Author's Note: LET'S GO SEASON 5!
Also...Nozomi and Shōto? Talking? To each other? In this chapter? More likely than you think. ^^
Chapter 5 is brought to by trademark Todo sass and Nozo snark. Everyone, please be sure to thank the wonderfully supportive friend/beta reader tazdevil and friend Nice I mentioned in chapter 4's author's notes. Between the two of them, I have been able to keep up the motivation to write Nozomi's story instead of keeping her to myself - especially amidst a new, demanding job and the occasional insurrection in my country. I hope Zo's story - especially as it progresses - is able to provide some comfort amidst it all or at least a time where you can take your minds off everything.
Enjoy. :)
2136 February
"Hey, Nozomi. Nozomi. Nozomiiiiiii."
She flipped a page.
"Uuuuu-me-zaaaa-wa Nozomi~"`
It was as if she'd never heard that name before in her life.
"I know you're not actually reading."
Apathetic mauve eyes didn't so much as flicker.
"You always make these weird little faces when you actually read something. You only get that dull look when you're ignoring someone on purpose."
That dull look didn't change as Nozomi pointedly turned to the next page.
"Hey… Umeboshi."
Nozomi glanced over the top of her book coolly to meet mischievous brown eyes, bright as copper coins. The pink-haired girl had no right to grin so proudly while she said, "Get it? Ume like your name. Plus super small and sour and salty - like you."
Nozomi returned to her book, Grotesque by Kirino Natsuo. Her tone was crisp. "Your poor excuse for Japanese won't get any better if you keep talking to the only English speaker at school."
"But I like talking to you."
"Your voice is annoying."
"Aww, c'mon, don't be like that." Yukari languidly stretched her upper body out across Nozomi's desk. Nozomi immediately recoiled from the almost touch. Unbothered, the other girl leaned her head against her arms and met Nozomi's blatant frown with an amused half smile. "I like being around you. Know why?"
"I don't care," she deadpanned, lifting her book so it shielded her face. It made Yukari laugh.
"You're so…" Yukari's eyes wandered as she searched for a word, eventually looking out the window, where white flurries scattered across the schoolyard. "You're like snow."
Nozomi said nothing.
"Cold, even kinda harsh sometimes. But soft and pretty. It's actually like this protective layer - keeping even colder temperatures from hurting tree roots. I heard somewhere it actually keeps autumn's seeds safe and warm until spring comes." Yukari leaned a cheek into her hand, looking up at her. "I dunno what it is that made you put up this 'protective' layer or what'll finally thaw you out but I wanna be there when it does. I can just tell there's something inside you waiting to sprout."
Her face was still hidden but Yukari saw the way her grip tightened on her book, knuckles protruding. Then, quietly, with utmost seriousness, Nozomi told her, "You are irritating."
Yukari simply laughed. "Yep! But only because I care."
"Go away."
"Ha. Never! You're stuck with me for life, snowflake."
"I will file a restraining order."
Hikyō Station
...a My Hero Academia fanfiction story...
Hikyō Station © Mx. Irony
beta reader: tazdevil
My Hero Academia/僕のヒーローアカデミア © Kohei Horikoshi
第5章
ありがとうを受け入れる方法
"how to accept a thank you"
"memories of a winter day" - Kayou.
Saturday 2138 April 19
12:47 p.m.
Loud in his ears, the panicked students swarmed around them like angered bees. Or gazelles. It reminded Shōto of a documentary he watched once in biology about large groups of omnivores moving in frantic packs to escape whatever carnivore chased them. If one of the group got left behind, that was it - left to the carnivore or stomped to death, their life for the entire herd.
Shōto remembered how cruel it was, how it was the way of this messed up world.
Unless somebody changes it.
Shōto braced his left forearm against the glass, gritting his teeth as the crowd pressed against him. His narrowed eyes searched for the intruders though the window, "villains", and then landed: the media.
This was why everyone was losing their damn mind? Because the media couldn't keep their noses out of UA's business and broke in. Umezawa was nearly stomped to death because their classmates were acting like frightened children, not stopping to think or even bother to see who was beneath them.
