xi.
The sight was familiar in all its festive glory: UA's sports stadium alight and aflutter with simmering movement. With confetti-colour and obnoxious noise. Even if it were only over the TV, it all continued to be overwhelmingly extravagant, the revelry bearing a marked contrast to the stale darkness in which The Grand Commander lazed. He huffed. He sighed. He scraped his nails oh-so-lightly over the skin of his neck, more so out of habit now than any remaining sense of compulsion.
Around him, the room's darkness faltered with the shrill glow of the TV screen. The silence chipped away at itself under the static chatter of the crowd and UA's announcers – "Wassuuuup spectators! Are you ready!?"
The Grand Commander scoffed, crossing and uncrossing his legs impatiently.
Any minute now.
It was due to start any minute now.
To his one side there lay a half-emptied tub of ramen and a soda. To his other were photos – photos of the Kururugi twins and their perfectly matched faces, prettily untouched as dolls and staring out at him obliviously – and a thin folder. A folder containing far too many details for the Grand Commander's tastes, though he found himself flipping open its pages over and over again and again. Doctors' notes. Quirk counsellor notes. Explanations of things Tomura, the Grand Commander, probably should have cared more for, like diagrams about energy absorption and energy conversion and nuclear energy and blah-blah-blah.
Had Kurogiri been there, he would have summed it all up into something more digestible. He would have known exactly how to separate the important information from the overkill meticulousness of a man with a grudge. And had he been there now, he would have been reminding Tomura about why all of this would eventually prove useful. Why it was all necessary.
Though if it hadn't been for Kurogiri, all of this wouldn't have been necessary in the first place.
…Kurogiri…
Tomura narrowed his eyes. It wouldn't be long now.
An excited blur of noise waited for them all at the end of the hallway. None of their classmates seemed particularly bothered – which did nothing to help the raging tumble about Takashi's innards. His goggles were fogged up. His hands were shaking. And no matter how Tsukiko grinned at him, her own expression choked enough to give her away, the way she clutched his arm like a lemur trying to break a branch only made Takashi more anxious.
Maybe it would be different next year when they both knew what to expect. Maybe next year, they'd feel as collected as the rest of Class A appeared to be.
But for now, despite all his readiness, Takashi felt about sure he'd pass out. Right there. Right in the middle of the group. He paid no attention to how Ashido Mina chattered at his and Tsukiko's side, nor to how Kaminari Denki looked back at him from the front of the group and gave a heartfelt thumbs up. It all happened in nauseating slow motion. Present Mic's voice resounded over the speakers and bounced from the stadium into the tunnel where they stood. Loud, exciting, but with no words reaching Takashi's ears.
He couldn't see through the fugue that had settled over his glasses.
And he couldn't hear anything over the volume of spectators' shouting.
And he couldn't think past the fact that they, all of them, were quite willingly allowing themselves to be placed like amoebas under the ruthless attention of the public eye.
"Hey," Tsukiko squeezed Takashi's arm, saying quietly, "Stop shaking so much. You're making me nervous."
"I can't breathe."
"What?"
Takashi didn't look at Tsukiko, but hissed through clenched teeth in hopes of no one else overhearing, "My chest hurts. I can't breathe. I–"
"Ssh, big baby. Here." Tsukiko let go of Takashi's arm and plunged her hand into her tracksuit pocket, revealing a pack of gum. "There's three left. I'll save them for you."
She unwrapped a piece. With the puffiness of the gloves and the way his fingers trembled, it seemed a task in itself to even take the gum – but when he did, the chewing helped. Mostly. Sort of. Perhaps without it, his heart flying into his head would have made him a whole lot dizzier when Present Mic announced their entrance.
"Let's put it together for the second years everybodaay! Yeeeeah!"
Everything flashed. Everything glittered brightly. Takashi had to squint through the misty haze of his own nerves.
Being part of the Hero Course made it easy to forget how many people there were at UA; however, with them all now gathering together in the center of the stadium – a large herd of second-year hero wannabes and others who were less so – the sheer number of students was startling. Takashi slipped his goggles from his head and wiped their lenses with his sleeve. He didn't listen as Thirteen-sensei, this year's chief umpire, announced the player's pledge; he didn't pay any attention as Midoriya Izuku, the current top student in the Hero Course, floundered up to the microphone and began to stumble through a jittery well-wish.
So consumed was Takashi in swallowing his nerves, he almost didn't notice the hand laid onto his shoulder. Almost.
He whipped his head around.
Shinsou Hitoshi half-smirked at him. "You look weird without your glasses."
Takashi felt himself almost choke (accidentally swallowing his gum) and rushed to pull his goggles back on, saying without thinking as he turned to face Shinsou fully, "Everything looks weird without my glasses."
Tsukiko shot a look across her shoulder, apparently startled by the sound of Takashi's voice; however, spotting Shinsou, she grinned and spun too, ignoring the rest of Midoriya's speech. "Ah! Shinsou-kun!" she cried quietly, so as to not disturb the rest of the group. "This is nice! But shouldn't you be with your class? Did you sneak all the way over here to say hi?"
"Sort of," Shinsou shrugged, cool and nonchalant amongst the buzz of the crowd. "I was thinking it might be cool if we could be on a team for the second round. You know. If we all make it through the qualifier." He settled his stare, half-amused and half-something else, more firmly on Takashi. "So I wanted to catch you early and ask."
