{MHA} The Lonely Pyromaniac

22

-Ikemoto-

"An arcade. I'm taking time out of my afternoon to hang out with you at an arcade. In a mall," I gruffed. Kaminari and I were waiting on a bench outside the mall's retro arcade for Monoma and Todoroki to show up.

"Yep!" Kaminari chirped. "Jiro and I used to come here all the time as kids. It's really fun. Jiro loves this place."

I shrugged. "Never been to one."

The lightning boy's jaw dropped. "Are you serious?!"

I nodded. "Izuku and I grew up in a small neighbourhood, and there were some complications that kept us from going to some places. It's a long story that you wouldn't want to hear."

We sat there for a few moments when something occurred to me. "If this arcade is so important to you and Jiro, why didn't you insist she come?"

Kaminari stiffened slightly next to me. "I told you, she's at a sleepover with the girls in our class."

"So you're taking us to an arcade that's special to you two without her while she's-"

"Oh hey look, it's Todoroki and Monoma!" Kaminari interrupted. I turned to see where he was looking, and sure enough Todoroki and Monoma were approaching from one of the mall's maze-like hallways.

"Sorry; Todoroki wanted to grab some soba before we met up with you," Monoma apologised.

"Maybe we should've gotten lunch together," Kaminari muttered to me.

I just nodded. It would've saved me the trouble of having to sneak out of the house with Izuku and Mom in the kitchen clearing the table. I hadn't told them that I was going to hang out with my friends today; I was still a bit angry with Izuku for breaking his arms again.

"You've never played any games at all?!" Kaminari's screech shook me out of my brooding thoughts.

I turned to see him staring wide-eyed at Todoroki. "Well... I was busy with my training... not to mention my academics and musical education," Todoroki stuttered awkwardly.

"You play an instrument?" Monoma asked as we entered the arcade.

He shook his head. "I sing. Touya plays trumpet, Fuyumi plays piano and violin, and Natsuo plays piano and cello."

"Please stop. You're making me insecure about my talents," Kaminari whined. I laughed and shoved him. "Let's just play some games, you guys."

As it turned out, Todoroki was some sort of arcade games prodigy. He beat Kaminari in some sort of shooting game, trumped all of us in a rhythm/reaction time game, and crushed Monoma in the basketball hoops game. Even when Monoma tried to win by copying some kid's accuracy quirk, Todoroki still came out on top.

"Never been to an arcade, huh?" I accused him.

Todoroki gave an awkward chuckle. "Well, Father's taught me how to do stuff similar to this in my training."

"I'm adding this to my list of reasons for 'Why Todoroki Won the Sports Fest Fair and Square,'" Kaminari said.

"Agreed," Monoma nodded. "Although I still think that 1-B deserved more attention this year."

Kaminari spluttered. "What do you mean you deserved more attention? You literally came up with a plan to not stand out during the first round!"

Monoma pouted and pointedly turned his back on Kaminari. "Don't mention that to me ever again."

I snorted. "I mean it's your own fault, so you might as well own up to it."

"Yeah, I know I know." He scowled so Kaminari and I decided to drop it.

Todoroki, who had pulled out his phone sometime during the exchange, suddenly spoke up. "Touya says that there's a karaoke place nearby that's pretty good. Would you guys like to go check it out?"

"Sure!" Kaminari's chirp was far too loud to be considered an 'indoor voice'.

Monoma and I both shrugged and Todoroki started to walk off, looking at his phone for directions.

-Izuku-

It had taken me an embarrassingly long amount of time to realise that Ikemoto wasn't at home. The last time I had seen him was just after lunch and it was almost time for dinner now.

The problem wasn't that he was missing, per se; Ikemoto could handle himself in a fight, but the issue was that I did know why I was so bothered by it.

Maybe I was worried he'd get into a fight and break a quirk law. Maybe I was worried that he'd meet the wrong people. Yeah, those things were probably it.

I wasn't around to make sure he stayed out of trouble, is all.

I nodded and pulled out my phone. It was a weekend, so Mom was home today and I didn't need to make dinner.

Izuku 🦸🏼‍♂️
Where are you?

I waited several minutes and frowned when I didn't get a response. Usually, he was pretty good at responding within a minute or so.

"Mom, have you seen Ike-kun?" I poked my head into the kitchen.

"No, why?"

I shrugged. "I dunno. I'll go out and look for him."

"Oh he's not home?" Mom asked, sounding surprised. "Well, you better hurry up and find him."

I frowned. "Yeah, I know, Mom. I'll stay safe! Bye!"

I charged out the front door before realising that I had absolutely no idea where to start.

Maybe Ikemoto had his location on?

I pulled my phone back out of my pocket and checked it again. He was at the mall? Since when did Ikemoto care about shopping? Maybe Kaminari had roped him into something again.

Well if Kaminari was with him, then maybe Todoroki would be too. And that 1-B guy that they were sometimes with. In any case, I still decided to go check on him.

-Neito-

Todoroki was a really good singer.

In the span of half an hour, he'd managed to blaze through more than five songs, once dueting with Midori for 'Burn the House Down'. Midori was pretty good too, but he didn't even hold a candle to Todoroki.

He had the voice of a choir boy, and I was hooked.

"Close your mouth; you'll catch flies," an unamused voice said, followed by another voice snickering.

I snapped my mouth shut and turned to stare wide-eyed at Midori and Kaminari. Todoroki seemed to be completely oblivious as he continued to sing his heart out.

Suddenly, Midori glanced down at his phone. "Something's going on outside. We're on lock down."

A sudden rumbling and the karaoke machine turning to static confirmed his statement. All four of us paused and looked at each other. Then we looked at Midori's phone.

On the screen, there was some sort of a villain with a tentacle quirk breaking things and wrecking general havoc in the mall's open area, uncomfortably close to where the karaoke place was. We watched the screen in silence until Midori suddenly stiffened.

A blur of green appeared in the bottom corner of the screen.

-A/N-

Izuku, Izuku, Izuku. Why can't you ever keep your stupid nose out of trouble for more than five minutes?

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