Todoroki bit back a sigh as he eyed the narrow staircase and compared it to the width of the one thing he had managed to smuggle out of his father's house.

Yeah. The Eames lounge chair was not going to fit through the stairwell.

He should have just settled for stealing the chair from IKEA, it would have been easier to manage. But, then again, the IKEA chair wouldn't have achieved the same results.

Shouto closed his eyes, ignoring the problem in front of him to remember the sweet memory of his father's face, flush with barely restrained anger, as his pride and joy left his house. And that too, under the arm of his disgrace of a son.

Shouto smiled slightly, lost in nostalgia.

"Um, excuse me?" A timid voice cut through his tender reminiscing.

Shouto opened his eyes slowly, silently spooked that someone had managed to sneak up on him. He berated himself, he should have been more careful. For the first time in his life, he was on his own, without the might of his father behind him, lots of people would be looking to take advantage of that perceived weakness.

Shouto had to be careful, now more than ever.

He fashioned his face into a look of disinterest, ready to face whatever the stranger would throw at him, and turned to look at the speaker.

And kept looking.

Green.

Shouto cursed himself for not being able to come with anything more scintillating than green. He, who had once been praised for his skill with brisk but comprehensive descriptions of situations, could only think of a single color when faced with some bright-eyed stranger while they stood near a stairwell in an building situated in the shadier side of the city.

They stared at each other, the stranger's freckled face slowly coloring the longer they stood in silence with locked eyes.

A beat.

The stranger cocked his head, the movement making the riot of green curls on his head flutter about delicately like a bird's wings, and took Shouto in. The large, clever eyes surveying the scene like a scientist, wordlessly drawing his own conclusions.

Shouto stood next to his too-expensive chair, in his too-expensive clothes, and looked at the green-eyed stranger in his ratty All-Might hoodie and well-loved vivid red boots, and felt distinctly out-of-place. Despite his familiarity with the feeling of intruding, the frequency didn't diminish its intensity, leaving Shouto, who had yesterday very publicly left the only home he had ever known, feeling like an unwelcome guest at a birthday party. He could feel the strain of the past few days and the impossibility of the couch-staircase situation catch up to him, leaving his soul beleaguered.

Shouto clenched his right fist, and summoning up the last dredges of willpower he usually saved to get in one last Hail Mary shot when sparring with his father, stared back defiantly, silently daring the stranger to say anything.

The stranger looked back, green eyes somehow more somber than before, and pushing his hands in his pocket, rocked back on the heels of his ridiculous shoes.

Shouto inwardly preened with pride.

That's right. Back away.

But then the stranger did something that knocked the mental smirk out of his head.

He smiled.

Shouto blinked at the sudden brightness on the stranger's face, heart stuttering in surprise, as the other boy laid bare his soul to a stranger with the enthusiasm in his eyes and the crinkling of his cheeks with the force of his emotion. Shouto felt almost scandalized at the display of overt emotion, with an outrage akin to a Victorian marm catching a glimpse of her ward's ankle.

"Hey there! You must be Shouto!" The smiling boy said, his tiny frame still leaning away from Shouto. However, what he lacked in height, he made up by sheer presence, his words filling the previously stale air with vibrance and energy.

Shouto frowned as his brain then computed the words the strange boy had spoken, backing away slightly, and he coolly said, with suspicion barely held abay, "And why must I be him?"

The boy's smile dimmed slightly, previously confident mien curling inward at Shouto's tone, "I - The landlord told us to expect someone with, um, interesting hair in the next few days. I suppose you may call me your welcoming committee." He said, drawing his open arms up to his shoulder in a universal gesture of welcome, while forcing out light, awkward laughter.

Shouto hummed, his brain filling in the rest of the story. He stared back and pulling the tight knot in his tie loose, said crisply, "So, the landlord told you to welcome a half-and-half bastard with a bad case of hipster hair, and you agreed?"

The other boy blanched and fiddling with his hands, said in a small, questioning voice, "Yes?"

Shouto bit back a sigh, wondering when the boy was going to reveal his hidden agenda to Shouto. It was taking longer than Shouto would have expected, considering the nerves the other boy was displaying. It was almost as though he didn't have an ulterior motive.

Which was ridiculous.

