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Shouto, September 5
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Todoroki Shouto was running late for a job that wasn't his.
It was the girl he was with, Jirou Kyouka's fault, although he couldn't blame her for blaming him for not reminding her. "It's usually Ashido who's the unreliable co-worker, Yao Momo. Remember?"
"I-I suppose..."
"You're too nice as usual," she pants, jogging on the steaming pavement. "At least that's one normal thing about you today."
Tokyo is a mess of smog and people. When she was still in college, Fuyumi-oneesan had taken Shouto and his brother for a small tour one weekend years ago but 48 hours had been enough for him to miss the smell of trees for pollution. He had tried not to miss Yaoyorozu Momo's first class this morning to preserve her dignity but the absolute noise and similarity of everything everywhere startled him, and even with a navigation app, he only arrived at her school well into lunchtime. It wasn't as if he detested the city—lost earlier on, fascination overtook his anxiety without notice—it was just he would be more open to appreciating it if each step didn't... hurt so much. Running in particular was proving to be near impossible, and hugging the area beneath his... her... chest was doing little to help. "Where are you going?"
Shouto stopped in his tracks, looking back at the frowning, sweaty Jirou. "We're here," she scoffed, pushing the backdoor into a building.
"Right on time. Thank gods." Jirou jolted her card off the time clock and punched Yaoyorozu's in. "I told you I was producing last night. You know I lose track of the days without enough sleep. I thought it was Friday for crying out loud!"
"I don't think I've slept enough either," Shouto mumbled sincerely. How was he supposed to know Yaoyorozu had a job?
Safely logged in in the changing room, Jirou returned to her usual self Shouto witnessed in class today. "Sorry. But Hage's having a sale soon and I have two weeks of tardy-free wages to go before I could afford those headphones. Come to think of it, you've been out of it all day too."
Shouto carefully, carefully buttoned up the front of his uniform facing away: apparently he was going to play waiter for this restaurant for the next six hours. I think I'm still out of it now. "Jirou... have you ever woken up feeling as if you're someone else entirely? A stranger?"
"I wake up feeling like that every day but it usually lasts only a minute," a voice quips from the doorway. The girl with pink cheeks and a nametag saying "MINA" had strawberry blonde hair that was more strawberry than blonde. The bags rimming her eyes gave her a mildly raccoonish look. "Unless I'm in love, in which case, I go about my day pretending I'm Senpai's girlfriend."
"You're in love every day Ashido. Does that mean we've never actually seen you for who you are?"
"Maybe!"
She squeezed in with Jirou in front of the mirror, taking off her devil's horns headband and lavishing herself with hairspray. Jirou held back the longer strands of her hime cut with pins so what remained was the clean line of her bangs. Shouto rummaged through Yaoyorozu's bag and found a single black hair tie in the front pocket. He had experience tying up his sister's hair in ribbons but never had locks long enough to do up on his own. Yaoyorozu Momo's reached down to her waist and he had received comments earlier about looking like a whirlwind from commuting to school with his—her—hair down. He had the mind to brush it in the bathroom before class, but after racing to the train and running again to their building, he imagined it looked something like his newly-woken sister's on Sundays when she slept in.
Perhaps still thinking about her outburst earlier, Jirou came up to save him. "Here, let me do that for you."
"Oh... thanks."
As Ashido did her makeup, Jirou worked on Yaoyorozu's tangles gently, dividing them into segments for a braid. Shouto noticed by and by how he had to stare at his new face as the hair got cleared out of the way, when he had dabbed a handkerchief over it, when he clumsily, shyly attempted to smile. Yaoyorozu was a pretty girl, he had to hand her that. And she had the tendency to blush after a run...
"Oh, I see your drift, Yao Momo. Doing something new out of the blue so Fuyumi-senpai notices!"
"Who?"
"She's somebody else today, stop confusing her," Jirou joked letting Sh, Yaoyorozu's side braid hang from off his left shoulder. "Let her figure things out in her own time. You don't mind this though, do you, Yao Momo? You think you're too plain for styling."
"It's... lovely. Thank you. Oh, but do I, do I usually wear makeup?" Shouto asked, remembering the mascara and lipstick he found in his—her!—schoolbag.
"Not really-"
"You should!" Ashido chirped. "To match your hair!"
"We don't have time," Jirou insisted, ushering them out into the kitchens. "Now, do you want me to school you in on everything or has the smell of blue cheese snapped you out of it yet?"
Shouto tried to put on a pleading face using someone else's, the one he still occasionally used on his siblings. "Yes please, Jirou. I don't want to make a fool of myself."
"Hold on," Ashido said, looking back and forth at his expression and Jirou's sincere surprise. "Are you playing along or did she really bump her head somewhere? Oh, here comes Senpai!"
Shouto stood still just long enough for Ashido to push a red flower pin up his, or Yaoyorozu's, bangs ("If it's not gonna be me, Yao Momo, you're my best bet!") before Jirou pulled him to work. He was vaguely aware of a tall, slouching man with oddly familiar eyes coming over to Ashido's direction but they did not look at Shouto's and he let it go as another vaguely interesting detail of this unusual day.
After he had told Jirou everything he knew about waiting at restaurants while setting the table (apparently a very small percent of what had to be done), Jirou exasperatedly, worriedly schooled him on the less obvious parts of the job, such as how to properly hold a tray full of heavy dishes up or what to say when someone was so obviously trying to sneak a free meal by being mean. ("Smile, but don't let them walk all over you.") There was barely enough time for him to memorize anything before the trickle of people coming in turned into a stream that forced him away from any further lessons.
