53 14.6: A Potential Solution

Chapter 14.6: A Potential Solution

"You..." Toga's world just about collapsed — at least going by the look on her face — as she continued, "You aren't even in a relationship with this person and you won't even consider becoming partners with me? W-why?" She broke into tears, "Is it because I'm not as pretty? Is it my creepy personality? W-what would I have to change for you to consider it?"

"Don't do this to yourself, Toga-san..." Izuku reached down to pick her up, lest she keep tarnishing her dignity, "Right now you're just being influenced by the fact that I helped you through one of the worst if not 'the' worst point in your life. I don't want to see you lowering yourself like this for anyone, especially not for me. Come on," He helped her up to her feet and said, "It's not like I'm the only guy in the world."

Pushing his arm away, Toga made direct eye contact and with all the seriousness in the world retorted, "You may not be the only guy in the world, but for the last twelve years, you're the only one who's accepted me; the good and the bad." Sniffling, she continued, "I don't care if I'm being influenced by your help, even if you only wanted to keep me as a dog, a plaything... I wouldn't mind if you just promised to never leave me like I was before we met."

After she stopped talking, Izuku could do nothing to stop his instincts from pulling her into a tight hug. Toga, caught off guard, didn't resist, though after she felt and saw his warm tears start to stain her shoulder, she couldn't stop herself from looking up at his face. When she saw him silently cry, a primal panic started intensifying until he finally called her name, "Toga..."

"Never, and I do mean never, ever offer to become someone's servant or slave for anything… Not to earn someone's love, not to get what you most desire, not for anything." That kind of offer was something of a reverse scale for Izuku. As he had wished to have a Quirk of his own more than anything in his first life, that kind of thinking had led to him tolerating Bakugo's harassment and systematic bullying; it had eventually driven him to the deepest depths of desolation.

"Just because we aren't a couple doesn't mean I'll just forget about you and toss you aside. I'll still value our friendship and offer to help whenever you need it..."

"Sorry..." Toga whispered — though whether that was intended to be addressed to Izuku or herself, even she didn't know. At regular volume, she continued, "But, I don't want to remain as only friends. I want to mean more than that to you, I want you by my side until one of us dies..."

"..." Izuku's hold on Toga wavered a bit as he was conflicted about how to proceed. If he was being honest with himself, he wasn't even that invested in Hagakure; not like he should be, considering his personality and utter lack of experience. She might have been the first to want to enter a relationship with him, but it wasn't like they had already declared themselves to each other. In fact, as Izuku recalled why he was even pursuing Hagakure, he started running into logic loops that left his brain like Kaminari after using his Quirk, before he started training — in a state similar to short circuit.

Hagakure had been the one to thrust him into the world of romance and he had only been after her in hopes of learning whether or not he could even belong. Thinking a bit deeper on what he knew about romance, the key element from every piece of media he had ever read or heard from, including something he found arcane; love. The foundation of every romantic relationship was mutual love — or at the very like attraction — that Izuku couldn't honestly say he had for Hagakure. But then again, he didn't feel like that towards Toga.

Caught in a maelstrom of questions, Izuku's face grew unsightly. 'What am I supposed to do in this situation? Give up on Hagakure, or reject Toga? Logically, it would probably be for the best that I do everything in my power to keep Toga stable, and giving her… this… should make her less prone to acting out. But then again, her mental state is definitely being affected and this could be doing more harm than good.'

'But wouldn't that be unfair for Hagakure? She was the first person to ask to become partners and with all the training we've done I'm starting to get her better.' Face slightly cringing, Izuku thought, 'It just seems wrong to bring Toga into the picture as my girlfriend after all we've done; like spitting I'm in her face…'

For a while, aside from a frankly unsettling silence, nothing happened. Alas, as Izuku continued devolving further into madness trying to figure out a way to resolve his situation, he couldn't help but grow frustrated. Under his own system of time, a couple seconds gave him more than enough time to drive himself thoroughly manic and under that kind of mental stress, his spacetime powers started manifesting subconsciously.

'What about me? I don't even know how I feel... Am I feeling for either of them? If I'm not, does that mean I'll never be able to like or love someone romantically? Am I fated to simply die alone...'

One moment, Toga was being held loosely in Izuku's embrace, anxious about his response, and in the next moment, she could feel the gravity around her start to fluctuate erratically. Soon enough, she felt the need to snap Izuku out of his rut as the gravity was quickly elevating to levels potentially dangerous. Grabbing his hands, she said, "Snap out of it. You're going to break the floor..." She thought that by prompting him with something off-topic his out-of-control powers would slowly subside.

Upon returning to the world outside his head, Izuku quickly shut off his leaking mental pressure before giving Toga a strange look and simply stating, "Sorry… I guess I'll need more time to think about it. Though I'm not head-over-heels in love, I can't just abandon the relationship I've built up."

Grasping at straws at this point, Toga mindlessly blurted out, "I… W-would you mind me as a mistress, then? I know you're not a mindless pervert and could probably live happily with one person, but it would still be completely acceptable in this day and age for powerful people like you to end up with many girls."

For a second Izuku was confused, thinking, 'Mistress? A polygamous relationship?' Though as his memories on the topic were kick-started and he started recalling a whole array of additional context, it was like a bulb lit up in his head. 'That's right! I forgot about this was actually a thing people started doing again.'

Interestingly enough, before the Modern Age of Quirks — during the rapidly developing period of technology just before the first Quirked person was born, over 200 years ago — polygamy was outlawed for being barbaric and 'disharmonious' to the economic system of governments at the time.

As nearly 90% of Izuku's knowledge on the topic of relationships, love, marriage and and all things concerning came from comics and like-minded media of that period in time — a time where he, a Quirkless, could only imagine living in a world where he wasn't ostracised for lacking a superpower — the recent resurgence of polygamy, among other social changes, simply slipped his mind.

People still weren't exactly fond of the practice — most still believing it to be an archaic practice — but in this superpowered world where everyone was not equal, where battles that could leave cities and countries forever changed could happen whenever a new supervillain made their debut, the public didn't protest when heroes pushed to legalize the practice.

Heroes were the ones that upheld the current functioning society and were sadly the overwhelming majority of those that practiced the act; as often broken and flawed humans, what else could have been expected when they had to face horrible disasters and deadly villains at a moment's notice? When drinking or drugging yourself could lead to an even quicker death while on the job, it only made sense that other avenues to vent one's frustrations would be sought.

Still… Less than a month ago Izuku couldn't even imagine himself in a relationship with one girl. To suddenly have the concept of polygamy offered his way… it was a mild under-exaggeration to call him 'merely' overwhelmed. Then again, practicing polygamy wasn't against his code of ethics. His philosophy on the matter boiled down to letting consenting adults do whatever they want; so long as it didn't bother or harm others, anyway.

It would also be quite a suitable solution to his otherwise impossible problem, though not without its share of potentially cataclysmic drawbacks; namely, Hagakure would have to be on board with the suggestion, else there would never be peace.

In any case, Izuku thought it was worth a try discussing the matter with Hagakure first, but that would be done at a later point in time. For now, he simply separated from Toga and said, "That… that might just work. But never mind that, come follow me to the kitchen. We still have to talk with my mom about what I discussed at school about your situation."