"Welcome, everyone, to the UA sports festival!" Present Mic's voice rang through the whole arena.
Your class was in the waiting room, some nervous, some excited.
You were sitting next to Mina, slowly tapping your foot. You weren't expecting to actually be nervous, but that morning, when you woke up and already had a knot in your throat, you knew it was inevitable.
"Midoriya, I want to have a talk with you"
You lifted your head up as you heard Todorokis voice. He was approaching your green-haired classmate, an extremely serious look on his face.
"Y-Yeah...?"
"Looking from an objective point of view, I am stronger than you." Midoriya flinched a little and nodded nervously, unable to do anything else. "But All Might has got his eyes on you, doesn't he?"
At this, Midoriyas eyes widened, but he didn't say anything.
"Hey man, why are you picking a fight all of a sudden? We are friends, aren't we?" Kirishima broke the silence, placing a hand on Todorokis shoulder, trying to calm him down.
Your face formed into a confused expression.
Todoroki wasn't picking a fight. Neither of you were at UA to make friends. You were there to become heroes. It was normal for two classmates to feel intimidated by each other, and for a rivalry to be born.
Todoroki saw Midoriya as a rival. And he wanted him to know that; be aware of it.
You didn't say anything though, watching to see how the conversation would unfold.
"We aren't here to make friends, we are here to become heroes. And Im not going to hold back" Todoroki added, pushing Kirishimas hand off his shoulder.
You felt the atmosphere in the room change from a bit anxious, but calm at the same time, to tense, uncomfortable.
It was like everyone suddenly realised what they were there for. Not to have fun at a normal high school sports festival, but to train, fight, get experience.
Todoroki turned his back to Midoriya and walked back to his seat.
What you didn't expect was for the green-haired boy to say something back. "I know that. But I will still do my best. I cant afford to fall behind you or the others" he had a serious expression, and you couldn't help but admire his determination.
Then, Present Mics voice rang through the monitor you had in the waiting room, making all of you divert your gaze on it.
You all stood up and made your way to the arena.
***
Shouto was going to make the best out of this sports festival. He was going to focus only on his career. Not on you, not on other things.
The night before, he thought about many things. About his life, his dreams, his goals.
And once again, he realised his priority -being the number 1 hero.
He didn't have time to think about anything else.
This was what his stupid old man had taught him after all.
How could he have been so naïve, giving himself time to think -and worry- about you? You weren't in his life anymore. You had been in his life only for that short amount of time. You were now just a classmate -an acquaintance.
It doesn't matter that you knew each other before. Present was present, and he had other things to think about. You didn't remember him anyways.
Well, that wasn't certain yet.
Shouto still wanted to ask, but another time.
Now his first thought was the sports festival. That was the most important thing. For his career, and for himself.
And it was going to remain that way.
...or at least it was supposed to.
***
The presence of so many people in one place made you nervous. You couldn't explain why.
Especially when the majority were looking in your direction.
All those eyes, focused on you. On your every move, every reaction. Everything you did, they would notice. Keep it inside a little part of their brain for who knows how long.
It made you anxious.
You never let it show though. Kept it all inside, to not bother anyone. They weren't going to care anyway.
As you entered the arena along with all the other first year classes, your eyes fell on the purple-haired boy from class 1C, while a small smile made its way on your lips as he slowly nodded when he spotted you.
After Present Mic made the introductions, the hero you recognized as Midnight started talking.
"Okay kids, for tradition, I will be having one of you pledge before the fun begins. Bakugou Katsuki from class 1A, please come forward!"
You looked in Bakugous direction. Looking unbothered, he went in Midnights place, in front of the microphone.
"I pledge... that I will be number one"
"Pffft—" you couldn't help but let a laugh escape your mouth.
"Bakugou, how could you say such infantile words? It was very unprofessional" Iida said as Bakugou was making his way to the rest of the class.
He glared at you and Kirishima who were still laughing, but you ignored him completely.
"Well, now that that was taken care of, I will announce the rules for the first round!" Midnight broke the silence. "It will be an obstacle race! All classes will be racing at the same time, but only the first 42 will advance into the second round!"
After you all went to your positions, Midnight swung her flag, and the first round began.
It was annoying as fuck.
Before the race even began, you had to run through a tunnel.
Pretty easy, right?
No.
The problem was that you were all in the same tunnel -so it was cramped as hell, and you could barely breathe.
