Izuku runs out of his room in a panic, unintelligible mutterings spilling straight out of his mouth as he goes through every little moment he can recall and inwardly cringes his way into the fourth dimension. When he spots Uraraka happily humming to a song while twirling around in his kitchenette he screams at her and she has the gal to smirk at him.

"What is this?!" He lifts his scribbled arm above his head, pointing at the accusing digits with an expression of pure horror.

"Morning to you too, sunshine. I'm making pancakes." Uraraka smiles sweetly at him, completely ignoring his question and going about her cooking as if he hadn't even said anything.

"I don't want your damn poisoned pancakes! Explain this thing on my arm, now!" Izuku punctuates his demands by stepping closer and shoving his arm in front of her face.

She gingerly grabs his wrist and pushes him out of her line of sight, tilting her head to a side slowly while raising a deceivingly innocent eyebrow. "Why, it seems like a phone number." Gasping exaggeratedly, Uraraka covers her mouth. "Deku-kun, did you hit it off with the really cute guy at the club?"

Shoving his arm back down to his side, Izuku grunts, unamused, and slumps into a seat by the counter holding his head in his hands. "This is fake, right? He was messing with me because I'm an idiot and he thought it'd be funny to give me some old dude's number, right?"

"Actually, he texted you this morning asking if you were too hungover. It's kind of sweet to be honest." Her giggles go completely ignored as Izuku blanches and gets back on his feet in a flash, turning around and sweeping the little apartment with his eyes in search of the forest green cover of his phone. "Wow, someone's desperate. Relax, I'm joking, you were a bit too out of it to remember your phone number so he wrote his on your arm. The phone is by the TV charging, and I already saved him to your contacts by the way, you're welcome."

He lunges for the phone and scrolls through his contacts and true enough, there's a new 'Todoroki Shouto 3' added to the list.

"What the hell is with the heart?" He shrieks, staring at the screen as if it has personally offended him, his thumb hovering over the delete option but not actually pressing down. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Uraraka shrug with an amused grin gracing her lips as she sets down a plate of fluffy pancakes covered in syrup on the counter.

"Would you rather I put it down as 'Deku's new eye candy'?" Her lilting laughter fills the room and he feels his face setting on fire as he immediately rejects the suggestion.

Unplugging the charger, Izuku throws his phone onto the couch, the fact that the contact remained unchanged and undeleted not going ignored by his accusing thoughts. It's just a number, it's not like I'll ever see him again. He justifies himself, running a hand through his hair and walking back to Uraraka's side.

"Admit it though," She starts again as he's shoving the first bite into his mouth "you enjoyed yourself."

Izuku grumbles, rubbing at his sore head for some sort of relief he knows he won't get so easily. "It doesn't really matter. One fun night with a complete stranger I probably won't ever see again, isn't going to erase all of the years I've spent with Kacchan. It won't make the pain go away and it won't just make me stop thinking about him."

He feels the tears prickle at his eyes as the words leave his mouth, the heavy darkness he's had surrounding his heart and weighing on his chest these past few days, unexpectedly returning with a vengeance. Guilt washes over him like an ice-cold bucket of water being poured over his head, a sinking feeling settling in his gut that makes him feel sick and he has to push the barely touched pancakes away. Suddenly, all of his appetite seems to have escaped him and the slow pull of grief tugs at his heartstrings.

What was he thinking? One night wasn't going to change anything. A random guy wouldn't heal all of his wounds. He shouldn't even be thinking about anyone else right now. For all he knew even if he did start something it would just end the same way. He'd just get hurt all over again. Or worse, he'd hurt the other person, selfishly thinking about the past as if it's ever going to give him anything new. Before the sadness starts to actually spill down his cheeks, Uraraka has turned the counter and is hugging him from behind as he hides his face behind his arms and takes in a heaving breath that shakes him to the core.

