Despite Tokoyami's best efforts, he never got any closer as the following day went on to figuring out why what happened during their last session happened.
He'd even asked Izuku to clarify what he had done during their session that night, but the only answer he got was that once he saw Dark Shadow shifting, he'd immediately bolted to the light switch, not even giving Tokoyami a glance in his haste to get the lights on.
Thankfully, although that session went better, Tokoyami was still very disappointed that he was getting nowhere.
Eventually, the day that Izuku told him that his house arrest would be lifted came, and Tokoyami was heading his way downstairs, only partially awake as he wanted to make something quick for breakfast before getting ready for class.
"Hey, have you noticed how Midoriya and Tokoyami have been spending a lot of time together?"
Tokoyami immediately froze after hearing those words, his foot hovering over the last step before the bottom.
Quickly shifting his position, Tokoyami pressed his back up against the wall, ignoring the weird look that Bakugo gave him as he passed by on the way down the stairs.
Unfortunately, with the amount of conversation going on in the common room, it was somewhat difficult for him to pinpoint who was talking about him and Midoriya.
"Dark Shadow, try and see if you can find out who was speaking about us." he said in his mind, broadcasting it to his quirk. "Make sure they don't see you, though."
Even though he didn't get a reply, he could see Dark Shadow come out, carefully turning around and grabbing the edge of the wall with their hands, carefully peeking around the corner.
Surprisingly, even though Tokoyami felt very much out of place with what he was doing, no one seemed to notice his quirk, and after a few minutes, Dark Shadow pulled away from the corner and turned to face him.
"Sero and Kaminari were the ones who were talking about you." they said. "I heard them debating about whether or not to ask you or Midoriya about it."
"Did you see anyone else around them who could have heard?"
Dark Shadow shook their head.
"No, I didn't see anyone near them."
That bit of news was somewhat of a relief to Tokoyami, but the fact that those two were starting to get suspicious was a bit worrying.
Calling Dark Shadow back into his body, Tokoyami took the last step into the common room, thinking about how he was going to get around this problem.
Unfortunately, Sero had noticed him make his appearance, raising his hand in greeting as he and Kaminari started to make their way over.
Tokoyami had a pretty good idea as to what they wanted to talk about considering what Dark Shadow told him, so he subtly looked around, trying to find anything that would enable him to avoid having to speak to them.
The perfect opportunity seemingly soon came, as Tokoyami could see someone walking past him out of the corner of his eye, but as he turned towards them and quickly pulled them aside, he winced a bit when he realized that it was Midoriya, looking confused as he clutched a piece of paper in his hand.
Unfortunately, since the two of them were the subject of their conversation, this didn't stop Sero and Kaminari from coming over, even picking up the pace a bit now that they were in the same place.
"Yo, Midoriya! Tokoyami! Mind if we speak to you guys for a sec?" asked Kaminari, leading the way.
Tokoyami was clearly looking for any opportunity to get out of the impending conversation, trying his best to silently signal to Izuku without cluing the two of them into the fact that he knew what they were talking about.
It may have just been the early hour, but Izuku just didn't seem to be picking up on them, so before Tokoyami could stop him, he nodded.
"Sure, what's up?"
Neither Sero nor Kaminari spoke immediately, the two of them trading looks before Sero finally decided to speak up first.
"So…we've been noticing that the two of you have been spending a lot more time together."
Izuku very quickly realized what was going on, his eyes widening as he looked over towards Tokoyami, who looked quite worried.
"Now, I'm not saying it's a bad thing! Not at all!" said Sero, holding his hands up as he realized he may have come in too hard. "It's just…"
Sero fell silent, gesturing with his hands as he had trouble finding a way to describe what he saw.
"When you two have been spending the last few weeks since the training camp spending almost every night outside after curfew, it's pretty obvious that something's up." said Kaminari, stepping in.
"You're not going to tell Mr. Aizawa about us, are you?" asked Izuku.
"Oh no!" said Sero. "We're not Iida!"
"Yeah, as long as you guys aren't doing anything bad out there, we have no problem keeping it a secret between us." said Kaminari. "You aren't doing anything bad, are you?"
"Oh no, of course not!" said Izuku.
As for Tokoyami, he immediately winced, realizing that Midoriya's slightly panicked tone was not helping their case, as the look that they were currently being given made things clear to him.
"Look, all we were doing outside was meditating." he said, annoyed. "Is that good enough for you?"
Although slightly taken aback by Tokoyami's forceful tone, both of their expressions made it appear that they were okay with his answer.
However, there was one thing that seemed to be on Sero's mind.
"It's good enough for me, but wouldn't doing it inside be just as good? You know, so you don't get caught and get in trouble?"
"We weren't going that far out. Just a little bit into the forest. It was easy to slip back in."
Tokoyami was a bit worried, hoping that neither of them would ask why they were doing it considering he'd made it a point to avoid mentioning that fact.
