again in an advertisement online.

He can’t believe the son of a celebrity and his saviour was at this school, in his class! He almost let out a grin in excitement. He remembered how kind Todoroki was to him that day on the rooftop, how he held him whilst he cried and carried him back down the flights of stairs when his legs were too wobbly from shock to function.

Gosh back then when he still had his geeky glasses and spotty face—

oh shit

‘You look different’

That’s what Todoroki had said earlier in homeroom wasn’t it?

‘Blank slate my ass! Now everyone will soon know about how ugly I used to look! What if he even tells everyone about my suicide attempt?’

Despite knowing how sweet Todoroki was before, he was still basically a stranger. He didn’t owe Midoriya anything to keep it any of it a secret. And logically thinking, Todoroki has nothing to gain out of telling anyone, but the fear of things turning out like they did in middle school still plagues Midoriya’s mind. Maybe after school he can get the guy alone for a second and try to see what exactly he remembers about him.

“Hey, by the way Midoriya, how do you get your face to look so soft! We’re sixteen but I don’t see a spot in sight it’s amazing! Please tell me your secrets oh wise one!”

It was the final class of today and it was safe to say that Midoriya actually had a good first day of school! He sat with Uraraka at lunch and they spoke about their interests (Midoriya had to hide his comic book addiction and instead said he enjoyed reading science fiction) and Uraraka gossiped about some of her classmates. He didn’t really pay too much attention on it until she mentioned Todoroki.

His reputation at this school was the snow queen, incredibly handsome but really cold. She said he had rejected every guy and girl that worked up the courage to ask him out, he also never hung out with anyone which gave people a snobby impression of him.

Despite having his own worries about the boy, although for different reasons entirely, he couldn’t help but pull a puzzled frown of disbelief upon hearing that. He couldn’t imagine Todoroki really had no friends at this school, he was the son of a celebrity after all!

Anyways, back to the present, Midoriya opted to not lie about how his skin was a god gifted quality and instead hesitantly pulled out some moisturiser that he used daily.

“This is the brand I currently use, it’s ideal for everyday use but you really gotta experiment and see which formula suits your skin the most—“

He was rambling again wasn’t he?

Catching his tongue in embarrassment he accidentally fumbled with the bottle and gasped in horror as it fell and rolled away out of his reach.

Just when he assumed some guy would pick it up and immediately take the piss out of Midoriya for using skin care, he was saved by a literal angel as the moisturiser landed next to her feet and she gracefully picked it up and handed it to him.

He watched in awe as he noticed how she didn’t even take the time to glance at the bottle she held, as she respectfully kept her eyes from prying at his personal item and focused her attention instead on making eye contact with the boy.

“Oh hi Momo! Midoriya, this is Yaoyorozu Momo our class rep and my bestest friend in the whole class.” Uraraka said with a cheeky smile as her friend huffed in a fond tone.

“In the whole class huh? Not even the whole school?” She said teasingly, knowing the brunette was messing with her.

“Well maybe not for long! Maybe Midoriya here will be my new bestie, especially seeing how you keep ditching me at lunch.” She said with a fake pout which caused Yaoyorozu to giggle.

Midoriya took the time as the girls were chatting to focus his attention on the class rep. She was tall for starters, definitely taller than Midoriya but not freakishly tall that it came off as off putting or anything. She had black hair and equally dark eyes to match. He internally frowned at how yet another student in his class had perfectly smooth skin and he couldn’t even detect any makeup on her face either!

Although as his eyes trailed down to finally take the bottle of moisturiser from her hand he couldn’t help but notice how agitated they looked, it was a stark contrast to her face as her hands looked rough, like she was washing her hands with a rough sponge or something.

He brushed it off however, perhaps she had sensitive skin from the cold or some form of eczema. Besides, he was the last person who could judge on skin. He was itching to ask about it though, but maybe he would save it for when they had gotten closer.

“You know I use my lunch periods to study sometimes Ochako. Besides it seems like you had good company.” She said with a polite grin and a head tilt as she turned her attention back to Midoriya.

“As class rep I will do my best to look after you.” She said warmly, causing Midoriya’s heart to compress dangerously as he felt his face flushing once again.

“T-thank you! Y-yaoyorozu.” He put on his most charming smile, which came off as more skittish as he grinned back at her.

“Enough with the formalities, class is over.” She waved her hands in a flamboyant gesture before dawning a rebellious grin.

“You two wanna get some tteokbokki?” She asked with anticipation.

The raven haired girl hummed in delight as she nodded.

“I’ve got some time before my cram school classes start, besides how could I say no to treating a new classmate?” She eyed Midoriya once again fondly causing him to almost let out a squeak in shyness.

He was actually planning on rejecting Uraraka’s offer, rice cakes were certainly delicious but it would totally wreck his diet regimen. But now that Yaoyorozu had said that it would definitely look rude to decline now.

“Let’s do it.” He said to the two girls, chuckling as they cheered in delight.

The three were making their way out before Yaoyorozu paused at the doorway, as if remembering something, before turning back to look over at Todoroki who had been sat at the back of the class taking notes. Midoriya followed her line of sight and wondered why the boy had decided to stay behind but he didn’t let his confusion show.

“Oh Shouto, would you like to come get food with us?” Yaoyorozu asked rather politely.

Well now Midoriya was more focused on trying not to let any nervousness etch onto his face. He could just about manage with hanging out with two girls, the less vicious gender, but having Todoroki along for the ride would make him a nervous wreck. He would spend the whole time worrying about if the boy would let Midoriya’s past slip and would not enjoy himself at all!

He also noticed how Yaoyorozu had used Todoroki’s first name to address him but it wasn’t too surprising since he’s sure they’ve all grown up with each other from middle school so they had to be on a friendly basis by now. However that didn’t explain why Uraraka didn’t use his first name.

Todoroki stared blankly as he looked over each of their faces, perhaps a second longer at Midoriya’s, before letting out a formal—

“No, thank you.”

Midoriya couldn’t help but let out a small breath of relief in response but soon faced away from Yaoyorozu as she may have caught him doing so. Since he was faced away from her however, he didn’t notice the slightly crestfallen look on her face at Todoroki’s rejection.

“Shame on you turning down our class reps invitation like that! Momo, you’re too nice for your own good, come on, let’s go have a great time and then rub in Todoroki’s face tomorrow.” Uraraka exclaimed before grabbing both Yaoyorozu and Midoriya’s wrists and dragging them out with her as she shifted into light skip, swinging their arms as she did so.

—————————

Midoriya tiredly limps back home from his day out with the girls. Uraraka was great but man did that girl ever run out of energy. After Yaoyorozu left for cram school the bubbly girl had taken the two of them to an arcade and bested Midoriya in about five whole matches of dance dance revolution.

Now, he was beat and all he wanted to do was get home and apply his night care routine before his skin started cracking from the cold (he could already feel his lips chaffing) and dawn on his retainers to get a goods night sleep and celebrate the successful day.

But, as he passed by his favourite comic book shop he stalled in his steps, perhaps a purchase of one book for the road wouldn’t hurt. He was currently broke after blowing his allowance on his new eye contact prescription and all the skin care products, sue him, but he’s known the owner of this shop since he was a kid and he didn’t mind it when Midoriya occasionally borrowed a comic book. He always made sure to return them back with goodies as a thank you.

With a newfound spring in his step, Midoriya makes his way inside the cosy shop. He grins almost automatically as he sees the owner at the counter like always.

“There’s my favourite little reader. How was your first day of high school? I must say you sure do know how to make a good first impression.” Yamada Hizashi, also known as Present Mic from his local radio show, said with matching grin as he greeted the boy fondly.

Like I said, Midoriya has been coming to this place before he could even talk, which must’ve been around the age of five since Midoriya was an incredibly shy boy growing up.

Nevertheless he still fondly remembers the stories his mother would tell him of how Yamada would always try and get the boy to speak or try to squeak a laugh out of him.

Midoriya was incredibly comfortable here, it was his safe space, his home away from home, his little nerdy sanctuary where he could geek out all he wanted and no one would judge him.

Speaking of, he took that moment to reach over behind Yamada’s desk and draw out his spare glasses that he kept here. The boy would always somehow end up forgetting his glasses at home in his rushes to get here so Yamada had suggested leaving a spare at the shop, safe to say it was a genius idea.

After a whole day with contact lenses in, his eyes were burning and he didn’t wanna risk getting them irritated so much so that it could leave him with red eyes in the morning. So he slipped them off and disposed of them before fixing on his glasses.

He groaned as he heard Yamada let out a coo in adoration for the boy as he apparently looked—“so precious”—in his specs before trudging over to his favourite section of the shop.

He took the time to sit and bask in the warmth of the room before plopping himself down onto one of the sofas. He decided that whilst he was here he might as well put his retainers on now, he wasn’t going to be eating anything else tonight after that huge serving of tteokbokki and there was no one here to judge him after all.

Or so he thought.

He soon got back up with a small stretch, yawning as he lazily scanned the shelves for one of his fav comics to have a reread of. Call him plain but Midoriya would choose to reread a comic that he knows he likes over something new any day.

Spotting the comic book he wanted, he wasted no time in standing on his tip toes and reaching up to grab the book.

‘I should tell Yamada to bring the ladder back downstairs, he severely overestimated my growth spurt.’ Midoriya thought to himself absentmindedly as he remembered when Yamada recalled how he shot up to 5”10 when he turned sixteen. He had expected the same thing to happen to Midoriya but he was gravely mistaken and a tad to optimistic as the boy was barely scraping 5”7.

He still remembers their conversation from the start of summer break.

”don’t worry little reader, it gives you character. Or should I say...littlest reader—”

“Knock it off!”

He sighed fondly at the memory before focusing back on the task at hand.

Just as he was about to close his hand around the spine of the book, another slender hand swooped in out of nowhere and claimed it as theirs.

“What—hey!” Midoriya in a wave of annoyance turned around. He was a pacifist at heart but no one dares to get in between him and his comic books.

The words of rebuttal die in his throat however as he takes in the sight of the book snatcher.

Todoroki Shouto.

Todoroki Shouto was…here? In his safe space, and also his personal space it would seem as his face was eerily close to the shorter teen.

Due to their close proximity, Midoriya had to strain his neck slightly to maintain eye contact. He was too stunned to even squeak in embarrassment, just ultimately bewildered that Todoroki was in a place such as this.

“So it really is you.” He spoke calmly, matter of factly like his teacher Aizawa tended to, though it came out in a softer tone.

Midoriya almost forgot to breathe as his eyes shifted anxiously from Todoroki to any escape routes he could find. But between him and the bookshelf his back was pressed against, he didn’t really have anywhere else to go.

“…uhh, why w-wouldn’t it be me?” He questioned, tilting his head slightly in puzzlement.

This cause Todoroki to blink rapidly a few times before he cleared his throat and quickly leave his personal space, taking a few steps back, staring down at the comic in his hands.

“You looked different at school.” He commented vaguely, Midoriya had already heard that earlier though, he wasn’t an impatient guy by any means but Todoroki’s one sentence answers were starting to push Midoriya into wanting to further the conversation.

“Yeah, so you said.” Midoriya rebuttled back, although he said it with a slight lisp due to his retainers and quickly clamped a hand over his mouth in embarrassment.

“S-sorry, ugh! Stupid retainers.” He grumbled to himself as he kept slurring his s’s.

Todoroki simply stared back in confusion but, and Midoriya could blame it on the low light in the room, he may have caught sight of a slight upturn of his lips from the standoffish teen.

Todoroki shook his head, for what, Midoriya wasn’t sure, maybe he was dismissing the apology. But to his surprise he spoke first this time.

“Why don’t you wear your glasses in class? And the retainers…didnt you used to have braces?” He questioned harmlessly however that caused a pang of fear in the green haired boys chest.

‘Oh god he really did remember’ He groaned internally.

“O-oh! Well I have contacts now! And I was allowed to get my braces removed early over the summer, I just wear the retainers now.” He explained, hoping that’ll be enough to satisfy the boys curiosity.

“Why?” Todoroki’s question was immediate, as if that was playing on his mind for sometime. Midoriya knew what he meant, but he really really didn’t want to give a direct answer.

“Why..what?” He pretended to play dumb, holding back a wince and praying that Todoroki was just gonna let it go. Having to explain to the boy that he transformed himself just because he was so insecure of being bullied again was an incredibly embarrassing aspect to think about.

Miraculously, the boy did drop it and looked away as if remembering social etiquette all of a sudden. He hoped he wasn’t thinking what Midoriya thought he was thinking. He worked so hard to erase the old him, spent so much time and effort into perfecting his image. And he’ll be damned if he lets someone ruin it.

“You…you aren’t going to tell anyone are you?” He questioned the dual hair coloured teen, he did his best to stand tall and not appear like the pushover he so clearly was.

Todoroki regarded him with a raised brow, looking up and down the boy critically before meeting his eyes once more.

Okay, that was pretty rude of Midoriya. He shouldn’t think so lowly of Todoroki like that and just assume the worst of him. Of course he wasn’t going to just blab his mouth to people about his past—

“That depends.” Todoroki said calmly, cutting through any hope and goodwill Midoriya saw in the boy.

“…on what?” He was afraid to even ask.

“I would like for you to be my—”

Oh Midoriya should’ve known it wasn’t going to be that easy! He can see where this is going and quickly beat Todoroki to it.

“Fine! I’ll do anything you want.” He squeezed his eyes shut as he blurted it out to Todoroki in a rush, talking over him before he could make any demands himself.

This is how it always was for boys like Midoriya, they were the runts of the litter. Fetching this and that for people, doing this persons homework or getting that person a drink from the vending machine. At least this time it would just be for one person. He could handle one person over the entire class treating him like a servant.

Todoroki examined Midoriya closely, he couldn’t believe the green haired boy had changed so much. He was much more confident since that fateful day he caught him both literally and mentally at his worst. His eyes were much brighter now. But all Todoroki wanted was a friend, however if Midoriya was being so kind as to offer Todoroki whatever he wanted, then who was he to deny his new friend such a task.

Soon after their agreement was made, Yamada came in with bottles of drinks.

“Ah Izuku, have you chosen which books you wanna borrow? I gotta close the shop up early to go shopping before the stores close.” He said with a sheepish grin as he passed the two boys both colourful drinks.

“On the house for your friend.” He said with a grin as he winked, causing Midoriya to blush for what felt like the millionth time today.

Todoroki didn’t seem to catch it though and was still hung up over what Yamada had said earlier.

“How come he gets to borrow books?” Todoroki asked boldly as he regarded Midoriya with a small frown.

“Izuku here is a loyal customer!” Yamada said with a laugh as he patted Midoriya firmly on the back.

“…Midoriya, make me a loyal customer too.”

“I’m not a genie!” He squeaked at the bold request.

“But you said you’d do anything for me.”

A long sigh and a few more borrowed books are taken out from the shop for Todoroki. And in his shock of all that, he forgot to even ask why Todoroki was hanging round his favourite comic book store in the first place.

But all in all, it was a very eventful first day of school.

Chapter Text

Waking up in a new day, Midoriya lazily rubbed the sleep from his eyes before catching his bad habit mid-act and going to the bathroom to start his skin care. He first washed his face with warm water before exfoliating to get rid of any dead skin cells. He then finished it up with his 2% formula of salicylic acid before dabbing on some brightening eye cream that he recently bought from the new organic shop in town.

Deeming his face up to approval, he donned on his school uniform, stashed a secret comic book between his work books for later into his bag and rushed downstairs to say bye to his mother.

“Hey, hey little brother.” He nearly tripped down the last remaining step at the sound of his long lost sister (she had been gone a week for a work trip) calling him from the kitchen.

Emi and his mother were enjoying coffee, much to his spite. Seeing as Midoriya had cut caffeine out from his diet to avoid break outs.

“Oh! Don’t you clean up nice Izuku! Mom,
you never told me we had a secret idol trainee in the house.” She teased, enjoying the look of ultimate displeasure she got back from the boy as their mother chuckled into her cup.

“Now, now Emi leave your brother alone.” She mock told off his sister, making Midoriya frown even more so. Emi was essentially not a golden child but the golden child as she got all his mother’s praise. Meanwhile Kota was too young to have accomplished anything yet so he was safe from being a disappointment.

It was safe to say as much as he loved his older sister, she sure did leave some big shoes for him to fill. And he knows for a fact he won’t be able to accomplish that as a dermatologist.

He huffed, brushing away the negative thoughts as he didn’t want to cause wrinkles from frowning too much and instead regarded his sister as she sipped on her latte.

“You know, you’re never going to beat the old lady allegations with that choice of coffee.” He teased back, enjoying the way her mouth slowly morphed into a snarl.

“What!? What’s wrong with enjoying a hot beverage?” And I’ll have you know brat, twenty-eight is a perfectly good age! I’m at my prime right now.” She continued to defend herself as he slowly slipped his shoes on and gave all his attention to petting Tintin.

“Right right, well I’m heading out now, bye mom! And other mom!” And with that he walked out.

“Hold on brat, mom says I gotta take you to school.” She called out before the door had shut completely.

Midoriya was secretly relieved to hear this however. He hadn’t told his mother but after last morning’s near death experience with that motorcyclist, he was more than happy to get a lift to school today to avoid anymore near collisions.

—————————

The drive to school was short, a meagre five minutes but neither sibling seemed to mind.

Emi was heading out for work soon anyways so she decided to camp out at the cafe near Midoriya’s school before she made her way to the office.

She waltzed up to the cashier with charm as she gave the barista a flashy smile. Unlike Midoriya, Emi had adopted their father’s features. Sharp jawline, smooth skin and a defined cupids bow to match. Her lighter-coloured green hair and bright eyes also helped uphold a youthful complexion despite what her bratty little brothers had to say about it.

“Hi there, please can I get a regular latt—I mean a regular iced americano.”

‘That’s what teens drink nowadays isn’t it?’ She pondered as she recalled seeing a lot of iced americanos littered in and around the recording booths when their young trainees would occupy the space.

She collected her drink and perched herself at one of the high chairs at the front of the cafe window so she could shamelessly people-watch. She expected to see the odd bird poking at the ground, or the few student stragglers as they raced up the stairs to the high school before the bell went.

What she didn’t expect to see however, was a little girl running off from her mother as they neared the zebra crossing. Bless these kids, always wanting to do things on their own.

But there was a reason why they shouldn’t, as within a second, a black Audi car was heading straight towards the poor girl, and she was too small for the driver to even notice she was there.

Before Emi could even let out a shout in panic, a firm arm reached for the collar of the girls blouse and yanked her out of the way. The girl and mystery rescuer both ended up toppling over at the sheer force he had pulled her at but the man kept a firm grasp on the child, keeping her clutched in his grasp as he broke the fall for her.

Emi didn’t realise she had been holding her breath until she let out a sharp exhale once she saw that the kid was safe. She didn’t feel the need to go out there herself as it was clear the man had it handled.

As the man was checking over the child for injuries and reuniting her with her crying mother, she examined how there was a discarded briefcase on the floor.

“Oh? So our rescuer is a teacher at Izuku’s school huh?” She murmured to herself in fascination as she also regarded the lanyard worn around the man’s neck.

Now for the moment that would change the trajectory of Emi’s life forever.

She watched, mouth agape as the driver of the vehicle stormed out of the car in a rage, immediately rushing over to the mother to yell at her for allowing her child to almost get hit, (which so wasnt her fault!).

But then, as if sensing the incoming attack, the teacher immediately got in front of the mother and grabbed the arm that was about to strike down on her before pinning the driver down—restraining him to the side of the car with just one arm whilst using the other to call what she presumed to be the police.

She shakily threaded her fingers through her hair. Normally in this moment, the regular person would try to deny any feelings caught in that adrenaline inducing moment and push any butterflies down that they might’ve felt for a complete stranger.

Emi was strange though, and she had a strong belief in fate.

“I think I’ll be dropping Izuku off to school more often.” She murmured with a grin before taking another sip of her drink.

As she looked back up, a patch of purple hair and tall figure caught her attention as the teen slowly dismounted from his motorcycle and sauntered into the high school without a care in the world.

“..Shinsou!?”

—————————

“Sorry I’m late everyone, I had to attend to a serious incident outside of school.” Mr Aizawa informed the class before picking up the attendance sheet that Yaoyorozu had filled in in their teachers absence.

“Sir, is that to say you have someone more important than us in your life?” The yellow-haired teen that Midoriya remembers from yesterday called out to their teacher with puppy dog eyes.

“Kaminari Denki, there are a lot of things let alone people that I value over you guys.” He replied back bluntly, huffing in refined amusement as the teen wailed back in sorrow.

“And one of those things is sleeping, today’s already been exhausting. It’s a self-study period until the bell rings.” Was all Mr Aizawa said before grabbing his sleeping bag from behind his desk and taking a nap.

Midoriya decided not to question things further and simply took the time to start on his English homework whilst he listened to the background chatter of Uraraka comforting a sulking Kaminari.

Midoriya risked sneaking a glance at Todoroki who was sat across from him, head buried in the comic book that Midoriya had brought from home. Todoroki somehow had x-ray vision and immediately asked to read the comic book during homeroom, Midoriya himself was too bewildered to ask how Todoroki could just openly read a childish comic with no shame and just wordlessly handed it to him.

‘Todoroki seemed content enough’ Midoriya mused with a sigh and a small smile. Besides that little request, the teen hadn’t asked for anything from Midoriya which was a relief. And as long as Todoroki was happy, he knew his secret was safe with him.

Just when Midoriya thought he could have some small semblance of normality, the door burst open with a loud thud. Everyone, except their teacher turned to see who had made a grand entrance.

Yaoyorozu sighed before going back to her studies, Uraraka let out a shocked gasp before going to gossip with some of the other classmates and Todoroki was full on glaring much to Midoriya’s shock, he thinks that’s the most expressive his classmate has been since he met him.

But wait, he recognised that purple hair from somewhere—oh it’s mystery boy! Wait, mystery boy goes here??

As if the boy could hear his thoughts, he plastered on a smirk as he glanced at Midoriya before going over to his homeroom teacher and nudging him with his foot.

“Your favourite student’s back.” He said in the same deep voice that Midoriya remembered. He watched in awe, as when Aizawa slowly lifted his head from his resting position he didn’t so much as tell him off, instead nodding before resting his head back into the sleeping bag.

“Guess I’ve been too soft if I’ve given you that impression, Shinsou Hitoshi.” He said in his usual bored tone though Midoriya could pick up the smallest of kind-heartedness seeping into it. He assumed Shinsou, he knew his name now, could sense it as well as he let out an airy chuckle before shoving his hands in his pockets and making his way towards his seat in the back of the class.

“Don’t worry teach, your secrets safe with me.” He called out before reaching his desk and promptly dozing off as well.

“Huh..” Midoriya couldn’t help but let out, as he had watched the scene play out in amusement. Now he wasn’t a betting man (seriously he’s broke as shit) but he would put money on those two having some sort of genetic if not at the very least ancestry connection. The resemblance was uncanny.