"I know it's hard… I just want you to be okay, Deku-kun. Promise me you'll be okay." Her voice is sweet and soft, nothing but a caressing whisper mumbled into his hair that she kisses gently, reassuringly.

As much as he wants to promise her that, tell her what she wants to hear, Izuku can't bring himself to say the words, he just whimpers quietly and shakes his head in an attempt to make the thoughts and the feelings crumble into dust. But he was never good at bottling things up, at hiding his pain behind sweet smiles, because even as he smiled his eyes betrayed him. His heart overflowed with emotion that he couldn't keep to himself and everyone around him suffered for it. This was why he said he needed space, he knew it would hurt his friends to see him like this. Izuku needed time to sort through his emotions until he could face them again.

Unfortunately, life wouldn't wait for him forever. It kept on going without him and, one way or another, he had to get back up on his feet.

Wiping at his eyes, he straightened up and brought a trembling hand to lace his fingers through his best friend's. "I'll be fine, eventually. It's just a little too raw."

Uraraka nods, resting her chin on his head while standing on the tips of her toes. Izuku was a little taller than her, even sitting down. "I have to go to work soon." She tells him, still speaking softly as not to disturb him further, like he's an injured animal that would run away at the slightest of noises.

"How are you not hungover right now?" Izuku manages to joke, cracking a smile as he looks up at her through red-rimmed eyes.

"I'm not a lightweight, like you." She grins in return, flicking his nose playfully then leaving an affectionate peck on his forehead. "Come by the studio today. Everyone's missing you, especially Yagi-sensei."

"I don't know, Ocha…" Izuku's mind immediately offers a crystal-clear image of Kacchan's unforgiving scowl, his cold red eyes staring him down with seething anger he's no doubt been letting fester ever since he ended it.

The break-up had in no possible way been a clean one. It was filled with tears (on his part) and angry denials (on Kacchan's part), shouting and even some broken pictures on top of his broken heart. The frame was still on his dresser, albeit facing down, the glass cracked beyond repair and the photo behind it holding memories that were now bittersweet whenever he looked at them. Kacchan had thrown it to the floor in a fit of rage, saying that if he was willing to throw what they had away so easily, then he might as well do the same. It hadn't been easy though, it had been anything but, heart wrenching, absolutely devastating. As soon as the door to his apartment slammed shut, he'd broken down in incessant tears that only seemed to stop when he passed out from the sheer exhaustion it all brought.

Izuku doesn't know if he is ready to face him yet. He honestly doesn't know if he will ever be ready.

"You can't stop living your life on his account. You can't stop doing the things you love because you're scared he'll be there. It's your life, Deku-kun, you have to stop letting him control it." Uraraka embraces him tightly for a few more heartbeats before finally letting go and giving his shoulders a squeeze. "You're strong, you'll get through this."

Wordlessly, Izuku nods, mumbling a choked 'thank you' before turning around to face her. Standing up, he wraps her in a rib-crushing hug that has her wheezing for breath but she returns nonetheless. "I'll try to go."

Uraraka pats his head, offering him a bright and toothy grin as she steps away towards the door, grabbing her things from where they're sitting on the couch. "I'll be waiting for you then. I miss dancing with you. And that hot bastard hogged you all night until you finally came crawling back because he had to leave with his girlfriend. So rude."

"Girlfriend?" His head whips up out of its own accord, green eyes widening to the size of saucers at the word and she laughs.

"The girl he was with, who happens to be his friend." For some unexplained reason, Izuku feels his cheeks flare and he looks away. "You're cute when you're flustered. You should really give him a call if he's got you this smitten after just one night."

"I'm not smitten!" He shouts after her, but she's already out the door and on her merry way to the bakery she works at during weekdays. Sighing, Izuku slumps back onto the seat, eyeing the discarded phone on the couch from the corner of his eye and scowling at it. "I am not smitten…" He mumbles to no one in particular, maybe the universe, maybe himself, whoever it was, he just had to say it.

