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There’s an apartment on the seedier side of Musutafu, and it’s crowded. It’s the sort of apartment that’s intended to fit one person comfortably, two or three with some crowding. It’s definitely not supposed to hold four, but on two scant provisional hero incomes, it’s the best they can do.
Touya’s name is the one on the lease, because he’s the only one of them who’s turned eighteen and can rent property. It’s too crowded, the sink is permanently stained from hair dye, none of them know how to cook, all of the furniture is battered and secondhand, and they have to rely on the warmth of fire quirks to warm them more often than not when the heat fails.
It’s good.
It happens like this:
First. Gran Torino breaks a promise. He loves his friend enough to forget the vow she made him swear, and finds her son after she dies, to ensure that her legacy lives on not just in her quirk but also in her bloodline. He leaves the boy and his family to their oblivious peace, but when tragedy strikes, there is someone there to help. Someone with blue eyes and a fearless smile. Someone is still there to offer Shimura Tenko a helping hand, but this time it’s someone who wants to save him, and that makes all the difference.
Second. Todoroki Touya sends off an application like a prayer, a last desperate bid for a dream rapidly fading. He has to climb out a window to make it to the entrance exam, though his father doesn’t pay enough attention to notice he’s gone. The acceptance letter comes a week later. Fuyumi sneaks it out of the mailbox when Endeavor’s not looking, and smuggles it up to his room.
Third. Toga Himiko cuts too deep, driven by a budding compulsive fascination with blood, and at the hospital questions are raised: what is her quirk, why hasn’t she been taken to a therapist, why weren’t these wounds ever cleaned? It’s ugly and messy, and Himiko doesn’t understand it, but the end result is she’s with people that don’t hurt her and a bottle of colorful pills that let her thoughts move in straight lines.
“Good morning, Tenko-kun! It’s nice to meet you!” the person says with an enthusiastic wave. He doesn’t return it, keeping his hands curled loosely at his sides, not quite clenched into fists.
“Hello, Thirteen-san,” the boy echoes back, quietly, and is rewarded by the blank white eyes crinkling upwards into a smile.
“Call me Hirooki-sensei. I hear you’ve got a troublesome quirk, hm?” the space hero prompts gently. The boy flinches, and pulls his hands behind his back slightly. “Why don’t you come over here and take a seat and tell me about it?”
Tenko hesitantly picks his way across the room and sits down on the beanbag, sinking into the plush surface.
“My quirk is bad,” he says, speaking in a rushed, mumbling whisper.
“No quirk is bad,” Hirooki counters. “It all depends on how it’s used. Do you know what my quirk is?”
Tenko shakes his head, tangled bleach-blue hair swinging around his face.
“My quirk is called Black Hole,” Hirooki explains, patient, the friendly, gentle tone of their voice unwavering. “Its power is to create a vacuum that can suck in and destroy anything. It’s a little like your quirk, isn’t it?”
Tenko nods, slowly.
“It would be very easy for me to use my quirk to do terrible things,” Hirooki says. “But I’ve chosen to turn it towards rescuing people and saving lives instead. I’ve made that choice, and you can too. My quirk isn’t bad, and neither am I.”
“Your quirk isn’t bad either, Tenko-kun, and neither are you.”
“How’s Shouto doing?” Fuyumi asks, a half-finished paper open on the laptop in front of her.
Touya takes a drink of his coffee. “Better. He’s started smiling again. Himiko’s on a mission to get him to laugh.”
Fuyumi smiles, a little teary-eyed. “Good. That’s… that’s really good.”
“What about Mom?”
“She was happy to hear you’re out,” Fuyumi answers. “You should bring Shouto to visit her someday. I mean, if he’s ready for it. I think it would be good for both of them.”
“I’ll talk to him about it,” Touya promises. “It might take some time. He’s still skittish. What about the bastard?”
Fuyumi sighs. “He’s angry.”
“When isn’t he?” Touya mutters, then, louder, “He’s not taking it out on you or Natsu, is he? If he is-”
Fuyumo shakes her head to cut him off. “No, nothing like that. Don’t worry about us, Touya.”
“Still. If you ever need help with him- or with anything...”
“I know who to call,” Fuyumi finishes, flashing her brother a comforting smile. She checks her watch and frowns, flipping her laptop closed and tucking it under her arm. “I need to get to class. Same time next week?”
