#yamh

“Damn it, Dr. Todoroki! How many times have we asked you to please slow down when coming through this wing? Now I have to put all of these notes back into order before I go to my meeting!”

You scrambled to collect all of your notes off of the ground and at least orient them in the same direction as your (unhelpful) boyfriend gave a condescending smirk, “Don’t be like that, sweetness, you know it was an accident.”

You scoffed in annoyance, staring up at him.

If someone had asked you a little over a year ago how it felt to land the hottest biological sciences professor to ever grace the university’s campus, you’d have grinned and said it felt like the greatest stroke of luck you’d ever had. Touya Todoroki was on the low end of tall with a lean but muscular frame, striking blue eyes and dark hair carefully styled to look effortless. He was covered in tattoos on his chest, arms, and neck, with a few facial piercings he flipped up or swapped out for clear place holders if needed.

On top of appearances, he was remarkably intelligent, being one of the youngest professors to hold a doctorate and the only one still in his thirties. In fact, it was this fast-tracked intelligence that drove you towards Touya in the first place, on top of his ability to be extremely fun on the weekends. His age made him a fun mix between a responsible adult and a peer, and when his sights locked onto you of all people, a new researcher in the genetics lab upstairs, it felt like a wild dream.

Well, it did. At least for a while.

Now there were days you wish you’d never said yes to that initial date, because once the whirlwind settled, you realized his fun personality was actually immature cockiness and a sense of entitlement that he mostly kept under wraps until he left work for the day. You were constantly made the target of jokes, called pet names at work despite insisting that he call you by your proper title, Dr. (L/N), and had your work interrupted so often that the passcode to your lab had to be changed on a bi-weekly basis to keep him out.

In fact, part of lab procedures included wiping down the keypad after every use for “sanitary purposes”, which was actually a means to remove fingerprints. Previously, you couldn’t determine how he kept getting the passcode, but once you installed a privacy shield and instituted wipe downs, his visits became less frequent and spontaneous.

You scoffed and shook your head to clear the irritated fog, “Yeah and the accident before that knocked my coffee all over my lucky blouse right before a presentation, and the one before that nearly destroyed critical samples, oh and you never help clean up the mess from any of your ‘accidents’. What are you even doing up here? Your lecture hall is three floors down and your next class starts in five minutes. You’ll be late.”

Touya frowned at you, scratching at a tattoo on his neck. “Aww, don’t be like that, babe. I just came to wish you good luck. Maybe I shouldn’t since you’re so sour.”

You saw a flash of red and felt your blood pressure raise as you opened your mouth to respond, but a voice floated in from behind you and beat you to it.

“She’d probably be less ‘sour’ if you bothered to help her pick up the notes she dropped.”

“Thank you! Someone gets it!” Your voice caught in your throat as you whipped around to see a man closer to your age than Touya’s, holding two cups of coffee with a messenger bag slung over his shoulder. His long hair was half white, half red, and tied in a haphazard half bun with dual-colored bangs falling into heterochromatic eyes. His right eye was a warm gray, and the left was a striking shade of blue, a port wine stain tinting the skin around it and making the strangely familiar shade of blue somehow even more striking than normal.

He put the coffees on an empty cart in the hall and shrugged his bag off, setting it next to the drinks before kneeling down to help you, “It’s good to see you’re as awful to other people as you are to your own family, Touya, and by that, I mean at least you’re consistent. You could at least be more considerate of your own girlfriend, though.”

Your eyes darted between the two of them in confusion, “Do you two know each other?”

Touya rolled his eyes, “Quiet, sweetie. What are you even doing here, Shoto?”

“I work here,” Shoto replied, “I’m actually on my way to meet my new research partner.”

“Research partner?” Touya barked with a scoff, “Who would possibly want to work with you?”

Shoto oriented some of your notes and skimmed through them, “Your girlfriend, apparently.”

He rose to full height and extended a hand to help you up, “I’m Dr. Shoto Todoroki, the cancer immunologist you’re supposed to be partnering with for your CRISPR research.”

“Dr. (Y/N) (L/N). You are…a remarkably tall man. You have to be at least—”

“A little over 200cm, or 6’7.” He gave you a lighthearted smile, “If you need anything off the top shelf, don’t hesitate to ask me.”

You smiled and Touya’s eyes narrowed, “Always the overachiever, aren’t we?”

You looked back and forth between the two men as you slowly rose to your feet with your notes stacked as neatly as you could, taking the second stack from Shoto’s hand when realization suddenly hit you.

“Oh my god you’re brothers.”

“There it is, my little nerd.” Touya cooed condescendingly, “You’d think a geneticist would have caught the weird eye color faster.”

“That’s not how—” You stopped and took a deep breath, “Whatever. Todoroki is a common last name here and you never told me you had a brother, so I wouldn’t be looking for that, would I?”

Shoto snorted quietly as Touya’s face soured, “He takes after our dad and takes way too much pride in being the big baby sibling.”

“It isn’t pride, you’re just a malignant narcissist. Also, I’m taller than Enji.” Shoto turned back to you, “Truly, it is nice to meet you, though I wish it was under less…irritating circumstances.”

“Fine. Don’t have too much fun with my baby brother now, baby girl.”

