Monoma had never understood the phrase "butterflies in your stomach." He did, however, feel a dull and throbbing pain in his stomach, akin to a deep pit which seemed impossbile to fill.

Not that he ever talked about it, of course.

"'Sup, Kendo?"

His best friend whacked away his hand as he reached for her shoudler, a daily lunchtime routine. He smirked triumphantly.

"You should know better than that," he teased, enlarging one of his hands to waggle a giant finger at her. She grew her own hand larger to repeat the action of whacking him away.

"Come on, Monoma, isn't this getting old?" she asked, rolling her eyes.

"Nope!" the blond responded with a triumphant grin, already walking away. Kendo snapped her fingers in frustration and waved back him over, frowning.

"Oy! You said you'd sit with us today! You'd better not be sneaking off to spy on Class 1-A again!"

"I prefer to think of it as information gathering," Monoma replied, "and it's urgent. There are rumors of a new transfer student; I need to know if they're a friend or a foe."

"You mean if they're in our class or Class 1-A," Kendo asked— no, stated— with a sigh. "I'm not covering for you if the teachers ask where you went!"

Monoma ignored that comment, fist-bumping Tetsutetsu and tapping Shiozaki's arm as they came to Kendo's table (the former of whom laughed when he turned himself to metal, and the latter of whom muttered something about Monoma's game being childish). Of course, it was more than just a game to Monoma— each small motion filled the endless chasm in his stomach with a single drop— but his classmates didn't need to know that.

Ignoring the barely-faded throbbing, the revenge-driven student now turned his efforts to eavsdropping on the tables where Class 1-A always sat, pricking his ears for any talk of the transfer student. It would be easier if he could steal a certain short-haired girl's quirk, but to touch her would be to alert the rest of her class what he was up to, and that would be no good.

"Did you hear about that new fashion line that…"

"Can't believe… so then of course I slapped him!"

"...watched a documentary on cheetahs yesterday!"

"Highly inappropriate conduct, don't you think?"

Monoma frowned, strolling casually around the outer perimeter of all the lunch tables. Nobody seemed to have anything even remotely interesting to say… but that wasn't such a surprise, considering what a cowardly band of lowlifes made up the Class 1-A lunch groups.

"Did you not hear me, Monoma-san? Eavesdropping is highly innapropriate conduct, don't you think?"

Monoma squeaked, spinning around to face the Class 1-A representative right behind him.

"Ah! I-I didn't see you there, I was walking this way… thought I might give a few tips to you losers, but apparently you don't want my help, so I'll just be going!" the blond laughed nervously, stepping backwards while he scanned the area for teachers. If Sekijiro-sensei saw him, whatever, but detention with any of the 1-A teachers would be infuriating to deal with. Fortunately, there didn't seem to be any adults around besides Lunch Rush, who was busy with his kitchen duties.

"If you wish to mingle with us in the future, I suggest you be more up-front about it!" the robotic boy lectured. Monoma rolled his eyes while he rambled on about the decencies of privacy, and how his class rep should keep a better eye on him.

"If you would kindly leave Kendo out of this," Monoma interrupted, "I happen to be going for a stroll outside. Brains that work as hard as mine need fresh air to stimulate them, you know."

Of course, going outside hadn't been part of the original plan, but Iida seemed ready to let him go without telling an authority, so Monoma took what he could get and scrambled out the door.

"Blasted stuck-up 1-A brats…" he muttered as he stepped into the sunlight. Going outside the cafeteria wasn't against the rules, but on hot days nobody cared to leave the air-conditioned lunchroom, so at least Monoma would be alone to brood over his thoughts.

"Hey."

Or not. For the second time in the span of ten minutes, he shrieked and spun around— although this time, he didn't immediately see who was talking to him. It was only after several seconds of scanning the area that he noticed the hunched-over figure in the far-off building's shade. His first thought was that it was Kuroiro, but no, he'd seen him chatting with Yui and Sen when he checked to make sure none of his classmates were sitting alone. And Kuroiro would've waved.

"Have we met?" Monoma asked, approaching the vaguely familiar figure and keeping an eye out for a possible escape route in case a certain class had once again attracted the League of Villains to the school.

