Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

After years of working hard to bulk himself up and keep his weight up Taishiro Toyomitsu is not a fan of slimmer form. No matter what anyone says about it he knows his proportions are off without his fat. His torso’s too long, his hands and feet and head and eyes a bit too big, mouth definitely too wide. He gets chills easily without his blubber. Plus his body is quick to damage getting bruises and cuts and stubbed toes and scrapes at the drop of a hat. He’s also incredibly awkward in his smaller form being more used to the 11’2” height of his fighting fit form and the difference of perspective, reach, and stride in his skinny only 8’2” form just increases his chances of accidentally injuring himself. He also hates feeling defenseless which he more or less is while slimmed down. All that plus the extra expense of the sheer amount he needs to eat in order to properly bulk back up in as short a timeframe as possible is exactly why he doesn't want to use his Spear unless absolutely necessary.

But there are certain circumstances where being in his smaller form is useful.

Like taking public transit from his agency in the Naniwa ward to where his ex-girlfriend from high school lives in the Chiba Prefecture. If he were full sized the train ride would be an absolute nightmare. He’d have to basically fold himself double to be able to use the seats, stay crouched effectively the whole time moving on and off trains which is just murder on his knees, and he’d have to constantly be pulling other passengers out of him if crowded conditions meant that no one could give him enough space to avoid getting sucked in.

If the police or other heroes wanted him to be somewhere well outside of his territory, they at least sent a truck for him to ride in that was slightly more tolerable than trying with a train.

(And forget about buses when he was full sized, the doors were too small and the seats weren't much better if he could even manage to squeeze himself into the bus in the first place.)

As it is, taking the train while slimmed down isn't that bad. He might be chilly and have to duck under too low doorways and such, but it's not miserable. So he’s still in a decent mood when he gets to Tsugumi’s place.

It’s not like it was a breakup with any hard feelings or anything, Taishiro and Tsugumi just ended up going different ways after high school. Tai had his license for hero work and a territory that was ripe for the taking (ignoring that the Naniwa ward had so few competing heroes due to the will of his family) so he just kinda went for it. Not that it went terribly well in his first few years where he skirted the line with starvation while barely being able to keep himself afloat as a solo act before his brief foray into pit fighting to build up some funds. And then getting some decent publicity while working with his friend on the nonsense in Naruhata not too long ago. While Tsugumi went off to university to get her medical degree and a medical quirk use license. The two of them just kinda drifted apart romance wise even if they managed to stay friends. (And it's not like their sex life had been terribly active after that last growth spurt he went through…)

The Tsugumi that answered the door didn't quite match the girl in his memories from their high school days but Tai assumed that time and having a baby would do that. Her pointy ears, piercing indigo eyes, short cropped dark blue hair, and warm brown skin were all the same. But her figure is a lil taller and a good deal thicker. She looks good, especially with the extra weight, it makes her look more mature. The infant in the sling pressed close to her chest couldn’t be more than a few months old and stared at him with the annoyance of a small creature who’d been dozing comfortably until someone decided to knock on the door and make its momma get up.

“Damn, Tai, who kicked your ass?” Tsugumi snorted after taking a good look at him. Her sharp fangs visible in her grin.

Taishiro grinned back, her energy infectious just as it was in the past, “Did ya know there’s animal rights activists that focus specifically on octopi? More of ‘em than ya can shake a stick at either, had to show ‘em what was what when they started causing a ruckus in the seafood market. Burned up way more fat than I’d like, but worth it to keep all my favorite takoyaki places open and unmolested.”

“That’s a new one,” She stepped away from the entrance and waved him in, “come on in, we’ve got snacks if you’re hungry. Mom’s cooking a bunch ‘cause Tamaki’s buddies are coming over later to try and relax before the Sports Festival.”

Tai ducks under the too low doorway and kicks off his shoes, stacking them on top of each other to avoid taking up too much space if other people were planned to be over. He’s only been to this place twice after the Amajiki’s moved out of the Kansai region to be closer to Mr. Amajiki’s new job. The house is nice and in a pleasant neighborhood, but definitely too small for him even in his smaller form. And that’s probably why he hadn’t visited often in the first place, he didnt like having to duck all the time or worrying about being too heavy for the furniture.

