No one was really surprised when Izuku took to friendship like a fish took to water.
He clung to Hitoshi. From what Tenko heard, they' were together all day at school. Izuku had even started inviting Hitoshi for play dates.
Whether or not Hitoshi was quite as happy about having a friend, Tenko couldn't say. The boy really was quiet and reserved. Didn't smile much, acted a lot like Tenko himself in ways. He also really didn't appreciate the subject of his quirk from anyone other than Izuku.
But Hitoshi hadn't complained, and while he always seemed nervous around any of them, he was always relaxed with Izuku.
Either way, Tenko was glad Izuku finally had a friend who didn't treat him like he was expendable.
He, on the other hand, was not doing so well.
After that first day, Keigo and Rumi started dragging him into their friend group any chance they got.
Tenko quickly learned that friends were very different from siblings. He knew siblings. He had Hana when he was little, and now he had Izuku. He knew how sibling hood worked.
But this whole friendship thing was new and he was completely lost. Especially with Keigo and Rumi.
The friends were constantly bickering and teasing, play wrestling, trading inside jokes. Touya did too, though not as much.
It just felt like these kids had something going, and although they were wrapping him up in it, Tenko wasn't really part of it. He felt like this was the kind of thing that you had to know from the beginning to truly understand.
And Keigo and Rumi were so different from him. They were far more like Izuku, but even not that either. They were completely comfortable, outgoing, loud. He wasn't any of that.
He didn't know what to do with himself around them.
Don't get him wrong, they were really nice and fun. They were trying hard to make him feel included and to get him to feel comfortable with them, he could tell. He think they'd be good friends.
But he didn't know how to be a good friend back. Or how to handle them being good friends to him. Heck, he hardly knew what a good friend was.
Touya, on the other hand, well, Touya was different. As far as personality goes, he was more like Tenko. More reserved, quieter. When he was comfortable with Rumi and Keigo, he was teasing and snarky and stuff, but he wasn't always comfortable enough for that like they were.
And the more he saw Touya, the more he saw similarities between them. In a bad way. He couldn't help but think that Touya had issues, just like he did. Something had gone horribly wrong in his life too.
But he really had no right to ask, since he hadn't said a thing about his own trauma either. He wasn't even sure he wanted to know, anyways.
The first clue was the fact that Tenko didn't find out about Touya's last name until he was called on in class. He thought the name Todoroki sounded familiar, but he couldn't quite place it.
But he did notice Touya just barely bristle at the name.
Tenko knew what it was like not liking your own last name, and it was never caused by anything good.
Either way, he was even harder to draw in as a friend than Keigo and Rumi, because he wasn't even trying. He wasn't near as open. He wasn't so freely trusting.
And Tenko was at a complete loss for what he was supposed to do.
—-
Touya was sitting on the ground in the school yard, playing with his bag strap. He was sat in a shady part of the yard, and halfway hidden by a bush. You wouldn't see him unless you were looking. It was secretly his favorite spot on campus.
He glanced up at the road where cars were pulling up and leaving and kids were loading in. But still nothing on his mom's car. He also hadn't gotten a message from her letting him know why she'd be late.
He sighed and let his head fall forward, wondering what his father would've done with this time to delay her. He hoped it wasn't too bad.
He especially hoped that mom and Shoto were ok.
He heard a familiar voice from a few yards away and peeked over the bush to see Tenko and Izuku walking over to a tweet nearby, neither seemed to have noticed him.
"Alright," Tenko said, looking down at his phone as they both stopped under the tree. "Mom's at a dcotor's appointment, so dad's leaving work a bit early to pick us up, but he's still gonna be a few minutes."
Izuku plopped down on the shady grass and started digging in his bag for something. "Will you finally let me write about your quirk while we wait then?"
Tenko froze where he'd been typing on his phone and glanced up at Izuku quickly. He hesitated for a long moment, hands automatically starting to fidget with his gloves. Izuku blinked up at him, eyebrows slowly furrowing in confusion and concern as he held a notebook he'd pulled out.
Finally, Tenko let his hands fall down and sighed. "I've gotta go to the bathroom right now."
"Oh," Izuku frowned. "Did- did I say something wrong?"
Tenko looked up and gave him a small smile. "No, you didn't do anything wrong. I just- maybe another time."
Then Tenko pocketed the phone and walked off towards the school entrance, leaving Izuku staring concernedly at his back.
Touya stared after him too, wondering what that was all about.
Actually, no, he wasn't wondering, he already had a pretty good idea. Tenko never brought up his quirk, and always dodged the questions if anyone else asked. He also always wore those gloves of his.
Touya had a bad feeling that Tenko was too much like him in bad ways.
Touya sighed and turned back to watch Izuku, who was now sketching something in his notebook. Touya smiled.
Izuku seemed so different from Shoto, and yet reminded him so much of his little brother.
