"How come I always find you outside by yourself?" Todoroki creeps up on me, I guess he doesn't have anything to do either.

"I don't know," I say honestly, "I just like being alone sometimes. Haven't had much of a chance to be in the last couple of years. Besides I was on the phone to Akamine."

"Why were you on the phone to your teacher? Discussing the deal thing?" He sits next to me on the step.

"Nah, she's just baking cookies with Aiko." He gives me the most confused look ever.

"What does protecting your sister have to do with making cookies?" I give him a very blank expression before I slowly come to terms with why he's confused.

"We live with her." I mutter very quietly under my breath, not wanting much attention.

"Why? What about your parents? I knew about the deal thing but I didn't know it went this deep." He mumbles out in one go, losing me slightly.

"I mean living with her sure makes it easier for her to protect Aiko." I say, trying to sound light hearted.

"What about your parents? Are they cool with that?" A silence settles over us as I carefully plan my words.

"Yeah, they're not gonna mind." I dry laugh. "They're not exactly around anymore."

"Why? Where are-?"

"They're dead." He's suddenly shocked and completely has to rearrange where this conversations going.

"I'm-"

"Don't apologise." I stop him in his tracks for the second time. "You don't need to apologise for something that isn't your fault and I don't need the pity that comes from it either. I'm my own person and I've made my way without them."

"Do you miss them?" He says after a short while, not sure what to say. Someone walks up the steps, but Todoroki's in the way, so he's forced to scoot closer to me so out legs are brushing, which doesn't faze me at all at this point.

"Yeah course I do," I stare into the sky, I don't really want to look at him right now, "but it's not like I have this aching hole in my heart anymore. It's that I miss waking up to the smell of bacon in the morning that my mum's cooking whilst my step dad sings Bon Jovi off pitch kinda thing. I really dwelled on it at first. Those first couple of months were awful because it was all I could think about. I becane really busy after that though and I pushed it to the side. I can't change what happened, so I don't dwell on it anymore. Got bigger problems at the moment."

"Bigger problems?"

"Yeah!" I say, trying to sound cheery, even after everything I've just said. "I've got my school life, my social life, the upcoming exams, my new found path of heroism and above it all, my sister."

"She means a lot to you." I can tell Todoroki is stepping lightly here.

"Well duh. Her quirk's incredibly powerful." He raises his eyebrow at me. "She basically produces pure energy and it can be harvested. You can tell why we're on a lot of villains' hit lists."

"Wait hold on, how long have you been looking after Aiko for?" Something seems to have hit him.

"For about two years, why?" He's processing something.

"Does that mean you've been fighting off villains since you were thirteen?" Oh, now I get it.

"Yeah kinda. Most of the time I don't actually fight 'em, just run off and pray I'm quicker." I say jokingly. "Why does everything I do sound badass until I put logic into it?" I say jokingly, trying to lift the conversation again. He's completely silent for a fair amount of time.

"Does that mean Akamine's your legal guardian then?" This question genuinely makes me pause. There's nothing exactly legal about the situation with me and Akamine. I'm at a weird age where not much can be done about where I am as long as my legal guardian agrees to it. Since nothing was ever signed, Akamine isn't actually my legal guardian. Which means...

"Oh my god." I say suddenly, startling Todoroki after a brief silent for a short while. "Ryu's still my legal guardian."

"Who?" Todoroki is clearly very lost at this point.

"Ryu, he's an old friend of mine that just turned eighteen around the time everything happened, so he was legally entitled to look after us, since he had been labelled as Aiko's godfather." I sit there for a moment, stunned that in the commotion of everything, I forgot that I lived with Ryu. Todoroki still seems lost. "He basically taught me to fight. So to answer your question, no, Akamine isn't my legal guardian."

He seems to have run out of stuff to ask me without getting too touchy, so I flip it onto him.

"Do you see your mother at all?" I ask him, genuinely curious.

"Oh yeah, I visit whenever I can in hospital even though I only just started going to visit her." He says.

"Why've you only just started to see her again?"

"I wasn't brave enough to face her again until now." He holds both of his hands in his lap and holds them as a look of darkness comes over him. He just stares at his lap for a minute. I really want to comfort him but I don't know how. I can't exactly hug him and I don't really seeing patting him as useful. I sigh as I make a decision.

I place my hand on top of his clenched hands and he looks up at me. I smile at him and he gives me a small smile in return. Then he does something I didn't expect. He unclenches his hands from one another whilst I'm not really paying attention and interweave his fingers with mine.

I freeze and he smiles at me as he moves are hands to the concrete between us on the floor. It's not a romantic gesture, it's a friendly one, then we're connected through rough times and hardships. Not the best thing to connect over at all and definitely not something to build a friendship up out of. I think it's more of a comfort thing for both of us.

We both sit there in a comfortable silence for a while until Endeavor's footsteps echo from behind his. Todoroki almost instantly lets go of my hand, not wanting the shit from his dad probably.

"You two should head to your rooms." The fiery man booms. "Tomorrow we'll be going to Hosu to look into the case about the hero killer."