A Dual Connection

The first rays of sunset found Todoroki Shouto at the amusement park, sitting at the back of a water coaster chugging up a steep slope.

Children and adults around him screamed, arms outstretched with delight as the tram plunged down the hill rapidly, zipping above water. Yet Shouto held a blank expression, keeping it throughout the entire ride.

Apathy gnawed at him, leaving his heart cold and he drifted from ride to ride, searching for something that he could not find.

After reaching the Ferris Wheel platform at nightfall, Shouto opted to take a spin, hoping it would ease his troubled mind.

"Todoroki Shouto?"

An unfamiliar voice broke his chain of thought, so he turned, peering down at the round face of a green-haired man with freckled cheeks.

"It's really you, I remember you from secondary school!" Izuku lifted one green brow and grinned at him.

Shouto blinked, recognising him from the hallways of Yuuei. "Right, you're...Midoriya."

"Yup that's me." Izuku beamed as if Shouto remembering him was a pleasant affair.

An empty cabin drifted down to the platform, prompting Shouto to nod at Izuku in finality. There was nothing left to say. He and Izuku had not been friends in school. "I'm getting on."

Climbing into the enclosed cabin, Shouto settled down in the seat, closing his eyes. When he opened them, he glimpsed a hint of green.

Why did you follow me in here? Shouto pressed his lips together, deciding it did not matter. They would part ways soon enough but little did he know how wrong that assumption would prove to be.

The cabin doors locked with a click and the Ferris Wheel moved, slowly gliding through the night sky. Izuku peered down at the river of lights, admiring the dazzling view of Musutafu's cityscape. "The view up here is nice."

"Yuuei is somewhere down there."

Shouto folded his arms, maintaining an air of indifference.

Tearing his gaze from the glass pane, Izuku regarded Shouto. "You were best friends with Yaoyorozu-san, back in school, right?"

"Yes." Shouto could not remember the last time he saw his dear friend.

Izuku shifted in his seat. "So what have you been up to, Todoroki? I haven't seen you since graduation."

The remark earned Izuku a simple and to the point answer. "I went to university, I work as an analyst in a crime lab."

"That's amazing!" Izuku's eyes gleamed.

Shouto grimaced, finding nothing amazing about the constant burn out from the job or the sense of hopeless futility that pounded through him when the criminal from his last case walked free, despite all the effort Shouto put into getting everything analysed. "What do you do then?"

Izuku curled his lips, ignoring the bite in Shouto's voice. "I went to uni too, and I write novels and I paint sometimes."

"Hm." Giving Izuku a once over, Shouto took notice of the odd T-shirt and jeans which Izuku wore. "I did not peg you as the creative type."

Amused, Izuku opened his mouth to respond but the unexpected stole his words away. The lights flickered off in the cabin, cloaking the men in blackness.

And a ping of caution erupted in Shouto's chest when he realised the Ferris Wheel had stopped. "What's going on?"

Pressing his face against the glass plane, Izuku said, "it's probably just a city wide power outage."

"Wonderful." Shouto heaved a sigh. Getting stuck at the top of a Ferris Wheel in complete darkness with a near stranger was a far cry from the kind of excitement which Shouto sought from the amusement park.

There was a rustling sound and tapping before Izuku illuminated the cabin with light from his phone. "Much better, heh."

Izuku set the phone down on his lap. "Hope no one's waiting for you down there."

Shouto gave him a half-hearted shrug. "No one is."

Flashing him a scandalised look, Izuku rambled. "Wait, you, you're out here alone? Not like there's anything wrong with that, I mean, I just figured um..."

"I haven't had much luck with relationships." Shouto curled and uncurled his fingers, failing to understand why he revealed such a personal thing to the man sharing the cabin with him.

The phone light half lit Izuku's face. "Me neither. All my exes were uh too intense, so I had to well, pull the plug."

Furrowing his brows, Shouto considered it a shame since Izuku seemed like a warm and friendly guy.

"That's unfortunate." Shouto, on the other hand, had been an unsuitable partner to his exes, incapable of meeting their needs. "All of mine pulled the plug on me."

Giving Shouto a sympathetic look, Izuku kept his voice soft when he spoke again. "Yeah, it doesn't matter who ends the relationship, it hurts all the same."

"But I like to think it's experiences like these that prepare us for the one."

"Hm." Shouto tapped his own chin, feeling a day's worth of stubble there. "You're quite the optimist."

Scratching the back of his head, Izuku confessed, "I can't help it. I mean, I just can't dwell in the past."

"You can only accept what you can't change and change the things which you actually can."

Those words rocked Shouto's core, leaving him slack jawed and breathless. Never had he once considered changing himself or becoming a better boyfriend for his partner's sake. Sadly, he had prioritised his job, deeming it most important.

Furthermore, there was no changing the nature of his job; however, he could approach his work differently by doing less overtime, taking his vacations and accepting that despite his best efforts the criminal could still walk. That was not his fault.

"Are you all right? Did I say too much?" Izuku's concerned voice brought him back to reality.

"It's fine." Shouto nodded, heart feeling full for the first time in months. Izuku had inadvertently freed him from the chains of regrets and poor decisions, by enlightening Shouto with a different perspective.

Leaning forward, a curious Shouto asked, "what kind of books do you write?"

The man's face lit up before he took Shouto into the post-apocalyptic world of his latest book, impressing Shouto with the depths of Izuku's imagination and the richness of Izuku's characters.

Before long, they were trading stories about their own lives, families and mutual friends, chatting as if they were old friends.

Connecting with such a funny and loving person like Izuku on a Ferris Wheel, would have been unthinkable to Shouto, yet there they were and an unreasonable part of him did not want it to end.

Be that as it may, the cabin lights flickered, flooding the cabin with proper light.

"Ah the power's back." Izuku tapped at his phone, quitting the flash light app. "Wow, we've been up here for a long time too!"

"I bet," Shouto murmured, heart sinking as the cabin started to dip, hastening the end of their time together.

The speakers on the platform were booming with apologies as the pair stepped out of the cabin but all Shouto heard was the incoherent mumblings of the man next to him.

He gazed at Izuku, wishing to stay with him a little longer but Shouto doubted the man felt the same way.

Wringing his hands, Izuku began. "Say, To-Todoroki."

Shouto met Izuku's eyes, forcing himself not to yearn for what he could not have.

"Do you want to check out the rest of the park...with me?" Izuku rubbed the back of his neck now, cheeks tingeing.

"I'd love to." Shouto's lips curved into a warm smile.

The End

A/N: This story was inspired by prompts from OneTruePairingIdeas on Tumblr and Dailyprompts on Dreamwidth.

I wanted to use different tropes and write the boys at a different stage in their relationship. It seems as if Midoriya might've had a crush on Todoroki back in school. Thank you for reading!