Royal Gambit

VII

"Shoto, what happened to your hands?!"

Shoto had returned early in the evening after his rather unsuccessful first attempts at skating with his classmates. Thankfully, Sero had a packet of plasters in his bag and several lay adorned over his scraped palms. The wounds weren't deep and would likely heal by the following morning, but it was still an unusual sensation for him. He was hardly ever put into situations that could cause him physical harm before, and somehow the dangerous element of skating was rather thrilling to him. 

Whilst he was still unable to skate on his own, he had mastered balancing on the board and skating alongside someone, which he cherished as a small accomplishment. After agreeing to return to the skate park with them later in the week, he had split onto his own path where his driver was waiting to pick him up. If his driver noticed his excitable energy on the journey home then he did not say anything, but of course his mother would pick up on the slightest changes to his demeanour. 

Seeing Shoto come home with a small smile on his face seemed to make Rei incredibly happy, and she ushered them into the dining room to eat whilst asking about his new friends. Sero, Kaminari, Kirishima and Ashido had insisted they truly were friends, Bakugou simply grunted and carried on skating, but either way he knew it would take some for him to feel comfortable enough to use such a term of address with them. It was somewhat surprising to him how easily they called him their friend, Shoto used to having to work for someone's attention and friendships at his old school were earned through connections or wealth. Whilst it was rather refreshing it was also somewhat terrifying. 

In regards to his hands, which his mother had now stood up from her seat to sit next to him and inspect the small plasters that wrapped across his palms, he had fallen once or twice when trying to master his balance. Whilst his classmates always lessened the fall and never mocked him for being a slow learner at skateboarding, he still accumulated a couple of scrapes. They were not deep and would likely heal by the following morning, and he assured his mother of this if only to make the worried crease of her brow vanish. He did not wish such negative feelings upon her.

"It's nothing to worry about, I was simply learning how to use a skateboard." He explained, and, seeing as his father was not present, broke the rule of having no devices at the dining table and took out his phone, showing his mother the collection of photos and videos he had taken. Rei was equally enthralled and exclaimed when his classmates vanished into the Big Dipper, making Shoto promise to be more careful and to wear the right protection next time. 

Knowing that if it was his father who had discovered his injuries then he would have been forbidden to spend any more time with his classmates out of school grounds, he thanked her and they settled back into their comfortable conversation to finish their meal, ending with Shoto bringing her the dessert he had chosen from the convenience store. His mother insisted they try it together over a pot of tea, and soon after Shoto bade her good evening with a kiss on her cheek before returning to his room to complete his homework. He was not behind in anything, in truth the workload was somewhat more relaxed than at his previous school, but he did not want to become lax in his studies, knowing he would need more of his free time at the weekend devoted to his private tutoring.

That evening, once he retired to bed, he looked once more at the photos, videos, and phone numbers he had accumulated. It made a gentle warmth bloom in his chest, especially when scrolling through the group chat he was added to. Kaminari was using an assortment of words he did not understand, but the emoticons and reaction pictures his classmates sent helped him along. They were planning to go skating again on Saturday evening, and whilst this meant that if he wished to join them he would have to sneak out of the house without his father's detection, that present warmth in his chest gave him the courage to do so. He longed to spend more time with them, it was an incredibly entertaining evening, and he felt that despite how slowly it seemed, he was beginning to understand more about their lives and values. It was what had influenced his decision to explore this new lifestyle in the first place, and so sneaking out was arguably part of his education.