"How do you do it?" you asked, bringing your knees up to your chest. The purple-haired boy brought himself closer to you. Looking to your right, you saw his eyes, calm as always, dark bags under them.
In those few days you had been there, in that room, you were never able to comprehend how he did it. He just looked like nothing happened, like everything going on was bothersome -boring even.
"Hm?" he asked, wrapping an arm around your shoulder, bringing you closer to him, your head now on his chest.
You hugged your knees harder, trying to put your words together. "How are you not affected by- by-"
"I am." He interrupted, and you lifted your head up to look at his face. It had now become darker in a way; his brows were furrowed, his eyes duller, his bottom lip between his teeth, biting it so hard you thought it was going to bleed. "But we need to show him that we won't give in, no matter what he does." He continued. His expression then softened as he looked down at you, giving you a small, forced smile, like a big brother trying to cheer his sister up. "Okay?"
You nodded, unsure of what else to say. "Okay"
For a while, you both stayed like that, not saying anything, the other person's touch enough to reassure you that you weren't alone.
You hadn't known him for long; maybe 3-4 days? Knowledge of time wasn't an option in that dark, cold room. But even so, you both felt safe next to each other.
Maybe that was because of the circumstances, and if you ever got out, you wouldn't speak another word to one another, or maybe this experience would make you close. There was no way of knowing. So, for now, you just enjoyed each other's company, and the somewhat safe feeling it brought the both of you.
After a few minutes, your legs had become sore, so you tried to get up. Looking up, you saw Shinsou had almost fallen asleep, his arm still wrapped around you. Carefully, you took it off, and while stretching, you took a few more moments to examine his face.
His head was leaning back against the wall, and he looked quite uncomfortable. You sat down to his left and, after wiping the dust off your pants, took Shinsou's head and placed it in your lap.
As he found himself laying like that, his body relaxed almost instantly, and when you placed your hand in his hair and started slowly caressing it, he fell asleep immediately.
However, that peaceful atmosphere didn't last long.
You were carelessly running your fingers through Shinsou's hair, when the door forcefully opened, causing you to flinch.
"Look at you both, sitting there like that."
Your hand froze at the sound of the man's words.
It had always been unknown to you, what he was doing there. He wasn't much older than you -maybe 16-17. Why was he in that kind of place?
You didn't say anything, so he spoke again.
"Looks like our other candidate is sleeping, so would you like to go first? Or have you finally decided to give in?"
Your hands trembling in your lap, you gave him the hardest glare possible, before carefully getting up without waking Shinsou.
The door opened once again, and the shadow man gave Shigaraki a questioning look, before throwing you a glance and nodding in understanding.
As Shinsou woke up a few hours later, he saw your unconscious body laying next to him, new bruises covering your hands and legs.
***
With Mina, Jirou and Momo by your side, you walked through the mall. After almost all of you had successfully passed your exams and everyone was sure to come to the camp, Hagakure had suggested that you all go to the mall.
Having gone only a few times, which you barely remembered, you were quite excited. Although there wasn't anything in particular you wanted to buy, you decided to just look around with everyone else.
As you passed a few stores in the centre of the mall, you looked to the right. There, you saw Midoriya sitting on a bench, though the slight tremble of his body made your eyes remained focused.
Beside him was a hooded man, whose face you couldn't see. You noticed his right hand was wrapped around Midoriya's neck, one finger lingering in the air.
You stopped in your tracks, as your breath hitched. Mina noticed and looked at you questioningly, but you threw on a smile. "I just saw something I wanted to buy, you guys go first"
Mina nodded, returning to Momo and Jirou "Sure".
With the girls gone, you slipped through the crowd, slowly approaching Midoriya.
Before making your presence noticed, you looked more attentively at the hooded man. His face was hidden, but from taking a closer look at the hand that was still wrapped around Midoriya's neck, you recognized him.
After taking a deep breath, you put on the most casual expression and approached them. As Midoriya's eyes landed on you with terror, you smiled. "Hello Midoriya, do you want to-" you turned your gaze over to Shigaraki, looking surprised that he was there "who's the guy?"
Midoriya's breath hitched. "Uh-" he tried to say, but Shigaraki spoke up.
"Well, I guess we have been interrupted." He took his hand off, causing Midoriya to break into a coughing fit. "See ya later, friend" He used a weird tone for that word, one that sent shivers down your spine, making you wince just slightly.
You sat next to Midoriya, putting a hand on his shoulder as you waited for him to calm down.
"Did he do something to you?" you asked, your expression now stern. Your hand gripped just tighter, as if to show you were there.
Midoriya shook his head, giving you a worried look. "No, no, he was just a—"
"It's okay." you assured him, forcing a smile. "I don't think he'd dare do something dangerous in a mall of all places." You looked around at the crowd of people, Shigaraki nowhere to be seen. "Also, we lost him." You said, but it was more like you were trying to convinve yourself instead of him.
"Thank you, Y/n." Midoriya said, standing up while you did the same. "Are you okay?"