Mrs. Amajiki’s snacks have always been a mixed bag, more on flavor than quantity. The Amajikis, other than the missus, all have quirks that either need food as fuel or require a lot of calories to use so they were all fairly big eaters for folks their size. It’s just that the Amajikis have the  ability to eat just about anything and their natural resistance to ingested toxins gave them …odd flavor preferences. The savory sugar cookies are palatable even if they remind him of dog biscuits but the brownies with at least five different spicy peppers in them are certainly an acquired taste. He’s warned off of the oatmeal raisin cookies made with cement as they’re specifically for Mr. Amajiki’s acid reflux problems but he’s encouraged to try the fried bat wings and roasted beetle grubs. 

They chat as they snack, catching up on life events. Taishiro finds out that Tsugumi’s baby daddy is not in the picture after the man fund out that the child is quirkless. His loss. He tells her about his sidekicks and the quirk counseling program that focuses on quirk caused hunger and cravings that Leech wants to start. Apparently, Tsugumi’s baby brother is in his second year at UA and she’s neither subtle nor shy about asking him to keep an eye on his performance at the Sports Festival and maybe give the kid a chance interning with him if he likes what he sees. He doesn't mind, he’s already got a ticket to UA’s Sports Festival and was planning to pick up an intern anyway. 

Besides, that’s exactly what he likes about Tsugumi, she knows what she wants and just goes for it. And she wouldn't recommend her brother if he didn't have something going for him, she’s got more integrity than to try and get her baby brother coasting on some cronyism. She went to Shiketsu too and he knows that the Support course was held to the same standards as the Hero course.

After a while he bids her, little Toki, and Mrs. Amajiki a good night and leaves just as a gaggle of teens arrive. He takes a train to the Shizuoka Prefecture since he does have an apartment there for business purposes and he actually doesn't want to take more trains than he has too. UA’s Sports Festival started tomorrow and he wanted to be close enough to walk to the campus. His sidekicks had already been prepped to hold down the fort in Naniwa on their own for a few days.

The apartment is actually sized for him, for giants in general, so he’ll be comfortable there even if he bulks back up fully. Granted, he wouldn’t be back to full strength before the festival ended, he needs at least four days for that while the Sports Festival only lasts three.

He kicks off his shoes on the threshold and then flops down onto a couch that doesn’t creak under his weight and lets out a sigh of relief. He turns on the tv and digs his phone out his pocket to start placing orders for dinner.

Chapter Text

Tamaki Amajiki hates everything involved with the Sports Festival. 

He hates the crowd staring at him. Hates the publicity of the event, the knowledge that there could be someone on the other side of the world watching him freeze and fail. He hates how competitive his classmates get about it, how much people were willing to try and fuck over future coworkers and comrades for a slight advantage in popularity. He hates that professional heroics is a fucking popularity contest in the first place! How does being encouraged to constantly one up each other help with helping people?!  He hates how the band of his gym pants bites into his sides because all the stress leading up to the event caused him to eat enough to gain fifteen pounds in the past month. Not to mention how queasy he feels between the dread of potential failure and being watched and having eaten far too much to fully load up his quirk for the event.

Tamaki really really wants to go home.

But he can’t. He tried escaping last year and the teachers caught him and forced him back to the field anyway. So the only way to get out of this as fast as possible is to try and complete the events as fast as he can. Whether Tamaki somehow succeeds and suffers the getting moved to the next round or fails and suffers humiliation on camera and gets sent to the benches out of sight of the crowd it will be over either way. (He ignores that succeeding in the events will only prolong his suffering.)

Tamaki’s saving grace is that the first event this year is a maze race. The concrete walls are tall enough to muffle the roar of the crowd and block them from sight if he doesn’t look up. This year he knows well enough to simply not wear shoes or socks that would get in the way. And as uncomfortable as he is about the extra pudge around his waist he rolls up his gym shirt so that it’s hanging around his neck like scarf to keep it out of the way of his quirk.

Mirio’s presence by his side is probably the only thing stopping Tamaki from shaking with nerves. There’s a grin in his best friend’s eyes as well as in the curve of his mouth. This event is great for Mirio too, even if it will take him a lot of concentration to make his way through all the walls without hurting himself or accidently falling through the ground. But Mirio’s been training hard too, he’s got this, Tamaki’s rooting for him to at least make it to the second round this year.

