You were quiet on the way back to the control room. As everyone turned to you guys, you could only smile shakily when all the girls happily congratulated you, along with Kirishima, who talked about how manly you were.
Like last time, All Might listed the MVP of the battle, "The MVP of this battle is... Young [Last Name]!! Does anyone wish to explain why?" This time, Iida spoke up.
"I believe it to be due to her quick thinking!! Not only did she have faith in her teammates to entrust an enemy to Hagakure-kun alone but as we saw, she was the one who had formulated the plan! She also showcased that villains will not always wait for the heroes to come to them, and might initiate a fight on their own!! She showed great signs of teamwork and proceeded to work alongside Ojiro-san to take down Todoroki-san!!" He finished the explaination with a small nod to you, giving you his utmost respect and you softly nodded back.
"Well said, Young Iida! Your plan is what allowed the your team to win, Young [Last Name]! You did a very good job! All of you did a great job!" He praised and then proceeded to pull out the next lots and towards the next battle.
Yaoyorozu and Jirou placed a hand on either of your shoulders and the latter began, "You did really well, [Last Name]. That was amazing." Hearing her compliment you in her calm voice managed to ease you up a bit. You smiled and thanked her as Yaoyorozu began to praise your amazing plan, saying that it was the best course of action!
Tsu and Kirishima left the control room for their battle while Uraraka and Mina came over to you and Hagakure and happily congratulated you both at your victory.
But in midst of all this, they all turned to you with an eager look in their eyes, "[Last Name]-chan!! If you don't mind us asking, what even is your quirk? Todoroki-kun and Shoji-kun were completely blinded until you looked at them again! Can you blind people with a glance?"
Hagakure shook her head but due to her invisibility, you guys just felt the air swishing from her action.
"I don't think it's that! [Last Name]-chan, you turned yourself invisible in the entrance exams!!" They looked even more fascinated, and you couldn't help the tired smile that made way to your lips, "It's Color Control. I can change the color of things, that includes myself."
As if they were waiting for you to say that, all the girls present looked absolutely enamored, "That's so cool!! Your quirk is so amazing, [Last Name]-chan!!" Mina yelled while Uraraka and Hagakure nodded at her side.
Even Yaoyorozu and Jirou seemed rather enthralled, "That's a pretty cool quirk, [Last Name]. I can't even begin to imagine all the things you can do with it." The tall ravenette girl nodded at Jirou's words, "Yes! It's a quirk, that if trained properly, can be the greatest weapon! If you can blind anyone with one look, no villain will stand a chance! Just like today!"
You will admit, their appreciation certainly helped you to temporarily stop thinking of Todoroki and his terrifying actions. Perhaps the girls had noticed it, and were trying to lift your spirits. After all, you were still shaken up from it, and if Ojirou hadn't yelled at Todoroki to unfreeze you guys, you probably wouldn't be able to feel your legs as of right now.
Still, you tried to push the entire battle at the back of your mind and simply focused on your new friends. With a small smile, you turned to watch the battle of Tsu and the bird guy against Kirishima and the guy with tape dispenser elbows.
————
You made your way back home and almost cried when you saw the stack of dishes waiting to be washed. With your energy levels almost finished, you quickly took a bath before getting to work.
It took you an hour to clean the house, another 45 minutes to do all the dishes and then an hour or two to make dinner. By then, you decided to just eat alone instead of waiting for your family like you used to do in middle school.
After dinner, you dragged your body to your bedroom and finally sat down to review what you learned today. First of all, you did everything that you sucked at like Quirk History, etc, then you proceeded to ignore whatever you could manage, like English and Biology. Grabbing onto your phone from the charging stand, you decided to check your messages first.
You had a few from Fumiko, Shiho and Mikoto, another message from Riza which was actually just her sending you memes. It was a form of communication between you two, just excessively sending memes.
You half-heartedly replied to her sent meme and vaguely answered your friends' messages. You expected that to be the end of any socialising, but then you got a message from Kaibara, and it's what surprised you.
Kaibara Sen
Kaibara Sen
Hello [Last Name]-san
Have a look at this
He sent you a picture of something called a Dwarf Hamster, and proceeded to point out all the things that resembled your principal. You couldn't help but chuckle as you saw the hamster.
Kaibara really was invested in this, huh?
Kaibara Sen
You
Kaibara-san it doesn't even have
tail like you said, pls think of something
better, like an albino red panda ;)
He then proceeded to refuse on how there was no way Nezu was a red panda and told you that he would continue researching even more. You wished him good luck before closing your phone and lying down on your bed.
