It was December seventeenth. You were sitting on a gray brick wall, bundled in warm layers of clothing and wearing red gloves, a purple scarf, and your (F/C) jacket. You had an orange hat that went over your ears, and snow was falling around you. Today was another boring day.
You were waiting on your mother, who was to pick you up from the park. Then you glanced over and saw him again.
He was bounding across the street towards the playground on your right. You let out a tiny gasp, your hands instinctively going over your heart. There he is, you thought to yourself. He's so gorgeous!
The two of you had never spoken before, but you had always wanted to meet him. You were alone right now, so you took the chance to go get to know him while you waited on your mom.
"Hey!" you called out, your high-pitched voice grabbing his attention. You pulled your backpack over you shoulder and rushed to his side, making him turn from where he had begun climbing up the ladder to the monkey bars and face you.
"Hey," you repeated a little quieter once you reached him. "I-I saw you walking by earlier, and I wanted to say something, but I wasn't sure how, so. . ."
After a moment of silence, you held your hand out to him. "I-I'm (Y/N) (L/N). Wh-what's your name?"
He stared at you for a moment, as if he wasn't sure how to respond. Then, blinking his bright gray eyes and moving his black hair away from them, he took your hand gently and shook it a couple times.
"I-I'm Tenko Shimura," he murmured.
Your already pink cheeks darkened as he spoke. What a cute voice!
You giggled at your thoughts, and at his questioning look, you decided to say them aloud. "Your voice is cute," you cooed, making him stiffen and turn his head away, though you didn't miss how his face turned pink as well.
"U-um. . .Thank you. . ." he mumbled.
"(Y/N)!"
You looked over at the sound of a new voice, which you knew was your mother's. She was in her car, calling to you from her window.
"Coming, mom!" you shouted back. You turned to Tenko, lowering your voice to something more soft, and whispered, "See you tomorrow, right? I'll be at the monkey bars waiting."
Before he could respond, you rushed to the car, getting in your car seat in the back and smiling out the window as your mother drove away.
"Who was that?" your mother asked curiously.
"Just a new friend I met while waiting for you," you replied cheerfully. "His name's Tenko."
"Ah." She said no more, just simply gazed at you with a happy expression that you were making friends. Then the light turned green, and she was driving away again.
The next day, you'd made sure you were at the park around the same time as yesterday. You sat on the monkey bars waiting, then squeaked in surprise as you felt two hands on your shoulders and a roar of someone behind you.
You instinctively jumped and leaped away, then giggled as you realized Tenko had been trying to scare you. You scooped up some snow and tossed it right in his laughing face.
"You goofball!" you grumbled, still chortling.
Tenko wiped the snow off his face and crouched down, forming a snowball of his own with a mischievous grin on his face.
You squealed and ran off, throwing your hands in the air.
Tenko, of course, chased after you, but alas, you were too fast for him. He skidded in the snow and flopped over on his side with a "Oof!"
As soon as you realized what'd happened, you rushed back and crouched beside him with your hand out. "Are you okay?" you gasped, making sure your grip on his hand was firm but gentle.
"I-I'm fine," Tenko huffed, rubbing the side of his stomach he'd landed on.
"Maybe we should take a break and go sit down–" You broke off as he suddenly reached into his pocket, took out the snowball, and chucked it at your face.
"Ow!"
"Hahaha!"
You slid your hand across your face and flicked your wrist, swiftly shaking it off. "Oh, you wanna go?" you growled, your face suddenly hardened and your voice suddenly low and dangerous.
Tenko straightened himself, eyes widening. Clearly, he hadn't expected this reaction. Within a single heartbeat, you were squatting on the ground and shooting snow at him from either side of you. Your movements were unbelievably fast, and no matter where he went, you somehow managed to get snow on him from every angle.
You didn't even bother making it into a ball. You just kept throwing whatever snow you could get your hands on, rolling on the ground like a person on fire to get to the nearest snow once you ran out and resuming the one-way snowball fight.
"O-Okay, I surrender! I surrender!" Tenko shouted, waving his hands around in attempts to make you stop. Luckily, you did, your eyes softening and a satisfied smile appearing on your face.
You closed your eyes and giggled, tilting your head and shrugging your shoulders up to your ears.
Tenko stared at you, his expression awed. How could an adorable little ball of joy like you want anything to do with him of all people? No matter what the reason, he was grateful for your company. You brought him joy he'd never had before. You made him want to come here every day. And that's exactly what he did.
