Izuku looked out at the cold winter landscape that had greeted him on his first day back to U.A. after winter break and sniffled his nose. He wasn't really sick, but just looking at the blanket of snow that was still damaged from the students and faculty moving about was enough to make him want to spend the whole day bundled up and drinking hot soup.
It was already ten, normally snow was a once a year thing and only lasted until noon at the latest, but today was proving to be an exception as snow still drifted downwards lazily.
It also didn't help that on his first day back he had been given a giant workload, evaluating applications for the first years that will be joining in four months.
Logically it made sense, after all, he had the lightest workload. And with his knowledge of quirks and his background, it made sense that he should have at least some voice in deciding where students should and shouldn't go.
Especially with how the entrance exam normally works. Giant robots just didn't do it with more subtle quirks, maybe he should think of developing some other exam? Or even take it upon himself to interview the students. Nezu might go with it? At least for this year, until he could take on more classes. Ideally, he'd be able to teach the first years and second years for the hero course. And assuming Aizawa didn't expel his class again, that would give him four classes a day. Which was technically doable.
He sighed, shuffling the triple stacked boxes filled with applications and headed towards the faculty room. The real reason was simple, he had been late for the meeting and had been volunteered for the task.
This was going to cut in on his time for coming up with new ways to tort-train his students.
With any luck, he should be able to get through at least half a box before his class started. Good thing he had an afternoon class. Today he'd just have to evaluate his student's growth and discuss ways to train their quirks.
The sports festival was five months away after all. He needed to keep his promise to Aizawa-sensei.
But that was going to be rough. His students were progressing, but they haven't exactly made any major breakthroughs.
"Who knows, maybe some of them will surprise me today, a lot could happen in ten days."
"Izuku-sensei," He heard the ever familiar voice of Nejire Hado call to him, her head appearing from one side of the pile of boxes, her typical cheerful expression was mixed with her usual curiosity, her long blue hair hung to one side. "What are you doing?"
"Ahh, Nejire," he stopped, shifting the weight of the boxes before his fingers tore off. Why was paper so heavy?
"I'm charged with reviewing some of the applications for the new first years."
"What? I thought there was like, a million applications a year!" Nejire popped her head around the other side, looking up and down the tower of boxes. It was getting rather heavy. "This doesn't look like a million applications Izuku-sensei."
"Well, these aren't the hero course applications, most of them are for support and general course."
He took a breath and tried to straighten his shoulders. He should probably start working out, just enough to not struggle with paperwork. "And… Izuku-sensei?"
Nejire hummed, moving in front of the boxes, fingers lacing into the topmost box carrying holes. "Do you not like it?"
If she took that box she could call him whatever she wanted. His arms breathed a sigh of relief when that topmost box began to slide forward.
"No, it's fine, I'm more used to being called Izuku anyways, it's just different."
"Oof, heavy." The box slipped free and Nejire went down with it before she popped right back up. "There now you can see too!"
"You're a lifesaver Nejire," He smiled and continued on his way to the faculty room. "But why Izuku-sensei?"
She tilted her head that was eye level with him, as she continued to move smoothly forward the box held high on her chest. "Is this the part where I ask, how is Izuku-sensei? Oh, or what is Izuku-sensei?"
"Nejire."
She giggled, spinning around with her usual energy to the other side of him.
"Sorry sensei, it's just that I'm really happy you're my teacher, I feel like I've learned the most with you, so I wanted to call you Izuku-sensei."
"Ahh, that makes me glad to hear, Nejire. You can call me that, but the other teachers might think it's rude." He watched as she continued to look him right in the face, her smile not once fading even as she walked backward in front of him. "Why do you keep circling around me like that, I said it was fine."
"Oh, I know, I'm just waiting for you to notice." She beamed, her blue eyes dancing like she had just aced a test.
He raised an eyebrow. Notice something? Why was it that whenever a girl wanted him to notice something he just couldn't? Sure his only example was Melissa who had wanted him to notice her new haircut. But Nejire's hair was the exact same. Or was it? It was long and still slowly curled in a twin helix. "Did you get a new haircut?"
"Izuku-sensei," Nejire snorted and rolled her eyes, she bit her lip before lifting up her foot. "No, but I'll give you a hint, look at my feet."
He looked down. Her feet weren't touching the ground. She was hovering. She could hover, while holding a box, and move.
The boxes he was holding fell to the ground sending papers everywhere.
"Wah!" a noise escaped him as he looked at the empty ground below Nejire, then back up at her to see her smiling widely. "Nejire! You, you, you're flying!"
He ran over to her and she dropped her own box, embracing him in a hug. "I know!"