“They’re not related if that’s what you’re thinking.” Midoriya let out a yelp in surprise as Todoroki’s voice came out of nowhere beside him. The teen was bent down, placing Midoriya’s comic back into his bag before he looked up from his position to meet his eyes.

“Trust me, I once thought the same.” He said as an explanation, though his face still wore a look of irritation.

“Wow, I think this is like the most words I’ve heard you say, Todoroki.” Kaminari called out in surprise from where he was perched on Uraraka’s desk, swinging his legs absentmindedly.

As if to prove some kind of point, Todoroki merely nodded before turning back to his work, seeming to be no longer in a chatty mood. Kaminari wasn’t deterred in the slightest however as he turned to face a startled Midoriya instead.

“What’s your secret new kid? Todoroki takes longer to defrost than Mariah Carey does for Christmas! You got some dirt on him or something? Does he like you?” He teased as he looked back and forth between a reddening Midoriya and a blank-faced Todoroki as if that would give him the answers he seeks.

“N-no! You’ve got it wrong! Todoroki is normally like this.” He didn’t know why he felt the need to defend the boy so strongly, he blamed it on the fact that he was just trying to appease him.

Kaminari tilted his head in confusion.

“How would you know? You only joined us yesterday.” He said in a non-confrontational way, looking to Uraraka to see if he had somehow missed out on some inside scoop but the brunette just shrugged her shoulders.

‘At this rate I’m gonna blow my own cover!’ He whined internally and mentally slapped his face to get it together.

“Ahh! It’s just from what I’ve gathered, he’s quite sociable when he wants to be.” He tried to cover himself.

Before Kaminari could comment any further however, a loud snort was heard from the back of the classroom.

Midoriya could practically hear Todoroki’s eyes roll as he turned to zero in on the source of the noise.

Lazy purple eyes stared back as he revealed half his face from beneath his arm, still hunched over his desk in a sleeping position.

“‘Todoroki’ and ‘sociable’ are two words that cannot be used together in a sentence, his therapist could tell you that for free.” He drawled, releasing a yawn as his gaze flickered from Midoriya, the boy he was addressing, and Todoroki, the boy he was really addressing.

It seemed to work though as Midoriya yelped at the sound of a pencil breaking in half from the tight grip Todoroki had had it in.

“Are you okay!?” Midoriya asked his friend(?) in alarm which got no response back. He knew splinters were nasty pieces of work and getting it caught in the skin could lead to infections.

At the question however, it was Shinsou who reacted the most, with his head perking up slightly in surprise.

“Where have I heard that voice before?” He murmured before whistling to get Midoriya’s attention once again.

“Hey, pretty boy. Eyes here.” He called, his head now fully risen from where it was once laying.

Midoriya spluttered in response at the bold approach, never in his sixteen years of living had he been whistled at before. He wouldn’t even do that to Tintin.

Before Shinsou could interrogate the green-haired boy however, Todoroki slammed his palms on the desk before rising up out of his seat to glare at Shinsou. Midoriya hadn’t seen a face with so much hostility since his days of middle school; he should be glad that he’s not the one being met with that glare for once but why does he feel so anxious?

It seemed that it wasn’t just him however as the whole class had grown tense at Todoroki’s sudden outburst, but they didn’t seem surprised which baffled Midoriya to no end.

“Don’t call him that.” He said flatly, not bothering to add any bite to his tone, knowing that his words spoke loudly enough.

Shinsou on the other hand now seemed even more intrigued at Midoriya as he eyed him with a level of gleeful surprise.

The purple-haired teen slowly leaned back in his chair and wore a lazy smirk.

“That’s fine, ice queen. I can come up with another nickname.” He seemed undeterred at Todoroki’s..well, everything. He spoke casually as if they were discussing the weather. Which seemed to irritate Todoroki to no end, but what he couldn’t quite figure out was what really bothered him more:

That, or the way that Shinsou had kept his gaze on Midoriya the entire time he had said it.

Before things could escalate, the bell rang, zapping the classroom from its tense silence as everyone scrabbled to get to their next class. Midoriya wasted no time following suit, walking out with a giggling Uraraka as he rubbed the back of his neck, feeling a burning sensation.

Shinsou watched as the green-haired boy left the class with the airhead, Uraraka, beside him, clutching his arm as they walked out together. He was examining him like one would with a puzzle, wondering where he had misplaced the last piece.

Meanwhile, Todoroki just wanted to break Shinsou’s puzzle, and his face by the looks of it.

—————————

Lunch time rolled around, and Midoriya planted himself down in front of Uraraka and Yaoyorozu, he smiled wider upon seeing that she was able to join them for lunch this time.

He tried to brush off the nagging feeling in his mind that he shouldn’t be so casual with them, he really wasn’t used to just being able to sit and eat his lunch in peace, let alone with friends. However it was definitely a feeling that he wanted to get used to.

Before he could engage with their current conversation of hair treatment, to which Midoriya would’ve been more than happy to dissect, their heads all turned at the group of older-looking boys yelling and storming after Shinsou for some reason.

He wore an irritated scowl with his hands pressed against his ears as he continued to ignore their yelling. He seemed to put those lanky legs to good use as he made big strides out of the cafeteria, the group trailing after him.

It was almost amusing to watch the haggle of teens try to all force their way simultaneously through the narrow exit instead of just forming a line.

As they continued to yell and push at each other, Midoriya turned his head back round upon hearing a giggle emerge from Uraraka.

“Don’t mind them Midoriya! That’s just Shinsou’s possy.” She said whilst using her other hand to wave off any concern that was obvious on the boys features.

“I’m sorry, a what?” Midoriya clearly wasn’t well versed with slang, some could say it was because he didn’t have any friends to learn it from but then that would be depressingly true.

“Yea you know like a harem! But like for hooligans?” She meandered, smiling sheepishly as Midoriya’s face immediately contorted into a look of disgust.

“H-huh?!”

“What Ochako is trying to eloquently say is that those group of boys are just Shinsou’s lackies who are wagging their tails now that their leader has returned.” Yaoyorozu explained simply enough, helping to restore some peace of mind to the boy.

She gave a soft smile as she watched Midoriya sigh in relief and felt compelled to further reassure him.

“They really are harmless, don’t worry. Besides they’ll be distracted now that Shinsou’s finally off his leave of absence.”

“You know—” Uraraka suddenly interrupted as she leaned in closer to her friends, said friends raised their brows in return but leant in with her regardless, hoping that would prompt her enough to continue.

“I heard he was suspended for nearly beating a kid half to death!” She whisper shouted, which felt quite redundant but Midoriya could barely focus on that as his mind immediately went to the worst places.

‘Great. And I’m the loser who’s holding his helmet captive.’ He thought in annoyance, just his luck that the one person that could potentially kick his ass now has a good reason to.

Yaoyorozu however wore a displeased expression.

“Where do you and Kaminari get off on spouting such nonsense” she said flippantly, but it was rather cold for the class rep. It even caused Uraraka to slightly jerk back in surprise. Yaoyorozu quickly caught on and cleared her throat shyly.

“I mean, please don’t believe everything you hear Ochako, he said he was away due to personal matters.” She seemed to recall, and it wasn’t as if Midoriya could dispute these claims it was only his second day after all.

“Speaking of personal matters..what’s the deal with him and Todoroki?” Midoriya questioned. Like, he knew he was new here but after a while it was starting to get annoying to be constantly out of the loop with school affairs.

“Oh! They hate each other!” Uraraka conveyed brightly as, at the same time, Yaoyorozu went with the more diplomatic response of—

“They don’t always see eye to eye..”

Both girls looked at each other in surprise before laughing, leaning into each other slightly as if they were sharing some inside joke.

Before Midoriya could get even more jealous at feeling left out, Yaoyorozu, the angel that she was, did her best to brief him.

“They used to be best friends actually, throughout most of middle school. But just a month before graduating, things turned sour for reasons unknown.” She said with a small shrug, trying to feign indifference but even a blind person could tell she was also itching to know why.

“Are we talking about our two favourite hotties?” An excited voice appeared from behind Midoriya, causing him to lift his head up and stare at an upside down Kaminari. He grinned before quickly going round to squeeze himself between Uraraka and Yaoyorozu. The latter seemed indifferent to it, probably used to the boys antics whilst the brunette gave a fond smile.

“What did we think about their showdown in homeroom today? I think they may have beat their record of quickest confrontation! Good job for the assist, Midoriya!” Kaminari patted the meek boys shoulder, congratulating him on basically furthering the rift between the two teens.

He gulped at the thought.

“I don’t know Denki, I’ve seen them brawl in the courtyard before the bell even rang before!” Uraraka claimed smugly, as if they were keeping a tally of how many times those two fought.

“Ah! I must’ve missed that on the spreadsheet.”

Okay, so maybe they were keeping count.

Realising they’ve gone off topic, Kaminari turned back to Midoriya, expression suddenly full of sympathy.

“You know, I was surprised when Todoroki defended you in front of the whole class like that! If I had known Shinsou’s comment made you uncomfortable I would’ve stood up for you too.” He practically whined, leaning into Urarakas space for comfort which she happily gave.

Yaoyorozu however, always the critic, hummed in response.

“I do wonder though how genuine Shouto actually was, that boy will take any excuse to pick a fight with Shinsou.” She said with an analytical gaze, and if Midoriya didn’t know any better he would think that the girl was subtly looking past him to try and spot the cold teen somewhere in the cafeteria.

She soon came back to herself once she realised how brash that sounded.

“Oh! Not to say that he didn’t do a good job defending you either way Midoriya. Don’t let guys like Shinsou walk all over you.” She said encouragingly. If only she knew just how bad Midoriya’s track record was with stopping people from taking advantage of him, he was definitely in the red.

Speaking of, a flash of light suddenly blinded Midoriya in the eye for a brief second.

It was so fast he didn’t even know if it had truly happened, and from the rest of the group delving off into their own hushed conversation about forming a support protection squad for the boy, no one paid attention to the way his eyes shot up once he saw who was the culprit.

Todoroki, the menace, had used his phone to reflect the suns direction into his eye just to get his attention. He was about to ignore him just for that before he stopped and squinted, noticing that Todoroki was trying to show him something on his phone.

It was a picture, oh, it was a picture of him. A candid picture of Midoriya smiling at Yamada in the comic book store whilst wearing his glasses and retainers.

‘WHAATT’ his mind screamed out.

(For the record, it honestly was an adorable photo yet Midoriya was too repulsed by the sight of his deformities on such clear display to even notice.)

He shot up, stuttering out an excuse to use the bathroom before he stalked over to where Todoroki was sat at the vacant side of the cafeteria and gave him a look of betrayal.

“W-why on earth do you have that photo!?” He hissed, using his hands to squeeze his head to fight off an incoming migraine. This boy was gonna be the death of him for sure.

Todoroki blinked once, then again. He took the time to even look back at the photo and then look back at Midoriya, as if to say ‘are we looking at the same photo’, before replying.

“I was going to show it to you earlier but I got distracted.” Which was as much as Midoriya was going to get from Todoroki regarding his earlier altercation.

“Do you not like it?” He asked, genuine surprise seeping into his voice.

Midoriya gaped at him as if the boy suddenly had two heads.

“A-are you making fun of me right now? Delete it before someone sees!” He almost whined, which would’ve lost whatever morsel of self-respect Midoriya had left to give.

Todoroki blinked again, and again. The third time he blinked, Midoriya seriously thought about throttling him.

“Why?” The teen calmly replied back. It was a simple question, but it was quite vague. ‘Why would someone make fun of you? Why would you want me to delete it?’

However in Midoriya’s twisted, insecure mind, he interpreted it as—

‘Why would I delete such perfect blackmail.’ In that moment, it all clicked for Midoriya.

“Oh! Okay right you want something, of course! That’s fine—” he was about to rush by but then stopped and backtracked, not knowing yet what he needed to get for Todoroki.

“Hey! I noticed you don’t have a drink with your food yet. Let me fix that for you.” Midoriya yelped out in a rushed tone before zooming off.

“..okay.” Todoroki replied to the air.

Moments later, a bottle of the same drink that Yamada had given Todoroki last night slammed down on the table in front of him. The teen could only blink lazily at it before looking back up at Midoriya with a tilted head.

‘Ah, Midoriya is trying to be my friend. Friends get things for each other. Wow, he’s so considerate.’ Todoroki thought with a blank expression, conveying none of the gratitude that he had felt in that moment before slowly nodding.

“Thank you, Midoriya.” What was an acknowledgment of friendship for Todoroki, was now simultaneously a confirmation of the one sided servant deal for Midoriya.

“N-no problem…is there anything else I can do for you?” Midoriya asked wearily.

‘Anything to make you delete that damned photo!’ He wanted to scream out at him but held it in.

Todoroki took the time, as he always did, to ponder. You’d think he had all the time in the world as he mulled over Midoriya’s words.

“Sit down with me.” He stated more than asked but Midoriya got the message enough as, even in his shock, he abruptly took the seat opposite the teen with a nervous buzz surrounding him.

All he could think about now was the phone facing downwards on the table, he so badly wanted to reach over and delete that photo but quickly thought against it. Todoroki may see that as defiance and make the decision to tell everyone about his past. He might even have more incriminating photos that the boy didn’t know about, making him internally shudder at the thought.

“Have you eaten yet?” His harmless question came out of nowhere, snapping Midoriya out of his torturous thoughts.

“Excuse me?” He asked meekly, debating if this was some kind of trap.

Wordlessly, Todoroki pushed his plate of food towards the middle of the table.

“If you haven’t, we could share mine. Lunch is nearly over anyways so you wouldn’t be able to grab something with the time we have left.” He stated matter of factly, as he handed out a pair of chopsticks for Midoriya to grab onto.

Midoriya ultimately decided that Todoroki was definitely testing him, there was no doubt in his mind. But testing what? He didn’t know yet.

But, from the boys insistence, it really did seem like he wanted Midoriya to eat with him. What concerned him more however was the fact that he had in fact already eaten and eating any more would go over his calorie limit for the afternoon. After snacking on rice cakes with the girls yesterday too, Midoriya was really kicking himself for being so off his diet recently.

He weighed the two choices, before hesitantly reaching over and grabbing the offered chopsticks from Todoroki and taking small bites of his…cold soba? Well at least it was healthy.

He decided that pleasing Todoroki was much more desirable in that moment. He would just have to cut back on eating tomorrow which he felt was fine.

Todoroki’s gaze was fixated on the green haired boy, causing him to take bigger bites until he was satisfied and began to eat with him.

Despite all the stress, the rest of lunch proved to be oddly peaceful.

—————————

It was the last class of the day, and Midoriya was just about ready to pack it in and head home for the rest of the week. But today’s last lesson was sport.

Now this very much used to be Midoriya’s least favourite subject. However, after getting into fitness over the summer he could confidently say that he was now good enough to participate without making an ass of himself.

The boys and girls were separated into two groups. The girls were off playing tennis, to which Midoriya mournfully bid Uraraka and Yaoyorozu goodbye, whilst himself and the rest of his classmates were stuck playing dodgeball.

“Maybe it was a mistake putting Shinsou and Todoroki on opposite teams.” Midoriya murmured out to no one in particular as he and his classmates hung back as the two in question were hurling balls at each other in rapid succession.

“Oh trust me it would’ve been worse if we put them on the same team. Just let them tire themselves out and then we can all join in.” Kaminari commented beside him with a reassuring grin and clapping him on the back.

“..they’ve been at it for half an hour though.” Midoriya said as he turned to look at Kaminari with a suspicious glance.

“Yeah, this will probably go on until the end of the day. Look, I don’t know about you but this is usually my ‘get out of class’ free card whenever these two are in on the same day.” Kaminari teased though Midoriya suspected he meant every word.

Finally, something happened. As Shinsou yanked back his arm to throw yet another ball, Todoroki pulled out a ball from behind his back and used it as a shield to deflect the incoming strike. The ball launched away from Todoroki and he wasted no time in using his defending ball to strike Shinsou whilst he was distracted, finally getting him out of the game.

You’d think they won the war as all of Midoriya’s classmates, with Kaminari leading the charge, all ran up to Todoroki with cheers of glee jumping on top of him in celebration.

And because the laws of physics can be bent at will in this universe, it was only then that the initial ball that Shinsou had thrown had finally met his new target. Midoriya’s face.

It was a head on collision as the teen was smacked right to the ground from the sheer speed of the object.

Now the good news was since this was a hit above the shoulders, Midoriya wasn’t out of the game. The bad news was he was now eating grass as his face was smushed into the dirt.

He let out a groan in dispair as he slowly rolled over, giving his face some air to breath as he squinted from staring up at the bright sky, waiting for God to finally claim him for the afterlife.

That sadly didn’t happen though, as instead his view was obstructed by a lock of purple hair. Shinsou, somehow being the only one to see this awful display, stood staring down at Midoriya with his hands in his pockets and a scowl on his face.

“I remember you now.” This was giving Midoriya a serious sense of déjà vu.

Shinsou had spoken dryly, though with a hint of irritation, and Midoriya wondered what he had done to cause such ire from the boy.

“You’re the one who stole my helmet.”

‘Oh.’

In that moment, Midoriya liked him better when he was whistling and calling him pretty boy.

Despite what felt like a concussion forming, Midoriya scrambled up to his feet to address the taller teen, frantically waving his hands.

“Y-you misunderstand! I didn’t steal it! Well I didn’t mean to steal it I was just looking after it!” He said rather lamely, knowing that even though it was one hundred percent true, even he wouldn’t believe himself.

Shinsou was, unsurprisingly unamused as he regarded Midoriya with a twitch of annoyance in his brow.

“Listen here, helmet snatcher.” Midoriya bristled at the new nickname.

“I don’t care why you did it, I want it back.” Shinsou said back in a no nonsense attitude that scarily reminded him of their homeroom teacher.

“Yo Midoriya! We’re gonna play for real now, mind tossing the ball back?” Kaminari called out, and suddenly all eyes were on the green and purple haired duo. Todoroki especially, frowned in annoyance but was too worn out from the ambush that he just underwent to pick another fight.

“R-Right!” He squeaked out, reaching down in a hurry to grab the ball that assaulted him.

Shinsou was faster however, as before Midoriya could even get his fingers near it, the ball was snatched up and sat docile in the taller boys grasp.

Midoriya figured this was just a weird way of Shinsou to give him a hand, maybe he wasn’t too miffed about the helmet after all!

“Thanks—” but as he went to grab the ball from him, Shinsou instead rose his arm up, preventing Midoriya from reaching.

This boy really had to stop giving people benefits of the doubt.

With his arm still raised, Shinsou got up close in Midoriya’s face with narrowed eyes.

“You’re returning the helmet to me tomorrow or else—”

He briefly looked back up at the dodgeball before zeroing his focus back on the shorter boys panicked eyes.

“We’re gonna play more target practice.” He said with a smirk as he watched Midoriya’s face heat up.

Though for once, Midoriya’s face wasn’t heating up in embarrassment. As a matter of fact was the earth spinning faster than normal?

In that moment, Shinsou watched with a wide eyed expression as the shorter boy promptly passed out and fell on the ground once again.

He stared at his hand with a wince.

“Damn, how hard did I pelt that ball?” He murmured to himself suddenly feeling guilty.

“You’re dead now.”

Under his contemplation, he barely heard Todoroki’s threat or the squabble that the rest of his classmates made whilst holding the guy back. He cautiously shifted slightly before picking up Midoriya by his sides and hoisting him over his own shoulder.

“I hope you wake up, I really want my helmet back.” Shinsou, sighed in exasperation as he trudged back over to the school to take Midoriya to the nurses office.

“And besides—” He turned back briefly in that moment to lock eyes with an enraged Todoroki. He huffed in amusement before looking straight ahead once more.

“Things are starting to get more interesting with you around.”

—————————

Midoriya wondered if it was too early in the school year to transfer.

He was perched atop his bed, in a sulk as he waited for his face mask to dry up before he could remove it. As he sat, he had time to reflect on his series of unfortunate events.

Oh yeah right, he was fucked.

Because not only did he have Todoroki, the snow queen, Shouto to constantly please at school. Now he was on Shinsou’s permanent hit list.

Why was it permanent you may ask? Well…

An hour prior, Midoriya had trudged home after waking up in the infirmary with a bandaged head and painkillers for the ride. Despite his troubles, he wasted no time bouncing upstairs to look for the helmet that he had apparently ‘stolen.’

Though unless he was just double robbed, he had misplaced said helmet and spiralled into a panic.

Just then, angry banging was coming from his door.

“Oh…Hi Kota” Midoriya wheezed out as he looked at his younger brother, wondering if he was so loud in his frenzy of turning his room upside down it had disturbed him.

As he guessed, Kota was there for exactly that.

“What is all that noise!? Some of us have calculus to finish.” He said with a huff, as if Midoriya could right now be bothered to sympathise with his younger brother’s homework issues, news flash! He could not.

“Oh, sorry about that—“ he wasn’t. “H-hey, you wouldn’t have happened to have seen a bright yellow motorcycle helmet around here? I was sure I left it in my room…” he trailed off, wondering why he was even bothering. Clearly the universe just loved to spite him.

“Oh. You mean that hunk of junk. Mom found it in your room when she was cleaning and gave it to me mistaking it as a collectible of mine.” He rolled his eyes in annoyance speaking in a way that didn’t convey the fact that he was a fourteen year old prepubescent tween.

“Silly woman. I would never own something so tacky. But after checking the model online I saw I could make some use out of it and sold it on eBay.” He confessed, not realising the implications of his words in the slightest.

Now like I said before, Midoriya is a pacifist but..well it was getting harder and harder to defend him at this rate as the boy gripped his younger brothers shoulders tightly.

“…Kota.” Channeling his inner Shinsou, He seethed his brothers name with his head hung low, making his brother actually recoil in fright.

“If you don’t get that helmet back in one piece as soon as you can. I’m a dead man, and if I go down…I’m making Emi an only child.” He turned back up to face Kota, who gulped at the sight of what was truly a boy who had nothing else to lose.

“I’ll make sure it’s express delivery.” Was all Kota said before rushing out of Midoriya’s grasp and running to his room in retreat.

Before Midoriya could even close his door and finally have his meltdown in peace, Emi emerged from the staircase with a grin. She had just come back home from work.

“Ah! Just who I was looking for—hey you look awful by the way—anyways, you happen to know of a teacher that goes to your school? Tall, dreamy, dark haired, tall, did I say dreamy? Anyways, you know someone like that?”

Midoriya raised a tired brow at his sister’s inquiry, he practically could feel his skin breaking out at the overwhelming nature of today.

“No, I don’t think I do Emi. I’ll…keep an eye out.” He said the ending with a higher infliction than necessary making it sound like more of a question.

“Thanks buddy! Oh oh! And another thing, do you know a kid that goes to your school called Shinsou Hitoshi? I’ve been meaning to get in touch with—” she frowned as the door was immediately slammed shut in front of her face and a loud groan could be heard from the other side.

