The Couples of Class 1-A

LCO | Ch. 35: Bittersweet Success

It wasn't until it was nearly five o'clock when Todoroki finally showed up. Uraraka, Midoriya, Asui, and Melissa had been chatting with each other in the meantime—finding a nearby bench to sit on that was located in the shade. They passed the time idly, talking about mundane things, until at long last, a flash of white and red peeked out below the archway of the mall's entrance. Uraraka was the first to notice, as she had been eyeing the archway for him for quite some time already, and stood up the moment he was in sight so she could call out to him.

"Hey, Shoto! We're over here!"

She waved back and forth along with Midoriya, who had decided to copy her wave once he spotted Todoroki also. However, Todoroki had his head stooped down at the moment—lost deeply in his thoughts—and thus didn't even react at the sound of his name being yelled.

"Todoroki!" Midoriya called again, but he kept on walking.

At this rate, he was going to wander into the parking lot and get lost, so Uraraka rolled her eyes, and hurried over to nab him.

"He must be spacing out again. I'll go and get him..."

This sort of thing happened sometimes with Todoroki. Because of his calm, stoic nature, Todoroki would occasionally get wrapped up in his own head, and lose all sense of where he was. It was just another one of his odd personality quirks. Undaunted though, Uraraka didn't slacken her pace until she was an arm's length away from him—compelled not to have him drift off with the flow of the outgoing foot traffic.

"Shoto!" she shouted again, this time grabbing him by the sleeve, "Would you look up already? We've been waiting around for you for the last twenty minutes!"

He blinked surprisedly several times as expected, and then glanced confusedly around at his surroundings—seeming to take them in for the first time.

"Wha—? Oh, I'm at the entrance..."

Strangely, his voice trailed off on that word, and Uraraka immediately raised an eyebrow. Something seemed particularly off about him, but she couldn't identify what it was.

"You mean you didn't even notice? Goodness—if I'da let you, you probably would've gone all the way into town before waking up."

"Oh... my bad." he mumbled back, still too dazed to properly look her in the eye.

Okay, something's definitely up. Uraraka decided, narrowing her eyes scrutinizingly at him. Aside from his inability to focus, his sentences were short and reluctant—like he was distracted by his own thoughts. It made her wonder if something bad had happened to him.

"Hey, are you okay?" she eventually asked, lowering her voice slightly to avoid alarming the others, "You're acting like you're drunk or something. Did you take a nap and are all groggy now?"

She'd meant it as a half-joke, but given that she'd left him at the soba stall by himself all day, he very well might've done just that. He was somewhat prone to falling asleep in public places—a side effect of never getting enough sleep due to his insomnia.

"I—no..." he shook his head, and then Uraraka noticed with intrigue as he lifted his hand up to rub the back of his neck, "but oddly, it kind of feels like I'm dreaming..."

There's that nervous tell of his! she instantly recognized, marginally proud of herself, That means he's feeling shy about something! Does this mean something happened to him after all? Something involving Yaoyorozu!?

It was fascinating to her, the sort of look he had on his face. As he rubbed his neck, he seemed increasingly confused at himself. Dumbfounded about something, it seemed, to the extent that his very expression was having a hard time deciding which face to make. His eyebrows twitched, and his eyes widened disbelievingly. At the same time, his mouth seemed halfway between a smile and a frown, and she could tell his left fist was clenched firmly inside of his pocket.