Plus UA caved and got Mirio a bunch of undies made with his hair (Tamaki helped with generating more Mirio hair for them to use) so that they could avoid any more lawsuits after the fiasco with Mr. Aizawa expelling all of the first year students. Tamaki still isn't sure how the man was able to have the clearance to expel students from classes that weren’t even his. And he felt sorry for all the kids who had to go through it too. But… It did end up being helpful for his friend.

The bell rings and Tamaki is off like a shot with legs pumped up with bovine muscle. He leaps and sprouts wings from his back. Flying over the walls would not technically be against the rules but the armed drones waiting to attack anyone who tried are a good deterrent. Tamaki’s flight practice was mostly with chicken wings and chickens are clumsy poor fliers. But the extra effort in training on poor wings did wonders for building up the muscles in his chest and back which makes the bat wings he manifested work like a dream in the tight corridors and sharp turns. Echolocation helps him avoid dead ends as he speeds his way to the end of the maze.

Tamaki ends up being the third person to exit the maze. The first place winner was a kid with a speed quirk from Mirio’s class who apparently just ran as fast as possible until she found an exit. In second place was one of the recommendation students in Tamaki’s class, Amaumi, who’d transformed herself into fog, filled all of the corridors of the maze and reformed at the exit as soon as she figured out she found it. Like Mirio she’d been provided undergarments that work with her quirk this year to circumvent potential lawsuits.

Tamaki’s friends Kobayashi, Hado, and Haya came in tenth place, fifteenth place, and sixteenth place respectively. Kobayashi apparently followed Tamaki’s scent through the maze while their other two friends chased after him as fast as their quirks would allow. 

Mirio was the thirtieth person to finish the maze.

—

Tamaki was glad that all of his friends had made it to the second round. Yes, because it's good for them to get more visibility. But also because the second round is a team event and the thought of having to ask to join a team rooted him to the spot until his friends came over to him. The weight of their expectations is crushing, he doesn't feel comfortable being talked about as the strongest person on the team. Some of the pressure is relieved when Hado contests that he’s the strongest, which is true, sparring matches between him and her tended to go either way or end in draws. He’s faster and more versatile than Hado but she packs the bigger punch and her stamina is better than his.

But his versatility is also why Tamaki is chosen to guard his team’s flag. He’s never heard of a game of capture the flag with five different teams before but then again he was never one for playing team sports with other kids. Tamaki very much isn't a fan of having the most responsibility heavy role on the team but everyone agreed that he’d probably freeze up if he tried to steal flags with a crowd watching. It is however a role in which he actually has the perfect excuse to use his quirk to keep people from looking at him.

Tamaki sits seiza-style with the flag between his knees and from his arms and back sprouts a thicket of brambles from the blackberries and rose hips he ate with his breakfast that shield him from view. As a further deterrent he grows vipers at the ends of some of his branches using the snake venom laced jello that the fruit he’d eaten had been studded into. He has no intention of actually biting and envenomating anyone but most people would be hesitant to try and get too close to snapping snakes. Especially not any students who weren’t in Tamaki’s class and thus don't know how little chance there was that he’d actually bite anyone. The snakes did however provide him with a better range of, admittedly nearsighted, vision that he could see folks approaching from any angle while not being able to see the crowds much farther away and also to sense heat signatures where the extra eyes failed. He transformed his fingers into octopus tentacles, ready to reach out from under his thicket and grab any flags passed to him that are captured by his teammates.

He does not dwell on the fact that last year he wouldn't have even managed to make sprouts under the gaze of the crowds due to his bad nerves. If he thought about it too long, Tamaki is certain his quirk would decide to fail him.

In turn he’s guarded by Kobayashi in his werecat form. The other boy is quick with good reflexes and sharp senses himself. A good choice.

Meanwhile, Hado, Haya, and Mirio tasked themselves with capturing flags. Mirio’s quirk isn’t good for fighting but it makes him hard to tag and pretty decent at dodging. So the girls take charge in clearing the way for him to steal flags and return them to base. 

It did mean that they’re making fewer raids and taking a longer time with their raids than the other teams, but between being better at keeping their stolen flags and Tamaki’s defense their team ended up snagging second place. First place going to the Hero Course’s recommendation students who formed a team all to themselves and made up for having less defense of their stolen flags by making more raids and tagging more people.

When they break for lunch Tamaki almost feels good about their chances until being reminded that the last round is 1-v-1 combat. On a stage. With nowhere to hide and not enough people to keep attention away from himself.

