"It's... Tidy?"
Saiki couldn't hide his reaction to the polite compliment for his room's furnishings. Yes. It was tidy. In essence, it was near enough the basics UA provided. Bed, desk, drawers, shelves, desk. The only personal touch his own computer which... Basic was maybe being a bit too complementary.
Drab and lifeless. Personal flair required resources. Time. Money. He had for so long needed to be frugal with spending either. "I... Uh..." He tried not to look as awkward as he felt. The room was drab. Lifeless. Perfunctory. Just like his apartment it was a place he slept. A place of function more than a home.
He had only seen a couple of the other boys' rooms but the sheer disparity between his and theirs. If there was one thing that could be said about both Aoyama and Tokoyami's rooms, it would be that they both displayed their own personal style and preference. It was maybe even the only thing that could be said about both of them. The only quality they shared. Aoyama's was a nightmare of light and sparkles. Tokoyami's a den of dim darkness. They were diametrically opposed extremes. Light and darkness. Saiki knew immediately which he preferred of the two. For however embarrassed Tokoyami was, Saiki thought it was pretty cool. But even for Aoyama's... Saiki might not have seen the appeal, but at least it was something. More than could be said for his own room.
'You're not very flashy. You're kind of lame. Nothing special.'
Mirko's words. Months ago. She had been talking about his aesthetic as a hero at the time but it applied to... It applied to everything about him, didn't it? He thought he had been covering all of his bases in all his time training. Getting himself stronger. Saving up money. Developing an appealing persona that civilians would like. But a personal sense of style? He couldn't afford it. There was no point finding his tastes for aesthetics, it had seemed. There would be plenty of time for that when he became a successful pro. But for not even thinking about it, he had left himself bereft of a significant part of being a hero. Having the right personality was one thing, but an image to latch on to could be just as important for true success. Even his costume was designed to evoke a hero name he didn't even have.
He had nothing.
"I'll need to do a little decorating," he admitted with more certainty.
"Everybody starts somewhere," Mina offered with a disinterested shrug. The kind of response at the centre of his need.
The third floor rooms of the boys' dorm would have been reassuring had they belonged to anyone else. Koda's room was similarly ordinary though had a sense of purpose and preference behind it. Iida's was as bland and stiff as he was. Kaminari's was... Garish. There was one though that looked almost identical to Saiki's room.
Ojiro. The boy who seemed to exist purely as a benchmark for how interesting everyone else was by comparison. Someone looking into his room might have easily thought they were on the wrong floor and were looking at Saiki's room instead.
The inspection continued. Kirishima's room appearing to be half gym. Shoji's empty save for blankets and a floor desk. Which raised the question of where exactly he kept his clothes, not that anyone was keen to ask it. Sato's miniature kitchen. Then to the top floor with the most absurd rooms.
"Okay, no," Saiki stated firmly the second he got a look at Todoroki's room. "Sero's was one thing," and where the hell did that come from for a student he had put on the same level as Ojiro. But that wasn't the point. "How the hell did you actually do this? You can't just turn an ordinary room into a traditional Japanese room in the space of a couple hours! And don't give me that 'I worked hard' shit. I mean look at–" Having made his way through the room as he talked, Saiki grabbed the wooden sliding doors and pulled them open. "Huh." It had seemed implausible at first but after opening them he could see how the other boy had done it. He hadn't fully replaced the doors. The wooden ones were a facade attached to the glass doors behind them so opening one opened both. "Well damn. That's pretty clever." It' might have only been surface level but it was more than good enough to give the right feel and aesthetic.
"Thank you."
"Girls' turn!" Kaminari announced with unrestrained eagerness. The bespectacled blonde who had been at his side the entire time looked less than impressed with him but went along with it for the sake of the good mood.
"Wait wait, we're looking at our rooms now?!" Izuku asked in a sudden panic. "When did we decide that?!"
"Meh, some of the boys got all whiny for looking at theirs when we wouldn't reciprocate," Mina shrugged, turning a gimlet eye toward Tokoyami who looked entirely unrepentant, "So we figured why not?"
"I– We–?! I mean!" Face flushed red, Izuku darted to the front of the group with casual use of her super speed. Good for her, getting used to using it all the time. "I'm not sure I feel comfortable–!"
"It's fine! I'll take a peek and if you left your unmentionables out, I'll stop everyone!"
"I, that's not it! I–!"
"Then it's fine!" The pink girl cheerfully threw open the door, the first door on the girls' dorm second floor. "Oh my god."
Saiki stared, uncomprehending. "Izuku..." All Might. All Might everywhere. Statuettes, posters, an alarm clock, even a cardboard standie. "I knew you were a fan of All Might but... Just, please promise me you don't have a shrine filled with locks of his hair. Just promise me that." He looked at her and saw she had turned a slight shade of green with a thousand yard stare. "Izuku. You're not reassuring me, Izuku."