He glanced down at dark curls, soft where he held the back of her head. He removed his hand to better brace himself against the window. Umezawa's eyes were closed, face scrunched up mid-wince. Her glasses were gone, fallen off. Without them, he made out the color of her eyes for the first time when they opened.
A soft, gentle purple.
Newly acquainted with a wall, Hitoshi grunted.
A squeak sounded behind him. "Watch it!"
"Taki-chan, he didn't mean it," he heard three familiar voices say. A glance over Hitoshi's shoulder confirmed that Jungyaku (illegally) used her Quirk, her two clones shielding the original.
There's two, technically four. Where was his other classmate? Where was Umezawa?
Taki huffed, clinging onto his shoulders to avoid falling over. "Still hurt."
Hitoshi clicked his tongue. "Let go, squirrel."
"There's nowhere to go!"
"What's going on?" Jungyaku said, shouting over the din. "Is it a villain attack?"
"Villains?!" someone nearby screeched. The false alarm triggered more shrieks and pushing and shoving. It was a frenzy.
Hitoshi felt two sets of hands grab him and pull him back. Suddenly, he found himself behind the slim barricade of Jungyaku's clones. Squished between him and the clones was an irate Taki, her snarls mummfled in his shirt.
Jungyaku's teary brown eyes looked up at him. "Where's Umezawa-chan?"
"I saw her in the drink line," Shinso said, looking around. But there was no hope of spotting the petite girl. He considered Brainwashing nearby classmates to help search for her, but that would only work on people who actually knew who Umezawa was. Too much risk for any hope of a reward.
But there was somebody who could actually create people who knew her...
"Jungyaku-chan, how many clones can you make?" he asked.
"Just the two."
So much for that plan.
"Hang on a sec," was Taki's only warning before the squirrel girl hefted herself out of the Jungyaku barricade and climbed over his shoulders. Hitoshi deadpanned when she balanced herself on his head. Taki grabbed tufts of purple for leverage.
Hitoshi winced. "Hey, squirrel - "
"I see her!"
"Where?" Jungyaku and her clones chorused.
Hitoshi froze.
"She - well." Taki looked down, an awful, mischievous grin on her face. It was the first time Hitoshi noticed she had fangs. Squirrels don't even have fangs… "I think Endeavor's kid is giving her the good ol' kabedon."
"What?"
Taki yelped and clung to the roots of his hair when Hitoshi's head jerked.
"Let go!"
Up close, Kacchan was… He was oddly symmetrical. Yet asymmetrical, a distant, detached part of her noted. His features were even, neatly aligned with each other. But the coloring was all off. The bright contrast made it difficult to focus, her eyes focusing on one color or the other. White eyebrow to red eyebrow, cool gray eye to glacial blue, smooth complexion to bright, surprisingly textured splattered red. The boy's birth mark scattered beyond neat lines, crimson freckling around the main part surrounding his eye. An explosion of color on his otherwise fair skin - like the paint splatters Yukari made while cleaning her brushes.
These are the thoughts that distracted her even as she felt like a mouse cornered by a looming cat.
Pressed so close to him, closer than she'd ever been to anyone besides family and a select few precious friends, Nozomi could feel a gentle chill emanating from him as she had during the door incident. Now, though, there was a gentle press of warmth accompanying it...on his left side. Like the rest of him, it was as though someone had separated the boy into two separate halves.
Remembering the glaciers, Nozomi stiffly leaned away from his right - inadvertently pressing closer to his warmer left side, closer to the citrus and sandalwood.
She peered around his arm, dark eyebrows furrowed, and watched the frightened masses behind the hero boy's broad back. There was no escape.
Nozomi grimaced. I'm trapped.
"Are you alright?"
Nozomi's internal screaming came to a screeching halt. Mechanically, she turned her head to look up at Kacchan.
"H...huh?"
"Are you alright?"
The gears creaked against one another in her head, processing. "S-sorry."
A slow, confused blink.
Nozomi offered a grimace of a smile, trying (and failing) for the cheery American impression. "Sorry. I actually don't speak Japanese. Aha. Ahahaha."
"I know you speak Japanese."
Suddenly, she wanted nothing more than to have been trampled under their classmates' feet. Unperturbed, Kacchan continued to stare down at her.