“Okay…I’ll note that down as a maybe! See you later for dinner!” She called, seemingly undeterred. After how great today was, practically nothing could ruin it for her.

Midoriya, on the other hand, as he begrudgingly lathered on an emergency face mask to prevent any break outs from happening tonight, wondered if society could renormalise lobotomies so he could get one without being judged.

Chapter Text

Dinner time rolled around and went on as normal.

Midoriya did his best to put on a happy face for his mother as she asked him how his day was and refrained from glaring daggers at Kota as the still terrified boy sat across from him.

His sister seemed to be in better spirits than usual, even offering to drop off Midoriya to school tomorrow for a second time. How thoughtful of her.

Now that dinners over with, Midoriya plops himself back on his bed with an ‘oof’. He reaches over towards his desk to put in his retainers and soon after grabs his phone to put on his night time skin care Spotify playlist (and yes, he has a morning one too).

Just when he’s about to hit play however, his phone starts ringing, getting a call from an unknown number. He frowns, running a hand down his face to try and rub of his sleepy spell before answering.

“Hello?” He says tiredly into the phone.

“Midoriya.” Todoroki’s voice answers back waking the boy up almost immediately as he shoots up onto his feet so fast, he has to sit back down to avoid head rush.

“T-Todoroki! You need anything?” He responds on instinct. It wasn’t uncommon for Midoriya’s former middle school classmates to text him at ungodly hours of the night to get him to do their last minute homework. He had hoped Todoroki was smart enough to not need his help with things like that however.

He waited with bated breath as Todoroki, as usual, took his time to reply.

“Now that you mention it, can you bring me the comic book that I was reading in class earlier? I’ll text you the coordinates.” He said in a monotone voice before promptly hanging up.

“Wait—like right now? Todoroki!?” He moves his phone away from his ear to glance at it, seeing that the call had already ended.

‘How on earth did he even get my number?’ He shuddered at the thought and decided not to question the boy’s methods and instead grabbed the book, absentmindedly slipped on his glasses and after a moment, a hoodie before heading out.

The walk to the park that Todoroki had decided to meet him at was a short distance from his house thankfully. This didn’t stop Midoriya from literally sprinting over there anyways on the twisted chance that Todoroki was timing him.

He found the boy sat on one of the swing sets, which on a normal day would’ve looked precious, but Midoriya was too panicked on getting his delivery done to care.

“That was fast.” Todoroki murmured, though Midoriya didn’t pay attention to the comment that the teen had let slip and simply handed him the book.

“There…you go! Okay…bye!” Was all Midoriya said between his huffs of exhausted panting before he pivoted and turned back where he arrived from.

Before the boy could make his retreat however, Todoroki had reached out and snagged the end of the frazzled teens sleeve, preventing him from running off.

“Hey, wait.” He said calmly as he patiently waited for Midoriya to slowly crane his head around to face the boy with a bewildered gaze.

Not knowing how else to act, Midoriya froze in his place not daring to move and let out a meek—

“Uhh…yes?” He said in an unsure tone, not knowing what else the boy could possibly want from him at this hour.

“Are you alright?” Todoroki asked innocently. So innocently that Midoriya thought he had misheard him for a second.

The boy’s question really baffled him. Well, Todoroki in general baffled him so this shouldn’t be so surprising, he really couldn’t figure him out at all!

Despite the internal onslaught of thoughts racking in Midoriya’s head, the best thing he could say in that moment was an exasperated, ”huh?”

Regardless, Todoroki took initiative and continued, hand still gripping onto his sleeve as if he was scared he would bolt at any moment.

“I apologise for not being able to see you after what happened in gym class today.” Todoroki said, almost sadly, as he gave Midoriya his full attention, eyes not leaving his as if he wanted to further convey his sincerity.

“..oh, it’s fine.” Midoriya replied lamely. I mean what else was there to say? He wasn’t used to people actually taking notice of him, let alone people like Todoroki.

Now seeing that the green-haired boy was placated enough, Todoroki finally removed his grip from his sleeve and motioned for him to sit beside him on the swings.

What a picturesque sight this was huh, too bad Midoriya was panicking so much to notice. The wind blew calmly as the two boys subtly swung, trying to ignore the mounting awkward silence that plagued them.

Midoriya cleared his throat, not being able to bear the silence any longer and started to speak up.

“I—”

“Do—”

The two boys interrupted each other, looking at each other in surprise as they realised the other had gotten the same idea.

Midoriya bashfully shook his head and nodded for Todoroki to go first.

“..Do you want to know how I got this scar?”

Okay. Maybe Midoriya shouldn’t have let Todoroki go first.

Did Todoroki catch onto the fact that Midoriya was a skin care fanatic? Or, did he realise that his scar was actually something that captivated Midoriya’s attention whenever he looked at the boy. Even in that moment, he tried and failed not to look at it, forcing himself to go back to meeting his eyes.

Or maybe, Todoroki was, in his own way, trying to relate to Midoriya’s head injury as he too kept trying and failing not to look at the wrapped bandages that adorned the freckled-boys head.

Midoriya gave his best reassuring smile and nodded.

“You can, if you want to. I’m happy to listen.” He said genuinely, not even out of obligation this time.

He watched as Todoroki looked to his hands and waited patiently for him to tell his story.

“My father wasn’t the only famous actor in my family. My mother was too, she was a star in her own right before she married that man.” Todoroki’s eyes seemed to shine in adoration for his mother before they fell flat at the mention of ‘that man’.

“My older siblings had gone on to do other things outside of acting. My brother, Natsuo became a geologist whilst my sister, Fuyumi went into composing music.” Any semblance of a smile that was on Todoroki’s face in that moment vanished when he continued speaking.

“But when I was born, with this hair and these eyes. My father deemed me as his ‘project’, the prodigy that would carry on his legacy as a star actor. He proudly made it known to the world of my “passion” for acting and in turn prevented me from pursuing anything else.” Todoroki’s eyes bore into the ground with nothing short of pure hatred.

Midoriya could only watch with his mouth pressed in a tight line as he anxiously awaited his next words.

“My mother, she couldn’t handle it. When the news came out of my ‘new stardom’ the constant attention from the press was suffocating. She couldn’t take me past the front door without being harassed by them. I was barely able to see her and she resented my father for it.” Todoroki’s words came out with a shaky breath as if he feared what he was going to say next.

Without thinking, Midoriya leaned over and rested a comforting hand on the boys shoulder.

“You don’t have to continue if you don’t want to.” He said calmly, adopting a casual smile despite his panic for the boy. Todoroki shook his head in return before continuing.

“It’s fine, this part should be easy. I think about it every day.” That ominous sentence was said with extreme steadiness, making Midoriya gulp.

“…one night. I woke up from hearing my parents arguing in the kitchen. They were back from a press tour and it was safe to say it didn’t go that well as the media had left reports claiming that their relationship was on ‘the fritz’ due to how coldly my mother acted around him during it.”

”I can’t stand to be in this house anymore Enji! And I can’t stand being around you!—”

”You think this is easy for me Rei!? You think I’m happy with how much of a mockery you’ve made me look? How you’ve made us all look!? Shouto won’t be able to flourish in his career if—”

“Oh here we go again, you have got to leave that poor boy alone before he crumbles under all this pressure. He’s under constant attention, I don’t know how he can take it—”

“Don’t start projecting your downfalls onto MY son!—”

“OUR son, or have you forgotten now with how much you’ve forced us apart from each other, YOUVE RUINED US.”

“Mom…dad. Please stop fighting over me…” Todoroki remembered being so scared, so helpless against seeing his parents falling apart because of him.

They didn’t seem to even notice him getting closer, the sounds of their incessant yelling on top of the noise from the kettle screeching gave him no room to be heard.

It was only when his father had knocked the boiling kettle from the stove in a fit rage did they notice him…

“They told the press it was an accident but you know how the media gets. My father even took advantage of the horrible rumours and put my mother in a mental hospital to keep ‘herself’ and ‘his family’ safe.” Todoroki placed a gentle hand on his scar.

“My mother blames herself, she can’t look at me without crying. Because of that I haven’t visited her in five years.” He admitted, his shoulders hunched over in guilt, Midoriya used the hand that was still placed on him to soothingly rub his shoulder.

He tried not to squeak in surprise as the boy grasped his hand in response, Midoriya could feel him trembling in his hold.

He couldn’t stop the tears that ran down his face however as he mulled over the words of Todoroki’s sad past. When Todoroki noticed that the boy was crying, he let out an exasperated sigh.

“Not you too.” He muttered, making the boy yelp in alarm and quickly wipe his tears away. Not wanting to unintentionally remind him of his mother so soon.

“Sorry! I swear I’m not crying because of your scar, I just..I’m pretty emotional in general.” He admitted with a sheepish smile, moving his hands back down to his lap.

Todoroki tried not to let his displeasure at the absence of warmth on his shoulder show and instead nodded.

“I-If it’s any consolation, my dad left when I was five and I still think yours is worse.” Todoroki blinked up in shock at the sudden comment from Midoriya, not expecting the resident dork to have any negative feelings against anyone. Also, the fact that he had his retainers in and was slurring his s’s again almost made the statement comical.

“No one’s ever said that about my dad before.” He replied, and before Midoriya could take it back and apologise for insulting his dad, Todoroki spoke again.

“Thank you, Midoriya.” Todoroki said with so much honesty, it caused the green-haired boy to let out a surprised laugh as his eyes crinkled with mirth.

Maybe because of this, Midoriya would some day be able to work up the courage to tell him about why he wanted to end his life on that rooftop. But for now, he was content with just being there for Todoroki.

—————————

Daylight soon broke, and Midoriya stumbled out of his sheets with effort. After that somber conversation with Todoroki yesterday, it took longer than he would’ve liked to fall asleep. He couldn’t stop replaying the story in his head, picturing how the incident played out, thinking about how his mother—

But that was neither here nor there now, Midoriya had more pressing matters to concern himself with.

Three pressing matters, littered on his face.

Guess all the stress, street food, and tasting a face full of dirt twice was enough for Midoriya to break out. Three single spots mocked him from their positions on his cheek and chin.

Now let’s be clear, this was nothing compared to Midoriya’s complexion in middle school. That didn’t stop him however from screaming at the top of his lungs in panic as he gripped his face in agony.

“WHERES THE FIRE WHO DIED!?” Emi yelled as she burst into his room, tripping over in her rush and skidding beside a mourning Midoriya.

“Oh hey Kiddo, what’s—” she took in the sight of his panicked expression in the mirror.

“Oh. Acne came back?” She said the obvious, Midoriya couldn’t trust his voice at that moment and quickly nodded.

She quickly stood up and dusted her hands off before giving him her best reassuring grin.

“Don’t sweat it, we all have bad days!” His sister said confidently.

Which Midoriya knew was a big fat lie. Everyone who knew Emi knew that she had never once got a pimple, she was blessed in most categories, meanwhile Kota was still young but there wasn’t a single blemish on his face. Midoriya secretly resented his siblings for passing on all their acne genes to him.

“Give me a second yeah? I know the perfect thing to help.” Was all Emi said before rushing out as quick as she came.

Midoriya hoped she would return with a laser because that was the only thing he could think of that could immediately remove these blasted spots, although that wouldn’t be any better as it would just scar his face.

An even more desperate thought came to Midoriya as he wished his mother never took him off Accutane. He had been put on it towards the end of last year after begging his mother for parental approval for the medication. After the initial worsening of the acne from the ‘purging phase’, which was to be expected, his skin cleared up right away, even getting rid of his acne scars. It was honestly a miracle.

But Midoriya should’ve known it would come at a price, as one of the side effects of taking this prescription was depression, and since Midoriya was already in a bad state, that had played a part in influencing him to nearly killing himself. Despite not knowing about this, the depressive episodes of never leaving his room over the summer were enough for his mother to put an end to it either way.

He knows that until he becomes an adult, he’ll never be allowed to take Accutane again. Which is why he looked for alternative methods: herbal remedies, acidic treatments, healthier eating.

But despite all of this, it wasn’t a permanent fix.

Before he could spiral again, Emi returned just in time, clutching a small bottle of concealer.

“Here, give me your face.” She demanded but still made her way over to Midoriya and applied the concealer over his spots. After a few minutes she looked proud of her work and turned him to face the mirror.

“Luckily, you’re my shade. Otherwise we would’ve had to ransack mom’s makeup drawer.” She teased as she squeezed his shoulders encouragingly.

Midoriya practically beamed as he looked at his complexion. He couldn’t even see the concealer, let alone the spots as they had vanished under the coverage.

He looked back at her as if she hung the stars herself and gave her a hug.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” He wasn’t even mad that the makeup could lead to the acne worsening, he knew it was just a temporary fix after all. Regardless, it felt nice to finally be seen, for someone to acknowledge how big of a deal his trauma of acne was to him.

She ruffled his hair with a laugh.

“You’re fine! Come on and get dressed then so I can take you to school.” Midoriya didn’t even notice the slight excitement in her tone as he quickly rushed to the bathroom to fix his hair.

—————————

Being dropped off to school, Midoriya walked with a newfound spring in his step. His face was fixed, he was here early and he wasn’t even that scared of Todoroki anymore!

Surely nothing could stop him for having a great day.

That said, he really should’ve noticed the haggle of boys sooner as they approached Midoriya, blocking his entrance to the school.

And I’ll give you a clue as to who was leading the pack. One word, helmet.

“That backpack better be carrying my helmet, pretty boy.” Shinsou drawled as he eyed the deflated bag on Midoriya’s shoulder with suspicion. It was safe to say they both knew there was nothing huge and round hidden in that thing. Shinsou must like to make Midoriya squirm though as he was still expecting the helmet to just appear out of thin air.

The purple-haired teen kept his hands in his pockets as he waited. Midoriya took a deep breath before replying—

“I-I have an explanation!” He exclaimed, before reaching into his bag to locate something. Luckily, Midoriya was prepared for dealing with confrontations and hoped he could placate Shinsou for enough time until they tracked down that damn helmet.

Shinsou fondly rolled his eyes with a smirk,

“Oh, this should be good.” His amused tone got the lackies behind him snickering as if he had his own personal laughing track.

Finally, Midoriya found what he was looking for and held it in his closed palm. He reached it out for Shinsou to take.

Shinsou was no longer smiling, as he eyed Midoriya’s hand with an unamused expression.

“What, did you shrink it?” This earned another laugh from his friends but Midoriya found it incredibly hard to do so with the glare Shinsou was fixing him with.

Regardless, the taller teen held out his hand and waited to receive the item.

“I promise I will get it back soon.” Was all Midoriya said before slapping the item into Shinsou’s hand with so much force that it caused the teen to stumble back a bit at the surprised weight.

Midoriya quickly snuck past the group and inside the building whilst Shinsou looked back in shock at his retreating figure.

He hummed absentmindedly as he shrugged before unclenching his hand to find a note that was rolled up and tied with a string.

“Oh my god…did our Hitoshi get a love letter!?” One of his friends, turned traitor, teased as the rest of them clamoured around him wanting to look at the note.

“It’s been a while since our Juniors been confessed to! But never in the form of a note, it’s so romantic!” Another one called as he pretended to swoon and fall into one of his buddies.

Shinsou didn’t try to hide the displeased look on his face at the thought as he shoved his friends off of him to get some privacy.

“Knock it off.” He called back, but it held no real malice, before finally opening the note. A small cylinder tube was concealed in the paper as he opened it, he raised a brow but decided to read the letter first, figuring it would explain that. It read:

‘They say that patience is a virtue, please keep that expression in mind when reading this letter. Turns out—my little brother sold your helmet on Ebay! I’m so sorry!! I will get it back to you as soon as possible.

From Midoriya Izuku

PS: In the meantime, to curb your frustration, please accept this brightening eye cream! It’ll help with your eye bags ^_^’

A string of muttered grievances came from Shinsou as he quickly folded and stuffed the note and cream into the inside pocket of his blazer.

“He’s definitely mocking me.” He muttered with a huff as he started to walk inside.

“Hey come on what did the note say?”

“Yeah come on I’ve never been confessed to before let me live through you Hitoshi!”

“I said knock it off!” Shinsou shouted back at his haggle as they rushed in after him.

—————————

“Midoriya! Did you hear about the earthquake threat this morning? Must’ve been a false alarm though.” Uraraka called out to him as he made his way over to his desk.

He caught a brief glance at Todoroki who was sat doing some homework before looking back at Uraraka.

He hoped his screeching from this morning wasn’t the reason for that earthquake threat.

“O-Oh there was? I must’ve missed it..” He trailed off as he sat down.

“Anyways—“ She leant into Midoriya’s space and cupped her hands around her mouth.

“Today is Denki’s birthday.” She whispered as if it was some secret. Midoriya turned to look at Kaminari, who was sat a few tables over with a massive birthday badge pinned onto his blazer and basking in the attention he was getting from his classmates as they asked him what he got.

“Yeah, I think he knows Uraraka.” Midoriya said sarcastically with a raised brow. She gasped at the uncharacteristic rebuttal and slapped his arm lightly with a grin.

“I know that, Silly!” She said with a laugh before going back to whispering.

“We’re going to surprise prank him for his birthday after class. One of the guys ordered a cake and when one of us leads him in here we’re going to launch it at his face!” She whisper shouted, eyes filled with glee at the plan.

“Oh! I see..” Midoriya said whilst darting his eyes back to the unsuspecting Kaminari.

“Isn’t that kinda, mean?” He said meekly, which caused Uraraka to frown in confusion.

“What? Nooo, it’s basically tradition here don’t worry. Kaminari loves doing this kind of thing!” She reassured him.

Just then, Midoriya let out a small ‘eep’ as Shinsou finally stalked his way into the classroom. Glancing once at Midoriya with an unrecognisable expression before going to the back of the class to sit in his seat.

He turned back to see that Uraraka had already gotten distracted as she started talking with one of the girls, that he thought was called Ashido Mina, before shrugging and turning back in his seat.

Maybe he was worrying for no reason, it didn’t seem to be like they were bullying Kaminari or anything. He blamed it on his typical paranoia.

A buzz sound alerted from his phone, distracting him from his thoughts as he reached over to check it.

Todoroki Shouto: ‘Is everything alright? You seem nervous.’

Midoriya blinked a few times in surprise before looking next to him to see Todoroki. He wasn’t looking back at Midoriya though, instead doing his work as he was earlier. He would’ve thought the boy hadn’t even messaged him if it wasn’t for his phone giving him away as his screen was opened with the chat page on.

Midoriya typed back:

Midoriya Izuku: ‘Yes! All good here, hey why are you texting me instead of just talking?’

Todoroki Shouto: ‘If I speak, Kaminari will notice and ask me to wish him a happy birthday on his instagram live. The only reason why he hasn’t bothered me is cause he thinks I’m doing my work.’

At that mention, Midoriya looked up to see Kaminari on his phone. He didn’t even realise he was live until he looked closer and saw he was chatting straight at it. It was only expected for Todoroki to have a good eye for these things though. He understood why the boy wouldn’t want to be plastered online and messaged back:

Midoriya Izuku: ‘ahh I see, if he comes over I’ll try and distract him :)’

A small smile erupted from Todoroki’s mouth.

Todoroki Shouto: ‘Thank you, Midoriya.’

He paused for a second before double texting.

Todoroki Shouto: ’The same goes for you. If Shinsou bothers you again, let me know.’

Midoriya bristled slightly at the mention and willed himself not to look back to see if Shinsou was glaring at him or not.

Midoriya Izuku: ’Ahh, you noticed that too huh? Don’t worry, I can handle him.’

He quickly tried to change the subject and typed something else before Todoroki had a chance to message back.

Midoriya Izuku: ’btw, you never told me how you got my number?’

Todoroki Shouto: ’That’s a secret.’

Midoriya Izuku: ’whaaattt, no fair! >:(‘

Todoroki Shouto: ’Your use of punctuation baffles me, Midoriya.

Midoriya Izuku: ’I do have that effect on people >:)’

“What’s got you smiling, Shouto?” Yaoyorozu breaks the silence between the two boys as she glances down at Todoroki. He quickly puts his phone away and gives her a plain glance.

“Nothing.” He says blandly as he goes back to working on his assignment before Kaminari noticed.

“You sure? You definitely let out some form of emotion. Come on tell me.” Yaoyorozu teased, Midoriya wasn’t used to seeing the class rep so…girly? She was charming sure, but never to the point of banter. Maybe Yaoyorozu and Todoroki had more history than he thought.

Before the girl could prod any further, her phone buzzed. She quickly read the message, typed back and then sauntered out the classroom without another word.

‘Just what did that text say? Her expression did a complete 180°’ Midoriya thought with a puzzled expression. Speaking of puzzling however, he looked to the front to see that homeroom was nearly over and their teacher had still not arrived.

“…Hey, where is Mr Aizawa anyways?”

—————————

“Definitely punctured.” Aizawa said to himself with a grim expression as he was knelt down beside his car.

Just his luck, he was almost at the school gates when he ran over a nail. Now he was stranded on the side of the road within walking distance to the school but he had to sort out this tire problem first before he could go anywhere.

Like a perfect trap set out just for her, Emi thanked the universe for this twist of fate and emerged from the cafe she was resigning in.

“Hey, you need any help, mr?” She appeared next to the crouched Aizawa with a smile.

Before he could even respond, Emi reached a hand out in greeting.

“My name is Midoriya Emi, please call me Emi though.” She greeted with a smile.

He took notice of her eerily similar complexion, same green eyes, similar green hair, flawless skin and freckles. A lightbulb went off in his head as he took her hand and shook it.

“Aizawa Shouta. You must be Midoriya’s mother.” Clearly this was the wrong assumption as he felt her hand go stiff in his before she quickly pulled it back to rub the back of her head.

She forced out a shocked laugh and tried to play off the insult.

“You’re hilarious, good one! I’m his sister actually!” She said, doing her best to be charming as she batted her eyelashes. Aizawa seemed unfazed as he replied back.

“I see, that’s good then.” He stated blandly before going back to working on his tire.

She beamed at the comment,

‘does this mean he’s relieved that I’m not Izuku’s mom meaning he knows he has a chance with me??’ Emi grinned as she watched Aizawa work on his tire.

‘Look how he can’t even bring himself to face me, he’s definitely wondering what he can do to try and get my number right now.’ She hummed in smugness.

In actuality, Aizawa was just happy that this was just Midoriya’s sister, meaning he didn’t have to feign politeness to her.

“So, you know Izuku?” Emi questioned with a head tilt.

Aizawa, thinking that the conversation was already over, turned back from his work to look at her with a slightly wary look.

“Why do I get the feeling that I should say no.” He stated rather than questioned making Emi laugh again at his accidentally comical delivery.

“Wow! Izuku didn’t tell me how funny you are Shouta. Can I call you Shouta?”

“No—”

“Anyways, I happen to know a pretty good mechanic that could cut you a deal on a new tire if you need it, she could also take a look at any other issues you may have with your car. She owes me a favour anyways, so how about I get your number and I’ll send you the contact.”