Each day, you both returned to the park to talk to each other. You learned he was about four years old and had a dog named Mon and a sister named Hana and lived with them and his parents. You also learned that he had an abusive father, and you made sure he got all the comfort he needed from you each time you met at the park.
He himself got to learn about you as well. You were just a little older than him, and you were going to be five soon. You'd already developed a Quirk called Pause, which you'd eagerly explained to him. Pause lets you freeze time in space, which meant that if you wanted to, you could freeze a person and stop them from moving forever and unfreeze them whenever you want. You could also freeze other objects, like snow, so that no matter what you did to it, it would always stay the same as it was when you froze it; nothing could melt it unless you unfroze it with your Quirk beforehand.
Tenko also learned that your grandmother was a gardener along with your father. One day, you took him to the public garden near the park where you and your grandmother had planted countless different flowers. One of them was a forget-me-not flower, which came with small but beautiful bunches of blue flowers. You used your Quirk on one of them, freezing a bundle of forget-me-nots, and insisted that Tenko keep it forever to remember you when he got sad because of his father.
You loved spending time with Tenko. He was special to you. That's why you told him to keep the flowers safe and to not let anyone else see them.
"This is a gift from me to you," you'd told him. "It's special, like our friendship, and I think it should be a secret, okay? Only we get to look at it. No one else gets to know about the value of this gift. Promise not to let anyone else see it?"
Tenko had nodded eagerly. "I promise," he assured.
A year had passed since Tenko was given your flowers. Now you were about to be six, and he had only just turned five. Tenko was already at the park today, his head bowed and his body slumped over from where he sat on the third bar on the ladder that led up to the monkey bars.
When you saw him, you ran over. "Tenko?" you called softly. He didn't look up at the sound of your voice. You sat next to him and placed a hand on his back and felt he was trembling. Looking closer, you saw that tears were falling on his hands, and you realized that he was crying. You also noticed that his skin looked flakey, which it hadn't looked that way until a few months ago, and it made you worried.
"I-I. . ." Tenko sniffled, trying to steady himself before he continued. He began panting hard, the tears streaming down as he spoke. It was clear he was holding back sobs, even choking on them a little, and every word was forced out of him. "I. . .didn't. . .keep. . .your. . .flowers. . .safe. . ."
Tenko took his hand out of his pocket, revealing the flowers you'd frozen to keep them from ever dying, and they were ripped and shredded to pieces. A few of the precious florets fell as he showed them to you, littering the ground.
Your eyes widened, then half closed again and you turned and wrapped your arms around him. He hugged you back tightly, sobbing out loud with anguish and clutching your sleeves with an iron grip–not that you really minded that anyway. All you cared about was the distraught mess your best friend had become.
When he seemed calm enough to speak, you whispered, "How did it happen?" while rubbing his back soothingly.
Tenko hiccupped a few times, still trembling, and managed to let out strained and slightly garbled but still understandable speech. "I-I. . .left them under my pillow. . .My dad. . .found them. . .after he threw the pillow at me. . .He was angry. . ."
Your eyes narrowed with emotion. That's not right! you growled in your head. I bet it was his fault that happened to the flowers. You glanced down at the distorted blue petals. Fathers shouldn't be that mad. You didn't interrupt Tenko, though. You wanted to hear the whole story before you jumped to conclusions.
"I. . .begged him. . .not to. . .ruin them," Tenko went on, his voice getting quieter. ". . .Then he. . .destroyed them. . ."
"What did you even do that made him so angry?" you inquired, your voice gentle to keep him from getting too anguished about mentioning this question. Regardless of how Tenko felt, you were determined to hear him explain it; you had to know what made Mr. Shimura so cruel.
"H-He. . .hates. . .Heroes. . ." Tenko explained, breathing out each trembling word as if he were scared to even talk about it. "I. . .mentioned. . .All Might. . .and dad. . .started. . .throwing things. . .at me. . .Th-that's how. . ."
His voice became a whine as he spoke, and he squeezed his eyes shut before he continued. "That's how. . ." he repeated, his voice more steady. ". . .the flowers. . .were ruined."
"Oh, Tenko," you whispered as you realized he was finished. You rubbed his back once more and nuzzled his neck with your cheek. "I'm so sorry. . ."