Izuku was a little ray of sunshine, and Shoto is more like a star, barely shining through a lot of darkness. Izuku was awkward and shy, but cheerful and happy. Shoto was more serious and reserved, and still quiet and small even when he was relaxed.
But at the same time, Touya felt like they would good friends. He felt like Izuku could finally be the person Shoto needed in his life. A friend his age to play with, and who he could just be a kid with.
He wanted to introduce the two, but he couldn't exactly invite them to his house, and he didn't feel close enough to Tenko to ask to go over there. And Shoto was tutored at home, so he hardly ever left the house under dad's watch anyways.
Hey wait a minute, had he ever heard of what Izuku's quirk was either? He didn't think he had, which was weird. Little kids with new quirks usually loved to go on and on about their quirks. Except for Shoto, but for obvious reasons.
Touya's gaze caught in some movement and he watched as a blonde, hostile looking kid and two other kids behind him started walking over to Izuku.
"Oi! Deku!" Called the mean looking blonde. Touya felt himself straighten at the yell and the name, and tensed even further at Izuku's fearful jump. This didn't look good so far.
"K-Kacchan!" Izuku said, stumbling to his feet, leaving the notebook abandoned on the ground in favor of not being below this 'Kacchan'.
The blonde crossed his arms. "What are you doing?" He leaned over to see the notebook. "Writing in that dumb hero notebook again?"
"N-no! I- I mean yes, b-but I was j-just drawing."
One of the other boys swooped down and grabbed the notebook.
"Hey! G-give that back!" Izuku said, reaching up and trying to grab it from the boy, but the boy was bigger than him and held it up out of his reach, looking at the pages.
"Who is this supposed to be? Your drawings horrible."
Izuku pouted. "I- it's my f- friend, Toshi."
The blonde raised an eyebrow. "You're drawing that villain?"
"He is not a villain! That's mean, Kacchan!"
"Yes he is, he's got a villains quirk and he's rude!"
"You're rude!"
The blonde glanced around and smirked. "That weirdo of a brother isn't around to protect you, ey?"
Izuku's fists clenched. "Tenko is not weird!"
The blonde held his hand out and the other boy handed him the notebook, then he held it between his hands and grinned.
Izuku reached towards it, panicked. "Wait-!"
The boy tore the notebook down the middle and dropped it to the ground, pages fluttering about. Izuku's watched it fall, devastated.
Touya climbed to his feet, growling to himself. He'd watched from the sidelines passively for way too long.
But he, for whatever reason, paused in his tracks when the blonde kid pushed Izuku to the ground. The blonde stood over Izuku, grinning as the other kids laughed. Then the blonde kids hands started sparking, and small explosions came from his palms.
Izuku stared up at him, terrified with tears in his eyes. "K-Kacchan?"
Before Touya knew it, his feet were planted firmly between Izuku and the other kids, and the blonde was on the ground, now staring up at him.
He was seething, and he must've looked as angry as he felt because the two lackies ran off in fear, and the blonde was staring up at him, a mix of fury and shock and fear on his face.
Touya leaned down and bared his teeth at the boy. "Go on. Run off with your friends and leave Izuku alone before I get really mad," he growled.
The kid shot a glare behind Touya, probably at Izuku, then stumbled to his feet and stalked off, refusing to run in fear like the others.
Touya glared at him as he walked away for a long minute before straightening up and taking several slow, deep breaths to try and calm himself down. Once he finally felt he didn't look ready for murder, he turned to face Izuku.
Before he had eyes on the kid, small arms wrapped around his legs and gripped pants, a face burying into his side.
"Thank you," Izuku squeaked, voice muffled by the cloth.
Touya hesitated for exactly one second, not quite sure how to respond to the sudden embrace, before deciding to do what the only other little kid in his life liked his to do.
He kneeled down and ruffled the green curls. For Shoto, it was just enough physical contact without being overwhelming, and just teasing enough to help lighten a serious moment. He also had seen Tenko do it a few times to Izuku.
And by the wide, although teary eyed grin he got in response, he guessed it was the right move.
"Sure thing, kid," Touya said, giving the tiniest smile. "Are you ok?"
Izuku nodded, wiping his tears away and accidentally smearing dirt across his cheek from his dirty hand. His palms were red from catching himself on the ground, and his clothes had a bit of mud on them too, but he looked unhurt.
Touya nodded back, then glanced over at the notebook in pieces on the ground, pages scattered about and preparing to blow away with the wind.
He stood up. "How about we clean this up, and maybe we can get it fixed somehow."
Izuku looked up at him hopefully. "You think so?"
"Yeah, it might not be real pretty, but we can tape or glue it back together. Or you could put all the papers in a folder, things like that."
Izuku grinned. "Ok!"
They both bent down and started gathering the scattered papers, but Touya was only half focusing on the task.
