#mha soulmate

[joelysmile]

Best sensei deserves best bento 🍱

#bkdk #ktdk

[pocket-snoodle]

Their arc has my soul. I started this in July… it’s November. LOOK I KNOW I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE GUILTY. I SEE YOU ARTISTS WHO DONT FINISH A PIECE TILL MONTHS LATER. IM WITH YOU.

Anyway, I love them so much. We need more appreciation for the development that went into their whole storyline

[girlatrocity]

first kiss

[chandralia]

I can’t believe Bakugo reminded AFO of Kudou not because of the hairstyle, or the eye color, or the attitude, but because he’s GAY

[mtchee]

Silence is Silver, Your Voice is Gold - [Katsuki Bakugo] SOULMATE SERIES | GN

blurb:

You've got the cranky egoist in 1A as your soulmate. Deemed as an 'extra' in his straight laced life, you've resigned yourself to covering your soul words and sealing your lips, becoming U.A's first year general course prodigy, the silent designer. Despite his distasteful character and colourful atittude, as one of Bakugo's primary costume creators, you work to your utmost to satisfy beyond your client's needs. It's unfortunate that despite your title, the angry pompom won't take a goddamn hint from your silence. When you even go out of your way to avoid him, you start to think that he knows you a little too well despite never having uttered a word.

cw: not edited, second-person-pov, [name] is a general course student, swearing, sassy [name], lowkey enemies to lovers, you hate him, he likes your attitude, onesided e2l??, i know nothing about textiles and design except the bare minimum, [name] and bakugo are kinda cute why am i eating this up omg, [name] tormenting bakugo with bright pink and ribbons

| masterlist | boku no hero academia collection |

[2.5k]

Avoiding Katsuki Bakugo has been a piece of cake.

The guy has such an inflamed ego that he expects the people to part for him wherever he walks.

You met him when the hero course first years were scheduled to mix with the costume design students to discuss both the practical and fashionable output of their hero costumes.

You'd been one of the main designer's for Bakugo's suit, with two others having asissted you in its curation. From his original sketch, you'd syphoned the relevant materials for the prototype, your colleagues aiding in the stitching and detail while you further assessed how it could potentially enhance the use of his quirk.

'Beat it, extra.'

The words had tingled on the back of your neck after he growled at you before you could consult him on his gauntlets' latest design. You had swiftly looked him up and down with disgust at his audaciousness before slapping your sketchpad on the table in front of him and storming off.

You remember hearing the maniacal laughter of his friends while one of your other classmate's (the designer of Shoji's suit) shakily explained to him your presence.

You'd had much better things to do that day, but had decided to go out of your way to personally discuss with him his preference in design and utility so you wouldn't have to go back and forth with various prototypes.

Instead, you got cussed out before saying a single word; what an utter waste of your generous time.

Like hell you were going to deal with a soulmate like that.

You started wearing a thick, velvet choker to hide your golden inked soul words.

Since then, you'd sent your assistants to deliver any sort of message to him. With them doing your communicative bidding, you could put your full focus on the active improvement of his hero costume.

When it would come back burnt from training, you would change and reinforce its material until it was fire resistant. When it got ripped, you would reasses its durability. When his gauntlets got in the way, you would restructure them for better mobility and control.

One day when one of your assistants reluctantly relayed to you Bakugo's irrational displeasure with the pigment of his headpiece (for the seventh time), you'd sent it back hot pink with a black and white frilly ribbon.

He broke your lab door the same day.

Since then, when you'd send off your poor assistants in sacrifice, he'd rattle them and demand for you to face him personally.

You ignored him, but then when your classes started mingling more you couldn't get away from him quick enough.

One of your classmates would sweat in a panic off to the side as you worked at your bench tirelessly with thinned lips and an irk whilst Bakugo yelled and threw a hissyfit at your every move.

"What the hell is that supposed to be? Spandex?!"

"That looks like a lump of shit."

"God, it's ugly."

"Whaddya using that for? Weakass bullshit cloth."

"STOP MAKING IT PINK!"

"No way would that work with my quirk!"

"I'd blow that to smithereens easy."

You had to stop yourself from throwing your sketchpad at him most days. But sometimes you caved and summoned a roll of pink ribbon to stuff in his loud mouth.

He spat it at you and yelled even more, but that single moment of peace and his reddened face made it worth it.

On occasion, you would be lucky and actually get a few decent conversations out of him. His mouth was still foul, but his volume would be acceptable, and his suggestions surprisingly competent and reasonable.

On those days, he would leave with his voice intact, and you with one step closer to the final product.

Your impeccable work ethic and skills and Bakugo's mild decency lead you way ahead of the others in your unit. Eventually, you started having enough time to help out with some of the other hero costumes too--with the permission of both the creator and wearer, of course.

They've all been more than thrilled to work alongside U.A's renouned silent designer.

Although you worked quietly, you made more of an effort to communicate personally with the heroes in training regarding their costumes.

Most were surprised at that, having only known you to work alone and to commune from afar as you've done with Bakugo.

While word of your ingenius spread, unfortunately so too did your most recent work relations.

Bakugo didn't seem to find it funny that you talked to everyone but him.

So you threw all your stationary at him when he stormed into your design lab to make it everyone's problem.

But more specifically, to make it your problem.

"Miss me, nerd?"

Your scathing glare did nothing to Bakugo's arrogant smirk as he waltzes his way past everyone to your work bench.

You narrowly snatch up your latest prototype sketches before he sets down a pair of cold drinks on the table. The condensation drips down, pooling on its surface.

"This it?" He casually quirks up a brow at the strip of hard textured fabric and metal atop your bench. He picks up one of the drinks and slurps from its straw obnoxiously to get on your nerves, "hm, doesn't look like shit this time."

Lately you've been redesigning his utility belt to match the clasps between his protective gloves and gauntlets, additionally extending it to hold extra grenades that activate through his quirk. You've already sent in a request to the support department for those.

"Put ribbons on it like you did last week and I'll kill you."

You fight back a petty smile, recalling the pretty little pompoms decorating the numerous tiny pink bows stitched to each belt loop. He scoffs at your poorly concealed pleasure, and you turn your nose up at him, biting the inside of your cheek mischieviously.

He narrows his eyes at you before rolling them, placing his drink down way too close to your precious papers--again--and resting his cheek on his fist boredly.

Your lips twitch downward in ire at his intrusion of your space, but you work around him nontheless. You don't blink when he cusses as he smacks away a scrap of fabric you toss at him in casual vengeance.

"When's this gonna be done anyway--quit it. I've got a mission in Shinjuku next week." Bakugo snatches a pen you throw at him in mid-air.

You shrug at him, not your problem, but hold up two fingers anyway.

"Two days, huh," He clicks his tongue, "you slackin'?"

He cackles demonically while you log a chunk of stainless steel at his head.

Swear to god--you're gonna make his whole suit neon pink!

He visits you again after his mission, which is evidently successful judging by the fat cocky smirk on his face as he approaches while you stitch up a hero costume from class 1-B.

You deadpan at him as he drops a take away paper bag at the corner of your work bench. Then he tosses his empty utility belt over your most recent handiwork.

"Clasp blasted off."

Bakugo makes himself at home in the spinny chair opposite you, leaning back and putting his boots on the desk as he snags a tasty pastry from the paper bag before pushing it towards you.

An eyebrow twitches as you stare at the no longer existing metal clasp on the support item. A square char mark is left where it would've been. The belt is otherwise untouched.

What, was he aiming for it or something?

Scrunching your nose at him distastefully, you flick the belt off the costume you had been working on and resume your stitching.

"Oi! What about me!?"

You shoot him a sharp glare that makes him scoff. He pipes down nontheless, settling back into his chair with a roll of his eyes and a grumble.

Bakugo's visitations become more frequent.

At this point in time, his hero costume shouldn't need any more major improvements or adjustments until the start of your second year. And yet he's coming in what seems like every other day for any single little thing that bothers him.

Hell, he even comes in to bug you about repaires--you don't do repaires. But he argues that he doesn't want anyone but you 'touching his shit', as he so eloquently explains.

He's come in for his belt clasp six times now, his visor for four, his gauntlets for five, and for the sole of his boots thrice.

The bottom of his fucking shoes.

He can eat your sparkly, bow tied, hot pink and purple swirled shit.

He doesn't even need you anymore!

You're just some stupid non-hero extra. The hell is his deal now?

Bakugo's come in angry today.

He's normally angry, but it's different this time.

You watch him wearily from the corner of your eye as you type out a risk assessment at your desk. School's finished now, but you've been putting this off for a bit, and wanted to get it done while you were still feeling productive.

Less than ten minutes after the last bell rang out and everyone left for the day, Bakugo had come barging in with a stiffer than usual scowl and a dissatisfied furrow in his brows.

But he's been silent.

Bakugo's never been silent.

He sits in the seat adjacent to you, leant all the way into the backrest with his arms tightly crossed and his eyes narrowed, boring into your form.

Each time you glance at him you look away in a hurry as you meet his gaze.

Okay, now it's getting to you...

Slowly, your fingers stop typing, unable to function properly under the intensity of his stare. You don't look at him this time though, and you sweatdrop uncomfortably.

The tension causes your skin to prick, and you tug at your choker discomposibly. The velvet rubs at your skin, irritating it.

You jump when he suddenly speaks.

"What's up with you, huh?" He says it more like a statement, "you're so damn quiet it's eery. Say something."

You give him a disgruntled look.

Is he for real? Is that what his tantrum is about? He can go eat grass.

You turn your attention back onto your laptop, typing again.

He growls at that.

"Don't ignore me, damnit! I know you can say shit!"

Oh, and the shit I would say. You snicker to yourself, but that only seems to tick him off more.

"[name], answer me."

Your stomach drops--he's never called you by your name, let alone your first name. You glance at him again; Bakugo leans forwards with his elbows on his knees, eyes piercing you with a threatening intensity that sends off warning bells in your head.

You look back at him once you grasp the gravity of his tone.

Your annoyed frown fades, and your features soften as to prompt him. He takes in a deep breath, gaze flicking up and down your form as he processes his thoughts first.

He meets your eyes again with a determined resolve.

"I know you're my soulmate."

Fuck, what.

Bakugo scowls when you visibly stiffen, shock coursing your system.

"Get over yourself, you ain't slick. 'S why you've been runnin' from me." He crosses his arms across his chest, lips firmly downturned at your lack of verbal response.

Ice freezes your blood and your gaze flicks away from him apprehensively. What exactly is he expecting from this? Bakugo is a cocky bastard.

An egocentric prick with the means to flaunt it. He's one of the top students in the hero course and he knows it--what the hell does he want from you?

You feel your temper flare.

So what if he knows your soulmates? He obviously thinks he's too good for this shit; fuck fate and all that it stands for, you're just some side character behind him, just like he's said.

You aren't shit to him, and if he thinks he can actually do better than you, well then you know that you can. Who is he to pick and choose who he deserves? In that case, you know what, yeah, he's right, because you deserve better than him any day-

"What?" Bakugo's unappreciated tone fans the flames of the rapidly burning thread containing your tolerance, "still silent?"

"Shut up, asshole! You think you're too good for shit!" Your outburst as you slamming your hands down atop your work bench, the few utensils scattered about clattering in tandem with the vibration, "I'm not just some side piece you can bulldoze! I know my worth, even if you can't fathom it, you eighth-grade-syndrome twit!"

A tense silence settles over the room, and his eyes harden as you stare him down with an unwavering resolve.

Bakugo's lips twitch.

And then he's cackling like a hyena.

You flinch at the abrupt switch, scrambling to process whether you should feel glad or offended that he doesn't seem to be taking your words to heart.

You know for a fact you would not beat Katsuki Bakugo in a fight.

You shiver at the thought, and he beats his fist on the edge of the table as he recovers from his laughter. He lets out a long winded breath, wiping an exaggerated tear from his eye which you deadpan at.

"Ah, damn," Bakugo snorts, "we're really meant to be, eh?" He lifts up the edge of his loose shirt just enough to reveal the glowing golden words inked vertically on his toned waist, "knew there was a reason I could tolerate you more."

"Ditto." You spit out despite the relief flooding you as he stays put. You rub the back of your neck subconsciously.

He eyes the movement skeptically before motioning for you to move towards him. You scrunch your nose at him but oblige when he clicks his tongue irratedly. You've tested his patience enough already.

Once you're close enough he yanks you down and unclasps your velvet choker. You emit a scandalised gasp, feeling naked without it.

"Hey!"

"Give it up," He drawls, "get over yourself."

Bakugo latches a hand around your nape, pulling you forward so your head is bent level with his chest, and your face flushes. Both your hands grip at the armrests of the chair, caging him in as you fight not to fall off balance.

"Ack-" You choke at the feeling of him ever so gently tracing beneath the words on the back of your neck, "-stop that!"

He huffs a laugh, and his breath pans over your skin.

His eyes soften ever so slightly, "You're not jus' some extra, you know..." He lets you up. He ignores the imbuing embarrassment that pairs with the subtle blush tinting his cheeks.

You mull over his words for a second, pushing yourself back to face him head on. You blink slowly, registering his meaning. A gentle warmth settles across your cheeks, and a quiet glee bubbles inside you.

"Yeah?"

Although you bite back a smile, there's a hopeful glimmer in your eyes.

Bakugo grins, "Yeah," and places a reassuring hand atop your head, "not my soulmate."

[azzo0]

See You Later

Inspired by this song: see you later (ten years)

Pairing: Bakugo x f!reader

tw's: angst with happy ending, manga spoilers, bad writing?? (idk bro lmk more in tags)

Summary: In middle school, you see a red string on your finger. It leads you to Bakugo Katsuki, a boy with fire and anger, less than pleased to see you as his soulmate. After several attempts of befriending and getting to know him, he shuns all your efforts to break through. Letting him go, you drift apart.

But the red string of fate hasn't broken yet. Ten years later, you cross paths again.

It had been a week since you moved into the fancy new neighbourhood. Your father had gotten a better job offer here in Musutafu. Of course, that meant a new middle school and new friends. You weren't sure what to expect on your first day of school, but it definitely wasn't seeing a red string on your little finger. 

You were just looking for your class in the early hours of the morning, feeling extremely lost. You frowned, the only one in the hallway, looking sideways for your class. Why was the school so big? Giving up, for the time being, you went down to the little pond with fish you spotted on your way here. You'd just ask someone to help you find your class once there were more students around. 

You kneeled, watching fish of different colours idly swim in the little pond. Were it not for the slight tug you felt on your pinky, you'd probably have stayed there wasting your time. You looked down at your hand, eyes widening, when you saw a crimson string attached to your little finger. Your lips parted in surprise.

You knew your soulmate was somewhere around.

Along with quirks, some people had the gift of recognising their soulmate. You'd heard countless stories of people with tattoos of their soulmate's first words on their bodies or a marking of where their soulmate first touched them. Sure, you had a quirk, but no soulmate marking. 

You slowly stood up, gulping. Who was the person on the other end of the string? Letting out a shaky breath, you followed the string to the school garden. Was your soulmate in the garden? You heard footsteps coming in your direction and then suddenly stopping. You nervously bit your lip, daring to look up.

There he was. A boy with spiky ash-blond hair that pointed in every direction, his eyes just as red as the string connecting you two together, his eyebrows furrowed as he glared at you. You noticed he had two coat and shirt buttons unbuttoned and his tie missing. He was the most handsome guy you met, were it not for the fact that he looked like he was going to murder you and hide your body. 

"Are ya going to gape at me all day or say something?" He snapped, making you jump back, his voice deep and raspy.

"Umm- looks like we're soulmates?!" You cringed when your voice came out squeaky. 

"No shit." 

The red string slowly disappeared after having led you two to each other. You twiddled your thumb nervously, wondering what to say to him. You were surprised when he walked past you like he hadn't just found out you were his soulmate but a random stranger he bumped into. You jogged after him, tightening your grip around your school bag. 

"Hey, wait up! What's your name?"

"Fuck off, shitty extra." 

You stopped in your tracks, taken aback by his snarky reply. Why would he say that when you asked something so simple? Was he unhappy to find out you were his soulmate? Did he not like the idea of you being his soulmate? You opened your mouth to say something but then decided against it. You sadly turned around, walking in the opposite direction.

Unbeknown to you, none of these were the reasons why he brushed you off. Truth was, he couldn't believe he had a soulmate. Whenever the topic of soulmates came up, everyone had mutually agreed that Bakugo Katsuki could never have a soulmate. He was too proud and angry to have one. 

Maybe they were right. 

He was surprised that someone as pretty as you was his soulmate. You wanted to know his name, and he couldn't even give you a proper reply. He wasn't sure how to react to you. Maybe everyone was right. He was too proud and angry to have a soulmate. 

He glanced back to see that the girl with h/c hair had already left. 

Much to your horror, you were placed in the same class as your soulmate. You took a fistful of your skirt as you sat behind him. Was he always going to be mean to you? Was he even going to bother talking to you? He didn't even bat an eye when you passed him to sit in your assigned seat. 

Blinking tears, you flung thoughts of him aside. So what if your shitty soulmate didn't want to talk to you? It wasn't like he was the last person on earth. You decided to leave him be for the time being and try to make new friends.

By the end of the day, you had befriended the shy greenette from your class. He chatted with you animatedly as you packed your bag to leave class. It was difficult to hold a decent conversation with him at first since he kept blushing and turning away, flustered, but you managed to get him to be comfortable. 

And that irked Bakugo to no end.

You tried over and over for that damn Deku hut you couldn't bother even talking to him again? Maybe if you asked his name again, he would have replied. But now you were making him furious. On his way out of the class, he dumped the contents of Deku's pencil case on the floor and stormed off, making sure to at least crack a pen or two under his shoes before leaving. 

"What's with him?!" You scoffed, helping Midoriya pick up his stationery. 

"He's always been like that..." he mumbled. Your fists clenched at your sides, your nails digging into your palm. 

"Are you okay, Y/n?"

"Yeah, it's just that," you looked down at your shoes, confused with the whole soulmate deal, "he's my soulmate."

Midoriya's pencil case fell from his hand, his stationery clattering everywhere. You gave him a deadpan look when he gasped, covering his mouth with his hand. "KACCHAN? YOU? SOULMATES?"

"Announce that in a loudspeaker next time." 

"I can't believe this. Y/n, maybe you can change him!"

"Don't be silly. We can't change anyone."

"But- maybe you're the one that will bring out Kacchan's nicer side!"

"Totally." You rolled your eyes.

In a month, you learned to ignore Bakugo's presence. You regularly hung out with Midoriya, much to bakugo's annoyance. He never talked to you, but I made sure you knew he hated you talking to Midoriya. Either way, you ignored Bakugo and managed to steer away from him and his so-called friends.

That was until Midoriya called in sick one day.

Brooding, you left the school building alone. You heard footsteps and snickering behind you and glanced back to see Bakugo's friends. Your eye twitched in annoyance, and you continued walking ahead. But his friends had other plans. They pulled you back by your backpack, almost making you fall. 

"Hey, you're the one always hanging out with that sore loser." One of them snickered, taking your bag and unzipping it. "Got any cash? Oh, look, candy." 

"Put it back, zip the bag, and hand it over." You said firmly. 

"Or what?" 

You hesitated, unsure of what to do. They tossed your school bag amongst each other as you tried getting it back. Annoyed, you opened your water bottle, manipulating the water to come out and splash them all. They glared at you, their uniforms wet, rolling up their sleeves. You backed away into a pillar, feeling intimidated. 

"What do you fuckers think you're doing?" Bakugo's voice boomed, pushing his 'friends' away from you, stepping in front of you almost protectively. 

"Really Bakugo? You're standing up for that quirkless runt's friend?" One of them said.

"You're not laying a hand on my soulmate." He hissed. Realization dawned on their faces, and they stepped back, apologizing.

"Now screw off." Bakugo barked at them. 

Sure, you and Bakugo never talked, but when he stood up for you, your chest warmed, and the slightest grain of hope was planted in your heart. You had to put some sort of effort for your relationship to work. 

"Uh... Thanks." You mumbled. 

"Whatever." He looked away from you, pretending to be uninterested, but stayed put. You gathered your belongings and faced him, scratching your cheek awkwardly. He glanced at you once and made a move to leave, stopping when you held his sleeve.

"Do you want to hang out sometime?" You asked shyly. He stared at you blankly, eyebrows knitted together. You let go of his sleeve, stepping back a little. "We're soulmates, so I thought it would be a good idea to get to know each other a little bit..." you trailed off. 

I'm so stupid. What made me think he'd want to get to know me? I'm just another extra in his way. He doesn't care that we're soulmates, so why do I?

"Give me your number." He demanded, snapping you out of your thoughts.

"Eh?"

"Are you deaf? Give me your number so we can decide where to meet over the weekend." He grumbled, handing you his phone. 

"O-oh." You took the phone from him with shaky hands, adding your number to his contacts, internally cursing yourself for being this excited. 

But this was progress, right?

You sighed, glancing down at your phone for the millionth time that afternoon, waiting in the café he told you he'd meet you. He was thirty minutes late. You allowed yourself to wait for fifteen minutes more, before getting up from your seat, tears pooling in your eyes.

What made you think he wanted to get to know you? He probably agreed to a meetup so you would get off his nerves for some time.

"I hate this." You mumbled to yourself, walking out of the café. 

"Hate what?" A familiar voice asked. You glanced back with a frown, freezing when you saw Bakugo. 

"I get caught up in the rush hour, and you decide to ditch my ass?" He rolled his eyes, voice sarcastic.

"Can you blame me?" You grumbled, looking away.

"Klutz." He clicked his tongue. You followed him back into the café, sitting across from him. He stared outside the giant glass panes, elbow on the table, chin in his palm. The sun cast a soft glow in his hair, his maroon eyes almost glowing. His gaze turned to you again, a frown replacing his once neutral features.

"Done orderin' yet?"

I was supposed to order? You picked up the menu, feeling flustered. You ordered your favourite drink while he ordered a cup of cinnamon tea. 

"So what's yer quirk?" He asked. 

"Water manipulation," you replied. "I can basically make the water do what I want it to. Pretty lame." You pointed your finger at a glass of water, having drops of water dance around your finger.

"It's not lame. Can you make weapons?" He asked a hint of amusement in his eyes. You nodded, making a small needle. 

"It's perfect for a hero."

"You want to be a hero, right?" You asked, smiling. "Your quirk is really strong."

"Damn right." He crossed his arms across his chest, sporting a devilish grin. "What about you?"

"I don't know, to be honest. I don't think hero-ing is my thing, so I'm just going to see where life takes me." 

Bakugo snorted, and the little confidence you gained to talk to him went crashing down again. You looked down at your hands, wondering why fate had to put two completely opposite people together. You two would never get along. You felt like he was sitting there across from you solely because he felt obliged to since you were soulmates. 

You silently sipped on your drink once it arrived. Bakugo's eye twitched in annoyance as he watched your glum expression. His jaw clenched as he took in your hairstyle and that stupidly cute white colour sundress you wore, a weird feeling surging in his stomach. What irritated him the most was that you barely looked up at him as if you were scared of him. 

"Do I scare you, Y/n?" He asked, his voice surprisingly calm. You almost jumped when he used your name.

"Er- a little bit, I suppose?" You replied honestly.

He let out a 'tch', taking a sip of his tea. "It's not like 'm gonna kill you."

"It's not just that... are we going to be like this forever?"

"Like what?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Ignoring each other, you being unnecessarily rude to me and many other obvious things."

"First of all, you're the one that doesn't bother even looking at me," Bakugo growled. "Stop making it sound like it's my fault."

"Because the first time I asked for your name you snapped at me!" You reminded, glaring at him. He bared his teeth at you in a scowl. You shook your head, leaning back in your chair, looking out of the window. 

"Look," He ruffled his hair, averting his eyes from you, "this is new to me. I don't know how to go on about this soulmate shit, so give me some time to get used to it."

Your eyes shifted up to him, your gaze softening. He was right. You two were suddenly forced together. Two completely opposite strangers. It was going to take some time for both of you to get used to this. 

"Looks like we both need some time to get used to this." 

Bakugo's breath hitched at your smile. He grumbled, looking away with the faintest pink dusting his cheeks. Maybe you weren't that shitty of a soulmate.

He was slowly warming up to you. Slowly, but surely. When you greeted him in the morning, he at least looked at you and grumbled back an incoherent response. He was getting used to your blabbing during free periods and found himself, God forbid, enjoying your voice. 

One random day, he decided to walk home with you, much to your surprise. You walked beside him in silence, stealing happy glances at him now and then. You were finally getting somewhere with him. "Where do you live?" he asked, stopping in front of a modern Japanese-style house. 

"Just around the corner." You replied. "You?"

"Right here, dumbass." He replied, opening the residency gates. 

"Oh. Looks like we live really close." You grinned. His heart almost leapt out of his chest at that stupidly cute grin. 

"Whatever..." He stepped on the other side, slamming the gates shut and disappearing into his house. 

"Sometimes he acts really strange..." you muttered.

Over the months, you two grew even closer. He respected you enough to let you step into his abode, also known as his room. You two would game or do homework together and then laze around together. If it got too late, he'd walk you home. He made sure to flick your forehead and tease you in greeting every morning. 

Even Midoriya noticed. 

His jaw almost dropped to the floor when he saw you talking to him, your hands making exaggerated gestures as you told him something. The Kacchan he knew would usually yell a 'shut up!' and move on with his day.

It seemed to be going perfectly fine until there were ten months left for Bakugo's entrance exam. 

Today, you guys would be filling out forms for the high school you wanted to attend after this academic year was over. Of course, almost everyone in your class wanted to attend hero schools and courses. 

"Oi, where are ya going to be attending?" He asked. You held your form up for him to read the name of the high school. It was a regular high school where students who didn't want to pursue hero careers studied. 

"It's obviously U.A. for you?" 

"Yeah."

Midoriya hopped over to you with his form in hand. The class was almost empty now since the lessons were over. "Y/n! Where are you applying?" He peeked at your form, giving you a beaming smile. "You said wanted to run a business after high school, right?"

"Yup!"

Bakugo glared at Midoriya, a vein popping on his forehead. That damn Deku knew you wanted to attend a business course, but he didn't. Why didn't you ever tell him? Were you scared he'd belittle you? Bakugo stood up, snatching Deku's form. As if on cue, his little minions gathered around him, snickering at Midoriya. 

"Look who's applying to U.A. Did you really think a quirkless fuck like you could get into U.A.?" Bakugo cocked his head at Deku, daring him to speak back.

"Kacchan, please give me my form back."

"You want it back? Beg."

"Katsuki, give it back." You said sternly. Ignoring you, he burnt Midoriya's form to ash.

"You'll never be a hero," One of Bakugo's minions cackled.

"If you want to be a hero so badly, take a swan dive off the roof. Maybe you'll be born with a quirk in your next life." Bakugo snickered as he left, glancing back to give Midoriya a smirk. Your eyes widened at Bakugo's words. Deku glared at Bakugo, the angriest you ever saw your green-haired friend. 

You never intervened in Bakugo's vendetta against Midoriya before. But when Bakugo spat such venomous words, you couldn't hold it back anymore. You marched out of the class, catching up to him. You put a hand on his shoulder, making him glance back questioningly. You took his hand, pulling him away from his friends.

"Oi, what are you doing?" He asked in confusion as you led him to the staircase. You shoved him against the wall, taking him by surprise. 

"What the fuck-" Before he could finish, your palm crashed into his cheek.

"What's wrong with you?!" You screamed. "What would you do if he actually killed himself?!" Bakugo held his cheek in shock, guilt washing over now that he repeated his words to Midoriya in his head. Then rage clouded his senses. You were standing up for Deku instead of him.

"You always do that." He scowled. You furrowed your eyebrows in confusion. "You're always standing up for that fucking Deku! What do you even like about him?! He's just a quirkless nobody!"

"He's my friend!" 

"Well, you clearly care for your damn friend more than your soulmate!" Bakugo yelled. 

"What- where did that come from?!"

"Hah, don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. That damn Deku knew you wanted to go in the business course, but you didn't bother telling me?" He took an intimidating step towards you. "Is it because you think I'm so shitty I would have made fun of you for choosing the business course?"

"It's nothing like that." You replied, unfazed by the steps he took towards you. "I never told you because you never asked since you were too busy flaunting your quirk."

"Just tell me how much you fucking hate me at this point." He scowled.

"You're right. I do hate you and your pride you can't put aside for one minute."

He held his head in his hands, pacing back and forth. He glanced at you, dropping his hands to his sides. "This is why I hate soulmates."

"Don't worry. I'm not very happy about being bound to you for the rest of my life either." You snapped. You turned away from him to descend the stairs, glancing behind your shoulder for the last time. "Good luck being a hero with that mindset of yours. Heroes are meant to protect the weak. Not bully them to death."

Bakugo seethed in his place, his fists fuming. "You know what? I wish I had a scissor the day I found you were my soulmate so I could cut that damn string that made me meet you."

Wordlessly, you left him on the staircase.

When you weren't there in class the next day, Bakugo assumed you called in sick. But when the teacher told him you were moving to another school, his blood chilled. Were you transferring schools because of him? 

After school, he found Deku leaving the school building. He ran up to him, stopping the boy. "Why is Y/n changing schools?"

"Umm..." Deku knew the reason you changed schools was Bakugo, but he couldn't say it to his face unless he wanted a fracture in his skull, "she said she found a better school."

Bakugo let Deku go, his eyebrows knitted deep in thought. Were you seriously going to transfer schools without saying a word to him after your fight? Was he a little too harsh? When he paid attention to his surroundings, he realized his feet had taken him to your house. He brought his finger to the doorbell, hesitating. What would he say after the door opened?