“It’s Dr—”

“See you later, baby girl.” Touya sent a wink your way as he left. Once upon a time, it would have sent heat down your spine to pool in your belly, but now it just irritated you. You pinched the bridge of your nose with your empty hand, pushing back the tears of embarrassment when you felt a cool hand on your back.

“You okay?”

You looked over at Shoto and tried to force a smile and blink back the angry tears, “I’m fine!”

He shot you a look, “I apologize for my bluntness, but I grew up with that man. Try that lie on someone else.”

You sniffled, quickly wiping the tears that snuck out, “I’m sorry. I’m not normally like this, this is just…how I process embarrassment and Touya is just…such a fucking fuck.”

You clapped a hand over your mouth at your language, and he chuckled, “No, don’t be embarrassed! If we could control how we process embarrassment we would, and sometimes friendly language just isn’t enough for what you’re feeling. We usually go with ‘an entire fuck’ at family dinners, though, rolls off the tongue faster.”

You smiled, “Well now we both get to put a dollar in the swear jar outside our boss’ office.”

“Swear jar?”

“Yeah, uh,” you laughed a little and adjusted your tight curls to ensure neatness, “The boss? Shouta Aizawa? Well, he has a young daughter named Eri and she doesn’t like it when we swear in the hallways. We can swear in the labs or in the breakroom, but not in the halls where passerby can hear us.”

“And we just…go with it?” He asked, raising a scarlet brow in confusion.

You shrugged, “She isn’t wrong. We have far fewer professionalism complaints than other departments.”

“Fair enough. In that case, allow me to cover yours since my brother caused it. Oh! Uh…this is for you!”

He handed you a cup and you instinctively checked the label, “You got it down to the lactose free creamer. That’s…actually the sweetest thing anyone’s done for me in a long time. Thank you.”

You gave him a genuine smile, and his cheeks dusted pink for a split second, “I—I called your lab mate to see if she knew how you liked your coffee and she sent me your usual order. I think her name was Tsuyu Asui? I hope you don’t mind; I just didn’t want to make you sick on day one.”

“Thank you, Dr. Todoroki. If you want to come this way, this is the lab we’re going to be working out of. Oh, and call her Tsu. She hates being called by her full name.”

You gave Shoto a tour of the floor as well as several other places in the building such as the main offices and cafeteria. As you passed by Mr. Aizawa’s office on your way back to your office, he dropped two dollars in the jar with a wink that made your cheeks burn. He held the door open for you when he saw the rose gold placard on the door adorned with your name. Your office was full of rose gold accents; the name plate on your desk and the metal holdbacks securing gray curtains open behind your desk were made of the aforementioned metal. The carefully organized bookshelves lined with binders and thick books were minimalist, made of the shiny blushed metal and glass, as was the shelf of personal items hung on the wall beside your desk. A coffee table, also made of the same pinkish gold and glass, rested atop a neat white rug in front of a gray couch with a pink and white blanket draped over the back.

“It seems your favorite color is pink,” Shoto murmured, and you shook your head.

“Actually, it’s blue. Like turquoise or a tiffany blue. A beachy kind of blue.”

“Oh?” he looked around and noticed the pops of blue here and there; a vase or a cup dedicated to pens, a mug, a stapler, picture frames holding your accolades and family photos as well as art featuring women and femmes of color, paper clips and binder clips, but most distracting for Shoto was your fingernails, kept short and functional but lacquered in that same alluring blue, drumming against the keyboard as you logged in.

“May I ask why you made the choice to prioritize pink over your preferred blue?”

You smiled up at Shoto, “Spite.”

“Spite?”

“Spite. You see, too many men believed I couldn’t make it to this position where my research would be taken seriously. So many judged me for my skin tone, my hair texture, my femininity, and it became abundantly clear that they didn’t care about my skills and work. All they cared about was the surface level things and pushing me out. I had to work twice as hard for half as much and once I got here, I decided to make my space as in-your-face as possible without sacrificing professionalism.”

Shoto smiled, “You certainly succeeded, Dr. (L/N).”

“Please, call me (Y/N). Give me a moment to pull up the rest of the research to brief you better and if you have any additional questions, feel free to write them down or ask out loud!”

“I do have one more.” Shoto leaned forward, his elbows on his knees and one fist holding his chin up, “Why do you tolerate Touya refusing to use your title? You earned it.”

Your fingers stilled over the keys. Shoto sat upright, “You don’t have to—”

“He said he doesn’t have to because he got his first.” You weren’t sure why it came tumbling from your lips, but you kept going, “He said that once I achieve what he has, he’ll use my title.”

“That’s not how it works. You still earned your title.”

You blinked stupidly and cleared your throat, “I’ve found the files I need, Dr. Todoroki, and would appreciate a topic change.”

“Of course, as long as you call me Shoto.”

You smiled again, “Of course, Shoto, and thank you.”

He raised a brow, “For what?”

“For the validation. I can tell you’re going to be a massive asset to this research project for more than just the reasons I chose you resume.”

1. It’s the First Day of a New Life (You’ll See)

When you’re forced to wear rose colored glasses, all the red flags look white.

2. Shifting Pieces (Just Like My Stomach)

Years of experience makes Shoto hard to lie to.

2.5. The Messages

3. In the Shadows Where I Hide (From You)

Shoto learns the concept of the "Second Shift", and Touya doesn't take kindly to you clocking out.

4. Let the Tide Swallow Me Whole (Like Morning Light Through Windows)