Archive of Our Own ^beta

Shouto starts visiting his mother the spring after he turns seventeen.

His sister, when he tells her about his plans, calls it an act of teenage rebellion against the father they all collectively loathe, but Shouto just sees it as overdue. His entire life, he’s been pulled decisively in one direction, towards being the best of the best, beaten and pushed into obedience and then into open defiance. Even when he was fighting against his father, he was acting because of him. It had taken the better part of a year for him to understand that, but he’d learned the lesson.

Being in Yuuei, being a part of a class of people who have their own goals, who want their own dreams, has changed him. His entire life has been spent orbiting his father’s desires, either desperately trying to earn his approval or desperately trying to openly reject him -- but he wants to know what it would be like to live his life for himself. He just doesn’t quite know how to do that, what it would take to clear his own head.

And then, he wakes up one morning after a restless night of fitful dreaming and thinks, I have to see her. I have to talk to her.

For a very long time, his mother had been his only savior, his only hope, and it pains him to realize that she’s gone without someone similar since she was taken away from him and put in a hospital. He knows that what she’d done to him was borne of her own terror and anxiety. He’s never blamed her for his father’s actions. But he never felt like he could approach her, too terrified that she’d see his face and feel the same way after all those years. His left side is sometimes unbearable to look at. He can still hear the way her voice had cracked, the sound of a plate falling against the floor and breaking into thousands of pieces.

He leaves in the middle of the day while his father is at work in a district far away, skipping school for the first time in his life, and jumps on a train to the hospital where she’s been for the last ten years of his life. Something in him feels hard and brittle, threatening to snap with every jostle of a stranger against his side. It battles against another part of him that feels very, very small and soft, the part of him that wants to fall at his mother’s feet and bury his face in her skirt and cry, like he used to when she’d finally managed to pull him away from his father’s training sessions.

The walk to the hospital is long enough that he second guesses himself about ten times. He doesn’t know if it’s nerves or a desire to prolong the inevitable that makes him look up, but his gaze catches on a shop across the street, an explosion of color in the otherwise gray city.

There are flowers practically spilling out of the shop, several dozen small bouquets arranged on a display in front of the doorway, pink and yellow tulips in cute wrapping with little blue polka dots. There’s a long vine wrapping itself around the display, and it trails its way up and around the frame of the doorway, eventually ending by curling around the side of a sign that says, All in Bloom.

Flowers would be a good thing to take, right? Mothers liked receiving flowers from their sons, even sons who hadn’t called on them in years. Maybe. Shouto doesn’t give himself time to think about it, crossing the street determinedly and opening the door to the shop, glancing up when a small bell chimes.

As soon as he’s inside, he’s overwhelmed by how green everything is; if the colors outside had caught his attention, in here they’re rioting for it, an explosion of blues and purples and pinks and oranges cascading on all sides. There are potted plants on the floor and on the shelves, and dozens of bouquets looming at him.

It’s too much. He can’t possibly choose.

He turns around immediately to leave again, but someone from the back of the store cheerfully calls out, “Coming!”

He freezes in place, and before he can move again someone is bustling through the door behind the counter, all messy hair and wide green eyes. It’s a teenager, a little shorter than Shouto but probably the same age. He’s got a wide smile and there’s a smudge of dirt on his cheek, which instantly draws Shouto’s attention. His fingers itch to rub it off.

“Can I help you?” the boy asks, tilting his head. His eyes rove over Shouto’s face but don’t linger on his scar, which makes him relax just a little, just enough to let go of the door handle.

“Um,” Shouto says, stepping towards the counter hesitantly. “I was looking for a bouquet of flowers. For my mother.”

“Hmm,” the boy says thoughtfully, looking at him appraisingly. “Is it a special occasion, or just because?”

It’s not exactly a special occasion, but Shouto isn’t really sure he wants to get into the specifics of his complicated relationship with his mother with a stranger, so he says, “I’m visiting her in the hospital.”

“Ah,” the boy says, nodding. Something in his eyes softens. “I see. Well, let’s pick something out, shall we? Did you have anything in mind?”

“No,” Shouto admits, glancing around the room with vague alarm. “I didn’t realize there were so many options.”

The boy laughs. It’s a really nice laugh, Shouto thinks. “It just looks overwhelming, I promise. I’ll help you find something perfect.”

Shouto isn’t sure he knows what perfect would be. He can’t remember if his mother even has a favorite flower, doesn’t know what her favorite color is, although he does remember her wearing yellow often. The boy steps from around the counter, and Shouto catches sight of his nametag. Midoriya. He notices Shouto’s glance and flashes another smile at him.

“I’m Midoriya Izuku,” he says, holding a hand out. It’s surprisingly clean, considering the dirt smudge on his cheek, and his palms are rough when Shouto grabs it in a handshake.

“Todoroki Shouto,” he says. Midoriya’s eyes widen just a little, and Shouto’s afraid all of a sudden that he’s going to realize who he is, that he recognizes that name, but Midoriya just lets go of his hand and tugs his sleeve, pulling him behind him.

“Let’s start with what size you’re looking for,” he says. What follows is a blur of flower names and blooming patterns and color choices that almost immediately flies right out of his head. Midoriya leads him around the shop pointing out various bouquets, cheerfully chattering the whole time. Shouto would probably be paying more attention to what Midoriya is saying if he could stop getting distracted by his pretty eyes and his myriad of freckles.

Midoriya glances back at him and smiles. “What do you think?” he asks, tilting his head, and Shouto realizes he hasn’t heard a single word he’s said for the last few minutes at least.

“Um,” he says, a little embarrassed, “I’m not sure.”

“Hmm,” Midoriya says, squinting at him. The edges of his smile are knowing, like he’s aware of Shouto’s inattention. “Did anything stand out?”

Shouto looks around quickly and tries to find something, anything, that looks like it would be a good flower for his mother, feeling somewhat desperate. Perhaps taking pity on him, Midoriya touches the petals of a tulip that’s nearby, popping like crimson sunbursts in a crowded vase. “This, maybe?”

“Not red,” Shouto blurts, far too quickly. Midoriya looks at him curiously, his head cocking again. “She -- she doesn’t like red,” Shouto says quietly.

“I see,” Midoriya says, nodding thoughtfully, touching his thumb to his lower lip. He doesn’t look frustrated or upset, but Shouto feels out of balance, guilty somehow. He should stop wasting this poor florist’s time and stop putting off the inevitable. He reaches out blindly and touches a bouquet nearby.

“This one,” he says, drawing his attention, and Midoriya’s eyes light up.

“That one’s really lovely,” he says, smiling brightly. “These blue ones are hydrangeas, and obviously you know these are white roses, and these here are white lilies. It’s a good choice, Todoroki-san.”

“She’ll like it, I think,” Shouto says, and although he doesn’t know that for sure, he has a really good feeling about it. The blue of the petals are so deep that they’re almost purple at their edges, and the white of the other flowers is almost clean, and fresh, and it feels like a good color to restart their relationship with. “I want this one.”

“Awesome,” Midoriya says, beaming. He carefully gathers the bouquet up, which is wrapped in plastic wrap, and then pauses, chewing his lip. He glances up at Shouto and says, “Hang on a second.”

Before Shouto can reply, he’s hurrying off to the back of the counter and through the door. He’s so fast that there’s no time to say anything, and he can only blink after him. He takes the brief respite to sigh and lean against one of the display tables, feeling slightly overwhelmed. Midoriya is just a boy, he reminds himself, and he shouldn’t feel so off balance just because he happens to be a cute one.

“Here we go!” Midoriya sings out as he comes back through the door. The bouquet has been placed in a beautiful blue vase, a pale brushed glass with a white bow tied around the middle. “This one doesn’t usually come with a vase, but since you’re going to the hospital, you’ll need one.”

“Oh,” Shouto says, oddly touched that Midoriya thought so far ahead. He moves towards the counter, reaching out and touching the edge of the ribbon gently.

“No charge,” Midoriya continues, peeking up at him through his messy hair. Shouto frowns, pulling his hand away.

“There’s no need for that,” Shouto tells him. “I can pay for it.”

“Let’s say that it’s incentive for you to come back,” Midoriya says, and then turns pink all along his freckles. “Not that you -- I mean, I’m not saying you have to come back, but since you’re a first time customer--”

“I will,” Shouto tells him, feeling hopelessly pleased when Midoriya smiles tentatively at him. “Is there anything I should know about keeping them?”