I do hate you and your pride you can't put aside for one minute, your voice echoed in his head. He gulped and pressed the doorbell. 

An older woman with the same h/c hair as yours opened the door, "Hello. You are...?"

"I'm Y/n's-" Y/n's what? Friend? Clearly, you guys weren't friends anymore. Soulmate? You both expressed you didn't want each other. "I'm Y/n's classmate."

The woman nodded and called for you. He heard you reply, 'I'm coming!' in the background. You appeared behind your mother, peeking over her shoulder to see who it was, freezing when you saw it was Bakugo. You stepped outside, closing the door behind you so you two could have some privacy. You sat on the porch beside Bakugo, playing with a thread on your pants. 

"Changing schools, huh?" He was the first one to speak, looking anywhere but at you.

"Yeah," you replied, "it's better this way."

There was thick silence between you two, followed by the buzz of the hot afternoon. Bakugo broke the silence first. "Is it because of me?"

You looked up at the deep blue sky, shielding your eyes from the sun. "I don't know," you admitted. "I want to spend the rest of my months in junior high stress-free. This seems like the only appropriate solution to me." 

You met his crimson eyes, giving him a smile, "I want to end this one on a good note. So forgive me for my sharp words yesterday."

Bakugo wished you'd slap him again instead of being so nice to him. He did not deserve this. He did not deserve your kindness. He bit his tongue, trying to ease the surging emotions inside his chest. He wanted to apologise. He really did. But he couldn't.

"Is this goodbye?" He asked. He watched you get up and walk back to your door. He got up, facing you, waiting for a reply. 

"See you later." You smiled as you closed the door. 

That day was the last time you talked to each other.

Bakugo magnificently failed his provisional licence test. He was curled up in his bed, buried under a blanket, his entire body aching after confronting Midoriya earlier. There was too much running in his mind. It was overwhelming. His hunch of Deku getting All Might's quirk proved to be right, and then there was the fact that he was slowly going to rebuild his friendship with Midoriya. There was also you.

He was fixing his mistakes, working towards being a better version of himself, but he never got to fix his relationship with you. It had been so long since he last saw you he was starting to forget what you looked like. The bond between you two was still there. He knew because every time he held his hand up and closed his eyes, he could still see the red string. 

Bakugo got out from under the blanket. After the house arrest, he'd visit his neighbourhood and talk to you again. He wanted you to give him another chance. This time, he wasn't going to let you go.

As soon as his house arrest was lifted, he took the bus and stopped by his neighbourhood. He ran past his house and turned to the corner where your house was. He stopped in his tracks when he saw you standing outside with a guy your guys' age. Your hair had grown longer, and your facial features seemed to have matured from the last time he saw you. You smiled at the mysterious boy standing next to you. Your smile was still pretty as it was before. 

Bakugo's jaw clenched when the boy leaned in and grabbed your waist, pulling you in for a kiss. His heart fell to his stomach. Who was he kidding? Did he really expect you to wait for him all this time? 

He slowly turned back to where he came from, cursing the tears that formed in his eyes. He wiped them away, convincing himself that you deserved someone better than him anyway.

Schools all over Japan shut down due to the war. You were lazing on the couch, re-reading a novel. Every now and then, you tuned in with the news. You found out Katsuki and many other hero students would be on the frontlines. 

If you were being honest, you missed him. Or it was more like you missed the idea of what it would be like if you two remained by each other's side instead of drifting apart. In your freshman year, you got into a relationship with a guy you thought was your type. But you couldn't seem to let your soulmate go, and your ex didn't seem to like the idea of you already having a soulmate. That was the end of your relationship.

You sighed, putting the novel over your face. You suddenly felt a sharp, piercing pain in the left side of your chest. You sat up straight, cupping your breast, trying to breathe the pain away. Unexpectedly, the red string on your little finger appeared again. Your eyes widened, and you stood up. 

This time, you did not have the chance to follow it. Because the red string of fate snapped in two.

You picked up the tray with coffee and cake, setting it on your customer's table with a smile. It had been a few months since you opened this café, and business was booming. 

Ten years had passed since the incident with the red string snapping in two. After the war was over, you found out that Bakugo died for a short period of time due to the rupture in his heart. It was fixed by the Ninja hero, edgeshot. Bakugo was okay. When you closed your eyes, you could still see the red string. It gave you some sort of comfort knowing he was alive.

At the end of the day, you closed the café, dropping the shutters and securing the lock. You yawned, bringing a hand to your mouth to cover it. You were closing awfully late today. You pulled your long coat tighter around your body, shivering in the cold midnight breeze. 

You walked the empty streets, hands in your pockets to keep them warm. You let out a long exhale, watching your breath condense. You felt a slight tug on your little finger and slid your hand out. You stopped breathing when you saw a red colour string around your finger. 

You stood there, staring at your hand. After a few seconds of trying to calm your dancing heart, you looked up, your breath hitching. There he was. Standing a few feet across from you, watching you through his ash-blonde bangs, was Bakugo Katsuki.

Tears pooled in your eyes as you took in your soulmate. He'd grown so tall since the last time you saw him. You were just teenagers then. He had gained more muscle, the streetlamps highlighting his gains hiding behind his winter hero suit. He looked ethereal. 

He gaped at you in disbelief. He thought he was hallucinating when he saw the red string appear again. He took a step towards you, admiring the beautiful woman you blossomed into. How long had it been? Ten years?

You ran up to him, putting all your uncertainty aside and throwing your arms around him. Bakugo put his hands up in surprise, unsure where to put his hands. 

"I missed you, Katsuki." You whispered, your ear on his chest, eyes closed. You felt strong arms wrap around you, pulling you closer to him. 

"I missed you too, Y/n" He breathed, his voice reverberating in his chest.

You pulled away, admiring his vermillion eyes shining in the streetlight. He looked so different yet the same. You put some distance between you two, clearing your throat. 

"What're you doing out here so late?"

"Patrol. What about you?"

"Just closed the café. I got busy with the transactions and lost track of time." You finished with a small laugh. Bakugo's chest warmed at that sound.

"Opened your own café, huh?" He smirked. 

"Yeah," You smiled. 

You guys stood across from each other with so much to say, yet no words would form. You shifted on your feet, putting a hand behind your neck, averting your gaze. "I thought... I'd never see you again. When you almost died in the war... it scared me, Katsuki."

"Sorry..." He mumbled.

You shook your head, taking his hands. "I'm sorry, Katsuki. I never gave you a chance. I- I left after saying some pretty mean things. I'm so sorry."

"Shh," His big, calloused hands cupped your cheek, wiping the tear under your eye before it rolled down. He wanted you to know he was a changed man. Sure, he was still a little quick to temper, but his rage had calmed down over the years. 

"I'm sorry too, Y/n," He murmured, bringing his forehead to yours. "I said some pretty messed up shit too. I never got a chance to apologize. I'm sorry. Im sorry I pushed you away."

"It's alright, Katsuki," you said, holding the hand cupping your cheek, "we were both immature teenagers. It's okay."

"Will you... will you give me another chance?" He asked, watching your expressions carefully. "Unless you're still with that guy."

"Eh?" You tilted your head in confusion. "Which guy?"

Bakugo's face went beet red, and he stepped back from you, coughing. "You know... that guy you kissed."

Your mouth formed an 'O' in realization. You burst out laughing, making Bakugo sweatdrop. "I didn't even last a week with that guy!" You wheezed, wiping a tear from your eye.

"Whatever..." He blushed, scratching his cheek.

"How did you find out though?"

Bakugo huffed, a small pout on his lips. "I wanted to apologize, but when I saw him kiss you, I wasn't sure you wanted me anymore."

You smiled up at him, your eyes softening. "I'll give you another chance, Katsuki. So please give me a chance, too. Let's fix this together."

He brushed the hair away from your face, tucking some away behind your ears. His index and thumb came down to your chin, tilting your head, eyes drifting down to your lips. You leaned closer to him, your eyelashes fluttering shut. He pressed his lips to yours, his heart racing at the feeling of your soft and warm lips on his. 

You went on tiptoes, finding it difficult to crane your neck for him. He smiled against your lips, lowering his back so it would be easier for you. You pulled back for a few seconds, your hands on his shoulders, your cheeks flushed. He dived in for another kiss, this time with more passion. Your back arched when you felt his tongue in your mouth, your hand travelling up to his hair to gently tug on it, his hand behind your neck. 

Time might have not been your favour previously, but time doesn't stay the same forever. Both of you were willing to redo everything and close the decade-long gap away from each other. It wasn't too late yet. 

Your intimate moment with Bakugo was broken when his pager cracked to life. He almost jumped, pulling away from the kiss. "Dynamight, are you still in the area?" A voice asked, "We need backup."

"I'm comin'" He replied. 

He looked down at you, his cheeks red. It was cute. "So, uh- Looks like I gotta go."

"It's alright." You replied, breathless from the kiss. 

"Give me your number." He unlocked his phone, handing it to you. You took it from him, saving your contact number. 

"See you later, Katsuki." You smiled, handing him his phone. 

Bakugo took his phone, feeling content. He pressed another quick kiss to your lips before taking off with explosions, his heart thrumming in his chest. He finally felt at ease after years of wanting to chase you. 'See you later.' You said that ten years ago as well. Bakugo knew it wasn't goodbye this time. Because you would be there with him every day from here on.

[selene-19]

If it's not love, then I don't know what is 😭

These two love each other so much 🥹🧡💚

[bkdkhrts]

"Where have you been? Do you know if you're coming back?"

"We were too close to the stars, I never knew somebody like you, somebody,"

"Falling just as hard ; I'd rather lose somebody than use somebody"

"Maybe it's a blessing in disguise, I see my reflection in your eyes."

[heroes-among-us-all]

A Perfect Match

summary: Chisaki isn't looking forward to meeting his soulmate, at least not until he discovers that you are Quirkless.

tags: soulmate!au, fluff, fem!reader

It’s just so annoying. Even though he’s lived with it all his life, Chisaki swears he’ll never get used to seeing that godforsaken timer counting down. It’s always there, in the corner of his periphery, and it only ever disappears when he shuts his eyes and lets everything fade to black.  

A soulmate mark. That’s what it’s called. People have different variations of it—some know the first words their soulmate will ever speak to them, some have a red string tying them to their soulmate that only they can see, and others, like him, have been stuck with a timer since birth that tells him how much longer until he meets his soulmate for the first time.  

And based on how much time is remaining, it looks like he’ll be meeting his soulmate today.  

Chisaki isn’t excited. If anything, he’s dreading the encounter, and he just wishes it would hurry up and be over with. At least then, the timer will disappear, and it’ll be one less thing grating at his nerves. He doesn’t believe in the phenomenon of soulmates, he has no desire for trifling matters such as love, and for a man who loathes being touched, he can’t imagine it would work out anyhow.  

Much of the day goes as planned. He helps Pops with some paperwork, cleans up the office to keep all those pesky germs away, and Chisaki briefly wonders how he’ll even meet you, since he intends on staying home all day.  

“Chisaki,” Pops suddenly says. “Would you mind going out into town and buying me a few things? I wrote a list of what I need.”  

Ah. So, that’s how.  

“Of course,” Chisaki nods, and he puts on his jacket before slipping his shoes on by the door. “I’ll be back soon. It won’t take long.”  

Seriously, it really won’t. Regardless of the fact that he’s going to run into you, he has no intention of staying and chatting. He’s going to reject you right on the spot. Soulmates aren’t real, anyways. What a stupid notion, to think that someone’s greatest love can be predetermined.  

Chisaki adjusts his mask more tightly, then steps outside. He reaches the store quickly enough, and although he hates having to touch things that countless strangers have laid hands on, his gloves provide him with a thin layer of protection from all the filth.  

He tracks down everything he needs at a steady pace, and as he reaches for the very last item on his list, someone else reaches for it at the exact same time.  

Immediately, Chisaki recoils, and he manages to avoid touching a stranger’s hand. But right as he’s biting back the urge to grimace, he realizes that the timer—the same timer he’s had all his life—his finally disappeared.  

Ah.  

So, it’s you. Chisaki turns his head to the side and finds himself looking at a young woman, who is staring back at him wide-eyed and breathless. He has a pretty good idea of what’s going on in your head. You must have realized it, too.  

After more than two decades, he’s finally met his soulmate.  

You’re pretty. Chisaki can at least admit that much. You have nice features, you dress in a way that suggest you care about your appearance, and you have a pleasant, clean scent, which means that you take personal hygiene seriously—thank god.  

But all that being said, Chisaki still has no desire to strike up a relationship with you. He doesn’t enjoy being around people. He can’t even bear to touch people, not counting Pops, who is his family. Not to mention that he’s part of the yakuza, and from what he gleams, you seem to be an average citizen.  

There’s just no reality in which this would ever work out.  

“U-Um,” you stammer, visibly nervous. “Are you...? I mean, um... it’s you, right? You must be my... soulmate.”  

It’s a bit endearing how flustered you are, and for a moment, Chisaki feels slightly guilty about what he’s going to do.  

Still. It’s better to tell you the truth now rather than let you get your hopes up. 

“The timer,” Chisaki nods. “I have it too. Well, I did have it. Up until a few seconds ago, at least.”  

A smile blooms across your lips, and it tugs at his heartstrings a bit, because goodness, you really are adorable.  

“I knew it!” you beam. “Oh my god, I can’t believe this is really happening! I’m so excited! But I guess that was pretty obvious, haha. Sorry. I’m going to try to calm down now, but it’s just—this is just so—”  

Chisaki raises a hand. “Before you say anything else, I need to let you know that I have no interest in pursuing a relationship with you.”  

It only takes a second for your expression to sink. 

“...what?” you mumble softly. “But... we’re soulmates. I thought that means we’re supposed to be together for the rest of our lives. I didn’t mean that we should start dating right away, but at the very least, if we could start by getting to know each other...”  

“I’m sorry,” Chisaki says. “I don’t have much interest in romance. I prefer to keep to myself, and frankly, I’m not even sure I believe in soulmates. It all seems far too convenient. It was nice meeting you, but we’ll have to leave it here.”  

By the looks of things, you’re on the verge of tears. Chisaki isn’t a very emotional person, but he can’t fault you for getting your hopes up. This must have been something you’d been looking forward to for many, many years. If only your soulmate was someone else. It’s a pity. You seem like a very nice woman, and he hopes that you’ll find happiness one way or another. Just not with him.  

You swallow hard, just barely managing to hold back your tears. “I... understand. I’m sorry. I came into this with all these expectations, but I never stopped to think that the other person might not have been as excited as I was. I guess I was just really hopeful. I’m Quirkless, so... people have always thought less of me. I figured my soulmate would like me no matter what, but we’re pretty much strangers, so I don’t know what I was thinking. Anyways, I’m sorry again for bothering you. I’d ask your name, but it would probably just make the whole thing more painful.”  

You turn to leave, but in that moment, Chisaki’s eyes have gone completely wide.  

What did she just say?  

“Wait!” he cries out, and you reel to a halt, surprised by the outburst.  

Now it’s Chisaki’s turn to swallow. The roof of his mouth feels dry and uncomfortable, and he worries that perhaps his ears deceived him. 

“You’re Quirkless,” he breathes. “Is that... really true?”  

“I’m not sure who would lie about something like that,” you chuckle weakly. “It’s not exactly something to be proud of.”  

Wrong. You don’t even know just how wrong you are.  

In a world teeming with filth and sickness, those who haven’t been contaminated by the Quirk pandemic are a rarity. People like you are unblemished and pure, and... 

Shit. Chisaki is starting to believe that soulmates might be the real deal, after all.  

“It’s okay not to have a Quirk,” he says, and it’s insane how fast his heart is beating now. “No. It’s better not to have a Quirk. I much prefer it that way.”  

You press your lips together. “Are you making fun of me right now? Listen, I said I was sorry for bothering you—”  

“I’m not making fun of you. I’m being completely serious. Quirks... I’ve never liked them. Just the thought of them makes me sick.” He pauses, inhales sharply to collect himself, then lets out a heavy sigh. “The reason I turned you away is because I thought it would be impossible for us to have a relationship. I break out into hives the moment anyone touches me. I distance myself from people, and the thought of being intimate with someone has always repulsed me. And Quirks are largely to blame for that, because Quirks are a mutation. A disease. That’s why I didn’t think we had a chance. But now that you say you’re Quirkless... I’m starting to think differently.”  

You arch a brow, and it’s clear that you don’t understand where he’s coming from. Fuck. He hopes he isn’t scaring you off. He’s finally, finally found someone who he has an actual chance of being with, and he doesn’t want to ruin this.  

“If you don’t mind... would it be alright if I held your hand?” Chisaki asks breathlessly.  

Once again, you stare back at him in confusion, but it thankfully doesn’t look like you’re opposed to it. You reach out a hand, slow and hesitant, and at the same time, Chisaki peels off on his gloves, letting his skin breathe free.  

When your fingers meet his own, he lets out a soft gasp. Not out of disgust, not out of apprehension, but out of sheer relief.  

No hives. No uncomfortable tightness in his chest.  

You aren’t sick like the rest, which means he can touch you to his heart’s content.  

Chisaki would have liked to hold your hand for much, much longer, but out of fear of scaring you off, he reluctantly lets go and gives you some space.  

“I just wanted to confirm something,” he mumbles. “If it’s you... I’m able to touch you just fine. I don’t get sick. It looks like we’re soulmates for a reason.”  

The look in your eyes is far from judgmental, and when you finally muster up your next words, Chisaki can hear a little hiccup catch in your throat. 

“So... you really don’t mind that I’m Quirkless?” you ask.  

“Not at all. It’s just the opposite. I feel comfortable around you precisely because you’re Quirkless. That must be why we were fated to meet. Because we’re a perfect match.”  

Chisaki has never flirted a day in his damn life, but something he said must have tickled your fancy, because you blush and shyly avert your gaze.  

“I was really worried there for a moment,” you mumble. “It sounded like you wanted nothing to do with me.”  

“I’m sorry,” Chisaki frowns. “I was too quick to judge. I’m very particular about certain things, and I thought there was no chance. But I was mistaken. And if you’re still open to it... I would love the opportunity to get to know you better. Starting with your name. Would you mind telling me your name?”  

“I’m [Name],” you reply, and you flash him another bright, genuine smile. God, he swears he’s already fallen in love with that smile.  

“It suits you. I’m Chisaki. Chisaki Kai.” He takes a moment to think it through, and then, he does something he’s never done before in public.  

He removes his mask so that you can see his entire face.  

Your eyes widen. “Oh, wow. Chisaki, you’re so handsome! I didn’t realize my soulmate would be so gorgeous. Now I can’t help but feel self-conscious by comparison...”  

“I appreciate the compliment,” he chuckles. “But you’re beautiful. I thought so even before I found out you were Quirkless.”  

He watches, with great delight, as you blush yet again. You’re just so adorable. He never thought he would be thanking his lucky stars for having a soulmate mark, let alone one that caused him endless frustration for more than twenty years, but here he is.  

“I was going to head straight home after running some errands for my old man, but how about we sit outside somewhere and chat for a while?” he asks hopefully.  

Your smile returns, this time, wider than ever.  

“Sure!”  

As it turns out, Chisaki doesn’t get back home until much, much later, and he finds Pops waiting for him with his arms crossed.  

“Chisaki,” Pops frowns. “What was the hold-up? You’re usually so efficient when it comes to these things. I was expecting you back hours ago.”  

Normally, Chisaki would have apologized at great length for inconveniencing Pops. He is, after all, the man that brought him and raised him as his own. He loves and cherishes him, and will do anything in his power to repay him. 

But right now, Chisaki is up in cloud nine.  

“I met my soulmate,” he says, setting the shopping bags down. “Sorry, Pops. We got to talking for a while.”  

“Oh?” Pops lifts a brow, and tries—but fails—to hide his smirk. “But I thought you said you wanted nothing to do with them. You told me you didn’t believe in such things.”  

“Well, I changed my mind.”  

“I’ve never known you to be the type to do that. You’re stubborn to a fault. But I’m not complaining. It sounds like you’ve turned over a new leaf. So, then, tell me about this soulmate of yours.”  

For the second time that same day, Chisaki removes his mask—and it’s so that Pops can see his ear-splitting grin.  

“She’s perfect.”  

[joelysmile]

For the rest of our lives

[stunt-fia]

his “i knew it” is so cute he knows bakugo so well it’s adorable

[dashielldeveron]

soulmate trope | shigaraki tomura

Shigaraki’s route of soulmate trope.

"post-canon shigaraki? canon isn't even finished as of when this was posted on 4 january 2024!"

yeah. thank god. gives us time to write our own endings. and obviously i will be wrong about some things. i recommend you read at least one other route, preferably dabi’s, before reading this one. warnings: female reader. manga spoilers up to around chapter 390-411ish, based on language used by others to describe shigaraki and his trauma. bodily consequences to his trauma (some things are intended to read as AFO having forced an ED on shigaraki, but this is not made definitive). sexual content. stalking. gore (in a game). reader is experiencing a type of gifted kid burnout.

~28k

There’s a hentai book lying on your bed.

You’ve never seen it before.

Flipping through it, you winced at the positions the large-titted, ponytailed woman was manhandled into, and though you were frankly impressed that she managed to wear such intricate lingerie underneath her everyday business attire, the protagonist only just got home from work; let her decompress for, like, ten minutes before railing her against the window, please.

Whom did you know who would read volume four of something called GINSENG TEA X LUSTFUL BALLSACK?

Unfortunately, you were burdened with knowledge about your friends’ sexual habits, and some of them, therefore, were already ruled out: Shinsou only read erotica because he preferred his own imagination to any images hentai or live-action could provide, and Monoma only read hentai in which the woman’s eyes had hearts in them to let the reader know she’s enjoying it—not to mention Monoma wouldn’t buy a hard copy of it, let alone a story that didn’t have more plot and character development to it. There wasn’t enough drool for Sero to be interested, and the male protagonist wasn’t enough of a twink for Kaminari to project onto, so whose was this?

Moreover, who the fuck would come all the way back to your old school’s campus to break into your room to leave it on your bed? (Shinsou would be your best bet for that part, but whenever he finished a patrol nowadays, he went directly to sleep, and his and Monoma’s flat was across town.)

You cat, Dango, jumped onto the bed, slithering up next to you and bumping her head on your elbow affectionately.

“Is this yours?” you asked her, and she sniffed the book before climbing into your lap.

You tossed the book aside to pet your cat with both hands, and you resolved not to think about it any longer, even though the cringy way the mangaka depicted the female orgasm was burnt onto your brain.

***

Hopping to put your heel back into a ballet flat, you held the phone between your ear and shoulder while you struggled towards the lift. “I’ve got to cancel on you, Ochaco,” you said, flipping the back of your blazer collar down and adjusting the lapels, “I’m, fuck—I’m not gonna be able to make it this evening, so just go without me.”

Uraraka sighed on her end. “Okay. I know a lot of us were excited to see you after so long—there’s a card Tsu’s made us all to sign, and everything—but we’ll manage. ‘Spose we’ll just have a routine night at the bar and reschedule when you can make it. I miss you,” she said, “and I’m pretty sure I can say the same for everyone.”

The elevator door slid open, and you entered. “All of you are so clingy. I’ve only been away from the agency for around two months, and you know where to find me.” You mashed the button for the ground floor. “In fact, it’s embarrassingly easy to access me.”

“Well, we’re very busy,” said Uraraka, “People are very eager to conscript us for missions, even if they really could be done by the police. U.A. alumni have somehow upticked in their popularity even more since we graduated—”

“Ochaco, I know. I was there. Allow me to weep for your success. I am playing the world’s tiniest violin.” You shifted your bag’s full weight onto your shoulder and exited into the commons. “But listen. I’ve got to go; I’m running late this morning. I couldn’t find my pantyhose even though I laid them out last night, and they weren’t in any of my cat’s usual hiding places. I had to turn my flat upside down and still never found them.” The outside doors slid open when you approached, and the harsh, morning wind upset your hair on impact. “Give everyone my love, O. Tell Todoroki to smile in his next interview.” Eyes darting across your surroundings for any witnesses, you shrank in on yourself and bit the inside of your cheek. “And tell everyone I’m sorry, okay?”

By the time you arrived at U.A.’s administration building, the wind had been joined by a light drizzle that would probably morph into a storm within the hour, a prediction compounded by a plethora of faculty umbrellas in and beside the stand by the sliding doors. The front office was gloriously vacant, though, so you were able to slip behind the front desk without someone rebuking you for being—you shook the computer mouse to wake it up, the clock popping up in the corner—seventeen minutes late.

(You’d graduated with the rest of the class six months ago, and you’d founded the all-girls agency uptown, with most of the women in the graduating class joining to form an instant powerhouse of the industry.

Founding an agency appealed to a good deal of graduates, but you were the only one to go the distance: you were the one to actually make the calls, fill out the paperwork, get aggravating shit done, and by the time to move into the building, it had pleased you to no end that Midoriya had asked you for help on kickstarting his own.

And then two months ago, you’d pulled off, frankly, what was supposed to be an impossible rescue. For the first time, you were getting enormous amounts of attention, from civilians, from press, from other heroes—and you were being followed, never having more than a moment to yourself—always being watched, either from well-wishers or nay-sayers—and sometimes, the analytical critic, eager to point out your faults in the rescue mission to try to drag you out of the hero scene.

You hated yourself for this, but they won.

Too many expectations. All sinking down on you, as if no other hero existed while the light shone in your direction. [And you hated yourself for even daring to consider this—what reprehensible audacity, but—but was this how All Might had felt?]

You’d had something next door to a panic attack when a convenience store, a regular stop in your weekly routine, filmed your reaction to how they’d auctioned off your signed receipt for over nine hundred thousand yen. Breaking their cameras, Shinsou had to escort you out of there in a rush and call Aizawa for help.

Sobbing into Shinsou’s phone on the soggy concrete of a darkened alleyway, you did something you never fathomed you’d ever do, something you could never see any of your friends ever doing, something that seemed as alien and unthinkable as sticking your hand into a pit of needles: you begged Aizawa to get you out of the hero business.

You’ve been handled with care and relocated into a surprising covert secretarial job in the U.A. admin, Nezu’s logic was that you’d adjust to one person needing you at a time, say, over email or at the desk, and if you only answered the phone with only a shortened version of your name, then no intruding civilian would be the wiser.

The job was easy, anyway. Paid well for what it was, but perhaps that was simply standard for U.A. Nowhere nearly as well paying or exciting as working as a hero, but you were adjusting into mundanity. Some days had stretches of hours in which you didn’t interact with anyone, sitting at the front desk without a task, and you even had a few days in which you’d gone in, piddled around at the desk for your whole shift without seeing another soul, and gone home.

Your friends were always so busy. The two times you’ve been able to meet with them contained nothing but conversation about hero work, or else everything was somehow tangentially related to it, and you found yourself unable to contribute to the conversation. Both times, you’d left early, a little overstimulated, leaving Shinsou to make your excuses.

And Shinsou, bless him. Not avoiding you on purpose. In fact, you knew he’d drop almost anything for you to hang out, but you knew his schedule and how little rest he got. So, it was more of a self-imposed boundary on your side, taking into account that he needed sleep more than he needed to spend time with you.

So, yes, some of it was directly your fault, but you were achingly, astonishingly lonely, with an ever-lowering threshold for tolerance of outside stimulation, ultimately feeling like you didn’t belong here.)

Pens aligned. Coaster. Check the school email for—good, no emails. No voicemail. Get out your planner and write your hours in it to look busy. Hey, your water bottle’s nearing empty; maybe you could go fill it or even waste time brewing coffee. But where’s your work mug? You probably left it on the cleaning rack next to the office sink. You should go check.

“Hey,” said Aizawa out of nowhere, ignoring how you jumped out of your own skin, “Good morning. Are you doing a specific job at the moment?”

You gripped the arms of your swivel chair to ground yourself. Is this a test? “I was about to take a moment to make some coffee,” you said, because never let someone in a position of authority know that you were doing jackshit, “Is there something I can help you with, Aizawa-sensei?”

Frowning, he dipped his chin into his capture weapon, still tucked closely to his neck to shield him from the wind, and he shifted his weight to one leg, his fingers tapping in a ripple on the reception desk. “You don’t have to call me that anymore.”

“I’m gonna,” you said, “How can I help?”

Please don’t need anything. Please don’t need anythi—

“Permission has just cleared for me to assign you a long-term task.”

Shit, you thought, internally wincing at how he used the term task and not mission, as if you’d be plunged into the ice-cold water of a panic attack at the word. The kid gloves that everyone handled you with somehow both ingratiated and insulted you.

“You’ll be paid for it,” Aizawa continued, “and it’s low stakes interaction, not even face-to-face. It’s all online.” Aizawa clasped his hands on the desk and hunched over the top of it, the ends of his scarf trailing down onto your keyboard. “You’ll recall moving some boxes into room 310.”

“Of course.” Early in your first month back at U.A., you’d helped clean out and move some boxes into 310 in the same hall that housed Aizawa, Eri, and now you—you’d unofficially dubbed it as U.A.’s drawer to shove social rejects. “Is someone about to move in?”

“He’s been moved in for a while,” said Aizawa, pulling his capture weapon away from his neck, “Keep all of this quiet. You’re allowed to know because I’ve advocated for you, because I trust in you and in your ability to do this well.” Aizawa paused, the silence dragging on much longer than usual. His eyes glazed over, as if considering how to phrase his next proposal.

You waved your hand, prompting him to continue.

His eyes focused again. “The new person is a ward of the school, but All Might and I are his primary—caretakers isn’t quite the right term, and nor is supervisors, so perhaps it’s better to—”

“No, I get it,” you said, “This person is an adult, but they’re not quite independent. Go on.”

