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“I want you to always remember me. Will you remember that I existed, and that I stood next to you here like this?”
-Haruki Murakami
“I—” She stutters, distracted by Todoroki’s eyes. “—don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like… like you can see me.” Tooru says softly and turns away. “I’m not used to it.”
Todoroki doesn’t respond and from the corner of her eye she can see him turn back to face the sky. Her feet are falling asleep from sitting in seiza for so long but she can’t see any of that same discomfort in him. He’s as unaffected as always.
“I’m sorry.” He says, with minimal inflection. “I’m not used to this either. This is my first time celebrating away from home.”
“Ah! It’s my first time too. I guess I just… miss my family. Just puts me a little on edge, you know? The change?”
She figures a white lie will smooth the conversation over. It’s more palatable to be homesick than to be melancholy and anxious.
Todoroki nods. “It’s… different here. Louder.”
She giggles. “Definitely.”
Some of her discomfort is unexpectedly washed away in the face of Todoroki’s clear awkwardness.
“It’s nice though,” she starts, “to do this together. I thought I’d be alone even though I know we’re both…”
“I hadn’t realized. That you were that Hagakure I mean. I thought I’d be alone as well, Yaoyorozu doesn’t celebrate.” Todoroki says, eyes still on the moon. The view is clear and unobstructed behind the dorm.
“A lot of people don’t anymore.” She says. Her skirt is wrinkling where it’s gripped in her hands and she forces herself to relax.
They sit in silence for a long while after that. It’s not companionable, they don’t know each other well enough for that, but it’s peaceful.
“Do you ever think about it?” She says. “What it must have been like back then at the Dawn of Quirks?”
Todoroki is silent for a few moments and she almost moves to apologize for breaking the peace.
“I think about what it must have been like before. Before heroes and quirks.” His eyes don’t stray from the moon.
“Are…” she mentally steels herself before probing, “are you happy here, Todoroki?”
He turns to look at her again. He’s just a bit off from meeting her eyes, just like everyone else is, but the feeling still burns. She can’t decide if he’s weighing his response or looking for something in her before she dismisses the latter. It’s not as if anyone could find anything in her in the first place. Still she stays resolute in her need to follow up on the undertones of his response.
“I think I might be.” He says, unsure like steps on slick ice. He looks away.
Is it the late hour that has him speaking so freely with her? The chill of the wind? The odd feeling the holiday brings as if they are somewhere, sometime else? Tooru wishes she could humor herself and say it’s none of the above. That he finds her easy to talk to. Comforting, maybe. Instead she pushes past the delusion to respond, careful not to press on a sensitive topic any more than she already has.
“I wonder if they were happy too. It’s hard to imagine a world without quirks when our lives have revolved around them since before we were born. The Hagakure line back in Qingqing and the Himura in Tokyo. It’s…” She struggles to find the right words.
Speaking to a classmate without the protective shield of a bubbly facade is challenging in a way that grates at her. This is not the effortlessly social albeit a bit air-headed Tooru she’s meant to be at UA. She glares down at her lap. Her left hand drums an anxious rhythm on her knee as she decides what to say.
“I get what you’d like about back then. The freedom from that sort of thing. I guess it just feels so far away for me. Growing up I always thought more about the pre-hero era. Where we were the minority and things were changing so fast. Stuff like the Long Nights, you know? It’s… kinda weird to sit here in the same place they did. To think that UA is so different now. A place to make quirks into tools instead of just keeping an eye on them."
The air is still for what must be a few minutes. She’s growing less wary of the pauses between responses. Todoroki seems like the type to carefully choose his words on this kind of topic.
“I think they are still keeping an eye on us.” He says. “Thirteen’s lecture at the USJ... Bakugou being restrained at the Sports Festival…The media after the Summer Camp…It’s better for the government to make sure people with dangerous quirks help others instead of hurt them, isn’t it? People would rather someone like my father be a hero than a villain…”
For an instant rather than that lecture from the USJ Tooru is reminded of her mother. Of being told something similar many years ago when she first confessed to wanting to be a hero.
I support you, don’t ever think that I don't, but remember that hero schools serve two purposes: to create heroes and to prevent villains.
“I guess you’re right about that.” She says lamely, unable to keep up the conversational thread. It’s an appropriate topic for a holiday commemorating the many nights quirk users spent huddled in what hadn’t yet become the UA compound separated from family and friends alike but one that’s hard to dwell on. Still, she doesn’t want to spit on their memories by brushing it aside or ignoring the possibility that things aren’t so different after all.
The rest of the night passes quietly.
By the time the sun rises she’s struggling to keep her eyes open. When she turns to look at Todoroki his head is bowed and his eyes are so close to closed she thinks he’s nodded off at first. As if sensing she’s watching him he blinks and looks her way. His eyes are a bit bloodshot and there’s the beginnings of eye bags on the unscarred side of his face. Momentarily she’s jealous of all the ways his body can be expressive that hers cannot. She banishes the topic quickly.
“Time for the worst part.” She mutters — half to herself — and Todoroki, to her surprise, actually snorts.
She moves to stand and immediately the pins and needles sensation from sitting in seiza all night long causes her to sway and nearly fall over if not for Todoroki catching her despite looking unsteady himself. For a moment they both lean against each other, their weight balanced out in the space between them. In her exhaustion she can’t quite bring herself to react as dramatically as she normally would to the proximity of an objectively attractive boy.
Todoroki clears his throat and they both move to stand on their own.
“Thank you.” He says quietly before nodding and turning away.
Tooru can’t help but stay and watch him return to the dorms. Something about the night ending strikes her with a grief that's so momentary yet so complete it's overwhelming. The idea that after this she’d continue about her day like nothing had happened feels almost painful.
She does it anyway.