Chapter 4

The movie is, perhaps surprisingly, pretty good. It may have a few more explosions than something Shouto would’ve picked himself, but Midoriya seemed to like it, and Shouto doesn’t really know what else he’d expect of a recommendation from Kirishima.

The sun had set while the movie was playing, and so the soft light that had cast into Midoriya’s room through the curtain in front of the veranda door has dispersed, and now all that brightens the room is the electronic light of Midoriya’s laptop. It casts a ghostly kind of light over Midoriya, making his freckles more of a stark contrast against his paler skin than usual.

In one fluid motion, Midoriya pushes his laptop off of his lap and swings his legs off his bed, pressing his feet to the floor. He stands and reaches over to his desk, flicking on the lamp that sits upon it.

“Better,” he says before flopping down into his desk chair.

Shouto pulls himself up from the slouch he’d sunken into during the movie, and tries not to notice how his right side feels significantly colder now that Midoriya isn’t pressed up against it.

“What would you like to do now?” Shouto asks, sitting criss-cross in the center of Midoriya’s bed. Midoriya swivels on his chair absently, his fingers steepled in front of him.

“I’m not sure—” he begins to say as they hear a soft knocking on Midoriya’s door. He cocks his head curiously at the noise, hesitating for only a moment before he stands and pads across the floor to answer the knocking.

Shouto leans over on the bed so he can see the door, and Midoriya opens it to reveal Uraraka. Midoriya flusters in her presence.

“Uraraka-san!” he exclaims, his hands wringing together behind his back. “Wh—What—Why are you here? Not that we don’t want—”

Uraraka smiles, as blinding and dazzling as ever, and says, “I brought you guys a care package!” She looks further into the room for Shouto, and when she spots him on Midoriya’s bed, she greets, “Hey, Todoroki-kun!”

He waves back at her in response.

As she hands a basket over to Midoriya, he looks back at her with his eyebrows knit. “A care package?”

“Yeah!” She claps her hands together. “It’s got all the stuff you guys need for a sleepover. It took me a little while to get it together, but Tsuyu-chan helped me, so… we hope it’s useful!”

Midoriya holds the basket in one hand and rummages through the assortment of things inside of it with the other hand.

“There’s some food, a deck of cards, face masks—uh, that might be pushing it, but I swear they’re fun.” Uraraka points to the things as she names them. “I also made some conversation starter cards for if you guys get bored. It’s just pretty standard sleepover stuff that I threw together…!”

“Ah—Thank you, Uraraka-san! I—we really appreciate it!” Midoriya reciprocates her shining grin, and Shouto averts his gaze for worry of going blind by looking directly at two things so bright.

“I’ll leave you guys to it, then… I hope you have fun! I’m glad you two could do this together.”

Maybe Shouto imagines the slight flush to the tips of Midoriya’s ears at the statement, but he knows he doesn’t imagine how heat makes a home of his own face when Midoriya says, “I’m glad, too.”

Uraraka is off with a hasty goodbye, and Midoriya sets the basket on his desk.

“That was nice of her,” Shouto comments, watching intently as Midoriya unloads the contents of the basket onto the desk. As promised, there are three boxes of candy, a bag of unpopped popcorn, a deck of cards, two face masks, and some card-sized pieces of paper tied together with a ribbon.

Midoriya tugs on the ribbon until it goes loose and reads the top card, presumably just curious to see what kind of thing Uraraka had prepared. He doesn’t let Shouto know what it says, however, before he shoves the papers back into the basket like they’ve burned his hand.

Shouto raises a curious eyebrow, but Midoriya’s back faces him, so he doesn’t see it, though he can guess the caliber of what it says.

“So, do you wanna play cards?” Midoriya suggests quickly, picking the deck out of the assortment on his desk.

Shouto runs his tongue across the back of his teeth, his lips just barely parted. “I’ve actually,” he pauses, diverting his gaze down to his lap, where his fingers sit intertwined, “never played cards before.”

Midoriya’s eyes widen for only a moment before he’s smiling. “That’s okay!” he exclaims, taking a seat on the floor and patting the space across from him, beckoning Shouto to join him. “Wanna learn?”

After clambering off of the bed and joining Midoriya on the floor, Shouto looks at him and nods. Midoriya casts him another bright grin as he begins to shuffle the deck in his hands, and Shouto finds the corners of his own mouth pulling up a bit, too.

All in all, Shouto is a quick learner. He likes listening to Midoriya as he explains game rules, laying out cards before them with satisfying slaps and pretending that he’s not a little mad when Shouto beats him at games he’s just learned. At least, Shouto has a few new games under his belt by the time Midoriya suggests they change into their sleep clothes and try out something else from Uraraka’s care package.