"Who's next?!" the fangirl yelped more than asked as she moved down the hall to the next door and threw it open. "Oh look! Kyoka's room is full of instruments! Isn't that more interesting?!"
"Wha–?! Hey!" Kyoka protested.
"Oh cool!" Ochako gushed, seeing the very music-themed room, paying very little attention to the awkward girl twirling her earjacks in the doorway. "Can you play all of these, Kyoka?"
"I mean... I'm not as good on the keys..." she mumbled her bashful response.
"Soundproofing too!" Izuku noted, feeling the foam on the walls. "Considerate since we're neighbours and all!"
Saiki's ears perked up. "Soundproofing huh?" he asked with a lecherous grin.
The hearing hero scowled at him. "I don't know what you're thinking but I know I don't like it."
"Meh, you're pretending not to like it but we both know better. You'll change your tune. Heh. Tune. Because music."
"My turn!" another voice announced, the next door opening.
Saiki frowned. "Who said that?"
The crowd moved along to the third room of the first floor. "Wow. It's very... Uh..." Kirishima tried to describe it and failed.
"The exact opposite of yours?" Tokoyami asked quietly.
The redhead's eyes scanned the expanse of pink filled with stuffed animals. "Yeah, pretty much."
"Wow, Ochako," Saiki observed with a whistle. "I kind of figured your room would be cutesy but this is–"
"This isn't my room."
He frowned. "It's not?" Looked to Melissa who shook her head.
To Mina who palmed her forehead. "You can't be serious."
"It's mine!" the voice from before announced proudly. Coming from inside the room. Specifically from an animate tanktop and shorts.
"... Oh. Oh!" he exclaimed, feigning embarrassment for not realising. Which was probably better than embarrassment for the real reason. "Of course! It's, uh..." His eyes flicked to the side, to the name on the door. "Hagakure's room! Ha! Man, you all know how it is, it's been a long day, the crazy things your mind does when you're tired, right?"
"You don't get tired," Kyoka reminded him, and everyone else.
"Right!" he agree with a straining jaw and eyes promising murder as they stared at his sardonic girlfriend. "I could never get tired of learning more about Moru–"
"Toru."
"Toru Hagakure!" With a stiff smile, he turned away and walked back to the stairs, ready to get on with the next floor.
"Does he not know who I am?" the invisible girl asked, affronted.
Momo, bless her, tried to defend him. "He's a very inwardly focused person."
"He's an asshole," Kyoka added.
"He has his moments," Izuku joined in the defense, weak as it might have been.
Kyoka acknowledged the point. "Moments of not being an asshole."
Mina Ashido's room fit her almost too well. Very much pink, but a darker pink mixed with black in wavy patterns. An acid rock aesthetic. Ochako's once again kept to a fairly standard style. Another that didn't have a look of their own, but had a few touches that made it hers. Then on to the third room on that floor...
Saiki, having unintentionally come to lead the charge in this endeavour since his slip up with Hagakure, frowned at the shut door. Katsumi hadn't come along on this room rating escapade. But that didn't mean she got to escape it. He happily shoved the door open and wandered in like he owned the place.
"What the fuck, Saiki?!" the blonde demanded, sitting up in bed.
"You too, huh?" he asked, looking around the shelves, seeing more than a little All Might memorabilia. Not even close to as much as Izuku had, but enough to be noticeable. But while she had a poster of All Might on the wall, she also had a print of... Herself. In full costume, taking a fight pose. "Did you make that yourself?" he had to ask.
"Get the hell out!"
"Maybe when you tell me."
She grit her teeth. "My internship with Best Jeanist, alright?! He did some bullshit image consultant crap, kept saying I looked like a villain and tried to pretty me up. I like this one better. Satisfied?!"
Even Katsumi. Even she knew exactly what she wanted to look like. How she wanted to present herself to the world. How she was comfortable in herself. "Not yet." And despite saying that, he left the room to move on to the next floor.
He heard Kirishima behind him. "Hey Bakugo! Putting yourself right up next to All Might huh?!"
"GO FUCK YOURSELF! GET OUT!"
Next came Tsuyu's room. The frog girl's room was decorated with cute cartoonish frogs, a large terrarium housing several different species of frog inside it. "For research," she explained. "My quirk is pretty broad. If a frog can do it, I can do it, so I need to see what different frogs can do."
And then Momo's room. "... Momo," Saiki said simply, staring at the enormous four poster bed that covered the entirety of the floorspace in the room. There were mere inches between the bed and her desk.
"I thought the rooms would be bigger!" the poor rich girl whined in her defense.
"How did you even get this in here?" he had to ask as he petted his girlfriend's hair as she sought comfort for her embarrassment.
"She worked hard."