He could still feel his hands shaking from the adrenaline, still feel traces of that urge to run, move, help, do something.
He'd only ever felt that feeling before when he saw his father hurting his mom or brother.
And the thing is, that's exactly what he'd just seen.
For whatever reason, in that moment, that explosion kid holding his hand up with explosions, standing over a small and terrified Izuku…
In Izuku he'd seen Shoto.
And in the blonde kid, he'd seen his father.
"K-Kacchan?"
"Dad?"
He didn't make the decision to move. It was like he wasn't in control, and he wasn't sure what was in control.
Instincts? Anger? Fear?
His Body just moved on its own, just like it had so many times before when he'd moved to protect Shoto or his mom.
He sighed. He had a very strong, new found hate for explosions along with fire now. Great.
He paused as something on the paper he'd just been reaching to grab caught his eye.
His name. Messy, colorful, crayon writing, and misspelled, but definitely his name.
He picked up the paper and looked it over.
He wasn't quite sure what to call this, he wasn't completely sure what it even was. It was hard to read or understand most of it, and it was very colorful and decorative.
But from what he could make out, it was sort of notes on his quirk. At the top of the page was his name, and under that, the name of his quirk, cremation.
He remembered Izuku asking about his quirk a few days prior, and asking some questions about it, just like he had with Keigo. He'd done the same with Rumi, too.
A lot of the things he'd told Izuku were in this, along with some of his own observations like the fact that-
Ah, he'd realized the fire burned him. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised, since he did wince in front of the boy and had to put the fire out before it burned him.
In the bottom corner was a drawing of him, or what he assumed was him as a stick figure, holding orange spikes which was likely supposed to be his fire. Beside that was another stick figure holding more fire, but this time colored with a blue crayon, and words next to it.
Wait. Blue fire?
"Touya?"
Touya looked up to see Tenko walking over, glancing between him and Izuku curiously. "What are you still doing here? I figured you would've left by now."
Touya shrugged as nonchalantly as possible, placing the paper he'd been looking at in the stack with the rest of them. "My moms running late."
Tenko hummed, then as he got closer, his eyes finally seemed to land on the stacks of paper both Izuku and Touya were holding, and the few sheets left on the ground. He frowned. "What happened?"
Touya glanced at Izuku, who was placing the stack on the grass. "We'll, see, there was-"
"Touya saved my life!" Izuku saidm running up and hugging a Tenko.
Tenko raised a questioning eyebrow at Izuku, then looked up at Touya.
Touya huffed. "That's an exaggeration, you wouldn't have died-"
"Kacchan was gonna kill me, but Touya saved the day!" He was like a hero!"
Touya opened his mouth to refute that again, but snapped it shut again when he noticed the anger that flashed across Tenko's face at the mention of 'Kacchan'. He clearly knew the name.
Tenko looked up at Touya seriously. "Touya, what happened?"
So Touya told him. About how he'd been sitting off to the side, about how he saw the blonde rip Izuku's notebook and push him, and about how he got in between them and scared the boy off.
By the time he finished, the three of them were sitting back down under the tree, Izuku's papers neatly stuffed in his backpack. Tenko was practically shaking with anger.
"He tried to sue his quirk?" Tenko asked coldly, turning to Izuku who shrunk under the anger.
"W-well, yes, b- but this was the- the first time he's don't th- that! He never tr- tried to use h-his quirk on m- me before."
"So this a normal thing?" Touya asked, feeling his jaw tightening.
"Unfortunately," Tenko bit out. "That brat was Izuku's friend until recently."
"Don't tell I'm and dad!" Izuku pleaded.
Tenko looked at him. "Why not? He tried to hurt you, and he tore your notebook. They'll ask about that, and about why you're all dirty."
"We tell them I tripped!" Izuku supplied. "And, um- the notebook got caught on something and tore."
Tenko narrowed his eyes on Izuku. "Why?"
Touya knew why. It was the same reason he never told mom what dad really did to him while training.
Touya still looked up to his father, despite how much he didn't want to. No matter what, he was still his father, and Touya couldn't dispel that last bit of loyalty to the man that kept him from telling anyone.
If Izuku and that boy used to be close friends, he probably had a similar issue.
But he can't exactly say that without exposing himself.
"Because he's my friend," Izuku whispered, stutter gone. "And he didn't actually hurt me. Please don't tell them."
Tenko tensed and bit his lip, looking conflicted. "But he was going to hurt you. He might try to again, I'm just trying to help you. They'll want to help too, and they can."
"No, no! I don't want to lose him. They'll take me away from him!"
Touya felt himself tense, though forced his body to relax again before either of the others noticed.
There was a long moment of silence before Tenko sighed. "Fine."
Touya stopped listening at that point.
Maybe Izuku had a lot more in common with Shoto than he'd originally thought.