The stare's way worse up close.
"Uh...right." Nozomi's heart hammered; she focussed on his red tie. "We - hey, we take the same train route, don't we?"
"Yes. You've been avoiding me," Kacchan said without pause. "Why?"
Nozomi blinked, looking up at him. It was then she realized that while she could feel the chill emanating off him, they weren't touching. They hadn't been since he removed his hand from the back of her head. Maeve eyes widened, glimmering. "Wow. You're blunt."
Kacchan frowned. "That doesn't answer my question."
A strange, wondering smile spread across her lips.
The crowd surged behind Kacchan, forcing him closer. Nozomi found herself once again squished and even more uncomfortable but now increasingly irritated. Some hero school, she thought. Even the best heroes in the country couldn't protect a building they worked at apparently.
It made her feel sorry for her classmates. Going by their shock, these kids had yet to experience firsthand the failure of the hero justice system.
Kacchan clicked his tongue, nearly inaudible in the packed hallway if not for how annoyingly close he was pressed to her. "They're acting like scared children."
"Well, yeah. Because they are," Nozomi retorted.
Kacchan didn't respond.
Nozomi's eyes flickered upward, briefly meeting the 1-A boy's wintery gaze. A slight crease formed between storm gray and cutting blue, the slight change in his stoic features almost enough to make her avert her gaze, but then Nozomi noticed how round his face was, the fullness of his cheeks under the high cheekbones. It made him seem...softer somehow. Not much different from her own and most other first years.
Despite his huge shoulders and unusually muscular build, the 1-A boy still had his baby face.
Another person rammed into Kacchan. Nozomi's face was crushed into his chest, his clavicle cutting into her cheek. Please don't let my Quirk pull something weird out of weird hero kid…
Blunt or not, she didn't want to take any chances. No one reacted well to having something personal abruptly Pulled out of them. And Nozomi rarely wanted to know whatever truth was snatched from a stranger's psyche.
"EVERYONE!"
"Hm?" The brisk inquiring noise rumbled from his chest, vibrating against the side of Nozomi's face.
She struggled just enough to peer over Kacchan's shoulder, following the noise. "What in god's name…"
A boy floated - floated - above them, like an astronaut suspended in space. Without her glasses, Nozomi barely made out familiar uniform colors and the pale skin of thick calves.
"Who is that?"
"A classmate," Kacchan answered simply.
"No shit," she muttered, squinting for a better look at the floating boy. UA just keeps getting weirder and weirder…
Unnoticed by her, the hero boy flashed her an assessing look from under his fringe.
"EVERYONE!" In morbid fascination, Nozomi watched the floating boy slam against the exit sign - perfectly in line with the pre-drawn figure next to the bright red letters spelling out EXIT. "EVERYONE! IT'S JUST THE MEDIA!"
The surging crowd paused, murmuring. Another voice somewhere down the hall piped up. "He's right! It's just the media!"
"YES. THANK YOU, MIDORIYA-KUN," the floating boy shouted.
Midoriya-kun? Nozomi's eyebrows rose. She wondered just how many oddballs the freckled boy knew.
"THERE ARE NO VILLAINS, EVERYONE. PLEASE EXIT CALMLY IN A WAY BEFITTING YOU AS STUDENTS OF UA."
More murmuring. Then, slowly but in a more organized fashion, the crowd relaxed and gradually dispersed. The weird hero boy pulled back, and Nozomi was finally able to breathe. She found herself leaning against the cool glass, sighing. She looked over her shoulder and saw it was just as the floating boy had said: A group of reporters, the same crazy ones from that morning - the ones that set off the gate's security system and made her and Shinsou late for class. Her English teacher and a dark-haired faculty member she didn't recognize stood in front of them, clearly attempting to de-escalate and escort them off UA property.
But wait… Her brow furrowed, eyelids lowering suspiciously. How did they get in? There was no way those reporters managed to weasel themselves in alone; otherwise, they would have done so this morning when they were first locked out. Someone had to have helped them.
If someone was able to let reporters into one of the supposedly safest schools in Japan, then they themselves could get into UA. And depending on that person's motives…
An uneasy feeling settled over Nozomi. Two weeks into the school year and this happens.
