Approximately twelve and a half years ago...
"Where is that bird brain?" Touya grumbled as he paced back and forth in the devastated classroom. You sat on the scaffolding just outside the building, watching your anxious friend.
"He's probably just running a little late. I'm sure he's fine." You did your best to sound calm; though, you had to admit, you were growing more nervous by the second. As per usual, Keigo, Touya, and yourself had agreed to meet at your secret spot in the abandoned wing of the HPSC training facility; however, after nearly an hour of waiting, your winged friend had yet to arrive. Given his impressive speed, he was usually the first to arrive at your little rendezvous point, but something was keeping him today.
"Man, I hope he didn't get caught by an overseer. We're so screwed if he blabs." Touya ranted, running a hand roughly through his red and white hair.
"Calm down; Keigo wouldn't do that." You reassured him. "Maybe it's the opposite. Maybe he needed to wait for the coast to be clear before leaving." Though your words were meant for Touya, they also served to convince yourself that everything was fine. You trusted Keigo, of course, but you couldn't help but wonder and worry about what was taking him so long.
Touya sighed. "Yeah, I'm sure you're right." He said, releasing his now-messy hair from his tight grip. "Still, he's supposed to be fast, right? It shouldn't take him this long to get here even if there was a holdup." Touya turned to you, and concern showed clearly in his eyes. You smiled at him in hopes it would calm him down.
"Everything is gonna be fine, Touya." You said sweetly. "Now come over here and sit down. All that pacing is making me nervous." You patted the scaffolding beside you, and Touya stopped. Returning your smile, he sauntered over and plopped down next to you, causing the structure to rattle and vibrate.
"Sorry. It's just… this is the only time we can hang out for real. I mean, besides mealtimes, we don't really get to talk, and even then, our overseers are listening." He stated. "I just don't wanna lose this, y'know?"
"None of us do." You said, giving him a friendly pat on the back. "That's why I'm confident that Keigo wouldn't say anything even if he were caught." You affirmed. The worried look on his face didn't fade. "It's not like you to worry about him like this." You pointed out. Touya let out a quick puff of air through his nose and you were unsure if that was supposed to serve as a chuckle.
"Yeah, well, he's my friend, y'know. I don't wanna see him get in trouble because of me." His negative mood was starting to impact you as well, but really, you just wanted to help your friend feel better. "Hey, don't put the blame on yourself. We're all in this together. I'll be shouldering some of the blame if he gets caught, too…" You rubbed his back soothingly, realizing you just put out the idea that Touya's main fear could actually be a possibility. "But he won't!" You added quickly to cover up your mistake. Touya nodded, eyes focused on the ground in front of him. You could have sworn you saw the corners of his lips curl up into a tiny smile. A comfortable silence fell over the two of you before you had an idea.
"Hey, wanna toss Blinky around to pass the time?" You said excitedly, holding up your snail-light.
Touya raised an eyebrow and chuckled. "Blinky? Is that what you're going with?"
You smiled awkwardly, feeling a little self-conscious about the name you'd picked for your nightlight. "Ha, yeah… I'll try to think of something better…"
"No, no, no! I-I like it! Sorry if I sounded like I was making fun of you." Touya said quickly upon seeing your slightly dejected face. "C'mon, let's throw him around." He suggested cheerfully, getting to his feet and offering his hand to you. "Just don't use your quirk to cheat."
You grinned, taking his hand to help you stand. "It's just catch." You giggled. "How can I cheat?"
The two of you positioned yourselves on opposite sides of the room. Though the inner section was dark, the street lights outside were just bright enough to light up the area by the crumbled wall. The fact that the snail glowed would also help you locate it if it were to bounce into the darkness. You tossed Blinky in the air a couple of times to get a feel for his weight before sending him underhand to Touya. Your throw, however, didn't have quite enough momentum to reach him. Touya jumped forward with his hand outstretched to catch the silicon night light.
"Sorry 'bout that!" You called. "I'll give it a little more power next time."
"It's all good." He responded. "Hey…" He began, cocking his arm back to throw the snail back to you. "Speaking of power, how's training been going for you? We don't ever really talk about it, but I know you were having a hard time adjusting in the beginning." His genuine concern touched your heart. You caught the light and beamed back at your friend.
"I'm doing much better! Things are getting easier and having you and Keigo to support me really helps." You chucked Blinky overhand this time. "Flying is still a bust, but putting more force behind my attacks doesn't take as much effort now, and I can lift heavier objects. Mrs. Yamamoto even has me working with hot objects."
"'Hot objects?'" He questioned as the light ricocheted off of his fingertips.
