The quiet hum of the dorm heater filled the silence between you and Shoto. He lay sprawled across your bed, his mismatched eyes fixed on the ceiling like it held all the answers he couldn’t put into words. His fingers fidgeted with the hem of your blanket before he rolled onto his side, propping his head up with one hand.

“Would you stay if I was a worm?” he asked suddenly, voice low and oddly serious.

You didn’t look up from your book. It wasn’t the first strange question he’d asked you that week—trauma made people weird sometimes—but this one earned a raised eyebrow.

“Seriously?”

He nodded, deadpan. “Like… a tiny, slimy worm. No Quirk. No arms. Just me. As a worm.”

You exhaled through your nose, flipping a page. “Shoto, I stayed with you when the sky was on fire and you were half-conscious, bleeding, and about two seconds away from setting us both ablaze. That was eight months ago. We both almost died in an explosion you caused. Ll I think I can handle worm-you.”

He blinked. “So… that’s a yes?”

“No.”

He sat up, visibly offended. “Is that a yes or no?”

“It’s a no.”

His eyes narrowed. “…I know you’re lying.”

You finally looked at him, lips tugging into the smallest smirk. “Then you already know the answer.”

He stared at you for a long beat, then fell back onto the bed with a dramatic sigh. “You’re the worst.”

He snorted, pulling a pillow over his face to hide the smile he couldn’t hold back. Moments like this, quiet and ridiculous, were the ones that reminded you both it was okay to be soft again. Even after everything.