"...I could ask you the same," the boy replied after a pause. His voice was low and tired, much like the dumb homeroom teacher of 1-A. Actually, come to think of it, he kind of looked like him, too.

"Well, I'm Monoma Neito of Class 1-B." Monoma ran a hand through his hair and then extended it cheerfully towards the stranger, still keeping his distance for safety's sake. He was beginning to have an inkling of who he might be. "You wouldn't happen to be the new transfer-in student, would you?"

It was a good ten seconds before Monoma's handshake was accepted. The empty pit in his stomach tried to call out as the other boy pulled away, but Monoma kept his smile unwavering.

"I'm Hitoshi Shinso," the purple-haired teen finally said, dodging the question. But that was enough. The name made everything click in Monoma's head.

"OHH! You're that kid who almost beat the exploding broccoli head in the finals, right?" he asked, now lit up with true enthusiasm. Shinso blinked, apparently not having expected this reaction.

"Um… yes."

"You were great! Oh, how I wish I'd gotten to see that punk go down. Down, down down." After a short fit of laughter, Monoma snapped his fingers and looked up. "You will beat him next time, won't you?"

Shinso paused again before answering. Monoma vaguely wondered if the habit was because of his quirk. "That's the plan. If you saw my performance… then you know what my quirk is, don't you?"

Monoma smiled, unfazed. "Yep."

"...tch." Shinso turned away. "Idiot."

"Hey now," Monoma chided, grabbing the boy's shoulder and spinning him to face him again. He smiled confidently. "I'm not like those Class 1-A fools who speak before they think. I happen to want information from you, y'see. That's why I'm answering your questions. Make sense?"

"You still shouldn't have—"

Shinso realized his mistake too late as Monoma's grin spread from ear to ear. The blond burst into full-bellied laughter as the now blank-eyed Shinso recollected just where he'd seen his opponent's face.

"AHAHAHA! AHAHA! You really are a riot!" Monoma slapped his shoulder firmly, shaking his head with a big, cheesy grin. "It would be wise of you to remember your opponents' quirks; take it from the master. Of course, I'm sure by now you've figured me out from the cavalry battle… but no matter." He straightened himself up, and his grin faded into a more serious expression. He didn't know if he had to act as serious as Shinso for the quirk to work, but he didn't like taking chances. "Tell me the truth. Are you the new transfer student?"

"Yes," Shinso replied obediently. Monoma felt a bit of a power rush from the quick response. His was a nice quirk to have, indeed.

"And are you transferring into Class 1-A or 1-B?" he followed up, folding his arms for dramatic effect.

"I don't know yet," Shinso said truthfully. "The teachers haven't come to an exact consensus."

"Well then," Monoma replied, letting go of his grip on the other's mind, "I have no reason to declare war against you… yet."

Happy with the knowledge he'd set out to gain, Monoma turned to head back inside the cafeteria before any of the teachers noticed he was missing, purposefully ignoring the holes being drilled into him by Shinso's cold glare. He was used to people getting huffy at him for "stealing" their quirks (although he never got how they felt 'violated,' since his powers didn't diminish their own), but he had to admit the new transfer had a colder gaze than most.

"Hey."

Monoma turned around, politely smiling. "Yes?" he asked, already wondering what kind of a question Shinsou was about to ask.

"Why do you hate Class 1-A so much?"

At this, Monoma couldn't help but start to laugh again. This purple-haired one was fun; he was starting to hope he'd transfer into 1-B. "Boy, aren't you the comedian. Where do I even begin? They're just a bunch of stuck-up, snot-nosed toddlers who think they're soooo special just because they fought some villains once or twice. Trust me, in a fair one-on-one fight, none of them would stand a chance against us! If you've ever seen the way their teachers try to 'teach' their class, you'd be begging Nedzu to transfer you to 1-B in a heartbeat."

He wasn't nearly done with his rant— heck, he'd barely started— but Shinso held up a hand to stop him.

"Are you really as smart as you say, or just an idiot who hasn't noticed yet? You've done nothing but answer my questions this whole conversation, and you've already got your information. You do realize you're putting yourself in danger, right?"