“Oh! Of course, yeah,” Midoriya says, and then explains about trimming the ends of the flowers, and making sure to check the water each day, and to make sure and keep it out of direct sunlight. He hands him a little packet of food and tells him to leave it with his mother to add. Shouto pays for the bouquet in somewhat of a daze, hoping he’ll remember everything properly.

“Thank you for coming,” Midoriya tells him, bowing his head slightly. Shouto inclines his own head, surprised to find that for all of his flustered thoughts, he feels calmer than he had when he’d first walked in.

“Thank you,” Shouto replies, clutching the vase close to his chest.

“I hope she likes it!” Midoriya tells him, and even waves a little as he walks out of the door. Shouto finds himself pleasantly distracted, thinking of Midoriya’s bright smile and his messy hair, until he’s standing in front of the hospital and all of his worry comes flooding back.

They recognize him at the front desk by his name, of course, and don’t question what a high schooler is doing at a hospital in the middle of the day, although the nurses do exchange a startled glance they probably don’t think he sees. A nurse walks him to his mother’s room silently, leaving him with a hand pressed against his shoulder. “We’ll come to get you in an hour,” she tells him quietly, and then he’s alone in the hallway with a bouquet and his own thoughts.

His hand bridging the gap to the door handle feels like the hardest thing he’s ever had to do. He doesn’t know why something he was so sure of twenty-four hours ago feels so impossible now. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He doesn’t know what to say .

The door clicks under his hand as it turns, and opens soundlessly. The room is brighter than he thought it would be, almost as bright as his mother’s hair in the sun. She doesn’t turn her head until the door closes behind him, solid against his back. Her dark eyes land on him and he holds the flowers between them like a shield.

She does not react immediately -- they both have gone too long hiding their emotions to react without thinking it through -- but as soon as she recognizes him, her eyes widen. It is quiet enough that Shouto can hear his own blood pulsing in his ears, can taste his heart in his throat.

“Shouto,” his mother says. She doesn’t sound surprised, or worried, or confused. She sounds as if he’d simply walked into a room she was in at their home, as if he came here every day. Her voice is exactly as he remembers, and it tears into him like a knife. “Those are lovely.”

He glances down at the flowers and then back up at her, surprised to see her smiling slightly. He hadn’t expected smiles, which feels strange to realize. He pushes away from the door tentatively, moving closer. When she doesn’t react except to keep looking at him, he makes himself come the rest of the way

When he sets them down on the table beside her, she reaches a hand out and touches one of the hydrangeas, lifting a petal with her fingertip. He stands next to her, trying desperately not to shuffle the way he wants to, but he doesn’t know what to do -- he doesn’t know how to act around her anymore.

“Please sit,” she says. Her smile is more a gentle curve of her lips than a genuine one, but it’s still there. He gingerly lowers himself into the chair opposite her and stares. His heart beats heavy and painful in his chest. “How have you been, Shouto?” she asks.

He opens his mouth, unsure of what will come out. He hadn’t realized how little he’d thought about what he wanted to say to her. She is at once intimately familiar and uncomfortably unknown to him, and he’s terrified of messing this up. “I’ve been -- I missed you,” he says. It seems simplest to start with the truth.

Her smile grows a little bit stronger. “I’ve missed you too,” she says. “Tell me about what’s been going on? You’re in school?”

“I am,” he says, and slowly, slowly begins to tell her about his life. It’s halting -- there are things neither of them want to mention, things that make both of them go still and stumble. His mother is less stoic than he thought -- at one point she lowers her head and her shoulders tremble, and for a moment he’s terrified she’s going to cry, but she looks up at him and tells him to keep going. It’s hard, harder than he thought it was going to be, but also, somehow, easier too. It feels like lancing a wound and draining poison from his body; messy and painful, but necessary. He hopes his mother feels the same way.

When the hour is up, a nurse knocks politely on the door and tells them it’s time for him to go. Shouto stands up and bows his head to her, and she smiles at him in return.

“I’ll see you again soon,” he promises, and finds that it’s an easy promise to make. Something in her eyes is soft.

“I look forward to it, Shouto,” she tells him, and reaches her hand out to the flowers again, touching a white rose.

“Oh,” Shouto says, “I almost forgot, I asked about the care of those. Let me write it down.” He finds a scrap of paper and relays Midoriya’s instructions, and carefully hands it to his mother, who tucks it next to the vase gently. He lingers in the doorway, somehow reluctant to leave a room that had been so frightening to him only an hour before. “Goodbye, mother,” he says.

“Goodbye, Shouto,” his mother says, and he closes the door on her turning her head to look out the window again.

When he gets home that night, everyone is clamoring to know where he’d gone, what he’d skipped class for. Yaoyorozu offers to give him the notes from class that day, which he gratefully accepts. The rest of them give up trying to get answers out of him when he uneasily deflects the conversation to a television show they’ve all been watching, which relieves him. It probably helps that Iida and Yaoyorozu give them all firm stares when they look like they want to press him. He’s really lucky, actually, that his friends are so understanding of his boundaries -- he trusts them, but he’s not sure he wants to share his family’s messy history with them.

Shouto goes to sleep that night feeling settled for the first time in years. He’s sure he’s going to dream of his mother, a familiar figure in his dreams and nightmares over the years, but he dreams instead of the florist, Midoriya, of his wide green eyes and his unending smile. He dreams of flowers blooming from his chest, arching towards the sunlight of that smile, and wakes in the morning feeling strangely warm.

It’s two more weeks before he can find the time to go to the hospital again, this time on a weekend. He’s had a lot of time to think and rethink about his first visit with his mother, and he’s decided that he’s...pleased with how things turned out. He doesn’t feel nervous on the train this time, although he still doesn’t like all of the strangers bumping into him.

Well. He does feel nervous, but it’s for a different reason.

He hovers on the street outside of the flower shop, eyeing the sign with trepidation. He knows he’s being ridiculous. He knows he promised to come back. He knows that Midoriya probably won’t even remember him when he goes in, but his stomach still squirms unpleasantly.

He only goes inside after the fifth person has given him a wide berth as they walked past him, clutching their purse closer. The bell chimes above him, but this time Midoriya is already up front, and he looks up, mouth already open around a greeting, and then startles.

“It’s you!” he says, and then flushes scarlet, the blush spreading all the way up to his ears. It’s makes him almost unfairly attractive, and the twisting in Shouto’s stomach intensifies.

“Yes,” Shouto says uncertainly, unsure if Midoriya’s outburst had been positive or not.

“I’m sorry,” Midoriya squeaks, covering his face with both of his hands. “That was so rude, my mother would -- nevermind. It’s nice to see you again, Todoroki-san.” He finally lowers his hands, his blush having mostly receded, his smile somewhat hesitant.

“You as well,” Shouto says, approaching the counter. He has to duck and weave his way through hanging leaves and vines; the shop appears more floral than ever, as though it’s a real jungle that has grown in size since his absence. Midoriya watches him come closer with amusement in his eyes.

“Also, Todoroki is fine,” Shouto says once he reaches the counter, although he would prefer not to be called by his surname at all. “We’re the same age, I think.”

“Todoroki-kun, then,” Midoriya says, and smiles more brightly. “How was the bouquet? Did you mother like it?”

“She did,” Shouto says, and feels warmth suffuse him to his fingertips when Midoriya positively beams. His dream rises unbidden in his mind, and he pushes the thought away. “I’m going to visit her again today, so.”

“Of course,” Midoriya says. “Did you want something similar? Or something new?”

Shouto wants whatever will give him the most time with Midoriya, but he can’t say something like that, so he opts for replying, “If you wouldn’t mind showing me some again, and then I can decide?”

“Of course,” Midoriya says quickly, then blushes again. “Just -- just follow me.” He walks around the counter, fiddling with his apron straps. Shouto can’t help but notice that this time, there’s a streak of dirt on his temple, close to his hairline. As Shouto falls into place behind Midoriya, he glances up at him with those big green eyes. “Is your mother doing well?”

Shouto goes still before he can stop himself, freezing all along his spine, too used to years of not speaking about his mother to anyone to do otherwise. Midoriya pulls up short as well and looks wide-eyed at him, covering his mouth with a hand. “I’m sorry, that’s none of my business, please forget--”

“It’s fine,” Shouto interrupts, reaching a hand out to his shoulder, mostly to halt his apologies. Midoriya blinks up at him and Shouto pats him once and then lets go. “She’s doing well. She really seemed cheered by the flowers.”