Nozomi turned and jumped when she found the hero boy still there. He stood a safe distance from her, hands in his pockets. She pulled away from the wall and straightened her back, wrapping her arms around her lower stomach. The bag's still intact… With just a bump in the wrong place, it could have been really bad - maybe even causing a stoma injury. I still need to check it.
Nozomi breathed in low. Then she lowered herself in a small bow. "Thank you."
For a moment, Kacchan said nothing. Nozomi's brow knitted together; she peered up at him.
"You should've stayed close to the walls in the first place," he said at last.
Nozomi straightened from her bow. "Pardon?"
His expression remained unchanged, almost indifferent as he looked down at her. "And you should have been protecting your head, not your side."
Subconsciously, she touched her lower side where the ostomy bag was.
The hero boy - the weird, quiet, aloof, grudge-holding, rude hero boy turned his back to her. "Be more aware of your surroundings."
Was that…was that a jab about the door incident? He was seriously bringing that up? Now of all times?
Her right eyebrow twitched. The cold dread of before smoldered, burning into something brighter and furious. Suddenly, her cheeks felt hot, hot, hot. Something swelled in her chest like an inflating hot air balloon. She swallowed the tightness in her throat; it felt like a rubber ball being dislodged from her esophagus.
Nozomi remembered Shinso's words, his comment on how bad she was at standing up for herself, his silent reproachful looks because she spent so much time avoiding the 1-A boy over something so...petty. Petty. It was so petty. And stupid.
This was the same boy she had been so scared of, the one she had changed her entire schedule for and got so nervous about during commutes? A jerk. One who apparently threw freckled boys' things into fountains and held grudge over a petty accident without the decency of confronting her when their shoe lockers were practically next to each other. For God's sake, he'd even run into her at the library and said nothing!
Push yourself.
"You want to be a pro hero, right?" she said abruptly.
Kacchan's head jerked up, whipping around to pierce her with cold eyes. Something fierce and defensive flashed across his expression, features sharpening. "What?"
Nozomi instinctively flinched. She squared her small shoulders and glared up at Kacchan, bracing herself against the oncoming tundra. "If you're going to be a pro hero, you might consider some better manners. Or at least how to accept a thank you."
The 1-A boy said nothing, his lips pressing together in a flat line as his stare bore down on her. Seconds passed without a retort or any untimely, icy demise.
She swallowed again, pushing forward: "You'll get a lot of thanks from people after saving them and… If you brush them off like that, it's just throwing it back in their face. Like what you did for them didn't actually mean anything which is kind of messed up if they're thanking you for saving their life. And shaming them over a mistake immediately after isn't great, either. The first thing any emergency responder's supposed to do is reassure the person they're helping and make sure they're okay, right?"
The full weight of his unblinking stare bore down on her like a glacier. Nozomi forced herself to maintain eye contact, the ends of her blazer's long sleeves clenched in her small fists to keep from shaking. She held her breath.
It was as terrifying as it was...awkward.
"Sorry."
Nozomi nearly fell over, lack of oxygen catching up to her. She barely had time to catch her breath before Kacchan was walking away.
"Wha - ?"
The boy walked away.
Baffled, Nozomi stared after him. What just happened?
They had barely spoken, this interaction hardly constituting as an actual conversation, and he apologized to her twice already. He was a quiet person but even with how aloof he was, that long stare spoke more than words. Words Nozomi didn't understand. And...
He...saved her.
In a school for heroes, in a moment of panic where everyone was looking out for themselves, where she never expected anyone's help, he saved her.
You want to be a hero, right?
As he walked back to class, Umezawa's words played through his head again and again. They had been like a sharp slap to the face, a surprise, yet...oddly familiar. Just thinking of them made his chest feel unusually tight. Where had he heard those words before? Who said that to him before Umezawa?
Umezawa… She was a confusing person. Shōto didn't really understand people but more often than not, he could predict them. But not Umezawa.
Bold, then skittish. Avoiding eye contact one day and glowering at him the next. She lied about speaking Japanese, and then she marvels out loud at his honesty. Her smile then, too, had been odd. He didn't understand that smile, and he didn't understand her.