"N-no, I'm sorry," Tenko breathed, grasping your wrist and pulling away. He gazed into your eyes sadly. "I should've kept them somewhere else. I should've made sure they were safe. I should've–"
"Hey."
You placed a hand on his cheek. He stared at you with wide gray eyes, falling silent at the affectionate look you gave him and the small smile you had.
"You did your best," you mumbled, your (E/C) eyes glistening. "Don't be so hard on yourself."
With that, you kissed his tear-stained cheek, then pulled away and grinned at him again. Tenko stared at you, mouth agape and eyes unblinking, while you giggled and headed towards your mother's car, which had just pulled up a few seconds ago. Right on time, you thought to yourself.
"I'll be back tomorrow," you promised as you climbed in the car. You were both waving at each other when your mother spoke.
"You've been spending a lot of time with that boy," she commented.
"I like him!" you replied.
After waiting on Tenko the next day for over an hour, you started to think he wasn't coming until. . .
"(Y/N)!"
Your head perked up at the sound of footsteps and the panting voice that called out your name. As you turned, you saw Tenko slumped over with his hands on his knees and sweat dripping down his face.
Worried something may have gone wrong, you ran over to him. "Tenko!" you breathed out, putting your arms around him just before his legs gave way and he practically fell into your embrace.
"I-I. . .ran. . .all the way. . .here," Tenko panted, struggling to stand up again. "My dad. . .he. . .he found out. . .about this. . .about us. He knows I've been sneaking off to see you. . .and now he wants to move to get me away."
You felt a small jolt about the way he passionately said the word us, and your cheeks heated up, but all you said was, "Really? What do we do. . .?"
Tenko had told you that he was keeping your meetings secret out of fear his family wouldn't approve of your friendship, specifically his father, because you had dreams of going to UA high someday. Now that his dad of all his relatives knew, what could you do to stay with him?
Gazing into his glistening gray eyes, you saw emotion blazing like pure fire in them. He didn't want to leave you. And you'd feel the same way if you were in his situation.
"We hide," Tenko answered. Without waiting for your response, he grabbed your wrist and pulled you across the street, ducking between two buildings and into an extremely narrow and dark alleyway that was only just big enough to hold you two.
No sooner had you been yanked into the small hiding place did you hear footsteps and a man's voice calling out Tenko's name. That must be his dad, you thought to yourself despairingly. You turned your scared (E/C) gaze on Tenko. Oh, Tenko, what do we do?206Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeQOf5cxXWY
Then you suddenly realized what kind of position you were in. You were pressed up against Tenko, your hands resting on his chest, while his arms were around your waist. Being a child, you didn't find this embarrassing or disturbing, but rather, you found it nice and comforting to be so physically close to him.
Tenko was gazing out at the open space where his father was looking for him. His breathing was quick and shallow, but quiet, and it would've been almost unnoticeable if you hadn't been standing so near.
Suddenly, Tenko grasped your hand and stared down at you.
"(Y/N)," he murmured softly, gazing into your eyes, "please, please, I need to ask you something, and you have to give me your honest answer."
You blinked up at him. "What is it?" you mumbled.
"Do you like me?"
For a moment, you stared at him. Then you shyly dipped your head. "Of course; you mean everything to me."
"Then let's run away together."
Your eyes widened and you jerked your head up. "What?"
His expression was gentle, eyes serious but clearly nervous as they sparkled with uncertainty. "Please, (Y/N)," he begged. "I can't stay here anymore, with my dad treating me the way he does and my mom not doing anything about it. He treats all of us badly, but at least I've tried to stand up for mom and Hana and neither of them do the same for me. It's like they don't even care."
Then he gave you a passionate look full of emotion. "But you do."
For a moment, you were speechless. Then you ducked your head, unsure of yourself. ". . .Tenko," you whispered. ". . .Tenko, look, I care about you a lot, really, I do, but. . .we can't run away. We're just kids; how would we make it out there?"
He stared at you for a moment, then let your hand go. Without a word, he slid out from his place in front of you. With a sad look, you watched him go, whispering a "I'm sorry," before he silently disappeared without looking back.
206Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmYuhg2yPA4
Author's note:
I know this seems sad, but I promise, it goes up in the next few chapters, so hang in there, happy-ending-lovers! But to those of you who think this story's gonna be sad, you're wrong. I refuse to give any of my stories bad endings!
So, there :P
<<insert childish huff and arm-crossing here>> XD
