This Time

Chapter 7

Toshinori swallowed the lump in his throat and tried to be patient while he waited for Hara to begin. If he'd only been a touch nervous before, he was definitely more so now as whatever it was that was on her mind seemed to be weighing on her a lot. She couldn't have guessed what he'd realized... could she?

Of course not, he assured himself. But nevertheless, he ducked his head a bit as he took a sip of his tea, unconsciously letting his bangs fall in front of his face.

"So..." she finally said, releasing the word on an exhale after taking a deep breath. "Let me start by saying that I completely understand if you're mad at me after you hear what I'm about to tell you. Also, no matter what, you have my word that after tonight I'll never speak of it again if you ask."

Well, that didn't sound too good. "Miss Hara, please just spit it out," he said, trying to keep a neutral tone.

She took another breath, and whatever he might have expected her to say, it certainly wasn't, "Does Midoriya really have your quirk?"

Toshinori just about choked on the spew of blood that bubbled up in his throat with the startled cough that ripped its way out of his lungs. He quickly pressed his hand to his mouth, trying to stop from spraying the vigilante's table with red as Hara jumped up, snagging a towel from the kitchen and offering it to him.

"How?!" he managed between coughs. Hara's face was pale, and she was alternating between looking at him in concern and down at her hands, which were wringing together nervously.

She waited until he'd more or less got the coughing fit under control before answering in a small voice, "I overheard Recovery Girl and you talking about it."

The hero sighed and leaned back in the chair, wiping his mouth with the cloth before lowering his hand and closing his eyes in frustration. Fuck, he'd told her not to talk so loud! This was very bad - only five people knew the truth about his quirk, and now this was on top of all his other conflicting emotions about the woman. "H- how much did you hear?" he asked slowly, still not opening his eyes. From the way he was holding himself, she probably thought he was mad, but that wasn't true at all.

He was terrified.

"Well, in truth I already knew you had a connection with him-" his eyes opened at that, "- so I was going to go check on the both of you after class. I- I thought I could see steam coming off your shoulders just before you went out of sight... But when I got to the clinic, I could hear you and the nurse in there talking." Toshinori groaned and ran a hand over his face. "I really didn't mean to eavesdrop!" she said quickly, and the poor girl looked close to panic. "All I heard was that you'd given Midoriya your powers, and Recovery Girl mentioned how you... you weren't born with your quirk? A-and you said something about 'One for All.'" She visibly swallowed and it squeezed at the hero's heart to see her look so distressed. "Does that have anything to do with... All for One?"

In the decades of experience All Might had as a pro hero, he'd been in plenty of situations that scared him, and he always kept smiling. The smile wasn't for his sake, but for the sake of those around him who were also scared - he wanted others to know everything was going to be just fine because he was there. But in this moment as he sat across the small worn table from the trembling girl, he'd never had a harder time drawing on that smile. Finally, he managed something that he hoped was more smile than grimace, and reached across the table to rest a hand on top of hers, which were still fidgeting in agitation. She froze as his hand laid over her own, and she hesitantly raised her eyes to meet his.

"I'm not mad," he said softly, "So please calm down. Take a deep breath." She did as she was told, and exhaled slowly, eyes closed. When she opened them again, he nodded and sat back, letting go of her hands. "I'm sure you have a lot of questions for me, and I'll do my best to answer them," he said tiredly, and he almost couldn't believe the words that were coming out of his own mouth.