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It was the trip of the year, yet... "GOT A FAT ASS BUT I STILL GET-!" "SAUSAGE!!" Shouto's class was quickly wearing on him. He'd initially had an ally in backseat disgruntlement in Shinsou, but after the first half hour, he'd moved up a few chairs in the bus at the behest of Midoriya and had eventually joined in on the insanity that was- "GOT A FLAT ASS BUT I STILL GET-!" "SAUSAGE!!" Shouto thought he was going to Actually Die. The worst part of it was Aizawa-sensei was not on the bus to put a stop to this insanity and Present Mic seemed to be revelling in the pure chaotic energy of it all while the bus driver ignored the screaming mass of memeing teenagers, enjoying the noise cancelling headphones Momo had made him. God, Todoroki wished he had a pair. But if he drew attention to himself by asking, everyone would start trying to get him to join in on- "WAKE UP IN THE MORNING I EAT THAT-!" "SAUSAGE!!" Kirishima practically hit the ceiling and screamed, "I'M A REDHEAD BUT I STILL TAKE THE-!" "SAUSAGE!!!" Kaminari, being not fucking racist by saying what was actually in the video the entire class had seen at the behest of Ashido at least five times at this point, shouted: "I'M A GAY HERO BUT I STILL TAKE-!" "SAUSAGE!!!" Hagakure chimed in with "WHITE GIRL FLY BUT I'LL TAKE YA MAN'S-!" "SAUSAGE!!!" Shouto really. Really wished Ashido and her friend group hadn't discovered American memes and subsequently spread them to the rest of the class. "MAKING SOMETHING UP JUST TO GET THAT-!" "SAUSAGE!!!" "WHITE AND I'M THICC BUT'CHA KNOW I GET THE-!" "SAUSAGE!!!" "YEAH I READ BOOKS BUT THEY ALL ABOUT-!" "SAUSAGE! SAU-SAU-SAU-SAU-SAU-SAU-SAU- SAUSAGE!!!!" Shouto decided now was his chance to at least make his classmates aware of how grating they were being. "I hope you all know this is too much sausage!" Everyone went fucking insane. Shouto regretted his decision in silence, contemplating on a scale of one to Endeavour how unheroic it would be to freeze all his classmates into giving him some peace and quiet. He only had a few seconds to deliberate though, because in a strange domino effect, everyone quickly went silent. Shouto looked around, rather confused, until he caught sight of Shinsou breathing deeply and looking dizzy next to Midoriya, who was smoothing the other's hair back in a concerned manner. Shouto noticed about three fifths of the bus had blank expressions while the rest seemed to take the hint and had stopped making noise. "Alright, let's all be quiet for a good five seconds." Shinsou's voice seemed a little strained. He was stretching his quirk pretty hard. There was a full five seconds of nothing but the road, the wheels, and the bus engine before Shinsou let out a huge breath and their brainwashed classmates blinked back to reality. Shinsou slumped against his seat and Midoriya continued to fret over him, saying how he shouldn't just do something like that out of nowhere. "Todoroki and I wanted a break." Was Shinsou's matter-of-fact defense. "Awww!" Ashido warbled forlornly, "But we were having so much fuuun!" "I agree with Shinsou and Todoroki!" Iida proclaimed from his seat waaaaayy in the front. "Things were getting quite out of hand!" Everything he said sounded like it ended in an exclamation mark. Not the shrill, loud kind of exclamation mark, but an excitable, direct kind. Shouto felt a strange softness appear whenever he thought about how he found it kind of cute. "Hey, you were doing it with us." Sero pouted from his spot two rows behind Iida. "Maybe we should all just be calm for a few minutes, ribbit." Tsuyu suggested. "We'll run out of material before the two hour mark at the rate we were going." The more zealous of the meme lords grumbled their assent while the rest of the bus nodded in agreement and a few conversations started around the bus. Shouto shifted and stared out the window at the Texas landscape. When the class had gotten the news that they'd be participating in a weeklong exchange program with another hero-centric school in America, they'd been excited. Although now Shouto had mixed feelings about it, since this trip was what had prompted everyone to start getting so deep into American memes. Once they'd touched down in Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport -where they'd nearly lost Hagakure- at 5 AM, they'd gotten breakfast and marvelled at how many Texas-shaped things were... everywhere. After getting their luggage from the baggage claim -where they'd nearly lost Ojiro- they'd all piled into a charter bus and were currently about 3 and a half hours out from their destination: San Antonio True Valor High School, one of the top ten hero schools in the country and