"Congratulations! How'd you do it? What was the breakthrough? How much time did you spend practicing during the break!" The hallway spun, his feet off the ground. "This is amazing! You can even carry a person!"
They were both laughing.
"I don't know! I was just at home one-day cooking dinner and just being happy and thinking about class then I realized I should try to do some small stuff but I was already floating!" She half giggled, diving forward as her hair began to envelop him. Her feet kicking like she was doggy paddling through the water.
"Since then I've been able to fly easily! Sometimes without thinking!"
"That's amazing! I-"
"Midoriya-sensei." Aizawa-sensei's voice was like a cold blanket that made him realize several things. The applications were now all over the floor, he was being loud right next to a classroom, and he was currently hugging a student while floating a few inches off the ground. "What are you doing?"
"Oh, uh," He looked at the ground, then at Aizawa-sensei, then at Nejire, "Uhh can you put me down Nejire?"
"Sure," she guided them down and let go of him, she landed on her own feet and fell forward catching herself on his shoulder. "Sorry Izuku-sensei," She laughed, trying not to look at Aizawa directly. "I should get back to class, I'll see you later!" she ran off bowing at Aizawa along the way. "Sorry, Aizawa-sensei."
The scruffy looking teacher nodded, his gaze was cold and uncaring. "Try to be less noisy in the future Midoriya-sensei, you are a teacher here."
"Right!" He saluted, saying the word just loud enough to make himself wince. "Sorry sensei, I've just been working with her for half a year on that and-"
"It's fine, your eagerness and genuine excitement are why the students like you, just don't get carried away." Aizawa placed a single hand on his shoulder before walking away, leaving him alone with three heavy boxes and a pile of papers to pick up.
So much for getting anything done before his own class started.
XXXX
"Normally, on the first day back from break you're half asleep and ready to crawl back into bed." Yuyu rested one elbow on the cafeteria table, her other hand tapping her chopsticks like they were a set of drum sticks.
Yuyu had changed again, she got a new piercing over her right eye, and her hair had grown out a bit now reaching her neck and was dyed a royal purple that just made her pop.
Nejire hummed, a bite of rice still in her mouth as she plucked away at her food. She blinked at Yuyu trying to figure out what her friend was saying.
Why wouldn't she be happy to be back to school!? It was where her friends were and she got to see Izuku-sensei again! And she had been so excited to show off all of her hard work to Izuku-sensei.
Maybe she shouldn't have said it just happened, he might have praised her more! She did spend all break in her apartment playing the longest game of 'the floor is lava' ever. It made her stomach hurt like she had to poop and had just done a bazillion sit-ups. But it was worth it.
Yuyu tapped the table again. "So spill, why are you so happy?"
"Why wouldn't I be happy?" She squealed kicking her legs under the table as she took another bite of her lunch. "I get to see my friends again, I got to show off my new flying skill to Izuku-sensei, and I got to see him again, I'm so excited about what we're going to do in class today, I bet he has a super awesome lesson planned for us, like how before break we talked about how generally each generation of quirks are becoming more complex. Oh, or how certain countries handle quirks differently, with places like the United-"
"Seriously Nejire, if you don't stop gushing about how great Midoriya-sensei is I'm going to start thinking you have a crush on him or something."
Yuyu sighed, sitting back down to pick at her food. "But, I guess he is a pretty good teacher, just wish he'd do more lecture for the support and general course."
A crush? Nejire blinked, looking down at her food. She had a crush on a few classmates before and even dated one of them in middle school before she came to U.A., but now any crush she had lasted a few minutes until she got distracted by something. But, she didn't get distracted with Izuku-sensei.
He could keep her attention without even trying, and he was always so nice, cheerful, and eager to help, and he was smart.
But did she have a crush on him? How did she normally realize she had a crush on someone?
She thought they looked cute. And Izuku-sensei was cute.
She wanted to see them smile. Izuku-sensei's smile made her day whenever she saw it.
She wanted to impress them. Half the reason why she tried so hard to learn to fly was so that Izuku-sensei would be proud of her.
And she wanted to hold their hands and kiss them and do couple stuff. Did she want to do those things with Izuku-sensei?
It was easy to picture him holding her hand as they walked through the snow, her humming and skipping with every step. She'd sneak glances at him, their eyes meeting and lingering as they smiled at each other. He'd say something silly, they'd laugh, then when no one was looking he'd lean over and kiss her on her ear, taking her by surprise as her entire body warmed up.
Yep, she wanted that.
"You're right!" She sat with her back straight as she continued to eat her meal. Hmm, how should she go about it though, how old was Izuku-sensei? Did he have a girlfriend? She should ask him. If he did it was no big deal, it was Izuku-sensei's happiness that mattered most.