"Huh? Yeah." You put your hands on his back, pushing him forward "Let's get to the others"
You tried taking a deep breath in as you and Midoriya made your way through the crowd, but it only got stuck in your throat, making you let out a cough.
Midoriya glanced at you, but you waved a hand in front of him, signalling you were okay.
You went and looked for the girls, while Midoriya went back to Iida and Uraraka.
"What did you buy?"
"Oh, uh- they were out of stock"
***
After the mall incident, a strange lump was making its way at the back of your throat each time you thought about it.
What did Shigaraki want? To kill Midoriya?
He wouldn't dare. Not in a public space. Not on his own, without Sensei's orders.
And you were clever enough to figure out that whatever happened that day couldn't have been more than some stupid shit Shigaraki wanted with Midoriya.
Threaten him maybe? It would have made an impact if you hadn't been there, or if they weren't surrounded by hundreds of people.
You were sure Midoriya had been affected in some way. The look on his face at that moment said it all.
After all, he wasn't expecting something like that to happen on a day that was supposed to be fun; he was supposed to relax with his friends -buy some stuff for the upcoming training camp.
The day after, at school, he was his usual self -sweet, cheerful, nice. Sometimes you wondered how he could be like that all the time.
When classes ended, you kept him back, asked to walk home with him, even though you lived in the opposite direction.
For a while, you tried to make casual conversation -see if there were any differences in his behaviour.
Because an event like that, though small, could really traumatize someone.
Midoriya hid it pretty well. Other than his fidgeting happening more often, he seemed like his usual self. Though, when the word "mall" came out of your mouth, his expression dropped.
There wasn't much you could do for him, other than try to make him understand that things like those happened, that Shigaraki wouldn't have done anything in that situation.
When you brought the subject up, he gave a smile, scratched the back of his head, and tried to talk about something else.
You weren't about to let him do that though.
When he realized there was no way out, he gave in. He told you how he had felt at that exact moment, with Shigataki's hand around his neck, one of his fingers in the air, brushing his throat softly, threatening to disintegrate him then and there.
Midoriya talked about how scared he felt -how helpless; he was a hero in training. He was supposed to stand up to villains, right? He shouldn't have let fear take over, and do nothing but pray that it would finish soon.
You sat him down on a bench, took his hands in yours, trying to comfort him.
You tried to make him understand that there wasn't anything else he could have done in that situation. That causing a scene would have been worse.
You told him it was normal to be scared and feel helpless around someone so powerful.
Shigaraki must have had a reason to do that. He had probably wanted to place fear inside Midoriya -maybe even make him go to Aizawa and tell him what happened.
But that wasn't going to work.
What Shigaraki did, it was just a test, to see how scary he could be -how much of an impact he could have on someone.
But Midoriya wasn't weak, nor was he going to let Shigaraki do something like that again.
He was going to train, along with his classmates, and when the time came, fight.
As you and Midoriya parted ways, you knew he wasn't going to let something like that impact him again.
Because he was going to be the number 1 hero after all.
***
You were packing your bag, when the classroom door bust open, before a very excited Denki made his way in, Jirou behind him. "Guys! Guess what?"
"We're going to the pool!" Jirou said, smiling.
Everyone now had their attention on them, some excited, while others curious as to how they had gotten Aizawa to agree.
You were glad to see that the swimsuits were one-piece, so a certain perverted classmate would have little to no chances of doing anything.
Once you arrived, the boys were already fired up, ready to start some kind of competition. The girls were all in the water, tossing a beach ball back and forth, and you were watching everything unfold from the side of the pool, your feet in the water.
You doze off for a while, watching your classmates have fun. Midoriya, Todoroki and Bakugou had gotten too excited on the swimming contest, forgetting the most important rule was to actually swim, instead using their quirks as much as possible.
Of course, no one really minded other than Iida, who kept flicking his hands back and forth like a robot.
About an hour had passed like that, before you saw Mina get out of the pool, sitting down next to you.
"So, Y/n" she said, smiling, watching Jirou and Denki stand next to each other with a smug look.
You diverted your eyes off of the group of boys who were now drying off. "Hm?"
"Who do you think is the hottest here?" she waved a hand around, signalling to the whole area around the pool.
You smirked. "From the boys or the girls? 'Cause I have answers for both" you gave her an up-and-down look, lifting an eyebrow.
She giggled and looked at the boys as well, having understood the playful tone in your voice.
"Soooo... Bakugou? Midoriya? Todoroki has lots of muscles too"
You took a second to think, your eyes lingering on someone in particular. However, you chose to give the least problematic answer. "I mean... they all look alright. Not really interested in any of them though."
Mina playfully scoffed, before giving you a sort of 'we'll see about that' look, which you fortunately didn't catch.
After another thirty minutes, you saw Aizawa come, looking as tired and done with life as always.
"Okay lads, time's up, get your butts outta here"
Kirishima, who was trying to convince Bakugou to a diving competition, scoffed. "But Aizawa-sensei, we were just in the middle of-"
Aizawa gave him a warning glare "It's 5 o'clock. Out"
Back home, you ate, did some homework, even talked on the phone with Shinsou for a while, before drifting off to sleep.