somewhere in the top fifty in North and South America. Present Mic was there partially because he knew English better than any of them (although there was a counselor at Valor who had a translation quirk, so that was just a bit superfluous as a reason), but mostly because Aizawa-sensei had refused to go no matter how much his very vocal husband begged him and all the other heroes had conflicts (including All Might, which Midoriya had been very disappointed about). Shouto watched as the sun sluggishly began to clear the horizon over the expansive hilly landscape. Texas was really... dry. The colors were all yellowy and warm, and even the green wasn't the lush emerald or supple bright green that he'd come to expect from trees and flowers. Just a de-saturated lime to yellow-green with some particularly old trees sporting deep dark green leaves. How did people live here? "Hey Todoroki!" Shouto turned to see Kirishima with his ever-present chipper smile. Even at three quarters past six in the morning, Eijirou was bright eyed, bushy tailed, and ready to be friendly. Then again, who would be able to sleep through the insanity that had been going on in the bus not two minutes ago? "Yeah?" "I kinda wanted to apologize for all the... kerfuffle that was going on earlier." "It's fine." "You sure man?" "Yeah. I knew it would happen eventually, but twenty minutes straight barely ten minutes into the drive is just... Too Much." "Haha. Yeah, I get that." There was a pocket of silence where Shouto waited for Kirishima to supply a new topic of conversation and Kirishima seemed to be doing the same. "So!" Kirishima finally broke the silence, "What're you most excited about? I hear the school has a huge auditorium and one of the biggest obstacle courses in the country!" "Everything is bigger in Texas." Shouto said in English; it was a phrase the entire class had been taught by Present Mic while waiting to board their plane. Kirishima laughed. "I know right? I'd thought it was just a jokey saying, but as far as I've seen, things here are huge, it's insane!" Shouto glanced out the window a moment as the seemingly endless hills and roads and rocks and grasses sprawled out and tumbled past. "I don't think I like it." "Aw, why not?" Shouto shrugged. "Just don't. 's too big." "Hm." Another stretch of silence. "YO! Shitty hair! You done flirting with IcyHot!?" "Awww, babe, you're jealous!" Kirishima cooed, giving his boyfriend a sugary smile. "That's so cute, yet so unmanly!" Even as he said it, he made his way over to Bakugou and promptly sat in his lap. Bakugou's ears turned raspberry pink and Shouto smirked to himself. The two of them had been a couple for months now, but Bakugou had only deigned to admit it and agree to let Kirishima engage in PDA two weeks ago. The redhead had been making up for lost time. Seeing the two of them made Shouto wonder; would he want his hypothetical partner to do things like that? Holding hands in front of other people, kissing on a whim, hugging and cuddling on the couch in the common room... it all sounded... fluffy. Shouto wasn't all that used to fluffy. I guess I'd be okay with it... would I date someone who would want to do all that stuff though? He thought about the kind of person he'd date. They'd have to be straightforward; he didn't like guessing games or vagaries. They'd have to be able to read him at least a little more easily than most other people seem to be able to; he couldn't just change how he expressed himself for the sole purpose of attracting someone, that was stupid. If he was going to be picky, he'd say they'd need to be muscular and probably taller than he was; he just kind of found that attractive. He wasn't really sure about what else... he'd certainly want them to be intelligent, he was bad at dumbing things down and even then he kind of found it annoying when someone didn't understand things he thought were obvious. As much as he hated to admit it, it would feel nice to have someone protective who would treat him with lots of concern. It made that same weird softness he felt when he thought about the way Iida said things show up. Probably because both seemed like positive things and he didn't have a habit of focusing on positives. "Todoroki?" "Huh?" Shouto snapped his head up and saw Uraraka, her head tilted and her face bathed in orange sunshine streaming in from the windows. Part of his brain filed away the image as something Hagakure would geek out about, calling it aesthetic. "You had this expression on your face I'd never seen and I was curious what you were thinking about." "Oh. I was just thinking." "What about?" "Well, Kirishima and Bakugou just sort of make me wonder what it would be like to be in a relationship." Uraraka's