Notes: This was for the free day for BNHA Rare Pair Week, so I decided to use this as an excuse to write my Kamichako idea finally that I've had since Rare Pair Month. Not only is this the first time I've written Kamichako, but this also marks the first time I've written from Kaminari's POV, which turned out to be a lot more freaking fun than I realized. I love one (1) local dumbass. He's got some growing up to do. Originally this was going to be a one-shot, but since it ended up being 11k, I decided to divide it. My attention span has been at an all-time low, so it just made sense to me. Shout out to Kela on the Kacchako Discord for letting me talk to her about this and listening to all my dumb ideas!
As far as first attempts at asking out a girl went, Kaminari didn't think he'd done terrible. It had been more of an issue of timing. He should've asked earlier or waited until they weren't about to start class. His approach had been solid. She had responded to him (mochi, she liked mochi, that was cute), setting him up perfectly. All he had to do was ask if she wanted to go out for her favorite food. Sure, she might've said yes because it was something friends did and that was totally fine (even if it would crush his soul a little), but hey, a guy could dream.
After all, Uraraka was very cute.
He wouldn't profess to be amazing with girls, but he knew he wasn't bad. He wasn't the smartest, but he was funny and, from what he'd been told, more than cute. Maybe he could stand to work on his confidence and his grades, but he wasn't obnoxious. Well, he didn't think he was, but other people might disagree. Hey, he was fifteen. He had some room and time to grow. She could understand that, right? He looked at her somewhat anxiously as she responded "mochi" and he thought, That's so cute , and opened his mouth to reply and-
Then she gasped, "Deku!" and was off running to check on Midoriya and Kaminari saw all his dreams go right down the drain. He'd already been thinking of places where they could get mochi, what he should wear, what she would wear, what he could talk about (maybe the basics like why he chose to attend UA or stuff about his quirk, no wait, he had to ask questions, girls liked that), and it was gone.
He wasn't even a blip on her radar. In fact, he was so far off her radar, it was like he'd never been there to begin with. She probably wouldn't even remember this very short-lived conversation, but he felt it in his gut. This was going to haunt him for the rest of high school. He'd been told no before, sure, but he'd never been forgotten so quickly. It made sense, seeing as how Midoriya had not only saved Uraraka from a zero point bot but also took on Bakugou like a badass. It was still a wound to his ego.
Okay, maybe he was being a little dramatic, but getting brushed off like that, even if it was totally by accident, was either like a punch to the gut or getting shocked by his own quirk a little too much. Not enough to stun him completely but just enough to make him freeze. It wasn't pleasant at all. Everyone was crowded around Midoriya, asking him questions, and she was hanging on every stammered word.
Someone pat him on the back and he looked down to see Mineta, who wore the most mournful expression that Kaminari had ever seen. It was like someone had died. Oh, so this was public humiliation. It was awful. "Tough luck, man."
A nervous grin twitched onto Kaminari's face. "What do you mean?" Mineta had been in the group surrounding Midoriya seconds ago. Maybe he hadn't seen anything and was just talking about the combat training class.
"She didn't even realize what you were asking, did she?" Mineta responded.
Kaminari winced. Ah, so Mineta knew exactly what had happened. This was bad. They'd barely been at UA. He did not want to start his time out here as the guy who got brushed off. What if other girls heard about this? What if they did it too? What if he never got a date during high school?
No, he was being ridiculous. Of course he would. He was a UA student in the hero course! That would surely make him attractive to other girls, especially ones that didn't go here. Come the Sports Festival where he could show off, no one would forget about him. He just hadn't made a strong enough impression on Uraraka. It made perfect sense. This was just the beginning.
He'd get another shot. Maybe. All he had to do was try.
Kaminari wasn't going to lie: his second attempt at asking Uraraka out was by far a disaster. By the time their second year rolled around, he'd gone through approximately three phases. It wasn't like he'd spent the entire time pining over her - which wasn't a bad thing either, seeing as how she'd spent the same amount of time pining over Midoriya. It was obvious to everyone but him, no matter how much she tried to shove it down. Kaminari liked her and all, but he wasn't about to ask her out while it was obvious she was into someone else, so he moved on.
Hey, he was young! He turned sixteen in his first year of high school, faced off way more villains than he'd actually planned, went on an awesome trip (where he worked his ass off and faced more villains), got his Provisional Hero License, figured out much more versatile ways to use his quirk, and got stronger. Still probably needed to work on that grade front, but at least he hadn't failed his final exam before spring break. He could go into his second year with his head held high. He was doing good!