“Oh,” Midoriya says, looking relieved. His smile returns almost startlingly quickly. “I’m glad. Oh, here Todoroki-kun, what do you think of this? It’s got stargazer lilies, which are one of my favorites.” It’s completely the opposite of the last bouquet -- that one had been sedated, blue and white, but this is a burst of color. Orange roses and bright green leaves frame huge pink and white lilies, a sunset exploding from a clear vase. “What do you think?”

“Um,” Shouto says slowly. “It’s a little. Much.”

“Hmm,” Midoriya says, tilting his head. “Okay, let’s keep looking.”

They walk around the shop while he points out arrangements, and although Midoriya fits perfectly under the looming leaves and vines, Shouto keeps having to duck, which makes Midoriya laugh. It’s a cute laugh, where he chuckles, realizes he’s laughing at a customer, then covers his mouth with a hand. Shouto wants to pull his hand away and let the laughter keep flowing, but he keeps his hands tucked into his pockets and makes sure to exaggerate his movements the next time he has to stoop under a sunflower that’s drooping onto the path, just so Midoriya will start the process all over again.

He eventually decides on a purple and pink arrangement of tulips, one of the only flowers he recognized before he came here. Midoriya takes care when he carries the vase up to the front counter, and makes Shouto wait while he wraps a pale pink ribbon around it. His hands are careful as they make the loops, and Shouto can see little nicks and cuts on his skin, places where his hands are rough with calluses. He wonders what it would feel like to hold them.

“Todoroki-kun?” he hears, startling him out of his thoughts. He feels himself flush and has to regulate his face’s temperature for the first time in years to keep from going red under Midoriya’s gaze. “Does this look okay?”

“It’s great,” Shouto says, smiling softly at him. “Thanks for being so patient with me, Midoriya.”

“It’s no problem at all,” Midoriya says emphatically. “I like getting to walk around with you. I -- I mean, um, you know, explaining the flowers and everything,” he adds quickly, turning pink again.

“You do seem to know a lot,” Shouto agrees, handing money over and watching Midoriya fiddle with the register. “I don’t think I could keep up with all of them.”

“This is my grandmother’s shop,” Midoriya says, smiling and shrugging as he counts out change. “I sort of grew up here. I spent a lot of my childhood helping her in the garden as well. And I’ve always liked keeping things organized in my head. When I was younger I used to keep journals on all the heroes -- like, strengths and weaknesses and stuff like that. So I was used to it.”

“You like -- heroes?” Shouto asks, feeling as though he’s treading on dangerous ground.

“Yep,” Midoriya says, grinning. “My favorite is All Might, obviously. He’s the best.” Shouto tries not to show his relief too obviously that his favorite is not Endeavor, but Midoriya is already speaking again. “What about you, Todoroki-kun?”

“I like him best as well,” Shouto tells him, thinking of all All Might has done for him over the years he's been at school, of sitting in his mother's lap rapturously watching him speak on television. His father's perception of All Might has never touched that childhood adulation, and meeting him had only solidified Shouto's thought that he deserved his place at the top.

Midoriya’s face lights up immediately. “I’m glad you have good taste,” he teases, leaning forward onto the counter. “I’ve admired him since I was like, four years old. He’s just -- he always felt like the best kind of hero.”

“He is,” Shouto says, uncomfortably recalling just how varied heroes, even the best, can be. He forcibly pushes those thoughts to the back of his mind, and continues, “He’s also just like that in real life.”

Midoriya’s eyes widen to comical levels. “You’ve met him?” he shouts, pushing himself up from his slouch. Shouto blinks at his enthusiasm, and Midoriya seems to gather himself, leaning back over the counter with an embarrassed expression. “Sorry. I didn’t meant to shout.”

“It’s okay,” Shouto assures him. “The reporters at school are much worse.” At Midoriya’s blank look, he explains, “He’s my teacher. I’m a student at Yuuei.”

“At Yuuei?” Midoriya asks, looking overly excited again. “Seriously? That’s so cool! You’re on the hero course? What am I saying, of course you are, All Might is your teacher. Not that the other classes aren’t cool, of course, but obviously All Might would be teaching the hero course, which means you must be really, really strong, although I haven’t been able to figure out what your quirk--”

“Midoriya,” Shouto says. Midoriya stops mumbling to himself and looks up at Shouto, blinking and then making a face at himself.

“Sorry,” he says, waving his hands, “I do that sometimes.”

“It’s half and half,” Shouto tells him. Midoriya looks confused, so he holds up both of his hands and lets ice and fire build in them. Ice spills over his fingertips and fire dances around his palm, held close so he doesn’t damage any of the plants surrounding them. “My quirk.”

Midoriya looks completely enraptured. “That’s amazing,” he says, leaning in to look closer. “You have incredible control.”

Shouto closes his fists and ends the fire and ice, shrugging his shoulders. Midoriya looks like he’s physically holding himself back from peppering Shouto with questions, fidgeting in place. Shouto barely knows him, but he can see the hundreds of queries crowding behind those expressive eyes, but he eventually goes still.

“You should go,” Midoriya says, sighing. “I’m sure your mother is waiting to see you.”

She’s not, because they have no way of contacting each other, but Shouto can’t really explain that. “You’re right,” he says, gathering the tulips up. “Thank you again for your help.”

“Please come again,” Midoriya says, smiling and bowing his head.

“I will,” Shouto tells him, knowing there’s no way he could stay away.

Buoyed by his interaction with Midoriya, Shouto is in fairly high spirits when he arrives at the hospital, but they fall almost immediately. The nurses give him blank looks and tell him to be careful when he checks in, leaving him confused and quieting his good mood. When he opens the door to her room, his mother doesn’t bother to turn around until he sits at her table, and when she does finally look at him, her eyes are vast, empty pools. Something in him fills will dread.

Today, his mother is quieter than last time, and the conversation is more stilted. Shouto knew that things wouldn’t be perfect right away after ten years of silence, but still, he’s disappointed when she doesn’t respond to his questions, when she drifts off midsentence and has to look away from him, like she’s afraid to see him. After a while they just sit in silence, looking out at the cityscape. He’s frustrated, with himself and with her, but he swallows it and watches planes drift across the sky, leaving misty streaks in the blue expanse.

When the hour is up, he gathers his bag and heads to the door without saying anything. He’s just about to turn the handle when his mother speaks.

“Thank you,” she murmurs. “For the flowers. They’re beautiful, Shouto.”

He looks at her, and she’s looking back. Her eyes are sad, and tired, and regretful. And he knows, he knows how hard it is. He knows how every word feels like pulling a single splinter out of the forest in your heart, and how every second of silence feels like weakness. He knows how bruises form and fade, and how many have been pressed into them. He knows she’s trying, that she’s just as out of practice with this as he is.

His frustration vanishes, and he steps away from the door. She watches him come closer, her eyes wide and tremulous, and when he leans forward and drops a kiss onto her forehead, she lets out a shaky breath.

“I’ll be back, mother,” he says carefully.

“Thank you, Shouto,” she whispers, and this time she holds his gaze until the door closes behind him.

On the way back to the train station, he passes by the flower shop again, and spots Midoriya in the window, spritzing water on a row of potted plants. He looks like he’s talking, even though there’s no one around, and Shouto is desperately charmed by the thought of him talking to the plants, chattering on about nothing and everything. He looks so effortlessly happy, like he’s made of nothing but good thoughts, and Shouto feels himself longing for that uncomplicated happiness. He knows he’s going to miss his train, but he really doesn’t want to go home with a poor mood, and his feet carry him across the road and into the shop.

“Hello, thank you for -- Todoroki-kun!” Midoriya says, turning midway through his sentence, looking surprised. “You’re back! Did she not like--”

“She did,” Shouto says quickly, not wanting Midoriya to come to the wrong conclusion. “But I wanted -- something of my own.” The lie slips off his tongue easily, although once he’s said it, he does find the idea of having a plant of his own appealing. “A plant for my desk.”

“Oh!” Midoriya says. Shouto realizes belatedly that there’s music playing, something instrumental and soft with lilting piano. He looks around and spies an old radio sitting on the counter, battered and dirty but with crystal clear sound. “You caught me while I was watering,” Midoriya says, seeing where he’s looking. “I like to -- I think the music helps.”