face squinched into an expression of barely staved laughter and amused confusion. "Those two? Out of everyone you know?" "They haven't been that way for long." Todoroki gestured to the newly clingy partners in question. Kirishima had removed himself from Bakugou's lap, but had instead attached himself to the blonde's arm while he smiled and carried a conversation with Ojiro and Bakugou looked like he was deeply regretting his decision to start being open about their relationship. (not that he had any room to, Aizawa had had to stop makeouts instigated by Bakugou more times than Shouto thought was 'normal' within a two week period) "But they've been together long enough that it's obvious something works between them. I was just sort of thinking about what that would be like." "Ohhhh, I get it." Uraraka smiled. "I think about that kind of stuff a lot too. It could just be because I'm a girl, but I really like the idea of admiring and loving someone so much you wanna be with them all the time and want them to love you right back." "... I never thought of it that way." "You don't?" "No. I... I guess I just... figured it was like a team dynamic kind of thing. You function with one-another." "That's... certainly a way to look at it." The silence made a third appearance and at this point Todoroki had just accepted his fate of a bus ride filled with awkward silences. "Oh!" Uraraka perked up, "Were you thinking of a person to make a good 'teammate'?" Shouto thought for a second. There were plenty of people he knew who were straightforward. Of those people, a good chunk of them were what Todoroki would consider intelligent. But... as for people who could read him... and someone who was a few centimeters taller and pretty muscular... "... Iida." "What?" Ochako had really just expected a yes or no and was wholly unprepared for that answer. "He checks all the boxes." Uraraka blinked at him a second and sat down, clearly overwhelmed by this revelation. "What would those boxes be?" She asked him, looking at the ceiling with a strange expression. "He's smart, he's earnest, he's better at reading me than most people seem to be, I do kind of find him attractive, and all that aside, he's... Iida. I know Iida. I can work with Iida and talk with Iida. It wouldn't be too hard." "... How long have you had a crush on Iida exactly?" Shouto gave her a mildly confused look. "I don't have a crush on Iida." Uraraka made a bunch of sputtery noises and looked at him like he was crazy. "You just said he ticks all your boxes and that a relationship with him would be easy!" He did just say that. "I just... never think about this stuff. I hang around him, but..." I don't even think he likes me like that. "I've never had a crush on someone before." Uraraka looked at him a moment before taking his face in her hands. "How do you feel when you're around Iida?" The closeness was a bit jarring but Shouto wasn't too startled to speak. "I feel... like I'm enjoying myself? I tend to focus on him occasionally and it'll happen more and more the more time I spend with him." There was that weird softness again. "He doesn't talk about having crushes, but pretend for a moment that he just told you he has a huge crush on someone from Class 1-B. How do you feel?" Shouto closed his eyes and imagined Iida being his usual comically serious self and telling him about this Very Important Personal Development. He had a crush on someone. Someone from Class 1-B. "I feel... like this soft piece of me just got squashed." Uraraka seemed to wait a few more seconds to see if he'd elaborate before steaming ahead. "Do you look forward to seeing Iida specifically?" "Well... he's one of the first people I think of whenever I think about going to class. And if everyone's going out, I usually wonder if he and Midoriya are going before I make my decision." "You can open your eyes now." Shouto hadn't noticed he'd been keeping them closed. "Who would you be more worried about if they didn't show up for breakfast one morning: Iida or Midoriya?" "Well that's kind of unfair. I'd know they both were probably just sick or over sleeping... but... Iida doesn't oversleep, he's not like that, and... Midoriya can take care of himself when he's sick. Either that or he'd push himself too hard like he has a tendency to do and come to class anyway like a madman. But he's got you and Shinsou and a bunch of other people in the class to tell him to get some rest and not push it. Iida... he'd know not to push himself, but even then I don't like the idea of him muddling through the sickness on his own. I wanna... be able to be 100% sure he'll be okay." "... You've got it bad." Ochako concluded, removing her hands from Todoroki's face. "Do I?" "Definitely. How