(S_T 9:49pm) I got a message from my contact. He says his network of vigilantes is willing to meet with you in regards to joining their ranks.
(S_T 9:49pm) Think of it as an interview of sorts.
(I_M 9:55pm) Oh no! I'm terrible at interviews! -.-'
(S_T 9:57pm) Relax. It will be fine.
(S_T 9:58pm) Although actually as I say that, you probably aren't ready to pass any sort of qualifications-based test yet.
(I_M 10:00pm) What do I do? How soon do they want to meet?
(S_T 10:01pm) In a couple of days.
(S_T 10:02pm) If you aren't ready we can put it off, though. Now that we know they are willing to consider the possibility, there's no rush.
(I_M 10:04pm) No way! We're at least making an attempt.
(I_M 10:05pm) I have you scheduled for a blood sample tomorrow. Come in and help me get ready for this interview.
(S_T 10:05pm) I think you're rushing things again, but you know I can't say no to you.
(I_M 10:05pm) Yes you can! It is very important for the health of this relationship that you say no to me if you feel like it needs to be said.
(S_T 10:06pm) Relationship?
(I_M 10:07pm) Yes! Every healthy relationship is based on being able to communicate with the other party, and a friendship is no different.
(S_T 10:10pm) Oh. Yeah, I understand.
(S_T 10:10pm) Fine, it's less I can't say no and more I don't want to say no to you.
(I_M 10:11pm) Todoroki! You are supposed to be the voice of reason in this relationship!
(S_T 10:12pm) You're using the word relationship again.
(I_M 10:12pm) ? Sorry, does that bother you?
(I_M 10:13pm) I guess I just think of all my interpersonal interactions as different relationships. It does sort or have romantic connotations, though. I'll stop.
(S_T 10:16pm) No, it's fine.
(S_T 10:17pm) Everything's going to be fine, Midoriya. I'll prep you for the interview. Worst case scenario, you fail and it shows us exactly how far we need to go.
(I_M 10:18pm) That's the spirit! o(^◇^)o
(I_M 10:18pm) Thanks for the help. I'll see you tomorrow, buddy!
(S_T 10:19pm) Yeah. See you tomorrow.
(S_T 10:19pm) Buddy.
Taking blood samples felt a lot less invasive than the UV sessions. At least he could keep all his clothes on. The blood sample was just a small amount, too, a finger prick closer to measuring blood sugar than donating plasma. According to Midoriya, this was so he could administer the test rather than tap the lab's trained phlebotomist every time, since they only needed a small sample.
"Did I tell you my powers have been turning back on?" Shouto said.
"That's to be expected," Midoriya reassured. "Do they feel any more in your control?"
"No. They aren't powerful enough to do damage yet, but I tried using my fire last night and my hand was hot for like half an hour afterwards."
"Yikes. Definitely don't set yourself on fire."
Midoriya swabbed the side of his finger with a dab of alcohol to sterilize it, then lined up the lancet. Shouto didn't even flinch at the prick. More than anything, it tickled. With easy precision, Midoriya placed the thin vial against the blood drop to collect the sample.
"And just like that, we're done. Here, press this against your finger until the bleeding stops," Midoriya told him, handing him a cotton ball.
Obediently, Shouto did as he requested while Midoriya filed everything away. The little vial was labelled and placed in the fridge, where it would be compared to previous samples to see if anything had changed.
"All right, you up for some actual Quirk tests?" Midoriya asked with a conspicuous wink.
They honestly did test Shouto's Quirk from time to time, for the whole five minutes it took to confirm it wasn't working. However, it was mostly their front for using the basement space to train. It turned out that unused room was a great space for Midoriya to practice his budding powers.
"Yeah, let's do this," Shouto said.
Once they were downstairs and safely away from any curious ears, Midoriya nervously asked him, "So what sort of things are they gonna ask in this...interview?"
"Honestly, they probably aren't going to ask much. They'll be more interested in seeing your practical skills," he explained. "Someone will probably volunteer to spar with you, and they'll judge you based off of that."
Midoriya gulped.
In the empty room, Shouto put him through the paces, calling out different stances and moves while he provided feedback.