Izuku eventually resigns himself to the facts. He got drunk last night, he's terribly hungover and there's a new contact on his phone. That's it. That's all there is to it. No use in dwelling over it further.

He sets about getting his life back together, starting by taking something for his splitting headache then returning to his daily showering habits. After three days of being a mess and a complete hermit slob, that really was one of the things he feels he needed the most. There was nothing like a warm shower to draw out some of the negativity lodged deep inside him, kind of like sweating out toxins but so much more relaxing. Plus, he really needed to scrub that number off of his arm if he wanted to wear any short-sleeves today... If he actually went out, that is.

He then proceeded to make sure he wouldn't actually get fired from his job and unlocked his phone, his heart jumping right back to his throat when it flashes him the guy's number with that stupid little heart at the end of the name. Continuing to scroll, Izuku pulls up Aizawa's number and shoots him a text to let him know he'll be back at the bar tomorrow, now that he's feeling a little better. Emotionally, rather than physically, but again, that's not something his boss needs to know.

Just as he's about to tidy up his house a little and open some windows to let out the stench of sadness and despair, there's a ding from his pocket that makes him jump in surprise. His brain immediately provides the guy's beautiful face, which is simply dumb because he doesn't have his number so how the hell could it be him to begin with? And it's not like he wants to hear from him again. He was drunk, he just got out of a relationship, and Izuku is not the kind of person to get a rebound. He's better than that.

When he finally shakes the thoughts out of his head, the guilty cloud hanging over him as they drift back to a head of spiky blonde hair, he finally fishes the phone out to see a message from Aizawa. He sighs in relief before actually thinking about the fact that it's still relatively early (by Aizawa's standards) and him being awake already can't possibly be a good thing. Izuku thinks he needs another shower already because he starts sweating nervously. Bracing himself, he finally opens the text.

[Aizawa Shouta 10:13 am]

Thank god. Ashido spends more time flirting with the costumers than actually serving drinks, she's driving my business to the ground.

Izuku nearly collapses from the weight suddenly lifted off his shoulders then starts to laugh to himself, imagining the pink-haired girl making googly eyes at everything that moves and probably holding up about half the bar in the process. Maybe it was a bad idea to hand her the shifts after all. He replies with an apology that he only half-means and an assurance that he'll get things back on track as soon as possible. There was a reason why Ashido worked the dead hours. Izuku somehow had the knack to convince people that they needed more drinks than they actually did, all within the limits of not giving anyone alcohol poisoning, of course. Plus, he got really good at mixing drinks after Aizawa showed him the ropes, even getting a little creative with some of them. Some of those experiments ended better than others, but hey, a couple of his creations had actually started to get a pretty popular demand.

Connecting his phone to the speakers, he starts playing a more upbeat playlist rather than the depressing one he's had on repeat for the past few days and starts doing some cleaning, if anything, to clear his mind from everything else as well. Izuku can't resist tapping his foot as he goes along dusting or swaying his hips as he sweeps. Music always played such a big part in his life, infecting him with this desire to just move along with the melodies and flowing with them. Besides, it made cleaning so much more fun. His mother used to love watching him wiggle to some of the songs, bright-eyed and giggly, when he was little, and as he grew up that love for movement just never really went away.

The older he got, the more seriously he'd take every single one of his moves, starting to watch videos online to learn intricate routines until he found someone he could look up to. Yagi Toshinori, or in the business more well-known as All Might, who moved with such passion and all for the smiles it brought to people's faces. He was passionate, driven and he moved with both grace and fervour, displaying an amazing handle on technique that left Izuku breathless. Unfortunately, he was caught in a car accident that left him unable to move the way he used to so he decided to start teaching instead, unwilling to give up on his life-long dream of bringing joy to people through dance.