Now that you were alone with your thoughts, your mind finally drifted back to Todoroki and what he had said.
"-didn't I tell you? I won't hesitate to crush you if you came in my way-"
He was serious about that. He was genuinely okay with hurting you if you became a hindrance for him. And that scared you.
You were always a coward anyways, but you never thought you'd be so scared of a boy who was the same age as you.
You wondered why he was so obsessed with being number one. Sure, many people dreamed of it and even had it as their goals. But they never went psychotic over it, they never treated it like it was their all or nothing.
Still, you hoped that maybe... he would be willing to apologise. Even though it seemed far fetched considering the type of person Todoroki is, you still hoped that he would.
Because despite everything, you missed not being glared everytime you entered his vision. You missed when he was actually kind enough to talk to you without freezing you or praying for your downfall.
Okay, maybe you were setting the bar a little low, but that didn't matter.
What mattered was what drove him to such a point. You're not his therapist, neither is it your job to deal with whatever temper tantrums he throws your way just because you got enrolled in the same high school as him, but you wanted to know the reason of his bad attitude towards you.
You felt like you deserved at least that much; to know what caused him to hurl those spiteful words at you.
————
As Todoroki sat at the chabudai* in his house, his sister worriedly darted her eyes towards him every other minute. The youngest slurped his noodles once more, yet the aura he was emitting was uncomfortable. Not to mention, the transfixed state he was in only made her worry.
"Shoto?" The older sister asked as she carefully addressed her brother. The said boy hummed while peering through his eyelashes to look at his sister, "What?"
"Did... something happen? At school or... you know, with dad?" The youngest contemplated what to tell her. On one hand, he wanted absolutely no one to know of the fear he had seen in your eyes, all because of him. He was scared that his sister might say that he was becoming like their father.
His own guilt was slowly starting to catch up on him too.
But on the other hand, he was dying to get it off his chest. He wanted someone to reassure him that it wasn't his fault. He wasn't turning into Endeavor, you were just scared. You did say in middle school that you were always a bit of a scaredy-cat.
Even if in the back of his mind, he knew that it was him.
It was his fault. Not yours.
"It's... nothing much." He answered, having placed his bowl and chopsticks on the chabudai. The dual haired male kept his gaze lowered to his reflection in the sauce.
Although she knew it wasn't true, she was about to drop the topic until he decided to finally speak up, "Fuyumi?" She snapped her gaze in his direction, almost urging him to speak and open up.
He seemed a bit uncomfortable, unsure even, of how to phrase it, "Have you... Uh..."
What to say, what to say...
"Nevermind it, it's stupid. I don't have any need for friends anyways, so it's pointless." The youngest ended the conversation without even bothering to have started it and it pained Fuyumi. With a soft voice, the older sister decided to address Shoto while watching him eat his soba in annoyance.
"Shoto... I know that it's your social life and all but..." Smiling at him with a closed eyes grin, she continued, "-if someone is reaching out to you, don't disregard it... It takes a lot of courage to bother reaching out to someone, so don't ignore their efforts."
That wasn't even close to the predicament he was going through, but he couldn't find the energy to state that. So he nodded and continued to finish his meal.
The next day, you were yet again accompanied by Kaibara to the train station. But he said that he had to get off at another station because he had some errands to run for his father.
You nodded and told him to get to school safely before he got off at an earlier station. With that, you silently waited for your station to arrive so you could reach school.
UA wasn't that far from the train station, in fact, it was pretty close by. But that still didn't explain the crowd around UA.
You took one look at them and it quickly registered in your mind that those were... reporters.
Oh, God.
As if you didn't already hate your pictures being taken because you weren't photogenic, now you have to deal with reporters shoving their cameras in your face along with those microphones that picked up the smaller of sounds.
You decided to avoid all that trouble and just turned yourself invisible and proceeded to walk through the crowd with ease. Even though there was pushing and shoving, the mindless reporters didn't care for that. All they wanted was to catch a glimpse of All Might, who was the new teacher here.
In a way, you knew it wasn't the reporter's faults either that their pays depended on the scoops of information they would bring, so they had to be as obnoxious as possible, just so that they could pay their bills. But it was still annoying to have a microphone being constantly shoved your way.
You were about halfway to the entrance when you noticed a rather large crowd forming at a place a bit farther away from the school. You figured it might be a teacher or maybe they might have even seen All Might from that spot, but then you saw the familiar UA uniform flash through the crowd and you realized that they had a fellow student in there, probably being butchered by their excessive questions.
You felt bad for the person, but you weighed your options. Should you push through that crowd and potentially get found to help the person? Or, should you quietly make your way to school, using that poor person as a distraction?