—

Tamaki slogs to the stage like a man condemned. With each step the pit of dread grows in his belly and he’s full body uncontrollably shaking by the time he’s standing in front of his opponent. Present Mic’s voice drills through one ear and out the other and Tamaki doesn't catch a single word as his thoughts scramble sharp edged against the inside of his skull. His gaze bores into his opponent and she flinches at his accidental glare.

The thing is Okabe Midori should be an easy fight for him. They’re classmates so they’ve sparred plenty and worked together in Practical Heroics class. Her quirk is turning into sand and controlling that sand but if her bits get too separated from each other she has a hard time controlling her sand body and it's difficult for her to pull herself together. While he can’t grab her, Tamaki can and has in the past simply dispersed her sand form by manifesting wings and blowing her away. And she knows this, which is why her opening move when the match started wasn’t to turn to sand but to put some distance between them.

It wouldn’t save her if they were sparing in class. There’s nowhere in the bounds of the arena that she can go where his tentacles can’t reach if she stays solid and it would only be a matter of time before he’d grab her and toss her out of bounds.

Of course this isn't a sparring session. This is a match in front of a massively crowded stadium that’s being televised world wide. The weight of the stares and expectations root Tamaki to the spot, his body won’t obey him and his slippery sharp edged thoughts refuse to be corralled. His breathing becomes rapid and erratic and spots start to dance at the edges of Tamaki’s vision. Okabe edges forward saying something that’s lost in the roar of blood in Tamaki’s ears and her stance changes from ready to fight to wary and nonthreatening as she creeps closer to him. Tamaki belatedly realizes that she’s worried about him as his quirk starts to writhe under his skin as it responds to his stress against his will.

The good thing about having spent a year training his quirk until making large and multispecies manifestations was second nature and as easy as breathing is that it's super helpful in a fight. The bad thing about making large complicated manifestations second nature to him meant that Tamaki could do them while panicking. Manifest erupts from Tamaki’s skin in tentacles, vines, talons, wings, shells, legs, and more. It grows exponentially branching off itself as Tamaki’s mind goes… somewhere in the height of his anxiety.

…

…

Later Tamaki wakes in an infirmary bed with the taste of vomit on his breath, the faint scent of Ms. Kayama’s Somnambulist gas in his hair, and a gnawing hunger in his most certainly empty stomach. He’s wearing a PE uniform that wasn’t the one he was wearing originally given how it wasn’t biting into the pudge around his waist. He’s also exhausted in that way that feels like quirk overuse and sure enough Manifest does not respond even though he’s certain that there’s material in his small intestine that is still usable to him.

Damn, he lost control and had to be sedated.

He doesn’t need to see the footage to know that it was probably pretty bad. Even if Tamaki hadn’t been aggressive, he’s pretty sure he hadn’t turned aggressive, there would have been so much of him being generated between his stomach and small intestines being fully loaded up from all the eating he’s done for the event. Not to mention that there… isn't really an upper limit to the amount of mass his quirk to generate. If there was enough of him the sheer weight could have been a crushing hazard. 

Given that there’s no cops in the room and Recovery Girl’s acting like things are fine, even tossing him a pack of gummy bears that Tamaki all but inhales to relive the gnawing emptiness in his belly, Tamaki has to assume that he didn't accidentally squish or smother anyone while he was in kaiju mode. That’s good. He’s not sure if he could handle the stress of causing an accidental death.

He spots Mirio hovering around the door to the infirmary as he’s dismissed. In a flash Tamaki’s best friend is by his side with a bright if tight smile and going over the details of their other friends’ matches. That Mirio lost his own is a given between the black eye and him not mentioning his own fight. That Tamaki also isn't moving onto the next round doesn't have to be stated, if for no other reason due to him growing enough to spill out of bounds while his quirk was out of control.

Still, the two of them can root for the rest of their friends. After Tamaki gets something to eat. His empty belly isn't something pleasant to deal with between the gnawing hunger and the fact that it’ll start aggravating his anxiety sooner rather than later if he doesn't eat something. And he doesn't need any more of that today.

—

Taishiro sits at the edge of the pro-hero section of the stands in his civvies and pays the opportunistic business course student for their entire tray of hotdogs and hands over the one he’d purchased earlier. He’s not personally going to complain if they keep targeting him for sales, he needs the food. Especially if he wants to hit his goal of putting on another two hundred pounds today and go from Pudgygum to Chubbygum at least.

