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Something’s wrong with Nana.
Toshinori can tell, and he asks Gran, and Gran tells him not to push it which basically confirms that something is wrong with Nana.
It all makes him nervous because, most of the time, Toshinori can’t help but push things. He doesn’t even really do it on purpose.
Nana has told him that’s a good trait to have—that one of the marks of a good hero is that you can’t help but stick your nose into other people’s business. He wonders if she would still say that if she knew it was her business that he is unable to keep his nose out of.
But how can he not, when something is so clearly wrong with Nana?
He notices it in her smile first. Normally, she wears her wide grin as a badge of honor, or bears it like a waving flag. A symbol of victory and perseverance for all to see. Lately, that's changed. Toshinori could kick himself for not noticing the change as it was happening, but now her smile has become a shield. A hollow thing that has been hammered around her into stiff, protective curves. A turtle shell with thick layers of keratin for her to subtly pull herself inside of when Toshinori looks at her for too long.
Her smile is something Toshinori has always admired about Nana, but now when she puts it on, it looks like it's hurting her.
He notices it next because she starts rescheduling things and putting off training, which she never does. Even on days when they don’t end up training much, either because Toshinori is wiped out from everything he did at UA that day or Nana is still healing from something that happened in the field, Nana makes sure they still meet up and talk, or go and feed stray cats, or eat ice cream. But when he asked her what time they were meeting that weekend, she made a face like her tonsils were trying to crawl up her throat and out of her mouth.
“Maybe not this weekend, Toshi,” she’d said, and turned away from him.
The third place Toshinori notices it is how she looks at him. Nana’s eyes keep lingering on him when she thinks he isn’t looking, and the skin around her eyes is tight. She keeps reaching out like she’s going to grab his shoulder and then dropping her hand before she does. She’s never done that before—Nana has always, since the day Toshinori met her, been generous with her physical affection. She hands out hugs and pats and hand squeezes easy as breathing.
(Maybe Toshinori has come to count on that—he lives alone now, on his UA stipend. It’s not like he’s getting that from anyone else.)
But now she’s pulling away from him. It makes his chest tight with anxiety. He doesn’t like—being ignored. He doesn’t like being forgotten.
“Did I do something wrong?” he asks Gran, and Gran frowns.
“No, kid, it isn’t you,” he says, and then he doesn’t say anything else.
Toshinori can't accept that, so he does the only thing he can think of. He tries to be better.
That’s the trick, right? That’s what fixes things. Be better.
When Nana tells him “Maybe not this weekend,” he goes and trains alone anyways—even on days that would have been cat feeding or ice cream days, he trains. When they’re in the same space, he stands far away, even though it hurts like a meat hook fixed in the soft parts of his heart to do so. It hurts even more to see her face crumple when she has to stop herself from touching him, so he keeps his distance.
There has to be more he can do though, Toshinori knows there’s got to be something. He hates inaction, thinks he may even be allergic to standing still. Especially standing still when he could be helping.
He thinks about things that help him when he’s sad or upset. Things Nana does—because she always does do things, when he’s feeling down or bad. She’s always able to fix it.
Like, one time, after a terrible week at school—a failed test and a stupid injury from pushing himself too hard, a fight with someone he thought was his friend and one of the stray cats he’s been feeling vanishing—Nana called him over on an evening when they didn’t usually train and surprised him with a full, home-cooked dinner, full of all his favorites. He didn’t even know Nana knew his favorite dinner.
They ate green tea ice cream for dessert while sitting on the couch, a heist movie playing quietly on the TV. Toshinori falls asleep with the bowl on his lap. He wakes up with it placed on the coffee table, and a blanket around his shoulders.
She made everything better for him then. It only seems fair that he do the same for her, in the face of whatever is bothering her.
He just wants to fix it.
(Toshinori squishes down the sense that it’s him who is bothering her. He doesn’t want to think about that.)
So he goes to the grocery store and starts buying what he needs. He’s not a great cook, but he can do the basics. He can do comfort food.
She gave him a key to her apartment ages ago, so it isn't exactly breaking in when he brings his bounty of groceries into her kitchen. Thankfully she isn’t home, but he doesn't know where she is—and he tries not to think about that, about how she didn't tell him where she was going, whether she's patrolling or doing something else.
Still, the empty kitchen is an opportunity, one Toshinori takes full advantage of as he slowly but surely begins to create the dishes he has in mind. He doesn’t really know how to cook, not the way Nana seems to, but he tries. Warm rice and sweet sauces, meat a little overcooked but still juicy when he pokes at it to test, vegetables fried and dough baked. The presentation isn't the best, and there's a mess in Nana's kitchen to clean as he doesn't really clean while he cooks, but it's the best he can do. Toshinori can't help but feel proud when he looks at the homely spread that he sets out on the table.
