Archive of Our Own

April

Hanta stares at the curling grain of the door in front of him. 

Fake. 

It’s etched into cheap plywood, a lousy attempt to make it look more expensive than it really is. For some reason, he finds that particularly annoying right now. His hand hangs frozen in the air as his heart thuds away in his chest.

He doesn’t want to knock. He really doesn’t. If he had it his way, he would lower his hand, turn his back on this ugly wooden door, and in three easy steps he’d be back behind the safety of his own. But he keeps his hand raised even as his head thrums with a thousand what-ifs, and somehow this is almost scarier than going head-to-head with a villain.

Eventually, he swallows around the nervous lump in his throat and forces himself to knock anyway.

Besides, he reasons, there’s always a chance that Todoroki will simply send him away, and then he’ll have worried for nothing. But he should check on him. Just in case. 

Todoroki had been white as a sheet when he practically ran from the locker rooms earlier, and, as Kirishima would say, ignoring that just because he’s scared of rejection wouldn’t be very manly of him. Or something.

Usually, he would leave it up to Midoriya – Todoroki is an established member of the Deku Squad, after all, and he’s in solid Baku Squad territory at this point. However, since the aforementioned squad leaders – fighting and yelling and scenting up a sour storm while the class was changing after a hero drill – seemed to be what triggered Todoroki’s odd reaction in the first place, he isn’t sure that’s a good idea today.

It’s times like these that Hanta wishes he were… like his peers. Where they can rely on biological instincts and subtle changes in smell, he has to rely on his subpar skill at reading people, on the hope that he can tell when a friend – are they friends, though? – would rather not be alone.

Hanta looks down at his arm, curled tight around his offered comforts, letting out a quiet sigh.

He has to rely on manga, on the sheer luck that he watches Todoroki enough to know which brand of chips he sometimes buys at lunch time, what drink he reaches for from their communal fridge after class.

Hanta takes a deep breath, tells himself he isn’t being weird. They’re close enough that it’s normal for Hanta to care when he sees Todoroki in low spirits. They’re next door neighbors. They regularly share manga. Sometimes, they even partner together for hero drills. Like, voluntarily.

Plus, they have whatever strange bond two people forge when one of them gets pissed off at their dad and traps the other in a giant cage of ice. 

On national television.

The door swings open then, and Hanta physically jerks out of his thoughts. Which is an embarrassing start on his part, but Todoroki doesn’t really seem to notice. When Hanta meets his gaze, Todoroki’s eyes are just a bit too wide, just a touch frantic. Like he’s looking, but only barely seeing him. Though that’s his only tell, it’s more than enough for Hanta to know he wasn’t misreading Todoroki’s reaction earlier, and it makes him feel slightly less ridiculous for being here. 

Mismatched brows cant with the smallest tinge of confusion as Todoroki blinks and takes in Hanta’s awkward attempt at a soft smile. 

“Sero?”

He’s not who Todoroki was expecting to see. Makes sense.

“Hey, Todoroki,” he says anyway. He averts his gaze, glancing behind Todoroki. Through his window, Hanta can see the big sakura tree in front of the dormitory, just barely hanging onto its blooms. In a few days, they’ll be gone. Looking back to Todoroki, he asks, “Are you busy?” 

He holds up the manga he brought, fingering the pages nervously with his thumb. He thinks he sees a tiny bit of the tension slip from Todoroki’s eyes. Perhaps it’s wishful thinking, but he’ll take the small boost of confidence where he can get it. 

“I got the newest volume of Ansatsu Kyōshitsu, and you’d mentioned wanting to read it?” 

His voice lilts into a question. 

Todoroki doesn’t answer it immediately, but this time, Hanta definitely isn’t imagining the softening of his expression as his eyes drift from the manga to the snacks cradled in his other arm. Hanta brings a hand up to scratch at the back of his neck, heat blooming over his face. Todoroki’s brow arches, just slightly, almost cautiously.

“I thought I might stay and finally start Shingeki no Kyojin, if you’re okay with hanging out?”

Todoroki blinks at him for a long moment, and Hanta does his best to grin casually through the feeling of his heart trying to knock holes in his rib cage. He wonders if Todoroki knows why he’s here, if he can see through his facade to his prickling worry. 

Eventually, he moves to the side, cracking his door a little wider to allow Hanta through.

“I’d like that,” he murmurs.

Hanta’s breath leaves his nose in a shaky huff. He nods, then takes a step forward, trying not to let his expression scream ‘victory’. Because that’s a little what it feels like, despite having just been half-hoping Todoroki would turn him away. 

When he passes Todoroki, avoiding his gaze, he notices that his scent patches are doubled up, one on top of the other on both sides of his neck. New, stark white stickers that hadn’t been there before, in the locker room, on top of his usual skin-toned ones. The sight strikes Hanta as odd; Todoroki is alone, and – judging by the comfortable joggers and sweatshirt he had changed into since Hanta saw him last – he hadn’t been planning to do much with his Friday night other than hang out by himself in his bedroom.

Hanta doesn’t comment, instead sliding off his slippers and seating himself at Todoroki’s kotatsu table, spreading out the drinks and chips and books he’d brought along before tucking his feet beneath the warmth of the blanket. He feels Todoroki watching him for a while, but Hanta doesn’t look up until Todoroki finally turns. A silent trade off, and now he’s watching Todoroki instead. 

Todoroki peruses his bookshelf until he finds the manga Hanta requested, which doesn’t take long. Hanta knows from his previous visits – only to trade, not to stay – that Todoroki keeps his bookshelf immaculately organized. He even uses alphabetical ordering. Todoroki gathers the first few books in his arms, and Hanta averts his gaze as he deposits them on the table before settling himself down across from him. 

“Thanks,” Hanta says with a smile, pushing the snacks and his own manga toward him. 

Todoroki just continues to look at him, and the quiet stretches out. It puts Hanta on edge again, and he’s suddenly feeling incredibly aware of both of their movements, of his lack of conversation starters, of the way his skin prickles with silence and proximity. However, Todoroki seems undeniably calmer than he had when he opened the door, his poorly concealed curiosity replacing the frantic thrum behind his eyes, so Hanta supposes he’ll count this as a win anyway.

“Thank you,” Todoroki replies eventually, so quiet Hanta can barely hear him, even in the stark silence of the room. He’s looking at him with a small tilt to his head that says:

Are you really just here for my manga?

Hanta, despite the heat he can feel rising to his cheeks, holds his gaze as he replies.

“Any time.”

Not even a little bit.

He grabs the first volume of Shingeki no Kyojin, and settles in to read.

* * *

The snacks have long since been ripped open and devoured, and Hanta’s now lying with his back on the floor and the manga held up over his face, one bent leg still half underneath the kotatsu. The tension between them had broken a little earlier, snapping on Hanta’s blurted curse in reaction to the death of the main character’s mother. Todoroki had given a sympathetic chuckle in response, and since then, the silence in the room has been fairly comfortable. 

Hanta’s enjoying himself well enough, and he thinks Todoroki might be too. Every now and then, he hears a soft gasp as Todoroki reads, but Hanta opts not to break him from his trance to ask. He just files the sound away under ‘endearing as hell’ and carries on. 

It’s nice.

Part of him wishes he’d suggested this a long time ago. They established their mutual interest in manga during their first year, and this – reading together in the silence of Todoroki’s room – is calming in a way that yelling about Mario Kart races with Kaminari or having arm wrestling competitions with Kirishima just isn’t.

Hanta has just hit the five year time skip in his manga when the feeling of Todoroki’s foot suddenly pressing into his thigh jerks him back to reality. 

His body stiffens automatically as he jumps and glances around the kotatsu.

“Ah, sorry,” Todoroki apologizes immediately. 

The pressure disappears, and to Hanta’s surprise, an embarrassed blush dusts Todoroki’s face. 

He wouldn’t have expected him to redden easily, but he supposes it makes sense with his pale complexion. Hanta flashes him a grin, allowing it to become a touch teasing around the edges, because Todoroki looks uncomfortable with his mistake. 

“No big deal,” he assures him. “I don’t mind.”

Todoroki’s eyes widen a touch, and his flush seems to intensify a bit – or maybe that’s just the lighting? The sun is starting to set, so it’s getting harder to tell in the soft lamp light of Todoroki’s room. Hanta raises a brow at him, confused.

“Oh,” Todoroki says, tilting his head a bit and hitting him with the full force of his unusual brand of quiet and awkward, which isn’t nearly as off-putting as it should be. 

Instead, it’s ridiculously, stupidly charming. 

Hanta decides to pack that thought away where no one can touch it, not even him. He just smiles at Todoroki in response, nods even though he doesn’t really understand, then turns back to his manga, ignoring the odd feeling threatening to bloom in his chest. 

A few moments pass quietly. But then, he feels that same push on his thigh once again. Hanta nearly drops the book on his face.

He freezes, staring at the panels for a minute without seeing them as he waits for Todoroki to move away once more, to apologize, but he doesn’t this time. When Hanta chances a glance up at him, he’s reading again, leaned back against the wall with his legs stretched out under the kotatsu. 

His positioning seems… deliberate. Hanta blinks, replaying their interaction in his head at hyperspeed.

Only then does he realize that Todoroki might have – must have – taken ‘I don’t mind’ to mean less of a ‘no worries, I know it was a mistake’ and more of a ‘I don’t mind you touching me’, or even a ‘don’t stop’. Suddenly, Todoroki isn’t the only one blushing, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

Hanta takes a subtle breath. He supposes he should try to just ignore it and go back to reading, like Todoroki is doing, because he’s certainly not going to tell him to back off. Todoroki has had a shit day, and if he wants a simple, physical reassurance of his presence, Hanta will give it to him. 

But he’s distracted now, both by the action, and by the touch itself. The point of contact between them is warm – too warm, especially as he’s pretty sure it’s Todoroki’s ice side that’s touching him – and he can’t really focus on anything except for that small bit of space currently occupied by Todoroki’s toes. It’s maddening, yet somehow he isn’t sure if he actually even wants it to stop.

But time ticks on without any protest or movement on Todoroki’s part, so Hanta eventually allows himself to accept this strange new normal. 

Friendly touching certainly isn’t uncommon, he reasons silently, trying to convince whoever is listening that this isn’t weird. Tacticity is especially commonplace between his alpha and omega peers. He knows from the scent blocking patches that Todoroki is something, unlike himself, so maybe this is just… normal for him.

Yeah.

Normal.

Hanta shouldn’t let it get to him.

Even though he’s pretty sure he’s never seen Todoroki casually touching anyone outside of training.

Ignoring that, it’s totally normal.

Steeling himself, Hanta rolls onto his side, trying not to think too hard about the feeling of Todoroki’s foot sliding over his thigh as he does so. He pushes back into the touch, just a bit, before settling down, and with a slurping sip of his nearly forgotten juice, he rests his head on his arm to continue reading.

June

Hanta stares at his ceiling, pushing a sigh from his chest. The softness of his bed and the classical music spilling from the tinny speakers of his phone don’t bring the comfort for which he had hoped, and he finds his mind’s eye once again replaying the horrendous scene from his afternoon patrol. He doesn’t want to see it, but it’s there, behind his eyelids. Not even the din of the rain, beating violent and endless against the dormitory rooftop, is enough to drown it out.

Against his will, he feels traitorous tears stinging the backs of his eyes, and he presses the heels of his hands to them until he sees stars, until he’s clenching his jaw against the pain.

Crying about it won’t change what happened, he tries to tell himself. His heart only sinks further, and his tears stream faster.

It won’t change the fact that ultimately, it was your fault. 

A sob escapes his throat.

It won’t change what you are.

“Fuck,” he groans.