Aizawa paused, brow furrowed just slightly as he scrutinised you again, but he nodded slowly after a moment. “I’ll allow him to introduce himself to you. He doesn’t need me to set up expectations. What’s important for you to know, regarding your own participation, is that he’s very new to the hero scene and is receiving his hero training later in life than usual. He won’t be attending class but will be trained personally by select U.A. faculty, mostly All Might, Nezu, and me.”

“Is he officially a student?”

 “On paper.” Something strange passed across Aizawa’s face, but you couldn’t name it. “Where you come in is his socialisation. He’s spent most of his life in disciplinary isolation. Because of the adults raising him, his instincts trend towards distrust and animosity.”

So, Aizawa wanted you spend time with him until he was no longer bad with people, like spending time with feral cats at animal shelters until they’re ready to be adopted. “So, he’s distrustful. Hostile. Angry,” you said, scratching the side of your head, “Is he—do you think he’ll bring up bad stuff I’ve done to use it against me?”

“He doesn’t know who you are, aside from someone trusted by U.A. with hero experience,” said Aizawa, shaking his head, “and you can choose what information you give him.”

“Does he,” you said, sucking in through your teeth, “Does this guy know about how you’re going about this? I think—wouldn’t he be insulted if he knew about how you’re socialising him like an animal?”

Aizawa looked over his shoulder at the empty office, but he bent farther over the desk and spoke softly, anyway. “Recently, when I was training him at night, he expressed that he never knows what to do when someone wants to talk to him after mission, whether it’s successful or not. He froze entirely when a senior citizen thanked him last week, and that’s when we decided something tactile needed to be done. Since he’s grown used to me, you’re the solution.”

Okay. A volatile man, someone who couldn’t go to U.A. at the average age but for whom Aizawa, Nezu, and All Might were making an exception, even going so far as to personally take him out at night to practise hero work.

Hm. Fishy.

But if the good, good men who took care of you wanted you take care of another misplaced person, then you’re going to do it to the best of your ability.

“I hope I can live up to your expectations,” you said, making a note in your planner, “What am I doing?”

“I need you to learn how to play a video game,” said Aizawa, “and I need you to be absolute shit at it.”

***

For you to help some loser with socialisation, he would be teaching you how to play some janky, twenty-five-year-old MMORPG called Cipherstone—and not even the current, polished version of it; you had to sign up for an account on the version preserving the game exactly as it was in 2007. Nostalgia reasons, apparently.

You nudged Dango out aside to check your bedside clock. The discord call would start in five minutes, and you were making your Cipherstone account, completely unable to come up with a suitable username.

“Don’t connect it to your other online accounts or your actual identity,” Aizawa had said that morning.

Dango’s tiny prance across your stomach was not helping, and you couldn’t use Dango in your username, because if someone knew about your cat (and hopefully no one did, because cats were not allowed in the dorms), then a Dango username could be linked back to the real you. You plopped your head back on your pillow, knocking against the headboard. What’s something that couldn’t be traced back to you? Slumping, you let your head fall to the side and sulked.

The hentai book peeked out from underneath a jacket on your dirty clothes chair.

GinsengTea

That username is unavailable.

Well. You couldn’t use your birthdate as added numbers. You kept typing.

GinsengTea69

That username is unavailable.

You’re not about to try Lustful Ballsack. Maybe if you put aside your secretarial propensity for being correct for a moment.

GinzengTea

Username available!

Oh, thank God. You sorted out your password and started customising your character, though you couldn’t do much with the negative six billion pixels you were dealing with, and oh, is that the noise discord makes for a call? You plugged in your earbuds and clicked the answer button.

“Hello?” you asked into the microphone on your earbud cord, narrowing your eyes at his profile picture of a rotund, cartoon mouse. Username Tenkopeito. Looks like he ran into the same spelling trouble you did.

“Greetings and salutations,” he said, his tinny, rasping, just-got-out-of-bed, gruff-from-lack-of-use voice striking you with about fifty psychic damage, “I am Aizawa-sensei’s pupil, here to teach you about the intricacies of Cipherstone. It will be my pleasure—”

“Cut that shit out,” you said, narrowing your eyes at his profile picture: actually, that mouse was so round because it had just swallowed an enormous piece of konpeito whole, with the little star spikes jutting out underneath its fur. “No one talks like that. You sound fake as fuck.”

“I see,” he said after a beat, tone deflating to sound resigned (and though he’d relaxed, it somehow sounded as if talking this way took more effort, like it physically strained his vocal cords). “Am I not supposed to be nice?”

“You weren’t exactly being nice. You were using a customer service voice—which is being polite, not nice. Not even kind. Politeness is usually some sort of put-on affectation of niceness, forced for the situation. I understand if that’s what you think you need to do when you talk to people as a hero, but in hero work, since the stakes are high, you need to be genuine, or at least sound like you are.” Dango crawled across your stomach again, but you lifted her off before she could settle into a loaf on your keyboard. “In the field, it’s often hard to be kind because of how involved you get as a hero; being kind takes effort and drains you emotionally. Kindness implies there’s some sort of reciprocity, some sort of ongoing relationship. You can choose to be kind if you want, but it may wear on you in the long run. What will probably be healthiest for you, on your side, is if you aim to be nice, meaning being honest in a gentle way, framing situations positively but realistically for listeners. The public doesn’t want to be lied to and told everything’s fine, but telling them the harshness of reality doesn’t go over well. Kills morale.”

“Holy shit.” He was scratching something close to his microphone—it must be a fairly good mic, since you could deduce short fingernails against a dry surface. “That’s…a lot.”

“It is. But you can do it. All it takes is practise, and that’s what I’m here for,” you said, moving Dango from your keyboard again, “And I didn’t mean to overwhelm you with all of that; it just came out—I, uh, I happen to know a lot about the way heroes present themselves.” Swallowing thickly, you ran your tongue over your lower lip. “Why don’t we begin with what you were saying before? But in the actual way you talk, please. You need to be comfortable in your own voice.”

His mic picked up the distant noise of slurping through a straw, against what sounded like the bottom of a metal cup, which clinked when he set it back down. “Have you played Cipherstone before?”

“Total newcomer. Though I’ve seen some screenshots in memes.”

“Cool,” he said in a way that was clear it was not cool, “I can’t add you to my in-game friends list until you get off Tutorial Island. Share your screen with me until then.”

All right. You can be bad at this. You can be so bad at this. “What’s a screen?” Not that bad, idiot! “I mean,” you said, fumbling, “How do I share my screen with you?”

The scratching grew louder. “Bottom left. Screen button. Right click. Share option.”

“Ah.” You should probably lure him into thinking you’re competent while there was a literal tutorial onscreen so that he would be more frustrated with you later. “Gotcha.”

For a few seconds after your avatar popped onscreen for the first time, nothing came through but the 8-bit tutorial music. “Is that what you look like in real life?” he finally asked.

“No,” you said, not exactly lying. The character had her hair down in her face (which you wouldn’t normally do when you were on patrol, since it could get in the way of physical hero work), and, hoping to endear yourself to this weirdo, you’d chosen the sluttiest shirt: while none of the horrible pixelated options showed any boob whatsoever, the poor rendering still managed to convey that the top was off-shoulder. Again, not great for hero work. “In real life, I’ve much, much more panache.”

Another silence, during which you assumed he was looking up the word. “So, you click on the screen to go where you want to walk, on either the overall game interface or in the mini-map in the corner. Your destination will show up—”

“Wait, what should I call you, screwboy?”

“—as a red flag,” he said, frown audible, his rasping voice screeching to a stop the way brakes are slowly applied to the wheels of a train. “Not screwboy.”

“I’m not calling you by your handle. Not only is it cringe, but you won’t have to answer to it anywhere else in your life. If you don’t want to give me your name, that’s fine. I could call you by your hero name, if you like; it’d help you get used to answering to it. But no, I’m not calling you your username,” you said, shoulders slacking once Dango finally settled in a ball at your hip, “Especially since you couldn’t even get the correct spelling of Ten Konpeito.”

“It’s—it’s not supposed to say that,” he said, sputtering with a groan coming in at the end, “It’s a play on my name, and including the n makes it harder to say aloud. I think these things through; I have to be aware of my public image and branding now; that’s the whole point of this stupid—my name is Tenko, you asshole.”

“Oh, you’re gonna call civilians asshole?” You clicked your tongue. “Bad. Bad and evil. Speaking from experience, people don’t like that.”

“Just fu—just click on the map.”

“Fine. But you can’t fool me with your medieval, point-and-click game,” you said, clicking to pick up a fishing net, “Incidentally, the oldest known fishing net is the net of Antrea, crafted of willow and dating back to 8300 B.C.”

Tenko paused. “What would be the socially expected response to that?”

Your avatar fished for shrimps. “Oh, usually people yell at me. Get mad for bringing up total non sequiturs. My friend Bakugou is fond of telling me that I’m a collection of those bottle caps with facts printed on the inside.”

“Would…would you like me to get angry? Am I supposed to? I was under the impression I was supposed to curb my anger. To be nice.”

Your inventory filled with shrimps.

“You only need one shrimp,” said Tenko.

“You’ll thank me when we have food later,” you said, continuing to fish for shrimps.

“It’s the tutorial,” he said, frown creeping into his voice, “You won’t keep any resources from it. You should go chop the tree down to light a fire.”

“Well, hell. I want my shrimps.” You clicked away from the fishing spot and onto a tree. “Nothing’s happening.”

Tenko cleared his throat. “You need to talk to the woodcutting tutor first. She’ll give you an axe.”

“I thought this game had magic,” you said, guiding Dango’s head away from blocking the screen, “Can’t I just get logs with magic?”

“No, it’s—you must want me to get angry. As a test.” Scratching. “Magic comes later. Not for getting logs.”

You interpreted that as a sign to make the rest of the tutorial go smoothly. You followed the instructions for a few silent minutes, proving to him that you could read, and when you reached the end of the tutorial, a wizard teleported you to the crossroads of a town centre.

“Ah,” you said, genuinely surprised as other players’ avatars, decked out in what must be high-level gear, dashed past, “I don’t know where I am.”

“You can turn your screen-sharing off now.” Tenko typed on what sounded like a mechanical keyboard. “I’m over here. I’ve got—by the fountain—white hair, all black clothes. I’m not—there you are.”

Dozens of other players were running past the two of you, the only bare, new players in the area. Tenko’s pixelated avatar waved at you. Cheeky bitch. He’s so poorly animated and so very 2007 that it gave no indication what he could look like in real life. But he’s chosen to have a black t-shirt as his default, so he has to be a slut.

You resisted the urge to ask to feel his pixelated bicep. “You don’t have any equipment. I thought you’ve played Cipherstone before?”

“My main account is max-ed out. I started a new account to grow at the same rate as you. Before anything else, notice where we are,” said Tenko, “We’re in the centre of the city of Renfield. Get familiar with it. Think of it as home. It’s where you’ll always come back to when you get lost.”

It’s a barely animated town centre, with a short path up the stairs to a castle door and a few market stalls split between fountains.

“I have no idea what that means, Tenko.”

“It means that—that,” Tenko said, and stopped.

You couldn’t stop grinning, biting at your lower lip to keep from laughing—he’d let out a flustered huff, sounding a little strangled, because you’d said his name for the first time—and, judging by how long this delicious silence was dragging on, Tenko was probably his given name, not the family name. Beautiful, really, that a guy his age (however old he was, but he’s at least the same as you, since he couldn’t attend U.A. at the usual time) could get this nervous over a woman calling him by his name.

Tenko recovered in a way that showed he didn’t: “It means that you are always able to cast one spell, regardless of magic level,” he said in a rush, “It is a homing spell that teleports you back to this spot, so even if you get lost, you can always get back to Renfield. You can teleport other ways, too, but that’s for another time, and I need a cup of coffee.” He inhaled sharply.

It's only the first day, so you should go easy on him. Let his moment of awkwardness go.

However, Aizawa gave you a mission.

Excuse you, a task.

“Do you plan on getting flustered every time a civilian calls you by name?” you asked, petting between Dango’s ears, “Or are you planning on avoiding as much publicity as possible by being an underground hero like Aizawa?”

“I don’t—they’re not going to—it’s different with you. I can already tell,” said Tenko (you froze, fingers curled into Dango’s fur), “because I’m going to have some sort of working relationship with you. I assume you’re here to stay.”

Putting it that way made your heartbeat throb around your ears. You decided you could ask directly. “Tenko’s your first name, then?”

“Yeah.” He must have covered his hand with his mouth, muffling his voice at first. “But people usually—people have been calling me something else.”

“Then I can call you something else, if you like,” you said, getting back to petting Dango behind her ears and resolving to treat him with the same tenderness—he must need it, since no one in his life knows him well enough to call him by his given name.

“No, I think you should,” he said a bit too quickly, “Call me that. Tenko. I’m tired of that other stuff. Click on something to keep from logging out, by the way. There’s a timer.” Mechanical typing noises. “No, Aizawa-sensei wants me to be better. Of all things, I need to learn to respond to my real name.”

You squinted at your screen, as if the methodical rise and fall of his avatar’s chest could betray how he was feeling. Something had to have happened to this guy to make him feel this way about such a basic part of his identity, to make other people avoid his real name so universally. Aizawa couldn’t’ve have assigned you this task just to socialise him; something else was unfolding here. How did you enter the equation? If you’re supposed to guide someone who’s also lost their direction in life, you’re a hell of a bad candidate.

But what if you fuck up Aizawa’s plan, whatever it was?

Your recent history is riddled with things going downhill. What if you somehow screwed over Tenko? You’d be dragging someone else down with you, down to…the beginning again, a humiliating re-start, back at your fucking school, when the rest of your friends were out living the dream you’d all crafted together, the dream that apparently could go on without you in it.

Well. Enough of that. Distract yourself. Distract Tenko, too. “Got it. I want a hat.”

“What?”

“I want a hat,” you said, clicking the space around the fountain for your avatar to walk, “My head is cold. How do we get a hat? Hats. You should get one, too.”

“Hats. Very well,” said Tenko, clicking to face you across the shitty fountain, “Do you want one that’s purely decorative or one that has some sort of stats? Decorative ones we can get within a minute, with good RNG, by killing goblins across the bridge. There’s a low chance we could get a low-tier wizard’s hat doing that, too.”

“Then it will be a pleasure killing goblins with you, Tenko.”

“Mm,” he said at the back of his throat, “First, we’ll need to obtain some sort of weapons, since bare-handed punching them will take forever. We could either talk to the melee tutor to get a temporary sword or start wi—actually, we should talk to the melee tutor. Melee will probably be the easiest fighting style for you right now, and it’ll be the simplest, since you won’t have to worry about running out of ammunition or runes.”

“Sure,” you said, leaning back in bed, “Do we go starboard or port?”

“You can just call them east and west, y’know. And we go north.”

To be obstinate, you clicked the opposite direction that Tenkopeito was going, and the moment you ran offscreen, Tenko spoke in a low, grumbling voice into his microphone. “No, don’t run away from me. Come back here.”

The rumble in his voice shot warmth straight to your lower stomach, the nature of the encounter between the two of you changing in a second. Your avatar kept running to her destination, your hand frozen and hovering above the tracking pad. You blinked, your throat drying. Snapping back into it, you ran back to Tenko, who seemed unaware of what he just did to you—and he almost negated your arousal in the way he kept talking about sword upgrades and something called RNG.

Uh.

“—now, it’ll take about ten minutes, but it’ll seem like two hours of hard labour. Follow me across the bridge. Follow—there’s a follow mechanic, if you’ll right-click on me.”

Oh, you’ll right-click him, all right. You needed to know more about Tenko—why you’ve been paired off, what Aizawa’s planning for him, what—a tinge of shame soured at the back of your tongue, because what currently gripped you were minutiae: more about him, what he looks like, what he likes, what he does for fun, if you’re…the sort of person he’d get along with in real life, if you hadn’t been forced together.

God, get over yourself. You spend two months away from men your age, and now, you’re thirsting over someone you don’t even know because he said one hot thing. You needed to be socialised—no, stop. This isn’t about you. Stop thinking about what his hands would feel like on you, what he’d sound like grunting into your ear as he ground against you—

“You’ve been quiet for a minute,” said Tenko, slashing the first goblin, “Are you all right?”

A very heroic question when you haven’t been thinking too heroically. The thought of his voice muttering against your neck still grasped you tightly. “I’m having—technical difficulties.”

***

Poking your head outside of your dorm/apartment door, you scanned the hallway for witnesses. You gripped the handle of Dango’s carrier, still hidden behind the door inside your dorm, and you nodded back at her when she meowed at you.

“I know, baby,” you said, listening for footsteps, “We’ll be outside soon enough. Gotta check for people, though.”

Okay, nothing coming. You shifted Dango’s carrier out of your dorm and pulled out your key, sticking it in the lock at the same time as a door opened down the hall.

Too fast—you had to prod her carrier back inside, your foot stuck in the crack between wall and door, just as—as Midoriya strode down the hall. Keys jangling. Civilian clothes (a Froppy hoodie, in fact).

“Oh, hello!” Midoriya only seemed to notice you once you were struggling to close the door despite the carrier being the way, and hopefully you thrust it fully inside swiftly enough for him not to catch the flash of burgundy. He trotted up to you, hands in the pockets of his worn cargo pants. “I didn’t think you’d be around. Do you not have work today?”

Dango meowed mournfully through the door, and you stepped in front of it. “It’s my lunch break. I’m going for a walk.”

Midoriya nodded, and he glanced over his shoulder back to the room he’d left. “Gotcha, gotcha. Good weather for it, especially after that storm earlier this week.” easy smile stretched across his face as he faced you again, but his gaze weighed down on you, as if the number one hero’s attention magnified your failures in comparison to his rise to the top—and the fact that he didn’t mean to pressure you only exacerbated the feeling.

“Uh,” you said, stuffing your keys in your backpack and setting it on the ground, as if you’re not waiting to go back inside, “May I ask what you’re doing here? Don’t you have better—aren’t you busy?”

Chuckling, Midoriya scratched the back of his neck (and oh, in that laughter, he was hiding something). “I make time. I’m just visiting,” he said, jerking his head back towards the end of the hall, “A friend. I want to take care to see him regularly. I didn’t know you lived on the same hall.”

“If you can call it living,” you said, and for some reason, Midoriya frowned, took a step closer to you, and said your name under his breath, eyes fucking wide and too damn concerned for your comfort. Fuck, you only meant to make a self-depredating joke, not make the situation serious. 

“You—you know that you can reach out to us. I mean that. If you’re scared you’re gonna burden any of us—”

You’d squatted down to go through your bag, just to have something to do, to have an excuse to not look him in the eyes. If you were going to cry—which you were not!—then the number one hero’s not going to get to witness it.

“—then reach out to me, at least. I’ve got time, or else I can make it.” Midoriya was kneeling next to you, and you kept your eyes on the inside of your backpack. “If it makes you feel less like you’re bothering any of us, I could check in with you when I come see my friend. I’d already be on campus. I wouldn’t be going out of my way.” He sighed to fill the space when you didn’t answer. “What are you looking for?”

“I can’t find my planner,” you invented, and, acting like you were upset, you zipped your backpack again. “I think I need to go back inside to locate it.”

He shifted his jaw, and he glanced down at your bag and back at you. “Come with me to the vending machines, at least?”

The new symbol of peace, asking to spend time with you. You didn’t deserve it, so you shook your head. “I don’t have much time left in my break. I think I’d better let you go.”

Shifting his jaw, Midoriya tilted his head at you, his eyes glinting. “All right,” he said slowly, “You know yourself better than anyone else. Do what you need to. Rest up.” He started walking backwards towards the stairs. “And I want to see you more—we all do. I’ll see you the next time I come around. Maybe the three of us could hang out?”

“Sure,” you said, shoving your key in the lock to let a thrashing Dango out of her misery.

***

“The church. It’s the one with the altar icon in the minimap.”

You clicked enough so that your avatar would backtrack. “How am I supposed to know that’s the church? Is that icon supposed to be an altar? It looks nothing like an altar. It looks more like a steaming cup of tea.”

“That’s fair,” said Tenko into his headset, “but this is the easiest quest in the game. How are you having this much trouble with it?”

“Oh, stop that,” you said, reaching his character in front of the priest, “It’s intuitive to you because you’ve been playing this for years. Do we kill this guy?”

“What? No. He’s going to give us each the key to a dungeon underneath the church.”

“How can he give us both a key if there’s only one?” You clicked through the dialogue with the priest, and a key appeared in your inventory. “Also, how accurate is this dungeon? Because if this is a broadly medieval game, then the dungeons will be closer to underground bathrooms rather than, like, creepy and wet with shackles and bones. That was popularised by Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe.”

“How the hell do you know that,” Tenko asked flatly, “Ne—never mind. It doesn’t matter. Follow me to the trapdoor outside.”

You did, and it was locked. “Are we allowed to do this?” you asked, clicking on the key and then the lock, “Will we get arrested for trespassing?”

“Wha—no. No, we’re supposed to in order to progress the quest. In fact, our characters do a frankly criminal amount of breaking and entering throughout the game and never get checked for it. Hey, don’t go down there without me.”

Your character had only just gone down the trapdoor, prompting a blackout loading screen, but you popped back up to the surface before you could get a good look around. Your character stood next to Tenko’s, still next to the trapdoor. “What’s the holdup? I thought the only step was to use the key on the door. Did I skip something?”

“No, I—huh,” said Tenko, cutting himself off with a tinge of frustration creeping into his voice, “I lost the key.”

Raising a brow, you tilted your head. “What? How’d you lose it?”

“I don’t know. It was in my inventory one minute, and now it’s not. I didn’t touch it.” His mic picked up light scratching. “You’re not supposed to be able to lose the key, but I guess I can go back to the priest to get another. You wait—”

“Hold up,” you said, brow furrowed, “I have it. It’s in my inventory.”

“The hell? Are you sure it’s not just your own key?”

“Positive. I have two of them now. Same key, right next to each other. Want me to share my screen?”

“No, I—I believe you.” Tenko took a moment. “I’m not familiar with this sort of glitch, where an item from one player’s inventory randomly transfers to another’s. This doesn’t even happen, in my experience, but maybe it’s because this is one of the earliest quests coded into the game. It’s twenty-five-year-old code at this point, and it might have glitched because we’re both trying to perform the same quest actions on the same game tick.”

“Sure,” you said, “So, what do I do? Do I drop the key for you to pick up, or?”

“It disappears if you drop it. Trade me. Right-click, trade option.”

Once the key was traded, the two of you went down the trapdoor and wove your way back into the underground headquarters of a low-level cult, vacant for the moment but with evidence of rituals on the walls and floors, particularly in front of their bloodstained altar.

“Okay, we’re in their headquarters,” you said, making your character walk up the aisle, “What now? Priest guy didn’t give us any instructions.”

His avatar followed you and sat on the only programmed-to-be-sittable seat in the pew, his black cape (that he stole from a highwayman’s corpse) folding under his legs. “Actually, he did. You just clicked through his dialogue.”

“Because you’re here to tell me what to do, Quest Man.”

“Click on the—” Tenko heaved an enormous sigh, microphone sparking. “You figure it out. What’s clickable in this room? What has examine text?”

You hovered your mouse over most of the room, and nothing popped up with the examine option, except for something on the altar. “It’s this weird-looking, severed hand, isn’t it? This thing standing up on a slice of wrist by itself?” Your character walked nearer to it, fingers splayed widely enough to hold an in-game apple. “Weirdest ring-holder I’ve ever seen.”

When Tenko didn’t say anything, you glanced towards his character, but he was still sitting on the pew.

“Is this whole quest a pun? Because it’s one of the easiest quests, so they’re giving us a lot of guidance, so it’s like they’re holding our hands to get it through?”

That broke his silence: he scoffed into the mic. “I doubt it,” he said, “You need to grab the hand for the quest to keep going.”

“Fine,” you said, clicking the hand, and the instant your avatar touched it, a zombie spawned from the altar and began to attack you. “Dude! Did you know that thing was gonna jump me?” you asked, clicking away a few spaces but turning around to stab at it with your stupid bronze dagger, “And you just sat there? You could’ve warned me.”

“I did, and the priest did, and the duke who gave us this quest did. That’s why we went and baked all those pies in your inventory, yeah? For you to eat during this fight?”

Your character kept missing hits. “Yeah, but—like! I didn’t know the fight would be now.”

“Hey, relax.” Tenko’s voice sounded muffled, like his mouth was smushed as his fist dug into his cheek. “It’s only a level 12, and you’re level 9. Not too big of a difference. With your armour and weapon, you out-level it.”

The miss sound effect spoke for itself.

“You’ll kill it eventually. You won’t always hit zeroes, so it’ll pass.”

Though your character dealt her first damage, you frowned. “That’s…that’s actually really good advice, Tenko. The stuff you just said would work well if you were trying to calm someone down—reminding people of reality and emphasising perseverance over luck or natural talent are some of the better ways to encourage people.”

“Is that so,” he asked flatly, trying to put off a yawn and failing, “I haven’t—I wasn’t thinking about hero work. Just thinking about the game.”

“Well, it was nice,” you said, “and it seemed like it came naturally. Mind if I ask if something caused it?”

He yawned again, but he must have leant away from the mic so that you wouldn’t hear anything besides the initial inhale. “Nothing special happened today, but I’m too tired to get irritated. Therapy took a lot out of me today.”

Therapy. Therapy. Okay, so he’s got an official diagnosis somewhere. The word today implies that it’s a regular thing, and for some reason, this session was more intense. Intense emotionally? Physically? What kind of therapy? Well, they offered cognitive behavioural therapy on campus, but considering his non-traditional student status, his might be outsourced. Plus, if you, a former hero but technically a civilian, are being implemented into his care plan without being informed directly—

“You usually don’t go this long without saying some inane non sequitur,” said Tenko, that same, strange scratching picking up on the mic, “Snap out of it. You’re gonna get killed by the easiest quest boss in the game.”

Making an undignified noise, you shook yourself and spam-clicked on a cherry pie for your character to eat until she was healed completely, and then you clicked on the zombie to attack again.

“Why’d you pause when I said therapy? Surprised I’d go? Think that sort of thing is below me?”

“Of course not,” you said, trying to seem like you were focused on the fight so that he wouldn’t get nervous about sharing personal information, “Therapy good. Therapy great. Everyone needs to go to therapy.” Since he appeared to be taking this casually, you could probably ask after the type without it seeming too intrusive. “What kind? CBT? That’s what—”

“You think U.A. would arrange for me to get my cock and balls tortured? That wouldn’t qualify as therapy for me, certainly, and there’s no way that U.A. would pay for—”

“Not fucking cock-and-ball torture, you muppet; cognitive behavioural therapy. The sitting-down-with-therapist-to-talk-about-your-trauma-and-restructuring-the-way-you-think-through-practise type. You fuckin’ pervert,” you said, grinning at his avatar onscreen.

“Good to know. I didn’t know the name for it.”

“It’s good that you made this mistake with me instead of with Aizawa-sensei.”

“He’s probably more inclined towards bondage. Congratulations on killing your first boss,” said Tenko, and you blinked in surprise at your character: you’d defeated the zombie while staring at him. It fell to the ground, dropping bones and some sort of arrows.

“Take those. Check to see if they’re iron or steel. All right, equip them in your ammo slot for now so that they don’t take up an inventory space.”

You did so. “Why didn’t it attack me with the arrows if it were holding them?”

“There’s no logic to it besides that arrows are on its drop table. It’s coded to attack by punching you in the face, which doesn’t involve arrows.”

“Sure. Now, let’s get out of the cult basement; I wanna bake more pies until we can make apple ones. Did you know that the first record of fruit pies was around 1600? That means these fruit pies are anachronistic, since this game pitches itself as medieval.”

“Is that…” The hesitance had you beaming, daring him to actually ask it. “Is that not medieval?”

“Tenko, get your head out of your ass. For reference, 1600 is arguably the year the Azuchi-Momoyama period ended and the Edo period began. The game frames itself as medieval European, and 1600 is hard Renaissance-slash-Early-Modern. That’s Shakespeare times, screwboy.”

Only silence on your headphones. Character still on the pew. You made your character walk over to his to perform the curtsy emote, and in real life, you frowned. “Did I go too far there? Bit too annoying? I’m really sorry if I’m bothering you with this sort of thing; my friends say that I—”

“Nothing’s wrong. I needed a moment,” came Tenko’s voice, quiet and steady, “I could hear you smiling, and it was—it was good.”

Inhaling sharply, you pressed a fist to your mouth. Great. Fucking fabulous. Goddammit, you hadn’t aimed for it to go this way, but were you now the one getting flustered at something as simple as—

“Do most people consider a long pause in conversation rude? Did I fuck up with that?”

“No! No, of course not,” you were saying, trying to recover but still startled at how he was able to flip the vibe of your conversations in so few words, words that seemed so casual to him but grabbed you by the throat/cunt, “Especially since you followed-up with a check-in of how it might be strange; a lot of times, people will be comforted by checking to see if something’s okay with them personally…”

Frowning, you trailed off when another avatar entered the cult’s sanctuary and strode up the aisle. You hovered over the new guy’s stupid frog mask to see his username was Venomothman.

“Fucking great,” grumbled Tenko, “Here comes someone else to break our immersion. Ignore him. I’ll go ahead and fight the zombie so that we can get out of here.”

“The zombie’s dead. You don’t have to fight him,” you said, as Venomothman sat directly on top of Tenkopeito, with both avatars glitching as they took up the same space on the pew.

