Chapter 3

still Thursday

"Midoriya."

"Huh?" the other looked up from the bowl he was carefully rinsing the noodles in.

"Can I ask you again about something regarding lunch today?"

The shorter one paused briefly, turned his attention back to the hot noodles, and shrugged his shoulders in agreement.

"I think the whole thing is rash. Between you and Bakugou."

The sound of the faucet drowned out Izuku's sigh, flushing his thoughts, and lost in thought, he bit the insides of his cheeks to suppress an impulsive reply. No one seemed to think it was a good thing, NOW that it had become a more serious matter in the first place. All of the "Tell him!" urging friends now frowned in surprise when he told of how Katsuki's reaction to his confession had gone. Probably no one had really expected him, Izuku with a 5+ in PE and the flashiness of a roof batten, to score a date with Baku-bombshell-gou. They might as well have said, "Take rejection, and then move on." The nasty squeeze in the region of his heart signaled that he would have preferred honesty to false spurring.

"That's not a question." Izuku finally remarked quietly, closing the faucet and gathering the cooled noodles into two small bowls.

"And what exactly do you expect from these meetings now?" his friend specified, not taking his eyes off him. "Do you really think he'll change after you've had two dates?"

His tone was laced with concern and doubt, his face, on the other hand, barely showed any emotion.

Midoriya turned away from the sink, and sighed, lost in thought. By now it seemed to him that he sighed more often than he laughed, but he resolutely closed his eyes to what that said about him. He was happy, he was just finding it harder than usual to show it at the moment.

"I don't know." He finally replied, demotivated. Exhausted. "I'm glad he even considered it" He paused briefly "That's honestly more than I actually expected. So I'm going to let it play out. And we're set for Saturday" he concluded, thinking and adding "all day."

A smile finally stole onto his lips after a few seconds when Todoroki didn't answer immediately and his mind wandered. He raised his eyes at the same moment Shouto put the sauce on the table. "Maybe he's already made a plan for what we're going to do."

"What would you want to do?" inquired Shouto.

Izuku's cheeks turned slightly pink at the movie playing unbidden in his mind's eye, and suddenly he found it hard to look his friend straight in the eye. He cleared his throat to stall for time, but Todoroki sensed his discomfort.

"Maybe we should talk more after dinner" he suggested, nonchalantly pouring dark sauce over his portion.

Izuku nodded gratefully and shoved his full chopsticks into his mouth. He had a thousand ideas of what he wanted to do, but he had also promised Bakugou not to do anything he wasn't specifically asked to do. He would probably make an allusion at some points, because he didn't believe the blond would come up with the things on his own that he wanted nothing more than to happen. Just the thought of him asking for a hug, or a kiss seemed further out of his reach than the moon. But he was optimistic that he could steer their conversation so well that it would come down to just those things. And should the situation be completely hopeless, he still had Katsuki's ego playing into his cards. The other was not in a position to refuse a bet, or a challenge.

He silenced his thoughts with a small shake of his head, chewed curiously, both eyebrows raised in anticipation, then grumbled with pleasure.

"It turned out well!" he praised no one in particular. But the sauce had the perfect consistency, and was neither too sweet nor too salty.

"Of course it is." remarked Shouto casually, pouring more sauce into his bowl.

"True. When you eat the same thing four days out of five, it'd be embarrassing if it wasn't perfect."

Izuku laughed, Shouto just hummed in amusement, and for a while nothing could be heard in the comfortable silence between them but slurping and the distant wailing of the kitchen radio.

"My turn to ask questions."

The abrupt question suddenly sounded loud in the room after the lingering silence. Shouto folded his hands in front of his face in a dismissive gesture and looked intently over his fingertips at Izuku, who was stacking the dirty dishes on the side. He said nothing until the table was cleared and he was left sitting alone.

"I wasn't aware that we were acting according to a rubric." He spoke through his fingers. Izuku bypassed him and stretched out on the large green couch.
"You and Momo."

"That's not a question." Shouto quoted him tonelessly, but then cleared his throat cautiously and took a deep breath through his nose.

"We've had a long talk and have come to the consensual conclusion that what we had together won't get us anywhere. It's no use adapting at a time when you're supposed to be evolving." He finally told, deftly avoiding his friend's glances.

"You can also evolve together." Izuku said and folded his hands at the back of his neck.

Todoroki thought about it for a moment, but then dismissed Izuku's objection with a shake of his head.

"The way we've agreed is that we'll continue to be friends. Because-"

"So, not much will change between you." The green-haired man interrupted him, nibbling at his lower lip. Shouto pulled his legs up onto the sturdy chair and sat down cross-legged.

"We'll see. She's still very important to me, and I'd hate for our friendship to grow apart as a result."

"That's something you can't control on your own, unfortunately" Said Izuku, tapping briefly on his cell phone that lay motionless on the table. "It is always the responsibility of two people how well the bond that connects them is maintained. You can take care of your end of the bond no matter how, if the other end breaks, you can only watch it happen." His eyes fluttered to his unlocked cell phone screen. The chat with Katsuki was still open from before dinner.

And his last message had been unread since this afternoon.