Izuku feels torn to the point of tears when he thinks about how he held Todoroki on his lap in the kitchen. How can so many emotions fit inside of him? He wishes he could poke a hole in his side and let them drain out so he could sort through the muddled mess with his hands instead of trying to dissect it one event at a time in his head.
He really, really likes Todoroki. The fluttering in his stomach doesn’t even bother him anymore. He shamelessly seeks him out, reaches out again and again and it’s driving him crazy that Todoroki is okay with letting him rest his head in his lap sometimes, and the way his fingers feel in his hair, so gentle it aches.
He’s hanging out in Uraraka’s room trying to get some last minute studying in when she gently prods him into talking about it. And he can’t hold it back any more, not when she’s so willing to listen. It comes spilling out in pieces, out of order in some places and skipping over a few more private things, but she just nods thoughtfully and lets him wear out the fluffy pink rug in her room while he paces.
“So you want to be his boyfriend, then, right?” She summarizes for him, and Izuku feels suffocated by his embarrassment. “Why don’t you just tell him that?”
“Uraraka,” he hisses and pulls at his hair. “I don’t even know if he’s,” he hesitates. “What if he’s not even gay, Ochako-chan?”
“Deku-kun. I can count on one hand the number of straight people in class 1-A, and no one cares about Mineta anyway.”
Izuku groans and turns away from her. “You don’t know, though! It feels like we’re so close, but is this normal friend stuff? I don’t know! And I don’t think Todoroki knows either, so we’re just- we’re stuck, and I love that I get to have this weird touchy feely friendship with him but sometimes I just want to- but I can’t because if I move too fast, he’ll- or what if he’s not into it and I ruin every-”
“Izuku!” She snaps and his body goes rigid. He sits down sheepishly under her hard stare. “Don’t you remember the field trip we went on? When Todoroki-kun got that concussion?” Izuku nods slowly.
“He got a concussion because he was staring at you, you dork,” she huffs. “Kirishima is going to kill me if I say anything else, but just trust me, ok? He’s gay. Gay enough. Gay for you, at the very least.”
Izuku blinks. He remembers that day. Todoroki had been locked in a lethal and beautiful dance with Yaoyorozu, and Izuku had been unable to look away from the sweat dripping down his neck. Every move was confident and strong, snapping out so gracefully. Izuku’s breath catches at the memory of Todoroki holding his eyes for a moment, blue and gray glowing and staring right through him, just before Yaoyorozu caught him with a high kick.
He remembers hazily not wearing a shirt at the time. Had Todoroki’s eyes flicked down over him? He can’t remember.
“So he… you think he likes me?” His voice is too quiet, too hopeful.
Uraraka sighs. “I don’t know, Deku. Todoroki doesn’t talk to me about that kind of stuff. You’d be better off asking Kirishima, but I doubt you’ll get anything out of him when it comes down to it. I just know that you have a chance. You guys are so close, I know there are things you talk to him about that even I don’t know about you,” Izuku feels a guilty wrench in his heart, but Uraraka waves it away with a hand. “I don’t mind, Deku, Todoroki’s special to you. And I know that it’s hard for you to see, but you’re special to him too."
Hope coils in his gut until he feels like throwing up. He’s okay with rejection, mostly, but with the weight of his feelings hanging over him, he knows for certain that if they dropped, they would crush him.
“I think… it’s best to just leave things the way they are for now…” Uraraka looks like she’s about to scold him and he hurriedly continues. “Just for now! I just… I really like where we’re at right now, you know? We’re comfortable with each other. I think we both need things to stay the same for a while. Maybe he likes me, maybe he doesn’t. But either way, I want to make sure that if,” he swallows back the sudden swell of fear, “If I do confess to him, that things won’t fall apart when he turns me down.”
And Izuku knows that Todoroki wouldn’t be comfortable touching him the way they have been if he knew just how much it meant to him. Todoroki would be kind and gentle, for the sake of not hurting him, but back away until they were cold acquaintances at best.
But then, Izuku remembers the burning looks Todoroki gives him when he wears his hoodie and thinks maybe, maybe it’s okay to hope for the best.
“If he turns you down,” Uraraka grasps his shoulder encouragingly. “I’m going to smack both of you!”
Izuku blushes but perks up a bit at her enthusiasm. Uraraka is one of those rare people with so much buoyancy that they can’t help but lift the people around them. How did he end up in a class so full of amazing people?