His voice wobbles. He can’t stop the jumble of memories in his head.

“Hey, Soy Sauce Face,” Bakugou had growled, cornering him when he had come limping back to the common room, sopping wet and defeated, hours after the incident. 

Long enough for the police to question him. Long enough for word to spread to his classmates through the news sites. 

Bakugou pushed him against a wall, seemingly unaffected by his dirty state, maneuvering him out of sight before anyone else could speak to him. Hanta was pretty sure the thud of his back against the plaster was gentler than it normally would’ve been with Bakugou, but it still made his tired body ache. “Don’t you dare blame this shit on yourself or what you are,” Bakugou sneered at him. “It could’ve happened to anyone, you hear me?”

Hanta keeps crying. 

Bakugou knows him well enough to realize something like this would inevitably trigger his nasty inferiority complex, and Hanta knows Bakugou well enough to know the fist clenched in his torn hero costume and the harsh words were his attempts to comfort him.

For Bakugou, it was admittedly sweet. In, like, a weird way.

It’s too bad he was wrong.

It was his fault.

If Hanta just had the instincts, he would’ve smelled it. He would’ve known, he wouldn’t have been blindsided, horrified, humiliated.

But he doesn’t, and he didn’t - he didn’t see shit coming until there were claws digging into the skin of his shoulders and fangs clacking, trying to get at his neck, until ineffective – but no less terrifying – Alpha Commands were being growled into his ear as he hit the wet concrete with a splash and a cry of shock. 

The tears spill harder even as he grits his teeth against them. It wasn’t the alpha’s fault – Hanta had been transporting him and another victim to safety when the explosions and the sirens and the stench of blood had proven too much, sending him into an early, strong, and confused rut. 

And the second victim wasn’t to blame either, even though their scenting up a storm of omegan distress did nothing but worsen their situation, did nothing but force Hanta to tape them hastily out of the alpha’s reach. 

It was still Hanta’s fault.

But knowing no one else was to blame doesn’t change the way Hanta’s stomach rolls at the memory of raindrops pelting his face, of slit-like pupils above him, glaring down at him while the bottom of his hero costume had been ripped off in the streets. Hanta wants to wash his leg again, where the alpha – where he’d – where Hanta had felt him, in the long few seconds it took him to get out of his hold and scramble the hell away.

Fuck.

Hanta digs his nails into the bruised palms of his clenched hands, trying to think of anything else. He can’t though – can’t stop seeing it, can’t stop feeling it, can’t stop thinking that if he wasn’t the way he was, he would’ve known that the alpha’s rut was right around the corner, could’ve taken proper preventative measures. 

Could’ve avoided nearly being raped in the fucking streets, then having to fight and restrain the person he was supposed to be saving, instead of helping with the actual fucking mission.

It would’ve been so simple. 

To anyone who wasn’t him.

A knock on the door causes him to jump. He doesn’t move. 

He doesn’t want more of Bakugou’s aggressive pep talking, or Kirishima’s overwhelming positivity (especially not from an alpha, not right now ), or Kaminari and Mina telling him it doesn’t matter, because it does.

It fucking does.

“Sero? Are you busy?”

Oh.

Hanta’s traitorous heart gives a lurch.

Todoroki.

His stomach follows soon after. No – he doesn’t want to face Todoroki right now. He’s too embarrassed, too disgusted with himself, too digusted with that alpha who should’ve fucking said something, too disgusted with his draw of the shortest biological straw.

“Sero, did you get the next volume of Kimetsu no Yaiba yet?”

Hanta blinks.

What?

Then he blinks again, as the words finally register, and despite himself, despite everything, a surprised laugh bubbles out of his throat and huffs past his lips. 

Somehow, it’s just like Todoroki to be completely in the dark about this sort of thing. He must not pay much attention to the news. Makes sense, as it’s always full of Endeavor. 

When it isn’t full of Beta UA Intern Narrowly Escapes Feral Rutting Alpha During Standard Rescue Mission, anyway.

Somehow, Hanta finds it comforting that he doesn’t know yet. Maybe if he opens the door, Todoroki won’t look at him with pity, with ugly sympathy, like his other classmates had. 

Not yet, anyway.

“Yeah, dude, I’m coming.”

Shaking his head as an unfamiliar fondness spreads through his chest, Hanta pushes himself upright and takes a few tissues to his face before grabbing the manga off his desk. He’d picked it up at the store only yesterday.

He pulls the door open, ready to hand the book over to his endearingly oblivious neighbor, and stops in his tracks. 

He feels a sudden blush licking his skin.

Todoroki’s arms are full of volumes of Ao no Exorcist, the handle of a plastic bag full of snacks is stretched over his wrist, and his elegant fingers are clasped tightly around the necks of two soda bottles.

Hanta doesn’t say anything as he slowly processes this. Both because he doesn’t know what he would say, and also because he doesn’t think he could speak around the sudden lump in his throat, anyway. 

Todoroki already knows what happened. 

“If you’re not doing anything, I thought maybe you’d want to read together tonight?”

Hanta has to bite his tongue, because if he doesn’t, he's going to cry again.

Todoroki definitely knows, and he’s playing Hanta’s own game against him. 

With him?

And that – that should be illegal – illegal on the basis of causing him to feel too much at once. Hot embarrassment is flooding Hanta’s insides at the idea that Todoroki – perfect, amazing Todoroki – heard about his massive failure, but the pinpricks at the already oversensitive rims of his eyes – those are because – because – fuck. 

Has Todoroki always been thoughtful, and he just hasn’t been close enough to realize it? Somehow, this wasn’t the image Hanta had had of him.

“I’d – uh – I’d like that,” he mutters eventually, stepping to the side. “C’mon in.”

Todoroki smiles. It’s just an upturn of the corner of his mouth, but his eyes crinkle a bit at the outer edges, making him look like he’s just won something.

And yeah, wildly enough, Hanta thinks he can relate to the feeling.

* * *

Somehow, Todoroki’s presence calms him enough to read, to actually get involved in the story, and Hanta is grateful for the distraction. He feels centered for the first time all evening, the tumultuous storm in his head dying down to a steady drizzle of occasional thoughts. 

However, about an hour into reading, Hanta can’t help but notice that Todoroki has started fidgeting. At first, Hanta isn’t sure what’s wrong. But then, he realizes with a small start that Todoroki wants to say something.

He’s surprised, at first, that he can tell – isn’t Todoroki supposed to be hard to read? That’s what everyone says, what everyone thinks. Except for maybe Bakugou, and everyone knows he’s just wildly jealous, anyway.

He’s Todoroki Shouto, as quiet and mysterious as he is frightening and powerful.

And beautiful, his brain is quick to supply, but Hanta squashes the thought.

Except, he really isn’t. 

(Hard to read, that is. He’s definitely beautiful. No doubt about that.)

But, Todoroki Shouto is actually a bit… obvious, he realizes. It’s kind of endearing.

Hanta wonders when he learned the tells of his thoughts and emotions, because it wasn’t a conscious effort on his part. It must be something he just picked up from spending the last few years in close proximity to him. Todoroki is admittedly quite hard to ignore, for someone so quiet. 

Regardless, Hanta knows from the way Todoroki’s hands clench a little too hard around his book, from the mirrored tightness in his jaw, from his semi-frequent glances in his direction, that he wants to say something, but he doesn’t know how. He doesn’t often get like this – he usually blurts out whatever he’s thinking, or doesn’t speak at all. Only occasionally does he give thought to being tactful.

Hanta can guess what it’s about, and god, he doesn’t want to hear it, but also – it’s Todoroki Shouto, and he kind of wants to hear everything Todoroki has to say, especially concerning him, because it’s fucking Todoroki Shouto and Hanta still can’t quite believe he even knows he exists, let alone cares . And he’s definitely still a little – a lot – touched that he showed up for him like this. Fucking wild.

“What is it?” he finally asks, setting his book on his lap and lying his head back against his beanbag chair. He turns to look at Todoroki from underneath his messy, too-long bangs, giving himself a false sense of security and separation. 

Todoroki looks momentarily affronted at the question, and it makes Hanta feel a bit like an intruder, breaking and entering, unwelcome in the privacy of his thoughts. However, the expression soon fades, only to be replaced by something that would look blank on anyone else, but looks absolutely sheepish on him. Hanta decides he made the right call as a blush blooms over Todoroki’s features, as his lips purse with determination.

“Um. Did you know,” he starts, looking at a point on Hanta’s forehead, “that All Might once ruined an entire rescue mission involving multiple civilian hostages because he’d forgotten to take his suppressants and ended up going into rut on the job?”

Hanta blinks at the obviously rehearsed words. Todoroki sounds like a news reporter, or a weird, niche podcast.

Todoroki, apparently undeterred, drags his own bean bag chair closer to Hanta’s and continues, looking at him like he wants to communicate his thoughts with the intensity of his gaze alone. Hanta isn’t sure he’s ever heard him speak so many words at once, isn’t sure they’ve ever been this close to each other outside of mandatory sparring exercises. 

Are those… freckles? 

Todoroki adjusts himself, and the fabric of their stuffed chairs is suddenly pressed together. Todoroki leans toward him. Hanta swallows. 

“And Night Eye,” Todoroki says. “He once blew a stealth operation because one of his scent patches fell off and he didn’t notice until it was too late.”

Hanta feels his own skin starting to flush, and he tells himself it’s because he can see where Todoroki is going with this, and not because of their propinquity.

“And Mt. Lady, a few years ago, she–”

Hanta cuts Todoroki off with a gentle hand to his knee. Todoroki jumps slightly at the contact, looking down at their new connection with wide eyes. 

“You don’t – you don’t have to do this,” Hanta says, and his voice comes out as a whisper, even though he doesn’t mean for it to. “I’ll be okay.”

“I’m not – I’m not just saying this,” Todoroki pushes, stilted. 

He pulls his lip between his teeth and chews it for a long time, long enough that Hanta isn’t sure whether or not he’s supposed to be responding. Eventually, Todoroki pushes through his own silence, and continues.

“Betas… betas are built for hero work, Sero,” he murmurs. Hanta’s brows rise, and he opens his mouth to protest, but Todoroki isn’t finished. Making direct, steady eye contact with Hanta, he says, “The more precise the control, the better the hero. That’s just common sense.”

Hanta inhales, and he feels the sharp cut of air at the back of his throat. He wants to deny it, but something in Todoroki’s gaze won’t let him. It won’t even let him look away. Hanta hears the words in his head again.

You’re built for hero work.

You’re built for hero work.

You’re built for hero work.

That’s not exactly what he said, but that’s apparently how Hanta’s heart wants to hear it.

“You don’t really think that,” Hanta finally blurts, shaking his head to clear the thought away. 

Impossible.

Todoroki arches an eyebrow, but the movement is so subtle that Hanta would likely need a microscope to prove it. Still, there’s a challenge there that leaves Hanta swallowing around nothing. Todoroki leans forward, coming even closer. Hanta’s gaze darts to his lips when he speaks.

“I do,” he says, and his steady voice doesn’t leave much room for doubt.

Hanta blinks wide eyes at him, at a loss for words. He’s having some trouble processing, all of a sudden. He doesn’t know if he believes him. 

No, he definitely doesn’t believe him.

But... he sounded pretty honest.

Realizing his hand hasn’t moved from its place on Todoroki’s knee, Hanta hastily pulls it back, feeling his face flush hot. Todoroki’s eyes track the movement, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Uh, thanks...” Hanta mutters. “Seriously.”

Todoroki just nods. He looks like he’s thinking hard to himself for a single moment, and then he plops backward onto his bean bag. He appears to pick up reading where he left off, seemingly satisfied, seemingly unbothered by their chairs still pressing together.

