Misfit High School!
by Ulquiorra9000
Chapter 28: Start the Trial Run (and not a fire, if you can help it)
Classes on Friday zipped right on by, and before he knew it, Midoriya was setting up all the Christmas dance goodies with the rest of the committee in the school gym. Normally, the basketball team would have practice right now, but Ms. Kayama used a combination of sweet words, candy bribes, and possibly her quirk (what was it, exactly?) to drive them off. Now the huge gym was the committee's plaything.
And battleground.
"No! Over there! Move it!" Himiko Toga said, pointing at another spot on the floor.
Tsuyu gave her a funny look. "That's not where it goes. Ribbit." She had just finished putting a six-foot-tall fake Christmas tree in place, one of several in a staggered line.
Toga motioned with her hands. "It's gotta be a zig-zag pattern, not a boring straight line."
"Why?"
"Uh... 'cause it looks nice!"
"Your job is tickets, lighting, and photography. None of which you've done. Ribbit."
Toga put her fists on her hips. "I'll get Midoriya to set you straight."
Midoriya, who was halfway through decorating the first tree in the line, froze. "H-hey! Leave me out of this!"
Toga blew him a kiss just like Ms. Kayama often did. "Please? Do it for me?"
"You ought to work on your own stuff, Toga. We're counting on you."
"That comes later," Toga cooed. "If you back me up, I'll give you a peek down my uniform's shirt later..." She toyed with her uniform's top button.
Tsuyu extended that long tongue of hers and moved Toga's hands away. "Less seducing, more work. Have some modesty. Ribbit."
Toga stuck out her tongue. "Modesty is for boring girls who can't get a man. If you were a boy, Tsuyu, I'd have you wrapped around my little finger." Toga held up a little finger, which somehow looked like flipping the bird.
Meanwhile, Bakugo and Fumikage were having other problems.
"That place is too expensive, Katsuki," Fumikage was arguing as he and Bakugo set up the concessions tables. "It doesn't matter how much you like Korean barbecue. We don't have the budget."
"Sell half that crap in your bedroom, and we'll have the cash," Bakugo retorted.
"Why don't you sell your rare Ghost in the Shell figurines first?"
Bakugo pointed a plastic fork at Fumikage's face. "Cram it! Shirow Masamune signed them!"
Fumikage blinked. "Wait, really?"
"I bet Edgar Allan Poe never signed your stupid short story book."
"No, but I have an original page from the first edition of The Fall of the House of Usher."
"Uh... what?"
"My dad won it in an auction for me for my 12th birthday."
"Jeez. I got a mountain bike when I turned 12. Like a man."
"Really? I heard you cried when your dad dropped your 12th birthday cake."
"CRAM IT!"
In other news, Mirio was imitating a cool DJ while playing with the sound system, headphones over his ears, beatboxing as he scratched a record.
Neito made a face. "Do you have to do that, upperclassman?"
Mirio made his classic innocent smile. "I'm just getting in the mood. It's a party, not a funeral!"
"I bet bird-brain here would DJ at a funeral," Bakugo commented. Fumikage balled up a paper napkin and threw it at him.
"It's just lame," Neito complained. "You're supposed to set an example, upperclassman. We have enough lunatics around here."
"Break it down!" Mirio kept beatboxing.
Toru walked over. "Guys, can't we get along? We're a team! Ms. Kayama is counting on us!"
"Did you do your part?" Toga challenged her.
Toru did a happy dance. "I sure did! 50 invites for this test party at 5:00 sharp. It's..." She checked her pink watch. "4:53, so we'd better hurry."
Toga made a cunning smile that Midoriya did not like.
But he did like these decorations. With Ochaco unofficially helping out by choosing some decorations ahead of time, the gym already looked pretty great. The trees were a nice backdrop for the dance floor, and Midoriya got that giant nutcracker Bakugo had played with in the mall. Not to mention a few giant wreaths on the walls, piles of fake, glittery snow, and giant candy canes. And now, Midoriya was putting up the red, green, and gold ornaments Ochaco had provided. These ornaments were just solid colors, but with all the other decorations for the real party, some plain decorations made for "visual relief," as Tsuyu put it. In other words: simple but effective.
Granted Toga wasn't stealing them. Which she kept doing.
"Give that back." Midoriya scowled and held out his hand when Toga snuck over to steal one.
Toga giggled. "Give what back?"
"That ornament! C'mon!"
"You want it, don't you?" Toga unbuttoned her uniform blouse's top button and crammed the ornament in there. "Come and get it."
"You -!"
"Oh! Compromise!" Toru hurried over and held real mistletoe over Toga. "Literally kiss and make up, and we'll put this all behind us."
Toga brightened. "Yeah! Kiss time, Izuku!" She clasped her hands under her chin and leaned forward a bit, eyes closed and lips puckered.
"Uh..."
The doors banged open and Ms. Kayama strode in, already dressed in a sexy gender-bender Santa outfit. "I hope we're almost ready, my little Christmas angels!" she said in a sing-song tone. "There's a big crowd out there! You all must feel pretty confident."