In the arena, it looks like between Midnight and Eraserhead’s quirks they finally get the tentacled monstrosity that Tsugumi’s baby brother transformed into mid panic attack to calm down. Thankfully they managed to get a handle on it before the chimeric mass reached the level of the stands. The kid is carted off on a stretcher, unconscious and with a towel thrown over him given the transformation shredded the boy’s clothing. 

Definitely, the little Amajiki’s quirk is nothing to sneeze at. That kid could become a real monster if he got that anxiety worked on. No pun intended.

Of course the fact that UA decided to put a kid with some rather serious likely untreated anxiety and an overpowered quirk in front of a crowd this big with stuff being broadcasted live? That’s one heck of a bad move. Not an unsurprising move given UA’s typical nonsense in regards to its students but just very blatantly a bad move. Especially during a year where UA was experiencing a lot of criticism for other things. (Seriously, how the heck does an entire grade year manage to get expelled? By one teacher??)

Taishiro polishes off his last hotdog and looks around to find the same business course student waiting with a fresh tray. The price hasn't gone up so the man buys more and exchanges trays again. 

He listens to his coworkers chatter over the end of the first round of one-v-one matches. The recommendation students and a few others were getting a lot of positive comments. There were snippets of conversation about the little Amajiki, folks talking about his potential as a diamond in the rough if anyone had the time to break him from his shyness. A stray question or two of how the one blond kid that loses all his clothes when he uses his quirk even got into UA given his performance.

About an hour later the winners of the second year’s Sports Festival stand up on the podium to accept their medals. They’re a solid crop of kids, but they’ll probably get snapped up fast by folks at the tops of the hero charts for internships. Which is fine, Taishiro’s got his eye on the little Amajiki and he’s pretty sure the boy will pick him too if he’s remembering the kid’s personality right. At the very least a pro familiar to the kid’s family has a better chance with that kid than a total stranger.

A few moments later and Taishiro managed to hunt down Tsugumi’s baby brother and got the kid to take his business card and a few grilled chicken skewers before the kid left.

Chapter Text

Mr. Togata fills the silence of the car with what Tamaki believes is supposed to be distracting chatter. Mirio joins in occasionally but Tamaki can tell that the other boy’s heart isn't really into it. In their own ways Tamaki knows that they both feel a bit like failures. Even if both of them made it a lot farther in the festival this year than they had last year. Which is precisely why instead of going home they’re headed to the best all-you-can-eat buffet they know.

Just… putting off going home to his family just a little bit longer and filling his belly while he’s at it. It’s not that Tamaki is worried about his parents being upset with him about his performance on anything, they aren't that kind of parent. More that he doesn't want to be pitied or coddled right now and that’s exactly what they’d do. They’d tell him that he did his best and that he shouldn’t be ashamed and that when it comes down to the real thing he’ll be able to do what he needs to do. Tamaki loves his parents but they’re just a bit too…understanding sometimes. His sister would probably rag on him at least but he’s still feeling a bit too raw from his fuck up for that just yet.

Plus, he’s miffed at Tsugumi for sending some random ass pro-hero to talk to him! What part of extreme social anxiety sounds like he’d want to chat with someone new on an already stressful day? Ok, technically the guy isn't totally new. He vaguely remembers Tsugumi’s absurdly tall ex-boyfriend but that was years and years ago. And ok, maybe, he’d been at the house the other day but the guy hadn’t stuck around to chat.

The man’s business card is burning a hole in Tamaki’s pocket. He knows that when they go back to school he won't be hurting for internship offers. It doesn't matter how bad his last showing at the Sports Festival was or how ill suited his personality is to his chosen future profession, his quirk is powerful and flashy and limitless. Or it would be in someone else’s hands. Guilt gnaws at his gut as they get out of the car. Mirio won’t have nearly the same opportunities with his quirk and quirk control… he’ll be lucky if he gets one internship offer at all..

It's not fair.

Mirio stands next to him and brushes shoulders with him causing Tamaki to look up and shake off his thoughts. There’s an honest, tired grin on his best friend’s face and Tamaki returns it. For the sake of company, Tamaki can shelve his thoughts of doom and gloom till he’s alone in his room.