Hanta, on the other hand, is reeling. From his words, from their physical proximity, from the entirety of this gesture. However, if Todoroki notices that he hasn’t stopped staring just because their conversation is apparently over, he says nothing. 

It’s a long time before Hanta copies him, a long time before he can tear his gaze away from Todoroki’s elegant sprawl over his bean bag, from his pretty hair that’s way too long - brushing his shoulders now - and curls just a bit, just at the tips. 

Eventually, he manages. He lifts his bottle, takes a swig of soda that fizzes heavy down his throat, drawing him out of their strange, charged moment. Then, he settles back down in his chair and looks out the window, where he can see the wet blooms of the hydrangea bushes that line the premises swaying gently in the breeze. Belatedly, he realizes the rain has stopped. 

Hanta returns to his manga. If Todoroki catches that he doesn’t move away when the sides of their feet find one another, pressing against each other just like the edges of their bean bag chairs, he doesn’t mention that, either.

September

Hanta’s walking through the common room, passing one of the couches, when he jumps at the sudden pressure of a grasp on his arm. He swears under his breath; it’s been a few years, but as an only child, he still isn’t used to all the physical contact that goes hand-in-hand with living in close quarters with nineteen other people. Nineteen other people who, for the most part, have instincts that lead them to communicate with touch rather than words.

When he turns, there’s a pale hand clasped around his wrist, gentle, but firm. His gaze follows the trail marked by long, elegant fingers, up the length of a strong arm, to land on a familiar face. 

Maybe too familiar, at this point. Not that it’s Todoroki’s fault that Hanta’s eyes wander in his direction so often. Hanta smiles, and he can feel that his grin is softer than he means for it to be, softer than any he’d ever direct towards Kaminari, or Mina, or even Kirishima. He pushes the thought away.

“What’s up, Todoroki?”

“I was going to do some extra training tonight,” Todoroki tells him quietly, in lieu of a greeting. 

Even though he already has Hanta’s attention, he doesn’t let go of his wrist, and despite the late summer heat that’s baking the common room, Hanta finds that he doesn’t really want him to. After a pause, Todoroki says something else, but across the room, Mina and Uraraka are antagonizing Bakugou, and the words are lost under a loud explosion.

“Hmm?” Hanta tilts his head to the side. “I didn’t catch that.”

“I said, ‘Are you busy?’”

Hanta blinks at him. His eyes narrow just a bit as he processes the question.

Are you busy?

It’s what they ask when they show up at each other’s doors later than they should, with arms full of manga and snacks and - in Hanta’s case, at least - a chest full of nerves. It’s what they ask when they can tell the other has had a rough day, when they want to help but know that words will only make everything worse, make everything real. 

Over the past few months, it’s become less of a question and more of a code.

A request for permission.

Let me in. 

But this feels different. He isn’t upset, and Todoroki isn’t upset either. He knows, because he’s learned that when Todoroki is upset, he doubles up his patches, one on top of the other. As if he’s afraid to let his scent escape, as if he fears the world will collapse if it picks up on his distress. 

Hanta hasn’t asked about it. It’s none of his business.

Today, they’re both okay, though, so he doesn’t understand why Todoroki is asking for his company, why the words still carry just a hint of their usual plea. Their manga-veiled requests for comfort and closeness – while growing more and more frequent with the increasing pressures of hero work – exist only on stolen time, and have changed nothing about their relationship outside the liminal space of their dorm rooms.

They sometimes partner up for hero drills. They sometimes speak when the whole class is spending time together. They sometimes joke around in training - well, Hanta jokes, and Todoroki sometimes lifts the corner of his mouth in something that no one else would call a grin but that makes Hanta’s heart clench in his chest nonetheless. 

But still, they don’t just... hang out.

“Sero?” Todoroki presses. 

He’s spent too long overanalyzing the invitation.

“Sure,” he replies with a smile, and he feels suddenly silly for thinking about it for so long. 

Not because it isn’t confusing, because it is, but rather because there was never really a chance he was going to tell Todoroki Shouto ‘no’, was there?

“Did you… did you want to spar together?” Hanta tries. 

Todoroki does the mouth thing again, and Hanta’s heart follows its cue. 

He feels his face start to heat, and he glances away, too affected by Todoroki’s smile and his attention and his hand still hanging off his wrist. 

His eyes land across the room on Kirishima, who’s laughing as he attempts to console his angry boyfriend by offering him half the popsicle he’d just fetched from the freezer. It’s one of the ones with two sticks, meant to be broken and shared with someone you love. As Bakugou grabs one of them, Kirishima swoops in and kisses him on the cheek, causing the explosions to start all over again.

Everyone, including Kirishima, just laughs. They’re used to this. Anyone with eyes can see that the two of them belong together, just like the two halves of their bright red popsicle. 

Alpha and omega. Two parts of the same whole. 

Hanta’s face starts to fall. 

“Hey,” Todoroki says softly. His thumb slides once along Hanta’s pulse point, and Hanta’s wide-eyed gaze whips back to his face. “Sparring. Yes. I’d like that.”

Hanta nods slowly, lips pulling into a soft smile as thoughts of his classmates and double-stick popsicles fade away as fast as they came.

November

Hanta glances over the top of his volume of Hagane no Renkinjutsushi: Fullmetal Alchemist again, sneaking another look at the beanbag chair pushed up against his own. More specifically, sneaking another look at its occupant, whose sleeping face is framed by messy hair and, through the glass of the sliding balcony door, by the newly-golden leaves of the sakura tree that guards their corner of the residence hall. 

The side of Todoroki’s exposed neck is covered by only a single layer, so Hanta knows he’s okay again today. He’s okay, but he’s here anyway. Because now they just hang out sometimes. Even when they’re both okay.

It’s... nice.

Except, at this exact moment, nice maybe isn't the best way to describe it. Because at some point, Todoroki drifted off, his copy of Fruits Basket slipping from limp hands to rest open-faced against his chest. Which would be fine, except that his head slumped in Hanta’s direction when he nodded off, and now he’s so close that it’s nearly impossible for Hanta to think of anything else, nearly impossible for him to look away from mussed hair that’s spilling over itself, white mixing with red and falling to cover closed eyes and too-long lashes. And he really has been wanting to read Fullmetal Alchemist for a long time, but it’s starting to look like that’s not going to happen. Not today.

His eyes drift back to the patch covering Todoroki’s scent gland, nearly the exact same color as his pale skin. The edges sit perfectly flush with his neck, and Hanta’s intuition tells him that that’s on purpose, that he takes time to carefully apply them each day. He doesn’t know what or why, but something about his own scent seems to bother him.

Hanta wonders what Todoroki’s scent could be like. Scents don’t affect Hanta the same way that they affect his peers, and he can’t pick up on any nuanced changes, but he can still smell them, sort of like a faint perfume rather than an all-out assault to the senses. Sometimes, they’re rather fitting and predictable - Shinsou smelling of lavender, for example, just feels right for him. Other times, he would never guess, like Bakugou smelling like sweet caramel, instead of like… explosions, or spicy curry, or something. He wonders which camp Todoroki falls into.

Todoroki makes a soft noise in his sleep, interrupting Hanta’s reverie. Hanta watches his nose twitch and crinkle, probably because his outgrown bangs are tickling him. His eyebrows pinch slightly, like even in his sleep he’s annoyed at the inconvenience. Hanta grins, and has to bite his lip to keep himself from laughing. 

Reaching out, he carefully brushes red and white hair off to the side, and gently tucks it behind Todoroki’s ear. His fingertips come to rest at a spot between his jawbone and the edges of his scent patch as he admires his handiwork. 

“There,” he whispers. “That’s better.”

Like this, he can see Todoroki’s face clearly. Can see his scar, pressed into the side of the bean bag chair, can see the nearly invisible dusting of freckles over his nose, can see the subtle movement of his shoulders with his breathing. He’s incredibly beautiful. Undeniably so.

Why me? Hanta wonders idly, pinky grazing over the scent patch on his neck. Someone like me doesn’t deserve someone like you. 

The boy born with everything, versus the boy who can just barely keep up.

His gaze darts down to Todoroki’s full, pretty lips, still pushed out in a bit of a pout from arguing with his hair in his sleep. Guilt swells in Hanta’s chest.

I should be more than happy just to be your friend. I’m already so lucky.

“But sometimes,” he murmurs, “all I can think about is kissing you.”

Somewhat reluctantly, he goes to pull his hand away. 

“What’s stopping you?”

Hanta inhales a sharp curse, then stops breathing altogether. His eyes go wide as his hand freezes, hovering over the side of Todoroki’s face. 

Todoroki’s eyes flutter open, looking right at him. He says nothing. His face remains expressionless. 

Hanta’s lips part, but no sound comes out, even as his heart starts to pound against his ribcage. He needs to say something, or do something, but he feels frozen in place under the weight of Todoroki’s gaze. 

‘What’s stopping you?’

Does that mean…?

No. Impossible.

“Sorry,” he finally blurts on a rushed exhale. “I didn’t – your hair – ah, shit –” 

He curses as he realizes his hand is still lingering awkwardly by Todoroki’s cheek, and he quickly snatches it backward. But he’s barely made it to safety across the dividing line between their bean bag chairs before Todoroki is raising his own hand and catching Hanta’s fingertips between his own. He’s surprisingly quick, for having just woken up.

“Wha–” 

Hanta’s weak voice breaks halfway through the word. He looks at their hands, and swallows. He meets Todoroki’s eyes again, silently questioning.

Todoroki doesn’t answer, silently, or otherwise. 

Instead, he slowly leans in. When Hanta doesn’t object, Todoroki presses his lips against his.

Hanta watches Todoroki’s eyes fall shut, but his own eyes stay wide open. He can’t make himself move. His body is rigid, and he feels like he’s short-circuiting. 

This can’t be happening.

The soft kiss is tugging hard at the fibers of his reality, threatening to unravel it right before his eyes.

This can’t be right. There’s no way…

Todoroki pulls back from him, and Hanta watches that, too. Todoroki’s brows cant together as he regards Hanta with slight confusion.

“Did I - did I misunderstand?”

The uncertainty in his voice is what finally kickstarts Hanta’s basic functioning again. 

“N-no!” he says quickly. 

His voice comes out a little squeaky, so he closes his eyes and takes a breath before continuing.

“No, god, not at all. I just - I wasn’t ready,” he says, as if he could ever be ready for this. “Let’s - let’s try again, okay?”

He tries not to think about how he’s pretty much as good as confessed now. 

Todoroki nods, but stays where he is. Hanta understands that it’s his turn to go to him now. He shifts, propping himself up on an elbow so he can lean over Todoroki, and for a moment, he just looks down at him. Todoroki blinks up at him in return. For once, Hanta can read none of the emotion behind his eyes. It’s too foreign.

Hanta closes the gap between them, and this time, his eyes fall shut naturally.

And then, he’s kissing Todoroki Shouto.

The kiss is chaste, just a prolonged press of their lips together, but his heart is threatening to beat out of his chest all the same.

Soft. That’s the first thing he notices. Softer than he expected. And warm. 

After a few seconds, Hanta starts to pull away, amazed that Todoroki actually allowed him this. But when he does, Todoroki tilts his head and moves his lips against his, capturing them in a second kiss. 

Hanta’s breathing stutters, but he complies, following Todoroki’s lead. There’s a third kiss, and then a fourth. 

He relaxes back into the bean bag, counting until smaller, separate kisses morph into something else, and he can’t really count them anymore. 

Their hands are still loosely clasped together, but it doesn’t feel like enough, so Hanta gently pulls back just far enough to trail his fingers up Todoroki’s arm instead. He keeps the touch innocent and slow. He’s not sure what the boundaries are - he’s not even sure why or how this is happening in the first place - but he doesn’t want to accidentally make Todoroki uncomfortable. When he reaches his shoulder, he lets his hand rest there, not confident enough to push undefined lines any further. 