Monoma shrugged. "What, because you can brainwash me? Uh, sorry, but I'm sick to death of assumptions. That might be how Class 1-A does things, but—"

"Assumptions about?"

Monoma rolled his eyes as he pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and started expertly folding it into a fan. Fanning himself from the heat, he clicked his tongue. "Geez, isn't it obvious? Your character. People assume you'll hurt them, or do something sneaky with your quirk, right? They always act wary around you. Don't let you anywhere near them because they feel 'invaded.' Eventually won't even t…"

Suddenly, for just a fraction of a second in time, something in Monoma's face changed. His blue eyes shifted; lips pursed slightly together. It was hardly a break from his speech, and perhaps no ordinary person would have noticed.

Hitoshi, however, was not an ordinary person by anyone's standards.

"...talk to you," Monoma finished, bowing with his fan in Shinso's direction. "Am I correct?"

Shinso's gaze narrowed as he looked for any remaining trace of… whatever emotion had been revealing itself on the snarky face. He couldn't find anything, but he trusted his prior instincts. Actually, the span of time in which Monoma had been able to cover only aided him with more information.

"You speak so confidently," Shinso noted casually. "Almost as if you speak from experience."

"Well, yeah," Monoma replied without hesitation, "there were a lot of jerks growing up who told me I couldn't be a pro hero with my quirk. But we've all got something like that, right? It's only those of us who work hard who overcome it. Not those Class 1-A monkeys who happened to get lucky throwing the dice and—"

"It wasn't the words that hurt."

Monoma blinked and cocked his head, his pre-arranged speech thrown off. "Pardon?"

"For you, at least," Shinso clarified. "Your quirk isn't activated by talk."

Those calm blue eyes flickered just for a moment with all the confirmation Shinso needed. Monoma wasn't a fool, either— he could tell Shinso had figured something out, and he didn't like where the conversation was heading.

"Can we not talk about my childhood struggles right now?" he laughed with a weaker confidence than before. "I mean, it's so cliché."

Shinso ignored him and continued his speech. "Your quirk is activated by touch. And I don't think it counts as a childhood struggle if you're still dealing with it."

In what felt like cinematic slow-motion, Monoma's face fell.

"W-well. Yeah! I mean, sure, my classmates avoid me. We have this game where I try to steal their quirks, and they run away from me… Kendo usually hits me back, actually, it's pretty funny, but it's all just for play…" His voice wavered as his hands instinctively moved towards his stomach. The throbbing cried out louder, as if it knew somebody could hear it. Internally, he tried to focus on silencing it, but to no avail.

"You should never try to psychoanalyze someone with a mind-related quirk," Shinso lectured, the barest crack of an entertained smile at his lips. "As they say, turnabout's fair play."

"Ok! Good game!" Monoma cried, his voice noticably higher now even by normal standards. "So I don't get a lot of hugs. Good job, you've decoded my childhood, you are truly the Sherlock Holmes of—"

"Can I ask you a question?" Shinso interrupted.

"Yeah, what?"

Shinso took a casual step towards his surprised victim as his eyes faded to white. "You did this to me, so I don't feel bad doing it to you," he explained while he took a step closer. Even in his brainwashed state, Monoma's breathing was uneven, as if he feared what Shinso might do to him. Maybe he anticipated a heavy blow.

Or maybe, he anticipated what really was going to happen, and was just as afraid.

Without another word, Shinso reached out as going for a slap (which the blond did probably deserve at some point in the future) and stopped just short of hitting him, instead stroking his cheek gently with two fingertips.

Monoma gasped as if an explosion had been set off, falling to his knees while his eyes faded back to blue. "Wh—"

Shinso didn't let him get a word out. "One gentle touch should not cause nearly enough of a shock to break out of my brainwashing. But for you, apparently, it is." He looked down on the blond, who looked like he'd just taken a serious blow. (Perhaps, to his pride, he had.)

It took several seconds before Monoma decided how he wanted to come back to that, which was an extremely long time for him. When he finally looked up, his face was strangely contorted, as if perhaps he was trying to look intimidating.

"Leave me alone," was the demand he settled on. It took Shinso an entire 0.2 seconds to answer.

"No."