The Red Dragon’s Kitchen is a subsidiary of the giant focused Blue Oni Inc, a company that specializes in the production and distribution of affordable foodstuffs to oversized individuals. The company is also a good source of exotic or uncommon if pricier meats that’s been a godsend to Tamaki for training outside of school. The Red Dragon’s Kitchen being a specialty branch focused on cheap all-you-can-eat buffet restaurants for more average sized clientele. Just as an extra source of income apparently. The food’s good for the price since Blue Oni Inc. raises and butchers their own meat, most of what goes to the Dragon’s Kitchen being less desirable cuts too. Plus the place being effectively self-serve also helped keep the price down and make it more appealing to Tamaki in particular. He could just fill up his own plates and grill what he wants at his booth if he’s not interested in any of the trays of pre-cooked dishes and he doesn’t have to talk to a single waitress.

Tamaki ends up eating only three servings and notes how much his appetite has come down now that he’s no longer worried about how the Sports Festival will go since he’d been eating five servings of food for most meals just last week. Mirio manages to match him but ends up getting that uncomfortably stuffed look to him. Tamaki thinks his friend is lucky that he’s got the kind of metabolism that likes to turn excess calories into muscle bulk before anything else. …It’s probably how Mirio ended up so jacked, from being so damn competitive he’s been trying to keep up with the intake of a person with an eating based quirk for years like a dingus. If nothing else it makes Tamaki snicker.

Mr. Togata finishes maybe a plate and a half, more attuned to his limits than his son. Tamaki likes Mr. Togata, the man’s a lot like his son and practically an uncle to Tamaki. Unfortunately Mr. Togata decides to ruin the mood by trying to give both boys a pep talk about their performances today. Mirio laughs it off in that fake way that means he really just wants to get the conversation over with as quirky as possible. Tamaki just stares at his grease stained plates awkwardly until the subject is dropped.

……

It's not as much fuss being at home once Tamaki gets back. He’s able to talk his way out of having dinner with everyone and all the feel good motivational speeches that would incur. Partly by claiming that he’s watching his weight again and needs to lose the pudge he gained from stress eating lately. And mostly that he’s really damn tired and wants to go straight to bed. Which his parents buy given that they saw footage of him going kaiju from stress earlier.

—

Amaumi is glaring at Tamaki when classes start back up. She won first place at the Sports Festival and is one of the top students in their class. The reason she’s not the top student in their class is because Tamaki and Hado both score higher than she does regularly. In written exams and typically practical exams as well. Unlike Hado who had the cloud quirked girl’s begrudging respect, Amaumi really does not like Tamaki. And her dislike of Tamaki is especially prominent after Tamaki has an episode where his anxiety gets the better of him and he does poorly on something he’d otherwise do well in. So her glare today is probably because she doesn’t like how she won without being able to best Tamaki or best someone who’d actually bested him during the 1v1 matches.

It’s weird, but he can kind of get it. Granted at least she doesn’t get in Tamaki’s face about her dislike of him or annoyance about his anxiety like Mirio’s classmate Kenta does. Ever since the teachers started singling out Tamaki and Hado as ‘the most powerful students at UA’ the other boy’s picking on him had only gotten worse. 

Still… Amaumi is glaring at him, he can feel it even when he turns away. He really hopes that she doesn’t come over to say things at him about why she’s glaring. Tamaki doesn’t have it in him to really deal with that at the moment. Maybe not ever. 

Snipe-sensei puts a list of the top students in their class with the most internship offers. Tamaki really wishes the man wouldn’t do that every year. How is this helpful? All it seems to do from Tamaki’s perspective is inflame jealousy and resentment among his peers. Really why did all of this have to be a competition in the first place?

On the board is Tamaki’s name sitting in second place, his number of internship offers in the thousands. The thousands for an ok showing at best in the first two rounds and a complete catastrophic fuck up in round three that just so happened to show off how strong his quirk really is. Just… It's so absurd. He shouldn’t have any offers after doing so poorly. But no because he has such an amazing quirk that’s what people wanted even if the worst person to have it was attached to it.

Kobayashi claps him on the back in congratulations and Tamaki forces a wobbly smile to his face for his friend that he doesn't particularly feel. His other friends come over to his desk and chat excitedly when Snipe-sensei lets them. Tamaki recognizes the gesture as them wanting to include him in their socializing, and most days he’d enjoy it but today he just wants to go home and bury his shame in a pint of ice cream.