You were still contemplating what to do when you saw that the crowd opening a bit, and got another glance of the kid.
Shit...
That guy looks like he's having a panic attack!!
Without thinking much of the consequences, you hurried over to him, pushing all the reporters in your way (even though they couldn't see you), you made your way to him.
You tapped his shoulder and he immediately became invisible too, and that shocked everyone around him.
"What the-" One of them yelled as another looked around to find the student, "Where did he go?!" They were all so busy trying to find him, that you grasped onto his invisible hand and pushed everyone out of your way, trying to hurry to a quieter place so you could help him.
After much pushing, you guys finally made your way back in. Quickly returning the colors, you turned to the guy who seemed heaps better than what he looked like under all the eyes of the media, but he still looked shaken up.
"Hey, you're okay... They're gone now, so take a deep breath." Having a sister who was a psychologist, she often told you about panic attacks, epileptic seizures, and whatnot. She told you what to do if you came across someone who was hyperventilating.
You seated the guy on the grass, and placed his backpack near him while kneeling in front of you, "Take deep breaths, good... You're doing great!" You cheered him on as he continued to try to regulate his breathing.
"Calm yourself down, those guys aren't here anymore... We're much farther away from them, and they can't come in here." He shakily nodded, not really meeting your eyes but that didn't matter right now. You made sure to get your water bottle and gave it to him, letting him take a few sips of cold water.
"Focus on the cold water. It's cool, right? Let's focus on that right now." You didn't really care if you only had 5 more minutes for class, you needed to make sure this guy was okay and maybe even walk him to his class.
He took a few more sips of water before he seemed calm enough to breath properly, "T-Thank you..." He quietly murmured yet he still never met your eyes, "Do you want to go to Recovery Girl's office?" He shakily shook his head, mumbling a 'I need to get to class... Sensei's gonna kill me...'
You thought over it, and figured you should at least get him to class, "If that's what you feel most comfortable with. But don't worry about your teacher, I'll step in to explain if you need some time to rest, okay?" His eyes widened but he kept his gaze down, too shy to actually meet your eyes.
"I... I don't wanna... bother you..." He spoke in a really low voice, so low that you almost missed it, "-I... just want to go.... home."
"You're not bothering, it's fine." Giving him the kindest smile you could muster up, you placed a hand on his shoulder and he tensed up for a second before calming down when he realised it was just you.
"At the end, it's your choice. If you want to go to your class or if you need to rest, both of them are fine and no one will object either of those choices. So don't worry and choose whatever comforts you." You couldn't see it, but the male had a light blush on his pale cheeks, not really being used to people being so understanding.
Other than his mentor and his friends, most people tried to force him to socialize even if he told them that he was deathly scared of meeting people.
To have someone another person, a stranger, being so understanding of him and his struggles really calmed him down, "I-I think I'm feeling better... I should go to class." You smiled, still never having met his eyes and helped him up.
He seemed really shy, especially when you suggested to walk him to his class. He squeaked and stammered more than Midoriya, but after he gauged the sincere worry evident on your face, he found it hard to refuse.
As you both walked in the building, you thought he would walk up the stairs, to the second or third floor but he just continued farther ahead.
Wait a minute... He's a third year?!
He looks so young, and well... Judging by his reaction to media, you figured he was still someone new like you. Considering three years should be enough to get you a bit used to the prying eyes of the media.
But he stopped in front of the class that had 3-A written in big, bold letters, "U-Uh... This... This is my class." Bowing at a 45° angle, he kept his bow, "T-Thank you, so, so much... I would have-I would have passed out... if they kept on looking at me... any longer."
Ah, so he had social anxiety? You heard your sister mentioning that she once had a patient with social anxiety.
"It's fine, just take care of yourself, senpai." For the first time, he looked up and was surprised when he saw the kind and gentle smile on your face.
"I'm... Oh. You're..." You nodded at his broken sentences, seemingly having understood what he was trying to say and ask.
"I'm a first year, [Last Name][Name]. Pleased to meet you, senpai."
He smiled very shakily, as if he was about to cry any minute, so you quickly added, "You don't have to introduce yourself if you feel uncomfortable. I just did so, because I felt you'd feel more comfortable knowing my name."
"N-No! I mean, yes... I'll introduce... myself!" He steeled his resolve and finally! He properly looked up, and your eyes widened. He was actually... really cute-looking! Not to mention his cute ears!
"I-I'm Tamaki, Amajiki... Tamaki. I'm very glad to... have met you, [Last Name]-san!!"