It doesn’t take long after that for Todoroki to mimic him, seeking out more touch. He’s bolder than Hanta, though, his hand first finding Hanta’s waist, then sliding down a fraction, coming to rest over his hip. Hanta makes a small, appreciative noise, clumsily scooting toward him as much as the bean bag chairs will allow. 

As he does so, he deepens the kiss without really thinking about it, his tongue flicking briefly against Todoroki’s lips. He doesn’t even realize what he’s doing until he feels Todoroki jump slightly beneath him.

Shit. 

“Sorry,” Hanta breathes a shaky breath against Todoroki’s lips as he pulls back. He doesn’t go very far. The tips of their noses are still brushing together. 

“You just surprised me,” Todoroki whispers. Then, copying his earlier words, “Let’s try again.”

Hanta huffs a soft laugh, nodding. He leans back in and they pick up where they left off, and this time, when his tongue touches Todoroki’s lips, they part and let him inside. Todoroki makes a soft noise when their tongues slide together, and it gives Hanta the courage to move his hand past his shoulder to cup the back of his head instead, carding his fingers through the hair there.

From there, they start to find their rhythm, and things move faster as both of them grow more confident in their movements, in their touches. The little bit of space between them shrinks rapidly under both of their efforts to pull the other closer, and even though the bean bag chairs make it slightly awkward, neither of them can be bothered long enough to notice.

Todoroki’s kissing is a lot like his personality. Simultaneously, he manages to be completely open and still completely impossible to predict. He hums approving noises any time Hanta does something he likes, then surprises him in the next moment with his forwardness, like when his hands slide dangerously close to Hanta’s ass.

A soft groan slips from Hanta’s throat as he pushes back into the touch. He can feel himself stirring in his sweatpants. 

But a moment later, a loud knock sounds at his door, and the two of them jerk violently apart. 

As they do, their pushed-together bean bag setup gives way, and they both thud gracelessly to the ground in the newly formed space between the chairs.

Todoroki grunts. 

Hanta pushes himself up, then blinks down at him, his heart racing in his chest. 

Holy shit. 

He’s on top of Todoroki Shouto. 

From this vantage point, he can see that Todoroki’s cheeks are flushed red. The pupils of his wide eyes are dilated, and just a bit elongated, a bit slit-like.

Hanta gulps.

Holy shit. He did that. 

The knocking at the door returns. 

“Better get that,” Todoroki whispers, the sound nearly lost to the fall wind that whips past the window as he speaks.

Hanta nods slowly, dejectedly.

Willing his body to calm down, and damning whoever is behind his door to the deepest pits of hell, he stands and shuffles awkwardly to the door. He answers it without bothering to paste a phony smile onto his face. 

Kaminari is standing there, grinning enough for both of them. Hanta blinks slowly. 

“Denki?”

“Hey bro!” Kaminari says, and Hanta winces as the silence of his bedroom shatters around the loud words. Kaminari doesn’t notice. He holds up his hand, wiggling a little black pen between his fingers as he wiggles his eyebrows at him. “Wanna get baked?”

Hanta’s eyes fall closed for a moment in exasperation. 

Of course.

He opens them again, and glances over his shoulder.

“Now’s really not a good time, man.”

“What? Why not?” Kaminari asks, sounding concerned. His brow wrinkles as he follows Hanta’s cue and looks behind him.

When his eyes land on Todoroki, his mouth drops open, just a bit, and he slowly nods his head on a silent, drawn out, “ Ohhh. ”

His expression is far too understanding for comfort. Hanta narrows his eyes, even as he feels a blush spreading over his cheeks.

Kaminari grins at him, then winks, as if to say, Don’t worry buddy, your secret is safe with me.

Hanta prays that Todoroki isn’t looking at them, or listening too closely. Ideally, he’s playing on his phone or something.

“I’m serious,” Hanta presses. “Another day, okay?”

Feeling his face grow redder, he mouths, ‘It’s not like that.’

“Suuure,” retorts Kaminari, dropping his voice as it takes on a smug quality. 

Then, in a nearly silent whisper, he mouths, ”I’m onto you, Sero Hanta.” He uses the end of his pen to give him a hard poke to the chest. “You like him.”

Hanta’s eyes widen. Melting into the floor is quickly starting to look like an appealing option. 

He doesn’t want to talk about this at all, but certainly not with Todoroki right fucking there. Especially not when they just spent the last ten minutes trying to shove their tongues down each other’s throats. Hanta just wants Kaminari to leave, and for them to get back to that, before Todoroki hears something he shouldn’t.

“Is that marijuana?”

Hanta and Kaminari both jump at the sound of Todoroki’s voice, and Hanta lets out a soft curse. 

Oh god.

He turns around to see Todoroki pushing himself up from the beanbag. Hanta supposes he must’ve quietly gotten up off the floor at some point. The grace with which he always conducts himself shines especially bright as he somehow makes the awkward movement seem collected. 

Todoroki walks towards the door, stopping next to Hanta. He doesn’t touch him, but knowing what they were just doing, the proximity makes Hanta’s heart start to race again nonetheless. Todoroki, on the other hand, looks entirely unaffected, all the tells he’d displayed only moments ago gone with the autumn breeze. Even his hair is in order.

Todoroki looks between the two of them.

“You said you were going to get high, right?”

“Yeah!” Kaminari says with a grin.

At the same time, Hanta adamantly says, “No!”

Kaminari and Todoroki both turn to look at him, one looking unimpressed, the other quizzical.

“Er– I mean – Kaminari was inviting me, yeah. But since you and I were already hanging out…” he trails off, wishing he had a time reversal quirk instead of his useless fucking tape. 

“Oh,” Todoroki says, looking thoughtful. Then, after a moment. “It’s fine.”

Hanta can’t tell if he means ‘it’s fine to cut this short’, or if he doesn’t mean it at all, is actually uncomfortable and wants to leave, but either way, Hanta is struck by the sudden urge to pout.

“No, Todoroki–” he starts weakly, but Todoroki cuts him off.

“I think I’d like to try it too, if that’s okay.”

Hanta blinks.

What?

There’s no way he heard that correctly.

“Holy shit, of course, dude!” Kaminari’s voice breaks him out of his stupor. Hanta looks at Todoroki with wide eyes. 

“What?” He manages to say it aloud this time.

“My dad absolutely abhors it,” Todoroki shrugs, smirking just slightly when Kaminari laughs out loud. Then, he turns back to Hanta. “You enjoy it, right, Hanta?”

Hanta’s brows shoot up.

Hanta?

This is the strangest day of his life.

“Uh, yeah, Todo– err– Shouto.” He scratches the back of his neck and ignores the feeling of Kaminari’s gaze boring into the side of his head, silently demanding answers. He just focuses on Todoroki instead. “I enjoy it a lot.”

Todoroki smiles. It’s mostly soft, but there’s also an undeniable rebellious twinkle in his eye, and Hanta would be lying if he called it anything other than adorable. His stomach swoops, and he can’t help but smile back.

Then, just as he thinks his heart can’t take anything more, Todoroki tilts his head and adds, “Can you teach me how?”

Hanta’s eyes widen, darting down to his lips. 

They’re still just slightly redder than usual. Kaminari probably can’t tell, but he can.

Swallowing around his dry throat, Hanta nods.

“Y-yeah. I’ve got you.”

An hour later finds Kaminari lazing in Hanta’s hammock, staring into space, with one hand still stuffed down an open bag of chips. Hanta and Todoroki are sitting on the floor and lying back against the bean bag chairs, doing much the same. 

They’re pressed shoulder to shoulder, and the point of contact between them feels warm and cozy and grounding. If Kaminari weren’t here, Hanta thinks he’d crawl right into Todoroki’s lap, trying to get as much of this feeling as possible. He wonders if Todoroki would let him. 

He thinks he might.

From the corner of his eye he sees Kaminari twitch as he jolts out of his stupor, finally bringing that handful of chips to his mouth. He munches them loudly, unlocking his phone with his free hand and starting to scroll.

Hanta knows at some point he and Todoroki will definitely need to discuss what happened earlier. He can’t bring himself to be too anxious about it right now, though. Not with the comfort coursing through his system, not when Todoroki stayed with him even after they got interrupted, not when he’s still here with him now.

Todoroki shifts slightly next to him, and a moment later, Hanta feels his fingertips brush against the back of his hand. As he looks down, Todoroki curls their fingers loosely together.

Hanta’s heart trips over itself in his chest.

He can’t help the grin that stretches wide over his cheeks. He looks away quickly, trying to save face, and his eyes drift back to Kaminari, who isn’t paying them a bit of attention. 

Actually, he seems to have already fallen asleep mid-scroll. His phone is still loosely clutched in his raised hand, hovering over his chest, but the screen has gone black. 

Hanta’s grin stretches wider. He nudges Todoroki, then nods to Kaminari. Todoroki’s red-rimmed gaze follows his. 

“Watch this,” he whispers. Then, he starts to count down. After all the times he’s smoked with Kaminari, the timing isn’t all that difficult. “Five… four… three… two…”

On “one”, Kaminari’s phone slips from his hand, smacking him hard in the chest. 

Kaminari yelps, sitting bolt upright. “Wha’ th’ fu–”

But he cuts himself off with another, louder curse and a squawk as he immediately loses his balance in the hammock. 

He flails about in an attempt to find it again, but it doesn’t work, and he quickly falls off entirely, thudding to the ground on his ass.

“Oof.” Kaminari blinks at the wall, then slowly looks over at Hanta. “Ouch.”

Hanta laughs. “That was even better than usual, dude. I’m impressed.”

Kaminari rolls his eyes at him, but there’s a smile playing at the corner of his lips, so Hanta knows he’s not really mad.

He’s just about to turn to see Todoroki’s reaction when, beside him, he hears a loud snort.

He whips his head around in disbelief.

His jaw drops. 

He must look ridiculous, but it doesn’t matter, because Todoroki isn’t looking at him anyway. Todoroki is currently busy doubling over himself with giggles, laughing so hard that the sound is nearly silent.

Todoroki Shouto is fucking giggling.

Todoroki Shouto, who kissed him earlier, is sitting high on his floor, giggling his ass off. 

What the fuck.

Hanta watches, transfixed, as Todoroki laughs, rocking gently from side to side and clutching his belly. 

Every few seconds, little hiccuping noises leave his mouth, only to go straight to Hanta’s heart.

Hanta suddenly can’t even recall what Todoroki is laughing at. Though, he doesn’t try very hard, as it would distract from watching the scene in front of him, committing every second to memory. He supposes doesn’t really matter right now, anyway. 

All that really matters right now is his slow realization that his small crush is actually anything but small.

All that really matters right now is Todoroki Shouto and his breathless laughter, Todoroki Shouto and his too-long hair, Todoroki Shouto and his pretty lips, which are currently half-hidden behind his hand as he tries and fails to cover the huge smile on his face. His pretty lips that Hanta kissed.

Hanta doesn’t realize that Kaminari’s scooted back over to them until he’s leaning towards him, muttering under his breath. He speaks too quietly for Todoroki to hear, and he sounds smug as hell. 

“Oh man, you are sooo fucked.”

Hanta says nothing. As he lets those words sink in, he belatedly realizes that Todoroki’s fingers are still intertwined with his, unconsciously gripping him a bit harder as he laughs.

Fuck.

December

The glass of the train window fogs with Hanta’s breath where he’s resting his head upon it, watching the tall buildings of the city shrink down and separate as he speeds along. His family home is in a rather rural area, a fair bit away from the city-center of Musutafu, about half an hour by train. 