He shoots her a teasing grin of his own. “So what are you doing about Tsuyu-chan, then, hmmmmm? Ochako-chan!” Uraraka blushes brightly, and Izuku pokes a finger into her side at her sputtering.
“That’s- everything is going fine- stop it!” She giggles between words as Izuku digs his fingers into her ribs. “It’s not the same! Stop it, Deku!” Izuku can’t help but laugh along with her as she squirms away from his tickling fingers.
“You told me to confess! Why don’t you take your own advice, you hypocrite!”
Izuku feels warm again at the many friendships he’s stumbled into since enrolling in Yueii. He thinks he’ll never stop being grateful for his classmates, who make everyday an adventure, and tell him how gay he is with nothing but affection in their voices. He doesn’t feel a lick of remorse even as Uraraka tumbles in a heap of roaring laughter onto the floor to escape his attacks.
Turnabout is fair play after all.
Despite his announcement at the beginning of the year that he wasn’t here to make friends, Shouto ends up with, really, rather more than he expected.
He ends up on casual speaking terms with more than half of his classmates, and they seem to understand that he’s not always in the mood to mingle. Which is nice because Kirishima is friends with everyone, and likes to spend time with his “Bakusquad,” as he calls it. Shouto is fine with this, and sends him off with a monotone reminder to use protection.
Sometimes he leaves to find someplace quiet to read, and on a handful of occasions has come across Tokoyami frequenting some of his favorite places on campus. Tokoyami nods regally at him, and they both tolerate each other in respectful silence and enjoy the wind through the tree that has a couple of branches perfect for sitting, or the muffled sounds of pages turning from the darkest corner of the library where there’s a long bench.
He thinks that of all of the friends he’s made in his time at Yuei, one of the last people he expected to befriend was Uraraka, who is bright and friendly and sociable and the exact opposite of himself. But it’s less that he befriends her, and more that she pops into his life with effervescent verve and politely demands his friendship.
Uraraka brings him a cupcake after a cram session, a thank-you-for-not-letting-me-fail-english cupcake, she says. It’s chocolate, with pink frosting and white sprinkles and he’s never really indulged in sweets before but somehow this cupcake means more than just sugar and chocolate.
“Thank you, Uraraka-san,” he says quietly.
“Ah, no need for formalities! Just Uraraka is fine, or even Ochako if you want. We’ve suffered together, bled together over textbooks late into the night!” Uraraka is punching the air in contagious enthusiasm that brings a small chuckle up from his chest.
Uraraka looks delightedly at him and grins widely. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you laugh except for when Deku is around!”
That wipes the smile right off his face, blood draining rapidly.
“Hey! No, don’t worry! I can keep a secret!” She giggles menacingly as she seems to think of something. “I can keep lots of secrets.”
Shouto wonders if he should be afraid.
Uraraka is quietly brilliant, Shouto knows that she understands much more than people give her credit for, and he finds himself admiring her stalwart nature and the way she says what she means without pretense. So he shouldn’t be surprised when she notices his predicament and kidnaps him that afternoon.
“I need help baking for the class picnic and everyone else is busy!” She says while dragging him to the kitchen. Shouto knows that it would be easy to pull his hand from her grasp and tell her no; she wouldn’t force him to do anything, not really. But he’s reluctant to say no anyway.
Like Midoriya, Uraraka is softhearted and kind, and he feels like he’s holding a bird in his hand, enchanted but anxious at the thought of crushing it by accident.
He shouldn’t have worried, though. Uraraka is shoving an apron at him and ordering him around the kitchen like a master baker, and Shouto thinks he might be a little bit intimidated by the glint in her eye as she measures out ingredients.
“Class 1-B said they would be making food for the picnic, and that leaves us in charge of baked goods,” something flashes in her expression like manic glee. “Our cookies are going to crush them!”
Competitiveness.
Uraraka is competitive. He watches her toss a pinch of salt into the mixture with precision. Competitive and frighteningly competent. He files these things away as he stirs a batch of cookie batter and watches her flit about the kitchen at the edges of his vision. He remembers belatedly how Uraraka fought Bakugou in the tournament, how she got up again and again until she couldn’t stand, her clever plan with the floating debris, how she crawled forward rather than giving up. Uraraka is frightening in many ways, it seems.
“Here, taste this,” Uraraka leans up on her toes and pushes a spoon of cookie batter into his mouth, and he’s too shocked to protest.