If you're going to be a pro hero, you might consider some better manners. Her soft eyes hardened into raw amethyst, gaze unrelenting and direct when she faced him. Finally, Shōto finally got to see the expression of the girl who stood up for him last week.
Just what kind of person was Umezawa? Which side of her was the real her?
You want to be a pro hero, right?
Shōto stopped in the deserted hallway. The glass window beside him reflected his left side; the red-haired twin image looked down at its left hand as he did.
Secure behind the privacy of the bathroom stall, Nozomi untucked her shirt and lifted it to inspect the ostomy bag. She lightly poked at the wafer, feeling around it. Finding it completely intact, she sighed. No leaks.
Nozomi slumped against the stall wall. "Thank god…" she murmured.
She closed her eyes, focusing on her breathing.
Today marked the last day of her second week at UA, and Nozomi was already skeptical about the rest of her high school career. A small part of her wondered if maybe she could convince her parents to do virtual learning. Then she could stay home with Meg and just hang out with Yukari, far, far away from weird hero boys with mismatched hair and floating boys and bullying upperclassmen and prissy General Studies classmates and him.
Nozomi covered her eyes, silently thankful not to have heard that obnoxious laugh or a boisterous "I am here." Even if it was expected. Heroes never were where they were most needed, not even at hero schools.
Except the boy from the train…
Nozomi lowered her hand. She could still feel calloused hands grabbing her, snatching her away at the last minute, and the rush of relief she felt before she even realized what happened. She never expected to feel that way.
Safe.
Is that what it would have been like then? Would she even have had a fragment of an idea of what would have happened had someone saved her then, too?Nozomi stared blankly at the ostomy bag, wondering if she'd have even heard of such a thing if it had gone differently.
Doesn't matter.
Abruptly, she shoved her shirt back down and left the girl's room.
It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. None of it matters. Nothing matters -
"Class preeeeeeez!"
Nozomi side stepped before Taki's tackle hug landed. Her squirrelish classmate fell flat on her face, limbs spread out like a starfish. Her auburn tail twitched irritably. Taki lifted her head and pouted up at Nozomi.
"Umezawa-chan!" Jungyaku called out, jogging up to her. Behind her, Nozomi was relieved to find Shinso following behind their classmates at a leisurely pace. It was his placid expression that kept Nozomi grounded while Jungyaku and Taki talked over each other - Jungyaku worried and smothering, Taki chittering away about "kabedon" and something about endeavoring.
"You good?" he asked.
Nozomi's shoulders loosened. She looked from Shinso to Jungyaku to Taki and back again. She changed her mind then. There was no way she was leaving UA.
She smiled slightly. "Yeah, I'm good."
Shinso returned it for a crooked, semi-sardonic smile of his own. He rubbed the back of his neck. "Good to hear."
"Yeah, except now we need to find room in the class budget for some Secret Service," Taki chimed in. "Eh, Madame President?"
Never mind. I'm transferring back to St. Monica's.
4:15 p.m.
It had warmed since that morning, the chill of spring giving way to the first hints of summer. Shinso walked his bike next to Nozomi as they walked down the long path that stretched across UA's campus.
"I still don't know what I'm going to be yet," Nozomi said. "But I think I know what I won't ever be: a reporter."
Shinso made a small, amused noise. "Too bad. Your Quirk would have made you a good fit. Maybe too good."
Nozomi's nose scrunched up. "I don't want to pick something just because my Quirk is suited to it. That doesn't mean me the person would be."
"You're right. You're better suited to be president anyway," Shinso said sarcastically. He ignored the dirty look Nozomi sent him which only made her bottom out push out further, displeased.
The girl hugged her backpack tighter to her chest. "I don't even understand why I was voted in the first place. I'm not the student council type."
"You're a good student and like to read. Can't get much more student council than that."
Nozomi's lips tugged downward. "Student Council is for brown nosers and rule followers. I don't really care about looking good, really, and rules…"
Shinso's eyes slid to her. "You're a rule breaker?'
"Only if they don't make sense. Like putting ice cream in mailboxes. Did you know you can go to jail for that?"