Smells he had never before inhaled, dishes he didn't even know existed passed and went from Shouto's sight and hands like fine sand in the wind. But he did basketball and judo; he knew how to move quickly without bumping into anything, how to go around people, how to balance his own and additional weights. He was relieved that all the customers handed in his care seemed to be regulars who asked no questions about the menu-he got all the orders right as far as he knew. Giddy after earning (and rightfully so, he thinks) his first tip from a couple that left the place smiling, he started trusting his guts and the brief observations he made of his co-workers. He poured additional water for someone without them asking, he replaced a child's soiled napkin with a fresh one. When he asked Ashido if he was doing alright in passing, she told him he looked like he usually did and that pleased him greatly. Waiting at the Lemon & Olives was interesting... if only some parts of his body would stop moving.
Jirou had to stop him from entertaining new diners when their break time rolled round quarter past eight. He had never been to a Greek restaurant before and allowed himself a full two minutes deciding what to get. Apparently, they had their meals free up to a certain price range, beyond which they had to pay from their wages. He picked something from the latter group. He considered it payment for Yaoyorozu's free vacation into his eventless, calm life under the clean Itomori skies.
"Feeling better, Momo?" Jirou asked him cautiously, picking on her bento.
"I think so." Did he have to make conversation...? He should at least try to make Yaoyorozu appear normal based on his judgment. "Moussaka, right? This is good."
"I think so too," Jirou agreed slowly, "that you're feeling better, I mean. But I thought you started going vegetarian two months ago."
"I did? Well, it's been a strange day so far. I think I'll stay strange for the rest of it."
"That's the spirit," Ashido commented. "Watching you order a salad every time was starting to get me depressed." But Jirou had smiled at Shouto's little jest and he was distracted by the reminder of just how pretty girls could get. He didn't fluster as easily as Izuku but still felt proud of how far he's come from freezing completely when one of Yaoyorozu's classmates greeted him with a tight hug from behind without warning earlier that afternoon to now, having a conversation in a cramped table with her friends like he would with his own. While his gutsiness hadn't waned with the dinner rush, the warmth of his companions eventually got him to start relaxing enough to fall to his usual silent attentiveness. Nobody seemed to mind and he realized that underneath all the adrenaline buzzing in his nerves, he was content.
"...and then I said to her- Goodness! Is it time already?!"
"Gods' sake, Ashido..."
Shouto looked where Jirou quite pointedly wasn't. It was the man with strange eyes from earlier, coming in for his break. Instead of queuing up to the cooks with a tray like the rest the crew had, he went into the locker rooms and emerged with a sandwich. Shouto inexplicably realized for the first time that Yaoyorozu and her group were the only female waitresses for this shift.
"Good evening, Senpai! How are you this fine night?" Ashido brazenly called. "Care to join us for a change? You're not gonna get any taller standing around at the back, you know."
"Horrible. No, thank you. I value my quiet time."
Shouto wanted to chuckle at the noise Ashido made—he didn't even look up from his phone.
Jirou made a point to steer the conversation away from the man and Shouto didn't even think of him until a few minutes later, when Ashido reached out and yanked one of Jirou's pins off her hair. "Hey! What the hell?"
"Ay! Where did my pin go? Did I drop it?"
On hindsight, Shouto isn't quite sure how things turned out the way they did. Perhaps Jirou was bound by some sort of secret compact because she made a face like realization and settled for glaring at Ashido who was noisily making fuss about missing a pin that wasn't hers. Back inside, the boy she had been eyeing passed their table, stopped stiffly like he was already hating himself for what he was about to do, backed away from what he had stepped on and bent down. And Shouto, completely missing both the point of Ashido's charade and even the stranger's arrival, stood and squeezed around Jirou's legs to reach for the pin.
He bumped heads with the older boy. They hiss from the jolt at the exact same time.
"In the name of-! Tch. Watch it."
"In the name of-! er. Excuse me."
Shouto looked up through watery eyes once he had registered the pin was still on the floor. The weird eyes looked at Shouto. Something inside of him screamed that the boy was about to yelp "In the name of love!" like he had been himself. It was how his mother used to cuss, something that sounded embarrassingly old-fashioned but was actually an invention of hers. "The bad things that happen to us we must offer up to time as much as the good," she used to say when she heard her children yell it as they played, too young to know what cursing felt like. "Even anger has a hand in making up the beautiful. It will fade from our hearts faster if only we remember to let it." It had not made any sense to him the last time he heard it but it did in this moment.
Why on earth was Shouto remembering this now?
More embarrassed from imagining the boy sounded like... home than actually bumping so closely into a stranger, Shouto scrambled for the pin and ended up lifting it up with the man pinching the other end, their arms level with each other. Again with the symmetry of their movements, and the eyes. They scowled at Shouto, too lazy to really care. He let go rather theatrically, and walked away muttering something about the cost of being nice.
In the distance of Shouto's mind, Ashido was saying something.
Shouto blinked, but the vision of the man looking down on him did not disappear. He placed the pin on the table. The afterimage remained.
Except... except this time, the man was not so tall. This time, he was reaching to help Shouto up, smiling, trying not to laugh at the faces Shouto made as he tried to be a big boy and not cry. The sun was behind his kind, kind eyes, not a florescent bulb. And in his head, Shouto succeeds... the face is closer now that he has risen... but it disappears during their embrace because Shouto barely reached the other boy's chest. And a hand would always, always, rumple the hair at the top of his head.