So what if he hadn't actually gone on a date? That wasn't a total loss. It wasn't like he'd never kissed a girl before, unlike Mineta. He could be way worse off.
A few months into their second year, Kaminari had caught on to a noticeable change in Uraraka. By now, they'd actually become good friends. Yeah, she would always be more in Midoriya's group and she had her girl friends, but Uraraka had this way about her that brought everyone in. You couldn't help but like her and want to be friends with her. Even Bakugou had warmed up to her in his own way, which meant that Uraraka often hung out in their group too.
(Kaminari might have panicked about that. What if Uraraka moved on from her crush to Midoriya only for it to transfer to Bakugou? He was a certified badass.)
Besides Ashido, she definitely got along with the guys though. Hanging out with Uraraka was fun too. She wasn't afraid to be silly. Even though Ashido wasn't one for video games, Uraraka often joined him, Kirishima, and Sero for game nights. She got really competitive about it too. Hearing her get worked up and swear over losing had made him laugh so hard that he'd cried a little. No one that cute should have such a potty mouth like that. It was kind of endearing. Not so much when she got super scarily intense and kicked their ass in class.
Plus, with the use of her quirk, they could get up to all sorts of shenanigans. Hiding Bakugou's favorite snacks in the ceiling panels might have been one of her best and most devious ideas ever. She was always down for one of their pranks. She was just as enthusiastic as any of them, many times offering up her own ideas, no matter how ridiculous they were. She got really into them, which he thought was cool too.
Besides, it wasn't like she could do as many with her other friends. As Class President, Iida would probably rather be caught dead before he did a prank. It wasn't like he'd never broken a rule before, but he was trying to be on his very best behavior. Midoriya might have wanted to get in on it, but he tended to stay away from pranks that involved Bakugou as a target. Sometimes, she was even able to rope Todoroki into helping them, which was always a pleasant surprise.
(Again, Kaminari lowkey panicked. Todoroki was powerful, known to be thought as the most attractive boy in the class by the girls in both hero courses, and, even worse, rich as hell. Who wouldn't worry?)
Without him realizing it, she had started to spend more time with their group. And her once obvious crush on Midoriya? He didn't see it anymore. When they hung out, there wasn't this look in her eyes like she wanted more. If they accidentally touched or got close, there was no blushing. They were still close and very warm with each other, but it was different. It was friendly. Just friendly.
And that was when Kaminari realized it was his time to shine.
Except that he completely botched his attempt at asking her out.
He thought he might've done okay. When he had told her about the arcade, she had seemed really excited about it. Sure, he might've stammered and rambled a little (who was he - Midoriya?), but he managed to get through it for the most part. He'd just thought, since she liked video games and all, she would enjoy the arcade too and he went there all the time with the guys. That was his real first mistake. He should've never mentioned his friends because then she got it in her head that the arcade meant friends.
Which it did and she was a friend, but… He hadn't meant it in that way for her at that very moment. He'd definitely wanted it to be a "more than friends" outing.
He had made it even worse by explaining it as a great place for "lots of people" or something along those lines. He couldn't remember exactly what he'd said. The moment she had started to look interested, he had kinda panicked because while he had hoped she would want to go, he might've been expecting another accidental blow off. But no, she was interested and wanted to go with him and he'd done it, but now he had to explain himself. Why had he thought he had to explain himself? He hadn't used his quirk so much that it turned him into a dummy. So why had he been acting like an idiot?
And then he tapped her on the back when they agreed on a time, which was like...the ultimate bro thing to do. It was like what he and Sero did. Why had he done that too?
Kaminari hadn't realized the true extent of his fuck up until Uraraka met up with him at the arcade - along with Midoriya, Asui, and Todoroki. Oh. She had thought he meant it as a group outing, not a date. At first, he had been completely thrown, especially when Midoriya thanked him for the idea. Once it hit him though, after mentally flipping back through his conversation with her, he had damn near electrocuted himself.
"Where's everyone else?" Uraraka asked him goodnaturedly as they walked inside.
"Uh, they're...on their way!" Kaminari blurted. "Running late."
It didn't occur to him until that very moment that while he liked everyone in this group, especially Uraraka and Todoroki, he'd never hung out with her group of friends without any of his closest pals. It had always been her in his group. He didn't know why that made him panic. He was friends with everyone here. They were cool. He was totally fine hanging out with them, but then he didn't want Uraraka to realize that he'd just meant for it to be the two of them at the arcade.
