Shouto supposed his father had, in fact, chipped him at a convenient time, and defininitely not on Shouto's end. After the weekend came the internships. It's not like Shouto was planning to run off while doing something for school, even if it did involve Enji, but he forgot the other thing that was part of his new weekend routine.

His father doesn't know about his visits to his mother.

Or that he plans on regularly doing visiting her, at least.

He's only been once, after the sports festival, and even though the visit was awkward and mostly consisted of apologies and how-are-you-doings and maybe a few tears, he wants to go more. He wants to learn things about his mother that most kids should know by fifteen, like her favourite ice cream flavor or what she likes to do when she's bored, which must be often with how she's confined to the hospital. He'd already even purchased a popular teen fantasy novel earlier in the week to give to her to read.

But here he is, clutching at his messenger bag where the novel resides and forcing himself to stay on the train when it stops near the mental hospital. He should have remembered when he left the house, or before he got on the train, so this could be avoided altogether, but it's too late now.

All that intentional forgetting just bit him in the ass.

He's got to do something now that he's here. He needs a cover story. Maybe he could just sit on a park bench and brainstorm one without actually doing anything.

At least sitting on a park bench isn't the worst thing he could be doing on a Sunday.

The first park he finds is packed. There are families and couples milling about, buying food from stands, while hordes of little kids swarm about the jungle gym and haphazardly show off their quirks. The whole atmosphere is new and unfamiliar to him but surprisingly pleasant. He crosses an open grassy area to get to the first empty bench he sees and has to dodge out of the destructive path of a stray frisbee on the way.

Shouto sits and observes the crowd and small shops lining the roads nearby while trying to think. He picks at a scab on the back of his hand. Bounces his leg. After almost three minutes of his thoughts helplessly twirling in circles and stressing him out, he closes his eyes and tries some breathing exercises. He tilts his head back and focuses on the sun on his face. He brushes his fingers against the frayed edges of wood of the seat and the roughness of the bench's rusty armrests and focuses on the feeling of that too in hopes of centering himself.

When he's tired of that, while having a noticeably calmer mindset, he still doubts his ability to just… make up a cover story. So instead of thinking of a fake one, he decides to create a real one.

Walking down the small shop-filled streets branched off the bustling park, Shouto's mind wanders. At home, he busies himself with homework and chores and Fuyumi's company and… training. At school there's the teachers to listen to, notes to take, exercises to improve his hero skills with, and tentative friends to talk to. Being outside the house in an area he's a stranger to on a weekend is a happy medium for that. He supposes his three low-stakes post-sports festival sparring sessions with Midoriya were, too. He enjoyed them.

If he had to take a guess at what his classmates are doing… Kaminari's probably reading some English classics or playing Mario Kart, maybe Pokemon after Friday. Iida's probably studying, maybe visiting his brother in the hospital. Yaoyorozu's studying like Iida, or reading like Kaminari, or maybe going shopping or attending a high class party or doing one of those other things her parents tend to drag her along to. Aoyama's probably scrolling social media or watching makeup tutorials or getting his grace naps. His beauty rest, as Shouto has come to learn, is saved for exclusively nighttime. Satou's probably baking for his quirk, hanging out with his dog, or volunteering somewhere. He seems like the kind of person to do that. Jirou's definitely listening to music no matter what she's up to. Mineta - hm. Mineta is probably getting sniped, but that might just be Shouto's wishful thinking. He's stuck in some strange town with nothing to do besides pretend he came there for a reason and fantasize about rotten fruit he knows getting brutally murdered.

He turns his attention to the storefronts he passes as he walks down the sidewalk. Maybe he should see a movie. People went out on the weekend to do that, right? He doesn't know if it's weird to go to one by himself, or if there's even a theatre in the area, but it's worth a try. Maybe he should go to a bookstore, find a book for himself? He doesn't have enough money to buy one, just the amount for the train back and a little spare change, but he could always just sit and read one. He could read his mom's book, so they can talk about it as their shared knowledge instead of past mistakes and the view out her only window. That would be nice.

Liking both the movie theatre and bookstore ideas, he decides to enter whichever one he spots first. He remembers seeing a little bookstore near the park, but that was then and this is now and he doesn't want to go back in the direction he came from just yet. Predictably, he ends up coming across a bookstore before a theatre anyways. He sighs and enters, still somewhat curious about what films could have been showing. It hits him twenty minutes later in the middle of rifling through a manga he's seen Fuyumi reading around the house that he wouldn't have had the money to see a movie, anyways. Well, legally. He's vaguely glad that he doesn't have his thought process publicly available for strangers to read. This manga's pretty cool, though. Setting it back on its pile, he pull out his phone from his pocket and shoots a text to Fuyumi asking if she owns any copies it, and after a moment's hesitation follows another, asking to borrow them if she does.