Tenko made some sort of noise in the back of his throat. “No, I have to kill it, too. It’s like each of us is the only one doing the quest, so in your version, the evil has been defeated, but in my version—it’s this thing called an instance—”

Venomothman: wow a couple questing together

Venomothman: bet ur one guy on two accounts

Venomothman: roleplaying that he can get a gf

The new guy’s in-text chat appeared in yellow font above his avatar’s frog-faced head, and somehow, the boggly, green eyes made his words more irritating.

Venomothman: leave the basement sometimes ya incel

“Some people are assholes recreationally,” said Tenko, making his avatar stand to go to the altar as the clatter of mechanical typing came through the mic, “Let me get rid of this fucking scumba—wait.”

 Venomothman: ur doing too much work to stare at pixelated ass

“Would it be correct for a hero to insult someone online?”

You shrugged, even though he couldn’t see it. “Eh. You’re not on duty, and you’re not under any persona connected with your public branding. I would say go for it, but since you’re trying to be better with people, you may want to practise.”

Venomothman: somehow this is even more pathetic than never knowing the touch of a woman at all

“Then I’ll shut him down. The shit-talking isn’t bothering me so much as his breaking our immersion in the game,” said Tenko, grabbing the hand on the altar to start his instance of the fight, “I’m trying to cultivate a particular experience for you, and he’s a fucker who won’t stop yapping. Give me a second.”

Venomothman: is this what does it for you??

Venomothman: why no response

Venomothman: hard to type with one hand, isn’t it, ******* shithead

You laughed through your nose. “Cipherstone censors the word fuck?”

“It censors fuck; it censors cunt,” said Tenko, avatar casting a weak air spell at the zombie, slowly, slowly draining its health, “Everything else is fair game.”

“Will it censor variations of cunt? Like, if I typed in cuntbag? Or—actually, let’s find that out later,” you said, tapping the buttons on your earbud cord to turn up the volume, “Let’s practise navigating difficult social interactions. What’s our goal here in this conversation? Is it to continue to engage?”

“No.” His spell missed, and the zombie landed a hit on his character, prompting him to eat half of a pie. “It’s to close the interaction. Therefore, I need to say something concise that invites no response, right? I’m assuming that a simple fuck off is unacceptable.”

“You’re getting better at this, y’know?”

“Is that condescension I detect?”

“Only a little.” You slumped back against your headboard and reached for the bottle of water on your bedside table. “Actually—no. No condescension. Genuinely, Tenko, you’re picking up on this stuff easily, and it’s impressive. You’ll be able to walk little old ladies across the street with style and flair in no time.” 

“Hilarious,” he said, voice restrained and tight at the mention of his name (too easy—he gives himself away aurally so freely; who knows what you could read off of him when you had a visual?), “I’m sure no one wants me touching them. Can I—hm.” He sounded like he was pressing his fist against his face somehow. “Why you keep bothering to compliment me? Most people bitch down to me like I’ve spat my own cum in their coffee.”

“Wha—how about because you deserve to be complimented? Listen,” you said, electing to brush over his vivid simile, “Silent admiration rots. By keeping in appreciation or gratitude, you’re not doing anyone any good. Kind regards are meant to be shared. Like, now, if I held back any positive thoughts concerning your growth, then you might not feel encouraged to keep going.”

“Like I’m gonna go around fucking complimenting ev—”

“I’m not saying you have to,” you said, “but consider trying it more often. See if anything turns out better. And be sure to be sincere about it—obviously.”

“This is bullshit.”

“Just consider it. So. What has he told us about himself based on how he’s insulted you?”

“He’s so low-level that it looks like he just created his account. His stats are even lower than ours,” said Tenko, speaking more quickly now that it was a subject he was more comfortable with, unequipping his wand to punch the zombie instead, “But he’s gone out of his way to get the frog mask.”

“His words, Tenko,” you said, unscrewing the cap and doing your fucking darndest to pinch your mouth from smiling at his slight hitch when you said his name, “I’m trying to get you to notice on whom he looks down and what that means for his personal social status.”

“Right,” he said a bit too quickly, a bit of a break in his voice on the word, “He’s debasing me for—oh, you’re brilliant. How the hell do you notice these things? He’s using basement dweller as insult, meaning he considers himself above that. Leave it to me.”

You muted yourself briefly to glug down water; you didn’t know how sensitive the mic was on your earbuds, but considering that you could catch onto Tenko’s occasional rustling of what sounded like plastic bags on his side or typing on his mechanical keyboard, as he was right now, you would prefer not to be emitting the same.

Tenkopeito: Your mom wishes you would come out of your room to talk with the rest of the family more often

You spluttered into your water bottle as the yellow text appeared above his head, and you unmuted yourself. “That is not what I meant for you to—”

“Was I being mean?” The mic caught the creak of Tenko’s chair as he leant back in it, and you could picture him defensive and pouting as he crossed his arms (and it struck you that you couldn’t imagine his face. Grimacing, you bit the inside of your cheek). “I wasn’t being rude. I could be so much crueller, but I thought this would be more of a devastating blow. Living on the same floor as your family isn’t the same as living in the basement, so I’m acknowledging his level of social power while still demeaning—”

Venomothman: i mean you right

Venomothman: lmao how tf did you know it was me

“I think we should log out,” you said, wiping the water off of your chin with the back of your hand and setting the bottle back on the bedside table.

Over Tenko’s microphone, you heard the shrill pitch of a custom ringtone and a startled but violent shuffle at the noise. “Hold on. I’m getting a call,” he said, voice coming through at a distance, as if he’d knocked his mic aside.

“Oh? Who is it?”

It took him a minute, but Tenko eventually replied, “A friend.”

That must be a damn good microphone, because you could still pick up on Tenko’s side of the conversation a few feet away. “Yes, hello?” he asked, a bit more brusquely than you’d heard him before.

“Oh. I didn’t,” he was saying, “How was I supposed to know that you’d—yes, that’s her. The one working with Aizawa-sensei.”

Very nice, you were thinking, as you unlocked your own phone to check your messages. Very good for him to have friends. Not that you would’ve pegged him as the absolute loner type, because he proved to be adaptable and quick on his feet, but since Aizawa’d recruited you for interpersonal help, you’d considered that he may not have friends. So, good on him for having at least one friend, it seemed, who cared enough to create an account on some stupid video game solely to annoy him.

“—cool of you to make an account to hang out with me. Stop fucking laughing; I am trying to be kind to you, shitstain. Okay. I don’t know. I haven’t been in contact with him in the past two days. I’ve been busy. Let me check.” Tenko leant back towards the mic to address you. “Do we have a schedule for the rest of the week? For instance, are we doing this again on Thursday?”

“I thought we were,” you said, scanning your room for your planner so that you could check your calendar, “Did something come up?”

“It’s not imperative that I go,” Tenko was saying into your ear, while you picked up your laptop to walk over to your U.A.-issued desk, “but another friend who’s been out of town will finally be back then. We might hang out.”

“Psh, go with your friends,” you said, delighted that he had more than one (fighting envy that it was so easy for them to meet up), “We can do this another time.”

“Understood,” Tenko said and backed away from the mic.

Venomothman: so have you sucked his dick yet

Tenko’s incensed shout of “Touya!” had you turning down the volume.

Venomothman: not to be the world’s worst wingman, but my dude is packing. and goes commando all the time.

Venomothman: and i would know. “i” sometimes “did” our “laundry”

You: what’s with all those quotation marks

Venomothman: and do you know the last time it was sucked? never

(Fucking hell. This Touya was walking you back into forbidden territory: the sexualisation of Tenko. After that first session, when you’d been turned on by his confident, rumbling voice as he’d given you an order, you’d felt guilty for sexualising him for the rest of the night. It was as if instead of friend-zoning him, you’d sex-zoned him, only able to see him as a sexual person/object. For the sake of your mission task, that felt unfair.

Or maybe you weren’t even sexualising him. Maybe your brain was appropriately interpreting what he’d done as sexual.

Whatever. Something in your gut was begging you not to see Tenko only through romantic or sexual lenses right now, and you couldn’t explain why.

And talking about Tenko’s apparently massive dick was not helping.)

Tenkopeito: Touya if you don’t ******* shut up I am going to tear off your other arm

Venomothman: no need, boss man

You heard Tenko sigh and say into his phone, sounding exhausted, “I’m not your boss anymore, Touya.”

Venomothman: no need, douchebag

***

Draped over the side of your bed, you dangled a shoelace in front of the gap in an attempt to coax Dango out from underneath. “Dango, sweetie,” you said, whipping the shoelace to the side, “Come out here so that I can look you in the eyes. Where is my planner, you whore?”

At a firm knock on your door, you shot up, dropping the lace. “Never mind,” you said, sliding off the bed, “Stay hidden.”

You opened your door on Aizawa, bare arm raised in mid-knock, wisps of hair plastered to his forehead by dried sweat, and a sweatshirt tied around his waist. He took two seconds to look over you before saying, “Get dressed. Civilian clothes. You have three minutes.”

Throwing on yesterday’s outfit, you rushed to follow Aizawa out of the dorm and off campus, nearly stepping on his heels while he wove through night pedestrians, pulling on his own sweatshirt to minimise skin contact once the crowd thickened.

You flipped up your coat collar to sneak a glance over your shoulder. “Is this a test?”

Aizawa combed his fingers back through his hair, gaze straight ahead. “Not for you.”

“Right.” You stepped more lightly, naturally falling back into patrol patterns: noting exits (narrow alleyways favouring the left side, underground into the subway station), checking vantage points (upper-storey windows in the resident buildings, non-industrial rooftops), honing in on light sources (yellow- and LED-tinted streetlamps, ambience from open businesses) and physical presence (close enough to brush shoulders with passerby [putting you on edge, because the slightest touch could be pivotal]). You had to consciously unclench your jaw, body flooded with stress it hadn’t felt in months. Swiping at the inner corner of your eye, you asked, “Does it have anything to do with the guy in the black hoodie and face mask following us?”

Aizawa laughed through his nose, once. “All right, then. What’s that ice cream place you and Shinsou went to all the time? Take us there.”

Bewildered, you changed directions to head towards Nekozawa’s, with Aizawa placing a hand on your shoulder to slow your pace, and by the time you pushed open Nekozawa’s glass door to the glowing, pink parlour, you were prepared to hold it open for your follower in the face mask. You watched his broad back as he ordered some ungodly, radioactive-blue ice cream with gummy bears before retreating to a table outside despite the dropping temperature, and Aizawa gestured you forward so that he could pay for the three of you.

Holding your ice cream, you hesitated at the door, swaying underneath the seasonal cat decorations dangling from the ceiling.

“Go on,” said Aizawa, retrieving the U.A. card from his wallet, “I’ve got to make a phone call, so don’t wait up. Don’t be too harsh on him; we’re here because he did a good job in the field today. Tailing you was extra practise.”

Nodding, you nudged open the door, bracing yourself at the cold, night air, and let it drift shut behind you as you approached the table, the farthest one from the pink lights.

Hood pulled up, Tenko bent over his blue monstrosity, face mask hanging by a loop over his left ear. Scuffing your boots on the concrete to announce your presence, you sat across from him, setting your cup on the cast iron before swinging your leg over the bench. You managed a cursory glance over what appeared to be a sketchbook before he closed it, and once he’d stowed it away, he swopped his spoon to his dominant hand to keep eating.

“You draw, Tenko?” To make him feel more comfortable, you kept your gaze towards Aizawa inside on the phone. “Do you think you’re any good?”

“Not yet. But I’m gonna be,” he said, clicking his pen and clenching it in his left hand, “I’ve got all these fucking artist’s gloves, so I might as well put ‘em to use.”

“Very nice,” you said, nodding, closing your eyes as you dipped your spoon into your ice cream, “But as a reminder, you don’t have to be good at something to enjoy it. I love doing stuff I’m absolute shit at. It reminds me of medieval bestiaries. They didn’t know shit about animals, but, boy howdy, did they have fun illustrating them. Did you know a weasel used to be called a polecat?”

Tenko huffed, his face mask fluttering. “It really is you.”

“Of course it is,” you said, beaming, and for the first time, you looked at him.

Tension flooded your teacup of a body and overflowed into the saucer and onto the floor. Heightened by the cold, a vein on the back of your hand strained and pulsed visibly, and, jaw locking, you lunged over the tabletop to grab him by the shoulders, shaking him.

“What the hell is wrong with you‽” You climbed over the table, pushed his ice cream out of the way (he shot out a hand to save it from toppling off the table, and he ripped off his face mask to set it aside before it fell to the ground), and planted your foot on his thigh and your elbows on his chest, caging him in as you forced him flat on the bench. “Why the fuck are you using your real name in your fucking Cipherstone username, you fucking moron‽ People could fucking track you!”

The man who had been Shigaraki Tomura eyed your fists in his hoodie and then his cup of ice cream. “You didn’t have a problem with it before.”

“I—” This idiot! “I didn’t know it was you. There are a lot of Tenkos.”

“Then there’s my logic,” he said, hands dangling by his sides, making no attempt to touch you—you didn’t know if you appreciated it or not. “I thought you knew who I was.”

“No, I fucking—I would have given you advice that was more specific to you, over the spiel I was giving interns.” Releasing your grip on his hoodie, you sat back up and scooted over on the tabletop. Though you wanted to keep holding him, to hug him after all he’s been through, he probably wouldn’t want that. “I’m—sorry about tackling you. I, uh—fuck,” you said, and, grimacing, you slid his ice cream back to him and reached across for your own, pretending with everything you’ve got that it was perfectly normal that you were sitting on a table next to Shigaraki Tomura, who’s been teaching you to play a video game, who’s apparently living at the end of the hall, who’s decorated his door with Eri’s silver tinsel for Christmas, who’s banned from drinking caffeine, who could rest his fucking head on your thigh if he wanted. Normal. Yeah.

“Again, I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to keep doing that,” he said, fishing out a gummy bear like you hadn’t lunged at him, “Your reaction was reasonable.”

“It—it wasn’t, really,” you said, laughing nervously, “I wasn’t expecting you. I mean, no one knows what—what happened to you. Afterwards. It was really unclear.”

“It was that way on purpose,” said Tenko, “It was thought to be better to emphasise the total destruction of All for One instead of whatever happened to his leftovers.” He shifted a bear to his back molars to bite into the frozen gummy better. “Nezu-sensei decided it was better to keep it muddled for now.”

Muddled was a good way to put it. There’d been so much chaos at the end of the war that so much never was accounted for. You’d think that the location of Shigaraki’s body would be high on the list, but satisfaction was found simply in the splintered, spectacular remains of AFO. Shigaraki’s name wasn’t cleared, per se, but in the aftermath, Midoriya especially stressed that yes, Shigaraki committed atrocities, but he’d been abused, groomed, and literally bodily possessed by AFO to think that way. Didn’t excuse him, but wasn’t entirely his fault.

The locations of the other PLF members—well, the core of the League, really—were public, if not vague. Spinner was in the States at a rehab that specialised in heteromorph trauma; Toga was at a local women’s facility called Sakura Grove, and Dabi was living with his family—he must have been that Touya on the phone, holy shit.

So, here he was, sitting on the bench at the same ice cream parlour you visited with the same friends who fought him, hunched over in oversized, black clothes you suspected were Aizawa’s, broad shoulders and faded scars out of place in the pink lights, white hair pulled back in a blunt ponytail with his bangs flopping over his forehead, seemingly unbothered by the toe of your boot pressing against his denim-covered thigh.

God. He’s scratched at his neck so much that it looks like he’s been beheaded with a blunt axe.

Tenko’s eyes flickered up to you, their colour deepening to crimson in the tinted lights. “So. You’ve got questions.”

“Are you okay?”

Tenko swallowed with effort, scowling. “Don’t start with a hard one.”

“Right,” you said, throat drying, “Who knows you’re staying at U.A.?”

“Faculty and staff. My therapist. The police force. The ramen shop Aizawa-sensei and I go to. The intensive rehab I was at before. The top of the hero commission. Touya, Touya’s father, Spinner, Toga. Eri and Midoriya,” he said, tongue swiping over his lower lip, “You.”

Somehow both fewer and more than you’d figured. “What exactly…is the situation? Aizawa-sensei was vague.”

“Officially, I’m like Eri: a ward of U.A. My old rehab thought I was good enough to live off their campus, so I’m back here, where I can be watched by people capable enough to bring me down if I go crazy again,” he said, brow furrowed as he traced the side of his cup with his spoon, “I should resent that, but it’s not like I have anywhere else to go, especially somewhere as comfortable as this. This is fucking stupid to say aloud, but fucking—fuckin’ All Might is the closest thing I have to family now, along with Midoriya.”

“I’m not following.”

“My grandma was the holder of One for All before All Might had it.” He pointed at you with his spoon. “So you can make the connection from there. But it’s stupid; I’m stupid—” He was shaking his head and staring into his lap. “—because it’s like I have a brother in Midoriya and a goddamn father in All Might—and then Aizawa-sensei’s acting like a dad, too, to me and Eri, and Nezu-sensei? Nezu-sensei is so fucking cool,” said Tenko, dragging his hand down his face, “He’s got a driver’s license! I don’t even have one of those. And he can type fucking 210 words per minute with those little rat paws, and I’m still getting used to using all five fingers, fuck.”

Cute. You scraped the bottom of your cup. “Hey, I think you type well.”

“Yeah, well, that’s why it takes me so long to reply in the in-game chat function. Why I prefer communicating over voice call. Learning new habits, and shit.” Tenko stabbed his ice cream with his spoon. “Nezu-sensei has arranged for me to train as an aftermath-clean-up hero. I had been—” His fingers on one hand circled the thumb of the other. “—in discussion with him in rehab about what I could do, and we decided I could consistently help when there’s collapsed buildings after attacks; I could dust the wreckage so that we could find hostages or make it easier to clean up and rebuild, and Aizawa-sensei and All Might-sensei have been working with me to control what parts of what I touch gets dusted so that I could create pitfall traps for holding criminals. It’s…going. It’s going,” he said, curling his lips in his mouth to moisten them, and with narrowed, determined eyes, he took another bite of ice cream, the blue staining the inside of his lips.

“Tenko, that’s a really cool application of your quirk. I hope you can find more,” you said, tilting your head and smiling down at him, “but—I have to ask—aren’t you tired?”

Tenko rolled his eyes. “Of course. You’re part of the group ensuring I don’t have caffeine.”

“No, I mean,” you said, shaking your head, “I mean, you don’t have to be perceived as useful. You’re—you’re just fine if you wanted to rest. You’re worthwhile just as you, not as—as a job, as a, I don’t know, a redeemed hero or anything. You can just be Tenko.”

“I know. My therapist keeps reminding me. But one of the most vivid memories I have from when I was living in that house,” said Tenko, sneering, “is that I desperately wanted to be a hero and that I would pretend to be one a lot. While I’m aware that I can never atone for what I’ve done, if I did nothing but rest, I’d be alone with my thoughts. And with what I’m learning to do, as a hero, someday, someone might…need me. Need my help. I imagine that’s a good feeling.”

You sat back, leaning on your hands, the cast-iron pattern cutting into your palms, to survey him. “You’re very much re-writing my first impressions of you as my gaming buddy and as the post-war Shigaraki. You’re surprisingly well-adjusted.”

He snorted. “I shouldn’t think it’s surprising. I’ve had almost a year and a half in intensive rehab, and I’m still in therapy every day.” He started listing on his fingers, starting with his thumb. “I’m on antidepressants; I know where my next meal’s coming from and when I’ll get it; I consistently have a safe roof over my head, and I know my friends are getting that, too. I have mentors who care for me as a human person instead of as a tool. I get to stay in contact with my friends and get to make new ones,” he said, nodding curtly at you before quickly looking away, “I’m fucking away from that sadistic fuckface. He’s goddamn dead and burned away to nothing. That’s the main thing. Everything else is a bonus.”

Tenko sighed, bangs fluttering with the movement, his shoulders straining as he leaned onto both his elbows on the table. He sighed again and scooped the last gummy bear out of his cup, and you let the silence carry on while you finished eating.

“Long phone call,” Tenko said eventually.

An increasingly grumpy Aizawa was leaning against the glittery wall inside, phone between his ear and shoulder, and furiously scraping the inside of his ice cream cup.

“Yeah,” you said, “but it’s been good talking to you, Tenko. I really appreciate you telling me all of this.”

“I would’ve talked about it sooner, but I figured you knew who I was and didn’t want to address it,” said Tenko, tapping his fingers one by one on the table.

Pulling the collar of your coat closer to your neck, you frowned, hesitating on how to phrase it. You watched your breath cloud in the night air before settling on, “There’s an off-switch?”

Brow pinching very slightly, Tenko followed your gaze to his hand, with all five fingers coming to rest on the cast iron, and he tapped all five of them on it for emphasis. “Yeah. There always has been. All for One kept it from me. Power of belief kept me jittery and alert my whole life.”

“So long as you thought you’d destroy anything you touched, you would?”

He nodded. “That bitch.”

“Agreed. We should kill him.”

And Tenko laughed. Just for a moment, barely making any noise, but he smiled with his teeth, grin stretching across his face as he looked away and eventually closing his lips, the smile lingering for a few more precious seconds.

***

You closed your laptop to answer the phone at work, clearing your throat to ready your receptionist voice before you picked up. “U.A. University Administration; how may I help you?”

“I need you to fucking murder me,” Tenko spat through the phone, angry and panicked, “I need you to rip out my bones and suck out my guts through a straw. He fucking let me hold onto them, and I’ve fucking gone and lost such a fucking iconic piece of—”

“Tenko, please, take a breath,” you said, relaxing your customer service mode but clutching the phone to your ear, and after catching the eye of the woman with jars of strawberry preserves waiting to see Nezu, you slumped over in your seat so that she couldn’t see you over the desk’s overhang. “Tell me what’s wrong. We can fix it. Are you alone? Is everyone else busy? Do you need to come sit with me?”

“I—fuck,” he said, and you heard some deliberately slow breathing, but his voice still had an irate, twitchy edge afterwards. “During our practise patrol last night, Aizawa-sensei was talking about support equipment for me. I’d never given it much thought, because it’s always been just me and my hands. He leant me his Eraser Goggles for me to think about for my—and I don’t know where they fucking are,” he said, inhaling sharply on the last word, “I’d left them on my desk, but I’d taken them up to the roof to sketch them, and then I’d brought them back to my dorm—”

“And Aizawa-sensei must have swung by to pick them up since then,” you said, pushing yourself back to slide in your swivel chair to the back of the reception desk, “because he was here at the beginning of my shift to print something off, and the goggles are on top of the printer. Relax, Tenko.”

“Hooooooly fuck, you’re kidding,” said Tenko, audibly deflating, and you smiled to yourself as you slid their band around your wrist.

You kicked yourself back up to the front. “You’re okay. You’re not gonna get in trouble. I’ll bring them by at the end of my shift.” You sat up straight, and the strawberry preserves woman was shooting a concerned look in your direction. “I’m at work, though, so I think we’d better end the call soon. Anything else you need?”

Tenko hummed into the phone. “Not really. You can’t be that busy.”

You smiled again, feeling—feeling domestic, as if he were your boyfriend calling you during work hours. How strange, Shigaraki Tomura. How interesting. “Would you believe I was grinding in Cipherstone when you called?”

“And you don’t call yourself a gamer,” he said, clearing his throat multiple times, “What skills?”

“Woodcutting and firemaking,” you said, opening your laptop again, “Are you feeling under the weather? Your voice had a bit of a rasp there.” Sounded like his old voice for a moment.

“Further cementing that Aizawa-sensei’s right to be worried about you. He says your brain’s going haywire analysing any detail work you can get, because you’re not out in the field anymore,” said Tenko, clearing his throat again (?), “Am I your new project?”

“Tell me what’s wrong, lest I pick up some damn throat lozenges for you before I come home,” you said, and a voice in the back of your head screamed that that threat was extremely cosy and intimate, especially since you’re claiming both of you have a home in the same place—which, sure, you both lived on the same hallway, but so did Aizawa and Eri, and please shut up; Shimura Tenko needs a friend, not a lover right now. Besides, that stupid hallway wasn’t really home for either of you but was more like a temporary holding cell.

“Fine. I’ve been throwing up all morning.”

“Thank you,” you said, electing not to make a pregnancy joke, “Do you need to see Recovery Girl?”

“No, I’m used to it, and I’ve already talked to her about it. I threw up a lot out of anxiety and stress when I was growing up with All for One, and now I’m throwing up because my body can’t handle the amount of food it’s getting regularly, which is fucking ridiculous, since it’s still less than a normal person’s version of three meals a day.”

What. The fuck. How can he casually drop details of deep trauma like it’s nothing? How could AFO let a child keep vomiting out of stress for years and years and never interfere? Well. Yeah, he could. You supposed that Shigaraki’s voice, as you first heard it as the USJ incident, was the ultimate result of that heavy strain on his throat for years. Explains some things about his teeth back then, too.

God. If AFO weren’t dead, you’d strangle him. Keeping a child physically weak because he’d be easier to mould. It was known that AFO had been psychologically manipulating Shigaraki, but now that you thought about it, manipulating his physical growth would have served AFO, too, since he was planning to move into Shigaraki’s body.

And what did this guy do now that he’s got bodily autonomy? Oh. Just. Play some video games. Talk with his friends. Try out some new hobbies. Make crafts with Eri.

It’s a shame AFO didn’t have a grave, because you’d be skiving off work to drown it in acid.

“My stomach is killing me,” said Tenko, “I’ve got to hang up to drink something and go to sleep. Knock on my door when you get home. I want to start a new quest as soon as you finish work.”

Home. He’d said it, too. He probably didn’t mean it in the same, domestic way that you’d been entertaining, but it made your heart swell. “Okay, Tenko. See you then.”

***

His therapist had assigned him homework: go on a planned, public outing with a peer, and stay out for at least an hour.

It wasn’t exactly a picnic you were packing, you kept telling yourself, scooting behind Tenko to get to the spice cabinet in the dorm kitchen, because that’d be too close to a date rather than homework. But the two of you packed a meal to take, with Eri sitting on the kitchen counter while she nibbled at rabbit-cut apple slices, and she held the thermos of decaf tea in her lap until it was time to stow it away.

After a short train ride and a quiet walk through midtown, Tenko stopped you in front of the back gate to what appeared to be a restored, historical estate, judging by the golden shachihoko shibi on each corner of polished hip-and-gable rooftops of the extensively aristocratic—mansion? palace?—that you could make out in across the distance of its sprawling grounds, the immediacy of which was the excessively well-kept, traditional garden that you and Tenko were breaking into.

“Is this legal?” you asked as Tenko reached through the grate to unlatch the doorway.

“I have an in with the gardener,” he said, sweeping the gate open for you and gesturing brusquely for you to enter.

“No, that wasn’t a joke,” you said, taking the few steps inside, finding yourself planted onto a polished, level stepping stone, and staring down a squeaky clean tsukubai despite the thin layer of frost over the water’s surface as the whole bowl began to freeze, “You can’t be doing anything even vaguely illegal, Tenko.”

When you said his name, he closed his eyes, pausing for just a hair in his relatching the gate, before facing you and shifting the strap of his bag farther up his shoulder. “Prude. Yes, we have permission from the owner.”

He kept looking back over his shoulder at you as he led you through the gardens, hopping across stepping stones to pass over a carefully shaped brook that led to a tiny waterfall near stone lanterns, weaving through trellises with the wintry shells of wisteria vines and shaped evergreens. He tutted and rolled his eyes when you stopped at the waterlily-coated koi pond, its fish swimming and flicking their tails in the artificially heated water (for some, odd reason, what appeared to be a compact duck coop had been constructed near the pond’s edge, its wood new and un-bleached by the sun like the rest of garden décor). You’d been about to ask about it when Tenko had jumped out of his skin at the sound of a deer scare, bamboo tapping stone.

“Stop laughing,” Tenko said, cheeks burning (and you tried not to take too much pleasure in that, but you couldn’t help it).

“Oh, a sensitive boy, a delicate boy,” you said, grinning as you hopped onto the same stone as him, cool, clouding breaths mixing together in the proximity, and you yourself could feel heat rise to your face. “Nothing to be ashamed of. Good traits to have, actually. Means you’re feeling secure and comfortable in your surroundings, if you’re off-set that easily.” Feeling bold—it was the cold; it was how the proximity already flustered him; it was how his hands were full because of the bag; it was—whatever—you reached for his silly All Might scarf and re-tied the front, fluffing it up to cover more of his neck.

You made the mistake of making eye contact: full of caution, his eyes kept darting from your hands to your face, searching for something, his lips parted, otherwise completely fucking frozen.

Were you making him uncomfortable? You stilled, your fingers still in the fringe of his scarf, tension tightening in your chest and jaw (clenching).

Tenko noticed. And—and to this day, you can’t believe he fucking did this—he ran his tongue over his lower lip and lifted his chin, exposing more of his neck to you. He then was suddenly very interested in the koi pond, the ruddiness spreading from his cheeks to his ears.

Throat dry, you gave his scarf a final tug and patted it (?) to show (??) a job well done (???). “Yeah,” you said, smoothly, like a smooth person, like someone who adjusts scarves of hot, in-process-of-reformation villains on the regular, “Where are we going?”

Tenko spun on his heel and strode away, muttering what sounded like, “Right into my grave.”

You pretended not to hear it and let him lead you to the only building unattached to the main house: a small, traditional teahouse that had a recent addition to it in the back. The creak of the bamboo engawa when you climbed onto it was muffled underneath the bright pealing of windchimes strung across the covered porch. Tenko was already kneeling at the tearoom’s sunken fireplace inside, its handle carved into a fish, fiery as its kindling, and was unpacking the travel teacups from the bag as you closed the door behind you, shutting out the cold, enveloped by the comfortable heat trapped inside by the cushioned walls.