"What? I— I can force you to leave me alone if I want to, you know!" Monoma exclaimed.

"Yeah. And you haven't. You're like a cat who hisses when it's pet, but doesn't actually wriggle around to get away." He paused, and then for the sake of fairness added more quietly, "Or a boy who says he dislikes conversation just to avoid the awkwardness of people dodging his questions."

Monoma got to his feet, unwilling to make eye contact with someone so keenly aware of his every move. There was something about Shinso's gaze stronger than just a glare; it felt like he was staring right through to his insides.

Maybe he could see the pit in his stomach.

Shinso leaned back against the wall, glancing up at the unforgiving sun that was slowly taking away his shade. "Now are you going to keep putting on your stupid act, or accept some help?"

It was only at this point that Monoma noticed Shinso's arms, which were outstretched slightly to the sides. He scoffed and looked away, ignoring how his heart skipped a beat.

"It's not an act."

Ignoring how the pit in his stomach was churning.

"I don't want help."

Ignoring how his feet were moving forward on their own.

"And I don't need a… a..."

Ignoring, violently, how his voice faltered as he threw himself into this— stranger's arms— words muffled by soft fabric and hands grabbing for handholds and warmth and pressure pulling closer and—

"—a hug—"

And then suddenly, the pit was filling, water rushing in, healing the pain, swirling away the throbbing like a whirlpool, washing out years and years of aching and hunger and longing. Questions about how someone who'd met him exactly twice could possibly know so much were ignored as, for possibly the first time in his life, Monoma shut up and accepted what was given to him, clinging to the boy named Shinso as if his life depended on it.

Time passed peacefully slowly for Shinso and painfully fast for Monoma, who unintentionally resisted when the former first tried to pull back from the hug.

"If I were you," Shinso advised abruptly after he did manage to pull away, "I wouldn't tease people with their quirk every time I touched them. Doing what they expect you to is exactly why people are avoiding you in the first place."

Mentally, Monoma felt like he was suddenly dropping to the floor again, scrapping for pieces of his broken facade on the ground to hide what at least felt like a very heated, probably visible, expression of embarrassment and chagrin.

Physically, he glanced away and muttered "yeah."

Shinso smirked slightly as he looked in the direction of U.A.'s entrance. "I should probably report back to the teachers… they sent me out here to 'explore the school' while they talked about what to do with me." He rolled his eyes. "Typical adult behavior, right?"

"Tch… yeah…" Monoma agreed, still feeling alien from the strangely completed feeling in his stomach— although the pit itself was far from being completely gone. "You'd love our teacher, though," he added quickly. "You should try to convince them to let you into Class 1-B." He stopped just short of listing all the reasons Shinso didn't belong in 1-A, realizing that the psychoanalyst was probably already aware of the cards on the table.

"Mm," was Shinso's only reply. "The teachers told me all the hero students are in the lunchroom right now. You should probably head back, no?"

"Eh, I can sneak back anytime," Monoma replied with a confident shrug. "Especially knowing that the teachers are busy with your—"

"Never mind, that's an order," Shinsou said, smirking at the look of protest on Monoma's face before his eyes went blank. "Go back to the lunchroom. Try not to get caught."

Monoma walked off lamenting his inability to retort, yet feeling another, stronger emotion that he couldn't quite place overpower every other thought in his head.

"Oh, and Monoma?"

Monoma stopped just long enough to hear whatever was so important that it interrupted his contemplating.

"Thanks for the conversation." Shinso's cocky smirk faded into a smaller, subtler form as he addressed someone he knew couldn't turn around to see him. "I don't… get to have those very often."

The blond stood still, replying with neither word nor gesture, before resuming his walk back towards the lunchroom. But that was okay.

Shinso didn't need a word or gesture to know that the emotion Monoma was struggling to grasp was one called gratefulness. After all… he had his fair share of the thing, himself.

(A/N: Hope you enjoyed! If you did, please leave a review; even one word is preferable to a follow/favorite!)

my followers, probably: why do you keep writing fics about characters who use unhealthy methods to try to stave off touch-starvation?
me: (flashing back to when I stole my classmates' lunches as a kid and curled around them so they'd have to physically pry me off to get their stuff back)
me: no reason