While living in the dorms has been one of his favorite parts of attending UA (an opinion certainly unskewed by his incredibly fortunate room assignment), he’s missed this. The quiet of the train, the scenery rushing by and blending together, the space between doing something and doing nothing.

Along with the stress of final exams and the pressure of hero agency interviews, December brought with it the first snow. That was a few days ago now, but the roofs of the buildings that fly past the train window are all still topped with white. Slowly melting shoveled piles line the parking lots of the convenience stores and supermarkets, and as the train reaches the more residential areas, he sees some bundled up children stomping around in their boots. 

His thoughts drift to Todoroki Shouto.

He hopes he’s okay. They don’t really talk about it, but Hanta knows he has a strained relationship with his father, one with a dark past. While Hanta’s mostly just relieved to be finished with exams and interviews, ready to sleep in his old bed for a few weeks, Shouto must have a lot of mixed feelings about going home.

When he and Shouto said goodbye to one another this morning, Shouto had doubled up the patches on his neck again. The sight made Hanta’s heart ache. He still doesn’t know why he wears them, or even what Shouto’s secondary gender actually is, but he knows that the scent patches are his tell tale sign of discomfort. 

He longed to pull Shouto back inside the safety of his room and keep him there, spend the day kissing over the patches and telling him that he’s amazing, that Hanta has a word or two to say to whoever convinced him otherwise. Maybe they could spend the whole break that way. By the end of it, maybe Shouto would even feel comfortable enough with himself to take them off, and Hanta could finally know what his scent is like.

But of course, he hadn’t, and they didn’t. They had just said a soft goodbye, trading a few manga and sharing a long hug, during which Hanta tried to wordlessly communicate exactly how much Shouto meant to him.

And after that, they’d made out against the door for about five minutes, rutting clumsily against each other until Hanta had to push him off with shaky hands and practically run to the station to avoid missing his train. Which had not been the most comfortable task, all things considered. 

He hopes that that didn’t overshadow the tone of their goodbye, but he can’t really bring himself to be upset about it. Not when he’s about to go two whole weeks without kissing Shouto at all. 

They haven’t talked about that, either. 

The kissing, or the cuddling, or the way they sometimes stay up late talking or reading, then fall asleep in each other’s arms instead of going back to their own rooms. 

Hanta knows they probably should talk about it, but the calendar on his desk reminds him each day that this is temporary, anyway, that whether they define it or not, it’ll come to an end soon enough.

He supposes none of it matters very much. Alpha or omega, boyfriends or friends or just classmates, a day or a year or even ten - he can’t really picture any scenario in which he’s not hopelessly in love with Todoroki Shouto.

The train slows as it approaches his stop.

January

Rapid fire knocks sound at his door, and Hanta jolts awake on a muttered curse, his heart speeding up in his chest. He looks at the clock, confused.

It’s only nine, and the textbook on his lap tells him he dozed off attempting to do homework in bed. He pushes his schoolwork away, stretching his arms over his head. He must’ve been more tired than he realized.

Knock knock knock-knock-knock.

“Hanta?”

Shouto.

Hanta’s stomach swoops with automatic excitement, but he pushes his feelings to the side as he registers how pinched Shouto’s voice sounds. 

“Hanta, are you busy?” Shouto calls out to him again. Apparently he’s taking too long. Hanta’s brows knit together. 

Are you busy? Their old code. They haven’t used it in a while.

Hanta’s had a fine day. He doesn’t really need any comfort tonight. So, why is Shouto here, breaking down his door? Actually, come to think of it, he hasn’t had a bad day in quite a while.

“ Hanta, are you busy?”

His pitch sounds even more strained, and Hanta’s sleepy brain puts it together this time. 

Shouto isn’t here because he thinks Hanta is in a bad place. Shouto’s coming to him because he’s in one.

Suddenly, Hanta feels wide awake.

“Yeah, Shou, coming!”

He bounds up out of bed and over to the door in three steps. He yanks it open, swearing when he jams it against his toe in his haste.

“ Shit - ouch - that fucking - hurts, ” he curses to himself, hopping on one foot as he doubles over to hold his injury and wrenches the door the rest of the way open.

He looks up at Shouto through watery eyes. 

“What’s going on?” He asks through the pain. “Is everything okay?”

“Um,” Shouto says, looking down at him.

It’s clear that Hanta’s predicament has distracted him momentarily from his own mess. Still, his eyes are wide, frantic, so Hanta takes a deep breath before releasing his foot and straightening up.

“Shouto?” he tries, voice soft. “What’s up? Did you want to read together tonight?”

Todoroki swallows and shakes his head, bringing a hand up to his neck. Hanta feels his eyes widen a fraction as he watches him scratch at the edges of his scent patches for a second before he seems to forcibly stop himself.

They’re doubled up today. 

Fuck. 

Had he missed something?

Shouto’s hand twitches where he’s laid it flat against his shoulder. Without thinking about it too much, Hanta reaches out and takes it in his own, curling their fingers together. 

He hopes it’s grounding. He means for it to be. Let me in, his touch says. 

Todoroki stares at their clasped hands for a long moment, then he squeezes his fingers in thanks.

“They itch,” he says, and apparently that’s all the explanation Hanta’s getting, because he doesn’t elaborate. “Can we spar?”

Hanta tilts his head to the side, confused

They itch? What does that mean?

As he thinks on it, though, he sees Shouto’s tongue working over his teeth behind closed lips. Upon closer inspection, he’s fidgeting all over - his mouth, his scent glands, his free hand. 

The pieces fall together, and Hanta’s eyes widen just a fraction. His… his time must be coming up - be it rut or heat, Hanta isn’t sure. Regardless, it’s nearly here. 

“Oh,” he says weakly, suddenly feeling wildly unprepared. He doesn’t know much about this sort of thing, nothing beyond what’s portrayed in movies and on TV. And even though they’ve grown undeniably close, Hanta can’t fathom why he’s coming to him of all people. “Shouldn’t you… shouldn’t you be headed home for a bit?” 

The question comes out rather weak sounding, and Todoroki shakes his head firmly at him, too quickly. There’s a flash of some emotion in his eyes. It looks a little like anger, turning his pupils momentarily to slits, so fast that Hanta barely catches it.

“ Hanta,” he repeats, in a voice Hanta has never heard from him before. Hanta doesn’t respond, frozen under the weight of his commanding intonation. “ Are you busy?”

It sounds like: No words. Only action.

Only then does Hanta realize he’s broken the rules of their code. He isn’t here because he wants to talk about it.

Hanta squeezes his hand around Shouto’s. Even if he has no idea what he’s doing, it’s not like there was ever any chance he’d turn Todoroki Shouto away when he needed him.

“Sorry,” he says. He means it. “No, I’m not busy. We can go right now, if you want?”

Shouto responds with a jerky nod. 

Hanta drops his hand to grab a hair tie and some gym clothes, and takes it again when they start down the hallway towards the elevator. Shouto’s fingers shake in his, but he doesn’t pull away, so Hanta does his best to calm him with soothing strokes of his thumb against his skin. 

* * *

Between three years of hero training and their newfound friendship, they’ve faced each other countless times. Over all that time, Hanta’s slowly learned a few of Shouto's tells. He can usually guess which side he’s going to use to attack. He’s learned how to counter ice with tape, learned how to pull himself quickly out of the way of a flash of fire. His memories of sparring with Shouto, of frostburn and bruising and ill-timed hard-ons, have merged together at this point, a familiar blur of adrenaline and excitement and the buzz of straining a quirk past its limits.

Tonight is not like that.

Tonight is different. 

Tonight, Shouto is different.

As he stands over Hanta, offering a hand to help him back up yet again, his usual calm and controlled air is gone with the wind. In its place is tension, so much tension. Shouto is restless, twitching.

He still looks pent up, or itchy, for lack of a better word, even though he really shouldn’t be at this point. He’s been using his quirk for nearly an hour now, and he’s already won several rounds, leaving Hanta’s shirt half singed off and his forearms cut and bruised from sharp shards of ice. 

But even after all that, he still looks ready to pounce on Hanta, ready to sink his teeth. His pupils have started elongating into slits, and in a way, he looks something like a predator. Hanta supposes this is what pre-heat or pre-rut looks like up close.

He isn’t afraid, though. Not because he thinks he could take Shouto on - because god, he could not take on some feral, uncontrolled version of him. He’s just barely starting to hold his own against the regular version. Rather, it’s because Hanta trusts him. And somehow, he knows him, even if their relationship consists mostly of pointedly not talking about themselves. 

Somewhere, between the silences that speak a thousand words, the pleas for closeness hidden beneath manga covers, the countless undefined kisses shared in the space between bean bag chairs, Hanta thinks he’s figured a few things out. And he’s certain that Shouto wouldn’t have come to him if he thought it would put Hanta in danger.

Still, though, Hanta can see the toll it’s taking on him to hold back with his quirk right now. He needs to blow off steam, let all his energy out, get rid of that itchy feeling, but can’t do that with Hanta. Not really. Shouto knows Hanta can’t take his full capacity, and Hanta knows it too. He probably should’ve just come here alone, but something tells Hanta that his presence is more important to Shouto than being able to completely let go. 

The implications of that thought make him a bit lightheaded, so he pushes it away. Now is the time to be practical. Hanta bites his lip as he takes Shouto’s outstretched hand and lets himself be hauled to his feet.

“Again?” Shouto asks, but Hanta shakes his head, and switches out his hands so that he can lace their fingers together.

“Come with me, alright?”

Shouto’s eyes widen a bit, and his sweaty palm twitches against Hanta’s. Hanta squeezes tighter.

“Just trust me, Shouto.”

Shouto nods, albeit looking slightly wary, and Hanta leads him through the back hallways of the school’s massive training facilities until they’re standing in front of one of the quirk proofed rooms used for hero courses. This specific one is fireproof, and he and Shouto have been assigned to do partner and group training here a few times before because of Shouto’s quirk.

They’re not technically supposed to be here outside of class, and certainly not without a supervisor, but he and Kaminari have learned a few things over the course of three years of late night hall-roaming, and he knows there isn’t anyone around to catch them. It only takes him a few seconds to type the seven-digit password into the keypad on the door, and then the lock is clicking free as the lights turn on automatically. 

“Is this really alright?” Shouto asks, voice laden with apprehension as Hanta pushes open the door and ushers him inside.

“I promise,” Hanta assures him. “If anybody comes, it was all my idea anyway.”

And it’s not like you’re in much of a state to protest. I’m sure Aizawa would rather have you here punching dummies than back in the dorm rooms tearing up your futon and dragging scratches down your walls. 

That seems to console Shouto well enough. He steps fully inside, and Hanta follows him into the familiar room, sealing the door behind them. The room isn’t enormous, but it has high ceilings and various areas with different fake terrain for training, all of it fireproof. Everything is in perfect condition, with no signs of the wrecked state they’d left it in last time he’d been in here, when Bakugou and Shouto had been pitted against each other on opposite teams. What a horrendous idea that had been.

Shouto’s eyes are darting about, already calculating. He still looks worried, though, so Hanta steps close to him and settles his arms around his waist. There’s almost no height difference between them.

“I’m gonna set up one of the simulations for you, yeah?” he explains. Shouto twitches, eyes widening, and Hanta barely resists the urge to pull him into a hug. “I’m not going anywhere, I’ll stay right here and watch, but we both know sparring with me isn’t what you need right now.”

Shouto opens his mouth to protest, but Hanta raises a stern brow. 

“It’s okay, Shou. It’s not what you’re think-- it’s not because of that, okay?”