"Ice barrier to your left. Good. Now show me how you'd incapacitate someone's feet. No. They could slip out of their shoes and still get away like that. The ice needs to be higher, at least up to their shins."
Shouto wished he could give a practical demonstration. Maybe one day. For now, the best he could do was critique Midoriya's form. It had been around six weeks since they had started the Quirk Grafting process, only three weeks since Midoriya had been able to use the powers in any significant way. By that metric, his progress was startling. However, his raw power output left a lot to be desired.
When pressed, Shouto could fill an entire football field with ice 3 meters tall in a matter of moments. Midoriya still struggled in providing a consistent stream, and his range was limited to around 6 meters away. He wasn't going to be a long-distance fighter any time soon. However, he had proved creative in using his Quirk in close combat. Last time they had sparred, he had used his ice both as a shield to deflect incoming attacks, and as a makeshift sledgehammer to knock Shouto off his feet. It had been the first time Midoriya had consistently had the upper hand, and Quirkless Shouto hadn't been able to best him. Shouto didn't know if he should be proud of Midoriya's progress or frustrated at himself for not being able to hold his own.
"Are you ready to play with fire?" Shouto asked, once Midoriya had done enough training to reduce himself to a shivering heap on the ground.
"I s-s-still think th-this is a bad pl-place to test it," Midoriya stuttered. Shouto could see his breath coming out in thick clouds, the air around him hyper-cooled.
"Should be fine if you stay under the showers," Shouto reasoned. "With as weak as your ice is, no offense, and with you actually being able to turn your fire off, unlike me, it isn't that risky."
Midoriya still didn't look convinced.
"You have to use it eventually," Shouto reasoned, "even if it's just a quick burst here or there. It will help regulate your temperature so this doesn't happen."
He gestured to Midoriya huddled on the floor in early-stage hypothermia. It felt odd to be trying to get someone else to use his fire Quirk, considering he had hated using it so much himself at one point. However, just like his mother had once pointed out, it wasn't doing him any favors to limit his power.
"Th-the thing about fire, though," Midoriya said, "is that i-it's so final. L-like what if I mess up and h-hurt someone?"
"You think you can't hurt someone with ice?" Shouto asked, raising an eyebrow. "You freeze someone's entire body, and chances are that within minutes they are either going to go into shock from the cold or you're going to do it wrong and the ice will collapse in on itself and crush them. If nothing else, you need to learn how to thaw people out in case you accidentally freeze them."
Midoriya didn't have an argument for that. Knees still trembling, he pushed himself to his feet.
"Okay, how do I do this?" he asked.
"Mostly the same as with the ice," Shouto replied, shrugging. "Have you never even tried to use fire before?"
"Once," Midoriya admitted. "I tried using it in the shower, because I thought that would be the safest place for it, and…"
"And you burned yourself with steam," Shouto guessed, wincing. "Yeah, you have to be careful with that. You're fairly immune to fire, but scalding water is...something else."
He didn't miss the way Midoriya's eyes flicked towards his scar. Yeah, the man had definitely read the tabloids on that particular story.
"But like, how do I even know I have the same fire resistance as you do?" Midoriya asked. "For all we know, that's a secondary trait that I didn't successfully graft, and the second I use the fire I'm going to flash-fry myself."
"Fair point. Then how about this: try creating some sparks off your fingertip. If it hurts, stop."
Exhaling, Midoriya raised his left hand, poking out one finger. He stared at it dubiously for a second, before bunching up his eyes in concentration. He chewed at his bottom lip slightly, one canine peeking out. It was absolutely adorable.
Focus. You're teaching, not flirting.
After a few moments a small flame, the same size as a cigarette lighter, radiated out of Midoriya's finger. With a yelp, he shook his hand, and the flame immediately dissipated.
"Did that hurt?" Shouto asked.
"No, no, I was just startled," Midoriya clarified. "Oh wow, it didn't hurt."
Emboldened, Midoriya raised his hand again. This time, when his fingertip lit up with flame, he didn't jump back. Instead, he let the fire dance along his hand.
"Wow, that isn't so bad," he said.
"Yeah. Now try heating up your hand, not hot enough to produce fire, but enough to melt ice," Shouto instructed.