Then the door latch clicks. He stiffens where he stands, hands braced on his hips pressing oily fingerprints into his jeans. Nana walks in with her head bowed, wearing civilian clothes and not her hero suit.
She looks up, their eyes meet. He stays frozen as a deer in headlights. Slowly, her eyes move away from his to the table, and they scan over the assembled food.
To Toshinori’s horror, Nana's eyes glisten, well with tears, and then spill over.
He jerks towards her, “Shishou?!”
She pulls away from him before he even makes it fully around the table, and that— that is what does it. That is the door slam in his face Toshinori has been dreading.
He fucked up.
He feels the pain hit him, bright and sharp, right in his chest. A lump lodges in his throat.
“I'm sorry,” he croaks out, then rushes around her, fleeing her apartment completely.
Toshinori doesn't turn to look and see if she comes after him, doesn't think he would be able to bear it if he sees that she isn't.
He doesn't look to see where he's going, either. He just runs. Then walks. Then trudges. His shoulders and feet feel heavy as he drags them along, and though he usually tries not to slouch, works instead to hold his shoulders back and his head high, right now he can't seem to help it.
The aimless walking leads him on for a while. Truly, Toshinori doesn't know how long he drifts. He feels lost, and eventually that lost feeling guides him to a park bench, where he plants himself and prepares to rot.
Eventually, a familiar presence drifts down in front of him. Nana hesitates, for only a moment, before sitting down on the bench at his side.
“Hey kid,” she says, trying for casualness, but betrayed by the way her voice is still thick with held back emotion. When Toshinori dares to look up at her, to check that she's real, he sees her eyes are red-rimmed.
He isn't sure what to say, but that seems to be fine for Nana, as she keeps talking.
“I saw the food you made, cooking that much is pretty impressive,” she says. Then, her tone lowers to something softer, pained, “You didn't have to do all that for me.”
“I wanted to,” Toshinori says. It all comes spilling out of him then, and he can't quite keep the hurt edge out of his words. “You were upset and I didn't know what to do about it. I thought this would be a good idea but I guess I was wrong about that.”
She doesn’t have anything to say to that, and Toshinori looks at her, feeling raw and cut open.
“If I've done something wrong, or you don't want me as your successor anymore, you can just tell me,” he practically whispers, unwilling to make the words real with volume.
“Oh kid, Toshinori, no,” Nana hurries to say. She shifts in the bench so she can face him more directly. “It isn't that. It isn't you.”
She must see his disbelief in his face, because her own expression crumples. Yet at the same time, her eyes harden with resolve.
“It isn't you,” she repeats firmly. “But I haven't been very good at telling you that lately, have I?”
Toshinori opens his mouth. Toshinori closes his mouth. Toshinori shifts uncomfortably, sits on his hands, and shrugs.
“You don’t need to tell me everything,” he says, because that’s true. He doesn’t want her to feel… forced to say something she doesn’t want to say, just because he’s needy and irrational. ”I get that sometimes things—“
“Suck,” finishes Nana, and Toshinori snorts despite himself. “Sometimes things suck.” She huffs out a breath through her nose. “And I’ve been making them suck more for the both of us.”
“You haven’t—“ starts Toshinori, but she cuts him off with a gentle hand on his shoulder. He nearly jumps out of his skin, but then nearly melts into the contact.
They sit there in the gathering dark for a few long seconds. Not too far away is the rumbling sounds of the street.
Nana says, very slowly, “This time of year…reminds me of someone I’ve lost.” She clears her throat so her voice doesn’t break. Toshinori feels his own throat ache in sympathy.
Missing someone—that he gets. He doesn’t really like the time right after Christmas. He doesn’t really like February.
“You…remind me of him too, in some ways,” she continues.
Oh.
The words make Toshinori want to run and never stop running. They make him want to hide in a dark place, or dye his hair. They make him want to never leave this spot with her.
“I’m sorry,” he says, because he can think of nothing else to say.
“Don’t apologize for that,” Nana says. Her voice sounds pinched and painful. “Please don’t—ever say that, kid.”
Toshinori just shifts uncomfortably again, not sure what to say if not that.
Nana sighs, and purses her lips. She looks at him, and the hand on his shoulder gives him a warm, reassuring squeeze. “I’ll tell you more one day, I promise.”
He nods, accepting that. She has already told him more than he expected or hoped for.
And then she grips his shoulder, firm and steady, and pulls him closer
Toshinori rests his head against her and breathes out. He feels—scooped out. Not tired, but empty.
He wants to go home.
“Come on, kid,” says Nana into his hair. “Let’s go eat.”
Or that, Toshinori thinks. That’s just as good.