Shouto nods, visibly deflating. He clearly doesn’t have enough mental energy to use much of it worrying about someone else, and it pulls at the strings of Hanta’s heart that he’d expend any of it on him in the first place.

“Alright,” Hanta says, pointing to a window in the corner of the room with a ledge wide enough for him to sit on, “I’ll be right there after I start the dummies for you.”

Shouto nods slowly, dragging his lower lip between his teeth. It’s a sign that he’s thinking, that he wants to say something, so Hanta waits.

“Can you…” Shouto starts, then he visibly swallows, averting his gaze to the ceiling, looking annoyed. At what, Hanta doesn’t know, but he doesn’t think it’s at him. “Would you mind... closing your eyes?”

Hanta blinks at him, head tilting. He wonders if this request is something Shouto-specific, or just one of the many gaps in his knowledge surfacing.

“Uh, sure,” he says, eyes trailing over Shouto - his nails that have begun stretching into claws, his pupils that are now essentially just slits, his chest that’s rising and falling sharply to the beat of his heavy breaths.

He’s concerned for Shouto, but Shouto mistakes the look for something else.

“Don’t worry,” he says, softening as he reaches out to run a hand over Hanta’s arm. “My Alpha would never hurt you. I just don’t want you to see.”

Hanta’s breath catches in his throat. His eyes widen.

Alpha.

The word echoes slowly in his head.

Just like that, the question he’s been turning over at the back of his mind for months has an answer. Shouto is an alpha.

It makes something twist in Hanta’s stomach. Not because the label itself matters to him - alpha or omega, it makes no difference. But rather, it’s because the faceless, nameless people that would be a better, a more worthwhile, match for Shouto suddenly do have faces and names - they’re Hagakure, Uraraka, Ojiro, that guy with the wind quirk from Shiketsu. They’re countless others, whose secondary gender Hanta can’t discern without being told, but Shouto certainly can.

These are the people that could have him for real, the reason they’ll eventually have to end… whatever this thing between them is even called.

Hanta takes a shaky breath, ignoring the way the corners of his eyes are suddenly prickling. It’s a silly reaction - he’s always known he isn’t enough, the specifics shouldn’t matter. He tries to focus on what Shouto just said instead.

Don’t worry. My Alpha would never hurt you.

Right. He can do this.

“S-so, you have a lot of control over it, then?” he asks. He hates how weak his voice sounds.

“Hmm?” Shouto’s forehead creases, and Hanta realizes he was probably quiet for longer than he should’ve been.

“Your- your Alpha,” he says, and he’s not sure why it comes out as a whisper.

“Oh,” Shouto murmurs, and it’s a little hard to tell because his face is already flushed from everything going on, but Hanta thinks he sees his cheeks redden further. “I do have good control, yes. But, um, I meant you, specifically.” The last few words are mumbled. 

Hanta’s brows knit together. He doesn’t follow. “Me? Why? Because I’m a beta?”

Shouto blinks at him.  

He suddenly looks slightly exasperated. Hanta’s about to apologize, to tell him they can get on with the simulation, but then Shouto answers him.

“No. That isn’t it. It just… likes you.”

Hanta sucks his lower lip between his teeth for a moment, then lets it go. “It… likes me…?”

Shouto nods. He’s scratching at the back of his neck again, his fidgety behavior from before returning quickly. But it’s hard for Hanta to focus on that. His breath is coming faster now, and he can feel his skin slowly turning splotchy. 

“Your Alpha... likes me.”

The tips of Shouto’s ears go red. Hanta vaguely wonders if everyone knows how easy it is to make Shouto blush, or how pretty it is. Does the omega from Shiketsu know?

Shouto bites his lip, and Hanta belatedly notices his fangs have lengthened as well. They should scare him, they should remind him of that awful day at his internship, especially now that he knows what Shouto is. But, they don’t, and he doesn’t feel unsafe. He can’t imagine ever feeling unsafe around Todoroki Shouto. He wonders if that’s stupid of him. He doesn’t think it is.

“Yes,” Shouto mutters, then, seemingly more to himself than to Hanta, he adds, “A lot.”

Hanta flushes, eyes widening.  

A lot?

Todoroki misreads his expression again.

“I’m sorry if that makes you uncomfortable,” he says. “I try not to talk about it, normally, but it… it’s closer, now.”

“Not at all,” Hanta breathes. “I’m glad you told me. I-I want to know everything about you, Shouto.”

It isn’t necessarily a confession, but it feels like one. Especially when paired with Shouto’s words, which sounded a bit like a not-confession of their own. Hanta’s heart beats fast and hard behind his ribcage, and although Shouto says nothing, something passes between them in the look they share. 

Eventually, Shouto opens his mouth to speak. Hanta feels his face go scarlet, and he hurriedly turns toward the simulation controls.

“But first, you should definitely work off some of this energy,” Hanta says loudly. The moment dissolves around them.

He… might not be ready for answers. Not quite yet.

He punches buttons, selecting settings for Shouto that will give him a lot to hit without having to pay too much mind to strategy. Once he finishes, he sets the simulation on a countdown timer, then seats himself on the ledge of the window.

When the countdown reaches five seconds, he closes his eyes, like Shouto asked of him.

Three… 

Two… 

One… 

GO

“Don’t hold back, Shouto,” Hanta whispers, but Shouto is already off, grunting as he makes his first impact with what Hanta can only assume is a dummy.

* * *

Shouto definitely does not hold back.

True to his word, Hanta hasn’t opened his eyes a single time in the hour he’s been at this, but despite how late it’s getting, dozing off would be impossible. Shouto is making so much noise, growling and roaring and, at times, even screaming as he hits and rips and claws the endless stream of dummies into what must be a million tiny pieces. 

Hanta is definitely going to get detention when the teachers find this wreck, but that’s okay. As long as Shouto can release some of what’s smothering him from the inside out, making it so hard for him to sit still, so hard for him to think clearly.

As he fights, Shouto’s breathing is so heavy that sometimes it almost sounds as if he’s sobbing, and the thought makes Hanta’s heart clench in his chest. He wants so badly to go to him, to hold him, like he always does, but he knows that now isn’t the time. So, instead, he waits, listening to the chaos that he can’t see.

And then, as quickly as it started, the simulation ends as Shouto deals a final blow to the last dummy.

All of the machinery shuts down at once, and the room goes almost uncomfortably quiet. Hanta’s ears ring as silence floods them, punctuated only by the heavy, gulping breaths coming from the center of the room.

A few seconds later, a loud thud reaches his ears, and after all his time at UA, Hanta would know that sound anywhere - a body hitting the training mat.

Hanta opens his eyes.

Shouto has collapsed onto the floor, lying on his back with his limbs spread out like a starfish as his chest heaves. Hanta stands, and closes the distance between them with quick strides, without asking, or even calling out to him. With anyone else, that would feel incredibly stupid. Hanta trusts Shouto more than anyone else, though.

Shouto’s eyes are closed, but they open when Hanta gets close, presumably because he feels his approaching footsteps through the soft padding of the floor. 

Hanta stops next to him and sweeps his gaze over his body, cataloguing his condition. His alpha features are receding - his pupils, his teeth, and his claws are almost back to normal, though Hanta has no idea how long that will last. He’s covered in sweat, and at some point, his shirt must have either come off on purpose, or left his body in shreds.

Shouto meets his gaze, and blinks up at him with slightly swollen eyes. It’s suddenly very obvious that he really had been crying. Hanta belatedly notices the light reflecting off a dried tear track on his cheek.

He feels his heart clench, aching in his chest. He doesn’t know what to say, so he just sits down next to Shouto. He pulls his hand into his lap so he can thread their fingers together.

For a while, neither of them speak. Hanta rubs circles against the skin of Shouto’s palm, hoping it’s at least a little soothing. Eventually, Shouto breaks the silence.

“Sometimes,” he starts, and his voice is ragged and hoarse. “I really hate this thing.”

Hanta doesn’t have to ask to know he’s talking about his Alpha.

Hanta feels a pang of sadness, and he glances around the room, taking in the true extent of the destruction. There’s leather and foam everywhere, shredded and covered in soot, the unrecognizable remains of an army of dummies. Half the room is covered in jagged, melting ice, and there’s a few scorch marks on the ceiling, despite the fact that the room is supposed to be totally fire-proof.

“It’s only natural, Shouto,” Hanta murmurs, squeezing his hand. He wants to tell him how strong he is, how impressive, but he knows well enough that Shouto is sensitive about these things. It’s probably best to let him do as much of the talking as possible.

“Natural or not, it makes me feel like him.”

Hanta’s stomach twists. “You’re nothing like your dad, Shouto.”

Shouto sighs. He takes a while to respond.

“Maybe I’m not,” he mutters eventually, then gestures around half-heartedly with his free hand, before letting it flop back to the floor. “But this - this is everything he wanted for me.”

His tone is dry, almost bored, but the admission is so raw that it makes Hanta’s throat burn. So that’s why he doesn’t go home, why he chooses to deal with the discomfort of rut within the confines of his dorm room. It’s his quirk all over again. Of course his father would care about his secondary gender. Of course he would want him to be a strong, aggressive alpha.

Of course Endeavor himself would be just that - a strong, aggressive, angry alpha.

No wonder Shouto finds strong scents triggering. No wonder he tries his hardest to act as if his own doesn’t even exist. Hanta doesn’t want to imagine the kinds of hostility he must have witnessed growing up.

“C’mere,” Hanta whispers, and he shuffles them around until Shouto’s head is lying in his lap. 

They’re still holding hands. 

They don’t speak for a long while. 

“It’s been... confusing... lately,” Shouto finally admits.

“Why’s that?” Hanta’s voice is barely above a whisper, even though they’re completely alone.

Shouto brings a hand up to graze over the patches on his neck. 

“I’ve always hated it.” His Alpha. “When I was younger, I spent a lot of time learning to control it. As soon as I got to UA, I got on the most effective hormone regulators available without parental approval. I wanted suppressants, but Recovery Girl can’t supply them without a signature.”

And there’s no way Endeavor would sign for that.

Hanta nods slowly. He supposes that explains why Shouto is so in-control right now. Why he’s verbal, why he can stave off his symptoms with a brutal workout, rather than... rather than other things.

Hanta doesn’t know much about this subject, but sometimes, in the dark of the night when he’s at his most vulnerable, he still sees the alpha from that day, still remembers the terrifying look in its eyes. It looks nothing like anything he’s ever seen on Shouto. 

Hanta doesn’t know what to say, so he just waits for Shouto to keep speaking. Eventually, he does.

“But it’s been a bit better, since… since we started spending time together,” he says. His voice sounds almost shy.

Hanta’s heart thuds hard, and it feels like it’s trying to climb into his throat. “Really?”

Shouto nods. “Recently, I…” he starts, but he trails off before he’s even begun. It takes him a minute or so to pick another direction. He finally settles on, “My Alpha has been different, lately.”

Even though Hanta has next to no idea what that entails, the implications of the statement make him feel lightheaded. He hears Shouto’s earlier words once more.

It just likes you.

A lot.

“Uh, different?” Hanta asks quietly.

“Yes,” Shouto says, then adds, “Still an animal, of course. I still have to deal with times like tonight. But, usually, around you, it’s quieter. Less like a wolf, and more like…”

He trails off and stops talking. When he doesn’t continue, Hanta prompts him.

“More like… what?” 

Shouto’s mouth pulls into a scowl. He mumbles something.

“Sorry, Shouto, didn’t catch that.”

Shouto heaves a sigh, and closes his eyes in Hanta’s lap. His cheeks are pink.

“More like a puppy.”

A shocked chuckle leaves Hanta. “A– a puppy?”

The corner of Shouto’s lip twitches downward. “Yes.”

“You might be legally required to elaborate more than that after dropping that on me, Shouto.”