Tenko must have arranged for this space to have been prepared for you. A kotatsu with floor cushions was tucked near the fireplace, pre-heated, with two further space heaters in the unoccupied corners, cords trailing into what must be a hallway linking the traditional and modern rooms, the latter of which was shut off from view. Beside a red-tinted wooden dresser stood an oddly empty tokonoma, and instead of a scroll or painting, amidst bits of pieces of scotch tape hastily half-torn off the back was a shittily cut-out, paper heart.

Shaking your head, you took a step towards Tenko, and the floor chirped at you, freezing you in place.

“Yeah, I don’t know why they do that,” said Tenko, pushing on his knees to stand, “They just do.”

“These must be nightingale floors,” you said, crossing to the kotatsu, a bird under each step, “The chirping’s caused by the way the nails rub against the v-shaped clamps holding the floor together. Have you been to Nijō Castle in Kyoto? These are in the hallway—supposedly used as a security measure, but who knows.”

“You need a hobby.” Tenko ripped the paper heart from the back of the tokonoma, crumpling it in his fist. A shred of it remained under the scrap of tape on the wall, which he bent towards to scrape off with a blunt fingernail.

“I have several,” you said, easing down onto a cushion and unfolding your legs underneath the kotatsu blanket, the luxurious heat swaddling your legs and hips. You fought the urge to curl up underneath it entirely.

“How many of them involve getting your ass thrashed by me in Cipherstone?” Tenko retrieved the bag from the sunken fireplace before returning to the kotatsu, and he sat on your left, resting the bag between the two of you.

You took the thermos of decaf tea when he handed it to you. “Tenko, you’ve been playing that game for years, and I just began. Of course my ass is gonna be thrashed by—you know how the game works. You have all of this previous information about the game that I don’t have.”

Tenko scoffed and slid your teacup across the kotatsu’s surface.  “As if I could conceal any information from you. You’re too…eh.” He waved it off, shaking his head.

“I’m too what?” You unscrewed the thermos lid, and steam surged upwards, rising to caress the planes of your face.

“It’s been unfair of Aizawa-sensei to make me tail you,” said Tenko, leaning your way, all five fingers curled around his own teacup as he stretched across the tabletop. “I’d have a chance of success if it were anyone else.”

“I’ll give you that,” you said, pouring steaming, amber tea with slices of yuzu into Tenko’s cup, “You’re getting quite good at it, not that you were bad in the first place. But yeah, it’s a bit mean of him to test your tracking skills on me.” He’d never said to stop, so you poured until liquid almost overflowed at the rim.

He gasped at the heat but nudged his teacup back to his place at the table, unable to hold it in his palm anymore. “I think I would’ve preferred working with Hound Dog-sensei for that. He’s less detail-oriented. I could win, if it weren’t you.” Jutting out his lower lip, Tenko glared down at his tea for a moment before slumping in his seat to slurp at the tea without picking it up.

“Don’t feel bad about it. It was literally and actually my focus for hero work, profiling and detail shit and being aware of my surroundings. Information stuff. Infiltration stuff.” Setting the thermos on the far corner, you cupped your hands loosely around your teacup, appreciating the warmth and getting cosier by the minute.

Tenko was rooting through the bag for the other thermoses, full of sukiyaki for each of you. “It’s clear you’ve worked hard to hone your skills. Were you this talented as a student?”

You accepted the new thermos, fingers clenching tightly around it. “Uh. I think I may have been better back then. More focused. More passionate, anyway. I had to think about it really hard back then, make conscious decisions to notice things, and now I think I do it instinctively. I think I’m slipping because of that.”

“Hm,” said Tenko, tongue rubbing over his teeth behind closed lips, and he opened his mouth to say something but shut it, instead twisting off the cap to his soup thermos. He took the first sip of sukiyaki broth and—and was absolutely beautiful (you couldn’t make sense of it beyond that; he was a mess of details that you couldn’t fit together into a larger picture that made any sense: white eyelashes light against his cheeks as they fluttered shut, face muscles relaxed, scars overlapping with laugh lines, cracked lips becoming moistened by the soup, both hands cupped around his thermos like a child, no strain to his posture, baggy hoodie swallowing him up, kotatsu blanket yanked up to his hips to cover his crossed legs, scar on the corner of his mouth delicately shifting with his baffled smirk when he caught you staring, a strange pink rising to the tips of his ears). “What?”

Uh. Hm. You pinched the bridge of your nose and then moved to rub your eyelids. “What were you going to say about me?” you asked, and you withdrew your hand from your face to raise the soup thermos to your lips, taking a mouthful of noodles and the sweet, salty broth.

Tenko shook his head. “I’m trying to avoid thoughts that fall back into my old habits.”

“Try me,” you said, holding his gaze when he met it, “I won’t tell.”

Weary, he broke eye contact, and he fixated on fishing out a certain slice of green onion. “We needed someone like you back then.”

Back then? When he—oh.

Back in the League.

Though you attempted to hide your grin by taking a sip of sukiyaki, you caught his eyes flicker to it. “You would’ve taken me? You would’ve let me in?”

“Would you have joined?” he shot back, a bit too quickly.

“No,” you said, rolling your shoulders and settling down farther underneath the kotatsu, “Never. But since you shared something you shouldn’t’ve, I’ll do the same.” You set your thermos down to rub your eyes again—God, you couldn’t look at him for too long, lest your intrusive thoughts hand you your ass. “I thought about it. About joining you.”

You dragged your hand down your face, peeking between your fingers at a muted clink. Tenko was staring at you, something fucking unreadable in his scrounched eyes, and both hands lay five-fingered and flat on the kotatsu, steam from his open thermos fluffing up hair on one side of his head. “You’re not serious. You wouldn’t have.”

“Not in the way you think,” you said, tilting your head back, “but I often thought, in the aftermath of the Paranormal Liberation Raid, what I could’ve done, if I’d known what I know now. And as the rest of the war was unfolding, I only wanted it more.”

Tenko blinked, slowly. “Tell me what you would’ve done.”

“Oh, you would’ve hated me, down to the dregs of my very soul,” you said, shifting to sit on your knees, “I would’ve started after your fight with Re-Destro, after the PLF was established. When you were letting allllllllll those heroes in, the sidekicks, the nobodies, anyone who seemed like they were with the cause. I would’ve infiltrated. Slipped in without notice. Hawks did, with the Commission, but I would’ve been going in as a free agent.”

“No one notices a U.A. student slide in between the masses. Re-Destro’s lackeys wouldn’t notice you at the door like I would. You get in,” Tenko said, taking his thermos in hand again but still engrossed in you, “What then?”

“There was a short period of time between the PLF establishment and your procedure, right? Around a month? That’s when I go. I worm my way into the good graces of some of the nine lieutenants—I’ve decided my pipeline would’ve been Geten to Toga to you. You’d just come out of an enormous battle, with Re-Destro and that city and Gigantomachia for a whole month. I heard you were bandaged up, on crutches, that you’d lost fingers that you regrew in that regeneration tank,” you said, eyes on his hands, one in a fist in his lap and the other around his thermos, five fingers pressing onto the grip but the pinkie finger hitched farther up than the rest, “That you’d given a speech and made your appearances regardless. That you’d pushed yourself to your limit and then broke yourself a little more. And you would’ve loathed me, because I would’ve come in, earned my way to your side, and I would’ve put my hand on your shoulder, slid it up your neck to cup your cheek to ask Aren’t you tired? Don’t you want to rest?” You smiled and huffed, shoving it down, and though his hard stare should’ve pinned you to your seat, you pushed on the corner of the kotatsu to edge yourself over to his side, a knee on his cushion. “I like to think that you’ve sighed, sulked a bit, reluctant to admit anything was wrong at all, because back then, you had no use for moonlight. But I would’ve made you look at me, taken you to a bed, made you lie down until your eyes fluttered shut and the tension swept through your body and left. And you would rest,” you said, finding yourself leaning over him very slightly, knees touching his, just enough so that he leant backwards just a fraction, “I would’ve made that month so soft for you. I would’ve taken care of you, when nobody was fucking paying attention to you in the way that they should’ve. I fucking—I wanted it.” You gripped the front of his hoodie, fist grasping more fabric than necessary to shake him. “I wanted it. I wanted to care for you. But I couldn’t. I didn’t know. And you were fucking alone, in an unfamiliar place, and it kills me to think about that.”

You ducked your head to wipe your watery eyes on your sleeve, taking a breath—and realising what you were doing. You loosened your grip, but before you could pull away, Tenko was cat-like quick to grab your sleeve—why won’t he touch you?

“I wouldn’t have accepted your help,” he said, quiet, controlled, holding you down with his eyes, hand shifting to curve under your sleeved wrist, signalling that you could escape at any time, “That was after the worst month of my life, fighting Machia, and I wouldn’t have accepted it. I had too much to do. I would’ve shaken you off.”

“No, you wouldn’t’ve.”

“I would’ve,” he said, a bare finger, featherlight, skimming over the tender, bare skin of the underside of your wrist (oh, wow), “I wouldn’t trust that easily in that short of a time. You’d have met me, and that’d be it. If you’d persisted, I would’ve ripped you to shreds and tossed you aside.”

“Tenko,” you said, both relief and tightness blooming from your wrist, “You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried.”

The hallway shoji slammed open, somehow rattling as it slid in its tracks and shook the walls, and you and Tenko scrambled apart, with you jolting backwards on your hands, grappling for your seat cushion, and Tenko banging his thermos on the kotatsu, hastily wrestling with keeping it upright as he flung his body to the side.

“Hey, fuck you, Touya,” Tenko spluttered out, elbowing himself upright as—as fucking Dabi strode inside, hands in the deep pockets of his black sweatpants. “You said you’d stay in the main house.”

“Don’t mind me,” said Touya, cool as you please, raising both of his hands in defence, “I had to ensure you’re not fucking in my bed.”

“What is—” Tenko clambered to his feet to cross to him, chirping with each stomp, and whisper-shouting once he’d corralled Touya into a far corner. “I said we’d hang out later today, Touya. You swore you’d stay inside and watch Naruto this afternoon.”

The polite thing to do would be to appear fascinated by the tea. You returned to your cushion and poured yourself another cup.

“Yeah, but I’ve been told I’ve got shit to do later. I’ve got to go to this fuckin’—fuckin’ family stuff. I don’t wanna get into it,” said Touya, at full volume, “and I wanted to check that your girl was real. Y’know, she looks nothing like someone who’d have GinzengTea as her username. Have you given it to her already?”

“Shut the fuck up. I was just about to do that, if you hadn’t interrupted, cockhead.”

“Cool,” he said, a bird-note as he shifted his weight, “I wanna see what she thinks.”

“Hell, no—”

“I helped pick ‘em out. Let me watch and have an ohagi, and I’ll leave,” said Touya, chirping towards you before he finished the sentence, and Tenko followed him, muttering under his breath.

Touya sat on the bare tatami next to you, joints cracking as he yanked the kotatsu blanket up his legs, shooting you a small salute and a concerningly charming smile. “Hey,” he said, tilting his head, eyes half-lidded, smile stretching to show more of his even, white teeth, “I’ve seen you before, yeah? When was the last time you laid eyes on me?”

Tenko pelted him in the chest with a plastic-wrapped ohagi, cutting off the ooze of charisma. “Show-off,” he said, nudging another sweetened rice ball your way.

You nodded but didn’t move to unwrap it, since you were still working on your sukiyaki. “I’m surprised you remember, Touya,” you said, the name feeling strange on your tongue, “It must’ve been years since I elbowed you in the tit.”

Eyes lighting the fuck up, you snapped towards Tenko when he laughed into his plastic wrap: still not loud, still not making any vocalisation with it, but releasing a heavy, sharp burst of air with a wide, open grin. He hunched over to hide more of it, using both hands to unwrap his ohagi—and in the moment he realised he’d been unwrapping it with only his pointer fingers and thumbs, he dropped the rest of his fingers onto the rice ball, still smirking to himself.

Biting your lip in your own smile, you turned back to Touya (you caught his moment of mild alarm at how thrilled you were when Tenko laughed—or maybe it was alarm at Tenko laughing at all—but Touya relaxed his eyebrows and shut his mouth the second you faced him again). “God, yeah, it must have been before that last battle that we’d met in a fight, and I’d gotten close enough to hit you, and…” You shook your head. “Actually, I don’t wanna talk about that stuff. It’s not who we are now.”

“That’s fine.” Touya nodded towards Tenko and took a bite of his ohagi. “Shimura, don’t you have something to give her?”

Shimura. That was his last name, you supposed, but wasn’t it odd that Tenko called Touya by his given name and that Touya called Tenko by his family name? Tenko didn’t make you call him Shimura. Well, you supposed that there’s only one Shimura now, and because of the number of Todorokis, it paid to be specific—

“Here.” Tenko set a flat box in front of you, flipping the buckle of his bag back over. “I was going to give it to you with more formality, but since this bastard showed up, I’m doing it like this.”

Biting the inside of your cheek, brow furrowed, you unpacked a pair of pale blue headphones, soft to the touch with a mesh headband so that your head wouldn’t ache.

“Noise-cancelling,” Tenko said, gabbling, frowning very slightly, “Rechargeable. There’s a detachable microphone so it can function as a headset. I wanted to do something good for you.” His eyes darted towards Touya, and they dropped to his ohagi’s bulging filling, seeping out onto the plastic wrap. “You need them, anyway. I’ve been sick of hearing you through those shitty earbuds; their sound is terrible, and when you said you’d lost your only pair—which I don’t fucking understand how you can lose those things, because they just fucking show up in my shit all the time, like a goddamn plague—I thought you needed something quality—just to make it easier on my end, obviously, so that I don’t have to tell you to yell into that shitty, built-in micropho—”

“Tenko,” you said, reaching over to place your tea-hot hand over the back of his, fingers curving with his along ohagi’s edge, “Thank you so much. I adore them. I’m really grateful that you would think of me.”

Tenko froze, the same as he had when you’d adjusted his scarf. Unable to look you in the eye, like a prey animal, stiff, shoulders tense, colour rushing up his neck to his face and ears again—but this time, he lifted his hand just a hair from his ohagi to press back into your palm, and the corner of his mouth twitched.

“Hoo, boy,” said Touya, startling the both of you when he slammed his hands on the kotatsu to push himself up, “I’ve had enough. I’ve had my little snack. I’m leaving.” Once on his feet, he stretched, pressing his hands to his lower back and arching it, grunting.

“Good fucking riddance, cocksucker,” said Tenko, rising and grabbing Touya by the elbow to haul him to the door.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Touya, dragging his feet, chirping slurred and confused by his movement, and when Tenko had him at the wall, trying to shove him out, Touya, smirking under your watch, whispered something to Tenko while forcing something into his palm. Touya ducked out as Tenko looked at what he’d accepted and, letting out a yelp, dusted whatever it was before he hurried back to the kotatsu.

(When you left the teahouse half an hour later, you discovered that he’d decayed only the wrapper and not the condom itself.)

***

“One moment, please. Nezu-sensei is in a meeting right now, but he’ll be out momentarily. Please take a number—yes, the ticket puncher when you first came in,” you said to yet another impatient and pissed client in the admin waiting room, packed to the gills with parents, press, vendors, potential sponsors, and, for some reason, Mt. Lady’s entire representative team. “By the door. If you’ll take a seat, we’ll be with you shortly.”

God, you could punt Nezu for this. Not that there was anything wrong with establishing a new, annual event for U.A.—a cherry blossom garden-set, competitive scavenger hunt coming up in the spring—but because of his casual comment that it would rise to the same importance as the Sports Festival, you were swamped with those eager to invest early. Unable to take a break, you had to work with your head bowed, desperately hoping none of these people recognised you and your failure, when all you wanted was to reply to Tenko’s messages on Cipherstone that morning.

Tenkopeito: You’ll like the next quest. You can pet a dog in it

Tenkopeito: Come over to my room this evening so that we can talk in person

Was he intending to speak with innuendo or with such sincerity that it cut right through you? Moreover, was he aware he was even doing it? Based on what you’ve observed, Tenko had no idea what he was doing to you, nor did he know how hard you were trying not to act on your attraction, though you weren’t even doing a great job of suppressing it.

It’s strange: Tenko evoked some strange, unnameable emotion in you like nothing else. You wanted to coddle him; you wanted to play stupid video games with him; you wanted to sweep his hair out of his eyes, and though you kept telling yourself that you didn’t, you wanted him to tell you how to touch yourself, how to touch him. You brushed it off. Another time. Perhaps never.

“Oh, hi!” Former pro-hero Ragdoll squealed your family name, making you jump in your seat. “It is you. I couldn’t tell from farther back in the line.” Fuck, Ragdoll would recognise you, since she and the rest of the Wild, Wild Pussycats trained Class A, and she specifically spent time with you on your tracking skills because of her Search quirk.

Don’t cause a scene. “Hello, Shiretoko,” you said, doing your best not to let your face be seen from over the reception desk’s overhang, “It’s good to see you. How can I help?”

When she beamed, she was as bright as ever. “Oh! The Pussycats want to offer our services for the scavenger hunt! We wanna get back into charity and civilian events now that we’re back from our mission for—but wait, you know all about that!” You didn’t. But her cheerful voice carried, and people were already turning towards Ragdoll, part of a hero team ranked in the top thirty. “I wanna hear more about what you’ve been up to! Since you left the hero business, no one’s known where you’ve been! Gosh, have you been behind this dreary old desk the whole time?” Ragdoll leant over the overhang, flicking at a loose strand of your hair. “I thought you were sent out on missions out of the country! Like, really important, top-secret stuff. It’s weird seeing you in an office, especially since I consider you a mini me. Why are you back at your alma mater? Did your agency not want you anymore?”

She wasn’t meaning to be cruel. Her loud, blunt sincerity, though, drew the attention of onlookers, and their flashes of recognition, subsequent judgment, and turning away made your chest tight. “I needed a break. That’s all.”

A thin, blonde woman in a burgundy overcoat leaning against the wall immediately next to the reception had been evaluating you, scanning you from top to bottom during the exchange. She didn’t bother hiding her curiosity, and when you shakily handled the rest of the conversation with Ragdoll, she turned to the short, softly featured man beside her. “You know her?” She hadn’t even tried to quiet her voice; it jolted you from Ragdoll, but you steeled yourself and continued printing off a schedule for her—and from the depths of your brain came the woman’s identity: Uwabami, the snake hero, one who usually flaunted her celebrity status but currently dressed down, without her hair snakes (a rattlesnake, a yellow king cobra, and a Japanese rat snake, which—shut up! You don’t need this information right now! Can you be fucking sane, please?).

Her sidekick—no, an intern, a student at U.A., some fuckin’ twink in the year below you, name escaping you at the moment—had some iota of tact when he looked you over, slanting his body away, as if he weren’t staring. “Yes,” he said, trying not to let you hear, “She’s my former senpai and nothing more to me. We didn’t run in the same circles. She’s the one who made that rescue a few months back, the one that got a lot of online backlash.”

“No, seriously,” Ragdoll was saying, “Why are you back at U.A.? Don’t you have somewhere else to go?”

“My—” People behind Ragdoll in line were listening. Trying not to show it. Your throat ran dry, and you couldn’t think of a lie or a pleasant half-truth. “My flat was compromised. My address was leaked, and eventually, people were—look, Shiretoko,” you said, forcing the words out of your mouth, “I really don’t want to talk about this. Here’s the printed schedule. I’ll talk to you later.”

You slid the paper across the counter, and she took it, waving goodbye and still beaming.

“Is this what happens when a hero career doesn’t work out? They just shove you back where someone will take you? At any old office desk?” that fucking twink was asking Uwabami, “I can’t—it honestly scares me to think I could lose myself and be misplaced like that. It’s wasting talent, don’t you think?”

“How can I help you?” you asked the next person in line through gritted teeth.

When Uwabami lowered her sunglasses to glance over them, you inhaled sharply and swung your swivel chair so that you wouldn’t see her. “I don’t know about that. Maybe this dreadful administration office is where she’s meant to be.”

Biting his lip, he shifted his jaw and crossed his arms, slumping against the wall. “You’ll always have a place for me, right, Uwabami? I don’t want this to happen to me.”

“Yes, I can print you out a copy of the same schedule. If you’ll allow me a moment to print.”

“Of course, Kakeru,” Uwabami said, ignorant of how you were gripping a pencil so tightly that it could snap any second, “You’ll never be left behind.” But then she fucking stared you down, deliberately holding eye contact while you were at the printer, and she said, “You’ll never need a place to hide. I’ll make sure you don’t fail.”

“Hey, how about you shut up?” you hissed, ripping the printer-warm schedule from the tray and storming back to your current client to shove it into their hands. “Aren’t Japanese rat snakes supposed to be in hibernation this time of year, anyway?”

***

Someone in Mt. Lady’s group recorded it. Someone posted it.

wizardjenkins11: jesus christ who knew u.a. had its own island of misfit toys

emotionalsupportdynamightsweat: nice to see that she kept her snark, but what is she doing back at school?? don’t heroes have some sort of paperwork component to their work. why isn’t she still at an agency

blood-is-thiccer: lol ua’s the only one who’d take the bitch. she’s being rude as hell to an actual pro hero. lameass quirk anyway and ass flat as hell lmao she fucken deserved that guy lighting her mailbox on fire

LynchianTiddies: You’re encouraging domestic terrorism???

blood-is-thiccer: that’s not domestic terrorism

LynchianTiddies: Then what, pray fucking tell, is it??

blood-is-thiccer: wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandalism

XylemPhloemBuckaroo: no but I get what that guy was saying about wasting talent tho. Out of everyone in that class a, she’s the only one not topping the fucking hero charts rn. She’s the only one who’s left hero work. What makes her weaker than the rest of her classmates? What happened to her to make her like this?

koiboi69: wouldn’t you quit if people were camping outside your house/work/grocerystore? And also FUCK, man, there’s no fucking need to say she’s fucking weak. that’s kicking her while she’s down

XylemPhloemBuckaroo: I’m not kicking her while she’s down. I’m stating facts and asking reasonable questions.

koiboi69: bro wouldn’t YOU feel down if you’d didn’t have a home to go back to??? going back to u.a. is like admitting defeat, like you couldn’t handle it on your own and need protection

mawatadaddysgorl: i love seeing updates on her bc it makes me feel so good about what i’m doing with my life

***

Uraraka and Shinsou texted you but couldn’t call, let alone come from across town. Aizawa was AWOL, and Dango was hiding under your bed, so you, blotchy-faced and damp, were crumpled on the floor outside of room 310, eating vending machine bullshit and waiting for Tenko to return home.

Exactly all the insecurities you’d been stuffing down for months and months, brought out to air in front of everyone. Instead of doomscrolling, you locked your phone and slid it across the hallway carpet, burying your face in your hands and stomach lurching to the thought that you might soon be plastered everywhere in sight, again. Another round of intensive laying low loomed on the horizon, especially now that your location was made public. Your little secretary job was good enough, and relocating elsewhere on campus would lead to more job training, which would be a bitch.

Where was Tenko? You needed him here to say something irreverent and vindictive. Something unhinged. Or you needed him to hold you, pull you into his lap, and bitch about the whole thing while watching a movie. Tenko had messaged you to come by after work, so why wasn’t he…?

The staircase door hissed open, Tenko pushing it with his back, reusable grocery bags on his arms, and—and wearing a cape? Who the fuck wears a cape casu—oh shit he’s in his hero costume.

You’d heard that he had one, designed by the same company that’d made Midoriya’s and Shouto’s, and the similarities were clear: a boxy sort of design due to thick fabric that still somehow hugged his chest, a minimalist utility belt, and sturdy, knee-capping boots, positively flaming scarlet in contrast to the dark greys of the rest of his jumpsuit. The most obvious connection with another hero, though, made your chest throb: his cloak fastened with the same clasp his grandmother’s had. His dust-blocking respirator lay around his neck for the moment, but what was most embarrassing for you was how your brain fucking wheezed like a boiling kettle at his bare arms, biceps bulging, every fucking inch of skin down to his fingertips completely on display like a goddamn slut.

Whore behaviour. Whore behaviour! You had to duck your head when he squatted next to you, because oh, now you could see the stretch marks on his upper arms, because he’d gotten large way too quickly to be healthy, and smell his fading Old Spice and sweat from being out on what must have been an emergency call, and he was setting his grocery bags aside, reaching out to graze your shoulder, and wow, he’d been complaining about how he didn’t have abs yet despite working out five days a week now that his stamina had increased, but that fabric clung to his lower abdomen, looking very, very flat.

Initially pinching the fabric of your sweater, he shifted his jaw and laid his hand on your shoulder. “Who am I dusting?”

“God, Tenko,” you said, trying to look anywhere but his arms, or his abdomen, or his fucking lips, but he was leaning so much over you that he occupied most of your line of vision, and the only way to avoid seeing anything besides wisps of white hair was to gaze at the popcorned ceiling. “You’re not supposed to do that anymore.”

“Oh, yeah? Who am I dusting?” He squeezed your shoulder, stretching his thumb out to rub at your collarbone.

“Unless you can dust everyone in the country, I don’t think decay will help.”

Tenko clicked his tongue. “I have been explicitly told not to do that,” he said, shifting to sit on his knees, “I have—” He dug into a grocery bag for a moment. “—this for you. You like this shit, right?” Tenko pressed a bottle of pink lemonade into your hands.

“Fucking. Fuck. I do,” you said, passing the condensation-coated bottle from one hand to another, chest tightening, blinking to keep the water levels low, “Thank you. You didn’t have to get me this.”

“I know that,” he said with a dismissive wave, and he paused, fists in his lap. “Would it help if I gave you a hug?”

(What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the—)

“Yeah,” you said calmly, like a calm person, and when Tenko opened his (muscular) arms, you crawled into them, wrapping your own around his back to rest between his shoulder blades. You rested your chin in a fold of his cape, cheek pressing against the side of his respirator, and you frowned as his embrace tightened, pulling you closer in a sloppy, unpractised sort of way, grounded by the steady rise and fall of his very solid chest.

(This felt…affectionate. Romantic, even.

But Shigaraki Tomura didn’t do romance, and you don’t—you’re not—you wouldn’t dream of being conceited enough to read someone’s perhaps thoughtless actions as flirtation, because why would someone be flirting with you? No one did that in general, and being U.A.’s humiliating problem child exacerbated the fact.

Moreover, why would the man who was Shigaraki Tomura, in the middle of his rehabilitation and re-discovery of self, even in the microscopic chance that he had the mental energy to experience romantic feelings, aim that romantic impulse towards you? It would make more sense if he liked someone he’d known for a while, like Touya or Spinner or Toga, and if his romantic feelings leant towards recuperative trauma-bonding, wouldn’t it be more apt to feel for someone at his rehab? His therapist, maybe? He’d idolised Aizawa before he’d met him, and even that would make more sense than latching onto someone as late in the process as you.

He’d gotten flustered when you’d tied his scarf, and Touya’s played terrible wingman. But still. You couldn’t know. You can’t read into this, even though reading into things had been your job, because—because no one would want you. You’ll have to…You’ll have to gather more evidence. You couldn’t be certain.)

Tenko hummed, chin digging into your shoulder, blowing strands of your hair out of his face. “I calmed a kid down earlier by hugging her. Is this working for you?”

(…oh.)

You sniffled and hid your mouth in his cape so that he couldn’t catch your pout. “That’s—that’s good that a kid allowed you to comfort her. What happened?”

“Pipes broke in an old apartment building in the Takoba district. The third floor collapsed under the pressure, and it trapped families in part of the building. I was called out to dust the rubble trapping them,” Tenko said, tapping his fingers high on your back in a ripple, “and they had me dust some other walls to help start the repairs. It was cool. And this one little girl who’d gotten out before the rest of her family was really nervous, and she was sticking to me, holding onto my cape. I was telling her that everything was gonna be okay, like you’ve taught me, and when I asked how she was doing, this fuckin’ kid extended her arms to me. So, I fucking hugged her. Picked her up so she could see what was happening better. It was weird, but it felt good.” Tenko sighed. “I hate how it wants me to be kind more.”

And fuck, fuck, that’s the last straw to this horrible day, and you’re crying, silently, controlling your breathing to keep Tenko from finding out, because goddammit, this idiot bastard man was surprisingly easy to love.

You buried your face fully in his shoulder, hoping he couldn’t feel any wetness through his costume, and you and Tenko sat in the quiet of the hallway for a minute, interrupted only by the A/C kicking in.

Tenko tried to part the two of you enough to look you in the face, but you doubled down, curling your fingers into the fabric of his jumpsuit and keeping your head bowed. Scoffing, he sat upright, making you follow his movements to stay hidden. “You gonna tell me what’s wrong yet?”

“Forget all that shit I’ve taught you,” you said, grumbling to his tits now that he’d changed positions, hating how stopped up you sounded already, “It doesn’t matter what you fucking do in the public’s eye, because there’s always gonna be someone who hates you. You can’t please everyone, so just fucking be yourself. That’s funnier, anyway.”

“Did you psychoanalyse some press member’s pathetic sex life, or something? Deduce an affair based on the way he knots his tie? Announce the state of his dick to the whole room because of the length of his pants?”

“Fuck off, Tenko. I’m not some pretentious-ass Sherlock Holmes bitch,” you said, pursing your lips and instinctively pulling back to glare at him—

And the moment you did, Tenko cupped your face in his hands, soft at the palm and strongly calloused along his fingers, keeping you facing towards him no matter how hard you tried to jerk away, struggling to stay upright. “You are crying.”