Izuku fought tooth and nail to get into that school, going against people like Kacchan who'd been getting classes ever since he could walk and seemed to be born with a natural talent. But he wasn't one to give up, through hours upon hours of practice on his own time, Izuku turned his clumsy steps and jerky movements into elegant and fluid ones. And now he was part of the company that All Might himself had founded, performed his choreographies for people all around Japan... It was really a dream come true.

Before he realises it, Izuku has cleaned through his whole house as he reminisces, his stomach bringing his thoughts to a grinding halt as it starts digesting itself from the inside out and singing the song of its people. He finally sits down to eat the pancakes Uraraka had made for him, scrunching up his nose at the chewiness, now that they're cold. They're still delicious, in spite of that, so he continues to near inhaling them to appease his growling insides.

When he finishes the breakfast turned... very late lunch, he's left still quite hungry, so he goes to raid his fridge and finds it empty but for a couple of expired yoghurts and mouldy cheese. With a disgusted grimace, Izuku slowly removes the 'food' items into a bag with the rest of the trash he picked up around the house and puts on some casual clothes to go do some much-needed shopping. Maybe he'll even stop for some coffee and a snack. Yagi-sensei would probably scold him for the overly unhealthy diet he's suddenly adopted but he's emotionally wounded, he needs his comfort food. He'll have to understand.

Gathering his phone, keys and wallet, Izuku's out the door, straight for Uraraka's workplace in hopes of getting free food.

"No."

"Aww, come on Ocha... I'm starving... Feed your poor friend!" Izuku pouts at her from behind the counter as she prepares another costumer's order of cupcakes.

"You want food, you pay for it like everyone else, I'm not encouraging your free-loading habits." She scolds him with an amused half-smirk before turning to the sweet older lady by his side and changing her expression entirely to that of an innocent young girl. Deceit! "Here you go, Ito-san. I hope your daughter's baby shower goes well!" Waving the lady off she turns back to him with a mischievous glint in her eye. "Unless..."

Izuku immediately feels his face fall, this can't possibly spell good news for him. "What." He deadpans, the word coming out more as a statement rather than a question.

"I'll buy you red velvet cake if you come by the studio with me later." There it is, the bribe.

Measuring the pros and cons of this offer, the answer should be clear. On the one hand there's the fact that he misses the place and its people and should really not stay away too long. But then there's the fact that Kacchan will definitely be there, and most likely using the room that he and Uraraka share for their joined practices. He's definitely not going to be happy, and he'll definitely yell at him. He shouldn't go. And yet...

"Red velvet's my favourite..." Izuku grumbles under his breath, eyeing the tasty treat through the glass case, the off-white cream cheese frosting making it glisten with mouth-watering gooeyness. And if Uraraka is the one that made it, it is sure to be moist and melt-on-your-tongue kind of fluffy. "You're evil." She just shrugs, tilting her head at him and wiggling her eyebrows at him. "Fine. I accept your terms, demon."

With a giggle, Uraraka writes down the order for later and then hands him the coffee he actually came to buy and throws in a pity cupcake. "That'll be 300 yen." He hands her the money with a heavy sigh that could easily rival a lovesick girl in a high school romance drama.

"I have to go do some grocery shopping though, I'll be here by the end of your shift." She nods at him excitedly as he waves her goodbye and lets her get back to other costumers just arriving.

He takes a little longer than he expected to get everything he needed, given that his house had become embarrassingly barren of food and other basic necessities when he holed himself up in there. Especially toilet paper, which he used about 98% of to blow his nose over and over again until it was raw as he cried his eyes out. And after putting everything in its rightful place, he looks at the time on his phone and sees that he should probably be headed back out soon if he wants to make it to the bakery on time. He gets his keys again and starts on his way there so that he wouldn't have to actually run, or risk a stream of texts claiming betrayal, now that she'd probably already paid for the cake and he was leaving her hanging. He has to admit it crossed his mind, but he is a man of his word, even if he wouldn't put it past Uraraka to just eat the cake on her own rather than give it to him.