"Yeah." You said as you watched Blinky bounce across the floor. "My quirk lets me control matter and energy. The more matter or energy an object has, the harder it is for me to control it. Mrs. Yamamoto says that heat is just the kinetic energy of particles. You know, like how much the atoms move around and stuff."
Touya bent down to retrieve your toy. He looked as though he were thinking hard for a moment. "So it's like weight lifting for your quirk?" He discerned.
You nodded excitedly. "Something like that. She wants me to work on taking all of the energy out of the objects and moving it somewhere else or turn it into another kind of energy somehow. I don't know if I can actually do that last part, though. Moving energy has always been a bit tricky for me, but Mrs. Yamamoto thinks that it'll be really useful if I can master it. It's just… sometimes she'll bring me metal that's so hot that it glows red! That's a lot of energy to move at once." You looked down at the floor, feeling a bit disheartened.
"Hey, don't look so sad." Touya chimed. "You'll get it down; I know you will! I could help you, if you want. I mean, I don't really get the science behind it, but if anyone knows about heat, it's me. I could even ask my overseer if we can train together sometime." He grinned widely. "Here." He said, passing Blinky back to you. "Why don't you use your quirk to throw it this time."
You eyed him with feigned suspicion. "You sure I won't be 'cheating?'' You joked. Touya rolled his eyes playfully.
"If anything, you'd be making it easier on me. Your last two throws didn't even reach me." He teased, placing his hands on his hips. "Let's hope your quirk is stronger than your arms."
Your jaw went slack upon hearing his trash talk, but you couldn't help the smile that crept its way onto your shocked expression. You released the snail in your hands and he hovered in place between them. Quickly, you pushed your arms forward, sending Blinky hurling towards the boy much faster than you intended. The squishy thing struck him like a rock in the chest. His feet left the ground as he was thrust backward and knocked fully onto his back. The extra momentum caused him to slide backwards across the floor and hit his head against the wall behind him.
"Touya!" You rushed to him and knelt beside him. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to-"
"Shhhh…" He silenced you by placing his finger over your mouth. His eyes were still closed and his lips held just a hint of a smile. "Nice throw." His voice came out strained. He coughed a couple of times as he began to sit up, resting his weight on his elbows. You placed a hand on the back of his head and the other on his arm in an effort to assist. "I am really really sorry." You whimpered.
"You don't need to apologize. It was a powerful throw, and I'm totally fine. You're really strong; that's something to be proud of." He reassured you with a pat on the hand. You secretly wished you could've just taken the compliment, but your self-deprecating brain wouldn't allow it.
"I'm nowhere near as strong as you and Keigo…" You muttered quietly.
"That's not true." He said quickly, blue eyes gazing fondly up at you. Your hand moved to rest comfortably on the side of his head. "We're all here because we're strong. Everyone here is an equal." You smiled softly as he spoke. His simple explanation did help to boost your confidence. The calm way he'd speak to you when you were feeling down was never condescending like the others.
"See, this is why we're friends. You help me feel better without being a huge jerk." You pouted, thinking about some of the other program kids' teasing.
"Maybe the others don't see it this way but in my opinion, we can't work together if we're all constantly thinking less or more of ourselves. We should be confident, but we shouldn't look down on other people either. Even Keigo can be cocky but he's a good guy." Touya surmised.
You chuckled. "I'd kill for that boy's confidence."
Touya looked up at you with eyes that almost reminded you of a puppy. "You've got plenty to be proud of, though, (Y/N)." He said it as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. It melted your heart a bit and you wished you saw whatever it was that he did in yourself.
"Hey, guys! I got- wait, what are you doing?." You nearly jumped out of your skin when Keigo's excited voice came from the hole in the floor. Your fearful reaction quickly turned to embarrassment as you realized the position he'd found you in: your palm on Touya's cheek, his hand resting on yours; it would look like an intimate interaction to anyone who hadn't been around to witness you knocking him over. Heat rushed to your cheeks and you blushed profusely, using your quirk to quickly back away from Touya and into the darkened part of the room. Touya's condition wasn't much better as he scrambled to his feet.
"Ooooh, if I knew it was like that, I woulda knocked first." Keigo teased with a smirk. You involuntarily balled up your fists.
"I-It wasn't like that!" You cried, hoping the dim lighting would hide your furiously flushed face.
Keigo's eyes flickered between you and Touya, but his mischievous smile never faltered. "Uh-huh. Hey, it's cool. We're all friends here." He said with a shrug. Though it was dark where he stood, you noticed he was holding a blue backpack in one hand.