“I’ve heard that,” Shouto says with interest, looking at the planter he’d been spritzing. The various pots are labelled mitsuba, negi, shiso. The sprouts are young but flourishing, poking up green and white through the soil, and Shouto recalls all of a sudden that his mother had kept a pot with shiso, tending to the young seedlings until they could be planted outside. When she’d left the house, her fledgling garden had already been struggling from disarray and disuse, and no one in the house had bothered to restore it. The area is bare now, and only Fuyumi bothers to even walk through it anymore.

“Did you want to try growing herbs for cooking?” Midoriya asks, tilting his head. Shouto hesitates. As tempting as it would be to be to clear the space in the garden again, to bring back a piece of his mother to his home, he barely considers his father’s house his home anymore, and there’s no space to plant at the dorm. Besides that, Shouto does very little cooking, and he’s not sure he would utilize the plant properly.

“Not really,” he says finally. “I was thinking maybe something small and easy.”

“Bamboo, maybe?” Midoriya suggests. “We have some pretty shoots, and they’re very simple to take care of.”

He takes off without waiting for Shouto to reply, weaving his way through the aisles. Shouto follows him through the jungle, ducking under leaves and flowers, which makes Midoriya snort a laugh again. Halfway across the room, Midoriya starts humming along with the music absently. His voice is average as far as Shouto can tell, but his heart still trips in his chest at the sound.

“Here we are,” Midoriya says, gesturing proudly. There are several different pots with little shoots, most of them easily held in one hand. A few have the bamboo woven into twisted designs, but many are just straight shoots with little leaves jutting out of the top, somewhat plain beside the more decorative ones. “They’re really simple to keep, I’ve got some at home that I’ve had for like, ten years, and they’re still doing great.”

Shouto touches one of the simple bamboo shoots, set in a ceramic white pot. “I like it.”

“Awesome,” Midoriya says, grinning. “This can be like your starter plant. Maybe we’ll work you up to something more complicated, like orchids.”

“Starter?” Shouto asks, blinking.

“I’m going to make it my mission to turn you into a plant person,” Midoriya says, sending him a crooked grin. “That way you’ll keep coming back.”

I would keep coming back even if you sold trash picked up off of the ground, Shouto thinks, and flushes at his own thought. “I’ve never thought about being a plant person before,” Shouto says instead, picking up the bamboo. “I have a busy schedule, so I’d be worried about forgetting them.”

“Lots of things only need watering once or twice a week,” Midoriya says, leading him back up to the front counter. “This bamboo, for example, should only need it once a week or so. Just make sure there’s water covering the roots at the bottom at all times.”

He turns the radio down when they reach the counter, and fusses with the bamboo for a moment, making sure it looks good from all angles. “Did you want something to carry it in?”

“I think it’ll be okay on the train,” Shouto says. Midoriya nods and taps away at the register, then holds his hand out for Shouto’s money; he tries not to notice when his hand brushes Midoriya’s fingertips, but Midoriya must notice, because he fumbles when he takes it.

“Um,” Midoriya says, blushing. “Right, um, try to keep it somewhere where it gets lots of indirect sunlight. And a moderate temperature, although I guess if you needed to, you can regulate it yourself, huh?” He quirks another grin at Shouto, who smiles back.

“I suppose so. I have to do that to myself, sometimes, if I overuse one of them.”

“I see,” Midoriya says, putting his thumb to his mouth thoughtfully. “So you experience a physical drawback from your quirk, then. That would make sense, especially with opposing elements being part of it. So using them simultaneously would be the most efficient way to manage it, but I imagine using them both at the same time would take a lot of energy, so--”

“Midoriya,” Shouto says, making him break off midsentence, but suddenly curious. “What’s your quirk?”

Midoriya’s face goes quickly, carefully blank. It’s so sudden that it’s almost as if a switch has been flipped. Shouto’s stomach drops, because an expression like that doesn’t fit on Midoriya’s face -- Midoriya is meant for unending smiles, not concealed emotion.

“I, uh, don’t have one,” Midoriya says. His smile returns, but it’s brittle at the edges. Shouto can see why he’d be reluctant to say so -- it’s incredibly uncommon, and a lot of the time quirkless people were belittled by a society steeped in those who thought themselves above average, but something about Midoriya’s tone tells Shouto there’s more to this than just that.

“I’m sorry,” Shouto says, and then winces when Midoriya gives him a look. “Not about -- you not having a quirk is fine, there are plenty of people who don’t. It’s not that important. But I’m sorry for prying.”

Midoriya stares at him, and then snorts out a little laugh. “After all of the prying I’ve done, I think we’re even,” he says, and Shouto feels the tension in his shoulders loosen when his smile becomes more genuine. After a moment, though, his face goes serious again.

Midoriya’s hands meet and then fidget with each other, his thumbs twining back and forth. “I know it’s not that important. Lots of quirks aren’t even that useful -- my mom can barely float a dish towel across the room. But I -- when I was younger, I really wanted to be a hero.” His voice goes soft and quiet.

The sound of the music fills the gap, but it feels like it’s coming from a thousand miles away. All of Shouto’s attention is on Midoriya, on his unfocused eyes and his downturned mouth. “It was like this -- this calling. Have you ever felt meant for something, like you just know in your head and heart and body that you were supposed to live a certain life?” Midoriya looks up at him again, and Shouto nods -- his throat is too dry to speak. “That’s how I felt about it. I used to watch videos of All Might and the other heroes saving people, and I used to think, That could be me. But -- but it can’t. And I could have been a police officer, or some other public servant, but it’s not -- it’s not the same, you know?”

Midoriya sighs, and then seems to startle, shaking his head and waving his hands wildly in front of him. “Sorry! I’m sorry, that’s way too much information. I’m pretty much over all of that, I promise I’m not like, constantly miserable or anything. I love working here, I really love all of the plants and the customers.”

“I’m sure they feel the same,” Shouto says firmly. Midoriya’s eyes seem to brighten.

“Thank you, Todoroki-kun. Really, I appreciate it. I didn’t mean to get all gloomy out of nowhere, that’s totally weird of me.” He fiddles with his apron, exposing

“It wasn’t,” Shouto tells him. “And even if it was, I wouldn’t mind. I -- I know what it’s like, to be weird about quirks.”

Midoriya tilts his head at him, brow furrowing. “What do you mean?”

Shouto swallows, because he hadn’t meant to say that, but part of him wants to tell Midoriya, which is crazy, because he’s basically a stranger, and he shouldn’t want to spill secrets he can’t even tell to his best friend, but he looks at Midoriya’s wide, green eyes, and he just  --

The bell at the door chimes, and an older woman with wrinkles around her eyes and flyaway hair makes her way into the shop. “Afternoon, Izuku!” she calls out, waving her hand. “Came to pick up that Heuchera we spoke about last week.”

“Of course, Nakamura-san,” Midoriya says, nodding his head. He glances at Shouto, who picks up his bamboo and backs away from the counter, feeling as though he’s been given a sign. The words he'd been about to say have turned to ash in his mouth. “I’ll see you around, Todoroki-kun?”

“Yeah,” Shouto murmurs, ducking his head in an absent bow as the older woman steps past him. As he opens the door to leave, he hears her say to Midoriya, “Izuku, who was that?”, which makes Midoriya squawk.

He spends the train home telling himself he’s got to take a step back, because a crush on a cute florist is one thing, but telling someone his tragic life story is completely another. Midoriya is sweet, and interesting, and Shouto definitely wants to kiss each one of his freckles, but he barely knows him. He’s just got to -- he has to focus on other things now. He’s got school, and his mother, and the future to worry about. He shouldn’t be thinking about a florist he’s only met twice.

He decides to set the bamboo that night on his bookshelf, where the sunshine can fall across it when it rises in the morning. It somehow completely transforms his room, which had been mostly the same color and style, into something more vibrant. The green of it lingers on his eyelids when he closes his eyes to fall asleep.

The next time he goes to visit his mother, he does his research. When he walks into the flower shop, Midoriya is tending to a viney looking plant on the far side of the room, and when he glances at Shouto his eyes light up immediately.