Such a big boy already, Shouto!
His heart stopped in his chest. There was a moment of shame, the I should have known sooner that didn't happen because it's been years since he last saw him. He should have recognized his own family immediately but there was no longer any space for regret in his swelling chest. The man walking away had dyed his hair black and grown tall like their father, though lanky like bamboo. But there was no denying the blue in his eyes, the slight accent even a decade of living in Tokyo could not completely erase because pain always has a way of revealing to others where we come from.
For the first time since he was five years old, Shouto was looking at his oldest brother.
"Onii-san!"
Todoroki Touya looked back as his brother flew up to him; Shouto could feel the telltale pricks at the edges of his eyes, the warmth that was starting to strangle his throat. "Onii-san, do you recognize me? H-how are you? I can't believe it, I didn't think I would see- Nii-san studies here, did you know, in Tokyo U? Medical welfare, for Okaa-san. He's been looking for you everywhere since he moved here but I, I beat him to it, haha! How have you been? You must be about 21 now, right? Since you're six years older than me. Where are you staying? How long have you been working here?"
"Woah, woah, slow down, kid. You don't act so forward with older men, alright? It's dangerous. I already have a girlfriend."
"You do? Wow, Onii-san! Obaa-san would be so pleased, she keeps asking Onee-san to get a move on and give her grandkids already. She doesn't want to yet, but if you're ready to get married, you should come home and introduce her. I'm sure if you just drop by, just visit even for a little while, everything will be alright, and even Otou-san will-"
Shouto could feel his eyes—his body's eyes—grow a little wider as Touya tilted his head and raised an eyebrow. He didn't say anything, only stared at Shouto. And Shouto's cheeks burned split seconds before he even realizes why.
His brother thinks he—she, Yaoyorozu Momo, with her way too mature form and dainty eyelashes—was flirting with him.
"I'm not... you don't... of course, of course!" Yaoyorozu's voice reached a high pitch Shouto was embarrassed to make but he bowed with two hands in front of him as was expected of a lady. "Please forget I ever said anything! I'm sorry to bother you, Dabi-oni- senpai!"
He ran to the bathroom and allowed himself to breathe in and out, in and out slowly for two minutes. His brother would not... cannot know it was him. Shouto was glad that Yaoyorozu Momo was the kind to not usually wear makeup to work because he had no idea how to fix mascara if ever she wore any.
...
Shouto spent the rest of work hours trying to channel his misery into efficiency. But there was too much so that even if he matched orders with tables, walked fast and balanced god knows how many dishes on his right arm, he could not shake off the burning weight on his chest... the additional one, anyway. He thought to appreciate it as distraction from physical discomfort since the happy high he had been riding on earlier had all but faded. But he fully remembered he was somebody else entirely, that the weight that made him stoop a little was not actually something he was used to ignoring, when he felt a hand squeeze his—Yaoyorozu's—bottom as he was turning away from a table to report a new order to the kitchens. He felt shaken by the very idea that that might have happened. Had he been mistaken?
But it came again as he was setting their food down: lamb sovlaki plate, Greek kebab with pilaf rice and two lemonades. And he forgot Touya completely, only became aware of the side braid down his shoulder, the flower in his hair, the vision of his sister crying angry tears before him in her university uniform and one shoe missing. Nevertheless, she had nursed her own bruised knuckles and did not accept their pity, described to them instead how she punched the living daylights out of a stranger. Shouto had been too young to understand what his Natsuo-niisan was cursing that day exactly. And for a split-second, he saw Yaoyorozu's face crying his tears in the mirror about an hour ago.
It is strange how some memories choose to be remembered at the time we remember them. It is even stranger how their sense of timing is almost always flawless.
Shouto brought the man's dish down his head, pulled the chair out from beneath him for good measure. He hoisted it to bring down on the bastard's head but thought I just got Yaoyorozu Momo fired. He lowered it to the floor. Then he thought I already got her fired, and yelled, "PERVERT. YOUR MOTHER'S LOWEST DISGRACE, YOUR FATHER'S MISTAKE. THE GODS' WRATH UPON YOU AND SHAME ON ALL WHO LOVE YOU, YOU SICK FUCK. PERVERT!"
Jirou was by his side in an instant, hugging him to her away from the scene and spitting curses, literally spitting at his molester. She was shorter than Shouto—Yaoyorozu—but she pulled his head down to her shoulder and led him to someplace he couldn't see. His face reemerged at the kitchens where someone pulled up a chair and sat him down and he's shaking, the sweat on his skin cold. A little white haired man in a suit showed up mildly perturbed but Ashido was screaming something in Shouto's defense as Jirou handed him a glass of water. And then his brother. His brother was there with his tilted head and raised eyebrow and he was looking at Shouto. He didn't think he could stand it, his brother's eyes looking at him without recognizing him again, but he saw anger in them instead of nothing like earlier and decided to settle.
Touya said "Boss, I'm clocking out early," and he grabbed his backpack and went out the back door.
The cooks were shaking their heads, and mumbling among themselves. The waiters were outside, cleaning up the mess. Shouto stayed quiet in a daze in his seat. Asides from Jirou and Ashido torn between praising him and bashing the creep, no one seemed to know how to talk to him. When the manager came back from the dining area, Shouto remembered to ask something and to his surprise, the much older man laughed and said, "Young lady, I have just personally assured that fiend he can stick his you-know-what you-know-where after our security escorted him outside. Letting you go would mean forfeiting your service to this establishment for giving us an excuse to do right by society and literally put scum back where they belong."