Shouto sets off towards the left wall of the small store, where he had seen a cluster of chairs through the front windows. The shelves are tall and the ceiling low, so he can't see any other customers, but he sure can hear them. Near the back wall he can hear some old guy slowly working out how to get a gift card with the lone employee, and there's a kid gushing about a movie they saw with their mom to someone else. They're exceptionally loud. From the snippets he overhears he can gather that it was something about aliens and wrinkly skin diseases.

He crinkles his nose a little and sits down to read the book from his mom. From the chair, he can see down three different rows and lets himself relax from the maximized range of visibility. A deep, resonating voice says something that the kid responds to excitedly, and though the voice is calm, it sends unpleasant shivers down Shouto's spine. He's only halfway down the first page of the book, but snaps it shut and stands up anyways. What really makes him spook is the sight of the guy turning into one of the rows in his line of sight, and he looks way too familiar.

He knows it's stupid, it's obviously not him. Just from a glimpse he can see he doesn't have the same face or muscles, but he's got the spiky black hair and the height and the voice and even though it's soft it's just too much. This was supposed to be the day where he got away, saw his mom, and he couldn't do that, and now he can't even do this. It feels like an invasion. Shouto finds himself speedwalking down the aisle on the other side of a shelf, free fist clenched and sweaty.

But of course, he isn't home free. The kid walking with the guy happens to look up through the shelf as he passes, and it just so happens the family's to his left. He watches as her eyes widen at the sight of his scar, and she screams. Suddenly, there's a large crash and Shouto's vision is a blur of color.

Only after a moment of sitting on his ass with the fallen bookshelf forming bruises on his thighs does he realize why. Wrinkly disease aliens. She thought he was an alien.

He wants to laugh.

The dad is apologizing profusely and explaining his daughter's quirk, Blown Out of Proportion, while he tries to pry the shelf off him. He slips a little on a fallen book. He's actually getting pretty stressed out, sounding near tears, and Shouto helps him with the shelf. He wasn't wrong before when he thought he didn't have the same muscles as Endeavor. The shelf is heavy metal, but it's empty, since all the books slipped out of it. Shouto holds it up to pull himself out with little difficulty. The dad's still blubbering, and when he looks up, he's startled to see that his face is dripping like wax. He frowns, hesitantly concerned, as he returns the shelf to its upright position.

"I- I'm so sorry, both my daughter and I's quirks are emotion-based," he rambles, "she's just recently seen a movie where- ah- people turned into wrinkly red zombies, and I'm sorry, that was really rude of her to point out yo-your scar like that we're so sorry to disturb you like this are you okay?" He half-reaches for him, and Shouto takes an obvious step back, briefly looking to his feet. In his peripheral, he notices the book in is hand is covered in a thin layer of frost.

"Yes, I'm fine. Are you okay? Your face is getting everywhere."

The man croaks out a laugh through his melty mouth. "Th-that happens sometimes." He turns abruptly at the arrival of the lone employee, who didn't look pleased at the scattered books on the floor, and Shouto takes another step. He can't even see the worker over the melty guy's shoulder, but he can hear him speaking to the father and trying to calm him down as his face starts dripping down his shirt and he resolves to pay for the damages.

Shouto's part here is done, his heart rate's rising every second he spends breathing the same air as this guy, and no one will mind too much if he walks away right now, so that's what he does. The little girl is peeking out from another shelf, normal size again, watching him distrustfully. Shouto feels like he should do something, like smile at her or give her a thumbs up or start crying like he really wants to, but all he can manage is a nod before he calmly flees from the store.

Back in the shop, the worker asks the wax-man if anyone was injured in the small incident, and he turned, remembering the kid that was there, like, a minute and a half ago. He isn't anymore. The wax man starts crying because he didn't apologize enough. He only makes the connection of who that kid was when the day's nearly over.