"Huh?" Yuyu looked up from her food, her pierced eyebrow raised. "Right about what? And you know you're floating right?"
"Huh?" She looked down and saw that somehow she had started to float. This was the power of Izuku-sensei. With her tongue out she slowly navigated back down onto the bench, landing was still the hard part. "Oh, sorry, that happens now."
"But, what was I right about?" Yuyu gave her a small smile twirling her chopsticks between two fingers while sighing. "I mean, I'm normally right, but what specifically."
"Oh, about me having a crush on Izuku-sensei," She smiled and caught herself about to float again. First, she had problems floating now she was having problems not floating. She knew she should have been worried when she found herself napping while floating.
Yuyu dropped her chopsticks, a fake smile on her face. "Umm, could you repeat that Nejire? I think I misheard you."
"I have a crush on Izuku-sensei." She repeated shoveling more rice into her stomach.
"That's what I thought you said," Yuyu sighed her head sinking downward. "You know he's a teacher right?"
"Yep!" She nodded, he was a good teacher too. Actually, him being a teacher might have had something to do with why she liked him, he was a responsible adult and he just made her happy.
Yuyu's hands fell on top of her head pulling at her purple locks. "And you know that he's old right?"
"What? No he's not, he turned 21 over the summer, and his birthday is only three before mine so he's like four years older than me. My dad is eight years older than my mom," And they might have started dating when her mom had just graduated. Lots of girls married older men. Or maybe that was just her family.
Yuyu groaned. "That's not the point, your dad wasn't your mom's teacher. Seriously Nejire, you shouldn't go after him if you don't want him to lose his job or something."
"Oh, that's okay," she hummed plucking another bite of rice. "I can wait until I graduate before we get serious."
Yuyu only groaned.
Besides, teasing Izuku-sensei for a whole year sounded like fun.
XXXX
"Keep it up Tamaki, you're getting more versatile with your quirk!" Izuku smiled at his shy student. Tamaki lurched forward, hand over his mouth like he was going to puke and shuddered, a mass of octopus tentacles and crab claws retreated back into his body as he headed toward the nearest wall to hide. "Right, then Tamaki, we'll work on you taking praise next! You're doing great!"
The black haired student nodded.
Looking over his students he found that all of them had come back from their short break far more eager than before, even a few of the lackadaisical ones were giving it their all. Was he beaming with pride? It felt like he was beaming with pride? He looked at his clipboard, and flipped through the sheets, "Alright who's next?"
"Izuku-sensei!" Nejire called darting over to him, she moved gracefully through the air, closer to a faerie than any bird that he could think of. With her hair following after her like a comet's tail she circled him, a wide smile on her face.
"I did the obstacle course," She held up her hands. "Ten times, I told you it would be easy now, what's next."
"That's great Nejire, now we just need to work on you using your blasts while flying," He headed towards the pile of equipment and dug around until he found some flags. "Ahh, these should do, why don't you."
He turned to see her face upside down and inches from his own face. Like any warm-blooded man that had rarely been this close to another person let alone a female, he froze, dropping the flags he had gotten out, his clipboard slipping from his fingers.
"Why are you so close?" He squeaked.
"Am I?" Nejire backed away and righted herself in the air, hands clasped behind her back. Her control truly was remarkable. She stuck out her tongue, leaning forward in the air. "You didn't say that this morning when you hugged me."
What? His face felt read as he remembered Aizawa's judgemental eyes. "T-th-that was different! You just surprised me with your ability to fly and I got excited."
Nejire laughed, spinning in the air before darting down to pick up his clipboard and the flags. "I'm just teasing you Izuku-sensei, I like hugs," She gave him back his clipboard. "I'm okay with getting a hug from you whenever!"
"Oh, well." He probably shouldn't say anything to that if he wanted to keep his job. "That's, uhh, good to hear Nejire, thank you. Now for your training, you should-"
"-Set these up around the obstacle course and try and blast them while flying?" She took a set of flags in each hand and began to wave them about like they were a pair of wings. "That sounds like fun."
He coughed, rubbing the back of his head and looking over at another set of students that were working on their own quirks. "Yep, that's pretty much the plan, I was also going to say you should try to use your quirk to move as much as possible to increase your endurance, but I can see you're already doing that."
"Yep!" Nejire cheered holding up one hand like the flags were a pom-pom. "Flying is fun." She then blinked and flew down beside him once more. "Hey, Izuku-sensei, do you live alone?"
"Err, yes, why?"
"Just curious is all." Nejire smiled before darting away.
AN: I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! Please support me on Ko-Fi and follow me on twitter. Or not, up to you! until next time!