Midoriya did as he was told, testing it out against one of the mounds of ice he had created in the room. There was a slight sizzle as he softly pressed down, his hand sinking through like the ice was no more solid than seafoam.
There was still a long ways to go, but it was a start. Now Midoriya could at least prevent himself from freezing to death if he overused his powers.
"You need to practice your control before you try using it in battle," Shouto told him. "Try summoning your flames every once in a while, see if you can tell exactly when your hand goes from hot to on fire. See how long you can hold it just under the point of fire a few times a day. Once you have that down, we can do more."
Midoriya nodded in agreement. After a moment of reflection, he asked Shouto, "How are your own powers right now? I mean, we're down here, we might as well run some tests."
With a sigh, Shouto pushed himself off his slouched position on the wall. There wasn't going to be much to see, since he still couldn't summon anything of note. Ironically, they ended up doing the same test Midoriya had done when first manifesting his Quirk: trying to cool down a glass of water. Midoriya figured that would be more measurable at this stage.
So here he was, gripping a glass of water in his hand, watching the temperature on the thermometer drop. His goal was to get to ten degrees Celsius and then stop cooling the water down. The closer he could get to the target temperature without going overboard, the better control he had of his Quirk. The thermometer slowly ticked down, finally hitting the target.
"All right, now see if you can turn it off," Midoriya instructed.
Letting out a long breath, Shouto closed his eyes and concentrated. It was like trying to slow down a car by opening the door and dragging his foot along the ground. Not very effective, but as long as he wasn't going too fast in the first place, not hopeless. He could feel the tingling in his fingers slowly ease away.
"Okay, it's stopped," he said, opening his eyes. The glass of water was at two degrees.
"That took...twenty-eight seconds. Hey! That's actually way better than what it was before," Midoriya said encouragingly.
"Might just be that I'm not using as much power. Less to turn off," Shouto pointed out.
"True. Let me get you a new glass of water and let's try again."
They repeated the experiment four more times for good measure. Shouto hovered around thirty seconds to deactivate his Quirk once turning it on. While that was a definite improvement, he wasn't optimistic about it staying that way once it was fully back.
"So are you any closer to finding a cure?" he asked, mostly joking.
Midoriya sighed and shook his head, still furiously scribbling data down.
"We're still trying to identify what is going wrong. Sorry."
Shouto had figured as much, but it still hurt to hear it out loud. A cure evaded him, leaving him a broken mess.
"Well, I suppose there's no rush. It's not like I'm going anywhere," he mused. "My current life plans include studying for college entrance exams for most of a year and then disappointing my parents when I don't score well."
"You're studying for the entrance exams?" Midoriya asked, looking up from his notepad. "That's awesome, Todoroki! Where do you want to go? What do you want to major in?"
"I'm not planning for success," he replied. "My parents are making me. Apparently my father can't bare the shame of his son being hikikomori."
Rather than his usual nervous laughter, Midoriya froze faster than a deer on the interstate during rush hour. He slowly raised his notepad until it was blocking his face.
"I see," he muttered. "Yeah, that would be bad."
"I don't know," Shouto sighed. "On one hand, I don't want to be NEET the rest of my life. At the same time, I don't like my parents deciding what I should want. I kind of grew out of that...ten years ago."
Midoriya, normally so attentive and engaged in conversation, was preoccupied with studying his notes and not even looking Shouto's way.
"I guess...what do you think? About the idea of me going to college?" Shouto prodded. "You don't think it's too late for me, do you?"
"Anything's better than being hikikomori, right?" Midoriya said. Shouto couldn't see his face past the notebook, but his grip was white-knuckled.
"I guess."
It was true that he had been isolating himself. Now that he was getting out more, Shouto could see in retrospect how damaging that had been to his mental state. Maybe going to college would be the same way. Maybe it was just something that seemed insurmountable, and once he actually tried it he would realize-
"Are you okay?" he asked Midoriya, who was shaking slightly.
Midoriya nodded his head, but didn't respond verbally. Concern flooding through him, Shouto gently took Midoriya's wrists and lowered the notepad from in front of his face. While he wasn't exactly on the verge of tears, Shouto could tell from the way he was chewing his lip that Midoriya was upset.
"Was it something I said?" Shouto guessed. It was the most obvious conclusion to draw.