"So... I'm not fired."
"From what angle do you think this is your fault?"
"Nowhere, Sir."
The manager smiled kindly and told him to take the rest of the night off and not worry about his pay or position.
Ashido got off early as well when Jirou had the mind of insisting Shouto mustn't walk home alone (apparently, she herself lived in the opposite direction). She gave Shouto a long hug and kissed his cheek before sending him out into the night. He was almost sure his ears would be enough to keep him warm for the whole journey.
"Momo, sweetheart," Ashido told him at once, clutching his arm so he felt a certain part of her anatomy press against his bicep. Now he was completely certain his palpitating heart would take care of insulation: he could take off his jacket at this point and survive the walk home. "Momo, sweetheart, from what I've learned from being a woman this far, you never, never let a man ruin your day. Cause then they would have won."
Shouto breathed Tokyo ozone deep into his chilly lungs. It would be disrespect to Yaoyorozu if he let himself be distracted by her friend showing her body affection after everything he just did for it. "I wasn't planning to." The fading high insisted he spoke more as a distraction from his hammering heart. "My, my sister taught me. So many instances. I just didn't realize all this time..."
"Sister? I thought you were an only child."
"Relative. She's older so I call her onee-san. Um."
"I'm so happy you smashed that plate on his head," Mina smiled at him sincerely. "I saw it from my table. You know, I never thought you'd be the kind to do that. That was more like a Jirou thing, but I guess it isn't anymore."
Shouto blinked. "What... what would she, what would I have done? I mean, what did you think I would do?"
Ashido gave him a look. "Honestly? From what I've observed with you these past months, I'd say you'd let it slide. Not because you think you deserve to be treated like that, but because you don't think others think you're worth fighting for."
Yaoyorozu would have done... nothing? "Then... then I guess it's good that today's a strange day."
"You're weird, Yao Momo," Ashido teased and they smiled at each other. Shouto thought if this was what dating was like, just conversations that weren't about love and a relaxed evening stroll with a girl clinging to your arm, then he wouldn't mind it so much. Maybe not at all even.
Ashido stopped in her tracks, gripped his arm even tighter. "Hold on."
Shouto tensed too. There was a sort of scuffling coming from the following alley on the street across them. Suddenly, Touya emerged, hands in his pockets, and slouched the same direction the two were headed.
"Senpai!" Mina whisper-squealed. "I wonder what he was doing there."
Shouto thought he might have swallowed audibly when he and Mina took a peek. It was the creep and his friend, some béchamel sauce still hanging off his hair. He was certain a shattered dish on someone's head didn't necessarily result in a black eye or a bloodied nose and lip...
"Let's go," Shouto whispered urgently, hurrying them past the alley with his head down. "If they recognize us, they might think the management sent him over to do it."
"You think? But I wanna at least kick 'em..."
But Shouto did not hang around long enough to hear them confirm his fear or not—that will have to be Yaoyorozu's problem in the morning. Not that he could care so much, watching his brother walk a dozen paces ahead of them and nursing in his heart the warm implications of everything he had just seen...
"What have you done, Yao Momo," Ashido whispered as they closed the gap between their huddled selves and Touya plodding steadily on. "I didn't hear everything you were talking about earlier, but if it was enough for him to run out on his own and go two-to-one against a couple of bigwigs who could sue him in a snap, I'm gonna have to start demanding tips. That's my hairpin you're wearing, remember."
"Oh... you can have it back now."
"No, of course not! It's perfect on you. Keep it. Consider it my congratulations on just about being the first girl in the history of Lemon & Olives to have piqued Fuyumi Touya's interest. You sly fox! Wear a braid one time...!"
"Fuyumi... senpai? That's Fuyumi-senpai?"
"Um, yes, you dingus, did the bloodrush of realizing Fuyumi Momo sounds cute rattle your cognitive processes in there?"
"Er."
"But what were you talking about earlier and why did you come out of the restroom crying? Did you know, he came up to me after you ran off—came up to me!—and asked with a panicking on the inside sort of expression, 'What did that girl just call me? Did you hear?'"
"Well, did you?"
"You were practically shrieking then, you looked so embarrassed," Ashido nodded seriously. "Like the fact it's Fuyumi Touya of all people finally registered in that big brain of yours. Don't worry, I would have shrieked too standing that close to him for that long. But anyways, he looked like a kicked puppy looking at me like that and I felt sorry for him so I said 'Dabi-oniisan.' Why on earth did you call him 'Dabi-oniisan?'"
"I..." Shouto swallowed. For some reason, he noticed for the first time that Ashido's black t-shirt hadglow-in-the-dark print that said Raiders of the Lost Area. "I had a dream where I was someone else and that person is... brothers with F-Fuyumi-senpai. I don't think I've completely shaken myself awake yet."
"So... you're still dreaming and are currently focusing all your mental energy on excelling sleepwalking with your eyes open, which is why you kept acting like you've forgotten things all day."
Gods among us. Could Ashido be someone who might be able to help him undo whatever it was that had happened between him and Yaoyorozu? Was now the time to confess? Would she be the type to believe him?
