@ pacifisting

[a few hasty bandaids over a profusely bleeding wound, that's probably all this is — but it stems the tide long enough for things to return to almost-normal by the time Monday rolls around. Todoroki has, as expected, recuperated from his hangover in the cool, dark, silent and blissful solitude in his room and sworn off consumption of clear Russian liquids for the foreseeable future, and seeing Midoriya in the morning is... well]

[they don't talk about it. and he doesn't want to. hopes to never, in fact, if he's allowed to have his way. there are a few times throughout the week he thinks he feels his gaze lingering on him a little too long, asking questions he doesn't have answers to (or doesn't want to), pushing his lunch around pensively as he thinks of a way to broach the topic when they're alone]

[in that, too, he gives him fewer opportunities for a while. Uraraka and Iida, oblivious as they are, make for pretty good buffers]

[...until he can't anymore, until there's blood leaking from his nose and his swollen, broken bottom lip, his back planted into the asphalt of an evacuated street by a giant's fist he wasn't fast enough to dodge, knocking the breath and the consciousness right out of him]

[when he comes to after the fight is over and Musutafu is, once again, safe, the only color he sees is — ]

Mi...dori...

[his voice is rough with pain or maybe screaming, a part of his body warm that usually isn't. is this... weight?]