Despite a small moment of tension, neither of them brought it up, which was a real relief.
Once they were finally left alone, Tokoyami quickly dragged Izuku over to a corner where no one was, turning the boy around to face him as he placed his hands on his shoulders.
"What do we do?!" he said, his voice quiet despite the paranoid undertone. "We were lucky that they didn't ask why we were spending so much time outside, but if anyone else saw us, they're definitely going to be asking more questions."
"Maybe it might be a good idea to just go out and tell everyone. I'm sure they'd be glad to help you out."
"I can't!" said Tokoyami, barely managing to keep his voice low. "I know everyone's been nothing but nice to me, but…every time I think about confessing, my mind goes to the worst places. I mean, what kind of hero is scared of their quirk becoming too powerful?"
"Okay, fine." said Izuku, placing his hands on Tokoyami's shoulders. "Now just calm down. The others are going to start asking questions if they see you freaking out like this."
Tokoyami started, realizing he was indeed getting too worked up.
Releasing his grip on Midoriya, he slowly breathed in and out for a few seconds, his eyes firmly closed before finally opening them again once he'd managed to calm down.
"Alright, I'm good. Thank you, Midoriya."
"You're welcome." said Izuku, smiling. "Now, I've been thinking about the incident from the other day, and honestly, I think it might be best if you go see Hound Dog about this."
Tokoyami clearly did not look like he was in to the idea, but Izuku luckily believed that this was going to be the case, so he'd already had a justification in mind.
"I know you don't want to tell anyone else about what's going on, but I really think this'll be good for you. Besides, I'm beginning to believe that this is something deeper than what our meditation sessions will be able to fix on their own."
Tokoyami opened his beak to argue, but after a moment he closed it again, realizing that Midoriya was right.
"We can still do the meditation sessions, too, if you'd like."
"I'd like that." said Tokoyami quietly. "It may not be the best for me, but…I like spending time with you."
Izuku's smile got even wider after hearing those words, clearly looking happy that he felt that way.
After removing his hands from Tokoyami's shoulders, Izuku was about ready to head off when Tokoyami noticed that he still had that piece of paper in his hand.
"Why are you carrying that piece of paper around?"
"Oh, this?" said Izuku, holding the paper up. "This is just an apology letter for Mr. Aizawa, for the whole fighting incident with Kacchan. I had to write one out before he'll let me rejoin the class."
Tokoyami nodded, completely understanding the reasoning behind it.
"Speaking of class, we should be getting ready before we're late."
Izuku jolted awake, realizing that Tokoyami was right.
As he rushed off, Tokoyami watched him head back upstairs for a few moments before sighing, heading over to make a quick breakfast as he was mostly ready outside of not having his uniform on at the moment.
After dressing in his uniform and heading off to class, Tokoyami waited quietly while the others chatted around him. The only one not there currently was Midoriya, who he assumed must have been running behind judging by how fast he'd rushed off after their meeting earlier. Bakugo wasn't there as well, but that was due to the fact that he had a slightly longer punishment than Izuku had due to being the instigator.
Luckily, he'd soon arrived just seconds after Mr. Aizawa did, handing the note off to him before turning to the class and bowing, apologizing to everyone and promising that he was going to catch up.
After Izuku finally sat down at his seat, Mr. Aizawa stepped up the podium, adjusting some of the papers on top before finally speaking.
"Now that everyone's here, I'd like to go into more detail about the work studies that you all will be beginning soon."
Tokoyami glanced over to where Izuku was seated, noticing the look of surprise on the boy's face as he wasn't aware of them happening due to the parameters of his punishment.
"However, since this is something that you normally wouldn't be engaging in for at least a year or so, I feel that it's best to get a different perspective as to how they work."
Aizawa gestured towards the doorway, which opened as three other students entered the room, all looking very much older than they were.
As Tokoyami regarded the newcomers, he noted the fact that there were two boys in the group, one looking very confident, while the other was the complete opposite, looking like he wanted to be anywhere but here.
Meanwhile, the third person in the group was a girl, and she was clearly bouncing on her feet, looking excited as she watched the class in front of her.
"These three are the top third-year students, who we refer to as the Big 3. Now, why don't you introduce yourselves? Let's start with you, Amajiki."
The less confident one jumped, almost shaking like a leaf as he looked like he didn't expect to get called on so quickly.
His expression soon turned to one of extreme intensity, though, as he focused intently on everyone.
Just as Tokoyami and the rest of the class were starting to wonder what was going on with him, his intense expression broke, returning to the nervous expression he had on before.
"It's not working." he said quietly. "They told me to picture them as potatoes, but I can still see their bodies."
To everyone's surprise, Amajiki whipped completely around, facing the wall.
"I want to go home."
There were some looks of confusion spreading throughout 1-A at the way he was acting, but the girl soon stepped forwards.
"Oh, come on, Tamaki, these kids are fine! They're not gonna be mean to you!"
