he had cleaning duty with y/n, shinsou noticed that afternoon. whenever it was his week he usually never stayed to clean. but midoriya had seen his name beside y/n's that morning, and shinsou always found it hard to say no to those big green eyes.
and so there he was, as the medallion yellow sun dipped behind the horizon and painted the vast blue canvas with streaks of watermelon pink, filling his classroom with warm hues.
y/n was washing the blackboard, stretching to reach the higher half of the huge board. she muttered curses under her breath, jumping up and waving her wet sponge across the surface.
she huffed, halfway done but already winded. throwing the sponge into the bucket full of sudsy water, she collapsed into the teachers chair, rolling around in it lazily.
"didn't you just start?" he asks her, not looking up from his sweeping after a minute.
"i cleaned all yesterday without you, so consider this payback. you can do it, go hitoshi!" she cheers, still slightly out of breath.
"don't call me hitoshi." is his reply.
"dammit."
she gets up to clean again a few minutes later, and they work in silence for a bit.
y/n sets the rag she is using to wipe the classroom desks back in its bucket. "so hitoshi-"
"-shinsou-"
"-shinsou," he bites back a small smile at the way she dragged his name out. "what kinds of things do you like and hate?"
"i hate a lot of things, and i don't particularly like anything."
"cool it, sasuke uchiha." she replies without thinking, and he snorts. he immediately tries to hide it with a cough.
"you laughed! i knew i could make you laugh." she smiles proudly to herself, and his stomach makes an unsettling flip in his torso at the sight.
"yeah yeah, you should totally pursue stand up comedy in the future." shinsou replies.
"i don't think i'd ever want to do that that, thanks."
"then what would you do?" shinsou surprises himself by making conversation.
"i want to be a baker." her reply is oddly normal. "i'd like to own a cute little bakery and have regulars who's names i know and get to befriend. maybe a part timer that's secretly in love with me."
"conceited," he teases, and she huffs at him with a smile.
"come on mr. popular, don't tell me you don't feel a bit egotistical knowing people have crushes on you."
"i don't, actually."
"liar." she shakes her head with a grin.
the setting sun has hues of burnt orange accompanying the blues and pinks filling the sky, and y/n asks, "what about you? do you have a dream?"
"i don't know. anything that pays, i guess." shinsou sits down on the windowsill of the classroom. he's supposed to be washing the windows, but why's that matter when it will rain tonight?
"have you ever had a dream?" she asks him.
he doesn't know why he keeps talking. "i wanted to be an artist when i was younger. i was really proud of my art."
"why don't you want to anymore?"
he sighed. it's been far too long since he thought about his old dream. "my parents thought it was a penniless career, and they decided to just to put my art down with heavy criticism all the time so i would give up on my own."
"what? that is so fucked!" y/n stomps her foot. she looks up at him with a glare, but he can tell it isn't really directed at him. "are you just going to let them step all over your dream?"
"i could ignore it." shinsou smiles ruefully. "at first, at least. i basically decided i would get better at it out of spite. now that i think about it, my relationship with my parents was horrible back then."
"so what changed?" y/n's glare has softened into a concerned frown. he almost laughs at her animated expressions.
"my sister finally talked some sense into me. my parents were so against it, they were threatening to kick me out. she asked me if i really wanted to go into my dream with anger fueling me. art is something i've always found peace in, and i didn't want to take that away from myself."
"and so i gave up." he looks down at from his hands, "she was right anyway. i had begun to hate drawing, and it took me years to realize that. i got rid of my art supplies after that. i don't deserve to draw anymore."
she's quiet for a while, and shinsou wonders if he shared too much. great, you scared another one off. he scoffs at himself. he was always too gloomy for his own good.
he pauses at that thought. since when did he have a negative emotion towards the idea of y/n not speaking with him?
before he can figure that emotion out, y/n behinds to speak. "you don't have to torture yourself like that." y/n says, and shinsou finally drags his eyes from the floor to look at her. "it's not worth it to live your life beating yourself up over something." she's looking right at him, but shinsou feels like the sadness underlying her words is from experience.
he cant look away from her, and shinsou doesn't know how many seconds pass until the breeze that floats into the room ruffles his hair, causing him to squint. he turns to the side to shut the window, and the moment between them as ended by the time he turns back around.
y/n chuckles awkwardly to break the silence. "sorry, didn't mean to get all preachy on you. i've just got... experience with that kind of thing."
she claps her hands suddenly. "let's get back to cleaning! oh wow look at the sky, it's getting so dark already. do you have a ride, hitoshi?" she's rambling, but shinsou let's her change the subject.
"shinsou."
. . .
she pouts. "you're always so mean to me."
he grins. "it's part of the package."
they finish their assigned tasks in a comfortable silence. shinsou might not know much about l/n y/n, but she was proving to me more of an interesting character than he initially thought.
