Serendipity

reminiscence

His fingers sneak between flesh and fabric, giving his skin room to breathe. The ironed collar of his shirt feels tighter, lately. He's loosened his tie already, contemplated taking his blazer off on account of how hot he feels, even though he knows it is freezing out and Aizawa would think he's crazy.

Aizawa seems stressed near him. Shouto was proven correct when they arrived at the dorms and Aizawa left him, told Shinsou to watch him like he was no more than a child. Like father and the white haired woman. Shouto ate lunch with Shinsou yesterday, he asked if he could again, today. It's not that he finds it pleasant, or preferable to the quiet that eating with the teachers brings, but he doesn't want to make Aizawa angry. Shouto... Shouto doesn't know how he feels about Aizawa. But he doesn't want to ruin the kindness he's being shown.

Shinsou is quiet. His table is not. He eats with some other members of Class-B, and Kaminari sits right next to him. Kaminari told Shouto that he only sits here sometimes, and that he wants to know more about Shouto. Then, Shinsou nudged his side and Kaminari didn't expand upon the idea.

"So, Todoroki," Tsubaraba says around a mouthful of smoked salmon. His platter is covered in grease and the rice is soaking it up slowly. "You fought with Shoda in the joint training, right? You were pretty scary."

Shoda clears his throat across from Shouto, "He was. For a minute I was wondering if he might freeze me completely solid."

Leaning in from passing by, Kendo smiles, "You did pretty good, too, though, Shoda. In the end, I think Todoroki's just really strong, I don't think I could've done any better against him."

"S'one hell of a quirk, that's for sure," Honenuki mutters, swallowing down his food. "Todoroki, you should fight me, sometime. I wanna see how well I'd do against something as hot as fire."

Shouto nods, pinching soba noodles between his chopsticks and dipping them into the broth.

"You know," Monoma appears behind Kendo, smirking. Nearly everyone at the table groans but they still listen in to him. "We never congratulated Shoda for his fight against Todoroki. Unless you're in Class-A, it's not every day you fight a villain."

"Watch it," Shinsou warns, scowling. Monoma frowns.

"So what, our superior class is protecting him, now? Why is he even here? Him too," he points to Kaminari.

"There aren't seating arrangements, Monoma," Tsubaraba rolls his eyes. "Chill out."

"My apologies, friend, next time I won't question the villain in the room-"

Kendo hits his neck, and Monoma promptly silences himself.

Shouto's lost his appetite.

Living in the dorms is fine. Sometimes, it's loud. His classmates walk around into the later hours of the night, when Shouto is already in bed and staring at the moon through his open balcony curtains. His head is foggy and the stars are blurry. It smells faintly of the cooking oil at Aizawa's house.

Aizawa told him earlier, that he would need to eat dinner at his own dorm. He'd been okay eating with Shouto the last few nights they spent at the dorms, but now he's getting tired of that, too, and Shouto just nodded and agreed to the term. He's setting his boundaries, Shouto has realized. The white haired woman did that, too, when she chose the other children over Shouto, and then left Shouto because he's too much to handle.

Aizawa still talks to Shinsou a lot. Shinsou is the other child.

Except Shouto is the other child, because Aizawa is Shinsou's adoptive dad and Shouto came third to the man. He's not his real son, just someone who Aizawa thought was weak and took in out of pity.