He gives her a guarded look as he slowly pulls the spoon out and takes a bite. It’s good, brown sugar and chocolate gooey on his tongue. He’s still swallowing around the stickiness in his mouth when she suddenly ambushes him
“So you like Deku, huh?”
Shouto coughs roughly around the sugar in his lungs, dropping the mixing bowl on the counter and turning away from the food to choke quietly on his panic. He remembers the look on her face when Midoriya shot milk out of his nose. His eyes are watery when he rasps out “Do you enjoy doing that to people?”
Uraraka grins triumphantly and he realizes that it’s the first he’s spoken since being kidnapped.
“Sorry, Todoroki-kun!” She says without meaning it. “I had to catch you off guard! I get the feeling that you’re someone who doesn’t really open up easily, and I needed your attention for this.” Uraraka smiles at him and he can’t hold any ill will against anyone with a smile like that. He concedes with a small nod to let her know he’s listening.
“Well,” she begins, fingers steepled under her chin. “I wanted to ask you about Deku. I know you guys are close,” she glances up at him. “Really close. Especially lately?”
Shouto resists the urge to gulp. Of course she would have noticed.
Things with Midoriya are… not strained, he thinks. Different, though. It feels like the air between them is charged like the atmosphere before a lightning storm. Since practically clinging to each other and confessing their dark secrets, they feel both more distant and closer than ever. They orbit each other, and Shouto’s always been sucked into his gravity but now, now it’s made so much worse by the small touches that they’re always exchanging.
It’s their way of acknowledging each other’s confessions from that night without explicitly addressing it. They sit shoulder to shoulder on the couch, greet each other with a gentle hand on the shoulder, and sometimes, while they lay in the grass after sparring, Midoriya lets him play with his hair with his head in his lap. Midoriya returns the favor in the early hours of the morning, scarred hands carding through the knots while he rests his head on the kitchen table. His heart sings with every brush of skin, and it’s embarrassing, really, but Midoriya seems to enjoy it as well and that makes it bearable.
Touching Midoriya feels natural, easy, save for the way his heart squeezes, because he knows that no matter what he does, how clumsy his fingers are, Midoriya won’t mind, he never shies away from leaning into his hand or asking him to scratch just a little to the left.
He’s amazed by his openness, but sees through it that he’s doing his best to make their arrangement comfortable for both of them.
But Shouto’s not sure how to feel about this development. They feel so close, but he can’t shake the feeling that there’s something hanging precariously in the balance, and with one wrong move it could all come crashing down. He’s caught between wanting to reach for more, and the paralyzing fear that asking for more will leave him with less than before.
Does Midoriya feel their delicate balance act too? He’s been dying to ask, and he thinks that maybe it must be written on his face because Uraraka gets to the heart of it in seconds.
“You’re afraid, right?”
Shouto forces his face into something stoic, but he can’t keep the irritation from his eyes at the blatant call out.
“It’s okay to be afraid, Todoroki-kun. I would be too, if I’d backed myself into a corner the way that you two have.” Uraraka pauses for a moment to hand him the mixing bowl he’d set down, gesturing for him to keep stirring. “You two just keep getting closer, but you’re not giving yourself the room you need to grow.”
Shouto lets his gaze drop to his feet, uncomfortable. Uraraka reaches out and squeezes his elbow and he jerks his eyes up to see a comforting smile.
“It’s okay if you’re not ready yet. But you should know that you have options, yeah?”
Shouto nods numbly, and they go back to working in silence for a while.
“Were you always so blunt, or is it Asui’s influence?”
Uraraka flushes and waves her wooden spoon like she’s about to use it as a weapon, and Shouto flashes her a quick smile. If she wants to go right for the jugular, he can at the very least defend himself.
He considers for a moment inviting her to hang out with Kirishima and Yaoyorozu, but winces at the thought of Midoriya’s best friend being there to hear him bemoan the unfairness of leggings. And unlike the rest of them, Uraraka doesn’t seem to be in longing to the point of pitiful, but making solid steps towards building something special with Asui. He envies her and admires her in equal measure.
“Didn’t you like Midoriya?” Shouto asks while they’re both crouched in front of the oven window to check the cookies.
“Well yeah! I know you've seen his bubble butt in leggings, so it shouldn't exactly come as a surprise,” Uraraka tells him like she thinks he’s silly.
Shouto grimaces.