But up ahead, Touya entered a Lawson and Shouto was already adjusting to Ashido picking up the pace. No. He would ask for help going back to his old self once he had a clear plan to approach his brother as someone he would recognize.
"I say you're lovesick," Ashido misdiagnosed with a whisper. "You've been all these months. You've been subconsciously struggling with it and are now overwhelmed with the realization."
Shouto had to snigger. It was ridiculous all things considered, but he had to stop once Mina pushed the convenience store door open. She giggled when she dragged him opposite the counter where his brother was: "I forgot I'm out of lipbalm."
They didn't have to stay for too long. Touya simply bought a pack of cigarettes and took them outside. Seated on the curb in front of the store, he shrugged his backpack off, dumped it beside him after rummaging for something and began to smoke, twirling the zippo in his hands with absentminded precision.
"Isn't he just so..." Mina sighed, "dreamy, Yao Momo?"
"More douchebag than dreamy," Shouto smirked. It was the word his sister used to describe some of her wannabe suitors, often with a heavy eye roll and an accusing If I learn any of you are behaving that way... look for him and Natsuo. "But I guess girls think that's attractive."
"Don't put yourself above me, you elitist pansy you," Mina snapped, not tearing her eyes away from the window. "You and Jirou are as bad as the rest of us. But now that I've gotten you to confess, I wonder what it's gonna take for her to finally own up..."
It wasn't his first time in a convenience store. There was a single Mini Stop in Itomori where his classmates would meet up to plan school projects, but he always thought it was rude to come in and just sit and idle without buying anything. Knowing Ashido had all but forgotten about her lipbalm, Shouto got up from their table and got a stick of Mentos. Ashido wordlessly declined his offer, still staring out the window with her chin on her palms, elbows on the table. It was hard not to, even for a different reason entirely. Shouto never liked the smell of cigarettes but he would give anything to sit next to Touya at this moment, and talk and be recognized for who he really was and talk some more. He knew Blacks had menthol in them too... he wondered if chewing mints was somewhat similar to smoking them.
Suddenly, the glass wall between them felt like a thousand miles thick. Soon, his brother would finish his cigarette and leave, and Shouto... well, he didn't want to think about that just yet. Would it be inappropriate to go after him? He wished Yaoyorozu was a boy and wasn't from a good family who had a reputation and a job to keep. Or at the very least a flirt like Ashido.
"What's he so mad about?" Touya's reverie had been interrupted by his phone going off in his pocket (a battered silver flip Motorola) and now he seemed to be ranting to whoever it was on the other line.
"Probably his girlfriend complaining about how late he is for their date." Shouto chuckled. His Natsuo-niisan never told him any stories of his romantic adventures if any, and though he was certain his Fuyumi-oneesan never ran out of pining lovers dogging her trail, she waved them off politely every single time.
"He says that to shoo us away, silly. He doesn't actually have a girlfriend. At least, that's what I wanna think."
But Touya seemed to get angrier... no, more pissed with whoever he was talking to on the line. He stuck out a middle finger and tapped it impatiently, rapidly on his knee. Then he flicked his still-burning cigarette stub across the street and shut his phone.
"If he comes back in here again," Ashido hissed, "I'm going to take it as a sign that we're meant to be."
"Mm."
"I'm gonna assume he broke up with her and take full advantage of the situation."
"I thought you said he doesn't actually... um..."
Shouto thought he heard Ashido swallow. Touya was slinging his backpack over one shoulder, pocketing his phone... walking into the shop from right behind Shouto's seat.
He can't help turning around to look. His brother was grinding his teeth ("Bitch," Shouto thought he heard), but Shouto must have made a noise because Touya stopped short midstep and looked straight at him.
Yes. Shouto couldn't think why he missed it the first time. The eyes were all their father's-all of half of Shouto's features. This time, they looked back at him with recognition behind a blank face, recognition for someone else but Shouto could not care at this point. He imagined them growing wider as recognition grew into familiarity, familiarity grew into joy because his littlest brother had grown into a man but not quite yet, but Shouto cancelled out that fantasy quickly enough: it could not be more perfect than seeing Touya with his own eyes now, even as he looked away after the longest two seconds of Shouto's life, plodding into the aisles without a backward glance.
"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god."
Shouto's cheeks ached; he realized he had been smiling this whole time. He turned to Ashido who was covering her mouth with both hands."Is something wrong?"
"Did you- I can't- did you see how he- he never- in the seven months I've known him- at you nonetheless- I can't- oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!"
Shouto half-expected Ashido to jolt out of her seat and finally make her presence known to his brother. Instead, she grabbed both Shouto's hands, looked him dead in the eyes and declared, "Yaoyorozu Momo, if it's not gonna be me, it's gonna be you!"
"What are you talking-"
Shouto thought the devil's horns headband Ashido wore gained new meaning as she stood up and practically yelled, "I forgot, I live in the opposite direction, Yaoyorozu Momo! Don't leave from here until you've got SOMEBODY to WALK. YOU. HOME, AND KEEP. YOU. SAFE! STAY SAFE! AND TEXT ME HIS NUMBER!" And in all of Shouto's life, he swore he had never met anyone as volatile as his new pink-haired acquaintance, staring breathlessly at her cackling form pulling the door open and running, running into the night in the exact same direction they could have been heading together right now.
Shouto became vaguely aware that he was frozen in his seat. He could feel his heart pulsing, that his head was starting to react to how long he had been holding his breath. Why had she done that again? Something about a sign?
"Hoy. You asked her to do that?"