Saiki scowled at the unperturbed Todoroki. "Stop. Saying that."
"So that's everybody!" Kaminari announced, looking at his... Whatever Melissa was to him. "Unless our inventoresses want to show off?"
"I think Hatsume already left," Melissa informed everyone. "Said she needed to get back to work an new ideas. And... I'd rather not let everyone see mine if that's alright."
Saiki shrugged. "Your call."
"Dude, you say that right after you barge into Bakugo's room?" Kirishima asked, calling him out on his hypocrisy.
"Katsumi knows what I'm about."
And so, the entire class returned to the ground floor for the results of the great room rating escapade. Due to conspiracy and bribery, Sato managed to win the prizeless title of best room, not that he seemed all that disheartened at the lack of prize. Naturally, the prize was a bunch of beautiful girls praising him for his cooking skills and what better prize could there be than that?
The good mood continued into the evening as the dorm's occupants ate dinner together for the first of many times to come. Many were looking to turn in early and get a head start on the next day, whatever that may entail.
Not all, though.
"Saiki," Izuku said as she chased him to the front door. "You're going out?" she asked, confused. There was a curfew after all.
"Just out into the courtyard," he answered. "Wanted to get a little flight practice in since we can use quirks here without bothering anyone. Did you need something?"
"I was hoping... I need to talk to you about something," she switched her approach almost immediately.
His eyes lowered to meet hers directly. The firm set of her jaw like she was preparing to do something significant. He took a breath. If she was intent on having a serious talk, he might as well get some things off his chest at the same time. "Where?" Places for a private talk were hard to come by in a place like this.
"Outside," she suggested. He shrugged, taking it for as good an option as any, opening the door for her before following her out to the courtyard.
"Man, cicadas are loud out here," the boy commented as he shut the door behind himself. "So... What did you need to talk about?"
She walked further out, halfway to the break in the hedges that marked the end of their dorm property. "I... I wanted to thank you first," she said. "For Muscular." He blinked at her. "That was the name of the villain at the training camp. If you hadn't stepped in, I don't know if Kota and I would be alive. Or... If All for One would have taken me instead. But I also need to say I'm sorry." Her hands balled into fists. "I stayed away, stayed at camp while you were fighting. I should've come back after Kota was safe, no matter what Vlad King said. I shouldn't have left you to fight alone. By the time I realised that, it was too late."
"Still talking like that, even after what Aizawa said," Saiki said with a smile and a shake of his head.
"He had a point," she admitted. "When it comes to what we did in Kamino, he wasn't wrong. We didn't know what we were walking into or care that the pros were already involved. But that's not the same as knowing no one was there to help and leaving you behind anyway. It's a mistake I'll never make again."
"Hmph..." In truth, he wasn't sure how to feel about that. Everything about that, what they had been forced to go through, he was still coming to terms with it in his head. What he should and shouldn't have done. "If I agreed with that, I wouldn't have come after you in the first place. I'd rather do what I did than what Iida did."
"I think most of the class agree with you," she admitted with a weak smile. "Especially after that speech Ojiro gave."
That brought him up short. "What?"
"At the hospital, when we found out what was happening," Izuku recounted. "Kacchan was already set on coming for you. Iida tried to stop her but then Ojiro... He said some things. I think you inspired him a little. But then I said some things and... I think Iida hates me now." She shook her head. "But all that is what it is. It's not the main reason I needed to talk to you."
"Alright."
"There's..." She fought the urge to look away. "I said before, before we went to I-Island. I said I'd been lying to you. Even when I was telling you as much as I felt I could, I was still lying to you. Or at least, not telling you the whole truth. And now..." She swallowed thickly. "You don't know what you did when you took away their chance at taking me, Saiki. And even after he had you, when you had no hope, you still, dammit!" She wiped at her eyes furiously. "No more waterworks! I wish I could say I didn't need you to prove yourself or anything like that but only telling you the truth now says otherwise."
"Saiki... I said I'm All Might's apprentice and how that happened. That was true. But he didn't teach me to use my quirk. I was born quirkless. What All Might did... He gave me his quirk. He chose me to take his power and become his successor."
She told him. From the very start of her journey to getting control of her power, to what little she knew of how the power came to be and of All for One. And as she spilled all of her secrets, Saiki listened stoically. Not moving. Not speaking. Until she was finished. Staring at him. Waiting for his reaction, whatever it might have been.
"Thank you for telling me," Saiki said. The delivery neutral. "I already knew."
Not a reaction she had been expecting. "What?"
"Not everything," he admitted. "But All Might giving you his quirk and all that, that you were born quirkless. It was... What All for One used to try to sway me to his side. Since Search painted it as one of my weaknesses, he tried to make it seem like you were mocking me. Laughing behind my back for how much easier you had it."