“Don’t worry, he’s my best friend, but I think you know you don’t have to worry. You can’t let it intimidate you, half the class has liked Deku-kun at some point,” she says like it’s supposed to reassure him, as though her statement is anything less than alarming.
“Don’t make that face,” she teases, and he hear Kirishima in the bright notes of her voice. “Here, this dough needs to be chilled,” she shoves a saran wrapped ball into his hands. Shouto isn’t sure how to feel about this. Any of it. But he thinks he might be starting to enjoy her company and the sweet aroma of baking filling the kitchen. He’s not sure if he’s ever baked before in his life. Is it always this messy? He rolls up his long sleeves about halfway through after they dip into a bowl of frosting.
The two of them wait for batch after batch of cookies and cakes alike sitting at the table. Uraraka juggles floating eggs and makes him bake leftover cookie dough in his palm to entertain them. He burns two cookies before suggesting that Uraraka keep the dough suspended an inch or so above his skin, and soon they have it down to a science.
Uraraka is making several eggs float across the room when Bakugou enters like a clap of thunder.
“What the fuck is all this shit?” he shouts. “You and that fuckin’ Deku are always making a goddamned mess, and now this half and half bastard?! How the shit am I supposed to cook in this, hahh?!” his face contorts into something almost comically rageful.
Uraraka’s face goes carefully blank as she considers something. Then, with a devious grin, she releases the egg hovering about a foot over Bakugou’s head.
The resulting blast is enough to shake the floor beneath them and upend a bag of sugar.
“You wanna fight, huh, round face?! I’ll fucking kill you!”
Uraraka gets to her feet and takes a classic boxing pose, hopping from foot to foot. “Oohhhohoho I accept your challenge, Bakugou-kun!”
He can’t help but feel that the firey aura of determination surrounding her and Bakugou both comes horrifyingly close to matching.
Shouto inconspicuously scoots back in his chair, but he's mentally prepared to ice Bakugou to the floor if he decides to rush Uraraka. His worry for her is misplaced, though, and Shouto watches her scoop a handful of flour from the package on the counter and fling it at Bakugou, ducking a small explosion with a practiced roll and grabbing the carton of eggs. Bakugou’s face is completely red as he grabs sticks of butter to fling full force.
About four minutes in, Shouto finds himself covered in ingredients and hovering somewhere near the ceiling.
At ten minutes, Bakugou and Uraraka are forehead to forehead and outright wrestling, and Shouto looks up when Kirishima comes in with wide eyes and tries to communicate silently that he needs to fix this, please.
“Yo! You guys! Why not settle this outside, we can have a friendly competition and not ruin the kitchen, how about that?”
Thank god for Kirishima.
They leave in a flurry of excited shouting, I’m gonna kick your ass, and how about arm wrestling, and don’t underestimate me, and is he imagining it or do all three of them seem absurdly thrilled?
Silence falls in the kitchen, and it's quiet enough that he can hear a bit of egg drip down from the ceiling.
Shouto lets himself sink to the floor with his back pressed against the cabinets. He’s covered in flour and dough, and maybe a little bit of egg, though Bakugou had taken the brunt of that attack. He feels dazed. Was he really a part of that mess?
Did they really leave him to do the clean up?
Baking wasn’t even his idea. He had wanted to read his new book and maybe sit with Tokoyami for a while.
Shouto mechanically reaches up behind him to the mixing bowl on the counter above his head and pulls it into his lap. With Uraraka off to do who knows what, there would be no more baking tonight, so he feels no guilt using his hands to dig out a small handful of dough. He rolls it carefully into a ball, and sets it atop his left palm so he can watch it expand and turn fluffy. The bottom burns without Uraraka’s help, but he manages to pull it off almost in time, and the center is still gooey sweet.
He’s eaten four cookies and two scoops of raw dough when Midoriya walks into the kitchen wearing his hoodie with the hood pulled up. His hair is curled around the edges and pressed down onto his forehead, and the cookie baking in his left palm turns into ash.
Midoriya pauses in the doorway, staring wide eyed at every inch of the disaster of baking ingredients covering every surface, horizontal and vertical.
“Did- did you-?”
“What do you think, Midoriya?” he asks flatly.
Midoriya gives a quiet whoop as his body convulses with laughter. Bent slightly at the waist, he stumbles over and drops onto the floor next to Shouto while he snickers. They press together from shoulder to hip, and Midoriya leans even closer to reach into the bowl on his lap and scoop a finger full of dough.
