[note: there are no quirks in this au]
Todoroki hadn't been feeling well lately, and this was a different type of 'ill'.
"Although 'ill' might be the wrong word." He muttered as he squat down to inspect some instant soba packets at the supermarket.
He specifically disregarded the ones dressed in red packaging.
It was when his thighs started to hurt that he grabbed a couple and shoved them down a bag, to be checked out at the counter.
Gathering his thoughts, if he had to label it as something, he'd say he was feeling weird.
He made his way to the cashier, passing by a bunch of vegetables on his way.
'Broccoli.' He abruptly thought, looking at the vegetable on display blankly.
He couldn't describe it, really, but he likes to think this whole 'feeling strange' fiasco started about a week ago.
And it was, weirdly enough, because of broccoli.
Metaphorically speaking.
He blew away the thoughts in a violent shake of his head and checked out.
Clutching a plastic bag filled with nothing but instant soba, he left the store, staring up at the sun. He kinda hated how it stung his eyes, despite looking at it of his own free will.
He made his way home, his shoes kicking away at the gravel.
He couldn't stop feeling weird, and clearly, shopping didn't work. So he decided to try a different method.
He thought maybe plugging in and listening to some music might help.
He lip-synced the lyrics to Adam Levine's Bang Bang, but it did little to nothing to curb this growing feeling of unease.
It was when he got to the lyrics 'She shot me, she shot me, bang bang she shot me,' when he felt something hit home (which was odd because there was currently no lady in his life who shot straight through his heart) and decided to stop.
Frustrated, he kicked at the ground, almost immediately checking around to look if anyone caught him acting out so suddenly.
No one was there, he was safe.
It wasn't anything he had to worry about though, he thought to himself, not like he did something illegal.
After all, people act strangely out on the streets all the time.
What, it's not like he suddenly erupted into flames or froze the entire pavement anyway. Nothing to stare at.
His mind drew a blank again, calling himself an idiot for thinking such silly things.
He wasn't like this before, when did he become so self-conscious?
He really was feeling weird.
'I need a new word in my vocabulary. I keep using that.'
He wouldn't admit it, but this gave him a chance to pretend he couldn't get his mind off of a certain someone, so he decided to look up the various synonyms for the word 'weird'.
After about half an hour of horsing around, he reached his apartment and flopped himself on his bed like a falling loaf of bread.
"Auuuuugh." He emitted what seemed to be an agonizing sound.
Five minutes of dwelling in denial, he finally propped himself up straight, letting out another groan.
It all started a week ago.
He'd been bored after finally moving out of his father's home. And since he wanted an apartment close to the hospital where his mom was admitted, its demand was high, and naturally, he needed more money than what he left home with.
And as tempted as he was to steal Enji's credit card, he wanted no role played by his shitbag of a dad in his new life.
So he decided to look for a part-time job to buy (or rent, however things play out) a proper apartment withing walking distance from the hospital.
He was confident he would land one, and easily at that too. Counting down the facts, it would be as simple as taking candy from a sleeping child.
He was Shoto Todoroki, an upcoming model, son of Enji Todoroki, a famous producer, who (according to Shoto) tried too hard when he named himself Endeavor as his alias.
He was rich (or he used to be), pretty, partly famous, and he sounded like a total brat, so he decided to stop this trail of thoughts.
But the point was proven, and he somehow got a job working as an assistant librarian.
His job was easy. All he had to do was help people with genres and navigation, sometimes rearrange books, and, most importantly, memorise what bookcase held what titles.
Compared to the years of academic abuse Enji had subjected him to, this was a piece of cake.
And so he stood there, a couple of mystery thrillers piled on his left arm, he was just about to move past the final column of books when he saw something peculiar.
Coming from him, calling someone's hair unique was a very unusual occurrence.
But he had sworn he'd never seen anyone's hair so-
Green.
And fluffy.
And he couldn't think of anything else but a broccoli.
"Excuse me?" The short broccoli person turned towards him sharply, swiftly inching close with what seemed to be season 1 Bakugo steps.
Pardon the break in dimensions.
"M-" For a second, his voice got stuck in his throat, still wondering how this person had such vegetable-esque hair, "May I be of your assistance?"
The short boy, (or was that a girl? They had soft features and a thin build, so he genuinely couldn't tell) stared at his name tag, which rested on his upper chest, before bursting into a fountain of mumbled words, "Todoroki Shoto."
