text, un: Shouto

[numbertwohero]

Question for the network. How do you celebrate birthdays here? Do you mark it based on the days back home, or the date here? I guess I'm trying to figure out how I should count.

Also, if anyone has any good names for cats, I guess I'm open to suggestions. She's a girl, if that helps.

[Attached to the message is what's clearly a mirror selfie.]

Comments

Sorry for the delay, feel free to drop!

[numbertwohero]

Exactly. Every world seems to have a different idea of what counts as age of majority, or what people can do when. Like some people have been kind of horrified when they learn heroes in my world get their provisional licenses at 16

[justicedevil]

... Well, I'll be sure not to mention to them I was fighting crime back home even earlier then.

But seriously, considering it's just a provisional license and if you're from the world that I think you're from by saying that I'm not really sure when else you'd be expected to get it.

... You are from the same world that Iida, Kirishima, and Kyoka are from, right?

[numbertwohero]

Right, it's not exactly like villains look at a kid and decide they're off-limits for being too young. At least, most of them don't.

Ah, yeah. They're my classmates. You know them?

[justicedevil]

Yeah. It'd be nice if they did, but even most small time crooks back home don't care about that either.

[ Not to mention total monsters like Boo and Cell, who would just kill everyone if given a chance. ]

Yeah, I know them. Haven't really spoken to them all that much lately though.

[numbertwohero]

Yeah. Me neither. I guess I've kind of been keeping to myself a lot. Some of them have left, and I didn't realize, either...I guess I should try to check in more. I'm just not really good at this stuff.

[Which stuff?? All of it. Really.]

[justicedevil]

Wait, some of them left? Who went back home?

[Also yeah, she really needed to get better about checking in with people herself, if she's also not noticed.]

tries to figure out when exactly castmates dropped two months later...

[numbertwohero]

Tokoyami. Yaoyorozu. You might not have known them. Uraraka too, but I knew when she left. She and Midoriya lived next door. We've lost some of our teachers, too. Present Mic, Aizawa-sensei, All Might...

I just hope they're all back home like people say.

[justicedevil]

Okay, I'm pretty sure I've met Tokoyami before. Guy with a bird head and shadow powers, right? Those other names aren't ones that I really recognize though they seem kinda familiar so I probably heard about them at least.

And yeah, I hope they're back home too.

[ And not anywhere else, considering this wasn't the first 'tear you from your world and plop you here' place she'd been in there's no guarantee that's the case but it's not like she could just say that to him. That'd just make everything worse.]

[numbertwohero]

That's him, yeah.

What about you? Anyone else from home?

[justicedevil]

Yep. A friend of mine just showed up here last month.

... Though I guess he's my boyfriend now. Still a little weird to be thinking of him like that considering I hadn't seen him in months before he showed up.

[numbertwohero]

Your boyfriend?

Congratulations, I think?

If you hadn't seen each other in months, then how did you decide you wanted to be together like that? Or was it something you were thinking about before?

[Boundaries, Shouto. Then again, he's never had any problem just asking those kinds of questions of almost total strangers before, has he, mister 'are you All Might's love child.']

[justicedevil]

[ Eh, it's fine. She's not bothered by the questions at all.]

We were pretty much headed there back home anyway. And it's only me that hasn't seen him in months before he arrived. From his perspective he had just seen me.

[numbertwohero]

Ah, yeah. Timelines can make a big difference...especially between people. You were probably really happy to see him.

[justicedevil]

Yeah. I was honestly starting to think that it might be possible that I wouldn't see him again before he got here.

[ Especially since if you counted the last place she was in before this one; other worlds didn't really seem to want to let her go back home.]

[numbertwohero]

Then I'm glad you did. It's easier being here when you're with someone you care about.

[He says, missing one in particular he's just gonna feel guilty about for months.]

I just really hope everyone actually got to go home. Some of them were in another place before this one, and it wasn't a good place. I don't want them to go through that again, any of them.

[justicedevil]

[ Oh. Crap. That's... okay, so he knew about Duplicity. Helped explain why he was so worried about everyone going home. ]

Yeah. I know exactly where you're talking about, so I hope they ended up going home too.

[numbertwohero]

Is that where you knew them from?

[He's not gonna ask about her experience with the place. He heard enough from Jiro, and the sheer thought of the place still just...consent is a very important concept to him, and a place like that doesn't sit well.]

[justicedevil]

Yeah, it is.

Kyoka and I got here at the same time.

[And yeah, she's not going to mention more about Duplicity. Especially if he's not going to ask about it.]

[numbertwohero]

I'm sorry.

[Genuinely. She seems like a nice person. Not that anyone deserves to be stuck a place like that, but still.]

I'm Shouto. Todoroki Shouto. I'm not sure if there was a different version of me there, or not.

[justicedevil]

Thanks. And I'm Videl.

[ The name does look familiar, but she can't really place it exactly.]

Considering how many people from your world were brought there, it wouldn't surprise me if there was. But if there was a version of you there, I didn't know him.

[numbertwohero]

That at least makes things less awkward, then. I know it can get kind of...confusing, here. Or there too, I guess. All these multiverse places.

[justicedevil]

Yeah, it's a little awkward sometimes.

I've gotten used to it by now though, so when I do meet someone I knew who doesn't recognize me it doesn't take me that long to adjust to it. Even if it still sucks when it happens.

[numbertwohero]

It seems like it would. You spend time getting to know a person, becoming friends, and then the next time you see them, it's not really 'them' anymore. I don't know how I'd feel if that happened.

Were you other places, before this one and the other? Or are there just a lot of people here you know that don't know you?

[justicedevil]

Nah, I've only been in the two places, but I did have a lot of people that I've met here who didn't recognize me. A lot of them were close friends too, so I got used to the idea pretty quickly.

But yeah, it's not a good feeling when it happens, no matter how used to it happening you get.