It couldn't have been right. Shinsou, with his ridiculously useful quirk and personalized combat training, couldn't have been talking to Takashi. It couldn't have been right. Despite knowing how stupid it would look, Takashi glanced over his shoulders to find who else Shinsou could have wanted to team up with. But no one else was paying attention. Shinsou wasn't talking to anybody besides him. And like an oaf – an ape asking for a banana – Takashi lifted a finger to point at his own chest.
"Me?"
Shinsou pulled a face. "Yeah. You." Glancing to Tsukiko, whose widening grin burned itself into the side of Takashi's face. Then glancing more meaningfully back to Takashi. "I mean, you and Kururugi-chan. If you're interested. I don't know much about your guys' quirks, but I think it would work. Kururugi-kun?"
"Me?"
On stage, Thirteen-sensei had to cut Midoriya short.
Inside of himself, Takashi went through any number of reasons as to why Shinsou Hitoshi could have been asking this. Pity. Masochism. Was he somehow going to use Takashi as a test subject for his quirk, like he did to some of their other classmates the previous year? Takashi's head swam. It could also have been a ploy. No. It could only have been that. A clever plot, perhaps even something Monoma had come up with – Shinsou was going to pick out all Takashi and Tsukiko's weaknesses by using the guise of teaming up. Of course that was it. He planned to destroy them.
Tsukiko threw her arm across Takashi's shoulders. Skinny and bird-light, she used her free hand to gesture marvelously. "That would be wonderful, Shinsou-kun! We'd love that!" she said, and discreetly pinched Takashi's bicep through his tracksuit. "But we should probably start getting ready now for the qualifier. You know, vocal exercises and such like. Good luck! See you afterwards."
"Uh-huh… yeah, okay. Okay. Thank you, Kururugi-chan." Shinsou swiveled away, and left his smirk lingering over Takashi. "See you afterwards."
Then off he went into the crowd, purple head disappearing like a phantom amongst the crush of bodies.
Takashi's goggles fogged themselves right back up.
"You're such a hopeless noodle. Do you know that? All you needed to say was yes." Pouting, Tsukiko shook her head at him. "Honestly."
"But I don't get it…" Takashi murmured. "Why does Shinsou-kun want to be on a team with us?"
Tsukiko sighed, as though Takashi really was as much of a hopeless noddle as he felt himself to be. "He wanted to be on a team with you, dumb nut," she said, and giggled at what must have been Takashi's incredulous expression. "Shinsou-kun wants to be your friend."
"No. No, no, that can't be it. Shinsou-kun doesn't–"
Grabbing him by the shoulders, piercing through the blur of his goggles with her gaze, Tsukiko smiled a terrifying smile. "Friendship is inevitable, Kashi." Then her attention glitzed itself towards the stadium's big screen. "Oh ~ look, look! Thirteen-sensei is explaining the qualifier. Ooh, it looks scary! Where's Kirishima-kun? I told him it would probably be another obstacle race. You know I was wondering if – hey. Hey, are you listening? Kashi, I was going to say I was wondering if–"
Throughout Thirteen-sensei's explanation, Takashi forgot to breathe. He tried and failed to distract himself with strategies, all the while glancing about in order to catch sight of Shinsou again. Shinsou, who'd said he wasn't here to make friends (and so presented no threat to Takashi's own delicate sense of order) but now wanted to be on a team with Takashi – and, obviously, with Tsukiko too. But mostly Takashi. Maybe.
Takashi himself had had no intentions of making friends either. He had to remind himself of it. He had no intentions of making friends even though he did really hope Shinsou would make it into the second round.
For the way Takashi had gotten all flustered, Tsukiko was grateful. She probably shouldn't have been. But she was. Because being there for Takashi when he had to tumble through social situations – even if she herself didn't have too much of an idea about making friends – made Tsukiko a whole lot less nervous about combat situations. Like this Sports Festival, and the way Bakugo had been throwing smirking glares her way for the entire morning. It, Takashi being dumb, was a nice distraction.
It also left happy niggles in Tsukiko's stomach that her brother finally liked somebody enough to bother with them.
Even though she'd originally wanted to be on a team with Mina and Kirishima and maybe also Uraraka, she didn't mind being on a team with Shinsou if it meant Takashi would be on a team with Shinsou too.
Of course, Mina would probably be disappointed. The two of them had made several grand plans in the nights leading up to this day. But it would be fine. Mina had lots of friends she could team up with. And Tsukiko, liking Shinsou as she did (or, at least, all the things Takashi had told her about him – which was a lot, and which was often very detailed), figured it would probably still be as cool as teaming up with Mina anyway.
There was always next year. And there would always be other team exercises.
Tsukiko rocked onto her toes, feeling the gum in her pocket. Her hands were shaking. Her chest hurt – as much as Takashi's did? Possibly more, considering how much of an aching it sent through her lungs to even breathe. And as Thirteen-sensei finished explaining the rules of the qualifier, as the mass of spectators around them began a wild, erupting cheer, Tsukiko's throat constricted with the threat of tears. They went to take their places, green lights burning into brightness at the top of the stadium door.
Takashi was probably only scared of all the people watching them. He probably had no worries about the competition itself. Tsukiko, on the other hand, began to feel an entirely different fear claw itself down her shoulders. Oh, what she would have done for one of those last two pieces of gum.
A/N: Damn guys. The writer's block has been real for the last while... XD