Aizawa wanted to ask why she didn’t just give him the mechanics’s phone number and sighed tiredly, knowing that would lead to more socialising.

“If I say yes, will you leave me alone?”

“You bet!” Emi was undeterred at the monotone voice Aizawa gave her and instead pulled out a pen from her pocket.

“Here.” She handed it to him before holding her hand out for him to write on. He stared at it for a moment, questioning where he went wrong in life before taking her hand and writing the number down.

She tried not to grin extra hard at how warm his hands were despite them being outside and nodded once he was done.

“I’ll be seeing you around, teach!” She said with a cheeky grin before winking and heading back to her car to get to work.

Aizawa shuddered at the thought before going back to plugging up the hole in his tire, he wondered if he should give Midoriya extra homework as punishment for being related to that woman.

—————————

A sneeze came out from Midoriya as he walked through the hallway with Uraraka.

“Oh! That means someone’s talking about you. I wonder who’s attention you’ve gotten, Midoriya.” She teased as she pulled him closer to her side in glee.

It was lunchtime now and him and the girls were headed to eat. Midoriya took notice of the way Yaoyorozu’s hands were slightly chapped and red again like they were on the first day of school, but didn’t want to bring it up just yet.

‘It can’t be for any good reason.’ Midoriya said to himself as he pondered Uraraka’s question. If he had to guess though he would say it’s a certain lanky purple-haired boy that kept glaring daggers at him during their first couple classes.

He was appreciative that Yaoyorozu stepped in to tell Shinsou to stop intimidating the classmates, but he didn’t think that was going to stop him from eventually beating him up when he had the chance.

Just when they were about to head into the cafeteria, Midoriya’s phone buzzed. He reached into his pocket and checked his message. It was from Todoroki.

Todoroki Shouto: ‘come to homeroom class, I need you.’

His eyes widened in surprise as he quickly backed away from the two girls and screamed out—“I gotta go!” Before rushing to see Todoroki.

He thought the boy was done with asking for things now, but he supposed he was mistaken as he trudged inside the class to see Todoroki sat down at his seat with what looked to be an entire banquet in front of him.

“What did you need?” Midoriya questioned, assuming maybe Todoroki wanted another drink…or several considering how large his lunch was.

“My maid came by the school today and dropped off all these extra side dishes, come eat them with me.” Todoroki explained matter of factly. With this being the second time in a row that Midoriya was told to sit and eat with the boy, he started to question if Todoroki just wanted someone to sit with at lunch times.

The food also did look delightful, he spotted a few of his favourites too. Spicy beef, seaweed wraps. But as if he was dunked into cold water, he remembered that he had promised himself that he wasn’t going to each lunch today. After having basically two meals during lunch time yesterday and already getting spots from diverting from his diet regimen, he couldn’t risk sitting down to eat.

“Oh! That’s really sweet of you Todoroki but, I can’t?” It didn’t came out as strongly as he’d liked, causing Todoroki to frown in response.

“Do you not like the food? I can ask her to make a different variety next time—”

“No! No it’s not that at all the food looks lovely, It’s just I’ve already eaten so..” As soon as the excuse left his lips, his grumbling stomach chose that moment to betray him.

Todoroki eyed him with a knowing glance.

“Midoriya, I know you’ve not eaten anything yet, come sit down with me.” As Todoroki stood, Midoriya slowly took hesitant steps back.

“Is that a request?” Midoriya murmured out without meaning to, his middle school habits catching up to him.

Todoroki’s brows furrowed in confusion.

“No, I just want to eat lunch with you.” He explained, but Midoriya was too overwhelmed to think clearly.

“I-I’m sorry I’m really sorry!” And with that he rushed out the class, slamming the door behind him to stop Todoroki from following him.

After a couple minutes of practicing his breathing exercises in the bathroom mirror, he managed to stop himself from crying. He feared if he did, the concealer that was on his face would get smeared off. His knuckles bared white as he gripped the sink.

“You’ve definitely weirded him out, who rejects lunch with a friend?” Midoriya mumbled to himself dejectedly, losing his grip as he sauntered out the bathroom to go back and apologise properly.

When he emerged from the bathroom, he was met with something solid, causing his nose to be smacked into it.

‘Since when was there a wall installed outside the bathroom? And since when could walls grunt?’ He questioned with bleary eyes as he rubbed his nose.

‘Wait a second, walls couldn’t make any noise.’ The rusty cogs in Midoriya’s mind turned slowly before green eyes looked up to meet purple ones.

‘Oh shit.’

Before Midoriya could make a break for it, an arm reached out and planted itself against the wall, half caging Midoriya before he could scamper off.

Shinsou stared at him coldly, sure he was curious about Midoriya, he had caught the attention of the infamous snow queen for crying out loud. But this helmet ordeal was starting to grate on Shinsou’s last nerve.

“I’ve had enough of playing games, when am I getting my helmet—” He cut himself off when he noticed that Midoriya’s eyes had been watering. Upon closer inspection, red rims were present around his usually clear eyes.

The sight of vulnerability reminded him of someone and he quickly changed his tune.

“Who’s upset you?” He asked instead, though it’s the softest his voice has been since he met the guy. Midoriya blinks up in surprise before stammering out—

“N-No one, I was just in the classroom with Todoroki and—”

That caused the purple-haired teen to kiss his teeth in annoyance as he looked to the side in disgust.

“I should’ve known it was the emotionless bastard.” Shinsou would’ve continued on his rant if it wasn’t for spotting Midoriya’s lip trembling.

For just the briefest second, he made an attempt to reach out to Midoriya, to do what? Console him? Shake him to snap him out of his inner turmoil? Little bit of both? He wasn’t sure.

Instead, he showed restraint and stuffed his hand back into his pocket.

He rubbed the back of his neck, looking uncharacteristically hesitant as he was in a loss of what to do. It was much easier comforting his little sister.

“Look, I don’t need to know what happened between you and the snow queen, but I do know that you should do something to calm down. Go outside and take a breath, run around a bit, do whatever you gotta do, you’re fine.” He hoped that was comforting enough as he examined Midoriya closely, looking for anymore telltale signs that he was going to start weeping.

He was surprised to see how stubborn he was being on not trying to, maybe it was a pride thing. But regardless, he wasn’t one to judge.

When Midoriya made no attempt to agree, Shinsou said the first thing that he thought he could do to help.

“I’ll go talk to Todoroki.”

That snapped Midoriya out of his train of thoughts, as if Shinsou had known that Midoriya wanted to talk to him but was hesitant to. However, he knew that he would definitely be last pick on who Midoriya would ask to help with his issue.

Sensing this, Shinsou amusingly held his hands up in surrender before Midoriya could protest.

“I’m not gonna pick a fight with him, I’m just gonna let him know that you’re okay.” He said back, which seemed to convince Midoriya enough as he nodded in response, not trusting his voice to give a firm answer.

With a silence following, Midoriya shifted on his feet slightly as he waited to Shinsou to leave or at least move a little bit so he could go himself.

Shinsou regarded him with narrowed eyes for a moment, as if considering something, before holding his hand out.

Midoriya blinked at it and blurted out the first thing he thought of.

“Did you need more eye cream?” He questioned innocently. This caused Shinsou to splutter as he shook his head.

“What? No, ugh, just—give me your phone.” He said trying and failing to keep his cool after being embarrassed again by Midoriya. He would rather die than tell him that he’s already used some of it though.

Midoriya wordlessly hands Shinsou his phone, seeing as it wasn’t really up for debate and watched as he typed what he presumed to be his phone number and proceeded to call it to send a miss-call to his phone.

“There, now you can reach me incase he bothers you again, got it?” He said with an expectant glance as he held the phone out for Midoriya to take.

Midoriya, in that moment, desperately wanted to ask the guy what his problem was with Todoroki, but he felt it wasn’t the best time to open old wounds.

He reached out to take the phone from Shinsou’s grip but he realised that he wouldn’t budge until Midoriya actually agreed.

“Okay, fine.” Midoriya said, trying not to sound too exasperated. Shinsou, deeming it good enough, relented and released his hold on the phone, before removing his arm from the wall to let him pass.

“Okay, counselling session over, you’re free to go.” He said mockingly with a bored tone though it held no bite as Midoriya squeaked out a small, ‘thank you’ and darted past him.

“I still want my helmet back though, you hear!? Don’t think you’re off the hook!” He called out to Midoriya’s retreating figure as he left, earning a distant, ‘yeah!’ in response.

‘At least he doesn’t sound too sad now’. Shinsou thought to himself, before shaking his head, wondering why he cared.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling an incoming headache as he marched over to the classroom.

He found Todoroki where he was left, sat in his chair with a hopeful look on his face once he heard footsteps approaching.

His expression immediately soured however once he saw Shinsou arrive, causing the boy to let out a snicker in response.

“You sure have been proactive lately.” The purple-haired boy said as he took sight of the buffet laid out in front of Todoroki.

“Did you come back to school just to spite me?” Todoroki asked with a tired sigh. Shinsou’s eye twitched in irritation but he feigned a laugh at the question.

“I see you still haven’t recovered from your main-character syndrome.” He leaned against the side of the classroom door as he regarded him dully.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Todoroki.” He fixed him with a serious look at that, no longer feigning nonchalance.

“If you hate me so much, you can always just ignore me.” The dual coloured-haired teen replied back sharply, evidently tired of this song and dance the two had.

“Oh, but wouldn’t that just really hurt your ego, Todoroki Shouto—” he drew his arms up and panned them out as if he was displaying his name, “no longer the star of the show, I can already see the headlines.” He replied back with a grin but he spoke coldly.

“I don’t have time for this, I need to go check on Midoriya.” With a huff and sharp scrape of his chair, Todoroki quickly stood up and made a beeline for the door.

As he was a foot away from leaving however, Shinsou swiftly moved in front of him, making their shoulders barge into each other.

“I think you’ve done enough damage already.” Shinsou was no longer smiling as he regarded Todoroki carefully.

The boy in turn clenched his fists in defiance but ultimately stepped back.

“Have you told him about all the reasons why he should hate me yet?” He asked numbly as he pointed his head down to stare at the ground.

Shinsou scoffed, seeing that Todoroki couldn’t help but make himself the centre of attention before replying.

“Oh, I’ve tried—” he lied, “but pretty boy’s seriously stubborn about defending you, fuck knows why.” He said looking up with indifference before narrowing his eyes at Todoroki in suspicion.

When he didn’t get an answer or any retort at all he rolled his eyes and continued,

“He’s bound to find out eventually though, your reputation precedes you, snow queen.” He mocked, which made Todoroki lift his head up. He looked determined as he searched Shinsou’s eyes for something but ultimately sighed and returned to his typical blank expression.

“Are you ever going to give me a break?” He asked tiredly. To which Shinsou replied back almost immediately.

“No. As long as I’m around, I’m never letting you forget what you did. Somebody has to stay as a reminder.” He said harshly, he wasn’t yelling by any means but it was close.

“..okay.” Was all the boy could muster in recognition as he went back to sit down at his desk.

With that, Shinsou huffed, darting his eyes towards Todoroki and the food before muttering out a, ‘whatever’ and leaving. Seeing the guys sunken expression wasn’t making him as pleased as it usually did.

—————————

The final bell rang out, signalling the end of the day. Midoriya sighed out in relief as he stretched his arms out, satisfied when he heard some cracking.

It was time for Kaminari’s birthday surprise, and even though he still kind of felt iffy about the whole thing, everyone else seemed to be quite excited. Uraraka especially, as she tugged Midoriya’s arm to lead him to their homeroom class.

He hoped Todoroki had gone home by now, knowing he wasn’t the type to stick around for a classmates birthday. However, his mouth gaped as he caught sight of Yaoyorozu leading Todoroki to the classroom just as Uraraka was doing with him, arm clutched around his as she lead him to the door.

The two girls giggled at the sight of them and their ‘captives’ whilst Midoriya did his best to avoid the piercing gaze Todoroki was giving him. It was short lived anyways as Yaoyorozu tugged the stoic boy inside as Uraraka quickly followed, yanking Midoriya behind her.

“There’s Uraraka, do it now!” Midoriya faintly heard one of the guys yell before his vision was blurred by…white frosting?

He knew this was too good to be true, this whole time his classmates knew just what a loser he was and decided to bully him after all. Was Todoroki in on it too? Was he the one tasked with getting Midoriya to open up just so they could find other ways to exploit him—

“Sero! What the hell!?” He snapped out of his daze as he made out a pissed off Uraraka pointing at a sheepish Sero.

“MY BAD! I thought you were leading Denki in here!” He tried to defend himself as he glanced nervously between the girl and Midoriya.

“No, Mina is the one leading Kaminari, ughh! Look at Midoriya now he’s covered in cake!” Midoriya was surprised that Uraraka wasn’t more mad about the cake being ruined than Midoriya’s well-being which did tug at his heartstrings.

What he didn’t like though were all the pitiful glances aimed at him now, and they were all staring at his face…oh fuck his face!

He nervously took a step back as he saw Uraraka whip out some wet wipes from her pocket and started to walk over to Midoriya. Several others girls including Yaoyorozu followed suit as they all called to help wipe off the cake from Midoriya’s face.

But if they wiped off the cake, they were bound to wipe off his concealer. He couldn’t let this happen, not when the day was already over.

As if hearing his prayers, a jacket swooped over his head. Concealing him from the onslaught of concerned classmates. He was then being led out of the classroom and towards the bathrooms. He should really invest in a stamp card for all these visits.

With the jacket shielding the sides of his face, Midoriya couldn’t tell who was leading him. He would definitely make sure to thank them profusely for being his knight in shining armour.

As soon as they got to the door of the boys bathroom, Midoriya tried his best to look up to whoever his saviour was.

“Thank—” he was cut off however as a warm body enveloped him in a hug.

“I’m sorry about today.” Midoriya let out a small gasp upon realising who it was.

“I’ll make it up to you, I promise.” Was all Todoroki said before gently moving back from the boy and guiding him into the bathroom.

“What, hey wait a minute—” Midoriya looked back and called out as he was being pushed in but his words fell on deaf ears as the door was shut promptly behind him.

Midoriya stood puzzled in the middle of the bathroom before quickly moving to wash his face and reapply the concealer that Emi let him keep for the day, thank God he had asked for it.

He was barely able to see Todoroki’s face, just once, when he looked back at him at the last second to protest. But he figured he was wearing a look of pity like all his other classmates. He tried not to feel too bummed out about the whole situation, knowing he would rather receive looks of remorse than hatred.

—————————

“So, what do you think he meant by doing that?”

Midoriya and Kota were sat on the couch in the living room. Kota wore a bored expression as he flipped through the channels on the tv whilst Midoriya was facing him with a pout, his face mask, and the hairband that was pushing his bangs from his face, really dispersed any fear Kota once had for his older brother.

Earlier, when returning to the classroom after he finished reapplying the concealer, his friends all apologised immensely. Sero even gave a full bow and promised he would treat Midoriya to lunch one day which made the green-haired boy splutter out protests at the generosity. Todoroki was nowhere to be seen.

But now, Midoriya was safely back home and he wanted answers. Out of desperation he seeked out his younger brother’s advice. He knew if he asked Emi she would immediately tell their mother and Kota didn’t care enough about the interpersonal dramas in Midoriya’s life to tell anyone.

He had just finished explaining the cake incident to him and was painstakingly waiting for him to reply.

“It’s simple, he just did that so he can use it against you later.” He finally replied though from that response Midoriya kinda wished he hadn’t.

“Wait, really?” Midoriya went up to bite his nails in anxiousness.

His brother shrugged.

“I don’t know the guy! But it’s what I would do.” Which made Midoriya have to stop and question how similar Kota and Todoroki were. He felt nauseous at the comparison though and quickly stopped.

“Oh by the way, what’s the update on getting that helmet back?” Midoriya asked, feeling his irritation from last night slipping back.

Kota waved him off in dismissal.

“Stop worrying, it’ll be back soon.” It annoyed Midoriya how nonchalant his brother was being about the whole thing.

“I don’t know if Shinsou will take ‘soon’ as an answer.” He muttered to himself miserably.

Kota must’ve heard him though as his eyebrows raised in panic. He finally took his eyes off the tv to look at him in concern.

“Oh fuck that was Shinsou Hitoshi’s helmet? Maybe you should be worried then.”

‘Why was it that everyone had known who Shinsou was before I did?’ He thought in annoyance.

“Like I said, if I’m dead, you’re dead.” Midoriya replied matter of factly, he wouldn’t feel any remorse for throwing Kota under the bus with him.

He let out a smug smile when he heard his little brother gulp in response. Good, at least now he would take this whole helmet ordeal seriously.

His smile soon vanished however as he felt his phone buzz not once but twice. He seriously considered breaking his SIM card at that moment but decided against it and just checked his messages.

Two different messages pop up:

Todoroki Shouto: ‘Hey, can we meet up? I need to see you.’

Shinsou Hitoshi: ‘We need to talk, when can I see you tonight?’

Kota had to then restrain Midoriya from snapping his phone in half.

Chapter Text

Getting ready to go out in the evening was starting to become a recurrence in Midoriya’s life. And he wasn’t happy about it in the slightest. These spontaneous meet-ups were eating into his precious skin care routine time!

He quickly texted both boys back, stupidly only giving himself thirty minutes between both of their meet-ups, before rushing upstairs to wipe off his face mask (he mourned the waste of product) and applying a small amount of Emi’s concealer to that last persistent spot that still plagued his cheek.

Deeming himself presentable, he kissed Tintin goodbye, slapped his brother upside the head for good luck and ventured out into the night in search of his purple-haired, and evidently sleep-deprived, classmate.

It didn’t take long to spot Shinsou, since the guy could drive he at least offered to meet Midoriya near by his house, thankfully it only took him a good five minutes upon leaving to find him sat on a park bench, leaning down and…petting something?

Not wanting to disturb the guys peace any longer than he needed to, Midoriya observed from afar as he waited to see what had caught Shinsou’s attention.

Turns out, the boy had a soft side to him after all. Midoriya let out a small smile as he watched his classmate stroke an adorable black cat and almost cooed once he saw the friendly feline weave in and out the teens legs. He felt himself hanging on to the sound of laughter that escaped Shinsou as it felt hearty and genuine.

Sometimes, it was nice watching people in their natural environment. You could see what they were truly like when they weren’t putting on some kind of front. Whilst it wasn’t much, it was relieving for Midoriya to see that at the very least Shinsou wasn’t a cat-kicker or something awful. Though maybe Midoriya just has awfully low standards.

“Pretty boy, is that you?” Shinsou’s voice came out in a low drawl, snapping the green-haired boy’s attention back to him.

‘Oh God, he probably caught me full on staring at him.’ Midoriya whined in his head as he quickly turned around in embarrassment.

Shinsou hid a laugh behind a cough as he persisted in getting Midoriya’s attention.

“I can see your freakishly green hair from here, turn around.” He called out to him, not bothering to get up from the bench but did pull his attention away from his new friend as it hopped up beside the boy and nestled itself on his lap.

Midoriya, slowly turned around with his shoulders hunched up and made his way over to Shinsou. As he did, he regarded his choice of clothes. It seemed to him that the guy was really into street fashion. He wore a black-coloured shirt with a grey puffer jacket and loose jeans to match. He also had on more piercings, that he assumed he couldn’t wear in school due to dress code violations, and a chain necklace. His usually unkept hair was contained in a black beanie, though tuffs of it peaked out in bangs around his face.

Midoriya could tell you for free that if Shinsou was a stranger he would’ve booked it the first chance he got. However, this boy was trying out this new thing where he actually tried to put trust in other people so he refrained from looking too freaked out.

Meanwhile Midoriya just wore basketball shorts and a top that said ‘shirt’ on the front.

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer.” Shinsou spoke casually but a teasing smile was slowly etching itself onto his face.

Midoriya jumped for the second time in five minutes as he realised he had just been caught staring again.

“Don’t tempt me.” He muttered without thinking, being close enough to see the surprise etch onto Shinsou’s features but still remained a healthy distance away from the boy.

“So, he has a mouth after all.” Shinsou said loud enough for Midoriya to hear as he tilted his head back slightly with a relaxed smile.

Midoriya let out a laugh of his own at that. Relaxing slightly at the easy-going mood that the taller teen emitted.

“I have a little brother, pretty much was built into me.” Midoriya said with a shrug as he kept his eyes on the cat rather than Shinsou, which helped to speak without turning into a stuttering mess.

“Ah your brother, the one who double-crossed you with my helmet?” Shinsou said with a bit of bite to it, Midoriya quickly looked at Shinsou in alarm, as if forgetting that unresolved issue still hung in the air between them.

Seemingly able to sense Midoriya’s inner panic, Shinsou spoke up again.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t bring you outside just to beat you up over my helmet.” He said, in a way that he apparently thought was reassuring, but it just made Midoriya realise that he never even considered that he was luring him out for a potential beat down.

“S-So what did you want to t-talk about, Shinsou?” Midoriya questioned nervously. If it wasn’t about the helmet then he really was thrown for a loop, it’s not as if Shinsou dragged him out here just to chat about the weather.

Shinsou looked at him with an expectant gaze as he glanced between him and the spot next to him on the bench. He deflected the question for now and instead asked—

“Do you need me to assist you to the bench? It’s hard to talk to you when it looks like you’re about to bolt.” He said to Midoriya with a raised brow as he patted the seat next to him, trying and failing not to look intimidating.

At the threat of being manhandled though, Midoriya let out a quick—“right!”—and quickly sat down next to the lilac-haired boy.

The silence stretches for a few moments, Midoriya risks a glance at the boy beside him to see what kind of look he’s wearing.

“Gah!” He lets out an unintelligible noise once he sees how closely Shinsou’s face is to him. He’s wearing an examining look, like he’s debating whether to tell Midoriya something.

Eventually he sighs and leans back, absentmindedly stroking the cat on his lap like some villain as he says—

“Look, I can’t tell you who you can and can’t be friends with but just—” he pauses and furrows his brows.

“Why do I smell lavender?” Without thinking, Shinsou goes back to where his face once was in Midoriya’s personal space and starts to sniff, causing Midoriya to pull back in embarrassment. He can already feel his cheeks going red at the bold move.

“It’s you.” Shinsou declares, though it’s not accusatory, more so like he’s discovered something fascinating.

“B-Boundaries!” Midoriya retorts back a bit late as he watches Shinsou start to laugh at Midoriya’s flustered state.

“First the eye cream now this, are you just a walking beauty tester?” He continues his retorts, upon closer inspection he can now make out the shine on Midoriya’s face from where he had applied his earlier face mask.

“I-If I’m a walking tester then you’re a walking, talking insomniac! I’ve never seen eye-bags as prominent as yours.” Midoriya lets out without thinking, shrinking back almost immediately.

Shinsou doesn’t seem as bothered as he usually would though, realising he much prefers this side of Midoriya in comparison to the one that’s scared of him.

