Touch Starved Boys || My Hero Academia Imagines

~Late~ Todoroki X Reader

Hold onto your butts and grab your tissues guys, things are aboutta get ANGSTY up in here

"Shouto," I hold back my giggles.  Both of us are admittedly a little too drunk for either of us to be standing at all.  Which is why we're face up on in the middle of the dance floor, his body facing the opposite way as me and his head still next to me.  "Stop it, my stomach hurts!"

"And remember that time," the boy continues, his own speech garbled by petals of laughter, "When we were younger, you fell from a tree and you ended up getting dirt in your mouth, and I teased you for eating dirt, and you got so mad you actually scooped up a handful, stared me straight in the eyes, and ate it?"  He rolls towards me, guffawing at the memory.

"You-!"  I shove him aside, bursting out into my own fit of laughter again, the fuzzy image of his shocked face appearing before my eyelids.  "You didn't think I could do it, so I did it, I had to show you up!"

Even through my spinning vision, I can tell Shouto's eyes have squeezed into crescents, the biggest smile on his face.  Finally breathing to rest my aching stomach and lungs, I lay my head on my arms, admiring him with a dumb smile.  He's looked so happy this entire day, it gives me a warm feeling inside to know he's living a better life than he did before.

He's changed so much in the past...wow almost 20 years?  I think to myself, finally doing the math.  We've known each other since we were five, meeting in Kindergarten and slowly building a friendship since then.  There were rough patches on his part, starting from him father's push to train him into something he never asked for.  Shouto would always sneak out every night, pouring his heart out to me with teary faces and anger I know I've only seen.  Every insecurity, vulnerability, and regret of even being born, every dark secret and thought he's ever had towards his father, I've been there to help him through it.

Going through the same high school, I saw his change, even though I was in the General Studies class.  Seeing him make other friends who helped him grow when I couldn't be with him all the time, I'll always be indebted to them for taking care of my good friend.

Now, seeing him as free, open, and joyful as he was when we were just stupid kids feels like it's all come full circle.  As we lay here in the middle of a makeshift dance floor, the last people at a party that one of my other friends threw for me, strung up with alcohol still pumping through our veins, I realized he's matured so much.

"Thank you for being in my life, Shouto," I mutter softly.  "I can't imagine anyone else being here with me right now, before I move into the next part of my life."  I chuckle to myself.  "I wouldn't want anyone else next to me right now."

Shouto's laughter finally dies down, wiping the tears off his face.  The purple-pink colored lighting casts onto half his face, bicolored hair sweeping into his eyes.  His tie and the first few buttons on his shirt are carelessly undone and his cheeks flush because of the alcohol.  "Yeah.  Who knew you'd get married before me?  You always said I was the more attractive one."

"Shut up," I scoff, poking his forehead.  "So what if I did?  There are some really mean but handsome people too."

"You're calling me mean?" he smirks.

"Maybe!"

Sharing another round of lighthearted chuckles, I scan his upside down face, my ear pressed again the cold, tile floor.  We bask in the pleasantly heavy and warm nostalgia around us, our history that brought us here.  It's funny how time passes but you always somehow end up in a similar place.  Shouto stares back at me, fingering his now-empty bottle of beer while his eyes blink out of sync with each other.  My eyelids slowly close, hearing the familiar sound of his breath in the timeless moment.