𝐊𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐋𝐢𝐞𝐬 || S. Todoroki x Reader

22 - Risk or Bluff

PART TWO

"Why don't you like Sakamoto-san?" you asked one day. The dishes had all been cleaned and put in the washer, the dining table wiped clean of crumbs, chopsticks drying on the utensil rack.

Now Hawks was sitting across the kitchen counter, a fan of cards resting in his fingers.

He'd promised earlier that if dinner went well, he'd teach you how to play cards.

"What?"

True to his word, there the two of you were.

Your cards stuck out in odd places, a jumbled mess in your small and unpracticed hands.

The sun was just starting to dip below the skyline, filtering through one of the big windows.

"Whenever she comes over, you change," you said. After thinking, you squinted at the cards in your hands. "Moody."

You spoke the word one syllable at a time, so it sounded like 'moo-dee.' Hawks had taught it to you the other day, now seemed like an appropriate time to use it.

Hawks raised one of his eyebrows, looking over his cards to your little frame lounging in the bar chair. You'd started relaxing quicker now, more often than not.

Gone was the rigid posture and formal language barrier that kept your comfort at bay. Now, you mumbled, slumped in your seat, blew raspberries, stuck out your tongue, laughed without restraint...

You started acting like a kid. Every time another stone got knocked down from the wall, a little more of the girl underneath broke through.

"You think I get moody around Sakamoto-san?" he asked.

Perhaps you weren't the only one who changed during the little evaluations disguised as inconsequential dinners.

Despite the shift, there were still instances where you acted like the little child soldier that had turned up on his doorstep. Whenever Sakamoto came over for meetings (unsubtle inspections of how he treated and raised you) was a prime example.

"Yes," you said. "Why?"

Hawks shrugged. "I don't know, Y/n. Maybe I just feel moody on the days that Sakamoto-san comes over to check in."

You kept looking up at him, cards forgotten. "But why?"

He opened his mouth before closing it to think.

The faint sound of cars on a highway was muffled by early-rising crickets and other wildlife waking at the prospect of dusk.

A stream of water trickled through a water fixture in the center of the living area (Hawks had figured out a way to rig the security cameras in it to play a series of video loops instead of having a constant live feed. Sakamoto had yet to mention whether she knew of it, but the way he saw it: if they didn't want him tampering with the multitude of cameras poorly hidden around the house, they shouldn't have trained him to look for such things. Nor should they have taught him how to tamper with their setting and operations. Even you had recently found a hidden lens he'd somehow missed).

"Imagine a fight inside of you, Y/n," he finally said.

Your brows scrunched. "Why?"

"It's to make a point."

"Why can't you just make the point?"

"Because it requires—you know what, just try, okay? There's a fight going on right in the middle of your chest, okay?"