“You got me, been diagnosed with insomnia since I was twelve. Bet you feel bad now.” He wears a mock hurt expression, causing the green-haired boy to let out a surprised chuckle in response.

Just then, a small meow erupted from Shinsou’s lap. It seems that the cat wanted some attention. Midoriya didn’t mind delivering this as he gently scratched the back of its ears like he would do with TinTin.

“So..” Midoriya lets out slowly as he does his best to keep his attention on the now purring cat.

“I’m guessing you were trying to warn me about Todoroki.” Midoriya confirms so much as guesses, he may be nervous but he’s not stupid. There’s no other person of interest that the two share in common, or he at least thought so.

When there’s no reply, Midoriya risks another glance up to see Shinsou looking down at him in a dazed expression before quickly pulling himself out of it and changing his face to look irritated instead. As expected, just mentioning that boy seemed to put Shinsou in a foul mood.

“Why do you hate him so much anyways?” Midoriya asked bravely. Wondering that in an environment such as this, this may be the perfect time to finally get some answers.

Instead much to his surprise, Shinsou brought his hand up and pushed Midoriya’s nose back, pushing his face away from the cat and back to his original spot on the bench, he hadn’t even realised how close he got to Shinsou whilst he was distracted with entertaining their new friend.

Shinsou’s brows furrowed once again in thought, but this time he actually looked pained with this decision.

“I’ll let him tell you. I don’t want my words to influence your perception of him.” Shinsou eventually admitted, though it really did look like it hurt him to say it. Midoriya assumed he just really wanted to slag him off again like usual.

“Well…” Midoriya starts as he fiddles with his hands, no longer able to preoccupy himself with the cat.

“I think that’s very mature of you, Shinsou.” Midoriya says earnestly with a small smile.

Shinsou looks away with a scoff before turning back to point a finger at him.

“I’m not trying to save his skin understand? This isn’t me protecting him or anything. You just might as well hear it from the horses mouth.” He tries to claim in a nonchalant tone though Midoriya does his best not to laugh at his defensive attitude.

“Right, totally.” Midoriya says though he earns a look from Shinsou at the non-convincing tone.

“Whatever, just really get to know the guy first before you decide to be friends with him.” Satisfied with saying his piece, Shinsou immediately relaxed as he slouched in a more comfortable position on the bench.

Speaking of the guy, Midoriya panicked as he quickly checked his phone to see that he had five minutes until he had to go meet up with Todoroki at the comic store.

Shinsou caught on to Midoriya’s alarm and gently pried the cat off his lap to stand up.

“Got somewhere to be? I’ll give you a ride.” Shinsou offered as he looked back in the direction of where he parked his motorcycle.

Midoriya shook his head immediately, though stopped himself at the risk of looking too eager to leave to not warrant any suspicion.

“N-No it’s okay! Thank you though, I just have to get home for dinner.” He lied before getting off the bench as well.

Shinsou noticed the boys strange urgency in wanting to leave but decided it was best not to comment on it.

“Suit yourself, I’ll see you around—”

“Yeah, okay bye!” Midoriya wasted no time in speeding off, and in his rush didn’t realise that Emi’s concealer had fallen out of his pocket as he left.

————————————

Getting to the comic book store was easy, Midoriya knew the route like the back of his palm. Though that didn’t stop him from accidentally tripping up on an uprooted piece of slab and scraping his knees in the process. He grimaced at the sorry sight of them, although thankful that his shorts didn’t get caught in the crossfire, and hobbled into the store.

He wasn’t surprised to not see Yamada at the counter, it was dinner time so he was probably in the back eating, he didn’t applaud the owners self-preservation skills however as anyone could rob him at this moment.

Ignoring this concerning matter, Midoriya ventured on inside the familiar building and found Todoroki sat on one of the sofas with two bowls of ramen sat in front of him.

The sight caused Midoriya’s stomach to growl, making Todoroki glance up at the noise. Midoriya tried not to think about how cute it was when the boys lips morphed into a small ‘o’ as he caught sight of him and stood up.

“I ordered us some ramen for dinner since I know I’m keeping you from eating. I hope you don’t mind, I made sure to keep the sizes small to not overwhelm you.” Todoroki explained as he gestured to the modest portion sizes.

Midoriya could cry at how sweet that was, he almost did, and smiled warmly at Todoroki’s notion.

“That’s really considerate of you Todoroki. Sorry again about what happened at lunch. I hope I didn’t scare you off.” Midoriya said self-consciously even though evidently he hadn’t.

Todoroki frowned at Midoriya’s worries and instead sat back down for him to do the same.

“Why are you apologising? I’m the one who should be sorry.” Todoroki claimed as he picked up his bowl and waited for Midoriya to do the same, he appreciated how he didn’t tell him to start eating like he did earlier though. It seems that Todoroki was good at reading people despite how he acted aloof most of the time.

Midoriya took the time to grab his bowl and smile as he took in the warmth of the food before beginning to eat.

“How about we meet in the middle and just forgive each other.” Midoriya said lightheartedly, causing the other boy to nod in response.

He noticed how Todoroki stopped eating as if he was mulling something over for a second.

“Did…Shinsou say anything about me?” He asked out of nowhere, causing Midoriya to almost choke on his food.

‘Shit, does he know that I was just with him now? How did he find out!?’ Midoriya panicked internally as he looked at Todoroki with wide eyes.

“H-How did you know about—”

“About what?” Todoroki uncharacteristically cut Midoriya of mid-sentence as he questioned him in a serious tone.

Midoriya calmed down slightly, realising that Todoroki didn’t know about earlier and was looking for answers instead.

“No, it’s nothing. And he hasn’t, at least nothing he wouldn’t have said to your face.” He said nervously, not liking the direction the conversation was headed in.

Todoroki instead looked weirdly relieved as he nodded before continuing to eat.

After that, the two chatted about trivial matters, like school work and family. Midoriya had found out that Todoroki lives mainly on his own with his maid looking after the house, whilst his dad was away filming for a new movie. He laughed when he found out about Todoroki’s plans on writing negative reviews on every platform under a fake account once the movie gets released.

They kept chatting until their bowls were empty and stomachs full before Midoriya quietly leaned back against the sofa in content. As Midoriya shifted to get more comfortable one of his knees bounced against Todoroki’s which caused the boy to notice them.

“Midoriya, your knees are bleeding.” He stated in his usual tone but his eyes were widened in alarm. Midoriya sat up with a questioning hum and glanced down to inspect them.

Sure enough, what were once meagre scrapes had turned red and were oozing crimson. He grimaced at the sight, it didn’t hurt but he knew it would be uncomfortable later on, plus it wasn’t exactly pretty.

Before Midoriya could wave it off however, Todoroki quickly stood up, placing a hand on Midoriya’s shoulder to keep him from following.

“Stay here, I’ll be back.” Was all the dual coloured-haired boy said before walking out in a slightly rushed manner.

It didn’t take long for him to return, carrying a plastic shopping bag, he placed it on the table in front of Midoriya and casually knelt down beside him.

Midoriya blushed at the sudden intrusion and quickly tried to move his legs away to give the boy space.

“Hey!” He stammered out before immediately stopping once he saw Todoroki pull out a pack of plasters from the bag alongside two bottles of juice presumably for them to share.

He studied Todoroki in silence as he wordlessly applied the bandages onto his knees, wincing slightly at the contact but couldn’t find it in himself to even pay attention to the stinging sensation.

“You really didn’t have to do that.” Midoriya spoke quietly, worried that any noise would pull Todoroki out of his concentration.

He didn’t seem bothered however as he finished up with applying the bandages and slowly looked up to gaze at Midoriya, studying his expression.

“I want…to start over, Midoriya.” Todoroki admitted, his fingers ghosting over Midoriya’s knees as he held eye-contact.

“Start over?” Midoriya inquired back, not understanding.

“I feel like I’ve been making you uncomfortable recently. It’s been a while since I’ve made a new friend and sometimes I don’t know how best to go about things…but I want to try harder with you. I want to be your friend.” Midoriya’s heart sunk at Todoroki’s confession. To think this whole time Midoriya had been blindsided by his past and assumed that this boy just wanted to use and blackmail him. When in actuality he just wanted to be his friend.

He couldn’t help the tears that escaped his eyes as he did his best to wipe them. Noticing Todoroki’s fallen expression Midoriya quickly tried to console him.

“These are happy tears I promise! I think…I think I would like to start over too, Todoroki. I haven’t been perfect either and maybe sorta misjudged you.” He confessed with a sheepish smile causing Todoroki to smile back.

With that, he extended his hand out for him to shake.

“My name is Midoriya Izuku, I look forward to being your friend.” He grinned alongside his mock introduction, causing Todoroki to look away for a second, because fuck his smile is so bright, before shaking the boys hand.

“Todoroki Shouto, me too.” He said cautiously, not knowing if he was doing it right, but a reassuring nod from the freckled teen made him relax.

All in all, Midoriya was glad things were finally starting to make a bit more sense. So what if he didn’t know all the ins and outs of his new friend’s grievances. He would wait for him until he was ready.

Little did they know about the teenager who’s purple eyes watched them from the window, hands clenched into fists as they held a bottle of concealer in their grasp.

So, Todoroki was able to forget about what he did and make friends so easily? So be it. Two could play at that game.

————————————

The arrival of morning was welcomed as Midoriya rose up from bed with a smile and immediately went to peel off his overnight face mask.

He almost jumped for joy when he saw that his face was once again completely cleared up! There wasn’t even any scarring that followed the departure of his acne, his face was left smooth and clear.

This didn’t stop him from taking any precautions though, as he put on some after-care lotion and then went on to doing his usual morning skin care routine.

Midoriya, came downstairs with a spring in his step—before nearly tumbling down it once he felt a familiar body slanted against the corner of the staircase.

He took sight of his half-dead sister and had to stop himself from jumping in fright.

“Emi!? I thought you were dead don’t scare me like that!” Midoriya exclaimed before easily treading around her unmoving body. She simply groaned in response not seeming to find the position she was in the slightest bit uncomfortable as she further slumped down in despair.

“I can’t believe all I’ve gotten are thumbs up emojis, is his keyboard broken? What’s wrong with him?” She muttered to herself in her sorry state.

Kota snorted from where he was sat having breakfast in the living room.

“Wow, that’s worse than just being left on read. I think you’ve gotten dumped big sis.” Their little brother remarked coldly.

Somehow, this seemed to make Emi feel better as she immediately perked up as if she wasn’t a zombie two seconds ago.

“Or…he’s playing hard to get! Or what if he’s secretly shy and isn’t used to having advances made on him!” Emi said with a grin as she continued to delude herself with whatever one-sided crush she was having this time.

Midoriya sighed, realising that Emi was too deranged to trust her to drive him to school and simply left the house.

To his surprise, there was a large package waiting by the doorstep. It was addressed to Kota, which only meant one thing.

Midoriya quickly snatched up the box and opened it up and just as he thought, Shinsou’s helmet was waiting for him inside. He could’ve jumped for joy, but he remembered he was technically in public and just shoved the helmet in his bag before heading over to school.

————————————

“Hey, Midoriya! Wait up!” Someone from the distance called out as Midoriya was nearly half way to school.

When he turned around, he perked up at the sight of Uraraka and Yaoyorozu who were walking behind him whilst carrying heavy bags of what appeared to be from the nearby convenience store.

‘They probably went to the same store that Todoroki got my plasters from.’ Midoriya tried to will away his oncoming blush at the thought.

“We didn’t know you lived around here, Midoriya.” Yaoyorozu said once they had reached the boy, and the three began their walk to school.

Midoriya tried not to fanboy at the fact that this was the first time in his life that he was walking to school with friends, and instead nodded at the comment.

“Yeah, I live just a few blocks away. What were you two doing by here anyways?” Midoriya asked politely as he noticed all the snacks and drinks that were stored in the girl’s bags.

“We decided to stock up on snacks for our incoming group study sessions. We’ve been doing them since middle school and we’re finally picking back up on doing them.” Uraraka explained as she handed Midoriya a few sweets earning a surprised ‘thank you!’ back.

It was as if a lightbulb formed in Uraraka’s head as she looked at Midoriya with excitement.

“Hey! Why don’t you join our study group? The maths exam is coming up so we’ll be preparing for it.” She nodded, getting herself more excited at the thought of a new member as Yaoyorozu nodded along with her.

“You’re welcome to join us Midoriya, I’ve been helping Uraraka and Kaminari with their school work for as long as I can remember. I’m sure it’ll be fun for you to join us.” Yaoyorozu added on, making Midoriya’s heart expand at feeling so included.

“Besides, at least we can finally add someone new. We’ve been trying to get Todoroki to join our group for years. He’s such a lone wolf that guy.” Uraraka said with an eye-roll.

Just before Midoriya could try and defend Todoroki, as he felt himself being more compelled to do these days, someone swooped in beside Midoriya and Uraraka and grabbed the boys wallet from his pocket.

The pair fell on top of each other in response, letting out groans as they watched the retreating figure.

‘What the hell!? Well at least I barely had any money in there to begin with—’

“Ochako, look after my bag please.” Yaoyorozu said with a serious tone as she gently placed her things beside them and before Midoriya could even blink the girl was catching up to the robber.

“Woah, she’s so fast!” Midoriya exclaimed as he watched in awe as Yaoyorozu promptly tackled and apprehended the man before ringing her cellphone to call the police.

In the time it took Uraraka and Midoriya to pick up their belongings and catch up to Yaoyorozu, the cops had already arrived returning the purse to her and taking the thief away.

“Midoriya, are you alright? That must’ve been quite frightening.” Yaoyorozu asked the boy with a look of concern as she handed him back his purse.

Midoriya started stammering, as he usually did when anyone remotely attractive started treating him kindly, leaving Uraraka to speak in his place.

“Momo! You were so cool! That’s our class pres!” Uraraka exclaimed to a blushing Yaoyorozu as she pulled her in for a hug.

“Don’t be silly, anyone would’ve done the same.” She replied bashfully. It was a mystery where she even learnt to chase and fight like that.

—————————

It’s lunch time and Midoriya was moping because for some reason Mr Aizawa kept glaring at him in homeroom that morning. Uraraka sat opposite him, drinking from a juice cartoon, as she lovingly patted his outstretched hand as he himself wallowed.

“Maybe you just reminded him of something, he’s not usually like that Midoriya I promise.” Uraraka kept trying to reassure him.

“Oh! This’ll cheer you up, Sero told me to give you his number. He says he’s ready to treat you for lunch! How exciting right?” Uraraka beamed at Midoriya.

He did perk up a bit at that, whilst he still didn’t feel like he needed any further apology from his classmate after the cake incident he couldn’t help but smile at something to look forward to.

Meanwhile, Shinsou had stalked into the canteen alone with his eyes set on one person.

“Hey.” He called out to an unsuspecting Todoroki, who was about to make his way over to Midoriya and his friends.

He barely acknowledged Shinsou as he turned to face him by an inch.

“What is it now?” He asked though his brows furrowed in confusion once he saw how serious Shinsou looked.

“You’ve been a bit too happy recently, for someone who’s killed a friend.” Shinsou said with venom as he stared the other boy down.

“Why…are you bringing this up now?” Todoroki asked lowly, knuckles turning white as he gripped his tray. The canteen was bustling with students, no one could hear the conversation between them, but it caused Todoroki to panic regardless.

Shinsou, noticing Todoroki’s inner-distress, took the time to purposely glance between him and Midoriya, who was unbeknownst to the mess he had caught himself in.

He drew a cruel smirk and said,

“As a reminder.”

With that, he shoved past the boy, causing him to drop his tray and food with it as it came crashing to the ground.

Back to Midoriya, when Uraraka was finishing up telling him Sero’s number, a loud crash was heard from the middle of the canteen.

Himself and the others watched in shock at the aftermath of what looked to be another altercation between the two pillars of the high school.

‘Oh, it looks like Shinsou’s the first to walk away this time and—oh my god why is he heading this way!?’ Midoriya panicked internally as he watched, mouth agape as Shinsou took the chair next to Midoriya and casually sat himself down with a smirk, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

‘He must be pissed.’ Midoriya concluded as he decided to speak first.

“Uhh, is this about the helmet? Because I did leave it on your desk this morning and I’m sorry if those sweets that were in there weren’t your thing but Uraraka thought it would be funny to—”

A laugh radiated from Shinsou as he pulled his arm over Midoriya’s chair, cutting him off from his rambling.

“My helmet? No no no.” He said good-naturedly, using the other hand to wave off the ordeal as if it was a figment of the past.

“I just want to have lunch with you, pretty boy.” He stated loud enough for everyone to hear, Midoriya guessed he was doing this intentionally but he has no idea why. He groaned as he felt everyone staring, he risked a glance at Uraraka who was mouthing ‘What. The. Fuck.’

He couldn’t keep his attention on her for long though as a pissed off Todoroki had marched over right to them and hoisted Shinsou out of his seat before grabbing him by his collar, fists shaking in anger.

“You leave him out of this.” Todoroki almost yelled as he stared Shinsou down. The purple-haired boy seemed undeterred.

“Why? You scared you might end up getting him killed?” Shinsou drawled with a manic smile as he later mouthed ‘too’ so no one could hear the underlying message he was trying to convey to Todoroki.

The boy must’ve heard it loud and clear though as he moved back to swing a punch at Shinsou’s head.

The boy saw it coming and dodged before quickly counter-attacking and barrelling himself into Todoroki, causing the pair to fall and wrestle on the ground, dodging punches, kicking and pulling each others hair frantically.

Midoriya was to sum it up, gagged at the sight before him. He didn’t know whether to intervene, but he would surely get pummelled in the crossfire, or get a teacher, but Yaoyorozu had already gone as soon as Todoroki approached their table. The only thing he could do now was watch fruitlessly as the two fought each other.

There was no cheering or screaming like he usually expected to see in school fights like his old school. Maybe this was a shock to even the regular students as they all watched with gaping mouths. The silence made the fight all the more brutal to watch.

Eventually, after what felt like hours, a teacher Midoriya didn’t recognise, arrived and broke the boys up before sending them to the principals office. Midoriya didn’t get a good look at the aftermath of the boys but from the brief sight of tattered clothes and blood, he winced at what damage could’ve been conflicted to Todoroki’s perfect skin!

Chapter Text

Midoriya waited anxiously outside the teachers office. He didn’t know how he ended up there, his legs just kinda moved on their own after Todoroki and Shinsou were pulled apart from each other and dragged from the cafeteria.

Speaking of those two, Midoriya winced as he heard one of their teachers yelling at them from inside the room.

He couldn’t make out exactly what the teacher, whose voice Midoriya couldn’t recognise, was saying but it sounded pissed off, for a lack of a better term.

He didn’t want to seem like that guy but he secretly hoped they hadn’t gotten into a fight over him, seeing as Todoroki only got truly mad once Shinsou sat next to him at lunch. He shook his head at the unlikely thought, they’ve been feuding long before Midoriya even showed up after all.

At the very least, Shinsou was just weaponising him against Todoroki, but for what? He couldn’t say for sure.

Meanwhile, inside the teachers office:

“And going off the handle at a star student!? Don’t you know Todoroki has a very important maths tournament coming up!?” The teacher nearly screamed in Shinsou’s face.

Shinsou absentmindedly scratched the side of his face in boredom, careful to avoid one of the cuts that Todoroki left when he scratched him.

“Must’ve slipped my mind.” He said sarcastically, eyes never leaving the infuriated teacher. This didn’t deter him from continuing his berating however.

“You’ve only just come back from taking time off to look after your mother and you’re getting back into fights like the ruffian you are.” He stepped closer to Shinsou, despite their height difference his teacher still held an intimidating position.

“Is this something your sick mother would want to know about? Her delinquent son acting out without a care for anyone else! Do you want to put her in an early grave?” His teacher said with a snarl as he glared at the unmoving boy.

After trying to hold his gaze, Shinsou was first to reluctantly back down, looking away at the last second to peer downwards at his tightening fist as he tried to calm down.

Without anyone noticing his approach, Mr Aizawa, who was watching from his desk in the background, put a hand on the older teachers shoulder.

“I think that’s enough.” Aizawa said in his usual monotone but it held a serious message all the same.

He looked back towards Todoroki. Who seemed to have dissociated.

“Todoroki, you’re dismissed. Don’t forget about your maths tournament tomorrow, go study.” Aizawa instructed, causing the teen to nod and mutter a ‘thank you’ before leaving, wanting nothing more than to leave the suffocating room.

The first thing he noticed when he closed the door behind him, was seeing Midoriya waiting at the other end of the room at the door opposite him.

He smiled warmly as he watched the green-haired boy wear a concerned frown and try to subtly sneak glances in through the window.

He was relieved to finally be friends with him. If he was completely honest, he had wanted to ever since he saw him in class that first day. Midoriya was an individual that had slipped his mind from the time they met on the rooftop. Though when they got reacquainted, he soon became someone unforgettable.

His foot pivoted a mere fraction in the boys direction, the movement being enough however for Midoriya to notice as he let out a sigh of relief upon seeing him. Which secretly made Todoroki feel all warm inside.

He tried not to feel too guilty about that feeling. Shinsou’s words still hung heavy in his mind.

Midoriya examined Todoroki’s face, thankfully no prominent scratches or bruises to mess up his flawless skin but he could see the aftermath of a nose bleed and a slightly swollen lip.

Just when Midoriya was about to head over to him however, he heard a voice call out from the hallway.

“Shouto! There you are, I was so worried.” Midoriya paused as he watched Yaoyorozu come up behind Todoroki with a worried tone, similar to the one she had with him that morning but tenfold.

Midoriya smiled as he watched their class pres grab his classmates arm loosely and lead them back to the classroom as she bombarded him with questions of concern.

It was fine, he could always check up on Todoroki later.

SLAM

Midoriya startled at the noise of a door opening abruptly beside him. Noticing he was still rooted in his position right outside the teachers room, it didn’t leave him with many guesses on who was leaving in such a hurry.

Green eyes peered up at purple ones in alarm as he immediately scanned over Shinsou for injuries.

He was rubbing his arm, though Midoriya suspected that was more a subconscious action due to nerves rather than any injury he may have sustained.

Unlike Todoroki, his face was littered with scratches. Though apart from that he seemed unscathed.

When the teen didn’t make a move to say anything, just staring at Midoriya in muted surprise, Midoriya decided to go into mother hen mode.

“U-Uh, here!” He quickly reached into his backpack and pulled out the plaster box that Todoroki had gotten for him last night. He tried not to think too hard about the irony of the situation.

Shinsou looked at the box with a raised brow before saying—

“I already have plasters.” He replied in a bored tone causing Midoriya to retreat at his passive response and go to put the box away.

However, to his surprise, a hand reached out and caught his wrist before the other quickly snatched the box from Midoriya’s hand and shoved it into his pocket.

“But since you’re offering...” Shinsou remarked, going back to his usual drawl as a smirk formed on his lips.