Izuku's mind starts drifting back to the new contact as he scrolls past news and memes on his social media feeds and against his better judgement he pulls up the info and stares at it intently, his lips pulling to a taut line. He ponders whether he should actually do anything with it rather than delete it. If anything, the guy ('Todoroki', the name that he refuses to get acquainted with glares back at him) had seemed nice. Hot as well, yes, no doubt about it, but that's irrelevant. His dance moves weren't the best out there, but he was amazing for any random bystander, which made him think he maybe did this professionally as well. One point that they had in common, and one that weighed heavily in Izuku's opinion of him too, as biased as that may be. He was also clearly friendly, willing to buy him drinks after him acting like an idiot in front of him...

But then again... Why is Izuku even thinking about this? He doesn't even know if the number is real and it might've been that the guy just wanted a... 'good time' if he actually wasn't straight like he originally thought. For all he knows, this is all just a big whole pointless joke. Just like the rest of my life.

As he's about to delete the contact once and for all, lost in his own reverie, Izuku walks face first into something (someone) with an 'oof'. He almost drops his phone to the floor as he backs out of the contact information. He looks up, ready to apologise for his carelessness when his words die completely in his mouth at the sight in front of him.

"You should really watch where y- Midoriya?" Izuku stares with his jaw hanging halfway to the floor at the sheer impossibility of what's happening right now. He blinks stupidly at the guy from the night before, all up in his face and close in broad daylight and even hotter than his alcohol filled brain had remembered.

"Oh my god..." He finds himself breathing out, completely unwarranted and escaping all of his filters between mind and mouth. Especially when he can finally tell that the birthmark on his face wasn't actually a birthmark at all, but a scar that surrounded his left eye completely down to half his cheek in bumpy and rough skin. He was so much more tragically beautiful than I thought. His brain provides against his will.

The guy- Todoroki notices his whole lot of staring and whole lot of not talking and shifts slightly, looking away as a hand comes up to that left side of his face. "Is something on my face?"

Eyes widening, Izuku realises exactly what he means and lifts his hands up defensively in a flash. "Oh god! No, nonono, that's not- I just- I mean- Iwasn'tthinkingaboutyoujustnoworanything. What. It's YOU!" He stumbles over his words embarrassingly and mentally kicks himself bloody pausing for an unbearably long heartbeat before continuing. "T-T-Todoroki-san, right?" He winces at the uncertainty in his own voice and the stupid stutter. What am I? A pre-pubescent middle schooler?!

The g- Todoroki's lips quirk up a little at the corners and he moves the hand over to the back of his neck, mismatched eyes looking at him from a few inches higher as he breathes out a little harder in a semblance of a laugh. "Um, yeah... I was starting to think you'd forgotten my name. You can drop the formality, we're the same age as I understand."

"R-right. S-sorry Todoroki-san..." He raises an eyebrow, probably at the fact that he used the honorific anyway, but it could also be because he just won't stop stuttering. Izuku clears his throat loudly. "Anyway, sorry for bumping into you... Literally... But I'm kind of in a hurry so I have to go." He excuses himself from the achingly improbable embarrassing situation.

"Sure, it was nice seeing you again today. Hope I do so more often soon." Todoroki flashes him one quick and small smile that almost seems a little shy and Izuku's throat closes up. His heart starts jackhammering and his cheeks try to collect as much blood as humanly possible.

"Y-yeah, okay... S-see ya..." Izuku mumbles, hiding his face in the hood of his hoodie vest and side-stepping around him with a nervous laugh.

As soon as he turns the corner he starts bolting it towards Uraraka's work.

NOTE: The second chapter! No actual dancing on this one, unless you want to count Izuku's hip shaking while cleaning xD

Hopefully, you enjoyed that! I've been having a blast writing this AU, it's just fun, so I hope you think so too ^-^
Feel free to leave any feedback you may have!