Chapter Text
“Well, I’d say that was a great use of a Saturday evening!”
“I’d have to agree.”
“Tch!”
The power-trio of class 1-A, Midoriya, Todoroki, and Bakugo, walked at a relaxed pace as they exited Gym Gamma. It’d been a long, educational couple of hours training, but by now the sun had dipped well below the horizon. It was time to turn in for the night.
“I feel like I’m really starting to get the hang of my new Shoot Style!” Midoriya grinned, pumping his fists, “At this rate, I bet by the time we have our license exams, it’ll be more than ready to use!”
“That’s good. Be careful not to ruin your legs too though.”
“KEH. Good luck with THAT.” Bakugo then turned to glare at Midoriya, “ANYWAY, I’ll still beat the CRAP out of you during the exam! Prepare to be OUTSHINED, LOSER.”
“(Whatever you say, Kacchan…)” Midoriya mumbled back.
“ALSO STOP FOLLOWING ME!”
“We’re going to the same place…”
After several minutes of bickering, the three of them made it back to the front doors of their dorm building. Upon scaling the steps, they let themselves inside, a buzz of voices greeting their ears from the nearby common area as they did so.
“KIRISHIMA, YOU JERK!”
Midoriya jumped at the sound of Uraraka’s booming voice, the tone of it sending a strange chill down his spine. They all turned their heads to the commotion, spying a group of their classmates seated around a table playing Uno.
“Sorry, that’s just how the game works, haha!” he chuckled back at her.
“Don’t worry Uraraka—I’ve got a reverse. He’s talking big, but there’s no way he’s got anymore red cards.”
“Hmph.” she pouted back.
“H… hey guys.” Midoriya greeted uncertainly, causing the group to look up.
“Oh, hey you three!” Kaminari, another member of the group, piped up, “We were wondering when you guys would get back! How was training?”
“It was insightful.” Todoroki responded, “Because we worked as a group, we were able to refine our quir—”
“Ah, nevermind—do you guys wanna join us? We’re having a party tonight!”
“Oh. Uh, well…” Midoriya glanced at Todoroki, who now looked slightly dejected from being cut-off. “I might join later, but what’re you guys going to do?”
“I’m not interested in some stupid card game!” Bakugo interrupted, flinging up a hand as he stomped towards the elevator. “I’m going to bed. Don’t wake me up.”
“Goodnight Bakugo!” Kirishima shouted back.
Bakugo glared annoyedly at the elevator, but at the very least, he didn’t yell back. When he was gone, a comfortable pause filled the room.
“Hey, Bakugo seems to be bit tamer lately, huh?” Jiro noticed.
“It’s kinda creepy…”
“Don’t be rude, Kaminari!”
Midoriya chuckled at his friends for a moment before approaching the stairwell.
“Are you going to bed too, Deku?” Uraraka asked suddenly, laying down her cards for a moment.
“Huh? Oh, no—I’ll come back,” he answered, shrugging, “I’m just going upstairs to shower. That training session left me all sweaty, haha.”
“Oh, okay!” a smile lit up her face, “Come down at 10:30. We’re gonna start up a movie!”
“Sounds good!” Midoriya then turned to look over at Todoroki, who seemed slightly lost as he stood awkwardly in the foyer. “Are you going to play Uno with them, Todoroki?”
He blinked out of his daze. “Uh… no, that’s okay. I’m tired. And I don’t know how to play, so…”
“Oh. Well, sorry to disappoint you guys.” Midoriya chuckled apologetically.
“Naw, don’t worry about it, man! There’s always tomorrow!”
“Rest is very important—especially after a strenuous training session, so you have no reason to feel guilty!” Iida added.
Todoroki shrugged. “Thanks. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”
With a polite nod, he and Midoriya proceeded up the stairs. On the second floor, Midoriya headed off to the bathrooms, whilst Todoroki went straight to bed.
However, down below, a ferocious battle was still brewing.
“Alright, back to war!” Kirishima grinned, smacking his fist into his palm, “I was about to win!”
“Grr—!” Uraraka snarled back.
“I sense a new darkness at this table…” Tokoyami muttered, feeling unnerved as he picked his cards back up.
Jiro grimaced. “I’d have to agree…”
The group of seven all returned their minds to the tense game of Uno.
“Alright!” Sero shouted, “It’s my time—I’m putting down my reverse card!”
“Thanks, Sero!” Uraraka grinned, turning to leer at Kirishima on her left side. “I’m so going to get back at you for what you did!”
“Ha! Bring it!”
Uraraka stared down at the card pile. The top card was Sero’s blue reverse card. Currently, Uraraka had a massive number of cards, thanks to Kirishima’s meddling, so playing on it was not the problem. Her main concern, other than thwarting his impending win, was how to make him suffer as much as possible.
