𝘀𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗼𝗻𝘀. ﹅ todoroki!

GO WHERE?

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ALL THAT'S LEFT FOR THEM IS TO GO HOME. Surely Aizawa Shota would reprimand her a lot for her recklessness, but she couldn't care less. It's not that she doesn't give a flying fuck about how he feels, but the thought that someone deeply cares for her even when they're not bound by blood makes her grin softly like the idiot that she is, skipping steps while walking alongside Yaoyorozu Momo after their plan to save Katsuki from the League of Villains was deemed successful and just shortly after, All Might won against the headless All For One dude that steals quirks— and Todoroki always quickens his pace; a few steps in front of the two girls.

Yurika genuinely wonders, what's it like to walk alongside the absolutely strange Todoroki Shoto? Does he even smile? What expression could he be wearing at this moment? He's nothing but a mere enigma— another relatively odd conspiracy theory that Yurika oh so badly wants to believe. "Will you be heading back home, Aizawa-san?" Momo breaks the silence but Todoroki doesn't lean in for the idle chatter. "I'm not, the night is still young. And dad's not home yet. I think he'll be staying at the school's premises for a while."

You see, the thing with Aizawa Yurika is that she couldn't stand small talks no matter how long the statement might ever be— and it's something that Yaoyorozu had been blessing her with lately. She doesn't have anything against the pretty ravenette, but the need to spout mere sentences out of sheer politeness gets on her nerves. If she didn't want to talk to her on her own will, why should she force herself? That's kinda brutal and nonsensical.

"What about you, Todoroki-kun? Will you be heading home already?" It takes a few milliseconds for the bi-haired boy to respond because he is well absorbed in his own thoughts, and Yurika paid close attention to these small details. "I don't know." Yaoyorozu stops talking, as if getting the hint that Todoroki is not as composed as he was when he's in class. "I-In that case, I'll be going now then! Make sure you guys get home safely." Yaoyorozu bids her goodbye, and Yurika promises to text her when she gets home because she notices that although Momo's mom instincts are a tad too much, she thinks it's just the girl's way of showing she cares. Or tries to.

"Oi." Todoroki starts, "After seeing All Might fight the villain back there, I noticed that you didn't look quite scared. You're really peculiar." The silver-haired girl is surprised by his sudden statement of observation, and as much as she wants to tease him for observing her, she could only bring herself to smile. "It's 'cause it doesn't faze me one bit." Hearing her answer made Todoroki stop walking, thus letting her catch up to him. "Does anything ever scare you?"

Yurika just shrugs, barging inside a 24-hour café just right around the corner to get her daily dose of coffee after being downright drained for nullifying a couple of villain's quirk temporarily. "I'd like a cappuccino with three shots of espresso." She starts, the waitress jotting her order down the small notepad she carried, Yurika sitting down across Todoroki who took his godly time to actually scan the menu. "Oh and add a cream cheese bagel to that, please." She adds, and Todoroki orders an eclair to nibble on as they passed the time because the night was still young, and so were they. They didn't say it out loud, but it was obvious that they both needed company for the lonely night bestowed upon them.

"Were you really not afraid a while ago?" There goes Todoroki Shoto and his repetitive questions. "I'm quite flattered that I've piqued your interest, I guess I'm just that irresistible after all." He falls silent. And there goes Aizawa Yurika being the sarcastic, airhead fucker that she is. Todoroki doesn't find her remarks insulting or annoying, nor is he fond of it. It's tolerable but he decides to leave it at that. The thing he was curious about is why Aizawa Yurika doesn't really have any remarkable heroic traits except for her quirk but still manages to catch a lot of people off guard by her perspectives of the world.

"But to answer your question, I wasn't afraid. After all, it's just a normal occurrence in the superhuman society that we have right now."

"So you're not scared of anything at all?"

"Well, are you?"

Todoroki paused to think of an answer as the waitress placed their food on the wooden table. His mind screams and begs for him to leave Aizawa Yurika alone and continue trudging along with his own path because Aizawa Yurika is a puzzle piece— no, scratch that. A broken shard that could pierce his satin silk skin any moment because the glint in her eyes looked like that of a ghost; the light she bears is dim and barely flickers.

"Of course I have my fair share of fears."

"And that includes Endeavor finding out you're using his credit cards?" He clicked his tongue and averts his eyes somewhere else, causing the girl in front of him to laugh at his actions as she eyed the credit card he used to pay for their meal. "At least I paid for your meal."

"Whoever said you had to? I appreciate it though, cand boy. T'was nice of you."

The awkwardness is uncomfortable and Yurika decides to give in and answer at least one of the questions Todoroki wanted her to answer. "To answer your question," she mumbles softly, lips pursed into a thin line as if she was carefully selecting the choice of words she should use. "I'm not really afraid of anything. Death, villains, power, you name it. I don't see why people are afraid of such mundane things."

Todoroki's eyes widen for a second but redeems his usual demeanour. It was when he realized that Aizawa Yurika is indeed a force to be reckoned with because she is the pure definition of terrifying, vile, sadistic— he remembers his mother's words clearly when he complained about how his father is indeed the most terrifying person on the planet at the age of six: Shoto, not being afraid of anything is the most terrifying thing in the world. His mind screams danger! danger! danger! but he couldn't bring himself to pry off her.

Silence falls onto their midst once more and it's deafening to Yurika. Her throat is dry even if she chugged down her cup of cappuccino for she badly wants to tell him everything because she knows he won't judge but at the end of the day it dawned onto her that they were just night friends— and once the sunrays greet the hard wooden floor of their houses, the two of them make it clear that they only talk during the hour when the moon dimly glistens in it's wake for who knows why but Yurika repeatedly assures herself that it's fine because she knows that everyone will leave sooner or later and it's good to accept that fact as early as possible.

After all, no one would stick to a witty, suicidal freak like her.

But there's something that echoes in the pumping, muscular organ of hers that repeatedly chants a certain mantra that she wants to bury everytime she wants to tell Todoroki Shoto the things he wants to hear from her: God, I hope he doesn't leave me too.

So that night, the deafening silence is present between the two of them because neither wanted to talk, and to Yurika who abhorred pain— accepted how painful the situation was because now, Todoroki Shoto knew of the beast that grew inside her, and now he thinks she's a monster.