"Yeah, I invited 50 people for the test," Toru said happily. She still held the mistletoe over Toga. "This is gonna be fun!"
Ms. Kayama glanced over her shoulder at the doors. "There's a lot more than 50 students out there. It's more like three hundred."
Tsuyu nearly choked. "What?! Ribbit!"
"No, that can't be right," Toru said. "I swear I'm doing everything carefully, Ms. Kayama. I invited the first 50 people to respond to my official Twitter challenge to join the test party. The invites for the real party are totally separate."
"You're a big dum-dum, Toru," Toga teased her. "Oops! Lots of extra students! Can we handle it?"
Bakugo looked at the door as though expecting The Lord of the Rings orcs to invade the gym. "But we ain't ready! What the hell!"
Ms. Kayama checked her watch. "Three... two... one!"
She wasn't kidding.
Midoriya clapped his hands over his ears as about three to four hundred-ish students flooded into the gym, chattering away. They easily filled up a third of the gym, and there weren't nearly enough decorations or tables and chairs or plates for everyone. And the dance floor was too cramped for this crowd, since it was only set up for 50.
"What's up with this, Izuku?" Hanta Sero asked him over the crowd's chatter. "Shouldn't there be more stuff?"
"Yeah, there's not enough here," Yosetsu added. "Did your budget run out? Bummer."
Midoriya motioned frantically. "Don't get the wrong idea! We were supposed to invite just 50 people for a small practice party! Something went wrong."
Toru tossed aside the mistletoe and intervened. "Don't sweat it, Izuku," she said brightly. "Let's just try it! And I need to check the party's Twitter account security..." She wandered off, cell phone in her hands.
Meanwhile, Mirio finally stopped playing with the record player and put on the first song of the soundtrack. All the students started dancing to the fun song, but there wasn't room.
"Crap! Sorry!" The burly Jurota Shishida of class 1-B knocked over one of Midoriya's trees. "I didn't mean to...!"
"It's okay." Midoriya hurried over to set it up, but someone else knocked over another tree, then the nutcracker! There was a nasty wooden crack when it split into three pieces on the hardwood floor. And that wasn't all. Students were pushing tables out of the way to make room, ruining the carefully-honed arrangement.
Midoriya clutched his face. "We're doomed!" Nearby, Fumikage and Bakugo said much the same thing in total dismay.
Then Tsuyu came along.
"It's just the test. We can fix this. Ribbit." Tsuyu took hold of Midoriya's wrist and guided him into the party.
"Huh?"
Tsuyu looked over her shoulder and smiled. "The real party will be fine. Blow off some steam, will you?"
And then, as though by magic, she reached out, found and took hold of Ochaco's wrist, and brought her over to Midoriya.
"Deku!" Ochaco looked like she was trying not to laugh. "What a lively crowd. I feel like I'm at a rock concert!"
"I dunno what's going on," Midoriya admitted. "What a disaster."
Ochaco smiled. "Let's just make the most of it." She gave Midoriya an encouraging look, then busted out a few dance moves to prompt him.
Oh, why not. Midoriya joined her. It... well, it felt right, and Midoriya decided that maybe this test party wasn't so bad after all. He grinned when the crowd cheered as a popular song came on, and Mirio nodded to the beat as he managed the record player.
"I'm gonna miss this place," Ochaco said breathlessly as the song went on. "I've never had this much fun!" She did a fancy dance move that got some applause.
"Yeah. Party hard." Midoriya felt another chill. Ochaco... he couldn't read her at all, when she acted like that. And it was still possible that he was just overthinking things! Why was this so complicated?!
Once again, Midoriya forced those thoughts out of his mind. There was no need to darken this lively dance rehearsal with such things, especially with so much nonsense going on. Ms. Kayama drew big applause from doing what looked like a rapid version of the flamenco, while Neito did a very stiff and awkward dance not unlike what Charlie Brown did in those American cartoons. Bakugo, meanwhile, mourned like a grieving parent as he cradled the remains of his beloved giant nutcracker. Itsuka Kendo knelt with him, patting him on the back for comfort. Besides that. plenty of the school's power couples were here too, like Mina and Denki doing an awkward but earnest attempt at a spicy waltz variant while Momo and Iida did some silly boogie-woogie thing and Fumikage and Reiko did... Midoriya didn't even know what to call it.
"Hey! Izuku! Ochaco!"
Yosetsu emerged from the crowd at some point, cell phone in his hands. "I've got my girlfriend here on a Face Time call. I want you to meet her!"
"Oooooooh! I wanna see!" Ochaco looked delighted as she stopped dancing for a moment. "Is she pretty?"
"See for yourself." Yosetsu proudly handed over his phone.
Ochaco held the phone so that she and Izuku could see the screen. It was solid black.
"I think your battery died, bud," Midoriya told Yosetsu.
Yosetsu groaned. "What the hell! Her manager said I could show her to a friend or two if I was careful about it. And now this happens?" He accepted his kaput cell phone from Ochaco, hanging his head. "That's what I get for flushing my phone's recharge cable down the toilet."