"Shut up, dude. Where have you been, anyway? We've been waiting for you forever." Touya complained, successfully changing the subject.
"Right, right! Sorry I'm late, but I think you'll forgive me when you see what I brought." He swiftly fluttered over to you and Touya, urging the two of you to a brighter spot. Curious, you sat on your knees beside him as he struggled to unzip the backpack in his excited state. "This was a high-risk but high-reward operation. I stood to lose so much if I got caught." He began dramatically. You exchanged a confused glance with Touya as Keigo continued. "Behold, my friends…" Keigo stood and upended the bag's contents between the three of you. A cascade of snack bags and sweets wrappers tumbled to the floor, creating a small pile of goodies. The heap consisted of chips, gummies, crackers, cookies, and a few other regulated snacks.
"Woah!" You exclaimed, staring wide-eyed at the stash before you. You reached your hand out with the intention of picking up one of the bags but stopped yourself short. This felt illegal somehow.
"Dude! How did you get this?" Touya asked. He seemed just as astonished as you were.
Keigo smiled triumphantly. "How do you think?"
"Did you sneak into the cafeteria?" You wondered in disbelief.
"Mh-hm! Well, the kitchen, actually. That's where they keep all this stuff at night."
"We would've been so dead if you had gotten caught." Touya chuckled, still amazed by the amount of food your feathered friend had managed to steal.
Keigo scoffed. "You mean I would have been so dead. No way I would've ratted you guys out, too. Then we couldn't come up here anymore." You withheld a snicker and flashed Touya an 'i-told-you-so' look. He rolled his eyes with a smile and nodded in response. Keigo continued.
"Don't worry, I was careful to keep out of view of the cameras. The kitchen was dark, but I made sure to keep my feathers hidden during my heist."
"You used your quirk to get these? Without seeing where they were?" You asked.
Keigo nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah. I saw them putting a bunch of stuff away one time. It wasn't hard to remember where it was. I just led a few feathers extra sneaky-like into the kitchen and stuffed as much as I could into the bag. I tried to grab your favorites, too, but it was a lot of trial and error."
Touya stood beside his friend and draped his arm over Keigo's shoulder, squeezing him in a congratulatory fashion. "You really came through on this one, Dodo."
Keigo gave Touya a friendly slap on the back. "Well, what are you guys waiting for? Grab whatever you want." He said, motioning to the pile.
With the combined efforts of your hands and your quirk, you began picking up the bags and sorting them by category, putting aside what you wanted to eat right away. Occasionally, the boys would do the same with some of the items you held suspended in the air. At the bottom of the pile, however, was a transparent bag, much larger than the others. You picked it up daintily by the corner and held it out in front of you as tiny streams of water ran down the plastic and dripped onto the linoleum floor.
"Uh, Keigo…" You began in a puzzled tone. "This is a half-frozen bag of raw chicken."
Keigo leaned over quickly and took the bag out of your hand. "Oh! That's for me."
"You got yourself a bag of raw chicken?" Touya asked in bewilderment.
"Well, sure, it's raw now, but if a certain fiery friend of mine were willing to help me cook it…" Keigo replied with a hopeful smile.
"You're an idiot." Touya teased in his usual unharsh tone.
"Awe, c'mon, Touya!" Keigo begged. "I'll owe you one."
"There's no way they won't notice that missing." Touya said, blatantly pointing to the bag.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is what they plan on cooking everyone for lunch tomorrow. " You chimed in.
Keigo scrunched up his nose. "That was probably only one part of it. They can find something else to substitute."
"Take it back, Kei." Touya commanded.
Keigo kissed his teeth and groaned in annoyance. "Man, you guys are no fun." He placed the bag on the floor beside him and leaned back on his hands. His fingers landed on something squishy.
"Huh?" He vocalized, bringing one of his hands forward again. He held up Blinky. "Oh, (Y/N), I think you dropped your snail thing." He gave it a light squeeze, but the snail remained unlit. "Oh, did the batteries die or something?"
You snatched the nightlight from his hands. "Awe, what?!" You squished Blinky's shell, desperately trying to get him to turn on. It was no use.
"Maybe he broke after that last throw." Touya suggested, eyeing the snail curiously.
You sighed sadly. "Dang it. How am I supposed to get back to the dorms? It's pitch black in the corridor."
"My flashlight is in my bag; I can walk you back." Keigo offered, taking a bite of a fruit bar he'd opened.
"No, I'll take them back." Touya said assertively, pulling open a bag of chips.
