Runnin' with the devil

Part 5

The day of the recital finally arrives, and Shouto feels ready.

Nervous, sure. A little hot in his fitted suit, and he can't get his hair to stay back, and his fingers feel more restless than usual—though he owes most of that to how much he can't wait to show what he's made of, how much he yearns to prove himself as standing apart on the stage. Not Todoroki, just Shouto.

There's one more thing he's wondering about, and he glances at his phone one last time before he drops it into his pocket and decides to let it be for now. The text message he sent the day before has still gone unanswered, but he's not really looking for a response to come buzzing in. It didn't require one, after all. It simply reads:

Yuuei Concert Hall. Saturday, 6:30 pm.

At half past five in the evening, Shouto is out the door and on his way to the concert hall himself. It's Midoriya's friend Iida who has come to pick him up, though Shouto supposes he can consider Iida his friend at this point, too. Iida is not much for partying or hard liquor, so in the early days of the semester, Shouto would usually catch a ride back home with him whenever things got too rowdy. Of course, Shouto had eventually started sticking around, but Iida had never admonished him for it, despite his tendency to worry after them all.

Iida seems quite at home in a nice suit—even more than Shouto does. Iida comes from a well-to-do family, and is enrolled and excelling at the school's opera program. Shouto isn't as familiar with the vocal side of opera as he is the instrumental, but he has tagged along with Midoriya to attend several of Iida's performances—Iida is intensely expressive, and very serious, and particularly good at the body movement aspects of the artform. Midoriya, ever the eclectic reinventor of vocal styles, is utterly in awe of him.

"Not worrying, are you?" Iida asks him, as they get near the concert hall.

Shouto starts to nod, then shakes his head, and then frowns. "Yes... and no? It's not nerves, exactly..." Nor is it quite anticipation, or excitement. "My stomach just feels all..." He waves his hands vaguely.

"Ah," Iida says knowingly, "hunger."

"No..." Shouto says, because he ate properly before leaving. Iida laughs.

"Not in the literal sense. In the metaphorical."

"What do you mean?" Shouto asks.

"I have always thought you seemed very driven," Iida says. "Not by grades or competitiveness, like most of us. It's something more personal than that."

"Everyone's reasons are personal," Shouto says.

"Well, yes," Iida agrees. "But your drive is directed inward, is it not? You want to prove who you are, not just what you can do. But first you've got to convince yourself."

Shouto blinks at him, stunned. He's never had it put that way before—never thought of it in those terms.

"Here we are," Iida says, as he pulls up in front of the hall to let Shouto out. "I'll see you inside."

Shouto takes a deep breath and opens his passenger side door. Before he gets out, he looks back at Iida.

"Thanks—"

"You've got nothing to prove to any of us," Iida tells him, and Shouto is halted again. "So... go show you what you're made of."

Shouto lifts his chin, breathes deeply, and smiles. "I will."

There's still a half hour left before his recital is to begin, so he heads to the green room. To his surprise, Yaoyorozu is already there when he arrives. After meeting so often at shows and crossing paths in their classes, they've become really close. She'd said yes immediately when he asked if she would accompany him on the piano for the pieces that require it.