do you not know the first crush you've ever had when you have it? Don't you have sisters who would tell you about these things?" "I avoided my sisters. And my brothers." "Oh... Well still, haven't you seen any romances?" "I didn't get to watch movies too often and I never had time to read for fun." "Oh." Silence number four. "Well all that stuff aside, you gotta talk to him!" "Why? If he likes me back, he'll tell me." Uraraka made some more garbled noises. "If he doesn't think you like him, he'll be waiting for you to give him signals that you like him in that way and then you two will just be in this perpetual state of 'Does he like me?' and it'll be way too infuriating!" "You seem more interested in our love lives than we are." "Oooh? We're talking love lives? With Todoroki?" Ashido appeared behind Uraraka, who jumped and covered her mouth. "Oh nonononono!" Uraraka deflected frantically. "We just- uhhhh,,,,," "You can't fool me~" Ashido poked Uraraka's nose. "The man in question just said you were interested in his and a mysterious other's love lives." Ashido shifted her attention to Shouto. "So spill!" Shouto knew if he told her it would be all over the bus by the time they reached the next town, and that if he didn't she'd wring the information out of Uraraka or annoy him into capitulating. He took a moment to weigh his options. On one hand, this would be a semi-efficient way to tell Iida about his crush on him. On the other hand, it didn't feel right to have the information get to Iida through Ashido. He liked the idea of not having to face Iida head on to tell him, but he did not like the idea of someone else doing it for him just for kicks. "You'll see." Was his response as he stood up and headed for the front of the bus. He could feel Uraraka and Ashido's eyes on his back as he approached Iida who was currently in a debate with Jirou and Mic-sensei about the optimal roadtrip playlist. "Iida." He interrupted Jirou mid-sentence and she frowned at him, clearly annoyed. "Todoroki, it's rude to interrupt people!" Iida said with that little chopping motion he punctuates most of his sentences with. Shouto kind of found that cute too and felt that softness in his chest return harder than before. Was that what a crush was supposed to feel like? "Sorry Jirou. I wanted to have Iida." Jirou pouted up at Shouto. "But we were just about to talk Queen." "Well if he doesn't stick around I won't be keeping him for long." "Don't start making out in the back of the bus." Present Mic told the two of them, waving his hand in a 'go ahead' gesture. Iida looked between Jirou and Shouto with an expression that was one part embarrassment, two parts deliberation, and a pinch of vague confusion. The mushiness growing in Shouto pressed into his stomach at how straight up adorable that was. "Well okay." Iida stood up to follow Shouto, "But I won't be long!" "Okay." Shouto walked back to his seat, across from which Uraraka and Ashido were whispering with Hagakure and Yaoyorozu and pretending not to be watching the two boys closely. Iida didn't notice them. "In here." Shouto led Iida into the tiny bathroom at the back of the bus. It had barely enough room for one person to comfortably stand in the space between the toilet and the sink, and Iida ended up squished between the door and the half a centimeter of air between the two of them with Shouto pressed against the opposite wall. "Is... this a private matter?" Iida raised a cautious eyebrow. "I'm rather sure this is unsafe." His hands fidgeted with pent up energy and Shouto grabbed them with his in case Iida ended up whacking one of them or hitting his hand against the wall. Iida's hands felt smooth. Not soft, but not rough. Shouto wasn't at all prepared for the way the softness he'd been feeling morphed rather suddenly into a slippery gooey... thing upon noticing that detail. "Technically, but it'll be all over the bus within the next five minutes." "What do you mean?" Shouto looked Iida in the eye and took a breath through his nose. This crush thing was weird. It made him feel vulnerable and uncertain, which was ridiculous. It was just a boy, just Iida Tenya. Iida. He knew Iida. He knew how he talked and how he moved and how his grey-blue eyes made Shouto's heart all- Focus! "I think I have a crush on you." Iida's eyes fluttered in utter blindsided bafflement. "You think... you... have a crush... on me?" "Yes, I just said that." "Pardon me I- it's just- I didn't- I hadn't thought- because- I don't think this has ever happened before, excuse my lack of coherence." "Nobody's ever had a crush on you?" Shouto thought that was straight up impossible. "Well if they did they certainly never told me." Iida's hands made to move but Shouto had