“No, I’m not,” you said, just as a falling tear touched his thumb. As you adjusted to his grip, your hands fell to his thighs, pressing against them in fists.

“Hm. Well, you don’t have to tell me,” he said, eyes on another tear trailing down the other cheek, “but you’re joining me to watch a movie with Eri. I got snacks on the way home.”

You sighed, taking in how big his hands were and how much of your face they encompassed, trying to memorise their feeling until they were snatched away forever. “I thought we were gonna start a new quest tonight. I was excited.”

Tenko balked and shifted into a sceptical grin. “You wanted to play Ciperstone tonight?” he asked, both thumbs rubbing your cheekbones and moving to swipe underneath your eyes.

You sighed again, shoulders heaving as Tenko released your face to flick tears off of his hand. “I didn’t want to be myself for a few hours.”

Tenko pushed on his knees to stand. “That’s actually related to what I originally wanted to talk to you about. Furthering the working-with-others mission,” he said, and he extended his hand to help you up. “What do you know about Dungeons and Dragons?”

***

“God fucking dammit!” Tenko slammed his palm to his forehead and leant back to balance on the kitchen chair’s back legs and then combed his fingers back through his hair, upsetting some strands from his ponytail. Groaning, he crooked his face your way, smushed his face against the chair back, and pointed towards his forehead, where a red splot was forming. “Hit me as hard as you can.”

“Being bludgeoned won’t change the fact that you rolled a three,” you said, nodding towards his d20, “I ignore his whining and continue to drain the fig tree to charge my spell.”

Behind the DM screen, Shinsou rolled his own dice, and once his eyebrows had shot up to his hairline, he turned to Midoriya. “I need you to roll two d12s and a d4.”

Tenko bolted upright, hastily sweeping his bangs out of his face. “Wait, what does Midoriya have to do with it? He’s across the fucking grove! He’s engaged in close-ranged combat.”

You turned away from Shinsou’s sly grin and towards Tenko, mouth nearly a straight line, yanking another cluster of grapes from the communal bowl, and shoving two grapes in his mouth. He pinched at his lower lip as he chewed, twisting and peeling at dead skin, frowning as he focused on his character sheet, scanning it for some sort of information he was forgetting and absentmindedly raising his knee to his chest, the heel of his foot propped on the seat of his chair (thank God his jeans were from Best Jeanist’s Moulded to Your Ass line: the denim strained with his muscles. Your eye twitched). In this particular morning, with the five of you squared off at Aizawa’s kitchen table, papers and dice strewn among grocery store bakery cinnamon rolls and coffee cups (Tenko’s was full of gatorade instead of coffee, much to his chagrin), as Tenko was throwing grapes into Touya’s mouth while Shinsou did math, the narwhal house slippers dangling off Tenko’s feet, it struck you that Shigaraki Tomura had become just some guy. One who went for walks to clear his head, who spent hours failing to do a kickflip on Present Mic’s skateboard, who used emoticons over emojis, who got nervous in fast food drive-throughs, who collected hero merch (of Aizawa fervently and Present Mic against his will), who was losing his sensitivity to foods like leeks and onions, a man who was growing more and more exquisitely mundane.

And goddamn, he’s clever and perceptive and patient and cheeky in a devastatingly attractive way, and he’s flustered easily, eager to do a thing correctly, and utterly, totally captivating in his endless discoveries of what it means to be alive.

You timed it so that the shudder and shock crossing his face could pass as response to Shinsou’s description of how Tenko’s enchanted crossbow bolt missed the Spirit Realm Necromancer entirely, instead sinking into the sacred Grand Oak and instantly shattering the tree as if it were glass, its elaborate root system holding up the floating grove splintering into thousands of tiny shards, the ground beneath your party’s feet crumbling at the slightest suggestion of the shifting of weight. But really he curled in his lips with a furrowed brow and stuttering breath when you reached underneath the table to graze the back of his hand, and when he forced himself to relax, shoulders slackening, frown fading, Tenko spread his fingers to cover more of his denim-clad thigh, which you took as a timid sort of consent. Biting the inside of your cheek, you eased your palm over the back of Tenko’s hand, lacing your fingers through his and going through the motions of reacting to Shinsou’s shattered earth. Neither of you looked at each other while Midoriya’s character suffered the Necromancer’s spell to increase gravity, each movement of Midoriya’s bulky, steel armour accelerating the fall of the floating grove. By the time each of you had had enough turns to land on solid ground, preserving little of the sacred grove but all surviving, Tenko finally squeezed your fingers back, curling his own to grip them more firmly, keeping your hand pinned to his thigh, steeling himself, sitting up straight, and proposing getting close enough to the Necromancer to drive a crossbow bolt directly into his skull.

Midoriya was already muttering to himself over the effectiveness of the action while Shinsou worked, and Touya irreverently flicked his dice at Tenko, chugging coffee with his other hand. “You plunge the bolt by hand into the Necromancer’s head,” said Shinsou, “but with your strength debuff still in effect, you only nick him.”

“I try stabbing it through his ear.”

“It goes through,” said Shinsou, nodding and running his hand back through his hair, which sprung back into place, “It doesn’t pierce the neocortex, so he can still summon another—“

“I stomp him to death with my hooves,” said Touya, picking at his teeth and running his tongue over the spot.

The rest of you turned to him slowly in various states of incredulity.

“You don’t have hooves, Touya,” you said, tilting your head at the same time Tenko rubbed his thumb over yours, prompting your breath to hitch and a strange warmth to travel through your body, making you feel dizzy.

Touya grimaced and reached for a cinnamon roll. “I take off my leather breeches and boots to reveal my hooves. I have been a satyr masquerading as a human this whole time.” He leant forward on his elbow, glaring at Shinsou and gesturing with his cinnamon roll. “I stomp him. To death. With my hooves.”

Tenko sneered, his teeth cutting into his lower lip, but he merely opened his mouth and closed it, poking his tongue into his cheek. “I suppose maiming a party member wouldn’t coincide with my character’s chaotic good alignment,” he said, heaving a huge sigh to—oh, that cunning rat bastard—to conceal how he flipped his hand over in yours to touch palms, weaving your fingers back together and squeezing again, planting them back on his upper leg, massaging between your knuckles with his thumb.

“What’d you just roll?”

“Nineteen,” said Touya, casting Shinsou a slice of his most charming smile.

Midoriya let out a little laugh as Shinsou bitterly plopped his head on his fist. “Fuck you, Touya. Congratulations. You clomp over to the Necromancer and stomp all over him. Stompy stomp stomp stompy stomp. It’s difficult to watch at the insane speed you’re going, so no one stops you from doing such a good job pounding him that he’s ground into dust. Bits of him drift away in the wind.”

Here Midoriya winced. “Weren’t we supposed to retrieve the soul crystal embedded in his gauntlet? We can’t get our reward from that Silver Age dragon rider if we don’t have it.”

“Correct,” said Shinsou, glancing down at his notes, “It has been stomped to smithereens. You can’t even make out what parts of the pile of dust were once flesh.”

Ready to bolt, Touya was getting up from the table and holding up his hands in defence, but before Midoriya could start a speech that would have been more apt for the number one hero to use on patrol rather than during a DND game, the door to Aizawa’s flat opened, and in he walked, covering his yawn with the back of his hand. He halted at the sight of the five of you around his kitchen table, taking in the scattered papers and remnants of breakfast before settling on your DM. “Shinsou,” Aizawa began, disappointment outweighing the exhaustion in his voice.

“You’re the only one with a table that could fit all of us,” Shinsou said, spinning in his chair to face him, “This dormitory doesn’t have a good common area like the student ones do. Would you really prefer us to—”

“We can find you a table; there’s plenty on campus.” Aizawa lifted his goggles over his head to set them on the counter. “Is this why Monoma kept slowing me down during patrol?”

“No,” you and Shinsou said, while Tenko said, “Yes.”

Aizawa actually smiled as he unwound his capture weapon from around his neck. “Look who’s the only one telling the truth.”

“Why would I lie to you, sensei?”

Touya smacked Tenko on the arm. “Suck-up.”

“You promise?” Tenko shot back, nose wrinkling with his grin.

“This coffee had better be amazing, because it’s the only thing keeping me from kicking you all out right now,” said Aizawa, rubbing a dry eye with the heel of his palm, other hand outstretched for someone to pass him a mug.

Tenko’s thumb bent inward to swipe the inside of your palm, a silent protest while he drank from his stupid little mug of gatorade, and when he noticed what was at the bottom, he flinched. It must have been Touya who’d put your dice in Tenko’s cup.

***

Following the video of you insulting Uwabami, you’re garnering an unnerving amount of attention again, but it’s clearly someone different than last time. Whoever your stalker(s) was this time around, they were careless and unsubtle—and this confidence to be careless left you jumping at the slightest sound when you were alone.

Furthermore, you legitimately couldn’t deduce your stalker’s motivations, because no clear message linked his actions. At first, you chalked it up to the dorm’s shitty dryer eating your bright blue thong, but when you couldn’t find your lip balm or trolley pass or eventually your favourite sweater, you concluded that something else was at play here, further cemented by more and more tiny things going missing—things that, if you were stalking someone, you would’ve selected as small enough not to miss.

But bizarrely, your stalker left shit of his own lying about. A phone charger appeared underneath your pillow; loose change and a travel pack of alcoholic wipes showed up in your bathroom sink. Hello Kitty band-aids, a hair clip that looked like one of Rumi’s ears, deep-moisturising hand cream, a tiny lizard keychain with a white hamburglar mask drawn on. You couldn’t wrap your head around it. What could your stalker be trying to say besides he could access your personal space with ease? Hoarding it all in the drawer with the GINSENG TEA X LUSTFUL BALLSACK hentai, you were struck with the notion that this may have been going on even before the video.

God, you missed when this school felt more like home instead of a holding cell, back when Shinsou and Uraraka and the rest were all still living together with you, when you could simply turn the corner to the common area to demand who took your laundry detergent and get an answer immediately (you also missed taking Aoyama’s bougie food, though you suspected that towards the end he was buying extra specifically for you). You sent an email to Aizawa about the potential break in security, and he promised to monitor the situation, though there was no evidence of physical entry.

Evidence. It’s been on your mind.

Sure, Tenko’s done stuff that could be read as romantic: how he plops your hand onto his head to demand you play with his hair, how he hovers whenever Touya stands too closely to you, how he gets upset on your behalf when people glare at you in public.

(Tenko grabbed your elbow, breaking your focus on the clothing rank. “We’re going.”

“But we haven’t found you a red coat yet.”

He lifted the hangers from your arm and slid them back onto the rack, despite belonging elsewhere. “Don’t care. I don’t like the way the cashier’s looking at you,” he said, jerking his head their direction, and when you tilted your head to glance at them over his shoulder, Tenko tapped your chin twice, guiding you to look back at him. “You shouldn’t have to be on guard when I’m with you.”)

If you were reading into it—and you were—Tenko was being so careful with talking about the pro-hero scene around you that it was almost as if he’d gotten a mission task from Aizawa to distract you from anything that might make you feel bad about yourself.

(“I hear you’re causing a lot of paperwork for my old man,” said Touya, pulling out another floor cushion from the storage space in the teahouse wall, “He hates that you’ve had to dust so many structures near his agency. He’s a decrepit creature of habit, and now that his commute is different, he’s—”

“Hey, Touya, tell us what flower bulbs you planted this winter,” Tenko said abruptly, clamping the lid on the pot hanging over the sunken fireplace, “Tell us what your garden’ll look like in spring.”

You shut your book, even though you’d just opened it. “Wait, are you saying that Touya is the one who keeps this garden? That’s—”

“You like it, sweetheart?” Touya dropped his cushion next to yours, ignoring the way Tenko was glaring daggers into his back. “Think it’s impressive?”

“Holy shit; I thought we were in the back of some professionally restored historical site the first time we came here,” you said, smiling at how Tenko’s petulant stomps to his seat chirruped, even when he scooted his own cushion towards yours (adorable; you’d think he didn’t like you giving attention to anyone else).

“Well,” said Touya, propping his hands on the kotatsu so that he could get a better view of Tenko, “With enormous pride and a huge erection, I’m pleased to announce that this garden is all my hard work.”

“Stop that,” barked Tenko, jabbing a finger towards Touya, “Stop bringing up your cock.”

“I could talk about yours, if you want. His monster cock is excruciatingly leaky and so shaped.”

Groaning, Tenko clonked his forehead on the kotatsu’s tabletop before Touya could say anything else, arm still outstretched. He peeked out from underneath his bangs towards you, tension leaving his body at your burst of laughter.)

He’s also taken your comment about silent admiration to heart. Over the discord call (through very comfortable headphones), you’d made a dumb joke about not being able to play for long, and he’d shut up immediately. When you’d confessed to lying and hoping you’d scared him, he’d replied seriously: “I want to protect my time with you. I don’t like it being taken away. I feel better when you’re with me.”

You’d frozen in the middle of weaving bowstrings while his character continued stringing them onto bows. You’d never have gotten that sort of remark at the beginning of your relationship. Tenko must genuinely be listening to you.

Anyway. You decided in the event that Tenko was collecting evidence, too, that you would leave him some.

The first time you’d been in his room had been for a specific purpose, which was to help him rub in his new facial scar moisturiser (not to take them away, or anything, because Tenko wanted to keep them, claiming he wouldn’t recognise himself in the mirror if he didn’t have his scars—and you thought they were devastatingly attractive, anyway—but just to keep them hydrated enough not to itch), but now you were here just to spend time in the same space. You were reading on his bed (oh, hohoho, his bed), and Tenko was drawing in his sketchbook on his couch by the window. With his mouth pinched in concentration, he squinted down at his paper, swiping away eraser shavings with his artist-gloved hand.

Drawing by natural light. Tenko was in room 310 because of its wide windows. It had been his one request when U.A. was placing him.

AFO had deliberately raised him in a bedroom without windows. You’d kill him if he weren’t already dead.

Thankfully, AFO’s influence was absent from Tenko’s dorm: Naruto sheets from Touya, an old Nintendo DS on his bedside table with Nintendogs in the cartridge slot, Present Mic’s skateboard propped against the coatrack that held only a black hoodie, unfolded but clean laundry in a basket next to a dresser with prescription bottles atop it, a mirror that served more as a bulletin board of Eraserhead merch than as a way to check his reflection, red shoes by the doorway, books borrowed from everyone from All Might to Shinsou to the ramen delivery guy strewn across the room, on shelves, his computer desk, his rug. The thing Tenko’d had to explain to you was a therapist-assigned painting hanging over his desk: he’d painted a murky, purple-blue, abstract sort of thing, and you were strangely touched when he’d explained it was Kurogiri (and now that you were looking, among his bulletin board of Eraserhead, a few drawings of Loud Cloud were mixed in).

There’s a lot of people in Tenko’s life who care about him now, and you’re happy to be one of them. Setting your book aside, you got up to sit next to him on the couch.

He paused when you sank into the cushion next to—well, no, you were basically sharing the same cushion, especially since he unfolded his legs from underneath him so that you could get closer. You scooted over so that your shoulders touched (scandalous) and looked over his drawings.

He’s drawing your DND characters. While his sketches aren’t exactly good, you can clearly tell who’s supposed to be whom, and they’re fun to look at, so that’s all that matters. At the centre is your character, Ginseng—you named it after your Cipherstone account because why not—in the process of spell-charging. Your character relies on the traditional ritual of tea ceremonies, from the growing of the tealeaves to serving it, summoning whatever tools you needed, like the table and dishware, and if an enemy got caught by the conventions of politeness of the tea ceremony, they were trapped in it until they’d drunk their teacup dry. Tenko had drawn her early in the spell-charging process, with branches of tealeaves sprouting from underneath her skin, with her harvesting them from her forearm. It’s rather flattering, the way her determined expression lit up her face.

Next to Ginseng was Tenko’s character, Peito, also lifted from his Cipherstone character. He was sitting on the same log as Ginseng in the middle of camp, backs touching while he cut feathers as the first step in the fletching process. His carved-willow quiver leant against his knee-high boot, red even in a fictional universe. Peito’s hands were bare, five fingers pressed against his knife and arrows.

Further back in the camp (really just towards the top of the paper, since Tenko wasn’t good at foreshortening yet), Midoriya’s character, Jackrabbit, was holding up two hangers, one with his steel and the other with sleek, black leather armour. A nice touch, really, since Midoriya had swopped Jackrabbit’s primary armour to the more lightweight leather since the shattered grove incident, and wow, you could even tell it was leather based on the pencil strokes.

Seated nearby, Touya’s character, Granddaddy Slapkins, roared with laughter at him. His shoes lay next to him, his hooves out. For some reason, he’s not holding his pet duck; he’s instead cradling what looks like your character’s wild shape, a cat with the same chocolate-point markings as your real cat (your character’s shapeshifted form was just Dango, but Tenko didn’t know that. He still didn’t know Dango existed, because cats were still illegal in the dorms, and Tenko, that little brown-nosing shit, would probably tell Aizawa about her. Cute how he’s only a suck-up to Aizawa, though).

Your favourite detail, though, was how his character was smiling. Unabashedly. As if it were a no-brainer, as if doing anything else made no sense at all.

With a stab of affection, you nuzzled into Tenko’s shoulder, resting your chin there while he sketched loops of chainmail onto Granddaddy Slapkins’s shirt, and a shiver racked through him.

“Oh, are you cold?” you asked, sitting back up and heading over towards the bed, “Let me get your blanket.”

“Wha—no, I—sure,” said Tenko, setting his pencil on his sketchbook and the whole thing on the arm of the couch, eyes half-lidded as you returned with his throw blanket.

And without thinking, you moved on impulse, as if all higher orders of cognition had checked out for the night, because you behaved like you did in your head whenever you thought about Tenko: casually, intimately, and domestically. You wrapped the blanket around yourself and knelt on the sofa before swinging a knee over his lap, and you snuggled into his chest, clutching his shirt and nosing at his neck.

Your eyes snapped open.

(What the fuck?

If this had been a planned attack, then it would’ve been a thing of brilliance: casual, seeming to meet a physical need [heating a chill] in the name of physical closeness. But you fucked it. This wasn’t planned, and thus you don’t have a way out of it without otherwise betraying your romantically-motivated interior.

Thank fuck he’s frozen up, too. But how do you get out of this? God, you really shouldn’t be teaching him how to navigate interpersonal relationships when you get yourself into shit like this.)

You swallowed thickly, pulse pounding in your ears.

“I need your advice.” Tenko’s chest barely rose when he took his first breath since you climbed onto his lap. “What would be the socially expected response to this?”

“Uh. That depends on if you’re into it or not,” you said, forcing yourself to sit back in his lap to give him some space, “If you dislike it, then it’s to get me to get off of you, and if you welcome it, then, uh. Anything else.”

Tenko unclenched his fists at his sides and—a pause, shifting his jaw—he let his hands rest at a barely-there touch on your hips, dragging them upwards to your waist, applying enough pressure there for you to feel all ten fingertips through your shirt. “Is this,” he said, wetting his lower lip, and he couldn’t continue, instead swallowing saliva.

Gathering your nerve, you wove your hand through his hair to scratch at his scalp in the way he’d liked when you’d played with his hair, and at the familiarity, Tenko huffed, shutting his eyes tightly and pressing his forehead to yours in a rush, almost knocking them together. He took another breath, heat washing over your face, and you slid your other up hand to cup his cheek.

Tenko shivered again, and he clamped his hand over yours to keep it there. “Are you sure this is what you mean to do?”

He seemed receptive enough to it, but you couldn’t be certain. “Yeah,” you said, “If I’m reading it right.”

“But it makes no sense. I’ve got to be reading it wrong,” Tenko was saying, frowning, “No one would willingly like me—”

“For fuck’s sake, Tenko—”

Practically slapping your other hand to his cheek, you kissed him, pulling him closer, one of his hands still over yours with the other now gripping your waist as if he’d never let you go. Tenko grunted into it, surging forward to keep his rough lips (sticky from his freshly applied pineapple-beeswax chapstick) seared to yours. You felt, more than heard, his miniscule whimper at the back of his throat when he opened his mouth, sliding his tongue into yours, and you could hardly keep kissing him for smiling. But he needed a breath before you did, so you broke it, sensing he wouldn’t do it out of wanting to keep you nearby.

Panting, Tenko tried and failed to push your hair behind your ear in an attempt to be suave. “Now, I perceived that as romantic.”

“It was romantic, you muppet,” you said, thumping his chest with the back of your hand.

“Good.” He cleared this throat. “Cool. Excellent,” he said, shifting underneath you (with difficulty, under the constricting denim of his Moulded to Your Ass jeans), “I want it to be, when it comes to you.”

“Thank God, I really want that, too,” you said, sighing, “but, like, I really don’t know if it’s ethical to pursue a romance this early into your recovery—”

“The fuck is wrong with you? I want it. I want you.” Frustrated, Tenko grabbed your hips in an iron grip and ground up into you, slowly, and that tight-ass denim let you feel precisely where in the drag of his hips his cock touched you, letting you feel the shift in pressure at his tip, down his shaft, to the first curve of his balls. “I thought I was alone. I thought no one else would ever be able to understand me, having fallen from what I was raised to be. Fallen,” he said, spitting, “Such a nasty word for what we’re actually doing: we’ve been reborn together. We get to build our lives back up together. We get another chance at it. I wanna spend mine with you.”

He strained his neck upwards to kiss you again, insistent, moving with confidence when he took your lower lip into his mouth but only nibbling on it once, despite being posed to bite down with vigour.

“I don’t give a rat’s ass about what anyone else thinks of you and what anyone else thinks of me. I—”

“That’s not true,” you said, your turn to catch your breath, “You care so much about what Aizawa-sensei—”

“You know what I mean,” he said, shaking his head, hair falling out of his loose ponytail, “You think of me as me, and that’s all that matters. If you’re really that fucking worried about me getting into a relationship too early, go talk to my therapist. She says you’re good for me. A good influence, anyway.”

“Holy shit,” you said, mostly in reaction to how Tenko started trailing frantic, dry kisses down your neck, and, realising you should probably be doing something back, you rolled your hips, feeling awfully warm under the blanket.

He bucked back up into you, more out of desperation to keep you close over a need for friction but still giving you a taste of what it would be like to have him thrusting into you. “Fuck,” he said, almost grumbling, “I’d say fuck being ethical about it, because I’ve wanted you for a long time. I got hard when you shook me by the shoulders outside of that ice cream shop; I thought my soul was gonna leave my body when you adjusted my scarf. Hell, I—” He cut himself off, grinning in a way that, back before you knew him, you might have described as maniacal. “I wanted you back during the war. I saw you fucking elbow Touya during that battle, and the way you made him crumple to the ground was so fucking sexy. And you recovered from when he swiped at you so easily; you slipped around his attacks like it was fucking second nature. I thought it’d be cool to have you by my side, having you—” He realised what he was saying, and he relaxed, smile fading into a curious, pensive sort of look while he brought his thumb to your kiss-swollen lips. “And now I get to.”

You kissed the pad of his thumb, blinking slowly.

“So. Yeah,” he said, dropping his hand to your shoulder as he broke eye contact, a little red, “I think it’d be cool to be with you, even if we have to be careful.”

“That’s the thing, Tenko,” you said, biting the inside of your cheek as you gathered your thoughts, “I’m scared, because while I know that we should, because that’d be safe, I don’t want to be careful. Since I’ve quit being a hero, every single thing about how I’ve been living has left me feeling empty and alone, because it’s like I’m wandering through limbo. Everything screams that whatever I’m doing now is temporary, that it’ll pass, that I don’t truly belong in this situation, because I’ll find what I’m supposed to be doing later and my real home is somewhere down the line, but—fuck.” You rubbed your eye with your fist. “You, Tenko. You don’t feel temporary. You feel forever.”

Underneath you, Tenko stretched to pop a crick in his back, and he tilted his head to lie on the back of the couch. His ponytail had come loose, and his hair splayed against the fabric as he stared at you, one hand idly rubbing at your waist.

“Well. You’ve got to belong somewhere,” he said eventually, and he tapped all five fingers onto your thigh. “It could be with me.”

***

Dango was missing.

Incredible how the best evening of your life preceded the worst day you’ve had in years. You called out of work and spent hours scouring the dorm and then campus. A gruelling, miserable sort of day, anyway, grey and rainy and cold, and the campus was swarmed with people setting up for the scavenger hunt event later this month, populating the area with non-U.A. personnel and construction. Your cat was out in that mess, and you didn’t even know where to search first. It’s loud, scary, and wet, so Dango would most likely be hiding and not come when she’s called.

Had Dango escaped your flat? Had your stalker stolen her? Had she been confiscated by U.A.?

You couldn’t call any faculty for help; they’d get onto you for having an illegal cat on campus—and Hound Dog, the one who’d be the most help, might just scare her to death. Too early in the morning to call any of your friends, and you doubted they’d alter their busy schedules to help you out of a situation you should be able to fix yourself. But damn it, how come your own tracking skills only worked on people?

You shook yourself, coming out of your spiral the best you could, and you were close to hyperventilating. You sat down on a curb.

You found yourself calling Tenko, despite it being too early in the day for him to be out of training, filling with dread about never seeing your cat again and having to clear out her stuff from your room. Pulling your soaked jacket closer, you wiped at your nose and waited at the dial tone.

“Hey, I thought you couldn’t call during work. Miss me that much?”

The second you heard his strangely chipper voice, you started crying into the speaker.

He inhaled sharply, tone shifting. “Tell me who the fuck I’m stomping to death with my hooves.”

Ducking your head, you managed a smile but continued to fucking sob. “You don’t—don’t have to kill anyone, Ten—Tenko. I’ve f—fucked up.”

“What’s wrong? Where are you?”

“I’m on cam—campus,” you said, unable to speak for a full sentence without having to cut yourself off to keep bawling, ugly and loud and getting snottier by the minute, “It’s my fucking fault that I haven’t been ta—taking my stupid sta—stalker seriously, and I should’ve reported it, but—but I—goddammit!” The rain picked up again, coming down in rapid, fat drops, and, shielding your eyes, you rubbed your phone screen on your sleeve, not that it did much. “Sor—sorry. Rain got heavier.”

“Where on campus?”

“No, Te—Tenko, I’ll get up. I’m coming to you,” you said, sniffling and pushing on your knees to stand, wet and hungry and ready to crawl into your sock drawer to sleep for days. “I—I’m just so fucking pissed at myself, because my cat is fucking lost, and I could’ve sto—stopped it if I hadn’t been so secreti—tive.” Hands shaking, you yanked your soaked hood over your head and trudged towards your dormitory, and you kicked gravel, rocks scattering over the path, before losing your footing on it and nearly falling. Fuck this.

“You have a cat,” said Tenko, losing his fervent. “What’s it look like?”

“Beautiful.”

“I need more than that.”

“She fucking—I based Ginseng’s cat form on her, okay? She’s this enormously fluffy thing, mostly whitish with a brown face and legs, and it makes her look like she’s wearing a mask and thigh-high socks like God’s sluttiest little jester,” you said, knocking on your dorm’s mailboxes for luck out of habit as you passed them, “And you can’t tell Aizawa-sensei about her, because if she’s taken away the moment I find her, then I—”

“I have her,” said Tenko, “She’s in my dorm with me.”

You ran the rest of the way to his room, panting and absolutely disgusting by the time you got there, and when Tenko opened his door, there was Dango, loafing on the back of the couch and watching raindrops race down the window.

“What the fuck,” you said, dropping your wet coat and toeing off your shoes, “How the hell did she get in here?”

Tenko shrugged and hung your coat next to his hoodie. “Can she open locked doors?”

“I hope to fuck she can’t,” you said, and you rounded the couch to wrap your arms around that dear little loaf, and Dango jumped off the couch to crawl underneath it before you could fully hug her. “Oh, good. She’s fine. Acting like normal.” You sat on the couch’s arm, adrenaline evaporating to render you boneless.

“She was in my room when I came back from training. We ended early today, since Aizawa-sensei has something.” Tenko stooped to yank two bottles of gatorade from their plastic rings and headed towards the sofa to offer one to you. “She didn’t seem upset or hurt. She’s been sitting there, napping on and off.”

You accepted it and twisted off the cap. “So, who put my cat in your room?”

“Why would anyone do that?”

“I don’t know,” you said, taking a shallow sip, careful not to overwhelm your agitated stomach, “They’d have to know about Dango in the first place, and I suppose my stalker would, since they’ve theoretically been breaking into my room.”

Tenko paused mid-sip, and he hastened to swallow. “Someone’s been breaking into your room?”

“Yeah,” you said, easing down the arm of the couch and onto its cushions, “I think. There’s no physical sign of entry, but my shit keeps going missing, and stuff that’s not mine keeps showing up. Let me tell you, I need some of that shit they’ve stolen; it’s hard to replace—”

Tenko touched your lips with three of his fingertips to quiet you, and he gestured for you to stay put while he scrambled over to his closet, where he stood on his toes to retrieve a wicker basket from the top shelf. He dropped the thing into your lap. “Are any of these yours?”

All of it was, missing things you blamed on everything from Dango to your stalker to your own forgetfulness: your favourite sweater, your trolley pass, lip balm, your shitty earbuds, your good pantyhose, your planner, your d10, and, among many smaller things, even that bright blue thong you’d lost in the wash (Well. It’s better to find your thong with your new boyfriend over finding them returned to your dorm coated in your stalker’s cum, you supposed).

“I was losing my goddamn mind,” Tenko was saying, “Stuff kept showing up. I thought it was a test at first—”

“I don’t have a stalker,” you said, absentmindedly rubbing the fabric of your thong between your fingers, “Your shit has been—you read that GINSENG TEA X LUSTFUL BALLSACK shit? Tenko.”