And Shouto's suddenly breathless for an entirely different reason. He thought his neck snapped looking up at Touya wearing the same bored look, this time with a touch of annoyance. It was so hard not to smile but Shouto tried not to let his joy overpower the stunned daze he had been in just a few seconds ago. It would put poor, sweet Ashido's sacrifice to waste.
"After embarrassing myself earlier? No way."
The longer Shouto looked, the more he believed Touya was testing him though he couldn't tell how exactly. He seemed satisfied with Shouto's answer somewhat. "I figured. That girl's been trying too hard to catch my attention since she started working there. Longest months of my life."
"Should I tell her the good news?"
"Please, no. Too many kids pretending they mistook me for their oldest brother just so I look at them. It's pathetic. They all deserve better. Or not, going after the likes of me." And he strode out of the store, backpack stuffed to gills with whatever purchases he just made.
Shouto thought it was safe to stare again now that the glass walls were between them. Briefly, he imagined he must look like a hopeless girl staring after the oblivious love of her life. This Lawson was a corner store so Touya was at the edge of the sidewalk in moments, gazing absently at the green light across him. Shouto kept looking. The traffic light switched to red. Soon it would be green again. Shouto was grateful for whoever it was his brother was waiting for. He wondered absentmindedly if like with Ashido, he should go get that person the most expensive brand of lipbalm he could find as thanks, and...
Oh.
Oh!
"Tits on Christ, don't you work in a four-star restaurant? Are you retarded?"
Shouto had leapt from his seat, snatched up the opened Mentos on the table and ran, ran to his brother's side, forgetting that his chest hurt with each step even when he almost tripped over his own two feet. And now... they were side by side just as they should be.
"It's... been a strange day."
"Damn right it's been. Are you from the boonies or something? You curse like my grandmother."
"I bet I do. I mean, I've been told I curse like mine."
"Actual fucking curses. Who still unironically does that?"
Happy tears were beginning to rim Shouto's eyes so he thought to look down and hide from... um. Where did his feet go? Wait. Since when were his shoes so small-
Oh.
Oh.
The light went green. Reminded that he wasn't Shouto, not entirely, Shouto remembered that each little movement in this girl's body hurt him. Walking hurt. Even if it was beside his long lost brother. He crossed his arms just below his chest and hoped Yaoyorozu Momo wouldn't mind him unintentionally touching her breasts in an attempt to support them. He remembered wondering if he looked like a lovesick girl ogling his brother's back at the convenience store. But he also remembered he was holding a pack of mints-
"Would you like some?"
"None of the fruity shit..."
Shouto twisted the label (Spearmint) so Touya saw it wasn't. He let Shouto shake two candies into his open palm and shot them into his mouth. He looked even more douchebag now, chewing and slouching onwards with his hands in his pockets and that bored look on his face. "Are you fired?"
"No."
"Really? Huh. Guess our rating's down to three..."
"Do you think they should?"
"If they wanna keep their stars, yeah. But Boss is not a businessman, just a weirdo who likes feeding people. If he told you not to worry, don't. Obey your elders."
"Elder... how did you-? I mean, I never said I mistook you for my oldest brother."
Touya shrugged, still not looking at him. "Never said it was you, peach."
Shouto blinked. Peach. He was not exactly sure what flirting was like, but he recognized swagger when he saw it, could tell when it's the kind that attracted a lot of young women his age... wasn't fully certain yet when someone had the bad heart to use it. Eijoiro had it although he didn't know, and the boy named Kaminari in Yaoyoruzu's class wanted it, tried and failed to wield what he didn't have. Shouto wondered how many girls his brother ever gave the cold shoulder to—or didn't—since hitting his growth spurt away from a sister to guide him through these matters. He imagined Yaoyorozu going to work the next day and wondering why she was suddenly in speaking terms with what was apparently the hottest bachelor in all of Lemon & Olives. Shouto was going to indulge in all the time he had left with his brother, but he was also going to make sure Yaoyorozu Momo got the respect she deserves.
"It's Yaoyorozu. My name is Yaoyorozu and that's what you'll call me. I... I would like to apologize for running up to you earlier. And, er, yelling in front of everybody. You're right, I did mistake you for my oldest brother."
"'Everybody'" Touya put up his four longest fingers and twitched them, "is a bitch. I don't fuck with them. Doesn't matter what they think. Tell me, does your brother look like a fuck-up too?"
"I..." Wait a minute. What did drug addicts look like? There was no one among his age mates who was bad seed so to speak. Katsuki was the closest candidate but he never got caught, had good grades and did well in sports like the strange, living miracle that he is. Shouto found himself thinking about Yaoyorozu's homeroom teacher but the man appeared to have crystal sharp senses and spoke with lucid clarity despite his painfully questionable appearance. And surely no proper school would even consider hiring a junkie.
"I don't remember," Shouto decided. It was partly true anyway. There were things about his brother he was seeing now that he could not remember ever noticing when they were children. "He ran away a long time ago. I was being stupid. His hair is red like our father's."
Shouto tried to make it look like he wasn't closely gauging how Touya would react to being poked in the eyes with his own lies. Touya opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Swallowed. And he looked at the person he saw as his innocent co-worker with hard eyes and even harder resolve.
"Being hopeful isn't being stupid."
They stopped at another traffic light. Finding no one around, Touya carried on with Shouto jogging behind him. "Have I... have I heard that somewhere before?"
"Fuck if I know."
