It was common for the students of Class 1-A to wake during the night.

The world was unraveling and fraying at the edges, and now the heroes-in-training all had their moments — lying somewhere in the misty vacuum between the devastation of dreams and the dull, grim, grayness of reality. The whole world dangled on a fairy-light string just inches from splitting, and in the cavern below lurked monsters fantastic and strange, just waiting to consume it. Fingers wiggled and curled. Eyes went wild with malice. Jaws opened wide, and putrid breath poured forth…

Of course, they didn't always wake from nightmares or intrapersonal crises. Sometimes a student had to use the little hero's room or doctor her infected hangnail, or, in the case of the singular Yuga Aoyama, write a message in cheese on his neighbor's balcony.

He was already quite used to waking at a dim hour. Such flawless features as his deserved their complement in clothing for all occasions, and Aoyama acquiesced the nightly routine of boiling in his own pajamas if it meant he could keep their fuzzy comfort on all through the night.

So at two in the morning, he sat up feeling like a hot spring was simmering under his shirt and raked his spindly fingers through his hair. His lower back was cramped again despite the marshmallow-y pillows he'd placed beneath him. Groaning, he felt around the corner of his bed for the tube of pain-relieving cream. The stuff burned between his fingers as he lifted the back of his accursed purple pajama shirt and rubbed it all around.

Above the belt.

Below the belt.

But the cramps directly under the belt had to wait until morning.

Aoyama sucked some water from a bottle and spat it into his hand, then slathered it over the cream to double its effectiveness. He replaced the tube and settled into a hunched-over position, letting the muscles of his shoulders stretch freely. The cream was helping… somewhat, but he knew no amount of twisting and wriggling could dismiss the real problem.

Since he was incapable of glaring, he twitched his eyebrows downward and pulled his lips into a tight pucker. His beaky nose twitched in discomfort, and a raspy squeak buzzed in his throat. Perhaps just once he could loosen it? He could never take it off at night, but perhaps if he loosened it, it wouldn't feel so firm and heavy around his abdomen.

He could see the circular "buckle" chamber pressing away the folds of his pajama shirt and sinking again as he breathed. Beneath this, a ridiculous amount of polymer padding and crystal and reflective material clung to the section of his stomach surrounding his navel. When his Quirk activated without his command, the beam of the laser would be reflected into the dark chamber and dispersed before it could harm anything… or anyone.

His fingers reached down to pull up the shirt and grasp at the wretched thing. Just an inch looser! Just so he could sleep! Just so the itchy red indents running like canyons around his middle weren't so shockingly present when he showered! The heat at night was one thing, but the cramps could be unbearable, and that didn't include the stomach cramps from his Quirk — on purpose or otherwise.

Carefully, he gripped the dense polymer tabs below the chamber over his navel and squeezed. He breathed in, biting his bottom lip, and felt his stomach expand.

Click. The belt loosened. Aoyama exhaled and released his trembling grip on the tabs. They snapped back into place, leaving the belt slightly more comfortable.

Now, about that heat business!

Aoyama slipped out of bed and into his purple velvet slippers. He reached his arms above his head and let out another throaty squeak before turning his attention to the many mirrors he'd strewn around the room. His classmates had cawed of his vanity, but all were fools! The mirrors were to scare the hideous monsters away if they even made it past the iron suit of armor and the eternal haze of glitter hanging in the air. (He knew he'd have to scrub it all out of the floorboards at the end of the term, but that couldn't be worse than Rikido Sato scrubbing flour out of his floor all the time, right?)

On a whim of sleepy foolishness, he spun around and flashed a pose in front of the biggest mirror, though he couldn't see his face.

Then the belt slipped.

Heart suddenly racing, he clenched every muscle in his stomach and fumbled with his dastardly pajama shirt until he felt the chamber and the tabs beneath. He felt along his stomach to see how far the chamber had slipped. His left hand brushed only soft skin and the dense, sore buds of abs growing in from all his training. He was nowhere close to being as athletic (or as academic) as the others, but he was getting somewhere!

He was chasing them, at least…

His left thumb hit something. A patch of slippery, warped skin and a dry wrinkle or two. Instinct clicked, and his belt was back into place (and tight) before anything further could be discovered, but he knew he'd found the scars around his navel.

Aoyama's fancy façade wavered a bit, but he pressed on. With the belt secure, he went to draw back the shimmery purple curtains at the end of his room and tug open the door to the balcony. Cool air kissed his cheeks as if he were on the sea again with his maman and papa. He slicked his hair back with his knuckles and stepped out to look upon the courtyard below him. Once, Koji Koda's pet rabbit had escaped, and it was Aoyama who spied it nibbling the clovers under the southern bench during his nightly cool-down.