After excusing himself to the restroom, Kaminari locked himself inside and whipped out his phone, making the fastest call in his entire life. As soon as Kirishima picked up, before he could say anything, he hissed, "What are you doing? Actually, I don't care. Grab Sero, Ashido, whoever - fuck, grab Bakugou - and meet me at the arcade."
"What?" Kirishima had obviously been caught off guard. "Why do you sound so serious about the arcade?"
"Because I-" Kaminari cut himself off. He really didn't want to explain because then Kirishima would know and he was really close friends with him, but this was embarrassing. He couldn't believe he'd fucked up so bad.
"Dude, just tell me," Kirishima said. "I promise I won't make fun of you." He paused for a moment while Kaminari went back and forth on what he should say. Honestly, he wasn't that great of a liar. "You didn't accidentally short-circuit one of the games again, did you?"
"No!" He hadn't done that in a while, thank you very much. Kaminari sighed in defeat. Might as well rip the band-aid off and get it over with. Either he or Sero would probably figure it out once he got here. Maybe he shouldn't have invited Ashido. She would definitely realize what happened. Uraraka was her closest girl friend. "I told Uraraka you were coming."
"Why would you tell her that?" Kirishima asked, sounding very confused.
Kaminari didn't answer. He couldn't, not without feeling even more like an idiot than he already was. Uraraka was probably out there already having fun with Midoriya, Todoroki, and Asui - fun he had wanted her to have with him. Okay, so if he ever left the bathroom, they could still have fun together, but now they were very obviously in friend territory. It was fine. He was fine.
Until Kirishima finally said, "Oh no." Kamarini cringed. He knew. He definitely knew. "You tried to ask Uraraka out, didn't you?"
"Maybe?" Kaminari replied weakly.
"And what? She thought you meant as friends?"
"I kind of figured that when Midoriya, Asui, and Todoroki came with her," Kaminari said, his shoulders sagging against the door. "Unless she knew I was asking her out and invited them along so she wouldn't feel awkward or be forced to turn me down." Panic started to gnaw at him again. "Oh shit, what if that's why they came too?"
"Nah, I don't think she'd be that...sneaky about it," Kirishima told him. "She'd be upfront with you. It sounds like she just got confused."
Kaminari groaned. "I did word it really dumb. Ugh, I can't believe I failed this bad. You don't have to come."
Kirishima chuckled good-naturedly. "No worries, bro. I got you. I'll grab Sero and Mina. Bakugou is busy being mad about something and it's best not to bother him in this mood."
"Thanks," Kaminari said. "I owe you one."
"Get me some tokens and we'll call it even."
When Kaminari left the bathroom, it didn't take him long to find the others. Uraraka and Midoriya were playing DDR like their lives depended on them. She didn't even miss a beat when she waved at him and exclaimed, "You can play winner!" She grinned at him. "I can kick your ass too."
"I don't think so!" Midoriya laughed, although there was determination on his face. Kaminari's eyes flickered to the scoreboard. Maybe if he used his quirk he could beat her, but Midoriya was behind in points. It should've been illegal for her to be so graceful on a game that was essentially jumping around.
He coughed and looked away from her, stammering out, "You-you're on!" Yeah, there was way too much jumping around. She would definitely kick his ass. He'd be way too distracted glancing over at her to win, even if he did normally rock at that game. He had to think of something else for a second. Maybe she would mess up and Midoriya would win. That would be much better.
It didn't happen. Uraraka won and Kaminari took Midoriya's place. She picked one of the fastest games, giving him a big smirk even as she breathed heavily. By the time they finished, he had an abysmal score and was so red in the face he felt like he was on fire. At least he could blame it on the workout. Uraraka whooped triumphantly, having apparently beaten everyone, and jumped off the game to get more tokens.
"Wow," Todoroki said, peering at their scores, "you did worse than me."
"Ha," Kaminari managed.
Todoroki glanced at him. "You weren't really paying attention though, so that makes sense."
"It was a really hard song!" Kaminari insisted before rushing away. Tokens. He had to get tokens for himself and Kirishima. He had promised. What did Todoroki know about DDR? He wasn't that into video games, even though he had scarily good coordination with fighting games the few times he played with them.
After getting tokens, Kaminari chose a first person shooter game, thinking it might help him cool his nerves. If he kept this up, he really would short-circuit a game and he couldn't afford to do that again. Uraraka would think he was totally uncool if he did that - and he might not be allowed to come back for a while. After dying the first time, he decided to give it another go, when someone bumped shoulders with him.
"Hey," Uraraka said next to him. "Mind if I join you as your second?"
