Chapter Text
The ad had been clear enough, relatively simple honestly. It sounded like a dream opportunity for a poor college student like you who currently lived off peanut butter sandwiches and ramen. Maybe it was too good of a prospect. Especially when the words, rent not necessary in exchange for housework, popped up at the end of the advertisement.
Usually that threw red flags, it probably did throw them in your logical brain. But you were currently living on minimum wage with a job just barely hitting the double digits in hours. School had gotten crazy this quarter and you were hurting on sleep, on extra hours to eat, and just generally minutes to drink anything. So you shoved those inner warnings into the shadows of your mind, and set up a meeting for your future possible roommate.
The café the two of you agreed on was close to campus, and you had managed to carve out thirty minutes between classes of free time. At least you could grab a snack and something to drink before your next hours of hell.
You sat at the table, tapping anxiously against the fake wood. A slice of lemon pound cake in front of you and coffee with some doctoring to make it a bit more palatable. He said he’d be wearing an Iron Maiden shirt and have white hair… how old was he?
You nibbled at your pastry until the door opened, and your eyes snapped up to check once again. And fuck, was that him? That had to be him… he fit the description, but lord. He was smokin’. His face and ears glittered with gold, piercings catching the daylight through the large windows, his eyes a sparkling blue and his smirk lopsided, a mischievous set to his entire stance.
A shiver ran through you, completely unwanted but it was such a visceral reaction. Especially when he saw you and that smirk grew, his eyes flitting over your body and his tongue coming out to swipe his lower lip.
It was odd, usually you never had the instant desire to run. But this time, god everything screamed it, tugged at your brain to listen this once, because fuck this man would eat you alive. Yet, you stayed rooted to the spot under his heavy gaze as he sauntered over. Suddenly you forgot that your class was now within twenty minutes. You dropped his stare, unable to stand the teasing glint in the blue depths.
“Hey,” he called to you. “You the one who answered the ad right? (L/N)?”
You swallowed, your throat felt so fucking dry, “Yeah, (L/N) (F/N).”
You stood and offered a hand, he took the chance to size you up again, seeming to like what he saw he nodded and shook your hand, “Todoroki Touya.”
“So, Todoroki… I guess I will start with this,” you pushed a small folder towards him, holding your last two places of residence, two one bedrooms shared with another person.
It was also filled with recommendations, your schedule, and anything else relevant. He flicked through the papers with a lazy look one might first think was boredom, but since you were studying him, you watched his pupils flick across the page and his eyes narrow on certain lines. He was taking this seriously.
As he studied the papers, you studied his face and the many piercings that adorned his pale skin. He had one just under his lip, right where a horizontal labret would be acceptable though it was lower than most. It was a solid hoop of gold that was drawn tight against the skin, in the center of his lip sat a black hoop. On his left eyebrow was a stud that glittered with an icy blue gemstone. Maybe a blue diamond? He had three dermal piercings on the right side of his nose making the points of a triangle and his ears were adorned in a mix of studs, chains, bars, and hoops all ranging from warmer and colder golds to black.
This man definitely liked body modification, but he seemed so confident and smart, he wasn’t someone to place in a stereotype and underestimate. You were trying to busy yourself with drinking your coffee and eating more of your cake, struggling so so hard not to keep looking up at Touya. And you were failing.
“Do you have any questions for me?” he asked, leaning his cheek against his knuckles.
“Ummm, yeah a few, if you don’t mind?”
There was something that sharpened in his gaze as he focused on you more intently, “I wouldn’t have asked otherwise, would I?”
You shifted under the intensity of his stare but nodded shortly, “Alright, I don’t exactly know how far the commute is to campus? Wasn’t able to look it up yet. Do you know? Do you have any other roommates? And… was that thing about rent serious?”
He laughed, leaning against the booth and resting an arm on the back, “Yeah, I need someone to clean up a bit, cook some so I stop eating crap cause I get too lazy to cook for myself, I mean… you’d buy your own groceries and help out with internet cost, utilities as well. The commute is about, eh, I’d say fifteen to twenty minutes, even if you take the long train routes it’s only thirty. No other roommates, though I have friends over often.”
He tilted his chin back a bit to scrutinize you, “If you can clean, cook, and generally do some basics that I can’t always keep up with the room is yours. You seem quiet, your schedule would mean your gone more often than not, other than on Mondays and at night.”
You desperately wanted to agree, but this time the scream of logic seemed to get through and you said, “Can I see it? The room?”
His smile was easy, victorious, “Of course.”