"So!" The boy said, jumping a bit in his spot, exaggeratingly brushing off his hands, staring at the nearby elegant couch looking forlorn and out-of-place (much like Shouto imagined he himself looked) "What do we have here?"

"A couch." Shouto said blankly. Unamused.

The boy hummed, still surrounded by energy that seemed to make him look like he was vibrating, and looked at the elevator with the "It's Broken. Pay more rent or use the stairs and lose some weight." sign. Shouto especially liked the accompanying sign with the beautifully drawn caricature of the landlord with devil horns and mustache, with a speech-bubble connecting the two signs.

The boy then looked at the narrow stairwell and eyed the couch with a considering look that raised the hair on the back of Shouto's neck for some reason. Shouto hurried to say, "It's okay, I can -"

Shouto's sentence trailed off, eyes bugging out, as the tiny green-eyed boy leaned forward and, easy as can be, lifted the couch in the air.

Shouto resisted the comical urge to rub his eyes in bemusement, suddenly unsure about the chain of events that had lead him up to this moment right here. For surely, that hadn't just taken place. There was no bloo-

"Coming?"

Shouto looked up only to see the boy, who now had the couch tucked under his arm, smile down at him from the second step.

Shouto blinked and in absence of further options, followed along as the boy talked about something or the other, mind still focused on the impossibility of the events currently occurring.

"S-Shouto?"

Shouto looked up blankly, still bewildered.

They had reached his floor.

Shouto frowned, "How did you know this was my floor?"

The boy coloured, looking more like a blushing ingenue than a man capable of lugging about a couch with the same stats as an adult man, and quickly said,"I figured this must be it. This is the only apartment that doesn't, or I suppose, didn't, have a tenant!"

Shouto nodded, still suspicious. But in the spirit of assistance ignored it, at least until the couch was inside his apartment, and said "Thank you, uh-" Shouto stumbled, frantically trying to recall the other boy's name.

The boy smiled, brighter still than the overhead, cheap fluorescent lights, and said, "Midoriya. Midoriya Izuku. But call me Izuku, all my friends do, and I have a feeling we will be great friends!"

Shouto highly doubted that, bright smile and functional muscles notwithstanding. He doubted he would be volunteeringly seeing this boy in any capacity in any way except for awkward greetings when stumbling across the other in the hallway.

But apparently it wasn't polite to point out the fleeting nature of human societal bonds to other people. Apparently the secret to successful social interaction was to enter in a mutual delusion of continued familiarity.

Whatever, Shouto didn't get it, and he doubted he ever would.

And even Shouto wasn't willing to break the truth about the ephemeral nature of human contact to this bright-eyed boy, especially since there was a large possibility he was one of the unlucky few who genuinely believed in the meaningless rituals of societal bonds.

If this boy chose to live in a bubble his whole life, Shouto wasn't the one who was going to be responsible for popping it.

So, Shouto nodded politely.

Even though he doubted he would ever be calling on Midoriya "Call me Izuku" Izuku anytime for anything more than a cup of sugar, and maybe not even then.

"'Zuku?"

Shouto turned to see a quizzical looking brown-haired girl emerge from the apartment opposite to his. Her eyes ran over Midoriya and then landed on him, stopping to look at him appraisingly.

Shouto raised an eyebrow at her.

She giggled, to his confusion. Was everyone in this building on something? Something that made giggling the only option to greeting surly strangers? Shouto worried for these people.

"You must be Shouto!" She said, almost levitating in the air with the force of her excitement.

Shouto's eyelid twitched.

Midoriya, probably sensing the incoming snowstorm, quickly put down the couch and stepped in front of the girl, and said loudly, words tripping over themselves in his hurry to say them, "Shouto! This is Ochako Uraraka!" He paused, as if that name was supposed to mean anything to Shouto, and continued, "Ochako, this is Shouto, my new neighbor!"

Shouto blinked. Then, getting a foreboding feeling in his chest looked at the apartment opposite to his.

The door was slightly open, but even from here, Shouto could read the long, offensively yellow and red name-plate in which sat the words "Midoriya Izuku," cheerfully displayed against the deep brown of apartment door. The door that was, to Shouto's inexplicable horror, right opposite his own.

"So," The boy in question said cheerfully, unaware of the loud sirens going off in Shouto's brain, gently placing a hand on Shouto's couch, "Where do you want me to put this, neighbor?"