Kirishima only has one card left, and I know it’s a blue 3. she thought carefully, The suit is currently blue. I need to change the color, but at the same time…
She looked down at her cards. Among them was a blue zero. This card in particular she’d been saving for a while—for a moment just like this, in fact, but it was a big risk. After all, if Kirishima didn’t change the suit on his next turn, Iida could easily win after him and end the game.
Of course, her upcoming solution was only possible because the rules they were currently playing by were not “ordinary Uno rules” by any means. No, they had their own list devised just for this class, and they called it: Uno of Death!
“I’m going to play my blue zero!” she yelled, slapping it on the pile.
Immediately, everyone let out an excited yell—with the exception being Kirishima, who transformed from being smug, to horrified.
“Everyone switch hands with the person on your left!” Jiro grinned, passing her cards to Tokoyami.
“NOOO!” Kirishima sobbed, handing over his precious, single card to Iida—who barely even knew how to play. “I WAS SO CLOSE!”
Uraraka laughed maniacally at him. “ENJOY YOUR 26 CARDS, KIRISHIMA!”
He whimpered pathetically as she slapped her deck-sized hand in front of his lap.
Next to him, Sero and Uraraka exchanged a triumphant fist-bump.
“Oh, Uno.” Iida finally said, realizing he’d initially forgotten. Truthfully, everyone else knew he’d forgotten, but since this was his first game in a long time, they were being benevolent to him.
“Dangit, I guess I have to change the color then…” Kirishima muttered grumpily, “I got the cards for it, at least. I’m playing my wild card and changing the color to yellow.”
Next to him, Iida tilted his head at his card. “I don’t have a yellow, so do I draw?”
“Yeah, and make sure to keep drawing until you get a yellow.” Kaminari replied.
“That’s quite harsh…”
Nonetheless, Iida began drawing cards. However, it took only one for him to find a yellow 8, and repeat the word: “Uno!” again.
The turn moved next to Jiro, who had a pretty slim hand herself.
“I play my yellow 3,” she replied, a devilish grin filling her face.
“NO! NOT AGAIN!” Kaminari suddenly gripped at his hair, sending a rippling laugh across the table.
“You agreed to it as punishment for cheating last round! You’ve got to do it!” Sero sneered, elbowing him.
“But—but—”
“Just get it over with, Kaminari.” Tokoyami shrugged calmly.
“Fine…” he grumbled, holding up a fist.
“Okay!” Jiro held up her fist as well, and the two began.
“Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!”
Kaminari held out scissors, while Jiro held out rock. Terrified, his hand shot towards the bowl on the table, however Jiro was faster. With a far-too-gleeful expression, she snatched the rubber hammer, and smacked him square in the head with it.
“OWWCH!”
“Ha! I win!”
Sero bust out laughing of course, practically crying as Kaminari grumpily collected three cards for his loss.
“You seriously need to win against her at this someday!” Sero taunted.
“Oh, shut-it!”
It was now Tokoyami’s turn.
“Indeed, your reflexes are quite lacking in comparison.” he commented quietly, subtly withdrawing a card from his hand, “Hopefully this means you will think twice before cheating again.”
“Thanks for reminding—” Kaminari glanced at the pile, a surge of rage seething through him. “HEY!”
It was a green 3 this time.
“HA! Round two, Jamming-yay!”
“C’mon, Tokoyami! Give me a BREAK!”
But he’d already put his hand out.
Sighing, Kaminari did the same, a look of fire in his eyes. “I won’t lose this time! Watch me!”
“Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!”
Another instant bonk on the head for Kaminari.
He was now up six cards, and had a hand almost as large as Kirishima’s.
“Thanks guys, really feelin’ the love.”
“Now you know how I feel…” Kirishima fumed, holding up his hand.
“Ugh. Well, now it’s my turn, and I’m going to play a normal, green 4.” Kaminari slapped the card down aggressively, and then tossed his remaining hand onto the table top.
“Match!” Sero shouted, placing an identical 4 down, “And also a green 9.”
Uraraka then grinned as she held up her next card.
“Draw 2 for Kirishima!” she sneered, plopping it down in front of him.
“HA. You seriously think I won’t have a counter for that with this many cards?” he looked down at his hand, expecting to find a draw two amongst them. However, as he looked, his facial expression slowly began to falter, until it was replaced by panic.
“Oopsie! I used all of ‘em!” she winked at Sero, who’d been in on this before, and permitted her to send him all of her draw 2s.
“You conspiring little—” Kirishima hissed, furiously adding two more cards to his arsenal. “Just wait until we get a reverse!”
It being Iida’s turn again, he stared down at his card, unsure what to do with it.