"Sure you're not quoting a book?"
"I don't read books, I burn 'em."
"R-really?"
"Don't be such a prep school kid. Er, that's an adjective, not a name."
"That... that means..."
Touya smirked at him. "You really are from the boonies, huh? You even got an accent. Except you've lived here your whole life."
"I... spend a lot of time with my grandmother. Er, on school breaks."
"But you cut to chasing paper this summer."
"Oh, yeah. Thought it'd be nice to start saving up on my own. Stop asking for allowance from my dad."
"Ooh. Daddy issues, is it? You rich kids and your ginger dads..."
"Are you a rich kid too? With a ginger dad?"
"I guess we were where I'm from. Here, I'm piss broke. He died three years ago."
Shouto stopped smirking. "...I'm so-"
"Ah, don't be. World's better off without him. Really."
They lapsed into silence. Touya seemed comfortable with it, walking through yet another red light and never changing pace. Shouto bit his lip, and kept his arms crossed beneath his—her—chest.
Three years ago. That was an obvious lie. But was it what Touya wanted to believe?
Suddenly, Shouto was seeing for the first time just how utterly impossible everything was. What were the odds that he would find his consciousness trapped in a person who had direct access to someone he had been missing for ten years? What if this was all a dream and he wakes up, takes the train to Tokyo but learns his brother stopped existing a long time ago and had no one beside him to say goodbye? What if he was alive but in a worse state than this—has been for a long time? What if they can't do anything about it? What if... he hated them so much that he won't let them?
Better off without Otou-san. Was Touya better off without him?
But something grounded Shouto just as he's about to kneel over the concrete and maybe start throwing up. "Did you... did you take your apron off before beating them up? So they don't know who you are?"
Slowly, the hands Shouto had been watching disappeared into a leather jacket's pockets. Slowly, he followed the lines of that person's arms up to his shoulders, up to Touya's face. "You take me for a fool, kid? Of course I did. Not getting myself fired for an excuse for therapy."
All thoughts about Yaoyorozu and self-doubt are out the window entirely as Shouto grabbed his brother's hand. It hadn't taken on adult shape nor size yet the last time he had held it, but Shouto liked to imagine the heat signature he knew he wasn't superhuman enough to actually notice was the same. He knew these purple patches, seen them on Katsuki's knuckles nearly every day since high school.
"You did this for me."
Not for him. Not for Shouto. But from what he could tell, his oldest brother who wasn't exactly keen on making friends still went out of his way to bring justice to a co-worker whose name he didn't even know. He was happy. He was so happy that Todoroki Touya did not grow into the dark caricature their father had always been warning him and Natsuo about. The Dabi-oniisan he grew up with would have done that. That Dabi-oniisan he loved was still alive. He was here.
Touya scoffed and jerked his hand away. "Don't be pretentious. I was looking for a fight. It's been a while. We can't all afford therapy, more so between jobs."
"I'll take that as a 'you're welcome.' Hold on."
He thanked Yaoyorozu for her wallet full of cash and got a full roll of bandages and ointment at a 7-11. ("Aren't you exaggerating a little bit? Wouldn't some band aids do?") Shouto patched a grumbling Touya's fingers up the way he was taught to as a child, and snipped off the last knot with the scissors he had used for her home economics class.
Touya's eyes looked more alive than they have all evening. "Where... where did you learn to do this?"
"My mother. We use it for a kind of mochi back where I'm from. You couldn't cry over scraped knees if you were giggling over looking like food." She taught all of us. Do you remember, Onii-san?
Touya smiled like a cat. It was a smile that he learned to do in the city where people's faces were a little tighter. Shouto had never seen it before but that was okay. He liked learning new things, anyway. "The last person who tied my wounds up like this is dead."
Shouto felt something drop into his stomach. "What?"
"I'm just kidding." He tossed his palms up, made a shape with his mouth like he was laughing without a sound. "Come on, prep school, before your mother grounds you for talking to strange men."
"I can take care of myself if you turn out to be strange."
"Never said you can't, peach." And speaking of...
As they exited the store and Shouto pulled her phone out of his—her—pocket, he was faced with a realization: he never had the chance to text his own mother. Children had no interest in cellphones when he was younger. And his mother couldn't live long enough for a chance to worry about him like this, her baby boy dressed like a man, out and about in the big world after hours. She never got to experience the semi-chronic fear of being a mother of a teenager, period.
It startled him, how a person whose voice you can't even remember anymore could still make you sad after a decade of silence. When Shouto used Yaoyorozu's phone, he pretended he was texting his mother.
..
I'm on my way home, Okaa-san. I love you.
sent 9:53
..
"So. How many concerts of the League of Villains Band you been too?"
Shouto blinked. "The what now?"
"Pfft. Don't play dumb. The greatest gig in the rock scene right now? Rising stars of the underground? Best musical experience of your life?"
"I... I think Jirou, er, might have mentioned them once or twice." That was a shot in the dark. He knew Jirou Kyouka was different: Neither sweet Ochako or even unique Tsuyu owned a leather jacket, let alone wore it to school, nor were they able to tell the difference between listening to the same flac file using two different headphones. But Shouto thought it would be good to namedrop his supposed best friend, at least in terms of establishing Yaoyorozu's identity.
"No need to tone it down, peach. You called me by my stage name earlier. You're pretty keen, recognizing me through all that face paint."
