uraraka

She coughs carnations.

She hides it behind a blinding smile and beaming eyes. Quickly sweeps the damp blooms into her bag, hides them under her uniform, touches them so they float into the stratosphere, anything to make them disappear. She refuses to believe that these beautiful, lovely halves of a blossom mean anything more than a silly crush.

Why do they hurt?

She doubles over during practice whenever she floats for too long, spitting them out onto the floor of the training grounds. When her friends rush over to her with concern, eyes widening when they see the damp carnations on the ground, she cries aloud with anger and tells them to leave her alone.

Are you sure you're alright, Uraraka-san? It's Momo, holding her upright as she continues to spew petals on the ground, red and white and some that in between. You should go see Recovery Girl! You look very sick!

I don't want to see her. Her voice is hoarse and pained, it hurts to even talk. Her lungs are burning, and her ribs feel constricted. I don't need to see her!

She can see Deku training from here on the elevated training tower. He's spinning in a roundhouse kick aimed at a hardened Kirishima, that signature green arch of greased lightning accelerating at a speed too fast to catch.

It's been only a year. Why was she so infatuated with him that this…these damp carnation flowers, was happening to her?

She hears him scream in determination. Kirishima's alarmed yelp is caught in the undertow of that heroic cry. SMASH!

Uraraka coughs weakly, smiling at the sky as Momo begins to worriedly carry her out of the gym. It's because of that single-minded determination, that drive to push himself to his limit… It's incredibly exhilarating to watch.

She remembers how he used to be a nervous, trembling mess of a boy who always crumbled under the force under his strange, unexplainable Quirk, never looking her quite in the eye as his feet fidgeted and his fingers twiddled.

But…now look at him. He's carrying a weight she can't explain, and he's shouldering it with the straightforward and desperate determination she can never hope to imitate.

Deku could never be weighed down with something like a girlfriend. He would never think of her as more than a friend, an ally to help him in his journey to be a worthy hero. Look, even now as her classmates crowd around her in worry, Deku is still staring straight ahead, battling to the best of his abilities with Kirishima, green electricity dancing around him like magic.

He will never look anywhere else but ahead.

And so she would forever be behind him, coughing striped carnations, watching them redden more and more until they were drenched in her blood, until her lungs were nothing but roots seeking something that would never exist.

Because a girl who could make things float could never fit with a boy grounded on an indestructible determination.