Chapter 37

                                    

                                          
(A/N)
                          
another one! sorry this is so late haha i had finals >:( bad school. this is a cute lil interaction, methinks. if u find it cheesy be like the grinch and learn to grow your heart two sizes bigger :p

                          
i don't really have a lot of practice writing banter-y dialogue, so if you think there's anywhere that could be improved, please let me know! i'm always trying to get better, and if i can improve my writing with your feedback, everyone gets more slices of the Fanfic Enjoyment Pie later :)
                          
***
                          
"Why so glum?"
                          
Nakano poked at her unagi-don and shrugged. It wasn't that she had food in her mouth—she just didn't feel like talking.
                          
Shinsou slid into the seat next to her. "No, really. What's wrong?" He almost sounded concerned.
                          
"Why do you assume something's wrong?" Nakano groused. "Maybe I just don't feel like smiling."
                          
Shinsou snorted. "You can't fool me with that. You can smile whenever you feel like it, but you can't prevent me from trying to interpret those smiles. Or non-smiles." He dunked a vegetable tempura in his little dish of soy sauce. "Now, tell me the truth. Are you mad at me?"
                          
"Why would I be mad at you?" She peeled away the spine of the eel and set it to the side.
                          
"You know why."
                          
"Okay." She stabbed her chopsticks into her bowl with a little more force than necessary. "I'm mad at you."
                          
He smirked. "Took you long enough. Now, was it because of what I said or the way I said it?"
                          
"Why are you being so nosy?"
                          
"Market research."
                          
"Hmph."
                          
"Welcome valued customer. Please kindly fill out this survey so we can improve our services." He intoned in a robotic voice. Unable to help herself, Nakano snorted.
                          
There was a brief pause before she spoke, so quiet it was almost lost in the din of the cafeteria. "You made a lot of people very mad today, Shinsou."
                          
"That was the whole point."
                          
"It's dangerous. You don't know what people are capable of," she said softly.
                          
Guilt flashed across his face for no more than a second before he cleared his throat. "I can handle it."
                          
"Really? I mean, I'm pretty sure Bakugou could bulldoze you in a fight. Most of the other people in my class, actually. And I know that they probably won't do it now, because of school rules, but that doesn't mean they won't target you as soon as the Sports Festival starts. You tried to humiliate them, Shinsou. I don't think that was a smart move at all."
                          
"Some of them needed to be taken down a peg."
                          
"So you could've waited until the Sports Festival! You didn't have to let them know that you were onto them now," Nakano argued. "Wouldn't it have been more effective to wait and take them by surprise? Now, the smart ones are going to train even harder to beat you, and the petty ones will try to take you out first. You just painted a target on your back."
                          
"As I said before, I can handle it."
                          
Nakano pushed her bowl away. "Oh, really? And what happens if you do beat them, hmm? What happens if you become a Hero, Shinsou? Are you going to make dumb mistakes by taunting villains? You're going to get yourself killed!"
                          
"Woah there! Slow down." Shinsou held up a placating hand. "You're thinking too far ahead. I can be careful. I knew that your classmates weren't real dangers to me. I trust your judgment, Nakano, but please know that I trust mine too. I've had to work hard to remember how to trust myself. But, believe me, it's worth it. Don't worry about me."
                          
There was a lump in her throat that she didn't realize was there until now.
                          
"Nakano?"
                          
"Okay," she said, then cleared her throat. "Okay. I'll...I'll try not to. It's just..."
                          
"It's just what?"
                          
"It's just that...well, worrying is just something I do. I can't help it. It just...it just bubbles up in me sometimes. I've lived my whole life worrying." Worrying about her Quirk, before she even knew the meaning of the word; worrying about her life; worrying about her future; worrying about the Quirk Security Administration and spies and that hideous, spine-prickling voice that still sometimes invaded her head. She worried over things that she couldn't control. She worried even when she knew that it would do her no good. It was funny that worrier sounded so close to warrior: often, she felt like it was indeed a constant battle within and against herself to worry so much.
                          
Shinsou sighed. "Trust is all-encompassing. You can't decide to trust one part of me and not trust another. That's not how it works." He paused. "If you really do decide to trust me one day, Nakano, you have to trust all of me. There's no gray area here—either you do, or you don't. If you trust me, you have to trust my motivations and methods and my competence: if you're missing any one of those, you might as well not trust me at all."
                          
Nakano mulled it over in silence. Did she trust him? What did trust mean? Present Mic had said the same thing to her earlier, back when they had been training, and to her, trust seemed like a hopeful thing, something she could look forward to, almost like a warm hug. But with Shinsou's definition of trust, she realized that trust was something you had to work towards, not something given out freely and carelessly; trust was complicated, just like life was complicated.
                          
And just like everything else she had ever held dear, trust was a fragile thing, too.
                          
Trust all of me.
                          
She liked that Shinsou didn't try to put words in her mouth. She liked that he realized that some things didn't come easily to her, like trust and not-worrying and that strange, elusive thing called friendship.
                          
If you really do decide to trust me one day, Nakano...
                          
She liked that about him, too. He didn't assume familiarity with her; he worked for it. She had been tossed around by people's whims for so long that she had almost forgotten what it felt like to choose the people whom she could be around.
                          
Shinsou still sat in the seat beside her, poking at the remnants of his now-cold vegetable tempura, waiting for an answer that she wasn't yet ready to give.
                          
Nakano thought about it some more.
                          
She liked how brash he could be, how he was able to project confidence even after being told that he wasn't enough. She liked how even after his failures, he still believed that he could make it. She liked his hope, his ambition, his small-katsu-don-kindnesses.
                          
She realized that she liked him, not just as a potential friend but as a person. She admired him for who he was and how unapologetic he could be.
                          
A rhythm beat steady in her chest, a thump-thumping that threatened to grow so large that it would expand and shatter her ribcage, that fragile thing holding her fragile lungs encasing her fragile heart. But she was tired of feeling like she could break at any time.
                          
I will be fragile no longer, she thought, and she imagined a layer of molten steel slowly molding itself around her ribcage, impenetrable and strong.
                          
Nakano smiled into her bowl of cold unagi-don, the corner of her lip quirking upward stubbornly; next to her, Shinsou's eyes caught onto this smallest of smiles and crinkled into crescents.
                          
Maybe she didn't trust him just yet. But if she ever did learn the skill, he would be the first to know.