a sound grip on them and Iida seemed to realize it was a bad idea to go flaffing about right this second. "Good." "Excuse me?" "That means I get first dibs." Shouto clarified. Iida blushed and Shouto wasn't sure his heart could take it, he had no right to be this adorable. "I- I don't- that is I- Y-you're very close to me right now..." He was. Really close. Shouto could feel how warm Iida was compared to himself. "Not much space in here. But if we go out the girls are gonna storm us. "That... that is likely. But we can't stay in here the entire trip!" "Okay. Then just stay in here for five seconds. If you wanna leave, you can go, and I'll stay in here." "... Alright." The two of them counted five seconds internally, and when it passed, Iida stayed planted right where he was. Shouto was surprised he kept steady, considering all of his insides felt far too melty to reasonably support him. "... There's a lot of tourist spots in San Antonio." Shouto broke the silence for the first time this trip. "Go somewhere with me." "Somewhere... on a date?" "Yes." Iida stared at him, the faded blush on his face coming back full force. He folded his lips in, darted his eyes away and back, and pulled in as much air as his flustered lungs would allow. "Certainly. I would like that." Shouto flashed a brief smile and let go of Iida's hands. "So would I. Now you should probably prepare yourself because I doubt we're going to walk out of here unaccosted." They did not, in fact, walk out unaccosted. The second Iida stepped outside ahead of Shouto, Uraraka and Ashido bombarded him with questions. "So are you two official now?" "Have you been dating?" "What did he say?" "Did you two kiss?" "Alright alright." The two pairs of girls and boys respectively were surprised to see Present Mic leaning over the back of one of the nearby seats. "That's plenty of that. You can probe into the boys' latrine activities after Iida finishes up his previous conversation." Iida latched onto his previously dropped musical train of thought and immediately launched into a paragraph detailing the pros and cons of mixing Queen with Pitbull on a playlist as he followed the teacher back to the front of the bus, which made that gooey feeling in Shouto's chest go kind of pulse-y and warm. The girls knew they wouldn't be getting anything out of the class rep and shifted their attention accordingly. Uraraka beat Ashido to the punch, smacking a hand over the other girl's mouth to prevent her from interrupting. "So? What did he say?" "I don't know how much he'd be comfortable with me telling you, but I will say wasn't rejected." Ashido, Hagakure, and Yaoyorozu made a bunch of excited squeeing sounds and Uraraka smiled like a bundle of pink carnations on a sweetheart's doorstep. "That's wonderful!" She gushed. "What's wonderful?" Midoriya asked, looking up from the conversation he, Tsuyu, and Shinsou had been having with Tokoyami. "Todoroki and Iida are dating!!" Ashido blurted excitedly. "Ashido, they never said that!" Yaoyorozu tried to reign her in. "But Todoroki said Iida had accepted." Hagakure said. "He said he wasn't rejected," Yaoyorozu corrected, "that can mean a lot of things." "Such as the two of them dating!!" Ashido reiterated slightly louder. "Who's dating?" Kaminari called over his shoulder from halfway down the bus where he was playing monkey in the middle with Mineta and Shoji using the big round eyed bat beanie boo Koda gotten Tokoyami at the airport; Dark Shadow was the monkey. "No one is dating." Shinsou shut Kaminari down. "You don't know that." Ashido said. "What's going on?" Sato grumbled from his seat next to Sero. The bus quickly became abuzz with people asking after what the fuss was about, trying to keep it under wraps, trying to spread it to the class. Iida, Jirou, and Present Mic payed them no mind, the former two too engrossed in their debate and the latter deciding not to get involved in the rumor mill. Shouto knew he couldn't ask Shinsou to pull his previous trick not ten minutes after it had drained him so much. Dark Shadow was busy cuddling his little newly recovered bat friend and would've been an iffy bet anyway. Bakugou's quirk could damage the bus. Yaoyorozu... hm... "Yaoyorozu." Shouto tapped her shoulder and she gave him a look that said 'I am so sorry our class is chaos in a bottle'. "Can you think of something to get everyone's attention?" "I might be able to..." She thought for a second then brightened with her little 'idea' face. She rolled up her sleeve and her skin sparkled in its kaleidoscope of creation and out rose a little tuning ringer, the kind with a wooden base and a long metal tube like you'd find on a wind chime. Then she made a little wooden xylophone mallet. She