……

Mirio got an internship offer?

That’s… surprising. Not that Mirio doesn't deserve every chance in the world to help with his future prohero career, it's just… Mirio’s Permeation isn’t powerful. In fact it was the opposite, the quirk was potentially very harmful towards its holder. Tamaki would never forget the nightmares he’d had after hearing how Mirio’s grandmother lost her left hand from an accident with the Togata family’s shared quirk. Plus, while Mirio did make it to round three he didn't do particularly well in his match…

Certainly good for Mirio that he managed to land an internship this year. It's just… lots of people don’t tend to look past quirks. Especially not proheroes in his limited experience. The whole thing just gave Tamaki a bad feeling. Like someone had offered Mirio an internship for nefarious reasons.

But there’s no way he’d be able to vocalize it to his best friend without it being taken poorly. If there is one sore spot that Mirio has it’s people not having his back in his pursuit of his goal of becoming a prohero. Mirio would be sensitive about it and misunderstand what Tamaki was trying to say. Plus, he’d take the internship anyway since it’s his only offer. They’d even fought last year over the internship thing and Sports Festival performance and Tamaki had no desire to relive that. He hated when Mirio was mad at him.

“So who are you going with?” Mirio asks, looking genuinely happier than he’s had since before the Sports Festival.

Tamaki groans and covers his face with his stack of internship offers. Unfortunately it’s not enough to smother him and end his torment. He lays there on his back on the floor of the living room of the Togata household and sighs. The tv’s turned down low enough that Tamaki suspects that Mirio can only barely hear it. Mr. Togata is cooking dinner in the kitchen and Tamaki knows that father and son will invite him to stay for dinner if he wants. Meanwhile, his proximity with Mirio means that Tamaki can hear the other boy’s heart beat. It's steady and beating a little fast with excitement that still hasn't worn off. 

Reluctantly, Tamaki picks himself up and actually looks through his offers. He takes a pen and immediately crosses out every agency he knows that’s in the top thirties of the hero billboard chart. He doesn't need that kind of publicity. Then he crosses out every hero agency that isn’t in the top one hundred of the hero board. There’s a few nice agencies like the Pussy Cats down there but interning with someone that far down when he doesn’t have to isn't great for his budding reputation. And as much as it still makes him feel like crap, he can actually afford to be picky about this.

Plus, he didn’t want a repeat of last year where he’d simply gone with the first agency on the list and ended up working with a hero that didn’t give him anything he was looking for in an internship. To this day Tamaki still isn't sure why His Purple Highness offered him that internship…

The Fatgum agency caught his eye. That was the dude… Tsugumi’s ex that had given him his business card at the Sports Festival. So they hadn’t been pulling his leg, that offer was genuine. On the one hand, the man isn't a complete stranger which makes the idea of working with him a little less daunting. On the other hand, Tsugumi liked Fatgum enough that they dated for years so the man’s personality was probably as grating as his sister’s. Maybe not in the same way since he looked a lot more bright and cheerful with his light colored clothing as opposed to Tsugumi’s more gothic and punk choices, (not that punk is bad, Mirio’s a bit of a punk) but if Tamaki knew anything about his sister’s preferences this Fatgum is likely an assertive guy down for verbal sparring. Plus he just oozes extrovert and confidence Tamaki notes while looking at the website for the Fatgum agency and the obnoxiously orange building shaped like its owner, (again, not a bad thing most of his friends are extroverted but it can be exhausting).

The Fatgum agency is also practically on the other side of Japan from where Tamaki lives. Which means that if he fucks up outside of costume, he won’t really run into anyone able to identify him… Plus most of the people working at the agency seem to have eating related quirks… Not too many people working there but also it’s not a small agency either… Standard heroics with some experience with folks that have experience taking down drug and human trafficking rings, things that don't tend to be super public, maybe it’s a good match?

“I think… I think I’m going with the Fatgum agency,” Tamaki says, finally answering Mirio’s question after an unusually long pause. 

And thankfully, Tamaki’s best friend knows him well enough to not be bothered by him taking so long to make a decision.

……

Tamaki ignores the smug look on his sister’s face as she looks over his shoulder while he fills out the forms. He can’t wait for her maternity leave to be over so she’s not in the house getting on his nerves as often.