“Todoroki-kun,” he says, sounding as if it’s only been a day rather than a week since they last saw each other. “Welcome back! How is your--”

Shouto looks around the room, thankfully spies what he’s looking for, and hurriedly moves to grab it. Midoriya stops talking and watches as he weaves through the shop, picks up a vase of flowers, and makes his way to the front of the store.

“Peonies and daisies,” Midoriya says. “A good choice.” Shouto isn’t positive, but he almost thinks Midoriya sounds disappointed.

“I wanted to be prepared this time,” he explains. “So I wouldn’t take up so much of your time.”

“I don’t mind at all,” Midoriya says, reaching out and checking the flowers. He fusses with them briefly, then leans under the counter and pulls out a yellow ribbon to tie around it. “Um, how is the bamboo doing?”

“It’s good,” Shouto says. He’s somewhat embarrassed that he’s been obsessively checking it every morning to make sure the water level is fine, despite what Midoriya had told him. “Even I couldn’t kill it in a week, I suppose.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Midoriya says, smiling at him. “I have a feeling it’s going to do very well with you.”

“Hopefully,” Shouto says, handing his money over to Midoriya carefully, so they don’t brush. Midoriya’s smile wavers a little, but returns full force soon enough.

“I hope your visit with your mother goes well today,” he says, fiddling with the change. “I forgot to ask last time we met, when you stopped in again, but I assume things are still well.”

“They are,” Shouto says. His voice sounds stilted to his own ears, and he winces. “Thank you for asking.”

“Were you maybe going to stop by after your visit today?” Midoriya asks, finally handing his change back over the counter.

“Probably not,” Shouto says. His stomach twists at Midoriya’s disappointed expression, but he reminds himself that he has to stay focused. “Thank you, as always, Midoriya.”

“You’re welcome, as always, Todoroki-kun,” Midoriya says, dredging up a smile.  “I look forward to seeing you again.”

The bell, when it chimes as he opens the door to leave, even sounds sad. Shouto clutches the flowers close and takes a deep breath and keeps walking, telling himself over and over that things will be fine.

That day, his mother seems determined to stay engaged, even reaching out and touching his hand once. Her smiles come more easily, and her voice doesn’t break when she mentions how his schooling has gone, how his abilities have increased. She seems -- genuinely proud of him, even of him using his fire, which is something he’s wanted absolution for since he was first made to understand that it was necessary to do so by All Might-sensei back in first year.

He wants to be happy about that, and he is, he’s relieved and grateful, but right now all he can think of is Midoriya’s wide eyes, how he’d seemed vaguely hurt at Shouto’s brusqueness. He hadn’t thought that Midoriya would really care whether or not Shouto spoke with him more or less -- he knows that the majority of their conversations have been carried by Midoriya, and he’s not sure why Midoriya would want to spend more time with an awkward, quiet person who didn’t know anything about how to have a normal human interaction, who --

“Shouto?” He jerks a little in his seat, realizing his mother has been calling his name. “Are you alright, dear?”

“Yes,” he says, shaking his head and clearing his throat. His face heats up and he touches his cheek with his right hand to cool it. “I’m sorry, mother. What did you ask?”

She studies him a moment, her gray eyes flicking over his face. She never lingers on his scar, but Shouto feels her every glance like a physical touch, and it makes him want to cover himself with both hands and close his eyes. Unlike his father, whose gaze never settled on Shouto, like he was constantly looking into the future instead of at the son he had, his mother’s eyes pierce him. She can see him, and it’s somehow both exhilarating and terrifying.

“Was there something on your mind?” she finally asks him. Her hands are folded on the table in front of them, and her fingers splay out with the question.

“I--” he starts to say, and then stops and swallows. “I was just -- thinking.”

“About someone?” she asks, tilting her head.

“Yes,” he reluctantly admits, because he doesn’t want to lie to her. “About -- the florist I saw on the way here.”

“Oh,” she says, and her eyes flick to the peonies and daisies set to the side of the table. A smile, easy and unbidden, springs to her lips. “They’re lovely, as always.”

“I picked them out myself this time,” Shouto says, smiling when she looks at him with surprise in her eyes. “I had to do research.”

“Did you choose them based on their meaning?” she asks, reaching out to the full bloom of a pink peony with a fingertip.

“No,” he admits, looking at them. He’s honestly lucky that Midoriya already had an arrangement with the two of them together, but he’d liked them both immediately when he was searching for flowers the night before. “I just thought they looked pretty together. But I do know what they mean.” She looks curious, so he continues, “Peonies are for good fortune and marriages, and can mean bashfulness. Daisies are innocence and purity, and sometimes mean transformation.”

“That’s very interesting,” she says.

“I suppose so,” Shouto replies. “I was just--”

"Is the florist very cute?”

He cuts himself off and looks at her, startled, going hot all over, and she laughs. She laughs. Her lips part and laughter spills out of her mouth like the ringing of bells -- he can’t remember if he’s ever seen her laugh since his quirk manifested. All of his memories from childhood are of her tears, but now she giggles as she puts a hand to her mouth and looks pleased.

“Your face is very red, Shouto,” she tells him, and when he opens his mouth to reply, steam escapes. He flushes even hotter. “I suppose that’s my answer, then.”

“Mother,” he complains, activating his right side to cool himself down.

“Shouto,” she says, smiling when he gives her a deadpan look. “Do you like him?”

Shouto takes a deep breath and lets it out, then another, waiting for his temperature to regulate. “I don’t -- I don’t know. I think so. But I barely know him.”

“What do you know?” his mother asks, steepling her fingertips together.

“His name,” Shouto says hesitantly. She nods, and gestures for him to continue. He swallows and thinks for a moment. “He likes to talk, a lot, and he seems to have a good relationship with his grandmother. Some of his customers are on first name basis with him. He likes to talk to plants while he waters them. He -- wanted to be a hero, too, when he was younger. But he’s quirkless.” He stops and licks his lips, feeling his stomach twist a little. His gaze drops to the table. “He has really big green eyes, and probably a hundred freckles on his cheeks. I haven’t been able to count them. He’s -- really kind, mom. He just feels -- good. Like a good person.”

“He sounds good,” his mother says, her voice strange.

When he looks back up at her, she’s smiling again, softer than he’s seen so far, almost -- almost sadly. She reaches over and takes his hand, twining their fingers. “Shouto. Listen to me. I’ve had a long time to think about things -- there’s little else to do here. You and I, we’ve convinced ourselves that we don’t deserve to be happy. To have meaningful relationships. We don’t want to burden others with our bad feelings, or our dark thoughts. We don’t think we deserve something good after all we’ve done.”

Shouto swallows and it aches, like his heart is in his throat. His mother’s smile goes a little wobbly, and she squeezes his hand. Her voice cracks when she says, “Shouto, you do.”

Shouto’s breath hitches in his chest and he feels his eyes go hot. “Mother,” he tries to say, but she keeps talking over him, like she’s determined to get this all out. Her grip on his hand goes tight, almost a vise.

“You’re not your father, Shouto,” she says firmly. “You’re nothing like him. I’m sorry if I ever, ever made you think you were.” She takes a deep breath, and it shudders when she lets it out. “If something makes you happy, you should pursue it. Being a hero, making a new friend, finding love -- do these things for yourself, Shouto. Please, don’t make my mistakes.”

A tear spills down her cheek and she wipes it away impatiently with her free hand. “My first motherly advice in a decade and I start crying.”

“Mother,” Shouto says, squeezing her hand to draw her attention. “Thank you.” He pauses, then tugs her hand slightly. It feels like when he would do it as a child, pulling her along behind him as he played in the park, pretending to smash through trees and playgrounds. “You deserve it too, you know.”

She sighs, leaning back in her chair. “I know, Shouto. Now, you should tell me more about this florist before our time is up for the day.”

“We can talk about other things,” Shouto protests, but she smiles with the corner of her mouth.

“I want to hear, though. Tell me what has him on your mind.”  

Shouto closes his eyes and then sighs. “I think I hurt his feelings earlier. I was -- worried, I guess, about how much I liked him. And so I thought keeping things professional between us would make it easier, especially since I have so many other things I should be thinking about.”

“Feelings are rarely easy,” his mother says wryly. “Forget what you think should be. What do you want?”

He presses his mouth together in a line, thinking about everything, about Midoriya’s eyes flashing at him from across a green-filled room, about the way he laughs with his whole body but gets embarrassed about it, the way his fingers were so careful as they tied a ribbon. He thinks about Midoriya’s quiet voice when he was talking about his dreams, and his genuine happiness when they’d walked around the shop. He thinks about how much he really, really wants to get to kiss those freckles at least once.