"What! Why you?" Keigo asked defensively with his mouth still full of fruit bits.
Touya wiped away a bit of Keigo's saliva that had landed on his cheek. "Because I'm not stupid!"
"Yeah, don't think you're getting out of returning that chicken, Mister." You scolded Keigo for his feeble attempt to keep his fowl prize.
"Hey, don't be like that!" Keigo whined childishly. It seemed he was determined to keep that dripping bag of meat.
"Dude, what are you going to do with it anyway? I'm not using my fire for something that stupid." Touya griped, clearly fed up with the winged boy's antics.
Keigo shrugged. "I'd find a way to cook it. I could… uhm…I could just leave it on my windowsill and let the Sun cook it!" He exclaimed. The sad thing was, he seemed genuinely proud of himself. You and Touya stared at him with disgusted expressions and you struggled to suppress a gag.
When you were done hanging out, the three of you stashed your loot behind a flap-like bit of loose plaster in the wall before heading down. In the dark hallway, you and Touya waved goodbye to Keigo as he set off on his walk of shame back to the kitchen. His wings drooped sullenly behind him. Both they, and his backpack, dragged along the floor as he trudged off.
"Awe, he looks so sad." You whispered to Touya, now feeling a bit guilty after seeing your friend so broken-hearted.
"Eh, he'll get over it." Touya replied, shaking his head. The two of you turned around to head in the opposite direction. Touya slunk his arm over your shoulders lazily as you walked. With his free hand, he held a small flame to light up the black passageway. Making this trip alone was usually a bit nerve-racking, considering how creepy this part of the facility was, but having Touya with you made it feel as though you were just going for a casual midnight stroll.
"You're in building three, right?" He asked
"Mm-hm." You nodded.
As you neared the end of the hall, you noticed a hole in the floor. This one was nowhere near as large as the one in the busted classroom, but still had enough room for someone to slip through. Touya removed his arm from around you and crouched down by the gap.
"Careful, it's mostly loose rubble down there." He reached his hand out to assist you and directed his light to the floor below.
"Is this how you get up here? You know there's a perfectly good stairwell on the other end of the building, right?" You told him.
He smiled up at you innocently. "I know that now…"
Once you reached your building, Touya extinguished his flames. The two of you had to be careful to not get the attention of any of the overseers that resided in the same building. You crept up to your door and slowly turned the handle.
"Thanks for walking me back." You kept your voice as quiet as possible as you spoke.
Touya grinned. "No problem. And, hey; I meant what I said before about helping you practice. O-only if you want it, that is." His bashful nature made you smile.
"Yeah, totally." You hummed happily.
"Cool, I'll talk to Mr. Takakage about letting us train together. I hope I can convince him." He whispered.
"Me too. I need all the help I can get." You said.
"Oh, by the way; do you want me to try and fix Blinky for you?" He asked, pointing to the pocket you were keeping the dead snail light. You took him out of your pocket and examined him as best you could in the dark. With a saddened look, you handed him over to Touya.
"You can probably do more for him than I can. Even if you can't fix him, it's really sweet of you to offer."
Just as he closed his fingers around the nightlight, the sound of a door handle clicking came from behind him. Your eyes widened in fear.
"Go, go, go, go!" You whisper-yelled. Touya took off down the hallway towards the exit.
"(H/N)?" Mrs. Yamamoto's voice called sleepily from the open doorway of her room. You immediately directed your attention to her. She was in her late thirties, you assumed; maybe her early forties. At the moment, she wore a white, medium-length nightgown and slippers. Her wavy auburn hair was disheveled. Her door opened outward and, thankfully, obscured her view of your retreating friend. "What are you doing up?" She asked.
"I uh… just uh…" You stammered as you glanced in Touya's direction. He had only just made it to the exit when Mrs. Yamamoto began speaking. Now, he was holding the building door open to prevent it from closing and making noise.
"I uh, just needed to use the restroom." You fibbed finally. Mrs. Yamamoto yawned and smacked her lips a couple of times. In her sleepy stupor, she didn't have the sense to make out your obvious lie. "Alright, then. Go back to bed." With that, she turned around and slowly shut her door. You could see Touya breathe a sigh of relief from the corner of your eye. Giggling softly, you waved a small goodbye. He returned your sentiment before releasing the door and scampering back to his own dorm.
You went into your room and belly-flopped onto your bed, half-wondering if Keigo was actually going to put the chicken back, and half wondering how many kids would get sick from it. As you cuddled up beneath your blankets, you thought about what kind of training you might be doing the next day. One thing was for sure: you were secretly super excited to train with Touya.