Despite her attempt to appeal to him, Tamaki didn't move from his spot, so she decided to turn to the rest of the class, gesturing towards him as she spoke.
"Anyway, that's Tamaki Amajiki. I wouldn't worry about him. He's just shy." she said, before pointing towards herself with both hands. "As for me, my name's Nejire Hado, and we're here to talk to you about the work study program!"
It was then that Hado stepped towards the class, distracted as she kneeled in front of Ashido, looking at the horns on her head.
"Ooh, those horns are so cool! Do they grow back? Tell me!"
Ashido was too taken aback by her question to answer, but by that point Hado had walked off, walking towards Mineta as she poked at his hair.
A few more moments passed as Hado continued to frantically ask some of Tokoyami's other classmates random questions, including Tokoyami himself.
"Nejire, you're getting distracted again." said Tamaki, still facing the wall.
Even though her bubbly personality remained, she luckily stopped her incessant questions, returning to the front of the room as she rejoined the others.
Meanwhile, the third person in the Big 3 stepped forwards, his arms crossed in front of him and a smile on his face.
"Hey, all!" he said, waving genially. "The future looks…"
He held his hand to his ear, expecting everyone to give him the rest of the sentence all at once, but everyone was too confused to actually answer.
"It's grim! The answer is grim." he said, scratching the back of his neck. "Wow, tough crowd."
After a few awkward seconds of silence, where most of 1-A were beginning to wonder why students of such high esteem had such odd personalities, the boy finally spoke up again.
"Anyway, my name's Mirio Togata, and rather than just talk to you about how work studies are done, how about you guys all take me on?"
Tokoyami's eyes widened in surprise, as well as most of the rest of the class, none of them expecting something like this to happen.
"Mirio, talking about it serves the same function." said Tamaki. "There's no need to beat up the class to get your point across."
Instead of listening to what Tamaki was saying, though, Mirio looked over to where Aizawa was, who was busy crawling into his sleeping bag.
"Do what you want." he said, zipping the sleeping bag up around him.
Nodding, Mirio turned back towards the class, a determined look on his face.
"Now that everything's all clear, everyone get dressed in your gym clothes and meet us in Gym Gamma!"
Without waiting for an answer, Mirio headed out of the room as Nejire and Tamaki followed close behind.
Meanwhile, Class 1-A all still looked puzzled, no one sure what to do after having something like that thrown on them so suddenly.
Eventually, though, after Aizawa crawled out of his sleeping bag with a sigh realizing that he was going to have to keep an eye on things, the rest of the class followed him outside, making their way towards the gym in question.
As for Tokoyami, he looked lost in thought while he followed the others.
While he was at least somewhat focused on the impending sparring match in front of him, his mind was also partially on the work study ahead of him.
He didn't think actually finding one would be too much of a problem, but with how long Mr. Aizawa told them it would take and how busy they most likely would be, he was worried that it would make getting help for his issues much more difficult.
There was also the fact that Midoriya would also most likely be busy as well, and while he knew that the meditation sessions weren't the best help for him, he figured that they could still be a nice supplement to what he was going to do with Hound Dog.
And speaking of Hound Dog, there was the problem of how to bring up the subject to him, and while whether he would help him or not wasn't the issue (as he was pretty sure that Hound Dog would be more than willing to help), he still did not feel comfortable talking about his issues with his quirk.
Quietly sighing, Tokoyami continued to follow the others as they made their way down the walkways of UA towards the gym, almost missing the worried look that Izuku gave him from off to the side.
Thankfully, he'd caught it, and gave his friend a nod to show that he was doing okay, which Izuku returned even though he still didn't look fully relieved.
Eventually, the class reached the gym, the boys and girls separating into their respective locker rooms as they changed into their gym clothes.
Soon enough, the class stepped into the gym itself to find Mirio standing dead center, stretching himself out as he prepared himself for the sparring match ahead.
Meanwhile, Nejire and Tamaki were standing off to the side with Mr. Aizawa, with Amajiki's forehead once again pressed against the wall facing away from the others.
As the class joined Mirio in the center of the gym, Tokoyami could see Todoroki's eyes widen for a moment before he went off to join the others off to the side.
"Wait, Todoroki? Where are you going?" asked Uraraka, having noticed him leaving.
"I'm not going to be able to participate in the work studies since I didn't receive my license, so there's no reason for me to participate."
Although slightly disappointed that Todoroki wouldn't just be involved with the match anyway, Tokoyami could understand his reasoning so he didn't say anything.
No one else had any issues either, so Todoroki went off to join Aizawa and the other members of the Big 3.
"Ready to go?" asked Mirio as Tokoyami returned his focus to the center of the gym. "Who wants to go first?"
"I will!" said Midoriya, stepping forwards in front of the group.
"We've all fought pro heroes and villains alike." commented Tokoyami. "I think we're all ready for you."
Mirio simply smiled, cracking his knuckles as the class rushed forwards, the big sparring match finally getting off to a big start.