"O-oh." Shouto's heart raced. Our brother's nickname for you as your stage name and our sister's for your surname. Where do I fit in all of this? "I honestly wasn't thinking that. It's just what we used to call my oldest brother. He really liked that one character from the Harry Potter series when we were kids. Said he relates to him because they both like socks. Of course he was, what, seven? Didn't understand what was going on half the time since our copy's in English. My other brother couldn't say it right when they played pretend and it stuck."
"God, that's embarrassing. I sure wouldn't want some kid to come up to me and compare me to a fucking house elf. 'Dabi' stands for, well, 'dabi,' obviously."
"You do... rock? Tagging yourself the villain, naming yourself after something done to dead people."
"Alt-punk, anti-metal death pop," he corrected Shouto smugly. "Look it up."
"Sounds depressing."
"The world's depressing. And don't actually look it up, cause nothing'll turn up. Yet. We invented that genre. You could call us trailblazers in a way."
"Hold that thought."
..
Momo, are you alright?
received 9:59
.
Yes, Okaa-san. I was just missing you.
Be there in five minutes.
sent 10:01
..
"I take a turn here..."
"So? Take the damn turn."
..
Okay. You're home early.
received 9:02
.
Boss let us off early. Have lots to tell you when I get home.
I love you!
(-:
sent 9:03
..
"Sure you got nowhere else to be? No date you're missing? No date missing you?"
"I said what I said earlier to scare you off. Hell hath no fury than a woman scorned..."
"And rejection is the greatest aphrodisiac." So he wasn't actually burning books.
Touya smirked. "Please be respectful and don't take my being single as a sign to molest me."
"I won't. I promise."
"I was being sarcas... Never mind. You don't have to look that sincere all the time, prep school. "
"It's Yaoyorozu. Um... Touya-oni, er, Fuyumi-senpai, please don't ever think I'm f-flirting with you. I just... well..."
"If I did, I'd be long gone. Besides..."
"What?"
"Never mind."
Shouto realized his brother had finished his Mentos ages ago. Touya scratched the back of his head. "You said 'they,' as in 'They saw a series they shouldn't be seeing at so young an age.' You're, what, the youngest then? Of... four?"
"Yup. Onee-san, Dabi-oniisan, Nii-san and me. Don't remember calling Onii-san anything else."
"Poor fucker."
"I don't know. He didn't seem to mind when we were kids."
"No one minds their family when they're kids. But then they stop."
"Not minding?"
"Being kids at some point."
Shouto said nothing. Then, weakly, "That's my house."
"Rich kids and their fucking ginger..." Touya muttered with wide eyes, realizing for the first time were in a posh subdivision a healthy distance away from noise and light pollution. Shouto hugged himself—Yaoyorozu, he corrected with a blush—to keep from embracing his own brother.
"...fathers. I'll stay here so your parents don't ask questions."
"You don't look so bad."
"Yeah, and any mother would freak if they saw what I've become. Even if they weren't mine."
Shouto allowed himself a few seconds to just look at Touya. "Thank you, Fuyumi-senpai. I really appreciate it." When Touya tilted his head and raised an eyebrow, Shouto bowed and headed for the gates. He wouldn't cry. He wouldn't until he was safely inside Yaoyorozu's room, away from his supposed mother... away from family. Even if it wasn't his.
"Hey. Prep school. Yaoyorozu."
Shouto turned with a start.
"I have a baby brother," Touya intoned, almost sounding confused and hunted. "A really titchy thing of a brother. He would be about your age now. He liked Dobby too when he was five. Because I did. Liked socks, I mean. Bit of a copycat, that one. But I thought he really liked... socks. Even if no one told him to. At least when he was little. I. Have no idea why I'm telling you this."
Shouto unfroze with dripping eyes, bit his—Yaoyorozu's—lip. Touya stood in the shadows, unreadable. Shouto could do anything to see his eyes now but tonight would go to sleep and wake up in his own body, miles away from the one he missed so much. He would get his chance. He would save up for a train to Tokyo, run into the Lemon & Olives kitchens at 4:30 pm sharp on a Monday and beg his brother to come home. But a goodbye at this point would be self-harm.
So he said something else, smiling as sweetly as he could: "I'm sure your brother still loves you." And he unlocked the gate to Yaoyoruzu's home and shut it.
...
In Itomori, Momo was dreaming.
In the dream, she was walking over to Moonlight Kingdom. She was a priestess, that much she knew, and she looked like it from her view of her own self lurking somewhere deep in the forest along the path her dream self was walking. Momentarily, they become one: Momo sees the darkening road ahead and remembers a discrepancy in class with Nemuri-sensei that day, about using love as an example of madness.
None of that could get into any of my kingdoms, thought Momo. So why does it...
A shooting star was falling on her face, like the chalkboard illustration. As it grew nearer, she realized it was some sort of rice cake, and she separates from her body at the moment of impact.
Momo watched herself wake up. She has made it to a shrine in Moonlight Kingdom. She blushes to realize there is a toilet where a throne (But what kind of shrine has a throne?) should be, but the shame disappears like she never learned it.
There was no altar, no offering, only a naked man.
She and her dream self shared the same heartbeat. And all two of her consciousness smiles.
The man said to her in a voice she was yet to hear from outside of her head, "Oh, Momo. Kataware-doki does not enter the gates alone. You bring it in with you."
A/N:
Dabi = Todoroki Touya because at this point we're just waiting for the official announcement.
Drop by the real life Lemon & Olives Greek taverna in Baguio city!