The night breeze swept past his ears and his neck. It sank into his nightwear and pressed lightly against his hot skin. He placed his elbows on the balcony railing and breathed deeply. The stars above twinkled in their places — welcoming him as their sparkling charge. They never worried about heroes or villains or Quirks. They probably watched the earth go through its phases of peace and conflict and probably laughed at it all. Oh, how the humans squabbled like children when their lives were so fleeting and their Quirks barely a flicker upon the grand tableau of the universe.

Aoyama blinked. His cheeks jerked, and with a small droplet of emotion he would never show the others, he made his honest attempt at a scowl. The stars were his idols — always twinkling day and night! And yet, sometimes he couldn't help but spite them. How dare they laugh? The problems of mankind weren't trivial here on earth. With Quirks, conflict was inevitable. It had been inevitable before Quirks.

And the earth needed heroes because…

He lifted his shirt and cupped his hands around the crystal dome.

The earth needed heroes to keep people like Aoyama on their feet. To encourage them when they felt left behind. No one else in the class needed to wear support all the time. No one else felt the need to show how eccentric he was in order to fit in, (or win the day, like during the licensing exam…)

The class had aged years within months — dealing with the stress of both threats on their lives and threats on their grades. And even then, some had pushed to higher and higher limits. Real villains were defeated during internships. Ultimate moves were perfected and utilized in the field. Confidence was forged in weak students, and humility brewed in the strong.

Aoyama was still learning to control his volatile Quirk, and at a school for pros, where the faintest blink of inadequacy was met with glares and lectures from fellow students, a boy such as him could only smile and wave from the dust cloud in the back for so long before the others ran too far ahead. He was chasing them, feeling the pain in his legs and the burning in his lungs and the bubbling cramps in the pit of his stomach coming on with full force.

Aoyama ground his teeth. This selfish soliloquy was not the encouraging words of a hero. He was chasing, but he was striving, too, like everyone else in the class.

Like Izuku Midoriya.

All at once, Aoyama felt like slapping himself, (but his beautiful face didn't deserve it.) The memory was clear as the blue-black sky above. Yes! Midoriya's Quirk wasn't meant for his body as well! He could summon that bright green energy to enhance his physical abilities, but didn't he continually struggle to keep that wild power in check? Hadn't his Quirk only manifested recently?

Purple eyes glittered in the stillness. Midoriya is like me, isn't he? His Quirk is so erratic and powerful he's never learned proper control of it, and now he's behind. Well, he's much farther along than I am, but he still has that same curse. I wonder if he feels like I do sometimes.

The thought of having a friend in the dust behind everyone else was the opposite of disconcerting. Midoriya's success weighed like a challenge on Aoyama's shoulders, but he couldn't be that intimidating, right? He was a smiley, round-faced nerd with a room full of All Might toys and those clunky red shoes that he wore even with his costume!

I'll tell Midoriya just how similar we are! Perhaps then we can chase the others together.

So thought Aoyama as the determined smile of a hero returned. He pressed his palms into the balcony railing and stiffened his shoulders. He was the Shining Hero "Can't Stop Twinkling," and that meant taking every opportunity to rise and race like a shooting star from both an unraveling society and the trial of a teenager's common loneliness.

He looked to his right. It was less than ten feet between his and Midoriya's balconies — nothing he couldn't jump with a little assistance. Aoyama scooted forward and crouched down on the left side of his balcony. He reached his arms up and cupped the back of his neck with interlaced hands. Forefingers extended. Pinkies pressed together. Then he gave the slightest jerk of his right wrist to activate the sensor on his sparkle bracelet.

Click. The front of the chamber opened. Aoyama squeezed his neck with his fingers and narrowed his eyes. His breath came out in a controlled huff.

"Blinding light," he whispered, clenching his stomach in the way only U.A. could lessen his fear of. He then kicked off from his crouched position, and the laser burst forth, shimmery and purple-hot in the night. He aimed it up toward the sky to prevent any fires as he triple-backflipped up and over onto Midoriya's balcony, where he promptly crashed and rolled over three or four times. Thin lips squeezed tightly together, but twinkling eyes refused to shed any tears. He flicked his wrist again, and the chamber closed.

He popped up and slid into view of his neighbor's room to peer into the darkness. Midoriya wouldn't object to a midnight chat, right? This proposal of friendship could mean everything to both of them! Perhaps this would be the night an alliance was formed — a new team of heroes blazing brightly into the future.

Aoyama pulled on the outside handle of Midoriya's sliding door.