“I want to get to know him better,” Shouto says finally. “I don’t want to keep things professional between us.” Admitting it simultaneously lifts a weight off his shoulders and makes him more nervous than ever. He’s tired of the twisting and turning of his emotions when it comes to Midoriya; it’s making him somewhat dizzy.

“Good,” his mother says, her smile growing teasing. “You’ll be fine, then.”

“How? I don’t know how to do this, mother,” Shouto says, trying not to sound as desperate as he feels.

“You’re my son,” his mother tells him, patting his hand gently. “You’ll do just fine.”

He opens his mouth to reply, but there’s a knock at the door and a nurse peers into the room.

“Time to go, dear,” she says, gesturing for him to follow her. Shouto frowns but stands, picking up his bag and slinging it over his shoulder.

“I’ll see you soon, mother,” Shouto says, bowing his head to her. She ducks her own head; her smile lingers around the edges of her mouth. “I’ll -- try, with the florist,” he says, not knowing exactly what that means.

“You’ll figure it out,” she tells him. “Goodbye, Shouto.”

On the way home, he stops outside the flower shop, looking through the glass. At first, he doesn’t see Midoriya, but then he catches movement to the side of the windows. Midoriya is leading around a middle-aged man and a young girl, gesturing wildly at different plants as he goes. The little girl has a white daisy tucked into her hair, and her hand is fisted in Midoriya’s apron. She looks absolutely enraptured by whatever he’s saying.

The daisy in her glossy black hair reminds him of his conversation with his mother earlier, and he thinks -- he thinks he might actually have an idea about how to do this.

He doesn’t go into the shop, but he spends the whole train ride home thinking of Midoriya and planning his next move. By the time he gets back to the dorm, he’s buzzing with a nervous kind of energy he hasn’t felt since his first year at Yuuei, when he was looking around at his classmates and realizing that true potential was actually an attainable goal. Yaoyorozu waves at him from the couch with Jirou, and he waves back.

“Was it a good trip?” she calls, and he pauses on the way to the elevator, thinking.

“I think it’s going to be,” he tells her, swallowing a small smile when she looks confused at his reply. He continues on his way, his mind already on what he should do next.

He takes a deep breath and straightens his shoulders before he walks into the flower shop the next week, trying to keep all of the notes he’d been poring over on the train straight in his head. There’s no one there at first, but then he hears a shuffling noise, and short woman with soft eyes and dark hair piled into a messy bun on top of her head makes her way from the back.

“Good afternoon,” she says, smiling at him. His heart sinks. He’d just assumed that Midoriya worked every day the shop was open, given the last few times he’d been here. What if Midoriya isn’t working today and he has to wait until the next time? “Can I help you with something?”

“Um,” Shouto says, hesitantly stepping closer. “Is Midoriya here?”

“Midoriya? Do you mean Izuku?” she asks,tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Her eyes widen as she looks at him properly, and she claps her hands together excitedly. “You must be Todoroki-kun!”

“What?” he asks, startled.

“Izuku has told me about you,” she says, beaming at him. When she smiles that way, Shouto can see the resemblance immediately -- this must be his mother, or maybe a different close relative. “You’re here again!”

“I am,” Shouto says, a little overwhelmed by her enthusiasm. She’s looking at him very intently, like she’s trying to see through him to his soul or deeper. He wonders if it’s something mothers are just able to do. “Is he not working today?”

“Oh! He is,” she says, nodding her head. “He’s just in the back with some of our saplings, so I’m watching the front. We have some cypress trees he’s trying to get ready for a landscaping company. Did you want to go back and see him?”

“Is that alright?” Shouto asks, brow furrowing. “I don’t want to distract him.”

“He’ll be absolutely thrilled to see you,” the woman says, still smiling widely. “He mentions you quite often, you know.”

“Does he,” Shouto says, feeling a warmth spread throughout his chest. He follows her as she gestures for him to come around the counter and through the back door, making their way down a short corridor to another door, and then out into a nursery. It’s a small back garden converted into a little greenhouse, clouded glass letting in the sunlight and keeping the room warm. There are bigger plants out here than inside, little potted trees and bushes dotting the entire room, and across the space is Midoriya, carefully transferring a tree to a bigger pot. He doesn’t look up with they come in, focused completely on what he’s doing. He’s wearing bright pink gardening gloves, and there’s a streak of dirt right across the tip of his nose.

As soon as he has the tree into the pot, he turns to grab a bag of soil next to him and then startles as he spots them. “Mom!” he says, and then goes still as he notices Shouto as well. The bag of soil droops in his arms, the top folding over as his grips slackens. “Todoroki-kun,” he says, looking surprised, and then notices the dirt spilling all over his shoes and yelps.   

Shouto moves forward quickly and helps him right the bag, setting it on the ground. Midoriya is flushed, holding his dirty gloves awkwardly in front of him, not quite meeting Shouto’s eyes. His mother clicks her tongue and says, “I’ll go get a broom, Izuku. You two stay put or you’ll track that everywhere.”

“Yes, mom,” Midoriya says, glancing sideways at Shouto. He looks cautious, somehow, like he doesn’t know what to expect. He supposes that’s fair, after how Shouto had behaved last time.  

Shouto waits until she’s left, and then says, “It’s good to see you.”

Midoriya blinks at him, and a smile hovers on his lips. “You too, Todoroki-kun. How did your mother like the bouquet you picked out last time?”

“She liked it,” Shouto says, and then hesitates. “I was wondering, do you have any -- any carnations?”

“We have plenty of carnations,” Midoriya says, nodding his head. “Was that what you wanted to get her this week?”

“Do you have red ones?” Shouto says carefully.

“Light ones and dark ones, yes,” Midoriya says. His nose scrunches up adorably. The dirt on the tip is practically taunting Shouto. “I thought she didn’t like red flowers though?”

“I was thinking about getting them for -- for someone else,” Shouto says. He feels his pulse starting to trip in his veins as Midoriya’s curious expression turns puzzled.

“For -- for someone else?” Midoriya swallows and twists his hands together. “Who?”

“I was hoping--” Shouto starts to say, but then Midoriya Inko comes back into the greenhouse brandishing a broom and a pan, and they both go immediately quiet and step out of the way as she comes closer. She helps them clean up the spilled soil, chattering about how Takahashi-san had just come in and gotten a dozen red roses for his wife again, so sweet, every month like clockwork. Shouto listens to her and understands where Midoriya gets it from -- she seems as kind and charming as her son, and when the area is clean again she claps her hands together.

“Todoroki-kun, shall I help you today while Izuku finishes up here? You’ve got to go to the hospital nearby, right?”

“Yes,” Shouto says, glancing sideways at Midoriya, who seems determined to stare a hole into the ground. “That would be fine.”

“We’ll make sure you get an absolutely lovely arrangement, no worries.” She starts to head back to the door to go inside, and Shouto takes a step after her and then stops. He turns around and looks back at Midoriya, who stares at him with those big eyes. Shouto swallows a sigh and reaches out, brushing the dirt from the tip of his nose with careful fingertips.

“You had dirt there,” Shouto says. Midoriya touches his nose and goes red across his freckles again, biting his lower lip. His hair is falling into his eyes as he looks up at Shouto, and he has to clench his fists to keep from reaching out again and smoothing it out of the way. “I’ll see you next week, Midoriya.”

“See you, Todoroki-kun,” Midoriya says. He still seems a little confused, but there’s a smile on his face, which is better than disappointment. Still, Shouto’s disappointed himself -- he’d meant to make himself clear, but as he follows Midoriya’s mother to the front of the store, he decides he’ll just have to try again.

“Midoriya-san,” he says as she rings up a beautiful arrangement of pink carnations, “Would it be possible for me to purchase a few individual flowers?”

“Absolutely, Todoroki-kun,” she says, smiling at him. “What were you thinking?”

“A dark and a light red carnation,” he tells her. She tilts her head thoughtfully. “And if you could -- make sure Midoriya gets them?” he asks, trying hard not to fidget in front of her.

She puts a hand to her mouth and absolutely glows at him. “I will definitely do that, Todoroki-kun,” she says, smiling brightly at him. “You’ll be back next week?”