“Oh, you have that?” Tenko scratched the back of his neck, but not in his self-harm way; it reminded you of Shinsou’s nervous habit more than anything. “Haven’t you read it? Isn’t that what you were naming your characters after?”

“Ah, ha, ha. Moving on. What is important, though, is why and how this is happening to us.”

“Yeah, I don’t…”

The two of you spitballed for a while, long enough for the both of you to finish your bottles of gatorade and for Tenko to start another, and neither of you came up with anything substantial.

“Hell with it,” said Tenko, standing to stretch, his movement disturbing Dango from her nap in his basket of clean laundry, “Let’s go ask Aizawa-sensei.”

Aizawa was not pleased when he discovered the both of you waiting in his kitchen, but he listened to the story, and when you were done, he stepped out of the room to make a phone call. When he came back, he looked even more exhausted than when he’d first come in.

“I’ve just gotten off the phone with Sakura Grove,” said Aizawa, wincing when his bones creaked as he sat in his chair, “Tenko, do you remember villain in-fighting within the PLF? In particular, I’m asking if you remember breathing in a pink dust cloud. It would’ve been in Deika City, in the month between your fight with Re-Destro and your body modification surgery. If our sources are accurate, you would’ve been with Touya.”

Tenko scrunched up his face. “Why would I have been—hm.” Frowning, he reached into the bag of popcorn you’d commandeered from Aizawa’s cupboards. “I know what you’re talking about. They were only letting me eat healthy stuff in the week before I went under. Touya was taking me to scrounge for something salty and shitty for me, because I couldn’t take it anymore. He started hitting on someone he thought was a waitress, and she—this is why I remember it—she compared the width of her hand to his thigh and said no thanks.”

“That’s Ito,” said Aizawa, sighing and crossing his arms, settling his chin into his capture weapon, “When did she use her quirk?”

“She shoved her hand on Touya’s face when he opened his stupid mouth again, and he passed out with swarming, pink particles floating around his head. She turned to me—and she must not have recognised Touya, but she knew me, because her face lit the fuck up. She never touched me, but I remember having to sneeze.”

“She never told you what her quirk did?”

“I woke back up in the PLF headquarters. I assumed whoever picked me up had killed her and that her death negated any effects.” He narrowed his eyes. “Why? What does it do?”

Aizawa let out a soft laugh, muffled through his capture weapon, and he jerked his head in your direction. “You tell him,” he said, snatching the bag of popcorn and heading towards his bedroom.

***

He’d been nervous about wearing a suit. They reminded him of AFO.

But you’d strayed away from dark colours and too much structure, so his light greyish-blue suit jacket stayed unbuttoned even as you leant across to the passenger seat to adjust his All Might tie for him (a Put Your Hands Up Radio tie had been offered, but Tenko had already closed his fist around the striped tie Midoriya would loan him). Part of his bangs had been pinned back to show off his annoyingly handsome face, especially in how his sharp, red eyes observed caught every movement of your terrible attempt to tie the tie based on the pictures Aizawa had sent you.

“We’re not gonna be late, are we?” Tenko drawled out, the corner of his mouth quirking upward, hand resting on the car ceiling as he angled his chest towards you.

“Shush; we are in the parking lot,” you said, looping the larger end. Or were you supposed to be looping the smaller one? “Besides, the world won’t end if we’re a few minutes late to my class’s annual reunion.”

A flimsy excuse for a party, one made because hero agencies needed some sort of named event as an excuse to dismiss your friends en masse. But it was spring again, and they were coming out of the winter blues, and they wanted to see you again, so, hey, why don’t we work something in around your schedule? If you can’t come to this date, then we’ll reschedule it until you can.

And, like. They knew. They knew Tenko was your soulmate. You suspected they all wanted to see what he was like now, too, because no one but Shinsou, Midoriya, and, apparently, Bakugou had known.

You undid the loose knot and tried again. “Are you nervous?”

“No,” he said, scrutinising the tacky balloons and streamers swaying in the night breeze outside of the otherwise intimidatingly elegant venue, “but those kids might be.”

“Those kids happen to be friends my age,” you said, “and I’m barely younger than you are. They know you’re coming. You’re fine.”

Tenko sucked in through his teeth, tapping the roof of the car one finger at a time. “The last time they saw me was as a thing. An object of destruction.”

“Well, they’ll definitely see you as a human person when I spill how you designed a unicorn DND character for Eri.” You pulled the fabric taut but kept it from lying closely to his neck (a boy didn’t like feeling constrained). “You know what? This tie is as good as it’s gonna get.”

He ducked his chin to examine its knot. “It’s shit.”

“It adds to your devil-may-care, reformed-bad-boy sort of charm,” you said, giving the tie a final smooth-down and poorly suppressing your smile when you felt his muscles through his shirt. “Mathematically, there are only 85 ways to tie a standard tie knot. I don’t believe we’ve reached any of them.”

“How do you know these things? You’re unbeliev—” Tenko jerked his face out of view of the window as Aoyama and Kouda, gesturing wildly, strode past the car and into the venue. “Listen,” he said, clearing his throat, “I know I don’t care and that you don’t care, but other people will. Your reputation is gonna plummet right into its grave if we’re out in the open together.”

You shook your head, letting your smile show. “So, I fucked part of a rescue job almost a year ago. So what. So I’m dating my soulmate. Am I supposed to do otherwise? Honestly, Tenko,” you said, curling loose strands of hair behind his ear, letting your fingers linger around his cheek and neck (he leant into the touch), “I don’t care. I would’ve chosen you even without the soulmate bond. You’re too endearing to pass by. You’re too…babygirl.”

Tenko had been guiding your hand to his mouth, and he snorted before it got there, warm air scattering in a short burst. “Don’t call me that,” he said, pressing his lips to the centre of your palm and waiting until you met his gaze to retract them.

A different warmth shot to your lower stomach, but you had to keep pressing, for the sake of the bit. “Oh, then what should I—darling? Honey? Pookie bear?”

He scoffed and nipped at your pinkie. “None of those are good.”

“Tenko.”

He breathed in, shoulders rising, eyes fluttering shut. Taking a moment to kiss the tiny bite mark on your finger. “Yeah,” he said, opening his eyes in a slow blink, catlike, “Feels good. Feels—like coming home.”

Beaming, you reached down to lace his fingers through yours. All five of them squeezed back. “Then let’s go.”

soulmate trope taglist: @bakugouspsycho, @pansexualproblemchild, @doonaandpjs, @sunsetevergreen, @the-coffee-is-on-fire, @liberace2, @ladymidnight77, @nonomesupposedto, @gooooomz, @kissmebakugou, @pachiibatt, @celestair, @tiredkittykat, @cheshireshiya, @90s-belladonna, @infjsnightmare

[uravitypng]

soulmate hanta who is completely oblivious to that fact that he is your soulmate. everybody is born with a soulmate mark, a scribble of words that are the first words your soulmate utters to you placed somewhere along your hip. hanta sero who is nonchalant and chill about things that he doesn't realise he's already met his soulmate. they met on the first day of ua and he didn't even notice, and you... well you noticed but how could you tell him.

everyone's going around introducing themselves, he doesn't introduce himself though. your bag was neatly tucked away under your desk, already ready to start class when hanta somehow tripped over it, he caught himself in the last minute

"fuck, that could've gone really bad." he grinned at you and you were too stunned to speak, your body felt warm, like fireworks exploding and the warmth left over from sparklers their bright vivid colours flowing through you, you found your soulmate. you didn't get the chance to reply to him, an authoritative voice started speaking, aizawa sensei, and then class started.

you tried really bad to talk to him but he oozed of confidence and friendless, if the roles were reversed and you tripped over his bag you don't even think you would of been able to say something, you'd probably just rush off in embarrassment. he jokes around with everyone and you fade away in the background, you didn't even mean to, it wasn't your intention, you told yourself that when you started ua and started the hero course you'd put yourself out there more but that changed when the idea of talking to your soulmate was so daunting.

soulmate hanta who lays in his hammock with his arm of his face, groaning because you are just so adorable! and you won't talk to him, you're quiet anyway but around him it's like you don't say anything. he doesn't even know if he's ever heard you talk. he frowns at the idea that you won't talk to him because you don't like him, he wants you to like him, he wants you to talk to him! everything about you leaves him in a tizzy- the way you smile, your laugh, your anime pins stuck to your bag, how you got bakugou to open up to you even before kirishima. he can't explain it but he just wants to be near you.

you want to be near him, you want to ask him about his favourite manga, you want to know more about him but you conclude your soulmate wants nothing to do with you. you've only spoken to him once, a month into meeting each other, and he didn't say anything about your mark. he didn't have any reaction. you were talking to bakugou, arguing over who did better in the practical today out of the two of you and you're too involved in proving that you were better that you don't realise hanta and kaminari have walked up to you both. you've spoken to kaminari on a couple of occasions he's nice but a bit too complimentary to girls for your liking and you haven't said one single word to hanta, overthinking every little thing. "oi, you two which one of us was stronger today in our practical?" bakugou shouts over to them.

you don't remember kaminari's response, you remember hanta's, "i mean you're good bakugou but she's miles ahead of you." your heart soars, you don't think you've ever been so happy in your life. shouting ensues, lots of shouting, bakugou calling hanta blind and various other insults.

over all that you say, "thanks sero, you were great too," the end of your sentence gets quieter and you stutter more. they can barely hear you over all the shouting. hanta doesn't look at you or make any acknowledge of what you just said, like 'oh hey, that's what my soulmate mark says' nothing. he heard you but he didn't want anything to do with you. the rejection hurt but you knew something like this would happen, you never expected him to like you but you would've liked him to say something like 'i'm not interested but i still want to be friends with you.'

the lack of any acknowledge on his behalf made it clear to you and you don't want to disrespect his wishes, if he doesn't want to get to know you then you won't force yourself into his life. what you didn't realise is your soulmate didn't even hear what you said... he didn't reject you at all he just didn't hear.

five minutes beforehand he was almost dragging denki by his sleeve over to you and bakugou because he wants to talk to you. he's had this warm fuzzy feeling from the first moment he's seen you and it's just grown and grown.

soulmate hanta is buzzing now that everyone is moving into dorms because surely that means you'll have to talk to him.

soulmate hanta who inserts himself into your life. that anime pin on your bag? he's asking if you've read the manga. he's making teasing jabs at bakugou with you about how his cooking for everyone gives it away that he loves all of the class, bakugou always tells him to fuck off and you have a fit of giggles. he gives you ideas when he can see you're struggling and hit a road block with your hero costume support items. he'll swing you with him to the roof of tallest towers in the city and talk for hours until the sun comes up about the future and plans for being a pro. he's loud and sociable and brings you out of your shell to speak up when he can see that you want but are too afraid to, he's there to give you a push but also relax with you in the dorms when he can tell that you don't have the energy for everyone. he'll bring snacks and you'll watch films and he'll speak to you gently and soothingly that puts your mind at ease when you get overwhelmed. he'll read you manga while you rest your head on his lap and you'll get overly competitive when it comes to mario kart.

you don't understand why your soulmate had this change of mindset about you, maybe it's because you're all living together but now you have him in your life you're not jeopardising that. the time you share with everyone is amazing, and the time you and hanta share with everyone is amazing but when you're just together alone that amazing turns into perfection. you want to bottle up those moments with a glass and keep them forever.

falling in love with hanta didn't surprise you, you knew it would happen sooner or later. you never spoke to each other about being soulmates or relationships (you thought you knew why) you didn't engage in conversations with the rest of the class about it either. you didn't want to put hanta on the spot like that, 'yeah, i've found my soulmate guys, i spend every day with him but he rejected me. oh look! here he comes now, hi sero!' you were wrong though. it didn't happen like you thought it did.

soulmate hanta who isn't just called 'hanta' in your head but when you speak to him or about him, after eight years of knowing each other you've gotten past the use of family names. the first time he heard you speak it his heart skipped a beat. your heads were pressed together and you were under a blanket asleep. you both drifted off at some point during film night, it was time for you both to start joint patrol so you woke him up, whispering his name. you joined the same agency so that meant you liked doing as much joint patrol with each other as possible.

soulmate hanta who's never been in a relationship before and is a complete virgin. he doesn't care about other girls, not even to look their way for a night, all he cares about is you. the idea of even dating a girl riddles him with guilt over how he wishes it was you. hanta is fully aware that you've never been in a relationship either.

soulmate hanta can't bare to look you in the eyes and hear about the person you love or how you're yearning to find your soulmate. he couldn't bare that pain. the idea that you have someone out there- it kills him. in that sense he's insecure, he knows he should be supportive and ask about your soulmate, it seems that every other person has had at least one conversation about it but he just can't. you've never even had a relationship and he knows he should ask why but then you might ask him the same question and the reason would be- you.

the thought that his words may be written on your hip never cross his mind, he's never been in denial that he loves you but he never thought it was reciprocated.

the thought that he himself has a soulmate never, even for a second, flits through in his mind. he doesn't think he's met them and he doesn't care if he does. they won't be you.

[thehouseofurmotha]

ミミ❤*•.¸♥ 𝓜𝔂 𝓼𝓸𝓾𝓵𝓶𝓪𝓽𝓮 ♥¸.•*❤彡彡

Pairing: Shinso x reader

Soulmate au! I looooove soulmate au's in this one the first words you speak to your soulmate is tattoo'd somewhere on your body! There are other types of soulmates tho like more subtle ones too where you crave whatever your soulmate is eating, have a clock that counts down etc etc. Also I fear I did not have the patience to write all of the events for the sports festival so it kinda sucks 😭

Okay giving y/n a quirk in this one too

Quirk: Sakura! You can create sakura leaves, with the leaves you can control them similarly to how Hawks can control his feathers, while also being able to create things out of your petals.

Downsides: migraines from over use, as well as the more you push your quirk the weaker the items you make become. (Imagine this is present mics voice guys)

Warnings: Sports festival arc 😔, swearing, angst

Summery: Meeting your soulmate goes happens in the most unexpected way.

You fight shinso in the first round instead of Midoriya

"THE SPORTS FESTIVAL?" The class all shouts in unison, after what they had just went through, they weren't sure if this was the best idea.

"Yeah, Aizawa-Sensei are you sure that's a good idea after the USJ attack?" Kaminari is the one to voice everyone's concerns.

"That's a valid concern Kaminari, but the Sports Festival is the most watched sports event across the world. Before the development of quirks people watched the Olympics, but now if you enjoy watching competition you're watching the U.A. sports festival. It's not something that we can just simply cancel. Security will be increased tenfold compared to other years." This seemed to satisfy your classmates concerns. Trusting whole heartedly what there teacher has to say. "You guys will have the next two days to prepare. Don't take this lightly, pros from all over the country will be watching and scouting."

And with that he dismisses the class, allowing you and your classmates to go change into your uniforms and work on training.

You work on allowing yourself to propel yourself through the air with your petals. You forge them to make wings of sorts on your back. It works pretty well, but flying in the air is definitely something you'll need to get use to. Ending back on the ground due to an overwhelming nausea caused from motion sickness.

Aizawa throws a bottle of water at you, it hits your arm causing you to look up at him. "Smart way to use your power, being in the sky can give you many advantages while doing hero work."

"Thank you Aizawa-Sensei." The water quickly helps you feel better, and the praise from your teacher puts a smile on your face. Knowing that you're on the right track gives you the motivation to keep going.

As the school day finally ends, you're tired but there's a feeling of satisfaction knowing that all your hard work will be put on display at the School Sports Festival. Not just any school either, U.A. the top hero school that you somehow managed to get into. You honestly don't really remember how you did it, you do know that you scored extremely high on the entrance exam. This entire school year has felt like a fever dream.

The only thing that you think could make it any more feverish, was to meet your soulmate. You knew that this was the age where quite a lot of people ended up meeting their soulmates, and you desperately hoped it would be the case for you. Being able to grow up with your soulmate, would be a blessing. With this, there was also that voice in the back of your head that you never would meet them. It's definitely not an unheard of thing, some people just never do find their fated partner.

There were many different ways people found out who their soulmate was. You were lucky enough to have the most obvious form, the first words your soulmate will ever speak to you is tattooed on your body. Yours is on your side specifically. The words aren't the most romantic, but they bring you comfort saying, 'so you have an impressive Quirk huh?, I've never seen anything like it'

You still desperately craved to meet your soulmate. And as you drifted to sleep that night, you thought about them. And who they might be.

The day of the sports festival had finally arrived. You sit in the 1-A waiting room feeling a mix of excitement and anxiety. You really wanted this to go well for you. To have the pro hero's see you and scout you for internships. It was such a exciting idea. They announced that the first event would be an obstacle course. With your ability to fly this should be a piece of cake for you.

As they announced the start, it suddenly dropped to frigid temperatures and you watch as multiple people get Frozen to the ground. You managed to react quickly enough to get yourself in the air before it manages to reach you. As you get into the sky you see 3 different people ahead of you.

Many people may be competing to the winner of the first event, but all you wanted to do was stand out, but not enough that people would think you're too much of an enemy.

You manage to make it through the first round coming in 5th place and you're more than happy about it. You take the time between rounds to allow yourself to breath, you hoped that you hadn't used to much power flying for the entirety of round one. But whether you did or not, you would keep pushing through.

Midnight announced that the second round would be a cavalry battle. Depending on what place you came during the obstacle course, determined how many points you were worth. Other than the first place winner, who had a million points. Every person higher than the last had 5 points added. So the person in 42nd place had 5 points and then it went up from there.

Since you had come in 5th place, you were worth 185 points. You were so glad that you hadn't fight so hard to be in first place. Part of you pitied Midoriya for the large target that would be placed on his team.

At some point, while you had been lost in thought. A certain purple headed tired looking guy had started walking towards you. You snap out of your thought to see him standing in front of you. You hadn't seen him around before, so you figured that he wasn't in the hero course class 1-B. Maybe a support course student by the look of it.

"So you have an impressive Quirk huh?, I've never seen anything like it." As the words come out of his mouth a burning sensation starts in your side and spreads throughout you. You freeze, staring at him in shock. You realized that the moment you spoke, he would know who you were. He would know that you're his soulmate.

Before you can even think you start running away from him. You want to turn around, to speak to him but your body won't let you.

A second later your snapped back into reality, crashing into someone's chest. You look up and realize that it was Todoroki. You immediately move backwards and start muttering out apologies.

"Oh, it's okay y/n. Are you okay?" He looks at you with what you think may be concern.

"Oh yeah I'm okay!" You give him your normal positive attitude, you couldn't let what just happened distract you.

"I was coming to find you anyways, it seems you don't have a team so will you be on mine?" You give him a small nod in response.

"Of course, I promise to do my best." With that you smile and are warned that the cavalry battle is starting soon.

Somehow in the matter of 15 minutes, your team managed to get the one million headband and win. You honestly feel as though you had blacked out, still distracted by what had happened earlier. But you did your part, and so did the rest of your team resulting in the win.

The last part of the sports festival was finally upon you. The one on one individual battles. You were horrified to find out that you would be fighting against him, who you found out is named Hitoshi Shinsou. Your soulmate, who didn't know he was your soulmate.

Well your lost in thought, Ojiro comes over to you. In your time at U.A. you and him had started to become friends.

"Y/n you cannot speak to him while fighting." He looks so serious as he says this.

"Uh why?" You're genuinely puzzled at this, not that you really wanted to say anything to him.

"His quirk is brain washing, the second you speak to him he can get you to do anything he wants. That's how he got me to join his team, that's why I dropped out." You feel bad for him, knowing how excited he was about the sports festival.

"Thanks for the heads up Ojiro." Part of you wants to keep this in mind, but all you want to do is talk to him.

"I know this may sound selfish, but beat him for you and me." And with that he walks away leaving you to prepare yourself for your battle.

Internally you start to freak out, not knowing if you could do this. And suddenly all the time has passed, and you're standing in the arena waiting for midnight to tell you to start. Your heart beats so fast you think it might beat right out of your chest.

"Let the battle begin!" Midnight calls out and everything suddenly feels so much more real. This is actually happening, and there's actual pro hero's watching your every move.

"So your the girl that ran away from me earlier? Well there's no running now." There's a smirk on his face, like he's over confident.

You remain silent carefully creating petals but keeping them out of sight from him.

"Hm? Still nothing to say, what a shame. Of course a pretty face like yours has nothing to say. No opinions, no nothing just meant to sit there and look pretty." You know he's just trying to get into your head, and you hope that if he knew he wouldn't be saying this things.

Once you feel you've made enough petals, you quickly shoot them out to restrain him. Pushing him closer and closer out of bounds.

"Ooo look pretty girls got a pretty quirk. Fitting huh." You take a good look at him. Studying his features. You can see on his face you knows he isn't going to win. Not if he doesn't get you to speak.

"You know you're lucky, to have such a hero like quirk. People like me, who don't have physical type quirks what are we supposed to do?" You can head the pain in his voice, you can feel his pain. And it starts to cloud your judgment. But you keep pushing to get him out of bounds. He is certainly fighting back.

"So this is how it's going to go? You're not actually going to fight me? Fine, be a coward."

This almost gets you to respond to him. But you know you can't, you have to win this battle. It feels like your future career as a pro hero depends on it. You need to stand out, to let people see you.

Finally you get him right to the edge. And for some reason, you start to cry.

"What the fuck are you crying about? Does the pretty girl feel bad for not giving me a chance to put up a real fight." And with that you push him out of bounds and he looks at you with hatred.

You take a deep breath, feeling it go all the way through your lungs, "I'm sorry you had to find out like this."

You immediately see the shock in his eyes as he clutches he's side.

"What the fuck is wrong with you? You knew this whole time you fucking knew. You- you fucking hid this from me. And you tell me now of all fucking times. You're genuinely an awful fucking person. I wish you had just kept your mouth shut." The longer he rants the louder he gets and you're sure the whole stadium could hear him. You start to sob harder as he starts to come towards you. He doesn't look like he wants to hurt you but it's clear he's not happy either.

Before he can reach you he's knocked out by Midnights quirk. You fall to your knees sobbing and begging his unconscious body for forgiveness. Quickly you brought away from the prying eyes of the audience by Midnight.

At some point you ended up in a room with both Midnight and Aizawa.

"Alright kid, do you know why he got so angry? I mean I get losing sucks but that was a different type of angry." Aizawa, your teacher is the one who breaks the silence.

"It's my fault- it really is- he's- he's my soulmate and I figured this out earlier before the Cavalry battle began. I couldn't break myself to speak to him after he spoke to me first. So I ran away. But then- after the match ended I couldn't stop myself- I didn't mean to speak to him- but I did- and it's my fault.." You stare out the ground, not brave enough to look up at either Aizawa or Midnight. Some hero you'll be.

"Alright kid, I'm only gonna say this once so you better listen alright?" You just give a small nod to let him know you're listening. "You were put in a rough spot, you found out during a time where you were already under a load of pressure. You didn't know how to handle it, sure you didn't go about it in a great way. But you're a teenager." He sighs, you look up with him and is met with tired eyes. Just like his.

Midnight chimes in, "It's just fate hun, this is how you were supposed to meet. And I know it may be scary now but it'll work out." Aizawa just grunts in agreement.

"Thank you.." It comes about barely a whisper but they hear it.

"He should be awake soon, we're only on the second match of the first round and you'll be last in the second, so you should have some time to talk to him if you so please." With that statement from Midnight, her and Aizawa leave the room. Leaving you alone with just your thoughts.

Before you have time to think about it, your legs are bringing you to Recovery girls office where he was being held.

You pace in front of the door for 5 minutes before gaining the courage to knock. You hear a gruff 'come in' and you know that he's awake. You take a moment before carefully opening the door.

"Oh. It's just you." He says it like he's upset, but you can see the relief on his face.

"I'm sorry, I just, I didn't know what to do." You look at him, begging silently for his forgiveness.

He sighs, "I get it, I guess. You were in a tough spot and I probably would have done the same. I shouldn't have freaked out on you."

"It's okay, I deserved it."

"No, you didn't I was out of line. I have a lot to work on if I ever want to be a hero."

"I think we both do." As your gaze meets his again, suddenly you realize how everything has changed.

"Thank you though, for not actually fighting me. I don't think I would have been able to live with myself if I had caused you pain." He looks up at you, with his knees pulled to his chest and his head resting atop of them."

You give him a slight nod in response not knowing what to say. "You know, I always wondered what scenario would cause my soulmate to be telling me they're sorry we had to meet like this. But I guess I get it now."

"Your words to me were so much better than mine. You deserve better, and I'll spend my entire life trying to be the better you deserve." His eyes widen and it looks like he might cry.

"We'll do it together." And then everything in the world feels right. Like this is exactly where your meant to be.

Alright chat I fear I did not eat this one up 😔 but we thug it out. I've spent to long on this trying to figure out out so I give up 😞😞 please forgive me if it's bad 🙏 as always my requests are open and happy reading! <3

[mtchee]

Silence is Silver, Your Voice is Gold - [Shouto Todoroki] SOULMATE SERIES | GN

blurb:

The piercing first words spoken by your soulmate leave you shattered, and your passion driven brother, Inasa, doesn't take kindly to it either. Resolving to ignore Todoroki (leaving him in blissful ignorance), your secret is outed in the conflict between Todoroki and your brother. When his eyes snap to you, your own gaze hardens, and you turn away. You thought you could get over your soulmate's rejection, accepting it wholeheartedly. So, why is he being so nice all of a sudden?

cw: not edited, second-person-pov, [name] is Inasa Yoarashi's twin, SPOILERS if you haven't watched BNHA like at all but nothing descriptive or major, i know i'm the one writing this but i'm also mad at shouto on behalf of [name] lmao, Inasa best brother, deku squad friend squad!!, redemption arc for shouto, he's actually very sweet, love of your life fr, tooth rotting fluff at the end

| masterlist | boku no hero academia collection |

[4.3k]

"I'm not here to make friends."

Those were first words Shouto Todoroki said to you. Unfortunately, those were also the soul words written on the outside of your left thigh.

On your very first day at U.A, you'd barely even opened your mouth, having been about to utter a chirpy greeting to your blank faced classmate before he interrupted you.

Immediately your heart had dropped and you took a surprised step back. Though his face was impassive and his voice a monotone trail, the words and their implied meaning didn't bite any less.

Back off, I'm not interested--that's what he meant.

Thank god your uniform covered the glow of your soul words.

You'd stiffly bowed and quickly moved away, snatching a different seat on the otherside of the classroom before they were all taken.

In that single instant, you knew you would never get the happy ending you and your brother would always giggle about as kids. Even if you turned back around and spoke to him now, you knew he'd never come around. It was obvious he doesn't care.

It was evident he never would.

So why bother? It hurt enough now, and speaking up wouldn't change that outcome. So, you resolved to never speak to Shouto Todoroki.

Inasa was right, the Todoroki's were horrible.

You hadn't gotten in through recommendations, so you took the normal trials to get into U.A. It was no wonder Inasa was upset when he got home from the recommendation's test, Endeavour's son was just as stand-offish and cruel.

You thought your twin brother had been exaggerating, but you had always been more sensitive between the two of you.

No wonder he declined U.A...

And now you were stuck here, with a heartless soulmate and no brother to keep you company.

Is it too late to transfer?

You think your brother was more upset than you were when you later told him who your soulmate was. Inasa had teared up dramatically and collapsed to a knee in front of you, vowing to you that had he of known he would've taken you with him to Shiketsu instead like he should have in the first place.

You think you were still in shock though, since normally you would have burst into tears at the prospect of your soulmate rejecting you.

Subconsciously, you think you already accepted it too. He was a Todoroki after all. The son of the Number 2 Pro Hero Endeavour. If he knew, he wouldn't want you anyway.

Unlike your first day at U.A, before your first class where you had introduced yourself to most of your classmates and had been chittering away happily, you were quiet.

Luckily though, you befriended Ochaco Ururaka, Tsuyu Asui, Tenya Iida, and Izuku Midoriya, most of whom were more than happy to yap in your stead.

Todoroki had since lost any respect you held for him--even more so than from when your brother had first encountered him--but he still scared you too.

You didn't have the confidence that Inasa did to pull his nose up and scoff, rather, you tilted your head down and averted your eyes, nullifying your presence as much as possible.

To your misfortune, you had to verse Todoroki in 1v1 of the Sports Festival. You don't think he even remembered you, not that he said anything anyway. His eyes were as lifeless as his expression when he was looking at you, and you couldn't help but glare back.

Your quirk similarly manipulates the wind as your brother does, though while his quirk is Whirlwind, yours is Piercing Breeze. Whereas Inasa can manipulate and summon impossibly powerful gusts of wind, you can create and control short and sharp bursts of air that can cut through cliffs of stone.

The battle between you and Todoroki was a cruel one, where your quirk sliced through his protective walls of ice and littered him in various lacerations.

However, it was Todoroki who ended the fight victoriously after managing to forcefully kick you out of bounds after feinting an ice shield and propelling himself into the air as you did.

You had refused to look at him as Present Mic announced his victory over the speakers, keeping your head down as you trudged your way from the field, not bothering to see Recovery Girl before taking seat in the stands.

You ended up coming in third, but when you went home at the end of the day you cried in your brother's arms about the events. Inasa could only hold you tighter with pain filled eyes when you started to scratch at your soul words.

Silently, you damned the world around you.

In any other circumstance, you would be absolutely petrified at your own morbid thoughts, but desperate times called for desperate cussing.

Not only had you and the rest of class 1-A faced one too many debacles so early on in your schooling, but each time without fail you were in someway, somehow, paired alongside Todoroki.

