Hagakure's lounging on the couch, careful to keep her legs out of the walkway so people don't accidentally trip on her. Again.
Mina's sprawled out next to her, whispering furiously to a stone-faced Tsu, while Ochaco listens in, nodding from time to time. She hears loud screaming and banging from the kitchen and assumes that some of the boys are in there. An explosion a few seconds later confirms Bakugo's presence.
"Toru, kero," a voice suddenly says, breaking her thoughts. She turns to face Tsu (though they can't tell the difference) as the girl continues speaking. "What do you look like?"
There isn't a trace of meanness in her green eyes, Toru can see that. It's just the girl's blunt honesty that had become a trademark of her personality. And the question doesn't sting her as much at this point in her life. She's been jostled and gaped at more times than she can count, and she just accepted it as a natural side effect of her Quirk. All heroes had backstories, and this was just hers.
The truth is she has absolutely no idea what she looks like. When the doctor performed the c-section on her mother, he saw nothing but blood and organs. They were about to announce a miscarriage when, by some miracle, a nurse with thermal vision spotted her.
She used to play this game when she was younger. Her mind was a canvas and the sky was her limit, so she'd pretend that she was Cinderella with elegant blonde hair all done up and crystal blue eyes. Or Dorothy from Wizard of Oz with two side pigtails and warm brown eyes. She stopped though once her music teacher moved her from the cast to the stage crew in the middle school Spring play, claiming that her Quirk was much better suited there.
Now her picture of herself is a pair of gloves and boots-maybe not as showy as some of her classmates' costumes, but much more practical given the circumstances.
The conversations around the room have slowed to a standstill at her lack of response. She guesses that everyone must have wondered this at least one point in their time together, so she clears her throat and prepares her standard "I-don't-know" response.
But the words never come and instead a sob breaks its way to the surface. She's grateful that they can't see the tears suddenly trailing down her face, but the wet stains appearing against the cushion and her muffled cries are a good enough indication as to what's happening. Not that she can even explain what's happening. She's not supposed to break down like this anymore. Not after all that she had done to fix herself,
Mina's rubbing circles on her back now while glaring at the rest of their dumbstruck classmates, but the tears just keep leaking through the clammy fingers pressed against her eyes. She can still feel their stares on the edges of her shaking frame, and their gazes cut through her like knives. The whole room suddenly feels like it's shrinking on her so she struggles against Mina's grasp and runs straight out the front door.
She folds her shirts and pants into a neat pile and tucks them behind a tree, making a mental note to come by the next morning to retrieve them. As much as she loves her classmates, she can't be around them right now. Their presence suffocates her and all she wants… no, needs right now is some peace and quiet to sort out the mess in her mind.
And yet here they are, groping around in the darkness like drunkards, waving their arms wildly and screaming her name into the night sky. She presses her hands against her neck to try and thaw them out, but the wind continues to bite at her as she runs deeper into the forest by their building. As long as she avoids Shoji and Jiro, she should be okay.
She passes a puddle on her way in, and glances at the empty space that stares back at her.
Ten minutes in, her entire body's numb and wrapping her arms around herself isn't enough to warm her up. She's certain that everyone has to be out of the building by now, so she slides along the wall, clinging to the shadows, eyes fixed on the door. Iida's scanning the area around the entrance but he doesn't seem to have noticed her, so she waits until he looks the other way and then pushes open the glass door just enough so she can squeeze through. She exhales quietly against the frame when she's inside and her classmate continues dutifully scanning the trees.
"Thought I'd find you here," a voice says and she whips around to find Ojiro sitting calmly on the couch, tail squashed against the armrest.
"O-Ojiro," she chokes out, and she knows there's no point in running anymore. She rubs one hand messily at her face-although she knows he can't even see her-and grabs the blanket that he offers to her. "How'd you know I'd be here?"
He shrugs, a slight smirk on his face until Toru smacks it straight off.
"I knew you'd enter stealth mode like you did during our first training exam. But I also know you don't like the cold. So I waited," he eventually concedes as she wraps the blanket around herself tighter. Silence for a few moments. "Do you want to talk about it?"
She tries to shake her head no, but the words are building up against the dam she's built over the years, and with a final push, they shatter all her self-control and start pouring out uncontrollably. What is it with her mouth having a mind of its own?
"My first boyfriend dumped me because he said I was too nothing-ish. He said I wasn't ugly, but I wasn't pretty either. I was just nothing," she blurts out and nearly slaps herself right after. She hadn't even told Mina this stuff and here she was spilling it all out to Ojiro.
"Guy's a jerk," he replies calmly, and she watches something stir in his eyes.
"But you don't understand! I-It's not just him-it's everyone!" Her speech is stammering uncontrollably and she realizes she's not making any sense. "I've walked in on so many conversations because most people just don't see that I'm there. A-and in elementary school, I had to tape a nametag to my forehead because everyone kept bumping into me. But it didn't even work!" He doesn't say anything for a few moments so she pulls herself tighter and tries to cover her face with the oversized blanket. "S-sorry, I'm not making any sense. Just ignore me."
"No," he eventually says, staring at what actually happens to be her eyes. "I get the feeling of being overlooked. I've always been the plain and normal guy… which is boring, to say the least."
"But you're really not," she giggles, and the words are true despite her laughter. He'd helped her with more than a few study sessions, and through daily training she'd come to notice little quirks about him. Small things like how he'd always hold the door open for the rest of them and how he'd stay late after a particularly intense training to help the janitors clean up, or how he was the one who found Koda's runaway bunny after a five-hour search that everyone else had abandoned.
"Same for you," he says and stares hard at the floor, a sheepish smile on his face. "You're not nothing. You're beautiful."
Her cheeks burn and she's very, very glad she's invisible right now.
"You don't mean that. You don't even know what I look like," she replies and her voice comes out much sharper than she meant it to. She waits for him to get up and leave when he finally shakes his head and drags his gaze back up from the floor.
"I don't need to know what you look like to know you're beautiful," he says quietly. "Beauty's a lot more than the color of your eyes or the style of your hair." She giggles again as some of her classmates start trickling back in, relieved but cautious about her presence.
"Thanks," she whispers as Mina spots her blanket from outside and starts full-on sprinting towards the dorm. "You're beautiful too, Ojiro!"
She has to laugh as he turns bright red and his tail behind him starts wagging uncontrollably.