held them out to Shouto and he grabbed the mallet and hit the bell hard. The cheery tone rang through the bus and the class paused their chatter and trailed off sentences, turning to where the noise had come from. "No one is dating, as a first date has yet to happen." Shouto announced, "However, one will be happening at the next opportunity." He handed Yaoyorozu back her mallet and she slipped the little bell into her pocket along with it. "Okay but who's not dating?" Kaminari asked in that frustrated-curious sort of way. "You want to tell them?" Shouto asked the general direction of the front of the bus, looking out the windshield and not at Iida. Everyone looked around the bus while the girls who were already privy to the who's waited excitedly for the next development. "I have been informed," called Mic-sensei from the front of the bus, "that the second half of the party doesn't wanna jump the gun on letting everyone know when the first date in question hasn't even happened." "So you don't wanna tell them then." Shouto kept his eyes on the road. Everyone turned to Mic-sensei hoping to see who was telling him what to say, but instead it was Jirou who spoke next. "It's not that said second party doesn't want everyone to know, they're quite excited. But it wouldn't be a good idea to get everyone talking about it when it's possible things won't work out." Shouto wasn't one to use the type of phrasing, but it felt like his heart went droopy and started making the :< face. This really only physically translated as a nigh imperceptible head tilt downward and his eyelids drooping a millimeter along with his eyebrows. "You don't think it'll work out?" It sounded dispassionate to the rest of the bus, but Tenya felt like he'd just committed a cardinal sin by choosing his words so carelessly. "No! I-" Iida stood up, gripping the back of his seat but stopped when he realized he'd just given himself away. "Uhm..." There was a lot of whispering and excited noises from their classmates as an embarrassed blush creeped over Iida's face. Shouto decided he liked it when Iida was blushing. "Th-that is to say... I wasn't trying to say I didn't have faith in a prospective relationship with you I just... wanted to be safe and not make it a thing until it actually was... A Thing." Shouto blinked over at Iida as their various classmates nodded, aww'd, and gagged accordingly. The goop beating around in his chest started swirling around in a weird giddy kind of way as he let Iida's statement replay in his mind. "I'm pretty sure it qualifies as a thing at this point." Souto said. "I suppose it does." There was that silence again. "So when's the first date?" Someone (Tenya was rather sure it was Hagakure, but he couldn't be absolutely positive) yelled. "Whenever we get some free time in San Antonio." Shouto answered. An 'Oooooo!' rippled through the bus which made Iida turn strawberry pink and try to hide his face. That warm spinning gooey sensation in Shouto's chest buzzed at a frequency that screamed 'He's so fucking CUTE'. "Where are you going!?" Someone else (Shouto was pretty sure it was Aoyama) shouted. "No idea." Shouto said. That set off a string of 'What?'s and 'You need to plan these things!'s and the like. "I assumed we'd go to the Alamo or the Tower of the Americas." Iida peeked out from behind his hands. "What are those?" Shouto asked. Iida looked at him like he had just asked where the bus was going. "The Alamo! The christian mission that was the site of a crushing defeat for Texas independence from Mexico! It was one of the most important events in Texas history and probably the main reason Texas became its own country! We're going to be in San Antonio a full week, you must do your research, Todoroki!" "Uuhhh, I didn't know any of that?" Kaminari raised his hand. "Yeah, isn't Texas a state?" Sero also raised his hand. "And if they were defeated so bad at The Alamo, why is it the reason Texas became independent?" Shinsou chimed in. Iida proceeded to go on a long winded rant on the complete history of Texas and the gooey feeling made itself known once again as Shouto listened to his every word while absorbing only about half of the information. 'You've got it bad.' Shouto let Uraraka's assessment wander through his head. He wondered why people tended to refer to having a big crush as 'bad'. Listening to Iida and watching all his mannerisms, absorbing his speech patterns and giving him all his attention, moving closer and closer and wondering what it would be like to seal off his endearing little monologue with a kiss; it all made Shouto think having this warm gooey-ness ebbing and flowing through his chest was the exact opposite of bad. It was one of the best things he'd ever felt.