“Yes,” he says, clutching the pink carnations close. “Have a good day, Midoriya-san.”

“You too, dear,” she says, waving goodbye as he leaves.

He takes a deep breath as soon as he’s outside, feeling as though he’s just fought a battle. He’s not sure if he’s won or not, though, and all he can do now is wait until he can see Midoriya again and gauge his reaction.

The next week, he almost stays home. If not for the fact that he’d promised his mother and Midoriya’s mother that he would go back the next week, he probably would -- he’s unused to feeling nervous this way, and it makes him want to crawl into bed and stay there for the entire day. Yaoyorozu takes one look at his face as he’s walking out of the door and asks him if he’s sick.

This time he doesn’t get a chance to debate going into the shop; Midoriya is outside, fiddling with the sign above the door, apparently trying to straighten it where it’s tilted a little. He’s on a stool, and it seems to be a little wobbly. As Shouto gets closer, he watches as Midoriya steps to the side and the stool tilts dangerously under him.

He rushes to Midoriya so quickly it’s as if he has Iida’s quirk. One moment he’s across the street, and the next he’s bracing against Midoriya’s legs as he leans heavily to the right. Midoriya stifles a yell, grabbing onto his shoulder instinctively to keep from tipping over, as Shouto grabs onto the stool and holds it steady.

“Thank you so much,” Midoriya says, and then registers who it is. "Todoroki-kun, hi.” He sounds a little breathless. Shouto reaches up and holds his hand out, and after a second, Midoriya realizes what he’s doing and takes it, carefully climbing off of the stool. “Sorry, this thing has a bad leg.”

“You’re okay?” Shouto asks.

“I’m fine,” Midoriya confirms, smiling. “It’s good to see you again,” he continues. “Sorry for being so busy last weekend.”

“Did the trees do okay?” Shouto asks.

“Seems so,” Midoriya says, shrugging. “Transplanting them is always tricky, but hopefully they’ll be okay wherever they’re going.” He grabs the stool and heads inside, and Shouto follows him. “How’s your mother doing?”

Their last visit had been more sedate than the one before. She'd been tired when he first arrived, so they’d read quietly together for a while, and then his mother had told him some of the things she’d done since being in the hospital -- the holidays events they’d held, the other patients she sometimes saw. She hadn’t seemed upset about it. Rather, she seemed relieved to be someplace that had structure, that had rules.

“She’s doing well,” Shouto says. He knows Midoriya has to be wondering what his mother is in the hospital for. It’s been more than a month since they met and she’s still there. Midoriya is obviously the curious type -- he always seems to be thinking a mile a minute, and he’s smart. He doesn’t ask anything else, though, just hums pleasantly and sets the stool behind the counter.

“What were you thinking this week?” Midoriya asks, tilting his head. “I know you did pink carnations last week.” He pauses, and then his expression turns a little curious. “Mom said -- you bought two of them for me, too? Red ones?”

“I--” Shouto says, and then has to swallow because he thinks he might be choking on the words. “I was just--” Just say it, he thinks wildly at himself. Just say what you came here to say. “I wanted to say thank you.”

Shit.

Midoriya’s face drops a little. “Oh. You’re welcome?”

Shouto curses himself. “For helping me out so much. And for being patient with me. I know I can be -- weird, sometimes.”

“You’re not,” Midoriya says quickly. “You’re great! I mean -- you know -- you’re a good customer.” He makes a face, while Shouto wishes deeply that his quirk was to control time so he could go back and keep himself from being such a coward. “Anyways, you didn’t need to thank me for that. I’m glad to do it.”

“Still,” Shouto says. An awkward silence develops between them, until Midoriya squares his shoulders.

“Well, did you have something in mind this week too?” Midoriya asks.

“Pink roses,” Shouto says, sighing. He’d hoped to buy Midoriya red tulips today, but clearly that wasn’t happening. Instead, they put together an arrangement of pink, yellow, and orange roses; some of them haven’t bloomed yet, but Midoriya assures him they will in a day or so, and they’ll last longer that way. He lets Shouto pick out each individual flower himself, laughing when he lingers over them hesitantly. “What?” Shouto asks, half-smiling.

“You’re so meticulous,” Midoriya says, teasing. “I wouldn’t have thought you would be so precise about arranging them.”

“You always seem to make them look perfect,” Shouto says, glancing at the already made bouquets around them. Midoriya goes a little pink and smiles at him.

“Your mother will like them no matter what they look like,” Midoriya says.

“Probably,” Shouto agrees. “But I’m okay with taking my time.” He pauses, and then, gathering himself, he says, “I told her about you the other week.”

Midoriya blinks at him. “Really?”

“Yes,” Shouto says. “She seemed curious about you.”

Midoriya’s whole face goes soft with pleasure. “My mom was curious about you, too, after last week,” he admits, grinning. “She thinks your eyes are pretty. Even though I’d already told her -- I mean -- nevermind.” He coughs a little, reaching out and shifting one of the orange roses in the vase. “Maybe I’ll get to meet her one day. Your mom, I mean.”

“I would like that,” Shouto says, feeling his heart kick like a drum in his chest. When Midoriya smiles up at him, it’s all he can do to keep from leaning over and kissing him.

When he pays for the flowers, he makes sure Midoriya is distracted finding a ribbon to go with the vase and then pulls out one of the pink roses, setting it on the counter where it won’t be immediately noticed. When Midoriya comes back and fastens the bow, he doesn’t seem to see it, and Shouto lets out a breath.

“I’ll see you next week?” Midoriya asks.

“As always,” Shouto says. It feels strange that it’s only been a few weeks since he first started coming here -- it feels at once like it’s been much longer and only just started. He remembers the first time he came, how overwhelming the shop was, how the flowers and plants had seem to press at him from every angle. Now everything here feels like Midoriya -- green and fresh and welcoming.

Shouto steps out into the sunshine outside, takes a deep breath, and begins thinking of what his next move should be. Next time, he thinks, he’ll get it right.

“What are you doing, Todoroki-kun?” Jirou asks, squinting at him as he taps away at his laptop in the common area. She’s braiding Yaoyorozu’s hair absently as she watches a movie in the background, but she leans behind him to peer at his screen as he scrolls through various pages.

“I’m sending flowers to a flower shop,” he says matter-of-factly. Yaoyorozu looks up from the book she’s reading to blink at him.

“Um,” she says. “Why are you doing that?”

“Sending a message to someone who works there,” he says, shrugging. It’s the best thing he’s been able to come up with. This way Midoriya knows he was being given flowers on purpose, and also Shouto wouldn’t be able to chicken out because it would be out of his hands.

“Oooh,” Jirou says, sounding interested. “Is that where your cute little bamboo came from?”

He hums affirmatively and clicks for the flowers to be sent the next day. Hopefully Midoriya will be there to accept them, but since it’s a family business they’ll get to him one way or another. He closes his laptop screen and sighs, stretching out. “What are you watching?” he asks Jirou. Yaoyorozu has returned to her book, letting her girlfriend twist her hair up into a giant bun without complaint.

“Some movie about people getting stuck in a giant space robot thingy,” Jirou says. “I’m not really paying attention.”

“Sounds -- interesting,” Shouto says dubiously, and spends the rest of the afternoon getting absolutely confused by the movie and pretending he’s not thinking about Midoriya receiving a delivery of flowers tomorrow with his name attached.

The flowers were supposed to arrive on Friday, and Shouto shows back up at the shop on Saturday. He pushes open the door, hearing the familiar bell ring above him, and walks into an empty shop.

The bouquet is on the counter, in a clear vase next to the register. The white and pink camellias and the gardenias still look fresh, and they’ve been carefully arranged so that there’s no overlap. The card he’d asked attached to it is nowhere to be seen, but presumably Midoriya has that with him.

There’s a loud thumping noise in the back, and then someone says, “Sorry, I’m coming!” Midoriya comes bustling through the door, pulling a straw hat off of his head and breathing heavily.

“Hello, Midoriya,” Shouto says, and Midoriya pulls up short and stares at him. Immediately his eyes flick to the bouquet and then back to Shouto in quick succession, and he goes pink all over.