—

The train ride is long and the well wishes of Tamaki’s friends can only warm his heart for so long before his ever present anxiety worms its way through to gnaw on his gut. The idea that his sister and her ex set all of this up as a mean prank is unlikely but not unlikely enough that the thought doesn't pick at him. The thought of not being able to keep up with or being good enough to stand alongside actual professionals with eating quirks also nags at him. How much would he need to eat for patrols? Does his stomach have the necessary capacity? What if he eats too much and throws up?! There’s no way they’d keep him for the whole week if he overdoes it and throws up. Will they ask about his food allergies? Will they make something of it?

For that matter, what about bathroom breaks? Will he be timed?! He hasn’t practiced speed pooping or anything like that, what if he ends up holding up a patrol? He has a spray so that he doesn’t stink after but one of Fatgum’s employees is listed as having an enhanced sense of smell… they’d know if he pooped and how bad it was. And it’s not like summer camp with UA, there’d be no outhouses, he’d have to use the same bathrooms as everyone else and they’d hear him! He’d die of embarrassment!

Not to mention he’d be living with these people for a whole week! Strangers! How will he fall asleep without chemical aid? No doubt UA put the poppy incident in his file, they probably won’t let him near any poppy seed anything. And none of the over the counter stuff works with his metabolism and how his liver processes ingested chemicals. Not to mention that most of the people working for the Fatgum agency are giants, the furniture is all going to be too big for him. 

It’s been almost a decade since Tamaki last lived on that side of Japan. What if he misunderstands something because he forgot the local dialect? Misunderstood someone due to their accent? What if he got interviewed by a reporter after an incident on patrol? Ugh, he might be able to hide behind Fatgum but he has no idea if the man would want to encourage him to talk to peopl—

Wait— how much and what did Tsugumi tell Fatgum about Tamaki and his issues? Like, knowing about Tamaki’s anxiety was a given due to his catastrophe at the Sport’s Festival… but how much did Tsugumi say? Was this all a trap?! Some kind of forced thing to make him work on his anxiety (not that he didn’t want help, it's just…)? Or was it some kinda nepotism (? cronyism?) thing to get him hooked up with folks that will take it easy on him (he doesn’t want to be coddled either, it’s just…)?

All too quickly the train reaches Tamaki’s stop and obligations force him to get off and start walking towards the agency’s address.

……

‘Hey, that kid’s here. He’s staring at our door,’ An electronic voice buzzes out of the speaker on Fatgum’s desk. He turns off the heat for the takoyaki station on his desk and scarfs down the ones that are cooked enough to pick out before hauling himself to his feet. He hums, pleased that Tsugumi’s lil bro actually did choose to work with him. 

He bounds down the stairs two at a time to get to the main lobby.

…Turns out he hadn’t needed to run since Tsugumi’s baby brother was just staring at the door. Had been staring at the door for like five minutes already, according to Tatsuyo. They could clearly see that the boy was thinking hard about something through the one-way orange tinted glass of the agency’s front doors. 

“So. The anxiety is bad bad huh?” Tatsuyo’s text to speech device said as she looked up at Fatgum with a sardonic expression.

“I mean Tsugumi also has anxiety, makes her come off as standoffish, but some medication and working on herself and you’d never know now you’d just think she’s some punk,” Fatgum replied, “I'm sure we can whip this kid into shape. Be a waste not to with his potential.”

“Is his quirk that good? Or are you just doing a favor for your ex. I did hear that she’s single again.” The mute woman asks with her device. Fatgum knows his friend and secretary enough to know that she’s not intending to be judgmental, just blunt.

“Not just his quirk, takes some real guts to have gotten as far as he did in the Sports Fest especially with anxiety that bad. At the top of his class too, which hey, is a lot better than me when I was in school,” Fatgum shrugs,  “I could do a lot worse with a cronyism based pick for an intern, at least I’m pretty sure the kid will pull his weight. Hell, he’s got his shit together a lot more than I did back when my aunt gave me this side of Osaka to run. And I’m not opposed to this causing Tsu to maybe consider starting things back up with me, she is kinda rocking that mom bod…”

Tatsuyo makes a face at him, the very specific ‘Disgusting’ face she makes whenever anyone brings up their sex lives in the office place. Fatgum smirks back at her.

The door’s bell chimes as youngest Amajiki finally makes up his mind to come in.