Group projects saw you put in an assignment with Todoroki and a couple others. Training saw you either fighting alongside or against the dual haired boy. And, possibly worst of all, Midoriya and the others took a liking to Todoroki's company (like, how!?) so now he'd started sitting with your lunch squad. Also, you have dorms now.

Fun.

Eventually, you gave up trying to perk up and find your way around things, but you were just so tired now. And over it.

So you shut up.

With Todoroki in vicinity, you didn't say a word.

If you noticed him approaching, you would calmly turn yourself around and walk away.

You began excusing yourself from lunch and would grab something small from the vending machines before taking a long stroll around campus.

Your soul words had been itching painfully, so you started to keep a cooling patch on it to stop yourself from scabbing it anymore than you already have.

But every third or so day, you'd call your brother and cry about it.

About how much it hurt. About how irritating the micro scars were. About how the skin the words were etched on were ever so red and swollen and pulsing. You wanted to tear off the skin and be rid of it.

Inasa panicked at that one.

But you did nothing of the sort, you knew how low your pain threshold was anyway. That much was evident with your whining from a few scratches.

Tsu was the one who noticed you withdrawing the most, but you just brushed off the subject and changed it.

The Provisional Hero License Course was where it clicked for your closest friends. When they saw you reunite with your brother, they were surprised at how much... louder, he was than you.

But also at his uniquely polite mannerisms towards others his same age. Although, that part kind of made sense to them, seeing as your classmates had also witnessed that from you.

The first trial was fun, at least you thought so. Apparently, Inasa had talked you up to the point his own classmates (and hence, also your opponents) decided to leave you alone lest they face his nagging. You did have some trouble with a couple other schools, but you passed pretty early on.

It was at the final trial that it all went down hill.

You were successful in rescuing many of the false civilians in the debre, and you knowledge on their injuries and acting manner impressed many of them.

When Gang Orca and his croonies started attacking, you switched from rescue to defense as it was better suited for you quirk.

It just so happened that your brother and Todoroki also made that choice, however, clashed in their tactics.

"Inasa!" You'd called out after sending an onslaught of wind blades towards a line of crooks, "pick your fight elsewhere!"

But his eyes remained locked on Todoroki who was positioned opposite him from Gang Orca. A passionate anger fuels him on your behalf, and he couldn't pass up the opportunity to show up Endeavour's son and put him in his place for wronging his kin.

"What is your issue?" Todoroki finally called, frustrated at his continuously foiled efforts from his very much one sided feud.

"My issue," Inasa growled, sending a hurricane off to the side to gather up concrete and Gang Orca's accomplices, "is your issue with [name]!"

"What?" Todoroki frowned incredulously, not taking his attention off their main opponent.

"Inasa!" You snapped. He ignored you.

"We barely even talk."

Todoroki dodged a flying boulder.

"They're suffering because of you!" Inasa summoned another gust to throw Gang Orca off balance, but it's only intercepted by Todoroki's flame, "if you weren't so uptight and entitled--"

Your eyes widened, "Inasa--"

He let out a battle cry when his attack once again gets interrupted.

"--then maybe you'd have even a decent chance with a soulmate who aleady deserves WAY BETTER THAN YOU!"

Todoroki's attention wavered.

"--he doesn't know!"

Inasa's whirlwind stopped, and his heart dropped. Todoroki's gaze darted to your panicked form, eyes widening as he spied the inked skin on your left thigh from your torn costume.

He made eye contact with you, and everything seemed to stop.

Fear and shock painted your features, and both your lips and throat are dry from horror at the revelation your brother had dropped.

Todoroki's right wrist tingled pleasantly despite the terror filled words you uttered.

"...You weren't supposed to know."

Inasa and Todoroki failed to pass in the end.

Along with a few others, but they were lucky to be offered remedial courses.

You weren't so lucky though.

Well, you passed. But it wasn't long before your soulmate situation became common knowledge. On one hand, unsuspecting classmates came up to you to congratulate you on bagging the grade's pretty boy.

On the other, your friends knew better about it.

After all, Todoroki had been sitting with you guys for lunch and hanging out at many other points in time throughout the year.

You made the conscious effort to stay back from everyone when it was time to leave, spying your brother and some others from Shiketsu talking to Todoroki and your class.

You'd said bye to him earlier, though a bit gruffer than usual becuse of his mishap. You saw him bow lowly to everyone, speaking a few more words to your dual haired soulmate before you had to depart.

You sat beside Koda on the way back, knowing he wouldn't say much on the situation. You didn't miss the stressed and concerned glances he sent you though.

In the following days you dodged your friends like bullets--barely.

It didn't seem like Todoroki wanted to talk to you anyway, and it was easy enough to avoid him after school due to his remedial classes.

Inasa had apologised to you profusely afterwards, decidedly giving you part of his allowance to spend on your favourite drinks and snacks to earn redemption. You tried to give him the cold shoulder at first, but when his eyes had started watering you were quick to tear up with him and gave in.

You didn't bother approaching him on the subject of Todoroki again. You felt stressed enough that they shared their remedial class, and a bit guilty that one of the reasons for your brother's failure was because of your coulmate issue, though he didn't see it like that.

Since the hero licence course, your friends had been subtly poking at you to find out about your soulmate predicament.

Uraraka was intent on listening to your side of things, so she managed to squeeze out a few details from you. Iida was intent on you confronting Todoroki, which you sternly refuting facticiously that Todoroki didn't care anyway.

Midoriya was similar to Iida, though in a much more roundabout way. He wanted to listen like Uraraka did, but you also knew how much closer to Todoroki he was, so you kept your mouth shut with him.

At some points, Momo chatted with you between classes to piece things out on her own. It was unlike her to get involved, but you noticed while she didn't push you to talk to Todoroki, she made sure to address him in a positive light.

Tsu scared you the most.

She had cornered you (again) and made you fess up everything one night after everyone dispersed after dinner. You ended up bawling in front of your door from the stress of it all, and Tsuyu had panicked as she tried to calm you down. Talking to her lifted a weight off your chest, but it also made you relive all those repressed feelings of longing and anger and hurt. You cried yourself to sleep that night.

Damnit, Tsu.

The day that your brother finished his remedial classes, it all seemed to change.

Despite you teetering around the topic of your soulmate with Inasa, he suddenly seemed... invigorated?

Well, he normally is. But, it was different this time.

When he finally got his provisional hero licence, he called you and started yapping about the positively riveting tale of his harrows, before eventually cooling down to address the issue about Todoroki.

At first, your brows had furrowed in concern when Inasa talked light about his interactions with Endeavour's son, which eventually turned into praise about his skill and his ethic.

"Since his quirk worked so well with mine," Inasa had started, "there's no doubt that you two'd pair together perfectly!"

You almost hung up on his strange change in character.

Inasa had planted a seed. And your friends continued to nurture it.

The school festival was right around the corner, and gave everyone an excuse to hang out. At the suggestion of a performance, you'd bounded right up with Ashido to make up a dance, the two of you giggling and wiggling around in front of everyone in excitement.

When you caught sight of Todoroki watching you with a meticulously blank stare, you winced and shrunk back, looking back at Ashido with a lesser smile than moments before.

After most of the band had been decided (courtesy of Jirou), the topic of special effects took everyone's attention.

"Hold up, how's this for an idea!?" Ashido took the reigns once more.

"Uraraka makes Todoroki and Kirishima float! And then, Kirishima chops at Todoroki's ice and sends it flying! Then, Aoyama can be a mirror ball, and all the light twinkling off him and the ice will make it look like it's raining stardust!"

"You know," Momo intercepted, thumb and index finger beneath her chin, "[name]'s quirk would actually be perfect for that. Instead, Uraraka could make [name] and Todoroki float, that way, with the suble manipulation of [name]'s quirk, the movements would be much more fluid, and they could continue the dance routine in the air."

"Oh! That's a great idea!" Ashido beamed.

You felt a cold sweat break down the back of your neck.

"Indeed, that would be much more effective!" Iida stiffened, but blatantly ignored you when you spun around with a disbelieving glare.

That settled your schedule for the festival preparations. When the class wasn't practicing together for the dance, everyone was split into their groups for their assigned tasks.

You were positively sweating at the prospect of speaking with Todoroki--but you didn't want to let the others down.

It was the first time you would talked to him since the incident, and the second time actually talking to him altogether. You stuggled to meet his eyes first time around, his gaze intense with slow, cat like blinks.

You started the discussion, stictly about your parts in the performance, which he only ever added to when necessary, otherwise he was busy observing you.

It was only after scurrying away that you processed how amicable he and patient he was, simply waiting unperturbed as you gathered your thoughts and piping up gingerly when your ideas needed a nudge.

But you digress, it was strictly business.

At least, it was for you.

For some reason, Todoroki took that initial conversation as an ice breaker of sorts, and immediately started seeking you out for things pertaining to more than just the school festival.

When you sat down at lunch the next day, he made a point of sitting right beside you with a bottle of one of your favourite sodas that the vending machine had ran out of when you checked. You couldn't help but pout at the sight of it before turning back to your food.

Your sad bottle of unopened water was then swiftly stolen from your tray right in front of you, and then quickly replaced by the carbonated drink you oh so desired.

You straightened in surprise, looking to your left only to see Todoroki slurping up his soba undisturbed.

You hazarded a look across the table and spot Uraraka and Midoriya still with wide eyes and Iida biting back a small knowing smile. You glance at Tsu beside you, and she blinks slowly with each eye individually.

Todoroki sat beside you at dinner too, but not before having taken your plate and filled it with parts of the meal that you liked most, ensuring you got first serve before sitting down.

A few seats across and down from you, you saw Momo cover her mouth with a light chuckle.

The dual quirk boy also volunteered to clean up with you, though that only really consisted of him shadowing you in the kitchen as you put away the clean dishes.

You worried at first. Not that you really thought he'd do anything to you, but after having avoided each other for so long it was... nerve wracking.

Since you were used to keeping your mouth shut around him, it was kind of hard to break that habit.

In class when you yapped to the others, you could spy him staring at you from your peripherals. If you went out of your way to seek someone out, he would watch you converse intently.

You only really talked to him again at the next rehearsal for the festival, but he sat with you once more at both lunch and dinner. You had an inkling that you had no choice in the matter.

He was quietly stubborn.

The cycle continued for the upcoming weeks, the school festival drawing closer and closer. He'd started initiating small talk with you during lunch, and he'd lean a bit closer to engage with you at dinner. Gradually, you started talking to him on your own--and really, he wasn't that bad.

To be fair though, having your soulmate reject you before they even knew you was hurtful.

But you did also carry the guilt of having not spoken up. Still, he obviously didn't want anything to do with you.

You figured he didn't care about the whole soulmate debacle, so you put that behind you and focused on making subtle amends for ignoring him.

Sure, the thought about the rejection still stung a bit, but what was there to do? Todoroki wasn't making a fuss, so neither would you.

Your soul words didn't itch as much anymore.

It's now the day of the school festival, and you are buzzing with nerves. Sure, practicing the dance and details with your classmates was fun, but now, you actually had to put that plan in motion.

But you refuse to let it dampen your mood!

You gotta keep the energy up for everyone else! Though some of your friends were ecstatic, others such as Midoriya and Jirou look just about ready to keel over.

Todoroki hadn't really left you side all morning--you did drag him out to practice your moves one last time though, before your nerves got shot and you stiffened.

He kept up with you bouncing around and checking in on everyone, and helped you set up wherever you offered your assistance. When he noticed your energy already starting to deplete he turned around to retrieve a tangerine, a small packet of cookies, and a bottle of your favourite flavour of fruit infused water.

You couldn't stop your knee from jumping up and down anxiously, even when he firmly sat you down on a set of stairs outside the gymnasium.

You made sure to distract yourself by babbling about all the preparations so your stress wouldn't overwhelm you, Todoroki standing beside you peeling the tangerine as he listens.

"--the box nearly tipped, so the streamers would've gone everywhere, but Shoji caught it before it did, so it was fine. Also, the sign Denki made was spelled wrong, but Momo did something so it actually looks like it was meant to be that way--"

Todoroki crouches down in front of you, holding out a meticulously peeled tangerine slice that he feeds you when you open your mouth.

"--Mmf," You lick your lips, "thanks. Momo's super resourceful that way, which is cool. Iida's similar, I think, but he lacks the creative capacity she has."

He feeds you another piece.

"--Uraraka's getting nervous, I can tell. But Mina's been hyping her up, so I think she'll be okay. Also, have you seen Midoriya? He might've gone to the bathroom but it's been so long... oh, also, Ojiro needs help setting up the synthesizer since Jirou's busy with the mics. Then we need to do a sound check."

"Drink this."

Todoroki pops open the bottled drink, watching intently to make sure you get your fill. When you go to talk again he tips the bottle back up to your lips for another sip before nodding contently.

"Mm!" You perk up, more energised now, "I love that flavour."

A smile tugs at his lips, "I know."

"Thanks for helping me with that ladder by the way, I didn't see Hagakure when I was walking with it--no pun intended. I would've wacked her with it if you weren't there."

When you're done with the tangerine (rejecting his offer of the last few slices, which he then eats instead) he opens the packet of cookies.

He hands it to you absentmindedly when you make a quick grab for it, the processed sugar and chocolate bits being much more appetizing than fruit.

"Oh, I love this brand!"

Todoroki watches you fondly as you munch down two at a time, nodding off handedly at your statement.

As you continue your ramblings, your nerves gradually lessen--as does the amount of cookies. When he offers you the drink again he spots a smudge of chocolate on the lower corner of your lips and gently grips your chin with his hand to thumb at it.

He pays no heed to your sudden silence as he cleans your face, humming contently when the tiny mess is gone and leaning back casually.

You blink at him.

"What was that."

"Hm?"

You frown, "That."

"Don't worry too much," Todoroki ignores you in favour of addressing your prior anxious babbling, "the performance will go fine. Everyone's worked really hard too. We'll do well."

He kisses you on the cheek.

You feel faint.

"What was that."

"What?" Todoroki blinks stupidly.

"That."

The change in his features is subtle, but he almost looks like he's pouting, "Did you not like it?"

"What?"

"What."

Your face burns, and you frown at him, "Don't copy me. You need to answer my question."

"But you didn't answer mine?"

The sheer audacity of this man to tilt his head at you after a move like that.

"You... You kissed me!"

"You didn't like it." He comes to the conclusion with the look akin to a kicked puppy.

"I-I didn't say that!"

"What do you like then?" His face is carefully stilled as he watches you with round eyes, "what do soulmates normally do?"

"What."

"What?"

"Stop that!"

His head bows, "You still didn't answer my question.."

"You've... soulmates!?" Your heart thrums in your chest, and a rush of feeling threatens to overwhelm you, "you want to be my soulmate?!"

His carefully placed mask breaks into surprise at your outburst.

"Of course I do," His eyes pierce into you like you've said something strange, "why wouldn't I?"

Your mouth drops in shock and disbelief, "B-Because! You said," your hand rests over the covered words encripted onto your thigh, "you're not here to make friends..."

"Oh," He has the decency to look ashamed, "sorry. I didn't know those were your words. Is that why you didn't want me to know?"

"Well, duh! I thought you rejected me!" You huff, taking an angry sip from your tasty water, "Inasa really didn't like you then, you know."

He breathes out a laugh, "I realise."

He watches you adoringly, and when you glance at him you're suddenly all too aware of his closeness. As your lips part from the rim of your bottled drink you're reminded of his chivalrous acts from the weeks prior.

You had thought he was being weird, but you also didn't really care to get to know him before then. Whereas he, on the other hand, did attempt polite conversation when he first started sitting with your group at lunch. He was also civil with you whenever you were paired together for anything.

You suddenly felt awful.

"What about now?" Todoroki's voice pulls you out of your pit of self-deprication, "what do you think? Do... would you like me to be your soulmate?"

When you look at him knelt before you, a subtle pink flush on his cheeks and an almost unnoticable nervous shake in his otherwise placid tone, you can't help but swell with happiness and relief.

You decide to pay him back with a kiss on his scarred cheek, and he takes in a sharp breath.

Your cheeks ache with how wide you smile at him, "More than anything."

As it turns out, you would get your happy ending after all.

[bnhaficsforthesoul]

Dabi and Shigaraki Soulmate AU

Dabi

Your soulmate's name is tattooed on your skin

you live in a world where everyone over the age of 16 has a name written on their body somewhere, belonging to their soulmate

always an exciting day, and you were ecstatic as you searched your body in the mirror to find the words as they popped up

soon, along your collar bone, the name you were looking for finally appeared

Touya Todoroki

you had heard of the todoroki family, Endeavor was the number 2 hero after all, and you knew he had children. Possibly this soulmate was one of them?

however you found very little information on his children's identities, but you were hopeful that you would find something eventually

however, you do eventually find a few articles from a few years ago that tell you the worst news you could imagine - touya todoroki had died in a fire

it's been years now, you're in your early 20s, and have mostly accepted the fact that you'd never get your soulmate. you hoped to find someone one day you could still love like one, but most people aren't super into dating someone with a visible reminder that they don't belong together

over these years, you've made your way into being a small villain as well. no one serious, it happened mostly out of necessity, but you're a villain nonetheless

which helps lead you to an almost dorky looking little group of villains, rightfully called the league of villains to keep up with the dorky appearance

none of them really seem all that serious, kind of just seem like a bunch of people who have no where else to go, which you can't judge them for

toga, a cute younger girl who had quickly turned friendly with everyone there, was fascinated with the idea of soulmates. you didn't blame her, she had only recently gotten her name, but this led her to asking everyone if they had met theirs yet, what their names are, anything about them.

most people didn't want to talk about it, and the ones who did didn't have anything interesting to say. your leader insisted that soulmates were a waste of time, and the emo looking dude by him agreed

you felt bad that toga wasn't getting the conversations she was looking for though, and you decided you'd show her yours.

"Touya todoroki? isn't that that pro heros last name? Do you think your soulmate is a hero?"

you shook your head, smiling sadly as you told her "no, he's been dead for years. never even met the dude"

she frowned, feeling sad for you, and changing the convo made you miss the wide eyed stare directed at you from across the room

dabi, who had caught your name earlier but blew it off as a coincidence since you only said your first name, was actually stunned

when he was younger, he dreamed of a happy life with his soulmate, but after waking up from the coma he barely ever spared a thought about them

now, here you were, right in front of him and clearly sad about the idea that you didn't have a soulmate

and for the most part, he was so fucking grateful that you had no way of knowing who he was. hearing his name made the smallest part of him want to get to know you, but he has more important things to do. plus, realistically, he doesn't know you. he doesn't owe you anything

so he never said anything. never even gave a hint of who he was. you two did get close over time, always relying on one another for help and support

it wasn't until probably a year later when in a fight dabi gets badly wounded, he's unconscious, and you're panicking, where things begin to unravel

he clearly has a huge gash in his torso, and your main focus is stopping the bleeding, so you cut open his clothes as you need to and begin fixing him up as best as you can

in the middle of doing this, you see what looks like a tattoo along his ribs. and you think nothing of it, till you realize it's his soulmate mark. he's never mentioned anything about his soulmate, and you couldn't help your twinge of jealousy at the idea of someone out there being his soulmate.

even if you couldn't have your real soulmate, you've come to really care about dabi since you've met him. you don't know if you love him, but you at least have a little secret crush

so, you take a peek, and you get dizzy when you see what it says.

that's your name. your full name. exact.

you're stunned, speechless, can't even process how you feel right now.

and as dabi starts to wake up, and he asks what you're doing, you can't help but weakly say "Touya?"

he mentally curses, immediately realizing you saw his mark. but he can't do anything about it now, and he's kind of stuck laying here with you as you keep him from dying

"...yeah, that's me"

you're confused, you ask him why he never told you, you're rambling out questions and he can't even keep up with it.

'listen, when we met, I heard toga read that name off your chest. I see it almost every day. I've known this whole time, but before, and even now, I have plans I have to carry out. back then I didn't tell you because I couldn't be bothered to care with you, but now I didn't want to tell you because I wouldn't know what to do. I can't promise love, or even being alive, and it seemed easier for you just thinking he, or I, was dead."

you stared at him, processing everything

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have looked without your permission... but, I want you to know that I won't force anything on you. If you want a relationship, I'm more than happy. I'm happy with whatever you give me, even if nothing changes. I just ask that you don't push me away."

he nodded, and told you he promised to keep you around as much as possible, and that was that

he still didn't know what he wanted to do with you, but you grew more attached every day until you could say with certainty that soulmate or not, you were in love with him.

nothing would come of this for a long time though, maybe a few nights of make out sessions with too much sexual tension, but no real talk of feelings or relationships.

you grew kind of comfortable with it like this, even if sometimes you wanted a more stereotypical relationship with all the dumb sappy stuff, you had thought you didn't even have a soulmate for so long that just being near him was a blessing

dabi decided he didn't want to think of you as a soulmate. he didn't want to think he had any sort of obligation to love you or treat you a certain way. if anything was going to come of this, it would be of his own will. not the universes.

which is why it took so long, dabi could always admit you were attractive, and over time you were a great friend and someone he could truly care about, but he didn't know If he LOVED you, he didn't know if he could feel that serious for you

so it took some time, and took some real thinking for him decipher his weird complex feelings towards you, until eventually he decided that yes, he could love you.

but he wanted to wait until he did love you to do anything. and also, your existence didn't change the fact that he had plans and goals he needed to see through

so now, he's just done his big reveal, now the whole world knows who he is, and even though he didn't kill his brother like planned, he still deems it a somewhat success

he's elated to at least have come this far, he could do the rest next time, but right now all he can focus on is how happy you are for him. both for him and that he came out okay somehow. he had told you about his past in little bits, so you didn't need to 'comfort' him in any way, even though it hurt you to think about how awful his life has been

but he has his head on your lap as he stares up at your face, focused as you help him fix the staples for the new scars that have formed from this fight, and he felt so truly comfortable right now.

he has no stress, he had no anxiety about the future, it was just you and him right now.

'I love you, you know'

he spoke so casually, as if you hadn't been waiting your entire life to hear him say those words

in your head you were screaming, crying, everything. but all you could say was

'I love you too'

Shigaraki

You and your soulmate can communicate in your dreams

ever since you were little, every single dream you had consisted of you and a little boy, together in a white room

some of your furthest memories of these dreams were quiet as the two of you kind of just stared at each other, saying nothing

but you recall as one day, you finally said hi. you told him your name, and asked his.

he seemed shy, and nervously scratched at his neck as he answered you, telling you his name was 'Tenko Shimura'

there's blurry memories of you talking to him more and more, learning more about this kid, until he disappeared for a couple weeks

to you, these are just dreams, so you don't think too much of it until he eventually does come back but very different than you remember

the shy expression on his face turned into one of shell shock almost, and his hair had turned completely white

you tried asking what happened, but for a good few weeks (even though he only popped up maybe 5 times at most), he didn't even look at you.

eventually, he did speak, but all he really said was that he got his quirk, and he did something bad

for years after that, you rarely ever saw him. as you grew older you assumed it was because you were growing out of your 'imaginary friend' phase, but every night your dreams always consisted of that empty white room.

eventually you reach high school, and your mental health takes a tank. you can barely sleep, you can barely do anything. so you end up on a night owl schedule, sleeping all day on weekends, up all night every night, and barely sleeping on school days.

and for the first time in probably years, you saw tenko again.

both of you seemed actively surprised at seeing one another, and you can't help but notice how much he's grown as well

he's obviously older, probably the same age as you, his hair has gotten a little longer, his skin doesn't seem to have improved any which makes you a little sad that he hasn't seen a doctor yet, and he looks unhealthily lanky

he's clearly eyeing you too, he kind of forgot that he ever had a partner of sorts in this weird dream world having not seen you in so long

'why are you here?'

'I don't know, because I'm asleep right now i guess'

'do you always sleep during the day? I'm guessing your in Japan too, right?'

'I sleep whenever I want, but usually I'm up all night. and yes, im in japan'

this made you realize something, so you asked 'are you a real person?'

'unfortunately'

this very well could be just a part of your dream. but it makes sense that he very much is another living person. so you want to test it

'hey, I wanna try something. would you be willing to try and go to sleep at the same time?'

he made a weird face at you, clearly confused, 'why would I do that?'

'because this is cool! if you really are a real person, and not just some dream boy, then it'd be fun to have someone to talk to. and if we sleep at the same time, we have all night together'

'why should I care'

'do you have anything better to do in here?'

he was silent, you were right. your dream world wasn't kind enough to give you anything to do, and even tho it didn't necessarily feel like you were in there for hours, it still was a good while to be sitting in an empty white room doing nothing

'fine. what time'

figuring that the only respective time was at night, you had to shift your whole schedule around again, but this led to more frequent meetings with each other

it wasn't every night, there were some nights where he couldn't be bothered to go to bed, or you were too busy to do so, but you saw each other a lot more consistently now

most of the time, you were leading these conversations, asking him questions about his life and stuff, and he answered fairly vaguely unless it was something he actually cared to talk about

which you found was video games. that's all he really did, especially League of Legends

so you made an effort to play some of these games, that way you could understand what he was talking about or talk about the lore with him

for a couple years, you two were best dream friends, even though you never met irl. you always considered asking if you could meet, but he seemed nervous when you asked if you could actually play a game together at some point so you dropped it

as much as he had grown to love these dream times, he was scared to meet you in person. in dreams, there was still a layer of protection between you and him. in real life, you actually get to meet the true and real him.

plus, as he got older, AFO had more and more expectations for him, and soon the League of Villains was formed

this caused him to be busy a lot more, which meant he slept less, which caused his time in the dream world to dwindle again

you understood, you're 20 years old and have your own things to do, but you do miss him when he isn't there

the highlight of your day is seeing him, honestly

however, a few months later, you're scrolling on your phone and you see some news about villains, nothing new really, but a picture included peaks your interest

it's kind of blurry, but the man in the picture of one of the members of this group or villains looks very similar to tenko

and within the next few weeks, as the league becomes more active, more pictures come out and eventually you're positive - that's your dream boy

you honestly don't really care he's a villain all that much, you aren't particularly fond of most heroes, and you can't help but want to go to him

so, you find a way, and with stains message sparking more people to want to join the league it makes it a lot easier for you to do so

as you make your way into this weird little bar, you don't see him at first, you see a few other members who mostly don't really care that you're there. which is fine to you, you're not here for them

you're ready to ask one of them where Tenko is, however, until he turns the corner and makes his way into the room

luckily for him, he notices you before you can yell out his name in excitement, and he loudly says your name in confusion

you run over to him, smiling huge seeing him. you open your mouth, ready to speak, but before you can he tells you to come with him, so you do

he leads you deeper into the base, into what you suspect is his room. it's kind of gross, with dirty clothes and trash everywhere, but you ignore it for now

'why are you here'

it kind of hurts your feelings that he isn't as excited to see you as you are him, but he never has been the most excitable person, so you try to keep that in mind

'I found out a while ago that you were here, and I was really hoping that it wasn't some doppelganger or that it wasn't just a coincidence that this dream person happened to look like a real person.'

'you shouldn't be here. you're not a villain'

'you don't know that. you never told me you were a villain'

he basically went :/ at you, he didn't know what to think really

on one hand, yes, he was excited to see you. but he didn't know what to do with you here. you didn't seem like a villain, maybe your quirk could be useful somehow, but did you even want to actually join the league?

plus, now there is no safety net between you two. and he's terrified. you're the only 'friend' he's ever had, even if it was in his head his whole life, and he doesn't want you to hate him or leave like everyone else

'if you stay here, you have to help. you answer to me. you work for my cause.'

'I can do that'

'also, my name... it's Tomura Shigaraki now. so don't use,, that other name'

you decided not to ask why, and just accepted the situation now.

so from day 1, you were his biggest supporter and friend. whatever your morals were before, you didn't really care now. you were happy here, with this weird little family, and especially with Tomura

every day while not working you were spending time with him, he finally let you play games with him, you were both happy

he started to learn just how much he truly cared about you, you're the only person he truly feels safe with. he feels like himself, you give him the chance to feel happiness instead of just be consumed with hatred every day

'hey, y/n, do you ever wonder why we dream of each other?'

you had gone to sleep a few hours ago, but woke up when you felt weight on your bed, and opened your eyes to see Tomura sitting there staring blankly at the wall

'yeah, I haven't really heard of it before, and I haven't asked anyone since I was little. but they all told me it's just dreams, nothing special'

he said nothing, but he turned to look at you now.

'but, I feel like it has to mean something. something important. it led me to the most important person in my life.'

he couldn't help but smile as you said that, and he nodded, 'I agree. I used to not care about it that much. but I'm glad I got to meet you, in my dreams and especially in real life.'

he was being especially open about his feelings for once, which you loved, but it was also confusing

'tomura, are you okay?'

he was quiet again, this time clearly thinking. you let him, fiddling with your fingers as you waited. you were nervous for some reason

'I don't know. I don't know what this feeling is. Just, you make me happy. nothing else makes me happy. you feel... safe, and warm. everyone else is so meaningless, but I don't know if I could keep going without you. I don't want you going on missions because you might not come back. I want to kill anyone who takes you away from me.'

he was rambling, clearly speaking his thoughts as they came, and your heart was melting the entire time. you didn't want to assume, but you were hopeful

'tomura, do you love me?'

that clicked in his brain. he couldn't word these feelings correctly in his head, but love sounded right. as far as he knew what love was supposed to be, he figured that yes, he did love you

so he nodded again.

'tomura.. I love you too'

he didn't know what to do now. he just sat there for a while, thinking about what this meant.

'can I hug you?'

'you know I can't touch you'

'it's okay, I trust you.'

as you hugged, you eventually felt the palm of his hand against your back, knowing he was being especially careful not to touch you.

'I'm going to let go now, if you want to move your hand.'

'not yet. I like this'