“Hello, Todoroki-kun,” Midoriya says. “I’m -- um -- it’s good to--” He stops, looking frustrated with himself, and then says bluntly, “Why did you send me flowers? And you -- you left a rose the last time you were here, too, I know it had to be on purpose because it was to the side of the register, and there’s no way it just fell out there, and I -- I thought I knew at first what it meant, but then you said it was just -- and I realized I didn’t know about anything, and then those flowers came and they were really lovely but I don’t--”

“Midoriya,” Shouto interrupts, stomach twisting anxiously. Midoriya stops talking, sucking in a breath through his nose and then letting it out. “I thought -- I thought my meaning was clear,” Shouto says, furrowing his brow.

“How?” Midoriya asks, looking baffled.

“The flowers,” Shouto says, gesturing to them. When Midoriya continues to look confused, Shouto clarifies, “The code. For courtship.”

Midoriya’s eyes go wide. “Courtship?” he whispers, and then covers his face with his hands and groans. His face is scarlet where Shouto can see it peeking through the gaps. “Todoroki-kun, no one actually uses that code. I don’t even know most of it off the top of my head, I thought you were just picking flowers that looked nice!”

“I was, for my mother,” Shouto says, running a hand through his hair in agitation, “But not for you.”

“Oh my god,” Midoriya says. “But then -- you told me that the carnations were a thank you!”

“I got nervous,” Shouto says quietly, grimacing. Midoriya blinks and then smiles sort of crookedly at him.

“I make you nervous?” he says, putting his elbows on the counter and leaning closer. His eyes are engulfing Shouto, drowning him, pulling him closer. It’s like he’s a star that Shouto has been orbiting this whole time, and now he’s being drawn in for collision.

“Kind of,” Shouto says, frowning at the floor. Midoriya hums thoughtfully and then looks at the flowers still sitting by the register. He reaches out and touches the petals of a camellia gently.

“I think I remember these... camellias are...let’s see, there’s white and pink ones...I think white is -- you’re adorable? And pink is longing. Um, gardenias are -- uh --”

“You’re lovely,” Shouto supplies for him. He grabs his left arm with his right to try and cool himself down, because his insides feel like they’re on fire. “And secret love.”

“Oh,” Midoriya croaks out. Shouto can’t look at him in the face. He’s contemplating running out of the door. He’d done the flowers so he wouldn’t have to say these things out loud. It had seemed like a good plan at the time. Now he just feels -- foolish. Vulnerable.

He closes his eyes and wishes he’d kept things professional after all.

“Hang on,” Midoriya says firmly, and then dashes out from behind the counter and runs through the shop, disappearing into the endless plants. Shouto stares after him, mouth parted, wondering what’s going on. He’s just about to try and leave when Midoriya comes back, panting slightly, clutching a purple flower with wide petals, a yellow sunburst in the middle. He holds it out to Shouto with a determined face.

“What is that?” Shouto asks, blinking.

“Ambrosia,” Midoriya says. “We don’t keep much of it because of the pollen, but I have a few tucked into the corner of the shop.”

“I don’t remember what that means,” Shouto tells him. He stares at the flower, trying to run through the list of flowers he’d researched, trying to remember if he’d heard of this one. He watches as Midoriya takes a deep breath and then lets it out, steeling himself.

“It means reciprocated feelings,” Midoriya says. His face is almost glowing with his blush, but he’s smiling brightly, happily -- and Shouto feels his own mouth start to curve under the warmth of that smile.

“You don’t remember the others, but you remember ambrosia?” he asks wryly, and reaches out to take the flower from Midoriya. Their fingers brush and linger against each other, and Shouto revels in the way Midoriya’s hand curls against his. His palm is rough and it makes Shouto want to grab hold and run his fingertips over the surface, mapping out the things those hands have done.

“Hey,” Midoriya says, pouting. “You’re the one that--”

Shouto givens in and grabs hold of Midoriya’s hand, accidentally crushing the flower between their palms, and pulls him in close. Midoriya’s mouth closes audibly as they end up chest to chest, their height difference meaning that Shouto is looking down while Midoriya tilts his head up. Shouto’s breath catches in his chest -- all of his thoughts and plans fly out of his mind when Midoriya flashes those green eyes at him.

It’s Midoriya who moves first. He swallows hard, pushes up onto his toes and presses the softest kiss against Shouto’s mouth. It’s more the corner of his mouth than anything, and it only lasts a second, but it sends a bolt of heat through him all the same, and when Midoriya settles back onto his heels, Shouto can feel the warmth coming off of his left side.

“Oh,” Midoriya says with interest. “You’re, uh, kind of on fire.”

“Sorry,” Shouto says, wincing. He extinguishes it as quickly as possible, thankful that his clothing hadn’t caught. Far from looking put out, Midoriya leans back and examines his left arm, pulling at his sleeve and turning his arm slightly back and forth. “Midoriya.”

“Huh?” Midoriya blinks, and then laughs, letting go. “Sorry, I haven’t gotten to see you use it much. I was curious.”

“I don’t mind,” Shouto says, smiling. His pulse is steadily beating in his heart -- he feels like he could light a hundred fires, pass a thousand tests, win a million battles. He wonders if this is how everyone feels when they like someone, or if somehow it’s just Midoriya. He wonders if Midoriya will let him kiss him again.

“I bet you’re really cool in action,” Midoriya says, grinning.

Shouto hums noncommittally. “You could come and see. I bet I could get you into school for a visit. You could probably meet All Might.”

“What?” Midoriya says, grabbing hold of his arm. “Really? Do you think so?”

“Yeah,” Shouto says, smiling. “He’d like you, I think.”

Midoriya’s face looks nearly incandescent. “Todoroki-kun, that would be amazing.”

“You can call me Shouto,” Shouto says. Midoriya makes a small noise and flushes to the tip of his ears. He’s impossibly cute, and he’s still clinging to Shouto’s arm, and they’re still incredibly close together. Shouto isn’t sure he’s not dreaming, to be honest.

“Are you sure?” he asks. Shouto nods, and Midoriya ducks his head and says, “You can call me Izuku, then.”

Shouto smiles. “Izuku,” he says, testing. It feels really, really good rolling off of his tongue. Izuku grins at him and then makes a face. He pulls his other hand away from Shouto’s, and the crumpled ambrosia flower falls from between their hands to the floor.

“Well, there goes that romantic gesture,” he says dryly. He stoops to the ground to pick it up and then looks back up at Shouto. “Are you still going to visit your mother?”

“Yeah,” Shouto says, glancing around the shop. “She’s expecting me a little later today, though. I told her last week what I was going to do. She kind of gave me the idea.”

“Really?” Izuku asks, laughing. “Well, we should pick out a really special bouquet then, don’t you think?”

“I agree,” Shouto says, smiling back at him. Izuku holds out his hand, and Shouto takes it in his own and revels in the feeling of Izuku lacing their fingers together as they start to make their way through the shop.

When Shouto visits his mother that afternoon, she only has to look at him briefly before she breaks into a smile. It lights up her whole face like a sunrise breaking over the horizon. He sets the bouquet of dark pink roses on the table -- it’s so big that it nearly takes up half of the space, and she gazes at it with wide eyes.

“I’m guessing it went well,” she says, raising her eyebrow. Shouto smiles at her and shrugs his shoulders, sitting down opposite her. She looks back at the flowers, still smiling, and then furrows her brow. “What’s this?” she asks, reaching out and pulling a few of the stems apart.

She draws out a thin slip of paper -- a card, folded in half. She opens it and her expression smooths out into a soft smile again, and she passes it over to Shouto, who opens it curiously. He hadn’t seen Izuku do anything to the bouquet, but he’d been somewhat distracted by Izuku asking questions about Yuuei, and what living in a dorm was like, and what quirks his friends had. He can already tell that Izuku is going to get along well with Uraraka.

He opens the note, and there’s a somewhat messy scrawl on the inside. It’s a phone number, and underneath, it says, I don’t want to wait a whole week to hear your voice again - Izuku. There’s a small heart drawn next to his name, a little bit lopsided.

 “He really is good, isn’t he?” his mother asks, gazing at the flowers warmly.

Shouto tucks the note into his pocket, already thinking of calling him on the way home, of all of the things they have to tell each other -- of what he wants to share with Izuku about himself, things he’d never thought about telling another human being. Everything in him feels light. His mother is smiling at him, and is proud of him, of all of him, and he feels -- content, for the first time in a very, very long time.

“He’s good,” Shouto says, breathing the soft scent of roses when he sighs. “He’s amazing.”

“Good,” his mother says, pleased, and then begins to tell him about her day.