Wednesday

Chapter 3

Step one to looking like he was fine was to sit down. Todoroki felt his legs walk over to his usual table, Midoriya leading the way. Once he was there, he plopped into his seat, thankful to have a solid surface take away the strain in his wobbling limbs. Ok, step one was successful. Onto step two. Eat your food. Todoroki looked at the plate full of food in front of him. Just looking at it made his stomach clench. Any other day he'd be happy, excited even, that the cafeteria was serving cold soba. But because today just had to be a Wednesday, he was not. Of course, if he didn't indulge his friends would know something was off for a number of reasons. Cold soba was his favorite food, so leaving it on his plate would definitely send up red flags. Todoroki whipped his clammy palms against his uniform pants before grasping his chopsticks. His fingers fumbled slightly in the beginning, but after mentally scolding himself, he got it under control. He could do this. Now all he had to do was pick up some noodles from the plate and get them into his mouth. Getting something from point A to point B is easy. Nothing to worry about. Thankfully for the first time today he was correct. Todoroki scooped up a few stands of soba and shoved it into his mouth before he could think too hard about it.

Instant regret. All he could taste was blood. Such a familiar yet disturbing sensation. Todoroki nearly spat out what he had in his mouth. He could feel his gag reflex acting up, causing him to heave slightly. He quickly swallowed his food and the bile that was rapidly rising up his throat. No one at the table seemed to notice, or if they did, they didn't say anything. Ok step two could have gone better, but at least he did it. Now just repeat about fifty times and he was all set. Counting that as some small victory, Todoroki moved onto step three. Talk. Thankfully Todoroki was never the talkative type, so his lack of speech wasn't unheard of. What would be suspicious, however, was if he completely blocked out the conversation completely. He had to focus. He could do this.

Todoroki used his chopsticks to shove his noodles around as he checked back into reality. Midoriya and Iida seemed to be discussing the pervious lesson while Uraraka quietly chatted with Momo and Jiro. Wait, that weird. He hadn't remembered Momo or Jiro approaching the table. Todoroki was fairly sure that they weren't there when he first sat down, but then again, his memory couldn't exactly be trusted. Momo and Jiro never really sat with him, Uraraka, Iida, and Midoriya, as they preferred to sit with some of the other girls in their class and even some in class 1-B. Why they were sitting with them today was a mystery to Todoroki. But even more strange was the neither of the girls had food in front of them. Perhaps they finished early? But then why come over to his table? Todoroki knew the Momo liked to get to class fairly early, so why not head back to the classroom? There was only five minutes left of lunch. Todoroki wasn't sure when that happened, but that wasn't his biggest concern at the moment. He couldn't think of a good reason for Momo to still be in the lunchroom. Unless, no. She wasn't there for him. Momo glanced in his direction and gave a small wave, which caused Uraraka to turn towards him.

"Todoroki, welcome back!" Uraraka greeted cheerfully.

Todoroki cocked his right eyebrow in confusion, "I didn't leave though."

The girls scoffed, mistaking his genuine response as a witty remark. "You were kinda spaced out the entire lunch period. You barley touched your food." Todoroki glanced at his bowl of mostly untouched soba. He could have sworn he had eaten more of it.

"Yeah, I noticed that too." Midoriya spoke up. Of course he noticed though. Midoriya was one of Todoroki's most observant classmates, and he just so happened to be able to read Todoroki like a book. Todoroki hated it. "Are you ok? This isn't the first time today you acted like that."

Crap, he really wasn't doing a good job of convincing his classmates that he was fine. He'd just have to do better, which wasn't very surprising as everything he did was never good enough. Todoroki sighed. "I'm fine, I didn't get as much rest as I should have last night." He said hoping his voice stayed level and cold. He didn't want to push his friends away, but he couldn't have them worrying about him when they had so many other things to focus on. It wasn't fair to them and he wasn't worth the fuss. He could take care of himself. He'd done it before.