‘I never thought I would be relieved to see Shinsou teasing me.’ Midoriya huffed but he still wore a relieved smile, just happy to see that the purple-haired boy wasn’t too shaken up by the scolding.

The two began their walk back to class in a comfortable silence.

…Midoriya’s curiosity got to the better of him though.

“Sooo, what was that all about earlier?” Midoriya asked vaguely, not even knowing himself if he meant what happened at lunch or the teachers office.

Shinsou regarded him with a look, as if Midoriya was ruining whatever peace and quiet he was having as they walked through the hallway.

“You know, you’re much more appealing when you don’t ask questions.” Shinsou remarked off-handedly, not his best work but it seemed that the boys got a lot on his mind as it is.

That doesn’t stop Midoriya from sticking his tongue out at the taller boy when he thought he wasn’t looking.

Apparently, Shinsou had the eyes of a hammerhead shark as he quickly responded back by shoving his hand in his face and pushing him away lightly.

Midoriya practically clutched his pearls at his face being touched and wasted no time in getting out his lotion and applying it onto his face.

“You’re really childish sometimes you know that?” Midoriya grumbled as he shoved the bottle back into his pocket. Shinsou eyed the action before laughing.

“And you’re an advert in human form. Seriously, who is sponsoring you to carry around all these products?” Shinsou replied with a flare of snark to it as he saw Midoriya’s face slowly rise in heat.

He suddenly looked up at Shinsou with a scrutinising gaze, before making him jump when he yelled out ‘ah-ha!’ in joy.

“You are using the eye cream I gave you.” Midoriya exclaimed in victory. As nerdy as he was, he could see how the bags under Shinsou’s eyes were slightly faded and the skin was overall brighter. He should be thankful he gave him the expensive shit.

Shinsou quickly turned away as if he was caught doing something scandalous and brought his hand up to cover his face in annoyance.

“Whatever.” He grumbled in response, he’ll take that over discussing the events of earlier.

Their conversation was cut short as they finally reached the classroom, the pair kinda wished they hadn’t though as when they opened the door they were met with a haggle of students hovering over Midoriya’s desk.

“There he is!” One of them shouted as they quickly went over to an alarmed Midoriya.

Shinsou reacted quickly, pushing Midoriya into the classroom mercilessly and shutting the door behind him. He supposed that was his way of delivering payback for the eye bag comment.

“Is it true that Todoroki and Shinsou are fighting over you?”

“What were they fighting about?”

“Who do you like more!?”

Questions such as these were being barrelled at Midoriya left, right and centre as he darted his eyes round to each of them in panic, stuttering on his words and shaking his hands in denial.

“Everyone!” A hush fell over the gossip-hungry students as they all peered round to look at Kaminari who was stood up on his desk to get everyone’s attention.

‘Oh thank goodness, Kaminari’s gonna be the voice of reason.’ Midoriya could practically cry in relief as he watched the blonde clear his throat.

“Now, the jury would like to know why Mr Shinsou chose to sit next to Mr Midoriya. Was it an act of proclamation—”

“You mean provocation, babe.” Mina helpfully chipped in.

“Right—yes, can Mr Midoriya please take the stand and confirm these allegations?” As if holding a microphone, why would anyone be holding a microphone in court, Kaminari shoved his arm towards the boy to try and elicit a response from the shaking leaf known as Midoriya.

“I-It’s really not like that I swear, I’m in the dark j-just as much as you guys!” Midoriya pleaded his case to a mostly unconvinced crowd as chatters of denial echoed through the students.

“Alright, trials over guys.” Uraraka spoke up from her desk, finally feeling pity for her friend.

“The boys been through enough as it is, his face is too beautiful to have it ruined by the stress lines you’re all giving him.” She said accusingly as she pointed her finger towards the crowd and at Kaminari.

“I suppose I got a bit too ahead of myself..” Kaminari admitted awkwardly as he quickly stepped down from his desk. The students themselves took one look at Midoriya’s face to confirm that he was—in fact, a handsome little thing, before unanimously agreeing to leave.

“Thanks Uraraka.” Midoriya said with a tired smile as he finally made his way to his desk.

“Remember what I said, us cuties gotta stick together.” She told him as she kindly patted him on the shoulder whilst he sat down.

————————————

Classes had finished, and with Shinsou and Todoroki nowhere in sight, it made the end to the day feel quite anticlimactic. As if nothing had even gone down earlier.

Finding one of Shinsou’s lackies walking through the hall, Midoriya worked up the courage to ask him where him and Todoroki were. He was surprised when the teen had told him easily.

“You’re being awfully…nice?” Midoriya inquired hesitantly.

He simply gave the boy an ambiguous smile before patting him a bit roughly on the back.

“Don’t worry, Hitoshi says you’re cool.” Was all he said before walking off.

With a shrug of his shoulders, Midoriya headed off to the schools gym. He had wanted to see Todoroki since what happened at lunch, finally becoming proper friends with the guy also meant being there for each other. It was nice to see Yaoyorozu there to support him but Midoriya wanted to show him that he cared too.

As he walked, he became aware of something protruding in his blazer pocket. He fished it out to find Emi’s missing concealer, he beamed at the sight, knowing his sister would’ve killed him if he lost it.

But how the hell did it get in there? He was so sure he had misplaced it sometime between getting ready to leave last evening and coming back home—

He stopped in his tracks as he came to a realisation.

‘ohhh, Todoroki must’ve found it and slipped it into my pocket without drawing attention to it. He’s the only one that knows about my past skin afflictions so he must’ve been discreet about returning it on purpose.’ Midoriya theorised as he cradled his chin with his thumb and forefinger.

With a nod at the sound conclusion, he resumed in his journey to the gym hall to find Todoroki.

Meanwhile, in the gym hall:

A poor attempt at cleaning the sports gym was made. Mostly with Todoroki doing all the hard work and Shinsou halfheartedly sweeping the floors.

They were forced to stay there and clean it up afterschool as punishment for their fight. Shinsou knew for a fact though that if it wasn’t for Mr Aizawa being fair, the other teacher would’ve made Shinsou do it alone for ‘inciting’ the fight, even when Todoroki threw the first punch.

Not that Shinsou would disagree however, he knew what he said would provoke Todoroki for sure. But he couldn’t help it, seeing him try so hard to make friends after what happened made his blood boil.

Speaking of the prick, he was on the other side of the gym doing his best to pretend that Shinsou didn’t exist. Just like he ignored everything else.

Deciding he had enough of cleaning, he dropped his brush onto the floor and made his way to leave.

As he passed Todoroki however, he saw the boy look up and, after a few moments of hesitstion, call out to him.

“Shinsou, wait.”

The purple-haired boy let out a long sigh and ran a hand through his hair before turning his head round to glare at him.

Seeing that he at least got the boys attention, he said—

“I think it’s best if we try to ignore each other.” Todoroki said calmly, but Shinsou wasn’t fooled. He could see how white Todoroki’s knuckles were getting around his broomstick.

He scoffed and let out a snarky laugh before turning round to face him fully.

“I would love nothing more than to pretend that you don’t exist, but ignoring problems isn’t in my nature, unlike yours.” Shinsou remarked with a sneer, clearly with reference to something.

Todoroki took the time to pause before responding.

“When Hinata reached out to me…” The mention of that name caused Shinsou’s eyes to narrow, daring him to continue.

Todoroki uncharacteristically looked ashamed as he ran a hand down his face.

“I couldn’t have known what was going to happen, I didn’t expect him to—”

“What?” Shinsou cut him off and quickly marched over to him, closing the distance between them.

“Still trying to feed me bullshit after all this time?” He practically snarled as he regarded Todoroki with anger.

“You think your excuses mean anything now? Like anything you do will change what happened? Is that why you’re deciding to move on now? You’ve spent enough time feeling sorry about yourself and want to replace him with someone new?” Shinsou continued, voice getting louder as he spoke.

“That’s not what I’m doing—”

“Do you know what the last thing he said to me was!?” Shinsou cut him off, too angry to even hear Todoroki.

“He said…’Shouto will believe me.’” He looked down as he said it, not trusting his voice not to waver under the pressure.

“But he couldn’t see how full of shit you really were.”

Shinsou looked up at him, going teary-eyed at remembering the day things all went wrong.

“He came to you, he chose you…and look what it cost him.”

“So, forgive me for trying to stop that from happening again.” He said with a mocking smile as he watched Todoroki flinch under the implication.

He drew a strong finger to Todoroki’s chest in warning.

“Don’t you ever, bring up Hinata around me again.” Was the last thing Shinsou said before storming out, trying to control his shaky breathing.

He flinched as he walked past Midoriya, who had just arrived to the gym. He secretly wished he heard what was said.

“Shinsou? Are you okay—you’re shaking.” Midoriya said quickly as he scanned Shinsou for any injuries, suspecting another fight went down.

He ignored the boys question however.

“You’re waiting for Todoroki.” He stated rather than asked, causing the boy to smile sheepishly and nod.

“Of course.” He muttered, before walking past him and out the building without another word.

Midoriya was puzzled by the interaction, but simply chalked it up to the boy not liking anything Todoroki related. Being in a room alone with him must’ve been frustrating enough.

Hey went over to the door, finding Todoroki absentmindedly putting his brush back into the cupboard before calling out to him with a grin.

“Hey, Todoroki!” He called out, and smiled even brighter when he saw his friends eyes soften upon seeing him.

“Midoriya, what are you doing here?” He questioned as he made his way over to the boy.

“It feels like we haven’t seen each other all day huh? Even though it’s only been a couple hours.” Midoriya said whilst rubbing the back of his neck.

“I just came to check up on you.” He said simply, hoping that would explain enough without needing to go into the details that he’s sure Todoroki would much rather forget about.

Midoriya still winced however when he saw Todoroki’s face tighten slightly, his smile dropping as he recalled his conversation with Shinsou unbeknownst to the green-haired boy who was currently staring at him in concern.

“I’m fine, thank you for seeing me. That…means a lot to me.” He said, doing his best to sound reassuring as to not burden Midoriya anymore than he was already doing.

Midoriya seemed to buy it, nodding along to his words.

“Are you headed home now?” He asked him as he remembered it was after-school.

“Ahh yes! Just wanted to make sure you were alright before I left…I can go now though?” The shorter teen started to grow anxious thinking that Todoroki wanted him to leave.

Not thinking anything of it, Todoroki simply nodded and started walking to the exit, Midoriya’s shoulders slumped in defeat, always one step forward two steps back with this guy.

“Let’s go together.” Todoroki’s words snapped Midoriya out of his slump, he shook his head trying to see if he misheard him.

“Huh?” He questioned dumbly.

Todoroki jerked his head in the direction of Midoriya’s house.

“I’ll walk with you…I need to go to the comic book store anyways.” He tried to play off, but that didn’t stop Midoriya from grinning at the gesture.

With a skip in his step, Midoriya walked alongside Todoroki back to his place.

“Oh! Thank you for finding and returning the concealer by the way.” Midoriya looked up at Todoroki with a grin.

“I had used them to cover up a few spots, Emi would’ve killed me if she found out I lost it.” He continued blabbing about the product, not realising that Todoroki hadn’t the faintest idea what he was talking about.

Before he could tell him such however, Midoriya’s phone buzzed snapping him out of his rambling.

“Oh! Sero texted back.” Midoriya said with a smile as he quickly went to typing. This caused Todoroki to nearly falter in his steps.

“Sero from our class? What does he want?” Todoroki asked in his usual tone but his eyes looked slightly focused as they tried to peek at Midoriya’s phone.

He quickly looked away in embarrassment however when Midoriya looked back at him to reply.

“He wants to take me out for lunch tomorrow! As an apology for the whole cake accident. Isn’t that so nice? I honestly feel bad, I hope he lets me pay for at least half the meal.” Midoriya said in a sweet tone as he went back to typing.

Todoroki nodded numbly, not that Midoriya was even looking anyways, still engrossed in talking with Sero.

And that was perfectly fine, there was nothing wrong with Midoriya having friends, he had no issues with Uraraka either. So why was he feeling so weird about this?

“If you feel bad, maybe you should cancel it. No reason to get stressed over something unnecessary.” Todoroki said smoothly, trying not to warrant any suspicion from the boy.

Midoriya waved him off with his hand. Unaware of the inner turmoil his friend was having.

“Yeah I thought so too, but then I thought—it would probably be rude to cancel when he’s gone out of his way to propose such a nice gesture. Then I’d feel even more bad!” He spoke casually, though any fellow over-thinker could tell Midoriya had definitely spent hours worrying over it.

“I suppose you’re right.” Todoroki conceded, realising he should just drop it to not cause the boy anymore stress.

“Anyways, enough about him.” Midoriya quickly put his phone away.

“Why don’t you join Yaoyorozu’s study group? The girls were telling me how they’ve been practically begging for you to come to their sessions.” He teased lightheartedly.

Todoroki shrugged, like he hadn’t given it much thought.

“I average first in all my classes, I didn’t really feel a point in going.” He said absentmindedly, as if that wasn’t an amazing achievement on its own.

“Wow you really are amazing you know, meanwhile I’m gonna need all the help I can get.” Midoriya whined as he recalled back to maths class where he couldn’t answer a single algebra question.

“All the formulas just left my head! I felt like such an idiot.” The boy complained as he retold the events to Todoroki.

“So, will you also be going to the study sessions then?” Todoroki inquired.

Midoriya nodded, immediately brightening up at the mention of it.

“Yep! We’re having a few sessions to prepare us for midterms.” He explained.

Todoroki hummed in thought before nodding, as if he had made his mind up about something.

“I’ll think about coming along then. I don’t want to see you struggling on the exams…even if they are pretty easy.” Todoroki said, smiling a little as Midoriya shouted back protests at the utter ‘lies and slander’ of that statement.

“Can you really not remember algebra formulas? Tell me the formulas for Sin, Cos and Tan.” He said, thinking he started off with an easy example.

He took a look back at Midoriya in surprise though, when the boy started to shrink in on himself.

“That’s the one to do with triangles right?” Was all he could say in response.

“Okay, for the sake of your grades I’ll be at that study session no matter what.” He looked so serious as he said it, causing Midoriya to get even more annoyed.

“Why does that make me not want you to come anymore? Todoroki, just do my exams for me.” He almost pleaded as he looked at the boy with puppy dog eyes.

“I’d love to but I don’t think I can clone myself.” Todoroki said, taking the boy 100% seriously.

“Ughhhhh. You’re supposed to be smart, figure it out.”

—————————

As soon as Midoriya got home, he figured an emergency mud mask was in order so he could look good for lunch with Sero tomorrow. It’s not as if he was trying to impress the boy or anything, but he wanted to make an effort at the very least.

Midoriya went to the room by the front of the house where his mum had her beauty and hair salon and found his mum cutting one of the regulars hair.

“Oh Izuku! Look at you! I barely recognised you without your glasses and braces and oh my did you look a bit of weight as well?” The old woman asked with eyes of admiration as she shamelessly looked the boy up and down.

‘A lot of weight actually.’ Midoriya thought self-consciously, hoping it actually looked like he lost the amount of weight that he had over the summer.

His mother tutted fondly at the woman’s comments and went to hug her son.

“Welcome back sweetie, did you need something?” Inko asked, Midoriya didn’t usually come to her salon room unless it was urgent.

“Please can you put on my mud mask?” Midoriya pleaded, not even waiting for an answer as he went to one of the lounging chairs to lie down in.

“Sure thing hunny, but we’ve ran out of cucumbers so I can’t put any over your eyes like usual.” Inko said fondly as she went over to grab the mixture she usually kept stored away for him in her mini fridge that was filled with hair dyes and creams.

Midoriya tried not to look too bothered, at risk of looking like a drama queen in front of his mother’s customers, and simply waved it off.

He slipped on his hairband to push his bangs away from his face and let his mother apply the product.

Thirty minutes had passed, Midoriya decided to let the mask set in for another couple minutes before taking it off as he was lying down contently in the salon, listening to the smooth jazz emitting from his mothers old radio.

Speaking of Inko, she was bidding goodbye to the old lady at the door before she quickly gasped in excitement.

“Mihoko!? Is that really you?”

Midoriya raised a brow at that name, he couldn’t see who his mother was talking to but the name oddly rang a bell.

After a few more greetings, the sound of crying from his mother, though that wasn’t anything new crying ran in the family, and a few shuffling footsteps. Inko cheerfully called out to Midoriya from the door of the salon.

“Midoriya, you remember your auntie Mihoko right? She brought her son along too!”

Now this definitely rang a bell, he remembered the woman barely, but she was a close friend of his mother’s growing up. Inko mentioned her from time to time, saying she was now in recovery over her worsening health condition.

“Oh hi auntie—Shinsou!?” Midoriya promptly fell from his position on the salon bed and onto his butt as he peered up at a smiling but concerned Mihoko, and a dumbfounded Shinsou.

Shinsou’s mother let out a warm giggle.

“I thought we were past surnames Izuku, you were never this shy growing up! I see you’re still as handsome as you were when you were little.” She teased fondly.

‘Thank god I didn’t get ugly till middle school, otherwise she would’ve spilled the beans in front of Shinsou.’ He took the time to be grateful as he quickly got back up from his position on the floor.

“Phahahaha!” Midoriya’s eyes darted to Shinsou, who was currently pissing himself laughing whilst pointing at the green-haired (now also green-faced) boy.

“This is too much.” Shinsou was full on clutching his stomach, doubled over before eventually standing back up to wipe a tear from his eye. This definitely wasn’t helping Midoriya beat the walking talking skin care product allegations.

“I can’t believe our mothers are friends.” Midoriya said with a pout as he batted away Shinsou’s hand from trying to touch his hair for the third time.

“I can’t believe how funny your hair looks when it’s pulled back like this, it’s like it’s got a mind of it’s own.” He snickered as he managed to grab onto another tuff of Midoriya’s hair, and pull it before letting it bounce haphazardly on its own.

“Quit it!” Midoriya huffed as he moved himself further away on the couch they were sitting on. They had left their mothers to catch-up in the kitchen whilst Shinsou just followed Midoriya to the living room, not knowing what else to do.

“Boys! Come over here.” Midoriya’s mother called out to them, making the green-haired teen get up in an instant.

He abruptly turned around once he saw Shinsou’s hand reach up again.

“Hands to yourself got it?” Midoriya said with a frown, it almost looked cute however, his face mask had been washed off at this point but his hair was still up from his headband and was flying in random directions.

He would’ve taken it off ages ago if it wasn’t for the fact that his face was still damp and he didn’t want his hair getting stuck to it.

“Yessir.” Shinsou said with a smirk as he beckoned for Midoriya to lead the way.

They found their mothers sitting drinking tea. Midoriya took the time to examine Shinsou’s mum. She looked happy but it’s clear that she’s definitely still unwell, guess the rumours were true that Shinsou had taken time off school to look after her.

“What a happy coincidence that you two are in the same class!” Shinsou’s mother recalled fondly as Inko nodded in agreement.

“I’m surprised we didn’t know about this sooner, I’m so glad you decided to come visit. I know it isn’t easy for you to make these kinds of travels nowadays.” Inko regarded with a sympathetic smile.

“Yes it’s true, I’ve been coming in and out the hospital for years now. But today I felt oddly reenergised and asked Hitoshi to come with me to see his auntie.” She said with a grin.

“I’m sure it was nice of him to also reunite with his old playmate, Izuku. I’m sure they both forgot that they used to play together growing up. They were so little after all, barely even five when we still all lived in the same neighbourhood.”

“Yeah, no kidding.” Shinsou remarked under his breath, causing Midoriya to nod wholeheartedly.

“And now they’re both studying together in high school.” Inko sighed fondly before turning to Mihoko with a grin.

“You know, Izuku wants to be a dermatologist when he grows up.” Inko said with a laugh causing Midoriya’s mood to sour even more.

“That checks out.” Shinsou commented off-handedly, which actually felt oddly validating. He hadn’t wanted anyone to know about his dream job, but seeing Shinsou just accept it so quickly felt nice.

“I hope it’s just a phase and he can go back to focusing on his studies to venture into more realistic opportunities, I know he can do so much better.” His mother continued, thinking that she was only looking out for her son but in actuality it felt more like a slap in the face.

He could feel Shinsou nudging him with his foot. Probably trying to gauge his reaction on the subject, but Midoriya didn’t feel like talking right then and there.

He didn’t stop trying to get his attention until Midoriya promptly stepped on his foot, causing the taller boy to let out a silent yell in response.

“I wish the same for my Hitoshi too, now that he’s finally returned back to school I can stop feeling so worried about him not progressing like the other kids. It helps too that he’s promised to quit riding his motorcycle, definitely puts my mind at ease.” She said with a solemn nod as she put her hand over her heart.

In that moment, she didn’t notice how Midoriya’s eyes immediately widened, realising that Shinsou was blatantly going behind his mother’s back and was still riding his bike every day.

He was about to snitch on him when he felt Shinsou pinch him in the side with his fingers, causing him to jerk in shock like he’d been electrocuted.

One glaring look from the insomniac, and Midoriya suddenly didn’t feel like ratting Shinsou out anymore. It was good info to have on the back burner though.

Later on that day, when Shinsou and his mother had left, Inko had told Midoriya that the boys father had long ago been killed in a motorcycle accident.

Guess that explained why his mother was so dead-set on him not riding anymore. It begged the question however on why then would Shinsou still insist on driving one.

—————————

It was the next day, and finally time for Midoriya to go out with his classmate Sero for lunch. They met up at the agreed café in town and the green-haired boy had walked in to already find him in there.

“Midoriya! You sure clean up nicely.” Sero regarded with a grin as he looked the boy up and down, admiring the outfit.

Midoriya had thrown on the one non-tacky shirt he owned, a cream and green plaid button-up with loose grey jeans.

Sero thankfully dressed casually as well, as he wore a plain yellow hoodie and form fitting black jeans, the cuffs going just above his ankles.

Sero mock guided Midoriya to his seat, pushing the chair in for him and making a grand bow before sitting in the seat opposite him. This caused the boy to chuckle at his antics, dispersing some of the tension he once had.

“Now, I don’t want you to get your hopes up too much, I’m definitely not here to steal you away or anything. I don’t wanna get any flack from the two stallions in class.” Sero said jokingly, appearing to talk into his hoodie as if he was mic-ed up.

“Ugh, not you too.” Midoriya said with a smile as he pretended to be annoyed. He rolled his eyes as Sero gave him an exasperated expression.

“I’ve barely been at school a week Sero, I don’t even remember the names of most of the people in our homeroom class let alone have any relationships with them.” He said vaguely though they both knew who Midoriya were referring to.

Sero held his hands up in a surrendering motion.

“Fine fine, if you insist. Anyways, we’re not here to talk about those bozos, they’ve already gotten enough attention these days.” He rested his elbows on the table and put his chin atop his folded hands.

“So! Whats your favourite colour?” Sero began with a very common date question as a joke, causing Midoriya to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. He couldn’t ask for anything more though, Sero was extremely easy-going. It wasn’t hard to fall into step with him and go along with his banter.