Todoroki even froze the ground, along with some students^ feet. However, you were faster than that and didn't fall for it, stopping time just before he froze the ground.
You and Todoroki exited the tunnel first, with Bakugou and Midoriya close behind. Shortly after, others were making their way out as well.
Then came the next obstacle -the 0-point robots from the entrance exams.
You all started fighting them. They were just like you remembered, somehow even more annoying now that you had to actually destroy them to be able to run forward.
You were almost hit by one, but it was frozen by Todoroki before it got the chance to touch you.
After you finally escaped the robots, Bakugou and Midoriya fully caught up, both claiming that they would win no matter what.
You weren't that keen on winning, to be honest. You didn't want to be "the number 1 hero" or anything like that.
You just wanted to become a hero, save people, but also have some fun. Pretty basic, but you didn't want to dedicate your whole life to hero society, and risk losing it.
Well, that didn't mean you weren't going to give it your all during the festival.
After you managed to pass more obstacles, a new tunnel made its way into your vision.
You only had to get through that, and it would end.
Midoriya entered it first, followed by Bakugou, then Todoroki and then you.
As you were all running through the tunnel like your life depended on it, the light of the arena started getting bigger and bigger.
You were so out of breath, barely running anymore, but you couldn't give up.
You closed your eyes, running as fast as you could. In what looked like a second, people started cheering.
You stopped and put your hands on your knees, trying to catch your breath. When you opened your eyes after a few seconds, you saw Todoroki and Bakugou in front of you.
However, in front of them, you saw Midoriya. His back was turned to you, but you knew he had the biggest smile on his face. You couldn't help but smile as well.
***
"Okay! Congratulations to everyone who advanced to the second round; it will be a cavalry battle! As you can see on this screen, each student has been given a number of points. Each team will have a head band with all its players' points on it. During the battle, you will steal each other's bandanas, and by the end, who has the most points wins!" Midnight explained after the cheers from the first round ended.
You all looked at the screen she was pointing to. You were in fourth place, so you had a good number of points. However, Midoriya, who was first, had 10 million. So, whoever took his head band would automatically have the first place.
"There is a problem though" you said, mostly to yourself. "If my team steals Midoriyas points, we will be the ones targeted next"
"Yeah. So I will need someone with good offense and someone with good defence" a different voice spoke.
You looked to your right, and saw Todoroki looking down with a concentrated expression. His eyes landed on you as well, just then realizing he had spoken his thoughts. However, he didn't have time to do anything else, as another voice was heard.
"Y/n-san, Todoroki-san, would you like to join me and Kaminari for this round? I believe our abilities will compliment each other quite well"
You turned your head to the other side. Iida was walking up to the both of you.
"Sure" you and Todoroki said at the same time.
And so with that, the second round began.
This one wasn't easy either.
At first, almost every team went for Midoriya, including yours. You couldn't miss the 10 million points, nor could you ignore the rivalry Todoroki had set in the waiting room. You only had 15 minutes, so you needed to take advantage of them as well as you could.
5 minutes passed and you weren't making any progress, so you decided to accumulate points from other teams, so you would be up in the ranks even without Midoriyas band.
After you stole a few head bands and claimed yourselves the third place, you had half the time left, so you decided to try and go for Midoriya again.
Todoroki was getting fired up, and you, Iida and Kaminari went along with it.
However, you weren't able to take the head band, and when time was up, you were in third place.
Iida and Kaminari were happy with the score.
However, when you looked at Todoroki, he was looking up in the stands. You followed his haze and your eyes landed on a fiery figure, which you recognized as the number 2 hero, Endeavour.
You never really admired him. He was just... there. Somehow, each time you looked at him, some type of hatred arose in you.
You didn't know what was causing it, but the hero had never given you a good vibe.
And the way Todoroki was looking at him... surprised you.
From afar, it might've looked like his usual expression, but you could see it was different. His eyebrows were slightly furrowed, and his teeth were clenched.
But the most different thing were his eyes. Usually, they were calm, not showing any kind of emotion.
When he had spoken to Midoriya earlier, they showed determination, even a little bit of anger. They showed that he was serious about what he was talking about.
Now, while they showed that determination still, Todorokis eyes also looked... sad. Lonely. Like they were longing for something.
Something that was taken from him, and he wanted back.
There was pain in his eyes. One that you knew your classmate would never show in front of anyone. But, for some reason, while looking at his father, Todoroki couldn't hide that expression.
And for some reason, seeing those eyes, your chest clenched in pain.