"Not exactly," Midoriya replied, pulling out of his grip. He placed his hands in his lap, looking down.
Shouto didn't believe it for a second. Midoriya had been fine a moment ago, but then he had opened his mouth and-
What the hell did I even say? I don't understand what I did wrong.
"If I tell you something embarrassing," Midoriya whispered, "do you promise not to think less of me?"
"Sure?" Shouto said, confused. When Midoriya was still silent, he continued, "Midoriya, I don't think there's anything you could say that would make me not like you."
But if there was, it would be convenient to get rid of this one-sided crush.
"I told you before about how bad high school was for me, yeah?" Midoriya said.
"Uh, yeah, briefly," Shouto confirmed. "You didn't go into too much detail, but I got the general idea."
"Well, it was a lot worse than you could probably ever imagine," Midoriya explained. "It got so bad, that I, um...I stopped going."
"You mean you dropped out of school?" Shouto asked. That didn't fit with what he knew about Midoriya graduating early.
"Not really. I just...I still did all the work, but I… I couldn't stand going to classes. Everyone knew I had applied to UA but couldn't get in, and it always felt like everyone was staring at me and laughing behind my back. I know now that most of it was in my head, but...back then it felt like everyone around me hated my guts. So I stopped leaving the house. I locked myself in my room and refused to leave."
"Oh," Shouto said, things finally clicking into place. "So you were…"
"Hikikomori, yeah," Midoriya said.
He was blushing, but it wasn't the usual nervous color on his cheeks accompanied by fidgeting and shy glances. This was the deep red of mortification.
"How did you graduate, then?"
"My mom convinced the school board to make an exception for me. I think everyone felt sorry for me. You know, nervous, socially awkward, Quirkless kid who couldn't hack it in a classroom. So I did my classes online and through correspondence courses. I didn't have anything else to occupy my time, so I worked non-stop on the classes, and we worked it out with the school so I could graduate early."
Even as a social recluse you were more driven and determined than anyone I've ever known.
Midoriya was quiet now, and Shouto deduced that he was supposed to say something. He didn't know how to respond.
"That's...still pretty impressive," Shouto said. "You should be proud of yourself."
"I'm not," Midoriya replied. Then, nervously, he looked up at Shouto and asked, "So now that you know what a loser I was in high school, are you embarrassed to associate with me?"
"What? Of course not," Shouto scoffed. "Midoriya, everyone is embarrassed by who they were in high school. You literally have photos saved of some of my worst high school-era fashion decisions."
"That's just it, though!" Midoriya shouted, throwing up his hands. " Your lowest point was wearing an ill-conceived costume. Mine is eating lunch in the bathroom for a semester straight before giving up completely and not going back."
Midoriya was crying. Just a little, just a few droplets pooling at the corners of his eyes like condensation on a cold glass. Shouto wanted to pull him into a hug, to wipe his tears away and pet his head and tell him everything was okay. He couldn't, though. He didn't have the courage.
Instead, he settled for a single hand, placed gently on Midoriya's knee. There was a sharp intake of breath from his friend, but he didn't flinch or shrug it off.
"Midoriya," he began gently, "do you remember what I told you about social media not showing everything? I promise you, those photos may be embarrassing, but they were not my lowest point. It was much, much worse."
Midoriya looked at him with questioning eyes, and Shouto felt his guts wriggle like unearthed worms. Midoriya had just bared his soul, shared his deepest, darkest secret. Even still, Shouto couldn't share his. Not completely.
He settled for saying, "I fucked up real bad, okay? I was stupid and immature, and I lost my best friend because of it."
Apparently that was enough of a confession, because Midoriya nodded slowly. With a sniffle, he wiped away his tears.
"Sorry for losing it like that," he said.
"Don't be," Shouto replied, giving his knee a squeeze before forcing himself to let go. "I...want to be a person you feel comfortable crying around."
I want to be the shoulder you cry on.
Midoriya gave him a smile, small but sincere.
"I'll keep that in mind," he promised. "For now, though, I think we call it a day. But, um...I guess I'll see you tomorrow for the interview, right?"
"Yeah," Shouto said. "Make sure to get a good night's sleep. It's going to be an adventure."