Fun - kankyou poison - doku child - ko

Kankyou Dokuko, like the proper villain he aspired to be, made sure to read up on pro heroes and their greatest weaknesses. The most easily accessible one of those weaknesses? Family. Take away a person's family and by proxy you take away their will to live- that is, if all heroes with kids could be considered people, and weren't consumed by the power, money, and fame that they possessed. Not that he was already on the taking-down-heroes level; he was still only beginning to commit petty crimes for personal gain, at this point, but he planned to change that soon! He had big dreams and big targets in mind, and all that was standing between him and achieving and slaughtering them(respectively) was experience and courage. He already had his dashing-good villain looks- a full head of black hair that stood up like a mountain range, the height, the muscles… but for now, he used his knowledge for a lesser evil: paying his rent.

Todoroki Enji must give his kids a hefty allowance.

When the kid, Todoroki Shouto, comes out of the bookstore, it's just Dokuko's luck that he appears to be deep in thought. But darn, that kid really books it when he's lost in thought. Could he somehow sense Dokuko was there? Probably not, because he turned left down the sidewalk, where Dokuko was peering behind the entrance to an alleyway. The Todoroki is clutching his messenger bag's strap with his eyes glued to the ground. He wonders if he should question that. Whatevs.

Dokuko ducks back into the shadows as Todoroki advances, and as soon as he passes the entrance he lurches back out and presses one of his smaller knives into his neck. He holds him from behind so he doesn't try anything funny. He's halfway through sawing off the front strap of his bag with his third hand when he registers that the kid's not moving- well, okay, he's shaking, but otherwise he's silent and still as a rock. Dokuko can't see his face. All of the sudden, he's wary. He should be, of course, because civilians are speedwalking by and others are taking videos on their phones, but this kid was a hero student. Sure, he expected to get the bag and whatever mounds of money stuffed inside, but he didn't expect the kid freezing up on him. He was probably thinking up a master plan to straight up murder him. Or maybe he didn't keep his money in his bag.

"Kid, you don't happen to have a wallet on your person, do ya?" Dokuko asks, low but thoroughly nervous, now. This kid had probably figured out how to freeze all the blood in his veins solid by his silence alone, and he barely made it up to Dokuko's pecs! Dear lord, was this cash jackpot really worth it? He doesn't answer his question, and it doesn't feel like he's going to.

Dokuko's knife slices clear through the last taut strands of the strap keeping the bag over the Todoroki kid's shoulder, so he caught it with his fourth and final hand. He took a small step back to get some distance between them, keeping the knife on his neck and- oh, there he goes.

Dokuko only registers immense pain in his side, then air, then his head and oh, where'd the color go? There it is again, and when did he get back in this alleyway? He tries to shake off his daze and looks up to see the kid standing there in the afternoon light, silhouetted with a glow that made him look like some sort of avenging angel. Comparatively, Dokuko's laying on a mound of trash bags. And his face-mask was knocked out of whack, so now it's digging into the side of his nose uncomfortably.

It's hard to see him with the light, but one of his hands is cupping the side of his neck where Dokuko hopes he got him with his blade, and- huh. He's crying. He takes a step into the alley, and he wonders if he broke him. He vagilantly tries to get up, clutching a jarred hand to his chest, but stops when the hand brushes a patch of burning-cold ice built up on his jacket like a deadly snowflake. He instead opts for scooting a little closer to the wall to brace himself on, keeping his eyes on the kid and reaching for another knife, his last one. (He isn't what you would call well equipped.)

He's stopped by the Todoroki's voice. It's quiet and it's wavering- he's definitely crying- but it carries through the alleyway crystal-clear.

"Don't do that."

A shiver goes up Dokuko's spine at his conviction. It pierces his skull and feels like it forcefully switches the lens on his world perception. There's a quiet hiss, and he blinks back up at the entrance, not remembering when he brought his gaze to the ground, to find that he was making his leave, teeth gritted and limping a little. He disappears and Dokuko blinks again.

After another minute of contemplation and pain management, Dokuko stands up with the wall's help. He feels a little light-headed, but… he has things to do. Everyone hates making decisions, and sure, his pride is wounded when the answer's shoved right in front of it, but- it seemed right. Whatever made a fifteen-year-old kid stare at an armed mugger like… like that, was something powerful.

Dokuko is shaken out of his stupor by the civilians still clustered outside the alley, having smartly not entered while he could've still been in there. A couple of them, after a moment of hesitation and exchanged looks, come after him with their convenient quirks, which is illegal, by the way. They don't look like they'd have licenses. His arms jerk at his first instinct, to meet them head-on and overpower them with sheer force, and he immediately sickens. Instead, he shoves between a couple middle aged folks and books his way down the street.