Midoriya blinked. "Say what?"
"Don't ask. See you around, guys..." Yosetsu shuffled off.
Ochaco made a sympathetic noise. "He must be so happy with his girlfriend. Maybe he could invite her to the real dance as a guest? I hope principal Nezu would let him."
"He might," Midoriya said. "I wonder if she would bring security guards?"
"I bet she only needs Yosetsu for her personal safety," Ochaco said slyly. "He'd punch through a brick wall to save her. I can see it in him."
"That sounds like something coach Yagi would do."
"I bet. Anyway, let's dance!" Ochaco took Midoriya's hand and led him into a boogie-woogie move not unlike what Momo and Iida were doing. It was actually pretty fun, since the standards around here were mercifully low.
The party ended far too soon.
"Well! I didn't think I'd get a turnout this big!" Mirio said cheerily when the stopped the music and the crowd wound down. "Thanks for coming, guys! I'll see you all again on the 23rd!"
The chattering crowd slowly dispersed. Midoriya looked outside the gym windows and saw that the sky was a deep purple. How much time had passed?
Ochaco was missing, too.
"Ochaco? Where are you?" Midoriya checked the departing crowd, but he didn't see her. He waved his hands, but no one responded.
"Relax, Deku." Bakugo clapped a hand on Midoriya's back. "She's probably got homework. Heck, I do too. But I ain't in a rush."
"She..." Midoriya swallowed. "Forget it. It's nothing."
Which it certainly was not!
*o*o*o*o*
Midoriya wasn't surprised when, later that evening during his homework session, he got a group text message from Toru Hagakure. It read: GUYS! Himiko hacked my Twitter account and invited all those people! It wasn't my fault. Himiko, how could you?!
Midoriya rolled his eyes. He should have known. And it didn't take long for a response to appear.
Only 50 people? Thanks for the tea party, grandma. I made it a REAL party!
Midoriya snorted at Toga's response. It was just like her to not even deny it.
That's irresponsible, Tsuyu added to the group text. We're working hard, Toga. Do your part.
Toga sent a bunch of emoticons, then followed up with Fine, and I already bought a roll of blank carnival tickets to use. I'm helping! Why don't you hop away, froggy?
It's Froppy. THAT'S my nickname.
Froggy is cuter.
Is not.
Just don't hack my Twitter! Toga put in.
Look at that. Class 1-A let us down again! Neito added.
SHUT UP! Everyone else, including Midoriya, shot back.
Neito left the group chat.
After a little more hassle, everyone got Toga to agree to mind her own part of the party, and Midoriya sighed as he set aside his phone. He had to concentrate on his math teacher would not be happy! That guy was pretty scary.
Then his phone rang.
"Now what?" Midoriya muttered. Then he saw Tsuyu's caller ID, and he accepted the call. "Hey, Tsuyu."
"Izuku? You already knew about Ochaco moving away?" Tsuyu said in a pained voice.
Midoriya's guts went cold. "Uh... yeah."
There was a second of silence. "She told me everything in private during the practice dance, while everyone was occupied," Tsuyu said heavily. "She trusts us so much, Izuku. You haven't told anyone about it, have you?"
"No! Never!"
Tsuyu audibly sighed. "I almost cried when I got back home. She's one of my best friends, Izuku. And yours, too."
Midoriya toyed with his mechanical pencil. Algebra could wait. "I'm gonna miss her. She just fit into my life like a puzzle piece. It can't believe it's only been about three months."
"I can't blame her, if her family needs work," Tsuyu said in a wavering voice. "But Izuku... I can't imagine what you're thinking. You love her, don't you?"
"Hey!" Midoriya yelped loudly, then clapped a hand over his mouth. Oops!
Inko creaked open the bedroom door. "Izuku, are you all right?"
Midoriya made an embarrassed smile. "I-I got this problem wrong." He pointed at his homework, at a question he most certainly got right.
Inko nodded. "Do your best, sweetheart." She closed the door.
Midoriya tried to slow his racing heart as he turned his attention back to his phone. "Me and Ochaco?"
"I'm not a child, Izuku," Tsuyu told him. "Everyone knows you love her. I'm so sorry. You must have been crushed when you found out she's leaving later this month."
Midoriya groaned. "Yeah. I wasn't counting on that."
"Please be strong, Izuku," Tsuyu told him. "I believe in you. And her."
"Thanks, Tsuyu. Or should I say Froppy?"
Tsuyu made a watery giggle. "Okay, yeah. And you're welcome. Please hang in there. See you at school. Ribbit." She hung up.
So now it's me and Tsuyu who know, Midoriya thought as he tried to focus on math again. Tsuyu was kind and responsible. She wouldn't mess this up. But where was "this" going, anyway? He wanted Ochaco so badly, but they both knew what was coming.
He gently thunked his forehead on his desk and groaned. Right now, Bakugo's biggest problem was probably wiping Cheetos dust off his PlayStation 4 (again). Midoriya once had that kind of existence, too. Where did the simple life go?