“I need a green card, it seems…” he twisted his mouth skeptically as he picked up a card from the top of the deck. “Ah, a wild card! I change the color to blue. Uno!”
“Perfect…” Jiro sighed, tossing down a blue reverse.
Everyone blinked in shock.
“Wait. Jiro, that’s—”
Iida looked at the pile, looked at his hand, and then quietly tossed in his blue 3.
Everyone was silent for a moment.
“It’s over…” Sero finally sighed, flopping onto his back.
“It’s over!?” Uraraka gasped.
“Ah, a shame.” Tokoyami flopped down his three remaining cards, two of which were wild cards. “I was on the verge of success…”
“Wait, Jiro—why did you end the game!?” Kirishima asked suddenly, more confused than angry.
“Eh, I felt bad for that one…” she jabbed her thumb at Kaminari, “He was looking sad after me and Tokoyami messed with him.”
Indeed looking deflated, Kaminari mumbled a pathetic: “Thanks…” as he rested his head against the table.
Smirking at him, she bopped him one more time with the mallet.
“Ow—hey! You just ended the game to be nice to me, what was that for!?”
“The last card was a 3, dummy.”
“I didn’t even play rock-paper-scissors!”
She just chuckled, to which Kaminari rolled his eyes.
“D… did I win?”
They all looked at Iida, who still apparently had a blank look on his face.
“Oh, yeah—you won alright.” Sero responded.
Uraraka gave him a private applause. “Congrats!”
Joining in the applause, smiles returned to everyone’s faces as a very flustered but proud Iida realized his win.
“Th-thank you everyone—I am so humbled to have this win!” he gushed, eyes practically tearing up.
“You’re acting like we just voted you as king or something, haha!”
“Anyway, that was a looong game…” Sero sighed, standing up, “Let’s get a movie rolling before it gets too late!”
Excited, everyone pumped their fists, and began to discuss what to watch.
Within the time-span of everyone finishing their game of Uno, Todoroki lay in silence across his flat futon. He kept his eyes shut, the only sound being the occasional, muffled footsteps of his fellow dormmates preparing for bed.
He breathed in and out calmly, restraining every single limb of his body from twitching. It was an exercise he’d often practiced, where if one resists the urges to self-awaken, they can effectively fall asleep at a much sooner time.
However…
Though he was able to resist moving, Todoroki’s mind was hyperactive from the events of the day. Fleeting images of Yaoyorozu flooded his mind, breaking through his steel will. He was out of control already, playbacks of the past week repeating for him in slow motion no matter how hard he tried to empty his thoughts.
It began with the elevator incident. he realized, That was the first time I had a sunflower dream, and the first time I recall feeling that “softness”. his closed eyelids squeezed in concentrated thought. Why, though? Did I catch some sort of sickness? Maybe I should see a doctor.
He shook his head suddenly, turning uncomfortably onto his side.
No… I should stop thinking about this. I need sleep.
But it was impossible to stop once he’d started.
His mind spiraled right back to Yaoyorozu, pushing up more memories of that day. He remembered how she’d drifted off to sleep, and how in a moment of personal weakness, he’d shifted over to her and propped her against his shoulder.
His mouth went dry, the silence of the room making him aware of his heavy pulse.
Why exactly did I… do that?
This moment was not an exception of him acting strange, either. There had been several other occasions just recently—stealing her notebook entry about him at the garden, resting his forehead on her shoulder during their gym exercise, and most memorably now—lying to her about why he’d plucked the sunflower, as if telling the truth would incite something taboo.
What was he so afraid of? His heart seemed to know, because these days it was always pounding like he’d just run a marathon. His brain, however, was missing out on whatever this hidden truth was.
Why…? he pleaded in silence.
It seemed like the longer he thought, the less he knew.
For the next hour, he twisted and turned on his futon, wracking his brain to no avail as the minutes dragged on. His body heat rose steadily, startling him a couple of times when he spotted an ember forming on his left shoulder. Eventually, the room temperature rose too, forcing him into an overheated state. His breathing became heavier as he kicked off his blankets.
You’ve got to be kidding. he thought angrily, forcing his tired, aching body into an upright position. How long am I going to think myself in circles? Where’re my sleeping pills…?
He reached for his desktop, hand rummaging blindly for the little green bottle, but when he came in contact with it, it knocked over too easily.
Don’t tell me it’s empty.
At last seizing it, he screwed off the lid, but was displeased to find it was indeed empty.
Great.
Frustrated, hot, tired, and with whatever other negative emotions he currently had, Todoroki childishly flung the bottle full-force against the wall. Unfortunately, the pathetic “dink” sound it made was literally anything but satisfying.
As a result, he stood up and decided to exit back out into the hall.