He could only let out a small 'yes-" before the person set out on their word vomit.
"Look, I've been called lots of things in the past, all because of my hair, and I know it looks like a broccoli, but that doesn't mean you can say that to someone's face!" He erupted into a clamour of exaggerated actions, flailing his arms around, "And to a stranger at that! Besides, I was already having trouble trying to get that book from up there, and then what do I hear? Yeah, that's right, a certain someone randomly exclaim (fact check: Todoroki did not actually exclaim) 'broccoli' out of the middle of nowhere, and then I turn around 'cuz I know it's addressed to me, because let's be honest, how many people get called that, and then I see who? That's right, you! And I'll have you that is extremely rude-"
Todoroki was so lost he might as well have called an Uber.
"Wait a minute, sir, uh, ma'am? Uh, person," Not his best start but he was getting there, "I'm confused?"
"..." The broccoli, best not to call them that from here on out, "I'm a guy." He deadpanned.
"Apologies. I'm confused, er, sir."
"So you're telling me you're not the one who looked at me and called me a broccoli?"
Realization slapped him harder than his da-
'No more daddy issues jokes, Shoto.'
"Did I say that out loud?"
"Dude."
"I'm sorry?"
"No, I meant, yes. Yes, you did say that out loud."
Todoroki buried his face in his hands, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. Actually, um, your hair is nice."
He delivered an awkward smile.
This confused the short guy, but he just stared at him, and Shoto could kind of see the freckles sprawled unusually across his face.
"It's fine now that you apologised. But be careful of what comes out your mouth. And uh, thanks for the compliment?" He replied.
"Yeah." He muttered, bowing a little before going back to arranging the books, when he randomly turned around again.
"I'm sorry, what's your name?" He didn't know what compelled him to ask.
"Me? Izuku Midoriya?" He blurted, before flashing a confused smile and going about his way again.
"Say," he pivoted around his heel, "Now that you're here, and you're fairly tall, get me that book from up there." He pointed to what seemed to be a book on Greek Gladiator History.
"Sure." He breathed, reaching up to grab the thick spine. Discreetly dusting the book a little, he handed the volume to him, who claimed it happily.
"Thanks, Todoroki-kun." He smiled, and boy was that a big smile.
Todoroki could only watch as the short green haired person hummed his way to the reception, and eventually, out of the library.
He didn't know why, but he couldn't get that incident out of his head.
It wasn't that impactful, but he really was so odd these days, and he couldn't put a finger on it.
He'd met tons of people before, it was a public library, for god's sake, and he's helped multiple people get books from the tall shelves above, but he really couldn't stop thinking about that one particular boy and his freckles and his hair.
He sighed, trying not to brood too much over this, and focus on his homework.
"This was just a normal interaction. Nothing unusual about it." He convinced himself, picking up a mostly-ignored chemistry book.
Hence, he sat down to study in a last-ditch attempt to get the boy off his mind.
Halfway through, his eyes started to feel heavy, and it wasn't until he had fully woken up that he realized he'd been doodling a small broccoli at the bottom of the page.
"...this was definitely not just a normal interaction."
*
Been a while, people, how are y'all?
I'm sorry to say, but all my other books are still on hold. I wanted to still write, despite being on a hiatus, and I wasn't feeling inspired enough to complete my other works.
So what did my dumbass do?
Create another book.
Anyway, Tododeku has been one of my favorite and most cherished ships for a long time. And I plan on writing more for it.
Some things I'll say:
-the cover art isn't mine, so credits to the artist. I did, however make the rest of the cover so there's that.
-hate comments WILL be deleted, I do not want to start any ship wars. I believe both the title AND the tags made it painfully obvious that this is a tedk fanfic.
-I will be taking requests and completing them on my own time. But I will not, absolutely not, write nsfw.
-the updating schedule of this isn't decided yet, so I'll mostly just publish it when I'm out with a new chapter. It won't take longer than 2 weeks, so I guess you can stick to one update every 2 weeks as a baseline.
-I'm still up for interaction (if you're one of my previous readers, you KNOW I love to talk with y'all), so feel free to comment and talk with me here :)
-and lastly, consider yourself lucky because I don't plan on making this book angsty.
-yet.
See you soon!