Shouto frowns harder. 

“It was very... natural,” he eventually supplies, voice so quiet it's a little hard for Hanta to hear him. “I didn’t notice at first. It was all very subtle - the excitement to see you, the possessiveness, the purring. I stopped letting that type of thing actually come out a long time ago, so sometimes I don’t realize… the instincts are just background noise.”

Hanta just sits there for a moment. He’d love to respond, but his mind whited-out at ‘purring’.

Shouto’s Alpha purrs. Purrs for Hanta.

“That’s, uh…” Hanta starts softly, but he doesn’t know what to say. He bites his lip. He needs to move this story along before he spontaneously combusts. “So, what changed, then?”

Shouto opens his eyes again. 

He looks so much calmer than he had a few minutes ago. His lip might even be curved slightly upward, but it's hard to tell from this angle. Still, Hanta hears victory bells in his head. 

“Barley tea,” Shouto replies.

That’s all he says. 

Hanta’s brows rise. He waits, but Shouto doesn’t elaborate.

“Barley tea…?” Hanta eventually tries. “As in, the drink? I don’t follow.”

“It’s very close to your scent.”

Hanta’s eyebrows shoot up as he looks at Shouto.

“Are you feeling okay?” he asks. “I don’t have a scent, remember?”

“Of course you do. It’s barley tea,” Shouto says matter-of-factly, circling the pad of his thumb over Hanta’s palm. “It’s subtle, but I think that’s part of why we like it so much.”

Hanta doesn’t know what to say to that. He’s quiet for a while, turning the idea over slowly. He might have a scent.

“Barley tea…?” he asks eventually.

“Yes. The first time my Alpha actually said anything about you, I was making barley tea in the kitchen.”

“Oh?” Hanta presses, heart suddenly hammering hard. “What did it say?”

“Um.” His voice is quiet. “‘ Like our Beta’. ”

Hanta feels his stomach flip. 

He blinks slowly as a strong rush of affection for… for this thing inside Shouto wells up in his chest. 

Our Beta. 

“That’s… kind of cute, dude,” he can’t help but say.

Shouto raises an unimpressed brow at him. “It wasn’t. I dropped my mug and spilled my hot tea. It took me twenty minutes to get everything cleaned up.”

Hanta snorts. “I don’t know, man, that sounds like a you problem.”

“Are you–” Todoroki starts, then cuts himself off. His eyes widen a fraction, making him look bemused. “Are you siding with my Alpha right now?”

Hanta grins. “Um, a little bit? That’s adorable.”

Shouto chuckles. Then, he falls quiet, a blush rising to his cheeks.

“What is it?” Hanta asks, hoping he didn’t push anything too far. He gets the sense that talking openly and kindly about his Alpha is new for Shouto.

“It… um. It liked that. When you said that.”

Hanta’s grin widens. “What? Your Alpha can hear me now ?!”

Shouto just blinks at him, and Hanta’s brain catches up with his mouth a second later.

“Right, dumb question,” he chuckles. “I’m new to this, okay?”

Shouto’s face softens. “That’s okay.”

Hanta glances away, then back at Shouto. He doesn’t want to be invasive, but he’s horribly curious. He doesn’t hold out very long. “So… how can you tell?”

Shouto’s expression remains neutral, and he holds Hanta’s gaze, but Hanta can see the color rising to his cheeks.

“The purring.”

Hanta’s mouth falls open. “Seriously?” 

Shouto nods at him, looking simultaneously exasperated and amused.

“Holy shit,” Hanta breathes. “Can I– can I hear it?”

He realizes a split-second too late that this was the wrong thing to say, and Shouto’s eyes are already going wide. Hanta squeezes his hand, then raises his free one.

“Sorry!” he says quickly. “I– I forgot– got carried away... I know better than to ask questions like that.”

Shouto lets out a breath, and his face relaxes a bit. “It’s okay,” he says, squeezing Hanta’s hand in return. “I just– I haven’t done anything like that in a long time. And never… for another person.”

“I’d never ask you to do something you were uncomfortable with, Shouto – at least, not on purpose,” Hanta promises. “I’m so sorry.”

Shouto doesn’t reply for a long moment. Instead, he stares into space, brushing his thumb along Hanta’s hand, clearly thinking. Hanta waits until he finally speaks.

“I think…” he starts slowly. “I think I wouldn’t mind trying. For you. It might be… good. To let it out sometimes.”

Hanta’s heart speeds up in his chest. “Are you sure? I really don’t want you doing anything upsetting for my sake.”

Shouto takes a few more seconds to think, then nods at him. “I’m sure that we can at least try.” 

“Okay,” Hanta whispers. As he speaks, he watches Shouto’s cheeks color again. “What is it?”

“Could you– um– could we maybe…” 

He trails off, looking embarrassed. Hanta’s just about to ask if he’s okay when instead of continuing, Shouto simply raises his free hand up, reaching out to him.

Oh.

“You– you want a kiss?” Hanta asks, and he can’t help the smile that stretches over his lips. Shouto pouts – or his version of pouting, anyway, which is really just an almost imperceptible narrowing of his eyes. Leaning down toward the floor, Hanta murmurs, “All you ever have to do is ask.”

Then, he kisses him. 

They’re very upside down, lips slotting together with far less familiarity than when they do this upright, and Shouto tastes like sweat. A lot of sweat. But, it’s good – it’s never not good, with Shouto, if he’s being honest. Hanta’s not entirely sure why they’re kissing – maybe it’s just to set Shouto’s mind at ease a bit – but no matter the reason, Hanta will absolutely never complain about getting to do this. He hums happily.

Soon, the ache in his abdomen forces him out from under Shouto, and he lies next to him instead, propping himself up on an elbow as he closes the gap between them again. He loves when they can kiss like this, without distractions or obligations or anything but the two of them. The night they’ve had so far has been anything but normal, but when they’re like this, the simulation room feels a bit like an extension of his bedroom, and kissing on the padded gym floor at midnight feels almost like molding to one another atop Shouto’s futon on a Sunday afternoon, with all the time in the world.

At least, it feels that way – comfortable and familiar – until Shouto starts purring.

At first, it’s so gentle he almost misses it. Even once he notices, he has to concentrate to see if that’s really what’s happening, but then it’s growing in volume and intensity until Hanta can feel the vibrations against his lips. He can’t help the way he forgets to keep kissing Shouto, the way his head pulls back and his eyes open of their own accord, so he can look at him in awe.

When Shouto follows, eyes fluttering open, his pupils have elongated again, just a bit. 

“Woah,” Hanta breathes, and suddenly he feels as if his heart is trying to beat its way out of his chest. In a way, it’s illogical - this is the same Shouto he reads manga with while sitting in bean bag chairs, the same Shouto who hands his ass to him in the sparring ring, the same Shouto who kisses him to sleep most nights.

Just… different.

Shouto doesn’t move, just keeps purring, staring up at him like he’s waiting for something. 

Hanta slowly raises the hand that isn’t holding him up, and places it near Shouto’s hairline, splaying his fingers. He doesn’t make contact.

“Can I touch you?”

Shouto doesn’t respond, though Hanta thinks the purring might be a bit louder than it was a moment before. Instead, he simply tilts his head until it meets Hanta’s fingertips. Hanta grins, and threads his fingers slowly through his hair.

This time, the purring definitely increases in volume, so Hanta does it again, smiling down at him.

“I don’t think puppy is the right word, Shouto,” he muses. “I… I think you may be more of a kitten.”

Shouto’s lips twitch at that, and Hanta wonders what sort of internal conversation he’s having with his Alpha. He doesn’t say (and Hanta has no earthly idea if he would even be able to, like this), but a moment later he’s reaching his arms out for him again. Hanta’s grin softens, and he finally lowers himself down all the way to the floor, allowing Shouto to pull him into his hold. 

They stay like that for a long while, without speaking. Hanta’s pretty sure he’s dozing in and out, but it’s hard to tell. All he knows is that Shouto is warm, and comfortable, and being held like this is incredibly soothing - more than he would’ve expected. There’s a word for the feeling, but it floats around his sleepy brain, just out of reach.

“I’ll have to go soon,” Shouto eventually whispers, and the vibrations of his throat seem to falter around the words. “I can feel it coming back. This time, I’ll need… um.”

“That’s okay,” Hanta assures him. “I’ll leave my door unlocked, and you can come over to sleep when you’re ready. If you want, or if you can.”

He hears Shouto’s breathing hitch.

“Thank you.”

“Of course,” Hanta yawns. Then, before he can think too hard, he adds, “Maybe… maybe one day we can figure out a way for me to help with that, too.”

His face flushes again, and his voice is barely more than a breathy whisper. As he waits for a reply, he knows he isn’t imagining Shouto’s body rapidly fluctuating temperatures beside him.

But then, the purring returns full force. 

“I’d - I’d like that.”

Hanta smiles. “Me too.”

Shouto tightens his hold on him. “Five more minutes?” he asks.

Hanta nods. “Of course. I’m not busy.”

February

When Hanta was little, his dad once took him on a day trip - just the two of them. They picked up snacks from the convenience store next to their house, filled the tank with gas, and drove for hours, all the way out to the coast. Hanta had been excited, expecting a beach and a boardwalk and big, colorful seafood restaurants - the kind with giant red crabs stuck to the roof, like he’d seen on television.

He distinctly remembers being disappointed when they pulled into a tiny seaside town with some forgettable name that Hanta had never heard before, and his father had proudly announced that they had arrived. He remembers thinking that all that driving had been a waste of time, that he’d rather be at home playing games.

But, then his dad pulled up to the cliffside - the hidden treasure of this insignificant dot on the map - and Hanta’s complaints died in his throat.

He had never seen anything like it.

There certainly were no white sand beaches, no smoothie stands, no pretty girls in swimsuits. But, there was the loud, relentless crash of the waves against the high, jagged rock; the strong wind that carried with it the smell of the salty water as it whipped through his hair; the impossibly long drop from the high cliff and the view beyond it that seemed to stretch forever.

It was mesmerizing. 

Somehow, to his little heart, it had felt like home and adventure, all at once, though he hadn’t been able to verbalize the feeling at the time. He just knew that loved that place, where the earth stopped and met the water, all of a sudden, and then the water just carried on and on until it found the sky at the horizon.

And when Shouto asks to scent him, that’s what it’s like.

The cliffs. The wind. The sea.

It happens on an ordinary Wednesday night. They’re cuddled up together on Shouto’s futon, and Hanta is reading an older volume of Haikyuu out loud. Sometimes, when one of them is too tired to read, this is what they do (with varying degrees of success because the one not reading always ends up closing their eyes, and it’s quite difficult to follow a picture-based story without the pictures – although, for Hanta it’s more about listening to the low, comforting rumble of Shouto’s voice than anything else, and he suspects it might be the same for him).

Tonight is no exception. They’re lying on their sides, and Shouto has his arm wrapped around him, holding him close while Hanta reads aloud (both the dialogue and the sound effects, even though when Shouto reads he tries to get out of doing the sound effects – maybe because Hanta always laughs at how monotone they come out, but he can’t help it, it’s kind of adorable). 

Shouto is supposed to be looking over his shoulder at the panels, but Hanta would bet money that his eyes stayed open for less than five minutes after they started. When Hanta finishes reading through a big win for Karasuno with no response at all from Shouto, though, he thinks maybe he’s fallen asleep all together. 

After setting the book down on the ground next to him, Hanta carefully turns in Shouto’s arms to face him. He’s surprised when Shouto’s eyes flutter open immediately, and even more so when he looks coherent. Maybe he hadn’t been sleeping after all.

“Tired of reading?” Shouto asks.