"No one wants melted ice cream in their mailbox."
"But to send someone to jail over that?"
"You're right. Too light a punishment," he said dryly.
"Shin!"
They bickered about ice cream in mail boxes further down the hill. As they neared the gates, the students went quiet. Shinso didn't pause but her gaze lingered, tracing over the crushed remains of the gate which made them late for class just that morning.
Dust.
"Umezawa-chan."
"Hm?"
"The one vote for me," Shinso started. He stopped his bike and looked at her seriously. "It was you, wasn't it."
Nozomi stared at him blankly for a moment, processing. Her mind still lingered on the dusted gate. Then what he said caught up to her. "Oh, no. I didn't vote for you at all."
Shinso deadpanned.
Nozomi continued walking, looping her backpack over her arms. "A rule follower like you would be good for student council but I figured you'd want to focus on hero training," she explained. "So I voted for Mochizuki-kun. He actually wanted this…"
Shinso stared after her, brow furrowed. Long legs quickly caught up to her. "Then why would anyone else vote for me?"
She noted how he asked why instead of who. This made Nozomi frown.
"Maybe someone else has a good opinion of you."
Shinso looked at her skeptically. Nozomi hated it.
Wanting to change the subject, she blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "Want to get bubble tea?"
It was the first time Nozomi invited him to do anything after school. It gave Shinso pause before he agreed in that relaxed way of his - as if the offer hadn't made his eyes widen or put a visible spark in them. Neither of them acknowledged how meaningful the simple gesture was to either, acting as though it were a normal thing for Umezawa Nozomi to invite a classmate to do anything after school instead of rushing home immediately or for Shinso Hitoshi to be invited anywhere by a classmate.
But both knew that it meant a shift in their relationship, from friendly classmates to actual friends.
They passed by Tatooin Station and Nozomi saw him, passing by her in the crowd of UA students. She looked at Kacchan from the corner of her eye, catching a broken fragment of sky in his iris before he looked away.
The boy from the train…
Nozomi recalled the literal glacier in the gym. The chill emanating from him in their first run-in after the door incident and then the surprising warmth she felt pressed against him outside Lunch Rush. She thought about how cold he was, his aloof demeanor, and those winter eyes which...when she was right in front of him, meeting his gaze directly, were too distant to be immediately threatening.
Then she remembered the tabby cat.
In a way, the 1-A boy wasn't so different from how she was in junior high. Cold. Impersonal. Brutally honest. Disinterested in classmates. Apathetic. Detached.
It's actually like this protective layer - keeping even colder temperatures from hurting tree roots.
If Nozomi was like snow, then that boy was no different than the ice apparated by his Quirk. And no one was just "like that" naturally. Megumi wasn't. Megumi was bright and warm and loud and giggly and soft and everything every person was when they were first born into this world. This world that was cruel and cold made people cruel and cold. Like how 22 minutes had turned Nozomi herself cold for so long.
Something made that boy cold.
Watching him merge with the crowd, visible only by his vibrant hair, Nozomi wondered what made him cold. There was more to that person and...she kind of wanted to know more about him.
His name would be a good start.
Author's Note: Nozomi's brilliant conclusion: "Kacchan" is a kuudere.
First. Actual. Interaction. FINALLY. But she still doesn't know what his actual name is. Don't call a story a slow burn unless it takes at least five chapters for your pairing to have their first interaction.
Am I shamelessly exploiting Shōto's mommy issues in this story? In a word, yes. I don't think they're nearly touched upon enough; most if not all the focus is on his daddy issues but Rei is such an important part of Shōto and his life. I look forward to them reuniting so I can write Rei. I think she deserves more development than "tragic mother figure".
General life update since chapter 4: moved across the country again, then back. Fell in love, got engaged. Left school for a bit. Started kickass new job. Moved in with sweetheart. Got two cats. Started therapy again. And now I'm just focusing on my health for a while.
Everyone say hi to my fiancee - who allegedly reads these fics but refuses to review, as she's a self-proclaimed "lurker". Call her out.
Questions of the chapter: For my anime watchers, which season is your favorite of BNHA and why? Manga readers, which is your favorite arc over?