Merde. It's locked.

But this could not deter him! He placed both hands on the glass and jiggled and pushed with all his might! Maybe the lock would come loose! Heroes had to think outside the dusty box all the time! Jiggle and push!

It's not working…

He was hardly aware of Midoriya himself, who was stirring within.

Then… then I'll just have to leave him a message, thought the singular Aoyama, his unreadable smile widening. He flipped back over to his own balcony and returned moments later with a container of his favorite mild cheese, cut into bite-sized rectangles. Making quick work of this exciting opportunity, Aoyama placed a towel on Midoriya's balcony and spelled out his wholesome and edible message:

I know ~*

Satisfied, he flipped one last time over to his own balcony, slamming an ankle into the guard rail in the process, and slipped back into his room to finish his much-needed beauty rest. From the moment his silky, star-dusted hair pressed into his pillow, he was completely unaware of Izuku Midoriya, who was now wide awake and peering with buggy green eyes down at his night-stalker's gift.

"You didn't eat the cheese!?" Aoyama burst out, eyebrows slightly twitching. Above him, Midoriya stood with his curly hair tangled and his face damp with sweat. He reached a tough-gloved hand forward to rub the other between the shoulder blades.

Both of Aoyama's arms were wrenched around his middle. His stomach was punishing him again after he'd used his new "Navel Buffet" to channel energy not just through his central chamber, but into the new chambers on his shoulders and knees, to turn himself into a scintillating light-show. His innards felt overheated and sick with radiation from the kickback. A bead of sweat dripped down his beaky nose and splattered on the concrete with the rest of the phlegm. Hero training had only lasted so long again before his ailing body forced him to leave. A growl built in his throat before he remembered he'd just disclosed the meaning of his message to Midoriya.

"It was just… odd… for you to leave it there like that. You could've found me in the morning if you wanted to talk. I was just startled. Reflexes from all the training. If I'd already been awake, and I saw you, I could've either kicked you right through the sliding door or slammed my head into the wall in surprise."

"My cheese... It's delicieux."

"I'll try it later. Right now I need to get you to the nurse. Come on, hold onto my shoulders."

"I know how to get there by myself. I go at least twice a week. Don't miss your training. You still have to work on your own ultimate move."

"Hey, you just told me you wanted us to work together to make our bodies stronger for our Quirks. I think that means I can skip a day of training so you aren't alone. I… I really appreciate you trying to cheer me up, Aoyama. It means you care about others like a true hero."

Trembling, Aoyama reached up and gripped Midoriya's shoulders. He kept his eyes low, but took his first steps forward, side-by-side with a new friend.

"I still don't like that I — that we're — behind," he murmured. "We're chasing everyone else. At least you can adapt your mindset and fighting style. I'm still worrying that my costume is going to be sweaty."

Midoriya screwed up his face, still reeling over the eccentric compassion presented in the form of cheese. He jerked his eyebrows together and bit his fingernail in that quirky way he did whenever he was overanalyzing his homework. Then his green eyes brightened, and he lifted those ridiculous iron-soled shoes just a bit higher when he walked.

"Think of a treadmill, Aoyama."

"No," the other said, feeling squeamish again.

"No, no, don't think about running on a treadmill. Think about walking on one, at your normal pace, with the incline turned way up."

"Like I'm walking up a hill?"

"Exactly. Here's what I think. Everyone else in the class may be sprinting on flat ground to reach their goals, but if you go at your own pace up a hill, you're still doing the same amount of work. That's what we've both been doing. We start at the bottom, and we push our way to the top."

Aoyama looked on with a blank smile and a strange wrinkle in his forehead. "If everyone is on a treadmill, then I can still see everyone else even if we're moving at different speeds."

"Of course. It's not about you and everyone else. The more we divide ourselves, the harder it will be to work together as heroes when we're needed most. That's why I'm still friends with Kacchan."

"Even though you two fought that night? You were both all banged up when you got back to the dorms."

"It wasn't that bad."

"Non, il était très mauvais," Aoyama admitted. "When you came back, I was cooling down on the balcony."

Midoriya stiffened, and the singular Aoyama regained his glow.

~N~

Little character study based on manga Chapter 168 and my own knowledge of IcyHot cream and treadmills. Also based on some little headcanons about how Aoyama's belt works. If the central sparkly "buckle" traps his laser, he must have to open it to safely fire it, hence why he must have an electronic "sparkle bracelet" that he activates as part of his hands-behind-the-neck pose.

Published by Syntax-N on FanFiction . Net December 28th, 2019. Reviewers are sparkling. Reposters are cursed.