“Not really. Just wondering what you’re thinking about back here that’s more important than the spring tournament,” Hanta teases.

Shouto’s lip quirks, and if Hanta didn’t know better, he’d say his cheeks color a bit, too. “Sorry.”

Hanta brings a hand up to rest against Shouto’s jaw, and strokes a thumb over his cheek. “No worries. Is everything okay?”

Shouto nods. “Yes. I’m fine.”

When his blush continues to darken but he doesn’t elaborate, Hanta arches a brow. Shouto bites his lip for a long moment.

“Um…” he starts, but then he trails off, and Hanta watches as he glances away, seemingly steeling himself as he chooses his words. “Um. We were just thinking.”

We.

Consider Hanta even more interested than before.

“Thinking about what?” he asks, trying to keep his voice as casual as possible, even though his heart rate has automatically quickened. He wonders if Shouto’s Alpha can pick up on that sort of thing, or if maybe that’s just in the movies.

“Um,” Shouto says again. 

He isn’t looking at him, and that only makes Hanta more curious. 

Is his rut coming up again? Hanta doesn’t think so, it hasn’t been that long since the last one. 

Maybe Shouto wants to talk about the next one now? Perhaps about his offer to help… with the other parts. Hanta feels his face flushing bright red, too.

But finally, in the middle of Hanta’s internal panic, Shouto mutters, “Scenting.”

Hanta blinks. 

That… is not what he expected. Not that he really knows what he did expect, but it certainly wasn’t that.

“Scenting?” is the most eloquent response he can come up with.

Shouto nods, still avoiding his gaze.

“I’d like to try it with you,” he says. Then, somewhat shyly, “If that’s okay.”

Hanta can’t help the way his mouth falls open. 

He suddenly feels a little like he imagines Denki must feel after he overuses his quirk. Even after three long years at UA, including this particularly close one, Hanta has never seen Shouto without his patches. 

Not even once.

He has no idea what to say. 

Shouto interprets his silence for something else.

“If it makes you uncomfortable, you can say–”

“No!” Hanta blurts, cutting him off. “I just– I have no idea how scenting works.”

He’s not sure why that’s what spills from his mouth amidst all of his thoughts, but it’s true, nonetheless. It’s something couples tend to do in private, from what he understands, so he’s never exactly been given a demonstration.

A small smile stretches over Shouto’s lips. 

“Oh,” he says, looking relieved, and suddenly Hanta’s glad that that’s what he chose to accidentally blurt out. “We know that. It’s okay. I can show you.”

Hanta nods, because he doesn’t know what else to do. 

“O-okay,” he agrees, and his voice comes out more breathless than he’d intended. “Let’s try it.”

A smile pulls at Shouto’s lips as he looks at Hanta from under mismatched lashes that have no right being so pretty.

“Okay. Thank you.”

“Of course.” Hanta can feel his cheeks burning red already. Somehow, this feels more intimate than anything they’ve ever done together, and they haven’t even really started. It occurs to him then that he should probably ask why this is happening before they begin, so he does.

“Um,” Shouto mumbles. “I’ve been trying to compromise a little more, since…”

He trails off, but Hanta knows he’s talking about the night in the simulation room, so he just nods his head, and Shouto continues as if he’d finished the sentence.

“I’ve felt... lighter, since then,” he murmurs, and Hanta’s heart forgets to beat for a moment. “I want to try and make it my own, even if it’s what my father gave to me. Like my quirk.”

Hanta blinks at him for a moment. 

Then, very carefully, he digs his nails into his palm to keep his pride from showing on his face. He doesn’t want to embarrass Shouto.

“I think that’s amazing, Shouto,” he says, nodding in encouragement. He’d love to hear all of Shouto’s thoughts on this matter, but he doesn’t want to push him any further than that, so he quickly changes the subject back to the task at hand. “So… scenting?”

“Yes. That’s - that’s what we want.”

Hanta’s whole face warms at that. “Okay,” he says simply, trying to keep the mood as light as possible. “Where do you want me?”

Shouto sends him another appreciative smile. After a moment of thought, he sits up, then pulls Hanta towards him, maneuvering them both until he’s sitting against the wall and Hanta is straddling his lap. 

If Hanta wasn’t blushing before, he is certainly now. He looks at Shouto with an unspoken question in his gaze.

“I think this is the easiest way,” Shouto says, though his ears are turning red. “Although, I’ve never– not like this… so I don’t really know.”

“This is fine.” Hanta keeps his voice soft and hopefully reassuring. He wraps his arms loosely around Shouto’s neck, and toys with his hair. “It’s nice.”

“Okay,” Shouto whispers after a moment.

He sets about pulling Hanta closer, so that they’re chest-to-chest, and then he carefully guides Hanta’s head forward, until his chin is hooked over his shoulder. Then, Hanta feels Shouto’s hand slide up into the tiny space left between them, clumsily looking for the edge of his scent patch. They’re so close that Hanta can feel the way it’s trembling, can feel the slight pull of his skin as he finds it, and slowly peels it off. 

Hanta sucks in a breath, and almost forgets to let it out.

When the patch is gone, Shouto slowly pulls him in until skin is flush against skin, until his scent gland is resting against the spot where Hanta’s would be, if he had one (which he doesn’t, he’s pretty sure, even though Shouto swears that he has his own scent, and maybe Hanta should actually read a book about this kinda stuff, or something).

At first, nothing happens - or, at least, if something is happening, Hanta can’t tell. He doesn’t have much trouble picking up on general scents when they’re strong, but he expects Shouto’s probably nervous, taking his time and analyzing his own reactions, attempting to avoid upsetting himself or giving his Alpha too much control. 

Hanta just relaxes, although his heart is still thudding hard in his chest. He’s wondered about this for so long, and he’d be lying if he said he weren’t excited to finally learn about such an intimate and guarded part of Shouto’s identity.

Despite this, he finds his mind drifting – back to, of all things, the summer vacation he’d taken with his dad all those years ago. The feeling of sunshine on his skin, the taste of salt on his tongue, the sound of his own laughter as he climbed up onto the tallest rock at the cliffside, and declared himself pirate captain over his father.

The smell of the cliffs. 

The wind. 

The sea.

The realization comes with a sharp intake of breath.

“ Oh,” he exhales, barely audible. “Shouto…”

He doesn’t add anything else, but Shouto seems to understand. His arms tighten, pulling him closer.

Hanta holds him tighter, too, but his eyes stay wide. He can’t believe that after all this time, Shouto’s mysterious scent is something so familiar, so close to his heart, so… so perfect. There’s no way he could have known, not with the way Shouto hides it, and yet, it feels almost as if it should’ve been obvious.

Shouto’s Alpha starts purring, and Hanta breaks out of his thoughts, sighing happily. He nuzzles against Shouto’s neck as he relaxes against him, and with another deep inhale, he closes his eyes and allows himself to get lost in the sleepy tangle between past and present, in the warmth of the summer sun and the cool mist of the ocean breeze.

Hanta supposes he shouldn’t really be surprised – falling in love with Todoroki Shouto has always been a bit like standing at the edge of a cliff.

Like home and adventure, all at once.

One of these days, he’d like to go to that tiny seaside town again. But this time, he thinks, he’d like to go with Shouto, if he’s willing. Hanta’s pretty sure he would like it there, too.

March

Spring brings clear days, warmer weather, and bright pink plum blossoms. Any day now, the sakura tree that stands guard outside Hanta’s window will start to think about blooming, to think about coloring his view for the last time. 

Spring also brings offers from hero agencies. 

Hanta gets more than he expected. Maybe he’s been too hard on himself over the past three years, because almost every agency he’s interned at offers him a position, and a few take a chance on him without any internship experience. He’s honestly surprised by the number – it’s not as many as some of his peers, of course, but he’s successfully held his own in the best hero course in the nation, which feels pretty good. 

He’s proud of himself, and genuinely happy to have options.

But he’s definitely more happy when they get back from class the day that offers come, and Shouto wastes no time in sitting him down so they can look at their options together. Naturally, Shouto has a whole stack, probably one from every agency in the country, so Hanta isn’t surprised when they find that they have several opportunities to work in the same city.

He is a little surprised, though, when Shouto pushes all the offers that don’t present this opportunity off the table, and acts as if he would never consider not making this decision with Hanta for a single second. Surprised, but happier still. 

And he’s happiest when they narrow it down to a final option – one city, with a different agency for each of them – and Shouto, after a quick Google search, announces that their workplaces are close enough that they can live together. He immediately starts searching for an apartment near the midway point of the two buildings on his phone. 

Hanta just watches him in silence, a soft smile pulling at his lips.

He’s starting to think that maybe they don’t need to talk about it.

The kissing, the cuddling, the scenting, the nights spent in each other’s arms, in each other’s beds.

He’s starting to think he’s known what all of it means all along, and just hasn’t been ready to believe it for himself.

“Hey, Shouto?” Hanta asks, interrupting Shouto’s apartment search.

Shouto looks up from his phone, meeting his gaze. His expression would seem neutral to an outsider, but Hanta knows him, knows the soft pull of the corner of his mouth. He’s happy, and it’s because of Hanta. Hanta’s stomach flutters.

“Yes?” he replies. “Did you want to look at apartments with me?”

Hanta shakes his head. “No. I was just wondering if I could have a kiss.”

He has to bite down his grin when Shouto’s eyes go wide at that, a blush rising to his cheeks like clockwork, despite the fact that they’ve kissed almost every day for months now. “Oh,” he says, looking a little stunned. “Of course. You don’t need to ask.”

Hanta smiles. He kisses him, and takes his time, because there’s nowhere they need to be right now other than here, next to each other in the safety and comfort of their current home, curled together as they search for their potential new one. Somehow, they end up horizontal, and Shouto’s phone is pushed aside, patiently waiting for him to return after the break is over.

When Hanta finally pulls away, Shouto chases his lips, just a little.

“You smell nice,” he sighs, eyes slowly fluttering open. 

Hanta smirks, and raises a brow. “Like tea?”

Shouto nods, and Hanta makes a mental note to replenish his stash of borrowed (stolen) hoodies and sweatshirts.

“Thanks, kitten,” he teases. 

Shouto flushes, but he has to bury his smile into the fabric of Hanta’s shirt when he can’t seem to coax it off his face. Hanta grins. He knows Shouto not-so-secretly loves the pet name – at least, his Alpha really seems to.

“Ugh,” Shouto grouses into Hanta’s chest. Hanta laughs, stroking fond fingers through his pretty hair.

“Sorry,” he hums, even though he doesn’t really mean it. 

Shouto doesn’t reply. Instead, he simply snuggles closer. Hanta smiles.

They both still have a long way to go with themselves – Shouto, in finding peace with his inner Alpha, and Hanta, with his own sense of self worth. But, as he looks down at Shouto – his Shouto – curled up in his arms and seemingly unaware that he’s started purring again (it’s quickly becoming a habit of his), Hanta can’t help but think they’ll figure it out together.

“You know I love you, right?” he murmurs.

He doesn’t mean to say it. The words fall out before he can really think about them, but they don’t surprise him as much as they should. 

He realizes, after a moment, that it’s because he already knows the answer. 

Shouto looks up at him, smiling sweetly. It’s just an upturn of the corner of his mouth, but his eyes crinkle a bit at the outer edges, making him look like he’s just won something.

And yeah, Hanta thinks. He can relate to the feeling.

“I do,” Shouto says simply, as if it were obvious. Maybe it is. “I love you, too.”

A slow smile stretches across Hanta's lips, as he hears victory bells ringing loud in his head.

To him, they sound a lot like timid knocks on fake wooden doors, like the pages of a new manga turning, like waves beating against the face of a cliff.

They sound a lot like Todoroki Shouto.