rubatosis | s. todoroki

27 | may i hold your hand

▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮

Saito Emi

▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮

It's a hot afternoon and the grocery bags are slowly feeling heavier than they felt a few seconds before.

The two days following the Sports Festival have been announced off in an email sent to all students and Emi cannot be happier. She's taken it upon herself to freshen up the apartment in a day full of productivity. So far, she changed the arrangement of the living room and her bedroom, dusted off every nook and cranny and did her laundry. Right after that, she's discovered the lack of groceries and instantly put on her shoes to get some enough for the following week.

She passes by a group of people watching a huge screen displaying the fight between Shoto and Izuku of the day before.

She lets out a tired sigh when the topic she's been trying to avoid crawls into her mind with desperate nails scraping her the walls of her brain.

She doesn't know whether to call him and ask to meet up or wait for the next week to come to see him at school. Why couldn't she handled this better? He was the one who sat all bothered and tense, why did she have to go and make things worse? Then again, everytime Emi repeats the scenario in her mind, she cannot imagine herself reacting in any other way. She still can't decipher if this is a good thing as it would mean that she regrets nothing or a bad thing as it would mean that she still doesn't see what she did was wrong and that there was no need for her to get emotional.

She lets out another puff of air, hoping that some of the frustration she's feeling was released. As she turns around in an alley, a shortcut to her home, her stress just worsens.

Endeavour is cornered by two villains, one with swords for hands and another with large purple tentacles. Of course, his fire cannot be the solution to defeat every kind of quirk. He needs help. And Emi could have retraced her steps and called for backup had it not been for Sword Hands noticing her.

"Oh ho, lookie here, a cute little girl, aren't ya?" he leers, alarming the pro-hero who immediately turns his head to take a look at her with his usual scowl in his face.

"Kid, run away, call for help!" his gruff voice strikes her mind and supposedly snaps her out of the trance she is put by the presence of villains not even 10 feet away from her.

Just as her legs shift to turn, she feels a slimy limb curling at her waist and immediately knows it's the tentacles guy.

Luckily though, she's just bought a butter knife that she quickly whips out, tears off the wrapping and slices at the tentacle. She ignores the pained cries of the man and runs out of the alley, the bags abandoned back there. She sees the first pro hero and calls out. Within minutes, backup arrived and the villains are restrained.

Endeavour approaches her as she's picking up her bags and discarding the butter knife -like hell she's using that again.

"Hey, Saito, right?" he says, craning his neck to take a good look at her. Probably for injuries, she assumes as she shifts the bags in her hands.

"Yeah, Enji Todoroki?" she poses even though she knows the answer.

"I'm Endeavour right now." She nods respectfully in agreement. "You lost to that Tokoyami kid, right? You're not so bad."

"Thanks, you're not so bad yourself," she jokes and just as her lips smile, they quickly pull themselves back together at the sight of his unamused look.

He sighs and shakes his head, mumbling something about "like father, like daughter". "I did not like your mother at all."

What's with Todoroki's and having something to say about my mother?

"However, I was quite fond of your father. I'll be requesting you as an intern. I owe him that much."

"I-I dont understand," she says, eyes wide at the non-aggressive way of Endeavour's talking. Even the journalists and interviewers are looking curiously to them. None of them dare to rush to the pro hero to request anything though. They learnt the first time that they might as well leave him alone.

"You don't need to." Those are his last words before he turns and walks away.

Emi continues her own trip back to the apartment.

Unlocking the door, she recounts the past events and marvels at how the second best just said he wants her to do an internship with him. She doesn't even try to think about what he had to say about her parents. She enters the kitchen in a state of daze.

A smile dances on her lips. Things are looking up again.

◄►◄►◄►◄►◄►◄►◄►

Emi walks with purpose, climbs the stairs with determination and opens the door to the roof with grandiosity.

She instantly spots the boy she's looking for-easy feat as he's the only one there. He's looking at her with wide eyes, quietly asking what the hell she was doing.

But no time to answer that. There's something she needs to do.

Three strides is all it takes before she plops down next to him and hugs him tightly, almost feeling tears come to her eyes. She doesn't even care that she might have re-scraped her legs.

He sighs and she keeps her eyes on his cute reddened ears, enjoying her body rising and falling with his deep breath. She hears him put whatever he's eating away before wrapping his arms around her.

Emi has never felt so much stress and sadness from fighting with someone. But because it's him, she just can't bear him not looking at her in homeroom with his usual glances nor the questions of her friends if they have fought. She doesn't care how touchy feely she's being. It's the way she is and she had to hold back a lot when she hung out with him to not scare him away back to his shell.

"I'm sorry," she whispers and she can't go any louder than that. "I didn't mean to snap at you like that. You didn't deserve that. You were already so worried about your brawl and I made it worse." She pulls back. "But to be fair, you shouldn't have-"

"Yes, I know, I'm sorry about that, bringing up your mother was low of me. I thought you were mad at me so I left you alone until I was given the okay to talk to you again."

"I was mad at you. Was."

She sniffles and takes a good look of his face. His beautiful face. His bright twinkling blue eye and his lovely piercing gray one. His straight nose and high cheekbones. His thin pink lips and before she lingers enough to be suggestive, she looks back at his scar that didn't do anything to disturb his beauty.

She sits back and takes a deep breath of her own. She has to do that before she accidentally closes the distance between them on purpose.

He looks at her unwaveringly, tracing her face like she was just doing.

"I don't like fighting with you." She gulps at his growing crooked smile. "I don't like being mad at you or vice versa."

"May I hold your hand?"

She doesn't even hesitate and nods, loving his tentative fingers breaking apart the fist she's been unknowingly making. He slips his fingers through hers and pushes their palms together. Her stomach is rising to join her heart and a blush is spreading to her face. She can't break her gaze away from their intertwined hands but she can feel his gaze drilling holes in her lowered head.

They stay like that until the bell rings, and Emi jumps at the sound that breaks the long peaceful moment they were having. In her fright, she pulls her hand away and regrets it immediately when the warmth disappears.

Shoto lets out a short quiet chuckle at her reaction and stands up before pulling her with him.

Emi thinks that that's it, she ruined the moment and things might get awkward for them but their eyes met again and she realises.

The moment will always be there.