Shouto watches him suck it from his finger as his laughter subsides into sporadic chuckles.
“You’re smiling, again, Todoroki-kun,” Midoriya says slyly without looking at him.
Shouto turns his head away. “Shut up,” he says, entirely too fond.
Midoriya just huffs at him again and leans into his side.
“What happened in here?” He asks finally.
“Uraraka and Bakugou,” he snorts.
Midoriya hums around a second scoop of cookie dough. “Then why are you wearing an apron?”
Shouto looks down at himself. The apron didn’t really help much, honestly. The black shirt he wears beneath it has white handprints and something is oozing onto his jeans.
“Uraraka wanted my help with baking.”
The oven timer goes off, and Shouto heaves himself to his feet to take the tray of chocolate chip cookies from the oven before they can burn. He doesn't want Uraraka’s work to go to waste, even if she did abandon him to this disaster.
When he straightens and turns back, Midoriya’s eyes snap up to meet his, and his face is red and guilty. Was he…?
“Midoriya, were you just-”
“You’ve got flour! On your…” Midoriya interrupts with a half shout. He tugs his hood down over his eyes to cover the pink in his cheeks. “You have a handprint… on your pants. I wasn’t-” he breaks off awkwardly.
Shouto blinks. Twists at the waist to try to see- oh. Yes, there is indeed a flour handprint right over his back pocket. He shakes his head. He doesn’t remember getting slapped on the ass, but a lot had happened when Bakugou came in.
“I hope that’s just from me wiping my hands…” Shouto murmurs mostly to himself.
Midoriya giggles a little and peeks out from under his hood, devastatingly cute sitting on the kitchen floor with a bowl of cookie dough resting on his knee. Shouto lets his lips curve up as he sits next to him.
“You have a nice smile, Todoroki-kun,” Midoriya says quietly, and it’s strange to be sitting next to him and talking softly in the kitchen when the lights are bright, but just as good. “Were you baking cookies on your hand when I came in?” he asks curiously.
Instead of answering, Shouto rolls a handful of dough and lets it bake slowly on his palm, more careful this time not to burn the bottom. Midoriya is watching with childlike wonder in his eyes, leaning into him and grabbing onto his apron. “That’s so cool!” he breathes into Shouto’s neck and he barely keeps himself from setting the cookie on fire.
When it’s done, he flips it into his right hand to cool it slightly, and hands it to Midoriya, who is practically bouncing up and down in place.
“No wonder Uraraka recruited you! This is amazing,” Midoriya tells him with his mouth full. Shouto raises his hand and brushes a crumb from his cheek with his thumb, shivers when Midoriya tilts his head into it. There it is again, the crackling energy between them, the longing for more, a sharp pang of fear in his gut that tells him to keep away, not yet, you can’t lose this feeling yet.
What would happen if he did exactly what he wanted to do with no hesitation?
Playfulness is not something that comes naturally to him, so he’s a little surprised when he gathers a handful for flour from one of the many piles surrounding them and flicks it into Midoriya’s face.
His nose scrunches adorably, and it looks like he’s got white freckles that dust his cheeks atop his other freckles, and Shouto can’t help but laugh outright at the absolutely incredulous look Midoriya is sending him.
Shouto finds out that Midoriya can be cruelly vindictive when he turns the left half of his hair as white as the other side.
By the time Ochako stumbles back into the dorms, covered in soot and sweat but glowing with pride, it’s well into the evening and music is filtering out into the hallway. She heads to the kitchen, ready to clean and apologize to Todoroki for leaving him, but comes to an abrupt stop just at the entrance. The music is coming from the kitchen, something light and boppy, along with the sounds of clattering dishes, the wet splash of water, and two quiet laughs.
Ochako creeps closer, slowly peeks her head around the corner to find Todoroki and Deku side by side at the sink. Deku’s got bubbles in his hair and flour all over him. Todoroki’s hair is 90% white and he has a flour handprint on his butt that she’s pretty sure is her fault. On the counter, Deku's phone sits inside of a glass cup to amplify what she recognizes as his Upbeat Playlist.
She backs away slowly with a wide smile. If those dorks want to take their sweet time, then so be it. But Ochako knows that whatever is coming, it’s coming fast. She’s never seen Todoroki smile like that, and she imagines that it’s likely a Deku Special. She hopes that they’re ready for it when it comes, but for now, she’s just glad to see her friends so happy.
Like her mama always said, it’s amazing what baking can do.