“Same time next week,” Touya agrees, raising his mug in a cheers.
Fourth. Todoroki Touya rents a cheap, run-down apartment as soon as he is legally capable of doing so, and is out of the house that same night. He brings his little brother with him, with orders to fill a suitcase with everything he needs and be ready to go.
He never finds out just what happens to get rid of Endeavor when he comes storming up to the gates of UA the next day to demand his prize back, but he knows to nod in silent thanks the next time he sees Aizawa-sensei in the halls.
“I made a new friend today!” Himiko cheers, tossing herself bodily onto the ratty couch. Touya had gotten it off a curb for free a few months back and called it secondhand.
Tenko, who had been sleeping facedown on the musty cushions up until that exact moment, makes an irritated noise of protest and shoves her off. Himiko tumbles to the floor and laughs, unbothered, when Tenko casts a half-asleep glare down at her.
“Is it too much to hope you’re not gonna tell us about it?” Touya asks from his seat by the window, raising his eyebrows.
“Yup!” Himiko confirms, dragging herself up into a sitting position on the floor and leaning against the couch. Touya sighs overdramatically and pointedly pulls his headphones on without breaking eye contact, eliciting a pout from Himiko.
She talks about the invisible girl she met who’s planning on becoming a hero for a solid twenty minutes before the clock ticks over to three’o’clock and all three people in the room simultaneously remember that at least one of them should have left ten minutes ago to pick Shouto up from school, and then it’s a frantic scramble for the door.
Fifth. On the first day of school in UA’s hero course, the seats are arranged alphabetically.
In the back of the room: Shimura, Todoroki. They get partnered for a cooperative exercise on the first day of school. It’s such a miserable failure that they both get detention for damaging school property when a disagreement over strategy escalates to an actual fight, and half a row of weight equipment gets lightly singed.
They have to clean all the first year classrooms. Together. It takes ages and it’s miserable and by the end of it they’re still flinging barbed insults back and forth, but there’s a grudging camaraderie that wasn’t there before.
Neither of them really know how to be friends, so young and desperate to prove themselves and angry at the world, but they manage, clashing up against each other again and again until it's almost comfortable. A few months later when a bouncy new student with a transforming quirk transfers in through the sports festival and all but attaches herself to them, she smoothes out the rough edges almost by accident, and fills in a gap they didn’t even realize was there.
It’s another two years before they get called the Big Three, but it’s a start, there, the three of them side by side in the back of the classroom, Touya rolling his eyes at the notes full of gossip about their classmates that Toga is trying to get him to pass along to Tenko.
It’s a start.
Alphabetical, from left to right: Shimura, Todoroki, Toga.
“Hey,” Tenko says. “It’s been awhile. Sorry.”
He sighs, settles down into a sitting position. “School’s been busy. It’s good, though. I’ve got my internship for this year lined up, finally. I wanted to go back and work with Hirooki-sensei again, but they said they didn’t have anything more to teach me, so… I decided to take Yagi-san’s offer after all. I guess we’ll see how it goes.”
He shrugs. “Touya’s little brother is doing better. He wants to be a hero when he gets older. Thinks we’re just the coolest. Can’t imagine why, he’s seen how we live, but no accounting for taste, I guess.”
“Oh, and Touya got his internship too. He’s gonna be with the Water Hose heroes, to learn some more about, uh, elemental control or whatever. Endeavor’s fucking pissed he’s training under such low-ranked heroes, which is probably why he did it, actually. Toga’s still trying to convince Aizawa-sensei to mentor her for awhile, since she’s aiming to be an underground hero. It’s been funny as hell to watch.”
He swallows. “They’re, y’know, assholes and idiots, but they’re not bad friends. They’ll be good heroes. Wish you could see it.”
He leans forward, and sets the flowers on the grave. Shimura Kazumi, the name engraved in the stone reads. Beloved wife and mother.
He sighs, glancing away from the tombstone, gloved fingers itching with old guilt. An elbow nudges him gently before he can get sucked into his own thoughts.
“Hey,” Hana says. “You ready to go? We don’t want to be late for dinner with Yagi-san.”
She pushes herself to her feet, offers him a hand up.
He takes it, and follows her out of the cemetery, to the brightly-lit house and warm meal and smile like sunshine waiting for them.