Meanwhile, just outside the cafe, a wild Todoroki was lurking, subtly trying to sneak glances from out the window as he spied on the two boys.

The plan was for him to head to the comic book store after his math tournament, which he won of course, but on his way over he caught sight of a tuff of green hair and soon recognised the face that came with it.

Now, ten minutes later, Todoroki was watching Midoriya as he sat with their classmate. He couldn’t help but frown at every time Midoriya let out a laugh, which was a lot of the time.

As if things couldn’t get anymore crowded, Shinsou also made an appearance. As soon as he saw Todoroki’s unmistakable red and white coloured hair, he rubbed his eyes together in exasperation, wondering if it was too late to turn around.

On the other side though, it was too good of an opportunity to pass up taunting Todoroki in public.

“Well well well, who’s following who now?” Shinsou drawled to the back of Todoroki, and he almost laughed when he saw the teens face morph into a frown through the windows reflection.

“Shinsou.” Todoroki responded in a bored tone.

“What are you doing here?” This caused Shinsou to pause in confusion, he was about to grill Todoroki for the blatant stalking but the question threw him off.

He simply pointed a thumb to the cafe behind the boy.

“I work here. You know, the thing people have to do to make a living, not that you’d get it.” He couldn’t tell it from what he was wearing, but he had taken all his piercings out and was wearing plain working shoes along with his normal attire. His work uniform was shoved in his bag.

Todoroki looked confused as his eyes briefly panned back over to the cafe before stopping himself. It was too late though, as Shinsou caught on fast.

“So if you’re not here for me, why the hell are you—ohh?” An evil grin formed on Shinsou’s lips as he spotted Midoriya and Sero chatting at the table.

“Don’t tell me even someone as pretentious as you has resorted to spying on his classmates. You scared he’s gonna run off with him or something?” He mocked, though his eyes lit up with glee when he recalled how silly Midoriya looked yesterday.

Before Todoroki had the chance to retort back, loud greetings and laughter was heard from inside.

It seemed that somehow, without the pair noticing, Uraraka and Kaminari had entered into the café and were now crashing on Midoriya and Sero’s lunch. Not that either boy appeared to mind though as they both let out easy grins at the duo.

“Well on that note, i’ll leave you to your wallowing.” Shinsou, looking bored, called out as he started to head in.

In that moment, Todoroki made a move to grab Shinsou by the arm, but it seemed his hammerhead shark eyesight was once again coming in handy as the purple-haired boy quickly grabbed Todoroki’s wrist before he could touch him.

“I’m going in too.” Todoroki, who appeared unfazed by the contact, said anyways. Causing Shinsou to push him back in response with a look of outrage.

“Like hell you are! There is no way I’m letting you come into my place of work and expect me to serve your pompous ass.”

They continue to squabble until they make it inside the the café still pushing and swatting at each other.

“You’re gonna make me late for my shift—”

“Then go, no one is stopping you.”

“I would rather choke then let you stay in this vicinity for more than another five seconds.”

“Choke then.”

As they carried on in their fruitless battle, Uraraka took notice of the melodrama playing out before them and, because she lived for the drama, said loud enough so they could hear—

“So how’s your date going, Midoriya?”

Instantly, a collective ‘WHAT?’ is heard from the two boys, causing the rest of the group to join Uraraka in staring at the duo, some with amused expressions and others in pure shock.

“Damn Midoriya, I think you’ve attracted a following.” Kaminari commented as he proudly patted the boy on the shoulder.

Shinsou huffed in annoyance and quickly left to go get changed in the staff room whilst Todoroki gave an awkward wave to Midoriya before leaving in a rush too, heading to the comic book store so he could hang his head in shame in private.

The rest of the ‘date’ went wonderfully.

With Uraraka and Kaminari tagging along, the group decided to go watch a movie and then hang out at the arcade together. And at the end of it all, Sero even walked Midoriya home which was super sweet and completely unnecessary as the boy kept trying to reiterate to him numerous times.

“You’re cool Midoriya, don’t be a stranger!” Were the words Sero left him with as he gave the boy a tight hug, purposely making him wheeze in response before heading back home himself.

Midoriya could only sit down on his bed later that night as he peered up at the ceiling and thought ‘Is this what high school is really like?’

He hoped it stayed this interesting.

Chapter Text

During the next day of school, homeroom went just about how Midoriya would’ve expected. Mr Aizawa was sleeping under his desk, Todoroki was reading another one of Midoriya’s comics (though he didn’t mind), and Uraraka and Kaminari were sat behind him having a one sided conversation with the stoic boy about how wonderful their ‘group date’ was.

“Todorokiiii you missed out!” Uraraka teased as she continued to try and get the boys attention.

To the normal eye, one would think that Todoroki was ignoring his classmates.

But Midoriya knew better, telling from the page that Todoroki was on, he was clearly so immersed in the Underground Masquerade Arc from volume VII, that he definitely didn’t even realise they were speaking to him.

“Yeah Rokiii, why did you have to dip as soon as we saw you? We even all got ice cream together—well Midoriya didn’t cause of his lactose intolerance but stillll…wait what sounds better, Todo or Roki? Eh, I’ll workshop it.” Kaminari finished his waffling with a determined grin as the pair continued to blab at their oblivious classmate.

In that moment, Midoriya wondered if Kaminari’s desk had grown any cobwebs by now from how often he was just sat with Uraraka at her desk. He did find it adorable though.

He also may have lied to them about the whole lactose intolerance thing. Truth be told, he wasn’t, but Midoriya couldn’t risk straying off his diet again after the last pimple flare-up so it was a much needed alibi for future use.

Just then, he felt a lanky arm sling itself around Midoriya’s shoulders. He tried not to let himself tense up, finding the instinct to do so natural after how many times bullies in the past had done it as an intimidation tactic.

He calmed down when he realised it was just Sero, clearly he had overheard Uraraka and Kaminari’s incessant ramblings.

“You guys know it’s bad to kiss and tell after a first date.” He teased with a chuckle following shortly after, making Midoriya smile as he felt his laugh rumble through his chest at the close contact.

“Sero!” Uraraka beamed as she took notice of him.

Kaminari, also seeing their classmate rock up, nearly shoved Uraraka off their shared chair in excitement as he leaned over their desk to look at him.

“So how about it Sero, you taking our boy out on a second date?” He asked with a mock seriousness, and since when were Kaminari and Uraraka his parents now?

The notion of having a family in class made him blush, causing the trio to laugh with him in amusement.

Sero pretended to take an examining look at him whilst he was still leaning on the boy before grinning slyly.

“He’s cute and all…but I’m more into blondes.” He jokes and wiggles his brows at Kaminari, causing the blonde to play along instantly. He fell back in his chair with a dramatic wail as he clutched his heart, pretending like he got shot by Cupid.

They all failed to notice the way Todoroki’s shoulders slumped down in relief, as if he was taking Sero’s advancements with Midoriya seriously.

Speaking of advancements, a bottle of strawberry juice slammed down on Midoriya’s desk, causing Sero to flail back in response and letting his hold on Midoriya go.

Everyone, except Midoriya, looked up from their seats in shock as Shinsou was stood smirking beside the green-haired boys desk.

He stood proud as the rest marvelled at the bottle of juice that he had delivered, frequently panning their gaze between it and the one guilty for placing it there.

“Good morning, pretty boy.” He spoke casually, and if Midoriya wasn’t already red before, he was bordering scarlett now.

“It’s Midoriya, Mi-dor-ee-ya.” The ‘pretty boy’ in question retorted. He couldn’t keep getting near heart attacks every time the guy called him that, Midoriya doesn’t think he’s ever heard the guy say his actual name.

Instead of correcting himself, Shinsou shrugged and cocked his head to the side in an unbothered gesture.

“Eh, too many syllables.” He replied back as an excuse, causing Kaminari to laugh once he was stunted out from his look of surprise.

Shinsou’s attention didn’t go to his fan though, instead his eyes drifted from Midoriya to Todoroki, who was in that moment doing his best to not let the situation get a rise out of him.

The cogs in Midoriya’s head turned as he slowly realised what Shinsou was trying to do.

With that, the insomniac nodded down towards the bottle and said, “something to remember me by until lunch,” before walking to the back of the class to take his seat.

“Y-You’re literally three rows away, how could I forget you?” Midoriya tried to question with some level of sass but unfortunately, he was too flustered for it to come off that confident.

His comment seemed to ignite a glint in Shinsou’s eyes though.

“You saying I’m unforgettable?” He asked loud enough for the class to hear, as if they all weren’t already watching. They all ‘ooo’ed in response.

“W-Why did you choose strawberry anyway?” Midoriya didn’t know why he kept going, he should’ve just ignored the gesture and gone back to getting teased by his friends instead.

“Because you remind me of one.” Shinsou said with a grin as he looked Midoriya’s face up and down. From the deep shade of red Midoriya was currently and his curly green hair being one of his most prominent features, he really did closely resemble a strawberry.

And that’s not even mentioning his freckles, that could resemble the seeds.

He let out an exasperated groan and finally turned back round in his desk, feeling comforting pats from Uraraka and Kaminari, which would feel reassuring if they weren’t also laughing!

He even heard Kaminari distinctly let out a “damn, Midoriya moved on quick.” In reference to his previous ‘love interest’, Sero. They were gonna drive him crazy.

He felt something knock his foot, he looked down from where he was slumped on his desk to see Todoroki’s shoe nudging him.

He rolled his head over in his arms to look beside him at his friend. He appreciated how Todoroki wasn’t letting his anger from Shinsou look apparent, only concern showed for the boy in front of him as his brows were slightly furrowed in concern.

Midoriya nudged his foot back.

“I’m okay.” He whispered with a small smile, which helped Todoroki to relax. At sight of the boy, Midoriya went back to examining the look Shinsou gave the dual-haired student earlier.

It was definitely provoking that’s for sure, it resembled the same look he gave him in the cafeteria yesterday, but there was something else hidden there.

In a way, it was also almost threatening.

—————————

Whack

Another paper ball fell to the floor.

Every time their English teacher had his back to the board, Shinsou would fling a paper ball at the back of Midoriya’s head.

This had been happening for about ten minutes now.

In that regard alone, it was annoying sure, but it was tolerable.

What he couldn’t stand though, was that the paper balls had messages inside.

Midoriya would’ve thought it was a bullying tactic if not for those disgustingly flirtatious one liners that were written inside them.

Even when he should be embarrassed, his overworking-mind instead pondered if Shinsou grew up with the ‘they only pick on you cause they like you’ excuse and is now running with it.

Again, their teacher turned around and Midoriya sighed in anticipation as he waited for another ball to fly over. As if on cue, the scrunched-up ball bounced off his shoulder and landed right in front of him.

He hesitantly picked it up off his desk, opened it and read the message:

‘The nape of your neck looks perfect from where I’m sat’

He quickly fought back a shudder, knowing Shinsou was watching him for a reaction and instead tried to casually rub the back of his neck, willing the burning sensation away.

Again, two minutes later, another note came:

’Drop the skin care routine, pretty boy’

This one almost made him laugh, but he remained strong. He didn’t want Shinsou or Todoroki, who was trying incredibly hard not to glare feverishly at the purple-haired boy for Midoriya’s sake, to see that it was effecting him.

Ignoring your bullies didn’t always work, but Midoriya felt in this instance Shinsou would definitely get bored soon and stop trying.

Then, another ball came,

’I love it when you ignore me’

…At this point, Midoriya wished he was getting bullied instead.

Eventually, when the twentieth ball gets thrown, Todoroki was at his breaking point and fully launched up from his chair to catch the paper ball mid-air before chucking it out the window.

Seeing that Shinsou got the reaction he wanted, he stopped. Though he wouldn’t have minded a reaction from the green-haired boy either. Guess he’ll have to try a bit harder.

—————————

The next attack came during the shift between classes. Midoriya was heading over to his history class when he felt something warm spill on the back of his blazer. From the smell he could tell it was coffee so at least it wasn’t hot enough for it to burn.

He turned around and watched as the boy who spilt it was apologising to him for the accident, though all Midoriya was thinking about was how familiar he looked. He had definitely seen this guy before, though he didn’t think he was in the same year as him.

But when Shinsou arrived out of nowhere, it soon became obvious which group this guy belonged to.

As if on cue, Shinsou was taking a jacket out of his bag and moving over to Midoriya to try and take his blazer off.

“Oh you poor thing!” He said very unsympathetically as he finally tugged the blazer off of Midoriya who half-heartedly struggled against it.

“Luckily I always keep spare clothes on hand, aren’t I sweet?” Shinsou said as he dipped his head to face Midoriya who was glaring at him in response.

“Shinsou, why are you doing this?” Midoriya asked though there was a lot to unpack with that question. He knew he was acting out to piss off Todoroki, but why involve him? Why go through all this trouble?

“I’m afraid I have no idea what you mean, pretty boy. You know my mom would kill me if I didn’t look out for you.” He feigned innocence as he practically batted his eyelashes at the unconvinced boy.

“Now, put on my jacket.” He more so ordered than asked as he held it outstretched for him. Clearly none of Midoriya’s questions were getting answered anytime soon.

When the green-haired boy made no attempt to move, Shinsou raised a brow.

“Or do you need me to put it on for you?” He questioned harmlessly, though Midoriya could practically hear the threat of a promise hidden under it.

“Fine!” He quickly snatched the item of clothing from the smug boy and put it on, albeit it was a big fit but it was rather soft. It was also black, Shinsou’s apparent signature colour.

“Thanks…I’ll be sure to return it tomorrow.” Midoriya promised, still trying to keep his manners.

He still didn’t know why he thanked the boy though, since he practically orchestrated the whole thing. And now he had to pray that Todoroki wouldn’t ask about the jacket.

“As will I.” Shinsou said with a grin as he waved Midoriya’s blazer in front of his face before quickly stuffing it into his bag before he could snatch it off from him.

“Jerk.” Midoriya mumbled as he trudged away from the taller teen, doing his best to appear annoyed but secretly he was just terrified of Todoroki finding out about this and starting another fight with Shinsou.

“Oh how I love watching you walk away from me.” Shinsou called out to him, Midoriya could practically hear his smirk in his voice.

“Knock it off!” He yelped back.

He muttered more annoyances as he heard Shinsou belt out laughter from the distance.

—————————

“Hey, how come you’re not wearing your blazer, Midoriya?” Uraraka questioned innocently.

“Yeah what’s up with the jacket? Is our boy trying to be rebellious in school?” Kaminari helpfully added on as he teased him.

“Guys leave Midoriya alone he looks…constipated? Midoriya, are you okay?” It seemed even class pres Yaoyorozu couldn’t help herself from saying what was on her mind as all three of Midoriya’s friends looked at him with amused concern.

“I don’t wanna talk about it.” Midoriya moaned before promptly placing his head down on the table. It was lunch time now and the group had just met up and sat down before the comments immediately started about Midoriya’s new look.

“Midoriya hunny, lift your head up, you know these lunch ladies don’t clean the tables properly, you’ll break out.” Yaoyorozu said with concern, and at the risk of getting more pimples, Midoriya shot up so fast he almost got whiplash.

Speaking of whiplash, Todoroki practically burst through the door, causing several heads, including their groups, to turn at the noise.

The boy frantically glanced round the cafeteria until his gaze landed on Midoriya. And as if nothing of note happened, Todoroki cleared his throat and calmly went to sit next to him.

“How are we all?” He asked the group casually as he began pulling his lunch from his bag.

“Dude, you scared the shit out of me.” Kaminari gasped breathlessly, still recovering from the shock of his classmates sudden entrance.

It didn’t take long for Midoriya to realise why Todoroki had acted like that, as almost a second after the canteen returned back to some form of normalcy, the doors burst open again. This time it was Shinsou and his lackies trailing behind him.

Midoriya purposely stopped looking as soon as he saw Shinsou begin to trail his eyes around the canteen, clearly in search for him. He prayed this newfound attention he was getting from Shinsou would stop soon, he might get heatstroke from the amount of times his face flushed red.

Shinsou’s gaze finally landed on a head of green hair as the boy it belonged to was suspiciously really invested in the food he was eating. Shinsou resisted the urge to roll his eyes when he saw Todoroki glaring back at him, practically egging him to start something.

Todoroki figured out it would be pretty hard for Shinsou to annoy him through Midoriya if the two were practically joined together at the hip.

Shinsou simply shrugged his shoulders as if to say ‘I know when I’m bested’ as he called for his group to head out.

Despite his walk of defeat, Todoroki had a feeling that Shinsou wasn’t quitting anytime soon. Even though they weren’t friends anymore, there was a time when he knew Shinsou like the back of his hand. So he was well aware that the boy was incredibly stubborn.

For now though, Todoroki sighed in relief at the momentary peace and went back to the conversation the rest of the group was having.

Hey, wait a second.

“Midoriya, why are you wearing Shinsou’s jacket?”

“Ughhhhh.”

Despite the risks, Midoriya’s face headed straight back to the table. It helped though that Todoroki had great reflexes and had at least stretched his hand out on the table to catch Midoriya’s forehead before it landed.

“This is a surprise Shouto, I can’t remember the last time you sat down with anyone for lunch. What brought this on?” Yaoyorozu asked with genuine interest causing Uraraka and Kaminari to mimic her and lean forward in anticipation.

“I’m playing bodyguard right now.” Todoroki deadpanned with genuine sincereness causing Midoriya to lift his head back up to let out a surprised laugh.

“Shinsou isn’t some kind of thug Todoroki.” Midoriya said, still laughing at the idea of himself needing protection. So far all Todoroki has done is protect him from himself, whether it’s been grazing his knees to slamming his head on a table. We dont even need to mention that day on the rooftop.

Todoroki ultimately nodded at Midoriya’s comment.

“I know, but he’s too childish for his own good. If I don’t get you out of this mess then he’s never going to stop annoying you.” Todoroki said earnestly causing Midoriya to grimace at the thought.

“Is Shinsou bothering you again Midoriya? As class rep I can have a word with him, or even get Mr Aizawa involved.” Yaoyorozu said with a determined look in her eyes, though Midoriya remembered that the last guy that bothered Midoriya got his ass handed to him by this girl.

“You’re too fierce Yaomomo, Shinsou wouldn’t be able to handle all of you.” Kaminari teased causing her to giggle, completely shattering any threatening bone in her body.

“Besides, it wouldn’t do you any good snitching to Aizawa, he’s got a soft spot for that guy. And no matter what Shinsou says I’m sure they’re related!” Kaminari declared dramatically.

Todoroki shook his head.

“I’m telling you they’re not, trust me I spent years on that train of thought. You will waste so much time.” Todoroki spoke from experience, back in middle school he even had a red string board of his theory that Shinsou was actually Aizawa’s secret love child. Sadly, he reached a dead end with it once the dna results came back.

“You did what!?” Midoriya shrieked at the bombshell information as Todoroki explained how he actually took both of Aizawa’s and Shinsou’s strands of hair and sent them off to a lab to get tested.

“Damn rich kids man.” Uraraka said with a huff as she slumped down in her seat.

“…No but really Midoriya, take Shinsou’s jacket off let me give you my one.”

“You know you can be just as childish as him right!?”

—————————

Midoriya was feeling rather lucky. Lunch time had gone on peacefully, he had a great time chatting with his friends and was happy to see Todoroki conversing so naturally with everyone.

‘We should all have lunch together more often.’ Midoriya thought to himself with a smile as he headed inside the boys toilets.

After doing his business, he promptly flushed the toilet and opened the bathroom doors stall to head out.

“Missed me?”

“AHH!”

Midoriya nearly fell right back onto the toilet seat upon seeing Shinsou parked right outside his stall and leaning against it expectantly.

He took one last look at Midoriya’s priceless mortified expression before looking up and bringing his fingers to his mouth to let out a whistle.

“Alright boys, let’s help our friend get ready for class.” Shinsou called out.

And like magic, his haggle of friends stormed into the boys bathroom carrying towels, soap dispensers (he hoped they didn’t rip those off the walls), and assortments of cologne.

The green-haired boy simply huffed in defeat, and went over to wash his hands, accepting the soap from them and hesitantly taking a towel.

He drew the line at accepting the cologne though. Knowing that maniac, Shinsou probably made sure to bring in all of his own bottles and wanted Midoriya to smell like him for the rest of the day.

He had to give him props for his selection of scents though.

“Have a great class, pretty boy.” Shinsou called out to him giving Midoriya the urge to flip him off. This was so unlike him! He only got this annoyed with his younger brother, Kota.

He huffed off to class, praying that this was the last time he would see him for the day.

—————————

Final class of the day was gym, which reminded Midoriya that the surprise encounter in the bathroom was in fact not the last time he was going to see the purple-haired boy.

For now at least, he had more of an advantage in this situation to avoid him. Their teacher hadn’t arrived yet and most people were still in the process of getting changed and heading inside the gymnasium to sit and wait for their teacher.

Midoriya came to realise that Todoroki was a speedy changer so it was no surprise to see him already sat cross-legged on the floor of the hall waiting for class to start.

Smiling hopefully, Midoriya immediately made a beeline to go sit next to him. He figured if he was with Todoroki for the entirety of this lesson, Shinsou wouldn’t go near them.

Unfortunately, since Midoriya was so focused on Todoroki, he failed to notice the two predatory teens coming toward him until it was too late.

“Not so fast!” Lackey A called out as he looped his arm with Midoriya’s right one.

“You’re expected somewhere else.” Lackey B said afterwards, looping his arm with Midoriya’s left one.

With that, the two boys effortlessly dragged Midoriya backwards as they headed over to the further end of the gymnasium.

Midoriya connected the dots quickly, he couldn’t turn around properly to see but he just knew who had set them up to do this.

“Can’t we talk about this!? Are you guys even in this class!?” Midoriya tried struggling out of their grips, kicking his feet on the ground to try and stop them from moving. When that didn’t work, Midoriya simply went limp, hoping his dead weight was enough to slow them down.

It wasn’t, if anything they just went faster, Midoriya could only watch in defeat as his legs slowly dragged against the polished flooring.

When they reached their intended destination, they promptly pushed him down beside the awaiting Shinsou who caught him easily with a thrown out arm.

“Thanks for the delivery boys.” Shinsou said to the two boys whilst giving them a mock salut. Once they left, Shinsou looked to his captive with a smug grin.

“Shinsou, I know what you’re doing.” Midoriya said with a glare, though it failed to look intimidating whilst he was still trapped in Shinsou’s grasp.

As if a mask was taken off his face, Shinsou finally returned back to giving him his naturally bored expression.

“Well if you know what I’m doing then why aren’t you playing along? It would be so much easier.” He explained, losing his grip on the boy to rub his eyes tiredly.

“Cause you’re being mean Shinsou! Todoroki doesn’t deserve—” Midoriya’s squawking was interrupted when Shinsou let out a harsh laugh.

“You have no idea what that guy deserves, this is nothing in comparison if you knew what—” Then, it was Midoriya’s turn to cut him off, as he drew up his hands in frustration.