"Mocking you? I'd never–!" The protest and refutation died swiftly and suddenly as the girl came to a realisation. "Wait, if you know because All for One told you then that means–!"
"Yeah." A third voice joined them. The deeper feminine voice of Kyoka as she joined them from out of the shadows. "Yeah that's what it means."
"... Oh." This was a turn far beyond Izuku's expectations. She had no idea how to respond to it. No matter how much she wished he hadn't needed to, Saiki had proven how trustworthy he was. Kyoka hadn't. And yet now she knew everything.
"I won't tell anyone if that's what you're worried about," Kyoka said quickly, nervously, "I just... This feels like it's way, way, way, way, way bigger than me so I just wanted you to know that I won't–!"
"It's not bigger than you," Saiki denied her.
"It's an ancient power passed down through the generations, Saiki!" she countered, strained from stress and trying not to let her voice rise. "One set to fight the immortal king of the underworld or some crap! I'm just a girl who can listen well and make soundwaves!"
"That's not all you are at all!" he denied her again, more vehemently. "Kyoka, whether you knew all this or not you wanted to be a hero, and after everything that happened you came back, because you still want to be a hero. You can handle this, because no matter how big something is, heroes have to stand up and deal with it! You wanted to be a hero and you are one!" He let his energy, his intensity abate. "You came to save me, right? After everything, knowing you had no idea what you were walking into, you came anyway. You're a hero. My hero. So stand and be proud."
"He's right," Izuku agreed. "Kyoka, no one even had to ask you to come with us that day. You did it because you didn't want to sit by and let whatever would happen go on if you could do something to make it better. No matter how big it is, we can..."
Izuku's words trailed off mid-speech as she realised what was happening. As she saw Kyoka let herself be wrapped in Saiki's hug. As he stroked her hair soothingly while she let her emotions overwhelm her, the fears she had been holding onto released in a figurative and literal deluge as tears fell from her eyes.
"It was so much!" she whimpered. "I–I didn't know what to do! And the police, they wanted to know everything and-and I had to lie to them and–!"
"Sh-sh-sh," he hushed her softly, "It's okay. It'll all be okay. We'll get through this."
They stood there like that for a good while as the girl who usually masked her feelings behind a deadpan stare let the floodgates open. Her boyfriend comforting her until she managed to get it all out. All the while Izuku was left to stand there watching, feeling like she was intruding on something rather than Kyoka having intruded as had actually happened. But in that moment... Maybe this side of Saiki was new. Maybe it wasn't. But once again she was seeing her preconceptions of him shattered right in front of her eyes.
The hearing hero let out one last sniffle as she wiped her nose and eyes on her boyfriend's sleeve. "You're still an asshole."
"Most of the time," he agreed. He looked at Izuku. "What Kyoka said, it's true for me too. I won't tell anyone your secret. And I've always got your back, especially if it means putting those League of Villains fucksticks and that All for One bastard where they belong."
"All for One is already in prison," Kyoka reminded him.
His lips pursed slightly, his voice remained carefully neutral. "Yeah. He is."
As the three of them returned inside, Izuku couldn't help but ask one last question. "So… If All for One thought he could turn you to his side by saying what he did… Why didn't it?" It took a second to realise how that sounded. "I mean, not that I thought it'd be easy for you to–! I just mean because he's so–!"
"I get it," he assured her, frowning as he felt Kyoka stiffen slightly for some reason. "He said something I knew he couldn't know about me without using Search. It all clicked in my head at once." He smirked at her. "Besides, even if you were mocking me it wouldn't matter. I'll be better than you one day anyway."
She laughed awkwardly. "It's weird that that's somehow reassuring. Despite everything, you're still you." She smiled at him one last time at the base of the stairs to the girls' dorm. "Good night, Saiki."
"G'night."
The two watched her go up, waited until they heard her door close. "You not following her up?" he asked Kyoka.
"What he said, the thing All for One couldn't have known…"
"Yeah?"
She looked up at him, detached herself from his hip to take two stairs up, putting her about eye level, still holding his hand. "Can't believe I'm saying this… After everything you've been doing, knowing how much of a bastard you can be. But…" She gave him just the hint of a reassuring smile. "She'll come around." Her hand released his. "G'night Saiki."
He stared after her as she ascended the stairs. Wondering if she was really that good at reading him. "Good night." Then headed up to his own room.
-(-)-
A/N: This chapter was done a while ago. I've actually got a little bit of a backlog to catch up on right now because... Well honestly, the community here is ass so it rarely feels worth it to post here. But, I spend a whole month updating all my stuff a while back so I guess I'm committed. That said, I'm much more rigorous in posting stuff to Questionable Questing on time. So... There's that.
And of course, this chapter was voted for and seen early by my generous supporters on THE GREAT FORBIDDEN P! Fear the P! Love the P!