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Shouto’s day hasn’t been overly pleasant so far.
It started fine, with a nutritious breakfast and easy morning lessons, but things quickly took a negative turn once the bell for lunch rang.
Aizawa-sensei was in no rush to let them go — something several classmates whined about quite dramatically, and so by the time they all got out into the halls, they had to fight their way through the swarm of hungry students that were also moving in the direction of the cafeteria. Shouto doesn’t like the bustle of people he knows brushing against him, let alone the strangers he shares a school with, and so began his building frustration.
Things only got worse once they reached the cafeteria, with Lunch Rush not having any cold soba left for him. Shouto was forced to choose something different, which led to Midoriya ordering them both large bowls of katsudon that Shouto picked at half-heartedly until he could be allowed to leave.
Then, during a detour to the toilets, Shouto was accosted by several of the less friendly students from the other courses. They called him a manner of names that he stoically ignored, even as he washed his hands with gritted teeth and escaped their presence.
Lessons were practical, and Shouto was against Midoriya practising evasive manoeuvres. With only one misstep, where Midoriya took on a concerned expression and stepped closer rather than further away. A lash of flame, hotter than it would be usually, caught the skin of Midoriya’s forearm as he raised it, and he yelped in a way that Shouto’s brain completely shut down.
Shouto’s flames quenched faster than they’d appeared, and he took a halting stumble away from his friend with wide eyes. Midoriya seemed fine, but Shouto couldn’t help the replay of the pained noise he made, that he made because Shouto attacked him. Nausea built in his throat, and no one had successfully stopped him from escaping to the locker rooms early.
It was all too much. Aizawa-sensei tried to convince him back at some point, but the conversation is fuzzy when Shouto tries to focus on what he said. He remembers the look of quiet disappointment though, and the dismissive flick of his hand as he told Shouto to leave and head to the dorms early.
Shouto didn’t come down from his room all afternoon, or evening, not even for dinner. Someone left a tray outside of his door, so he didn’t go without, and people certainly attempted to talk through the wood, but Shouto ignored them all.
So now it’s the middle of the night, where Shouto has crept painfully slowly, putting all his years of training to walk without noise down the steps and to the shared baths. Really, he could’ve just showered in his private shower, but the allure of a warm bath to relax in ended up being too much for him to resist. No one else is awake, and Shouto is uncontested as he skulks.
Everything is going well until Shouto catches a glimpse of himself in one of the mirrors.
Under the night time lighting, he looks... different. There’s a stony look in his eyes that Shouto is surprisingly startled to see, and the shadows lengthen his face and sharpen his jaw. His grey eye is dull, almost black, but the bright turquoise of his right side glows.
Everything about himself thrown into stark relief, Shouto comes to the damning conclusion that he looks just like his father. Shouto feels more than ever that he caused his mother’s breakdown.
Lost in his mind as he is, Shouto doesn’t notice another student entering the room until he sees him in the mirror.
Kaminari looks different in this lighting, too. Still bright, vibrant, but like a reflection rather than a lightbulb. Like the moon when there’s no sun to shine on it.
It takes considerable effort to turn himself around and face his classmate, the first he’s seen since he- since earlier. Kaminari doesn’t rush him, just shuffles quietly to the next counter and dumps his toiletries unceremoniously. Without meaning to, Shouto feels the urge to say something bubbling up.
“I didn’t expect to see anyone else this late.” Even to Shouto’s ears, the words fall flat and emotionless. Kaminari shrugs, righting a bottle of shampoo before he lifts himself up to perch on the countertop.
“Me neither, man,” his smile is like a reflection, too, when he tries to grin. It’s a side to the teen that Shouto doesn’t think anyone else has seen, and his self-loathing is briefly put to the side in favour of concern. “I don’t like using the bath while other people do, so I come down when everyone else is asleep. Figured I’d make an evening of it, y’know?”
If that was a joke, it wasn’t a very good one. Shouto shrugs back, and with nothing to contest it, the silence lapses back into place.
“What’s got you up and brooding, Oh Ice Prince ‘Roki?” Kaminari breaks it again, just as Shouto is about to excuse himself back upstairs, bath forgotten entirely. “You doin’ okay after earlier?”
“Yes,” Shouto nods, watching as Kaminari bobbles his head just out of sync. “I’m just going to bed.”
Kaminari snorts in disbelief, finally smiling in a way that feels less happy but more real than his starting grin. “Don’t kid yourself, man,” he pokes accusingly at Shouto’s chest, “a guy can recognise self-loathing when he sees it with his own two eyes.”
“What happened was an accident, don’t beat yourself up over it. It wasn’t your fault, but it will be if Midoriya starts crying when he sees you tomorrow.” Shouto can’t respond fast enough to interrupt. “He’s awake, by the way, so you can apologise and hug it out or however you wanna do it on your way back up. Get it out of the way, get it out of your head.”
“What about you?” Shouto butts in when Kaminari takes a second to breath, entirely without meaning to. Kaminari makes a questioning noise that makes Shouto want to elaborate. He isn’t sure what he’s saying, but he’s feeling combative at being so plainly called out, and so he says it anyway. “You talk about me ‘getting it out of my head’ with Midoriya, but who will you do that with?”
Kaminari isn’t thrown off by the rant, annoyingly, just shrugging like it’s water off a duck’s back.
“You volunteering to listen to me yap, ‘Roki?” he asks in a way even Shouto can tell is intended sarcastically. But Shouto can hear the quiet acceptance that no one will listen underneath. And also, he won’t deny he’s feeling petty now.
“Of course,” Kaminari’s face does a complicated series of expressions that lands somewhere firmly indecipherable to Shouto. “You gave me advice, and so it would be uncouth of me to not offer an ear in return.“
“Uh,” Shouto waits patiently, settling himself with his back to the mirror so he doesn't have to look himself in the eye. It's easy to focus on Kaminari gnawing on his lip, or his fingers drumming against the towels he piled onto his lap at some point. “Well, I guess I'm kinda sick of being a class clown. Like, when I'm trying to do better and people only see the jokes I make or the homework I fail?”
Kaminari trails off towards the end, twisting himself away to stare at a wall. It doesn't look like he's uncomfortable, just that he's never put it into words before. Wow, he might be worse at this than Shouto is. He shrugs, and Shouto shrugs back, again.
“I see my father,” Shouto tells him when he never picks the conversation back up. “When I look in the mirror. I see the face that my mother saw when she poured boiling water over me and gave me this scar. Sometimes I hear his voice, too, or hers, telling me that I'm just the same as him. I see you getting frustrated in class sometimes, but I didn't know the reasons.”
“Hey, I hide it well,” Kaminari hops off the counter, landing softly in a way that Shouto's not paid attention to before. He's like a cat, Shouto decides, hiding his pain so he can lick his wounds away from prying eyes.
“I don't think you should have to.” Shouto likes cats. “I'm going to go talk with Midoriya-kun. We should talk more. In the future.”
Kaminari snorts like Shouto said something funny, but he looks more like how Shouto's used to seeing. It might be a mask, or just remarkably quick recovery skills. Either way, the result is the same, and Shouto feels comfortable leaving him be.
“‘Roki!” Shouto looks back as he reaches the door, just in time to see Kaminari chuck his things into a stall. “How good are you at Nario Kart?”
Shouto shakes his head, calling out “Atrocious” as he makes his way to see Midoriya. Kaminari chuckles, and Shouto hears the shower switch on just as he's figuring out how he wants this to go.
Midoriya will understand either way, so he just needs to be honest.