“Yeah, you’re right! I don’t know, I don’t know anything! Cause neither of you will tell me whilst I’m stuck in the middle without the faintest idea about what went down between you two!” Midoriya let out his grievances, immediately regretting it when he saw Shinsou’s shocked expression.

But dammit he was tired of being left in the dark. He felt guilty for something that frankly had nothing to do with him and he was sick of trying to placate the two boys whilst also having no idea about what the problem was. It was truly exasperating.

Shinsou looked away first, mouth pressed in a tight line as he sat in thought.

“I’m not trying to make friends.” Shinsou said simply.

“I’m sorry for getting you involved, but understand that I have to do this. Todoroki…did something awful—and he knows it too. Seeing him try to move past what happened and try and make friends with you. I couldn’t stand it.” He continued to explain though it was still quite ominous.

So Shinsou didn’t want Todoroki to have any friends? It seemed so much more complicated than that but without all the pieces, Midoriya couldn’t figure it out. It made him wonder if this was why Todoroki barely interacted with anyone in class.

Was that Shinsou’s doing? Or was it Todoroki’s guilt causing him to do it all on his own.

That thought alone made him feel so sad for his friend.

“…why can’t you just leave him alone? Why does it have to be you that needs to make things ‘right’.” Midoriya used quotation marks at that last word, cause frankly he didn’t think Shinsou’s attempts at pulling him away from Todoroki were the best way to stop him from making friends.

“Cause I’m the only one that knows what happened.” Shinsou said calmly, he was definitely finite in his decision, Midoriya was sure of it. He thought that this was the right path to go down and it was his duty to see it through, Midoriya wouldn’t be able to convince him otherwise.

“Like I said, I can’t tell you who you can and can’t be friends with. But I sure as hell am not gonna sit by whilst he does.” Shinsou said spitefully and in that moment, Midoriya felt like he may have underestimated just how deep the issue between them goes.

“He likes you a lot for some reason, he’s never tried this hard to be someone’s friend.” Shinsou observed Midoriya closely at that, like Midoriya himself was an enigma in this whole situation.

Midoriya thought back to how easily Todoroki was able to open up to him about his family, he thought back to that day on the rooftop when he was able to convince Midoriya to walk away from the ledge, a complete stranger.

“Maybe I’m the first one that showed him that moving on is okay. That no matter what he did, he can forgive himself.”

“Bullshit.” Shinsou quickly retorted, more on instinct than anything. But he quickly dropped the subject after that.

Midoriya sighed and brought his knees up to wrap his arms around his legs. Since they were all in their gym uniforms, wearing blue shorts and white tops, Midoriya’s knees were exposed, displaying the plasters that Todoroki had placed on him to cover his scrapes.

Shinsou, taking notice, bumped his knee against Midoriya’s in question.

“How’d you fuck your knees up like that?” He asked with a slight wince, noticing the spots of dried up blood that circled the worn plasters.

“Oh, I scraped them a couple days ago but Todoroki got me plasters for them.” Midoriya answered honestly, just because Shinsou had a problem with him didn’t mean he couldn’t even mention the boy.

In that moment, Shinsou appeared to be lost in thought, thinking back to the day when he saw Todoroki applying plasters to Midoriya’s knees inside that comic book store that he had seen them at when he went to return Midoriya’s item, (not that he had any idea what it was).

“…how long have you worn those plasters for?” Shinsou questioned slowly, not wanting to reveal that he knew that it’s been two whole days since Todoroki had given him those plasters.

Midoriya conveniently looked away in that moment, even going so far as to scratch the side of his head feigning ignorance.

“I can’t remember.” He lied.

Shinsou’s eyes narrowed, he put a hand on Midoriya’s knee, bringing it closer to his face to inspect the damage.

“They’re worn-out and bloody. You’ve definitely not changed them have you?” He scrutinised the boy who was looking sheepish all of a sudden.

“Okay fine I’ve not changed them! This is like the first nice thing a friend has done for me in a while…I got sentimental.” He mumbled the last bit, losing steam towards the end as Midoriya realised how silly he sounded.

On the other hand, Shinsou looked unimpressed.

“I thought you wanted to be a dermatologist, you’ll get an infection.” He stated matter of factly.

Midoriya knew he had a point, but he chose to be stubborn over all sense of reason.

“Then it’ll give me some practice in dealing with skin infections.” Midoriya said with a shrug as he tried to appear logical.

Shinsou mentally facepalmed as he eyed Midoriya with disbelief.

“Take those plasters off, and go clean those bloody knees so you can reapply some new ones.” Shinsou told him with a sense of finality, as if it was a father telling his son to go clean his room.

Midoriya though, has secretly always been a stubborn son. The curse of being the middle child.

“Okay, later.”

“No, now.”

“You’re not the boss of me!”

“Why are you being so difficult just—”

Realising he usually just sorted his problems out with his actions, Shinsou cut himself off and grabbed Midoriya’s legs to attempt to restrain them under his arm so he could use the other hand to remove the plasters.

Midoriya was a kicker though and promptly wrestled out from Shinsou’s hold. This went on for some time, with both boys being stubborn, they kept wrestling with each other trying to get the other one to quit.

Shinsou had the advantage with his annoyingly long limbs and was almost successful in removing the plasters off the boy.

Until Midoriya had an idea.

“Is this a bad time to tell you those plasters I gave you yesterday were from the same packet?” He strained out, though he appeared to deliver the message quite clearly as Shinsou immediately moved off of him with a yelp of disgust to rub at his face where Todoroki’s bandages once were.

“You’re not as innocent as you look you know, giving me plasters from the same guy that caused these scratches in the first place.” Shinsou said whilst pointing up at his face, unamused.

“You didn’t ask me where they came from.” Midoriya said with a bit of cheek, he sat a distance away from the boy incase he launched another attack to wrestle the plasters off of him again.

Shinsou pointed at him accusingly, before ultimately giving up and resting his arms on his knees, still pretty breathless from the previous brawl.

Midoriya appreciated that Shinsou had gone easy on him though, he handled him very differently in comparison to Todoroki when they had fought in the cafeteria. In the end all he wanted was to stop him from getting an infection.

Deciding to be the bigger man, Midoriya stood up with a huff.

“I’ll go change them now.” He said to Shinsou before rushing over to the changing room before their gym teacher eventually arrived.

He failed to see the smile that adorned Shinsou’s face as he watched him leave.

—————————

It was afterschool and Midoriya and his friends, (comprising of Uraraka, Kaminari, Todoroki and Yaoyorozu), were heading over to the library to have their long awaited study session.

Uraraka and Kaminari lead the way, grinning as they swung their bags of snacks side by side, chatting animatedly about random things. Midoriya wondered if the duo were more excited about eating than actually studying. He figured they were only allowed the money to buy all that junk food because of the study session.

Todoroki was chatting calmly with Yaoyorozu, and Midoriya smiled warmly as he noticed how happy their class pres looked. Clearly the two had known each other for a while but it was difficult for the girl to find the time to chat with Todoroki. Not to mention she had been supposedly trying to get Todoroki to join this study session for ages, she must’ve been pleased when he came up to them after class to come with.

Midoriya hung in the back of the group, content with just observing. He rolled his shoulder with a grimace.

When he had came back from reapplying his plasters, their gym teacher made them get into pairs to do stretches. Shinsou clearly took this as a sign of revenge and kept pushing Midoriya into uncomfortable positions. Like pushing his back down further whilst he was sat trying to touch his toes. That was his supposed way of ‘helping.’

‘Thank god he didn’t try making me do the splits.’ Midoriya thought to himself with a shudder.

Eventually, they arrived at the library, and the group got settled at a table pulling out their textbooks and laptops, or in Kaminari and Uraraka’s case, pulling out snacks and drinks.

Todoroki took a seat between Midoriya and Yaoyorozu. The class pres quickly took charge of the group, going over their current English assignment and asking if anyone was struggling with it.

Immediately, both Uraraka’s and Kaminari’s hands shot up. Midoriya let out a quiet chuckle when he saw Yaoyorozu resist the urge to roll her eyes at the expectant display and went into explaining the work.

Todoroki focused on his own work for a bit before nudging Midoriya.

“Did you need any help with English?” He asked politely. Midoriya appreciated that Todoroki was asking incase he was too shy to tell the group that he was struggling. But english was actually one of his strongest subjects.

“No I’m fine with English, I’m used to reading it in online forums of All might comic discourse enough to have a good handle of it.” He joked.

Todoroki nodded, taking him a hundred percent seriously.

“Sometimes when I leave bad reviews on my father’s movies, I write them in other languages so the hate against him looks more universal.” Todoroki said with a small smile, he was so clearly a menace, how did no one notice this?

Midoriya did his best to muffle his laughs, as not to disturb Yaoyorozu’s teaching.

“That’s genius, I aspire to have your level of pettiness.” Midoriya said back, pretending to adopt a serious tone to match Todoroki’s honest one.

Todoroki simply nodded in response.

“So did you need help with anything else? Maths maybe?” Todoroki said with a slight curve of his lips, remembering their previous discussions of Midoriya failing to tell him the formulas for sin, cos and tan.

Midoriya cheeks flushed lightly in remembrance.

“Maths, isn’t my strong suit..” He eventually admitted.

Todoroki closed his book and leaned over slightly to start writing the formulas in Midoriya’s textbook.

“We’ll go through it together then.” He said reassuringly causing Midoriya’s heart to flutter slightly. It didn’t help that the boy was also pretty close to him where he was leaning to get better access to his book, but Midoriya couldn’t find it in himself to move away.

The study session went on amicably. Uraraka, Kaminari and Yaoyorozu finished up their English assignments and Midoriya had finished up the practice algebra questions that Todoroki had made for him.

He marvelled at the fact that his friend had even gone so far as to draw out each triangle for him to work on.

“You got them all right, good job.” Todoroki said with a pleased expression as he handed back Midoriya’s book to him. Midoriya practically beamed in response.

Uraraka stretched her arms out and groaned in exhaustion.

“Right, I don’t know about you guys but I think we need to do something to de-stress.” She said to the group with a cheeky grin.

“Ochako, you only wrote one page—”

“I agree!” Kaminari interrupted Yaoyorozu’s protest as he slammed his hands down on the table excitedly.

Midoriya anxiously looked around at all the annoyed people in the library as they collectively glared at Kaminari’s ruckus.

“Okay…what do you wanna do?” Midoriya squeaked out hesitantly.

The green-haired boy regretted that question instantly when he saw the blonde and brunette look at each other simultaneously with knowing grins.

Ten minutes later, they were sat in a karaoke booth. The boys were watching Uraraka and Yaoyorozu sing out some old Justin Bieber song.

Midoriya and Kaminari cheered once they finished, whilst Todoroki politely clapped.

“Phew! I’m so thirsty after that.” Uraraka exclaimed with a laugh as she fanned her face, with Yaoyorozu nodding in agreement.

On instinct, Midoriya shot up and quickly offered to buy everyone drinks. Dealing with his bullies constantly asking him for favours brought out his bad habit whenever someone hinted that they needed something.

Todoroki offered to accompany him but Kaminari quickly dragged the boy to the stage, saying that he had lined up the song ‘Hot N Cold’ for them to sing together.

Midoriya waved them goodbye for now, and headed out the room. As he walked past the rooms, he took notice of a particularly good sounding voice coming from one of the karaoke booths.

It nearly made him stop walking completely as he listened to it, it sounded so sad but beautiful at the same time.

He wondered if whoever this mystery singer was, was a professional or not. If not they definitely should be, but he appreciated that not everyone wanted to do something like that.

He shook his head at his mind wondering and headed to the convenience store down the road to grab everyone some drinks.

Upon his return, he saw Shinsou’s motorcycle parked right outside the karaoke building, how had he not noticed that earlier?

Midoriya walked up to it, debating if he really should go along with reporting to Shinsou’s mother, Mihoko, that her son was still riding his bike.

“Whatever you’re planning on doing, don’t.” A familiar drawl called out to him.

He snapped his gaze up in shock, seeing the owner of the motorcycle stalk up to him.

“It would’ve been for your own good you know, driving this is so reckless.” Midoriya said with a huff as he looked up at Shinsou.

“Well it’s a good thing I’m a careful driver then.” He defended with narrowed eyes.

“Yeah, right.” Midoriya said with a huff of amusement as he looked back at the Karaoke building.

“Were you just at the Karaoke building too?” Midoriya questioned, trying to change the subject.

Whilst he was looking at the building though, he took notice of Todoroki who was peering out the window. Most likely looking to see where he was.

He panicked, knowing if Todoroki spotted him with Shinsou, he would see it as a threat and immediately come down to try and pick a fight with him. Thinking on his feet, he quickly grabbed Shinsou by the arm and dragged him round the side of the building into a narrow alleyway.

Shinsou looked bewildered by the situation but quickly recovered, throwing on a smirk at the situation.

“Dragging me to a secluded area, are you trying to seduce me, pretty boy?” Shinsou said flirtatiously, Midoriya couldn’t find it in himself to get embarrassed however, instead he rolled his eyes exasperatedly.

“Can you please learn my name already it’s Midoriya!” He exclaimed with a huff before continuing.

“And besides, it’s just us here, you don’t need to flirt with me.” Midoriya reminded the boy, causing him to look away in embarrassment.

“Oh..yeah right.” Shinsou said lamely as he coughed awkwardly at the realisation.

It seemed that they weren’t alone for long however as Midoriya’s shout caught the attention of a group of boys.

When he felt Shinsou immediately bristle beside him, he quickly realised that this was the same gang Midoriya saw Shinsou run from on the first day of school.

“Shinsou! There you are! We were wondering what hole you crawled and hid in this time.” Their supposed leader of the group called out.

He stood tall despite his smallish nature, and had bright blonde hair. Midoriya felt uneasy at the close resemblance to one of his old bullies from middle school.

Just the thought of him made Midoriya want to bolt.

Shinsou made an effort to stand in front of Midoriya so he wasn’t as easily seen. But in a desolate alleyway, it was hard not to take notice of who was there.

“Monoma, it’s a displeasure as always.” Shinsou retorted in a bored tone as he crossed his arms.

It didn’t take long for Monoma to spy the boy behind Shinsou.

“Oh! I hope we weren’t interrupting anything!” Monoma teased lightheartedly but even without knowing the guy, Midoriya could tell he was mocking them. The group behind Monoma proved this by laughing at them in response.

Whilst the group was distracted, Shinsou did his best to try and subtly push Midoriya’s chest back with his hand as an indication to get the hell away from there.

“Hey, beansprout.” Monoma called out once he knew Shinsou wasn’t going to reply.

Midoriya yelped at all the attention being on him. Shinsou, instantly stopped his attempts of pushing and cautiously darted his attention between the group and Midoriya.

“Why don’t you watch as we beat the shit out of your boyfriend. Or maybe it’ll be more fun if we make Shinsou watch for a change.” Monoma threatened, causing Shinsou to frown in irritation, clearly they weren’t going to just leave Midoriya alone.

As Shinsou tried to formulate a plan, he let out a yelp as he was suddenly being pulled back and out from the alley and onto the streets.

“Maybe some other time!” Midoriya called out as he dragged Shinsou with him and away from the group.

“Get them!” The pair heard Monoma yell and the sound of rushed footsteps alerted them that they were close behind.

Shinsou quickly took control of the situation, having been familiar with running away from these hooligans and removed Midoriya’s grip from his arm to then reverse the roles and grab onto Midoriya’s wrist, leading them faster down a hidden path.

Midoriya gladly let himself be pulled along by Shinsou, not trusting himself to lead them away to safety.

He did his best to keep up but since Shinsou’s legs were longer he was practically being dragged with him.

Eventually, they made it to a corner with two directions. Shinsou, thinking fast, kicked a bunch of boxes in one direction then dragged Midoriya to the opposite side to hide.

They watched as the group caught up to where they were and noticed the boxes that Shinsou had knocked over. As the purple-haired teen intended, the group assumed that the pair had gone in that direction and ran off, leaving them unnoticed.

Midoriya let go of a breath he didn’t know he was holding. The two sat in silence for a bit, relieved that their cover wasn’t blown.

Shinsou was the first to stand up, pulling Midoriya up with him in the process, which he appreciated knowing that his legs still felt a bit like jelly from the shock and all that running.

“It’s a good thing we stretched earlier.” Midoriya commented, making Shinsou laugh in response as he remembered back to gym class.

“Let’s head back before they realise they’ve been fucked with.” Shinsou said with a grin as he started to make his way back out to the busy streets.

Midoriya followed along, walking with his hands behind his back as he looked up at Shinsou with a questioning smile.

“What?” Shinsou asked, seeing Midoriya’s smile made him raise a brow in curiosity.

“You really don’t get along with people huh?” Midoriya said lightheartedly. Shinsou groaned slightly and pushed Midoriya away playfully in response.

“I hate those guys, they were from my old middle school. Monoma’s girlfriend took a liking to me in final year once my growth spurt kicked in.” He said with a shudder as if this girl was a menace in her own right.

“Anyways, Monoma was pissed and since then he’s been trying to kick my ass. He’s an asshole in general though, bastards got some sort of superiority complex.” He said with a huff as he kicked a nearby can.

Midoriya nodded along.

“I know the type…so did you like the girl back then?” Midoriya asked curiously but one look from Shinsou made him start feeling the need to explain himself.

“I-It’s only cause I can’t imagine why Monoma would be mad unless he thought you posed some kind of threat.” He tried to justify, causing Shinsou to snicker at his antics.

“I understood what you meant don’t worry. But no…girls aren’t really my area.” He said simply enough.

“Oh that’s okay! I get nervous around girls too.” Midoriya reassured him with a nod.

“Midoriya, I’m gay.” Shinsou reiterated for the shorter boy to finally understand.

“Ohhhh, wait really!?” Midoriya said in a surprised tone, not even realising that that was the first time Shinsou had called him by name.

“Was my flirting that bad?” Shinsou answered with a question of his own. Though he seemed to be enjoying the back and forth that they had going on between them.

“Maybe a little bit.” Midoriya teased, holding a hand up to push his thumb and forefinger close together to emphasise.

“Well, guess I’ll just have to try harder next time.” Shinsou said with a determined smirk, causing Midoriya to laugh in response.

“Try harder at sleeping first.” Midoriya answered back, looking up at Shinsou’s eye bags to prove his point.

“Wow, so he’s mean and ableist? I told you my insomnia is a real struggle.” Shinsou said jokingly but Midoriya still blushed at being called out.

They finally reached Shinsou’s motorcycle, Midoriya pulled out his phone to check the time whilst Shinsou was getting ready to leave.

“Oh crap!” Midoriya said in alarm as he looked at the messages from Uraraka.

“What?” Shinsou asked, turning around in his seat on the bike.

“Uraraka texted me to say that they’ve left and taken my bag home with her since I never came back. My wallet was in there, I need money for the bus back.” He said defeatedly as he pondered how long it would take him to walk back home.

“I’ll give you a ride.” Shinsou said casually as he reached out to the back of his motorcycle to unclip the spare helmet and hand it to him.

Midoriya took it hesitantly.

“Are you sure it’s…safe?” Midoriya questioned as he eyed the bike with caution. The story his mother had told him about Shinsou’s dad played in the back of his mind.

“Didn’t I tell you I’m a careful driver? Come on, don’t you trust me?” Shinsou asked in a mockingly sad tone causing Midoriya to roll his eyes with a grin and hop on.

He carefully wrapped his arms around Shinsou’s waist, causing the boy to still in response. Apart from that small hesitation, Shinsou went straight to revving up the engine and putting the foot clamp up before speeding away.

The ride home was incredibly fun. Midoriya even let out a few whoops when they went particularly fast, causing Shinsou to go even faster in response.

Midoriya quickly realised that Shinsou was a natural driver, he understood why he was so confident in not getting hurt, but whenever Midoriya squeezed a bit tighter than necessary he heard Shinsou cough a bit in response.

‘I hope I wasn’t accidentally crushing him.’ Midoriya thought to himself as he slowly dismounted from the bike once they had parked nearby his house. Shinsou didn’t want Midoriya’s mother to spot him riding his bike and report it to his own mother.

“Thanks for the ride, Shinsou.” Midoriya said with a grateful smile as he handed his helmet back to him.

“You owe me one.” Shinsou said playfully causing Midoriya to let out an amused sigh in response.

“Of course.” Midoriya didn’t feel threatened like he normally would, besides he had already gone through that whole accidental blackmail ordeal with Todoroki, he wasn’t about to go down the same rabbit hole again here.

“Midoriya.”

Well speak of the devil and he shall appear I guess!

“Todoroki!? What are you doing here?” Midoriya exclaimed in shock as he saw Todoroki stood up from the bench he was sat on. He frantically looked between him and Shinsou.

‘After I went through all that trouble to keep them apart, were they a couple in their last life??’ Midoriya thought in bewilderment.

“When you didn’t return for karaoke everyone got quite worried, I told the group I would go look for you.” Todoroki explained.

“Though, I guess you were fine.” He said in slight irritation as he glared at Shinsou who looked far too pleased with the whole situation.

“He doesn’t need round the clock surveillance, snow queen.” Shinsou drawled with a smirk.

“Alright, no—we are not doing this right now. Let’s just have everyone go home okay!?” Midoriya basically pleaded as he stood between the two boys.

Before anyone could make an effort to move however, a drunk woman was seen wobbling over to them.

“Ah jeez, no lady we don’t have any booze on us.” Shinsou called out to the woman, who was still stumbling her way over.

“Izuku…” the woman drawled out, as she came into better view under one of the street lamps, Midoriya would recognise that head of green locks anywhere.

“Emi!? What are you—you’re drunk!?” Midoriya quickly rushed over to put her arm over his shoulders to keep her upright.

Seeing Todoroki’s confused face, Midoriya quickly explained.

“She’s my older sister.” He said as he came back over to the two boys.

“Look, I gotta get her home, she’s not normally like this I swear—”

“Shinsou? S’that you?” His sister called out drunkenly as she pointed a weary finger up at the bewildered boy.

Shinsou meanwhile had been looking between Midoriya and Emi in shock, rubbing his eyes with his fingers once he made the connection.

“You guys are siblings, it makes so much sense now.” He said in realisation.

“Wait, you know my sister?” Midoriya asked with a tilt of his head. Emi was starting to grow restless and kept moving around a lot, causing Midoriya to stumble along with her.

“Let’s just worry about getting her home first yeah? Come on snow queen.” Shinsou said, brushing off the question as he walked beside Midoriya to take Emi’s arm off him and put it round his own shoulders.

Todoroki, not one to be impolite, especially in front of Midoriya’s family, quickly took the other side, hooking her arm over him.

The two argued back and forth the whole way back to Midoriya’s house as they simultaneously tried not to jostle her around too much incase she puked on them. Midoriya laughed whenever Emi got close to doing so and hearing either boy shriek in alarm.

“What a weird day.” Midoriya sighed to himself with a smile as he walked behind the odd trio back home.