"Yeah, totally," Kaminari quipped. What was he freaking about? It was Uraraka. Even if she had misunderstood what he'd meant when he had brought up the arcade, they were still friends. He still enjoyed spending time with her and hanging out. He wouldn't have been acting this way had the original plan been for all of them to come as a group. He just needed to chill and have fun. She was, from the looks of it. "You better have my back though."
Uraraka nudged him again. "As long as you've got mine."
"I'll have you know," Kaminari drawled, "I'm really good at this game."
"I don't know about that." Uraraka teased, giving him a wink. "You looked like you could use some help earlier from where I was standing."
Kaminari managed to not swallow the sudden lump in his throat until she looked at the screen to set up herself up as player two. Oh shit. Oh, this was bad. This was very bad. He'd thought he was just asking her out because she was cute, nice, and fun to be around. It couldn't hurt to ask her out and try. Either she said yes or she didn't. They would still remain friends, right? He had to put himself out there.
It hadn't occurred to him that it might be something more. He hadn't just asked her out because of those things. He had asked her out because… Did he like her? Was this an actual crush? A serious, honest to god, not just because she's hot crush? He kind of wanted to die. Instead he turned to the arcade game and threw his entire focus into it. Now he really had to prove that he was good at this game.
Well, this took a sudden turn of events. Now he was the one with what was probably an obvious crush, especially since Kirishima now knew that he'd asked her out. And she hadn't realized it. Probably still didn't and never would because he'd never have the balls to move past this stage. Because he did like her and he had wanted to go out as more than friends, but he had the simultaneous realization that they were friends too. He didn't want to mess up with her either way. Plus, there was school to think about. He was here to become a hero, not score chicks, right?
He was beginning to understand why Uraraka had shoved her crush on Midoriya away until it was gone.
"Why didn't you just tell her, ribbit?"
Kaminari nearly jumped out of his shoes, leaping at the sudden question on his right, but when he looked over, it was just Asui staring up at him. There was a very serious, knowing expression on her face. To be honest, it was actually kind of scary and he did not want to be the recipient of it. However, when he looked around, it was just him. The question hadn't been meant for anyone else.
"I don't know-"
"Kaminari," Asui interrupted in that blunt way of hers, "it's obvious you like Ochako."
He couldn't help it; he burst out into nervous laughter. "What? Huh? What are you talking about?"
"You asked her to come to the arcade to spend time with her," Asui pointed out, continuing to make him want to melt into a puddle. Couldn't she spare him this humiliation? Did she have to be so upfront? What if someone heard her? His eyes darted around, but no one else was looking at them, not even Uraraka, who was busy talking with Sero and Kirishima about Todoroki's abnormally high scores on the racing games. "You two played almost every game together, even the ones you don't like. You let her choose nearly all of them."
"I did not," Kaminari protested, "and I liked all the games I played."
Asui put a finger to her chin. "How many tokens did you spend on that crane game to get her that plushie?"
Kaminari turned bright pink and looked away, muttering, "Not that many." He'd gotten it though, so that was all that mattered. He felt rather accomplished. He'd never been good at the crane games.
"You should-"
"We're friends," Kaminari interrupted, a little harsher than he intended.
When Asui gave him one of her patented take-no-bullshit looks, he cringed and gave her an apologetic smile. He hadn't meant to snap. It wasn't like him. He was just...embarrassed. How had he not realized he had an actual crush on her? Maybe because all the other times, things had been on the surface level. A girl was cute, a woman was hot, and that had really been as far as his thinking had gone. It was really childish and dumb. Yeah, duh, Uraraka was attractive as hell, but he liked a lot of other things about her too. It might've been those other things that had pushed him to attempt to ask her out again.
"We're just friends," Kaminari repeated, maybe more for himself than Asui. Even if they had played a ton of games together, Uraraka hadn't acted any differently with him as far as he was aware. It was just business as usual. Silly, light-hearted friendship as usual. It wasn't like how she acted when she'd had that massive crush on Midoriya. No, he was definitely just a guy friend in her eyes.
Was he pouting? Absolutely not.
Asui shook her head. "You're a bad liar, ribbit."
Kaminari groaned. "Please don't remind me."
It was painful enough as it was. Now Asui knew too? He knew she wouldn't tell anyone, not even Uraraka, who was her best friend. Kirishima wouldn't either, so he didn't have to worry about other people finding out through them. But himself? Yeah, that was another story. He couldn't even lie to himself anymore. How was he supposed to keep this a secret from other people? He was terrible at keeping secrets. What a clusterfuck.