No police or heroes are there to chase after him, so he escapes unscathed. He's glad he wore his exercise shorts for the day, so many blocks later when he tears his mask off along with his grey hoodie and dumps them in a dumpster and slows his sprint to a light jog, it doesn't look like he's a very guilty criminal on the run anymore. Just a tired college student on a run. Maybe a pair of earbuds would help the facade. When he's slowed enough to catch his breath, he reopens his senses to take in his surroundings. The place should be somewhere around that McDonalds… he remembers the green graffiti.

Not three minutes later, Dokuko quietly enters the quaint flower shop, covered in a light sheen of sweat. His purposeful breaths are out-noised by the fanfare door-bell, but after that, the only sound is a short wrinkled woman's greeting from behind a rack of dangling bright purple blossoms.

"Hello! What're you looking for this fine afternoon?" She grins, squinting up at him a little.

"Uh," Dokuko says, "I was wondering if you were open for hire?"

Todoroki is so, so tired. The rest of his walk to the train station is spent holding his bag with a vice grip because he can no longer sling it over his shoulder. He's had this bag since he was twelve. He won't give up on it so easily. He's sure Fuyumi would know where some duct tape is, and he can patch it up. Again his eyes are trained on the ground so he doesn't even react when he's nearly run over by two bikers. He doesn't bother looking up to see who they were. People must also ask him what's wrong with his neck and whether he's okay but he's not paying attention… thats a nice pavement crack…. Am I right.

Tokoyami and Shinsou are on their weekend bike ride when they see Todoroki walking down the sidewalk. Neither of them particularly know him, but Tokoyami was in the same class as him and has always assumed there to be a small amount of emo-kid solidarity between them. Or maybe he was just quiet. He was one of the most powerful kids in class and could only be seen talking willingly when he was with Midoriya, a sentiment which nobody could blame him for. Also, it was always exciting to see someone from school outside it, like when Shinsou and him first found out they lived near each other.

It was a little weird to find out Tokoyami rode the same train home as the guy who made Ojirou, a pretty sweet guy, in his opinion, step out of the sports festival like he did, but after a short explanation and a quick put-together of his previously known pieces, all was understood and no hard feelings stuck. After that, they had the entire train ride and walks to their respective houses to bond through. It's been, like, two weeks since then and they've learned quite a bit about each other- Tokoyami, unsurprisingly, was more emo than Shinsou but got more sleep than him; Shinsou loved teasing Tokoyami about his unrequited love for cats. They both liked biking, though, so they decided to do that together. Neither(stupidly) wear helmets, but Shinsou nevers forgets his wrist guards no matter the situation. Tokoyami's tried to ask before but he never got a linear answer. "Some things just can't be explained," he remembers hearing, once.

Shinsou notices him first. "Hey, isn't that the guy that blew up the ring with Midoriya in the sports festival?" He says. Tokoyami looks over at him, then up to follow his gaze.

"Yes."

"Cool." Shinsou swerves around a pavement-tree to get his route closer to the guy, and pedals a little harder. He's facing him and Tokoyami, but he looks anywhere but in reality, his head bowed. He doesn't react as Shinsou On Wheels advances. "Greetings, Ice Queen," Shinsou says loudly as he rolls on by. The candy cane's steps don't even falter, though he'd pedaled maybe half a foot away from his arm, well within whatever tunnel vision he himself had experienced an expected him to have developed. He saw his hair misplace, so he wasn't some sort of hallucination/projection. Probably?

Tokoyami, already behind Shinsou, slowed down and hunched over his bars as he glided forward to get a good look at Todoroki's face to check if he was alive. He nearly hit Todoroki and fell off his bike when he realized he was biting his lip and his face was scrunched like he was trying not to cry. Oh. And as his bewildered gaze lingered in hindsight as he continued after Shinsou, he also noticed there was blood on the side of his neck and he was holding onto his bag with severed straps.

Shinsou, having slowed for him, startles him when he speaks up. "What's up with him?"

"I wouldn't know," Tokoyami mused, still thoroughly confused but now also trying to flatten his feathers from the spook, "but my best guess is that he got dumped by his vampire girlfriend?"

Shinsou seems to take his theory at face value and scoffs, glancing back himself. "Didn't think vampires would be that stupid. The dude's gorgeous."

Tokoyami nearly falls off his bike again, wheezing in laughter.